Campbell, John W Jr - The Elder Gods

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THE ELDER GODS

LORD NAZUN, chief of the Elder Gods, looked down at the city of Tordu, and

sighed softly. Beside him, Taltm snorted angrily, a pleasant dilute odor of

drying kelp and salt sea eddying about him in the soft breeze. Lady Tammar

chuckled and spoke softly. "It oppresses you more than usual tonight, Talun?"

"It's sure we'll gain nothing in this way. Nazun, tell me, what was in the

minds of men when we appeared first?"

Nazun stirred uneasily, a vague, lean bulk against the midnight blue of the

sky. "I know, my friend—but there was a certain fear, too, that we would not

change with the changing times. Perhaps that is our flaw."

"And the greater flaw," the sea lord growled, "is standing by in idleness and

watching the destruction of our people. The Invisible Ones are death—death not

of the body, but of the spirit and mind. Where are my sea rovers gone? Dead

and decayed. Fisherman—good, stout workmen though they be—lack the spark that

makes the sea rover."

"We cannot attack the Invisible Ones by attacking, by taking over the minds of

our people; that is the First Law," Nazun pointed out.

"No—and ye need a solid right arm to attack the Invisible Ones, which none of

us possesses. But, on the same, we possess neither a solid thing that keeps us

subject to material weapons such as a solid right arm may wield!"

"You'll turn no man of Tordu against the Invisible Ones. The pattern and

movement of every Azuni is so set and known to the Invisible Ones, as to us,

that he would be dead at the hands of the priests of the Invisible Ones before

he moved half across Tordu," Lord Martal pointed out. "There are chances in

the lives of men—but not when the Invisible Ones have time to plot out those

chances first!"

"No stranger has reached these islands in five centuries," Nazu sighed. "Your

sea rovers, Talun, rove as close by the shore as a chick by the old hen's

feet. While they rove the shorelines of the continents, they'll never find

Azun . . . and without wider knowledge of the pointing needle, no seaman

ventures far. It will be a century yet before men wander the oceans freely

once more."

Talun's sea-squinted eyes narrowed farther. "They wander," he said

explosively, "where the will of the winds drive them, my friend. Now if ye

want a stranger here on these islands, we'll see what the winds and my seas

can do!"

Nazun stood silent, squinting thoughtfully at the sea beyond, and the town

below. "One stranger, Talun— only one. One stranger, without background known

to us or the Invisible Ones, is beyond calculation and the prophecy of the

gods; half a dozen strangers, and there would be more factors on which to base

foreknowledge —and defeat!"

"One then," growled Talun. "One good sea rover, with a spark and flame within

him that these damned Invisible Ones can't read or quench!"

Lord Nazun looked down at the wilted form on the pebbled beach with a wry, dry

smile on his lips, and a twinkle of amusement in his narrowed gray eyes. "A

sorry specimen you've fished up for us, Talun. And did you need to cause so

violent a storm as the recent one to capture this bit of drift?"

Talun's dark face knotted in a grimace of anger, then smoothed in resignation.

His roaring voice cut through the dying whine of winds and the broom of surf

on the beach below. "I never know, Nazun, whether you mean your words. The

scholars that fathered you forgot me, and forgot to give me wisdom—a sad lack

in this day. That washed-up thing may be a bit bedewed, a bit softened by

immersion in good brine, but he'll dry out again. And he's a man, a real man!

There's more than mush in his back, and more than jelly in his heart. These

Azuni men that sail by the bark of a dog and the twitter of a bird will be the

vanishment of me!

"By the sea, I'd say such a storm as that last was needed to net that man!

There was courage in him to build his ship on the edge of the brine, and sail

straight out from land! A man who uses land as a guide only to show him how to

get farthest from it quickest has my liking, and my protection."

Talun's heavy brows pulled down belligerently as he looked Nazun in the eye

defiantly. Then his gaze shifted back to the man uneasily. Nazun's deep-set,

narrow gray eyes were friendly, twinkling with pleasant good humor, but there

was in them a depth beyond depths that left Talun, for all his own powers, ill

at ease and unsettled.

