Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3)

by Christian A. Brown

  “Father,” she said. “You are awake, and yet your vessel, my friend, has been abducted.”

  “Your Will would wake the deepest sleeper,” he replied. Lines snaked and curled in the nimbus as though the Dreamer smiled. “The vessel has not been abducted. Your—” the Dreamer appeared to consider the word “—friends have been set upon a different path.”

  “A different path? On whose authority?”

  “Mine.”

  The gray storm rumbled, its flashes threatening. Morigan had felt cowed by this side of her father before: his grandeur, his authority. Still, she was a storm unto herself; she blazed silver light and rumbled back. “Return your vessel and the others to me. Now. My companions are not to be taken and then used as pawns in your game of Queens and Castles.” Morigan hated that game, cringed every time she saw one of those checkered boards and their wooden playing pieces on a table, as she had never been any good at the lying and trickery necessary to win. She sensed her father would have no such difficulty. Deeper, a dissonance in her consciousness she avoided considering, was the whisper of the Herald warning her of the games Dreamers played.

  After an ominous silence, the Dreamer spoke. “Eatoth is poised to fall to the forces of Brutus. If this should come to pass, his army will overrun Pandemonia, and you might never make it to the Cradle to uncover what you seek. I have told you—and you have felt—how much I strive to distinguish myself from my brethren. I would embrace and kiss every corner of this world, if I had the flesh and senses necessary to achieve that glory. Alas, I am without shape and flesh. I look through a window at a garden I can rarely touch. When life is lost, I weep, and stars die. Much life will be lost, and many stars will disappear, should you choose the path that serves your need for kinship.

  “My vessel travels with those faithful to me in Pandemonia—some of my oldest children in this world. They will keep her safe. Together, the vessel, the clever one, the cruel one, and my children seek an artifact that I left here when last I had form and fingers to embrace Geadhain’s beauty. That artifact must be reclaimed for it alone can end this war. Eatoth, too, must be saved. Two choices. Two roads. Two potential destinies. You will not have to carry the burdens and expectation of Fate alone, my daughter. I, too, shall make decisions that shape this war. I have planned for this war since Geadhain was a crude poem, a few lines of primitive rock and crashing sea. Trust in my wisdom. If we are to win against the Black Queen, we must be unified in our hearts, but divide to conquer. We must become many hands so that we can strike many parts of our foe at once. Do you understand?”

  Calmer now, like a child coming out of a tantrum, Morigan reflected on what her father had said. Visions drifted into her mind’s eye: reddish landscapes shimmering in flames, thick with the stink of charcoal and murder and the clamminess of fear and heat. Something was destined to burn, and she presumed it was a city, as her father foretold. Morigan wrestled with what the Dreamer had told her of her duty. “I cannot simply abandon my companions,” she said uncertainly.

  “They have not been abandoned. I watch over my vessel. I shall watch over the others as well—they, too, will be needed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me of this plan, give me this warning, earlier?”

  “Would that have made you more decisive, or less? How many sands would have been wasted? You see time in such slow, miniscule increments, Daughter. For my kind, tomorrow has already come and gone. The Black Queen rules, the tree of stars has been devoured, and we are all doomed. Time is an open road to me: I go in either direction as I choose. Still, that road grows shorter. The ends of it fall under a veil of black. I fight every echo of that hungry future with a ferocity that you cannot comprehend. Trust that I shall take care of your friends. Do what you know is right: protect Eatoth.”

  Finished now with their discussion, the Dreamer blew his daughter from the Dreaming, out of Mouse’s head, and back into her own body with a roar like one hundred thunderclaps. Morigan thrashed about, striking Thackery on the chin. After a moment, the shivers and shock of her violent travel passed, and she settled on the ground and was able to speak to her companions, two of whom had reverted to their two-legged shapes and dressed while she’d been away. Three frowning men hunkered around her.

  “My father,” she said, also frowning; vestiges of their conversation unnerved her as she reflected on its hints of hidden meaning. “The Dreamer has…sent Mouse, Moreth, and Talwyn on a quest.”

  “A quest?” asked Adam. “Then Fionna is safe?”

  “Yes. He has sworn to protect her, and the rest.”

