Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

Blanket rolls. Packs. Water skins. Nothing Sebastian wouldn’t expect to see. Nothing Lee didn’t keep on the island 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.

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…