Lady Tammar laughed softly. "And while you argue, he dries out. Now, good

Nazun, you have netted your fish, or Talun has netted him for you and brought

him to this beach. What plans have you for him next?"

"He's been well stripped," Lord Martal grunted. He

waved a muscle-knotted, stout-fingered hand at the man who was beginning to

stir again on the lumpy mattress of hard quartz. "He has neither gold, nor

sword to carve it out with, nor any other thing. I'd say he was fitted to take

advice for his next move. He could have used a sword for defense, Talun. You

might have left him that. By the cut of his figure, I'd say he would sooner

fight than ask for help, weapon or no."

Talun scratched his bearded chin uneasily and snorted. The dying wind

permitted the faint aroma of fish to cling about the bulky figure once again

in a not unpleasant intensity. More a signature or card of identity than an

offense. "Your favorite irons don't float," he said, half annoyed. "The man

showed sense when he parted with that when his cockleshell went down. Now

leave my works alone, and let me worry about my sea. I've done my task—a man,

such as you asked, at your feet, stripped as you asked, but sound. You can

find him swords and breastplates enough in the junk shops of Tordus, where

your ex-friends have left them, Martal. My fishermen are still with me."

Lord Martal laughed. "Good enough, friend, and right enough. We'll equip him

once again. There's a house, a small temple where men worship chance and

probabilities, where I may find a way to help our new-found friend. Ah, he's

getting up."

Weakly, Daron pushed his elbows under him, sneezed vigorously, and gasped. He

looked about him at the empty beach. The pebbles that had left a faithful

imprint on every aching muscle of his back and shoulders gave way to broken

rock a hundred feet away, and that in turn became a rocky cliff. Daron turned

his head wearily, heaved himself erect, and dragged himself over to the

nearest good-sized boulder. He held his head firmly in place till the

dizziness left, then looked about.

The wind was dying away but the surf still made hungry, disappointed noises on

the beach as it tried to reach him.

He looked at it resentfully. "You took my ship, and you took my crew, which

seems enough. Also you took from me all sense of where I am, which was more

than enough to rob me of. May the gods give that there are men somewhere near—

though it seems unlikely. No men of sense would inhabit so unpleasant a

coast."

He looked up the beach, which curved away somewhere beyond the rain mists into

a gray, formless blank. Down the beach, the high rocky cliff dwindled away

just before it, too, was swallowed by the gray, wind-driven mists. Overhead,

the dull gray was darkened to night, and the dull gray of his spirits darkened

with it.

He followed the line of the cliff speculatively, and looked at the smug,

uplifted brow of it near him. There was no sense struggling up here if it fell

away to an easy slope half a mile down the beach. He heaved himself up from

the boulder and started, annoyed that he had not the faintest idea whether he

was moving south, east, north or west. To his sea rover's mind it was a

feeling of nakedness equal to the undressed feeling the lack of his sword gave

him.

Half a mile and the cliff did give way to a cragged set of natural steps.

Above, he found his dizziness returned by the effort of climbing, and the

beginnings of a mist-obscured meadow of some wiry grass that thrived on salt-

spray. He set off across it doggedly as the gray of the skies gave way to

almost total blackness. The wiry grass clutched at his toes, and he felt too

weary to lift his feet above it.

Resignedly, he lay down to wait for daylight. Half an hour later, the

chilling, dying wind induced him to change "his mind. He stood up again and

started on. The wind had swept away the last of the rain mist, and

presently he made out a gleam of light that came and went erratically. He

stood still, squinting his eyes, and watched.

"It may be like the pools I saw in the Dryland, a dream of something I want,

but again, it may merely be that trees are blowing in front of the light. In

any case, it's something other than gray mist to walk toward."

