The Chosen of Anthros Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  What Now?

  Sneak Peak of The Fires of Muspelheim

  About Travis

  Copyright © June, 2015 by Travis Simmons

  The Harbingers of Light Book Four:

  The Chosen of Anthros

  Published by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Cover Design by: Najla Qamber Designs

  Formatting by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Editing by: Wyrding Ways Press

  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.

  Dedication

  There are people that come into our lives and show us that warriors do exist. They are brave in the face of adversity. They are loving in the face of hatred. They are forgiving when they shouldn’t be. They support us when we’ve lost the will to support ourselves. They continue fighting, putting one foot before the other when most people would give up and sit down. They may not face demons and dragons and trolls like warriors in great fantasy books, but in their own way, the illnesses and personal demons they struggle with are just as overbearing and malevolent as any goblin or ghoul. I’ve had the good fortune to know and love many warriors in my life.

  I dedicate this anthology to my father, Edward Simmons, my mother Yvonne Simmons, and my aunts Penny Tresidder and Eleanor Jeanette.

  The little boy sat on the edge of the giant well kicking his feet and watching the reflection of dancing leaves across the silvery surface of the well. This was a special well because it didn’t hold water, it held the mystical force of wyrd that all harbingers could control to one degree or another.

  The wind was warm, the sun was cheerful, and the birds sang gaily from the bows of the great Tree at Eget Row that rose majestically out of the center of the Well of Wyrding.

  Despite the lovely day, the boy’s thoughts were dark.

  He bowed his bald head, and stared entranced at his ink smudged fingers as if he could still see the blood on them. For the umpteenth time he rubbed his hands against his white robe, but all that did was add to the plethora of existing ink smears on his clothing.

  “How could I not have seen,” he whispered. “How could I have been so foolish?”

  In the distance, over a hill to the north, the lone cry of a wolf drifted aimlessly on the wind.

  The little boy shivered.

  The giant wolf, Anthros couldn’t reach him here. Not with the ties that bound him to the root of the great tree.

  But that’s not precisely true, is it? The voice called into his mind.

  The boy closed his eye against a fresh wash of tears.

  It’s your fault, he told the voice. This would never have happened—

  If you hadn’t broken the rules. You know full well what you did was just as much your fault as it was mine.

  But the boy wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it.

  I created him out of love, the All Father thought back at the baleful wolf who had taken up residence in his head some time ago. What came next was your doing.

  But your act of love broke the rules of the void. If not for that, I would not have gained access to the Ever After.

  The cries were still fresh in his ears. The blood tainted his inky hands.

  The liquid wyrd rippled beneath the rim of the well, cresting up to dampen the soles of his feet. He shivered.

  “Great All Father, why do you cry?” a woman’s voice asked.

  His gaze drifted to the right to where the mermaid, Skuld, rested against the edge of the well. Her glittering green fin flickering just beneath the silver surface. Her long black hair trailed over her bare breast. Her nose was upturned, coming to a point at the end where a delicate horn curved toward the bridge of her nose. Milky pearls gleamed within the coal locks of her hair.

  “I must leave this place, Skuld,” he told the Norn.

  “But why?” she asked him, trailing closer to him. Her blue eyes were worried.

  “Can’t you see that?” he asked her.

  “My province is the future,” she told him. “Once something has come to pass, it slips from my mind. Besides, the Gods have no fate save Ragnarok.”

  The All Father shivered. “I’ve done a terrible thing, and paid a hefty price.”

  “What is this terrible thing you’ve done?” Skuld asked him.

  The All Father watched a squirrel break from the surface of the wyrd within the well and skitter up the trunk of the enormous tree until he vanished within the lower branches.

  “I’ve tried to remove chaos from the void,” he said, wrapping his arms around him as a chill took his small body.

  “But that’s impossible. You know better than to try. Greater powers than you or I govern the void,” Skuld scolded him. Not many would scold a god, but the Norn weren’t like most. Even still, not many could make a god feel scolded like the Norn could.

  “I know,” his head bowed closer to his chest.

  “And how did you do this?” she asked.

  “By creating the God of Peace. But Skuld, I managed it. I was able to create a completely perfect being with no trace of chaos within him.”

  She frowned at the All Father. “And what was the price you paid for this accomplishment?”

  The All Father shook his head. A tear traced its way down his cheek to fall glistening to the surface of the wyrd. The tear rested there for a time, like a perfectly tumbled gem before it slipped beneath the surface, never fully mixing with the wyrd. He watched it sink lower and lower like a stone in a pond.

  “Does this have anything to do with the destruction of the Ever After I see?” she asked.

  The All Father nodded.

  Skuld frowned. “Why did you come here, All Father?” her hands dipped back under the surface of the wyrd and tread the silvery liquid. The wyrd sparkled in the sunlight, nearly blinding to normal eyes. The power of the well glowed a reflection in the All Father’s eyes.

