Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3)

by Christian A. Brown

  Beatrice gazed at Galivad tenderly and touched his fair skin with one of her bloodless, gray-fingernailed hands—the claws of a corpse. Rowena loathed the woman.

  “Is that necessary?” replied Galivad. “Beatrice is an ally.”

  The Lady El gave him a smile that should have frozen his blood; it certainly froze Rowena’s. “Fine. As you wish,” spat Rowena. “Wherever you have been all day?”

  “Working, training my men, in my quarters with Beatrice, then here. My movements are not secret,” said Galivad.

  In my quarters with Beatrice stuck on a gear in Rowena’s head. Disgusting, whatever it meant. It felt like old times—she and Galivad together again, bickering and pecking at each other. They’d been playing shy around each other since their return to Eod, although Rowena admitted that the distance between them was mostly of her own creation for her friend, almost her lover, was never without his pale new mistress. Could this be a sliver of jealousy stinging her heart? She didn’t know, and wouldn’t be able to examine her feelings until the two of them were alone—which, considering how he and Beatrice stuck to each other, would be never. Rowena wondered what spell the Menosian witch had cast upon Galivad.

  “There was a private meeting of the council this morning,” said Rowena, finally.

  “I know; I was not in attendance,” said Galivad. “Only the king, the Iron Queen, and a few others were present.”

  “The results of that meeting have since come to light. I’m assuming you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?” asked Galivad.

  Beatrice slipped an arm around his waist, and the casual embrace was enough to distract him from today’s politics.

  Malevolent temptress! “The queen and Erik,” said Rowena. “They have been named as the ones who destroyed the Iron City.”

  “What?” exclaimed Galivad.

  Rowena could almost have sworn that a shadow had found them in the final flash of day before night. A hideous rage wrenched at the Lady El’s throat, pulling down her chin and revealing a mouth filled with what looked to Rowena like ivory nails. Not teeth, they couldn’t be; snakes had teeth like that. Surely, it was some trick of the dazzling sunfall, for when darkness fell specks later, the impression passed. Beatrice glowered, still lovely in countenance, although unsettling in her hunched carriage. She had no fangs. The lurking rattlesnake of Lady El’s anger could be heard trembling her voice. “The Everfair Queen…” said Beatrice slowly. “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Rowena. It was unbearable, hearing servants mumble curses about the queen. Even worse, people were already spreading rumors that the tie that bound Erik and the queen involved more than fealty. The sight of Galivad’s face, pasty with shock and revulsion, pitched her through the glass window of what she held most dear. All had shattered; all was lost. Galivad’s sickness became her own. Before this moment, she hadn’t allowed these feelings to consume her. Propped on her elbows and staring sadly into the desert, Rowena hung in the gap between two white crenellations like an ancient dog ready to die. She did not understand her mistress’s intent. Furthermore, she felt like a fool for having been tricked by the mater’s impersonation of the queen.

  “How do we know this is true?” asked Galivad.

  Sighing, Rowena said: “The king. Magnus has accused her of the crime.”

  “Shite…” replied Galivad.

  “Shite, indeed,” said Rowena.

  “What of the Iron Queen?” wondered Galivad. “What will she do? I mean, there must be a trial. That is our way in the West. They must be allowed to face these allegations, to explain or deny them, and then face judgment.”

  “Trial?” Rowena snorted. “Whatever trial they are given will be a mockery. There is still so much you have to learn.”

  She stared off into the desert—the scarab shells of the black Menosian army gleamed amid the three earthbound mountains of darkness that were the Furies—until sandy wind blew into her eyes, forcing her to tears. I doubt my queen will get any kindness from this court, not when Gloriatrix has put so much at stake, not when all the vile, mercenary killers in Geadhain will be stabbing each other for a chance to become her protégé. I hope you survive, Lila. I hope they never find you. All of them deserve to die.

  Holding in a sneer, Rowena turned to look at Galivad and Beatrice, who leaned on each other in a loose embrace. “Gloriatrix has offered the Iron Crown and the remains of her nation, still sizable and fearsome, to whoever captures Queen Lila. Erik, well…he’s to be brought in however is easiest.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Gloriatrix has called forth a warband of criminals, then. Central Geadhain will be overrun,” muttered Beatrice, stating the obvious.

