The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

3

RUNES

“I have a pair of hose that rise too high on my legs, and a tunic that pulls across my back. They are well worn, and I do not know if they will fit. But I’ve a length of rope to keep the trousers up if they don’t, and they are clean.”

She took the items from his outstretched hand. When she did, he stood by, waiting for her to try them on.

“Go,” she insisted.

“I cannot see you,” he reminded, impatient. “I wait only to hear if they will do.”

“It feels like you can.”

“I can’t,” he insisted, frowning. “Do you think I lie?”

She sighed heavily, relenting, and tugged off the long shift that wasn’t much more than a tattered sack with a hole for her head. She tossed it toward him, intending for it to hit him in the face. He’d complained enough about the smell; she thought it would be humorous. Instead, he snatched it from the air and tossed it on the fire, easily, effortlessly.

She gaped and growled, rushing to cover herself with his old tunic.

“What?” he asked.

“How did you do that if you cannot see me?”

“I heard you.”

She huffed, struggling to pull on the hose that were too long and the blouse that slid off her skinny shoulders. She folded the neckline in on itself and rolled the legs of the hose, cinching both at her waist with the bit of rope that Hod offered.

“Can you hear that they don’t fit?” she marveled.

“I can hear you making adjustments.”

“If you have a bit of thread and a needle, I can fix the hem and alter the neckline, though you’ve thrown my shift in the fire, so I have nothing else to wear while I do so.”

“I cannot see you,” he insisted again, a note of irritation in his voice. It made her smile to irk him.

“Yes . . . but what if Arwin returns and I am unclothed?”

He stilled, as though he’d forgotten all about Arwin. He cocked his head, turning his face toward the entrance.

“He has been gone longer than usual. Mayhaps there is something wrong.”

Ghisla didn’t know what to say, and so said nothing. For several seconds, Hod was frozen, listening, and then his shoulders relaxed.

“He is not near. The forest sounds different when he enters it.”

“How does it sound?”

“The birds get quiet. The creatures in the trees and in the brush hear him . . . and I hear them. It is not sound as much as it is a cessation of certain sounds. The silence precedes him, and, if the breeze is right, I catch his scent when he is still a good distance away. He has never returned without me knowing he comes.”

That evening when Ghisla sang for Hod, she flinched at his grip, revealing the soreness of her arms. Horrified that he’d hurt her, he tried to keep his hands in his lap as she sang, but the connection wasn’t as immediate, and the images weren’t as infused with color.

“My ears are overjoyed . . . My heart too, but it is like the night of the storm. I can hear you—your voice found me over miles of stormy sea—but I cannot see your songs. Not clearly. What fills my thoughts are more my own imaginings . . . a communion with your words and sounds, but not your . . . pictures.”

She’d held both of his hands after that, and he made her promise to tell him if he was hurting her. When she sang she watched Hod’s face, entranced by the emotions that danced there. He didn’t keep his eyes closed—he had no need. His eyes didn’t see; his mind did, as though she poured her own images into his thoughts with her songs.

He had his favorite songs, the songs of her people, the songs where the lyrics painted pictures, but he also enjoyed exploring.

“Sing me the one about the toad . . . the way your brother sang it. I was not holding your hand when you sang it the first time . . . and I was too distracted by the fact that you gave a toad my name.” He smiled, letting her know she was forgiven.

She sang the silly tune, training her own thoughts to picture a croaking, odious little beast who hopped from one catastrophe to another, but her thoughts skittered away before he was flattened by a cart’s wheel.

Hod laughed, throwing his head back. “I could see the toad. That was wonderful!”

“You are odd,” she said, but she laughed too and sang him another one of Gilly’s tunes, one about a talking trout with rainbow scales.

“A rainbow is many colors,” Hod marveled.

“I will have to think of a better song—a more powerful song—to show you a rainbow, but I cannot think of one now.”

“I don’t think it is the songs that have power . . . It is you.”

“Mayhaps it is you,” she suggested. No one had ever “seen” her songs before. But Hod shook his head, adamant.

“Sing about your family,” he urged when she grew quiet. “Show them to me.”

“I don’t want to. They are mine.” She let go of his hands.

He sat in silence for a moment, his head cocked as though he contemplated her, and in a way he did, listening, listening, listening.

“Stop that,” she grumbled.

“Stop what?”

“Prying.”

“I want only to ease your sadness.”

“I am only sad when I am forced to remember. Or sing,” she said, her tone wry.

“You are sad all the time. It radiates from your skin and your voice. I hear it in the constant hitch of your breath.”

“You have only known me three days.”