  “I’m fairly sure your father knocked me out like a sleeping draught,” Thackery involuntarily yawned; he felt as if he could lay down again. “Seems like a rather one-sided alliance.”

  Adam, also concerned, gazed out into the white buzz, remembering. “I heard a noise—slithering and rattling. I chased it. I smelled her scent in the storm, and chased it, too. Then it vanished. She vanished, and I circled the cold white land barking for her return. It seems cruel. And wrong. I care not for this father of yours.”

  I suppose he didn’t need your talents, or Thackery’s, thought Morigan, loathing how her father had commoditized and manipulated the members of her pack. Morigan’s anger leaked into the silently raging Wolf, though neither bloodmate showed it except in their cold stares.

  “Where did the Dreamer send them?” asked Adam.

  Feyhazir had mentioned something about traveling with his faithful. Morigan didn’t believe he meant anything resembling the Faithful of Gorgonath. Could he mean the ghost men? They had encountered few others in Pandemonia. Ghost men. The bees stung her with this truth. “The hunters, the ones in white capes who kill Zionae’s brood. Mouse and the others travel with them—I’m certain of it.”

  The Wolf wrinkled his nose. “I care not for the stink of this. It would explain, though, why neither Adam nor I could find a trail: those ghost men leave none. I detect something in their nature that is either magik or designed to deflect magik.”

  “We must trust in what my father told me,” replied Morigan. “We have no other choice.” She wanted to stand and take action; Caenith sensed her need and helped her to her feet.

  Mouse, she explained, had been called to action by the needs of her master, and Eatoth was apparently about to become another of Brutus’s battlefields, a scorched ruin. There was also mention of an artifact, one they’d never heard of, that could supposedly change the course of this war. The Dreamer’s story was riddled with holes like a coat from a moth-infested closet. If nothing else, they were beginning to see how self-serving and autonomous the Dreamers were. Even Morigan’s rose-tinted glasses had broken. Of her conversation with her father, what she remembered most was his obscurity—and the amorphous monster that had lurked in his gray storm. What beast was that? What side of his nature?

  Adam was having none of these careful deliberations and paced in sad restlessness. Leaving him to his temper, the others started picking through the belongings of their missing friends for foodstuffs and valuables. Moreth’s cane couldn’t be found, though Morigan was mostly concerned with Mouse’s favorite deck of cards, which also appeared to be missing and were hopefully in their owner’s possession.

  Adam watched them, growing darker and meaner until his venomous thoughts erupted. “Stop foraging through their lives,” he demanded. “What now? Do we not pursue our pack? We are to trust this great snake? For that was the scent on the wind; his very nature smells of scales and mystery. Snake betrays. Snake loves only himself. What am I to do without her?”

  “I have seen the fires and smelled the death, Adam,” replied Morigan. “I know that much of what he told me is not a lie. I don’t know how much else to trust.”

  The Wolf snorted and spat. “Dreamers. They have made a mess of their creation, and now they return to raze more of the forest.” In a low voice, he added darkly, “I shall see us triumph in this war if it costs me everything.” The Wolf glanced at his bloodmate. “When
this war ends, I shall see the Dreamers removed from this world. It may take much magik or sacrifice to banish them, but Geadhain should be left to the care of its children, not its fair-weather, neglectful creators.” As he spoke, he was undressing again, and becoming more deeply irritated over having to jump in and out of clothing and skins. “No more walking, no more measured and careful steps in this land. We shall need you to run, Adam, if we hope to arrive at Eatoth before it burns. I am broad enough. I shall carry my Fawn and Thackery.” The naked giant, already rippling with metamorphic twists under his flesh, kissed his bloodmate, then patted Thackery’s shoulder. “Cling tight. Make knots of my fur for your hands to hold, for I shall run as fast and free as when I was lord in my realm.”

  Caenith stepped back to complete his transformation. He buckled as the worst of the ecstasy and pain stabbed him. Morigan collected his garments, and those discarded by Adam, and placed them in her pack. It pained her to leave the empty, rifled-through knapsacks of her friends in the cold hollow, but they were an unnecessary burden. She stared out into the winter world, thinking of those who weren’t with them—including Vortigern, who was always just under the topsoil of her consciousness. I promised him I would protect Fionna. I’m warning you, Father: I shall hold myself to that oath at the cost of whatever family you and I may be.

