Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

Listened to the heart wish that came from three hearts that were one heart. A heart wish that was also being made in another part of itself.

Hearts that needed the Guide, needed her.

It would return to the playground and show the Music what it had found. But first…

Ephemera listened to that one yearning heart that didn’t belong in this part of itself.

She wouldn’t be angry if it reshaped a piece of itself to make that one heart happy. Not if it was a small making that would feed the currents of Light.

Pleased, Ephemera remade a piece of itself before traveling through the currents of power and returning to the Island in the Mist, where she and the Music waited.

Feeling edgy, Lee sat on a lounge chair in the screened porch, listening to Kobrah and a couple of cleaning people prepare his new room. A big jump from an isolation cell to a room for the almost normal. There was a bolt on the door to keep inmates from wandering when they became agitated, but his impression was that these rooms were similar to spartan accommodations that could be found in many places where travelers couldn’t afford luxury. He’d stayed in enough places like that in the years when he’d been a Bridge for Glorianna and Nadia.

He hadn’t lied to Danyal when he said he was content to do nothing. Nine years of doing with little time to rest was enough. He’d done enough. His last effort to save his sister and mother and their landscapes had put him in the hands of the enemy and left him blind. Hadn’t he given the world enough of himself?

Apparently not, because being in the hands of the enemy had led him straight to Danyal—a Landscaper in desperate need of a Bridge. Some of the inmates were truly mind-sick people, and some were troubled because they were in the wrong place and needed to cross over to the landscapes that resonated with their hearts.

The best he could figure, the Shamans were the Landscapers for this part of the world, keeping the currents of Light and Dark power balanced, tending the landscapes that leaned toward the Dark as well as the Light. He was pretty sure Danyal was one of the rare Guides of the Heart. Like Michael, the Magician. Like Glorianna Belladonna.

He was also pretty sure something that had been dormant in Danyal had woken up—or responded to another resonance. Again, like Michael, who had more of a connection to Ephemera than the other Magicians in Elandar, but that connection had become more direct and immediate after Michael found Glorianna.

Glorianna wasn’t here, but he—a Bridge—was. Someone who connected pieces of the world, allowing people to cross over to the landscapes that resonated with their hearts, regardless of the physical distance between those places. Sometimes it was the landscapes that pulled at him, wanting a connection. Sometimes it was a person.

If Shamans were the Landscapers in Vision, who were the Bridges? Who connected the various pieces of this city?

Shouting and the sound of people running brought Lee to his feet. Then he swayed there for a moment before sitting down again.

Nothing he could do.

That wasn’t as pleasing a thought as it had been a little while ago.

Danyal stared at the rough stairs leading down to stone walls covered with vines and listened to the inmate down there, just out of sight, laughing and weeping with delight, saying this is where he belonged. This place.

Several Handlers were crowded behind him, including Zhahar. As his eyes skimmed over them, he realized he was looking for one other person: Lee.

As Danyal took the first step down into this place that hadn’t existed an hour ago, he felt a strong hand grab the sleeve of his white robe, felt two heart-cores where a moment ago there had been one.

“You shouldn’t go down alone,” Zhahar said.

“Come, then,” he replied.

She followed him down. It was cool and shady near the stairs. When they rounded the bit of wall that blocked their sight of the rest of the place, they stopped.

Sunlight and heat and air that almost dripped with scents. Vines clung to the stone walls, and he could almost see the bunches of small fruit growing as he watched. Vito, an inmate who had been indifferent to his surroundings, touched the plants and the stones, laughing and weeping with a joy that could have broken Danyal’s heart if he hadn’t heard Zhahar’s choked sob.

“He’s so happy,” she whispered. “It’s as if his heart woke up. But…what is this place?”

Not a part of Vision , Danyal thought. There were vineyards in some of the northern communities, but there were no grapes that grew like this. Not in Vision.

And how had this place been made when no man had picked up a shovel to dig or a barrow to haul stone?

“Shaman?” Zhahar pointed to something gold that poked up from the ground near the vines and caught the sunlight.

He walked over to the spot and picked up the broken pocket watch.

“Shaman Danyal, isn’t it wonderful?”

Danyal looked at Vito, a man whose heart-core had been mud and stone. Now…Dawn. Clean water. Rich earth. The abundance of a good harvest lovingly tended.

“Yes, it’s wonderful,” he replied, then added gently, “Tend your vines until the evening meal. Then you must come in and rest.”

“All right, Shaman. I will.”

Danyal went back up the stairs with Zhahar. He tipped his head at Denys. “Stay with him to make sure he comes to no harm. Observe him.” He turned to Zhahar. “Escort Lee to the temple.”

“What should I tell him?” she asked.

Summer rains, both gentle and fierce. Madman or teacher? “Tell him the voice of the world wants to talk to him.”

“Could you pick a pace and stay with it?” Lee snapped after stumbling for the third time because Zhahar couldn’t settle on whether to go step by ponderous step or sprint to the temple.

“The Shaman wants to see you,” Zhahar snapped in return. She tightened her grip on his arm and put more muscle into hauling him down the path.

“Hey!” Lee stopped so abruptly, she was pulled around and smacked into his chest.

Two resonances. Two familiar resonances where there had been one a moment before. He grabbed her left arm. Even through the jacket he felt the jagged, raised scar before it seemed to withdraw into the skin.

“What happened that’s got you bouncing out of your skin?” he asked. He could almost feel her panic at his mention of skin.

“We— I’m not. It’s just…unsettling.”

“Then shouldn’t the Shaman and the Handlers be taking care of whatever this is?”

“We don’t…It’s never…Places can shift , but not like this.”

“Places shift?” What does that mean? If it meant what he thought it meant, Zhahar knew more about the world than she was saying. And wasn’t that interesting?

“Lee.”

“Just tell me why the Shaman wants to see me, because I know that calling himself the voice of the world means we aren’t going to be having a friendly little chat.”

He felt her hesitate, felt her struggle to regain control of herself.

“There’s a new place in the Asylum,” she finally said. “It wasn’t there and now it is, and no one knows why.”

“Is anyone happy about this?”

“One of the inmates. He thinks he belongs there.”

“Then he probably does.” Still didn’t explain why Danyal wanted to see him, but it explained all the shouting before Zhahar came to fetch him.

She finally settled into a reasonable pace—or someone did—and they arrived at the temple. Didn’t need to wonder if Danyal was there, because the gongs were sounding. All the gongs. Quietly, yes, but Lee would have bet a week’s worth of chores that the Shaman hadn’t struck any of those gongs with a mallet. Voice of the world, indeed.