Lost Ones-Veil 3 (4 page)

“I’m sure. But we have another task before we can go to war.”

“And what’s that?”

“There are others like you, hiding, or simply trying to stay neutral. They’re fooling themselves, thinking the war isn’t theirs to fight. The time has come to disabuse them of that notion.”

Coyote sighed.

It had been a perfectly lovely, lazy day. Now Kitsune wanted him to play hero—a role never designed for a trickster.

“Shit,” Coyote said. “Couldn’t you have simmered in your self-loathing for a few more days?”

Kitsune smiled and slid a hand behind his head. She pulled him toward her and their foreheads touched.

“Good dog,” she said.

He cursed at her, and she laughed as she preceded him from the cave. Despite his pique, he was elated to hear that sound. Kitsune had been her own prisoner for too long. Now she would run free, and wild.

Wayland Smith walked between worlds. He had always done so and hoped that he always would. This was his power and his legend. The Borderkind thought him one of their kin, and he never argued the point, but he was not like them. They could walk in two worlds, while he could travel in many.

Yet over the ages, it had become more and more difficult for him to cross those borders. What the sorcerers had done in creating the Veil was unnatural, and it had begun to erode his ability to pass from one world to the other. This alone might not have alarmed him, but he feared that it would only be the beginning.

There were myriad other realities and worlds layered one upon the other—a great many of which he had yet to explore. If the magic used to create the Veil could wear away at his magic, he worried that he might one day find himself trapped in one of them, unable to journey beyond. Perhaps those unaware of the existence of the worlds beyond could be content with such restriction, but he was the Wayfarer, and it would be his death.

The Veil had become his bane, and long years ago, Smith had made up his mind to bring it down.

Now the Atlanteans and their damned ambitions were interfering. Whichever members of the High Council were behind the actions of Ty’Lis, they wanted to seal off the legendary world from the ordinary forever, to exterminate the Borderkind and destroy the Doors. Wayland Smith simply could not allow that.

Whatever it required, he had to see that King Hunyadi was victorious and that the Bascombes survived to fulfill their destiny.
One of the Bascombes,
he thought, correcting himself. Not that he wished harm to befall either one of them, but as long as one lived, his plans could still bear fruit. He had spent long years laying the foundations. He would not be thwarted now.

Smith strode along a mist-shrouded path, one of the Gray Corridors that wound in and out of the worlds, allowing him to move not only between parallel realities but between locations in a single world.

The Wayfarer paused. Mist clouded his vision. He raised his cane and, like a dowsing rod, it tugged him forward and to the left, and he could feel that he was close to his destination.

After a dozen steps, the mist cleared and he found himself standing in a copse of trees whose branches kept off the worst of the southern heat. The battalion led by Captain Beck was on the march, dust rising as they moved northward. For a moment he just watched them go past.

Then Smith emerged from the trees, the brim of his hat providing his only shade, and set off toward the troops. Soon, a small group of soldiers broke away from the battalion and started toward him. Several archers nocked arrows and drew back their bows, prepared to fire.

The Wayfarer kept moving.

One of the archers loosed an arrow—by dint of nerves rather than purpose, he surmised—and Smith knocked it from the air before it struck. A shout came from amongst the troops, and then he saw the tall, lithe form of Damia Beck emerge. She waved the defenders back into the ranks, then stood waiting as Smith approached.

A moment later, Blue Jay extricated himself from the marchers. One by one he was joined by others of his kin—first Li, the Guardian of Fire, and then the odd pairing of Cheval Bayard and Leicester Grindylow. Cheval wore her human face and shape, and her silken gown clung deliciously to her figure as the breeze caressed her.

Smith did not pick up his pace. The four Borderkind and Captain Beck waited patiently for him. He stopped perhaps eight feet away and let several moments pass as the rear flank of the battalion marched past.

“You’re ready, then?” Smith asked Blue Jay.

The trickster nodded, his features grim. The feathers in his hair twirled in the breeze.

“You’re certain this is necessary?” Captain Beck asked. “My battalion is marching to intercept an invasion force headed for the Oldwood. We need every advantage we have against the invaders, especially if the rumors are true and Ty’Lis is adding more Atlanteans to their ranks.”

