I shook my head, though in truth, as usual, I could have used something in my belly. “I’m full up. You can toddle off to bed while I put my few things away.”
She looked at me curiously but also intently. A bit too intently, I thought.
“Well … if you’re … sure?” she said in a drawn-out way.
“Quite sure,” I replied, perhaps a bit too quickly. “And we’ll go for Delph at first light?”
She said, “Yes.”
After she left my digs I turned out my tuck. The cavernous wardrobe swallowed my meager possessions with plenty of room left over.
I jumped up on the bed, which I found quite comfy. Harry Two hopped up next to me and I scratched his ears. He rewarded me with a soft whimper of pleasure. I looked at the door, which had closed when Astrea departed. I jumped down, strode over to it and tried to tug it open. It wouldn’t budge.
I looked in disbelief at Harry Two.
“She’s locked us in. Well, how do you like that?” I was miffed beyond belief.
I stepped away from the door and sized it up. Then I backed up to get a running start. I glanced at Harry Two. “Don’t worry, I want out of here and we will be in a mo’.”
I started to charge forward and then stopped dead.
The door had swung silently open.
I want out of here. That’s what I’d said. And the door had just opened.
I cautiously peered around the corner into the darkened corridor. There was no sign of Astrea. I stepped out of the room, Harry Two right with me. I looked down at him. I guess he could tell I was anxious because he gave my hip a nudge with his snout as though to say Let’s budge along, shall we?
I looked to the right. I had been down that way. Thus, I turned left.
A door stood on the right side of the passage. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I stepped back, drew up my courage and said in the most polite voice I could muster, “Might I come in, please?”
The door swung open, revealing nothing but darkness.
I looked at Harry Two, who stared back up at me. Now he looked anxious.
“Okay, right,” I said confidently, though I was feeling not a jot of it actually. I stepped through the doorway. Harry Two followed. As soon as we did, the door shut behind us, and the room brightened.
There was only one object in the room. It was an enormous clock that rested on one huge wall. Attached to it underneath were twin chains with large metal balls affixed to them. The chains disappeared through holes cut in the floor. I crept forward and stared at the clockface. It was unlike any I had seen before. Wug timepieces were divided into the different sections of light and night. There were numbers and words on this one. I drew even closer.
“Century,” I read off. That word was under each number etched on the clockface at regular intervals. There was only one hand on the clock. It was now pointed at eight centuries. I had no idea what any of this meant. I stared down at the holes in the floor, into which the chains disappeared. I had no idea where they went. Well, I could learn nothing more here, it seemed.
The next door we reached was about ten feet down the hall.
I stepped in front of it and said, “Might we come in, please?”
“GO AWAY!” The scream was nearly ear-shattering.
I jumped back so far I hit the opposite wall and slumped down, dazed.
“Bloody Hel,” I muttered.
I staggered up and we hurried along to the next door.
It opened at my request, though I did cover my ears in anticipation of a negative response. We walked inside and I looked around as the room was illuminated by a source of light that remained invisible to me.
There was a small cradle in one corner. I rushed over to it, but it was empty. It was also covered with cobwebs. So was the entire room, which was filled with old, moldy furniture. While I stood there, I was slowly filled with deep despair, as though only sadness reigned in my heart. Then my despair grew fathoms deeper and I felt tears creep to my eyes. I looked down at Harry Two and I could tell he was having similar emotions. He had lain on the floor and covered his snout with his paws.
When I could stand it no more, I rushed from the room, with Harry Two closely following. When the door closed behind us, the awful feelings instantly vanished. I drew a small knife from my cloak pocket and cut a tiny notch in the wood directly above the door handle. I rushed back and marked in the same way the door that had screamed at me. Now I would know which to leave alone.
The next room shouted at me to GO AWAY! I marked it as well.
The door after that didn’t budge at first and I thought the room was going to scream at me. But no sound came. Except finally a tiny click as the door swung open.
I crept inside and looked around as the darkness was dispelled by a wash of light, again from an unknown source. On every single wall were hundreds of paintings. I moved forward so I could see them more clearly.
Groups of females had on long gowns with low-cut necklines revealing far more of themselves than I was used to seeing. Their hair was beautifully styled and layered and piled on top of their heads. The males wore dark cloaks with embroidered stitching and what looked to be gold leaf on their shoulders. Some held short sticks of wood and others had swords in holders on gilded belts encircling their waists. One male clutched a long leather lead attached to a canine that looked like a far larger version of Harry Two. The thing looked proud and noble staring off into the distance as it sat obediently beside its master. I looked down at Harry Two and found him staring at his counterpart cast in oils on canvas. He seemed awestruck.
My gaze kept roaming until it finally stopped and held on one female. She was taller than the others, her flaming red hair pooled luxuriously around her broad, muscled shoulders. I instantly recognized her. She was the one I met on my trip through the fiery portals into the past, which I had discovered at Stacks. I gazed back up at the painting. This female had saved my life and given me the Elemental before dying on the battlefield. Curious though I was about her, my gaze again began roaming to the other paintings, which held landscapes of broad, lovely countryside, towns with towering stone buildings and smoothly laid cobblestone streets. Sleps and carriages were pictured on the cobblestones and there was an air of prosperity and, well, peace.
