Keeper of the Winds

by Jenna Solitaire

  “That’s it,” I said. “We’re done.”

  From the look of it, Simon had given a good accounting of himself. Several of Peraud’s men lay on the floor, cradling injured limbs or out cold.

  Peraud chuckled as the fighting came to a stop. “You’re quite the warrior for a priest,” he said to Simon.

  “I grew up in an orphanage,” Simon said, shrugging. “Even the Catholic ones are rough.” Then his brow furrowed. “And I’m not a priest,” he added.

  “No,” Peraud said. “You ran into some … difficulties with that, I understand.”

  “It’s not your concern,” he snapped. “Take the Board and the journal and go. Just leave Jenna here.”

  Simon was still trying to save me, and there was a feeling for me in his eyes that was undeniable.

  “You’re an educated man,” Peraud said. “You know that without her, the Board and the journal are useless.”

  “Not true,” Simon said. “If you wait, the Board will eventually sleep again, then you can reawaken it.”

  “You’re willing to sacrifice all the people in this quaint little town to save her?” Peraud asked. He sounded genuinely intrigued. “That’s not very noble at all.”

  “It’s my choice,” Simon said.

  “While I admire your willingness to destroy others for your own desires,” Peraud said, “I don’t have time to wait. We’re done here.”

  “Done?” I asked, wondering if he meant to let me go.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Tanner!” he called. One of the men came out of the shadows near the closest stack of crates. “Your work here is almost done. Kill the priest and the hero, and make sure the boyfriend’s dead, too, then meet me outside. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

  Tanner? I thought. Burke’s henchman? Why is he here?

  As if reading my mind, Peraud laughed. “Tanner works for me now,” he said. “One of the things you’ll soon learn is that everyone can be bought. Every soul is for sale.” I felt his hand stroke my hair. “I wonder what your price is?” he whispered.

  I felt his breath on my neck. The man was poisonous and evil. He had me, the Board, and the journal and he was going to kill Father Andrew, Simon … everyone. For his own pleasure.

  His hand stroked my hair again and something inside me just … let go. I suddenly felt calm and in control. I knew what I had to do, how to save us all … if only there was time.

  Closing my eyes, I thought about the Board on the nearby table, picturing it in my mind. The runes carved into its surface, the way it felt cold to the touch. I thought about Shalizander and how she had made the Board, driving the ornate dagger into its surface and bringing it to terrible life. I thought about power, and then I reached out and called:

  “Board of the Winds, come to me. I am the Keeper, and your will is my will. Our hungers are the same and we are one!”

  “I hear, Keeper,”the Board called back. “I hear and obey. What is your will?”

  I paused for a long moment, and I felt Peraud shift behind me. He still clutched the journal in his other hand. “What do you think you are doing?” he asked, his muscles tensing.

  “What must be done,” I said. I looked quickly at Simon, who nodded once and smiled. Then I reached out again: “Release the storm.”

  And the Board responded.

  Outside the winds rose to a sudden shriek.

  It sounded like the gates of Hell itself had been opened.

  Ecstasy. The rush of power fills my blood, my lungs. I breathe in the magic of the Board. It surrounds and consumes me.

  The winds are mine and I call to them, urging them on to greater heights and strength. Wanting them to come closer.

  Shaking my head, I felt a rush of power so strong and intense that I felt like I was glowing like a neon light.

  A voice shouted, “Peraud!” and I saw both him and Simon turn around in surprise.

  A man I’d never seen before stepped into the light. He was dressed in an immaculate white suit and tie. He had dark skin and hair, with eyes that were almost black. He radiated strength and power, though he didn’t appear to be much older than his mid-thirties.

  Peraud released me. “Armand!” he said. “I assumed you would show up here. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Is that so?” Armand said. “My experience with you so far has lead me to believe you prefer sneaking around in the shadows to head-on confrontations.”

  “Perhaps once that was true,” Peraud admitted. “But I’m much more powerful now. My master has seen to that.”

  “I sense that about you,” Armand said. “But the question is, are you powerful enough?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Peraud said as he released me. With a snarl on his face, he raised his hands and mumbled strange words under his breath.

  “Indeed,” Armand said.

  Free, I stepped away from Peraud and turned around. He’d dropped the journal on the floor at his feet, and I picked it up. He saw me, but there was little he could do, distracted as he was by Armand.

  I moved away from the two men just as a spinning ball of fire sprang out of Armand’s outstretched hand. It expanded as it moved, and I thought Peraud would burn in agony, but he raised his arms, and the fire slammed into some kind of invisible wall that dissipated the flames harmlessly into the air.

  In two quick strides, I reached the table and picked up the Board.

  It felt like being I’d always imagined being in love would feel like, as though I were standing on the top of a mountain looking down on the world. I was Jenna Solitaire, but I would never be alone again, never be powerless again. Men like Burke and Peraud would never be able to harm me, or those I cared about. Never again.

  “Peraud!” I screamed. “I am the Keeper of the Boards!” I raised my fist at him and pointed.

