by Ted Sanders
“I am the Keeper of the Laithe,” he mumbled to himself. “Only I can get us away.” But he wasn’t sure he believed it.
And suddenly the obvious solution came to him. He would take them back—back the way he’d come. A place he could go, a place he had been. He was stupid not to think of it sooner. No sooner had he thought the thought than he felt the Laithe shift again. It was over North America now, over the Midwest. He fumbled for the golden rabbit and grabbed it, sliding it around the unseen meridian. It seemed to almost want to move on its own, to listen to him.
In his mind, Joshua saw what he knew the Laithe was now revealing—Illinois, endless grids of cornfields, Chicago. On and on he slid the rabbit, around the bottom of the meridian. Block after block of houses, growing closer. A winding river in a blanket of green—the north branch of the Chicago River. And now a park, with green trees, a ribbon of water inside. A particular grove of trees beside a green meadow. Down and down, under the canopy. A cloister, and leafy ground.
At last the rabbit reached the top again. Joshua had done it. He knew he was there. They were there, he and the Laithe both.
“I have it,” he tried to say, but the words would barely form. “I have it,” he said again.
“Open the portal,” said Gabriel. “They’re coming for you.”
“Now, Joshua!” Mr. Meister shouted.
Joshua tore the meridian free. He set it into the air and, in the same motion, spun it. Not hard, not hard at all. But perfectly. The rabbit ran. He could see it in his mind, feel it in his flesh. The rabbit ran, and the portal widened. He heard a gasp of wonder, like a rush of wind, and realized it was Gabriel. Was he seeing now as the portal opened? What could he feel?
One spin was enough. Joshua knew it would be. The portal slammed open wide, and he almost imagined he could see the blue eyes of the rabbit, high atop it.
“Go,” Joshua said. “Here.” As he spoke, Ingrid’s flute got louder. It was in his ears, in his brain. He reached out blindly and found Brian’s arm. He yanked him toward the portal and pushed him rudely through with all his might. He felt him go, felt Tunraden pass through the barrier.
“Mordin!” Gabriel shouted. “Go, go!”
Joshua groped until he caught the wrinkled hand of Mr. Meister. Joshua had to go last. He was the Keeper of the Laithe, wasn’t he? He shoved Mr. Meister through.
“Jump!” Gabriel shouted.
Just as Joshua jumped, someone grabbed his arm. Not a Mordin, though—this was a human hand. It had to be Ingrid. Joshua fumed with rage. Ingrid filled him with rage. Why would she do this? He swiped out, and caught a handful of hair. He pulled with all his might, swinging. He tripped, but she tripped too, and let him go. He felt another pulse from the portal—she’d fallen through. He dove after her, trying to steer his own fall through the portal, the Laithe tucked under his arm. The electric tingle of the portal washed over him. In the split second before he made it all the way through, another hand grazed his foot. Joshua tucked into a ball, tumbling, escaping. He fell into a quiet forest, green and soft. He hit the ground and looked back.
The portal hung in the air, opening back into the meadow, into the humour. But for some reason the humour wasn’t there. Or maybe it was—a kind of smoky curtain across everything, like a thick silver fog, but not so thick that Joshua couldn’t see. A Mordin knelt on the ground, clutching his hand. Joshua looked down at his own feet—here, on the forest side—and scrambled away. Three long fingers lay on the grass like dead snakes. Fingers. Sliced clean by the closing portal. Mr. Meister swept in and scooped the awful things up, shoving them into a pocket.
“Close it,” the old man said. In his other hand, he held Ingrid’s white flute. Ingrid herself lay at his feet, breathing hard, shocked and furious.
“He’ll find you again,” Ingrid said. “He always will.” She lay on the ground beside Joshua, nodding up at the portal.
Joshua looked. Dr. Jericho stood on the other side, breathing hard. His eyes simmered like angry black suns, but of course he couldn’t really see them—still in the humour, he couldn’t even see the portal itself. But he could clearly feel it.
“I told you,” Ingrid said. “He’ll find the friends you left behind, and then he’ll find you. All this—”
“Shut up,” said Brian. He stood a little ways back, Tunraden at his feet.