As I moved around the room, though, the air of hope and prosperity faded. The paintings turned far darker and the lovely gowns, piled-up hair and stately carriages on fine cobblestones were no more. Replacing them were scenes of bloody battlefields, smoldering ruins and abject carnage. Along with this change in subjects, the bright colors of the earlier paintings had disappeared into the shadowy and depressing hues of blacks and grays, displaced only by the garish thrust of bloody red, as someone lay dying. Flames leapt from the stone towers, and everyone looked frightened and confused. In one small painting, there was a young female alone on a street, her face uplifted to the dark sky and her mouth open apparently in a scream as tears fell down her dirty cheeks. The sense of loss was awful.
We left this room and reached the next one. The door opened at my asking. Darkness again. I expected the lights to come on, but they didn’t. I did hear something. Something breathing.
The breaths were uneven, harsh, and sounded painful. I felt my own chest tighten as I listened to them. I looked wildly around for the source of the noise.
There was a large four-poster bed set in the deepest crevice of the room. As I drew closer, the room lightened a bit, allowing me to see more clearly.
My jaw dropped when I saw him.
He was the oldest male I had ever laid eyes on, even older than ancient Dis Fidus back in Wormwood. He had not a hair on his head. His beard was snow white and curled down his chest and then past it by a good two feet. His eyes were sunken, hollow and brushed liberally with red. His nose was long and horribly misshapen. His cheeks were flat. When he rose up a bit on his pillow, I could see his hands. They were wrinkled claws with large brown spots across them.
He said in a
gasping whisper, “Who … are … you?”
“I’m … I’m …” I frantically realized I’d forgotten my own name. Think, think, you git! “Vega. I’m Vega J-Jane,” I said in a rush.
“J-James?” said the creature, now trying to prop himself up higher.
I hurried to aid him. When I gripped his shoulder through the nightshirt, I could feel it was not much more than bone. His breath was foul and his skin was like the chilliest of water. I easily lifted him because he weighed almost nothing. I stepped back. “Jane,” I said more loudly. “Vega Jane.”
He looked up at me out of those cavernous eye sockets. “How came you to be here?” he said croakily, though he seemed to be breathing a bit easier.
“A hob named Seamus told me of the place. So I came.”
“But why?”
“Because I heard that Astrea Prine would help me.”
He gave a shuddering breath and said, “Help you with what, my dear?”
I sprang back as a hand passed by me.
Astrea laid her youthful palm on the aged creature’s chest and he instantly calmed, his breathing becoming regular. He thanked her with a smile.
Astrea turned to me and said, “I see that you’ve met my son, Vega.”
I STARED FROM ASTREA to — her son?
“You mean he’s younger than you are?” I exclaimed. “But —”
She cut me off. “Come with me.”
“I thought you were tired?” I asked.
She turned back to her son. “There, there, Archie. Try and get some sleep now, luv, okay?”
She kissed him on his withered forehead.
Harry Two and I followed her out and down the passageway. We returned to the place with the old desk and fireplace that one reached through the secret doorway in the library. She sat down behind the desk and motioned for me to sit across from her.
“If Archie is your son, why is he so old and you’re so young?”
In answer she pulled out a small glass flask. “Because of this.”
“Is it medicine of some sort?”
“It is an elixir so potent that it keeps one young for as long as one takes it. It is devilishly tricky to make. It requires the blood of a garm and the venom of a jabbit, among other special ingredients.”
“How do you get blood and venom from those vile creatures?”
“I keep one of each in cages here at my cottage.”
I cried out, “A garm and a jabbit in your cottage!”
“If you tried to enter the rooms where they are kept, they would have told you to ‘Go away!’ ”
I shivered after discovering how close I had been to another wretched jabbit.
“Archie is dying because he chose not to take the youth elixir.”
“Why?”
“He no longer sees a point to it.”
“Then he’ll die?” I asked.
“And soon,” she said coldly.
Well, I thought, she was rather heartless. “How old are you?”
“Did you find the room with the clock on the wall and the chains going through the floor holes?”
“Yes.”
“What did it read?”
“Eight centuries, whatever that is.”
“A century is a hundred sessions.”
“A hundred sessions! But what is that clock keeping track of?”
“My time here.”
My jaw dropped. “You mean you’re eight hundred sessions old?” I could barely process what she was saying. It was all unbelievable.
“A bit older actually. I came here when I was already fully grown.”
“I also saw a room with many paintings.”
“You were no doubt told about the Battle of the Beasts back in Wormwood?”
“All Wugs were told about it. The beasts attacked Wormwood long ago but were beaten back and thereafter remained in the Quag.”
She said emphatically, “Well, that was a lie. There was never such a thing.”
