“They’re your people,” Nadia said. “That landscape is your responsibility.”
“The Eater of the World must have touched that landscape and poisoned the hearts of those people,” Glorianna said. “You have to fix it.”
“I can’t go back to the village,” Michael said with strained patience.
“Tch.”
Glorianna glanced at her mother and saw Nadia’s lips twitch as they both realized they’d made the same sound of annoyance.
“If nothing else, you’ll need to go with him to Dunberry and show him what’s to be done,” Nadia said.
“Agreed,” Glorianna replied. “But it was a place called Foggy Downs that the Magician asked me to see.”
Sebastian swore again.
She saw Michael wince and shift his weight as if he’d like to put some distance between himself and her cousin but didn’t quite dare.
“It takes a couple of days to get from Dunberry to Foggy Downs,” Michael said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Sebastian said, staring at the plate in front of him. “Not from the waterhorses’ landscape.”
Glorianna sat back. “So what aren’t the two of you telling the rest of us?” When they didn’t answer, she added, “I can send a command through the currents of power so that every time it rains you end up stepping in a puddle and getting your feet soaked.”
Sebastian gave her a puzzled—and sulky—look. Michael huffed out a breath and said, “Ah, now, Glorianna. That’s an unkind bit of ill-wishing.”
“You can do that?” Teaser asked, looking at Michael.
“I’ve never done that particular thing,” Michael muttered. Then added reluctantly, “Well, not often anyway.”
“The point is, gentlemen, we understand each other,” Glorianna said. Then she waited.
“There’s a bridge outside of Dunberry,” Michael said. “Most times if you cross it, you’ll keep going up the road to Kendall. But sometimes when you cross the bridge, there is no road, just open country, and soon enough a pretty black horse will come trotting up to greet you. There have been enough fools who have thrown a leg over one of those pretty horses. A few have gotten no more than a dunking and found their way home. Most end up drowned. Some are never found or seen again.”
“Koltak mentioned those places,” Sebastian said. “Dunberry. Foggy Downs.”
“Koltak?” Michael asked. “He was someone from here who crossed over to Elandar?”
“My father. Wizard Koltak.” Sebastian spat out the words as if they were bitter gristle. “When he crossed over from Wizard City, intending to find me in the Den, he ended up in the waterhorses’ landscape instead. A few weeks before that, when I had gone to Wizard City to report the murders in the Den, I ended up in the waterhorses’ landscape too, when I crossed a bridge to get away from that thrice-cursed city. I walked a few hours before meeting a waterhorse that was willing to give me a ride without tricks.”
“The Eater had killed one of them,” Glorianna said. “It was scared.”
Sebastian nodded. “Didn’t take that long to reach the border and cross over to the Den. But Koltak wandered through that landscape for days trying to find the Den, and ended up going to Dunberry and Foggy Downs.”
Michael nodded. “Would have taken him some time to go from one place to the other, even on horseback.”
“The point is, he was able to reach both from the waterhorses’ landscape.”
“Are there waterhorses around Foggy Downs?” Glorianna asked Michael.
“Sometimes,” he said. He looked at Sebastian. “You’re thinking going through the waterhorses’ landscape would be a shortcut to Dunberry and Foggy Downs?”
“Maybe,” Sebastian replied. “I just know Koltak ended up in those places while he was looking for the Den.”
“The Eater of the World is out there in Elandar,” Lee said, bracing his hands on either side of his plate. “We know that. Creating the bridge between Aurora and Darling’s Harbor was risky enough since that provides a way in to both your landscapes.” He tipped his head to indicate Nadia and Glorianna. “Creating a bridge between—”
“A resonating bridge,” Glorianna said, interrupting him. “In the waterhorses’ landscape. And you could create a couple of one-shot bridges Michael could carry with him that would get him back—”
“Here,” Sebastian said, interrupting her. “That would get him back to the Den.”
“A wise choice,” Yoshani said. “I agree.”
“All right,” Glorianna said. “One-shot bridges that would get Michael back to the Den if I need to return to my island.”
Lee didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
Jeb pulled out a pocket watch and studied the time. “Still the shank of the evening in Aurora. Barely past dinnertime.”
“In that case, let’s enjoy the food Philo provided,” Nadia said.
Meeting adjourned, Glorianna thought as she picked at her food. Discussion ended. She would need to pack tonight, would need to consider what to carry.
Tomorrow she would begin another stage of her journey.
She tried not to wonder if she would ever return home.
Chapter Twenty-six
Michael stared at the sand and stone that scarred the rolling green land. “That isn’t right. That doesn’t belong here. Did that…Eater…do this?”
“No,” Glorianna said, her voice as dry as the sand. “I did.” She swung off the demon cycle, then shrugged out of her pack and set it on the ground before moving closer to the sand.
“Why?” Michael asked. Either she didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him, so he swung off the demon cycle he was riding and shrugged out of his pack too. Since he had his full pack with all his gear, he didn’t see any reason to be clanking and clanging while he tried to talk to the woman.
“Careful,” Sebastian warned.
Not sure if the warning was meant as a caution about approaching the sand or Glorianna, Michael took care as he got closer to both.
“So,” Michael said. “Is this like the sandbox?”
“No, this is a desert.” She studied the sand and stones, then nodded as if satisfied.
“So if someone steps onto the sand…”
“They cross over to that landscape.”
Wasn’t much of a landscape, Michael thought as he took a step closer. Some stones and sand and…Was that the remains of a horse’s head?
“So you step over the stones and end up in a desert. Then you step back over to this…” Part of the world, he finished silently as it occurred to him that he was looking at a piece of the world far away from anything he knew.
“The stones form the border here in the waterhorses’ landscape,” Glorianna said. “They don’t exist in the desert landscape.”
Michael frowned. “Then how do you know where to cross over to get back here?”
“You don’t get back here, Magician. That was the point of altering the landscape.”
He stared at her.
Glorianna huffed out a breath. “The Eater had formed an access point for the death rollers in the pond that existed here. I closed it once after Sebastian told me about the waterhorse being killed, but a dark heart passed this place often enough to allow the Eater to restore the access point. So I altered the landscape, changing the pond and the surrounding land to desert and stone. Even if the Eater manages to keep the access point open from Its landscape, the death rollers will cross over into a desert where they can’t survive.” She turned back toward the demon cycles.
Michael looked at Sebastian and Lee, then at Glorianna. “Did none of you think to post a sign?”
She spun back to face him and threw her hands up. “To say what? ‘Dangerous landscape, do not cross over’?”
“Why not?”
“For one thing,” Lee said, “would anyone in your part of the world understand what that meant? Or pay attention even if they did?”
Lee had a point. If a man landed himself in this part of Elandar and was dumb enough to ride a waterhorse, he was dumb enough to ignore a sign and end up in a desert with no food or water—and no way back.