“Seconded,” said a new voice. Joshua rolled to see. There was a woman here in the woods. Horace’s mom, of all people. “My son isn’t coming back this way,” she said to Joshua. “Close the portal.”
“Horace is alive, Jessica,” Mr. Meister said gently. “He is with friends. Powerful friends.”
Ingrid laughed.
“This was the future he saw,” said Horace’s mother. “You heard it as well as I did, Henry.” She looked down at Joshua. “Close it now, Keeper. Close it.”
Joshua got to his knees in front of the portal. Dr. Jericho was still glaring at it, a tower of fury now, just inches away. Miles away. Joshua spun the meridian, letting the rabbit run. As it shrank, the humour winked out of sight on the other side—Gabriel had taken it down. Dr. Jericho reared back, letting out a bellow of rage that Joshua almost imagined he could hear. The Mordin tore off his jacket and shirt, seeming to grow, suddenly looking a foot taller and twice as savage as he had a moment ago. He roared and roared as the portal shrank. Too slow, too slow, but Joshua couldn’t move.
Beyond Dr. Jericho now, more movement. Half a dozen more Mordin loped into view. An Auditor. And then, from the wreckage of the barn beyond them all, movement. The rubble began to shift. A golem rose slowly from it. Horace’s mother watched, her face like stone.
At last the tumbling tunnel of shapes appeared, and the horrible scene at the meadow vanished. The rabbit finished running. Numbly, Joshua plucked the meridian out of the air and brought it home to the Laithe. A nugget of hurt swelled in his gut then, so heavy and hard he thought he might collapse into it, into a ball of nothing.
“We have to go back,” he said, gripping the Laithe.
Mr. Meister shook his head. “We cannot risk it, Keeper. Even if you open another portal, no one can come through it from the other side unless you go back yourself. But Dr. Jericho will reach the portal—and you—long before any of our friends.”
“Very long before,” Ingrid muttered coldly. “He hears you coming like a train.”
“Kind of like your mouth,” said Brian.
Joshua glared at Ingrid. She had dirty blond hair and blue eyes. She had a bloody nose, too. Joshua was pretty sure he’d done that, kicking out in the humour. He was glad.
“I don’t care,” Joshua said. “I need to go get them.”
“I will not allow it,” said Mr. Meister.
“I doesn’t matter. I’m not a Warden.”
“Joshua,” said Horace’s mother gently. “Keeper.”
He looked up at her. She wasn’t alone. Arthur the raven stalked at her feet, watching Joshua with his black marble eyes. Joshua wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face.
April.
Horace’s mom knelt down in front of him. “Horace knew what he was doing, Joshua. He went there knowing he wouldn’t come back this way—him or the others. Not at this time or in this place, anyway.”
Joshua shoved the Laithe away. “Well if he knew what he was doing, I sure don’t.”
“You will. And soon. Do you know why?”
Joshua shook his head.
“Because when the time is right, you will find Horace, and our friends. And you will bring them back home.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Stranger in the Field
“YOU MUST COME WITH ME, KEEPERS. THAT’S WHAT YOU DO.”
Horace whirled around in the long grass to face the slippery, whispering voice. A tall dark figure in a long black robe stood there in the meadow—far too tall, with long sinewy limbs.
Horace fell back, scrambling to pull the phalanx from his pocket. He and Chloe had escaped from the golem
only to be found by one of the Riven—a Mordin, by the look of it, though it was short for a Mordin. Horace laid the tip against the Fel’Daera, drawing power from the box and filling the phalanx. He drew back his hand to fire at the Riven, to pin it in place, but then suddenly the Mordin shifted and . . . split.
There were two Riven now, identical. They stepped swiftly apart in unison, covering ground as only the long-legged Mordin could. In an instant, they were twenty feet apart, flanking Horace and Chloe left and right.
“Oh, what the hell?” Chloe snarled, crouching low, her angry eyes darting back and forth between the two intruders. But a moment later, one of the shadowy figures shimmered and winked out of existence.
“Peace, please,” said the one that remained.
Horace clutched the phalanx, but didn’t fire. “How did you do that?”
The figure spread his enormous arms. “How does any Keeper do what they do?”
Horace realized that something was missing. The stranger had no smell—no stench of brimstone. He squinted at the figure, trying to make sense of it.