  The Lady El seemed genuinely appalled, and Rowena didn’t hate her so terribly in that moment. The three wore their gloom like heavy cloaks upon their shoulders, cloaks with invisible hoods that shadowed each line in their faces.

  That was how Alastair and Maggie found them when they came strolling down the stone path, materializing, it seemed, out of nowhere. Maggie pulled on Alastair’s arm, trying to force him onward and past them. Alastair did not yet understand why Charazance had urged him, in the midst of his return-from-the-frontlines romp with Maggie, to retract his prick and go for a walk on the city’s eastern wall. His sexual frustration now abated, Alastair found himself enjoying the fresh desert air and Maggie’s conversation, which had remained as lively as her charm. He’d missed their chats and squabbles. He hoped Charazance hadn’t demanded that he come up here to talk to any of these sad-faced hound dogs.

  “Let’s not bother them, Maggie,” whispered Alastair. “I don’t care for depressed folk, and they look like they’re ready for a funeral, perhaps their own.”

  Rowena glanced at Alastair and snorted. “Hmph. You.”

  “You’ve returned,” said Galivad, remembering where the man had been. Pandemonia. Beatrice also turned toward the cloaked rogue and his sultry, middle-aged companion, asking, “How are they, the heroes?”

  “Is that what we’re calling them?” scoffed Alastair. He and his lady paused beside the trio. “They are simply men and women doing what they must. They’re no better than soldiers, really, but feel free to dress their duty up with the trimmings of honor if it makes their sacrifice seem more meaningful.”

  Galivad rolled his eyes and weakly waved his hand. “I asked for news of them, not for one of your interminable speeches on the nature of heroism. They are doing what you are not: seeking an end to this war.”

  “You have no idea what I’ve done, or what I would sacrifice to see all of this end,” declared Alastair, his chest rising.

  Rowena had seen this kind of man-to-man conflict before: two men puffing up and volleying insults like rotten tomatoes at each other. When this pair of fops were involved, though, it seemed more like ladies slapping each other with their evening gloves. She shouted over their bickering: “Alastair, I could use a breath of good news. Tell us about our allies in the East.” Rowena separated the men, who had been huffing into each other’s faces, their passionate anger mirrored in each other’s expressions. “Did they arrive safely? Did they find what they were seeking?”

  “Yes and no,” replied Alastair, relaxing. “I doubt they’ve reached the City of Waterfalls yet, and they will not be safe until they do.” He was met by blank stares and a glare from Beatrice. “It’s one of Pandemonia’s Great Cities, and it’s where the heroes are headed. They should be able to contact us using a far-speaking stone once they are within a pocket of stable energy. I hope to hear from them before the week is out.”

  The company breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I suppose you’ve heard,” said Rowena.

  “About the queen and hammer?” replied Alastair. “Yes…Shame, though.”

  “Shame?” asked Rowena.

  “Shame that she didn’t kill them all.”

  Rowena’s opinion of the shadowbroker climbed a few notches, while Beatrice’s fell
, though neither she, nor anyone else, objected to Alastair’s statement. Alastair felt the urge to leave. The Arhadian barely tolerated him; the fop always had something to say. And Moreth’s wife, with whom he’d spent little time, gazed at him with an unreadable affection. Alastair, master of emotional inflections, couldn’t decipher what lay behind the intensity of Beatrice’s expression. Within a short time, she’d made him so uncomfortable that he absolutely needed to take his leave. “Well, we were only out for a stroll,” he said. “Good night, then.”

  An echo of children’s laughter in the air surprised everyone. Moments later, little feet ran past Alastair, and an errant limb got caught on his cloak. A young, pale creature with pink lips, slicked gray hair, silver eyes, and dressed in gentlemen’s attire of vest, blouse, slacks, and cravat tugged free the cufflink responsible for the issue. “Quite sorry, mister,” said the boy.

  “Lamblings!” cried Elissandra. Sweeping in like a white breeze, she took her children’s hands. “Eli! Tessa! Do leave those folks be.”

