by Anne Bishop
Many roads led to this city, but few things beyond the city seemed able to set hooks deeply enough to bring in something alien. At least until now.
Which made him wonder again about Zhahar and why he often felt three heart-cores in her instead of one—and why he usually felt the three when she was tired or distracted and, therefore, less able to keep some truth hidden from the one person who sensed she was different. Him.
“He sounds like an interesting man,” Danyal said as he set a gong in front of each mat Kobrah had positioned in a circle.
“Yes.”
There was no trust in Kobrah’s voice. She had confided in him. Now she would wait to see what he did with her words.
Having prepared the room he used to help people release sorrow, he and Kobrah went into the room set aside for joy. In silence they swept and dusted, and the wind chimes sang at their touch.
As part of his morning and evening ritual, he chose a wind chime that had a particular sound. Then he walked the grounds, letting it ring with his movement. Bright notes to encourage bright thoughts and lift hearts toward the Light.
Today he chose one of the larger wind chimes.
“Could I…sometime…?”
He looked at Kobrah. Her eyes were fixed on the chime. That gave him hope for her, so he held it out.
When she smiled at him, he saw the girl she had been before dark acts had twisted her life.
He waited until he heard the chimes moving away from the temple. Then he walked over to the main building and went into the room that held the Handlers’ lock bins—and saw a strange woman standing in front of Zhahar’s open bin, pulling out her blue work jacket.
She had dark brown hair and dark eyes. There was a jagged, raised scar that ran down her left forearm from elbow to wrist. On her left bicep was a tattoo of a heart inside a triangle.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice ringing with the authority and power of a Shaman.
Storms. Floods. Landslides. That’s what he felt when her eyes locked with his.
Dangerous. And somewhat familiar.
“I’m Zeela,” she finally said. “Zhahar’s sister.”
Her answer left him caught on a frozen pond, with the ice suddenly cracking beneath his feet. A careless move would destroy more than his own life. He was sure of it.
He took a step toward her—and felt the calm summer lake he associated with Zhahar as well as brooks full of bright water.
He had never experienced such confusion in a person who was supposed to be sane. And yet it didn’t feel like confusion. Which made no more sense than a person with three heart-cores.
“Has something happened to Zhahar?” he asked.
“No,” Zeela replied. “And nothing will while I’m around.”
He glanced at her boot. “Is that why you carry a knife?”
“I carry more than one.” She tipped her head toward the sliding door that closed off a washroom and toilet. “She’s in there.”
“What happened?” he asked. He had loaned a book to Zhahar for her sister, but he didn’t think this woman had much interest in books.
Those dark eyes studied him, and he felt the storms getting closer.
“A woman down the street from where we live was attacked last night. She isn’t expected to live through the day. She might have survived the violence done to her body, but her mind was damaged as well, and in the end that is what will kill her. Zhahar can be tough when she needs to be, but Sholeh…”
“There are three of you?”
Zeela gave him an edgy smile. “Not unusual in our family. Zhahar is the eldest by a few minutes. Sholeh is the baby, since she left the womb after me.”
Danyal rocked back on his heels. Triplets? Was that why he sensed an overlapping of heart-cores? He’d never heard of such a thing happening, but he supposed it could if the emotional attachment between the sisters was strong enough.
Did that mean Sholeh was the bright water?
“Sholeh is the scholar?” he asked, hoping to find out a little more about Zhahar’s family.
“Yes.” A clipped answer that didn’t invite further curiosity.
And you’re the warrior. Danyal looked at the sliding door, then back at Zeela. “Tell Zhahar I’d like to speak with her. It was a pleasure meeting you, Zeela. I hope to have a chance to meet Sholeh someday.”
“Shaman.”
It sounded like a dismissal.
Danyal went to his office and sat at his desk, determined to review the nighttime reports from the Handlers. But after a minute, he rose and stared out the window.
Storms. Floods. Landslides. Zeela made him uneasy. She was capable of great violence. The scar on her arm wasn’t as much proof of that as was the look in her dark eyes. She would do anything to keep her sisters safe, and that was something he couldn’t afford to forget if he was going to pry into the mystery of why he could sense all three heart-cores when only one of the sisters was present.
He should report her presence to the Shaman Council. She was a mystery, an unknown that might be the source of Vision’s troubles. But if she wasn’t the source, if she was only a mystery because he didn’t understand some simple truth, he could set some changes in motion that would not be undone easily, if at all.
So he would watch and wait and see if he could gain her trust enough to tell him what made the connection between her and her sisters unusual. And he would ask Farzeen—carefully—if the older man had ever heard of anything like what he was sensing.
A tapping on the door he’d left open. He turned and saw Zhahar, straightening her Handler’s jacket.
“You wanted to see me, Shaman Danyal?”
“I met your sister,” he said, giving her a gentle smile.
“Yes, she mentioned that when I came out of the washroom.”
Was he seeing wariness in Zhahar’s blue eyes? “She told me about the woman who was attacked. Perhaps I should have a Guard escort the female Handlers to the omnibus stop from now on if their shift ends after dark.”
