The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  She shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no, he fought valiantly on our side, and his knowledge of dark sorcery made him a particularly efficient combatant. He created the last and, I would have to say, most difficult circle.”

  “And he never told you anything that was in it?” I asked in a breathless tone.

  She brooded over this, then said, “He told me one thing, right before he died.”

  “What?” I said, in a near gasp.

  “He told me it was meant to be the land of the lost souls. And that was all he would say on the subject. A curious male. He was a loner; he kept himself to himself.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, thinking that I was a loner too, really. But I couldn’t be part evil, could I?

  “I suppose it means that once you enter it, you will be lost there for all time. And when your physical body perishes and falls to dust, your imprisonment will not be over. It will really just be commencing for your soul, Vega, for your soul can live forever.”

  I felt crushed by this. “Does that mean that all of this is for naught?”

  I looked over my shoulder at Archie. He sat with his gaze downcast. I looked back at Astrea and got quite a shock. She seemed to have aged a hundred sessions. The youth elixir! She had stopped taking it!

  “I wish I could help you more,” she said. “But it is what it is.”

  Then she rose on unsteady legs and left us.

  When the door closed, I glanced back at Archie. “Why is she doing this?”

  He shrugged and said unhelpfully, “She doesn’t really confide in me, Vega. She thinks I’m too young to understand.” He gave a rueful laugh and then fell silent.

  I looked at Delph. “She’s stopped taking the elixir. She’s going to die soon.”

  He took this in and said, “We can’t let her do that, Vega Jane.”

  I stood. “We won’t, Delph. Come on.”

  WE FOLLOWED ASTREA’S slow treads down the hall and watched her open the door and go inside. A few moments later, I was knocking on that same door.

  “Please go away,” she said from inside the room.

  “We’d like to talk to you,” I answered.

  “I have talked enough. Please go away.”

  “We’ll stay here for as long as it takes.”

  The door slowly swung open.

  I had never been in Astrea’s room. As I glanced around, I was struck at how barren and empty it looked. I had expected a haven of comfort and clutter.

  Astrea was in the bed with the covers pulled up high to her rapidly softening chin.

  I sat in the rickety chair next to the bed while Delph stood next to me. She didn’t look at us. She simply stared at the ceiling.

  “Well? What is it?” she said.

  The ancientness of her voice was painful. As powerful as the elixir was, its effects wore off rapidly.

  I glanced down at her. “We need you.”

  “I have instructed you as best I can. Now it is up to you.”

  “But we’re not ready.” I glanced at Delph. He shook his head in agreement.

  She glanced at me. It wasn’t a harsh look. She let out a long breath. “Do you know why we build walls? Either real ones or ones simply in our minds?”

  I mulled this over. “To keep folks in or out,” I said at last.

  “We build walls because we are afraid. We do not like change. We do not like it when others who do not look or think like us come along and try and change things. Thus we run from it. Or, even worse, attack it.”

  I thought back to my time in Wormwood. I had seen that very thing.

  “It was awful, really, what we did to all of you,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “You … you took away our … history,” I mumbled.

  She lifted herself up on the pillows. “We took away your identities. It was as bad, actually, as anything the Maladons could have done to you. I see that now.”

  “They would have killed all of you.”

  “We also took your lives, and then merely required that you keep on living.”

  “But you’re letting me cross the Quag. You’re giving me a chance to make things right.”

  She lifted a hand and touched my cheek. “I did that for one reason only, Vega.” She drew in a long, painful breath. “Because You Will Not Be Beaten.”

  Her hand fell away.

  Tears filled my eyes. “But we still need you, Astrea. I need you.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “The youth elixir has been exhausted. Archie took the last of it. And I was so busy teaching you that I waited too long to get more. I am not up to dealing with the needed ingredients.”

  I saw that befuddled expression on her features once more. She gripped her head. “It’s not … pleasant,” she said. “Aging this quickly.”

