David Eddings - The Dreamers 04 - The Younger Gods

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The Younger Gods
The Dreamers Book 4
By
David and Leigh Eddings
Contents
Preface
MOUNT SHRAK
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE JOURNEY
Chapter One
Chapter Two
THE TEMPLE OF ARACIA
Chapter One
Chapter Two
UP FROM THE BEACH
Chapter One
Chapter Two
ALARMING NEWS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE HORSE SOLDIERS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE VIOLATION OF THE TEMPLE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
THE GIFTED STUDENT
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE COMMANDER
Chapter One
Chapter Two
CONFUSION
Chapter One
Chapter Two
THE TRIBE OF OLD-BEAR
Chapter One
Chapter Two
A REPORT FROM THE NORTH
Chapter One
THE PLEA OF ALCEVAN
Chapter One
THE DREAM OF OMAGO
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE VISITOR
Chapter One
BE NO MORE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
THE DECLINE OF THE TEMPLE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE BLIZZARD
Chapter One
Chapter Two
THE ALTERNATE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
THE VISIT OF SORGAN HOOK-BEAK
Chapter One
THE NEST
Chapter One
THE LAST GENERATION
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
EPILOGUE - IN THE LAND OF DREAMS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
By David and Leigh Eddings
THE DREAMERS
Book One: The Elder Gods
Book Two: The Treasured One
Book Three: Crystal Gorge
THE BELGARIAD
Book One: Pawn of Prophecy
Book Two: Queen of Sorcery
Book Three: Magician's Gambit
Book Four: Castle of Wizardry
Book Five: Enchanters' End Game
THE MALLOREON
Book One: Guardian of the West
Book Two: King of the Murgos
Book Three: Demon Lord of Karanda
Book Four: Sorceress of Darshiva
Book Five: The Seeress of Kell
BELGARATH THE SORCERER
POLGARA THE SORCERESS
THE RIVAN CODEX
THE ELENIUM
Book One: The Diamond Throne
Book Two: The Ruby Knight
Book Three: The Sapphire Rose
THE TAMULI
Book One: Domes of Fire
Book Two: The Shining Ones
Book Three: The Hidden City
THE REDEMPTION OF ALTHALUS
HIGH HUNT
THE LOSERS
REGINA'S SONG
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors'
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by David and Leigh Eddings
All rights reserved.
Aspect
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group USA
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.
The Aspect name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: August 2006
Warner Books and the "W" logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. or an affiliated company. Used
under license by Hachette Book Group, which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.
LCCN: 2006924819
ISBN-13: 978-0-446-53228-0
ISBN-10: 0-446-53228-2
Preface
Those of us who devote our lives to the care of Mother were greatly concerned by her rage after the
disaster of "blue fire" which had consumed so many of her warrior children. It is the duty of the warrior
children to die if it is necessary to achieve that which Mother wants, but deaths beyond counting reduce
our numbers and weaken the overmind which guides us all. And, truly, the weakening of the overmind
lessens all of us who live but to serve our beloved Mother.
We are told by those who came before us that Mother had been content in the nest which shelters us all
until—in times long past—the weather changed and in each season there was less to eat than there had
been in previous seasons. It had been then that Mother had sent forth those servants we call "the seekers
of knowledge," and in time they returned and told Mother that beyond the high hills that surround our
homeland there was much to eat. And this warmed Mother's heart. It came to her that should those who
search for things to eat go beyond the high hills and bring back much to eat, she could spawn yet more
children—and then even more—and soon our numbers would be so great that no other mothers would
dare to send their children out to fight with us for things-to-eat, since we would destroy their children
and soon they would be alone in their nests screaming in despair.
And so it was that Mother began to alter the children which would go forth from the nest to search for
things-to-eat in the lands beyond the high hills. And many were her alterations, for the man-things that
dwelt in the lands beyond the high hills were very clever and they used weapons that were not parts of
their bodies.
And this gave Mother great concern, for it is most unnatural for any creature to take up things that are
not parts of their bodies to use as weapons. Then it came to Mother that if the man-things could do this,
could not her children do so as well? She sent forth more of the seekers of knowledge to find creatures
who had unusual parts of their bodies that gave them advantages in the search for things-to-eat.
And the seekers of knowledge returned in time with much that Mother might find useful. There were
creatures without legs that had long, sharp teeth that could instantly kill anything the creature without legs
saw as something-to-eat. There were other creatures who had eight legs rather than six who could turn
the insides of things-to-eat into liquid that the eight-legged creature could conveniently drink. There were
creatures with hard shells that covered and protected their bodies, and there were still other creatures
with hard, sharp mouth-parts that could cut pieces off the thing that was being eaten.
The more dear Mother considered it, the more she thought that the teeth of the creature that had no legs
might be the most effective.
Then, in seasons beyond counting, Mother put generation after generation to work on the high hills that
stood between our nest and the land of the sunset. There were burrows that would safely take Mother's
