Tonight, they’d come out of their foxhole and joined the company and ship’s captain for a night of feasting, drinking, and song—the latter courtesy of Alastair. Deciding this was to be a merry occasion, the mysterious jack of all trades produced a potent elixir that managed to inebriate the Wolf after several draughts. It tasted like varnish. A slow and staggering vintage of rare spirits from the East, Alastair promised the grimacing Wolf. Strong enough to drop a herd of cattle. While the liquor didn’t knock the Wolf over, it certainly flushed his cheeks and had him clapping and singing along with an uncommon levity. Once the revelry had ended, and after finishing off Alastair’s gift, the heavy-footed Wolf carried his lover back to their cabin. For hourglasses thereafter—possibly until dawn—they made love in the slowest, wettest, most drunken, and delicious way. More of a brute when under the influence, he’d fallen asleep kissing and softly biting her breasts. Soon, Morigan drifted off to his half-snore, half-growl, and occasional suckling, thinking how much she loved this beautiful creature. One of Alastair’s pretty songs from down the corridor—carried through the great metal halls of the skycarriage like music through a pipe—was her final shepherd to sleep.
Morigan steps out onto the cracked-dust desert plain and sniffs. Wider, farther do her perceptions reach than the grandest of wolves, her mate—he who sleeps in another place. Who am I? Where have my bees taken me today? she wonders. The land offers only the most mysterious of clues; whirling clouds, hewn steeps, dunes mossed over with spiny, straggling forests, and a rolling sea of sand that creeps toward a starkly red horizon. Rendered in the morning sun are the glittering threads of many rivers branching over the land—they look like pulsing veins of blood. How sweet and unusual is the air that flows through her nose and down her throat. Upon its current, she tastes the chlorophyll of leaves, the chalk of sand, the spice of mildew, and the refreshing salt of the rivers—inland water that bears the taste of an ocean. What place could be so strange as to hold all of these details and elements in harmony? The answer strikes her then: Pandemonia.
I am here. No, Brutus is here, she realizes, as her enormous galvanized host begins a thundering run across the landscape. It has to be Brutus in whom she resides, as if trapped with a storm in a bottle. For who else has lungs like bellows? Who else climbs gullies in a reach or two, bounding about like a spastic ape, but the King of the Sun himself? With an astonishing disregard for natural laws, the Sun King leaps from butte to butte, jumping so high and so far that he soars like a wind over the irregular valleys and dashes through waterfalls that pour from winding pinnacles of rock. Following his speedy journey is difficult, and Morigan refrains from flexing her Will to see her host’s secrets or feel all that he feels, for she realizes she is not alone in his mind.
Zionae, the Black Queen, rides in Brutus, too.
Frozen, as still as a woman hiding in the closet while a murderer creeps through the house, Morigan holds in check her consciousness and her bees—a maddening effort to maintain. Zionae sibilates on every wind that whisks Brutus’s ears. Zionae rushes through his veins like poison. Zionae perks his nipples and groin with infernal arousal: a need to hunt, kill, and breed. From her hidey-hole within the mad king, Morigan listens to the suggestions of the Dark Dreamer. More intimations and emotions than words are these whispers. Still, Morigan discerns enough of her enemy. Zionae’s madness is a paste of crushed spiders, bent nails, broken glass, aborted children, and the tears and blood of those who have died screaming in horror, a madness so thick that it pours over Morigan, blocking her ability to scream. Better that she does not, lest Brutus’s dark passenger hear, and thus know, of her presence.
Morigan buries herself deeper into the mad king’s soul. She tries to creep elsewhere, to find a piece of his mind untainted by Zionae’s lust. There is no corner of the Sun King’s mind, though, in which wickedness does not fester. A black poison has washed through Brutus’s soul. Even when Morigan flees to what should be sacred memories of Brutus and his brother, she finds no familial sanctity. Instead, she experiences her host pounding Magnus with his fists, tearing him with his teeth, and thrusting into his pale brother with his gargantuan sword of meat. Is this a memory or a dark delusion? She hopes the latter, as the acts Brutus is committing are depraved beyond measure. When she seeks out Brutus’s memories of Mother-wolf, she finds that these, too, have been corrupted. Now the king fantasizes about devouring his mate, eating her innards, and stabbing his prick into her shuddering dead corpse. Perversion, lunacy, and repellent desires assault Morigan wherever she darts. The whole of Brutus’s mind has become maggoty with death. He and his evil mother would rape the world. They would eat and feast on every meat in creation. Their hunger has no end. Mercy save us all, laments Morigan.
