by Anne Bishop
Koltak resettled the crutches, but he didn’t move as a thought filled him. Of course most of the council had withstood Belladonna’s attack, but maybe there would now be a vacancy that needed to be filled by a wizard who had stood against Belladonna and fought back?
Excitement had him moving down the corridor with as much speed as he could manage. When he reached Harland’s door, he flung it open and went inside, relieved to see the tall wizard standing at the window, wearing rumpled, grass-stained robes.
“Harland! I—”
What turned away from the window was—and wasn’t—Harland. Human shaped…but not human. Terrifying and yet compelling.
Koltak’s heart thudded in his chest. He knew what he was looking at. He just couldn’t believe it.
Fury blazed from Harland’s eyes. “It wasn’t time yet to show our true faces. It wasn’t time!”
“Dark Guide,” Koltak whispered, knowing the moment he said it that even that much recognition had been a mistake.
Harland moved toward him, smiling. “We hid well, did we not? Justice Makers. Champions of the Light. The ones willing to shoulder the burden of deciding who was unworthy of living in the daylight landscapes. By stripping a heart of all hope, by twisting happy memories into something painful, by preparing that heart before calling on a Landscaper to perform Heart’s Justice…We couldn’t reach the Eater of the World, but with the Landscapers’ unwitting help, we were able to use It to rid ourselves of people who would have gotten in our way.” His smile widened, turned savage. “Why do you look so shocked, Koltak? You always wanted to know the inner secrets of the council. Now I’m telling you.”
Koltak couldn’t move. This was wrong. All wrong.
“We hid well,” Harland said. “So well that when we finally brought ourselves to their notice, the Landscapers and Bridges accepted us as allies. Over time we poisoned their minds, blinded them so they couldn’t recognize the truth about the ones whose power was different from theirs. Generation after generation, they helped us eliminate the true Guides of the Heart, preparing Ephemera for the day when we could take control of the world.” His mouth twisted into a snarl. “We failed only once. And thanks to your brother, that one is more powerful than all the others before her.”
“Peter?” Koltak stammered. “What does Peter have to do with this?”
“By mating Dark power with Light, he helped create a child who has both! No one else could have revealed us for what we are! No one else could be a real threat to the Eater of the World.”
I have to get out of here, Koltak thought. I have to get away from this city. I have to warn…someone.
Harland looked past Koltak. “I think it’s time Wizard Koltak was initiated into the council.”
“No,” Koltak said. “No, I—”
Feet kicked the crutches out from under him. Hands grabbed his arms before he fell.
He could call the lightning. He could fight, get away. He could—
Kill your ambition, Koltak? voices whispered in his mind. If you fight us now, you will never have what you most desire. Isn’t that why you struggled to stay in this landscape? Because here is the only place where your ambitions could bloom?
He didn’t fight, didn’t struggle. He tried to keep his injured foot off the floor as members of the council—barely recognizable as the men they’d once pretended to be—opened a panel in the wall and dragged him down flights of stairs and through secret corridors.
Finally they stopped in front of a heavy wooden door.
Harland pulled back the bolts and opened the door, closing it behind them once the Dark Guides dragged Koltak to the edge of a barred gallery that looked down into a dimly lit pit.
Holding on to the bars to stay upright, Koltak stared into the pit. Was there something moving down there? Yes. Something moving out of the shadows.
The female—since the creature was naked, there was no doubt it was female—stared up at them. Then she screamed—a sound that lifted the hairs on the back of Koltak’s neck.
“That is the reason you will never be part of the council, Koltak,” Harland said.
“I…I don’t understand.”
Harland smiled as he watched the female, who was now stroking her breasts and moaning. “These are our breeders. They were never able to alter their appearance to pass as humans, so they had to be hidden, protected. They have a feral intelligence, and they’re quite vicious. When they come into season and are desperate to be mounted and mated, they have to be restrained to keep them from savaging the males.” He turned his head and looked at Koltak. “The council is made up of purebloods. Has always been made up of the purebloods. Your ambition made you a useful tool, but you’re too human to be one of us.”
“Why…why are you telling me this?”
“So that you understand.”
“But…” Koltak’s head was reeling as all the things he’d believed shifted into a different pattern. “But if this is what you are, why were you so opposed to Sebastian?”
“We weren’t,” Harland replied. “There was no way of knowing the boy’s potential, but by our exploiting your shame in having sired a child with a succubus, you became a useful tool. And the boy…” He sighed. “The incubi and succubi are two branches that came from the same root as the Dark Guides. Like us, they have the power to slip into other minds through the twilight of waking dreams. As one of us, Sebastian would have been a more powerful wizard than you could dream of being. But as an enemy and Belladonna’s ally…” He smiled. “But once again, you proved yourself useful by helping us eliminate him.”
Sebastian. Tears stung Koltak’s eyes. All of these years, he could have had a son, could have taught the boy to use the power that lived inside him. They might have worked together…as Justice Makers.
