The Keeper's Shadow (8 page)

Lumpy taps him on the head. “When we get to your old stomping ground, maybe you can show me? The book. I mean, as your…Lieutenant, I should see it, shouldn't I?”

Roan raises an eyebrow at Lumpy and the proud smile lighting up his face.

“Well, it'd be a start, wouldn't it? I mean if there's anything to it. The Friend being…a friend…in some way.”

Not knowing how to respond to Lumpy's openness to an alliance with a bloodthirsty god, Roan feels the impossibility of what he's attempting settle over him like a cloud. He barely remembers anything he said in yesterday's meetings. The future's tugging him forward, but he's not sure he's ready to embrace it. Everything seems so unreal, so unlike anything he's imagined. “How am I going to do this?”

Lumpy shrugs. “Just keep taking good advice and you'll be alright.”

“And how do I tell good advice from bad?”

“If it's bad, and you take it, I'll kick you in the butt—or stamp on your toe…or something. Okay?”

Lumpy at least seems real. Real and surprisingly unafraid. Real and a friend.

“Okay.”

THE PRICE OF DIRT

WHEN ROAN OF THE PARTING CAME TO US, AITHUNA COULD SMELL THE DEATH IN HIM. LITTLE WAS KNOWN THEN OF THE DIRT, BUT IT WAS CLEAR THAT IT WAS THE CAUSE OF HIS ILLNESS. AND AS AITHUNA CLEANSED ROAN AND THE MANY OTHERS WHO FOLLOWED, IT BECAME KNOWN TO HER THAT JUST AS ITS USERS RAVAGED THE DREAMFIELD AND MADE IT BARREN, SO THE DIRT DID UNTO THEM.

—THE WAY OF THE WAZYA

T
HE EARTH ERUPTS.
Snakes of light furrow up out of the cracked, bleeding ground, shrieking. A great needled mouth splits open the sky. The gyrating light-serpents tear into Stowe's body.

“Stowe. Stowe!”

Someone's come to help her. “Here!” she screams. “I'm here!”

“Stowe!”

But no one comes, maybe they didn't hear her. Before she can call out again, the snakes whip around her. Lacerating her flesh, they pull her closer and closer to two unblinking eyes swimming in mottled green gore. Each pupil rolls with nauseating independence in an opposite direction, penetrating her thoughts, insinuating itself into her mind.

Stowe!

Willum. Willum!
The monster's shaking her so hard she feels as if her head is about to explode.

Stowe!
The voice wraps around her and she floats in a cool bubble that expands and contracts with her breath, slowing it, calming her.

Opening her eyes, she sees Willum's worried face above her. “Was it Ferrell?”

White crickets are all around her, on her blankets, her pillow, clinging to the bedposts. “No. Not Ferrell. The nightmare. A mouth swallowing…calling out my name, and the eyes, the eyes…”

Gently propping up Stowe's head, Willum holds a glass to her lips. “Drink it all, you've lost a lot of fluid.”

Her pillows and sheets are soaked with sweat, even though one or another of Willum's Apsara friends comes in regularly to change them. Realizing how thirsty she is, she downs the water in one long swallow.

Willum places the flat of his palm on her forehead and a soothing warmth spreads through her, relaxing her. But the instant he draws his hand away, she feels as if every fiber of her being is moaning with discomfort.

“What's wrong with me, Willum? Why am I still so sick?”

Willum weighs his words carefully. “The crickets are containing Ferrell, but he draws what life he has from your spirit. It drains you and makes healing impossible. I've been doing my best to mask your presence, but he has weakened you to such a degree that something got through. Something powerful and…evil.”

Stowe cannot seem to prevent her body from trembling. “You think Darius has found me?”

“No. Not Darius himself…but it is connected to him somehow. I cannot keep you safe here. You need to be at the Apsara's true home; there the rock can shield you.”

“I thought we were going to Roan.”

“He is there, but the journey is long. I had hoped you could regain some of your strength before we continued but you're too vulnerable here to stay. We will leave. Today. Rest while I make preparations.”

Unable to bear his sadness, she turns away. Still, she can't help but hear the heaviness of heart in his every step as he leaves her.

