The Elder Gods

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It was in the spring of Eleria’s seventh year when the child went out to play with her pink friends again. Zelana had suggested that Eleria had been neglecting them of late, and it was not polite to do that.

Late that day Eleria returned to the grotto with a strange glowing object.

‘What is that pretty thing, child?’ Zelana asked.

‘It’s called a “pearl”, Beloved,’ Eleria replied, ‘and a very old friend of the dolphins gave it to me – well, she didn’t exactly give it to me. She showed me where it was, though.’

‘I didn’t know that pearls could grow so large,’ Zelana marveled. ‘It must have been an enormous oyster.’

‘It was huge, Beloved.’

‘Who is this friend of the dolphins?’

‘A whale,’ Eleria replied. ‘She’s very old, and she lives near that islet off the south coast. She joined us this morning and told me that she wanted to show me something. Then she led me to the islet and took me down to where this enormous oyster was attached to a reef. The oyster’s shell was almost as wide across as I am tall.’

‘How did you pry it open if it was that big?’

‘I didn’t have to, Beloved. The old whale touched the shell with her fin, and the oyster opened its shell for us.’

‘How very peculiar,’ Zelana said.

‘The old whale told me that the oyster wanted me to have the pearl, so I took it. I did thank the oyster, but I’m not sure it could understand me. It was a little hard to swim and hold my pearl at the same time, but the old whale offered to carry me back home.’

‘Carry?’

‘Well, not exactly. I rode on her back. That is so much fun.’ Eleria held the pearl up. ‘See how it glows pink. Beloved? It’s even prettier than the ceiling of our grotto.’ She nestled her pearl, which was about the size of an apple, against her cheek. ‘I love it!’ she declared.

‘Did you eat today?’ Zelana asked.

‘I had plenty earlier today, Beloved. My friends and I found a school of herring and ate our fill.’

‘Did the whale have a name, by any chance?’

‘The dolphins just called her “mother”. She isn’t really their mother, of course. I think it’s more like a way to let her know that they love her.’

‘She speaks the same language as the dolphins?’

‘Sort of. Her voice isn’t as squeaky, though.’ Eleria crossed to her bed of moss. ‘I’m very tired, Beloved,’ she said, sinking down onto her bed. ‘It was a long swim out to the islet, and mother whale swims faster than I do. I had trouble keeping up with her.’

‘Why don’t you go to sleep, then, Eleria? I’m sure you’ll feel much better in the morning.’

‘That sounds like a terribly good idea, Beloved,’ Eleria said. ‘I’m really having trouble keeping my eyes open.’ She lay back on her bed of moss with the glowing pink pearl cradled to her heart.

Zelana was puzzled, and just a trifle concerned. It wasn’t natural for whales and dolphins to associate with each other in the way Eleria had just described, and Zelana was almost positive that they wouldn’t be able to speak to each other and be understood. Something very peculiar had happened today.

Eleria appeared to be sound asleep now, and her limbs had relaxed. Then, to Zelana’s astonishment, the glowing pink pearl rose up into the air above the sleeping child. Its pink glow grew steadily stronger and the glow seemed to enclose Eleria.

‘Don’t interfere. Zelana,’ a very familiar voice echoed in Zelana’s mind. ‘This is necessary, and I don’t need any help from you.’

Eleria awoke somewhat later than usual the following morning, and she had a puzzled look on her face as she sat cross-legged on her bed of moss with her pearl in her hand. ‘Why do we sleep, Beloved?’ she asked.

‘I don’t,’ Zelana replied, ‘and I’m not sure exactly why other creatures seem to need to sleep every so often.’

‘I thought you and I were of the same kind,’ Eleria said. ‘We look very much alike – except that your hair is dark and glossy and mine is sort of yellow.’

‘I’ve wondered about that myself. Maybe I’ve just outgrown the need for sleep. I am quite a bit older than you are, after all.’ It was a simplified answer, but Zelana was quite certain that Eleria wasn’t ready for the real one just yet.

‘Since you don’t sleep, you wouldn’t know about the strange things I seem to see happening while I’m sleeping, would you?’

