The Keepers #4

by Ted Sanders

  “But how?” said Horace, just as Brian said, “Why?”

  “I don’t know how,” April said. “I told you, the memories were thick and confusing and . . . I couldn’t even begin to translate them for you.” She shuddered again. “But the why? I think I understand now. I needed help to make sense of it. And luckily I had that help.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small sphere with the perpetually growing tree. She held it out for all to see.

  “A tiny tree,” said Brian, squinting.

  Suddenly, Chloe got it. Maybe it was knowing that name, Uroboros. Maybe it was because she was busier listening than she was talking. But she understood. And she knew what they were going to have to do.

  “Not a tree,” said April. “A series of trees, each one different.” As she spoke, the tree inside withered and collapsed. A new one sprang up in its place almost at once.

  “So it’s a cycle,” Brian said.

  “Yes. A cycle not so different from the one we’re in now.”

  Mr. Meister cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Keeper,” he said. “But are you suggesting that everything that has happened here in our world—the Mothergates, and the Tanu, and the tangling of universes—has happened before?”

  Hearing Mr. Meister ask the question was a revelation. Kind of a thrill, actually. Watching the old man trying to navigate a new territory of thinking he’d apparently never considered before made Chloe feel wise.

  And old. And unmoored.

  “The same basic things have happened before, yes,” April said. “In another place, another time, and called by different names. But the story was basically the same. Hiraethel arrived in a single universe. That universe began to split into many universes as time passed, and in many of them, instruments were created. Tan’ji. And the power of those instruments began to tangle all of the universes on that branch, just like they are now. The crisis was the same as ours is now.”

  “And it was solved by sending the Starlit Loom into another universe?” asked Brian.

  “Into our universe,” said Chloe, unable to stay silent anymore. “And now we have to send it on into another.”

  “Yes,” said April, smiling at her gratefully. “This is the end of a cycle, and the cycle has to repeat.”

  “You’re blowing my mind right now,” said Brian.

  April went on. “There’s a reason the Mothergate here didn’t close when Horace sent the astrolabe. It was because of that effort itself. Because we’re trying. But there’s only one way we can make our own fate, only one way we can ensure our safety, and the safety of the tangled universes.” She took a breath. “Hiraethel must go. Now.”

  Every eye turned to Falo. She inhaled deeply, her eyes locked on Uroboros as it swam round and round.

  “Yes,” she said quietly at last, her voice like low woodwinds. “When the Mothergate failed to close, I wondered. And now I realize—my wondering has become a part of the story the multiverse tells itself.” She bent her head toward April’s. “Perhaps that is why its urgency has waned, for the moment.”

  April nodded like that made any kind of sense at all.

  “I am sorry, Keepers,” said Falo. “I feel that I should have reached this understanding on my own. Perhaps I did not want to reach it.”

  “You owe us no apologies, Falo,” Mr. Meister said. “We all walked a shared path, a difficult path. You walked it better than any of us—how were you to know that part of that path belonged to you alone?”

  “But the path is still shared, right?” said Brian. “I mean, even if we get rid of the Starlit Loom, the Mothergates will still close. We still die. Am I right?” No one answered him. “Someone tell me I’m not right.”

  And then Horace stirred. “I think, maybe,” he said slowly, “there’s a way we could make you be wrong. A way we don’t have to die.”

  Beside him, leaning back against the wall and utterly silent so far, his mother pressed her fists to her mouth. The blue fire from above glimmered in her wet eyes like little skies.

  “Go on, Horace,” Falo said.

  “Well, I was thinking about Neptune. About the faded. And I was trying to imagine if there was a way we could all fade too, without inciting the multiverse to erase all the tangled universes. A way to keep the Medium flowing, maybe slower and slower over time.”

  It sounded crazy. But no one said it was crazy, and now Chloe could see him really settling into the idea, gaining confidence.

  “Look,” he said, “the only way to remove Hiraethel from our world is to take her through the Mothergate, right? I’m assuming she can’t be destroyed.”

  Falo wrinkled her nose faintly in disgust, but then said, “That is correct.”

