A Lament of Moonlight Read online

  “Right, we know this already. Daniken did a bang up job trying to convince us to the side of the dark elves.”

  “She may have failed in convincing you, but I think Rorick was easily swayed. Leona is young and naïve. She is smart, but I think without you around, guiding her, she would be susceptible to anyone who made her feel comforted.”

  Abagail opened her mouth to argue, but closed it. Celeste was right. Leona had taken to Daniken quickly. “I have to believe that in the end she will choose right. She did with the dark elf.”

  “Just stick with her, don’t let the dark elves get their clutches into her. Skye and Mari will monitor the two of them closely, but they won’t be able to watch them at all times.” Celeste sighed and glanced away from Abagail. When she looked back there was a hardened resolve in her eyes. “You can’t trust everyone around you. You can’t choose who sticks by you, but you can choose who you stick by. Don’t feel you need to rescue those that don’t want to be saved just because you were close to them at one point in time.”

  “Why would it matter if the dark elves got to them or not?” Abagail wondered. “What purpose would that serve?”

  “With humans also arguing their side, the dark elves would certainly win the argument on if the scepters were opened or not. If humans seem to be in agreement with striking a blow through all the worlds, then the elves will cave.”

  “It sounds like the decision was already made, though.” Abagail said. “It hardly seems likely that it will change now.”

  “Garth is old and feeble. Many of the light elves see this. He has gone against the wishes of his clan. I don’t think he will be in power much longer. But, if the dark elves have humans on their side, the light elves as a whole might be swayed. At that point, no argument against it will do any good.”

  Abagail wanted to brush it all off as elf politics and not get involved, but how could she? This was an attack on all the worlds and all races that weren’t beings of light. Granted there was no concrete evidence that the scepters would destroy everything once opened, but that wasn’t a chance she wanted to gamble with.

  Abagail sighed in resignation. A headache was forming behind her eyes, and the cold wind was doing nothing to ease the throb. “Where will you be?” she asked Celeste.

  “I’m one of the scouting elves who keeps an eye out on the darklings within our borders. There are several of us, and we each have our own section. I share this section with several other elves. That’s why I was in Bauer Hall that day when you arrived.”

  “Does anyone know where Mattelyn is?” Abagail wondered. “There seems to be a lot of importance surrounding Bauer Hall for her to be some random person no one knows where she is.”

  Celeste looked behind her, but they were out of earshot of the others. “Your aunt doesn’t go by that name any longer.”

  “Okay, so that means you know something about her.”

  Celeste nodded. “She is one of the council members at the harbinger settlement. Her name is now Rowan.”

  Abagail frowned. “Why did she change her name?”

  “Because darklings were hunting her. I can’t tell you much about the family because I don’t know much. Your father is a hunted man, for whatever reason. The Bauer family was split apart by the darkling wyrd. Your aunt barely escaped with her life and took residence with her brethren, the harbingers of light. She changed her name in an attempt to keep the darklings from finding her.”

  “But you know her name,” Abagail pointed out. “She couldn’t have been too secretive about it.”

  “That’s assuming that I’m just a run of the mill elf. I’m in touch with intelligence that most elves aren’t.”

  “Because of being a scout?” Abagail asked.

  Celeste nodded.

  “So my aunt is with the harbingers. Is that why you are taking us to her?” Abagail asked.

  “In part.”

  “What’s the other reason?”

  “You saw it when Leona killed Daniken. The dark elves need the blood of an unclaimed harbinger to open the scepters. I was lucky in meeting you when you first came through the mirror. But others are getting wind of your being here, and you won’t be safe for long.”

  Dolan stepped into the gathering hall. Long tables covered in white fabric stood empty along the hall. Chairs where people had once sat were now covered in dust. There were plates and utensils, but no food.

  “I remember this place before,” Dolan said, running a finger along one dusty plate. “Filled with laughter and music.”

  “It was a grand hall,” Heimdall nodded. “It hasn’t been that way in a very long time.”

