The Portal and the Veil

by Ted Sanders

  “It’s been hours. A few, anyway.”

  “If the Riven were in your house, no leestone could make them forget it so soon,” Isabel said.

  April wished the humour was down, so that she could have served Isabel with her most skeptical stare. “I want you to ask yourself if you’re really somebody we’d trust with a judgment like that,” she said. “You’re the one that sent the Riven there in the first place.”

  “You think you know me,” Isabel said, her voice strained.

  “I really don’t,” said April. “That’s the problem.”

  “I saved you. You said it yourself.”

  “From yet another danger that you yourself caused. And anyway, you said you were only doing what Mr. Meister told you to do. Maybe you hope he has a stronger harp back at the Warren for you—one he’s set aside especially for his most obedient pets.” April bit her lip, almost embarrassed to be talking like this. She sounded just like Chloe. It must be rubbing off.

  “None of this is helping,” Gabriel said. “Either we try the house, or we need to leave this place entirely. But I can’t go far, not yet. I’ve asked the humour to do a lot of things tonight it doesn’t normally do—keeping the humour small, thinning it out, silencing Ingrid’s flute. Exhausting things. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep us hidden.”

  “I vote we stay in the open,” Isabel said at once.

  That made April want to argue for the house, but she checked herself. Was she being sensible, or just acting out her annoyance with Isabel? Was it smart to return to the house?

  “I vote . . . house,” she said slowly. “Even if the leestone isn’t totally working yet, maybe the house is actually the last place the Riven would look for us.” This, even as she said it, struck her as the kind of thing people in movies said, right before the bad guys caught them. The truth was, she had no idea what to do. “Or maybe it’s the first place they’d look, I don’t know.”

  “The house,” Gabriel said firmly. “I can bury the entire thing in the humour if I need to.”

  April nodded. “This way, then,” she said. “Are you coming, Isabel?”

  Silence for a moment, and then Isabel said, “I have no choice.”

  April led the way. Baron, still standing patiently just outside the humour, jumped a little as the humour began to move. He could see the wrinkle of it, and though he didn’t understand what was happening, he could smell April and the others on the ground after they passed by. April wasn’t sure what he would do—whether she would have to step out of the humour and call to him, or grab him—but after snuffling along their trail for a few seconds, he settled into an easy lope beside the humour, seeming to know where they were headed. He glanced nervously over at the meadow across the creek now and again, where the Riven still roamed, but for the most part his thoughts were simple and clear. Home. April. Happy. These weren’t words, of course—never words—but abstract ideas that April’s mind translated into words. His idea of April, for example, was rich and complicated, made of a dozen tiny little parts that each had their own little translation: girl, sweat, dirt, spice, hair, flower, food, touch, peace, breath, friend. She let herself swim in the feel of it as they walked, feeling both more and less like herself than she ever could without him.

  After they had gone a few hundred yards, Gabriel’s deep, tired voice rolled through the humour. “I’m spent. Are we clear?”

  April tested the air outside. The brimstone stink was faint and distant. And they were nearly to the woods that cut through to her backyard. “It’s fine,” she said, and Gabriel brought the humour down slowly—slower than she’d known he could—with just a soft, rippling sound. The older teen stood there, sagging, leaning on his staff.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine. like I said, I just . . . exercised some muscles I didn’t know I had.”

  “It was the thinning, wasn’t it?” She’d helped him practice, back at the Warren. But apparently it was exhausting.

  “I’ll get better.”

  “You will.”

  Baron was already loping into the woods toward the house, along a game trail they’d walked a thousand times. April followed, the others in tow. When she emerged on the far side, at the edge of her yard, she was swamped with a wash of sadness she wasn’t expecting. Just hours before, she’d been here in the yard with her brother, Derek, showing him the astonishing power of the Ravenvine, and trying to explain the unexplainable world of the Keepers. And now Derek and her uncle Harrison were gone, run from this place by the Riven. She could hardly imagine that Derek was sleeping right now. He was no doubt lying awake in some strange room, worrying himself half to death about April.

