A Plague of Shadows Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  What Now?

  Sneak Peak of The Darkling Tide

  About Travis Simmons

  Copyright © October 2014 by Travis Simmons

  The Harbingers of Light Book One:

  A Plague of Shadows

  Published by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Edited by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Formatting by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Cover Design by: Najla Qamber Designs

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, and people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The dream was always the same. She was standing in a room, or at least she thought it was a room. Abagail could sense walls around her, a confined space, but outside of that, she couldn't tell for certain that she was in a room. It was dark, completely and utterly. She could see nothing before her, save the fleeting fears her eyes played out on the screen of blackness that surrounded her, pressed in on her, and corrupted her.

  Abagail wasn't sure why the darkness scared her, why the emptiness all around her frightened her more than any nightmare of ghoul or fiend, but it did. In all of her nineteen years of life, she’d never been more scared. There was a nothingness with the darkness, a stillness and emptiness so complete that if she thought too long on it, Abagail was sure she would lose part of her mind to the darkness.

  But more than the darkness, it was the assuredness that she was alone here that frightened her most. It felt to Abagail as if she were the last living person in all of her homeland, O. In fact, it felt like she was the only being left alive in all of the great black expanse that fell over O when the sun set.

  In the distance Abagail thought she saw a point of light, and she started walking toward it. But it might have been an imagination of her mind, because as she drew closer, the light pulled back, traveling further away from her. What was more, at times the light seemed to vanish altogether, and Abagail wondered if she was actually seeing a light at all.

  Then came the sound of tinkling water. A babbling brook somewhere nearby. The light in the distance pulsed violently, and as it did, the flare illuminated a thread of water that ran toward Abagail, between her bare feet, and off into the distance toward some looming shadow behind her.

  The pulse of light grew and grew until noise of its coming filled her ears nearly deafening her. The light roared around her, flaring so bright and chasing away the shadows in a blinding pain that seared her eyes. Abagail fell to the ground, the tendril of water swelling higher, engulfing her knees and soaking into the green linen dress she wore. The wind made by the noise rustled her short black hair.

  Hands clamped to her ears, Abagail tried to tell herself that the All Father was with her, that he would protect her. But she couldn’t be certain the All Father really was with her any longer. She clung to her belief and wore it like a mantle to protect her against the noise, the light, and the water that was rushing up around her.

  And then it stopped. Abagail knew that it stopped, because she could no longer feel the wind that came with the light. Tentatively she opened her hazel eyes to the clearest, crystal blue sky she had ever seen. Puffy white clouds raced through the expanse, casting shadows across the emerald grass surrounding her and the river she floated in.

  Despite being day, there was a light in the sky, like one she’d only heard of in tales. The sun was dancing merrily in the sky, mixing with wavering lights of pinks and greens, purples and oranges. Together they appeared to make a ripple effect as if the lights were waves of water lapping at the sky.

  Abagail looked around herself. She didn't know where she was, but she knew that she was at the beginning of something amazing.

  Something called from behind her, and Abagail turned to see the most amazing tree she'd ever seen before. The tree rose up out of a well so large she couldn't see the edges of it. Every kind of flower and fruit, every kind of tree that was, had been, or ever would be comprised this towering monolith.

  The wind that had come with the light still tugged and pulled at the branches of the tree, and though it was some distance away from her, Abagail could clearly hear the movement of the tree as if it were right beside her. It sounded like the rushing of water she heard in the river behind her home.

  Abagail listed backward, and took a deep breath of the fresh air. She knew where she was and what she looked at. She was at Eget Row, and this was the Tree at Eget Row. The birthplace of all the worlds.

  But still the tree called to her like a song from the sweetest dream she’d ever heard, and Abagail could do nothing to resist the pull of the tree and the song that vibrated within her core at the sight of such splendor.

  She pulled herself out of the river, and up onto the grassy bank. Butterflies puffed into the air at her coming, and she watched their wings beat a path through the warm air. The grass was warm and velvety beneath her feet, and for whatever reason, she didn’t worry that she would cut her bare feet on some rock, or meet with a snake as she might worry about in the wild woods behind her home.

  Still the tree called Abagail on.

  She hadn’t realized precisely how far away the tree and the well were, but eventually she reached her destination. Standing beneath the Tree at Eget Row, Abagail couldn’t even see the top, it stretched so high into the clouds and was obscured from site. Even the lowest of the branches were well above her, and seemed all but worlds away.

  The well surrounding the tree was also gigantic. When she was farther away, the well appeared to be nothing more than a small band around the base of the tree, but now that she was closer, the well was twice her height, and stretched so far to either side as to appear to be a wall, rather than anything round.

  But that wasn’t enough for the tree, she was right there beside it, but still the song called her on. She started walking around the well, not sure where she was going, and barely able to take her eyes off the swaying branches far above her. Eventually her feet led her to a set of stairs that wound their way up the side of the well.

