The Keeper (The Endless Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  THE

  KEEPER

  NIKKI McCORMACK

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  AUTHOR BIO

  COPYRIGHT

  To Rick and Ann,

  for your friendship, love,

  and delightful conversations over many

  a bottle of wine.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Argus held a hand out behind her, signaling the other three to wait. She stepped back into the shadowed embrace of a massive steel I-beam, the hard surface radiating cold through her clothes, the smells of grease and metal thick in her nose.

  Deynas, be silent, be strong. Keep the children quiet and calm.

  They needed to hold their position until she signaled. The kids had done well so far, but if they experienced the same sensations she did, she wasn’t sure they would be able to stand quiet this time. Her flesh prickled and her heart hammered in her chest like that of a child trapped in a night terror. She touched a finger first to her lips then lightly over her heart.

  Undying Father, what comes that I should feel this much fear before I have even seen it?

  She had encountered more than a few demons and crossbreeds in the process of leading others out of the overtaken city to the safety of the Endless tribe’s training village in the desert. One fight left her with a shallow gash on her right shoulder and a trail of blood drying down that arm. None of those confrontations put her into the cold sweat that the approaching presence did. She was an Endless warrior, capable, quick and strong. The temporal caught in the assault depended on her. She couldn’t let herself be unsettled now.

  It wasn’t the first time demons had attacked this place. Back then, almost fourteen hundred years ago, it had been a small Endless city. The demons slaughtered that entire tribe. The remains of that city now lay beneath a towering metropolis run by a different Endless tribe, but home to a variety of human species and other creatures. The invading demons weren’t looking to decimate the city this time, they were taking over. They were trying to eliminate the Endless tribe that ran the city, which meant they were being selective and there was time for escape. Time that was fast running out.

  Keeping the one hand back to stay Deynas and the children and the other on the handle of the long dagger at her belt, she focused for a few seconds on slow and steady breathing. And silence. It wouldn’t do to be heard.

  She closed her eyes. The dark behind her lids was changed by whatever approached. Black and sinister, creeping. Soft footsteps shushed across the metal floor. She snapped her eyes open. A scent wafted around her, the too rich, sweet aroma of fallen rose petals crushed underfoot. She swallowed painful dryness. Whoever or whatever approached, they were now moving across the room behind the I-beam. She had to know what dread creatures gave off this foul aura, but she didn’t dare step out of the deep shadows hiding her, not in physical form.

  Of the three with her, only Deynas knew she was a spirit walker. He’d found out by accident. Somehow, when she moved her umahk-ra, her spirit form, apart from her body he could see it. He’d promised not to tell, promised on his late mother’s god’s blood pendant that he always wore under his shirt. It changed their relationship anyway. No matter how much she loved mentoring him, being around someone with such ability jeopardized her secret. Besides, their flirtatious banter was going to get them both into trouble eventually. She would tell Master Kochan what happened and ask him to place Deynas with a new mentor when they reached the village. First, she had to get them out of the city alive.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at Deynas, catching and holding his pale hazel eyes and gestured firmly for them to wait again, needing to know he would do so. He nodded, mouth set in a grim line, a hand on the shoulder of each child. She didn’t look at the children. The future. Both might become Endless one day so long as they did not die here. It was her job to see that they survived.

  She leaned against the cold metal, pressing her body into the corner for support, and closed her eyes again. Her hands relaxed to her sides. She stepped free of her body and drifted around into the open where she could see the walkway that passed behind them.

  Tall. That was her first impression of the passing women. There were six of them moving in two rows of three, all wearing full-length, shapeless white dresses with red tubing along the seams and around the hemline. Disproportionately tiny feet in white slippers peeked out with every graceful sliding step making eerie whispers along the floor. High, rigid white collars elongated their necks and tilted the women’s narrow chins up with a sharp point at the front in what looked to be an uncomfortable angle. Long, straight black hair contrasted the white paint over their faces. Their lips were painted a bright red and red eyes had been painted on their closed eyelids.

  She drifted closer.

  Two wires ran down either side of their collared necks emerging from the soft flesh on the underside of their jaws and disappearing down into the dress below the collarbone. A slow steady drip of red ran down each wire. Blood. The tubing on the dresses wasn’t red, she realized, but clear, running red with the blood that dripped down those wires.

  Argus felt her breath catch in her detached body. What were these women? Their features looked human, but they were exact copies of one another. They had to be some form of demon, though not one she’d encountered before.

  The women stopped moving as one and began to hum, a resonant humming that turned her waiting flesh cold, making it shiver.

  I should return to my body.

  The humming reverberated through her spirit form, her umahk-ra, filling it with warmth that contrasted the chill consuming her flesh. The sensation was mesmerizing and terrifying. She’d never felt anything in this form, not the way she felt their haunting music. Her physical body heard the music and reacted with paralyzing fear, it didn’t feel the electrifying resonance of the sound itself.

