The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

18

SPELL SONGS

Arwin did not recover quickly. His ribs were broken and his heart was weak, or mayhaps it was his ribs that were weak and his heart that was broken. But he was not himself. He was shaken, scared, and befuddled.

“We will not give up, Hod. We will not give up,” he groaned, and Hod wondered if Ghisla had felt the rage that filled his breast when he’d said the same thing to her.

He nursed Arwin for months, his days and nights running together until he lost all sense of both. Arwin was asleep more than he was awake, and he was so weak and unwell that Hod feared that if he left for any length of time, Arwin would slip into the great unknown.

Ghisla was as silent as she’d been in the early days, and his fear for her well-being and his longing for her voice was almost unbearable. He comforted himself with the strong heartbeat he’d heard on the hill just before he’d found Arwin; whatever the clansmen from Adyar had been referring to, she was in the temple—alive and well—when he carried Arwin down the hill.

He slept little, and when he finally succumbed to exhaustion and slept for hours at a time, he would wake in horror thinking Arwin had cried out or Ghisla had sung, and he’d been too unconscious to hear either of them. He traced the rune on his palm in blood and tried to will her to answer, but there was never any response, no burning on his palm or tingling in his fingers. And there were no songs. It was as if their link had been completely severed.

He grew so desperate to know how she fared that he drew a seeker rune on his palms that sent him hurtling into the darkness. But the seeker rune did not give him eyes, and the things he heard and felt were muted and distorted by distance and dissonance. What sounded like a voice lifted in song could just as easily have been birds cawing in the bell tower.

One night he fell asleep in the chair beside Arwin’s bed and woke to his master moaning and tugging on his hand.

“I have failed you, Hod,” he whispered, and Hod could hear his tears. He disentangled his fingers and checked his mentor for fever. His head was warm, but not alarmingly so, and Hod pressed a drink to his lips and wiped his mouth. Warm tears dribbled from the corners of Arwin’s eyes, and he wiped those too.

“I have failed you, Hod,” he said again and reached for Hod’s hand. This time Hod let him hold it, sinking back down into the chair beside him. It was clear that Arwin wanted to talk.

“You have not failed me. You have been the only family I have ever had, and you have cared for me all these years.”

“They have failed us.”

“Who, Master?” But he knew who. When Arwin was lucid, he talked of little else.

“The Keepers of Saylok. The mighty Keepers of Saylok. They have failed us all,” Arwin murmured. “They have failed my little boy.” He brought Hod’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to his palm, his tears pooling again. The gesture was something he’d done when Hod was small, a way to reinforce pride in his work. It’d been years since he’d kissed Hod’s hand; but these days Arwin was lost in the past far more often than he resided in the present.

But his lips stilled and he pulled his face away, his thumbs smoothing Hod’s palm, over and over, like he worried a rabbit’s foot or summoned wishes from a rock.

“You have a rune on your palm,” he gasped. “It is a soul rune.”

Hod sighed. It revealed the fragile state of his own health that he could summon no excuse for his teacher.

“Yes, Master,” he said. “I do.”

When he tried to withdraw his hand, Arwin clung to it, drawing it back to his face. He pressed his right eye into Hod’s rune, the act a similitude of Odin dropping his eye into the well of Mimir in exchange for the wisdom of the runes.

“Take my tears in lieu of my blood, and show me your other half,” Arwin beseeched the rune. Hod did not stop him or yank his hand from his trembling grasp. He had begged the rune for the same thing, day after day, in hopes to simply hear a heartbeat or sense Ghisla there on the other side.

“There is nothing there,” Arwin said. “I see only frayed tendrils.”

“No . . . there is nothing there,” Hod answered, and his voice broke.

“It is forbidden. Have I not taught you this? It is forbidden. What if the Highest Keeper had seen this?”

Hod rose and washed his hands. He could smell Arwin’s breath on his skin, sickly and sour, and there was nothing more to say.

“She is the king’s witch now,” Arwin hissed. Hod froze, his hands dripping, his hackles raised.

“Who, Arwin?”

“Ghisla the Songr. The girl who sang to you. She sings to the king now. She has addled his brain. He is mad. We have a mad king and the keepers put him on the throne. They put him on the throne and brought daughters into the temple.”

“What do you know of Ghisla, Arwin?” he pressed, trying to keep his tone even. He dried his hands, keeping his back turned to his teacher.

“She is the king’s witch now,” Arwin repeated. “He has marked her.”

“Marked her how?”

“He will make her the new queen. I have seen it.”