“You’re not a Keeper,” Chloe said. “You’re a Riven.”
“So it may seem,” the newcomer said, “but I assure you I am not.” He stepped forward, arms still spread and huge hands open in a gesture of truce. “I am what the Riven once were.”
Horace straightened, the words catching him like a forgotten memory. He pulled his jithandra out of his shirt, releasing its blue light. The tall figure crouched down gracefully in the grass, letting the light illuminate him.
Horace’s mouth fell open.
“Oh, mother,” Chloe breathed.
He was . . . beautiful.
Pale skin, porcelain smooth, and high chiseled cheeks. His mouth was a delicate slit with a faint—and friendly? —curve to it. His hands, hanging between his legs, were the size of magazines. Just like the Riven, he had an extra knuckle on each finger. But whereas the deformity looked hideous on the likes of Dr. Jericho, here the fingers seemed unspeakably graceful and dizzyingly functional, as if they were the perfect dreams of stubby, useless little fingers like Horace’s. And on one of those long fingers sat a gray ring with a wide green stone, unmistakably Tanu.
But most of all . . . the eyes. His eyelids had not one but two extra folds of skin, each one angled in the opposite direction of the other, in a way that made him look both happy and cross at the same time. And the eyes themselves were bigger than a Mordin’s beady ones, but just as black. Yet around that blackness was a startling ring of brightness—white? blue? silver?—that caught Horace’s gaze and held it fast.
“If you’ve gotten your fill, douse your light,” the stranger said.
Horace tucked his jithandra back into his shirt. “You’re Altari,” he said breathlessly.
“I am. I’m a Warden. My name is Dailen.”
“You’re a Warden?” Chloe asked incredulously.
“We’re Wardens too,” said Horace.
“I gathered,” said Dailen. “Where is the Laithe?”
“Joshua has it,” Horace said, confused. “He’s going. He’s going right now.” If Horace had his times right, the portal was now open. In another few seconds, Joshua would be following Brian and Mr. Meister back to the riverside cloister.
Dailen didn’t even ask what Horace meant by that. “You are not the Keeper of the Laithe?”
“What? No, I’m . . .” Horace lifted up his shirt, revealing the Fel’Daera at his side. Dailen looked puzzled, clearly not recognizing it. Horace, embarrassed, hardly knew what to say.
“It’s the Box of Promises,” Chloe said. “You know. Horace is the Keeper of the Fel’Daera.”
Now Dailen’s brows shot up high. His eyelids disappeared, his mesmerizing eyes growing round and wide.
“The Fel’Daera,” he whispered, and then his gaze grew sharp again. He leaned in close to Horace. “We must get you away. Come with me.”
“Not likely,” said Chloe.
Horace ignored her. “Come with you where?”
Just then, a crumpling tear crackled across the meadow, from up near the barn. Gabriel had taken the humour down. Two loud cries instantly sprang to life, laid bare now that the humour was gone. A long, wailing shriek that sounded like a Mordin in pain. And then an animal roar of anger that Horace knew in his bones was Dr. Jericho. This, he had no doubt, was the roar he’d witnessed through the box. The other Wardens were gone. The portal was closed.
“Gabriel and April are still up there,” Chloe said. “We need to help them.”
“There is no time,” Dailen said. “Come with me if you want to escape.”
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t want to escape. I want to help my friends. And I don’t even know who you are.”
Now there were shouts from up at the barn, the rasping calls of the Riven. There was a low clattering rumble, big as a train. Horace watched in horror as the second golem, unseen until now, rose out of the ruin of the barn. Gaunt shadows crept across the grass, at least a half dozen, and now some of them turned and headed into the meadow, coming this way.
“Chloe, come on,” Horace pleaded. “He’s Altari. He’s a Warden.”
Chloe gritted her teeth. “Fine,” she said. “But if we’re abandoning people, I’m not leaving them with two golems to fight.” The wings of the dragonfly became a blur, and she spun and sprinted back toward the silent pile of the fallen golem.
“What is she doing?” Dailen said sharply.
