“Probably not,” Trenicia confessed. “I was just wondering what all that gleaming rock is. When I first looked at it, I thought it might be huge deposits of diamonds.”

Dahlaine shook his head. “It’s quartz, Your Majesty,” he said. “You might say that it’s the diamond’s third cousin, but it’s not as hard—nor as rare.”

“It’s still very pretty, though. I was just wondering if it would shatter if Narasan’s people used those catapult things to throw large rocks at it and break it to pieces. A downpour of sharp fragments would make things very unpleasant for enemies who were trying to attack, wouldn’t you say?”

Dahlaine frowned slightly. “It would, wouldn’t it?” he agreed. “We could eliminate enemies by the thousands without putting any of our people in danger. I think you’ve just earned your pay for this day, Queen Trenicia.”

“That’s something we might want to discuss one of these days, Lord Dahlaine,” Trenicia replied. “The way things stand right now, I’m not being paid anything at all. We really should do something about that, wouldn’t you say?”

“The one thing about Lillabeth’s Dream that has me completely baffled is ‘the plague that is not a plague,’ big brother,” Zelana said after they’d returned to Dahlaine’s main chamber. “A disease that’s not really a disease is sort of a contradiction, wouldn’t you say?”

“It doesn’t make much sense to me,” Dahlaine agreed. He looked at the native Tlantar. “Have you heard anything at all about the outbreak of some new disease anywhere here in Matakan, Chief Two-Hands?”

“Nothing particularly specific, Dahlaine,” the tall chief of Asmie replied. “There’ve been a few rumors about an outbreak of some kind of disease that nobody can recognize on up to the north. The Atazaks have been probing down into the lands of the northern tribes. They don’t really pose much of a threat, so nobody up there takes those intrusions very seriously. They set up ambushes and shower the intruders with spears, and then the Atazaks turn around and run. They aren’t the bravest people in the world, after all.”

“Have the people of Atazakan ever intruded into the land of the Matans before, Chief Tlantar?” Longbow asked.

“Not that I’ve ever heard about. The Atazaks aren’t exactly what you’d call warriors, Longbow. I’d say that an ordinary Atazak couldn’t tell one end of a spear from the other even if his life depended on it.”

“But now they’ve suddenly turned aggressive?”

“I don’t think I’d go quite so far as to describe them as ‘aggressive.’ They try to sneak down into Matakan for some reason, but as soon as somebody sees them, they turn around and run back across the border.”

“Do you think it might be another one of those diversions, Longbow?” Keselo asked his friend. “It sounds just a bit like that tribal war the creatures of the Wasteland were trying to stir up back in Tonthakan. If they can somehow prod the Atazakans into invading Matakan, it’s going to pull a lot of people out of the war down in Crystal Gorge, wouldn’t you say?”

“It is possible, I suppose,” Longbow agreed, “but I can’t quite see how a disease of any kind fits into that plan.”

“What we need now, then, are some more descriptions of this disease that isn’t really a disease,” Keselo suggested.

“I’ll send more men on up there to ask questions,” Chief Tlantar said. “The rumors that have been drifting down here have been sort of vague.”

“That’s probably about the best we’ll be able to do for right now,” Longbow agreed. “We’ll need more information before we’ll be able to start looking for a solution.”

4

Trenicia assumed that it was late afternoon several days later when one of Tlantar’s men came into Dahlaine’s central chamber to speak with his chief. Of course, Trenicia hadn’t seen the sky for several days now, so she really had no idea at all whether it was night or day outside. That was the thing about caves that bothered Trenicia the most. Day or night didn’t matter at all when she was in a cave.

“A messenger just came down here from on up to the north,” Tlantar told the rest of them, “and he’s given us more details about this new disease that’s been worrying us lately. If his numbers are at all accurate, the disease has killed several hundred of the northern Matans already. When somebody catches this disease, it seems that he has a great deal of trouble breathing, and then he starts raving almost as if he just went crazy. The messenger told my people that when somebody catches this disease, he’s usually dead within a few hours.”

“That’s hardly possible, Chief Tlantar,” the young Trogite named Keselo objected. “A disease almost always takes several days to run its course. If the northern Matans sicken and die that fast, it has to be something else that’s killing them.”

“Poison, maybe?” Sorgan Hook-Beak suggested, “or maybe even some of that snake-venom that’s caused us so much trouble before?”

Keselo scratched his cheek and then shook his head. “I think we can rule out venom, Captain,” he replied. “The venom we’ve encountered before kills people almost instantly. Various poisons take a bit longer.”

“Wouldn’t that suggest that somebody’s been slipping into the camp of the northern Matans and sprinkling poison on their food?” Padan asked.

“I’d say that poisoning the water supply would be more likely,” the little Maag called Rabbit said. “It’d be a lot easier—and safer—to pour poison into a spring or a well than it would be to slink around at night poisoning the food. Most people guard their food, since they usually have to pay for it. Water’s free, though, so people take it wherever they find it.”

“Isn’t something like that just a bit complicated for a creature that’s at least part bug?” Narasan suggested.

“I don’t know that I’d lock ‘stupid’ in stone, Narasan,” Red-Beard cautioned. “It seems to me that every time we turn around, the bug-people—or whatever they are—have been doing their best to outsmart us. Their ‘fragrance game’ back in Tonthakan came very close to starting a war between the Deer Tribe and the Reindeer Tribe.”

“All we’re doing here is guessing,” the deep-voiced Andar rumbled at them. “We don’t have enough information yet about what’s really killing all those northern Matans, and I can’t think of anybody who’d be able to clear it up for us.”