The Lost Sun (17 page)

They do miss Baldur, though. A space has been created in the center of the caravan, where often there would be dancing as the sun set, a large fire, and much laughter. But this space has been covered with a wide blue cloth, and children are painting bright yellow suns on it with their fingers. Candles have been lit around its border, and two women stand, one with a bowl of paper scraps, the other with chalk and pencils. People take time to stop and write on the scraps, then hold them over
this or that candle to burn the prayers. They whisper Baldur’s name, every one of them.

Baldur freezes when he notices what’s happening. He grips my hand and whispers, “They are praying for me.”

I hustle him away.

“Soren,” he continues urgently, “I am stripped down to my very core. There is nothing I can do for them. But I feel like … I should. I should reveal myself.”

Pushing him against the red-checked side of a hotpig stall, I say, “Don’t think about what you aren’t doing. Focus on what we need.”

“What of what
they
need? How can I be hope if I stand here and ignore them?”

His distress flickers off his skin, dancing up my arms to find my frenzy. I take a deep breath. “Baldur,” I whisper, “please don’t. Please stay with us. We—Listen.” I hesitate, because I realize I didn’t want him to know this part. “Your father offered a boon. To whoever brings you safely home. We need it, Astrid and I.”

For the first time, Baldur studies me with something shadowed. Or maybe it’s only the sun in my face, making me wince. His eyes fall to my tattoo. “I’m supposed to be with you,” he says, as though it will always be the answer.

We find an open space on the edge of the bazaar where once there was a booth to flatten the grass. The space has been abandoned, probably because directly beside it is an animal pen. A dozen small ponies share a water trough and bales of
hay. Their rough braying and musty smell aren’t anything I’d like to be trapped beside for long. Fortunately, we only need a couple of hours.

Astrid finds us there, with a tall Pan-Asian man in a long green-and-blue robe at her side. His skin is only just darker than mine, and gold hoops decorate his eyebrows, one nostril, and both ears. Green plastic jewels dot his forehead in the twisted figure eight of the World Snake. He smiles, and behind red lipstick his teeth gleam. “Greetings,” he says.

“This is Jon Shandrasdottir,” Astrid says. “Matria of Half-Serpent.”

Jon crosses his ankles in a short curtsy. It’s long-held tradition that the leader of a caravan be a woman or put on the appearance of one, because of Loki’s fondness for traveling the world in the guise of mother or maid. “Pleasure, friends,” Jon says.

Astrid introduces us as her circle keepers, Soren and Paul, and says we’ve been welcomed to seeth for the morning. Fifteen percent of the take goes to Jon in return for the space, mead enough to begin, drummers from his family, and a basket of food. I raise an eyebrow at Astrid, but she waves me away. “I’ll need half an hour,” she tells Jon, “and then I’ll be ready to begin. I’ll seeth until the last seeker comes, or until I fall over, so long as your hospitality holds.”

Curious eyes watch our company as Astrid begins her preparations—children of Loki with their green makeup and snake bracelets, as well as shoppers come from nearby Laramie. A small boy, about five years old, dashes through the pony
pen and climbs the fence to hang over and stare at me. He’s in muddy clothes and his dark hair needs a trim, but his smile is true and his eyes wide with wonder. He curls his fingers in a wave. My favorite thing about the caravans was the other kids. We played hand-toe throw and always had enough for stoneball pickup games. That was before the tattoo. I didn’t stand out. I was normal.

“Sam!” a girl calls from the shadow of the trailer attached to the pen.

“Is that you?” I ask him.

The boy nods his head.

“Your sister’s calling.”

He holds out his hand. It shines with some kind of sticky substance, but I take it. He uses my strength to haul himself up onto the top of the fence. Carefully, we pick our way around the pen, me on the outside, Sam walking along the thin wooden rail as though it’s a balance beam. His bare feet curl easily around it. Several of the ponies trail after us, snorting and whuffling as though we might drop carrots out our back pockets.

We reach the far side where the trailer backs up against the pen, shading a second circle of fish tanks and terrariums, crates and cages with rats and rabbits. Instead of hopping down, Sam grips my shoulder and doesn’t let go. I move away, holding my arm out. He dangles from it like a monkey, laughing and kicking his feet. A smile pulls at my mouth before I can stop it.

