The Lost Sun (12 page)

I know exactly how beautiful he should be, and yet the more I try to remember what I thought he looked like before, the less I’m able to picture him. As if the man before me is so vivid he’s erased all my memories, too, or perhaps I never saw him clearly to begin with.

He notices my stare. “Soren, why are you frowning?”

“I don’t trust you.” The bluntness startles me, and I look away.

A short laugh pops out of his mouth. “Just like a berserker. Tell me like it is.”

“How do you know?” I shift closer to him, as though to loom. But he’s taller than me.

“Know what?”

“If you don’t remember anything, how do you know what to expect from a berserker?”

His eyelashes flicker, but he keeps hold of my gaze. “I give you my oath that I speak only truth. My oath, under the sun and to the edges of the world.”

My neck hairs rise, shooting chills down my spine. I frown as fiercely as I can. “How do you know that oath?”

His eyebrows lift. “The words waited on my tongue.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “They are old words, ritual words. For binding-by-light.” I tighten my fingers into fists. The binding is one between commit-brothers, and I want to tell him that he must refrain from giving oaths he doesn’t understand, but I am afraid my voice will shake.

Baldur’s face releases into a bright smile. “Then so we are bound.”

I am half-awed, half-infuriated, and so I turn my back to him before he sees me grimace.

From the other side of the car, he says, “I trust myself, Soren. These words, like the sun, they are things I know. So little do I know, that what is here I must accept, no matter the consequences.”

Consequences
. They rage inside me, that black chaos of night sky wedged under my ribs. There are some consequences so unacceptable we have to fight against them every day.

Astrid pushes out through the glass door of the gas stop. She clutches two giant plastic cups in one arm and a third in the other. A small bag dangles from her wrist. I go immediately to assist. When I take the two drinks, she bounces ahead of me. “I have a shirt for you that should fit better!” she calls to Baldur. He comes around to meet her, stripping off the too-large sweatshirt.

I try not to be annoyed that he crawled out of the dirt with muscles like he has, but it’s difficult when I notice Astrid glancing away with a subtle blush.

What if she can’t resist him? There are so many stories of
Baldur flirting his way around the country, pictures of him kissing young women in the perfect summer fling.

But what right do I have to want her to resist? Why should she bother just for me?

While he changes and Astrid takes the old sweatshirt, I climb into the driver’s seat and set the honey sodas into the cup holders. Only years of practice controlling myself keeps the door from slamming closed.

Astrid tells me to continue the way I have been, past a handful of dust-covered houses and a gray building that’s a grocery, auto-parts store, and burger joint at once. Whatever tiny town it is, I’m glad I don’t have to stay. We’re continuing to Highway 18, and taking that west to Ulriks, where we’ll turn south again on 385. We’ll keep zigzagging south and west down into Colorada. It shouldn’t take more than seven hours. By dinnertime we’ll be free of him. Back on our own to head home. Together.

I surreptitiously run through a breathing exercise, as best I can while folded into the front seat of the Spark. My hands on the wheel work for grounding, since I can’t have my feet flat under me. In, counting the lines painted down the center of the road to twenty; out, counting to thirty. In and out, keeping focused on my body against the seat, my palms against the leather wheel.

Baldur, now clothed in a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt with
a Denver City Stoneball logo emblazoned across the front, drinks from his soda. The noise from his open window muffles the slurping.

A look in the rearview mirror shows me Astrid leaning back in the center of the bench. Her hair hangs all around her face, and I can only see her eyes. They are on him alone.

“Baldur,” I say too loudly, even with the roar of wind, “I don’t understand why you don’t remember. You have to remember more than … more than dreams.”

“He’s been dead,” Astrid says.

Both Baldur and I look at her, and I want to stop the car. To turn all the way around and grasp her shoulders, make her look at
me
instead of him. But I drive, resigning myself to simply shaking my head. “That explains nothing to me.”

“Nor to me,” Baldur says.

“Memory loss is associated with the dead.” She leans forward and presses her temple against the corner of my seat, angling her face toward Baldur. “My mother was a seethkona, a prophetess who could dance into death and speak through the gates of Hel, Baldur. I witnessed her raise a man at his year-old burial mound once, and I’ve read accounts of other revenants. The dead must be grounded somehow into their old lives, or they may leave their memories in the comfort of Freya’s embrace. I’m not surprised you’re having difficulty. You’ll remember more as you go, or you should. And there will be fits and starts of memory. Sensations you know, images or words you remember, but that you might not be able to place.”