“You have seen it?” It was an old manipulation. Arwin always claimed to have “seen” something when he tired of Hod’s questions, and Hod had always resented it. Mayhaps it was because he could see nothing and thus had no use for visions meant to mold belief or obedience.

“How has he marked her?” Hod insisted, refusing to be distracted by Arwin’s prophecies.

“She wears his emblem. She is his.”

Arwin was trying to wound him; Hod could hear it in the words he chose. Arwin did not lie . . . but he evaded, and his erratic heartbeat exposed him.

“I am going out, Master. I am going to hunt. I won’t be far,” he said, retrieving his staff.

“I told the king he has a son . . . but he does not care,” Arwin shouted. He did not want Hod to leave yet. “He did not believe me. Just like you do not believe me.”

“When did you speak to the king?” Hod gasped.

“I spoke to him in the square when he brought the Songr back. I warned him about her. And I told him about you. But he just laughed.”

“You warned him about her?” Hod fell back into the bedside chair.

“The king did not believe me. He is mad. She has addled his brain.”

“Oh, Arwin,” Hod said. “What have you done?”

“He put me in the stocks. No one would listen to me. The Highest Keeper told me to leave. They have let us down. They have let us all down.”

Months passed.

Five months. Six. Seven. Arwin’s condition continued to deteriorate. He orated the eighteen spell songs of Odin one day, reciting them without mistake, only to forget his own name the next. And through it all, Ghisla failed to sing. Hod grew more and more desperate, going so far as to ask his master on a more lucid day to draw the rune of the seeker and tell him what he saw. Arwin did not seem surprised, nor did he argue the wisdom of such a request. He simply sighed and stroked the rope of his beard.

“I cannot . . . remember . . . the rune, my boy,” Arwin whispered, regretful and almost sweet.

“I will draw the rune. I need only for you to tell me what you see,” Hod reassured him.

“But I have been banned from the mount, and you have been shunned by the Highest Keeper.”

“I know, Master. They have shunned us both, and yet . . . I still know the runes.”

Arwin cackled, pleased at this truth. “They cannot strike the knowledge from our minds,” he crowed, the irony lost on him.

Hod nicked his finger and drew the seeker rune on Arwin’s palms, careful to be precise.

“Just . . . hold the runes to your closed eyes.”

“Yes. Yes. I remember now.”

“Find Ghisla, Arwin.”

“You seek the Songr. The little girl washed up on the shore,” Arwin said slowly. His voice was low and the sound came from just above his heart, as though he’d tucked his chin to study the runes Hod had drawn.

“Yes, Master. Do you remember her?”

“I shunned her. She begged me to let her stay. But I was afraid. I was afraid she would make you weak.”

“Yes,” Hod said, trying not to weep.

“We sent her to the temple . . . and now . . . the temple is barred from us.”

“They cannot bar your eyes, Master.”

“No. They cannot bar my eyes,” Arwin sighed, and lifted the runes to his lids. “Show me . . .”

“Ghisla,” Hod finished for him, and Arwin repeated the plea.

“Show me Ghisla,” he asked.

He stiffened and swayed, and Hod feared he would drop his hands. Then he stilled and his breath whooshed from his lips.

“She is there.”

“Where, Master?”

“She is . . . on the temple steps. I can see the castle and the square and the spires . . . The columns are behind her. She sings the song of supplication. All around her are the keepers . . . the keepers and daughters . . . all around.”

Hod wished he could hear her, but he did not interrupt, barely breathing as Arwin continued.

“She has . . . grown. She is not a waif anymore . . . but a beautiful woman.” He sounded confused. “She was so small . . . bones and blue eyes . . . when I took her to Leok. And now she . . . she is grown.”

“Is there a babe in her womb?” He had to ask. He had to know.

“A babe?” Arwin asked, befuddled. “There is no babe! She is but a child.”

“No, Master. No . . . she is grown, remember? Tell me what you see, not what you remember.”

“She is slim . . . but not tall. I see the swell of breasts . . . but not the swell of a child. Her hair is woven into a golden crown. Her eyes are lifted to the sky. They are blue. So blue. She wears the robe of a keeper. She wears the robe of a keeper!” Arwin’s voice became agitated. “All the daughters wear the robes. Yet my Hod has been rejected.”

“Arwin,” Hod warned, trying to refocus his teacher, but it was too late. Arwin’s hands fell from his eyes and flopped onto the bed beside him.

“There are daughters in the temple . . . and none in Saylok. And my Hod has been rejected.”

