by Anne Bishop
Then…nothing. Except the place didn’t feel the same. Not so bright. More ordinary.
It’s no longer a Place of Light, he thought, stunned by how quickly she could reshape the world—and terrified when he realized this was the same power that had awakened inside him.
“Glorianna.” Yoshani knelt before her and took her other hand. “The Light needs to be nurtured. It needs Guardians.”
“Those who should find it will find it,” she replied.
Danyal relaxed enough to breathe again when Yoshani smiled and said, “Ah. So it will be.”
Glorianna stood up and smiled at Farzeen. “Has anything else changed in your city lately?”
“There is the place of sand that appeared a few days ago,” he replied. “Part of the retaining wall around the southern end of The Temples broke, and when men went to repair it, they found the sand.”
Her smile faded. “What kind of sand?”
maker
Danyal frowned. “Maker sand?”
yes yes yes
She huffed out a sigh. “All right. Let’s go see this sand.” Then she added, “And I hope you and Lee reached some agreement about what you’re doing.”
“I…We…” When had he and Lee ever talked about sand? And what was maker sand?
“I would like to accompany you,” Farzeen said. “Your words have stirred up much, Guide. I strive to understand.”
“We should get a pony cart,” Danyal said. “It’s a sufficient walk to reach the southern end of our community.”
Glorianna nodded. “All right.”
“Abomination,” Jasper said, taking a stagger-step toward her.
Danyal tensed as he felt something dark swirl past him.
“Don’t,” Glorianna whispered.
Jasper pointed a shaking finger at her. “Defiler of the Light! You should be locked away where—”
A thorn tree with sinuous limbs burst out of the floor at the same moment a violent wind shook the pavilion and ripped tiles from the roof. In a heartbeat, a limb coiled around Jasper as the tree swiftly grew toward the ceiling.
“No!” Glorianna yelled. “Ephemera, no!”
Jasper screamed as he hung above the floor.
Danyal stared. The coils were still loose; the thorns barely penetrating beneath the skin. But if those coils tightened…
“Let him go,” Glorianna said firmly. “He has no power over me. He has no power over Voice-guide. He can’t take either of us away from you.”
Danyal jerked when she elbowed him in the ribs. “Yes,” he stammered. “Shaman Jasper has no say in what I do with my life, and I have chosen to be Voice-guide and learn from the Guide. We do not want darkness here. Let this man go.”
Slowly, the limb uncoiled, lowering Jasper to the broken floor. When the last coil released him, the Shamans glanced at Glorianna, who nodded, before rushing over to Jasper and half dragging him out of the thorn tree’s reach. Yoshani ushered the other council members out of the pavilion.
“Now take the thorn tree back to its dark landscape so that I can look at this sand you made for Voice-guide,” Glorianna said when she and Danyal were the only ones left.
A moment’s resistance, as if the world still wanted to lash out. Then the tree withdrew, like the plant had withdrawn, leaving no trace of what had broken the pavilion’s floor.
“Where does that tree come from?” Danyal asked.
Silence. Then she said, “It comes from a landscape that belongs to the Eater of the World.” She walked out of the pavilion.
Danyal remained, staring at the broken floor.
The Shaman Council had sent him out to find answers, and he had found them.
Voice of the world. Shamans had been called that for generations, but he truly was a voice of the world.
And the world was not always gentle or kind.
He walked out of the pavilion and joined the others, painfully aware that he no longer belonged with the other Shamans and would never again be considered one of them.
Chapter 29
The first time Lee tried to guide the island to Vision by following Kobrah’s memory-feeling of the person called The Voice, they ended up in the bogs that belonged to the Merry Makers—one of Glorianna Belladonna’s dark landscapes. The second try landed them in Foggy Downs, one of Michael’s dark landscapes. The third try…
“Guardians and Guides, Lee!” Sebastian shouted from his post at the start of the island’s path. “Get us out of here! Now!”
