The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  “How did you find us?” asked Delph.

  “I had help. From a friend.”

  Lackland said, “Well, should we be on our way?”

  I glanced up sharply at the mountain. What was left up there to try and stop us? I looked down at my wand. It seemed so tiny and insignificant, yet it had served me well all through the circles. I could only hope that it had enough magic left.

  WE COVERED FIVE miles. All nearly vertical, until we were so weary we could no longer lift our arms and legs. We made camp on a small plateau that allowed a view across the Quag. Or it should have.

  I turned to see where we had come from. I had never really looked behind me while here. I had always been concerned about what was ahead of us.

  But nothing was back there except darkness, even though it was still light. It was like staring into the heavens on a starless night. There was just nothing. I shivered involuntarily.

  I looked over at Delph, who was helping Petra make the meal. They were both scarred from their time here, Delph with his arm and Petra, her hand. No doubt their minds were scarred too, as was mine. I observed with a pang of jealousy that they worked well together, seeming to read the other’s mind.

  We ate our meal and drank our water. None of us spoke. It was as though the battle with the Soul Takers had robbed us of something important and we were all trying to figure out what.

  Lackland carelessly rubbed his injured face. Delph rolled up his sleeve to examine his burned arm. But when I looked over at Petra, she was simply looking at her wand as though she had never seen it before. I knew how she felt. The weight of a wand in one’s hand carried with it expectations and a certain responsibility equal perhaps to the tonnage of the mountain we were on.

  Petra took the first watch, and Delph and Lackland lay down on their beds. I followed Petra to the perimeter where she would take up her post.

  I glanced at her wand and decided to come to the point. I was, above all, a practical Wug. “How many spells do you know?” I asked bluntly.

  She seemed taken aback by this but I plunged on. We didn’t have time for niceties. “The Rigamorte spell is not something you do your first time,” I said. “And the other spells you used, though I said the incantation first, your wand movements were spot-on. So how many spells do you know? It’s important.”

  It was like I was trying to determine how many morta rounds we collectively had left to fire at our enemies. I was under no delusion that the Fifth Circle was finished with us. I had relied on Petra’s magical ability to escape the Soul Takers. I knew I would need it and her again.

  She said sharply, “What does it matter? I couldn’t save my family from the lycans, could I?”

  I pointed at the bit of fingernail housed in the bottom of her wand. “That was part of your uncle, wasn’t it? It’s not his wand. He made this wand and gave it to you, didn’t he? It’s your wand.” She had used my wand to kill, but it had damaged her. She wielded her own wand with ease and skill, which told me plainly she had used it before.

  She looked down at the wand and gripped it more tightly. “So what if he did?”

  “So how many spells?”

  “A few. A few more than the ones we already used. He wanted to teach me more, but the night the lycans came, we were off getting water. A garm attacked us. And killed him.” She looked at me fiercely. “And I killed it. That was the first time I used the death spell. My uncle told me I had to feel —”

  “Something more than hatred or loathing? And you had to feel it with every bit of your mind, body and spirit?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  I thought it interesting that we both had lost loved ones to a garm, she her uncle and me my first canine. And that we had both used our first death spell on a garm.

  She looked at my wand. “You can do loads more than I can.”

  “Well, I was properly trained up,” I said, watching her closely.

  “Can you properly train me?” she said eagerly.

  I had been expecting this request, but I still wasn’t sure how to answer it.

  I looked over at a distant spot. “Point your wand that way. The incantation is one you’ve heard me use before. Crystilado magnifica.” I showed her the proper wand motion.

  She readied her wand.

  “Focus your mind, body and spirit,” I said. “And let that combined energy flow through your wand.” Blimey! All of a sudden, I felt like Astrea Prine!

  Petra did as I instructed but failed the first three times. She did not grow frustrated, however, as I had when attempting this. She asked more questions and I gave more answers and on her sixth try, the landscape that was miles from us was now mere inches from our faces.

  She looked over at me and beamed in triumph. I returned the smile, though not quite as enthusiastically. Then we both gazed at what we would be facing the next light.

  “Is that smoke curling up?” she said.

  I squinted to see better, though I shouldn’t have had to. The image was right in front of me. Still, there was something distorted in the picture that made it difficult to clearly make out the details. Perhaps Petra had not performed the spell exactly right.

  “It looks to be.” I pointed to a spot. “And that might be a little shack where the smoke is coming from.”

  “So someone lives there?” she said, sounding puzzled and anxious.

  I could well understand that, for who would want to live in the Fifth Circle? “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” I had an idea and said, “Maybe we can avoid climbing this mountain. Maybe we can fly to the top.”

  “I thought you said that wasn’t possible.”

  “It might be now.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “As someone once told me, in here anything is possible.”

  As I turned to leave her, I stopped. “Petra. Did your uncle ever mention the term Maladon to you?”

  I wanted to see her first and true expression.

  “No,” she said. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s not important.”

  THE NEXT LIGHT, we packed our tucks and I buckled Harry Two into his harness. I wasn’t going to ferry the others one by one. Not after what had happened last time. For all I knew, others like the Soul Takers were lurking around. We were going to stay together. Die together or survive together. Not alone. Never again.

