The Elder Gods

2

Though Zelana would not have admitted it even to herself, her life was much more pleasant now that she had Eleria to love and to care for. Since Eleria was able to find her own food and she had playmates enough to keep her occupied, her presence in the grotto in the evenings was hardly any inconvenience at all. Zelana was still able to create poetry and compose music, and Eleria served as a ready-made audience. She loved to have Zelana sing to her, and she seemed to enjoy listening to the recitation of Zelana’s poems – even though she didn’t understand a single word. She was now well into her sixth year, but she continued to speak exclusively in the squeaky, piping language of the dolphins.

Zelana considered that. It wasn’t really all that much of a problem, since she herself was also fluent in that language. She decided, though, that perhaps one of these days she might teach the young one the rudiments of the language she spoke and shared with her sister and her brothers. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Zelana had discovered that Eleria was very quick.

As it turned out, however, Eleria was about two jumps ahead of her. Zelana had been reciting poetry to the child since Eleria’s infancy, and one day in the early autumn of Eleria’s sixth year Zelana happened to overhear the child reciting one of the poems to her playmates, translating each line into their own language as she went along. Zelana’s poetry took on whole new dimensions when delivered in the squeaks and burbles of the dolphin language. Zelana was fairly sure that the young dolphins weren’t really all that interested in poetry, but Eleria’s habit of rewarding their attention with kisses and embraces kept them obediently in place. Zelana was very fond of dolphins herself, but the notion of kissing them had never occurred to her. Eleria, however, seemed to have discovered early in her life that dolphins would do almost anything for kisses.

Zelana decided at that point that it might not be a bad idea to start paying closer attention to the progress of the young child. Lately it seemed that every time she turned around, Eleria had a new surprise for her.

‘Eleria,’ she said a bit later when the two of them were alone in the grotto.

Eleria responded with a squeaky little dolphin sound.

‘Speak in words, child,’ Zelana commanded.

Eleria stared at her in astonishment. ‘It is not proper that I should, Beloved,’ she replied quite formally. ‘Thy speech is not to be used for mundane purposes or ordinary times. It is reserved for stately utterances. I would not for all this world profane it by reducing its stature to the commonplace.’

Zelana immediately realized where she had blundered. In a peculiar sort of way she’d treated Eleria in much the same way the child was now treating her dolphin playmates. Eleria had been something on the order of a captive audience – but not quite completely captive. The child had drawn her own conclusions. There was a certain logic behind Eleria’s conviction that Zelana’s language was reserved for poetry alone, since the only times when Zelana had spoken that language to her had been during those recitations. Ordinary conversations between them had been in the language of the dolphins.

‘Come here, child,’ Zelana said. ‘I think it’s time for us to get to know each other a bit better.’

Eleria seemed apprehensive. ‘Have I done something wrong, Beloved?’ she asked. ‘Are you angry with me because I told your poems to the finned ones? You didn’t want me to do that, did you? Your poems were love, and they were for me alone. Now I have spoiled them.’ Eleria’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Please don’t send me away, Beloved!’ she wailed. ‘I promise that I won’t do it again!’

A wave of emotion swept over Zelana, and she felt her own eyes clouding over. She held out her arms to the child. ‘Come to me,’ she said.

Eleria rushed to her, and they clung to each other. Both of them were weeping now, yet they were filled with a kind of joy.

Zelana and Eleria spent all of their time together in the grotto after that. The dolphins brought fish for Eleria to eat, and the trickling spring provided water, so there was no real need for the child to go out into Mother Sea. Her playmates were a bit sulky at first, but that soon passed.

Zelana spent many happy hours teaching Eleria how to create poetry and how to sing. Zelana’s poetry was stately and formal, and her songs were complex. Eleria’s poetry was still antique but much more passionate, and her songs were simple and pure. Zelana was painfully aware that the child’s voice was more beautiful than her own, clear and reaching upward without effort.

Eleria eventually came to realize that the language she had come to know as the language of poetry had a more colloquial form which they could use for everyday communication. She still insisted on calling Zelana ‘Beloved,’ however.

It was in the spring of Eleria’s seventh year when the child went out to play with her pink friends again. Zelana had suggested that Eleria had been neglecting them of late, and it was not polite to do that.

Late that day Eleria returned to the grotto with a strange glowing object.

‘What is that pretty thing, child?’ Zelana asked.