children beyond the peaks of the high hills, and there were many flat stones piled on the slope of the high
hill that appeared to have once been nests of the man-things, and it seemed that the empty nests might be
useful to deceive the man-things.
In time, all was complete, and Mother waited as the elder divinities grew older and less responsive. Then,
in the springtime of this present year, all was ready, and Mother commanded the children to attack the
man-things clustered near the top of that particular high hill.
And great was the consternation of the man-things when the servants of our mother crossed the empty
ground to attack the pile of rocks the man-things had gathered at the top of that high hill. But the
man-things knew not that most of the servants of dear Mother were creeping through burrows that went
beneath that high hill to come out in various rock-piles lying on the sunset side of the high hills.
And Mother rejoiced, for victory was now in her grasp.
But it was not to be, for disaster came down on the servants in the burrows. Two of the high hills did
most suddenly burst into flame, hurling liquid fire high into the spring sky. It was not the liquid fire in the
sky that brought grief to Mother, however. It was the liquid fire that ran down through the burrows that
made the servants of dear Mother vanish as if they had never been.
And when word of this reached Mother, she shrieked in agony, and all who lived but to serve her
shrieked as well, for our overmind was made less by this disaster.
Now, the seekers of knowledge had spent much time over generations in the lands of the man-things, and
they had come to learn the way by which the man-things used noises to communicate with each other.
And many of the seekers of knowledge had learned how to make the noises the man-things called
"speech." And so it was that when our beloved Mother decided that we should go down into the land of
longer summers where there was much to eat, the seekers went up the slope of the high hills to gather
information about the man-things of that region.
And while the seekers worked on this task, beloved Mother brought forth many new forms for the
warrior children. The new forms were well-designed to overcome the many advantages the man-things
appeared to have had in the land of the sunset.
And when the seekers returned, they were sorely discontented, for the man-things had told them many
things that were not true. In truth it would appear that the man-things said more things that were not true
than were truly true. The seekers had discovered one thing that they felt to be most important, however.
Although that which ruled the land of longer summers was called Veltan, there was another man-thing
called Omago, who had far, far more power than did the one called Veltan. The Omago thing was not
yet fully aware of this power, and it had never used it. There was yet another man-thing called Ara,
however, who shared this knowledge with the Omago thing, but it never spoke with the Omago thing
about that power.
As the new hatch of the warrior servants matured, beloved Mother sent them toward the land of longer
summers, and we all believed that 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 would hardly be enough new care-givers to see to her needs, and seasons
uncountable would pass before she could spawn more. We tried as best we could to bring this to her
attention, but she paid little heed and commanded us to carry her straightaway to the spawning chamber.
And, since it is required, we did as she commanded.
Should disaster come again, however, the children of future spawns will be so limited that as the seasons
plod on by, the nest of our beloved Mother will have few—if any—care-givers to see to her needs, and
in time, it may be that she will dwell here alone.
MOUNT
SHRAK
Chapter One
It was well past midnight, and Zelana was standing alone on the balcony of what big brother Dahlaine
called his "War Chamber." It seemed to Zelana that those fancy names had always been one of
Dahlaine's failings. For some reason he seemed to feel a need to give almost everything some kind of
stupendous title. If he'd spend as much time solving a problem as he usually spent coming up with a
name for it, things might go a bit smoother for him.
Right now, however, Zelana was trying to swallow some very peculiar events. It seemed that they had a
mysterious helper who could pull miracles out of her hat—or sleeve—without any kind of warning at all.
Down in baby brother Veltan's Domain, Longbow had been plagued with a series of very peculiar
dreams which were being rammed into his mind by an entity he always called "our unknown friend,"
despite the fact that he'd told Zelana and the others that he recognized the voice—but he couldn't quite
attach a name to the speaker. Zelana knew that Longbow's mind was too sharp to start getting fuzzy
about something that important, so it was quite obvious that "unknown friend" had been tampering with
him in ways Zelana could not even begin to comprehend.
There was one thing that was abundantly clear, however. Not only could "unknown friend" erase
memories, she could also break—or just ignore—some very important rules. Zelana and her family were
not permitted to kill things. "Unknown friend," however, had manipulated the members of the Trogite
Church with her "sea of gold" and lured them into a confrontation with the Creatures of the Wasteland.
Then, when the two enemy forces were locked in what would almost certainly have turned out to be a
摘要：

 Color---1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9-TextSize--10--11--12--13--14--15--16--17--18--19--20--21--22--23--24TheYoungerGodsTheDreamersBook4ByDavidandLeighEddingsContentsPrefaceMOUNTSHRAKChapterOneChapterTwoChapterThreeTHEJOURNEYChapterOneChapterTwoTHETEMPLEOFARACIAChapterOneChapterTwoUPFROMTHEBEACHChapter...

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