“So that was how you came popping out of nowhere up in the ravine when you came to warn us about the fire mountains, wasn’t it?” Red-Beard suggested.

Veltan nodded. “I didn’t really have much in the way of alternatives. Yaltar’s dream took us all by surprise, and we had to get our friends out of that ravine in a hurry.”

“What causes mountains to do that?” Red-Beard asked curiously.

“That particular eruption was the result of Yaltar’s dream,” Veltan replied. “The Dreamers can break all sorts of rules when they think it’s necessary.”

“But sometimes that sort of thing happens even when there isn’t a Dreamer around to make it happen, doesn’t it?”

Veltan nodded. “It’s a natural phenomenon,” he said. “The core of the world is molten rock, and it’s under enormous pressure. Every so often, it breaks through the crust, and the pressure sends it spurting up into the sky for miles.” He pointed toward the west. “There’s the coast of Zelana’s isle,” he told them.

“How far have we really come from the inlet?” Longbow asked.

“Oh,” Veltan replied, squinting thoughtfully, “about half as far as it is from Lattash to the head of the ravine. It won’t take us too much longer to reach Zelana’s grotto.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I think that maybe the best way for us to do this would be to speak with Eleria first. She knows Zelana even better than I do, and she can manipulate my sister in ways I couldn’t even imagine. Balacenia’s always been the most devious of the younger ones.”

“Who’s Balacenia?” Red-Beard asked curiously.

“That’s Eleria’s real name.” Veltan paused. “I wouldn’t spread that around if I were you,” he told them. “Our big brother Dahlaine came up with the idea when we realized that the Vlagh had decided to annex our Domains. The Dreamers look like children, but they really aren’t children. They’re our alternates, and they’ll take over when our cycle reaches its end. That’s something else you don’t need to mention to the outlanders. They don’t really need to know about the cycles. Actually, the less they know about what’s really happening, the better. If they find out who and what we’re facing here, they’ll probably turn and run.”

“I’ve heard a few of the old stories,” Red-Beard said, “but they’ve never really made very much sense to me. Every now and then somebody mentions something called the overmind. Just exactly what is that?”

“Red-Beard’s the chief of his tribe now,” Longbow reminded Veltan. “It might not be a bad thing for him to know a bit more about the thing out in the Wasteland.”

“You could be right, Longbow,” Veltan agreed. Then he looked at Red-Beard. “How much do you know about bugs?” he asked.

“They have more legs than we have, and some of them can fly. That’s about all I’ve managed to pick up. I’ve always concentrated on things that I can eat, and I don’t think I’d really care to eat a bug.”

“This may take a while,” Veltan mused. “All right, then. Some bugs are solitary. They have very little contact with others of their species, except at mating time. Spiders are about the best example of those particular bugs. There are other kinds, though—various bees and ants, for the most part. As individuals, they’re almost totally mindless. They’re too stupid to even be afraid. You probably noticed that up in the ravine.”

“They didn’t really seem very clever,” Red-Beard agreed.

“They don’t need to be clever, Red-Beard. It’s that overmind you’ve heard about that does the thinking.”

“The Vlagh, you mean? I’ve always sort of wondered how anybody ever managed to find out what that thing’s name was. Bugs don’t usually have names, do they?”

“Vlagh isn’t exactly a name, Red-beard,” Veltan explained. “It’s more in the nature of a title. The creatures of the Wasteland refer to it as ‘the Vlagh,’ sort of in the same way that the people of your tribe call you ‘the chief.’ The Vlagh has certain advantages, though. The creatures that serve it know exactly what it’s thinking all the time, because they all share the awareness of what’s called the overmind. Every one of them is aware of what any of the others has seen or heard, and all of that information lies in the mind of the Vlagh.”

“That would be sort of useful, I suppose,” Red-Beard conceded. “That Vlagh thing doesn’t have to give orders, because everybody in the tribe knows exactly what he’s thinking every minute of the day.”

“The Vlagh isn’t a ‘he,’ Red-Beard,” Veltan corrected. “Actually, it’s a ‘she.’ It lays eggs, and anything called a ‘he’ doesn’t do that.”

“We’re at war with a woman?” Red-Beard exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t really think of the Vlagh as a woman, Red-Beard. Laying eggs is only part of what the Vlagh does. What it’s doing right now is attempting to expand its territory. It wants more food for its servants. The more food that’s available, the more eggs it can produce, and the more servants it has, the more complex the overmind becomes. For now, it wants the entire Land of Dhrall, but that’s only a start. The ultimate goal of the Vlagh is the entire world. If it has the world, there won’t be any limits on the overmind.”

“Are you saying that it wants to rule people as well as bugs?” Red-Beard demanded incredulously.

“Probably not,” Veltan replied. “Most likely, people will just be something to eat. More food; more eggs. That’s the way the overmind works.”

“We have to kill that thing!” Red-Beard exploded.

“I rather thought you might see it that way,” Veltan agreed. “The outlanders think that they’re working for gold, but what they’re really working for is survival. If we don’t win, the servants of the Vlagh will have us all for lunch.”

It was about midmorning when Veltan’s sloop rounded the southern tip of the Isle of Thurn. Red-Beard had been keeping a close eye on the coast of the Isle, and it didn’t seem that the sloop was moving all that fast.

“Don’t think about it, Red-Beard,” Veltan told him. “I’m tampering just a bit. If you happened to see what’s really happening, it might disturb you. Time and distance aren’t quite as rigid as they might seem to be.”