Anne Bishop - Sebastian

“For them, maybe.”

“Teaser.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I have to go.”

“Why? We don’t deal with those landscapes anyway.”

Frustration filled Sebastian. He hadn’t expected Teaser to get scrappy about this. “Are you sure we don’t deal with them? Are you sure we can survive if those other landscapes are destroyed? I’m not sure.”

Teaser looked away.

“I’m going to leave a message for Lee, telling him about the bridge and the places Koltak was able to reach through the waterhorses’ landscape. I’ll leave it in your room. If he shows up before I get back, you make sure he gets the message. And look after Lynnea.”

“We’ll look after each other, I guess. Kind of like family.”

Looking at Teaser’s wistful smile, Sebastian felt a shimmer of rightness go through him. “We are family.”

Pleased and embarrassed, Teaser tipped his head toward the dining room door. “That one is impatient.”

How long had Koltak been standing at the door, watching him?

“Sebastian?” Teaser said. “Travel lightly.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” As he walked away from Teaser and passed the doorway, he said to Koltak, “Let’s go.”

Watching Sebastian was like seeing his brother, Peter, again. The same indefinable quality that drew people to him, made them listen. The same combination of charm and steel. Peter Justice Maker. Never Peter, Wizard Third Level, or Wizard Peter. It had never been about being Somebody—not for Peter. It had always been about justice.

But believing in justice hadn’t prevented Peter from disappearing into the landscapes, never to return.

Of course, no one in Wizard City had known darling Peter had sired two children with a Landscaper. So maybe his disappearance had been a kind of justice—the punishment for having done the forbidden.

Koltak pushed the thoughts away as Sebastian finished a discussion with some kind of demons that were a combination of flesh and a thick bicycle without wheels.

“The demon cycles will take us as far as the bridge that crosses over to Wizard City,” Sebastian said when he returned to the corner where Koltak waited. “After that, Guardians and Guides willing, we’ll find someone to give us a ride.”

We. Sebastian had said we. The mind control was working.

To save Ephemera, Koltak chanted silently. For the good of Ephemera.

They went down a side street and entered a building halfway down the block.

Plush. Well-kept. He’d seen places like this in the cities of many landscapes—he had needs like any other man—but the only times he’d been in a place that looked this expensive was when a well-to-do family paid for the room and the woman in return for a favor. All very discreetly, of course.

Sebastian paused at the foot of the stairs, as if something was troubling him. Koltak resumed his silent chant. To save Ephemera. For the good of Ephemera.

The room on the third floor was large enough to have a separate sitting area and didn’t shout “whore.” It would seem Sebastian had done well for himself.

The room felt masculine, but there were touches of femininity.

“You live with a woman?” Koltak asked, wondering how an incubus did business with a female in residence.

“None of your business,” Sebastian snapped, pulling a pack out of the bottom of the wardrobe.

“No, it’s not.” He saw the hesitation again. The boy had always had a will of steel. For the good of Ephemera. To save Ephemera.

Two changes of underwear went into the pack. Two shirts.

Then Sebastian went through a door, closing it behind him. A moment later Koltak heard the bang and grumble of old water pipes.

Not sure how long Sebastian would be occupied, Koltak scanned the room as he reached into the inner pocket of his robe and withdrew the folded, sealed paper that contained Ephemera’s salvation. He’d worried that he wouldn’t find a good place to leave the document—a place where he could be certain it would be found, but not too quickly. Sebastian had conveniently solved the problem for him by having a female living with him.

The water pipes stopped grumbling.

Koltak tucked the paper between the seat cushion and the arm of one of the sitting room chairs, leaving enough of it visible to catch the eye.

“Ready?” Koltak asked when Sebastian walked back into the room, shifting slightly to hide the chair and keep Sebastian from noticing the paper.

“Let’s go.”

When they reached the street and Koltak saw the two demons waiting for them, he balked. “No.”

Sebastian adjusted the pack on his back, then swung a leg over the creature’s leather seat. “You’re the one insisting that we get there as soon as possible. The demon cycles are the fastest way to travel.”

Reluctant but unable to think of how to refuse when he had been insisting they needed to reach Wizard City as quickly as possible, Koltak mounted the other demon cycle, setting his feet on the footrests the way Sebastian had done.

“Hold on,” Sebastian said.

Koltak’s hands ached from gripping the handlebars so hard. As the cycles moved sedately up the main street, he relaxed a little. They weren’t going any faster than a horse could walk. Why couldn’t they have used a natural beast instead of these creatures?

“How many days do you think it will take to reach the bridge?” he asked.

Sebastian looked at him, his expression hesitant and puzzled.

Had to stop asking about time. The boy wasn’t stupid. Given enough time to consider the nature of Ephemera, Sebastian would come to the correct conclusion, which would be disastrous. Need to move quickly to save Ephemera. Need to find the bridge to protect Ephemera.

Sebastian grinned wickedly. “It won’t take that long.”

They moved sedately up the main street until they reached the dirt lane. Then…

Koltak screamed as the demon cycles surged forward, whipping above the dirt lane at speeds a galloping horse couldn’t match or sustain. The cottage flashed by. Sebastian shouted, “Border ahead.”

The cycles lifted like a horse jumping a fence. Koltak had no idea if it was necessary to cross the border from this side or if it was the demon’s perverse attempt to scare him into pissing himself.

The ground he’d toiled to cross flowed under him, and the moon, almost full now, illuminated the land, giving it a strange beauty and peace he hadn’t noticed or felt in all the days he’d been trapped in this landscape.

The demons rumbled and slowed down as they approached what looked like pale, barren earth that had a ring of boulders at the center of the fan-shaped area.

“It’s sand,” Sebastian said. Leaning forward, he tapped the demon on the shoulder. “Get us a little closer, but go slow. Be careful.”

The cycles edged up to within an arm’s length of the place.

“We’ve gone the wrong way,” Koltak said. “I don’t remember seeing a place like this.”

“No,” Sebastian said in an odd voice, raising a hand to point at something half-buried in the sand. “I think this is the right way. Look.”

Koltak gasped when he realized he was looking at the severed horse’s head. “But…it wasn’t like this before.”

“It’s been altered. I’m thinking if you cross the stones outlining the sand, you’ll end up in another landscape a long way from here.” Sebastian looked at Koltak, wariness in every line of his body. “What killed the horse?”

“What does it matter?” Koltak replied, trying to hammer the fear back with righteous anger. She had done this. Must have done this. Had she altered an unprotected landscape into this wasteland? Were there towns out there, suddenly awash in sand?