The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  Archie gasped and pointed to the bedside table, where sat a cup of water. Delph grabbed the cup and handed it to me. I helped Archie drink from it, wiping away some drops that dribbled into his beard.

  He sat back and cleared his throat. “Ma-Mal-Maladons.”

  “Maladons?” I said, shooting Delph a glance. “So you fought them?”

  He nodded and a tear slid down his cheek. “F-fought. And l-lost. W-we … lost.”

  Delph exclaimed, “You mean your lot got beaten?”

  Archie slowly nodded. “Fled here. H-hiding. M-mice in a h-hole.” In a moment of anger, he turned and spat on the floor before resettling against his pillow. “C-cowards.”

  Delph and I exchanged disturbed glances. I said, “And you knew Bastion Cadmus?”

  “Our l-leader. K-killed.”

  He swallowed funny and then started to cough. I gave him some more water.

  “D-dad wanted to keep f-fighting. B-but M-Mum …” He shook his head. “B-bloody K-Keeper. What’s th-the p-point. Bloody Keeper. S-sacrifice. What’s the p-p-point?” He looked up at me with pleading eyes. “E-eh?” he said. “Eh?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him. He closed his eyes and a moment later we heard his gentle snores.

  We rose and quietly left the room.

  When we got to my room, Delph, his eyes as big as saucers, said, “Blimey! Bloody Maladons. War and killin’.”

  “And hiding,” I added. “Like mice in a hole.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you get it, Delph? They created Wormwood as a hiding place. Because these Maladon blokes were trying to hunt them down. And they conjured the Quag around it to keep them out.”

  “And to keep us in,” Delph added. “Like the Wall round Wormwood.”

  We looked at each other. I’m sure what I saw in Delph’s features mirrored my own — complete and utter despair.

  I said, “Astrea wanted to know about Virgil. What he was planning, whether I had talked to him.”

  “How could you when he’s been gone since you were a wee thing?”

  “He’s a powerful sorcerer. An Excalibur, in fact. Which means he’s always known everything, including things Astrea has withheld from us.”

  “Blimey, I guess that explains a lot. So what do we do?” asked Delph.

  “Keep learning things. It’s all we can do, for now.”

  “But if we’re never to leave here, what does it matter?”

  “The truth always matters, Delph.”

  THAT NIGHT DURING a sumptuous meal that Delph and I lingered over, I drew up the courage to ask Astrea a question.

  “Can you show us Wormwood? In your Seer-See?”

  “Why?” she asked suspiciously as she took a sip of her tea.

  I glanced at Delph, who immediately attended to his custard. He might’ve been thinking about Astrea sticking him to the ceiling.

  “Well, since we’re going to be here forever and everything, it would be nice to see our home.” I added quickly, “I don’t suppose you’d let us go back there. We’d promise never to enter the Quag again.”

  I was lying of course. I would never stay in Wormwood, not now.

  She set her cup down. “Let you go back to Wormwood? Knowing what you do now? Do I look barmy to you?” She glanced down at her wand, which lay beside her plate. “Although, I could wipe away your minds of course. Then you could return. Would you like me to do that?” She raised her wand.

  “Er, no,” I said quickly.

  “I l-like my m-mind where it is,” added Delph.

  Well, I thought, she had certainly called my bluff.

  “But can we at least see our village?” I pleaded.

  She contemplated this for a few moments and then rose.

  A sliver later, we were in the room with the two cups on the table. Astrea did what she had done before, only this time with the other cup. I had to hold Delph back when the flaming liquid shot across the table.

  “Wormwood,” said Astrea simply, with a wave of her hand.

  And there it truly was.

  The cobblestones, the old buildings. There were Wugs I knew walking along. Hestia Loon, her shopping bag in hand. Herman Helvet at his window. With a rush of excitement, I saw mighty Thansius marching purposefully along.

  He passed by another Wug I knew, Julius Domitar, who ran Stacks. He was tottering along seemingly full in his cups. He raised a hand in greeting to Thansius. Then another Wug came into view.

