The Keeper

Quinque: Blood from a Stone

War? Against Wormwood?” exclaimed Delph. He stared over at Thorne like he wanted to rip him apart. “Are you nutters?”

Thorne gave him a withering look. “I can assure you that I am in full possession of my faculties, my brawny bloke.”

Thorne’s statement had hit me as hard as a collision with a garm. I felt sick to my stomach. Through my mind flashed the horrors that would result from what Thorne was planning. My village of Wormwood, all the places I knew so well, Stacks, the Care, Steeples, Council building, Loons, and my old family home, all lay in ruin. And starker still, I saw piles of Wugmorts dead from morta wounds. Even mighty Thansius and magical Morrigone.

Chiefly, though, I saw my brother, John, lying dead, his eyes frozen, his features still, his magnificent mind gone for all time.

With cold dread but a steely resolve I turned to Thorne.

“There is one problem,” I said firmly.

Thorne studied me, his eyes crinkling and an arrogant smile playing over his lips. “Oh, you think so?” he asked. “Do tell.”

“It’s a heavy problem,” I said cryptically, though I could tell he knew exactly what I meant.

“Oh, yes, indeed it is,” replied Thorne. “You’ve laid the mallet directly on the nail head, Vega. I can see that you’ve inherited the brains of your grandfather. You’re thinking of the mile-long rise we will need to reach the top of that cliff, eh?”

Delph said emphatically, “You can’t climb it. Not with all those mortas, cannon and ekos.”

“Quite impossible,” agreed Thorne.

“And ya can’t go to war without your bloody army,” Delph said, a triumphant look on his features.

“Well, I won’t have to, will I?” said Thorne patronizingly. “Let me show you.”

The room we now entered through a massive portal, which Thorne unlocked, was far larger than any we had seen so far. My gaze quickly flitted to what dominated even this enormous space.

“What in the Hel is that thing?” gasped Delph.

There was a huge structure, rectangular in shape and made of wood, that looked rigorously constructed. It reminded me of the water vessels fisher Wugs used back in Wormwood, only far larger. It could easily carry hundreds of ekos. Connected to its sides were long, stout ropes. But suspended over it, high in the air, was something that dwarfed even the mammoth wooden carrier. It was black and roughly the shape of a circle, though it was thinner at the base and wider at the top. The stout ropes from the wooden structure were connected to a frame that was in turn attached to this thing. It was flattened and suspended by other ropes from the high ceiling.

“That, my fine Wug,” said Thorne, “is the culmination of many sessions of work.” He waved his hand at it. “It is, in fact, an aero ship.”

Delph looked at him blankly. “An aero ship?”

“It flies.” He pointed up. “Aero. Up there.”

“How?” demanded Delph heatedly.

I could feel waves of anger rising off him. I gripped Delph’s arm tightly and looked at him, trying to calm him before he did something we might all regret.

Thorne motioned to the flattened, suspended object. “That is what I term a bladder. Once it is filled with heated air, the bladder will lift the underneath carriage quite easily. And I have fashioned certain controls that will allow me to guide its path. By my calculations, it will lift my army and all its equipment in a very few excursions. Then, we will make our way to Wormwood. Our triumphant march to Wormwood, rather.”

“But how are you going to get this contraption out of here?”

He pointed upward again. “Much as the hole you fell in? Well, we have dug up to the top there, though it’s well covered now. The hole we have fashioned is far large enough for my aero ship to be launched through.”

“Why do you want to attack Wormwood?” I asked fiercely. “You’re a Wug.”

“Well, the truth is I didn’t choose to leave Wormwood. I was forced to leave.”

“Really?” I snapped. “And you, such a nice bloke and all.”

“Enough,” he barked, his mad eyes narrowing. “I’ve told and shown you all that I plan to. I require answers from you. And I will have them now!”

He grunted several times and Luc brought over Destin, the Adder Stone and the glove. “It’s your turn to speak.” Thorne grunted once more and we were surrounded by bow-and-arrow-wielding ekos. Half took aim at Delph, the other half at Harry Two. I couldn’t defend them both at the same time. I had no choice.

Delph gazed at me. I could tell he knew what I was going to do. He shook his head, but I ignored him. If I lost Delph, there would be no point going on anyway.

“The chain allows one to fly. The stone can heal wounds.”

He looked suitably intrigued, if a bit skeptical of my words.

“Indeed? And the glove?”

“I had the pair but I lost one when we were running from beasts in the Quag. It has no powers,” I added, which was perfectly true.

“Well, let’s try one out, shall we?” he said.

He grunted a few more times, each one louder and more authoritative than its predecessor. Several ekos shot forward and picked me up clean off the ground.

