The Keeper

Triginta: A Surprise

“Wotcha, Vega Jane?”

I opened my eyes and glanced up. Delph was looking straight down at me.

“You okay, Vega Jane?” he said anxiously.

I automatically nodded, though I didn’t know if I was actually okay or not. I sat up slowly, trying to gather my wits. Harry Two put out a paw and gently touched my arm as if to make sure I really was all right.

I looked around. “Where are we?”

“Dunno for sure, but I figure right close to the Mycanmoor.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Over there,” he said, pointing to the right.

I squinted and in the darkness I could make out a high wall.

“The maze,” I said, glancing at him.

“What I figger. Yeah.”

My temper flared. “Why would she do this, Delph? Just send us here with no warning a’tall?”

“Dunno, Vega Jane. Suppose she had her reasons.”

Cataclysmic thoughts suddenly hit me. Our things? My wand! The Adder Stone. Destin. I looked wildly around and let out a breath of relief when I saw our tucks sitting side by side. I opened them and saw neat bundles of food and jugs of water. I looked down. The leather harness was strapped to my torso. On my thumb was my grandfather’s ring. I lifted my cloak. Destin was around my waist. I felt in the cloak pocket and my hand closed around first the Stone and then my wand. I took out the latter and gripped it loosely. I could feel it instantly become a part of me. I had done it so many times now that it felt natural and right.

“Do you think we have to be in the maze for the counterspell to work?” I asked.

Why hadn’t I thought to ask Astrea that? There were suddenly hundreds of queries to which I was sure I needed answers to survive.

“Might help to find the entrance before we do,” Delph replied.

We shouldered our tucks and started forward.

I pointed my wand up ahead and said, “Illumina.”

A bead of light shot out of my wand and hurtled toward the dark shapes that we took to be the wall of the maze, where it lit up everything in front of us.

An instant later, Delph and I could hear hooves smacking the ground and wings flapping and sharp cries of unknown creatures. I held my wand at the ready, unsure if I was about to encounter an army of hideous beasts. I hadn’t practiced such an eventuality with Astrea, and I doubted my ability to fight off a mass attack.

Thankfully, the sounds and chatter died down and were replaced by quiet.

I looked over at Delph. “Actually, I think I liked the noise better,” he said.

I agreed with him. It might have been only the weaker creatures that had fled the light. The ones that could kill us might be just ahead, waiting.

We moved forward, my gaze darting in all directions. I took a mental tally of my emotions for the signs of the wendigo — vague terror coupled with something else’s memories. But my thoughts, terrifying though they were, all seemed to be my own.

“Vega Jane, how about you use your wand to see what’s up ahead, eh?”

“Good idea.” I pointed my wand, made the proper motion and said, “Crystilado magnifica.”

Now directly in front of us was an enormous wall. A battlement, Astrea had called it. And it was made entirely of bones. It made the wall back at Thorne’s look puny by comparison. “I think we found the maze.”

“And there’s the entrance, I reckon,” he said, pointing to a dark, oval shape.

We marched on, drawing closer and closer to this image.

Before we got to the wall, we encountered a large wrought-iron gate that suddenly appeared in front of us. Written out in scroll were the words Wolvercote Cemetery.

“She didn’t mention a cemetery, did she?” I said. He shook his head.

Delph peered through the gate. “It’s a graveyard in there all right,” he exclaimed. He pushed on the gate, but it would not open.

I tapped the lock with my wand and said, “Ingressio.”

The huge gate swung back.

We passed through with Harry Two bringing up the rear.

We came to the first row of graves.

“Look at the names on them, Delph,” I said as I eyed them.

Mullins, Dinkins. And KRONE?

Jurik Krone’s ancestors were buried here? They let anyone in here, didn’t they?

Delph said, “Look, there’s a Picus and a Mulroney. And... and...”

His voice trailed off and I could see why.

The name on the lichen-stained gravestone was Barnabas Delphia.

He read the epitaph out loud. “Barnabas Delphia, loving father and devoted husband to Lecretia.”

“Did you ever hear of them from your father?” I asked.

Delph shook his head. “Never. Not once. I can’t hardly believe I’m seeing it.”

I left Delph standing there and moved down the row of graves. When I saw the name on the simple gravestone, I caught a breath and moved closer.

I looked down at the sunken mound of dirt and then back at the leaning gravestone. I held my wand up high and gazed at it. Alice had given me the Elemental on a great battlefield far, far in the past. She had done so with her dying breath, telling me that I had to survive.

I suddenly jerked because the wand had started to move in my hand. As I watched, shocked, it bent forward so that its point was directed at Alice’s grave.

I didn’t understand for a moment, but then I did.

The thing was bowing to her, its former mistress.

I felt the tears cluster in my eyes. But I also, for the first time, felt a powerful connection between Alice and myself. Astrea had said that Alice and I could be related, and that was why the Elemental worked as a wand for me. As I looked down at that sunken mound of dirt, it occurred to me that I had a great deal to live up to. Alice had evidently thought that I needed to survive for an important reason. I hoped I was up to the challenge that the Quag was certainly going to present.

The grave I saw next was that of my ancestor Jasper Jane, the creator of the Fifth Circle. His gravestone simply held his name with no accompanying description. A sorcerer steeped in dark magic, Astrea had said. I shivered when I thought about what he might have put in the final circle.

The next two graves also captured my attention.

Bastion Cadmus. His epitaph read THE ONE WHO LEADS US. The other gravestone read THE STRENGTH OF LOVE, THE FALLACY OF YOUTH. I could make neither head nor tail of that. The name on the gravestone was Uma Cadmus. I didn’t know if it was Bastion’s mate or perhaps his daughter.

“Vega Jane!”

I turned and saw Delph farther down another row of graves. He was frantically motioning for me to come. Harry Two and I raced over to where he stood.

“Lookit that, Vega Jane,” he said.

He was pointing at a number of graves.

I read down the list of names. I exclaimed, “They’re all Prines. This is Astrea’s family.”

“Too right. So if she knew about this place, why didn’t she tell us, eh?”

“So what else hasn’t she told us?” I asked. My belly felt like it was full of ice.

I was going to say something else, but I never got the chance.

Something had reached up through the ground, grabbed my ankles and pulled me downward, through the dirt and below to where the dead lay.