The Weight of Stars Page 7

  In the nave, the congregation rises one pew at a time to receive the Hammer Benediction from Uriah. The sound of rustling clothes and the murmur of thanks fill the cathedral cavern. Kasja asks me softly what’s happening. I explain that a rock-church service consists of three parts: welcome blessing, preaching, and the receiving of the hammer. The congregants are lining up for the last bit.

  We stand at the frontmost pillar, within easy distance of the altar. I lean a shoulder into the white stone, and Kasja hooks her finger around my pinky as we wait.

  Uriah stands before the altar in blue and yellow vestments embroidered in gold lightning patterns. His white hair is braided in eleven thin rows, and his beard is too close-cropped to curl. He lifts the gold-adorned temple hammer as the congregants approach, one at a time. They touch it and say, As the hammer returns to Thor Thunderer, so may I.

  I’ve known Uriah for years, and he’s the sort of man who, the more difficulty surrounds him, the harder he pretends there’s nothing wrong. Makes him a good priest of Thor. But when he catches my eye and smiles, then slowly skews his gaze across to the opposite pillar, I know there’s trouble. I hope it’s not my sister, who lives in the convent here.

  But no: waiting at the pillar where Uriah glanced is an Asgardian man a few years older than me, his back straight as the ribbon medals pinned to the breast of his uniform. His shaved white head is tattooed, his sharp-featured face expressionless. There’s a gun holster pressing wrinkles into the shoulder of his dark blue military jacket. The insignia on his collar is easy to recognize even from across the nave. He is not in the Salt City Militia, but a captain in Thor’s Army. Behind him are so many shadowy men, I involuntarily squeeze Kasja’s finger. He’s brought a small contingent of warriors with him.

  When the blessing line dwindles, the captain shocks me by striding to the end of it. He’s the final person to grip Uriah’s blessed hammer, the last to accept benediction. Uriah places a dark hand on the captain’s tattooed scalp and murmurs something.

  I press back with Kasja, touching my lips so she knows to be quiet. Our fingers linked, I lead her quickly to the statue of Sanctus Chambers, hero of the Second Eurland War, who fought wearing a white glove so that the enemy would see him coming, and in order that he never forget the stain of those he killed in the Thunderer’s name. Behind the statue is a thick blue curtain. I push it aside and usher Kasja through. It brings us into a short stone corridor lit by a single bulb. “What’s this?” Kasja whispers.

  Shaking my head, I go to the plain wooden door opposite the curtain and unlatch it. Here is a dim stairway descending into the earth. In a tiny alcove, a thick beeswax candle waits beside a rusty lighter. I flick it to life and light the wick. “Pull the door shut behind us,” I instruct Kasja and start down, holding the candle.

  The stairway is so narrow my shoulders occasionally brush against the rough-cut walls. It smells dank and muddy, though there’s no visible water soaking the low ceiling. The stairs are worn in the center and deep, and I warn Kasja to take care. Twenty steps later, the way ends in a cool chamber barely big enough for me to stand up in. It’s dark stone, with only one decoration. Above another doorway is a carved lintel: Be Wary for You Enter the Mountain of Death.

  “Amon,” Kasja whispers, finding my wrist and holding me back. “What is this?” Her voice hisses through the darkness, fluttering the candlelight.

  “The Salt City Ossuary.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A place for bones, to lay Thor’s own to rest until Ragnarok when he claims them.”

  She shakes her head. “What are we running from?”

  I lift the candle to see her face better. A stubborn pucker fits on her lips, her eyes glint with orange firelight. I say, “There’s a soldier upstairs. We’re too late—they came looking for the Mask, must have. They’re checking all the known under markets, and even Uriah doesn’t have enough oil to grease away this hitch. I’d hoped this would be the first place they came, that they’d be gone already. We can use this tunnel to get out, though. There’s an escape door a kilometer through.”

  She sucks in a breath, holds it, and nods, her lips pressed tight together.

  Turning, I step into the ossuary first. The candle barely illuminates the widening space, and there are electric camp lanterns here, but I don’t grab any. The gentle orange light catches an arch of skulls, stroking the round craniums with fickle fingers.