Zhahar nodded. “That would be wise—and, I think, welcome by all the women who work at the Asylum, not just the Handlers.”
Her answer surprised him, because he’d thought she would tell him Zeela was sufficient escort. But the surprise lasted for only a moment. It had become apparent to him over the past month that when it came to dealing with other people, whether they were her colleagues or her assigned inmates, Zhahar was highly intuitive and tended to lead with her heart. She might have a sister who could protect her against would-be attackers, but the other women didn’t. Therefore, she would show approval for an escort even if it was inconvenient to her to have someone observing her once she was off the Asylum grounds.
And what had given him the impression it would be inconvenient?
“What do you know about the twilight of waking dreams?” he asked, deciding to pursue the other subject that was bothering him. She looked almost fearful until he added, “Kobrah mentioned the phrase, and I wondered if you had any thoughts.”
Zhahar licked her lips. “I’m comfortable that whatever Kobrah is experiencing is doing her no harm, and the female inmate who had mentioned being visited by a dream lover was also not being harmed. In fact, her clarity of mind seemed to be improving until…”
“Until?” Danyal prodded when it became apparent that she didn’t want to say anything more.
“Until the previous Keeper ordered Meddik Benham to give her a sleeping draught that would put her under deeply enough to silence any dreams.”
Danyal studied her. “You don’t agree with that decision?”
“She was improving,” Zhahar said, a touch of stubbornness—and anger—in her voice. “Even if no one else will acknowledge it, she’s been declining daily since the dreams stopped.”
“Why wasn’t I informed of these dreams if they were unknown before?” Danyal asked. “This inmate as well as Kobrah is my responsibility now, Zhahar. I may not be a physician or a mind healer or even a general meddi
k, but I am a Shaman and I am the Asylum’s Keeper. As such, I should have the final say on the treatments the inmates receive.”
Zhahar lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders, and he saw—and felt—some of Zeela in her body language. “Kobrah isn’t an inmate, and what is said to a friend should remain with that friend when no one will be harmed by word or deed. As for the other woman, I’m sure the Handlers on duty made a notation about her ‘friend,’ especially after a male inmate had to be restrained when he tried to escape in order to ‘cross over’ to meet his dream lover. Deep sedation might have been the right decision for dealing with him, but it damaged the woman. As for why you weren’t informed, this happened just before your arrival. We’re all still learning what you expect of us. I am not a senior Handler, Shaman Danyal. It is not my place to offer opinions about the Keeper’s or the Meddik’s decisions.”
And yet I heard several opinions about the Asylum and the people who make decisions for those not capable of making choices for themselves. “Is there anything else I should know?” he asked mildly.
She didn’t have a chance to answer because another Handler ran in, his jacket splotched with blood.
“Shaman! One of the inmates just attacked Kobrah and bit off one of her fingers!”
Zhahar was the first one out the door, but Danyal was close behind her. Together, they burst out of the building and ran toward the tangle of people on the lawn.
Three Handlers were struggling to secure a restraining jacket on an inmate. Kobrah stood to one side, pale and shaking. Her left hand bled untended; her right still held the wind chimes.
“Damn you for bringing the Light!” the man screamed. “We don’t deserve the Light! We don’t deserve anything!”
Zhahar rushed over to Kobrah, bunched the bottom of the Helper’s gray jacket around the woman’s left hand, and held it while Danyal grabbed the man’s hair to prevent him from biting the Handlers trying to subdue him.
“We should be drinking pus and eating worms!” the man screamed. “Snuff out the Light before it grows any stronger!”
He didn’t like it, but after the Handlers strapped the man to a bed in an isolation cell, Danyal gave permission to use a mouth restraint, as much to protect the Handlers as to prevent the man from biting off his own tongue.
Going to the infirmary wing, he found Kobrah sitting on one of the narrow beds, dressed in a clean white shift. Her left hand was thickly bandaged. She had the groggy look of someone heavily sedated, but her right hand still clenched the short chain attached to the wind chime.
“Kobrah?” Danyal sat on the wooden stool next to the bed. It took her so long to focus on him, he wondered if Meddik Benham had been too generous with the sedative.
She held out the wind chime. “I kept the Light safe. It’s important to keep the Light safe.”
He took the wind chime. “Yes, it is.”
Zhahar breezed into the room, her effort to be cheerful producing whitecaps on her usually calm lake. “I brought you a glass of water, and I found some twine so we can…Oh. Shaman.” She glanced at the wind chime in his hands, then sat on the bed beside Kobrah. “Drink some water. Then you should sleep for a while.”
Danyal held out his hand. “Give me the twine.”
She pulled a length of twine from her jacket pocket.
He knotted one end of the twine to the wind chime’s chain. Pushing aside the gauzy curtains, he secured the other end of the twine to the curtain rod. The light breeze coming in from the fully opened window made the chimes sing.
Kobrah looked at the chimes but was too drugged to respond. Zhahar, on the other hand…Those blue eyes told him hanging the chimes to comfort Kobrah had earned another level of her trust.
Then he looked down at her boots—and another shiver ran through him.
Why was she wearing the boots that held her sister’s knife?
