The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  The creatures drew even closer.

  I took a sudden step forward. This obviously surprised them, and as a group they jumped back. The one who had spoken before grunted again to his fellows. He was taller than the others and seemed to possess an air of authority. I turned my attention to him and said, “Can you speak my language? Can you speak Wugish?”

  And I received another shock. One so great I thought my heart had stopped.

  Slowly walking toward us was, well, he looked like us, meaning like a Wugmort from Wormwood. He had all the applicable parts and he had no grass growing on those parts.

  “Cor blimey,” muttered Delph, who obviously had also seen him.

  The male stopped right outside the circle of creatures, who had respectfully parted to allow him to pass.

  I said, “Are you a Wug?”

  The male stopped barely five feet from me. He was tall and had on a green cloak and I could see pointed shoes poking out from under the hem. He was elderly; his hair was white, as was his beard. His face was lined and remarkably pale; in fact, it competed with his hair for which was whiter. Then it occurred to me that if he lived down here, the burn of the sun would never touch him.

  “Not anymore,” he answered in a high-pitched voice. “I left long ago.” He looked at the creature that had grunted before, and started speaking to him in a fast, guttural speech that was impossible to follow.

  Again, my mind was seized with dire thoughts. Was this bloke inhabited by the Outliers? Or was he an Outlier himself? Back in Wormwood we had been told of these fiendish Outlier creatures that supposedly lived in the Quag. We had been warned they wanted to invade Wormwood and kill us all. And it had terrified all Wugmorts because we had heard these creatures could look just like us and could even inhabit the minds of Wugmorts and make them do their bidding.

  The male pointed to his right and said, “This way, if you please.”

  My heart in my throat, we headed in that direction and the creatures followed.

  We passed from the large, tall cave to a small tunnel, which was nevertheless well lighted with torches on the wall.

  When we entered a high, broad room of stone, the male stopped so abruptly I almost walked into him. He motioned Delph and me past him and into the cavernous room. Harry Two obediently followed.

  When I looked around, the breath seized in my lungs.

  There were little niches in all the walls that rose up as high as I could see. And in each of those niches was a —

  Skull.

  It was as if hundreds of sightless eyes were staring at us.

  I looked over at Delph and found him gazing upward too. Poor Harry Two started to whine. The entire space reeked of death.

  The male turned to look at me. “Do you know what they are?”

  I nodded, my stomach churning. Had he brought us here because our bones would soon be joining these? “Wug skulls,” I said fearfully.

  “Look more closely,” he said with a sweep of his hand.

  I stared more fixedly at the skull closest to me and then at numerous others. I looked back at the male.

  “These aren’t Wugs.”

  He said, “They are creatures of the Quag who seek to harm us.”

  I crept closer to another skull on a lower niche. It was undoubtedly a frek. I recognized the jawbone and the long fangs. Next to it was an amaroc. I had seen a skull of one of those at Delph’s place in Wormwood.

  I looked back at the male. “Did you kill them all?”

  He chortled. “Not personally, no.”

  “How, then?” I asked.

  The male looked me up and down. “Who exactly are you?”

  “My name is Vega. This is Delph. The canine is Harry Two. We’re from Wormwood.” He said nothing to this. “Have you been here long?” I asked.

  “Longer than your tally of sessions.”

  “You have retained your Wug speech nicely,” I observed.

  “Indeed,” he said, staring at me.

  “What do you call this place?” I asked.

  He looked around. “The Kingdom of Cataphile of course.”

  Delph said, “What’s a c-cat-cata-whatsis? And who’s the bloody king?”

  “A cataphile is a collector and keeper of bones. And as you can see, we fit that criterion rather fine. As for the king, here I am. At your service.”

  He gave a sweeping bow to us.

  “You’re the king?” I asked incredulously.

  “King Thorne,” he answered with a dignified air.

  I said, “How do you go from being a Wugmort to being a king here?”

