by Anne Bishop
“Ready?” Sholeh asked.
“Ah…sure.” Maybe a little too ready, and this wouldn’t be a good time to let his mind wander through that particular daydream.
He let Sholeh guide him around the branch, then began tapping the long stick again. The paths were made of some kind of stone or brick that sounded different from the ground when he tapped them. By using sound instead of sight, he could keep to the paths and learn how to reach some parts of the Asylum on his own.
This morning he had awakened to a lighter darkness. His window looked out on the part of the porch that received the morning light. Since being given that room, he’d stood at the window in the morning just to breathe in the cooler air, but today there were dark stripes on a lighter gray—porch posts and daylight.
He didn’t tell anyone, not even Zhahar, that the eyedrops were helping, that some of his sight was returning. The wizards stopped by the Asylum several times a week to check on him—and to remind him that if he tried to leave, tried to get back home, someone would be close enough to go with him, to open a way into Belladonna’s landscapes.
He didn’t think there was anything in Belladonna’s landscapes that couldn’t take care of a wizard or two, but there was always the chance of one of the bastards stumbling into Sanctuary, always a chance that the damn Dark Guide could somehow touch the Places of Light.
So he said nothing. As long as his “uncles” thought he was blind and helpless, he was no use to them. As long as he was no use to them, they had no reason to harm the other people in the Asylum.
Except that they were wizards and fed the Dark currents of the world.
“What would you like to talk about?” Sholeh asked.
Oh, they would get to what he wanted to talk about, but first he needed to get her involved enough to speak without thinking. “Lady’s choice. Do you want to know about places, people, or demons?”
“Demons?”
He could picture her eyes going wide—excited and a little scared. Talking about Guardians and Guides yesterday had been interesting, but they weren’t nearly as interesting as Ephemera’s demon races. At least not to someone who was sheltered by two older sisters.
Sometimes the baby in a family should be allowed to scrape her knees and learn about life directly instead of just watching her sisters.
“Demons it is.” Tap tap. Tap tap. He followed the sound, hoping he was heading away from the buildings and all the potential eyes watching them. “There are the waterhorses. They come from a country called Elandar. They’re beautiful black horses that act as tame as a cosseted pet and are more than willing to let you climb on their backs to take a ride.”
“That doesn’t sound bad.” Pencil scratching on paper.
“Up to that point, it’s not. But their magic binds you to them. Once you mount, you can’t get off until they release you. They’ll take you for a ride—and most of the time that ride ends at the bottom of a pond or a lake or a deep river. Doesn’t bother the waterhorse. He stays down until the rider drowns.”
Scratch scratch. Hesitation. Scratch scratch.
“Then there are the Merry Makers,” Lee continued. “They come from Elandar too. They live in the bogs and have a humanlike body but are not human. They look like they were made from the bog—moss and twigs. They’re strong and they’re deadly. Travelers who get lost in their pieces of Ephemera see the light from lanterns and hear music and think they’ve found some help. What they’ve really found is an invitation to be the Merry Makers’ dinner. Sometimes you can barter for your life, but not often.”
The Magician had crossed paths with the Merry Makers twice and walked away. The first time they let him go because of his music; the second time, they took him to Sebastian because Michael had told them he was seeking Belladonna, that her darkness was his fate.
Michael had been right about that. Her darkness was his fate.
And mine? Lee thought. Wasn’t blindness another way to snuff out light?
The scratching stopped.
“Bull demons,” Lee said. He heard Sholeh gulp, and clenched his teeth to stop the grin. Zhahar met the world through a passionate heart but was practical as well as compassionate. Zeela leaned toward the physical and was, he admitted, a bit scary. But Sholeh’s passion was knowledge, and she sounded so gleeful about having an opportunity to learn, he almost felt bad about tricking her into revealing something about her own people.
“Bull demons,” Sholeh said, her tone a reminder that he’d drifted from the topic.
“We’ve never seen a female, so I can’t tell you what they look like. The males mostly look like large, strong, well-muscled men, but their heads are bovine—like a bull, horns and all. It’s said they eat meat—all kinds of meat—but they consider vegetable omelets a delicacy and barter olives and olive oil for the treat.” He paused. “Now it’s your turn.”
Scratch scratch. “What are olives?”
“Your turn,” he repeated. “Fair exchange, remember?”
Hesitation. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about a race of people from this part of the world.”
“I don’t know about any demons from this part of the world.”
That wasn’t what he’d asked, but he found it interesting that it was what she’d heard. “Then any demon you’ve heard about.”
The dark glasses wiped out the small distinction he could make between light and dark, and he couldn’t have seen her as more than a woman-shaped blob anyway. Still, he wanted to take off the glasses and see her face, her expression, because he was suddenly feeling that triple resonance, and he was certain Zhahar and Zeela were close by—and were trying to stop Sholeh from saying anything.
Too bad they were up against someone who knew how to play the sibling game.
“It’s all right if you don’t remember anything from your studies. We can continue this another d—”
“Tryad,” Sholeh said, sounding scared and defiant.