Aurora, Lee thought. Take me and my companions back to Aurora.
“The Lady of Light was watching out for us,” Michael said, looking pale and shaken as he and Sebastian joined the others.
Lee looked at the two men. “What…?”
“Bonelovers,” Sebastian replied grimly.
“Where are we now?” the Knife asked.
“Back where we started.” Lee shook his head. “This isn’t working. Too many conflicting feelings and dark resonances. Oh, don’t look at the shadowmen as if they’re at fault,” he snapped when Morragen turned her head to glare at the Knife and the Apothecary. “They’re clear on where they want to go and why. You two”—he wagged a finger in the space between Morragen and Zhahar—“or you six, or however damn way you count yourselves, are the problem. We’re back in Aurora. I’ll get your packs. You can stay with my mother until we return.”
“No!” Zhahar shot to her feet. “We want to help.”
Morragen rose as well. “There are things that must be done. Our daughters will remain in our custody.”
“She’s not a child,” Lee snapped. “Zhahar, come with me. We need to speak. Privately.”
She rushed to stand beside him.
“We—” Morragen began.
“—don’t want to find out what wizards’ lightning might do to a Tryad,” Sebastian finished as he rubbed his thumb against the first two fingers of his right hand.
Morragen stared at Sebastian. “You’re threatening me?”
Sebastian gave her a savage smile. “Just helping you remember to be a good neighbor.”
Wrapping a hand around Zhahar’s arm, Lee hustled her to the shed.
“Lee,” she said when he released her and opened the shed door.
He turned back to face her. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and your mothers, but it’s apparent to everyone that something happened in the short time they were back in Tryadnea.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Since none of you are inclined to tell anyone anything, that’s a given. What I do understand is that the turmoil and anger between your Tryad and hers landed us in the bonelovers’ landscape. That landscape is locked away in the place Belladonna made for the Eater of the World. Do you have any concept of how much anger and dark feelings had to be resonating from the people on this island to land us there? And those feelings aren’t coming from me or Michael or Sebastian or Kobrah or the shadowmen. Just you and your sisters and your mothers. So you’re getting off the island and waiting for us in Aurora.”
“Please let me go with you,” Zhahar begged.
Fear. Oh, the anger was there too, and that was probably leaking out from Zeela, but there was so much fear, he barely recognized Zhahar’s resonance.
“What will happen if you’re not surrounded by other people who aren’t Tryad?” he asked. “If you’re not surrounded by witnesses?”
“The a Zephyra Tryad is our leader,” Zhahar said, sounding broken. “She must uphold our laws.”
“That’s been settled. I’m stepping back. No one is going to be forfeited because of me.”
“What you decide doesn’t matter now. We wished Tryadnea would end up adrift again. We didn’t believe we could really make it happen, but we wished it for selfish reasons, and it almost did happen.”
“Hate to whittle down your feelings of self-importance, but you couldn’t have broken that border on your own. Didn’t break it on your own,” Lee said, hoping his words would sting eno
ugh that she would hurl the truth at him.
“But Zeela…”
“Was being influenced, almost poisoned by someone else’s thoughts, into believing you needed to have that border broken in order to choose a life beyond your homeland.”
“But…”
“No, Zhahar. From what Glorianna said, your desire to get away from the restrictions in your homeland was strong enough that you no longer resonate with Tryadnea and aren’t going to be able to cross that border. But that’s you. That has nothing to do with the rest of the Tryad. So why don’t you tell me what’s really going on. Let me help you if I can.”
He heard the humming of their three voices, could almost hear Zeela’s anger and Sholeh’s panic.
Daylight! What was going on between them and their mothers?