“What she always does,” said Horace, watching Chloe, his heart a hammer in his chest. Just as Chloe reached the pile, a Mordin leapt over the top of it, directly at her, arms outstretched like a great bat. She didn’t even flinch. The Mordin pounced on her, clutching at her uselessly. It passed right through her and rolled to a stop, scattering stones across the grass. Chloe vanished into the pile at a run, and the Mordin scrambled after her, digging out huge scoops of stones with his shovel-sized hands, like a badger trying to dig out a rabbit. Hardly thinking, Horace whipped the phalanx at it, releasing its power—a burst of light, and a soft thup!
Dailen cried out in surprise. The Mordin, crouched on its hands and knees like a nightmarishly giant cricket, wailed and arched its back as it was pinned in place. It flailed angrily, spitting out foul-sounding words.
Horace put the tip of the phalanx against the box again, drawing power for another shot. Meanwhile Dailen was already surging toward the pinned Mordin. With three great strides, he nearly covered the distance, just as another Mordin rounded the pile at a run. And then, so smoothly Horace didn’t really see how it happened, Dailen split again, his single tall form becoming two. One Dailen veered swiftly across the path of the running Mordin, luring it leftward, while the other leapt at the Mordin pinned beside the golem.
With an angry roar, the running Mordin swerved and lunged at the Dailen on the left. It tackled him, diving, but Dailen’s figure vanished, leaving the Mordin to tumble to the ground empty-handed. In the same instant, the other Dailen—the real Dailen?—landed hard, with both feet, on the back of the Mordin Horace had just pinned. There was a sickening, fleshy crunch as the Mordin was driven to the ground. It lay there motionless.
Chloe shot out of the pile, something wrapped in the hem of her shirt. The golem’s heart. She stopped when she saw Dailen standing atop the fallen Mordin. Her face wrinkled with distaste. The other Mordin, meanwhile, found its feet and began to charge. Horace fired the phalanx again, sure he would miss the moving target, but he got lucky. The Mordin slammed to a halt with a fierce grunt, head and limbs snapping forward violently, as if it had reached the end of an invisible chain anchored to its spine.
“No more bravery,” Dailen told Chloe. “Run.” And then he stepped off the fallen Mordin’s back—both to the left and the right, doubling again.
Chloe ran past him, racing to Horace’s side. He frowned down at the glint of scarlet peeking out of her bundled shirt. “I had to,” she said, seeing his expression. “The ring is coming back.”
The two Dailens looked back at them. “Run,” they said again, the word coming out of both mouths at once. “Now.”
No sooner had he spoken than the pile of the golem exploded, slick black stones showering into the air. For a moment, Horace thought it was destroying itself because Chloe had stolen its heart, but then a huge dark figure waded powerfully out of the heap, swinging its massive arms like wrecking balls, spraying stones in great black waves.
“No more!” the figure thundered. “Kal nadra!”
Dr. Jericho.
But this was Dr. Jericho as Horace had never seen him, darker and more horrifying by far. His mouth, always frightening, had become a terrifying shark’s mouth, wide and cruel and full of dagger-sharp teeth. Curls of smoke seemed to trail from his coal-black eyes. He wore no shirt or jacket, and bristling spines rose from his back like poisonous thorns. He stormed through what was left of the golem and stood heaving in front of the two Dailens, looming two or three feet taller than the Altari, and twice as broad. Horace’s chest wouldn’t loosen to let him breathe.
“Dak shinti Altari peshtu,” Dr. Jericho snarled at the two Dailens.
“Muk’levra gosht, Kesh’kiri,” the Dailens replied in unison. “Mikanti fro’da ji kota.” And then the Dailens leapt back, both mirrored figures in perfect harmony. But as they leapt, they each split again.
Four Dailens now stood in an arc around the raging Dr. Jericho, crouching warily just out of the Mordin’s reach. Which one was the real Dailen?
“Ta’lendra vox,” Dr. Jericho sang, swiveling his fearsome head on his long neck as the Dailens began to circle him, moving haphazardly this time instead of in unison. And now Horace had to blink—suddenly there were eight Dailens, spreading out around the fearsome Mordin.
“Akhentra!” Dr. Jericho spat, lashing out with heart-stopping speed at one of the Dailens. His great clawed hand raked across Dailen’s chest, and seemed for a split second to catch flesh, but the Dailen winked immediately out of existence.