A chair fumbled and she looked back to Gorjugan, and that’s all it took. A troll stepped out of the shadows of the door way and slammed a fist down on her head.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Abagail asked Celeste who was kneeling over Leona.
“She’s going to have a pretty bad headache, but I don’t think there’s going to be any permanent damage,” Celeste looked up at her.
“What do you think they wanted with her anyway?” Rorick asked, coming to rest beside Leona. He took hold of her uninjured hand and squeezed as if to let her know that he was there. Abagail smiled reassuringly at him. She often forgot that he had lost all of his family. Honestly, we are the closest thing he has to a family. She frowned. That just made her past attraction to him feel wrong.
“Who knows,” Celeste shrugged.
“It couldn’t have been just to knock her out,” Skye said, picking at something on the floor. He sat away from the group, but the cell didn’t allow for much space, so he might as well have been sitting with them.
“No, maybe something to do with the scepter?” Abagail wondered.
“No, they were looking for the God Slayer. It’s likely it had something to do with that,” Celeste said. She knelt further over Leona’s injured hand and scrutinized the wound.
“But why knock her out? Were they testing the damn thing out?” Rorick wondered.
But Leona started to stir then. Abagail leaned over her sister, and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as much to let her know that they were there with her as to keep her from sitting up.
“Leo, it’s okay, we’re all here,” Abagail said softly. She remembered the headache she had when she woke in this chamber, and she didn’t think Leona could probably bear much more than a whisper just then.
Leona winced at her words. She tried to nod, but groaned. Instead she settled with saying “okay.”
“Is there something we can do for her headache?” Abagail asked.
“Not without wyrd,” Celeste said. “I don’t have any herbs with me.”
Leona reached for Abagail’s arm to get her attention.
“We can’t kill him, Abbie,” Leona said, this time louder. She opened her eyes to look at her sister. She didn’t wince at the light pouring in through their cell door. “Gorjugan isn’t really the darkling.”
“What are you talking about, Leo?” Abbie asked, her eyebrows knitting together.
“Gorjugan is inside our uncle, Fortarian.”
The confusion on Abagail’s face melted away, her eyes looking distant as understanding came across her features.
“So is that why you were really there that day?” she asked, turning to Celeste. “You knew that man was our uncle, didn’t you?”
Celeste didn’t turn away. She merely crossed her hands before her and stared straight at Abagail.
“Were you checking up on him?” Abagail asked. “Why did you really not want me to go out and see him?”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Celeste said, shaking her head. “Fortarian was a darkling long before Gorjugan took him over.”
“Then why were you there?”
“I’ve already told you, I was watching Gorjugan.”
“But you lied,” Abagail murmured. “Have you been telling other lies?”
Celeste didn’t answer. Skye looked between Abagail and Celeste, unsure what to do.
Abagail stood to face the elf.
“I haven’t lied to you,” Celeste spread her hands wide.
“A lie of omission is still a lie!” Abagail said, a mocking laugh coloring her voice.
Celeste sighed.
“And those things you said back there, about me not being able to watch Leona and Rorick every minute that I’m with the harbingers. What were you trying to do there? Were you trying to turn me against them?” Abagail’s face scrunched up, as if she was trying to read what the elf was thinking.
“Abbie, she’s not Daniken,” Leona said. “She’s a light elf.”
“But how do we know that the light elves aren’t just as manipulative?” Abagail wondered. “They want the scepters to remain unopened as badly as the dark elves want them opened.”
“What, exactly, is going on here?” Celeste asked. “Are there issues that I don’t know about?”
“I think what the issue here is why you didn’t tell us that Bauer Hall still had a Bauer in it,” Rorick said. His voice was controlled, but Abagail could hear the quiver of anger underneath.
