Feast of Souls (50 page)

The Military settlement overlooking King’s Pass was high in the mountains, cold and chill. Yet even colder was the sight that awaited visitors, of which Colivar’s conjured images had been but a feeble warning.

The three Magisters stood in a veritable forest of death, overlooked by the staring, vacant eye sockets of twisted skeletons. In the time it had taken Antuas to find his way south the scavengers of the area had finished their work; the impaled bodies were stripped bare of flesh now, and some of them lacked limbs that had been carried off by one predator or another. Fragments of bone lay scattered around the site, where scavengers had cracked them open for marrow. The worst of the smell of death had faded, but one could still taste the memory of foulness on the wind when it blew across the field of stakes. One could only imagine how terrible that smell must have been when Antuas had been here.

Colivar stared at it all with an expression that made Sulah tremble. Not in all their time together had he ever seen his former teacher look thus, or sensed in him such coiled energy that, if it were released, it would surely destroy anything and everything in sight. He knew that Colivar had seen the worst that mortal men could do to each other in wartime, and numerous sorcerous atrocities as well; so if there was something here that was terrible enough to awaken this darkness in him, it must be fearsome indeed.

The three of them had split up briefly: Colivar to inspect the field of stakes, Fadir to hunt down whatever signs of the supply party remained, and Sulah to seek out confirmation of the most disturbing part of the witch’s vision, the rising of the great winged beast. Now, as the young Magister returned to his teacher’s side, it seemed to him that the Colivar he knew was gone, and in his place was an ashen-faced stranger whose eyes were fixed not upon the field of slaughter surrounding them, but on some distant vision a hundred times more terrible.

“I found marks of one great creature,” Sulah reported. “Where the vision showed it rising. So that much at least was true.” Colivar turned to him slowly as he spoke, his black eyes hollow, haunted. “No sign of any others.”

“There will be no others,” Colivar said quietly.

Fadir rejoined them, then. His own expression was grim. “I found the supply party. Most were killed alongside their mounts. A few tried to flee into the woods, it appears, but they did not get far.”

“What killed them?” Sulah asked.

“Nothing human. They were torn to pieces while still alive.” He shrugged stiffly. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“So the witch’s memories were fairly accurate.”

“So it would seem.” Fadir’s jaw clenched tightly as he looked over the field of corpses. “I had hoped he was at least partly delusional.” He looked at Colivar. “You think it was a real Souleater he saw? One of these… what did you call them… ikati?”

“What other purpose can there be for all this?” Colivar waved at the field of stakes, and toward the place beyond it where the supply party had been murdered. “What other motive makes sense?”

“How about a gesture intended to strike fear into the enemies of the High King? This
is
Danton Aurelius we are talking about. His distaste for Corialanus is no secret. Nor is his penchant for brutality. This kind of display is hardly beyond him. A warning to would-be rebels:
disobey me and you will suffer the same fate
.”

Colivar shook his head. “This slaughter was too far from well-traveled roads to serve such a purpose. It was unlikely to be discovered while the bodies were still fresh, which was when the scene was most effective. Danton has better timing than that.”

“Not to mention,” Sulah offered, “that those who might have served as witnesses were apparently hunted down and killed. That is not what you do when you are trying to send a message to someone.”

Colivar walked to the nearest stake, gazed up at its occupant, and then put his hand upon the length of wood. It was an oddly intimate contact, almost a dark caress. “An entire unit of men were made helpless here, condemned to die over the course of a few days, their life force bleeding out along with their blood, from all of them at once, together… a Souleater would regard that as nothing short of a feast.”

“These stakes were not erected by beasts,” Fadir pointed out.

“No,” Colivar agreed, “they were not.”

“Perhaps these ikati are more than that. Perhaps the legends are right.”

Colivar said nothing.

“Some men say they were demons, but I myself have never credited that.”

“They are not demons,” Colivar said quietly.

“You sound very sure, given as how the last one was dead and gone long before the first Magister was bom.” Fadir’s tone was a challenge. “What makes your version of the legend more accurate than any other?”

