Twilight of the Gods (The Harbingers of Light Book 7) Page 3

  Leona cried out in victory, and the raven twins only paused for a moment to stare at the hammer in wonder before more dead closed in around them.

  Off to the right, Leona saw a blaze of fire lash the air like a whip, and an undead fell. She could make out a figure in the scarlet fog, and she didn’t want to be in the same spot she was standing once the figure emerged from the fog.

  Another flash of fire, this time closer.

  Leona tried to ignore it, and turned her attention to the rush of the dead closing in on them. She swung again, her mind consumed with the melee before her. Were they ever going to make it? The dead were everywhere she could see. A great army of corpses still spilled from the ruins of the terrible bone ship.

  Another flash of fire lashed through the corpses directly in front of Leona, and she stopped short of calling more lightning. It could be that this was a harbinger of light, when she’d been focused on thoughts of darklings.

  The ravens stopped their progression too, but they couldn’t stop their combat long enough to see the fog part, and a slender, older woman step into view. Her hair was long and white, her eyes starling blue, and a smile parted her lips causing wrinkles to show just at the edges of her mouth and eyes.

  It was Rowan Bauer . . . Leona and Abagail’s mother.

  “Leona, we found you,” Rowan said.

  Another shape appeared behind her, a thin man with messy brown hair, brown eyes. He was wearing a brown tunic and pale trousers. Gil.

  “Where’s Abagail?” Rowan asked, glancing around them. “We have to find her.”

  “That’s where we are headed,” Leona told her, pointing off in the distance with the hammer. She held her left arm close to her, the pain of the wound from the rusty sword starting to sink in now that the adrenaline of battle wasn’t ruling her body.

  Rowan stepped to the side, and motioned with her sword for Leona to take the lead. “Then let’s go.”

  On the southern banks of Eget Row, the fog had completely cleared, leaving behind giant boulders of fire-etin. They weren’t like regular giants. Their skin was made of stone that ran with deep fissures along their body, showing the glowing lava at their core—the power that made them a fire-etin.

  Surt, the ruler of Muspelheim and the leader of the fire-etin, observed the darkling swarm cascading around the glowing orb of the Ever After. He knew what was happening. He’d heard the call of the horn of winter after the light of the open scepters had torn apart the basalt structures of his home world, Muspelheim.

  Ragnarok, he thought. The Twilight of the Gods when all was to be settled.

  The crackling sound of ice drew his attention to the north. There he could see a chilling, blue fog rise. The sound of a frozen river snapping and popping at extreme cold temperatures greeted his ears, and he knew the frost giants came. Behind them they would leave nothing, only ice. No life would thrive after their passing because there was no heat left in the Void to melt their frosty touch. The only heat that survived now, was that which raged at his back from the deeper, damned parts of the Void. Even now the fire from the Otherworld was abating.

  That left only the fire-etin to ensure that something of life remained, and the only way Surt knew to do that was to cleanse Eget Row with fire—melt the ice, scorch the earth, and allow life to grow anew.

  He opened his mouth to give his orders, but before he could a shimmer appeared in the air before the fire-etin. As he watched, the shimmer grew to a glowing line, and then the thin line of white opened as if a door. Behind the portal, Surt could see a world of darkness, of shadows and banes that could only exist in a land of nightmares. From within the darkness an ancient tree bent over a darkened river and a field of tangled, snakelike grass.

  Under the tree stood a small, twisted figure with a large top hat. Surt could barely make out a crooked nose and a cruel smile that seemed very large on the little face. The man was hunched with age, his legs bowed out at odd angles, and he appeared dressed in leathers that Surt could only imagine was tanned from the hide of his victims. He held a cane aloft, and at the tip of the cane, darkness glowed with a malignant, darkling wyrd.

  Little faces, all twisted as the man’s was, peered around the edges of the doorway and to the giant fire-etin before the door. They were a dirty sort of creature, their eyes glowing with hate, their hands twisted with the ill deeds they’d brought to humans. Their appetite for flesh would see them through the most harrowing of battles.

