“Why didn’t you say that before? I’ll do whatever Mother wants me to do.”
“I know,” Balacenia replied. “I feel much the same.” She hesitated. She and Eleria were one and the same, but there were several differences, and she didn’t want to disturb her other self. “There are going to be a few times in the not-too-distant future when I’ll have to step in and take over for you, Eleria. Some things are about to happen that we must prevent. I’m more experienced than you are, so I’ll be able to deal with those things more smoothly than you will. Please don’t fight me when I do that, Eleria.”
“Well—all right, I suppose,” the child replied, “but it’s going to cost you quite a few kisses.”
Balacenia laughed. Eleria, it seemed, was much more advanced than she seemed at first glance. Something came to Balacenia that would probably never have occurred to her if Eleria hadn’t mentioned kisses. “I was going to visit a certain place alone,” she said to her alternate, “but maybe you might want to come along.”
“Where is it?”
“In my imagination, dear—mine and the imagination of our brother Vash—or Yaltar, if you’d prefer.”
“What’s this place called?”
“It’s the Land of Dreams, Eleria. I think you’ll like it. I know that Mother does.”
“Will she be there?”
“If you want her to be, yes.”
“Let’s go, then,” Eleria said enthusiastically.
There was an almost homelike familiarity about the Land of Dreams Balacenia and Vash had created in years long past. The dark forest was still uncluttered by bushes, the streams of clear water showed no trace of mud, and, most beautiful of all, the multicolored aurora seethed above the horizon like a rainbow that had finally found its native home.
“Your imagination does nice work, Balacenia,” Eleria observed.
“Our imagination, child,” Balacenia corrected.
“Not entirely, alternate me,” Eleria slyly disagreed. “You left out the sea, and there’s hardly a trace of my pink pearl.”
“Can you ever forgive me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Then Vash, Dakas, and Enalla came out of the forest, but they stopped, staring in open astonishment and disbelief at Eleria.
“Was it really a good idea to bring her here, Balacenia?” Vash asked in a slightly worried tone.
“A very good idea, Yaltar,” Eleria said, stepping past her older identity. “I’d have nagged poor Balacenia for weeks if she hadn’t brought me along. She told me—or probably would have eventually—that Mother comes here quite often. I really want to see Mother, and to talk with her.”
“About what?” Balacenia asked, greatly puzzled.
“You’ll find out all in good time, Big-Me,” Eleria replied with a grin.
“Whatever seems best to you, Little-Me,” Balacenia said. Then she looked at her brothers and sister. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” she told them, “but I’m almost positive that you’ll all have to do exactly what I just did. When Dahlaine snatched us up while we were sleeping and pushed us back to infancy, he separated us from our previous identities. Eleria is me, of course, but she’s not the me you all know and love. The same will be true of Yaltar, Ashad, and Lillabeth. They’ve encountered things that we’ve never seen, and we need to know about those things.”
“They all know that, Big-Me,” Eleria said. “I think you’d all better start smiling. Mother’s coming.”
Balacenia turned quickly, and sure enough, Mother, surrounded by the seething colors of the aurora, was walking down through the imaginary sky. “Are we having a little family get-together again?” she asked with a slightly amused expression.
“I thought it might be best to share what you told me about the possible extinction of people, Mother,” Balacenia replied, “and Eleria wanted to talk with you.”
Mother gave child Eleria a startled look. “You brought her here? What were you thinking of, Balacenia?”
“It’s not her fault, Mother,” Eleria said. “I wanted her to bring me here. She’s already explained to the other members of our generation that when Dahlaine seized us while we were still sleeping and then hurled us back to infancy, he was splitting us right down the middle. Doesn’t that sort of mean that when the elders go to sleep, there’ll be eight of us instead of just four? We may be taking on our tasks in just one body each, but we’re different enough now that each of us will have separate personalities. That might be all right, though. We little ones will probably be able to suggest alternatives to the big ones—and we know much more about what’s happening out there in reality than they do. You told Big-Me—Balacenia—that the Vlagh thing wants to make people stumble off toward extinction. We know people better than our elders do, so we can help keep people around when we need them.”
