Читать книгу The Younger Gods - David Eddings - Страница 8

Z elana was certain that it was just after sunrise when the commanders of the outlander forces, led by the bleak-faced Longbow, came through the door and out onto the balcony that encircled Dahlaine’s map room.

‘The map seems to have changed a bit,’ Longbow said, looking down at the map Dahlaine had put in place after Balacenia and the strange, mist-covered figure of ‘Mother’ had left.

Dahlaine shrugged. ‘We’ve finished here in my part of the Land of Dhrall,’ he explained, ‘so I laid out a “lumpy map” of sister Aracia’s Domain. Ordinarily, we’d have relied on Aracia for a map, but her view of her Domain is just a bit vague, since she almost never leaves her temple.’

‘Being worshiped would probably take quite a bit of time,’ Sorgan Hook-Beak said, peering down at the well-illuminated map. ‘Just exactly where is this “temple-town” that’s got everybody so worked up?’

Dahlaine reached out with his hand, and a bright beam of light came from his forefinger and illuminated a spot on the representation of the east coast.

‘That’s a useful idea there, Lord Dahlaine,’ Sorgan said, ‘particularly when we’re all standing ten feet or so above the map.’

‘It does seem to work fairly well,’ Dahlaine replied modestly.

‘And where’s this “Long-Pass” that everybody keeps on talking about?’

Dahlaine’s glowing little spot of light moved along the eastern edge of the map to a sizeable replica of a bay with a fairly wide river running down to it.

‘Then the river’s not in any way connected to your sister’s temple-town?’ Sorgan asked.

Dahlaine shook his head. ‘The east coast of the Land of Dhrall gets some savage floods almost every year,’ he explained. ‘Aracia didn’t want her temple destroyed that often, so she had her servants build it farther south where there aren’t any major rivers coming down out of the mountains. The ground’s sort of marshy, but Aracia’s workers laid in a substantial base before they started construction.’

‘How long ago was it when they built the temple?’ Keselo asked.

‘Eight – maybe ten – centuries ago, wouldn’t you say, Zelana?’ Dahlaine asked.

‘You couldn’t prove that by me, brother mine,’ Zelana replied. ‘I was living in my grotto on the Isle of Thurn then.’

‘Do all those priests who worship your sister plant crops of any kind near the temple?’ Sorgan asked.

Dahlaine shook his head. ‘The farmers of Aracia’s Domain deliver large amounts of food to keep most of our sister’s priests quite fat, at least.’

‘Fat seems to show up quite often in the world of priests,’ Longbow observed.

‘Professional hazard, wouldn’t you say, big brother?’ Zelana suggested. ‘Priests spend much of their time stuffing food into their mouths.’

‘And that makes them so fat that their hearts wear out and they fall over dead,’ Dahlaine added.

‘Now there’s an idea,’ Rabbit said. ‘If we just happened to pile twenty or thirty tons of food on the steps of sister Aracia’s temple, her priests would eat themselves to death inside a week.’

‘I like that notion, brother,’ Zelana said. ‘We wouldn’t violate our limitations by providing food for dear Aracia’s priests, would we? And if they ate too much and fell over dead, it wouldn’t be our fault, would it?’

Dahlaine squinted at the ceiling. ‘You might want to take that up with Mother, Zelana. If we feed Aracia’s priests too much and they die as a result, wouldn’t that almost be the same as poisoning them?’

‘Spoilsport,’ Zelana grumbled. ‘Can you imagine how much screaming would come from Aracia’s temple if she woke up one morning to discover that all of her priests had died during the night?’

‘We’ll keep the idea in reserve, dear sister,’ Dahlaine said. ‘Let’s push on, though.’ He looked at Narasan. ‘Who would you say is the head of sister Aracia’s priesthood?’

‘They call him Takal Bersla,’ Narasan replied, ‘and he’s almost as fat as Adnari Estarg of the Amarite Church was – before that overgrown spider had him for lunch. Bersla has made a career out of oration. He spends hours every day telling your sister how holy she is, and Aracia’s almost paralyzed by Bersla’s overdone speeches. Padan kept track one day not long after we’d arrived at Aracia’s temple, and Bersla talked to your sister for six straight hours. Then he ate lunch – a lunch that would have overstuffed four or five normal people – and then he stood up and orated for another five or six hours. The man’s a talking machine, but your sister can’t seem to get enough of all that tedious adoration.’

‘It sounds to me like she’s getting even worse, Dahlaine,’ Zelana observed. ‘She drinks in adoration in almost the same way that a drunkard pours beer into his mouth.’

‘It’s not a good sign, Lord Dahlaine,’ Sorgan said. ‘If her mind has slipped that far, getting her attention might be a little difficult.’

