The older version had also nudged the younger into the notion of what Keselo had called "The Phalanx." The younger Omago was not as totally innocent as he'd appeared right at first—largely because the elder Omago had been tampering for all he was worth. The grand plan of the original Omago seemed to have had quite a few holes in it.

When the foul-mouthed Jalkan had insulted Ara, however, young Omago had punched him squarely in the face without any help at all from eternal Omago, and he'd done it so fast that it had actually startled his eternal awareness.

"He did show some promise there," eternal Omago murmured with a faint smile.

He spent the next hour or so remembering the experiences of his alternate personality. Despite his lack of training, younger Omago had been clever and resourceful during the war in Veltan's Domain, and even more so during the war in the North.

"Enough of that," he murmured. He and his mate had been drawn to the Land of Dhrall by their certainty that something would happen here that would prevent the extermination of the man-things here on this world. The events here during the past three seasons had made it abundantly clear that That-Called-the-Vlagh would be the exterminator. If she succeeded here, she would move on to the other parts of this world and delete the man-things in each of those as well. Given a few years, there would no longer be man-things anywhere on this world, and then the Vlagh would produce offspring by the millions, and they would spread out and kill off all other living creatures. "Not as long as I'm around, they won't," Omago vowed to himself. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that the Alcevan creature would be the key to the obliteration of the man-things, and if they stopped Alcevan, they could surely stop the Vlagh as well.

But how?

"Have we turned into night-creatures now, Omago?" the somber-faced archer Longbow asked.

Omago was startled. "Can't you make a little noise before you do that, Longbow?" he demanded.

"That might be just a little difficult, friend Omago," Longbow replied, holding up one of his feet and pointing at the soft leather shoe he wore.

"You could always cough, or something," Omago said sourly.

"Is there some reason why you're still awake in the middle of the night?" Longbow asked.

"Something that might turn out to be very important," Omago replied. "It's important enough anyway that I don't think I'll sleep very much until I find some way to deal with it."

"Oh?"

"The Vlagh has many servants—or children, actually—but most of them are as stupid as rocks. If what I've heard actually happened, the Alcevan creature is far, far more intelligent. If that's true, the children of the Vlagh will quite probably defeat us. I think, however, that I've come up with a way to defeat her instead. What I really need right now is more information about the nature of her servants."

Longbow's expression changed slightly at that point. "You're not really just an ordinary farmer, are you, Omago?" he asked.

"Well—" Omago left it sort of up in the air.

"I didn't really think so. I don't think your mate would have been very interested in somebody whose main purpose in life was picking apples or growing beans."

Omago felt just a bit crestfallen about then. "Have I been that obvious?"

Longbow smiled. "I've come to know Ara very well since the war in Veltan's Domain. You two have been here for a long, long time, haven't you?"

"From even before the beginning, yes."

"But you weren't aware of that until just recently, right?"

"How did you know that?" Omago demanded.

"You probably shouldn't have told your mate about that dream you'd had. She was very upset when you told her about it. She wanted me to do something about it. I'm not sure just what she wanted me to do, but she laid it in my lap. That's why we're having this present conversation. What made you think that it was time to shed that farmer pose and become the real eternal Omago?"

Omago smiled. "Ara does that every so often," he said. "She didn't really like the idea of a simple-minded Omago, but now she wants to defend him—even though he's not particularly useful now. My original intention was to be just an ordinary farmer so that I'd understand the man-things here in the Land of Dhrall. You people here do things that nobody else in this whole world would ever do. I wanted to see things the way that the native people of the Land of Dhrall see them, but evidently my mind has ways to step around any restrictions I've laid upon it—probably when an emergency pops up."

"Omago," Longbow asserted then, "we've been neck-deep in emergency since last spring. Did your mind just now wake up to that?"

"I think it might have been the Alcevan creature that shook it awake. The Vlagh—or her children—have come up with a way to eliminate people—all people, I think. That odor they use makes people believe whatever the Vlagh wants them to believe. It was fairly crude over in Tonthakan, but the Alcevan creature took it much, much farther, and eliminated Aracia in the process. I'll get to Alcevan in good time, but right now I think I need to know more about the Vlagh creature herself."

"I've seen her servants many times," Longbow replied, "but the only time I've ever seen her was back in Veltan's Domain when her servants were carrying her back out into the Wasteland. What is it that you want to know about her?"

"I need to know where she lives, and just who takes care of her."

"You might want to speak with Dahlaine," Longbow suggested. "He's fairly busy right now, though. I think that Keselo might be able to tell us quite a lot about the world of bugs. He told me once that he used study as an excuse to avoid doing honest work, and he spent a lot of time studying the world of fishes and birds—maybe he studied bugs as well. Why don't we go wake him up? As long as you and I are awake, we might as well rouse him too, wouldn't you say?"

"My teachers at the University of Kaldacin weren't really all that interested in insects," Keselo told them when they asked him about the world of bugs. "They had a fair grasp of the nature of bees, of course, since honey can be quite valuable. They also warned us about locusts and ants, but that was about as far as it went. I have picked up quite a bit of information about the Vlagh from Dahlaine, though. Maybe you should ask him. When you get right down to it, though, I've picked up just about everything I know about bugs from you, Longbow—and from your Shaman, One-Who-Heals. Is it at all possible that the Vlagh had your shaman killed because he knew too much about her and her children?"