by Anne Bishop
The party was breaking up. Families were gathering up their children and going home. No more music, no more laughter. Not tonight.
It’s time.
He came toward her, his face tight with grim sorrow—and resignation. She’d seen that look on her mother’s face. Had seen it in a mirror often enough over the years.
Landscaper, Guide, Guardian, Magician, Shaman, Heart-walker, Heart Seer, Spirit. What difference did the name make? The feeling was the same. Sometimes you opened a door, revealed a path, provided that moment of opportunity and choice—and that choice, despite all its promise, turned bitter, turned tragic. Turned to sorrow.
“Michael?”
He shook his head, cupped his hand under her elbow, and guided her up the stairs. When they reached the door of his room, he stopped. “We need to talk.”
“About Doreen.”
“Not so much.”
He opened the door, then stepped aside, letting her enter first. When he came in, he locked the door. The sound scraped her nerves.
“I think that monster is back in Kendall,” Michael said. “The letter…It was a hard death, Glorianna. Doreen wasn’t a kind person, but no one deserves that kind of death.”
She turned to face him. “What does that have to do with you?”
“Shaney emptied the till, bought her passage to Kendall.” He hesitated. “Being a Magician…It’s not talked about, you understand. It needs to be talked about. I’ve learned that much from you and your mother—and from seeing the people in Darling’s Harbor. Anyway, she tried to cause trouble for me after I left here because I wouldn’t…” He glanced at the bed. “She didn’t belong here. Didn’t fit the music of Foggy Downs anymore.”
“So she used a dark way of achieving her goal of leaving this landscape, and that attracted more darkness.” Glorianna sighed, then sat in the chair. “And her choices in that time and place put her in the path of the Eater of the World.”
“Kendall is a seaport. Ships come in from all over the world. It could slip aboard a ship and end up in some part of the world I’ve barely heard of and you never have. And if It does that, It will keep killing, keep tormenting.”
“Yes,” she replied, keeping her eyes on his. “That is Its nature.”
He swallowed hard. Seemed to brace for a blow.
She could feel his heart crying out in pain.
“I need your word, Glorianna Belladonna,” he said softly. “I need a promise that will not be broken.”
“I don’t give my word if I can’t keep it,” she said just as softly.
“I need your word that you won’t leave without me. I need your promise that when you go, you’ll tell me where you’re going. Exactly where you’re going.”
“And if I don’t promise?”
“Then I’ll bid you good night.”
“And what is left unsaid will remain unsaid?”
Another hard swallow. “Yes.”
He meant it.
She felt the currents of power flow through the room, flow through her. Felt them brush against her skin.
When she had performed Heart’s Justice to take the Dark Guides away from the Eater of the World, she had depended on Lynnea’s love and courage to hold Sebastian’s heart and keep him safe. She had come to that same moment, here and now, with the Magician.
Opportunities and choices. She could turn away, keep her own landscapes safe, and try to build a life with a man she suspected she could truly love—even though they would always wonder what their life together had cost another part of the world. Or she could have the courage to accept the key Michael held inside himself and open a door that would take her to the next stage of her journey.
“I give you my word,” she said.
He crossed the room, knelt in front of the chair, and took her hands in his.
“In that case, I need to tell you the story about the Warrior of Light.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Glorianna walked the paths inside her walled garden on the Island in the Mist, wandering without destination. Despite being out there in the cold hours of the night, the lantern she carried remained unlit, the matches in her coat pocket untouched. She didn’t need those things when she walked these paths.
I want to go home. I need to go home.
After he’d told her the story about the Warrior of Light, Michael hadn’t questioned her need to return to her island, hadn’t argued about the lateness of the hour. She didn’t know what explanation he had given to Shaney and the others. And she didn’t know what any of them had thought when she and Michael walked out of the tavern and vanished as they took the step between here and there.
He hadn’t argued about being given a guest room instead of being invited to her bed. But she couldn’t have him there, not yet. Not quite yet.
The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup.
Listening to him tell the story had been like having a memory rise up through her skin. She’d heard the echo of his words in her blood and bone.
The Guardians of the Light had kept themselves apart from the everyday life of humans, devoting themselves to nurturing the Light so that it would always shine in the world. But the Guides of the Heart had walked in the world. Had fought for the world.
Had died for the world.
She had come from them. She was one of them. She would follow their path.
But this…This would be worse than dying.
She knew how to build the cage. Had known for sixteen years without realizing it. And because this would be her choice, she knew how to lock the door of that cage and seal it tight. So tight.
Maybe it was just as well she hadn’t met the Magician earlier in her life. That much less to remember. That much less to regret leaving behind.
Ephemera, hear me.
Questions asked. Answers given. It would be all right. She could give him this much. And he would be the Guide he was meant to be.
The Light called.
She smiled when she saw where her wandering had ended. Even as her eyes filled with tears, she smiled.
And took the step between here and there.
