David Baldacci - The Keeper

I pulled it out.

The silver horn of the unicorn.

Without thinking, I pressed it against Lackland’s wounded face.

The solid horn liquefied and was absorbed, like the venom, right into Lackland’s skin. Then, with a gasp and shudder, he sat straight up so fast, our heads nearly collided. I jumped back. He looked at me; his eyes seemed to wobble in their sockets.

He said woozily, “What happened, Vega? Did we kill the thing, eh?”

Petra screamed and hugged him so hard, he fell back over.

I could think of nothing else but to throw myself on top and hug both of them.

When we all sat up, I saw that Lackland’s face was still scarred and swollen. Delph came racing over with Harry Two.

“Found it,” he said, holding up the Stone. He handed it to me along with my wand that he had obviously also found. I waved the Stone over Lackland’s face. While the skin healed some, it was still bad-looking.

I used my wand on him and the healing spell improved his face even more, though it was still scarred some.

I said, “Don’t worry, Lackland, we’ll get you back to your handsome self.”

He laughed. “Badge of honor, way I see it. Besides, a male can be too pretty, eh, Pet?”

She smiled and held up her damaged hand. “How about a female, Lack? Eh?”

“Go on with you, but it’s right better than being dead, I can tell you that.”

“Har,” said Delph as a finishing point. We all grinned.

I stood. “I think the Fourth Circle beckons,” I said, full of confidence now.

I should not have sounded so gleeful.

The Fourth Circle was where I was going to die.

The land in the Fourth Circle was curious — flat in spots, rising in others. We could make out crags of rocks and spiny ridges leading into the sky. Overhead were no stars, no Noc. I led us by the light of my wand.

We walked as far as we could and then made camp near a stand of tall willow trees. I was on the lookout for the slender thread of the Obolus River, which I knew ran through here, but I never caught sight of it.

We ate and Lackland offered to take the first watch.

Petra and Delph quickly fell asleep but, as usual, I found I could not, at least not right away.

I reached in my tuck and pulled out the map of the Quag that Quentin Herms had left me at my tree back in Wormwood and that I had reproduced on parchment.

There were some points about it that were right, spot-on actually. But many more were absolutely wrong. I thought back to the sequence of events that had led up to this map being in my possession. I had been in my tree when I heard the baying of the attack canines. I had seen Quentin going into the Quag. I had then gone to work at Stacks only to find a message from Quentin telling me to go to my tree that night. There I found that an extra board had been nailed into the trunk, behind which I had found the map.

I sat up. But the extra board had not been on my tree when I saw Quentin fleeing into the Quag. So he had to have come back out of the Quag and nailed the board there sometime later, but before I returned to it that night.

Then I wondered something that I never had before. Why had the Council been hunting Quentin down? Something must have triggered it. We had been told later that Quentin had broken laws but we were never told which laws. And Morrigone and Thansius had never really spoken about the matter to me.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out my grandfather’s ring. It had been found in Quentin’s cottage, so presumably my grandfather had given it to him. But why had he not given it to my father, his only son ?

What quality did Quentin possess that would have made my grandfather give him the ring instead? Was he simply a messenger, getting to me things that I would need? Was he doing my grandfather’s bidding somehow? If so, why?

I pulled out the parchment, tapped it with my wand and said, “Silenus?”

His image appeared instantly on the paper.

“Where are you now?” he asked somberly.

“The Fourth Circle.”

“The Obolus River.”

I nodded. “And Rubez the pilot. What can you tell me about him?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“Astrea said that he will demand payment to take us across the river, but she didn’t say what it would be.”

“I have of course never taken the journey, and have no scraps of knowledge from anyone who has.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered. “Does the river take us to the Fifth and last Circle?”

He shook his head again. “Alas, ’tis shrouded in mystery.”

“But there is a river, so I would imagine that there might be some water dwellers in it.”

“I would not be surprised if there were.”

“Hence the boat with Rubez to safely cross it,” I noted.

“I would imagine that safe passage across the Obolus would involve more than simply coin for a seat.”

“What, then?” I asked.

“It may very well cost more than you are willing to give, Vega. And then it will be up to you to decide. Such is the way of this place. It often demands more than one is either willing or able to give.”

And with that ominous comment Silenus was gone.

I slowly put the pages away in my cloak. What would I be unwilling to give up in order to cross the Obolus?

Petra had the last watch. I waited a few slivers after she left to take up her post, and, making sure that Delph and Lackland were asleep, I drew closer to Petra’s tuck. I knew what I was doing was in many ways wrong. But it was also what I needed to do right now.

I pointed my wand at it and muttered, “ Crystilado magnifica. ”

All the contents of her tuck were immediately magnified in front of me. I saw what I thought I would. My next incantation was spoken just as softly.

“ Rejoinda , wand.”

The wand flew from the tuck and right into my hand. When it smacked against my skin, I realized — too late — that it might burn me. But it didn’t. Perhaps it would do so only if I tried to cast a spell with it.

“ Illumina .”

With my own wand lighting Petra’s, I looked at it closely. It was made of wood far darker than mine. Technically, her uncle had not given this to Petra. Perhaps he would have, but he’d been killed before he could. She had simply taken it. But someone had given it to him. His father perhaps? I found what I was looking for on the base of the wand.

It was a part of a fingernail. I could make it out clearly against the wood.

Feeling a little guilty, I pocketed the wand, went back over to my bed and lay down. If Petra was my enemy, even though she had saved my life, I did not want her to possess a wand, a wand that could kill both me and Delph. But still, I did not feel good about it. There seemed to be no easy decisions in this place.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep, unsure if what I had just done was right or not.

Petra roused us when it was time to get up. This was a bit difficult to calculate since the sun didn’t rise here. I watched her closely as she gathered her tuck, but she never looked inside it. Thus, she was unaware her wand was gone.

When she did become aware, I knew she would immediately suspect me. How could she not? I was the only one who knew about her magical past with her uncle. But she had not told me that she had the wand. Thus, I doubted she would confront me about it, at least not in front of Delph and Lackland. I could tell she did not want them to know her secret. It was a foul tactic I was playing on her, but right now I could not afford any more surprises.

For three more lights and nights we rambled over the darkened landscape. One time we saw an inficio flying overhead and had to take cover in a cave. Another time, it was a pack of freks doing battle with a herd of creatures for which I had no name. The freks eventually won and lingered over the corpses constituting their spoils of victory. As they ate, we ran for it and were soon safely away.