Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3)

by Christian A. Brown

  At the moment, he and his three companions sat in a room with thick trim, luxurious armchairs and couches, and false colonnades that supported nothing but the opulence of this place. Art and false curtains hung on the weary bricks of the old structure. Thackery’s three friends wore as much defeat on their faces as he did. He looked around at the frowning, lounging, lost-in-thought folk and decided they were in need of rallying. Thackery stood up from the bed onto which he’d sunk; the extravagance was numbing, he realized. He clapped for attention.

  “Right,” he said. “We’ve come to save the city. I have more faith in Morigan’s visions than in the presumptuous proclamations of a leader who seems too isolated in her crystal tower to appreciate the reality of the threat. What are we going to do, other than sit here and sulk?”

  “Brutus will come,” said Morigan. She stirred in the armchair where she’d been sitting and staring at the fire that crackled beneath the chamber’s limestone mantel. In truth, the mantel’s unnecessary leaves and engraved golden images of Pandemonia’s bizarre bestiary had been distracting her from serious contemplation. None of those monsters approached Brutus in his vileness and evil. Smiling, she looked at her friend and father figure. “You’re right, we are wasting time here. The Keeper said that we would have access to the city’s resources and knowledge. I’d like to know why Brutus would come here, if this city’s defenses truly cannot be breached. There must be a reason. In Zioch, he laid a trap for his brother. In Gorgonath, he set out to replenish his horde. Now he’s come to Pandemonia, targeted Eatoth, and we’ve no idea why. It’s an important question, as important as how to stop him. It’s dangerous to still be in the dark about his motives. I feel as if we’re always following rather than leading. We need to get ahead of him on this. We might even end the Great War, here and now.”

  “Would destruction and death not be motivation enough for him?” suggested the Wolf. He rose from his chair opposite Morigan and threw a piece of the over-sauced, butter-soft meat their wardens had served them—food made for toothless rats, not wolves—into the fire. “I sense hundreds of thousands of lives and heart-beats here. After having being defeated twice over, my father must be in need of soldiers for his army. I think these bodies would be enough to entice him.”

  “That doesn’t entirely make sense,” countered Thackery. “Even if Brutus were to build another army, a horde, how would he return with it to Eod? Transporting his troops would be a logistical impossibility. And yet, I don’t believe for a single speck that Brutus’s business with his brother has ended. The Black Queen either needs Magnus’s body or wants to see him dead if he cannot be claimed. Certainly, Brutus needs an army; I can’t see him and Magnus having a civilized duel to decide the World’s fate. What then do the Black Queen and her heinous consorts want here, in this apparently impenetrable bastion of magik and wisdom?” Thackery walked over and touched Morigan’s shoulder. “What do you see?”

  Morigan shrugged. “The Fates are muddled. As we come nearer to the climax of this war, things become more uncertain. Eatoth will writhe in flames; that much I know. But I do not know whether it will be possible to prevent or mitigate the terrible damage Brutus will cause.”

  “We have to try,” said Adam, and leaped off the couch where he’d been lying and nibbling on fruits. The thought of meat still spoiled his appetite, carnivore though he was.

  “Of course,” replied Morigan, also rising. The four now stood in a circle. “We shall never surrender to the dark. Let us leave this place and see where my senses, Caenith’s senses, and the combined might of our intellect and determination lead us. We shall find no resolutions to our problems if we remain here in this chamber. Night is only a few hourglasses away, so we should hurry.”

  “We shall hunt and claim this truth,” declared the Wolf.

  Every soul in the room believed him.

  II

  Before departing, the company laid out a plan of action. It had been Thackery’s idea to seek out archives or museums—they needed to understand the resources and strengths of Eatoth, and quickly. Any museum or place steeped in natural history would be a fertile hunting ground for Morigan: rich in stories, emanations, and spirits. Really, though, what they needed to do was wander, to see where their intuitions, which had guided them through every peril thus far, would lead.

