The Fires of Muspelheim Read online

  “What’s that?” Abagail asked.

  Elyse’s eyes were already trained where Abagail was looking. Her gaze had been rooted there the entire time they’d stood on the bridge. There was a longing in her eyes that made Abagail feel as if Elyse desired very much to be part of that assembly.

  “A portal to Agaranth,” Elyse told her.

  Abagail had to fight the urge to run to the stream of people and through the portal. That was a way home, a way to Leona. But Agaranth was large, there was no telling what part of it she would come out in.

  And I need training, she thought. Abagail remembered the dream of Leona. It might not have actually been her sister, but in Abagail’s mind it was real. If I want to help anyone, I need to make sure this doesn’t keep happening. The best hope was for her to stay right in Muspelheim.

  “Why are you sending people through to Agaranth?” Abagail asked.

  “It’s not safe here any longer,” Elyse said. “They are harbingers, they are needed elsewhere.”

  “On Agaranth?” Abagail turned to Elyse. The other fire-etin was much shorter than her.

  “Yes, that’s where the darkling tide is,” Elyse told her. She motioned for Abagail to follow her.

  “So that’s where the final battle is going to take place?”

  Elyse was quiet for a while. They crossed the bridge and Abagail looked longingly behind her at the lava flow, glowing in the black atmosphere of Muspelheim. It afforded an ambient light all around the inside of the Forge. Abagail realized now that was the light she’d seen from her room, peaking over the tops of her walls.

  “No,” Elyse finally said. “Some people think the last battle is going to take place in Eget Row, and we believe that as well.”

  “So you’re just going to leave Muspelheim unprotected?” Abagail asked her.

  “Whoever said that?” Else wondered. “There will be people here to fight, just no harbingers. There are protections, there are warriors, and there are traps. Muspelheim will be fine.”

  Abagail didn’t believe her. There was something about Elyse’s tone that told her she didn’t believe herself. And why in the nine worlds send their harbingers away if Muspelheim’s going to be fine? She wondered.

  The throngs of people outside of the Forge were dense and crowded. Abagail was overwhelmed by the smell of so many people pressed so close and all of them sweating. They may have been fire-etin, but that didn’t stop them from reacting to the heat like she would.

  Elyse made her way through the crowd slowly, slipping between people and excusing herself through openings until they stood before the towering structure of the Forge.

  There were many people outside, but very little activity inside. A hallway ran through the building, walled on either side by sheets of fire. Abagail couldn’t see much within the blaze.

  “Surt is waiting for you,” Elyse said, motioning for Abagail to enter.

  “You’re not coming with me?” Abagail asked. There was a swirl of worry in her stomach.

  Elyse smiled. “You’ll be fine. Contrary to the stories, Surt doesn’t eat people. And even if he did, he wouldn’t eat another fire-etin.” She giggled.

  Abagail blushed and looked to her sandaled feet.

  “Don’t keep him waiting though,” Elyse told her, prodding her closer to the doors. “He doesn’t like that.”

  Abagail took a deep breath to steady her fluttering heart. She tugged the glove higher on her arm even though it hadn’t slipped down, and stepped forward into the Forge.

  The flames that created the walls of the hallway weren’t hot. At least, they weren’t any hotter than the rest of Muspelheim was. She wondered if she reached out and touched them if they would be solid, or if they would just catch her garments on fire.

  She looked down at her toga. It was designed in such a way that the oranges and reds of the fabric seemed to move and shift like flames. Was it a protective material, or just for show?

  Better not test it, she thought and pushed herself forward.

  The hall turned to the left and the right. She looked behind her, hoping that Elyse would be there to show her the way, but she wasn’t. All that remained outside the Forge was the press of bodies as they went about their business. If Elyse was still out there she was lost to the crowds now.

  Abagail chose left. She had only walked a few feet before the flames changed, blocking the way ahead. With no other choice, Abagail turned around and headed down the other hallway. As she left the corridor she’d been blocked from, the fires died down, allowing entry once more.

