by Ted Sanders
April could sense that Arthur had been worried. She kept his presence low in her mind, lest his worries bubble up into her own. Even so, she picked up a memory of the bird watching as Falo had stepped into the Veil, mere seconds after April herself had gone in. Through the bird’s keen eyes, the Veil was a suspended silver rain shower, rippling but never falling. April couldn’t help but wonder how she had managed to find the Mothergate so easily within it. Had Falo helped her? Or had something about the Veil changed?
Arthur bobbed his head, getting ready to speak. April knew what he would say before he said it. “Foood,” he croaked hopefully, and the Vine added more: Please. Want. Love.
“I’m out of food,” she told him. “Soon.”
He couldn’t completely understand her, of course. The vine was a one-way street. “Fooood fud-fud,” he said, bouncing up and down.
“I agree,” Falo said, eyeing the bird. “Let us find bread, and fruit. Perhaps Horace will be hungry too.”
April looked up at her. “We’re going to see Horace?”
She must have sounded alarmed, because Falo said, “Of course. He is your friend. Do not imagine anything has changed because of what you heard through the Mothergate today.”
April shook her head, embarrassed to have felt even a trickle of hesitation. Horace was her friend, and Chloe too. She was also embarrassed to remember that Chloe was off on a dangerous rescue mission at this very moment, headed back to the city to rescue those captured in the Warren. And yet she’d barely given Chloe—or Gabriel or Mrs. Hapsteade—a thought in the last hour or two.
“Nothing has changed,” April said firmly. “I’m just trying to imagine what you’re going to tell him.”
“Tellim,” Arthur gulped. “Tellim.”
“You have questions, he has questions,” Falo said. “Many of the answers are the same.”
“Are you going to convince him that the Mothergates have to die?”
“Does he need convincing?”
April shrugged. She and Horace and Chloe had spent the evening discussing the revelations of the day before. Not only were the Mothergates dying, but the Wardens were fighting to make sure they did. They were fighting to ensure their own doom. It was a lot to swallow, and April was having an easier time with it than the others.
“Horace trusts you,” April said. “But he’s not exactly what I would call . . . a man of faith.”
“His is a logical mind,” Falo said. “And that is all for the best. I will explain everything, and he will know it for the truth.” She smiled thinly down at April, her face full of old sadness. “After that, the only faith he’ll need is faith in himself.”
Chapter Four
The Fates of the Unchosen
HORACE WASN’T HAPPY HE’D BEEN LEFT BEHIND. HE’D BEEN complaining about it, or more like pouting and fretting, for two hours and forty-seven minutes—in other words, ever since Chloe and the rest had left Ka’hoka for the city, in search of Mr. Meister. Brian had been trying to cheer up Horace by reminding him that Horace hadn’t just been left behind, but distinctly uninvited.
“Being left behind means you’re useless,” Brian had argued. “Being uninvited means you’re scary.”
“What if I don’t want to be scary?” Horace asked.
Brian shrugged as if the question were utterly pointless. “What if I don’t want to be handsome?” he countered.
Horace eyed Brian. His thick glasses, strangely cat-eyed. His pale skin and scrawny arms. His shaggy brown ponytail. Like the rest of the Wardens, Brian had been given some human clothes, and he now wore a sagging T-shirt on which he’d drawn a frantic-looking horse head. Beneath it he’d written:
THE END
IS NEIGH.
“My point is,” said Brian, when Horace didn’t respond, “sometimes we just are what we are.”
“Some of us more than others,” Neptune remarked. She was floating upright near the high ceiling, examining a lofty bookcase full of Altari books, big as briefcases. These were the first words she’d spoken since drifting in an hour before.
Horace and Chloe had been given this room when they first arrived at Ka’hoka, each of them taking one of the two absurdly huge Altari beds, twice as long as Horace was tall. When the others from the Warren had shown up, telling their terrible tale, April had joined them here, claiming a space in the bed next to Chloe in some kind of unspoken girl pact. Neptune and Gabriel were bunking in the room next door, and Brian had a room to himself farther down the hallway, where he could work in peace with his Tan’ji, Tunraden. Mrs. Hapsteade and Horace’s mother, meanwhile, had been spending most of their time with Sil’falo Teneves in her quarters, closer to the Veil of Lura and the Mothergate hidden within.
