“Eatoth,” said the Wolf, frowning. “I recall your mentioning a city, son of El.”
“Aye, Blood King,” replied Moreth. “As I’ve said, in Pandemonia there are a few constants—eyes in the storm, so to speak. I’m only a road-scholar, so I’ll leave the theorizing on these phenomena to those of you best at postulating magikal theory. There are pockets in Pandemonia where life exists unchanged—or, I should say, places where certain elements rule in such excess that a kind of balance is upheld. I speak of the fundamental energies of our world: earth, fire, wind, water. Great civilizations have been built on sites that possess particular elemental power; the tribes of Pandemonia have histories, cities, and hieroglyphs that make the Sisters seem young.”
“Claeobhan. That’s what the Sisters Three called this place. The Cradle…” mumbled the Wolf. Suddenly, the glut of sensory information compressed into a thought. “The cradle of life—all life.”
“That may be true, Blood King,” agreed Moreth. Each time he used Caenith’s old title respectfully, without disdain, it bothered the Wolf less. “Eatoth is one of the four great cities of Pandemonia. It is known as the City of Waterfalls. The lands around Eatoth might change, but the city remains the same. On my last expedition, I marked its coordinates by the stars, which do not shift as the land beneath them does. Assuming the distance inland has not changed too drastically, I think we are a week’s travel from Eatoth. I shall know better once night falls, and I can see our markers in a darker sky.”
Moreth strode down into the valley. Theirs was a perilous trail, with slippery plates of mossy stone and entangling thorny growths that could tear a traveler’s flesh. The skeleton trees grew here as well, often in tighter copses in which gaunt-fingered branches twined into one another. The pitiable scrubland went on for many spans. They hiked lower and lower, now unable to see what lay beyond this valley.
It’s as if we’re not really in the nightmare of Pandemonia at all, thought Mouse, comforted. Only the rumbles of thunder from clouds out of sight and occasional odd-smelling gusts of wind challenged this impression. After many sands of quiet, Mouse’s churning Thule mind ruined her peace.
“Four cities,” she said. “You’ve only ever mentioned Eatoth. What are the others?”
“Three cities, actually,” replied Moreth. Once more the wind was hot, and he stopped and fanned himself with his hat. “Only three cities remain standing, one lies in ruins. There’s Eatoth, the City of Waterfalls. It is home to poets, scholars, technomagik so astonishing the mind melts. There, men in blue robes contemplate the eternal mysteries in silence, and they are ruled by a queen of sorts: cold, equally silent as her consorts and sitting on her throne, I assume, in a tower of glass and silver. From what I gather, Eatoth is the capital of Pandemonia, and we shall likely be able to plot a course from there—one that might lead us to Intomitath, the City of Flames…What wondrous industry they have there: forges of pure magik and flame, arts perfected from generation to generation over the course of thousands of years. Or Ceceltoth, the City of Stone. My expedition never made it that far east. Think of the cities like points on a compass: West, North, and South. These points aren’t quite at the edges of Pandemonia, though; they’re still many spans inland, and are further separated from one another by a chasm, an uncrossable, forbidden terrain at the heart of this continent: the Scar.”
“Dreadful name.” Talwyn trembled. “Hopefully, we can avoid that place. What of the fourth city? The eastern point on this compass? You missed a city.”
“City of Screams,” said Morigan.
Stars glittered in her gaze. Rusty sounds—high, low, and as harmonized as a chorus—had breezed past her ear with the wind. Screams, she’d realized, though very hushed, as though from elsewhere. Morigan did not feel herself shivering, but was grateful when the Wolf enfolded her in a warm embrace. “What happened there?” she asked.
Reluctantly, Moreth replied, “Aesorath is its proper name—the city. What your eldritch senses deduced from the ether is a rough, though apt, translation for the sound the wind makes through the city’s ruin. I don’t know much beyond the more common lore. A woman, whose name is never spoken, betrayed her holy office with the Keepers—think of them as sages, sorcerers, esoteric spirit-men of a kind the West has never truly replicated. I think we have some similar ascetics in the West, in Gorgonath, though these Pandemonian folk are far more austere and militant. Nevertheless, this Keeper was consumed by madness and destroyed her city. Now the place is cursed, filled with ghosts and terrors that make grown men shake like little women.”
“Madness?” asked Thackery.
