The Portal and the Veil

by Ted Sanders

  Dr. Jericho walked over to where Miradel lay in the grass, dark now. He bent to pick it up. The harp looked no bigger than a marble in his huge hands.

  “No!” Isabel shouted, high overhead. “Put it down, you stinking cave snake!”

  Dr. Jericho held Miradel up to his face, examining it closely. “Your proxy,” he said. “How rustic. I don’t know what hopes you were pouring into it just now, but I assume they were foolish—and I guarantee they were pointless. Funny—without you, your proxy is merely a bundle of sticks. Nothing more.” He laughed, still peering at the harp. “Such a simple thing to create such fear, such destruction.”

  Joshua knew the Mordin was thinking of what Isabel had done to the Riven on the riverbank two nights ago. How Isabel had stormed into the battle late, using Miradel to cleave any Riven she encountered—two Mordin and an Auditor, at least. They’d died on the spot. Dr. Jericho had barely escaped with his life.

  Dr. Jericho hoisted the harp up high, showing it to Isabel. “I pity you, Forsworn. You should never have been made what you are. But I cannot allow this to remain. This must end.”

  Isabel’s eyes widened in horror. She lunged forward desperately, clawing at the air, struggling to reach the Mordin. “No!” she screamed. The golem held her like hardened concrete.

  And then Dr. Jericho slipped Miradel whole into his mouth, and bit down.

  The harp crunched sickeningly, splintering between his teeth. Green light spilled briefly from between his lips, and then went out. He kept chewing, his jaw working hard. He raised his eyebrows at Joshua, who was staring in horror. Isabel was still screaming. The stones of the golem poured over her face and into her mouth, silencing her. The gruesome sounds of grinding, snapping sticks from the Mordin’s mouth went on and on, until finally he swallowed and ran his pointed tongue across his lips. He wiped his mouth with one long finger and laid his hand across his chest.

  “All gone,” he said, his voice tinkling and cruel. “All safe.”

  He gestured casually, and the towering golem slowly collapsed, bringing Isabel down. It rumbled closer and dumped her in a heap on the ground. Her chest heaved like she was sobbing, but she didn’t make a sound.

  Dr. Jericho ignored her, instead looking into the darkness beyond Joshua. “All safe, I said.”

  More footsteps. Joshua spun around. A girl approached, a human girl with blond hair. A teenager, about the age of Neptune and Gabriel. She was pretty, but her face was sharp and sad. She held a small white rod in one hand—a flute? Joshua remembered the strange music he thought he’d heard earlier.

  Brian stood up, mouth open, staring at the girl. “Ingrid,” he said.

  The girl—Ingrid—didn’t look at all surprised to see Brian. She barely glanced at him.

  “Ah yes, a reunion,” Dr. Jericho crooned. “I believe introductions are in order.” When no one answered, his eyes darted to Ingrid.

  Ingrid pointed. “This one is Brian. He’s not supposed to be outside.”

  “I might say the same about you,” Brian muttered. Seeing Joshua’s confusion, he said, “She used to be one of us. A Warden. Now she’s just a traitor.”

  Ingrid ignored him, gesturing at Joshua and Isabel. “I don’t know these other two.”

  Dr. Jericho leaned in so close to Joshua that his foul breath ruffled Joshua’s hair. A splinter of Miradel was stuck to the corner of his fiendish mouth. “And you are?” he said.

  For some reason, Joshua couldn’t even think of not answering. “I’m Joshua.”

  “Joshua, Brian, and a Forsworn—a curious group,” Dr. Jericho said. “None of you were present for the battle tonight, I think, yet here you are now, long after the battle is over. I was on my way back to the city when I felt the call of the Laithe. Quite a surprise, to say the least.”

  Joshua’s heart pounded. The call of the Laithe. What did the Mordin mean by that?

  “I expected to find the usual motley crew of Wardens. Chloe. Gabriel. Horace. But Ingrid played her flute from the edge of the meadow and told me there were three of you here, and none of you the usual suspects. Nonetheless, imagine my surprise when I arrived. I saw things I never thought to see.”

