The Keeper (The Endless Chronicles Book 1)

by Nikki Mccormack

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Halls of the Blooded were always brightly lit, even in the middle of the night. The Blooded Women never slept, or perhaps they never really woke. Steel walls, steel floors, and steel ceilings all painted pearlescent white and blood red where they weren’t left silver. The Halls felt colder than the Keeper remembered, colder and lonelier. She’d returned eight long days ago after keeping another spirit and hadn’t had a moment of peace since.

  Sometimes months passed without the call to keep. Sometimes it came several times in a day. She couldn’t decide if the timing of the last call had been inconvenient or fortuitous, snatching her away from Naago’s disconcerting attentions. That she arrived at the origin of the call with the hood of her cloak down wasn’t a problem. The cloak didn’t have to cover her fully to shield her form from sight when she needed not to be seen. That she hadn’t been able to erase the sensation of his touch from her mind since leaving him was more of an issue. The umahk-ra that belonged to this host stirred, more restless than ever, refusing to fall silent again.

  Six Blooded Women moved down the hall, their eyes closed so the red eyes painted upon their eyelids showed. They didn’t use their physical eyes to see. They moved with a smooth, sliding step, their white silk slippers whispering upon the metal. Their hands, painted white like their expressionless faces with bright red nails, remained crossed in front of their stomachs. Straight black hair hung down, never shifting like the long white dresses they wore, the matching white collars forcing their chins high. Blood trickled in an endless stream down the wires running from under their jaws down into the collars of the dresses, feeding the tubing that ran along the seams.

  The Keeper stepped to one side and lowered her gaze while they flowed past. The Blooded Women were always aware of her presence, but they rarely acknowledged her. There was rarely a need to interact beyond the process of transferring her into a new host when such was necessary. They were her handlers. Nothing more.

  Did they know the things she had done? Did they know she’d interfered in an affair that had nothing to do with keeping, possibly changing the intended outcome of the fight between Naago and the crossbreed? Did they know she had traveled with the Endless man? Did they know she had let her face been seen and touched by him? Would they care if they did?

  When they were gone, she stood still for a moment in the shadow of a massive I-beam support. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. That was new.

  She normally paid as little attention to the Blooded Women as they did to her. They were the ones who chose her host and somehow accomplished the task of moving the Keeper out of one host into another. There was no recollection of how these things worked. No memories existed of the different bodies that had hosted the Keeper. All the Keeper ever truly remembered was the spirits she kept, centuries of spirits and the pain of each death. Those things stayed with her forever. It was her purpose to remember them.

  “The Keeper, the one whose purpose it is to remember, has forgotten herself.”

  She had been heading for her quarters within the Halls when his words in her head stalled her. The idea of going there, of being alone in a chamber of cold steel, made her eyes sting and her chest ache. Where could she go? Naago was the only one she’d spoken with beyond the expected words that preceded punishment. Had she broken something within herself with that unprecedented action? Was it truly unprecedented or had such things happened before, lost in the memory of prior hosts now forgotten?

  There was a nagging sensation in the back of her mind and she breathed easier. Despite the pain she would have to endure, the process of keeping was something she understood absolutely. Something expected, with rules that never changed. Completing the task she existed for would put off her troubling thoughts and free her from the man whose words haunted her, at least for a short time.

  She exhaled, releasing a heavy weight of worry with her breath, and put up her hood as she disappeared.

  •

  She reappeared in the narrow mouth of a small canyon collapsed at one end. It served as a natural trap for the two-headed dog-like beast that lay near the back wall, its black blood oozing out around the myriad spears driven into its flesh. The three men who had slain it were now creeping in close to its corpse. They were normal men, not of Endless blood. The star-branded butchering knives they drew from their belts as they congratulated one another on the kill marked them as hunters for a particular group of illegal medicinal and delicacy shops in the Undercity. That a warlord was comfortable enough to brand his men’s equipment in such a way spoke volumes to how much control they had in the city.

  One of the men turned to speak to his companion who was raising his blade to chop into the fresh kill. His words died on his lips when he saw her approaching and he dropped to one knee, bowing his head. The other two turned. The raised butcher knife fell to the sand with a soft thud. The other men also knelt and two of them took up the chant in low, shaking voices. The third trembled in silence, a man who thought he could handle the risks until the moment he faced true punishment.

  “That which is lost, she will find.

  That which is forsaken, she will cherish.

  That which is forgotten, she will remember.

  That which is, she will keep.”

  She stopped beside the creature and sank her right hand into its matted wiry brown fur. Wind rose up and filled the canyon with swirling sand. The beast had incisors as long as her arm, one of which was cracked down the center, and it smelled like a month old bloated corpse, but that didn’t make its death any less tragic. This unpleasant creature was a low god. The men probably thought it a demon. They tended to make such assumptions based on appearance and this god was a mangy looking thing. Its spirit, however, rose up and out of the expired flesh, glowing with a pale gold brilliance, beautiful and precious. Such a shame that the men couldn’t see that aspect of the beast.