  “Are we changing our minds?” Isabel said.

  April startled. “I’m not. Let’s go.”

  They crossed the lawn to the back porch. Baron stopped to drink noisily at his water dish—his tongue darting messily into the bowl, his jaws snapping frantically around the airborne water he drew out. It was distinctly distracting. April let him slip from her mind and crept through the backdoor of the house.

  The lights were still on. The house smelled faintly of brimstone. Otherwise everything seemed normal. As she came through the hallway into the foyer, she noticed that the front door was open. Two sets of huge scratches were gouged into the wood on either side of the doorframe, as if a Mordin had been clinging to it for dear life. She slammed the door shut and ran upstairs to her bedroom.

  The leestone was still there atop her bookshelf, a green stone laced with gold, carved into a raven’s skull. It was quite lovely if you didn’t mind skulls, which naturally she didn’t. She took it down now and hid it under her pillow. She didn’t quite know why.

  As she came back downstairs, Uncle Harrison’s grandfather clock began to strike four a.m. April was stunned that so much had happened in so little time—barely twenty minutes had passed since she’d come through the falkretes! It felt like hours.

  Isabel was peering at the clock, and April noticed that the clock’s glass face was cracked. Now she saw other signs of the earlier battle, too—a couple of chairs knocked over in the dining room, the china hutch leaning precariously into the corner. Most disturbing of all, though, was the wide, still-sticky patch of black-red blood on the parlor floor. It smelled foul—not human. Within that patch, two strange sights: the fireplace tongs and the poker, sticking straight out of the floor, embedded like sticks stuck in snow. April grabbed the poker, tugging at it experimentally. It didn’t budge, buried at least a foot deep.

  “Looks like Chloe was here,” she said.

  Isabel frowned. “How long do we have to wait here?”

  April, annoyed, sprawled comfortably out onto the couch like she’d just gotten home from school. She rolled her eyes up to look at Isabel upside down. “We’re not waiting. We’re resting. We’re thinking.” None of that was strictly true, of course. They were hiding. And what came next, she hardly knew.

  Gabriel took a seat in Uncle Harrison’s fat rocking chair. He tapped his staff against the fireplace poker. It twanged dully. Isabel turned away. She glanced up the stairs for a moment, making April tense, but then she wandered into the kitchen, hugging herself.

  “I’m feeling sort of rejected,” April said.

  “By Isabel?” Gabriel said, not even bothering to lower his voice.

  “Okay, you’re making jokes now. You must be tired. But no.” She wiggled a rising hand through the air. “By Horace and Chloe, flying off with the shiny Riven, leaving us behind.”

  “The Altari,” Gabriel corrected. “And they had no choice. Dr. Jericho nearly caught them as it was.”

  April glanced at the gouges on the front door. “I know. I’m not bitter. I just got a little . . . melancholy.”

  “Melancholy,” Gabriel said with a laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “When I first became the Keeper of the Staff of Obro, that was the name used for the humour. The melancholy.”

  She flopped over t
o look at him. In the little time she’d spent with Gabriel, he hadn’t been much of a sharer. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. I hated the word. It comes from the Latin. It means ‘black bile.’ Something that causes depression.”

  “Well, it is kind of rough in there. For us, I mean.”

  “I am aware. But it didn’t seem necessary to draw attention to the fact. I started calling it the humour instead. The name stuck.”

  “Wow. You rebranded your Tan’ji.”

  Gabriel looked puzzled. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Humour is much better.” She sighed. “But here’s the other thing, maybe the real thing. Horace let us all think we were going to get away through the portal tonight.”

  Gabriel banged the poker again, softly. Twang, twang, twang. “It’s not easy being a Keeper. Least of all, I think, the Keeper of the Fel’Daera. He can’t tell us everything—shouldn’t tell us.”

  April had no doubt that was true. And she wasn’t mad at Horace, not exactly. It seemed to her that there was something dishonest in what had happened, something sort of cruel about witnessing another person’s future and then lying about it—even if it was a lie by omission. Still, she asked herself what she would have done if Horace had told them all the truth, and she knew—without question—that she would have come anyway. And maybe, in his own wise way, Horace had known that too. About all of them.

