Feast of Souls

by C. S. Friedman

  “You are not of my people,” he said to her. “I have no right to ask you to expend your vital energy in any cause. Least of all in service to ancient legends.”

  “You want me to kill it,” she whispered. Trembling inwardly at the thought.

  “Can you do such a thing? Is that possible?”

  She looked out the window again. Now that she knew the nature of the creature’s power she was able to keep from being mesmerized simply by the sight of it, but it took effort. Focusing sorcery upon the creature would be even harder, and would increase the threat of entrancement a hundredfold. And she could not do it from here. There was no question of that. In another moment the creature would pass out of sight of this vantage point, and while she might run from window to window throughout the palace trying to keep sight of it, that sort of behavior was not conducive to well-focused sorcery.

  And then of course, there was . . .

  The obvious.

  She needed no sorcery to read the creature’s emotional state. That was a gift of her Sight, which made the creature’s spiritual aura plainly visible. The beast was maddened with pain and with rage, and so frenzied in its bloodthirst that all other emotions had ceased to exist. No animal was ever more dangerous than one in such a state.

  Nor any man, she thought.

  Andovan was waiting for her answer. She looked into his eyes and weighed all the lies she might tell him, all the half-truths designed for subterfuge and obscurity . . . and then discarded them. This man deserved better than that. Even if she had to break the Law to give it to him.

  “If I do this,” she told him, “you will die.”

  Her words clearly took him aback. His mouth opened as if he would question her, but no sound came out. For a moment he just stared at her.

  And then something flickered in his eyes that might be understanding. Or perhaps simply acceptance.

  “I am of the Protector’s line,” he said quietly. Proudly. “If I could raise up my sword and charge this thing on my own, I would, even knowing that death would surely come of it.” He took her face in his hands; a strange tenderness filled his eyes. “Do it for me, Lianna.”

  She felt tears coming to her eyes. She fought them back with stubborn pride. I knew all along he must die, and by my hand. Why does it bother me now?

  He kissed her. She shut her eyes and for one bitter-sweet moment smelled saffron and cassia bark again, and heard the patter of a warm mountain rain overhead. Then the memory was gone and there was only the Souleater overhead, screaming out his challenge to the skies, and the source of power that was standing there before her.

  “Go,” he said.

  And she did. She drew the power from out of his soul and transformed into a great bird, even while he staggered back against the wall, gasping as the athra left him. But he was still standing, she noted. That was good. That meant there was probably enough life left in him to sustain her through the course of battle, and she need not fear Transition would claim her in midflight.

  With that thought, and a hawk’s cry of challenge voiced to the heavens, she slid her new body through the narrow window and launched herself into the air.

  Standing alone on the blackened earth, Colivar watched the ikati take to the sky.

  It screamed in pain as it rose, a piercing sound that echoed across the length and breadth of the ravaged plain. Colivar had only heard a cry like that once before, but it was something he had never forgotten. Thus did the Souleater scream when its guiding intelligence was suddenly ripped out of its soul, when fury and fear so consumed its heart that rational thought was impossible, even by animal standards. It was never more dangerous than at such a moment, he recalled, particularly if the source of its pain was within reach. In this case, Colivar was willing to bet the source was within the palace . . . and apparently the creature thought so as well, for it circled once in its flight as if getting its bearings, and then headed straight for the keep.

  Once, long ago, he had heard a man scream like that. Sometimes in his nightmares he heard it still.

  Swiftly the creature flew, its vast stained-glass wings filtering the sunlight into rainbow-colored shards. So much beauty, in such a lethal form! It was almost a pity such a proud creature had to die, he thought. But that was the way of war, even one that was stretched out over the course of centuries. This Souleater had made its home in territory where its presence simply could not be tolerated, especially in its current state of mind. If it did not know when it came here that every human hand would be turned against it, its allies certainly did, and they had accepted that risk. Colivar was merely helping the creature to fulfill the destiny it had chosen.