  She shook her head and followed the path before her. The fires changed again, this time blocking her way at the same time a doorway of sorts opened in the flames. Abagail turned left through the giant doorway. She was greeted by another wall of flames with no question of where to go; the only place open for her was to the left once more.

  Abagail lost count of how many times she was directed this way and that by the fire. If she had to figure out how to leave, she knew she wouldn’t be able to. She was lost in the labyrinth of flames.

  And what if I needed to leave? She wondered. There’s probably no exit until I’ve met with Surt.

  The thought of the blackened giant with glowing fissures in his skin terrified her. From the dream she had with the All Father she knew that Surt wasn’t evil, just misunderstood. Elyse also acted like it was foolish for her to worry that Surt would harm her.

  Finally the flames dropped away leaving her gazing across a great expanse of basalt floor. In front of her was an anvil easily three times the size of her. On the wall behind the anvil hung more tools than she thought any blacksmith would ever need.

  Her feet faltered. She checked behind herself just to be sure, but there was no way out; the flames blocked her way. Behind the anvil was a giant door that gazed out on more glowing orange visages of Muspelheim. Through the door, high on a peak behind the Forge, she could see the glowing portal to Agaranth. She watched breathlessly as a woman stepped up to the portal, and then vanished through. Abagail longed to follow her through, follow to Agaranth and look for her sister who would need her now that the plague had taken her.

  Her right hand throbbed, and she felt the hungry plague reach further across her body. She closed her eyes and willed all thoughts of her sister away. Abagail couldn’t afford to have the plague claim any more of her body. She took a deep breath to clear her mind, and then opened her eyes.

  Where was Surt?

  She stepped forward, her feet slipping across the floor.

  “Hello?” she called. Her voice came out through her terror-stricken throat like a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hello?”

  There wasn’t any answer. She was alone.

  Abagail stopped and let out a giant breath. Here she was, in the place that had made not one but two of the God Slayers. The spear, and the hammer that was supposedly in Leona’s possession. She hadn’t thought about it before because of her fear, but this was the place it was made. This was the place that saw the deceit of Olik to Hafaress. This was the place where the All Father had commissioned the weapon to kill Boran.

  This was a place of myth and legend.

  Despite the heat of the Forge, Abagail shivered. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned to see a mirror on the wall. She hadn’t seen her reflection since coming here. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see what she looked like now, but she let her feet and her curiosity carry her to the mirror.

  There it was: the plague. It took up more than half of her face. It spread around one hazel eye and reached for the other, tendrils clawing across her flesh as if they were going to pluck the eye right from its socket. Her black hair was longer now, touching the tops of her shoulders. She turned and admired the way the toga fell, accenting her curves. Abagail had never thought much about dresses, trousers were more practical, but she liked how the toga fit her, how it slimmed her. She shrugged and sighed.

  “All Father,” a rumbling voice called from
behind her. Abagail looked over her shoulder in the mirror to see the reflection of Surt. He towered behind her, the flames closing behind him. Just staring at him made her heart skip a beat. She thought she’d faint. “It’s been a long time. I assume you’ve come back for this?”

  He held up his hand and in his grasp, so small in his fingers that it nearly looked like a needle, was the cruel, hooked spear.

  The God Slayer.

  Abagail turned away from the mirror to look at Surt. There he stood, the giant from her dream of the All Father. His flesh was black and craggy, like the deep stones of the earth. There were fissures in his flesh, exposing glowing orange lava beneath. He was tall and he was broad, so broad that it was amazing to Abagail that the bulky giant could have made anything as splendid as the hammer Leona carried.

  He’s the best blacksmith in all the nine worlds, she remembered.

  “Why do you call me that?” she wondered. “Why do you refer to me as the All Father?” She crossed one arm over her chest, holding tight to her other forearm. She didn’t like the warm feeling in her chest at the title. When he called her All Father, it was as if that was her name more than Abagail was. It felt right. It felt like something she’d known all along, and he was just now shedding light on it.

