“More than enough, dear,” Zelana agreed. “Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” Eleria said. “I think I’d like to sleep now. I wasn’t sleeping very well back there, and it seems to be catching up with me now.”
“Go to bed, child,” Zelana told her fondly. “We’re back where we’re supposed to be, and the world can’t hurt us here.”
“Kiss-kiss,” Eleria said, holding her arms out.
Zelana took the child in her arms and kissed her. “Go to bed, Eleria. Nothing can bother you here, and I’ll watch over you.”
Eleria sighed contentedly and went to her bed, nestling down with her pink pearl in her hand. She drifted off to sleep, and Zelana of the West envied her, even though she could scarcely remember sleep. Idly she wondered what it might be like to sleep away a part of every day and then to rise and eat food rather than light. Because of their unique situation, the Dreamers were experiencing things Zelana and her family had never experienced, nor would they ever.
Zelana’s thoughts wandered and circled almost like hungry birds as she sat lost in contemplation in the glowing pink light of her grotto, but inevitably they returned once more to the horror of what had taken place in the ravine above the village of Lattash.
Why had Veltan’s Dreamer gone to such extremes? Yaltar had seemed to be a solid, sensible little boy, but at the first hint of a threat to Zelana’s Domain, he’d gone absolutely wild.
Except, she reminded herself, it wasn’t her Domain Yaltar had sought to defend. It was the Domain of his sister, Bala-cenia.
That thought jerked Zelana sharply around. Dahlaine had assured them all that the Dreamers would have no memories of their previous existence, but both Yaltar and Eleria had occasionally referred to each other by their real names. Could it be that Dahlaine’s assurances had been nothing more than bald-faced lies designed to gain their approval? Dahlaine was obviously capable of lying. Zelana had caught him lying to her innumerable times herself, and she was fairly certain that Veltan and Aracia had also seen their elder brother wandering away from the truth.
That thought raised a very disturbing possibility. If Yaltar knew that Eleria was really Balacenia, did he also know that he was Vash? Had all four of the Dreamers been quietly deceiving their elders? If Vash and Balacenia had been engaged in this deception, wasn’t it entirely possible that . . .
What were their names? Zelana should know the real names of Lillabeth and Ashad, but when she searched her memories of the countless eons that lay behind, she could not for the life of her bring the other two names to the surface. It was maddening! The names were right on the tip of her tongue, but they absolutely refused to come out.
She pushed that away. The names would probably surface as soon as she stopped worrying at the problem.
Longbow had definitely been the proper choice as the man to lead the Dhralls of her Domain. The outlanders had stood in awe of him, not only because of his unerring accuracy with his bow, but also because he seemed able to come up with answers to impossible problems. Had it not been for Longbow, Zelana was certain that the outlanders might very well have viewed the Dhralls as ignorant savages ripe for plundering, or even for enslavement.
That notion brought Zelana up short. Her encounters with the outlanders hadn’t been very extensive, but she’d occasionally caught hints that the more advanced cultures of the world beyond the shores of the Land of Dhrall routinely gathered up the people of more primitive societies and sold them as slaves. Zelana’s eyes narrowed. Let them try that here. There were all sorts of things—short of killing—Zelana could do to them to persuade them to give up that particular notion.
Not all of the outlanders were evil, however, she realized. Eleria herself had unerringly found two, at least, who could be trusted. The child had chosen the Maag known as Rabbit and the earnest young Trogite Keselo, and had somehow managed to persuade Dahlaine that those two were the ones who should be made aware of the real situation here in the Land of Dhrall. There were times when Eleria went far beyond what Dahlaine had assured them would be the limitations of the Dreamers. Child Eleria pretended to be simple and sweet, but the more Zelana thought about it, the more it seemed that the kissing and lap-sitting were means to an end far more serious than demonstrations of childish affection. Could it be that the volcanic eruption that had so effectively destroyed the servants of the Vlagh in the ravine above Lattash had not been the desperate response of Yaltar? Could the eruption possibly have been Eleria’s idea?
Zelana shuddered back from that unthinkable notion.
Hideous though it was, however, Zelana was forced to admit that pouring molten rock into the caves of the servants of the Vlagh had been far and away the most effective solution to an otherwise unsolvable problem. Earthquakes might have killed all the invaders, but the possibility that a few of the caves could have remained intact would have left doubts. Molten lava, however, left no doubts. The servants of the Vlagh were gone, and Zelana’s Domain was safe.
Zelana corrected that notion. It had not been her Domain Yaltar’s dream had saved; it was the Domain of Balacenia.
She was almost certain that the Maags and Trogites had taken ship, or would very soon, to sail down along the coast to Veltan’s Domain. There was no absolute certainty that the servants of the Vlagh would attack Veltan’s domain in the foreseeable future. It might well be that Yaltar’s volcano had so decimated the creatures of the Wasteland that it would take many generations for them to propagate replacements. Then again, perhaps not. That-Called-the-Vlagh could produce countless offspring in virtually no time at all, and Zelana’s brother Veltan knew that as well as anybody. The servants of the Vlagh would almost certainly attack each of the four Domains in their mindless quest for more land. The Vlagh wanted—or needed—the entire continent if it was to have any chance at all to expand its swarm.
What were their names? It was infuriating! The names were right there. Why couldn’t she remember them?
Zelana yearned for sleep. The endless eons of her cycle weighed down upon her, and she was glad that the cycle was almost over.
But Eleria wasn’t ready to take up the burden of Dominion yet. There were so many things she had to know, and there was so little time left to teach her. The changing of the cycles had posed no real problems in times past. The man-things had been little more than animals during Balacenia’s previous cycle, but they had come so far now, and it seemed that they were growing and developing faster and faster with each passing year. Zelana shuddered back from the thought of what they might be when Balacenia’s cycle had run its course and Zelana awakened once more to begin her next cycle.