Having his mom here—never the clingy type, but certainly never cold either—was a blessing he could hardly endure. Some moments she would move desperately, pleasantly close to him, and others she would step firmly away. She was being the perfect mother, basically, under circumstances he could hardly imagine. But her presence forced him to imagine. And when he started to wonder too hard about what she was going through, here at the end of things . . . his brain sort of seized up. And she, of course, seemed to know this too.
At the moment, though, he was distracted from worrying about his mom—or wondering what his dad might be doing or thinking right now!—by fretting over Chloe. So far, Horace had resisted the urge to look through the Fel’Daera to see whether—or rather, when—Chloe would return. He ached to try, the Fel’Daera like a nagging pet at his side, stewing in its pouch. It was almost certainly safe to look; after all, the rescuers were long gone, and none of them would know what he had seen. The greatest lesson he’d learned about viewing the future was that the very act of viewing changed that future. The act of opening the box was itself a link in the chain of events that led into tomorrow. Horace had learned to say as little as possible about what the box revealed, so that his companion’s future decisions wouldn’t be colored too heavily by what he said. At the moment, of course, he couldn’t have told Chloe what he saw even if he wanted to. Even so, he wouldn’t let himself open the box now, to look through the rippling blue glass. He knew full well why he’d been unwelcome on the rescue mission. The Fel’Daera’s powers—his powers—were frightening.
They were especially frightening to the Altari, most of whom had only recently learned that the Fel’Daera still existed. Sil’falo Teneves, its Maker, had long ago told the Wardens’ Council it had been destroyed. Some of the Altari didn’t seem troubled by discovering the truth now—Dailen, for instance, and especially Teokas. Others were wary, like Go’nesh and Ravana, who seemed much more interested in straightforward warrior stuff than the brain-bending, will-testing challenges of the Fel’Daera. But it had been Mal’brula Kintares, head of the Council and perhaps the Fel’Daera’s smallest fan, who had forbidden Horace to partake in the rescue mission. The fact that Brula wasn’t even going to be there didn’t seem to make a difference to him.
And so Horace had stayed behind. As had April, who’d drifted away to explore Ka’hoka a couple of hours ago, and hadn’t yet returned. She’d endured more than most of them in the past several days, and since arriving in Ka’hoka had been strangely and peacefully distracted . . . almost otherworldly. No one had even suggested she might go with the others to find Mr. Meister.
It was less clear to Horace why Neptune hadn’t gone along, though. She was deeply devoted to Mr. Meister, and to Gabriel, and Horace would have thought she’d fight to be included. But in fact, she’d refused to go.
As Horace watched Neptune now, wondering, she twisted in the air, her long cloak flaring. “Someone’s coming,” she said. “Two humans and an Altari.” Her Tan’ji, the Devlin tourminda, not only gave her the ability to ignore the effects of gravity, but allowed her to sense the gravity of nearby objects—larger ones, anyway, like people and cars.
A moment after she spoke, the huge door opened. April came in first, Arthur on her shoulder. Sil’falo
Teneves followed, looking frighteningly regal as always. She carried a basket as big as an oven, a dog-sized loaf of bread sticking out of the top.
Horace’s mother came in last of all. Horace blinked; she was still a startling sight in this place. She belonged here, of course—sometimes she seemed to belong here more than Horace did—but she was just so . . . Mom.
The best mom, sure, no doubt about it. But it was like Horace had to look at her for several moments each time he saw her, looking past the momness he’d known all his life, to see the woman and girl who—he had recently learned—had known about the Wardens since before he was even born. She’d held the Fel’Daera as a teenager. She’d seen the Starlit Loom, something even Mr. Meister had never done. She was kind of a legend.
She made a goofy face at him as she came in and mouthed a single word, rubbing her belly: “Cheeseburger.”
Horace stifled a laugh. Altari food was good—especially the bread—but a cheeseburger sounded delicious on a whole other level right about now.
