There were numerous tribes, but none quite like the Doomchasers; however, the Amakri did not war with each other. Their cursed countrymen in the Great Cities were foes enough. The Amakri were one people, of many colors and tastes, who were united no matter how far across Pandemonia they spread. Once every few seasons, Pythius explained, the Amakri met and held council and celebrated together, reaffirming their vows over campfires, trading wares and knowledge gathered in whatever corner of Pandemonia they’d come from, and singing and dancing long into the night.
“Énaólokai (The Becoming),” said Pythius.
Food came; Pythius must have called for it earlier. The meal was another serving of the green-leaf, meat-chunk, and gristle porridge that Talwyn had come to enjoy. Whether actual oats were involved in the recipe, Talwyn couldn’t tell, though it stayed in the stomach like porridge and a warm glass of milk. One meal a day was often enough for him.
They were quiet while they ate, and afterward sipped the invigorating minty tea that had accompanied the food. The shaman and the scholar hadn’t run out of things to say, and Talwyn had learned more about Pythius and his tribe in the last few hours than he had in days of careful observation. However, as day dragged into night, Talwyn continued to withhold his more important questions. Dreamers walking Geadhain? What was this chalice? How had it changed these particular Amakri? Had it turned them into blue-skinned giants with horns?
Talwyn fussed over voicing these questions, wondering if he were wasting the man’s time. A leader couldn’t fritter away his hourglasses chatting with some stranger. The Amakri didn’t waste time; they moved. Already the entire encampment had packed up and relocated once in the days they’d been with it. Occasionally, warriors had come and gone during his and the shaman’s talk, briefly claiming Pythius’s attention. Outside, he could hear dragging and clanging as tents were disassembled and wares were packed. Soon they would be moving again, probably to find Feyhazir’s relic.
A few more sands, he promised himself, before asking a question unrelated to wars, Dreamers, or affairs political or mystical. After a few verbal fumbles, he managed to inquire why it was that Pythius called him “West Sun.” It seemed such a strange moniker to bestow upon anyone. Startled, Talwyn held still as Pythius reached over and wonderingly caressed his coppery hair. “To chróm tou anatéllontos ilíous. I sofíach tou dytikoú anémo.” (The color of the rising sun. The wisdom of the west wind.)
Embarrassed, Talwyn laughed a little too loudly and then took another sip of tea.
VII
Four solid planks of emerald rock stabbed up out of the glacial terrain. Mouse thought the markers seemed like good places to sit two tired arses after a long walk, so here was where she and Moreth came to rest. Far now from the warmth of the encampment, they huddled close to each other, thinking about chalices, the Black Queen, and Mouse’s increasingly unwelcome possession. Neither spoke nor had spoken in the hourglasses of their stroll. Each loved a companion who never felt pressured to talk. Even now, they looked to the twisting winter lace that lay atop the far-off shadow-clawed mountains. For many sands, this diversion entertained them. Winter’s song, a slow howl that rose and fell, was quite sedating.
Finally, Mouse said, “I keep reaching for memories of the past few days, for anything at all that I’ve missed, and my hands come up empty.”
“I cannot imagine the feeling,” whispered Moreth. He nudged her with a shoulder. “I need to possess a feeling of control at all times, even if it’s false. I sense that you are the same way.”
“I am.”
“Again, the last thing you remember is falling asleep?”
“Yes. . .Feyhazir.” Mouse grunted, while fondling, beneath her shirt, the cold iron talisman that represented her covenant. “Dreamer of amnesiacs and dementia sufferers.”
“I don’t like it. I wasn’t able to even come near you to see what he was up to…when he was in there.” Moreth tapped Mouse’s temple. “I became groggy and disoriented whenever I tried. I think he’s hiding something, this master of yours.” He recalled Mouse’s shining and terrible form, and the thunderous authority with which Feyhazir had spoken. “What bothered me most was how he spoke of you as if you were a thing, a vehicle to be driven.”
“I’m not a thing!” spat Mouse. “Fuk!”
Mouse leaped off the rock and wrestled with the amulet around her neck. For such a thin chain, its strength was incredible. Despite making a desperate, thrashing display, she could not snap it. Instead, she slipped it over her head and threw the damned relic into the snow, where it lay gleaming, refusing to be buried. Moreth waited for Mouse to calm down a little, then hopped down to join her. Together they stared at the relic.
