ONE
Vanda Kavanagh, future Warden of Caldryn Parliament, exited the portal with her long coat swirling and void stars clinging to it. When she’d entered the portal she’d had a plan. Now, seven steps later, she had a problem. Said problem wriggled in a warded pocket. Caldryn Portal was always busy, but at the beginning of the Spring Recess it abandoned any pretension of offering luxury travel and turned into an efficient machine, spitting politicians and their staff out from the Realm’s center of government to their home planets, moons, and space stations. Slotting in Vanda’s arrival portal, initiated on Itsasoa, had cost her grandmother a truly colossal amount of money, and even more in terms of favors owed. If one was to judge by Evelyn Kavanagh’s disapproving expression the cost wasn’t worth it. The matriarch of the Kavanagh family appeared younger than her seventy-two years. Her undergarments were as unyielding as her mind and spirit, and gave the illusion of toned middle-age to her expensively clad body. Today’s suit was a light heather tweed with moderate heels in the same honey-gold. Her upswept silver hair defied the wind from the portal. That wasn’t due to magic, but to the hairspray that clung as a faint undernote to whatever perfume she wore. Vanda suspected that Evelyn had long since ceased to notice the smell of the hairspray or she’d never have permitted it to become part of her personal scent. “Good afternoon, Grandmother.” Pale blue eyes examined Vanda’s appearance, and narrowed in unspoken criticism. As a child Vanda had suffered that expression several times. It meant that Evelyn had noticed a Kavanagh family member failing to live up to their name, but would berate the offender at a more suitable time. Evelyn tilted her face to receive an air kiss. “Welcome home.” Scanning the crowd, Vanda ignored the social cue to fake affection. “Everyone seems worried. Relieved, but worried.” “The previous portal destabilized.” The answer didn’t come from Evelyn’s pinched mouth. “Hisa.” Vanda bowed to the man she’d known since childhood. Hisa Kochi was the Custodian of Caldryn Parliament. He looked no older now than he had five years ago. Kitsune such as he lived for centuries, possibly for millennia. If anything he looked younger now as relief left his expression less guarded than usual. “I am very glad to see you safe. There wasn’t time for a message to reach you before you entered the portal on Itsasoa.” “It was my fault. My fault! But I don’t…I don’t understand.” A tall, thin man was crumpled against the security counter, observed unsympathetically by the guard on duty. “Power Martinez entered as usual. Seven steps. I knew he was old and slow. I accounted for his extended transit. He couldn’t have been more than halfway across when something destabilized the portal.” “Ah.” Vanda thought of the contents of her pocket, which was wisely remaining still. “Was it the portal directly before mine?” It must have been given the timing issue in communications that Hisa had mentioned, but she wanted confirmation. “Yes, and you have my apologies that you were ever at risk.” A man in his late fifties, puffing and red-faced, both furiously angry and worried, extended his hand. “Nathan Chen, Director of Portal Security.” “Mr. Chen.” Vanda noticed several yellow-badged media capture the moment on their phones. In fact, she was receiving far more attention from the media and politicians present than she’d prepared for. Released from the handshake, her hand hovered self-consciously over the pocket of her coat. Evelyn would be furious that the image of the new Warden of Caldryn Parliament would be of Vanda in her frontier outfit of a long coat over a khaki shirt, hard-wearing pants, and well-worn boots. While dressing that morning Vanda had intended to remind everyone of where she came from. Capricious fate meant everyone would remember her arrival for a very different reason. “I may know why the portal destabilized.” She turned to the guard. “Do you have a containment cage?” Portal security kept such things onsite to secure contraband. The temptation to smuggle dangerous items existed at all levels of society. If anything, those at the elite level were most inclined to believe that the rules didn’t apply to them. They were wrong. When it came to ensuring the safety of portal travel the rules applied to everyone. The guard placed a containment cage on the counter. He even considerately unlatched it. “Thank you.” Vanda deactivated the ward on her pocket and extracted the creature inside it. Small enough to balance on one hand, it blinked large eyes in a sublimely ugly face. With the index finger of her right hand, Vanda stroked a line from its pug nose back over its head to the small ridge at the back of its skull. Fine, soft fur tickled her finger. The creature’s coloring was remarkable. It was as if someone had dipped it in all the colors of a brilliantly lit, stained glass window. It shone. She tucked it into the containment cage, and passed the cage back to the guard, who accepted it unwillingly. “That’s a gremlin!” The drooping portalist pointed dramatically. “A gremlin!” “I found it huddled by the portal. It would have died if I left it in the myst, so I brought it in.” Evelyn tsked as she moved away from Vanda and the gremlin. “It is a creature of chaos. You should have left it in the void.” “A gremlin destabilized my portal.” The skinny portalist slid from leaning on the counter to sitting on the floor. Head against his knees, his shoulders shook as he breathed loudly, just short of sobbing. “Not