In late spring, on a day which promised more sunshine than rain, Arwin asked, quite lucidly, to visit the grave of Bronwyn of Berne for a while and eat some berries from the bushes nearby. Arwin wearied about halfway, and Hod carried him the final distance, settling him on the big stone where his mother was laid to rest.

“This is where I buried her,” Arwin said.

“Yes, I know.”

“She was a good mother to you.”

“I hardly remember.”

“Bronwyn. Bronwyn of Berne. The fates gave her time . . . but not enough.”

Hod rose and began collecting berries from the bushes nearby.

“You were so small. And she did not want to leave you.”

He’d heard this before, but it meant little to him.

“She called you Baldr.”

Hod’s hands stilled. He had no faces in his head. But he had voices. Baldr the Beloved. Baldr the Brave. Baldr the Good. Baldr the Wise. You are all those things.

He remembered a voice saying those things. Saying that name. Sweet. Patient.

“She called me Baldr,” he mused. “I had forgotten. It doesn’t seem . . . real. It is more like a story someone once told me.”

“The Highest Keeper told her you were not Baldr. You were Hod. So that is what I’ve called you.”

Baldr the Beloved or Hod the Blind.Hod vastly preferred the first and wished the Highest Keeper had left well enough alone.

“One day the Highest Keeper will summon you. He will realize his mistake, and he will summon you,” Arwin said, and Hod kept gathering, his hands moving swiftly over the leaves, avoiding the thorns and plucking the berries.

“Hod is the most misunderstood of all the gods,” Arwin said.

“Do you speak of me . . . or Odin’s son?” he said, because Arwin often spoke as if he were the blind god.

“I believe Hod knew what he was doing when he shot Baldr. He was not tricked. One cannot trick a blind god, a god who hears every heartbeat and knows every voice.”

Hod was hardly listening. Arwin liked to ramble on. “If he was not tricked, why did he do it?”

“It was his destiny.”

“His destiny?”

“Yes. He knew that his brother’s death would bring about his own destruction. But he did it anyway. In many ways . . . it was a selfless act.”

“A selfless act?” This was new.

“Baldr’s death was necessary. It marked a new beginning . . . the death of the gods and the rise of man. The rise of . . . woman.”

Hod returned to his teacher’s side and put the berries beside him. The sun felt good on his face, and he tipped his chin upward, letting the rays rest on him. Arwin smacked his lips, eating the berries in happy silence.

“You cannot stay here, Hod. When I am gone . . . you must go too. You must save Saylok.”

“How will I do that, Master? Where will I go?” Hod asked, humoring his old mentor. It did no good to argue.

“You are Hod. The brother of Baldr. If Saylok is to free itself and rise again, Baldr must die.”

“And who is Baldr, Master? How shall I slay him?”

“Do you not know?” Arwin stopped eating.

“You said my mother called me Baldr. Must I kill myself?”

Arwin slapped at him and pulled his hair, knowing that his sticky fingers would irritate Hod more than anything else. Hod grimaced and stood, making his way to the place where a small spring trickled between the rocks.

After he’d been sent from the temple, he’d begun to grow his hair. The hair had bothered him until it grew long enough to slick it down. He kept the sides of his head shaved smooth—he couldn’t stand the whisper around his ears or the way it altered sound—but the hair on top remained; if he could not be a keeper, he did not want to look like one.

“You look like a skunk,” Arwin had complained, but Hod had just tugged on his teacher’s braided beard and patted his bald head, reminding him that he had no room to criticize.

He splashed water over his face, up his arms, and down his tight center braid, removing the residue of the berries and filling up his flask so he could clean Arwin’s hands as well.

When he returned to the rock, Arwin had risen and was ready to leave. Hod helped him wash and hoisted him up on his back. It wasn’t until they were almost to the cave that Arwin spoke again, his voice sleepy, his beard tickling Hod’s cheek.

“Baldr is the Temple Boy, Hod. Bayr. Bayr is Baldr.”

Hod had never shared the things Ghisla had told him with Arwin. In the beginning it was because his knowledge would have had to be explained. Now it was simply . . . useless. The temple was closed to him, Ghisla lost to him, and Arwin would not remember tomorrow what Hod said today.

“Bayr is not the son of Odin, Master. He is the son of a lying, murderous king. And I would never harm him.”

Arwin grew lax against his back, and Hod doubted he heard.

