The Chosen of Anthros Page 4

  “My protégé, Gilphig, will be your sparring partner.”

  “Sparring? Like sword fighting?” Abagail asked, her eyebrows knitting together.

  “No, as in wyrded battle.”

  “How does that work? What if he gets injured?”

  Rowan laughed. “It’s funny that you’re more worried about him than yourself. We have precautions, don’t worry. Now, as for your abilities. You will learn to control the waking and sleeping eye as well as your fire abilities.”

  “Fire abilities?” Leona asked, coming to attention.

  “I don’t have any fire abilities,” Abagail said.

  “You do, you just haven’t allowed them to surface yet. We will help you with that.” Rowan turned to Leona then. “And what about you, will you be training with your sister as well?”

  Leona frowned at the harbinger. “I only have the power of the scepter and the hammer.”

  “That’s not true at all,” she said. “You have those mental powers of yours. That’s a harbinger power.”

  “But…I wasn’t infected,” Leona argued.

  “You don’t always have to be infected to be a harbinger. The plague doesn’t give you powers, you’re born with them. The plague just feeds on those powers and brings them out. It’s in the confusion of trying to figure out these new powers that the plague is allowed to grow.” Rowan leaned back and motioned with her hand. “You have power. You are both destined to be harbingers.”

  Leona looked stunned. She nodded woodenly. “If I can learn to control my sight, then yes, by all means I will.”

  “Good,” Rowan said, slapping her hand on the table. “Now, I will let you settle in. I will collect you all in the morning.” With that Rowan Bauer left, the door thumping shut behind them.

  “I call the bathroom first,” Leona said.

  “I really think I need it,” Rorick chimed in.

  “Nope. I call first round in it,” Abagail said, itching under her arm.

  “Well, I get it fair and square,” Leona said, putting her hand on the doorknob. She was closer to the bathroom, and barred the way in. “I’m a girl,” she told Rorick. “And, if it wasn’t for you, Abbie, we wouldn’t be in this situation and I wouldn’t be dirty.”

  Leona smiled widely and Abagail groaned at her sister. “Alright, you win. Don’t take forever.”

  “Maybe you can make something to eat while I’m cleaning up?” Leona suggested.

  “Don’t press your luck,” Abagail told her, but she was already talking to the closed bathroom door.

  Leona took less time than Abagail had expected. She came out of the bathroom toweling off her short blond hair.

  “I’ve never seen a bathtub like that,” she said. “You’re gonna love it. Let me show you.” She took Abagail by the hand and led her inside the warm chamber. Under the large tub was a bed of rocks. Flames licked between the rocks, heating the bottom of the tub. To the back of the tub were levers. It was to the levers that Leona went.

  She pulled down on them and water began pouring in through a trough under the levers. When the water hit the bottom of the tub, steam rose into the air.

  “Don’t worry, the tub won’t burn you, the water is cold.”

  Abagail shut the door behind them and started stripping down. She could barely recognize the girl she once was in the tall mirror on the back of the door. Her dark hair was a bit longer, her skin marred with dirt. The shadows of the plague wreathed her elbow like a malignant bracelet. Shadows of a different sort hung deep beneath her eyes. It would be good to get clean, be full, and have a nice sleep in a bed.

  “You didn’t seem to think anything strange about being a harbinger,” Abagail said, going to the toilet. Leona was facing the mirror now, drying her hair off more. For several long moments the only sound was the trickling of water into the tub.

  It wasn’t until Abagail was stepping into the tub that Leona spoke. The water sloshed around Abagail in a strange way both warm and cool. She leaned back in the tub with a sigh.

  “Well, we’ve known for a while I was a seer,” Leona said. “That wasn’t any surprise there. At least for me,” she said, firing a glance over her shoulder at Abagail. She raised her eyebrow.

  Abagail laughed. It felt good to be relaxed enough to laugh again. “Alright, I admit it, I was wrong about your being able to see things and talk to entities no one else could.”

