The Elder Gods Page 12

  “I did not!” Eleria protested.

  “Don’t try to deceive me, Eleria,” Zelana accused the child. “You’ve been just a little obvious.”

  “I like him, Beloved, that’s all. I wouldn’t steal anything from you.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it,” Zelana said angrily. “You stole my dolphins, and now you’re trying to steal my most trusted servant.”

  “Maybe if you were nicer to them, they wouldn’t be so eager to come to me,” Eleria declared. “You’ve turned mean and hateful lately, Beloved. What’s the matter with you?”

  Longbow gave them a cold look. “I’ll come back some other time,” he told them in a flat, unemotional voice. “Let me know when you’ve settled your differences.” He started toward the door.

  “You come back here!” Zelana screeched.

  “I don’t think so. If you two want to scream at each other, I’ll just be in your way.” Then he left the cabin, softly closing the door behind him.

  The silence coming from the cabin was louder than thunder.

  Longbow went over to the rail and stood looking out at the fog while he waited.

  Eleria came out of the cabin even sooner than he’d expected. “Everything’s all right again, Longbow,” she said. “The screaming’s all over now.”

  “That was quick,” he observed.

  “You frightened us. The Beloved isn’t used to people who walk away from her the way you just did. We stopped arguing right after you left. We cried for a while and hugged each other, and everything’s all right now. It’s safe for you to come back.”

  “Good. Did you want me to carry you?”

  “Maybe we’d better not,” she said regretfully. “Let’s not get her started again.”

  They went back inside the cabin, and Zelana appeared to have regained her composure. “We were talking about the Dreamers, Longbow,” she said as if nothing had happened. “They have some unusual abilities when they dream. They can look back into the past, and occasionally they dream about the future. That’s what happened last night. Eleria had a dream about the future, and we’ll need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t come true.”

  “Can we do that?” Longbow asked her. “I’ve heard all the old stories about the Dreamers, and they all say that those dreams lock the future in stone.”

  “The old stories are wrong. Eleria’s dream last night told us what might happen, not what will definitely happen. It was more in the nature of a warning. Tell him about your dream, Eleria, and about your pearl.”

  “If you want me to, Beloved,” Eleria replied obediently. The little storm of screaming seemed to have passed. Eleria looked at Longbow. “Have you ever heard of the Isle of Thurn?” she asked.

  “It lies off the west coast of Dhrall, I’ve been told,” Longbow replied, “and we’re forbidden to go there.”

  “That’s probably the Beloved’s idea. She lives there, and she doesn’t really care much for the idea of having neighbors. Anyway, there are pink dolphins in the water around the Isle, and the Beloved talks with them, and she’s very fond of them. When I was a very small child, the younger dolphins were my playmates.”

  “And you also speak their language, then, don’t you?”

  “It’s the language I spoke first. It was only a little while ago when the Beloved taught me how to speak her language.”

  “That’s odd. Most mothers teach their children to speak their own language.”

  Eleria laughed a sparkling little laugh. “What in the world ever gave you the absurd idea that the Beloved is my mother?” she asked. “I think we’re related in some way, but she’s not my mother, certainly.”

  “We can talk about that some other time,” Zelana said quite firmly. “Tell him about the pearl, Eleria.”

  “I was just getting to that, Beloved. It was last year when I was out playing with the younger dolphins off the coast, Longbow, and an old cow whale came to where we were playing, and she told me that she wanted to show me something. I followed her and we went down to the bottom of Mother Sea. There was a huge oyster down there, and the cow whale touched the oyster with one of her fins, and the oyster opened its shell.” Eleria went to the narrow bed where she slept, and rummaged around under the blankets. Then she drew out something that was about the size of an apple. “This is what the oyster was hiding inside its shell,” she said, holding it up for Longbow to see. “It’s called a pearl, and the cow whale told me that I was supposed to have it.”

  Longbow was startled by the size of the pink pearl. He had seen pearls before, but never one so large.

  “The pearl controls Eleria’s dreams, Longbow,” Zelana said, “and I think the dream she had last night was a warning. Tell him about it, Eleria.”

