by Anne Bishop
Thorn trees with sinuous limbs erupted out of the ground. The wizards didn’t have time to raise a hand against him before limbs coiled around them and lifted them off the ground. Long thorns pierced clothing and flesh, digging deeper as the coils tightened.
The Clubs thrashed and screamed. The wizards and Dark Guide unleashed their lightning against the trees. The trees screamed and the ends of the limbs sprouted bulbous pods that split open to reveal hundreds of sharp needles.
The pods hovered for a moment. Then they snapped closed over the heads of every man except the Dark Guide. Wizards and Clubs thrashed and screamed as the pods released digestive juices and began consuming the flesh on the faces of their prey.
“Shaman!” the Dark Guide howled. “Do you think you’ll be rid of us? You’ll never hide your city from all of us. Not ever again!”
“I know,” Danyal said. “Your kind may be able to find us, you may be able to enter our city, but you won’t make this place your own. We know you now.”
The Dark Guide smiled a terrible smile and said gently, “As long as you walk in this city, there will be dark places where malevolent hearts can hide.”
“But not your heart,” Danyal whispered as a pod split above the Dark Guide’s head.
Glorianna stood between the trees that marked the island’s path and tried to study the land beyond.
“You used to be better at this,” she finally said. “I don’t think we’re even close to the Asylum.”
Lee shouldered her to one side. “Well, daylight, Glorianna. It’s the middle of the damn night. Even if my eyesight was perfect, I still couldn’t see where we are. And it’s not like we want to set a lantern out there to see what might get curious about us.” He cocked his head, listening. “And I don’t think I’m that far off. The Asylum grounds had different areas.”
“So the vegetables we landed in on your first try…?”
“Could have been the home farm. They grow what they can, and it gives some of the inmates work and keeps them active.”
“And this?”
“Does that sound like a brook or stream to you?”
“Definitely water,” Glorianna agreed. “Could be a stream.”
“There was a stream at the farthest edge of where borderline inmates were allowed to walk without close supervision. There was a footbridge. I avoided it because I was afraid the bridge would respond to me and change into one that provided access to other landscapes.” Lee blew out a breath. “Ephemera is bringing the island as close as we can get to the buildings, isn’t it?”
“As close as you can get,” Glorianna said quietly.
He couldn’t see her in the dark, but he reached out and touched her hair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means we’re probably close to that bridge, so I’ll take one of the shielded lanterns and walk the rest of the way to the grounds around the buildings.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, you don’t go in alone this time.”
She linked her fingers with his. “I’m not going in to save the world this time, or even this city. I’m going in as a Guide of the Heart. To help Danyal. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back to the island with him or without him, but I’ll be coming back.”
“Do you promise?” Not a small question, because Glorianna Belladonna wouldn’t make a promise if there was any doubt in her mind that she could keep it.
“I promise.”
“Do we have any time?”
“A little.”
“Then I want one other promise.” His fingers tightened on hers, and it took effort to relax his hold instead of squeezing harder, holding on harder. “The Tryad have a way of merging aspects. Medusah has the ability to do that to someone.”
Glorianna nodded. “Yes, Zephyra mentioned it. She thought the Tryad’s magic might be able to put the Light and Dark halves of my heart back together so that I’ll always be Glorianna Belladonna instead of Glorianna or Belladonna.”
“Don’t do it.” He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh or so demanding.
She pulled her hands away from his. “I thought you, of all the family, would be anxious for me to try this.”
“A few months ago, I probably would have been—and I would have been wrong to want it. Was wrong to want it. You cast out the Light in your heart in order to trap the Eater of the World and the creatures and landscapes It made. You were split for months. And I’ve realized only recently that you are merging those two sides of your heart, using Michael’s music to weave them together. It will take time, and maybe there will always be distinct aspects that people will recognize as Belladonna or Glorianna, because they’ll feel that you’re standing more in the Dark or the Light. But you’re healing in your own way and in your own time, and when you’re done, you’ll be whole again.”
“But not the same,” she said quietly.
“Ever changing, like the world.”
“Why your change of heart?”
“Lots of reasons,” he replied. “The biggest being that I don’t trust Medusah right now. She doesn’t know you, and while her magic might be able to merge your aspects, it doesn’t mean you’ll be whole.” He hesitated. “And she’s not happy with you at the moment, so I don’t want her messing around in your head or your heart.”
“Why is she annoyed with me?”
“Because I helped Zhahar ask for Heart’s Justice instead of accepting the Tryad’s punishment for loving a man of single aspect.”
“Lee!”
He stared at her. He thought about fetching one of the lanterns, but if the light was bright enough for him to see her face, he’d end up wearing the damn glasses to cut the light and wouldn’t be able to see her anyway. At least they were both in the dark this way.
“If Zhahar and I had become lovers, the only way Tryad law would allow her to remain with me is if her sisters were merged into her. One body. One face. Two people trapped inside and unable to experience the world except vicariously through her—if any part of them survived at all. They say it’s a merging, but the end result is the death of two of the sisters, with the remaining sister looking at that one surviving face for the rest of her life. What kind of life could she have? What kind of relationship could she build?”