He stopped a hundred yards from the little building and watched more

carefully. Strangers were not welcome in most of the world he'd known, but a

rough gauge of the way an unknown people received a stranger lay in their

buildings. Sticks and wattles—the stranger was apt to be the dinner. Good

timber and thatch—the stranger was welcomed to dinner, usually roast sheep or

lamb. Crude stone—the stranger was allowed to enter, if he could pay for his

dinner. Finished stone—the stranger was shown the way to the public house.

^It augured ill. The house was built of fieldstone, well mortared. But still—

they'd be less likely to make dinner of him, even though they might not make

dinner for him.

He knocked, noting, for all his weariness, that the door was singularly ill-

kept. It opened, and Daron paused in measurement of the man who faced him. Six

feet and more, Daron stood, but the man before him was four inches more, built

long and supple, with an ease and grace of movement that spoke of well-ordered

muscles.

But the face eased the sea rover's mind. It was high and narrow but broad

above the eyes—strange eyes —gray and deep, almost black as they looked out

from the warm firelight of the room beyond. The rugged strongly hewn features

were keen with intelligence; the eyes and the tiny wrinkles around them deep

with a queerly eternal wisdom.

"Your coast, yonder," said Daron, his mouth twisted in a grim smile, "offers

poor bedding for a man whose

ship is gone, and the grass of your meadows seem wiry for human gullets. I've

naught but my gratitude left to buy me a meal and a night away from the wind,

but if that be good value in your land—"

The face of the native wrinkled in good-humored acquiescence as he opened the

door more fully. "It is a depreciated currency, much debased with counterfeit,

a strange trouble of our land. But come in, we'll try the worth of yours."

Daron stepped in, and passed his host. Rather quickly he sought a chair made

of X members supporting leather bands. It creaked under his weight as he

looked up at his host. "My knees have yet to learn their manners, friend, and

they seemed unwilling to wait your invitation."

"Sit then. How long have you been without food?"

"Some twenty hours—since the storm came up. It's not the lack of food, I

think, but the too-free drinking of the last five of those hours. Wine has

made my knees as unsteady, but I liked the process better."

"I have little here to offer you—a shepherd's fare. Tordu is some two days'

journey away, beyond the Chinur Mountains."

"Hm-m-m . . . then this is some expansive land I've reached. Friend . . . but

stay, if I may eat, the questions and the answers both will boil more freely.

If you have the bread and cheese of the shepherds I know, they'll serve most

excellently to sop this water I've imbibed."

"Sit here and rest, or warm yourself nearer the fire. The wind is dying, but

turning colder, too." The tall man moved away,-through a doorway at the far

side of the stonewalled room, and Daron's eyes roved over the furnishings.

There were simple things, chairs—stools of leather straps and wooden X's, some

simple, wooden slabs—a

table of darkened, well-worn oak. Some sense of unease haunted Daron's mind, a

feeling of decay about the smoke-grimed stone of the walls not matched by the

simple furnishings.

Then his host was back with a stone jug, an oval loaf of bread, and a

crumbling mass of well-ripened cheese on an earthenware plate. He set them on

the table, as Daron moved over, for the first time observing closely the dress

of his host. His clothes were of some blue-green stuff, loosely draped to fall

nearly to his leather-sandaled feet, bunched behind his head in a hooded cowl

thrown back between the shoulders now.

Daron's quick eyes studied the fingers that set out the food, even as he

reached toward it. They were long, slim, supple fingers, and the forearm that

stretched from the loose sleeve of the blue-green cloak was muscled

magnificently with the ropey, slim, deceptive cords of the swift-actioned

man's strength.

Daron's eyes rose to the face of his host. The level, gray eyes looked down

into his for a long moment, and Daron shrugged easily and turned back to his

food. The eyes had regarded him with honesty of good intent—and the green-

robed man was his host. If he chose to call himself a shepherd within his own

house, to a stranger he befriended, that, then was his business.

"I am called Nazun," his host said presently. His voice was deep and resonant,

friendly, yet holding within it an air of certainty and power that the sea

rover had heard in few men before. One had been his friend, and had carved out

an empire. None of them had been shepherds—for long.

