by JA Andrews
This time, the shock raced all the way up to his elbow. Alaric gasped and clutched his arm to his chest as the opening of the tunnel sealed itself off, leaving them in blackness. He clenched his jaw until the pain faded. He should have used the other hand for that last one.
Alaric started Beast toward the bright moonlight at the far end of the tunnel, wishing he could use the paxa spell to calm himself.
In the calmness of the tunnel, the memory of Evangeline’s hollowed face flooded his mind again, followed by the familiar anguish.
He pushed that image away and drew out the memory of the night they had walked together along the edge of the Greenwood. She had peered into the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of an elf. He had explained that no one caught sight of an elf by chance, but she had ignored him, jumping at every flash of a bird or a squirrel.
He held that idea for a long moment. The way she had looked. The way she had been. The way she would be again.
He tucked the memory away and refocused on tonight. All he needed was to slip into the library and find one book. It should be easy.
Of course, the path should have been easy, too. The wolves and ghosts made no sense. Alaric had lived at the Stronghold for two decades and had traveled that path countless times. It had never given him trouble. It had never needed to. The Wall was more than enough defense for the Stronghold.
To anyone but a Keeper, the Wall would appear to be just an odd bit of wall sitting right against a cliff face. None but a Keeper knew how to open the tunnel, and the tunnel was the only entrance to the valley holding the Keepers’ Stronghold.
The obvious question was whether the Keepers had changed the path in the year since Alaric had stormed out, or whether Alaric had changed, and this was how the path had always treated strangers.
Beast nickered as the tunnel spilled out into a grassy field in a narrow valley. Ahead of them a tower rose, its white stones shining in the moonlight. The smells of the day lingered in the valley, bread and smoke and drying herbs, but this late at night, everything was quiet.
A glitter of light from the very top of the tower beckoned him. The Wellstone.
It tempted him to go up, to dive into the pool of Keeper memories that it held. It was the other option besides the book, the quicker option. He needed knowledge from Kordan, and Kordan had been a Keeper. He would have stored his memories in the Wellstone, just like every other Keeper for the last two hundred years. Certainly, the information Alaric needed would be there.
But the price to use the Wellstone was too high. Evangeline was safe for now. The reference Alaric had found about Kordan had mentioned a book, so he was here for a book. Please let the antidote be in the book.
Alaric crossed the grass to the wooden front doors of the tower, bleached to grey in the moonlight and flung wide open as always. Alaric stepped through them into the heavy stillness of the entry hall. He ignored the lanterns sitting on the shelf next to the door, reluctant to disturb the darkness. Hopefully, he could find the book and leave without having to explain himself, or his long absence, to anyone.
On his left, the wall was dark with cloaks. Reaching out, he brushed his hand along the soft fabric. True Keepers’ robes, managing to be both substantial and light, might be the thing he missed the most.
Before he left, he would take one. He’d leave this thin, worn cloak behind, the one that wasn’t quite black and wasn’t quite right, and take a real Keeper’s robe with him.
He walked out the end of the hall, through the open center of the tower to the entrance of the library.
He paused near the door, hanging back in the shadows. The library was lit by glowing golden orbs tucked into nooks between the bookshelves. He could hear the scratching of a pen as a Keeper wrote somewhere deep in the library, but there was no one to be seen. He stepped up to the wooden railing in front of him and looked out into an immense circular room. Four stories below him lay a tiled floor with patterns swirling like eddies in a stream. Three stories above him, a glass ceiling showed the starry sky. A narrow walkway stretched around the room alongside age-darkened bookshelves.
If the Keepers could be relied on for anything, it was to record things. And then cross-reference that knowledge. Repeatedly. Alaric wasn’t sure where Kordan’s book would be shelved, but all of his works should be recorded in the Keeper’s Registry.
