Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3)

by Christian A. Brown

  “I don’t believe it,” whispered the Iron Queen.

  Magnus glared. “Four stories, four accounts, all containing the same details. Then there are accounts from other survivors—none as clear as these—that tell of a figure in the fog that called to them, or a general commanding legions of walking dead. So either Aadore and her friends are highly practiced agents of yours, mine, or a third unidentified power, or they are telling the truth.”

  “What truth?” the Iron Queen drove a finger into her palm as she raged on. “That my city was demolished by otherworldly forces? By a man in black? A nekromancer? Who is this being? How could one creature hold such power? Why choose now, when all the world fights to maintain its balance, to strike?”

  “You have answered one of your own questions, Iron Queen,” said Magnus darkly, and the temperature of the chamber lowered a degree or two. “Our nations have never been so fractured. Never been so weak. Look at the two of us—driven into an alliance merely to sustain the frailest illusion of order. Do you think I relish this arrangement any more than you do? We find it mutually despicable. Still, we must find common ground now, if only to cling on to the slimmest chance of survival. This would be a perfect moment to unseat us.” The prickle of cold left the room, and Magnus attempted a broken smile. “It seems we may have chosen the wrong enemies in our lives.”

  The Iron Queen appreciated the Immortal’s frustration. A little venomous candor did much to appeal to her good graces, though she still had every intention of unmaking his kingdom once the war ended. She nodded her agreement; one could better insert the knife into the back of a “friend.” “Who could this shadow power be?” she asked. “We know of your brother, and the spirit with which he has aligned himself—”

  “A Dreamer, according to Alastair’s report on the events in Alabion; events further confirmed by a sage.”

  “A sage? Pfft. Hearsay from the mouth of a traitor, then—and I don’t mean the shadowbroker.”

  “It is the only information we have received regarding the powers that move beyond our sight. Your brother, Thackery, has been a loyal servant to Eod, and despite your tensions with him, I would ask that you respect and use his name in my presence.”

  “I shall never respect his name,” she spat. “I would not ask you to forgive your brother for his sins any more than you should presume to pardon Thackery for his. He is a traitor to Menos and to his family. If I see him again, I shall order him to be shot. Do not think you can stay my hand; the warrant for his punishment was signed in blood decades ago.”

  “You cannot decree deaths in my kingdom. I am the law,” threatened Magnus.

  A ripple of thunder from the clear skies outside startled Aadore. The monarchs were causing a scene—and possibly supernatural phenomena—that whispers no longer contained. As a lady’s maid to an Iron lady, Aadore was used to being party to situations above her station. Before either of the two most powerful persons on Geadhain could spill the sort of secrets a low-caste woman would be killed for knowing, Aadore rose from the chair where she’d been sitting during the argument. She interrupted the monarchs politely with a slight cough and a curtsey. “Pardon me, Your Highnesses.” Stares of frost and iron found her, and she kept her head low. “If I may, I shall leave you to your discussions and see how my brother and companions fare in their new arrangements.”

  “Yes, get out,” said Gloriatrix.

  Magnus was kinder. He came and escorted the girl—with very cold hands—to the door. “If you mean the three men and the child who arrived on the skycarriage with you, then you will find them all in this wing. They are all healthy and without the fevers that some of the other survivors suffer; those countrymen have been given over to the care of Menos at Camp Fury. Tell any watchmen you encounter that you have the king’s permission to wander here, there, or anywhere you will. Take a vessel into the city, and see if anything of our culture appeals to you.” The king’s beauty and soft-spoken compassion astonished her, made her feel as if she were under a kind of spell. Aadore realized he’d opened the door for her and that she was holding his hands as if he were her sweetheart, and that she had been doing so for some time.

  “Oh! Yes. Thank you, Your Majesty.” She bowed again, then had to apologize as her nerves made her knock heads with him. Aadore left before the king’s charisma encouraged further accidents.

  “We have the chamber to ourselves,” said Gloriatrix, as the king closed the door. “Now’s as good a time as any to figure out who plots against us. If your queen—”

  “She is no longer mine,” snapped Magnus.

