Belladonna (17 page)

Almost more than anything. Because when he looked at the land just beyond the harbor's southern spur, he saw a shadow flow over the earth and stone before it disappeared into the sea. And
its
song chilled him to the bone.

"Lady of Light, have mercy," Michael whispered. "It's here. The Destroyer is
here."
He spun around, looked at the crewman waiting in the dinghy, and shouted, "Get off the water! Up here, man! Up here!"

"Michael!" Kenneday said. "What's got into you?"

"The thing that destroyed the fishing boats. It's out there in the harbor. Right now. I can feel it." He looked at Nathan. "Give me your word that you'll give my aunt what help she needs once she's on the mend. And you, Captain, promise you'll give her passage to wherever she wants to go if she chooses to leave Raven's Hill."

"You have my word on it," Kenneday said. "But, Michael, where are you going?"

Dread shivered through him, but he pushed it aside. "Somehow, that thing took my sister. I'm going to get her back."

Michael pulled on the shoulder straps of his pack to resettle the weight. Probably smarter to leave it, since a part of him believed he wasn't going anywhere except the bottom of the harbor, but all that was left of what he could call his own was in that pack, including his whistle, and he wasn't leaving it behind.

"Michael," Kenneday said sharply. "Where are you going?"

Certainty flowed through him, swift and strong, replacing the cold feeling with a lovely heat as he filled his mind with the image of his dream lover.

He looked at the two men he considered friends and felt as if he'd finally removed a mask he'd hidden behind all his life. "I'm going to see what happens to evil when a Magician does some ill-wishing." Turning away from Nathan and Kenneday, he walked to the edge of the spur.

Light surrounded by a net of Dark currents. It knew the resonance of this heart, had felt the bedrock of it in the foggy village and the seaport. This was the resonance that was connected to the Landscaper in this village.

Smash it! Destroy it! Once this heart was gone, there would be no bedrock. There would be nothing to protect the people who lived in this place. It would snuff out the Light in each heart, and this place would change, would fester, and the people would curse and wail at a world turned harsh and bitter and dark, never admitting that their own hearts had shaped the world they had to live in.

But first, It would drag this male down into one of Its watery landscapes. And there It would feast.

As It rose toward the surface, It changed into the monster men of the sea most feared.

Michael felt his heart stop beating for a moment as tentacles rose out of the sea. This was the nightmare that destroyed ships and left dead men to haunt the sea.

He could feel the song of its darkness, could almost find the rhythm that matched the seductive lure of it.

No! He didn't want to find the rhythm of it. This
thing
had taken his sister, had used bad-hearted boys to hurt his aunt. This
thing
was going to dance to
his
tune.

And what tune do you know that is dark enough?
a mocking voice whispered to his heart.

He didn't have an answer, and he faltered.

The tentacles, which were flailing around him like whips lashing the air, came closer.

No,
Michael thought.
No!
But he suddenly realized the question hadn't been idle. The Destroyer knew something he didn't know, and his survival depended on that something. Which was why the
thing
was certain it would win.

The ground beneath his feet became soft, fluid. A wind that didn't touch his skin blew through him. The harbor faded, the sounds of men shouting or crying out in fear faded.

And what tune do you know that is dark enough?

The question echoed in his mind.

If I am condemned to a dark place, it will be a place of my own choosing,
Michael thought with all the conviction he could summon.

What place?
the mocking voice whispered.
I am the Eater of the World. I am the Destroyer of Light. There is no place you can
go where I cannot follow.

Despair filled him. He felt himself being lifted. Knew that his fate was about to be sealed.

The world was in motion. He felt things that had no language but music. And then, as he felt himself plunging toward water, he heard another song — and had an answer.

Once more, he filled his mind with the image of the black-haired woman of his dreams.

Her darkness is my fate. Her heart is my world. Then is nothing else, nothing else, nothing. And when I stand within her heart,
she and I will destroy you.

The
thing
screamed in rage and fear. The world tore apart, pulling Michael and the Destroyer in separate directions.

Michael fell — deaf, blind, helpless to do anything but cling to the image of a face ... and a riddle.

Her darkness is my fate. Heart's hope lies within belladonna.

Falling. Falling.

Suddenly the world returned. Sound. Sight. He had one moment to see the land around him before he hit the water.

And when the water closed over his head, there was only darkness.

Chapter Twelve

G
lorianna dashed from one section of her garden to the next. Looking. Searching. Listening with her heart and not understanding the messages coming through Ephemera's currents of power.

This felt like Heart's Justice, and yet it didn't quite feel like someone had been swept away in the currents of the world to end up in the landscape that most reflected that person's heart. This felt like someone crossing over a bridge from one landscape to another, but normally she wouldn't have felt the resonance of a crossing because someone who truly didn't belong in her landscapes shouldn't be able to reach them. That was disturbing enough, but ...

"Glorianna!" Lee caught up to her. "Glorianna?"

"Someone — or something — tried to bring the Eater of the World into my landscapes," Glorianna said, staring at the part of the garden that held the access points to her dark landscapes.

"What?"
Lee skipped back a step, as if he expected the Eater to burst out of the ground at any moment.

You touched a boy! You've got the ickies!

Lee's skip-step made her think of that taunt, which she'd heard, in one form or another, in so many villages — a taunt that seemed part of the rituals that transformed a girl into a young woman. Somewhere during those years, "icky" changed into

"interesting," and after that, a girl's life was never quite the same. Of course, the boy's life was never quite the same either.

The moment's amusement settled her enough to think rather than react.

