Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1)

by Christian A. Brown

  Morigan was not prone to flighty indulgences. She had been offered her share of fair-weather romances; she knew the promises that men made only to break. She recovered her sensibilities first.

  “Pardon my intrusion. The door was ajar. I…I am Morigan. Morigan Lostarot.”

  How strange, thought the Wolf, for he never left the door to his den open.

  She went down into the room, which had a small step, and stood outside the circumference of the grate. She offered her hand for him to come forward and shake. Curiously, he beheld it. The Wolf operated by requisition only. Slips were left under his door, with orders for weaponry and no face attached to the order. He had his meat delivered in the mornings by a meatmonger, whom he never welcomed in. Rarely did he see a two-legs. He needed to think about how mortals greeted one another. After dusting off his hands on his blackened apron, he walked off the grate and put forth a calloused paw that engulfed Morigan’s hand entirely. As they touched, her arm hummed like a tuning fork, and being close to him, she noticed his queer smell. Underneath the stringency of iron shavings, body odor, and charcoal were more enticing scents of woodland ferns or silky pelts. Morigan couldn’t explain any of it, or why she was so captivated.

  The enchantment was shared by the Wolf, and he struggled against the urge to rub her satin skin or even lick it, knowing that such practices were frowned on by slow-walkers.

  Following a much-delayed introduction, he said, “Caenith. My name is Caenith.”

  His voice was raw, deep, and cracked, like a stone bounding down a chasm in the earth.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Caenith. No promised or family name, I take it?”

  Promised name! For the love of the kings, Morigan, it sounds like you’re throwing yourself at the man like a common tart!

  “No blood or bloodmate that I would answer to, no.”

  Nervously, Morigan continued with a smile. It was as beautiful to Caenith as the sun dancing over the water of the deepest springs in the oldest forests; it was an expression of true purity.

  “Bloodmate! There’s a term from the ages. In any case, terrific to meet you! If I could have my hand back, that would grand.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Caenith, and released her.

  Feeling a touch more at ease, Morigan asked the curious smith for a glass of water (she decided against asking to use his toilet, however, as it was not ladylike to squat in an exposed corner). Caenith went off to rummage through his den for an object to use as a cup. A particular quandary, as he tended to fill the sink or tub with water when he needed to drink, bathe, or otherwise refresh himself. While he was away somewhere in the smoky chamber, Morigan wandered to the wall and perused the smith’s wares. At once, her breath was taken away by their exquisiteness, and she drifted with an open mouth, sighing at each item she passed and was afraid to touch out of the delicacy of its construction. If she had her say, these pieces would be displayed above a great hearth, mayhap even in the golden halls of the Everfair King. She ahhed over foils decorated with metal leaves to look as though they were entwined in ivy. She oohed at blades with thorns run down their haft and embossed with flowers. While she said she would not, she dared to trace her fingertip on the cold shields of steel roses, the iron shillelagh made as a grayish leafed branch, and the gauntlet that had the seeming appearance of marble with streaks of gold, platinum, and silver. Each piece bore some element of the natural world, as if flora had miraculously survived the smith’s fire and grown on inside the metal. Every artifact could have been chiseled from the land itself.

  What artistry! Eod’s sorcerers were its artists, gardeners, and architects. Here in the City of Wonders, you could not escape their ostentation. The watersculptors, firecallers, earthspeakers, and windsingers created fountains of ever-flowing water, statues of heatless flame, orchards from plots of dust, and skies free of the deadly sandstorms that swept the desert around Eod. Their grandeur was undeniable. But for Morigan, the smith’s work embodied the denotation of art better than any sorcerer’s spell could. As she was reaching for a butterfly unfurling its wings on a helmet of netted vines, half expecting the insect to leap onto her fingers, a shadow—and the smell of man, woods, and beast—dropped over her. She jumped and did an about-face.

  “Water,” said Caenith.

  What she judged to be the broken end of a hollow metal staff was thrust before her, dribbling water. How or why the staff had been snapped was a question she never thought to ask, but probably should have, and she was instead amused by the crude charm of the gesture.

