David Baldacci - The Finisher

I rose and held the Elemental tighter. What was I to do with the thing? It was as tall as I was. I couldn’t carry it around Wormwood. I couldn’t really hide it.

And as though the thing could read my mind, it shrunk down to the size of an ink stick. I stared at it, dumbstruck. And yet it seemed that I was growing accustomed to inexplicable things happening to me as they mounted in number.

It occurred to me that I had not returned to Eon even though he had said time travelers did. Yet then again I was not supposed to be seen, heard or harmed while I traveled back in time. I looked at a burn on my arm. Well, I had been seen, heard, injured and nearly killed.

I touched the burn and pain shot all the way down my arm.

“Oi, Eon,” I called angrily out to the air. “You need to rethink your rules of time. They’re a bit dodgy.”

I took out the Stone, waved it over my wound and thought good thoughts. The pain eased some, but the burn did not heal fully. I sighed resignedly and put the Stone away.

“Figures,” I said to myself. “I guess this is a burn from the past that the Stone can’t sort out all the way. Thanks loads, Eon.”

I walked along, thinking about so many things that I finally couldn’t think at all. My head truly felt like it would burst at any moment.

Bloody Hel, Vega. Bloody, bloody Hel.

I SPENT THE NEXTfew nights practicing my flying with Destin and my tossing with the Elemental. During the lights, I kept the Adder Stone and the Elemental hidden under a floorboard at my digs. Destin always rode around my waist. I would never dream of removing it at this point because I never knew when taking to the skies might save my skin.

The next light, I was walking along the forest path to my tree before Stacks when I was confronted by Non wearing his metal breastplate. I looked behind him and there was Nida, who no longer guarded Valhall. The prisoners had been released and then bound into servitude to help build the Wall. But Nida had his shuck with him, and the great beast was growling and snapping its immense jaws.

Harry Two started snapping his jaws and growling right back. My canine had grown surprisingly fast since I had taken him in. His chest, neck and legs were thick and powerful. I put a hand down in front of his face and Harry Two immediately sat on his haunches and grew silent.

Non and Nida paired together were bad enough. But next to Nida was Cletus Loon holding his morta and sporting a malevolent grin.

Non held out a hand. “Pass parchment.”

I gave it to him. He flicked a gaze over it and then flung it back at me.

He leaned down and said, “What are you doing, female?”

“What I’m doing is I’m going to my tree to eat my first meal,” I said, holding up my battered tin box. “Would you like to see for yourself?”

I shouldn’t have made the offer because Cletus snatched the tin from me and opened it.

“Good stuff in here,” he said. He pulled out a hard-boiled egg, popped it into his mouth and swallowed it whole. The next instant, he was on the ground holding his belly because that’s where I kicked him.

Non snagged my arm to hold me back. “We’ll nae have that.”

“He just stole my food!” I shouted.

Cletus was on his feet now and appeared to be about to point his morta at me. But Nida smacked him in the head and sent him sprawling again. Nida never said much, but when he hit you, you knew it.

Sprawled on the ground, Cletus moaned in pain and grabbed his head. “What’d you do that for?”

“Simmer down, Loon,” advised Non. “Or he’ll have the shuck on you next and then you’ll be begging for a clubbing on the head ’cause a shuck don’t club, it bites.”

Cletus stood, looking embarrassed, his cheeks red. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I didn’t care about Cletus. I snapped, “I’ll be coming round and taking that egg from your meal portion at the Loons.”

“The Hel you will,” he shot back. “I was testing it to see if there was something in it what shouldn’t-a been.”

I pulled my little knife and smiled wickedly. “You want me to check your belly then, to make sure?”

Cletus leapt back, got his feet tangled and fell on his head. Non roared with laughter and the shuck growled at the sudden noise, but Nida held him back on the chain. I grabbed my tin off the ground where Cletus had let it fall.

Non gripped my arm and leaned in close. “One lucky strike nigh means nothing, female,” he whispered in my ear. I glanced at the dent I had made in his breastplate but said nothing. He continued. “Krone has told me the lay of the land. You and Morrigone. She will nae always be there to protect you.”

I ripped my hand free. Around my waist Destin felt on fire. “I didn’t need her to do that , did I?” I shot back, pointing at the dent.

Before he could say anything else, I hurried on my way. I didn’t like being stopped by Wugs with mortas. I didn’t like having my stuff male-handled and my food eaten. I didn’t like that lout Non threatening me. But that seemed how Wormwood was going to be from now on.

I reached my tree, gave a searching look around to make sure no one was watching, picked up Harry Two, gave a great leap and landed neatly on my planks.

We sat and I divvied up our meal. I was parceling out the small harvest from the little garden I kept next to my tree. My crop was not much. A few vegetables, some lettuce leafs, a bit of basil, parsley and witch’s ear, which brings heat to any food you might make. But I was supporting myself and living on my own.

Still, I was worried about the fact that Krone so obviously wanted me in Valhall. I had to protect myself from discovery because I intended to keep practicing with Destin and the Elemental. I had studied the map of the Quag on my skin every night. I now knew it by heart. I had to keep the Adder Stone and the Elemental a secret, obviously. It was fortunate that the Adder merely looked like a stone. And the reduced Elemental could have been an ink stick. Destin was a chain. Unless they saw me flying around with it, there was no cause to throw me in prison over it.

That’s when I sat bolt upright.

The book. Quentin’s book of the Quag. I needed to study it as closely as I had the map. It would give me valuable information about creatures in there, information I would need to survive. I couldn’t believe I had neglected it this long. I had to rectify that as soon as possible. Without the book, I could not flee this place. And this place, I now promised myself, I was going to flee.

That night after I finished work I snuck from my lodgings, leaving Harry Two sleeping, entered the forest, looked to make sure no Wug was around and then I started sprinting and leapt into the air. I caught an updraft of wind and soared high. The breeze sailed through my hair and over my body. It felt cleansing, like I was taking a long bath under the pipes.

I reached the Delphias’ property in record time and dropped to the ground with little sound. The creta Duf had been working on was gone now, taking its muscle to the building of the Wall. The whist hound was nowhere to be seen. The young slep was still here being trained up proper for a place on Thansius’s carriage. And the adar was also here and asleep, its leg still attached to a peg in the ground. But its vocal cords and speech capabilities, I was sure, were much enhanced since my last visit.

In the darkness and with very little Noc to guide me, I suddenly realized I had a problem. I couldn’t remember where I had buried the book. I walked past each pine tree, examining the ground underneath for the little pile of needles I had placed over the hole I’d dug. Of course, after all this time, the little pile of needles had been blown away by the wind or else carried off by creatures to construct their nests. I was cursing myself again for being so blindly stupid, when I heard it. Or rather, heard him .