Keeper of the Books (Keeper of the Books, Book 1)

by Jason D. Morrow

  Devlin was aware of the reason he had been chosen to be a Ranger, but his mask had been stripped from him. Here he sat, exposed to Gibbons. He was no warrior and now the Rangers saw it. The president saw it. But the people of Tel Haven and the rest of Galamore had not seen it. Not yet, anyway.

  “I think any man, you included, would have been in the same situation as I,” Devlin said. It was a bold thing to say, and when Gibbons’ face began to turn red, Devlin knew he had said too much, but he had already started, so he continued. “I am a hunter. A good hunter. I know when a prey is near. The two of them must have used a spell to hide their coming.”

  “And a trained Ranger such as myself would have thought of this scenario beforehand,” Gibbons came back. “What happened to you was not some kind of fluke. It was purely a lack of experience and training.”

  Though Devlin did not dispute Gibbon’s words, he did not wish to go through training. Actually, the thought of staying on as a Ranger seemed unbearable. There was always the threat of having to take up arms and fight; always the chance of losing his life.

  “We’re running out of time,” Gibbons said. “I came in here to assess your condition. To see if you’re healthy enough to ride.”

  “As you can see…” Devlin began, but Gibbons cut him off.

  “You’re well enough.” He started toward the door. “Perhaps today you will get a chance to redeem yourself.”

  “Why is that, sir?”

  “We’ve discovered who the man is who helped Marum escape. His name is Nathaniel Cole.”

  Devlin searched his mind, but the name didn’t ring a bell.

  “It may be true that you aren’t trained well as a Ranger,” Gibbons said, “but your reputation as a hunter is well known. Your ability to track is unlike any other.”

  “Thank you but…”

  “I’ve got a party outside, ready to go. Pack up what you need. We’re riding out after Marum and Nathaniel. And we need your tracking skills to guide us to them.”

  Gibbons was out the door before Devlin could argue. He had thought that surely the beating he’d taken would render him useless to the service of the Rangers, but Gibbons didn’t seem to care. He cursed himself for not making his injuries worse. He should have tried to break his legs or back or something.

  A growing fear crawled into his chest and his heart started to beat faster, which made his head pound all the more. There was no arguing with Gibbons. Refusing to go out on this mission could mean the same as treason. Devlin could go to jail, or worse, he could be killed.

  He was glad no one else was in the room because tears came to his eyes, and crying was a very un-Ranger-like thing to do. He tried to swallow them back, but failed as he packed his belongings and stumbled out through the doorway.

  Nate

  Autumn, 903 A.O.M.

  Whenever a man found himself in a shootout, it was vitally important to make every second, every movement count. If he looked in the wrong direction, if he aimed at the wrong target, if he so much as took the wrong step, he could be killed. Every moment in a gunfight mattered. Nate knew this better than anybody. He’d taken advantage of a man’s distraction on many occasions. There was one time in particular, a man had a pistol on Nate, and Nate didn’t even have his gun drawn. But the man had heard something to his left, a cat or a mouse or something. He didn’t move his body. He didn’t turn his head. But his eyes…his eyes darted for just a brief second, and that was enough for Nate to snap out his pistol and shoot the man through the heart.

  This came to Nate’s mind as the sun burst over the horizon and mercilessly cracked him over the head with an ache so severe that he wasn’t entirely sure someone in his party hadn’t tried to kill him in the middle of the night. But he knew the culprit, and the empty flask in his coat pocket was there to remind him. The headache didn’t keep him from walking to the cart and seeking out another bottle of whiskey that Alban had so graciously packed.

  Nate didn’t like to be a sneak, but he didn’t exactly advertise what he was doing in the back of the cart as the others ate their breakfast. There was something that drew him to the drink despite the splitting pain in his head and his sick stomach. It made things easier. He didn’t have to think about much whenever he sipped away.