“He isn’t bothering you, is he?” It’s the same girl’s voice, and I lower Sam to the ground as she climbs out of the trailer. She’s about fourteen or fifteen, I guess, in loose pants and a
tight green tank top. Her coloring is pure Asgardian: white-blond hair, pale green eyes, skin so light I see veins. The bridge of her nose is pink with sunburn.

“No, maid,” I say respectfully. “Sam here is only using me for what I’m best at. Support.”

She begins to smile, but her eyes find my tattoo and she stares.

“I’m Soren Rebeccasson.” I offer the matronymic, hoping it will comfort her. We don’t need frazzled nerves today.

“My name is Vider Lokisdottir.” She squares her shoulders; her voice is even and she tears her gaze off my tattoo and brings it to my eyes.

“Snakes!” Sam says, taking my hand and dragging me toward a terrarium settled against the crunchy grass. He flips off the lid and reaches in. Two small snakes, both dark gray and green, crawl up his arms. He draws them out and allows them to twist half around his shoulders and into his hair. His mouth is open and he’s giggling the whole time. Vider slips a hand into a separate terrarium and removes another, slightly thicker snake, with markings more golden and tan.

She offers it to me. “She’s just a python, won’t hurt you.”

“Royal, isn’t she?” I hold out my hand and let the snake make her own way onto my wrist. Her head is light as a feather, skimming against my palm, and her scales dry. As she slides up my arm to curl around my elbow, I run a finger down her back. The texture is both pebbly and smooth.

“You know snakes?” Vider leans back on her heels, lips pursed.

“I used to travel with a caravan. When I was a boy younger than you.”

“But you’re Odin’s.”

“My mother wasn’t.”

Sam skips over, offering Vider one of his snakes. She gently uncoils it from his neck.

I settle down onto a pile of dusty rugs. Here, in the lee of their trailer, the noise of the bazaar is muffled. Beyond the pony pen, I have an excellent view of Astrid as she weaves her circle. Baldur’s hair gleams in the sun; he’s found a chair somewhere and stretched out to soak in the heat. They’ll call for me if they need me. Here I draw less attention, and the less attention we attract before she begins her seething, the better. I ask Vider and Sam, “How long have you two been in Half-Serpent?”

“Always!” sings Sam. I assume his parents have long traveled with the caravan. He probably was born here.

Vider shrugs and sits beside me. “A couple of years is all for me.” Her shoulders relax, and she strokes the python on my arm. She said her name was Lokisdottir, suggesting she doesn’t know her family, or else chose to put them aside when she joined the caravan. There are no good reasons for such a thing. But nor are there ways to ask.

Sam says, “Do you know how snakes were born?”

I do, of course, but say, “Tell me.”

He embellishes a version I know well: Loki’s belly squirming larger than the world with a hundred million snake-babies ready to explode, but when Freya cuts him open, only Jormundgandr, the giant World Snake, emerges to wrap around the
earth. Sam’s version includes gushing blood and birth fluids, and shrieking minor goddesses. The little boy cackles like an old man and wiggles his fingers like snakes. He pats my chest as he assures me it’s the best story in the nine worlds. But Vider says, “Oh, so?” and after slipping the snake in her arms back into its glass cage, she gestures for his attention. Sam shouts and stamps his little foot in preparation for a fit, and I quiet him by promising him a bear ride if he listens. After twisting his face and considering, he climbs onto my lap.

Vider tells the story of the first berserker, for my benefit, I’m sure, though Sam clutches my shoulders and is riveted to each word that falls off her tongue. Her version says that the first warrior was eaten slowly and painfully by the bear the Alfather chose, and the warrior screamed and cried but did not run away even as his flesh and bones were torn apart and his soul destroyed and consumed by the bear.

It sounds terrifying to me, and Sam hides his face in my shirt. But Vider is calm and certain, as if she knows the painful sacrifice was worth it.

When she’s finished, I say, “You should go to Poets’ School.”

She eyes my tattoo again. “I’d rather be a berserker.”

“Why?”

“No one can hurt you,” she says, as if it’s the only answer.

Sam squirms down from my lap and dashes back over to the snakes. “I want my bear ride!” He begins closing up the tanks.

But I keep my gaze focused on Vider. There’s brightness in
her green eyes, almost like a fever. If she were a boy, I would wonder if her father had been a berserker and the frenzy huddled under her ribs. But girls are not born to berserking, so it must be something else that causes the anger in her heart to mirror mine. “A berserker can hurt himself.”

