The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) (10 page)

“The new girl wouldn’t have me.”

It took a second for Merlin to realize who he was talking about. Glenda, the girl Rohm cared for, was a petite ouled who’d just arrived.

“Cherie and the other girls are always welcoming, but that Glenda wouldn’t have the likes of me.”

“One stupid woman is hardly worth getting drunk over.” Merlin was tired and aggravated and only wanted answers to his questions. The expression on Mathers’ face shamed him. “She means that much?”

“She does.”

Mathers walked ahead, brushing his hands across low hanging tree branches, and finally coming to rest against a large oak tree. At first Merlin thought there would be no hope of talking any further with Mathers. Then a smile broke out across Mathers’ face, followed by a low rumble of laughter, and finally he was bellowing and close to tears.

“What’s so funny?” Merlin asked.

“She thought I was a troll.” Mathers wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

He didn’t see why that was funny, but he played along, glad that the little man was somewhat happier.

“So what you wanting from me?”

“The king needs to know about the banyan tree at the foundation.”

Mathers tilted his head back to look up at him. “The Elder said she was the mother of all trees. To destroy her was bad business.”

“Her?”

“He called the tree a she. Sit for hours he would, a’talking to her.”

“No name?”

“I know what you’re asking. I may be drunk, but I still got my wits about me.” He walked on through the woods. It had been a warm spring, but the chill was in the air this morning and chimney smoke wafted up from one of the ouleds’ cabins. “I’ll have her and she’ll like it.”

The ouleds had a small grouping of cabins at the crossroads between the human world and the path that wound up the mountain to Stoke Castle. Merlin didn’t know the specific cabin Mathers was looking at but suspected it was where Glenda lived.

“Glenda won’t talk to me. I tried, but even dashing as I am…” Mathers gave Merlin a wink. “She never had a word for me. I took no offense. A dryad lived inside the banyan tree, old as time itself, I suspect, and the Elder loved her. Not for me to be spreading rumors around. I kept my mouth shut and did my job. My babies is why I was there.”

Mathers speaking of his babies made Merlin think of something Lily had mentioned to him, about some texts she could sense but couldn’t locate. “Where have you hidden them?”

“What?” Mathers grumbled, casting him a cagey eye.

“The texts. You’ve locked some away, haven’t you?”

“Nah, you’ve gone as barmy as everyone says.”

He’s lying
,
playing you; don’t get your ire up
, Bleheris whispered.

Yes, I know
. “Tell me what you know about the tree.” Mathers had been devoted to the Elder. He’d wanted his freedom, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loved Huthwiat. Truth is, if Huthwiat hadn’t diminished, he’d never have left. “There’s something else. Tell me,” Merlin urged. “What can it matter now?”

Mathers looked up at the sky and down at the little cabin with the smoke coming out of its chimney. “If a man were to tell something of importance, wouldn’t that man expect something in return?”

“What would such a man with important things to tell want?”

“Lust, desire, the love and embrace of a beautiful woman.”

It was doable if the information was worth it. “For how long?” Merlin asked.

“As long as I wish to have her. I want Glenda to beg for what’s between my legs. To be aching for it.”

“You realize that if we strike a deal you can never speak of this.”

Mathers spat onto the ground. “Like I’m a big talker. If you thought I’d be whoring my story, you’d never have sought me out.”

True, very true. “Tell me first.”

Mathers gave him a squinty stare. “You’ve always been fair with me.” He inhaled and exhaled the breath slowly. “I’d always known there was something about the tree. Woodfolk know these things. Last year, I heard a female voice, but no one was there. Then I saw her; she was naked, and dark like the bark of the tree. There were tiny leaves in her hair and she was laughing. It was only a glimpse, mind you, but I know what I saw.”

“Did she have a name?”

“Don’t be interrupting me,” Mathers snarled. “Rude, that is.”

“Apologies.”

