Christopher Golden - Lost Ones

“You’re saying the Bascombes are alive? That the Wayfarer means to free them?”

Miss Tsing raised an eyebrow. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Coyote nodded once out of respect. “My thanks, but not just now.”

The door swung shut behind her. Coyote turned and left the patio. On the promenade he passed Ovid and his growing militia as they began a series of exercises. But he had no interest in causing mischief for Ovid Tsing at the moment.

Swiftly, he scrambled back up the ladder to the trolls’ balcony and then climbed a rope, swinging himself up onto the suspension bridge. He raced across, fleet as ever. On the other side, he moved from ladder to catwalk to the wooden struts holding up a little house that jutted out from the sheer cliff face of the western wall of the gorge.

Coyote slipped through an open window. The place had been his since shortly after he’d arrived in Twillig’s Gorge, won in a card game from an aging demigod and his satyr mate. They’d left the Gorge not long after. The blustering demigod had been an arrogant prick, and few seemed to miss him.

There were only four small rooms, including the kitchen, but at the rear of the little hanging house, Coyote had found a door, and beyond the door was a tunnel that led to a cavernous hollow that must have been excavated at the time the Gorge had first been settled. If the candles and blood spatters were any indication, it had once been used for worship. Black soot from burnt sacrifices painted the rock walls.

But that had been long ago. Now it was a den. There were new candles back there. As Coyote slipped through the door into the tunnel, he could see the flickering of yellow light on the walls. Inside the cavern, there were far more shadows than the candle flames could dispel. Darkness shimmered with the dancing light. He smelled food-the fish he’d brought the night before, most of it uneaten-and sighed.

On the floor of the cavern lay a huddled figure, sprawled on blankets and reading by candlelight. Reading was all she seemed to want to do these days. He understood that. Coyote rarely felt guilt, but on those few occasions it had been easier to slip into other worlds than to live in his own.

“You’ve got to eat,” he told her.

In the candlelight, Kitsune’s jade eyes gleamed brightly and her coppery fur flickered like fire. Her silken black hair framed her face and he caught his breath. They had never been lovers, always more like squabbling siblings. And tricksters could never trust one another when lust entered the picture. But her beauty was enough to make even his deceitful heart ache.

“I ate,” she replied without looking up.

“More than that.”

She sniffed and ignored him.

Coyote sat beside her and reached out to push the book down, forcing her to look at him. “I’ll be the last one, cousin, who ever calls you to task for hiding from things you don’t want to face. But it isn’t like you.”

Anger flared in those jade eyes. Her jaw clenched and unclenched and then she softened. Fury-at herself, at Oliver Bascombe, and at the world-smoldered until it became sorrow. “You know what I did. I betrayed them. I betrayed him.”

“You’re a trickster.”

“It’s different. I’d made a vow. A bond.”

“If you’d stayed behind, you’d have been killed, or Ty’Lis would have you in his dungeon, too,” Coyote reminded her.

Kitsune lifted her book and began to read again-or at least make a show of it.

“Is that why you’re hiding here?”

The fox woman ignored him.

Coyote stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants.

“Wayland Smith visited Virginia Tsing today.”

Kitsune flinched, then looked at him over the top of the book. “ Only Virginia Tsing?”

“So it seems. But if you wanted to make promises about the future of the Legend-Born, there’s no one better to talk to than that old woman. All of the faithful will listen to her.”

Jade eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, cousin?”

Coyote grinned. “Isn’t it obvious? Uncle has a plan to free the Bascombes. Your friend Oliver may survive this war, Legend-Born or not. I wonder if you’ll be happy to see him, should you come face-to-face. Even better, I wonder if he’ll be happy to see you.”

Kitsune set the book down and slowly rose to her feet. “You never know when to be quiet, do you?”

“Gets me in all sorts of trouble,” he agreed. “So, what now, cousin?”

Her anguish lay revealed for a moment, and then she composed herself, her expression turning grim.

“I don’t know. But if Oliver’s going to be free, then it’s time I freed myself as well. It’s time I did something to burn away my regrets. But we’ll stay away from him, cousin. It gnaws at me, but I don’t ever want to have to see my reflection in his eyes.”

Coyote nodded appreciatively. “The truth. It’s usually so unbecoming in a trickster, but it works for you.”

Kitsune strode toward him. “It’s our nature to be selfish. But this is too much. I’ve used your weakness to shield me, but the Atlanteans have slain too many of us, and they mean to murder the rest. They won’t stop until all the Borderkind are dead. It’s time to fight or die, Coyote.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? I was hoping to put it off for a while.”

“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.