‘It’s called a “pearl”, Beloved,’ Eleria replied, ‘and a very old friend of the dolphins gave it to me – well, she didn’t exactly give it to me. She showed me where it was, though.’

‘I didn’t know that pearls could grow so large,’ Zelana marveled. ‘It must have been an enormous oyster.’

‘It was huge, Beloved.’

‘Who is this friend of the dolphins?’

‘A whale,’ Eleria replied. ‘She’s very old, and she lives near that islet off the south coast. She joined us this morning and told me that she wanted to show me something. Then she led me to the islet and took me down to where this enormous oyster was attached to a reef. The oyster’s shell was almost as wide across as I am tall.’

‘How did you pry it open if it was that big?’

‘I didn’t have to, Beloved. The old whale touched the shell with her fin, and the oyster opened its shell for us.’

‘How very peculiar,’ Zelana said.

‘The old whale told me that the oyster wanted me to have the pearl, so I took it. I did thank the oyster, but I’m not sure it could understand me. It was a little hard to swim and hold my pearl at the same time, but the old whale offered to carry me back home.’

‘Carry?’

‘Well, not exactly. I rode on her back. That is so much fun.’ Eleria held the pearl up. ‘See how it glows pink. Beloved? It’s even prettier than the ceiling of our grotto.’ She nestled her pearl, which was about the size of an apple, against her cheek. ‘I love it!’ she declared.

‘Did you eat today?’ Zelana asked.

‘I had plenty earlier today, Beloved. My friends and I found a school of herring and ate our fill.’

‘Did the whale have a name, by any chance?’

‘The dolphins just called her “mother”. She isn’t really their mother, of course. I think it’s more like a way to let her know that they love her.’

‘She speaks the same language as the dolphins?’

‘Sort of. Her voice isn’t as squeaky, though.’ Eleria crossed to her bed of moss. ‘I’m very tired, Beloved,’ she said, sinking down onto her bed. ‘It was a long swim out to the islet, and mother whale swims faster than I do. I had trouble keeping up with her.’

‘Why don’t you go to sleep, then, Eleria? I’m sure you’ll feel much better in the morning.’

‘That sounds like a terribly good idea, Beloved,’ Eleria said. ‘I’m really having trouble keeping my eyes open.’ She lay back on her bed of moss with the glowing pink pearl cradled to her heart.

Zelana was puzzled, and just a trifle concerned. It wasn’t natural for whales and dolphins to associate with each other in the way Eleria had just described, and Zelana was almost positive that they wouldn’t be able to speak to each other and be understood. Something very peculiar had happened today.

Eleria appeared to be sound asleep now, and her limbs had relaxed. Then, to Zelana’s astonishment, the glowing pink pearl rose up into the air above the sleeping child. Its pink glow grew steadily stronger and the glow seemed to enclose Eleria.

‘Don’t interfere. Zelana,’ a very familiar voice echoed in Zelana’s mind. ‘This is necessary, and I don’t need any help from you.’

Eleria awoke somewhat later than usual the following morning, and she had a puzzled look on her face as she sat cross-legged on her bed of moss with her pearl in her hand. ‘Why do we sleep, Beloved?’ she asked.

‘I don’t,’ Zelana replied, ‘and I’m not sure exactly why other creatures seem to need to sleep every so often.’

‘I thought you and I were of the same kind,’ Eleria said. ‘We look very much alike – except that your hair is dark and glossy and mine is sort of yellow.’

‘I’ve wondered about that myself. Maybe I’ve just outgrown the need for sleep. I am quite a bit older than you are, after all.’ It was a simplified answer, but Zelana was quite certain that Eleria wasn’t ready for the real one just yet.

‘Since you don’t sleep, you wouldn’t know about the strange things I seem to see happening while I’m sleeping, would you?’

‘They’re called “dreams”, Eleria,’ Zelana told her, ‘and I don’t think any other creature has the same kind of dreams you do. My brother Dahlaine told me that your dreams would be very special, and much more important than the dreams of the ordinaries. Did you have a dream last night that frightened you?’

‘It didn’t particularly frighten me, Beloved. It just seemed very strange, for some reason.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ Zelana suggested.

‘Well, I seemed to be floating – except that I wasn’t floating in Mother Sea the way I do sometimes when I want to rest and catch my breath. I was floating way up in the air instead, and all sorts of strange things were happening far below. Father Earth seemed to be all on fire, and his mountains were rising and falling the way Mother Sea’s waves do. Rocks were melting and running down the sides of some of Father Earth’s mountains into Mother Sea, and some of his other mountains were spouting liquid fire way up into the sky. Could something like that really happen?’

