by Anne Bishop
I’m not ready to leave this place or these people, Danyal thought as he watched Glorianna unwrap each wind chime and lift it to hear the chime sing. Michael and Yoshani smiled in response to the sound of each chime in turn, a sign that their hearts were touched by the joy that flowed out with the sound. But Glorianna looked more and more puzzled.
“Is there something about the sound that bothers you, Glorianna Dark and Wise?” Yoshani asked.
She pointed to each wind chime. “Restful. Peaceful. Joyful. But not an access point.”
Danyal felt an odd relief, swiftly followed by shame. The Shamans needed the knowledge he could bring back to them. The people in the city needed whatever help he could bring with him. Would he ever forgive himself if something happened to Kanzi, Nalah, or the baby because he did something that delayed his return?
“But it was an access point, yes?” Michael asked. “Back in Aurora?”
Glorianna handed Michael one of the chimes. “You ring them.” After he set each one to chiming, she shook her head. “Yoshani?” She shook her head again after he rang each chime. “Danyal?”
He began with the one that had the brightest sound and ended with the one he had picked up in her mother’s house, the one he thought would help her heart remember joy.
Glorianna nodded and pointed to each of the chimes. “Restful. Peaceful. Place of Light. It’s not just the wind chime. We have those here in Sanctuary, and plenty of people hang them around their homes. It’s a wind chime made in Vision in the hands of a Shaman.” She gave Danyal a sharp look. “Or perhaps in the hands of a particular Shaman. These other wind chimes are just chimes—pretty sounds that lift the spirit. But that one is an access point.”
“How can that be?” Danyal protested. “I’ve walked the Asylum grounds with this one many times and nothing unusual happened.”
“Perhaps unusual things happened all around you,” Glorianna replied gently, “but there was no one who recognized their significance. Or maybe it was your resonance combined with Lee’s that demanded a new way to express heart wishes.”
Voice-guide maker
Danyal jerked, setting the chime ringing again.
“Maker,” Glorianna said, nodding.
“I can use this to travel to other places?” he asked.
“I’m thinking that chime takes you back to the place it came from,” Michael said.
“But only you and whoever takes that step with you between here and there,” Glorianna added.
Danyal closed his eyes. His heart trembled.
Just tired, he thought. Just heart weary and tired.
“Shaman?” Glorianna said quietly.
Shaman. The title, not the man. He opened his eyes and replied, “Guide.”
Her smile told him she understood perfectly why he used her title too.
“It’s time to go,” she told him. Then she turned to Michael. “This may take a few days, but I’ll be back, Magician.”
“If you lose your way, just listen for the music.” Michael kissed her and stepped back.
“Should we take all the wind chimes?” Yoshani asked.
“Yes,” Glorianna replied. “These chimes belong to Vision.”
Two of the chimes were wrapped into a bundle Yoshani could easily carry. Danyal held the one that would take him home.
Glorianna linked one hand with Yoshani, then linked her other hand with his.
“Ephemera,” she called softly. “Hear me.”
When she squeezed his hand, Danyal set the chime to ringing. Within seconds, the ground in front of them filled with light, and he could smell the spice trees that grew in the Shamans’ compound.
“Now,” she whispered.
The three of them took a step. They took another step, and Danyal’s breath hitched as he stared at the building where the Shaman Council met and also mentored the older students.
Glorianna released his hand and smiled. “Welcome home.”
Lee turned his back to the kitchen door and windows, removed his dark glasses, and rubbed his eyes. As if that would change what he’d just heard. Putting the glasses back on, he looked at Michael. “She’s gone? Glorianna is gone?”
Michael nodded. “She left with Danyal and Yoshani. They’re going to the inner temples or whatever it’s called where the Shamans live.”
Lee’s hands curled into fists. “Guardians and Guides, man. Why didn’t you go with her?”
“I couldn’t.”
“No one but Yoshani and Danyal could go with her and reach Vision through that access point,” Sebastian said.
Hurried footsteps. Some coming toward the kitchen from outdoors; others from the front rooms of the house.
“Now what?” Nadia asked.
“Lee?” Zhahar said.
Tryad. One who is three. Three who are one.
“You and Sebastian are the other two sides of Glorianna’s triad now,” Lee shouted at Michael. “She shouldn’t be traveling without at least one of you.”
“She felt she was ready—” Michael began.
“I agree with Lee,” Sebastian interrupted as he hitched a hip on the kitchen table. “Glorianna has plenty of heart, but the Light isn’t all that good at self-defense. Maybe that will change over time, but that’s the truth of it now. And Belladonna can defend anything she pleases, but it’s not always easy for her to let go of that power over the landscapes. After all, she answered to no one in the place she created for the Eater of the World.”
“Which is exactly why one of you should be with her!” Lee roared.
“It wasn’t our choice,” Michael said tightly.
“Whether Glorianna has any help this time isn’t the Magician’s choice or mine,” Sebastian said. “It’s yours, Lee. That’s what Glorianna meant when she talked about opportunities and choices before she went to Sanctuary. If you think we need to be there, then figure out how we get there.”