  The Wolf nudged her hand with his wet nose, and she knew they must leave. She also knew that the Wolf and their companions, present and missing, were all the family she would ever need. Woe betide any—Dreamer or not—who came between them.

  II

  Once the wolf-carriage had been prepared, Morigan and Thackery mounted Caenith’s great, shaggy back. The two of them took up at most a shoulder blade and a strip of his ribs down to his flank. He smelled of comforting, peppery sweat. The Wolf’s stone drum of a heartbeat and his tremendous heat also brought reassurance. With a whoosh, they were off, and the strength of their handholds was immediately put to the test. For such a massive beast, the Wolf moved lightly, though, barely shaking the ground and his travelers. If they’d proceeded at a slower pace, Thackery might have fallen asleep, the Dreamer’s enchantment persisting in him still. Instead, he fought the vestiges of that unwanted magik and turned his neck to see his fellow passenger’s bouncing head. They smiled to each other at the implausibility of this journey.

  Beyond his pink-cheeked companion’s head, Thackery could see tides of snow and wind. Looking anywhere for too long prompted dizziness. Thackery did what he remembered doing while crossing Kor’Khul: he closed his eyes. He occasionally clenched and unclenched one and then the other of his hands to prevent cramps from settling in. Every so many sands, he turned his head from left to right. Finally, he started regularly moving his pelvis to keep the blood flowing. No longer afflicted by the deterioration of age, he found some thrill in once more riding the wolf-carriage. Youth made everything in life easier, he supposed.

  After a stretch of travel through whistling cold space that chilled only the side of his face not buried in the Wolf’s fur, Thackery peeked at the skies. They looked clear, and were tinted with the light-blue shade of dawn. He counted stars for a bit and then stopped when that began to make him sleepy in what at last felt to be a natural urge. His mind and body drifted along with the beat of the Wolf’s exertions. Many heartbeats and heavy pants later, Thackery felt warmth on his exposed cheek and looked up to see sun threading through gnarled, leafless branches that resembled withered hands. It was a sort of forest, filled with glistening trees. Splashes came from beneath the Wolf as he moved through stagnant water that stank like rotten vegetables. Thackery appreciated not having to wade through that brackishness himself.

  But he had rejoiced too soon, for a short time later the Wolf stopped and lowered his haunches. Morigan dismounted from her bloodmate and landed with a splash. Thackery took the cue as well, and shivered as his boots left warm beds of fur for cold water. They had discovered a forest of drowning, broken trees and tumults of driftwood hung with spidery moss. Flies buzzed through the dead swamp, and slick shadowy birds—or other winged creatures—cawed and swooped from wasted tree to wasted tree. A dying woodland, he thought, in the final stages of putrefaction. Its decay would provide rich nutrients for Pandemonia’s next bizarre iteration.

  “He suggests that we rest here,” said Morigan. “Caenith can smell a city up ahead. Eatoth.” She paused, and she and the Wolf traded silver and gray stares. “He claims it smells like spring and winter’s frost all in one.”

  “Interesting.” Thackery gazed around the swamp. Adam had found a nearby tree against which to lift his leg, and Thackery waded over to join him. Thoughts of his youth and fitness surprised him while he urinated, enjoying the weight of his prick and the flush of warm sun upon his face. Even the buzz and churn of the swamp made a pleasing kind of song. All things, from his virile body to nature’s resplendence, appeared restored from their faded beauty. As an old man, he’d often reflected upon beauty: Morigan’s, Theadora’s, Eod’s. But he’d done so without any great appreciation. When a man grayed, it wasn’t simply his sight that went, but also his passion for what could be seen, heard, and smelled. However, Geadhain had given him a great gift. He was Geadhain’s knight, had been anointed as such by Sister Eean herself. And yet, what good was he, really? If he could figure out how to light a damn fire here without blowing up a field, he’d be far more useful.