Harland studied the females gathering to stare at the males who were out of reach. “They cannot go out among the humans, so they need toys to play with. It makes them easier to handle when it’s time for us to mate with them.”
“Toys?” Koltak stammered, pulled back to the danger present all around him. What kind of toys…It suddenly clicked. “The people who disappear, who are thought to have gotten lost in another landscape.”
Harland nodded. “It’s convenient that some people do cross over to another landscape and aren’t able to return. So no one suspects that anything else might have happened to them.” He paused. “Except Peter. A true Justice Maker, he wandered where he shouldn’t have while helping a shepherd boy round up some sheep. He discovered one of the barred openings that let light and air into this chamber. When we realized he had seen our secret, he had to disappear.”
Koltak just clung to the bars and stared at Harland.
“Your brother was a strong man,” Harland said. “He lasted for weeks before the females broke him, body and spirit. I wonder if you’ll last even half as long.” He lashed out, kicking Koltak’s injured foot.
Koltak screamed as the pain tore through him. He couldn’t fight, could barely struggle as two members of the council dragged him down the stairs and through a tunnel carved out of the pit’s stone walls. Then they opened a door and shoved him into the pit, swiftly locking the door behind them.
Gasping from the pain and unable to stand, he cowered by the door, watching the females as they moved toward him.
“Harland!” he shouted. “Harland! I can still help you!”
But Harland and the other males were gone.
As he felt something brush against the edges of his mind, as he realized he was going to die in this pit and the violation these creatures did to his heart would eclipse anything they did to his body, he accepted a painful truth.
Sebastian had been right. Belladonna was Ephemera’s only hope.
Swallowing down the sick churning in his stomach, Dalton raised his head and opened his eyes.
Dark.
Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart, where were they?
He was still in the wagon, still holding hi
s wife’s arm. “Aldys?”
“D-Dalton?”
“Lally? Dale?” He touched his children. “Anyone hurt?”
“Hey-a!” a voice called.
A lantern, bobbing to the rhythm of a fast walk, came down the road toward them.
Releasing his family, Dalton’s left hand closed around the sheath of his sword. His right hand curled around the hilt.
“You folks all right?” the man asked.
“We’re fine,” Dalton replied warily. He relaxed a little when the man got closer and raised the lantern high enough so they could see his face. A good face. Older. Strong body and arms that came from solid work.
“Where did you folks come from?”
“Wizard City.” Seeing the man’s friendly expression fade, he added, “Heart’s Justice sent us here.” Wherever “here” was. “Is this one of Belladonna’s landscapes?”
“Do you want it to be?”
“Yes.”
The man relaxed. “Well, Glorianna is never wrong about a heart.”
“So this is one of Belladonna’s landscapes?”
“Well, it is and it isn’t. Glorianna’s mother, Nadia, looks after this landscape. Village of Aurora is just down the road a ways, but the house is closer.” The man looked up at the sky. “It’ll be dawn in another hour or so. Easier to find your way to the village once the sun comes up. You follow me up to the house. I reckon the youngsters could use some warm milk, and you folks could use a bite to eat.”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Aldys said nervously.
“Never you mind that,” the man said with a smile. “Things are plenty stirred up tonight, so Nadia’s already in the kitchen.” He started to turn away, then turned back. “I’m Jeb, by the way.”
Relief that they had found a safe place made Dalton light-headed, but as he untied the reins and released the brake, something occurred to him.
“Jeb? Why are you out on the road this time of night?”
“Was keeping watch for someone we’re expecting. They haven’t shown up yet, but they will. They will.”
A good man, Dalton thought as they followed Jeb back to the Landscaper’s house. Caring people.
He hoped whoever they were watching for made it back to them.
The Eater of the World screamed in rage and fear. The True Enemy had taken the Dark Guides and their city out of the world, so far out of reach It couldn’t feel any resonance. Even when It had been caged, It had been able to feel the resonance of the Dark Guides. How could she control a place that held so much of their Dark power? How?
And how could she defeat the Dark Guides? There were so many of them in that city! If she was powerful enough to cage all of them…
It had to hide. It had to find a place far from these landscapes, a place where she wouldn’t look for It.
As It fled back to the school, It considered all the landscapes It could reach through the gardens. But she would know about those places.
The sea. It could hide in the sea. Hunt in the sea. Until It figured out a way to destroy the True Enemy.
It moved through the gardens, flowing beneath the paths that were now cracked and growing noxious weeds until It came to the garden where it had left the stones it had taken from a stream that was, and wasn’t, in the four-footed demons’ landscape.
It had recognized the resonance of a wizard, and the dark feelings in that heart had left the land around a bridge vulnerable to Its influence. So It had taken the stones to make an access point.
Now It flowed over those stones, into those stones…and out into the stream. For a moment It lay at the bottom of the stream, blacker than the darkest shadow. Then It flowed up the bank and under the land, sensing the currents of Light and Dark—and a power, a strength of will and heart that resonated with those currents. But it wasn’t her.
Rising to the surface, It changed shape.
A well-dressed, middle-aged man walked down the road toward the village of Dunberry.
