The Fires of Muspelheim

by Travis Simmons

  “Show me how?” Abagail asked.

  “Just relax, it’s not something I can explain.”

  Abagail took another deep breath and tried to calm the feeling inside of herself that she’d just wasted all that time back in Haven learning how to channel wrong.

  “Alright, here we go,” Elyse said.

  It was like a warm sheet slipped over her brain. She felt another presence merge with her mind, wrap around her thoughts, muffle her inner voice. Her head felt fuzzy, and if it wasn’t for Elyse’s firm grip on her shoulders, Abagail thought she would have fallen.

  “Steady,” Dylan said, holding on to Abagail’s waist. “This is part of her power. She’s able to merge with your mind.”

  “Alright,” Elyse said. “Have you ever felt where the wyrd comes from?”

  “No,” Abagail answered.

  She sensed Elyse frown. “It’s here,” she said. When she said that, Abagail felt a presence radiating near the base of her spine. “This is your power center. This is where the wyrd resides, and it’s where it comes from. Reach for it.”

  “How?” Abagail asked.

  “Mentally,” Dylan said.

  Abagail wasn’t sure how she was supposed to reach for it, but she imagined her mind slipping down her spine, tangling around her bones until she could feel the wyrd there.

  “Alright, now sense the wyrd, get used to it,” Elyse said.

  Abagail shivered. She could see the wyrd before her like a pulsating purple orb. Coils of power licked out of the orb, reaching for the tendrils of her mind that reached for the wyrd. It was as if the wyrd wanted very much to be part of her, to feel Abagail the way she felt the wyrd. It wanted to know her the same way she knew the wyrd.

  She let the two forces connect. Power vibrated up her spine. Hair at the base of her neck stood on end as her body was flooded with a cold heat. Her skin prickled and her heart hitched a beat. All at once her mouth was filled with the flavor of peaches and her nose was bombarded with the smell of plum blossoms. She could hear water lapping at a distant shore.

  The purple orb and Abagail were one.

  “I feel it,” she whispered, breathlessly.

  “Good. It won’t always be so intense, but you will always feel it.” The warm presence in her mind that Abagail imagined was Elyse slipped from her the moment that Elyse removed her hands. “Keep a grasp on the wyrd, and open your eyes.”

  Abagail didn’t need to keep a grasp on the wyrd, it stayed in place just as it was. She opened her eyes. She took a deep breath, her eyes accosted with a new sight.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Dylan asked. He smiled, removed his hands from her hips, and stepped back.

  “What is it?” Abagail asked.

  “Energy,” Elyse said with a shrug.

  Everywhere Abagail looked she could see energy. Fields of energy surrounded everything. Dylan’s face was slightly blurred with the orange energy around him, and Elyse glowed with a soft silver light. Above them the fairies glowed with a green energy that Abagail could almost taste.

  “It’s amazing,” she whispered.

  “Now,” Elyse said. “Dissolve your shield.”

  It took little more than a thought for the energy of the shield to crumble into the blackened earth beneath her feet.

  “Cast it again, this time using the wyrd you have in place,” Dylan said.

  Abagail thought about a shield, and no sooner had she thought about it, than the wyrd responded. A purple force field wobbled into place around her. There was no wind, there was no forcing the wyrd with happy thoughts. She simply gave a mental command, and it worked.

  “Perfect,” Elyse said.

  Dylan smiled.

  “Have you tried combative wyrd yet?” Dylan asked. An orange shield expanded out of him.

  “Yes,” Abagail said. “Back at Haven.”

  “Alright, let’s do it,” Dylan said. His hand flashed forward and Abagail was surrounded in a torrent of lightning. She shrieked and stumbled back, but the wyrded shield around her held firm. The purple wyrd within her didn’t shirk at the danger, it didn’t retreat from her mind.

  The lightning stopped. Brother and sister smiled. Abagail laughed.

  “That’s amazing!” She said.

  “What’s more amazing is your plague,” Dylan said.

