David Eddings - The Dreamers 03 - Crystal Gorge

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Crystal Gorge
PREFACE
And now were we confounded, for even as had happened in the land of the sunset, our migration into
the land of longer summers had met with disaster. The man-things of that region had proved to be even
more cruel than those we had encountered in the land of the sunset, and our dear Vlagh shrieked in
agony as we swiftly bore her away from the broad water which grew larger and larger with each passing
of that which brings light to her realm.
For behold, the man-things of the land of longer summers brought forth water, even as the man-things of
the land of the sunset had brought forth the hot light which had spewed up from the mountains, and the
loss of the servants of our beloved Vlagh had been even greater than our loss in the land of the sunset.
And the overmind of which we are all a part shriveled because of this loss, for we were all made less.
And great was our grief by reason of this.
Now those of us which seek knowledge are much different from those whose sole task is caring for the
mother which spawned us all, for we have gone forth into the lands of the man-things and have seen
much that may prove useful. Those which care for mother move only by instinct, while we who seek
knowledge have gone beyond instinct, and now we have reached the land of thought.
Much have we discovered in the land of thought, and we faithfully presented this to the mother which
spawned us all, and the overmind shared what we told to mother.
At first the overmind which guides us all was much confused by what we had found. Horrified was the
overmind to discover from what we told it that the man-things can perform tasks even when they are not
under the control of any thought other than their own. More horrid still was the knowledge that those
man-things which had defeated us again and again were potential breeders, rather than potential egg-
layers such as we are. Truly, the man-things are an abomination which should no longer be permitted to
exist, for, as all the world knows, breeders should have no task other than the mating with those which
lay the eggs which expand the number of the servants of the she which has spawned them all.
There is yet still another peculiarity among the man-things. They make noises by which they give others
of their kind information. Some of those who seek knowledge have duplicated those noises, but they
soon discovered that the man-things will often make noises which are not true. And it came to us that if
the man-things have no way to know which noises are true and which are not-true, we could make the
not-true noises also, and thereby could we conceal truth from the man-things, and this could give us
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great advantage.
As we have learned, much to the sorrow of the overmind, the man-things have many sticks with teeth
with which they can cause hurt - and even death - to the servants of the Vlagh, but these sticks with teeth
are not parts of their own bodies, but are separate and may easily be carried away by those of us which
serve our dear Vlagh, and the overmind in its wisdom advised us to gather up those sticks with teeth
which had been carried by man-things which had died during our struggles with them.
But then it came to the overmind that we still lacked the most powerful of the things which kill us, and
that is the thing which flickers and lays clouds close to the ground or far up into the sky. And as the
overmind came to understand that the thing which flickers and puts out light and clouds which lie near
the ground or rise up into the sky, we all came to know of it as well, and we knew full well that the thing
which flickers and puts out light might be the best of the things which kill, for if we could we have that
thing which kills, we could kill the man-things from far off, and thus it would be that the sticks with
teeth of the man-things could not reach us.
But though we sought far and wide, we found none of that which flickers and puts out light, and so we
were confounded.
But then it came to the overmind that we should search not for the flickers or the light, but rather for the
clouds which lie close to the ground or rise up into the sky, for these clouds are a sure sign that the thing
which flickers and puts out light must lie at the source of those clouds.
And many were the clouds we sought rising from the nesting places of the man things, but we dared not
to enter those nesting places, for the man-things which live in those nesting places have many of the
sticks with teeth and should they see us near their nesting places, they will surely take up their sticks
with teeth and kill us one and all.
But then it came to those of us which had sought knowledge of the man-things in the land of longer
summers that the man-things had often used a certain kind of low tree to drive us away from their things-
to-eat, for the low-to-the ground clouds which come from that particular low tree make it hard for us to
breathe, and over the passage of many periods of light and darkness, many of our kind have died when
they could no longer breathe.
And so it was that many of the seekers of knowledge circled around the new body of water which had
brought death to many of the servants of our Vlagh to seek out a low-tree which was still putting forth
the clouds which make it difficult to breathe. And after much searching, they saw a thin, dark cloud
rising from a single low-tree. Then they carefully burrowed through the ground around that low-tree to
loosen the limbs it had put down into the ground to hold it in place, and when the low-tree could no
longer cling to the ground, they brought it back from the land of longer summers. And now we had that
which flickers and puts out light - but only one of them.
