The Harp and the Ravenvine

by Ted Sanders

  Horace wasn’t paying too much attention to where they were, only that they were still headed northwest. But after about half an hour he spotted the tall shadow of the Central Wet Wash chimney, and he realized he knew precisely where they were. They were just a few miles from Horace’s own neighborhood.

  “Our lost Keeper is a human,” Mr. Meister said, looking out and up into the night air. His breath fogged the glass as he spoke. Gabriel turned sharply toward the old man, his pale eyes seeming to shine in the darkness, but he said nothing.

  “How do you know?” Horace asked.

  “I do not,” Mr. Meister replied. “But I feel . . . a simplicity in the urgent search to find the lost daktan.” Then he frowned and squinted. “Beck, pull over, please.”

  Beck obeyed, swinging the cab neatly into a darkened parking lot. Mr. Meister got out at once, beckoning for Chloe to follow him. She clambered over Horace, and the old man took the daktan from her. He held it in his palm, wandering across the asphalt, gazing down at the daktan and then off to the northwest, his chin high. He stood there for a full minute, then began to spin in a slow circle, peering all around through the thick lens of the oraculum. After another minute, Mrs. Hapsteade slipped out and joined them, and the three of them had a murmured conversation that Horace could not hear.

  “I wonder what’s happening,” Neptune said breezily, phrasing it as a fact instead of a question.

  “Me too,” Horace said. “He seems . . . confused.”

  “They are discussing the signal,” Gabriel said, his ears apparently picking up what theirs could not. “Mr. Meister is confused. Now he is lamenting the fact that Brian could not be with us—Brian’s senses are keener about such things than Mr. Meister’s are.”

  Outside, Mr. Meister continued to try and get a bearing on the mysterious Keeper. At last he handed the daktan back to Chloe and returned to the cab, the others in tow. He leaned against the open door but did not get in. He looked grim. “I worry that our lost Keeper has encountered difficulties,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  What Belongs

  WHEN THE MISSING PIECE RESURFACED IN APRIL’S MIND, HER knees almost buckled beneath her. For a moment she thought she was actually fainting—a queer and distressing notion—but she locked her knees and clenched her hands at her sides, and managed to stay upright.

  The missing piece. Her missing piece. Against all hope, it was back. It still was. She had felt so broken, and here was her cure. Closer than ever. The entire ocean of her consciousness seemed to pour into the vine at once, spilling out the broken end before she could stop it, reaching urgently out for that distant, beautiful beacon. Every cell in her body seemed to scream at her to go find it, claim it. They should have taken the train. She should have left Arthur behind. She stood there quivering impotently for . . . she didn’t know how long, letting this new desperation—so foreign and yet so familiar—pour out of the broken stem of the vine like water from a pitcher.

  Abruptly April was pulled out of herself. Someone was shaking her. Hard. “What are you doing?” Isabel spat. “Every Mordin for miles can feel that. Stop it!”

  April found she hardly cared. “It’s back. The missing piece. I feel it again.”

  Isabel’s face seemed to shudder, wavering between rage and fear and sudden hope. “I told you,” she said, clearly struggling to control her emotions. “I told you so. But you’re bleeding now. You’ve got to stop.”

  April nodded and tried to get her own instinctive yearning under control. She pulled back from the missing piece—so hard to do so soon after it had returned!—and was at last able to draw all her longing and hope and need back into herself. The effort made her feel hollow and overstuffed at the same time.

  “Good,” Isabel said, satisfied. She looked around cautiously, as if expecting to see Mordin closing in. But there was no one. “I’m sorry I shook you. You weren’t hearing me.”

  “It’s okay.” So April had been too far gone to even hear Isabel talking—that was distressing news. She struggled to regain her bearings. They were still at the lagoons, hunkered down in some trees near the water. The sun had just set. Joshua was beside her, looking worried. Arthur was overhead—and had April really just wished she’d left him behind?

  “Can you follow it?” Isabel asked. “Can you find it—quietly, without disturbing the wound?”

  “Absolutely,” April said. The missing piece burned like the sun now. “If it lasts, that is.”

