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13

I’d assumed our first stop would have been near the riskatan attack. That maybe something about that location was the answer.

But Vasco made it clear before we left: Locksmiths had already checked for the easy, obvious answers.

Nothing wrong had happened simultaneous to the attack. Not in the greater Portland area, at least.

And there appeared to be nothing special about the dorach or the place the dorach was attacked.

Thus, our first stop was someplace I didn’t know. Someplace cold and wet.

But then, any riverbank is a chilly place to be standing when dawn breaks. Especially in Portland in the springtime.

At least, I was pretty sure we were still in Portland. I could make out an industrial area across the broad river, but that could have been Vancouver for all I knew.

Green trees — maples, or at least that’s what a glance suggested to me — and grass up the bank behind me, but I was as likely to find those in Washington as Oregon.

I did know that the wet sand under my sneakers was brown, and the cold river spray on my face did at least as much to wake me up as the blackberry tea had done.

And I was starting to think that my silk shirt was a poor choice.

Certainly Vasco, who knelt on the sand beside me, didn’t seem to be as bothered by the cold or wet in his flannel shirt.

Magellan seemed downright pleased to be here, running back and forth behind us — kicking up sand, of course — and yapping about nothing in particular. Except maybe joy to be outside in the morning.

“Vasco?” I asked.

“Hmmm?”

“Where are we?”

“Oh, right.” Vasco stood and brushed sand from his hands. He pointed off to my left, down the shore a ways.

“Follow that direction,” he said, “and you’ll get to Fred’s Marina. Nice little place to stop for fuel and food, if you like boating.”

He pointed at the river ahead of us.

“I assume I don’t have to tell you which river that is?”

I looked at it. It forked a few hundred feet further northwest from where we stood. But I couldn’t tell by sight nor smell if this was the Willamette, the Columbia, or something else.

I gave him a sheepish grin.

Vasco sighed.

He pointed right. “The Willamette comes in along here.” Pointed further up the flow. “It continues off to the north there, but splits into the Multnomah Channel off to the northwest.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Do you at least know the name of the island formed by that channel?”

“I just moved here,” I said.

Vasco sighed and shook his head. “Magellan?”

“Sauvie Island,” Magellan barked.

Vasco tossed him a treat. Looked back at me. “That’s Portland ahead of us across the river, and behind us on the other side of those trees. You understand that much?”

“Of course,” I said. “So we’re here because this is the first place the Willamette splits?”

“First place this close to Portland,” Vasco corrected. “Which means it’s the last line of defense against any river creatures that are allowed in the Columbia, but not this part of the Willamette.”

“Are there…” I started, but realized I knew the answer. There were sixteen types of creature allowed in the Columbia but not the Willamette. At least, this near to Portland.

I swear, Vasco’s eyes twinkled as he saw me recall the answer to the question I almost asked.

“So why are we here?” Vasco asked me.

“Because there should be some kind of barrier or ward here? Enforcing the treaties?”

“And is there?”

I blew out a breath and shook my shoulders. My first real test.

I looked out across the river.

No. That’s not quite right.

I stretched my awareness out across the river.

That involved looking, but honestly, it was more than that. It was as though I reached out with a portion of my mind and sifted along the edges of reality through the section of river ahead of me.

I had a vague sense of what I was looking for, so I didn’t get distracted by the other things I detected. A trio of spirits floating along above the river itself, two dead sailors and one … river spirit, I was pretty sure. It had a … watery feel to it, and its shape flowed and shifted in ways the dead sailors didn’t.

I’d have to look closer to know what variety of water spirit, but that wasn’t my focus right now.

Instead I let my mind sink under the water.

Normal river life…

A lizardfolk, of the type known to us as Sissalaxa. Smooth, teal skin and a long, thick tail. Eyes like a gecko, but webbed fingers and toes. I could call him over to us if I wanted. Ask him questions. But he looked as though he were out for an early morning swim, and maybe a breakfast fish or two.

There.

I spotted what I was looking for, and the moment I did it snapped into clear focus.

It was as though someone had stretched a chain net through the Willamette River. Except that the links of the chain were made from a shimmering, reddish-orange type of energy.

And the chain net didn’t seem to interact with anything. Fish and snakes swam right through it. So did the lizardfolk.

Still, I was pretty sure I was looking at a barrier that should have held back the riskatan.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s there. And from here, it looks intact.”

“Do you need to get closer to be sure?” Vasco asked.

I thought about that, and shook my head when I realized that I could detect more than the sight of the chain net.

I could hear and feel a vibration from it. A subtle tonic chord that seemed harmonious in a way that implied to me that the net was intact.

“No,” I said, with a firm shake of my head. “No, it sounds right to me, and it looks right. The only thing I could check is its feel, and since there’s nothing off in its look and its tone, the feel should be fine.”