“Glorianna? Glorianna!”
Michael held the lantern up and looked around. A waste of breath to swear, but he swore anyway. Without heat, but with a great deal of creativity. The woman may have followed the literal meaning of her promise but she’d fallen short of the spirit of that promise. Which was something they were going to discuss when he found her.
If he could find her.
He would find her. Oh, he would. A note slipped under his door wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he said he wanted to know where she was going.
Magician, I’m taking a walk in the garden. If I cross over, it will be to a Place of Light. And I will be back.
Well, good. Fine. When?
The wild child circled round him, anxious and confused. Did he want something? Should it make something? What? What?
He paused long enough to grab hold of his own emotions and consider where he was—and what might happen if he got careless about how he expressed his feelings.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “It’s nothing. Well…” He paused. Considered. Surely that couldn’t hurt her landscapes, and it would certainly help him and the wild child calm down. “Maybe we could find a place to play a little music while we’re waiting for her to come back.”
Here here here. This way.
He followed the “tug” in the currents of power, not exactly sure where he was going, but since he was still within the walled garden, he wasn’t worried. He had acquired a heavy coat before he and Glorianna had crossed over to Dunberry—this one a loan from Jeb—so he was warm enough despite the chilly autumn night. If worse came to worst, he would simply wait for sunrise before looking for the gate that led back to the house.
But as he stepped off one path and onto another, the change in the feel of things was enough of a jolt to make him stop.
This part of the garden didn’t feel
like Glorianna.
The buzz of the land flowed through him, making him want to scratch an itch he knew wasn’t physical.
Potential. Possibility. Change.
He set the lantern down, then spread his arms, raising his hands up shoulder-high. He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the night sky.
A month ago he would have felt foolish standing like this. Now he felt the power and duty and joy of what he was.
“Ephemera, hear me,” he said softly. “It is Michael. The Magician.”
He was a tone that flowed through the currents of the world, both Light and Dark. He was a clear, powerful song. He was a Magician, and he heard the music of the world.
The buzz of the land kept shifting until it fit the tone that was him, became part of the song that was him.
Most important, this odd place, while it didn’t have quite the same feel as the rest, now belonged in Glorianna’s garden.
Then he opened his eyes and looked at the ground in front of him.
“Lady’s mercy,” he whispered. “What have I done?”
“You’re up early,” Glorianna said as she stepped into the kitchen of Sanctuary’s guesthouse. She saw the woman stiffen, saw the wariness in the eyes before Brighid recognized her and relaxed.
“I’m thinking the sun has been up quite some time in Elandar, and my body still answers to that sunrise instead of when the sun awakes here,” Brighid replied as her hands worked a mound of dough.
“Yes, the sun is on the other side of dawn over there.”
“I missed the songs,” Brighid said quietly. “Lighthaven is a beautiful place, but the only thing I truly missed was the songs that marked the points of the day, the cycle of the moon, the turning of the seasons.”
“What kind of songs?” Glorianna asked, slipping into a chair by the table where Brighid worked.
“Chants, mostly. Not what most people would consider singing.”
“What kind of chants?”
Brighid hesitated, then sang very softly:
“We lift our voices to the Light.
We lift our faces to the Light.
We give our spirits to the Light,
To shine in us forever.”
“You don’t sing those songs anymore?” Glorianna asked.
Brighid shrugged. She set the dough in a bowl and covered it with a cloth to let it rise. “Tried for a while when I first went to live in Raven’s Hill. But it made me sad to sing them there, so I stopped. At Lighthaven, even if you were alone when it was time to call that part of the day, you knew other voices were rising with yours, saying the same words. Even if you couldn’t hear them, you knew. There was comfort in that, peace in that.”
“You can sing them here,” Glorianna said.
“They aren’t a tradition here.”
“If you don’t share them, how can another heart embrace them?”
Brighid looked at her for a long moment, then said, “A Guide of the Heart even for a Guardian of the Light?”
Glorianna smiled. “Why not?”
Brighid walked over to the counter. “Would you be wanting some of this koffee, or has Michael enlightened your palate with a good cup of tea?”
Tears stung her eyes. Emotions stormed through her. Just hearing his name rubbed her heart raw.
“Ah, now. You’ve not had a parting of the ways, have you?” Brighid pulled up another chair, sat down, and took Glorianna’s hands in hers.
Not yet, she thought. Not quite yet.
“He’s a good man, Glorianna,” Brighid said, her voice filled with earnest conviction. “I couldn’t see it when I lived in Raven’s Hill, and I’m sorry for that. I’m not saying there isn’t a bit of Dark in him, because there is. Has to be with him being a Magician. But he has a good heart.”
“I don’t want to love him,” Glorianna whispered. “I think I do, am almost sure I do. But I don’t want to.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because there has to be a parting of the ways.”
“You don’t think he could fit into your life?”
“He could, yes.” He already fit so well it was as if he’d always been there. And yet everything was new with him, and there was so much they didn’t know about each other, about how it might be with each other.