  But that was what made him think of being in a gunfight. Here he was with people out looking for him, wanting nothing more than to string him up and never think about him again, and Nate was getting drunk off Alban’s whiskey. If a gunfight ever did break out, Nate would be so sluggish and foggy-eyed he wouldn’t get a shot off because he’d already be dead. Still, he wondered if maybe he drank himself to death, he might wake up in Texas where he could get back to his plans of moving to Montana. He supposed then he’d just drink himself to death in the real world. He’d die alone somewhere in the mountains of Montana. Someone would find his bones sitting against a rock, an empty bottle in his skeletal grip.

  He nearly jumped out of his skin when Alban said his name. The headache must have been so severe that Nate hadn’t even heard the man approach. No, he wouldn’t be worth a clod of dirt in a gunfight right now.

  “You think that’s such a good idea?” Alban asked, almost as an echo to Nate’s own thoughts. “I brought along the bottles for times of celebration and perhaps for the colder nights to keep our bellies warm.” He shook his head. “I didn’t bring them so you could be in a drunken stupor the entire journey.”

  “I’ll pay you back,” Nate said, unsure where he’d get any money.

  Alban shook his head. “That ain’t what I’m saying, and you know it. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be drinking before you visit the Foreseer. She might be less inclined to talk to you.”

  Nate looked past Alban to see Rachel and Marum chatting next to the rekindled fire. Rachel stirred the pot of mutton stew slowly and smiled as she told Marum some story. He was glad neither of them could hear this conversation. Nate felt embarrassed, though he wasn’t sure why.

  “You’re right,” Nate said. He set the cork back in the bottleneck and placed the bottle back in the crate. Nate shook the flask in front of him, as full as it had ever been. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just keep this on reserve.” He then slid the flask into the front left pocket of his coat over his chest.

  “Do what you want,” Alban said, “but I don’t like traveling with a drunk. Don’t forget that I’m doing you a courtesy taking you to Cara. She will help you get back home, I’m sure of it.”

  Nate nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a tough few days.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Alban said, “I like a draw now and again, but we gotta be careful and alert on these roads.”

  Nate nodded and the motion made his head swim. This was all probably for the best, even though something inside of him wanted to reach for the flask right then and there to down it. He shook away the idea and sat with the others in front of the fire, its heat a little too much for his pounding head.

  The stew, on the other hand, was exactly what his body needed. Over the course of a meal and as they started packing up the cart, Nate’s pain and sickness began to subside. And by lunch he felt better, but it would take another night’s sleep before he was back to normal, though he wasn’t sure what normal was anymore. He’d been carrying that flask with him for so long that he had started missing being drunk whenever he wasn’t. He figured this was a bad sign, but he didn’t like to dwell on bad things for too long.

  They continued along the road. According to Alban, this particular road wasn’t traveled often. It served those who lived in these remote parts. Nate hadn’t seen a passerby since yesterday morning, and Alban told him not to expect another for a while.

  The party was generally quiet throughout the journey, but for Alban randomly spouting off questions or offering little stories here and there. The conversation eventually veered to Cara, and Nate wondered how a person could be gifted with foresight.

  Alban shrugged. “Magic,” he said.
<
br />   “I don’t believe in magic,” Nate came back.

  To this, Alban chuckled. “You mean to tell me that you fell through a book, woke up in a cell next to a gray elf, and you don’t believe in magic?”

  Nate smiled. “I’m still trying to convince myself this ain’t a dream.”

  “Oh, it’s not a dream,” Alban said. “It is a story. A story in which you somehow play a part. How big that part is, no one can know. Except, of course, the Foreseer perhaps.”

  “It’s funny that I fell into a book and you consider yourself part of a story,” Nate observed.

  “Why is that funny?” Alban asked with a wry smile. “Are you not part of a story where you are from? Are we not all part of some story?”

  “That ain’t how I look at it,” Nate said. “I think days go by and we have some choices to make. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter much. When we die, we die. Living is just breathing.”

