It was the simplest of remedies, one that required only that they surrender certain prideful habits: her need to conquer everything herself, and his obsession with vigilance. Their companions were not children or cubs; they could care for themselves tonight. Mumbling orders to their companions, snuggling tight, and placing bearded cheek to velvet one, the two rocked themselves into a swooning darkness.
The Dreamstalker did not come for Morigan that night. It was possible she watched and waited, hovering in the clouds of Dream and cursing the bloodmates’ union, for love was anathema to her soul. She remained a whisper in a graveyard, though, a faraway terror. She could not harm what was united. She would have to break them apart.
III
The following morning, the Wolf yawned for the first time in recent memory, and spent a sand playing with the flow of his bloodmate’s hair in the radiance of a fresh dawn. He ran his fingers through her tresses as if unfurling red silk. He pulled her closer, sniffed at her ear, then her nape. She turned sleepily to him, a puppet to his desire.
“No, thank you,” said Mouse, who saw something large and quite frightening creep up under the Wolf’s kilt. “If I wanted to see a woman swallow a snake, I would have visited one of those peepshows in Menos.” The bloodmates ignored these jibes.
How did you sleep? he asked.
Perfectly.
They kissed quickly. A tiring day lay ahead: steep, sheer walls of mud daunted them from afar. The unicorn forest, veiled in a light fog, felt muffled with humidity. Moreth appeared with a smoking pistol and a pair of dead quill beasts, and they sat down to a quiet breakfast. They ate everything, down to the bone, to build up their strength for the day. Adam, strangely, was the only one not to finish his meal. Morigan and the Wolf buried the bones, said a small prayer—some habits never died, no matter how far from home they were—then set out into the swaying morass. Surprisingly, the sun seared away the fog, but the day never became too hot. A general air of levity accompanied the morning breeze. The other allies could sense that the bloodmates, the heart of their company, had mended a tear in themselves, though no one said a word.
As usual, the Wolf took the lead, clearing a broad path for his pack. Mouse, Moreth, and Talwyn—who’d been given a thin rapier back on the Skylark—hacked at whatever foliage was left still blocking their way. Trailing Mouse was Adam, her guard dog. Watching them from behind, Morigan could not decide whether or not Mouse and Adam were meant to be lovers. Certainly, the bees had no opinion on the matter. An indifferent bzzz? came if she asked her sixth sense about the destiny of the two. What most held her attention, though, and gave Morigan the greatest enjoyment that morning was neither the memory of her sleep without terrors nor the confidence of her Wolf. Instead, she took a personal, selfish pleasure in the companionship of Thackery, who walked quietly next to her.
When she thought he wasn’t looking, she examined him. The mystery of his renewed youth was a fascination to which she hadn’t paid enough attention. King’s mercy, he looked so dashing. Thackery’s face held the perfect etchings of time: a scratch of gray at the temples, a slight spiderweb about his eyes, and deep lines set where he laughed, currently hidden by many days’ worth of unkempt black beard. Messy beard aside, the chest-proud posture of his lean body bespoke an ancient, dynastic royalty: Thule royalty, dark royalty. In his gaze of blue-white lightning shone the weight, worry, and gravitas of a ruler. Perhaps he will rule again, one day, thought Morigan, and the bees made a sharp sting in her heart. She didn’t have time to press her bees for a fate because Thackery caught her staring. “My dear?”
“You look so noble,” admitted Morigan. “I see you, and I have known you all my life, and yet I feel as if I am seeing you anew.”
“We have all been through a spell of growth,” he replied. “Mine is simply more evident than yours.” Thackery nodded toward the Wolf, who hiked ahead. “Even your bloodmate has changed. Your love has given him a strength, and a softness, that he would never have found without you.”
Morigan blushed. She interlocked elbows with the man, and they strolled in a gay and forgotten way along the path.
“I feel as if an age has passed since you and I were together,” said Thackery.
“Too long.”
“Far too long.” As he paused to study the woman on his arm—she was truly a woman now—he became misty-eyed.
