David Baldacci - The Keeper

“It’s the same mark as on this ring.” I took it from my cloak pocket and showed it to her. “It belonged to my grandfather,” I added warily.

“So he had this ring? You’re absolutely certain?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t about to tell her that it could make me invisible.

She studied the ring for a few more moments before pointing at my hand. “That’s only ink.”

“I know, because I inked it,” I replied promptly. “My grandfather had the same mark on the back of his hand, though it wasn’t simply inked.”

She waved her hand over mine and the mark vanished.

I stared down at my clean skin and then back up at her.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“No.”

I knew she was telling an untruth, which made me ever warier of her.

Before I could ask another question, she walked over to a large blank wall and Harry Two and I scurried after her.

She raised her hand and an astonishingly bright light blasted from it and hit the wall a direct blow. I immediately squatted down and shielded my eyes from what I thought would be a terrific blast emanating from the collision of wall and light. But there was no explosion. I opened my eyes and stood.

And gasped.

The entire wall had come to life. If the little table in the other room was impressive in what it had shown me, this spectacle was like a mountain versus a knoll by comparison. Every inch of the great wall, which must have measured fully fifty feet in length, was now ablaze with images, moving images.

Astrea turned to me and said simply, “The Quag. In all its glory. And in all its depravity, which runs deeply. Very deeply indeed.”

When I had first seen the extent of the Quag from the top of the plateau where Delph, Harry Two and I were chased by the garms and amarocs, I had been gobsmacked by its breadth and dark, sinister beauty. I had thought I was seeing to the very horizon of the Quag, but I apparently had been wrong about that.

As I watched, spellbound, I could see herds of unknown creatures bounding across open plains and up rugged ridges. Flying creatures, some I knew, most of which I didn’t, soared across a sky that was as black as a lump of coal. Trees trembled and creatures crept and I could hear sounds, some gentle that tickled my ears, and others fiercely foreboding that gnarled my nerves and chilled my courage. I saw the majestic peak of the Blue Mountain. And there was the dark river that snaked across the face of the Quag to places unknown and probably hostile. With a thrill that reached all the way to my toes, I thought I saw a small boat with something or someone inside it, slowly making its way across the water’s wide, blackened width. That image vanished and was replaced with a frek devouring what looked to be a goat. And then a creature stepped from the trees into the clearing and came into full view.

It was tall and powerfully built, and though it stood on two legs like I did, it had fangs and claws and long, straight hair over its body.

I glanced quickly at Astrea. “What is that ghastly thing?”

“ ’Tis a lycan,” she said.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Its bite makes you become like... it .”

We watched as the lycan, with a tremendous leap that covered yards of dirt, attacked the frek. There was a furious battle, for they seemed fairly equally matched. Yet finally the lycan won out and its fangs bit deeply into the frek’s neck. The latter howled in pain and fury and then, bloody and beaten, it broke free and fled into the trees.

The lycan stood there, dripping blood from wounds inflicted by the frek, and then it reached its clawed hands to the darkened sky and roared in triumph. It was a terrifying spectacle to witness and yet I found I could not look away.

“The frek’s bite drives one mad,” I said in a hollow tone.

“The lycan is already mad, Vega. A frek’s bite will not make a spot of difference to its tortured mind.”

A long sliver of silence passed. “What is beyond the Quag?” I asked.

“Why did you enter the Quag?” she asked me once again.

“I don’t see why that matters,” I said stubbornly.

She looked back at me impassively. “The difference between what I think matters and what you think does could likely fill a bookcase.”

“Do you know what’s beyond the Quag?” I persisted.

I glanced at her in time to see her face seize up like she was in pain. But before I could say anything, she replied, “It is late. And I’m very tired.”

“Well, I’m not tired,” I said in a strident tone.

“I will show you your digs and then you can stay up or sleep, as you like.”

“And I can go where I want? I mean inside the cottage?”

“You can go into any room that will let you. Mind you, not all of them will.”

I looked at her like she’d gone completely mental. “The room mightn’t let me?”

“Rooms have opinions,” she said. “And feelings too.”

“Feelings!” I exclaimed.

“Feelings I said and feelings I meant,” she reiterated forcefully, and then turned and strode away.

I hurried after her, wondering what madness awaited me in this place.

My digs turned out to be a large oval room with not a stick of furniture in it. I turned to Astrea and said, “It’s all right. I have no problem sleeping on the floor.”

“Now, why would you do that, I wonder?” she asked.

I gazed around the room to make sure I had not somehow missed a hulking bedstead lurking in a corner. “Well, I’d need a bed to—”

Harry Two and I jumped back to avoid being crushed by a mammoth four-poster that seemed to drop from the ceiling.

“Bloody Hel,” I cried out, my chest heaving and my limbs quivering. Harry Two started barking madly until I held up one hand and he instantly quieted.

“One must be careful what one asks for, at least in my cottage,” said Astrea casually, as she fluffed up the pillows. She turned to me. “Or at least move quickly on one’s feet, as you did, my dear,” she added benignly.

“B-but where did that bed come from?”

“It comes from wherever such things exist before they’re needed. And it saves no end of cleaning time to have the things go away while they’re unnecessary.”

“So,” I said, “you simply ask for something and it appears?”

“I told you, did I not, that rooms have views and opinions? Does it not logically follow that they can hear what you say?”

“Well, a stout wardrobe would not be unwelcome for my things.”

I was ready this time. I had already jumped out of the way when an oak wardrobe with two big doors and a drawer underneath landed with a thud against a wall across from the bed. As I stared at it, the doors opened, and inside were nice cubbies and metal hooks for hanging clothes.

Astrea gave me an appraising look. “I see you’re getting the gist of things.”

“Should I wish for a table and chairs?” I said, ready to jump.

However, they simply appeared in the corner of the room with a lighted candle in the center, burning brightly. I looked at her inquiringly.

“There’s no rule that all things must drop from the ceiling,” she said. “Now, are you hungry? I daresay things can be scrounged up in the kitchen. It does an excellent trifle, in fact, if you fancy such.”

I shook my head, though in truth, as usual, I could have used something in my belly. “I’m full up. You can toddle off to bed while I put my few things away.”

She looked at me curiously but also intently. A bit too intently, I thought.

“Well... if you’re... sure?” she said in a drawn-out way.

“Quite sure,” I replied, perhaps a bit too quickly. “And we’ll go for Delph at first light?”