“I have known you five.”

“Two of those days I was sleeping.”

“Yes . . . but the sadness was still there.”

“My family is gone . . . and the sadness is all I have left.”

“How did you end up in the sea, Ghisla? How did you end up here? Washed onto the shore?”

“I walked to a seaside village a day’s journey from Tonlis, and I boarded a ship,” she confessed.

“All alone?”

“Yes. I hid in the hold. I didn’t know where the ship was going, but I didn’t care.”

“Why?”

“I thought drowning would be a pleasant death.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. It was terrible. And I was afraid. And Odin did not hear my death song.”

“I think he did. He brought you here. To this land.”

“Is this land where people come to die?” she asked, wry, thinking he would laugh at her bitter humor.

“Saylok is dying . . . but mayhaps you will help us live.”

“Why is Saylok dying?”

“There are no girl children.”

“Why?”

“Master Ivo says the land was cursed.”

“Who is Master Ivo?”

“He is the Highest Keeper. He is the guardian of the temple and the runes and is the conscience of Saylok.”

“Is he the king?”

“No. The king is selected from the clans. There is a castle beside the temple. The king rules the clans . . . and the keepers rule the king, though King Banruud might disagree.”

“There are no girls at all?” She could not imagine such a thing.

“In twelve years . . . only the princess. There have been no other daughters of Saylok born in that time. The men bring daughters from other lands . . . but it is not enough . . . and there seems to be no remedy or rune to cure the drought.”

“There is a princess?”

“Princess Alba, daughter of King Banruud and Queen Alannah.”

“You say the queen’s name with sadness.”

“Queen Alannah has recently died. The chieftains have been gathered to the temple mount. That is where Arwin has gone. I will hear all about it when he returns.”

“Is Arwin a chieftain?”

“No.” Hod smiled as though the thought humored him. “Arwin is a keeper—a cave keeper—but he was trained in the temple and often returns when councils are called.”

“It seems a complicated system. Keepers and kings and cavemen and curses.”

“Don’t call Arwin a caveman,” Hod laughed. “He will never forgive you. He fancies himself one of the anointed, a powerful keeper, and does not always like that he’s been assigned to watch over a cave bedecked in runes.”

“There are runes in this cave?” Ghisla asked, her interest piqued.

“Yes,” Hod sighed. “I wouldn’t mention that to Arwin either. He’ll cut off my tongue for speaking so freely and cut off yours for knowing the secret.”

“I will not speak of it. I have no interest in runes. I would rather talk about the princess.” She would rather talk about anything other than Tonlis.

“Arwin says Alba’s birth made Banruud king. There was great hope that the curse was broken. But it has been five years since Alba was born, and there have been no others.”

“So Saylok . . . It is not a good place?” She was not certain there was any good place.

“People are afraid. Fear brings out the ugliness. It is easy to be kind and good when it costs us nothing. It is not so easy when it can cost you your life. So people are not kind, and often they are not good. And here . . . you are rarer than gold.”

On the morning of their seventh day together—after two days of doing little but singing and letting Hod “see” to his heart’s content—Hod proclaimed there were chores to do, and there would be no singing until after supper. Ghisla didn’t mind the rest and trailed after him as he ticked off his tasks, helping him where she could. He had a system for everything, a system that fascinated her, and she watched him accomplish a dozen daily tasks with ease and quiet efficiency. He hung the furs that lined the walls and floor on a line that was strung between two trees and beat the dust from them with a broom. She did the same with the furs from her nest, but Hod was stronger than she, and the dirt plumed from his swings far more easily, so she retrieved a basket from the cave and picked berries instead, thinking it a task he couldn’t do. But he wasn’t a bad berry picker either; he ran his fingers lightly over the leaves, popping off the little balls that conformed to a certain size, and when they were finished, he’d gathered almost as many as she.

In the afternoon, he set his traps in the forest, chopped wood for the fire, and climbed an enormous tree to fetch some honey. He had no fear of heights or the massive beehive high in the branches and began climbing back down with dripping chunks of honeycomb in his basket and a cloud of bees circling his head. Ghisla knew a song about bees and began singing it—“thank you for your golden treasure, we’ll not take more than we need”—hoping the bees would retreat. They did, almost immediately, but Hod fell from the tree, landing in a pile at her feet.

He lay on his back, stunned and gasping for air, his eyes fixed up at the branches above him, his basket of honeycomb still clutched in his hand.

“Hody!” Ghisla cried. “Are you hurt?”

“No . . . not . . . exactly,” he gasped, searching for the breath that had been pummeled from his breast. “I’ve grown accustomed to their stings and their sound . . . but I am not accustomed to seeing them swarm.”