  “If Lila is not the villain—which I am still disinclined to believe—who does that leave for our rogues’ gallery? A nekromancer?” Only Sorren might have that power—but he wouldn’t…She ceased that line of thinking; the burden of her son ruining her kingdom could crush even her. Sorren was missing, not a genocidal murderer. Besides, Aadore had referred to Menos’s defiler as Death, and not a man—so perhaps it was an entity wearing a man’s skin. She needed to understand more of these ancient powers that visited Geadhain.

  The king claimed Aadore’s vacant seat while Gloriatrix paced and tapped her chin; her mind began to weave probabilities. “We know of at least one shadowy celestial force, the one who calls herself a Black Queen...” My title, you upstart. I shall be crowned Black Queen yet. “What is her relationship to you and Brutus?”

  “Pardon?” The king heard her, naturally. Thus far, he’d maintained a purposeful ignorance surrounding the ties that bound immortal brothers to divine entities of evil and madness. Zionae claimed to be his mother. He could not deny this lineage, as he possessed no explanation for his creation.

  The Iron Queen stopped her pacing. She detected a wrinkle of panic in the king’s handsome face. “These dark celestial beings…they play with powers of life and death. They chain the oldest elementals like dogs, crystal hocus-pocus notwithstanding. They wear men like puppets. I know of only one man in this world who can work such wonders. One man whose very existence…”—taints, she wanted to say, yet settled for—“influences our natural world. You. Already twice today, you’ve made me shiver from your mood. I don’t appreciate the irritation.” Gloriatrix knelt so that she could stare into the king’s face; he would not glance at her, and the chill in the air had returned. “See, there—you’re hiding something. A secret all tied up tight. The world betrays you, Everfair King. I have yet to do so, and if you expect our alliance to continue being cooperative and candid, then you must tell me what you know of this entity and of others like it.”

  Anger or fear made the king shake, and the room’s chill became a breathable mist. “I shall tell you what the Black Queen—or rather, a child she wore like a sock puppet—told me when I met her at the pass of Mor’Keth, the Fangs of Dawn. She told me I was her son.”

  The Iron Queen gasped. “Your mother?”

  “That is what it claimed, yes.”

  After a moment, Gloriatrix sloughed off her shock and again began striding across the room. Ideas whirled in her head, and she conjectured aloud. “What sort of creature is she? This Black Queen?”

  “Wicked.”

  “No, we are all capable of wickedness. What was she when she was not yet wicked? What drove her to darkness?”

  “I know not. Nor do I think we can apply mankind’s psychologies to primeval entities that do not figure even in myth. Forces such as those do not think in mortal terms.”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps we are the ones who have complicated things, and the natures of these ancient forces are simple. Fundamentally, each element knows its purpose. Rock endures. Fire burns. Wind blows. Water flows. Elements cannot be misunderstood, though they can be lyricized by man.”

  “The Black Queen’s purpose is to corrupt and destroy.”

  “So we believe. I would like to know her purpose, not what we perceive it to be.”

  “Thackery also believes that truth to be crucial, and he, a brave young witch, and other champions have thr
own themselves into Pandemonia’s maw in search of it.” The king sighed, and the cold wind veered out the window once more, returning the room to muggy warmth. “If you are to understand the Black Queen, you must know more than what I have told you. Know that I have withheld certain facts because we have not always been in the same position of measured honesty with each another as we are at present. I shall tell you of the letter that Thackery sent me from Alabion. In it, he told me of his journey, the losses suffered and successes gained. The Sisters Three provided them with scraps of a creation myth, a tale of the great makers who crafted all that we know, see, and touch in this world—down to man himself. The Black Queen, who has another quite exotic name, was one such creator. Possibly the greatest of them all.”