“But asking for Heart’s Justice,” Glorianna protested.
“Zhahar doesn’t deserve that punishment. Neither do Zeela and Sholeh. And I don’t think this has much to do with Zhahar or me, but it does seem like someone wants to use us as an excuse to strike at the a Zephyra Tryad’s authority. ‘Prove you’re our leader. Kill your daughters.’”
Glorianna said nothing, just stood looking out over the land beyond the island. Finally, she asked softly, “What do you want for Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar, Lee? What are you hoping Heart’s Justice will do?”
“I’m hoping it will give them a chance to have a life in a place where they can be accepted as Tryad and still explore choices that their people aren’t ready or willing to accept. They were changed by their exposure to the city of Vision and by working at the Asylum. By meeting Danyal and me. I want Zhahar and her sisters to find the place they were meant to be.”
“Even if it’s not with you?”
The question made his heart ache. “Yes. Even if it’s not with me.”
Glorianna sighed. “All right. That’s a problem for another day. It’s time for me to find Danyal.”
“I’ll fetch the lantern.”
As he made his way to the shed to fetch the lantern, he wondered what Glorianna expected to find that she didn’t want him to see.
The living fruit struggled a while longer. Danyal watched them, feeling nothing but a heavy satisfaction. Some part of him knew that feeling meant he was in danger, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Then something shimmered through the currents of Light—and something far darker than the darkness he’d found in his own heart slid through the Dark currents as she suddenly appeared.
She looked at the thorn trees
and their fruit, then looked at him—and smiled.
“It’s easy to become a monster, isn’t it?” Belladonna said. “So easy to become the terrible and sublime when you can give shape to every dark dream the human heart has ever known. Fear can be a seductive kind of worship, and when you can do anything, it’s hard to demand that the monster go back to the can’t-do-it rules everyone else lives by.”
Danyal turned his back on the thorn trees to look at her. “You did it. You turned away.”
“I do it,” she corrected. “I could find that landscape again, that place Belladonna ruled.” She lifted her chin to indicate the thorn trees. “Just as you found a piece of it tonight. The memories of people I loved, people I had cast out of my heart in order to survive in that landscape, gave me a way to return to the Light. But I remember what it felt like to be everything, do anything. I remember, and every day I choose not to do the things I did in that place. Every day I choose not to let the monster walk in the landscapes that are in my keeping. Every day I choose to hold on to both Glorianna and Belladonna, to stay among the people I love and who love me. I choose, Danyal. Every single day. And now that you’ve had a taste of what you can do with your connection to the world and what you might become if you allow yourself, you will also have to choose—every single day.”
“Have I forfeited the Light?” he asked, looking back at the thorn trees.
“Some pieces of it,” Glorianna replied. “Not all of it. You didn’t cast it out; just smothered it for a little while. I don’t think you’ll be able to find the Place of Light in the Shamans’ compound, but you can still walk in Sanctuary.”
His heart hurt from the relief her words gave him.
“I need a teacher,” he said softly. “I need a Guide to help me learn what I’m becoming.”
“I know,” she replied just as softly. “Let your heart travel lightly, Danyal. Right here, right now, let your heart travel lightly.”
He closed his eyes and used his training to empty his mind and heart of all the fury, all the dark thoughts.
Who was he now? A voice for the world. A Shaman. But those things didn’t mean the same thing as they had a few months ago. Who was he now—and what could he become that would help the people whose lives he touched?
“Well,” Glorianna said with a soft laugh, “not so far from the Light after all.”
Danyal opened his eyes and looked around. The Asylum’s dead were still all around them, but the thorn trees and their terrible fruit were gone. So were the brothel, the house held by the wizards, and the privy.
And something now glowed where the temple had been.
“Wind chimes,” he whispered, moving toward the glow. “I hear wind chimes.” Joy.
As he and Glorianna approached the small building, the chimes rang louder, almost changing to something harsh.
“Nik?” he called. “Benham? Are you in there?”
The door cracked open. “Danyal?” Benham said. “Is that you?”
He laughed, his heart soaring with relief. “Yes, it’s me.”
He passed through the glow as Benham pulled open the door. But the Meddik looked past him and stiffened.
“Fog hides,” Glorianna said softly, stepping up beside Danyal. “The people in here don’t need to see what is out there.”
He looked at Benham and nodded. Benham stepped back from the door. Danyal started to move aside to let Glorianna enter first, but she put a hand on his back and pushed him forward as she said, “They’re your people.”
Eight inmates, plus Benham and Nik, whose left arm was in a sling. The inmates bobbed their heads at him but stayed on the other side of the room as he, Glorianna, Benham, and Nik formed a tight circle.
“We were just leaving the temple when Nik rushed up to warn us,” Benham said, keeping his voice low. “Nik was sliced in the arm while defending the door until I got everyone back inside. It was the strangest thing. The door shouldn’t have held, but a couple inmates grabbed up wind chimes and began ringing them, and it was like this building went away from the fighting.”
A queer shiver rushed down Danyal’s spine.