  Now that he mentioned it, Abagail could feel the plague slipping over her face and down her shoulder. She couldn’t help the smile that split her face. She reached for her skin, as if she could feel the plague with her hands. It was the first time she’d ever used when she didn’t have to worry about the plague consuming more of her flesh.

  It was ebbing away.

  “How’s that even possible?” Abagail asked.

  “I wondered how it was possible that you were covered with so much of the plague!” Dylan said.

  “It’s because you were using your emotions. When you gave in to anger, you were calling on the darkling wyrd, letting it have control. When you drew with happy thoughts, you were calling on your own wyrd, but you weren’t working with it, you were giving it free reign.” Elyse smiled at her. “Now you’re working with it, and it’s amazing!”

  “More!” Abagail said.

  “Alright!” Elyse said. She stepped back and let Dylan and Abagail work.

  They traded blow for blow. Abagail used her fire wyrd for the first time and was able to control where it went and how strong it blasted forth. She was even able to control how far she shot the fire. She worked with defensive wyrd, deflecting the lightning attacks from Dylan, and then the ice attacks from Elyse.

  After several hours, she began to tire.

  “That’s never happened before,” Abagail said.

  “You’ve practiced before for hours?” Elyse asked her. She was out of breath, her hands on her knees, but she still smiled.

  “No,” Abagail shook her head and laughed. “No I haven’t.”

  “It’s natural,” Dylan said. “You’re using wyrd like you’ve never used it before. It will take some good food and some good rest to replenish what you’ve used.”

  “As long as it’s not fire drake,” Abagail pointed a warning finger at him.

  Dylan laughed. “Deal.”

  “Why do you think I wasn’t shown this way before?” Abagail asked.

  Elyse shrugged and led the way from the black fields and down the hardened path. Abagail could see the food pavilion from where they were. Tables and chairs sat outside the tent for people to eat. Inside the tent was the food and the servers. The tent connected to a large cave where all of the food was prepared.

  “It’s possible that they didn’t know this way,” Elyse said. “At some point everyone comes to it, or at least I’m told. Maybe they thought the way they taught you was the natural way, and you’d eventually learn control and to call on your wyrd.”

  “We kind of taught you a little backwards,” Dylan said.

  Elyse nodded. “Yes, normally I don’t merge with the person I’m training, but I needed to be sure that you saw where the wyrd was.”

  “Oh,” Abagail said. She didn’t know what to say.

  Elyse slowed several feet before the pavilion and turned to Abagail. “But there’s something we need to show you,” she said.

  Dylan took hold of the black glove that covered her hand, and before Abagail could pull away, he yanked off the glove. There, in the center of her palm where the eye would open in response to her wyrding, there was a tiny silver pinpoint of light.

  There was no trace of the shadow plague.

  “Once you learn to master your emotions, and the plague doesn’t come back, you won’t ever need the glove again.”

  Abagail couldn’t respond. All she could do was look into Dylan’s dazzling blue eyes.

  “Muspelheim?” Skye asked for the third time. The sleeves of his red tunic were rolled up, and his hands were in the soapy dishwater.

  “That’s what I said,” Leona told him. “Do you not know what it is?” she asked sa
rcastically.

  Skye frowned at her. “Very funny. Just . . . why is she there?”

  Leona shrugged, fished a plate out of the rinse water and placed it in the drainer. “Not really sure.”

  Skye’s eyes were distant, as if he were staring through the suds and to a place miles away. His frown deepened.

  “What is it?” Leona asked, placing another plate in the drainer.

  “It’s just, there’s this portal down near the dwarves. It opened up a while ago and all of these harbingers from Muspelheim have been pouring out,” he told her.

  Leona blinked at him, unsure if she’d heard him right. A portal from Muspelheim?

  “Are they invading?” she asked him.

  Skye laughed, but there was no humor in it. “No, they aren’t invading. It seems maybe they are fleeing something? I really don’t know. Whatever the reason, they are coming here from there.”

  “Then that could be a place where we could get through to Abbie!” Leona said.