  A fallen creator of the cosmos? It was not the most fantastic balderdash the Iron Queen had heard recently, and she found it much easier to digest in this time of chaos and war. Gloriatrix was bothered more by the repetition of her brother’s name in this recounting of events, of his importance and perceived heroism. Nonetheless, she felt at ease with only the king and none of their cabinets around. Graciously, the Iron Queen let the mentions of Thackery pass and settled across from the king upon the messy bed that the handmaiden—of the Lady El, she’d learned during the questioning—had clearly been throwing herself around on. She felt an appreciation of that hard woman, though. They shared a similar edge and willpower. Aadore had survived Death itself, if her story could be credited. As asinine as was the thought, perhaps Death was the culprit. She resumed her pondering aloud. “These mythic forces that have come again to our world…What kind of influences do they wield? You, from what I have witnessed, wield powers of wind, thunder, and cold without effort. A lord of storms, one might say. The Black Queen—”

  “Zionae is our foe’s true name,” said the king.

  “Foreign, indeed. She would be a lady of corruption and rot, if you’ve spoken truly. Now, to define our other foe…What the handmaiden spoke of: the destruction, the charnel stink, the doom, the living dead…”

  “Death,” said the king, solemnly.

  “The Pale Lady herself.”

  They’d reached the same conclusion. Hearts racing, mouths dry, they knew this was the answer. Inconceivable though it was in a world of reason, Death had come to Geadhain. And this wasn’t the first warning they’d received of her coming. “Elissandra,” whispered the Iron Queen.

  “She warned us of Death,” replied the king.

  “Death is our newest enemy. The one who moves in the shadows. The one who ruined Menos,” muttered the Iron Queen. What this meant for Lila’s sentence would have to be discussed later. Right now, and until all of her and Magnus’s speculations had been proven, she would let the judgment stand. “We shall need to confirm this, somehow, before I rescind my claim on your former queen.”

  “I would expect nothing less from you,” replied the king.

  She took that as a compliment. “I shall spread word to the blood houses that your Hammer is not to be killed on sight. His guilt, too, is now in question.”

  Magnus nodded. For a time they sat, ruler with ruler, and contemplated the motes that dazzled in the folds of sun like milky lines of stars. They were not as lost and dull as they appeared: both were using their silence to create extraordinary stratagems. Their alliance was hardening into something constructive. It was still volatile, though, like a treaty signed in truefire ink and left sitting by the stove.

  Once they’d completed their meditations, they arrived at a plan merely by staring at each other, each knowing what the next course of action should be. The rulers leaped up and hurried from the chamber. Elissandra must be found and interrogated for her wisdom. The Mistress of Mysteries’ ramblings were not ramblings after all.

  II

  “Leo!”

  The shout hailed the watchmaster as he jogged down one of Eod’s long—he’d thought empty—corridors. At first he tried to lose the hailer, yet the call came again, and he recognized the voice as his brother’s and knew he wouldn’t escape. Leonitis hastened to the next alcove: a forested cloister sporting hedges, delicate chairs, and great false ceilings of light pouring radiance. It was vacant, and he ducked into the shrubs and stashed away his satchel of contraband. He popped out of the alcove just as his puffing brother caught up to him.

  “Why are you racing? You know my knees aren’t as good as they used to be,” huffed Dorvain. But there was a smile on his chipped, pugilist’s face: nose broken and mashed, cheekbones lopsided—although his dark beard covered most of that. Leonitis found his brother’s smile as alarming as all of the man’s recent behavior. The great brute was now conspicuously nice to him whenever they met.

  “Why are you chasing me down?” replied Leonitis rudely.

  Dorvain punched Leonitis’s shoulder. “Come now. I could ask what you’re doing wandering down Kissing Lane. The only men who come down here do so looking for afternoon repasts of the sweaty and slippery variety. You don’t have anyone in the bushes there waiting for you? Do you?”

  Dorvain pushed past his brother and peered into the alcove. All Leonitis could see was the dimple in the branches where he had shoved the sack. Nervous, he made an appeal. “No, nothing like that. You know I like women. I just haven’t found the right one. I wish you would stop teasing me about being a man who likes men. If I were one, I expect you would welcome my beau home for brews and arm wrestles as you do with me.”

  Suddenly, the watchmaster blushed and hung his head. “I would.”