Vasco shook his head.

“Not good enough,” he said. “That’s only two out of three. And is that all there should be?”

“What, you want me to lick the chain net?”

“No,” Vasco said, chuckling. “Amusing an image as that would present. Magellan, how does it smell?”

“Smells like fresh, healthy pig’s blood,” Magellan said.

Vasco laughed at the look on my face.

“That’s right,” he said. “And no, it’s not because pig’s blood was used in forging the chain. It’s a sign of how Magellan detects and interacts with the energies we work with.”

He crouched and scratched the beagle’s head.

“How would it smell if there was a problem?”

“Sick,” Magellan barked, tail going a mile a minute and his head high and proud. “Diseased.”

“So smell confirms what you see and hear,” Vasco said. “Is that enough?”

“Well, the vibrations I can feel … I need to touch it, don’t I?”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “You should have told me I’d be getting my shirt wet.”

Vasco laughed as we strolled down the beach to the nearest point of the chain net. He shook his head at me.

I saw what he was doing then. The chain net extended into the ground. Into the sand.

I trotted over to the spot before he reached it. Stuck my hand down into the wet, heavy sand. Burrowed my way down a few inches to what I needed.

I could feel the chain net now. Buzzing with vibrant energies. But there was a … a sense of limit to it. Completeness. Wholeness.

I stood up and clapped my hand clean. Smoothed the sand with my sneaker.

“Feels right,” I said. “If this is the last line of defense, it’s intact, and not how the riskatan got through.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “And your shirt is still dry.”

I chose not to point out that river spray had dampened it a darker color.

“Wait,” I said as Vasco turned away.

Vasco turned back to me, one wild gray eyebrow high.

“The riskatan didn’t break through this chain net. But if the chain net didn’t recognize the riskatan, it could have passed through as easily as that Sissalaxa did a few minutes ago.”

Vasco gave me a slow smile. “Now you’re thinking like a Locksmith.”

My shoulders slumped. “You’d already thought of that, hadn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But it was still good that you thought of it now. If you hadn’t thought of it after we checked the next two barriers, I’d’ve said something then.”

“Two barriers,” I said. “One where the Willamette meets the Columbia, and one where the Multnomah Channel meets the Columbia?”

“Exactly.”

“He should get a treat,” Magellan barked.

Vasco didn’t give me a treat, though I didn’t feel as put out about that as Magellan did.

Vasco used temporary portals to get us to the other two barriers, but the results were the same in both places.

Right now we were standing among the sharp rocks and gray sandy dirt of Kelley Point, staring out across the Columbia River at Washington.

Stronger wind here. Chillier. Cutting back and forth in a way I’d only experienced before on the beaches of Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, back in the greater Bay Area.

Well, down on Pier 39 in SF, too, but only right by the water.

Here it wasn’t salt water in the spray though, which made it more pleasant. Though any hope I’d had of keeping my silk shirt even passably dry was gone.

My hair was a mess too, but that wasn’t likely to be important.

By now the sun was fully visible out east, and the morning sky looked a lot more blue than gray. Apart from a scattering of morning clouds, at least.

I could hear car traffic in the distance, and hear and see the beginnings of boat traffic closer.

The barrier here was off to our left, sealing off the Willamette from those who, by treaty, were not allowed down it.

“Well,” Vasco said with a sigh. “It was too much to hope that the answer would be so simple as that.”

“You should be glad,” I said. “If those barriers were down, there’d be more trouble than a single riskatan.”

Vasco cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Right,” I said. “That the riskatan didn’t get here on its own—”

“—proves that there’s more trouble,” Vasco finished. “Still, they had to be checked.”

“No they didn’t,” I said.

Vasco turned to me, wild eyebrows high. Magellan’s tail was going a mile-a-minute, but he was sitting still and staring at me, excitement all through his eyes.

“You, or someone else, checked them already.” I shrugged. “You wouldn’t have waited for me. Not if other things could have been slipping through and causing trouble.”

“He’s good,” Magellan barked.

Vasco smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. “So why did I take you to check the barriers anyway?”

“To settle my nerves and let me try a few basic things without anyone watching?”

“Yes,” Vasco admitted without a trace of shame. “But also because you needed to experience the barriers for yourself. Knowledge is one thing. Experience is another.”

I nodded, not entirely sure I agreed — knowledge, to me, implied experience, otherwise it was just information — but I didn’t want to debate the issue right here.

Especially not with the early joggers on the trail not a few hundred feet behind us.

“So,” Vasco said, giving me an evil grin. “The obvious answer isn’t the solution, Locksmith. And we’re now into unchecked territory. What comes next?”

“The nearest portal to the place that I spotted the riskatan has to be checked.”

“And that is?”

“Ross Island.”

“Then I trust you can get us there.”

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