“And what are the Tryad?” he asked mildly.
“One who is three. Three who are one.”
Lee rocked back on his heels as he absorbed the words. “Three personalities?”
“Three people.”
That explained the three resonances and the three voices he sometimes heard despite only one voice actually speaking. “One body?”
“A common core, but not the same outer body.”
Zeela had that jagged scar on her left arm, but Zhahar didn’t. So the outer body changed but they shared the innards?
He thought about men and women and how their parts went together.
Ooookay. If he was dealing with a Tryad and only wanted to snuggle with one sister, he was going to have to know more about the race before he and Zhahar put their parts together. And since body and heart were pulling him in the same direction, he was highly motivated to find out more.
“Hypothetically, if you and your sisters were a Tryad, how would you be identified? What would your name be?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she stammered.
“If you can’t even discuss something hypothetical, how will you ever meet the actual world?” He said it gently, but he meant it. Yes, he had tricked her into starting this, but he sensed this was a fork-in-the-road moment—the kind of moment that could alter a landscape enough to alter a life.
At first he thought a swarm of bees was in front of his face. Then he realized it was the buzz of voices all trying to speak from the same throat.
“Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar,” Sholeh said abruptly, clearly stung by his question—or frightened by the truth of it.
The buzzing stopped.
Youngest sister to oldest. That age difference probably was counted in minutes, but he had the feeling those minutes were significant in deciding place within the family. That could explain why, before discovering they were a kind of triplet, he’d thought Sholeh was several years younger than Zeela and Zhahar—really the baby of the family.
“All the same gen
der?” he asked, still willing to pretend this was an academic conversation. “Or could there be two sisters and a brother, for example?”
“Rarely, but it happens. It’s usually three sisters or three brothers.”
“Who have different personalities and different skills.”
“Sisters in a one-face family wouldn’t be expected to be the same,” Sholeh said defensively.
“One-face?” Lee whistled. “Darling, I know an insult when I hear one. Although calling me two-faced…” He stopped, feeling fragile as he remembered a sister who was no longer whole.
Sholeh sucked in her breath. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
Why? But she wasn’t the sister he wanted to ask.
“So,” he said. “The Tryad sound like an interesting people. They’d have some symbol to represent their people, don’t you think? Something like a heart inside a triangle?” The tattoo Zeela said she had on her arm.
“I think we should go back now.”
Sholeh sounded afraid. Her lack of experience in dealing with the world probably made it easy to trick her into giving too much information about herself and her people—and left her and her sisters vulnerable to discovery. If there wasn’t a reason to fear discovery, they wouldn’t need to hide what they were.
Something else to discuss with Zhahar.
“If that’s what you want,” he said.
“Yes. We— I—”
“All right. Answer one last question, and then I’ll tell you about another demon race.” And he was going to let all of them know he wasn’t going to be put off by physical differences unless there was a good reason.
“What’s the question?” Wary now.
“When I kiss Zhahar, are you and Zeela going to be watching us?”
A squeaky sound.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Not that I mind, you understand. I learned a lot about kissing when I visited my cousin, and in the Den, you get used to people watching you kiss—although being critiqued by a relative as he’s walking by isn’t appreciated, so you two put aside the idea of being bratty sisters and keep your comments to yourself.”
More squeaky sounds. A flutter of pages as a book hit the ground and was retrieved.
“However,” Lee continued, smiling, “if your sister and I reach the point of making love, you and Zeela are going to have to leave the room, so to speak. I’m not an incubus. I don’t consider sex a performance art. At least, not one that includes an audience.” He paused. “Shall we go back?”
He felt the shifting of resonances and wondered what it looked like when one sister changed into another. Then he didn’t wonder. He felt friendly toward Sholeh and wary of Zeela. But when he was around Zhahar, he felt a heat spiced with something more than lust.
“Weren’t you listening?” Zhahar said fiercely.
Lee pursed his lips. “Am I talking to Zhahar, or is there a little Zeela in the mix?”
Silence.
“I heard what Sholeh said. Knowing you’re a Tryad makes you a lot less confusing for someone like me.”
“Someone like—” A moment of buzzing. “Sholeh didn’t say we were Tryad.”
“I’m blind, Zhahar, but I’m not stupid. Everything about you and your sisters fits the race Sholeh described. Or do you want to try to float an explanation about how you and Zeela could show up so fast without me hearing anyone approach? There is nothing wrong with my hearing, darling. You weren’t here, and then you were. That’s something we need to talk about. But just so there is no misunderstanding when we get there, what I said about not walking in the moonlight with more than one sister also applies to sex.” When she didn’t respond, he reached out and touched her arm before she stepped back.
“Incubus,” Zhahar said. “You said you aren’t an incubus.”
“I’m not.” Judging by her tone of voice, he figured it was best not to mention—yet—that his cousin Sebastian was. “They were the last demon race I was going to tell Sholeh about today, but it sounds like you, at least, already know about them.”