  “Because that’s who you are,” Surt told her. “You’re the All Father.”

  “No, I’m Abagail,” she said, holding her hands up before her to make him stop. “I may be fire-etin by blood, but I’m not the All Father. I’m Abagail.”

  “The All Father is a known wanderer. He takes many guises.” Surt told her.

  Abagail shook her head and turned away from Surt. She didn’t turn toward the mirror though, she was too afraid of what she might see in the reflection. She turned her attention to the anvil and the giant door behind it.

  “You may not believe me, but you know deep down what I say is true,” he whispered.

  “I can’t believe you,” she told him.

  “Yet your hand bears the eyes of the All Father. That is a rare power for any harbinger to have. Only the most devoted priests who’ve been infected with the shadow plague have ever developed that power.” Surt crossed his arms over his craggy chest with the sound of hundreds of boulders knocking together. “Tell me, Abagail Bauer, are you a devout woman?”

  Abagail shook her head. Her eyes were no longer seeing the anvil. Her attention was rooted on the throb of wyrd she could feel pulsing through the open eye on her palm, hidden by the silken glove.

  “Then what gives you that power?”

  “I got the shadow plague from bees I was tending,” Abagail told him.

  “Bees,” Surt scoffed. “I don’t believe that.”

  “That’s the only time I ever came in contact with the shadow plague,” she argued.

  “The All Father was cursed with the plague,” Surt told her. “He stood here.” The giant indicated a space on the floor where the child god had stood in Abagail’s dream. “He stood here and told me the story of how he’d tried to overcome the darkness in the void. He’d made Boran, and he’d made him good. Do you know what that cost the All Father?”

  “He cursed the worlds with the darkling tide. He tried to make a being of all good, and that cost us all. He fractured some pact that had existed before time itself. By trying to defeat the darkling tide, he unknowingly made it stronger.”

  Surt shook his head. “That’s not all. Do you know why he is called the Chosen of Anthros? Do you know why you are the Chosen of Anthros?”

  “Because the All Father and Anthros are set to kill one another in the final war.”

  “The twilight of the gods,” Surt nodded. “But there’s more to it than simply being pitted against one another. You’re the Chosen of Anthros because the All Father and Anthros are connected. When he created Boran it did more than fracture the balance of good and evil. It opened the All Father to darkness. It opened you to Anthros. The wolf existed in part within the All Father. The plague was always there. The plague was always inside of you.”

  “I didn’t get the plague from bees?” Abagail asked.

  Surt shook his head with the sound of rocks tumbling downhill. “You got the plague the moment Anthros realized where you were. The moment he found where the All Father had exiled himself, Anthros struck, and the plague bloomed on your palm.”

  Abagail looked at the silken glove over her hand in astonishment. She’d always known that she couldn’t possibly have picked the plague up from the bees; every inch of her had been covered. She had been protected.

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe you.”

  “There is one person you will believe,” Surt told her. “Come, All Father.”

  That name again. It angered Abagail. It made her mad that just a name could make her feel the way she did,

  Surt crossed the Forge, rounded the giant anvil, and headed for the door in the back. Abagail jogged to catch up. The heat of the air burned her lungs with the exertion to keep pace with Surt. The giant didn’t slow for her.

  Probably thinks a god can keep up better, she scoffed.

  Surt appraised her with a raised . . . Does he even have eyebrows? She wondered. There was a ridge where people would have eyebrows . . .

  The moment she stepped out of the door in the back of the Forge, Abagail stopped in her tracks. There was no way anyone could have reached this part of Muspelheim without coming through the Forge. A ravine closed off the back sides of the Forge, allowing only private access to this part. A blackened road led down through rippling expanses of basalt, down it wound into a valley. Abagail could hardly believe her eyes. At the base of the valley was lush, green vegetation.

