The Portal and the Veil

by Ted Sanders

  But even though his hand had gone through easily, Brian seemed to be having trouble getting Tunraden through. The doorway sort of bent as Tunraden pushed against it, and for a second Joshua thought it wouldn’t work, but then Brian pushed harder, and the portal slowly gave, and he was through. Joshua watched as Brian immediately set Tunraden down at his feet and freed his hands. Brian looked around the riverbank, and up into the trees, leaning way back, and thrust his fists into the air. No sound came through the portal, but Joshua got the feeling he was laughing. Or cheering.

  Isabel wrapped her hands around Miradel, and without a word to Joshua, stepped through the portal after Brian.

  Joshua was alone. Isabel and Brian turned, looking back at the portal, but he could tell by their eyes that they weren’t seeing through it. They couldn’t see him. They couldn’t even come back without him. Isabel had said so, but even if she hadn’t said it, Joshua knew it now.

  For a second—just a few long seconds—he thought he might leave them there. He thought he might figure out how to close the portal, then take the Laithe someplace he could be alone with it. The Laithe was his. His to learn and his to use. He looked down at the glowing sphere, and up at the blue-eyed rabbit. They seemed to speak to him, to beg him to take them away. But where would he go?

  Isabel stepped up to the portal. She gestured impatiently. She wanted him to hurry. Brian crouched down in front of Tunraden, looking worried.

  And of course, Joshua couldn’t leave them. That would be mean. Selfish. It was—and it startled him to think it—the sort of thing Isabel might do.

  With that thought in mind, Joshua stepped through the portal, carrying the Laithe. Electricity crackled very softly across his skin as he passed, but he mostly felt nothing. No resistance. He emerged into the dark woods. It was hot. Bug sounds and the soft murmur of the river filled the air. He turned back to the portal. The meridian still hung there, the blue-eyed rabbit still sitting patiently up top. The silver canoe lay against a tree just beyond, but now, through the portal, he could see back into the Warren.

  “There it is,” said Brian, also looking.

  “What did you see before I came through?” Joshua asked.

  “Nothing. The ring was here, but it was empty.”

  “I told you,” Isabel said. “The portal is a one-way door. It’s only open on whichever side the Keeper of the Laithe stands. We can see in because you’re here now, but no one can see through to us.”

  Joshua thought Isabel seemed rather satisfied with herself.

  And then through the portal, movement. Two figures came running into Tunraden’s chamber. Gabriel. Mr. Meister. The old man, obviously surprised, hurried over to the portal. He spoke words Joshua couldn’t hear.

  “Close it,” Isabel said darkly.

  “But I don’t know how,” said Joshua, his heart pounding.

  “You do. The same way you opened it.”

  Through the portal, Mr. Meister leaned in close, his left eye huge and darting.

  “I thought you said he couldn’t see us!” Joshua said, backing away.

  “He can’t,” said Brian, though his voice didn’t sound so sure. “But at least we know they got back safe.”

  “Spin it shut,” Isabel said. “Now.”

  Joshua grabbed the meridian and spun it hard, in the opposite direction he had before. The rabbit flipped directions with a soft snik! and began to run back the way it came. The portal shrank. This time, though, the view through the ring stayed clear for a moment. Mr. Meister jumped back, startled by the shrinking ring. Then he gazed into the portal again. He looked sad, Joshua thought. More than sad. He looked betrayed.

  The rabbit stopped. Joshua spun the meridian again, not looking into Mr. Meister’s eyes even though he knew the Warden couldn’t see him. And then Mr. Meister winked out. The view into the Warren was replaced by the tumbling tunnel of shapes. Joshua blinked back tears—sad tears or angry, he didn’t know—and willed the rabbit to keep running. Faster and faster. The meridian grew smaller and smaller. The tumbling shapes accelerated. At last, with another chest-hammering thud, the rabbit reached the end of its run. It folded itself to sleep atop the now-tiny portal. The meridian was back to its normal size.

  Joshua grabbed the meridian from the air. Almost without thinking, he brought the ring and the globe together. They returned to each other naturally, without him even having to try. As the little sphere settled into its place inside the meridian, the globe went dark for just a second and then slowly relit, shades of brown and blue and green and white, the familiar continents and oceans of the earth returning beneath a living patchwork of clouds.

