David Baldacci - The Finisher

“Well, I mean.” I drew a long breath. “It’s all rubbish, I know.”

“Well done.”

“So whose castle was it?”

“I am not the one to answer that because I don’t know.”

“If you know it was a castle once, how can you not know whose castle it was?” I demanded.

“One can possess some shallow perspective without the depth of true knowledge.”

I fumed over this for a sliver. “All right. So has the Quag always been the Quag?”

He refilled his glass, sloshing the flame water onto the surface of his desk. He took a quick drink, dribbling a bit down his chin. “The Quag? The Quag, you say? I know nothing of the Quag for the simple fact that I have never been in the Quag, I will never be in the Quag, and I thank the holy Steeples for that.”

“So in Wormwood, you are destined to stay and die?”

“As we all are.”

“Not Quentin Herms.”

“No, the Outliers got him.”

“Now who is talking rubbish?”

He set his glass down. “Do you have proof otherwise?” he asked sternly.

“I aim to get it.”

“Vega, if you’re planning to do what I think you’re —”

“I think that she is, Domitar. I most assuredly do.”

I whirled around at this voice. Little Dis Fidus stood in the doorway, a rag and a small bottle of liquid in hand.

“Hello,” I said, not understanding what he had meant by his words. How could little, old Dis Fidus know anything of my plans?

He shuffled forward. “I am happy for your victory in the Duelum this light.”

“Thank you, but what did you mean —”

However, he had shifted his gaze to Domitar. “We knew this moment would come of course. We needn’t a Selene Jones prophecy to know that.”

I looked at Domitar as he slowly nodded. “The time has come, I suppose.”

Dis Fidus held the rag to the bottle and doused the cloth with the liquid. “Hold out your hand, Vega,” he said.

“Why? What’s that stuff on the cloth?”

“Just hold out your hand. Your inked hand.”

I glanced at Domitar, who slowly nodded at me.

I tentatively held out my hand. My gaze was drawn to the blue skin on top, the result of two sessions of having Dis Fidus stamp my hand for no reason.

Dis Fidus said, “This will not occur without some discomfort. I’m sorry. It is unavoidable.” I drew back my hand and looked at Domitar, who would not meet my gaze.

“Why should I endure the pain?” I asked. “What result will come of it?”

“It will be much less painful than what’s in the Quag if you have the ink on you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Nor should you,” said Domitar. “But if that is your plan, it is essential that the ink comes off.” He shut his mouth and turned to the wall.

I looked back at Dis Fidus. I held out my hand once more, half closed my eyes and prepared for the pain. He touched the top of my hand with the rag and I felt like a thousand flying stingers had attacked the surface. I tried to jerk my hand back but I couldn’t. When I fully opened my eyes, I saw that Dis Fidus had gripped my wrist with his hand. He was surprisingly strong for being so small and old.

I moaned, clenched my teeth, bit my lip, screwed my eyes shut and swayed on my feet. When it got to the point where I could stand it no longer, Dis Fidus said, “’Tis done.”

He let go of my wrist and I opened my eyes. The back of my hand was scarred and pink and sore. But there was not a trace of blue on it. I looked up at him as I rubbed it with my other hand. “Why did that need to be done?”

“You have of course wondered why I spend my lights inking hands here,” said Dis Fidus. I nodded. “Well, now you have the answer. Simply put, to go through the Quag with an inked hand is a death sentence.”

“So Quentin Herms, then?” I said bitterly.

I looked from Domitar to Dis Fidus. Each shook their heads. Finally, Dis Fidus said, “If he went through the Quag with his hand as ’twas, I fear for him.”

“So you don’t believe that Outliers took him, then?” I said, a sense of triumph in my words.

Dis Fidus’s look told me that was unnecessary. “Surely, you have moved on from that theory,” he said in a voice I had never heard from him before. Gone was timid, bowing Dis Fidus. He still looked old and feeble, but there was a fire in his eyes I had never seen before.

“I have,” I answered.

“Then let us waste no more time speaking of it,” said Dis Fidus with finality. He corked the bottle and handed it and a fresh cloth to me. “Take this.”

“But my hand is clean of ink.”

“Take it nonetheless,” he urged.

I put them away in my cloak. “So what is the ink, then? How is it harmful to us?”

“In the Quag, it is like honey to stingers,” answered Domitar. “Or the scent given off by a female slep in need of a male.”

“So it draws the beasts right to the Wugs,” I said fiercely. “A death sentence clearly,” I added accusingly. “And you knew about it!”

“Wugs are not supposed to go into the Quag,” said Domitar defensively. “And if they don’t, the ink marks are meaningless to them.”

“But what if the beasts come out of the Quag?” I said. “A garm came after me, chased me up my tree. And now I know why, because of the marks on my hand.”

Domitar looked guiltily at Dis Fidus before continuing. “No system is perfect.”

“And whose system was it?” I asked.

Surprisingly, Dis Fidus answered. “It has always been so, that I know. And there is no Wug alive whose sessions tally to mine.”

“What of Morrigone? Or Thansius?”

“Even Thansius is not so old as Dis Fidus. Now, Morrigone is a special case, you understand,” said Domitar.

“Oh, she’s special all right!” I exclaimed.

“She’s not an evil Wug, strike that right from your mind right this sliver,” said Dis Fidus with startling energy.

“I’ll think she’s evil if I want to, thank you very much,” I retorted.

“Well, you would be wrong, then,” said Domitar wearily as he sipped from his glass. “Wugs and Wormwood are not so easily categorized.”

I exclaimed, “What are we, then?”

Domitar answered. “In one sense we’re Wugs, plain and simple. What we might have been before, well, it’s for our ancestors to say, isn’t it?”

“They’re dead!” I shot back.

“Well, there you are,” said Domitar imperturbably.

“You talk in a circle!” I exclaimed. “You tell me Morrigone isn’t evil and expect me to believe that. She was controlling Ladon-Tosh. She was the reason those jabbits were inside him. She couldn’t control them. She had to beg me for help in slaying them.”

To my astonishment, this did not seem to surprise either of them.

Dis Fidus merely nodded, as though I were simply confirming what he already suspected.

“Yes, it would be difficult for her,” said Dis Fidus in a nonchalant tone.

“For her?” I shouted. “What about me?”

“Some Wugs have duties passed down,” explained Domitar. “Morrigone is one of them. Before her, it was her mother’s responsibility to see to Wug welfare. And that is what she was doing this light.”

“By trying to murder me?”

“You are a danger to her and to all of Wormwood, Vega, do you not understand that?” said Domitar in exasperation.

“How am I a danger to her? She pretended to be my friend. She let me think Krone was my true enemy. And she was trying to kill me in the Duelum. Why?”

“That is something you must discover for yourself.”

“Domitar!”

“No, Vega. That is my last word on the subject.”

I looked at them both. “So where does that leave us?”

Domitar rose and corked his flame water. “Me still safely in Wormwood and you apparently not.”