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14

The Ross Island Portal wasn’t actually on Ross Island.

Apparently, nobody wanted to call it the “Toe Island Portal.”

That’s right. I said “Toe Island.”

See, there was this small chain of four islands in the middle of the Willamette River, just south of central Portland.

Well, three islands, really, but I’ll get to the why of that in a second.

The biggest of these islands, of course, was Ross Island.

Ross Island looked kind of like a great big fishhook — acres and acres of fishhook — when viewed from above. And from above was the only way I’d seen it at that point. Pictures on the internet, and the occasional glance as I passed on the nearby Ross Island Bridge.

The Ross Island Bridge didn’t actually go to Ross Island, which says a lot about what it’s like trying to get around Portland without a GPS.

But I’m getting off track.

Now technically Hardtack Island was the second biggest of this little chain.

However.

At some point it got connected to Ross Island by levee. I think it was to form a lagoon, and make work easier on the miners and dredgers. Something like that.

Whatever the reason, because of that levee I consider it all part of Ross Island and will not acknowledge “Hardtack Island” as separate.

Largely because without Hardtack Island, Ross Island has no hook, and I can’t describe it as a fishhook. Which I think is a charming image.

So. Three islands in the small chain. Don’t let the internet tell you differently.

Anyway, southeast of Ross Island is East Island. Looks kind of like a spade in a deck of playing cards, except it’s all green. A private island of some kind, which made me immediately suspect it was some villain’s evil lair.

I mean, what would be the point of having a private island that looks like a nature preserve with no visible construction, unless it was actually a front for some kind of secret lair?

Anyway, southwest of Ross Island was a rock.

All right, it was a big rock.

Maybe only a tenth the size of East Island, and maybe a hundredth the size of Ross Island. Still, it was considered big enough to merit getting called an island in its own right. Much the way Pluto was considered big enough to get called a planet.

Depending on whom you asked. And when.

This big rock was shaped kind of like a banana, with the stem at the north end. A few odd, scattered shrubs, mainly in the middle, but primarily it was all just rock and dirt.

Didn’t look like a toe at all, in my humble opinion. And yet, it got designated Toe Island somewhere along the line, by someone who was allergic to bananas.

All right, that’s speculation on my part. But it really should have been called Banana Island.

Or better still, Banana Rock.

Then again, “Banana Rock Portal” would have sounded even sillier.

Nevertheless, that was where I took us from Kelley Point. A quick jaunt through a mud-brown portal, because existing portals are the easiest things to travel to.

Four portal jaunts already this morning, one by my own hand, and the sun was only really just now up in the sky.

Must sound as though I was already a jaded old hand at traveling by portal.

That’s not true at all though.

I mean, I understood how to do it. And in the process of training, I’d probably traveled by portal thousands of times.

But that training, all those portals, that experience was hiding somewhere in the back of my subconscious, waiting for the right kind of trigger to bring it to the surface.

Which meant that, on a conscious level, I was still pretty darned new to all of this.

Opening that portal, back at the tip of Kelly Point? It had been exciting. The way my fingers tingled as the energies flowed through me and outward, spiraling into the circular shape of the portal.

The subtle vibration of the undertones of the word “alethia” that changed it from a normal word to a word of power.

The electric charge to the air.

The smell of clover honey.

Honestly, it felt so good, it was like something I shouldn’t get caught doing in public. Might have even tried to find someplace where I wouldn’t be seen opening it.

Except Vasco reminded me that portals are the kinds of things that most people don’t want to notice. So they don’t.

And sure enough, the moment I began, the joggers looked away. Even the woman sailing her own little sloop — the woman who’d waved at me only moments before — turned away as I started focusing energy.

If anyone had seen me, say, from a distance, or out of the corner of their eye?

Whatever they saw they probably would have dismissed as a trick of the light. And if they didn’t dismiss the sight, who knew? Might have had the makings of a future Locksmith.

Anyway, we stepped through that portal and out of the connection to the Ross Island Portal, there at the northern tip of the banana stem, on Toe Island.

More chilly wind and wet spray.

This poor silk shirt was done for, and it wasn’t even noon yet. The waters of the Willamette churned high from the nearby passage of a tugboat.

Wasn’t pulling anything. Might not have been in service. Not very big either. Just the one smallish cabin above a raised portion of the deck, and a hook hanging out behind it. No more than a half-dozen tires strapped to the side, for whatever reason people strapped tires to a boat.

Tugboat sure wasn’t in great shape. Smelled like a tire fire. I could see rust here and there under faded red and blue paint. Even the name — the Grinder — was only just visible over what looked to have been at least a dozen previous names.

