“The Wanderers in your world bring death and life.”
They sat in an apple orchard, the fruit so thick overhead that the leaves were almost hidden. Roric had been surprised when they reached the orchard to see no green and no rotten fruit among the long grass under the trees. But several in their band had taken sticks and began beating the branches, and after the downed apples lay on the ground for several minutes the flesh softened and the skin split. Roric wiped a hand on the grass after accidentally leaning on an apple and getting his hand covered with sticky fermented pulp.
“Are you trying to tell me,” he asked slowly, “that in this world mortals bring death and life?”
The man did not answer. He only turned on Roric a face shadowed and without detail, then looked away.
They had paused in their riding, stopped for the night except that there was no night. But most of the band had eaten, traded a few songs and stories, and curled up under the trees to sleep. Now only Roric and this man, this being, were left sitting up, while the sun hovered low in a sky without a sunset.
Roric was not sure whether to believe anything he might say; but he still felt he had a better chance of getting a reliable answer out of him than any of the others. He wondered if this sense was only a result of having been in his company longer than any of the others’.
“If you will not tell me that,” Roric said after a few minutes of silence, “then perhaps you can tell me who constitutes the first two forces, since you say you are the third.”
This the man apparently thought he could answer. “The first are those you call the Wanderers. The second are those who oppose them.”
“But do you not oppose them yourselves? Who are you riding to war against if not the Wanderers?”
“We fight both sides.” The man suddenly drew his dagger and threw it, as though playfully, past Roric’s ear. It lodged in the trunk behind him.
He jumped involuntarily, then reached back as calmly as he could and pulled it out. He weighed it in his hand, then looked up with a forced smile. “Is this then your guest-gift to me?”
The man snatched it back. Too bad-it had what looked like gold inlay on the blade.
“The lords of voima, they call themselves,” said the man suddenly and in what Roric thought were bitter tones. “They are proud and self-righteous, roaming earth and sky, watching over mortals, shaping their own land in imitation of mortal lands- Men, they call themselves, yet I in the form of a stallion have begotten colts on all of them!”
“How do they treat you when they are not mares?” asked Roric carefully. This was an insult they used at home, and he could-he hoped-discount its validity, but he had never heard such an insult hurled at the Wanderers.
“They ignore us, scorn us, laugh at us, treat us as beneath their notice. They say they created us, but if we are their creation you would think they would show us more respect.”
No question about it. The man was feeling bitter.
“Did they not create all those who live here?” Roric asked carefully.
“Well, they shaped it all, as they put it. But we are all they have ever created completely: the third force, the only beings besides the two major forces to have individual thought and will.”
“And those who oppose the Wanderers?”
“They only wish to replace the old lords of voima with new ones-themselves.”
“And where does that leave you?” asked Roric, trying to sound sympathetic.
The whole situation had a quality of a dream, or of a story told about someone else. Somewhere in this beautiful and frustrating land there had to be glory for a fatherless man to seize, but it was rapidly growing harder to believe in it.
“We still have our own voima,” said the being, sounding crafty now. “And even your Wanderers are not fated to rule forever. We disrupt them whenever we can.”
“Including capturing a mortal,” provided Roric, “and sending him to attack the Wanderers. Will my steel overcome them when yours will not?”
“You were not captured, Roric No-man’s son. You came willingly.”
But I did not know where you were taking me, he thought-and still do not. If he now accompanied these beings willingly, it was because he had not seen an alternative since they arrived here.
He got no more useful answers out of the man. A short time later Roric lay down himself to sleep, under a different tree from everybody else.
Sleep did not come easily. He lay on his back, an arm across his eyes to shield them from the sun. He thought of Karin, picturing her going about her daily activities directing Hadros’s household, hoping she was not worried for him. Then he tried to picture a “third force” where he had always expected there to be only one.
There had always been creatures of voima abroad in the world, trolls, dragons, hollow beings without backs, faeys-although he had never seen any of these but trolls, unless the strange green light in the dell he had seen only once, when out walking in the evening, had indeed been faeys. There might well be more creatures of voima here in the Wanderers’ realm, beings who did not share in their full power although they were immortal themselves, creatures of spite or tricks or dangerous sullenness.
