by Anne Bishop
“Why are you here?” a harsh voice said behind him.
Sebastian whipped his head around to look into the room and felt a muscle in his neck twinge in protest. He swore silently as he realized he’d been caught by a sleight of hand. There was no one in the courtyard, but that magical distraction had allowed Koltak to slip into the room without revealing the location of the hidden door.
“Did you hear that I was finally being considered for a seat on the Wizards’ Council and decided to remind everyone of why I’ve been passed over all these years?” Koltak kept his voice low, but that didn’t diminish the venomous tone.
I don’t give a damn about you or your ambitions. “I came here to report an incident to the Justice Makers,” Sebastian said, keeping his voice just as low. “I asked for you because I thought you would prefer it rather than have me talk to another wizard.”
“The Justice Makers have no interest in the Den of Iniquity or what goes on there,” Koltak said.
“Even when a human is murdered?”
Koltak hesitated, then made a sharp, angry gesture with his hand. “Come in then. You may think nothing of making your affairs public, but things are done differently here.”
“I’ll stay where I am.”
Spots of color blazed on Koltak’s cheeks. “What do you think I’ll do? Lock you in this room and deny you were here?”
“If you could get away with it, you’d do it in a heartbeat,” Sebastian snapped.
“As if anyone would care if you disappeared.”
“One person would.”
The unspoken name—and the threat—hung between them.
Belladonna.
“We think the woman who was killed came from a wealthy family. She always wore a wide gold bracelet.”
“Every wife of a prosperous man wears a gold bracelet,” Koltak growled. “What did she look like?”
“I don’t know! There wasn’t enough left of her face to describe it!”
Koltak paled, but Sebastian couldn’t tell if it was because of what he’d said or because he’d raised his voice.
“Listen to me, Koltak. Something came into the Den that is brutal and vicious. It killed a succubus a few days ago. Now it’s killed a human woman.”
“Maybe it will wipe the Den clean and stop all you demons from luring decent humans into doing things that will ruin their lives.”
“It’s not just demons who live in the Den. And I’m half-human, remember?”
Koltak’s lips pulled back in a rabid snarl. “There’s nothing human about you!”
Sebastian looked away. Apparently those heart-wounds hadn’t scarred over enough after all. Then he forced himself to look Koltak in the eyes. “You’re right. How could there be anything human in me with a succubus for a mother and you for a father?”
“Get out!”
He took one step back, which left him standing on the threshold. “There’s something out there, Koltak. The Den may not be its only hunting ground. I did what I was supposed to do. I reported this to the Justice Makers. If you do nothing because I was the one who came here, then the blood of the next person who dies will be on your hands, not mine.”
He stepped out of the room, unwilling to turn his back on the man whose seed had helped create him—the man who hated him for existing.
When the door swung shut, hiding him from Koltak’s view, he pivoted and moved across the courtyard as fast as he could without running. He had to get off this hill, get out of this city. Wizards ruled here, commanded the guards. He could be detained, locked away.
It felt like forever before he reached the wrought-iron gate next to the Petitioners’ Hall. When the gate resisted his efforts to open it, his chest tightened until he struggled to breathe.
Trapped. Was Koltak watching, exerting his will and wizard’s magic to keep the gate closed until…? Until guards showed up and decided a man who couldn’t get out of the courtyard must be dangerous and should be detained for questioning. Or, worse, Koltak would appear and tell the guards to take him back to that room for questioning. Latch the shutters and close the door—and no one but Koltak would know he was trapped in that room. Oh, the guards would know, but they wouldn’t care what happened to an incubus who had dared enter the city.
Detain him. Contain him. Kill him.
He had to get out of here!
Travel lightly, travel lightly, travel lightly.
Sebastian took a step back from the gate and closed his eyes.
A simple gate designed to open only from inside of the courtyard. A simple latch that might be a bit rusty. That was all. A simple gate that would open easily at his touch. Then he would leave this courtyard, leave this city…and go home.
Sebastian opened his eyes and reached for the gate. A gentle tug. A click as the lock slid back.
The gate swung open.
His heart pounded, but he walked through the gate and headed for the Thousand Stairs, keeping his pace easy, as if he were strolling the main street of the Den.
As he reached the stone path that led to the stairs, he glanced back—and saw guards hurrying toward the Petitioners’ Hall.
They have no interest in me, nor I in them, beyond simple curiosity, Sebastian thought. His stride lengthened, despite his efforts to appear unconcerned that the guards might notice him. My business in the city is done. I’m going home to enjoy a meal and a pleasant evening with friends. I’m going home. To the Den.
No hue and cry sounded behind him, and by the time he reached the stairs, he was trembling with relief. He paused at the edge of the stairs to give himself time to regain his composure—or as much as he could while he was still within the city walls. No point getting away from the Wizards’ Hall if he took a spill down the stairs and ended up with broken bones that would leave him helpless.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he put his foot on the first stair for the descent that would begin his journey home.
