John Dalmas website

John Dalmas: excerpts from The Lion of Farside

(pages 23-25)

(Here, very early in the book we have Curtis Macurdy reminiscing about his lovely and ever youthful bride [and aunt] Varia, and her use of "spells.")
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After that she spelled me often, and did drills with me twenty or thirty minutes at a time. To open up my magical powers, she said. I told her that’d be a waste of time, that I didn’t have any to open up. I had my brain and my two hands and my muscles, and everything else I needed. She was magical enough for both of us.

She looked at me long and seriously. I’d never seen her more serious. "Darling," she told me, "you do have them. They showed up more when you were little. Do you remember once when you were seven or eight, and you looked up at the corner of the ceiling, where I’d looked? Before Idri, my Evansville contact was my favorite sister, Liiset, and now and then she’d look in on me. Something Idri couldn’t do.

"She wasn’t there physically, but you sensed her spirit, and translated it to her physical appearance—her face. You couldn’t have done any of that if you didn’t have the talent."

I remembered, for the first time since that day. It’d been too spooky. "Seems like I’ve lost it since though," I said.

She shook her head. "How did you find the pictures in the attic? How did you even know enough to look?"

"But what if I don’t want magical powers?"

She didn’t answer right away. Then she said, "if you were blind, and didn’t entirely believe in sight, you might be uncomfortable if I said I wanted to open your eyes."

I didn’t have anything to answer, so I nodded and told her fine, let’s do it. It would make her happy, and I figured she wouldn’t do something bad for me. My problem, I told myself, was I was scared of what I didn’t know. I’d been scared that night the transparent Varia took me home with her, and look how much I’d liked that after we got there! But I still felt uncomfortable about "opening my magical powers."

◊
Over several weeks, I couldn’t see we were making any progress. Varia said it was a little like putting a pan of water on the stove to boil. You wait and wait, and nothing seems to be happening, and suddenly there it is boiling. I couldn’t help wondering, though, if the wood in my firebox was piss elm, and wouldn’t burn.

One evening when we’d finished, her eyes didn’t have their usual steadiness, and I asked her if anything was wrong.

"Not with you," she said.

"With what, then?"

"I guess I’m just tired."

"Looks like more than tired. Looks like worried."

She smiled. "See? You’re powers are coming back. I was thinking about my children; all forty-one of them."

Yeah, I thought to myself, maybe my powers are coming back, ‘cause I can tell you’re lying to me. I didn’t really believe they were; just a look at her face was enough. But I wasn’t going to badger her. "I’ll have the plowing done tomorrow morning," I said. "Maybe you and me ought to take the rest of the day off. Go in to Decatur and walk through the stores. Buy some ice cream, and celebrate. Maybe Morath will even divide my cows up between his daughters to milk in the evening, and we can blow twenty cents on a movie."

She came over and kissed me, tears in her eyes. "Curtis, you’re so nice, I love you more than you know. If anything ever happens to me, I want you to remember that. Regardless of anything. And tomorrow—tomorrow I’d love to go to Decatur with you when you’re done plowing."

That’s Varia for you, always thinking, always trying to do the right thing. I still didn’t realize how well I’d married. A good good woman.
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(pages 225-226)

(Here Macurdy is in an alternate world, Yuulith, to recover Varia. He’s discovered it will take an army, and all he has are two Ozian renegades, six local fugitives, three dwarves and a great raven. So he’s tracked down a band of rebels, hoping to attach them to his handful. But it’s not going well. The rebel leader sees him as a rival, and already has an ally, Slaney, whom Macurdy had offended earlier.)

"Slaney," Macurdy said, "you’re a liar as well as a coward. I left you horses enough to leave on, and what I took, I gave to the dwarves as blood money for their cousins you killed. Anyone with even half a brain knows better than to start a war with dwarves."

Slaney flushed, and with an oath drew his sword. Macurdy’s knife struck him just below the breastbone, and the bandit took one wobbling step before falling on his face. Rebels crowded around Macurdy then, punching and kicking, getting in their own way, until Orthal bellowed to let him be. Probably, Macurdy thought, he had his own ideas for punishment.

Then someone else spoke, Slaney’s second-in-command. "Are these the ones Burney told us about when we were riding up? That want to join?"

Orthal took a moment before answering. "That’s right. What about it?"

"What their leader said is true. They could have killed us all, or left us afoot. And if they want to join... When we stopped at Stoney Creek, Bekker told us recruitment’s down to nothing, since Dell’s band got massacred."

"That’s us," Verder said. "I was one of Dell’s. Some of us were taken alive. Dell and Liskor were hung up on the spot and used for target practice."

Again there was uncertainty on many rebel faces.

"Counting the dwarves, there’s twelve of them," someone added. "Enough to be worthwhile."

"Eleven," someone corrected. "The other one’s a woman."

"I’m as good as most men in a fight," Melody answered. "Anyone want to test me?"

Orthal laughed. "Oh, I’ll test you all right. On your back, after we’ve executed these filth. Starting with him." He gestured at Macurdy. "Then we’ll all test you."

It was Melody, not Macurdy, that Orthal walked up to, as if to grab her. Her right fist caught him flush on the nose, and blood flowed as he stepped backward in surprise. With a roar he drew his sword.

