The Elder Gods (The Dreamers 1)

Night was settling over Mother Sea when Zelana saw something rather peculiar far below. There seemed to be a small fire floating on the surface of the water. Fire and water do not mix well, and, overcome with curiosity, Zelana descended to investigate.

She drifted down through the twilight air, and as she came closer to the face of Mother Sea, she saw something very unusual. At first she thought it might be a floating house, but then she realized that it was probably an exceptionally large version of the canoes the people of her Domain used when they went out on the water to hunt fish. The fire she had seen appeared to be burning in a small glass box near the back of the oversized canoe.

She settled quietly onto the water and tiptoed closer. The floating object was obviously more advanced than anything the people of Dhrall could build, but it had probably been constructed for the same reason that the people of Dhrall made canoes. The outlanders were most likely fishermen.

The oversized canoe Zelana had found was very large—long and narrow—and the outlanders had even built low-roofed houses on it to shelter them when the weather went bad. For some reason, they’d seen fit to put a large tree trunk in the center. As Zelana approached it, she noticed that there was a distinctly unpleasant odor hanging over it.

Then a couple of man-creatures with hairy faces came out of a low, flat-roofed structure near the back of the alien canoe. They were both very tall and muscular, and their clothing was an odd mix of cloth and leather. They also had what appeared to be weapons of some sort belted to their waists, and that aroused Zelana’s immediate attention. If these man-things were merely fishermen, they wouldn’t really need to carry weapons all the time. That strongly suggested that these two weren’t out here on the face of Mother Sea looking for fish. Zelana stepped back out of the light and opened her mind to what she was hearing in order to make the speech of the outlanders understandable.

“Looks to be a fair night, Cap’n,” one of the creatures was saying.

“Aye,” the other rumbled in a harsh voice, “and it’s none too soon to suit me. I’ve had me a belly-full of foul weather here lately.”

Zelana was satisfied that she could understand these outlanders, and a bit surprised to discover that Veltan’s theory actually worked the way he’d said it would. Veltan’s experiments seldom turned out exactly the way he wanted them to.

“You’d better get a lookout aloft, Ox,” the one called Cap’n suggested. “Now that the weather’s settled down, other ships might be under way hereabouts. We’re not sailing the Seagull out here for entertainment, you know.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” the huge one called Ox replied. “The Trogite vessels usually hug the coast, but the storm might have swept a few of them out here to deeper water. If our luck’s running good, we might be able to harvest a fair amount of Trogite gold while they’re still floundering around out of sight of land.”

“You’re starting to think like a real Maag, Ox,” Cap’n said with an evil grin. “The notion of picking Trogite vessels like apples off a tree lights a warm little fire in my belly. Come morning, put the crew to work patching the sails and clearing away the wreckage that storm made out of most of the rigging. It well-nigh drove us under a few times.”

Zelana sat cross-legged on the surface of Mother Sea considering some interesting possibilities. The two outlanders, Ox and Cap’n, had referred to their canoe as a “ship,” and there were obviously other ships in the vicinity as well. It was fairly clear that these man-creatures who called themselves “Maags” were not out on the face of Mother Sea in search of fish. Evidently they searched for the ships of other outlanders in order to take gold from them. Dahlaine’s assessment of the outlanders had been correct. They were very interested in gold, though Zelana could not quite understand why. The Seagull, it seemed, might just be too good an opportunity to pass by. Now that Zelana could understand the speech of the outlanders, and if things went as the one called Cap’n seemed to hope they would, Zelana would be able to observe the outlanders who called themselves Maags in action. Should they prove to be suitable, their ship would make things very easy. A word or two with Mother Sea could produce a current which would sweep the Seagull to the west coast of the Land of Dhrall almost as fast as the wind could carry a mote of dust.

The more she thought about it, the more Zelana came to believe that these Maags might very well be exactly what she was seeking. She would need to watch and listen, though, and that suggested that she’d probably need to be somewhere inside the floating house called Seagull. That wouldn’t be a problem of any magnitude. There were ways she could make herself inconspicuous while she watched and listened. Then, if these Maags proved to be suitable . . .

THE SEAFARERS

1

Though he would deny it with his dying breath, if the truth were to be known, it was sheer coincidence that led to the discovery of the Land of Dhrall by Captain Sorgan Hook-Beak and the crew of his ship, the Seagull.

As all the world knows, Sorgan Hook-Beak of the Land of Maag is the greatest sea captain of all time. No man yet born can match him in the prediction of wind, weather, tides, or the probable value of the cargo of any ship unlucky enough to encounter the Seagull on the high seas.

The men of the Land of Maag are bigger than the men of lands farther to the south, and they took to the sea early in their history. The mountains of Maag march down to the sea, and their slopes seem almost to point seaward, mutely saying, “Go there.” Mountains are fine for hunting, but not too good for farming, so the men of Maag farmed the sea instead, and her crops were bountiful. Fishhooks are much easier to hammer out of iron than plows are, and fishnets harvest bigger crops than scythes do. Then too, the men who harvest the sea aren’t obliged to spend all those tedious months waiting for their crops to grow. The crops of the sea are always there, and they can be harvested in any season.

The people of the Land of Maag developed a quaint custom early in their history. They frequently used descriptions rather than names. Thus there could be several “Big-Foots” or “Buck-Teeth” in a Maag village, along with assorted “Slim-Wits,” “Fats,” and “Pigeon-Toes.” More conventional names came along later, after the Maags had made contact with the more refined peoples to the south. Sorgan Hook-Beak was sort of proud of his name, since it suggested that others considered him to be an eagle, that noblest of all birds.