“What?” asked Morigan.
“I see you, and yet I feel as if I am seeing you anew.”
She laughed. “That’s my line.”
“You really are a most remarkable woman,” he continued. “I am so grateful for this journey, hardships and all. I am grateful you made an old man young again, and I do not mean my body, as the Sisters must be credited for that. I mean my heart, and my soul.”
“Thackery…”
“I mean it, Morigan. You have a gift for renewing what you touch. I feel that I can love once more.” The words made him cringe as the ghosts of his Theadora and Bethany stirred in his memory. “Not romantically. I do not feel I shall ever again find that commitment.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Morigan.
Thackery was afraid to inquire about the silver flicker in her eyes, so he brushed off the statement and considered a better use for her prescience. “I think of Macha often. The fourth of my many daughters.” They smiled. “I hope that she and Kanatuk fare well in the North. I have thought many times of asking you of their fate. Can you…I mean…Do you feel they are happy and whole?”
Morigan paused, thinking of their friends in the North. She Willed her servants of Fate to seek out the nectar of her Kanatuk and the young daughter of Dymphana. Magik snatched and then hurled Morigan’s consciousness so quickly she could not understand anything of the brilliant landscape—all knots of silver and flashes of light—through which she careened for an instant. Across the ocean, on a wind up the Feordhan, and into the wintry deeps of the North flew an aspect of the seer. There, her spirit drifted like a snowflake amid white dunes, trees laced with ice, and woolly creatures bleating against a vociferous wind. She noticed two flecks of black on the ivory swath of a distant rise, and her heart danced with joy. One fleck, smaller than the other, she knew was a young girl wrapped in furs. Macha. The other taller dot—bravely strutting, at last free in his frozen home—kept one hand on the young girl to guide her. The two had become the brother and sister they’d never had.
Through her sudden tears, Morigan said, “Yes, I see them. They are happy.”
An ugly smear of black twisted with a flash of white tore into the pleasant vision. She saw a handsome Northman’s face: blond, amber eyed and dripping in blood. She saw Magnus, the Queen and a very dark man—his skin black as obsidian—screaming. She cried out as she heard in her head a terrible shattering roar like ten thousand glass plates breaking. She collapsed, feverish, but with Thackery present, she was never in any danger of hitting the earth. He caught her, then knelt and held her until her swoon passed. Whoosh! The Wolf appeared, snuffling, angry. From Thackery, he stole the task of tending to his mate. The bloodmates conversed in private while the others stopped and waited.
What did you see?
I don’t know. It all happened so fast. Very unusual. There was a beast, I think…a roar in the north. I have never heard a thing so loud.
What were you doing?
Thinking of Macha and Kanatuk. Thackery wondered how they were. She touched his face and met his stare, silver sparked between them, and the vision passed into his head. He shook off the experience, its loudness, and made no answer. He had none: better to leave these mysteries for another time.
He brought Morigan to her feet, left her with Thackery, and then returned to the head of the pack. Morigan explained to her friend what she’d seen, and had nothing more to say. From her frown, Thackery assumed she now worried about their friends in the North and portents of loud, angry monsters. Whether that assumption was true or not, Thackery couldn’t leave the strange business unsorted; it wasn’
t in his nature to leave threads unpulled. While he and Morigan walked along, again linking arms, he thought of Macha and Kanatuk. Were their distant fates still part of the pattern being woven by Morigan? Would he see Macha again? Were they in danger once more? What was that roaring thing? Why were the king, Lila, and those other two strange men involved—and in what? Perhaps he should instead have been pondering the question of his own destiny, for suddenly the Wolf hissed at them to stop. He ushered them quickly into the concealing depths of the grass before dashing away.
My Wolf, what—
Hunters.
