by Anne Bishop
“Koi.”
“What?”
“The fish. They’re called koi. There’s a koi pond in”—Lee paused—“a place I used to visit. Is there a bench nearby?”
“There is.” Danyal studied Lee. “This was a stagnating reflecting pool surrounded by weeds during the tenure of the last Keeper. Despite our groundskeepers’ best efforts, the reflecting pool remained unpleasant and unclean. Two days ago, it disappeared, replaced by this waterfall and pond, and these unknown plants and fish. How would you explain that?”
“Either this was here all along and so overgrown no one realized what it was, or Ephemera made a swap in response to someone’s heart, and now some country home in some other landscape has a stagnating reflecting pool surrounded by weeds instead of a pretty water garden.”
“Or? I did hear the silence of a third possibility.”
Lee turned his head in Danyal’s direction. “Or you’re more than you say you are, and Ephemera made this because you wanted a pretty water garden for the people here.” He waited a beat, then added, “But I’d bet on the swap. You might be able to guide the world into shaping the waterfall, pond, and plants, and even bringing in the fish, but it couldn’t make the windmill and pump. People made those.”
Dumbfounded, Danyal just stared. “Are you saying the city stole this water garden for the Asylum?”
“No, I’m saying Ephemera stole it for the Asylum. It’s getting to be a fairly clever thief,” Lee finished in a mutter.
A moment later, Lee stepped away from him. “Daylight! Did you just fart?”
“I did not,” Danyal replied coldly. Then he clamped a hand over his mouth and nose.
“Ah, shit.” Lee grimaced. “Sorry. That one is on me.”
The smell intensified and seemed to be much closer. So close that Danyal’s eyes watered. He grabbed Lee’s arm and headed away from the water garden.
They went toward the main building, and the smell eased. Didn’t completely vanish, but it eased enough that Danyal could take a clean breath.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Stinkweed,” Lee replied. “It pops up when a person swears. Never saw the da— stuff until a few months ago, and I haven’t smelled it since I arrived in this city.”
“Then what…?” Danyal stopped and stared at the two men walking quickly to intercept them. “Could it also be a warning?”
Instead of answering, Lee tensed at the sound of hurried footsteps.
“There you are, nephew!” Styks said heartily. “We were worried when we found your bed empty.”
“Do you remember us?” Pugnos said.
“Of course,” Lee replied just as heartily. “It’s Bonelover and Trapspider. Been chewing up many corpses lately?”
A weird silence surrounded them.
“You know who we are,” Pugnos snarled.
Lee gave them a vacant smile and said nothing.
“I think Lee has had enough stimulation today,” Danyal said, watching the other men.
“Lee?” Lee’s smile faded. His voice sounded confused, almost fearful.
“You are Lee,” Styks said solicitously.
“Oh.” Lee paused. “Do I know you?”
The two men stared at Lee and looked as if they wanted to beat some sanity into him. Or do something much worse.
“Gentlemen,” Danyal said firmly. “Lee needs quiet time now.”
“But we came to see him,” Pugnos protested.
“And you have,” Danyal replied. “And you can see that he is much improved—at least in body.”
“Yes,” Styks said softly. “We can see that.” He reached out, but Lee shrank back enough to avoid being touched. “You are always in our thoughts, nephew. In that way, we are always with you, always aware of you.”
Something under the words made them sound like a threat.
Danyal looked past the men and noticed Nik and Denys, another Handler, watching them at a discreet distance. He nodded.
Styks turned. His face tightened when he saw the men. “We’ll go now.”
Danyal held Lee’s arm while he watched Styks and Pugnos walk back to the visitors’ gate, feeling the tension and the slight tremble in the muscles. “Do you truly not know who they are?”
“I know what they are.” Lee’s voice was low and harsh.
Anger bordering on hatred. And fear. Rock slides and quicksand.
Spotting Zhahar, Danyal raised a hand. She quickly joined them and slipped an arm around Lee’s to guide him back to the inmates’ residence.
Danyal watched them, then focused on the direction the two “uncles” had taken. “I don’t know what to think about those men.”
A few moments later, he gagged on the smell rising behind him. Turning, he looked at the flower bed. A large half circle of flowering plants was missing, now replaced with squat green plants that stank. But it was the other plants, rapidly growing in the center of the stinkweed, that kept him there, despite the smell. Leaves so dark a green they were almost black. Fleshy pods swelled as he watched, and when they split and the flower began to push out…
They looked—and smelled—like turds steaming in the hot sun.
Gagging, he retreated and grabbed Teeko, the first groundskeeper he saw.
“There is a vile-smelling weed in the bed by the main pathway,” he said, pointing toward the spot. “Get a barrow and a shovel. Dig those things up and burn them.”
“Yes, Shaman. Right away.” Teeko rushed off.
Danyal hurried to the private washroom connected to his office. He scrubbed his hands and washed his face twice—and still couldn’t get rid of all the stink.
As he walked back into his office, Teeko tapped on the open door.
“Shaman? You sure you want us to dig up that plant? It’s a pretty little thing. And you didn’t say if you wanted that rock dug up with it.”
