Authors: Anne Bishop
An odd pause. Then Lee shrugged and tapped the gong—and flinched. “Guardians and Guides.”
When the sound faded, he struck the gong again, harder. The third time he struck the gong, tears began rolling down his face and his teeth were clenched.
Lee was full of summer storms that offered a fierce kind of cleansing. Danyal had doubts about the man, but the pain in Lee’s heart was real.
When Zhahar picked up a mallet and struck a gong, doubling the sound that lanced heart wounds, Lee let out an anguished cry and collapsed.
Danyal caught him, held him tight, and asked quietly, “Do you know the cause of this sorrow? Can you give it a name?”
“Glorianna,” Lee sobbed. “My sister, Glorianna.”
“Why does your sister cause you such pain?”
“She’s gone. She’s gone. I lost her.”
Zhahar sucked in a breath and looked stricken.
“You’ve been angry with her for leaving you,” Danyal said, rocking the weeping man. “You’ve been hurt and angry and grieving, haven’t you?”
“Y-yes.”
“Perhaps it’s time to heal.”
The hurt and anger and grief went deep in this man. It wouldn’t be healed in a day. But healing the heart was something Danyal could help Lee do.
After that, he would decide how far the man could be trusted.
Z
eela strode down the shadow street, and everything about the way she moved told the men watching her from dark doorways that she had business on this street and wasn’t looking for company.
Halfway down the second block, she spotted the Apothecary’s sign.
Shaman Danyal had spent two evenings walking this street and the surrounding ones, looking for this shop. When Zhahar suggested letting her sister find the Apothecary, he hadn’t been happy about sending a woman but had agreed to let Zeela try.
Of course, the Shaman wasn’t aware that Zeela had had dealings with the Apothecary before and wouldn’t have any trouble finding the shop.
*Don’t be smug,* Zhahar scolded. *He really is concerned about you being here.*
=I know.= She was also fairly certain that, good man or not, the Shaman wouldn’t let Zhahar keep her job another minute if he found out they were Tryad and what that meant. But that was an opinion she took pains to keep from both her sisters.
She opened the shop door and took a swift look around. This wasn’t business she wanted to transact when there were other customers present.
When she reached the counter at the back of the shop, the Apothecary pushed aside the thin curtain that separated the shop from his work area.
“What can I do for you today?” he asked pleasantly.
Apothecaries were shadowmen, neither good nor evil. Like the streets where their shops were located, they couldn’t be found by everyone, but those who could find them came from the Light as well as the Dark. They made what their customers asked them to make, and it was said that whether they were good or evil depended on the person standing on the other side of the counter.
It was also said that the potion in the bottle could turn against the person buying it if that person lied to the Apothecary.
Zeela pulled the bottle of eyedrops out of her trouser pocket and set it on the counter with the label facing the Apothecary. “I need this refilled.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She withdrew money from her other pocket, set it on the counter beside the bottle, and fanned the bills enough to show him it was the standard amount he charged for information. Whatever he might put in a bottle to justify the visit was never more than an additional token fee.
“I would like this bottle refilled with information about who first bought it and why.” She saw him hesitate, so she added, “I’m asking on behalf of a Shaman.”
“Ah.” The Apothecary relaxed a bit. “A man who doesn’t know enough to mind his own business. Or so I’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard he doesn’t let anyone tell him what should be his business. The man these drops were used on? He’s now the Shaman’s business.”
He nudged the bottle with a fingertip. “First bottle? Pain and cloudy eyes. Blindness. But once the drops are no longer used, sight will gradually return, although it might never be all that it was. Second bottle?” He shook his head. “Destroys the eyes. Permanently.”
“Is there anything that can help reverse the damage already done?”
“Perhaps.” He studied her, then went behind a curtain. When he returned, he set another bottle on the counter, along with a pair of dark glasses. “Two drops in each eye, morning and evening. After the drops go
in, put a cool, damp cloth over the eyes to soothe. Sunlight will be painful while the eyes are healing—might even cause damage, so be careful.”
“When this bottle is used up…”
“This much will fix whatever can be fixed.”