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Then it came to the overmind that we should have many of the flickers which put out light. And so we
closely examined that single low-tree and returned once more to the land of longer summers to gather
more of those low-trees, and we carried them back to the place where our single low-tree was flickering
and putting out light and a thick cloud as dark as that part of the day when the light in the sky has gone
away. And then we laid many of the low-trees we had found upon the single low-tree that flickered and
put out light, and behold! Where we had before had only one, we now had many.
And then there came a time of confusion for the overmind. The land of the sunset and the land of longer
summers were now beyond our reach by reason of the red liquid spouting from the mountains in the land
of the sunset and the water rushing down the slope in the land of longer summers. There still remained
two lands where we might go - the land of the sunrise and the land of shorter summers. Now the land of
the sunrise was much closer for us, but it was also closer for the man-things that had killed so many of
the servants of our dear Vlagh. The land of shorter summers was far away from where we were now, but
it would also be far away for the man-things.
Many of the seekers of knowledge said ‘sunrise!’ and many others said ‘shorter summers!’ And the
overmind could not decide between them.
And then it was that the seekers of knowledge took up the sticks with teeth for the first time, and the
seekers who said ‘sunrise’ killed those who said ‘shorter summers’ while the ones who said ‘shorter
summers’ killed those who said ‘sunrise’. And so it was that the servants of the Vlagh grew even fewer,
and our dear Vlagh cried out in agony as her children killed each other, for this had never happened
before.
We will never know what it was that moved our dear Vlagh to make the decision, but she pointed in the
direction of the land of shorter summers and said, ‘Go there!’
And then the killing stopped and we took up our cause-hurt-things and we all turned and went on toward
the land of shorter summers, carrying our many low-trees that flickered and put forth light and left many
dark clouds lying behind us as we went.
The Reluctant Chieftain
1
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It was summer in the lands of the west, and the young boy with red hair woke up even before the sun
had risen above the mountains to the east of the village of Lattash and decided that it might be a good
day to go fishing in the small river that flowed down from the mountains. There were quite a few things
that he was supposed to do that day, but the river seemed to be calling him, and it wouldn’t be polite at
all to ignore her - particularly when the fish were jumping.
He quietly dressed himself in his soft deerskin clothes, took up his fishing-line, and went out of his
parents’ lodge to greet the new summer day. Summer was the finest time of the year for the boy, for
there was food in plenty and no snow piled high on the lodges and no bitterly cold wind sweeping in
from the bay.
He climbed up over the berm that lay between the village and the river and then went on upstream for
quite a ways. The fishing was usually better above the village anyway, and he was sure that it wouldn’t
be a very good idea to be right out in plain sight when his father came looking for him to remind him
that he was neglecting his chores.
The fish were biting enthusiastically that morning, and the boy had caught several dozen of them even
before the sun rose up above the mountains.
It was about midmorning when his tall uncle, the eldest son of the tribal chief, came up along the
graveled riverbank. Like all the members of the tribe, his uncle wore clothes made of golden deerskin,
and his soft shoes made little sound as he joined his young nephew. ‘Your father wants to see you, boy,’
he said in his quiet voice. ‘You did know that he has quite a few things he wants you to do today, didn’t
you?’
‘I woke up sort of early this morning, uncle,’ the boy explained. ‘I didn’t think it would be polite to
wake anybody, so I came on up here to see if I could catch enough fish for supper this evening.’
‘Are the fish biting at all?’
‘They seem to be very hungry today, uncle,’ the boy replied, pointing toward the many fish he’d laid in
the grass near the riverbank.
His uncle seemed quite surprised by the boy’s morning catch. ‘You’ve caught that many already?’ he
asked.
‘They’re biting like crazy this morning, uncle. I have to go hide behind a tree when I want to bait my
bone hook to keep them from jumping up out of the water to grab the bait right out of my fingers.’
‘Well, now,’ his uncle said enthusiastically. ‘Why don’t you keep fishing, boy? I’ll go tell your father
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that you’re too busy for chores right now. A day when the fish are biting like this only comes along once
or twice a year, so I think maybe our chief might want all the men of the tribe to put everything else
aside and join you here on the riverbank.’ He paused and squinted at his nephew. ‘Just exactly what was
it that made you decide to come here and try fishing this morning.’
‘I’m not really sure, uncle. It just sort of seemed to me that the river was calling me.’
‘Any time she calls you, go see what she wants, boy. I think that maybe she loves you, so don’t ever
disappoint her.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, uncle,’ the boy replied, pulling in yet another fish.
