The Keeper (The Endless Chronicles Book 1)

by Nikki Mccormack

  “How did she die?”

  “When the demons took the city five years ago, we were doing a final search to try to find some people who were still unaccounted for among the living or dead. We found two of the children…” Misa.

  His throat tightened. Naago dug a flask out of his pack, took a swig and held it out to Deynas. There was sympathy in his ageless eyes. Because of that, Deynas accepted the flask and took a long swallow of the burning liquid. He coughed. It was strong, not the diluted alcohol he was accustomed to in the village tavern. How could the man stand to drink it like that?

  For a few seconds, he just stared at the flask then he took another almost painful gulp and wiped his mouth before handing it back. He moved himself against the wall, sitting cross-legged on the bed in a mirror image of the other man’s position. He let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes, remembering.

  “Argus was my mentor. She had almost five years on me and had been Endless since she turned eighteen. We almost had the children out of the city when we encountered the Blooded Women. They did something to Argus, or rather, to her umahk-ra when she was spirit walking. It left her mostly paralyzed. She ordered me to leave her. It was my responsibility to get the children out of there.” He ground his teeth, fighting the heavy press of misery. “I’d lost my mother in an accident three years earlier. My father and brother were both killed when the demons first attacked the city. Argus was all I had and I left her there to die.”

  “You loved her?”

  He opened his eyes and nodded.

  Naago took a long drink from the flask, swallowing it as easily as if it were water. “And it’s a fragment of her umahk-ra that plagues you now?”

  “Yes. I know there are fragments of many others I saw die in the attacks in me, but those were fragments taken from departing spirits. They’re different somehow. Argus was umahk-ra-en-mahde. I captured a fragment of her spirit while she was alive. I think maybe that’s why she haunts me and why I keep thinking I see and hear her in the Keeper.”

  Naago snorted wryly and held the flask out to him again.

  Deynas waved it away, but the other man didn’t retract the offer.

  “Take another drink. You’re going to need it.”

  There was a convincing ominous edge to his tone. Deynas accepted it and took a swig. He held onto the flask while Naago started to speak. The alcohol was working through Deynas now, relaxing his body and mind, though it made the pain of Misa’s death feel like a raw, bleeding wound inside him. This was what he’d come to learn though, so he was determined to focus on Naago’s words and hold that sorrow at bay.

  “When an umahk-ra-uden captures a fragment of someone’s spirit at death, that fragment still retains the original image, but it becomes a part of the spirit thief’s umahk-ra and makes their spirit stronger. In the uncommon case of a spirit thief encountering a spirit walker, the person the spirit fragment came from is still alive, as you said, so it retains a connection to them and therefore can’t fully integrate into the umahk-ra of the spirit thief.”

  “But Argus is dead now. If what you’re saying is true, why hasn’t her spirit integrated like the others?”

  The elder Endless gestured for the flask and Deynas passed it back to him. “That is where things get more interesting. I’ve been travelling with the Keeper some of late.”

  “How did that…” he trailed off when Naago shook his head.

  “How we came to be traveling together isn’t important. I still don’t know what the Keeper is exactly, but she seems to be a roaming entity. I don’t believe that she has a functional form that is her own so she uses that of another. As I understand from talking with her, the Blooded Women choose a body for the Keeper to inhabit, usually the body of an Endless woman.”

  A sick feeling started to spread through Deynas along with a desperate itch in the back his mind urging him to run away. He wasn’t ready to hear this. When he started to stand, Naago also started to rise, holding a hand out to him to stay him. He hesitated, one foot down on the floor and his hands on the edge of the bed ready to push him up. His heart was racing again, an uncomfortable thrumming sensation in his chest.

  “Wait. I know this isn’t easy, but you should know the truth. This woman, Argus-ra, she didn’t die after you left her in the city. She is the Keeper now, or rather, her body is hosting the Keeper. The woman you loved still lives within that body, but in a dormant state.”

  Deynas shook his head. The quiet of the night had become suffocating, as if someone wrapped thick blankets around him and was pulling them tight, making it hard to breathe. “No. Don’t tell me I condemned her to be a prisoner in her own body. I can’t have left her to that.”

  He stood suddenly and Naago jumped up, grabbing his arm. Deynas refused to look at the other man.

  “You didn’t condemn her. You did what you had to. You saved the children.”

  It felt like some beast had broken free inside him and was trying to tear its way out through his flesh. “One of whom is lying dead out there!”

  Naago let go of him and stepped back, lowering his gaze.

  Deynas threw open the cabin door and stormed out into the night.

  •

  The Keeper followed Deynas a few steps past the doorway, then stopped outside of the cabin and watched him go. She pulled her hood down and let Naago see her. Perhaps she deserved to be alone, alone as Deynas was, but it hurt too much to be alone with the misery of the Endless woman crashing through her. She didn’t know how to process this kind of pain.

  Naago stepped up beside her. “I thought you might still be here.”

  “You shouldn’t have told him.”

  Naago took another drink from his flask. She could smell the biting stench of the alcohol.

