The Elder Gods Read online

  “Gold isn’t really very useful, Dahlaine,” Veltan objected. “It’s sort of pretty, but it’s too soft for any practical uses. It’s much like lead, when you get right down to it.”

  “The outlanders seem to like it, and if they hear about mountains of gold in the Wastelands of the interior, we won’t be able to drive them away with whips. I don’t think we’ve got much choice. Our people are too unskilled to face the armies of the Vlagh. We need large numbers of what Aracia calls howling barbarians, and we need them in a hurry. Let’s go to the outer world and find warriors. It’s the only way we have to save Dhrall from the forces of the Vlagh.”

  4

  Zelana rode the wind westward from the coast of Dhrall for many, many leagues across Mother Sea. She knew that there was land far to the west—at least there had been before she’d gone to live in her grotto hideaway on the Isle of Thurn. Perhaps it had wandered off again.

  Night was settling over Mother Sea when Zelana saw something rather peculiar far below. There seemed to be a small fire floating on the surface of the water. Fire and water do not mix well, and, overcome with curiosity, Zelana descended to investigate.

  She drifted down through the twilight air, and as she came closer to the face of Mother Sea, she saw something very unusual. At first she thought it might be a floating house, but then she realized that it was probably an exceptionally large version of the canoes the people of her Domain used when they went out on the water to hunt fish. The fire she had seen appeared to be burning in a small glass box near the back of the oversized canoe.

  She settled quietly onto the water and tiptoed closer. The floating object was obviously more advanced than anything the people of Dhrall could build, but it had probably been constructed for the same reason that the people of Dhrall made canoes. The outlanders were most likely fishermen.

  The oversized canoe Zelana had found was very large—long and narrow—and the outlanders had even built low-roofed houses on it to shelter them when the weather went bad. For some reason, they’d seen fit to put a large tree trunk in the center. As Zelana approached it, she noticed that there was a distinctly unpleasant odor hanging over it.

  Then a couple of man-creatures with hairy faces came out of a low, flat-roofed structure near the back of the alien canoe. They were both very tall and muscular, and their clothing was an odd mix of cloth and leather. They also had what appeared to be weapons of some sort belted to their waists, and that aroused Zelana’s immediate attention. If these man-things were merely fishermen, they wouldn’t really need to carry weapons all the time. That strongly suggested that these two weren’t out here on the face of Mother Sea looking for fish. Zelana stepped back out of the light and opened her mind to what she was hearing in order to make the speech of the outlanders understandable.

  “Looks to be a fair night, Cap’n,” one of the creatures was saying.

  “Aye,” the other rumbled in a harsh voice, “and it’s none too soon to suit me. I’ve had me a belly-full of foul weather here lately.”

  Zelana was satisfied that she could understand these outlanders, and a bit surprised to discover that Veltan’s theory actually worked the way he’d said it would. Veltan’s experiments seldom turned out exactly the way he wanted them to.

  “You’d better get a lookout aloft, Ox,” the one called Cap’n suggested. “Now that the weather’s settled down, other ships might be under way hereabouts. We’re not sailing the Seagull out here for entertainment, you know.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” the huge one called Ox replied. “The Trogite vessels usually hug the coast, but the storm might have swept a few of them out here to deeper water. If our luck’s running good, we might be able to harvest a fair amount of Trogite gold while they’re still floundering around out of sight of land.”

  “You’re starting to think like a real Maag, Ox,” Cap’n said with an evil grin. “The notion of picking Trogite vessels like apples off a tree lights a warm little fire in my belly. Come morning, put the crew to work patching the sails and clearing away the wreckage that storm made out of most of the rigging. It well-nigh drove us under a few times.”

