The Harp and the Ravenvine

by Ted Sanders

  “And so we return to where we were a day ago,” Mr. Meister said, plucking the daktan from the desk with two knobby fingers. “Let us hope we have lost less than we gained in the last twenty-four hours.” He glanced at Horace with an unreadable glint in his great left eye.

  Horace nodded, understanding full well what the old man meant by gained. He had already told Mr. Meister about figuring out the silver sun on his own, careful not to sound like he was bragging but also not wanting to sound bitter. Mr. Meister had said very little, remarking only, “Ever is our faith in you justified,” which, Chloe quietly pointed out to Horace, was just a fancy way of saying I told you so. But Horace didn’t mind. He could tell the old man was pleased. And he wasn’t bitter about yesterday, not really. Even if he didn’t understand Mr. Meister’s rules about what could be explained and what could not, still Horace was gratified to have solved the riddle of the silver sun himself. Or at least, mostly solved. It hadn’t even been a full day since his breakthrough, and naturally there were still some . . . uncertainties. Uncertainties he hadn’t gotten around to sharing with Mr. Meister yet.

  He and Chloe had spent the entire day experimenting. He was getting better with the silver sun, but he still couldn’t quite get control of the gap. When he tried adjusting the time window to ten hours, for example, he might end up with something like twelve hours and fourteen minutes. Not great.

  Also, for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, it was still very easy to overshoot when trying to push the time window forward. More often than not, the box ended up back at the maximum twenty-four hours. Horace knew this was partly because the box had been at full power for years. He sensed that it had become a kind of default setting, a kind of rut the box was in, which also helped explain why he hadn’t discovered the new power on his own.

  But the slipperiness when pushing the window forward also had something to do with himself. His own sense of time seemed to dissolve whenever he tried to make the box see farther. While opening the passageway and letting power flood into the silver star, Horace always felt that mere seconds were passing. When he finished, though, it would always turn out that minutes had gone by. Chloe had watched him do it, and afterward had reported that for those few minutes—minutes that felt like seconds to Horace—his eyes had “glazed over like dead doughnuts.”

  It was frustrating for sure. But his frustration was tempered by the wonders that the Fel’Daera’s new power had revealed. He’d discovered that when the box was looking just a few hours into the future—as opposed to a whole day—his viewings were much clearer. This clarity only made sense, of course. Less time meant less change. Less change meant less uncertainty, less blurriness.

  Even better—or at least more entertaining—there was a new thrill in being able to see a future that was so tantalizingly close. At around noon, after squeezing so hard he thought his head would burst, he’d managed to get the time window down to just three minutes. Only a tiny fraction of the topmost ray still gleamed on the silver sun. He and Chloe had spent an hour messing with the possibilities. They hung a plastic orc from a string taped to the ceiling and set it swinging, then made bets to see if it would still be swinging in three minutes. The box revealed that it would be, barely.

  Next Chloe had bragged that if she took a deep breath, while at the same moment Horace looked three minutes ahead at her future face, she’d still be holding that same breath. The box revealed that she wouldn’t be—barely. And the queasy discomforts that came with the Fel’Daera—the strange things its viewings could do to moment-to-moment life—were very much intact.

  For example, while the box was still set on that three-minute gap, Horace and Chloe had decided to have a contest to see who would be able to balance an egg on its end first. They got two eggs from the kitchen and marked them—Horace’s with a capital H, Chloe’s with a doodle of a rather insane-looking chicken standing on one leg. Before actually starting the contest, they checked the Fel’Daera to see whether either one of them would manage to get their eggs balanced within the next three minutes. The Fel’Daera revealed that both eggs would be standing on end. They then spent a strangely tense and unpleasant three minutes attempting to balance their eggs, trying to create the future the Fel’Daera had promised. But in the end, Chloe had given up in disgust and Horace had balanced both eggs himself, getting Chloe’s upright with just five seconds to spare. What they had seen had come true, but not how they had expected. It was a reminder for Horace that even when the Fel’Daera saw clearly, and even when the time window was so short, still there was no way of being sure what exactly would happen in that unseen gap between one side of the blue glass and the other.