  “Why did the gods leave?” Dolan asked, glancing to the front of the room where two ivory thrones sat. One was for Hafaress, a sun emblazoned upon the top of the back. It glowed and danced with light, though the Light of the Waking Eye was no longer here. The other was the seat of Vilda, a moon hanging in the air above the back of the throne.

  “Hafaress left for the hammer,” Heimdall said. If there was accusation in his voice, Dolan didn’t acknowledge it. “The All Father for another reason.”

  “And that was?”

  Heimdall settled himself in one of the chairs, his clothing whispering along the cloud covered floor. “When you left, the All Father had another child. Boran was his name.”

  “But…how?”

  “How did the All Father have children?” Heimdall asked, spreading his hands wide. “A simple division of self. Boran was tall, and he was dark. So different from all the other gods. He was to be the peace of the worlds. For a time, after he was born, peace did reign.”

  “But then it didn’t,” Dolan said, taking a seat opposite Heimdall.

  “Because Boran was murdered,” Heimdall said. His frosty eyes bore into Dolan.

  “How?” Dolan wondered. “How was he destroyed if the God Slayer was taken from the Ever After?”

  “That’s what the All Father went to find out,” Heimdall said. “He’s been gone for several human years. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  Dolan was speechless. He stared at the dirty plate before him realizing that the death of the God of Peace had done more to damage all of the worlds than his stealing the hammer ever could.

  “But I don’t understand. The God Slayer is said to be the only thing that can kill a god.”

  “Apparently there is another God Slayer.”

  “Two.” Dolan was dizzy with the thought. “Then who has it? Who has it and why haven’t they attacked the Ever After yet?”

  Heimdall spread his hands wide. “That I couldn’t tell you.”

  “The darkling gods?”

  “One would think that was the probable culprit.”

  Dolan watched the clouds drift by outside the windows. Beyond the white veil of light and clouds he glimpsed the endless starry field of Eget Row. In the distance there was a burst of white light, and he could feel the vibration and music the explosion created.

  “Can I see Boran?” Dolan asked.

  Heimdall frowned and shifted in his chair. “I don’t like that idea.”

  “What am I going to do? Kill him?”

  “Very well,” Heimdall said, his eyes hard.

  Heimdall led him out behind the thrones and down a staircase that looped out into the starry abyss beyond the Ever After. Each step glowed like a rainbow beneath their feet. Each step resonated with a tone, deeper and darker as they descended until they stood before an iron gateway like Dolan had seen in graveyards on O.

  Heimdall laid his hand against the gate, and it whispered open to a dark chamber. When the God of the Crossroads stepped into the sepulcher of the gods, torches flickered to life. It was a long ivory hall with several recesses along the wall. An empty stone table adorned each opening, except one.

  Dolan swallowed hard around a cold lump in his throat. Falteringly his feet followed Heimdall until they stood before the second to the last alcove on the right.

  “Here lies Boran,” Heimdal
l said, stepping to the left so Dolan could inspect the fallen god.

  His hands shivered in the presence of the slain god as he’d always quivered before the gods. Even in death he held such great power.

  Dolan’s hands drifting toward the black skin of Boran’s bare chest.

  Dolan touched one tentative hand to the black flesh of the God of Peace. He was cold, like marble, but that wasn’t anything special. The gods had always been cold.

  Boran was tall and muscular without appearing bulky. His black hair was silky soft and lay in loose curls around his head. His closed lids were cast in pink, and his skin seemed to shimmer as if lit from underneath. From the waist down he was wrapped in white cloth, like Heimdall. Beside him, to the back of the alcove, rested a shield and a helm. No weapon.

  “A spear,” Dolan said, indicating the wound on the side of the god. It was still wet with blood, though he had died so long ago. “Another weapon.”

  “There’s only one who could create such a weapon,” Heimdall said.

  “Forged in the fires of Muspelheim,” Dolan said. “Another God Slayer.”

  They were silent for a long time, Dolan taking in the image of the fallen god.