Willum says her brother is with the Apsara; if Roan is there, then surely that is the safest place to be. Does Roan have dreams like hers, she wonders? Visions of a monster constantly seeking him out, wanting to consume him?

“No,” Mabatan snaps. She knew Willum would be proposing something unpleasant when he'd led her to the outskirts of the village's busy market. “What you are asking is dangerous. It's beyond my abilities.”

“Very little is beyond your abilities, Mabatan.”

“She is a Dirt Eater, Willum.”

“That door is no longer open to her.”

“I do not trust Dirt Eaters. I cannot.”

“Perhaps not. But you trust in the path. You must open yourself to what it offers, Mabatan.” Willum pauses to glance at a stand displaying stacks of antique photos and picture postcards. Mabatan knows he's waiting for her to agree. But she cannot guide the healer through the cleansing on her own. It is not possible.

Willum holds up a picture of a man and a woman posing in front of a gigantic tree. “These trees may return one day. We might stand before them like these two…if we defeat Darius.”

Mabatan takes the picture from his hand and gives it back to the vendor. “And what has our succeeding to do with the Dirt Eater?”

“Her name is Alandra. She is not evil, Mabatan. She was only a child when the Dirt Eaters found her. She was sick, alone, and afraid.”

“That is the past. Roan warned her, Willum; still she remained with them. And right now, there is so much Dirt in her system, it will be easy for the Dirt Eaters to walk in her dreams. What will she do then, Willum? What will she tell them?”

Turning to face her, Willum grips her shoulders. “That is what you need to discover. If you can find a way to trust her, Mabatan, then we can be sure she will work with us. She saved the Novakin once, gave up a great deal of her spirit to do it. She is linked to them, perhaps in ways we cannot understand. She is deep in her sickness, her behavior too erratic to make travel with her safe—and I must travel quickly if Stowe is to survive.”

Mabatan's father had warned her that trusting the path and allowing it to lead her would often be difficult. Perhaps the future will reveal truths that she now finds impossible to imagine…and she can see that Willum will not be swayed. She slowly nods her head in agreement. “I pray you both reach your home safely.”

Willum's smile is grim. “I have no choice. You too will accomplish your task, Mabatan. Because you must.”

“What do I do if she cannot be trusted?”

Willum takes her hand, drawing her closer to him. “That you must put in the hands of the Apsara.”

After he walks away, Mabatan picks up the picture of the giant tree. There is writing on the back. And though she cannot read it, she knows what the smiles of the people in the photograph are saying. “Look at us,” they say, “how can we be so small and this tree be so big? How can we be so young and it so old? Our flesh so weak, its wood so strong? And yet, despite all these things, we are its master.”

The Wazya have planted the seeds. Some, even now, are being tended. Neither she nor Willum will live long enough to see them grow so tall. But perhaps if they all follow the path with open hearts, these giant trees will thrive once again, the Masters of today long gone into the earth that will feed them.

Mabatan returns to the house where she left Alandra under Resa's watchful eye. The warrior is standing outside, leaning on the door. “No real problems, but—” says Resa, pointing out the mess of overturned food and broken bowls that was once Alandra's dinner tray, “she's as testy as they come.”

Shaking her head, Mabatan sighs. “I will need your help, Resa, over the coming days.”

“Whatever you need, just ask. Why aren't you killing her, anyway?”

“She is to be cleansed.”

“Ah,” says Resa knowingly, and laughs. “A fate worse than death!”

With a wry smile, Mabatan opens the door, muttering, “Yes, but for who?” And stopping just one step inside the room, she waits until the door locks behind her.

The room stinks of Dirt. Dirt and sweat. And fear. The healer's body is never still, never relaxed. She's been pacing so much she's worn a path on the hemp mat that covers the cellar floor. Kicking at the wall, the Dirt Eater cries out in frustration. “What do you want from me?”

Mabatan would much rather be anywhere else, in the company of man-eating Skree, for instance, than here beginning this, but she sits cross-legged on the floor, her ease a pointed contrast to the Dirt Eater's agitation. “I want you to be cleansed of Dirt,” she answers simply.

“What do you mean?” the healer demands, every word rising in desperation. “You took my Dirt. Cast it into the wind. Locked me in this room. How am I not cleansed?”