  “Me dad,” cried out Delph.

  Sure enough, there was Duf Delphia making his way on his two timbertoes. A whist pup was striding next to him, tethered to a leather cord that Duf gripped.

  I brightened and looked at Delph. “He looks good. Happy.”

  But my smile faded, for Delph didn’t look happy, only homesick. I reached over and took his hand and squeezed it. He looked down at me and attempted a smile, but I knew his heart wasn’t in it. It was a lot — to be kept from your family, and didn’t I know that.

  I glanced back at the tabletop when I heard the clattering sound of hooves on cobbles. The blue carriage! I drew closer, wanting desperately to see who was in it. As I watched, the driver, Thomas Bogle, reined the sleps to a stop.

  The carriage door opened and out stepped Morrigone.

  “Cor blimey,” exclaimed Delph, who was looking over my shoulder. “She don’t look like herself, does she?”

  Morrigone had always been tall and queenly, perfect in both mind and body. Before our differences had been made clear to me, I had always admired her. I had wanted to emulate her. But this Morrigone was far different.

  She didn’t seem as tall. Her hair, normally bloodred with every strand in harmony with its neighbor, was now disheveled and thinning, the luster gone. Her face looked sessions older, with lines and sags prominent. Her tall, well-shaped body had a sunken appearance — fragile where she had always been robust.

  I glanced at Astrea. She had a puzzled look on her face. This was startling to me because it’s the first time I had ever glimpsed uncertainty in her features.

  “What’s wrong with Morrigone?” I asked.

  She shook her head slightly. “She … she looks a bit tired is all.”

  I looked back at the image and saw him step out of the carriage.

  It was my brother, John. And though Delph and I had not been gone from Wormwood very long, John also looked different.

  His step was brisk, his manner authoritative and supremely confident. And, dare I even think it, cruel? But then again, he had been cruel to the Wugs working on the Wall.

  I said, “My brother became very different under Morrigone’s tutelage.”

  “Different how?” she asked. But when I looked at her, I could tell she already knew the answer.

  “He was sweet and innocent. And then he wasn’t,” I said bluntly. “What did she do to him?”

  She didn’t answer right away. “ ’Tis complicated.”

  “ ’Tis my brother,” I shot back. “The answer should be simple.”

  I looked back at John, my thoughts whirling so fast I thought I might simply pass out. Instead, fierce emotions building large in my chest and head, I walked out. Then I started to run. I sprinted through the cottage and out the front door. I sped down the crazy-angled path, across the lawn, and, with Destin around my waist, I took to the air and flew straight at the emerald dome.

  I don’t remember anything after that.

  WHENEVER I’D BEEN knocked out before, Delph was always there.

  This time he wasn’t.

  Instead, Astrea stared down at me.

  I blinked and slowly looked around. I was in my room on the bed.

  Astrea didn’t look unduly worried. “I suppose you had to try it.”

  I sat up and rubbed my head. “What happened?”

  “You hit the dome and the dome did not give. You did.”

  I said nothing to this, both my pride and a rising anger making me mute.

  I wanted to ask her again about
John. And Morrigone, why she looked so different. But I had a strong feeling that my questions would go unanswered. Before I could say anything, she broke the silence.

  “I understand that you talked to Archie?”

  “You said we could go where we wanted,” I said testily.

  “And what did he tell you?”

  Ignoring her query, I said, “I feel sorry for him.”

  “Why? He’s lived a good, long life.”

  “He’s lived a long life. I’m not sure how good it’s been.”

  She looked like I’d slapped her, which bolstered my spirits greatly.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said icily.

  “Archie spoke of sacrifice. Whose sacrifice? His? Because he didn’t really have a choice, did he? Or his father? You made the decision for all of them. Just like you’re doing with us.”

  “You know nothing whatever about it, Vega. You’re throwing out words that make absolutely no sense because you are ignorant of the facts.”