  And now, of course—now that the daktan’s twenty-four-hour absence from the world was at an end—they were about to find out what had become of the little flower’s mysterious Keeper during the daylong gap. Without the daktan, Brian and Mr. Meister had been blind. They had no way of knowing if the Keeper had come closer or wandered off course.

  But now the daktan was back, and Mr. Meister and Brian both bent over it. Brian had his chin in the air, as if trying to detect the source of a faint smell. All at once he turned and looked distantly over the heads of the other Wardens, up and out through the walls of the doba. A moment later Mr. Meister turned in the exact same direction, slightly west of north by Horace’s reckoning. “There,” the old man said, pointing.

  “How close?” Gabriel said.

  “Maybe twenty miles, but not moving now,” Brian replied thoughtfully, and then he startled, as if a bug had flown in his face. “But she feels the daktan again.” He looked at the daktan and flinched once more. “She feels it hard.”

  “She,” Horace said.

  “Bo Peep,” said Brian. “That’s what I’ve been calling the Keeper in my head.” He looked around the room. “You know—Little Bo Peep.”

  “Lost her sheep,” Neptune offered from overhead.

  Brian nodded, indicating the daktan.

  Mr. Meister closed his eyes patiently.

  “You don’t even know if it’s a girl,” Chloe said.

  “Correction,” Gabriel said. “You don’t even know if it’s human. What if the Keeper is one of the Riven? What if it’s a Mordin?”

  Brian shrugged again. “Little Bo Peep kind of takes the edge off, right?”

  “I like it,” Mrs. Hapsteade said, the first words she’d spoken. Surprise popped up on every face in the room, but no one responded.

  Mr. Meister shook himself as if trying to forget a foul taste. “Regardless. It is time to go.” He turned to Chloe and held out the little black flower. “Once more, I’ll ask you this favor. Because we do not know the intentions of our lost Keeper, the daktan will be safest with you.”

  Chloe looked knowingly at Horace and mouthed a single word that he recognized at once: Bait.

  Mr. Meister caught it, too. “You are not bait,” he said. “You are a chaperone. We cannot prevent the lost Keeper from sensing the daktan, and therefore we must give the daktan to the only one among us who truly cannot be caught. We need your abilities, Keeper.”

  “You say that like flattery will get you somewhere,” Chloe said.

  “It is not flattery. It is fact.”

  Chloe eyed the little flower warily. “I don’t like the feel of that thing.”

  “Nor do I,” Mr. Meister said lightly, pushing his hand forward another inch.

  Chloe rolled her eyes, then reached out and took the daktan without further comment. Just as before, a ripple of disgust crossed her face as the flower touched her skin.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Meister. “I’m sure I do not need to tell you to be on guard. You are now the beacon our mysterious visitor pursues. But even if the lost Keeper is human, we must all prepare ourselves for the likelihood that the Riven will be present tonight. Mordin, certainly.”

  That was startling news. “Why certainly?” Horace asked.

  Mr. Meister looked pointedly at the daktan in Chloe’s hand. “
A wounded Keeper draws extra attention,” he said simply.

  Wounded. The word cast a pall of silence over the room. Chloe tucked the flower protectively into her front pocket. Horace, meanwhile, felt a deep stab of guilt over his snap decision to send the daktan through the Fel’Daera. If this Little Bo Peep was a human, lost and wounded and pursued by the Riven, how much more danger had the delay caused? How much pain and confusion? He knew what that was like. He was still mulling this over darkly when Mrs. Hapsteade gestured for everyone to head outside.

  As they filed into the Great Burrow, Horace held Brian back. Somewhat guiltily, he asked, “If Little Bo Peep turns out to be friendly, will you be able to fix her Tan’ji?”

  Brian hesitated, though he’d clearly already been considering it. “I can stitch the parts together, and I can pump power back into it. But I’m pretty sure that’s the same thing Dr. Frankenstein said in his lab.”

  Mrs. Hapsteade, listening in the doorway, laughed fondly. “He can fix it. Brian is an artist, not a madman.”

