Lonesome Paladin

by S. M. Reine

  “We need to talk in private,” Lincoln said. “Without Herne.”

  “Of course. Just for a moment.” Sophie gazed up at Herne, offering him a smile.

  He smiled back down at her—a private, intimate smile. “You’ll find me soon?”

  “As soon as I can,” she said.

  Herne watched Lincoln guide Sophie away. The moment her back was turned, the sidhe guard’s expression shifted to one of suspicion.

  Lincoln had to tell Sophie what was what, for her own good.

  Except they stepped behind a trellis, and Sophie immediately picked up the pace, snagging Lincoln’s sleeve so that he had no choice but to follow along behind her. “I put my bag here,” she whispered, hiking up her skirt to leap off the patio. She dropped to the sand.

  Lincoln landed beside her in the shadows, out of the lamplight. “You what? What’s going on?”

  “Queen Titania told me that she plans to send us ‘back’ to Earth tomorrow morning. Obviously that’s not an option, as I do not belong on Earth, and you can’t return until you’ve connected Cèsar with his sister.” She dragged her backpack from underneath the patio, flipping open its top to remove her travel clothing. The boots, the swallowtail jacket, the pants. “Your daggers and the bašmu venom are in the front pocket, so don’t worry about being equipped. Now turn around. I want to change into my travel clothes.”

  As she changed, Lincoln watched the patio for Herne. He heard cloth sighing over skin, zippers going down and back up, the jangling of buckles.

  “The queen’s not planning to do anything about Cèsar,” he said, occupying himself by hanging the daggers on his belt. Even though they were far from his preferred weapon, he found the weight pleasant. Almost as good as having a sidearm.

  “I saw a map in Titania’s bedroom. We can steal one of the fishing boats to follow the coast down to the Winter Court’s Veil before daybreak. As long as we stay in the shallows, we shouldn’t need to contend with any monsters of the Summer Court’s deep, even in this darkness.”

  “What were you doing in the queen’s bedroom?” Lincoln asked.

  “She summoned me there to talk, of course,” she said.

  Someone on the nearest corner of the patio cried out in orgasm.

  “Titania said that there are killer unicorns at the Veil,” Lincoln said, massaging his temples.

  “She mentioned the falhófnir to me as well. Here we go, you can look again.” Sophie was completely dressed, even going so far as to remove the white wrap from her hair. She handed her backpack to Lincoln. “I believe you’re stronger than me. We’ll move faster if you carry that. Now run!”

  “Run where?” he asked.

  Sophie had already broken into a run.

  Lincoln swore under his breath and raced after her.

  He only had to keep up to the edge of the water, where Sophie ducked behind dunes. Frogs scattered when Sophie crashed through the brush, and fireflies erupted from the grass to whirl toward the illusion of starlight.

  “Here,” Sophie whispered, dredging a canoe from its mooring. She tossed Lincoln a paddle and climbed in the front. He took the rear. Between the two of them, they shoved free of the sand, caught a wave, and drifted into the deep.

  They paddled along the shore for uneventful hours. Sometimes they drifted over bioluminescent algae or glimpsed fish eating each other, but in waters this shallow, it was quiet but for the sloshing of waves against shoal.

  Sophie had tired of paddling after a few minutes, but Lincoln kept propelling them southward. She reclined against the front of the canoe with her arms rested on either side.

  “I must say, Herne was fascinating companionship for a few hours,” Sophie said. “He has many insights into the social structures of budding sidhe civilization, largely formed from the core gentry’s pre-Genesis clique dynamics. Do you realize that Oberon originates from a rock band called The Forbidden? Apparently they were a very big deal in the old world!”

  Of course Lincoln had heard of The Forbidden. They’d put out multiple platinum albums and won more awards over their career than any other metal band.

  He’d listened to them in his brief rebellious teenage phase. Music by angry guys wearing makeup had been an easy way to scare his mom. And Oberon hadn’t been in the band. Lincoln wasn’t gonna admit he could identify their members, though. “Herne was talking crap to impress you. You’ve gotta be careful having any faith in people, Sophie. You don’t know him.”