  Dr. Jericho turned and stood high over Tunraden. “There it is,” he said greedily. “Oh dear, oh dear.” He looked down at the Loomdaughter, stroking his chin with his long, terrible fingers. “So many failures tonight, and now this! Gifts beyond measure.” He crouched down, his legs so long that when they folded, his knees rose over his head. He looked like an insect, like a praying mantis from some terrible nightmare. “A Loomdaughter and her Keeper, here for the having. Tunraden, unless I’m very mistaken.” He leaned in toward Brian, his grin slipping away. “Am I mistaken, Tinker?” he purred. “I think not.”

  Suddenly Isabel rose to her feet and rushed at the Mordin, shrieking. Behind her, the huge shifting mountain of the golem rumbled, but didn’t chase her. Dr. Jericho reached out, caught Isabel by the throat, and slammed her easily to the ground. She lay there gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of her.

  “Let us not be silly,” Dr. Jericho said to no one in particular. “There are no warriors among you now.” He licked his lips, his thin tongue catching the sliver of Miradel stuck to his mouth. He swallowed it. “Not anymore.”

  “The other Wardens are coming,” Brian said. “The warrior types. They know where we are.”

  “Oh, I doubt that very much. Let me see . . .” The Mordin pointed to Brian, Isabel, and Joshua in turn. “The valued Keeper of one of the most precious Tan’ji in the world, a Forsworn bearing a harp that would never have been given as a gift, and a Lostling.”

  Lostling. The word made no sense to Joshua, but apparently, that’s what Dr. Jericho was calling him.

  “The noble Mr. Meister would never have allowed any of this,” Dr. Jericho continued. “Quite the opposite. You are . . . on the run, as they say.” He pressed five long fingers against his chest and raised his eyebrows in surprise, like he’d been given a compliment. “Is it me you’ve come looking for? Should I be flattered?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Brian. He looked scared to death but was talking brave. “We heard great things about your club and can’t wait to sign up. The pointy teeth, the creepy fingers, the caves that smell like rotten eggs.” He looked back at Ingrid. “Was that the part of the brochure that got you hooked, Ingrid?”

  “Better one night in a Riven nest that smells like brimstone than three years in a Tinker prison that stinks of surrender.”

  “Feisty,” Brian said. “Speaking of nests, Gabriel and the new kids were trapped in one recently. The golem had him, but he got free somehow. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Because he told me a funny story I’m sure your new boyfriend would love to—”

  “Enough,” said Dr. Jericho. “We know what transpired that night in the theater. Old allegiances . . . old devotions . . . they sometimes linger. Ingrid followed her heart, but we in turn forgave her sentimentality. After all, it’s only . . . human.” He said the word like it was food. Joshua closed his eyes. He heard Dr. Jericho stand and walk away.

  When he opened them again, the Mordin was standing where Joshua’s portal had been. He was examining the spot, peering at the air. “Crude,” he said. “Just what one would expect from a Lostling.”

  Somehow the Mordin could sense the portal. Joshua himself could see nothing. “I’m not a Lostling,” Joshua said stubbornly.

  “You do not even know the meaning of the word,” the Mordin replied. He turned to Isabel. “But you do. Why were you in such a hurry that you had to put the Laithe in his hands? And you gave him instruction too, it seems.”

  “Leave me alone,” Isabel said miserably.

  “You have disobeyed the laws of the Wardens.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  Brian spoke up. “I didn’t know the Riven cared so much about the sanctity of the Find.”

  “We do not. Your precious Find is already a stage show, a masquerade.” Dr. Je
richo gestured at Ingrid. Her face gave nothing away. “Mr. Meister’s favorite recruits come to him at a vulnerable age, hungry for meaning, desperate for something—anything—to tell them who they are. He lures them near, and presents their weak minds with the illusion of choice. He provides them an identity, and they gobble it up.”

  Joshua listened keenly. The Mordin disgusted him and frightened him, but if it was true that the Find was just an illusion, then maybe it wasn’t so bad, what had happened to Joshua tonight.

  “We Riven, on the other hand,” Dr. Jericho went on, “take our bonds long before we even have a sense of self.” He removed his black jacket, big as a tent. He began unbuttoning the white shirt beneath. “We are our instruments, from the start.” The Mordin turned away and pulled back the collar of his shirt, letting it fall, exposing his broad, pale shoulders. A thin forest of bristling hairs covered his back, almost like spines. And between his sharp shoulder blades, a bright bulge of metallic blue ran along his backbone from his neck to the middle of his back, buried in his flesh. It pulsed faintly from top to bottom, like a swallowing throat.

