David Eddings: The Elder Gods

Zelana shrugged. ‘A few eons is all – certainly no more than a dozen. Have I missed anything significant?’

‘The man-creatures have made a bit of progress. They’re making tools now, and they’ve learned how to build fires. You really ought to look in on them once in a while.’

‘What in the world for? They’re stupid and vicious, and they stink. My dolphins are cleaner and wiser, and their hearts are large and filled with love. If the creatures of the Wasteland are hungry, let them eat the man-creatures. I won’t miss them.’

‘The people of the West are your responsibility, Zelana,’ Dahlaine reminded her.

‘So are the flies and ants and roaches, and they seem to be getting along well enough.’

‘You can’t just ignore the world, Zelana,’ Dahlaine told her. ‘There are changes taking place all around you. The creatures of the Wasteland are growing restless, and it won’t be long before the Dreamers arrive. We need to be ready.’

‘It’s not nearly the age of the Dreamers yet, is it, Dahlaine?’ Zelana asked incredulously.

‘The signs are all there, Zelana,’ Dahlaine said. ‘Mother Sea and Father Earth move to their own schedule. They won’t wait until it’s convenient for us to do what needs to be done. The ruler of the Wasteland is preparing to move against us, and we aren’t ready to face it yet.’

‘We should have destroyed that hideous creature as soon as we realized what it was.’

‘We can talk about all this some other time, dear sister,’ Dahlaine smoothly changed the subject. ‘What I really came here for was to give you something I thought you might like.’

‘A gift – for me?’ Zelana’s irritated humor seemed to vanish. ‘What is it?’ she demanded eagerly.

Dahlaine smiled. Somehow the magic word ‘gift’ always seemed to bring his brother and his sisters around to his way of thinking. Zelana in particular always responded in exactly the way he wanted her to. A gift wasn’t really a form of coercion, but it served the same purpose, and it was a nicer approach. ‘Oh,’ he said in an off-hand manner, ‘it’s not much, sister dear. It’s just a little something I thought you might enjoy. How would you like a new pet? It occurred to me that you might be getting a little tired of your dolphins after all these eons, since they can’t come out of the water to play with you here in your lovely grotto. So I brought you a pet that should be able to share your home.’

‘A puppy, maybe?’ Zelana asked eagerly. ‘I’ve never owned a puppy, but I’ve heard that they’re very affectionate.’

‘Not exactly a puppy, no.’

‘Oh,’ Zelana sounded disappointed. ‘A kitten then?’ she said, her eyes brightening once more. ‘I’ve heard that the purring sound kittens make is very relaxing.’

‘Well, not quite a kitten either.’

‘What is it, Dahlaine?’ Zelana demanded impatiently. ‘Show me.’

‘Of course,’ Dahlaine replied, concealing his sly smile. He reached both hands into the unseen emptiness he always carried along behind him and took a fur-wrapped bundle out of the air. ‘With my compliments, my beloved sister,’ he said extravagantly, handing her the bundle.

Zelana eagerly took the bundle and turned back the edge of the fur robe to see what her brother had given her. She gaped in obvious disbelief at the newborn pet drowsing in the warm fur robe. ‘What am I supposed to do with this thing?’ she demanded in a shrill voice.

He shrugged. ‘Take care of it, Zelana. It shouldn’t be much more difficult to care for than a young dolphin.’

‘But it’s one of those man-creatures!’ she protested.

‘Why, so it is,’ Dahlaine replied in mock astonishment. ‘How strange that I didn’t notice that myself. You’re very perceptive, Zelana.’ He paused. ‘It’s not an ordinary man-creature, dear sister,’ he added gravely. ‘It’s very special. There are only a few of them, but they’ll change the world. Care for it and protect it, Zelana. I think you’ll have to feed it, because I don’t think it can live on light alone, as we do. You might have to experiment a bit to find something it can digest, but I’m sure that you’re clever enough to solve that problem. You’ll need to keep it clean as well. Infant man-creatures tend to be messy. Then, after a few years, you might want to teach it to talk. There are things it’s going to need to tell us, and if it can’t talk, it won’t be able to pass them on to us.’

‘What could one of these creatures tell us that we don’t already know?’

‘Dreams, Zelana, dreams. We don’t sleep, so we don’t dream. That baby in your arms is a Dreamer. That’s why I brought her to you.’

‘It’s a girl, then?’ Zelana’s voice softened.

‘Naturally. I didn’t think you’d get along very well with a boy. Care for her, Zelana, and I’ll drop by in a few years to see how she’s coming along.’

The baby in Zelana’s arms made a cooing sound and reached out one tiny hand to touch Zelana’s face.

‘Oh,’ Zelana said in a trembling, almost stricken voice, clasping the infant more closely to her.

Dahlaine smiled. It had turned out rather well, he congratulated himself. All it had taken to totally enslave his brother and both of his sisters had been a few peeps and coos and one soft touch from an infant hand. He might have gloated a bit more, but his own baby Dreamer was home alone, and it was almost feeding time, so he really should get on back.

He swam out of Zelana’s grotto and remounted his well-trained lightning bolt. Lightning bolts are noisy steeds, there’s no question about that, but they can cover vast distances in the blink of an eye.

Zelana’s first problem with her new charge was finding something to feed it. She rather hoped that Dahlaine had been mistaken. If the infant could live on light alone, as Zelana herself did, feeding it would be no problem. The vein of pink quartz in the ceiling of the grotto concentrated the sunlight into a glowing pink pool which was presently centered on the bed of moss where Zelana occasionally rested. Hopefully, she laid the fur-robed bundle on that moss bed and turned the robe back to allow the sunlight to touch the child.

The infant began to fuss a bit. Maybe the little creature didn’t like the color. Zelana had discovered that a steady diet of pink light took a bit of getting used to. Pink, it appeared, was an acquired taste.

Zelana snapped her fingers, and the quartz obediently turned blue. The baby didn’t stop fussing, though, and her discontent was growing louder.

Zelana tried green, but that didn’t work either. Then she tried plain white. It was a little bland, but perhaps the baby wasn’t ready for advanced colors yet.

The sounds the infant was making grew louder and more insistent.

Zelana quickly gathered the squalling infant in her arms and hurried down to the edge of the shallow pool at the mouth of the grotto. ‘Meeleamee!’ she called in the piping language of the dolphins, ‘I need your help! Soon! Please!’

Now Meeleamee had mothered many, many young, so she had great wisdom and much experience in such matters. ‘Milk,’ she advised.

‘What is milk?’ Zelana asked. ‘And where can I find some?’

Meeleamee explained in some detail, and for the very first time in her endless life, Zelana blushed. ‘What a strange sort of thing,’ she said, blushing even harder. She looked down at herself. ‘Do you think I might be able to…She left it hanging.

‘Probably not,’ Meeleamee replied. ‘There are some things involved that are just a little complicated. Can the young one swim?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Zelana admitted.

‘Unwrap her and put her down in the shallow water here. I should be able to nurse her without too much trouble.’