  What an odd bird, this one. I swear he’s never had company before. Here I was worrying that I might embarrass myself to a man who doesn’t even have a cup in his cupboard. Or a cupboard for a cup, even.

  She drank the water, thanked the smith, and passed back the makeshift cup to him, which he tossed to the floor. Again the heaviness of his stare, as if his eyes alone could consume her, shivered over Morigan’s flesh.

  “Your work,” she said, striking at the tension.

  “What of it?”

  “I am not a warrior—in fact, I’ve never held a blade—but the craftsmanship is…extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it. I feel that I should ask if you have cast some magik into the metal, even though I am inclined to believe that you have not. I simply cannot imagine how hands by themselves can make such beauty.”

  The smith looked at Morigan, or through her, as if envisioning another space. “Hands and patience…Geadhain—if you don’t know the old name of our world—has secrets that she speaks to any creature, but only the most willing hear her. The sorcerers of today do not bow to the Old Laws, they scribble over them instead. They do not ask the skies to rain; they rip into it with their Wills, and the tears fall. If we listen to the metal, if we hear how it wants to be made…well, then true beauty can be found. To touch is as much a pleasure as it is a gift. I honor that gift. I honor what I touch.”

  Morigan noted that the smith’s attention had returned from its faraway reminiscence and was upon her again, burning off her clothing, sniffing her presence, eating her right up. Other than his flowery, compelling words, there was something about this man that was as off as it was alluring. There was a quality to him that was unlike any person she had met.

  “What of you, Morigan Lostarot?” Her name rolled off his tongue like a slow song. “What do you speak to? What voices do you hear? What do you touch?”

  Touch? she wondered. He seemed to be asking about her vocation in his outlandish way. Suddenly, her responsibilities and sensibilities rushed over her, and she recalled that she had a purpose before wandering into the dreamy forge and talking with a strange, talented man who smelled like a beast—pleasingly so, a dog she wanted to pet—and spoke like a philosopher poet. Waving her arms apologetically and rambling in staccato, she fumbled to leave, nearly tripping over helmets, poles, and whatever else cluttered her path. Yet the smith followed her closely, stealing touches of her softness as he moved her around these obstacles or kicked them out of her way.

  “Oh shite! I’m a handmaiden to a sometimes-cranky sorcerer! I daresay I’ve been here far too long! How long has it been? An hourglass? More? If it weren’t so dark in here, I’d have a better idea. I’m sorry, Caenith, but I really must be off. My master is quite helpless without me. Old, very old. He doesn’t soil himself, but I don’t think we’re that far off. Oh, thank you, thank you, I didn’t see that. I never did find that firewort, or wormhazel, or whatever I was supposed to find! Where is my mind today? I didn’t get the address of the last shopkeeper that lived here, either. I meant to ask you that, funnily enough! That’s how I ended up here. You probably have no idea where he’s gone. Oh, thank you once more, forgot about the stair. Here we are, then.”

  They had reached the door, and Caenith opened it wide to the day. Sunset was upon them, and light poured from the metal roofs of the buildings in the street behind Morigan and lit her in an aura of crimson. Right then, she was a woman of fire, and Caenith was
overcome by her loveliness and her honey-autumn scent that a breeze blew his way. His heart hammered as though it would shatter the bone that restrained it, and a revelation split his skull. After so long alone, after wandering a world where the wind only sang when it was whipped to obedience by the new magik, and the true beauty, the old magik, was a whisper when it had been a roar…here was a miracle. Something of the past, something that should not be, unaware of who or what she was, of how precious a dream she represented. Akin to the pack he had lost, a thousand howling beasts of emotion tore through his spirit. He thought of hunting amid pine forests or loping over golden meadows. He dreamed of tasting freedom and breathing life. He felt the rush of blood in his mouth, the splash of water on his snout, the crash of lightning in his ear. In that instant, the Wolf felt it all: every forgotten beauty of his soul. The realization of who this maiden was or what she could be paralyzed him, and he dumbly sensed his hand being shaken and her bidding him farewell without finding his voice.