  April looked up at the ceiling, at the cobwebbed corners and the cracks around the ceiling fan. She ran her finger around the golden curves of the Ravenvine, down the little black flower that dangled in front of her ear. “I am happy with who I am,” she said. “I mean, I’ve been chased out of my home, and there’s a pool of Mordin blood on my parlor floor, but I am generally happy with who I am. I’m the Keeper of the Ravenvine.”

  Gabriel grunted noncommittally. She didn’t really want to ask him what he meant by that.

  Isabel came back into the room, fiddling mindlessly with the little white harp. April thought she might apologize for the house, for what had happened here, but instead she said, “What would the Altari want with a person like Chloe? What would they do to her?”

  “You don’t need to worry,” Gabriel said. “She’ll come to no harm.”

  April sat up. “Okay, explain, please. Who are these Altari?”

  Another twang on the poker. “The Altari are the Makers,” said Gabriel. “They are the ones who first made the Tanu, who made nearly all of the instruments we still use today.”

  “But . . . Brian is a Maker, isn’t he? And he’s human.”

  “Brian is an anomaly. The Altari are the true Makers.”

  “And they just happen to sound exactly like the Riven when they talk,” April said.

  “That’s what the Wardens don’t want to tell you,” said Isabel. “They’re embarrassed to admit it. The Riven and the Altari—they’re the same, down deep.”

  “They are not the same,” Gabriel said.

  “Two twigs on the same branch,” Isabel insisted.

  April held up her hands. “You’re saying these Altari are related to the Riven?”

  “They are the progenitors of the Riven,” Gabriel said. “The ancestors. The Riven broke ties with the Altari millennia ago. They became twisted, lost in shadow. They became the dark things we fight to this day.”

  “Why did they break ties?”

  “Because of us,” Isabel said. “Because of you.”

  “It’s true,” said Gabriel. “Long ago, the most powerful Altari were friendly with humans. They shared their creations with us. They embraced those few rare humans that could become Tan’ji. But most Altari did not feel this way. They separated from the elite, renaming themselves the Riven. They dedicated themselves to hunting down human Keepers and waging war with their Altari brethren. The Altari, outnumbered, retreated into secrecy, almost completely severing their ties with humans.”

  “In other words,” said Isabel, “the Altari left them—left you—alone to wage the war against the Riven. Just like they’ve left you now.”

  Gabriel said nothing. April tried to get a grasp on it. “The Altari helped Horace and Chloe tonight. Maybe they’ll come back for us.”

  “It is . . . unlikely,” Gabriel said. “Isabel is right—the Altari do not often choose to meddle.”

  “But they did meddle,” April pointed out. “What were they even doing here?”

  “They came looking for something,” said Isabel. “They must have found it.”

  “I do not think so,” said Gabriel. “There are no Altari strongholds within two hundred miles of this place. Even with the mal’gama, it would have taken hours to get here. What they sought was here in this place long before Horace and Chloe arrived.”

  Isabel shifted uneasily, and suddenly April knew. “Joshua,” she said.

  “Possibly,” Gabriel said, and then shrugged. “Probably.” He cocked his head in Isabel’s direction. “What was done to him tonight . . . might have caught their attention. He is a Lostling.”

  “He’s no such thing,” Isabel said. “He’s the rightful Keeper of the Laithe.”

  “And yet he did not claim that right on his own. The Laithe did not choose him.” Gabriel pointed his staff at Isabel like a spear. His voice grew hard. “The choice, and the claim, were made by you.”

  Isabel spun and stalked out the front door, all but stomping her feet. She slammed the door shut behind her.

  Gabriel lowered his staff calmly. “How deep is your distrust of Isabel?” he said quietly.

  “Pretty deep at the moment. Like, she’s at the bottom of my list—of humans, anyway.”

  “Should we have left her to the Riven, then?”

