A Plague of Shadows (12 page)

“That would make sense,” Celeste said.

“The troubling thing is that entities are able to cross Eget Row so easily. How often does that happen?” Rorick wondered.

“Hmm,” Celeste said, wondering. “That I can’t be sure of. It doesn’t seem like something that would happen much at all, but things are changing lately, the balance is tipping in the favor of darkness, and wyrd is going haywire. Likely it’s throwing off some wyrded laws that dictate that kind of thing.”

“So it’s easy for darklings to come and go between worlds?” Leona asked.

“There’s no need to worry about that,” Celeste said. “Heimdall guards Eget Row, he doesn’t easily let the shadow pass between worlds.”

“But he lets the shadow pass sometimes?” Abagail wondered.

“The shadow has always been in the worlds, it’s not something that originated in one point and then spread. Since the beginning of time there’s always been shadow, there’s always been light.”

The forest was dark inside despite the brightness of the day outside. The trees were almost impossibly tall, and the canopy of the forest so dense that little snow had penetrated to the ground. The further they traveled away from Mattelyn’s house, the less the snow had been able to drift into the forest.

But the forest was like a dream of some distant fairyland, the branches and needles of the coniferous trees seemed soft, almost velvety.

“Is winter always like this?” Rorick asked.

“Like what?” Abagail wondered. “Cold? Winter is always cold.”

Rorick snickered. “Dumb question I guess.”

“Little bit,” Leona agreed.

“This is summer,” Celeste said. Abagail was about to laugh, but the mournful look on Celeste’s face told her that the woman wasn’t joking around.

“Summer looks a lot like winter,” Rorick said. Abagail smacked him in the stomach and he groaned. He was walking behind Celeste so he couldn’t see that she wasn’t playing around with them.

“So hasn’t spring, and fall, and winter for the last two turns. This is the third year of winter,” Celeste told them.

“Winter only lasts a few months on O,” Leona told her.

“Normally it only lasts a few months here, too,” Celeste said. “But the last winter never went away. This is the third straight year of winter.”

Abagail was speechless. She stared about the Fey Forest wondering what was happening. The wood was silent, there was no trace of birds or insects, like one would normally hear in the summer, and likely that was because of the winter-like conditions.

“The winters have been getting worse on O as well,” Abagail told her.

“They should prepare,” Celeste said. “The stronger the hold of the darkling, the longer the dead season will last.”

“Heimdall said something about frost giants,” Rorick said. “Do you think the winter is lasting longer because they are here?”

“They came after winter settled in that first spring. They weren’t here before, or at least not this far south. They’ve moved further south out of their arctic north because winter is moving and allows them larger places to roam . . . more game to hunt.”

Abagail shivered not needing to ask what kind of game the frost giants hunted.

Abagail tried to keep her eyes rooted to the wooded path before them, but her sight kept being pulled away by the movement of shapeless shadows along the edge of the road.

“Pay them no mind,” Celeste said. “The more attention you give them the stronger their hold on you.” Her finger clanged against the sun scepter again, and the light of the weapon flared brighter, chasing away the darklings that lurked at the edge of the path.

“What is that?” Abagail asked Celeste when her hand yearned for the scepter again.

“This is the sun scepter,” Celeste said.

“But what does it do?” she asked.

“It’s said to be a part of the Waking Eye of the All Father, brought to Agaranth when the darkness started getting stronger here.”

“And you have the only one?” Leona asked. “Are you someone important?”

Celeste smiled. “No, not overly important. The elves are guardians of the light, we try all we can to chase back the darkness, the sun scepters, just as the moon scepters, were given to our race to help bring the Waking Father to bear on the darkling.”

“Where can I get one?” Leona wondered.

“Are you an elf?” Celeste asked her, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth.

“No,” Leona admitted.

“So, how far away is this town of harbingers?” Abagail asked.

“It’s not really a town, but I would say a good day or so traveling,” Celeste said.

“I thought you said the trip was going to be rough,” Rorick asked, his eyebrows knitting together.

“It will, because we have a harbinger with us,” Celeste said.

Abagail sighed.

“How long have you had the shadow plague?” Celeste asked her.

“Not long, a couple days,” Abagail admitted.

“Wow, and it’s already spread as far as it has?” she wondered, looking at the glove hiding Abagail’s hand from the world as if she could see the veins of the plague underneath.

“I fought off a darkling that was trying to get through a mirror in our house and on to Eget Row. Well, I didn’t know it was going to Eget Row initially, but I knew it wanted in the mirror and I knew I couldn’t let it. Daphne was there.”

Celeste nodded as if she already knew all of this. Maybe Daphne had told her, Abagail couldn’t be sure.

“Being a harbinger is hard,” Celeste said. “You have the choice of darkness and light within you, but you will constantly be tested, constantly tempted. Darkness will always try to get you to do wrong, you must resist. More evil will come to you now than you would ever have thought possible.” Celeste looked around them at the shadows beyond the edge of the trail. The glow of the sun scepter had diminished some, but Abagail was certain with another click of her finger, the light would flare back to life. “Darklings of all kind will hunt you down, trying to get you to their side of the balance.”

“But why won’t the light come to me as well?” Abagail wondered.

“Because that’s inside of you. The light wants you to make a choice of your own will. You have all the good you need inside of you, all you have to do is make the conscious choice to use it. Anger is a fast thought, choosing to do right is a steady knowing that comes with understanding the balance.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Abagail said.

“It doesn’t right now, but it will. It’s easier to hate than to love, but when you let yourself embrace the light, there won’t be any room for hatred.”