He had intended to hunt, but when he settled in a thicket, waiting for the wind to shift so he could approach his prey undetected, he’d fallen asleep. He awoke with a start sometime later, and immediately knew something was amiss. He cast his senses wide, sifting, searching. He’d been so tired and slept so deeply that he had no sense of how much time had passed. Though the wind pressed cold fingers into his sides and pinched at his cheeks, he didn’t think night had fallen; the sounds were different in the darkness—the creatures that woke and those that slept were not the same—and the temperature had not yet dropped. The air wasn’t balmy, but it wasn’t cold.

He couldn’t hear Arwin. But that did not alarm him. He was a ways from the cave and the rock walls muffled the sound from inside, especially deeper within.

The crashing of the surf was a sound that became almost invisible after living in the cave all these years. Like the sound of his own breath or his ongoing, never-ending stream of consciousness that never quieted, even when he was asleep.

The waves still broke and billowed over the rocks and sand, but there was another sound . . . like water against a hull. There were boats in the bay. Longships, like those of the Northmen. He listened again and, once satisfied that his immediate surroundings were clear, rose, secured his bow, and made his way out of the thicket and down the mountain path toward the cave.

Every few feet he stopped, listened, and began again.

He could hear the men now, though water, wind, and distance made it impossible to tell how many. More than a dozen—maybe two—and their heartbeats hugged the shore, indicating they’d disembarked. They must have caught a perfect tide, and those were rare. The inlet near the cave was not conducive to visits by travelers. The sea beyond the mouth usually carried vessels east toward Adyar or west to the tip of Leok. The area in between was a churning eddy above a sandbar that made natural access difficult and kept the bay beyond it mostly unexplored. In the time he’d lived in these cliffs, the sea had only washed up a single traveler: Ghisla.

But there were boats and men in the bay now, that much was clear, and Hod would need to investigate.

He hurried into the cavern, dropping his bow and unsheathing his blade without pausing. He carved a rune of cover in the dirt near the entrance and dripped his blood at its center. He did not want a cave full of curious Northmen.

“Arwin?”

Hod could not hear him moving about, but he felt him and knew he was near. He washed quickly, scrubbing his forearms before moving to his neck and his face and running soap and water over the stubble on the sides of his head. He was dirty and his sweat had dried on his skin; he didn’t want his smell cloaking his senses when he left again.

“Arwin?”

His only answer was a gurgling breath and an erratic pulse.

He strode toward Arwin’s chamber, suddenly alarmed. He’d been distracted by the boats and men, and he’d been gone too long.

Arwin was in his bed, but he did not answer when Hod touched his face.

His heart was beating, but his breath was shallow and his time was short.

Hod shoved his nightshirt aside and drew runes across Arwin’s thin chest—one for strength, one for healing, one for his failing heart—and Arwin inhaled, deep and long, and set his hand on Hod’s arm.

“This is not an illness you can drive out or a wound you can close, my boy.” His words were slurred, but he was coherent.

“I can. And I will.”

“You have never been especially obedient,” Arwin sighed. “But maybe that is for the best.”

“Drink, Master.”

Arwin let him lift his head, but the water dribbled from his mouth and soaked the pillows beneath him.

“I am tired, Hod. And your runes will not keep me here long. Sit beside me while I speak.”

Hod collapsed into the chair beside Arwin’s bed, listening to the old man breathe and gather the last of his strength.

“You must go to him and tell him who you are.”

“Who, Master?”

“Banruud.”

“Banruud?” Hod gasped.

“I told him he was your father . . . but he did not believe me. He knows he is cursed. But you can break the curse. It is your destiny.”

“Arwin,” he contended. “I am not Banruud’s son.”

Arwin fell silent, and for a moment, Hod thought he was gone. He took his mentor’s hand, not wanting the king’s name to be the last words between them.

“You were born before Banruud was king. Before the drought. Before the troubles,” Arwin murmured.

“Before Bayr?” Hod pressed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Before the Temple Boy,” Arwin agreed. He jerked as if he were trying to nod, but he was unable to control the motion. “You are his half-brother. And his . . . other half.”

Hod scoffed, unable to believe what he was being told.

“With Bayr came the curse,” Arwin insisted.

That drew Hod up short.

It was exactly what Ghisla said Dagmar feared.

Bayr’s birth marked the beginning of the drought. What if his death marks the end?

“We are brothers,” Hod whispered, the truth dawning slowly.

Desdemona had cursed the king. She’d cursed all of Saylok, but she had not known about Hod.

“Yes . . . Hod and Baldr . . . two sides of the same sword.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hod mourned. He was sick to the soles of his feet.