  “Hello, Lady Elissandra.” Alastair gave her a short bow. “I was about to leave. Good evening.”

  “Not yet,” said Elissandra.

  “Do you see it too, Mother?” asked her daughter, equally pale and odd, and clothed in lacy finery. Frowning and craning her neck like a pecking bird, she studied the strangers. “What do you make of that color, Mother? An owl gray? A graveyard mist? They all have this soul-light; those three do, at least.” She pointed in turn to Alastair, Galivad, and Beatrice. “Death? Fate? Doom?”

  Elissandra, swaying hypnotically, said: “I see it, too, child. Death…fate…doom. I’d say a little of each, Tessa. But there’s something else. A thread of light? See how it weaves between them? See how they all are bound?”

  “I do,” she said, nodding solemnly.

  Elissandra squinted. “We’re missing a shade.”

  “Yes. A grand, golden shade. I think I saw him earlier.”

  The two Daughters of the Moon contemplated the group. They frowned as one face. They touched their temples like women checking their appearance in a mirror. Their synchronicity felt as chilling as their prophecy, and the objects of their stares could not move. “Death and life,” said the seers. “Doom and strife. A glass of light to wash down the blood.”

  “I see only people,” complained Eli, and pointed to a few, starting with Alastair. “Sneaky, and hiding something.” Rowena. “A bit like a man.” Galivad. “A bit like a woman.” Maggie, he simply called, “Lost.” Finally, he pulled back his hand as it pointed to Beatrice. “Oh, and she’s not a person.”

  “Very good, Eli,” said Elissandra, breaking the spell.

  Tessa shrugged and kicked at the flagstones. “Not terrible.”

  “It’s quite drafty up here, such a strong wind,” noted Elissandra, lisping a bit because of her missing tooth. “I don’t know why we even came. Terrible evening for a walk.” She drew her grandmotherly periwinkle shawl tighter and pulled on her children’s hands again. The three pale seers left. Their passing left a nervous rumble in the stomachs of all who remained. Each time they saw her, her strangeness seemed to have grown by degrees. What had the witchfolk seen? Why had they come? How had any of them, these eight souls of differencing alliances and moralities, come to this crossroad of Fates tonight?

  “What a strange evening,” said Galivad. “Quite chilly, as she said.”

  “Quite,” they all concurred.

  “Best to call it a night,” said Maggie.

  Looping her arm into Alastair’s, Maggie started to walk once more down the rampart. She sought the curve of a darkened arch that led away from the cold night. Trapped by intuition, drawn and drowning in the icy sea of Beatrice’s presence, Alastair betrayed his lover and gawked at the beauteous ghoul while being led away. Lurching in his heart, weak in his knees, and gasping from the warm exultation of desire, he gazed upon Beatrice, who was, and was not, two women. One was white, one dark; one had a mane of spider silk and the other a sweep of hair like nightfall. That other woman—the dark-haired shade hovering within Beatrice that he could almost see as if she were real—he loved that woman. He loved her with the kind of fire of which epic ballads were made, with the unquenchable flames that burn only between bloodmates.

  “Forgetting is often more forgiving,” whispered Beatrice.

  Bewildered, horrified, and completely stripped of comprehension—who, how, why?—Alastair turned his head away before he began to weep.

  V

  Late that night, while snuggling her children into their blankets, Elissandra spoke to them about the Moon of Spirits, which floated above them this eve. “Once every hundred years or so, our moon moves through a passage of ancient stars. The moon turns away from Geadhain, and is lost in her shadow. In this great, dark night, when we should be blind, we of the true sight see most clearly. All that is concealed loses its disguise. All the secrets and horrors of men flow through us. It is then, my lamblings, that the eyes in our souls open, ripped free of their lids, and we look to the sky like the old lords of Alabion. We howl and go mad, but mad with prophecy, not bloodlust. We are no less the Children of the Moon than are the changelings. Which is why you must sleep now: you are as tired as I am after sniffing fates and barking at fortunes. So sleep, my lamblings, sleep.”

