The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  I so wanted to tell Delph that Petra was our enemy. Then maybe the admiring look in his eyes whenever he glanced her way would be gone for good. But there was just one problem with all I was thinking.

  Petra had used the wand to save my life.

  “What is going on with Petra, Vega Jane?” asked Delph.

  “I don’t know, Delph,” I answered. And I really, really didn’t.

  I CAST THE SHIELD spell over us as we walked along the next light. It kept the sun and heat off us, but that was not our major problem. The granite outcrop was still as far away as ever. And when Lackland finally walked up to me, I knew what he was going to say. “Vega, we don’t appear to be moving a jot all this time.”

  “I know, Lackland.”

  He scowled. “And do you have a plan to take care-a this wee problem?”

  I looked up into his bearded face. Then I glanced behind us to see Petra and Delph walking together. They were talking in low voices. I turned back to Lackland. “I’m working on it.”

  He looked at me skeptically. “Oh, well, there’s a relief.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” I countered.

  He held up his sword. “You want something run through with this, I’m your bloke. This wand and words stuff, that falls to you.”

  I glanced back again. “And to Petra, apparently.”

  His features clouded. “Never knew that about her.”

  “Are you sure? There were never any signs?”

  “Well, what sorta signs would there be?”

  “Did she ever do something inexplicable?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I can remember. But then again, till our village was attacked we didn’t spend all that much time together. I mean, we’re not family or anything. Just Furinas.”

  “Who was left of your family?”

  His gaze became downcast. “Me mum and me sister. Me dad and older brother were killed a long time ago.”

  “How?”

  “Colossal. There … there was nothing I could do. Bloody lycans killed the rest of the Furinas. ’Cept for Pet and me. When I saw them things charging us, all I wanted to do was slaughter ’em all!” he added fiercely. He paused and looked once more at Petra. “Pet and me been together a while now. Like having me sister back, I guess. Nobody wants to be alone. Not in here.”

  “No, they don’t,” I said, thinking of Delph and Harry Two.

  We had been walking as we talked. When I looked ahead, I stopped dead. Lackland bumped into me.

  “Look!”

  He stared ahead of us and I felt him stiffen.

  “What the devil is that?” he asked.

  Delph and Petra had joined us by then. Delph said, “It’s a unicorn.”

  It was indeed a unicorn. Brilliantly white with a mane of gold, shiny black eyes and a regal horn the color of silver. It was large and muscular, with a huge chest. And it was standing right in our path. It looked so noble, almost like a polished statue but with a pulsing heart. And it was also really the first beast we’d encountered in here that wasn’t trying to murder us.

  “Harry Two!” exclaimed Delph.

  My canine had ventured forward and was within a couple yards of the unicorn. The creature snorted and drew back a bit. Harry Two stopped and then wagged his tail and smiled. The unicorn then stepped forward a few paces. Harry Two closed the gap and the pair faced each other across the span of a foot.

  The unicorn tossed its mane, and Harry Two barked, but I knew it to be a friendly greeting. My canine then walked forward and rubbed his muzzle against the right foreleg of the unicorn. The latter lowered its head and grazed Harry Two’s ear with its soft golden mane.

  Harry Two looked back at us and yipped, as if to say, Budge along.

  I crept forward, then glanced back at the others, who hadn’t moved.

  “Too many of us might scare it,” Delph explained lamely.

  I looked back at the unicorn and kept walking forward, though ready at an instant to retreat if it showed any fear or anxiety. I put out my hand and let it sniff. Then I stroked its mane and it rubbed up against my shoulder. I looked closely at the silver horn. What had Astrea said? The horn of the unicorn can defeat all poisons. That would come in handy, I reckoned.

  But then I recalled how one got the horn of a unicorn.

  Talk it out of the horn.

  Or kill it.

  There was no way I would ever harm this creature. It was so beautiful and gentle and … It nudged my hand with its snout, lifting my fingers from its mane to its head, just as Harry Two so often did. My heart melted even more. I very gently touched the horn. Though it looked solid, it was so soft against my fingers.

  Then I noted that it wasn’t putting its full weight on its front foreleg. I knelt down for a closer look.

  “Something has injured it,” I said. I stroked the leg gently, careful to not touch the gash there. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the Adder Stone and waved it over the wound and thought especially good thoughts. The wound completely healed. I rose and stroked the unicorn’s mane.

  “Good as new,” I said to it.

  I found the unicorn gazing at me, its black eyes darker than the deepest cave. Set against the brilliance of the white coat, the effect was remarkable.

  “You’re beautiful,” I said in a low, awed voice. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  I gently rubbed its horn one more time and then withdrew my hand. My fingers were tingling. I looked down at them. They were the cleanest they’d ever been. Not a speck of dirt could I find on them. I looked at the unicorn’s coat, horrified that I had transferred my dirt to its immaculate hide.

  But there wasn’t a bit of it there.

  I once more found the unicorn gazing at me. It opened its snout and if a creature such as this could smile, it just had. As I watched, it turned and trotted off. The farther away it got, the faster it moved, until it was just a blur. Then it was gone.

