C. Dale Brittain

by Voima

  For the first time in her life, Karin felt no hesitation about a rough, enclosed tunnel. This was not merely safety for her; this was safety for Valmar.

  At the top of the cliff above them came the clang of steel on steel. Then Roric came down in one long leap, landing lightly next to the water. He barely glanced toward Karin and Valmar, who were scrambling back into the cave, but tossed back his hair and grinned, looking up at the warriors above them.

  Without a final word for him, without a final kiss, Karin plunged into darkness. She had seen his face, alight with a berserk fury mingled with joy, and her heart turned to ice.

  Valmar seemed to recover from his blank apathy as they crawled, side by side, into blackness. “There are faeys near my father’s castle? And we may be in their tunnels?”

  But Karin did not answer. She was listening to the shouts and the sounds of battle behind them. Eirik’s men too must have come down the cliff. Unless Roric retreated into the cave, he would be hopelessly outnumbered, captured or killed—and she did not think he planned to retreat.

  It seemed as though they had crawled a very long time, on a surface that now felt smooth under hands and knees. Karin realized the stream no longer ran beside them. She paused and lifted her head, listening, but now there was only silence behind them. Her eyes ached from trying to see in darkness, and when she first saw the green glow ahead of them she thought it was her imagination.

  But it disappeared when she closed her eyes, then reappeared when she opened them. The rift between the realms of voima and mortal lands was open.

  “I hear something back in the tunnels! But nothing can be back there! Roric came through there. I don’t like Roric. He brought a horse in here and took Karin away.”

  She started to laugh, then realized tears were streaming down her face. “It’s all right!” she called in a voice she was not able to make cheerful. “It’s me, Karin! And I have my little brother with me.”

  The oak woods near Hadros’s castle appeared unchanged as Karin and Valmar emerged into the cool evening air. The chaos of which the Wanderer had warned had not reached mortal lands—or not yet. They would know that the dragon had destroyed the powers of voima if the sun did not rise again in the morning.

  It was a shock to be back, without any period of transition, to a world so familiar, and here Valmar seemed even more fully grown and muscular. Karin felt almost emotionless, as though this final shock, on top of all her recent experiences, had driven all feeling from her.

  As they stumbled through the woods toward the castle she told Valmar about their long trip to reach him, about Hadros’s pursuit of them, and about King Eirik. She told him of the dragon's den and the cave of the Witch of the Western Cliffs behind it, of the Witch's hope that the Wanderers and Hearthkeepers might somehow be reunited, and of their conversation with the Wanderer. All she kept quiet was the price the Witch had extracted from Roric—and the fear that he was her brother.

  Valmar grunted in response as though listening but asked her nothing. Karin realized as she spoke that she was telling it as though it were a story, someone else’s story, and this time might somehow have a different ending.

  She listened for any sign of the troll as they walked, not knowing how she would deal with meeting it at this point, unsure she would even bother to try escaping. Valmar had very little to say about his time in the realms of voima, not even how he had become separated from the Wanderers and ended up with a Hearthkeeper.

  She had wondered in a daze if she and Valmar, like Roric, had returned from immortal realms invisible, but nothing of the sort seemed to have happened. Dag and Nole were stunned to find them hammering on the castle gates, unaccompanied, filthy, and unable to give any clear answers to their questions. But the serving-maids recovered from their surprise enough to obey Karin’s orders, bringing them bread and ale and the last of the evening’s stew.

  Firelight, ordinary, comforting, firelight, flickered through the hall. It must be, Karin thought, because Roric had been with the third force rather than the true lords of voima that he had returned to mortal lands not fully himself.

  The household assembled at the far end of the room to watch Karin and Valmar, the maids and the housecarls whispering together. His younger brothers tried to stay quiet and let them eat, but they could not keep themselves from asking questions. Karin told them sharply that they would hear the full story the next day, and Valmar said nothing at all, but that did not keep one or the other from suddenly bursting out with a new question.