  “I need to know,” he said.

  “Need to know what?” Skuld cocked her head.

  “What kind of damage I caused to the nine worlds. I already know what damage I’ve caused in the Ever After. I need to know that mankind is safe from my treachery.”

  Skuld frowned. “There is no way for you to know that, only the Norn can see the full scope of what you’ve done.”

  “Yes, but you could tell me,” the boy insisted.

  She was shaking her head no before he finished. “The threads of fate are many, and they are complicated. There’s no true way of knowing which future fate is the true one until choices are made that bring it closer to the present.”

  “But I need to know the possible futures my actions brought about,” the All Father said. “Please.”

  Skuld inclined her head to stare at the young god. She could see the pain in his eyes, the desperation therein. “Very well, but there is a price to pay to drink of the well.”

&n
bsp; “Anything, name it.”

  “There is power within you,” she said. “Your eyes hold so much power.”

  The All Father looked up into her eyes. She wasn’t hungry for his power, but he understood, to partake of her power he had to revoke a bit of his own power. He waited to see what the Norn wanted.

  “If you drink of the Well of Wyrding then you will know many things. You will see many threads of future fates.”

  “I don’t—”

  Skuld held up a long finger to silence him. “That you will see, and more. But I could tell you of one who can help you.”

  “Who would that be?” the All Father asked.

  “Surt.”

  The boy recoiled. “Why in Muspelheim would I go there?”

  “He’s created a weapon before, did he not? One that could have taken care of your problem?”

  “You’re suggesting that—”

  “All I’m saying is if you want to make amends for what you’ve done then you should be prepared to do what needs doing. Your hatred for darkness is the very thing that will allow darkness to slip through.”

  Over the rise of the hill, the All Father heard Anthros let out a baying howl. He shivered, the power of the howl mirrored within him. His eyes fell on a place that he couldn’t see, but he knew all too well. After all, he was the one who imprisoned Anthros there.

  “I need to see what I’ve done. I will only make a decision after I’ve seen.”

  “Very well, if you only wish to see what your actions have done that should be easy enough.” Skuld waved a hand at him. “The price for seeing what only the Norn can see is one of your eyes.”

  “My eye?” the All Father flinched. “Who in the Ever After would ever ask for such a thing?”

  “It’s a simple request. Either I have your eye and you gain our site, or you may never know what your actions have caused.”

  The All Father rubbed his hands on his robe and took a deep breath. “Alright.” He nodded woodenly.

  “You seem uncertain about this, All Father,” Skuld said, easing forward through the wyrd.

  “You’re asking for an eye,” he responded incredulously.

  “An eye for an eye,” she responded. If she was gaining any pleasure from his discomfort, the All Father couldn’t tell.

  The All Father reached up to his eye. His fingers were cold where the tips touched his lids. He looked steadily at Skuld, knowing this would be the last time he saw out of that eye. His hand began to shake, but this was something that had to be done. He had to know what damage his disobedience caused.

  He huffed out a deep breath and plunged his fingers into his socket. His fingers sank into the warm, wet cavern of his eye socket, and as if nothing was holding it in place his eye popped free of its confines. Blood tricked down his cheek and there was a strange moment where the All Father was looking down out of that one eye as it dangled against his face.

  His hands shook and his body responded in turn. His chest rose and fell frantically in erratic breaths from the pain and the disorientating feeling his double vision brought on. He reached into the folds of his white robe smearing blood over the ink stains, and pulled out a knife. Before he could think about what he was doing, the All Father cut the tendons and veins free allowing his eye to fall into the Well of Wyrding.

  He cried out in pain. His hands began to shake and the knife slipped out of his wet grip. It sunk beneath the surface of the wyrd like it was falling through mud. Like his tear before, the blood didn’t mix with the wyrd, only trailed deeper and deeper into the murky depths.

  The silver wyrd held his eye steady, not allowing it to sink like the knife did. The bloody organ bobbed up and down on ripples of wyrd.

  “Yes,” Skuld said, reaching up to his empty socket. Blood bloomed between her fingers as her hand closed over the wound. “Now your eye is dead. It’s a sleeping eye. While your waking eye is alive in the sky, darklings will be weaker. But when the sleeping eye dominates the night, then the nine worlds will know fear, for you won’t be able to see what is coming in the night, and you won’t be able to protect them.”

  The All Father said nothing. Though she had healed his eye, the pain of his loss still slithered through his head with fiery intensity. He groaned through his teeth barely hearing what she said.

  “Now,” Skuld said. “You may see what we see.” She dipped a finger into the wyrd and when she removed it, a sparkling drop of wyrd clung to her long nail. She held it up to the All Father. “Just a drop will do.”

  He leaned down toward her finger, and opened his mouth. The drop of wyrd fell upon his tongue. A taste like honey and rain flooded his mouth, and suddenly his surroundings vanished.

