The Cryptid Keeper

by Lija Fisher

  It was as good a plan as any, and Clivo decided to go for it. He crossed the street behind some people strolling along and made his way around the buildings and down the alley until he was crouched underneath the wagon behind the men.

  He listened as the men chatted in Arabic about the little things in life, like how their kids and wives were doing and how their favorite tennis star did terribly in the last match. Clivo found it odd that two men wearing sharp swords were talking calmly about the events of the day, but what did he expect them to be talking about? The latest torture devices they had just purchased?

  Clivo positioned himself so he could reach through the spokes of the wheel and reach one of the men without the other seeing him. Not that that mattered—the second he pulled off the necklace, they’d both be onto him.

  As they talked and laughed in their deep voices, Clivo stretched out his arm, his fingers delicately reaching for the gold chain that shone against the closest man’s dark skin. He kept his breathing quiet, but the exertion of stretching his arm to its full length was taxing.

  The man he was reaching for suddenly leaned back with a laugh and Clivo caught his finger around the chain. The man reached for his neck as his partner swung his eyes to Clivo, whose face was pressed against the side of the cart.

  Clivo smiled sheepishly. “Any chance you’d consider not chasing after me?” The man, who had a nicely trimmed beard, scowled and pulled out his very sharp-looking sword. “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Clivo said.

  Clivo ripped the necklace off the man’s neck, pocketing the vial of blood safely in his robe’s pocket before scurrying backward under the wagon and taking off running down the alleyway.

  As he sprinted toward the other end of the alley, another Wasi stepped from behind the corner and blocked it. Clivo recognized him as the leader he had spoken to earlier. The man smiled his gold-toothed smile and slowly pulled his sword from its scabbard, the whisper of the steel sliding out of its sheath echoing up the alley.

  Clivo skidded to a stop and glanced behind him, where the two goons had already pushed aside the wagon and were preparing to run toward him. Clivo’s quick assessment of the situation made it very obvious that the only way to go was up.

  He grabbed onto a nearby windowsill and launched himself up the side of the building, its crumbling mud bricks giving him plenty of hand- and footholds as he climbed. When he reached a second-story window, he accidentally knocked over a clay pot on the sill, and it landed on the head of one of the bearded goons below him, knocking him over so his turbaned head struck the pavement, the two blows together putting him out cold.

  “I’m really sorry! I actually didn’t mean to do that!” Clivo shouted down in apology.

  The remaining goon, who had a fabulous set of bushy black eyebrows, glared at Clivo. The man ran back to the wagon, jumped on top of it, and started climbing to the roof. Clivo had two options: drop back down into the waiting arms of the Wasi leader, or continue on his way to the roof. He chose the roof.

  Clivo vaulted onto the flat surface and took off running. His tennis shoes scraped against the loose dried mud, and he heard the thumps of sandal-clad footsteps giving chase behind him.

  Up ahead, Clivo saw the next alleyway approaching. He didn’t have time to consider if he could make it across, so he gathered his long robe away from his feet, sprinted as fast as he could, and jumped with all his strength over the gap, his arms flailing like the wings of a baby bird trying to take flight.

  He barely made it to the other side, and landed promptly on his belly. The bushy-browed goon behind him picked up speed and leaped as well, but Clivo could instantly tell that the larger man wasn’t going to make it.

  Sure enough, the man’s fingertips caught the edge of the roof and quickly slid off. A crash of pottery sounded a second later.

  Clivo ran to the edge of the roof and looked down, relieved to see the man dazed but relatively uninjured in the middle of a pile of shattered pots and vases. An older woman was yelling angrily and hitting the man with a broom.

  “Two down, one to go,” Clivo panted as he turned and once again began running.

  He jumped over one more alleyway, just to be sure the last Wasi wouldn’t be able to keep pace with him on the ground, and finally climbed down into a deserted street. As soon as his feet touched the dirt, he turned and came face-to-face with the lead Wasi.

  “Seriously?” Clivo moaned.

