The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  I SAT IN MY seat and stared up at the blackboard. Delph sat to the left of me, while Harry Two was at my feet. He wasn’t dozing. My amazing canine was paying attention! Archie sat in the very back. At the head of the room and standing in front of the blackboard was Astrea, clothed in a long cloak. She tapped her wand at the blackboard, and writing appeared on it. “The Quag, as I told you before, is divided into Five Circles.”

  Delph had his ink stick poised over his parchment. It appeared to me that he was even more focused on this lesson than I was. And then it struck me why. He couldn’t do magic. But he could know the circles as well as anyone. That might prove important later on.

  “The First Circle,” began Astrea, “is named the Mycanmoor.”

  I flinched. The Mycanmoor had been mentioned on Quentin’s map.

  “The Mycanmoor is a maze of startling complexity and populated with creatures that might well prove lethal in any encounter.”

  “What is the maze made of?” I asked after I wrote all this down.

  “It can be many and various. Thick, living hedges and forests of trees. Walls of stone so high you can’t see the tops of them. Vines of poisonous plants. Battlements of bones. And these elements can change on a whim.”

  “Bones?” I interjected. “What of?”

  “Bones only have one source,” she said. “The dead.”

  “Yes, but dead what?” I persisted.

  “No Wugs, if that’s what you mean. Other creatures that were killed in there. The principal threats in the Mycanmoor are the chontoo and the wendigo. Also the manticore is nothing to be trifled with.”

  “So what’s the secret of getting through the mazes?” Delph asked.

  In response, Astrea tapped the board and on it appeared a mess of pathways that seemed to have no end. She pointed her wand at it and said, “Confuso, recuso.” The maze lengthened out and became as straight as a poplar tree.

  I turned to her in amazement. “That’s it, just the one spell?”

  “It’s not simple if you don’t know what it is. In fact, if you don’t, you’ll wander the maze forever, for it is what is deemed a perfect maze.”

  I looked curiously at her. “What does that mean, a perfect maze?”

  “One with no detached walls, and no isolation sections, which refer to a passel of passages totally encircled by walls. These are completely unreachable because there is no trail to those sections from any starting spot in the maze. There is exactly one solution to a perfect maze and only one. And there is only one path in the maze from one spot to another spot. Making it utterly perfect, hence the name.”

  She tapped the board once more. Instantly, another maze appeared there. As I looked at the thing, I could make neither head nor tail of it.

  However, as though in a trance, Delph rose and went over to the board. He ran his eye up and down the drawing and then picked up an ink stick that lay on Astrea’s desk and started to draw a line. Around and around he went, up and down, side to side, down this path, down another, left here, right there, and the whole time, Delph was staring at the board, his focus complete. Finally, his line of ink ran itself right out of the maze.

  He turned to see both Astrea and me watching him in amazement.

  “What?” he said, eyeing us warily.

  “How did you do that?” Astrea exclaimed.

  “Do what?”

  “Get out of the maze,” I blurted out. “Ruddy brilliant it was, Delph.”

  He looked at what he had done as though he was seeing it for the first time. “I … I just went the way that would get me out of the bloody thing.”

  Then it occurred to me that Delph had always been like that. He had found the most efficient paths through the forests in Wormwood better than anyone. He had come up with a strategy for me to prevail in the Duelum. He had come up with a diversion so that I could escape from Thorne’s room. He had a mind that grew large thoughts from small things.

  “Well,” said Astrea. “I think that you might do very well in the Mycanmoor even without the spell I just gave Vega.”

  I was glad she had said that, for I could see Delph’s spirits lift immeasurably.

  “Now we must move on to the beasts that will confront you in the Mycanmoor. You must be prepared for them.” She looked at Delph. “Both of you.”

  She waved her wand. Appearing on the blackboard was something that made me jump up, my wand at the ready, and Harry Two to bark and then attack.

  Astrea waved her wand once more and my canine was whisked gently back to where he had been sitting. She looked at me and said, “This is a chontoo.”

  I was staring at a head without a body attached to it. The face was foul with jagged fangs, flames for hair and eyes that were utterly demonic.

  “What does it do?” I asked fearfully. “And where is the rest of it?”

  “That is all there is,” she replied. “The chontoo was spawned over the centuries by different creatures and species intermingling, as we call it here. It is said that the chontoo will wildly attack anything in the hopes of using its prey’s body parts to replace the ones it does not have. As this is not possible, it will always fail. But its bloodlust never wavers.”

  Delph said, “So if it can’t use the body, what does it do with it?”

  Astrea replied calmly, “It eats it of course.”

  “O’course,” parroted Delph, his face growing a bit pale.

  “The chontoo can fly, as you might note, since it has no legs with which to walk. It can appear in quite a rush and can do so silently. One must be prepared.”

  “And what do we do when it does appear?” I asked.

  “You must stop it, Vega,” she said emphatically.

  “You mean kill it?”

  “This particular incantation is effective.” She lifted her wand and then snapped it downward like it was a whip, right at the image of the chontoo. She cried out, “Enamelis fixidus.” A purple light shot out of the wand and collided with the image of the chontoo.

