Another unwitting player in fate’s grand theater, young Beauregard has a past that remains a mystery. But in the present, he and his father, Devlin, have been entrusted with knowledge that may secure the future of Geadhain’s most precious and beautiful region: Sorsetta. They leave the Summerlands—a land now scarred by Brutus’s fury—to act as messengers of the war that is bearing down on Sorsetta’s peaceful land. But more than that, they bring with them a tool of magik that offers one of the few glimpses of hope for defense. As Brutus appears to them, he is cloaked in the shadow of Magnus’s trapped spirit. Knowing that his son is strong enough to survive the hardships that await him, Devlin sacrifices himself so that Beauregard might wield their weapon: a wonderstone—a shard of condensed, ancient magik. Doing so releases Magnus from his purgatory, banishes Brutus, and propels Beauregard forward from peaceful poet to warrior of fate.
Meanwhile, as our travelers venture through the Pitch Dark groves of Alabion, they are met with three sisters of another kind. The three red witches whose taste for blood would see a meal made of each them can sense Morigan’s ascendant power. They foretell that hers will not be a path paved by peaceful light but with crimson. They also sense within Mouse a growing resentment for a fate that would drive her further into darkness.
The immutable nature of that which is preordained becomes ever more apparent as the Hunters of Fate finally meet with the sisters whose shaping of destinies makes them both friend and foe to all they meet. There, Morigan’s true calling as a Daughter of Fate is confirmed, born of Elemech and sister to Eean and Ealasyd. But the sisters also reveal that the darkness overtaking Geadhain is more terrible than the anthropomorphized version of the Black Queen could have led them to believe; she is The Great Dreamer, Zionae, whose roots run deeper than anything in their world. She is devouring Geadhain, and even immortals cannot halt her frenzy. Their only hope is to return to the cradle where life began to find a trace of Zionae’s fall from grace that might reveal a weakness. Despite the incredible losses they have incurred during their campaign to find the Sisters, Morigan and Caenith know that their destiny is to take up this mantle.
Recognizing that he, too, bears a burden for Geadhain’s fate, weary Thackery strikes a bargain for time. As an old man nearing the end of his days, Thackery declined across the miles, an effect made even more glaring in the company of immortals and beings who are seemingly beyond death. Each night as the travelers rested, he was enveloped by a vigil of companions wary that each breath might be the one that ushered in the end. But to add time to one life, it must be taken from another’s. And as a now youthful Thackery emerges from negotiations with the sisters, the origins of his newfound years are unknown.
Mouse—seemingly unable to deny the dark roots that were nurtured during her life in Menos—also readily accepts a deal, albeit from the three red witches, that would see her avenge her father. She is so blinded by her grief that she fails to realize that even for the purest of hearts, it is all too easy to be led astray when the desire to exact revenge rears its head. There is always a price to pay for such caprices, whether in this realm or another, and early indications are that Mouse may pay dearly for acting as the messenger for a spirit of retribution.
Even knowing that much of what lies ahead is unchangeable, the Three Sisters pull at wefts and warps here and there, keeping the fabric of fate intact, but all the while subtly changing its pattern. They cannot help themselves from crafting deals designed to test the travelers’ characters and push the limits of their virtues. Nor can they remain untangled from the affairs of beasts and men, even when their own existence may depend upon it. Even as sisters of fate, they make these bargains, largely unaware of the impacts they might have on the final tapestry for the future. But then again, these are not concerns for beings who are reborn as easily as a snake sloughs off its skin.
The only certainty that remains is that the Green Mother is angry, and what she wills, she wills…
—The Cradle—
What is this fire that bleeds and roars?
A babe of chaos.
Veins, cracked on a dusty plain;
O’er shield of ruptured ice,
Hideous garden bewitched in glittering grace.
A man does not know what to tell his wonder,
Of this sea of stars on earth.
Hollows—canyons, deep and dark as space—that echo with time,
And whispers
Foretell the fleetness of your life.
