The Portal and the Veil Read online

  “Once we are in the Hall, do as I do,” he said swift and low. “When they come, do not move. Do not speak. Let it happen. If you do as I say, there is little to fear.”

  The words sent a violent shiver through Horace. “When who comes?” he asked.

  “Do not move or speak,” Mr. Meister repeated. “No matter what. They will come, they will feed, they will leave. No harm will be done.”

  He took Horace by the elbow, and together they stepped through the brick wall.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sanguine Hall

  HORACE AND MR. MEISTER EMERGED FROM THE COOL SLAB OF stone into a still, brick-walled passageway, long and high—it stretched into darkness both ahead and above. There were glowing amber crystals here, too, embedded in the stone floor at regular intervals. The swirls of light rising from below turned Mr. Meister’s face into a ghoul’s face, casting cruel shadows on his cheeks and brow. The place appeared to be empty. Horace remembered Mr. Meister’s words: “They will come. They will feed.” He peered into the gloom overhead.

  Behind them, the handle of the master key protruded from the wall; it had twisted around to follow them as they passed through. Mr. Meister pulled the key out swiftly and tucked it into a pocket. “Forward,” he said, leading the way.

  Their footsteps rang hollowly. Horace found himself nearly tiptoeing, his eyes and ears wide open. After twenty paces, Mr. Meister came to a halt, turning to face Horace, gesturing for him to stop. He backed slowly away, looking up and cocking his head.

  “They come,” he announced, still backing away.

  And now Horace heard it. A rustling from the darkness above—a soft, glassy rattle. Horace’s grandmother had a wind chime made of thin stone discs that clicked together in the breeze, almost musical but with no voice behind them, no throat. This sound was like that one, only thinner and higher, and fuller by far—a wind chime a thousand times as big. The sheer size of the sound made Horace’s heart sink, because now it reminded him of another sound, one he never wanted to hear again: the golem.

  A flickering cloud appeared overhead. A dozen yards down the passage, Mr. Meister said, “Don’t move. Don’t react, whatever happens.” His voice was low and flat. He dipped the fingers of one hand into a vest pocket and held them there, waiting.

  The cloud dipped into the light. Not the golem. Butterflies? Small and delicate, seemingly lighter than air. But these butterflies shone like polished steel, smooth and gleaming. And their wings weren’t rounded. They were almost dragon-like, but backward—swept back in a curve, only to point forward again. And although the little creatures drifted in the manner of butterflies—wings held apart in a shallow V, slicing through the air as serenely as paper airplanes—they did not flutter. They seemed unable to flap their wings at all.

  They glided down from the shadows in a great metallic flock, many thousands of individuals clinking lightly together and sailing blindly apart again. Horace held his breath as the swarm descended, as it began to fill the space between himself and Mr. Meister, dividing and circling them each with an unmistakable air of curiosity. Soon the old man was lost from sight.

  Like a storm of tiny mirrors, the mass multiplied itself, becoming ever more uncountable. Their clattering wings were paper-thin, their bodies thin shining cylinders, no bigger than matches. As the swarm came lower still, some of the little creatures—not creatures, of course, but Tanu—drifted right past Horace’s eyes. They were headless, faceless, no more than thin metallic rods with several rudimentary wriggling feet. But those wings . . . the wings were delicate and savage at the same time, fiercely curved, like scythes. The back edges were jagged.

  Horace turned his head to watch one of the creatures as it drifted very close to his face. And then a sudden jolt of pain across his cheek, a trickle of warmth. He cried out.

  He was cut.

  Horace willed himself to stay utterly still. He understood now: he was buried in a swarm of ten thousand drifting blades. These wings were as deadly sharp as they looked, thinner and keener than any knife. Don’t move. Don’t react. Of course not, or you would be cut down to bone. With this realization came another, firm and sure and horrifying: although this swarm was not the golem, it was its kin.