“You saw them?”

“Only in your song . . . but . . . it distracted me. I wanted to . . . look. And I forgot I was still dangling in the tree.”

“I made you fall,” she said.

“It was worth it.” He grinned. “They should not be able to fly . . . bees. They are fat and furry! And they have such little wings. They are black and . . . what is that color? Yellow? Yellow,” he said, satisfied he had it right. “Yellow is like gold,” he recited. “Like your hair . . . and grain . . . and the sun . . . and the flowers on the tomato vines and the apples in Tonlis.”

He had his breath back, but he didn’t rise. He was too caught up in his list making.

“I will try to remember not to sing while you are doing something dangerous,” she said, looking down at him and chewing on her lip. “I was not even holding your hand. I didn’t think you would . . . see . . . my song.”

“But I did,” he marveled. “I saw the bees . . . mayhaps not the bees around me . . . but I saw bees.”

“Mayhaps . . . we are getting better at it.”

“Like finding one’s way on a well-trodden path,” he said, agreeing. “Let’s test it. Sing something else. Something simple . . . like the bee song, but not something you’ve sung before.”

She knew a song about changing leaves and harvest dances that she hadn’t shared with him. She remembered her sister laughing and twirling as she sang it, and Ghisla closed her eyes and sang along, swaying with the memory.

“Green and gold and orange and red, here and there and overhead, drifting down to touch the ground. In springtime they’ll grow back again,” she sang, moving like the falling leaves. The dance was one of turns and twists, and Morgana had loved it more than any other. Ghisla hopped and spun and dipped and bowed, and Hod lay at her feet, listening, rapt.

A roar, unlike that of any beast Ghisla had ever heard, broke their dreamy connection. A rustling and cracking accompanied the bellow, and a figure robed in black, his arms flailing and his staff swinging, rushed toward them.

Hod leaped to his feet in front of her, his stance wide, but the enraged figure was already upon them. The figure slapped at Hod’s cheeks, knocking the boy back.

“What is the meaning of this?” the incensed stranger shrieked, the sound rattling her teeth. His cowl fell back, revealing his bald head and beaked nose. A braided white beard hung to his knees, and it bounced like a snake, writhing and wriggling as he struck Hod, who did nothing to defend himself.

“What have you done to my boy, witch?” the man yelled. “What have you done to my boy?”

Hod’s nose was bleeding, and he swiped at it, leaving a streak of red across his hand.

“Arwin?” Hod asked, voice ringing with amazement.

“He does not know his own master!” the man wailed, gripping Hod by the shoulders and shaking him.

“No . . . Er-Arwin. I am f-f-fine. I am well,” Hod stuttered, trying to pull free, and Arwin shoved him aside.

This was Arwin? Hod’s teacher? He was not the wise and gentle figure Ghisla had imagined. When he turned on her, she felt a jolt of the same fear she’d felt when she realized she was not going to follow her family into death. He jabbed at her with his staff, the end punching against her belly, forcing her back against the tree Hod had climbed for his honey.

“Get back, witch.”

She obliged, shrinking against the trunk.

“She is not a witch, Arwin,” Hod protested. “She is a girl. A Songr. When she sings I can see. I can see, Arwin!”

This revelation seemed to horrify the man, and his black eyes widened in his wizened face.

With the sharp end of his stick he scratched a symbol into the dirt, mumbling words that sounded like a curse, and it was Hod’s turn to gasp.

Arwin sliced at his hand, still mumbling, and held his dripping fist over the lines he’d drawn between them. Blood dripped onto the ground. Hod stepped toward her, his hands outstretched, one toward Arwin, one to her, as if to connect and calm them all. But the air sizzled and sparked like a heavy log tossed onto a flame, and Hod froze.

“Master . . . what are you doing?” he moaned.

“I have trapped the wench.”

Ghisla tried to run, but the air crackled again and lightning shot upward from the ground when she took a single step. She fell back, clinging to the trunk of the tree.

“Let me go,” Ghisla demanded.

“She has shown me her thoughts, Master. You have taught me to hear deception. She is afraid, and her heart races. But she has not sought to deceive. She is not a witch or a siren or a fairy. She is a Songr. A child. A girl child.” Hod said girl child like she was a chest filled with treasure.

“She is Loki in disguise, here to trick you, just as he did with your namesake. She is here to destroy you.”

“She is not Loki, Master. She has dwelled with me here for nigh on a week and has done nothing but sing to me.”