  Hours it seemed she climbed the weathered stairs, always getting closer to the top, yet seemingly still miles away. But, when she finally reached the top and gazed into the silvery liquid within the well, it reflected a sun that hadn’t moved an inch in the sky.

  Abagail wasn’t sure what the liquid was. At first she thought it might be water, but it wasn’t moving like water. It moved much more like the colors in the sky had, almost like air. There seemed to be a lightness to the liquid, and she bet if she placed her hand in the water, that it wouldn’t get wet.

  Abagail kneeled down to test the theory when she glimpsed a shadow moving under the surface of the strange liquid within the well. Whenever she saw shadows, it reminded her of what the priests told them of such things. Evilness lurked in shadows. The greed and self-serving nature that had pushed the Gods away had also called about another type of creature called darkling, those who were kin to the shadows. br />
  It was because of these teachings that Abagail retreated from the edge of the well, away from the liquid, and away from the shadow that lurked underneath. But she couldn’t go too far, or she would topple over the edge of the well and likely plummet to her death.

  She stood at the edge of the well, teetering on the brink. Abagail couldn’t seem to get her legs to obey the warning in her mind, telling her to run. She considered going back down the stairs, but the song that had drawn her forth was calm now, sated as if it had her right where it wanted her. The song seeped into her body, quieted her racing mind and calmed her hammering heart. Abagail couldn’t understand the sudden change, but she felt right as long as she was doing what the song wanted.

  After all, this was the same song that had created Eget Row around her, right? This was the same song that created the holy place from with all of the nine worlds came?

  The liquid began to churn as the shadow underneath rose higher, and no matter what the song said, her heart began to race once more. She held firm, however. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She felt at her waist where she always kept her silver dagger, the ore that all darkling detested, but it wasn’t there. Within the dream, she must have lost the dagger somewhere.

  But it was too late to look for it, because the shadow was parting the surface of the silvery liquid, and revealing itself to her.

  Instantly she relaxed. It wasn’t a darkling after all, but a large, twisted root. As the root rose out of the water it uncoiled, opening up and showing that along its length there were buds of giant flowers of multiple colors.

  But it was one specific flower that drew her attention. The flower was orange, velvety, and opening even as she watched. Inside wasn’t like any other flower, there was no pestle, no stamen. Instead there was a fluff of something that looked like cotton, and a naked woman with short dark hair and milky skin.

  She’d heard the tales. At the end of time, when all had crumbled back into darkness, two humans would survive the destruction. A man and a woman. Lif and Lifthrasir. This must be Lifthrasir.

  But it didn’t make sense. Those were just stories. Even though the priests said the end time was coming, no one actually believed them . . . did they?

  Again, Abagail wasn’t certain.

  But there wasn’t any time to think about that, because as she watched, Lifthrasir began to stir. Abagail’s sight was diverted from the woman who had survived the destruction of the cosmos because another flower was opening, this one blue. It unfurled and shrugged open to the noon-time sun, and exposed a male body, curled in a ball, his back to her.

  But he was close enough to her that she could see the golden hair shimmering along his legs and the way the muscles were bunched under his tan skin, and the golden wash of hair that adorned his head.

  Abagail blushed and turned back to the woman in time to see her sit up, stretch the biggest stretch one could imagine, and yawn like the roar of some waking bear.

  But it wasn’t the yawn that startled Abagail. No, what startled Abagail the most was that the woman who emerged from the flower, the same woman who had survived the end times in order to repopulate all of the nine worlds, was herself.

  The leaves of the great tree started to shiver. The image of herself turned to Abagail, and it wasn’t until Lifthrasir turned more toward her that Abagail was able to see the vine that attached to the figure’s bellybutton like an umbilical cord.

  A wind stirred behind Abagail, cold and harsh, as if blowing from across a great expanse of ice. In the wind a word was carried: Helvegr.

  As the word slithered over the tree, the bark where the cold wind touched darkened, and leaves and flowers withered. Lifthrasir stirred, and made to go to Lif, but the wind caught them both, freezing the two that were meant to populate the nine worlds where they rested.

  The cold bit into her extremities, and she cried out in pain. Abagail tried to move away from the wind, maybe to the other side of the tree so that she would be sheltered from the gale, but she couldn’t move. It was like her feet were stuck firm to the well. When she looked down it was to see a ring of ice had formed around her feet, slowly creeping up her legs.

  Abagail’s scream chased her out of the dream.

  Abagail gasped awake, the image of the tree emblazoned in her mind. Whenever she’d heard of the Tree at Eget Row, it was something of wonder, of peace, something that filled the dreamer with delight and serenity. None had ever seen it in person, that’s partially what made it so mysterious. Abagail had doubted before that the tree even existed.