  Skye nodded. “But I think she will come through to us. It’s probably best if we wait here for her,” he said. “We might miss her in the journey and we will end up there while she ends up here.”

  Leona sighed. “I guess,” she said. She moved just right, feeling the pouch of herbs in her pocket. “Do you want some tea?” she asked him.

  “I never turn down a good cup of tea,” he said with a grin.

  While Skye let out the dishwater, Leona set a pot of tea on the stove. “So, not to be rude, but what are you still doing here?”

  “Do you ever notice that people say stuff like ‘not to be rude,’ or ‘no offense’ before they say something that’s rude or offensive?” he asked, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “Like that will make it less rude and offensive.”

  Leona rolled her eyes. “I mean, what are you and Rorick up to?”

  Skye’s mouth fell open. He quickly shut it.

  “You don’t think I’ve noticed how the two of you seem rather chummy lately?” Leona fished the packet out of her pocket and emptied its contents into a tea cup. She pulled a pouch of lavender tea from a tin in the cabinet and dumped it into another cup. “It’s the dark elves, isn’t it?” Leona asked. She made sure to watch his face this time. He must have been ready for her to say that, because his face didn’t change at all.

  “Maybe I like being here, near where Abagail lived,” he said with a shrug.

  “You miss her, don’t you?” she asked.

  “I’m an elf, it’s strange for us to feel strong emotion for anyone.”

  Leona opened her mouth to say something, but Skye continued.

  “So yea, it’s a little strange that I feel so strongly for her.” He ran a hand through his blond hair.

  “Well, that’s sweet, but what about me?” she asked.

  “Sorry, you’re a bit young for me.” Skye winced mockingly at her.

  She leveled a glare at him. “I mean, why are you hanging around? Really hanging around?”

  Skye sighed. “You’re right, it’s the dark elves. You’re a new harbinger, and they feel pressured to harvest blood to open the scepters.”

  She had been expecting something like that. It didn’t mean it didn’t frighten her to hear it spoken out loud.

  “I wondered how long it would take them. They came after Abagail in a hurry,” she said. She glanced down at her hand, bare now that she was home and wouldn’t accidentally touch any number of people.

  “So, consider me your personal guard detail,” he said with a smile.

  Leona didn’t look at him. Even though she’d been anticipating his answer, the truth of why he was there didn’t help calm her a single bit.

  “What’s that tea?” he asked as she poured hot water into both cups. He grabbed the cups and carried them to the table.

  “To help me gain a vision,” she said. “I need answers, and my area of the sight isn’t the past. So, here’s this tea to help me dream.”

  “Is that wise?” Skye asked. “Drugging yourself?”

  “I’m not drugging myself,” she said.

  “Yes, you are. Elves use similar herbs for such quests. They are drugs.”

  “Well, the ravens gave it to me,” she said.

  “The ravens also sent you to see Fortarian before he infected you with that plague,” Skye said, cradling his tea between his hands.

  Leona looked straight into his violet eyes as she tipped the cup to her lips, taking a deep pull of the scalding liquid. She tried not to wince as the tea burned her throat.

  “Good,” Skye said, a wry grin spreading over his face. “I hope it hurt.”

  “It only burns like the fiery pits of Muspelheim,” she told him.

  He laughed at her. “So what are you trying to find out?”

  “What Rowan is hiding from me,” Leona said.

  “Why don’t you ask her?” he suggested.

  “I’ve tried. She won’t tell me,” she said.

  “Ah.”

  Leona’s eyes felt heavy long before she’d finished the tea, but she forced herself to get ready for bed and finish the tea while she used the bathroom and brushed her teeth. When she was done, she lay down on the couch, and Skye tucked her in.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Leona told Skye.

  He gave her a sad smile. “I hope so.”

  “She will be,” Leona answered. “I had a vision. She wasn’t filled with fear.”

  “Good,” Skye said, settling at the end of the couch at her feet. “Now sleep my little dream walker.”

