The Keeper (The Endless Chronicles Book 1)

by Nikki Mccormack

The Keeper clasped her hands before her to hide their sudden shaking.

  Eighteen voices spoke the words in her head. The Keeper has become compromised. The host is corrupt. We shall destroy it and find another.

  She bowed her head to them, fighting to ignore the panic rising in the Endless woman. I do not believe this host is corrupted. The host’s spirit is strong, but the Keeper still controls it.

  That you argue this proves the host’s influence upon you. The time has come for a new flesh to become.

  The Keeper searched her mind for a way to dissuade them, but she knew shockingly little of the Blooded Women and the terror coming from the Endless woman made it hard to think clearly.

  The Blooded started to hum and opened their eyes, bathing her in ghastly pink light. Her body arched back, going into spasms of agony, every muscle rent with searing pain. It swept through her in waves and the flesh fast began to weaken. She sank to one knee. The Endless woman was screaming in her head and she longed to help her.

  This was different from the many deaths she had endured while keeping. This was her death in a sense and the suffering of it belonged completely to the body she wore.

  Was it always this painful? Why didn’t she remember this?

  Waves of agony continued to burn through her, tearing not only at the flesh, but also at the umahk-ra within. The wails of the Endless woman were fading, losing strength. The end of this host was very close and she could feel the black roots upon the skin and woven through the muscles and organs quaking in anticipation of the parting that would come with the death of the flesh.

  Then the call came, charged with need and longing. That was all the assistance she required. The Keeper struggled to her feet and the Endless woman smiled bitterly at the Blooded Women, then they disappeared.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Deynas stood at the edge of the cliff and stared out into the night. He’d spent the rest of the day alone in his room. Naago had done the same, keeping to the room they had provided him a few huts further down the row. Deynas appreciated the chance to be alone almost as much as he regretted having so much time to himself to think. When long hours of self-berating offered no solace, he found his mind starting to drift to other things. He thought back on better times. On long days spent training with Argus, learning to fly or fight or simply be quiet and listen to the world around him.

  At dusk, the banished Endless master had emerged and taken a seat outside the hut with a violin in hand. He’d played until full dark, a series of lonely laments, a few of which made silent tears run down Deynas’s cheeks as he lay on his bed for what would be the last time, staring at the ceiling of the hut that would become someone else’s home after tomorrow.

  When Naago stopped playing and retreated into his hut, Deynas slipped out into the dark, walking to the edge of the cliff behind the temple where he was less likely to be noticed. Argus came with him, her memory clinging tenaciously to his thoughts.

  The sky was a deep blue black, stars blazing through the darkness. There was no moon tonight and it was warm, the heat of the day lingering in the air and resting over him like a soft blanket. The temperature hadn’t dropped the way it usually did. It felt just like the night Argus had tailed him on his first nocturnal chase.

  He’d been so intent on impressing her with his skill. She was very sparing with her praise and that night he’d gone out with the specific goal of earning some from her. It had been a perfect chase. After the wind spirit departed with its delivery, she had moved her flyer up beside him and given him a proud smile that made him feel like the richest man alive.

  “Tenderfoot, it you’re not careful you’ll be the best pilot in the tribe soon.”

  “Helps to have the best teacher,” he countered with a playful wink.

  Her smile faded and her eyes locked with his. She gazed at him as if seeing him for the first time, a look that made time seem to stop for several heartbeats. He wanted to kiss her, to taste her lips and tell her how much he adored her, how much he needed her, but the separation of the flyers made that impossible. She held his gaze for a long moment, then her smile came back, if a little more tentative this time.

  “Come on. I believe I owe you a drink.” She spun her flyer and dove down toward the village.

  He watched her for a few seconds. Tonight he would tell her how he felt about her. The decision spurred him to action and he spun his craft, accelerating after her.

  He hadn’t told her though. That had been the night the first refugees arrived and they’d gone immediately into action to help rescue those still trapped in the demon-infested city.