Here, there be the calling of ancient Kings
The Will of Starry Things,
Of beasts both real and beyond.
Know thy place, as ant and beggar
In the Kingdom of true rule—
False demagogues and would-be lords,
Know thy place.
The wise listen in silence,
Enraptured by the melodies of our damnation.
Oh, ancient voice
Oh, starry voice
Speak
I hear, I fall, I weep.
—Kericot, poet of Geadhain
PROLOGUE
“A red moon,” noted Eean, peering up over Elemech’s pale shoulder and away from the witchwater pool into which the sisters had been staring. The slowly undulating glass reflected a patchwork landscape of lush vales, rivers shimmering with queer, petrol-stained beauty, and hooked claws of rock. Pandemonia. Eean dismissed most of the vision, for there was too much strangeness within—all of it distracting. Besides, the moon within the image was her real obsession. Lidless and swollen, it glared at her like the eye of a Dreamer of Blood and Doom.
“A blood moon,” said Elemech. Over a thousand years had passed since a moon like that last shone over Geadhain. Elemech recalled the celestial event’s synchronicity with another ominous affair—namely, war. “Taroch’s Moon,” she said. “We saw that moon on the night the would-be king’s armies went to war with the Immortal brothers.”
Disturbed by the memory of the warlord’s failed conquest, and by what omens his moon suggested, Elemech swished away the vision with her pale hand, then flicked the water off her fingers and tried to see where the drops landed in the dark. Not even her sight could find them. “Lost,” she muttered, though it was unclear what had been lost—the water or her hope.
Eean sighed and took a seat next to her sister. Together, they gazed like sad children at the freckles of light dancing off the crystal corners of their home—often the same flicker entranced them. Ealasyd watched the pair from the nearby shadows; how alike they were in looks and manner—twins, to all appearances. Ealasyd frowned. When she lived with two dour sisters rather than just one, she especially hated the arrangement.
She stomped out of her hiding spot and, in a further display of disgruntlement, threw down the moist rag she held so that it made a wet splat on the stone. “Listen here: I may be nearly ageless, but I still have the hunger and needs of a youngling. Right now, I have two mothers who are no better than a couple of ravens watching a graveyard. Gloomy, awful creatures you two have become. I cannot eat worms, nightmares, and dust as you do. I need sunshine, joy, and food!”
“Why should we feel joy?” asked Elemech miserably. “All of our work is crumbling. The Daughter of Fate—”
“Your daughter,” interrupted Ealasyd, pointing at her. “My sister.”
Scowling, Elemech resumed. “Morigan follows her own agenda. Her soul is full of chaos. I have no idea how she will end this war; she may even be starting another. I cannot follow her or her companions either. Not even with my Arts. The interference from Pandemonia’s rampant magik warps the currents of Fate. I cannot witness her success or failure in the East. We have never been more powerless. Indeed, our power wanes as that of our shadows grows. Hate is what now nourishes the Green Mother. Winter is here, my sisters. The Longest Winter. The Black Queen’s star is not far from our world. There are omens, blood moons…And let us not forget Death, in her City of Bones, who has broken all the laws of her kind by possessing her vessel, h
er immortal vessel—a feint so well played that I wonder who is the greater threat, Death or the Black Queen. I do not know how much more the Green Mother can endure from all these terrors.”
“She will break,” proclaimed Eean.
“Aye,” agreed Elemech.
“Horrible!” declared Ealasyd, storming away. “You two are horrible. I’ll find myself something to eat. I’ll feed our guest, too, since I’m now the only one with any sense!”
On the way back to the rock-cubby where she and her sisters slept, she picked up the rag she’d discarded. “Infuriating!” she fumed. “Useless!” she grumbled. In times past, whenever her sisters had shared this state of depressive reflection, Eean had at least managed to retain a shred of pride and sagacity. Perhaps the upheaval in the world had affected the balance of their ancient sisterhood as well, for now Ealasyd had two morose sisters instead of one. The pair would spend days mumbling wicked prognostications and discussing disasters occurring in each corner of Geadhain. Unless there were entrails to be read, neither sister ever left Ealasyd the ingredients needed to cook a wholesome meal. Lately, she’d been hunting rats to feed herself and their guest. As a child, Ealasyd had had no idea how to flavor her beggar’s stew. Everything that came out of her cast-iron pot bore notes of shoe leather and stinky feet, and tasted about the same.
