The Keeper

Tredecim: The Cottage of Astrea Prine

The storm had grown in intensity. Even with my goggles, I was flying half-blind. Yet Seamus was holding the ball of blue fire out in front of us, and the rain and wind had no effect on it.

“That way,” roared Seamus over the fury of the storm that caused me to roll uncontrollably every few slivers. He pointed to his left and I veered that way.

“How much farther?” I yelled. From his earlier words I imagined the cottage to be far closer.

“Well, it’s moved, ain’t it?” said Seamus.

“That’s bloody wonderful!” I shrieked.

“Down there!” he suddenly shouted.

I looked through my fogged and smeared goggles and beheld a sight that even in the Quag seemed extraordinary.

It wasn’t a cottage. It was a dome of emerald green. And it didn’t seem solid. It was... well, it looked to be simply a glow, like a pulse of a huge heart. But it was unmistakable and it shone clear through the utter madness of the stormy darkness.

I shot downward and saw a landing path next to a small stand of ash trees. I swung my legs down and touched feetfirst. I could hear Seamus mutter, “Never again will me feet leave the ground, so help me, hobsey.”

I freed Harry Two from the harness as Seamus gingerly climbed down from his perch on my shoulders. We three stood there staring at the green glow. I looked at the hob.

“So how does one get in?”

“Tricky, tricky, dearie, dearie.”

I whirled on him. “If you start that load-a tosh with me again, you’re going to see a dicky fit, Seamus the hob, that you will never bloody forget!”

His face fell and he said tersely, “All right, all right, don’t wad your knickers. Follow me.” We strode single file toward the glow. We stopped within a foot of it and even in the dark I could perceive the outline of a structure within.

“The cottage?” I said, glancing down at Seamus.

He nodded and said with a heavy breath, “The cottage.”

“What now?” I asked.

I watched as Seamus took a tentative step forward, but then he stopped and turned to look back at me.

“Well?” I said expectantly. “Budge along.”

“Give me a mo’,” he said. “Why are you in such a bleedin’ hurry anyways?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe because we’re standing in the middle of a raging storm IN THE BLOODY QUAG!”

“Okay, okay, I sees your point.” He took several deep breaths.

“Oh, for the love of Alvis Alcumus!” I walked straight into the green glow.

“Oi! Wait!” he shouted.

Harry Two instantly followed and we passed clean through. I turned and looked back at Seamus, who was jumping up and down and gesticulating madly. I reached back through the greenish glow, gripped his hand and pulled him through so he stood next to us inside the emerald dome.

I let go of his hand and stared down at him. His eyes were scrunched closed and he was shivering like he’d been pitched into icy water.

“Uh, Seamus?” I began.

He made a frantic motion for me to shush. Then, little by little, he opened his great, bulbous eyes and stared around. When he realized where he was, he exclaimed in a scolding tone, “Now look what you gone and done.”

“You brought us here.”

“But I didn’t tell you to just barge right in. Why, when I think what coulda—”

“What exactly was I supposed to do?” I interrupted sharply.

“Why, you barmy git, wait while I got things sorted out, that’s bloody what.”

“Well, they’re sorted out. We’re inside. Now, where’s the cottage?”

I had been looking around, but the outline of the structure I had seen from outside the green glow was no longer evident from inside it.

He pointed to his left. “Let’s try over there.”

“Try over there?” I said blankly. “I thought you’d been here before.”

“Well, I have. I mean I been to the green glow, o’course.”

“Wait, are you telling me you’ve never been inside the green glow?”

“G’on with ya, what cheek. Why, I ask you.”

“I am asking you. How many times have you been inside the green glow?”

He looked upward and seemed to be counting off something in his head. He held up a solitary finger. “Well, countin’ this time, it comes to, um, one.”

“One!” I roared.

He leapt back at my shout. “Well, did you give me a chance? No. You just charged on in. Coulda killed us all.”

“So when I walked through the green glow, I could have been killed?”

“And on your head it would have been too.”

“Oh, bugger off!” I cried out, and went in search of a cottage that may or may not contain a “nice” female who might or might not eat us the sliver she laid eyes on us.

“You’re a right shonky git, Seamus,” I called back over my shoulder.

“Trog!” he yelled back.

“Pillock,” I screamed in return before hurrying along. Then I stopped. I had just realized something. It was not raining in here. I looked up. There was no storm. No wind. I felt like I was walking along a heated path. It made me feel... comforted. We kept walking and cleared a knoll. When we raced down its other side, I saw it.

The cottage. It had a thatch roof, mortared stones for walls and an oval solid-wood door with a light shining through the small square opening at the top of it. There was a short, crazy-angled flagstone path that led to the door.

Gathering my courage, I stepped up onto the block of old blackened stone that formed a rough porch and looked cautiously through the window in the door. Then I suddenly leapt back off the stone and stood there shivering. The door had opened, apparently all by itself.

When I thought things could not get stranger, I heard an imperious voice.

“You may enter,” it said. I looked around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. Still, the voice hadn’t sounded particularly threatening. I looked behind me once more and there was a goggle-eyed Seamus standing barely ten feet away. The bloke looked ready to vomit. I probably looked the same.

“It said to enter,” I told him nervously.

“W-well, then y-you b-best do what it s-says, eh?”

“Are you coming?” I demanded.

He puffed out his chest and said in a strident voice, “I think I’ll keep watch out here, dearie, dearie. Don’t want nothing sneakin’ up on you, does old Seamus.” He gave a crisp little salute.

“Prat,” I muttered under my breath, and then I let out a long, resigned sigh. Of all the hobs I could run into, I had to run into this one.

