By human standards, Mary's love for you approached agape, and was remarkably constant. As was Melody's, and Varia's on Farside. You have been thrice blessed, my friend.
Vulkan to Macurdy, on the highway to Teklapori in the spring of 1950
40 Homeward
Macurdy and Varia left Colroi on two excellent horses-officers' horses that had crossed the Ocean Sea from Hithmearc. Macurdy's was exceptionally large; he'd been given the pick of the herd. Tagging behind were two remounts and three packhorses. As usual, Macurdy did without an orderly. For companions, the couple had Vulkan and Blue Wing.
They rode briskly southwestward, headed for the Pomatik River. The countryside was farmland, fertile in season, but now a bitter snowscape. There'd been a new spate of snowy weather, and nothing resembling a thaw. When the wind blew, the snow blew. Thus there were drifts for their horses to wade through. In this they had Vulkan's help, for the boar led, his powerful bulk breaking trail.
The only forest was scattered woodlots, kept by farmers, villages and towns to provide fence rails, lumber, and especially fuelwood. Almost the only remaining buildings were of stone, and they had been burned out. The countryside seemed totally abandoned. It had been heavily picked over earlier by hithik foraging parties passing through. Whatever locals had survived the ravaging hithar had since died, or fled south out of the country.
Blue Wing helped them avoid military company. When he spotted any, he informed Macurdy and Vulkan, who made any necessary course adjustments. The Lion had been enough in the company of fighting men for a while, even those he knew and liked.
Ever curious, Blue Wing questioned Macurdy from time to time as they traveled. Mostly about Farside, and what he'd done there during his years away from Yuulith. Varia, of course, listened in. More than a little of it she hadn't heard before.
She rode beside Curtis and a step back, to watch him without distracting him. He sat relaxed but straight in the saddle, watchful, totally in charge, but with no sign of arrogance. How he'd changed since she'd seduced him that night in Indiana! He'd been a man-what a man!-yet in important respects still a boy. All his twenty-five years had been spent with his parents. Doing man's work almost since boyhood, but their youngest child, the one at home. A mostly happy, full-grown child.
And of course, she told herself, he's thinking how much I've changed. While in Colroi, he'd been heavily involved with the congress. Living together at Aaerodh would complete the healing, the growing together. He'd get to know the household staff, the farm workers, the tenants. Deal with everyday life. In winter she'd teach him to ski the forest trails, show him moose, caribou, and, with luck, jaguar, her favorites.
In summer he'd learn how to farm in the north, and she would teach him sailing. They'd explore the shoreline, visiting the occasional fishing hamlets, and their people. Take him to Cyncaidh Harbor, and the best inn in the empire. They had twenty-five years, more or less, before decline hit her.
Meanwhile he began training her to draw on the Web of the World.
Like Varia, Macurdy had thought about the future, though not in such detail. This in connection with revisiting the past, remembering their brief married life on Farside. They could hardly go back. They'd changed too much, and this was where their children were. But this time they'd complete their lives together.
As they traveled, Vulkan spoke almost not at all. On their fourth night, as they lay in their tent, on and under ylvin furs, Varia commented on it in English. "His aura doesn't indicate unhappiness. It's as if he was meditating, with his body running on its own. Is he often like this?"
"Never for days on end before. When we first met, before I went back to Farside, he was almost talkative. He's told me since, he was excited to find me. He knew right away, he said, that I was his 'mission companion.' He's told me since that we were sent to Yuulith on the same mission." He paused, reflecting. "It seemed to me like a strange thing to say, seeing as how he came here a couple hundred years before I did. Besides, I knew why I'd come to Farside the first time: to get you, and take you home. Although when I was getting ready to leave, I did suppose I'd come back. I even wondered why."
Again he paused, this time longer. "And when I finally did, I knew he'd find me. At first he talked quite a lot again, telling me stuff he wanted me to know or think about. And asking questions, probably more for the things they brought to the surface than for my answers.
"He's never been big on idle conversation though. He's gone for hours sometimes without paying me any attention at all. I got the feeling he didn't want his thoughts interrupted."
She nodded. That was the feeling she'd gotten.
"And what you said about his body running on its own- He told me once that he can meditate while walking. He tells his body what he wants it to do, and then pretty much disconnects. Maybe goes off somewhere mentally, though I suppose he leaves some part of himself in touch. To pop him back if he's needed."
Again Macurdy reflected. "But this time… Might be he's getting ready to leave, now the war's over. Maybe I'll ask him tomorrow."
He didn't though. It seemed to him Vulkan would tell him when he was ready to.
Meanwhile the giant boar had hardly eaten since they'd left Colroi. He'd drawn energy from the Web of the World, and for other nutrients depended largely on reserves. Twice, when they came to an orchard, he'd paused to paw and root for frozen, windfallen apples, Macurdy and Varia helping, digging with mittened hands. That was all the food he'd had. He'd declined to share theirs, or the horses' corn, saying they didn't have any to spare. The supply situation at Colroi had not been good, and Macurdy had declined to take an inordinate share.
So when they reached the forested hills in the south, Blue Wing kept an eye out for game. The first day, he reported a small band of elk pawing for grass in a meadow. Macurdy stalked within bowshot of them, and hit a bull. The band fled into the forest, Vulkan following at a leisurely pace. The elk were in poor shape, and the one Macurdy had hit was now lung-shot. Not being pressed, it soon lay down to rest. When Vulkan arrived, it was barely able to get up. He knocked it back down and killed it with his tusks.
Macurdy skinned the bull, then sliced out some loin cuts for himself and Varia, while Varia made camp. They rested there throughout the day, while Vulkan, with the help of Blue Wing and assorted smaller birds, fed on the carcass.
After his initial feeding, Vulkan volunteered what he'd been doing these several preoccupied days: monitoring another great boar. Communication between them was not, he said, attenuated by distance. It didn't cross physical distance.
"Wait a minute," Macurdy said frowning. "Where is this other boar?"
‹In Hithmearc.›
"Hithmearc?"
‹Strictly speaking, it was initially well east of Hithmearc, but on the same continent. The region is savanna-in German you'd say Waldsteppe -grassland with scattered woods and groves, and woodlands along the rivers. The tribes there hunt, raise foodstuffs on small plots, and occasionally raid one another.
‹They are animists, and regard my, um, kinsman as a deity. His experience and mode of life have been quite different than mine.› He paused. ‹While we were at Colroi, I asked him to find out if the voitar in Hithmearc had been affected by the event at Kurqosz's headquarters.
‹At the time, however, my kinsman was far away from the voitar, and the winter there has also been severe. Nonetheless, he agreed. So he's been traveling, and I with him, experiencing that part of the world.›