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7

Suddenly I felt vastness of that giant crystal chamber around me. Chiron and his bats were still nearby. Janna, Vasco and Magellan, even closer.

And yet I stood there, feeling more alone than I’d felt since Katy left me. Almost numb from the realization of what I’d done.

One word just echoed in my head.

“Killed.”

I killed something. Or maybe I should say, I killed someone.

The fish monster. The riskatan. I killed it.

Me. The guy who didn’t even kill spiders in his apartment. Flies and mosquitoes, sure. Ants, of course. But spiders got escorted outside. Used to drive Katy crazy. Made her call me Gandhi.

And yet I killed something today.

No.

Not something.

Someone.

Regret washed over me, as icy and shocking as the waters of the Willamette.

I dropped backwards into a sitting position, not caring how hard my butt hit that white crystal floor.

I fell backward with a little more care, so I didn’t knock myself out.

I lay there. Gazing up at that huge black circle where the rainbow colors of the domed ceiling came together. From this position I could see that the rainbow pattern of each level rotated slowly — oh, so very slowly — each floor the opposite direction of the floor above it.

Apparently, Janna’s pronouncement of doom had been enough for Chiron. He and his bats took to the air.

With only a portion of my attention, I watched them fly an arrow formation straight at a spot in the middle of the violet portion of the upper cavern walls.

They chirped before hitting, and each of them just vanished instead of splatting against the wall.

Normally, that might have fascinated me. Might have made me wonder if each color section in this vast chamber was actually a portal.

Right then, though, I noted their movement only cursorily. Most of my mind focused down on that one fact.

Murder.

I had committed murder.

I had done the most heinous thing one living person could do to another.

Maybe they should have let Chiron kill me.

Worst of all, I didn’t even know the riskatan’s name. Or anything about it. I knew I had murdered another being, but I had no sense of the true scope of what I had done.

Magellan interrupted my chain of thoughts. He trotted up and licked my face.

I looked over into the forgiving eyes of the beagle.

“I murdered someone, Magellan,” I said. “I can’t believe it. I’m a murderer.”

Magellan made a small, whining sound of denial.

I looked over at Janna. I needed to know just how much damage I’d done today. Janna, though, was in quiet conversation with Vasco. They were at least a dozen feet away from me now.

When had they moved away?

Louder, to Janna, I said, “Did the riskatan have children?”

She didn’t hear me. Her wheelchair was facing away, and Vasco was leaning in for their hushed argument.

I cleared my throat. Started to ask again.

Magellan didn’t let me. He spun a circle. Ran over to Janna and Vasco, and ran circles around them, barking. His little tail going like mad the entire time.

I would have sworn that he was taking them to task about something.

“Oh!” Vasco said suddenly. He turned to me with an astonished expression, then back to Janna. “He thinks—”

“On it,” Janna said, rolling her wheelchair over to me.

“You misunderstand,” Janna said quickly. “Riskatani are not, properly speaking, sapient. They are sentient, more or less, but they’re not intelligent, thinking individuals.”

“But—”

“Their cunning can ape intelligence in a number of ways. Which makes them close enough that the Va-a-naska insisted that they be included in their treaty. And against my predecessor’s better judgment, she agreed.”

“Wait,” I said, sitting up. Puzzled now. “Am I a murderer or am I not?”

“Well,” Janna said, drawing the word out while Vasco crouched down and scratched Magellan up and down his back.

“No,” Vasco said. “In every sense of the word that matters, you are not a murderer. You saved lives today.”

“Technically,” Janna said to me over whatever Vasco would have said next, “you are a murderer. But only because of the wording of the treaty, not the way you think of murder. Riskatani form no societies. They do not pair bond, nor raise their hatchlings. They do not fashion or wield tools. They show no more interest in their dead than they do any hunk of edible meat. They keep no histories. They can form packs for a time, but even those packs dissolve shortly or they end up killing each other because their nature is vicious and brutal.”

“We don’t restrain their hunting grounds with words,” Vasco added. “There are magics that keep them out of the places they aren’t supposed to go. It’s the only way.”

“They sound like monsters,” I said.

