The route was familiar, and lovely in advanced spring. On the third day he rode a ferry raft across the Great Muddy into the kingdom of Miskmehr, rich in forested hills and valley farms, though not in money. The Miskmehri had provided two cohorts of tough, self-reliant infantry to fight the ylver in Quaie's War. Earlier, during Quaie's Incursion, only an unprotected border had separated them from the savage fate of Kormehr, and the memory had still been fresh.

Meanwhile, the weather had changed from showery to bright, cool at night, warm by day. Drawing on the Web of the World for nighttime warmth, Macurdy found it simpler and more pleasant to sleep beneath the forest canopy or open sky, than in an inn or some farmer's barn. Metabolic energy in general he could draw from the Web, thus even eating was less urgent than it would otherwise have been. Though his stomach complained when he didn't. For vitamins, minerals, proteins, he stopped at farms along the way, buying cheese, scrawny chickens, overwintered vegetables and wizened apples. And ate the mild forest leeks abundant in that season, until the smell of him could have repelled barn flies at twenty feet.

In time, the winding dirt road he'd been riding reached the wider, straighter dirt road known as the Valley Highway. At the junction, the brush-tangled forest blowdown where he'd earned the friendship of the dwarves, and the enmity of Slaney's brigands, was thick young forest now, fifty feet tall.

It was there he was halted by a voice he knew well, deep and resonating within his skull. ‹Aha! Macurdy! I knew I'd meet you soon.›

It was thought, not words that reached him. About forty yards ahead, a great boar trotted from the forest. In size, it suggested an Angus bull, though the large head and tusks, the high shoulders, the deep narrow body that tapered toward the hindquarters, all were strictly wild hog. Piglet began to prance skittishly, and Macurdy reined him in, while patting the arching neck. "Whoa, boy, easy now, easy…" Then a wordless calm washed over them both, intended for Piglet, who quickly settled down.

"Vulkan!" Macurdy called, "I figured you'd find me! When did you know I was back?"

The boar trotted casually toward them, stopping half a dozen yards away when Piglet shifted restlessly again. There was black muck on the tusked snout, as if it had been rooting up skunk cabbages. And suddenly Macurdy was unsure whom he faced, for this creature had red eyes.

Then the boar answered. ‹I sensed a month ago that you were back. I was visiting the Scrub Coast, the ocean coast, reminding them of our existence. It is one of my duties. In this world, it is intended that humankind know a…› He paused, his mind tinged with amusement. ‹… know a larger reality than on Farside. And of course, I must maintain my myth; that is another duty.

‹And on my way back to meet you, I stopped to visit the King in Silver Mountain.›

"The dwarf king? They let you inside the mountain? I thought everyone was scared of you."

‹The dwarves do not fear us. A great boar befriended them in an earlier age. In the time of the high trolls, an experiment gone awry. You are not the only outsider they call dwarf friend.›

"When I knew you before, your eyes were black. Now…"

‹Now they are red. They make me more impressive, which makes you more impressive.›

"Me?"

‹You.›

Macurdy contemplated that a moment, then set it aside. "How are we going to travel together, with me riding Piglet?"

‹He will be all right now. Though you may want to leave him at Teklapori.›

"Teklapori? How did you know I was going there?"

‹Where else? When we leave there for the north-assuming you choose to-I can carry you. It will be a bigger public sensation if you ride on me.›

Macurdy laughed. "You got that right." He paused. "North together?"

‹If you so choose.›

"Why do you want to create a public sensation?"

‹A maximum of fame-suitable fame-will be useful to your task.›

"My task." Macurdy frowned. "What task?"

‹I do not know yet. But it will be important. Critical. You are already a legend in Yuulith; you've been heard of even on the Scrub Coast. But to many it is a legend of the past. We must renew and enhance it.›

Vulkan's comments had introverted Macurdy. Now he shrugged them off. He'd think about them when he knew more, he told himself.

So I've been heard of even on the Scrub Coast. Huh! And I never heard of the Scrub Coast till just now.

Unlike the winding dirt roads through Miskmehr, the Valley Highway was much used; they met merchants several times a day, typically traveling in small parties, with pack animals. And farmers traveling to some village or market town several times an hour. Seen from a little distance, Macurdy was readily recognizable as a man on horseback. The creature trotting alongside could be a mule, or from closer up, a lean beef, polled and slab-sided. By the time they were close enough to identify it, they were too near to escape, should it be necessary. And after all, it was trotting alongside a man on horseback.

Thus as fearsome and alarming as Vulkan looked, and as his myth described him, almost none of the travelers they met actually fled. They did, however, get well off the road to let him pass. The degree of control exercised by the giant boar's human companion seemed uncertain, and the large curved tusks looked more fearsome than any sword. While the small, indomitable red eyes, fixed coldly on the passersby, showed neither loving kindness nor docility.

Judging by the auras, the shock was greater for the traveler than for his horse or mule, if he had one. Probably, Macurdy thought, their animals didn't associate the smell of swine with danger. And despite Vulkan's size and fearsome appearance, his broadcast calm overrode their alarm.

Humans, on the other hand, had powerful imaginations. And folk tales-a whole gruesome mythology about the great boars. Nor did they fail to be awed by a man who kept company with such a monster.

There were villages along the road, and these were another matter. There, more often than not, people didn't see the great boar till he was close. Then doors were slammed and barred. Women shrieked, men cried out in alarm, children scurried howling out of sight. While dogs, seemingly less subject than horses to Vulkan's calming flow, scuttled off with their tails between their legs. As if they too had imaginations.

Neither Vulkan nor Macurdy qualified as chatty, but for the first few days they talked quite a lot. Macurdy related much of his recent seventeen years' experience on Farside, both civilian and military. Vulkan described Yuulith's geography, people and customs, particularly of regions unfamiliar to Macurdy.

One morning at a distance, Macurdy saw the inn at the crossroad near Gormin Town. He knew both inn and town; it was there he'd begun to seriously broaden his reputation, so many years past.

"You must be overdue for some actual food," he said to Vulkan. Even more than himself, the great boar had been relying on the Web of the World.

‹Mmm, yes. Those cattail patches we've stopped at have been useful, but I could benefit from variety. And protein. Some animal source would be particularly appropriate.›

"Tell you what," Macurdy said, "suppose we stop at the inn. I'll eat there, and afterward they'll tell everyone traveling through about us, travelers on the north-south road as well as the east-west. After that we'll ride into Gormin Town," he gestured toward a palisaded town-its population several thousand-a half mile south of the crossroad. "There's a butchers there, where I got offal for Blue Wing my first time through here. I suppose you eat offal?"