  “So once we remove her, maybe the multiverse won’t really care so much about the Mothergate itself.”

  “But it will close anyway,” April said. “In fact, the only reason the Mothergates exist is because Hiraethel is here. Its presence has opened those cracks in the consciousness of the universe. Once Hiraethel is no longer here, those cracks will close. The Mothergates will collapse, unless . . .” She looked pointedly at Falo for some reason, and Falo inhaled deeply through her nose.

  “Unless what?” Chloe said.

  “Unless Falo weaves it open,” said April. “She was going to weave it open when you sent the astrolabe, Horace, but then didn’t need to.”

  Mr. Meister’s bushy eyebrows went up at that one. And Chloe, for once, didn’t blame him. Forcing the Mothergates to remain open was exactly what they’d been trying to stop Isabel from doing!

  Falo bent over, thick with thought. “It seems like madness,” she said.

  “But a mad thing you can do,” said Brian.

  “It can be done. A weave that slowly fades, letting the Mothergate ease closed.”

  “How slowly?” Horace said.

  “Years,” said Falo. “Twenty years, perhaps? There are powerful Tan’ji among us, with bonds that will not wither in days, or even months.”

  “No,” said Mr. Meister. “It is madness. The tangles between the universes will still exist. The multiverse will still erase that branch of itself—a branch of which we will still be a part. We will be destroyed.”

  “I don’t believe that,” April told him. “I’ve been listening to the multiverse for days. Sitting in the Medium, listening. You talk like the multiverse is a thing out to get us. But it isn’t. It’s us. It’s our consciousness made real. Consciousness is more then what we do—it’s what we intend. And we intend to set things right. If not for every universe, at least for ours. The multiverse will know us, because it is us. We will not be destroyed, not once the Starlit Loom is gone.”

  Chloe’s head was spinning. Hope struggled in her chest, lurching, but she wouldn’t let it grow. No one spoke for a long time. Mr. Meister fumed worriedly for a while, but then his face began to soften thoughtfully, slowly. He was considering it.

  “April is right,” Falo said at last. “Our intentions matter. We make the universe in which we live, and the multiverse that houses it. We will do this thing.”

  Brian clapped his hands together, eyeing Horace goofily. He looked terrified.

  “But when we do it,” said Gabriel softly, “Falo will die.”

  The room fell silent once more. Falo rose swiftly into it, towering above them. “Let us speak of life, not death,” she said. The blue flames above her crackled and slid wildly as she lifted the Starlit Loom from her chest. She caught fire, blazing, becoming the elemental thing she’d been the other day, here in this very room. A Dorvala, a Maker, rippling with power. Chloe actually leaned away. Horace’s mother gasped.

  “We will do this thing,” Falo said again. “There is a way. But when we send Hiraethel, we must send the message with her, just as it was sent to us. We’re passing our troubles on to a new universe—a new blooming cluster of universes—and we need to send the solution, too. We need to send Uroboros, so that its memories will live on. Memories of how to fix what will inevitably go wron
g, just like it went wrong for us.”

  She bent over the glass bowl, Hiraethel in hand. She dipped it slowly into the water and then—though Chloe knew it had nothing to do with the water itself—the Loom expanded. The water seemed to turn black as the Loom filled it, swallowing the creepy black fish, which appeared utterly unaware of what was happening to it.

  “Don’t hurt it,” April said, and for a second it seemed like such a silly thing to say, considering that Falo had basically just volunteered to sacrifice herself in the hopes of saving them all.

  But Falo seemed not to notice. “I would never,” she said gravely. She reached into the bowl, and as she touched the Loom, it began to shrink again in her hand. In no time at all, it was back to its usual shape and size. She held it up for all to see.

  A circling shadow of black rippled beneath the surface. April made a face, squeezing the Ravenvine in her lap. Chloe reckoned she was glad she hadn’t put it back on.

  “How did you know how to do that?” Brian said.

  Falo shrugged. “I’ve just always known it.” She flexed her hand, as if testing it. The image of a golden clockwork sphere materialized in her palm, woven from the Medium, and then vanished into vapor. “All is well,” she said. “And now we must—”

  Suddenly a great bell tolled, shaking the ground, as if Ka’hoka itself was a giant gong. For a moment, Chloe thought Falo had done it.