Colivar gazed out into the distance as if there were some terrible thing to be seen there, so far away he could not quite manage to focus on it, but felt driven to try. “Let us say I remember a time when the legends were young, and a few real facts were still remembered. There were even ikati skeletons to be found back then, kept as trophies of the Great War. I seem to recall a throne being made out of one of them, somewhere in the Northlands, and it was rumored that armor had been made from ikati skin as well.” He shrugged. “Truth and fantasy mingle over time, until they can no longer be distinguished from one another. Besides, it is more respectable to claim that humanity was nearly destroyed by demons, than to place the blame upon the shoulders of simple beasts. No matter how fearsome those beasts might have been.”

“They ate human souls,” Sulah said.

Colivar looked sharply at him. “They fed upon the life essence of their prey. As did many other species, at the time. Now we Magisters are the only ones left who do that.” A faint, dry smile flickered about the corners of his lips. “There is irony in that, yes?”

“I wonder if they would see us as rival predators,” Fadir mused.

“More to the point—I wonder who it is they see as an
ally
.” Colivar’s hand tightened about the stake. “This slaughter was a sacrifice, nothing less. Like the kings of the Dark Ages who left maidens chained on mountain-tops, hoping that if the hunger of the Souleaters was sated thus the rest of their people would be spared, the one who did this knew exactly what was here, and what manner of food it hungered for.”

“Danton, you think?”

“These lances were made by his people,” Colivar said. Stroking the wood of the nearest stake again, letting his sorcerous senses seep down deep into its grain, to read the history of the thing. “The men who placed them here were following his orders. That much is clear.”

“But why kill so many?” Fadir demanded. “Surely this is more ‘food’ than one beast would require.”

Colivar shut his eyes. A muscle along the line of his jaw tensed for a moment. Again Sulah caught the sense of coiled energy within him, some black and terrible instinct that he was struggling to control. “Assuming an ikati was here,” he said at last, “and that someone made arrangements to feed it this many lives, all at once…” he looked at Sulah. “What would you expect to find, if you searched for it properly? And where would you look for it?”

For a moment the younger Magister stared at him, not comprehending. Then his face went even paler—if such a thing were possible—as he realized what Colivar was suggesting.

“A nest,” he whispered.

He looked out over the landscape, though the field of stakes, across the top of the gorge that was the King’s Pass, and to the granite-faced cliffs on the other side. After a moment he located a broad shelf strewn with rubble, set in a place that no man could reach without risking his neck climbing up to it. A winged creature, on the other hand, would find it a comfortable and convenient perch. Even a very large winged creature. “There,” he said.

Colivar nodded. “Go. Confirm it.”

It was rare that one Magister gave orders to another, and for a moment Sulah hesitated. But the look in Fadir’s eyes made it clear that Colivar’s knowledge of these matters had won him a kind of implied authority in this instance, so he nodded at last, and exchanged his human flesh for a winged shape that might fly the distance.

The wind slowly grew colder as the sun began to slip down behind the mountains. It was hard to find what he was looking for, but Colivar had trained him well, and Sulah uncovered the nest just before sunset’s shadows claimed that part of the ledge.

For a moment he just stared at the broken fragments and tried to gather his thoughts. Colivar seemed to take all this in stride, somehow, but he could not. The Souleaters were creatures out of legend, and when they last flew above the earth, it was said, mankind had been reduced to utter barbarism. All the proud monuments and civilizations of the First Age of Kings were gone now, lost to that terrible assault. Beasts the Souleaters might be—even natural beasts, perhaps—but their legendary status was well-deserved. And the thought that they might now be returning was terrifying.

The Magisters will manage to survive
, he thought,
but what is the value of one man’s survival when the very world he belongs to is destroyed
?

Finally he pulled himself together, picked up a fragment of a shell to bring back with him, and returned to where the other two Magisters were waiting. The object that was grasped in his talons appeared in his palm as he reclaimed his human form, and he held it out silently, grimly, for inspection. It was the size of a man’s fist, dull white on the outside, with an inner surface that gleamed a darker hue, blue-black, like the heavens at twilight.