  We held hands in a line like last time and then I kicked off and we soared clumsily into the air. Petra was bringing up the rear with her wand held ready in her free hand.

  We soared along and I have to admit that the view from up here was spectacular. Closer up the mountain was even more bluish than it seemed from far away. Parts of it were covered in foliage but other sections were bare rock where for some reason apparently no plants would grow.

  So far, no dark clouds formed and the air was nicely calm. I looked down below and spotted once more the curl of smoke that Petra and I had seen using the magnification incantation. From up here, I could make out more details. The shack we had also seen previously was small and made entirely of blue stone. I bent my head forward and we flew lower. Now I could see a patch of blue dirt through the trees. And then I spotted him.

  He was a small male slowly trudging across the dirt toward the cottage, carrying a stack of wood nearly as large as he was. This was presumably fuel for the fire that was the source of the smoke. He was dressed in old rugged trousers, a checkered shirt and — I could make it out as I dipped us lower — a red cap whose peaked top bent over a bit.

  I didn’t fancy an encounter with another creature in the Fifth Circle. I thought we could simply fly to the top of the mountain instead.

  As soon as I finished this thought, the storm was upon us so fast I barely had time to draw another breath. Petra screamed and Lackland bellowed as skylight spears shot sideways, so close to us that I thought they must, at the very least, impale us. Thunder-thrusts hit with such force that they knocked us across the sky. I could feel my grip loosening on Delph’
s hand. Then another scream jarred me back.

  I looked down to see Petra tumbling downward.

  Lackland stared up at me, shock on his features. “She … she just slipped.”

  It had been him screaming, not her.

  “Hold on,” I yelled.

  I went into a dive that put so much torque on my shoulder with Delph hanging on to me that I thought my limb would part ways with my body.

  I saw that I would not reach her in time, but then I didn’t have to. I pointed my wand and said, “Lassado.”

  The thin light exploded from my wand tip, encircled Petra’s waist, and I whipped it upward. She soared toward us.

  “Lackland, grab her foot.”

  He did so and held on.

  “I don’t think she’s conscious,” he cried out. “Her eyes are closed.”

  “Is she breathing?” I shouted. My first thought was that she had indeed been hit by a skylight spear.

  “I … don’t know. I think so.”

  I aimed my head downward as the storm raged around us. We slammed into the ground far harder than I had intended, but I was up in an instant and knelt next to Petra. She was on her back, her eyes were closed and her features were screwed up in pain.

  “Petra? Petra!”

  I slapped her face with my hand.

  Her eyes popped open and she looked wildly around. “What! Where? You?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  I looked her over and saw no obvious injuries. My gaze went back to hers as Delph and Lackland peered over my shoulder, their faces anxious.

  I said, “You nearly died. We just caught you in time.”

  She slowly rose and touched her head. “I … I guess I blacked out. The last thing I remember was …”

  “Hullo?”

  We all whipped around and stared at the thing that had spoken.

  It was the little male with the red peaked cap. We had landed near his shack. As I looked around, I could see it and the curl of smoke barely twenty yards away.

  “Who are you?” I asked. He looked at me with soft brown eyes and a very friendly countenance, which immediately put me on my guard. Friendly did not really exist here. I well knew that. Cunning and murderous, yes, but not friendly.

  “I am called Asurter of Muspell,” he said, his voice high and squeaky.

  “Muspell?” I said. “Is that what this place is called?”

  “It is what I call it,” said Asurter, who came barely up to my waist. Indeed he was as small as Eon back in Wormwood, though his skin was quite red.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Delph.

  “I cut wood and I keep my fire hot.”

  I looked over at the shack.

  “It’s warm,” I said. “Do you really need a fire?”

  “I always require a fire,” replied Asurter. “Do you need food or watering?”

  We looked at one another. I wanted to push on but, though the storm had cleared as soon as we touched ground, I knew we would have to labor up the mountain on foot now.

  I said, “That would be very nice, thank you.”

  As Asurter turned his back, I gave the others a sign to be on their guard. The bloke might be okay, and then again, he might not.

  We walked past a truly enormous stack of firewood all neatly cut and cubbied. Asurter gathered up a staggering amount of wood in his arms and led us into the shack. It had looked humble and small on the outside. And it looked the same on the inside. The walls were simply the back sides of the stones that formed the house’s outside. The floor was dirt, the furnishings limited to one chair and one table. Dominating the space was a stone fireplace that took up one entire wall from the floor to the peak of the ceiling. As soon as we got inside it was so intensely hot that I started to sweat and I had to shield my eyes from the harsh glare of the flames.

  I looked at the others and saw they were having the same reaction. When I took a step toward the flames, I had to immediately draw back because of the heat. Yet Asurter walked right up to the opening of the fireplace and put the stack of wood on it. The flames instantly shot to a full ten feet in height and seemed to threaten to escape the bounds of the fireplace.

  Blimey, I thought, no wonder his skin is so red if he gets that close to the flames.

  He turned back to us and said, “Food and water?”