April clambered onto the bed beside Horace, nodding a distant hello without really looking at him. Arthur hopped down from her shoulder and plucked at Horace’s sleeve. Falo set the basket on the table and turned to Brian.
“Have you finished the jithandra?” she asked him musically. Her tone, though kindly, clearly suggested she wasn’t asking out of simple curiosity.
“I’m like . . . this close,” Brian said, holding his hands a yard apart.
For reasons Horace didn’t fully understand, Mrs. Hapsteade had asked Brian to remake Mr. Meister’s jithandra. All Wardens carried a jithandra, a small crystal that glowed in darkness, its color directly linked to the nature of each particular Keeper’s power. Horace’s was deep blue, and Chloe’s was red, while April’s was forest green. In addition to providing light when it was needed, a jithandra served as a kind of personalized key, granting passage through certain doorways and obstacles in the Warden’s strongholds.
When he was injured in the Warren, just before he was captured, Mr. Meister had apparently destroyed his own jithandra instead of letting it fall into the hands of the Riven. Now Mrs. Hapsteade and Falo wanted it remade.
“Have you encountered a difficulty?” Falo asked. “May I be of assistance, one Dorvala to another?”
“I mean, it’s just a jithandra,” Brian said, blushing. “I’ve done it loads of times. But this one’s tough. That ink sample Mrs. Hapsteade gave me is pretty dried out. Mr. Meister must have written it like a hundred years ago.”
“Surprising,” said Falo, “since the Vora it was written with didn’t even exist a hundred years ago.”
Brian looked at Horace. “Notice Mrs. Hapsteade’s Tan’ji can’t be a hundred years old, but Mr. Meister himself . . . ? Maybe.”
“Just make the jithandra,” Neptune said sharply, high overhead. “So it’ll be waiting for him when he gets back.”
“But when he gets back,” Brian said, “he can use the Vora to write me a better—”
“Just make it,” Neptune repeated.
“Neptune needs a new jithandra too,” April said unexpectedly. “I smashed hers in the Warren.”
“Why?” said Horace.
April didn’t look at him. She still hadn’t looked at him this whole time, in fact. Instead, she peered up at Neptune, as if unsure whose story this was. “It was in the Gallery,” April said.
The Gallery, a mysterious corridor deep in the Warren, was filled with doorways that only appeared when the light of certain jithandras fell upon them. Without the proper light, the doorways simply did not exist.
“The door—” Neptune began, and her voice cracked. She turned back to the bookcase again, hiding her face. She cleared her throat and tried again, her words squeaky and hoarse. “The door to Sanguine Hall needed disappearing. The Riven were coming, of course. The golem was . . . it almost made it into the Gallery, while I just stood there keeping the door real, my jithandra shining all over the place.”
Suddenly Neptune fell. She dropped ten feet, her cloak billowing. She bounced high off the bed below, shaking it so hard Brian nearly toppled over. Arthur fluttered noisily into the air, chattering. Neptune sprang into the middle of the room, hanging for the tiniest extra beat at the peak of her jump—enough to make Horace blink—and then she landed lightly on the floor between the two beds.
“Napping,” she said thickly. “Wake me when everyone gets back.” And then she swept from the room.
“It’s not about the door,” April said, once she was gone. “She tried to slow Mr. Meister when he fell, but she couldn’t quite manage it, and then he . . .” She trailed off.
“We heard the story,” Brian said tersely, sliding from the high bed onto the floor. “Broken leg. Golem. Captured. I don’t know that we need the details.” He paused and then shot an apologetic look at April. “Not that I’m trying to be a jerk about it.”
April shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re all stressed. The end is neigh, right?”
Brian plucked at his shirt, turning to Horace. “See? She gets it.”
“I got it,” Horace said. “I just didn’t think it was funny.”
Brian sighed and looked down at himself. “What’s really funny is, I’ve never even seen a horse. Not in real life.”
Horace’s mother stepped forward and laid a hand on Brian’s cheek. “Don’t be sad, Keeper,” she said. “Horses aren’t that great.”
