Eight Days of Luke (21 page)

“Oh, I'm so glad!” said Astrid. “I was afraid you'd gone for good. You smell like burned toast, did you know?”

“I can't help that,” said David. Mr. Wedding laughed.

Thor rescued David by bending down and saying: “Would you like to see what this hammer can do?”

“Yes, please,” said David.

“Stand back then,” said Thor.

While they retreated down the hillside, Thor was looking for a suitable spot on the ground. When he had found it, he stood back, gigantic and dark against the flames, and taking the hammer off his shoulder he swung it over his head and down on to the hillside. The shock shook the hill like an exploding shell. Blue lightning struck down in the place the hammer hit, with a vicious sizzle, whitening Thor and making the flames look pale. The most tremendous peal of thunder followed, clap after shrill clap, each with its following train of crashes. Then the rain came down, drenchingly, and even the immortal flames bent under it.

David was dazzled and deafened and let Astrid and Luke pull him downhill without a word. “You'll catch your deaths,” said Astrid. Her Mini was parked at the bottom of the hill and Astrid tore open the door and bundled them both in. They watched the rest of the storm from behind the windscreen wipers, and Mr. Wedding watched it too from the front passenger seat, with the raven making contented nibbling noises from his shoulder.

When the thunder had abated a little, Astrid said: “You'll never guess what's happened, David. Dot and Bernard and Ronald have run for it.”

“Run for what?” said David.

“Run away, silly,” said Astrid. “The police think they're out of the country by now. That's how much they were worried about you being missing. Or me either, for that matter.”

“But why?” said David. Of all the unlikely things he could think of it was Cousin Ronald going abroad with a black eye or Uncle Bernard going at all.

Astrid explained, with some help from Mr. Wedding. It seemed that for some years, though neither Astrid nor David had known, David's three relations had been living very comfortably by spending money that was really David's. “Funny to think this Mini belongs to you,” Astrid said. There had been much gossip about it in the neighborhood, but no one had liked to do anything about it until Mr. Fry—the real old Mr. Fry—came to live at the end of the road. Mr. Fry had been a solicitor. Even before he met David, he felt something should be done and, once he had met David, he began to investigate very vigorously indeed.

“He said he took you up as a hobby,” said Astrid. “That's the way he talks. But don't ask me to explain too much because he'd talk the hind leg off a mule and then tie it in knots. All I know is that Mr. Wedding gave Mr. Fry a few hints and it turned out that Ronald and Bernard have been up to no end of swindles with this money of yours and broke the law in twenty different pieces.”

Thanks to Mr. Wedding, Mr. Fry had enough proof by Saturday to go to the police. But again, perhaps thanks to Mr. Wedding, though Mr. Wedding was evasive about this, Cousin Ronald had got wind of it.

“So they took off last night in a taxi,” said Astrid, “leaving you missing and me to fend for myself. And that was a weight off my mind, David, because it had been bothering me that you weren't related to me, so I couldn't legally march off with you. But I don't think anyone could blame us now. Roll on Alan's Mum, eh?”

“Brilliant!” said David. He could think of no other word for it.

Then he found he was aching to ask a hundred questions—not about Cousin Ronald, Uncle Bernard and Aunt Dot, but about all the other things. He was a little shy of asking, however, now he knew that Mr. Wedding, sitting beside Astrid in the Mini, must be none other than Woden, All Father and Hidden One, and might not choose to answer questions. David managed to stop himself asking about Luke. He remembered now that Luke had been put in prison for killing someone called Baldur. And he thought he knew about Thor, and the Frys, and Mr. Chew, who had given his name to Tuesday. But there was one thing he just had to ask.

“Er—Mr. Wedding, who was the young man with the dragon?”

Mr. Wedding turned his head and seemed surprised. “Don't you know him? They called him Siegfried, or Sigurd in the North—a dragon-killer and a distant relative of mine. He was very famous in his day.”

“Oh,” said David. “Then the lady in there—?” He looked up the hill, through the streaming window of the car. The everlasting flames were bitten into ragged shapes by the rain.

“Brunhilda,” said Luke. “You must have heard of her.”

“She's also related to me,” said Mr. Wedding.

“Yes, but—” said David, and hardly knew which question to ask first.

“The story,” said Mr. Wedding, “is told in various ways. But the main part is always the same: Siegfried went through those flames and won Brunhilda, and then pretended that it was another man who did it. Brunhilda married this other man, and Siegfried married the man's sister. Then Brunhilda found the truth. She had Siegfried killed and left the world herself. She was not really mortal, you see.”

David was still puzzled. “Did he—Sigurd—like the other lady more, then? He didn't seem to—just now, at Wallsey, I mean.”

“No. He was mistaken,” said Mr. Wedding.

“Was that mistake your doing, by any chance?” Luke asked shrewdly. “Brunhilda seemed to think it was when she came to see me in prison.” Mr. Wedding thoughtfully stroked the raven and said nothing. “I thought as much,” said Luke. “Their children might have threatened your power, eh? But she found another way of cutting your powers down when she took the hammer into those flames with her. Am I right?”

Mr. Wedding sighed. “More or less. These things have to be, Luke. We've been in a poor way, these last thousand years, without the hammer. Other beliefs have conquered us very easily. But now, thanks to David, we'll have our full strength for the final battle.” He turned and looked at Luke, smiling slightly. Luke looked back and did not smile at all.