“She could be right, you know,” Mother told Balacenia and her relatives.
“Of course I’m right, Mother,” Eleria said. “I’m always right—or hadn’t you noticed that? Now I think you owe me a whole lot of kisses, don’t you?” And she held out her arms to Mother.
2
Narasan and Sorgan had only recently returned to Mount Shrak from the upper end of the now eternally burning Crystal Gorge. After they’d reported what had happened in the gorge, they went outside to privately discuss what was almost certain to come up before long.
Balacenia was there, of course, but not there at the same time. The Eleria part of her had been aware of Mother’s clever trick, and it hadn’t been difficult to duplicate.
“You do know what’s going to pop up very soon, don’t you, Sorgan?” Narasan asked his friend.
“Let me think about it for a moment or two,” Sorgan replied with an imitation frown. Then he snapped his fingers. “I think somebody might just come along and offer us tons of gold if we’ll agree to fight still another war in some part of the Land of Dhrall that hasn’t been invaded yet.”
“There’s only one left, Sorgan,” Narasan replied.
“Why, now that you mention it, I do believe that you’re right, friend Narasan. Isn’t it odd that it never occurred to me?”
“Have you just about finished having fun?” Narasan asked.
“You seem just a bit grumpy for a man who’s been on the winning side in three wars, my friend,” Sorgan said.
“I’m not really grumpy, Sorgan,” Narasan replied. “I’m sure there’ll be a lot of screaming and weeping, but I will not work for the queen of the East, no matter how much gold she offers.”
“Bite your tongue,” Sorgan said. “We work for gold, Narasan, and we always win because we love gold.”
“I don’t,” Narasan replied, “at least not enough to spend any more time with Divine Aracia. Just the sight of her makes me want to vomit.”
“Don’t look at her, then. I’ll take care of the negotiations and all that. And no, I won’t cheat you out of your share. Were your people able to pinpoint the most likely route the enemies will take?”
“It wasn’t all that hard, Sorgan. It’s called ‘Long-Pass,’ and it’s the only possible route our enemy will be able to follow. The mountain range blocks everything else off.”
“That makes things even simpler,” Sorgan said. “My men and I’ll go down to ‘temple town’ and swindle our employer out of just about everything of value. I’ll tell her that you’re busy building forts, so you don’t have time to pay her a call.”
“I still think I’d rather just go on home, Sorgan,” Narasan said. “I’m not really sure that I’ll even be necessary down there. Our ‘unknown friend’ might fry another ten thousand or so enemies before you and I can even reach for our swords.”
Then Ekial and Trenicia came out of Dahlaine’s cave to join their friends. “Have we made any decision yet?” Ekial asked.
“We’ve sort of worked our way around a little problem,” Sorgan said. “Our friend, honorable Narasan here, doesn’t want to have anything to do with Zelana’s older sister.
I think she rubbed him the wrong way a few times while he was down there. Anyway, I think we might have come up with a way to keep him away from her—far enough away from her, at least, to keep him from trying to chop her all to pieces.”
“Are you really considering going back there, Narasan?” Trenicia demanded.
“Sorgan sort of rubbed my nose in ‘obligation,’ Trenicia,” Narasan replied. “In a way, I suppose he was right. Our war with that thing out in the Wasteland isn’t over yet. We might not like Aracia very much, but if we abandon her, we’ll put her relatives in great danger.”
“If you’re going to defend her, you’ll almost have to be in her general vicinity, won’t you, Narasan?” Ekial asked.
“Not really, Prince Ekial,” Narasan replied. “The invasion of her Domain will almost certainly come down Long-Pass, and we’ll need forts there to hold back the bug-people. I’ll take my men up there, and we’ll build forts. Sorgan has volunteered to handle the negotiations with unspeakably holy Aracia. Our dear friend Sorgan here is a master swindler, so he’ll probably empty Aracia’s treasury down to the last penny, but I won’t even have to look at her.”
