The Elder Gods. David Eddings

probably didn’t make it heavy enough. The balance of a sun has to be very precise – too light and it flies apart; too heavy and it collapses in on itself.’

      Aracia looked around cautiously. ‘Where’s Dahlaine’s Dreamer?’ she whispered.

      ‘Ashad? Dahlaine told me that he was out playing with the bears. We all seem to have our favorite animals, don’t we? I love my pink dolphins, Dahlaine loves bears, Veltan’s fond of sheep, and you’re attached to the seals who nest along your coasts.’

      Aracia shrugged. ‘They gave us something to play with while we were waiting for the man-creatures to grow up,’ she said. She peered back into the dim cave. ‘It seems that Dahlaine hasn’t found Veltan yet,’ she noted. ‘I don’t see them anywhere. How far back does this cave go?’

      ‘Miles and miles, I think,’ Zelana replied. ‘Let’s wait. I’m sure they’ll be along soon. Has your Dreamer told you any interesting stories yet?’

      ‘No,’ Aracia replied. ‘I don’t think she’s quite ready. From what you’ve told me, I’d say that your Dreamer might be the first. The story of the world sort of sets things up for the other Dreamers. Did she really see it right from the beginning in her dream?’

      ‘It came very close to what really happened,’ Zelana replied. ‘What’s your child’s name?’

      ‘Lillabeth,’ Aracia replied fondly, ‘and she’s the most beautiful creature in all the world.’

      ‘They seem to do that to us, don’t they?’ Zelana said.

      ‘Do what?’

      ‘Distort our perceptions, dear sister,’ Zelana replied. ‘I’d imagine that Dahlaine and Veltan feel the same way about their Dreamers. I know that I have exactly the same feelings about Eleria. It’s probably very simple. We love them because they are ours.’

      ‘Could you be a bit more specific about this dream your Eleria had?’ Aracia asked.

      ‘Let’s wait for Dahlaine and Veltan. There were some complex things happening when Eleria began to dream, and I think Dahlaine’s the best qualified to interpret them.’

      ‘That’s assuming that he ever gets here,’ Aracia added.

      It was probably late afternoon outside when a pair of shattering thunderclaps shook the air for miles around. ‘That is so childish,’ Aracia noted. ‘Do they really have to do that?’

      ‘They’re still little boys, dear,’ Zelana replied. ‘and showing off is part of their nature. Riding a lightning-bolt is a sure way to get everybody’s immediate attention.’

      ‘But they look so silly after they do that – glowing and with their hair standing on end the way it does.’

      ‘I think lightning does that,’ Zelana said. ‘It is a very fast way to travel, but I think I’ll stick to riding the wind. It’s almost as fast, and it doesn’t make nearly so much noise.’

      A few moments later their brothers emerged from the twisting passageway that led down from the surface.

      ‘What kept you?’ Zelana asked mildly.

      ‘I had a little trouble locating our baby brother,’ Dahlaine replied sourly.

      ‘He can be such a grouch sometimes,’ the tall, fairhaired Veltan noted.

      ‘I wouldn’t be nearly so bad-tempered if you’d stop trying to hide from me,’ Dahlaine said. ‘Did you tell our sister about Eleria’s dream, Zelana?’

      ‘Not in any great detail, no,’ Zelana replied. ‘A number of her servants were there, and I didn’t think they needed to know the full extent of what was happening just yet.’

      ‘Tell us all, then, my fishy sister,’ Veltan said, grinning at her outrageously.

      ‘Of course, moon-boy,’ Zelana replied tartly, and she proceeded to tell them all; the whale, the pearl, the dream.

      ‘You’re just making this up, Zelana,’ Veltan scoffed.

      ‘No, baby brother, I’m not. The pearl – and quite probably that whale as well – aren’t what they seem to be.’

      ‘Our sister believes that Mother Sea’s starting to tamper with things,’ Dahlaine said to them, ‘and I think she might be right.’

      ‘Now we come to the interesting part, big brother,’ Zelana said brightly. ‘Just exactly who and what are these children you so generously gave us a few years ago?’

      ‘The Dreamers, of course, Zelana.’ Dahlaine replied just a bit too quickly.

      ‘And?’ she pressed.

      ‘And what?’

      ‘What else are they, Dahlaine? You’re so obvious most of the time that the rest of us can see right through you.’

      ‘You didn’t!’ Veltan exclaimed, his eyes almost popping out as he stared at Dahlaine.

      ‘I don’t quite –’ Aracia began. Then her eyes bulged out as well. ‘Dahlaine!’ she gasped.

      ‘Well,’ he floundered, ‘it was a kind of emergency, wasn’t it?’ he asked plaintively.

      ‘Are you insane?’ Veltan demanded. ‘They can’t be present during our cycle. The world can’t bear that much weight!’

      ‘They aren’t very heavy right now,’ Dahlaine replied defensively. ‘I was careful to blot out their previous memories before I woke them, and I modified them slightly to make them more closely resemble new-born man-creatures. They sleep and breathe and eat food instead of light. Their minds are still infantile, and they have no idea of who – or what – they really are, so their presence during our cycle won’t make the world collapse. They’re really nothing more than children, and our cycle will come to a close before they’re fully mature and realize just who they actually are.’

      ‘You’ve put the whole world at risk with this idiocy!’ Aracia flared.

      ‘Calm yourself, Aracia,’ Zelana said. ‘Now that I’ve had time to catch my breath, I’m beginning to see what Dahlaine had in mind. If the hideous thing in the Wasteland is on the verge of moving against us, we’ll need all the help we can get, and the others have as much to lose as we do. Besides, we’ve never gotten to know them, have we? They’re really very sweet. I didn’t particularly like them before, but now that I’ve gotten to know Eleria, I love her. That was sort of what you had in mind when you came up with this scheme, wasn’t it, Dahlaine? If we know them and love them, we can trust them. Isn’t that the short and the long of this grand plan of yours?’

      ‘Sometimes you’re so clever you make me sick, Zelana,’ he said sourly.

      ‘He’s brighter than I thought he was,’ Veltan told his sisters. ‘If we awaken the others before the end of our cycle, we can raise them as if they were our children and prepare them for anything that might happen after we’ve gone to our rest.’

      ‘And then they can return the favor at the end of their cycle,’ Zelana added. ‘I get to mother Eleria this time, and then she mothers me next time.’

      ‘It sounds fair to me,’ Veltan said. Then he paused. ‘We’ve been strangers to the others for far too long, I think. We all have the same responsibilities, so a bit of cooperation might be in order. I’m still not too happy that you didn’t tell the rest of us what you had in mind, Dahlaine, but we can set that aside for now. What’s next?’

      ‘First off,’ Zelana said, ‘I don’t think we want to get too specific about what’s happening when we’re speaking with our Dreamers. They’re still children, and children are impressionable, no matter what their species. We don’t want to contaminate