Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3)

by Christian A. Brown

  “Investigate, yes,” agreed Talwyn. “Do you really believe we’ve been taken, though? Are we truly captives? I’m not sure what to think; I’ve never been so confused.”

  “Our actions have been determined by the will of that creature. Our company has been divided. What would you call this behavior other than hostile?”

  “Mysterious?”

  “I don’t care for mysteries; they generally involve lies.”

  “Let’s figure out who’s doing the lying, then.”

  For a brief speck, Moreth admired the scholar. Then the two stepped out into the winter day to trail their friend and unravel this mystery.

  IV

  Days later, Mouse heaved and woke, covered in sweat. She gasped and threw the smothering blankets off. Hands restrained her. Mouse couldn’t see faces in the dark, warm wherever-she-was. Aggressive as always, she swatted and struggled until her foggy vision conjured two shapes, two men that were holding her down on either side: Talwyn and Moreth. They appeared clean and washed, almost like gentlemen. Unlike gentlemen, however, they’d been shouting, trying to calm their thrashing friend. The sleep from which she’d woken, though, had been so deep that her hearing only now returned.

  She relaxed when she recognized her companions, and the men now relaxed as well. Mouse sat up in bed. She tried to speak, ended up yawning several times, and then ungraciously burped because of her angry, empty stomach; she’d never been so hungry. After her belch, she found her voice. “Pardon. Now where the fuk am I? What happened?”

  Talwyn touched her shoulder. “We are safe. Let me get you some water; you’re probably quite thirsty.”

  As soon as he mentioned thirst, Mouse noticed the dryness and pain in her mouth and throat; it felt as if she’d been drinking mouthfuls of sand and wind from that damn desert they’d passed through to reach here. Wait, where was here? She remembered tatters of a nightmare: a white chamber, her father’s ghost. Then she’d stumbled through a snowy tundra...

  Mouse, frightened at the void that came after that event, looked here and there for familiar elements, but nothing was familiar. Around her gleamed lavish fur rugs and metal chalices that sat atop the angular shadows of furniture. Copper burners effusing fragrant, sweet, and exotic scents hung from the bones of the dome-shaped tent. She lay upon a raised bed of hides and blankets, which she pawed with a dreamy pleasure, for they’d found civilization, or at least something that passed for it. A suggestion of day leaked through the heavy skins of the incredibly hot, small dome, and winter’s wrath shuddered the walls. Dimmer noises, too, came from outdoors: clangs, laughter, and chatter in a language she didn’t recognize. Looking over to where Talwyn had gone, Mouse noticed two other pallets placed lower on the ground next to hers.

  Talwyn hurried to a small table, and she heard him pouring water. Mouse continued to rub her sheets and her throat, to wake into this body of hers that creaked as if she’d been dead and resurrected. She knew what that felt like, as a matter of fact—and her resurrection in Alabion had been positively exhilarating in comparison to this. After Talwyn had returned with the water he’d promised—it was in a decorative chalice that piqued her curiosity with its ancient engravings—Mouse drank all she could, until she felt refreshed and alert.

  “What is the last thing you remember?” asked Moreth, taking her cup.

  “I had a dream about my father. Then…I was walking through the snow. That part felt quite real to me. I remember—” Mouse paused. How much had she told Moreth about the being that slept within her flesh? After a moment’s hesitation, she recalled that she’d promised this man, their ally, that she would no longer withhold any truths from him. Sighing, she continued. “The divinity who sleeps in my flesh, Feyhazir—I remember hearing his voice. Then a horde of ghost men appeared. Feyhazir wanted me to sleep. I did, and here we are.”

  “That was the last moment you recall?” asked Moreth; he didn’t seem disturbed by the news of Mouse’s possession, though his waxy countenance was hard to read. “Nothing else?”

  “No. Why? What should I remember?”

  Talwyn, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Moreth, reached over to claim Mouse’s hand. Looking sorrowful, he rubbed it as he said, “A whole lot, my dear. We’ve been without you—the real you—for three days now.”

