The Keepers (38 page)

“Keepers,” Mr. Meister said, gesturing them closer. “Or I suppose I should say Wardens. By now I believe you have all met, yes?”

Gabriel nodded, his own milky eyes as bright as clouds. His gaze seemed to lock onto Horace, making him uncomfortable.

“Tonight is the night,” Mr. Meister continued. “We search for the nest, and with luck we rescue Chloe's father. Gabriel, Neptune, Horace, Chloe—this task requires you all. A formidable quartet. So formidable, in fact, that perhaps you will manage to accomplish even more than the recovery of Chloe's father.”

Mrs. Hapsteade cleared her throat but said nothing. “Accomplish even more”—what did that mean?

“A formidable quartet,” Chloe repeated, eyeing Gabriel and Neptune. “So what can these two do?”

“Goodness, have you not been properly introduced to their powers?”

“I know Neptune can . . . float,” said Horace. “And I know Gabriel's staff helps him see. But that's it.”

“You do not know nearly enough, then,” Mr. Meister said. He looked at Gabriel and Neptune and gave them a firm nod. “Show them.”

N
EPTUNE STEPPED FORWARD AND BOWED LIGHTLY
.

“Is it the cape?” Chloe said. “Because that cape has some explaining to do.”

“It's a cloak,” Neptune said. She held out her Tan'ji for Chloe to see. “But no—this is my Tan'ji, the Devlin tourminda. And here's what it does.” She made a tight fist around it. Her big eyes took on a faint inward shine. Her hair seemed to get staticky, began to lift away from itself. She pushed off from the ground, rising steadily like a balloon, her cloak dangling. Chloe inhaled sharply.

“The tourminda lets me alter my gravity,” Neptune said. She dropped to the floor and then, without warning, darted quickly toward the edge of the cliff. She took four long steps and leapt out over the abyss. She sailed far out into the dark. With her cloak trailing, she looked comically like a superhero.
She spun gracefully to hit the far wall feetfirst, her knees bending deeply, and then launched herself back again—a leap of fifty yards, each way. As she came back to the ledge, she caught the corners of her cloak and cupped it like a parachute, slowing herself in the air—practical, Horace had to admit. She dropped with alarming speed, but then alighted between Horace and Chloe as if she was stepping out of a car.

“Whoa,” Horace said.

“Hmph,” said Chloe.

“One advantage of the tourminda is it doesn't draw much attention,” Neptune went on. “Even a Mordin won't feel me using it unless I'm right above his head. Oh . . . and I'm very sensitive to gravity, of course. I can sense the gravity of objects around me, depending on their mass and distance. I can sense people from maybe a hundred feet away. Average-sized people, of course,” she added, looking down at Chloe.

Horace wanted to be sure he understood. “So you can sense us around you right now. Behind you, even. You could see us in the dark.”

“Of course. Though not nearly so well as some.” She smiled faintly and glanced over at Gabriel, whose expression did not change.

“Can you make yourself fatter?” Chloe asked.

Neptune's smile faded. “More massive, you mean.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Why would I want to?”

“Why
wouldn't
you? You could crush a coconut with your
foot, for one thing.”

Horace swallowed a laugh, but Neptune's wide eyes just got wider and more innocent. “I suppose some people might find that fun. But no, I can't change my mass. I can only decrease the effects of gravity on me.”

“Well, if you did get fat—the usual way, I mean—it wouldn't even matter, would it?”

Gabriel cleared his throat and lifted his head high, and somehow that little gesture drew the attention of the entire group. “I believe it's my turn now?”

“Yes, Keeper,” said Mr. Meister gratefully. “Please.”

“They won't like it.”

Horace eyed Gabriel's long, silver-tipped cane with a squirming curiosity. Mrs. Hapsteade said, “No one ever likes the Staff of Obro, until it saves them.”

