Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (24 page)

Caenith did not share his deepest thoughts with Morigan. She had enough surprises to deal with; these other lessons would be learned in time. Turning elsewhere, to the needs of his Fawn, Caenith warmed up Morigan’s spinrex and then tore off pieces of it for her to eat—stringy, salty meat, she found, and not altogether horrid. After she ate, they discussed what was to happen next.

“We need to warn Eod,” she announced. “I don’t know how, but we must get word to the palace. They will think me mad, but if even one person believes me, that will be a start.”

Caenith studied the sparks thoughtfully. “Perhaps they are already aware of a threat. There was some kind of commotion echoing from Eod: music and light and noise. A formal ceremony with the thrum of marching hooves and clattering metal. So loud that I could hear it even while I hunted the dunes spans away. I have heard armies move before, and the noise was not dissimilar, if happier.”

“Well, that’s good!” cheered Morigan. She crept over to Caenith and threw her arms around his neck. “I did not think I could have a more magikal, peaceful, or strange time than any of the hourglasses you have spent with me, but I think that I am ready to return to Eod.”

Caenith nodded.

“I believe that the bees and I have an understanding, too. That they will stay quiet so long as I am master of myself. Regarding masters, we should speak to mine, Thackery Thule. He and I didn’t part on the best of terms, but he is a father to me, and I imagine he’s feeling as regretful as I am about how things played out. Thule is quite connected, too, though I’ve never known
how far or high that goes. Perhaps to the palace—or at least to an ear in the palace, we can hope. At least then my part shall be done.”

Thule?
Caenith frowned. He knew Menos and its history better than he cared to.
That is an old powerful house from the City of Iron. And your part, my dear Fawn, my darling weaver of fates, will not end so shortly. Though I am here, with you. Walking together until whatever end
. Caenith crushed his mood with a smile.

“To Eod, then,” he said.

Caenith stamped out the fire, left his vest for the birds and mice to nest in, and was back in a blur to gather Morigan in his arms. She knew what to expect and held on tight, and soon the warm wind bore her down a near vertical drop. She laughed at the thrill of it, cackling like a wild-born witch of Alabion.

II

“M-morigan!” cried Thule.

The old man threw himself out his door and into the arms of the young woman. He didn’t care what her strange magik did to him; he wanted to hold her. In his enthusiasm, it took a moment for Thule to sense the towering shadow beside them. At once, he pushed Morigan behind himself and glared at the enormous, shirtless barbarian on his doorstep. Coldly, the brute stared back with a wildness that was as dangerous as fire. A deceitful villain, or a ruthless, ancient killing pet of the house of El—Thule hadn’t yet decided which this man was, though it was surely one or the other.

The bees hummed Thule’s fear to their mistress, and though they could not penetrate Caenith, no prescience was needed to sense his huffing crossness.
Old man
, said the Wolf,
you stink of sadness and death. I know your family: Thule. Monsters like I can be. Only I was greater than they. You should ask the spirits of El. I watch you as a hawk waits for the mouse to show its head from its burrow, so that I may swoop and chew it off
.

Morigan quickly intervened, stepping between the two men.

“This is Caenith, the man who I told you about.”

“I know
who
he is. Do you?” sniped Thule.

At this, the bees buzzed their interest and flew off into Thule’s skull to see what they could find. They returned with scraps of a conversation about blood pits and hundred-year-old debts, stuff that made little sense to Morigan in the context in which it was delivered. She shook it from her head and addressed the men.

“Enough, please. Caenith and I are…well, together.” Thule threw his hands in the air. “I came because of how unpleasantly we parted. I came because I missed you, Thule. I would like to think that you have missed me, too.”

Petulantly, Thule shrugged. He had missed Morigan, worried for her for every speck and with every fiber of his being. Morigan took his shoulder and leaned in for a whisper.

“I have dark tidings that we must speak of together. In private.”

