He had never before dared even brush against them, but he had no time for awe. All of them, even Wigla, he pulled and pushed together into a tight, dripping group. Mortal muscles were effective against immortals who had lost their powers. “You were once one!” he cried. The lava was pouring toward them and the volcanic cone had already risen higher than this ridge. “You must know how to unite your powers again!” He kept trying to push them close together, make them hold hands, make them embrace each other, but they remained a group of separate, frightened people who had always thought they were immortal.
What else could he do? What else had the Witch meant him to do? “You were created as one! Remember that creation! Humans somehow find a way for very different people to work together, even if not in full agreement: men and women, old and young, men who are enemies, the honorable and those who love. What mortals can do the mortals must be able to do! We shall still reverence you-if we still exist!”
And then, as the shaking of the earth beneath them became so intense it was hard to keep his feet on the wet grass, there came a change. Where he forcibly held their hands together he felt jolts, shocks as though touched by lightning. They were all forming a circle, a circle of twenty-four lords and ladies of voima and of two mortals, himself and Wigla. He forced reluctant hands together until they were all united, alternating men and women, the curly-haired Hearthkeeper beside him. Joined in hand, joined in thought, they turned their powers on the disintegrating realm around them.
Racing through his mind came images that he knew were not his, yet seemed joined in him. He saw himself striding high on a mountain, watching the mortals far below. The mortals he could see clearly in spite of his distance from them, and he seemed to remember himself hearing their requests and tasting their offerings, holding out an arm to bring them new hope through the forces of voima. Then he was riding, unseen, in the prow of a ship cutting through a storm on a dark night, where the men fought desperately and courageously to save the ship and each other. And most strangely of all, he seemed to remember lying with his own weight on top of him, his legs wrapped around his own waist, and realized he was partaking in the Hearthkeeper’s memories.
The lava glow lit up the sky. More memories that were not his, more images of immortal power flashed through his mind, of helping a woman in childbirth, of encouraging a man in glorious battle, of guiding the sun and rain of mortal lands, of lying with a chestnut-haired woman who wore a jeweled pendant on her forehead. He could see the immortals moving, writhing, growing closer and splitting apart. Jolts still passed through him as he tried to force them back together whenever the circle threatened to split. If any of them spoke he could not hear it over the roaring of wind and cracking earth.
Then, abruptly, they pushed him away. The powers of voima surged between them, restored at last, stronger than any mortal could bear. All of them seemed to grow and to glow with their own white light, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut against their faces.
Valmar staggered backwards. Then, with their memories still fighting for prominence inside him, he raced through driving rain for the waterfall. These beings, these enormously powerful lords and ladies of voima, turned toward the volcano, but his only thought was somehow to get back to mortal realms if they even still existed.
Stones had cracked off the cliff leading downward toward the pool and the cave that had-twice-led to the earth he knew. He slid more than climbed down, bumping bruisingly as he went. More stones had fallen from the roof of the cave, but the passage still seemed clear. He pushed into it, trying to keep from thinking the thoughts of the rulers of earth and sky, trying to think only of crawling down this passage before it fell in.
The earth quivered again and more of the roof collapsed. He was past the pool now, feeling in heavy darkness for the way to safety. His hands found only solid rock with no way past.
He heaved himself up into a tiny opening between ceiling and wall, bracing himself and holding up his arms as, with another shudder, more stones broke loose. A flying shard caught him on the temple, and he knew no more.
2
Karin screamed as absolute darkness covered the earth. She clung to Queen Arane, feeling her knees turn to water in sheer animal terror. And from the yells around them she was not the only one.
The only voice that was not one of fear and horror was the stallion, whinnying as though in recognition.
The darkness might only have lasted a half minute, but afterwards, when she thought back to it with chills walking down her spine, it seemed that it might have been much longer, that there had been a period outside of time when there was no thought, no event, and no light.
Abruptly the moon was back. It shone down from a cloudless sky as though it had never been gone, lighting up the salt river and all the dripping wet men along the bank-and the person stepping out of the burial mound.
Just for a second, there seemed to be a faint fluttering, of a wight emerging shadowless into moonlight then disappearing into the mound again. But the person who came forward, shaking the taint of earth from him, was Roric.
Karin tore herself from the queen’s clutching hands and began to run. Even dead he was Roric, and she loved him.
He felt reassuringly solid as she threw herself, gasping, into his muddy arms. She could understand now the stories of the women who offered anything to have their men back.
He was laughing, loud, joyous laughter to sparkle in the moonlight. She had not known the dead could laugh. “I am no wight but alive, Karin,” he said, holding her to him, his embrace not cold but warm around her.
“I thought you were gone,” she said, sobbing now for no reason at all. “I thought you had died to save Valmar and me. But, oh, Roric,” pausing to kiss him hard, “I have learned you are not my brother.”
3
He opened his eyes with only the vaguest idea who he was.
He was a Wanderer, watching as men rode into battle in search of the glory that he encouraged in them. He was a Hearthkeeper, tending the tender shoots in the barley fields, sitting unseen by women as they rocked their babies. And he was a king’s son, born to rule at some vague future time that seemed it would never come.
He turned over his memories while delicately rubbing his temple and looking around. He was in a cave, not far from the entrance, and outside it was morning. He heard bird calls and water splashing. He was jammed into a tiny crevice among fallen rocks, all his clothing damp, but he felt well-rested and comfortable, with none of his joints stiff, and the bruise on his head the only wound on him. His clearest memories were of a childhood in a yellow sandstone castle set in oak woods above the sea. But were these his own memories, or was he a ruler of earth and sky who had acquired some of the memories of the mortal who had brought Wanderers and Hearthkeepers together?
He worked his way out of the crevice and stepped toward the pool. Perhaps his reflection would tell him.
There was enough light that he should be able to see. A drop of water fell from the cave ceiling, sending ripples across the surface. He knelt and leaned over, seeing the wavering outlines of a human shape. But whose face would he see? He waited for the ripples to subside. Just another moment and it would be smooth enough-
Another drop fell from the cave ceiling, and again the pool’s reflections dissolved into ripples. He waited again while the ripples subsided. But just before the pool was smooth enough to use as a mirror the ceiling dripped again.