“Again, I don’t hunt history,” confessed Moreth. “I hunt animals. Although I am a worldly fellow, what I learn of my environment is only for the betterment of my sport. The politics of nations do not particularly concern me. Not even in the case of my own fallen one.”
The company could not press the master on this or any other issue, for he now resumed walking. New anxieties played havoc with their stomachs as they silently marched behind their guide. Each felt a measure of dread over Black Queens, mad kings, places called the Scar, and now a mad priestess and her doomed city. In their heads, Morigan and the Wolf consoled and counseled each other; after the Menosian’s speech, she had a powerful sense of obscure but nonetheless aligned Fates.
Odd birds circled overhead, jarring her with their cries. Screams…City of Screams, she thought. In time, the sun vanished into a purple mist, and Morigan felt as if she walked in a nether-realm between Geadhain and Dream—a purgatory. Her wolfish senses could not hear the brouhaha that her mate endured, although her ears were attuned to the scuffing of the company’s tread and the rasp of their breaths. To this somber music she walked for a time, while the Wolf’s fire-beast tried to settle the unease in her breast with courageous roars and flares of heat and love. I feel that we are headed somewhere dark, my Wolf, she mind-whispered at last. Perhaps darker than any place we have ever trodden.
The Wolf stopped and kissed her forehead. He offered none of his prose or challenges to Fate, for he felt it, too. The subtle rattle of bones in the wind. Bone dice, inscribed with both their names, shaken in a cup before being cast on the Pale Lady’s table. Until they left Pandemonia’s soil, he would be ceaselessly vigilant. Vortigern, my friend, I miss you, he thought, suddenly and before the sentiment could be restrained. I shall not lose another of our pack.
Morigan squeezed his hand.
III
The clouds dispersed once the company had passed through the realm of withered life, and they strode out onto a sun-dappled highland. Here the ground rose before them in great green steps. Patches of spiny thistle and garishly pink, red, and orange flowers spilled about like a garden of twisting fire and blood. Most of the day was already gone by this point, and they took their time wading through the flame-like garden and climbing the giant steps. Misery was hard to hold on to in these climes, and the company smiled and talked among themselves. The changelings fared better in these highlands, where the nectars of so many plants dulled nearly every other smell.
Moreth, a stoic black specter in this colorful land, did not partake in conversation. He did speak up once, to confirm that these fields were not the kind that exuded lethal pollen; for him, that was almost sociable.
When the stars came out, he called for a halt. The company settled down in a lonely circle that had been cozily bedded in soft flowers. Vivid white moths—children of the moon above—entertained the travelers when they glanced up while eating their bland rations. Elsewhere on the highlands, singing things that trilled like loons gave the moths an enchanting tune to which to dance. The moths’ wings made a strange thrumming to Adam, as if chanting was hidden behind the beat. After straining to hear a word or two, and drawing Mouse’s perplexed stare from his exercise, he ceased trying to decipher the language to the song—and felt silly about believing there was one.
The company, particularly its largest member, restrained their appetites. In t
his ever-changing land, Eatoth could be days or even weeks away; their supplies would have to hold them until they reached their destination, as the fauna was unsafe for consumption. Too unknown, too rich in life, Talwyn mused as they’d hiked and chatted that day. I propose that in an environment such as this, life proliferates and changes at a hyperactive rate, so each species, old or new, rapidly evolves its own defenses and properties to ensure survival in the face of absolute hostility. In other words, almost all animals in Pandemonia were either poisonous or dangerous, even those, such as weasels, who occupied the seemingly harmless levels of nature’s hierarchy. Moreth’s vigilance certainly suggested this was the case. Even as the company rested in its pocket of tranquility, the master watched the white moths for signs of viciousness. He twitched at every call of the loon creatures.
“A few hourglasses of sleep,” said Moreth. “We shall split the watches; I shall take the first.”
“I shall watch my pack,” declared the Wolf.
“Suit yourself,” replied Moreth.
The Wolf settled into his familiar pose of a man mimicking a waiting dog—on his haunches, his hands on the ground, and back erect. Morigan and the others lay close to their protector, using their packs as pillows and cloaks as blankets to be shared. It wasn’t long before snores were competing with the songs of the loon beasts. While the others slept, the Wolf and the Menosian maintained a standoff. They didn’t speak or even look in each other’s direction. Hourglasses passed, longer than Moreth had promised the company, but the Wolf could smell their vinegary fear and weariness, and felt no urge to wake them; his Fawn seemed especially far away, drowning deep in dreams. Without embarrassment, the Wolf had hiked up his kilt, in plain sight of Moreth, and began counting stars while he pissed; it was then that the master addressed him.
