by Ted Sanders
“Sleeping. I told you. She is well, but it’ll be another day before she is . . . herself.”
“And what about Ingrid?”
“Ingrid will be busy tonight, introducing us to her old home. The Warren is full of secrets, you know. And Ingrid has the answers.”
“The guard said you wanted to know when I was awake. Was it so you could bring me breakfast in bed?”
Dr. Jericho smiled. “It’s nearly evening. This is dinner.” His smile widened. “You seem . . . different tonight. Bad dreams?”
Joshua dropped his eyes, concentrating on the orange. It was sour. He poked the Laithe gently. It drifted a few feet away, then circled back round toward him. “I know you’re letting me keep the Laithe so I’ll start trusting you,” he said.
“Is it working?”
“Not likely. It just confuses me.”
“The feeling is mutual, then. You are a confusing child.” Dr. Jericho studied Joshua for a moment and then said, “You were a Lostling when we first met. I thought I could help you master the Laithe, even though the Laithe was thrust into your hands instead of allowing itself to be Found.” He shook his head. “But you do not need my help. The way you opened the portal last night, so swiftly, allowing the Taxonomer to escape. Perhaps it was the great need of the moment, as you saw it. Perhaps your petty doubts were crushed by fear. Either way, it is clear—you are no Lostling. Not anymore.”
Joshua tried not to be pleased. It wasn’t easy, because he knew the Mordin wasn’t lying, for once. He knew it with a bone-thickening sureness. He had found the meadow in Ka’hoka and opened the portal to it in . . . what? Three seconds? And with nothing but the power of his mind. It was a far cry from the first time he’d opened a portal, when he’d had to spin the meridian by hand.
“You want something from me,” Joshua said. “Something about the Altari, and the Mothergates.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t like you.”
Dr. Jericho laughed, a rain of tinkling glass. “How is that relevant?” he asked. “I don’t particularly like you, either. It does not matter whether we like each other or not. What matters is that we share a common goal.” He beamed down at Joshua. “We want to live.” Now he leaned in close, bending like a snake. “Don’t you want to live, Joshua?”
Joshua didn’t answer. Of course he wanted to live.
“Yes,” Dr. Jericho said, straightening. “You do. Life is good. And how strange to think—if the Mothergates had died even a week ago, you would have felt nothing. A bit of sadness, perhaps. You were not yet a Keeper, not yet through the Find. But now—thanks to Isabel—you are Tan’ji. Now your very survival depends upon the continued existence of the Mothergates.”
Joshua reached out and cupped the floating Laithe with his palm. The world in his hand, a map and a doorway to anywhere. Everywhere. Would he go back and surrender it, if he could? Would he erase this incredible thing, this sense of belonging—of being?
He didn’t know. And not knowing scared him.
“Why are the Mothergates dying?” Joshua asked.
“Neglect,” Dr. Jericho said bitterly. “Misguided faith. The Altari believe the Mothergates’ sickness must run its course, come what may. But tell me, Joshua, if a loved one was ill, would you not want to cure them?”
“Yes,” said Joshua.
“Of course you would. It is strange, then, what the Altari do—what they do not do.” He shook his head sadly. “Therefore we must do it for them.”
“You mean Isabel must do it.”
“Yes. She is our only hope. A lucky find. A lucky day, and just in the nick of time.”
“You hurt her. She was—” Joshua stopped himself. Had she been screaming?
“Surely you too have been hurt, one way or another, attempting to master the Laithe? No greatness comes without some form of agony.” Dr. Jericho uncrossed and recrossed his long legs, like some huge and gruesome cricket. “Yes, I want something from you, Joshua. We need you. We need the Laithe. Isabel cannot cure the Mothergates without your help.”
“I don’t have anything to do with that.”
“You do. Before the Mothergates can be fixed, they must be found. Isabel knows where they are, but getting there is another matter. They are scattered around the globe. Our time is short, and we must move fast. And no one can move faster than the Keeper of the Laithe.”
“But I’m a Warden,” Joshua said, not really sure it was true, trying out the sound of it in his mouth. “And you’re a Riven.”
