Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

Kobrah stared at the doorway as if her vigilance was the only thing keeping those men in the isolation cell. “Yes, I’ll come with you.”

They hurried across a lawn that was turning brown and crisp in the late-summer heat, skirted the reflecting pool that turned rank every time Teeko, one of the groundskeepers, filled it with water, and entered the small temple. The gongs that gave a voice to sorrow were always set out in the same order and each had a subtly different tone.

Zhahar knelt on the cushion behind the gong she usually preferred, but hesitated when she reached for the mallet. She thought a moment, then shifted one cushion to her left. A deeper sound. Even struck softly, its resonance reminded her of the thunder that had rolled over the building—and fit the itchy anger and sympathy that the new inmate’s screams had stirred in her.

She didn’t strike the gong softly the second time. He had fought, so they had to subdue him, but a man who was mind-sick shouldn’t be treated with such cruelty.

She struck the gong again. This time Kobrah struck a gong as well, and the sound seemed to wrap around anger and uneasiness, drawing them out of Zhahar.

The next time, Kobrah’s voice rose in a wordless sound that conveyed the feelings produced by the strangers.

When the gongs were struck again, Zhahar added her voice to Kobrah’s—and hoped the sound now resonating through the room covered the fact that there were four voices expressing their feelings instead of just two.

Standing in front of the desk in his office, Danyal studied the two men and struggled to hide his revulsion of the images that came to him from their heart-cores. Maggots so bloated they burst. Spiny worms crawling under the skin before turning to lightning that would silence a heart or mind.

Despite his ravings, the inmate felt like clean summer rain. These men felt like a festering cesspool.

“Why did you bring him here?” Danyal asked.

“He is our nephew,” Styks, the taller of the two men, replied. “Our poor sister’s only son. He lost his way in our great city and sought out places that damaged his mind and roughened his heart. It was no longer prudent to try to care for him ourselves. Bringing him here became necessary.”

“But why this one?” Danyal persisted. “You told me your sister lived in the northern part of Vision.”

“The northwestern part,” Pugnos, the shorter man, corrected.

“Which is my point. Why didn’t you take your nephew to the Asylum closer to his home? It will be a two-day journey for his mother to come visit him here.”

“Ah,” Styks said, looking unhappy. “That is one of the reasons we chose this particular place. She tried to help him, but he was drawn to the city’s unsavory streets, and his behavior became so degenerate, he attempted to have carnal relations with her.”

Danyal stiffened, certain he had misunderstood. “With his mother?”

“Yes,” Pugnos said. “They were found, and he was stopped before…Well. If he was nearby, she would feel obliged to visit him, and, frankly, we fear for her mind now. And her physical health has become fragile since that unfortunate episode. Knowing she could not make an arduous journey will allow her distance from her son without guilt. We will encourage her to write to him, of course.”

“There are two other reasons we choose this Asylum,” Styks said. “One is that I live in the southern part of the city, no more than a mile from here. My brother is staying with me for the time being, so we will both be available to visit often and do whatever we can to help restore our nephew to his right mind.”

“That is also why we hired two men to take care of him,” Pugnos said. “We did not want our family troubles to take your Handlers and Helpers away from the other inmates.”

How convenient , Danyal thought. A mother who is too fragile to travel and, therefore, will never be seen. And the men they’ve hired as personal Handlers are better suited to rough work in some of the shadow places than dealing with a man who has a damaged mind.

Before he could push for more information about the Handlers, he felt a pressure at his temples—and the thought drifted away.

“And your other reason for bringing him here?” Danyal asked, feeling off balance and wondering if he should stop by the infirmary and see Benham.

“Why…you,” Styks said with a smile. “No other Asylum has a Shaman as its Keeper. We are hoping that you can do what another Keeper could not: restore our nephew’s mind. Or at least keep it stable while we wait to see if the medicines our physician provided can cure the disease that’s festering in his brain.”

“We must be completely truthful about what that disease has done to the boy,” Pugnos said, giving his brother a sad look. “The Shaman must be prepared.”

“Yes,” Styks agreed, not meeting Danyal’s eyes. “You heard some of his ravings. He thinks people can disappear just by crossing a bridge. Or that he can make people disappear by throwing a stone at them.”

“He insists the world is full of demons and that he has never heard of the great city of Vision,” Pugnos said. “He began claiming he came from a different place when his eyesight began to fail. We think it’s because a blind man has no future in a place like Vision.”

There is more than one way to see , Danyal thought. You would know that if you came from here. “Anything else?”

They both lifted their hands as they shrugged. “More than we can think to tell you,” Styks said. “But if you can help our sister’s boy find his way back home, we will be in your debt.”

He didn’t want their gratitude or their assistance or their hired muscle. He wanted them off the grounds he tended and away from the people under his care.

Danyal walked around his desk, sat down, and reached for a clean sheet of paper—the first of many that would fill a folder and define a man’s life. “I’ll need some information about your nephew.”

“Of course,” Styks said as he and Pugnos settled in the visitors’ chairs. “His name is Lee.”

Michael tossed a few broken pocket watches on the sand inside Ephemera’s playground on the Island in the Mist. Then he settled on the bench in the gravel section and pulled out his tin whistle.

“We’re going to play the Lee-heart game,” he said cheerfully. “Take those pieces of time and leave them where the Lee-heart can find them.”

The only response he got was sharp bits of stone jutting up from the sand, as well as patches of bog and some foul-smelling water. He wasn’t sure if that was a location or a message—or just Ephemera’s effort to bring him something.

Closing his eyes, Michael played the last tune he’d heard in Lee’s heart. It wasn’t the same tune as when he’d first met the man. There was more hurt now in Lee than there had been a year ago, more shadows and sharp edges. While it was tempting to play the tune he remembered, he needed to give Ephemera the heart music of who Lee was now.

So he played the music and sent it out through the currents of the world to guide Ephemera to the heart that matched the tune.

He and the wild child had done this once before. He had sent the music in his heart and Sebastian’s into a place that couldn’t be reached in any other way. By doing that, he had reached Belladonna, the Warrior of Light who had become the monster that Evil feared. He had reached the woman he loved and found the way to help her come home.

Now he was trying to reach out again. Ephemera hadn’t found Lee yet, and that was a worry because it meant Lee had changed so much the wild child couldn’t match heart to music—or it meant Lee was dead.