“Look, Fortarian is a darkling. My not telling you that it was Fortarian wouldn’t have changed that. It’s not like I infected him with the damned plague.” Celeste looked from one human to the other. “I didn’t think it was important to tell you that he was still there since he wasn’t good to begin with. He would have been the wrong family member to get chummy with. We’ve been checking on Bauer Hall from time to time, to make sure that he was still there. The day I met you was the first day I’d heard anything from him that shed some kind of light on what he was planning.” Celeste shook her head. “Or rather, what Gorjugan was planning.”
“And who had you looking in on him?” Rorick wondered. “The elves?”
“Mattelyn Bauer. You might have heard of her?” Celeste said, quirking an eyebrow. “You have been in Agaranth all of a couple weeks, and already you presume to know what is really going on here.”
They were all silent for some time as her words settled over them. Abagail crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from the group to look out the cell door. She leaned against the iron railings and tried to see up either side of the corridor.
“But if Gorjugan wasn’t in him?” Abagail asked. “Would there be hope for him then?” She turned to the elf.
“I’ve never heard of a darkling reforming before.” Celeste shrugged. “I guess it could be possible?”
“It would take strong wyrd to contain him until we knew for sure. Stronger wyrd than we have,” Skye said, not looking up from the hay he was picking at on the floor.
“Maybe when the harbingers of light get here,” Leona suggested.
“If they can be reasoned with before they find him,” Celeste said. She nodded. “You would have to talk quick, they never leave their settlement without a fire bringer in case they come upon a darkling.”
“What’s a fire bringer?” Leona wondered.
“A harbinger that has control of fire. They are pretty common.”
“Makes sense,” Leona said. “If the harbingers of light are supposed to protect us from darklings, they would have control of fire.”
“We will have to work fast,” Abagail said. “How long has Daphne been gone?”
Celeste shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. There’s no telling time here. But she will come when the harbingers are close.”
“Right,” Abagail said. She started pacing.
“How many times have they fed us?” Rorick asked.
“Hungry already?” Celeste asked. She smiled and sat next to Skye.
“I’m just thinking. We’ve been fed, what? Three times?”
“You’ve been fed three times, we’ve been fed a few more times than that,” Skye said.
“So, if they are feeding us once a day, which is possible, it seems like a long time between meals, we’ve been here at least three days. Possibly more.”
“Probably less,” Celeste said. “There’s no real telling.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Abagail said. “We don’t know how far away the harbingers are.”
“Right,” Skye said. “Better just to wait.”
Gorjugan rubbed his hands together, a smile on his face. He had been waiting for this moment for so long. Now it had finally arrived. Now he could make Hilda happy. Now they would take back what was theirs.
The hammer rested on the floor where the girl had dropped it. Leona’s blood was still fresh on the hilt, running in a tiny stream down the leather. Some of the blood was starting to dry, leaving a darkened mar along the surface of the leathe
r wrapped hilt.
“You’d never think this hammer held such power,” Gorjugan said. The two-headed troll nodded his one living head, as if Gorjugan was talking to him. He wasn’t. Gorjugan rarely talked to the trolls. The giants he would talk to out of necessity, but the trolls? That was laughable. “So unassuming. So…normal.” He reached his hand out toward the handle. He could feel the power crackling from the hilt to his hand. It tickled his palm.
But he stopped. His hand hesitating before clasping the hilt. What if it doesn’t need to strike a god to kill them? He wondered. Gorjugan never truly thought of himself as a God, but Hilda insisted they were.
“We are born of the gods, what do you think that would make us?” she asked. “Just because we were tossed out of the Ever After because we were ugly, doesn’t mean we aren’t rightfully gods. They may take our home away, but they will never take our identity.”
If she was right, and he touched the hilt…
He looked up at the troll, thinking of having him touch it, but that was silly. He was just a troll. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
If you touch it now and it kills you, it isn’t the real you. It would have to kill you in Eget Row to finish you off for good, Gorjugan reminded himself.
In a rush he clasped the hilt of the hammer, waiting for the worst.