"I am Daron, of Kyprost—which I think you may not know. I am afflicted with a

strange curse—like quicksilver, I cannot long remain in any place, yet in all

my wanderings I've never heard of land that lay halfway

from Western world to Eastern. And—unless I swam back in five hours over the

course my vessel spent twelve days laying—this is a land I never knew

existed."

"This is the island Ator, of the Azun islands. Some few of our people have

sailed eastward to the borders of the great continent from which you came, but

not in many generations have the Azuni been the sea rovers they once were.

They wandered here from the lands you know, long ago, but now they see no joy

in roving. Azun is very pleasant; they forget the old ways and the old gods,

and worship new ideas and new gods."

Daron grinned. "Pleasant, is it? It was a hard, gray place I found. But for

your light, it seemed I might find no more of it, for that the wind was

cooling, I found for myself before I found your door."

Daron looked up again into Nazun's eyes, his blue eyes drawn to the gray. For

an instant the firelight fell strong and clear on the sun-tanned face of the

giant before him. The deep-sunk gray eyes looked into his levelly, from a face

set for an instant in thought, a face of undeterminable age, as such strongly

hewn faces of men may be. There was kindliness about it, but in that instant

kindliness was hidden by overwhelming power. Daron's careless smile dropped

away so that his own strongly chiseled face was serious and intent.

The gray eyes, he suddenly saw, were old. They were very, very old, and

something of the chill of the dying wind outside leaked into Daron from those

eyes.

The sea rover dropped his eyes to his food, broke a bit of bread and some

cheese, ate it, and washed it down with the full-bodied wine from the stone

jug.

The room was quiet, strangely quiet, with only the rustle of the fire to move

the drapes of silence. Daron did not look up as he spoke, slowly,

thoughtfully. His easy, laughing voice was deeper, more serious. "I am a

stranger to this section of the world—friend. I ... I think I would do better

if you would give me some advice as to how I might repay you for this meal,

which, at this time, is life."

Nazun's voice was soft against the silence, and Daron listened without looking

up. "Yes, it is a strange corner of the world, Daron. Many generations ago the

Azuni came, sea rovers such as you, and settled here. They found rich land,

good temperatures, a good life. For a long time they roved the sea, but Azun

was home. They built a peaceful country—there were no other sea rovers then to

menace them—and prospered here.

"It was a peaceful home—they stayed by it more and more. Why wander in harsher

lands? The Azuni have not wandered now in many generations. There is no need.

And with peace, comes wisdom. They grew too wise to worship the old gods, and

found new gods—you'll learn of them, the Invisible Ones, in Tordu, the capital

of Azun—in new ways.

"But you will learn of this. Primarily, for safety and for pleasure here,

remember this: the Azuni know more of minds and the works of the power of mind

than any people of the Earth. This power may make things uncertain for you . .

. but only some of the Azuni have the full knowledge now.

"For good reasons, friend, I cannot have you here the night. Go from the door

straight out. There is a broken wall of stone some two hundred paces out,

which you will see by the light of the moon—the clouds are broken to a

scudding wrack, now—and beyond it is a cart road. Turn right on this, and

follow it along. You'll find a public house along the road within the hour.

And—if someone offers you a game, accept and you may have luck. Take this—it's

a small coin, but planted well, it may grow a large crop."

Daron rose from the table. Turning as he rose so that his eyes sought the

glowing fire. He slipped the small silver coin into his palm, tapped his hand,

and the coin spun neatly in the air to slip, edge on, between his fingers and

be caught. "Aye, friend. To the right. And— I will learn later, I think, how I

may return this favor. Tordu would seem to be the goal of a sound man on this

island of yours."

"To the right," Nazun nodded.

Daron stepped to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the night. The moon

shone through rents in the shattered cloud veil. He went on steadily to the

broken wall, crossed over, and turned right. He flipped the silver coin in his

fingers and noticed to himself that the bright fire in the stone house no

longer shone through the windows. For that matter, the moonlight shone through

the ruined roof to make a patch of light in the room beyond the shattered,

unhinged door.

