Christopher Golden - The Borderkind

“Are you serious?” Collette said. “Isn’t this just a little convenient? Like, freakishly convenient?”

But Kitsune was not listening. She slipped her hood back and tilted her head, sniffing the air. Her eyes narrowed and she glanced down, then dropped into a crouch. Her fingers reached out into the shadows just to the right of the door and she plucked something from the ground. Only when she stood and held it up in the moonlight did Collette see what it was.

A green feather.

She shivered with the memory of the Hunters she had seen crouched around the rim of her prison, those scarecrow-thin creatures with their long, black talons, their heavy antlers, and wide, green-feathered wings.

“Perytons,” Kitsune said.

“What are they?” Julianna asked.

“Atlantean Hunters,” Oliver replied. He glanced at Kitsune. “The Falconer said the Hunters had been sent by Ty’Lis.”

“Pretend that some of us don’t know who the hell that is,” Collette told him.

Oliver ran a hand through his hair, eyes wandering as he sorted out his thoughts. “Atlantean sorcerer. Main advisor to King Mahacuhta. If he sent the Hunters, including the Perytons, then he was also the one who set the Sandman free, sent the fucker after us.”

Collette stiffened. “The one who gave the order to murder Dad.”

“Yeah.”

“So it would make sense if the Sandman made a door that would take him right to his new master,” Julianna said. She stared expectantly at Kitsune, and a glint in her eye suggested to Collette that the fox-woman’s jealousy had not gone unnoticed.

“Yes,” Kitsune confirmed. “It does make sense.”

“But we have no idea what’s on the other side of this door,” Oliver warned her.

“Then it’s a good thing you have that sword.”

Julianna turned, taking her hands from her pockets, and reached for the door. Collette tensed, awaiting some horror. Kitsune snapped that she should wait. But Julianna did not even pause. She swung the door wide.

On the other side was a well-lit, empty corridor of limestone and wood. Shouts and the sound of people running echoed along the walls. Julianna started forward but Kitsune grabbed her arm. The two women stared at one another icily, and then Oliver slipped between them and stepped into the corridor on the other side of the door.

He glanced both ways, then beckoned for them all to follow.

D iminished he might be, but Frost remained the winter man, a legend that stretched from ancient to modern times, the harbinger of the blizzard, the first snow of the season. With one possessed of such power, weakened did not mean weak. If anything, as he rushed through the corridors of the palace of King Mahacuhta, Frost felt reduced not to weakness but to the primal essence of his own legend.

Swift and deadly, he swept around corners and beneath doors, nothing but a frigid wind and a swirl of snow. He manifested a physical form-a jagged, cruel-eyed knife-blade of a creature-only when he encountered a member of the king’s guard alone.

When he touched their flesh, freezing bits of them instantly, and bared his icy teeth, they were anxious to answer his question. One single question. Where were the king’s personal chambers? Before Frost bothered to visit Ty’Lis, he wanted to know if Mahacuhta was aware of the Atlantean’s machinations. He wanted to know if the king was also his enemy.

The deeper he went into the palace, the cooler and drier the air became. Frost whipped along the walls, leaving a rime of ice as he passed, the moisture in the air freezing on every surface. He emerged into a large, open space, lavishly appointed and well lit, with a limestone staircase rising at one end of the room, up and up and up so that it seemed the entire purpose of this enormous palace was to encase those stairs. Twenty armed soldiers guarded them. Frost kept close to the wall, a gust of wind, but as he passed, the glass lamps cracked and burst, bulbs popped, and lights were extinguished.

The soldiers began to shout, drawing their weapons and searching the room for enemies.

By then Frost was halfway up the stairs.

At the top stood the heaviest wooden door he had ever seen, ornately carved with extraordinary figures of legend, birds of light and alligators that walked on two legs. There were images of jungles and temples and human sacrifice. In the midst of it was the royal emblem of King Mahacuhta, the crest of Yucatazca.

The winter man-the first breath of snowfall-blew under the door.

In a single moment, so many of his questions were answered.

This was not the king’s bedroom, but a large antechamber where His Majesty might relax or entertain guests. Tonight he had a number of guests, all of them surely unwelcome and uninvited. Three Perytons perched on the far side of the antechamber by a door that must have led into Mahacuhta’s bedroom. In a straight-backed, elegant chair with red silk cushions, a man had been bound with chains that shimmered with unnatural light. A black cloth gag had been stuffed into his mouth. Though bald and thin he had powerful features and a rich, dark complexion that made it impossible to discern his age. But the quality of his clothing alone was enough to identify him to Frost.

The Perytons guarded King Mahacuhta closely, green-feathered wings tight against their backs, antlers hanging low as they stood watch. And they were not alone. Seven soldiers were positioned about the antechamber, but Frost saw instantly that despite their Yucatazcan garb, these were Atlanteans.

Another chair, the lavish equal of the one in which Mahacuhta was bound, faced the king’s. Upon that seat, hands clasped in his lap, Ty’Lis sat casually. Frost had never seen the sorcerer before, but he bore the physical signs of Atlantis, the greenish-white skin and narrow features, and his crimson, black-trimmed robes were among the traditional garment choices for sorcerers from his nation.

Ty’Lis had golden hair so thick and wild it resembled a crest or mane, and a twist of braided beard hung from his chin.

The sorcerer glanced at the door even as the gust of cold air Frost had brought reached him. He smiled and his green eyes were lit with hard intellect.

Frost hesitated. Had he taken Ty’Lis unaware, he could easily have slain him. Face-to-face, the contest was in question, and with Perytons there as well…given an advantage, the savage Hunters would harry him, and the sorcerer destroy him.

Yet he had little choice now.

Ty’Lis did not rise from his chair, but he gestured toward Frost. “You’ve come alone. A brave myth, aren’t you?”

The sorcerer’s body began to emanate a strange aura of purple-black light, a glow that surrounded his entire form. He grinned with all the humor of a cadaver.

“You’ve come all this way, only to die. Before you rush headlong to your own destruction, aren’t you at least curious as to why?”

Manipulating the air, Frost forged himself anew, there by the door. The winter man stood just inside the king’s antechamber, a thin blade of a creature constructed of translucent ice and the very heart of the storm. Frost stared at Ty’Lis, hatred fuming in him, mist rising from his eyes. He tilted his head to one side, staring at his gathered enemies, and the icicles of his hair clinked together, frozen chimes.

“I know why.”

The Atlantean’s eyes widened. He glanced at the Perytons and said something in the lilting tongue of his own nation.

“Do you, really?” Ty’Lis asked. “Tell me of your conjecture, then.”

Frost had been formulating a theory of late and with every passing moment he became more certain of its truth. He glanced around at the Perytons and the Atlantean soldiers, set into a combat stance, ready to fight. No one moved. Chained to his chair and bound with magic, King Mahacuhta stared at the winter man with hope in his eyes.