  “Where have you been all this time?” “Did you see Father?” “Where is your ship? Or your horses?” “Have you had adventures? Did you get into any fights?” “Where is Roric?”

  Karin, almost too tired to eat, leaned against Valmar’s shoulder. It was strong and solid, reassuring. She wanted to comfort him and protect him, but it came to her as she closed her eyes sleepily that he might also be able to comfort her.

  Dag dared another question. “Are you two married now?”

  Both Karin and Valmar jerked up at that. “No,” she said shortly, awake again. What had Hadros told his sons?

  Delighted to have at least one answer, Dag tried again. “You left with Roric. Where is he now? Is he still alive? Did Father catch him?”

  Karin slumped again, her face against Valmar’s arm. Emotion rushed back into her, replacing the numbness which she realized was all that had let her keep moving these last few hours. “King Hadros captured Roric,” she said indistinctly, “but he escaped. He escaped to rescue me. And now,” she fought unsuccessfully against a sob that threatened to choke her as the full realization hit her of what the silence behind them must have meant, “he has given his life to save Valmar and me.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  1

  Valmar jumped up. “Out!” he ordered. “Everybody out!”

  The serving-maids and housecarls took one look at his face, stern and suddenly very like his father’s, and made for the door. Dag and Nole hesitated in surprise. “You too,” Valmar snapped. Nole began to ask something more, but Dag took him hastily by the arm and dragged him away. Valmar bolted the hall door after them.

  He turned back to Karin, who was weeping now in good earnest. She had pushed away her half-finished plate and had her head on the trestle table, her face hidden by her russet hair.

  “He’s dead, he’s dead!” she wailed as Valmar gathered her up in his arms. “I escaped to the faeys and left him to die!” She clung to him, sobbing, as he patted her back.

  “Karin, dearest Karin,” he found himself murmuring. “Please stop crying. He would not want you to mourn. He loved you. We shall make a great story and a song about him tomorrow so that his name will always live.”

  Crying harder than ever, she threw her arms tight around his neck. Valmar held her close and kissed her damp forehead very gently, then when she did not pull away he worked his lips down to hers.

  She still made no effort to resist, though she was now sobbing Roric’s name over and over between kisses. Valmar crushed her to him. Roric is dead, he thought, trying not to feel joyous. My father wants Karin and me to marry. He thinks we already spent one night together. Why then not this one?

  They were alone together with the door barred. He rose, lifting her from the bench, and carried her to the cupboard bed where she had always slept. He could feel all her muscles and all her womanly softness against him.

  He laid her down and sat on the bed beside her, waiting for her tears to subside while his heart beat faster and faster. He kicked off his boots and made a deliberate effort to keep the hand on her shoulder gentle.

  “I’m sorry, Valmar,” she gasped, wiping futilely at her wet cheeks. “But I can’t stop crying. I’m so weary and so miserable! I have tried to be strong for so long— He embraced death at the end, and I know it was because of me. And he died without my even saying I loved him!”

  She buried her face in the pillow, shaking all over, and Valmar stretched out beside her so that
their bodies were touching along their entire length. How could he have ever been distracted by the woman in the realms of voima? he wondered. She had never been a real woman, he told himself, only a boy’s fantasy come to life in a world very far from this, the castle he would one day inherit. He had never even known her name. He pulled Karin slowly closer.

  If she realized that the arm around her shoulders was more than the arm of a comforting younger brother she still gave no sign. Valmar started trying to loosen her clothing, although it was hard with her back turned toward him. “Dearest Karin, my sweetest one,” he whispered, peeling off his own jacket, “my own dear love.” She only sobbed in answer.

  Abruptly Valmar pulled away and stood up. He could not take her now, not here in the hall where she had long been mistress of Hadros’s household, ordering around the maids and housecarls, giving commands even to the warriors, and looking after the boys she thought of as her little brothers. She had kissed him a moment ago, but she had really been kissing Roric. He clenched and unclenched his fists, looking down at her. He loved her so much that he could not do anything to hurt her.