  The walls are carved with shelves to house entire bodies, skeletons that wait in peace for Thor’s call to join him in one of the higher worlds, in a heaven across the Rainbow Bridge. Their arms cross over swords and axes and hammers, their heads rest on small, round shields. Between are larger recesses where entire families of bones are stacked and entwined beyond recognition, so that nothing in Hel could separate the family members. Femurs lined into spirals or pelvises one atop another, vertebrae hooked together into great snakes. My sister is always saying she wants to dig in and try to identify all these bones from historical records. What a mad project that would be; but then, she’s something of a shut-in.

  We walk for a few minutes through the dry, silent chambers, watched by empty eye sockets. At the end, another door waits; its lintel carving reads Go Through Again into Life. I turn the handle. Nothing happens. Passing off the candle to Kasja, I grip it more firmly and pull. Hard harder hardest. Something inside the door snaps.

  “What the ragging rut,” I mutter. I could pound on it, but that would make a skit-load of noise. “We’ll have to wait for Uriah.”

  “Are you sure we can? If they’re looking for the Mask? Will they, um, come down here? Or smell it?”

  I grimace at her obvious fear. It sharpens her features, widens her eyes. “I won’t let you get arrested. This isn’t your fault. I should’ve left you in the van and come in to check in first.”

  She takes my hand again, setting down the candle. Weaving our fingers together, she looks into my eyes and says firmly, “It isn’t your fault.”

  We wander back a ways through the ossuary, until I choose a section of the cave wall that’s empty of bones. Sitting, I pull Kasja down with me. She settles between my legs, leaning into my chest. Her hair tickles at my jaw. With the single candle, we’re covered in shadows. There’s no noise but the quiet shuffle of her shoes as she drags her feet up and hugs her knees, my sigh as I put my arms around her. I close my eyes and listen to the nothingness.

  “It’s strange being underground again,” she murmurs. “Like this.”

  “Surrounded by bones?”

  “I like it here. Maybe because you’re here.”

  Underground again. “Again?” I ask. “You’ve been underground before?”

  “I’m from the northern mountains, remember? I know caves.” She plays with my hand, tracing the lines though she can’t possibly see them, teasing my palm until I’m breathing ragged. She presses into my pulse. “My heartbeat is faster than yours. I can’t catch my breath,” she whispers.

  I want to kiss her, suck down all her anxiety. But a bark jerks us both. It ricochets toward us, dragging behind it footsteps and even electric light.

  Kasja’s on her feet, and I get up more slowly. There’s one very easy way out.

  “Kasja.”

  She whirls to me, face desperate and hopeful.

  “I can use my dad’s name to get out of this, like always.”

  Her eyes narrow, a snap of wild anger erasing her anxiety. “He’s your crutch. You have to let go of him.”

  “We’ll be arrested!”

  “Then we’re arrested,” she snarls. “Be your own man!”

  It’s too late. The barking dog is here; we’re faced with a gang of uniformed men holding lamps and huge spot-lanterns, the captain like a young hawk at the fore, Uriah scurrying behind them.

  “Don’t make any sudden movements,” the young captain says with a rolling Southern accent. The glow of light shows the tattoo covering his shaved head: two curling ram’s horns that spiral
thickly around his skull. His skin is rougher-looking than Kasja’s, but just as white, and his eyes so pale they burn orange from the candlelight. “I am Sune Rask, captain in Thor’s Army. State your name.”

  The dog they brought tugs at his harness, tail bristled, teeth bared. He’s part wolf, at least, probably smells the elf gold in my pocket. I’ve only one tiny piece to show Uriah as proof, while the rest is stashed in the van. Instead of answering Captain Sune, I step toward the wolf-dog and hold out a hand for him to smell. If he’s trained to sniff out giants, he’ll also know me beyond the sticky trouble-stench of elf gold.

  “Halt,” snaps Sune, blocking my path. “Your name.”

  There are five men with him, all primed to attack, though it should be obvious I don’t have any weapons. I’m in slacks and a shiny silk shirt, a little dusty from sitting on the cavern floor, with a couple of dark gold rings on my fingers, and the iron nail in my brow marking me a Thunderer. Other than being huge, I shouldn’t present danger.

  I sigh, as if it’s all a huge inconvenience. “Amon Thorson. This is my girl, Kasja. I’ve got some elf gold you’re welcome to confiscate, Captain, but hardly worth the trouble of an etin-sniffer and your time.” I put my father’s warm tones into my voice as much as I can, enunciating smoothly and meeting his eyes.

