Eleria came out of the cabin even sooner than he’d expected. “Everything’s all right again, Longbow,” she said. “The screaming’s all over now.”

“That was quick,” he observed.

“You frightened us. The Beloved isn’t used to people who walk away from her the way you just did. We stopped arguing right after you left. We cried for a while and hugged each other, and everything’s all right now. It’s safe for you to come back.”

“Good. Did you want me to carry you?”

“Maybe we’d better not,” she said regretfully. “Let’s not get her started again.”

They went back inside the cabin, and Zelana appeared to have regained her composure. “We were talking about the Dreamers, Longbow,” she said as if nothing had happened. “They have some unusual abilities when they dream. They can look back into the past, and occasionally they dream about the future. That’s what happened last night. Eleria had a dream about the future, and we’ll need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t come true.”

“Can we do that?” Longbow asked her. “I’ve heard all the old stories about the Dreamers, and they all say that those dreams lock the future in stone.”

“The old stories are wrong. Eleria’s dream last night told us what might happen, not what will definitely happen. It was more in the nature of a warning. Tell him about your dream, Eleria, and about your pearl.”

“If you want me to, Beloved,” Eleria replied obediently. The little storm of screaming seemed to have passed. Eleria looked at Longbow. “Have you ever heard of the Isle of Thurn?” she asked.

“It lies off the west coast of Dhrall, I’ve been told,” Longbow replied, “and we’re forbidden to go there.”

“That’s probably the Beloved’s idea. She lives there, and she doesn’t really care much for the idea of having neighbors. Anyway, there are pink dolphins in the water around the Isle, and the Beloved talks with them, and she’s very fond of them. When I was a very small child, the younger dolphins were my playmates.”

“And you also speak their language, then, don’t you?”

“It’s the language I spoke first. It was only a little while ago when the Beloved taught me how to speak her language.”

“That’s odd. Most mothers teach their children to speak their own language.”

Eleria laughed a sparkling little laugh. “What in the world ever gave you the absurd idea that the Beloved is my mother?” she asked. “I think we’re related in some way, but she’s not my mother, certainly.”

“We can talk about that some other time,” Zelana said quite firmly. “Tell him about the pearl, Eleria.”

“I was just getting to that, Beloved. It was last year when I was out playing with the younger dolphins off the coast, Longbow, and an old cow whale came to where we were playing, and she told me that she wanted to show me something. I followed her and we went down to the bottom of Mother Sea. There was a huge oyster down there, and the cow whale touched the oyster with one of her fins, and the oyster opened its shell.” Eleria went to the narrow bed where she slept, and rummaged around under the blankets. Then she drew out something that was about the size of an apple. “This is what the oyster was hiding inside its shell,” she said, holding it up for Longbow to see. “It’s called a pearl, and the cow whale told me that I was supposed to have it.”

Longbow was startled by the size of the pink pearl. He had seen pearls before, but never one so large.

“The pearl controls Eleria’s dreams, Longbow,” Zelana said, “and I think the dream she had last night was a warning. Tell him about it, Eleria.”

“Of course, Beloved,” Eleria agreed. “I guess that other people have dreams too, Longbow,” she said, “and most of the time my dreams are probably like theirs, but the one I had last night wasn’t at all like the dreams I usually have. I seemed to be floating up in the air above the Seagull. She was anchored in the harbor of some little Maag town, and it was nighttime. There were five other ships sitting around her to protect her, but some of the little boats the Maags call skiffs came paddling up to them, and then all the ships around the Seagull caught on fire. The Maags got very excited, and they were running around trying to put the fires out, and that’s when five other ships came out of the dark and tied themselves to the Seagull. There was a big fight, and everybody on the Seagull was killed. Then the strangers went down into the place where Hook-Big keeps those gold blocks he likes so much. After they’d taken them all, they set fire to the Seagull and rowed away. It was then that I saw someone with a hood up over his head watching from the beach, and he was laughing. Then I woke up and told the Beloved what I’d just dreamed, and that’s when she sent Red-Beard to find you and ask you to come here.”

“How big was the one on the beach who was laughing?” Longbow demanded intently.

“Not nearly as big as the other Maags,” Eleria replied. “It was only about as big as Bunny.”

“Could you see what color its hood was?”

“Sort of grey, I think. Is it important?”

“I think it might be. The servants of the Vlagh aren’t very large, and they all wear grey hoods. There seems to have been more in your dream than you might have realized. It would seem that a few of the creatures of the Wasteland have found some way to follow us here, and now they’re trying to find ways to keep us from bringing an army of Maags to the Land of Dhrall.” He looked at Zelana. “Is there some way we can prevent this from happening?” he asked her.

“I think we’ve already begun to change things, Longbow,” she replied. “Just knowing about it is the first step.”

Longbow had grown tired of the endless procession of Maag sea captains coming to the Seagull to look at Sorgan’s gold blocks. It seemed that they couldn’t accept the word of others, so they just had to see for themselves. Eleria’s dream, however, changed Longbow’s attitude immediately. If the dream meant what it seemed to mean, five of the ship captains had—or would have—little interest in the Land of Dhrall.

Longbow was a hunter, and hunters learn early to watch and to listen—and to be as unobtrusive as possible when they do so. Most of the visitors to the Seagull were genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity Sorgan was offering. Others made some show of a similar enthusiasm, but there was something about what they did that didn’t ring quite true.