The Keeper

Septem: Luc Speaks

The mother ekos and Luc entered our chamber later to retrieve the meal tray.

I said, “I know you can’t understand me, but thank you.”

“It is we who need to thank you, Vega,” said Luc as the female ekos nodded.

“You can speak Wugish?” I asked Luc in astonishment.

“King Thorne taught me as a way to prevent him from losing the speech himself. And I taught my daughter here, Cere.”

Cere added, “We do not speak Wug to the others. King Thorne forbids it.”

“And it was your son that was nearly killed by the freks?” I asked.

She nodded, and tears clustered in her eyes. “But for you and Delph, Vega, little Kori would be no more.” She placed a grassy hand gently against my cheek. “Despite what King Thorne said, we knew that to be true.”

Delph said, “So what load-a rubbish did the mighty ‘king’ say then, eh?”

Luc answered, “That it was his idea to save Kori.”

“He tried to stop me from saving him. He’s an evil Wug.”

“Yet we all fear him too much to ever oust him,” said Luc.

Delph scoffed. “There’re lots of you blokes. And only one-a him.”

“But he is the king,” said Cere in a trembling voice. “And he sleeps behind a door made of iron. And he has recruited spies among us who report to him. Any signs of rebellion are quashed.”

“Surely the ekos would rally around you, Luc,” I said.

He lowered his head. “No, Vega. That would not happen.”

“Why not?”

He would not look at me as he said the words. “Thorne works us hard, no doubt. But he has taught us skills and he keeps us safe.”

“You could do all that without him,” I pointed out.

“Yet many ekos worship him,” added Cere. “I don’t know why, really, because he is a cruel one, but they would follow him anywhere.”

I looked at Delph and then back at Luc. “That seems very odd,” I said. “I mean, he’s not exactly lovable, is he?”

“Well, it is mostly because he has broken our will, our spirit,” Luc explained. “Such a thing is greater than any weapon.”

I thought about this but could think of no ready reply. I decided to change the subject. I said, “We must escape from here. But before we go, I would like to find answers to questions I have. Will you help us?”

Luc looked at Cere, who stared up anxiously at him. Finally, he nodded. “You saved little Kori, so we will come back this night. And then you will have your answers, Vega.”

Late that night, we could hear footsteps approaching. And a sliver later, along the outer stone passageway, we could both see the shadows created by a light coming our way. Then Luc appeared in the opening to our chamber holding a flickering candle in one hand. Cere was behind him, looking pale and frightened.

He said softly, “Tread lightly. There are eyes in the least likely places.”

The guards that had been stationed outside our chamber were no longer there. I figured that was Luc’s doing. The three of us followed him back down the passageway. I had told Harry Two not to bark or otherwise make undue noise. I could have sworn he nodded his head at me as I finished speaking.

We flitted down the cold passage. I did have one comforting thought. I had on my cloak. And in my cloak were my glove and the Elemental.

We reached a spot where three corridors intersected and Luc led us down the one on the far left. We reached a wooden door, which Luc unlocked with a fat bronze key that he unclipped from a blackened iron ring on his wide leather belt. He pushed the door open and ushered us in before closing the portal behind us. The chamber was dark, but it brightened considerably when Luc used his candle to light the torches suspended on the wall.

I gaped.

And so did Delph.

And we did so for good reason.

The chamber was vast, with high ceilings. And strewn throughout were broad, scarred and stained wooden worktables overflowing with what looked to be intricate tasks in progress. There were old worm-eaten plank shelves, literally bursting with strange objects, and piles of parchment, scrolls and leather-backed tomes. And an old desk packed with drawers and cubbies that were, in turn, bulging with scrolls and parchment. And there was a wooden swivel chair tucked into the kneehole. And on a series of low tables were bottles, scales and other delicate instruments that I had seen and used at Stacks to do my job as a Finisher.

“He couldn’t have brought all this with him from Wormwood,” I said.

Luc said, “He did some of the parchment, ink, scrolls and a few of the instruments and tools you see. The rest came later. And the furniture we built according to his design after he showed us how. Thorne taught us a great deal. All he asked in return was our freedom.” Luc finished in a resigned tone.