Zhahar wouldn’t look at him. “Someone else came across the border last night. We thought we saw her, but we weren’t sure, and there was so much to see in the Den, we didn’t tell Morragen or Medusah right away. The one…The person went back to Tryadnea, told the people at the camp that there were abominations on the other side of the border, that we had locked Tryadnea to this place in order to have one of those men as a lover, were already indulging in carnal obscenities, and all three of us had pledged our hearts to a one-faced man. After stirring up the camp at the border, she rode to the village because some of our more influential citizens were waiting there for the a Zephyra Tryad to return with news. By the time our mothers arrived, the judges who pass sentence on Tryad behavior were all furious and accused us of betraying our people.”
Lee rocked back on his heels. “That person lied to them, and may have influenced them the same way Zeela was influenced.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zhahar cried, cringing at the volume of her own voice. “Allone claimed we did the same thing she had once done—and if our mothers refuse to punish us in the same way, it is proof that the a Zephyra Tryad is not strong enough to be the leader of Tryadnea, that they will ignore our taboos when their daughters commit the crimes. So in order to hold the Tryad people together, we will be punished.”
Something deep and terrible here. “What’s the punishment?”
“We will be merged,” she whispered. “We will be merged so we have only one face.”
A chill went through him. “Two of you will be required to die because someone falsely accused you of breaking a taboo? Zhahar, that’s insane.”
“Perhaps. But Allone has been vigilant about pointing out anyone who breaks taboos—especially those whose actions are punishable by merging.”
That sounded too much like the influence the wizards had used on the Landscapers who ran the school in order to cull out the students whose abilities might have been a threat to them. Like Glorianna.
“So, basically, in order to satisfy the ravings of this woman and the outrage she can produce in other Tryads, your mothers will have to kill Sholeh and Zeela, and you’ll be left alone to carry the guilt of their deaths?”
She nodded.
He leaned against the shed, feeling sick. A different people with different laws and customs, but it seemed to him that their laws were terrible and harsh—which might explain why Ephemera had linked Tryadnea with another dark landscape.
Zhahar and her sisters hadn’t broken their people’s laws or taboos or any other damn thing. Falsely accused since Zhahar hadn’t acted on what her heart may have wanted, but that didn’t seem to matter. And there wasn’t anything a one-faced man could do about it.
Or was there?
“You intended to run, didn’t you?” he asked. “That’s why you wanted to get back to Vision. The Tryad weren’t anchored there anymore, so you intended to slip away from the rest of us and disappear into the city.”
“Yes.”
He entered the shed, found Zhahar’s and Morragen’s packs, then stepped out and handed Zhahar her pack while he shouldered the other. “You’re not running, and you’re not going to lose your sisters.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“That is true,” he agreed. “But I know someone who can do a great deal. You’re going to ask for a justice that overrules every other kind of law. At least in this part of Ephemera.”
They walked slowly, giving him a couple of minutes to coach her.
“I don’t know,” Zhahar said.
“Then you’d better decide, because once this is begun, there is no turning back.” When they were just about to join the others, he said, “Which is it? Yes or no?”
She hesitated. Then all three voices said, “Yes.”
“Magician?” Lee said. “Justice Maker? Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar has something she wants to say.”
He felt the change in Michael and Sebastian when he used their titles. They turned toward Zhahar, and power flowed from them into the currents of the world that touched the island.
“We’ll listen,” Michael said.
“I have been accused of giving my heart to a man of single aspect,” she said quietly, staring at Sebastian’s shoulder. “That is taboo among the Tryad people. But I did not act on my feelings, so I believe that merging my sisters into me, which is the traditional punishment, is too harsh. Therefore, I ask that Glorianna Belladonna perform Heart’s Justice to decide my fate and the fate of Zeela and Sholeh.”
Silence.
Then Morragen and Medusah snapped, “That is not acceptable. The Tryad will never accept.”
“It’s done,” Sebastian snapped back. “And as long as Glorianna Belladonna holds Tryadnea in her keeping, the Tryad better accept it. I can’t break the border, but as the Den’s anchor, I can damn well make sure none of you find my piece of Ephemera ever again.”