He rolled over sharply and looked toward the sleeping war band, half hidden in the grass. It had always been disquieting that he could not see them properly, even with his charm in his hand. They had been too timid, too foolish for him to fear them here, but at least one of them had terrified all of Hadros’s housecarls. What were they really like? Valmar had gasped out something about someone with no back, and although he had paid no attention at the time, he now wondered what the boy might have seen that he, expecting a Wanderer, had not.
He rose to his knees, considering saddling Goldmane again and slipping away while they all slept. But if they wanted him, he had little doubt they would be able to catch him, and if he ran he did not know where he would go. “And even a man without a father should know he cannot run from fate,” he growled to himself.
But then he smiled a little as he lay back down. If he lived to see mortal realms again, he would have a tale that would take several nights’ singing to tell.
They came quietly up out of a valley, not talking, not blowing their trumpets, and saw a large manor house in the distance. Again there was no sign of the masters. But the war band spread out, forming a large half circle. They communicated by hand signals, keeping silence. Helmets were secured and spears readied.
Roric unfastened the peace-straps on his sheath and glanced back down the valley. “Look,” he said suddenly. The man next to him turned on him with the beginning of an irritable exclamation, then stopped when he saw what Roric had seen.
Coming up the valley behind them was another war band.
These riders were sharp and vivid, no shadows here. They were clad all in steel from which the sunlight flashed. They seemed small and slender in comparison with his own band, but there was nothing small about their spears. A white banner without device floated above them. Horned helmets completely covered their faces.
They had spotted him. They reined in their horses, then the rider in the lead raised a horn and blew.
The note was piercing, sending the blood pounding in Roric’s ears. At last, he thought. After days of inaction, it had finally begun. Every horse in both parties reared and charged toward the other.
And he was among them, standing in the stirrups, his hair tossed back, his sword in his fist and bellowing. But as he and the horned warriors rushed together he wondered for a second if he was on the right side.
The two bands met like waves crashing together. Screams of horses and the clang of steel on steel surrounded him. Goldmane raced in the lead, and he struck out again and again, using his sword to deflect blows aimed at him. His own strokes bounced off shield and armor.
All around him was an unfocused blur. He had no attention to spare for his companions. It felt as though the entire horned band were attacking him personally. All he could see were swords and spears aimed at him, as he ducked a javelin, parried a sword stroke, seized a spear and jerked it out of one warrior’s hand one second and thrust it against another the next.
He was still untouched, but as he whirled to face another blade the back of his mind asked, as though mildly curious, how long he thought this could continue.
In the distance came another horn call.
This one was different, poignant, almost melancholic. The people at the manor, he thought, had joined the fray at last.
And at that note the fighting fizzled out. Warriors fell back on every side, and no one met his strokes. In a few seconds the clang of steel on steel had ceased. He looked around wildly, his own sword still upraised. He saw no fallen men, only both sides turning to run.
And Goldmane ran too. He had never felt his stallion go this fast. First in the middle of the group of galloping steeds-from both war bands, he thought, though it was hard to see with the wind in his eyes-then in the forefront, then out before all the rest. Shouts blew back down his throat, and hard tugs on the rein were of no avail. The stallion had the bit between his teeth, and he ran effortlessly, leaping streams and hedgerows until it seemed he was flying, only putting down a hoof occasionally to guide them on their mad course.
Roric clung like a bur to the saddle, his eyes almost blinded and a fierce smile on his lips.
“Well, I’d like to know where you learned a trick like that,” said Roric to his horse.
He sat with his elbows on his knees while the stallion, unsaddled and unconcerned, grazed peacefully beside him. “Could you always run that fast, but you just never bothered before?”
Goldmane had finally begun to slow, and Roric had gotten the bit away from him at last. He tethered his horse firmly to a tree in a little meadow on top of a ridge, but the stallion showed no more interest in speed.
“The troll should have known better than to let you go,” Roric added appreciatively. They were completely alone. He had not seen anyone of either war band for hours.