Her look is scathing.

“Or hurt others easily,” I add.

She juts out her chin. “That’s better still.”

It’s my turn to level her with my most fearsome scowl, which always cleared the hall at Sanctus Sigurd’s. Vider Lokisdottir doesn’t shrink back or cower, but she does lower her eyes and say, “The price for strength like that is worth it. And better than the deals of some other gods.”

I want to laugh and tell her I never made any deal with Odin. That we are taking Baldur the Beautiful home, and I will ask my god to strip away his so-named gift. “I had no choice in this.” I flick my thumb down my tattoo.

“I know.” She shrugs, and when she lifts her head there’s a teeth-baring smile. “We never do.”

Sam jerks on my arm, throwing all his weight onto me to get my attention. I put my wide hand across his face and remain focused on Vider. Because I suspect that this girl doesn’t need Odin to hand her the strength she thinks she’s missing, I make an offer I’ve never considered before. “I can show you what gives a berserker strength.”

Surprised, her smile falters. “Thank you,” she manages.

I heave Sam onto my back and tell him to not let go of
my shoulders. His small hands clutch at my neck and his toes knock against my ribs. But he clings well.

We come upon Baldur stretched shirtless beside Astrid’s circle, hands beneath his head and eyes shut behind his sunglasses. The sun shines off his hair and body as if he’s made of silver. I can see a wicked purple bruise like a splattered plum streaking across his ribs on the left side. Where I slammed him with the butt of my spear. When we approach, he cracks open an eye. “Sun’s warm if you care to join me.”

“You’re not exactly blending in,” I mutter. Sam squirms and I lower him. He scrambles to Baldur and climbs directly onto his stomach.

“Oof,” Baldur gasps, laughing and pulling the boy onto his chest.

“You’re hot!” Sam declares, smacking his hands together.

I grab the back of Sam’s shirt in my fist and lift him off the god. “And he’s boring. You’re better off with us.”

“And what are you all off to do?” Baldur asks.

Vider says, quietly but firmly, “Soren is going to teach me where a berserker gets his strength.”

Baldur raises his eyes to mine, lifting the glasses to see me clearly. Despite the sun behind me, glaring directly into his face, he doesn’t wince or blink. His eyes are hot, and golden-white. “Are you,” he murmurs.

Sam begins kicking his stubby little legs in the air, and I suddenly remember I’m holding him aloft. He grins, and flaps his arms like a bird. “Caw, caw!” he cries.

Sitting up, Baldur takes Sam from me, then sets him on the
grass. “Look over there at what Astrid’s doing.” Sam twists his neck and his eyes light up. “I bet she’ll let you help.”

Sam dashes off. I glance around to see Astrid weaving strands of red yarn, looping them around and setting the edges of a web under loose rocks. Sam bends to try to pick up a stone that probably weighs half as much as he does.

“What
is
she doing?” Vider asks.

“Setting up to seeth. I’m sure she’ll read your future if you like.” To Baldur I say, “Enjoy the sun.” He grins at me and flicks a thumbs-up before resettling his sunglasses and reclining again.

Vider and I walk a bit away through dry, knee-high grass. The air coming off the distant mountains smells of pine and snow. I show her how to ground herself; how to imagine she’s part of the mountains, that she
is
a mountain. I show her how to breathe so the air scours emotions from deep in your guts.

“This is the secret of the berserkers?” she whispers, eyes closed and face turned up.

“It’s the first secret. Always know what you are, because with knowledge comes control.”

“And breathing teaches me what I am?”

“It calms your emotions, your anger and fear. It draws the world inside your chest to balance out the rage,” I say. “You are the rock, and the wind batters at you, flows around you and within you. But you are the rock. The mountain. You stand.”

“I stand.” She draws in another long breath. Wind ruffles her thin blond hair.

I try to breathe myself calm, too. But people are gathering outside Astrid’s circle, watching her, watching us, and I open my eyes. Astrid slowly stands. Her back is to me, and she strips off her sweater so she’s only in the pleated skirt and a tank top. She unbinds her curls and spreads her hands out. Thin catskin gloves, the mark of the seethkona, cover her hands. The sun caresses the muscles of her back. Suddenly my breathing is not calm. I am not peaceful or anything like a solid mountain.