“I wanted to protect you. Your mother wanted to protect you. She was afraid your father . . . would reject you because of your blindness. And it wasn’t . . . time.”

“The Highest Keeper rejected me.”

“Yes. He rejected both of us. But you don’t need the Highest Keeper, Hod. He needs you. The king needs you. All of Saylok needs you. You are the blind god.”

The fates were not generous, and they did not honor the runes Hod drew on Arwin’s breast. The cave keeper died quietly, a rattle in his chest and a hopeful fluttering in his breath.

Hod could not bury him, not immediately, and he had no time to grieve him. There were strangers on the beach and crawling up the cliffside.

He added blood to his rune and sat near the opening, listening as men moved beyond the walls, hesitating, and then continuing on, searching for something to bring back to their boats, disappointed by the austerity of the cove. They were Northmen, just as he’d suspected, and they talked of gold and gluttony, but they would find none here. They fished from his creek, roamed his hill, and saw his tracks—he heard their discussion—but they did not find the cave, and they did not leave. They spoke of conquest and combat, but beneath their bravado was a weariness that made him suspect they had not been home in a while.

Hod rolled Arwin’s body in the blankets from his bed and carried him through the main tunnel and past chambers filled with runes to a deep recess bigger than most tombs where Arwin kept his treasure. A ledge stretched from one side to the other, and Hod laid Arwin’s body upon it, covering him with his keeper’s robe. Arwin had been proud of his robes, and should anyone find him, they would know what he’d been.

Arwin had spent his life in the cave. Hod did not think he would care that he was buried in it too. Arwin was a cousin of the late king of Adyar—“Of royal heritage all the way back to Saylok himself!”—but he had a pauper’s heart. He’d spent his life hoarding treasure, tucking it away deep in the cave; for what, Hod never knew. Hod thought it useless. He could not see it, or eat it, or burn it. It had no warmth and it smelled of time and blood. In that way, treasure wasn’t much different from the runes, though in Hod’s estimation, the runes were a thousand times more useful.

He sang one of Ghisla’s songs, his voice bouncing back at him in gentle mockery, and then he said the Prayer of the Supplicant one last time. Mayhaps it was a prayer for Arwin, mayhaps it was a vow to himself.

No man can follow.

No man can lead.

No man can save me,

No man can free.

For five days, the Northmen camped on the beach, their fires sending smoke billowing up the cliff face, warning him away, urging him to stay hidden. They were big men, the sound of their chests and the tenor of their voices like the drums of war beating up from the sand. But they had no one to fight and nothing to take, not here. The tide that had brought them in was making it hard for them to leave. They’d tried to make it out of the cove only to turn back, the bellies of their boats scraping on the bar that kept the sea at bay.

It was Arwin’s treasure, tucked in chambers beneath ancient runes that gave Hod an idea. He spent half a day moving caskets and trunks to the entrance of the cave. He shouldered a chest so rotted, it threatened to burst and rain its contents down his back. But he knew the goblets, chalices, and chains would be of interest to the Northmen. Then he washed and readied himself.

He valued soap more than gold, but he packed some of both. He added two clean tunics, some trousers, and two pairs of wool socks to the pile and wrapped them in Ghisla’s robe before tucking them into his sack. He’d been unable to part with it then and found he could not do so now.

He tucked his blade into his belt, sheathed his sword and his staff across his back, and bled into another rune to obscure the entrance, though the protection would fade in time. When he came back—if he came back—the cave would still be here, though its contents may not. Mayhaps the Highest Keeper would send a new cave keeper to tend the runes and live among the rocks. Eventually, he would discover that Arwin was gone and his blind apprentice too.

Hod could not find it within himself to care.

Men powered the runes with their blood and their belief. The runes should not power man, and he would not sit by, waiting for the fates to tell him what to do. Arwin had believed in prophecy, but Hod did not want to be the blind god, brother of Baldr the Beloved. He did not want to be son of the king or a keeper of the cave. And he did not want to harm Bayr.

He had promised Ghisla he would return . . . but he had nothing to give her and nowhere for them to flee. And until he did, he would not come back.

He heard the moment he was spotted and tossed the small chest of treasure he’d brought with him down onto the sand. The casing ruptured and the contents spilled, clinking and clattering at his feet. He unsheathed his staff, not bothering with his sword. If they decided to kill him, he would die. If they decided to poke at him, he would do better with his stick.

“I am Hod. The treasure is yours. And there is more where it came from,” he yelled. “You can kill me, but then you won’t find it. You also won’t get out of this cove. But if you let me come with you, I will help you do both.”