  “Thank you,” Leona said. She dragged a comb through her hair. “But yea, it’s a little strange learning that I’m a harbinger. But honestly, it doesn’t change anything. It’s not like I have any more power than I did before.”

  Abagail ducked her head under the water to soak her hair. She came back up and scrubbed water out of her eyes.

  “I wonder why the darklings didn’t come after you?” Abagail wondered.

  “Maybe they were,” Leona said quietly.

  “What do you mean?” Abagail asked. Picking up a bar of scented soap she lathered her hands up good.

  “That’s not for your hair,” Leona said, coming back to the tub. She handed Abagail a jar with a strange iridescent purple liquid inside.

  Abagail frowned at it, but opened the jar and poured some of the soap in her hand. Leona closed the jar for her as Abagail started lathering up her hair.

  “Anyway, Daniken seemed to be after me for some reason,” Leona said, sitting on the floor beside the tub. “That’s the only darkling influence I can think of.” She shrugged.

  “That’s true,” Abagail said.

  “And I’m not infected. It sounds from what Rowan said that you have to be infected for the darklings to have much sway over your power.”

  Abagail nodded then ducked back under the water and rinsed her hair.

  “What do you think about Rowan?” Leona asked when she surfaced.

  “I think she’s going to be a handful trying to understand,” Abagail told her. She picked up the bar of soap again and started scrubbing down.

  “I mean, what do you think about her not really being our aunt?” Leona asked.

  Abagail shrugged. “It’s kind of a relief.”

  “How do you figure?” Leona wondered.

  “Well, at least it’s not like Dolan was keeping family from us,” Abagail said.

  It didn’t go past Leona’s notice that Abagail didn’t call him dad.

  “What about you?” Abagail wondered.

  “It’s strange,” Leona admitted. “We really are without family now. We are here alone. Who’s to say that Rowan has our best interest at heart?”

  “That’s true,” Abagail said, setting the soap down. “But who’s to say if she was our blood that she would have any kind of inkling to help us? Just look at her and Fortarian. Brother and sister and she acts like she’d rather burn him instead of look at him.”

  “You’re probably right,” Leona said, pushing to a stand. “How’s dinner coming along?”

  “Rorick and I had found some canned food. Soups mostly. We were too tired to start a fire in the stove, so they were warming on the hearth before I came in here.”

  “Alright, I will see if he needs any help.”

  The night passed without much incident. When they heard the noise of several harbingers coming back to their part of Haven, the three of them were heading upstairs to check out their lodging.

  The narrow staircase led up to a small sitting room that opened up onto a hallway. The hall had four doors along its length, and at the end of the hall a window sat above a stand with an oil lamp on it. Rorick lit the lamp and brought it back to the first door.

  “I want one of these,” he told them. “If someone gets into the house, I want to be nearest the stairs” The look in his eye told Abagail there wasn’t any arguing with him.

  Worried that darklings are going to try to kill us no doubt. Wanting to protect us like he couldn’t protect his family.

  She nodded. “Then Leona and I will take the back two.”

  Leona was already headed to the room in the bac
k right. “They are all the same size.” She reported.

  Abagail opened the door of the back left room. It was large enough that she didn’t feel cramped, but the room didn’t have much furnishings that weren’t practical. A bed large enough for one person, a dresser for clothes, and a shelf for books. A stand beside the bed had a lamp on it, but she was too tired to worry about lighting the lamp or settling in that night. Instead she closed the door, stripped off her clothes, and sunk into the bed.

  The first bed she’d slept in since coming to Agaranth.

  She was nearly asleep before her head hit the pillow.

  Outside two shadowed forms looked up at the window. They could feel Abagail’s presence there.

  “Do you think this is what we’ve been looking for?” the raven haired sister asked her twin. “Do you think she’s the one?”

  “If not, she can lead us to the one.”

  “She has the eyes,” Huginn said.

