Anne Bishop - Sebastian

I have to get out of here, Koltak thought. I have to get away from this city. I have to warn…someone.

Harland looked past Koltak. “I think it’s time Wizard Koltak was initiated into the council.”

“No,” Koltak said. “No, I—”

Feet kicked the crutches out from under him. Hands grabbed his arms before he fell.

He could call the lightning. He could fight, get away. He could—

Kill your ambition, Koltak? voices whispered in his mind. If you fight us now, you will never have what you most desire. Isn’t that why you struggled to stay in this landscape? Because here is the only place where your ambitions could bloom?

He didn’t fight, didn’t struggle. He tried to keep his injured foot off the floor as members of the council—barely recognizable as the men they’d once pretended to be—opened a panel in the wall and dragged him down flights of stairs and through secret corridors.

Finally they stopped in front of a heavy wooden door.

Harland pulled back the bolts and opened the door, closing it behind them once the Dark Guides dragged Koltak to the edge of a barred gallery that looked down into a dimly lit pit.

Holding on to the bars to stay upright, Koltak stared into the pit. Was there something moving down there? Yes. Something moving out of the shadows.

The female—since the creature was naked, there was no doubt it was female—stared up at them. Then she screamed—a sound that lifted the hairs on the back of Koltak’s neck.

“That is the reason you will never be part of the council, Koltak,” Harland said.

“I…I don’t understand.”

Harland smiled as he watched the female, who was now stroking her breasts and moaning. “These are our breeders. They were never able to alter their appearance to pass as humans, so they had to be hidden, protected. They have a feral intelligence, and they’re quite vicious. When they come into season and are desperate to be mounted and mated, they have to be restrained to keep them from savaging the males.” He turned his head and looked at Koltak. “The council is made up of purebloods. Has always been made up of the purebloods. Your ambition made you a useful tool, but you’re too human to be one of us.”

“Why…why are you telling me this?”

“So that you understand.”

“But…” Koltak’s head was reeling as all the things he’d believed shifted into a different pattern. “But if this is what you are, why were you so opposed to Sebastian?”

“We weren’t,” Harland replied. “There was no way of knowing the boy’s potential, but by our exploiting your shame in having sired a child with a succubus, you became a useful tool. And the boy…” He sighed. “The incubi and succubi are two branches that came from the same root as the Dark Guides. Like us, they have the power to slip into other minds through the twilight of waking dreams. As one of us, Sebastian would have been a more powerful wizard than you could dream of being. But as an enemy and Belladonna’s ally…” He smiled. “But once again, you proved yourself useful by helping us eliminate him.”

Sebastian. Tears stung Koltak’s eyes. All of these years, he could have had a son, could have taught the boy to use the power that lived inside him. They might have worked together…as Justice Makers.

Harland studied the females gathering to stare at the males who were out of reach. “They cannot go out among the humans, so they need toys to play with. It makes them easier to handle when it’s time for us to mate with them.”

“Toys?” Koltak stammered, pulled back to the danger present all around him. What kind of toys…It suddenly clicked. “The people who disappear, who are thought to have gotten lost in another landscape.”

Harland nodded. “It’s convenient that some people do cross over to another landscape and aren’t able to return. So no one suspects that anything else might have happened to them.” He paused. “Except Peter. A true Justice Maker, he wandered where he shouldn’t have while helping a shepherd boy round up some sheep. He discovered one of the barred openings that let light and air into this chamber. When we realized he had seen our secret, he had to disappear.”

Koltak just clung to the bars and stared at Harland.

“Your brother was a strong man,” Harland said. “He lasted for weeks before the females broke him, body and spirit. I wonder if you’ll last even half as long.” He lashed out, kicking Koltak’s injured foot.

Koltak screamed as the pain tore through him. He couldn’t fight, could barely struggle as two members of the council dragged him down the stairs and through a tunnel carved out of the pit’s stone walls. Then they opened a door and shoved him into the pit, swiftly locking the door behind them.

Gasping from the pain and unable to stand, he cowered by the door, watching the females as they moved toward him.

“Harland!” he shouted. “Harland! I can still help you!”

But Harland and the other males were gone.

As he felt something brush against the edges of his mind, as he realized he was going to die in this pit and the violation these creatures did to his heart would eclipse anything they did to his body, he accepted a painful truth.

Sebastian had been right. Belladonna was Ephemera’s only hope.

Swallowing down the sick churning in his stomach, Dalton raised his head and opened his eyes.

Dark.

Guardians of the Light and Guides of the Heart, where were they?

He was still in the wagon, still holding his wife’s arm. “Aldys?”

“D-Dalton?”

“Lally? Dale?” He touched his children. “Anyone hurt?”

“Hey-a!” a voice called.

A lantern, bobbing to the rhythm of a fast walk, came down the road toward them.

Releasing his family, Dalton’s left hand closed around the sheath of his sword. His right hand curled around the hilt.

“You folks all right?” the man asked.

“We’re fine,” Dalton replied warily. He relaxed a little when the man got closer and raised the lantern high enough so they could see his face. A good face. Older. Strong body and arms that came from solid work.

“Where did you folks come from?”

“Wizard City.” Seeing the man’s friendly expression fade, he added, “Heart’s Justice sent us here.” Wherever “here” was. “Is this one of Belladonna’s landscapes?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“Yes.”

The man relaxed. “Well, Glorianna is never wrong about a heart.”

“So this is one of Belladonna’s landscapes?”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. Glorianna’s mother, Nadia, looks after this landscape. Village of Aurora is just down the road a ways, but the house is closer.” The man looked up at the sky. “It’ll be dawn in another hour or so. Easier to find your way to the village once the sun comes up. You follow me up to the house. I reckon the youngsters could use some warm milk, and you folks could use a bite to eat.”

“We don’t want to intrude,” Aldys said nervously.

“Never you mind that,” the man said with a smile. “Things are plenty stirred up tonight, so Nadia’s already in the kitchen.” He started to turn away, then turned back. “I’m Jeb, by the way.”

Relief that they had found a safe place made Dalton light-headed, but as he untied the reins and released the brake, something occurred to him.

“Jeb? Why are you out on the road this time of night?”

“Was keeping watch for someone we’re expecting. They haven’t shown up yet, but they will. They will.”

A good man, Dalton thought as they followed Jeb back to the Landscaper’s house. Caring people.

He hoped whoever they were watching for made it back to them.