“Very well,” said Thule, defeated. Inquisitive faces and strolling masters were beginning to spy on the activity on Thule’s doorstep anyhow. “He’s not welcome, but I doubt you’ll listen to my wisdom at this moment. Don’t dent my door frame, you giant thing.”

Caenith snorted and followed his Fawn and the son of Thule into the tower. At the threshold, a tingle washed through him, and he sensed that he had just been granted passage through a warding: he wondered how big of a shock he would have received had he not. They climbed stairs that circled the curving walls; the place had a ghostly brightness from the many sconces and their blue spheres of sorcery. Occasionally Thule or Caenith grumbled to himself, but for the most part their climb was silent and moody. The bees continued to feed Morigan with wafts of Thule’s unease; nothing excessive or unbearable, only whatever drifted her way. By her Will, the bees did not seek his secrets, and she was impressed at how behaved her magik was now that she was back in Eod. She and Caenith had entered the city cautiously at first: slinking on rooftops, sticking to alleys, worried that she might suffer another attack like the last one. And while the sea of whispering minds still hissed like so many rustling blades of grass in a meadow, she could filter out most of the noise and simply concentrate on what—if anything—she wanted to sense. By the time they reached King’s Crown, they were bravely walking in the streets together, and she was able to tune out the slanderous or salacious gossip that the masters were casting their way.
Keep thinking your
nasty little thoughts, but be careful that I don’t peek into your head and pluck out your nasty little secrets
, she thought, smiling to herself, feeling more empowered with every mind she restrained her buzzing magik from examining. Slowly, her awakening was beginning to seem less of a curse and more of a blessing.

I still haven’t figured you out, Caenith
, she thought, sliding a glance over her shoulder at the Wolf.
What are you keeping in that head of yours? And why can’t my bees get in there?
Thule appeared to have a rather negative impression of her lover, and Caenith seemed to reciprocate the distaste. Once her own business was in order, she would sort those two out, as they were the most important people in her life and she couldn’t have them hating each other.

Every so many twists of the staircase led to a landing, which they had to cross to reach the continued ascent on the other side. They passed a sparse, sunlit scullery and several rooms filled with must-peppered documents that made Caneith sneeze. On the second floor of the tower were sleeping quarters and an airy lavatory of polished metal and shining basins.
Where are the shrunken heads, the bird’s feet, the stinking elixirs?
wondered Caenith. He was familiar with witches’ lairs from the cold iron ateliers of Menos to the stone circles of the East, yet this magik maker lived as a common scholar would. For a son of Thule, there was a definite absence of blood or suffering—the piss and chemicals of fear that men excrete when tortured. Mayhap Morigan was not entirely unwise in trusting this man, even if she was unaware of her employer’s dubious lineage.

The third floor housed a small alchemical laboratory that continued to defeat Caenith’s expectations of their host as a wicked conjurer. The beakers were gray with dust, the shelves sparse of reagents, and there wasn’t a smidge of blood that the Wolf could smell ever having been dropped there. Surely, the place had been unused for ages, and it was doubtful that it had ever been used for anything sinister.

Morigan noted the Wolf staring at the workshop as they neared it and fought against the happy memory of Mifanwae cackling as Thule singed off his eyebrows at a burner yet again. Thule’s passion for potioncraft had died along with Mifanwae, she knew. Across from the workshop was Thule’s study, which they entered, Caenith ducking to make passage. Thule went
directly to his seat, and Caenith squatted nearby as if he might pounce. While those two scowled at each other as a pair of old tomcats, Morigan went to open the window to let out the staleness.

“That’s better,” she said as the golden breeze of day rushed over her.

She walked to Thule’s footstool, removed the clutter he had heaped it with, and sat, placing herself between the two men. A bit of her mother’s prudence entered her, and she gave each man a stern look. “This is going to stop, right now. I care for each of you too much for it to continue, and there are graver events to focus on.”

“We can sort out our differences later, I suppose,” said Caenith.

“Yes, we shall,” said Thule.

