The Portal and the Veil

by Ted Sanders

  “I’m sure you do, but be warned. The Find is always filled with despair, and the quick start you’ve been given likely means your finish line is all the more distant. You will encounter hours and days of deep misery and doubt—even long after such trials might seem behind you. And Dr. Jericho hopes that your desperation will lead you to consider paths you might otherwise ignore. Paths that you might, even now, insist you would never take.”

  “But I never would,” Joshua insisted.

  Maddeningly, Mr. Meister shrugged. “That is not for me to say. But I will say this—I have known true Lostlings, Joshua. Indeed, I played my own lamentable part in creating one, once.”

  “You . . . made a Lostling?”

  Mr. Meister waved his words away, his face cloudy. “A story for another time. The point is, I feel compelled to tell you: you are no Lostling.”

  Joshua wanted to believe it, but wasn’t sure he did. He wasn’t even sure Mr. Meister believed it. “How do you know?” he asked.

  “For one thing, you are far too curious.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Only the curious can make their way through the wilderness of the Find. Only the curious will reap the rewards of discovery. Only the curious ever fully embrace becoming Tan’ji.” He cocked his head, looking at Joshua suspiciously. “You are a curious man, are you not?”

  Joshua nodded, not even able to say yes. He nodded as hard as he could.

  “Then it does not matter that Isabel put the Laithe in your hands. What matters is that you must put your mind into the Laithe. Embrace your questions. Discover the answers. This is the fire within which the bond of Tan’ji is forged. And when that bond is true, you will discover that you can embrace your fears, and your doubts, rather than hiding from them in the shadows. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “I will not teach you to master the Laithe, but will answer questions you may have, if I can. Simple things.”

  Joshua was bursting with questions, but none of them had words. He looked at the Laithe, its moving clouds and ocean currents, its shining poles and rustling forests. He let the sight push aside thoughts of Lostlings, and the Riven, and days full of misery. “Just one question,” he said. “How does the Laithe . . . know?”

  Joshua wasn’t even sure the question made sense, but Mr. Meister chuckled gently. “I ask for simple and you give me back an ocean. Perhaps one day you will meet Sil’falo Teneves, and she can answer that question herself.” He bent forward, close to the floating Laithe, so close that his nose almost touched it. The shining globe threw sky light across his glasses, his wrinkled skin. “For now, remember this. The Laithe is alive, Joshua. Or at any rate, it is a living projection of the earth as we know it. As we walk it. As we breathe it. It has limitations, yes. Limitations that are yours to discover. But you must not imagine that those limitations lie within you.” He pressed a bony finger against Joshua’s chest.

  “Okay,” Joshua said. “I’ll try.”

  “Just so. Anything else?”

  “No. You can leave me alone now.”

  Mr. Meister got to his feet at once. He laid a friendly hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “Quite rude of you, Keeper. And quite proper.”

  Joshua nodded politely. “Thank you,” he said. It seemed like the only thing to say.

  “Experiment all you like. The Laithe is yours. But you must not pass through any portals you may open, under any circumstances. Are we agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Just saying it made Joshua feel older. Responsible.

  The old man went to the door. He paused, as if thinking. “One last thing, Keeper. Not a lesson, but a point of trivia that might intrigue you. When Horace came to our warehouse for his Find, just two months ago, we offered him the Laithe.”

  Joshua stopped breathing.

  Mr. Meister hummed, as if trying to remember. “He nearly chose it, I believe. He seemed quite interested in it.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Joshua managed to ask. His hands were fists.

  “Because of the only fact that ended up mattering.” Mr. Meister gazed down at the hanging, spinning globe. “The Laithe was not interested in him.”

  And then he flashed Joshua a quick smile, and left them there alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Up in the Air

  HORACE SLEPT. HE DREAMED OF THE FEL’DAERA.