  He sprinted out the door and into the street and was upon Morigan in a whirl of speed—somehow in front of her when she hadn’t even sensed him coming from behind. The smith had a desperate enthusiasm to him that was misplaced on such a large imposing man, though Morigan found it endearing, as she did with so much of this relative stranger.

  “I never said farewell. That was rude of me,” said Caenith.

  “Oh, well, I suppose you didn’t.”

  “Will you come back again?”

  “Why?”

  The answer was plain to the Wolf.

  “To see me,” he said.

  Brazen. Kings be damned, I think I like this man, thought Morigan. If she was honest with herself, she felt more than a simple budding interest; she felt a gravitation toward his being, as if he could pull her right inside himself. A terrifying experience this was, for a woman so used to being alone. Collecting herself, she spoke.

  “You’ve convinced me. I shall come again. Another staff tip of water, another day. Now I really must be off. My master will be worried sick. It was…an unintended pleasure meeting you, Caenith.”

  Politely, Morigan bowed and took her leave.

  “Safe steps, dear fawn,” Caenith shouted after her—almost in a roar, which garnered the attention of many passing folk. “Perhaps when the Gray Man is ripe and full with beauty, we could stalk the city for a bite!”

  A bite? chuckled Morigan. Dear fawn? Stalk the city? Gray Man? Is he talking about the moon? I certainly pick the wild ones. If I don’t find a toilet soon, I may just wet myself from laughter.

  Long after Morigan left, the Wolf stood in the street, as immobile as stone, and a source of much elbow pain for whatever folks attempted to nudge past him. He could see the maiden well beyond the time she would become a dot to a slow-walker’s eyes; she was breathtaking at any distance. And when he could no longer spy her, he could smell her still, or at least the memory that he had captured and never let go. The fragrance of the old magik, of earth and spice, of sweat, honey, and nuts: a bouquet of life.

  What the Wolf did not know was that Morigan could feel his hungry sight upon her for almost as long as he held it there, and she smiled, knowing this was the case. Traversing Eod’s dusky streets, its usual wonder seemed dull. She passed under spidery bridges and through extravagant, ornately molded gatehouses. She felt the shadows of sky carriages soar over her head, walked by street sorcerers conjuring birds of fire, or took shortcuts through Eod’s many gardens—great expanses of nature, with tree mazes and trellises of fruit and flowers—and stopped not a speck to dawdle. She even forgot how badly she needed to pee. Her heart, her mind thought only of the smith. Of when she would next take the trip to see him.

  II

  WHAT THE STONES WHISPERED

  I

  Morigan could not stall her interest in the smith for more than a night. Her sleep had been restless and haunted by dreams of running through a dark forest while being chased by a growling animal presence. A nightmarish plight she oddly enjoyed, for she woke beaming and bright to the day. During her charwomaning at Thule’s silver-topped tower, she lost herself to distraction often and continued to ponder the dream. In it, she was certain that she recalled scents, woodland scents—primal smells of earth, leaf, and fur that she had smelled the previous day at the Armsman. Fancies surely, as dreams were never more than gasps of the subconscious, but all were indications that she had unresolved curiosity toward the smith. More than that, she thought him to be exceptionally handsome, and the further she dwelled on his rough curves and frightening musculature, the hotter her collar became. And yet for such virility, his manner appeared as soft and profound as that of any poet, and that, too, was enticing, for she had not known a balance of those qualities in a man before.

  In the very least, I could help him tidy up his home—hovel, lair, what have you.

  “Where are you, girl?” croaked a tired old voice. “You were like this yesterday, and I sent you home for it.”

  “Me? Right here, of course. Cleaning, cleaning. What a mess you are.”