“What it must be like to be you,” said Moreth. “All sinew and power—anger, masculinity, and lust. You are a storm of a creature. I know why my ancestors adored you, for you wear what you are without shame.”
Snorting, the Wolf shook his prick and tucked it away. “Shame? Why would I ever feel shame unless I dishonored myself with my pack?”
“I suppose that makes sense,” said the master, and walked toward the Wolf. Depending on Moreth’s mood, he could be one of two men, noted the Wolf: a sophisticated master or a stealthy predator, like one of the cats that stalked Alabion.
“We are similar, you and I,” professed Moreth. “I would not insult either of us, however, by calling us brothers. We are fellow predators, although we are different species of carnivore. I do not shed my skin and become something terrible, as you and the young changeling do, according to the not-so-quiet chatter of your friends. But we understand the scales of blood, you and I. We know how to kill and feel respect, not remorse.”
Intrigued, and aware of nothing of deadly terror nearby, the Wolf crossed his arms and listened.
“As hunters, we observe.” Moreth stopped and cannily looked him up and down. “We see patterns in the world and in our prey. We live in danger. When last I came to Pandemonia, I had a companion from the land of chaos. I bought him in the meat markets of Menos. He stood out like a lion in a field of lambs—as you do. Gloriously wild was this man, who we shall call the Slave…I never learned his tale, which I am sure was a legend in its own right, as his tongue had been removed before he and I met.
“Once, you won your freedom from my family’s Pits, or claimed it, anyway.” A low growl escaped the Wolf; Moreth dismissed the threat with a shake of his head. “I consider that matter as old and dead as the skeletons to whom it is owed. My father and forefathers were too despicable to be honored by any debt of blood. We shall have no quarrel over that. The Slave—he, too, won in the ring. He was one of only three victors. In what was the El Estate, we had a small wall on which we displayed the victors’ portraits. The first was of Belladonna, the temptress of the pits. I am told men pray to her spirit, believing her to be a saint who can grant vengeance. Lesser known are those pictured in the other two portraits: the Slave and the dark shadow of a monster-man mounted on a pile of bodies; I think you know him well.”
“Did he have a name?” asked Caenith. “The Slave?”
“No name,” said Moreth, touching a finger to his chin in thought. “He did not file one with the Iron Crown after claiming his rights as a free citizen of Menos. We predators among men, though, do not need names. You do not name a lion, you simply know it is king. He was one such animal—a savage soul, a true hunter. I would have died in Pandemonia without him.”
A brown man wrapped in earthy garments kneels in the weeds. When he is motionless, his lined skin makes him indistinguishable from a hunk of wood or a camouflaged lizard. He becomes one with nature—unseen. Only a flash of the stone talisman attached to the leather cord about his neck warns that he is neither bark nor lizard. But the Slave’s prey never notices this glimmer, or anything about the hunter at all—not until its death has already been determined.
The Wolf caught a whiff of sand and blood, and tasted bitter wine in his mouth—the essence of whatever memory had distracted Moreth.
“You might not agree…” said Moreth, ending his silence. Moreth’s fingers were under his shirt, touching something—a twine of leather, a necklace, the Wolf determined. “But fathers are mostly useless entities. We learn the most from those who act; my father, Modain of El, was not such a man. Now the Slave, he taught me skills most men never learn. After he won his freedom in the Blood Pits, he wanted to return here, to Pandemonia. I can’t say what impetuousness or stupidity claimed me, but I also thought to challenge myself here. As a free man, the Slave had no obligation to teach me how to survive. If he had been wrathful, he could have let me play the fool from abroad, traipsing about in the jungle. But he chose to let me live; and it was a choice, I realize now. He brought me into his company as a lesser animal to a greater. He brought me into his pack.”
Pack? wondered Caenith.
