by Anne Bishop
He turned and walked back toward the house, feeling the muscles in his burned hip stretch and slowly warm up with the movement. He stopped, rolled his shoulders to warm and stretch those muscles, then turned and repeated the steps—and tried to ignore the fierce itching that had started this morning beneath the skin that was peeling.
The third time he turned back toward the house, Glorianna stood at the end of the path, watching him.
Beautiful woman. Powerful woman. Dangerous woman.
“I’m trying to decide what you’re doing,” Glorianna said.
“I can walk only for so long before the hip hurts and I need to sit,” he replied. “I can sit for only so long before the muscles need to work. I’ve already walked from Lee’s cottage to your mother’s house today, so I didn’t want to walk far.” And he’d thought the paths in the woods would be too muddy for him to walk far.
“You could have paced the length of the yard.”
“I mean no offense, Glorianna, but your mother’s house felt too crowded.”
She laughed. “Shaman, right now, my mother’s house is too crowded.” Her green eyes studied him. “Let’s walk while you tell me about Vision.”
She fell into step beside him, walked the dozen steps, stopping exactly where he had, and turned.
“In the city of Vision, you can find only what you can see,” he said.
“Does that also mean you can see only what you want to find?”
He stumbled. There was no obstacle on the path, but he stumbled. “It’s the same thing.”
“Is it?”
“Are you saying the Shamans don’t want to find this evil that has come to our city?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be the ones looking.” She waved a hand dismissively. “That’s a conversation for another time. Tell me about your city. The Vision you know.”
“I wasn’t expecting the heat in the southern part of the city. Can’t say I like it much. I grew up in one of the northern communities, close to the mountains. Summers were hot there too, but there was also snow and crisp, invigorating air.”
???
“But not in the summertime,” Glorianna said.
“When I first arrived at the Asylum, there were days when the heat was so stifling, so oppressive, I’d wish—”
“Not. In the. Summertime,” she repeated firmly.
He blinked at her, a little hurt by her tone. Then he thought about what he’d said—and what he’d been about to say—and could guess what Nadia would say if it began snowing over her house.
“In the summertime, we cooled off by going to the swimming hole or sitting on a flat rock with our feet dangling in a stream. We enjoyed snow in the wintertime.”
!!!
He felt Ephemera’s currents of power swirl around him a moment longer before the world wandered off.
“Is it going to be like this from now on?” he asked as they resumed walking.
“Shamans are the voice of the world, are they not?” she replied. “But like most Landscapers in this part of Ephemera or Magicians in Elandar, most Shamans provide balance between the currents of Light and Dark—and it sounds like you have some of the ill-wishing and luck-bringing ability mixed in. But you, Danyal, are Voice-guide. Something in you was willing to be more, to be a true voice for the world. So, yes, it’s always going to be like this now.”
“I don’t have any training for this.”
“Neither did Michael. He knew about the wild child, felt its presence, knew he could make things happen. But the response wasn’t as…direct…as it is now. So he’s learning too.”
“But he has you to teach him.” Feeling her hesitation, he added, “That’s not a way of asking if your commitment to Michael is as strong as it seems. I know it is. But I can’t help feeling a little envy that he doesn’t have to figure this out on his own.”
“And you do because…?”
“I have to go back.” Danyal sighed and stopped walking. “I don’t want to. I’ve found something here among your pieces of the world that my heart has been searching for. But I have to go back.”
“Doing one doesn’t mean you can’t have the other.”
“How do we destroy the Dark Guides, Glorianna?”
“How do you cleanse all dark feelings from the human heart?”
“We can’t.”
She nodded. “You can’t. Ephemera manifests what is in the heart. So it shaped the Guides in response to the cries of many hearts that recognized they needed someone to stand between them and the world. The Dark Guides were also shaped in response to a need. They have walked in the world for a very long time, Danyal. When I took a chance and performed Heart’s Justice outside the walls of Wizard City, I did it to save Sebastian. And I did it to take Wizard City out of the world. But in doing so, I stripped away the human mask from all the Dark Guides.”
“So it’s possible one of them arrived in Vision years ago?”
“It’s possible one crossed over a resonating bridge and found your city. Alone, he could have influenced hearts, helped those who fed the Dark currents. But his efforts were always balanced by the Shamans.”
“How do you know this Dark Guide is male?”
“Their females have no ability to wear a human mask. They’re feral breeders who had to be hidden from people,” she replied. “Wizards are always male, and the Dark Guides are the elite among the wizards.”
“I see,” he said softly.
“Now, with the Dark Guides exposed and the remaining wizards cut off from their stronghold—”
“They found a bit of rot within the city that matched their own. Because they wanted to find that rot, they found the city.”
“Most likely.” Glorianna sighed. “Danyal, your city has already changed. The Shamans have to change with it. You have to learn to see the enemy, because they can see you. You can hide pieces of your city, but you can’t hide the city. Another part of Ephemera is aware of you—a part that has people who understand how to connect two pieces of the world with a bridge. The wizards have found you. Now you have to decide what to do.”
