by Anne Bishop
“So this bridge is in one of your landscapes, Aunt Nadia?” Sebastian asked.
“Yes.” Nadia paled. “If Lee ran into trouble…”
“Then an enemy may have found a way in,” Sebastian finished. “Do you think Michael and I resonate with that other landscape enough to cross the border and visit? What about Dalton and Addison? I’d like to take a look at the bridge Lee was checking, and I’d like to have trained guards coming with us.”
“I—” Nadia took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I don’t think any of you would have trouble, but if something has changed…”
“Lee gave me a couple of one-shot bridges that would bring me back to the Den,” Teaser said. “I asked for them so I’d feel easier about crossing over to…ah…visit a new friend.”
“I have a couple of one-shots for the Den,” Sebastian said.
“If I get separated from the rest of you, I can just take the step between here and there and return to my bit of garden on the Island in the Mist,” Michael said.
Sebastian nodded. “Then let’s send word to Dalton and Addison. The sooner we figure out where Lee has gone, the better.”
Dalton, a law enforcer in Aurora, had his own horse. So did Addison, who worked as a guard in the Den. Since Sebastian wasn’t sure the demon cycles that lived in the Den would be able to cross over to the landscape they needed to reach, he and Michael borrowed horses from the law enforcers’ stables in Aurora.
Following Nadia’s directions to the cairn that marked the border between Aurora and Tully, the four men reached the bridge without incident, but they didn’t see any sign of Lee and couldn’t find any indication that they were on the right side of the bridge.
“If Lee crossed over to check on this bridge from the other side, he could have run into trouble there,” Dalton said, shifting in his saddle. “Even a daylight landscape has dark hearts in it. He could have been robbed and left somewhere, wounded.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Why would thieves be interested in him? He wasn’t carrying anything. His pack was on the island. If he’d felt threatened, he would have stepped back on the island. That’s all he needed to do to be in a place thieves couldn’t reach.”
“Except the island isn’t answering him anymore, is it?” Michael said quietly. “So maybe he thought the danger couldn’t reach him, but it did.”
“Maybe.” Sebastian dismounted, glad to feel his own feet on the ground. Ordinary horses wouldn’t try to kill you for fun—or eat you—but if he had to depend on something besides his own feet, he still preferred dealing with the demon cycles.
Michael, Dalton, and Addison dismounted. Dropping his reins to ground tie his horse, Addison moved away from the others, studying the ground.
Dalton ground tied his horse, drew his short sword, then tipped his head toward the bridge. “I’ll cross over.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “You have a wife and children.”
Dalton gave Sebastian an odd smile. “Justice Maker, this is a stationary bridge between known landscapes. This is as safe as a man can be in Ephemera. And I have the one-shot bridge you gave me that will get me back to the Den.”
“All right, then—”
“Captain!” Addison called. “Found something.” He pointed at the ground just ahead of where he stood.
They hurried to join him. Addison shook his head and took the reins from Michael and Sebastian.
Sebastian hesitated, then picked up the pocket watch, tugging the chain out of the soil.
“Is that Lee’s?” Dalton asked.
Michael muttered under his breath about the wild child.
Sebastian smiled as he handed the broken watch to Michael. “It belongs to the Magician, in a manner of speaking.”
Dalton walked ahead of them for a few paces, then stopped and pointed. “Here’s another one.”
“I’d best fetch the other horses.” Addison handed the reins to Michael.
They found two more broken pocket watches while they were still in sight of the bridge.
Sebastian looked at Michael. “Looks like Ephemera is giving us a trail. Should we walk for a bit?”
Michael nodded. “If we keep the creek on our right, we’ll be able to retrace our steps.”
They walked for several minutes at a brisk pace, Dalton in front and Addison in the rear, leading the four horses.
“Haven’t seen another of those watches,” Dalton said. “Maybe Lee—”
The wind shifted.
“Guardians and Guides,” Dalton said, choking. “What’s that smell?”