  “Elle folk,” a fire-etin rumbled to Surt’s left.

  Surt nodded. “We face them, then we make our way to the north. I’d rather see Muspelheim burn than to fall prey to the frost giants.”

  A rumble of agreement rose behind him moments before the little king under his ancient lime tree gave the order.

  “Elle folk, charge!”

  “Who are you?” Abagail asked the woman who knelt before her. Even as she asked, the other part of her mind, the part that had protected them against the giant skeleton, gave the answer. Vilda, goddess of the moon.

  “Surely the All Father recognizes me?” Vila said, standing.

  “Who’s the All Father?” Rorick asked, turning to Abagail.

  “Well, she is,” Vilda said, pointing to Abagail.

  “The All Father is looking awful . . . feminine,” Rorick said, scratching the back of his neck in confusion.

  “I will explain later,” Abagail said.

  “No need,” Vilda said. “It’s very simple. The All Father often chooses to walk the nine worlds as a human. This time he exiled himself from the Ever After, and chose a baby as his host. That baby was Abagail.”

  Skye frowned, but didn’t say anything.

  “Can we keep walking?” Abagail ignored what the goddess said. “We have to meet my sister.”

  “Right this way,” Vilda said. Abagail wasn’t sure how she knew where they were going, but she didn’t bother to ask. The goddess led them to the banks of Elivigar, and Abagail stopped and stared, completely in awe of what she saw.

  When she’d heard before that Elivigar was a river, she’d never guessed it would be so huge. Elivigar was so large that Abagail could barely see the other side of the river. The water was crystal clear, giving a view of white stones along the riverbed. The surface of the river shimmered in the glow of the Ever After, refracting the light in rainbow hues that danced in the air in a spray of mist churned from currents that swirled beneath the surface. Here and there a black substance meandered along, as if it weren’t touched by the currents or the chaos they brought. The blackness, too, shimmered with rainbow colors, but these weren’t pure rainbow colors, they were heavy and slick, like a parody of the light.

  “The toxin,” Vilda said. “The same darkling power that corrupted Hilda.” There was a mournful note in her voice.

  “She was your birth golem,” Abagail said.

  Vilda nodded, a sad smile on her face.

  “What’s happening here?” Rorick wondered.

  “This is the end of everything,” Vilda said, not taking her eyes from the toxic slick in the river. “This is the final battle—the Twilight of the Gods.”

  “Is that why I’m no longer dead?” Rorick wondered.

  Vilda nodded, breaking her gaze from Elivigar to study the thin red line across his throat. “The horn of winter blew, and it calls all dead to fight in Ragnarok.”

  “I’ve seen this river before,” Abagail said. She remembered her dream from so long ago, and she told them about it. She’d been standing in darkness when sudden water rushed over her feet, inching up her body until she had to swim to keep her head above water. There’d been light, and then there’d been Eget Row. She recalled for her party how she’d stood at the edge of the Well of Wyrding, and how the great tree had finally blossomed. From out of its flowers, two people woke and walked the earth once more. “There were names,” Abagail finished.

  “Lif and Lifthrasir,” Vilda said with a nod. “The All Father has seen the remaking of mankind after our fall, h
ere in Eget Row.”

  “Is that what’s going to happen?” Skye asked. “Are the gods all destined to die?”

  “I hope not,” Vilda said. She turned to Abagail then. “What else have you seen?”

  “That’s all,” Abagail said.

  “You haven’t seen if the prophecies are true, and that all of us are destined to die the final death?”

  “The final death?” Rorick wondered.

  Vilda frowned, and Abagail wasn’t sure if it was in thought, or if it was from Rorick’s question. “If a human dies and they’ve led a good life, they come to dine with the gods in the Ever After. There they are told stories, reunited with fallen loved ones, drink the mead of the gods, and eat from our never-ending supplies of food. After a time, they are reborn into a new form, and live once more.

  “If a person has led a bad life, they are sent to the Otherworld, where they entertain Hilda on her ship that just recently crashed upon our shores. After a time, when they have been sufficiently cleansed of their trespasses, they are reborn as well. A constant cycle.

