Treasured One Read online

  “I can’t seem to think about anything else, Veltan,” he confessed a few days later.

  Veltan smiled. “Is she still in the general vicinity?” he asked.

  “That’s what people tell me,” Omago replied. “I haven’t seen her myself, but several other farmers have. They all tell me that she’s been asking a lot of questions—most of them about me. You don’t suppose she’ll just turn around and go on back home again, do you? She didn’t even tell me the name of the village where she lives. How in the world am I ever going to find her again?”

  “I wouldn’t really worry too much about that, Omago. She isn’t going anywhere.”

  “How do you know that for sure?”

  Veltan grinned broadly, but he didn’t answer.

  “I think it’s time for us to do something about this, Omago,” that vibrant voice said quite firmly.

  Omago dropped his hoe and spun around. “Where have you been, Ara?” he demanded. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Yes, I know. Neither one of us is going to get anything done until we settle this. My name is Ara, I’m sixteen years old, and I want you.”

  Omago almost choked. “Is everybody in your village this blunt, Ara?” he asked her.

  “Probably not,” she replied, “but I hate to waste time. Are you interested?”

  “I can’t really think about anything else,” he confessed.

  “Good. Is there anything we have to go through before I come to live with you?”

  “I’m not really sure. I’ve never been very curious about this sort of thing before.”

  “That’s nice,” she said with a sly little smile. “Let’s go talk with Veltan. If there’s supposed to be a ceremony of some kind, let’s get it out of the way. I’ll need some time to prepare supper for you.”

  And so it was that Omago and Ara were wed that spring, and Omago’s life wasn’t ever the same after that. He never actually found out very much about her, but as the seasons passed that became less and less relevant. The wonderful smells coming from her kitchen seemed to put his curiosity to sleep, but they definitely woke up his appetite.

  2

  It was on a blustery spring night about ten years after the joining of Omago and Ara when Veltan came to the door. It seemed to Omago that his friend was almost in a state of panic. “I need help,” he said desperately.

  “What’s the problem?” Omago asked.

  “This is,” Veltan replied, holding out a fur-wrapped bundle. “My big brother came by and foisted this off on me, and I haven’t the faintest idea of what I’m supposed to do about it.” He turned back a corner of the robe to reveal a very small infant. “I think he’s going to need food, and I don’t know the first thing about that.”

  Ara firmly took the baby away from the distraught god and cuddled it to her. “I’ll take care of him, Veltan,” she told him.

  “He doesn’t seem to have any teeth, Ara,” Veltan said. “How can he eat without teeth?”

  “I’ll take care of him,” she said again. “There are several women nearby who are nursing. I’m sure I can persuade them to feed your little boy.”

  “Nursing?” Veltan asked curiously. “What’s nursing?”

  “Oh, dear,” Ara said, rolling her eyes upward. “Just go back home, Veltan. I’ll see to everything.”

  “Are they always this small?” Veltan asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at this stage before.”

  “Just go home, dear Veltan. Everything will be just fine.”

  “I feel like such an idiot,” Veltan confessed. “My brother knocked on my door, told me that this little boy would be one of the Dreamers, and then he left without saying very much more. I’ve never really paid much attention to infants, so I don’t know the first thing about them. He will grow some teeth before very much longer, won’t he?”

  “He’ll be just fine, Veltan. Go home—now.” Ara imperiously pointed at the door.

  Omago didn’t get too much sleep for the next month or so. Babies tend to be very noisy, he discovered, and Veltan seemed to be underfoot every time Omago turned around. It occurred to him that it was probably time to add a room to his cottage—or maybe two or three. He began mixing clay and straw to make the sun-dried bricks that were customary here in Veltan’s Domain. He realized that he was going to have to extend the roof, but that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. He had fairly extensive wheat-fields to the west and south of his orchard, so he’d have plenty of straw for thatching after harvest-time.

  Veltan conferred with Ara, and between them they decided that “Yaltar” might be an appropriate name for the young Dreamer. Omago wasn’t really sure just exactly where the term “Dreamer” had originated, but he had too many other things on his mind just then to sit around brooding about it.

  Yaltar began toddling about Omago’s cottage when he was not even a year old, but he didn’t talk yet. It took Ara quite some time to explain this to Veltan. “Learning how to speak is probably the most important thing a baby does during his first few years,” she told him.

  “I thought it was just there,” Veltan protested. “Are you saying that every baby in the world has to learn how to talk?”

  “I’ve never heard of one who was born talking,” Ara replied.

  “Birds seem to know how to peep and chirp without much help.”

  “The language of people is a little more complicated, dear Veltan,” Ara reminded him. “I don’t think people could explain very much with peeps and chirps, do you?”

  “Well—” Veltan seemed to be having a lot of problems with his little boy. “I don’t know why Dahlaine had to hand Yaltar to me before the boy could even function.”

  “Look upon it as a learning experience, Veltan. You’ll under-stand people much better after you’ve raised Yaltar from early childhood.” Ara smiled slyly. “Won’t that be fun?” she asked him.

  “I’m not having all that much fun right now.”