Arwin gasped as if that were proof of her perfidy. “It is as Master Ivo said. The keepers will be destroyed. It has begun.”

“Master Ivo? You saw the Highest Keeper?” Hod gasped.

Arwin shook his head, his beard writhing, but he did not answer Hod. Ghisla attempted to run again, darting in a new direction, and was knocked off her feet. Her head bounced off a rock, stunning her, and Hod cried out.

“She seeks to escape,” Arwin howled. “Who sent you, witch?”

His voice wavered like he stood a long way off, and Ghisla’s consciousness flickered. Unfortunately, her pain revived her. She whimpered, rubbing at the back of her head. Her hand came away bloody, and Hod cursed.

“She is bleeding, Master. You have hurt her.”

“Your senses must be returning,” Arwin said, his relief evident. “I have weakened her.”

Hod scraped at the forest floor with the butt of his staff, and Arwin screamed in protest.

“Don’t!”

A moment later, Hod was kneeling beside her, his fingers finding the lump forming on the back of her head.

“Are you all right, Ghisla?” he asked.

She was not all right. She was terrified. She swatted at his hands and staggered to her feet. Whatever barrier Arwin had erected around her was gone, and she lurched forward, temporarily freed, temporarily euphoric, her vision still spinning, and ran headlong into the trunk of another tree.

This time Ghisla succumbed to the deep well of unconsciousness.

When she surfaced again, she found herself on the bed Hod had made her in the cave, but her nest was no longer a sanctuary. Arwin had returned, and Ghisla was not welcome or wanted. Her head throbbed and her stomach rolled, but she didn’t dare move. Hod and his master were in deep conversation, their backs to her. She observed them through the sweep of her lashes and closed her eyes again, not wanting to hear, not wanting to hope. Hod was pleading with his teacher, his voice low and urgent.

“I did not take her deep into the cave. She has stayed with me since I found her on the shore.”

“You cannot see her! How would you know what she has seen, you fool!” Arwin scolded.

“I have not left her side, Master.”

“You are slow. Dulled. She has to be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Hod gasped.

“She has to leave,” Arwin amended. “She cannot be near you. She cannot stay here.”

“She is alone . . . like I was. She is from Tonlis. I told you; she is a Songr, Master. I heard her. Even through the storm. She was singing . . . and I heard her. I waited all night for the storm to end, and the waves washed her up onto the sand. I could sense her, even when she stopped singing. A vibration still rose from her skin. It is loud, Master. Louder than even you are, and I can hear you for miles.”

“You did not hear me today!” Arwin reminded, silencing him. When Hod spoke again, his voice was pleading.

“Her life song is louder than any living thing I’ve ever heard. You could teach her. Like you teach me. She has nowhere to go. And she is a girl. She is precious. We cannot turn her away.”

“She blinds you.”

“No . . . she helps me see!”

“She blinds you, Hod,” Arwin repeated. “All your other senses fade to nothing. You know it’s true. I can see it in your face. I struck you, and you did not feel it coming. You did not hear me coming. I walked into the cave fearing the worst, and you were not here. I had to go looking for you. When I saw you . . . lying in that clearing, the witch dancing around you . . . I thought you were dead.”

“It was innocent, Master. She is innocent.”

“Innocent or not, for the first time in your life you were truly blind. She does not help you see.”

“I need only to practice,” Hod pled, but Ghisla heard the wavering in his belief.

“You will lose the sensitivity you have honed. If she is here, you will choose sight instead of insight. She will weaken you. She has weakened you already!”

“She is alone,” Hod whispered. “She has no one. Nowhere to go. And she is a girl, Master. A girl! She needs protection.”

Silence rose between them, and Ghisla didn’t dare open her eyes to see what was unfolding. Her limbs were heavy, pain throbbed in her head, and she lay in dark misery, awaiting her fate. It was minutes before either of them spoke again.

“I have been to Temple Hill,” Arwin said. “There is much talk. King Banruud has asked that a girl from each clan be brought to the temple mount. I will take the girl to Chief Lothgar in Leok. He will be relieved to have someone to send.”

“But . . . ,” Hod protested.

“It is a perfect solution. It is as if Odin himself delivered her.”

“He did not deliver her to Leok . . . He delivered her to me,” Hod argued, his voice so pained, Ghisla felt a twist in her own chest.

“You are already attached to her,” Arwin lamented. “She has ruined you.”

“I am not ruined. I am . . . I am . . .” Hod searched for the word and could not find it.

“She will hurt your training, boy,” Arwin said, almost gentle.

“Then I will work harder. Please do not send her away.”