  “Good.” Isabel turned and looked over at the boat rental place, a hundred yards away alongside a pull-off near the water. The place had officially closed half an hour before, but a couple of workers were still there, dragging canoes and kayaks into a storage building. It wasn’t completely clear how Isabel was planning to get in, but she’d said she planned to do it “the old-fashioned way.” April took this to mean she was simply going to break in but didn’t want to say so in front of Joshua.

  Now that the missing piece had reappeared, April could hardly wait to get started. She watched the men working impatiently. It seemed like an eternity passed before at last they got in their cars and drove off, leaving the storage shed abandoned. Isabel commanded April and Joshua to wait where they were, here along the dark edge of the trees, well back from the road, waiting for her signal.

  They waited. April unwrapped Joshua’s swollen ankle so he could flex it a bit, then tried her best to rewrap it.

  “Are you okay now?” Joshua asked.

  “Yes. Don’t worry. Was I really that out of it?”

  Joshua made three big, slow nods. “You were like a zombie. But your eyes were all . . .” He made a catatonic face—sagging mouth and crossed eyes—and wiggled his fingers through the air.

  “You lie,” April said, embarrassed.

  “No. But it’s okay. You looked happy.”

  April went back to work on the wrap, doing her best not to think about the missing piece, whose glowing presence she could still feel in her gut. Happy was not the word for what she was. There was no word for what she was. Tragistupid? Crippletastic?

  “I don’t see Arthur,” Joshua said.

  April finished the wrap, tucking it into itself and hoping it would hold. “Don’t worry. He’s here,” she said, pointing. The raven was perched thirty feet up in an oak tree with white-bottomed leaves.

  “Animal check?” Joshua asked hopefully.

  April gave him a patient smile. He’d been saying that all afternoon, wanting to know how many animals were around them at any given moment, and what those animals were thinking about. It was a way to pass the time, like a game for him. “I feel like I better not use the vine too much right now,” April said. “But I can tell you that there’s definitely a whole bunch of little mammals in a burrow right underneath us. A mother and babies, hiding underground—chipmunks, I think.”

  Joshua’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the ground between his feet. “What are they doing? What are they thinking about?”

  April sipped at the vine—just a cautious little peek. “Sleep. Milk. Warm. Safe.”

  “Sounds nice,” Joshua said, his voice dreamy.

  “It sure does,” April agreed.

  April stood and looked over at the boat place. No Isabel, but it had only been a couple of minutes. And then, unexpectedly, alarm knifed through her. A split second later Arthur cawed sharply, twice. Warning calls. Fierce. Hateful. April turned and saw a woman crossing the road, coming straight for them, watching them closely. No, not a woman. Not a human woman, anyway—pale skin, long arms, white-blond hair pulled back into a braid. Arthur’s distress was drowned in a flood of April’s own full-blown fear.

  An Auditor.

  Arthur squawked wildly again, furious. He was even angrier now than he had been when he’d chased off the Mordin back home, so angry that April had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by his rage. The Auditor glanced up at the bird and seemed to scowl. Over at the boat rental place, meanwhile, still no sign of Isabel. As the
Auditor came closer, April surprised herself by moving in front of Joshua instinctively, her heart pounding.

  “There you are, girl,” the Auditor said as she approached. Her voice was both velvety and crackling at the same time, like skates on ice, or a match being struck. Her face was surreally smooth, angular and stunning, one horrid step sideways from being unspeakably beautiful. Her green eyes should have been cold, but instead they were dark and warm, almost moss-colored. On her forehead, close to her hairline, a single red gemstone gleamed, bright as blood against her ghostly skin. Triangular, about the size of a marble, the gem seemed to actually be embedded in her flesh.

  The strange creature circled them and stopped just a few feet from April. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

  “I guess you found me, then,” April said, trying not to stare at the red gem. She would stay calm, stay still, even for this. “But I don’t know why you bothered.”

  The woman spread her arms gracefully, so unnaturally slender and long, her fingers like wands. “We just want to talk. That’s all we ever wanted.”

