David Baldacci - The Keeper

The vines instantly turned brown, shrank and collapsed.

But I wasn’t done yet.

“ Confuso, recuso .”

The maze straightened out.

“Run, Delph. Come on, Harry Two.”

We rushed past the dead vines because I had no idea if new ones would take their place. We ran and ran until, although we were not out of the maze, we had to stop, bend over and suck in long breaths to replenish our lungs. When I looked up, I was glad we had stopped. But that was the only thing I was glad about.

The manticore was barely twenty feet from us, barring our way.

The conjured image back at Astrea’s did not do the creature justice.

It was twice as tall as Delph and three times as broad. It must have weighed a ton. Its lion’s head had a full mane of tawny fur; its serpent’s tail swished across the ground. The goat’s body in the middle did not seem substantial enough to merge these two fierce creatures.

Mesmerized by all this, I never saw it coming.

“Look out, Vega Jane!”

Something hit me and knocked me down.

The blast of flames passed over us an instant later.

I had forgotten that the bloody beast could do that.

I looked over to see that it was Delph who had pushed me down. And saved my life.

I sat up, pointed my wand at it and prepared to send it to Hel.

Only it wasn’t there.

Blast, that’s right. It can read minds.

Harry Two barked. I whirled.

The manticore was behind us, barely five feet away.

It roared and flames shot at us, but I had acted at the same moment, not giving the thing time to read my mind, which was racing like a runaway horse.

“ Embattlemento .”

The ball of flames hit my shield spell, ricocheted off and hit the wall of the maze.

A skull hit me in the head and I realized that the bones had come back. Other bones toppled down around us.

I raised my wand and pointed upward. “ Embattlemento. ”

The skulls hit the shield and bounced off.

But I had taken my eyes off the manticore. Where was it?

There it was, to my left, closer to Delph.

I raised my wand to blast it, but then it was gone again. The bloody thing could move faster than my eye could follow.

It reappeared on my right.

“Hey,” shouted Delph. He was waving his arms at the manticore. He picked up a skull and hurled it at the beast. It shot out a lungful of flames and the skull disintegrated.

“ Impacto! ” I screamed, my wand pointed straight at the manticore.

The thing was blasted off the ground, soared backward and slammed into the wall of bones behind it. It slid down the wall and lay still. And dead.

“You did it, Vega Jane,” gasped Delph. He was kneeling on the ground, holding his arm.

The walls on either side of us shook and then started to tumble down.

“Harry Two,” I screamed and struck the harness. He leapt and I attached him to it. I grabbed Delph and took to the air. We soared along, dodging and spinning past bones, skulls and other debris. Chunks and pieces still hit us, but I kept my gaze resolutely on the end of the maze.

And then a tower of bones collapsed in front of us and the small square of black that I knew represented the end of the maze disappeared.

I pointed my wand and shouted, “ Engulfiado .”

The bones were blasted out of the way by a tidal wave of water and we soared through. I landed too fast and we all sprawled on the ground. I unhooked Harry Two from his harness and stood.

“Delph, you okay?” I said urgently.

When he didn’t answer, I looked at him. “Delph?”

He turned his face to mine. It was a sheet of pain.

“Delph, what is it?”

I ran to him, then stopped dead when he held up his arm.

“G-guess it got m-me.”

The manticore had gotten him. His left arm was burned nearly black; the skin was bubbled and cracked.

I immediately pulled the Adder Stone from my pocket, waved it over his arm and thought good thoughts.

“Thanks, Vega Jane,” he said. “Pain’s all gone.” He stretched his limb.

Well, the pain might have been gone, but the arm was still blackened. The skin was still popped and cracked like meat kept too long over the flames. When Delph followed my gaze and saw the state of his arm, his face turned pale.

“Delph,” I said. “I’m sorry. I guess the Stone can’t fully...” I could not finish.

“ ’Tis okay, Vega Jane,” he said softly. “No more pain. That’s what’s important, eh. Like you done for me dad. Even if it don’t look... if it don’t look so good no more.”

I felt tears creep to my eyes, but his look told me they were unwarranted.

He gripped my arm. “We’re alive, Vega Jane. We’re ALIVE.”

He opened his tuck and slipped on another shirt.

I looked around as the walls of trees sprouted on either side of us, soaring up so high they seemed to touch the sky. In a few moments, we were totally engulfed in another maze.

“Oh no!” I said, my spirits plummeting. I drew my wand and prepared to say the spell that would straighten the maze, when I started to feel funny. No, funny was the wrong word. I was feeling terrified . But what was making me terrified were things that I knew had not happened to me. I was a beast and then something was tearing me apart. I was a bird and I was being devoured. I was transformed into a hideous lycan and then I was disemboweled.

With a rush, my mind cleared.

A wendigo!

I looked behind us and there it was, soaring straight at us.

I grabbed Delph’s hand at the same time he scooped up Harry Two.

“Go, Vega Jane. Go!”

We shot upward until we had nearly cleared the maze’s treetops. Then I pointed us forward. I looked back. The wendigo was right behind us. The skylight spear and the resulting thunder-thrust hit so close to us that it nearly knocked us out of the sky. And I knew why.

I was flying over the Quag. The storms had arisen to stop me, as Astrea had said they would.

“Delph!” I screamed. “I can’t fly up here. The storms will stop me. We’ll have to go back into the maze.”

Delph had been gazing down from his high perch. “Before you drop, light up the maze down there,” he called over the punishing noise of the storm.

I had been glancing behind us to see the wendigo gaining, but I did what Delph asked.

“Illumina.”

The maze was suddenly brilliantly lighted. I saw Delph run his gaze over all of it. Another skylight spear hit a tree directly behind us. The force of the collision sent shock waves out that tumbled us across the air.

I lost my grip on Delph’s hand, and he and Harry Two fell away from me.

At the same instant, my mind was filled once more with the terror of another. When I glanced back, the wendigo was within twenty feet of me. The storm seemed to have no impact on the ghastly thing.

I forced my mind to clear and shot downward into the darkness, scanning everywhere for the falling pair.

“Illumina!”

I saw them and blasted toward them, the crown of my head pointed nearly straight to the ground. I had never gone this fast before and still it didn’t seem it would be fast enough. I was convinced we were all going to die and the bloody wendigo would feast on us.

I put on a burst of speed at this thought, reached out my hand and snagged Delph by the back of his shirt. Harry Two was still in his arms. I started to head back up, but Delph cried out, “Keep in the maze, Vega Jane. Keep in the maze.”

I looked at him and then back at the wendigo, which was still right on our tail.

I could feel my mind seizing up with terror, none of it mine, but that didn’t make it any less horrible. I must have slowed down because I heard Harry Two let out an enormous growl that made every hair on my neck stick straight up.