  With Brian blushingly furiously, they stepped out into the Great Burrow. For reasons he did not explain, Mr. Meister stayed behind with Brian while Horace and the rest of the Wardens headed for Vithra’s Eye. Mr. Meister was planning to go with them on their expedition, of course—other than Brian, he was the only one who could sense the direction of Little Bo Peep—but apparently they would meet the old man at a nearby cloister.

  Mr. Meister gave the other Wardens a stern nod as they left. Brian, meanwhile, called after them solemnly, “Fear is the stone we push. May yours be light.” When both Horace and Chloe turned back to look at him, surprised by the serious farewell and his somber tone, he grinned and gave them a gangly wave. “Bring me back something nice!”

  Horace waved back and Chloe frowned, and then they hustled after Mrs. Hapsteade, marching up the slope toward the lake. Gabriel and Neptune glided easily beside them, Gabriel with his long, steady stride and Neptune with the customary effortless glide her gravity-defying Tan’ji gave her.

  “Mr. Meister never crosses the lake,” Chloe said suddenly. “What’s up with that?”

  Horace realized with a start that it was true—he’d never seen the old man cross the black water.

  Neptune looked at them with her wide, innocent eyes. “There’s a back door to the Warren, of course,” she said. “He goes that way.”

  A back door. Horace pictured the stone bridge that spanned the Maw at the bottom of the Perilous Stairs. That must be the other way out. But what was the back door like? And what protected it?

  “That’s kind of a nonanswer,” Chloe told Neptune. “You know what I think? I think he can’t go this way. I think he can’t cross the lake.” And now Horace remembered something Mrs. Hapsteade had said on their first visit, when he’d asked if there were any Keepers strong enough to cross through the heart of the Nevren in Vithra’s Eye: “Mr. Meister least of all.”

  “It’s true that Mr. Meister does not cross the lake,” Gabriel said. “Just as you, Chloe, do not use passkeys. Just as Horace does not disregard the revelations of the Fel’Daera. Our powers come with limitations. Sacrifices. Ill effects. Let us leave it at that.” Neptune threw him an approving glance, her wide eyes shining with admiration. Horace was mystified, but also relieved in a strange way to discover this weakness—if it was a weakness—in the old man.

  They caught up to Mrs. Hapsteade at the water’s edge. If she’d overheard their conversation, she gave no sign. He followed Neptune, and Chloe went behind Gabriel, walking their narrow paths across Vithra’s Eye and through the soul-sapping void of the Nevren. On the far side, the group then made the long trek back up to the Mazzoleni Academy. Five people in the tiny, ancient elevator that led into the school was about five people too many for Horace, but he made it.

  They passed the omnipresent chubby lady in the front office, who waved at them through the round window, and outside they found Beck’s cab waiting for them at the curb. Gabriel and Mrs. Hapsteade squeezed into the front seat and Horace piled into the back with the girls. As Beck pulled away, the readout on the meter for extras flickered to HAP.

  “So,” Chloe said. “We’re going to pick up Mr. Meister now. From yoga class or something.”

  Gabriel shook his head slightly. Neptune sighed musically and said, “I’m not sure why you need to poke at it.”

  “I’m not sure why I need to not poke,” Chloe replied.

  Mrs. Hapsteade glanced back and said, “Henrik is a complicated man. Leave it at that.”

  After a short drive, Beck pulled over on Randolph Street. Mr. Meister was already waiting for them, standing alertly beneath a flowerpot that hung from an old-fashioned streetlamp. Behind him, the shadow of a ginkgo tree rose high into the night sky over a tall brick wall, a cloister Horace had never been to before. Mr. Meister looked somehow both out of place and utterly in command, as if he had owned this particular corner, and the cloister that stood there, since long before the city around it even existed. Horace found himself wondering just how far the network of cloisters extended, and how old they were.

  Mr. Meister slid in beside Horace. The already-crowded cab became very tight indeed. As soon as the door was closed, the cab’s meter switched from HAP to MEI, and the old man was immediately all business. If Chloe really did intend to ask him about Vithra’s Eye, she had no chance.