“Stop!” shouted Delph, but he and Harry Two were instantly surrounded by a wall of armed ekos.

I shouted, “It’ll be okay, Delph.” I knew what I was going to do.

The ekos carried me back into the room where the mountain of rock and the miner gnomes were located. Thorne followed us, as did Delph and Harry Two, at the sword ends of the trailing ekos.

Thorne tossed the chain to me. “Now prove your statement,” he said.

I wrapped the chain around me even as the ekos clambered up the mountain of rock, carrying me all the way to the top. They were strong and their grasses scratched and irritated my skin. We reached a ledge at the very top of the rock. The ekos set me down. I heard grunts from below. Thorne was obviously giving his final instructions. The git needn’t have bothered. I wasn’t going to wait to be forced off the ledge.

When a pair of ekos reached out to me, I pushed them away so hard they fell back against the rock wall. “Bugger off!” I cried out.

I looked down at Thorne with as much defiance as I could possibly muster, which wasn’t hard.

And then I jumped.

I soared straight downward. I looked at no one other than Thorne. I wanted him to see the revulsion on my face. He looked stunned, which ordinarily would have made me smile. But my anger was such that all I could do was stare daggers at him as I fell. At the last instant, I lifted my head and shoulders and pointed my arms upward. I soared over them and then lifted up, up, up, until I landed back neatly on the ledge.

The ekos all drew away from me.

I looked triumphantly at Thorne.

He smacked his hands several times by way of applause and then beckoned me to join him below. I jumped once more and landed nimbly right next to him.

He looked at me slyly. “From where did you come by such a remarkable thing as that?”

“You know Stacks?” He nodded. “It has rooms that are secret. I found it there.”

He looked lost in thought for a moment. “And Stacks was not always what it is now.”

“That’s right. Did Julius Domitar tell you that?”

“Alas, Domitar and I did not see eye to eye on much.”

“Well, my respect for him just increased a hundredfold.”

“You would do well to hold your tongue, Vega,” he said, sounding dangerous. He pointed to Delph. “Say you are sorry for disrespecting me.”

“I’m sorry.” However, my stubborn features, I know, betrayed this as a lie.

“There is a price to be paid for lying to King Thorne.”

He grunted to the group of ekos and before I could react, it happened.

One of the ekos shot an arrow into Delph’s thigh. He screamed and toppled to the rocky ground, holding on to the shaft that had suddenly sprouted from his limb.

“Delph,” I screamed.

I rushed to him. Blood was pouring out of him far too fast. I ripped off part of my sleeve and used it to try and stanch the bleeding. But it kept pouring out. Delph’s face turned chalk white and he stopped screaming. He sank flat to the floor.

Harry Two stood in front of us both, his fangs bared as though daring any of the ekos to come closer.

“Oh, Vega?”

I turned to look at Thorne. He was casually holding up the Adder Stone.

“Might you want to try this? Your purported healing rock?”

Now I knew why he had Delph shot. As a way to prove that what I had said about the Adder Stone was true. As well as to punish me for my disrespect.

I held up my hand. “Toss it here, quickly.”

“Sorry, I don’t think that was quite what I was looking for,” he said smoothly, his manner unhurried.

Swallowing both my pride and anger, I said in a pleading voice, “Please, King Thorne, might I have the Stone to help my friend? Please, O King?”

“Now, that’s better. See what a bit of respect and politeness can manage?”

He threw the Stone to me. I caught it and instantly waved it over Delph’s leg, thinking good thoughts. Not only did the wound heal, the arrow slid free from his thigh and dropped to the rock without a smidge of his blood on it.

Delph’s breathing returned to normal, though he was still deathly pale. He slowly rose from the floor.

“ ’Tis okay, Vega Jane,” he said, but the fear was evident in his eyes. “Thanks for doing the Stone over me.”

In a breathless voice I said, “Don’t thank me, Delph. It was my fault you got shot.”

When I turned, Thorne was right next to me.

“What did you have to do to cause such a cure?” he asked.

“Don’t tell him, Vega Jane,” shouted Delph. I looked over at him. Again, I had no choice. A dozen arrows would be flying at Delph if I didn’t.

“You wave the Stone over the wound and think good thoughts.”

“Does it work on all living things?” he asked eagerly.

I knew why he asked this. He would want it to heal the ekos in case any were injured during his attack on Wormwood.

“I’ve used it on my canine.”

“Can it bring back the dead?”

“No,” I said emphatically. “Nor can it regrow limbs that have been lost. I tried that once and it didn’t work.”

“Pity,” he said, snatching the Stone from me. “But still, it has its uses, I’ll grant you that. You will of course teach me how to fly with the chain.”