Alaric walked to the winding ramp spiraling along the inside of the railing, connecting each floor to the next, grateful for the thick rugs that muffled his steps. He climbed up two floors, still seeing no one, and made his way to the thick black tome that recorded the life’s work of each Keeper.
A puff of air breezed past him as he opened the Registry, as though the book was crammed with more knowledge than it could hold. It had always felt strange to hold this book, knowing that one day, there would be an entry in it under his own name.
Alaric flipped to the index. No listing for Kordan. He tried alternate spellings, but found nothing. He growled in frustration.
“That has got to be the most boring book in the library,” a voice said from behind him.
Alaric’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of the Shield’s voice. Silently cursing the thick step-muffling rugs, he turned to face the leader of the Keepers.
“You’ve been gone over a year, Alaric. Please tell me you didn’t come back just to browse the Registry.”
The tiny form of the Shield stood behind him smiling, his bald head barely above Alaric’s elbow. His clear eyes peered up at Alaric from below wooly white eyebrows. Alaric braced for questions, but the Shield just smiled benignly, displaying none of the accusation that Alaric expected.
“How did you know I was here?”
The Shield shrugged. “I’m so old that at this point, I’m bordering on omniscient.”
Alaric let out a short laugh, his tension releasing with it.
The Shield glanced down at the book in Alaric’s hand. “As any omniscient would ask, what are you looking for? And can I help you find it?”
Alaric almost said no, but though the Shield was not omniscient, the amount of knowledge contained behind those fluffy brows was astounding. He could save Alaric hours of research.
Alaric offered the book to him. “I’m looking for information on a Keeper named Kordan. He lived about a hundred years ago.”
The Shield weighed the words for a moment, and Alaric knew he was making connections and filling in blanks until he understood far more than Alaric had said. The old man waved away the Registry and turned toward the shelves. “You’re looking in the wrong book. Kordan was a Keeper, but after dabbling in some darker magic, he left the Stronghold and requested to be removed from the ranks of Keepers. He’ll be recorded over here.” He pulled another book off the shelf, Histories and Works of the Gifted. “Specifically, he’ll be under the Magic-Capable, Affiliation-Unknown section since he never aligned himself with any other group. He’s under Kordan the Harvester.”
Magic-Capable, Affiliation-Unknown. Alaric sighed. I’m right there with you, Kordan.
“He has a town named after him,” the Shield continued. “Kordan’s Blight. It’s up near the foot of the Wolfsbane Mountains.”
“Kordan’s Blight? That sounds… ominous.” Alaric slid the Registry back into place on the shelf.
“Mmm,” the Shield agreed, flipping pages. “There wasn’t much of a town when he lived there, just a few homesteads. Kordan lived there for some time doing experiments. I’m sure you can guess that his time there didn’t end well. You know how local legends are. The memory of him stuck, and when a town did grow there, it inherited the name. Ahh, here it is.” The Shield set his finger on a paragraph then looked up at Alaric with a searching look.
“So… you came back looking for information on a Keeper, and you decided to come down here. To the library…”
Alaric didn’t answer the unspoken question.
“…when we have a Wellstone upstairs which holds all of Kordan’s memories.”
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��I’m not using it,” Alaric said flatly. He wouldn’t pay the Wellstone’s fee. He wouldn’t share with it all his memories since the last time he used it. The memories of meeting Evangeline, of when she was poisoned, of the things he had done to save her and the dark days since. “My memories are my own. I’m not interested in sharing them with the Wellstone so they can be studied and analyzed.” His voice came out sharper than he had intended.
The Shield considered him for a long moment. “Then it is safe to assume you don’t intend to stay.”
Alaric let his eyes run over the books in front of him. Shelves and shelves of annals, a running history of Queensland kept by the Keepers for hundreds of years.
“But I need you back at court,” the Shield said when Alaric didn’t answer. “The queen needs you back.”
“I can’t.”
“Queen Saren needs a Keeper to advise her.”
“Send someone else.”
