David Baldacci - The Keeper

“What is it?” I asked.

“Lack,” she said.

“It was my fault,” I said. “I’m the leader.”

“No,” she snapped. “It was my fault.”

“What!”

“You were saving us from that flame bloke. I had my wand. I could have saved him.” She looked at her boots. “But I didn’t. I froze. I bloody well froze. And now he’s dead. Because of me.”

She sat down on the ground and started to sob. Delph looked over at us anxiously, but I waved him off. I sat next to Petra, trying to think of something, anything, to make her feel better.

“Do you know why I came into this place?” I said at last.

Her weeping slowed and she said hesitantly, “To escape, get out.”

“No. I just wanted to know the truth. Where I lived, there was no truth. I wanted to find it in here.”

She looked up at me. “Why is the truth so important?”

“It’s the most important thing of all, Petra. Without it, we don’t matter. Nothing matters.”

I stood and held out my hand for her to take. “You saved my life back there. You saved all of our lives back there. That’s the truth. And now all we can do is keep going. That’s all. Lackland would certainly have wanted that. I think you know that.”

She slowly reached out, took my hand and stood.

We walked on, cautiously, every nerve and sense alert.

Then we saw that the shimmer had turned into something more substantive.

It was a wall. A bloody wall. Like back in Wormwood. Only this one was mostly transparent. But I knew it was also far more impenetrable than mere wood and straps.

What had Astrea told me? I strained my mind to think back to her words as she lay dying in her bed.

We build walls because we are afraid. We do not like change. We do not like it when others who do not look or think like us come along and try and change things. Thus we run from it. Or, even worse, attack it.

With those words in mind, I took a step back. This wall had been built to do two things: keep us in and them out. It was a stake driven right between two races that had fought a war. One was in hiding. One was on the hunt.

I had a sudden thought.

Was my grandfather out there? My parents? How would I find them? How would we help do what needed to be done?

I sat on my haunches and looked down at my wand.

I had exhibited resources and a pluck in the Quag that had often astonished me. In the midst of the violence of things trying to kill me, I had risen to the challenge and, with the help of my friends, survived, defeating foes that in truth should have vanquished us with little trouble.

Yet I also knew that I had never faced off with a fully trained Maladon who had grown up in the world of sorcery. And despite what Astrea had said about me having exceptional power, the truth was that I was young and inexperienced. And that could prove to be fatal at some point.

Delph squatted on one side of me, and Petra on the other. They both looked at me questioningly.

“What now, Vega Jane?” said Delph.

I pointed my wand at the shimmer and invoked the magnification spell. However, the spell failed me as it had at the Soul Takers’ temple. All we saw was exactly what we could see with our eyes. The shimmer, which reflected back our images and present surroundings, like a vast looking glass.

I pointed my wand at the shimmer and tried various spells. Petra joined me in the hope that our combined wands could accomplish what a single one could not.

Nothing happened other than the spells hit the wall and then simply vanished. For one intensely uncomfortable moment, I imagined that we’d come all this way, fought this hard, lost one of our members, only to be forever forestalled by this last obstacle. If sorcery could not overcome it, if the limited spells that I knew could not touch it, then what the Hel had this journey been for?

In my agitation, I kicked off and shot straight up higher, higher, as high as I had ever flown. And then I pointed my head forward and put on a burst of speed. I was repelled so fast when I hit the wall that I was tossed heels over elbows backward a good two hundred feet before regaining my equilibrium. I hovered there in the air. And then I looked down to see the others staring up at me.

“Stand back,” I called down to them.

I looked down at my wand, willed it to its full-size Elemental status, and hurled it at the wall. It glanced off, did a slow arc and flew back into my hand.

The Elemental looked undamaged.

But so did the wall.

I had never known the Elemental to fail me. Yet it just had.

I had no spells left to conjure. I had no weapons left to try against it. I had nothing left to throw at the bloody thing.

I slowly headed back to the ground and simply stood there staring up at the wall, wondering what to do. How could I beat it? I had been faced with many such obstacles. I had overcome them all. Until now.

I looked over at Delph and Petra. “Any ideas?” I said, readily conceding by my words that I was completely out of them. They shook their heads.

I wished Lackland were here to give me Hel for not knowing what to do. I needed to hear his taunts. And while Alice Adronis thought I would be the one to lead them in a renewed fight against the Maladons, I wouldn’t have followed myself to the High Street back in Wormwood.

I had never felt such depression in all my life. I could barely breathe. I could barely think. And what I did think was all as wrong as wrong could possibly be, to use my grandfather’s words. When I looked over at Delph, I could tell he knew exactly what I was thinking. But right now, he could not help me, no matter how much he wanted to.

Yet with all I was feeling, I had to smile when Harry Two licked my hand. I petted him. He licked some more. And then gripped my ring with his teeth. Then he sat back on his haunches and barked once.

“Quiet down, Harry Two,” said Delph.

But I put up my hand.

“Wait, Delph. He’s trying to tell me something.”

I looked at the ring and then I stared up at the wall.

My grandfather had left the ring behind and it had eventually found its way to me. Jasper had said that the hooks represented our mantra, everything we stood for. That was a powerful symbol, perhaps more powerful than I knew.

This ring could make me invisible. But could it do something else too?

I took a few hesitant steps forward and then kept going until I was right up against the wall. I reached out with my hand and first placed the mark on my skin against the wall.

I held my breath. Nothing happened.

I looked back to see Petra and Delph staring at me like I was nutters.

Then I turned back around and placed the ring against the wall.

I started to hold my breath. But never got the chance.

The wall instantly moved under my hand. It started to shimmer and wobble and pulse as if it had been turned into a liquid.

And then a slice in the skin of the thing opened up. I put my hands on either side of this opening and pushed. It opened farther like I was parting a pair of curtains. I thrust myself through the opening and plunged onto the other side.

A few moments later, Delph, Petra and Harry Two pushed through and joined me.

As we looked back, the opening closed up.

“Blimey,” whispered Delph.

I knelt down and hugged my canine, rubbing my face into his wonderfully soft fur. In the only ear he had left, I whispered, “You’re brilliant, Harry Two, absolutely brilliant.”

We all took a good long look around. Staring back at us was dark, blank countryside that looked like the landscape I had often seen in Wormwood. It didn’t seem frightening or inherently dangerous, as had every bit of the Quag. But I knew that it probably held perils that would dwarf those we had already faced. The absolute enormity of the moment seized me.