  I turned back to the others and rubbed my fingers where I had touched the horn. Something appeared in my pocket. At first, I was terrified, for I feared dark sorcery.

  I pointed my wand and said, a bit lamely, “Rejoinda, uh, bloody thing in my pocket.”

  When it soared out and landed in my hand, we all gathered around in wonder. I caught a breath.

  It was the unicorn’s horn.

  But hadn’t the creature had the horn when it disappeared? I … I couldn’t be sure.

  “How did that get there?” I said.

  Delph looked at me and smiled. “You took care-a its leg. Showed it kindness. Dad would be proud-a you for that. Nursing beasts like that.”

  I grinned and rubbed the horn. I knew it must be very hard, but it felt so very soft. I put it away in my pocket and glanced down at my fingers. They still tingled and it seemed that this sensation was spreading over me.

  I looked toward the granite outcrop that was as far away as ever and an idea suddenly popped into my mind, and I wondered why it hadn’t before.

  I raised my wand and said, “Confuso, recuso.”

  A shimmering wave seemed to pass in front of us. When it was done, we were within barely a mile of the granite outcrop.

  I heard Lackland exclaim, “Bloody Hel.”

  Astrea had taught me the counterspell after all, only I didn’t know that. But clearly, what was a hallucination but a confusion of the mind?

  We marched on, energized by our sudden remarkable progress, and reached the wide rocky outcrop in short order. It was cooler in the shade cast by the granite and we decided to take a rest. As the others made camp and readied food and water, I used Destin to quickly zip up to the top of the big rock and land before a storm knocked me silly.

  I looked behind me. The sun was shining, the heat intense. In front of me was the gloomiest gloom. No sun, no light, just clouds, soupy fog and chilly air.

  The Quag was certainly living up to its reputation. It was the most insanely frustrating place I could ever have imagined. I hoped soon to have it at the back of
me.

  I jumped and landed on the dirt below and rejoined the others.

  “What did you see?” asked Delph eagerly.

  “It looks like it will be cooler than here,” I remarked.

  We ate our meal in silence and then Lackland asked if we should push on.

  I decided not to. It would be silly to waste time going around the outcrop when, using Destin, we could just go over it. But I wanted to do a little scouting first, and I didn’t want to do it alone. I set Delph to take the first watch with Harry Two and then I beckoned Petra over.

  “I’m going to fly over the rock and go ahead a bit into the next part of the Third Circle,” I said. “Would you like to come with me?”

  While I had given few direct orders to any of them, Petra seemed to understand that declining to come was not an option. I harnessed her up and then kicked off. I had never flown with her before, but she took to the journey with ease.

  When we arrived up top and I released her from the harness, she said, “Why don’t you just fly over this place? That way you can avoid all the dangers below.”

  “If I take to the air with the intent of flying over, then a huge storm blows up. But a hop here and there seems to be acceptable.”

  “You sound as if this place is a living thing.”

  “Oh, it is very much a living thing.” Astrea had taught me that, and I had certainly seen evidence of it firsthand.

  We stepped to the other edge of the outcrop and she peered ahead.

  “It’s so different from back there,” she said.

  I glanced down at her blackened hand. “Does it still hurt?”

  “No, not really.” She hastily pulled her sleeve lower to cover it.

  “It’s okay, Petra. We’re all carrying scars from this place. And we’ll probably have more before all is said and done.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said softly, but she kept her hand covered.

  “Can you tell me about your family?”

  She glanced sharply at me. “My family? Why?”

  I kept my voice calm. “Because they may have known some things. Things that could help us get through here.”

  She was shaking her head. “They knew nothing, Vega.”

  Put off by her answer, I said testily, “They clearly knew something if they survived all this time in here. As we’ve both seen, it’s not that easy.” I paused for a moment and then added, “And they didn’t have magic, did they? Not like us.”

  She gave a long, penetrating look. “If you’re asking me how I did what I did with your wand, I can’t tell you because I don’t know.”

  “Yet you grabbed it and said the incantation.”

  “I heard you say it before, when the lycans attacked,” she said quickly. Too quickly, I thought.

  “It’s the killing spell. The only one that does it outright.”

  She gave me a condescending look. “Well, lucky for you, then. Otherwise, you’d be dead.”

  I ignored this. “And even though you said it was just luck, you clearly knew how to use the Finn.”

  She rubbed at her burned hand. “It was just luck,” she insisted.

  “So, your family?” I persisted. I’m sure my look told her I was not going to yield on this.

  She let out a quick breath and scowled. “All right, damn it. I had an uncle. My father’s brother. He was a bit odd. Kept himself to himself, but he took a liking to me. We used to take walks together. And we would talk.”

  “About what?”

  “He said, well, he said that we didn’t belong here. That he thought there’d been a mistake.”

  “A mistake? How so?”

  “I don’t know. But he seemed angry about it. He said that we should be living somewhere else.”

  I thought back to Delph’s remark about Petra seeming to understand that there was another place outside the Quag. And this also might be what Silenus had alluded to — that some Maladons had been trapped in here.

  “Maybe your uncle thought you belonged in my village.”