‘Not necessarily, cousin,’ Torl disagreed. ‘If this Bersla priest is the main adorer in Lady Aracia’s temple, and he wound up dead some morning, you could probably get her immediate attention.’

‘Maybe so, Torl,’ Sorgan agreed, ‘but how do we know that he’ll die at any time in the near future?’

Torl slid his hand down into the top of his boot and pulled out a long, slender dagger. ‘I can almost guarantee that, cousin,’ he said, flourishing his dagger.

‘It has got some possibilities, Lord Dahlaine,’ Sorgan said. ‘If your sister’s sitting on her throne some morning and several of her priests drag the body of her favorite underling into her throne room to show her that somebody – or some thing – slipped into her temple and butchered her head priest, she’d go to pieces. Then, if I tell her that the stab-wounds in Bersla’s body were almost certainly caused by the teeth of one of the bug-people, she’d start paying very close attention to anything I said. I could feed her all kinds of wild stories about bug-people creeping around through the halls of her temple killing off her priests by the dozens.’

‘Wouldn’t she demand to see the bodies?’

Sorgan shrugged. ‘If she wants to look at bodies, we’ll show her bodies. Torl might have to sharpen his dagger six or eight times a day, but that’s all right.’

‘Thanks, cousin,’ Torl said sourly.

‘Don’t mention it, Torl,’ Sorgan replied with a broad grin.

‘I’d say that the separation of Long-Pass from Aracia’s temple will work out very well for you,’ Longbow suggested to Sorgan and Narasan a bit later. ‘You can sail on down to that river-mouth, and those of you who’ll be going on up Long-Pass can go ashore while Sorgan goes on down to pacify Aracia. She and her servants won’t even know that you’re anywhere in that pass, so she won’t be issuing commands for you to rush on down south to defend her’.

‘That’s a very good idea, Longbow,’ Narasan agreed. ‘I’m sure that the only thing that interests Bersla will be the defense of the temple. He doesn’t care at all about what happens to the ordinary people of Aracia’s Domain. He wouldn’t so much as turn a hair if all the rest of Aracia’s Domain was overrun by the bug-people.’

‘There’s a thought, Captain Hook-Beak,’ Keselo said. ‘If you send out some scouts and they report back that the bug-men are eating all of the peasants, the priests will be afraid to come out of the temple and take a look for themselves. They’ll hole up inside the temple itself – almost as if they were prisoners.’

‘It would keep them out from underfoot,’ Sorgan agreed. Then he looked at his friend Narasan. ‘You’ve been there, but I haven’t,’ he said. ‘Did you see anything at all like building material near the temple? Rocks or logs or anything like that? If we’re going to go through the motions of looking like we’re building a defensive wall of some kind, we’ll need to put up something that looks like a fort.’

‘You’re not going to find anything like rocks – or even logs – in marshy country, Sorgan,’ Narasan replied.

‘Ah, well,’ Sorgan said, ‘the temple’s there anyway. It shouldn’t be too hard to knock it down so that we can build a fort.’

‘Our sister will come apart at the seams if you do that, Sorgan,’ Zelana told him.

‘And you’ll be able to hear her priests screaming from ten miles away,’ Dahlaine added.

‘Not after my scouts come back and report that the bug-people are eating the farmers alive, I won’t,’ Sorgan disagreed. ‘When the fat ones hear that, they might even offer to help. Just how big would you say that temple is, Narasan?’

‘About a mile or so square,’ Narasan replied.

‘You’re not serious!’

‘The priesthood’s been building Aracia’s temple for centuries, Sorgan,’ Dahlaine said.

‘You should be able to build quite a wall with that much stone, Sorgan,’ the warrior queen Trenicia said.

‘The screaming’s likely to go on for a long time, though,’ Veltan added.

‘Not if the stories my scouts bring back from the countryside are awful enough, it won’t,’ Sorgan disagreed. ‘If the priests hear about a bug that’s twelve feet tall and rips out a man’s liver when it gets hungry, they’ll run for cover and tell us to do whatever’s necessary to hold back the monsters – and they’ll be hiding so far back in the temple that they won’t see daylight for at least a month.’

‘I like it!’ Narasan said enthusiastically.

‘That’s the way we’ll do ’er then, old friend,’ Sorgan replied with a broad grin.

Zelana smiled. The unlikely-seeming friendship between Sorgan and Narasan seemed to be growing stronger and stronger, and now it appeared that they’d do almost anything to help each other.

While their men were preparing for the long march to the east coast of Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall, Sorgan, Narasan and several others spent most of their time carefully studying the map.

‘I’m going to need those ships as soon as you unload your men down in Aracia’s temple-town, Sorgan,’ Narasan reminded his friend. ‘I’ll still have more than half of my army sitting on that beach on the east coast.’