  She braced her mind for the coming pain and bowed her head respectfully. Come to me and you shall be remembered.

  The spirit moved into her without hesitation, bringing the pain of its death in every minute detail. The fear, the rage, the agony of each spear ripping through its thick hide and puncturing organs within, all of it more crisp and powerful because it had been a god. She clenched her teeth, her hand closing into a fist on a handful of coarse fur.

  When the pain finally passed, she turned to the nearest man and placed her hand upon his head. His spirit was familiar. She had punished him before.

  “You have committed an unforgivable crime. Your life continues at the whim of greater powers, for death is not mine to deal, but you must pay in suffering.”

  “It is as you say,” he murmured.

  His courage didn’t keep him from screaming when the pain rushed through him. The second man trembled at her touch. He accepted his punishment in a flood of guilty tears. When she turned to the third man, he jumped to his feet and ran. There were always some who tried to escape their sentence. The Keeper couldn’t allow that. She disappeared and reappeared beside him, grabbing his arm. The power within her stopped him in his tracks. He squirmed pathetically in her unyielding grip and fell to his knees, pleading for mercy. These hunters would drive him out of their guild after this. Even among the lowest criminals, there was a code of honor.

  “You have committed an unforgivable crime.” She held him in place not with physical strength, but with the inevitability of her purpose. “Your life continues at the whim of greater powers, for death is not mine to deal, but you must pay in suffering.”

  He collapsed when she passed the pain into him and she left him writhing in the sand. This task wasn’t complete. Another required punishment.

  She vanished and reappeared in a hut up above the canyon. A figure stood, silhouetted in the light coming through one window. Then the figure turned from the window and knelt before her, bowing his head.

  Naago.

  Emotions she couldn’t recall ever feeling with such potency twis
ted inside her at the sight of him like some malignant being come to life within her chest. Hurt and rage so powerful they made her vision darken.

  Her voice shook when she spoke the words that preceded punishment.

  He spoke softly, responding with same words he had said the first time she punished him. “I accept my punishment.”

  She placed her hand upon his cheek and passed the pain and fear into him, not the brief flash that she usually gave, but the full crisp clarity that she had suffered upon receiving the spirit along with a taste of the betrayal that twisted within her chest. His body arched backward and he cried out. His agonized wail tore through her, bringing a flicker of satisfaction before regret chased it away. His spirit and flesh weren’t fortified to cope with such pain the way the Keeper was. She took a few steps back and watched him fall forward onto his hands, trembling and breathing hard.

  She drew back her hood. “Why did you do this?”

  He didn’t look at her. His voice came out strained and unsteady, interrupted by ragged breathing. “I didn’t know…how else…to find you.”

  She turned her back to him. Right then, she couldn’t bear to look at him. She closed her eyes. “When I keep a spirit, I must endure every agony of their last moments, every wretched emotion and physical hurt. The pain I gave you just now is the pain I suffered when I kept that spirit. You lured it into their trap. Was that suffering worth whatever they paid you?”

  “I’m sorry. I never would have done it if I realized it would hurt you like that.”

  “You would apologize for hurting me, not for bringing death to a low god?”

  His silence held great weight. Even he hadn’t understood what the beast was.

  The uncomfortable turmoil of emotion in her chest broke upon his silence, leaving a hollow feeling inside her. “Is your hatred so great?”

  “When the demons drove us from the city they were without mercy. The first attack came at night. I was in one of the temples of The Undying when it happened.” There was a tremor of misery in his voice. “I rushed back to my apartments, but I was too late. Nara, my ra’sen, was sleeping when they came. They’d torn her apart. Our bedroom was painted with her blood. Yes, my hatred is so great. Great enough that I knew I was no longer fit to be master of the tribe, so I cut my braids and left my tribe.”

  His ra’sen or umahk-ra’sen. His spirit match.

  She didn’t know how to respond to that. Grief flowed from his spirit like water from a river in flood. After a long moment in silence, she turned. He stood facing her, his face etched with sorrow, his eyes full of tormented loathing for the demons that had taken everything from him.

  She looked into those eyes, searching for answers. “Does trading in the lives of demons bring you peace, Naago-ra?”

  He turned his face away, shame in the hang of his shoulders. “No.”

  She brought her normal hand up and placed it against his cheek, turning his face back to her with light pressure. His skin was warm and rough with stubble. “Then why do you do it?”

  “I have to do something to keep this loathing, this anguish, from tearing me apart.” He met her eyes again and his hand came up, pressing over the top of hers on his cheek, holding it there.

  “Did you really do this just to find me?”

  He nodded. “I felt alive for the first time in years when you were with me.”

  “I am the Keeper. I don’t belong with you. I don’t belong with anyone.”

  “I don’t care.”

  A tightening sensation in the black roots preceded what was likely to be another bad decision. “I don’t wish to remain here, not knowing what they’re doing in that canyon.”

