Feast of Souls

by C. S. Friedman

“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.”

  “No, I can’t.” The dark eyes met his own; something in their depths made a cold chill run down Sulah’s spine. “No one can know that. Souleaters and Magisters have never met. Correct?”

  The word yes lodged in Sulah’s throat and would not come out.

  Colivar turned to Fadir. “Go to Ramirus, see if he has any insight to add to this. For all that he can be a pretentious bastard, he has more innate wisdom than most other Magisters combined. And he knows Danton better than any other man alive.” He shut his eyes briefly, considering. “We will need to tell the Magisters about this. All of them. We need to share news of any disturbance that might be linked to this . . . campaign. And either get witches to search for new nests, or do it ourselves if we must. Common men cannot find them. We cannot let these things continue to breed.”

  “How likely do you think it is that there will be others?” Fadir asked.

  “There have already been others. Up north. Far from Danton’s influence. So whatever is going on . . .” His expression tightened. “It is not simply morati politics that is causing this.”

  Fadir nodded. “Siderea has contact information for many of us, we can ask her to—

  “—Siderea is dying,” Colivar said abruptly.

  Fadir’s mouth hung open briefly, then closed soundlessly. “How? Is it—”

  “The natural end of her life. Disguised by our art, but no more than that.”

  Fadir exhaled slowly. “Does she know?”

  “I don’t think so. Not yet. But she only has so much life left in her, and every act of witchery we ask her to perform will lessen that meager store. When she is gone we are going to lose a vital link in our network. Perhaps an irreplaceable one.” He looked at Fadir. “If you feel that asking her to help with this is worth the cost, I will listen to your argument.”

  “No. No.” He shook his head slowly; his expression was grim. “You are right. We need her too much for other things.” He hesitated. “We should spread that news as well, I suppose.”

  Colivar nodded. “To her lovers.” Again the dry, pained smile flickered across his lips briefly. “What a strange society we have formed, bound together by a morati woman. And by nothing else, save perhaps an instinctive distrust for one another.”

  “If you are right about what these things are,” Sulah said, “and how they operate, the Magisters will have to ally. As the witches did in the Great War.”

  “I can think of quite a few Magisters who would rather fornicate with a Souleater than work with others of their kind,” Colivar said dryly. “Let us hope we do not need to test them. As for the Great War . . . I will remind you that what the witches did was offer up their lives in sacrifice. Every last one of them was lost.”

  Fadir nodded. “Not likely they will be willing to do the same again, now that we are here.”

  “And not likely that any Magisters will offer to take their place, given that the one quality we all have in common is an unwillingness to die. So we need to see that matters never reach that point, yes?” Colivar wrapped his arms around himself; it was a strangely morati gesture. “I for one have no desire to see the Dark Ages return. And do not mistake it, that is the cost if we fail.”

  “I will spread the word,” Fadir promised. He stepped back from the other two and raised his hand as if to bind enough power to leave their company, but suddenly Colivar stopped him.

  “Tell them to kill their consorts,” he told him. “They will understand.”

  The red-headed Magister bowed his assent and then called his power to him. The night air shimmered briefly about him . . . and then there was nothing in the place where he had stood save a chill breeze, which quickly dispersed.

  For a moment there was only silence, and the deep ruddy shadows of the setting sun.

  Then: “Your observations?” Colivar asked. “I am . . . curious.”

  “You know more than you are telling us,” the younger man said bluntly. “Quite a bit more, I suspect. And I have as much chance of getting the rest out of you as these skeletons have of coming down off their posts and dancing, if you are not ready to talk.”

  Colivar chuckled darkly. “You were always an insightful student. . . .”

  “Am I wrong?” He waited a moment for an answer, and when none was offered, pressed, “What did you mean, ‘tell them to kill their consorts?’ ”

  “A custom of war, among Magisters Royal. On the eve of battle one drains one’s consort dry, to force Transition to take place, so that one has a fresh consort when the battle begins, and need not worry about having to hunt down a new one at an inopportune moment.”


  “Are we going into battle, then? Or just taking precautions?