  “Our Keeper is on the move again,” Mr. Meister announced briskly. “I can’t gauge the distance like Brian can, but he now estimates fifteen miles and shrinking, as the crow flies. Please head northwest, Beck—along the Kennedy. Stay off the actual highway, though. I don’t want to get too close just yet.” As the cab swung into traffic, he turned to Horace. “So. We are on our way to meet the lost Keeper at last, with the daktan in hand. Our day of delay has caused no harm, it seems.”

  Horace could only nod.

  “And you have mastered the silver sun,” Mr. Meister said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say—”

  “No one masters the Fel’Daera,” said Mrs. Hapsteade abruptly.

  To Horace’s great surprise, Mr. Meister shot an unmistakably irritated glance at the back of her head. “Yes, thank you for your opinion, Dorothy,” he said, sounding anything but grateful.

  Chloe elbowed Horace hard in the ribs—whether at learning Mrs. Hapsteade’s first name or hearing the snark in Mr. Meister’s voice, Horace wasn’t sure. He refused to look at her, focusing on his feet instead. “I’m not claiming I’m the master of anything,” he said, for the benefit of everyone in the crowded car. “And with the silver sun, I can only move the . . . whatever you call it . . . the amount the box looks forward in time—”

  “The breach,” Mr. Meister said.

  Horace snapped his head up. “That’s the name for it?” Mr. Meister nodded solemnly. The breach. The word felt so right that Horace could not stop himself from asking the next question. “Did Sil’falo Teneves tell you that?”

  Mr. Meister inhaled sharply at the name, and Mrs. Hapsteade whirled around in her seat. She and Mr. Meister exchanged a concerned look, a look that—strangely—seemed to soften quickly into warmth, the terse exchange of a moment ago apparently already forgotten.

  Horace’s heart was galloping. With one casual question, he’d just let slip that he knew his mother’s secrets.

  “She did,” Mr. Meister answered Horace, his tone fond and genial. “And the fact that you know that name tells me that certain buried seeds have at last come into the sun. I am glad this is so. When the urgency of the daktan has passed, I hope we will discuss it more.”

  “Sounds good,” Horace said, trying to sound serious and mature, but feeling more sheepish than anything.

  Beside him, Chloe whispered hissily into Horace’s ear. “Seeds? Dude, I think he just called your mom a plant.”

  “Tell me, Horace,” said Mr. Meister. “When you adjust the breach, can you set it accurately?”

  “Not very,” Horace admitted. “Sometimes I’m way off.
”

  “Let me tell you what I have in mind. I hope to find an ideal location for the coming encounter, somewhere we can establish our presence and wait for the lost Keeper to arrive. While we wait, you can adjust the breach accordingly and then witness the arrival through the box. Then we will know what lies in store for us.”

  “You make it sound easy,” Horace said.

  “I make it sound possible. Please tell me if that is too optimistic.”

  Horace felt for the breach, testing it gently. “I can do it. Or at least, I can try.”

  “Excellent.”

  “So what kind of a location are we looking for?” Chloe asked.

  Neptune answered her, as if reciting a conversation she and Mr. Meister had already had. “Someplace not too far off Bo Peep’s current course. We don’t want to alarm her. Someplace where we can see her coming, but can stay hidden ourselves. Someplace outdoors, but secluded. Darkness would be nice—we have advantages in the dark.”

  Horace nodded. The humour of Obro made darkness irrelevant for Gabriel. And then there was Neptune’s ability to sense objects—including people—via their gravity, without the need for sight.

  “Also,” Neptune continued, squirming, “the cab is maxed out already. If we’re adding one more to the mix, it would be a bonus if there were a cloister nearby.”

  “A working cloister, yes,” Mr. Meister agreed, whatever that meant.

  They drove on. The bag that hung from Beck’s mirror swayed to its own strange rhythms as the cab slid in and out of traffic. Once or twice Mr. Meister gave soft instructions to Beck, guiding the driver on toward the Keeper that only the old man could feel. Soon downtown was far behind them. The sky outside was almost completely black now—technically, Horace knew, reaching the end of what was called nautical twilight, when even at sea the horizon would be lost in darkness.