Crystal Gorge. David Eddings

nap. Is that anywhere close to what happens?’

      ‘Fairly close – except that your number isn’t quite right. Our cycles are twenty-five times longer than one thousand.’

      Red-Beard blinked. ‘You’ve been awake for that long?’ he asked her in a voice filled with wonder.

      ‘Not quite yet, but it’s getting closer to nap-time. When our current cycle began, people – your species – were at a very primitive level. They hadn’t even discovered fire yet, and their most sophisticated weapon was the club. In many ways, this is the most important period in the history of the world. The man-things – your species – spend most of their time changing things. That makes this particular cycle very significant – and very dangerous. There are some things that should not be changed – and that brings us to the Vlagh. Do you know anything about bees?’

      Red-Beard shrugged. ‘They make honey, and they sting anybody who tries to steal it. Honey tastes good – but not so good that I’d want to get stung a thousand times just to gather it up.’

      ‘Wise decision, Red-Beard. Bees – and a number of other varieties of insects – have developed very complex societies that are designed to expand their territories and their food supply. That’s what these wars here in the Land of Dhrall are all about. Unfortunately, the Vlagh is an imitator. When one of the creatures of the Wasteland sees a characteristic that seems useful, the Vlagh starts experimenting, and its next hatch will have a variation of that characteristic.’

      ‘So we end up with bug-men who know how to talk.’

      ‘Not exactly bug-men, Red-Beard. Bug-women would come closer to what’s really happening. There aren’t really very many males among the creatures of the Wasteland. They’re almost all females, but the Vlagh herself is the only one that lays eggs – thousands and thousands of eggs at a time.’

      ‘I don’t think baby bug-people would be very dangerous,’ Red-Beard scoffed.

      ‘Maybe not, but they grow very fast.’

      ‘How fast?’

      ‘They’re adults within a week. Of course, they only live for about six weeks, but a new generation is already in the works. The outlanders we’ve hired to help us don’t fully understand this, but it’s not really necessary for them to understand. It’s probably better that they don’t. If they knew that the Vlagh can replace all the ones our friends kill in about two weeks, there isn’t enough gold in the whole world to have persuaded them to come here and help us.’ ‘Why are you telling me all this, Zelana?’ Red-Beard asked her.

      She shrugged. ‘A few people need to know what’s really happening, Red-Beard, and you just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I’ll have a word with Sorgan about your problem, and if it’s really necessary for the Seagull to go on into the bay of Lattash, we’ll find someplace to hide you so that the people of your tribe won’t be able to find you.’

      ‘That definitely takes a load off my mind.’ Red-Beard hesitated. ‘You do understand why I don’t want any part of being the chief of the tribe, don’t you?’ he asked her.

      ‘It has something to do with freedom, doesn’t it?’

      ‘Exactly.’ He frowned slightly. ‘You went right straight to the point, Zelana. How did you pick it up so fast?’

      ‘I’ve already been there, Red-Beard. That’s why I went off to the Isle of Thurn a long time ago. If you think that being “chief” would be unbearably tedious, take a long, hard look at being “god”. Just like you, I didn’t want any part of that, so I ran away. I spent thousands of years in my pink grotto composing music, writing poetry, and playing with my pink dolphins. Then my big brother brought Eleria to me, and my whole world changed.’

      ‘You love her, though, don’t you?’

      Zelana sighed. ‘More than anything in the whole world. That’s what Dahlaine had in mind when he foisted the Dreamers on us in the first place. In a certain sense, it was very cruel, but it was necessary.’

      ‘Well, I’m not really all that necessary where the tribe’s concerned. They can find somebody else to sit around being important.’ Then a thought came to Red-Beard, and he suddenly burst out laughing.

      ‘What’s so funny?’

      ‘I know who’d make the best chief the tribe’s ever had,’ he replied. ‘The tribe might not like it very much – at least the men wouldn’t – but Planter really should be the chief.’

      Zelana smiled. ‘She already is, Red-Beard. She doesn’t need the title. The tribe does what she wants done, and that’s what really counts, wouldn’t you say?’

      ‘Not out loud, I wouldn’t,’ Red-Beard replied.

      The wind was coming out of the east when Sorgan Hook-Beak’s fleet of longships rounded the first peninsula jutting out from the south coast of Veltan’s Domain, and when that wind caught the sails, they billowed out with a booming sound. It seemed to Red-Beard that the longships almost flew toward the west. He had a few suspicions about that. Zelana and her family frequently spoke of ‘tampering,’ and a wind coming from the east was very unusual. West winds and south winds were fairly common at this time of the year, but east and north? Not too likely.

      The Seagull rounded the third and last peninsula on the south coast of Veltan’s Domain a few days later, and then the Maag fleet turned north. The weather seemed to have a faint smell of early autumn now, and Red-Beard began to feel that seasonal urge to go hunting. Autumn had always been the time to lay in a good supply of food to get the tribe through the coming winter.

      He was standing near the slender bow of the Seagull with Zelana’s older brother about midmorning one day when Sorgan Hook-Beak came forward to join them. ‘I got to thinking last night that it might be a good idea for me and my men to know a bit about the people of your Domain, Lord Dahlaine,’ he said. ‘My cousin Skell discovered that it’s not a good idea to turn Maags loose on the natives of this part of the world when they haven’t got the faintest idea of what the local customs are.’

      ‘You could be right about that, Captain,’ Dahlaine agreed. ‘I suppose a little conference in your cabin might be in order along about now. There are few peculiarities in my Domain that you should all know about.’

      Sorgan’s cabin at the stern of the Seagull wasn’t really very large, so things were just a bit crowded when they gathered there about a quarter of an hour later.

      ‘Captain Hook-Beak spoke with me a little while ago, and he wanted to know a few things about the people of my Domain,’ Zelana’s big brother told them. ‘It’s not a bad idea, really. I’ll give you a sort of general idea about my people and the general layout of the country up there, and then I’ll answer any questions you might have.’

      ‘He sounds a lot like a chief of one of our tribes, doesn’t he, Longbow?’ Red-Beard said quietly to his friend.

      ‘Some things are always the same, friend Red-Beard,’ Longbow replied. ‘A chief is a chief, no matter where he lives.’

      ‘When we get to the north of sister Zelana’s Domain, we’ll go ashore in the Tonthakan nation,’ Dahlaine began.

      ‘Nation?’ Zelana asked curiously.

      ‘It’s an idea I came up with quite some time ago, dear sister,’ Dahlaine replied. ‘It was the best way I could think of to put an end to those silly wars between the various tribes. There are three significantly different cultures in my domain, so I set up three “nations” – Tonthakan, Matakan, and Atazakan – and the various tribes in those nations settle their differences with conferences instead of wars.’

      ‘What an unnatural sort of thing,’ Red-Beard said in mock disapproval.

      ‘Be nice,’ Zelana chided him.

      ‘Sorry,’