Each man sounded as if he was still making threats, but an uneasy alliance was good enough for Morigan. She sealed the peace by offering out her hands, which they took, one apiece. She pumped her arms, acting as their handshake, and held her fellows as she continued.

“You remember, I’m sure, how I got into your head,” confessed Morigan, and Thule looked away from her. “I promise never to do that again—intentionally, at least. The problem, it seems, is that there are things that
want
to be seen. And kings be damned, I’ve been chosen as the conduit for that. While I was away, while Caenith took me somewhere quiet so that I could calm the voices in my head, I had a dream. Very dark and very real. In fact, I’d say that I wandered off into someone else’s head. You need to know what I saw there, as horrible as it was. Perhaps, Master Thule, whatever shadowy connection you have in Eod can get this information to someone of authority who can use it. I don’t know, but I have nowhere else to turn.”

Concerned, Thule leaned to the edge of his chair and cupped another hand over Morigan’s; Caenith did the same, though from jealousy of this man’s affection for his Fawn.

“My poor child,” said Thule, his eyes watering. “I never should have forced you to leave. All the weight of Geadhain on your shoulders. What is it? What did you see? Tell me
everything
.”

Everything
, considered Morigan, who had not yet faced those black thoughts, not even with Caenith. Morigan shut her eyes, and the minutiae of King Magnus’s savage rape and his brother’s impeccable sin welled up like the tears of her master. The bees had found a task, and that was to remember
and
share
. Down the pathways of her mind they buzzed, seeking the nectar of their mistress’s memory. What Morigan did not sense was the flash of silver light from her face or the charge that ran down her arms and into the bodies of those attached to her. When the energy entered Thule, he was suddenly elsewhere. Even the Wolf, with his mystic protection, felt the steely stingers of Morigan’s magik pierce him, and his head wavered with images. He was not so lost as Thule, but captivated still.

“I was in a gray, formless mist,” said Morigan.

Thule is not with her, not in his study, but among billows of nothingness. Alone, he thinks, until a cloud of silver midges appears about him, a thousand glints of light, and then he is swiftly moving and just as jarringly inside another’s mind. He sees his friend, the fair and kind Lila, under him. She is covered in blood and mauled of her beauty. He has done this. He is doing this. No, King Magnus is doing this, he realizes, and strikes her again. Tears, so many tears. And so much blood and sick
.

“The bees, they followed the link between the brothers,” continued Morigan. Both her listeners appeared glued to the tale, not even blinking.

Another whirling journey, ending with a brightness that fades, and Thule is deposited into a new horror. He knows Brutus’s Court of Roses, he has seen their beauty once, and this horror cannot be it: the squirming crimson bodies, the stink of waste, seed, and evil, and the sense of power and foul lust in the body he inhabits
.

“And then I heard the voice.”

As it whispers to Thule, he shrinks. His soul hides like a snail within itself. For the Black Queen speaks the truth. He is the gnat on her skin, the meal in her web. She will rise to claim Geadhain. She will eat the moon, sun, and stars, and, finally, the darkness that remains
.

“Thule? Thule, please say something. You are pale. You, too, Caenith.” Morigan had finished her account a sand ago, and neither of the men had said anything. She pulled on their hands, which seemed to stir the two from a waking sleep.

“My Fawn,” muttered Caenith, and bowed to her side.

Caenith had not seen everything clearly; Thule had been thrown right into the memory. Worried that he might be sick, he wrenched his hands free and covered his mouth.

“What is going on?” asked Morigan.

“You…urp—” Thule paused as the bile fought to come out instead of words. “You did…urp…I can’t…I can’t…urp.”

“You used your magik, my Fawn,” explained Caenith in a whisper for her ear alone. “I felt it, which is saying much, as my kind are slippery when it comes to the craft. Magik cannot affect what it cannot find, and being of two natures acts much like the spots on a toad. You are very strong; the greatest hags in Alabion couldn’t do what you have done to me.”