“But I’ve seen the paintings at the Council building —”
She shook her head impatiently. “There was a war that took place over a great many sessions. However, it was not with the beasts.” She paused.
I was now squeezing both my legs so hard they felt quite numb. “Who was it with, then?”
She gazed at me so strangely I felt myself involuntarily shaking.
“It does not matter. Not now.”
“It matters to me,” I retorted.
“It was a battle between two opposite forces. One won and one lost. That is all I will say on the matter.”
“You tell me nothing,” I said forcefully.
“I will tell you this, Vega. We created the village of Wormwood. And then we managed the building of the Quag. And the decision was made to wipe away our history and replace it with another. We called ourselves Wugmorts.” She paused. “Do you know why we chose that name?”
I shook my head.
“There is a plant that is universally considered bitter. It is called the Mugwort. We altered it slightly to Wugmort. The survivors carried that feeling of guilt, of bitterness, every time they uttered the word.”
I sat forward, my mind filling with questions and possible connections. “I met a creature named Eon. Through him I went back in time. Not just my past. But further back. I was on a great battlefield. A female warrior, while she lay dying, gave me something she called the Elemental, that I could touch using the glove she also gave me. She knew my name. She said I had to survive. And she was in one of the paintings back in that room.”
Astrea looked gobsmacked by this information. “You … you met her? As she lay dying?”
“Yes. Who was she?”
Astrea didn’t look nearly so formidable now. Her eyes held a faraway look, and I could see tears clutching at their corners. She said slowly in a trembling voice, “Her name was Alice Adronis, one of our greatest sorceresses and my dearest friend. The Elemental was her creation.” She paused and swallowed. Astrea seemed to be trying very hard not to burst into tears. “She could only live as a victor or die as a warrior, could Alice.”
“But why would she know my name? Why would she say I had to survive?”
“I have no idea, Vega. I … I …” She looked away.
“What happened after that?”
Astrea took a moment to compose herself. “As the first century went by, the magical powers with which we were imbued faded drastically. It was at that point that the decision was made to let them die completely.”
“How do you let magic die?” I said slowly. I didn’t know why, but I felt a great sense of loss at this.
“By not using it. By not believing in it anymore. Belief, having faith in something, is a very powerful thing, Vega. Perhaps the most powerful thing of all. And as the sessions went by and we started dying off, our descendants knew little of what we were. And finally, virtually no Wug in Wormwood knew anything of us a’tall, but accepted as their history the lies that had been created for them.”
I took a deep breath, put aside my misery and told Astrea about the Adder Stone and Destin the chain and how I had come by them at Stacks.
She nodded and said, “Stacks was the castle of our leader, Bastion Cadmus.”
“You took his castle with you?” I asked, wondering how this was possible. But, I supposed, anything was possible with blokes who could do magic.
“We had to create another place to live. Every bit was precious to us.”
“And the Stone? And Destin?”
“Objects possessed by Bastion.”
“And the Quag? And what we were told about it? You haven’t explained that.”
“I have no need to explain it,” she said, her tone sharp again.
I bit back my anger and groped around for something else to ask her.
“But why are you here?” I asked.
“I am, quite simply, the Keeper of the Quag.”
“So you had your family here with you at the cottage?”
“Yes.
My mate, Thomas, and I came to live here with our sons and daughters.” She paused and for the first time I could see her features soften, just a tiny bit. “Thomas never did take the elixir. He was the first of us to go. After Archie passes, it will just be me.”
“Why do you do it? Stay here?”
Her eyes flashed. “It’s my duty, Vega. I gave an oath as Keeper and I mean to keep it.”
She rose, came around the desk and stood next to me. I tried to imagine her as more than eight centuries old, older than poor dying Archie, but I couldn’t.
“How much did you know about your grandfather?” she asked.
“He was very nice. But stubborn too.”
“He is far more than that. He is an Excalibur.”
“A what?”
“Those who are born with their magical powers intact and an innate and profound knowledge and understanding of our real history embedded in their minds. They are terribly rare, but he was one of them.”
“My grandfather left Wormwood.”
“I know he did.”
“And you couldn’t stop him?”
“Excaliburs do not carry a sign on their foreheads proclaiming them as such. It was only after he left that we truly became aware of what he was and could do.”
“So you saw this, what, through your Seer-See?”
“Yes.”
I felt my anger rising. “Then I suppose you saw Morrigone blast me with a blue light, and Delph with a red light that turned his mind to mush and left him jargoled for ten long sessions!” My voice and fury rose as I spoke. “You saw all that, did you?”
“I did,” she replied calmly, which made me even more furious.
“She argued with my grandfather. She wanted him to stay.”
“Doubtless she did. But against a true Excalibur, she was but nothing.”
I stood. “And did you see my parents disappear in a ball of flames? Did you see me crying my heart out? Did you see that, Astrea bloody Prine?!”
Her gaze never wavered. “I did, Vega. I did indeed.”
“Well, good for you. I hope you enjoyed it, because I sure as Hel didn’t!”
I was halfway to the door when she called out.
The Keeper Page 11