  The creature had been baring its fangs. Now its jaws clamped together and its mouth no longer opened.

  “What exactly did the spell do?” I asked.

  “Cemented its jaws together. And if it can’t eat, it will die.”

  I swallowed nervously and looked down. I knew Astrea was staring at me, but I wasn’t prepared to meet her eye. Not yet.

  She waved her wand and the chontoo disappeared and another creature took its place on the board. Astrea said, “The manticore.”

  I was looking at a thing with the head of a lion, the tail of a serpent and what looked to be a goat in between. The jumble of animals was positively terrifying.

  “It is swift of foot, with immense strength, and its flaming breath is unquenchable,” she said.

  I glanced at Delph, who was staring at the manticore like it had somehow possessed his soul.

  “And how does one defeat it?” I asked.

  “Any number of spells I taught you will do nicely. But it’s tricky because a manticore can read minds. So it knows what you are about to do and will take appropriate evasive action.”

  “Well,” said Delph. “That’s a bit of a problem.”

  “So how do we beat the manticore?” I asked again.

  “There are two of you, so Delph will have to distract it. Let it read his mind, Vega, while you perform the appropriate spell to rid yourselves of the thing.”

  I looked at Delph once more. I thought he would be shaking his head and looking mortified. But he was nodding and said, “Now, that’s a right good plan.”

  “It’s a right bad plan if the manticore ends up killing you before I can take care of it,” I said forcefully. “It’s dangerous, Delph.”

  He looked at me like I was a nutter. “Dangerous! We’ve nearly died, what, six times already since we’ve been here? Dangerous? Har!”

  Something nudged my hand. I looked down to see Harry Two pushing it with his snout. I thought he just wanted to be petted, but there was a look in my canine�
��s eyes that spoke something else.

  It was as though he was saying, There are three of us, Vega, not just two.

  “Moving on,” said Astrea. She waved her wand again and the manticore vanished and was replaced with an even more odious creature, which I had already seen once before.

  I thought Astrea shivered just a bit too as she said, “The wendigo.”

  Having already seen this spectral creature devour a deer from the safety of Astrea’s Seer-See, I knew that it ate flesh.

  Astrea said, “This creature doesn’t simply kill. It can possess you by eating your mind.”

  “It eats your mind?” said Delph, looking horrified.

  She said, “You saw what it did to that unfortunate deer.”

  I nodded, my mind holding the image of a wendigo running away in my body.

  Astrea said, “Now, it’s crafty. You must always be on the lookout for the warning signs that a wendigo is nearby.”

  I poised my ink stick over my parchment, ready to write down these warning signs. When she said nothing, I looked up. “What are they?” I asked. “These signs?”

  “A vague feeling of terror,” she said.

  “Well, now, that’s right helpful,” scoffed Delph. “I mean I doubt we’d be feeling that way otherwise, eh?”

  She continued, “And a sense that the facts stored in your head are drifting away and being replaced with strange, often horrible memories that are not your own.”

  “How can it do that?” I asked.

  “You are being imprinted with the residual memories of the prey that the wendigo has killed in the past and which linger in its own mind.”

  It all sounded horrible enough. “Then what do we do?” I asked.

  “There is one and only one incantation that will defeat the wendigo.” She held her wand in front of her and then made a slashing motion that resembled the letter X. She said in a very firm, very clear voice, “Omniall.”

  “What does that do?” I asked.

  “It removes the mind utterly and irreversibly.”

  “It removes the mind? Then what happens to the wendigo?” I asked.

  “It dies of course. That is just how it must be here.”

  And I supposed she was exactly right.

  WE SAT BEFORE the blackboard for long periods of time. I also practiced my spells and incantations, and performed reverse curses when Astrea tried to attack me. I could tell that she always held back some. But as the time passed, I could also discern that she didn’t have to hold back quite as much. What I had found, to my pleasant surprise, was that in combat I had certain instincts that served me well. I could adapt after sizing up my opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. I was quick on my feet, both literally and in my mind. I had done the same thing in the Duelum back in Wormwood on my way to becoming champion.

  She also made me work through mazes she conjured inside the cottage. I had great difficulty in doing so, and often resorted to the Confuso, recuso spell. But Delph was never at a loss and was able to get us out of every single maze that Astrea created. Yet I wasn’t overly worried. So long as I had the spell, no maze could defeat us.

  Over tea in the library, Archie told us that he had once thought of venturing across the Quag.

  “Why?” mumbled Delph, his mouth full of biscuit.

  “Well, mate,” began Archie, “when you’ve lived in the same cottage with the same person for hundreds of sessions, it gets to you. You want to try something different, don’t you? A breath of fresh air.”

  “I’m not sure I’d call the Quag a breath of fresh air,” I said.

  “Well, anyway, it didn’t happen.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “My mum found out about my plan and put a stop to it.”

  “How? You can do magic too,” said Delph.

  Archie’s expression became forlorn. “Yes, but I’m not as good as she is. She’d win every duel, hands down.”

  “But she wants to help us get across the Quag,” I noted.

  “Bloody ironic, ask me,” said Archie.