  “Give me what you stole,” the man said, holding out his hand.

  “What is with you people? It’s a little vial of blood! Can’t a kid have a souvenir?”

  “I won’t ask again. The necklace, NOW!”

  “I’m not giving it to you, so let’s just cut to the fighting part, OKAY?” Clivo’s heart was racing and he was dripping with sweat in the humid night air. He wasn’t sure how well he would do fighting in the djellaba he was wearing, but realized he’d better figure it out, because the situation was about to explode.

  The man hesitated for just a moment, then raised his sword and took a fighting stance. “It won’t be the first time I’ve shed blood to protect the guardian of Seth—oof!”

  Before the man could even finish his sentence, Clivo punched him in the stomach and threw him to the ground. The Wasi squirmed on the dusty street, struggling to catch his breath and untangle himself from his robe, which had gotten wrapped around his legs. It gave Clivo just the few seconds he needed to escape.

  As he turned to run, he saw from the corner of his eye that the Wasi was clambering to his feet. Clivo took off like a sprinter and ran through alleyways, zigzagging as fast as he could among the buildings, listening for footsteps behind him. It was now fully dark and he ran without care, doing his best to shake the guy he knew would be coming after him.

  Clivo had no idea where he was going. He just knew he had to get as far away from the village as possible, and going back to the hotel was definitely no longer an option. He was glad he had had enough foresight to carry his wallet and passport, phone, and radio with him; his clothes and boots would just have to be left behind. The only thing that mattered was the cryptid blood tucked safely in his pocket. If the Salawa turned out to be the immortal, Douglas could come back and deal with it. The most important thing was to identify if it was or not.

  Clivo had been running for so long that it took him a moment to realize that the buildings around him had turned into ruins, and there wasn’t any light coming from the crumbling structures. He ducked behind what was left of a sandy wall, his breath coming in gasps. He listened, waiting to hear if anyone was running up behind him.

  When all was quiet, Clivo pushed himself away from the wall and glanced around, amazed by what he saw. He had run straight into the ruins of some ancient Egyptian city. What had been homes were now crumbling walls of brick, the roofs long since dissolved leaving the rooms open to the sky. He wandered through the sandy ruins, amazed that what he was touching might be thousands of years old.

  He turned down a wide road, the surface rutted as if from chariot wheels, and passed what looked to be part of a pyramid. A hieroglyph that was carved into the sloped wall looked almost exactly like the symbol on the Wasis’ turbans. Was this pyramid meant to be an offering to the god Seth?

  Clivo spun around as he heard a scratch on the hard sand, but nothing was behind him. The full moon was bright and cast shadows between the buildings, offering plenty of hiding places for whatever beast wandered this forgotten place. There, over to his left, a shadow suddenly moved. But it wasn’t the shadow of a man—it was too short and wide.

  Clivo’s heart froze. Was it the Salawa? He didn’t have a tranquilizer gun or any other means of protecting himself, and if the creature had developed any kind of crazy adaptive weapon mechanisms, Clivo would be powerless against it.

  He had just dropped to his hands and knees and peered around the corner of the pyramid when a sharp blade appeared directly below his chin.

  A familiar voice sounded next to him. “As I belie
ve you Americans say … gotcha!”

  Clivo stood up and faced the man he’d been running from—and the man’s curved blade, glinting in the moonlight. He needed to buy himself some time, so he said the first thing that popped into his head. “What’s your name?”

  “Why does that matter?” the man sneered.

  “I feel like since you have a sword against my throat, it’s only proper that I know your name,” Clivo said, trying to lift his chin away from the sharp edge.

  This seemed to throw the man off-guard. Good, Clivo thought. Clivo had learned in jujitsu class that winning was all about who had the power, and power was a very easy thing to shift.

  “My name is Tim,” Tim finally said.

  “Tim?” Clivo balked, the name catching him off-guard.

  “It’s a very common Egyptian name,” Tim snarled. “What kind of a name is Clivo? It sounds like a vegetable.”