“Tell me,” as the stallion continued to tear off mouthfuls of grass, “were those trolls we were with? I hope you knew what you were doing this time. Did you recognize whoever we were fighting against? Were they Wanderers, or whoever the ‘second force’ might be? And were we really in danger of our lives, either from the horned band or from the manor, or did it just feel that way?”
Goldmane lifted his head, looked at Roric quizzically, then returned to grazing. “And I really would have questions for you,” said Roric, “if you started to answer me.”
He rose to his feet and laughed, slapping his horse on the shoulder. “You’re almost as informative to talk to as the man who brought me here. Wait for me. I’m going to get some water.”
A narrow, muddy trickle came from a spring and cut through the meadow, and while Goldmane had lapped it up, Roric hoped that if he followed it a short distance he would come to a pool or at least a place where it ran a little deeper.
He followed the trickle with the conviction that he would not return to the people from whom Goldmane had carried him away. Soon limestone rocks sprouted up through the grass. The trickle took on force and size until it shot over the edge of a little cliff, its spray making tiny rainbows in the horizontal sunlight.
Roric went to his knees to look over the edge. The cliff was less than twenty feet high. Below the water shot into a hole like the mouth of a cave, but he could hear its splash so the hole could not be very deep. He went around and found a way to scramble to the bottom of the cliff, then lowered himself carefully into the dark, damp crevice down which the water disappeared.
In a very short distance, he found the pool he had hoped for. The stream splashed and whirled, then flowed away, broad and quiet, over dimly lit stone. Here the water appeared perfectly clear, so he drank, dipped his head to wash the grime from his face, then lifted water in his palms to drink again.
That was when he saw the light.
At first, kneeling with water dripping from his chin, he thought it his imagination, a green spark in the distance. But it remained even when he moved his head. He stood up slowly, listened without hearing anything but the waterfall, and walked forward cautiously, his hand resting on his sword.
As he walked, the green light became brighter. He ran a hand along the damp stone roof over his head, then stopped when it sloped rapidly lower. But now he thought he could hear voices ahead of him.
“What’s that sound? I don’t hear a sound. Listen, that sounds like footsteps! It’s just somebody outside. No, I tell you, someone is in the tunnels and coming this way!”
The voices were high, almost squeaky. He continued forward with a wondering smile, on his knees now.
“I don’t hear anything! That’s because it stopped. Do you want to go look? All right then, I’ll look. But you have to come too. But you’re the one who heard the sound!”
Now he himself heard footsteps, light and quick. He waited in the near darkness while the green light rapidly approached.
But he was not prepared for the shriek.
“A Wanderer! A Wanderer! They’ve come for us! Flee while you can! We can’t get out! What can we do!?!”
He sat back on his heels to appear less threatening to the very short people who now ran in circles before him. They had dropped their light, but it still burned, giving their faces, already distorted by panic, an unreal quality.
“I am not a Wanderer,” he said, not shouting for fear of frightening them worse but speaking very clearly. “Who are you?”
“It’s not a Wanderer! He says he’s not a Wanderer. Is it a mortal? But how did a mortal get in our tunnels? Who are you?”
They were all around him now, jumping to get a better look over each other’s shoulders, pushing forward and then scrambling back if he shifted.
“I am indeed a mortal,” he said slowly, “but I have been in the Wanderers’ realm. I followed a stream into the back of your cave.”
“There is no stream! What does he mean, a stream? Do you see a stream?”
And indeed the tunnel floor was dry. He could not even hear the splash of the waterfall. Goldmane! He looked over his shoulder into blackness. I’ve gone somewhere, he thought, I don’t know where, like stepping through that stone gate, and I’ve left Goldmane behind.
“Can I return to the Wanderers’ realm by going back?”
“No! You can’t go anywhere! There’s nowhere for mortals to go! And if you really are a mortal, you should be here, in mortal lands!”
These were certainly not the mortal lands he remembered. He looked at the excited group before him. “Are you perhaps faeys?”
“Yes, yes, of course we’re faeys! And we don’t like mortals here in our tunnels! They’re too dangerous! We’ve only ever tamed one successfully.”