A muscle along the line of Colivar’s jaw tightened for a moment. “How many?”

“One nest on the ledge. Many eggs, all broken. There…” he hesitated. “There could still be others. Elsewhere. Yes?”

“What is this?” Fadir asked.

“Why so many had to die.” Colivar took the shell from Sulah, looked it over, then handed it to the red-haired Magister. “This place was used as a breeding ground for ikati. These were—” he indicated the forest of impaled bodies “—food for their young.”

Fadir’s thick brow furrowed. “So whoever killed all these people was doing it to feed a Souleater? To help it breed?” He breathed in sharply. “Do you realize what you are suggesting?”

Colivar nodded grimly.

“Who would be mad enough to do that? Knowing that the last time these creatures roamed free, human civilization was nearly obliterated?”

“I have heard the High King is mad,” Sulah offered. “That the death of his son unhinged him, awakening a hunger for bloodshed that no amount of violence can slake.”

“He was always mad,” Colivar said, “but for a while he had a man of reason to guide him. Now that man is gone.”

“Ramirus?” Fadir asked. Colivar nodded.

“I rather had the impression you did not approve of him.”

“I despised his master. That is not the same thing.”

“Do you think Danton is fool enough to do something like this? To invite these… these abominations, to return?”

Colivar’s eyes narrowed; the black gaze was unreadable. “The High King is a fool, but not that kind of fool. It takes no genius to understand that if the Dark Ages come again, it will affect all domains, all princes… all Magisters.” His hand unconsciously stroked the stake beside him, as if trying to coax more information out of its bloodstained wood. “My guess is that someone is using him. Someone who knows what these things are, and thinks they can serve his purpose.”

“Or someone who only
thinks
he knows what they are about,” Fadir offered, “and therefore imagines he can control them.”

“Just so,” Colivar whispered. Once more his gaze unfocused, fixing on some dark and distant horizon.

“Can we tell him?” Sulah asked. “Tell Danton? Or his Magister, perhaps? If, as you say, he would never support such a plan, maybe knowing what these creatures really are would cause him to rethink his plan.”

“And who will tell him that?” Colivar asked sharply. “I am counted among his enemies for my alliance with Anshasa; most of the other Magisters who might dare to tell him the truth were banished from his realm when Andovan died. Who do you imagine can go to this High King bearing words he does not wish to hear, and make him listen?”

“Ramirus knows him,” Fadir said quietly. “He would know how to get through to him.”

Colivar exhaled sharply. “Yet another one who treasures my counsel.”

“The reason for your conflict with him is over now. And there are others who can make that journey in your place.”

Colivar looked up at him. “You are offering?”

“I will seek out Ramirus, yes. And tell him what is happening, and ask him how Danton is best handled.”

“He is best simply killed,” Colivar muttered, “but our Law does not allow that.”

Fadir nodded. It was customary among the Magisters that once one of them had made a contract with a prince, that prince was not to be assaulted directly by any other of their kind. It was a frustrating handicap, at times like this, but one that had been proven necessary back in the days when there were no rules. “Who serves him now?”

“Someone named Kostas. There is no history to the name, at least not that anyone has been able to discover. Rumor has it he has a nature as bloodthirsty as Danton’s, which, if true, is only going to make things worse.”

“Is it possible he is behind all this?”

Colivar’s eyes narrowed. “How would a Magister benefit from the return of the Souleaters? If the spirit of man is devoured, this is not going to be a pleasant world to inhabit. Not to mention—”

He hesitated for a moment. Sulah held his breath, sensing they were at the threshold of secrets, wondering how much his mentor would reveal.

“We may be food to them,” Colivar said at last. “You do realize that, don’t you? They were drawn to mankind because the soulfire burned more brightly in him than in any other species. And we… we steal that fire, we concentrate it inside ourselves. They could feed off a Magister’s athra for years, and their prey would never die…”

Sulah shuddered. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that.”