  “Um, that would be chives, which is an herb,” Clivo corrected him. The conversation was making him relax, which was good. He needed to be relaxed for what he was planning next. “So, listen, Tim. It may seem like you have all the advantage here, with the sword and all, but I’m going to warn you once, and only once, that the best thing you can do for yourself is let me go. If you do, I promise I will head straight to the airport and never return.”

  “That sounds like—how do you say?—a fair deal,” Tim replied. He held out his hand. “The blood, please. Then you are free to go.”

  Clivo tilted his head. “You see, Tim, that wasn’t part of the deal.” Clivo was keeping his voice calm, but really he was panicking inside. He had no idea how good Tim was at fighting, and it was always dangerous to enter a fight with an unproven foe.

  Tim brought his face close to Clivo’s, his breath smelling like tea and spices. “Why do you need the blood? Everyone who comes here is searching for the creature, but you are content to leave with only its blood. Why?”

  “Before I answer, may I ask why so many people want to find the Salawa?” Besides buying more time so he could prepare himself, Clivo was genuinely curious. He knew why he was searching for the cryptid—to find the immortal—but why were others so intent upon finding the legendary beast?

  Tim stepped back, but kept the sword trained on Clivo. Tim’s voice became soft and reverent. “There is an old Latin saying: ‘I believe because it is incredible.’ Humans used to believe in myths and gods because they gave us hope in a world that nobody understood. Now everybody understands everything. With a few strokes on a keyboard, all the world’s knowledge is at our fingertips. There is no mystery. So people come here, desperate to find something that can’t be found on their little computer devices. They need to believe that there is still something out there that needs to be discovered. Some new frontier to conquer. Some mystery.” Tim took a deep breath. “But what they don’t realize is that myth does exist in this world, and meddling with it is more dangerous than they could ever imagine. Some things are not meant to be found, but if they are, they could destroy us all.”

  Clivo spoke honestly and fervently. “I agree with you, Tim. And I promise you that I want nothing more than to keep the Salawa a secret. I know it exists, but I have to take some of its blood to protect us, to protect you. We’re on the same team, I promise you.”

  Tim tipped his head at what Clivo was saying. “So then I ask you again, why do you need its blood?”

  Clivo paused. He wanted nothing more than to tell Tim everything. He seemed to be a man of great honor who might not use the gift of immortality for evil. But how could Clivo be sure? He wavered for a moment before remembering a promise he had made to the Blasters—“Trust no one.”

  “I’m sorry, Tim, I can’t tell you that,” Clivo sighed, realizing their moment of truce was about to come to an end. “All I can say is that I’m not leaving here without the blood.”

  Tim smiled, almost in understanding. “We all must do what we believe to be right. It’s a shame to have to defeat you, Clivo Wren, for I believe we could have been allies. But defeat you, nonetheless, I will.”

  Just as Clivo had tensed his body for the battle, a movement sounded to his left.

  He and Tim swung their heads around, and Clivo gasped as the Salawa poked its head around the corner.

  Clivo felt what he always felt when he saw a cryptid for the first time—complete awe. The creature looked like a wiry red-furred dog with a long snout and square ears. Its black eyes, holding some kind of intelligent understanding, stared not at him, but at Tim.

  “Adhab!” Tim shouted.

  The Salawa must have understood the word “Go,” because it slunk back behind the corner.

  Shaking himself out of his shock, Clivo took the opportunity offered by the distraction. The cryptid had not only appeared, but also understood Tim’s command. The Wasi could actually communicate with the mysterious beast.

  He lunged at Tim, quickly grabbing the sword and throwing it into the sand. Clivo had been trained in a lot of things, but sword fighting was not one of them, and he had no desire to become a shish kebab on Tim’s blade.

  A short scuffle ensued. Tim was strong, but without his sword he was no match for Clivo’s jujitsu training.

  Clivo pushed Tim back and picked up the sword, holding it at arm’s length before the man’s face. “Please believe me when I say that I’m doing this for both of us.”