‘Yes, child,’ Zelana said in a troubled voice, ‘and it happened in exactly the way you just described it. I was there watching while it happened. It was at the very beginning of the world. What happened next?’

‘Well, the fires kept burning for a long, long time, and then the land below me started to break apart, and the pieces floated off in different directions. Then trees began to sprout on the face of Father Earth, and Mother Sea started having children. It was about then that I seemed to know that I wasn’t alone. Others were having the same dream – only maybe for them it wasn’t really a dream.’

Zelana smiled. ‘No, dear, it wasn’t. I was one of those others, and I certainly wasn’t dreaming, and neither were my brothers or my sister.’

‘Then it was your family that was sort of hiding around the edges of my dream?’ Eleria asked. ‘I thought you only had two brothers and one sister. There seemed to be two more brothers and a sister watching with me.’

‘They’re another branch of the family, Eleria,’ Zelana told her. ‘We don’t get together very often. We can talk about them some other time. Why don’t you tell me what happened next in your dream. Dreams fade, I guess, and I’d like to hear your whole dream before you forget.’

‘Well, most of Mother Sea’s children were fish, but some of them weren’t. Those were the ones who crawled up onto the face of Father Earth. They looked like snakes at first, but then they sprouted legs and they grew up to be very big. Some of them ate trees, but some of the others ate the ones who were eating trees. Then a great big rock that was on fire fell down out of the sky, and when it hit Father Earth it made an awful splash, except that it was rock that splashed instead of water, and everything got dark for a long time. It finally started to get light again, but the snakes with legs weren’t there any more.’

‘Did my relatives go away, too?’

‘Some of them went to sleep, but they woke up after a while, and the ones who’d stayed awake went to sleep. There was one that never slept, though. That one’s very ugly, isn’t it?’

‘Indeed it is, child,’ Zelana replied with a shudder. ‘It’s an outcast, and we don’t even like to think about it. What happened next?’

‘There were a lot of things with fur wandering around, and there were birds and bugs, too, but then some things who walked on their hind legs came along. They didn’t look at all the way we do, though. Their skin was scaly, like the skin of large fish – or maybe snakes, and their eyes were huge and stuck way out in front of their faces. That went on for quite a long time, and then everything was all covered with white, and it got very cold. Mother Sea seemed to shrink, and she ran away from her shore. Then the white went away, and Mother Sea came back. That’s when the man-things who look like me arrived. They didn’t look exactly like me, though. They wrapped themselves up in animal skins for some reason, and you and I don’t do that, do we?’

‘It isn’t necessary for us, Eleria. The skins help the man-things stay warm, and they’re ashamed of their bodies.’

‘How peculiar,’ Eleria said, frowning slightly. ‘That was about all there was, Beloved, except that the awful-looking watcher was still way off at the edge of my dream, and I don’t think it likes me very much. I get the feeling that it’s afraid of me for some reason.’

‘If it has anything like good sense, it is,’ Zelana said. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to manage here by yourself for a few days? There are some things I need to attend to. I won’t be gone for long.’

‘Can’t I go with you?’

‘I’m afraid not, Eleria. I have to go by myself this time. Maybe you can come along next time. We’ll see.’

3

Zelana swam out of her hidden grotto and onto a nearby gravel beach where the waves rolled in and then receded with a mournful sound that seemed filled with regret. Then she raised her face to the sky to search for one of those winds that rushed far overhead in perpetuity, streaming eternally above the clouds and weather. She encountered several, but they were not moving in the proper direction, so she continued her search. Then at last she felt a wind that streamed northward toward the Domain of her elder brother, and she rose up and up through the buffeting of those winds which had not suited her until she reached that wind which rushed northward along the outer edge of the sky, and she bestrode that wind, and it obediently carried her toward the bleak Domain of her brother Dahlaine.

Now Dahlaine dwelt in a cave deep in the bowels of the earth beneath the crags and eternal snow of Mount Shrak, which the people of the North believe is the tallest peak in all the world. And Zelana descended from the darkouter edge of the sky to the forbidding mountain that seemed almost to scowl down at her brother’s Domain with a bleak expression of superiority. The mouth of Dahlaine’s cave was a deep indentation in the north side of the mount, and Zelana entered there and followed the twisting passage that led down and down through glittering black rock to the vast chamber far beneath the mountain that was Dahlaine’s home.