  In his dream, the box was as big as a bed, and Horace lay down in it because the box had something to show him. It made him nervous, because he knew the box was meant to be empty—always empty—but the blue glass was cool and smooth and inviting. In his dream, Horace knew that if he fell asleep in the box he would wake up very small, and everyone would be able to crush him. People were already waiting to crush him, people as tall as trees—Dr. Jericho, Mr. Meister, a willowy figure that both was and was not Sil’falo Teneves. And so instead of sleeping in the box, he stayed awake and sat in it and drove it between the towering figures like a flying carpet, and everywhere he flew, great hands swatted at him but could not hit him. The box kept him safe.

  Meanwhile, far below through the glass bottom of the box, he could see a tiny blue earth. He drifted lower. He saw ocean, and cliffs, and island rocks covered in grass. He was sinking toward them, and he didn’t know why. He tried to cling to the box, but it had become small again, and as he sank he knew that although the box couldn’t carry him, it still meant to slow his fall, and that they must try to land on one of the soft islands on the little blue earth below, instead of the jagged rocks in the waves. But the box grew smaller and smaller. It became so small that he could barely grip it, until at last he hung by a single finger, and then that finger slipped—

  Horace woke up, half choking on a sucked-in breath. He rolled over, and the mossy ground beneath him rippled, cushioning him. But not the ground, no.

  He sat up. He was surrounded by nothing but pink early morning sky. He wasn’t falling, of course. He was on the mal’gama.

  Dailen sat a few feet away, watching him with those strangely ringed eyes. Chloe slept at Horace’s side, curled into a ball.

  “I trust you slept well, Keeper,” Dailen said. “I always sleep best aboard the mal’gama, even a thousand feet in the air.”

  A good sleep, yes, except for that dream. Horace rubbed his arms, trying to shed it. He looked for the sun, wondering how long he’d been out. But even without the sun, he knew the time—6:45 in the morning. He’d only been asleep for a couple of hours.

  Horace got up on his knees, the wind tugging at his hair. He could see the hazy horizon all around, far below. The sun was low to the east. He saw no recognizable markers—no Lake Michigan, no Chicago.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Nearly there,” said Dailen.

  “There,” Horace repeated. “You mean Ka’hoka?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re taking us after all.”

  “So it seems.” Dailen had explained very little before Horace passed out, exhausted, revealing only that the mysterious Ka’hoka—a place neither Horace nor Chloe had ever heard of before—was another sanctuary like the Warren. Dailen hadn’t been clear about just who or what that sanctuary held, but Horace gathered it was another stronghold of the Wardens. A group of Wardens somewhat different, he assumed, from the small, ragtag crew in Chicago.

  “You’re taking us to Ka’hoka even though I’m not supposed to exist,” said Horace.

  Dailen grimaced. “I should choose my words more carefully,” he said. “What matters is that you do exist. The Fel’Daera has taken a Keeper. I can think of worse surprises.”

  “Thanks, that’s . . . encouraging.”

  “Don’t take offense. It’s nothing to do with you.”

  “Is it because I’m human? Is that the problem?”

  Dailen’s perfect face spilt into a radiant smile. He laughed, a tinkling chorus. “You’ve been spending too much time with the Riven,” he said. “We Altari don’t second-guess the Fin
d, regardless of who it may come to.”

  “Then why were you so shocked when you saw the Fel’Daera?”

  Dailen didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was Horace’s turn to be surprised. “I’ve met your Chief Taxonomer,” the Altari said.

  “Mr. Meister?”

  “Yes. He strikes me as a man who chooses his words very carefully.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “And do you admire that about him?”

  Horace wasn’t sure how to answer. It seemed to him that Mr. Meister’s job required a certain amount of caution—a large amount, to be fair—but it was hard not to resent certain secrets the old man had kept. Certain very big secrets, especially. “I’d rather know things than not know them,” he said. “Even if knowing is hard.”

  Dailen’s eyes seemed to glow. “Good,” he said. “Then you should be aware your arrival at Ka’hoka will be . . . tumultuous.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know the name Sil’falo Teneves.”

  Horace caught his breath. “She made the Fel’Daera. And the Laithe. She was the Keeper of the Starlit Loom.”

  “She is the Keeper,” Dailen corrected.

  “Wait . . . the Loom still exists?” Horace asked.