“Enemies, on the face of it,” Dr. Jericho agreed. “But we have a saying, we Riven: ‘Two sticks at war may yet feed the same fire.’ It means we will work with our enemies when the situation demands it. But if our enemies refuse . . . ?”
Dr. Jericho lifted his head to the open doorway and barked out a command. Joshua heard nothing, but after a moment a faint green light began to dance along the walls of the tunnel outside. The light grew stronger, and now footsteps slid heavily closer. Closer still. The sulfur stink of the Riven grew painfully sharp. The green light brightened, dazzling. A shadow moved within it.
And then a great hound filled the doorway, as big as a bear. Joshua reared back, clutching the Laithe. But it wasn’t a hound, really—it was some horrible form of Riven, walking on all fours, with bulging eyes and a crooked neck. It stank of brimstone. The creature was bent painfully beneath a huge metal cauldron half-buried in the flesh between its shoulders, shaped like a twisted, grasping hand. This was the source of the green light, which burst forth from a brilliant carved flame inside. Or was it a flame? It didn’t flicker, didn’t sway, but seemed made of nothing but light and heat. And the light . . . it beckoned faintly to Joshua, inviting him. He refused to move.
Dr. Jericho was studying Joshua’s face closely. “What do you see?” he asked, almost eagerly.
“I see . . . a beast, carrying a green flame.” The creature shifted, took a step into the room. It bared a row of large, sharp teeth. Its fingers, adorned with long, thick claws, dug at the floor. The green light it spilled was like an ocean, warm and familiar.
“Behold the Kolfirin,” Dr. Jericho said. “He carries the crucible. Does the crucible’s light not call to you?”
It did. And it made Joshua feel slightly dizzy, but also . . . special. Privileged to see this thing, to know this light. He tried to shake the thought away. “It does. Sort of. But . . . I’m not going any closer.”
Dr. Jericho leaned back smiling, as if greatly satisfied. “Nor am I.” Dr. Jericho waved his hand. The Kolfirin growled, lowering its thick, flat head. Joshua stiffened. But then the beast backed out of the room, leaving them, its heavy feet dragging through the tunnel, taking the green light with it. Joshua’s head cleared.
“The Kolfirin is a useful annoyance,” Dr. Jericho said. “But it won’t be useful with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have already decided you will help us.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“If you truly wanted to resist us, you would not even have been able to speak in the light of the crucible. For ourselves, and for our friends and allies, the crucible’s light is a beacon of fellowship and mutual protection. But for those who resist us, it is a bond of an altogether different sort. Our enemies are compelled by the light, drawn closer and rendered . . . harmless.”
“I’m not harmless,” Joshua said, trying to sound brave. He didn’t think Dr. Jericho was telling him the entire truth about what the crucible did to the Riven’s enemies, but whatever it truly was . . . it hadn’t happened to him. The thought made him sick. Had he already decided he would help?
“No indeed, not harmless,” Dr. Jericho said. “Nor are you spineless. When we took the Warren, you stayed behind instead of escaping with your friends. Last night, you allowed Mr. Meister to escape, but again did not follow him. When young Chloe showed up, she asked you to open a portal, but you refused.”
“I wasn’t refusing,” Joshua said. “I just . . .�
��
“Didn’t,” Dr. Jericho finished.
Joshua realized he was breathing hard. He watched the Laithe spinning slowly beside him, swirls of white cloud drifting over the Atlantic like cotton candy, quilts of light sparkling atop the blue water. It wasn’t right, everything Dr. Jericho was saying. Joshua didn’t think he belonged with the Wardens, that was the problem. He didn’t think he deserved them.
But then again, they had lied to him.
“Tell me why the Altari think the Mothergates have to die,” he said.
“Why should I tell you a fairy tale, when—”
“Because it’s a fairy tale my friends believe in,” Joshua said. “My real friends.”