  “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “But the thing is …”

  She looked away, unable to meet my eyes.

  “Petra, please just tell me.”

  “Will you promise not to tell the others? Not even Lack knows.”

  “I promise.”

  She eyed me severely, as though measuring the sincerity of my words.

  She pointed at my wand. “My uncle had one of those.”

  “A wand! Your uncle?”

  “I didn’t know back then that that’s what it was,” she cried out. “I swear I didn’t.”

  “But how do you know now that it was a wand?”

  “Because of what he did with it.”

  “What did he do with it?”

  “He could move about. Go from one spot to another.”

  “Pass-pusay,” I said.

  “Yes, I remember him saying those words.”

  “What else?”

  “He could make a fire with it. We would cook what we killed over it.”

  I gripped her arm. “How could your uncle do things like that and no one other than you knew? Why didn’t Lack know, your father, your mother?”

  “Because he never showed them the wand. He never did anything with it around them. Only with me.”

  “And why was that?”

  She peered up at me. “Because … Because …”

  “Because he knew you could do it too?”

  She nodded jerkily and her lips quivered.

  “How?”

  “He let me use it once to bring down some eggs from a nest for my meal.”

  “So he told you a spell to use?”

  “He told me the words.”

  “Where did he get the wand?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What if I were to tell you that he could only have come by it from a family member who gave it to him with a piece of themselves embedded in it?”

  She looked utterly astonished by this.

  I went on. “So that means someone in his family, meaning your family, passed him that wand. What happened to it?”

  “I don’t know. When the lycans came, we were sleeping. We had someone on watch, but they must’ve fallen asleep too. My uncle was killed. I don’t know what happened to his wand.”

  I looked at her again, watching every move of her body, every twitch of a facial muscle. I knew something for a fact. I knew that she was lying. Petra had her uncle’s wand somewhere. Knowing what she could do with it, she never would have left it behind, lycan attack or not.

  “Do you want to go down there?” she asked quickly, looking over the edge of the granite. She obviously did not want to continue this discussion. And I decided not to push it. I had certainly learned a great deal.

  I nodded. “You can stay up here if you want.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want you to go down there alone.”

  “You’re sure?” I said. I wished I could trust her. But the fact was, other than Delph and of course Harry Two, I could trust no one.

  “Yes.”

  So I harnessed her up and we leapt together.

  IF ANYTHING, THE gloom intensified on the ground when we landed. I had to light my wand and it still provided only the barest illumination. I didn’t like this. An army of jabbits could be sneaking up on us right now and we’d never know it until we felt their fangs against our flesh. I grabbed Petra and pushed her to the ground as something flew over us so close that I felt the wake from whatever it was lift strands of my hair.

  “Keep quiet and stay down,” I whispered to her.

  I carefully lifted my head and looked around, listening intently for anything that might tell me what was out there. The next thing I heard was totally unexpected.

  Laughter.

  And then a voice from out of the gloom.

  “Does my heart good to see the likes of them wallowing in the dirt, right where they belong no less.”

  I settled on my haunches, m
y wand ready as I looked around. That was a male’s voice. There was someone in here with us who was not a beast. For one wild, panicked moment, I thought Thorne had escaped Luc and the other ekos and caught up to us somehow. But it wasn’t his voice.

  “Who are you?” I called out.

  “Trouble and strife which cuts like a knife. One who enters my ground will be hunted right down.” Laughter followed this silly song, along with a whooshing sound like the thing was whizzing overhead.

  Trouble and strife, I thought. Okay, Astrea had told me about this bloke.

  “Are you Eris?”

  The whooshing sound stopped.

  “How come you to know my name?” the voice snarled.

  I thought I might give him a bit of his own medicine.

  I sang, “I always know the name of one I’ve come to tame.”

  Silence.

  O-kay. Maybe I had gone a bit too far.

  A figure started to solidify in front of me. He was like a fat baby, only with whiskers, dressed in a gray cloak with his bare feet protruding from it.

  “Tame Eris?” he said, a low, malicious undertone to his words now.

  I held up my wand. “Astrea Prine sends her best.”

  His beady eyes on my wand and with sudden understanding in his features, he said, “Well, good luck on finding your way in the gloom. And that wand of yours will lead to your doom.”

  Okay, I could figure this out, I was sure. Astrea had told me much about this bloke and the Third Circle. This place was filled with darkness, though luckily not accompanying depression as with the Second Circle. But there was something that could cut right through that darkness. What was it again? Ah, yes!

  I said, “Rejoinda, cucos,” and moved my wand back toward me, as though I were pulling something in slowly and steadily.

  A moment passed and then an inkling of light came out of the gloom. Then the light grew bigger, brighter and bolder. When a sliver had passed, the light had cut right through the dark.

  “Blast!” screamed Eris.

  The light was now like the sun coming up and burning off the moist air. The gloom was lifting everywhere. In another few moments, we were surrounded by cucos, small birdlike creatures that fluttered around, their wings glowing with light. They were brilliantly colored, as though they had small bits of rainbows embedded in them. I held out a finger and one of them perched on it. I felt my spirits rise along with the light.