He slid from the horse’s back, pulling her down beside him. “I know you’re not meant for me,” he gasped, unfastening the clasps on her mail and pulling it off with shaking fingers. “I know you were meant to serve the Wanderers, until somehow you became separated from them. But I don’t care. I must have you. They set me a test and I’ve failed utterly. I cannot fail any worse by taking you.”
“I am not, ” she told Valmar a little testily, “‘meant’ for the Wanderers. We Hearthkeepers are separate, independent, made to govern in our own right. We once ruled earth and sky, and though our powers have long been lessened, we are sure they are fated to return once the time of the Wanderers passes. And this time we intend to make sure that they do not ever end our rule again.”
They lay with their heads shaded by a tree, its leaves green but withered, and their feet in the sun. The white stallion grazed nearby.
She kept wanting to talk. Valmar, feeling feverish, his heart fluttering, did not want to talk, especially now that desire was beginning to burn in him again. If he allowed himself to think about how he had failed the Wanderers he would break down completely and sob like a boy, but when he possessed her all those thoughts were very far away.
“But since you’re showing no sign of trying to return now to your Wanderers,” she continued with the hint of a laugh, “does that mean that you agree to leave them and serve me instead?”
He rolled on top of her and silenced her with his mouth on hers. He did not want her to remind him again of the quarrels among the immortals, of the dire need of the lords of voima that had led them to turn in their desperation even to a mortal, even to him. He only wanted to feel her body against his and her arms tight around him.
He fell asleep at last, utterly exhausted, clasping her in a final effort to find forgetfulness. He slept so deeply that no nightmares troubled him, until he rolled in slumber so that his face was toward the sun and the low red light found its way through the shriveled leaves and made images on the insides of his eyelids.
He sat up, digging at his eyes with the heels of his hands. She lay a short distance away, comfortably relaxed but with her eyes open. “If more Hearthkeepers knew of the capacities of mortals,” she said with a languorous smile, “more human men would find themselves with immortal wives.”
He rose without answering and walked a short distance to where a stream cut across the meadow. He dipped his whole head in, then splashed cool water over himself. He no longer felt like sobbing, but his failure was a dull ache he thought he could never overcome. And his desperate attempts to find solace in a woman’s embrace now seemed shameful, unmanly. He might not serve the Wanderers anymore, but he also could not meekly offer his “capacities” to a woman’s service.
He stood up, shaking wet hair from his eyes, knowing what he had to do. His back toward her, he found his clothes and slowly started putting them on.
“When you were so intent on serving your Wanderers,” she said behind him in good-natured tones, “and I thought I could never seduce you from them, I should have returned to the other Hearthkeepers. Instead, I found myself with all my feelings changed, and for a mortal!”
Valmar paused in pulling on his tunic, wondering what she could be talking about, then shrugged. It did not matter.
“So I thought if I could not have you for us, I could still have you for me. But maybe I was too quick to admit defeat! Your Wanderers will not want you now, after you have killed their creation and run away with me. But the Hearthkeepers still want you! You are needed, Valmar Hadros’s son.”
He carried his shield and sword to the stallion. Someone had unsaddled him and rubbed him down. Had he done so? He had no memory of it, but then his memories of the last twelve hours were very confused. Perhaps she had done it while he slept. He put on the saddle blanket and saddle, then paused in tightening the straps to wonder if he ought to offer to take her somewhere. But then he shrugged again. She was an immortal being who belonged in this land where it was quite clear he had never belonged. She seemed capable of appearing wherever she wanted; let her appear by herself back with the other Hearthkeepers.
She finally seemed to realize something was wrong. “Where are you going?”
“There is only one way to redeem anything that may be left of my honor,” he said, not turning around. “I shall return to the Wanderers and tell them I am ready to go to Hel for them. I do not know if a living mortal could return from Hel, but it does not matter. I shall stay.”
She took him by the shoulders and whirled him toward her. “What do you mean?” she cried, black eyes flashing. “To give up your life is the path of despair, not of honor!”
“The only path of honor left,” he said dully, “is to give my own life so the lords of voima may be reborn.”
She kept a tight grip on his arms. He stood quietly, not resisting, not meeting her eyes. “You tried to tell me this the first time we met,” she said angrily, “that the Wanderers wanted you to bring them death. At the time I did not believe it. I thought they were only testing your courage. But I should have listened more closely. Hear what I say, Valmar! The Wanderers’ time is over. Fate has ordained that it is our time now. But they are too cowardly to accept this. Instead they want you to bring them Death, and why? Not so they can be reborn, or whatever story they tried to tell you. But so they can kill us!”
He looked up then. “To kill you? Immortal women? No! That cannot be their intention.”
“They did not tell you that you could kill their hollow men-why should they have been any more truthful in this? And think, Valmar! They knew you wanted glory, with trumpets blowing and flags flying high. Would you have followed them if you thought they wanted to murder their competition?”
Everything she said compelled belief. But he could not think this of the strong, merciful, shining lords of voima. “Maybe it is too late,” he said slowly. “Maybe by coming, a mortal, into this realm I have already brought death here.”
She looked at him, considering. “An interesting question. You killed the Wanderers’ hollow creatures, but had they ever been truly alive? Immortals have always come from immortals, but since we separated from the men no new immortals have been born. Maybe they thought they could create their own successors, but even they realized that effort failed… I know! You can try to kill me.”
“What?!”
She had already gone briskly to get her armor. “It’s the only way to find out if you have brought death here already, or merely crumbled some beings that could not truly die because they had never truly lived. If death is here, then you certainly will not need to take a trip to Hel!” She laughed at his expression, settling her horned helmet on her head. “Don’t worry. If you start to inflict real damage on me you can always stop in time.”
He slid his own shield on his arm, not sure what else to do, and drew his singing sword. Laughing, she lashed out with a sharp blow which he parried easily. She struck again, harder, and again he knocked the blow away. Her third stroke he deflected on his shield.
“Are you afraid to fight me?” she asked, eyes glinting like mirrors. “You have not landed a stroke yet, Valmar Hadros’s son!”
He parried her next thrust and struck her shield so hard she staggered for a second, then he returned to a defensive posture.
“You’re afraid,” she said tauntingly. “You know you’ve deserted the Wanderers, and now you’re afraid even the Hearthkeepers won’t have you if you kill me. Try it! Or are you afraid of being defeated in swordplay by a woman?”