  “What a bleak worldview you have,” Alban said, his head shaking with disapproval. “I believe the Author put the four of us together for a reason.”

  “The Author?”

  “Yes,” Alban said. “People don’t speak of him as much as they used to. More and more there is a growing sense of unbelief among the people of Galamore. Many are starting to think we are left to our own devices; that our outcome is random and meaningless. A lot more think the way you do.”

  “And you think everything happens for a reason,” Nate said, staring forward.

  Alban nodded. “I believe there are directions we are supposed to take in our lives. I don’t believe there are accidents. I don’t think it was an accident that our paths crossed. Nor do I think it is an accident that you saved Marum’s life.”

  Nate cleared his throat. “So, you’ve known Cara a long time?”

  “No one really knows her at all,” Alban answered. “She is mysterious. Sometimes elusive. But she has never hidden herself from me.”

  It felt preposterous that going to a foreseer might give him the answers he sought, but was it not also preposterous that he had met a gray elf—that he had fallen into this strange land in the first place? He decided that it would do no good to be skeptical of anything he might encounter in Galamore. This Cara might hold the answers he needed. Or at least she might be able to point him in the right direction.

  The wheels of the cart rolled slowly along the dirt path, kicking up only small amounts of dust, leaving a short tunnel of clouds behind them as they went. After another silent hour of traveling, Nate saw a small shack in the distance. Alban pulled on the reins slightly, ordering the horse to veer off the path while Marum followed closely with the other horse. They moved toward the dilapidated building until the four of them were parked in front of it.

  “Well,” Alban said, breaking the silence. “This is it. She’s not expecting us, so I hope she’s here.”

  “If she has the power you claim she has, won’t she be expecting us?” One of Nate’s eyebrows lifted when he said this.

  Alban shook his head as he stood and climbed down from the cart. “Your tongue will get you into trouble someday. It might be best if you let me do the talking.”

  Nate said nothing, but agreed silently. He did not know what he would say to the woman anyway.

  He got off the cart and as a true gentleman he stepped to the back to offer Rachel a hand. Rachel looked at it, pointed her nose up in the air and jumped from the cart, ignoring Nate’s gesture.

  “The independent type,” Nate said.

  “If I had needed your help, Mr. Cole, I would have asked for it.”

  Nate took the comment with a smile and trailed behind them as the others walked toward the door of the shack.

  Nate took in the surroundings as he usually did when coming up on an unfamiliar place. Small puffs of smoke blew out from the top of a small chimney. The fence around the yard was in disrepair. He noticed a fat cat sitting on one of the posts, staring at him as if he were the only one out of the group to be suspect. The blue eyes followed him all the way to the doorstep, giving Nate the feeling that the cat knew something he didn’t.

  “Are you ready?” Alban asked, turning to him.

  “Are you?” Nate asked.

  “I have nothing to fear.”

  “Should I have something to fear?”

  “I understand my fate,” Alban said. “I know where I come from, and I know where I will end up.”

  “Do you?” Nate asked. “Did Cara tell you of this?”

  “No, I just have a good idea,” he said. “I run a tiny farm north of Tel Haven. I come in to the city once a week to sell my goods. That is my life. There is usually only one ending to a man like me.”

  “And what kind of ending is that?”

  “A quiet one,” Alban said. “You, on the other hand, don’t even know where you are. You’re on the run from the law, yet you’re after another outlaw. Your end might not be so quiet.”

  “Perhaps my end isn’t as near as you seem to think it is,” Nate came back.

  “Let us hope it isn’t,” Alban said. “But at the rate you’re going, we both know it won’t be quiet.”

  Alban smiled when he said this, but it unnerved Nate so much that he took a step away from the porch and looked back in the yard. The cat that had been watching him from the fencepost was no longer there. He looked in every direction but saw no sign of the creature. It must have seen a mouse scurrying across the ground and gone after it.