  Horace was afraid to even blink. The tiny things took up a swirling course around him, entombing him in a whirling wall of shine and sound and death. Through a break in the swarm, he caught a glimpse of Mr. Meister, and was horrified to see that some of the scythewings were alighting on the old man, coming to rest on his bright red vest. Horace looked down at his own brown shirt; only a few of the creatures had landed on him. But the creatures were alighting upon Mr. Meister, thick now, blanketing his shoulders and chest like a layer of silver snow. And not just his chest, but his hands, his face. They were clustering on the old man’s glasses, like a ghastly shrub.

  At his side, Horace felt a tingle across the back of his own hand. The tingle bloomed into a crawl, into a prickle of pain. Three scythewings were on his hand, roaming slowly. Now two more. It wasn’t him they were interested in, he knew that now too. They wanted the Fel’Daera, snug in its pouch beneath his hand. He fought the angry urge to swat them away. He stopped watching, but felt them land, another after another after another.

  Through the curtain of knives that surrounded him, another glimpse of Mr. Meister. The creatures crawled over his vest and glasses, his hand, serrated wings glinting. The oraculum was so thickly covered now that Mr. Meister looked like a monstrosity, a mute and bristling cyborg. The old man’s mouth came open, teeth bared, and then Horace lost sight of him once again.

  Agony swept over Horace, buckling his knees. He wasn’t cut, no. This was something else. He looked down, horrified. The horde that had alighted on Mr. Meister was nothing compared to the throng that huddled and crawled across Horace’s hip now, burying his hand almost to the elbow, along with the pouch that held the box. They were piled five and six deep, burrowing into their own mass, trying to get down to the Fel’Daera. The back of his hand stung from the hundreds of tiny feet working across his flesh, but he barely felt it. He would not have felt it had they begun to slice into him in their frenzy. He would not have felt it even if they had been sawing through his flesh to get to the box. None of this was the source of the true pain he felt now.

  The box was screaming.

  Screaming was the only word, even for this soundless cry. The box jangled with alarm and fear—panic and pain or something like them. These weren’t quite the right words, no, because the box was not human, but these were the closest names Horace had for the sensations that burned inside him on the box’s behalf. He felt his face curl into a grimace of torment, and recognized it as the same look he’d seen on Mr. Meister’s face. The scythewings were destroying the box—no, devouring it. Or no . . . feasting on it. Yes. They were drinking from it. Like a plague of tiny vampires, leeching the life from it, feasting greedily on every ounce of the energy the box could provide. A bone-twisting torrent of the Medium barreled through the box and into a thousand voracious mouths. They will come. They will feed. And they had and they were, and the box was a beacon of agony and when would they leave? Would it be too late?

  There were so many of the creatures at Horace’s hip now that the collective weight of them, tiny as they were, weighed him down. All of them mindless and insatiable, hungry for everything the box could provide. They drank so deeply that even though Horace could feel the box, he knew he would be unable to use it. There was simply no energy to spare. Maybe Mr. Meister had miscalculated, had not foreseen the appeal the box would have for this horde. Maybe they had never been offered a feast like the Fel’Daera. Maybe they would never get their fill.

  Horace wanted to run, but could not. He tried to remain logical. Yes, he was half buried in blades, but the only cut he’d taken was when he had moved. And he got the feeling that any move he made now might be taken as an attack. It did not take much imagination to picture what the scythe-wings could do if angered. Instead he st
uck to Mr. Meister’s words of warning. He did not move. He did not cry out. He stood and let the anguish of the box course through him like electricity, turning every muscle in him to steel. He thought of Chloe, crawling through the inferno of her burning home, feeling the fire in her lungs, her heart, her bones, thinking her father might be taken or dead. This was nothing next to that. He told himself this over and over, trying to picture and feel the horror Chloe had described to him after the fire: the sight of flames inside her own eyes. This is nothing compared to that. This is nothing compared to that.

  And then—after an eternity—they released him. The scythewings took flight all at once, lifting off like blown-free dandelion seeds. He staggered, nearly falling to his knees as the screaming of the box dropped to silence. But the box was there, yes, still there. The swarm unfurled from its orbit around him into a thick column again, rising like the smoke from the ruins of Chloe’s house. And there was Mr. Meister down the hall, his sharp eyes on Horace and his glasses slightly askew. His fingers were still tucked into one of the pockets of his vest. The scythewings ascended into the shadows, out of sight, rising until at last they could be heard no more.