  Tim nodded in defeat, a look of sadness crossing his face. “And for both of us, I hope you understand the consequences of the path you are choosing.”

  Clivo led Tim to a pillar and tied him to it by the sleeves of his flowing robe. When he was sure Tim couldn’t escape, he said, “I’m sorry, but I have to leave you here. I’m sure this place will be crawling with tourists in the morning and you’ll be rescued.”

  “I will,” Tim said, seemingly almost in reassurance.

  “And I trust that I don’t need to be worried that the Salawa will attack you?”

  Tim laughed in surprise. “Attack me? No. We live in harmony with the mysteries around us. Unlike the rest of the world, which seeks to destroy them. I have nothing to fear.”

  Clivo laid the sword delicately at the man’s feet, wishing he could say more. “What I’m doing is honorable. I hope you understand that.”

  The Wasi looked at him with wisdom that seemed to stretch back thousands of years. “Then you must prove it. Not to me, but to yourself.”

  Clivo was about to back away, but he had one more question. He pulled the vial of blood from his robe and held it in front of him. “Can you just please tell me: is this really the blood of the Salawa? If you can promise me it is, I will promise you that I will stop people from coming here to seek the creature. Not every person, but a lot of them. But I need you to work with me on this.”

  Tim’s eyes flashed in anger. “We come from different worlds. I believe that ‘working together’ is an impossibility.”

  Clivo gritted his teeth in frustration. He had to know if the blood was really from the Salawa or he’d have to find a way to return. It was true, they were from different worlds, but couldn’t they find a way to work together if their goals were the same?

  A memory suddenly flashed through his mind, one that he had almost forgotten. “My mom, before she died, used to shake an ancient Egyptian rattle over me, to protect me from the god of storms.”

  Tim’s eyes looked at him curiously.

  Clivo went on. “I know what it means to need protection from things we don’t understand, and if you can promise me that this is really the blood of the Salawa, I promise to protect your people from others who want to anger the god of chaos.”

  Tim considered the request. Finally, he nodded. “On my life, it is the blood of the beast. I have trusted you, now please make good on your promise.”

  Clivo nodded. He had learned that that’s how trust went. You gave it to someone and hoped they honored it in return. It was one of the things that couldn’t be proven in the Myth Blasters’ lab, because there was no for
mula for it. Trust was given on faith. And Clivo trusted Tim and the agreement they had made, and he swore to keep up his end of the bargain.

  “One last thing,” Tim said.

  “Yes?” said Clivo.

  “Your accent. It’s actually quite good. You had an excellent teacher.”

  “Thank you,” Clivo said. “He was the best.”

  He gave a parting wave and ran off quickly, worried that Tim would somehow order the Salawa to give chase. But nothing followed him. Clivo checked behind him every few steps, but he was alone. Perhaps Tim didn’t want to send the creature after someone who obviously knew how to fight, or maybe he simply trusted the agreement they had made.

  Clivo paused at the top of a ridge and glanced behind him.

  In the moonlight he saw Tim, still tied to the pillar. But he saw something else, too. A doglike creature with square ears, a forked tail sticking up straight, crept toward Tim. Clivo readied himself to run down and protect Tim should the cryptid attack.

  Instead, the creature sniffed Tim and settled to the ground, as if to watch over the Wasi for the night.

  Clivo shook his head in disbelief, with everything he knew about the world and its mysteries shifting in his mind. Apparently it was still possible to live in harmony with the cryptids, to live in a world where the creatures didn’t have to disappear to remain safe.

  Clivo pulled the satellite phone from his robe to call Douglas for help, but then thought better of it and pulled the radio out instead.

  “Hey, guys, anyone around?”

  The speaker crackled to life with Charles’s exuberant voice. “Dude? What’s taking so long? You taking a tourist trip on a camel or something?”

  Clivo smiled, the world suddenly returning to normal. “I’m good. But I need you to get me out of here immediately.”