“I do not have permission to teach her,” Arwin yelled, all gentleness gone as quickly as it had come. “The runes are forbidden to her.”

“But you would send her to the keepers?” Hod shot back. “To the temple?”

“Master Ivo is keeper of the temple and the runes. He will have to decide what to do with her . . . and the other daughters who are sent there. That is not my charge. She is not my charge. You are.”

“Her heartbeat has quickened. She is waking,” Hod said, his voice bleak.

A moment passed, and she felt them at her bedside, their combined presence blocking out the firelight that glowed beyond her lids.

“You put stones around her bed? And marked them with runes?” Arwin said, incredulous.

“I only used the runes to help her rest. And to help her wake. And . . . to rid her hair of bugs,” Hod confessed, sheepish. “Three runes . . . was all.”

“You mock their power with such things.”

“What good are runes if they are not used when they are needed? She did not see the runes . . . or understand them.”

“I did not raise you to be foolish,” Arwin spat.

“You did not raise me to be fooled. I have passed all your tests, Master. I considered that she was disguised . . . that you had sent her. But there was no deceit in her. Not in her breath or her heartbeat. Not in her fear or her words. You must listen to her sing, Master. Then you will know.”

“I don’t want to listen to her sing. She will beguile me like she’s beguiled you.”

But there was doubt in his voice, hesitation, and when Ghisla opened her eyes he was there, hovering above her, Hod beside him. His beard tickled her nose.

“Where did you come from, girl?” Arwin demanded.

She groaned, and her head spun.

“She is hurt, Master,” Hod said.

“Don’t touch her!” Arwin yelled, slapping at his charge.

“Who are you, child?” Arwin asked.

“I am Ghisla,” she whispered, and her head screamed.

“It would cost you nothing to take her pain away, Master,” Hod said.

“Shh,” Arwin growled. “Pain doesn’t lie.”

“Of course it does,” Hod argued. “There is no liar as skilled as pain. Pain will say anything to save itself.”

Arwin grumbled, but his fingers, probing and sharp, found their way into her hair. He traced the bump on her forehead with his thumbs and prodded the wound at the base of her skull with his fingers.

“She is a Songr. She has rune blood, Master,” Hod said. “You need not use your own.”

“Quiet,” Arwin demanded, and Hod obeyed. A second later, the old man drew something on her brow, his fingers wet with the blood from her head. His mouth moved over words she couldn’t hear, but Hod seemed to, for he exhaled in relief.

Her relief followed instantly.

She blinked up at Hod’s teacher. She’d known she didn’t like him. But the absence of the pain in her head made her feel slightly more charitable toward him, though he had caused it. She eased herself up so she was sitting with her back to the wall of the cave.

“Ghisla,” Hod said, his voice kind. “This is my teacher, Arwin. You mustn’t be afraid.”

“He thinks I am a witch,” she said. Of course she should be afraid. But she found her fear had fled with the pain in her head, as if Arwin’s mark had freed her of both.

“Who sent you?” Arwin demanded, holding his staff like a spear, the sharp end only inches from her breast. He was afraid too, she realized suddenly. The thought was almost comical. He was bigger and stronger. He knew magical runes, and he was not bleeding, homeless, and huddling at the end of a sharp stick.

“Who sent you?” he asked again, prodding her ribs with his staff.

“No one sent me. There is no one left,” she cried, swatting at the stick.

Hod’s brow furrowed over his mossy eyes. She had not told him everything.

“No one?” Hod asked.

“My family is dead,” she amended.

“How did you find him? How did you find Hod?” Arwin asked.

“I did not find him,” Ghisla insisted. “He found me.”

“This is true, Master,” Hod interjected.

“Shh,” Arwin spat. “She found you, Hod. She found us. She is here, isn’t she?”

“I am here . . . but I know nothing about you . . . or this place,” she said.

“Ask the runes, Master. Then you will know she speaks the truth,” Hod urged.

“Silence, boy!” Arwin yowled. He reacted thus with every mention of the runes, as if he thought she had come to take them . . . or see them. Or learn them.

“How old are you, girl?”

“Fourteen summers.”

“No,” Arwin scoffed as if she’d lied, though she had no reason to do so.

“Yes,” she answered.

“You are small. You haven’t a woman’s form. You look much younger,” Arwin argued.

He was right. She had no breasts or hips. And though her hair was long, with Hod’s old tunic and leggings, most would think her a boy.

“You don’t have the face of a boy,” he mused. It was like he read her thoughts. “Too pretty. Lips too pink, eyes too knowing.” He nodded to himself, persuaded. “Aye. No doubt about it. You’re a witch.”