  “I don’t know you, either. Should I trust you?”

  “I’m different,” Lincoln said. “Used to be in law enforcement.”

  “And you regard being the disciplinary tool of a monarchy as trustworthy?”

  “You’ve got strong opinions about a country you know nothing about,” he said. “We’re not a monarchy. We’re a democracy, and we’ve earned it with the blood of our brave soldiers. This is how I chose to protect my democracy. Law enforcement.”

  “Law enforcement is uniformly a weapon of the state, and the state is universally the enemy of its people.”

  The anger simmered inside Lincoln, just below the breaking point. His hands hurt from holding the paddles so tightly. “You don’t have to agree with my life’s work to benefit from the safer world I’ve made. And I don’t do it for thanks.”

  “Why did you do it?” Sophie asked.

  It might have been the low rhythm of rushing waves, but her question had a sinister tone. Not, Why dedicate your life to justice? But, Why did you commit your sins?

  In the darkness, the expanse of black water may as well have been the black stone of Mount Anathema in Dis.

  Plink. Plink. Plink. He heard footsteps against water—feet paddling against the surface. Like someone in boots walking across a shallow pond.

  He couldn’t resist. He looked up.

  To their aft, the quiet coastal edge of Falias glowed with shimmering golden light. The streets looked like spider web spread over the hillside. Alfheimr was a smudge brighter than the rest, reflected vertically on the ocean.

  To the fore, Elise walked alongside the boat, sword swinging at her hip, her boot treads barely touching the moon-tipped waves. She shot Lincoln a sideways look. She lifted an eyebrow.

  Why did you do it?

  He ducked his head.

  “Protecting people’s what I do,” Lincoln said finally. “That’s why I’m running toward killer unicorns, accompanied by a woman who thinks my job is garbage, with no plan of how to survive.”

  “I do have a plan. Look inside my backpack,” Sophie said. Lincoln pulled the paddle in, allowing his burning shoulders to rest. He flipped open the backpack and extracted a pile of leather straps. “Herne gave me a tour of the stables where the stallions are kept. I stole bridles. They’re magical.”

  “That’s your plan? Magical bridles against killer horses?” He glanced toward Elise, silently seeking validation. This is crazy, right? But the vision of the woman was gone again. Lincoln was alone.

  “I’m willing to entertain any superior plan you may have, Mr. Marshall,” Sophie said.

  “Point taken.” He resumed paddling when the canoe’s belly scraped sand, pushing them into slightly deeper water.

  “By the way, Herne told me that you went to the Falias cathedral today,” Sophie said. “He told me that God refused to see you.”

  He clenched his teeth against the pain that swelled in his chest. “Yeah.” Good thing it was so dark. Lincoln couldn’t control his emotions, and he didn’t want to humiliate himself by going red all over.

  “Do you believe the queen’s version of events?” Sophie asked.

  “Why would she lie about that?”

  “Power,” she said. “Control.”

  “You can’t fake an ethereal church, Sophie. It’s angel masterwork. Exactly the kind of place God lived in before Genesis.”

  “Then I’m sorry,” Sophie said gently, leaning forward to rest a hand on his knee. Her skin shone deep blue in the moonlight. “It must have real
ly hurt you to be rejected. I understand how important this was.”

  She couldn’t understand. When Lincoln had heard about NKF in Alfheimr, it was like seeing daylight for the first time after Genesis all over again. A speck of hope in a bleak world.

  Lincoln’s life had gone colorless again.

  “It’s gotta be my fault,” Lincoln said. “I’ve committed sins. Too many sins. I don’t deserve to talk to Him.”

  “Is that so? Tell me, where did you get this supreme knowledge about the intent of the gods?” Sophie asked.

  “I spent my whole life going to church twice a week.” Sundays and Wednesdays. Plus a few days in between for potlucks, Monday Night Football, and whatever else the community was getting up to.

  “Ah.” Sophie’s head bobbed in a nod. “And God was in attendance?”