  For a moment Colivar did not answer him. He gazed out into the night, and once more Sulah had the feeling that his thoughts were elsewhere. Remembering past battles, perhaps, or envisioning future ones. Finally he said, “It is possible, I suppose, that a handful of ikati escaped the hunt at the end of the Great War. Possible that they and their descendants kept a low enough profile that we did not realize any had survived until now.”

  “And if not?”

  The black eyes fixed on him. “Then the ones we are seeing came from the North. From beyond those boundaries which were supposed to hold them prisoner forever. And if that is the case, Sulah, if that barrier has truly been breached, then the war has already begun. On very different terms than the last time we fought them.”

  He gazed out across the field of stakes; Sulah thought he saw him shudder. It was so uncharacteristic that the sight of it made Sulah’s skin crawl.

  “Last time they did not have allies,” Colivar whispered.

  Chapter 34

  IT WAS late at night when Gwynofar returned to her chambers, and she was weary. She hoped that was because of her pregnancy, and not any more significant problem. Not the fact that the whole building seemed to reek of Danton’s foul Magister now, and merely breathing air that carried his scent made her stomach churn. Once, mere days ago, she would have tried to deny the sensation, telling herself that the stink was no more than her imagination . . . but now that Rurick had made it clear that was not the case, and others could smell it as well, it seemed ten times more sickening.

  At the door to her chamber Merian paused. The maidservant looked back the way they had come as if listening for something. When she did not move after a moment, Gwynofar asked, “What is it?”

  “I thought I heard voices, milady. It would be odd, for anyone to be here so late at night.”

  Gwynofar doubted that anyone would be passing by her chamber at such an hour, but she knew from experience that her maidservant would not be at ease until she had investigated the matter. “Go,” she said. “I will wait for you.”

  She took the lamp from the woman’s hands, listened to the obligatory apologies for her running off when she should be by milady’s side, and watched with a half-smile as Merian finally went off down the corridor, back the way they had come. Woe betide any man who she decided was responsible for disturbing the queen’s peace, Gwynofar thought.

  With a sigh she opened the heavy doors of the bedchamber herself and stepped inside. Setting the lamp down beside the bed, she wondered if she should just undress herself and go to sleep rather than waiting for her servant to return to help her. But no, that would just upset the woman more, and Gwynofar would have to reassure her ten times over that she had not failed in her duty to her queen by leaving her to undress herself. With a heavy sigh Gwynofar decided just to wait for her, and settled for pulling the long pins out of her hair and then turning to the bed—

  —and she stumbled backward with a low cry, upsetting the sideboard and nearly knocking the lamp over.

  There was something on the bed. It was small and still, and there was some kind of liquid spreading outward from it, wet and dark as it pooled upon the coverlet.

  Leaning against the wall for support, she picked up the lamp again. Her hand was trembling, and the lamp sent shadows dancing across the walls. Slowly she approached the bed, raising it up so that it would cast its light directly on the object.

  It was a messenger pigeon.

  Her messenger pigeon.

  Its neck had been torn open, a wound from which its last blood now dripped, staining the coverlet crimson. The tiny leather case that had been strapped to its leg was still there, but it had been opened, and the message she had placed within it was gone. The flesh was still warm, she noted with a trembling touch, the blood still fluid . . . which meant that it had only just been killed. Perhaps even while she and Merian were talking in the corridor.

  She stared at it in horror and wanted to scream, but when she tried the sound caught in her throat and nothing would come out.

  “Your bird, I believe.”

  The voice came from behind her. She whirled about and suddenly found the speaker so close to her that she nearly fell onto the bed trying to back away from him.

  Kostas.

  “Merian!” she yelled. Or tried to yell. But though she did all the things one normally did to make a sound, no sound came out.

  “She will not hear you, Majesty. No one will hear you, until I allow it.”

  For a moment she was so weak with fear she could hardly stand. The sickness she felt in the Magister’s presence was nigh on overwhelming, and for one terrible moment she wondered if she might faint before him. Then anger took spark within her, setting fire to her soul . . . and she was queen once more.

  “Get out of my room,” she commanded.

  The lizardlike eyes fixed on her: unblinking, inhuman. “I suggest you listen to what I have to say, Majesty. Until now you have simply annoyed me, and it has cost you a messenger. But I would not like to think that some foolish act in the future might bring us to greater conflict.”