It was because of the angle of her head as she looked down at the amulet that Moreth noticed it from his eye’s edge: a stark streak of white along the back of Mouse’s skull that matched the streaks on the side of her head. “Probably not the best time to mention this, but a bit more white suits you.”
Moreth watched Mouse run her hands through her snow-and-slate hair. Although the change was dramatic, Moreth felt that Mouse had retained her prettiness; her thin mouth, her childlike nose, her great brown eyes were all sized to perfection. The stripes in her hair drew attention to her simple, often overlooked, comeliness. It made a man look. There was not a wrinkle or spot to suggest she’d aged, but that might not be a blessing: age and decay could be happening deeper, in her soul.
She glared at the amulet, trying to melt it with her hatred. “I’m changing. In small ways, I’m changing into something I was not before.”
“Into what?”
Mouse couldn’t answer him.
Moreth wanted to press. Sometimes, though, silence was a better remedy for upset, he decided. Within a moment, Mouse had defeated her anger.
“I guess I’ve been a professional messenger for most of my adult life.” She sighed. “At least being the toady of a divine being gives me more status than a Watchers’ pet. Don’t even remember where I lost my old Watcher’s trinket…Somewhere along the wild road we’ve walked. But that cursed amulet of Feyhazir’s carries more authority, more meaning, than any the Watchers’ jewelry. I am a survivor: I have cheated death, and that is my trophy. I’ll cheat this Dreamer, too, if he gets out of line again.”
Mouse bent down and reclaimed the amulet. She brushed off the snow, then slipped it back on.
“I shall help you with that, should it become necessary,” said Moreth. “We’re together for a reason, though I don’t know what that reason might be. We were chosen by your master for our skills, or wits, or because Talwyn and I might somehow serve you. And serve you we shall. We can play games, too. I’m a scoundrel at cards. I count them all. I never lose. Beatrice hates to play me.”
Thoughts of his icy wife and their hot, red pleasures built a fire in Moreth’s chest that shielded him somewhat from the growing wrath of the winter night. Could it be night already? He mused over the play of violet waves that rolled through the clouds. Their walking and talking had taken up most of the day, and there would be no rest for them now: Moreth knew the tribe was soon to move. He and Talwyn had already been through this ritual before since the Amakri never settled in one spot for long. On his and Mouse’s way here, he’d seen tents being dismantled, rods bundled, furniture broken down, tarps rolled and tied with leather. Those parcels would be carried by the tribe and its temporary members; Moreth’s shoulders still groaned from the weight he had borne on previous days. Before they set out, he wanted to make sure his companion—almost a friend now, he would say—was mentally ready for whatever journey the Dreamer had in mind. “Are you…Has our conversation been fruitful?”
“I think we’re both in the dark a bit,” said Mouse. “I don’t trust the Dreamer or the Amakri, though that could just be my nature. But I trust my pack, and I sense there is something honorable about you, despite your darkness. We shall trust one other, then—you, Talwyn, and I—until we reunite with our company. We should bo
th keep an eye out for Talwyn, actually; I worry that his curiosity will make him vulnerable.”
“I’m astonished he’s not dead yet. Astonished.” Moreth’s unflinching sincerity surprised a laugh out of Mouse. “You can trust the Amakri, though,” he continued, his head echoing with thoughts of his own relic of past ties, the necklace of the Slave, which rested against his breastbone. “I’m still quite unused to this idea of lords and ladies of creation running amok on Geadhain. I shan’t claim to know what motivates your master or his kind. But I have known the Amakri before, and they value honor and sincerity above any vice. They cannot be corrupted, at least not willingly. I would like to see whether Talwyn has anything to say on the matter.”
“Aye, we should—”
“Hullo!” cried the scholar.
Shuffling onto the scene came a red-cheeked, puffing Talwyn. Wisely, the Amakri had made use of his generally unexploited natural muscle, the genetic boon of the hearty Blackmore line, and burdened the man with more packs than a mule. Perhaps he’d taken on too much weight, for Moreth noticed sweat beading along his brow, and his frame seemed bent. The fur cloak surely wasn’t helping to ease his strain. Still, Talwyn possessed a spirit of eagerness and he greeted them with a smile.
