Authors: Anne Bishop
Lee frowned as he looked back at the building. What was keeping Zhahar? If one of them needed to pee, did
all
of them need to pee separately? But if they shared the innards, wouldn’t one be able to do it for all of them? He’d had that impression when Zhahar had told him to stop Sholeh from eating spicy food while she and Zeela were recuperating.
He’d barely finished the thought when he heard a woman screaming his name.
“Let me go! Lee!
Lee!
”
This time Nik and Denys were ahead of him. The sun was too bright, making his eyes burn and tear—making it hard to see who was struggling.
Then Nik snapped, “Damn it, Teeko. What are you doing?”
“What I have to,” Teeko said, sounding frantic. “You think I want to work in this place forever? I’ve got plans, and there’s a big reward for keeping
him
here until
they
come to fetch him. Sent one of the boys off with a message. They’ll be here soon. Hand over Lee, and you can have this freak.”
“He hit Zhahar,” Sholeh screamed as she struggled futilely in Teeko’s grasp. “She’s not answering!”
Guardians and Guides. Teeko had seen Zhahar shift into Sholeh. No wonder the man sounded frantic.
Lee pulled a stone from his pocket, then shoved between Nik and Denys, moving far enough ahead of them that he wouldn’t hit them. Teeko’s plan had been simple: knock out Zhahar to delay their leaving until the wizards arrived and scooped up their troublesome “nephew.” Would have worked if Zhahar hadn’t been a Tryad.
Zhahar was hurt and Sholeh was scared past thinking. And Zeela? Had Sholeh come into view because she was the only one who wasn’t injured?
Zhahar’s pain. Sholeh’s fear.
Anger filled him, swelling the Dark currents that flowed through the Asylum. Then those Dark currents filled him in turn as his power flowed into the stone to create a resonating bridge.
“Let her go, Teeko,” Lee said, his voice rough with the swelling rage.
“As soon as Nik and Denys put you in a jacket, I’ll let the freak go.”
“We’re not a freak,” Sholeh sobbed.
“He’s only holding her by one wrist,” Nik said out of the corner of his mouth. “We could take him.”
That’s when Teeko yanked Sholeh closer and revealed the short-bladed knife in his other hand. “You come at me, I’ll cut her. I’ll cut her bad!”
“Let her go, Teeko,” Lee said. The stone throbbed in his hand, all power and anger.
Ephemera, give him what he deserves.
Problem was, if Teeko was still holding Sholeh when Lee hit him with the stone, she’d be pulled into that landscape with him.
“She’s got a scar on her left arm,” Denys whispered. “What’s going on?”
Was Zeela starting to come into view?
“Is that what they offered you, Teeko? Gold and precious jewels in exchange for someone’s life?” Lee asked.
“I’ll be a rich man!” Teeko yelled.
“If that’s all it takes to buy you, I can match that and more. Here’s a lump of gold as down payment.” As he cocked his arm, he yelled, “Zeela!” and threw the one-shot bridge at Teeko.
He couldn’t see well enough to be sure it was Zeela in view until she punched Teeko. Not a hard blow, but enough to startle him into releasing her.
Zeela twisted away from Teeko and fell on her hands and knees.
Teeko caught the stone—and disappeared.
Silence, except for Nik’s and Denys’s rough breathing.
Lee rushed over to the fallen woman and yelled, “Get Benham over here!”
“Already here,” Benham said. He stopped several paces away, then approached warily.
“Zeela?” Lee asked, resting a hand between her shoulder blades.
“I’m all right,” Zeela said, not sounding all right.
“Need to check those stitches,” Benham said. “Make sure she didn’t pull anything.”
“Zhahar needs to come into view,” Zeela said. “He hit her on the head. Don’t know how bad.”
“We’ll check you first,” Lee said firmly. When Benham did nothing, Lee looked at the man. What did the people here see now when they looked at him? “I have no quarrel with you.”
“What about them?”
“They come from a race called the Tryad. Short version is, three siblings share a body but are still individuals.”
“I could have done more for them if Danyal had been a little more forthcoming about their ‘spiritual practices,’” Benham grumbled as he
knelt beside Zeela and pulled up her tunic enough to look at her ribs. “No fresh blood on the dressing. I don’t think she took any damage from that fall.”
