Belladonna by Anne Bishop
His eyes popped open. “Huh?”
She scooped up a handful of stones. “You asked for different colors. Here’s garnet and malachite. Lapis and citrine. Topaz. Oh, and here’s a lovely amethyst. And this might be an emerald.”
He crouched beside her. “I was just trying to distract the world, give it something safe to do.”
“And you did a fine job. We can pick through these later. If you take them to a gem dealer, you could get a good price for them.”
“I didn’t do this to line my pockets.”
Her free hand brushed his hair back, stroked his head. “Magician, how do you think we get by most of the time? Landscapers don’t get paid directly for what they do, so most gardens have a little ‘treasure spot’—a place where you can turn the earth and come up with the coins that were tossed in wish wells, or gold or silver nuggets—or gems—that come from Ephemera.”
So the story about a treasure hidden in Darling’s Garden wasn’t just a story. Did Caitlin know about having a treasure spot? “Is it always this easy?”
“Well, for most it’s not quite this simple. But the wild child is very responsive to you.”
Her lips touched his. Warmth rather than heat. Affection rather than lust. And yet the promise of heat was there, simmering between them.
Friend. Lover. Both.
“Show me what you’ve done,” Glorianna said. “Then let’s get some breakfast and put the rest of the food away.”
“Ah.” He cupped a hand under her elbow, helping her to her feet as he rose to his. “Didn’t know what I was doing. Still not sure what I did.”
“You made a garden, Magician.”
“I don’t know anything about tending posies.” And whether he was keen on it or not, he had a feeling he was about to learn.
“Then let’s see if you have any to tend.”
For a man who didn’t know what he was doing, he’d done well enough, Glorianna decided as she studied the newly made garden within her garden. All right, two rows of rectangles weren’t the most interesting configuration, but he wasn’t a Landscaper as such, so all he really needed was a basic garden that provided access points to his landscapes.
He had those. One rectangle was covered with fog over grass. Another looked like ordinary grass but she recognized the resonance of Dunberry. Another was cobblestones, but when she leaned in and sniffed the air, she smelled the sea. He confirmed Foggy Downs, Dunberry, and Kendall, along with three other places in Elandar that had made up his circuit of landscapes.
She pointed to the last two rectangles. “What are those?”
Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and mumbled, “Don’t know their songs.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He winced. “Don’t know those places. Never heard their songs before.”
She stared at him as she considered a possibility. “But you hear their songs now?”
He nodded warily.
“Can you play those songs?”
Another wary nod. Then he pulled his whistle out of an inside coat pocket, pointed to one rectangle, and began to play. After a minute, he pointed to the other rectangle and played a different tune.
Not Elandar. It took on a little of the flavor of that land because he was playing the tune, but those new landscapes weren’t in the part of the world he had known.
“Looks like Lee is going to have to create a couple of bridges,” Glorianna said.
Michael tucked the whistle back in his pocket. “Why?”
“A lot of Landscapers were lost when the Eater attacked the school. The bedrock in the landscapes they tended has been crumbling. Those landscapes have been crumbling, becoming mired in the manifestation of emotions without any guidance. But Ephemera wants guidance, and landscapes, like people, change. Some landscapes that were mine when I was sixteen were no longer mine when I was twenty-six. I let them go so that someone else would respond to their resonance. You opened yourself to the world, Magician, and Ephemera found two other places that need your music.”
He paled. “But…where? Am I adding another day or two on the circuit to get to these places or…” A little more color drained out of his face. “They aren’t in Elandar, are they?”
“No, they aren’t in Elandar.”
“Then how…” He put it together, piece by piece. “Bridges. You said Lee would need to create bridges.”
She nodded. “I recognize the tunes. At least, a similarity between what I’ve heard and what you just played. Lee could tell you better than I, but I think these new landscapes of yours are close to places Mother or I hold. Stationary bridges would let people cross over between the landscapes.”
“If those places had been connected to the school, won’t the Eater find Its way here?”
“No,” she said softly. “Different bedrock now, different resonance. The access point that was at the school no longer matches that place. But if the Eater has established any of Its dark landscapes in those places, you’ll have to deal with them, eliminate them. Anything that isn’t part of your song doesn’t belong in your landscapes,” she added when he started to protest. “I—Nadia can teach you how to cross over to your landscapes, and you talk to Ephemera as easily as I do—better than anyone else I’ve known, including my mother—so asking it to take away what the Eater brought in won’t be a problem for you. But don’t go into those new landscapes alone the first few times. Have Nadia or Lee or Sebastian go with you. There are still wizards and Dark Guides roaming the landscapes. Not all of them were trapped in Wizard City. They could hurt you before you realized you were in danger. So take someone with you who can show you what you need to know.”
“You’ll show me,” he said. “You’ll teach me.”
You know better, Magician.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms and hold on, but if she allowed herself to feel weak, she wouldn’t find the courage to take the next step of the journey. So she looked at the grassy space behind Michael’s garden, and at the young tree, its branches bare of leaves now, that would provide shade in the summertime. Did she have any bulbs? Maybe she could plant a few crocuses around the tree. That would be a cheery welcome when he walked there in the early days of spring.
