He did not answer for a moment. “Then I fear we will not be able to use him,” he said at last, with what sounded like a sigh. “We do not force mortals against their will, and he has made his choice.” Something about his voice sounded, not aged or creaky, but still extremely old.
“But where is he?” Karin cried.
“You, on the other hand,” he said, not answering her question but turning fully toward her for the first time, “might be useful to us. It is a rare person who has the strength and the will to climb this high, seeking someone who might be nothing more than a shadow.”
She thought she felt his eyes on her, but she was now too angry and too disappointed to feel shame. “I do not intend to become ‘valuable’ for anyone else,” she said bitterly. “I climbed here because I hoped you could tell me where Roric is. I know I have nothing to offer you, but I could bring you a bracelet or rings tomorrow-” She paused, not liking to think of climbing up here again.
“Or we could meet somewhere else…”
“Do you think me a Weaver or a Seer,” the other asked, sounding amused, “that you must offer me a bracelet as a gift? Think what you put in the flames when you burn an offering: some hairs, a scrap of wool or parchment, a bite of flesh or some grains of wheat- Are these not gifts that symbolize the yearning spirit more than iron and gold?”
Then he really is a Wanderer, she thought, even if he does not shoot flame from his fingers.
“You are a princess, Karin Kardan’s daughter. Why is Roric No-man’s son important to you?”
“I love him,” she said defiantly. “He and I are sworn together.”
She trembled now as she spoke, weak with exhaustion and fear for Roric. But at least with this strange figure, on this bald hill in the dusk, she did not feel any need to hide and control her feelings and her words.
“You have, I recall, long been a hostage in a foreign court,” said the shadowed figure thoughtfully. “It is not surprising that you would swear yourself to someone else out of desperation-it cannot be easy being an outcast.”
“I did not choose Roric out of desperation,” she said heatedly. “I chose him because I love him. Now, are you going to tell me where he is?”
“Not unless I know myself,” he said with a low chuckle. “But you yourself have possibilities… Tell me, what did you think to do next?”
“Get off this hilltop, because the only thing I’ve found here is someone who claims to be a Wanderer but doesn’t know anything!”
“I make no ‘claim’ to be anyone,” said the other, quietly and good-naturedly. He rose, stepped behind a large rock, and disappeared.
Karin jumped up and ran around the rock, knocking her toes again in the shadows. There was no one there; she had not really expected that there would be.
She walked over to the edge and looked down. Though there was still a little light off to the west, the rocks below her disappeared into blackness. The bottom of the hill was completely hidden. There was no way she could descend that rock face in the dark and still live till morning. She listened, hearing nothing but the distant sound of the rushing river.
Valmar would be worried. She put her hands on either side of her mouth and shouted. “I shall pass the night up here! I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Again she listened but heard no reply. Maybe he had already gone. But she could not climb down in the dark. This looked, she thought uneasily, like a good place for a troll, and not even the semi-domesticated one who lived under Hadros’s bridge, whom Roric at least had dared face.
She settled herself stiffly against a rock so that her back was protected, then realized how cold it was growing. On the hilltop the wind blew steadily, with a bite as though it reached her fresh from distant ice fields. If she fell asleep up here she might not wake. She pushed herself to her feet and groped until she found a fairly broad expanse of smooth granite on which to spend the night pacing.
Long, long ago, before your grandfather’s time or great-grandfather’s time or even his great-grandfather’s time, there was no glory or honor on the earth. The earth was ruled by women, and their only thought was for their children and for their children’s safety, even when those children were grown, even when those children had become men and yearned for adventure and far places. The men were at most allowed to travel to market, to hunt bears who had threatened the flocks, to fish on the deep and dangerous sea, but never to go to war.
And in those days there was one young man named Laaiman, brave and glorious, whose mother kept him from everything but taking care of the cows. But one day, coming home from pasture, he saw something shiny lying in his path, something made of steel, long and sharp with a handle that just fit his hand. It was a sword, but he had never before seen one.
He left the cows and went to the Weaver who lived in a cave nearby to ask him what it was. And when he had burned an offering, and the Weaver had woven its web, he was told, “It is the sign. The end of women’s rule has come.”
Laaiman did not know what this meant, but the Weaver would say no more, and as he left sealed up the entrance to the cave. And that night there was blood on the moon, and wolves howled all around the cow barn, and in the morning came blizzard snow though it was midsummer. Snakes writhed in the sea and fish on dry land, and all the women went into labor and brought forth monsters. And beings appeared who had never been seen before, like tall and shining men whose faces were concealed-Wanderers, they called themselves, lords of voima.
Then mortal man rose against man, and Laaiman, the only one with a sword, defended his manor and his mother and sisters against the other men. The Wanderers applauded him and gave him greater strength yet, so that he could conquer all others even when other men too began to make swords.
And when Laaiman had conquered a kingdom and won himself eternal fame and honor, he saw a woman crossing his fields, walking lightly on the very tops of the barley stalks. She was slim and dark-haired, with eyes like the deepest night. A woman of voima, she named herself, made for the pleasure of the Wanderers. But he took her into his own bed, and on her he fathered a race of great men, of heroes, and of kings.
CHAPTER THREE
1
The ale horn came down the table again, and Roric drank deeply before passing it on. The ale here tasted even better than Karin’s brewing, and as far as he could tell he could drink any amount without it going to his head.
His companions, however, had already reached the stage of laughing for no reason, shouting good-naturedly but incomprehensibly, and struggling for possession of an ale horn that always had enough left for one more drink. They were all slightly bigger than he was, and all had the disconcerting trick of becoming blurred and shadowy if he looked at them directly. They now seemed to be competing in boasts, who would do the most now that they had a mortal with them-but exactly what they intended to do with him remained unclear. Two took their boasting to the stage of jumping up and seizing each other by the neck. But they stopped their squabbling to cheer when a well- endowed young woman with a strangely vacant expression rose and began to dance.
Roric shrugged off his unease, forcing himself to relax and enjoy this feast. He had stayed constantly alert, constantly watching, in the three days-if indeed it was three days-while the person who might be a Wanderer had led him across a startlingly lush and beautiful countryside, but led him furtively. They had kept behind the tall hedgerows, plunged deep through woods that seemed to glow green, galloped the other direction if surprised slipping past the barns.
When he had left Valmar, fervent to take his fate into his hands, he had not anticipated spending long hours and days crossing a rich realm, trying not to be seen. But when he demanded to know where they were going the other had only said, “Do heroes ask questions when they go to meet their fate? You will know soon enough.”
In this land Goldmane seemed tireless, able to gallop for hours, and he could ride almost indefinitely. At first it was like being in the heart of a tale, galloping wild and free far, far, beyond the narrow fields of Hadros’s kingdom,