  Captain Sune’s face tightens as he recognizes me. His mouth tilts up, but not with pleasure: He doesn’t like godlings. I don’t blame him. All the royal guards, all the militias, have dossiers on us, because we’re half again as likely as our parents to cause problems. My godling cousins tend to disregard rules and laws, and I can’t say as I’m that different, skirting around the undermarket the way I do. Worse, if he arrests me, it’ll be more a pain in his ass than mine. If he’s right and I stole the Mask, his career is made. If he’s wrong, he’s totally ragged.

  I dig the gold out of my pocket and offer it in the palm of my hand.

  He stares at it for a moment, and I feel the atmosphere suck closer; his minions do, too. Without touching the gold, he says, “Bring the dog nearer.”

  The man holding the sniffer’s leash lets him forward and the animal bounds to me, nose in my crotch, then front paws up. Its tongue lolls out and I grin, scratching behind its shaggy triangle ears. It entirely ignores the chunk of raw gold in my other hand. The captain grunts in disgust and grabs the gold. While I make friends with the dog, Sune passes the gold back to one of the others, who seals it in a plastic bag.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks me. The sheen of sweat on his brow is from the gold, no doubt. It’ll be making him feel desire or hunger or some fierce longing right now.

  “The boy’s one of my congregation,” calls Uriah from the back, held by two guards.

  “Didn’t ask you, Hammerer,” Sune responds, managing to be polite but firm. “Quiet, please, or I’ll scour this entire cathedral with the dog. Wonder what else we’ll find?”

  “I came to show the bones to my girl,” I say lazily. I reach for Kasja, who slinks against me without hesitation, her body melting into my arm. She starts to speak, but the dog leaps back, hackles straining. It points with its entire body at her.

  “Restrain him.” Sune calmly leans toward Kajsa. “More gold tucked in that pretty hair of yours, miss? In your pockets?”

  Kasja flutters her lashes and gives a languid shrug. “Aw, no, sir, I’ve only been handling this one’s rocks a bit too much.”

  I laugh and this Captain Sune actually glances at my crotch. My laughter gets pointed, and he meets my eyes.

  “Watch out for this one,” Sune tells Kasja, but slinky and staring at me. “You should know, being what he is, he’s nothing to offer you.”

  It galls me, because it’s true. “Some Thunderer you are,” I growl, eyeing his tattoo and stepping forward.

  Sune lets me get in his face. He’s as tall as me, but slender. He drawls in that rich accent, “Some Thunderer you are. If you wanted to honor your father, you’d be in a militia, you’d be in his Army. Not running around with elf gold and girls.” He raises a hand as if to grab my face; it’s wiry and long, and I suspect he knows exactly what to do with it.

  I suddenly wish he would, and I barely lick my bottom lip.

  He sees it.

  Rag and skit. My eyes widen a twitch.

  Sune makes the same tiny, barely-there lick. “And not just girls, apparently,” he breathes, just for me.

  I hit him.

  He’s fast, but not fast enough, and my punch has the strength of a mountain behind it. Sune stumbles back, his men yell, and one has a sidearm out and pointed at me before I can move again. But Sune snaps, No and charges me.

  In a flash of insight, I realize he wants this. To prove himself against a son of Thor. But there’s no more time before I take his fist in my gut, and block a second strike at my chin.

  I’m no boxer. I avoid training. But I don’t need it.

  He bounces off me like nothing, and when he blocks my hits, it still hurts him. His speed and skill give him too many strikes; I’ll be a bouquet of bruises, but I won’t go down. He jumps on me and we grapple. He’s just strong enough I can’t quite get an arm around his neck or push his face into the earth, but oh, sweet Sif, I want to. I want it grinding into the rough dirt until he forgets what he saw. Till his spit and blood smear on the walls.

  It’s not until we crash together into a pile of bones that anything penetrates my fury.

  I hear Kasja cry out, and suddenly my arms are up, away from Sune. “Stop stop stop,” I say, trying to roll off.

