The Portal and the Veil Read online

  He pointed at the Fel’Daera. “As for why you can see anything at all, remember: the Fel’Daera and the Laithe have similar functions. Both were made by the same hand. Both slice through space and time, opening doorways where none could otherwise exist. And when those doorways intersect, new paths are revealed.” He shrugged, then smiled ruefully. “No doubt Falo could explain it better than I can. She is the Maker, after all. Nonetheless, I understand the rudiments. With the proper alignment—and the proper mindset—the Keeper of the Fel’Daera could, in theory, see where the portal leads.”

  “The proper mindset,” Horace repeated dryly. He was pretty sure that Mr. Meister was telling him that he had failed—that if he were a better Keeper, a stronger Keeper, he could use the box to figure out where Brian had been taken.

  “It is only a theory,” Mr. Meister said, shrugging again.

  Chloe glowered at the old man, defending Horace. “Yeah, well, my theory is you ought to be able to figure out where they went yourself. You’re the one who can see the threads.”

  “Indeed I am, but I—” Cutting himself off, Mr. Meister lifted his head, abruptly lost in thought. His mouth opened and closed, and his eyes roamed keenly back and forth.

  Mrs. Hapsteade, silent so far, stepped forward. “Yes,” she said softly.

  Mr. Meister met her gaze. “Horace is not properly attuned. But perhaps the signal can be focused.”

  “It may be the only way.”

  Horace was at a loss, but Gabriel seemed to get it. He thumped his staff against the floor and said, “Would this be any better than what Isabel has done with Joshua?”

  Mrs. Hapsteade sighed. “Honestly, Gabriel, consider our options.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Chloe, raising her hand. “Would what be any better?”

  April clutched at Chloe’s arm. “Oh my god, thank you. I thought I was the only one who was lost.”

  “No, I’m lost too,” said Horace.

  “We need help,” explained Mr. Meister. “Horace needs help. I can see the threads left by the Laithe, yes, but I cannot follow them to their final destination, any more than I can follow the threads of the Fel’Daera into the future. No one can. But it might be possible to manipulate the threads so that you, Horace, might see more clearly. It might be possible to . . . tune those threads, if you like.”

  Tune. Suddenly Horace understood. “My mom?” he said lamely.

  “Oh holy crap,” said Chloe.

  Mr. Meister nodded. “Jessica is a talented Tuner in her own right. She may be able to help us, if we can convince her to return, after all these years.”

  Horace hardly knew what to say. “Bring my mother here, you mean. Into the Warren.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tonight. Right now.”

  “Indeed.”

  Horace glanced at Chloe. Her eyes were wide and bright and her mouth hung open in a hovering, delighted O. Chloe adored Horace’s mom—and Horace did too, of course, but . . .

  His own mother. Here in the Warren with him.

  Gabriel cleared his throat, almost apologetically. Reluctantly, he said, “Often when we have no other options, Keeper, we choose the most unexpected path.”

  “Okay,” said Horace, before he even meant it. He cleared his thoughts, letting his doubts fall aside, and tried again. “Okay.”

  “Just so,” said Mr. Meister warmly. “We will go speak to your mother, you and I. It has been long since I last saw her.” He smiled, a hint of mischief on his lips. “Do you think she will remember me?”

  The question brought a sharp memory to the front of Horace’s mind. The story his mother had told him only yesterday about how she had become a Tuner, about what Mr. Meister had done to her. “She remembers you,” said Horace, looking the old man steadily in the eye. “I think she even forgives you.”

  Mr. Meister’s grin slipped. He managed to turn it into a pouting frown, nodding. “It is my sad lot in life that I often find myself hoping I am not remembered too well. Luckily for me, loyalty to our cause is far more important than loyalty to myself. Do you think she will help us?”

  “She shouldn’t, but she will,” Chloe said. “I’ll come with you. I want to tell her what happened.”

  “No,” said Mr. Meister. “You cannot come. Stay here with the others.”

  “This whole thing is my mom’s fault. I want to help.”

  “And help you shall. But let me repeat: you cannot come. Certain obstacles are more suited to some than to others. The path we take now is not for you.”