  She drifted closer still, drawn by the music they made.

  The women turned as if they stood on gears, rotating in place until they faced her umahk-ra. Then their eyes began to open, a ghastly pink light spearing from the sockets. The humming pinned her in place while the light washed over her hidden spirit form.

  Six voices spoke in unison in her mind, awful sighing voices. We see you.

  Their words preceded intense pain. Her spirit form arched back in the air, agony blazing through her, as if a boiling fluid flowed through her veins. Her physical body collapsed on the grated metal walkway. She could hear the breathing of her companions, the sound becoming so loud it hurt her suddenly hypersensitive ears. Her physical body was failing, the beat of her heart weak and faltering, but she couldn’t go back. Their light held her prisoner. If she could have wept in this form, she would have, but even that release was denied her.

  The women spoke again. Your spirit is strong. Your flesh will become. Send the others away and we will not harm them.

  Their eyes closed then,
cutting off the light, and her spirit form snapped back into her body, into blackness. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t move her arms or legs. Her chest felt heavy, each breath a struggle.

  “Argus!”

  A hand grabbed her shoulder and shook her.

  Deynas? He forgets the honorific so often these days. I should have kissed him. I should have told him I wanted to.

  She could feel them around her, Deynas and the two children, though she could not see them. For once in her life, she wanted to be selfish. She wanted to keep Deynas with her, to have him hold her the way he so obviously wanted to and tell her it would be all right.

  Send them away.

  “Deynas. Go. Now! Get Misa and Ren out of here.”

  “Argus, I won’t leave you.” His voice was strained, the despair in it tearing at her heart.

  “Go! You have to save them. Please. I can’t see. I can’t move.” I can’t even weep for myself. For you. “They’re your responsibility now. You have to lead them out of here.” She could sense the women moving around the wall, coming closer, a sinister crimson presence in the blackness. “Go!”

  A small sparkle of light dropped through the edge of the blackness, a tear, landing warm upon her cheek. Her heart split in two when his hand left her shoulder. She could hear their feet echoing upon the steel walkway as they ran away. The crimson forms moved to surround her, their voices reciting a chant both familiar and yet oddly changed.

  That which is lost, you will find.

  That which is forsaken, you will cherish.

  That which is forgotten, you will remember.

  That which is, you will keep.

  The words burned through her flesh like fire. Argus screamed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The sunlight was blistering. Deynas closed his eyes. Memories waited in the dark. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. His hands were slick with it. He wiped them one at a time on his pants and gripped the staff.

  Why?

  He opened his eyes. Rage burst through him, a tidal wave of emotion battering a spirit scarred by years of such bombardment. He swept up the staff, catching the elder before him in the chin and sending him flying back. As soon as the end connected, he drew it back hard, catching the elder behind him with a jab to the gut. Then he spun, deflecting a third elder’s attack and continued through, sweeping the staff around low to knock another elder’s feet out from under them. He lunged after the falling elder, bringing the weapon up to strike a finishing blow. The elder hit the ground with an unmistakably feminine gasp.

  Argus.

  He hesitated. His vision blurred.

  Green eyes, like precious stones set in a perfect face. Dark auburn hair, thick and glossy with health, with five delicate braids near the front to mark her five years as an Endless warrior. Five years that ended when he left her in the city to die.

  Someone’s feet planted solidly in his chest and sent him flying. He hit the ground flat on his back with enough force that stars flashed before his eyes and another of the elders lunged in, stabbing him in the chest with a ‘kill’ blow.

  “Deynas!”

  Deynas cringed at the frustration in Master Kochan’s voice. Even with padded armor, the blow hurt, but the pain blossoming in his chest wasn’t entirely from the staff strike.

  One of the elder fighters removed his facemask and offered Deynas a hand up. Before he could accept it, Kochan stepped in and struck the hand away.

  “Let him pick himself up.”

  So much anger in that voice. There would be no ascendance to Endless this year if he didn’t learn to silence his memories, but they persisted, quick to surface and as fresh as if he’d only left her there yesterday.

  Deynas got to his feet alone and stood before the master, keeping his gaze downcast. He had shamed himself again.

  “Leave us.”

  The other elders removed their protective masks and bowed to Kochan before exiting the sparring yard. Master Kochan didn’t acknowledge the formal gestures. His steel gray eyes drilled into Deynas. His hard face bore many faint age lines and his many hundred long dark braids showed small hints of grey, a true testament to his advanced age. The eldest of the Endless in their tribe. It was a great honor to train under such a man and Deynas couldn’t help wondering how much longer that honor would be granted him at this rate.

  “Why do you train, Deynas? Why do you choose to be a warrior?”

  Deynas blurted his answer. “I wish to fight to protect our people for as long as The Undying grants me breath to do so.”