Lee watched Morragen—and saw Zephyra’s face for just a moment. For just long enough to know that Morragen and Medusah would argue for form’s sake, but at least one of the mothers was relieved that there might be another solution.
“Wild child,” Michael said softly as he stared at Zhahar. “Keep these hearts safe until the Guide returns. No magic will touch these hearts. No power will harm these hearts. Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar’s fate is in Glorianna’s hands now. Do you understand?”
yes yes yes
Lee shouldn’t have felt Ephemera’s answer, but he did. He didn’t need Michael’s nod to know the a Zhahar Tryad would be safe while he and the others were gone.
“I’ll escort these ladies to Aunt Nadia’s house,” Sebastian said. “Then I’ll be back.”
Lee slipped the pack off his shoulder and offered it to Morragen. Then he turned his head toward Kobrah. “What about you? I need to find The Temples some other way, so you can stay here if you want.”
Kobrah glanced at Morragen and hunched her shoulders. “I’ll go with you.”
“Go on,” Lee told Zhahar. “Nothing will happen until Glorianna comes back from Vision.”
They stood around, saying nothing until Sebastian returned.
“Can’t say Auntie appreciates the houseguests you dumped on her,” Sebastian said as Lee helped him onto the island, “but she’ll make sure things remain civil.”
“Civil is good enough,” he replied.
“You have another idea how to get to Vision?” Michael asked.
Lee nodded. “One I should have thought of in the first place. You. Glorianna made this island, and you can find her through the heart music. Instead of trying to reach Vision, let’s find Glorianna.”
“I thought we couldn’t reach the part of Vision where she’d gone,” the Apothecary said.
“We couldn’t have gone with her using the way she crossed over, but the island should be able to impose itself over that place,” Lee said. “Even if it’s not prudent to leave the island, we should be able to spot enough landmarks to shift position to a part of the city that’s nearby.”
“Glorianna I can find,” Michael said. He pulled his tin whistle out of an inner coat pocket and began to play.
“What should we do?” the Knife asked quietly.
&nbs
p; “Nothing,” Lee replied as he felt the island begin to resonate with the music. Follow the music. Lead us to Glorianna Belladonna.
The island lifted, as if riding a gentle swell. Then the sensation faded.
“We’re here,” he said as he headed for the start of the path. But when he reached the two trees he used as his entrance, he hesitated, not trusting his diminished eyesight to show him the truth of their location. “Michael?”
“Sand,” Michael said grimly. “Not rust colored, but there’s nothing but sand.”
“And a tall hedge creating a wall around the sand,” Sebastian said, holding on to a tree and leaning out. “Any idea where we are?”
“None at all,” Lee said.
Danyal stepped up to the break in the stone wall and stared at the sand surrounded by a tall hedge.
“Well,” Glorianna said cheerfully, “you are now the caretaker of a couple acres of playground.”
“Playground?”
yes yes yes
“I do not understand,” Farzeen said as he stepped up beside them.
“Some strong heart wishes went out into the world,” she replied. “And this was the world’s answer.”
“Sand?” Danyal tried not to sound skeptical, but…sand?
“If this was the entrance of a place for the heart, what would you want the people entering to see first?” she asked.
So many possible answers, but the first thing he pictured felt right and true. “There was a plant at the Asylum. It just appeared one day. Lee called it heart’s hope. People made a point of walking along that path every day because seeing the plant made them feel better. If I could, I would have one of those plants on the right-hand side of the entrance to lift the spirits of everyone who entered this place.”
Sand squirmed. It wiggled. Farzeen gasped. Danyal stared.
“Not that close,” Glorianna said. She stepped onto the sand and pointed. “Over here so it won’t be harmed when the hearts put a proper doorway in the wall.”
The sand quieted, then began squirming in the spot she’d pointed to.
Moments later, a small plant pushed out of the sand—a delicate thing with one tiny bud.
