The Keeper (The Endless Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  No, one didn’t lie to such a man. “When we were working our way through the city that night, before we found Misa and Ren, she moved her umahk-ra apart to scout out an exposed crossing. I saw her spirit then and I saw it again before the Blooded Women crippled her.” Anger crept into his voice when he spoke of the Blooded Women. He’d felt so helpless, forced to run away and leave her to them. They still knew almost nothing about those strange creatures.

  Kochan took another sip of his tea. He stared into it, rotating the cup slowly in his fingers while he spoke this time. Leaving Deynas to wonder if the conversation dynamic was about to change again. “And you heard me when I spoke into your mind with my umahk-ra in the training yard, did you not?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “The problem you face makes more sense now. You are umahk-ra-uden. A spirit thief.”

  Deynas half-rose. “I am no thief.”

  Kochan held a hand out and motioned for him to sit. Deynas sank back to his knees.

  “We no longer speak of such gifts because they are often misunderstood by the temporal and because they make the bearer of such gifts a target for demons that collect or devour souls. There has not been a spirit thief in this tribe for over two-hundred years. The umahk-ra-uden is not a true spirit thief. Think of it as something more akin to the Keeper.”

  The Keeper? “But isn’t the Keeper a demon?”

  Kochan contemplated his cup. “We do not know what the Keeper truly is.”

  Deynas frowned. “And the Keeper doesn’t collect just any spirits. Never those of the Endless nor those of mortal men.”

  “No. The Keeper collects only the spirits of certain creatures when they die, usually higher demon species that are nearly extinct or gods that are the only ones of their kind.”

  “What does she do with those spirits?”

  “Preserves them. To what end, we do not know and for this discussion, it does not matter. Where the Keeper collects and preserves the full umahk-ra of the deceased, the spirit thief collects only a fragment of any umahk-ra that is revealed to them. Typically, this can only occur in the moment after death except in the rare case of a spirit walker. Just as a drawing of someone captures their physical image, the fragment a spirit thief captures holds an exact image of the person’s spirit. I suspect that the fragment of her spirit you carry with you is the reason Argus continues to live so strongly in you.”

  “What does a spirit thief do with these fragments of umahk-ra?”

  Kochan scratched his bearded chin. “I’m afraid I know little more of the gift than what I just told you. I do know the spirit thief is unusually sensitive to the umahk-ra of others and can sometimes hear thoughts directed at them as you did mine in the training circle. Your reaction confirmed what I had already begun to suspect about you. Why have you not spoken of your ability before?”

  Deynas turned away, focusing on the lazy rise of smoke from the incense burner. “The first time it happened, I assumed others did the same thing I did. When I realized they didn’t, I worried that something was wrong, that my umahk-ra had been corrupted somehow.”

  “If that had been true, you realize the ritual to become Endless would have stripped you of your umahk-ra and left you an empty shell?”

  Deynas lifted his chin. “That was my risk to take.”

  Kochan shook his head, but he let the comment go without argument. “It would be best if we could find an elder umahk-ra-uden to work with you. I know of one who might be willing if he yet lives. He is the master of an eastern tribe who has seen even more summers than I have. I will send for him.”

  Deynas started to lean forward then stopped himself. It was disrespectful and immature to exhibit such impatience. “What do I do until we hear from this man?”

  Kochan took a long drink of the cooling tea and Deynas deliberately did the same, trying to emulate the other man’s composure. They both set their cups down, handles pointed to Kochan’s right. “For now, Deynas, you will continue to train and seek what peace you can achieve on your own with the fragment of Argus-ra’s spirit that resides within you.”

  He inhaled the incense in the air, steeling his nerves for the question he most wanted to ask. “Is there still a chance that I might ascend to Endless?”