  Horace was sure that Mr. Meister was about to lead him out through the Warren’s mysterious back entrance. But why couldn’t Chloe come? Chloe opened her mouth to object—telling Chloe she couldn’t do something was the surest way to make her try—but Horace held up a hand.

  “It’s okay. I’ll be back. We’ll find Isabel and fix everything. Okay?”

  “We better,” she said sulkily.

  “We will.”

  “Just so,” said Mr. Meister. “To Horace’s house we go.”

  AFTER GOOD-BYES, MR. Meister led Horace out of the workshop. But instead of heading up the Perilous Stairs toward the Great Burrow, Mr. Meister stepped out onto the great stone bridge that spanned the Maw.

  Mr. Meister paused. “You are aware that there is another way in and out of the Warren besides Vithra’s Eye.”

  “Yes.” The old man came and went from the Warren at will, of course, but he didn’t go the way the others did. Horace had never known the old man to pass across the dark waters of Vithra’s Eye, through the cold terror of the Nevren there. Chloe had suggested that Mr. Meister was physically unable to pass through the Nevren—a startling idea, since the whole purpose of the Nevren was keep out the Riven, while allowing Keepers through.

  “Today you travel my way,” Mr. Meister said now. “We go through Sanguine Hall.”

  Horace rolled the name over in his head, mouthing the words soundlessly. “And will there be a Nevren?”

  “No.”

  “But then how is the Warren protected?”

  Mr. Meister didn’t reply, starting wordlessly across the bridge. Horace followed close behind. As so often happened in the Warren, the bridge seemed to be a danger unto itself. Narrow, and without railings, it was a precarious walk. The cold breeze that always rose from the depths of the Maw became stronger the farther out they went, blossoming first into a sturdy wind and then, midway, a buffeting gale. Had the bridge not been made of stone, Horace might have sworn it was swaying. He crouched low, one hand on the Fel’Daera, inching his way across. Even Mr. Meister moved slowly, his wild white hair rippling madly. But he walked upright, and his gait was steady.

  They continued on. The wind grew stronger, becoming so fierce that Horace almost lost his fear of falling. He reasoned that if he slipped off the edge now, the powerful gale from below might actually lift him into the air.

  At last they reached the far side, where the bridge connected to an open stone balcony cut from the bedrock. As soon as they stepped onto the balcony, the hurricane wind subsided to a breeze once more. Mr. Meister straightened his red vest and ran his gnarled hands through his hair. Horace tried flattening his own tousled mane, but it was hopeless.

  “You look fine,” Mr. Meister said with a hint of a smile. “Come.”

  The balcony opened inward into a dark, rambling corridor. Mr. Meister reached into the collar of his vest and pulled out a shockingly bright white light. A jithandra. Horace had never seen Mr. Meister’s jithandra before, but was unsurprised to discover that it was white.

  “This is the Gallery,” the old man said. “Stay close.”

  As they walked through the passageway, and as the light of Mr. Meister’s jithandra slid along the corridor, doors began to appear upon the walls. It wasn’t that they were becoming illuminated in the darkness, Horace realized, but rather that they were actually springing into existence. Doors materialized out of the stone as the full power of the white light fell upon them. As soon as Mr. M
eister’s light swept past, the doors flickered and ceased to exist.

  “Are these doors real?” Horace asked, marveling.

  “That depends. If you were here alone, walking by the blue light of your own jithandra, most of them would not be.”

  “Whoa,” Horace said, craning his neck to watch as a battered iron door materialized on their right, then was deleted behind them. A bit farther on, Mr. Meister stopped in front of a thick wooden door suddenly blooming on the left.

  “Here we are,” said Mr. Meister, opening the door the moment it solidified. They passed through into a cramped stone chamber, barely six feet across. A little stab of panic jabbed at Horace as Mr. Meister tucked his jithandra away, his claustrophobia rising suddenly, but to his relief the door did not disappear behind them when the light winked out. Apparently, the doors of the Gallery were always real on the other side. And there was light here, too. Coming from above. Tipping his head back, Horace saw that the narrow chamber rose high overhead like a chimney. Many stories up, an amber light shone down on them like a September moon.