Gabriel stepped forward, laying the staff across both hands, holding it out ceremonially and bowing. “The Staff of Obro,” he said. The handle was in the shape of some snaking, scaled body, dragonlike, while the foot was made of four separate talons, curving outward and drawn together into a point at the tips. The shaft was a gleaming, charcoal gray. Gabriel let them look, then placed the tip of the staff on the floor again, where it rested like the delicately perched foot of a savage beast. He leaned heavily on the staff with both hands, his face lowered. “I will not try to describe what has to be shown.”

Horace waited, feeling nervous. He glanced at Chloe, but
she was glaring at Gabriel. And then Horace saw. Something dark was seeping out from between the claws of the staff's foot—thin gray tendrils. It was like smoke, but denser, almost liquid. The tendrils seemed to twist and flicker in and out of sight. They crept along the floor, spreading.

“Very pretty,” Neptune remarked lightly. “Showing off, or afraid the newlings can't take it?”

Chloe shot daggers at Neptune. She lifted her chin. “Do it,” she said to Gabriel.

Gabriel cocked his head. “What the lady wants,” he said, and then the gray stuff seemed to spring upward, all at once, and there was a roar, and the world disappeared.

Horace shouted, but his cry was wrapped up, made slow and round, like words under water. The world had gone away—not into black, but into a deep, deep gray so utterly flat and complete that not only could Horace not see, he could barely summon up the idea of sight. He could not see his own hands, his own nose. Horace found himself crouching to the ground so that he would not simply topple over. No shadow, no depth, no movement, no light. No light but no dark.

He heard voices in the nothing, one calm and steady—Mr. Meister?—and another, sharp, angry. Chloe. Their words were shapeless, directionless. Horace kept his own mouth shut and breathed shallowly through his nose, but he could smell nothing. He tried to look down at himself but could not even be sure which way down was. He latched on to the only thing he could—the steady stream of presence pouring from
the Fel'Daera. He held on hard.

A voice rang out in the fog, this one deep and clear, full of confidence. Horace lifted his head, marveling at the power of it. Gabriel. “Don't be afraid. Don't move. It won't hurt you. This is what I can do.” His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Horace found himself wanting to do as the voice asked. “You are blind so that I might see—I admit it. But listen. Listen to my sight.” And then the voice began to describe what it saw.

“Chloe Oliver—you've thrown your hood back. Your eyes are open and your face is angry. You're making fists. The wings of the Alvalaithen are moving,
so
fast. That's incredible—you feel . . . oh, now they've stopped. You're raising your hand. You—” And now the voice hitched, made a low laugh. “You're flipping me off. That's lovely. Now you're putting your hands in your pockets. You're not moving. You have a roll of candy in the front right pocket of your jeans—mints, I think. There are seven left.” A jolt of surprise lit through Horace—he could see that? But
see
wasn't the right word, obviously, not the right word at all. Horace wasn't sure there was a word for what Gabriel did now.

Gabriel's voice grew low and soft, thoughtful. “You've closed your eyes. You have a tiny wound in the center of your right palm. You have a big healing gash along your ribs—a cut or a burn, I can't tell. And . . . oh, God, you're just—” Now the voice paused for a moment, then came back slow, almost tender. “You're covered in scars.”

The room fell utterly silent, became almost as empty as the Nevren. And then the voice started up again, started describing how Horace was hunkered down on the floor, how he was cradling the box to his throat. “You have a cat at home that sheds. The tag has been cut out of the collar of your shirt. You have a flat wad of paper in your back pocket that's been through the wash. In your left front pocket, you have forty cents—a quarter, dime, and nickel. They are from the years 1996, 1973, and 2010, in that order. A scrape on your left calf is almost healed. Your shoelaces are double knotted. You've been squeezing your eyes shut so tight it must hurt, but now they're loosening. Your hair is terribly mussed, like someone just rolled you out of bed. Chloe is looking at you.” A brief pause, and then: “Also, you should know I can do this.” And then a light but unmistakable pressure enveloped Horace's face, both cheeks, gently pressing his flesh from both sides at once.