  The ward on guard outside their door didn’t answer their inquiries, but he did nod and then sign a few words to one of the legionnaires stationed with him. That man—tall and broad, with calves that looked like bronze bricks—then detached himself from his countrymen and offered himself as their liaison for the day: he’d take them to something called the Exhibition, which sounded as if it were a museum, and anywhere else they wanted to go. They couldn’t see much of their guide—whose name was Longinus, he told Adam—under his heavy, plumed helm, but the Wolf smelled the fruity tang of suspicion upon him. More a spy than a liaison, whispered the Wolf to his bloodmate.

  Longinus and his contingent took the company down a winding staircase, a prettier, whiter version of the ones common in Menosian estates. When everyone reached the antechamber at the bottom, the companies split apart, and Longinus walked the four out into a dazzle of white light and sound. It took the travelers a while to adjust to the commotion in the streets. Adam walked up front with Longinus and chatted with the soldier. The changeling appeared enamored by the flourishes of music, art, and culture he saw, and had a question about everything. At first, Longinus replied only reluctantly, but Adam’s persistence eventually wore down the stoniness of his manner. Soon Longinus appeared actively interested in showing Adam and the strangers his city. Adam did double duty as both tour guide and interpreter, and relayed Longinus’s sightseeing facts to his pack.

  They were in the historical district of the city, which contained its oldest bones, reframed and filled with new stone, marble, and metal flesh over time. Powdery walls that might have been standing three thousand years ago served as backdrops to busy outdoor eateries; these were filled with tea tables above which floated odd glass shields that somehow cast cooling gray shade instead of reflecting light. The people of Eatoth didn’t seem to drink tea, though: they seemed fondest of mulled and alcoholic beverages that irritated the Wolf’s nose with their spice and sweetness. People looked nonchalantly at the scowling giant and his strangely garbed friends before returning to their pursuit of pleasure and conversation. The Wolf had yet to see a person working, other than those who served. And even those service people could often be spied leaning against the bricks, smoking rolled paper things, or chatting with passersby. A civilization of layabouts, minstrels, and fools, the Wolf couldn’t help but think.

  The only severe notes were struck by the legionnaires who wandered in patrols and the towers—full, as they knew, of wards and keepers—that cast their lucent shadows on the road. Also, in these glimmering dark stretches, the company spotted signs of imperfection in Eatoth’s otherwise unblemished facade. Here they saw urchins and vagrants; always dressed in rags, sometimes scarred with a cross-shaped brand on their foreheads, hands, or another visible place; a few were amputees. These cast-off folk lingered in arcade windows or lurked in the narrow cobbled alleys between shops and houses. When they caught sight of Longinus or some other legionnaire, the street dwellers would dissolve into the background like men and women of smoke.

  Soon, the Wolf noticed the movements of these vagrants more than he did any of the marks of Eatoth’s magnificence. He watched as they surreptitiously slipped their hands into the pockets of the passersby. He felt no need to alert any authorities to their thieving. These folk were clearly impoverished in a nation that had too much for its own good. In one grand square through which they passed, a pack of outcast children washed themselves in a fountain. As soon as Longinus’s helmet flashed in the crowd, the children scattered, still naked, leaving much of their clothing behind. The Wolf brought the matter of these younglings to Adam’s attention, and awaited an answer from their liaison.


  After an exchange with the legionnaire, Adam turned to his friends. “Amakri,” replied the changeling. Concepts of social status and standing were still rather foreign to him, so he puzzled over what else to say. “He speaks as you and I would speak, great Wolf, of those shamed in our old tribe. They are allowed to live among the others, but denied certain rights and freedoms—much as I was under Aghna’s rule. Longinus tells me they are not Lakpoli: Blessed. These Amakri we’ve seen do not belong to the tribes who are allowed to work off their dishonor through labor in the Garden of Life—whatever that may be.”

  “Vassalage or vagrancy? Those are the choices given to persons not of the city?” The Wolf sneered up at the magnificent towers. “Man always finds a way to piss in his own garden. As for gardens, I am curious, though, as to the one you’ve mentioned.”

  Thackery agreed with a Hm.

  Eatoth possessed even more wonders than did Eod. There was the road, which Adam informed them was called the Ramble. It curved past regal homes and noisy stores boasting great porticos and lattices of vines and flowers. It emptied into vacant plazas that took sands to cross and fluttered with birds. It took them into the cool, shaded, quiet neighborhoods at the bases of the Keeper’s towers where they spied more Amakri. While staring at a pair of Amakri—a filthy man and woman who cowered behind a tall urn as they passed—Morigan’s sight rippled, and she was sent elsewhere.

