by Anne Bishop
“Sholeh did pretty well for the first few hours, but when it became apparent that you and Zeela were so removed you weren’t responding to anyone, even her…” He huffed out a sigh. “The last time Zeela came into view, her fever broke. Benham checked the stitches and put on a clean dressing. You came into view about an hour after that, long enough to drink a glass of water. We haven’t seen you since. Sholeh surfaced a few times to use the toilet or drink some water, but she disappeared after Benham suggested a sedative. She probably needed one, but she was afraid it might harm Zeela.”
“You don’t understand about us.”
“And that’s going to change,” Lee snapped. “Living in this city is too dangerous if no one knows how to help you when you’re in trouble.”
“What would you have me do?” Her voice was low but fierce. “My homeland is at stake. My people are at stake.”
“Right now, your sisters are at stake.”
A hazy awareness from Zeela. Sholeh coming close enough to the surface to listen.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
“Two-faced.”
She and Sholeh gasped from the pain those words caused. Zeela moaned.
Lee braced his forearms on his thighs.
“Two-faced,” he said again, his voice so full of understanding her eyes stung with tears. “It means one member of a Tryad is lost, doesn’t it? It means someone made a hard choice. I’ve had a lot of time to think while I’ve been sitting here, Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar. One who is three. Three who are one. I’m guessing if one of you gets a knife in the heart, all of you die. I’m not sure about other things that would kill a different kind of person, but you might be able to survive a lot of injuries if you let the injured sibling die—or, more likely, if the injured sibling chooses to die to save the other two. Catastrophic damage. That’s what it would take, wouldn’t it? Something that would threaten the welfare of the other two to the point of death or permanent injury. It has happened often enough that your people have a word for it.”
“Stop,” she whispered as tears ran down her face.
Instead he took her hands in his, giving her someone to hold on to who didn’t need her to be strong.
“I don’t understand how you can be physically different in some ways and the same in others, but I’d say you’ve been supporting Zeela since she got you back to your rooms after the fight. That’s why the wound is showing through on you. That’s why you’ve sounded so dazed.”
She heard Sholeh crying and wondered if Lee heard it too.
“If something happens…” She hesitated, but it had to be said. “Sholeh can’t handle the one-face world on her own. She’s smart, she really is, but she’s more fragile than Zeela and me.” And if we don’t make it…
“Yes, she’s smart. Yes, she’s more fragile. And there are places where she would do just fine.”
That bite in his voice again.
“But that’s a discussion for another day,” Lee continued, “because Zeela’s wound is healing, and you don’t have to hold on so tight it makes you ill. The best thing you can do for Zeela now is help yourself.”
=He’s right,= Zeela whispered.
::Please listen to him, Zhahar,:: Sholeh pleaded.
She slipped her hands out of his and rubbed the tears off her face.
“Why do you understand so much about us when you don’t know us?” she asked.
“Like I said, I’ve had a lot of time to think while I’ve been watching over you,” he replied. “I realized I know a few things about being in a triad.”
Sweat trickled between her breasts and the heat in the air made it hard to breathe, but she wouldn’t have moved for any reason. Not then. “How?”
“I’ve been one side of two triads,” Lee said. “My father disappeared when I was very young, so it’s been my mother, my sister, and me. There were secrets about our lineage that had to be kept for Glorianna’s safety. Mine too, but mostly hers. My mother and sister are Landscapers; I’m a Bridge. Besides being family, I had a working partnership with both of them. While other Bridges traveled through my mother’s landscapes, I was the only Bridge who worked with Glorianna.”
“Because of the secrets?”
He nodded. “The other triad was Glorianna, our cousin Sebastian, and me. Sebastian is a few months younger than Glorianna and two years older than me. He wasn’t accepted by other children in the daylight landscapes because he’s an incubus, and while Glorianna and I had friends in the village where we lived, there was no one we could completely trust except Sebastian.”
She had never considered that people who were not one could form such bonds.
“Then Glorianna met Michael, and everything changed,” Lee continued. “It didn’t change when Sebastian met Lynnea, but it changed when the Magician came into our lives.”
“Your triad changed,” Zhahar said, trying to understand how that would feel.
“For a little while, when Glorianna, Michael, and I were traveling, we were…connected. But in the end, the triad that formed was Glorianna, Michael, and Sebastian, and I became an outsider. Or, at least, I felt like one.”
The pain of that truth showed in his face.
He sighed. “I understand the choice, Zhahar. I do. The wizards still want to destroy my sister, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill my mother too. When I stumbled across them and some of their men, they were in one of my mother’s landscapes and less than a mile from a bridge that might have provided some of them with access to one of my sister’s landscapes. So I used my abilities as a Bridge to get those men away from my family. I got them far away from my sister. I didn’t expect to end up like this”— he raised a hand to indicate his eyes—“but I chose to sacrifice myself in order to save them.”
She studied his face. Something more. Some deep hurt that was still inside him, despite his daily visits to the temple.
“What happened to your sister, Lee?”
He drew in a shaky breath. “She was a…The only word you have for it is meant as an insult.”