Zelana paused at the mouth of the passage. Her burly, grey-bearded brother, stripped to the waist, was standing over a ruddy fire beating on something that glowed and made a sort of ringing sound. A small, glowing orb hovered just over him, bathing him with light.

‘What in the world are you doing, Dahlaine?’ Zelana asked curiously.

Dahlaine turned sharply to look at his sister. ‘Why, Zelana!’ he exclaimed. ‘You startled me. Is something wrong?’

‘Perhaps – or perhaps not. Are you taking up music now? If you are, you’re a little off-key.’

‘Just experimenting, dear sister,’ he replied. ‘Some of the people beyond Mother Sea have discovered something they call “metal.” I wanted to see if I could duplicate it. Is something afoot?’

Zelana looked cautiously around Dahlaine’s cave. ‘Where’s your Dreamer?’ she asked.

‘Ashad? He’s out playing with the bears.’

‘Bears? Surely you don’t allow him to play with bears! They’ll eat him, won’t they?’

‘Of course they won’t, Zelana. They’re his friends – in the same way the pink dolphins are Eleria’s friends. Is something unusual happening?’

‘Perhaps. Eleria had a dream last night, and I think it may have been significant. I thought you should know about it. There’s something else that may be even more significant than the dream itself.’

‘Oh?’

‘It appears that Mother Sea’s taking a hand in this herself.’ Dahlaine stared at her.

‘Eleria was out playing with the young pink dolphins yesterday, and they introduced her to an old cow whale.’

‘I didn’t know that whales and dolphins spoke the same language,’ Dahlaine said.

‘They don’t. That’s what leads me to believe that it wasn’t really a whale. Anyway, the old cow led Eleria to a small islet off the south coast of Thurn and showed her an oyster shell that was about fifty times bigger than any oyster I’ve ever seen. Then the whale touched the shell with one of her fins, and the oyster opened as if someone had just knocked on its door. There was a pearl inside – pink, and a bit larger than an apple.’

‘That’s impossible!’ Dahlaine exclaimed.

‘You’ll have to take that up with the oyster, Dahlaine. Then the whale told Eleria that the oyster wanted her to have the pearl, so Eleria took it, and the whale gave her a ride back to Thurn.’

‘Now that’s something I’d like to see,’ Dahlaine said, laughing. ‘It might be a bit difficult to saddle a whale.’

‘Did you want to hear the rest of this, or did you want to make funny remarks?’ Zelana said tartly.

‘Sorry, dear sister. Please go on.’

‘Eleria’d had a busy day, so she was very tired. She went to sleep almost immediately, and then some very strange things started to happen. That pink pearl rose up into the air above Eleria, and it started to glow – almost like a small pink moon – and its light shone down on Eleria. Then it spoke to me and told me to mind my own business. I recognized the voice immediately, since I’ve been listening to it since the beginning of time.’

‘You’re not serious!’ Dahlaine exclaimed.

‘Very serious, brother dear. It was the voice of Mother Sea, and that seems to suggest that the whale might have been something other than an ordinary whale as well, wouldn’t you say?’

‘She’s never done that before,’ Dahlaine said in a troubled voice.

‘You’re being obvious again, Dahlaine,’ Zelana said. ‘I think we’d better step around her very carefully until we get a better idea of what she’s doing and why. Mother Sea’s the central force of the whole world, so let’s stay on the good side of her.’

‘What happened next?’ Dahlaine asked.

‘Eleria had a dream, naturally. Evidently, that was the whole idea. In some peculiar way, that pearl’s the essence of Mother Sea’s awareness. Her tides still rise and fall, and her waves wash the shores of Father Earth, but she’s awake now. I’m almost positive that the pearl, which is really Mother Sea incarnate, dictated Eleria’s dream, image by image.’

‘Did Eleria tell you about her dream?’

‘Of course she did. Why do you think I’m here?’

‘What did the dream involve?’

‘The world,’ Zelana replied. ‘Eleria saw it when it was still on fire before the continents separated and before life began. Then she saw the continents move away from each other and watched living things crawl up out of Mother Sea. She saw the big lizards roam the world and the falling star that killed them all. She was aware of us and of the others – the ones who are asleep now – and somehow she knew about the Vlagh. She saw the age of ice and then the more recent man-things. As closely as I can determine, she dreamt all the way from the beginning up until the day before yesterday.’

