Anne Bishop - Bridge of Dreams

Danyal glanced at Glorianna, who tipped her head in the briefest nod, confirming his suspicion that the pails would be the ones Racket had reported missing from the Shamans’ compound.

“We need to leave, Danyal,” Glorianna said.

Nik and Benham looked as alarmed as he felt. “We can’t leave them here.”

She huffed. “Of course not. We’ll gather up the wind chimes and any lanterns you might have in here. Lee’s waiting for us on the island. We’ll take everyone back to the Shamans’ compound and figure out the rest later.” She turned toward the door, then said over her shoulder, “You might want to bring some of the pails back too.”

Glorianna led the way, holding her lantern high as a beacon. They found two other lanterns that had a bit of oil left. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough. The inmates each carried a wind chime and filled the dark with their sound.

As Glorianna reached the footbridge, another lantern suddenly appeared and was lowered to the ground.

“Hey-a,” Lee called.

Murmurs, both happy and tearful, as Lee helped each person step onto the island.

Danyal, as the last one, hesitated and looked back. Lee and Glorianna stepped off the island.

“Problem?” Lee asked.

He shook his head. “That little temple. I don’t think I’ll miss anything else about the Asylum’s grounds or buildings, but I’ll be sorry to lose the little temple.”

He felt Glorianna staring at him before she looked at Lee.

“Does the building have water pipes or anything else that would cause a problem?”

“I never saw any,” he said blandly.

“You’re no help. Danyal? Does the building have any attachments?”

“No. It was just a simple building. No water, no drains.”

“In that case…” she said. “Ephemera?”

???

“The little building Voice-guide uses to help the hearts. I want you to shift it to Voice-guide’s playground. Just the building, not any of the land. Do you understand?”

yes yes yes

“Wait a minute,” Lee said. “You’re encouraging the world to take buildings now? You’re going to let it start rearranging villages? If neighbors are quarreling, they’ll wake up one morning and find their houses on opposite ends of the street?”

“Ephemera knows better than to shift a building in any of my landscapes without my permission,” Glorianna said sweetly. “What the two of you let the world get away with here in Vision is up to you.” She stepped up on the island and disappeared from view.

It took Danyal a moment to realize his mouth was hanging open.

“What just happened?” he finally asked.

Lee sighed and guided him onto the island. “The world has been given a new toy, and you and I are in charge of supervising playtime.”

Danyal, Lee, and Yoshani meandered around another part of The Temples.

“A walking meditation,” Danyal grumbled. “Why are we doing a walking meditation?”

“So that you can look and think and, finally, see ,” Yoshani replied, sounding less patient than he had when they’d started this a couple of hours ago.

“I’ll point out that whatever I’m looking at is still blurry enough that I’m not actually seeing much of anything,” Lee complained.

“And we’ve been walking too long. My hip isn’t able to do this much,” Danyal said.

“Then start using your head so you can spare your feet,” Yoshani replied sharply. “And you.” He pointed at Lee. “If you can’t see anything, it’s because you’re being willfully blind.”

Lee stopped walking. So did Danyal. Yoshani continued on a few steps before turning back to join them.

“That was harsh,” Danyal said.

“What you hear as harsh, I hear as an end of patience,” Yoshani replied. “The Guide you both asked to stand as your mentor gave you the task of considering what you would need to do your work in the world. I’d had the impression that you both made some decisions already about what you would need, and that this would simply help you determine the physical shape. Instead of following your assignment, you have muttered and complained like cranky children until Glorianna had no desire to listen to either of you. Which is why you are out here walking, and why I, who have no stake in this, offered to accompany you.”

A man his own age had just told him he sounded like a whiny six-year-old. Danyal didn’t like it—especially because he suspected it was true.

“I’m frustrated,” he admitted. “I want to comply with Glorianna’s request, but I don’t understand what she wants from me. From either of us.” He tipped his head to include Lee.

“Yeah.” Lee scrubbed his fingers over his hair. “I heard what she said, but I can’t get the words to form a pattern I understand. And I’ve always understood Glorianna, even when my brain didn’t.”

“A first step,” Yoshani said. “What do you need in order to do your work? Danyal, admittedly, has a better sense of the buildings, but you both lived at the Asylum for a while. We’ve walked around the compound that makes up the residential part of The Temples. We’ve walked around this main avenue that is the public part. You’ve both lived other places and seen other buildings. What do you want?”

“Not an Asylum,” Danyal said, sure of that much. “Not a place for those who will never be whole and need a kind of care I’m not suited to give them. Not anymore.” He had admitted to himself that he’d become too dangerous to work with heart-cores that might pull him too far into the Dark. “But I would like to work in a place that could help the ones who are weighed down by the world because they lost their way.”

“A building or buildings that could provide housing for two or three dozen people at a time,” Lee said. “Fifty people at the most. And a separate building for the staff—suites of rooms or apartments that would give them a home rather than just a room. And private residences for Danyal and me. With a screened porch. I did like sitting out on that screened porch.”

“The little temple,” Danyal continued. “And a building that could provide space for work and study.”

“You would also need a reference library. Would you not?” Yoshani asked quietly. “And someone to do research for you and provide the information you need to shape pieces of the world in the playground?”

“Yes,” Danyal said. He closed his eyes for a moment to picture it better. A swimming hole would be lovely. Maybe not on the grounds itself, since that might be too dangerous for the more emotionally fragile…students. Not inmates. No, these would be students who came to the school to prepare for the next part of their journey.

“The Apothecary could share a building with Meddik Benham. Then a person wouldn’t have to walk far for a tonic after getting some stitches,” Lee said.

“No more than an hour’s ride from the bazaar and The Temples,” Danyal said, looking in the direction of the archway between The Temples and the bazaar. “That would make the school about a day’s journey from any part of Vision.”

“And not as hot as the southern part of the city,” Lee added.

“Definitely not as hot,” Danyal agreed.

“Grounds that would include flower gardens and a kitchen garden that everyone would help plant, tend, and harvest. And we’d need enough room for that two-acre playground,” Lee said.

Danyal didn’t want to think about what they would find at the playground when they returned. He didn’t know if the world was ignoring the rest of itself or if it was responding placidly to people’s hearts and feelings everywhere else, saving its energy for the place where it could make things without restraint. It was treating the little temple like a toy, moving it around to different parts of the playground and creating a variety of trees and vegetation around it, like a child putting different outfits on a doll. Apparently, Glorianna had set some limits, because Ephemera wasn’t allowed to bring into the playground anything from a dark landscape unless she was with it to help shape the making.