Dr. Jericho sighed. He considered the Laithe for a long moment and then spread his arms in resignation. “Very well. Your . . . friends . . . believe that our Tan’ji are poisoned. That all the Tanu are twisted, the Medium itself a river of corruption. They believe this poison flows from our instruments and into the very fabric of the universe itself.” He pressed his ten fingertips into his own chest, indignant. “They believe that we Keepers, by the very act of using the powers our Tan’ji grant us, are bringing about the end of the universe.” He looked at the Laithe again, cupping his great hands toward it as if it were a baby, a flower, a pure and precious thing. “This magnificent creation—your Tan’ji! Poison? Evil? A claw through the heart of the universe itself?” He shook his head sadly. “I do not believe it. I believe the Mothergates are sick, yes. I believe the Altari have witnessed this sickness, and in their foolish pride, blamed themselves. They believe they are the cancer, and that death is the cure. But death is no cure.” He raised a long arm and pointed it out the doorway. “The cure lies just down the hallway, sleeping. And when she awakes? She will fix us all.”
Joshua listened to every word. He really did. And what now to believe? None of the Wardens had ever told him not to use the Laithe. Nobody had ever said anything about poison. But even if Dr. Jericho’s version of the story were half true . . . it made no sense that the Mothergates couldn’t be fixed. It made no sense that the Laithe had to die. Not this perfect thing. And he had only just begun.
“Isabel can fix it?” he asked softly.
“If you take her where she needs to go, yes.”
“And when she wakes up, we’ll start? We’ll see if she can do it?”
“We will see. You will see.”
Joshua felt sick and giddy, the brimstone still biting at his nose. “You can’t hurt my friends. I mean it.”
Dr. Jericho leaned back, frowning like he was deeply offended. “On the contrary. I am trying to save your friends.”
Joshua nodded. Isabel was strong. Isabel was smart. Maybe she knew things no one else knew, even the fabled Sil’falo Teneves.
“Then let’s save them,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
What Could Have Been Known
SANGUINE HALL WAS EMPTY. HORACE DIDN’T KNOW IF THAT WAS a good sign or bad.
Dailen had warned them that there would likely be guards here at the rear entrance to the Warren, the very path the Riven had taken when they had invaded two nights before. Here at the far end, the wall was in ruins where the golem had torn it apart to let the Riven inside, a frightening display of power. But now there were no guards, and Dailen wasn’t even here to discover that he’d been wrong.
The Altari was outside, just the one of him, waiting with the mal’gama in one of the Wardens’ cloisters. The cloisters, secret walled-off spaces scattered throughout the city, had doorways that led into the tunnels underground—tunnels that, in this case, fed eventually into Sanguine Hall.
Horace had walked the route only once before, and April never, but Gabriel obviously knew it well. He led them surely through the passages—the sewers and the old freight tunnels, relying on the thin, unseen layer of the humour leaking from the tip of the Staff of Obro. It was just the three of them. Unlike the rescue attempt at the pit, the mission to return to the Warren and recover the astrolabe was all about stealth.
Falo had forbidden Chloe to come, and Horace was worried that his friend hadn’t put up more of a fight. He suspected that Chloe’s miracle with the mal’gama had taken more out of her than anyone knew. Gabriel was an obvious choice to come instead, and Horace all but had to come—he carried the blue jithandra whose light would reveal the door to the hall of kairotics, where the astrolabe would be found.
As for April, her powers complemented Gabriel’s beautifully. With the Ravenvine, she had the unique ability to see and hear what was going on outside the humour, even while she was buried blind and deaf inside it with everyone else, undetectable. The problem was, she could only do that if there were animals outside for her to listen to. And there would be no animals in the Warren. Not even bugs. Bringing Arthur the raven had been out of the question, given that they were traveling by mal’gama. She wasn’t willing to cage him for the three-hour trip, and he couldn’t hope to keep up with the mal’gama on his own, even if he wanted to.
And so instead, after they’d risen through the horrible Nevren called Goth en’Sethra, leaving the deep halls of Ka’hoka behind for the evening meadows and ancient hills of the Cahokia Mounds above, Horace, Dailen, and Gabriel had witnessed a bizarre sight. April on her knees, jar in hand, combing the twilight grass.
Capturing crickets.
“Explain it to me again,” said Dailen, watching her. “The bugs speak to you?”