  “Very good,” said Isabel, letting out a long breath. “Very good, Keeper.”

  But Joshua didn’t need Isabel to tell him that. It was good . . . very good. He gazed down at the Laithe. Even with all the worries he had, even with the guilt he felt about closing the portal on Mr. Meister, this felt right. As right as anything he’d ever done. He wasn’t even sure he cared what Isabel wanted, or what came next. His hands itched to make another portal.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Missing

  HORACE, CHLOE, AND NEPTUNE STOOD ON THE SHORES OF Vithra’s Eye, deep beneath the city. The dark waters of the lake stretched out before them; on the far side of the cavern lay the Great Burrow. A brick pathway crossed the lake, a seemingly easy route that the three Keepers could not possibly hope to take. The heart of the Nevren was there, too strong for Tan’ji to pass through directly. But it occurred to Horace that if Isabel had indeed found her way into the Warren, she could have walked right across the bridge without difficulty.

  He told himself she hadn’t. She could never find the way.

  Neptune stared across the water, shaking her wounded hand. “This has been a terrible night,” she said. “Or is it nights? It’s hard to tell after seventeen jumps, of course.” She thought for a bit and then looked sheepishly at them both. “I think I remember saying things I shouldn’t have. Back at the fifth cloister, before I fell asleep.”

  The Mothergates. In his worry and through his own fracturing journey back home, Horace himself had almost forgotten, but now the pit of dread grew strong. “We’ll talk about it later,” he told Neptune.

  “We won’t, though. I won’t.” Neptune shook her hand again. Her crooked pinky wobbled grotesquely. “Just . . . do me a favor. Don’t tell Mr. Meister I said that stuff.”

  “Deal,” Chloe said immediately. “I happen to specialize in not telling Mr. Meister things.” She looked sturdy and impatient, probably the most immune of them all to the effects of falkrete travel. Chloe never seemed to doubt who she was. And she hadn’t doubted Horace either, when he’d told her his suspicions about Isabel. About her mother. She’d been the first to lay her Tan’ji against the proper falkrete stone and begin the swift journey back to the Warren. And now they were here.

  “Thank you,” Neptune said, clearly grateful. Horace nodded.

  “If you want to thank me,” Chloe said, “hold still for a second.” And she reached out and grabbed Neptune’s mangled hand.

  Neptune’s wide eyes grew wider. “Uh . . . what are you doing?”

  “I can’t look at that finger anymore. I’m going to fix it.”

  “Are you—”

  “On three,” Chloe said, gently taking hold of the twisted pinky. “One . . .” And then she yanked the pinky hard, smoothly out and up.

  “Gahhhh!” Neptune shrieked, snatching her hand away, her face white with pain. She flinched so hard she lifted off the ground a few inches and stayed there, tapping into her Tan’ji without seeming to realize it. She drifted backward through the air like a punched balloon. “Oh my—” She looked down at her hand as she floated, flexing it. To Horace’s surprise, her pinky looked normal again. “Jiminy joe pants, you’re bad at counting,” Neptune said, frowning at Chloe. She dropped lightly to the ground, still flexing her hand.

  “Better?” Chloe asked.

  “Yes, but . .
. ow.” Neptune shook her hand out and gently probed at her finger. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  Chloe shrugged. “School of life.”

  Suddenly a dark shape flew at them out of the shadows over the lake. At first Horace thought it was one of the peculiar little owls that patrolled Vithra’s Eye, but this was much larger. The black shape swept in on noisy wings and landed with a flourish beside them, big as a cat.

  “Arthur!” Horace said. A surprising rush of relief flooded him. If Arthur was here, that meant April was safe.

  The raven looked up at him, cocking his head. He snapped his thick black beak, his eyes shining with intelligence. Horace had to remind himself that April’s companion was only a bird—a smart bird, yes, but still just a bird.

  “I guess they beat us here after all,” Chloe said, squinting uselessly across the darkness over the lake.

  Horace crouched down in front of Arthur. “What’s up?” he asked him. “Everything okay?”

