Sebastian

Chapter Twenty-four

Glorianna watched Lee raise a hand in thanks as the demon cycles raced back to the Den.

“Well,” he said, “that was clear thinking on Sebastian’s part to ask the demon cycles to linger in this landscape to show us where the bridge was located.”

She sniffed because, somehow, being miffed seemed like the right thing to do. “I’m sure he didn’t tell them it was all right to chase the waterhorses.”

“They didn’t chase the little ones. They made a point of telling you that.”

“Oh. Well. That makes it all right. What?” The last because Lee was grinning at her.

“We’re squabbling.”

“We are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are—” She stopped. She always felt as if she were ten years old when they started one of these arguments. “Maybe. So what if we are?”

“We only squabble when something has been wrong and we know it’s going to be all right again. So I guess this idea of yours isn’t so daft after all.”

“It’s not daft.” Risky, certainly. And dangerous if it didn’t work as well as she thought it would. But not daft. “Why did you have the demon cycles leave us here?” She waved a hand at the stand of trees.

“Because I can feel the bridge.” Lee headed in a westerly direction and continued talking over his shoulder. “And I figured if we’re moving at a walking pace, you’d have a better feel of the land and more warning if the Eater left any nasty surprises in this landscape.”

Since she hadn’t found the anchor the Eater had established in the waterhorses’ landscape, and nasty surprises were a distinct possibility, she hurried to catch up to Lee and link her arm through his—both as a sign of sisterly affection and because, if there was danger, she could take them both back to her gardens in a heartbeat as long as she was touching him.

“Do you remember that time when Mother was sick for a whole week?” Glorianna asked.

“I remember.” Lee smiled. “I was about nine and you were eleven.”

She nodded. “Neighbors brought soups and broths for her, but we pretty much fended for ourselves—and survived my cooking.”

“You went to the butcher’s and the grocer’s for food—”

“—with you helping to pull your sled, since it was too snowy to use anything else.”

“The grocer was impressed that we were buying vegetables instead of sweets.”

“And oranges, remember? They came from the south and traveled through a dozen landscapes before they got to Aurora, and each one cost more than the spending money Mother gave me for a week.”

“You bought six of them,” Lee said softly. “And each day you peeled one and divided the sections three ways because you said the oranges would keep us from getting sick and help Mother get well.”

“We didn’t squabble at all during those days,” Glorianna said just as softly.

“We were afraid she was going to die. It had been a hard winter. Other people in the village had died of influenza or pneumonia. We were half-grown and so scared. She’d never been that sick before.”

“So we didn’t squabble. We kept the house orderly and did the lessons our teachers brought over so we wouldn’t fall behind in school…and we didn’t squabble.”

“Until Mother was well again.” Lee laughed. “And then we drove her halfway mad with it because we’d argue over the least little thing.”

“Yes.”

They walked in silence for a while. Then Glorianna said, “I love you, Lee.”

“Don’t.” His voice got sharp. “People start saying things like that when they think they might not have another chance to say them.”

“It’s not that. I’m just…having a sentimental moment.”

“Oh. In that case, I love you, too. I—” He tensed when she stopped walking. “What is it?”

“Dissonance. Up ahead. There’s something there that doesn’t belong in this landscape.”

“The bridge is up ahead too.”

They moved cautiously, Lee scanning the area around them for signs of some kind of creature, while Glorianna kept her eyes focused on the ground, looking for any telltale warnings that they were about to step into another landscape.

Small. Much smaller than the pond. She’d been able to sense the dissonance in the pond from her gardens on the Island in the Mist, but this alteration of the landscape had eluded her until she’d gotten close to it.

Lee led them to the bridge, then stopped two man-lengths away. “The ground is torn up around the left side of the bridge. Looks like a struggle took place here.”

Glorianna nodded. “But Ephemera stripped the grass and wildflowers around that circle of dead grass in response to whatever happened here. And that circle looks slightly higher than the rest of the ground.”

“An access point to an underground den?” Lee asked.

Thinking about the creatures Sebastian had seen at the school, it came to her. “Trap spider. That’s its lair. But…the dissonance doesn’t feel strong enough. I don’t think the Eater’s creature is there anymore.” She slowed her breathing, waited for her heartbeat to settle. She could feel the currents of Ephemera’s power all around her, wanting to respond to a heart—and reluctant to respond with a piece of the Eater’s landscapes so close. The currents of power were tangled up, knotted. Without direction, there was no telling what the world would manifest.