me. I didn’t kill anyone.” “Is that true?” Nathan Chen barked at Vanda. The media and politicians pressed forward. “A gremlin wouldn’t destabilize a portal,” she said. “But before it became a gremlin—however it achieved that—it would have been an ifrit, and their disembodied presence definitely destabilizes magic, including portals.” “Thank God.” Nathan patted the distraught portalist on the back. “I mean, it’s a tragedy, but it’s a tragic accident. Nobody is to blame.” The unnamed security guard raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The gremlin?” The tiny creature peered innocently through the bars of its cage. Someone in the crowd said, “Aww.” Cuteness was its own superpower. “Ifrits avoid the organized magic of portals,” Hisa said. “And now that it is embodied as a gremlin it is quite safe,” he declared loudly and firmly. Nathan shot him a grateful look, the red color of high blood pressure fading from his face. Hisa bowed to Vanda. “Thank you for capturing the gremlin.” And to the media. “Only someone with Vanda’s magical strength and capability with wards could have warded the gremlin sufficiently so as to bring it through the portal’s protections and explain the destabilization.” “We’re grateful,” Nathan said. “Very grateful.” He nodded briskly to Vanda. “Without this proof Isaac would forever have been suspected of portalist failure. Now, we can be sure that portaling from here is safe.” As he spoke a group of three people were ushered past Vanda and onto the portal path, preparatory to stepping through when the new portal opened. They looked a little reassured, but still walked with the stiff-legged gait of fear. “Could there be more gremlins?” someone shouted. Patiently, Hisa repeated and expanded on Vanda’s explanation. “No. A gremlin is the embodiment of an ifrit. Ifrits are creatures of chaos. They cannot enter where life is. Life is orderly, you understand?” Politicians nodded as if the mysteries of the universe were theirs to command and the Custodian was merely reminding them of matters well understood. Liars. The media jostled each other, trying to capture photos of the gremlin as well as of Vanda, while Hisa continued his impromptu lecture. “For an ifrit to evolve a body it requires a staggering amount of magic, more than is typically to be found in the void. We can assume that it was the lure of such abundant, concentrated magic that brought the ifrit here despite its antipathy to the organized magic of the portal. The ifrit consumed that magic to acquire its body. Their physical form is always that of a gremlin. This little one will grow.” His voice altered slightly. “Now, it will grow. A body is, for all creatures, a thing that both lives and requires life. If the gremlin had lingered long in the void it would have died.” Hisa stared down at the gremlin. It peeped up at him from inside the cage. “Yes,” he said to it. “You were reckless to consume the magic near a portal. If you’d had patience you could have brought it near to a rupture point. Then, after your transformation, you’d have had magic enough to exit the void. As it is, with the portal warded against you, if Vanda had not come along with her ability to sense magic, and hence, to sense you, and if she had not possessed the ability to ward you and the kindness to think to do so, you would have died.” His austere gaze swept his fascinated audience. Behind him the trio of travelers had entered a new portal. The portal had then, successfully, closed after their crossing. “Once you have a body, the void kills. It is inimical to life, just as life repels that which is formless. That mutual hostility is why we pass swiftly through portals.” Seven steps, Vanda thought. Seven steps and do not stray, or the ifrits will bear you away. The nursery rhyme played through her mind, but the truth was that ifrits were rare. Rarer by far than magic users, and they were rare enough. Magic users in the Realm included kitsune, like Hisa, plus ordinary werewolves, vampires, and witches. Most witches used spells and potions, but a few saw the void and could pull together far distant locations to forge fleeting links which were grounded and stabilized by portals. The other kind of witches were wardkeepers. Vanda could create channels for magic to run through, becoming self-reinforcing so that reality itself could be turned aside. A strong ward could refuse a bullet, a spell, or the void itself. No one could protect like a wardkeeper. “You said lured?” Nathan Chen had followed Hisa’s explanation diligently. His voice gained in confidence and anger as he reached the inescapable conclusion. “Someone purposely baited the portal to destabilize it.” Hisa bowed. “I believe so. I am unsure how they hid such a concentration of magic from your scans. Perhaps their precautions were inadequate and that is why they got the timing wrong on when the ward was to break. Or else the ifrit was nearer than they imagined and it arrived too early.” “Too early?” A dozen voices asked the question. Hisa looked blandly around the room before his gaze settled on Vanda. “To prevent the arrival of our new Warden.” Me? Vanda stared back at him. Someone attempted to assassinate me? Pushed back by the crowd, Evelyn’s face was nonetheless visible. She looked as if someone had slapped her. Vanda didn’t mistake her grandmother’s expression as concern for her. As always with her family Vanda had to fight her own corner. An assassination was more than she’d expected to face, but she’d known people would disapprove of her appointment. Best to get that confirmed.