  He existed in the void, and around him were stars and darkness beneath him the Tree at Eget Row. Around the tree the rainbow road of Eget Row ran like a web, streets reaching out to doorways to all of the nine worlds.

  It was something he’d seen many times before from his room in the Ever After, but this time it was different. This time there was a darkness on the road. A darkness that slithered and writhed over the cobbles of Eget Row like a perverse snake. The shadows reached out, and pulled themselves along the rainbow road, seeking out new homes.

  As the All Father watched, he became aware of doorways splintering, cracking, and allowing the darkness into the worlds. The fabric that kept Eget Row safely away from the nine worlds and allowed Heimdall to police the expanse of the void and protect the nine worlds, was crumbling.

  The darkness reared up before one such broken door, and like a cloud of charred smoke it slipped through the fissures and into the world.

  “No!” the All Father cried out, coming back to himself. He looked at Skuld with his one and only eye.

  “Yes. Your hatred for the darklings has called them from their hiding places. Your disobedience of the laws that govern the void has given power equal to the darklings as you created when you made Boran. There must always be a balance. If there is absolute good, there has to be an absolute bad.”

  Over the rise of the hill Anthros called again.

  “I have to stop it.” The All Father’s eye was rooted on that crest of hill, which hid the monstrous wolf from site. He was bound to a root of the great tree at Eget Row that rested within the Well of Wyrding. Anthros was bound by a silvery strand of thread, which was wyrded like the strongest steal. He’d never escape without the power of a god to help him, and the darkling gods weren’t able to enter Eget Row with Heimdall standing guard.

  “I’ve already told you what I thought would help.” Skuld told him.

  “Is that certain? If I do what you suggest and seek the aid of Surt, will that purge the darklings from the nine worlds?”

  “I thought you would have learned by now, purging the darklings from the nine worlds is what got you into this mess. They can never be purged, but if you lessen your power it stands to reason theirs will lessen as well.”

  “Then that’s what I must do,” the All Father said. He gazed with his one eye off in the distance where he could see the fires of Muspelheim burning like a cancerous plague in the void. “I must go to Surt.”

  Muspelheim.

  Surt.

  The words chased Abagail into wakefulness. The last visage of the dream ebbed away from her like fog against the coming of the sun. She stretched her arms and gave a great yawn.

  Despite how foul the words that woke her were, none of the anxiety they would have normally brought plagued her that morning.

  Around her the camp was coming to life. Some of the harbingers that rescued her from the frost giants were already awake. The raven twins, as she had come to learn they were called, were already awake and talking to each other some distance from the other harbingers. When Abagail woke they looked over to her in unison and it made her shiver.

  Abagail had steered clear of Huginn and Muninn as much as she could in the days since she was rescued. None of the other harbingers treated the raven twins differently, but for some reas
on Abagail just couldn’t warm up to them. She had a sinking suspicion that they were always watching her. Their stares were almost reverent at times, like they knew something more about Abagail than she knew about herself.

  A flurry of silent activity kept the camp busy as some made preparations to leave and others tended to breakfast. Her eyes slid over the crowd looking for Rowan; the woman she used to think of as Aunt Mattelyn.

  When she didn’t see her among the crowd of harbingers, Abagail let out a silent prayer to the All Father, thanking him for that respite. When she’d first met Rowan she thought it was going to be a happy time. Well, maybe not happy, but she at least thought she would find a modicum of comfort being around a family member who had gone through what Abagail was going through.

  She’d been wrong. Rowan wasn’t her aunt at all. Apparently Rowan didn’t even like Abagail’s father. She assured Abagail that it wouldn’t stop her from helping her learn to control the plague, but she hadn’t precisely been warm to Abagail on their trip.

  “On your feet,” a voice barked behind her.

  Abagail groaned. She didn’t need to look to know that the person who spoke was Rowan. The white-haired harbinger stalked by her, dropping something on the ground beside Abagail as she plodded past her through the snow. Abagail glared at every black-clad inch of the lady’s back. She would never glare at her face, but as long as Rowan couldn’t see her she felt safe enough to glare.

  It was a small victory.

  Abagail couldn’t deny that Rowan was a striking woman. Her hair was as white as the snow around them, belying the harbinger’s younger features. Where her hair had been braided days before with feathers and beads, now it hung loose to her waist.

  Rowan crouched beside a shackled figure some distance away from Abagail. It was Fortarian, Rowan’s brother who had recently played host to the darkling god Gorjugan until Abagail had evicted him from the man’s body. The loss of the darkling god didn’t make Fortarian any less suspect. He had been a powerful darkling before Gorjugan had taken residence in his body, and for that Rowan didn’t seem inclined to trust him. Abagail couldn’t blame her, she was always on guard around Fortarian as well.