  She removed the books from the footstool near her master’s chair and patted it, coughing from the dust. Master Thule set down the scroll he was reading and watched her. Wrapped in a charcoal robe that drowned his tiny figure, he looked very much like a swaddled, frowning, and immensely wrinkled child, baldness and all. In his youth he was trim, and a spryness remained with him even as he grayed, regardless of his tendency to sit more than walk these days. His eyes, sharp as winter frost and the same pale blue, belied any sense of age, and they read her befuddlement as patently as any book.

  “Physically you are present, yes. However, your mind is elsewhere,” said Master Thule.

  Morigan ignored him and collected the volumes she had set upon the floor; she didn’t ask if Master Thule needed them, for it was his habit that when a piece of knowledge was no longer of interest, it was dropped—quite literally. Following this custom, she filled her skirt with scattered treatises and sheaves of parchment, then walked over to one of the bookcases that walled her master’s quaint study. Really, she wasn’t sure how Thule did it, but for an old man who barely left his chair, he managed to cause a fantastic mess on the few hourglasses of the day she was away. She went to the least crammed shelf and slipped the books into whatever narrow spaces she could find. After dusting off her hands, she assessed the place again. In the moony glow afforded by the pale globes rocking on tables or teetering on bookshelves, she saw books, books, and more books, piled atop stools and stepladders, all in varying states of order. For the study, she had given up on any complex system of organization—those always fell apart during Thule’s midnight rampages—and she did her best to keep the different heaps from spreading.

  Good enough, she decided. Maybe a bit of air for the old fellow. This place has a fusty smell. She went to the chamber’s only window, threw back the heavy curtain, and invited in the warm golden air from outside. Such a beautiful day greeted her that she leaned out the window to welcome it back. King’s Crown, where Thackery Thule and many of Eod’s masters made their homes, was as resplendent as ever. Beneath her, brightly garbed folks and their entourages strolled down polished flagstone paths or beside clattering horse-drawn carriages. Happy, happy you must all be, in your blissful lives. You have so much, and yet you couldn’t even save a woman dying at your feet. She considered spitting on them, but she had been caught by Thule and chastised for doing that before, so she looked away from Eod’s privileged, as there was much else to catch a wandering eye.

  About Thule’s white-and-silver tower rose many more spires, like trees in a woodland of ivy-grown villas and gated gardens, all so small and delightful from her vantage point that they could be miniatures. Past those lay other, less impressive, yet still pristine properties and houses, and surrounding Eod, protecting its beauty, was a grand pale wall, crested like a frozen wave and tall enough to repel any of nature’s or man’s advances. Past King’s Crown, she saw the craggy russet flesh of Kor�
�Keth Mountain, its peak scraping the heavens. There, carved in ivory tiers into the mountain, was the city’s heart: the palace of the Everfair King. Today, as always, its many-layered magnificence, its boldness of life against rock, took her breath away. Forests flourished on many tiers of the palace, and glistened with dazzling tributaries and flocking birds for Morigan to admire. Other tiers were different aviaries, where flocks of silver sky carriages buzzed to and fro. Some of the king’s technomagikal armada were seen ascending to the higher plateaus of Kor’Keth, for the fortress was thousands upon thousands of years old, as ancient as its ageless king, and had been built far up and within the mountain.

  At night, the palace would illuminate the surroundings with starry lights along its balconies and within its woods. The City of Wonders was an apt name for those who came to Eod and gawked at that sight among all the others. When alone in her humble apartment, far from her second home at Master Thule’s, as the taps played their drippy jig in her ears, she could stare at the palace for hourglasses on end. Its grandeur captured everything that Eod stood for: the Nine Laws of freedom that allowed common men to rule as masters, and not only those with sorcery or brutality, as many of Geadhain’s other nations allowed; the triumph of magik over nature, for here was a vibrant, fertile realm, raised in the middle of dust and nothingness. On days when her mother’s death weighed the heaviest, she would look at the star-dappled palace and remind herself of how fortunate she was not to be some sewn-up third wife to an Arhad chieftain, a sex slave in Menos, or subjected to any other miserable fate.