  “This time, however,” Vilda said with a gesture into the distance. Abagail followed the motion, and far to the south she saw an orange glow of fire. “This time it all ends. There will be no more rebirth. Lif and Lifthrasir will be entombed in the roots of the great tree to awaken once more when the Void has put itself to rights.”

  “And who are these two?” Rorick wondered.

  Vilda looked expectantly to Abagail.

  “I’m unsure. I didn’t see much of them,” she lied. The truth was, in her dream, she was Lifthrasir. She didn’t know who the man was. At once she might have thought it was Rorick, but now she just wasn’t sure.

  “A surprise, then,” Vilda said.

  “What’s more surprising,” a voice said behind them. Abagail turned to see her sister, Leona, standing behind them with the raven twins, Gil, and her mother. “Is what you’re doing here, and why you think I should let you live.”

  “Leona?” Abagail wondered, taking a step forward. Her sister looked different. No, that was wrong, her sister didn’t look different, she was overshadowed by something else. Abagail could see her sister clearly, but it was almost as if she were standing within a ghost. The figure she saw standing with her sister was a large, muscled man. His hair was golden and fell in tangles around his shoulders. His chest was bare, his shoulders broad. He had a long beard on his face that had a silver clasp fastened around the center, as if to hold it in place. A belt held his loincloth in place, and in the center of that belt was a disc similar to the one hovering amidst Vilda’s antlers, but this disc was golden. The sun.

  Where Leona held the hammer, the man’s hand also held the hammer, like he was guiding her motions, or that he was tethered to the hammer as surely as Leona was.

  “Abagail, move aside,” Leona said. The look on her face was enough to make Abagail obey without question.

  “Fulgur!” Leona said. A great clap of thunder rumbled the ground as lightning streaked from the Ever After to glow along the surface of the God Slayer. She aimed the weapon at Vilda, and let loose a storm of wyrd.

  The world slowed around Abagail. She couldn’t let the lightning reach Vilda. She wasn’t sure precisely why she couldn’t let the lightning scorch the goddess, but she couldn’t. There was a warning within Abagail that if the lightning touched Vilda, or any god, it would snuff their life out as surely as if they’d been attacked with the edge of the hammer itself.

  Daughter, that other presence in her mind whispered. It was all the urging she needed. Abagail leapt before Vilda, into the light of lightning. Her hands held out toward the storm, and she called to her wyrd. The palms of both of her hands slipped open and light poured forth. She didn’t pay attention to the voice that said if lightning could kill any god, then she—as the All Father—would just as certainly be laid to waste.

  Silver light erupted from her right hand, golden light from her left. Where the two orbs of light met before her, they wound together like roots of an ancient tree, forming a barricade against the lightning.

  Abagail closed her eyes, waiting for the lightning to strike her, to sunder her flesh and to extinguish the spirit of the All Father that drove her.

  It never happened. With an audible sizzle, the lightning fizzled out against her shields.

  “Abagail, move. You don’t understand,” Leona tried reasoning with her. “Vilda is the reason for all this. She tried to kill me. She allowed the darklings to gain ground and to open the scepters. She’s the reason for all of this death. Vilda brought on the Twilight of the Gods. You’re protecting the very person that has seen the destruction of the nine worlds.”

  Abagail glanced over her shoulder toward Vilda. She could barely see the goddess out of the corner of her eye. “Is that true?” She questioned.

  “Enough!” A voice thundered across the water.

  Abagail jumped at the sound of the ancient voice, and her wyrded shield fell. She turned to Elivigar, and there, at the banks stood a stooped old woman. Her hair was white and shown in the light of the Ever After like a halo. Her face was wrinkled and pitted from age and her gnarled nose hung low over her thin, wrinkled lips.

  She was swabbed in a coarse black robe with the hood thrown back. In her hands she held an oak staff that was pin straight until it reached the top, where the wood coiled and spiraled around itself.