And so it was that all of the men of the tribe came down to the river and joined the red-haired boy. The
fishing that day was the best many of them had ever seen, and they thanked the boy again and again.
The sun was very low over the western horizon as the boy carried the many fish he’d caught that day up
over the berm to the lodges of Lattash, and all of the women of the tribe came out to admire the boy’s
catch, and even Planter, who seldom smiled, was grinning broadly when he delivered his catch to her.
And then the boy went on down to the beach to watch the glorious sunset, and the light from the setting
sun seemed almost to lay a gleaming path across the water, a path that seemed somehow to invite the
boy to walk on out across the bay to the narrow channel that opened out onto the face of Mother Sea.
‘Are you still sleeping, Red-Beard?’ Longbow asked.
‘Not any more,’ Red-Beard told his friend sourly. He sat up and looked around his room in the House of
Veltan. It was a nice enough room, Red-Beard conceded, but stone walls were not nearly as nice as the
lodges of Lattash had been. ‘I was dreaming about the old days back in the village of Lattash, and I’d
just caught enough fish to feed the whole tribe. Everybody seemed to be very happy about that. Then I
went on down to the beach to watch the sunset, and I was about to stroll on across the bay to say hello to
Mother Sea, but then you had to come along and wake me up.’
‘Did you want to go back to sleep?’ Longbow asked him.
‘I guess not,’ Red-Beard replied. ‘If I happened to doze off now, the fish would probably start biting my
toes instead of the bait I’d been using. Have you ever noticed that, Longbow? If you’re having a nice
dream and you wake up before it’s finished, your next dream will be just awful. Is there something
going on that I should know about?’
‘There’s a little family squabble in Veltan’s map-room is about all. Aracia and Dahlaine have been
screaming at each other for about an hour now.’
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‘Maybe I will go back to sleep then,’ Red-Beard said. ‘You don’t need to tell anybody I said this, but the
older gods seem to be slipping more and more every day.’
‘You’ve noticed,’ Longbow said dryly.
‘Do you have to do that all the time?’ Red-Beard demanded, throwing off his blanket and struggling to
his feet.
‘Do what?’
‘Try to turn everything into a joke.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to poach in your territory. Shall we go?’
‘It’s fairly certain that the creatures of the Wasteland will come east now, Dahlaine,’ Aracia was saying
as Red-Beard and Longbow entered Veltan’s map-room. ‘After Yaltar’s volcano destroyed the ones in
Zelana’s Domain, they turned south to attack the nearest part of the Land of Dhrall, and east is closer to
south than north. They’ll attack me next. That should be obvious.’
‘You’re overlooking something, Aracia,’ Dahlaine disagreed. ‘The servants of the Vlagh are cramming
thousands - or even millions - of years of development into very short periods of time. If we assume that
they’re still thinking at the most primitive level, I think we’ll start getting some very nasty surprises. I’m
almost positive that their “overmind” has come to realize that the attack here in the south turned into a
disaster, and that would make “closer” very unattractive. I’m quite certain that their next attack will be
as far from here as possible.’
‘Aren’t we wandering just a bit?’ Zelana suggested. ‘We won’t know which way the bugs will move
until one of the Dreamers gives us that information. I’d say let’s wait. In the light of what happened in
my Domain and Veltan’s, we just don’t have enough information to lock anything in stone yet.’
‘Zelana’s right, you know,’ Veltan agreed. ‘We can’t be sure of anything until one of the children has
one of “those” dreams.’
‘May I make a suggestion?’ the silver-haired Trogite Narasan asked.
‘I’ll listen to anything right now,’ Dahlaine replied.
‘I’m unfamiliar with the lands of the north and the east, but wouldn’t it make sense to alert the local
population to the possibility of an incipient invasion? If the people of both regions know that there’s a
distinct possibility that the bug-men will attack, they’ll be able to make some preparations.’
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‘That makes sense, Aracia,’ Dahlaine conceded. ‘If what happened here and off to the west are any
indication of what’s likely to happen in your Domain or mine, the local population will probably play a
large part in giving us another victory.’
Aracia glared at her older brother, but she didn’t respond.
Longbow tapped Red-Beard’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t we go get a breath of fresh air,’ he quietly
suggested.
‘It is just a bit stuffy in here,’ Red-Beard agreed. ‘Lead on, friend Longbow.’