Danyal stood there, not knowing what to say. “Can’t you smell it?”
“Oh, there’s a foul smell around there, to be sure. I’m thinking we’ll find a soiled pair of pants stuffed under a bush nearby. But it’s not coming from that plant.”
Then you’re not looking in the right place, Danyal thought as he went back outside to point out the plants.
Except the stinkweed and the turd plants weren’t there. Instead there was a chunk of polished, black-veined white marble beside a delicate little plant covered in buds and one open, rose-colored flower.
Light. Hope.
“I was mistaken,” Danyal said. “The smell isn’t coming from the plant.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Teeko said. “Might have broken my heart to dig up that little plant.”
An odd thing to say—and absolutely true.
“The only other thing we found was this.” Teeko held out a gold pocket watch. “Thought the visitors might have dropped it, but it’s broken and looks like it’s been in the ground for a while.”
Danyal took the watch and returned to his office. But he couldn’t settle at his desk to read the daily reports or take care of all the other things that demanded his attention. Instead he stared out the window.
The Shamans were the voice of the world, but he had never seen the world respond like this, had never experienced it responding like this. Except at the bridge in his home village when the wind had pushed him back and didn’t allow him to cross to the other side.
I don’t know what to think about those men.
Moments after he’d said those words, those plants had started growing—and blooming. As if the world had expressed its opinion, telling him plainly enough what it thought of those men.
And then to have those plants disappear and be replaced with marble and that other little plant?
Was this happening to other Shamans? Or just him? Was he that different from the others, or had something changed around him that had, in turn, changed him?
Or was the change here being caused by someone else?
Ephemera flowed through the currents of Light
and Dark in this part of itself, listening to all the tangled hearts. But it wasn’t supposed to listen to those hearts, wasn’t supposed to make what those hearts wanted unless a Guide told it to.
But that one didn’t belong in this part of itself. That heart yearned for a different place.
Ephemera flowed away from that heart and went to see if the Voice-guide it had found wanted to play again. The Voices that walked in this part of itself helped it stay balanced, allowing Light and Dark currents to flow in response to the hearts that lived here. But this Voice could be a Guide to the world, could play with it like the Music did, like she did. She was like the Old Ones, like the first Guides of the Heart that it had shaped long ago. She had known how to be a Guide to the world and played with the world, helping it remake parts of itself. She was teaching the Music how to play with the world and shape small makings. She and the Music would teach Voice-guide how to play too.
Now the world and the Music were playing the Lee-heart game. The Music met the world at the playground on her island and played the song from the Lee-heart. He gave the world all the bits of stolen time to leave where the Lee-heart would find them, so the Lee-heart would know the Music had not forgotten him.
And it had found the Lee-heart in this part of itself that was far from her landscapes! And the resonance of the Lee-heart in this part of itself had changed a Voice enough to become Voice-guide for the world!
Then the dark hearts had shivered through the Dark currents of this place, dimming the Light in all the hearts, even the Lee-heart and Voice-guide.
When Voice-guide wanted to know what was in those hearts, it had shaped a small making and shown its new Guide.
After Voice-guide went away, it took away the dark making and made the Lee. Stone like she used for Sanctuary—light with veins of dark. Heart’s hope, full of promise. And a bit of stolen time.
But another heart took the time.
It had many bits of stolen time and could fetch more. The Lee-heart would find one, and the Music would be happy.
Ephemera circled around this part of itself again, listening to the hearts, listening to the yearnings that wanted this part of itself to change just a little, just enough to connect with another piece of itself.
Listened to the heart wish that came from three hearts that were one heart. A heart wish that was also being made in another part of itself.
Hearts that needed the Guide, needed her.
It would return to the playground and show the Music what it had found. But first…
Ephemera listened to that one yearning heart that didn’t belong in this part of itself.
She wouldn’t be angry if it reshaped a piece of itself to make that one heart happy. Not if it was a small making that would feed the currents of Light.
Pleased, Ephemera remade a piece of itself before traveling through the currents of power and returning to the Island in the Mist, where she and the Music waited.
Feeling edgy, Lee sat on a lounge chair in the screened porch, listening to Kobrah and a couple of cleaning people prepare his new room. A big jump from an isolation cell to a room for the almost normal. There was a bolt on the door to keep inmates from wandering when they became agitated, but his impression was that these rooms were similar to spartan accommodations that could be found in many places where travelers couldn’t afford luxury. He’d stayed in enough places like that in the years when he’d been a Bridge for Glorianna and Nadia.
He hadn’t lied to Danyal when he said he was content to do nothing. Nine years of doing with little time to rest was enough. He’d done enough. His last effort to save his sister and mother and their landscapes had put him in the hands of the enemy and left him blind. Hadn’t he given the world enough of himself?
Apparently not, because being in the hands of the enemy had led him straight to Danyal—a Landscaper in desperate need of a Bridge. Some of the inmates were truly mind-sick people, and some were troubled because they were in the wrong place and needed to cross over to the landscapes that resonated with their hearts.
