“Well, yes, but that’s just the side effect,” Gar said. “The real purpose is worship, of course, and I saw a great deal of sincerity in that.”
There wasn’t much to argue about there. Still, his skepticism seemed vaguely blasphemous. “You mean you’re not trying to say their religion is a sham?”
“No, I’m not,” Gar said, “no more than the medieval monasteries and convents were shams simply because they kept alive a little of the learning of the Greeks and Romans.”
Alea could accept that and felt a bit better for it. “Still, I do think it was very clever of the original colonists,” Gar said. “One more way of keeping alive the benefits of civilization in a Neolithic society”
Alea bridled once more. “You mean you think they were cheating again.”
“Of course.”
They left the next morning, leaving presents of flower vases, amber, and figurines, to the delight of their hosts. The young people waved as they left, calling good-byes and making them promise to return someday. When the trees swallowed up the clearing, Alea stopped waving and turned back to Gar. “They’re not so very much younger than us. I think I could stay with them many years and be happy.”
“That would be pleasant.” Gar sighed. “And if you wish to, of course, you must—but I’m afraid there is still more work for me to do.”
Alea frowned up at him. “Why? No one’s making you go wandering around the galaxy!”
“No one but my inner self,” Gar told her. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll recognize it when I find it.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Alea asked, “A place where you won’t feel like a stranger?”
“I suppose so,” Gar admitted.
“Then you’ll finish by going home someday.”
“That would indeed finish me,” Gar said sardonically, “but a wise man once said that you can’t go home again, and I’ve heard it confirmed by many émigrés who have tried.”
“Why can’t they?” But Alea thought of returning to Midgard and shuddered at the thought. A wave of loneliness swept her—if she couldn’t feel at home on her native world, where could she belong? To bury the feeling, she said, her voice harsh, “Anyone can return, can retrace the steps they’ve taken and come again to the place where they began!”
“They can,” Gar said, “but while they’ve been gone, home has changed and they have changed. The people who stayed home have changed with their homeland, but the travelers have changed in different ways. They’ve grown apart, and the wanderer must find a new home…”
He left the sentence hanging, and Alea couldn’t help finishing what he did not: Or wander forever. Panic threatened again; she stifled it by objecting, “This is a new place with people from many different villages. They would accept us. They’re all building a new home.”
“But they have family who visit,” Gar said gently. “They are all members of one culture. I could learn new ways, but they would never be native to me.”
Anger wakened, covering the loneliness, and Alea snapped, “The day may come when you have to go back and make your birthplace home again!”
“It may,” Gar sighed. “It may indeed.”
He didn’t have to finish the thought that he would never again be able to feel at home on Gramarye. Nor Alea on Midgard, or any other world. Finally the panic roared through her; her knees weakened, and she seized Gar’s arm to brace herself. He covered her hand with his—and she was surprised to realize he was clinging as tightly as she. Even more amazingly, the panic began to recede.
So they went on down the road, holding to one another until Alea began to feel embarrassed. Gar must have sensed her feelings, because he recited softly,
Thus he murmured, heavy-hearted:
“Not friendless,” Alea said, her voice thick. “Not friendless.”
When they stopped for the midday meal, Alea asked, “Who was the friendless one?”
“Kullervo,” Gar answered, “the anti-hero of the Kalevala, the Finns’ Land of Heroes.”
“My … the Midgarders have tales of the Finns,” Alea said, frowning with the effort of remembering. “They were a nation of sorcerers, weren’t they?”
“I would prefer to think of them as wizards and magicians.”
“What’s the difference?”
“In my homeland,” Gar said slowly, “sorcerers work evil magic. Wizards and magicians work good magic.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Good magic defends people and helps them to grow and prosper. Evil magic hurts people and destroys them.”
Alea thought that over, then asked, “So you only know the two by the effects?”
“No. There’s a matter of what the magic-worker means to do, and what symbols and words he uses to bring it about. A sorcerer uses symbols such as skulls, blood, and knives—things of death and pain—but a good magician uses such things as plants and feathers, earth and water.”
“This Kullervo—he was a sorcerer, then?”
“He could be rather unpleasant,” Gar said slowly, “but he was reared as a captive and a slave and grew up to become vengeful and vindictive. That was what brought him down eventually—that and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having grown up far away from his own people, so that he didn’t know them when he saw them.”
“Did they want him when he came home?” Alea asked, her voice low.
“At first,” Gar said.
He was silent for a few moments. Alea waited. “One man, long ago, said that when you seek revenge,” Gar said, “you begin to destroy yourself.” He thought for a moment, then added, “It was the only truly wise thing he ever said.”
“He wasn’t a sage, then?”
“No, he was a governor, a man who ruled, though he had to share the authority. Rulers may be intelligent and shrewd, but they use their minds to gain power, not to try to understand the universe and our place in it. I think very few of them are really wise. Maybe that’s why we remember the ones who are.”
Insight came, and Alea said, “So you don’t seek revenge.”
“No, I don’t.” Gar smiled. “I seek the greatest good of the greatest number instead. I think that if I had stayed home and sought revenge I wouldn’t have accomplished much else.” He thought a moment again, then said, “Not that I’m sure I have after all.”
“There are tens of thousands of people on half a dozen worlds who think you have,” Alea said. That much, at least, he had told her of his past.
The next village greeted them with the usual delight; again, they were the occasion for an impromptu holiday. Here the people used the long winter days to weave luxurious woolens and linens as fine as silk. They were glad to trade, and Gar and Alea came away feeling they had made a considerable profit with the last of their porcelains and figurines.
One young woman was so obviously near delivery that Alea commented on it to an older woman, who glanced anxiously at the mother-to-be. “It’s her first. We’re all praying for an easy delivery.”
“Of course,” Alea said. “Is there reason to worry for her? More than for any first time mother, that is.”
“Only that our midwife has died and her apprentice has never delivered a baby by herself. She’s quite nervous.”
“Small wonder,” Alea said with a smile. “Well, I’ve helped with many a birth, and I’ve learned a thing or two about troubles, so call me if there’s need.”
The woman looked at her in surprise, then smiled and pressed her hand. “Bless you, good soul! My name is Masha.”