Ealasyd shuffled over to the faintly glowing hearth, a pit filled with warm egg-shaped stones, many dim with their witch-light. Soon she would need to stoke the stones’ heat again, and Eean’s magik would be required. I can’t be bothered to ask, she thought, after glancing at the two mournful shadows by the pool. I’ll do everything myself! she cursed—her charwoman’s chant of late. Angry, she grabbed a cup full of simmering herb broth from a pot hung over the hearth. She burned herself retrieving the medicine but cared not, as she knew that the pain and wound would pass in a speck to Eean, as happened with all of her injuries, decay, and age. Then, feeling mean, she seared her knuckles a second time on the outside of the pot. Eean expressed no discomfort, from what Ealasyd could tell. They don’t even care! she nearly screamed.
Finished with her small rebellion, Ealasyd took her rag and her medicine over to their guest’s bedside. Eean’s guest, she thought, since no one else had invited him. Although Ealasyd’s memory was so spotty that she bordered on the senile, she recalled the doll of the man she’d once made. An effigy of a lord of torture and nightmares with a shadow—vast, cold, black—rising over his shoulders. She had called him Rotsoul, and was amazed that she remembered the moniker. She paused before bowing to the sweat-soaked pallet, before tending to the man who stank of sweetly unwashed and spoiled flesh. She took a sand to feel for danger—for a sensitivity to the true selves of all creatures was Ealasyd’s gift. Nothing wafted from him but his smell and fevered warmth. She no longer felt the great, cold shadow of Death that had once haunted this man, but only a faded presence: a fire diminished to ash and smoke, which cloyed in scent and taint and would never be purged. Rotsoul was what she had called the simulacrum of him that she’d made. But he really was rotten now: a barely breathing corpse. It was a miracle that he’d survived, even with the Green Mother’s blessing and Ealasyd’s herbs. A dark miracle.
She somehow sensed him watching her. Rotsoul’s eyes were closed, his body cocooned in blankets. His face was webbed in scars, and he shivered as if he were frail, though she was not fooled. Eean had brought this monster into their home and then shortly thereafter had abandoned the duty of his care so that she might sulk and ponder death. Since that time, Ealasyd had reluctantly nursed the monster. And as much as she detested the task, she found it impossible to turn away from any suffering beast. He surely suffered, even if he was deserving of the torment.
Ealasyd began her duties by cleaning the spit and crusted pus off his face with her rag. The body’s expulsion of infection usually meant the pendulum swung the right way—he was healing. Once finished with his face, Ealasyd hovered and studied the monster further to see if she had woken him, but he remained still. She took a short breath, then brought the cup of sacred water and ancient herbs to the monster’s lips. At least the curative carried a strong, sappy aroma that diffused some of his prune-sweet stink. Before becoming a gloomy old hag, Eean had told Ealasyd that Rotsoul had been on the very edge of darkness—a walking corpse. The stench gave credence to her sister’s claim. Ealasyd looked away while she fed the monster, then squinted here and there to make sure that most of the curative had trickled into his mouth. Some of the medicine washed over his scraggly, unshaven chin. His facial hair was growing in strangely for a man—patchy. A few specks later, the curative in the cup ran dry and she shook what little remained over his face like raindrops. Peaceful. He looked so calm, but then suddenly his brow wrinkled with awareness. He grabbed Ealasyd’s hand so violently and quickly that she dropped her cup.
“Where am I?” hissed Sorren.
Trying to temper her heartbeat and avoid showing fear—as one does when dealing with monsters—Ealasyd replied, “In the home of the Three Sisters of Alabion. Eean brought you here. You asked for her help, I am told.”