No, they just hadn’t shared the respectful alternative with him.
“She had a single aspect,” Zhahar said gently.
“Yes. She had a single aspect. And now she is split into two.”
Zhahar gasped. So did Sholeh. Even Zeela, who was drifting in and out, sucked in a pained breath.
“Who did such a thing to her?” they asked.
Lee’s smile was regretful and bitter. “She did it to herself. To save the world, she did it to herself.” Tears filled his eyes. “And as much as I love my sister, I haven’t been able to accept what she’s become.”
“If you can accept us, why can’t you accept her?” Zhahar asked.
“Because one part of what she’s become frightens me,” he whispered.
But that part of her doesn’t frighten Michael and Sebastian, she thought, understanding why the new triad formed. Or even if it does, they can still accept.
Lee let out a shaky sigh. “Enough. You need to get some food.”
“And take a cool bath.”
“Danyal brought the rest of your things from your rooms. He’s given you a room in the Handlers’ residence, once you’re all well enough to be alone, but your private items are here in the dresser’s top left drawer.”
“Thank you. Both of you.” She hesitated. “We haven’t dared trust anyone. It has never been safe for us to reveal what we are.”
“This is what my sister calls opportunities and choices. You have an opportunity to allow some people to learn about the Tryad. That knowledge might open up possibilities for your people that don’t exist now. Whether you take that opportunity is your choice—and Ephemera will help you fulfill that choice.”
There was a weight—and a warning—to his words. “And if I choose not to trust?”
“You could miss the chance of meeting the one person who could help you save your people.” Lee rose and stretched, then moved to the door, a clear hint that he wanted to le
ave the room.
Moments after he opened the door, Kobrah and Nik were there—Nik to go along with Lee to the men’s bathing room, while Kobrah assisted Zhahar.
Kobrah carefully removed the dressing, never asking why it was on Zhahar when she’d last seen it on Zeela, never asking about the bruise that now had yellow and sickly green added to the deep purple center that was as long as Zeela’s knife wound.
As she lay in a cool bath, Zhahar thought about what Lee had said about opportunities and choices.
*Do we trust him?* she asked her sisters. She wanted to, but that had nothing to do with using her head and everything to do with her heart and how she felt when she was around him.
=We have to,= Zeela said.
::We don’t have to, but I think we should,:: Sholeh said.
*Why?*
::Because I think he already knows who can save the Tryad, but he won’t be able to help us find that person unless we do trust him.::
Danyal walked the Asylum grounds, the wind chime singing with every step. Peace. Harmony. Light. Hope. Those feelings were carried in the air with the sound.
His own heart didn’t feel those things. The dreams scratched at him, evasive and persistent, making his sleep sour and restless. Whispers in the dark, but in the dreams the wind chimes and the gongs drowned out the words so he felt their marks but not the full wounds.
Even those marks left him feeling raw and uncertain.
Because he suspected that was exactly how he was supposed to feel, he fought against it with the rituals the Shamans had used for generations to guard the city. But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out against a relentless enemy.
He stopped walking when he noticed Vito moving toward him, clearly wanting to speak to him, and just as clearly not wanting to disturb the morning ritual.
“Shaman?”
Danyal smiled. “How are you today, Vito?”
“Better.” Vito bobbed his head. “I’m better.” Then he said nothing more.
“Is there something I can do for you?” Danyal asked.
Another head bob. “Lee says I need to find some stones. Tumbled stones that would easily fit in a hand.” Vito put two fingers of his left hand into the palm of his right and closed his fingers over them to demonstrate. “He said that you, being the Shaman here, should ask the world to make the stones and leave them where they’ll be easy to find.”
He was supposed to make the stones? How? Was he supposed to purchase stones somewhere and seed them through the grounds like a treasure hunt? Or did Lee actually believe Shamans could make stone?
But there were those plants that appeared and disappeared, not to mention the waterfall and that place of stones and vines.
A shiver went through Danyal as he remembered what Pugnos and Styks had said about Lee believing he could send people to other places using stones. Pugnos and Styks weren’t good men, but perhaps all their words hadn’t been lies. Maybe Lee’s form of madness made him sound exotically rational.
And maybe what whispers in your dreams doesn’t want you to learn from the man who can be your teacher, and floats these doubts about him into your mind.
“Shaman?”
“A moment.” Danyal closed his eyes. Vito’s heart-core had steadied since Lee talked to the man yesterday. So much so that Vito had been released from isolation. Now that heart-core felt like bright sun, cool stone, rich earth—all the things that had been in that strange piece of the garden.
He pictured tumbled stones the size Vito had specified. Let the colors and shapes fill him until he could almost feel them in his own hand. “A dozen stones. Six banded agates, three quartzes, and three jades. You will have to look carefully to find them, but if you are meant to find them, they will be in sight.”
He opened his eyes to see Vito’s head bobbing.
“Lee said it might take a day or two to find them because the heart has to come into alignment with the eyes.”
“Yes,” Danyal said. “That is exactly what must happen.” And exactly the way I, or any other Shaman, would have explained the need for patience when someone came to The Temples searching for answers.
