Authors: Anne Bishop
“And take a cool bath.”
“Danyal brought the rest of your things from your rooms. He’s given you a room in the Handlers’ residence, once you’re all well enough to be alone, but your private items are here in the dresser’s top left drawer.”
“Thank you. Both of you.” She hesitated. “We haven’t dared trust anyone. It has never been safe for us to reveal what we are.”
“This is what my sister calls opportunities and choices. You have an opportunity to allow some people to learn about the Tryad. That knowledge might open up possibilities for your people that don’t exist now. Whether you take that opportunity is your choice—and Ephemera will help you fulfill that choice.”
There was a weight—and a warning—to his words. “And if I choose not to trust?”
“You could miss the chance of meeting the one person who could help you save your people.” Lee rose and stretched, then moved to the door, a clear hint that he wanted to leave the room.
Moments after he opened the door, Kobrah and Nik were there—Nik to go along with Lee to the men’s bathing room, while Kobrah assisted Zhahar.
Kobrah carefully removed the dressing, never asking why it was on Zhahar when she’d last seen it on Zeela, never asking about the bruise that now had yellow and sickly green added to the deep purple center that was as long as Zeela’s knife wound.
As she lay in a cool bath, Zhahar thought about what Lee had said about opportunities and choices.
*Do we trust him?* she asked her sisters. She wanted to, but that had
nothing to do with using her head and everything to do with her heart and how she felt when she was around him.
=We have to,= Zeela said.
::We don’t have to, but I think we should,:: Sholeh said.
*Why?*
::Because I think he already knows who can save the Tryad, but he won’t be able to help us find that person unless we do trust him.::
Danyal walked the Asylum grounds, the wind chime singing with every step. Peace. Harmony. Light. Hope. Those feelings were carried in the air with the sound.
His own heart didn’t feel those things. The dreams scratched at him, evasive and persistent, making his sleep sour and restless. Whispers in the dark, but in the dreams the wind chimes and the gongs drowned out the words so he felt their marks but not the full wounds.
Even those marks left him feeling raw and uncertain.
Because he suspected that was exactly how he was supposed to feel, he fought against it with the rituals the Shamans had used for generations to guard the city. But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out against a relentless enemy.
He stopped walking when he noticed Vito moving toward him, clearly wanting to speak to him, and just as clearly not wanting to disturb the morning ritual.
“Shaman?”
Danyal smiled. “How are you today, Vito?”
“Better.” Vito bobbed his head. “I’m better.” Then he said nothing more.
“Is there something I can do for you?” Danyal asked.
Another head bob. “Lee says I need to find some stones. Tumbled stones that would easily fit in a hand.” Vito put two fingers of his left hand into the palm of his right and closed his fingers over them to demonstrate. “He said that you, being the Shaman here, should ask the world to make the stones and leave them where they’ll be easy to find.”
He was supposed to
make the stones
? How? Was he supposed to purchase stones somewhere and seed them through the grounds like a treasure hunt? Or did Lee actually believe Shamans could
make stone
?
But there
were
those plants that appeared and disappeared, not to mention the waterfall and that place of stones and vines.
A shiver went through Danyal as he remembered what Pugnos and Styks had said about Lee believing he could send people to other places using stones. Pugnos and Styks weren’t good men, but perhaps all their words hadn’t been lies. Maybe Lee’s form of madness made him
sound
exotically rational.
And maybe what whispers in your dreams doesn’t want you to learn from the man who can be your teacher, and floats these doubts about him into your mind.
“Shaman?”
“A moment.” Danyal closed his eyes. Vito’s heart-core had steadied since Lee talked to the man yesterday. So much so that Vito had been released from isolation. Now that heart-core felt like bright sun, cool stone, rich earth—all the things that had been in that strange piece of the garden.
He pictured tumbled stones the size Vito had specified. Let the colors and shapes fill him until he could almost feel them in his own hand. “A dozen stones. Six banded agates, three quartzes, and three jades. You will have to look carefully to find them, but if you are meant to find them, they will be in sight.”
He opened his eyes to see Vito’s head bobbing.