They went on out of the map-room and then some distance along the dimly lighted hallway.
‘Is it just my imagination or is Zelana’s older sister behaving a bit childishly?’ Longbow asked.
‘I don’t really know her all that well,’ Red-Beard said, ‘and I think I’d like to keep it that way. It seems
to me that she’s got an attitude problem.’
‘Or maybe even something worse. Remember what happened back in the ravine? Suddenly, for no
reason at all, Zelana jumped up, grabbed Eleria, and flew on back to her grotto on the Isle of Thurn.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Red-Beard said. ‘Sorgan almost had a fit when she ran off like that without giving him all that
gold she’d promised him. If I remember right, it finally took a bit of bullying by Eleria to bring her back
to her senses.’
‘I don’t know very much about Aracia,’ Longbow admitted, ‘but I’m starting to catch a strong odor of
irrationality in her vicinity. Her mind doesn’t seem to work any more.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Longbow,’ Red-Beard disagreed. ‘It might just be working very well.
From what I’ve heard, anybody in her Domain who doesn’t want to do honest work joins the priesthood
and spends all his time adoring her.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard too.’
‘Soldiering is one kind of honest work, isn’t it?’
‘Not as hard as farming is, maybe, but it’s still harder than adoring somebody.’
‘If that’s the way things are in her Domain, doesn’t that sort of suggest that she doesn’t have anything at
all like an army over there? Wouldn’t that explain why she wants all the soldiers Zelana and Veltan
hired to come on over to her territory to protect her if the bug-people decide to come her way?’
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‘Very good, Red-Beard,’ Longbow said. ‘Maybe she’s not quite as irrational as it might seem. If her
Domain is totally undefended, she’ll need just about everybody with a sword or a bow to come there to
protect her. It’s very selfish, of course, but I don’t think that would bother her. She seems to believe that
she’s the most important thing in the whole world, so from her way of looking at things, we’re all
obliged to rush to her defense.’
‘There’s not much that we can do about it right now, friend Longbow - except possibly to suggest to
Zelana that she’d better keep a close eye on her big sister.’
‘I’m sure that Zelana already knows about her sister’s peculiarities, but we might want to caution Sorgan
and Narasan about this.’
‘You’re probably right. Should we go on back and listen to the screaming? or would you rather go
fishing?’
The squabbling of Dahlaine and Aracia continued for another half hour or so, and then Ara, Omago’s
beautiful wife, joined them on the balcony of the map-room. ‘Supper’s ready,’ she announced.
‘That’s just about the best news I’ve heard all day,’ Sorgan Hook-Beak declared. ‘Let’s go eat before
everything gets cold.’
They all trooped on down the hallway to Veltan’s impromptu dining-room. That was one of the
characteristics of the elder gods that Red-Beard had never fully understood. There was a certain
practicality involved in their lack of a need for sleep. If some kind of emergency came up, a sleeping
god might not be able to deal with it, but Red-Beard couldn’t for the life of him see why they didn’t eat.
They didn’t need nourishment, of course, but there was more to eating food than just satisfying the
grumbling in the belly. Dinners in particular were generally something along the lines of a social event
that brought people closer together and smoothed over various disagreements. Red-Beard was almost
positive that the elaborate dining-room in Veltan’s house hadn’t even been there before the outlanders
had arrived, and he was fairly sure that the dining-room Veltan had added to his house had originally
been Ara’s idea. Omago’s wife was quite probably the best cook in the entire world, but she was wise
enough to know that getting people together and establishing friendships was even more important than
eating. There were several peculiarities about Ara that Red-Beard didn’t fully understand - yet.
He was still working on it, though.
Oddly, Veltan and Zelana were accompanying them to the dining-room. Since they didn’t need - or want
- food, they obviously had something else on their minds.
The conversation at the dinner table was fairly general, but after they’d all eaten - more than they really
needed, of course - Zelana and Veltan took Sorgan and Commander Narasan aside and spoke with them
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at some length.
Red-Beard nudged his friend Longbow after supper. ‘I could be wrong about this, I suppose, but I think
Zelana and Veltan might have come up with a way to make peace in their family, and it’s probably
going to involve Sorgan and Narasan.’
‘What a peculiar sort of idea,’ Longbow murmured.
‘You saw it too, didn’t you?’
‘It was just a bit obvious, friend Red-Beard. I think it might disappoint Holy Aracia a little, though.’
‘What a shame,’ Red-Beard said with a broad grin.