I was about to scream out, The bloody Hel I will, you king of the gits, but I refrained. I might just take an arrow to the head. “It will take time,” I said evenly. “It’s not easy to train someone up to fly.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re going anywhere. Ever again.”

Despite the clear menace behind his words, I breathed a bit easier, though I didn’t let my features express this. At least we would be allowed to live, until we could figure out a way to escape this place.

Thorne made sure to pocket the Stone and the ring.

He did not, however, take the glove. When he wasn’t looking, I slipped it into my cloak. From out of the corner of my eye, I caught a gnome staring at me as I did this. It was the same bandy-legged creature that had fetched the bucket for Thorne. At first, I thought he was going to tell on me, but he just looked at me stonily before turning away to jabber with one of his mates.

I marched along behind Thorne with Delph and Harry Two at our heels and the brigade of armed ekos bringing up the rear.

Delph whispered, “Why’d you tell him about the bleeding Stone? And show him what Destin can do?”

“Delph, he would have killed you if I hadn’t.”

“So?”

I was so stunned I stopped walking. A prod in the back from an ekos made me start up again, but I looked at Delph in astonishment.

“You wanted to die?”

“I want you to survive, to get through this here place.”

“I’m not getting through it without you,” I replied heatedly.

“I’m not that important, Vega Jane. Not really. You’re the one what needs to live. Like the female what gave you the Elemental said.”

“Not important?” I hissed back. “You’re all I’ve got, Delph. I can’t go through the Quag without you. I won’t.”

His face grew red and he looked away. I knew Delph so well that I understood he was searching for the right words to say back to me.

“Well, neither will I,” he said. “Both or nothing, eh?”

“Yes.”

He drew closer to me. “Then what I’d do is get him up high-like with Destin and when the bloke least expects it, drop the prat.”

I nodded slowly. This plan was certainly tempting. But if we killed the king, what might his minions do to us?

Thorne led us back to the room where we had dined. Lit torches still lined the wall. He sat at the table, drew a knife, sliced open his finger and then waved the Stone over it and, I supposed, thought good thoughts. The wound instantly healed.

He smiled. “We will begin the flight lessons next light,” he said. “You will be taken back to the cage until then.”

Thorne was intelligent, crafty, vain and mercurial. A difficult combination to corral, but I needed to try. “Surely you have sufficient guards to watch over us without resorting to that,” I said. “You’ll be invading Wormwood soon enough with your mighty legions. Compared to that, I doubt that the three of us will pose much of a challenge. We are totally in your power.”

Thorne rubbed his beard while I stood there watching him. I could hear Delph breathing heavily next to me, no doubt wondering if another arrow would soon be finding its way into his body because of more insolent remarks from me.

However, my plan worked and we soon found ourselves back in the room where I had slept.

The ekos left the three of us there, but I noted that a pair of them was stationed right outside the opening to the room.

I sat on the wooden pallet with Delph next to me. Harry Two sidled up to me. As I petted him, Delph said in a low voice, “It’s not enough for us to escape this place, Vega Jane. In his blasted aero ship, Thorne can fly right over the Wall.”

“We’ll never let that happen, Delph. Never!”

“So you got a plan?” he asked eagerly.

“Um, it’s forming right now in my mind,” I said lamely. I lay down on the pallet. “I just need to sleep on it is all.”

“Sleep!” exclaimed Delph incredulously. “Are ya daft? How can you think of sleep with all this goin’ on and all? I’ll not sleep a wink. Nae a wink!” he added emphatically.

“Brilliant, then you can keep watch.”

I closed my eyes, and Harry Two settled down next to me.

As I expected, shortly thereafter, I heard Delph’s soft snores. He was stretched out on the hard floor next to the pallet, sound asleep. His features were peaceful. I doubted that would last, but I was glad he could have that feeling for now. I pulled the blanket off the pallet and covered him with it.

I took another look at Delph’s features and, despite our desperate circumstances, I felt myself go a bit willy. He was very tall, about six and a half feet, with huge shoulders, long dark hair, a wide forehead that crinkled when he was embarrassed, which was often, and eyes that were deep and brooding. He was so brave. And, well, just such a good Wug. He had never let me down. Never!

And then my heart felt like it had been split in half. Delph was expecting me to have a plan, to lead him and Harry Two out of here. And also to save Wormwood from the mad king. Yet I had nothing. I was not a leader. I was a loner. I had always been a loner, more comfortable up my tree back in Wormwood with only my thoughts as companions. But now...? I felt crippled by the absolute certainty that I was going to let both Delph and Harry Two down.

I lay back on the pallet knowing full well that sleep would not be coming for me.

I had no plan. And without a plan, we had no chance to survive.