  But no. She had heard the sound before. An alarm.

  Teokas and Dailen were on their feet at once. “Kesh’kiri nala,” Dailen spat. “The Riven are here.”

  “Those who can fight, fight,” said Falo. “You must hold Isabel off until I can do what must be done.”

  Teokas reached out and clasped Falo’s hand briefly. “Tel tu’vra fal raethen, Falo.”

  “Tel tu’vra fal raethen,” Falo replied. “Give me the time I need.”

  “You’ll have it,” said Dailen, and he and Teokas sprinted from the room.

  The bell sounded again. Mrs. Hapsteade hesitated, eyeing Mr. Meister worriedly.

  “Go,” he told her. “You have the phalanx.”

  She nodded at him grimly, pulling the phalanx out of her pocket—a long, wandlike instrument made from the fingerbone of a Mordin. “Joshua, will you join me?” she asked. “A well-timed portal can be a fine weapon, you know. Invaders can’t fight us if they suddenly find themselves halfway around the world.”

  Joshua was clearly petrified. He hugged the Laithe like a life preserver. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

  April took his hand. “I’ll show you,” she said. “We’ll do it together. Gabriel will keep us safe. Right, Gabriel?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said, thumping the tip of his staff against the floor. “We will be the eye of the storm. Stay with me in the battle, and I’ll keep you safe.” He stalked nimbly from the room, with Joshua, April, and Mrs. Hapsteade in tow.

  The alarm bell tolled again. Falo scooped Mr. Meister out of his seat with ease. “Horace and Jessica, come with me, please,” she said. “Brian, bring Tunraden. I may need assistance.”

  She loped out of the room without a word, taking Mr. Meister with her. Horace’s mother followed her more slowly, saying nothing but looking Chloe firmly and warmly in the eye as she passed. Brian sighed, then bent and stuck his hands into the stone surface of Tunraden. He lifted the Loomdaughter easily from the floor and shuffled awkwardly after Falo and the others. “Work, work, work,” he muttered.

  Horace and Chloe were alone now. Chloe realized the Alvalaithen was ablaze, its song like a storm inside her. She was ready, angry—startled by how angry she was.

  Horace was watching her, his face so full of worry. She had no idea what to say to him, or what she wanted to hear.

  “Gotta go,” she told him at last. “My mom’s here.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re funny,” he said.

  “It’s a good thing you think so,” she replied, and she dove into the floor.

  The alarm bell tolled a fourth time, vibrating through the rock as she flew. She’d been in Ka’hoka long enough to have her bearings, and she sped through the ground. Out into the huge white hall beyond, breaching. On she went, until in no time at all she arrived in the great entrance chamber to Ka’hoka, where the mighty Nevren of Goth en’Sethra lay in the yawning shaft directly overhead.

  An army had already gathered, nearly a hundred Altari, by the looks of it. Many bore weapons, others strange Tan’ji both large and small, with functions Chloe could not divine. Near the wide glass circle in the middle of the room, through which new arrivals would emerge after falling through the Nevren above, she spied the hulking green mass of the mal’gama. She went under again, speeding over to it in a matter of moments. She emerged to find Dailen waiting, watching the floor before him, Teokas by his side.

  He was so grim and focused that he didn’t even startle at the sight of her.

  “Chloe,” he said. “The Riven are above. They’re testing the Well.”

  Goth en’Sethra, the Well of Giving, was the only way in or out of Ka’hoka. Passing through the Well wasn’t a pleasant experience. Inside it, the Keepers who’d fused themselves to create the Nevren within were strung up along the shaft, left visible. To enter Ka’hoka, one had to fall from high above, plunging past those inert forms and through the Nevren. Past that, falling visitors were teleported into a second shaft far below, rising now instead of falling, until they emerged through the one-way barrier in the floor Dailen stared at now.

  A lean Altari that Chloe had never seen before laughed. “Let them test the Well. They’ll come up corpses. No Kesh’kiri can make it through Goth en’Sethra alive.”

