Читать книгу The Treasured One - David Eddings - Страница 11

It was on a blustery spring night about ten years after the joining of Omago and Ara when Veltan came to the door. It seemed to Omago that his friend was almost in a state of panic. ‘I need help,’ he said desperately.

‘What’s the problem?’ Omago asked.

‘This is,’ Veltan replied, holding out a fur-wrapped bundle. ‘My big brother came by and foisted this off on me, and I haven’t the faintest idea of what I’m supposed to do about it.’ He turned back a corner of the robe to reveal a very small infant. ‘I think he’s going to need food, and I don’t know the first thing about that.’

Ara firmly took the baby away from the distraught god and cuddled it to her. ‘I’ll take care of him, Veltan,’ she told him.

‘He doesn’t seem to have any teeth, Ara,’ Veltan said. ‘How can he eat without teeth?’

‘I’ll take care of him,’ she said again. ‘There are several women nearby who are nursing. I’m sure I can persuade them to feed your little boy.’

‘Nursing?’ Veltan asked curiously. ‘What’s nursing?’

‘Oh, dear,’ Ara said, rolling her eyes upward. ‘Just go back home, Veltan. I’ll see to everything.’

‘Are they always this small?’ Veltan asked. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at this stage before.’

‘Just go home, dear Veltan. Everything will be just fine.’

‘I feel like such an idiot,’ Veltan confessed. ‘My brother knocked on my door, told me that this little boy would be one of the Dreamers, and then he left without saying very much more. I’ve never really paid much attention to infants, so I don’t know the first thing about them. He will grow some teeth before very much longer, won’t he?’

‘He’ll be just fine, Veltan. Go home – now.’ Ara imperiously pointed at the door.

Omago didn’t get too much sleep for the next month or so. Babies tend to be very noisy, he discovered, and Veltan seemed to be underfoot every time Omago turned around. It occurred to him that it was probably time to add a room to his cottage – or maybe two or three. He began mixing clay and straw to make the sundried bricks that were customary here in Veltan’s Domain. He realized that he was going to have to extend the roof, but that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. He had fairly extensive wheat fields to the west and south of his orchard, so he’d have plenty of straw for thatching after harvest-time.

Veltan conferred with Ara, and between them they decided that Yaltar might be an appropriate name for the young Dreamer. Omago wasn’t really sure just exactly where the term ‘Dreamer’ had originated, but he had too many other things on his mind just then to sit around brooding about it.

Yaltar began toddling about Omago’s cottage when he was not even a year old, but he didn’t talk yet. It took Ara quite some time to explain this to Veltan. ‘Learning how to speak is probably the most important thing a baby does during his first few years,’ she told him.

‘I thought it was just there,’ Veltan protested. ‘Are you saying that every baby in the world has to learn how to talk?’

‘I’ve never heard of one who was born talking,’ Ara replied.

‘Birds seem to know how to peep and chirp without much help.’

‘The language of people is a little more complicated, dear Veltan,’ Ara reminded him. ‘I don’t think people could explain very much with peeps and chirps, do you?’

‘Well—’ Veltan seemed to be having a lot of problems with his little boy. ‘I don’t know why Dahlaine had to hand Yaltar to me before the boy could even function.’

‘Look upon it as a learning experience, Veltan. You’ll understand people much better after you’ve raised Yaltar from early childhood.’ Ara smiled slyly. ‘Won’t that be fun?’ she asked him.

‘I’m not having all that much fun right now.’

‘That’ll probably come later, dear Veltan. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.’

When Yaltar was about three years old, Veltan began to take him up the hill to his stone house for several hours each day, but he still depended upon Ara to keep him clean and prepare the little boy’s meals.

‘Is it really necessary for him to eat so often?’ Veltan asked Omago’s wife one evening.

‘You eat light, don’t you?’ Ara asked him.

‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly say “eat”, Ara,’ Veltan replied.

‘All right, let’s say “absorb”, then. The sun’s up there in the sky for a good part of every day, so you’re soaking up light for much, much longer than Yaltar spends eating, aren’t you?’

‘I guess I hadn’t really thought of it that way,’ Veltan admitted.

‘You might want to consider cutting down on that, dear Veltan. If you keep absorbing light for so much of every day, you’ll start to get fat, and I don’t think the people of your Domain would like that very much. Nobody would take a fat god very seriously, you know.’

Veltan frowned slightly, and he absently ran his hand across his abdomen.

‘I’m just teasing, dear Veltan,’ Ara told him with a fond sort of smile. ‘If you start getting a bit portly, just stay out of direct sunlight for a little while.’ She glanced at Yaltar, who was vigorously concentrating on his supper. ‘Has he had any dreams yet?’ she asked very quietly.