“It would be nice to have a chair or a bench there,” she said, tipping her chin to indicate the grassy space. “You could sit and play your music. Jeb could make you a bench.”
He gave her a Patient Look. “Aye. Well, as soon as I have a diamond I can spare, I’ll be seeing about a bench—and a birdbath as well, so the fluffy things can have a splash and twitter.”
They heard the pop, like a kernel of corn in a hot pan.
He just closed his eyes. She pressed a hand against her mouth to keep from laughing.
“Haven’t learned yet, have you, Magician?” she asked when she could speak.
“Apparently not.”
“Then let’s gather up your diamond and go up to the house to make breakfast.”
She planted bulbs beneath the tree near his garden. Crocus, she said. He knew what those were. Maybe.
They didn’t speak much throughout the morning. What was there to say? So he helped her in the garden and did his best to soothe the wild child.
That was something whoever had first shaped the story about the Warrior of Light hadn’t mentioned—or hadn’t understood.
She was going to scare the shit out of the world.
“Where is the heart’s hope?” Glorianna asked.
The words stabbed him in the gut, in the heart, but he kept his voice easy. “Which bit? There were several I saw in the garden.”
“Yours. The plant you wanted to keep when…”
When I revealed my heart.
He stopped and listened to the island. “Over here.”
“Should be in the garden,” she said as she fell into step beside him. They left the walled garden and headed for the house. “It should have anchored in a bed that represents your home landscape.” Her voice trailed away as
He didn’t need to ask if it was a new bit of garden. He could tell by the look on her face she hadn’t created this new bed near the house.
His home landscape. Not in the walled garden. Not in the landscapes. But here, where it was personal. Where it was just between the two of them. Because that was what he saw—the stone, the grass, the heart’s hope. The things that had represented home and were native to Elandar. And behind the stone, forming a protective half circle, was belladonna.
My heart’s hope lies with Belladonna.
That truth had brought him to the Island in the Mist. That truth was now manifested in plants and stone.
“This is your home landscape,” Glorianna said quietly.
“I know,” Michael replied. “I knew from the moment I set foot here.”
“I left a note for Yoshani, telling him I was leaving the garden in your care because you can keep the landscapes balanced until they resonate with someone else. And I told him I was giving you the Island in the Mist and the house here. You’ll take care of it, won’t you?”
“I’ll tend to all of it. That’s a promise.”
He stepped behind her, put his arms around her, drew her back against his chest.
Her breath caught as her hands settled over his.
“When?” he asked.
“With the dawn.”
He rested his cheek against her hair. “Then I want this evening. Invite me to your bed, Glorianna Belladonna. Let me love you tonight with all my heart.”
“I won’t remember you,” she whispered.
The pain cut deep. “I know. I’ll remember for both of us.”
She turned in his arms and rested her hands on his chest as she looked into his eyes. Her lips brushed his once, twice.
“Come to my bed, Magician. Show me the magic of love.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
In the pale gray light, that herald of the dawn, Michael reached for the woman who filled his heart and his dreams—and woke up, alone.
He lit the lamp on the bedside table, plumped up the pillows behind him, then looked at the painting on the wall near the bed.
Sebastian painted that for me, Glorianna had said.
Quite a jolt to see himself in a painting that came from an incubus’s imagination—and to wonder if his dreams had influenced the image Sebastian had chosen for Glorianna’s moonlight lover or if the painting had, somehow, been the source of his own dreams and yearnings. Just as much of a jolt to look past the romantic costumes and realize he and Glorianna had stood exactly that way in the garden yesterday after discovering the new bed that represented his home landscape.
They’d had their night of lovemaking, and he’d taken extra care to please her, to pleasure her. He had wanted to absorb the music of their lovemaking, had needed to fill his heart with the song of her when passion and love climaxed and shone with a fierce Light.
Now…
He pushed back the covers, went into the bathroom, and ran water for a bath. As he waited for the tub to fill, he closed his eyes, turned his head toward his shoulder, and breathed in the scent of her on his skin. He didn’t want to wash off that mingling of scents, but there was no telling what was going to happen in the days ahead or when he’d have another chance at taking a full bath.
So he soaked in the hot water and tried not to think about what was to come.
She’d been hesitant at first, almost shy when she brought him to her bedroom last night. It made him wonder how long it had been since she’d had a lover. Then he’d stopped wondering and just enjoyed the way her mouth had opened for him, the butterfly touch of her tongue against his. The feel of her skin beneath his hands. Her moan of pleasure when he’d suckled her breasts. The way her strong fingers had gripped his shoulders the first time he’d stroked her body over the edge of pleasure. And the way…
Michael blew out a breath and sat up in the cooling water.
“Maybe you don’t need to be remembering quite so much right now,” he muttered as he picked up soap and washcloth.
Keeping his mind on the mechanics of what he was doing, he got washed and dressed, and walked into the kitchen. That’s when his heart got the first of what, he knew, would be many bruises.