  Mouse snatched her hand away from Talwyn and swaddled herself in the blankets, shaking. A woman who’d known rape, violent rape, and the accompanying sense of utter powerlessness and rage, Mouse found her total absence of memory, the black space in her head where three days had come and gone, to be just as traumatic. Possibly, it was worse. What sick men had done to her in the past could be explained—though not forgiven—through lust, misogyny, and a culture that elevated coin over decency. She would not allow those faceless bastards to haunt her. But what the Gray Man had done to her, stealing days from her life…Mouse couldn’t understand that. Were they not partners? Vessel and Dreamer? Avatar and divine? Moreover, she’d willingly invited the Dreamer into her body. Now there might be no evicting what could prove to be a most unwanted guest. Right then, Mouse wanted her family and their comfort; she wanted the rest of her pack. “Where are Morigan and Caenith, my great-uncle and Adam? Surely, they cannot have forsaken us.”

  Both Moreth and Talwyn raised their eyebrows while exchanging a glance.

  “You’ve communed with them—with Morigan,” Moreth said, before deciding to forgo empathy for a bitter slap of truth. “Correction: the Dreamer that resides within you has communed with her, or so the other-you has informed us. We’ve been separated by your—the Dreamer’s—orders. We are to meet our company in Eatoth, in time. First, we must collect something at the behest of your master: a relic for use in the battle against the Black Queen.”

  A quest? Kings save her, she remembered none of this. “Wait. How did we even get here? How were we separated?”

  “There was a storm. You ran away, quick as a hare from a rifle shot; we barely even saw you go. Talwyn and I chased you, and then before we could either contemplate our foolishness in charging out into a winter storm or summon the others, we succumbed to the queerest music…bells and faery songs. It intoxicated me like a cloud of witchroot. Both of us fell down like drunks, and then awoke here—as clueless and scared as you are now.”

  She shuddered. “Feyhazir. Yes, those are his tricks and trade. Still, why have we been separated? Why fracture our company?”

  “War,” said Moreth, grim as a mortician’s ghost. “The Doomchasers have been tracking Brutus’s movements since his arrival in Pandemonia, and the movements of his allies for longer than that.”

  “Doomchasers?”

  Talwyn explained. “Allow me to help. That’s a rough translation, but still a more proper name for what we’ve been calling ‘ghost men.’ You see, I’ve been working on understanding the nomenclature of this subsect of the natives of Pandemonia—the many tribes of which are broadly and collectively referred to as Amakri—who’ve taken us in.”

  “You’re not helping.” Mouse threw up a hand to stem his words and turned back to Moreth. “You said something about Brutus’s allies?”

  “An army,” he replied, “if our blue friends are to be believed. One made up of soldiers reaped from the harvest of Pandemonia’s peoples. In Eastern Pandemonia, the tribes have been most heavily hit. They’ve been nearly exterminated now, the survivors driven to the other end of the isle. We’ve put our foot into the middle of another warzone, you see. No realm on Geadhain is safe from this conflict between the Kings, and now Eatoth, the City of Waterfalls, is imperiled. The Doomchasers claim it will fall, claim they have seen armies of thousands of Brutus’s damned amassing in the East. However, they won’t warn the city. They would rather honor a stubborn and ancient class-based feud than save the people of Eatoth.”

  “Doomchasers,” mumbled Mouse. “Doomed cities. I feel as if I’ve woken up in another world.”

  “You have,” snapped Moreth. “And there’s still much you need to und
erstand; there’s so much we don’t yet know ourselves.”

  “Better to show her,” suggested Talwyn.

  Over the howling of the wind, Mouse heard a boisterous laugh from outside, one that sounded as if it had been born from a creature with a horn for lungs. Had it really come from a man? He must stand as tall as Caenith. What strange new terrors awaited her? Rather than agonize over her bitter and bewildering separation from her pack, Mouse asked the men where the chamber pot was (thankfully, these people used such things), and then went to release three days’ worth of piss.

  While squatting, she menacingly reprimanded the entity that had stolen her skin. Wear me like a puppet again, and I’ll find a way to get your hand out of me for good, pact or no pact. I thought we were to be allies in this war, champions for your daughter and for your love of all the green reaches of Geadhain. Or was that a superbly told lie, the greasy lines of a seducer who knows how to coax forth a woman’s desire?