“Lee said it might take a day or two to find them because the heart has to come into alignment with the eyes.”
“Yes,” Danyal said. “That is exactly what must happen.”
And exactly the way I, or any other Shaman, would have explained the need for patience when someone came to The Temples searching for answers.
“I was assigned to the weeding detail, so I’ll be watchful while I do my work,” Vito said.
“Yes.”
Vito trotted away. Danyal turned and walked back to the temple. After putting the wind chime in its place, he stripped off his white robe, hung it on a peg by the door, and knelt on a mat behind one of the gongs.
The sound of the gong flowed over him, went through him. As he lifted his voice, he felt the poison left in him by the dreams drain away. Again. He didn’t count the cycles of sound, but when the sound of the gong faded, he heard
tap tap, tap tap
, and knew he was done.
Sitting back on his heels, he waited for Lee to enter the temple.
Lee removed the dark glasses, squinted in the soft light, then put the glasses back on.
“This much light is too strong?” Danyal asked.
Lee nodded. “Even with the glasses it’s hard to be outside in the brightest part of the day. But I’m starting to see again. Not just dark blobs against a lighter background, but real shapes. It’s like seeing the world as rough charcoal sketches. Not much detail, but enough that I can see where I’m going and identify objects—and I can see faces again. The cane still helps though.”
“And conceals the fact that some of your sight has been restored.”
“That too.” Lee paused. “Who sits at the gong—the Shaman or the man?”
Danyal set the mallet beside the gong. “Is there a difference?”
“Not always. Probably not often. But sometimes there is.”
“I don’t know. Shaman or man, today my heart is equally troubled.”
“My uncles haven’t been around lately. I’ve been focused on Zhahar and her sisters, so that didn’t occur to me until I was walking over here.”
Danyal hesitated. “I thought it best that they were no longer able to see the Asylum.”
“And in the city of Vision, you can find only what you can see,” Lee said softly. “Is that how it works here? Even if the eyes are in alignment with the heart, if the Shamans decide something shouldn’t be found it won’t be?”
“We aren’t petty tyrants who play with people’s lives,” Danyal snapped as he rose. “We have a saying: let your heart travel lightly.”
“Because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape,” Lee finished. “I know the Heart’s Blessing.”
He walked over to the peg where his robe hung. He reached for the robe, then let his hand drop. “You’re not a Shaman, but you sound as if you had studied at The Temples.”
“Different school, but some of the teachings seem to be common among those who help the world maintain its balance.”
“And the stones? What are they supposed to do?”
“Two things. One, a holy man I know uses stones as receptacles of sorrow. You carry the stone with you for a day, telling it all your sorrows, then it’s cleansed with water to wash the sorrow away. Basically the same thing you do with the gongs, but since Vito is focused on working with the land, I thought that might be a good tool for him.”
It would be
, Danyal thought. He could think of a couple of other inmates who might benefit from that kind of cleansing. “What’s the second thing?”
“I wanted to confirm that you had the kind of connection to the world that could make the stones,” Lee replied.
Danyal stared at Lee. “You were
testing me
? Me? A Shaman?”
Lee shrugged. “Where I come from, there are seven levels of Landscapers. Most of them, even the ones at the seventh level, don’t have the kind of connection that can reshape the world in specific ways, or make something new. My sister can. So can the Magician. I don’t know how you compare with other Shamans, but I wondered if you might also be a Guide.”
Danyal snatched his robe off the peg and shoved his arms into it. “And what happens when Vito finds no stones?”
“Were you sincere when you asked Ephemera to make them?”
The question unnerved him enough to snap, “Let’s go.” He took a firm grip on Lee’s arm and led him out of the temple.
“Where?”
He didn’t know. Before he could decide, Vito ran up to them.
“Shaman, look! I found these while I was weeding!”
An agate, a quartz, and a jade.
His grip on Lee’s arm tightened to help him maintain his own balance.
“Let’s see those.” After tucking his cane under his arm, Lee held out a hand. He rubbed his thumb over the stones Vito dropped in his hand and nodded. “Yes, these are good. Take one back. Put it in your pocket. Whenever you feel doubtful or sad, hold the stone for a few moments and let the stone absorb those feelings.”
