The Lion Returns Page 5

  "Huh! What brought that on?"

  Speaking slowly at first, and in a monotone, Macurdy gave a synopsis of the past seventeen years. He didn't cover everything—among other things, he left out passing through the Bavarian Gate, and his weeks in Hithmearc. But he provided a basic picture. By the time he'd finished, he seemed to Hauser a little more like the old Macurdy, as if looking back had put things in perspective.

  Hauser nodded. "I understand," he said. "C'mon. Let's go home."

  * * *

  On Sunday morning, Macurdy went to church with them, an Episcopal church. The sermon had nothing to do with witchcraft or shunning. After dinner, the two men walked to the campus, sat in Hauser's office again and talked, Macurdy participating somewhat.

  Even as a slave, Hauser had pondered on how two parallel worlds, with their differences and their gates, could exist in an orderly cosmos. He was, after all, a professor of physics. But he'd come up with nothing very satisfying.

  "Did you ever talk with Arbel about it?" Macurdy asked.

  Hauser shook his head. "Arbel never showed a sign of thinking outside the traditional Yuulith cosmogony he'd grown up with. His was a wisdom of doing. He knew a lot of things intuitively, but not beyond those that were useful to what he did as an Ozian shaman.

  "I'm sure he never wondered about the gate. To him it just was, a fact of life."

  Macurdy nodded. "I guess I'm like Arbel in that. I'm not much for wondering."

  Hauser chuckled. "You and most of the world."

  "I remember you saying something about parallel universes."

  Hauser nodded. "Even then I knew quite a bit of quantum theory. According to one notion, every time a decision is made, the universe splits. So theoretically there's an infinite number of universes. And theoretically, Yuulith could be one of them."

  Macurdy frowned. "Sounds like an awful lot of universes. Where would they all fit?"

  "They wouldn't have to fit anywhere. They'd be mutually exclusive. In any one universe, the others wouldn't exist."

  Macurdy looked at the idea. "But Yuulith exists. You and I know that. And there's a gate between them, so in a way, they exist together."

  Hauser shrugged. "Whatever is, is, whether we can explain it or not. And if something is, there's a true explanation for it, whether we've worked it out or not."

  He paused. "D'you know what bothers me most? Our guns. They didn't work on the other side."

  "Maybe they would have, if our cartridges had still had powder in them."

  Hauser ignored the reply. "The rules of chemistry can't be different there. If they were, too many things would be changed: biochemistry, the metabolism of humans, other animals, plants... They'd be different, very different, all across the board." He shook his head. "Presumably our cartridges had powder in them on this side, and it was gone on the other. As if—as if God had emptied them in transit. My problem with that is, if there is a god, I can't believe he'd work that way. He'd set up the basic rules, and things would operate accordingly."

  Macurdy shrugged. "It happened. That's enough for me. I pried the slugs out of three cartridges—two .44s and one .45-.70. None of them had any powder at all." He paused, remembering the TNT the Nazi SS had stockpiled for the voitar. Why hadn't the voitar accepted it? Probably because they'd taken some through, or tried to, and it hadn't worked. But it sure as hell did on this side. "Whatever happened," he finished, "it was probably in the gate. It has rules of its own."

  Hauser shook his head. "There still has to be some physico-chemical reason," he said, and grinned without humor. "Every now and then I wallow around with that for an hour at a time. Then I pour myself a short glass of scotch, and read a mystery novel. Where everything's explained in the last chapter."

  * * *

  The next day, Hauser took his guest to the railroad depot, where he saw him off on a train to Poplar Bluff. He'd suggested that Macurdy wait till Thursday, a partly open day for him. Then he'd drive him to Injun Knob in his car. Macurdy had declined the offer. "I need to get on with it," he'd said.

  On the platform beside the train, Hauser took a gold coin from his watch pocket, and held it out to him. "I still have one of those imperials you gave me—my lucky gold piece. Take it. You might need it."

  Macurdy smiled, something he hadn't often done on this visit. "You keep it. I've got a couple of them too, and some silver teklota. And my luck is getting better on its own. I can feel it."

  Hauser returned the coin to his pocket, and the two men shook hands. Hauser laughed. "I almost told you to write, and let me know how you're doing."

  Macurdy added his own laugh, then the conductor called, "All aboard!" The two men shook hands, and Macurdy swung aboard the train. Hauser waited on the platform till the car began to pull away. They waved good-bye to each other through a window, then Hauser left.