Danyal shook his head, not in denial but in weary frustration. “I was sent to the Asylum because the Shaman Council consulted bone readers and fortune tellers and concluded that I had the best chance of finding what we needed. A madman and a teacher. A guide…” He hesitated. “And a monster. I found them, but I don’t see how that has changed anything.”
“It changed everything, Shaman. It altered your landscape.” Glorianna linked her arm through his. “Come on. Sebastian and I need to check Tryadnea’s border. Then we’ll all sit down and decide what is going to be done.”
Chapter 27
It wasn’t any aspect of Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar who came to help him clean up the stones in his mother’s garden. It was Morragen Medusah a Zephyra who knelt beside him, watched him for a moment, and then began picking out the same kind of stone.
“How did these get here if your mother doesn’t want them?” Zephyra asked.
“Strength makes stone,” Lee replied. “And anger makes stone.” He held one up before tossing it into the pail. “These stones were made by anger.”
“Zeela’s anger. And mine.”
“Yep. I guess most people in the world don’t make the connection between the feelings their hearts send out and their physical troubles, but when you live around a Landscaper, you learn fast—and you learn to fix what you can.”
“Our reservations about Zhahar being involved with a man of single aspect aren’t a judgment about you.”
“You mean if I were one aspect of a Tryad, I would be considered acceptable for a mate, but being a man of single aspect, I can’t be trusted?”
“We didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t use those words,” Lee agreed. “But that’s what you meant. What happens when Tryad mates with single aspect? Are the children Tryad? Triplets with individual bodies? One body with three personalities? A higher percentage of insanity? Are they ostracized
for being different?”
“We never speak of this!”
He couldn’t tell their voices apart yet, but he knew he was now talking to Morragen or Medusah. Probably both. “Just wondering why you’re so opposed to Zhahar and me finding out if there can be anything between us.”
He thought for a moment. Wasn’t his business, but it kept bothering him that it had been Zeela who wanted to walk away from her people. “Did you know Zeela was wounded recently? Wounded badly enough that the injury was showing through on Zhahar?”
The woman beside him sucked in a breath. “She didn’t tell us. None of them told us.”
“Stabbed,” he said, before she asked. “In the side. The wound bled a lot, but the knife didn’t slice into any internal organs. She was just getting on her feet when Danyal disappeared and we made the decision to run from the wizards.”
“To get you away from the wizards.”
“I may have been the one the wizards wanted, but their lackey was holding a knife on Sholeh, not me.”
Tense silence.
“I could have left the Asylum, Morragen Medusah. I could have gotten to a landscape where any enemy coming with me wouldn’t have survived for long. But as I got to know Zhahar, I recognized the significance of the triangle of grass in my sister’s garden, and I understood how much it meant to Zhahar and her sisters to keep Tryadnea connected to another piece of Ephemera. I had the means of doing that, so we helped each other get home. You can think what you want about that.”
When there was no response, he rose. “May your heart travel lightly, because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape. Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar wasn’t happy in Vision. They were surviving, and I think if they had allowed Danyal to know what they were, they would have had an easier time of it.”
“One person’s acceptance doesn’t mean acceptance by everyone,” she said.
“Depends on the person.” He carried the pail over to the barrow and emptied it.
When he set it down, Zephyra called out, “There are still more stones among the flowers.”
“I know, but they aren’t mine to clear,” he replied. Then he walked away.
Glorianna tapped Sebastian’s shoulder. He signaled the demon cycle to slow down before he turned his head toward her.
“Let me off at the end of the street,” she said.
“Any particular reason?”
“Several. One being that I need some time to think.”
“But you are going to be sharing these thoughts, aren’t you?”
She heard the tension in his voice, felt the resonance of it in his heart. The last time she’d gone off alone, she hadn’t expected to find her way back to friends and family. Even so, she waited until they reached the end of the Den’s main street.
“I’m going to Sanctuary,” she said. “I’d like you to ask Michael, Yoshani, and Danyal to meet me there. Tell Danyal to bring the wind chimes.”
He studied her. “Tell those three? No one else?”
“No one else.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain it yet. I’m not sure yet.”
“Yes, you are. You may not want to explain it, but you know why you’re going to Sanctuary.”
She kissed his cheek. “Opportunities and choices. What happens to the city of Vision is going to depend on opportunities and choices.”
“What about the border?”
“It’s solid. Checking on it was an excuse to get away from the house. Morragen wants to get back to her people, and she needs to get back. She has an enemy there. Maybe more than one. Escort her to the border and watch her cross over.”
“Travel lightly, Glorianna,” he said.
Smiling, she walked away from him. Then she took the step between here and there—and breathed in the Light of Sanctuary.
She walked past the guesthouse and glanced toward the small island that split a stream—the island that had resonated with Lee. Michael’s aunt Brighid led a couple of people toward the guesthouse. The older woman smiled at Glorianna and raised a hand in greeting, but continued on.