  Zelana sat cross-legged on the surface of Mother Sea considering some interesting possibilities. The two outlanders, Ox and Cap’n, had referred to their canoe as a “ship,” and there were obviously other ships in the vicinity as well. It was fairly clear that these man-creatures who called themselves “Maags” were not out on the face of Mother Sea in search of fish. Evidently they searched for the ships of other outlanders in order to take gold from them. Dahlaine’s assessment of the outlanders had been correct. They were very interested in gold, though Zelana could not quite understand why. The Seagull, it seemed, might just be too good an opportunity to pass by. Now that Zelana could understand the speech of the outlanders, and if things went as the one called Cap’n seemed to hope they would, Zelana would be able to observe the outlanders who called themselves Maags in action. Should they prove to be suitable, their ship would make things very easy. A word or two with Mother Sea could produce a current which would sweep the Seagull to the west coast of the Land of Dhrall almost as fast as the wind could carry a mote of dust.

  The more she thought about it, the more Zelana came to believe that these Maags might very well be exactly what she was seeking. She would need to watch and listen, though, and that suggested that she’d probably need to be somewhere inside the floating house called Seagull. That wouldn’t be a problem of any magnitude. There were ways she could make herself inconspicuous while she watched and listened. Then, if these Maags proved to be suitable . . .

  THE SEAFARERS

  1

  Though he would deny it with his dying breath, if the truth were to be known, it was sheer coincidence that led to the discovery of the Land of Dhrall by Captain Sorgan Hook-Beak and the crew of his ship, the Seagull.

  As all the world knows, Sorgan Hook-Beak of the Land of Maag is the greatest sea captain of all time. No man yet born can match him in the prediction of wind, weather, tides, or the probable value of the cargo of any ship unlucky enough to encounter the Seagull on the high seas.

  The men of the Land of Maag are bigger than the men of lands farther to the south, and they took to the sea early in their history. The mountains of Maag march down to the sea, and their slopes seem almost to point seaward, mutely saying, “Go there.” Mountains are fine for hunting, but not too good for farming, so the men of Maag farmed the sea instead, and her crops were bountiful. Fishhooks are much easier to hammer out of iron than plows are, and fishnets harvest bigger crops than scythes do. Then too, the men who harvest the sea aren’t obliged to spend all those tedious months waiting for their crops to grow. The crops of the sea are always there, and they can be harvested in any season.

  The people of the Land of Maag developed a quaint custom early in their history. They frequently used descriptions rather than names. Thus there could be several “Big-Foots” or “Buck-Teeth” in a Maag village, along with assorted “Slim-Wits,” “Fats,” and “Pigeon-Toes.” More conventional names came along later, after the Maags had made contact with the more refined peoples to the south. Sorgan Hook-Beak was sort of proud of his name, since it suggested that others considered him to be an eagle, that noblest of all birds.

  He went to sea early in his life, and his first captain was the legendary Dalto Big-Nose, a man whose very name struck terror into the heart of every Trogite sea captain who sailed the northern sea.

  Now, the Trogites are an avaricious race, eager to snatch things that rightfully belong to others but which they haven’t gotten around to discovering yet. At some time in the remote past a Trogite explorer in search of deposits of tin or copper which might prove profitable had discovered a peculiar region far back in the western reaches of the Land of Shaan, which stands to the west of the Land of Maag. The Maags grudgingly conceded that the Trogite explorer was a courageous fellow, since the natives of the Land of Shaan felt a moral compulsion to eat everything—or eve
rybody—they killed. Being killed is one thing, but being eaten is quite another.

  The Trogite explorer purchased the friendship of the savages of Shaan with a few worthless trinkets, and they had led him to that region where the rivers had sandy bottoms. Many rivers have sandy bottoms, but the sand in the rivers of interior Shaan is comprised mostly of flecks of pure gold. Word about the gold in the rivers of Shaan soon got out, and adventurers from all over the known world rushed there to claim their rightful share. After a few seasons, though, the word got out that adventurers who went to the Land of Shaan never came back.

  The enthusiasm dropped off noticeably.

  The source of the Trogite gold was well known, but the perils involved in seeking it were even better known. Gold, however, isn’t really worth very much unless the owner can take it someplace where he can spend it. The Trogites came up with a quick solution to that problem. They started building ships to carry their wealth back to the Land of Trog. They were large ships, wide of beam and deep of hull, and they tended to wallow rather than sail. Maag vessels were narrow and swift. Moreover, the wealthy Trogites tended to be miserly, so they neglected to hire warriors to guard their treasure ships.