I must escape! I must wake!
But rather than soaring in a silver cloud to freedom, Morigan is caught in a darkness that clots and constricts around her. The light she seeks seems farther out of reach, a pinhole that vanishes in a blink. Now there is only the whispering darkness. Zionae has found her.
“Little Fly, I warned you against any return to my Dreaming,” Zionae says—a screeching of rending metal. “Come now, let me into your heart and feel the glory of a world without remorse. I feel it in you—a fear. Fear is the root of hunger. Indulge in it. I can show you the heights and depths of passion. Such glories do I see in your future. I shall offer you a spot at my Feast. Kill your pack. Make love with your Wolf on a bed of their corpses, and then kill him too as he empties inside of you.”
A red mist whirls around Morigan. It parts like a curtain to the Black Queen’s cues, and Morigan appears in the grisly scene described by the Dreamer. There, upon a stage of blood, upon a mattress of tangled corpses, Morigan watches herself ride the rigid corpse of her bloodmate. From the pile of flesh beneath the abominable lovemaking, Mouse’s waxen face glares up as Morigan uses her promise dagger to hack, with gusto and virtuosity, at what remains of her mate. If Morigan could vomit here, she would. The doppelgänger turns from her unsavory duties and smiles at Morigan.
“See what you can become, my child,” says Zionae, through the doppelgänger’s mouth. “Such glory and beauty. Rise and find yourself anew.”
“No! Never!” screams Morigan.
Summoning her strength and her swarm of bees, and calling for her mate, Morigan shines. Burned by Morigan’s light, hissing and gurgling, the darkness fades away to smoky tatters. Morigan bobs peacefully in the gray mist of nowhere, safe from Brutus and the Black Queen. But she is still not alone.
Who is that? she wonders, and drifts toward the figment in the fog. Is it a girl? Is it Macha? For the faded shape and distance feel familiar—evoking the moment she and the young changeling met in Dream. If not the young seal girl, it must be the gray, billowing spirit of some other young woman. For the figure is small, shrouded, and meek. Lost lamb, thinks Morigan, floating closer still. She reaches for her with hands of glass and smoke. Then, like a coat of pins, the bees sting her in reprobation; they warn her, too late, not to touch the spirit.
The girl turns to her. But Morigan does not see Macha’s gentle countenance; indeed, what greets her eyes is far from a child. It is as if something bulbous has been stuffed into a child’s body and draped in a robe of mist that fails to hide its deformity. The shape swells as Morigan beholds it, growing from her fear. It stares at her from two soulless eye sockets swirling with winged insects—flies, though as loud and as large as bees. Beneath the crawling skin shine glimpses of a picked, possibly metal skull. A mask? What is this dream-walking monster? A Dreamer? Not a Dreamer, sting her bees. What then? she wonders. Cicada music hums from the verminously churning head, becoming sounds and words that Morigan can hear through her entire body.
“You are not safe. You are never safe,” says the creature.
Morigan shrieks.
II
“My Fawn! It is alright. Wherever you were, you are in no danger now.”
Soft sheets, soft fur, and hard muscle rubbe
d against her flesh. The only sounds she heard were her cries, Caenith’s voice, and the thrum of wind striking the ship’s shell. No smells of blood and death. No buzzing nightmare person or whispers of Zionae. Morigan stopped her struggling and breathed against her bloodmate’s body for a while. She inhaled his onion-and-pepper scent, soothed herself with the warmth of the prowling beast of fire in her chest, and relaxed in the cradle of his strength. When a few sands had passed, the Wolf pulled away a little, swept back some of Morigan’s sweaty hair, and caressed her face. Caenith’s eyes seemed grayer than normal—worried.