  Around him the crow-like things left their roosts, screeching. Their grating cries, though, sounded to him as golden as songbirds’ songs. Down near the warm stream of his piss wove a curious snake: a living ribbon of red and green. The reptile was small enough not to alarm. Thackery watched its synchronized elegance, as though the world were new to him. A little sorrowful, he contemplated all that he’d shunned since Bethany and Theadora had died. Perhaps Morigan was right, and he would love again, too. For he now thought of his autumn nymph Bethany—of her smiles, her songs, and her smell—without his breath hitching and his heart racing in nervous grief. Indeed, his blood had recently begun flowing from his heart to somewhere else entirely. Lately, he’d been waking up with a sword in his pants; the experience was unsettling to him as the discovery of his first creamy-wet bedsheets or the sight of the strange black hair that had one day started growing on his loins. Thackery quickly tucked his manhood away and returned to the others, who appeared amused—even the wolves, with their doggy smiles and flicking tongues.

  “They say if it’s in your hands for more than a sand, you’re playing with it,” teased Morigan.

  Thackery turned red, and the wolves made him hotter with their huffing laugh-like barks. “I wasn’t…I was only thinking! Lost in thought.”

  Morigan playfully nudged him, and then started searching Caenith’s fur for the loops she’d braided there. “I am glad that you seem to have once more found a zeal for life. For how many years did you just sit about like a sad old owl? Too many, I say. Now I can feel your magik; your Will and passion blaze from you like heat from a fresh forge. You are new and vibrant...I always saw that flame in you, Thackery, even when you did not.” The seer found her grips. “Mount up, my friend. Eatoth awaits.”

  Thackery continued to dally. He had no prick in hand this time, he was simply pacing in the filth. Words twitched like flies in the web of his mind: zeal, passion, magik, blazing Will. He thought of the small apocalypse he had caused when he had last attempted magik in Pandemonia. Had he been too eager? Too casual with it? Although he could not say why, he felt that failed event held significance that, if properly understood, could lead to a breakthrough. Failures always preceded successes. What was he reaching for?

  “Thackery?” called Morigan, sprawled like a spider on Caenith’s back.

  “Coming!”

  He hoisted himself up, and they resumed their journey. He hoped he would soon grasp the logic behind that nagging thought. Soon the decomposing wood lay behind the speeding Wolf, and without the loom of branches, sunlight spilled over Thackery. When he turned his hea
d and chanced a look, he found the sky quite crisp and clear, a pastel swath decorated with a golden-white dot of sun. Dank water had dried to dust, and clouds billowed around them. Sand stung Thackery’s eyes whenever he opened them, so he mostly refrained from doing so.

  Once, though, he felt a gliding shadow pass over them and braved another peek. Above, enveloping the sky with its vastness, was a lumbering chain of avian flesh; he could think of no other description for what he saw. It was as big as a train, lumpy and hideous. Parts of the beast shimmered as if mirrored, and silvery appendages like the wings of a dragonfly festooned its body. These gigantic window-wings refracted light, casting beautiful rainbows that made the gargantuan thing not entirely terrible to behold. As the Wolf ran beneath the monster, a crumbling rain of gritty matter fell from the creature’s undercarriage. The monster then startled them all with a long cry, deep and rattling. Thackery quivered with fear and glee.

  Even after they were away, free of the shadow, Thackery strained to look back incredulously at the ship of dragonflies, mirrors, and flesh that moved across the sun in an eclipsing line. It must be a wyrm, he thought, though he could place neither the species nor the elemental properties of the creature. Thackery watched it for as long as he could, until it was a mere squiggle, a serpent’s slit across the eye of the sun. Then he was forced to clasp the Wolf more tightly, for the beast had picked up speed over this flat, dry terrain.

  Thackery’s exuberance was tested by the day’s wearing travel. Hanging on to a moving thing was hard work, after all. The Wolf didn’t stop for hourglasses. Each sand began to echo as it dropped. Thackery heard Morigan grunting from pain, and when he looked at her, he saw that her face shone with sweat and strain; by then, the sun had fallen, but the night remained warm. Thackery nearly asked for a halt, but the Wolf knew his bloodmate’s needs better even than the sorcerer did. The wolf-carriage padded to a stop. Thackery dismounted first, then helped Morigan, who appeared quite pallid and trembled in his arms.