  “Then we’ll leave.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her hand and kept it, leading her toward the door. With her right hand, she pulled up the hood as she followed him out. A flyer waited in front of the hut, an older model much inferior to the one he had taken from the crossbreed.

  She stopped, pulling her hand away. “That isn’t made for two.”

  “Nonsense. The Endless tribes use them for tandem training all the time. You can ride behind me against the support stand and I’ll buckle into your harness while I drive.”

  He dug into the small hatch and tossed her a harness. While she strapped it on, she eyed the flyer controls. An unfamiliar yearning swelled inside her. He hopped up on the wing and held a hand down to her. She took it this time and let him draw her up. When he gestured to the support stand, she shook her head.

  “I want to drive.”

  He drew back, giving her a startled look. “Do you even know how?”

  “I believe this host does.”

  For a few seconds, he looked resistant. Then he shrugged and stepped around the stand to buckle himself in. She moved in front of him and buckled her feet into the insets, moving with a memory that belonged to her and yet was not hers. When she stood, he buckled her harness to his, forcing her to stand close enough that his body warmed her back. He offered his goggles up to her and she waved them away. The cloak would shield her.

  She started the craft and it lifted to a low hover, drawing up the parking stands with a soft squeal of metal rubbing metal. It tilted with every movement she made while she raised it up a little higher. She rocked back and forth a few times, tipping each wing to the sand and finding her balance. Then she pushed the throttle down and it sped forward, rising with a gradual pull on the levers.

  She smiled, settling into the muscle memory that grew stronger and more certain with every passing second. The Keeper had never driven such a craft before, but this host could fly.

  The craft bucked with her surprised jerk when Naago slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back snug against him. The host knew that wasn’t necessary and yet she didn’t feel the need to correct him. After a few startled heartbeats, she leveled out again and shot across the desert.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Deynas-ra.”

  He cringed inwardly. Damned Misa. She seemed to take his mentoring her as permission to meddle in all his affairs. Or perhaps he hadn’t discouraged her attentions sufficiently.

  “Misa, what are you doing out here this late?”

  “Spying on you.” She smiled a little too fondly, emboldened perhaps by the dark and their lack of audience. “I have been all week.”

  At least she was honest. “And what have you seen?”

  He finished adjusting the items in the red flyer’s hatch for the best weight balance before securing them in place. The process helped mask the way his nerves danced with apprehension, anticipating the complications that might arise depending on her response.

  She stepped up beside him, leaning out over the flyer in an effort to look him in the eyes. He needlessly adjusted a few things in the opposite corner to avoid her gaze and the warmth of her nearness.

  “I’ve seen you sneaking out here at odd hours and stashing things in the hatch. Suspicious things. Things you’d need for a long trip somewhere.”

  He started to slam the hatch shut and caught himself at the last second. The noise would alert someone else to their presence and further expose his already jeopardized clandestine activities. So far, it appeared that only Misa had caught on that he was planning something, unless she’d already told someone else.

  With gentle pressure, he clicked the hatch shut and locked it, then turned to stare at her in the dark, standing tall in an attempt to intimidate her with his superior height. “And what do you plan to do with this information?”

  She met his eyes, defiance in the straightening of her own posture. “I haven’t told anyone yet, and I won’t,” she reached out to touch his hand, her expression softening, “as long as you take me with you.”

  “No.” He spun on his heel and started stalking down the road that curved along the cliff toward the main part of the village below. Huts belonging to Endless and Endless hopefuls were set along the cliff face on the inside edge of the road. His was less than halfway down.
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  She trotted after him. “You’re going after that man, aren’t you? The one who traded you that flyer?”

  Perceptive little monster. Although she was making his life more difficult, he found it hard to fight back a fond smile, which would be the worst possible response just then. “It doesn’t matter where I’m going. You aren’t coming with me.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous?”

  Dangerous and probably pointless. He stopped and drew in a deep breath, seeking to calm his nerves. Then he turned, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and stared her in the eyes, hoping she would see in his face how serious this was to him. Her shoulders felt small and fragile under his hands, reinforcing his decision.

  “Misa, this is something I need to do. I can’t put you at risk. It could be dangerous and I’ll be lucky if Master Kochan doesn’t banish me for it. Do you want that?”

  Her big eyes grew moist. “No! I don’t want you banished.”

  He chuckled and took his hands away before she could read too much into the contact. “I meant for you. You don’t want to risk being banished, do you?”

  “If you are.”

  Deynas exhaled and looked up. The sky was bright with stars and a steady light wind brought out a number of wind spirits, their vivid blue eyes adding to the glorious display. It would be a good night to fly.

  There was a hollow feeling in his chest. Even now that he was truly one of the Endless, he felt the loss of Argus eating away at his spirit. That was why he had to try to find Naago again. The Endless deserter was the only one who might know how to quiet her presence within him so he could move on.

  “I’m sorry, Misa. I can’t let you come with me. Master Kochan would banish me for certain if I put you in danger. Tell someone if you must. It won’t change my decision.”