Authors: Anne Bishop
Dalton nodded. “And whatever happened here happened fast enough that they left without breaking camp.”
“Then let’s take a look around.” Michael headed down the rise. He stopped when he reached the tents and tipped his head toward one, then the other. “Sebastian, give me a hand with this.”
Moving to the back of the tent, Michael wrapped a hand around the tent peg and waited until Sebastian held the front tent peg. They pulled out the pegs and flipped up that side of the tent, revealing the contents stored inside.
Blanket rolls. Packs. Water skins. Nothing Sebastian wouldn’t expect to see. Nothing Lee didn’t keep on the island when he was planning to sleep out for a few days while checking the bridges.
When they flipped up the side of the other tent…
“Guardians and Guides,” Dalton said.
A man lay on the ground, his body blackened. He might have been a young man, but his face and body were so broken, it was hard to tell.
“What happened to him?” Addison asked.
“Wizards’ lightning,” Sebastian replied, rubbing his thumb against two fingers. “He was struck by wizards’ lightning. Looks like he was beaten first, but he was killed by the lightning.”
“Maybe he was trying to help Lee fight off a wizard,” Dalton said.
“Whatever he was doing here, I’m thinking he wasn’t a friend to Lee,” Michael said, pointing to the small plants that began poking out of the ground around the man’s head.
Even when they were tiny plants, stinkweed was
vile.
The men backed away.
“All right,” Sebastian said. “Assuming the world knows how to count”—he looked at Michael, who shrugged—“five people crossed over to this landscape—one of
Nadia’s
landscapes—and made camp. At least one of them was a wizard. Now they’re gone. So is Lee. And the only one left in their camp is a dead man. How did they get here, and how did they leave?” He had his own ideas about
how
, but he wanted to hear what the other men had to say.
“Those planks over the creek,” Dalton said thoughtfully, looking in that direction. “The bridge that linked Wizard City to the landscape Wizard Koltak traveled through to find you wasn’t any different. If that fellow was a Bridge, that could explain how the wizard and his men got here, but not why they stopped here. The wizards who are roaming free in the landscapes still want to destroy Belladonna. Why stop here?”
“Maybe this is as close as they
could
get,” Sebastian said. “It took Koltak days to reach me in the Den, and I don’t think any wizard or Dark Guide has been able to reach any place held by Glorianna Belladonna since then.”
Dalton stiffened. “But if they had someone like Lee, a Bridge who
could
get them into her landscapes…”
Sebastian nodded. “A Landscaper, a Bridge, even the thrice-damned wizards would know bridges are checked regularly. Wouldn’t be hard to guess that Lee had made most of the bridges in Nadia’s landscapes. All they needed to do is find one and wait for him to show up.”
“Doesn’t explain what happened to them,” Addison said.
“One-shot resonating bridge,” Michael replied quietly. “When Lee and I were in Raven’s Hill, he tossed a stone at a man who was about to start a
tavern brawl. The man disappeared before our eyes. Lee didn’t know where the man had gone, just that he’d gone to a landscape that resonated with his heart at that moment.”
“Probably not a good place if he was about to start a brawl,” Sebastian said.
“Probably not,” Michael agreed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Whatever problems Lee has with Glorianna and me, there’s one thing about the man I’m sure of: when he realized there was a wizard among those men, he did whatever he could to protect his mother and sister.”
“He couldn’t get to the island,” Sebastian said softly. “Couldn’t get away.”
“So he grabs some stones and puts enough of the Bridges’ power into them to make them one-shot resonating bridges, trying to get those men away from here,” Michael said.
Sebastian nodded. “You throw a few resonating bridges into a tangle of limbs and angry hearts…Guardians and Guides, Michael. Lee could be anywhere now.”
“He could be anywhere,” Michael agreed. “And he probably didn’t go with those other men willingly.”
Sebastian sighed. “We need to get back and tell the others.”
“You go on,” Michael said. “I’ll meet you at the horses.”
Sebastian, Dalton, and Addison walked away from the tents. As they approached the broken planks, the stinkweed and turd plants sank into the ground, leaving bare earth.