  “He deserved to know.”

  How strange it was not to know what to do. “Should I speak to him?”

  “Not right now. Right now, he’s too upset. He could quite easily turn that into wrath toward you.”

  The longing to help him that made her ache inside wasn’t really hers. At least she didn’t think it was. It hurt just the same. “He thinks I have taken her from him.”

  “Haven’t you?”

  She stared into the night. Deynas was no longer visible, not until she closed her eyes and saw his anguished spirit glowing through the darkness. Then she saw Naago’s spirit as he moved around in front of her.

  “You’re crying again, Keeper.”

  He kissed the trail of her tears, first on one side and then the other. Then he kissed her lips. More tears slipped free when she kissed him back. He tasted of the alcohol, and of distraction and comfort.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The summons came a little after dawn, an insistent itch in the back of her mind. The Blooded Women were calling her. Their call wasn’t something she had to respond to like the call to keep, but she knew the time had come to return to the Halls of the Blooded. There wasn’t much point in delaying it.

  Naago stood looking down at Deynas where he lay unconscious to the world. He had returned to the cabin just before dawn and collapsed upon one of the beds.

  She touched Naago’s arm. “Don’t wake him yet.”

  The Endless man nodded after a moment and tried to meet her eyes. She looked away.

  “There’s apprehension in your voice.”

  “I am summoned back to the city.” She hoped he would assume it was the call to keep. The truth would only bring another argument. “I have to go.”

  He touched her face, his fingers light upon her skin. “I don’t want you to.” It was clear in his voice, he already knew why she was going.

  “It isn’t about what either of us wants.” She stepped back from him when he tried to kiss her. With Deynas lying there beside them, she simply couldn’t kiss him.

  There was a small flash of irritation in his eyes, but he didn’t let it come through in his words. “How will I find you again? What do I have to kill this time?”

>   A whisper of that ominous dark wrath moved through the black roots and she narrowed her eyes at him. “If you do that again merely to bring me to you I will give you the death pain of every spirit I have ever kept.”

  He drew back from her, perhaps as startled by her vehemence as she was. “What would that do?”

  “It would kill you.”

  “You would kill me for that?”

  She hesitated, trying to make sense of the confusion of thoughts and emotions that came in response to his question. “The Keeper would,” she answered finally.

  He lowered his gaze, his expression very much that of a sulking boy.

  Did he actually dare to think there was something between them that would supersede centuries dedicated to a single purpose? If so, he was a fool. Still, there was something between them, she would be the fool if she tried to deny that. Whether that something had anything to do with the Keeper herself or was simply a result of the Endless woman awakening within her body remained unclear.

  “There is another way to call upon me.”

  He looked up, hopeful. “How?”

  “You carry a fragment of her spirit in you. Want me as I am now, in this flesh, with your heart and with your spirit. If I am able to,” if she still lives when you call upon me, “I will hear you and I will come to you.”

  “If you’re able?”

  She put a finger over his lips. He already knew what she meant, or at least suspected, but was unwilling to accept it. She stepped back and disappeared.

  •

  “Why was the Keeper travelling with you?”

  Naago turned to look at Deynas. There was a forlorn look on his face, as of a man who had said goodbye to someone dear, someone he didn’t expect to see and was even less prepared to lose again.

  “Because she is as broken as you and I are?”

  “In what way?”

  Naago turned his back on him and started putting his pack together.

  Deynas got up from the bed and grabbed his things. He felt like hell. The alcohol had left him with a fierce headache to go along with the rest of his misery. He had hoped, rather foolishly, that the Keeper would accompany them back to the village and that her presence might somehow lessen or maybe even deflect Master Kochan’s rage. With what he knew now, he didn’t think he could bear to be around her. He was glad she had gone, even though he dreaded the return to the village more than ever knowing that Argus still lived, in a sense, but beyond his reach.

  Should he tell the others, or would it be better if they never knew? Would it just be another burden on top of Misa’s death?

  While he secured his pack in the hatch and folded away the second stand, he considered telling Naago to leave as well. Kochan made it clear that the former tribe master wasn’t welcome. To bring him back there might add to the general upheaval Misa’s death would cause and worsen the punishment. Still, even Naago’s questionable company was better than entering the village with nothing but a dead body and a substantial weight of guilt and misery.

  They struck out a few minutes later. The high cliffs of the village were visible on the horizon, diminished by distance to a hazy lump of red and brown. It didn’t take long for the lump to grow and take shape, rising up before them like a great hammer of judgment. Deynas kept them low to the sand, hoping to avoid notice for as long as possible, but a patrol flyer started tailing them when they got within twenty minutes of the village. That the pilot stayed just above them and offered no greeting didn’t bode well for their reception.

  I will be exiled.

  A pod of sand dolphins approached them, but when none of the flyers joined their play, they moved on. The patrol herded them through the village and along the road that would take them up the side of the cliff. People stopped to watch them pass, their eyes lingering long on the bundle tied to the back of the red flyer. One woman turned away and covered her face with her hands. A few people even changed direction when they saw the trio coming and started walking up the road themselves. They would have known who was missing from the village. It didn’t take much of a mental reach to figure out what was in the bundle and word would spread fast.