  Kochan smiled with uncommon gentleness. “It is no surprise that you and Argus were drawn together. The gifted are often drawn to like spirits.” He tapped his fingers on the table then, pondering. “Argus-ra never went through the ritual to become Endless. The Undying chooses those among us who will bear such gifts and raises them without a proving. Because Argus was umahk-ra-en-mahde she became Endless when her spirit was ready. As umahk-ra-uden, it will be the same for you, though I fear this conflict within you has held you back. Know that you are destined to become Endless, Deynas. Nothing anyone says or does can change that. Now go. I must prepare a message.”

  Deynas rested his fingers on the edge of the low table and touched his forehead to them in a bow before rising. Master Kochan inclined his head in return, then called for a servant. Deynas left the room, but he did not leave the temple. He knelt before The Undying on a woven carpet and bowed his head, closing his eyes. The six eyes of the god gazed down heavy upon him.

  The idea that something of Argus lived on in him brought him a sense of almost giddy joy, joy tempered by the dark certainty that he didn’t deserve to carry any part of her within him. Kochan was right. It had been his duty as the second eldest to get the others to safety. The knowledge brought no peace. Most nights her screams, fading behind them as they ran away, haunted his dreams. They hadn’t known what the Blooded Women were then. One of the few things they knew now was that the Blooded Women could see spirits. If they had understood what they faced, Argus would never have ventured out before them in spirit form. He’d seen her step out of her body and had crept forward to watch her. He could still see her umahk-ra convulsing in agony before the glowing eyes of the Blooded Women while her physical body collapsed beside him.

  She never knew he loved her. He’d been afraid to tell her. Afraid she would laugh at him for being young and impetuous. She would not have laughed. He knew that now, perhaps because a part of her lived within him. But it was too late now. Much too late.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Keeper felt the whisper of approaching death several minutes before the summons came and she disappeared. Once the flesh died, transfer had to come soon after. There was a small window of time, sometimes only a few minutes, sometimes longer, in which to collect the spirit of a being before it reabsorbed into the flow of energy that fueled all life. She had to be always ready for that moment, though, in this incarnation as in a few prior ones, she had learned to sense ripples in the flow that often preceded the death of a rare demon or a god as much as twenty minutes before their actual passing.

  She appeared in a shadowed place, as she often did. This time it was at the edge of an indoor stadium, in an aisle between two sections of rising stone seats. The seating surrounded an immense dirt floored arena. The floor was dug down perhaps twenty feet below the lowest row of seating and high, spiked iron fences rose up twenty feet into the air, creating a barrier nearly forty feet high to separate the audience from the combatants. Towering gas torches, their stands molded into the shapes of several different greater gods, were set at intervals around the arena, adding drama to the setting with the dancing of flames.

  She recognized the stadium. The call to keep had brought her here before. It was in a restored part of the old Endless ruins carved into ground and now buried beneath the Undercity. She could feel the weight of life in the Undercity and the Old and New Cities above that pressing down.

  The cheering of the crowd rose up loud and fierce, a bloodthirsty roar that filled the vast space with stifling sound pressure. She checked that her cloak—a dark silver and green woven material that moved in such a way as to make it nigh impossible to focus upon her at moments like this when she couldn’t be completely invisible—hung far enough forward
to shroud her face in impenetrable shadow. Then she walked down the aisle and up to the edge of the arena.

  A hush started to fall in the seating nearest her. She touched the iron bars with her right hand and a section of the barrier rippled, melting down to reform itself into a ramp leading to the arena floor. The hush spread as she began to descend.

  In the arena, dark greenish blood drenched the dirt, creating pools of foul smelling mud. A warrior stood in the center holding high a massive double bladed staff. He was part-man judging from his overall appearance, and at least a third demon judging from his considerable size, the backswept horns over his very human ears, and the blue cast of his skin. His weapon dripped thick globs of dark blood.

