Land Keep

by J. Scott Savage

  For a moment Kyja considered lying, not wanting to give the man any more information than she had to. But she knew he would only hit her again, and her eye was already beginning to swell closed. She shook her head silently.

  “No?” The man’s eyes narrowed as he dropped the necklace into his robe. “You’ve never heard of the Keepers of the Balance?”

  Again, Kyja considered pretending that she had. But what if this was some kind of trap? What if she said yes and he asked questions she couldn’t answer? Better to say nothing at all until she understood what was happening. She could see movement out of the corners of her eyes. Several men gathered around her—their horses stomping and snorting—and the whistling sound was closer. But she couldn’t turn her head to make out what was happening. Although Riph Raph hadn’t shown himself since his useless fireball attack, she knew he was somewhere near.

  She swallowed. “I think you’ve made a mistake. I’m not from here. There was a fire in my village, and my family was killed. I’m trying to find my . . . my grandmother.”

  “Really?” the man said, his voice softening a little. “How unfortunate. Of course, if we’ve made a mistake, we will let you go at once.” For a moment, Kyja let herself hope that she might get away before they discovered Marcus. “What village would that be?”

  “N-Northwoods,” Kyja stammered, trying to come up with a name that sounded feasible.

  “N-northwoods,” the man repeated. The corner of his mouth rose into a mirthless grin, and she knew he was toying with her. “Do all the little girls in N-northwoods lie as much as you?”

  Kyja dropped her eyes.

  “She is immune to the lash,” said a voice to her left.

  “Is she?” The man holding Kyja pulled her head back until she was looking almost straight up. “Well, let’s see what the snifflers think. Perhaps after they finish with her, she’ll be more disposed to tell us the truth.” With that, he released her, shoving her backward onto the ground.

  “Let go of me.” Marcus tried to pull himself from Cascade’s grasp. His body still buzzed with the powerful water magic that had raged through him when he attacked the tree.

  The water elemental shook his head. “It would be a mistake to let them discover you. You would only end up captured along with Kyja.”

  The man in the silver robe yanked Kyja by the hair. Marcus’s right hand squeezed the head of his staff until his knuckles went white. “So you just want to stand here and watch?”

  Cascade’s expressionless eyes studied the men surrounding Kyja. “For the moment.”

  “Who are they?”

  Gradually, Cascade released Marcus’s arm. “They call themselves ‘Keepers of the Balance.’ They are even more powerful than they appear.”

  The man hit Kyja—the sound of his slap echoing sharply across the woods—and Marcus lurched forward, his teeth clenched. “If you won’t do anything, I will.”

  Again, Cascade stopped him. “I do not believe she is in serious danger at the moment, but she could become so if you persist in interfering.”

  “What do they want with her?” Marcus growled. His own pains had disappeared. His hand itched to hit the man in the silver robe the same way he’d hit Kyja.

  “They are seeking someone else. Once they discover that she is not—” Cascade stopped and looked into the trees. “We must retreat at once. They are coming.”

  “Who?” Marcus followed the elemental’s gaze. He couldn’t see anything, but the whistling he’d been hearing for the last few minutes was growing louder. The sound echoed strangely in his head, making his stomach churn in a way that reminded him of being back in the unmakers’ cavern.

  “They will smell us,” Cascade said. He faded from sight, and a dark puddle of water appeared where he’d been standing. That would have been a great trick to learn for Marcus, but according to the Fontasian, only water elementals could morph into water. Careful to make as little noise as possible, Marcus followed the small trail of water as it flowed deeper into the woods.

  Near the side of a large bolder, Cascade reappeared. “Snifflers sense magic,” he whispered, when Marcus reached him. “They are creatures of . . . Shadow.”

  “Shadow?” Marcus asked. How could a creature be made of shadow? Or was shadow a place? Before he could get an answer, the whistling grew to a shrill crescendo, and three creatures appeared out of the woods. Marcus stepped involuntarily backwards.