“You saw the glow when you came up?” Benham asked. “That’s all we saw. Then it began to fade and someone tried to break down the door, so we all grabbed wind chimes and rang them.”
“Joy,” Glorianna said. “Dark hearts couldn’t see a place filled with the Light released through joy.”
“Odd things happened,” Benham said. “The glow gave us a little ground all around the building. Enough to make a toilet outside. And the other day, when we were feeling desperate for water, pails of fresh water appeared outside the door.”
Danyal glanced at Glorianna, who tipped her head in the briefest nod, confirming his suspicion that the pails would be the ones Racket had reported missing from the Shamans’ compound.
“We need to leave, Danyal,” Glorianna said.
Nik and Benham looked as alarmed as he felt. “We can’t leave them here.”
She huffed. “Of course not. We’ll gather up the wind chimes and any lanterns you might have in here. Lee’s waiting for us on the island. We’ll take everyone back to the Shamans’ compound and figure out the rest later.” She turned toward the door, then said over her shoulder, “You might want to bring some of the pails back too.”
Glorianna led the way, holding her lantern high as a beacon. They found two other lanterns that had a bit of oil left. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough. The inmates each carried a wind chime and filled the dark with their sound.
As Glorianna reached the footbridge, another lantern suddenly appeared and was lowered to the ground.
“Hey-a,” Lee called.
Murmurs, both happy and tearful, as Lee helped each person step onto the island.
Danyal, as the last one, hesitated and looked back. Lee and Glorianna stepped off the island.
“Problem?” Lee asked.
He shook his head. “That little temple. I don’t think I’ll miss anything else about the Asylum’s grounds or buildings, but I’ll be sorry to lose the little temple.”
He felt Glorianna staring at him before she looked at Lee.
“Does the building have water pipes or anything else that would cause a problem?”
“I never saw any,” he said blandly.
“You’re no help. Danyal? Does the building have any attachments?”
“No. It was just a simple building. No water, no drains.”
“In that case…” she said. “Ephemera?”
???
“The little building Voice-guide uses to help the hearts. I want you to shift it to Voice-guide’s playground. Just the building, not any of the land. Do you understand?”
yes yes yes
“Wait a minute,” Lee said. “You’re encouraging the world to take buildings now? You’re going to let it start rearranging villages? If neighbors are quarreling, they’ll wake up one morning and find their houses on opposite ends of the street?”
“Ephemera knows better than to shift a building in any of my landscapes without my permission,” Glorianna said sweetly. “What the two of you let the world get away with here in Vision is up to you.” She stepped up on the island and disappeared from view.
It took Danyal a moment to realize his mouth was hanging open.
“What just happened?” he finally asked.
Lee sighed and guided him onto the island. “The world has been given a new toy, and you and I are in charge of supervising playtime.”
Chapter 31
Danyal, Lee, and Yoshani meandered around another part of The Temples.
“A walking meditation,” Danyal grumbled. “Why are we doing a walking meditation?”
“So that you can look and think and, finally, see,” Yoshani replied, sounding less patient than he had when they’d started this a couple of hours ago.
“I’ll point out that whatever I’m looking at is still blurry enough that I’m not actually seeing much of anything,”
Lee complained.
“And we’ve been walking too long. My hip isn’t able to do this much,” Danyal said.
“Then start using your head so you can spare your feet,” Yoshani replied sharply. “And you.” He pointed at Lee. “If you can’t see anything, it’s because you’re being willfully blind.”
Lee stopped walking. So did Danyal. Yoshani continued on a few steps before turning back to join them.
“That was harsh,” Danyal said.
“What you hear as harsh, I hear as an end of patience,” Yoshani replied. “The Guide you both asked to stand as your mentor gave you the task of considering what you would need to do your work in the world. I’d had the impression that you both made some decisions already about what you would need, and that this would simply help you determine the physical shape. Instead of following your assignment, you have muttered and complained like cranky children until Glorianna had no desire to listen to either of you. Which is why you are out here walking, and why I, who have no stake in this, offered to accompany you.”
A man his own age had just told him he sounded like a whiny six-year-old. Danyal didn’t like it—especially because he suspected it was true.
“I’m frustrated,” he admitted. “I want to comply with Glorianna’s request, but I don’t understand what she wants from me. From either of us.” He tipped his head to include Lee.
“Yeah.” Lee scrubbed his fingers over his hair. “I heard what she said, but I can’t get the words to form a pattern I understand. And I’ve always understood Glorianna, even when my brain didn’t.”
“A first step,” Yoshani said. “What do you need in order to do your work? Danyal, admittedly, has a better sense of the buildings, but you both lived at the Asylum for a while. We’ve walked around the compound that makes up the residential part of The Temples. We’ve walked around this main avenue that is the public part. You’ve both lived other places and seen other buildings. What do you want?”
“Not an Asylum,” Danyal said, sure of that much. “Not a place for those who will never be whole and need a kind of care I’m not suited to give them. Not anymore.” He had admitted to himself that he’d become too dangerous to work with heart-cores that might pull him too far into the Dark. “But I would like to work in a place that could help the ones who are weighed down by the world because they lost their way.”