  “Now we ascend,” said Mr. Meister. “You did rather well crossing the Maw—I gather you have no great fear of heights?”

  Horace almost laughed, thinking how much easier his life would have been lately if he could have traded his real fear for that one. “Not really, no.”

  “Good. Follow me, then. For better or for worse, there is no elevator here.” And the old man began scrambling swiftly up the wall to their left.

  For a moment, it was as if Mr. Meister had begun to fly. But Horace looked more closely and saw a metal framework hugging the wall, spiraling upward. The framework was halfway between a ladder and a stair, steep enough that as Horace began to climb, he found himself using his hands to help pull himself up. The steps were very far apart, too—each one nearly as high as his waist. After just a dozen steps, his arms and legs were complaining hard.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Meister was pulling away, scampering up the steep stairs like a goat, his white head bobbing in the darkness. Horace climbed after him, telling himself that this was better than the rickety elevator on the far side of Vithra’s Eye. Surely the stairs would end soon. But the amber light above seemed to barely grow closer, and the distant floor below was nearly lost in shadow. And even though he was not afraid of heights, Horace began to think just how deadly a fall from this far up would be.

  At last he reached the top, after sixty-seven giant-sized steps. He pulled himself up onto a wide stone ledge, thighs and shoulders screaming, knees and palms bumped and scraped, lungs heaving. Mr. Meister stood there calmly, looking down at him, apparently not winded by the climb.

  “I regret to tell you your method lacks efficiency,” Mr. Meister said. “If there is a next time, I will show you a better way to climb the ladder.”

  “Why wouldn’t there be a next time?” Horace asked, sucking hard at the air.

  “Most prefer the Nevren.”

  Horace rubbed his aching shoulder. “I can see why.”

  “Oh, not because of the ladder,” Mr. Meister clarified. “Because of what still lies ahead. Because of Sanguine Hall.”

  Horace tried not to let his imagination run wild as his labored breathing continued to slow. “What’s so bad about Sanguine Hall?”

  Mr. Meister took a seat beside Horace with a sigh, his legs dangling over the edge like a child’s. “Sanguine Hall is not bad. Merely challenging.”

  “Challenging enough that most people prefer the Nevren. The bad Nevren.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Meister admitted.

  Horace turned to look directly into Mr. Meister’s huge gray eyes. “But not you,” he said. “You prefer Sanguine Hall.”

  Mr. Meister began peeking into the pockets of his vest, one by one. After a moment he said lightly, “It is not a matter of preference for me, Horace. Surely you have already guessed as much.”

  Horace eyed the old man’s red vest and his thick glasses. The left lens of those glasses, the oraculum, was definitely Tan’ji, but so was the red vest. Through the pockets of the vest, Mr. Meister could extract items from his round red office in the Great Burrow, even when he was ten or fifteen miles away.

  “You’ve got two Tan’ji, and—”

  “Two that you know of,” Mr. Meister interrupted.

  Horace’s mouth hung open. What else did the old man have in those pockets of his? “Okay . . . two that I know of. So I guess I figure if going through the Nevren is terrible for a person with just one Tan’ji, it must be extra terrible—maybe impossible?—for a person with more.”

  “Correct—terrible, impossible. I cannot pass through the Nevren. In this regard, I am like the Riven. The collective bond between myself and my Tan’ji is so strong that were I to be severed for even a few moments, I would be dispossessed. I would not survive.” He said this simply, as if describing a book he might not enjoy reading.

  Horace could barely respond to this. “Oh,” he said stupidly.

  Mr. Meister produced a warm smile. “It has not been an issue thus far, Keeper, I assure you.”

  “Right,” Horace said. “Obviously. But okay . . . how can you even have more than one Tan’ji in the first place? I thought each Keeper could only bond to one instrument.” No one had ever said that, exactly, but it seemed so obvious it didn’t need saying. Horace couldn’t imagine bonding—or even wanting to bond—with any instrument other than the Fel’Daera. That would be a betrayal.

  “Ordinarily, yes,” Mr. Meister said. “But my duties require a bit more . . . extraordinariness.” He held out his hand. There on his finger was the glimmering ring Horace had noticed the very first time they’d met. It was a flat band with a single twist in it—a Möbius strip.