“I—” Lee braced a hand on the table. There was a way. Or there used to be.
He walked out of the kitchen and across the lawn. He crossed the footbridge that was nothing more than a footbridge over the creek at the back of Nadia’s personal gardens. Then he closed his eyes and extended one hand and pictured the little island.
You were a piece of Ephemera that came from my sister’s heart. She gave you to me because you resonated with my heart. Currents of Dark and Light. They flow through Glorianna Belladonna and me. Different and the same. She is different. And she is the same. She is my sister. In the Dark, in the Light, she is still my sister. You are a piece of my sister’s heart that used to answer to me. I need you to answer again. Please hear me, Ephemera. Please.
Nothing.
He rocked forward—and his fingers brushed against the bark of a tree.
Hardly daring to believe—and knowing that he could lose everything if he didn’t believe—Lee pressed one hand against the tree as he shifted his feet and stretched out his other hand. When he touched the other tree that flanked the path on his island, he stepped between them and knew by the feel of the ground beneath his feet and the different scent to the air that he was on the island.
It was his again.
He slipped off the glasses, then put them back on and wished he’d brought the walking stick and the slouchy hat. The trees softened the light, making it too dark with the glasses, but his eyes were too sensitive without them. No matter. With one hand in front of him and one out to the side, he made his way to the center of the island where the fountain provided him with fresh water.
Lee drank, savoring the taste of water that came from Sanctuary.
“Lee?”
“Lee!”
He made his way back to the edge of the island. Michael and Sebastian were a few paces from him, searching for something they couldn’t see.
Watching them made him think of something Danyal said about Shamans being able to remove parts of Vision from sight. When he shifted his island, it existed in that other landscape on the bridge of his will, and he de
cided whether it was visible to the people in that other landscape.
It seemed his island had something in common with Vision after all.
“Lee!” All three voices of Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar.
She almost walked into him as he stepped off the island.
“Daylight!” Sebastian snapped as he strode toward Lee. “Are you trying to upset everyone?”
“No,” Lee replied, keeping his voice calm and quiet. “I didn’t intend to upset anyone. We can use the island to travel to Vision. We just have to figure out how to get to the part of the city we need.”
Glorianna wandered the wide stone pathways. Strong currents of Light, as she expected in the part of The Temples where the Shamans nurtured those currents. There were also threads of Dark currents. Those, too, were necessary in any landscape.
Different architecture. Different taste in the air. She could almost believe food was seasoned by holding the bowl under the spice trees.
Danyal, Yoshani, and the Shaman Council sat outside in the shade. It wasn’t prejudice against her gender; two Council members were women. She had the impression that the Shamans didn’t wish to trouble her with discussion. So she wandered, staying in sight so that Yoshani especially wouldn’t worry.
And she thought about how to find a darkness the Shamans couldn’t see.
“I could get us back to the Asylum, but that’s a full day’s journey or more from The Temples,” Lee said, bracing his hands on the kitchen table. “And there’s no way to know what we might find at the Asylum. Hopefully, the wizards left the people alone, but they might be waiting there in case Danyal or I return.”
“They sent Clubs after you,” the Knife said. “Whatever they intended when this began, I think they want you dead now. You can tell too many people what they are.”
“So can the two of you,” Lee replied, turning his head toward the Knife and the Apothecary.
“True. And other shadowmen will listen to us, especially those who have had their streets disappear in a darkness they can’t see. But the Shamans will listen to someone like you, and they speak for the world—and to the world. That’s a power those wizards don’t have. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, that’s so. But I don’t know how to work that to our advantage,” Lee said. He looked across the table. “Mother?”
Nadia shook her head. “A Landscaper keeps her pieces of the world balanced so that it reflects the resonance of the hearts living there. If a place turns darker—or lighter—than her own heart’s resonance, she has to let that landscape go, let it be taken up by someone else.”
“If there is someone else,” Sebastian said. “But so many Landscapers were killed by the Eater, and their landscapes must be ripe for the taking. Why didn’t the wizards take over one of those?”
“They may be trying to turn some places into dark landscapes that they control,” Nadia admitted. “But Ephemera is more unpredictable these days, so maybe the wizards can’t take over.”
“If Ephemera lets dark or dangerous things grow in wizard-controlled places, ordinary people will flee if they’re aware of the bridges,” Lee said, turning all those thoughts over and over. “And that will leave the wizards in a landscape they control, but it doesn’t leave them with people to control.”
“The wild child learns from the Guides,” Michael said. “What’s to say that the bridges out of places that have reached a certain level of darkness still work? In this part of Ephemera, if the stationary bridges stop working, that leaves the resonating bridges.”
“And if that resonating bridge takes you to a place that doesn’t have these bridges?” the Knife asked.
“You can walk or ride or make your way to a port and buy passage on a ship sailing in the direction you want to go,” Lee replied. Then his attention focused on Zhahar, who stood near the table but hadn’t been participating. Probably because her mother was sitting at the table for this meeting. The a Zephyra Tryad had returned to Tryadnea, but whatever they had found had brought them back to the Den in a hurry.
He had a bad feeling it had something to do with Zhahar.