  Dorvain dragged his feet over to one of the tiny chairs and sat in it. As he looked so pitiable and ridiculous—a large man sitting in a child’s piece of play furniture—Leonitis softened. Rebellions can wait a sand, and this one won’t be starting without my contribution of firearms, he thought. Leonitis also took a chair too small for his large body. In a speck, he and Dorvain were knocking knees.

  “Ow,” complained Dorvain.

  “We picked a terrible place to have a conversation,” said Leonitis. They laughed. “Now, Brother, why have you chased me down today?”

  “I feel as if I’ve been chasing you all the time, of late,” said Dorvain, and frowned again. “Ever since this war started, you’ve been…Well…I mean…”

  “I’ve been what? Busy? I am master of the King’s Legion. I have as many responsibilities as you.”

  “I know that!” cried Dorvain, and warmed red with anger. “Too busy for drinks. Too busy to head to the tavern and sweet talk every comely wench we see. I’m not good at that game myself, Brother. The ladies flock to you with your golden braids, pretty eyes, and poetic promises before giving me a second glance. I know you’re busy! Too busy playing soldier-spy for a mad queen—”

  Leonitis matched his brother’s rage, though his flame was cold. “Lila’s not mad. She may be the sanest monarch we know. What I did in her service saved our city. What I did saved hundreds of thousands of lives. I shall not allow you to disparage her in my presence. She has guided us into our roles as heroes and men.”

  Dorvain stood and threw his chair across the stones with a clatter. When truly angered, they often fought like this: passionately, violently, with fists instead of words. Many a chamber had been torn apart by their brotherly storms. Although Leonitis was tempted to bash the puffing bull before him, he had no real desire today for their game of wrestling, which would leave them exhausted but finally ready to converse. Why must their fists express their love? Why could they not just speak like men? Leonitis’s time in war had changed him. There was enough violence in the world without adding more.

  Sternly, Leonitis said, “Pick up your damned chair, and sit your arse down. Now.” Unsure, feeling a bit slapped down, Dorvain wandered off and retrieved the chair. Then he sat as he’d been told. Once his brother settled, Leonitis resumed his reprimanding. “Should we get to the meat of your anger? I shall assume that you’re upset that you and I have not spent much time together in recent months.”

  “You could say
that, yes,” mumbled Dorvain as he played with the straps on his armor.

  “We have responsibilities, Brother. Duties to which we are summoned, duties that are greater than our wants and needs. Duties that demand conviction for deeds both dark and good. Lila served our city and saw that it was protected against the Iron threat. Lowelia did the same. I proudly played my part in Eod’s defense. And this you must hear and understand: I regret not one of my actions, and I shall defend our queen and our city whenever that duty is demanded of me again. Do not forget what she has done for us—her two precious shells washed up on the shores of Carthac. Lila has shown us more kindness than any woman, ever, and that includes our missing mother. The queen stepped into that role, and acquitted herself admirably. Shame on you for your thoughts.”

  “I…I…” Dorvain’s voice failed him.

  Leonitis stood and strode to the bushes. No longer did he care whether his brother suspected he was up to further subterfuge—the whole of Eod would know of the king’s crimes and guilt in a matter of hourglasses. After rifling through hedges, he extracted the sack and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Should I ask where you’re going?” asked Dorvain quietly.

  “To do what must be done. To bring justice,” replied Leonitis, and left his brother in the garden. There, the watchmaster debated his worth, his purpose, and his conviction, which seemed feeble next to his brother’s valor.

  III

  The discovery of the Mistress of Mysteries’ whereabouts required a long hunt through the palace. Elissandra was on the move today. First, she had been seen in the White Hearth; a servant reported that she had dined there. However, the Iron and Everfair monarchs didn’t find Elissandra at the long tables of the White Hearth. What they did find was a trail of breadcrumbs—literal breadcrumbs, scattered over a bench. She’d left only moments before.

  As the morning waned, the monarchs also somehow just missed Elissandra and her younglings sparring at the watchmen’s encampment on the outer precipice. Later, the white witch managed to evade the monarchs’ grasps once more at a theater, a concert hall, and even an indoor glade intended for silent contemplation, where Gloriatrix’s cursing drew stares that quickly found the floor when their owners realized who was present.