  Leona fell to sleep with a smile on her face.

  Abagail knew there was something different when she laid down in bed that night. She let out a lick of her wyrd, and the flames in the candles along the walls dimmed until they flickered out, plunging her into darkness except for the flickering glow of lava on the ceiling high above. It was strange how the lack of a proper ceiling made Abagail feel like she was part of a community, part of a family. It was as if sharing one ceiling meant everyone in Muspelheim shared the same home.

  She felt safe.

  But the strange feeling she’d felt that night wouldn’t let her go. It was a feeling in the air once the lights had gone out. There was another presence with her. An entity she knew.

  “Leona?” she said, sitting up in bed. She couldn’t see her sister, but she could feel her all the same. “Where are you?”

  There wasn’t an answer.

  Probably just missing her, Abagail thought. She’d learned so much that day that it was only natural to want to share it with Leona. She must be worried sick about me, she thought. It wasn’t home that Abagail missed, it was her sister. The only family she believed in any longer.

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember the smile her sister wore and the way her blonde hair, chopped off like a boy’s, hung around her face. Abagail wondered how much of Leona’s innocence the plague had taken away. Would she struggle with it as Abagail had?

  Abagail held her hand before her face. In the darkness of her room she could see the pinprick of light in her palm. It swirled with whorls of wyrd. She hadn’t noticed it before, but inside the prick of light there seemed an endless universe of smoke and silver light.

  She vowed when she made it back to Agaranth she was going to show Leona what she was shown. Abagail wasn’t sure how she was going to show it to her sister, but she was going to show her what she’d learned.

  With the last thought being Leona, Abagail drifted off to sleep.

  “Abbie, is that really you?” Leona called through the gray mist that filled the dreamscape. She could see her sister, dressed in an orange gown, her hair slightly longer than it had been in a long time, materialize into the fog that surrounded them.

  At the sound of her voice, Abagail turned, a smile plastered on her face.

  “Abbie, it is you!” Leona said. The smile that stole over her features was mirrored in the warmth that filled her chest at seeing her sister. “It’s been so l
ong!”

  With little more than a thought, she was standing before Abagail, and they were embracing.

  “Leona, where are we?” Abagail asked. “I was just thinking about you. Is this real?”

  “I don’t know!” Leona laughed. “I hope so. Are you okay? I mean, I saw you in a vision and you were training . . . or something. You seemed okay.”

  “So much has happened! So much I have to tell you when I get back.”

  “You are coming back, aren’t you?” Leona asked.

  “Yes.” Abagail nodded. She reached for Leona’s hand and leaned down to study the smear of plague on her palm. “It hasn’t moved,” Abagail said. She sounded relieved.

  “She doesn’t have any active wyrd for it to prey on,” a voice said beside them.

  When they looked, Rowan was forming out of the mist. She wore a white nightgown with voluminous sleeves. Her hair was long and loose, hanging around her shoulders like a cloud. The tips of her hair touched the fog, and there it seemed to drift.

  “Rowan,” Abagail said.

  “What are you doing here?” Leona asked.

  “I wondered how long it would be until we were all here, discovering what you asked the ravens to show you,” Rowan said to Leona. There wasn’t anger in her voice, just acceptance.

  “And we are all going to see it together?” Leona asked.

  “Of course, we were all there to witness it,” Rowan said. She reached out and clasped hands with Abagail and Leona. The moment their hands touched, the fog was gone and it was replaced by a room that Abagail knew, even if Leona didn’t.

  Where the last time Abagail saw the room Olik had been playing a piano and a strange woman was dancing around the floor barefoot and pregnant, this time the woman was laying on the bed, her gown hiked up around her waist, another woman crouched at the foot of the bed, peering up under a sheet.

  “What is this?” Leona asked.

  “It’s your birth,” Rowan told her.

  Leona looked at the woman on the bed. She had long white hair, even at her young age. Olik sat behind her, his hands gripping hers as she screamed through the pain.

  Leona recognized the sweaty face.