  The Maags more or less abandoned fishing at that point. The Trogites winnowed gold from the rivers of Shaan, hauled it down to the coast, and put it aboard their wallowing treasure ships. Then the treasure ships sailed out to the northern sea, where the Maags waited for them.

  Sorgan Hook-Beak had received an extensive education from Captain Big-Nose in the fine art of relieving Trogite treasure ships of all that excess weight. As a young man he’d squandered away his earnings in revelry, naturally. Young sailors are enthusiastic revelers, but after a few seasons, Sorgan realized that the captain’s share of the ship’s earnings was much, much larger than the share of an ordinary seaman, so he began to religiously set aside half of all his earnings, and he had soon saved enough to be able to buy his own ship, the Seagull.

  The Seagull was not really in very good shape when Sorgan bought her from the crusty old pirate he’d happened to meet in a seaside tavern in the Maag port of Weros. Her sails were ragged, and she leaked quite noticeably. She was about the best Sorgan could afford at that time, though. Had the old man who owned her been completely sober during their negotiations, he’d probably have held out for more money, but his purse had just come up empty, and Sorgan had shrewdly delayed making his final offer until the poor old fellow’s tongue had been hanging out. He also shook his purse frequently while they were haggling, pretending that it was nothing more than an absentminded habit.

  The musical jingle of money played no small part in the tipsy old man’s acceptance of Sorgan’s final offer.

  After he’d bought the Seagull, Sorgan had persuaded two of his former shipmates, Ox and Kryda Ham-Hand, to join him as first and second mates. Their rank hadn’t really meant all that much just then, though. What Sorgan had really needed at that point in time had been their help in making the Seagull more seaworthy.

  It had taken the three of them more than a year to finish the repairs, largely because they’d frequently run out of money. Whenever that had happened, they’d had to suspend operations and take to the streets near the waterfront in search of drunk sailors whose purses still had a few coins left in them.

  Eventually, the Seagull had been marginally restored, and then the three had been obliged to haunt the waterfront again to find a crew.

  The Seagull was a full-sized Maag longship, a hundred and ten feet long and twenty-five feet wide at the beam, so she needed a full-sized crew. Sorgan had done his best to keep the size of his crew down to a minimum, but eighty men had been about as low as he could go. He’d given a bit of thought to reducing the number of oarsmen, but Ox and Ham-Hand had protested violently, pointing out that fewer oarsmen would mean slower speed, and a faster ship would bring in more money.

  And so it was that now the Seagull roamed the waters of the northern sea, looking for targets of opportunity.

  It was about midsummer of an otherwise unimportant year when the Seagull encountered one of those summer squalls that seldom last very long—two days, perhaps, no more than three. This one lingered longer, however, and the Seagull’s crew endured bad weather for almost a week, helplessly watching as the howling gale tore away the rigging and ripped the sail to shreds.

  When the gale moved off, the Seagull’s crew labored long and hard to make her even marginally seaworthy again.

  Captain Hook-Beak took it in stride. No ship ever sails on a perpetually sunny sea, so bad weather was simply something that had to be endured. Of course, the captain of a ship is seldom required to repair the rigging or patch the sail. Those chores are the duties of ordinary seamen, so Captain Hook-Beak retired to his cabin to catch up on his sleep.

  It didn’t quite turn out that way, though. Despite the fact that the Seagull was many leagues from land, a pesky fly had somehow found its way into Hook-Beak’s cabin, and the buzzing sound of its wings was just enough to keep the captain awake. The times when it was not flying were even worse. He could actually feel its eyes on him, watching his every move, and that was much worse than the brainless buzzing. Try though he might, Sorgan Hook-Beak couldn’t sleep.

  Nothing at all seemed to be going right this season.

  After her rigging and sail had been repaired, the Seagull got under way again, and she was running before the wind some distance out from the coast of Maag when Ox spotted a Trogite merchant vessel hull-down on the horizon. “Sail ho, Cap’n!” he roared in a voice that might well have shattered glass a league away.

