Alaric leaned his head on the table and closed his eyes, clasping his hands together to stop their shaking. He wanted to run, to run and forget the fact that those memories were shared now, held permanently in the Wellstone to be studied by Keepers whenever they wished.
Alaric shook out his hands. He shoved the thoughts of what he had just done away. It was done, and with it, his time as a Keeper. He would find Kordan’s antidote, and then he would leave. He thought of the swirl of darkness in the ruby and felt a wave of anguish. How long did he have before that darkness spread? How long did Evangeline have left?
But the Wellstone demanded focus, and it was a long time before he was calm enough to try. Finally, he set his hands on it and concentrated on the entry he had read in Kordan’s journal. The boy, the snake, the emerald.
It was a process, looking for information in the seemingly bottomless pool of memories in the Wellstone. Slowly, painstakingly, he nudged the chaos toward the memories Kordan had left. When he finally found them, he found the boy, writhing in pain while a green glow radiated from his body.
The emerald formed, and the boy was led away by his parents. If Alaric could see where Kordan kept his notes, he could sift back through memories until he found the Keeper writing the antidote. But Kordan’s home was bare. There was only one book, the small brown journal Alaric had already read. Where did Kordan record his work?
Kordan pulled the emerald out of his pocket, watching the light swirl. He picked up a box from the mantle, a sprawling oak tree carved into the lid. Gently, he wrapped the emerald in a red handkerchief and placed it in the box.
Then he dropped into a chair. On the table next to him, sitting on a silver, three-pronged stand, was a small crystal with irregular surfaces, but each facet flashed with color.
Kordan had a Wellstone.
Alaric tried to see more, tried to draw out more memories from Kordan. But all he could see was Kordan looking into his own Wellstone.
Alaric’s stomach dropped. Wellstones must not record memories recorded in other Wellstones. No matter what he tried, he found no more of Kordan’s life.
He let his hands fall off the crystal.
He was looking in the wrong place. Kordan had kept all of his knowledge in his own Wellstone. This one was useless.
He sank back into the chair, dropping his face into his hands. His dismay was so great that he could hardly breath. He had just used the wrong Wellstone. There was no antidote here.
Alaric had just shared all his memories with the Keepers for nothing.
I will store all of my memories in the Wellstone, and bury my treasure here beneath a young oak, Kordan had written.
Alaric thought of Kordan’s sparse home. The Keeper had had no treasure besides the Wellstone. One even as small and irregular as his would be worth a fortune.
Somewhere in Kordan’s Blight, under what must now be a hundred-year-old oak, the antidote Alaric needed was buried.
He stood up, refusing to look at the useless Wellstone, refusing to think about the memories he’d just shared. The Shield would come see them soon enough and realize that Alaric wasn’t really a Keeper any longer. Kordan was right. There were choices that changed a person too much.
Alaric strode back down the ramp into the dark tower. When he reached the council chamber, he stopped to check a map, slipping in and closing the door behind him before lighting a lantern.
The council table was spread with woefully incomplete maps of the Lumen Greenwood, the forest of the elves.
For eight years, the Keepers had been trying to find out what had happened the day Mallon, a ruthless Shade Seeker with seemingly limitless power, had disappeared. He had bent the country to his will, leading an army of nomadic warriors right to the walls of the capital. Neither Queen Saren nor the Keepers had had any real hope of stopping Mallon. But then he had turned his attention toward the elves and disappeared into their woods.
That day, half of the Greenwood had burned and Mallon had disappeared along with every trace of his power. The thousands under his control had been released, and his nomadic army had drained back through the Scale Mountains.
But the elves had disappeared as well. It was challenging to find the elves in the best of times, but since Mallon, it had been impossible.
Alaric pulled maps off a shelf, tossing aside assorted maps of Queensland, the Dwarves’ capital of Duncave, and other miscellaneous maps until he found one showing Kordan’s Blight. It was far north, the last village before the Wolfsbane Mountains began.
He took a moment to memorize the map, then blew out the lantern and went quickly downstairs.
When he reached the ground floor, he could hear the thwump-thwumping of Keeper Gerone kneading the morning bread. It must be close to dawn. Alaric walked over to the kitchen door and saw the Keeper’s bent back as he steadily worked the dough. Alaric breathed in the smell of home and belonging.
He opened his mouth to greet Gerone, eyeing a kitchen chair he could drop into and spill his troubles out to the old man. In the quiet, while it was still dark, had always been a good time to talk to the brilliant man, looking for new perspectives or connections or answers.
But Alaric couldn’t bring himself to tell Gerone what he had done. He’d see the memories in the Wellstone soon enough.
Gerone began to turn around and Alaric ducked quickly past the door.
He paused for just a moment at the Keepers’ robes on the way out. He let his fingers run across the fabric again. He could leave the worn-out one he was wearing and put on a proper robe. The robes were made to look common, giving Keepers a measure of anonymity when they traveled. But they weren’t common. They were perfect. The perfect weight, the perfect warmth, the perfect black. The first time he had worn one was the first time he had really believed he was a Keeper.
Alaric let his hand drop. Leaving the robes on their hooks, he left.
The woods allowed Alaric to leave without being visited by ghosts or wolves, and by the time the sun had fully risen, he was on the King’s Highway heading north. When dusk came, he stopped for the night at a small tavern in a small town. It had been before lunchtime when he had passed the last thing that could be called a city. From here north, it was just scattered homesteads and the occasional village.
In the tavern, even though he was exhausted from not sleeping the night before, he settled into the commotion and camaraderie of the dining room. He was reluctant to call himself a Keeper tonight, so he introduced himself as a royal historian tasked with recording local histories. Several men joined him at a table and talked over each other to tell a legend of a crazy miller woman who haunted Dead Man’s Hollow.
When the sun set, Alaric continued recording stories by candlelight. The room was alive with laughter and folktales. For the first time in a long time, his enjoyment of the world around him drowned out his own worry and guilt.
The tavern brightened slightly as the front door opened. A hush fell over the room. Alaric glanced up to see where the extra light was coming from.
It took a moment to understand what he was seeing.
Standing in the doorway was a group of travelers. A young man, an old man, a stocky dwarf, and glittering like her own candle flame, was an elf.