  “If you tell me how to get the ingredients, I will make the elixir.”

  Her face took on the expression of awful sadness. She looked over my shoulder. I turned to see who was there. It was Archie. He stood there seemingly frozen.

  When I turned back around, her eyes were closed and she was apparently asleep. But from under her eyelids I saw a tear emerge and trickle down her now heavily wrinkled cheek. I gently shook her by the shoulder, but she didn’t wake. I shook her harder. I gripped her face and spoke very close to her ear, trying to rouse her. But it didn’t work.

  I raced over to Archie. “Can you make the elixir?”

  “No. She never taught me. And truth is, I’m a complete muddle with potions.”

  I ran out into the hall with Delph hard on my heels. But I had no idea where I was going. I just wanted to be doing … something. Delph hooked me by the arm. “Wait, Vega Jane,” he said. “What are the ingredients?”

  I hesitated and then decided it would be best just to tell him.

  “Two important ones are the venom from a jabbit and the blood of a garm. But we don’t have to hunt them. They’re in two rooms of the cottage.”

  A long sliver of silence passed until it was ended by Delph’s shouting, “There’s a bloody jabbit AND a garm in here somewhere?”

  “I know which rooms,” I added in what I hoped was a calm, helpful tone.

  This only made him look as if he would be sick to his stomach. “You … you KNOW!”

  “I can get the blood and venom. You need to search through Astrea’s desk to find the rest of what we’ll need and how to make it.”

  I took out my wand and ran down the hall. A few moments later, I was in the kitchen. I sorted through the cupboard until I found a small metal bowl and a glass bottle. I pocketed them, turned and ran back out.

  Down the hall I stopped at the door with the little mark on it. The jabbit, I knew, was behind this portal, trapped in his cage of light.

  I raised my wand, made the three parallel strokes with it and said, “Crystilado magnifica.”

  Instantly, the image of the jabbit appeared directly in front of me. I knew it was coming, but it still took all of my willpower not to scream.

  Okay, I thought. The thing is in there. But wait, how was I going to get in the door? It would shout “GO AWAY!”

  Then I forced myself to calm down. Astrea had taught me that one. I tapped the door’s lock with my wand and said, “Ingressio.”

  The door immediately swung inward.

  I stepped forward into the room, my wand at the ready.

  The jabbit was across the space, curled up, its multiple heads lowered, all the awful eyes closed. It was asleep. All around it I could see the lights of its cage swirling. The jabbit was a truly enormous serpent, thick as a tree trunk, with two hundred and fifty venomous heads running the length of its body. It was the most fiercesome beast in all of Wormwood. And yet there were even more terrifying ones out there in the Quag.

  I had a plan. I didn’t know if it would work, but I was going to try. I raised my wand, pointing it at the body of the giant serpent.

  I flicked my wand and said, “Paralycto.”

 
; The spell I cast hit the wall of light and rebounded. I ducked just in time and it flew over me and hit the opposite wall with a crash.

  When I rose, I knew that my spell could not get past the lighted cage. This was a problem. When I heard multiple hisses, I knew I had another problem.

  I turned to look. The jabbit was awake now and five hundred eyes were upon me, each of them filled with malice. I swallowed, and it seemed most of my courage drained with it. Now I would have to undo the cage, then cast the spell. But that would free the jabbit, at least momentarily. And I knew better than most how quickly they struck. However, unless I did this, Astrea was going to die.

  I decided to act fast because the longer I waited, the more time the jabbit had to fully awaken. As I looked at the serpent, something remarkable happened. I grew calm. I don’t know why, but I felt a confidence I had no reason to have. I pointed my wand at the bars of light and, focusing my MBS, said, “Eraisio.”

  The light bars instantly vanished.

  I could tell the serpent was not yet fully aware that it was free.

  Seizing this opportunity, I pointed my wand once more and said, “Paralycto.”