  As the beast passed overhead, he gathered his power to him. He reflected upon the weaknesses of the beast, the places where a simple wound might do the worst damage. The knowledge was so deeply buried inside him, underneath so many half-forgotten memories, that he had to work to dig it out. Some of the memories he disturbed were not pleasant ones; he would have to work hard at forgetting them again later. Sometimes a man’s sanity depended upon such tricks.

  When the soulfire burned along his fingertips, when whirlwinds of power gathered spontaneously about him, when all the force of a lightning strike was contained within his body, he looked up towards his enemy and focused all his senses upon the Souleater, sorcerous and material—

  But he did not strike.

  He could not strike.

  And then the moment passed and the Souleater had passed him by, its shadow racing along the ground like some ghostly predator. A scent came to him on the breeze in its wake: sweet, so sweet, more enticing than any man-made perfume could be, more intoxicating than the finest of wines. He tried to put the smell out of his mind, but it was impossible. He could feel a dam inside his soul shattering in response to it, and a flood tide of memories came crashing into his mind, so suddenly and so powerfully that he reeled from the impact.• Young women cast into the boiling hot springs in sacrifice, to die oh so slowly—

  • Mountaintops rising from a sea of clouds, stark and white in the arctic sunlight—

  • Winged monsters rending each other with tail and claw, frozen blood raining down upon the earth like ruby crystals—

  Gasping for breath, he fell to his knees. The shadow of the great beast had passed beyond him now, and he shivered as if it had stolen the very warmth from his flesh. How fortunate he was, that the Souleater had not seen him! What a fool he had been, to think that he would be capable of attacking it!

  This is not your battle, he told himself. The thought was bitter, and cut to the heart of his pride. Others must take up that banner now.

  Then he saw the great hawk launch itself into the air from a window of the palace, and he realized that someone intended to do just that.

  The rush of air across her wings was invigorating to Kamala, and—surprisingly—the sense of danger was also. Had Ethanus ever imagined in his wildest dreams that she would come to this point, readying herself to fight one of the most fearsome creatures that had ever existed? What stories she would tell him if she survived this!

  It was clear the Souleater was heading toward the palace, and since the last thing she wanted to do was to be trapped between it and its target, she set off toward the open air to one side of its course. It did not appear to even notice her. Its black eyes were fixed wholly on the palace ahead, and waves of fury and hatred that resonated from it like heat from desert sands left little doubt as to its intentions.

  Clearly something had triggered its frenzy. But what?

  Its eyes glittered like black jewels in the sunlight, but when she looked at them for more than a moment a wave of weakness overcame her, and she had to look away. She discovered she could not study the creature directly at all for more than a second or two without its mind-numbing power wrapping itself around her brain. Once when she tried to test that limit her wings lost their natural rhythm, and she hurtled many feet toward the ground before she was able to save herself.

/>   Not good. Not good at all.

  She had only so much power to spare, she knew that. If she drew too much life from her consort he would die prematurely, which was the worst possible thing that could happen in the midst of a battle. This time there was no natural force nearby that she could manipulate to her advantage, as she had used lightning in the Highlands; the only power available to her was what she could draw from Andovan, until that supply ran out. Complex spells must all be set aside, then, in favor of a simple assault, hopefully with enough good planning behind it that it would take the creature down.

  The only problem was that there was no time to plan anything.

  Desperately she tried to assemble her peripheral impressions of the creature into enough of a unified picture that she could pinpoint some weakness. The body appeared to be covered in overlapping scales, which might be some kind of natural armor. The wings . . . they seemed fragile, as if fashioned from glass, but she was not so much a fool as to believe they were weak in truth if they were supporting such a creature. Wave after wave of its strange mesmeric power washed over her as she struggled to pinpoint an appropriate target area. Part of her wanted to destroy the beast, but part of her wanted to lay down on the earth, belly-up, and invite it to devour her. Half her energy had to be expended just convincing herself that she did not truly wish to die.

