Belladonna

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.
    "For another," Glorianna said, "waterhorses can't read, so there's no point posting a sign for them, and it's unlikely anyone will get this far into their landscape without encountering one of them." As if her words were a signal, four waterhorses came over a low rise and headed toward them. Their black coats shone in the morning sunlight and their manes lifted with the air stirred by their movement. Trotting in unison, they were gorgeous, and even though he knew better, he felt a keen desire to ride one.
    They stopped. No words were spoken, but Michael heard the message just the same. Come with us. We'll give you a better ride. And we're prettier. He glanced at the demon cycles. One of them waslicking its lips as it stared at the waterhorses. "No,"
    Glorianna said.
    He wasn't sure who the "no" was meant for, but all the demons — horse and cycle — were suddenly doing the equivalent of scratching an elbow and trying to look innocent.
    "You four," Glorianna said, pointing to the waterhorses. "Would you go into that?" She pointed at the sand.
    They shook their heads.
    "See?" she said to Michael. "They know better. Are you saying humans are dumber than waterhorses?"
    Out of the corner of his eye, he saw four black heads bob up and down.
    Sebastian and Lee started coughing. Glorianna's face turned red with the effort not to laugh. He stared at the ground, not wanting to be the one who had to explain to demons that he wasn't laughing at them. Of course, he couldn't say he was laughing with them either.
    "Where is the closest place to find humans?" Glorianna asked.
    The four waterhorses looked at Sebastian.
    "Besides the Den," she added.
    They turned and trotted back up the rise in the direction they had come from.
    Glorianna hurried over to her pack and slipped into the straps before swinging a leg over her demon cycle. She and Lee headed after the waterhorses. Michael was a little slower since he needed a few moments longer to get his pack settled. When he was ready, he looked at Sebastian, who just looked back at him.
    "Magician, I think it's time you educated the people in your landscapes about the nature of Ephemera."
    Michael looked at the sand and stone that scarred the rolling green, then looked at Sebastian. "Won't that be fun?"
    The smile came first. Then the laughter. He didn't mind the laughter. It was a sympathetic sound.
    Glorianna and Lee studied the bridge that crossed a stream. There was something nearby she didn't like. Something that made her edgy, uneasy. But not here. That, too, made her uneasy. Unless she discovered another landscape that belonged to her on the other side of that bridge, she shouldn't have felt any resonance or dissonance. Except she had been aware of the currents flowing through the White Isle until Caitlin broke the connection between their two landscapes. And Michael ...
    She suddenly had an image of walking through a garden — her garden? — and hearing the clear notes of his whistle drifting through the air, calling her home.
    Why would that image make her heart ache?
    "Looks like I don't have to make a resonating bridge after all," Lee said, rubbing his chin. "That's a stationary bridge. Crosses over to one — maybe two — other landscapes. I can tell that much from the resonance of it."
    "So my landscapes aren't as closed off as I'd thought," Glorianna said.
    "Going out isn't the same as coming back in," Lee pointed out.
    "Koltak got in. And the Eater must have used the waterhorses' landscape as Its entry to Elandar."
    "You don't know that, Glorianna." He sounded annoyed, but she wondered if he privately agreed with her. "Other