Macurdy’s bellow stopped everything. "NOW WE SEE WHAT KIND OF SPINELESS COWARD ORTHAL IS!" he shouted. "TOO GUTLESS TO GIVE HER A SWORD AND FIGHT HER."

Orthal stared bug-eyed for a moment, then gradually relaxed and grinned. "Larny," he called, "give the bitch your sword."

Some of the rebels laughed. Larny stepped forward, a massive shambling man not much taller than Macurdy, but considerably heavier, mostly muscle. "It ain’t right, Orthal," Larny said. "It’s too big for her. She couldn’t hardly lift it, let alone fight with it.."

"Will you shut up, Larny! Just give her the damn sword!"

"Just a minute, Larny," Macurdy said, and stepped away from the spears at his back. "Let me see how heavy it is."

Before anyone but Macurdy realized what was happening, Larny handed him the sword and Macurdy leaped. Orthal never got his own sword up before Larny’s heavy blade thrust him through below the ribs. Macurdy wheeled then, sword ready. "What in hell," he shouted, does a man have to do to join this humping outfit?"
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(pages 284-286)

(Macurdy has built up his independent force of rebels [initially brigands more than rebels] and allied it with a larger force. Now he’s gotten word that an Ylvin patrol has captured Varia, but he’s skeptical. And entrusting himself to an intuition, has gone to seek the truth.)

Finally they came to what Fengel said was the Laurel Notch Trail, used much by wildlife but seldom by man or horse. They turned off on it, northward now instead of east. Beside it, in a small wet meadow, they found horse bones gnawed and scattered; by a troll, Fengal said. Macurdy wondered what had become of the rider. As they continued north, he felt a growing tension, an excitement. He felt more alert, it seemed to him, than he’d ever been before.

Now he watched for a tomttu hut; any spell of invisibility or protection should have dissipated, but if not, Macurdy had no doubt he’d see through it. They crossed through Laurel Notch, and some time later passed a spring, the headwaters of the Tuliptree. Still no hut. He was disappointed but not surprised. According to Maikel, tomttu didn’t settle in the wilderness. They only traveled, or at most sojourned in it.

What he did find were human bones, the thigh bones long. A tall man then. They weren’t splintered and sucked dry by a troll, nor scored by the teeth of wolf or bear or some large cat. Its bones had been cleaned by smaller teeth, weaker jaws, beaks and worms and bacteria.

Its chest had been cleaved by something long and sharp, seemingly a sword.

He hadn’t found it by the path. He’d felt an impulse to leave the trail, to snoop behind a laurel thicket not far away. Whoever had killed this man had dragged him there out of sight.

"Not all that old," Fengal said, his voice subdued. "Old bones weather gray. These are still pretty white."

Macurdy knelt, picked up the skull, looked into the empty eye sockets—and began to tingle. Abruptly disorientation struck him, then momentary confusion followed by an instant of blankness. Yet he didn’t lose consciousness, just his own sense of identity and time, seeing through eyes not his own, as if he were someone else. It seemed he was striding uphill, breathing deeply, less alert than usual. Sensing nothing peculiar, nothing dangerous. Then a bowstring twanged, and there was a sudden, shocking impact, a horrible penetration that drove the strength from him, and he fell to his knees, staring down at a feathered shaft protruding from below his breastbone. Ambush! He was aware of men in buckskins, with swords, and strove to rise again. Felt a smashing blow cleave his rib cage, then looked down at his body from a viewpoint perhaps ten feet above it.

But only for a moment. For instead of being absorbed with the reality of his death, his attention went to the action around him. Besides the cluster of men, there was his captive—filthy and with her hair stubble-short—staring at his broken body, her mouth round with shock. One of the ambushers held her from behind, gripping her shoulders, keeping her from falling.

Until the sword struck, there’d been sound—hoarse breathing, thudding feet, the bustle of movement. Then it went silent as stone, the action in ultra-slow motion, speeding gradually till there was sound again, slow and hollow. "You’re all right. You’re safe now," one of them said to the woman. The man who held her upright. "We know who he was, and who you are. A tomttu told us. He was anxious for you. Your tracker had been only hours behind."

Now, still experiencing the murdered man’s perceptions, Macurdy became aware of his own identity, heard and watched the sequence that followed, heard the tall ylf tell of Ferny Cove, saw the woman set on horseback. There’d been no questioning, no blows, no rape. Liiset had lied.

Became aware of someone shaking his shoulder, then awoke to present time, lying on soggy forest mould among the bones. It was Fengal who knelt beside him. "Major! Major! Are you all right?"

Macurdy groaned, pushed himself to hands and knees and got up, his speech slurred. "Yeah, I’m all right. I—saw the whole thing: what happened here, what the dead man saw. It’s what I came for, what I needed to know."

The youth stared in awe. He’d known his commander was a magician, had seen him light fires with a touch. But this? They went to the sound of water over stones, dug dry punk from inside a hollow tree, built a fire, and for the first time used their griddle, making corn cakes.

Macurdy remained preoccupied, still assimilating what he’d learned. When they’d eaten, instead of starting back to Laurel Gap, they lay down to nap. His last conscious thought was to wonder where Varia was now, and what she was doing.

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