  “Well, they’d make sense to Archie, I’m sure. I mean he’s the one who lived all this time and never really lived at all. That’s probably why he’s so bitter. And who can blame him, really?”

  I wanted to make her hurt. I wanted to make her feel … something for what she was doing to us. For her taking our lives away too.

  “I thought I understood you, Vega. Now I know that I don’t a’tall.”

  “It’s quite simple, really. You’ve taken my life away and I’m not happy about it. I’m sure you’d feel the same.”

  “For the greater good, it —”

  “Please don’t try and justify it. And I won’t believe you anyway. It’s like the lie about the Battle of the Beasts. What did Archie call that? Oh, right, piffle. So that’s what your greater good is. Piffle. I’m sure Alice Adronis would have seen it the same way. She died as a warrior. Not as a mouse in a hidey-hole. So that’s what you are, Astrea, despite all your grand power. A frightened mouse in a dirty little hole.”

  I never took my gaze off her as I said all this. And I said it in the maddeningly calm tone she had employed with me the whole time I’d been here.

  “You are a stupid Wug,” she snapped.

  “Alice didn’t think so. She gave me the Elemental. She told me that I had to survive. If you call me stupid, then you’re calling your best friend stupid as well.”

  Astrea got up and left without speaking another word.

  Delph immediately burst into the room with Harry Two in tow.

  “You okay?” he said anxiously while Harry Two leapt up onto the bed and licked my hand.

  “I’m okay. What actually happened?”

  “Found you knocked out on the ground, didn’t we?”

  “I tried to get through the dome. I knew it was stupid. But I … I …”

  “Just wanted to get out of this place,” Delph finished for me.

  I sighed and lay back against my pillow.

  I gripped Delph’s hand. “We will get out of here. We will. I swear it.”

  He met my eye, but I could tell he didn’t completely share my optimism.

  “Course we will,” he said, tacking a smile on to the end of his words.

  I sat up and hugged him and felt his warm breath on my cheek. He hugged me back. It was just us against, well, everything. But for some reason, I felt like we had a chance, a fighting chance. I’d never asked for anything more than that.

  I got off the bed and shook the collywobbles from my head.

  “You saw what was happening?” I asked.

  “What, you mean in Wormwood? Morrigone? John?”

  I nodded. “Astrea was shocked by how Morrigone looked. Something is going on. But she doesn’t know what. And it’s scaring her.”

  “Well, if it’s scaring the likes of her, we ought to be terrified, I reckon.”

  I could always count on Delph for spot-on observations. But terrified or not, I didn’t come into the Quag to finish my life as a prisoner. Every part of my body was burning with one desire.

  To be free.

  THE NEXT LIGHT, we cornered Seamus outside of the kitchen. The little hob had kept his distance from us ever since Astrea declared us to be no longer free.

  “So can you leave if you want, Seamus?” I asked, as Delph and Harry Two hovered in the background.

  He looked at me nervously, his huge eyes twitching.

  “I don’t knowsey what yousies is talki —”

  “Seamus!” I said warningly.

  Harry Two gave a low, throaty growl that I could tell was making the hob very anxious.

  “I can go if I want to,” he said warily. “But you can’t.”

  I studied him closely. “Seamus, why do I think that meeting you in the cave was not a coincidence?”

  I could tell right away from the look on his face that I was right. He blustered and denied and blustered some more, but I persisted and would not let him leave.

  “Well, it might’ve not been,” he finally conceded.

  “Because Astrea sent you?”

  He looked around cautiously before giving a brief nod of his large head.

  “And the flying creature that made me run into the cave?”

  “Well, she might have sent that too.”

  “And the cloud that took Delph away?” I added bitterly. “She conjured that too, didn’t she? Didn’t she!”

  Seamus slowly nodded, though I had never seen him look so frightened.

  Delph said, “But why?”

  I glanced at him before looking back at Seamus. “Because Astrea saw us in the Seer-See. She was afraid we might make it across the Quag. She manipulated things so Seamus and I would meet. And one thing led to another and then here we are — prisoners forever.”