“Then I shall bother you no more.” He groped back the way he had come, on his knees, his head bent beneath the low ceiling. But in twenty feet he reached a solid wall.
He turned around slowly. They were clustered, watching him. “We told you mortals can’t reach the Wanderers’ realm that way.”
“Then how can I?”
“You can’t! We already told you that you can’t! You have to stay here, or at least not here, but in mortal lands. As soon as it’s dark outside we’ll put you out the door.”
And the lords of voima only knew where he would be when they put him there, without even his horse. He might be a thousand miles from Hadros’s court and from Karin. At least he seemed to be back in a land with sunsets. He settled himself cross-legged to wait until evening.
But the faeys did not go away although they retreated a little down the passage. “Maybe we could try taming this one,” someone suggested, but the rest shushed him. Roric ran his thumb along his jaw, realizing that his beard had not grown in the week-or however long it had been-that he had been in the Wanderers’ realm. “You haven’t told us your name,” another faey said boldly after several more minutes had passed.
There seemed no reason to hide his identity. “I am Roric No-man’s son.”
“There! I knew we should try to tame him! But are you sure? Suppose it’s a different Roric?”
He leaned forward. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
“Do you know someone named Karin? She’s going to be queen!”
Long, long, ago, when the earth was new and men and women first came, blinking wide-eyed, out from the forests, there was life but no death on earth, and the Lords of Death waited without taking anyone. The lords of voima brought birth and growth, but very soon the earth became crowded, for children did not replace their parents but were added to them, and even the insects and the birds and the trees constantly multiplied.
And at first humans were happy, thinking themselves eternal, knowing that fate could not touch them. But then the wisest among them realized that all was not well. Where there was no end for men to fear, there was no goad to complete any task. Deeds were left ever undone, songs were left ever unsung, and there was neither growth nor change among men or women, only more and more persons, each like all the others. The wise, and at last even the foolish, understood something was wrong, but none knew what to do.
Finally Sielrigg the hero said, “I shall seek out Fate and see if something different can be arranged, before we crowd ourselves into the very sea and fall into a torpor that would make even life itself no longer worth having.”
So he went to the Weaver’s cave and burned an offering, then he took his sword and swung astride his great warhorse. He rode for miles, for days, for months, for years. He rode from the north to the south, from the east to the west. And at long last he came to a hut in the deep, deep woods, where a wizened old woman waited all by herself, and he knew that she was Fate.
“We need to grow, we need to change,” Sielrigg told her. “Humans are not made to sit idle. But our immortality makes it hard for us to treat anything seriously, and there are too many of us for any one to hope he may do any new thing.”
“What you are missing,” said the wizened old woman, “is a needful balance, a balance between life and death, ceasing and becoming.”
“But I did not come to ask for death,” said Sielrigg, hefting his great sword although he knew well that the old woman could not be wounded any more than he could. “I ask for a way for us to find again the sense of purpose the lords of voima meant us to have.”
“And I give it to you in my own way,” answered Fate. “Henceforth the Lords of Death shall have powers to balance those of the lords of voima even in the present world. All were fated already to come to Death at the last, when even Time shall end; now I shall allow Death to take men and all other creatures even from the very midst of life. When all humans know that their end must someday come, that if they do not grow the food they shall starve, that if they do not sing their songs they will go forever unheard, then you shall see renewal.”
Then Sielrigg the hero said, “Very well. But I ask a boon of Fate. If this will help my people, then I ask that I be the first to die.”
And his wish came true on the spot, for his sword turned in his hand and stabbed him, and as his body sank to the forest floor his spirit went forth, a shadowless wight. It went down to Hel, which until then had stood vast and dusty and empty, and he became the first mortal spirit ever to reach that realm. But then many more humans began to die, and insects and animals and trees as well. Hel then became the place of despair and unfulfilled plans for all who went there untimely, but the earth was a land of ceaseless striving, where glorious battle was worth fighting, where the food had to be grown and the young children cherished, and the songs that were sung kept the spirit and memory of the dead alive.