44: Farewell to Yuulith
The next morning I woke up with something on my mind all right: I wanted to take Hauser back to Missouri with me. Apparently that was to be my favor. Not to have Melody back, like I’d half expected; maybe because there were limits to what was possible. Or Varia, probably because it would be against her will. But Hauser. Which to my mind meant it was somehow possible to take him through. And now I’d have to tell Arbel, which I didn’t look forward to. Hauser had been his slave—actually the village’s, but his to use—for quite a few years.
As soon as I got dressed, I went and told Arbel what I wanted to do. He looked me over half smiling, his aura showing no sign of upset. “Why do you think I’d object?” he asked. He could read me like a book.
“I thought you might not want to let him go. He’s given you some good ideas, and he’s a good worker—and better company than most.”
Arbel grunted. “You’re right; maybe I should object.” He smiled then. “In his self-chosen function as an artisan here, he has given me far more than routine service. It would be shameful to begrudge him his return.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You realize, of course, that I do not own him. He’s property of the village. But if I’m willing to give up his services, the council will approve. They might, even if I weren’t; you’re a much bigger hero here than you recognize. But the real issue is, how will you get him through? Do you have a magic you haven’t told me about?”
His sharp eyes were watching my aura, I had no doubt, and I couldn’t see any way around it but to tell him about Vulkan’s favor, so I did. “And I take that to mean he can,” I finished.
For a minute, Arbel just stared, then he turned thoughtful. “Assume he can. Assume your Vulkan has such power. Is there any guarantee that Hauser will arrive sane? Or even alive?”
I hadn’t given that a thought. “Vulkan didn’t seem like someone who’d send him through a gate to arrive dead or crazy.”
Arbel shrugged. “Perhaps not, if he understood the problem. I have no experience with anyone coming out in Farside.”
“I’m trusting Vulkan’s honesty and judgement,” I said. “And his power to make it happen right.”
Arbel nodded. “Let’s ask Hauser,” he said.
I hadn’t thought of that. “I guess we’d better. But let’s not mention Vulkan.”
We went into the kitchen, where Hauser was restocking the wood pile. “Charles,” I said softly, “if you could go back to Farside, would you? Even if it was dangerous?”
He stared at me for a long five or ten seconds, while it soaked through that I was serious. Then he turned white and started to shake, leaning against the wall to keep from falling down. I could honest to God feel his feelings. Nobody said anything for half a minute; then I told him I thought maybe I could get him through. “Arbel says it’s fine with him, and he thinks the council will allow it. Do you want to try?”
He nodded dumbly at me.
“Well then,” I said, and turned to Arbel. “Will you ask the council?”
Arbel asked the village headman that same day. The council met next evening, and what all might have been said, I didn’t hear, but the decision was that Hauser could go if the gate would take him. I went around to each councilman the day after that and thanked him. None of them seemed to think it was any big deal as long as Arbel was happy with it.
I felt pretty sure Vulkan’s magic could get him through okay, but I wanted to prepare him as much as I could. Like most people’s, Hauser’s aura showed some talent, more than most, but nothing like an ylf, for example.
I put myself in a meditation trance and had Arbel ask me to remember everything Varia’d done when she spelled me the first two times. The drills I could remember without any trance.
Working with Hauser was good training for me. The first time I felt a little spooked to do it, and afterward I wasn’t sure we’d accomplished anything. I did the first spell, and the instructions and questions that went with it, three nights in a row. Then, with him in a shallow spell again, I taught him to meditate. That seemed to pick it up. On later evenings I drilled him, and we could see him start changing.