“I don’t know it, her name.” He ran his fingers through his coarse hair. “Before the Elder left to see Lily, he told me to always have a food tray inside the room with the tree. That if I should hear someone in there not to be alarmed. Odd, it was, since the Elder and I was the only ones with access to the archives because the Keepers were a’disappearing, but not my place to be a questioning the Elder. Every day I’d bring in a large tray of food and every day the same food would be still sitting on the tray, until one day it was all gone. Nothing, not a crumb was left. I was wheeling the cart out when they spoke to me.”

“They?”

Mathers gave him an irritated look. “Yes, it was a female voice and a young male voice.”

“What did they say?”

“Thank you.” Mathers started to cry. Fat wet tears ran down his cheeks. “The Elder told me he was dying. He told me to come here, that I would be fine, that I would be happy.” Mathers wiped his face clean and looked up at Merlin. “How can I be happy without my people?” Mathers took a moment to collect himself.

“He made me promise to leave. You see, this was before you contacted me. He knew what was to be. He told me to take my babies and bring them to you.” In a way the contents of the archives were his babies, as he’d always taken care of them. “That he was fading from this plane.” He cleared his throat. “We both had that in common. Being the last. Left behind by our people. I miss him. I sleep with my babies because it reminds me of him.

“The Elder knew what was coming. He never said, but he knew it. We all feel it. Like a dark shroud waiting to cover us one last time.”

Merlin shivered and told himself it was the chilly air, but that was a lie. Yes, he felt it.

“Did she suffer?” he asked Mathers.

“The tree?” He shook his head. “You’re worried it was the blast that killed her? No, the Elder, he’s the one that released her spirit. I never seen a tree so emptied of life, and I never wish to again.”

“There was a boy? The Elder’s boy?” Merlin had put the pieces together as to why the king wanted to know about the tree.

“Aye.” Mathers looked off towards Glenda’s cottage. “I’ve told you what I know. I expect she’ll be waiting for me.”

Merlin heard Bleheris’ voice deep inside his mind.
This is what almost destroyed you before. You are forsaking everything I’ve taught you.

No, you have forsaken me and taken my visions. Be gone from me, Merlin thought.

“They say you’re nothing but an old toothless lion, but I never believed ‘em,” Mathers tossed over his shoulder as he walked down the trail and into Glenda’s waiting arms.

Rage erupted through Merlin’s body.
Toothless, is that what they say? Well, I shall show them what an old lion can do.
The darkness he’d kept under control for centuries came bubbling up to the surface and he cared little for what it would do to him. He wanted the power, the darkness, the control it would give him. It is for the king, he told himself.

To be named Anson

The human with the weak mind had known nothing. He’d used him to get up to the surface, to learn about this age he’d awakened in. Humans were different in this time, their minds more accepting, more fragile. They seemed to have no superstition, no sense of evil, no sense of anything more powerful than themselves.

He was grateful for the nourishment he’d received from the men. They’d been waiting in a camp set up outside the entrance to the mine. Their blood completed his transformation from a desecrated corpse to what they would perceive as an average human male. Reading their minds had been too easy.

Free, I’m truly free
.

He lay back against the soft grass and looked up into the night sky. Something so simple was an incredible gift to him. He tried to remember what happened right before the human men had opened the room he’d been entombed in. He had to close his eyes to the beauty above him to concentrate. There had been pain and light that seared down into his bones and then he’d awakened.

“I am here now,” he told himself. “That is all that matters.”

When he’d first walked upon the surface, he’d thought the human men were slaves, but after reading their minds, he realized they were paid workers. There were many wonders to this age. Things he could not completely fathom, not yet at least, not until he experienced them for himself and not just through the minds of others. Larry, one of the workers, had been very knowledgeable and helpful as he’d shown him the computers they used now. Larry had spent the last hours of his life explaining the world to him. The countries both large and small were nothing as before. Kings that ruled vast territories had been overthrown. Countries chopped up, only to be rejoined again by war. These new humans had no memories of his kind. The loneliness pained him.