A few minutes later, Michael joined them.
“We saw what we were supposed to see,” Michael said. “Didn’t seem right to leave those nasty plants in Nadia’s landscape—or to leave a body aboveground, no matter what part he had played in Lee’s disappearance.”
No, it didn’t seem right, Sebastian thought as they mounted and rode back to the cairn and the border that would bring them closer to home. None of it seemed right. But even if Lee
had
been taken by a wizard or was just lost in the landscapes somewhere, he had an idea how they might find him. And judging by Michael’s thoughtful expression as they rode back to Aurora, the Magician had the same idea.
D
anyal removed the broom from the storage cupboard and began sweeping the floors of the two-room building he’d named the Temple of Sorrows and Joy.
It had been a month since his arrival at the Asylum, and it had taken some time for the Handlers and Helpers, as well as the inmates, to adjust to having a Shaman as the Asylum’s Keeper. He didn’t want this Asylum to be just a place of containment. He wanted it to be a place of healing, providing some of the same assistance to the inmates here as the Shamans gave to people who came to The Temples, the enclosed community in the heart of Vision that was the Shamans’ home and training ground.
At his request, his mentor, Farzeen, had sent him a set of gongs and chimes—the tools he had used when he had served in the Temple of Sorrow. And some of the inmates
were
beginning to find relief from their mental or emotional confusion by using the gongs. The release of anger, pain, disappointment, and life’s sorrows was starting to provide some peace, was allowing these people to give a voice to heart wounds that had been left untended.
Would that change the balance of Light and Dark in this part of the city?
Danyal paused as he felt the world’s whispers shiver through him.
The Asylum was in a part of Vision that was considered a shadow place—a place that was neither light nor dark because it was both and could be found by almost anyone. But no two shadow places were alike. Some were the cool, deep shade found beneath old trees. Some were caverns that could reveal wonders. And some were cold, stagnant places full of creatures with poisoned stingers.
The Shaman Council was right. Something had come to Vision and was scratching around the shadow places, turning some of them dark in a way that hid them from Shamans’ eyes. He wasn’t familiar with this part of the city, so he didn’t know what he couldn’t see, but as he walked the streets around the Asylum to become acquainted with the shops and the people, he sensed disturbing pockets of
absence
that made him think a building or even a whole street was beyond his ability to see it and, therefore, protect it.
Peace
, Danyal thought as he resumed his sweeping.
If you can’t guide your own heart to peace, how can you show the path to others?
He heard someone running on the path toward the building, heard the clatter on the stairs. Then Kobrah burst in. Her already flushed face turned redder when she saw him.
“Shaman Danyal,” she said, flustered. “I’m supposed to sweep the floor.”
“Yes, you are,” he replied calmly. “But today I’m sweeping the floor. You can do the dusting, then help me set out the mats and gongs.”
Her hands fisted in her ankle-length skirt. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
He glanced at her. She should have been a well full of sweet, clean water. Instead, she was a broken well full of sharp stones hidden under a few inches of dark, frigid water. Through correspondence with Nalah, his nephew Kanzi’s wife, he had learned some things about Kobrah and the pain that had shaped her. What he couldn’t tell was how much of the darkness in her had been there before Kobrah, Nalah, and two others had escaped their village. And yet…
He didn’t stop sweeping, didn’t break the rhythmic sound of broom on floor, but he glanced at her again.
Something different.
There was a little more water now at the bottom of that broken well, and it wasn’t as frigid.
“Have you made a friend?” he asked casually.
Kobrah had been dusting the gongs and the shelves built under the windows. Now she stopped and turned—and Danyal felt the stones in her well shifting and becoming sharper.
“She told you?” Kobrah’s voice was harsh, hateful. Pained.
Danyal stopped sweeping and gave her his full attention. “If you have confided in someone, your trust was not betrayed. I asked because you seem happier.” He gestured to the gongs. “I would like to take credit for lifting some of the weight from your heart, but I don’t think I’m the reason you’ve been smiling lately.”
Kobrah stared at him, want and wariness in her face.