Glorianna wandered over the grounds a few minutes more, then settled on the bench in front of a pond and watched the koi, letting the water and the movement of those graceful flashes of gold wash away troubling thoughts.
“Ephemera, hear me,” she whispered.
???
Closing her eyes, she recalled the sound of that wind chime. The sound of Light.
not yours
“I know. It’s the Place of Light that resonates with Voice-guide.”
yes
“Can I visit there, like I visit the Music’s landscapes?”
She felt Ephemera’s currents of power gently flowing around her and beyond her. She waited until the world returned with an answer.
visit
So she could help Danyal return home. And she could help him explain to the other Shamans what had happened to their city. She could do that much. The rest would be up to Danyal—and Lee.
She was thinking of going to the guesthouse for a glass of water and something to eat when Michael, Danyal, and Yoshani hurried toward her. Each carried a wrapped bundle and had a daypack slung over one shoulder.
“Hey-a,” she said, smiling as she linked her arm through Michael’s. “We have some things to discuss.”
I’m not ready to leave this place or these people, Danyal thought as he watched Glorianna unwrap each wind chime and lift it to hear the chime sing. Michael and Yoshani smiled in response to the sound of each chime in turn, a sign that their hearts were touched by the joy that flowed out with the sound. But Glorianna looked more and more puzzled.
“Is there something about the sound that bothers you, Glorianna Dark and Wise?” Yoshani asked.
She pointed to each wind chime. “Restful. Peaceful. Joyful. But not an access point.”
Danyal felt an odd relief, swiftly followed by shame. The Shamans needed the knowledge he could bring back to them. The people in the city needed whatever help he could bring with him. Would he ever forgive himself if something happened to Kanzi, Nalah, or the baby because he did something that delayed his return?
“But it was an access point, yes?” Michael asked. “Back in Aurora?”
Glorianna handed Michael one of the chimes. “You ring them.” After he set each one to chiming, she shook her head. “Yoshani?” She shook her head again after he rang each chime. “Danyal?”
He began with the one that had the brightest sound and ended with the one he had picked up in her mother’s house, the one he thought would help her heart remember joy.
Glorianna nodded and pointed to each of the chimes. “Restful. Peaceful. Place of Light. It’s not just the wind chime. We have those here in Sanctuary, and plenty of people hang them around their homes. It’s a wind chime made in Vision in the hands of a Shaman.” She gave Danyal a sharp look. “Or perhaps in the hands of a particular Shaman. These other wind chimes are just chimes—pretty sounds that lift the spirit. But that one is an access point.”
“How can that be?” Danyal protested. “I’ve walked the Asylum grounds with this one many times and nothing unusual happened.”
“Perhaps unusual things happened all around you,” Glorianna replied gently, “but there was no one who recognized their significance. Or maybe it was your resonance combined with Lee’s that demanded a new way to express heart wishes.”
Voice-guide maker
Danyal jerked, setting the chime ringing again.
“Maker,” Glorianna said, nodding.
“I can use this to travel to other places?” he asked.
“I’m thinking that chime takes you back to the place it came from,” Michael said.
“But only you and whoever takes that step with you between here and there,” Glorianna added.
Danyal closed his eyes. His heart trembled.
Just tired, he thought. Just heart weary and tired.
“Shaman?” Glorianna said quietly.
Shaman. The title, not the man. He opened his eyes and replied, “Guide.”
Her smile told him she understood perfectly why he used her title too.
“It’s time to go,” she told him. Then she turned to Michael. “This may take a few days, but I’ll be back, Magician.”
“If you lose your way, just listen for the music.” Michael kissed her and stepped back.
“Should we take all the wind chimes?” Yoshani asked.
“Yes,” Glorianna replied. “These chimes belong to Vision.”
Two of the chimes were wrapped into a bundle Yoshani could easily carry. Danyal held the one that would take him home.
Glorianna linked one hand with Yoshani, then linked her other hand with his.
“Ephemera,” she called softly. “Hear me.”
When she squeezed his hand, Danyal set the chime to ringing. Within seconds, the ground in front of them filled with light, and he could smell the spice trees that grew in the Shamans’ compound.
“Now,” she whispered.
The three of them took a step. They took another step, and Danyal’s breath hitched as he stared at the building where the Shaman Council met and also mentored the older students.
Glorianna released his hand and smiled. “Welcome home.”
Lee turned his back to the kitchen door and windows, removed his dark glasses, and rubbed his eyes. As if that would change what he’d just heard. Putting the glasses back on, he looked at Michael. “She’s gone? Glorianna is gone?”
Michael nodded. “She left with Danyal and Yoshani. They’re going to the inner temples or whatever it’s called where the Shamans live.”
Lee’s hands curled into fists. “Guardians and Guides, man. Why didn’t you go with her?”
“I couldn’t.”
“No one but Yoshani and Danyal could go with her and reach Vision through that access point,” Sebastian said.
Hurried footsteps. Some coming toward the kitchen from outdoors; others from the front rooms of the house.
“Now what?” Nadia asked.
“Lee?” Zhahar said.