  “Do you think this is where the All Father went? Do you think he has gone to see Surt?”

  “The All Father would never travel to the lands of the fire giants and devils.” Heimdall looked at Dolan as if he’d just lost all sense.

  “I always thought the prophecies spoke of Hafaress dying,” Dolan said.

  “As did we all,” Heimdall said. “The day approaches when the horn of winter will call all to battle.”

  The thought sent a thrill through Dolan. “I have to find my daughters.”

  “And what will you do when you find them?” Heimdall asked.

  “We will look for the other God Slayer.”

  “It could be anywhere,” Heimdall said. “How did you steal Hafaress’ hammer anyway?”

  “That’s a long story,” Dolan said.

  Heimdall smiled broadly. “Olik always was a trickster.”

  Dolan let out a nervous breath and smiled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Like when you had the hammer made?” Heimdall asked. He had lost his smile.

  The making of Hafaress’ hammer wasn’t something Dolan liked talking about. It was a dark time in the Ever After when the hammer had been made. “No, not like that at all.”

  “Good,” Hafaress said.

  “I need to find my daughters,” Dolan said. With the mention of the making of the hammer Dolan didn’t feel welcome any longer. He realized there were reasons other than the stealing of the God Slayer that he wasn’t exactly welcome in the Ever After.

  Dolan made his way from the tomb and found the invisible stairs that led out of the Ever After and down to Eget Row. The sound of Elivigar rushing over the edge of Eget Row and down into the inky abyss of the cosmos rose up to great him. He glanced into the crystal blue waters. It was hard to believe that the currents of black that ran through Elivigar were toxic. He often wondered when Gorjugan and Hilda had been tossed out of the Ever After, if it was the very toxins of Elivigar that had corrupted them, marking them as darklings.

  As he thought of Hilda his eyes traveled over the edge of the rainbow bridge to the wink of flames he saw under Eget Row. Her boat of the damned was making its way along the stars.

  But the flames didn’t remind him of his sister. Another moment in time was on his mind, thanks to Heimdall’s pressing about the God Slayer.

  “A gift for Hafaress?” Surt asked, the giant’s voice low and gravely.

  “Yes. He’s recently fallen in love, and I would like to…celebrate it.” Olik said, clasping his hands before his waist.

  “Excellent,” Surt said, a wicked grin spreading on his monstrous red face.

  Clouds of smoke and ash whistled through the air above Leona’s head. Beneath her bare feet was a red, cracked road. It was hot, but in the dream it didn’t blister her feet as it might in life. A scalding breeze tore at the white satin of her gown, urging her forward.

  She was on a path through a lake of lava, and she knew that whatever the dream was to show her laid at the other end of the path, ahead of her.

  Leona turned to look behind her. There was nothing but towering flames and the feeling of eyes upon her skin. She was being watched. No, that wasn’t precisely right. She was being hunted.

  She stumbled forward, the thought raising the hair on the back of her head and causing her breath to catch in her throat.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wouldn’t run through this land. She wouldn’t show that she was afraid, no matter how hard her heart hammered in her chest. Leona Bauer would walk, and so she did. One steady foot before the other.

  As she walked the heat of the road charred her flesh, blackening the soles of her feet. Flames spouted up through the beds of lava at either side of the path. As the towering fire reached skyward, screams issued into the air.

  A fine mist began to fall, light and scarlet around her. The satin of her dress picked up the rain, tainting the gown with flecks of blood. Leona clenched her fists and pushed on. There was laughter behind her, a knowing wicked laugh that cut daggers of frost through her skin.

  Before long she could hear grunting and hammering ahead. There was a throb of power in the air, a wind of malcontent that pulled her forward as the power on the breeze drove toward its master.

  A spark of light ahead of her marked each grunt and each chink of hammer on iron. She wrapped her arms around her chest as the chill of the deadly power leaked through her defenses. It was darkling wyrd, and it spoke of corruption and the undoing of the world.

  The feel of the malicious wyrd on the wind made Leona wish for the safety of her own bed. The safety of home and the reassurance of Dolan.