  9 Injun Knob

  It was a considerable hike from Neeley's Corners to the conjure woman's tiny farmhouse at the foot of Injun Knob. The road was better than it had been in 1933. It was graveled and graded. Macurdy took no luggage, carrying nothing except the coins, and the sheath knife Arbel had given him. He wore jump boots, a set of army surplus fatigues, a surplus field jacket and fatigue cap. He needed none of it to keep him warm—he drew on the Web of the World—but he'd long preferred not to be too apparent about it.

  It was twilight when he approached the cabin, the roof and walls of which were built of shakes. The only conspicuous change was a cross in the front yard, taller than Macurdy. He was still a couple hundred feet away when a large farm dog rushed raging and roaring from beneath the stoop, to dance around Macurdy not six feet distant, showing lots of teeth, forcing him to stop and pivot, and keep facing it. He'd about decided to shoot a plasma ball at it when a man stepped onto the stoop, shouting angrily. Reluctantly, the growling dog drew back, then trotted off behind the house.

  Macurdy continued to the cabin. The waiting man appeared to be in his thirties, and looked gaunt but strong. "What can I do for yew?" he asked.

  "I've walked from Neeley's Corners," Macurdy told him.

  It wasn't an answer, but the man stepped back. "Well c'mon in. I expect yer hungry." Macurdy entered. "Flo," the man said, "we got us a visitor. A hungry one. Fry up some eggs and fat back."

  Without a word, she put aside her mending and went into the kitchen. "Sit," the man told him, and gestured to a homemade cane chair. "What brings ya into these parts?"

  Macurdy sat, realizing he hadn't concocted a covering story. "To see the old woman that used to live here," he said. "I knew her when I was a boy. Wondered if she was still alive."

  "She's not," the man replied. Scowling now. "Dead a dozen years. She was a witch, and the Devil finally took her." He got up, turning to the kitchen. "Flo, hold up on those eggs and salt pork." Then he faced Macurdy again. "What sort of truck did yew have with her?"

  Macurdy looked coolly up at him. "She introduced me to the mountain. Injun Knob." An impulse struck him. "The holy mountain."

  The man flinched as if struck, and his answer was a startling near shout. "It was a cursed mountain, while she was here! The Devil come to it every month! Took living sacrifices, held orgies! When we first come here, we built the cross agin it in the front yard, and prayed morning and night! We still pray daily to God to keep it clean!" His eyes flared. "Holy mountain! If that's what yew think of it..."

  Standing, Macurdy cut him off. "Mister," he said calmly, "that old conjure woman was twice the Christian you are." He paused, while the man stared bug-eyed. "I'll tell you why I came here. I'm going up the mountain and open it up again. I've been through it before, and others like it. And I'll tell them on the other side..."

  The man roared with anger, then stepped toward the fireplace, reaching for an old shotgun hanging there.

  Macurdy gestured, and instantly the shotgun's barrel and metal fittings were searing hot. When the man took it from its pegs, he squealed with unexpected pain and cast it from him. The shell in the chamber
went off spontaneously, pellets gouging a wall. Terrified, he fell to his knees, his blistering hands cupped in front of him.

  "Bring water!" Macurdy said to the woman who stared in from the kitchen door. Then he turned and walked out. The dog didn't appear. As if it knew better.

  * * *

  Macurdy was in a state of self-disgust as he started up the forested knob. You're lucky that shotgun didn't blow a hole in you, he told himself. Would have served you right, after mocking and insulting that poor ignorant sonofabitch. He only did what he thought was right. If you're not careful, you'll turn into another Margaret.

  It occurred to Macurdy then to wonder about the efficacy of prayer. Did it actually work? Sometimes, he decided. When the cause is just. But still—

  What would he do if the gate didn't open anymore? He himself had destroyed the Bavarian Gate, though by nothing as mild as prayer. He wondered if Hithmearc, the land it had led to, was in the same universe as Yuulith. There was, he decided, no way to know. Meanwhile, if the man's prayers had shut off the Ozark Gate, maybe he could find the Kentucky Gate.

  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 r
ounds 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.

  But his mornings he spent in physical activity. After an early breakfast, he'd saddle a horse to ride the country lanes and forest trails. His old war horse, Hog, was still alive and sound, though twenty-eight years old, and no longer much for running. Hog had belonged to Macurdy all those years, but been Arbel's to use. For some years, Arbel had used the big gelding on his rounds of the district. Then Kerin had taken over that duty, and Hog carried her. Now Arbel traded for him, became Hog's actual owner, in return for a splendid eight-year-old named Warrior.