‘She managed to dream all of that in one night?’ Dahlaine said incredulously.

‘She had help, Dahlaine. I’m sure that the pearl was guiding her step by step. I think we’d better advise our alternates what’s afoot here. Our cycle’s very nearly reached its conclusion, and our alternates will be waking soon. We’d better warn them that the crisis we’ve been expecting since the beginning’s very likely to boil to the top during their cycle.’

‘That’s assuming that it doesn’t come before our cycle’s finished,’ Dahlaine said. ‘I think that we’d all better get together and thrash this out. Why don’t you go fetch Aracia, and I’ll see if I can run Veltan down. We need to make some decisions, and we might not have much time.’

‘It shall be as thou hast commanded, my dear, dear brother,’ Zelana replied with exaggerated formality.

‘Do you have to do that, Zelana?’ he said with a pained sort of expression.

‘When you’re being obvious, yes. Go get Veltan, Dahlaine, and I’ll see if I can pry holy Aracia out of that silly temple of hers. Do we want to meet here?’

‘I think we’d better. It’s more secluded than the other places – except for yours, of course. We could meet there, I suppose, but Veltan doesn’t swim very well. And let’s keep the Dreamers away from our meeting. We don’t want to contaminate their visions.’

Zelana went up out of Dahlaine’s cave and probed the northern sky until she found a wind that suited her purpose, and then she rose up through the chill northern air to join with the obliging wind to ride it on down in a southeasterly direction toward Aracia’s Domain.

The arrival of the later variety of people had elevated Aracia’s opinion of herself quite noticeably. Until their appearance. Aracia had seemed sensible enough – a little vain, perhaps, but not unbearably so. The later people, unlike the more brutish early ones, had religious yearnings, and they longed for gods.

Aracia had thought that was very nice of them, and she’d been more than happy to oblige. She’d suggested that a fancy dwelling where she could stay while she was looking after them might be appropriate, so her people built one for her – several, actually. The first one had been a bit crude, since it had been constructed primarily of logs. It had been all right for a while, but the wind blew through the cracks, and the dirt floor grew muddy during the spring rains.

Aracia had then suggested stone blocks instead of logs, and the people who served her labored long and hard to build a dwelling for her that was almost as comfortable as Zelana’s grotto or Dahlaine’s cave. And now Aracia of the East dwelt in her splendid, though drafty, palace-temple with servants by the score to tell her how wonderful she was and how beautiful and how they could not possibly get along without her – and if it wasn’t too much trouble, could she turn that fellow who’d been so insulting the other day into a toad and maybe make it rain because the oats really needed some water along about now, but not too much rain, since that made everything all muddy.

Zelana descended through the crisp autumn air to the marble dome of her sister’s temple and adjusted her eyes to look through the polished marble at Aracia’s regal throne room. It was sheathed in palest marble, of course, and there were tall columns around its outer edge, and red drapes behind Aracia’s golden throne.

Aracia was garbed in a regal gown, and she wore a regal crown of gold and a regal sort of expression on her face.

A fat man garbed in black linen vestments and a tediously ornate miter was standing before Aracia’s throne delivering a tiresome oration of praise.

Aracia, Zelana noticed, seemed to hang on the fat man’s every word.

Although she knew that it would be terribly impolite, Zelana simply couldn’t resist a sudden impulse.

The fat orator broke off suddenly when Zelana, clad only in filmy gauze, abruptly appeared out of nowhere before the throne of her elder sister. Several plump, overfed servants fainted dead away, and a few of the more theologically inclined began to contemplate revisions of several articles of the faith.

Aracia gasped. ‘Cover yourself, Zelana!’ she said sharply.

‘What for, dear sister?’ Zelana said. ‘I’m immune to the weather, and I don’t have any defects that I want to hide. If you want to wrap yourself in that silly-looking cocoon, that’s your business, but I don’t think it’ll turn you into a butterfly.’

‘Have you no modesty?’

‘Of course not. I’m perfect. Didn’t you know that? Dahlaine needs to see us – now. Leave your Dreamer here, though. Our brother will explain why when we join him.’

‘If Dahlaine wants to explain something to me, he can come here and do it,’ Aracia said. ‘I will not bow down to him in that grubby hole in the ground where he lives.’

