The last of the outlaws disappeared down the tunnel. For a moment, looking after them, he thought he saw daylight and two lichen-spotted standing stones leaning together, but when he blinked the image was gone. He shrugged and turned away.
Valmar went by the pool and out into evening. He had to find the Wanderers and warn them.
He sheathed his sword and scrambled up beside the waterfall. At the top of the cliff he paused, blinking and trying to see, then started walking along the ridge in the direction the Wanderers and Hearthkeepers had taken to fight the dragon. After a short distance he made out something huge and streaked with black, sprawling across the rocks for dozens of yards.
For a second he thought it was the witch again, grown to enormous size. Then he realized it was the dragon. It was dead, lying in its own black blood, its mouth sagging open and the tongue loose over the needle teeth. So the lords and ladies of voima too could kill, he thought grimly, even in their own realm. He was just wondering how to locate them, before the last of the witch’s web was unmade, when he heard voices.
The loudest voice was that of the woman with the dark curling hair. “When the new sun rises, which it shall do very soon, our time will come. Since fate has ended your rule, we must be fated to take again the direction of earth and sky. Now that the last of the mortal men are gone from here, there is little more for you to do but retreat to your manors, because if you do not yield willingly you will be forced to yield at the point of the sword.”
“And you always complained that we encouraged mortal men in violence.” It was the deep, slightly ironic voice of the Wanderer who had first brought Valmar here.
“In which case,” she answered briskly, “there is nothing you can say against us if we use your own weapons to reimpose our vision of the world.”
Valmar could now see all of them in the last of the light, the lords and ladies of voima sitting on the ridge top looking off toward the east. They all seemed battered from their fight with the dragon. There was a great scar in the earth nearby, as though it had opened and closed again.
He hesitated, wishing irrationally that Karin was here. How was he supposed to reconcile the rulers of earth and sky before earth and sky themselves were destroyed? The last daylight was fading behind them, but there was no hint of dawn in the east in spite of the Hearthkeeper’s confident prediction that the new sun would rise very soon.
“I do not like your inviting a mortal woman to join you,” said another of the Wanderers. “We have always been equally matched with you in numbers.”
Valmar counted quickly. So far no one had noticed him. There were twelve Wanderers but thirteen women, including, he realized with a start, the tall, green-eyed woman who had been with King Eirik. “I have no intention of returning to a world that includes mortal men,” said Wigla firmly.
“Were you Wanderers suggesting that I instead should return to my husband and children in mortal realms, to bring the number back down to twelve?” asked one of the Hearthkeepers. “ He will be protected by the powers of voima, and my children will lead long and happy lives even if they are still fated to die. But why should I not stay with my sisters and rule over mortals and over you? After all, there have been even lords of voima who have visited mortal women in disguise! If I care to I can still visit my husband, who already knows well who I am.”
The ground suddenly heaved and swayed under them. Valmar lost and regained his balance. “And I cannot say I like these earthquakes,” commented the leader of the Wanderers.
“You men just didn’t do enough to make our world firm while you were ruling it. As soon as our powers return, we will end these problems. I must say, I thought we would feel them returning by now
…”
Valmar stepped forward. The immortals, with their full powers either eroded away or not yet come to fullness, were entirely capable of being surprised.
All spun around to face him. “You said you had sent all the mortal men back!” one of the Hearthkeepers started to say accusingly, but Valmar did not want to hear any more of their bickering.
“I come,” he began and found his voice cracking, which it had not done for several years. “I come,” he tried again, “from the one called the Witch of the Western Cliffs.”
Everyone stared at him, but he could not afford to be overcome with awe or shyness now. He had pledged himself to serve the lords of voima, and if saving them meant forcing them into something they had not wanted, he would still do it. Besides, he would not merely be saving the Wanderers: he had to save his younger brothers, back in mortal lands, and had to save Karin.
“I come to warn you,” he said, high and clear. “The reason for the earthquakes, the reason none of you have your powers now, is because the Old Ones who made this realm in the first place are now destroying it.”
A storm came rumbling across the plain while he spoke, spitting rain, and came up the ridge to drench all of them. He wiped wet hair away from his eyes with one arm and stared at the immortals. They had to listen to him.
“Valmar!” It was one of the Hearthkeepers, his Hearthkeeper, and she sounded both delighted and calculating as she shook the rain from her hair. “We never thanked you properly for showing us that even immortals can be wounded and made weak. We shall be able to use this knowledge as soon as the new sun rises.”
“You aren’t listening,” he said desperately. “The sun is not going to rise!”
“The Witch sent you to threaten us?” said the leader of the Wanderers sharply. Then for a moment his face, no longer overpowering but still thoughtful and wise, smiled a little. “You have always tried to serve us truly, Valmar Hadros’s son-in spite of these women! — but you are too easily influenced.”
“It’s not just a threat. She-it-told me that unless the two of you come together-completely, reunited-it will be impossible for you to put immortal realms back together. And if the realms of voima are gone, there will not be much hope for mortal men and women.”
He finally had their attention. All of them jumped up. “We fought the dragon together,” said the curly-haired Hearthkeeper. “They held the dragon imprisoned with the powers of voima while we used our swords on it. We can all work together again for just a little longer and stop this.”
“That won’t be enough,” said Valmar despairingly. “Before the Witch sent me here, she-it-made it clear that only if you join together completely, neither ever trying again to overcome the other, will you be able to stop the unmaking.”
“This sounds-” one of the Wanderers said but never had a chance to finish. A mile away, a volcano exploded in the middle of the plain.
Wind rushed up the ridge, stinking with sulfur. The earth trembled as molten rock, glowing orange with heat that could be felt from a mile away, bubbled out of a rapidly growing cone. Rain turned to steam in an instant and boiled up in great clouds, lit orange from below. Hot ash settled glowing just a little lower on the ridge, igniting the wet grass. Trees swayed and toppled around them as the earth shook again, and the limestone heaved its way out of the earth.
The lords and ladies of voima, scrambling to keep their balance, conferred rapidly, and several held out commanding arms. Nothing had any effect. In the light of the molten rock, in the trembling of the earth, Valmar seemed to see giants coming awake, sitting up, tossing back the blankets of grass and earth under which they had slept. A cracking and roaring was loud in the distance, as though the solid earth itself was being broken off and cast out into nothingness.
He was not just a boy to whom the warriors did not have to listen. “You have no choice,” he shouted over the roaring of the earth. He seized the closest Hearthkeeper by the arm and dragged her to him. He recognized her when she smiled, eyes bright as mirrors even in the near-darkness.
But she was not for him. “You won’t be any longer a woman who might love a mortal,” he gasped. “But I cannot try to hold onto what we shared.” For a second he went still, meeting her eyes. “I did love you.” With his other hand he snatched at the arm of a Wanderer.