“I don’t know much.” She sounded upset. “Not enough. I thought they were harmless. When she talked about him, he sounded harmless. What are they?”
Not an idle question if she knew someone who crossed paths with the incubus but didn’t realize what he was. “The incubi are sex demons. They travel through the twilight of waking dreams to be dream lovers for women yearning for romance or sex. The succubi are female sex demons.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“The purebloods are deadly. They can kill with sex—and they can change their appearance to look like anyone. Others see humans as prey, since the incubi and succubi feed on emotions, and sex provides a banquet. And there are others who provide a service of sorts.” He took a step toward her but didn’t try to touch her. “You know someone who tangled with an incubus?” Not one of her sisters. He pitied the incubus dumb enough to tangle with Zeela without an invitation. Sholeh? No, if the little sister had crossed paths with a sex demon, even one who was acting harmless, he figured Zeela would be the one asking him questions now.
But a pureblood incubus could do plenty of damage even if the woman lived. And he wondered what being two-faced meant to a people who normally had three.
“Who has met an incubus here?” he asked.
Zhahar hesitated, then said, “Kobrah. I think there have been two others—two inmates, a man and woman.”
“Are they all right?”
“The woman was getting better for a while. But I didn’t know the dream lover she talked about was a demon, was something real trying to get to her. When I told Shaman Danyal the dreams had helped her, I didn’t know they came from a demon. And when Kobrah told me about her friend, I didn’t know he was a demon.”
She paced a few steps away from him, then back, her agitation growing. In another minute, she might rush back to Danyal and stir everyone up. And that would have everyone looking too hard for someone who wasn’t completely human.
Had it occurred to her that he and Danyal were also people in the not-completely-human column?
“Slow down,” Lee said. “Zhahar, slow down. Not all dark landscapes are bad places, and not all demons are bad either. They’re like any other people. Have the people who connected with the incubi or succubi said anything about them?”
“The man kept insisting that he had to cross over, had to meet his lover in the flesh. He became violent when he ran across one of the footbridges on the grounds and nothing happened. He’s been in isolation ever since.”
“If she gets as much pleasure in tormenting a man as she does from sex, being in isolation won’t help, since the succubus can still reach him. What about the woman?”
“She was improving until the previous Keeper ordered her to be heavily sedated at night so she couldn’t dream. She’s failing now. The Shaman rescinded the order, but the dreams didn’t come back.”
“The incubus moved on,” Lee said quietly. “He couldn’t reach her anymore, so he moved on.” He waited a beat. “What about Kobrah? I had the impression she hates men.”
“Yes, she hates men. Something happened to her before she came here. I don’t know what it was, but a man named Chayne did it.”
“And yet she’s drawn an incubus to her?”
“Her… friend… comes to her in dreams. They take walks in the moonlight. Hold hands. That sort of thing. He doesn’t push to have sex.”
“Wait a minute. Wait.” Lee took off the dark glasses. She wasn’t more than a dark blob, but he didn’t want any kind of barrier between them. “Kobrah is Teaser’s friend?”
He saw her body blob jerk. “You know Teaser?”
“I’ve known him for years. He lives in the Den of Iniquity.”
“That place is real?”
“Sure. My cousin Sebastian lives there.” He hesitated, then decided it was better to tell her now. “You read Sholeh’s report, didn’t you? Well, Sebastian is an incubus and he’s also a wizard, but he’s a Jus
tice Maker—the good kind of wizard. So I’ve grown up knowing some incubi, which is why I’m a good kisser. Just a point of information.”
The body blob got shorter.
“You feeling all right?” he asked.
“Dizzy.”
Translation: she was bent over, probably with her hands on her knees.
Then he caught a whiff of stinkweed. Someone Ephemera didn’t like—or didn’t like around him—was approaching.
“You can’t believe anything a madman says,” Lee said quietly, urgently. “You do remember that?”
Zhahar straightened slowly. “You made all this up?”
“I didn’t say that.” He kept his voice low. “We need to go now, Sholeh. We need to go back to the residence now.” He slipped the dark glasses on and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt her resonance change from Zhahar to Sholeh. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Sholeh said. “I guess I had too much sun. I need a drink of water and a little time to sit in the shade.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Here.” She brushed her arm against his. He cupped his hand around her elbow and let her take them back to the inmates’ residence at a pace too brisk for the heat.
She didn’t greet anyone, didn’t speak to anyone, and the smell of stinkweed faded. Which meant whoever had been approaching had slipped out of sight.
“How different do you and Zhahar look?” he asked quietly.
“She has brown hair and blue eyes. I have auburn hair and green eyes. Zeela has dark brown hair and eyes. We look different.”
Based on his physical contact with each of them, he agreed. Sholeh: thinner and nervier. Zeela: more muscle and physical strength—and that scar on her left arm as well as the tattoo that was a sign of her people. Zhahar: between the two, and a figure he suspected had a bit more softness and curve than her sisters. At least, that was his impression from the times when she’d assisted him. He wanted a chance to put his hands on her and find out.