Treasurekeeper

by Ripley Harper

  “I’m afraid I have bad news. Perhaps you should sit down.”

  She gives me a coolly polite smile. “I’m sure I’m more than capable of handling whatever news you want to share about yourself.”

  “It’s not about me. Please. Sit down.”

  “I’ll stand. Thank you.”

  Right. I take a deep breath. “Your father is dying. You need to go to him immediately.”

  “What?”

  Next to me I hear Gunn make a low, frustrated sound, but I keep my gaze on the Green Lady. “He wants to say goodbye. I’m sorry, I know this must be a terrible shock, but he asked me to bring you to him and there isn’t much time. We need to go right now.”

  She clutches at her necklace, as if wanting to draw strength from it. “If what you’re saying is true, I will go alone.”

  “It is true, but you’ll have to take me with you. Your father isn’t physically strong enough to return from the plane of consciousness where he’s spending his last hours. If you want to speak to him one last time, you’ll need me there to form a bridge between the dimensions.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried before. But that’s what he asked of me and I promised I’ll do what I can to help.”

  She narrows her eyes slightly, then spins on her heel and starts striding into the forest. “Let’s go.” A few steps later she turns around. “No. Only you. Your keeper stays here.”

  Gunn steps between us. “I’m not letting her go alone, Clara.”

  “She’s not alone. She’s with me.”

  “That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell Gunn, gently pushing him aside. “There’s no need for you to come. I can handle this.”

  “It’s too dangerous. It could be a trap.”

  “It’s not a trap.”

  I watch as a tiny nerve starts jumping in his jaw. “He spoke to you while you were in your resting state, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what exactly do you remember of that conversation?”

  “Okay, fine,” I admit. “I don’t remember everything we talked about. But relax, okay? I’m in control of this.”

  “Like you were when you refused the Earthkeepers’ pledge and healed the sick and the dying?”

  “Yes! Exactly.”

  “You still have no idea what you did.” Gunn shakes his head slowly. “Don’t you understand what danger you’re in?”

  “There is no time for this, Dragonkeeper. My father is dying.”

  “Jess. Please. Listen to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I promised. It won’t take long. You can lecture me about everything I did wrong when I get back.”

  Then I turn my back on him and follow the Green Lady deeper into the forest.

  We walk in total silence for more than an hour.

  The Green Lady moves through the forest as if she’s a part of it, treading as lightly as a breeze in her linen dress and sandals, and although I try to follow in her footsteps, I’m very aware of the fact that I’m crashing through the undergrowth like a drunken bear. I knock my head against a branch, stub my toe against a rock, bang my shin against a climbing root, hit my hip against tree. But I don’t complain, and I don’t ask her to slow down. We both know this is a race against time.

  The deeper we go into the forest, the darker it becomes, and louder, until the constant buzzing of the insects turn into a deafening hum, a tidal wave of sheer noise. There are animals all around us, reptiles and birds and mammals and insects and so many living things that, every now and then, when the air around me becomes green and slowly undulating or sparks brightly with energy, I have to stop, close my eyes, and actively strengthen my shields against the call of all this lifemagic.

  I’m starting to tire slightly, out of breath and sweaty because of the humidity, when we finally come to a stop next to a rock cliff which rises out of nowhere from the forest floor.

  “Are we here?”

  “No. I need you to close your eyes. There are secrets here not meant for the eyes of outsiders.”

  I’m about to argue (I mean, what are we, four?) when I realize it’s probably not cool to be difficult right now. This woman is about to lose her father; I should cut her some slack.

  And so I close my eyes obediently after giving her exactly the kind of grindingly polite smile she’s been giving me all morning.

  The moment I can’t see, the buzzing of the insects becomes even louder. “Don’t open your eyes!” The Green Lady grabs my hand and pulls me forward.

  I follow with my eyes closed, probably because I’m stupid and too trusting and need to have my head examined. There’s a low rumbling noise of rock scraping against rock and then there’s a sudden silence, a sharp drop in temperature and, faintly in the distance, the sound of rushing water.

  “Can I look now?”

  “Yes.”

  I open my eyes to a darkness so black I’m not sure if my eyelids actually opened. “What the hell…?”

  “You’re in a cave. There’s no danger, but don’t let go of my hand.”

  I allow her to lead me deeper into the cool darkness. At first I can make out very little apart from shadows on rock, but after a while my eyes adjust and I realize we’re walking through some kind of underground maze, down one tunnel and up the next. As the sound of rushing water becomes louder, the roof above us becomes lower until we have to bend our heads, and then our knees. It is only when we’re crawling on the weirdly smooth and slippery floor, tunneling through the cave like two overgrown moles, that I realize something about this is really strange.

  I’m not the least bit freaked out.

  Me—–the same person who was so deeply claustrophobic as a kid that I couldn’t even hide under a bed, or in a wardrobe, or under a desk. The same person who almost lost her mind when the Order locked her up in a cell twenty times this size. The same person who’s always been so afraid of confined spaces that my worst nightmares have always been about being bricked up in a wall or buried alive.