  “That’ll probably come later, dear Veltan. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.”

  When Yaltar was about three years old, Veltan began to take him up the hill to his stone house for several hours each day, but he still depended upon Ara to keep him clean and prepare the little boy’s meals.

  “Is it really necessary for him to eat so often?” Veltan asked Omago’s wife one evening.

  “You eat light, don’t you?” Ara asked him.

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say ‘eat,’ Ara,” Veltan replied.

  “All right, let’s say ‘absorb,’ then. The sun’s up there in the sky for a good part of every day, so you’re soaking up light for much, much longer than Yaltar spends eating, aren’t you?”

  “I guess I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” Veltan admitted.

  “You might want to consider cutting down on that, dear Veltan. If you keep absorbing light for so much of every day, you’ll start to get fat, and I don’t think the people of your Domain would like that very much. Nobody would take a fat god very seriously, you know.”

  Veltan frowned slightly, and he absently ran his hand across his abdomen.

  “I’m just teasing, dear Veltan,” Ara told him with a fond sort of smile. “If you start getting a bit portly, just stay out of direct sunlight for a little while.” She glanced at Yaltar, who was vigorously concentrating on his supper. “Has he had any dreams yet?” she asked very quietly.

  “Not that he’s mentioned,” Veltan said. Then he gave Ara a startled look. “How did you know about that?”

  “The old stories are still out there, dear Veltan, and old men are very fond of telling old stories. The old men of my village could go on and on about the Dreamers for hours on end. If their stories came anywhere close to what’s really happening, Yaltar should start dreaming before much longer, and that’ll be a sure sign that there’s trouble in the wind. You might want to have a talk with your big brother about that. When Yaltar does start having those significant dreams, I don’t think you should make a big
fuss about it. Don’t alarm the boy. If you frighten him, he might have trouble sleeping, and if he doesn’t sleep, he won’t dream. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Veltan agreed. “You’re very, very good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?”

  “It’s a gift,” she replied. And then she laughed for no reason that Omago could see.

  As the seasons progressed, Yaltar spent more and more of his time with Veltan in the house on the hill, and Ara took to carrying the little boy’s meals up the hill to Veltan’s house.

  “You miss him, don’t you, Ara?” Omago asked her.

  “Sort of. He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, though, so I won’t interfere. What would you like for supper this evening, Omago?”

  “Anything you want to cook, dear,” Omago replied. “Surprise me.” He grinned at her.

  “Very funny, Omago,” she said tartly.

  It was not long after Yaltar’s sixth birthday when Veltan stopped by one morning to tell Omago and Ara that he’d be gone for several weeks on a matter of some importance.

  “Go ahead, Veltan,” Omago said. “We’ll take care of Yaltar while you’re gone.”

  “I knew that I could depend on you two,” Veltan said. And then he left rather hurriedly.

  Ara frowned, but she didn’t say anything.

  Nanton was a tall, bearded shepherd who had a large flock that grazed in the meadow above the Falls of Vash. Nanton seldom came down to the farmlands, since the voracious appetite of his sheep made the local farmers very nervous.

  “They’re asking a lot of questions that don’t seem to have anything to do with what they’re supposed to be interested in, Omago,” Nanton reported in his quiet voice. “They claim to be traders from Aracia’s Domain, but as far as I could see, they didn’t have anything with them for trades.”

  “Why would traders be wandering around up in the hills?” Omago asked with a puzzled frown.

  “Exactly. The only people up there are shepherds like me, and we certainly don’t need any of those trinkets the traders from the East keep trying to foist off on silly farmers and their wives. There’s something else too.”

  “Oh?”

  “They don’t really look like real people. They’re very short, and they all wear grey clothes—with hoods that cover most of their faces—and they mumble.”

  “Mumble?”

  “They don’t speak clearly, and they all seem to have some kind of lisp.”

  “Peculiar. You said that they were asking questions. What sort of questions?”

  “They wanted to know how many people live in the vicinity of the Falls of Vash. I didn’t really think that was any of their business, so I lied to them.”

  “Nanton!” Omago exclaimed.

  “Grow up, Omago,” Nanton said. “I was catching a strong smell of ‘unfriendly,’ so I gave them something to worry about. I told them that there were thousands of us wandering around in those hills, and that we are all armed. I was going to give them a quick demonstration with my sling, but I decided to keep it out of sight. If my nose was right about ‘unfriendly,’ the less they know about us, the better.”

  “You could be right, I suppose. Did they ask you any other questions?”

  “None that made very much sense. For some reason, they seemed to think that our Veltan and his sister Zelana hated each other, and that there was a perpetual war going on between her people and us. The answer I gave them was just about as vague as I could make it. I told them that over the years I’ve killed dozens of enemies. Of course, I sort of glossed over the fact that the enemies I’ve killed were wolves, not people, so I think they swallowed it whole. Is Veltan going to be gone for much longer?”

  “I don’t know for certain, Nanton. He wasn’t too specific when he left.” Omago frowned. “Where’s your flock right now?”

  “Up in the hill country. My nephew’s watching over them while I’m gone.”

  “You won’t be going back up into the mountains with your sheep very soon, will you?”

