“We go to war,” Kitsune said, her voice low and aching. “In case one or all of us should die, I wanted you to have my apology. Nothing more needs be said. If fate is kind, once we reach King Hunyadi, we will never encounter each other again.”
Night fell over Atlantis.
On the spiral dome of the kingdom’s great library, the Walker Between Worlds perched precariously and stared out across the city that comprised the entire island. In one hand he clutched the fox-headed walking stick that had become like a totem to him, and with the other he held onto the spire. His dark cloak floated out behind him.
Wayland Smith narrowed his eyes to study the troops that massed in the circular plaza below, then gazed out to the water’s edge, where strange ships awaited the soldiers they would take to war. The ships were like spiral palaces set atop Moorish castles, but all made of many-hued glass whose surface billowed as though alive. They floated upon the water like jellyfish, but each had a dozen small masts strung with sails that reflected back the world like silver mirrors.
King Hunyadi would not be pleased.
There had never been any question that Atlantis would attack. But it had been some years since Smith had been to these shores, and he would never have imagined them capable of mustering such an attack. Each separate detachment of troops in the plaza had several sorcerers garbed in black and gold, and at least one Atlantean giant. To the west lay a mountainous, volcanic island shrouded in dark smoke that issued from vents and craters and hid the city of the giants from view. Smith had no idea how many of these ancient monstrosities still lived on that shifting, volcanic rock, but he counted twenty-seven on the main island of Atlantis, right there in the plaza. He hoped none remained behind the shroud of smoke as reinforcements.
Dozens of Perytons circled in the sky above the island. Their green feathers were black in the darkness, and when they passed across the face of the moon, their antlers seemed to claw the air. Had he been anyone else, they would have seen him already and attacked. But Smith was the Wayfarer—the Walker Between Worlds. He had eons of practice at being unseen.
But he had already known about the soldiers and sorcerers, the giants and Perytons. What troubled him the most were the other things—the beasts of the deep. A sea dragon rippled in the waves offshore, a thing of such length that he could only think of Jormungand, the Northmen’s so-called world serpent. Three gigantic squidike creatures lay within the harbor, half in and half out of the water. It ought to have been impossible, but it seemed barely surprising in view of the sharks and eels that undulated through the night sky, swimming through the air as easily as they would underwater. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of octopi hung like parachutes in the sky above the glass ships of Atlantis.
At some silent signal, the troops in the plaza began to move out, marching toward the harbor with giants and sorcerers at their side and Perytons flying above.
Smith swore in a language that had been old before the legends of this world had been born. But there was nothing he could do just now, not alone. This was not his world. Not his war. Atlantis could not be allowed to prevail because it might trap him in this one world forever, but his only power to stop them lay in his ability as a puppeteer. He might not have a role to play on the field of battle, but he saw the skeins of fate in every world, and knew when to pull those strings.
At least, he always had.
Straightening, keeping his grip on the spire, Smith reached out with the tip of his cane. He waved it once, twice, and a third time, then tapped downward. Though nothing but the night surrounded the spiral dome of the Great Library of Atlantis, the cane struck something solid.
Smith stepped away from the building and began to descend a staircase of sky. He did not need the cane to find each step, tapping ahead of him like a blind man. Instinct guided him, and power summoned the steps before the soles of his boots touched them. The Wayfarer followed the steps in a downward curve that led to a fifth-story window. He slipped between worlds for an instant and then out again on the other side of the window.
Inside the library.
His passage went unnoticed amongst the cases and shelves displaying thousands of scrolls from an age that Atlantis barely remembered—an age that even Wayland Smith could hardly recall. Glass and pearl architecture created a labyrinth of knowledge, but he navigated it easily. When he came upon guards, he paused. They did not see him, but beyond them, where scrolls had been laid out upon a table, a sorcerer—perhaps a member of the High Council—paused and glanced around, frowning deeply, sensing a disturbance in the air.
The Wayfarer withdrew.
He had seen all he needed, now. At the table, bent studiously over the scrolls the sorcerer had set out, there had been a young, olive-skinned boy with dark, serious eyes.
Prince Tzajin lived.
Damia Beck lay on her bedroll inside her tent. The wind whistled like distant ghosts passing by outside. Far off she could hear the snort and neigh of horses and the low mutter of voices from the soldiers on watch and those who were unable to sleep. Her left shoulder burned where the Battle Swine had gored her, but a healing poultice had already done wonders. Still, her body ached. Sleep would have been a blessed gift, but it would not come easily, if at all.
A dog barked, off in the night, away from camp. She stiffened, wondering if it truly had been a dog, or the signal of some enemy. There were no dogs in camp. Likely it was some wild hound off in the woods or a house pet from one of the villages they had found abandoned on their march south. Three small villages had been evacuated, their residents taking shelter in the mountains or scattering to other towns where they might be safer. One had not been so fortunate. Most of the buildings had been burned to the ground. Old men had been cut down in the street. Women and children had been herded and then executed. Many of the corpses had been picked apart as though by vultures.
Every time Damia closed her eyes, she saw the bodies.
Yucatazcan soldiers had not done this. The Two Kingdoms had been at peace for a very long time. She had known and worked with southerners before. People were no different in other parts of the world, not fundamentally. They were all Lost Ones under the skin, all yearning for a home most had never known.
Whatever had happened in that village, she knew Atlantis must be at fault. Giants and Perytons must have broken away from the retreating Yucatazcan troops, the slaughter in the village a punishment of innocents, retribution for the humiliation they felt at being routed.
Smoke filled Damia’s nostrils, even now. She had bathed in the river near the ruined village, but the stink would not leave her. Perhaps it never would. And perhaps it never should. King Hunyadi might have been waiting for her battalion to arrive, but Commander Beck had been unable to simply leave the dead for animals and carrion birds to gnaw upon. They had lost most of a day digging a mass grave for the villagers. While the infantry dug, she had sent the cavalry out riding in search of any signs that the Atlanteans might still be in the area, but they had found nothing. The oni in her Borderkind platoon, Gaka, was an excellent tracker. His third eye saw things no one else would, and the trail of the giants led directly southward.
From the devastated village of Ashford, Damia had marched her battalion onward. They had lost most of a day and she wanted to make up some of that time. The commander did not halt her troops until long after dark to make camp.
Now they rested, as best they could. Damia wondered how many of them were having nightmares, tonight. Perhaps that explained why she could not seem to get to sleep herself. Dreaming might take her right back to the half-eaten dead of Ashford, lying in the street amidst the charred remains of their homes.
“Heaven help us all,” she whispered to the darkness of her tent, and the starry sky high above. She wished she could see the stars. Breathing the night air might help clear her mind. For a moment she considered leaving the tent.
Instead, she turned on her side and closed her eyes. Damia might be haunted, but she could not let her troops see. They had done the decent, honorable thing in Ashford, but for the sake of morale she had to appear confident and undaunted. They had to believe their commander had a hard edge to her soul.
Eyes closed, she saw the faces of the dead, and instead of drifting toward sleep, she felt more awake than ever. She listened to the wind outside, to the low garble of soldiers talking, and to the restless horses nearby. She caught herself waiting to hear the bark of that lost dog again, searching for its owners.