  And yet, here I am. Crawling through a tunnel so narrow it almost feels as if I’m being born again, and instead of having a nervous breakdown, I feel completely calm. More than calm. Safe. As if I belong here.

  Hot damn. Maybe I really do have a cavedragon inside me.

  We spend another fifteen minutes or so crawling through the dark, eventually squeezing through a tunnel so narrow I can hardly breathe, before we tumble from the shaft to land awkwardly in an enormous cave.

  I get up, stretch my legs and my back, peer into the darkness. Half the cave seems to be flooded with water. Flowing water. A black, rushing underground river. As my eyes adjust, I make out the shape of a boat on the river, tied to what seems to be a wooden pole.

  The Green Lady unties the rope and pulls the boat towards us. “Get in.”

  I look at the small boat floating in the darkness, not sure if this is a good idea.

  But in the end I obey her meekly.

  I’ve come too far to turn back now.

  Chapter 18

  At heart, the Order of Keepers is nothing but a very large family, all descendent from ten ancient bloodlines that originated separately in completely different corners of the world. Our formal histories commenced with the rise of the first civilizations – from Mesopotamia to the Indus valley; from ancient China to ancient Egypt; from the Aksumite Empire to that of the Mayans – but we also know, without a doubt, that our true origins stretch much further back into a past so distant that it cannot even be imagined.

  From A Brief History of The Order of Keepers (1961), by Harry Charles Shawcross.

  It’s about an hour later. I’m sailing in a little boat on a secret river with a mysterious woman, right into the deepest, most impenetrable heart of the Amazon.

  But I’m not too worried.

  Above the strip of river, the sky is a bright blue line, hemmed in on each side by living green walls. In the air abo
ve us whole swarms of colorful parrots are squawking, and below us I’ve seen the pinkish-white skins of freshwater dolphins with my own eyes. My shields are as strong as I can make them, and yet I’m almost dizzy with the miraculous energy of all the natural life around me.

  “This is unbelievable. Absolutely blissful.”

  The Green Lady, who is deftly steering the boat while I lie basking in the sun, smiles. “I could never live anywhere else.”

  I smile back at her, relieved that the barely suppressed anger I sensed in her this morning seems to have disappeared. With every mile we’ve traveled down this river, she’s become friendlier and more relaxed, as if the forest itself is having a calming influence on her mood.

  “So I guess the village I stayed in wasn’t your real home after all?”

  “Please. That’s no home. It’s a hotel. A tourist fantasy.”

  “Why the pretense?”

  She doesn’t answer me straight away because she’s concentrating on avoiding a couple of jagged rocks in the middle of the river. When we’re safely past, she points to the forest around us. “My people have lived here for a very long time. Longer than you—–a child of the West who believes in ‘History’ and ‘Civilization’ and ‘Progress’—–can even imagine. Long before the pyramids were built, long before Christ was crucified, long before the trade routes were developed and first ships crossed the great oceans, my people made this place their home and we’ve lived here ever since, in perfect harmony with nature, our lifestyle hardly changing throughout all those generations.”

  “That kind of blows my mind.”

  “We had almost become a legend, you know. By the time your mother found us, even the best historians of the Order knew so little about the so-called ‘lost Earthkeepers of the Amazon’ that they told all kinds of ridiculous stories about us: that we practiced ‘forgotten magics’ and lived in a ‘secret village’…”

  I grin. “So maybe not that ridiculous after all.”

  “Something isn’t forgotten simply because the Order of Keepers can’t remember how to do it. Nor is a place secret just because none of those idiots can find it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “When I appeared at the Order’s headquarters, seemingly out of nowhere, with my magic so strong and my blood so pure, it created a riot. The entire Order became fascinated with us. Obsessed. White sent spies, the Green Lord came on a ‘diplomatic visit’, Red dispatched ‘ambassadors’ every second week… I had to give them something. They weren’t going to give up on the mystery, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to expose my people.”

  “I’m relieved. I was worried that my shine had given away your secret.”

  “I spilled that secret myself, before you were born. Bella and I did it together.”

  My mother’s name sends a painful jolt through me, like when a dentist drills too close to the nerve.

  “It was your mother’s plan, in fact. I think she felt responsible for exposing us to the Order’s greedy gaze. She helped me to design and build that bogus ‘village’, and then very discreetly shared its location with a few carefully selected people before swearing them to secrecy.” A wry smile. “It became a kind of bitter fun, in the end, predicting who’d be the first to betray us.”

  I look up at the blue sky.

  My mother knew nothing about rainforests, or designing villages, or plots and schemes to hide ancient secrets. She always joked that she had the most boring job in the world, and as a person she was sweet and clever and down-to-earth. Completely normal. The kind of mother whose entire world revolves around her child.

  I swallow the bitterness at the back of my throat. “So what will you do now? You can’t pretend that village is a secret any longer.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Fake some outrage, probably. Allow the forest to claim back the space. Build another decoy.”

  “I don’t know if it’ll be worth the trouble. I think your secret will be up the moment more people see it for themselves. To me, that place looked stagey right from the start, and I’m not normally the most perceptive person in the world.”