  He stared at the sky. Her face filled his vision, an image burned in his mind. Then the image changed, the eyes and hair darkened to a gleaming silver black. He ground his teeth, fighting to get back the image of her as she had been. His chest ached.

  “I still need you, Argus, more now than ever.”

  He started when someone appeared a few feet to his left. A cloaked figure. The Keeper. She took a step toward him. He stepped back away from her. Then she sank to her knees. He stared, bewildered. She wavered there for a few seconds then fell toward the cliff. Deynas lunged for her, catching her in his arms no more than a foot shy of the edge. He pulled her away from the drop and would have let go of her then, but she hung limp in his arms. It wouldn’t be right to leave her there unconscious.

  Supporting her with one arm under her shoulders, he brought his other hand up and brushed back her hood.

  Argus.

  That beautiful face that brought him such pain was perfectly still, her eyes closed. A small track of blood ran from one corner of her mouth and more trickled slowly from under her eyelids like red tears.

  What to do? He couldn’t take her to Kochan or one of the village doctors. They would recognize the woman she had been. He lifted her and hurried back to his hut. There he laid her on the bed and checked her pulse. It was weak, but steady. Should he get Naago?

  He stared at her for a long moment, gazing into the face of the woman he loved while hating the creature that had taken her from him. After several minutes, he went and got a damp cloth. Sitting on the edge of the stone bed, he wiped away the drying blood around her eyes then started to clean it away from her mouth.

  Her eyes opened and he froze.

  “You?” Her eyes widened. Her voice was feeble and unsteady. “It was you who called me?”

  He dropped the cloth next to her and stood. “I didn’t call you.”

  “No. You wouldn’t have, but you would have called her and remembered her as you last saw her, as me.”

  She wasn’t making sense. He backed up a step and lowered his eyes, unable to look into her face without pain and resentment boiling up inside. She started to sit up and got almost halfway before her trembling muscles gave and she sank back down. He offered no help. Her eyes closed, her breath whispering through her lips in a soft exhale.

  “What happened to you?”

  She lay there for a while, her breathing soft, and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. Then she spoke, her eyes still closed. She sounded as if the effort to speak were almost too much for her. “Why didn’t you ever tell her?”

  “Tell who what?”

  “Tell the woman, Argus, that you loved her.”

  “Because I…” He hesitated, fingers of apprehension racing along his spine as he played back her words in his mind. “How do you know I didn’t?”

  He waited for at least a minute, listening to the soft sound of her breathing.

  She didn’t answer.

  He looked at her, finding it easier to do so when her silver-black eyes weren’t open watching him. “Please tell me.”

  She coughed and grimaced. The hand without the strange black roots over it tightened to a fist around a clump of new bedding. A small glimmer of fresh blood showed at the corner of her mouth.

  “Can I do something to help you?”

  “No. I need rest.” She was silent again for a time, until the hand and
her face relaxed again. Then she gave him the answer he’d been waiting for. “I know you never told her because she was surprised when Naago asked if you loved her and you nodded.”

  The implications made his mouth go dry. “I thought Argus was gone. Naago said she was dormant.”

  “She should be.”

  Did that mean that his Argus was alive in there, trapped and aware of her fate? Did she hate him now? A glimmer of agonizing hope rose in his chest. Could he set her free?

  His gaze moved to the staff grip lying on a table by the door.

  “Would you do it?”

  He started guiltily and glanced back at her.

  She was watching him now, her strange colored eyes gleaming in the starlight coming through an open skylight. “If it meant you could have her back, would you kill me and destroy the many spirits I have kept in all my years?”

  His palm itched, his fingers closing part way as if he already held the staff in his hand. “Would it bring her back?”

  She rolled onto her side, watching him intently now. A smear of blood remained by her mouth. “Answer my question and I will answer yours.”