  “Of course, Beloved,” Eleria agreed. “I guess that other people have dreams too, Longbow,” she said, “and most of the time my dreams are probably like theirs, but the one I had last night wasn’t at all like the dreams I usually have. I seemed to be floating up in the air above the Seagull. She was anchored in the harbor of some little Maag town, and it was nighttime. There were five other ships sitting around her to protect her, but some of the little boats the Maags call skiffs came paddling up to them, and then all the ships around the Seagull caught on fire. The Maags got very excited, and they were running around trying to put the fires out, and that’s when five other ships came out of the dark and tied themselves to the Seagull. There was a big fight, and everybody on the Seagull was killed. Then the strangers went down into the place where Hook-Big keeps those gold blocks he likes so much. After they’d taken them all, they set fire to the Seagull and rowed away. It was then that I saw someone with a hood up over his head watching from the beach, and he was laughing. Then I woke up and told the Beloved what I’d just dreamed, and that’s when she sent Red-Beard to find you and ask you to come here.”

  “How big was the one on the beach who was laughing?” Longbow demanded intently.

  “Not nearly as big as the other Maags,” Eleria replied. “It was only about as big as Bunny.”

  “Could you see what color its hood was?”

  “Sort of grey, I think. Is it important?”

  “I think it might be. The servants of the Vlagh aren’t very large, and they all wear grey hoods. There seems to have been more in your dream than you might have realized. It would seem that a few of the creatures of the Wasteland have found some way to follow us here, and now they’re trying to find ways to keep us from bringing an army of Maags to the Land of Dhrall.” He looked at Zelana. “Is there some way we can prevent this from happening?” he asked her.

  “I think we’ve already begun to change things, Longbow,” she replied. “Just knowing about it is the first step.”

  Longbow had grown tired of the endless procession of Maag sea captains coming to the Seagull to look at Sorgan’s gold blocks. It seemed that they couldn’t accept the word of others, so they just had to see for themselves. Eleria’s dream, however, changed Longbow’s attitude immediately. If the dream meant what it seemed to mean, five of the ship captains had—or would have—little interest in the Land of Dhrall.

  Longbow was a hunter, and hunters learn early to watch and to listen—and to be as unobtrusive as possible when they do so. Most of the visitors to the Seagull were genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity Sorgan was offering. Others made some show of a similar enthusiasm, but there was something about what they did that didn’t ring quite true.

  Longbow continued to watch and listen, but he said nothing.

  It was in the harbor of a coastal village called Kweta that Sorgan’s lean and sour cousin Skell joined them, and after some discussion, Sorgan and Skell agreed that it was time to send a portion of what they called “the fleet” eastward to the land of Dhrall, with Red-Beard to guide them.

  “My cousin Skell’s a dependable man, Lady Zelana,” Sorgan declared as the advance fleet prepared to depart. “He’ll have about a hundred and twenty ships and almost ten th
ousand men to deal with any surprise attacks by your enemy, and if there’s a major invasion of the coastal region of your Domain, he’ll be able to hold the enemy off until we get there.”

  “How much longer do you think it’s going to be until the rest of us sail to Dhrall?” Zelana asked him.

  “Not too much longer, really. The word’s out now, and just about every ship captain in Maag’s eager to join us. The only real problem is that they all want to see the gold in the Seagull’s hold for themselves before they make any final decisions.” Sorgan made a rueful face. “I hate to admit it, but maybe we brought too much gold back to Maag. When you get right down to it, a dozen blocks would probably have been enough. Most people here in Maag would take my word if I’d said ‘a dozen.’ When I tell them that I’ve got a hundred in the hold, they want to see them to make sure I’m not lying to them. I think I might have overbaited my fishhook.”

  “Nobody’s perfect, Hook-Big,” Eleria said.

  “Hook-Beak,” Sorgan absently corrected her.

  “Whatever,” she said with mock indifference.

