Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (69 page)

“We’ve woken it!” hollered Caenith. “We’ve caused too much noise! Too much light! Unchained the Long Nightmare! Run!”

Thackery ran.

From the ripping at his cape, he could only guess that a tempest chased them. He didn’t want to confront the stupefying horror that the wind was really the hateful breath of twenty thousand dead souls: the wrath of slaves free of their chains and flesh. Through clouds of sand and piles of stones they battled, as the cavern was steadily swallowed by whatever dreaded mouth was at their backs. A mouth it surely was, or an orgy of slavering orifices, for all the wailing that it did. Blind and deaf in the tumult, the unstoppable Wolf somehow hefted the two of them—while holding dear Macha—against the storm and toward a pinprick of light. Once, Thackery glanced back, and not then or evermore would his mind grasp the madness it saw: the deteriorating ridge, the billows of destruction, boulders flung to and fro like marbles. What riveted him most was the twisting maelstrom of vestigial limbs and gelatinous bodies; the gobbling darkness, wherein every stretched, irregular mouth inside the mess was making the same wretched
KUUUHEEEE!

He would have held that stare all the way until the Long Nightmare consumed him, but the Wolf would not permit him so stupid a death and was tugging him along like a troublesome brat. As they raced through a small opening and into the golden grace of the sun, Thackery cast his staff along with what power he could muster into the cleft. Fear is what he Willed and charged the wood with, and it was simple for him to produce. With a crack of thunder, a gust of smoke, and a blast of light that bowled them to their arses, Thackery sealed the shame of his people for what he hoped would be forever.

He picked himself up and scoured the craggy foothills for his companions. When he saw the ripped figure of Caenith, prone and slung over a rock, and near his reaching hand—trying to clutch her even in insensateness—the still and skyward-staring Macha, despair squeezed a whine from his throat.
No! No! No!
He ran for them, dreading what final price the Iron Valley had exacted for their crossing.

XVIII

AN UNIVITED GUEST

I

M
origan was deeply asleep when the cold hand of horror reached into her guts and twisted her awake. The bees were at her at once.
Terrible things afoot!
they warned, and weren’t any more specific than that. She had wisps of a dream to cling to: of being lost and wandering through a dark subterranean web, while fingerless terrors groped at her. She had no idea what it meant, but it sickened her with anxiety.

Kanatuk’s scarred head appeared.

“You were making strange noises.”

“I was having a difficult sleep,” she rasped.

“Here, some water,” he offered.

With Kanatuk’s assistance, she sat up. She nursed the rusty can of water that he passed to her and tried to flush the fog from her head. The cold helped to wake her, as did the dissonance of the dripping roof, the rattling of wind against boarded-up windows, and the squeaking of rodents—some of which she was certain had crawled over her in the night.
Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose
, she scowled. A derelict atelier, fit not even for vagrant habitation, was surely one of the last places their pursuers would look.

Condemned for its mad master’s dabblings in plague craft
, Alastair had gaily informed them, as if they were passengers on a gruesome sight-seeing tour. She did not spot his lean shadow amid the covered crates or age-caked workstations, and assumed that he had slipped off in the night. Whether he was to return, anyone could guess. Although he had fulfilled his obligation to Mouse, from the interest he expressed in the
Curious Case of Morigan Lostarot
, as he termed it, Morigan felt that his involvement was merely beginning. Her other companions were across the long, cluttered room and conferring upon twin boxes. The meager grayness of a Menosian dawn that filtered over Mouse and Vortigern could have been as bright as the brightest sunshine, so convivial was their chatter. Still, a certain shyness persisted to their manner; a nervousness to their laughter, as if they were unsure of the happiness they shared. Quite understandable behavior, she acknowledged, for family members who never knew each other to have met through the means that they did.

“Is it true?” whispered Kanatuk, who was crouched beside her. “My ears have heard the words
father
and
daughter
enough times for my head to accept it, but I do not.”

“It is,” declared Morigan.

Kanatuk clapped her on the back. “I would not want to interrupt, but we should speak to them. We have been in the Iron City too long, and if Elissandra could find us once, she can do so again.”

Elissandra
. Morigan chilled at the recollection of that woman creeping around in her head. She left her tatty blanket and followed Kanatuk to the others, who pulled out crates to accommodate them. Morigan tried not to think of why her seat was marked with a black
X
and a skull. The four exchanged pleasantries, which quickly ran their course. In moments, the conversation turned sobering.

“Your friend, he has left us?” asked Kanatuk of Mouse.

“Alastair? I would hesitate in calling him a friend. He’s an acquaintance with vested interests in my existence—I don’t know what those interests are.” Mouse pointed to Morigan. “I believe that he’s added you to his
collection
now, as well.”

“Collection?” asked Morigan.

“If he’s given you an alliteration, then yes. He has them for all his interests.
The Mighty Mouse
. That’s mine,” she said. “He drops it from time to time. I don’t think he even realizes it when it comes out of his mouth. At least yours has a certain flair. Could be a thrilling book, even.”

“However did you meet so strange a man?” asked Morigan.

“He was the one who transacted my freedom from indentureship. A neutral party is often delegated for matters between Crown and common folk—rare as those are—to ensure fairness. The Watchers do most of this work. Anyway, he said it had never been done, commended me, and then asked what plans I had as a free woman. None, of course, as a slave dreams of escaping her chains, not of the reality that comes after. I was soon to see that I had exchanged one imprisonment for another.” Mouse frowned as dark memories rattled through her of times and torments she would rather forget.

She is repulsed that it has come to this. Sitting in smoky taverns, powdered, and painted in makeup. Smiling at men who only return the happiness until their seed is emptied. Sometimes they pay her less when they see the scars between her legs. She does not blame them, as she is a broken good. As she sips her wine, she tries to mask her bitterness, for that is not the fragrance that men desire. Yet the internal voices will not be quiet. The shame and self-revulsion grows with every grunting body that she pushes off herself, and no amount of wine can wash down her disgust
.

