Feast of Souls (25 page)

He had left the crowded cities and shadowy woodlands of the eastern kingdoms behind and headed, for the rolling green farmlands and open plains of the Great Plateau. Here, where trees were scarce, villages were few and far apart and were generally constructed from the earth itself, like some organic being. The people were generally hospitable—unlike the eastern farmers, who tended to attack strangers first and ask questions later—and he spent more than one night trading gossip for a night’s bed, or offering his advice on how best to break the wild horses of the region to a bridle.

At night a jeweled sky stretched out from horizon to horizon above the grasslands, and one could almost believe that it went on forever, rather than ending, as the scholars taught, in the Sphere of the Heavens. The sight of it was strangely humbling. Andovan knew that his mother’s people had come of age in a similar—though far colder—landscape and worshipped their strange, violent gods beneath the same glittering skies. Indeed, in a place such as this the northern gods were said to have blessed her bloodline—Andovan’s bloodline—above all others, granting them secret powers for the day when their efforts would be necessary to save the world.

But it was hard to feel like a savior of worlds with the Wasting sapping his strength. Hard to focus upon any earthly pleasure when he could feel Death breathing down his neck. And so he pressed on, westward, following in the wake of the murky dreams that seemed to be guiding him.

What was the spell that Colivar had placed on him? How was it supposed to work? The Magister had not given him details, merely said it would “sensitize” him to his killer. What did that mean? How was the woman connected to him in the first place? Would he even know her when he saw her? These questions and others plagued him during the long hours when he was alone. He wished Colivar were there to advise him, and at the same time, knew he should not trust the southern Magister. The man was his father’s enemy, after all, and Andovan would never have turned to him for help in the first place had he not believed that any other Magister would have told Danton what he intended. Only Coli-var could be trusted to keep his silence.

Yet he had seen the hungry spark in the Magister’s eyes when he had broached his plans, and he knew with certain instinct—the sixth sense of royalty—that Coli-var wanted to know who this woman was as much as he did. Which meant that, for his own selfish reasons, Coli-var would serve him faithfully in this. That was how Magisters worked.

Or so Danton had taught him.

At night he dreamed dark dreams, sometimes terrifying dreams, filled with demons who tore the living flesh from his body to feast upon, succubi who drained all the strength of his manhood, and worse. He awoke from those nightmares in a cold sweat, trembling. Part of him wished the dreams would stop, but another part of him, desperate for answers, clung to them even after waking, turning every detail over in his mind like a child turning over stones at the beach, looking for tiny creatures scuttling beneath. Yet there was no meaning he could find in them, beyond a simple expression of his fears. Certainly no clues that would help him find the source of his illness, if such a person existed.

Open grasslands gave way to badlands, whose maze of twisting ravines marked the westernmost border of Danton’s territory. He had to hire a guide to get him through, a local who knew which routes would not circle back on themselves or terminate in a dead end at the brink of some serpentine canyon. The traveling was hard and his horse was tired and it was not until they reached the other side and his guide left him, that An-dovan realized exactly where he was.

Mountains reared skyward to the west of him, glowing an eerie red in the late afternoon sunlight. This was the Blood Ridge, supposedly named for the red maples that covered its lower flanks, lending the whole range a crimson cast. At least that was what Andovan had been taught back home. But out here the locals assured him the name came from something else entirely, and commemorated the brutality of Danton’s troops when they first entered the region. It was a border marked in blood, they said, and the gods had turned the trees themselves red so that the children of those the High King murdered would never forget.

If they had realized that Andovan was of Danton’s line they would probably have added his blood to the mix.

Now, standing in the shade of a vast maple whose leaves were like dark red hands grasping at the sunlight, he felt a sense of mixed exhaustion and awe. This was the end of his father’s territory, the gateway to lands beyond. Which meant that the woman he sought was in a place where the Aurelius line had no authority. Was she perhaps some distant enemy of his father’s House, working ill upon Danton’s line? He could think of no other reason for a person so far away to have given him this disease. If that was indeed what had happened.

If my dreams are true, she is out there. I will find her.

A large hawk circled overhead as he made his camp, its brown wings gleaming in the dying sunlight. By the time Andovan had seen to his horse’s needs and his own and then settled down to sleep, it had flown away.

That night he dreamed of his quarry.

Dark, the streets are so dark; the narrow towers press close, crowding out the sunlight. On the streets below them a beggar boy crouches, his pale skin crusted over with half-healed scars from some past plague, his eyes bloodshot and hungry. Beside him a woman stands, gaunt and desperate, begging the nobles who pass by for the spare change in their purses, crying out that she has a virgin daughter of pleasing aspect, if lust moves them more than pity. Then the image fades and the street is clean and the woman was never there at all, save perhaps in his dreams.

Overhead a single tower looms, a surreal structure devoid of any doors or windows, save at the topmost level. Near to it a dozen lesser towers stretch their necks upward like ducklings attending their mother, curtains fluttering like agitated wings. The breeze coming from the west is a foul thing, redolent of rotting fish and algae, the noxious vapors of a stagnant swamp. It seems out of place in the dry and pristine streets.

Amid the towers a woman walks, and he knows it is his quarry as soon as she appears. He tries to cry out, to get her to turn toward him, so he can see her face and learn her name, but the weakness within him is suddenly too great, the words die in his throat, and he falls gasping to the cobblestoned street.

