“Iron Sage?” inquired one of her guardsmen, for she had been still for sands.
“A moment longer,” she said, and looked up to the darkening sky and starry roof, imagining her reign as the queen of all Geadhain.
VI
THE BREWING STORM
I
King’s Road, the snaking strip of buffed white slate that wound all the way to Eod’s Palace, was clear of traffic this morning, and sparkled in the sunshine as brilliantly as a vein of gold. Today was a day of great celebration, where all of Eod, from the workmen to the masters, would have a glimpse of their reclusive king. Such was not an occasion to be missed or left uncelebrated. And though the King’s Road was bare, the sidewalks were not, and people clustered like eager spring flowers on shop steps, tavern awnings, or rooftops. Masters of the elements, minstrels, and entertainers roused the masses to a frenzy, filling the skies with glittering explosions of magik, crooning ballads of Magnus’s glory, or awing the crowds with funambulists treading invisible ropes of air.
Thackery Thule was at the railing of an inn’s porch, being elbowed by tankard-clanging oafs and generally affronted by the spectacular spectacle. He was as surly as those about him were joyous. Too many thoughts occupied his head for this to be a happy occasion, though he knew that it was one of paramount importance, and not to be missed, no matter how perplexed he was over his vanishing handmaiden and her mysterious lover.
I do hope that bloody pigeon flew safe and true, he fretted.
After two days with no sign of the girl, he had made contact with The Watchers. A missive sent by carrier bird was all it took. Rather archaic compared to farspeaking and other technomagikal advancements, and never guaranteed to reach its recipient, yet this was The Watchers’ way. Timeworn and honored traditions, predating modern conveniences. A Voice would come, sooner rather than later, he supposed, but the waiting was agony.
If I could take it back, Morigan, all those cruel words I threw at you, I would. Please…please be safe. If this Caenith has harmed you, I…I shall kill him, swore Thule. Without warning, the noise around him became riotous and drew him from his thoughts. The mania of the crowd meant one thing: the king approached. As distracted as his insides were, Thule was magnetized by the silver-shod army that came trotting into sight.
Knight and beast alike wore the spiny pearlescent armor of Eod, as if they were creatures marched from beneath the most enchanted reaches of the sea. The Silver Watch come riding, riding, from under the Great Desert’s waves. Lay down your swords, spare your lords. Ere dawn comes, the battle is won, and you have not mercy, but graves, went the old soldiers’ tune, which captured the essence the king’s army. While Eod had not warred in the last century, its soldiers prepared as if they were under constant attack, and the will of the king’s army was a legend across Geadhain. Thule noticed it in the confidence and bearing of knight and steed, in their absolute focus, distracted by none of the glitz surrounding them. From his visits to the palace, he recalled the precision of the watch as they sparred in Eod’s golden courtyards, waltzing about like ribbons of silver, lethal in their precision. The pale-hooded masters of the elements who rode amid the knights held themselves with identical pride and poise, yet without armor, and wove their spells with the same sophistication as their brothers and sisters slung steel. Also among them were Eod’s thunderstrike artillery, with their crystalline, electrically twined bows; their darting, hawklike heads; and twitching gauntlets. They needed no further announcement of their threat. He remembered a day when he was taken with a rare moment of sky gazing; he had witnessed the mystic archers strike down a fleeing Menosian skycarriage. Still he remembered it, for it was as if a storm of lightning had launched itself from the ramparts of Eod’s great wall, instead of from the sky above. He had covered his mouth in awe and doubted that anything but the smallest scrap of seared iron drifted down into the desert afterward.
All this to quash an uprising of savages? pondered Thule, who had heard the rumors of troubles in the mountains of Mor’Keth. A curious story. Although the revelers around him might be too enamored to delve deeper into suspiciousness, Thule was not. He had seen military assistance, and then he had seen marches of war. This force wasn’t large enough to be the former, though it was certainly well ammunitioned enough to be the latter. Surely, a strategic misdirection was in play. Where are you really going, Magnus?