“We were just talking about you,” said Moreth.
“I’m flattered!” Talwyn’s grin grew wider.
“You shouldn’t be,” said Moreth. “I was sharing my amazement at your continued survival. I had you marked for dead. Good thing I didn’t bet any crowns.” Moreth looked past the man to the scraped green surface left in the wake of the milling tribe. It didn’t appear as if they were waiting to leave; they seemed already to have made their exodus. A snake of Amakri, each person bearing twice as much gear as Talwyn, wound away from the campsite toward the fuzzed purple glow of the sun, which was now falling behind the distant range. “It seems it is time for us to go. Do give us some of those packs, lest you break your dainty self in half.”
“I can…I’m not dainty!” declared the scholar with a stomp of his foot.
“There, there, my dear.” Mouse reached up and relieved him of one of his burdens. “You are a most delicate thing. All that meat is just for show and play, I figure. Your mind is what you flex most to impress the gents.” Mouse paused. “It is gents, right? I get that sense from you. I’ve caught you staring at Caenith; you’re not exactly subtle. Have I embarrassed you? I don’t mean to offend.”
Talwyn’s redness spoke for him as they hurried after the Amakri caravan.
“Of course it’s gents,” scoffed Moreth. “Good Kings, we used to catch ones like him waiting to give a five-fingered tug in the lavatory at the Iron College.”
“I don’t do that!” shouted Talwyn.
As the three travelers caught up with the Amakri, the sun died suddenly, casting the land into blackness. It was an omen that they missed.
VIII
MEMORY’S BURN
I
Morigan tasted the iron-and-wine tang of the Herald’s blood in her mouth as she awoke, frenzied. She and the Wolf leaped up and then glared at the winter storm into which they sensed their friends had disappeared. Disappeared…or taken, just as the wicked woman in their dreams had warned. The Wolf growled, dashed off in a black streak and disappeared into the whiteness. Morigan strode outside their rock shelter. Wind and flurries attacked the seer, but she sneered her defiance of the weather. Only her pack-mates mattered. Mouse, Talwyn, Adam, and Moreth were all missing; soft melted spots marked the places they had rested. Where are you? she demanded, and threw her swarm of Fate-seeking bees into the storm. Silver light irradiated her.
Thackery, who’d slept like an old man even though he was no longer one, was woken by the Wolf’s departing growl. The sage’s deep, drowning dream—filled with a queer music of bells and tintinnabulations—faded from his body, some mysterious spell dispersing. Danger, he realized, throwing off his fogginess. Something had happened. He looked around for familiar faces, and noticed more than a few missing. He’d neither heard nor sensed his great-niece and the others leave. Stumbling a bit, still unusually heavy with sleep, he rushed to Morigan’s side. Upon reaching her, Morigan’s light faded and she returned from her otherworld hunt. Thackery noticed, then, a dribble of red running from her mouth and wondered if she had been hurt.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
For a time, the seer didn’t answer. Instead, she scowled at the twisting ivory sheet that had fallen over the land. She wiped her mouth, having felt her lipstick of blood. She wanted more of it—on her, in her throat. Surely the Dreamstalker was responsible for taking or luring away her friends. Who else could be? An echo of the Dreamstalker came to her: I warned you of the Dreamers. I told you that Zionae, brutish and single-minded as she seems, remains the most honest of her kind. Now, you will see and learn that cold lesson for yourselves.
“Morigan? What is going on? Where is everyone?”
“They have been—” Morigan fought with the word and with her failure. “Taken.”
“Taken? By whom? Why?.”
She hadn’t a clue. Morigan’s prescience had thus far proved marvelously useless when it came to locating her missing companions. She could sense they were alive somewhere, alive and afraid—though not filled with the dread of mortal danger. Otherwise, her impressions of them were so indistinct that her companions might as well have been old memories or people she called to across a foggy, windy lake. Distance lay between her and her missing pack-mates, and one not simply of spans. It was the result of an artificial separation: a force shielded them from her sight. Some magik as great as her own had interfered. She felt nothing save for fury. At least Thackery remained with her, by whatever miracle.