  “That she does. It’s not unheard of though. Better to watch and see,” Muninn told her sister. “Just watch and see how things unfold.”

  Huginn nodded and turned her gaze back up to the window.

  “Did you come alone?” the voice said from out of the darkness of the Fey Forest. The woods were silent that night. The sky covered with clouds, but still her heightened sight allowed her to see the form of the man approaching the edge of the forest through the field of snow.

  Behind the shadowed figure, off in the distance the glow of New Landanten called to her like a welcoming beacon. Soon, she thought. What it would be like to walk those streets again. But this time when her bare feet brushed the frozen cobbles, it wouldn’t be as a dark elf. Oh no, this time she would be so much more. This time she would rule!

  “Who would be following me?” the man asked. He stayed within the shadows. Even though that other presence within Daniken told her who he was, she let him skulk in the shadows. It suited him. People like him belonged to the shadows.

  Darklings! She seethed. They were the cause of all of this and she would see every last one of those plague bearers dead, no matter if they claimed to work in the light. It made her frosted skin crawl to think she had to work so close with them.

  But not much longer, the other voice in her head told her. Soon you will be free from them, and they will pay for what they’ve done to my home.

  “Many people,” Daniken said, mentally brushing the angry voice in her head aside.

  “Believe me, no one suspects me,” he said. His shadowy form leaned against a tree.

  “So be it,” she waved a frosty hand at him.

  “You’ve changed,” he said.

  Daniken ignored him.

  “Something is happening in New Landanten,” she told him.

  The man shrugged. “The harbingers came back tonight with a couple new recruits, and a harbinger of darkness is being kept under close observation.”

  “Not that,” she shook her head. “Some power is rising in New Landanten. Soon the dark elves will hold the power there.”

  “As I suspected,” the man told her. His voice was low, but she could still hear him.

  “Will you be ready to act when the time comes?”

  “You mean when Charissa finally does away with Garth?”

  Daniken frowned, even though he couldn’t see it. “I really hope you’re alone, for your sake.”

  The man straightened at the dangerous glint in her voice.

  “Yes. When things come to pass, I will be ready to act,” the man bowed his head.

  That’s better. Learn your place, human.

  Several quiet moments passed as Daniken watched shadows of people passing before braziers through the elven city. Lights shown out of tall buildings, people still fast at work while others played.

  “And when will you be returning?” he wondered.

  “Soon enough,” Daniken told him. “Soon enough.”

  “I know of what you seek, All Father,” Surt said. The one-eyed boy could barely see the fire giant through the towering flames that surrounded them. The heat in Muspelheim was enough to make him sweat, if a god could sweat.

  His bare feet took him closer to the central chamber within the Forge; the place that created all the fires of Muspelheim. It was said if something couldn’t be crafted in Muspelheim, there was nowhere in all of the Void that it could be made.

  “It is no small task,” Surt told him. The fiery red giant turned from his anvil and looked at the Child God. Surt was like a towering pillar of glowing red embers. Seemingly made of rock, fissures blazed like lava along the length of his body. His lips were black, and parted in a hideous smile when he saw the uncertainty in the All Father’s eye.

  “Skuld gave you the sight,” Surt said. It wasn’t a question. “She told me that you knew what had happened when you gave birth to Boran. And now you need the help of the fire-etins to clean up your cosmic mess.”

  The All Father glanced to the left where a pool of wyrd stood by the anvil. Where most forges had a bucket of water to cool their crafting, Muspelheim had a bucket of wyrd, fed directly from the Well of Wyrding. It was that way the Norn were able to communicate with this fiery realm.

  “Why should I help you?” Surt asked him.

  The All Father shook his head and glanced up at the giant, who was still appraising him with coal black eyes. “Us fire-etins that you’ve deemed demons. Why should we help you at all?”

  “Because it would help you in doing so,” the All Father said.

  “And how is that?” Surt asked, crossing his gigantic arms over his chest and leaning against his anvil. As he rested the flames around Muspelheim seemed to calm as well.