You called my father’s name, more than once, he said in their secret language of souls. I could not wake you until a sand ago. You were trying to scream, and yet no sound came out. Like the wailing women, the Banninshide, who shriek grief that only those of magik can hear. What did you see, my Fawn?
Your father—and the Black Queen. In Pandemonia.
I see.
And another evil creature, too.
No matter, said the Wolf, and kissed her brow. We shall hunt the meaning of these omens and dreams together. I regret that such a wonderful evening has been ruined by a visitation from my father and his wicked master.
As she stared at his carved and gloriously handsome face, she had a flash of his eyes rolling back until their whites showed and of his neck decorated in a bleeding, raw smile—just as he’d appeared when she had murdered him in her dream.
Our flight of romance is over, my Wolf. She slipped out of his arms and off the bed, gathering her clothes. We must discuss what I saw, and what it means, as a pack. We must prepare ourselves for Pandemonia.
Leaning on one elbow, the Wolf watched his bloodmate clothe her lithe body. She did not glance at him, most surely trying to keep him from her sight. Tainting her sweet fragrance was an unusual, skunky note of sweat: the perspiration of fear. Mortal fear; murderous fear. It was a stink he knew well from his days as a gladiator in Menos. But what could she fear? He stayed on the bed for so long that Morigan finally looked his way. Then he caught it: a glimmer in her silver stare. With a sting of the perception inherited from their union, and a chill that pimpled his skin, he knew she worried for him.
III
While the majority of Eod’s ships were constructed for military use, the Skylark, the vessel in which the company traveled, had been made to entertain dignitaries. Its generous hollow belly held all the comforts of a passenger vessel: private sleeping arrangements, running water, a kitchen. Even an expansive parlor had been installed, and it bordered on theatrical greatness with its echo, small stage, knotted-silk curtains, and rows of buttoned leather seats. A great deal of luxury and design had been dedicated to the great parlor, and quite often the company and their uninitiated members spent the day there. They drank, ate, and played games of Kings and Fates with Mouse’s deck of cards (or Crowns and Fates, depending on which regional rules were in use).
Sometimes one of the company stared out of the portals at the streaming clouds and flickers of dark blue water far beneath. Often they contented themselves with Alastair’s crooning. The shadowbroker did so love to sing; his voice was extraordinary, and no one asked him to stop. Thackery still hadn’t received a plausible answer about how it was that Alastair so closely resembled a bard Thackery knew a hundred years past. “Are you a descendent of the man?” he might ask, at which point Alastair would, like a conjurer, produce an instrument—a flute from his cloak, a lute from under his seat—and deflect the inquiry with smiles and song. As the days dwindled, the sage began to doubt that Alastair would ever be forthcoming and stopped asking.
Despite the skycarriage’s fleetness, the voyage to Pandemonia would be a long one. It would require crossing the whole of eastern Geadhain and then journeying over the Chthonic Ocean: the wet abyss that separated the fragmented lands of east, west, north, and south into isolated kingdoms. Following some snippy consultations with Moreth—who seemed to think everyone less intelligent than he—the companions learned it would take around three days of flight to reach the great island continent of Pandemonia. Beyond that, their journey to Pandemonia’s first harbor of civilization, the city of Eatoth, would take many days to weeks of hard hiking inland. From Eatoth, they would reassess and plot their journey. For Eatoth, the City of Waterfalls, with its quicksilver towers and its encircling wall of ever-flowing water (Balderdash, thought Mouse), was said to be a repository of the world’s most ancient and coveted wisdom—legends and facts older than anything in Central Geadhain. Surely, they would discover a course or thread to follow from there. Pandemonia…Eatoth…To many of the companions, it felt as if they were headed to the very end of Geadhain.
Aside from Moreth, no one had made this journey before, so each morning he prepared them with naught but the direst briefings on temperamental climates, bloodthirsty animals, and inconceivably chaotic landscapes. Magik wasn’t to be wielded where they were headed, apparently, since the etheric currents surrounding Pandemonia amplified or warped its effects. And even the smallest scrape could summon a horde of ravenous animals—or so the Menosian claimed. Moreth’s depictions of the land had received the company’s greatest incredulity: deserts of ice, lakes of fire, fields that went from green to rotten in a day. Such strangenesses were a strain to believe among even the most imaginative members of the company; they sounded like wonders from the ages of Fire, Dust, Winter, and Wetness. After all, they’d survived Alabion—how much worse could Pandemonia be?
