“Now that’s a very peculiar name,” Ariga said. “Do all of those Maags have those odd names?”
“It’s a cultural peculiarity,” Veltan explained. “Most Maags have names that sort of describe them. The one called Ox is a huge man with big shoulders and a thick neck.”
“He doesn’t have horns, though, does he?” Ariga asked.
“Not yet, I think,” Gunda said with a faint smile. “I haven’t checked his head lately, though.”
“Ox is a good sailor,” Veltan said, “and the crew on Sorgan’s ship, the Seagull, usually do what he tells them to do. He’s the second in command on the Seagull, and Sorgan depends on him to get things done.”
“That little one they call Rabbit is very clever, I noticed,” Ekial said, “and he seems to get along with the archer called Longbow. Now there’s a man that you don’t want to irritate, Ariga. I’d say that he’s probably the finest archer in the whole world—probably because he doesn’t know how to miss when he shoots an arrow. If Dahlaine had ten men like Longbow, he wouldn’t need anybody else.”
“Longbow has a very personal reason to hate the creatures of the Wasteland,” Veltan said. “He’s turned killing them into his life’s work.” Then he looked off toward the western horizon. “The sun’s going down, gentlemen. Why don’t you have some supper and then get some sleep? We’ve got a full day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Would beans be all right for supper?” Gunda asked Ekial and Ariga. “I hope so, because that’s just about the only thing I know how to cook.”
“What would you prefer, Veltan?” Ariga asked.
“Veltan doesn’t really matter, Ariga,” Gunda said. “He doesn’t even know how to eat—or to sleep either.”
Veltan shrugged. “Family peculiarity,” he said without bothering to explain. “Eat and get to bed, my friends. Tomorrow promises to be a very long day.”
“You’re going to cheat some more, I take it,” Gunda said with a broad grin. “Didn’t that get you into a lot of trouble once? I’ve heard that once you spent quite a few years camped out on the moon.”
“It was just a misunderstanding,” Veltan replied. “I got everything straightened out last spring. Mother wasn’t really that angry with me, but the moon lied through her teeth to keep me there because she was lonesome.” He looked at Gunda with one raised eyebrow. “Did you want any more details, Gunda?” he asked. “I’d be more than happy to fill you in if you’re really curious.”
“Ah—no, Veltan,” Gunda replied. “I think I know just about as much as I really want to know. Why don’t I go get started on supper?”
“Excellent idea, Gunda,” Veltan replied without changing his expression.
It was a couple of days later and the good weather showed no signs of changing. The wind continued to come up from the south, and Gunda’s sleek little fishing yawl seemed almost to fly along the west coast of an island Veltan called Thurn. “My sister Zelana lived here for many years,” he told them. “That was before our brother drifted around with the ‘gifts’ that changed our lives.”
“What would people who own tons of gold need with gifts?” Ekial asked curiously.
“They were children, Prince Ekial,” Veltan replied, “and they were the most precious things in our lives. I’m sure that you encountered sister Zelana’s little girl Eleria a few times when we were in that basin above the Falls of Vash.”
“Oh, yes,” Ekial replied with a sudden grin. “She’s the one who goes around kissing people into submission, isn’t she?”
“That’s Eleria, all right,” Veltan agreed. “She started that kiss-kiss game when she was just a baby. My sister had some very close friends who were dolphins, and she persuaded them to feed Eleria. After Eleria started thanking the dolphins with kisses, they’d argue with each other for hours about whose turn it was to nurse the child. She’s even managed to soften Longbow, and he’s the hardest man in the whole world. Eleria didn’t learn how to talk the language of people until just a couple of years ago. She spoke dolphin instead.”
“It seems that I heard something about that during the war in your Domain,” Ekial said. “I was fairly sure it wasn’t really the truth, though.”
“Oh?”
“The fellow who told me about it said that the dolphins were pink. There’s no such thing as a pink dolphin, is there?”
“There’s one hopping around just ahead of us, Ekial,” Veltan replied, pointing toward the bow of Gunda’s yawl. “It looks to be pink to me.”
Ekial turned quickly, and Ariga leaned out over the rail just to one side of his friend. “It looks pink to me, Ekial,” Ariga said. “Just because you’ve never seen one before doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. If you really like that color, I’ll see if I can find you a pink horse when we go on home after this war’s over—or maybe you’d prefer a blue one. A blue horse would really make you stand out in a crowd, wouldn’t you say?”
Ekial glared at his friend, but he didn’t say anything.
“This one’s almost as bad as Red-Beard, isn’t he, Veltan?” Gunda said with a broad grin. “I think he and I are going to get along just fine.”
The fleet of Trogite ships continued north for the next several days, and Ariga was a bit startled by the size of the trees in that region. They were immense and they seemed to rise up almost like columns. “How long would you say it takes a tree to grow that big?” he asked Veltan.
“Several thousand years at least,” Veltan replied. “Until recently, the people of sister Zelana’s Domain made their tools out of stone, and an axe with a stone blade wouldn’t work very well if you decided to cut down a tree of that size. That means that the trees just keep growing and getting bigger every year.”
“They’re pretty enough, I suppose,” Ariga said, “but I don’t think I’d want to live in a place like this.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t see any grass growing in those woods, and that means that there wouldn’t be anything for our cows to eat. Cows are what the Malavi are all about. What do the people around there eat?”