C. Brittain - Voima

Roric shot Karin a sudden grin. “The Wanderers keep appearing in mortal realms for their own purposes,” he said to her. “We’ll see how they like a crowd of mortals appearing in their realm!”

He grabbed her hand and sprang at Eirik, his sword out. The king deflected the stroke with his own blade, but then they were past him. Straight out of the cave, where salt spray leaped against the stone, past the startled faces of Eirik’s warriors-a lot more than the dozen she had expected-they dove like seals into the bitterly cold waves of the northern sea.

And emerged with a thump, not even wet, onto the grass of a hilltop field. Karin stared around wildly, at the sun sitting, blood-red, on the horizon, at the grazing cows who looked at them plaintively, at a cluster of buildings in the lush valley below them. Soft air touched their skin, not ocean wind but an inland breeze of late summer.

Roric jumped up, pulling her with him. “So far the witch has kept the bargain,” he said with a laugh. “I see the sun has still not set here-though it’s a lot lower than when I was here before. Let’s get away from this hill before your renegade king shows up with all his men.”

“This- This is the realm of voima?” Karin said. They hurried down the hill toward the manor house.

“Copied after mortal lands by the Wanderers’ mother,” said Roric. “We should warn the people here that they’re about to be invaded. When we do not come back up through the waves again, Eirik will send some of his men diving after us to see if we really have found a door to this realm. He’s furious enough now that he won’t let us get away. That woman of his- she may follow on her own. And if any get through, well, the rest should soon follow.”

A woman came to meet them at the manor house door, but only after repeated knocking. “Excuse me,” said Karin, “but we wanted to warn you. We think some warriors may soon be-be coming over your hill. I think they are looking for booty.”

The woman smiled vacantly and turned back into the house.

“Is she deaf?” muttered Roric.

Two housecarls lounged in the yard. Karin tried them next; they listened as attentively as dogs might listen, then wandered away without answering.

“Roric, what is this?” she cried in frustration. “Do they not see me? Am I not real here?”

The woman reemerged, carrying a tray with milk and bread. She stood stiffly while they thanked her and took some.

“I should have thought of this,” said Roric. “ You are real, Karin. But these people may not be. I met some of them when I was here before but just thought them vague. The lords of voima built a whole world here and had to populate it all, but I don’t think there are very many of them, and probably not many of the ‘second force’ either. And you heard the witch-the Wanderers cannot create new immortal beings without the women. So instead they made manors, complete with animals and people, but people who can no more use reason than can the animals. They’re not much more than illusion-no more real than the bear I killed.”

Roric had killed a bear two winters back, but Karin was fairly sure this was not what he meant. She would ask him about it later. “How about that ‘third force’ you were with before?” she asked.

They finished the milk and replaced the mugs on the tray. The woman bore them away with the same vacant smile. “ They were real and could talk and think,” said Roric, “even imagine they could overcome the Wanderers. This time I’d like to find the real lords of voima.”

In the distance they could hear loud voices, shouted commands, and heated quarreling. “It sounds as though Eirik has arrived,” commented Roric with a grin. “If he is expecting to find piles of jewels, he would have done better in the dragon’s lair. We’ll let them sort it all out on their own. And while everyone here is distracted by a few dozen murderous mortals, you and I can find Valmar.”

As they slipped back out of the manor and through the woods beyond, Karin realized that they had never asked the Witch of the Western Cliffs how, once they reached the Wanderers’ realm, they could get back again.

The trip through the Wanderers’ realm was much slower without Goldmane. And Roric was not sure where they were going. The hills and valleys all looked vaguely familiar, but he saw no landmarks he recognized for certain from his first visit here.

“Well,” he said to Karin, “let the immortals find us. They seemed so interested in you and me before, and they must certainly know we’ve entered their realm.”

But whether the immortals were no longer interested, or whether they had been so thoroughly distracted by King Eirik and his men that they had no time for anyone else, Roric and Karin spent two days-or a period that seemed to them some two days long-walking through a lush landscape without meeting anyone but more beings without will or thought. The sun, which had been sitting on the horizon when they dove into this land, was now partially gone.

“This would be an easy enough land for a fatherless man to conquer,” said Roric as they sat under a tree. He batted at a swarm of flies; there were many more flies here than he remembered. “No one in any of the manors we’ve passed seems truly alive. They’ll do what we tell them, bring us food, and would probably find a bed for us if we asked, though I must say sleeping with them all around would give me duck’s flesh! So what do you say, Karin? Shall we make our kingdom here?”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “You would not be satisfied. There is no honor in conquering a people without self-knowledge or will, and there would be nothing but frustration in trying to rule them.”

“Oh, I think I could rule them fairly easily once I trained them,” he said, keeping his voice cheerful.

“There will soon be nothing here to rule, Roric,” she said gravely. “Look at the sun-before long it will be night here, and who knows how many days or years the night will last? In the meantime the cows here all look ill, the fruit is rotting on the trees, and the bread they gave us at the last manor was moldy.”

“But a fatherless man can’t be picky,” he said lightly, “especially one fleeing his own blood-guilt.”

She was still looking at him. He found it hard to hide anything from those level gray eyes. “Just because you know now you’ll never learn your father’s name,” she said, “is no reason to settle for what would never satisfy you.”

“By the Wanderers, Karin,” he said gruffly, looking away, “I am only trying to find a future that holds any hope for me, a future that might give me enough that I could ask you without shame to stay beside me.”

She entwined his fingers with hers and put her head on his shoulder. “I loved you and pledged myself to you when you were Roric No-man’s son, one of the warriors of the king who held me hostage, and I am still pledged to you. What matters a man’s father if the man himself is true and strong and honorable?”

“And has blood-guilt on him he can’t repay,” he muttered.

“I am heiress to my own kingdom,” she continued, playing with his fingers. “I can pay Hadros whatever compensation he asks for Gizor and the other men. I would love you the same even if I knew for certain you were the son of a drab and a housecarl.”

She slid her arms around his neck and began to kiss him. No man could ask for more than this. He tried his best to embrace her with his old enthusiasm.

But she realized something was wrong. She drew back, eyes glinting in the horizontal sunlight. “There is something else that’s happened,” she said, “something you have not told me.”

“No,” he said seriously, “I have told you all that happened.”