The Keeper

Septendecim: Reunited

Despite not wanting to, I slept like a stone. I was finally awoken by something tugging at my sleeve. At first, I didn’t focus on what it was. Then, with a start, I bolted straight up. Harry Two let out a yip and leapt off the bed.

I was eye to eye with... Seamus. His bulbous eyeballs seemed horrifically huge.

“Bloody Hel! What are you doing here?” I gasped, holding my chest.

“Came to fetch you to eat. Madame Prine asked me to.”

I composed myself. “You were taken care of last night?”

“Fed like a king, mead to drink and a soft bed.”

“I’ll be along. I need to get dressed.”

He shuffled off and I slowly pulled on my clothes.

Then it struck me. Vega, you git!

I rushed out of my room with Harry Two at my heels. I found the kitchen by following the smell of food. Seamus and Astrea were already there. He was standing next to a large round, wooden table, while she was standing in front of an enormous and ancient blackened stove where several fat pots sat bubbling and two skillets were sizzling.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Astrea said to me.

“I am. And I’m sure Delph must be famished.”

She shot me a glance. “I suppose you would like to break bread together?”

“I would, yes, please. I really, really would.”

“Well, then let’s be off,” she said decisively.

She moved so quickly that Harry Two and I barely had time to react. A cloak appeared out of thin air and settled neatly around her shoulders as she headed down the hall. We hurried after her, with Seamus bringing up the rear.

The front door opened of its own accord and we all passed through it. The green dome remained over the cottage although through it I could see that the sky was now clear and bright. She passed through the emerald wall and we scurried after her.

She took out of her cloak pocket something that looked like a shiny stick and pointed it at the sky. Her lips moved, though I couldn’t hear the words coming out of her mouth. A few moments later, soaring across the clear sky was Delph, still asleep and still inside the web that Astrea had configured last night. He settled gently upon the ground in front of us, curled up and snoring. Astrea gave a final wave of the stick, and the web, which I could see as a number of lines of vivid lights, disappeared. As we watched, Delph started to wake up, stretched, yawned, opened his eyes and...

“Holy Steeples!” he screamed as he jumped nearly three feet in the air before landing upright, his body contorted into the sophisticated fighting stance I had seen him employ in the Duelum.

“Delph!” I cried out and launched myself at him, squeezing him tightly.

But Delph, while he hugged me back, was still staring warily at Astrea and he was still fairly in his fighting stance despite our hugs.

“It’s okay, Delph,” I said. “This is Astrea Prine.”

Delph was obviously mightily confused by what was happening. Well, I knew what would take his mind off that. I said, “Are you hungry? We’re about to take a meal in Astrea’s cottage.”

As I knew he would, Delph focused very quickly.

“Well, that sounds all right, then, eh?” he said, straightening up and dropping his fighting stance.

I led Delph toward the emerald light, which he drew back from until I walked through it and beckoned him to follow. As we approached the cottage, Astrea gazed up at my tall friend. “So you’re Daniel Delphia, are you?”

“I am,” he said, shooting me a quizzical look. “Friends call me Delph.”

“And you’re traveling with this one?” she said, hooking a thumb at me.

“I am,” Delph said again.

Astrea turned and headed into the cottage without another word.

When she had gone into the cottage with Seamus, I screamed, once more jumped into Delph’s arms and squeezed him so tightly I thought either he might burst or my arms would fall off.

I gushed as I felt tears rise to my eyes, “You’re all right, Delph. I... I was so scared. That bloody cloud. You just disappeared.”

He hugged me back and then slowly set me down on the ground.

“I don’t know what happened, Vega, to tell the truth. I was talking to you one sliver and then the next thing I know, I’m in the middle of some trees with no idea how I got there. It was weird-like. What happened to you?”

“After you vanished, I met a hob named Seamus. He took me to Astrea’s cottage.”

“And how’d I get back here?”

“I’ll explain everything, but it’s going to take a while. So be patient.”

“Well, let me eat first and then I’ll be more patient.”

We held hands all the way to the cottage. Part of me didn’t want to ever let go of Delph. I would rather die than lose him again. I had lost my parents and my brother. I could not lose Delph. I just couldn’t.

With him I knew I could face anything.

Together.

I led him into the kitchen, where Seamus was already seated in a chair by the stove, on which the pots and skillets were still bubbling and sizzling, respectively.

“So who’s the little bloke?” Delph asked as he sat down.

“Seamus, the hob I mentioned.”

“Hob?”

“Remember, in Quentin’s book. A hob!”

“Oh, right. Helpful blokes.”

“Well, actually, he isn’t really all that helpful,” I whispered.

Astrea had swept off her cloak and hung it on a wall peg and now was once more overseeing the stove. She called out, “Vega, please set the table.”

This puzzled me for a moment before I figured what I needed to do. “Plates, cups, goblets, forks, knives and napkins. Please,” I tacked on at the end.

Delph nearly fell out of his chair when all these things came plummeting from the ceiling to land softly on the table all lined up proper-like.

“What the—” he began.

“And bowls,” added Astrea. “And spoons.”

The bowls and spoons alighted next to the plates, making Delph jump again.

I put a calming hand on his arm. “Patience, remember?”

I noted that on the floor a pan of water had appeared in front of Harry Two, along with a bowl of food. He looked at me as though waiting for permission to begin. I smiled and nodded at him and he started to gobble and slurp.

“ ’Tis ready,” announced Astrea.

She swept a hand across the pots and skillets and then pointed at the table. What was on the stove was thus transferred to our plates and bowls. We looked down and saw fried eggs and bacon and ham and brown toast and sausages and kippers, and porridge in our bowls as well. Jams, butter and honey pots also appeared in front of us. Our goblets were filled with milk. Our cups nearly brimmed over with hot tea.

I looked at Astrea inquiringly. “Aren’t you eating too?”

“I’ve not much of an appetite. You two eat. We’ll talk later.”

She walked out of the room. Seamus followed.

As we ate, I told Delph everything that had happened to me. As I did so, his jaw dropped so low it was almost resting in his pile of smoked kippers.

“Are you telling me that all that happened in the course of one bleedin’ night?”

I finished a bit of bacon. “Well, that doesn’t count the time I was asleep.”

“Bloody Hel,” he said, cramming two fried eggs and a kipper into his mouth. He drank down his milk, and his features turned somber.

“What is it, Delph? Do you want some more food? I’m sure—”

“It’s not that, though I could go for a few more eggs and maybe a half dozen bits of bacon and another kipper or two and I wouldn’t turn down a few more fried biscuits and another cuppa tea, I can tell you that.”

He again nearly leapt out of his chair when this exact amount of food and drink appeared on his plate and in his cup. When he’d righted himself and begun to eat once more, I said, “So what’s on your mind?”

“It’s all rubbish, ain’t it? All we’ve known. Bloody lies!”

He was right. They were lies. But there was truth out there. And we would find it.