‘They’re called “dreams”, Eleria,’ Zelana told her, ‘and I don’t think any other creature has the same kind of dreams you do. My brother Dahlaine told me that your dreams would be very special, and much more important than the dreams of the ordinaries. Did you have a dream last night that frightened you?’

‘It didn’t particularly frighten me, Beloved. It just seemed very strange, for some reason.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ Zelana suggested.

‘Well, I seemed to be floating – except that I wasn’t floating in Mother Sea the way I do sometimes when I want to rest and catch my breath. I was floating way up in the air instead, and all sorts of strange things were happening far below. Father Earth seemed to be all on fire, and his mountains were rising and falling the way Mother Sea’s waves do. Rocks were melting and running down the sides of some of Father Earth’s mountains into Mother Sea, and some of his other mountains were spouting liquid fire way up into the sky. Could something like that really happen?’

‘Yes, child,’ Zelana said in a troubled voice, ‘and it happened in exactly the way you just described it. I was there watching while it happened. It was at the very beginning of the world. What happened next?’

‘Well, the fires kept burning for a long, long time, and then the land below me started to break apart, and the pieces floated off in different directions. Then trees began to sprout on the face of Father Earth, and Mother Sea started having children. It was about then that I seemed to know that I wasn’t alone. Others were having the same dream – only maybe for them it wasn’t really a dream.’

Zelana smiled. ‘No, dear, it wasn’t. I was one of those others, and I certainly wasn’t dreaming, and neither were my brothers or my sister.’

‘Then it was your family that was sort of hiding around the edges of my dream?’ Eleria asked. ‘I thought you only had two brothers and one sister. There seemed to be two more brothers and a sister watching with me.’

‘They’re another branch of the family, Eleria,’ Zelana told her. ‘We don’t get together very often. We can talk about them some other time. Why don’t you tell me what happened next in your dream. Dreams fade, I guess, and I’d like to hear your whole dream before you forget.’

‘Well, most of Mother Sea’s children were fish, but some of them weren’t. Those were the ones who crawled up onto the face of Father Earth. They looked like snakes at first, but then they sprouted legs and they grew up to be very big. Some of them ate trees, but some of the others ate the ones who were eating trees. Then a great big rock that was on fire fell down out of the sky, and when it hit Father Earth it made an awful splash, except that it was rock that splashed instead of water, and everything got dark for a long time. It finally started to get light again, but the snakes with legs weren’t there any more.’

‘Did my relatives go away, too?’

‘Some of them went to sleep, but they woke up after a while, and the ones who’d stayed awake went to sleep. There was one that never slept, though. That one’s very ugly, isn’t it?’

‘Indeed it is, child,’ Zelana replied with a shudder. ‘It’s an outcast, and we don’t even like to think about it. What happened next?’

‘There were a lot of things with fur wandering around, and there were birds and bugs, too, but then some things who walked on their hind legs came along. They didn’t look at all the way we do, though. Their skin was scaly, like the skin of large fish – or maybe snakes, and their eyes were huge and stuck way out in front of their faces. That went on for quite a long time, and then everything was all covered with white, and it got very cold. Mother Sea seemed to shrink, and she ran away from her shore. Then the white went away, and Mother Sea came back. That’s when the man-things who look like me arrived. They didn’t look exactly like me, though. They wrapped themselves up in animal skins for some reason, and you and I don’t do that, do we?’

‘It isn’t necessary for us, Eleria. The skins help the man-things stay warm, and they’re ashamed of their bodies.’

‘How peculiar,’ Eleria said, frowning slightly. ‘That was about all there was, Beloved, except that the awful-looking watcher was still way off at the edge of my dream, and I don’t think it likes me very much. I get the feeling that it’s afraid of me for some reason.’

‘If it has anything like good sense, it is,’ Zelana said. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to manage here by yourself for a few days? There are some things I need to attend to. I won’t be gone for long.’

‘Can’t I go with you?’

‘I’m afraid not, Eleria. I have to go by myself this time. Maybe you can come along next time. We’ll see.’