She walked a circle around the trap spider’s lair, careful to stay a hand-width outside of the barren ground.

Hear me, Ephemera, she called as she circled. Listen to my heart. Tapping into the currents of Light and a single thread of the Dark, she altered the landscape, sending the trap spider’s lair into the place of stones that she had already taken out of the world when she’d blocked the Eater’s attempt to anchor the bonelovers’ landscape to the Den.

The trap spider’s lair and the barren ground around it disappeared, leaving a deep hole—a hole the world wanted to fill.

Listen to me. Listen to my heart.

It knew her. She was like the Old Ones who had known when to play with the Light and when a place needed currents of the Dark.

Soil, Glorianna thought, keeping her mind focused on the task, letting her heart beat with the promise of pleasure. Rich soil to fill the hole. Soil that matches the earth here.

Ephemera hesitated, then manifested what the heart desired. Pleasure filled the heart—and the other heart nearby. Its currents of power began to untangle. Was there more to play with?

Stone, the heart commanded. Not the stone of anger, the stone of strength.

It resonated with the heart, resonated with the land around it to find the stone the heart wanted and make more of it.

Stone formed around the back half of the circle, gray and strong. Not high. Not big. It stopped when the heart said “enough.”

Smaller stones to shape a border. And a circle of stones where the Bad Thing had made a place for Itself.

Flowers, the heart said. The breath of living things. So it manifested flowers that liked to live in this part of itself.

And one more. This time the heart resonated so strongly, there was no choice but to manifest exactly what the heart wanted. But it knew this plant. This had come from the Old Ones’ hearts to help the world heal. Wherever it grew, the Bad Thing could not change the world into something completely terrible, because hearts that could feel the resonance of the plant would always hold a little Light.

Glorianna sighed and stepped away from the circle. Lee came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders.

Waist-high granite formed a half circle of stones, still with the jagged edges that time and rain would soften. Violets, wood iris, and plants with white, bell-shaped flowers sprang up from the newly made soil. In the center, where the door of the trap spider’s lair had been, heart’s hope bloomed.

“It’s lovely,” Lee said quietly.

She felt his hands tighten on her shoulders.

“But you didn’t alter the landscape that time, did you?” he asked. “You didn’t find stones and those flowers and shift them to this place.”

“No. This is new.”

He turned her to face him.

“That’s what makes you different, isn’t it?” he said slowly, as if fitting together the final pieces of a puzzle. “It’s not just that you’re stronger than other Landscapers, not just that you can alter landscapes and put together pieces from all different parts of the world. It’s this—the ability to connect with Ephemera so strongly you can create landscapes. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “You really are like the Old Ones, the ones in the stories. The Guides of the Heart.”

“A Guide, yes. But since I may be the only one left, I guess, in a real sense, I’m Ephemera’s heart.” He was still looking at her as if she were a stranger.

“How long have you known?”

“Not long. Mother told me some things about our family just recently that explained why I am the way I am.” She hesitated. “Does it bother you, knowing what I truly am?”

He studied her a moment longer and smiled. “No. We’re still going to squabble.” Then he narrowed his eyes, considering. “Have you created anything else?”

“The Island in the Mist.”

His mouth fell open. “The whole island?”

“It’s only a few acres.”

“But…an island?” He thought for a moment. “The house, too?”

“No, not the house. Ephemera can create quarries of fine stone for building, but it can’t build a house. Or put in plumbing.”

“Or use a wrench to take apart a piece of pipe that’s clogged.”

“That’s what brothers are for.”

“How considerate of Mother to have provided you with one.”

“I know. That’s why I bring her flowers every year on your birthday.”

He grinned. “I guess things are all right between us. We’re squabbling again.”

She smiled. “I guess we are—and they are.”

“Then it’s my turn.” Releasing her, he walked over to the two wooden planks that crossed a narrow creek. “I’ll break this bridge so nothing from Wizard City can reach this landscape. Then…” He crouched in front of the wooden planks. “I don’t like the part that comes after this. I’ll tell you that plainly, Glorianna.”

“If you want to stir up a hornet’s nest, you hit it with a big stick.”

“Let’s just make sure neither of us gets stung.”

The student wizard hurried across the open ground, relieved his shift at the tower had finished before the sun set. Things felt…strange…lately in the city after the sun went down, even here at the hall.

