He closed his eyes, and with a force of will, lifted one foot and urged himself forward. He didn’t stop until he was deep in the alley, and a shadowy lump greeted his eyes. He didn’t need to near it to know it was Camilla.
His feet carried him closer though. He couldn’t leave her here like that. Tears streamed down his face when he lifted her small form into his arms. She was impossibly heavy for her size; death had already settled its weight into her body.
Rorick tried not to look at the bruised lump of her head. He pulled her close, wrapping her cloak around her as if that might warm her up and keep her from getting sick. The sides of her head were stained with blood. Her hair was caked with it.
Tears blurred his vision. He turned away from the scene, and carried her toward the main street where light from lanterns could shed light on her face, and chase away the shadows of her death.
Where did he take her? What did they do with their dead in Haven?
Rowan would know, he thought. Yes, it made sense that he’d take her to Rowan. She was the one who told them to do this, she would be the one to help him.
When Rorick neared her one-story log house, he saw a lamp burning inside. He stumbled to a halt before her door and gently kicked it with his foot to get her attention.
Rowan pulled the door open. Her white hair was disheveled and her eyes were rimmed with tears.
“Oh dear All Father,” she breathed, stepping outside and laying a hand on Camilla’s cold face. “What . . .” her voice trailed off as she noticed something behind Rorick.
He turned in time to see hundreds of trails of shadows blazing across the sky from the base of the mountain where he’d fought Deborah. The only light among the trails of shadows was a glowing silver orb. He’d seen shadows like that before. They belonged to the harbingers of darkness. The orb could only belong to a dark elf.
They were converging on Haven.
Olik sat back at the polished cherry table. His eyes roamed the piles of books he’d emptied from the shelves in his attempt to find some way to stop Ragnarok from happening. He’d finally found the answer he was looking for, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“How can I?” he wondered, gazing down at the picture. The picture was blackness with orbs the book called “planets” floating free of doors that lead to the Rainbow Bridge. There was no Eget Row. There was no definitive Ever After connecting all the nine worlds. There was only the Void, and each world, each planet, floating free and desperately alone through the Void. “I can’t destroy it.”
The picture was clear though. If he wanted to stop the twilight of the gods, he had to disconnect all worlds from one another. The text read:
Only when the bridge appears in the heavens as a reminder of its cosmic glory, a light no human hand can touch and no questing feet can cross, will there be no chance of Ragnarok.
The nine worlds with no chance of ever meeting. The nine worlds with no Rainbow Bridge.
Heimdall will never let that happen, he thought.
He couldn’t sit there. He needed to make a decision. Olik stood, closed the book, and tossed his green jacket about his shoulders. He strode to the door, no hint of the limp he wore for his daughters.
“I will just have to convince him,” Olik said. He jogged back to the manuscript, closed it, and tucked it into a pocket deep within his jacket. Maybe the Guardian God would believe him if he read it for himself.
Blood dripped from the tips of the frost bitten fingers that dangled over the edge of Eget Row. It oozed between the cracks of the Rainbow Bridge, the last little bit of godling power that was within the blood strummed symphonic notes from the opalescent cobbles. A myriad of lights flashed up around the white body of Heimdall. Reds and oranges played across his lifeless blue eyes. Fires from beneath the road crackled as drip after drop of godling blood fueled the Underworldly fires higher and higher.
A mournful whistle sounded through the Ever After.
Within Heimdall’s hand was clasped a golden horn. He hadn’t been able to bring it to his lips before the fatal wound was landed.
Shuffling feet took the attacker further away from the death of the Guardian God, and closer to the Tree at Eget Row. A healthy foot supported most of the weight of her gait, where her withered, dead foot merely dragged behind her. Her black gossamer gown fluttered around her in a cosmic wind.
Her dead hand hung lifelessly at her side. Her right hand carried a spear that she used almost as a walking stick to aid her as she crossed the Rainbow Bridge and made her way once more to Eget Row, the home she’d been kicked out of so many eons ago.
Beside her slithered a black snake, impossibly long and impossibly large. Such a huge snake should not have been able to cross the thin bridge, but the Rainbow Bridge was sturdy.
Gorjugan hissed a question at Hilda.
“Yes, Gorjy, we are going to Anthros.”
In the distance, from the base of the tree they could see towering up into the darkness of the Void, a lone wolf howled welcome to the family he’d been separated from so many centuries ago.
What Now?
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About Travis
Travis Simmons was kicked out of magic school for his refusal to study and his penchant for mundane activities like cooking. While selling his sword he stumbled upon dogs that he wrongly thought were magical and imagined he could commune with them. After a vicious zombie attack in which witches helped him push back the undead horde, Travis found himself apprenticed to a necromancer.
Afraid that winter was coming, Travis tucked into his magical studies, but always chased his dreams of writing tales science fiction tales and fantasy stories where he could explore his wild imagination about life on other planets. Adamant that Travis learn the esoteric ways of the occult his master made his life a horror of practice and studies. But no matter how he tried, he could never conquer Travis' questing mind.
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