‘Not that he’s mentioned,’ Veltan said. Then he gave Ara a startled look. ‘How did you know about that?’

‘The old stories are still out there, dear Veltan, and old men are very fond of telling old stories. The old men of my village could go on and on about the Dreamers for hours on end. If their stories came anywhere close to what’s really happening, Yaltar should start dreaming before much longer, and that’ll be a sure sign that there’s trouble in the wind. You might want to have a talk with your big brother about that. When Yaltar does start having those significant dreams, I don’t think you should make a big fuss about it. Don’t alarm the boy. If you frighten him, he might have trouble sleeping, and if he doesn’t sleep, he won’t dream. You don’t want that to happen, do you?’

‘Not even a little bit,’ Veltan agreed. ‘You’re very, very good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?’

‘It’s a gift,’ she replied. And then she laughed for no reason that Omago could see.

As the seasons progressed, Yaltar spent more and more of his time with Veltan in the house on the hill, and Ara took to carrying the little boy’s meals up the hill to Veltan’s house.

‘You miss him, don’t you, Ara?’ Omago asked her.

‘Sort of. He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, though, so I won’t interfere. What would you like for supper this evening, Omago?’

‘Anything you want to cook, dear,’ Omago replied. ‘Surprise me.’ He grinned at her.

‘Very funny, Omago,’ she said tartly.

It was not long after Yaltar’s sixth birthday when Veltan stopped by one morning to tell Omago and Ara that he’d be gone for several weeks on a matter of some importance.

‘Go ahead, Veltan,’ Omago said. ‘We’ll take care of Yaltar while you’re gone.’

‘I knew that I could depend on you two,’ Veltan said. And then he left rather hurriedly.

Ara frowned, but she didn’t say anything.

Nanton was a tall, bearded shepherd who had a large flock that grazed in the meadow above the Falls of Vash. Nanton seldom came down to the farmlands, since the voracious appetite of his sheep made the local farmers very nervous.

‘They’re asking a lot of questions that don’t seem to have anything to do with what they’re supposed to be interested in, Omago,’ Nanton reported in his quiet voice. ‘They claim to be traders from Aracia’s Domain, but as far as I could see, they didn’t have anything with them for trades.’

‘Why would traders be wandering around up in the hills?’ Omago asked with a puzzled frown.

‘Exactly. The only people up there are shepherds like me, and we certainly don’t need any of those trinkets the traders from the East keep trying to foist off on silly farmers and their wives. There’s something else, too.’

‘Oh?’

‘They don’t really look like real people. They’re very short, and they all wear grey clothes – with hoods that cover most of their faces – and they mumble.’

‘Mumble?’

‘They don’t speak clearly, and they all seem to have some kind of lisp.’

‘Peculiar. You said that they were asking questions. What sort of questions?’

‘They wanted to know how many people live in the vicinity of the Falls of Vash. I didn’t really think that was any of their business, so I lied to them.’

‘Nanton!’ Omago exclaimed.

‘Grow up, Omago,’ Nanton said. ‘I was catching a strong smell of “unfriendly”, so I gave them something to worry about. I told them that there were thousands of us wandering around in those hills, and that we are all armed. I was going to give them a quick demonstration with my sling, but I decided to keep it out of sight. If my nose was right about “unfriendly”, the less they know about us, the better.’

‘You could be right, I suppose. Did they ask you any other questions?’

‘None that made very much sense. For some reason, they seemed to think that our Veltan and his sister Zelana hated each other, and that there was a perpetual war going on between her people and us. The answer I gave them was just about as vague as I could make it. I told them that over the years I’ve killed dozens of enemies. Of course, I sort of glossed over the fact that the enemies I’ve killed were wolves, not people, so I think they swallowed it whole. Is Veltan going to be gone for much longer?’

‘I don’t know for certain, Nanton. He wasn’t too specific when he left.’ Omago frowned. ‘Where’s your flock right now?’

‘Up in the hill-country. My nephew’s watching over them while I’m gone.’

‘You won’t be going back up into the mountains with your sheep very soon, will you?’

‘Not until the snow melts off and I’ve got them sheared. My flock produced a lot of wool this past winter.’

‘Good. You usually graze your flock up near the Falls of Vash, don’t you?’

‘Almost always. There’s good grass up there and plenty of water.’

‘Keep an eye out for these strangers, will you? And if they come back again, I’d really appreciate it if you’d send your nephew down here to tell me about it. This is something that Veltan should really know about.’

‘I’ll take care of it, Omago.’ Nanton hitched up his belt. ‘I’d better get on back to my flock,’ he said. ‘There’s a young shepherdess near where my flock’s grazing, and my nephew’s breaking out in that sort of rash, so he’s not paying much attention to the flock.’