  It was truly remarkable to see such a gigantic creature become instantly frozen. It had reared up right before the spell struck, but now its hundreds of eyes were glazed over and its fangs were conveniently bared.

  Still, I walked toward it with great caution, hoping with each step that my spell would hold. I pulled the metal bowl from my cloak pocket and drew close to the nearest set of fangs.

  I held the bowl under one of the open mouths, pointed my wand at the fangs and prepared to cast a spell that Astrea had taught me for drawing liquid from various objects like stones and trees, since we would need a source of water.

  “Springato erupticus.”

  A yellowish liquid poured from the fangs and collected in the bowl. It was amazing how much venom could come out of a single pair of fangs.

  Once the bowl was fairly full, I pointed my wand at the fangs and muttered the reverse spell to stop the flow of venom.

  I stepped back against the far wall, set the bowl down and prepared myself.

  Two spells back-to-back.

  MBS, MBS. Focus, Vega, focus.

  I whipped my wand down the length of the serpent and said, “Unparalycto.”

  The jabbit immediately came back to life. It fixed its gazes on me. I could see exactly what it was planning to do.

  “Incarcerata.”

  The jabbit struck at that instant. And slammed right into the white light bars that had reemerged around it. They held fast and the creature retreated into vast, windy coils, its fury evident in its hideous eyes and the angry twitches of its tree-trunk body.

  I smiled. And then turned to pick up the bowl. I never got there.

  The jabbit struck with the bloodcurdling shriek that I had always been told was the last thing you would ever hear.

  “Pass-pusay,” I screamed, slapping my wand against my leg.

  I was instantly on the other side of the room and the jabbit had slammed into the wall with its two hundred and fifty heads. The roof of the cottage shook with the impact, and a long crack appeared along the wall.

  How the Hel had it escaped my cage of lights?

  It turned and with a massive whip of its tail, it was charging straight at me. My thoughts turned back for an instant to Stacks, where a pair of jabbits had been hunting me down. I had escaped behind a little wooden door with a screaming Wug for a knob. There was no such escape now. No door, no screaming Wug.

  The jabbit struck again.

  “Embattlemento.”

  The serpent hit the conjured wall with such force that the entire room shook. I fell back, but I quickly regrouped as the jabbit rebounded off my spell and was flung backward against the far wall of the room.

  It was slow to shake off the impact.

  I could hardly believe my eyes. I had hurt a jabbit.

  Before it could attack once more, I shouted, “Incarcerata.”

  The white bands shot from my wand and encircled the creature.

  I prayed that it would hold this time. I stepped carefully around the jabbit as its five hundred eyes followed my every move. I slowly bent down, keeping my gaze on the thing, and picked up the bowl of venom.

  Then I was out the door in a flash and closed and secured it behind me with a locking spell. Breathless, I hurried down the hall, where I nearly collided with Delph coming the other way. He was carrying an old journal.

  “Found it,” he said. “The instructions for the elixir.”

  “Brilliant!” I held up the bowl. “And I got the venom.”

  “Bloody Hel,” he gushed, taking the bowl gingerly.

  “And now for the garm.” I rushed down the hall to the other door that had told me, “GO AWAY!”

  I cried out, “Crystilado magnifica.”

  I blinked. “Crystilado magnifica,” I said again.

  The room was empty. There was no garm in a white-light cage.

  I heard the growl behind me. I didn’t even have time to turn.

  I screamed. The garm roared.

  I saw a flash of something and I was knocked heels over arse.

  As I slid along the floor, I looked behind me.

  The garm was on its hind legs, just about to expel a chest of flames that would burn me to cinder.

  And there was Harry Two. He must have knocked me down.

  He leapt directly at the beast and then the impossible happened. My canine clamped his strong jaws around the garm’s snout, forcing it shut. The garm screamed in fury, though the sound came out muffled because it could not open its mouth.

  It flung itself around, slamming Harry Two into the wall. But still Harry Two hung on, even with his legs dangling uselessly and blood pouring from the side of his head. The garm reached up with its forelegs to rip Harry Two to pieces.