  The Board knew my will before I had to command it. A sudden, terrible shriek tore the roof from the warehouse. High above us, the lowering funnel of a massive tornado reached down from the sky. Men shouted and ran, scattering among the stacked crates, which were starting to shift in the incredible winds.

  I heard a voice screaming my name, but I ignored it. The power was singing in me now, filling me with strength and resolve. I felt more alive than I ever had. I could not tell where the Board left off and I began. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t powerless to stop people I cared about from being hurt.

  Looking up, I saw the sky filling with funnel clouds, twisting and swirling around each other like angry black snakes. The winds pulled in sheets of rain and poured it down through the open roof of the warehouse in stinging pellets.

  Peraud looked up and raised his own arms just as the fingertip of the tornado touched the stacks of crates, destroying each row as it sucked them into its voracious maw. Wood splinters flew everywhere, and I heard screams of agony. The lights flickered and popped, then went out.

  “Power upon power. There is no end to it. I can dance on the clouds, float into the sky like a feather. I can see the lights of Heaven and below, the fires of Hell.”

  “Call upon me,” the Board cries. “I have slept for so long and I ache to feel again, to use my strength again.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I will use the Board! I will destroy the warehouse, Peraud and all of his men. I will save Armand, Simon, Tom and Father Andrew.”

  “They matter not,” the Board says. “Destroy them all. You do not need them.”

  “Why?”

  “You are powerful. You are the Keeper of the Winds, the Keeper of the Boards. You do not need anyone but me, my brethren, and the elemental power we can give you. Make them all kneel before you, and then destroy them.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  The Board wants to … feed. It hungers for death and destruction. I must stop it. “No more! Take the winds away.”

  “Ah, the winds come at my command, but they disperse on their own. our storm—the one you have created—is just beginning.”

&nb
sp; “NO!”

  “YES!”

  The first tornado touched down inside the warehouse and the ground trembled with the impact. The sides of the metal structure screeched, then blew out in a torrent of hundreds of fragments that whistled through the air like flying swords.

  I saw Armand and Simon huddled together on the floor. Somehow the tornado hadn’t touched them. Nearby, men were screaming and the air was filled with slivers of wood from the crates, clouds of razor-sharp metal darts from the warehouse walls, dust and debris. It was blinding and deafening … except where I stood. The Board kept me safe, the winds swirling around me in a maelstrom of devastation, but not touching me.

  I couldn’t stop the Board, and at that moment I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

  Above us, several more funnel clouds snaked their way toward the ground.

  I wondered where Peraud was, but he had disappeared.

  I saw Armand gesture at Simon, who nodded and got tiredly to his feet.

  He was screaming my name, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t hear him.

  I didn’t want to hear him. Tom was dead, I was certain of it. And probably Father Andrew as well.

  Simon had brought all of this into my life, and I was furious.

  “Yes!” the Board cried in my head. “They are to blame. Destroy them all!”

  Overflowing with power, but emotionally exhausted, I sank to the floor. I was the Keeper, but I couldn’t control the Board. I didn’t want to be angry anymore, didn’t want to feel anything anymore.

  “Please stop it,” I said to the Board. “Enough,”

  “There is no such thing! We are power!”

  Suddenly I saw the man from the cemetery standing in front of me. “You!” I said.

  He nodded and dropped to his knees. “I work for Armand,” he yelled, trying to be heard over the wind. “You must stop this! Control the Board!”

  “I can’t!” I screamed. “I won’t!” I gestured and a tongue of wind whipped out and drove him to the ground. Why had Armand sent someone to spy on me at my grandfather’s funeral?

  Another man approached us, and even with his face cut and bleeding, I could see that except for a small mole on one cheek, he was almost identical to the man in front of me. Suddenly, I understood. Brothers or twins, and if one of them worked for Armand, then the other must work for Peraud!

  He reached out and grabbed the other man by the ankles, began dragging him away from me.

  I wondered if he was the one who’d broken into my house. Perhaps they meant me no harm all along. I didn’t know, didn’t care.

  Out of the shadows, I saw the indistinct figure of Peraud. He was closing in on Armand and Simon. Apparently sensing the approach of his enemy, Armand turned to face him, shoving Simon in my direction.

  The screech of the winds was horrific, a fearsome howl that reverberated through my very bones, and I wondered if anyone in the warehouse left alive would ever be able to hear again.

  Simon staggered toward me, while the twins moved off into the storm in different directions.

  I looked over to where Tom lay on the floor, fragments of wood and metal covering his clothes. He wasn’t moving.

  Nearby, Father Andrew was also on the floor, dropped earlier by his assailants when the storm hit and they panicked and ran. He was also still, and I saw blood on his forehead.

  I rose to my feet, and the first thing I saw was real fear in Simon’s eyes.

  Even though I couldn’t hear him over the winds, I could make out his words as he held up his hands, palms out, toward me. “Jenna! No!”

  I ignored him, focusing instead on Armand and Peraud.

  The two men faced off with each other, oblivious to the storm raging around them. Flickers of lightning, balls of fire, sprays of ice floated back and forth between them. For a moment, even I stopped to gasp in wonder. There was magic in our world, and almost no one knew about it. It was sad, in a way, and yet I also understood the reasons for it.