  We. But in her head, April knew that all of Arthur’s attention was on the Auditor. If there were any other Riven in the immediate vicinity, the bird was unaware of it—and Arthur was never unaware. The Auditor was alone. “I’m not very interested in talking to you,” April said, determined to stay bold.

  “But you’ve been talking to your companion. The Forsworn.” The Auditor glanced around, nonchalantly scanning the area. The Forsworn—apparently that meant Isabel. April couldn’t imagine what the word might mean, but it didn’t sound good.

  Despite the Auditor’s casual manner, April could see the wariness in her tiny black eyes as she searched for Isabel. What had Isabel said? Auditors were just as afraid of Isabel as Isabel was of Auditors. So they were evenly matched, then? “I don’t see her now,” the Auditor continued. “Did she tire of you? The Forsworn are notoriously temperamental.”

  “She’s coming back any minute.”

  Joshua piped up suddenly. “She always comes back.”

  The Auditor seemed to notice Joshua for the first time. “You trust her, then?”

  “Yes,” Joshua said firmly. The Auditor’s eyes slid over to April’s face.

  April hesitated, and then said, “More than I trust you.”

  “You trust her more than you trust a complete stranger.” The Auditor laughed. “How touching.”

  “You’re not a stranger,” April said. “You’re one of the Riven. And I want nothing to do with you.”

  The woman grinned and tipped her head, the red gem glinting in the twilight. She pulled her long white braid over her shoulder, stroking it. Her smile was wide and toothy, ravishing and horrible. “You know all about us, then?” she crooned. “How we’ll tell you truths you’ll never hear from your fellow Tinkers? We can teach you things, you know. Things about your Tan’ji.” She raised her lovely eyebrows. “Why, we can even make you whole again.”

  Whole again. For a moment the words tugged at April hard, and her need began to trickle out of the broken stem. The Auditor was so beautiful. Her voice was soothing and reasonable. She seemed to understand April.

  But then Arthur screeched in anger. The sound startled her as much as the jolt of rage that came with it. April let the Auditor’s words roll off her, refusing to believe. And suddenly it occurred to her that the Auditor wanted the same thing Isabel wanted. She wanted April to lead her to wherever the missing piece was now. No one cared if April really became whole again or not. Not even Isabel. She was on her own.

  “Fine,” said April, feeling as stubborn as Derek always accused her of being. “Bring me my missing piece, then.”

  Surprise lit the Auditor’s face, and April knew she’d said the right thing. But then the Auditor stepped in close. “You don’t understand,” she said. “We would like to be friends. We would like to help you, if you help us. But your cooperation does not need to be voluntary.”

  And then something terrible began to happen.

  The Auditor took hold of the vine. Not with her hands, but with her mind, slipping right into the vine alongside April as though she belonged there. Her presence was foul and shocking and wrong. April could scarcely move as the Auditor’s thoughts reached out along the channels of awareness that were supposed to be April’s alone.

  The Auditor was not just inside the vine, but was using it—feeling the vegetation all around, feeling the mindless whisper of a passing moth, feeling the sleeping bundle of chipmunks beneath them. April could still feel these things too, but they were no longer private. For the moment, the vine was not purely hers. The Auditor was inside it. This was beyond theft, beyond violation. April wanted to vomit.

  “Now you understand,” the Auditor said softly, and then continued on in a harsh, slashing language April couldn’t understand: “Nothra kali naktu kali ji—what belongs to you belongs to me, if I so choose.”

  The Auditor turned and looked up at Arthur, still squawking high overhead. April was powerless to stop her taking the raven’s thoughts, basking in them. The very idea that she would—that she could—be eavesdropping on Arthur this way was humiliating and infuriating.

  “Filthy animals,” the Auditor said, examining Arthur inside and out as though he were something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “Carrion eaters. Opportunists. But he worries about you. I feel that, just like you do.” She turned back to April and gave that wicked smile again. “You don’t look well. You thought your instrument was yours alone, no doubt. You thought you were truly Tan’ji. Every Tinker does. But you are merely an aberration, like all the others, and you cannot stop me from stealing what you wrongly call your own.”