  Dag and Nole—and for that matter everyone else in the castle—doubtless had ideas of their own what he and Karin were doing alone here. None of the men would understand why he did not take a woman when she lay before him on the bed, offering no objection, only tears that were not for him.

  He shook his head, then bent to remove her shoes. He was his own man and had to make his own decisions, not do what he thought others expected of him. “Try to sleep, Karin,” he said gently, pulling the blanket over her. “Tomorrow you and I can start on a song for Roric.”

  Her sobs slowly weakened, and after half an hour he heard her breathing grow regular. He sat glumly, not moving, staring into the fire while it burned down to coals.

  It was after midnight and the hall was nearly pitch black when Valmar rose again to his feet. He could not retreat back here to safety, where everyone was happy he was the royal heir and would be delighted, as delighted as at a great story of warriors of old, if he told them how many men he had killed. And he could no longer seek solace in the love of women.

  Karin slept on. Hadros and his warriors had taken most of the extra weapons when they pursued Roric and Karin, but in the corner chest Valmar was able, after a little quiet rummaging, to find an old sword which he belted on. Eirik had his singing sword, and he did not want to go to fight the outlaw king barehanded.

  He felt his way to the door and unbarred it carefully, then stepped out into the courtyard. The rest of the castle was silent. It had been long since Hadros posted guards at night, and the small number of warriors he had left here would not have been enough for constant watches anyway. Valmar crossed silently to the gates and worked the great bolts back.

  He had saved Karin and brought her home, but he could not stay here with her as her brother. Roric had traveled hundreds of miles to save him, and he could not now desert him if there was any chance his foster-brother was still alive. The fight with the dragon must be over by now, but if the Wanderers still survived he was still pledged to serve them.

  No comfortable inheritance for him of a kingdom he had not won himself, and also no adventure for its own sake, or only in thoughtless imitation of old tales. All that was important was to follow the way of honor in his own heart, even if in the world’s eyes his honor was gone.

  Now he hoped, hurrying through the dark woods, that he could return through the faeys’ burrows the way they had come.

  2

  Karin awoke before dawn. For a moment she could not remember why she was here, in her own bed. Were all the events of the past few months a particularly vivid dream?

  She sat up and remembered. Last night, the arrival at Hadros’s castle, the unsuccessful struggle to hold off wild despair, Valmar’s attempts to comfort her, were all very vague. But the image of Roric guarding their retreat was vivid. He had wanted to die.

  She gulped once, but all the tears had been cried out of her and her sorrow had settled down to a burning ache. With blood-guilt on him and the guilt of incest, no future left for him here in mortal realms, he had saved her and Valmar by letting Eirik’s men kill him. All that was left of him was the song Valmar had said they would make for him.

  But where was Valmar? In the pre-dawn dimness she could just make out the shapes in the hall, and she did not see him anywhere. Karin pulled on her shoes and went to the door, which was unbolted. She seemed to remember Valmar driving out the others and bolting it when she had begun to weep last night. A thoughtful gesture—the castle’s mistress should not be seen to break down so completely.

  But was she this castle’s mistress? She opened the door and looked out into the quiet courtyard. She had ruled here for years, and if she married Valmar she would again.

  The thought that now that Roric was dead there was nothing to keep her from becoming Valmar’s wife came as a sharp blow, threatening to destroy her aching calm. She took a deep breath and stepped into the courtyard, thinking that she should build up the fires in the bath house—she and Valmar could both use a bath.

  Then she saw that the great gates were ever so slightly ajar.

  Valmar had gone, then. He had returned to help Roric once he had gotten her home to safety. Men might fight against each other, but they were united in trying to keep the women out of their fights.