The Wolf suddenly returned from out of the white void. His great shadow seemed hunched and downcast. He shook the snow and icicles off his coat and padded over to his bloodmate. Before they touched, she felt all of what he knew: disappointment, trails that could not be tracked. They came together; he pressed his cold, wet nose to her hand, and they whimpered in unison. Their melancholy and mournful admission of defeat irked Thackery. They’d met and conquered tougher challenges than an abduction or three. Adam, whose brown and shivering figure Thackery now noticed behind the Wolf, seemed of a similar mind, and began to bark.
“Stop it right now,” demanded Thackery. “No one is dead, I assume?”
“My senses tell me that they’re alive,” replied Morigan.
“Well, that’s one blessing. Can you tell me nothing else? With your senses?”
“I have pushed my Will as hard and as far as it will go.” Morigan pouted, lost in self-pity. Once again, she was a seer without sight.
“Push again! Push harder!” Thackery snapped. “Only yesterday, you reached across the world to find our wandering friends. I’ve seen you cross into the gray nowhere of death and bring my nephew’s spirit back, and you did the same with a changeling girl near as gone as he. You continue to doubt yourself, but I have seen you evoke miracle after miracle. Finding the ones to whom you have sworn your heart and allegiance should be a parlor trick next to raising two people from the dead. No more sad faces and defeat. Shine, my silver daughter, and find our companions.”
As Morigan pondered, she grew braver, shedding humility and fear. She was chaos, the maker and unmaker of all things. She was not fumbling to light a match in the dark. She knew intimately the souls of her friends—Mouse’s especially. They had touched minds and Fates. They called themselves sisters. Finding Mouse should be as difficult as finding her own nose. No more incompetence, she told her bees sternly. Find my friends. Tear apart Dream itself if you must, but do not return to me without traces of their spirits. Sizzling light, so bright and hot on his skin that Thackery reeled and threw himself into the cold, pierced Morigan’s flesh and flooded the stone lean-to. The radiance blossomed and then fired a gusty, twisting lance of silver into the heavens, taking with it Morigan’s mind and soul. Morigan’s body fell upon the fur
ry back of her bloodmate. After scrambling his way out of a snowbank, Thackery rushed over and helped the Wolf with the burden of Morigan’s empty body. Thackery laid her flat and rested her head upon his lap while brown and black wolves curled up next to him, waiting.
Into the sky, past the pulled cotton of the clouds, beyond the scorching barrier that surrounded Geadhain, Morigan flew. In her fervor, she seemed to have overshot her mark. The echoing resonance of space titillated her with cacophonous songs, and the stars twinkled and tantalized her with secrets. She didn’t want to travel there, not yet, though she suspected she could. She Willed her silver comet to slow. She paused, taking in the beauty of the green-and-blue globe of Geadhain, more vivid and transcendent in its glory than the phantasm once conjured by the Sisters Three, and almost lost herself to that mystery, too. While she whisked around the ephemeral skin of the globe, she looked for her sister.
A star down below teased Morigan with a glimmer of grayish silver. She dropped her Will upon the spot, descending like a screaming comet, seeing red, then white, then blue, then flecks of pepper on pale earth. One of the black dots held the gleam she desired, and there her comet crashed. She’d entered a mind—a vast network of threads, lights, and strong winds. As she spun, weightless and out of control, memories rushed in and out of her like radiant ghosts. Each gust warmed her with love, chilled her with hate, or stole her vision and replaced it with images of dark streets, yellow-toothed men, and, once, a creaking, sad merry-go-round and the inharmonious accompaniment of a young girl’s laugh. That laugh had been Adelaide’s, she realized. Morigan was inside her friend.
“Daughter,” said the Dreamer.
The golden void slowed and became threaded with gray. Suddenly, Morigan bobbed in a fulminous mist. The heart of this thundercloud floated some distance from her—possibly near, possibly far: everything felt distorted and deceptive here. At times, the heart resembled a man with streaming arms and legs. The more she looked, though, the more unsure she was that the shape was a man and not a snake, or an enormous eye, or a hunched lump of a creature that would be horrible to behold without the mist.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 31