‘No problem,’ Sorgan replied. ‘The ships would only clutter up the harbor of temple-town anyway. Then too, if Aracia’s priests look at your ships too long, they might decide that they want a navy so that they can go out to sea to preach to the fish.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Do the people down there actually call their city “temple-town”? Most places have fancier names.’

‘The priests – and Aracia herself – never refer to the place as a town, Sorgan,’ Narasan explained. ‘The people who live out beyond the walls might have a different name, I suppose, but the people you’ll be dealing with just speak of “the temple.” It’s entirely possible, I guess, that most of the priests aren’t even aware of the buildings and houses outside the temple walls. For them, the temple is the whole world.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Sorgan said.

‘I think that’s the word most people use when they’re talking about any priesthood, Sorgan,’ Narasan said with a faint smile.

Longbow had been studying the map, and he gestured to Sorgan.

The Maag captain joined him. ‘Do you see anything that might go wrong?’ he asked.

‘Not so far, friend Sorgan. It just came to me, though, that most of your fleet is still sitting in the bay over there.’

‘They’d better be,’ Sorgan replied. ‘I sent Skell over there to keep a tight grip on them.’

‘I’m sure that more archers will be very useful once we’re in Long-Pass, and it’s only a few days south of where your ships are anchored to the village of Old-Bear, where hundreds of archers are sitting around telling stories to each other. If Skell picked them up and carried them on up to that fishing village on the coast, they’d only be a few days behind us, and they’ll probably reach the upper mouth of Long-Pass before the bug-people come storming out of the Wasteland.’

‘That’s not a bad idea at all, Longbow,’ Sorgan approved. ‘It’ll keep the sailors busy, and it’ll give Narasan some help when he’s likely to need it.’

‘I definitely approve,’ Narasan said, ‘and I’ll take all the help I can get.’

Longbow continued to stare at Dahlaine’s replication of Eastern Dhrall. ‘There’s this range of low, rounded hills running down along the east side of the Land of Dhrall. I think that when we reach that range, I’ll lead the archers of Tonthakan on down that way, and Old-Bear’s archers won’t be too far behind us. We’ll most likely be at the upper end of Long-Pass even before Narasan’s fort-builders get there. We can make sure that there won’t be any surprises for the Trogites when they go up there to build forts.’

‘I’ll get word to Skell,’ Sorgan said. Then he looked over at his friend. ‘How many forts were you planning to build?’ he asked Narasan.

‘As many as the Vlagh gives me time to build,’ Narasan replied. ‘I’d go for one fort every mile or so down that pass if I’ve got enough time. The bug-people don’t like forts, so I’ll make things as unpleasant for them as I possibly can.’

‘How are you going to keep the bugs from smoking you out again like they did down in Crystal Gorge?’ Rabbit asked.

‘Veltan and I can take care of that if it’s necessary,’ Dahlaine said, ‘but I don’t think the bugs will try that again. The prevailing wind down there comes in out of the east, and if they tried greasy smoke again, that wind would blow it right back in their faces.’

‘The Vlagh almost has to be desperate this time, big brother,’ Veltan said. ‘The other three regions have been blocked off, so this is the only way left. If she doesn’t win this time, she’ll spend the rest of eternity trapped out there in the Wasteland. She’ll do almost anything to get her servants past you.’

‘We’ll have to make sure that she doesn’t succeed then, little brother,’ Dahlaine said quite firmly.

It was somewhat later, and all of the outlanders had gone to their beds. Zelana and her brothers lingered in the map room, however. All three of them were quite certain that they’d soon be getting more instructions. Longbow had also remained behind, but he didn’t say exactly why.

It was perhaps midnight when the door opened and Balacenia and her glowing, mist-covered companion joined them on the balcony. ‘One of you will have to go to sister Aracia’s temple with Sorgan,’ the misty lady told them.

‘I’ll take care of that,’ Veltan volunteered. ‘Aracia thinks of me as an immature creature without much of a brain, so she won’t pay any attention to me.’

‘That’s not a bad idea, Veltan,’ the lady said. ‘Keep a very close eye on Aracia. She’s right on the verge of going to pieces, and if her brain flies apart, you’ll need to tell Zelana and Dahlaine about it. The three of you might need to step on her to keep her from breaking the rules. We don’t want to lose her.’

Longbow was standing off to one side, and he had a peculiarly startled expression on his face.

Then, after Balacenia and her glowing companion had left the large room, the usually grim-faced archer suddenly began to laugh.

‘What’s so funny, Longbow?’ Zelana asked.

‘Nothing all that important,’ he replied. But then he laughed again.

Zelana found that to be very irritating, but she wasn’t sure just exactly why.