  AFTER OUR LESSONS were finished each light, Delph worked on maps tracing routes and learning everything he possibly could to help us. And I practiced my spells and incantations over and over. At night, Delph and I would study, talking back and forth as we sat in the book-laden library. My notebook was full with what Astrea had taught us, and the margins were heavily cluttered with additional thoughts. I’m sure that Delph’s looked the same. Most nights we fell asleep in our chairs, our parchment upon our chests, and Harry Two snoring on the floor next to us.

  We were told that the Second Circle was known as the Withering Heath. It was not any sort of heath with which I was familiar. Instead, it was a vast forest with trees so densely set side by side that Astrea said it was sometimes difficult to breathe. This circle had such creatures as the deadly and quite mad lycans, which I had glimpsed through the Seer-See, and the hyperbores, which were blue and could fly, and might be an ally or an enemy. Astrea also impressed upon us that the Second Circle was full of depression and that if we allowed it, that feeling would come to dominate.

  The Third Circle was the Erida Wilderness, which was actually the opposite of what I thought a wilderness should be. Astrea had said, “It’s a vast flat expanse that stretches seemingly forever. And jabbits and cucos inhabit the Third Circle.”

  I well knew what jabbits were. But I had never heard of cucos.

  “They will provide light in the gloom, when you might very well need it,” she said. “And, as I previously mentioned, there is the unicorn, whose horn will defeat all poisons.”

  Delph and I had looked at each other. I said, “How do you get the horn?”

  “There are two ways. One, you simply kill the unicorn and take it.”

  I didn’t much like that way. “And the other?”

  “You convince the beast to freely give it.”

  “How?”

  “That, you will have to figure out for yourself when the time is right.”

  “But how do we figure it out?” I asked.

  She had given me a disdainful look. “Not everything can be learned safely in a classroom, Vega. Education is not so neat and tidy.” She lifted her hand and pointed to the wall. “Out there is where you will learn your most valuable lessons. If you survive them, that is.” She paused and said, “There is another creature which dwells there, called Eris. He has one duty in life, to cause trouble and strife. He will do you mischief if you let him.”

  “How do we defeat him?” Delph asked.

  “You must learn to trust your instincts. That is the only way.”

  I had looked at my ink stick as though hoping it would write down a far better answer of its own accord, but it didn’t. Lately, lessons were not going as well as they might. I was looking for precise answers and she was giving us “instincts.”

  The Fourth Circle, we learned, was dominated by the Obolus River. I had sat up straight when she mentioned this. I remembered seeing the long, squiggly waterway and what looked to be a small boat upon it.

  “Rubez is the boat’s pilot. He will carry you across the river, for a price.”

  “What is the price?” I asked.

  “The pilot is the one who sets it. You will have to ask him.”

  “And what exactly is Rubez? A male?”

  “Not exactly,” she answered. And I thought she might have shivered. “The river holds perils of which I am not familiar, but they are perils nonetheless.”

  “How do we avoid them?” I asked.

  “Stay out of the water” was her ready reply.

  NEXT LIGHT, WE walked into the classroom to find Archie there but not Astrea.

  “Where is she?” I asked, setting my bound parchment on my desk.

  Archie said, “She’ll be along. Just finishing up some things for this lesson, I reckon.”

  “The Fifth Circle,” said Delph. “That’s what we have left. The last one.”

  The door to the room opened and Astrea s
tepped through. At first I couldn’t think what was wrong. But then it struck me. She looked older. Her dark hair had some white in it around the roots. Her face was a little heavier, a bit saggy.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She nodded curtly before striding up to the blackboard.

  She took out her wand and tapped it against the board as Delph and I quickly took our seats. Harry Two also sat up and came to attention.

  “The Fifth Circle,” she said in a weak voice.

  I waited for her to conjure something on the board, but instead, Astrea sat down at her desk and clasped her hands in front of her. She said, “It is called the Blue Range. My term for it anyway. It is mountainous. It has deeply carved valleys.” She stopped speaking and her gaze took on a glassy expression, as though she were looking so far into the distance that her eyes had failed her.

  “Astrea?” I prompted.

  With a jolt she came back to us. She coughed and then stared directly at me. “The Blue Range is the last obstacle before the end.” Again, she stopped.

  I said in an encouraging manner, “And it’s mountainous with deeply carved valleys? And … ? What else?”

  She shook her head slightly as though attempting to dislodge a very disturbing memory. “That is all I can tell you. I do not know what dwells there.”

  “But you said that you created the Quag?”

  “I created parts of it. The Blue Range was not one of those parts.”

  “Well, who created it, then?”

  “A fellow named Jasper. His full name was Jasper Jane.”

  My head snapped up so fast it hurt my neck. “Jasper JANE?”

  She nodded slowly. “Your ancestor many times removed. He crafted the Blue Range. He was an immensely talented sorcerer with a flair for the dark sphere.”

  “The dark sphere?” I said, slightly repulsed by saying the words.

  “It is what we call that haven of our magical minds that holds sinister thoughts and impulses. Our kind has them. But we can control them, whereas they predominate with the Maladons. Jasper was a curious hybrid of our two races.”

  “You think he might have been evil?” I said, horrified by the thought.