Macurdy shrugged. "You two seem to trust each other. You just need to stretch your trust to include me."

"Ah," said Blue Wing, "but neither of us is human. And the tomttus' experience is that humans are much less reliable."

"Humans and ylver," added the tomttu, "or so the stories have it. But humans are said to be more cruel."

Well, Macurdy, Macurdy thought to himself, they've got us pegged.

For nearly two weeks, the three of them met each midday, Macurdy giving up his naps to talk with them. He learned a lot about the country, and about the language, for Blue Wing used big words, and both he and Maikel sometimes used long involved sentences. And both would pause to explain, when they lost his understanding.

The great ravens, Macurdy learned, were a sparse breed, gathering only in their rookeries to raise young. Their sole passion in life was knowledge. As far as Macurdy could learn, they didn't use it for anything in particular. In a sense they were like crows, but instead of collecting shiny things or smooth round things, they collected odd bits of knowledge, with no real interest in what use they might be to them.

The tomttu, on the other hand, were essentially farmers and gardeners, and herders of miniature sheep. From time out of mind they'd lived almost entirely in dwarvish kingdoms, where mostly they were safe from human predation. The dwarves, in turn, traded with the tomttu for some of their foodstuffs.

Some tomttu got the wanderlust. Maikel was one. It wasn't so much an urge to see new places, he said, though that was part of it. It was more a desire to be free of the strictures and formalities of Tomttu life, and learn new things. And any tomttu who'd reached puberty could pick a living in the forest from tubers and nuts, snails and slugs and tree frogs, seeds and fleshy roots. Their magic helped them find what they needed. Some such wanderers returned home in winter, this requiring a family willing to feed one who hadn't worked. Otherwise one found a good den for winter, defended it by spells, stored as much food as he could before the weather turned bad, then slept a lot. Maikel was bound for his home in the Diamond Mountains, some thirty miles west. He'd been gone three years, and was ready to settle down.

From Maikel, Macurdy learned about dwarves and tomttus; and from Blue Wing, geography, humans, ylver and the Sisterhood. The viewpoint and evaluations were considerably different than a human's would have been, but they were valuable, particularly the information that the Sisterhood now was lodged far to the east, in the Kingdom of the Dwarves in Silver Mountain. How this came to be, Blue Wing had no idea; his concepts of formal treaties, politics, and even commerce were rudimentary.

Each spoke of other creatures, as well. Macurdy learned there were jaguars, catamounts, wolves and bears in the forests. And rare but savage night-stalking trolls. Rarer yet were the great boars, large as cart ponies. Sixty stone or more, Maikel guessed; probably more. (Blue Wing's notions of weight were vague and useless.) Maikel claimed to weigh about two stone, and judged Macurdy at fifteen, so Macurdy figured a stone would be roughly fifteen pounds.

According to that, a great boar would weigh half a ton. They were uncannily clever, the two agreed, and had magic of their own. For men to succeed in killing one was unheard of. If one of the great boars became sufficiently offended by them, it could lay waste a farmstead, killing the livestock, destroying the fences, and rending whoever got in its way.

Or so tradition had it; neither could cite a known instance, not even Blue Wing, with his access to the hive mind, which stretched far back in time. But the potential, they insisted, was there, and must surely have been used at some time or other.

They also agreed there were no females of the species. Privately, Macurdy considered that myth; otherwise they'd be worse than rare. He'd have suspected the two of pulling his leg, but from Arbel's lessons, he was beginning to read auras as well as see them. And it appeared to him that Blue Wing and Maikel both were honest with him. Blue Wing insisted a great boar had been seen to breed a razorback sow, a very large one, but Maikel was certain it couldn't happen. "What was seen was one eatin' a sow. But breed one? Even if he'd been inclined to it, he'd have squashed her flat."

Macurdy wasn't eager to meet the great cats, or wolves, and certainly not a troll or great boar. To humans, black bears on the other hand seemed benign; tomttu had more cause to fear them.

And there was information on dwarves. "If they have no grudge against you," Maikel said, "and if you're not trespassin', they're no danger to you at all. But if you wrong them, knowingly or not, they're implacable. Implacable! They do be friendly to us though, because we're small, you see, and because we're not given to human treacheries.

"Dwarves consider that they aren't, either. But I must tell you that their greed sometimes gets the better of them. Then they can cheat and lie like a human. Well, not like the worst humans, but badly enough. Still, I'd trust a dwarf before a man. Not before every man-not before yourself-but judgin' the species broadly. They deal fairly with us though, the dwarves. Close but fairly. It's dealin' with men and ylver that brings out the worst in them."

Indeed, dwarves and geography were the subjects that most interested Macurdy. For if the Sisterhood had moved to the Kingdom in Silver Mountain, it seemed to him he'd have to go there.

Then one day, Maikel didn't show up. "The nights are becoming cold," Blue Wing explained, "and he woke up this morning with the decision to continue westward to his people. He asked me to give you his best wishes. As for me-the scavenging is poor around here. The people in Miskmehr keep more sheep, and sheep are rather given to dying without apparent cause."

Then the great bird and Macurdy wished each other well, and Blue Wing flew off northward.

12: Pursued

With the solstice near at hand, the sun rose early. From an outlook, Varia could see its luminosity through thinning clouds, but it failed to warm her. The mare she'd stolen plodded stolidly on, but more and more slowly. When it paused to browse on the young leaves of maple, Varia was scarcely aware of it, she was so sunken in hypothermia from the cold, night-long rain.

At length the mare stopped, to stand quietly on a stretch of bare bedrock almost free of shade. The sun had burned the clouds off, and shone on her wet flanks. Gradually its warmth, trapped by blackened oilcloth, seeped through Varia's torpor, and she slid from the saddle, hobbling to an outcrop to lie in the sun.

She awoke cold on one side from the rock, and warmed on the other by sunshine. Looking around slowly, she saw the mare standing broadside to the warm rays, hide steaming. Wincing, Varia got to her feet, her legs and buttocks solid pain at the effort, sore not from the saddle, but from occasional uphill hiking to rest the horse.

And you're the girl who was ready to walk to Ferny Cove, Varia thought. Barely able to hobble, she went to the horse, aware also now of the blisters she'd gotten, hiking in wet, ill-fitting boots. From a saddlebag she took a broken piece of loaf and the slab of cheese, sat down in the sun on a windfall and began to gnaw. Just the act seemed to warm her. The mare watched her eat-reproachfully she thought. "You and I depend on each other now," she told it. "Be patient and we'll find you some grass pretty soon."

For a quarter hour Varia sat gnawing, and soaking up sun, her thoughts slow, her eyes on the mare. You need a name, she decided. You're my best friend now; I can't just call you Horse. She gave it a minute's thought, then nodded, her chuckle sounding a bit like the Varia of Washington County. "Maude," she said aloud. "I name you Maude." And chuckled again. Maude had been the name of her father-in-law's favorite mare, named in turn for the queen of some place in Europe.