“Stinkweed,” Sebastian and Michael said as they broke into a run.
They slowed when they spotted pieces of broken planks floating in the creek. Holding a hand over their noses and mouths, they cautiously approached what was left of a rough footbridge. At Dalton’s signal, Addison hung back with the horses.
The stinkweed spread two man lengths in front of the bridge. What was left of the planks had been crushed by some kind of thorny vines. Five plants with leaves so dark a green they looked black grew around the area where someone had built a campfire. As they stared at the plants, a flower began pushing out of a fleshy pod.
“Shit!” Dalton yelped, taking a step back.
“A turd plant?” Sebastian asked as he too stepped back. The smell made his eyes water.
“The wild child has been more expressive since Glorianna returned,” Michael said.
“Meaning what?” Sebastian backed away from the plants. “That there were five people here the world didn’t like?”
“Or didn’t like being here,” Michael said grimly.
“There’s a bit of a rise there,” Dalton said. “Enough to hide a small camp. Stay here. I’m going to take a look.” He headed toward the rise.
Sebastian studied the ground around the creek. Not that he could tell much beyond the obvious. “Lee didn’t make that bridge.”
“No,” Michael agreed, “but somebody did—and that person managed to bring over others who shouldn’t have been able to reach a place held by Nadia.”
He could think of one kind of person who had been able to travel in the daylight landscapes, regardless of the foulness in their hearts. Wizards. Not just the wizards who were Justice Makers, but the ones who acted on behalf of the Dark Guides.
Dalton whistled, pointed to them, and made a “come along” motion. Another hand signal to Addison had the other guard tying the horses to a couple of young trees before pulling out his short sword and joining them.
Sebastian and Michael hurried up the rise.
“What?” Sebastian asked.
“I’ve made enough of both kinds of camps to know the difference between making an overnight stop and settling in,” Dalton said, looking at Sebastian.
Dalton had been the guard captain who had helped Koltak, Sebastian’s wizard father, capture him and bring him to Wizard City—and had protected him when Koltak tried to kill him after Sebastian maimed the wizard’s foot. Dismissed and stripped of his rank because he’d protected the incubus, Dalton and his family had ended up in Aurora.
Now Sebastian and Dalton were both law enforcers in their own ways—although the incubus-wizard’s interpretation of those duties didn’t tend to match the former captain’s.
“They waited here for someone?” Sebastian asked, wanting confirmation.
Dalton nodded. “And whatever happened here happened fast enough that they left without breaking camp.”
“Then let’s take a look around.” Michael headed down the rise. He stopped when he reached the tents and tipped his head toward one, then the other. “Sebastian, give me a hand with this.”
Moving to the back of the tent, Michael wrapped a hand around the tent peg and waited until Sebastian held the front tent peg. They pulled out the pegs and flipped up that side of the tent, revealing the contents stored inside.
Blanket rolls. Packs. Water skins. Nothing Sebastian wouldn’t expect to see. Nothing Lee didn’t keep on the is
land when he was planning to sleep out for a few days while checking the bridges.
When they flipped up the side of the other tent…
“Guardians and Guides,” Dalton said.
A man lay on the ground, his body blackened. He might have been a young man, but his face and body were so broken, it was hard to tell.
“What happened to him?” Addison asked.
“Wizards’ lightning,” Sebastian replied, rubbing his thumb against two fingers. “He was struck by wizards’ lightning. Looks like he was beaten first, but he was killed by the lightning.”
“Maybe he was trying to help Lee fight off a wizard,” Dalton said.
“Whatever he was doing here, I’m thinking he wasn’t a friend to Lee,” Michael said, pointing to the small plants that began poking out of the ground around the man’s head.
Even when they were tiny plants, stinkweed was vile.
The men backed away.