  The Dreamer was silent.

  V

  The monstrous laugh she’d heard had come from one of the many people walking through the noisy snow-blasted day. But they were not people; they were monsters. Accomplished at hiding her fright, Mouse restrained her shriek when the first grand, lean, blue-skinned giant greeted her—hand on chest, knee to the fluffy ground—as she and her companions exited the tent.

  “Megáli Paraphach,” said the blue man.

  “Great Wanderer,” whispered Talwyn into her ear. A combination of Moreth’s rudimentary lexicon and his own voracious mind meant he’d already learned more than a few bits of this tongue.

  Mouse shrank deeper into her hooded, furred cloak, which had apparently been a gift from the Doomchasers—not that she could remember. She couldn’t remove her gaze from the Doomchaser guard. He was huge, though a bit lanky like an underfed Northman, and his skin was the strangest, prettiest blue. While she stood there, his color seemed to fade into and out of different shades. If only his pigmentation had been the strangest thing about him! But his powder-white cloak and garments, the cluster of short black horns and keratinized growths about his bald forehead and brow, and his nictitating serpentine eyes were equally queer. Man? Snake? Giant? After his bow, he stood and resolved the last question: he towered over Mouse by at least two paces. He wasn’t as tall as Caenith, although he exuded a similar sense of the primal. Mouse gave the Doomchaser a stiff nod and turned away.

  “That was a Doomchaser?” she whispered behind her hand.

  “An Amakri, technically,” replied Talwyn. “Doomchasers are a rather unique tribe, even within their collective. Let’s walk.”

  Mouse quickly forgot the other questions she had been on the verge of asking, her mind wiped clean by the sheer impressiveness of the land. Claws dipped in ice reached out of the hilled shadow that lay beyond a village of tents, conjuring a sense of lurking peril. Although the vista was bleak, Mouse felt that this winter realm was calmer than the one in which she’d fallen asleep. Less wondrous than the backdrop were the many tents sewn from variegated hides—yellow, rough, furred, and scaly, representing all the herds of Pandemonia—that scattered the snowy land closer by. Men and women such as the one she’d just met strode through the gentle storm as if its chill meant nothing. Some of the Amakri bared blue-nippled chests inked in ornate circular designs. Others eschewed the conventional tattered white garments, having stripped right down to loincloths and sandals. Little children ran untended in packs about the camp, brandishing sticks and throwing stones at one another as part of seemingly cruel games. They hissed and barked while they played. Elsewhere, fire pits puffed savory smoke from animals and pots hung over the flames. To form these many outdoor hearths, the land had been stomped down to its frosted, gemlike green bedrock, creating a foundation as strange and scintillating as the people who tended the fires, ate, laughed, fought in circles, and tinkered with weapons and nets. The Amakri were beautiful, in a way—bald and hairless as lizards, every one, though that was their sole similarity. Tribesmen stopped whatever they were doing to bow and mutter Megáli Paraphach as she passed, and she stared into every strange face.

  Over by one of the fires, an Amakri noticed the lost and daydreaming Mouse, and stood to mutter a greeting. The Doomchaser possessed two grand sleek horns like those of gazelle and a star of black ridges on her forehead and nose. The woman leaned on a long weapon, a cross between a spear and a quarterstaff. They were fighters, these folk, and the woman’s stare was steely. Finally, one of Mouse’s companions urged her to break the stare and move.

  As they wandered between fires and tents, they saw more evidence of this people’s martial ethos. Indeed, everything about them appeared to be tuned toward war. Those who worked by the fires either cooked food or made and mended hunting nets of thick, braided rope—gut, according to Talwyn—which would be used for trapping and killing. Nowhere did Mouse see idle hands. Even those Mouse thought might be Doomchaser artists—men and women who painted the skin of their fellows with markings of valor while singing throaty, grating chants—were actually preparing the tribesmen for combat. At almost every fire, animals were being gutted and hacked apart upon the white-and-green butcher stone of the earth. Mouse watched as one of the butchers carried freshly peeled skins into a large tent, which was smoking from a hole at its apex as if it had a chimney atop it. The butcher bowed to her as he walked past and mumbled the now-standard greeting. She made a mental note to ask Talwyn later about her apparent holiness, if an explanation failed to present itself.