  Chloe looked up at Dailen sharply. “Have they not been told what Isabel can do?” she hissed. “That she tore down the Nevren at Ulu’ru?”

  “They’ve been told,” Dailen said. “They do not believe.”

  “And do you?”

  “The Nevren is a comfort, not a cure,” he said. “Those who rely on sacrifices made by others are rarely prepared to make their own.”

  A great crash shook the room, thunder rolling out of the gaping mouth of the Well a hundred feet above them. A moment later, a shower of golden sparks rained down from the hole. Chloe thought she heard faint screams. A murmur went up among the gathered Altari.

  And then faintly, creepily, the distant strains of a flute. The murmur grew louder as the searching notes fell on every ear in the place. The music played for a few suspended moments and then abruptly faded.

  “They’re coming,” Chloe said. “And now they know how many we are.”

  “Then we’ll be more,” said Dailen. And then he doubled, and doubled again. The Dailens spread themselves wide, waiting.

  “If you see my mother, stay away,” Chloe told Teokas. “She’s dangerous. I’m going to try and get to her first.”

  Teokas nodded, lovely and strong. She reached into her robe and pulled out a thin blade, a foot long and thinner than a human pinky. To Chloe’s great surprise, she handed it over. “I brought this in case we met. It will not be enough this day to simply survive. We must win.”

  Chloe took the blade, testing the point. It was as dull as a crayon. “It’s not sharp.”

  “The blade of a stonewalker does not need to be sharp, does it?” Teokas said.

  Chloe had no words for that. Instead the only words she could think of spilled from her mouth.

  “Tel tu’vra fal raethen.”

  Teokas grinned and gave her a deep elegant bow that took Chloe’s breath away. “And yours, my friend,” she said.

  Chloe tucked the thin blade into a belt loop and went to ground. She wanted to get high, to see the battle from above. She had to find Isabel as fast as she could, before the wretched woman could start cleaving. She wished she could say she was heartened by the brave show of force on display here, but instead she felt only dread. She knew what Isabel could do.

  She found a thick column and went up it the inside. She emerged high ab
ove the scene onto a cornice. And just as she did, three great black serpents’ heads rose out of the glass circle below, writhing high into the air. Golems.

  And on their heels, an army.

  Riven popped out of Goth en’Sethra like crickets out of grass. Mordin by the dozen. Ravids teeming in a swarm so thick Chloe knew the Altari would be overrun at once. Two hundred Riven or more.

  But the Altari roared into battle, undaunted. Go’nesh was out front, swinging his mighty blade, carving sheets of blue that hung in the air. A dozen Dailens danced through the chaos, vanishing and doubling. The mal’gama swooned and curled around them like a moving hill, a shield made of earth, fending off the golems. And there were other mighty warriors here too. She saw a flashing broadsword that struck and broke, leaving a shard of steel buried in a Mordin. The sword forged itself anew and struck once more. A burly Altari, nearly as thick as Go’nesh but not nearly so tall, pounded at the ground with a hammer the size of a barrel, opening brutal cracks in the floor beneath his enemies.

  To Chloe’s immense surprise, she caught the flicker of a portal blasting open every so often. Joshua was helping, just as Mrs. Hapsteade had said, protected by a trio of Dailens. As she watched, a portal snapped open onto a wide expanse of snow. Two Dailens hurled a Mordin through it, and the portal winked out of existence. A second later, Joshua himself vanished in a flicker—swallowed by the humour. Chloe practically burst imagining it, the portal surging open inside that gray, Gabriel grappling blind and hapless Riven through it, into distant lands from which they wouldn’t return. And then a black bird sailed right past her, squawking. Chloe almost laughed—Arthur! April was no doubt guiding Gabriel from inside the humour.

  The crack of phalanxes sounded again and again, pinning Riven and Ravids. Chloe spotted Mrs. Hapsteade firing her strange weapon. An Auditor was among the invaders, her pale hair gleaming, and for a moment Chloe’s heart seemed to stop. But the Auditor scarcely moved, caught in the white glow of the Moondoor. Teokas glided before her, wrist extended, two Dailens fighting at her side.