It came home to David that Luke and Mr. Wedding were going to be on opposite sides, when that final battle came. He was still trying to get used to this idea when the storm died away. The rain cleared, leaving a yellow evening sky with a rainbow mistily against it. Thor came down the hill, soaking wet and laughing, with the hammer hooked on his shoulder again.

“This is where we say good-bye,” said Mr. Wedding. “I shall see you again, though.” He opened the car door and got out. “Coming, Luke?”

“I'll stay for the moment,” Luke said, nestling comfortably in the corner of the backseat. Mr. Wedding laughed and shut the door.

David climbed over to the front seat while Astrid started the engine. “Well, David,” she said. “That's that.”

David looked at her to remind her that Luke was still there. There was the same expression on Astrid's face that he had seen on the lady's in the flames. David was rather surprised that she should be sad. Getting rid of Cousin Ronald seemed to him a thing to rejoice at. He looked away at first, because he thought that kind of sadness must be private. Then he thought of that other lady. He had wanted to do something for her because she was sad, and he knew he never would be able to. But he might manage to comfort Astrid.

“What's the matter?” he said.

“Oh, what a comfort you're here again,” she said. “Nothing you can help about, David. Wouldn't you say it was worth it, to be really happy for a while, even if you knew you were going to end up sad ever after?”

David thought of the lady in the flames, asleep and sad forever, and did not know. “What do you think?” he asked Luke.

“Tell you on Monday,” said Luke. “I have to go to sleep now. It's urgent.”

T
he strange people who come in search of Luke are all gods. They are usually called the Norse gods, though they were once the gods of England and Germany too. Anyone who has noticed who these people are will probably also have noticed that each god arrives on his or her own day. For the days of the week are mostly named after these gods, and in this sense they are still with us.

The first to come is Mr. Chew, on Tuesday. He is Tew, the old god of war or strife. He was worshipped in the part of the country where I live and has left his name there too, in places called Chew Magna and Chew Valley, but very little is known of him. The main thing that
is
known is that Tew has lost (or will lose—time is strange where gods are concerned) his arm trying to chain the monstrous wolf Fenri. Alert readers will have noticed that David's attention is generally fixed on just one of Mr. Chew's arms. Gods are good at hiding their attributes.

Mr. Wedding, who arrives on Wednesday, is even better at hiding his attributes. David does not notice that Mr. Wedding has only one eye until Mr. Wedding allows it, which is something that comes into other, older stories too. For Mr. Wedding is Woden, chief of the gods, god of wisdom, warfare and cunning, sometimes known as All Father, or Grim, the Hidden One. He gave his other eye to the Fates, or Norns, in exchange for wisdom, which he gained by hanging for nine days on the great World Tree (David encounters both the Norns and the World Tree on his quest). Along with his wisdom, Woden gained two ravens (whose names are Hugin and Munin) who bring him news of everything in the world, making him god of knowledge too, and who also go with Woden to battlefields, because Woden is god of slain men as well. He used to ride an eight-legged white horse, which naturally appears nowadays as a white car, driven by one of his daughters, the Valkyries.

Thor, who arrives on Thursday, is god of thunder. I could not give his name straightaway, because in English it is exactly that—Thunder. He was always a very popular god, very strong and direct and open.

Mr. and Mrs. Fry, who turn up on Friday, are the twin gods Frey and Freya, gods of sex and fertility—which is why they have such an effect on everyone.

Luke himself is Loki, god of fire and of mischief—two things that both gods and people find it hard to do without. For a long time, he and Woden were friends and had a good many adventures together, since Loki was even more cunning than Woden. Then Loki was put in an underground prison where snakes continually dripped venom on him and, in order not to be scalded by the drips, Loki had to hold a bowl up to catch the venom. The worst times were when the bowl was full. Then Loki's wife, Sigyn (who is the red-haired girl who runs to meet Luke) had to take the bowl away to empty it, leaving him unprotected. I think everyone will understand why Luke was so grateful to David for letting him out. The crime for which he was being punished—which David rightly thought was a clever idea and difficult to do—was the indirect killing of the god Baldur, which was indeed hard to do, because every created thing except the mistletoe had promised not to hurt Baldur.

Perhaps it was this crime, or perhaps it was the decree of Fate which not even gods can avoid, that caused Loki and Woden to be on opposite sides in the Final Battle. This Battle has not happened yet. When it does, the gods will be killed and the world destroyed.

Against this day, Woden has his daughters the Valkyries collect the souls of dead heroes and bring them to Valhalla, where some say the gods live too. This is the hall where the young men are cheating the pinball machines. Valhalla really means Hall of the Slain, and the English for it is Walsall. There is a Walsall in England—an industrial suburb of Birmingham. It has so little in common with Valhalla that I invented Wallsey Island instead.

The young man in the hall with the dragon about him is Siegfried, who was a descendant of Woden's and a slayer of dragons. The lady lying asleep in the flames once loved Siegfried. She is Brunhilda, who was once chief of the Valkyries, until she disobeyed her father Woden. He punished her by putting her to sleep in the flames until a hero should wake her. Siegfried went through the flames and woke her. Then he forgot about her. When Brunhilda found he did not love her, she went back to the flames. Some say she had Siegfried killed first. Some say she took a revenge that will bring about the Final Battle in the end.