Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (79 page)

Kanatuk was as skillful as a rat in navigating the Undercomb. The speck that they had descended, he took them off the Blood Road—the great reddish stone path that traveled through the Undercomb—up some metal steps and into an access that he quickly opened with a picklock. Despite Vortigern’s insistence that he couldn’t
hear anything
on the other side of the entrance, they prepared for an ambush. For hourglasses, they had bustled through thin windy hallways that circulated the necessary air to keep the Undercomb from suffocating itself. They would stop only if Kanatuk, or more often Vortigern, detected noises coming toward them: sounds that turned out to be rats or a creaking, rattling fan on every occasion. Kanatuk had expected more of a reception from the Broker, unless the madman believed that they had all perished in the atelier’s fire, which was unlikely. A more reasonable explanation was that the Broker did not think that a hodgepodge of scoundrels cared all that much for the fate of a single woman. How wrong he was, for they each owed Morigan a debt: the kind that could never be repaid.

Sometime into their skulking, they paused at a four-pronged junction while Vortigern strained his ears to a dissonance.

“Hmm…screams. Coming from beneath us, I think. Up through the vents,” he said.

“We are near the meat markets,” replied Kanatuk. “You will hear many, many screams.”

“That means that we are getting close,” whispered Mouse.

“Yes,” agreed their guide.

He was about to move onward when Mouse hissed for him to hold. “Wait! I am all for charging in boldly and hoping not to get gutted, but we really should discuss some sort of a plan. No matter how trivial.”

Kanatuk frowned. He wasn’t keen on wasting sands, though they had not considered any tactics for raiding the Broker’s stronghold. Rushing in would lead to swift defeat, and Mouse was right in stalling him before his headstrong ways carried them into danger. Sighing, he called his companions into a circle.

“Right now, I assume that we have the element of surprise,” he said, quickly taking charge. “That is good. Now, if we follow these vents all the
way to the old reservoir, there are ladders leading down into the shore of the Drowned River—”

“River?” Vortigern was a Thule, Menosian born and bred, but he had never heard of a river.

“What the Undercomb folks call the tides that run out of the reservoir,” Mouse explained. “They flow in from Alabion and out of the city to the falls on the east side of Menos. To freedom, if one can swim them. They never do. And so—”

“As I was saying,” continued Kanatuk, “off the river are paths leading into the nest. They will be guarded, and these men are like me: difficult to see unless they want to be seen and as deadly as poison.” Kanatuk firmly gripped the dead man’s shoulder. “You move faster than them or me, so it will be up to you to silence them.”

Vortigern flashed his yellow smile. “Consider it done.”

“Good.”

Seemingly, that was the extent of their strategizing, for Kanatuk was striding off into the shadows. Mouse whispered after him.

“Really? A little sparse on details, don’t you think? She is wanted by the Iron Queen! Hunted by that dreadful”—
uncle
, her mind whispered, but she shook it away—“that dreadful nekromancer and that Elissandra, who is no treat herself. What you’ve proposed—rushing in and hoping for the best—is mostly a terrible fuking plan. Do pardon me.”

“Then we must hurry, Fionna,” called Vortigern, also moving into the tunnel. “Before the witch’s other enemies find her. I do not fancy seeing my brother again. Even if I were to twist off his head, I doubt it would do much good.”

Mouse couldn’t argue with that, and hearing her father speak her name had the same effect on her as it did on many a child: she listened and followed. Determined and grave, the three walked for a time past thrumming fans, catching whiffs and cries of sorrow from the streets they skirted above, with only the occasional glimmer of yellow bleeding through a grate to guide their steps. Even the rats were surely lost in this lightless misery, and yet Kanatuk appeared to know precisely where he was headed, and could have done so blindfolded, judging by how quickly he moved. There wasn’t much opportunity for them to speak, though Mouse did tug on Vortigern’s sleeve at one point and ask him about something that had been nagging at her.

“What did you mean earlier, when you were talking about your brother? I would think that twisting off a man’s head would settle most arguments.”