  Horace, torn between fascination and revulsion, frowned at the ring. “Another Tan’ji?” he asked.

  “No. Merely Tan’kindi—it does not take the bond. Yet it is powerful. This is a polymath’s ring. The wearer gains the ability to bond to multiple instruments at once.”

  Horace shook his head, disliking the idea more and more. “But being a Keeper is special. Unique. How can you bond to all those things?” He meant How is it possible, yes, but not just that. He meant, How dare you?

  If Mr. Meister noticed Horace’s tone, he didn’t react. “It takes some doing. You might say that the oraculum is my native Tan’ji. My first, my truest. The others have been . . . compelled to bond with me, with the help of the ring.”

  “Compelled. Like forced?”

  “No. No more than a flower is forced to turn to the sun.”

  “I don’t like it,” Horace said, and then a terrible thought occurred to him. “Before I came along, could you have compelled the Fel’Daera to bond with you?”

  Mr. Meister turned to him, his left eye huge and piercing through the oraculum. “If I could have, you never would have come along. You would not have been called.”

  “But did you try?”

  A blink, slow and thoughtful. Horace was sure the old man would preach to him about the difficulty of these days, how the Wardens did whatever they must. But instead Mr. Meister simply said, “Yes. I tried.”

  Somehow Horace couldn’t muster up the rage he was sure he should be feeling. Instead there was only a nasty twisting in his belly, sad and sick. He said the only words that would come to him: “You didn’t have the right.”

  Mr. Meister smiled at him kindly. “Clearly I did not. Here you are, Keeper. The Fel’Daera is at your side. It answers to you and no one else.” He slapped his knees and stood so swiftly that Horace flinched. “Enough. If you are quite recovered from your climb, we must continue. Sanguine Hall lies on the other side of this doorway.”

  Feeling surly but not wanting to show it—he was the Keeper of the Fel’Daera, after all—Horace staggered clumsily to his feet and looked around. What doorway? The ledge they stood on appeared to be a dead end. But in one place along the wall, he now saw a jagged, human-sized patch in the natural stone that had been bricked over. The brick
s were dull and rounded with age.

  Horace looked for a passkey, one of the kite-shaped stones that allowed the Wardens to pull a Chloe—to become like a ghost and pass through solid walls. But instead, Mr. Meister reached into his pocket. He removed a thin cylinder made of glass. It looked like an old-fashioned key, except that the key end was bristling and glittering instead of flat and dull. Mr. Meister held it up for Horace to see. At the bristling business end, the key split into three prongs, each of which split into three more, and each of those into three more, and so on, to what Horace imagined—illogically—was infinity.

  “Another of my Tan’ji,” Mr. Meister said. “Do not touch. It is quite sharp.”

  No Keeper ever touched another Keeper’s Tan’ji without permission, of course, but Horace had been feeling the urge to do just that. “What is it?”

  “The Riven call it a dashinti—a master key.” He lowered the key and inserted it into the brick wall. The bristling glass tip slid in silently, like a twig into water. Horace had seen Chloe do similar things with ordinary objects many times. When Mr. Meister released the master key, it hung in place. “Go ahead,” Mr. Meister said. “Pull it out it.”

  Startled to be given this permission, Horace nonetheless couldn’t resist. He grasped the flat end of the key and tugged. He tugged again. The key wouldn’t budge.

  “Just so,” Mr. Meister intoned. Then he took hold of the key and slid it easily from the wall and back in again. Chloe couldn’t do that. “As I said, Tan’ji.”

  “You can pass through the wall with this,” Horace said. “Any wall?”

  “Essentially. I use it when I have the need—to enter, to escape.” He chuckled. “On occasion, to impress. I used it the very first time we met, in fact. That day was so full of wonders, however, that perhaps you do not remember.”

  But Horace did remember. “You vanished into the wall. I thought it was a secret door or something.”

  “Everything is a door if I wish it to be,” Mr. Meister said, and then shrugged boyishly. “Within reason, of course.” He grasped the suspended key and twisted it—once, twice, three times. He nodded, satisfied, and glanced back at Horace, letting the key hang again. His face was creased with solemnity.