Anne Bishop - Sebastian

“It’s still a poor part of the city, but it’s different now. Troublemakers aren’t comfortable there and don’t stay long. Folks look beyond their own doors these days and give their neighbors a helping hand. And I still bring a wagon of produce each week once the land ripens.”

“Did you ever see her again?” Sebastian asked.

William nodded. “Couple years ago. I was selling my last bushel of apples, and this woman held out a penny and smiled at me. By then I knew who she was, what she was, how dangerous she was. But I tell you, I don’t care what other folks say about her. She gave me a chance to change things the day I gave her a ride, and nothing but good has come from it.” He raised a hand and pointed. “There’s the city’s south gate. I’ll be turning off once we get past it. Will you be able to get on all right after that?”

“I know the way to the Wizards’ Hall,” Sebastian replied.

The land around them wasn’t flat, but the hill upon which Wizard City had been built dominated the countryside, as if some massive creature swimming beneath the surface had suddenly arched its back. No, more like a giant dog stretching its back and front legs in an invitation to play and pushing the earth up with its movement. The hill sloped gradually on this side, giving people enough of a foothold to build houses and spiraling roads that led to the plateau where the Wizards’ Hall and Tower looked down on the rest of the city. The other side of the hill was too steep for anything but pasturing sheep and goats.

They drove through the south gate in the high stone wall that circled the hill. William stopped his horses long enough for Sebastian to climb down.

“Travel lightly,” William said.

Sebastian nodded. “Thank you for the kindness.” He watched the wagon until it disappeared around a curve. Then he strode in the opposite direction toward a courtyard that was as old as the city.

In the beginning, the courtyard had been a place for meditation, for quieting one’s heart and thoughts before climbing the Thousand Stairs to Justice. Now it was flanked by barracks for the hard-eyed guards who kept order in the lower levels of the city, and he doubted if anyone who lingered in that tired place, with its dying trees and weed-choked flower beds, found any peace there.

He didn’t know if there had been a thousand stairs when they had been created or if someone had called them that because it sounded impressive. There wouldn’t be a thousand now, since the roads that were built afterward eliminated some of them, but it was still a climb that tested the strength of a man’s legs—and his determination to reach the top.

And it was still the fastest way up to the plateau where the wizards, the Justice Makers, reigned.

He heard the bell chime nine times as he stepped into the courtyard. Guards who had been lounging against the buildings straightened when they saw him. Ignoring them, he settled one strap of his pack over his shoulder and strode to the back of the courtyard as if he had every right to be there.

And he did. Anyone could petition the wizards for help. Of course, asking for help wasn’t the same as getting any.

The moment his foot touched the first stair, the guards lost interest in him. Wizards’ magic supposedly had built the stairs and still resided in them. It was said that the audience was merely a formality, that the wizards knew all that was needed about the petitioner by the time the person climbed the last stair.

He didn’t believe that was true. Even so, as he climbed he tried to empty his mind of everything but moving from one stair to the next. He didn’t want to remember the other times he’d been in this city—or the one and only time he’d seen the Wizards’ Hall.

But his muscles tightened, his heart pounded, and the despair and bitter anger that had colored so much of his childhood was a heavy rock strapped to his back with chains forged by cruel words.

He’d climbed these stairs once before.

How old had he been? Five? Maybe six? Just lingering at the edge of the street where he lived, as much to get away from the latest woman who was looking after him as to watch three girls playing catch with a bright-colored ball. He watched them, drinking in their laughter and happiness, unaware of his own nature or why their emotions made him feel as if he were gulping down cool water after being thirsty for so long.

A girl missed the catch, and the ball rolled right to him. He picked it up, and as he looked at the girls, he felt their happiness change to wariness. He knew what other boys would have done—kept the ball, since it was the kind of pretty toy rarely seen in this part of the city, or thrown the ball hard at one of the girls to scare her or hit her so she’d cry. But he wanted to hear the girls laugh again, so he tossed the ball gently to one of them. They studied him a moment, then went back to their game. But when the ball came around to the one who had missed it before, she motioned him forward and tossed the ball to him. And the triangle of girls became a square of four children playing catch and having fun.

Then the woman stomped out of the building and dragged him inside to the cramped, smelly rooms he called home.

She screamed at him about the demon inside him and the depraved nature she’d been told to watch for. Then she hit him, her heavy hand cracking across his face hard enough to send him to the floor.

But he’d scrambled to his feet, dodged past her…and ran until he reached the courtyard and the Thousand Stairs to Justice.

Some of the other women who had looked after him had been a little kinder. They’d told him his father was an important man, a wizard. But children weren’t allowed to live in the Wizards’ Hall, so he had to stay with them. He’d accepted that, had never questioned their explanation.

He raced up the stairs, his young legs fueled by anger. He hadn’t seen his father often, and the feelings that flowed out of the man made him uneasy, but that didn’t matter now. His father was an important man. His father was a wizard. And his father, after learning how mean the woman had been, would take him someplace else to live.

Yes, that’s what would happen. He would go live in a nice house with a kind woman who didn’t yell at him all the time or say bad things about him or hit him. And maybe there would be children to play with. Children who liked him, who wouldn’t call him names.

The need for that kind woman and those children swelled inside him, blotting out the anger. Hope filled him as he raced up the stairs.

When he finally reached the top of the stairs and ran along the path that led to the street and the high stone walls beyond, a vine of doubt curled around the hope and tried to smother it.

How was he supposed to get inside and find his father? What if he went inside the Petitioners’ Hall and asked for Koltak and the other wizards just sent him away? He had to get inside!

Then luck, or fate, or the nature of Ephemera gave him the opportunity. A man walked out of the wrought-iron gate next to the Petitioners’ Hall and gave it a negligent shove to close it. The gate stopped a hand-width away from locking.

He ran across the street and pulled the gate open just enough to slip inside. A different world, with more trees and greenery than he’d ever seen. He wandered along the paths, his father momentarily forgotten. It was so clean here. No smell of garbage or sour bodies.

Then, hearing laughter, he turned and made the discovery that changed his life.

Boys, not much older than him, running along another path toward the buildings at the other end of the courtyard garden. Boys. Living at the Wizards’ Hall.

He could have lived here, in this clean place—if his father had wanted him.