The Treasured One. David Eddings

      It was a time of uncertainty in the nest of the Vlagh, for no word of success had yet reached the nest from the warrior-servants which had followed the burrows below the face of the ground toward the broad water which lies beneath the sunset.

      All had gone as it should at first as the warrior-servants had moved down through the burrows toward the land of the sunset, killing the man-things of that land as they went, and the joy of our dear Vlagh had known no bounds, for once the land of the sunset was ours, there would be much to eat, and the Vlagh which had spawned us all could spawn still more, and our numbers would grow to beyond counting, and the overmind of which we are all a part would expand, for it grows larger and more complex with each new hatch.

      Impatient was our Vlagh, for none of its servants of whatever form had yet brought word of victory, and without that assurance, our Vlagh could not spawn. Though our Vlagh reached out with its senses toward the land of the sunset to question the overmind about the success of the warriors of strange form, the overmind did not respond, and that was most unusual.

      And as the days came and went, our Vlagh grew more and more

      irritable as the need to spawn was frustrated by the lack of certainty. ‘Go!’ our Vlagh commanded the warrior-servants which protect the hidden nest. ‘Go and look, and then return and tell me that which I must know.’

      Many warrior-servants of venomous fangs hurried away, and those of us which are the true servants who care for our Vlagh and the newborns sought to assure our dear Vlagh that all was as it should be.

      But it was not so.

      The venomous warriors of strange form returned to report that they could not find even one of those of our number which had followed the burrows beneath the face of the ground toward the broad water which lies beneath the sunset, nor had they even been able to find any trace of those burrows. More horrible still, they had felt no sense of the overmind in that region.

      And the pain of our dear Vlagh knew no bounds, for the overmind had been greatly diminished, and it would remain so until the burrowers and the warriors with venomous fangs were found and their awareness was rejoined with the overmind.

      Then there came to the nest of the Vlagh a burrower with missing limbs and deep burns in its shell, and the burrower spoke of hot light spewing up from the mountains and red liquid hotter than fire running down through the burrows below the face of the ground, consuming all that was in its path. And then the burrower said that which should never be said. ‘They are no more. The many which went through our hidden burrows toward the land of the sunset have all been consumed by the red liquid hotter than fire, and we are all made less because they are gone.’

      And then the burrower’s task was complete, and it died.

      And our beloved Vlagh shrieked in agony, for the word of the burrower had torn away the urge to spawn. And all of us were made less by those words, for the many were now fewer, and the lands beneath the sunset were now and forever beyond our reach. The grief of our Vlagh was beyond our understanding, and that grief brought us rage.

      Now it came to pass that the servants with strange forms and venomous fangs which had gone forth to seek knowledge in the lands of the man-things conferred with one another. The seekers of knowledge are unlike the true servants, for their task has altered them. The seekers of knowledge go beyond our Vlagh’s immediate commands, and they consider the knowledge which they have found and even sometimes offer alternatives when they carry the knowledge which they have found back to the nest.

      And so it was that the seekers of knowledge agreed, each with the others, that the lands of the sunset were now and forever beyond the grasp of the burrowers and the warriors by reason of the liquid fire which was coming forth from the mountains, and they offered the alternative which the knowledge they had found had suggested to them. Might it not be better, they said, to expand toward a different direction than we had before? The mountains above the land of longer summers are quiet, and the need to spew forth liquid fire is not stirring in those mountains, and there are many more things to eat in the land of longer summers than there had been in the land of the sunset. Since the presence of things to eat arouses our Vlagh’s urge to spawn, should we not seek out a land where there is much to eat? Should we do so, the urge to spawn will grow much greater, and there will soon be even more of us than there had been when the burrowers had opened the passages below the face of the ground which had led down to the land of the sunset. And thereby the awareness of the overmind which we all share will be increased, lifting it to heights which it has never reached before.

      And our beloved Vlagh communed with the overmind concerning the virtue of the alternative offered by the seekers of knowledge, and the overmind found much that was good in that alternative, for it had learned much during our attempt to occupy the land of the sunset. The warriors of strange form had encountered many different creatures as they had moved toward the sunset, and the overmind perceived that those different forms might prove to be most useful in our encounters with the man-things in the land of longer summers, for the man-things are most tenacious and difficult to push aside as we move toward that which is our goal. Then, however, the overmind warned our beloved Vlagh that the greatest danger we would face in the land of longer summers would be – even as it had