For a moment Abagail couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing or hearing. A jumble of thoughts intruded on her, making her head spin. The sight of the ground, so far beneath her didn’t help either. She could see forms fighting below—bodies of the dead, darklings in troves and legions, fire-etins to the south, both dwarf fire-etins and the giants too. Far to the north she saw a land of ice that had never been there before, or at least All Father claimed it had never been there before.
She could see into the All Father’s mind, and he remembered a time when Eget Row wasn’t like this. He remembered when Eget Row was peaceful, when the only disturbing sound was Anthros baying to the light of the stars he could never reach. The only thing that had disturbed the grass was the cosmic wind that rippled over the land like waves on an emerald sea. The Ever After had shown pure and white along the lands without the shade of the darklings interrupting it. The north had been just as pristine, if a little rockier than the rest of the land, without a trace of frost.
Now the lands were divided by snow in the north, and fire to the south. Everywhere Abagail looked, there was blood. The grass was stained with blood and gore, with ash of dead bodies, and gore of the undead from the Otherworld.
“Where are we going?” a voice asked beside her.
Abagail startled and glanced to the figure beside her. She’d never pictured the All Father looking as he appeared, but there he was—a bald child, clad in a white robe and missing one eye. His other eye was blue and clear, and held a wisdom she’d never know, no matter how long she lived. It was the look of one who’d seen the moment of creation, and the seconds of its swift destruction.
Among the din one conversation vied for attention more than any other.
“If you’re from the All Father, prove it.” As long as she lived, she’d never forget that rumbling voice. It belonged to the ruler of Muspelheim, giant fire-etin, Surt.
Abagail looked to the All Father, “There is as good as any to start.”
The All Father took her hand, the rough, calloused fingers of a scribe closing over her pointer finger. Together they drifted through the air of Eget Row. As they came closer to the fires raging in the south, Abagail was aware of a darkness there, and a miniature army waging all-out war with the fire-etins. She recognized the leathery flesh of their armor, and the cruel, twisted darkness of their weapons. Their tiny voices rose shrill and mocking in the air.
The elle folk had returned from the dead . . . if they’d ever truly been dead. Fortunately, she’d fought them once, and she knew where their power lay.
The All Father and she came to roost on the ground, and that’s all it took for Surt to notice her, and to kneel. Tiny arrows zinged through the air, and the sound of battle rose around her.
“All Father, Abagail,” Surt said, rising.
Rorick and Gil turned toward them, but Camilla was too focused on fighting off two elle folk to notice their arrival.
“You face a terrible foe,” the All Father said. It took a moment for Abagail to realize the child god was talking through her mouth. She looked down to him, but she could no longer see the child, despite being able to feel his grip on her finger.
Surt nodded. “The elle folk are in danger of overcoming us. The dwarf fire-etin have already fallen to the toxins that pour from the portal.”
Abagail looked to the portal some yards behind her. She could see the terrible green tree in the midst of the wasted, black land beyond the portal. She wondered why their world hadn’t been destroyed like all the others. Could it be that they weren’t of the nine worlds? Could they be from another realm that mirrored their own? Instead of life and light, it was filled with corruption and darkness?
As she watched, another spout of green mist puffed from the portal. The dwarf fire-etin—which were only called dwarf because they were the size of humans and much smaller than the giants—held their arms up, as if to ward the toxins away. But it didn’t work. She watched several of the dwarves collapse in fits of coughing.
“Their power lies in the tree,” she said. “Destroy the king and the tree, and you will destroy their power.”
“And how might we do that?” Surt asked.
It was Rorick who answered, “With fire.”
Surt glanced to him, and nodded. “You’ve faced this threat before?”
“Yes,” Rorick said. “We barely escaped. I fear we didn’t do a good enough job last time.”
Last time they didn’t use fire. Last time they’d just collapsed the portal and the ground had swallowed up most of the small combatants who hadn’t made it back inside.
“So this is why you’ve sent him to me?” Surt asked, turning his fiery eyes to Abagail once more.
“It is,” Abagail said. “He is a good fighter, and few hate the darklings as much as he does. Rorick will help lead you.”
“If this is your will, then so be it,” Surt said. “What shall we do after these vermin are dead?”
“Head north,” she answered. “The frost giants can’t be allowed to destroy Eget Row.”
Surt nodded again. The All Father didn’t wait for him to respond. Instead, Abagail was lifting back into the air, like a feather on the wind. The All Father appeared once more.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, “It’s best if they see me instead of you. Surt knows you as Abagail, and he knows that I am you, and you are me, but it does best to show my true face to him.”
Abagail wasn’t sure precisely how she felt about that—the All Father taking over her body and mind at will—but how was she supposed to express that to the king of gods?
“You’re upset with me.” The All Father sounded so much like a worried child, that Abagail almost felt bad for being angry.
“I know that we are one and the same, but I’m still Abagail. I didn’t ask for you to incarnate as me.”
“I know.”
“And I appreciate your help. It’s just . . .” there was no delicate way to put it.
“I’ve already messed up once, you don’t want it to happen again?”
Abagail frowned. “Did you know I was thinking that because it was in my mind?”
