Baldur's Dream

by Seawalker

Baldr by CianoHe is a swirl of ashes on the water

Congealing, rising, light breaking

From the dark cloud on the wind.

His ship re-forms and he leaps

Aboard its prow. All is destruction

About the battlefield. Fire-lord blasts

The ground in flames still, far away

Like smoke on the horizon. He seeks, finds,

The bodies of his kin, although he knows

He should have kept his eyes to himself.

Kneeling, weeping, he feels her come,

Like a cold breath of icy wind, like

Inevitability. He has been her guest

All these years, centuries, she has fed him well

But he could not bear to bring her the cup

At her stirrup when she rode away yesterday

To slay his kin, on a boat of countless

Loyal dead souls. He was left alone

In the dark place, with wife and brother,

Clinging ghostly to each other.

 

"Be glad, my chick," she says, her voice

As rough as mountain whisky. "If you'd

Been here, you'd be lying here as well."

He knows it is true; after all these years

There is no lack of understanding in him

About the machinations of father, uncle,

Both of whom lie dead on the field today.

She, too, has lost her father this day,

He remembers, and bows his head.

She does not gloat. She never gloats.

"Is there aught that could have been done?"

He asks, voice tired. Being embodied again,

It is hard work. He has forgotten how hard.

 

"Of course," she says. "They always had

Their choice. So did mankind, all along.

They could have honored the wilderness,

Not polluted the elemental powers,

Brought a balance between nature and

Civilization. But they did not, and here we are."

 

Her bone hand grips his shoulder, hard. "Get up.

There is much cleaning to do, and we need to

Start now. Fetch a broom, a shovel, anything.

There are worlds to move, destiny to scour,

The stuff of universes to push about. As your father

And uncles once did, now it is our turn. We

And the few who are left. You breathe again,

So start working. You have no excuse."

 

He hears her limp across the field, bone foot

Dragging through the corpses, in a cloud of crows.

He rises, and the dawn glows. "Bring that over here,"

She calls. "I need to see what I'm doing,

Lamp-boy. If you clean this place up nicely,

Perhaps I'll even let you pretend you are

A king."

 

Artwork by Ciano Von Jo.