  She stands in a darkness-drenched place. It is night, and wind and whistling sounds play songs to the moon. Morigan sees two figures much like the ones who triggered this vision tucked very close to each another and hiding behind a pillar. Other details of the room are vague; she senses only that it’s staggering to behold in all its echoing grandness. She hasn’t been pulled into the past to see this opulence, though: she’s here to see the young lovers. Surely they are together, or want to be. Their desire is manifest around them in a red cloud; it’s not the brazen crimson of carnality, though, but a gentler hue, softened with pink and white. It is the aura of true love.

  A bit startled, Morigan realizes that she knows the young, brown, feline-stared beauty from a previous vision. Amunai was her name. She’s a bit older now than when Morigan last saw her in an ancient chamber of knowledge and study. Much like the Keeper Morigan met today, Amunai is both young and ageless—the result of high status in one of the four great cities, Morigan decides. On this day, however, Amunai’s usually hard face glows with honeyed beauty. The fellow who holds her to his body and whispers delightful words into her ear is the cause of her vitality.

  He’s a warrior, Morigan knows. A holy warrior something like a legionnaire, although he wears a silver chest plate, the metal twisted and raised in the form of a clawing bird; his cloak is dark, as are his eyes and skin. He’s daringly handsome in a weathered, wind-scorched way that makes him appear older than he is.

  Soundlessly, Amunai moans as he kisses her ear. She makes an inaudible gasp as his hands caress her breasts. But only for an instant does he act wantonly before lifting and holding her face so that they stare eye to eye. He is able to restrain his passion because he loves her, and wants more than her flesh. They must run away together. They must cast aside their roles as guardian and Keeper. In the chaotic wilds of Pandemonia, they can be whomever they want. Morigan hears him whisper all these things amid the kisses he steals from Amunai. Just then, the holy Keeper breaks her fast from speech. She doesn’t implant her words into her lover’s head, but speaks with her heart and through her mouth. She cannot contain her passion. “We shall,” she promises, and her sultry scratch of a voice, one that must never be heard, arouses and amazes her lover.

  They kiss so sweetly and erotically that Morigan is reminded of her first taste of the Wolf. Morigan knows, though, that they are doomed. A shower of warm blood, the shrill of agonized shrieking, and the feel of a rubbery worming object in her hands wake her.

  “Amunai,” said Morigan as the vision faded.

  While in the Dreaming, she’d managed to keep walking a steady path in the physical realm—aided by the Wolf. Although Morigan had only whispered the name, Longinus somehow heard it and tripped. A woman who’d also caught Morigan’s utterance looked at the seer with gaping terror, then touched her forehead and each shoulder as if warding off a curse. Morigan felt as if she’d just uttered Brutus’s name in streets of Eod. “Adam,” she said. “Already our hunt bears fruit. Ask our guide who Amunai is or was. I’ve seen her twice now. The Fates have declared her importance. I must know.”

  Adam’s mention of the name brought many more ghastly stares and invocations against evil from passersby. Longinus, though, refused to answer any of Adam’s questions, and they continued along the Ramble in an unfriendly silence. Finally, Morigan called for the party to stop, not caring whether she made a scene. She stepped in front of Longinus, gazed into the blue eyes burning in his helm, and repeated the name. Each time he heard it, he seemed to become angrier or more fearful. Nonetheless, her bees had found a nectar, a truth, and she would reach into his head and harvest it, if need be. Morigan was about to pick the man’s mind apart when he gave a full-body shiver and directed them to leave the street. They gathered in a narrow lane hung with clothes hangers. Longinus looked around at the open windows from which breathed string music and chatter, and then down the mostly quiet path. A young gentleman on a bicycle had paused to talk to his sweetheart, but no others were near. Their isolation satisfied Longinus, and he had a quick, harsh conversation with Adam. Longinus showed great animation for such a restrained man. He crossly tapped his spear upon the cobbles while hissing at Adam. Once he was finished, he went still as a statue. Morigan knew they would get no more from him on the subject of Amunai, at least not through conversation.