Smith stroked his beard, studying her. “The enemy will find the Oldwood nearly impossible to take. As for the Atlanteans, you’ll find that in a few days whoever they’ve put in to rule as regent for the young prince Tzajin will announce an alliance with Atlantis. Then the flood of reinforcements will arrive and the real invasion will begin.”

“You’re sure of this?” Captain Beck asked, horror etched upon her features.

The Wayfarer cocked his head to one side. “I’ve just learned of it,” he lied. How else to explain that she and the other commanders ought to have seen the development coming themselves?

“Suffice it to say, Captain, that if Blue Jay and his companions are swift in their efforts, they may return when you will truly need them, having performed a service far greater than any they could provide in a single battle.”

Blue Jay shook his head, crossing his arms and staring at Smith. “Do you ever come right out and say something, or does it all have to be a fucking mystery?”

Smith smiled. “Espionage is usually best conducted in secret, don’t you think? Details now could cost your lives later, and the Bascombes’. And then, perhaps, cost John Hunyadi his kingdom.”

The trickster glanced at the other Borderkind he had recruited for their task. It was Cheval who met Smith’s gaze. Her silver hair seemed to glow almost white in the sun.

“We are at your service, monsieur.”

Smith nodded. “Excellent. We ought to depart, then. Good luck, Captain Beck.”

The old wanderer began to turn away, but then paused and looked back at Li. His legend called him the Guardian of Fire, but he had lost much of his control over the flames. Every inch of his skin had become black, burning embers. He had no hair, no clothes, no features at all to speak of save for his nose and mouth and the dark orange blazing pits where his eyes had once been.

“Not him, though. You others will blend in, but Li will be far too conspicuous.”

The grindylow stood up straight, speaking before Blue Jay or Cheval could summon the words.

“We’re mates, aye? That means we stick together, or we don’t go at all. You let us worry about keeping our secrets. We’ve done all right so far. The four of us, we left our friends behind in Palenque. Always figured we’d go back for ’em, and now the time’s come, so we’ll go. The four of us. You got that?”

The Wayfarer studied the water bogie more closely. “All right, young Master Grindylow. Just so you know it’s a problem you will have to solve.”

Blue Jay lifted his chin. “You’re not the only clever one, Smith. We’ll see to it.”

Smith nodded and took a final look at Li. The Guardian of Fire only stared back at him with those burning pits and said nothing.

“Say your good-byes, then,” the Wayfarer told them.

Cheval Bayard fixed him with a venomous stare, but said nothing. The grindylow stood close by. Li held himself apart. None of them had anyone whom they ought to bid farewell, but Blue Jay turned to Captain Beck and they exchanged smiles only lovers could share. Smith approved. He had spent generations persuading Borderkind that there was no sin in loving ordinary people. Of course, Damia Beck was the descendant of Lost Ones, and so even if they were to have children, their offspring would not be Legend-Born. Such children had to be the product of love between a Borderkind and a human from the other side of the Veil.

Still, it touched him to see the way they looked at one another. Wayland Smith had lived through eons almost entirely alone. Most of the time he felt as though he had nothing but callus where his heart ought to be. Once in a while, however, he felt a small twinge that reminded him that he still could feel.

“You know,” Captain Beck said to Blue Jay, “if you succeed, you might well hasten the end of the war.”

“One way or another,” he said, mischief sparkling in his eyes.

“In our favor, of course,” the captain said, ebony skin shining in the sun. Then she kissed him, letting her lips linger a moment, not caring that the others saw. Blue Jay returned her kiss tenderly, and when Damia stepped back from him, she was breathless.

“I wish you better luck than on your first journey to Palenque,” Captain Beck said, glancing around at the gathered Borderkind.

The grindylow snorted. “Well, we could hardly do worse.”

But Blue Jay and Captain Beck were not listening. Their fingers touched in a final lingering farewell, and then the trickster moved toward his kin and nodded to Smith.

“Let’s go.”

“Indeed. Swift through the Veil, and careful on the other side. The ordinary world has been too long without proper legends. We must do our best not to disturb them.”

“We’ve all been across before, old man,” Cheval Bayard sniffed. “We’re all Borderkind.”