No better a time to ask such a question, for the first through eighth legions had passed and the king appeared among the final. Last out of the city, but first upon the field of battle if the legends sang true, and the crowd first hushed and then roared at the king’s inspiring presence. King Magnus was humble to their noise, stiff in his saddle, and he nodded to his people and caught as many stares with his striking green gaze as he could. Dressed in pearl armor and silver-chained furs with a thin crown caught in his loose, wind-kissed hair, he was as fair as his name described. He rode upon his mythic black mare, Brigada, a horned beast, thick and tall as a Northman’s ox, with the face, mane, and tail of a mare. Queen Lila rode alongside the king on a comparable creature, only white and more slender—the male of the species, oddly enough. Not many but the most learned knew of her origins as an Arhad bride to be what gave the queen her caramel and gold beauty, and it was impossible to believe that so youthful-looking a maiden could be older than many of the stones in the street.
Thule waved to them both, more spiritedly than the rabid masses about him, hoping to catch either of the royals’ notice. Age had shrunk his shoulders, and he barely rose high enough to stand out among the children. He would have flashed a bit of magik to make himself known, but there was already such a spectacle that whatever he attempted would hardly be seen. Fate would have it that the queen’s serpentine attention weaved through the crowd and somehow found him on the porch. She was hailing and smiling at every face that beheld her, but she lingered upon Thule a speck longer than most, and gave him a nearly imperceptible nod. Old friend, she seemed to say, and in that eerie, synchronized manner that Thule had noted between her bloodmate and her, the king’s emerald awareness was suddenly upon him, too. Thule couldn’t quite read that stare, though it was longer and sharper, as if assessing him for his fitness to a duty unsaid. As though the king could read his mind, Thule silently called out to him. King Magnus, my friend. Why do you go south? Who is the true enemy that you face? With these hands, I have touched old magik. A girl that bears the wonders of the East. Arts of the Moon, a gift that not even the House of Mysteries could touch. Is she an omen? A sign of a rising tide? Why do I feel as if Geadhain is waking to a fire in its house, or plunging into a nightmare?
An elbow from behind interrupted Thule’s connection, and when he looked to the royals again, he saw merely the flapping white banners of Eod, with their crest of a silver fist shaking at the sun. Thule shook his own fist at the pennant, and then grumbled his way through the crowd, unsettled by the instinct that the world was facing tumultuous changes, and that Magnus, Morigan, and by association, he, were all somehow involved.
II
Eod’s grand mercantile, the Faire of Fates, was bustling with bodies and gossip that day. The ladies were gabbing about the fairness of their king, the men guffawing with respectable lewdness about the curves of their queen, and all were equally blithe about the peril brewing around them. Or at least the peril that Thule suspected. The Faire of Fates was distracting enough without the chattering, and Thule found himself missing the utility of his handmaiden more and more with every sand, particularly when it came to the contemptible task of shopping. Ask him to fetch a bloodroot from the shrieking groves of Alabion, and he would oblige, even at his age. Yet the Faire of Fates was a different and hostile wilderness of its own that he was terrible at navigating.
Thus he slunk along the shadow of Eod’s white wall, weaseling through the crowds, tents, and platforms thrown up with seeming abandon; staying on the outskirts of this massive jumble of commerce as much as he could. Delights of every imaginable
configuration called to him, deterring him from his task. He dawdled once to gawk at a stage with a watersculptor riding a viscous steed of mist, then again at a wind-flutist whose notes lifted him into the air. The stalls of succulent meats, fruits, and savory vegetables were what he had come for, but he was as helpless as a child with a shopping list and had no idea what to purchase without Morigan present. So he overpaid for a few loaves of bread, cheese, and some coils of smoked swine, and told himself he would make do until Morigan returned. Which she would, he promised. While caught up in that sentiment, he did make one final purchase at the Faire. He stopped at a table laid with elemental baubles, and he bought a pair of liquid-fire earrings, molded in two loops, like the symbol for infinity. Those will look lovely on her, he thought, pocketing the item and giving a much unused smile to the burly merchant who had sold them.