“All right,” Sebastian said. “Assuming the world knows how to count”—he looked at Michael, who shrugged—“five people crossed over to this landscape—one of Nadia’s landscapes—and made camp. At least one of them was a wizard. Now they’re gone. So is Lee. And the only one left in their camp is a dead man. How did they get here, and how did they leave?” He had his own ideas about how, but he wanted to hear what the other men had to say.
“Those planks over the creek,” Dalton said thoughtfully, looking in that direction. “The bridge that linked Wizard City to the landscape Wizard Koltak traveled through to find you wasn’t any different. If that fellow was a Bridge, that could explain how the wizard and his men got here, but not why they stopped here. The wizards who are roaming free in the landscapes still want to destroy Belladonna. Why stop here?”
“Maybe this is as close as they could get,” Sebastian said. “It took Koltak days to reach me in the Den, and I don’t think any wizard or Dark Guide has been able to reach any place held by Glorianna Belladonna since then.”
Dalton stiffened. “But if they had someone like Lee, a Bridge who could get them into her landscapes…”
Sebastian nodded. “A Landscaper, a Bridge, even the thrice-damned wizards would know bridges are checked regularly. Wouldn’t be hard to guess that Lee had made most of the bridges in Nadia’s landscapes. All they needed to do is find one and wait for him to show up.”
“Doesn’t explain what happened to them,” Addison said.
“One-shot resonating bridge,” Michael replied quietly. “When Lee and I were in Raven’s Hill, he tossed a stone at a man who was about to start a tavern brawl. The man disappeared before our eyes. Lee didn’t know where the man had gone, just that he’d gone to a landscape that resonated with his heart at that moment.”
“Probably not a good place if he was about to start a brawl,” Sebastian said.
“Probably not,” Michael agreed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Whatever problems Lee has with Glorianna and me, there’s one thing about the man I’m sure of: when he realized there was a wizard among those men, he did whatever he could to protect his mother and sister.”
“He couldn’t get to the island,” Sebastian said softly. “Couldn’t get away.”
“So he grabs some stones and puts enough of the Bridges’ power into them to make them one-shot resonating bridges, trying to get those men away from here,” Michael said.
Sebastian nodded. “You throw a few resonating bridges into a tangle of limbs and angry hearts…Guardians and Guides, Michael. Lee could be anywhere now.”
“He could be anywhere,” Michael agreed. “And he probably didn’t go with those other men willingly.”
Sebastian sighed. “We need to get back and tell the others.”
“You go on,” Michael said. “I’ll meet you at the horses.”
Sebastian, Dalton, and Addison walked away from the tents. As they approached the broken planks, the stinkweed and turd plants sank into the ground, leaving bare earth.
A few minutes later, Michael joined them.
“We saw what we were supposed to see,” Michael said. “Didn’t seem right to leave those nasty plants in Nadia’s landscape—or to leave a body aboveground, no matter what part he had played in Lee’s disappearance.”
No, it didn’t seem right, Sebastian thought as they mounted and rode back to the cairn and the border that would bring them closer to home. None of it seemed right. But even if Lee had been taken by a wizard or was just lost in the landscapes somewhere, he had an idea how they might find him. And judging by Michael’s thoughtful expression as they rode back to Aurora, the Magician had the same idea.
Chapter 7
Danyal removed the broom from the storage cupboard and began sweeping the floors of the two-room building he’d named the Temple of Sorrows and Joy.
It had been a month since his arrival at the Asylum, and it had taken some time for the Handlers and Helpers, as well as the inmates, to adjust to having a Shaman as the Asylum’s Keeper. He didn’t want this Asylum to be just a place of containment. He wanted it to be a place of healing, providing some of the same assistance to the inmates here as the Shamans gave to people who came to The Temples, the enclosed community in the heart of Vision that was the Shamans’ home and training ground.
At his request, his mentor, Farzeen, had sent him a set of gongs and chimes—the tools he had used when he had served in the Temple of Sorrow. And some of the inmates were beginning to find relief from their mental or emotional confusion by using the gongs. The release of anger, pain, disappointment, and life’s sorrows was starting to provide some peace, was allowing these people to give a voice to heart wounds that had been left untended.