  No matter how much he might want to bring Argus back, he knew the right answer. The Keeper had lived as long as time itself. She had kept spirits beyond count. He couldn’t kill such a being without understanding what he was destroying, without knowing what purpose those spirits still had to serve. Besides, even if he could make an informed decision on the matter, he didn’t think he could raise a weapon against her so long as she looked like Argus.

  His shoulders sank and his hand opened. The truth defeated him. “No. I wouldn’t kill you.”

  She closed her eyes and the barest trace of a sad smile curved her lips. “The Keeper cannot die and cannot be parted from this host unless it dies. I am sorry.”

  He sank to the floor and leaned back against the hard stone wall. It only took a few seconds for her breathing to even out in slumber. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb her again. Whatever had happened to her that day, she needed to rest now and he needed to think.

  •

  A hand on his shoulder woke him. Deynas started to turn his head to see who it was and his neck seized in a sharp spasm. He’d fallen asleep leaning against the wall and his body intended to make him pay for it.

  “How’d she get here?” Naago murmured, trying not to disturb the figure still sleeping soundly on the bed, the serenity of her expression broken by that last trace of blood by her mouth.

  Deynas rubbed at the tight muscles in his neck. “She appeared last night. She said I called her.”

  “Ah. I’m not surprised.”

  “I’m glad it makes sense to one of us.”

  “You have a fragment of Argus’s umahk-ra in you. If you were thinking about her, as she had been and as she appears now, wanting her and missing her as deeply as I imagine you were, it would have created a connection between you and the Keeper.” Naago took a step toward the sleeping figure and Deynas grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t wake her. She collapsed when she appeared. She was hurt somehow.”

  Naago eased back away from her. “Will she be all right?”

  “I think so. She said she just needed rest. We talked for a short time.”

  Naago looked down at him now, the shadows of the room hiding his expression. “Are you all right?” His tone made it clear that he didn’t mean physically.

  Deynas laid his head back against the wall and rubbed his temples. “No, I don’t believe I am, but there isn’t much I can do about it.”

  “Come on then. We’ll let her rest and see the girl’s body off.”

  Deynas glared daggers at the hand Naago offered him. “Misa. Her name was Misa.”

  “I meant no insult.”

  Of course he didn’t. Deynas was just being sensitive. Could the man expect anything else? He’d spent the night with a creature wearing the body of the woman he loved in a room that he would never sleep in again and now he had to bear witness to the death rite for a girl he’d mentored and, if he were honest, loved as one loved a little sister. He was anything but all right.

  He took Naago’s hand and let the other man help him up. There was little point in changing and no privacy in which to do so. He would worry about clean clothes later, when he had time to dig through his things and decide what to take with him. The flyer would only hold so much. He also had to figure out where he would go now. After killing the three crossbreeds, the only way he would dare return to the city would be under the protection of a warlord like Kato, and that kind of protection would have a high price.

  They stepped out into the pale light of dawn. Many people gathered in front the temple to accompany the accepted bearers to the Table of Returning. Deynas and Naago joined them, waiting for the tribe’s master to emerge from the temple. No one spoke in the stillness of morning, the silence so complete that every shifting of a foot on the gritty earth was like a shout. By the time the sun was a third of the way up, the crowd had grown half again as large as when they first came out.

  When the sun finally broke free of the horizon, Kochan emerged in the long sand-colored robes appropriate to the master in the rite of sending. The gathered people, ascended Endless and temporal alike, sank to their knees as one and bowed their heads.

  “We come together for the passing of Misa of the Endless of Valbra.” Kochan’s voice was strong and serene. “Today we must bear her body to the Table of Returning so that her umahk-ra may be freed to return to the service of The Undying. Who among you will bear this burden?”

  Deynas stood. “I offer myself as a bearer as one who loved her in life and as one who bears responsibility for her death.”

