Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (20 page)

He was leaving the entrapment of the market, walking among sparse crowds and breathing in the sweetness of freedom, when he noticed the reflection of a darkly shrouded man in a glass window on the other side of the street. Thule stopped to read the menu board of a quiet eatery, and then popped in to have a sip of tea and a bitter stone meal biscuit—he preferred the savory to the sweet—while watching traffic from the coziness of a wicker chair. In the shadows of an alleyway across from the café, and mostly hidden by a lamplight or moving carriages, was the same man in black. Thule was certainly being followed. Against the better instinct that one should show when being tracked by a suspicious stranger, Thule finished off his snack and scurried between people and moving wheels into the alley. The man in black was leaning on a pile of filthy kegs, waiting for him. Very little could be said about the man beneath the cloak, other than that he appeared to be thin, and the red beard that protruded from his hood was sparse. He hailed Thule with a casual wave without unfolding his arms.

“We have heard much about your request.”

“Morigan, did you find her?” asked Thule.

“The girl? No, we did not.”

“The smith? Did you find the smith?”

“I was not clear,” corrected the Voice. “We have
heard
much, though we have seen nothing. It is as if the two have vanished from Eod.”

Distraught, Thule sank onto the nearest object he could find, which was a creaking crate that moaned his feelings for him.

“What have you heard, then?” he sighed.

“Of the young maid that you inquired about, there is little history that you probably aren’t aware of. Dead mother, a runaway father—a nameless tramp, as far as we know. She is as boring as the average charwoman.”

So you would think
, snorted Thule.

“The gentleman that we looked into, this Caenith of Eod. He was rather interesting,” cooed the Voice, pulling at his beard thoughtfully. The Voice seemed to be contemplating his findings.

“I’m not paying you for silence; I’m paying you to speak,” spat Thule.

“I do apologize,” said the Voice. “The information seduced me for a speck. It really is among the more”—the Voice wiggled his fingers as if to conjure the word—“grisly of whispers that have passed these lips.”

“Grisly?” Thule was on his feet again. “Grisly?”

“Indeed. The trail leading to Menos was cold and old. Older than your passage here—”

“You should know better than to mention that,” threatened Thule, looking about with suspicion, as if they were heard. “That shadow is well behind me. You will know your place in not mentioning it again. The smith. He is from Menos?”

The Voice gave a deferential nod as he continued. “I regret that my tongue has spoken faster than my mouth can contain it. There are few with such a unique name as the one you shared with us. Yes, there is a smith in Eod named Caenith—no familial name beyond that, strangely. More importantly, there was once a man of that name from Menos with that same name. He worked—killed, rather—for the house of El.”

In Menos, the blood pits where two men entered and one man left were notorious for their profit and allure. Any man of serf status or higher could submit himself for trial by combat, and in doing so was severed of any previous bondage and property of the house of El. An enticing proposition for freedom, as it could be bought with only a month’s worth of winnings. Though rare was the man who lived long enough to extricate himself from the webs of the house of El, and rarer still was a master of El to honor the oaths of service and free that man, should he kill his number.

“He was a dog of the pits, then? A bloodbeast?” exclaimed Thule.

“Oh, no, no, no,” twitted the Voice. “The story is one of Menosian legend. I wouldn’t expect you to be kept abreast of such tales, all things considered.”

Thule sneered, and the Voice held up a finger. “Muzzle your snarl, you might find it misplaced with what I have yet to say. This warrior with the uniquely similar name was no steelworker. In fact, he didn’t carry a weapon with him in the ring, though that hindered him little. He could kill a man as quick as a blink. He was said to be so vulgar in his sport that he would drink the blood of his torn victims while they screamed their last screams—their limbs ripped off as you or I would tear up a child’s doll. Bloodbeast, as the vernacular you are familiar with for the house of El’s sportsmen, did not suit so magnificent a monster. The masters of El called him the
Blood King
, in mockery of our Northern and Southern immortal sovereigns, from which all good wit in Menos seems to derive itself. The Blood King was the house of El’s favored pet, kept on a tight leash and fed sickening things to keep him happy—sweetmeats, organs, and not the sort that the meatmonger sells.” The Voice gave his audience a black smile. “The Blood King scarcely spoke his name, but it was there, in the shadows, remembered by one whisperer or scribbled down by another. And the description of the man you gave, as interpretive as it could be, describes no other. A beast of a man, towering, feral, and radiating power. So either it is this Caenith, a descendant, or a grand impersonator.”

“He is a murderer and a villain, or a liar and villain. Is that all?” spat Thule. He was repulsed that Morigan had involved herself with such an unscrupulous charlatan as well as terrified for her safety.

“No, that is not all. Not nearly,” said the Voice, bemused. “The records of what happened next are…dusty. The whispers of that era are weak. We do know that Caenith decided to end his contract with the house of El, and it was not through the elusive and unfair breaking of the bond. He killed Mordencai, the father of El. Dozens more, too. Then the Blood King fled Menos and has never been seen since.”

Mordencai?
puzzled Thule, and had to reach deep into his memory to discover the name. Not surprising that he did not recall it at first, as Mordencai was the father of El several generations before Thule was even a seed in his mother’s belly.

“Mordencai?” he mumbled, still grappling with the notion.

“Yes,” the Voice confirmed energetically. “The fourth father of El to Moreth, who rules the house today.”

“Which means…”

“That this Caenith is either a talented pretender, or he would be five and some centuries old.”

Thule rubbed his head from the ache of his thoughts and tried to arrange what he knew about blood kings, girls who read minds, and the move of great powers to war. He didn’t care for any of the speculations his mind could conjure. Life, it appeared, was tipping toward disaster.