Given Moreth’s propensity for gloating, Mouse was suspicious that he knew or was truthful about all that he claimed. This morning, she called his bluff as they sat around the parlor.
“How far to this city, Eatoth, from when we land?” she asked. “You’ve said days to weeks, which is quite a discrepancy.”
“That depends on where we disembark,” replied Moreth, not bothering to divert his attention from the whorls of steam rising from the mug of tea he held in both hands. “I assume you were eavesdropping on the captain and I during our cartography sessions, and you’ve attended my briefings. Despite all that, you seem to have missed the most important details.”
Mouse scowled, but didn’t deny the accusation. “Which are?”
“The problem with Pandemonia is that nothing stays the same,” continued Moreth. All heads in the room now turned to him; he spoke with a slow and captivating lilt that the company had learned indicated a certain valuable, if arrogant, wisdom. “While this is true in life—with age, feelings, aspirations—it is even truer in Pandemonia. What was a shoreline yesterday could be a ravine today. Lakes dry up in weeks or months; some then fill with lava or, if the land feels frolicsome, flowers and herds of gentle beasts—though I would not expect to find many gentle beasts in Pandemonia. Such sweet-tempered creatures as do exist are quickly devoured by the more aggressive fauna of the realm. Kericot, who visited Pandemonia once, wrote of its nature in his poetic ramblings. If you dig through the man’s florid nonsense, you’ll find an occasional resonant gem:
Walled in water, gardened in flame, a wind that rails over earth untamed.
Fall upon the sword of reason, swallow your terrified shout.
Awe and weep for the fractured land, though never, ever, let the chaos out.
“You will see when we arrive. All that I’ve told you is true, and none of it half as tall a tale as you will behold. Still, I think Kericot’s words describe best what to expect: total disorder. An assault on what you understand of nature. There is a reason why Pandemonia exists at the farthest reaches of our world, contained in a prison of the deepest water, in a region where the ethereal currents disable technomagik and the winds blow so fiercely that only the strongest ships or skycarriages can reach it. The chaos must be contained.”
After a sip of tea, he added, “So, my dear rodent, to answer your question—I have an idea where to take us once we land. But only an idea. Where to go next? Well...life is an adventure, and this will be one of your greatest. And perhaps your last.”
Moreth l
aughed, feeding on the silence of the company.
If a man could be a fart, a fart Moreth would be, decided Mouse. She left the seats to look through the round windows, watching the peaceful flocks of cotton that floated beside the vessel.
A patient, silent presence stood beside her. Adam had been with her all morning, in fact, though she often overlooked him. Wherever she went, Adam followed, and his dedication was finally penetrating her callousness. Each morning, they now met to go on a long, speechless stroll across the metal decks of the Skylark before joining the others in the parlor. Mouse appreciated the company of a man who did not feel the need to talk; so many people felt the urge to ruin silence with blather. When she and Adam did speak, it was to exchange a comment regarding the technomagik that surrounded them: engines, decks, motors, and propulsion. The changeling thought all of it fascinating. His inquiries, though, often demanded answers beyond her schooling, and she added them to a mental list to be discussed later with Talwyn and Thackery. Most of the time, however, there were no questions. She and silent Adam simply walked down a humming tunnel, listened to the click-clack music of their shoes, and felt completely quiet and content.
Although they spent much time together, their intimacy had not grown past friendship. At some point, they had reached an unspoken acceptance that they were not going to be lovers. Perhaps Adam had decided that the time and situation would not permit a deeper companionship. Perhaps he wanted to know what other mates there might be in this great, grand world outside of Alabion. He also likely correctly interpreted Mouse’s aloofness and flighty affection as signals of her lack of interest. In life, there existed a window in which circumstances could unfold, and that window of opportunity had closed. Mouse felt all this with only a soft sinking in her heart, even if at times she recognized how beautiful a man he was. She needed friends and family more than lovers. Yet, she was never without Adam, and his ability to calm her with his calm, to make her smile with his smile, was the mark of true friendship.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 4