  I had another vision. Of my first canine, Harry. He had also saved me from a garm and sacrificed his life in doing so. I had no intention of letting that happen again.

  There was a powerful feeling surging through every bit of me. It wasn’t hatred. Or loathing. It was far more than that. I don’t believe there is even a word to adequately encompass it. I said it before I even realized saying it. It came out of my mouth with such force that it seemed the words alone could do what I wanted done.

  I pointed my wand directly at the garm’s chest.

  “Rigamorte!”

  The black light hit the garm with such power that the many-tonned beast was lifted right off its clawed feet. Harry Two let go in midair and fell away from the hideous thing as the garm was flung along the hall, hit the wall and slumped down with an enormous, cottage-rattling thud. It was quite dead as it rolled over, its tongue hanging out, its bloody chest still. I sprinted down the hall and knelt next to Harry Two, who lay sprawled on the floor, his damaged legs useless, his head bleeding badly.

  I pulled the Adder Stone from my pocket and waved it over my precious canine. A second later he was licking my face, healed and his legs functioning. I hugged him so tightly I could feel his heart pounding against mine.

  “I love you, Harry Two. I love you so much. Thank you for saving me.”

  I looked over at the garm. Its blood, which perpetually ran down its chest, would make my task easy. I plucked the glass bottle from my pocket and froze.

  Archie stood there, his wand pointed at my chest.

  Now I knew what had happened with the jabbit and the garm, though I could barely believe it.

  His eyes turned to slits. He started to say, “Riga —”

  But a huge fist came down on the top of his head and Archie fell to the floor, unconscious, his wand falling from his hand.

  Behind him stood Delph.

  He looked at me and flexed his muscle. “Sometimes you don’t need magic, Vega Jane. Har!”

  DELPH!” I GASPED.

  He bent down and pocketed Archie’s wand, which had rolled across the floor.


  “Bloke can’t do much without that,” he said.

  “He was going to kill me,” I said.

  “I reckon he was.” He looked at the dead garm. “Your doing, I ’spect.”

  “I used the Rigamorte curse, the same one Archie was going to use on me.”

  I stared down at the unconscious Archie and shook my head in disbelief.

  As he started to stir, I pulled my wand, aimed it at him and said, “Ensnario.”

  Thick ropes appeared out of the air and wrapped themselves around Archie.

  When he came fully around and realized what had happened, he looked up at me and unleashed a torrent of foul language.

  “Mutado,” I snapped, and my spell hit him full in the mouth, silencing him. Then I picked up my flask, while Delph easily lifted Archie off the floor and slung him over his shoulder. “We best get on with the potion making,” he said. “But we need something called Breath of a Dominici.”

  “Breath of a Dominici? What’s a Dominici and how do we get its breath?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” said Delph as we walked down the hall together with Harry Two at our heels. Archie had struggled at first but now just lay slumped over Delph’s massive shoulder.

  When we reached the kitchen, Delph set Archie on the floor. Harry Two sat next to him, guarding the bloke.

  Delph took me over to a table where he had lined up a row of bottles and other objects. There was a piece of parchment tacked to the wall. I set the flask of garm blood down next to the bowl of jabbit venom.

  “It’s all here,” said Delph. “ ’Cept the breath thing.” He tapped the parchment. “Took this outta that journal. Tells you how to make it. Steps you got to do. Figgered you’d be good at that, like at Stacks. I heated up some water, ’cause we’ll need to mix some of it hot.”

  I looked over the parchment. “Okay, the Breath of a Dominici goes in last. Why don’t I start putting it all together and you can try and figure out this breath thing?”

  Delph set off while I turned to making the elixir of youth. I took my time because I was afraid of making a mistake. There was a lot of heating up of ingredients at just the right temperature and then letting them cool down for exact times. I had brought in an old timekeeper from Astrea’s desk and used it as my timer.