  Where is an armored knight most vulnerable? she asked herself, desperately. Trying to focus on the problem.

  And then she realized the answer.

  Summoning up all the power she could—Forgive me, Andovan!—she paused only long enough to gather it into one hot, blazing bolt of energy, then cast it toward the beast. It struck exactly where she had intended, in the soft flesh at the base of one wing, and it pierced the great body like a red-hot lance, searing skin and flesh from the inside out. The Souleater screamed in agony and wheeled in its flight, its flesh smoking blackly from the assault. It had noticed her now, and its mesmeric power increased tenfold as it focused its attention directly upon her. But its flight was unsteady, and it clearly had to struggle to keep itself aloft. That gave Kamala one more second in which to act, but only that. After that she must flee, or the beast would be upon her.

  Avoiding its eyes—what a prime target they would have been if she could look at them directly!—she quickly drew upon her consort’s soulfire again, molding it into a bolt of fiery power ten times more powerful than the last. Apparently Andovan was still strong enough to fuel such efforts; perhaps he might even survive this battle, if she could kill this thing quickly enough. She had to look directly at the creature again to take aim, and braced herself to resist its hypnotic power. This close, she had no trouble seeing the narrow patches of softer skin that covered its joints, a marked contrast from the armored shell that seemed to protect the rest of its body. So it was with human armor, Ethanus had taught her; the need for freedom of movement meant that joints were always the weakest point.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she focused her will upon the creature—

  And the world went black

  And the abyss screamed in hunger.

  And there was no sorcery.

  For one brief moment, time itself seemed frozen. Danton stared out the window as if unable to absorb what he was seeing. Gwynofar knelt in Kostas’ blood, staring at the headless body before her as if expecting it to rise up at any moment. Rurick . . . Rurick knelt by her side, speechless, wary, not yet sure what his part was to be in all this.

  Then the beast shrieked yet again, and the tableau shattered.

  Danton turned from the window. There was madness in his eyes. “This is what you have brought to my kingdom!” he roared. A wild wave of his hand encompassed the entire situation, from the carnage in the room to the unnamed monster rising beyond the palace walls. “My Magister dead and now a Souleater in my realm—if that is what that thing truly is—you will bring us low before all our enemies—”

  “Sire,” she began, “please let me explain—”

  “Silence!” His voice was shaking with rage. “You have betrayed my kingdom. Betrayed me. There is nothing to explain!”

  He looked over the room as if searching for something in particular; after a moment his eyes lit upon the sword, wet with the Magister’s blood. Gwynofar shrank back, trembling, as he walked to where it lay and picked it up.

  Outside, the Souleater shrieked again. The sound was like ragged fingernails playing along Gwynofar’s spine.

  “It is your last betrayal,” Danton proclaimed. His dark eyes gleamed with a fury she knew all too well. Alas, it was not possible to blame such madness on Kostas. While the Magister might have encouraged Danton’s more violent side, the raw material had been there before he arrived and clearly it had survived his death.

  Rurick stood. “Father, please, don’t do this. Let her explain—”

  “You, too? Also a traitor?” The High King’s eyes narrowed in fury. “Is my whole family turning on me now?”

  “Your family only wishes to protect you—”

  “Protect me? This is protecting me?” He gesticulated wildly at Kostas’ body, then toward the window. “Summoning a Souleater to my realm is protecting me?”

  “Kostas did that,” Gwynofar whispered hoarsely. “Kostas fed him human souls from your kingdom. And in Corialanus. He used you, my husband. That”—she nodded toward the window—“that creature out there is what it was all about.”

  But it was clear that Danton was not listening to her words any longer; madness had taken possession of him, and no mere morati could reason with it. With a sinking in her heart Gwynofar realized that whatever spell Kostas had worked upon the High King, it was too deeply ingrained now to be banished by a handful of words. Her husband was lost to her.