  “It had sure felt like it.” From his earliest warm memories snuggled between his parents on hard wooden pews to an adulthood watching over parishioners, he’d always felt like God was with him.

  “You must have gone to quite the church, then, if it would be worthy of God’s direct attention.”

  “It was a little place in my hometown,” he said. “But God’s omnipotent and omnipresent. He cared as much about the small places as the big ones. I gave my whole damn life to God and got my fair share of time in His house, but I fucked it up. I fucked all of it up.”

  “So you are confident that your sins are the reason NKF would not speak to you?”

  “What else could it be?”

  “I don’t know. I confess I’m not familiar with any of the recent gods.”

  “Why is that?” Lincoln asked. “You know the weirdest shit. It’s like you’re a thousand years old.”

  Sophie straightened, giving him an expression so serious it verged on silly. “What has been forgotten by all others is my burden to bear. The story of the gods who came before is my story. It’s the reason I have always, until recently, been protected by the likes of Tristan and Omar—great warriors whose names you wouldn’t know, because they abandoned infamy to serve me selflessly. I am the Historian, you see!”

  She announced that final line with so much pomp that Lincoln expected to hear trumpets.

  A frog croaked among the reeds. Fish splashed past them.

  “Oh, yeah, a historian,” Lincoln said.

  She gave that weird cackle, falling back against the hull again. “There’s no need to nod as though you know what I’m saying. Few people have heard of the Historian and fewer know that I am real.”

  “You’re like a Librarian, right?” Lincoln had dealt with Librarians in the City of Dis while possessed by a demon. They were historians in a way. They documented everything that ever happened, no matter how minute.

  “A Historian is the Betamax to the Librarians’ VHS,” Sophie said, dipping her paddle into the water for the first time in hours. She guided them nearer an estuary where river opened into ocean.

  “If you know Betamax, you’ve gotta be older and nerdier than me,” Lincoln said. “Nobody used Betamax. But I get your point. You mean that Historians and Librarians do the same thing, but Librarians are more popular.”

  “Our knowledge has distinct origins. The Librarians’ information is revisionist—history written by winners. On the other hand, the Historian exists to document the rest of history.”

  “Loser history,” Lincoln said.

  “The story of the oppressed and conquered.” Sophie lifted her chin with pride. “Each generation bears a sole Historian—a mundane mortal imbued with inviolable truth—and we alone carry the secret history of the Worlds and Gods Who Came Before.”

  The front of the canoe struck mud sodden with brackish water. Sophie leaped out, nimble in her boots, and yanked the front of the boat until it was no longer lifted by the waves.

  Lincoln clambered out with the bag, soaked to the knees. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you’re the only one of these secret Historians, which nobody knows about, and you know things that nobody else can verify.” And she wanted him to trust that.

  “Exactly!” she said cheerfully. “The map says that the Veil to the Winter Court spirals from the trees just south of here. What say we wrangle some murderous unicorns?”

  CHAPTER 16

  When the estuary’s marshy shore veered north, Sophie kept walking south, toward a strange shimmer in the sky. From the water, it had looked like faint fog; as they grew nearer, Lincoln could make out a rippling effect that curved toward the stars.

  He stopped Sophie at the tree line, where the flora was sparse enough for moonlight to reach the ground. “I should scout ahead,” Lincoln said. “Stealth’s easier with fewer numbers, so you need to stay here with the bag.”

  “The falhófnir will kill anybody who isn’t pure enough to tame them, won’t they?” Sophie asked.

  “Then if I wanna tame them, I’ll call you,” he said through gritted teeth.

  She ducked her head. “No, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be a suitable candidate for that.”

  “How’s anyone get purer than a sheltered bookworm who doesn’t even know America isn’t a monarchy?”

  “I cannot predict the laws of gods, but that doesn’t mean I have not sinned.” For a brief instant, she looked sad enough that he thought about pulling her into his arms, like that could possibly make anything better. “It will require both of us to safely bridle the falhófnir. We must remain together.”