  “Watsup?” the raven croaked. The raven couldn’t really understand human language, of course, but he did sometimes imitate spoken words, like a parrot. “Watsup?” he said again, and then walked backward a few steps, watching Horace warily. He let out a high, rattling scream that made them all jump. He took furiously to the air and flew back over the water toward the Great Burrow.

  “Whoa,” said Chloe. “What was that all about?”

  “Maybe you smell like brimstone,” Neptune told Horace, referring to the foul, sulfurous stench of the Riven. “Birds don’t like that.”

  “Maybe,” Horace said.

  In silence, Chloe led them across Vithra’s Eye, dipping her scarlet jithandra into the water and letting the surface of the lake solidify into a path before them. The crystal, the calling card of the Wardens and the only way for a Keeper to cross these waters, shone like a glowing ruby ship cutting through a dark sea. They skirted the edge of the lake, where the terrible void of the Nevren was at its weakest, but still the pain of being severed from the Fel’Daera bit at Horace like frostbite, like a little death. In the nothingness of the Nevren, he forgot his instrument, forgot his friends, forgot even himself.

  At last they emerged on the other side, a blessed relief. The constant, comforting presence of the Fel’Daera surged back through Horace in a rush, and he drank from it deeply, his senses returning. Horace hated the Nevren, and struggled with it more than most, but it was a necessary trial. The same severing void that caused them so much pain helped protect the Warren from the Riven. The Riven bonded so tightly with their own instruments that they could not survive the Nevren. For human Keepers like Horace and his friends, meanwhile, the Nevren was still dangerous, but manageable. Barely.

  His head clearing, Horace saw April on the far shore, in her clunky boots and sturdy dress. Arthur clung to her shoulder like a small, brooding bodyguard. As they stepped onto dry land, Horace could see something was wrong. April’s prettily crooked face was tight with worry.

  “You’re here,” she said. “You’re safe.”

  “We’re safe,” Horace said. “You okay? Your brother?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “My family’s safe, thanks to you guys. We dropped them off at a friend’s house. I’m not sure about my dog, but . . .” She trailed off, her mouth twisting. She glanced back into the Great Burrow. At her temple, Horace caught a faint golden glimpse of the Ravenvine, her Tan’ji. It occurred to him that with it, April might have seen them on the far shore of the lake, watching them through Arthur’s keen eyes—or perhaps even listening to them through the sensitive ears of one of the lake’s elusive owls. With her ability to eavesdrop on the thoughts and senses of animals, April might have heard them talking, might’ve even caught the bit about the Mothergates.

  But Horace knew that was not what was troubling April now. And not her dog, either. He glanced past her. Down in the Great Burrow, Mrs. Hapsteade was talking intently to Mr. Meister and Gabriel beside her doba. Brian was nowhere to be seen. Or Joshua, for that matter. Horace’s heart began to pound. Mr. Meister looked up at them, running the fingers of both hands through his bushy white hair.

  “She was here, wasn’t she?” Chloe said to April. “Isabel?”

  April looked at Chloe with a kind of penetrating uncertainty, as if she couldn’t bring herself to confirm it. Horace’s stomach rolled over. He’d been right after all.

  They ran down the great passage, Neptune leaping far ahead with long, bounding strides. She went straight to Gabriel’s side and grasped the blind teen’s face with both hands, murmuring soft questions to him. Gabriel clutched his Tan’ji, the long gray Staff of Obro, like a weapon.

  “Where is she?” Chloe demanded, stalking up to Mr. Meister.

  “Where’s Brian?” said Horace, nearly on top of her.

  The old man rounded on them and straightened his many-pocketed red vest. Behind his thick glasses, his gray eyes were huge and keen as ever. He was the Chief Taxonomer, leader of the Wardens here in the Chicago, as full of secrets as he was of answers. Horace feared the answers he might have for them now.

  “Brian has been taken,” said Mr. Meister simply. “Isabel is gone, and she took Brian and Tunraden with her. Joshua too.”

  April gasped, and Chloe growled. Horace’s head spun. Brian had told him Tunraden couldn’t be taken out of the Warren. “But how?” he managed to ask.

  “And how did she even get in?” Neptune asked, breathless.

  Mrs. Hapsteade glanced at Mr. Meister. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod. She reached into the front pocket of her prim black dress, pulling out three small wooden crescents and a complicated black key.