  He spread his hands. “Well, I largely fell in a hole, as did you.” He took on a dreamy expression. “There is much to be said for falling in a hole. It opens up a world of possibilities.” He paused. “ ’Tis a humble, darkened kingdom, but ’tis my own. And thus makes it right and just and plenty, and, most notably, my home.”

  Delph and I exchanged nervous glances. I was beginning to think this bloke was more than a bit barmy. “And what are they?” I said in a small voice, with a glance at the creatures with grass growing on them.

  “They are ekos. That is the Wug translation anyway. They are the highest form of life down here. Except for me of course.”

  “I know there are other creatures dwelling on the surface of the Quag. But you mean there are other forms of life down here?”

  “Oh, yes. The Quag has an abundance of life of all kinds. But come. We will give you refreshment and a place to sleep.” He turned.

  I stood there openmouthed. Refreshments and a place to sleep? The Kingdom of Cataphile? I had imagined the Quag to be many things, but not this. It was turning out to be, well, quite civilized. But then again, I was still very much on my guard.

  “We ought to be going, Vega Jane,” muttered Delph.

  The king whirled around and looked at me with a face as though I had just told him I was a garm in disguise.

  “Jane? That is your full name? Vega Jane?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “And are you related to Virgil Jane?”

  “He was my grandfather. Did you know him?”

  “Yes indeed. Is he well?”

  “No. He suffered an Event.” I now knew this to be untrue, but I had no reason to share that with him.

  “An Event? Well, well. And Virgil too, of all Wugs.”

  He turned to one of the little ekos and grunted a few times. Several of them raced off. He turned back to us. “As for leaving this night, I’m afraid that is impossible. The Quag is a dangerous place even at light. At night you will not survive. Now, are you hungry?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but headed off at a good clip, passing through another opening in the stone.

  We hurriedly followed, with the remaining ekos right at our heels.

  I drew close to Delph and began to whisper. “I don’t like this bloke. He looks like a Wug, but how can he be?”

  “Right,” Delph hissed back. “We woulda heard if a Wug left for the Quag. Like with Herms.”

  “He might be an Outlier.”

  He shot me a glance. “Thought there was no such thing.”

  “Who knows for certain, Delph? I was prepared for freks, garms and amarocs, not a Wug who has his own bloody kingdom of ekos with grass growing on them. None of this was in the book of the Quag that I found at Quentin Herms’s cottage.”

  “Aye, which means we have no idea what’s coming, Vega Jane, once we get away from here.”

  If we get away from here, I thought miserably.

  THE PLACE WE were taken was a large, low-ceilinged cave roughly forty feet long and twenty wide. Light came from fired smoky candles that were lined up on a table struck from solid rock, with rough-hewn wooden chairs all around.

  Thorne pointed to the seats and said, “Please, be comfortable. The meal will be along presently.”

  He took a seat at the head of the table. There was a large T carved in the back of his seat. For the king, I imagined. Delph and I
shared a contemptuous look. What a ginked-up git.

  I said, “The grass that grows on the ekos?”

  Thorne smiled approvingly. “Oh, you noticed that, did you?”

  Well, I could hardly miss it, I thought. “So what is its purpose?”

  “It helps them do what they do,” he replied in a casual tone.

  A noise in the doorway made us turn in time to see four ekos carrying in a large platter. As they drew closer into the spread of candlelight, I could see what was on it: great clumps and claws of some beast with feather and fur still attached. My stomach gave a lurch. But around the “meat” were potatoes and asparagus and beans and peppers and purple onions. And I was fairly certain that was a rutabaga staring out at me from under what looked to be a furry thigh.

  “Blimey,” breathed Delph with a disgusted look.

  Metal plates were thrust in front of us, with rude forks and knives metal-forged as well. One ekos, the tall one from before, served Thorne personally. Then I reckoned it was up to us to do the same for ourselves.

  I avoided the clumps and claws and filled my plate with the vegetables and covered them with what I recognized as parsley and basil leaves. Delph did likewise, though I did see him tear off a chunk of meat that looked rather well smoked. A goblet of water was placed next to my plate by the hand of an ekos, so I got a much better look at the grass growing on it. In fact, some of it brushed against my hand. It felt hard and prickly.