When nothing happened, he peeked open one eye and stared at where his black hand clasped the hammer. He could feel that girl’s blood slick under his hand.
Shadows slipped from his hand to twine around the hilt. He thought he could hear the shadow plague whispering, a language that he couldn’t understand, but the humming from the hammer indicated the weapon might know what the shadows whispered.
A smile grew across his face.
Hilda will be so pleased, he thought.
“Now we can free Anthros from the watchful gaze of Heimdall!” In glee, Gorjugan made to yank the hammer off the ground, but it didn’t budge. His hand came loose with the force of his pull, and he stumbled.
The shadows retreated into his palm. The ghostly whispering faded away.
The troll itched its flea-bitten head and watched Gorjugan, wondering why he had let the hammer go.
Gorjugan frowned and stepped closer to the hammer. “If she could lift it with ease, then I should be able to as well.” He gave another tug, but it wouldn’t budge from the floor. Now that he looked he could see that the ground was dented under the hammer where the girl had dropped it. Slivery cracks ran across the ground from under the hammer. It had dropped with such a force that it had broken the stone of the cave floor.
“How?” Gorjugan asked.
The troll shrugged.
“I’m not talking to you!” He raged, the darkling wyrd gathering around him. “Grab the hammer!” he said, pointing at the hammer.
The troll didn’t move.
“I said grab the hammer!” Gorjugan snapped his fingers.
The troll glanced up at him.
“Yes, now I’m talking to you!”
The troll gave a small jump and stepped forward. It gripped the handle of the hammer and gave a giant yank.
The hammer didn’t budge. It didn’t even move a fraction of an inch. The troll’s muscled bunched and strained, and though trolls were much stronger than humans, the hammer didn’t move.
“Oh, for the sake of Helvegr, stop!”
The troll stepped away from the hammer, shrugging.
“Go get the storm giant, Ygri,” Gorjugan ordered.
The troll left.
Gorjugan sat at the table, his head in his hand, studying the hammer until a huge shadow darkened the chamber. Ygri stepped into the room. Gorjugan wasn’t precisely sure how Ygri could fit in the room. He was easily four times the height of a tall man. He looked so much like sun bleached stone that it was a wonder his skin was pliable enough to move. He was as devoid of color as he was of hair and features. Two black points in his head indicated eyes and a jagged rock cut was all he had for a mouth. Despite all of his lack of features he still had arms and legs, and great powerful hands.
“Yes?” he asked, his voice nearly deafening Gorjugan.
“Can you lift the hammer?” Gorjugan asked, motioning to the hammer.
“It’s a tiny thing. Are you so frail you need help lifting it?” the giant wondered.
“Just…try.” Gorjugan massaged the bridge of his nose.
Ygri gripped the hammer and lifted, but it didn’t move. He relaxed his grip, took a deep breath, and pulled at the hammer again. Gorjugan could see the muscles bulging in the giant’s arms and legs as Ygri tried with all his might to lift it. That was new. Gorjugan hadn’t been sure before that the giant was anything other than stone. Could it be that he was really flesh and blood?
He stopped, flexed his hands around the hammer and roared.
Gorjugan covered his ears against the noise as Ygri called upon the lightning of the storms. Electricity sizzled down his arms and to the hammer. He closed his eyes and pulled again. But as the lightning touched the hammer, the God Slayer began to glow. Lightning traced along the runes, and ran across the cracks the hammer had created in the floor. There was a concussion to the air and a bright flare that flung everything away from the hammer.
Gorjugan lay on his back for several minutes letting his senses absorb what had happened. He blinked his eyes, willing the spots to clear from his vision. When his hearing and his sight returned to normal, he picked himself off the floor with a groan.
“What trickery is this?” Ygri asked, glaring at Gorjugan. The hammer still sizzled with lightning.
“None but a girl have been able to lift this hammer since it was…activated.” Gorjugan said.