  April hesitated. With all Isabel had done, all the danger and damage she’d created, still it was hard not to imagine—even to wish—that there was a corner just ahead for Isabel. A corner she might turn, and somehow set everything right for herself. And for her family, too. “If I were on a sinking ship with her,” April said finally, “I wouldn’t want the sharks to eat her. But I wouldn’t give it much thought if she just drifted away.”

  Gabriel nodded as if he understood perfectly. “I brought her here for a reason.”

  “Here to the house?”

  “Yes. Out in the open, I suspect she could have called the Riven down on us if she wanted, with that little harp of hers. Here, I think the leestone would stop her.”

  “Do you really think she would do that?”

  “Do you think she would not? Her only allegiance is to herself. At any rate, it seemed to me that either we had to bring her here, or abandon her altogether.”

  “And you couldn’t abandon her. Couldn’t throw her to the sharks,” April said.

  “Oh, I could have. But I didn’t think you could.”

  April didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t even know if it was a compliment or an insult. “Where did she get that new harp, anyway?” she asked. “She said Mr. Meister brought it to her.”

  Gabriel nodded. “He did. After Horace reported that the wicker harp had been destroyed, Mr. Meister found that harp in one of his vest pockets—in the Great Burrow, actually. He took it, came through the falkretes, and gave it to Isabel in the humour. That’s why he showed up late.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “The new harp did help us tonight,” Gabriel said, and shrugged. “Any port in a storm—that’s what Mr. Meister would say.”

  “But what would you say?”

  “He wanted to demonstrate that he still has a little faith in her.”

  “How could he possibly still—”

  Gabriel held up a hand. He cocked his head, seeming to listen at the front door. “Mr. Meister is a complicated man with a complicated job,” he said quietly. “He and I do not always agree, but that does not mean he does not have his reasons.”

  Faith in Isabel. It seemed dangerously mad. Still, the woman had saved her from Dr. Jericho and the Auditor. And as for Mr
. Meister, there was no question that disagreeing with the man wasn’t an easy proposition. Even when his rationales were lacking, he managed to make it seem like he had secret motivations—perfect motivations—that he simply wasn’t willing to share. She lay silent for a moment, mulling it over, trying to push Isabel from her mind.

  “You were arguing with Mr. Meister in the Warren,” she said to Gabriel. “About Joshua.”

  Gabriel frowned. He didn’t seem to appreciate the reminder. “Briefly. I understand his position.”

  “You called Joshua a Lostling. I’m guessing that’s someone who didn’t go through the Find. But what’s the big deal? He’s clearly the Keeper of the Laithe.”

  Gabriel leaned back, his ghostly blue eyes drifting toward the ceiling in thought. He laid his staff across his broad chest. “I’m a traditionalist, and I freely confess that some of my thoughts on this matter might be considered . . .” He searched for a word.

  “Stubborn,” April finished.

  Gabriel smiled. “Yes.”

  “People say the same about me sometimes. I refuse to agree.”

  His smile became a soft laugh. “Joshua is the Keeper of the Laithe. I do not deny it. He opened a portal in the humour, blind. It was impressive. But because he did not have a proper Find, the bond of Tan’ji is tainted.”

  Isabel again. “Tainted how?” April asked. “He’s using the Laithe. It’s working for him.”

  “To a degree, but the Laithe’s powers have been handed to him, rather than being discovered by him. He’s only parroting what he’s been taught. He may be slow to master his Tan’ji—if he ever masters it at all. He has sprinted forward, yes, but the ground is turning to mud beneath his feet. The next steps will be difficult.”

  “Difficult. But not impossible.”

  “No.”

  April frowned. “Then what’s all the fuss about?”

  Gabriel thinned his lips and shifted, clearly unsettled.

  “There’s more,” April said. When Gabriel hesitated, she pressed. “Tell me the more.”

  “It’s not easy to explain,” Gabriel sighed. “To be Tan’ji is to surrender. During the Find, we give ourselves to our instruments. Wholly. Unconditionally. You may have felt this change in yourself less than others do—being an empath, you are naturally more . . . connected. To everything. Bonds come easily to you.”