“Daylight,” Teaser said, pushing back his chair.
“What is it?” Yoshani asked, looking around.
“Visitors. And not the kind we welcome around here.”
“Teaser—”
But he was already out of Philo’s courtyard and stepping into the street to block the two men riding toward him.
“Evening,” the older man said, reining in before his horse reached Teaser.
Teaser studied the two men. No badges, but he knew a guard’s jacket when he saw one. “Go back to where you came from.”
“Can’t. And wouldn’t want to if we could.” He looked around and gave Teaser a smile that was sad and hopeful. “Looks like a nice place.”
“This is the Den of Iniquity.”
“The…” Both men looked startled. The older one whistled softly. “One of Belladonna’s landscapes.”
Teaser bristled. The last thing anyone here needed was guards who were interested in Belladonna. “You’re not wel—”
A strong hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked at Yoshani, who was studying the guards.
“Heart’s Justice?” Yoshani asked softly.
The older man nodded. “I’m Addison. This is Henley.”
“Teaser,” Yoshani said, “if this is where they ended up, this is where they belong. At least at this stage of their journey.”
“They could be lying.”
“No heart can lie to Glorianna Belladonna.”
He felt stubborn. He felt scared. The hours since he’d brought Yoshani to the Den had been endless.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll find a place for you to stay until the Justice Maker gets back. When he does, he’ll decide if you stay or go.”
The guards looked uneasy. “You have a wizard here?”
“A Justice Maker.”
“Gentlemen,” Yoshani said. “Why don’t you take a seat in the courtyard and have something to eat?”
While the guards tied up their horses and found seats in the courtyard, Teaser stared at the street, at the people going in and out of the taverns and gambling houses.
“He’ll come back,” he said, softly but fiercely. “Sebastian will come back.”
“And that, my friend, is why Belladonna wanted you here. Needed you here,” Yoshani said gently. “Because you believe he’ll come back. You believe it with all your heart.”
Teaser felt the truth of those words settle inside him. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
Glorianna woke up groaning. “I’m too old to sleep on the ground.”
“You’re not ancient; you’re thirty,” Lee replied. “And you’re not on the ground; you’re on a blanket.”
“Doesn’t make the ground any softer.” She pushed herself up. Her eyes felt gritty, her mouth tasted foul, and she was pretty sure she was the smell that made her nose wrinkle. But the other smell…Her eyes opened all the way. “Koffee?”
“And some food.” Lee tipped one hand toward the basket beside him. The other hand held a mug of koffee.
“Why didn’t you wake me so we could sleep in the guesthouse?” she grumbled, pushing her tangled hair off her face.
“I banged a stone against an empty pot long enough and loud enough to wake up everyone in the guesthouse. You didn’t even twitch. Had to roll you onto the blanket.” He set down his mug, got another from the basket, and filled it with koffee from a jug. “So stop whining.”
“I’m not whining.”
“Are too.”
“Am…not.” She stared at him. “Are you going to give me that koffee?”
“Are you going to keep whining?”
“I’m—Just give me that.”
Grinning, he handed her the mug, took a sip of his own, then dug into the basket and put out a plate of bread, cheese, and grapes.
They ate in companionable silence, listening to birdsong and the trickle of the fountain.
“So,” Lee said, dividing the rest of the koffee equally between them. “The Dark Guides are locked out of reach of the world
.”
“There are others who weren’t in the city,” Glorianna said.
“But their true faces are revealed. They can no longer pretend to be humans with magic.”
“No, they can’t. But there are also wizards who have enough human blood that their appearance won’t change.”
“Then they have a choice, don’t they? With the others exposed as Dark Guides, they can choose to continue following the Dark currents nurtured by the Wizards’ Council or they can become Justice Makers in the true sense.”
She nodded. “The Landscapers who survived the attack on the school, if there are any, will have to make choices, too. I can help them, if they’ll let me. I’m not sure they will.”
“Can they help you?”
She shook her head. That’s something she already knew with certainty. “They don’t have inside them what is needed to fight the Eater of the World.”
“You can’t fight It alone, Glorianna.”
I don’t think that’s going to be a choice. “We’ll see.”
He hesitated, then asked softly, “What about Sebastian?”
“I know where to find Sebastian.” Then she added just as softly, “If he followed his heart.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
The sound of waves rolling into shore. A steady sound. Familiar. Comforting.
Sebastian rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. Dark. He hadn’t expected anything else. Not really. And yet, some small part of him, right before Heart’s Justice had swept him away, had hoped—
Lynnea!
His body jolted into a sitting position. He twisted to his left when he heard a soft groan. Patting the ground, he found her hand, her arm.
Shifting to his knees, he gently explored, his hands roaming over her body. No jagged pieces of bone. No wet spots that would indicate she was bleeding.
She groaned again, then said hesitantly, “Sebastian?”
“Lie still, sweetheart.” His hands went to her shoulders to hold her down. “Are you hurt? Is there any pain?” Her neck. What if she hurt her neck? “Can you move?”