“Who?” The calmness in the Shield’s voice cracked. “Who here has the strength to travel two days to the palace, then keep up with the pressure of life at court?”
The answer to that was obvious. There was only one other Keeper young enough to travel. “Send Will.”
“Will never came back from the Greenwood. It’s been over a year, and we’ve received no word.”
Alaric looked sharply at the Shield. Will should have only been gone a couple of months. He was in his thirties, barely younger than Alaric. He’d been like a brother to Alaric since they had joined the Keepers twenty years ago.
“Well, let someone else read some books and take over,” Alaric snapped.
“If all Saren needed was books, I’d send her books. But I don’t even have another Keeper who can piece together history and politics and answers the way you can. No one else who can draw out the important parts of history and make it useful.”
Alaric shook his head. He couldn’t go back to court. Not right now.
The Shield’s voice grew quieter. “How is Evangeline?”
Alaric felt the familiar stab of guilt. He took a deep breath. The library air smelled of paper and ink and knowledge. He’d missed that smell. He took another breath. That was all he seemed to do these days, take deep breaths.
The Shield let the question drop. “What are you looking for from Kordan?”
Another hard question. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell the Shield, exactly, but it was hard to say out loud. The hope was too fragile, like the new skin of ice over a pond. Just the effort of shaping it into words could shatter it.
But that fear was irrational. He looked down into the Shield’s face. “I’m looking for the antidote to rock snake venom.”
The old man’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I wouldn't have thought to look in Kordan's work.”
Under other circumstances, Alaric would be pleased that he’d told the Shield something he didn’t already know.
The Shield turned back to the book, and his surprise turned into a scowl. “This lists one reference in the library from Kordan, a scroll. But it’s not in the medicinal section.” He glanced up at Alaric. “It’s on the restricted shelves.”
The restricted shelves? Alaric felt the hope he’d been carrying so carefully crack.
The Shield gave Alaric a long, measured look. “I hope you find the answers you need, Alaric.” He turned to go.
“There were ghosts outside the Wall,” Alaric said quietly.
The Shield paused and turned back. “There are always ghosts on the path back home. They must have never had anything to say to you before.”
Alaric looked at the old man in surprise. “You see them?”
The Shield gave a short, bitter laugh. “Every time. The sentinels may be the reason that so few of the older Keepers ever leave. They’re too afraid to take the path back. You live long enough, Alaric, and you build up quite a few ghosts.” The smile he gave Alaric now was tinged with sadness. “I meant what I told you before you left. No one is defined by a single choice. All of us have ghosts. And regrets. If you ever see a road back to us, I will be glad of it.”
Alaric felt a momentary swell of gratitude. But the Shield didn’t know what Alaric had done, the places he’d gone, the things he’d been a part of. He didn’t know how many lines Alaric had crossed trying to save Evangeline, only to fail again and again. He tried to return the old man’s parting smile, but he couldn’t quite force one out before the Shield was too far away to see it.
Chapter Three
Alaric watched the Shield leave the library before he moved. Then he went to the ramp and headed to the lowest floor. Two levels down, he almost ran into another Keeper walking with his nose in a book.
The man looked up with an apologetic smile. When he saw Alaric’s face, his smile withered. Alaric held in a sigh.
“Mikal,” Alaric said, nodding his head slightly. Of course it had to be Mikal.
Mikal narrowed his eyes. “Back so soon?”
Alaric felt a pang of regret at the Keeper’s reaction. But here, at least, was the welcome Alaric had expected. “I’m not really back at all.”
Mikal gave a little snort, his eyes running down Alaric’s worn cloak. “Never thought you would be.” He stepped around Alaric and disappeared up the ramp.
Alaric stood still for a moment. It was surprisingly depressing to realize he was living up to Mikal’s expectations, not the Shield’s.