“Perhaps in a week you will be cleansed. Perhaps, not for a month. How often and how much you have taken the Dirt will determine your recovery. Until then, the Dirt Eaters can find you. You know this.” Mabatan notes the way the healer's left hand squeezes the fingers on the right, the way she looks down at the floor.

“They came into my dream.” Although barely above a whisper, the healer's words are clear. “How did you know?”

“It is what they do. What is it that they want?”

“Stowe. The children. Me. To go back. Back to Oasis.” Alandra slumps onto the floor. She seems exhausted, her tone defeated.

“What did you tell them?”

“That I don't have Stowe. That I have not discovered what happened to the children.”

Mabatan listens carefully to the beating of the Dirt Eater's heart. It is fast but steady. She is not lying, but she is being as careful with Mabatan as she was with the Dirt Eaters in her dream.

Mabatan speaks slowly so that her words might be heard and understood. “Dirt owns those who use it. And it will fight the body that does not remain true to it. You are a healer. Tell me your symptoms.”

The Dirt Eater puts her fingers to her neck and counts. “My heart rate—much faster than normal. And I feel weak, irritable, not myself. I thought it was just fear, but I'm not afraid now, and still my hands…” Holding them in front of her, the healer tries to steady their trembling. Mabatan can see the anxiety mount in her eyes when her effort fails.

Mabatan rises and takes the Dirt Eater's hands in her own. They are so ghostly pale and fragile. They could so easily be broken. “Did your friends ever tell you why they have no children?”

The healer looks at Mabatan, surprised. “There is a chemical in the caves of Oasis. As long as they stay inside, they age slowly but they can't reproduce.”

“So the Masters of the City,” says Mabatan, carefully picking her words, “battle old age, because they do not live in the Caves?”

“That's right.”

“But the Masters also have no offspring.”

Alandra shrugs. “That could be their choice.”

Mabatan focuses squarely on the healer. “It is because they eat Dirt.”

The Dirt Eater's eyes shut tight. When they finally open, they're blazing with fury.

Squeezing the healer's hands tightly, Mabatan pulls her even closer. There is so much this girl does not understand and so little time to explain. “The area of the Dreamfield that you, the Dirt Eaters, and the Masters of the City know is only one small country among millions. But what you have done in this small space has caused a rift that is destroying all. The children hold this rift together. They will do it for as long as they can, but time is short and we must act quickly. Willum believes you are needed. And so you must be cleansed. I will bring herbs to help with the discomfort.”

“Discomfort?”

“You will see.”

The healer's eyes still harbor suspicion. Mabatan understands her doubt; the task will be a test for them both. Not everyone survives the cleansing.

It is already dusk and the journey so far has been gloomy, exceedingly gloomy. Though Stowe is immensely grateful to the white crickets, it is difficult to get used to having…well…bugs, perched on her head and shoulders; plus she is surrounded by four Apsara. They talk incessantly with Willum, like old cronies, drowning her in idiotic banter.

“Unhappy, Stowe?”

Why does Willum have to sound so caring, so concerned? She hates that tone. That insistent, persistent, I-have-the-patience-of-mountains voice Willum so likes to use on her. “You neglected to mention a crowd would be accompanying us,” she says, her voice dripping with sweetness.

“This territory is plagued by Fandor, so I asked for an escort.”

Stowe can feel Willum's inward sigh. Now he's patronizing her! “We do not need the Apsara. You and I have more than enough power to defeat an attack.”

“Demonstrations of our kind of power are extremely unwise. It takes only one hidden observer to report back to Darius.”

She feels stupid suddenly. Why are her thoughts so muddy? Darius has spies everywhere. No one knows this as well as she. Darius, eyes sharp as daggers, hands like claws combing through her hair, Darius calling her. Daughter…daughter…daughter…

“Stowe. Stowe, listen to me. I am doing my best to block him, but it is exhausting us. It will be easier if you sleep. Sleep. When you wake, you will meet my family. My sister and my grandmother. We will be safe.”

She feels Willum's mind touching hers, soothing her.
Soon
, it says.
Soon you will be free of Ferrell. Soon you will be home.

As she drifts into sleep, she reaches to touch Willum's cheek. His face is wet with tears. Silly Willum. Whatever could he be crying for?