His pack was still by the door. He’d removed his clothing and personal gear last evening while she’d been putting together a bit of dinner for the two of them. The pack was too big and heavy for a woman to carry for long, but it had everything she would need to set up a camp—sleeping bag, pots and pans, candles, matches, lantern. Plenty of room for her clothing and female things. A camp, that’s what he’d been thinking. And she hadn’t argued with him, hadn’t disagreed.
But she hadn’t taken it with her, had turned away from even that much comfort. Had turned away from even that much of a reminder of him.
The perk pot still held koffee, so he heated that up instead of making the tea he would have preferred.
He didn’t have an appetite, and lost most of his interest in food when he realized she hadn’t taken any of that with her either, but he ate one of the eggs she had hard-boiled yesterday, then took his cup of koffee and a thick slice of bread and butter out with him. He didn’t look at the walled garden, didn’t even consider going in. Not yet. Instead, he went to the new bed that held his heart’s hope and the belladonna.
“Wild child,” he called softly. “Ephemera, can you hear me?”
It heard him, but he sensed a resistance, almost as if it feared what he might ask of it. Did the world know what she intended to do?
“Listen to me, wild child. Don’t let her Light scatter. Find a place for it where it can be cherished and kept safe.”
Ephemera didn’t understand. Not yet.
Door of Locks. Stories and spirits and keys. He’d chosen a lock, based on dreams of a black-haired woman he’d fallen in love with before he’d truly seen her face or heard her voice—or known her heart. But she, as Guide and spirit, had used that key in his heart to open the door and show him a life he couldn’t have imagined. Because he hadn’t known the possibility of being accepted for what he was had existed.
He ate the bread and drank the koffee. He washed the dishes and the perk pot. He repacked his clothes into the big pack, then took them out and put them in the smaller travel pack. A change of clothes, a canteen, and his whistle were all he needed right now. He slipped one of the one-shot bridges Lee had made for him into his coat pocket. The others, wrapped in scraps of cloth and stored in a drawstring pouch, he tucked into the pack.
Give me enough time, Magician, she had said. I couldn’t bear it if someone else was caught when I altered the landscapes.
He waited while the minutes crawled by. When the sun had risen high enough that he could be reasonably sure that the folks in Aurora would be up and about, once he actually got there, he picked up the travel pack and left the house.
As he followed the path that would lead him to the river, he slipped his hand in his pocket, wrapped his fingers around the one-shot bridge—and crossed over to the Den of Iniquity.
An abandoned garden. A small plot of ground compared to what she had ended up creating on the Island in the Mist, but it had been hers once, and there was just enough of her resonance left for her to take the step between here and there, to cross over to this enclosed piece of ground.
Safety first. It would all be for nothing if the Eater’s creatures killed her before she finished her task. Afterward…Maybe it would be a blessing afterward.
Sixteen years ago, the Dark Guides had tried to seal her in by poisoning her mind. If they had succeeded, she would have altered the landscapes to create a smothering cage, and never would have realized she had been the instrument they had used to destroy her, never would have realized it was her power and not theirs that had chained her to a barren existence.
Now she was going to do what the Dark Guides had failed to do. Now she was going to do much more than they had intended to
Much more.
“Ephemera,” Glorianna Belladonna said softly, “hear me.”
The Eater of the World, in the form of an elegantly dressed, middle-aged gentleman, stepped onto the rust-colored sand that spilled out of the back of a smelly alley. Its mouth fell open in astonishment. Its eyes widened in shock.
A dissonance in Its landscapes! New, strange flavors of Dark—and delicious ripples of Light that winked out. Then It felt Ephemera manifest a will, obey a heart. It felt the ripples of that command in the currents of power that flowed through the world. Then It felt…
It looked down at the sand beneath Its feet. “No,” It whispered. “The bonelovers are mine. That landscape is mine.”
But some sly, dark heart had slipped into Its landscapes and stolen the bonelovers’ landscape by altering the resonance just enough to shut It out. Something had shut It out of a landscape It had made.
Thief!
It staggered back a step, braced a hand against a dirty wall.
She walks in the gardens, a voice, harsh yet oddly melodious, whispered through the currents of the world. She walks in the gardens, stealing all your work, all your creations. All your puny little creations. Boo, hoo. Boo, hoo. Poor little Eater, not brave enough to do anything but hide. She already controls the Light. Where will you go, little Eater, when she rules the Dark?
Ragged breaths as the body trembled. Fear and rage as It considered the message in those whispers.
The True Enemy had come to the Landscapers’ School. Was in the Landscapers’ School, taking Its dark landscapes and making them her own.
Not fair! Not fair!
Coward, the voice whispered. Even the Dark Guides have come to play.
It wasn’t a coward. It wasn’t afraid. It was the Eater of the World. It was feared. Even the world feared It.
Laughter whispered through the currents of the world. Cruel, mocking laughter.
We’re connected with the world again, another voice whispered through the currents. We’re connected to the school!
It remembered that voice. Harland. The head of the Wizards’ Council. The leader of the Dark Guides.