“They are,” Vasco said. “In pretty much every sense of the word. And I’ve long argued for their exclusion from the treaties.”

“Which we won’t get,” Janna responded, sounding as though this were an old discussion she didn’t want to get into again. “Not unless we give the Va-a-naska concessions that we’re unwilling to make. They know the position this puts us in.”

“That ristakan was in the Willamette, and we didn’t know,” Vasco said firmly. “If Scott hadn’t killed it, it might have gotten not just that dorach, but a human swimmer. Possibly a child. Possibly more than one.”

“And yet,” Janna said, in a tone that said the discussion was over, “if I don’t punish Scott for his actions, I violate the treaty. It’s unfair, but we can thank my predecessor for that.”

“What if—” Vasco started, but Janna cut him off with a wave of her hand. She turned to me. Rolled right up to me.

“I must punish you, Scott.” Suddenly her brown eyes seemed to carry the weight of decades. Centuries maybe. “Chiron thinks you must die, but he is mistaken. You did what you did because a dorach requested aid. Even the death of the riskatan was accidental.”

“I didn’t know,” I said, frustrated now. “I’ve never even heard of these things before. Riskatan. Dorach. Va-a-naska. I don’t even—”

“Exactly,” Janna said. “You acted out of ignorance. So, I give you a choice.”

She lifted one hand. “You can choose ignorance. If you do, I will close your mind to the … unusual portions of today’s events, as well as your ability to notice the unusual. Basically, I would remove from you the essence of a Locksmith.”

“No!” Vasco cried, while Magellan barked ardent agreement with his master. “To waste such talent would—”

“Be his choice,” Janna said, her eyes never leaving me. “If that’s what he chooses.”

“What would I lose with my … essence? This doesn’t sound good.”

“It isn’t good,” Vasco grumbled.

“Not your essence,” Janna clarified, “but your Locksmith’s essence. You would lose the ability to hear the speech of a dorach. To notice the little ways in which the world is not what most humans might expect it to be. You would become, well, normal.”

“What’s my other option?” I asked.

“That riskatan should never have been in the Willamette. I do not believe that it traveled there of its own. It would not risk the restraints keeping it from populated areas without a pack to goad it on. But no signs of a pack have been seen.”

“Which means…” I said.

“Which means that someone deliberately set a riskatan loose in the Willamette. Perhaps as a distraction. Perhaps as part of some larger plot. Either way…”

Janna lifted her other hand. “If you choose knowledge, your punishment is to be the one who investigates this. Make no mistake, this will likely be dangerous.”

“How could I possibly—”

“It would mean,” Janna said, and now that sparkle was back in her eye, “that you would have to be trained as a Locksmith of the Portals. You would be taught of the peoples and creatures you would be likely to meet, as well as the alliances such as the Va-a-naska. You would learn the magic of portals, their uses, their pathways and so forth. Along with a few other … related skills.”

“You’d have to learn to fight, too,” Vasco added, standing straighter as though to show off the muscles he still had, despite all that gray hair. “Properly fight. So you could have stood against Chiron if you had to. A Locksmith must be able to defend himself.”

“You certainly have the tools on that front,” Janna said, looking me up and down again.

She shook her head and cleared her throat.

“Excuse me. Scott Angus Eagleson, this is my judgment as current Lady of the Portals. You acted out of ignorance, so you may choose ignorance. You killed a riskatan that should not have been where it was, doing what it did. So if you choose knowledge, you must be the one to resolve that mystery, wherever it leads.”

Wherever it leads. That sounded kind of open-ended and dangerous. No doubt there were even scarier things waiting for me than Chiron and his bats.

Not that ignorance sounded like a much better option. I could still see those people in Riverfront Park, turning and walking away from the dorach’s cries for help. Not even consciously hearing those cries.

If I had turned away too, maybe Vasco could have responded in time to save the dorach…

Or maybe the dorach would be dead. And maybe that riskatan would be feasting on children right now.

Plus, whoever loosed that riskatan, they might do something even worse.

I sucked in a deep breath and spat it out.

“I choose knowledge. When do I start?”

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