  “Yes. As does Falo herself. And like all Makers, she has a bond with every instrument she’s created. The bond isn’t as strong as the bond of Tan’ji, but we like to say the bond of the Maker is lavro’dorval—the first bond and the last. It endures.”

  Horace couldn’t help reaching out for the Fel’Daera in his mind, wondering if he could somehow feel the presence of Sil’falo Teneves there. He felt nothing . . . not that he knew how he would know. “What kind of bond is it?”

  “Nothing you can feel. Or at least, nothing you would not have always felt. What matters in your case is that a Maker always knows when one of his or her creations has been Found.”

  “But that means . . . you’re saying Falo knows I have the box.” Horace felt suddenly naked. Like he was on a stage in front of an audience he had only just discovered. Could Falo feel him using the box? Feel his mistakes? He cringed at the thought.

  “Falo certainly must know that someone possesses the Fel’Daera,” said Dailen. “Just like she also knew last night that the Laithe had been . . .” His face went sour as he searched for a word, and then he shrugged, clearly looking for Horace to fill in the blanks.

  “A boy named Joshua has the Laithe, but he didn’t go through the Find,” Horace said. “It was given to him.”

  “That explains it,” Dailen said, his face growing even more sour. “Falo knew something was wrong and sent me to investigate. But instead I found you.”

  “And I was a surprise,” said Horace. “Not the worst surprise you can think of, but not the best either.”

  Dailen ran three long fingers thoughtfully through the mal’gama. The stones flowed around them like obedient fish. “I don’t know about good or bad,” he said. “All I know is that Falo lied to me. She lied to all of us.”

  “Lied to you how?”

  “There’s no easy way to say this. To you, of all people.”

  “Then say it the hard way,” Horace said, pushing a strength into his voice that he didn’t feel at all.

  Dailen cleared his throat, a melodic little drumroll. “Falo told us—she assured us—that the Fel’Daera had been destroyed.”

  Horace closed his eyes. The mal’gama rippled almost imperceptibly beneath him, coasting over the steady winds. The Fel’Daera, destroyed. An almost unthinkable thought. And that word—“assured.” Dailen made it sound like the destruction of the Fel’Daera had been a desired thing. Horace felt suddenly, horribly alone.

  He reached down and grasped Chloe’s shoulder. Dailen watched in silence. “Hey,” Horace said. “Wake up.”

  “Slumberbum,” she mumbled.

  “That’s not a word,” said Horace. “Wake up. I need you.”

  She opened her eyes. “What’s happening?”

  “I need you to hear. I need you to talk.”

  Chloe struggled to sit up. A splotchy red imprint of the mal’gama’s stones had branded her cheek. She tugged gruesomely at the corners of her eyes, looking around. “You okay? Where are we?”

  “Sky,” said Horace impatiently. “Listen, Dailen and I have been talking. Sil’falo Teneves has been spreading the story that the Fel’Daera was . . . destroyed. And I get the sense . . .” He stopped, swallowing away a sudden hitch in his chest. “I get the sense it was generally considered good news.”

  Chloe frowned. “Why would she say that?” When Horace didn’t—couldn’t—answer, she turned to Dailen. “Why would that be good news?”

  Dailen wrapped his arms around his long legs, looking sheepish. His head sat literally between his knees. “The Fel’Daera was created for a singular purpose. If it is not being used for that purpose—or so the reasoning goes—it has no reason to exist.”

  Horace looked away, but strained to hear every word. Chloe, perfect Chloe, asked the question he would have asked if he could have.

  “And what is that singular purpose?”

  “To help safeguard the Starlit Loom. The Fel’Daera was meant to always stay by the Loom’s side. But when Falo last returned to Ka’hoka with the Loom, the Fel’Daera wasn’t with her. She said it had been destroyed.”

  “Obviously, she lied,” said Chloe. “And not only was the box not destroyed, but Falo actually left it with Mr. Meister. So he could find a new Keeper for it.”