  The creatures looked like crickets as big as German shepherds. Each had long, insect-like heads with glittering, bulbous eyes and claw-like mandibles that snapped open and closed near the fronts of their mouths. They had bent legs with spikes all along the lower half. But instead of two large back legs like a cricket or grasshopper, they had six—two on the front, two on the back, and two that stuck straight out from the sides. Instead of jumping, they moved with an odd shuffling hop—like spiders.

  Something about their bodies made Marcus think of the unmakers again. It was hard to focus on the insects for long. Their shiny, grey shells seemed almost to be in motion—as if they weren’t shells at all, but some kind of liquid.

  “What are they?” Marcus asked, his lips pulling down in disgust.

  “The Keepers call them snifflers.” His face tightened as though the very sight of the creatures offended him. “The Keepers use them as servants, but they are not of this world.”

  “Not of this world?” If they weren’t from this world, then where . . . ? But the creatures were moving now. One of them hopped toward the edge of the clearing, spooking the horses so their riders could barely keep them from bolting. Another landed beside the silver-robed Keeper, who ran his hand across its back as though petting a dog.

  The third jumped straight toward Kyja.

  Marcus leaned forward, ignoring Cascade’s whispered warning to hold back. What was it doing? How could Cascade say she wasn’t in danger? Releasing Kyja’s hair, the man in the silver robe pushed her backward. She stumbled, falling at the feet of the creature.

  “Look out,” Marcus gasped under his breath.

  Seeing the sniffler, Kyja scrambled to her feet and tried to run. Something rose from the sniffler’s back. At first, Marcus thought they were wings. But as they separated and flicked through the air, he realized they were feelers or tentacles. And they weren’t just coming from the creature’s back, they were coming from underneath it as well, and the sides. Several even emerged from its mouth, like strands of greasy, gray spaghetti. The whistling that had stopped briefly now rose to a frantic pitch.

  One of the feelers darted forward and attached itself to Kyja’s arm with a wet smack. Another wrapped itself around her leg. Kyja screamed and tried to pull free of the quivering strand, but three more twisted around her wrist, pinning her arm. With a high-pitched squeal, the sniffler opened its mouth impossibly wide and dragged Kyja toward it.

  “No!” Marcus screamed. Cascade grabbed his wrist to hold him back, but Marcus instinctively used air magic, buffeting the water elemental the same way he’d knocked aside the stick in Master Therapass’s magic lessons.

  At his scream, the men on the horses turned. “Over there!” one shouted, pointing in Marcus’s direction.

  With a shout of fury, Marcus gripped his staff and flung a blast of air magic at the man in the silver robe. He’d done it before, using air to knock away the Thrathkin S’Bae, Bonesplinter. But this time, something went wrong. Trying to attack the man on the horse was like slamming his head into a brick wall. The Keeper didn’t move, but Marcus was thrown to the ground with dizzying force. High-pitched whistles filled the air.

  “Look out!” Cascade called, and Marcus turned to see a sniffler leap toward him. He held out his staff, and dozens of wavering feelers attached themselves to it. Even more wrapped themselves around his arms and legs, dragging him across the ground toward the creature’s gaping mouth. With horror, Marcus saw that each of the feelers ended in a mouth of its own—complete with lips, teeth, and even a glistening, gray tongue.
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br />   Fire burned across his arms and legs where the tiny suckers attached themselves to his skin. It felt as if they were worming their way right into his body. He tried using magic to knock the creature off, but that seemed to excite it even more. Suckers attached to his neck, his head, and one even tried to squirm inside his mouth.

  Slowly being dragged toward another sniffler, Kyja saw Marcus. Her eyes widened with fear. She tried to shout, but her words were drowned out by the sniffler’s whistles.

  Struggling with the sniffler, Marcus saw something race through the trees. Too tall to be Cascade, it loped through the woods in long, ground-eating strides. It looked almost familiar. Distracted by Marcus and Kyja, the man in the silver robe didn’t see the figure until it emerged from the trees and launched itself at him.

  With a cry of surprise, the Keeper fell from his horse. The long-limbed figure leaped across the clearing. Dropping his shoulder, he rammed into the side of the sniffler, and the creature’s whistles turned into a scream of pain. The sniffler’s feelers released Kyja, raising up to protect itself.