Regret twisted Sorren’s face into swollen putty, and Ealasyd repressed a yelp. “I…did,” he finally said, and released her.
As soon as she was free, Ealasyd hurried to fetch a stool. She positioned herself out of reach, next to an iron rod used to poke the fire-stones. “Eean saved you,” she said.
“I remember now.”
Uncharacteristically stoic, Ealasyd watched him as he began to cry. Monster’s tears—it was like watching a toad weep. She doubted that his grief came from anything genuinely kind; at best, he was weeping for something valuable that he’d lost. “She managed to save your flesh…in a sense,” said Ealasyd. “She stopped the great decay, though she could not remove the piece of Death’s great shadow that is within you. Doing so is beyond my sister’s power. You let Death in, and now She can never be removed—even if the worst of her power and presence has gone. You are tainted. Or rather, I suppose, more tainted. Is that why you’re weeping? Because of what you will become?”
“I’m not crying for myself—” Sorren began, but a fit of coughing overcame him before he could finish.
Ealasyd waited until he had relaxed into a wheezing submissiveness and then continued. “You can’t be upset for someone else. It’s not in your nature. I can see your insides, Rotsoul; they cannot hide from me. My oldest sister says that my heart is made of sunshine, and like the sun, I fear the darkness. I fear you, helpless though you appear.” She tapped the poker on the ground, then drew a line like a river in the dust. “Hmm…Do you know the story of Frog and Viper?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m bad with stories; I lose track of the details. But this one I remember as clearly as I do my lost sister’s name, as clearly as I perceive your dark truth.” Ealasyd leaned in. “Spring in Alabion is a terrible time. In that season, the Green Mother cleanses herself through forest fires, floods, and storms. One spring—I couldn’t say when—Frog and Viper were racing from the disasters. On the edge of a floodbank, they met. Frog knew he had a decent chance of swimming for his life—from both Viper and the cleansing—and he leaped into the brimming River Torn. However, he was halted by a plea from Viper. Please, carry me across! Carry me to safety and I vow never to harm you or your children again. A marvelous offer, thought Frog. An eternity of never worrying about this predator again would be a gift to all the generations of his kind. Once the two were in agreement, Viper slithered onto Frog’s back, and they were nearly to the other side of the deadly waters when—”
Sorren began to groan, thrashing in pain and anger.
“Oh, you’ve heard this tale before,” said Ealasyd, a little sly, a little menacing. “Or you’re smart enough to guess how it ends. Viper bit and strangled Frog, and they both drowned in the flood. You see, you can’t change the nature of a creature. I may not be as wise as my sisters, but I know how animals work. And you, Rotsoul, you’re Viper. Worse than he is, act
ually. A predator, a defiler. A creature meant to kill and pleased only by killing. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s what you are. I bet you thought of redemption, of penance, when you beseeched the Green Mother. Siogtine is our word for it; at least I think that’s it. I’m very forgetful. Regardless, you thought you would find a path to absolution. I don’t see that in you. I’m sorry. Your soul is simply too dark. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Eean and our Mother brought you back. Unless there is something for you to kill…”
Then it came to the sister of innocence and sunshine: the reason why the Green Mother had brought the monster back. Excited now, Ealasyd stood and searched for the missing cup. Rotsoul—her monster—would need his greatest strengths for what he was to hunt.
I
THE CRADLE
I
Back in Alabion, when Morigan and the Wolf had consummated their marriage, they had sworn they would steal whatever scant sands they could to worship at the temples of each other’s bodies. A bounty of riches then presented itself during the voyage toward Pandemonia. Long days of flight and conversations quickly evolved into an opportunity for the bloodmates to spend as much time as they could together, mostly in their chambers. At breakfast, they’d make an appearance, and perhaps another around lunch. However, the barb—as released by Alastair—was that more turbulence occurred on the back end of the great skycarriage than anywhere else on the vessel.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 3