He was leaving the entrapment of the market, walking among sparse crowds and breathing in the sweetness of freedom, when he noticed the reflection of a darkly shrouded man in a glass window on the other side of the street. Thule stopped to read the menu board of a quiet eatery, and then popped in to have a sip of tea and a bitter stone meal biscuit—he preferred the savory to the sweet—while watching traffic from the coziness of a wicker chair. In the shadows of an alleyway across from the café, and mostly hidden by a lamplight or moving carriages, was the same man in black. Thule was certainly being followed. Against the better instinct that one should show when being tracked by a suspicious stranger, Thule finished off his snack and scurried between people and moving wheels into the alley. The man in black was leaning on a pile of filthy kegs, waiting for him. Very little could be said about the man beneath the cloak, other than that he appeared to be thin, and the red beard that protruded from his hood was sparse. He hailed Thule with a casual wave without unfolding his arms.
“We have heard much about your request.”
“Morigan, did you find her?” asked Thule.
“The girl? No, we did not.”
“The smith? Did you find the smith?”
“I was not clear,” corrected the Voice. “We have heard much, though we have seen nothing. It is as if the two have vanished from Eod.”
Distraught, Thule sank onto the nearest object he could find, which was a creaking crate that moaned his feelings for him.
“What have you heard, then?” he sighed.
“Of the young maid that you inquired about, there is little history that you probably aren’t aware of. Dead mother, a runaway father—a nameless tramp, as far as we know. She is as boring as the average charwoman.”
So you would think, snorted Thule.
“The gentleman that we looked into, this Caenith of Eod. He was rather interesting,” cooed the Voice, pulling at his beard thoughtfully. The Voice seemed to be contemplating his findings.
“I’m not paying you for silence; I’m paying you to speak,” spat Thule.
“I do apologize,” said the Voice. “The information seduced me for a speck. It really is among the more”—the Voice wiggled his fingers as if to conjure the word—“grisly of whispers that have passed these lips.”
“Grisly?” Thule was on his feet again. “Grisly?”
“Indeed. The trail leading to Menos was cold and old. Older than your passage here—”
“You should know better than to mention that,” threatened Thule, looking about with suspicion, as if they were heard. “That shadow is well behind me. You will know your place in not mentioning it again. The smith. He is from Menos?”
The Voice gave a deferential nod as he continued. “I regret that my tongue has spoken faster than my mouth can contain it. There are few with such a unique name as the one you shared with us. Yes, there is a smith in Eod named Caenith—no familial name beyond that, strangely. More importantly, there was once a man of that name from Menos with that same name. He worked—killed, rather—for the house of El.”
In Menos, the blood pits where two men entered and one man left were notorious for their profit and allure. Any man of serf status or higher could submit himself for trial by combat, and in doing so was severed of any previous bondage and property of the house of El. An enticing proposition for freedom, as it could be bought with only a month’s worth of winnings. Though rare was the man who lived long enough to extricate himself from the webs of the house of El, and rarer still was a master of El to honor the oaths of service and free that man, should he kill his number.
“He was a dog of the pits, then? A bloodbeast?” exclaimed Thule.
“Oh, no, no, no,” twitted the Voice. “The story is one of Menosian legend. I wouldn’t expect you to be kept abreast of such tales, all things considered.”
Thule sneered, and the Voice held up a finger. “Muzzle your snarl, you might find it misplaced with what I have yet to say. This warrior with the uniquely similar name was no steelworker. In fact, he didn’t carry a weapon with him in the ring, though that hindered him little. He could kill a man as quick as a blink. He was said to be so vulgar in his sport that he would drink the blood of his torn victims while they screamed their last screams—their limbs ripped off as you or I would tear up a child’s doll. Bloodbeast, as the vernacular you are familiar with for the house of El’s sportsmen, did not suit so magnificent a monster. The masters of El called him the Blood King, in mockery of our Northern and Southern immortal sovereigns, from which all good wit in Menos seems to derive itself. The Blood King was the house of El’s favored pet, kept on a tight leash and fed sickening things to keep him happy—sweetmeats, organs, and not the sort that the meatmonger sells.” The Voice gave his audience a black smile. “The Blood King scarcely spoke his name, but it was there, in the shadows, remembered by one whisperer or scribbled down by another. And the description of the man you gave, as interpretive as it could be, describes no other. A beast of a man, towering, feral, and radiating power. So either it is this Caenith, a descendant, or a grand impersonator.”