  We end up crouched, glaring. My breath comes nearly as hard as his. A spill of ribs and cracked skulls surrounds us. Uriah’s voice is a constant stream of prayers. One of the soldiers has Kasja’s arm. She hangs there, staring desperately at me. The dog stands at sharp attention beside its handler.

  Stalemate.

  Sune could arrest me now, sure thing. I attacked him.

  My right cheekbone throbs, and there’s a radiating ache in my right arm. Sune has blood on his mouth in a terribly enticing way. One eye swells shut already.

  But he smiles. “Get out, Thorson.”

  “What do you want?” I glare my best, hoping lightning spits out of my eyes.

  “Tell…” he wipes his arm against his mouth. “Tell your daddy my name.”

  I stand up. Eyes on him the whole time, I take Kasja’s hand and go.

  SIX.

  Remnants of anger fuel my driving, and I’m halfway out of Salt City, about to merge onto I-80 and head for home, when Kasja tugs on my wrist. “Amon, stop, where are you going?”

  My fingers are locked around the wheel, and I shake my head. “Alta California.”

  “The motel—can’t we go there? Recover? Sleep? Eat? He let us go.”

  Her words sink through my skin. “I…yes.”

  She releases my wrist to stroke her hand down my arm.

  The progress of her fingers helps me put my boot on the break.

  Twenty minutes, and I’m parked at the motel, unclamping my fingers from the steering wheel. All that adrenaline left behind jagged, stiff bones. Feeling rather outside my body, I gather my stuff again, heave it onto my back, and follow Kasja inside. She had a key in her pocket.

  I drop my duffel and stand there, not sure what to say. I’m still humming with anger and the echo of Sune Rask’s punches. Kasja walks all over the brown carpet, turns on the overhead light, both bedside lamps, the weak florescent over the sink, and even the toilet light. Then she takes one of the threadbare cloths hanging on its creaky towel ring and dampens it. “Sit,” she tells me, and I obey like an automaton tuned into her frequency.

  Perching on the edge of the bed, I put my hands on my knees. Kasja stands before me, chest at my eye level. I raise my gaze. The moment our eyes connect, she grabs my chin and turns my face to dab at my cheek with the cloth. Pain spreads dully, melting along my skull. The cloth comes away pink and bloodied. We don’t speak. I wish I could reach the remote to turn on the TV for s
ome cursed white noise. If it weren’t for that ragging soldier, I’d crack a smile, tell her the only nursing I need is the sweating kind. Instead, I stare past her at the paint on the wall. It’s chipped and dreary blue, the color of low pollution.

  Kasja drops her hand. The cloth is pinkish all over, hanging from her fingers like it aches for the floor. My ribs ache, too, and my left arm where I blocked plenty of Sune’s hits. It occurs to me Kasja’s looking at my eyes. I close them.

  She moves away, leaving a vacuum before me. But the bed shifts, and I know she’s climbed onto it. She kneels on the mattress, reaches for the top button of my shirt, and flicks it open. She skims down to the next one, and the next, and I hold my breath as she folds back the shirt completely, baring my chest and stomach. I’m still ragging thinking about Sune Rask, so I force my eyes open to watch her as she pushes me down onto my back and straddles my waist. Her fingers trace down the center of my chest. She’s all heat, clamped across my hips, and she laughs softly. “I see how all your muscles shift and tighten,” she whispers.

  “You’re destroying me,” I answer, but sitting how she is, she can tell.

  I grip the quilt as she kisses my chest again, mouth skipping along a meandering path to my belt. Her tongue touches my skin, and then her teeth, and my hands fly to her hips. She lifts her eyes and asks, “Are you ready for me, Amon Thorson?”

  “I don’t…don’t think so,” I whisper, “but I want to, anyway.”

  Her wicked smile softens, and she places a kiss over my heart. “Good answer, godling.”

  • • •

  It’s only later, when I’ve rolled half off the bed to drag the quilt up over us and opened my arm to welcome her sweaty body back against mine, that she says sleepily, “Tell me about the elf who gives you your gold.”

  I sigh into her, let my eyes close, and picture Eirfinna. “I met her five years ago, after my dad broke my arm in ritual combat—don’t worry, I asked for it, literally. I’d snuck up to the Rock Church to make Dad care, to be a little skit, basically, and she was there, in the shadows. I thought she was a goblin at first. That she would eat me, or spirit me away to the mountains forever.”