“I am a Shaman,” he said gently. “I know how to listen.”
When she continued to stare, he went back to sweeping.
She watched him for a minute. Then, “His name is Teaser. He comes from a place called the Den of Iniquity. He says it’s a dark landscape, but it’s not a bad place.”
She clearly wanted—or expected—him to react badly, so Danyal just went to the cupboard for the dustpan. “What else does Teaser say?” he asked.
She studied him a while longer before she told him that Teaser was from a race called incubus and his best friend was an incubus-wizard named Sebastian who was also the Den’s Justice Maker.
Strange words. Mostly likely this friend was someone she had imagined, since Guards did walk the Asylum’s grounds at night and would have noticed Kobrah and a stranger—or an inmate—taking a walk in the moonlight.
“How does he reach the Asylum?” Danyal asked.
“Through the twilight of waking dreams.”
A little breeze brushed the back of Danyal’s legs like a friendly cat, as if to encourage him to believe the words.
A shiver ran through him. That breeze seemed too
aware
to be something natural.
With effort, he pushed that thought aside and focused on Kobrah and what she had told him.
He would send a note to the Shaman Council this evening, but he didn’t think this den of iniquity was a part of Vision. That left the question of
where
it was and how someone could travel through dreams.
Many roads led to this city, but few things beyond the city seemed able to set hooks deeply enough to bring in something alien. At least until now.
Which made him wonder again about Zhahar and why he often felt three heart-cores in her instead of one—and why he usually felt the three when she was tired or distracted and, therefore, less able to keep some truth hidden from the one person who sensed she was different. Him.
“He sounds like an interesting man,” Danyal said as he set a gong in front of each mat Kobrah had positioned in a circle.
“Yes.”
There was no trust in Kobrah’s voice. She had confided in him. Now she would wait to see what he did with her words.
Having prepared the room he used to help people release sorrow, he and Kobrah went into the room set aside for joy. In silence they swept and dusted, and the wind chimes sang at their touch.
As part of his morning and evening ritual, he chose a wind chime that had a particular sound. Then he walked the grounds, letting it ring with his movement. Bright notes to encourage bright thoughts and lift hearts toward the Light.
Today he chose one of the larger wind chimes.
“Could I…sometime…?”
He looked at Kobrah. Her eyes were fixed on the chime. That gave him hope for her, so he held it out.
When she smiled at him, he saw the girl she had been before dark acts had twisted her life.
He waited until he heard the chimes moving away from the temple. Then he walked over to the main building and went into the room that held the Handlers’ lock bins—and saw a strange woman standing in front of Zhahar’s open bin, pulling out her blue work jacket.
She had dark brown hair and dark eyes. There was a jagged, raised scar
that ran down her left forearm from elbow to wrist. On her left bicep was a tattoo of a heart inside a triangle.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice ringing with the authority and power of a Shaman.
Storms. Floods. Landslides. That’s what he felt when her eyes locked with his.
Dangerous. And somewhat familiar.
“I’m Zeela,” she finally said. “Zhahar’s sister.”
Her answer left him caught on a frozen pond, with the ice suddenly cracking beneath his feet. A careless move would destroy more than his own life. He was sure of it.
He took a step toward her—and felt the calm summer lake he associated with Zhahar as well as brooks full of bright water.
He had never experienced such confusion in a person who was supposed to be sane. And yet it didn’t
feel
like confusion. Which made no more sense than a person with three heart-cores.
“Has something happened to Zhahar?” he asked.
“No,” Zeela replied. “And nothing will while I’m around.”
He glanced at her boot. “Is that why you carry a knife?”
“I carry more than one.” She tipped her head toward the sliding door that closed off a washroom and toilet. “She’s in there.”
“What happened?” he asked. He had loaned a book to Zhahar for her sister, but he didn’t think this woman had much interest in books.
Those dark eyes studied him, and he felt the storms getting closer.
“A woman down the street from where we live was attacked last night. She isn’t expected to live through the day. She might have survived the violence done to her body, but her mind was damaged as well, and in the end that is what will kill her. Zhahar can be tough when she needs to be, but Sholeh…”