With a nod, Smith reached into the fabric of the Veil. It took him a moment to grasp it—something that happened more often of late—but when he did, it was simple to draw the curtain aside, to open a path through the barrier for them all.

Li went through first, and quickly, as though he had wished for any reason to leave the legendary world behind. Cheval and Grin followed. Blue Jay spared one last glance at Captain Beck. She nodded gravely to him, and the trickster grinned. Then he stepped through.

Silently, as he too passed through the Veil, the Wayfarer wished the lovers whatever destiny they desired for themselves.

As long as it did not interfere with his own.

CHAPTER
3

T
he guards always opened the door to Julianna and Collette’s cell first. Every morning and evening, a quartet of guards arrived. When they had first been captured, a larger contingent had been in attendance, but soon the number had dwindled. Apparently, someone had decided that the threat they represented had been exaggerated.

All along, Collette had wanted to try for escape and Oliver had dissuaded her. Julianna had never quite understood his strategy, but now she realized that Oliver had been right. Since the reduction in the number of guards, they had never given their captors any reason to suspect that they would
dare
attempt an escape.

“They’re coming,” Collette whispered.

Julianna took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Collette dropped away from the door, letting Julianna take a look through the grate. As always, the two Yucatazcan guards came first, swarthy soldiers carrying trays of food. They were followed by a pair of Atlanteans. They wore the same uniforms as the Yucatazcans, but there was no mistaking the greenish-white cast of their skin.

The Atlanteans were armed with both sword and dagger. The first soldier came to the door and Julianna stepped back a bit as he braced the tray against his hip and fumbled with the keys. She glanced through the grate and across the hall, where she could see Oliver watching her from his own cell.

The key went into the lock and she could hear the clank of the tumblers. The door swung open half an inch.

“Back away!” the nearest of the two Atlanteans shouted, drawing his sword. “Away from the door!”

Julianna flinched and put on a frightened look. It was not pretense, though normally she would not have allowed them to see her fear. She took a few steps back and raised her hands.

The Yucatazcan guard sighed and glanced at her apologetically, rolling his eyes a bit at the Atlantean’s hostility. He didn’t even bother trying to hide the look from his prisoners.
Perfect.
Let them see that these two ordinary young women presented no threat at all.

The guard carried the tray in a few feet and then knelt, setting it down on the floor.

Out in the corridor, the other member of the king’s guard unlocked Oliver’s cell with his own Atlantean escort looking on. Julianna held her breath. Some days, their cell had been closed and locked again before the guards opened Oliver’s, but other times they had been lax. She and Oliver and Collette had been waiting for this.

Silently, she said a prayer for the man she loved.

The guard opened Oliver’s door and stepped inside the cell. Oliver rushed him, slamming the tray of food up into the guard’s face and, in a single motion, twisting the man around to face the open doorway. As the guard began to shout, Oliver wrapped his hands around the man’s throat, choking him.

The Atlantean escort raced into the cell, sword drawn. Oliver did not wait for barked commands or threats. He ran at the Atlantean, driving the Yucatazcan guard forward with such force that the swordsman could not pull his blade away in time, and the Yucatazcan was impaled.

Upon instinct, the second Atlantean began to move to help the first. The moment he did, Collette attacked the guard who had brought their tray. The man tried to defend himself, but she had learned to fight years ago. Collette feinted with her left, then shot out her right hand, palm flat, and broke his nose. Then she punted him full-force between the legs.

That left only the two Atlanteans still standing, and both of them were trying to get at Oliver. Julianna raced out into the corridor just as the second Atlantean started to realize his mistake. Julianna collided with him, driving him bodily into Oliver’s cell. He stumbled into Oliver and the other Atlantean, who were now grappling for the sword.

Collette came out behind Julianna, slamming the door.

“Oliver!” she shouted. “Come on!”

Julianna started into his cell, but Oliver looked up, panic on his face. They’d known it would be difficult. After being imprisoned so long, the only advantage they had was surprise. But that had lasted only seconds and in Oliver’s expression Julianna saw that it hadn’t been enough. The Atlanteans were too fast.

They weren’t all going to get out.

“Close the door!” Oliver shouted. He tore the helmet off of the dead Yucatazcan guard and began beating one of the Atlanteans about the head with it, still struggling over the sword.