“He is a murderer and a villain, or a liar and villain. Is that all?” spat Thule. He was repulsed that Morigan had involved herself with such an unscrupulous charlatan as well as terrified for her safety.
“No, that is not all. Not nearly,” said the Voice, bemused. “The records of what happened next are…dusty. The whispers of that era are weak. We do know that Caenith decided to end his contract with the house of El, and it was not through the elusive and unfair breaking of the bond. He killed Mordencai, the father of El. Dozens more, too. Then the Blood King fled Menos and has never been seen since.”
Mordencai? puzzled Thule, and had to reach deep into his memory to discover the name. Not surprising that he did not recall it at first, as Mordencai was the father of El several generations before Thule was even a seed in his mother’s belly.
“Mordencai?” he mumbled, still grappling with the notion.
“Yes,” the Voice confirmed energetically. “The fourth father of El to Moreth, who rules the house today.”
“Which means…”
“That this Caenith is either a talented pretender, or he would be five and some centuries old.”
Thule rubbed his head from the ache of his thoughts and tried to arrange what he knew about blood kings, girls who read minds, and the move of great powers to war. He didn’t care for any of the speculations his mind could conjure. Life, it appeared, was tipping toward disaster.
“Is that everything?” Thule asked, sighing.
“Mostly so,” said the Voice, and began slinking around the kegs. “Not out of personal courtesy, but out of satisfaction for our services, I should warn you that the girl you seek is in danger so long as she is entangled with this imposter. More so than merely being in company with a dangerous, delusional strongman. As you know, the houses of Menos have memories as long as the list of their sins. The house of El is no different, and the contract for information regarding the injustice of Mordencai’s murder remains unpunished and preserved to this day. Therefore, I am obligated to see that the house of El knows of t
his Caenith, regardless of who he is. You of all people should understand the slipperiness of honor when it comes to our dealings.”
Thule did, for they had betrayed him once. Or he had betrayed his sense in trusting liars. He would not abide with them threatening Morigan, though. He leaped from his box, his eyes flashing with the dazzling light of his Will, and the kegs in the alley were blasted to cindery smithereens. People screamed at the noise. But beyond the clouding dust, he saw nothing. The Voice was gone like a terrible dream. He had done his job, and surely, another Voice spans away would do his: alerting the house of El that an ancient blood hunt was soon to begin on this fool or monster that called himself Caenith.
III
In the emptiness, wherever she has been taken, there is nothing for the bees to feed upon. Hungrily, they buzz about her.
“Go away,” she thinks. “Go find something to do.” Perhaps it is her absolute calm, her absence of fear in this numb state, but the bees comply. Off they crawl into the hollows of her mind, extracting delicious thoughts from her stems of memory and bringing them back to their queen, their host. She understands an element of this process as it occurs, that she is indeed the master here, that she has somehow commanded the bees. She cannot contemplate long, however, for they have brought to her the strangest nectars—memories so old that she has not recalled them in years, if ever.
How young am I? she wonders as the memory envelops her. For her limbs are stumpy and soft, her words a gurgle, and she is held in a bouncing backpack in a realm of terrifying green shadows. She knows who carries her, though, whose strong back she is strapped to; she would never forget the fragrance of rosewater and Arhadian myrrh that was the scent of her mother. If she could weep here, she would; she does not shed tears, but pulses with love and longing.
Happily the bees buzz now. They are pleased to have served so well. She doesn’t need to ask, only Will it, and they are gone into the honeycomb of her head again, seeking further nectar of that taste: the taste of Mifanwae. The obedient insects are back sooner than the request is sensed. They wash her in another memory.
Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) Page 14