The underbrush swallowed him, and his mind went silent, too. Thereafter, Morigan could feel only the throbbing of his pulse. Her Wolf was hunting, in a mind state similar to the one that governed her when she wandered the gray netherverse. Squatting together, the six companions listened for any disharmony in the morning’s music of ruffling stalks, wind songs, and heat haze. Nothing out of the ordinary for Pandemonia’s queer wildlife could be heard. Morigan didn’t feel that it was any such creatures that had alarmed her bloodmate. “Adam, do you sense anything?” she whispered, at her wits’ end.
The changeling shook his head. “I do not smell any predators, although my senses are not what they should be in this land.”
“I can help you with that later, skin-walker,” whispered Moreth. His cold, narrowed gaze then slid to Morigan. “You’re a seer. Why are we hiding, waiting, and guessing, when you could simply tell us of our danger?”
“I…”
Morigan’s mouth hung open: she had no good answer for the man. In the heat of the moment, she had forgotten that only a few sands ago she’d thrown her mind across spans of Geadhain to find, unerringly, the souls of her friends in the North. Once, Elissandra had claimed that Morigan did not know the full extent of her powers. “A fat-fingered and fumbling child,” Elissandra had called her. The white witch had had cause to denounce her, for Morigan tended to call upon her magik only when it was needed, not seeing it as useful in everyday life. Perhaps she feared becoming too reliant upon her magik. In truth, she hadn’t contemplated the matter deeply, though she supposed her stubbornness, humble upbringing, and determination to be in control of her life had contributed to her reluctance. Besides, more often than not the Fates made use of her, and not the other way around. But if she wanted to master her gifts, it was time to stop being afraid. No better moment than now, she decided.
“Well?” pressed Moreth, having waited all this time for a reply.
Somewhat angrily, Morigan answered, “Yes. Yes, I can.”
Morigan shut her eyes and released the swarm of her magik. She left her flesh entirely this time; her body collapsed and was quickly caught and cradled by Thackery. I am the master. I am the Queen of the Unseen, she told herself and her swarm. Show me who or what threatens our pack. Into the air her spirit spun like a maple key.
Pandemonia’s atmosphere was radiant. The sky glowed with a thousand silver rivers of coursing light—etheric currents, each one of them a vein of raw magik, and not so different from the riches buried in the earth. Here, though, nothing was entombed: power flowed freely through the skies and rained down with the water into the soil. Little wonder that Thackery’s earlier attempt to conjure a light had spun beyond his control. He might as well have lit a match in an oil-soaked apartment. All this power…, she thought. She wondered where the silver rivers converged, at what glorious sea of energy, of possibility, they arrived.
She sensed that this place was similar to the Hall of Memories. It was a nexus of time, space, and magik. She even felt a comparable, though far more terrible, pull and began to float upward and away from the vaporous outlines of her companions and the mumbles of their underwater conversation.
No. You are in control. You will not be led. You have only one thing to discover here, and the mystery of where the thousand rivers of light converge is not it.
She sought the fire of her bloodmate, and in the realm between worlds she saw his strong flame burning on the upward slope of a transparent valley. She blew herself toward him, and in a speck hovered over his broad crimson outline.
Morigan, he said, surprised. He touched his heart, where he could feel her, then looked behind him, sensing her but seeing only fields of blue fronds and unicorn spires. Somehow, she stood near him, although his eyes told him different. The Wolf reached out, lightly, and his hand passed through a breeze that tickled his flesh like the softness of her lips.
I am here, my Wolf.
The Wolf snorted in shock. He quickly composed himself. How? I have known shamans and witches who can cast their souls, but even they cannot interact with the living. I felt you. I know that I did. Your warmth…Your kiss?
Although she had no mouth in her current state, a flock of warm, unseen butterflies fluttered over the Wolf as she thought of kissing him. The Wolf grinned. How? he asked again.
It is as Moreth said, I believe, and as Talwyn speculated. Pandemonia is a source of magik, life, and fate—a fertile bosom of possibility. I feel that anything I do here will be multiplied untold times. Think, my Wolf, of how your senses found these creatures even over the enormous roar of this place.
These creatures, thought the Wolf, and became sullen once more.
