John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

At the very top of Injun Knob, another cross had been raised. Midnight was hours away. He sat down and leaned against it, feeling somehow soothed and relaxed. There was a promise of hard frost in the air, and he thought the formula that tapped the Web of the World for warmth.

He was, he told himself, wise to go back to Yuulith. He had friends there. And people were used to the idea of some folks not aging, because the ylver and the Sisters didn't age. Not till they'd lived close to a century. Then, of course, they went downhill like a runaway buggy with a stone wall at the bottom.

He closed his eyes, wondering if just possibly he could connect with Vulkan psychically from where he sat. But nothing happened, and his mind wandered. He thought of Omara. What might she think of marrying him? Would the Sisterhood allow it? Would she still feel the way she had about him? But first he'd look up Varia. Maybe Cyncaidh had died. Of course, if he had, Varia might have married someone else. She had no reason to expect him back.

He realized what he was thinking, and it struck him as disloyal to Mary, so recently buried. But the thought lacked teeth. He was on the doorstep to another world, another universe. Continuation of another life.

Then he slipped into sleep, and dreamed good dreams that he wouldn't remember.

10 Wolf Springs

There was a moment of startled nightmare as the gate sucked Macurdy in, then spit him out, to roll across last summer's wet grass and leaves.

The crossing had wakened him like a tomcat dropped into a pit of bulldogs. But the transit was familiar now, and the fear a momentary reaction to being jerked violently and unprepared from sleep. On the Oz side it was drizzling, and daylight, the noon nearest the full moon. (The phases of the moon were in synch with the phases on Injun Knob, but day and night were reversed.)

He got to his feet and looked around. Four Ozian warriors stood a little way off, watching him and speaking quiet Yuultal. They held their spears ready, for clearly this was no ordinary victim, sick in guts and limbs, or likelier comatose.

Macurdy folded thick arms across his chest. "I'm Macurdy, the Lion of Farside," he announced in their own dialect. "I've come back. Take me to the headman."

It was actually Arbel whom Macurdy wanted to see, but it was politic to visit the headman first. His march to the village was unlike that first one. The corporal in charge walked beside him. It was clear from the man's aura that he was awed. The others followed, equally impressed. No one jabbed him from behind with their spear, harassing him, making blood run down the back of his legs. It was obvious his reputation still lived, perhaps exaggerated even more than before.

He'd half expected there'd be no warriors waiting to see what or who came through. If anything did. With the old conjure woman a dozen years gone, there'd be no sacrificial gifts put out, and perhaps no reckless rural adolescents, waiting on a dare for "the spirit to come a-hootin'." As for the Sisterhood-he had no idea whether they still used the gate.

The district headman's residence seemed unchanged, but the old headman had died. His replacement had been a soldier in what was now being called Quaie's War. "I saw you on the march," the man told him, "and at the Battle of Ternass. And when you came back to Wolf Springs afterward. You have the long youth." Then he offered Macurdy the hospitality of his home, and his choice of slave girls.

Macurdy answered that he'd come to Oz for a purpose. He'd soon be leaving for the east, and wanted to consult with Arbel, his old mentor.

The headman was relieved. How do you entertain a legend? It was easier to have them go away, and tell stories about them afterward.

Macurdy had arrived with no actual plan, only a few intentions and hopes. When he'd left seventeen years earlier, he'd intended to return someday-an intention forgotten, once he'd met Mary. Vulkan had said he'd know when Macurdy came back; that they had things to do together. Meanwhile Macurdy felt no urgency. Who knew how far Vulkan would have to come. Or whether, after so long, other things had come up.

Once Macurdy had finished his courtesy call on the headman, he walked to Arbel's house. It looked as he remembered it, except the whitewash was fresher. It was long and linear, its walls a kind of stucco-four large rooms plus storage rooms, with a full-length loft. Moss and grass grew on its steep roof. There were windows in every room, with translucent membrane-the abdominal lining of cattle-stretched across them in lieu of glass, to let in light. In summer, fine-meshed fabric would replace the membranes, admitting breezes but not mosquitoes. When storm threatened, the shutters would be closed. Just now, smoke rose sluggishly from two of the four chimneys, then settled and flowed down the roof.

Macurdy knocked, and a young man opened the door, frowning uncertainly at the formidable figure in peculiar clothes. "Who are you," he asked, "and what do you want?"

"I'm Macurdy. I've come to see my old teacher."

The young man's jaw fell, and for a moment he simply stared. "Macurdy? Just a minute! I'll tell my master!" Then turning, he hurried out of sight, leaving Macurdy smiling on the stoop.

Within a minute, Arbel himself was there. At sight of Macurdy, he grinned broadly, a facial expression he seldom indulged in. "Macurdy!" he said, stepping aside. "Come in! Come in!" Macurdy entered, and Arbel closed the door behind him. "I dreamed of you last night," the old man told him, "but it did not feel prophetic."

He ushered him through one room and into another that served as workshop and storeroom. A young woman was there, pestling dried herbs, and looked up as they entered. "Do you know who this is?" Arbel asked Macurdy.

It took only a moment to recognize her: dark complexion, large dark eyes, thin curved nose and narrow mouth. And poised. At Macurdy's last visit, seventeen years earlier, she'd been Arbel's twelve-year-old apprentice. She was of average height, not tall as she'd promised to be, and wiry now instead of gangly. To a degree, her aura resembled Arbel's. Arbel's marked him as someone whose interest was in learning; healing provided a focus. Her central interest was in healing; earning provided a means. Both were patient and tolerant, she more than Arbel, Macurdy suspected. But her tolerance, like Arbel's, was underlain with firmness.

An interesting pair, he thought. She'd be twenty-nine, and Arbel near seventy. Maybe they knew an herb that kept him frisky.

"You're Kerin," Macurdy said, answering Arbel's question. "His assistant now, I suppose."

"And his wife," she answered. "He insisted you are one of the unaging. Obviously he was right. But you haven't gone untouched by life."

She reads auras too, he decided. "Untouched?" he said. "Beaten up by it, from time to time. No worse than lots of others, though."

No worse than lots of others. Having said it, he realized its truth, and wondered if she'd led him to it.

Macurdy spent several weeks at Wolf Springs. It was Arbel who dealt with the cases brought to his home. Kerin rode the rounds of the district, making house calls. Usually she was home for supper, but sometimes it was later. The cooking was done by the slave who'd met Macurdy at the door.

Arbel chuckled, talking about it. People expected prompt service when they brought the patient in, and expected it from the old master himself. With house calls they were less demanding. "Kerin has great gifts of insight and intuition," he said. "It's rare these days that I can do more for them than she can, and there are cases she handles better than I. But prejudice is hard to argue with."

He was interested in Macurdy's stories of healing in World War II, and invited him to sit in on his sessions. Macurdy accepted gladly. They would add to his own skills.