“Not exactly,” said April patiently. Dailen was one of Horace’s favorites, thoughtful and decisive, but today Dailen was having trouble with his memory—he’d lost two variants in the battle the night before, and hadn’t yet recovered. April said, “I can see what they’re seeing, hear what they’re hearing. Crickets have excellent hearing, but it’s a little weird to tap into. Their ears are in their front legs.”
Horace watched, fascinated. April scrambled nimbly, her hand darting, scooping up the crickets with a preternatural precision only an empath could have managed.
“But won’t they be noisy?” Horace asked. The evening air was filled with the insects’ loud chirps.
April lunged, snagging another cricket out of midair. “That’s why I’m only taking females,” she said. “Girls don’t chirp.”
After another minute or two, April stood up, screwing the lid onto the jar. A scrambling black mass teemed inside it, two dozen crickets or more. Dailen frowned down at it heavily.
April shrugged. “Portable spies,” she said.
“She’s going to bug the place,” said Horace. Nobody laughed. He didn’t blame them.
And now they were here, April still toting her silent jar of crickets, the Ravenvine glinting faintly under her hair. Only to find that Sanguine Hall was unguarded. Apparently they wouldn’t need the humour yet, much less the Ravenvine.
But Gabriel was cautious. “The Riven are undisciplined,” Gabriel said. “Especially in the wake of a victory. It’s very possible there will be guards here when we try to leave. And if our presence is detected, it wouldn’t be hard for them to close off this exit entirely.”
“We could find out,” April suggested. She turned to Horace, her eyes dropping pointedly to the Fel’Daera at Horace’s side. “Horace could tell us if anyone’s going to show up.”
“No,” Horace said. He was here for one reason only; to open the door to the astrolabe. He expected April to argue with him—Chloe certainly would have—but instead she just nodded.
“Because of what Falo told you,” she said.
“Because of what I know now, yeah,” Horace said impatiently. “Can’t you just scatter some crickets around? Then when we come back, they’ll be here, and you can listen to them from the other end of the hall. Make sure the coast is clear.”
April looked down at the jar, full of the popping black bugs. “But they’re feeling hoppy.”
Horace was confused until he realized she hadn’t said happy. “They won’t stay put, you mean.” Suddenly an idea began to perc
olate.
“Not for long, no,” April said. “I brought the crickets more to release them while we’re in the humour, so that they’ll hopefully jump out and give me eyes and ears. They’re not going to just stand around. They’re not cows.” She sighed and chewed her lip—not in a worried way, but in a word-choosing way Horace knew well. “Listen, Horace,” she said slowly. “It’s up to you to decide when to use the Fel’Daera, or if you ever use it again. But I just want to suggest that maybe this situation is exactly the kind of thing the Fel’Daera was made for.”
“I have no idea why the Fel’Daera was made, and neither do you,” Horace said testily. Then he took a deep breath, holding up his hands by way of apology. “Look. I’m not going to check the future. But maybe we can fix this another way.” He turned to Gabriel. “How long will it take us to find the astrolabe?”
“That’s up to you,” said Gabriel. “Twenty minutes, I should think. We won’t want to linger.”
“That’s too long,” April said, hefting the jar. “Crickets, not cows.”
“So we’ll make it short,” Horace said. He slipped the Fel’Daera from its pouch. With his thoughts, and with practiced ease, he reached for the silver star on the side of the box. Twenty-four spokes around a black center. Right now, precisely ten of the spokes were bright silver—the breach was set to ten hours. If he looked through the box, that’s how far into the future he would see.
Or send.
Swiftly he closed the breach, and the sun began to go dark, spoke by spoke. He closed it down easily under an hour, the last silver spoke darkening at one end. He didn’t actually need to watch the spokes—he wondered briefly if it was a cosmetic touch Falo had added just for flair. He asked the breach to close to twenty minutes, and it did. Once it was there, he set the breach in place, like closing a valve. All the spokes were dark now, except one-third of the very first one. The whole process had taken just a couple of seconds.
“There,” he said. “Twenty minutes.”
April was frowning, clearly unsure what he was planning to do. And was it a stupid plan? April was right—checking Sanguine Hall in the future was exactly the kind of thing the Fel’Daera was good at, to see if their escape route would remain clear. But if he did that . . .