In no time at all, he’d found their hunters. A wind sour with ash and the musk of an incredibly sweaty, rancid animal had drawn him to them like a shout. Six riders, huddled in dusty red cloaks and mounted on patient, horned steeds formed a lined guard over the top of the valley, on the final hill the company would have to climb to get out of this patch of Pandemonia. At first, the Wolf had considered dashing up and disabling the riders. It would not have taken long to do, and at most, one of them might have had time to scream. However, the unsettling odor that blew from the six, and the motionlessness that they exhibited even as he began to fidget amid the ferns, held him back. The Wolf could nearly place the smell—the reek of oily scorched meat left to fester atop dead coals—but it reminded him of something from a dream, not a memory.
Do you not recognize them? asked Morigan’s ghost.
No.
To Morigan, who floated in the membrane between realities, everything appeared dazzlingly clear, sharp, and bright. She could not only see the shapes of things—trees, beasties, and her handsome, hulking Wolf—she could spy the secrets that lay beneath the flesh. She glimpsed the fire of her bloodmate’s spirit: a gold-tipped, wild light contained within the glass lantern of his chest. Indeed, the Wolf’s soul was as beautiful as she had always known it would be.
With her heightened perception, she could easily look to the six riders upon the hill and peer past their glass shells into the matter that constituted their hearts. Each of the six beings was empty, mostly, save for a pointed and black spot. It was a star, or anti-star, the very opposite of life. Each mark was as intricate as an ebon snowflake, as complex as the greater celestial body from which it had come—too complex for even Morigan’s incredible mind to apprehend, for these marks were shadows of the Mother of Creation: Zionae.
You do not see it, my Wolf, though you sense it and smell it. These are not men, not anymore. They are hollow, and they have been marked.
Marked?
By the Black Queen.
Now that the Wolf knew Zionae’s smell firsthand, he would never forget it. A growl burbled from his hate-curled mouth, and he prepared to leap from concealment and ravage the slaves of the Black Queen with already bared claws and teeth. Morigan’s sensual, tickling wind blew against his face, giving him pause.
Hold, my Wolf, she warned.
If her spirit had not manifested here, if he had discerned the nature of the men upon the hill by himself, as he probably would have in time, he wouldn’t have been able to leash his beast. He wanted to ravage the horsemen, for they were the agents and foul children of his father; they were the embodiments of corruption, monsters bred to consume. He’d seen Morigan’s vision of how Blackeyes were conceived. These creatures were almost siblings to hi
m. This thought so unsettled the Wolf that his iron stomach heaved. Still thinking of brothers, sisters, and wicked families, he suddenly detected the stink of man musk upon the riders. From that whiff, he knew that a huge, reeking animal must have been near them. Brutus. That was his father’s smell—the musk of war, sex, and doom.
I yearn to shower myself in their death. I yearn to howl over their corpses until Brutus comes to challenge me.
Hold, she commanded.
For as angry as he felt, he must hold himself back. Morigan looked once more at the black stars in the distant glass men. They were not six separate men, but six roots of a great dark tree. Attacking these roots would alert a larger force to the presence of the company. Now that her bloodmate had evoked the name of his father, she noticed signs of Brutus’s taint on the bodies of the corrupted vessels—powdery markings, as if the six riders had been molested by great gold-dusted hands. Quite possibly, that’s exactly what had happened. At least the soulless riders could not describe to Morigan the terror that had come before their deaths. She found that viewing them abstractly, as little glass and ebon soldiers, brought her some small comfort, too. She’d been spared the sight of their scars and mottled flesh.
They are of many bodies, but only one mind, she said. Each is an eye and hand of the Black Queen. We must know why they are here before we reveal ourselves. Somehow, they have already come this close—Morigan thought of the Dreamstalker, another pawn or servant of the Black Queen, and realized she must have been tracked, either by that villain or any number of creatures or forces they’d yet to comprehend in this strange land. Please, my Wolf, I know you want your clash with your father, and I am sure you will have it. But we are not prepared. For now, you must be calm.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 20