‘That’s been going around quite a bit here lately,’ Omago said with no hint of a smile.

‘I think spring has a lot to do with it, and spring isn’t really all that far away.’ Nanton shrugged. ‘It helps to increase the flock, I guess.’

‘Are we talking about people or sheep?’

‘Both flocks, probably. As long as there’s good grazing, it doesn’t really hurt anything, I guess. Babies are almost as pretty as lambs, and once they grow up, we can put them to work. Have a nice day, Omago.’ And then he turned and walked away.

‘I think you’d better tell Veltan about them, Omago,’ the little flax-farmer Selga suggested a week or so later. ‘They don’t really belong around here, and they talk sort of strange.’

‘Oh?’ Omago said. ‘Just exactly what do you mean by “strange”, Selga?’

‘It sort of sounded to me like their teeth were getting in the way of their tongues. I think people call it lisping. Anyway, they’re awfully short. I’m not very tall myself, but their heads didn’t even come up as high as my shoulder, and those grey, hooded smocks they wore weren’t made of linen or wool. It was something else entirely. They were asking all kinds of odd questions, but I saw right off that it wasn’t any of their business, so I didn’t give them any straight answers. You might want to tell Veltan about that. If these dinky little strangers are planning to give us trouble, they didn’t get much help from me.’

‘I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, Selga. Were you able to find out which direction they came from?’

‘As close as I could tell, they came down from out of the mountains near the Falls of Vash. If I happen to come across any more of them, I’ll ask them about that. Tell Veltan that I’m keeping my eyes open, and I’ll find out as much as I can about them.’

‘I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, Selga.’

Omago was certain that Veltan should be aware of these strangers, so before supper that evening he went up through the twilight to Veltan’s house to have a word with Yaltar. He went on in, climbed the stone stairway, and rapped on the little boy’s door. ‘It’s only me, Yaltar,’ he called.

Yaltar opened the door. ‘Come inside, Omago,’ he said.

‘Do you have any idea of when he’s coming home?’ Omago asked, looking with a certain disapproval at the boy’s cluttered room and unmade bed.

‘He didn’t say for sure, Omago,’ the boy replied. ‘I guess there are some things going on that need his attention.’

‘As soon as he comes home, tell him that I need to talk with him, Yaltar,’ Omago told the little boy. ‘Some peculiar things have been happening here lately, and I think he should know about them.’

‘I’ll be sure to tell him, Omago,’ the boy replied, fingering the peculiar-looking stone he had hanging on a leather thong around his neck like a pendant.

‘How did you manage to come by that opal, Yaltar?’ Omago asked.

‘I found it just outside the front door,’ Yaltar replied. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’

‘Beautiful,’ Omago agreed. ‘It’s a bit peculiar that you found it, though. As far as I know, there aren’t any opals around here.’

‘Maybe it was wandering around and got lost – or maybe it started feeling lonesome.’

‘Rocks almost never get lonesome, Yaltar. Ara’s cooking supper right now. Come along, and we’ll go eat.’

‘That sounds like a great idea, Omago.’

Veltan came home a week or so later, and he stopped by Omago’s house quite early one morning. ‘Yaltar said that you wanted to tell me something,’ he said. ‘He seemed to think it might be important.’

‘It could be,’ Omago replied and he repeated what Nanton and Selga had told him about the strangers and their questions.

‘I have to go talk with my brother,’ Veltan said. ‘Keep your ears open, and let me know about any more visits when I come back.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Omago promised.

The spring thaw that year produced a near disaster. The snow pack in the mountains had been much deeper than was usual, and the spring wind that melted off the snow each year wasn’t just warm; it seemed even hot. All the streams coming down out of the mountains overran their banks overnight, and then the floods began. To make things even worse, Veltan and Yaltar were away, so Veltan wasn’t there to control the floods, and the farmers couldn’t do anything except wring their hands as they watched the flood engulf their fields.

The shepherds who customarily grazed their flocks in the region to the west of the Falls of Vash began to bring word of some serious trouble in the Domain of Veltan’s sister Zelana, but the messages were sorely lacking in details.

As the flood began to subside, a few more shepherds stopped by, but their stories about events in Zelana’s Domain were so lurid that Omago viewed them with profound skepticism.

And then one night after the apple trees had begun to bloom, a clap of thunder woke Omago out of a sound sleep.

‘Veltan’s back, love,’ Ara told him. ‘I think we’d better go on up to his house. He’ll be able to tell us what’s really going on in his sister’s Domain.’

‘You’re probably right, Ara,’ Omago agreed. ‘The wild stories we’ve been hearing are starting to make me a little cross.’