He heard the buzzing that meant Zhahar and her sisters were having a fierce discussion with each other.
“Something you want to add?” he asked.
Zhahar froze a moment before Sholeh came into view. “Scattering seeds. Michael said the world is learning from the Guides, and it’s the world, so what if this was a kind of seed scattering?”
“The wizards spread themselves through the world to poison other parts of Ephemera?” Lynnea said, hugging herself.
Before Sebastian could rise and go to her, Teaser threw an arm around her shoulders.
Lee stared at Sholeh. “What if the wizards weren’t the ones who did the scattering?” He felt a fizz of excitement when she nodded. “The number of wizards to Landscapers was pretty much even in this part of Ephemera until the Eater changed the balance by killing the Landscapers and Bridges—and Glorianna restored the balance by taking Wizard City out of the world. The wizards have the lightning, which is a deadly weapon, and even if the Landscapers know what they are now…”
“Not all the surviving Landscapers believe the wizards are a danger to them,” Nadia said, sounding bitter.
“And not all wizards are a danger to them,” Michael countered, tipping his head toward Sebastian. “But I think I’m following Lee’s tune here. Ephemera manifests the human heart, but it also wants guidance. If the wizards keep destroying Landscapers when they find them, who knows how much of the world will be in turmoil? Any one of you might know only a double handful of places, but those places are located all over the world. Hearts fearful of an enemy that might gather again and strike down the rest of their kind. Or enough hearts fearful of the loss of the Landscapers. Can’t move the Landscapers, but it seems like the wild child can make or break bridges on its own.”
“If it can’t relocate the hearts that keep it balanced, Ephemera scatters the dark hearts that are a threat,” Lee said.
“And makes them a threat in more places,” Sebastian pointed out.
“How does any of this help us get back to Vision and stop those bastards?” the Knife demanded.
“It’s the nature of Vision that has gotten in the way of you holding on to your piece of the city,” Lee replied. “And it’s gotten in the way of the Shamans protecting the city. There are a lot of shadowmen and only a handful of wizards. If you don’t let them change your pieces of the city, they’ll be there trying, but they’ll be in sight.”
The Knife made a frustrated sound and moved away from the table.
“Pretty words,” the Apothecary said, “but they’re still just crap.”
“No, they aren’t,” Michael replied. “One of my landscapes is a place called Foggy Downs. A dark landscape because of the number of Dark currents that flow through that part of Ephemera. And yet it’s not a dark landscape, because the people keep it on this side of the Light. Generations of them living out their lives in that village and not knowing the importance of being there until Glorianna saw the village and the people and explained it to all of us. If your part of Vision is what you want, you can hold it against the wizards, be an anchor for it like Sebastian is the anchor for the Den. You can get back what they’ve taken. I’m not saying it won’t be a fight, and I’m not saying all of you will live through the fighting, but you can take it back.”
Silence.
“Maybe this cleared the air some, but it doesn’t get us any closer to Glorianna,” Sebastian said.
“What do you need?” Sholeh asked.
“We need a resonance,” Lee replied. “Some kind of connection.”
“When you found me in the bonelovers’ landscape, you didn’t know me,” Caitlin said.
“But I had a tail of your hair,” Lee said. “That provided enough of a link so that I felt it when you needed help.”
Kobrah stepped forward. “Does this resonance need to be some thing, or can it be a person?”
“A person would be better. Do you know someone at The Temples?”
“The Voice,” she said, hunching her shoulders. “I know The Voice.”
Chapter 28
Lee stowed his pack and Michael’s in the wooden shed Jeb had built a few years ago. It wasn’t big, but it held all his gear when he was traveling, and had plenty of shelves for jars of food and other cooking supplies. And while it didn’t have heat, he could spread his sleeping bag on the floor in bad weather instead of getting wet.
Now it would hold all the gear for several people who hoped Kobrah’s memory of someone called The Voice would resonate strongly enough to bring them near the access point where Glorianna, Danyal, and Yoshani crossed over to Vision.
Even though he wouldn’t be gone long, he closed the shed’s door out of habit before he strode back to the spot he thought of as the island’s front door—that space between two trees where the path into the island’s center began.
As he stepped off the island to get the next packs, he noticed the woman hurrying to reach him before he disappeared again. The red hair stood out, even with his diminished eyesight.
“Sholeh,” he said, offering nothing and asking for nothing.
“We want to help.”
She sounded breathless, but he couldn’t tell if that was because she rushed to reach him or was nervous about being seen talking to him. It was clear to everyone that there was a serious problem between the mothers and daughters, but none of the Tryad were willing to discuss the reason Zeela had tried to sabotage the border between Tryadnea and the Den.
Of course, he didn’t think any of the Tryad realized Zeela had been influenced by another heart.
“Please,” Sholeh whispered.
“Grab that pack.” He pointed to one he hoped she could carry. If she couldn’t, Zeela would lend some muscle.
Settling the strap of one pack over his shoulder, he picked up another and held out his hand—and felt her hesitate, saw her body turn as if checking to make sure no one saw her touch him.
“Maybe you should go back to the house,” he said.