  Chloe blanched. “My key. My elevator key.”

  “But . . . the spitestone,” Horace said to Mr. Meister. “You told me she’d never be able to find her way into the Warren.”

  “Plainly I was wrong. She devised a method to find her way through the spitestone’s cloud.” He reached into Mrs. Hapsteade’s hand and arranged the three crescents so that they touched end to end, making a solid ring. A wooden ring.

  “That’s hers,” Chloe snarled. “Is it a Tanu?”

  “Not properly, no. I have never seen anything like it. As best I can tell, Isabel spun a loop of energy into the ring that was so subtle I failed to notice it. It was buried deep. Dormant. As I’m sure you are aware by now, this is a particular talent of hers. When the ring was brought near the spitestone, it came to life. It created a tiny obversion—a reversal—in the spitestone’s power. Within a symphony intended to conceal the Warren, a single note instead revealed it. And because that note was attuned to Isabel, she heard it clearly.” He shook his head admiringly at the broken ring. “It was brilliant; I cannot deny it.”

  “I should have been more watchful,” Mrs. Hapsteade said. “I had the wicker harp with me, and I let Isabel get right to my front door. Close enough for her to sense the harp—close enough to use it. She severed me before I even knew she was there. She tangled me.”

  “Severing sucks,” said Neptune. “Isabel’s severings super suck.” Apparently, Isabel had a way of severing Keepers and then tying off the flows, so that the bond trickled back to life very slowly. Neptune, who had been severed by Isabel two nights before, said it was like trying to swim out of a bowl of spaghetti.

  “Isabel’s talents are obvious,” Mr. Meister said. “Her objectives are less so. Come with me.” And then, without another word, he turned and began marching deeper into the Great Burrow, clearly expecting the others to follow.

  Horace walked in silence, his worry curdling inside him, fretting about Brian. Isabel’s objective, of course, was to become a Keeper. How far would she go to try to make that happen? She’d already done the unthinkable, the supposedly impossible. He tried to stay logical. After several seconds, he said aloud, “If Isabel thinks Brian can help her, she wouldn’t hurt him.”

  “Right,” Chloe muttered scornfully. “And if she thinks he’ll never help her, what will she do then? Just say ‘Thanks any
way,’ and pat him on the head?” When no one answered, she said, “I’m sorry, you guys. I’m sorry about all this.”

  April laid a hand on Chloe’s magnificently scarred arm. “I don’t believe in accepting apologies from people who’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I want to know who brought the ring into the Warren in the first place,” Neptune said.

  “Joshua,” Mrs. Hapsteade replied. “But I do not think he knew what it was.”

  “That’s generous,” said Chloe. “He’s been traveling with Isabel, you know.”

  “So was I,” April pointed out. “Joshua’s just a little boy. I don’t believe he’d do anything to hurt us. Not on purpose.”

  “I don’t either,” Mrs. Hapsteade said. “He came into my doba to confess about the ring, I think. But he was too late. He left with Isabel. She made him promises he couldn’t resist.”

  Mr. Meister flourished his hand dramatically. “Promises, yes,” he said. “Promises that have now been kept.”

  Gabriel, silent so far, thumped the tip of his staff into the ground as he walked. Once, twice, three times. His face was a storm.

  Seeming not to notice, Mr. Meister added, “Oh, and Joshua is not just a little boy.”

  “Then what is he?” Chloe asked.

  “He is one of us.”

  Mrs. Hapsteade gave him a sharp look. “Henry,” she said, as if cautioning him.

  “You mean he’s a Keeper?” Horace asked.

  “No,” said Gabriel, even as Mr. Meister said, “Yes.”

  They had reached the top of the Perilous Stairs. The old man paused here, his wispy white hair blowing in the breeze. His brow seemed to wrestle with itself, and then he said, “Joshua is the Keeper of the Laithe of Teneves.”

  Mrs. Hapsteade stepped forward. “Henrik!” she scolded, her voice like the swipe of a knife. Gabriel grimaced, grasping the Staff of Obro, looking as angry as Horace had ever seen him.

  The Laithe of Teneves—the tiny living globe. Made by the same hands that had made the Fel’Daera. Horace gripped the box at his side.