  Seamus gave a resigned sigh. “She is very powerful, is Madame Prine.”

  I leaned in closer to the hob. “Well, you know what?”

  “What?” he said, his eyes as huge as supper plates.

  I snarled, “I’m powerful too.”

  LATER, I LED Delph to the library. My thought was that in some of the books, we might find things that would better explain what Archie had already told us. If there was a terrible war between our kind and the Maladons, someone had to have chronicled it somewhere.

  I told Delph to start at one end and I would begin at the other. However, it was not to be.

  I reached for a book and tugged. It would not come out. I tried with both hands. The same result. I looked over at Delph, who had one big foot placed against the front of the shelf as he pulled with all his might on one thick volume.

  “Blimey!” he finally cried out, sounding winded and letting go of the book.

  “It’s Astrea’s doing,” I said, my fury rising. “She doesn’t want us finding out anything else from the books. Which of course means that these books do explain things.”

  I gazed longingly at the thick tomes. Just inches from my hand and they were of no use to me. Their pages might as well have been blank.

  We went to Archie’s room. When I tried to open the door, it screamed at me, “GO AWAY!”

  “Holy Steeples,” said Delph, who had jumped nearly to the ceiling, though I didn’t because I was used to this “greeting,” though not at Archie’s door.

  “Well,” I said. “It seems that Astrea is certainly limiting our run of the cottage. Which is actually a good thing.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked a stunned Delph.

  “She’s afraid we might find something useful. Which means there’s something useful here.”

  But as much thought as I had given to this, the way we would get out was one I had never even considered.

  I DIDN’T MEAN TO intrude upon her. But I simply walked in and there was Astrea looking at her Seer-See. In the image was Morrigone, still looking bedraggled. She was waving her hands around as she had done when performing magic. I didn’t know what she was doing until Astrea waved her wand over the image and it rippled as though someone had tos
sed a handful of pebbles in a bucket of water. Morrigone nodded and lowered her hands.

  Now I understood.

  They were communicating. And then I knew that Morrigone must have told Astrea all about me and to be on the lookout. That I could do a bit of magic, that I had learned some of the truth about Wormwood and that I had escaped from Morrigone and Wormwood. My anger at Astrea increased a thousandfold. She had led me right into her trap.

  The next thing I knew, Astrea had turned and was looking up at me, her wand uncomfortably pointed in my general direction.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.

  “You said I could go where I wanted in here,” I said innocently. “So did you have a nice little chat with dear Morrigone?” I said acidly.

  With a flick of her wand the images were gone and the wood was now simply wood once more.

  Astrea and I locked gazes.

  “You really should keep your nose out of things that do not concern you,” she said in a tone that managed to send chills up my spine.

  However, I stiffened my resolve and snapped, “Well, it is my business if the consequences will affect me. And Wormwood. It might not be your home, but it is mine. Did you know that bloody King Thorne intended to invade and destroy Wormwood? Do you even care?”

  “I would not have allowed —”

  “Bollocks!” I shouted out. “You don’t care!”

  “I would remind you —”

  But I was not to be denied my say. “You may be safe under your emerald dome; not everyone has that opportunity, Mighty Keeper of the Quag.”

  “You are safe here,” she retorted.

  “Not by my choosing,” I shot back. I had anticipated her response. “And I did not enter the Quag to be safe. Only a fool would do that. And I’m no fool.”

  The door was thrown open and Delph and Harry Two appeared. Behind them I could see Seamus’s huge eyes peering at me.

  They came fully into the room and Delph shut the door.

  “Everything okay?” he said nervously.

  “No, everything is not okay,” I barked, keeping my eyes on Astrea.

  “You’re acting very foolishly, Vega,” she said darkly.

  “Oh, so it’s foolish in your eyes to care what happens to others? I suppose you didn’t care when Alice Adronis died in battle, then? I did. I cared. I was there. I guess you were already in your hidey-hole here by then, were you?”