Collette froze outside the door. “Oliver, no!”

But Julianna knew they were out of time. She slammed the cell door and turned the key, then tossed the ring of keys down the corridor. In all her life, she’d never done anything more difficult than locking Oliver in that cell.

But she didn’t hesitate.

This might well be their only chance to leave the dungeon alive. She grabbed Collette and pulled her along beside her. Together, they ran. If they could get to Frost, they could still come back for Oliver, but only if they were quick.

Julianna forced herself to focus. Oliver had not felt the chill in his cell that she and Collette had noticed in theirs. That meant Frost had to be imprisoned nearer to them. She and Collette hurtled down the corridor and reached the archway that led to the stairs. The gate at the top would be locked, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t going up.

Frost’s cell had to be behind theirs, meaning that there must be a second corridor in the dungeon. Julianna ducked her head through the archway and looked to the left. An arched hallway ran parallel to the one where they’d been imprisoned. Only a few sconces burned down that way. But there was a breeze that made her shiver and raised gooseflesh on her arms.

Frost.

“This way,” Julianna said, turning to Collette.

“We can’t just leave him.”

“We won’t.”

Shouts reverberated through the dungeon, bouncing off of the walls. She cursed silently, glancing around. Heavy footfalls were pounding along the corridor they’d just left. The Yucatazcan guard had recovered from Collette’s attack.

A quick glance up the stairs told Julianna they still had a few seconds left. But that was all. Whatever guards were standing sentry at the gate up there, they would hear the Yucatazcan and raise the alarm in a moment.

She bolted along the darkened corridor and Collette followed. The cold air enveloped them as they slipped into the shadows between the splashes of light provided by the sconces. Then she heard the shouts grow louder. Collette grabbed her and the two of them pushed themselves against the wall, hidden in the shadows.

The Yucatazcan ran past at the end of the corridor, but didn’t pause. Instead, he went up the stairs, assuming they’d gone that way as well. How many seconds, Julianna wondered, before he got to the gate at the top and realized that there was no way they could have gotten out that way?

They hurried. At the first sconce, Julianna paused in a pool of torchlight and stared at the door set into the wall. Collette went on a few feet, then stopped to stare back at her, eyes frantic. But Julianna was trying to figure out how far they had come down the hall. She stepped up to the cell door and looked through the grate into darkness.

“Frost?” she whispered.

There was no reply. A frisson of fear went through her, and then she felt foolish. He wouldn’t be able to reply; not really. He was caught in a spell. Julianna heard more shouts, but distant.

“Go,” Collette whispered.

Julianna nodded and they ran on, hurrying to the next cell and peering inside. Quickly they moved on, glancing through the grate in each door in search of Frost. Another gust of frigid wind whipped up and Julianna shivered, her teeth chattering.

“He’s got to be here,” Collette said, her elfin features frantic.

“I know,” Julianna said. “But which one? Where the hell—”

She paused. Further along, just past the next splash of torchlight, a dim blue glow emanated from the grate in a cell door. She hadn’t noticed it before because of the illumination from the sconce. It reminded her of the light from a television, seen through the window of someone else’s home.

“There!” a voice bellowed behind them.

“No,” Collette whispered.

Julianna glanced back to see guards filling the archway at the bottom of the stairs. There had to be half a dozen of them, and she felt sure most would be Atlantean. The Yucatazcan had gone up and brought back help. They should have taken the time to lock him in. Collette should have kicked him harder. So many should-haves, but they had no time for self-recrimination.

Despite the chill, heat flushed her skin as she and Collette began to run. Footfalls like a stampede followed them. Julianna and Collette hadn’t been diligent about exercise the way Oliver had. They were exhausted and malnourished. Their flight was a headlong lunge, barely controlled.

As they passed through that next pool of torchlight, she saw that ice had formed on the stone walls.

“That’s enough,” a voice rumbled close behind them. Julianna felt the pressure of the guard’s presence.

A hand grasped at her hair and she shrieked, tugging herself away. Collette glanced back, reaching out to pull her along.

Then Julianna began to slip. She felt the loss of traction an instant before she realized that the stones laid into the floor had also been covered with ice. Julianna pinwheeled her arms, trying not to fall, but then her feet went out from under her.

