Afterward, Cyncaidh and Varia led Macurdy to the garden. Obviously they wanted to talk with him privately, and he wondered if Varia had had second thoughts about Sarkia's proposal. In spite of himself, the thought quickened his pulse.
In the garden, three large wicker chairs had been arranged in a semicircle. They'd hardly seated themselves when Talrie arrived, leading Vulkan, who lay down facing the others. Then Talrie left.
Cyncaidh looked at Macurdy. "Varia and I," he said, "have been wondering why you returned."
What he wanted to know was what brought Macurdy back from Farside, but Macurdy misunderstood. "A dream," he answered.
"A dream?"
"A dream I had in Wolf Springs."
"And where is Wolf Springs?"
"It's the village at the Ozian Gate. What the Ozians call the Wizard Gate."
Cyncaidh frowned. This wasn't what he'd had in mind.
"I'd arrived back through the gate in Three-Month," Macurdy continued, "and spent a while there with Arbel, my old teacher in healing. Ordinarily I don't think about healing. I'll see a need, but it doesn't often occur to me that, hey! I can do something about that. And Arbel'd decided I wasn't intended to be a healer.
"Still, I find myself wanting to improve my healing skills. Ever since a guy stabbed Melody nearly to death on our wedding night, leaving me to do what I could for her. Incidentally, it was Omara who saved her life."
Cyncaidh nodded soberly. Some of the story was part of the Macurdy legend.
"What about the dream?" Varia asked.
"I'd planned to tell you about that, then with all the stuff that happened last night, I didn't get around to it. After I got back from Farside, I spent a few weeks with Arbel at Wolf Springs, getting more lessons and experience in healing, while I waited for Vulkan to show up. Vulkan and I got to know one another before I went back to Farside, all those years ago. He'd said that when I came back, he'd know. Anyway I was getting lessons from Arbel, and then one night I had this dream. And the next morning I knew it was time to head east. The dream had made that clear."
He paused, sorting out how to continue the story, then looked around at the others. "Actually," he said, "the story starts on Farside. In Nine-Month, seven years ago, in a great war that killed more people than you can imagine, soldiers and civilians. And I was in it, along with maybe fifty million other men. I won't even try to describe how it was fought." He looked at Varia. "It was way bigger than the first World War. And had airplanes with a hundred-foot wing span, flying more than a thousand miles on a flight, at two, three hundred miles an hour. Dropping bombs weighing a ton. There were tanks as heavy as locomotives, going twenty, thirty miles an hour…"
He looked at Cyncaidh and shook his head. "I'm going to leave out most of the story. It would take too long, and wouldn't make any sense to you. But anyway, I was a spy, in a country called Germany. At a place where the Germans were trying to have people trained as…" He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "As magicians, I guess you could say. And the people they had teaching us were from a place called…" His eyes locked on Cyncaidh's. "Hithmearc."
Cyncaidh jerked at the name. "Hithmearc!" he echoed. The name had jarred Varia, too.
"I see that means something to you." Macurdy looked at Varia again. "Some voitar had crossed to Farside through a gate in the Bavarian mountains. And I was their most promising student, so they took me through it into Hithmearc. To see if I'd survive the gate, and if I did, to train me there." He didn't elaborate, and didn't give them time to ask.
"The voitu in charge was their crown prince," he went on. "Named Kurqosz. They'd done some sorcery to make the gate open every day. I managed to close it later. Permanently, I think."
A thunderstruck Cyncaidh was staring at Macurdy, who ignored him now, and told about his dream. "It didn't feel like an ordinary dream," he finished. "It seemed to me, when I woke up, that it was a warning. A message that the Voitusotar plan to invade Yuulith. And that people-you people, Wollerda, the dwarves, everyone in Yuulith-needed to be warned.
"After a few hours I didn't feel so sure anymore. It got to feeling pretty unreal, even to me, so I couldn't see myself convincing anyone else. But I left anyway, and headed east. Then Vulkan found me, like he'd said he would, and told me something that made me sure again."
He paused, gesturing toward the boar. "Because he wears a saddle, and doesn't tear people up and eat them like the stories tell, it's easy for people to look at me as if I'd conquered and tamed him. But no one can conquer him, and he never needed taming, or changing, or anything else. He is what he is. And between him and me, he's number one. I make the decisions because he tells me I'm supposed to. And he stays with me because… because we were intended to do this together. He's the one with real power, but he has to operate through a human. And that's me."
He paused, frowning. "Where was I?"
"Vulkan told you something that made you sure again," Varia said.
"Oh yeah." He turned to Vulkan. "Why don't you tell them?"
Vulkan did, his "voice" speaking in their minds, describing what he'd felt while visiting the Scrub Coast. ‹And while I have your attention,› he said, ‹I will add this: Macurdy has more power than he admits, even to himself. I suspect his excessive modesty is not entirely curable. It is partly the result of a Farside culture in which assertiveness and self pride are frowned on, and overcompensation praised.› He turned his massive head, to fix his red eyes on Macurdy. ‹And because his is a family with secrets, and discourages the drawing of attention. And finally because on Farside, powers like Macurdy's are severely disapproved of-as he has learned to his distress.
‹Fortunately his self-deprecation, though sincere, is superficial. He invariably exercises his powers as the need arises. And the need will arise, at levels beyond anything he has faced before.›
Vulkan turned his gaze to Cyncaidh. ‹As yet I perceive the vector only vaguely, but it is heavy with power and danger, both sorcerous and military. And the controlling power is highly mercurial, which makes it unpredictable.›
Their stories had sobered Cyncaidh. Now he nodded. "I have something to add to your accounts," he said. "Something that makes the threat seem more real than it otherwise might.
"As Varia can attest, there are two principal books on ylvin history, copied, recopied, and extended over the centuries. One is on the Western Empire, the other on the Eastern, and they agree on our origins. We once dwelt in Hithmearc, and on Ilroin, a large island some sixty miles off the Hithik Coast. Then the Voitusotar came, and over a period of time conquered Hithmearc. We were their most difficult adversary, because we were not susceptible to their sorceries. In those times we had not interbred as much with humans, and our powers were greater than they are now. Or so say the histories.
"At one point we stalled the voitik conquest for years, and for this they hated us.
"Like ourselves, they are not a prolific species, and though they live long, they were not so numerous as the Hithik humans. They age throughout their lives, much as humans do, but more slowly. And usually they die while still able-bodied, when their heart fails.
"But they made up for their lack of numbers with their talents. And they were much more than sorcerers. They were superb warriors, very tall and fleet of foot. Also, they supposedly share a hive mind, by which they coordinate their actions. And while they could not tolerate riding on horseback…" He paused. "This part is rather difficult to credit, but supposedly their speed and endurance while running is such that their infantry was equivalent to light cavalry."