“Get some rest,” he said, gently touching Kobrah’s shoulder. Looking at Zhahar, he tipped his head and walked out of the infirmary. She joined him a few minutes later.
“The Handler who informed you saw the blood but not the actual injury,” Zhahar said. Holding up her left hand, she pinched the bit of finger between knuckle and joint. “The inmate took a chunk of skin and meat, but not bone. More blood than damage.”
“Do you know why this happened?”
“He wanted to destroy the wind chime because it called to the Light. Kobrah wouldn’t give it to him, so he attacked her. He said…” She hugged herself. “He said the Dark Guide would stop tormenting him if he helped destroy the Light.”
Dark Guide. Drought. Famine. Death.
“Shaman?”
Danyal didn’t realize his eyes were closed until he opened them. “I’m fine. I’m just concerned, and I have much to think about.” He touched her arm, fingertips on her jacket at the spot where he’d seen her sister’s tattoo.
Storms. Summer lake. Bright water.
“I want to be kept informed about Kobrah’s condition—and if there is anything I can do to help.”
“You let her keep the wind chime,” Zhahar replied softly. “That helped.”
Instead of returning to his office—and all the confused hearts wanting counsel—Danyal went to the apartment on the administration building’s top floor. Some of the Handlers had rooms in another building on the grounds, but he and Meddik Benham were the only occupants on this floor.
He unlocked the apartment door, relocked it, and made a careful inspection of his home before settling into a chair. He felt vulnerable, and a Shaman, being the voice of the world, should not feel vulnerable. Ever.
Something had entered that poor, addled man, making him an instrument of evil. Another whisper of proof that something was very wrong in this part of the city.
Allies and enemies. A madman and a teacher. A guide and a monster. He’d been sent here because the council believed he could find these things.
But would he find them in time?
Chapter 8
Sometimes the hated voices whispered in Lee’s ear.
You need to get back to your sister. There’s danger coming.
All you need to do is cross over to one of Belladonna’s landscapes. We’ll help you.
You need to get home before it’s too late.
Sometimes the hated voices scratched against his mind.
Belladonna needs you. You have to reach her.
Your mother is in danger.
Don’t you want to go home?
His answers—whispered or screamed or trapped in his mind—were the same.
I don’t have a sister.
My mother is gone.
I have no home.
I don’t know Belladonna.
Every time he denied knowing her, he felt the last little heart thread that connected him to Glorianna thin a little more. The day would come when he denied knowing her one time too many and that thread would break completely—and he would never be able to find his way back home.
When the soft persuasion didn’t work, they began using the needle that poured fire into his brain and sent his body into thrashing, screaming panic. They laughed as they strapped his head down, forced his eyes open, and put in the drops of poison that clouded his eyes a little more each day until he couldn’t see his tormentors, couldn’t see anything.
Here in the city of Vision, you can find only what you can see. What do you think a blind man can find here, Bridge?
Nothing. No one. How many times had he said to Nadia, “I don’t want to see her!” when she suggested he go to the Island in the Mist to visit Glorianna? Now he couldn’t see her.
Now he pushed her away with all the strength and love in him. To save her from her enemies.
The words they whispered changed, became as painful as the needle and the drops they put in his eyes.
You want to be hurt, want to be punished for not loving your sister enough. That’s why you ended up with us. That’s why we punish you. It’s what you want.
&n
bsp; You can’t escape us. We’re always with you, always watching. If you try to go home, we’ll be close enough to grab you, go with you.
There is no one you can trust because you’re surrounded by people loyal to us. No escape, Bridge. We’re always with you because you want us with you, want us to punish you for not loving your sister enough.
The words they whispered became as painful as the needle because, after a while, they became true.
Chapter 9
Zhahar grabbed Kobrah’s arm and pulled her out of the way of the male Handlers running into the building toward the sounds of fighting and a man’s raging screams. “Stay out here.”
“What’s going on?” Kobrah asked.
“New inmate. A violent one.” Squeezing Kobrah’s arm, Zhahar joined the other Handlers.
“Warn the Landscapers!” the man screamed. “Wizards and a Dark Guide have come to this place. Warn the Landscapers!”
“What are wizards?” one of the Handlers asked as he tried to muscle closer to the isolation cell.
“Don’t know,” another said. “And unless one of them drops his pants and takes a dump on a path, why would the groundskeepers care?”
Zhahar tried to slip into the hole left by the two men, but a hand closed on her arm and pulled her back, just as she had done to Kobrah moments before.
“Stay here,” Danyal said. “There is already too much help in that room.”
Surprised by the anger in his voice, Zhahar looked at him—and shrank away from the storm she saw in his eyes.
He released her arm and moved toward the pack of Handlers trying to get into the room.
Thunder shook the building as if the world had given voice to someone’s anger. Handlers looked around and scrambled to clear a path for the Shaman.
Within a couple of minutes, the new inmate was strapped to a bed in the isolation cell, still screaming about wizards and lightning and dark guides.
A couple of minutes after that, Shaman Danyal left the cell with two dark-haired men who looked disheveled and distressed.
