David Baldacci - The Keeper

“No!” I screamed, as Harry Two leapt from Delph’s arms and directly at the wendigo, which was so close now that I could see its ghoulish, transparent shape nearly next to me.

I snagged Harry Two with my hand and redoubled my speed, leaving the wendigo behind, at least for now. When I looked down at Harry Two, I gasped. Part of his left ear was missing. While Delph held on to my leg, I put my canine in his harness, snatched the Adder Stone from my pocket and waved it over the spot where Harry Two’s ear had been. The stone could not regrow parts of the body, but it ceased the bleeding. And my canine seemed all right otherwise.

“Left, left!” screamed Delph.

I hung a left so sharp that our boots smacked against the trees.

“Right, then another right,” directed Delph.

I did as he said. I marveled that he had apparently memorized the maze from looking at it for only a few moments.

He kept barking out directions and I followed them. But the wendigo was still behind us and I intended to do something about that right now.

“Hang on, Delph,” I said, lifting up his hand until he was able to clutch part of the harness that was keeping Harry Two affixed to my chest.

I pointed my wand behind me and cried out, “ Embattlemento .”

Then I went into a dive. The wendigo managed to avoid the spell shield by veering to the left, but it had allowed me separation. I flipped over so that I was flying on my back, made the mark of the X in the air with my wand and shouted, “ Omniall .”

The light hit the wendigo directly on its transparent chest and then it literally went berserk. It immediately spun out of control and slammed into a wall of the maze. I watched it plummet and crash into another section of the wall. It kept doing this over and over, its mind and thus sense of direction gone, until it fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, dead.

I turned back around and soared off.

Twenty slivers later, following Delph’s directions, we shot free of the maze and into the open air. I quickly landed and detached Harry Two from his harness. I immediately hugged my canine and gingerly touched the spot where part of his left ear had once been. It pained me as much as Delph’s arm.

But when I looked over at Delph, he was grinning broadly. And when I focused on Harry Two’s features, I could see the mirth in his mismatched eyes.

“We did it, Vega Jane,” exulted Delph. “We made it through the First Circle.”

Suddenly, my wand was snatched from me.

“But it’ll be the last thing you do,” said a deep voice. “Or me name’s not Lackland Cyphers.”

The large bloke who had taken my wand was holding an old rusted but still deadly sword. His companion, a female, held a crossbow loaded with an arrow pointed at us.

Lackland Cyphers had a short black beard and long hair the same color, but his eyes were a bewitching shade of green. He was dressed in old clothes and a pair of dirty, calf-high boots. His features were handsome, but also haggard. He looked to be about twenty sessions old.

The female was around Delph’s age. Like me, she was tall and thin, with wiry forearms revealed because her shirtsleeves were short and ragged. Her face was lovely but dirty. She had on muddy canvas trousers and lumpy, torn boots that were near the end of their useful life. Her hair was the color of corn and wildly pitched in the swirling wind. She held her wooden crossbow with a practiced hand.

“Who are you?” I asked, eyeing my wand in Lackland’s hand.

“Now, I should be asking you that,” he blustered.

“I’m Vega Jane. This is Delph and my canine, Harry Two.”

Lackland nodded in turn at the other two and then looked back at me.

“Now tell me who you are,” I said.

“I told you me name, Lackland Cyphers.” He pointed to the female and said, “And this is me fellow Furina, Petra Sonnet.”

Delph said, “What’s a Furina?”

“I just told you,” said Lackland sharply. “ Us . Where do you come from? Another part of this place, no doubt? Eh?”

“You mean the Quag?” I said, mostly to get his reaction to the term.

“Where else?” He held up my wand. “What is this thing?”

“What does it look like? It’s a stick.”

“Liar!” snarled Petra.

I glanced at her curiously. She seemed awfully sure of herself. But maybe she was always so disagreeable.

Lackland barked, “And does this stick allow you to fly, then? Eh? Because we saw you up there.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“What, then?”

“I just can . Can’t you?”

Petra said, “Lack, we shouldn’t be out in the open this long. Let’s just take what we can and get on.”

“Did you see the wendigo?” I asked.

Both of them stiffened. Lackland said, “A bloody wendigo?”

“It was after us. We had to kill it.”

“You... you killed a wendigo?” said Petra. Her hands trembled.

“It was either kill it or let it kill us,” I said. I looked around. “This is the Withering Heath, the Second Circle.”

“Heaths and circles? Gibberish,” said Lackland.

“Maybe to you, but not to us,” barked Delph.

“Where are you headed, then?” he asked.

“Out of here,” Delph said back.

Lackland looked at him cross-eyed. “Er you daft? There’s no such thing.”

“There is such a thing and we intend to find it,” I chimed in.

When I glanced at Delph, he was staring fixedly at the pretty Petra.

I felt my face instantly flush.

Petra looked at our tucks on the ground. “What do you have in there? Food?” She took a step toward them.

In a flash, Harry Two leapt in front of our tucks and started growling, his long fangs bared.

“Call that thing off,” ordered Lackland.

“Why, so you can nick our stuff?” I shot back.

“We’re Furinas; that’s what we do, steal,” said Lackland.

“Why?” Delph asked.

Lackland looked him up and down. “Why do we steal? Well, it’s a bit of a bloody nightmare surviving round here, mate, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“Born to it,” said Petra.

“Don’t tell ’em nothin’,” snapped Lackland.

“Why? Are you ashamed or something, Lack?” she retorted.

Before Lackland could reply, Delph said in a calm voice, “We were born in Wormwood, which is surrounded by this place. It’s a little village. Very poor. I worked at the Mill lifting stuff. Vega Jane worked at Stacks making things.”

Petra scoffed, “Poor, eh? You look fed and cleaned proper to me.” She wasn’t looking at Delph when she said this. She was gazing directly at me!

I stared right back and said icily, “That’s because we spent time with Astrea Prine at her cottage back there.” I added in a more neutral tone, “Do you know her?”

They both shook their heads, and I believed them.

“Are there others like you?” Delph asked.

Lackland’s gaze fell, but Petra said sternly, “Used to be. We’re all that’s left.”

I said, “But you’re not that old. Where are your parents?”

“Dead,” barked Lackland. “Dead and gone.”

“It was beasts,” said Petra. “A while back. We lived in a village too, a proper one, not that far from here. Furinas have lived here for, well, forever, I guess. Used to be a lot more of us. A lot more. But over time, the beasts round here just... just...”

“I’m sorry, Petra,” said Delph earnestly. This drew a surprised glance from Petra. I think she might have even blushed! For some reason, my hand curled to a fist.

Petra continued. “The last time they attacked us, they killed everyone. Except us. We’ve been on our own since then.”