  “This is Raka, my Tan’ji,” said Dr. Jericho. The skin around the edges of the strange Tan’ji was scarred, burned. And that blue—deep and bright. Joshua immediately remembered writing with the Vora, and the blue ink that flowed from its tip. This blue was the same.

  Dr. Jericho pulled up his shirt, covering the gleaming blue bulge. “Mine since birth. It chose me before I even understood the meaning of choice. With Raka, I—like all Mordin—can feel Tan’ji being used from miles away. But Raka is uniquely sensitive to a certain very rare kind of Tan’ji. The blue tells the tale: I am especially attuned to kairotics—abilities like yours, Joshua. Keepers who can pierce holes through space and time.” He grinned and threaded his long arms back through his jacket. “My affinity for kairotics is a family talent, I’m told.”

  “That’s why you felt the Laithe when Joshua used it,” Brian said.

  “Yes, from both ends. As I said, crude work. Loud. I would have felt it from halfway around the world.” He stalked back over to Joshua in two long strides and pointed at the Laithe. “This instrument did not choose you. Nor were you allowed to choose it yourself. The choice was made by another, forced upon you both. You are a Lostling.” He shook his head sadly. “Your bond is poison. I can feel it.”

  “That’s not true!” Joshua shouted, his voice sounding small and squeaky.

  “Mr. Meister will hunt you down, you know,” Dr. Jericho continued. “He will hunt you down and take your Tan’ji from you. He will seize the Laithe and tell you that you have no claim to it.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Joshua,” said Brian. “That’s a lie.”

  “He took mine from me,” Isabel said bitterly. “Mr. Meister took it and destroyed it. I never even laid eyes on it.”

  Joshua didn’t want to hear any of it. No words from anyone. Every word was terrible. “But I already used the Laithe,” he said. “I got us out of the Warren. I got us here.”

  “Here, yes,” the Mordin laughed. “On the edge of a battlefield, mere hours after the battle ended. Could you do no better? Find no safer place, in all the wide world?” He reached out his terrible hand and laid it on Joshua’s shoulder. It engulfed his entire chest. Joshua noticed a twisted black ring with a bloodred stone. “You are crippled, Joshua, through no fault of your own. But I can help you. If you truly are the Keeper of the Laithe of Teneves, we can give you refuge. We will leave you in peace with your instrument, give you time alone. Time to forge the bond and discover your powers.”

  And even though he didn’t want to listen, the words made Joshua go weak. This was all he wanted: time alone. Time to sit with the precious Laithe and let it become a part of him. The Laithe itself seemed to want this too, and as he imagined it, he was sure he could hear it calling to him. If there really was poison in the bond, Isabel had put it there. It had to be cleaned. He had to be given time.

  He looked up into Dr. Jericho’s beetle-black eyes. He tried to think of something brave to say, but he didn’t even know what would be the bravest thing right now. No words came. The Mordin nodded at him.

  “You will come with me now,” Dr. Jericho said.

  “Don’t do it, Joshua,” said Brian.

  Joshua didn’t move.

  But he didn’t say no.

  “Think on it, won’t you?” Dr. Jericho said with a smile, releasing Joshua. “And then there is the matter of the Loomdaughter,” he said. He turned toward Brian, holding up the hand with the black-and-red ring. In response, the golem rumbled across the grass toward them, a slow rocky avalanche. Joshua thought he saw something scarlet swimming inside the swarm, like a savage ruby fish.

  Dr. Jericho grinned at Brian. “You are invited as well, Keeper.”

  “As if,” Brian said.

  “The choice is yours,” the Mordin said with a shrug. “But I believe I have an invitation you cannot refuse.”

  The golem approached Tunraden. It poured itself around her. Brian cried out and scrambled to reach her, but the golem simply built a rising, sliding wall that Brian could not dig through or climb over. He struggled helplessly, trying to fight through a black wave that had no end.

  Dr. Jericho raised his hand, and the golem hoisted Tunraden into the air easily, like a very small child. Brian fell back, his teeth bared, his glasses crooked on his face.