“Swindler?” Sorgan protested.
“It’s a step or two up from ‘thief,’ friend Sorgan,” Narasan said with a faint smile.
“I’ll go with you to the temple, if you don’t mind, Captain Hook-Beak,” Ekial said. “I know of several ways to bump up prices, so I might be useful.”
“And I’ll stay with Narasan,” Queen Trenicia said. “Just keep that liar away from me. Just the thought of her makes my sword start to itch.”
“There’s one problem we’ll have to solve before we go much farther, though,” Narasan said, “and that has to do with smoke. We can build forts from one end of Long-Pass to the other, but they won’t be worth a thing if the bug-people send clouds of greasy smoke rolling down the pass.”
“I’m sure that we’ll be able to find a way to deal with that, Narasan,” Trenicia declared.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Sorgan told her. “Longbow has that ‘unknown friend’ who can do almost anything that needs doing.”
Balacenia smiled. Mother’s reputation seemed to be growing every day.
“It’s always seemed to hit her earlier—and harder—than it hits the rest of us,” Zelana was saying to her brothers a bit later when the three of them were alone, they thought, in Dahlaine’s map-room. Balacenia was there, of course, but the elders seemed to be unaware of her presence.
“I think that might be the fault of that idiotic priesthood,” Veltan declared.
“No, little brother,” Zelana disagreed. “This was turning up long before the emergence of people. Aracia just can’t bear the idea that Enalla will be taking over in the East after we all drift off to sleep. If I remember correctly, the same sort of thing happened when the only living thing in the entire Land of Dhrall was grass. Aracia just can’t accept the idea that she won’t be in charge of everything after she goes to sleep. I think she actually hates Enalla.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Veltan objected.
“I know. When you get right down to it, Aracia has never made much sense. She cherishes her position so much that it’s unseated her mind. I shudder to think of what she might have become when we complete this particular sleep cycle.”
“We can deal with that later, dear sister,” Dahlaine said. “Right now, though, we’ve got this other problem. How are we going to deal with the Vlagh?”
“The Trogites seem to have found a way to persuade the servants of the Vlagh to go play somewhere else,” Veltan said. “Even the most devoted servants of the Vlagh seem to get distracted after they’ve been set on fire.”
“That does seem to work,” Zelana agreed. “Unfortunately, the Vlagh’s an imitator, so I’m sure it won’t be long before the creatures of the Wasteland start throwing fire at our friends. I’m not sure if it would work the way we might want it to, but eight or ten feet of wet snow would make it very difficult to start fires, wouldn’t you say?”
“We might want to plant that notion in Lillabeth’s mind,” Dahlaine said.
“Or possibly Eleria’s,” Zelana added. “I hate to say this, but Aracia might interfere if we depended on Lillabeth.”
“We can deal with that later,” Dahlaine said. “Right now I’d say that we should concentrate on moving the outlanders down to Aracia’s Domain.”
Veltan followed his older brother out of the map-room, but Zelana lingered for some reason. “All right, Balacenia,” she said when she was sure that her brothers were out of earshot, “what are you up to now?”
“Just gathering information, Beloved,” Balacenia said, mimicking Eleria’s voice and her traditional form of reference.
“Don’t do that,” Zelana scolded. “You’re not Eleria, and I know that as well as you do.”
Balacenia shrugged and stepped out into the open. “It was worth a try, I suppose. Stay calm, Zelana. Eleria and I know each other now, and we know that we’re not exactly the same person.” She smiled. “She’s the most delightful person I’ve ever known.”
“You’ve actually spoken with her?” Zelana sounded astonished.
“Of course. We’re making our own plans for the war in Aracia’s Domain. Please don’t interfere, Zelana. We do know what we’re doing. I’m sure that you’ve noticed that Eleria can bring just about everybody around to her way of thinking. I’m sure that it won’t be long before she’s kissed Mother herself into submission.”
“Are you saying that she’s met Mother?”