  “I fear if I don’t correct my mistake, the end will come upon us sooner than we want,” the All Father said.

  “Ragnarok,” Surt whispered. The giant shivered. There was little that could make a fire-etin cold.

  “When the Void goes dark. The light of the Waking Eye goes black. The Sleeping Eye closes forever,” the All Father said.

  “And the winter of the frost giants freeze the lands of Muspelheim, plunging the Forge into winter as all lands are feeling,” Surt said. His eyes were miles away, as if he was seeing what his realm would look like once Ragnarok came. “Already the frost giants are besieging the nine worlds. The warmth of my Forge isn’t reaching as far as it should.”

  “Helvegr,” the All Father whispered.

  “The path to Hel. The path to death. When the birth golems will rise up and take over all the nine worlds.” Surt came back to himself. “All of this you’ve brought upon us because of your desire to be rid of the darklings?”

  “To be rid of the darklings is to be rid of Ragnarok, to be free of Helvegr.”

  “You know it is nothing you can stop,” Surt told him.

  The All Father shook his head. “I can’t stop it, but I can delay it.”

  “And in so doing you’ve sped it up.”

  “But you can help me. You can insure that the fires of your Forge burn bright for eons to come.”

  “All I need to do is make you a weapon,” Surt nodded. “And what is this weapon?”

  “You know full well what this weapon is,” the All Father said.

  “Under one condition,” Surt stepped away from the anvil. “Once you’ve used it for your purpose, it comes back to Muspelheim.”

  “Why?” the All Father asked.

  “And still you don’t trust the fire-etin.” Surt rumbled out a laugh. “Hilda is closer to us than she is to any other world. It is here that she will strike first.”

  “You’re wrong,” the All Father said. “Anthros will lead Ragnarok.”

  “He may lead it, but he won’t be fighting alone. When Hilda comes, we need protection from her. I will only make this weapon for you if you return it when you’re done.”

  “And why not just make yourself another one?” the All Father asked.

  “Because, this is the only time I have a god here before me, willing to give up
their blood to make such a weapon,” Surt told him.

  The All Father nodded.

  For thirteen days and nights the All Father hung upside down from the basalt ceiling, blood dribbling from self-inflicted wounds while Surt toiled away beneath him. The fires of the Forge worked the iron, the waters of the Well of Wyrding tempered the metal.

  When finally the All Father was lowered back to the ground of Muspelheim the spear was whole.

  “What has gotten into you, All Father?” Surt asked. “Isn’t there any other way to correct what you’ve done?”

  The All Father was silent for a time as he stared at the cruel looking hooked spear in his hand. Finally he spoke.

  “I’m divided, Surt,” he whispered.

  Surt crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the All Father to continue.

  “I’ve been chosen,” he said, looking up at Surt. “I’ve been chosen by Anthros to confront him at the end of time.”

  “When did this happen?” Surt asked.

  “The moment I created Boran. The creation has done something to me,” the All Father said. “I can feel Anthros just as plain as I can feel my own heart beating. He comes to me in my dreams. A lovely albino man with eyes as clear as Elivigar.”

  “But you will defeat him at Ragnarok,” Surt said with certainty. “You will destroy him when it really matters.”

  The All Father smirked and hefted the spear. “Let’s hope prophecy is wrong or all might fail.”

  “Abbie!” the pounding on the door sounded again.

  “Open it!” Leona cried.

  “I can’t, the handle is too hot!” Rorick called back.

  “Abagail, open up!” Leona yelled.

  Abagail coughed through the thick air and sat up in bed. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was or how she’d gotten there. The memory of the dream was still clouding too much of her thoughts.

  For that matter, the smoke filling up the bedroom didn’t seem out of place either because of her previous vision of Muspelheim. But as she came more to herself she felt the heat that was steadily increasing around her.

  Abagail shrieked and jumped off the bed. The coverings were smoking, smoldering beneath her hand.