David Baldacci - The Keeper

“Who said that I was?” she replied instantly.

Suddenly, I read all in her look. How I had so misjudged her I didn’t know.

Delph gave voice to what I was thinking.

He leapt up, grabbed my arm and yelled, “Run, Vega Jane.”

Before I could even rise from my chair, she pointed her wand at Delph and said, “ Elevata .”

Delph soared up into the air, stopping right before he hit the ceiling. She gave her wand a bit of a wiggle and he spun upside down.

I stood, my eyes wide and my heart racing. “Stop that!” I screamed. “Don’t hurt him. I’m the reason we’re here. Leave Delph alone. Please!”

Astrea flicked the wand downward, uttered one word, “ Descente ,” and Delph turned right side up and fell heavily into the chair.

Astrea laid her wand upon the desk and stared at both of us expectantly.

“I may not be what I once was, but let me assure you, my powers are still far beyond your comprehension.” She paused, and I knew what she said next would have monumental impact on us. I was not mistaken.

She said, “You shall remain here in my custody.”

“For how long?” I snapped, though I well knew the answer.

“For the rest of your lives,” she said calmly. “It gives me no great pleasure to do this. You are obviously brave, and your motives are genuine and deeply felt, I’m sure.”

“But?” I exclaimed.

“But as Keeper of the Quag, I have a job to do, and I mean to do it. Now, you will have the run of the cottage and the land inside the dome.”

“And if we try to get past the dome?” Delph asked.

Despite him asking the question, Astrea’s gaze held on me. Her eyes seemed to swell to match the size of the room. “Not pleasant,” she said. “A’tall.”

I really couldn’t believe what was happening. We had escaped Thorne and his bloody kingdom only to be imprisoned once more by this cow! And while Thorne was dangerous, he wasn’t magical. Astrea, to my mind, was a hundred times more formidable than the git Thorne.

Astrea rose, and without another word, she left the room.

I slumped back in my chair. Delph, however, remained rigid in his.

“She is a sorely tried female,” he observed.

“ She’s sorely tried? What about us? We’re going to be here until we’re bloody well dead.”

“Lot of sorrow in her, Vega. Easy to see.”

“I think she’s evil!”

“She’s not like Thorne. He woulda just killed us and put our bones on his wall. Not keep us fed with a roof over our heads.”

I supposed Delph was right about this, though our bones would end up here eventually, I thought miserably. “Well, Astrea said we had the run of the cottage and the land inside the dome.”

“So what do we do with that?” asked Delph.

“We are not staying here, Delph. Thorne couldn’t stop us and neither will Astrea Prine. We are escaping this place.”

“Okay, but how do we do that?”

“I say we start with Archie.”

Delph and Harry Two followed me down the hall. I opened the door to the room and walked in. We gathered at the side of the bed and looked down.

I said solemnly, “This is Archie Prine, Astrea’s son.”

Delph gazed at the shrunken man in total bewilderment. While I had explained to Delph about the elixir, it was altogether something else to see it for yourself.

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed.

“Hello, Archie,” I said softly, hoping to rouse him gently from his sleep.

He stirred and his eyes slowly opened. He blinked, but though he’d seen me before, no recognition came to his features.

“I’m Vega. And these are my friends, Delph and Harry Two.” Archie kept his gaze on me. I bent lower. “We’ve come to stay with you and Astrea.”

“Y-you... h-have?” he croaked.

I nodded. “She told me about you. And her. And this place.”

“Sh-she... did?”

I nodded again. “She said you’d grown tired of taking the elixir.”

“S-sacrifice.” He shook his head and when he tried to sit up, Delph and I helped him. Now he was looking at us from a far more comfortable position.

I nodded knowingly. “Sacrifice,” I said. “And the Battle of the Beasts. And Bastion Cadmus.” I was saying these things in the hopes that something would jog Archie’s memory.

“Load-a t-tosh,” he said. “Beasts? P-piffle.”

“That’s right. Astrea said so too. She said there was a war, though. She said one side lost and the other won.”

Archie gasped and pointed to the bedside table, where sat a cup of water. Delph grabbed the cup and handed it to me. I helped Archie drink from it, wiping away some drops that dribbled into his beard.

He sat back and cleared his throat. “Ma-Mal-Maladons.”

“Maladons?” I said, shooting Delph a glance. “So you fought them?”

He nodded and a tear slid down his cheek. “F-fought. And l-lost. W-we... lost.”

Delph exclaimed, “You mean your lot got beaten?”

Archie slowly nodded. “Fled here. H-hiding. M-mice in a h-hole.” In a moment of anger, he turned and spat on the floor before resettling against his pillow. “C-cowards.”

Delph and I exchanged disturbed glances. I said, “And you knew Bastion Cadmus?”

“Our l-leader. K-killed.”

He swallowed funny and then started to cough. I gave him some more water.

“D-dad wanted to keep f-fighting. B-but M-Mum...” He shook his head. “B-bloody K-Keeper. What’s th-the p-point. Bloody Keeper. S-sacrifice. What’s the p-p-point?” He looked up at me with pleading eyes. “E-eh?” he said. “Eh?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. He closed his eyes and a moment later we heard his gentle snores.

We rose and quietly left the room.

When we got to my room, Delph, his eyes as big as saucers, said, “Blimey! Bloody Maladons. War and killin’.”

“And hiding,” I added. “Like mice in a hole.”

“What?”

“Don’t you get it, Delph? They created Wormwood as a hiding place. Because these Maladon blokes were trying to hunt them down. And they conjured the Quag around it to keep them out.”

“And to keep us in ,” Delph added. “Like the Wall round Wormwood.”

We looked at each other. I’m sure what I saw in Delph’s features mirrored my own — complete and utter despair.

I said, “Astrea wanted to know about Virgil. What he was planning, whether I had talked to him.”

“How could you when he’s been gone since you were a wee thing?”

“He’s a powerful sorcerer. An Excalibur, in fact. Which means he’s always known everything, including things Astrea has withheld from us.”

“Blimey, I guess that explains a lot. So what do we do?” asked Delph.

“Keep learning things. It’s all we can do, for now.”

“But if we’re never to leave here, what does it matter?”

“The truth always matters, Delph.”

That night during a sumptuous meal that Delph and I lingered over, I drew up the courage to ask Astrea a question.

“Can you show us Wormwood? In your Seer-See?”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously as she took a sip of her tea.

I glanced at Delph, who immediately attended to his custard. He might’ve been thinking about Astrea sticking him to the ceiling.

“Well, since we’re going to be here forever and everything, it would be nice to see our home.” I added quickly, “I don’t suppose you’d let us go back there. We’d promise never to enter the Quag again.”

I was lying of course. I would never stay in Wormwood, not now.

She set her cup down. “Let you go back to Wormwood? Knowing what you do now? Do I look barmy to you?” She glanced down at her wand, which lay beside her plate. “Although, I could wipe away your minds of course. Then you could return. Would you like me to do that?” She raised her wand.