‘Splendid, dear sister mine,’ Zelana said sweetly. ‘I’m sure all your fat servants will be delighted to see you bow down right here in your own temple – assuming, of course, that it’s still standing after he arrives on that silly thunderbolt he always rides. It’s a nice enough thunderbolt, I suppose, but the noise it makes when it passes shakes down buildings sometimes. Putting your temple back together should give your fat servants something to do while they’re pondering the fact that the supreme goddess of the universe just bowed down to somebody who looks for all the world like some shaggy bear.’

‘You never bow down to him, Zelana,’ Aracia accused.

‘Of course I don’t,’ Zelana replied. ‘I don’t have to, because I don’t demand – or expect – anybody to bow down to me. That’s the way it works, Aracia. Had you forgotten about that? It’s time to shed your cocoon, my butterfly sister. The dreams have begun, and the Vlagh could be on our doorstep before the week’s out. Let’s go talk with Dahlaine while there’s still time.’

Zelana took her sister’s hand and they rode the wind toward the northwest. It was early autumn now, and the land far below was ablaze with color. The rivers sparkled in the autumn sun, and the mountains to the north of Aracia’s Domain gleamed white beneath their eternal snow.

Actually, the sisters were rather looking forward to the meeting. There hadn’t been a general family get-together for almost a dozen eons. There’d been occasional squabbles among them, of course. No family lives in absolute harmony forever, but in times of crisis the family was able to set their differences aside and work together to reach a solution.

‘Isn’t that Dahlaine’s mountain?’ Aracia asked, pointing at the land of the North lying far below.

Zelana glanced down. ‘No,’ she replied ‘Mount Shrak’s quite a bit taller.’

‘I’ve never looked at Father Earth from this high up before,’ Aracia said. ‘He looks different from up here, doesn’t he?’

‘Try looking at him from the edge of the sky sometime, dear sister.’ Zelana suggested.

‘Edge of the sky?’ Aracia sounded puzzled.

‘Up where it isn’t blue any more. After Eleria told me her dream, I needed to tell Dahlaine what she’d seen, but when I went looking for a wind that was blowing in his direction, the only one I could find was up at the outer edge of the air. You can even see the curve of the world from that high.’

‘Does it really curve?’ Aracia asked. ‘Veltan told me that if you look at Father Earth from the moon, he looks like a round blue ball.’ She frowned. ‘I never did understand just why it was that Mother Sea exiled Veltan to the moon for all those eons. Did he do something to offend her?’

Zelana laughed. ‘Indeed he did, Aracia. He told her that she bored him.’

‘He didn’t!’

‘Oh, yes he did. He told her that she’d be much more interesting if she varied her shades of blue now and then. He even went so far as to suggest stripes. He kept pestering her about it until she lost her temper and told him to go away. That’s why our baby brother spent ten thousand years on the moon.’

‘And he passed the time cataloging shades of blue,’ Aracia added. ‘That seems to be his major preoccupation.’

‘How many shades of blue has he found so far?’

‘Something in excess of thirteen million that last time I spoke with him. That was about an eon or so ago, though, so he’s probably found more by now.’

‘There’s Mount Shrak,’ Zelana told her sister, pointing toward the earth far below. ‘Let’s go and see if Dahlaine’s managed to track Veltan down yet.’

They descended through the lambent air toward the craggy peak of Mount Shrak, startling a flock of geese as they went. Zelana rather liked geese. They were silly birds most of the time, but their migrations marked the change of the seasons very precisely, and that added a certain stability to an unpredictable world.

The sisters came to earth near the mouth of Dahlaine’s cave, and Zelana led Aracia down the long, winding passage toward their brother’s underground home.

‘Hideous,’ Aracia observed, looking around. ‘Did he put all those icicles on the ceiling himself?’

‘They aren’t ice, dear sister,’ Zelana replied ‘They’re stone. They grow the same way icicles grow, but they take quite a bit longer.’

‘He’ll starve to death if he lives here in the dark for too long,’ Aracia observed.

‘He has a little sun that follows him here in his cave,’ Zelana said. ‘It’s like a puppy, and it gives him all the light he needs.’

‘He’s manufacturing suns now?’ Aracia seemed a bit startled. ‘I tried that once, but the silly thing flew apart as soon as I started to make it spin.’

‘You probably didn’t make it heavy enough. The balance of a sun has to be very precise – too light and it flies apart; too heavy and it collapses in on itself.’