Horace jerked back and cried out. He heard another angry yelp that had to be Chloe. A moment later, a violent flicker filled his sight, like a blanket being yanked away. Another tearing roar. The universe returned. Horace could see again, hear again, heard low sighs of relief blossoming around the room, saw Chloe's eyes on him, bright and deep and full of fire. Her hood was indeed thrown back, chin held high. Horace rose from his crouch and turned to Gabriel. They all turned to him. But it was Chloe who spoke first, quivering with anger.

“You should be ashamed.”

“I don't make apologies. The Staff of Obro does what it does. But know that I use its power only when I must.”

Neptune chimed in. “That's true. He almost never uses it, even though—I mean, think what a temptation it would be.”

Gabriel shook his head. “It's not a temptation. It's a gift to be used sparingly.”

Horace felt a kind of sudden and sickening admiration for this young man—to be blind, and given a power of sight far beyond the keenest human eyes, but to only be able to use that power at the expense of everyone else. To become powerful only when your companions were made powerless. Horace thought Neptune had it right: what a temptation.

“And it lets you see a little even without the cloud, doesn't it?” Horace asked. “That's how you get around so well.”

“Humour, not cloud,” Gabriel corrected. “Obro's humour. And yes, there's a constant faint presence, low to the ground. Just enough to let me sense obstacles at my feet. Even now it's there, so thin it can't be seen.”

Horace lifted one foot and then the other but saw nothing. Gabriel let out a low laugh. “It won't harm you, Keeper.”

“And what about sound? Voices?” Horace asked.

“In the humour, I control who hears what. It takes a substantial effort, but I could deafen you all, or I could allow you to hear one another as clearly as you heard me just now. My choice.”

Chloe scoffed. “Your choice, of course. Don't bother
putting forth the effort. And how far can you spread the humour? Could you fill this room? Blind the whole city, maybe? Grope everyone in it?”

“I couldn't come close to filling the Great Burrow, no, much less the city. I can spread the humour maybe eighty or ninety feet, from end to end. But I haven't yet learned to control the humour well. I can't adjust the density, though I've been told”—his head tipped in the direction of Mr. Meister—“I should be able to do so, eventually.”

“And everyone and everything else within that space will be made senseless.”

“Yes.”

“Not everyone,” said Neptune suddenly. And of course—even in the humour she'd be able to sense the world around her using the tourminda.

“Well, I guess you're quite the pair, then,” Chloe said.

A quizzical look flashed across Gabriel's face. “At any rate, Keeper, you needn't worry that I'll use the staff without reason. And I will always give warning.”

“I don't need warnings. I need you to never use that thing in my presence again.”

“I won't promise that.”

“Then you'll stay away from me.”

“Stop. Enough.” Mr. Meister stepped into the circle, turning to Chloe. “I'm afraid that will not be possible, Keeper.”

“I'm afraid it will,” Chloe said.

“You still wish to find your father, don't you?”

Chloe crossed her arms, her eyes dark and wary.

“We cannot rescue your father without Gabriel's help.”

“Why not?”

Mr. Meister raised an eyebrow. “Follow me.” He led them to his doba. Inside, they all took seats—all except Mrs. Hapsteade, who stood at the door looking worried. Mr. Meister reached up to a large compartment on the wall behind his desk and pulled out a bulky box—more of a chest, really. Nearly buckling under the weight, he tottered to his desk and set it down with a thud. He threw back the lid.

The object he pulled from the chest was a foot and a half high, a crude bowl the color of dirty steel, though it could never have held liquid—it was sculpted from jagged, curving strips that spiraled from the base and bent toward each other at the top. The more Horace looked at it, the more it looked like a huge and gnarled dead hand, cupped into a gesture of grasping. It seemed like it should have toppled over under its own chaotic weight, but it was as sturdy as a stone. Horace hated the sight of it.