Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) (6 page)

Summoning her strength and her swarm of bees, and calling for her mate, Morigan shines. Burned by Morigan’s light, hissing and gurgling, the darkness fades away to smoky tatters. Morigan bobs peacefully in the gray mist of nowhere, safe from Brutus and the Black Queen. But she is still not alone
.

Who is that? she wonders, and drifts toward the figment in the fog. Is it a girl? Is it Macha? For the faded shape and distance feel familiar—evoking the moment she and the young changeling met in Dream. If not the young seal girl, it must be the gray, billowing spirit of some other young woman. For the figure is small, shrouded, and meek. Lost lamb, thinks Morigan, floating closer still. She reaches for her with hands of glass and smoke. Then, like a coat of pins, the bees sting her in reprobation; they warn her, too late, not to touch the spirit
.

The girl turns to her. But Morigan does not see Macha’s gentle countenance; indeed, what greets her eyes is far from a child. It is as if something bulbous has been stuffed into a child’s body and draped in a robe of mist that fails to hide its deformity. The shape swells as Morigan beholds it,
growing from her fear. It stares at her from two soulless eye sockets swirling with winged insects—flies, though as loud and as large as bees. Beneath the crawling skin shine glimpses of a picked, possibly metal skull. A mask? What is this dream-walking monster? A Dreamer? Not a Dreamer, sting her bees. What then? she wonders. Cicada music hums from the verminously churning head, becoming sounds and words that Morigan can hear through her entire body
.

“You are not safe. You are never safe,” says the creature
.

Morigan shrieks
.

II

“My Fawn! It is alright. Wherever you were, you are in no danger now.”

Soft sheets, soft fur, and hard muscle rubbed against her flesh. The only sounds she heard were her cries, Caenith’s voice, and the thrum of wind striking the ship’s shell. No smells of blood and death. No buzzing nightmare person or whispers of Zionae. Morigan stopped her struggling and breathed against her bloodmate’s body for a while. She inhaled his onion-and-pepper scent, soothed herself with the warmth of the prowling beast of fire in her chest, and relaxed in the cradle of his strength. When a few sands had passed, the Wolf pulled away a little, swept back some of Morigan’s sweaty hair, and caressed her face. Caenith’s eyes seemed grayer than normal—worried.

You called my father’s name, more than once
, he said in their secret language of souls.
I could not wake you until a sand ago. You were trying to scream, and yet no sound came out. Like the wailing women, the
Banninshide,
who shriek grief that only those of magik can hear. What did you see, my Fawn?

Your father—and the Black Queen. In Pandemonia
.

I see
.

And another evil creature, too
.

No matter
, said the Wolf, and kissed her brow.
We shall hunt the meaning of these omens and dreams together. I regret that such a wonderful evening has been ruined by a visitation from my father and his wicked master
.

As she stared at his carved and gloriously handsome face, she had a flash of his eyes rolling back until their whites showed and of his neck
decorated in a bleeding, raw smile—just as he’d appeared when she had murdered him in her dream.

Our flight of romance is over, my Wolf
. She slipped out of his arms and off the bed, gathering her clothes.
We must discuss what I saw, and what it means, as a pack. We must prepare ourselves for Pandemonia
.

Leaning on one elbow, the Wolf watched his bloodmate clothe her lithe body. She did not glance at him, most surely trying to keep him from her sight. Tainting her sweet fragrance was an unusual, skunky note of sweat: the perspiration of fear. Mortal fear; murderous fear. It was a stink he knew well from his days as a gladiator in Menos. But what could she fear? He stayed on the bed for so long that Morigan finally looked his way. Then he caught it: a glimmer in her silver stare. With a sting of the perception inherited from their union, and a chill that pimpled his skin, he knew she worried for him.

III

While the majority of Eod’s ships were constructed for military use, the
Skylark
, the vessel in which the company traveled, had been made to entertain dignitaries. Its generous hollow belly held all the comforts of a passenger vessel: private sleeping arrangements, running water, a kitchen. Even an expansive parlor had been installed, and it bordered on theatrical greatness with its echo, small stage, knotted-silk curtains, and rows of buttoned leather seats. A great deal of luxury and design had been dedicated to the great parlor, and quite often the company and their uninitiated members spent the day there. They drank, ate, and played games of Kings and Fates with Mouse’s deck of cards (or
Crowns and Fates
, depending on which regional rules were in use).

