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.
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.