Koltak watched the guards mill around the courtyard gate. No point slipping a suggestion beneath their surface thoughts a second time. There was no longer anything tangible for them to deal with to confirm the “instinct” or “intuition” that had compelled them to check on the gate beside the Petitioners’ Hall. Even if he gave them another nudge, Sebastian had too much of a lead now and could elude any guards long enough to get out of the city.
Stepping back into the room, he closed the door, then snuffed out the candle. He walked to the back wall and, with the experience of the years he’d lived within the Wizards’ Hall, touched the concealed latch for the hidden door.
As soon as the door swung open, Koltak slipped out of the room, then paused long enough to make sure the door was securely locked before hurrying along the corridors that were used mostly by the servants.
He gave silent thanks to whatever Guide was watching over him that he made it back to his suite of rooms without running into anyone who might wonder why he’d been coming back from the direction of the Petitioners’ Hall—and the detention rooms.
Not that the other wizards would wonder for long. By morning, they’d all know who had asked to see him. It would have been different if he could have contained the problem, but…
Koltak stared out his sitting room window. It didn’t face the right direction, but he stared anyway, as if that alone would somehow locate Sebastian before he got out of the city. Again.
For thirty years he’d been punished for that indiscretion, that weak hungering for the kind of sexual gratification that made human women little better than a container for a man’s seed. Plenty of wizards had indulged themselves with succubi. Plenty. But their liaisons hadn’t threatened to topple the power structure that gave wizards a place in the world, that made them the Justice Makers.
How could there be anything human in me with a succubus for a mother and you for a father?
Just words flung out in anger. Sebastian didn’t know the truth. Couldn’t know what his existence meant.
Secrets
tightly held within the Wizards’ Hall were flaunted daily because that whelp had been born. Oh, most of the citizens wouldn’t realize what it meant that a mating between a wizard and a succubus had borne fruit, but the wizards knew it branded them for what they were.
Something not quite human. Beings whose ability to influence minds sprang from the same roots as the seductive power the incubi and succubi unfurled to attract their prey.
We’ve paid for our secrets. We pay every day by keeping order, by standing for justice. We’ve paid.
But tonight, the thing he’d personally feared the most had finally displayed itself.
Sebastian was not only an incubus; he also had some measure of the wizards’ kind of power. He couldn’t have opened that gate otherwise, couldn’t have shrugged aside Koltak’s mental persuasion so quickly that there wasn’t time for the guards to arrive.
If the other wizards realized Sebastian controlled the same magic as the Justice Makers, everything he, Koltak, had done for the past thirty years to make up for his lustful mistake and prove himself worthy of the kind of authority he’d always craved would have been for nothing. So there really was only one thing to do.
Somehow, some way, Sebastian had to be eliminated once and for all.
Sebastian was a stone’s throw beyond the city’s southern gate when he heard the bell ring twelve times. Midnight. The city gates were locked at midnight, and no one could enter or leave until the following dawn.
A shiver of relief went through him. Turning east, he struck off across the open land. Not that it would make any difference if Koltak ordered guards to come after him on horseback or on foot, but being off the road made him feel like he had a better chance of getting away from this landscape before his father—he let out a quiet, bitter laugh—found a way to force him to remain.
Besides, if he went back along the road, there wasn’t a closer bridge than the one he’d crossed to get to this boil on the world’s backside. Out here, there were bound to be other bridges. They might not take him back to the Den, but they would get him away from here, and that was the most important thing right now. Except…
If he was delayed in getting back home, who else might die in the time he was away?
He had to get back to the Den!
He’d put a fair distance between himself and the city when a veil of clouds covered the moon. He froze, unwilling to shift his feet. The land suddenly felt soft and strange, as if it were strewn with hidden traps. Which was foolish. He’d spent the past fifteen years in a landscape that never saw the sun rise. He was used to traveling at night.
But that was different. He knew the dangers that lived in and around the dark landscape he called home. Out here…There was something wrong out here.
A chill went through him. His skin felt clammy, as if he’d brushed against something that had smeared some kind of illness inside him.
Trying to shake off the sensation, he listened for any movement or sound that would confirm the wrongness. All he heard was the burble of water. He forced himself to move, and, following the sound, he found the creek. It was narrow enough that a man could scramble down the bank and jump across the water, but there were two rough planks stretched from one bank to the other. Since the planks didn’t look sturdy enough or wide enough to support the smallest cart, there was only one reason for them to be there.
A Bridge had put those planks across the creek, using that particular magic to create a link between landscapes.
Sebastian studied the planks. Had to be a resonating bridge. Those were the ones that tended to be in places that were found more by chance than design. Which meant he could end up anywhere the moment he stepped off the other side of the bridge.
Just cross over, Sebastian thought as he hooked both arms through the straps of his pack and settled it comfortably on his back. You can’t end up in any place that doesn’t live in your heart. Isn’t that what every child is taught? That a person is where he deserves to be? Isn’t that what Koltak always said when he dragged you back to that thrice-cursed city? But Nadia always said life was a journey, and the landscapes reflected the journey. That even when bad things happened, the journey eventually would lead a person where his heart needed to be.