  I drank some of the water, and Delph did also. I let a bit of my rutabaga fall to the floor for Harry Two. Delph followed with a slice of his meat.

  “A fine canine,” said Thorne as he worked on what looked to be a wing, casually plucking off feathers as he did so.

  “Thank you. So you have water resources here?” It was not an idle question. We needed water to survive our journey through the Quag.

  “An underground stream. Quite tasty.”

  Delph spat a piece of hardened skin from his mouth and muttered something about, “And why can’t the bloody food be the same?”

  Thorne pointed to the half-eaten joint of meat in Delph’s large hand. “What you have is a bit of attercop. Don’t actually care for it myself. But the buggers are plentiful up on the surface of the Quag and quite easy to trap.”

  “Attercop?” said Delph quizzically. “Never heard of it.”

  “Well, you might know it by another term: spider?”

  With an enormous cough, Delph expelled his mouthful of meat and it hit the wall opposite.

  I looked at Thorne, fearing his reaction to this.

  For a long moment, Thorne simply stared at Delph, and then he looked at the slop of spider meat sliding down the wall of his eating room. When he glanced back, he burst into a fit of laughter, which we soon both joined.

  After we had quieted, Thorne rubbed his eyes. “Delightful,” he said. “Never cared much for spider myself, as I said. Chewy, you know. And then of course, there is the question of the venom. Stick to the rutabagas. They never lead you astray, the noble rutabaga. Nothing dodgy about dear old rutabagas.”

  We continued to eat our meal, now chatting pleasantly.

  I said, “You mentioned there were other things living down here?”

  “Well, there are the ekos of course. Quite civilized.” He stroked his beard with his index finger. “Then there are the gnomes.”

  “The gnomes?” I said. I had never heard the term.

  “Yes, yes. Well, sometimes I call them the unders, you know, because, well, they dig under the rock for things that we require. Quite the sharp claws they have.”

  “And that’s all the creatures living down here?” I said in a prompting tone.

  He scowled. “Well, there are the bloody grubbs.”

  “Grubbs? What do they do for you?”

  “Do for us?” He bent forward and his expression became so still, it was like he had been transformed to rock. “They attack us,” he said quietly.

  “Attack you?”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes narrowed to slits. “They want to kill me.”

  “But why?” I asked.

  He turned back to his meal without answering. Delph and I exchanged a puzzled glance. This bloke was definitely mental. I felt the hairs on my neck start to tingle.

  “And what do the grubbs look like?” Delph asked nervously.

  Thorne turned a very serious eye to him. “They look like the last thing you would ever want to see coming at you from out of the dark, milad. Bloody ger-rubbs,” he added in a disgusted voice.

  “Where are they?” I said breathlessly. “Down here somewhere?”

  “I’ll tell you where they are. They are where you least expect them to be.” He struck the stone tablet a sharp blow with his palm, which caused Delph and me to jump nearly out of our chairs. Delph accidentally spilled some of his water. Harry Two immediately started lapping it up.

  “Now you must give me news of good old Wormwood,” said Thorne as he washed down a mouthful of food with the contents of his goblet. I wasn’t convinced he was drinking simply water, for he filled his goblet from time to time from a silver flask resting at his elbow. “For instance, who is Chief of Council now?” he asked.

  “Thansius.”

  “Good for him. Well done, Thansius.”

  “So you knew him?” I asked.

  “Yes. He was a good friend of Virgil’s too.” He took a sip from his goblet.

  “And Morrigone’s,” I added.

  This had a remarkable effect on the Wug. The color drained from his face and he choked on his draft. Regaining his breath, he said, “Morrigone, eh?”

  “If it was a long time ago that you left, she might have still been very young. Or perhaps not even born yet.”

  “Yes, I do believe that she was born actually.”