  Her heart was pounding wildly, but she refused to let him see her fear. “I am your queen,” she said in her most imperious tone. “For as long as you are bound in contract to Danton, you are bound to my service as well.”

  “But to him first and foremost, Lady. And if those two interests should conflict . . . let us say it would not be a good thing for you.”

  Her voice was like steel. “I am his wife. I rule over his household. I share his throne. It is not for you to judge the manner in which I do those things.”

  He reached out to touch her, to cup his hand under her chin; it was the sort of condescending gesture one might make with a child. She hissed softly as his fingers came near to her face, and could feel something within her self about to snap. It was a dark and terrible something, like nothing she had ever felt before.

  But just as he was about to make contact with her, he stopped. It was not by choice, it seemed to her, but almost as if some unseen barrier had stopped the motion short. A strange look came over his face. For a fleeting moment she saw something in his eyes that was neither arrogance nor disdain. Could it be fear?

  “You cannot plot against me,” he said quietly. “You understand that? I will know it if you do. Any thought you may have of interfering with my plans, or of turning your husband against me, I will know of it as soon as you begin. When you walk into a room where I am present, I will understand all your plots and connivings as certainly as if you had explained them to me. Your allies will be as clear to my Sight as if they wore your mark plainly upon their foreheads . . . and their thoughts, also, shall be known to me.” His eyes narrowed. “You have no secrets from me, Majesty.”

  She did not trust herself to speak. She hoped he could not hear the wild pounding of her heart.

  “Your husband is High King,” he told her. “I know what lies before him and I am guiding him to his destiny. That is my duty. You are his queen. That is a different role. Bear him heirs, pleasure his flesh, run his household if you please. Stay out of his business otherwise.”

  That something which was inside her finally snapped. Willing authority into her voice, drawing energy from that place within her soul where terror and fury both raged, she could feel her expression harden.

  “You will leave my room,” she said. “NOW.”

  For a long moment he just stared at her. Perhaps waiting to see if she would back down. But she drew strength from the power of her hatred for him, and did not even blink. If he was reading her mind now, she thought, let him drink in that hatred and drown in it. My spirit is poison to you, Magister. The words seemed to come out of nowhere, but she suddenly knew them for the truth.

  “Call upon your ancestral power if you like,” he said between gritted teeth. “But know that the cost will be the life of your unborn child.”

  With no f
urther word he turned and left her. Not until the door had swung shut behind him did the strength finally drain from her limbs. With a short cry of anguish she fell to the floor, and the tears she had fought so hard not to shed in front of him began to flow freely. Her body shook violently as all the emotions she had struggled to control in his presence were let loose. Ice-cold terror, molten rage, confusion . . . what had his final words meant? What power was he referring to? How was it a threat to her child?

  “Milady? Milady!”

  It was Merian. She was kneeling by the queen’s side an instant, cradling Gwynofar in her arms as one would a fallen child, drying her tears with the end of one sleeve. “What is it, what happened? What’s wrong? Did he hurt you?”

  “He cannot hurt me.” The words tasted strange on her lips, but somehow she knew they were true. “He lacks the power.”

  “I will kill him if he tries, I swear it, milady—”

  “Shh. Shh. There is no need.” It was oddly comforting to focus on the other woman’s fear instead of her own. “He is gone now.”

  He had not been able to touch her. He had tried to, he had reached out to her with his hand . . . and he had not made contact. What had stopped him?

  “Find me a room he has never been in,” she whispered. “Have my things moved there tonight. I will not sleep in a place that creature has befouled with his presence, not ever again.”

  “But milady . . .” Merian glanced back nervously toward the door, no doubt imagining how well it would be received when she started waking up servants to see to the task. “I do not know—”

  “And a new bed. There must be a new bed. I will not sleep in this one again.”

  She sighed. “Yes, milady. As you wish.”

  Gwynofar would wait in the garden, by the Spears, while a new room was prepared. She would sleep there if necessary. Kostas would never approach the Spears, she knew that now. Maybe that was the power he had referred to. Maybe he feared her family’s gods, and because of them, feared her. But why would the gods hurt her child?

  My spirit is poison to you, Magister. I do not know how yet, or why, but I saw the truth of it in your eyes.