*Lee might still be blind,* Zhahar said, sounding fretful.
=He might,= Zeela agreed.
::But we’ll help him,:: Sholeh said.
“What do I owe you for these?” Zeela asked, waving a hand over the eyedrops and dark glasses.
Another long look. He pocketed the money she’d already placed on the counter. “This is enough.”
Giving him a nod of thanks, she slipped the bottle into her trouser pocket. After a moment’s thought, she tucked the glasses under her shirt, between her breasts.
“Two other things, because you came on behalf of the Shaman,” the Apothecary said. “First, he should not wander the shadow streets for a while. Something has been slithering in the corners lately, and the shadow streets have gotten darker because of it—and I’ve heard whispers that what slithers would like to silence those who are the voice of the world.”
Zeela suppressed a shiver. There was something out there that posed a threat to the Shamans?
“Second,” the Apothecary continued, “the men who purchased that first bottle were killed last night.”
Zeela felt Zhahar and Sholeh’s fear, but she held herself quiet—and ready. “How?”
“They were struck by lightning. Both of them.”
She frowned. “There was no storm last night.”
“This lightning came out of an alley and burned through them. It wasn’t a kind death. They screamed as they burned, but there was nothing anyone could do to help them. I’ve heard rumors that other men have died that way in the northwestern community—good men who asked too many questions.”
“A strange death, to be sure,” Zeela murmured.
“Stranger still because the city guards had been around that very afternoon,
looking for those men. Made the citizens of our little street wonder if those men had become an inconvenience to someone.”
“I’ll pass along the information.” She turned and walked swiftly to the front of the shop.
As she reached for the door, he said, “Travel lightly.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “Travel lightly.”
Slipping out the door, she strode up the street, straining to hear anything, everything. Knives and brass knuckles weren’t going to keep them safe against an enemy who controlled lightning.
*Whoever killed those men can’t connect you to the Asylum,* Zhahar said.
=Not yet anyway.=
::What should we do?:: Sholeh asked.
*Give the eyedrops and glasses to Shaman Danyal tonight,* Zhahar said.
Zeela didn’t like feeling so uneasy, but she was their Tryad’s defender for a reason. =We aren’t going home tonight. Women aren’t safe after dark anymore in our part of the city. Zhahar, you need to figure out some excuse to stay at the Asylum tonight.=
*We don’t have any clean clothes.*
=Shaman Danyal will have to give us time to go home and get some in the morning, because we’re not going tonight.=
::You’re afraid of that lightning,:: Sholeh said. ::I am too.::
Zeela growled and lengthened her stride. Not enough people out, even now when she was away from the shadow streets.
*I’ll think of a reason,* Zhahar said quietly.
Zeela didn’t say anything. She didn’t breathe easy until they were in Shaman Danyal’s office, handing over the eyedrops and glasses—and telling him everything the Apothecary had said.
D
anyal watched Lee from a distance, letting Zhahar and Kobrah deal with the man. They helped him at meals and led him to the toilet and bathing room. They walked him to the temple, where he struck the gongs and released a little more of the sorrow in his heart. The rest of the time he spent on the screened porch, sitting quietly, which gave Zhahar time to tend to the other inmates in her care.
As a Shaman, Danyal walked the grounds of the Asylum, much as he’d walked the streets of Vision in the years before he’d been assigned to the Temple of Sorrow. And he walked around the porch thrice a day, making his presence a balance between the world and the troubled hearts confined to this place, and making himself available to anyone, inmate or staff, who wanted to talk.
This time he stopped when he came abreast of the woven lounge chair Lee occupied.
“You look content,” Danyal said quietly. Lee’s eyes were closed. Zhahar had been putting the eyedrops in morning and evening, but it was too soon to expect any change in the cloudiness. Still, he would like to see the man’s eyes.
And he was curious what Lee might have seen in his own eyes.
“I am content,” Lee replied with a smile. “There is shade, a breeze, a comfortable chair, water to drink, and I have nothing to do.”
“Would you like something to do?”
Lee laughed. “Daylight, no. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had the luxury of doing nothing for this many days?”