  Agony burned every inch of Marcus’s body. “Jump!” he yelled to Kyja. “Jump!”

  Kyja turned, and Marcus felt the inside-out twist of being pushed from Farworld back to Earth. The figure heard him as well. It turned to look at him, and just before Marcus was pulled out of Farworld, he recognized the face.

  It was Screech.

  Chapter 8

  Answers

  Marcus wasn’t sure the jump was going to work. He felt Kyja pushing him toward Earth, felt the familiar tugging in his stomach. The sniffler tugged back as though it wanted to go with him, not releasing his body. But it wasn’t just a physical hold. The creature had formed a deeper connection with Marcus—one that tore at his insides the way the unmakers had torn as they tried to suck away his magic.

  Kyja was part of the connection too. For a moment he could see through her eyes, feel her panic, as she struggled to break free. She was still on Farworld wrestling with the sniffler. She was trying to send him to Earth, but it was much more difficult this time—like lifting a boulder. And she was afraid—afraid that if she pushed any harder . . .

  Like a bad radio signal, her thoughts faded from his mind. Unable to resist the sniffler’s pull, he felt himself being dragged back to Farworld. Kyja pushed again. Being caught between their two forces was like being trapped in the gears of a powerful machine. He tried to cry out but couldn’t. Kyja pushed harder, and something ripped inside him. Pain flared through his body.

  For a moment he seemed to be made of glass, his skin shattering into a million pieces, his insides flowing out. He wasn’t on Earth. But he wasn’t on Farworld, either. He was caught between the two in a strange, gray world of shadows and mist.

  “Marcus?” Kyja’s voice floated to him out of the darkness.

  He tried to answer but his voice barely carried past his lips. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out anything through the billowing fog. Did he even have a body here? He felt as if he were floating. But he wasn’t alone. He could hear a wet, snuffling sound in the distance, as though something was searching for him.

  “Where are you?” Kyja called.

  When Marcus answered, it was with his mind. “I think I’m hurt. The sniffler did something to me.”

  “Marcus? I can’t see you.” Kyja’s voice seemed to be fading, while the fog grew colder against his skin. The sound of whatever was searching for him grew closer. Panic filled his mind. What if Kyja left him here alone?

  “Push me to Earth!” he shouted in his mind. “Or pull me back to Farworld, but do it quick. Something’s coming.”

  A menacing shape rose from the darkness—hungry eyes gleaming. Before it could reach him, Marcus felt a strong shove, and he was falling again. At the last minute, he remembered to reach out for Kyja and Riph Raph. When he opened his eyes, he was lying on a grassy field in front of an old-fashioned-looking, two-story building.

  “Thank goodness,” Kyja cried running to his side. “Are you all right?”

  “Uggh,” Marcus groaned. “That was so weird. It was like I got caught between worlds for a minute. Only there was something else there. Maybe it was the creature trying to come over.”

  “I could hear you, and I couldn’t . . . I was afraid that . . .” Kyja wiped at her eyes.

  “I think I’m okay.” He sat up slowly. His muscles felt like someone had hit him with a baseball bat. Clearly they were back on Earth. The air was warm and damp, and the sun was either just rising or setting. He could never quite get the time changes right when they jumped. “Where are we?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “Harahan School.” Kyja pointed to letters carved into the front of the building.

  “School. Great. I don’t even have my math book.” He dropped back onto the grass. His head pounded, all of his joints ached, and he thought he was running a fever. “What were those things?” he asked. “Those snifflers?”

  “I’ve never seen them before.”

  “It felt like they were trying to get inside me.” He looked up at Kyja, remembering the odd sensation he’d had of seeing through her eyes for a moment. Had it been real, or just the stress of breaking free from the sniffler? “Did you feel anything strange when they attached to you?”

  Kyja paused for a moment, then shook her head. “The suckers were disgusting.” She rubbed at the red welts the snifflers had left on her arms. “But nothing else. Maybe because I’m immune to magic.”

  That made sense. “Cascade called the men ‘Keepers of the Balance.’ Are they part of the Dark Circle?”