  Olik, the familiar voice of Skuld spoke into her mind. For whatever reason, though she’d never seen the entity, she felt comforted knowing she wasn’t alone in this place, this hell.

  Who’s Olik? She wondered at Skuld, but the spirit didn’t say anything. Where am I? she asked.

  Muspelheim. Just watch, Skuld commanded.

  And then the scene opened up before her. A woman hung upside down from the basalt ceiling, her throat slit, blood dripping down a wash of blond hair to the anvil beneath it. Beside the anvil, wielding the largest hammer Leona had ever seen was a red giant, seemingly made of the same bloody rocks that made up the pathway behind her.

  I know who that is, Leona thought. That’s Surt.

  There was no word from Skuld, just the feeling of agreement.

  But who is that woman? She wondered.

  Filis, the true love of Hafaress, Skuld told her. Human.

  Leona had never heard that tale, but deep in her soul she knew it to be true. She knew how this played out. Surt toiled away over the hammer, and as she watched, Leona felt the anger boil up inside of her. And then she was lost to the dream.

  With sure feet she strode forward.

  Surt raised his hammer one last time, but there it paused. His black eyes cut through the gloom of Muspelheim and fixed on her. His lips parted and a laugh bubbled out. He dropped his hammer and strode around the anvil to face Leona.

  “Do you like your new hammer, Hafaress?” Surt asked. He held up a clawed hand to indicate Filis. “When Olik requested I make you a gift, I knew exactly what needed to be done. At least now she can always be with you!”

  Leona didn’t break her stride, though internally her mind recoiled at being called Hafaress. She struck out at the giant, her fist catching him firmly in the chest. Surt shuttled backwards, crashing through the blackened wall behind the anvil.

  Leona raced around the edge of the anvil and peered through the hole the giant made when he struck, but there was nothing beyond but flames and lava.

  Surt was gone.

  Leona turned back to the scene, a moan of despair bubbling to her lips. She stumbled forward, crashing to her knee
s. Tears burned her cheeks as she looked up at the ashen figure of Filis. Her vision blurred. Leona dashed tears away from her eyes and stood to remove the body from the ceiling, but as she did, Filis faded to shadows and drifted away. A light flashed and the soul of Filis was gone.

  She would look for her later in the Ever After. Maybe then they could be together. But she knew the wyrd she’d felt. Filis was gone for good. The only thing that remained of her was whatever blood the weapon on the anvil had drank.

  Her eyes drifted to the anvil and there lay an iron hammer with a leather wrapped hilt.

  “Oh, Hafaress,” a voice said as Leona started to stir from slumber. “I had no idea that he would do that.” The voice was familiar to her, but as she spiraled up out of the dream she couldn’t grasp where she’d heard it. “But the power. At least Surt made it for the purpose I intended.”

  Leona sat up. Her eyes were watering and she wasn’t sure if it was from the dream or if her eyes were adjusting to the brightness of the winter day.

  Mari was sitting up, her head in her hands, her eyes closed. Skye said something to her quietly, and she winced as he spoke. Leona decided not to bother them.

  Abagail was standing to her left, staring out into the snowy plains that they would cross that day. The wind blew ruffling her sister’s short dark hair. Leona pushed to her feet, fastened the moon scepter to her back, and went to her sister’s side.

  Abagail smiled at her, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Have you thought about how much things have changed in such a short time?” Abagail asked her.

  Leona nodded. At her sister’s words she couldn’t help but remember the dream.

  “Do you ever think we will make it home?” Abagail asked.

  “Do you want to go home?” Leona quirked an eyebrow at her sister.

  “What does that mean?” Abagail wondered.

  “Just, besides father, what’s holding us to O? There’s nothing but worry and fear there that we will be thrown to the light of the Waking Eye for being different. Even if you learn to control the shadow plague, they will burn you for a darkling. If they ever found out I could see the future because of an entity in my head, they would probably do the same to me.” Leona shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like much of a life to return to.”