“I knew you were thinking that because it’s true, and it’s what I would have thought as well.” The All Father sighed as they came to the apex of their flight, hovering above the illumination of the Ever After. “Very well. I won’t intrude again unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Abagail’s eyes drifted down to the toxic waters of Elivigar and thought he might have to intercede more than she’d want in order to cleanse the waters. “Do you know how we are going to drive back the pollution of Elivigar?”
“No,” the All Father said. “I’d never considered trying, but if it’s darkling wyrd, I imagine the light of the Waking Eye would work on it just as well as anything. But that’s for later. There’s more to do.”
And her mind drifted to the north, searching for Gorjugan and Olik. Her stomach jumped when she felt her father’s familiar presence in a place she knew through her link to the All Father as the Pass of Sages. She let her mind rush over the icy passes and she felt wisdom in the Pass of Sages that she’d never known in Agaranth, or O. It was the wisdom of age, the knowing of time, the ways of creation. When her mind drifted near Olik, however, she felt rage, she felt anger, and she felt betrayed.
It was all there for her, the words of Baba Yaga coming back to her. Olik had only pretended to care for them. He had designed all of this. He’d been playing this all along, right from the moment he kidnapped Hafaress’ human lover, to the time he sent her and Leona away to Agaranth to partner with their mother.
She closed her eyes to calm the anger and the pain she felt touching her father’s mind, but it didn’t help. Closing her eyes allowed the sound of battle to creep in, and fear that this was truly the end plagued her mind.
“We know where he is,” the All Father said. “There’s no need for us to visit him. Vilda will know how to get there when we tell her.”
Abag
ail nodded, not yet ready to open her eyes, despite her worry that death was coming for her; the sorrow that she couldn’t protect her sister from this.
“I feel great sorrow as well,” the All Father said. “I raised him as my own. I would never have thought he’d been plotting with the darkling gods all this time. We were both fooled, but your pain is worse. I was fooled by my creation; you were fooled by one who helped create you.”
Abagail nodded, and opened her eyes. “Where’s Gorjugan?”
Her mind twisted away from the Pass of Sages, and it zoomed in on a location leagues away from Olik. She could see the snake behind the ranks of frost giants. The giants conjured storms of wind and snow. Lightning flashed low to the ground amidst squalls of winter. Their skin was blue, like frost on berries, their eyes whitened, like a corpse long past the time to bury it.
She couldn’t understand the words they were hissing, but she felt they were the words that created the storms, the language of darklings that worked their power. Had the frost giants always been darkling, or was that something new? She knew the fire-etin had long warred with the frost giants, but she hadn’t known why. Could it be the light fighting against the shadow?
She pulled her mind from the frost giants, and her gaze landed on a twisted green figure behind them. The giant snake hissed, its fangs glistening in the refracted light from the plains of ice. As it hissed, the giants took heed, and turned their efforts where the snake pointed with his arrow-shaped head.
And then a strange thing happened—Gorjugan turned his attention on Abagail.
I sense you, All Father, the voice slithered through her mind. Tell Hafaress I wait for him. And, even though he looked away then, Abagail could still feel his words crawling over her mind; still feel his dead, black eyes focused on hers, as if trying to burrow his will into her head.
“What will we tell Leona?” the All Father asked. “She will have to fight her way through those giants.”
Abagail let out a ragged sigh. She didn’t want her sister to face all of those giants, not without an army.
No sooner had she thought army than her mind drifted back to the Pass of Sages. There, sheltered in a frozen grove was a group of fire bringers. They’d just finished fighting off a wave of ghostly, darkling wolves.
“Them,” Abagail said. “We need to get them to Leona.”
“Right,” the All Father said. She felt her mind drift again, and she was floating, the All Father’s hand clasped around her finger once more. She alighted on the snow in the center of the group of fire bringers.
Fire ringed hands as a shout of alarm rang through the motley crew. She didn’t recognize any of the group from Haven, so she had to assume they were from Muspelheim. Their ages ranged from younger than Leona, to older than Rowan. While they wore swords and axes, their hands were their main weapon, where they could call fire to bear on any foe they faced.
“We need your aid,” Abagail said.
“Who are you?” an old woman asked, stepping forward. She was broad shouldered, and well-muscled. Abagail imagined she’d been some kind of warrior before the light scepters had been opened and ended her life.
“An emissary of the All Father,” Abagail said.
“Prove it,” the woman said.
“I don’t have time for this. There are frost giants not far from here, and a girl who needs to get through them to battle Gorjugan. Will you help?” Abagail never considered that they might be darklings, but then she observed the scattering of dead wolves all around them, and she felt sure they were harbingers of light.
The old woman seemed to consider when a young man stepped forward. “That’s where we were headed, to face the threat of the frost giants.”
The woman scowled at him, but turned her gaze back to Abagail. Her eyes were hard, as if she still didn’t believe Abagail.
“I can see no issue with that, since we are headed that way anyway. Where is this girl?”
“The All Father will send one of his ravens to guide you,” Abagail said.