Now, now, she is turning toward him at last, and he looks up at her
. Why?
he demands of her silently, unable to draw in enough breath to form the words. But his vision is fading, the Wasting is claiming him, and everything goes black just before he can see her face
…

He awoke shivering, his body drenched with cold sweat. For a moment he felt as weak as he had been in his dream, and panic overcame him. He struggled to his feet, needing to prove to himself that the dream had not truly sapped the last of his strength. When he managed to get himself upright with no greater difficulty than the night before the wild beating of his heart began to slow a bit, and he managed a few long, measured breaths, trying to steady his spirit.

It was a dream, Andovan. Worse than some others, but likely not the last nightmare you will have on this journey Are you so weak of heart that mere dreams can unman you now?

Did she know he was searching for her? The dream would imply so, but he was reluctant to read that much meaning into it. Nightmares were more often the simple product of a sleeper’s own fears than any prophetic vision, and this one was certainly cast in that mold.

But the towers… how strange they were, all clustered together… surely they had some meaning. What was the significance of the tower without doors? Why was the smell of a swamp so pervasive? And who was the beggar woman who so clearly did not belong in that place, that disappeared when he looked at her?

He wracked his brain and came up with nothing, and finally, with a sigh, broke off a piece of cheese from his supply and ate it, letting the sharp flavor drive the remembered taste of swamp muck from his mouth.

And then he remembered.

Gansang.

It was built in the marshes of the western delta, on walkways and stilts set over what had once been thriving wetlands. Shoreside it was said there was one section where the bedrock was solid, and it rose in a crest above sea level just far enough to escape the flood plain. The nobles lived there, of course. Andovan had been taught about Gansang as a child. Taught that a city is a living thing, and as with any living thing, if its growth is frustrated in one direction, it will expand in another. The nobles of Gansang could not expand outward without moving into the marshes themselves, and so they had expanded upward instead, building towers that were taller and finer than any others on earth—or so they claimed. Andovan had been told the story by his tutor when he was a young boy. It had seemed unreal to him then. But now… Gansang was due west of him, if he remembered it right. Which meant that he had been head-ing in that direction all along. Could that be where Co-livar’s sorcery had been driving him? Was his would-be killer there at this very moment, might he surprise her there if he moved quickly enough?

Gansang was on the other side of the Blood Ridge, he recalled. Not a day’s ride past the western foothills.

Feeling more confident than he had in a long time, Andovan pulled his tightly rolled maps out of the saddlebag, and by the light of a single moon began to plot the journey to Gansang.

Come in, my dear.” The tattered edges of Gwynofar’s silk gown fluttered like the wings of a black angel as she entered the chamber. Her clear eyes took in everything at a glance: her hawk-browed husband in a carved wooden chair, black eyes squinting in what he doubtless believed was an expression of affection; the Magister Kostas in tight-fitting ebony robes sitting upright in a cushioned chair opposite him, tracking her every movement like a hungry bird; the fireplace behind them, cold due to the summer’s heat, with its polished silver mirror over the mantle. In it she could see herself, pale of face and dusty of hem, a mere ghost of a presence compared to the aggressive and powerful men who had called her to audience.

There was no chair set out for her, she noticed. Doubtless Kostas’ idea. As always his presence made the bile rise in her throat, and she had to swallow hard to smile with requisite royal politeness as she curtseyed to them both. Then, disdaining to meet Kostas’ eyes, she fetched a chair for herself and sat, daring her husband’s disapproval to do so. But a small smile played on Dan-ton’s lips, which told her she had guessed correctly. He liked it when she had spirit, providing it was not him she was defying. Other subjects would die for the same gesture.

“You summoned me, Sire?”

“So I did.” He reached for the flagon of wine by his side and poured out a third goblet full, then offered it to her. She accepted it gratefully, using it to wash down the lump in her throat that Kostas’ presence had conjured. The Magister Royal watched the exchange impassively, utterly still but for his eyes. Like a spider’s, she thought. She half expected a spider’s quick movements out of him the moment she touched the wrong string of his web. “Kostas expressed an interest in the religious beliefs of your homeland. I thought it better coming from your lips than mine.”

Gwynofar nodded politely, as if conversing with Kostas was not an unpleasant task at all. She knew what Danton thought of her religion—“rock worship,” he called it—and he had probably meant this audience as a courtesy to let her explain things herself. He knew she disliked Kostas—she had never lied to her husband about that—but he had no idea how deep within her soul the revulsion was rooted, how hard it was to be in his presence long enough even to exchange niceties.

Nonetheless, she was queen, and that meant learning to hide her true feelings, no matter what the cost.

She forced herself to turn to the Magister and meet his eyes without flinching. He must never suspect how much she hated him, she knew that, or how much she feared him. You must never let a Magister sense your fear. So she forced her voice to be steady and soft, even casual, as she asked him, “So what do you wish to know?”

His voice was a low hiss, the kind of sound you would expect out of a lizard or a snake, not a man. “Tell me of the Lord Protectors.”

She glanced at Danton, who nodded. “They are the leaders of bloodlines founded to maintain the Spears of the Wrath, to guard against its weakening, and to stand in the front lines of battle should those protections fail us.”

“Gods save us from a woman’s recitation,” Danton interrupted. “You start at the end of the story when he does not even know the beginning yet. Tell him of the war itself… yes, Kostas?” He glanced at Kostas, who said nothing; his eyes were fixed upon the High Queen with an intensity that made her skin crawl. “That would be best, I think. The end of the war, the coming of the Wrath… that is what he wants.”

She nodded. “As you wish, Sire.”

She drew in a deep breath and tried to ignore Kostas’ stare. “Long ago, in the Dark Ages, when demons roamed the earth freely, feasting upon human souls, there gathered a band of the witching folk. These alone had resisted the power of the demons enough to remember the First Age of Kings, and they believed that man could be restored to his rightful inheritance if the vile creatures were destroyed.