“But she has darkness inside of her also,” Leona said. “It doesn’t seem right that we don’t have any aid from the light.”

“What am I?” Celeste asked, and then laughed at the sheepish look on Leona’s face. “For that matter, what is Daphne? We are both agents of the light. The true choice, and the true battle, will happen inside of Abagail, no matter what forces she’s surrounded by.”

Abagail had already kind of figured that one out, but hearing someone else say it was a sobering moment for her. She let her mind drift to the edge of the road where the darklings waited for them to make one wrong step off the road.

If Celeste saw Abagail gazing at the temping darkness just outside of their protection she didn’t say anything. Abagail probably wouldn’t have paid her any mind anyway. If what Celeste said was true, she would have to get used to looking into the face of darkness and overcoming its allure.

But Abagail couldn’t find anything alluring about the darkness. It appeared much like fog, shapeless and swirling at the edge of the road. In the dim shadows of the Fey Forest, it was hard for Abagail to see much of anything to do with the darklings, they blended in so well with the surroundings.

Before long the darkness of twilight was descending on the Fey Forest, and they were stepping into the first clearing.

“Here Singer’s Trail envelopes the entire opening,” Celeste was telling them, gesturing widely with the sun scepter. “There is no need to worry about the darkling.”

But the snow was much deeper here where the canopy above hadn’t blocked out so much of the winter squalls. They busied themselves with clearing out a place to sleep for the night.

“What about a fire?” Leona asked, shivering against the cold of the evening and the sweat on her face that was starting to dry.

“Ah!” Celeste said, holding up the sun scepter. She tapped it once, and the metallic clang sounded around the clearing. The scepter flared brighter, and through the cold Abagail felt the heat ripple out of the scepter and waft over her body. Celeste stabbed the scepter into the ground, and the sunlight from the weapon refracted around the clearing, dancing off trees and alighting on the banks of snow they’d cleared away. “No need for fire, this will keep the light around us, and warm us through the night.”

“So it’s almost like the sun itself,” Rorick said, stepping forward to examine the scepter where it jutted out of the ground.

“Yes, legend says the sun scepters are actually from the Waking Eye, but who can tell?” Celeste sat herself down and pulled small bundles out of her pockets. “It isn’t much by way of food, and we will have to make it last, but here you go.” She passed around the small paper packets and they all gathered around the scepter.

Abagail didn’t want to sit down because she knew the moment she sat down she wouldn’t want to get back up. Her muscles were aching from walking all day, and she wanted to make sure the day was truly over before she rested.

Rorick eased down with a groan, and split open his packet. He spilled a handful of nuts and seeds out of the packet and into his hand. He ate hungrily.

Leona gathered up a fistful of snow and let it melt in her mouth, swallowing the icy liquid. “I’m so thirsty,” she said.

“It’s because of the nuts,” Celeste said. “They are dry, and once you drink some water they will swell up, making you full faster.”

Abagail tried that out, taking mouthfuls of snow and swallowing it. The liquid mixed with the seeds and nuts in her belly and chased away whatever hunger there might have been.

“Now, we must sleep, we have a long couple days before us,” Celeste said.

Gorjugan strode through the worn-down corridors of Bauer Hall.

It used to be a grand mansion, back when Mattelyn and her errant brother, Fortarian had presided over it. In the ages since Mattelyn fled the house had fallen into disrepair. The plaster had cracked, veins snaking over the surface of the walls. Large chunks of ceiling had fallen in allowing the cold and the elements of the prolonged winter to take their toll on the inside of the house. Dust had gathered in rooms that had sat too long without occupants, and there was a general stench that lingered in the house.

It was the stench of death. The bodies of those that Gorjugan had fed upon, sating his need for food.

His nose crinkled when he thought of the humans he had to summon every few days to feed upon. They were always scared, their feet leading them to the monolith on the hill that all within the town of Anster at the base of the hill feared to go to. Their feet led them there anyway, against their will, ensnared by his darkling wyrd.

He’d learned how to control the shadow plague as well. He lifted his delicate hand and observed it in the light of the full moon. The shadow had taken over his entire right half before he’d let the darkness into his mind and halted the progression of the plague. He let his hand fall and gazed up through the hole in the roof at the silver disk above.

The Sleeping Eye,
he smirked.
Soon enough Anthros will be free, and you will have no eyes, All Father.

He let his gaze fall to the door before him. Gorjugan was a striking figure: tall, thin as a wisp with silver hair, slicked back away from his forehead in locks that dusted the tops of his shoulders. His eyes were a faded kind of blue in which his sharp nose rested underneath. If it wasn’t for the darkened veins that snaked over his right half, he could have been one of the loveliest men in all of Agaranth.

To his left sat a mirror that reflected nothing. It was a way in which he could commune with his sister, Hilda who was miles away, north of the Fey Forest. At least he didn’t look like her. She’d learned to master the shadow plague early, having been confronted with it at an early age.

It was such a display of power that the plague had killed her left side, rotting it to that of a withered corpse. The right side was virtually untouched and still in the prime of her youth, supple and firm and displaying all the beauty that was denied her left side.

He shivered at the thought. He’d take the shadowy half of his body over her deadened half any day.

But that wasn’t why he was here, standing before the door to the room he hated most in the entirety of Bauer Hall.

The mirror room,
he thought. He gripped the door handle and turned it. The door eased open. It was this room he had to attend and make sure it stayed up to par. The mirror was a touchy one that didn’t fare well in hostile weather. The room was kept warm with a wyrding, and it was kept clean as if it were a temple.

The minute the door opened he could sense a residue of power within. Someone had been there. But that was absurd. No one was able to be in this room, how would they get there?