  “What is this?” Abagail asked, stepping forward to get a better look at the verdant landscape at the bottom of the valley.

  “That lake,” Surt said, pointing to an aqua lake in the center of the valley. Abagail saw that water streamed into the lake from a grotto in the back. “That’s where the Well of Wyrding connects to Muspelheim.”

  “Is that why everything is so green there?”

  “The Well of Wyrding thrives with life. The waters have seeded this lowest part of Muspelheim with that same life.”

  Surt gave her a moment to get her bearings before he set off down the trail. Abagail didn’t bother trying to keep up. Surt was headed down into the valley. From her vantage point she’d be able to see him wherever he was down there. She didn’t need to worry about being left behind.

  The basalt slowly gave way to thin stalks of grass. The life from the base of the valley was crawling up to the top of the valley. Abagail wondered how long it would be before all of Muspelheim was filled with this wyrded life from the waters of the well.

  Sparse grass faded into tall stalks of hay that whispered at her passing, brushing together in a wind created by the heat that swirled through Muspelheim. It sounded like voices in the wind. The smell of the hay and the heat came to Abagail. She could smell the waters now also. She’d never really thought water to have a smell, but climbing down the hill toward the lake she could smell the water. It smelled of life, and storms.

  In the tall grass she could see saplings sprouting. Abagail wondered how quickly the waters of the Well of Wyrding worked. How long would it be before the base of the valley was a forest? She wasn’t sure, and she didn’t know if Surt could quantify time the way she did on O and Agaranth.

  Surt slowed as he closed in on the edge of the pool. It was several more moments before Abagail stopped beside him. She turned back the way they’d came and let her eyes marvel at the sight of the Forge so high above them, like a black tower of doom looming over the emerald haven they stood in.

  The water behind her lulled her into peacefulness and her mind remembered another river gliding over the edges of Eget Row to tumble downward into the inky void of the cosmos. Elivigar, she recalled the name.

  Unlike Elivigar, there was no tendrils of malaise running through this water.

  “We are here,” Surt
said. “This place might feel better on your human skin.”

  “But I’m not human,” Abagail said. “If what you tell me is true, I’m not human at all. I’m fire-etin and birth golem.”

  “None-the-less, you’ve been raised as a human, and you’ve grown accustomed to their climate. This is better suited for you.”

  Surt motioned for Abagail to sit. She lowered herself down to the soft grass at the bank of the river, and sat on her heels. Surt knelt by the side of the river and leaned forward. He placed a rocky finger into the water. When his fissured finger came in contact with the waters of the well, steam hissed into the air. The water bubbled around his finger as the heat of his skin brought it to a boil.

  He removed his finger, sat back, and waited.

  Abagail’s attention was drawn to the grotto at the back of the lake when she saw a shadow slip out of the opening, under the surface of the water. The figure swam toward them, creating a ripple in their wake. The mermaid didn’t use her hands, just her powerful tail. She glided toward them faster than Abagail would have thought possible.

  The mermaid rose up, aqua water streaming down her dark flesh, over her bare breasts. Her black hair streamed down her back before fanning out around her when it reached the water. Her nails were purple and long. Her fin matched her nails in a deeper plum.

  “Surt, All Father,” the mermaid said.

  Abagail frowned.

  “Bellvin,” Surt said. “This is Abagail. Abagail, this is Bellvin; she carries the sight of the Norn.”

  “She’s a Norn?” Abagail asked.

  “In a way,” Bellvin said. Her voice was strange. Thick with an accent that Abagail didn’t recognize. “The Norn aren’t so much physical beings as they are powers. They run through us with the site. I channel Urd, the Norn of the past.”

  “And it’s for that reason I’ve called you,” Surt told her. “Abagail requires answers.”

  “I know what you seek, All Father. You’re not ready for the God Slayer yet. Too much darkness runs through you still.” Bellvin ignored Surt.