Athlan glanced up at the small light that seemed to be floating in the air above them.

“That would definitely be one of the things you don’t want to ask any questions about, my friend,” Longbow said. “Dahlaine has quite a few pets here in his cave. Let’s just call that light a ‘pet’ and let it go at that, shall we?”

“Right!” Athlan agreed fervently.

They reached what appeared to be living quarters of some kind about a quarter of an hour later.

“I’m awfully tired, Beloved,” the little girl Eleria said to Zelana when they reached that part of the cave. “If I don’t get some sleep fairly soon, I think I’ll start to fall apart.”

“Is there some side chamber nearby, Dahlaine?” Zelana asked. “The children need some sleep. We’ve been pushing them for the past few days, you know.”

“What about my playroom, uncle?” Ashad suggested. “It’s warm there and I’ve got several bison robes we could use to sleep on.”

“Good idea,” Dahlaine agreed. “Why don’t you show Yaltar and Eleria where it is? I think the other grown-ups and I’ll be talking for quite some time about things that don’t really concern you children.”

“We’ll see you in the morning then, uncle,” Ashad said, and the three children went off into a side tunnel in the cave.

“All right, then,” Dahlaine said, “if Zelana’s right—and she usually is—the creatures of the Wasteland are stirring up trouble just as hard as they can up here.” He smiled faintly. “I’ll borrow a term from our Maag friends here. I’d say that we’ve ‘whomped’ them hard twice so far, and now they’re trying to stir up trouble here in my Domain to distract us enough that we’ll be too busy to ‘whomp’ them again.”

“It sounds about right to me,” Sorgan Hook-Beak agreed. “Every time the bug-people or the snake-men tried to whomp us, we turned things around and whomped them instead. I don’t care how fast the Vlagh thing can lay eggs, we’ve still come out ahead, and even the stupidest thing in the whole wide world could see that if we go into a regular war, we’ll win and they’ll lose. Just about the only way they can avoid another ‘whomp’ will be to distract us from what we’re supposed to be doing. Right now I’d say that they’re doing everything they possibly can to stir up the natives of this part of Dhrall to make them fight each other instead of the servants of the Vlagh.” He looked directly at Dahlaine. “Have you got any strong feelings about that fellow off to the east who thinks that he’s god?”

“Very strong feelings, Captain Hook-Beak,” Dahlaine replied. “If you’d like, I can give you a few hints about how you’d go about reaching down his throat and tearing out his heart. Then if you want, I wouldn’t be at all disturbed if you cooked it and had it for supper.”

“I’ll save you a couple of bites, Lord Dahlaine,” Hook-Beak promised with an evil grin.

Athlan was roused from his sleep early the next morning by the smell of cooking meat. “What is that?” he asked Longbow. “It doesn’t smell at all like deer meat.”

“It wouldn’t,” Longbow replied. “Bison aren’t related to deer. There’s a Matan village near Dahlaine’s mountain, and the villagers brought food here earlier this morning.”

“If bison meat tastes as good as it smells, I can see why the Matans spend their time hunting those animals. If they’re going to provide the food while we’re here, this might just turn out to be a pleasant war.”

The little girl Eleria came out of the side tunnel into the large chamber. “I need a kiss-kiss, Longbow,” she said.

“You’re up early, Eleria,” Longbow said, lifting her and holding her in his arms.

“I need to talk with the Beloved. Where is she?”

“Outside with her brother. The sun’s coming up, so Zelana and Dahlaine are having breakfast. Did you sleep well?”

“Not really. Something happened in the middle of the night that sort of upset Ashad and Yaltar and me.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“I’m not sure if I should tell you about it, Longbow,” she said. “It’s one of those family things. Of course, you are part of the family, aren’t you?”

“Not quite, little one,” Longbow replied with a faint smile.

“Here she comes now,” Eleria said, pointing toward the chamber entrance.

“You’re up early, Eleria,” Zelana said. “Breakfast should be ready in just a little while.”

“We can worry about breakfast later, Beloved. Lillabeth had one of ‘those’ dreams last night, and I think it might cause some problems.”

Zelana looked a bit startled. “How do you know about Lillabeth’s dream?”

“We always know, Beloved. I thought you knew that we share our Dreams with each other. Anyway, Lillabeth is very upset because when she told your sister that the creatures of the Wasteland were moving toward the land of the north, your sister Aracia decided not to let anybody know about the dream.”

“She did what?” Dahlaine exclaimed.

“Lillabeth told us that your sister’s afraid that if you find out that the bug-people will be coming here instead of into her country, you’ll pull Narasan and his army out of her part of this land, and there won’t be anybody there to protect her. Lillabeth isn’t very happy about that. We’re supposed to warn people when we have those Dreams, but your sister won’t let Lillabeth do what she’s supposed to do.”

Dahlaine’s eyes suddenly bulged and his face turned pale.

“I’ll take care of this, big brother,” Zelana told him quite firmly. “You’ve got to make preparations for a war, so you’ll be very busy. I’m going on down to Aracia’s silly temple and straighten her out—once and for all. We don’t do things like this, and Aracia’s going to answer to me for this idiocy! Then I’ll find out about the Dream from Lillabeth herself and come right back here to tell you.”

FAMILY AFFAIR

1

Zelana followed Eleria back to the children’s sleeping chamber off to the side of Dahlaine’s central cave. Eleria’s announcement had startled her more than a little, and she thought it might be best to speak with Ashad and Yaltar to get a few more details before she went on down to confront her sister.