Brian nodded. “I appreciate you maligning an entire species to make me feel better,” he said, and sighed again. “I guess I’m going to go work now. Don’t talk about me when I’m gone.”
Falo smiled. “What else is there to talk about?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Brian said, sweeping his gaze around at them and letting it land on Horace. “But it sure feels like you’re going to talk about something.”
Beside Horace on the bed, April shifted uncomfortably. Horace suddenly felt very nervous. Brian waved good-bye and slipped out of the room, closing the huge door behind him.
Falo and Horace’s mom took seats on the bed opposite Horace and April. No one spoke for a while, as Falo broke into the bread she’d brought—spicy and hearty. There was fruit, too, and a pitcher of icy-clear water. They ate in silence, Horace’s nervousness growing by the second, until at last Falo—after downing a pear in two delicate bites—said, “April has been to the Mothergate again.”
“Oh, yeah?” Horace said, not sure what that had to do with anything, but thinking maybe it had to do with everything. He glanced at April and she nodded, still not catching his eye.
Falo said, “She has questions whose answers, I think, will serve you well in these last days.” Horace’s mother nibbled at a withered apple, carving off tiny bits of skin between her teeth. Falo hesitated, throwing her a sympathetic look, and then added, “Questions about the Fel’Daera.”
Horace frowned. “Seems like everyone has doubts about the Fel’Daera these days,” he growled, feeling a little pouty again and hating it. “That’s why I’m sitting here now, instead of heading to the city with the others. Nobody trusts it. Or me, I guess.”
April turned to him, looking him full in the face for the first time since arriving. “I trust it,” she said earnestly. “I trust you.”
“As do we all, Horace,” said Falo. “But even if one trusts the Fel’Daera, and its Keeper, there are reasons to despise it.”
Horace realized he had his hand atop the box. He let it slide causally away. “What reasons?” he asked.
Falo contemplated him for several moments before answering with a question of her own. “This is a conversation you wish to have?”
“It’s the conversation you came here to have, isn’t it?” Horace asked. “I mean, I’m not stupid.”
“That is an understatement,” Falo said. Her ringed eyes seemed to glow. “Let us talk, then. Let me tell you everything Mr. Meister never dared. You want to know why one might despise the Fel’Daera, even if she trusts it.”
/> “Yes,” Horace said, just as April said the exact same. Suddenly he wasn’t at all sure that he did want to know.
“Very well,” Falo said. “But the answer—the answer you need to hear—begins with a lesson. A lesson as big as the universe itself. Bigger, in fact.” She looked alertly around at the others. “You humans are fond of money, I know. Does anyone have a coin?”
Bewildered, Horace slapped his pockets. Empty. But April produced a nickel from the folds of her dress and held it out.
“Ah, good,” said Falo, nodding. “Now flip it, please.”
April hesitated. “What are we deciding?”
“Nothing,” said Falo. “And everything.”
April glanced at Horace and then shrugged. “Okay,” she said good-naturedly. “I don’t believe in luck anyway.” She flicked the coin expertly into the air with a soft ting! It spun high, winking. Arthur squawked. Horace’s mind lit briefly upon the Fel’Daera, although the box wasn’t particularly good at seeing the outcome of totally random events.
The coin clattered to the stone floor. It rolled a little ways and toppled over.
Falo leaned in to see. The great black pendant around her neck, an oval as big as a bar of soap, swung like a pendulum. “Tails,” she said. “I believe that’s the proper term. Are we all agreed—we all see tails?”
“Yes,” said April. Horace’s mother said nothing, her apple abandoned, her face alight with intelligence. Horace got the feeling that whatever lesson Falo was teaching them now, his mother had learned it long ago.
“Tails, definitely,” Horace agreed.
Falo smiled. “And so we are all here, in this universe, where the coin has come up tails. This we witness. But . . .” She let the word hang, holding up a long, elegant finger, ghostly as a wand. “But even as we sit here, elsewhere there is another universe. One where the nickel came up heads. And in that place, even now, we are all agreeing—or rather, the versions of us that occupy that place are all agreeing—that the coin came up heads.”