“How long has it been?” Danyal asked, lacing his voice with amusement.
“Since I finished my training at the Bridges’ School and started traveling to maintain the bridges needed to connect various landscapes. Even when I stayed over a day somewhere to rest, there was always the weight of duty.” Lee’s good humor faded. “But a blind man can’t wander through the landscapes on his own, so that duty isn’t mine anymore.”
And that’s both a relief and a sorrow for you
, Danyal thought. “Come along. On your feet.”
Lee tensed. “Why?”
“We’re going to take a walk.”
“Why would anyone want to take a walk in this heat?”
Not hostile, but definitely the tone of a man who wasn’t used to taking orders—and was wary of obeying most of the ones he was given.
Danyal looked at the screened window above the chair where Lee sat.
“Because I would like to understand you better,” he said. “Because the room behind you is currently unoccupied and has a window that looks out onto the porch—and it gets the cooler night air. Because I could decide you are rational enough to be given that room and some privileges instead of being returned to an isolation cell after the evening meal.”
“Be lazy and stay in isolation or take a walk and get a real room.” Lee swung his legs off the lounge chair and got to his feet. “You drive a hard bargain, Shaman. You’re an amateur compared to my mother, but still, you drive a hard bargain.”
“Put on your glasses, then take my arm,” Danyal said. After Lee put on the dark glasses and wrapped a hand around Danyal’s upper arm, they headed toward one of the porch doors that opened onto the grounds. Danyal nodded to Nik, who unlocked the door and held it open for them. “Two steps down.”
They navigated the steps, then headed off on one of the paths toward the decorative water garden that was shaded by palm trees—a mystery whose sudden appearance had startled the groundskeepers and unsettled him.
“Waterfall?” Lee asked when they paused.
“A created one,” Danyal replied. “And a clever one. The cascade of water over a series of stone ledges produces a restful, pleasing sound. A small windmill drives the pump that circulates the water. It has a crank, so when there is no wind, it can be manually turned. There are plants in and around the water that the groundskeepers are not familiar with, as well as several gold and white fish with long, graceful tails.”
“Koi.”
“What?”
“The fish. They’re called koi. There’s a koi pond in”—Lee paused—“a place I used to visit. Is there a bench nearby?”
“There is.” Danyal studied Lee. “This was a stagnating reflecting pool surrounded by weeds during the tenure of the last Keeper. Despite our groundskeepers’ best efforts, the reflecting pool remained unpleasant and unclean. Two days ago, it disappeared, replaced by this waterfall and pond, and these unknown plants and fish. How would you explain that?”
“Either this was here all along and so overgrown no one realized what it was, or Ephemera made a swap in response to someone’s heart, and now some country home in some other landscape has a stagnating reflecting pool surrounded by weeds instead of a pretty water garden.”
“Or? I did hear the silence of a third possibility.”
Lee turned his head in Danyal’s direction. “Or you’re more than you say you are, and Ephemera made this because you wanted a pretty water garden for the people here.” He waited a beat, then added, “But I’d bet on the swap. You might be able to guide the world into shaping the waterfall, pond, and plants, and even bringing in the fish, but it couldn’t make the windmill and pump. People made those.”
Dumbfounded, Danyal just stared. “Are you saying the city
stole
this water garden for the Asylum?”
“No, I’m saying
Ephemera
stole it for the Asylum. It’s getting to be a fairly clever thief,” Lee finished in a mutter.
A moment later, Lee stepped away from him. “Daylight! Did you just fart?”
“I did not,” Danyal replied coldly. Then he clamped a hand over his mouth and nose.
“Ah, shit.” Lee grimaced. “Sorry. That one is on me.”
The smell intensified and seemed to be much closer. So close that Danyal’s eyes watered. He grabbed Lee’s arm and headed away from the water garden.
They went toward the main building, and the smell eased. Didn’t completely vanish, but it eased enough that Danyal could take a clean breath.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Stinkweed,” Lee replied. “It pops up when a person swears. Never saw the da— stuff until a few months ago, and I haven’t smelled it since I arrived in this city.”