  “Where away?” Hook-Beak demanded.

  “Two points off the starboard bow, Cap’n!” Ox shouted.

  Hook-Beak relinquished the tiller to Kryda Ham-Hand and hurried forward to join Ox in the bow. “Show me,” he told his burly first mate.

  Ox pointed.

  “Goodly distance,” Hook-Beak said dubiously.

  “The oarsmen are getting fat anyway, Cap’n,” Ox replied. “A good run might sweat some of the lard off ’em, even if we don’t catch that ship.”

  “You’ve got a point there, Ox,” Sorgan agreed. “All right, let’s take a run at that ship and see if we can catch her. She looks to be Trogite, so it’ll be worth the trouble.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” Ox agreed. Then he raised his voice. “Oarsmen to your places!” he bellowed.

  There was a bit of grumbling, but the burly oarsmen hauled in their fishing lines, put away their dice, and went to their stations below the deck.

  “More sail!” Ox shouted to the top-men aloft. Then he squinted forward. “I make it to be about a league and a half, Cap’n,” he said, “and no Trogite vessel afloat can match the Seagull for speed when she’s under full sail and the oarsmen are earning their keep. We should close on ’em afore the sun goes down.”

  “We’ll see, Ox. We’ll see.” Sorgan always enjoyed a good run anyway, and the wallowing Trogite vessel gave him an excuse to stretch the Seagull out a bit. If nothing else, an invigorating run might clear away the memories of that cursed summer squall and the irritation of that pesky fly on the ceiling of his cabin. Hook-Beak was not particularly superstitious, but the prickly feeling of being watched had made him very edgy.

  The Trogite vessel put on more sail, a clear indication that her crew had seen the Seagull’s approach, but the broad-beamed merchant ship was no match for her long and slender pursuer, so by late afternoon the Seagull was closing fast. Then the crewmen not otherwise occupied began to bring weapons up onto the main deck, and they stood at the rail, swinging their weapons and practicing their war cries.

  As usual, the Trogites abandoned ship at that point. It was so much “as usual” that it was almost like a ritual. The Seagull paused briefly to give the Trogite seamen time enough to bail over the side and swim out from between the two ships. Then the Maags tied up alongside and stole everything of value. Then they carried their loot back aboard the Seagull and pulled away so that t
he Trogites could climb back aboard their ship before anybody drowned. It was a civilized sort of arrangement. Nobody got hurt, no damage was done to either vessel, and they all parted almost friends. Hook-Beak smiled faintly. During the previous summer, he’d robbed one Trogite vessel so many times that he’d gotten to know her captain by his first name.

  “Should we burn her, Cap’n?” Ox asked hopefully. Ox always wanted to burn the Trogite ships, for some reason.

  “I don’t think so,” Hook-Beak replied. “Let them have their ship back. We’ve got what we wanted. Maybe if we don’t burn her, they’ll go back to Shaan and fill her back up. Then we can chase them down and rob them again.”

  After the Maags had left the Trogite vessel far behind, the Seagull was quartering the wind and moving off to the southeast, and that was when coincidence stepped in to alter the “as usual” part of the whole affair. Every seaman alive knows that there are rivers in the sea, but unlike land rivers, the rivers of the sea are largely invisible. Water is water, after all, and the surface of the sea looks much the same, whether it’s just lying there or running fast just below the waves.

  The Seagull was placidly moving southeast, and the crew was busily sorting through the loot, when there was a sudden surge, and the Seagull was abruptly swept sideways toward the northeast. First Mate Ox fought with the tiller, bending it almost to the breaking point. “We’re in trouble, Cap’n!” he shouted. “A current just grabbed us!”

  “Oarsmen to your posts!” Hook-Beak shouted even as Ham-Hand started bellowing, “Slack sail!”

  There was a great deal of scrambling about, but nothing seemed to have any effect. “It’s no good, Cap’n!” Ox cried. “It’s got us, and it won’t let go. The tiller’s gone slack!”