02 The Keeper by David Baldacci

Author:David Baldacci [Baldacci, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

AFTER OUR LESSONS were finished each light, Delph worked on maps tracing routes and learning everything he possibly could to help us. And I practiced my spells and incantations over and over. At night, Delph and I would study, talking back and forth as we sat in the book-laden library. My notebook was full with what Astrea had taught us, and the margins were heavily cluttered with additional thoughts. I’m sure that Delph’s looked the same. Most nights we fell asleep in our chairs, our parchment upon our chests, and Harry Two snoring on the floor next to us.

We were told that the Second Circle was known as the Withering Heath. It was not any sort of heath with which I was familiar. Instead, it was a vast forest with trees so densely set side by side that Astrea said it was sometimes difficult to breathe. This circle had such creatures as the deadly and quite mad lycans, which I had glimpsed through the Seer-See, and the hyperbores, which were blue and could fly, and might be an ally or an enemy. Astrea also impressed upon us that the Second Circle was full of depression and that if we allowed it, that feeling would come to dominate.

The Third Circle was the Erida Wilderness, which was actually the opposite of what I thought a wilderness should be. Astrea had said, “It’s a vast flat expanse that stretches seemingly forever. And jabbits and cucos inhabit the Third Circle.”

I well knew what jabbits were. But I had never heard of cucos.

“They will provide light in the gloom, when you might very well need it,” she said. “And, as I previously mentioned, there is the unicorn, whose horn will defeat all poisons.”

Delph and I had looked at each other. I said, “How do you get the horn?”

“There are two ways. One, you simply kill the unicorn and take it.”

I didn’t much like that way. “And the other?”

“You convince the beast to freely give it.”

“How?”

“That, you will have to figure out for yourself when the time is right.”

“But how do we figure it out?” I asked.

She had given me a disdainful look. “Not everything can be learned safely in a classroom, Vega. Education is not so neat and tidy.” She lifted her hand and pointed to the wall. “Out there is where you will learn your most valuable lessons. If you survive them, that is.” She paused and said, “There is another creature which dwells there, called Eris. He has one duty in life, to cause trouble and strife. He will do you mischief if you let him.”

“How do we defeat him?” Delph asked.

“You must learn to trust your instincts. That is the only way.”

I had looked at my ink stick as though hoping it would write down a far better answer of its own accord, but it didn’t. Lately, lessons were not going as well as they might. I was looking for precise answers and she was giving us “instincts.”

The Fourth Circle, we learned, was dominated by the Obolus River.

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