I stepped forward into the cottage, Harry Two right next to me. As soon as we had done so, the door swung closed and I heard a lock click into place. I grabbed at the door handle and tried to open it. But even though I had Destin around my waist and my strength was greatly enhanced, the door wouldn’t budge.

I turned back around. “Hello?” I said, first in a low voice that could barely be heard even by me. Then I said more loudly, “Hello!”

Nothing.

I looked around. The furniture I saw — a table, a chair and a cupboard — was all small and low to the floor, which was wooden and looked about a thousand sessions old. There was a large clock on the wall whose hands never stopped moving. They whirled around and around the face of the clock. I drew closer and saw that the hands were actually two black snakes inexplicably hardened. Then, when I saw that the face of the clock was actually the flattened countenance of a garm, I leapt back and nearly upset the table, on which was a plate, a cup and utensils all made from tin.

Maybe the female here was actually evil. Maybe Seamus had tricked me. I promised myself if I got out of this cottage alive, I would strangle him.

Gathering my nerves, I said sharply, “Oi, is anyone about in this ruddy place?”

I nearly jumped to the ceiling when it, or she — I wasn’t exactly sure what — appeared directly in front of me.

Harry Two barked once and then went silent. I grabbed my chest to try and push my heart back into its proper place. “Holy Steeples,” I panted, bent over, all my breath suddenly gone. “Where the blazes did you come from?” I wheezed.

She — now I was sure it was a she — looked back at me. She was small, barely taller than Seamus, which put her at right about my belly button. She was young, maybe twenty sessions, and her black hair hung limply around her shoulders. Her face was oval and her nose, eyes and mouth all small and finely drawn. Her expression was one of mild curiosity mixed with indifference, which struck me as quite odd. I mean, how many Wugs did she have turn up in her digs with a canine in tow? She wore an emerald-colored shawl over a long black cloak.

She kept staring at me with that same curious yet ambivalent expression.

“I’m Vega,” I said. “This is my canine, Harry Two.”

She looked first at me, then at Harry Two, and then her gaze returned to me.

“I am Astrea Prine,” she said, in the same voice that had told me to enter.

“Seamus the hob told me about you and your cottage. I need you to help me find my friend, Delph.”

“Delph?” she said questioningly.

“His full name is Daniel Delphia but everyone calls him Delph. He’s out in this storm. There was this dark cloud and it covered us and he was gone and...”

“Why did you venture here?” she said sharply.

“I don’t have time to explain. Delph is out in the storm and I’m worried about him. I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

She suddenly turned and left the room, this time using her feet.

We hurriedly followed her into the next room, which was far larger than the first and, indeed, appeared much bigger than the entire cottage had looked from the outside. In the very center of the room was a round table.

Astrea strode over to it with quick, short steps and then stopped. We followed. On the table were two identically sized pewter cups. And in each cup sprouted an emerald flame.

“What’s that for?” I asked curiously.

She pointed to the cup on the left. “The Quag,” she said, and then she took from her pocket what looked like sand and threw it on the flames. They instantly shot much higher. Then she tipped the cup over and the flaming liquid spread across the tabletop.

“Look out!” I exclaimed, reaching out to smother the fire with my cloak.

A moment later, it was as though I had run into an invisible wall. I was frozen, my outstretched hands inches from the molten liquid.

“There is no need, Vega,” she said, pointing to the tabletop.

The flames had vanished and the water had spread to engulf the tabletop, with the exception of the other cup, which the water did not touch.

“This is a Seer-See,” she said. “A prophetical eye.”

Confused, I looked down at the tabletop and my breath seized in my lungs.

It was as though a picture, a moving picture, had formed on the table. I scanned it frantically for Delph.

“Amarocs,” I said sharply. There was a herd of them in full gallop. They jumped and leapt and galloped and swerved around obstacles with a grace I could barely imagine. They would be beautiful to look at if they weren’t so murderous.

“Can you see what they’re after?” I was terrified that the something was Delph.

She waved her hand once more and the image leapt ahead of the amarocs. It was a herd of deer. But they were all as white as snow. They were fast, but the amarocs seemed to be gaining.

“The amarocs are swifter than the deer,” I said worriedly.

She nodded. “But as you can see, ’tis no matter.”

I glanced back at the Seer-See and gasped. The deer were no longer there. In their place were little bits of light that flew into the air and then disappeared, leaving the amarocs rushing around in all directions and roaring in fury.

“What happened to the deer?” I said.

“They were not deer.”

“Then what were they?”

“Fairies having a bit of fun at the expense of the amarocs. And more’s the better, I say. Bloody troglodytes.”

“Can you see Delph on this thing?” I said impatiently, my insides frozen with thoughts of what might have happened to him.

She waved her hand over the tabletop once more.

I caught a breath when I saw him, but then let it out slowly and with relief.

Delph was fast asleep in the huge crook of a towering tree whose canopy was so thick that not one drop of rain could penetrate it. I could see that he had used a bit of rope to secure his perch. That way he could not turn in his sleep and tumble down.

“Is he safe?” I asked worriedly.

In answer, she reached in her cloak pocket and drew something out. She lifted up her hand and let the things she’d drawn out fall onto the tabletop. They looked like grains of rice. They hit the water without making a splash. But I could see the ripples caused by the tiny collision of rice and water. These ripples carried over Delph and formed a circle around him. And then they hardened, becoming still and fixed in the water. It was like he was now in a cage.

“He is free from harm now.” She turned once more. “Please come with me, Vega Jane.”

As I followed her, it occurred to me that I had never told her my last name was Jane.