What have you accomplished? What have you become? You are still a whore, she spits at herself. How long until you buy the rope to end your miserable life? She has the money to fetch herself a proper rifle: that would be quicker, if messier. She is contemplating her suicide and wearing her grimace of a smile, when a thin stranger dressed in black sits down at the bar next to her. In what is a twist of convention, he does not slide a drink to her, but takes her glass and dumps its contents on the floor. Furious, she turns to him
.

“My Mouse, my Mighty Mouse,” says the red-bearded man. “How meek you have become.”

“I was quite lost and quite poor when he found me again,” she continued. He offered me what I could not find myself: purpose, a true vocation. Such is how I became a Voice. All that thriftiness and cunning amounted to something, after all.”

“It amounted to much more than I see you giving yourself credit for, Fionna,” said the dead man.

Either from the use of the name or her own misgivings, Mouse blushed.

“Can he be trusted? Is this place safe?” pressed Morigan.

Mouse pondered the question. “While it is true that information is brokered to the highest bidder, I do not think there is a price that can be paid to Alastair to betray his own odd principles. None that I have seen.”

“When will he be back?” asked Morigan.

“That I cannot say,” replied Mouse. “He is out on an errand, and his comings and goings are unpredictable.”

“Errand?” said Morigan.

Mouse beckoned them into a huddle. “Since he didn’t immediately disappear after taking us here, I thought I would test his patience and ask him to fetch us some supplies for a trip underground.” She waited to see if any of the blank stares resolved themselves into realization. When they didn’t, she resumed. “We’ve been attacking the problem of the Iron Wall with all the wrong ideas. That’s the challenge of the Wall: it’s insurmountable. You can’t get through it, and even if you bore a hole into it with the rage of Eod’s king himself, you’d have the Ironguards to deal with. We can avoid all that by simply going
under
it.”

Kanatuk was the first to perceive her plan; he waved his hands in dismissal. “Too dangerous. The Undercomb is the Broker’s realm. He has eyes and ears everywhere. We would never make it to where you intend to take us.”

Mouse corrected him. “Where
you
intend to take us.”

At this, Kanatuk flushed red and trembled with anger, and he stormed away from the group. Morigan called to him, but Mouse only sighed as he left.

“He seems to listen to you. You will need to make him see reason,” said Mouse.

“Reason about what?” exclaimed Morigan.

Vexed, Mouse exhaled loudly and leaned back on her box. “I suppose this all came out in a messy way. The plan. I was thinking about it all night. Along with Vortigern. He’s quite good for bouncing ideas off of.”

Proudly, the dead man flashed his yellow teeth while Mouse continued.

“I’ve been in the Undercomb. Deep in its passages, and there are roads that lead out of the city that men do not use. One-way roads, most of them. Pipelines and such. Most lay beyond the Broker’s
nest
.” She spat the word. “I never wanted to see that place again, but we may have no choice. Dealing with a few of the Broker’s foot soldiers is certainly preferable to battling the armies and Iron Wall of Menos. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Morigan did not agree, not immediately. She sullenly pondered the proposal until sense bled its way into her. What Mouse suggested had merit, though they would need Kanatuk’s assistance if they were to navigate the realms beneath Menos safely.

“I shall speak to him,” huffed Morigan.

Wasting no time, Morigan left the two to explore the atelier, trying to find where Kanatuk had so quickly and stealthily retreated. She whispered into corners, checked behind stacks of boxes, and coughed her way through dusty curtains into a surgical chamber that racked her mind with gory splatters of unwholesome, unconsented operations. She was ill after stumbling from the room and almost done with hide-and-sneak, so she sent out the bees to do what her eyes and ears could not. The buzzing guided her to the back of a storeroom. She bumbled about in the darkness, knocking her shins on things and cursing, and ended up near the one window that shed some of its sulking light into the room. In the murk there, Kanatuk was a ghost, a shade that peered through a boarded window. His eyes and heart sparked with anger. Morigan went to him.

“You are quite good at not being found,” she said.

“You are quite good at finding,” he replied.

“Have you thought about what Mouse asked?”

“Yes.”

“Will you do it?”

He did not answer.

“I used to believe in coincidence, not fate,” said Morigan. “Now I could not tell you the difference between the two. In this world, there are hidden rules that few, if any, understand. Perhaps it is our destiny to storm the Iron Wall and die in a blaze of glory. Perhaps that is written in the ledger of the one who scribes our fates. However, I am starting to think that if we learn these rules ourselves, we can influence them. We are the scribes. We give
life meaning; we create our fates. Was it luck that brought us together? Luck that carried you from beyond Kor’Keth and me across the world from Eod? To meet as captive and captor and somehow break the bonds that chained each of us?”

She had Kanatuk’s attention now, and he turned his face toward her.

“A remarkable accident that would be,” continued Morigan, and a bit of the Wolf’s passion for prose flushed her heart. “If we were looking at only ourselves. Yet we must look at how far the entanglements spread. Caenith, my bloodmate. Thackery, a fallen master of Menos. Mouse and Vortigern. Four fates, all entwined, and this can be no accident. But I declare that it is not an invisible caretaker, nor random chaos, that has thrown us into one another’s lives. It is our choices.
Powerful
choices, which have powerful consequences, a painting in which each of us is a willful stroke. In the end, the choice of whether you will take us into the Undercomb is entirely yours. It belongs to no one else. Weigh the power of that choice as you consider, though. Think on how bound together these other souls are to your choice. And remember that you decide the fates of not only us four, but all the unnamed who have yet to add to our picture.”