Three people up on deck. One bearded man — and in Portland, that meant his beard bushed out dark inches away from his chin and cheeks — in shorts and a white tee shirt with some kind of logo. He also had on a dark, Hillsboro Hops baseball cap.The two others up there were in yellow slickers. Pants and jackets.

With the hoods up.

Something about that nagged at me.

They were up a dozen feet or so above where I stood. Couldn’t have gotten hit by that much river spray. Not enough to merit that much rain gear. And there sure was no sign of rain in the mostly clear sky above.

What was more, the day was shaping up to get back into the 80s again, which meant that slickers like those would be too hot before even noon.

I looked closer as they passed.

They were bulky people, the ones in the slickers. The man with the shorts was skinnier. Not much older than I was. Tanned and weathered, though, as though he lived on his boat.

I started to stretch more of my awareness out toward the boat.

Vasco cleared his throat.

I shook my head. Whirled on him.

“Did you see them?” I pointed at the tugboat, but Vasco lowered my hand.

“Portals and spells are one thing,” he said. “Pointing is something everyone notices.”

“But—”

“As for who or what are wearing yellow rain gear on the tugboat that just passed us, how many nonhuman people are there in Portland proper on an average day?”

“Three thousand, give or take.” The answer popped out before I could even have given it a thought. “But—”

“But we have more important work to do here, don’t we? Or shall we bother every one of those three thousand people? Is that how you wish to spend your time investigating this problem, Locksmith?”

“No,” I said, though the word tasted a little bitter. Made me wince as I said it.

I flared my nostrils in a deep sigh and turned to look at the portal.

The Ross Island Portal had come to my mind because it was the closest portal to where I’d seen the riskatan. That was true. But it had also come to mind because it was the nearest portal close to the water line of the Willamette River.

Right here at the stub of the toe, as it were. Or, as I preferred it, right at the tip of the banana’s stem. The very northern end of the dirty rock that got called an island.

Just above the waterline, maybe a half-dozen feet from the waters of the Willamette, jutted up a big slab of brownish gray rock. Looked random. Broader than it was tall. Gentle slope up the back side, for an easy path to its top edge.

The kind of rock that would be good to sit on while eating a bag lunch, watching the water, and pondering life.

On the steep side of that rock, though, a four-foot diameter section was the location of one of those thin spots in the universe.

A natural portal.

Felt like slate under my fingers, but it probably would have felt that way even if there wasn’t an ounce of slate in that whole island.

Something about the presence of a portal gave rock a slatish kind of feel. One of the ways they could be recognized.

Vasco watched as I slid my fingers across the tiny ridges of that slate. He stood perfectly still. So still that out of the corner of my eye, he seemed to have turned into a statue.

If it weren’t for the wind tossing his wild gray hair, I might have thought he was a statue.

On my other side, Magellan sat. Tail wagging, and head tilted. Fascinated, as I did my thing.

I placed my left hand in the center of the four-foot portal radius. I had to crouch a bit, but that was fine.

My right hand, I pointed down. Not pointing with my fingers, just the whole of my hand. And not pointing at the rock, either.

Through the rock. Through the universe itself. Down into the depths of the Underworld. The primal place. A core source of power and emotion. History. Ties to all that has come before.

I felt the connection through my right hand.

Warmth flooded my fingertips. Workout warmth. Hot tub warmth. The warmth of relaxed readiness.

Up my fingers that sensation spread.

Into my arm. My shoulder.

It seeped through my body. Filled me up. A heady, powerful kind of readiness.

Into my left arm now. Flowing down, down, all the way to my fingers.

When I could feel that sensation itching even at the fingertips of my left hand — that eagerness to act — only then was it time for the gesture and incantation.

I let the middle two fingers of my left hand bend inward to touch my palm. My index finger and pinkie twirled opposing circles.

“Apokalypto,” I intoned, and the word vibrated out of me as though it started down in my spine instead of my diaphragm.

The portal sprang to life. Swirling cherry red and midnight blue in opposing directions.

The scent of hyacinth filled the air. Stronger even that the clean smells of the Willamette, or the polluting odors of that tugboat.

And the past seventy-two hours of the portal swirled within those red and blue colors.

Reading that history had been a class of its own. It didn’t come through in nice, pretty pictures. No.

It was like reading tea leaves. Or maybe like finding pictures in clouds, or a field of static.

Except that the most important element was personal quiet.

Reading the history accurately meant ensuring that the Locksmith didn’t look for what he wanted to see. He had to see what presented itself.

So, while I had all that heady power flowing through me from the Underworld, I had to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself. Keep my breathing steady. And just stare into what was there.

To look into those swirling reds and blues, and allow pictures and symbols to form on their own…

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