  Before him lay a colossal creature, much like an octopus with its many limbs, but born to navigate the sands, not the sea. A greater mimic or shapechanger. It was a relatively simple-minded creature, but quite rare indeed, though not the absolute last of its kind. Not yet. A wood stake protruded from one eye, placed there to handicap the creature to ‘balance’ the competition. Aside from limiting the creature’s vision, she could sense a poison in the wood to inhibit shape shifting, an increasingly rare poison given the scarcity of such demons.

  The crossbreed warrior let out a roar of victory, trying to rouse the crowd again, but the hush falling over the audience finished its spread and a new sound began to take the place of the cheering. A soft chanting filled the air and many among the stands knelt, bowing their heads. Even in this den of vice, most revered the legend that was the Keeper. Their voices lifted, creating dark sorrowful harmony.

  “That which is lost, she will find.”

  The big warrior lowered his weapon. She was halfway across the arena now, close enough to smell the cloying scent of the dead demon’s skin and the salty tang of sweat from the crossbreed.

  “That which is forsaken, she will cherish.”

  The warrior turned. His gaze lit upon the shadows of her hood and veered abruptly away. Many believed that to gaze into her hood was to bring death.

  “That which is forgotten, she will remember.”

  The warrior sank to his knees and set his weapon on the ground before him. He bowed his head.

  “That which is, she will keep.”

  The Keeper walked past him to the dead changer. Black roots, a physical manifestation of the power residing inside her, twined over the surface of her right arm, trailing down to taper off over her fingertips like long black nails, an ever-present indicator of her unique purpose. She placed this hand upon the demon’s smooth purplish flesh. Swirling wind rose up in the arena, touching everything except her. Her cloak didn’t move, but the watchers in the stands had to grab their hats, refreshments, and betting tickets to keep them from blowing away. Dirt lifted in that wind, obscuring the entire arena floor. The spirit of the dead changer moved up and out of the flesh that once contained it. It glowed before her eyes as brightly as the sun.

  She lowered her gaze, bowing her head respectfully. Come to me and you shall be remembered.

  No creature was so humble that it did not wish to live on in some way beyond death. At her words, the shapechanger’s spirit swirled down, sinking into the roots that were a part of her flesh. With it came all of the pain of its death. The Keeper clenched her teeth and sucked back on a scream. It was always this way and she could not show weakness. She must hold the pain or risk losing the spirit. She had to accept it all, though it tore through her flesh as if the death had been her own. The long agony of the spike buried in the demon’s eye, the pain of each strike of the warrior’s blade splitting its flesh, all of it became her pain, compacted into almost a minute of anguish as the spirit flowed into her.

  Then the wind stopped. The dirt fell wherever the wind had carried it, some showering down upon the crowd. The Keeper turned and faced the warrior. The spirit was kept, now there were punishments to deal out.

  The warrior’s head remained bowed as she approached. He began to tremble when she rested the fingers of her right hand upon his dust-coated brow. His physical strength could not protect him from this and he knew it.

  “You have committed an unforgivable crime. Your life continues at the whim of greater powers, for death is not mine to deal, but you must pay in suffering.”

  “I must pay in suffering,” the warrior repeated, a jaw full of oversized teeth garbling his words.

  The poor creature wasn’t much more than a malformed beast himself, handicapped by the mix of his blood and suited to little more than the life of a gladiator or thug. She pitied him, but that didn’t stop her from passing the pain she’d absorbed briefly into him.

  He let out a tortured howl and his body went rigid. When she took her hand away, he fell to the floor, convulsing with the aftershocks of that agony.

  The Keeper left him there, her business with him complete. Another deserved to feel that pain even more than the warrior did. This other had left the arena even before the end of the battle, but she didn’t need to worry about finding him. The power within could sense him and it transported her, moving her from the torch lit stadium to the shadows of a dimly lit bedroom in an Undercity hotel.