‘I’ll go with you, dear heart,’ Ara said briskly. ‘I’m just as curious as you are.’ That struck Omago as a bit strange, but he let it pass.

They rose from their bed, dressed themselves and went on up the hill in the warm spring darkness. When they reached the house, Veltan was standing in the doorway. ‘I was hoping that you’d stop by,’ he said. ‘Please come in. I have a great deal to tell you, and I don’t have much time.’

‘I’m glad you came home, Veltan,’ Omago said as he and Ara followed Veltan up the stairs to the room where Yaltar spent most of his time. ‘The shepherds up near the border of your sister’s Domain have been telling me all sorts of wild stories, and I’d like to know what’s really going on up there.’

‘You might want to know, Omago,’ Veltan said bleakly, ‘but I don’t think you’re going to like it very much.’

They went into the cluttered room, and Ara looked around. ‘Where’s Yaltar?’ she asked.

‘He’s presently in the care of my sister,’ Veltan replied. ‘I don’t think he’s quite ready to ride my pet just yet.’

‘Good thinking,’ Ara replied.

‘All right, then,’ Veltan said, ‘as it turns out, Yaltar is indeed one of the Dreamers, and his dream gave us a glimpse of the future. The creatures of the Wasteland have invaded Zelana’s Domain, but Yaltar’s dream gave us time to make some preparations. Zelana went off to the west and hired an army of Maag pirates to fight the war in her Domain, and I went south and hired some professional soldiers to help us defend this part of the Land of Dhrall. I took an advance party of Trogite soldiers up to Zelana’s Domain to lend her a hand.’

‘Some of the shepherds told me about that,’ Omago said. ‘I thought they were just making it up.’

‘No, Omago, it’s really true. The outlanders are more advanced than we are, and their weapons are made of iron – or bronze in some cases. All of the tools and weapons here in the Land of Dhrall are made of stone or animal bones, but metal weapons are much better.’ Veltan took a knife out from under his belt and handed it to Omago. ‘That’s an iron knife, and I’m sure you can see how much stronger it is than flint or bone could ever be.’

Omago took the peculiar-looking knife and carefully rubbed his thumb across the edge. ‘Extremely sharp, isn’t it?’ he observed.

‘Indeed it is,’ Veltan agreed. ‘Did the flood do much damage down here?’

‘It could have been worse, I suppose,’ Omago reported. ‘A fair number of people lost their houses, and I’ve heard that quite a few on to the south of here were drowned. It’s subsiding now, so I should be able to get some more accurate numbers before too much longer.’

‘The flood was a bit extreme, perhaps, but it was necessary. The bug-like creatures that serve the Vlagh were invading my sister’s Domain, and Zelana’s Dreamer conjured up that flood to stop them until our hired armies were ready to meet them. The flood drowned thousands of them, and the Vlagh had to send new forces out of the Wasteland. The enemy force was using a ravine as their invasion route, and our forces have managed to block it off. We can’t really be sure how long the enemy forces will keep trying to break through. They aren’t really very bright, but sooner or later, I think they’ll give up and change direction. If they come South, we’ll have to be ready to meet them – probably up near the Falls of Vash.’

‘Do you think your hired army will have enough time to get here before we’re overrun?’ Omago asked.

‘I’m sure they will. They have large ships, so they’ll come by sea rather than marching overland. I’m going to try to persuade my sister to send some help as well. Her people are hunters, and they’re excellent archers. The commander of the army I hired is a brilliant strategist, and once he gets his people in place, it’s not very likely that our enemy’s going to be able to get past him.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be of much help, Veltan,’ Omago said dubiously. ‘We should be able to provide food for your outlanders, but we don’t even have anything resembling weapons. The shepherds use slings to protect their flocks from wolves, but other than that—’ Omago left it up in the air.

‘We’ll see, Omago. Talk with the other farmers and see how they feel about this. I think the most important thing right now is to start gathering up supplies. The Trogite army I hired has about a hundred thousand men, so we’ll need a lot of food.’

‘I’ll pass the word along, Veltan, and we’ll get started.’

‘I knew I could count on you,’ Veltan replied. ‘I think I’d better get on back. I wanted to warn you about what’s probably coming, but for right now, the war’s going on in Zelana’s Domain, so I want to be there in case she needs me.’

Omago had a growing sense of apprehension. Nothing in his background had anything to do with war, so he didn’t have the faintest idea of what to expect.

‘Don’t worry so much, dear heart,’ Ara told him as they went on back down the hill. ‘Just do the best you can and let Veltan do the worrying.’

‘For the moment, helping him worry is about the only thing I can manage, Ara,’ Omago replied glumly.