  6

  I’ve already shown you the gold, Kajak,” Sorgan said to a bone-thin Maag the next morning when a group of visitors came on board the Seagull. “Didn’t you believe what you saw?”

  “I’m helping you, Sorgan,” the lean Kajak replied. “I sent out word to a whole lot of my kinfolks and promised to introduce them to you when you hauled into the harbors of their home ports. If things work out the way I think they will, I should be able to bring a couple dozen more ships to join your fleet.”

  “Splendid, Kajak,” Sorgan said. “It looks like you can see past the end of your own nose. I keep coming across men who can’t quite see why we need more ships and men once they’ve joined us. They seem to be afraid that more ships means smaller shares for everybody who’s already joined the fleet. They can’t quite understand how much gold we’re talking about.”

  “There’s some out there that have trouble with big numbers, Sorgan. Would it be all right if I take my cousins here down into the Seagull’s hold and show them your gold?”

  “Be my guest, Kajak,” Sorgan replied.

  Longbow had been sitting off to one side in Sorgan’s cabin while Sorgan and Kajak had been talking, and he noticed that Kajak’s four cousins had seemed just a bit edgy as they stood behind Kajak in the aft cabin. Eleria, as always, was sitting in Longbow’s lap. “Those might be the ones I saw in my dream,” she whispered in his ear.

  “The number’s right,” Longbow agreed, “but number alone isn’t quite enough to be certain that these are the ones we have to watch out for. Climb down, child. I think I’ll drift along behind when they go down to look at Sorgan’s gold.”

  Longbow followed Kajak and his four kinsmen at some distance. They seemed to be a bit nervous, but there were several of Sorgan’s heavily armed crewmen close by, and that would explain their apparent apprehension.

  When they came back up out of the hold, they all had that look of awe that had become quite common. They hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary yet, but Longbow wasn’t ready to dismiss the possibility that these were the five ship captains in Eleria’s dream.

  “It’s a family that hasn’t got the best reputation here in Maag, Longbow,” Rabbit said later that day when Longbow privately asked him about Kajak and his cousins. “There’ve been times when other Maag ships sailed along with a few of them to go hunting Trogite treasure ships, and those other Maags never came back. If they’ve got any ideas along those lines this time, though, they aren’t likely to try anything just yet. Skell and the other captains in the advance fleet are still provisioning their ships for the voyage to Dhrall, so there are a lot of Maag ships nearby.”

  “But Skell’s fleet won’t be here for much longer, Rabbit,” Longbow reminded him. “They’ll be sailing off to Dhrall within the next few days, and then there won’t be very many ships here to guard the Seagull.”

  “That’s when we might need to start worrying just a bit,” Rabbit conceded. “Sorgan’s going to be sending ships away, and Kajak’s going to be calling ships in. I think maybe I’ll go visit a few taverns this evening. Maag sailors do a lot of drinking when they’re in port, and drunk sailors talk an awful lot. Sometimes they say things they wouldn’t say if they were stone-cold sober. If I set my mind to it, I can look a whole lot drunker than I really am, so people don’t pay too much attention to me. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “That might be useful, Rabbit,” Longbow agreed. “I’ll tell Zelana about our suspicions, but I don’t think we need to tell Sorgan about them just yet. We’ll need to know more before we get him all worked up.” He turned and went aft to Zelana’s cabin.

  “What have you been doing, Longbow?” Zelana asked him when he came in.

  “Looking for sign,” he replied.

  “What a peculiar term.”

  “It has to do with hunting. The animals of the forest leave marks on the forest floor and on the trees and bushes that a hunter can follow if he knows how to recognize them. Rabbit’s helping me.”

  “You really like him, don’t you?” Eleria asked.

  “He’s very clever, but he hides his cleverness well. He’s going to the beach this evening to look for sign in the taverns where the Maag seamen drink the juice that makes them foolish. It’s possible that some seamen of Kajak’s tribe will become foolish enough to say things that Kajak would rather they didn’t. If Kajak is really the one you saw in your dream, the ordinary seamen of his ship and those of his cousins will know about it. Rabbit’s going to be off in some corner pretending that he’s far gone in drink. Kajak’s people will think that he’s asleep, and they’ll talk to each other as if he wasn’t there.”

