The Younger Gods. David Eddings

our warrior servants would most easily overcome the man-things, and the land of longer summers would be ours before the seasons changed.

      But it was not so, for many man-things had come to the land of longer summers, and they had piled up endless stacks of flat stones to impede our progress toward what was rightfully ours. And once again, the cursed man-things used things that were not parts of their bodies as weapons. We had encountered the flying sticks before, though none of us had been able to understand just how the man-things could make the sticks fly. Some of us were quite sure that the sticks were live things that were controlled by various man-things. When the man-thing said ‘fly,’ the stick obeyed. Then, when the stick was in mid-flight, the man-thing spoke again and said ‘kill.’ And the stick did that.

      We searched and searched for sticks that would obey commands, but we found them not.

      The man-things had used other weapons as well. The long stick did not fly, but it was nearly as cruel as were the flying sticks. The long sticks had wide points that were alien, having no relation to the stick itself. The points were very sharp, and they easily penetrated the bodies of the warrior servants.

      It came to us that many of the man-things we had encountered were not related to the man-things that occupied the land of the sunset and now the land of longer summers.

      The struggle on the slope was long and difficult, and our beloved mother sent many new-form servants into the struggle, but they could not overcome the man-things who hid themselves behind their protective rock-piles, rising to their feet only to kill those of us who were attacking.

      Much disturbed were those of us who are the true servants of beloved mother when she insisted that we should take her from the nest to the region where the conflict was taking place. Her safety must always be our first obligation, but mother saw no reason to be concerned. She is immortal, of course, but the conflict was raging in the land of longer summers. The nest was safe, but the region of conflict was not.

      She was mother, however, so we had no choice but to obey her.

      Then yet another group of man-things came rushing up from far down in the land of longer summers, and that particular group appeared to have some other goal than the defeat of mother’s warrior servants. There were many reports from the seekers that the man-things which had been fighting mother’s warrior servants were stepping aside to let the new group pass through without restraint.

      And the new group of man-things rushed to the top of the slope that led down to mother’s region and then they ran on down that slope – almost as if they could not even see mother’s warrior servants. We have learned – much to our sorrow – that most of the man-things are extremely clever, but the new group of man-things seemed to have little or no thought as they blindly rushed down the slope toward something which only they could see.

      And mother’s warrior servants of several altered forms killed the mindless man-things by the thousands, but the other mindless man-things paid no heed to the fate of their companions, but continued their rush down the slope toward that which only they could see.

      And then it was that enormous amounts of water burst forth from the upper face of the high hill above us, and mother’s warrior servants and the mindless man-things alike were engulfed in water and carried down the slope to certain destruction.

      And mother screamed in anguish even as those of us who live but to serve her carried her back toward the safety of the nest, for it was now clear that water could be as deadly as fire, and that the land of longer summers was now and forever beyond our reach.

      Great was the grief of our beloved mother, but in time the seekers of knowledge persuaded her that there were still two regions beyond the high hills that were not now and forever blocked off from us. There was the land of the sunrise and the land of shorter summers. Many were the arguments between those warrior servants who favored the land of shorter summers and those who favored the land of the sunrise, and those arguments became more heated until those who preferred shorter summers and those who favored sunrise began to kill each other.

      And finally, to prevent more of the killing, beloved mother chose shorter summers, and once she had chosen, the killing stopped.

      The seekers were much interested in a low-tree that flickered and put out light and dark clouds which lay close to the ground or rose high up into the sky, for they saw that low-tree as a way to kill the man-things from a long way off, and that would put none of the servants of our beloved mother in peril.

      And the seekers were much pleased when they discovered that the low-tree was most generous, and freely it shared its flickers and clouds with other low trees of its own kind.

      Now other seekers had gone into the high hills that blocked off the land of shorter summers, and they soon found a narrow pathway that went through the high hills and emerged in a well-concealed manner in the land of shorter summers.

      Cautious was our beloved mother, however, and she sent forth servants that could make the noises of the man-things to deceive the man-things and to set them at war one with the other, for it had come to the overmind that the man-things on occasion hated each other even more than they hated us, and gladly would they kill each other, and that would make things easier for mother’s warrior servants.

      We proceeded across the flat place where there are no things-to-eat and came at last to the narrow pathway that led from mother’s region to the land of shorter summers. Much were we discontented when we arrived there, however, for the man-things had once more piled flat rocks on top of other flat rocks to block our path.

      We now had a means to drive them away, however. The seekers entered several nesting places in the high hills below the flat rock-pile of the man-things, there to make piles of the low-trees that flicker inside the nesting places, and dense black clouds passed over their rock-pile, and then the man-things turned and fled, leaving the pathway open to the warrior servants.

      Beloved mother rejoiced and told the warrior servants to move rapidly along the narrow pathway toward the land of shorter summers, for now the low-trees – which almost certainly loved mother almost as much as do we who serve and protect her – continued to drive the man-things away.

      And so it was that the warrior servants swarmed up the narrow pathway with victory almost certainly within their reach.

      But then a man-thing that was not a breeder as most of the man-things are, unleashed something that no one has ever seen before. We, the servants of beloved mother, have encountered the fires of the man-things before, but the man-thing who was not a breeder sent a huge wave of fire that was not yellow down the pathway. The fire was blue instead, and it consumed warrior servants uncounted as it rushed on down the narrow path and even beyond.

      That in itself was horrid beyond anything we had yet encountered, but then the man-thing which was not a breeder called forth yet another blue fire at the foot of our narrow path. And that blue fire rose higher than the pile of flat rocks the man-things had built, and it showed no indication that it would ever stop burning.

      And yet once again, our beloved mother screamed in agony, and we who serve her also screamed.

      So great was mother’s fury that she listened to a suggestion of one of the seekers – a suggestion she would not even have considered had she been more calm. The seeker declared that since there was only one part of this land that was not blocked, the man-things would certainly know that mother’s warrior servants would attack them from that direction, and their numbers would be enormous. ‘You will need many, many warrior servants to overcome the man-things, beloved Vlagh,’ she said. ‘Can you possibly spawn out more this time than you did when we attacked the other directions?’

      ‘Many, many more,’ dear mother replied. ‘I will bury the man-things in freshly hatched spawn. I will have the land of the sunrise, and my children will feed on the remains of all the man-things that contaminate this entire land that is – and always will be – mine.’

      We did not wish to remind beloved mother that a spawn of that size would severely reduce any future spawns to the point that there