  “As has come to pass,” said Dailen, his eyes dropping again to Horace’s side. He didn’t look angry, or frightened. He looked disappointed. But in Horace, or something else? “We knew that Falo left the Laithe with Mr. Meister. But not the Fel’Daera.”

  “You sound pretty bummed about it,” Chloe said. “What’s the big deal? Why would it be good news if the Fel’Daera were destroyed?”

  Horace looked at Dailen now, feeling as if he stood on the edge of a cliff, as if the mal’gama might open up beneath him and let him plummet to the earth below. There were answers to this question; he knew it in his bones. Answers that weren’t wrong. He suddenly thought he might vomit.

  Dailen, grimacing reluctantly, took a long time answering. “No doubt you’ll hear the arguments when we reach Ka’hoka. You must understand that for some among the Altari, Falo is our Oppenheimer.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Horace rocked himself back and forth. “He was the father of the nuclear bomb,” he muttered.

  “That’s insane,” said Chloe. “The box is a time machine, not a bomb.”

  “I don’t wish to debate the point,” Dailen said. “Falo is my friend. But just to make the thinking clear, imagine for a moment that the Riven got hold of the box. What might they be able to achieve, once they know what the future holds? For instance, would we have made it out of the meadow last night if some box-wielding Riven with the proper talent had seen our escape in advance?”

  “But they won’t get the box,” Chloe said stubbornly. “Ever.”

  Dailen raised his thin, graceful eyebrows. “Truly?” he said, and turned to Horace. “Is that what the future tells you?”

  Horace, awash with shuddering emotion, hated and believed every word the Altari spoke. The truth was, the Riven had nearly stolen the box. On one occasion, in fact, Dr. Jericho had actually taken it from Horace, and only the Mordin’s arrogance had allowed the Wardens to prevail, saving the Fel’Daera.

  Or no.

  Not quite right.

  It was only because of the future the Fel’Daera revealed that Horace had brought the box to Dr. Jericho in the first place. The box was never in any danger that Horace himself had not foreseen, and permitted. He had witnessed the future and then walked the willed path, the path upon which the box was lost . . . and then found.

  He straightened and looked Dailen in the eye. “If the box is as powerful as you’re suggesting,” said Horace, “I won’t lose it.”

&
nbsp; Dailen studied him for ten long seconds, nodding almost imperceptibly. “How skilled are you?” he said at last.

  “Compared to what?”

  Abruptly, the mal’gama began to slow. Horace and Chloe braced themselves, trying not to topple over. The mal’gama came to a complete halt, suspended in the air. Dailen stood up, towering above them. He backed away. Beneath them, the mal’gama began to shift. The protective cone at the front dismantled itself and the floor slid and spread. It rolled beneath them like a tide of fuzzy marbles. Soon Horace and Chloe were seated in the middle of a green circle with no walls, fifty feet across, surrounded by nothing but pink-blue sky overhead and the perfect hazy circle of the horizon all around.

  “Stand,” said Dailen.

  Horace stood, getting it at once. He was ready. He pulled the Fel’Daera from its pouch.

  “Have you mastered the breach?” asked Dailen.

  The question surprised Horace, but he didn’t let it show. Falo must have been a good friend indeed to have shared a detail like that with Dailen. “I have,” Horace said.

  “Six seconds?”

  Six seconds was at the lower limit of what Horace had managed with the breach. He’d never gone below four. He nodded, and took hold of the silver sun with his mind. He found the opening of the breach quickly, and began to close it with the newfound ease his mother’s tuning had provided. From nine minutes and forty-four seconds, he effortlessly shrank the opening down to six seconds exactly, and pinned it in place.

  “Done,” he said.

  If Dailen was impressed, he didn’t show it. “Now me,” he said, his curious eyes glowing. He split in two—a second Dailen splitting off from the first, the new one beginning to trot in a circle around Horace and Chloe. As he moved, the running Dailen split again, leaving another stationary Dailen behind. Again and again he split, a new Dailen springing into existence every thirty degrees or so. At last, twelve Dailens stood there, forming a complete ring around them.

  “You know I’d never give up the Alvalaithen,” Chloe murmured to Horace. “But if I had to trade . . .”