  Alban knocked on the door loudly. The impact of his fist against the wood echoed through the house beyond, giving it a feeling of emptiness. Apart from the smoke coming out the top, it looked like the place was abandoned, but it took only a few moments before the door opened and the form of a woman stood in the crack. All Nate could see from the outside light was a nose poking through the shadows.

  “Who is it?” the woman asked.

  Nate wondered why she didn’t already know who had come knocking at her door.

  “Perhaps I do know, Nathaniel Cole,” the woman said, opening the door wider. The light revealed a woman about a foot shorter than Nate with wild black hair ruffled out in every direction. Her long nose gave her the appearance of a witch, but her clothing hung on her frame more like a gypsy. She was a good twenty years older than Nate, and perhaps ten years younger than Alban.

  “How did you know my name?” Nate asked.

  The woman shook her head. “What is it you want me to say? You already know why you’re here. Alban has already told you what I am. Do you want me to tell you that I’m a good guesser? Do you want me to tell you that Alban came here in the middle of the night and told me everything he knew about you so I could appear to be a better foreseer than I already am?”

  Nate looked sharply at Alban, but the old man shook his head.

  “Bah,” the woman waved her hand through the air. “I haven’t seen Alban in months.” She looked at him. “How are you, sweetie? Are the raccoons still giving you trouble?”

  “I told them if they didn’t stop stealing my crops that I would report them to the law.”

  “And you haven’t seen them since, have you?” she asked.

  “Not since, though they did start nabbing the crops of my neighbor a few miles up the road.”

  She looked at Nate. “Sometimes even the bright animals aren’t so bright.” She sighed, then her eyes traveled to the others standing on the porch. “By the Author!” she said with a smile. “Marum Rocha. It has been far too long.”

  Marum smiled and dipped her head. “It’s good to see you.”

  “And Rachel,” Cara sighed. “As lovely as ever, dear. I hope you’re still practicing your songs.”

  Rachel’s eyes flitted to Nate for a brief second and he smiled at her. Her cheeks turned a shade of crimson as she said, “It’s good to see you.”

  “Well, come in, come in. The air is brisk in this part of the woods. I wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”

  Nate looked at Alban and he motioned for him to follow Cara into
the house. Cara walked through, lighting candles along the way. The tiny, dancing flames ushered in a bit of comfort, making the house look more like a home than before. However, the furniture throughout was stiff and most of the pieces lacked cushions. The few pictures along the walls tilted unevenly. Chipped paint and holes in the walls revealed light from the outside. No wonder the house felt so cold. Cara led them to the living room where the dying coals in the fireplace were begging to be fed. She added two logs and stoked the fire, blowing on them until a healthy flame began chewing away at the dried bark.

  Cara warmed her hands for a moment over the fire then motioned for the four of them to have a seat behind her on a couch filled with patches. Nate and Alban took the ends while Marum and Rachel sat between them, Rachel nearest to Nate. “It’s too cold in these woods,” Cara said. “It can be a blazing summer everywhere else but feel like the first day of winter here.”

  “So, why don’t you move?” Nate asked. He felt a sharp poke in his ribs from Rachel. Nate looked at her, but she kept her stare forward.

  Cara turned slowly, looking Nate in the eyes as she pulled a chair close to the fire across from the four of them. “People don’t always have a choice of where they can stay. Many of us aren’t what you’d call conventional. If you can stand to live here in the wilderness, you are already too different to live among the normal in Tel Haven.” She turned her eyes to stare into the fire. “Besides, I like the cold.”

  The five of them sat in silence for a long moment. Rachel looked at Alban, hoping he would say something to Cara to get her started, but he only stared into the fire in front of them. Finally, Cara broke the silence and looked directly at Nate.

  “You aren’t the first person to come into my home asking for direction,” she said.

  “I’m sure they at least knew where they had come from,” Nate said.

  Cara smiled at him. “But you do know where you come from, Nathaniel. Just because others cannot understand where you come from doesn’t mean you don’t know how you got here.”