  “They aren’t magic! We are magic! They are charlatans compared to you and I!”

  I knew this had to end, before the entire city was destroyed, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I felt Simon take my arm and I turned to him. “What do I do?” I shouted, trying to make him hear me over the wind.

  “You have to stop it!” he yelled. “Control the Board!”

  “I can’t! It’s out of my control!”

  “Everyone here will die if you don’t!”

  I tried to find some flicker of compassion in me, but the Board had smothered those feelings, replacing them with the singing exultation of power. I looked at Tom and Andrew again, and saw them as frail humans whose time in this life was at an end. I looked at Simon and shrugged, feeling myself grow colder inside. I didn’t care; there was only the power of the Board coursing through me now. “Then they will die,” I said. “It happens to everyone.”

  Simon grabbed me by the shoulders and I felt the Board’s anger at him. “Is that what you want?” he screamed. “Is that what they would have wanted?” He pointed at Tom and Father Andrew. “For you to become a monster?”

  “I am no monster!” I shouted, shoving him away from me. “I am power!”

  The Board felt my anger and hurt and the winds ratcheted up even higher, to almost hurricane force. I heard other buildings in the town collapsing, and the distant wail of sirens rose and fell. Emergency workers were trying to get to the scene, but they would be too late.

  Simon moved toward me again and before I could react, he slapped me—hard and fast—on one cheek. Stunned, I looked at him.

  “Everyone here is trying to save you and you don’t care. I may not be a priest anymore, but even I know that makes you a monster.” Then he turned and staggered away toward Armand and Peraud.

  “Is that what I am now? A monster?”

  “No,” the Board answered me. “You are powerful—more powerful than any of them—and they are simply jealous.”

  I looked over to where Armand and Peraud were trying to best each another. I glanced at Tom and Father Andrew and then I knew the truth of it. I wasn’t a monster. I was hurt and scared to be alone in the world.

  And the Board knew it.

  It was playing on my worst fears.

  14

  “My Lord! She has lost control of the Board! She will destroy us all!”

  “Peraud, you must listen to me. If you cannot contain her, then she must survive this. Do not let her die!”

  “But for that to happen, she must not have a target for her anger.”

  “Then leave. There will be other opportunities later. She will fight all our battles for us, but we will win the war.”

  The storm raged through the warehouse, destroying everything in its path. The sky glowed the color of dark emeralds and lightning lit the funnel clouds swirling around in the night air. They reminded me of stylized dragons, twining about each other and fighting to the death.

  If I couldn’t control my fears, everyone here would die. The Board would keep calling the winds, exercising its long dormant powers and reveling in the destruction. Simon had said the Board was evil and conscious … and I knew he was right. If I didn’t control the Board, it would control me. I would no longer be my own person.

  What I didn’t know is if I could control my fears. I hated the thought of being alone, of facing a destiny I knew nothing about … of losing my few friends. I missed my grandfather. I felt tears running down my face, and the sense of defeat that loomed over my thoughts was complete.

  “Give yourself to me, Keeper. I will lift you up. I will protect you. You know I can do this. All you have to do is give yourself to me, and you need never fear anyone, anything again.”

  I gritted my teeth, trying and failing to block out the sound of the Board. I knew I would be hearing it for the rest of my days.

  “You will never be alone.”

  Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned around to see the last person I ever expected to see here—Kristen
. Even in the furious winds and occasionally ducking the dangerous debris, she looked calm, poised even. “Jenna,” she said. Even in her normal tone, I could hear her.

  “Kristen? What are you doing here?”

  “I came to find you. I could … feel you through the crystal I gave you. I don’t know for sure what’s going on with you right now, but you must stop this. You’re destroying the city.”

  “It’s not me!” I wailed. “It’s the Board!”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But to whom does the Board belong?”

  That’s when it hit me. My name was Jenna Solitaire, and I had treated my whole life like that name defined my destiny. I had always thought I was supposed to be alone, never getting closer to anyone other than my grandfather. I wondered how Kristen had managed to get here, unharmed, through the storm. She obviously had powers of her own, and I felt her calm radiating around me, creating a sanctuary in which I could almost think straight.

  “What do I do?” I said. “It’s out of control!”

  “No, Jenna,” she said. “It’s you who is out of control. The Board is only doing what it was made to do.” She smiled, then, and said, “You haven’t been alone, Jenna. All of us have been with you. You must choose to accept that, choose love and faith, and the rest will happen.” Then she turned and made her way to where Tom had fallen, kneeling down beside him and covering his body with her own.

  Although I hadn’t thought it possible, the storm increased in intensity and I knew I had to do something right now. I glanced at where Peraud and Armand had been fighting and saw an exhausted-looking Armand straighten up, grimace in pain and then throw a strange cloud of heavy blackness at his opponent. It arched between them, growing and enveloped Peraud.

  I saw him thrash about, like he’d been covered in some sort of inky skin, and then he broke through it and stepped out, the darkness shriveling into wisps of nothingness around him. His eyes were wide and fearful. He looked up at the sky and saw not one or two or even three, but dozens of tornadoes swirling above, ready to descend.