Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

Was this some kind of heart lesson, that it was Michael who had found a way to locate him, to let him know his family was trying to reach him?

Message received. But until I can figure out the risks, I won’t be sending a reply.

Danyal waited until dusk to have Lee brought to him at the reflecting pool. Teeko and the other groundskeepers had drained the stagnant water—or most of it. Tomorrow they would clean out the rest. Again. Then what?

A reflecting pool gets replaced by the waterfall and pond. That disappears and the reflecting pool returns. Then that mysterious place Vito was so excited about vanished. If Danyal hadn’t seen the place for himself, he would have said it was a delusion of a troubled mind.

In the city of Vision, you can find only what you can see. But nothing like this had happened in the city before.

Ever? some part of him asked. We’ve accepted the nature of this city without ever asking why it is the way it is. We’ve accepted it as a reflection of the rest of Ephemera. But if we’ve accepted for so long without looking, what don’t the Shamans see? And why does everything keep pointing to this blind man having some of the answers?

He watched Lee tap his way toward him, with Kobrah keeping pace. When Lee reached him, Danyal thanked Kobrah—a gentle dismissal.

“Is there something I should know about?” Danyal asked quietly.

“Any number of things,” Lee replied, sounding distracted. “You asking about anything in particular?”

“I asked Zhahar to escort you to me. Why was Kobrah your guide?”

“If that’s your way of asking if I did something inappropriate with Sholeh, I did not. But I suspect Zhahar and her sister are currently engaged in a lively discussion because of a couple of things that were said.” Lee wrinkled his nose. “I wonder if this used to be Sorrow’s Ground.”

Danyal felt a prickle along his spine. “What?”

“Something I’ve wondered, Shaman. All that sorrow that’s released in your little temple. Where does it go? Most villages have a dark place—a piece of land that has sinkholes or that looks fine but won’t grow crops. A place where the Dark currents are swollen with all the bad feelings. It’s often called Sorrow’s Ground. At first I thought it might be the whole Asylum, that this place was a dumping ground for the rest of the city and people were sent here as punishment.”

“They’re sent here to have a chance to heal,” Danyal snapped. Then he caught himself. Was that true because that’s what he wanted the Asylum to be—a place for these people to heal? When he raised his voice to the world, wasn’t he hoping to bring something that would change the emotionally barren earth of this place?

He looked at Lee and the prickle along his spine grew stronger. “Several months ago, something arrived in Vision and…stained…a piece of the city. Turned a shadow street so dark the Shaman who tended that part of the city could no longer find that street. Then other shadow streets were lost from the Shamans’ sight, and some bright places began to have pools of shadow.”

And every letter he received from his nephew Kanzi, assuring him that Nalah and the baby were well, eased his heart. So did the assurance that the strangeness he’d felt at that one bridge hadn’t crept into the village.

“So this stain happened before any of the inmates—or Kobrah—began having vivid dreams?”

“Erotic dreams, don’t you mean?”

“Not in Kobrah’s case, if what she told Zhahar is true.”

“Yes, the stain was reported first, the streets lost to our sight. I wasn’t here when those dreams were first reported by the Handlers, but I’ve checked the files of all the inmates. Only two of them and Kobrah have had such dreams.”

“Any other kinds of dreams?” Lee asked. “Someone whispering in the dark? Whispering inside your own head?”

“Mice in the walls,” Danyal replied quietly. “Mice in the walls, scratching to get in. Always scratching. But the walls are strong.”

Lee shifted his body closer to Danyal. “You?”

“Yes. Perhaps others, but I’ve felt what you described. Tell me about your sister.”

Lee jerked.

Danyal felt a measure of surprise too. They had been speaking of something of grim importance to the whole city. But now that the words were spoken, they felt right.

“Why?” Lee asked warily.

“You grieve for her. I don’t think she is the only sorrow that is released when you are in the temple, but she is the sorrow you named. What happened to her, Lee?”

“Who is asking? You? Or the mice in the walls?”

“I—” Danyal stopped. Thought. Why had he asked about Lee’s sister at that moment? “I’m not sure.”

Silence. Then Lee said, “The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup.”

The words pulled Danyal into a current that was Light and Dark, hot and cold, that pressed him under before letting him go.

He breathed in deeply, as if to assure himself that it was air he took in. Then he released it slowly. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a story from the country of Elandar. I’ll tell you my version of it.

“Once upon a time,” Lee began, “the Dark Guides shaped a terrible creature called the Eater of the World. It was made from the dark feelings that live in the human heart, and Its purpose was to change the world into a terrible place where fear ruled and hope could not survive. It wanted to snuff out the Light in the world. A war was fought. The Guides of the Heart rallied and broke the world into pieces in their effort to contain the Eater. Broke it more and more until they trapped the Eater in one piece—and caged It and the landscapes It had shaped and the creatures It had made. Unable to return to the places they had called home, the Guides remained in that landscape, hiding the cage from the Dark Guides. They learned how to reconnect some of the pieces of Ephemera, and some of them and the children borne to them became Landscapers who kept the currents of Light and Dark balanced in the pieces of the world that resonated with them. And some of them became Bridges who had the power to connect the broken pieces, allowing people to cross over from one place to another.”

Cross over. Danyal sucked in a breath. Wasn’t that what the inmate had wanted to do? Cross over to find his dream lover?

“Generations came and went,” Lee continued. “One day a special girl was born. Her father was a wizard and her mother was a Landscaper. Because of that, she had a connection to the Dark currents of the world as well as the Light. And because she came from a bloodline that was a secret protected by her mother’s family, she was not only a powerful Landscaper; she was also a true Guide of the Heart. She had a special connection to Ephemera, a connection so strong she could shape the world, make new places, rearrange pieces.”

Danyal stared at the empty reflecting pool that had been a lovely water garden a couple of days ago.

“One day the Eater of the World escaped Its cage. It attacked the school where Landscapers and Bridges were trained. It killed all the people It could find there and opened the school to Its creatures and Its landscapes. It hunted, and where It hunted, the Dark currents swelled and the Light was diminished.

“Because the girl, who was now a grown woman, could control the Dark currents as well as the Light, she was the only one strong enough to stand against the Eater of the World. But she didn’t know how to stop it, how to fight it, until a man showed her his family’s secrets and told her about the Warrior of Light. So she made her plans and prepared for this battle to save the world. She went to the school and built a trap for the Eater. She gathered Its landscapes and Its creatures. She trapped most of the Dark Guides and many of the wizards in their lair. And she stood there as bait, waiting for the Eater of the World to destroy her.