He skidded to a halt and bit back a yelp when a woman suddenly appeared out of nowhere and walked toward him. She wore mannish clothes, the kind no respectable woman in Wizard City would wear, and her black, unbound hair flowed down her back, fanning out in the breeze that always blew at the top of the hill. For a moment he thought—hoped—she was a woman of loose morals who would be willing to do some naughty things with him in exchange for his not turning her over to the guards.

But she had the coldest green eyes he’d ever seen, and his heart trembled when she looked at him.

“The Wizards’ Council has demanded Heart’s Justice,” she said. “Tell them the Landscaper will meet them outside the walls of the city tomorrow at sundown, and Heart’s Justice will be done.”

She turned and walked away.

“And who should I say gave me the message?” he asked, shaken by the brazen way she was giving orders to the council.

“They’ll know.”

“How are they supposed to know which Landscaper you are?”

She stopped and looked back at him. Those cold eyes went straight through him—and he felt as if she could see every secret in his heart.

“I’m the only one left.” She took another step…and disappeared.

Standing on the edge of the little island that was Lee’s landscape, the piece of Ephemera he could shift at will, Glorianna watched the young wizard run toward the hall.

“Well,” Lee said, “you whacked the hornets’ nest.”

She nodded, resisting the wind of emotion blowing through her own heart.

Lee watched her for a moment, then said quietly, “We could try to find Sebastian, get him out of here now.”

So tempting to agree, because it was what she wanted. But…

Opportunities and choices. Something in Sebastian had changed—or had been changed. She could barely feel the resonance of his heart, and what she could sense was different, alien. This heart would never be at home in any of her landscapes. But deep in the core, fiercely protected, was still the cousin she knew and loved.

“No,” she said with regret. “He has to make his own choices on this journey.” And if he doesn’t follow the shining warmth I can still feel in his heart, we’ll lose him forever.

Lee sighed. “In that case, the bridge between this landscape and the waterhorses’ is broken, and the wizards know you’re coming. It’s time to go back to Sanctuary and get what rest we can.”

“Not yet.” She thought about that shining warmth. “There’s one more thing we need to do.”

The voices stopped whispering. Something had stirred up the wizards, distracting them enough to stop the torment.

Sebastian opened his eyes and found himself on the floor in a fetal position, curled around the canteen with its last few swallows of water. Straightening his stiff limbs, he pushed himself up until he could sit with his back against the wall.

His head still ached, but his mind felt clear for the first time since he’d crossed the bridge. Maybe even since Koltak had stumbled into the Den.

He had the same powers as the other wizards. At least, some of their powers. Could he use them to open the door and escape? Maybe. But he didn’t think he could get out of Wizard City and back across the bridge before they hunted him down, no matter what had stirred them up. And his power was raw. Not something he wanted to test against so many trained wizards.

But there was a power he knew how to use—a power that might help people fight against the Eater of the World. But what landscapes could he reach from here? Who could he reach from here?

Women. It would have to be women.

He thought of Koltak crossing bridges in the waterhorses’ landscape. Crossing over to places called Dunberry and Foggy Downs. Places he’d never heard of. Places that must be in another part of Ephemera—but were still connected to one of Glorianna’s landscapes.

There was no hope for him, but he might be able to help the people he loved. Glorianna needed friends, needed allies, needed help in her fight against the Eater. Maybe he could give her some of those things. And by helping Glorianna, he could also save—

He wouldn’t think her name. Not here.

He unfurled the power of the incubus until it filled him. Then he sent that power through the twilight of waking dreams, searching for hearts that would respond to him.

He felt them, many of them, becoming aware of his intrusion, strong-willed hearts and minds that would shut him out in another moment.

Listen to me, he said on the link that traveled through waking dreams. Please listen. The Eater of the World has come back.

Fear came back to him. Sharp, jagged.

Then we are lost, some of the voices whispered. This time the Light will be devoured.

No, he replied, putting all of his conviction into the thought. Heart’s hope lies within Belladonna. Remember that. Heart’s hope lies within Belladonna.

He felt the scratching at the edges of his mind. Some of his tormentors had returned.

He withdrew his links with those other hearts, pulling his power back into himself as fast as he could. Before the wizards were able to slip into his mind to discover what he had just done, he had the secret surrounded with all the strength he had left.

All through the torturous night, while they whispered and whispered and whispered, he held on to the secret—and the shining warmth.