‘That’s a nasty sort of thing to say.’
‘So beat me.’
When they returned to the map-room, Sorgan Hook-Beak cleared his throat as a sort of indication that he
was about to make a speech. ‘Narasan and I talked this over, and I think we might have come up with a
way to deal with the problem that’s been nagging at us here lately,’ he announced. ‘Since we can’t be
certain sure exactly where the bug-people will strike next, we’ll have to cover both possibilities. Since
Lord Dahlaine’s territory is farther away than his sister’s is, Narasan and I pretty much agreed that I
should cover that part of the Land of Dhrall - not because my men are better warriors, but because our
ships move faster than Narasan’s can. Of course, that’s why we built them that way. Chasing down
Trogite ships and robbing them is the main business in the Land of Maag, but we can talk about that
some other time. Since my people will cover the north, Narasan’s will cover the east.’ He gestured down
toward Veltan’s “lumpy map”. ‘If that map’s anywhere at all close to being accurate, it’ll only take
Narasan’s fleet a few days to reach Lady Aracia’s territory, and he can protect that region. That means
that we’ll have people in place to hold the bug-people back in either the east or the north, and our
employers can zip from here to there in no time at all. If the attack strikes the east, I’ll sail on down
around the south end and join up with Narasan in just a couple of weeks. But, if the bug-people come
north, my people will be able to hold them back until Narasan arrives to help me. When we add the
horse soldiers in the north and the women warriors in the east, we’ll have enough people to bring any
bug invasion to a stop. Then, when the rest of our friends arrive, we’ll be able to stomp all over the
invaders and win the third war here in the Land of Dhrall.’
‘It’ll be something on the order of the way we handled things before the war in Lady Zelana’s Domain,’
Narasan added. ‘There’ll be enough of our people in either region to hold off the invasion until our
friends can join us. Then we’ll move directly on to stomp-stomp.’
‘What a clever way to put it, Narasan,’ Sorgan observed.
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‘I’ve always had this way with words,’ Narasan replied modestly.
‘I don’t want to intrude here,’ the scar-faced Ekial said, ‘but how are we going to get my people - and
their horses - up to Lord Dahlaine’s territory? Horses can run fast, but probably not quite fast enough to
gallop across the top of the sea.’
‘I think I know how we can do that,’ Narasan said. ‘Gunda’s got that little fishing yawl that almost
knows how to fly. He can take you on down to Castano and hire ships. Then the two of you can sail on
over to Malavi and pick up your men and horses. Then you’ll go north to Lord Dahlaine’s territory.’
‘I think that maybe I should go with them, Commander,’ Veltan added. ‘When you hire Trogite ships,
you need gold, and I know of a few ways to keep that much gold from sinking Gunda’s yawl.’
‘I think we’ve pretty much solved all the problems now,’ Narasan said, looking around at the others.
‘When do you think we should start?’
‘Have you got anything on the fire for tomorrow?’ Sorgan asked him.
‘Not that I can think of,’ Narasan replied.
‘Tomorrow it is, then,’ Sorgan announced.
Red-Beard had been watching Zelana’s sister rather closely as Sorgan and Narasan smoothly cut the
ground out from under her. It was quite clear that she wanted to protest, but the two clever outlanders
hadn’t left her much to complain about. She obviously still wanted all of the outlanders to go east to
protect her Domain, but Sorgan and Narasan - at Zelana’s and Veltan’s suggestion, evidently - had
dismissed any protest she could raise.
‘I don’t know if you’ve been watching, friend Red-Beard,’ Longbow said quietly, ‘but doesn’t it seem to
you that the warrior queen called Trenicia is staying very close to Commander Narasan, and she appears
to be very impressed by him.’
‘Do you think it’s possible that she’s having those kind of thoughts about dear old Narasan?’ Red-Beard
asked.
‘I couldn’t say for sure,’ Longbow replied, ‘but that would be a very interesting sort of thing to crop up
along about now, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Not as long as my head was on straight, I wouldn’t.’
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摘要：

CrystalGorgePREFACEAndnowwereweconfounded,forevenashadhappenedinthelandofthesunset,ourmigrationintothelandoflongersummershadmetwithdisaster.Theman-thingsofthat egionhadprovedtobeevenmorecruelthanthosewehadencounteredinthelandofthesunset,andourdearVlaghshriekedinagonyasweswiftlyboreherawayfromtheb...

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