Daron shrugged uneasily, and remembered the friendly creases about the deep-

set gray eyes and tossed the coin into a pocket with an expert flip. He swung

easily down the rutted cart road.

"Nazun," he said, and cocked an eye at the scudding cloud wrack. "Now the

local people might know that name—and there are other ways than asking

questions to learn an answer."

THE WIRY GRASS gave way to scrub, and the stunted brush to patches of trees.

The stone inn house nestled in a group of the trees, half hidden by them, but

a signpost hung out over the road to rectify that flaw; the traveler "would

not miss it. Daron fingered his single

coin and squinted at the signboard as the moonlight flickered across it like

the glow of a draft-stirred candle.

"That," said Daron softly, "means 'The Dolphin,' which would be a right goodly

name for such a place, so near the sea; but that lettering is like to none

I've seen before!" He let it go at that, and went on toward the door, with a

clearer idea in mind as to the meaning' of the name of Nazun. He had,

seemingly, acquired a new fund of wisdom, a new language!

The voices of men and the laughter of a girl came through the heavy oaken

panels of the door as he raised the knocker; and he heard the heavy, rolling

tread of the host as he dropped it down again. The man who faced the sea rover

now was no giant, but a short, round-bellied little man with a face all

creases, sprouting seedling whiskers of a red beard as the only clue to what

his vanished hair might once have been.

"Aye, and come in, for though the night is bettering, it's foul enough yet, my

friend."

Daron smiled .in answer to the infectious good humor of the innkeeper. "And

who knows better than I? Pray your drinks are better than brine, for I've had

my fill of that, and your beds are better than the quartz the waves laid me

out on. I've lost a ship, a crew, a sword, and all but one silver coin." Daron

looped it upward so it glinted in the light of a hanging lamp and the glow of

the fire.

The innkeeper's smile-creased mouth pursed worriedly. "Your luck seems bad,

and . . . and your coin small," he said doubtfully.

"Ah, but you think too quickly, friend," laughed Daron. "Look, out of a crew

of a dozen stout lads, I lived. You say my luck is bad? Out of all that I

possessed, this bit of silver stayed with me like a true friend and you think

it will leave me now?

"Now let us test this thing. Look; I want a bit of meat, a bit of bread, and

perhaps some wine. You want my coin. Fair enough, but you say my luck is bad,

which is a curse on any seaman. Let's see, then; we'll try this coin. If it

falls against me, it is yours, and I seek another place for food. If it is the

friend I say—"

The innkeeper shrugged. "I am no worshipper of Lord Martal, and I've no faith

in the luck he rules. Go back through yonder door, and you'll find his truest

worshipers in all Ator, I swear. They gamble away two fortunes in an evening,

and gambit it back between 'em. But they gamble away my wine, and pay for

that, wherefore they're welcome. Perhaps I should thank Lord Martal at that."

Daron chuckled. "By all means, man! He smiles on you, and the old gods are

good protectors, I feel." The seaman swung across the little entrance room

toward the curtained entrance to the main dining hall beyond. The smoke-

stained oaken beams hung low enough to make him stoop his head as he pushed

the curtain aside and looked beyond. A dozen men, some in well-worn, stout

clothing bearing the faintly sour, wholly pleasant odor of the sea, some with

the heavier smells of earth and horses, clustered about a table where five men

in finer clothes were seated. Three girls, in tight-bodiced, wide-skirted

costumes watched and moved about to fill the orders of the men.

None saw him at first, as they watched the play of the dice that leaped and

danced on the dark wood of the table top. Daron moved over, and some of the

outer fringe looked up at him, their boisterous voices quieting for an

instant, then resuming at his easy grin and nod. The ring of farming people

and the fishermen made way a bit, uncertain by his dress, for, sea-stained and

flavored, it showed fine-woven cloth of good linen, worked in an

unfamiliar pattern with bits of gold and silver wire.