  “Liar!” Master Kochan barked the accusation in his face. The big man’s hawkish nose almost touched Deynas’ bowed forehead. “You seek vengeance. Your mind is clouded with memory. Memory is meant to fade. Wounds to heal. This has only gotten worse with time. Even your umahk-ra resonates with her name. It has been five years since she died. Why do you cling to her?”

  Kochan backed up several steps.

  Deynas bowed his head more, the weight of truth heavy upon him. Why? Undying Father, why can’t I let her go?

  The whistle of a staff cutting the air warned him. The move was fast, so fast that he braced for the expected pain and was shocked when he got his own staff up in time to block the attack, the power of the master’s strike jarring through his arms. He looked over their crossed staves into Kochan’s eyes.

  “Few Endless warriors could have blocked that strike. You waste yourself in remembrance.” The master spun and began to walk away. “Go back to the ranks and fight with the temporal warriors. You are too broken to be Endless.”

  Deynas dropped to his knees with the sinking of his heart. It could not end this way. He shamed not only himself, but also the woman who had mentored him and died so that he and the others might live. “Master Kochan!”

  Kochan stopped at the edge of the sparring yard. He didn’t turn. His back was a wall, impenetrable and cold.

  Deynas laid his staff on the ground and bowed before it. “Master Kochan, I fight to atone for my failure. I fight to honor the memory of Argus-ra. I want to be to the people the kind of warrior, the kind of hero, that she was. If this is a flawed ambition, then you are right, I cannot be Endless.”

  A shadow fell over him, shielding him from the intense desert sun. “Deynas.” The hard edge was gone from the master’s voice. “Yours was not a failure. You were the second oldest there. It was your duty to protect the children when Argus-ra fell. Had you not done so, had the children also fallen, then that would have been a failure.”

  Deynas stayed bowed. Tears stung his eyes and he bit his lip, fighting to hold them back. Endless do not weep.

  Endless weep the same as anyone else.

  Deynas stiffened. Though he’d never experienced such contact before, he recognized the light touch of the master’s umahk-ra accompanying the words in his mind.

  Kochan touched his shoulder. “You loved her.”

  A tear slipped free and a tiny puff of dust rose where it landed.

  “Such passion and promise in one so young. Perhaps you have a place among the Endless yet. Come with me.”

  Deynas rose and followed Kochan into the temple. Inside, they both knelt on woven carpets and bowed before the towering statue of The Undying, the three-headed god of the Endless.

  The head on the right, its features soft and undefined, represented the umahk-ra. The one on the left, the features strong and crisply defined, represented the mortal flesh. The center head was a blending of the two, a representation of the true Endless state achieved by no more than a third of those who carried the blood of The Undying, a perfect state of harmony between spirit and flesh.

  It was this third head Deynas gazed up at as he stripped off his padded armor. Then he laid the armor on a bench and followed the master out of the soaring main chamber and into a small side chamber. Incense burned upon a shelf, its gentle spice filling the air with a soothing aroma. They knelt on either side of a low stone table and waited in silence until a servant brought tea in two pla
in stoneware cups. When they were alone again, Kochan sipped the tea then waited until Deynas had done the same before speaking.

  The master turned the teacup so the handle pointed at his own torso, indicating his intent to speak.

  Deynas set his tea down and turned the handle toward Kochan, indicating his willingness to hear the master’s words. He waited.

  “You have seen only twenty-three summers. You are but an infant to the ascended Endless.” Kochan released a heavy exhale. “Argus-ra was also young. Barely twenty-three herself when she was lost in the city and already five years as an Endless warrior.”

  Deynas stared into the pale tea, watching tiny flakes of dried leaf that had slipped through the strainer sink to the bottom of the cup. Argus had become Endless at eighteen, something he had yet to achieve at twenty-three. He might have loved her, but she had been much too good for him. Was that what Kochan wanted him to realize? Did the master want him to see how much less he was than her?

  “Her loss was felt deeply. She was umahk-ra-en-mahde.” Kochan drank again and set the cup with the handle pointing to his right. “Do you know what that is?”

  Deynas nodded. He left his cup as it was. He’d been given permission to speak, but this was Kochan’s conversation to direct. “Yes. She was a spirit walker. One who can separate and move their umahk-ra apart from their physical self.”

  The incense wasn’t strong enough to ward off the anxiety brought on by Kochan’s shrewd gaze. Deynas focused on the rhythm of his own breathing and the beat of his heart, trying not to fret over what the master might be speculating.

  “Spirit walking is a rare gift, yet you do not seem surprised to learn this of her.”

  How much to say? He could lie and say that Argus told him. Nothing he said could hurt her now, but the truth might hurt him. And yet…

  He stared into those hard grey eyes. Ageless wisdom stared back at him.

  How many braids did Kochan wear now? How many summers had he watched pass? How many hopefuls had he trained to Endless and how many had he watched fail to reach that lofty goal as Deynas himself seemed destined to do? How many loved ones had he seen die while he lived on? Did one dare keep secrets from the eldest of the Endless?