  After tending to her now gently snoring children, Elissandra settled into a weak imitation of comfort under her coarse wool sheets. She repeated to herself her own advice: sleep…sleep. Behind pinched eyes, she thought of Sangloris and his effeminate citrus-and-vanilla perfume, the sensation of his satin hands, his sharply staccato voice. Perfect. She had conjured a perfect illusion, a tease of what she would never know again, as these were memories and not a visiting spirit. If she sent her seekers out into Dream, even under the moon of spirits, they would fly and fly and find nothing save the objects and persons touched by her husband in this life. They would never find Sangloris himself. Could Elissandra travel beyond the grayness of the Dreaming, if she were to break into the stars with her mind, she might discover the sparkling fragments or sound wave that his soul had become. She’d felt it when he passed; she’d gasped, breathless and choking on tears. There had been a screaming in her ears that might have been either a warning or a curse, but she’d never know, for the Witchwall had corrupted Sangloris’s call into a static roar. He was dead. That much her love and the Fates could tell her; it would have to be enough.

  Farewell, my love, she mouthed. This was not the goodbye she wanted, though it was the goodbye she must have. Tomorrow, she decided, she would tell the children. Tomorrow. She was crying softly when sleep and Fate seized her.

  Dream is a rough, dark river tonight. Rudely, like a twig tossed in a rapid, she is thrashed in the currents; her silver seekers do all they can to keep her sound from shattering. A million memories dash against her, and her consciousness splinters into visions. She sees faces, some familiar, many covered in blood. Too many sights and sounds engulf her. Among them, she hears the cries of her children, a sound of glory or a wail of doom. Suddenly, billows of smoke surround her—a fire?—and she stands in a street, while horrible, shambling things slump forward over white topples of rock. The riotous streets are almost familiar, though they are unrecognizable in their state of ruin. A thick fetor, the crack and whiff of a week-old casket, blasts Elissandra’s senses, knocking her out and then casting her into another sweeping tide of Dream.

  “A kingdom on fire; brand this onto your mind,” command her seekers, who speak to her in a loud choir of voices. “Now, witness the Dreamstalker.”

  After a more relaxing, peaceful flow down Dream’s river, she’s spit out on a shore—a time, a place, a reality. Elissandra’s spirit wakes in a library gilded with wealth and fat with knowledge. She sees Morigan nearby, naked and shining with light. The Daughter of Fate converses with a creature buzzing in flies. Man? Woman? Possibly a child, or something pretending to be one. No, this is the Dreamstalker, Elissandra realizes. She hears the gr
isly threats it whispers. Morigan seems uncertain, when she should be blazing this monster with her silver wrath. For she must not listen to a word from this Queen of Lies. The creature has mastered the art of tweaking truths into profanities, of destroying empires and Kings with the smallest suggestions. A wind under the door, a whisper in the ear. Yes. She speaks as the Black Queen speaks. She serves the Dreamer who would eat the world. Morigan! You fool! Get away from her! thinks Elissandra. Alas, Morigan’s pride makes her deaf to her danger. Each buzz, each wingbeat of the million flies, vibrates an insidious suggestion to murder, fuk, and gorge. The music is hypnotic, and Morigan has been beguiled.

  Elissandra’s seekers have almost gathered the name of this enemy, plucking out letters from the ether. A…nnn…Anne? Mann? Who cares about a name? thinks Elissandra. If this is a reality, a Dream within a Dream, she must help Morigan, who will not raise arms to defend herself.

  “Begone, terror!” shouts Elissandra.

  Elissandra flings her Will forward. She alights with the silver radiance of her seekers and strikes the monster as a cloud of light, which explodes the cloud of vermin. Elissandra does not see if her assault has been successful. The Daughter must fend for herself now; the shining dew of Elissandra’s being is scattered back into the waters of Dream. A moment later, the current spits her out again over a ripple of turquoise ocean. Inconceivable colors of land pass under her ghost in a pastel and brilliant smear. At last, she slows and descends into a valley of what appear to be colossal black skeletons, or mountains of osseous black stone. It smells of death, of the charnel house: singed. A most horrible and ancient disaster has occurred here, and its gravity and scope have cursed and wrought this land into the wreckage she sees. Roving billows of ash twist below, and winds howl like the agony of the land given voice. I am burned, says the Land. I have been ruined. I shall never be whole again.