"David Eddings - The Dreamers 02 - The Treasured One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

little late now. IтАЩd assumed that the children would respond to any dangers in the
Domains of their own surrogate parents, so IтАЩd been more than a little startled when
Veltan had told me that YaltarтАЩs dream had predicted the war in ZelanaтАЩs Domain. IтАЩd
assumed that itтАЩd be Eleria whoтАЩd warn us. Then when the real crisis arose, Yaltar
had shoved prediction aside and had gone straight into action with those twin
volcanos. That strongly suggested that Yaltar and Eleria had been very close during
their previous cycle - a suggestion confirmed by the fact that Yaltar had occasionally
referred to Eleria by her true name, тАШBalaceniaтАЩ, and Eleria in like manner had spoken
of тАШVashтАЩ -YaltarтАЩs true name.

тАШI think there might just be a few holes in this тАЬgrand planтАЭ of mine,тАЩ I ruefully
admitted.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that the core of our problem lay in
the fact that the Vlagh had been consciously modifying its servants over the past
hundred or so eons. The modification of various life forms goes on all the time,
usually in response to changes in the environment. Sometimes these modifications
work, and sometimes they donтАЩt. The species that makes the right choice survives, but
the wrong choice leads to extinction. In most cases, survival depends on sheer luck.

Before the arrival of the hairy predecessors of the creatures we now call men, vast
numbers of creatures had arisen in the Land of Dhrall, but at some point most of them
had made a wrong turn and had died out.

The Vlagh, unfortunately, had been among the survivors.

Originally, the Vlagh had been little more than a somewhat exotic insect which
had nested near the shore of that inland sea which in the far distant past had covered
what is now the Wasteland. A gradual climate change had evaporated that sea, and the
Vlagh, driven by necessity, had begun to modify its servants. The change of climate
had made avoiding the broiling sunlight a matter of absolute necessity, but as closely
as IтАЩve been able to determine, the Vlagh had not simply groped around in search of a
solution, but had relied on observation instead. IтАЩm almost positive that it had been at
this point that тАШthe overmindтАЩ had appeared. The ability to share information had
given the servants of the Vlagh an enormous advantage over their neighbors. What
any single one of them had seen, they all had seen. The VlaghтАЩs species at that time
had lived above the ground - most probably up in the trees. Several other species,
however, had lived beneath the surface of the ground, and тАШthe seekers of
knowledgeтАЩ - spies, if you wish - had observed those neighbors and had provided very
accurate descriptions of the appendages the neighbors used to burrow below the
surface. Then тАШthe overmindтАЩ had filched the design, the Vlagh had duplicated it, and
the next hatch had all been burrowers.

The extensive tunnels had kept the servants of the Vlagh out of the blazing
sunlight, but that had only been the first problem they had been forced to solve. As
the centuries had passed, the changed climate had gradually killed all the vegetation
in that previously lush region, so there was no longer sufficient food to support a
growing population.

The Vlagh had continued to lay eggs, of course, but each hatch had produced