  “I don’t think so. They didn’t seem to know who I was. But I saw a man with the same symbol on his robe enter Terra ne Staric just before I escaped. He was riding with the high lord.”

  A large, blue insect buzzed through the air, landing on the top of Kyja’s head. For some reason, Riph Raph always changed into a different creature when he jumped to Earth, perhaps because there were no such things as skytes here. Several times he’d turned into a chameleon—quite disturbing, since skytes hated being called lizards—and once, he’d come over as a chicken. This time he was a dragonfly. It seemed to suit him.

  “Whatever snifflers are,” the dragonfly said, “they’ve got powerful magic.”

  Marcus nodded, remembering what happened when he’d tried to knock the man in the silver robe off his horse. “It can’t be a coincidence that they arrived right before the Thrathkin S’Bae attacked the Goodnuffs’ farm and that they nearly captured us now that we’re getting close to Land Keep.”

  They both sat in silence, considering what that might mean. Then Marcus remembered how they’d managed to escape the Keepers. “Did you see who knocked the sniffler off you?”

  Kyja nodded slowly.

  Marcus remembered thinking he’d seen something escaping the unmakers’ cavern just as Zhethar, the frost pinnois, smashed the entrance to dust. At the time, he’d assumed it was his imagination. “Screech must have climbed down the ledge you discovered while the air was filled with dust. Somehow he tracked us. Could he have been following us all along?”

  “Maybe.” Kyja averted her eyes.

  Understanding dawned on Marcus. “You knew he was there, didn’t you?”

  “I thought you’d be upset if I told you,” Kyja said softly.

  “Upset?” Marcus clenched his fists. “You thought I’d be upset? He nearly killed me. He enclosed you in a block of ice. He was going to feed us to the unmakers. Why didn’t you tell me?” Another thought occurred to him, one almost beyond belief. “Tell me he’s not who you’ve been sneaking food to.”

  Kyja’s cheeks went red. “He looked hungry.”

  “I can’t believe this!” Marcus shouted, his voice bouncing off the school building. “How could you feed that . . . that monster? It’s one thing to give our cloaks to homeless people, or our money to poor kids. But Screech might have snuck up and killed us while we slept.”

  “He didn’t,” Kyja said, he
r voice rising as well. “If he’d wanted to attack us, he could have. But I don’t think he wants to harm us. He let me see him on purpose, twice.”

  “He serves the unmakers. Why else would he follow us if not to kill us, or at least capture us and take us back?”

  “I don’t think he works for them anymore. I think we helped him escape. Maybe he’s grateful.”

  “Hah!” Marcus gave a scornful laugh. “I’ll bet he’s just waiting for the right chance to bring us a thank you card. Sometimes you have to use your brains instead of your emotions.”

  Kyja turned away. Marcus realized he’d hurt her feelings—again. “I’m sorry. That was a dumb thing to say.”

  “You’ve been saying a lot of dumb things lately.” Kyja refused to look at him.

  “I know.” Marcus swallowed. “I guess I’ve been pretty selfish. I need to remember I’m not the only one who has problems.”

  Kyja shot him a questioning look over her shoulder. With a rueful grin, Marcus told her all about the tree. By the time he’d finished, Kyja was giggling.

  “Melankollia,” she said. “They’re not dangerous if you recognize what they are. Kids back home used to cut off the leaves and rub them on someone’s scrolls during tests or put the powder down their robes as a joke.”

  “Seriously?” Marcus imagined pulling a prank like that on Chet back at the boys’ school and watching the bully bawl his eyes out about having to eat peas for dinner.

  Kyja nodded. “The powder didn’t affect me, of course, so once I rubbed a bunch of leaves on my hands and went around touching all the meanest kids at school.”

  “You went to school?” Marcus asked. For some reason, it had never occurred to him that Kyja had classes too.

  “I did until it became clear that I couldn’t learn magic.” Kyja gave a wistful sigh. “Then I was asked to leave the academy.”

  “Wait. You had to leave your school just because you couldn’t do magic?”

  “Of course. What’s the point of learning spells and charms when you can’t do them and they don’t work on you?”