  Watching him curiously, I said, “Morrigone is on Council now.”

  He chortled, but there was no mirth in his eyes. “What else?” he asked.

  Delph said, “Well, we been building this —”

  I cut in. “I worked at Stacks, as a Finisher, as I said. Delph was at the Mill.”

  Delph shot me an inquiring glance, but I ignored him. The truth was I didn’t want Thorne to know about the Wall. If Thorne was an Outlier or his mind had been taken over by them, the last thing I wanted was for him to learn about the enormous wall we were constructing around Wormwood to keep those very Outliers out!

  I decided to get to the most important issue I wanted to ask him about. “I never heard of any other Wug heading into the Quag. It is forbidden.”

  “Many things were forbidden,” replied Thorne in a more sober tone. “And yet you appear on my doorstep. What cause brings you into the mysterious Quag?”

  “Curiosity,” I said immediately. “We wanted to see what was in here.”

  “And beyond,” added Delph. My kick was too slow to forestall him.

  “There is nothing beyond the Quag,” said Thorne sharply, eyeing us warily.

  “So you’ve been to the other side of the Quag?” I asked innocently.

  “No, I’ve never been past here.”

  “Then how do you know there —”

  He rose abruptly. “I believe that we all are extremely tired. Now your sleeping quarters are ready.” He grunted and the same large ekos appeared.

  “Luc here will show you where. Off you go and pleasant sleep to you both.” He hurried away.

  Luc grunted once. Harry Two gave a bark in reply. Apparently satisfied that we understood, Luc turned and walked through the passageway. We hurried after the creature with grass for skin and grunts for words.

  Delph whispered, “Are you sure ’bout all this?”

  “I’m sure of nothing, Delph. Absolutely nothing.”

  I had never spoken truer words.

  WE WERE LED to a chamber that was cold and filled with shadows that seemed to flicker and move about. There was one torch on the wall and a lit candle on a wooden box next to a hard pallet on which lay a blanket and a pillow
.

  I looked at Delph, who stood in the doorway.

  “Is it just the one, then, for the both of us?” he said, eyeing me nervously.

  When I shot him a glance, I had to hide a smile because his face turned scarlet and the big Wug quickly glanced away.

  Males.

  However, Luc was already pulling on his arm and pointing farther down the passage and grunting quite madly.

  “Guess not,” I said with a tiny wave. “Suppose these are just my digs.”

  I thought I saw Delph let out a sigh of relief, which I wasn’t quite happy about for some reason.

  He said, “Look, anything comes up, just give a holler. I’ll be here faster than … well, pretty bloody fast, I can tell you that,” said Delph, somewhat anticlimactically.

  “Brilliant, you do the same,” I said, feeling uneasy even as I said the words.

  Delph disappeared with Luc, and Harry Two came over and settled down next to the wooden pallet. I dropped my tuck in the corner, sat on the rude bed and took off my cloak. Underneath was my chain, which I would not be taking off. In the pocket of my cloak was the Adder Stone, which healed pretty much anything. Along with the Stone was the glove. My shrunken Elemental was in my other pocket.

  I pulled from my cloak the ring Thansius had sent me before I escaped into the Quag. It had belonged to my grandfather. It had been found at Quentin Herms’s cottage. I was told my grandfather had suffered an Event, which basically meant that one vanished into, well, nothing. But that had been a lie. I had learned that my grandfather had left Wormwood of his own accord.

  On the ring was the symbol of the three hooks. I had no idea what it meant. I thought I might find out in the Quag. I thought I might learn a lot in the Quag. If the place didn’t kill me first.

  I lay back on the bed and held the ring up to the flickering candle. The hooks glistened and glowed in the soft, bluish light. My grandfather had the very same symbol on the back of his hand. I had also seen this exact same ring on the finger of the dying female warrior who had given me the Elemental.

  I put the ring on. It was too large for any of my fingers except my thumb, where it rode snugly. As I looked at it on me, I couldn’t help but think that I had just made some sort of unconscious decision committing me to something.