“All right,” Vito said. “I will.”
“Well done,” Danyal said, smiling.
“Thank you, Shaman. Thank you.” Vito bobbed his head. “I’d best get back to my work.”
Lee slipped the other two stones into his pocket. “Guess that answers the question about you being a Guide.” He turned his head to look at Danyal. “Which means you need to be more careful than the other Shamans from now on, because you’re the enemy the Dark Guide has to destroy if he’s going to take control of the city.”
“Because I spoke the names of some common stones and Vito happened to find them while weeding?” Danyal snorted. “What does that prove?”
“Besides the fact that you’re getting stubborn about accepting the possibility because you’re afraid it’s true?” Lee replied. “All right. If the stones could have been in the garden already, how about trying for something more exotic? Like a precious gemstone you wouldn’t find in the garden.”
???
The ground felt…strange, and he had the odd sensation that a large, friendly cat was rubbing against his legs—and that made Danyal reckless. “What should I ask for? A ruby the size of my thumbnail?”
Phhhhhtttt
Dirt shot up like a tiny geyser next to his foot. Moments later, in the small crater formed by the shifted dirt…
“Is it pretty?” Lee asked.
Danyal picked up the stone. Rough, to be sure, but still recognizable as a ruby. His hand shook. “I began my formal training as a Shaman twenty-five years ago, when I was sixteen. This has never happened before.”
“A dormant ability that woke up because you need it now,” Lee said. “Or it’s something you’ve always had and used, but it’s more apparent now.”
Always different from the other youngsters who were training at The Temples. Always different from the other Shamans. And always restless because of the difference that both intrigued and worried his teachers.
Danyal slipped the ruby into his trouser pocket. “I’ll have to be more careful with my words.”
Lee nodded. “You’ve become one of Ephemera’s Guides. You’ll have to learn how to tell it when it’s not supposed to listen.”
!!!
Another geyser of dirt, this one lasting a bit longer. When the world finished expressing its opinion, Danyal picked up the gold pocket watch and handed it to Lee. “I think this is yours.”
Lee rubbed a thumb over the watch and sighed. But he slipped it into his pocket.
“Pocket watches have been showing up in the gardens since you arrived,” Danyal said. “What do they mean?”
Lee shook his head, then said, “You never told me what happens to the sorrow. Your gongs draw it out of people’s hearts, but you never said where it goes.”
As Lee spoke the words, the first fat drops of rain began to fall.
Finally something in this day made Danyal smile. “Sorrow is drawn up into the sky and is transformed into the world’s tears, which cleanse as well as nourish.”
It was late afternoon the next day when Vito pressed the last piece of jade into Lee’s hand.
“That’s all of them the Shaman said I would find,” Vito said anxiously.
“That’s fine.” They were standing at the edge of the open space where inmates were allowed to wander on their own. “Vito, be sure you want to do this. I can’t promise that you’ll find what you seek. I can’t tell you that the place you’re going to will have people who speak a language you understand. I can’t tell you there won’t be demons there unlike anything you’ve seen before. I can’t tell you what you’ll find. I can tell you only that what you find, for good or ill, will be a place that resonates with your heart.”
“I know. That’s why you wanted me to do the heart cleansing with the stone. And I did do it, Lee, and I threw the stone in the creek just as you said to do.”
“All right. You’ll need to bring some water with you and a little food, in case you don’t meet up with anyone right away.”
“And my other change of clothes. I’ve already got it, Lee. Can’t you see— Oh. Guess you can’t.”
Nothing more I can do for him except what I’d promised.
Lee closed his hand over the jade, letting his power flow into the stone. A one-shot resonating bridge. One chance for a man who didn’t know about such things to find a piece of the world he’d seen for a few hours.
When the resonating bridge was ready, he wrapped the stone in one of the squares of cloth he’d wheedled out of Kobrah—with Zhahar’s help.
“Slip away,” Lee said. “Get out of sight. When you’re alone, unwrap this stone and hold it in your hand. The magic in it might tingle or feel warm.”