  Proudly, she stood. She would not die kneeling.

  Growling deep his throat, Danton drew the sword back and stepped forward—

  And Rurick stepped in front of her. Gwynofar held her breath. Her son was clearly banking on the fact that Danton would not be so mad as to kill his own heir.

  He was wrong.

  His face black with fury, Danton thrust the sword through his son’s body. Rurick was so surprised he did not even cry out, merely stared at him in astonishment as his lifeblood began to seep out. Danton twisted the sword once, then yanked it out. The trickle of blood became a river, and then a flood.

  Gwynofar screamed.

  Rurick put a hand to the gaping wound, not so much trying to staunch the flow of blood—that was hopeless—as if trying to convince himself the wound was real. When he withdrew his hand and saw it covered in blood, he stared at his father in astonishment.

  “You are a fool,” he whispered. “May the gods have mercy upon this kingdom.”

  He swayed once, and for a moment it seemed he would be able to keep to his feet, but then his legs folded beneath him. Gwynofar caught him from behind, but his weight forced her down to one knee again, struggling to support him. Tears streamed down her face as she whispered his name, pleading with him to live. But the river of blood was thinning now, and slowly his eyes glazed over.

  Lowering her head to his shoulder, she wept.

  “No need to mourn,” her husband told her. “You will not be parted long.”

  Gwynofar’s scream cut through Andovan’s awareness like a knife. The fog of weakness that had slowly been enveloping him was suddenly gone. Or rather, it was still present, but he was no longer willing to submit to it.

  Pushing himself away from the wall, he took a few seconds to fight back a wave of dizziness that threatened his balance, then took off at a run down the hallway. Sheer determination took the place of physical strength, sustaining him at a speed he could not have managed for any other purpose.

  Other guards were coming, but they had not been as close to where Gwynofar was, so they fell in behind him. He was grateful for the uniform he wore, not only because it meant they would not question him, but because he was armed. He pulled out his sword as he ran, not knowing wha
t to expect, but preparing for the worst.

  He slammed open the doors which separated him from Gwynofar, not caring who or what was on the other side, so long as he reached her in time.

  The tableau which greeted him was horrific. A headless body in Magister’s robes lay in a pool of blood on the floor. Gwynofar knelt in the blood, cradling the body of Rurick in her arms, weeping. The royal heir appeared to be dead. And Danton stood over them both with a sword in his hands and madness in his eyes. Even as Andovan entered he was preparing another blow, this one directed at the High Queen.

  Something in Andovan snapped. Too many months of feeling helpless while other people determined his fate had finally brought him to the breaking point. A sudden rush of strength suffused his limbs, not unlike the kind of desperate fortitude that allowed a mother to lift a fallen boulder off her child. With a cry of fury he threw himself at Danton. Maybe if he had been anyone else the High King could have responded in time to save himself, but because he was Andovan Aurelius, he did not. Danton looked up as the doors slammed open, he prepared to defend himself against this unexpected assault—from one of his own guards!—and then he realized who his attacker was. His eyes went wide. His mouth hung open. For a crucial second, his sword did not move quickly enough.

  Andovan ran his own sword through his father to the hilt and held it there. For a moment they were face to face. Andovan stared into his father’s eyes, mourning the madness he saw there but regretting nothing. For a brief moment something else flickered in the royal gaze, that might have been sanity, or perhaps understanding . . . and then the High King slumped against Andovan, as the strength left his limbs along with his blood.

  “No!” Gwynofar screamed. “Don’t! He is the prince—”

  Something sharp and cold thrust into Andovan’s body from behind. Another thrust followed.

  He could feel the breath leave his body in a hot cloud as his lung was pierced. Then another thrust. His brief moment of fortitude flowed out of him with his blood, and he sank to his knees. His eyes met his mother’s. I am sorry, he mouthed. Unable to find the strength to voice the words.