“Didn’t,” Zeela said. “If I’m going to be seeing my mothers in a couple of days, I wouldn’t lie about how a wound is healing. Now…”
Lee felt the difference, the slight change in muscle tone, the scent of a different woman.
Benham sucked in a breath. “That’s the damnedest thing.” He gave Lee a sour look before gently examining Zhahar’s head. “Got a good-size bump there, but I’m not feeling more than that. Didn’t hit her hard enough to crack her skull. She was probably dazed by the blow and disoriented enough to scare someone.”
“Can she travel?”
“I’m right here,” Zhahar grumbled.
“Getting rattled in a wagon won’t make her feel good, but I can’t see it doing her—them?—harm,” Benham said. “And you’re traveling with an Apothecary. Next best thing to a Meddik.”
“Then we’ve got to go.” Lee picked up Zhahar, grunting at the weight. From the physical contact he’d had with her, he hadn’t expected her to be this heavy.
As he walked back to the wagon, he only half listened to Benham’s telling Nik to get some ice, aware that Denys kept pace with him.
“I’m not going to drop her,” Lee panted.
“Didn’t say you would,” Denys replied. “But you should let me get her into the wagon. I’m used to handling bodies, and if you bang her head against the doorframe, you’ll have Kobrah chewing on you.”
Couldn’t argue with the truth of that, so he handed Zhahar to Denys when they reached the wagon.
“Looks like we don’t have as much time as we’d hoped,” the Apothecary said as he watched Nik hand Kobrah a filled ice bag.
“Not much time at all,” Lee agreed. “We need to go north, but Zhahar will have to tell us exactly where we’re headed.”
“Plenty of roads lead to the heart of Vision, and it’s not odd to see an Apothecary’s wagon headed that way. I come this way at least once each
season to buy ingredients at the bazaar I can’t find anywhere else in the city.” The Apothecary huffed out a breath. “You should stay in the wagon with the sisters. The other one can sit on the driving seat with me.”
“All right.” He thought for a moment. “You’re not disturbed about them being a Tryad?”
“You and the Shaman knew they came from a different race of people. It didn’t bother either of you, so there’s no reason to let it bother me.” The Apothecary gave him a long look. “The one who threatened the sisters. Where did he go?”
“To a place that resonates with the darkest part of his heart,” Lee replied.
“To the darkest part of his heart? Or the darkest part of yours?”
Denys stepped out of the wagon. Lee started to step up, then stopped, tilting his head to catch the sound.
Wind chimes and gongs.
Would they be enough to create an access point? Maybe not for most Landscapers, but Glorianna had created access points to landscapes from a single brick or a stone that held the resonance of the place. If he brought gongs and chimes that carried the Dark and Light resonances of the Asylum, would that be enough for Glorianna to get them back here?
“Fetch three of the wind chimes and three of the gongs,” he said. “Doesn’t matter which ones.”
Kobrah poked her head out of the wagon and started to protest, then looked at him and said nothing while Nik and Denys hurried to the temple and returned with the gongs and wind chimes. They handed them up to Kobrah, who began fussing about where to put them.
“Guardians and Guides,” Lee snapped. “Just store the damn things and get down from there. You’re riding on the seat with the Apothecary.”
A silence. Then a flurry of sound before Kobrah rushed out of the wagon and muttered, “Maybe you’re a Chayne after all.”
Lee looked at Benham, Denys, and Nik. “Travel lightly.” Then he stepped inside the wagon, closed the door, and sat on the floor beside the narrow bunk where Zhahar lay.
The wagon began moving. Not with the speed Lee would have liked,
but the window behind the driver’s seat was open partway for air, and he could hear all the other carts and carriages around them as soon as they left the Asylum. No one would be moving quickly during the busiest time of the day, but another wagon plodding along with the rest would be less noticed than a wagon in a hurry.
As he kept watch over Zhahar and coaxed Sholeh and Zeela to come into view for a few minutes, just to be sure they were all right, he thought about the Apothecary’s question.
The one who threatened the sisters. Where did he go? To the darkest part of his heart or the darkest part of yours?
They were good questions. Too bad he didn’t have answers.
A
fire burned beneath his skin. A vicious, terrible fire that tried to burrow deeper, reaching for heart and lungs. But raging water battled against the fire, drawing it up and up and, finally, drawing it out through skin so charred it flaked away.