  Kochan pursed his lips and nodded one by one to others who had stood, family and friends of the family mostly, giving them each a chance to speak for their right to bear. Before he was through, Naago also stood. Kochan’s expression darkened even more, but he nodded to give the man his say.

  Naago spoke with the same strength and serenity as Kochan, his past as a tribe master showing through. “I offer myself as a bearer as one who also bears responsibility for her death.”

  Kochan scanned those who had offered, his composure fracturing with the hint of a frown when his eyes rested on Deynas and Naago. He opened his mouth to speak when the sound of approaching flyers interrupted the ritual of choosing.

  One flyer was coming in fast toward the adjacent landing pad. The two patrol flyers in pursuit couldn’t keep up with the sleek silver and black craft. It dove down and swung to a sharp halt at the edge of the landing area. Settek leapt off, tossing his long fiery mane and casting a defiant glare at the patrol flyers closing in. Then he strode up to the rear of the gathering.

  Deynas put a hand on the staff grip at his belt and Naago’s hand closed around his sword hilt.

  Settek caught their movement, giving each a cool glance, then looked past them, meeting Kochan’s eyes. “I am Settek. I offer myself as a bearer as one whose actions contributed to the girl’s death.”

  “I do not know how you come to be involved in this, crossbreed,” Kochan answered, a whisper of venom in his tone, “but only Endless can be bearers. You are not welcome in this rite.”

  Whatever Settek meant to say in response died on his lips when the Keeper appeared beside him in her cloak. Everyone standing sank to their knees again, including Kochan. Deynas and Naago were the last to go down. Deynas almost didn’t, but that reaction would only inspire unwanted questions.

  She placed the hand woven over with black roots on the crossbreed’s bare shoulder. “This one has the blood of The Undying in his veins. His mother was ascended Endless. Perhaps it is right that all who played a part in this girl’s death share the burden of bearing her body to the Table of Returning.”

  For several seconds, uncertain silence held them all. Finally, Kochan rose, keeping his head bowed. “There must be four bearers, Keeper. Those responsible for her death leave us with only three.”

>   “I sense that you do not believe your own words,” the Keeper returned. “Your spirit is heavy with its share of this burden.”

  “You wield truth like a blade, Keeper.” Kochan’s voice was tight as of a man on the verge of weeping. From where he knelt, Deynas could see Kochan’s face and the tear that ran down his cheek. “Naago-ra, Deynas-ra, the crossbreed Settek and I will bear this burden.”

  A slight intake of breath passed through the gathering at his words and the Keeper disappeared again. Deynas glanced around for her as he, Naago, and Settek rose to follow Kochan into the temple. None of them spoke. It wasn’t appropriate yet. Kochan directed them with gestures to different corners of the litter Misa now lay upon. Her body rested inside a clear casing on a bed of a white synthetic fabric that burned hot enough to cremate the body within. The casing was a fireproof material designed to allow visibility while protecting the observers from the intensity of the heat. Once they had burned the dead upon pyres of wood, but wood was too hard to come by in this part of the desert.

  Misa’s pale face was slack. Her hands lay crossed over her chest and Deynas couldn’t help remembering the gaping wound hidden beneath the fabric. As they carried her out through the waiting crowd, he heard a few people comment on how peaceful she looked. He thought she looked empty.

  They carried the litter up along a narrow path that led to a higher plateau upon which the stone Table of Returning waited. The rest of the gathering followed them, filing into rows and kneeling again while the bearers set her on the table. They stood in a row behind the table until all the attendees had settled. There were no words spoken aloud, but time was given in silence for those who had thoughts they wished to send Misa off with. The rite wasn’t about comforting the living, but about freeing her umahk-ra from any connection to her flesh so that it might be free return to the service of The Undying. The living could remember her in their own ways when the rite was complete.

  Kochan stepped forward after several minutes and lit the fabric through a small opening at the foot of the case. Bright flame began to consume the fabric and the body within. The four bearers knelt and bowed their heads.