  Ren came out of one hut and Deynas slowed down to a crawl despite the sour look the patrol gave him. No matter how the patrol pilot felt about it, Ren had the right to know that his sister was gone. The youth gave the bundle a long, heartbroken look then he trotted over and jumped up on the wing. Deynas tipped the craft away to counter the sudden change in weight balance and held a hand out to him. Ren took it and he pulled the boy over to stand in front of him as he accelerated up the road again. The lanky body pressed against him began to tremble.

  Deynas took one hand and turned the boy around. Ren buried his head against his chest and his body shook with heart wrenching sobs. Deynas held him tight with one arm and struggled to keep the flyer on course with the other.

  About two thirds of the way up, the patrol flyer sped ahead, going to warn Kochan of their approach. Three flyers passed them a few seconds later, heading down to bring the rest of Misa’s family up along with some of the temporal tribe leaders.

  They pulled up at the edge of the landing pad and Ren helped Deynas undo the ties holding Misa’s body. The boy cried quietly now, big tears streaming down his cheeks. He showed greater maturity than Deynas would have expected given his age.

  Naago stood to one side, a silent party to their mourning.

  Deynas lifted the wrapped bundle and walked it into the temple, trying to get inside before the other flyers came back up. Kochan knelt facing them before the feet of The Undying. His head was bowed and a long, low table was already laid out in front of him. Incense burned around the feet of the statue, the smoke weaving up along the great stone legs. The soothing aroma was lost on Deynas as he walked up and knelt to lay her body upon the table. He stayed there then, keeping his eyes on the edge of the table. Ren walked up to stand at his shoulder.

  A woman burst into the temple behind them. “No!” Her wail broke the silence, but someone caught her before she reached the table and pulled her back. Her hysterical weeping filled the big chamber.

  “Your selfish actions have cost this girl her life, Deynas-ra,” Kochan said in a low voice, tight with accusation and sorrow. “You are banished from this tribe for now and forever.”

  The words were like a knife blade through his gut. His breathing grew ragged with the effort of not begging for forgiveness or crying out against his fate.

  “At least let us stay to see her off.”

  “That doesn’t seem too much to ask, Master Kochan.” Ren’s small voice sounded strong and certain.

  “No” Kochan shook his head. “He is banished. He shall leave this place now.”

  Ren took a step closer and moved the blanket to uncover his sister’s face. He touched her cheek and another tear fell, landing on her pallid skin. “Misa chose to go after Deynas-ra even after he told her not to. I believe it would be her wish to have him here.”

  Kochan looked up at the boy. There were tears in the Endless master’s eyes and the tightness of anger in his face eased a little. “You are wise and gracious beyond your years, Ren. I will grant Deynas-ra leave to use his old hut for the night at your behest. We will find a place for his companion as well. They are to speak with no one and no one is to speak with them. At dawn, we will send Misa to her place beside The Undying then they will leave.”

  Deynas forced himself to nod and stand, backing away so her family could take his place by the table. He would not belittle himself by begging forgiveness. If he knew Kochan, it would do him no good anyway. Naago shadowed him from the temple.

  •

  The Keeper didn’t go directly back to the Halls of the Blooded. Instead, she appeared in the center of their complex, in the temple that still housed a towering statue of The Undying. The temple was unharmed out of respect for the greater god, but its doors stayed always barred and locked. For her, that presented little obstacle and, this once, gave her someplace
quiet to steel her nerves before she faced the Blooded Women, not that she had ever needed such a place in the past.

  The three faces of The Undying looked down on her, neither benevolent nor judgmental. A part of her found comfort in that serene stone gaze, a part that needed purging. There was only one way to fix things. The Endless woman had to die and the Keeper had to move to a new host. The host’s death would end all of this confusion and Deynas’s suffering. Something within her didn’t want to let go yet. It might just be the Endless woman’s indomitable spirit, but it might be something else, something the Keeper had found recently that made her want to do more than simply exist for her one purpose.

  As soon as she noticed that she had started pacing, she stopped in front of the towering statue. Without taking the time to wonder why, she turned toward it and knelt, bowing her head.

  This woman does not wish to leave and I do not wish to let her go. Not yet. Is there no way to keep things as they are for just a little longer?

  What was she really? Was she only a vessel for those spirits she kept or had she once had an identity that was hers outside of her purpose? Was there a spirit among those within her that was actually her own?

  How can I not know these things?

  The Keeper stayed there, knelt and waiting for many hours. When the gleam of sunlight peeking in from windows high above The Undying turned to darkness, she finally stirred. Her muscles were stiff and sore from wasting the daylight in that position and she was no wiser for it. She stood to the popping of joints and started when a door groaned open. She spun around.

  The center doors into the temple opened and the Blooded Women entered in their gliding little steps. There were eighteen of them, set apart in groups of six as they always were. They moved to form a semicircle around her in front of the statue, maintaining distinct separation between the three groups.