  “I’m just going to go look,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. All right?”

  “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” Sophie asked.

  “Whatever it is,” he said, “just make sure not to get killed.”

  The forest remained marshy as he walked deeper. Vines dangled from the branches, wrapped around tree trunks, and tickled him as he passed. He slapped them away without even looking.

  He felt the mares before he saw them. The base of his skull hurt. The trees seemed to walk toward him on roots made of snakes, forcing him to step sideways to progress between them. The ground slid under his feet to flip positions with the sky every time he blinked.

  Then he heard the music. He couldn’t make out the melody; he only knew that his body wanted to move to its rhythm, as if his shoes had become enchanted.

  Moments later, the light appeared. It shined from between the tree trunks, slicing the world into a thousand vertical bars and turning the forest a uniform shade of blue-gray.

  Lincoln lowered to his knees, closing the remaining distance on all fours. He peered over the bushes to get his first glance at the mares.

  The wild falhófnir didn’t look like horses. Sure, they had four legs, arched necks, and elongated faces. But they also had long beards that floated more like vapor than hair. An opalescent sheen slithered over their fur like oil on water. Their proportions shifted as they moved, as if viewed through a funhouse mirror. And the yard-long spirals of bone jutting from their brows were miniature suns.

  They grazed in a crescent-shaped meadow half the size of a football field with a sheer vertical mountain face behind them. A crevice as wide as Lincoln was tall permitted passage into a canyon, but the Veil blocked its entrance.

  On this side, the world was locked in summertime. The trees bloomed with fruit. The grass grew so tall that it reached the knees of even the tallest falhófnir. Fist-sized dandelions had turned into white puffs, and the faintest breath of wind sent their seeds swirling toward the sky.

  Beyond the Veil, there was only ice. The formations were huge, like stalactites and stalagmites. There were no trees, flowers, horses, or life.

  It was a desolate tunnel of wintry nothing.

  The world-warping effect of the Veil made Lincoln lose balance. He put a hand down to catch himself, and leaves crunched under him. A twig snapped.

  One of the falhófnir lifted its head to look for the source of sound.

  With a jolt, Lincoln realized that the mares had their eyes set on the front of their heads, much like wolves,
though their faceted eyes were more similar to the bašmu’s. It looked like someone had ripped out their eyeballs and replaced them with cut diamonds.

  After a moment, the alert mare resumed grazing amid its sistren at the heart of the pasture.

  Lincoln unhooked a dagger from his belt. The four-inch blade felt laughably small in his hand—too light to be a letter opener much less an instrument of murder.

  But these were only horses, even if they were fancy-pants Middle Worlds horses. Horses were stupid, fearful critters. He could pick them off one at a time.

  He’d have half the herd dead before Sophie realized he’d been gone too long.

  Lincoln hurled a pebble. It struck a tree trunk thirty feet away.

  The mare’s head snapped up again. This time, she stepped closer to the source of the sound, leaving behind the rest of the herd. Lincoln slipped into the trees behind her, following the swaying mist of her tail.

  He’d had just about drawn level to the falhófnir’s haunches when he glanced at the herd again. The change in angle meant he could see what they were eating for the first time.

  It wasn’t grass.

  The jewel-eyed mares were tearing into a pair of dead bodies.

  Seelie gentry, it looked like. Two men with skin the color of roses and exposed brains dribbling across the earth. The falhófnir shattered skull with delicate nibbles of their crushing jaws, then lapped at the matter inside with long gray tongues.

  And Lincoln had just lured one into the trees to confront her.

  He’d been silent following the isolated mare until now, but he couldn’t help sucking in a breath at the sight of the dead gentry.

  It was the tiniest sound.

  The unicorn’s head whipped around to look at him.

  “Damn!”

  She snapped with teeth stained by sidhe blood. Lincoln leaped between two undulating trunks, praying they were too tight for a barrel-chested unicorn to fit through.

  Equine body crashed against leaves. The unicorn erupted effortlessly on the other side.

  “Damn!” Lincoln swore again, breaking into a sprint.