“What hammer is it?” the storm giant said. “Is this the God Slayer you spoke of?”
Gorjugan nodded.
“You do know it was said only one could lift this,” the giant said.
“Yes, but do you see Hafaress anywhere around?” Gorjugan asked, splaying his hands wide.
“If I can’t lift it, how could a girl?” the storm giant asked.
Gorjugan couldn’t answer.
What felt like months later, but for all they knew could have been hours, a purple light flooded the inside of the cell. Daphne whizzed above them, a weird tinkling noise coming to Abagail’s ears from the pixie.
“Is that her speaking?” Abagail asked.
Skye nodded, but Celeste was listening.
“Are we ever going to be able to understand her?” Leona wondered.
“Only if you learn to speak pixie,” Skye said. “I only know a few words, but I assume she’s saying they’ve arrived.”
“That’s precisely what she’s saying,” Celeste said, pushing to her feet. “We need to be ready. We need to make a distraction.”
“Now?” Leona asked, standing. She wiped her hands on the legs of her trousers. She winced when the injured hand touched her leg.
“What are you thinking?” Rorick asked Abagail as she stepped toward the door.
“Well, if Daphne can use her wyrd when she leaves the cell, then I should be able to do something if I stick my hand out, right?”
“I don’t see why not,” Rorick said, itching the back of his neck.
“What is it?” she wondered.
“It’s just…well, what are you going to do?” he wondered, shrugging his hands.
“I don’t know.” Abagail slumped against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I knew we should have thought of something before now,” Leona chided them.
“There’s not really anything here that we could have used anyway,” Skye said. “Kind of makes making a plan useless, right?”
“Abbie,” Leona said, her face lighting up with an idea. “Before you’ve been able to call upon the good wyrd to keep darklings at bay, right?”
“Yes,” Abagail said, not sure where this was going.
“Well, what if you were to blast that wyrd through a space, do you think it woul
d rid that space of darklings?”
“Oh—” Abagail started, seeing where Leona was going now, but Celeste cut them off.
“Wait,” Celeste said, holding her hand up to stall any conversation. She bent lower to Daphne, listening to something the pixie was telling her. “Daphne says she can get us out. She knows where the key is.”
“We need the girl,” Gorjugan said, itching his chin. “That’s all there is to it.”
“How is it that the girl is the only one who can lift it?” Hilda asked through the rippling mirror. Her voice came to him as if in a dream, from the great expanse that separated them.
“I suspect wyrd,” Gorjugan said.
Hilda sighed and rubbed the temple on the healthy side of her face. “Then we have a problem.”
“Yes, but I’ve already thought of a way to get her to do what we want,” Gorjugan told his sister.
Hilda crossed her arms over her chest, her whole arm wrapping absentmindedly around her rotten one. Gorjugan shivered, but tried to hide it from his darkling sister. “I’m waiting, or are you going to gawk at my imperfections all day?”
He shook his head. “We infect her.”
Hilda leaned back slightly, her eyes closing to mere slits. “It does have promise. But, the plague doesn’t spread very quickly, and you never know, harbingers run in her family, she might turn out to be one.”
“But if I have her, the temptation to do the will of the darkling wyrd will be stronger,” he pointed out.
“Very well. We’ve waited this many thousands of years, what’s a few more months?” Hilda asked. “See that it’s done.”
“Where could she be?” Abagail asked, pacing the length of the cell.
“I’m sure she can’t just fly out there and nab the keys,” Celeste pointed out. “Be patient.”
“But the harbingers will be here at any time,” Abagail said.
“Yes, and maybe that’s the kind of distraction she needs,” Celeste said.
“Wait, do you hear that?” Skye asked, his ear twitching toward the iron door.
Abagail stepped closer to the door and listened. “Someone’s coming,” she said. She hoped whoever it was, she could get the jump on them. She flexed her infected hand in the darkness of the cave. She clenched it into a fist and willed the power of her wyrd into it.
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