  “You’ve changed, Longbow,” Zelana observed. “You wouldn’t have done this sort of thing back in Dhrall.”

  “It’s not all that much different from what I did back in the forest, Zelana,” he disagreed. “I still hunt, but the hunting ground has changed, that’s all. My eventual target is still a creature of the Wasteland, but I may have to kill several shiploads of the kinsmen of the one called Kajak before I can get a clear bowshot at the servant of the Vlagh. In good time, however, I will find it, and then I’ll kill it. That’s what hunting is all about, isn’t it?”

  “It turns out that you were right, Longbow,” Rabbit said very quietly when the two of them met in the bow of the Seagull at dawn the following morning. “A fair number of Kajak’s crewmen were falling-down drunk last evening, and their mouths were running a mile a minute. I was lucky enough to catch a few bits here and some pieces there, and it’s starting to come together.”

  “You’re a good hunter, Rabbit,” Longbow congratulated his little friend. “Where does the trail you found go?”

  “That’s a woodsy way to put it,” Rabbit noted, “but down at the bottom it comes fairly close. Kajak’s sailors were all agreed that the idea of letting any gold get away from him makes Kajak want to break down and cry. Cap’n Sorgan told him about all that gold over in Dhrall, but that was only words. Kajak saw real gold here on board the Seagull, and he wants it. He’ll worry about the gold in Dhrall after he steals the gold here in Maag. You were also right when you said that Kajak and his cousins won’t do a thing until after Skell leads most of the fleet off toward the east. They said that so many times that I got a little sick of hearing about it. They don’t know exactly when Skell’s planning to sail away, but they’re hoping that he won’t do it for several more days. They’ve got five ships here in the harbor of Kweta, but there’s more on the way. They aren’t too thrilled about taking on the ships that guard the Seagull when there’s an even match. They’d be a lot happier if they could make their move when they outnumber us by about three to one. The way they seem to see it is that they’ll have to make their move during the night after Skell moves out. The word’s out all over Maag about what the cap’n’s doing and how much he’ll pay, so more ships are coming here every day.
If they hold off too long, they’ll be outnumbered again. If Skell sails before their friends get here, they’ll have to move whether they like it or not. They have come up with an idea that might give them an edge, though.”

  “And it involves fire, doesn’t it?” Longbow suggested.

  “You knew that all along, didn’t you?”

  “It was just a guess. It needed some confirmation before I could base any plan on it.”

  “We’d better warn the cap’n,” Rabbit said gravely.

  “That won’t be necessary. The captain and the rest of the crew would only get in our way.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that just the two of us are going to fight off five Maag longships all by ourselves?” Rabbit demanded incredulously.

  “Of course not, Rabbit,” Longbow replied with a faint smile. “Zelana and Eleria will help us. That’s all the help we’re going to need.”

  “Have you been drinking?” Rabbit asked suspiciously.

  “Rabbit’s visit to the local taverns confirmed our suspicions, Zelana,” Longbow reported a little later. “It will be Kajak who’ll come bearing fire. That’s going to be our first enemy. Can you make it rain?”

  “I’ll speak with Mother Sea about it. I’m sure she’ll be happy to oblige. What did you have in mind?”

  “When Kajak’s men row their skiffs up to the ships of Sorgan’s kinsmen and throw their torches, rain would put out the fires before they could spread. Then Kajak’s going to have to fight five ships when he only wants to fight one. He might just give up at that point and try to sail away from here.” Longbow paused and thought for a moment. “I don’t think we should let him get away. There are a lot of Maag ships nearby, and Kajak’s not the only greedy one. Other Maag ship captains might find his plan very interesting. If he’s dead, he won’t be able to tell his plan to others here in the world of the living. I don’t think we’ll need to be very worried about what he says in the world of the dead, but I don’t know very much about the world of the dead. If you think it might cause us some problems, you might want to look into it.”