  “Are you cut?” Mr. Meister called.

  Horace touched his cheek. “I’m okay,” he replied. The cut was deep but very fine—almost like a paper cut—and the blood was already drying. He undid the pouch at his side and removed the box. He examined it closely, turning it over in his hands. It was unmarked, not even a scratch. In his mind, it felt aching and raw, like a muscle that had been worked to exhaustion.

  Horace felt much the same himself. But the box was safe. He could feel it gathering energy into itself again. Without waiting to ask if it was wise to do so, he twisted the lid open and looked through it down at himself—blue floor, no feet, no Horace. The future ten seconds from now. The box was working. He looked up to find Mr. Meister engaged in much the same activity—he’d taken off his glasses to examine the oraculum closely. He smoothed his many-pocketed red vest. When he was finished, he called to Horace again.

  “Come. Let us leave this place.” He spun and headed through the Hall.

  Horace hurried to catch up. His legs ached and his cheek stung and his hand burned.

  Mr. Meister glanced back. “I assume the Fel’Daera is none the worse for wear.”

  “Yes, but that was—what were those things?”

  “Sa’halvasa, if you must know.”

  Horace repeated the word to himself, letting the sound hiss in his mouth. “They were dangerous.”

  “We are besieged by danger every day,” Mr. Meister said curtly.

  “Yeah, and it seems like half the dangers we face are right here inside the Warren.”

  “The Warren is a fortress, Horace, not a palace.”

  “But what are those things even doing here? They were like the golem—”

  Mr. Meister spun around so abruptly that Horace nearly collided with him. The old man raised his hand, eyes flashing behind his glasses. “They are a necessity,” he growled fiercely. “I thought I explained as much.”

  Horace reared back. But almost immediately Mr. Meister subsided, his stern gaze softening into concern. He glanced up into the air. “Forgive me, Keeper. This night has us all on edge. This place. Let us leave.”

  At the far end of the Hall, the passageway had partly caved in, long ago. They picked through the dusty rubble and, with the help of the master key, passed through another brick wall into utter darkness. Mr. Meister produced his jithandra again, revealing a cramped concrete tunnel running left and right. A narrow set of train tracks lined the floor.

  “Trains?” Horace said, half to himself. But if trains came through here, they had to be the tiniest trains ever.

  “Once,” Mr. Meister said. “But no more. Either way, they do not concern us. We are out of the Warren now.” He stepped across the tracks, carrying the light into an opening in the opposite wall. Horace followed through a locked iron gate, up three more flights of stairs. Another heavy door, and finally fresh air flooded over Horace, cool and invigorating. Light and sound from the city trickled down from above, through the leaves of two medium-sized ginkgo trees. A chain of falkrete stones traced a circle around a bird-shaped stone. A high, winding wall surrounded them.

  “Another cloister,” Horace said.

  “Just so. Here we may rest for a moment. Beck will be here shortly.”

  Horace sank gratefully onto a stone bench, glad they would be driving to his house and not traveling by falkrete. He’d had enough for one day. No single part of him that could ache did not gnaw at him now, physical and mental. But he was safe. The box was safe. He licked his thumb and wiped the last of the blood from his cheek.

  Mr. Meister took a seat beside Horace. He looked none the worse for the ordeal they’d just gone through. The muffled sounds of traffic outside were a novelty—how strange to think this world had been going noisily on its way while he and Mr. Meister had navigated the perils of the Warren and been held captive below by the swarm. How much difference a hundred feet made.

  After a moment Mr. Meister spoke. “Horace, let me apologize again for my harsh words. Sanguine Hall can make one . . . testy.”

  “The Hall,” Horace said. “I don’t want to go through there again. Ever. The box was . . .”

  “I know what it is like,” Mr. Meister said grimly.