  “Maybe. But you have pure dragonblood in your veins. The keepers of the Order have become so poisoned by the unnatural lives they lead that they would think it only natural for the Green Lady to live like a spoilt, stupid tourist in her own forest.”

  She bites her lip in concentration as she maneuvers us past a scary-looking rapid. When we reach calmer waters she sits back again, one hand lightly resting on the steer. It’s clear to me that she knows this river well.

  “Every time I’m forced to leave my home, to return to their so-called ‘civilization’, I’m stunned and saddened by the slavery of the modern world. People locked up in boxes from nine to five. Trapped in metal vehicles for hours on end. Staring at screens, interacting with phantoms, and believing this is life. Never secure in what they have, and yet completely oblivious to nature’s bounty. Isolated and hopeless and hungry only for more power and more money, while they subdue their natural longing for community and sex and violence and kindness to someplace deep within their subconscious. Controlled by a small group of people who feed off them like leeches, and never knowing the power of their own souls. Trying to fill the emptiness inside them by acquiring more and more possessions, and in the process destroying our only home in a long, slow suicide.”

  She shakes her head in disgust. “It is one thing for normal people to fall into that trap. The lure of the modern world can be very powerful. But for those who carry the dragonflame inside them, to forget that the natural world is greater than the one humans constructed to confuse and sublimate every natural urge? Despicable!”

  “You really hate the Order of Keepers, don’t you?”

  “Not hate, no. They’re lost, that’s all. Completely lost. They have no idea who they are, or what they’re doing. I would’ve said I pitied them, but they’re too dangerous to be pitied.”

  “So why are you still a Lady on their ruling council?”

  “Because I am a fool, and I always have been.” Her look is so heavy with meaning that I suddenly remember what Zig told me.

  “Oh! I was meaning to apologize to you about… Zig told me that…” I feel myself blushing bright red. “So, apparently I, um, acted inappropriately towards you after my earthmagic was sparked for the first time...”

  She laughs, a carefree, almost girlish sound. “I presume you’re talking about the kiss?”

  I’m too embarrassed to do anything but nod.

  “Don’t feel bad about it; it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Ingrid says I’m responsible for everything I do, whether I can remember it or not.”

  Another laugh. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not Ingrid.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed.”

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel myself blushing even redder. Could this be any more awkward? God, what if she thinks I’m flirting with her?

  “Relax, Jess.” This time her smile is kind and—–thank heavens—–almost motherly. “I know when I’m speaking to a dragon, and when I’m speaking to a girl. And I certainly know the difference between kissing a dragon and kissing you.”

  “You do?” I don’t even try to hide my relief.

  “Of course. Do I seem like the kind of woman who would—–” she grins widely, “—–‘act inappropriately’ toward the daughter of the woman she loved?”

  I look down at my hands, unable to meet her dark, intense gaze any longer.

  This is too weird; I just don’t know what to say.

  “I loved your mother, Jess. She was the love of my life. I will never deny that simple truth again.”

  Okay. Still weird.

  I keep looking at my hands, suddenly fascinated by the thin white ridges on my nails.

  “After her death I changed, believing she had betrayed me and that she was lost to me forever. I wasted so many years to bitterness and despair. But I was wrong. About everything.”

  “I’m not sure
I understand.”

  “That night in the cave, when you became so filled with your brand new earthmagic that the girl you are now was completely lost to the dragon inside you, I saw your mother again. She was there, Jess. I knew her immediately. And she knew me!”

  The thought is so horrible it makes me shudder.

  “You make it sound as if I was possessed. As if my mother’s spirit took over my body.”

  “No. That’s not what I meant. Although it might perhaps not be the worst analogy in the world.”

  “I’m not great with analogies. Just give it to me straight. Is my mom still alive inside me?” The idea makes my skin crawl. “Is she some kind of ghost now, trapped behind my skin and looking through my eyes?”

  “Calm down, child. The truth is neither so horrible, nor so easy to understand.”

  “But you said you spoke to her! And that she recognized you and kissed you! So how is she not still alive, somewhere inside me?”

  “Because it is not inside you, but inside the dragon that traces of her still remain.”

  I grab at my hair. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “I know. And neither do I, really, or anybody else. People have been arguing about the nature of dragons for thousands of years, and nobody has come close to finding a fully comprehensive theory to explain the mystery.” Her gentle voice and her kind expression help to calm me down.

  “But there are theories, right?”

  “Oh yes. The Order of Keepers has nothing but theories, all of them based on their ancient scrolls and stubborn, blind beliefs.”

  “Gunn says everything the Order believes is wrong.”

  “Your keeper has his own stubborn theories, blinded as he is by his belief in science. So does the slayer you brought with you, who believes in the Old Words, and the Pendragons, who believe in nothing but power. Your mother had her own theories too, and so does my father. It’s their ideas I found most difficult to believe when I was younger, despite the fact that they were closest to the source of the mystery. But now I’m not so sure anymore.”

  On the riverbank a family of capybaras is sunning themselves. Or at least I presume it’s a family. What do I know about capybaras anyway? What do I know about anything?