  He pointed to the table and we saw that food had indeed appeared there. And water. Only the food was charred black. And when I went to pick up a goblet of water, I dropped it because the metal was burning to the touch and the water was boiling.

  Asurter seemed not to notice this. He went back outside and returned with another load of wood. He threw it on and the flames leapt ever higher.

  I looked at the others and saw their concern building. Delph pointed a finger at the door.

  “Well, thanks, Asurter, we’ll just be going now,” I said.

  He turned to look at me. “Going? Going where?”

  Before I could stop him, Lackland said, “Up the mountain and out of this place, that’s where.”

  I froze because I could sense something building. Just like I had with Ladon-Tosh in the Duelum back in Wormwood. A sensation of energy, of power amassing, only at a rate a thousandfold greater.

  “Run!” I screamed as I hurtled for the door.

  Asurter was no longer small. In fact, he was growing so fast that he burst through the roof of the shack. And he looked nothing like he had before. He was gigantic, with long hair and a beard that reached to his waist. And if Asurter had been red, this thing was aflame. Truly aflame, his beard was on fire against his chest, his hair likewise.

  We dashed outside. As we looked back, Asurter had grown to a height of a hundred feet. And what he did next made my lungs seize up. He reached down to the ground and gripped something metallic that appeared to have been driven into the dirt.

  As he pulled it free, we all saw that it was a sword set afire that was fully half as long as Asurter was tall. When he turned to look at us, it was terrible to behold. His face was simply a mass of flames. And when his mouth opened, the scream coming from it could have melted iron.

  Fortunately, I had recovered my senses and cried out, “Embattlemento.”

  The flames met the spell head-on and thankfully the spell held, though the magical shield was white hot and I felt the heat emanating from it though I was twenty feet away.

  My victory was short-lived.

  Asurter turned, raised his sword and smote the ground behind him a terrific blow. Fire hit the ground and then flames towered a hundred feet in the air. And, as we watched horrified, the line of fire raced right up the face of the mountain, setting afire everything in its path, moving faster and faster as it went, so that it traveled from where we were all the way to the top of the Blue Mountain with such velocity it made my head spin and vanished the breath from my lungs.

  And then it happened.

  The top of the Blue Mountain blew off with a force so powerful I had never witnessed anything close to it before. Though we were many miles from it, the force knocked us all forty feet into the air, and we rolled and tumbled across ground that was now heaving and pitching like a boat on a storm-tossed sea.

  When we finally came to a stop and managed to look up, the entire mountain was on fire and a wall of flaming mass was roaring down the long slope right at us. It was a thousand feet tall and miles across. It was unstoppable. It was coming right for us.

  The Fifth Circle had just won.

  RUN, VEGA JANE!” screamed Delph.

  I could sense him beside me, tugging on my arm. But I didn’t look at him. I could hear over the roar of the mountain of fire heading our way that Lackland was fleeing down the side of the mountain, screaming for us to run as he went.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see Petra on her knees, her head bowed, awaiting the end. At my feet was Harry Two. He was doing the same thing I was doing — staring at fiery death coming our way.

  I looked at my wand and knew, despite its consi
derable power, that it would not be nearly enough. The flame from Asurter’s mouth had nearly buckled my shield spell. What was coming now was a million times more powerful. My Engulfiado spell would simply turn to mist in the face of it.

  I had Destin around my waist, but I could not fly us high enough to escape the flames. And as I continued to watch, the most amazing thing happened to me.

  My panic ceased and a peaceful calm took over. I don’t know if it was simply resignation that my life would be ending momentarily. Or something else entirely.

  As Delph kept trying to pull me away, my feet seemed to become even more deeply rooted to this spot.

  This was my last stand. I would die here. Or I would survive here. It would be one or the other. This I clearly understood.

  I put my hand in my cloak pocket and withdrew the Finn. I don’t know what made me think of it, for many thoughts were flashing through my mind at that point.

  I had retied the knots on the Finn. I looked down at it, unsure what would happen once I did what I planned to do.

  I undid the first knot on the Finn.

  The wall of flames hit Asurter’s shack and it evaporated into steam.

  I undid the second knot on the Finn.

  The wall hit Asurter and all one hundred feet of the bloke disappeared into nothing.

  Now nothing stood between us and cremation.

  “VEGA!” Delph screamed.

  But I was not listening. I was watching our death coming at us with unfathomable speed and ferocity.

  I undid the third and final knot of the Finn. It was the only one that had not been untied before. And when my fingers let go of the freed string, I wasn’t sure what was worse: the flames …

  Or what I had just unleashed.

  I was catapulted straight into the sky with such force that I could feel my lungs collapse, my brain spin and my clothes nearly rip from my body. The Finn had been wrenched from my grasp. The wind that was propelling me also shot outward like a titanic wave, and it hit the mighty wall of flames with a cataclysmic blow that I thought nothing could survive. Had I still been ground bound, I was sure I would have disintegrated from the effects of this collision beyond all collisions. It swept over the spot where I had been with such power that I had to close my eyes. I was afraid that my mind could not contain what I was seeing, that it would simply burst if I didn’t stop looking.