As though in confirmation of her feelings, Jo tripped over a root half-buried in the soil. She fell to the ground, her arms and legs sprawling. Keeper Grainger was immediately at Jo’s side, inquiring after her. Brisbois, too, leaped to Jo’s side and helped the squire stand. Jo murmured her thanks to Keeper Grainger and shot an acid look at Brisbois. The man never noticed, for his eyes were once again on their host.
Jo brushed off a few leaves and dirt, while the Keeper bent and picked something up from the ground. “I believe you dropped this,” the woman said and handed Jo the pouch that held the giant gem she had received from the stranger in Kelvin. The pouch felt strangely chill as it dropped into Jo’s hand. She blushed, her secret seeming suddenly conspicuous. But the woman knelt again, noticing something else on the ground. “And this.”
Keeper Grainger stared at one of the small abelaat crystals she carried.
“Oh, thank you, Keeper Grainger,” Jo said nervously. “My birthstone. I would have been crushed to have lost it ” She held out her hand, but the woman only lifted the crystal to light. Her pale green eyes were wide with fear. Karleah moved forward suddenly and snatched the crystal from Keeper Graingers hand. The old wizardess helped Jo stand.
Keeper Grainger looked at the people who surrounded her. Her eyes were calm and clear once more, her hands serenely tucked into her shift. She stood slowly and gestured toward the barn door, only a few steps behind her. “Please,” the woman said, with only the faintest break in her voice, “make yourselves comfortable inside. I must prepare your meal.” Keeper Grainger turned to go, then pulled up short. “And then we must talk,” she whispered.
Karleah huddled farther back into the gray horse blanket she had wrapped about herself. She was cold, it was true, but she also wrapped up to remain just beyond the light cast by the fire in the brazier. As Keeper Grainger tended the fire, Karleah and her comrades finished their meal and waited for her to speak. Setting aside their plates, Jo, Brisbois, and Dayin arranged themselves on their blankets between the old wizardess and Keeper Grainger.
Karleah breathed a tiny sigh of relief. Her companions provided yet another screen between her and the other witch. Despite her wariness around the Keeper, Karleah was glad they had found the woman. Discovering the secrets that the Keeper kept could well arm them for battling the box once they had intercepted it. Still in the shadows, Karleah nodded her approval when Jo gestured for Braddoc to stand guard with his battle-axe. Not that the dwarf could do much good against the Keeper, Karleah thought spitefully.
Keeper Grainger stood gracefully and began collecting the emptied plates. The woman’s eyes met Karleah’s, and for a moment Karleah let herself feel the strange, sad attraction the woman engendered in people. Then Karleah snorted “Harrumph!” and turned away. The wizardess would not be lost in those pale eyes of green, not her.
It was easy to see that the others had been lost—particularly Brisbois. The man acted as if he had never seen a woman before. Dayin, usually so intuitive, had also been completely taken in by the Keeper. The boy had spent the better part of the evening helping her with the meal and making sleeping arrangements in the barn. His bright blue eyes shone when he looked at the woman, and Karleah felt a twinge of jealousy.
The old woman shook herself. I’m much too old to feel that way, she thought, then turned her musings to the dwarf and the squire. Karleah couldn’t read Braddoc, He seemed respectful of the woman, though not awed or infatuated, as Dayin and Brisbois were. Braddoc had been unusually silent since they had arrived, and Karleah wondered why. The old wizardess’s eyes flickered over to the dwarf, standing nearby. Braddoc held his battle-axe crosswise in his arms, in his standard ready position. His good eye remained focused on Keeper Grainger as she walked about the barn, plumping pillows and smoothing blankets. At least the dwarf, if no one else, seems to have his senses about him, Karleah thought.
She turned to look at Jo, sitting cross-legged in front of her. The young woman had tidied her clothing and rebraided her hair. Jo’s expression was intent upon the Keeper, but every now and then the squire’s brows knit in anxiety. Karleah saw Jo stroke Wyrmblight, which, as usual, lay beside the girl. The crone smiled. Ah, so the blade is talking to you again! she thought. Good. If anything can help you keep your wits, it’s Flinn’s sword. In her other hand Jo clutched an odd pouch she had been wearing on her belt. When the squire lifted her hand from it to adjust one of the buckles on her boot, Karleah noticed that Jo’s moist handprint remained on the pouch.
A moment later, she was clutching it again.
The old woman’s tired eyes flicked to Keeper Grainger, who now sat cross-legged beside the brazier. Beneath the folds of her long dress, the Keeper’s legs curved gracefully away. Karleah doubted she had ever seen a more physically perfect woman. And with a brain to match, too, the crone thought suddenly. Perhaps that is the secret of her allure.
Karleah pursed her thin lips. The crone rested her chin in her hands. “Tell the tale as you know it, Keeper,” Karleah whispered softly, “Your time has come.”
Keeper Grainger added one last piece of peat to the brazier and stoked the embers. Pungent smoke swirled up and away toward a hole in the barn’s ceiling. Keeper Grainger’s pale eyes flicked from one person to another, apparently trying to see past the shadows that enfolded Karleah. The woman turned back to the brazier and began speaking quietly.
“I do not know your names, it is true,” Keeper Grainger said, “but I know your purpose—and your destination.”
“What?” Jo cried out.
Karleah shook her head. You must learn more control, girl, she thought. You must. Your impetuousness will be the end of you someday.
Apparently the young squire had the same thought, for she calmed herself and said, stiffly, “What do you mean, Keeper? It’s true we are on a journey, which of course means we must have a destination.”
Keeper Grainger nodded at Jo and smiled. The light from the fire illuminated her radiant face. She said, “Perhaps it would be best if I first explain why I am called the Keeper. Then we can discuss your journey.”
“We would be delighted to hear your tale, Keeper.”
“Then listen, and listen well, child,” Keeper Grainger said softly, though the words rang clear to the rafters of the barn. She folded her legs together and leaned toward Jo, Brisbois, and Dayin. Braddoc took a step backward and hid in shadows, much as Karleah had done.
The old crone hunched down even farther into her horse blanket, as if seeking protection in the wool fibers. She wondered just how much the Keeper would reveal, and what she in turn would have to tell her comrades. Let it fall as it may, Karleah warned herself. She clutched her staff a little tighter. No spells had returned to the oak, but she felt more secure with it anyway.
“Why I am called Keeper, I will tell you now, as I was told, as my mother before me was told,” Keeper Grainger began. Her pale eyes focused on the rafters above, and the shadows from the fire distorted her upturned face. “I am the last Keeper, for I did not believe the tale—until tonight, when I saw your stones of abelaat blood, Squire-Without-a-Name.”
Karleah saw Jo’s fingers clench on Wyrmblight, but she did not cry out. The old woman nodded approvingly.
“I did not believe the tale handed down from mother to daughter in my family,” Keeper Grainger continued. “I did not wish to be Keeper, as my mother had before me. I did not wish to have a daughter to pass on the secrets I was taught, so I spurned all advances and offers of marriage. I wished the line of Keeper to end with me, that the secret burden of eons could end with me as well.”