The Lion of Farside by John Dalmas

Before going to the woods, he looked in on Arbel, seated at his workbench. The shaman’s aura was primarily shamrock green, and started about at his knees. As if he felt Macurdy’s gaze, Arbel turned and looked at him with raised eyebrows. And grinned, almost the first smile Macurdy had seen on him; it lasted perhaps three seconds. Then without comment the shaman nodded and turned back to his work.

The rest of the day until quitting time, Macurdy was seeing auras of one sort or another around every living thing, mostly thin and simple, requiring conscious intention to notice. Varia was right about me, he told himself. I’ll never doubt her again.

11: Blue Wing and Maikel

Well before adolescence, Macurdy had learned to use the ax. But in Washington County, the crosscut saw was the main tool for logging, while for cutting fuelwood, the homemade bucksaw was mostly used. The ax was simply used for swamping, notching, limbing, and of course splitting.

Now, working exclusively with it, he found his skills had improved; a given task took less time. Meanwhile, Arbel had peeled away layers of imposed and assumed considerations, and Macurdy no longer felt the need to prove himself, to show how much work he could do in a unit of time.

Thus, as his axman’s skills improved, instead of turning out more wood, he commonly took a nap in late morning, allowing his mental clock and hungry stomach to waken him for lunch and to finish his day’s work.

One noon, with the leaves showing the first tinges of fall color, he awoke aware of being watched. Getting to his feet, he looked around, and saw no one.

“Up here!” called a voice. “In this tree.”

He looked up. At first he thought it was a vulture, but its head was feathered. Its crown was scarlet above the eyes, as if it had tried to become an eagle and gotten the colors wrong, while its strong beak was longish and nearly straight.

“There,” it said to him. “You’ve found me.”

Macurdy gawped. “You can talk!” he said.

“Of course I can talk.”

Macurdy pondered briefly, wondering if this was another expression of his talent. “Could anyone hear you?”

“Assuming they’re not deaf, yes.”

Macurdy frowned thoughtfully at his hands, as if looking to them for enlightenment. “Back home,” he said, “if I told folks I’d been visiting with a giant crow wearing a red . . .” He stopped, lacking the Yuultal word for “pompadour,” and became aware of tittering.

“That was not funny!” the bird snapped. Not it seemed at Macurdy, but at someone else nearby. With the bird’s irritated response, the tittering became laughter, and Macurdy looked around for the source. It seemed to come from the base of a walnut tree, but he could see nothing there. Then his hair stood on end. There was something there; he could almost see it. Relax, Varia had told him. Relaxing helps turn it on. And Arbel had said don’t try too hard. Let things come.

And there it was, looking like a small, tight-furred man, a fuzzy creature naked except for a belt, and slender, wiry. Almost at once the halfling realized his invisibility spell had been seen through, and without an instant’s hesitation, sprinted with startling speed to a slender ash sapling, scrambling into its top till his weight bent it, and he could transfer to the lower branch of an oak. There he sat; Macurdy could almost see his body tremble. When he’d climbed, a small knife and bag had been visible on his belt in back.

“So much for magic,” the bird called after him. “I’ll take wings any time.”

The halfling said nothing, simply sat with his face working, somewhat as if palsied, somewhat as if chewing, his eyes glistening black as obsidian. Faster on the ground than a squirrel, Macurdy thought, and not too much slower up the tree.

“Though I’ll admit I couldn’t see you,” the bird added. “I’m surprised this human could.”

Macurdy’s attention returned to the bird. About as big as a turkey vulture, he decided; far larger than even the biggest crow. It showed an aura much like a human’s, when he thought to look. “What sort of bird are you?” he asked. “What breed?”

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