John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

"Macurdy," she said, "you are a highly fortunate man, and your Mary was a highly fortunate woman. You had a love seldom known to either women or men, at least in Yuulith. And while you may not believe me, Mary still lives, in the spirit world, as Melody does. A clean, good, bright place. She is simply absent from your waking life."

Waking life. He remembered Mary visiting him, with their daughter. Remembered her words. Had it been more than a dream? And Melody's visit, that night in the surrey as he'd taken her body to Teklapori. He'd never known whether he'd been awake or sleeping, having a dream, or a visitation. Or maybe both. Either way it had helped.

"Sometimes I believe," he said. "For a little while anyway."

He raised himself on an elbow and looked down at Omara. "It's funny about you. It seems like you don't feel emotions, but at the same time you understand them better than just about anyone."

"Everyone has emotions, Macurdy. In some they are frozen-in some people who are ruled by fear. In others they are like quicksilver, in still others like flame. In some they are like a flood, leaving no footing for reason. Mine are quiet, and modulated by reason, but they are not cold."

Leaning over her, he kissed her lips. "You know what?" he murmured. "If you give me another chance, I'll do a better job as a lover."

14 Electric Luck

The next morning, Macurdy had breakfast with Wollerda and Liiset. His first question was directed to the queen. "Do you happen to know how wide the Ocean Sea is?" he asked.

"Actually I do. Thanks to you and Varia's ylf lord, we've developed substantial trade with the empires. And along with a change of attitude, one of the things we've gotten is books. We have a library at the Cloister now, something unthought of twenty years ago. One book I've read cites an ancient crossing from Hithmearc-which is the name of the other side. It supposedly took fifty-eight days."

Hithmearc! Macurdy thought. That clinches it. The Voitusotar are definitely the threat. And I bet she knows it.

Liiset noticed his reaction. "What is it?" she asked.

He fudged. "It's hard to imagine danger coming so far. But it's hard to imagine Vulkan being wrong, too."

She gazed intently at him for another moment, aware that his answer had been less than candid. "True," she said nodding.

"Closer to home," Wollerda broke in, "how are you fixed for money, Macurdy?"

The question led to Wollerda buying Piglet. Ozian horses were prized throughout the Rude Lands, and Wollerda used this to replenish Macurdy's depleted cash. Meanwhile Liiset arranged for cash from the Sisterhood's embassy. If Macurdy was to take a message to the Western Empire, she said, he must be paid for his expenses, influence, and time.

Meanwhile the royal saddle maker was ordered to create a suitable saddle for Macurdy's new mount: Vulkan. The man was dismayed at the time requirement; he couldn't possibly form a saddle by midday to fit a giant boar. Macurdy assured him he planned no military or hunt riding, in fact little if anything beyond an easy road trot. "I just need something to ease the wear and tear on Vulkan's back and my butt," he said.

He settled for spending that day and night at the palace-or near it. That afternoon he rode tree-lined country lanes with Wollerda. Mostly they talked about the old times, the revolution. The threat from across the Ocean Sea came up only tangentially-Macurdy mentioned that on his way north, he planned to visit Jeremid. "If an army is needed," he said, "I want him as a commander."

That night Liiset invited Omara too to share the royal bath. And afterward the Sister shared Macurdy's bed again.

The saddle was delivered at breakfast. It fitted as far forward as proper movement would allow, to reduce the stress on Vulkan's more lightly constructed hindquarters and spinal column. Macurdy worried about how it would feel to the boar, until Vulkan told him: ‹My friend, it will be quite satisfactory. And should it turn out otherwise, you can buy a horse along the way, or ride bareback.›

An hour after breakfast, the travelers left. The king and queen waved good-bye from the broad, polished granite porch of the palace, then went back inside.

"He was not entirely honest with us," Liiset said.

"Macurdy?"

She nodded. "He knows more than he admitted about the threat Vulkan senses from the Ocean Sea. And I know what that threat is, what it has to be. It's all in a history of the ylver, the same book that told how wide the sea is. How Macurdy learned of it, I do not know, unless from Vulkan. And how would Vulkan know? But they do know, both of them."

Macurdy chose to ride through the town itself, escorted by a mounted squad of Wollerda's palace guard, to reassure the townsfolk and avoid disorders. Meanwhile rumor had circulated, the day before, that Macurdy was at the palace with a great boar. Many townsmen had already heard the story, spreading along the Valley Highway, of a tall, powerful warrior who rode with a great boar beside him. Part of Macurdy's legend had him riding a great boar-a fiction originating outside Tekalos, that had spread there after Quaie's War. It had derived from his riding the big warhorse he'd named Hog.

So the actual sight of him on an 1,100-pound boar was not the shock it might have been.

Still there were folktales of the great boars, their sorceries and savagery. Along with Vulkan's great-shouldered bulk, fierce red eyes, deadly tusks and sheer presence, Macurdy was given nearly the full width of the main street. Horsemen and carters pulled into alleys, or tried to. Bystanders stood with their backs against the flanking buildings.

And they did not applaud. On horseback and without Vulkan, a recognized Macurdy would have engendered enthusiasm. They'd have cheered their heads off for the hero of the revolution. But awe is not loud, and awe is what they felt.

Their ride through town had not been expected, so only a few hundred people actually saw them pass through. Afterward two or three thousand would tell of watching them in person. And Macurdy's longstanding mystique would be similarly multiplied. Imagine saddling and riding a creature who'd been feared for centuries! A monster whose rare tracks, let alone livestock kills, sent far worse chills down farmers' backs than the howls of any wolf pack. Not even trolls engendered greater fear.

When they reached the Valley Highway, the travelers turned west instead of east. From time to time they talked. Among other things, they discussed the situation in the Sisterhood, and Macurdy asked Vulkan what he thought of Sarkia's proposal. Vulkan replied that compared to the voitik threat, the future of the Sisterhood was unimportant. If Macurdy went with Varia to the Cloister, Vulkan said, it would be well to do it with the Voitusotar in mind, and the defense of Yuulith.

The Voitusotar. Macurdy couldn't imagine them actually invading Yuulith. They were too susceptible to seasickness. They died of it. They didn't even ride horses, let alone ships. Someone else might invade across the Ocean Sea, but not the Voitusotar.

And then, having thought it, he remembered his dream.

But whoever invaded Yuulith, if anyone did, it seemed to him the Sisterhood's Tiger and Guards units could be useful in its defense. Vulkan agreed. Especially, he said, since the Sisterhood's predominantly ylvin ancestry should provide meaningful protection against voitik sorceries.

With few exceptions, the travelers they met had heard of the man traveling with a great boar. With, but not on. And they didn't know that the man was Macurdy. Certainly all had heard of Macurdy, but none recognized him. After so long, none had expected him to return to Yuulith.