  “He wasn’t helpful,” said Adam, turning to the company. “The woman you asked about was a Keeper. She has passed into the Great Mystery now. Our guide says that she is never to be spoken of. Her crimes and sins were shameful. She succumbed to madness and destroyed the City of Wind—”

  “Aesorath,” exclaimed Morigan. Fates and significances were beginning to align. “We saw the city when last my Wolf and I chased the Dreamstalker together. The Dreamstalker claimed it was her Dream, which means it was a place of importance for her. Perhaps…” Morigan squeezed her eyes and flexed her Will. For a speck, she flashed with silver. In the flickering theater of her mind, she could once again see the dunes and distant spires of a dead, fallen city, taste the iron bitterness of the Dreamstalker’s blood upon her tongue, and hear the buzzing symphony of a horrific masked creature as it tried to tempt her to darkness. As Morigan listened to its music, concentrating her wolfish hearing upon it, she discerned a voice beneath the cicadas—a voice that rarely spoke, but had once returned a whisper of love: We shall. “She’s alive,” exclaimed Morigan.

  “Who?” asked Thackery.

  “Amunai,” replied Morigan. “She’s the one who attacked me in my dreams. I remember her voice now. As a woman or as a monster, she has the same voice.”

  The others of the company were surprised only for a moment. The many grim events that had occurred since their arrival in Pandemonia became linked chains in their heads, as they had in Morigan’s.

  “How is that possible?” asked Thackery.

  “Amunai would not be the first we have known to cheat death and destruction,” said the Wolf. “Although we do not yet know the nature of the connection between Amunai—the Dreamstalker—Brutus, and the City of Screams, we have now at least found a truth to hunt: a truth that may be the key to Eatoth’s salvation.”

  “Why not ask the Keeper?” suggested Thackery. “We now know what questions to ask.”

  Morigan turned Thackery and the others away from Longinus; he couldn’t understand them as far as she could tell, but she didn’t want to include him in their scheming. “I doubt the Keeper will hear us. She knows more than she will admit. I have incomplete visions of her, too, and I sense she is involved in this bramble patch of Fates. When we return to he
r, we must do so armed with incontrovertible truths. Things she cannot deny.”

  “What do you propose?” asked Thackery.

  Morigan felt enlivened now that they were beginning to uncover clues. While she debated where to begin searching for more, the Wolf made his own agenda. Off he strode down the lane, hunched, slightly feral, and sniffing.

  You have awoken something—a trail, a scent, he whispered to his bloodmate. He inhaled a bouquet of roses, rot, and raisins that was wafting down from somewhere very high up, possibly one of the towers. It was the stench of a hidden truth, of love and betrayal. He remembered that scent from the chamber of the Keeper. He wondered what she had been concealing in the floor, or upon her person. I smell secrets, my Fawn. I hear whispers in the distance like the first leaves of fall kissing the bracken. Go with our companions. Seek the ties between Amunai, the City of Screams, and my father. I shall discover what it is this Keeper hides.

  Where are you going? she asked.

  Up…Into the towers. A wind bearing sulfur blew over him, and his ears picked up a drumbeat that sounded like an earthquake. I hear a strange pulsing song, too. And I smell magik. A magik without compare. I must chase these things as well. I shall find a way to stop my father.

  Go, my Wolf. Let me know what you catch.

  They kissed in their souls in a burst of starlight and growling flame. The Wolf scaled the wall of the alley in three great upward strides, startling an old woman in her kitchen, but moving so quickly that she had time neither to scream nor to understand what’d passed her. Longinus shouted as soon as he realized that the Wolf and the wind that had blown past him were one and the same. After the Wolf’s departure, Adam did his best to calm the man, who would surely face harsh punishment for losing the son of Brutus. Morigan and Thackery, meanwhile, huddled together and conspired. They soon asked Adam if he could ask their guide to expedite their trip to the Exhibition, this museum as it sounded. It had been Thackery’s idea to find a place where people could investigate history and legends without rousing tempers. From what Thackery had heard, Caenith would already be testing Eatoth’s hospitality to its limits.