Would that change the balance of Light and Dark in this part of the city?
Danyal paused as he felt the world’s whispers shiver through him.
The Asylum was in a part of Vision that was considered a shadow place—a place that was neither light nor dark because it was both and could be found by almost anyone. But no two shadow places were alike. Some were the cool, deep shade found beneath old trees. Some were caverns that could reveal wonders. And some were cold, stagnant places full of creatures with poisoned stingers.
The Shaman Council was right. Something had come to Vision and was scratching around the shadow places, turning some of them dark in a way that hid them from Shamans’ eyes. He wasn’t familiar with this part of the city, so he didn’t know what he couldn’t see, but as he walked the streets around the Asylum to become acquainted with the shops and the people, he sensed disturbing pockets of absence that made him think a building or even a whole street was beyond his ability to see it and, therefore, protect it.
Peace, Danyal thought as he resumed his sweeping. If you can’t guide your own heart to peace, how can you show the path to others?
He heard someone running on the path toward the building, heard the clatter on the stairs. Then Kobrah burst in. Her already flushed face turned redder when she saw him.
“Shaman Danyal,” she said, flustered. “I’m supposed to sweep the floor.”
“Yes, you are,” he replied calmly. “But today I’m sweeping the floor. You can do the dusting, then help me set out the mats and gongs.”
Her hands fisted in her ankle-length skirt. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
He glanced at her. She should have been a well full of sweet, clean water. Instead, she was a broken well full of sharp stones hidden under a few inches of dark, frigid water. Through correspondence with Nalah, his nephew Kanzi’s wife, he had learned some things about Kobrah and the pain that had shaped her. What he couldn’t tell was how much of the darkness in her had been there before Kobrah, Nalah, and two others had escaped their village. And yet…
He didn’t stop sweeping, didn’t break the rhythmic sound of broom on floor, but he glanced at her again.
Something different. There was a little more water now at the bottom of that broken well, and it wasn’t as frigid.
“Have you made a
friend?” he asked casually.
Kobrah had been dusting the gongs and the shelves built under the windows. Now she stopped and turned—and Danyal felt the stones in her well shifting and becoming sharper.
“She told you?” Kobrah’s voice was harsh, hateful. Pained.
Danyal stopped sweeping and gave her his full attention. “If you have confided in someone, your trust was not betrayed. I asked because you seem happier.” He gestured to the gongs. “I would like to take credit for lifting some of the weight from your heart, but I don’t think I’m the reason you’ve been smiling lately.”
Kobrah stared at him, want and wariness in her face.
“I am a Shaman,” he said gently. “I know how to listen.”
When she continued to stare, he went back to sweeping.
She watched him for a minute. Then, “His name is Teaser. He comes from a place called the Den of Iniquity. He says it’s a dark landscape, but it’s not a bad place.”
She clearly wanted—or expected—him to react badly, so Danyal just went to the cupboard for the dustpan. “What else does Teaser say?” he asked.
She studied him a while longer before she told him that Teaser was from a race called incubus and his best friend was an incubus-wizard named Sebastian who was also the Den’s Justice Maker.
Strange words. Mostly likely this friend was someone she had imagined, since Guards did walk the Asylum’s grounds at night and would have noticed Kobrah and a stranger—or an inmate—taking a walk in the moonlight.
“How does he reach the Asylum?” Danyal asked.
“Through the twilight of waking dreams.”
A little breeze brushed the back of Danyal’s legs like a friendly cat, as if to encourage him to believe the words.
A shiver ran through him. That breeze seemed too aware to be something natural.
With effort, he pushed that thought aside and focused on Kobrah and what she had told him.
He would send a note to the Shaman Council this evening, but he didn’t think this den of iniquity was a part of Vision. That left the question of where it was and how someone could travel through dreams.