“Long enough for us not only to give way but to change,” said the witch in a low tone.
“I may be the only one left who still remembers how it was before the creation of the realms of voima and the separation of those who rule earth and sky into men and women.
And I myself am not remembered, living here away from mortals and immortals alike, except of course for the dragon.”
“I want to understand this,” said Karin slowly.
Roric did too, and it still made no sense.
“Before the Wanderers and the second force appeared, there used to be cycles of creatures of voima more like yourself.
But what happened to all of you when fate ended your rule?
You didn’t die?
You changed instead?”
“We changed as you say, Karin Kardan’s daughter.
Even the other creatures of voima in the earth may not remember us anymore, though they remember the upheavals and the change.
Many of us are built into the very foundations of the realms of voima, so that that land is made from the sleeping forms of its creators.”
Karin said after a moment’s pause, “So the women of the second force are trying to use armed might to defeat the Wanderers, so they may replace them, they hope, forever this time.
And the Wanderers hope to use death, which has never before entered immortal realms, to overcome the women, so that they themselves will not be replaced now or ever.”
“And the Wanderers want mortals because we have access to Hel,” said Roric.
“Maybe in that case we should try to help the second force instead.”
The witch chuckled.
“Oh, they would be happy to have you, Roric No-man’s son.
Both sides are working out their plans in ways that involve mortals.
This decision to use death will be the Wanderers’ second effort to ensure that they create their own succession, after their first effort resulted only in hollow men of which they are now trying to rid themselves.”
Roric set his jaw, more determined than ever not to allow the one life he had to be diverted into some game played among the immortals.
“But
you
see more clearly than any of them do,” said Karin.
“What can they do, if neither side wants the other to rule at all, and yet neither side can triumph?”
“If they asked me,” said the witch, “I would tell them.
They could try once again uniting into one, as they were meant to do.”
The witch went back then to tugging at the weaving, and although Karin tried a few more questions it either did not hear or did not want to answer.
She and Roric retreated to the far side of the room and whispered.
He did not know whether the witch could overhear them or not; the lords of voima had seemed to know less than he expected, and even this much older creature did not appear omniscient.
But if the witch could see all in its weaving and mirrors, then it did not matter if they whispered or shouted.
“I do
not,
” said Karin, low and intense in his ear, “want to get involved in this quarrel among the immortals.”
Roric was relieved to hear this; she had sounded so sympathetic that he had been afraid for a moment that she was going to propose trying to bring the sides back together.
Even while they had headed north he had vaguely hoped there might be a way to solve the Wanderers’ problems and win a reward of boundless glory, but this all sounded beyond the capacities of mortals.
“They have goals so much vaster than anything we can understand,” she continued, “that it would be best for us to stay with what we
can
influence and know.”
Perversely, this echoing of his thoughts immediately made him think that there might be something even in mortal courage and strength that the lords of voima lacked, and that it would be the path of highest honor to fight beside them.
But he dismissed this thought.
He had no honor left anyway.
“Would you like to stay here until he comes to visit me again?” asked the Witch.
“He” meaning the Wanderer, Roric thought—her son?
“How long will that be?” he asked.
Whatever he and Karin did, it might be easier if the two kings had enough time to decide that both of them were dead and go home again.
He had not come all this way to be meekly taken back in bonds with nothing accomplished.
“It is hard to say in your mortal terms when he will come,” said the witch thoughtfully.
“Then it may be a long while,” said Karin.
“I think I have seen him once too often anyway.
Is there a way to leave here without going by the dragon again?”
“Oh, yes,” said the witch as though surprised.
“I told you I only keep a fire at that end of my cave as a warning beacon.
There is a tunnel that comes out at the bottom of the cliffs, quite near the sea.
Men used sometimes to come there in boats and climb up to see me, to burn an offering or ask a question of fate.
I am not sure they liked my answers as well as they expected!” with a chuckle.
“Do they come frequently?” asked Karin quickly.
“I have seen none in a while, what you would call a long while,” said the witch, weary again.
“Since the dragon came, and since the people of the castle turned from voima to ally themselves with the lords of death, they no longer ask me for seeings or weavings.”
Then they need not fear that King Eirik would meet them at the entrance of the tunnel, thought Roric.
This still left the question of where they would go when they left this cave.
Karin, even more stubborn than he, asked the question she had been pursuing since her father’s castle.
“We need to enter immortal realms, to find our foster-brother Valmar.
We heard you know the way.”
“Oh, a way can be found.
Even though I have not been among those who rule earth and sky for longer than even I can remember,” again with a faint chuckle, “I still know the way.
Leave the tunnel, dive into the sea, and you shall find yourself there.”
That was it?
Could it be as easy as this?
Roric wondered if they had dived into the sea anywhere they would have emerged into the Wanderers’ land of endless afternoon.
But he shook his head.
There could be no ways not guarded, no path a mortal could take unaided by an immortal.