“Oh, yes. Mother loves her already, but there’s nothing new or different about that.”
“I’m not trying to insult you, Balacenia, but you don’t sound at all like Eleria.”
“I don’t go around begging for kisses, you mean? Dahlaine’s idea was very interesting, but he separated us. Eleria’s not me.” Balacenia smiled. “I was just a little startled when she called me ‘Big Me.’ It sort of rubbed off, and now I call her ‘Little-Me.’ She put her finger immediately on something that had never occurred to me. Our cycle this next time will have eight divinities instead of only four.” She gave Zelana that wide-eyed look of total innocence. “Won’t that be fun?” she said.
When Balacenia went looking for Longbow in Dahlaine’s cave, he was nowhere to be found, and when Balacenia realized that several of the other significant natives were also missing, she was sure that Longbow had taken them aside to discuss some things they didn’t want the outlanders to know about.
It took her a little while to find them. Longbow was very good when it came to concealing himself. “We don’t need to make a big issue of this with our outlander friends,” he was saying to the others, “but I’m catching a strong odor of reluctance from several of them to go down to Aracia’s Domain to fight the last war here in the Land of Dhrall. After Aracia tried to conceal Lillabeth’s Dream, our friends came to realize that she wasn’t to be trusted. I know several of them who don’t want to have anything to do with Zelana’s older sister.”
“I wonder why,” Red-Beard said sarcastically.
“There’s one thing that our friends from other parts of the world don’t seem to realize,” Longbow continued. “The Vlagh steals ideas, rather than gold, and ideas are making her servants grow more and more intelligent. When they reach the point that they’re more intelligent than people are, people are going to start to die out—and it won’t just be here in the Land of Dhrall. The Vlagh wants the whole world, and once people are gone, she’ll get what she wants.”
Balacenia saw Mother’s fine hand at work there. Mother had obviously told Longbow exactly what she’d mentioned to Balacenia herself in Dahlaine’s cave a little while ago.
Then Kathlak, the chief of the Deer Hunter Tribes in Tonthakan, said, “Why don’t we come right out and tell the outlanders that if the servants of the Vlagh win any of the wars here, there won’t be any live people anywhere in the world before very long?” r />
“They wouldn’t believe us, Kathlak,” Tlantar Two-Hands said. “The outlanders are positive that they’re much, much more intelligent than we are—largely because they discovered metal before we did.”
“When you get right down to it, we don’t really need the outlanders anymore,” the archer Athlan declared. “We might want to hold on to Rabbit—and maybe Keselo—but if something comes up that we can’t deal with ourselves, Longbow’s ‘unknown friend’ will probably take care of it for us. She built a sea of water down in Veltan’s Domain, and then she built a sea of fire up here. If we have a friend who can do things like that, why do we need any outlander armies?”
Balacenia decided that it was time to take steps at that point. She assumed Eleria’s form and joined the assorted chieftains. “That was a nice idea, Athlan,” she said, “but aren’t you overlooking something? If the Vlagh sees that the outlanders aren’t with us anymore, she’ll become more and more certain that she’s going to win this war after all, and that means that she’ll throw everything she’s got against us, and the Vlagh can spawn out new servants—millions and millions of them—when she wants to. Bugs become adults in about a week or so, and that means that every warrior here in the Land of Dhrall will have a thousand or so facing him during the war in the East. Then, after she’s killed off all the people here in the Land of Dhrall, she’ll spawn out even more servants, and she’ll take the whole world. We might not like the outlanders all that much, but we do need them.”
“What if they decide that they don’t want to play anymore?” Kathlak demanded.
Balacenia shrugged. “We can always offer them more gold, can’t we? If you give an outlander more gold than he can carry, I’m sure that he’ll do almost anything that you want him to do.”
3
It was somewhat later that afternoon when Dahlaine announced that it was time for the traditional victory celebration. Balacenia found it to be somewhat amusing when she realized that Mother, who’d won the war in Crystal Gorge, was now preparing the feast that would be a major part of the celebration.