I think of the binding-by-light. “He’s alive, though, not undead. Not a revenant. This memory loss never happens to him.”

“Not under regular circumstances, no.” She sighs. “Perhaps there’s something the Alfather has for him, or my Freya, that will reinvigorate his mind.”

“I feel invigorated in the sun,” the god murmurs, hanging his hand outside the car. His fingers move like he’s playing a piano against the wind.

“Let me try to help.” Astrid squeezes Baldur’s shoulder, and in the low, swaying voice of a poet she says, “Over two thousand years ago, the elder poets say, Odin the Wanderer fell in love with Tova, a woman of Freyr’s tribe.”

Baldur’s fingers stop moving. He sets his soda back into the cup holder.

Astrid continues: “This woman Tova gave birth to a son named Pol Darrathr, the Arrow of Odin. No more beautiful man had walked the earth, nor any more accurate with a spear, or more joyous or friendly or strong. Pol gathered to him men of all kinds, forming a great band of warriors in Odin’s name. He was bold and wise, loyal and true, and when he swore himself to a king on earth, none doubted his word. Across the land, princes and kings bowed to Pol and his king, and all who fought challenge against him fell.

“Until one day Pol’s half brother by Tova came to join the commit, bringing his promised-wife Nanna. In moments, Nanna and Pol loved each other as vastly as the gulf between stars.”

Baldur draws his hand inside the car and folds it carefully with the other in his lap. He stares straight ahead, his face expressionless.

“Pol and Hoder, his half brother, fought the holmgang over Nanna, and Pol cut Hoder to the ground but refused to kill him because of their shared blood. For this honor and loyalty, Pol was brought to his father Odin’s side and called Baldur, an ancient word naming him a prince.

“The gods of Asgard welcomed the new Baldur, giving him an apple from Idun’s orchard and mead from the Poet’s Cup. Baldur married Nanna, and together they lived happily. Yet Baldur’s brother Hoder was not satisfied. With Nanna’s father, Hoder plotted to trick Baldur into death. The two called him from his home in Asgard, the Shining Hall, to join with them in a game of spear tossing. Baldur, being loyal to his brother and loving toward his wife’s father, went. Never suspicious. Never wary. Always trusting.”

Baldur’s hands, so carefully folded in his lap, curl into fists.

Reaching to touch his shoulder in comfort, Astrid says, “As Hoder’s turn came to throw his spear, he faced his brother. With a cry of rage, he cast the spear, driving it through Baldur’s heart. The Shining Hall fell into shadow. In nine steps down from heaven, Odin Alfather struck Hoder, crying blood price for his most-beloved Baldur.

“Baldur’s funeral was glorious. Every god came, every goddess, too, and half the warriors of the world. Giants came to honor his light, and trolls and sea monsters. Even Thor Thunderer put down his hammer so that the fiends and gods might
mourn together. Nanna, wife of Baldur, walked onto the fire-ship and threw herself across her husband’s still-bright body. Together they burned.”

Astrid pauses to wipe her fingers across her cheek. When she continues, her voice is thick. “Odin rode his eight-legged horse to the black river that floods into Hel. There he met the witch-goddess Freya, seer of all and the queen of Hel’s magic. ‘Freya: lover, friend, teacher. My prophetess,’ the Alfather begged, ‘give my son back to me, back to all the world, which loved him dearly.’ And Freya ruffled her many-feathered cloak to reply, ‘So he is loved, yet so he died, Odin Deceiver, Old Man Dreaming.’ ‘Freya, you who rule half of death, who rule by love, who know it better than any god, tell me what I might do to win my son back from you.’ The witch-goddess laughed and said, ‘This thing only: make all the living world weep for Baldur, show their lamentations and wailing with silver tears to call back the sun.’ ‘If I do this, he will live again?’ ‘If you do this, Odin One-Eye, you may have him half the year. For that he is half of your blood, and half of the blood of mortal men, he shall be half-alive and half-dead from now to the end of the nine worlds.’