Alaric descended quickly all the way to the deepest floor of the library where the oldest books were stored. Their spines, even with the meticulous preservation of the Keepers, were flaking off, leaving a fine dust along the front of the shelves. There were books on this level written in runes so ancient that none but a Keeper could read them.
He crossed the floor to a bookshelf covered by a wooden gate. When Alaric touched the wood, red words flared into existence.
Herein lie words of darkness and death.
A year ago when he’d touched this gate, he’d been looking for a way to save Evangeline’s life among these restricted books. A way that was different from all the ways a Keeper would try. A way that might work. Most of these writings were from Sidion, works the Shade Seekers had written. They spoke of dark magic that the Keepers would not consider using. When the red warning had sprung up that time, Alaric had almost walked away.
Almost. He hadn’t heeded the words. He thought he had found new paths of life. He had been wrong.
“Darkness and death,” he agreed quietly.
He opened the gate and began to look carefully through the first shelf that held scrolls. At one end of it, he found one ruined, crumpled red scroll. Alaric winced in guilt and skipped down to the lower shelves. On the very bottom sat the unassuming brown scroll labeled, Death and Life of a Seed by Kordan the Harvester.
He pulled the parchment from its place and moved to a nearby desk positioned between the shelves. The cheerful glow of the golden orb above it felt out of place.
He unrolled the thin, crinkling paper.
Herein, I write the final record of my work. I cannot bear to write any more. I will store all of my memories in the Wellstone, and bury my treasure beneath a young oak. Then I am finished with it all.
It is only now that I see the darkness in what I have been studying.
I realized, as every farmer does, it is only in dying that a seed creates a new plant. I remembered that the Shade Seekers have a way of manipulating the energy of a creature at the moment of its death. If I could use that power with a seed, I might grow a plant greater than expected. I failed many times before I finally succeeded. I was elated when a sunflower sprouted and grew to an enormous height overnight.
I was coming to understand the exact nature of the seeds, the exact way in which they died, the exact moment in which to impart my magic. I began to see that I could control death, even stop it and replace it with life. Far from frightening me, I was thrilled by this new power.
Everything went perfectly for a quarter of a year.
Then c
ame the day when Peros, the farmer’s son, was bitten by a rock snake. Roused by the commotion, I ran outside and saw his parents holding him in despair. A man had killed the snake, but too late. Blackness was seeping up the boy’s leg. There was nothing to do. No way to stop it.
Sometimes, I try to justify myself by remembering that I had been cooped up for months, focused exclusively on my seeds. But I know that does not excuse me.
When I saw the boy dying, it was as though he were a seed. I could see the life in him and knew how it would leave. I knew the moment of action. The despair of his parents drove any thought from my head, and I raced to the boy, cradling his head in my hands, whispering the words of death and life. Through his pain, he looked up at me, and I know that at the last moment, he understood what I did. Oh, worthless man! To have that moment back and watch the life fade from his eyes!
The boy did not die. A seed, when it is ‘reborn’, splits open and a new life springs from within it. But a boy is not a seed—Peros had nothing inside him to grow. There was nothing but the snake’s venom and death.
The fear that he would split open paralyzed me for a moment, but he did not. He writhed and screamed in agony, an agony far worse than the bite. His parents tried to calm him, but everyone else drew back in terror. What came out of him was his energy, the essence of him. I can still hear the scream he let out as a green glow radiated from every part of his body. This glow swirled and pulled away from him, causing him terrible pain. It coalesced into a green focus of light as the last tendrils were torn from him.
The screaming stopped, and he collapsed to the ground. His eyes were glazed and empty, but he breathed. An enormous rough emerald dropped onto his chest, the solid form of the green light, the solid form of the boy’s vitalle. His father cast the gem off the boy and clung to him. He spoke his son’s name, but there was no response. The boy’s eyes stared vacantly. He was alive, but hollow.
Eventually, they stood him up and led him away. He followed their every command, but lifelessly. They had never trusted my powers, but now they looked at me in horror as they left.