  She squeezed through the gate and began to run. The sun was not yet up, and there might still be time to reach the faeys’ burrows before they retreated underground. The eastern sky was yellow; at least so far mortal realms were still functioning as they always had. Her feet kept stumbling, and she had to throw up her arms against low-hanging branches that appeared abruptly out of the dimness before her, but she never slowed her pace until she tumbled, gasping for breath, into the faeys’ dell.

  It was not too late. Their green lights still burned as she gave through parched lips the triple whistle to tell them she was there.

  “Karin! Karin!” They clustered around her, tugging at her skirts. “We don’t understand! Why didn’t you tell us last night how you’d gotten into our burrows? Where did the other young man go? Are you going to marry him instead of Roric?”

  For a second she relented and sat down, squeezing their hands and patting them on their heads. They had been her friends for years when no one else had been. But then her need to know overtook her again. “Did Valmar come back here? Yes, the man I was with last night. Is he here? Did he go back into the Wanderers’ realm?”

  In spite of the faeys’ insistence that there was no door from their burrows into the realms of voima, they reluctantly admitted that Valmar had appeared in their dell a few hours earlier, had pushed by them to crawl back into the tunnels, and had not reemerged.

  “We think he’s been swallowed by the earth,” said the faeys confidently. “But you won’t be, Karin, if you stay with us. It’s time for us to go inside now. Do you want some raspberries?”

  “Don’t do anything to close the rift,” she said, accepting a handful of berries and stuffing them into her mouth. She immediately began to crawl deeper into the tunnels, the way Valmar must have gone.

  When Dag and Nole found them both gone in the morning, she thought, swallowing the berries, they would wonder if they had ever really been there, or if their appearance after dark and disappearance by dawn meant that they were wights from Hel, allowed in mortal realms only to announce their own deaths.

  Karin dismissed all thoughts of what the people in the castle might think. She had enough concerns of her own. If Roric was dead, she wanted to bring his body back from the realms of voima, and after having braved so much to save Valmar she was certainly not going to let him go off alone into danger with some thought of protecting her from it.

  She crawled rapidly into darkness, keeping her head down, until the sounds of the faeys’ high voices faded away behind her and before her came the rhythmic splash of waves.

  Waves? What had happened in the
realms of voima? The smooth surface under her hands was bone dry. Karin paused for a moment, then shrugged and pushed on.

  And felt a cold, salty wave break over her. Struggling, she kicked out, finding nothing but water—no tunnel, no floor or ceiling. She tried to swim, fighting in the direction which seemed to lead upward.

  She emerged, streaming and spitting water, in the surf by a rocky shore. The sun was just rising, chasing shadows down the slopes of high mountains. She splashed forward, found a footing, and came ashore dripping wet. Before her a dark cave led into the rocks. She was back in Eirik’s kingdom, back to the spot where she and Roric had dived into the sea and into the realms of voima.

  No use hesitating now. She spun around and dove back into the surf.

  Again salt water closed over her head, and when she got her feet under her and surged back to the surface the dawn light still lay across the steep slopes of the Hot-River Mountains.

  She pulled herself up out of the waves. With water pouring off her, she scrambled into the sea-cave. Maybe the Witch of the Western Cliffs could help her find Valmar.

  But the passage down which she and Roric had come had disappeared. She groped wildly in the darkness, finding what she thought was the entrance, but if so the air had turned to stone. Pounding on it only bruised her fists. The Witch was talking to someone else—or did not want to see her again.

  Slowly she turned, emerged from the cave, and made her way along the shingle, walking in the waves half the time, shivering from wet and cold without even noticing. Gulls wheeled overhead, calling sharply. The sun rose slowly higher. The salt water dripping from her hair down her cheeks could have been tears, but she had no tears left.

  But there was still her father. At the thought of King Kardan she lifted her head. He had been so happy to see her when she came home from Hadros’s kingdom, and she had given him nothing but worry ever since. Then she remembered that he might be Roric’s father as well as her own. If so, he had a right to know that his last son was dead.