  Right now, she was too busy staring. The general savageness and lack of civilized recreations here reminded her of the people of Briongrahd. While these folk didn’t appear to change forms, they were no less tribal or attuned to their inner beasts. This truth was made brutally clear in the fighting circles: there, bald youths and maidens clashed fists, staves, and swords wrought of a chiseled, dark stone that clanged like steel when struck. The combatants roared each other on, and the matches didn’t end until blood had been spilled, often through no small injury. Then another competitor would be thrown into the miniature ring of blood.

  At least their blood was red. Mouse wasn’t sure why that comforted her, but it did. Perhaps it made her feel less like an outsider in this already outlandish realm. When she and her companions passed the fighting circles, the warriors didn’t pause to honor her, or the entity they believed her to be—they were too engaged in snarling and spattering the snow and each other with their spit, sweat, and blood. They were extraordinary to watch, fighting with both an animal’s speed and wildness, and a man’s cunning and strategic awareness. They appeared not to be bound by rules, no chivalry. A man could win his match by throwing his weapon at his opponent, clawing the other man’s eyes, or kicking up snow. Perhaps the Amakri are changelings who have simply forgotten their other skin, she mused.

  Talwyn, evidently taking to his new role as amateur anthropologist, commented, “All so incredible, is it not? Their social conventions are similar to those of our tribes in the West, although their racial traits differ greatly because of the climate and chaos of Pandemonia. However, their songs and focus on battle remind me of the war-hungry, though deeply spiritual, indigenous peoples who once settled in the Swannish Highlands south of Menos. Over the centuries, they were pushed to cultural extinction. Some fled to Alabion, but most were assimilated into the existing populace. Here, I see a preservation of the past.”

  “Indigenous people?” scoffed Mouse. “Men of Iron and men of Eod have always lived in Central Geadhain.”

  “Spoken like a thoroughgoing colonialist.” Talwyn laughed. “Men of Iron and men of Eod were not the first residents of Central Geadhain. All of our stock stems from the ancient tribes, whom we’ve conveniently dismissed from our history.”

  “What do these natives want from us?” she asked.

  “Amakri, not natives,” scolded Talwyn. “And you will know in a moment. It took us a while to figure it out, but we did all the necessary legwork during your nap. These Amak
ri have a leader. We were told to bring you to him as soon as you awoke, as soon as you were you again. Think of him as a shaman. Charming, entrancing fellow. Something like a Keeper, I suppose, which is what the Sorsettans call the holiest of the Faithful. We talked about that a bit before; I don’t know how much of it you recall. Still, applying what I understand of Sorsettan beliefs, which must surely have their roots in Pandemonia, I gather that the fact that this Keeper is a man is but one of the many differences between the wild tribes and the city ones. Strictly speaking, of course, those who live in the cities shouldn’t be referred to as “tribes,” which brings us back to that cultural divide Moreth mentioned. Also, Pythius speaks, which is another anomaly, as Keepers take vows of silence. I’m certain that he practices magik and medicine, too—”

  “Pythius?”

  “Right, that’s the gentleman we are to meet.” Once Talwyn became excited about a topic, it was almost impossible to put a stop to his lecturing. “Although I suppose you met with him many times while you weren’t you. Where was I? I don’t remember, there’s so much to discuss! Take the assignment of duties according to sex, for example. The Amakri, Doomchaser or otherwise, do not distinguish between men’s work and women’s work, as so many other cultures do. Look around, and you’ll see that men and women share the same burdens, laboring, battling, and charwomaning—charpersoning, I suppose—equally. The only exception is when it comes to more spiritual positions, such as Pythius’s. Anything involving magik is strictly in the purview of men, though these people don’t think of their shamans as sorcerers. Still, women can lead warbands as much as command the evening hearth. Other than that small wrinkle, I’d say this is, therefore, neither a matriarchal nor a patriarchal society. Fascinating! Wouldn’t you agree? Oh, we’re nearly there—that’s his tent up ahead.”