Instinctively, he knew he needed to go west where there was a strong power pulling him towards it like a magnet. He could feel it throbbing with life, waiting for him. With his strength only partially restored he chose to fly to the closest city. There he would gain more sustenance and knowledge. He regretted killing the men. If there had been any other way he wouldn’t have, but it was the only way for him to survive. He vowed to honor them by saving a life for each one he’d killed to repay them for their gift of blood.

He soared high into the embrace of the night sky and delighted at the lights of his destination twinkling like a million stars fallen to earth. He flew, and then hovered, watching the men and women walking along the streets. From the computer, he knew this was Sydney, a city settled beside the sea.

In a dark area he dropped down to the ground and watched the flow of humans move about the energetic city. How distant his entombment in the iron cage seemed now that he was inundated with light and sound and the luscious smell of humans.

“Watch out, mate,” a man yelled at him.

He stepped back to let the automobile pass. He needed to find a teacher, someone who could guide him until he knew more. The mental knowledge he’d learned so far was only the beginning. He followed the flow of humans, hunting for the right target. He wanted someone of power. It was almost dawn when he spotted her, a woman with flaming red hair, surrounded by guards, sitting in an outdoor café. Neither man nor woman appeared able to keep from glancing at her. There were even people scurrying out of reach of the guards, pointing small boxes her way. Cameras, he told himself, those are cameras. When she rose, everyone was propelled into motion. He focused on her, willing her to look at him.

Her eyes held his for an instant and then drifted past him. How could she not see his power? Did power not seek power in this age? Surely that had not changed. He looked down at his clothes. He was dressed in the scavenged coveralls of the miners. He was dirty, his hair patchy and unwashed. Of course, she could not see past his garments to what lay underneath. He would show her.

When she stepped into a dark vehicle, he followed the car by air. She arrived at a tall building; the entourage of people surrounded and followed her in. There was no way for him to know where she was inside as he’d not caught her scent. When he tried to walk into the front entrance, the automatic doors mesmerized him for a moment, long enough for a uniformed guard to tell him to shove off.

Walking around the building, he found other entrances, for the workers. It was easy enough to slip inside behind a group of women. He found a room with water that ran from the ceiling, a shower. He remained under it for a long time, letting the water cascade down his body, using a cloth to scrub away the dirt and grime. He was pink as a newborn babe when he walked out of the steam.

A tall man with facial hair burst into the locker room. “What are you doing in here? You need to get your ass on the floor.”

“Ass,” he repeated the word and moved until he was inches from the man’s face. “The woman, where is she?”

“Woman?”

“The one with hair the color of fire and the guards,” he prompted.

“Ah.” The man smiled. “The VIP suite.”

“VIP?”

Even in a trance, the man gave him a “where did you come from” look. “Very important person. She’s an actress from America.”

He remembered seeing this America on the computer. It was west, on the other side of the world. “Take me to her.”

“She’s guarded.”

“I’ll reward you.”

“She’ll be calling down for ice cream soon. Pity such a pretty little thing is chasing the dragon.”

He didn’t know what the man meant and didn’t ask. Twenty minutes later he was dressed in a hotel uniform, standing in front of her door with a food cart. He’d released the man from the trance, telling him to remember nothing of him.

The guards, large of proportion but timid of mind, were easy to trance into believing that he belonged there. They almost seemed not to care.

“Finally.” The waifish woman opened the door. She was wrapped up in a robe two sizes too large. She stepped aside for him to push the cart into the room. “That’s fine. The guards will tip you.”

From a distance she’d been lovely; up close she looked unhealthy, starved even. Her collar bones were sharp edged and looked like they would puncture through her pale skin. Her hair was obviously tinted in a way to give it a reddish color. Her eyes were glazed.

“Look at me,” he said.

“Just leave the cart. I’m done with gawkers for the day.” She turned her back on him.

He didn’t like being dismissed. He didn’t like that this emaciated human found him beneath her. She was moving towards a table beside the windows. Outside he could see the harbor of Sydney, but she was not looking there, her attention taken by what was on the table. He moved with vampire speed to impede her way.

She snarled at him. “What the fuck! Get out. You aren’t pretty enough for me.”