That seemed all the reassurance the woman needed to believe Abagail was who she said she was. The woman opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Abagail and the All Father had floated away, off to find Leona.
“Why didn’t you show yourself then?” Abagail asked.
“They wouldn’t have believed I was the All Father any more than they believed you were an emissary from me,” he told her. “Call to the ravens, get one of them to the harbingers as soon as you can.”
Abagail felt for the tether on her mind that connected her to Huginn and Muninn. She told them of what had happened, where the harbingers were located, and instructed one of them to go to the harbingers and lead them to Leona.
Huginn had barely finished shifting and was launching herself into the air when Abagail and the All Father alighted on the ground before Leona.
“Well, this makes my good-bye seem less dramatic,” Leona said, trying to smile despite the enormity of the task she faced.
Abagail smiled, but didn’t hug her. Leona didn’t seem to want to hug, and Abagail could understand why. If they started hugging now, they would likely not let one another go, and it was imperative that Abagail do what she had to do to weaken the darkling gods.
“Where is he?” Leona asked.
“Through that army of giants,” Abagail said, pointing off in the distance where the giants were just starting to emerge as shadowy lumps amidst the frozen mist that hung over the plains of frost and ice.
“What am I to do about those giants?” she wondered.
“There’s help coming,” Abagail said. “Didn’t Huginn tell you where she was going?”
“Huginn doesn’t like to waste time explaining,” Muninn said. “What shall I do, All Father?”
“It’s likely that the giants won’t harm Leona, Gorjugan wants to face her. They will, however, kill anyone else. Take to wing, and tether with Leona’s mind if you can. Guide her and the harbingers that come to aid you.”
Leona and Muninn nodded. “Alright, now go Abagail. Purify Elivigar before I get to Gorjugan so he will be weakened for the fight.”
Abagail nodded and fought the urge to embrace her sister. Instead, the All Father took her hand once more, and lifted her up into the sky, their focus turned to Elivigar.
When Abagail had seen Elivigar earlier, it had been calm despite the darkling wyrd that coursed through its waters. Now, all of that calm was gone. The trails of darkling power within its depths surged and slithered like snakes vying for freedom of their dens.
The banks of Elivigar were besieged with towering waves that crashed upon the bloodstained grass, pulling in the gore of the fallen, churning the lumps of flesh, the spills of blood, and the hope of victory into a nightmare of pink water.
And the darkling wyrd fed on the viscera.
As Abagail watched, her booted feet burrowed into a soft copse of grass that was one of the only places where gore hadn’t reached because it was on an island within the river. As pristine as her resting spot was, it afforded her a close-up to the nightmares that took shape beneath the once beautiful waters.
“This is the root of their power,” the All Father said. “Unknowingly, we made it this way when we cast them from the Ever After.”
Abagail fought the urge to remind him that she’d done nothing of the sort. The All Father was the one who cast them out. She was only playing unwilling host to him.
At any rate, she didn’t have time to argue because just then the nightmares washed upon the shores of Elivigar as beings pieced together of blood and lumps of flesh that didn’t look anything remotely like the figures they’d gathered their bodies from. Their hair was like ash, nestled upon their head in a writhing mass. They had mouths, but those mouths were filled with teeth like jagged shadows of a broken window. Some had hands that were nothing more than meaty lumps only good for bashing, while others had little more than legs to walk on.
They were held together by wyrd, that’s all Abagai
l could think. Scarlet blood and shadowed darkling power surged between the parts of their physical bodies, creating a sight Abagail would never have been able to describe, or hope to relay.
Wave after wave of the nightmares washed upon the shore and took lurching steps into battle.
The battle that raged around the banks was total chaos. Silver and golden light lanced out from sun and moon scepters as dark elves and light elves fought side-by-side, as they always should have. Long dead warriors fought with blades, cudgels, and staves.
But they weren’t fighting the nightmares. They hadn’t seen them yet. Instead, they fought harbingers of darkness who threw lightning or fire with expert ease. They fought darkling dwarves and beings of frost that carried swords of ice. As Abagail watched, she saw one frost being slash through a light elf, and the elf froze on the spot. His body tumbled backwards and when he crashed against the ground, he shattered into a hundred meaty chunks.
When the first of the nightmares attacked, it took the dark elf by surprise. It gripped the elf by her upraised arm, rendering her moon scepter incapable of a downward arch, or the flash of light that was her weapon. His other meaty paw gripped her head. She let out a startled shriek that ended quickly when her head left her body. The nightmare lifted her head up, shoved it within the space where wyrd and blood held it together. Its body formed around the head, and the dark elf’s eyes blinked open, her mouth contorted with rage, her eyes filled with hate. The nightmare now had two faces.
It tossed the body into the churning depths of Elivigar where it was set upon by more darkling wyrd. Abagail didn’t want to watch the transformation of the broken elf into darkling horror, so she turned away.
That’s when she caught sight of three orbs of golden light racing down from the tree to her. When the orbs landed, they resolved into the familiar forms of Skye, Mari, and Celeste. Daphne popped out of Celeste’s hair, and started whirring about the small island.
Twilight of the Gods (The Harbingers of Light Book 7) Page 6