At least, that’s how it seemed.
As Danyal gave himself to that battle between fire and water, he dreamed of Kanzi, Nalah, and the baby struggling to survive, trying to scratch out a little food from the barren, cracked earth that had once been the beautiful city of Vision.
A wall of water thundering over the edge of the world. Thorn trees with sinuous limbs, their fruit the rotting corpses of their prey. And a voice that was and wasn’t Ephemera, saying,
Despair made the deserts, and hope the oases.
Heat lightning and the quiet of a simple garden. And the fire burning beneath his skin.
Danyal opened his eyes and looked into the dark eyes of the man sitting in a chair beside the bed.
The man gave Danyal a gentle smile as he closed a book and set it on the bedside table. “So,” he said. “You’re awake. That is good.”
“Am I a prisoner?”
Humor—and understanding—in those eyes. “No. When you arrived here, you were injured and asked for help. We’ve given what help we can.”
Danyal shifted, then gasped at the pain the movement caused in his shoulder and hip.
“Easy. Your injuries should not be taken lightly.”
“Could I have some water?”
“Of course. Let me help you sit on the side of the bed. I think that will cause you the least discomfort.”
As the man helped him shift from lying on his left side to sitting on the edge of the bed, Danyal got a better sense of his companion.
About his own age, with hair as dark as the eyes. A cadence in the voice that he didn’t recognize. And Light—with a hint of shadows. That was the heart-core of this man. Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t hesitate to trust that heart, but now that hint of shadows made him uneasy.
After going into an adjoining room, the man returned with a glass of water. He handed it to Danyal, then sat in the chair and said, “I am Yoshani. You are in the Den of Iniquity. This room belongs to the Den’s Justice Maker.” He smiled, genuinely amused, as he made a graceful gesture that took in the decor. “Not a typical place one might expect to find men such as us—at least according to the Den’s residents.” The amusement faded. “But you needed help swiftly, and this was the closest place they could bring you.”
The bridge. The pocket watch. The wizards and—
Danyal sucked in a breath, then moaned when even that much movement brought pain. “Wizards and a Dark Guide have come to the city of Vision. We need help.”
“I am not familiar with your city,” Yoshani said, “but if there is anyone in the world who can help you find answers, it is the people here.”
“I need—”
“To
rest.
Your sudden arrival has raised many questions and concerns. The people you need to talk to are making sure their pieces of Ephemera
aren’t in danger. They will be back in a few hours. The physician from Aurora will be back in an hour to look at your injuries. He will decide what you can and can’t do.”
Danyal stared at Yoshani. “No one decides what I can do.”
Yoshani stared back. Then he laughed softly. “You aren’t used to living around strong-minded women, are you?”
Before Danyal could decide what that had to do with anything, someone tapped on a door. The brown-haired man who talked about music and a wild child walked into the room.
“How are you?” the man asked Danyal.
“He is awake and alive—and not yet understanding why he should be grateful to be both,” Yoshani replied. He tipped his head to indicate the man. “This is Michael. He is a Magician from a country called Elandar.” Then he looked up at Michael. “Our guest has not yet gifted us with his name.”
“I am Danyal. I am a Shaman in the city of Vision.” Unless one of them had visited the city, they might not understand what a Shaman was.
Michael studied him too long for comfort. “I thought Shamans were holy men like Yoshani here. But the music in you has dark notes under the bright, so I’m thinking Shamans are another kind of Landscaper—more like the Magicians.”
“What is a Magician?” Danyal asked stiffly.
“Ill-wisher. Luck-bringer.” The look in Michael’s eyes was now sharp edged but still friendly. “So I have dark notes in me too.”
A warning.
“Shamans are the voice of the world,” Danyal said.
Michael nodded but didn’t look impressed. “Just so you know, the Den is one of Belladonna’s landscapes. You may be a voice in your part of the world, but here Ephemera answers to
her.
”
Danyal shivered.
Belladonna. Lee’s sister. The monster that Evil feared. She was
here
?
“I have to leave,” he said.
“To go where?” Yoshani asked gently. “How will you get back to your part of the world?”
“You came here looking for help,” Michael said. “You’re going to walk away without talking to anyone?”