Sometimes one of the company stared out of the portals at the streaming clouds and flickers of dark blue water far beneath. Often they contented themselves with Alastair’s crooning. The shadowbroker did so love to sing; his voice was extraordinary, and no one asked him to stop. Thackery still hadn’t received a plausible answer about how it was that Alastair so closely resembled a bard Thackery knew a hundred years past. “Are you a descendent of the man?” he might ask, at which point Alastair would, like a conjurer, produce an instrument—a flute from his cloak, a
lute from under his seat—and deflect the inquiry with smiles and song. As the days dwindled, the sage began to doubt that Alastair would ever be forthcoming and stopped asking.

Despite the skycarriage’s fleetness, the voyage to Pandemonia would be a long one. It would require crossing the whole of eastern Geadhain and then journeying over the Chthonic Ocean: the wet abyss that separated the fragmented lands of east, west, north, and south into isolated kingdoms. Following some snippy consultations with Moreth—who seemed to think everyone less intelligent than he—the companions learned it would take around three days of flight to reach the great island continent of Pandemonia. Beyond that, their journey to Pandemonia’s first harbor of civilization, the city of Eatoth, would take many days to weeks of hard hiking inland. From Eatoth, they would reassess and plot their journey. For Eatoth, the City of Waterfalls, with its quicksilver towers and its encircling wall of ever-flowing water (
Balderdash
, thought Mouse), was said to be a repository of the world’s most ancient and coveted wisdom—legends and facts older than anything in Central Geadhain. Surely, they would discover a course or thread to follow from there. Pandemonia…Eatoth…To many of the companions, it felt as if they were headed to the very end of Geadhain.

Aside from Moreth, no one had made this journey before, so each morning he prepared them with naught but the direst briefings on temperamental climates, bloodthirsty animals, and inconceivably chaotic landscapes. Magik wasn’t to be wielded where they were headed, apparently, since the etheric currents surrounding Pandemonia amplified or warped its effects. And even the smallest scrape could summon a horde of ravenous animals—or so the Menosian claimed. Moreth’s depictions of the land had received the company’s greatest incredulity: deserts of ice, lakes of fire, fields that went from green to rotten in a day. Such strangenesses were a strain to believe among even the most imaginative members of the company; they sounded like wonders from the ages of Fire, Dust, Winter, and Wetness. After all, they’d survived Alabion—how much worse could Pandemonia be?

Given Moreth’s propensity for gloating, Mouse was suspicious that he knew or was truthful about all that he claimed. This morning, she called his bluff as they sat around the parlor.

“How far to this city, Eatoth, from when we land?” she asked. “You’ve said days to weeks, which is quite a discrepancy.”

“That depends on where we disembark,” replied Moreth, not bothering to divert his attention from the whorls of steam rising from the mug of tea he held in both hands. “I assume you were eavesdropping on the captain and I during our cartography sessions, and you’ve attended my briefings. Despite all that, you seem to have missed the most important details.”

Mouse scowled, but didn’t deny the accusation. “Which are?”

“The problem with Pandemonia is that nothing stays the same,” continued Moreth. All heads in the room now turned to him; he spoke with a slow and captivating lilt that the company had learned indicated a certain valuable, if arrogant, wisdom. “While this is true in life—with age, feelings, aspirations—it is even truer in Pandemonia. What was a shoreline yesterday could be a ravine today. Lakes dry up in weeks or months; some then fill with lava or, if the land feels frolicsome, flowers and herds of gentle beasts—though I would not expect to find many gentle beasts in Pandemonia. Such sweet-tempered creatures as do exist are quickly devoured by the more aggressive fauna of the realm. Kericot, who visited Pandemonia once, wrote of its nature in his poetic ramblings. If you dig through the man’s florid nonsense, you’ll find an occasional resonant gem:

Walled in water, gardened in flame, a wind that rails over earth untamed.

Fall upon the sword of reason, swallow your terrified shout.

Awe and weep for the fractured land, though never, ever, let the chaos out.

“You will see when we arrive. All that I’ve told you is true, and none of it half as tall a tale as you will behold. Still, I think Kericot’s words describe best what to expect: total disorder. An assault on what you understand of nature. There is a reason why Pandemonia exists at the farthest reaches of our world, contained in a prison of the deepest water, in a region where the ethereal currents disable technomagik and the winds blow so fiercely that only the strongest ships or skycarriages can reach it. The chaos must be contained.”