The seated men looked up at him, and back at the dice, and rolled again. Daron

leaned forward, putting his widespread hands on the table. "My friends," he

said seriously, "I have an unpleasant mission here. My ship is lost, my crew

is gone, and all possessions left me save this coin." The single silver bit

clinked down. "Our good host has said my luck is foul; I feel that it is good.

Wherein does this concern you? It is this; if I would sleep softer than the

stones outside, and eat fare tenderer than twigs, I must plant this seedling

coin and reap a harvest. I fear it is from your pockets, then, the harvest

must come."

The nearest of the player's laughed, spun Daron's coin, and nodded. "One

stake, friend, and we'll finish the work the seas began! A man with such a

thing is hard put—it would buy a bit of food, or a bed, but not both, and the

decision would be hard. We shall relieve you!"

"Now, by Nazun, you won't, I feel!" Daron laughed— and watched their eyes.

The player shook his head and laughed. "Now by the Invisible Ones, I know we

shall. If you still put your faith in outworn gods, it is small surprise they

stripped you thus."

Daron relaxed, and nodded to himself. "We shall see."

"And," said the holder of the dice, passing them to Daron, "this is no field

for Nazun, for there's no wisdom in these bits of bone. If the old gods appeal

to you, why then Martal, I'd say, would be the one you'd swear by here."

"No wisdom in the dice—no, that may be. But wisdom may reside in fingers,

thus?" Daron spun out the three polished cubes, and saw them turn a five, a

five and a six. "What would you have me throw?"

"I'll take your stake," said the hawk-nosed player to Daron's right. "Better

this." His fingers caressed the dice,

spun them, and shot them forth. They settled for a total of twelve.

"With two dice, I'd match it, with three—" Daron's roll produced fourteen.

"But even so," as he picked up two silver coins, "we need some further crops.

A bed and board I have, but Tordu is farther than a seaman walks. A horse, I

think—Will some one match me more?"

A sword filled the scabbard at his thigh, and a good dirk was thrust in his

belt, a horse was his, and money for a day or two when he sought his bed that

night. He whistled a bit of a tune as he laid aside his things, dropped the

thick oak bar across the door, and settled for sleep. "I'll say this for this

land," he muttered, "very practical gods they have. Unique in my experience.

They do a man very material good turns. Wisdom, it is, eh? I thought as much—"

The sun was bright, the air warm, but not uncomfortable, and the horse better

even than the lamp's weak light had suggested in the night, when Daron started

off. The cart road had broadened to a highway, and this to one well-traveled

within a pair of hours. The scrub bush and sheep-dotted meadows gave way to

farmlands bordered with fences growing neatly from the ground, well-barbed

fences of some cactus bush for which the sheep, showed sound respect.

There was little timber here, but under the clear sun, the meadowlands and

farms stretched off into pleasantly blue-hazed distance, where the banking of

the haze seemed to indicate a mountain range stretching off from east to west.

The road led south, but like most farmland roads, seemed unconcerned with

haste and directness. It visited from door to door and rolled aside when some

small swale of land suggested climbing hills. The horse was sound and strong,

seeming to have a nature as blithe

as Daron's own, with little mind to bother a fair day about a change in

masters.

Toward noon, the rising ground began to show some signs of timber, and the

stone-walled farm cottages began to trail attendants in wooden walls, and

sheep appeared again more frequently. The haze rolled up by the rising sun

still banked to the south, but the shining gleam above it indicated that the

haze had retreated to solid mountain fastnesses, with a snow-crowned peak

above.

The sun was warmer now, and where a small stream trickled through a woodpatch,

Daron dismounted, tethered his mount to a bush near the stream, and spread his

food. He ate, and leaned back in easy contemplation and thought. The wandering

breeze brought some faint hint to him of a visitor, and his swift thoughts

placed his line of action before the odor was more than identifiable to him.

He looked up with a smile as the footsteps of the newcomer crunched on the

twigs nearby.