  “Not until the snow melts off and I’ve got them sheared. My flock produced a lot of wool this past winter.”

  “Good. You usually graze your flock up near the Falls of Vash, don’t you?”

  “Almost always. There’s good grass up there and plenty of water.”

  “Keep an eye out for these strangers, will you? And if they come back again, I’d really appreciate it if you’d send your nephew down here to tell me about it. This is something that Veltan should really know about.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Omago.” Nanton hitched up his belt. “I’d better get on back to my flock,” he said. “There’s a young shepherdess near where my flock’s grazing, and my nephew’s breaking out in that sort of rash, so he’s not paying much attention to the flock.”

  “That’s been going around quite a bit here lately,” Omago said with no hint of a smile.

  “I think spring has a lot to do with it, and spring isn’t really all that far away.” Nanton shrugged. “It helps to increase the flock, I guess.”

  “Are we talking about people or sheep?”

  “Both flocks, probably. As long as there’s good grazing, it doesn’t really hurt anything, I guess. Babies are almost as pretty as lambs, and once they grow up, we can put them to work. Have a nice day, Omago.” And then he turned and walked away.

  “I think you’d better tell Veltan about them, Omago,” the little flax farmer Selga suggested a week or so later. “They don’t really belong around here, and they talk sort of strange.”

  “Oh?” Omago said. “Just exactly what do you mean by ‘strange,’ Selga?”

  “It sort of sounded to me like their teeth were getting in the way of their tongues. I think people call it lisping. Anyway, they’re awfully short. I’m not very tall myself, but their heads didn’t even come up as high as my shoulder, and those grey, hooded smocks they wore weren’t made of linen or wool. It was something else entirely. They were asking all kinds of odd questions, but I saw right off that it wasn’t any of their business, so I didn’t give them any straight answers. You might want to tell Veltan about that. If these dinky little strangers are planning to give us trouble, they didn’t get much help from me.”

  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, Selga. Were you able to find out which direction they came from?”

  “As close as I could tell, they came down from out of the mountains near the Falls of Vash. If I happen to come across any more of them, I’ll ask them about that. Tell Veltan that I’m keeping my eyes open, and I’ll find out as much as I can about them.”

  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, Selga.”

  Omago was certain that Veltan should be aware of these strangers, so before supper that evening he went up through the twilight to Veltan’s house to have a word with Yaltar. He went on in, climbed the stone stairway, and rapped on the little boy’s door. “It’s only me, Yaltar,” he called.

  Yaltar opened the door. “Come inside, Omago,” he said.

  “Do you have any idea of when he’s coming home?” Omago asked, looking with a certain disapproval at the boy’s cluttered room and unmade bed.

  “He didn’t say for sure, Omago,” the boy replied. “I guess there are some things going on that need his attention.”

  “As soon as he comes home, tell him that I need to talk with him, Yaltar,” Omago told the little boy. “Some peculiar things have been happening here lately, and I think he should know about them.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him, Omago,” the boy replied, fingering the peculiar-looking stone he had hanging on a leather thong around his neck like a pendant.

  “How did you manage to come by that opal, Yaltar?” Omago asked.

  “I found it just outside the front door,” Yaltar replied. “Isn’t it pretty?”

  “Beautiful,” Omago agreed. “It’s a bit peculiar that you found it, though. As far as I know, there aren’t any opals around here.”

&
nbsp; “Maybe it was wandering around and got lost—or maybe it started feeling lonesome.”

  “Rocks almost never get lonesome, Yaltar. Ara’s cooking supper right now. Come along, and we’ll go eat.”

  “That sounds like a great idea, Omago.”

  Veltan came home a week or so later, and he stopped by Omago’s house quite early one morning. “Yaltar said that you wanted to tell me something,” he said. “He seemed to think it might be important.”

  “It could be,” Omago replied, and he repeated what Nanton and Selga had told him about the strangers and their questions.

  “I have to go talk with my brother,” Veltan said. “Keep your ears open, and let me know about any more visits when I come back.”

  “I’ll do that,” Omago promised.

  The spring thaw that year produced a near disaster. The snow pack in the mountains had been much deeper than usual, and the spring wind that melted off the snow that year wasn’t just warm; it seemed even hot. All the streams coming down out of the mountains ran bank-full overnight, and then the floods began. To make things even worse, Veltan and Yaltar were away, so Veltan wasn’t there to control the floods, and the farmers couldn’t do anything except wring their hands as they watched the waters engulf their fields.

  The shepherds who customarily grazed their flocks in the region to the west of the Falls of Vash began to bring word of some serious trouble in the Domain of Veltan’s sister Zelana, but the messages were sorely lacking in details.

  As the flood began to subside, a few more shepherds stopped by, but their stories about events in Zelana’s Domain were so lurid that Omago viewed them with profound skepticism.

  And then one night after the apple trees had begun to bloom, a clap of thunder woke Omago out of a sound sleep.

  “Veltan’s back, love,” Ara told him. “I think we’d better go on up to his house. He’ll be able to tell us what’s really going on in his sister’s Domain.”