  “Those sa’halvasa, they feed off the Medium, don’t they? They force the energy out through our instruments. They suck the life out of them.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Riven wouldn’t dare come through there.”

  “Even if they tried, they would not be able to stand and endure the assault the way you just did. And if a Tan’ji is activated in the Hall, even in defense, the sa’halvasa go into a frenzy so ferocious that the instrument—and its Keeper—will be drained dry.”

  Horace wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but he at last understood the conversation back in the workshop. “That’s why you told Chloe she couldn’t come. You thought she’d try to fight them off.”

  “She is a fighter, is she not? If a traveler through Sanguine Hall cannot remain calm when the sa’halvasa come . . .” He shrugged, and pointed to Horace’s sliced cheek. “Sanguine Hall is not for everyone. The Riven will not brave it, any more than they would brave the Nevren.”

  “But you brave it. You pass through Sanguine Hall every time you leave the Warren.”

  Mr. Meister waved his hand, flashing the polymath’s ring. “It is a path I chose long ago. Do not feel sorry for me.”

  “I don’t,” Horace said, and immediately regretted it. “Or to be honest, I don’t know if I do or not.”

  “There are reasons for what I do.”

  Horace had heard variations on this theme a dozen times before, and they could all be boiled down to the same two words: “Trust me.” Horace wanted to trust Mr. Meister, he did. But every “Trust me” was no better than a locked door and a promise. And there were some doors, Horace knew, that the old man hadn’t even admitted to yet.

  “I know you have reasons,” said Horace. “Everyone has reasons. But I don’t know how good your reasons are. For example, did you have a good reason for not telling us about the polymath’s ring? Or the scythewings?”

  “Those matters were of no concern to you, until today. And today I told you.”

  Horace frowned, irritated. “Actually, you didn’t tell me about the scythewings. You just said ‘Be chill,’ and dragged me in there.”

  “Some stories are better experienced than explained.”

  “Is that what you told my mom, too? About the kaitan?”

  Mr. Meister seemed to wince. He studied Horace’s face. “Even if your mother has indeed forgiven me for that, Horace, it seems you have not.” He lifted his head as if hearing a sound. He stood. “Beck is here. Let us go.” He began to stride across the cloister.

  Horace fumed—on behalf of his mother, on behalf of Chloe and all the other Keepers, even o
n behalf of Isabel. Too many secrets. Too many doors. But as he watched the old man walk away, he realized maybe he wasn’t angry. Maybe he was afraid. And the first step toward not being afraid, his mother always told him, was to know. Fear of the unknown was the one fear that could always be conquered.

  Horace called out to the old man. “What about the Mothergates?”

  The old man froze.

  “Do you have a good reason for not telling us that they’re dying?” Horace asked. “Is that something better experienced, too?

  Mr. Meister turned toward him but still didn’t speak.

  Horace found that he was trembling. “I’m really wondering about that one. It seems like a big one.”

  “So it is,” said Mr. Meister.

  A confirmation. Horace held strong, pushing forward. “Do you know how it will feel if the Mothergates die? If our Tan’ji die along with them? Maybe it will feel like being severed. Or like being cleaved—I hear that’s fun.” Horace was standing now, but he didn’t remember rising. “Or maybe it will feel like Sanguine Hall, like having the life torn out of us. Do you know? And would you tell us if you did?”

  “I do not know,” said Mr. Meister. “None of us know. We are all afraid.”

  “You don’t sound afraid.”

  “It is my job to not sound afraid. ‘Fear is the stone—may yours be light.’ Yet I do not know how to lighten this particular stone, Horace Andrews.”

  “Tell me we can save the Mothergates.”

  Mr. Meister tipped his face to the sky. His jaw worked silently. His great gray eyes roamed the rustling deeps of the ginkgo trees overhead. Eight seconds passed. Twelve. At last the old man met Horace’s gaze.

  “The Mothergates can be saved,” he said solemnly. “That is a fact.”

  Horace studied his face. He was almost sure he believed him. “Why did it take you so long to answer?”