He saw a wind-blown, sun-tanned man, rather stocky and heavily muscled, with

eyes squinting permanently from the glare of the sun on water. A sailor's cap

perched solidly on his round, dark-haired head. A black stubble of beard

showed on his heavy jowls and on his thick, muscular arms, and an impudent

tuft thrust out from each ear.

"My friend," said Daron, "you're a way from the sea, which, by your gait,

would be more homelike to you."

The stocky one seated himself with a grunt. "Aye, and the same to you. Those

linens were never stained in a brook, and, unless you ride yon horse lying on

your back, it's not the sweat of your beast.

"Bound for Tordu?"

"One I met last night named such a city. I am not familiar with this country—a

remarkable land I find it— and it seemed the part of wisdom to seek the center

of the

place. And, by the bye, men call me Daron."

"Talun," grunted the stocky one, seemingly annoyed. "Tordu's a foul place for

an honest seaman, though seamen of that ilk seem fewer with every season. The

whole race of Azuni have grown soft and stupid, and the stupidest have

gathered in Tordu to admire their overweening stupidity. They have no sense or

judgment, and they shun the sea like the plague. Time was when the Bay of Tor

was a harbor." Tahun snorted disgustedly. "They've got it cluttered so with

fancy barges now no merchant ship can enter, and they've set a temple to those

precious Invisible Ones of theirs across the mouth of the bay—they call it

Temple Isle now; it used to be the finest shipyard in Azun —and their slinking

Invisible Ones hang over the bay mouth till the good clean sea stays out in

disgust."

"Invisible Ones? Hm-m-m. I'm somewhat unacquainted here, though I've heard a

dozen times of these Invisible Ones—not including several references to them,

both prayerful and annoyed last night, from certain gentlemen of the

countryside I gamed with—but little explanation of them. Gods, are they?"

"Gods?" Talun snorted angrily. "They pray to them as to gods, and say they are

not gods. The people of Tordu are fools and crazed ones at that. 'No gods,'

they say. They scorn the old gods of their fathers, for say they, the old gods

are foolishness—made in the image of men, and hence no more than projected men

and the power of men's minds. The true god-being, these wise thinkers say, is

certainly no man, a thing of force in form mere mortal mind cannot conceive.

So they build themselves these Invisible Ones, and give them power, and curse

the old gods.

"They're fools, and have no wisdom, and admire each other's mighty thoughts."

"The wise thinkers, eh?" mused Daron. "We have such

thinkers in my land, and we have certain other thinkers who have one certain

trait that sets them off—a remarkable thing. They think long, study much, and

confess to those who ask that they learn steadily that they know little. Some

think that a crabwise way to knowledge—but I am prejudiced; I learned from

such a man."

Talun stirred uneasily, and his squinted eyes turned upward to the clear blue

bowl of the sky. The blistering sun was burning down from it to his face, but

as he stared upward a fleecy cloud formed, rolled, expanded and hid the sun.

Talun settled back comfortably.

"Learning never appealed much to me. One of my friends—but not to me. The

wisdom of the fools appeals not so strongly to the countrymen, nor to the

sailors, and on that alone these Invisible Ones would gain no strength, for

these thinkers are few, if noisy with their thoughts.

"But another thing has influenced them," continued Talun. "The gods, these

deep thinkers say, should know the future—else what's the use of consulting

gods? Now the old gods did not know—or did not explain, at least."

Daron sat more upright, looked harder at this stocky, hairy figure, the very

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THEELDERGODSILORDNAZUN,chiefoftheElderGods,lookeddownatthecityofTordu,andsighedsoftly.Besidehim,Taltmsnortedangrily,apleasantdiluteodorofdryingkelpandsaltseaeddyingabouthiminthesoftbreeze.LadyTammarchuckledandspokesoftly."Itoppressesyoumorethanusualtonight,Talun?""It'ssurewe'llgainnothinginthisway.N...

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Campbell, John W Jr - The Elder Gods

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