She didn’t want to talk about Michael—didn’t want to think about Michael. So she pulled her hands out of Brighid’s and wiped away the tear that had dared spill over. “I know why the Places of Light need currents of Dark. Why do dark landscapes need currents of Light?”
“For hope,” Brighid said with such certainty Glorianna just stared at her. “Even a dark heart hopes its plans will succeed, that it will be the victor in the struggle against its adversaries. More than any other reason, that is why the Places of Light exist. Love, laughter, kindness, compassion. These feelings will take root in a heart on their own. But it is hope that flows through the currents of Light. Because without hope, those other seeds will never find fertile ground.”
“There are people who have no hope but are still able to love, to offer kindness and compassion.”
“A heart that stands deep in the Light can give those. And when it does, what is the seed that is planted in other hearts called?”
“Hope,” Glorianna whispered. “The seed is called hope.”
“Glorianna…”
She shook her head. Pushed her chair back. “I have to go.” She pulled a folded, wax-sealed paper from her pocket. “Would you see that Yoshani gets that?” She waited for Brighid’s nod, then hurried to the kitchen door. As she reached for the knob, she paused and looked back. “Travel lightly, Brighid.”
She hurried away from the guesthouse. There was only one person she wanted to see. Then she wanted the rest of the day to herself. With Michael.
Surely one day wasn’t too much to ask. Not when she was about to sacrifice the rest of her life.
Brighid stood at the kitchen window for a long time. Still too dark to see outside, but that didn’t matter.
A parting of the ways. Why? There was a spark between Glorianna and Michael. She’d seen that for herself when they’d all sailed to the White Isle. If there was more interest on Michael’s side and wariness on Glorianna’s, well, so be it. A woman was entitled to be wary about where she gave her heart, wasn’t she? And with the bridges these folks knew how to make, neither of them would have to sacrifice their pieces…of the…world…
She stared at her reflection in the window.
She’d forgotten. Or hadn’t wanted to remember. A riddle. An answer. And a story about love—and sacrifice.
She went back to her work, doing her share to provide food for the guests and residents of this house in Sanctuary. But even as her hands performed familiar tasks, nothing was quite the same. Would never be the same again.
Travel lightly, Brighid.
Advice and blessing from a Guide of the Heart. She would heed that advice, honor that blessing. And when the sky began to lighten, she would walk out to the koi pond and, for the first time in many years, lift her voice in celebration of the dawn.
“Is there a reason you’re here at this hour, emptying my pantry?” Nadia asked, pushing her sleep-mussed hair away from her face as she eyed the supplies spread out on the kitchen table.
“Just need a few things,” Glorianna muttered as she packed a couple of items into one of the two market baskets. “Michael will be awake soon and I didn’t think about getting supplies on the way back to the island.”
Nadia tightened the belt of the robe she’d thrown on over her nightgown. “You could always just bring him around for breakfast and then do some marketing on your own.”
Too many people. Too many distractions.
“Glorianna?”
“I want a day with the Magician. Alone. On the island,” Glorianna said softly.
“Well, that’s fine, but that’s no reason to be taking all my eggs.”
“I know how to stop the Eater of the World. I know what to do.”
“Glorianna?”
The sharpness in Nadia’s voice warned her that her mother had heard what was under the words.
She raised her head and met Nadia’s eyes. “I know what to do.”
“Then we’ll talk about it. All of us. Jeb can fetch Lee and Sebas—”
“No.” She couldn’t have all of them around her. Not today. Maybe that was selfish—it was certainly unfair—but she couldn’t face all of them. And she couldn’t stand the thought that her last feelings for all of them would carry the resonance of an argument.
She walked around the table and put her arms around Nadia. Felt her mother’s arms tighten around her in response.
“He’ll be angry and he won’t want to do it, so lean hard on Lee to make the new bridges that will be needed. And don’t turn your heart away from the Magician. It’s not his fault. Opportunities and choices, Mother. He provided the opportunity, but the choice is mine.”
“Glorianna.”
She heard the tears.
“I love you,” Glorianna whispered. “When you think of me, remember that. I love you.”
They finished packing the baskets in a silence that held too many things that were said without words.
Then Glorianna walked out of her mother’s house, walked into the dawn’s light, and took the step between here and there.
Glorianna had called it virgin ground. He remembered that much now that his brain started thinking again. She just hadn’t explained the significance of virgin ground, which was going on the list of things he intended to discuss with her.
“You’ve had a busy time, haven’t you?”
Michael whirled around and saw Glorianna standing nearby, holding two market baskets. Since he didn’t think the Places of Light had markets, that meant she’d gone somewhere besides where she said she was going. And that was another something to discuss. They were going to have a plentiful amount to discuss, and to his way of thinking, that discussion would be held at full volume. The fact that she seemed amused by what she was looking at wasn’t doing anything for him either.