He looked back toward Wizard City. He hadn’t deserved to be caged inside those walls simply because he’d been born and the succubus who had birthed him handed him over to his father instead of leaving him somewhere to die. He hadn’t needed the cruelty or pain that had shaped his childhood.
But if he hadn’t been shaped by those things, would he have known Nadia or Lee or Glorianna? Would he have ended up in the Den, a place where he belonged?
Sebastian shook his head. Pointless thoughts. An exercise in self-indulgence.
Then the feeling of sickness shuddered through him again. The memory of feeling sand beneath his feet instead of the hard ground of the alley made him shiver. And with every second that passed, the conviction grew stronger that if he didn’t cross the bridge now, he might never again see a landscape he recognized.
“Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart, please listen to me,” he whispered as he set one foot on the planks. “I need to get back to the Den. I need to get back to the Den.”
He hurried over the bridge.
Night. Open land. Nothing significantly different enough to tell him where he was—or even to indicate that he had crossed over to another landscape.
Get away from the bridge.
His body was in motion before he could decide on a direction. Maybe because there was only one direction that mattered—away.
In this flat, undulating form, It flowed beneath the surface of the land as easily as It flowed through water, moving swiftly toward the mound of earth. It had found the Dark Ones—the ones who had opened up the darkness in human hearts and had forced the world to bring It into being.
Then It slowed, circled, headed back to that finger of water that was too insignificant to hold any of the creatures It controlled.
For a moment, as It had passed the water, It had brushed against something…familiar.
Nothing there now. And yet…
It reshaped a piece of Itself. A tentacle broke through the soil, rising up like some strange, malignant weed. The tip explored, found the planks that still resonated with the heart that had recently crossed over to a different place. More of the tentacle emerged from the soil, elongating as the tip moved across the planks.
Yes, It recognized the resonance of this heart. One of the ones who had eluded Its attempt to alter the alley in that dark hunting ground called the Den.
The tip reached the other side, pressed into the dirt to feel the resonance of this other landscape.
Ah! It recognized this place. It had hunted in this dark landscape recently. The creatures who lived there had been a delicious feast, although not as savory as human prey.
Nothing was as savory as human prey.
Its power flowed through the tentacle. Pulsed in the tip that pushed into the ground.
The world struggled to resist Its dark resonance, which surprised It. It probed a little more, trying to tap into the Dark currents that flowed through this landscape. Then It withdrew, wary now. Almost afraid.
A powerful resonance flowed through the Dark currents. Something much stronger than anything It had found in the lair made by the enemies who had caged It long ago.
Unwilling to yield completely, It tried again, pushing the tentacle back into the ground near the wooden planks.
Just a small bit of darkness, It wheedled. A change that won’t even be noticed in a dark landscape. Something that will protect this place from dangerous hearts.
Ephemera hesitated. Then the world surrendered a small circle of ground near the bridge—a piece now malleable to Its will.
Perhaps that was for the best. A small anchor would be hard to detect by whatever heart flowed through this landscape, but that anchor would be enough to give It access to this place.
Caref
ul to conceal Its glee in having tricked Ephemera into giving up a piece of itself, no matter how small, It reshaped the ground to provide an access point into one of Its own landscapes.
The tentacle tip withdrew from the soil. The ground in front of It lifted slightly, revealing sod covering a latticework of sticks that formed a trapdoor big enough to fit a full-grown man. Two large legs emerged from the trapdoor, testing the ground around the burrow.
Satisfied that It had a way into this landscape, It drew Its tentacle back across the plank and reshaped it to match the rest of Its current form.
Then It turned and headed for the mound and the minds that resonated so closely with Its own. It was time to slip into that twilight place between wakefulness and dreams. Once the Dark Ones knew It had returned, It would be that much closer to regaining what rightfully belonged to It.
The world.
Tired and thirsty, Sebastian trudged up another low rise. He still didn’t know where he was, had seen nothing but open countryside since he crossed over at the bridge. At least the trees he’d passed didn’t look alien, even in the moonlight, so there was hope that he’d crossed over to a landscape that had some connection to the Den.
As he headed down the other side of the rise, a black horse pricked its ears and ambled over to meet him—and he knew where he was.
It was a beautiful creature, but its looks didn’t make it any less a demon. Seeing the waterhorse confirmed he was in a dark landscape that bordered the Den. Unfortunately, it also confirmed he still had a long walk ahead of him before he got back to the Den itself.
Sebastian kept walking, aware that he could be ensnared by the demon’s magic as easily as any human. But the waterhorse suddenly lunged, blocking his path. Its nostrils quivered, as if it wanted to get a good whiff of his scent but was afraid to get within reach. Which was queer behavior for one of these demons. They usually wanted to entice humans into taking a fatal ride.
Moving slowly, Sebastian held out his hand. The waterhorse stretched its neck, bringing its muzzle close enough to snuffle him. Then it stepped back, tossed its head, and headed toward a glint of water.
When Sebastian didn’t follow, the waterhorse returned.