  A man was in the room, his back to her. He busily tucked clothing in a heavy pack that lay upon the neatly made bed. Ready to check out, it appeared. A short curved sword lay next to the pack, well within his reach. Black hair, generously run through with the silver of age, hung down to his shoulders. She walked up behind him. The man grabbed the sword and spun with startling speed. She caught the blade with her right hand, the black roots protecting her skin from its cutting edge. His eyes widened and he let go of the sword, dropping to one knee. He bowed his head.

  “Forgive me, Keeper.”

  She stepped back from him and let the sword fall to the floor. The thud was the loudest sound for several heartbeats. She could sense the difference in his spirit, his umahk-ra she knew he would call it, that trace of something that made him a different breed from the thousands of humans still living in the city. In his veins ran the blood of The Undying. Few of his kind dared venture into the city now. Her left hand rose up under her hood seemingly of its own volition to touch the five braids in her hair.

  Braids? Her hand sank back to her side.

  “You are Endless?” The word stirred a deep unease in her as it passed her lips. She could see his shoulders tighten in discomfort or fear, but he kept his eyes downcast.

  “I am.”

  “Where are your braids?”

  He started to raise his eyes then caught himself and bowed his head lower than before. “I am umahk-ra-uden. I was never a warrior.”

  Umahk-ra-uden. The same as…as who? She struggled with the overwhelming familiarity of the term until he shifted and she pushed the feeling away.

  “And yet you carry a sword?”

  “I would be a fool to wander the Undercity unarmed.”

  That was true and irrelevant. She had a purpose to fulfill and only that purpose mattered. “You have committed an unforgivable crime. Your life continues at the whim of greater powers, for death is not mine to deal, but you must pay in suffering.”

  “I accept my punishment.”

  She rested her right hand on his head and let the pain flow briefly through. He stiffened, like the warrior, but didn’t cry out or fall. He was stronger, not in flesh so much as in spirit. She turned her back on him, ready to depart. A soft yet insistent murmuring in the back of her mind compelled her to turn and face him again, and to say things she should not say.

  “You needn’t kneel before me. I am no god.”

  He didn’t move, but there was fresh tension in his posture, an unvoiced anticipation flowing from him. “Then what are you?”

  What am I? His question vexed her, as did his subservient pose. “Stand.”

  He rose with keen grace that spoke to considerable training and physical discipline. He still kept his gaze downcast. Tears ran silent down his cheeks. She raised her left hand and caught one upon her fingert
ips, bringing it to her lips. It tasted of sorrow, not pain.

  “The warrior was merely a brute, paid to fight any opponent brought before him. I understand how he came to this. You are no fool. You are Endless.” Umahk-ra-uden. Spirit thief. I remember. “You cannot claim his ignorance. To bring an end to such a creature, one of the last of its kind, for mere sport. Why would you knowingly do this?”

  “As you say, I am Endless. The Endless tribes were slaughtered or driven from this city by demon-kind. Perhaps the procurement of such rarities for the arenas is the only way I can sate my hunger for vengeance.”

  “If that is true, then why do you weep for its death?”

  The muscles in his jaw twitched. The question made him uncomfortable, but he was quick to turn it back. “Is not any death sufficient cause for mourning?”

  He answers me with such a question. She felt a strange twisting in her chest. Why had she spoken to him at all? What made her linger here? She turned away again.

  “Wait.”

  She waited, still as a statue, knowing she should be gone and relishing, in some part of her being, that she was pushing boundaries, even if she wasn’t sure who had laid those boundaries to begin with or why.

  “Where do you go now, Keeper?”

  She stared into the shadows of the doorway. It was none of his business. Endless. Umahk-ra-uden. Have I known another like him? “I go wherever I wish until I am needed again.”

  “I am Naago-ra. Travel with me for a time.”

  The Keeper turned to search his face. Was he serious? Did he realize how absurdly inappropriate the request was? “Why?”

  He looked into her hood, peering against the unnatural darkness that shielded her features from curious eyes. He didn’t fear it, or perhaps he didn’t care enough to fear.