  “It would be a shame to destroy one of the last remaining Loomdaughters,” Dr. Jericho said. “I wonder if the golem is up to the task?”

  Joshua couldn’t help himself. “Just go with him, Brian. Don’t do this.”

  “No,” Brian said, standing. “He’s bluffing.” His eyes flicked nervously to Ingrid, but Ingrid said nothing.

  “You cannot survive the demise of your instrument,” said Dr. Jericho, “however it comes to pass. I wonder—would a sudden death now be any worse than a slow death later on?”

  Joshua didn’t understand. Why a slow death later on?

  “Wow, really hard to say,” said Brian. “I can’t remember the last time I died. Although I did come close just a few minutes ago.”

  Dr. Jericho smiled. The golem shifted, gripping Tunraden even harder. “I think you overestimate my patience for this night and this place. For you and your kind. For this war. You are the Keeper of a Loomdaughter, and therefore its slave.” He nodded at the tight black rings around Brian’s wrists. “I could simply take Tunraden away from here, you know. And you, slave, would be forced to follow—follow, or die. But I have not done that. I am still here, exchanging words with a Tinker who attempts jokes in the face of his own destruction, a silly boy whose stench I can barely withstand.”

  High above, the golem’s stony grip seemed to tremble around Tunraden. Joshua held his breath.

  “Do it, then,” Brian said. He sounded brave, but his face was tight with doubt.

  Dr. Jericho bent down. “You think I won’t,” he snarled through his teeth, little flecks of spit flying into Brian’s face. One great hand dug at the ground like he wanted to rip the skin off the earth. The other, the one with the red-and-black ring, balled into a fist the size of Brian’s head and trembled in the air. Overhead, the golem scraped audibly as it tightened around Tunraden, like gravel crunching under a giant’s foot.

  Brian had to hear it, but he didn’t look up, continuing to meet the Mordin’s gaze. “I’m waiting,” he said quietly.

  “You pretend to be as stubborn as the rest, Tinker,” Dr. Jericho said. “If you truly are willing to lose everything you hold dear, then let us wait no more. It is one thing to feign bravery in the face of some distant dread.” His massive fist shook harder, and his grin grew more savage. Tunraden seemed to groan. “But let us see how you fare, here and now, as everything you cling to is ground irrevocably into dust.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Where and the When

  BECK’S CAB SLID THROUGH THE LATE-NIGHT STREETS OF CHICAGO. It was ten past three, and the Kennedy Expres
sway was all but abandoned. Mr. Meister and Gabriel sat in the front with Beck, while Horace was crammed in the back between Chloe and April, with his mother on the end. Arthur sat on April’s shoulder, looking out the window, and Horace could tell by the faraway haze of April’s stare that she was watching the city pass by through the raven’s keen eyes. Mrs. Hapsteade and Neptune had stayed behind in the Warren, with good reason. “You be the bird tonight,” Neptune had said to April, clutching her injured pinky and hanging slightly cockeyed in the air to avoid her twisted ankle.

  In the front seat, Mr. Meister held the compass, but he wasn’t bothering to look at it much anymore. It seemed clear now where Joshua and the others had gone: the riverbank where he and April had first encountered the Wardens. Isabel had actually killed some of the Riven there, cleaving them from their instruments and letting them fall.

  It was hard not to forget that Dr. Jericho had almost become one of those fallen. Hard not to forget, because Horace himself had saved him. Through the Fel’Daera, Horace had actually witnessed Dr. Jericho’s death seconds before it was about to happen. And he had immediately—impulsively, inexplicably—warned Dr. Jericho. Or threatened him, it was hard to say. “You’re next,” Horace had said, and the Mordin had reacted with lightning reflexes, fleeing the scene and saving his own life. Saved by Horace.

  And the crazy thing was, Horace didn’t feel a whole lot of regret. Was that stupid? Probably. As he sat here thinking about Joshua and the Laithe, he started to suspect that his regret was about to grow.

  He leaned forward. “Mr. Meister?”

  “Keeper?” the old man said, without turning around.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About how Dr. Jericho might be able to sense Joshua’s portals. He can sense the residue of a portal, like you do, right?”

  Now Mr. Meister did turn. “I am sure he can.”