“So Odin returned from Hel and sent all the spirits and men upon whom he might call, his wolves and ravens, his Valkyrie and Lonely Warriors, spreading the truth of Baldur and his death, that all the world might mourn. The earth tilted with the wails of grief, and soon the grass was wet with dewy tears. Everyone cried, everyone wept, except for Tova, the mother of Baldur and Hoder. It was Loki who discovered her, and the boy-trickster crouched before Tova and asked why she would not
cry for her son. ‘Because I have lost both my sons, yet no one weeps for Hoder.’ Loki, a mother himself, frowned and offered Tova a tea he claimed was for betrayed mothers. Whispering thanks, Tova accepted. As she drank, Loki laughed, for the tea was poisoned. The woman perished, and so Loki returned to Asgard and declared that no living being on the whole of earth refused to cry for Baldur.”

Sitting up, Astrid says, her voice free of tears, “Thus, with every spring, Baldur rises from Hel to bring joy and life and sunlight to the nine worlds.”

As her words fade, the only sounds are the rush of highway, the thundering draft through the window, and the rumble of engine. I am not certain any of us breathes.

The first new word comes many miles later, when we’ve found Highway 18 and the sun reflects off a lake, glimmering in my eyes.

“And so,” Baldur says, “I’ll die again in a few months.”

I squint against the bright flickering light, then flip the sunshade down. But the glare comes from below, so it doesn’t help.

Astrid, from where she’s rested back into the rear of the car, says, “Yes, but it isn’t a thing to fear.”

“I think … that it is.” Sighing, Baldur stretches his hand back out the window to catch sunlight. His head turns away from me.

“You remember something?” Her voice rings with hope.

“No. Not really. Every word you spoke drew something
from inside me. Hints of memory, perhaps. A flash of face, the sharp clash of swords. Fire. I remember fire, and the spear. In my chest. It’s all like a dream. Like these dreams I have had that leave me with nothing but the impression of who I might have been. But if I loved this woman Nanna so much, why can I not remember her?”

Astrid says, “It was hundreds of years ago, Baldur. She has never risen with you. No one expects you to remember.”

The look he casts her over his shoulder almost makes me forgive him.

And I don’t even know exactly what I want to forgive him for. In the silence my anger builds up again. Anger that he’s forgotten everything. Forgotten us. Anger that he was missing in the first place. Anger that the gods couldn’t find him—that Odin Alfather lost his own son. Anger that there are riots and city parks full of fearing pilgrims. That trolls paraded through Vinland and destroyed all those people.

Anger that he holds Astrid’s attention.

My hands grip the wheel tighter again. There will be impressions of my fingers in the leather by the time we stop. This fury is not worthy of me, except that I always carry it with me, cutting up at my heart.

I hear Astrid shift behind me, but my gaze darts between the road and Baldur only. He watches me, a slight frown marring his face. His eyes reflect the same hard light as the far-passed lake. I clamp my teeth together and can feel my jaw muscles tightening. But I don’t care that they can tell I’m angry. All my bones are tense.

“Soren!” Astrid pushes forward again, putting a hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off. My battle-rage shudders in my stomach, reaching out like a grasping squid.

“It is well, Astrid,” Baldur says lightly. “Soren, stop the car.”

“What?” Both Astrid and I protest.

“Soren, I need you to pull over. We can’t resolve this while you’re driving.”

His measured words cause me to obey without thinking further. The wheels skid on the gravel shoulder as we roll off the highway. Astrid says, “Resolve
what
?”

There’s a field here, old soybeans waiting for the new seeds to grow. Baldur pushes out of the Spark and I follow. The day is warmer than any since last summer. Everywhere the light of the sun fills the air with energy. I drink deep breaths and keep my eyes on Baldur. He strides out into the field, curving left toward a grove of trees. “Get your spear, Soren,” he calls back.

A thrill roots me to the ground for a moment. My heart thunders more loudly than goblin forges, drowning my ears in the rhythm.

Yes
.

Whirling, I run back to the car. Astrid blocks my way. “Soren.”

I smile at her unkindly, and her eyelids flutter closed. Even then a voice is whispering in my head to calm down, to spare her this side of me.

“Soren,” she says again, forcing her eyes open. She puts her hands on my chest, pushing firmly so I stop. “Be careful.”

“Oh, I will.” I step forward. She doesn’t move.