“Is that everything?” Thule asked, sighing.

“Mostly so,” said the Voice, and began slinking around the kegs. “Not out of personal courtesy, but out of satisfaction for our services, I should warn you that the girl you seek is in danger so long as she is entangled with this imposter. More so than merely being in company with a dangerous, delusional strongman. As you know, the houses of Menos have memories as long as the list of their sins. The house of El is no different, and the contract for information regarding the injustice of Mordencai’s murder remains unpunished and preserved to this day. Therefore, I am obligated to see that the house of El knows of this Caenith, regardless of who he is. You of all people should understand the slipperiness of honor when it comes to our dealings.”

Thule did, for they had betrayed him once. Or he had betrayed his sense in trusting liars. He would not abide with them threatening Morigan, though. He leaped from his box, his eyes flashing with the dazzling light of his Will, and the kegs in the alley were blasted to cindery smithereens. People screamed at the noise. But beyond the clouding dust, he saw nothing. The Voice was gone like a terrible dream. He had done his job, and surely, another Voice spans away would do his: alerting the house of El that an ancient blood hunt was soon to begin on this fool or monster that called himself Caenith.

III

In the emptiness, wherever she has been taken, there is nothing for the bees to feed upon. Hungrily, they buzz about her
.

“Go away,” she thinks. “Go find something to do.” Perhaps it is her absolute calm, her absence of fear in this numb state, but the bees comply. Off they crawl
into the hollows of her mind, extracting delicious thoughts from her stems of memory and bringing them back to their queen, their host. She understands an element of this process as it occurs, that she is indeed the master here, that she has somehow commanded the bees. She cannot contemplate long, however, for they have brought to her the strangest nectars—memories so old that she has not recalled them in years, if ever
.

How young am I? she wonders as the memory envelops her. For her limbs are stumpy and soft, her words a gurgle, and she is held in a bouncing backpack in a realm of terrifying green shadows. She knows who carries her, though, whose strong back she is strapped to; she would never forget the fragrance of rosewater and Arhadian myrrh that was the scent of her mother. If she could weep here, she would; she does not shed tears, but pulses with love and longing
.

Happily the bees buzz now. They are pleased to have served so well. She doesn’t need to ask, only Will it, and they are gone into the honeycomb of her head again, seeking further nectar of that taste: the taste of Mifanwae. The obedient insects are back sooner than the request is sensed. They wash her in another memory
.

“The job I’ll take, as you’re not too kind and not too mean. You’re just the sort of man I can take orders from,” declares her mother, who is standing between herself and a grumpy-looking old man
.

Thule, thinks Morigan, though her young self is still quite leery of the sorcerer, even though he was kind enough to give her a book to read and occupy herself with. While her mother and the old man engage in that marginally bickering way of theirs—bartering on price, hourglasses, and duties—young Morigan examines the book, which she has had much fun with that day. The book. She had forgotten about it, shoved it away in the dusty closet where childhood memories go to die
.

Young Morigan, who has just begun to pen her first letters, struggles over the writing on the chewed-up brown cover
.

“T-uh-ee…Uh-uh-un-tammied. Thee Untammied. The Untamed!” she cries in success, and the adults in the room are each taken with a smile
.

The bees buzz louder. They like this memory, and they crave more of its nectar. Morigan, who is calm and in control, bids them to do so. Fear, she sees, works against her in this place. She must not stumble through the streets in terror of herself, but demand that the bees do what serves her. Like any magik, the
bees will do as she wishes so long as she steers them with confidence. This is an important lesson, and she vows not to forget it when she leaves the Dreaming
.

Soon the bees return, bearing their sweet memory, and Morigan is transported once more. She is about the same age as last time and tucked under boiled-wool blankets. Creaky floors, hanging pots, a nicked-up table, and other details of a modest apartment are seen, but not really paid much attention to. Mostly, she stares at the ceiling and relishes the butterflies of excitement uncaged in her chest. A person shuffles up to the bedside and snuggles into bed with her. The two of them bump noses, and young Morigan gets a kiss on the head. As Mother pulls back, Morigan sees her face clearer than she could ever remember her when awake. They don’t look as much alike as her anamnesis would paint it, but more like red-haired cousins of the other. Mifanwae has not her daughter’s softness, but a face carved of stony beauty, and hair less coppery than her child’s
.

“Let’s see what wicked tales want to be read tonight, eh?” clucks Mifanwae, and pulls out the book that she has fetched. Young Morigan has improved with her linguistics and can read the cover perfectly now
.

“
The Untamed,”
she says
.

The two crack the book open, each taking a side of the cover, and begin as they always do, by reading the poem inside. The prose is still a challenge for young Morigan with its complex, rolling sentences of hungry trees, graves made of piled stones, and lords of fang and claw. Much of what lies inside the book is equally as mysterious, though eerily enticing to young Morigan. The freakish pictures and Mifanwae’s narration do much to illustrate the stories therein. One night each week, they read farther and farther into
The Untamed.
Grim tales of wisps of light that guide men to their deaths in bogs or off cliffs; of women who are glorious maidens by day and fanged, scaly hags at night; of spirits that live in trees, rocks, and streams. Or of small beings of light and shadow with the wings of insects or bats: faeries, as the book says, which get up to the meanest kinds of mischief. To young—and old—Morigan, it sounds like a phantasmagoric ecology too incredible to be real, which Mifanwae assures her these tales are
.

The bees have harvested this memory for a reason, though; it has relevance to their queen, and shortly she sees why
.