Powerful hands caught her, clutching her tightly.

She stared up into the face of an Atlantean guard. His touch felt clammy and repulsive.

“Jules!” Collette shouted. She lunged at the guard, but others swarmed around them, and then they had her as well.

So close. They knew where Frost was, now, but would never reach him.

Despite herself, Julianna forced a smile. “Thanks for that. Slippery when wet. You guys should put up a sign.”

The Atlantean snarled and tightened his grip, twining his fingers in her hair so that Julianna let out a cry of pain.

Then he swung her by her hair, smashing her head into the icy stone wall. Pain blossomed into fireworks in her mind, and she began slipping down into darkness.

Down and down, and then she was alone in the shadows of her soul, and cold. So very cold.

The smell of blood filled Oliver’s nostrils. He sat on the floor, back against the stone wall of his cell, and tried to clear his throat. Even that hurt. His left eye had swollen shut, and the cheek below felt like it had been tenderized. Once the Atlanteans had gotten hold of him, they’d given him the beating he’d known was coming. Knowing didn’t make it any easier. The scent of blood in the cell might have come from the guard he’d killed, but he had a feeling it was his own, soaked into his shirt and still trickling both on his face and inside his mouth.

“Fuck,” he rasped, wishing his face would stop throbbing or that the pressure around his swollen eye would go away. He reached up and gingerly pressed his fingers against his cheek, then hissed in pain.

What was it about people that they had to do that—probe their injuries to see just how bad the damage was? Foolish didn’t begin to describe it. But the temptation was too great to resist.

Another guard had come to let out the two Atlanteans that Julianna had locked in here with him. They’d left Oliver behind, along with the Yucatazcan he’d killed. The corpse lay on the ground, cooling, and he tried to avoid looking at it.

Wincing, he put one hand against the wall and rose. A sharp pain in his side reminded him of the single blow he’d taken to the ribs, and he wondered if any were cracked or broken.

Oliver shuffled over to the cell door, dragging his boot heels to wipe off the dead guard’s blood. In the back of his mind, he felt the dim awareness of the fact that he’d killed a man. It troubled him that he was not more upset by this. Once upon a time, he knew he would have been crippled with the horror of having taken a life. Now it only seemed necessary.

It occurred to him that he had never understood war until now.

A clanking of metal came from down the corridor. Oliver turned to peer to his right and his face brushed against the grate. A hundred tiny needles of pain stabbed him.

Careful not to repeat his mistake, he looked through the grate. A chorus of boot heels greeted him. Then he saw the first of the Atlantean guards and found himself frozen, hands against the door.

Atlantean guards and soldiers passed his cell. Their marching had a thunderous rhythm, like horses drawing a carriage. A grim-faced Yucatazcan paraded Collette past him, her head hanging in defeat, her neck red and swollen.

“Coll?” he said.

She glanced at him, but the guard shoved her through the still-open door of her cell. Collette fell to the stone floor, cursing quietly.

Oliver ought to have been relieved. His sister was still alive. But still he waited to exhale, wondering what had become of Julianna. Had she freed Frost, or had the Atlanteans killed her?

The guards ignored Collette, standing at attention, weapons held at the ready, and that was when Oliver saw her.

Julianna floated along the corridor, dangling from thin, oil-black tendrils that held her aloft like the strings of some horrid marionette. Some of them wrapped around her arms, holding them behind her back, wrists tied together. They encircled her waist and throat, and a single tug might be enough to end her life.

Oliver saw all of this. He saw the bruised and bloodied left side of her face—an injury startlingly similar to his own. Yet he focused on her eyes, which were wide with terror. Her chest rose and fell, and a reedy whisper of air slipped in and out of her lips—all the breath she could draw with the black smoke tendrils around her neck.

His lips silently formed her name.

Behind her came Ty’Lis. The sorcerer bore the physical signatures of Atlantis with his narrow face and greenish-white skin, but his golden hair was striking and he wore his yellow beard in a thick braid. In black robes with crimson trim, he seemed like the devil of some alien Hell.

He held his left hand up and from his wide sleeve flowed the black strings in which Julianna had been tangled.