After a sip of tea, he added, “So, my dear rodent, to answer your question—I have an idea where to take us once we land. But only an idea.
Where to go next? Well...life is an adventure, and this will be one of your greatest. And perhaps your last.”

Moreth laughed, feeding on the silence of the company.

If a man could be a fart, a fart Moreth would be
, decided Mouse. She left the seats to look through the round windows, watching the peaceful flocks of cotton that floated beside the vessel.

A patient, silent presence stood beside her. Adam had been with her all morning, in fact, though she often overlooked him. Wherever she went, Adam followed, and his dedication was finally penetrating her callousness. Each morning, they now met to go on a long, speechless stroll across the metal decks of the
Skylark
before joining the others in the parlor. Mouse appreciated the company of a man who did not feel the need to talk; so many people felt the urge to ruin silence with blather. When she and Adam did speak, it was to exchange a comment regarding the technomagik that surrounded them: engines, decks, motors, and propulsion. The changeling thought all of it fascinating. His inquiries, though, often demanded answers beyond her schooling, and she added them to a mental list to be discussed later with Talwyn and Thackery. Most of the time, however, there were no questions. She and silent Adam simply walked down a humming tunnel, listened to the click-clack music of their shoes, and felt completely quiet and content.

Although they spent much time together, their intimacy had not grown past friendship. At some point, they had reached an unspoken acceptance that they were not going to be lovers. Perhaps Adam had decided that the time and situation would not permit a deeper companionship. Perhaps he wanted to know what other mates there might be in this great, grand world outside of Alabion. He also likely correctly interpreted Mouse’s aloofness and flighty affection as signals of her lack of interest. In life, there existed a window in which circumstances could unfold, and that window of opportunity had closed. Mouse felt all this with only a soft sinking in her heart, even if at times she recognized how beautiful a man he was. She needed friends and family more than lovers. Yet, she was never without Adam, and his ability to calm her with his calm, to make her smile with his smile, was the mark of true friendship.

“How is the Wanderer today?” asked Adam after a while.

The Wanderer
was how Adam and the others referred to the dormant entity in her flesh—Morigan’s father Feyhazir, the Dreamer of Passion. Since they’d left Alabion, the Wanderer had not stirred. He slept like a hibernating creature in the depths of her mind. Unless she really paused and listened, usually in the darkness of her room at night, she couldn’t hear him. A better use of these recent days of peace might have been to contemplate and test her covenant with Feyhazir, yet she found herself wasting hourglasses on cloud-watching and walks. For Kings’ sake, a woman was entitled to a break every so often, and she had certainly earned hers.

“Quiet, mostly,” she said. “He’s there, deep down. Sleeping like a creature at the bottom of the sea. I’m not sure how to wake him; I’m not sure that I want to wake him. Last time I swear I lost a year off my life.”

“Loss…In Briongrahd, while I worked story from stone, I would see pups grow into wolves, see them throw away innocence and kindness—they never cared or knew what they’d lost. I lost years upon years, waiting for something to chase. I felt my soul, if not my pelt, grow gray from age and sadness.”

“What an odd—and gloomy—thing to say,” replied Mouse. Turning, she slapped her companion’s arm and he made a canine whine.

“Gray is, however, a fine color for a pelt,” said Adam, touching her hair. On the voyage to Pandemonia, she’d emerged one morning with a gentleman’s military cut, streaked along the sides with gray. The haircut gave her the air of a military commander. She’d said she barbered herself because she was
simply ready for a change
.

“A pelt?”

“None of us are above animals.”

Mouse went to slap him again, but he caught her hand and made a small, challenging growl. Too easily she forgot that he was, truly, part animal. He held her wrist longer and more firmly than a friend should, and that flame they’d convinced themselves was smothered sparked up. Accentuated in the morning glow, his lean, tanned physique held a gleam of copper, and his eyes were as deep and brown as ancient amber. His charisma was poorly hidden by the light sash and kilt he wore. Down the valley of his sinewy, tattooed chest hung the dark stone talisman given to him by Elemech. He kept a trim and perfect beard, and Mouse saw the muscles
of his jaw moving underneath, as if he were chewing or hungry. Feeling light and a little detached from reality, Mouse watched the man’s gaze move over her slight hips, small breasts, and up to the sharp face people told her was pretty. All the while, the changeling’s nostrils flared as he smelled her perfume of iron, roses, and sage.