“Thank you,” said Karin gravely.
“I hope they will listen to you.”
She started to rise, brushing sand from her tattered skirt.
“Before you go,” said the witch, “there is just one more thing.”
There was a brief pause, and when it continued it sounded almost triumphant.
“Have you forgotten to give me your payment?”
“Payment,” said Karin dully.
She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a broken necklace, one Roric remembered her wearing earlier on their trip.
“I am afraid this is all we have to give you.”
The firelight glinted on the gold chain.
“That will not do to pay me,” said the witch, no longer chuckling and no longer weary.
“Did you think me just another Weaver or Mirror-seer to be satisfied with jewelry?
There is enough in the dragon’s lair to satisfy a thousand Seers if that was all I wanted.”
“Then what
do
you want?” asked Karin, her voice high.
“Even Seers and Weavers do not want the gold itself,” the witch continued, “only the sacrifice of something valuable to the person who asks.
It all ends up with the dragons anyway, sooner or later.
A broken necklace has no more value to me than it does to you.”
Roric and Karin put their arms around each other, waiting for what the witch would demand of them.
They had never been able to pick up any details of its massive bulk beyond the eyes, and now it seemed to be shifting, growing, big enough to swallow them whole.
The fire crackled louder, and its light flickered on soft, warty skin the color of stone.
“What
do
you hold dear?” the deep voice asked.
“Life,” said Roric, quickly and cautiously.
Life was less important than honor, less important than Karin.
But the witch knew better.
“You have risked your life a dozen times or more, and not for the thrill but because other things meant more.”
All the creatures of voima were allied against them, Roric thought.
“What then do you hold dearest?” the witch insisted.
“Our foster-brother Valmar,” said Karin determinedly.
“But you are not offering to sacrifice him, I gather, since you keep asking me how to save him?
And it would not be
payment
to offer another’s life.”
“Honor,” said Roric.
His honor was gone anyway.
But the witch might not know that.
Maybe it would let them—or at least Karin—leave alive if he offered it honor he no longer had.
“Your father,” said the witch slowly and thoughtfully.
“Knowledge of your father.”
Roric squeezed Karin tighter.
Without knowledge of his father, without even being Hadros’s foster-son anymore, he would never be a complete man and would not be worthy to marry Karin.
But, he thought with a grim smile, she was already his:
far too late for Hadros or for King Kardan to object to their marriage.
A fatherless man, an outlaw, he was still her lover.
Then he remembered something.
The witch must know this anyway, so no use in prevaricating.
“The Weaver in Hadros’s kingdom.
He said knowledge of my father would destroy me.
So I cannot offer you something I do not have, something I could never have.”
“The Weaver spoke truly, but not for the reason you think, Roric No-man’s son.
You have never been greedy for gold and always been careless of your life, and you threw down your honor in killing Gizor One-hand.”
Karin turned her head sharply toward him, eyes wide in the firelight.
He had no time to tell her about that now.
“That means,” the witch continued, “that knowledge of the man who fathered you is the only thing that still matters to you.”
And Karin.
He was not going to remind the witch of his love for Karin.
The witch’s voice dropped low.
“A man without a goal, without something worth seeking, is a man who might as well be dead.
You think your manhood depends on your identity, in knowing to whom you were born.
If you had not come here you would have spent the rest of your life truly alive, with gaining that knowledge—or acting like the man you imagined your father to be—the goal of all your actions.
Now I ask you something that may destroy you as surely as the knowledge you wanted the Weaver to give you.
I am asking you to agree
never
to know your father, to accept a life with no further goals.”
Except Karin.
He kept his left arm tight around her but slid his right hand to the hilt of his sword.
Even the dragon had been taken aback for a moment by the touch of mortal steel.
“Is this your bargain?” he asked, his voice clear.
“You let us leave here alive, to enter the Wanderers’ realm if that is our intent, and all the payment you demand for your food, our safety, and your guidance is that I give up finding my father?”
“A simple bargain, you think?”
“Unless you are playing with me, unless you plan to demand much more of me, I think it a good and simple bargain.
I accept, Witch of the Western Cliffs!”
“And Karin Kardan’s daughter.”
His arm tightened around her so suddenly and so hard that she gasped, then Roric realized the witch was not naming her but addressing her.
“Do you also agree?
Even if you learn what man fathered Roric, do you understand you will never tell him?”
“We have steel here,” she said, recovering her breath, “but no rowan on which to swear.
But I shall swear on anything you like.”
“No oath is necessary,” said the witch, giving its deep chuckle for the first time in a long time.
“In agreeing you have bound yourself far more tightly than any oath could do.
Go, then, Roric No-man’s son and Karin Kardan’s daughter!
Evade the dragon, enter the sea, and find this foster-brother of yours.
But do not expect the way to be easy, for both sides in the realms of voima will want you for their purposes.”