  But now she’d seen it. Now she knew that it was real, and the images she saw therein caused a chill to crawl up her spine, despite the warm room. If she closed her eyes she could still see the well, stretching up twice the height of herself with the towering tree above, so she didn’t close her eyes. She kept her eyes rooted on the ceiling until they started to water.

  She couldn’t tell Leona what she’d seen. Her younger sister was always given to flights of fantasy. She’d tell Abagail that she was gaining the vision. Leona thought that she could see the future herself. In fact, she thought that the doll she carried could tell her what was coming.

  Skuld, Abagail told herself. If she hears you calling Skuld a doll, she will throw a fit.

  Abagail groaned. She tried to get Leona to stop with the seer nonsense, if someone heard her, or worse, saw her talking to her doll about the future, that would be disaster for all of them.

  Only the All Father can see the future, or his priests by invoking his Sleeping Eye.

  No, she would leave her dreams to herself.

  But it still worried her. It worried Abagail as she wiped herself clean that morning and donned a fresh tunic and trousers. She was silent through breakfast, even though Dolan and Leona talked about the daily chores. Abagail couldn’t stop thinking about the people in the tree, herself and someone else, a man. So much like the myth she’d heard before of Lif and Lifthrasir, the two who would survive past the destruction of the world and into the next to repopulate the nine worlds.

  Her stomach soured at the thought. What if the world was going to end?

  Abbie, don’t be ridiculous, you sound just like Leona, she scolded herself.

  “You’re on bee duty today,” Dolan said. “The suit is upstairs in a tangle where you left it last time.”

  “So I’m on untangling duty and bee duty?” Abagail asked.

  “Well, just bee duty if you’d taken care of the gear properly last time,” Dolan chided her with a grin.

  She was nineteen summers old, she should be out making a life of her own with a husband, but her father needed help. Ever since the tree he felled last Autumn had crushed his leg, he just wasn’t up to doing as much as he should be able to.

  It worked fine for Abagail, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to figure out how to be a wife, not after helping her father with all of his chores. She couldn’t cook, or mend, and certainly didn’t know the proper way to clean. Dolan saw to all of that since he was too lame to do much of the outdoor work.

  “Finish your breakfast first,” he told her as she made to stand.

  “I’m not very hungry,” she confessed.

  “But you’ve barely touched your sausage,” Dolan argued.

  “I’ll eat it for her,” Leona chimed in.

  “Have it,” Abagail told her sister, sliding the plate over the worn wooden table closer to her. She turned from the table before her father could protest further and made her way down the hall to the stairway that lead up to the second floor, where her father slept.

  The moment Abagail crested the top of the stairs, she could feel a difference in the second floor. She’d never been afraid of coming up here, even though it always felt strange to intrude on her father’s floor of the house.

  Abagail’s body shivered with the feel of the upstairs. The atmosphere was different somehow, darker. She pressed her back against the wall so she could see everything in front of her and knew nothing
was sneaking up behind her. Her heartbeat hitched, and she swallowed heavily, trying to calm herself.

  The stairs opened up into a large sitting room. The ceiling, floor, and walls were nothing but rough wooden planks. Abagail wasn’t even sure if they’d ever been sanded down so many burrs and splinters stuck up all over the place. Large windows took up the wall the stairs faced, opening out onto the sunlit forest beyond. They were dirty, grimy, letting in a filtered light that dappled the floor and danced when a cloud skirted before the sun.

  To the right her father’s bedroom door stood open, the bearskin rug turned with the jaws of the great beast facing the door. His bed was much too large for one person. Abagail hated going into her father’s room because of the rug, it freaked her out. Her younger sister might have not cared for the rug because of the poor bear that gave up its skin, Abagail just couldn’t stand the rug.

  To the left was the door to Dolan’s study, a room that was always locked and the girls were never allowed to go into. Abagail had tried many times when she was younger to work her way into the room, but the door had never opened for her.

  Outside the wind picked up, drawing her attention away from the room, and to the windows where she watched the surrounding pines dance fitfully in the breeze. She remembered the wind from her dream, and there had been a word on the wind. Abagail couldn’t remember the word, but all the same, the memory of the dream wind made her shiver.

  Her gaze fell on the bee keeping gear. It looked hot outside already, and Abagail dreaded putting the uniform on.

  She knelt before the clothing and started sorting it out, casting glances around her as she did. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something, or someone was up there with here. The netting had become twisted up in the rest of the clothing, and before long Abagail sat down to unwind the mess.

  When a door clicked open, every hair on Abagail’s head stood on end. Though she recognized the noise as a latch on a door, Abagail couldn’t believe that she’d actually heard it. The only door that had been shut was her father’s study. She looked up in time to see the door crack open on noisy hinges.