“I was assigned to the weeding detail, so I’ll be watchful while I do my work,” Vito said.
“Yes.”
Vito trotted away. Danyal turned and walked back to the temple. After putting the wind chime in its place, he stripped off his white robe, hung it on a peg by the door, and knelt on a mat behind one of the gongs.
The sound of the gong flowed over him, went through him. As he lifted his voice, he felt the poison left in him by the dreams drain away. Again. He didn’t count the cycles of sound, but when the sound of the gong faded, he heard tap tap, tap tap, and knew he was done.
Sitting back on his heels, he waited for Lee to enter the temple.
Lee removed the dark glasses, squinted in the soft light, then put the glasses back on.
“This much light is too strong?” Danyal asked.
Lee nodded. “Even with the glasses it’s hard to be outside in the brightest part of the day. But I’m starting to see again. Not just dark blobs against a lighter background, but real shapes. It’s like seeing the world as rough charcoal sketches. Not much detail, but enough that I can see where I’m going and identify objects—and I can see faces again. The cane still helps though.”
“And conceals the fact that some of your sight has been restored.”
“That too.” Lee paused. “Who sits at the gong—the Shaman or the man?”
Danyal set the mallet beside the gong. “Is there a difference?”
“Not always. Probably not often. But sometimes there is.”
“I don’t know. Shaman or man, today my heart is equally troubled.”
“My uncles haven’t been around lately. I’ve been focused on Zhahar and her sisters, so that didn’t occur to me until I was walking over here.”
Danyal hesitated. “I thought it best that they were no longer able to see the Asylum.”
“And in the city of Vision, you can find only what you can see,” Lee said softly. “Is that how it works here? Even if the eyes are in alignment with the heart, if the Shamans decide something shouldn’t be found it won’t be?”
“We aren’t petty tyrants who play with people’s lives,” Danyal snapped as he rose. “We have a saying: let your heart travel lightly.”
“Because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape,” Lee finished. “I know the Heart’s Blessing.”
He walked over to the peg where his robe hung. He reached for the robe, then let his hand drop. “You’re not a Shaman, but you sound as if you had studied at The Temples.”
“Different school, but some of the teachings seem to be common among those who help the world maintain its balance.”
“And the stones? What are they supposed to do?”
“Two things. One, a holy man I know uses stones as receptacles of sorrow. You carry the stone with you for a day, telling it all your sorrows, then it’s cleansed with water to wash the sorrow away. Basically the same thing you do with the gongs, but since Vito is focused on working with the land, I thought that might be a good tool for him.”
It would be, Danyal thought. He could think of a couple of other inmates who might benefit from that kind of cleansing. “What’s the second thing?”
“I wanted to confirm that you had the kind of connection to the world that could make the stones,” Lee replied.
Danyal stared at Lee. “You were testing me? Me? A Shaman?”
Lee shrugged. “Where I come from, there are seven levels of Landscapers. Most of them, even the ones at the seventh level, don’t have the kind of connection that can reshape the world in specific ways, or make something new. My sister can. So can the Magician. I don’t know how you compare with other Shamans, but I wondered if you might also be a Guide.”
Danyal snatched his robe off the peg and shoved his arms into it. “And what happens when Vito finds no stones?”
“Were you sincere when you asked Ephemera to make them?”
The question unnerved him enough to snap, “Let’s go.” He took a firm grip on Lee’s arm and led him out of the temple.
“Where?”
He didn’t know. Before he could decide, Vito ran up to them.
“Shaman, look! I found these while I was weeding!”
An agate, a quartz, and a jade.
His grip on Lee’s arm tightened to help him maintain his own balance.
“Let’s see those.” After tucking his cane under his arm, Lee held out a hand. He rubbed his thumb over the stones Vito dropped in his hand and nodded. “Yes, these are good. Take one back. Put it in your pocket. Whenever you feel doubtful or sad, hold the stone for a few moments and let the stone absorb those feelings.”
“All right,” Vito said. “I will.”
“Well done,” Danyal said, smiling.
“Thank you, Shaman. Thank you.” Vito bobbed his head. “I’d best get back to my work.”
Lee slipped the other two stones into his pocket. “Guess that answers the question about you being a Guide.” He turned his head to look at Danyal. “Which means you need to be more careful than the other Shamans from now on, because you’re the enemy the Dark Guide has to destroy if he’s going to take control of the city.”
“Because I spoke the names of some common stones and Vito happened to find them while weeding?” Danyal snorted. “What does that prove?”
“Besides the fact that you’re getting stubborn about accepting the possibility because you’re afraid it’s true?” Lee replied. “All right. If the stones could have been in the garden already, how about trying for something more exotic? Like a precious gemstone you wouldn’t find in the garden.”
???
The ground felt…strange, and he had the odd sensation that a large, friendly cat was rubbing against his legs—and that made Danyal reckless. “What should I ask for? A ruby the size of my thumbnail?”
Phhhhhtttt
Dirt shot up like a tiny geyser next to his foot. Moments later, in the small crater formed by the shifted dirt…