Vortigern paused and debated for a speck how much to share with his daughter. When Morigan had unlocked the tumblers in his head, every memory had returned to him, and those that he had of Sorren’s later years were despicable. His brother was mad, his plans for Fionna were heinous, and worse than that, the man was
immortal
. If not in the sense of time, like the kings, then in a way that defied death regardless.
I remember killing you
, he thought. Likewise, he remembered his brother rising afterward, and a glimpse of that dark fuming shadow that his brother had unleashed upon him. The touch of that darkness, as it raped his soul and scrubbed away every precious thought he possessed, was unforgettable. He was certain that it was not magik. It was a force: a living presence on a cosmic scale. A chill as if he was basking in the shadow of the moon, gazing upon this heavenly body and frozen by his crippling insignificance: that sense that he was so small to that grand whiteness. He could not say as to what that power was, but it was tied to his brother, and he was not eager to face it a second time.

Mouse tugged on him again. “Vortigern?”

“He is more dangerous than you can imagine,” replied Vortigern.

“How? He is just a man. A man of power, but a man still.”

“No.” Vortigern placed a cold hand upon his daughter’s cheek. “I hate that I must tell you this, yet you should know. You should know what he really is and what he wanted to do with you. Only then might you fear him as you should. My brother is not a man, not anymore—though I remember him as an innocent child, as once he was. Now, he makes pacts with dark powers and darker spirits. He cannot die, not by any weapon I wield. He wanted to bring her back.” Vortigern sneered from disgust at the knowledge that poured from himself. “He thought to place her soul, your mother’s soul, into new flesh, so he could punish it eternally, as he punished me.”

He made several…vessels, my dear Fionna. But none was quite right. They weren’t close enough to the original flesh. You, however, would be perfect for his designs. You are Lenora’s child more than you are mine, it seems, both in beauty and spirit. And he will do it, too, my daughter, if he catches you. He will empty you out; he will do the unspeakable and pervert life for his vengeance. He has
the power to make and unmake the living, and I doubt that you, I, or anyone can stand against it
.

Vortigern sneered and was unable to finish his warning as the images of thrashing maidens—their cavities opened with chains and hooks like frogs ready to be dissected—disrupted his thoughts. He could not bring himself to tell her the worst of his brother’s lunacy.

My mother’s soul?
“I don’t…how…how is that possible?” exclaimed Mouse.

Vortigern only shrugged. Suddenly the darkness was stifling, her cloak knotting like a garrote around her neck.

“We should hurry. Kanatuk is right,” urged her father.

Mouse agreed, and they did not stop another speck inside the tunnels for fear of what might catch up to them.

II

Caenith woke from his forced sleep of unconsciousness roaring like a poked beast and nearly hit his head upon the lip of rock under which they were camped. With haste, Thackery was upon his groggy friend and assisting the man with his bearings. What sobered the Wolf most was the sight of Macha, who was bundled in Thackery’s cloak on the dusty ground and wrapped in tourniquets made from what looked to be remnants of his missing shirt, which was in tatters anyhow. While Macha was clean of most of the filth of the mines, her sweaty slumber, her shivering, and the thatching of sores across her body, red as the lashes from a hundred whips, told of her health.

“She’s not dead,” claimed Thackery bitterly, with an edge that said he had been at this desperate bedside watch for hourglasses. He hustled over to Macha and knelt to check her fever. “I am no great healer, but I can mend what needs to be mended. I tried every art I thought would help, but nothing seems to work. I don’t understand it.”

The Wolf came over and squatted behind his friend. Thackery could feel the man’s weighty pensiveness adding to the burden of his failure. After some consideration, Caenith spoke.

“Aye, there is nothing you can do for her. My kind is slippery to magik. What injuries she has cannot be healed by your hand. We need the magik of the East. No other power will mend these wounds. Now more than ever, we must find Morigan.”

“Morigan?”

“Yes, she is a Daughter of the Moon. Those enchantresses have many gifts, and the sun is not the only power that brings life. Night has its own mystery and magik, and miracles can be made to happen if one Wills it hard enough.”