“You’ve used the term more often than you realize,” said Moreth, smiling. “I know we see eye to eye on certain matters, wherever our allegiances have been placed in the past.” Moreth slipped off his glove and laid a cold white hand on Caenith’s warm granite chest. He felt the pulse and power trapped in the Wolf’s great bronze cage of flesh. The Wolf, curious, did not repel Moreth’s touch. Moreth’s smile widened, revealing teeth unusually sharp for a man. “All that might,” purred Moreth. “Like a fire made into a man. I would envy your power, I would seek to take it, if I did not understand that it was not my place to possess it. You are a king of men and beasts. But here,” Moreth removed his hand, “you have lost control of your power. Pandemonia does that with all magiks, even those embedded in our instincts and our very natures.”
“How did you know?” asked the Wolf, shocked.
“The Slave,” replied Moreth, moving away from the Wolf and granting Caenith respite from his calculating eyes and cold hands. “Animalistic, he was—part of the reason why he did so well in the Blood Pits. The Slave tore men into the tiniest morsels, and the more the crowd roared, the greater grew his rage. He was like a dog in the midst of a feasting hall, howling and barking at every clanged plate. His symptoms and yours are the same: sweating, twitchiness, darting stares, jittering hands. You’ve displayed every one of these and more since we arrived in Pandemonia. That is a side effect of the gift of extreme sensitivity to one’s environment; a gift for which I can only train. However, the Slave was mortal, too, and I’d wager that the sights and sounds in your head surpass those afflicting even the most bestial of men. Your head must be full of bells, aches, and shitty smells.”
“Yes,” admitted the Wolf. Rather a friend to pain, the Wolf had thus far ignored the fist pounding behind his eyes, which had not let up since this morning.
“The Slave taught me how to embrace my animal through scribbled notes he always made. He told me of how he had learned to exercise serenity in chaos. He told me that Pandemonia was not loud; it was simply that I was no
t listening.”
The Wolf scowled. “Listening? There is too much to listen to.”
“Pick something,” said Moreth. “One sound. A single wing flap. A howl. A spider’s crawl. It doesn’t matter what. One thing, and one thing only.”
Scoffing at the idea that a mastery of Pandemonia’s din could be achieved though a charlatan’s meditative exercise, and despite having the pride of a beast that did not bow to suggestion, the Wolf nonetheless attempted what was asked of him. Finding a state of peace in which to begin reflection proved the Wolf’s first obstacle. A sound, one not from Pandemonia, eventually beckoned his mind: Morigan’s soft and unmistakable breathing, soft as cotton to his ear. Once he had discovered her music in the orchestra playing in his head, the pounding, surprisingly, subsided a touch. Next, and unintentionally, the Wolf began to smell her honey-and-onion sweat, and then the perfume that gathered at the back of her neck, rich as the dew of a rose petal. He must have been smiling.
“I see you’ve found a bit of peace,” he heard Moreth say from somewhere nearby.
The Wolf nodded.
“Now hold onto that presence, use it as your anchor, and simply roam from smell to smell, noise to noise. Pick and choose from the market of many things, and remember that you are the one with the coin and desire. You decide what is worthy of your attention.”
A market. Naturally, a Menosian would make analogies in coin. Still, the Wolf kept Morigan’s sounds and bouquet circling in his skull, along with apparitions of their lusty tumbles—their sweats, the slap of their bodies, even the barbaric taste of her sweet blood, which he’d once or twice drawn in pleasure. Whenever Pandemonia’s grotesque clamor cried for dominance in his senses, Morigan’s elements grounded him. As a beast that ruled and did not wait, the concept of peace, of calm before action, was wholly new to the ancient Wolf. No wonder he could not steady himself in this realm, when he came to it screaming and snapping. For Pandemonia had teeth, too, and infinite mouths with which to bark back at him. After dwelling on Morigan’s various wonders, the Wolf rolled his senses outward. He hunted and found Thackery’s leather-scented wisdom, then the book-spice and new-baby smell of the innocent scholar. Then his senses moved on to Mouse and Adam, who shared some of each other’s grease, rubbed off through a close friendship. Upon Moreth, he smelled blood and ether: strong, bitter aromas in keeping with his personality. No longer in doubt, the Wolf now flew his senses wide. In one heartbeat, he tasted the iron soil, shivered from the ruffling of the moths’ wings that played in the night, and listened to the scaly shuffle of fat-bellied vipers as they slid along the earth. But far as he went in that instant, Morigan’s faint scent clung to his memory like morning perfume. She was his anchor.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 7