  April fought off her doubts, and the strange knife of jealousy the Auditor’s grip on the vine was plunging into her gut. “You’re not stealing,” she said. “You’re only imitating. You’re just a shadow of what I am.” The iron in her own voice surprised her.

  The Auditor laughed. “You could learn to be strong, you know. Perhaps you could even learn to resist me. We could teach you, if you only—”

  The Auditor whirled around. Mercifully, her presence in the vine winked out like a candle, tugging a gasp of relief from April. The vine was pure again, hers again, but she hardly had time to register it before the Auditor crumpled to the ground, clasping her head and keening. She rocked in place, wailing as if she were in great pain.

  “Run!” someone shouted.

  Isabel. She stood down the street, halfway to the boat place, beckoning them frantically. “Hurry! That won’t last forever.”

  April slipped her bag onto Joshua’s shoulders, hoisted the boy onto her back, and began to run as best she could. The Auditor, still on her knees, swiped at April with the long fingers of one hand—too long, too many knuckles, sickening.

  April dodged her. Joshua was heavier than she had imagined, but she ran. By the time she reached Isabel, gasping, she thought her ankles would snap off. No sooner had she lowered Joshua to the ground than Isabel scooped him up and began to run. “No vine now,” the woman commanded. “Leave no trace.”

  April did as she was told, shutting down the vine as best she could. She glanced back and saw Arthur following after them. They ran around the far side of the storage building, out of sight of the Auditor, and began trotting down the grassy slope toward the water. A canoe lay at the water’s edge, two plastic oars and two blue life jackets inside.

  “You in front, April. Take a paddle.”

  April stepped into the wobbly canoe, making her way unsurely to the front. She’d never been in one before and had only a rough idea how to work one. She took the front seat, paddle in hand. Joshua crawled aboard, sitting on the floor in the middle as Isabel instructed, and then they shoved off, Isabel in the rear.

  “Paddle,” Isabel said. “Hard as you can.”

  April was flustered, and still reeling from the Auditor—eager to get away from the horrible creature. Twice she almost dropped her paddle, but she ke
pt at it, her arms burning. Arthur flew by, curious, but kept his distance from all her flailing and splashing.

  They paddled for several minutes, Joshua directing them across the open water and into a narrow channel. Soon they were deep in the shadows of bending trees overhead, hidden from sight in nearly every direction. “Okay,” Isabel said. “Rest for a while if you like.”

  Relieved, April stopped, clinging to her oar. Isabel kept paddling, pushing the canoe forward with such strong surges that April now realized she hadn’t done much to contribute, despite her efforts.

  “What did the Auditor say?” Isabel asked.

  April tried to remember the Auditor’s words, but everything she’d said had been erased by what she’d done. “She took over the vine. She used it.”

  “I know,” Isabel said. “Are you all right?”

  “What do you mean, she took it over?” Joshua asked.

  “That’s what Auditors do,” Isabel explained. “They draw upon the powers of whatever instruments are around them. Even multiple instruments at once, if they’re good enough. It’s the only power they have, imitating the powers of others. They’re parasites, but they’re dangerous.”

  April squeezed her eyes shut, trying to forget the sensation, trying to fight off the urge to reach for the vine and make sure it was still clean and right and hers again. “You should have cleaved her,” she said. She was surprised to hear the words come out of herself, and even more surprised when she realized she didn’t want them back, wanted the Auditor dead.

  “Auditors can’t be cleaved,” said Isabel. “They’re not Tan’ji, so there’s no true bond to tear apart. But don’t worry—I clipped her threads. Tied them in knots. It’ll be a bit before they untangle and flow again.”

  “But if she’s not Tan’ji, then—”

  “You saw the crystal on her forehead? That’s where their power comes from, but it’s not Tan’ji. We call them ghost stones, although the Riven don’t give them names at all. Even the Auditors themselves aren’t given individual names—they call themselves Quaasa, and don’t distinguish themselves from one another. They’re chosen early, and train hard to become what they are. Years of training. Their ghost stones are physically bound to them, to replace the bond of being Tan’ji. Rumor has it the red you see in the crystal is the Auditor’s own blood, flowing through the stone.”