The best he could figure, the Shamans were the Landscapers for this part of the world, keeping the currents of Light and Dark power balanced, tending the landscapes that leaned toward the Dark as well as the Light. He was pretty sure Danyal was one of the rare Guides of the Heart. Like Michael, the Magician. Like Glorianna Belladonna.
He was also pretty sure something that had been dormant in Danyal had woken up—or responded to another resonance. Again, like Michael, who had more of a connection to Ephemera than the other Magicians in Elandar, but that connection had become more direct and immediate after Michael found Glorianna.
Glorianna wasn’t here, but he—a Bridge—was. Someone who connected pieces of the world, allowing people to cross over to the landscapes that resonated with their hearts, regardless of the physical distance between those places. Sometimes it was the landscapes that pulled at him, wanting a connection. Sometimes it was a person.
If Shamans were the Landscapers in Vision, who were the Bridges? Who connected the various pieces of this city?
Shouting and the sound of people running brought Lee to his feet. Then he swayed there for a moment before sitting down again.
Nothing he could do.
That wasn’t as pleasing a thought as it had been a little while ago.
Danyal stared at the rough stairs leading down to stone walls covered with vines and listened to the inmate down there, just out of sight, laughing and weeping with delight, saying this is where he belonged. This place.
Several Handlers were crowded behind him, including Zhahar. As his eyes skimmed over them, he realized he was looking for one other person: Lee.
As Danyal took the first step down into this place that hadn’t existed an hour ago, he felt a strong hand grab the sleeve of his white robe, felt two heart-cores where a moment ago there had been one.
“You shouldn’t go down alone,” Zhahar said.
“Come, then,” he replied.
She followed him down. It was cool and shady near the stairs. When they rounded the bit of wall that blocked their sight of the rest of the place, they stopped.
Sunlight and heat and air that almost dripped with scents. Vines clung to the stone walls, and he could almost see the bunches of small fruit growing as he watched. Vito, an inmate who had been indifferent to his surroundings, touched the plants and the stones, laughing and weeping with a joy that could have broken Danyal’s heart if he hadn’t heard Zhahar’s choked sob.
“He’s so happy,” she whispered. “It’s as if his heart woke up. But…what is this place?”
Not a part of Vision, Danyal thought. There were vineyards in some of the northern communities, but there were no grapes that grew like this. Not in Vision.
And how had this place been made when no man had picked up a shovel to dig or a barrow to haul stone?
“Shaman?” Zhahar pointed to something gold that poked up from the ground near the vines and caught the sunlight.
He walked over to the spot and picked up the broken pocket watch.
“Shaman Danyal, isn’t it wonderful?”
Danyal looked at Vito, a man whose heart-core had been mud and stone. Now…Dawn. Clean water. Rich earth. The abundance of a good harvest lovingly tended.
“Yes, it’s wonderful,” he replied, then added gently, “Tend your vines until the evening meal. Then you must come in and rest.”
“All right, Shaman. I will.”
Danyal went back up the stairs with Zhahar. He tipped his head at Denys. “Stay with him to make sure he comes to no harm. Observe him.” He turned to Zhahar. “Escort Lee to the temple.”
“What should I tell him?” she asked.
Summer rains, both gentle and fierce. Madman or teacher? “Tell him the voice of the world wants to talk to him.”
“Could you pick a pace and stay with it?” Lee snapped after stumbling for the third time because Zhahar couldn’t settle on whether to go step by ponderous step or spri
nt to the temple.
“The Shaman wants to see you,” Zhahar snapped in return. She tightened her grip on his arm and put more muscle into hauling him down the path.
“Hey!” Lee stopped so abruptly, she was pulled around and smacked into his chest.
Two resonances. Two familiar resonances where there had been one a moment before. He grabbed her left arm. Even through the jacket he felt the jagged, raised scar before it seemed to withdraw into the skin.
“What happened that’s got you bouncing out of your skin?” he asked. He could almost feel her panic at his mention of skin.
“We— I’m not. It’s just…unsettling.”
“Then shouldn’t the Shaman and the Handlers be taking care of whatever this is?”
“We don’t…It’s never…Places can shift, but not like this.”
“Places shift?” What does that mean? If it meant what he thought it meant, Zhahar knew more about the world than she was saying. And wasn’t that interesting?
“Lee.”
“Just tell me why the Shaman wants to see me, because I know that calling himself the voice of the world means we aren’t going to be having a friendly little chat.”
He felt her hesitate, felt her struggle to regain control of herself.
“There’s a new place in the Asylum,” she finally said. “It wasn’t there and now it is, and no one knows why.”
“Is anyone happy about this?”
“One of the inmates. He thinks he belongs there.”
“Then he probably does.” Still didn’t explain why Danyal wanted to see him, but it explained all the shouting before Zhahar came to fetch him.
She finally settled into a reasonable pace—or someone did—and they arrived at the temple. Didn’t need to wonder if Danyal was there, because the gongs were sounding. All the gongs. Quietly, yes, but Lee would have bet a week’s worth of chores that the Shaman hadn’t struck any of those gongs with a mallet. Voice of the world, indeed.