  Baba Yaga, the voice of the All Father whispered into her mind.

  “Who are you?” Skye asked.

  “I am Baba Yaga,” the old lady said simply. “And there’s no time for this infighting. Come, there’s much to discuss.” She didn’t wait for them to answer. Instead, the hag turned her back to the group and gestured toward Elivigar. Near the bank, the water swirled like a whirlpool, and then suddenly fell away, as if the ground had caved in. There was a rush of crystal clear water into the hole, but when it stopped, Abagail could barely make out a bright passage down into the depths of Elivigar.

  “Come,” Baba Yaga commanded, and then stepped into the hole.

  Abagail took the lead, Skye a welcoming warmth at her back. She remembered the dream of being stranded in the waters of Elivigar too well, and she hoped that the hole didn’t close in on her at the last moment. The darkling slicks along the surface of Elivigar slithered toward the edge of the hole, and she worried that they might strike. She halted and watched the darkling power, but Baba Yaga seemed unconcerned. The crone continued her passage down the watery hole.

  “They won’t harm you,” she called over her shoulder.

  Abagail had to trust her. She took one tentative step into the hole, and the darkling wyrd jabbed toward her, like a striking snake. She shrieked, and held up her hands, but the wyrd rebounded off an invisible shield that kept the water at bay.

  The malignant wyrd didn’t stop its attack. The darkling power kept trying to get in, striking out at the warding, but to no avail. Abagail hurried after Baba Yaga, Skye right behind her.

  “Where are we going?” Abagail asked, her eyes taking in the white stone of the lakebed that they walked upon. The water curved around them, held back by a tunnel of invisible wyrd.

  “To my home,” Baba Yaga said.

  “Under the water?” Rorick wondered.

  Baba Yaga didn’t respond.

  Skye asked, “is everyone coming back to life?”

  It was Muninn that answered from the back of the line. “The prophecies say that everyone will be called to life from the horn of winter to fight in the coming war. We’ve seen dead people returning to life, so my guess would be yes.”

  “Celeste,” Skye said.

  “Celeste is dead?” Leona wondered. “How?”

  “Of course,” Baba Yaga snorted. “Haven’t you realized yet that everyone has died?”

  Leona ignored her and Skye recounted to her the trip they took from the dwarf encampment in Agaranth to the portal that led him and Abagail down to Eget Row. He told Leona how they’d been traveling, and were
set upon by darklings. In an attempt to save Abagail, Celeste had lost her life.

  “So she will be back?” Leona asked hopefully.

  “You have friends waiting for you at my home,” Baba Yaga said.

  “Celeste?” Leona wondered.

  “And others,” Baba Yaga confirmed.

  Rorick didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows were knit with concern even while his eyes looked hopeful.

  “Is there any way to locate people here?” Abagail asked. “Primarily Dolan?”

  “Your father,” Baba Yaga said, and shook her head. “We have much to talk about Olik.”

  Abagail didn’t like the sounds of that, but she didn’t respond.

  “And to answer your other question, yes, the All Father had one way of seeing anything he wished in all of the nine worlds—his throne.”

  The all seeing eye, that other presence supplied to her mind.

  “The all seeing eye,” Abagail repeated.

  Baba Yaga nodded. “But we will get to all of that, have patience. Maybe you can settle this rift between your son and daughter?”

  “I don’t have a son and daughter,” Abagail said, confused.

  “But the All Father does, and they’re walking behind you.”

  “Well, I’m not the All Father. I’m Abagail.”

  “Whoever you are,” Baba Yaga waved a dismissive hand behind her.

  “I don’t think there’s a rift between Hafaress and me,” Vilda said.

  “Well, I think there is,” Leona said. “And you will answer for what you’ve done.”

  “What, precisely, is it that I’ve done?” Vilda asked.

  “Destroyed the nine worlds!” Leona fired back.

  Abagail sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was getting to be too much. There was enough happening already that splitting hairs about who did what or not wasn’t going to solve a thing. It had been done, all they could do now was face what was coming for them.