“Can Morigan save her?” gasped Thackery.

“Possibly,” answered the Wolf.

Possibly was enough. Caenith pushed past his friend and lifted the limp child into his arms. They set out immediately into the rubbly foothills. The gray-cotton sky grumbled with the threat of a storm, and another night was nearing, yet the two were strong with the fire of hope. Rarely had Geadhain seen creatures with faces so weary or worn to their souls as these two, and perhaps it took mercy on them by not raining. Not that any downpour could have slowed them, nor could any obstacle have been too tall for them to transcend. The pleading of Thackery’s bones for him to stop—aches worsened since dragging the Wolf to shelter—and the wind that abraded the still-healing lesions scoring Caenith’s flesh were meaningless annoyances to these men. They had crossed from West to East and would go as far as it took to find Morigan, and now to help the child they had sworn to protect. Theirs was an unbreakable determination, the stuff of which the greatest legends were woven. But here, in this moment, they thought not of heroism or bravery, only of their duty.

In time, the foothills flattened and the Iron Valley was cast as a shadow to their backs. They followed the impression of the old road, once grand and now effaced to little more than a trail between shelves of aged stone. Now and then, they were deterred as the Crowes flew overhead and they were forced to find cover, or they paused so that Thackery could squeeze some water from the air to wet Macha’s lips. Nothing woke her, and she did not drink. While creating something from almost nothing was exhausting, another stone on Thackery’s shoulders, he ploughed on without complaint.
Once they’re all safe, you can rest
, he told himself, and it was that promise that pushed him onward.

At last, the narrow pass opened, and the travelers were rewarded with a sight that thrilled and frightened them. For across a scrubbed plain there rose the grotesque majesty of Menos: a girdle of black iron around a city of pointed spikes so grand that it blocked most of Kor’Keth’s expansive range behind it. Busy roads converged upon the black wall, and formations of Crowes swooped through the flickering smog that wreathed the city. As thunderous as those clouds seemed, the untainted skies closer to the companions had turned darker still. A great storm was imminent, and one that hackled the Wolf’s hide with the tingle of power. Beyond the pending deluge—which would be spectacular, he felt—there was a second prickle of warning: a telling of something worse than a storm that he could not shake from his fur.

They hid in one last haven of rocks before braving the open plains, waiting the short while for night to fall and speaking in broken whispers to each other; Thackery mostly describing where they were headed, while the Wolf answered in crude grunts.
To the aqueducts on the east side. There will be a waterfall, but if we climb up from there, you come to shallower pools and a forgotten access to the Iron City. I was amazed it had never been discovered and I hope that for our fortune it has remained the same
. A willow tree would be there, too, haunted by the ghost of his wife, but he did not mention this to Caenith. He was lost in fleeting images of Bethany, made vivid against the canvas of night that had fallen, when Caenith prodded him and said, “It’s time.”

Looking to the Wolf, he wasn’t surprised by the other’s nudity—something he was more or less used to by now. The fields of Menos were watched, not only by Crowes but also from spyglasses along in the Iron Wall, and there were few gaits fast enough to avoid the all-seeing eyes of the Iron City. They had discussed how they were to approach, and in this instance, the Wolf’s speed might be the only thing that could take them swiftly and unseen to the other side of Menos. Caenith had to move quickly, yet not so quickly that the abnormality of his movement would be detected by the more sensitive instruments of the Menosians that Thackery had earlier described: technomagiks devised to capture the activities of carriages, skycarriages, projectiles, and the like—all speeds that the Wolf was not far from matching himself. While the Wolf snapped and stretched into his furrier skin, Thackery
kissed Macha’s clammy brow and trussed her up as delicately as he could, binding her like a little caterpillar with a knot of fabric that the Wolf could slip into his jaws like a bit. He was hardly comfortable with this arrangement, and even less so when the huge beast pounded its way over to him and opened its mouth as if it were going to eat the nicely wrapped meal.