"Someone crossed over," Glorianna said, "but not in a customary way. And the Eater almost crossed over with that person."

"Almost." Lee wasn't asking a question so much as demanding the answer he wanted to hear.

Glorianna nodded. "Almost. The dissonance would be clanging through the currents of power if the Eater had come into one of my landscapes."

"It had slipped in before. Made an anchor point small enough to escape your detection until you were almost on top of that piece of ground."

"I know, but this is different. I don't think It was trying to enter my landscapes. I think ..." Glorianna frowned. "A battle of wills. Maybe the person wasn't trying to bring the Eater in. Maybe the person was trying to get away, but that wouldn't explain the feeling of Heart's Justice."

"There is such a thing as spontaneous Heart's Justice," Lee said reluctantly.

Glorianna just looked at him.

"Bridges don't talk about it, but we know it happens. If two incompatible people cross a resonating bridge at the same time

— especially if one person is trying to force the other to cross over to an ... unsuitable ... landscape — Ephemera sometimes responds with Heart's Justice, sending each person to a different landscape. In those cases, it seems that where the will is focused is equally important as what landscapes resonate with the person's heart."

"You have a mother and a sister who are Landscapers, and you've never mentioned this."

Lee shrugged, looking wary. "It's not talked about. It just seemed better if everyone believed Heart's Justice didn't happen unless a Landscaper initiated it." Then he gave her a look that wasn't brother to sister but Bridge to Landscaper. "Besides, doesn't a kind of Hearts Justice happen every time a person crosses a resonating bridge? When you cross one of those bridges, the landscape where you end up may be a place you've never seen before even if it does resonate with your heart."

He had a point. And maybe it was one of those bits of knowledge that seemed so obvious it was assumed everyone knew about it. At least, all the Landscapers and Bridges who kept Ephemera balanced and connected as best they could.

Lee stepped up beside her and studied the access points to the dark landscapes. "What are you sensing now?"

"Nothing. I'm fairly sure whoever crossed over ended up in one of the dark landscapes, but that heart has vanished in the overall resonances."

"A person who has died wouldn't leave a resonance, and if there was a fight with the Eater ..." Lee lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.

"Even so, I'd better get a message to Sebastian in case any ... unusual strangers ... show up in the Den."

"I can do that," Lee said. "You're not going to feel easy about leaving the garden for a while."

She wrinkled her nose and smiled to acknowledge the truth of that.

Lee gave her a one-armed hug. "Just remember to go back to the house and get something to eat. And bring a shawl or jacket back out with you. It's getting too cool at night to be outdoors without one."

"Yes, Mother."

"That's brother."

"Sorry, I could have sworn the tone said
mother
even if the timbre of the voice was too deep."

"If you tell me I'll make a great uncle, I will wrestle you to the ground and push your face in the mud."

Glorianna blinked. Clearly this wasn't the time to offer an opinion about such things, even if she'd thought to say anything.

She couldn't recall what she said to him in response, but it must have been satisfactory since he left, intending to stop by their mother's house on the way to the Den.

"Well," she said to the garden as she deadheaded flowers on a few of the autumn plants. "Well, I'm sure he'd be a fine uncle as long as he doesn't depend on
me
to make him one." Which made her wonder why he'd even be chewing on the question.

Which made her think of one reason why he would.

Glorianna grinned. Sebastian a daddy?

Then the grin shifted into a pout. Lynnea should have told her. Even if it was too early to be sure, Lynnea should have said something to her or Nadia. Because, obviously, Lee had been given a hint.

Would giving Lynnea a present of baby blanket and booties be too unsubtle a request for information?

A tremor went through the currents of power — there and gone. But it was enough to remind her that something strange had happened and it was best to be cautious until she discovered who had entered her landscape in an unexpected way — and why.

*

The Eater of the World huddled in a cave within the water landscape It had shaped long ago. Its coloring matched the stones in the cave; Its only movement was the two tentacles extending beyond the cave, undulating in a way that made fish think they had found a meal when, in truth, they were about to become one.

Simple minds. Simple creatures. It had nothing to fear from these things. It had no enemies in this landscape.

The male who had escaped It was dangerous. The male had powers that made It uneasy because those powers stirred old memories too vague to be useful and too strong to be dismissed.

Not quite like the True Enemy, whose resonance had filled the male's heart, allowing him to pull away from the Eater's landscapes. No, not like the True Enemy ... but like the
Old
Enemy. The ones who had locked It inside Its landscapes.

But It was safe here. The male could not swim so deep to find It here. And the True Enemy did not know how to find It within Its own landscapes.

It was safe here. It would eat and rest. Then It would go back to the landscapes filled with busy human minds. It would listen to the fears revealed in the twilight of waking dreams — and It would take more things from the natural world and shape them into nightmares. Fear would have a name and become stronger for the naming.

Fear already had a name: The Eater of the World.

Pleased that It had remembered this, It left the cave. The Landscaper It had ensnared in the bonelovers' landscape was probably nothing more than bones by now, but bringing those bones back to the cottage beside the hill would create more shadows in the people living in that village.

Especially in the hearts that would be pleased to see the bones.

*

Caitlin ran across sand that never ended toward a horizon that never changed. Light filtered through the bruise-colored sky, but she couldn't find the sun, so she had no way to tell which direction she was heading, and the only assurance she had that she wasn't walking in circles was the fact that she hadn't crossed her own footsteps or the lines and squiggles she occasionally made in the sand with the hoe handle for the sole purpose of showing herself where she had been just in case she