As my gaze spanned the place, it came to rest on something suspended from a long metal chain affixed to the ceiling in one far corner. It was a skeleton. And next to the skeleton and attached to the wall was the outer layer of the thing — the skin. And now I believed I knew how Thorne had made it from the cliff down to here.

“That’s an adar,” mumbled Delph.

“Was an adar,” I corrected. “That’s how Thorne managed the cliff. He flew down like we did.”

“It’s a big ’un,” noted Delph. “Bigger’n I’ve ever seen.”

I turned to Luc. “This is his... what, workshop?”

“Well, he calls it a laboratory,” said Luc. “He spends most of his time in here, working away, talking to himself, sometimes cackling like he’s gone barmy.”

“I think he has gone barmy.”

I walked around the chamber and eyed some drawings that had been fastened to the walls. These were maps of Wormwood, down to the smallest details. In the precision of the words and pictures I sensed cunning and genius, but also a sickness of the mind. It gave me chills just to look upon the parchment and to envision the mad Wug bent over his terrible obsession for the destruction of his former home.

These maps had been drawn for a very clear reason. They were going to be used as the basis of attack. I noted Thorne’s scribbles and margin notes all over the parchment pages. There was an area noted as the landing place. He would probably send out his aero ship at night and make his landings at that spot while Wormwood slept. Then when his army was fully on site he would attack and take them all by surprise.

There were arrows pointing at Stacks and Steeples and the Council building, with references like “first target” and “use for prisoners,” and with a shiver I read the word Destroy written over both the Care and hospital. I wondered why, but then it occurred to me that in a war, the side that could not take care of its citizens or treat their wounds would likely not be victorious.

I looked at Delph, who had been peering over my shoulder. He looked sickened by all of it.

“A nutter, Vega Jane, a nutter who wants to kill. We got to stop ’im.”

I looked at Luc. “Can we go to the aero ship now?”

We made our way quickly through a number of passageways until I was hopelessly lost. But when I looked back at Delph, he nodded.

“I know where we are,” he whispered. “It’s just up there on the left.”

Sure enough, Luc and Cere stopped and turned to the left and passed through another opening in the wall. The aero ship towered over us like an enormous beast waiting to strike and then devour. There was no one else here.

We drew nearer to the huge wooden carriage that would hold both troops and their weapons. It was then that I noted the series of holes in the sides.

“What are those for?” I asked.

In answer, Luc pointed against one wall. “How he plans to steer it. Look.”

Delph and I saw the long oars with large, flat rectangular ends neatly stacked there.

Luc showed us how they worked and then took us through the rest of the aero ship, pointing out the contraption that filled the huge bladder with heated air, and the steering mechanism. And how vents in the bladder released air and allowed the aero ship to descend.

I nodded in understanding. “And what’s the cause of your reddened eyes?” I asked.

“Mixing the morta powder,” he said. “Powder dust gets in ’em.”

“But Kori has red eyes too. Surely he doesn’t make—”

“Thorne don’t care how old or young one is, Vega,” said Luc. “We all have to work.”

My blood boiling at this revelation, we went back out in the passage. I said expectantly, “The grubbs?”

He nodded wearily. “Aye, the grubbs.”

And I observed, as he said this, that he placed one large hand on the hilt of the short-barreled morta that rode on his belt. He turned to Cere and said, “You best head on back. Kori will be missing you.”

Cere gave him a worried look. “Luc, think what you’re doing. If Thorne finds out!”

“You just go on, Cere. Go on now,” he added sternly.

With a baleful glance back at us, she quickly disappeared down the tunnel.

“Let’s be off, then,” Luc said firmly, but I could see the fear in his eyes. Not because of the grubbs, I didn’t think, but because of the king.

I glanced at Delph. I could tell he was thinking exactly what I was.

Luc could be killed for helping us. But I didn’t know any other way to do this. And I did have a plan. Well, part of one anyway.

Delph was expecting me to lead. Hel, I was expecting me to lead. I just hoped I wasn’t leading us to our doom.