Keeper of the Books (Keeper of the Books, Book 1) (20 page)

“This is nuts,” Joe said. “So my brother ain’t even here yet?”

Clive shook his head. “Not according to you.”

“And you don’t know Tyler Montgomery, so it’s possible he ain’t here either.”

“Or I’ve just never heard of him,” Clive said. “Galamore is a very big place.”

“What about Ralph Smith or Stewart Douglas? You heard of them?”

“No, never.”

“I’m here all alone,” Joe said. “It feels strange.”
 

He stared down at the table, not really knowing what to think. There was no reason
not
to believe Clive. Really, if there was a possibility to fall into a book at all, why wouldn’t it be possible to fall into a book about time and be two places at once?

“What are you planning? What do you want to do?”

“I want to find my brother and go back home,” Joe answered.
 

Clive sat straighter and looked at Joe with fierce, but kind eyes. He wore a look of concern that troubled Joe yet gave him a sense of security at the same time. “You need to resign yourself to the fact that you are going to be in Galamore for at least six more years—that much I know.”

“How do I know you’re going to help me get back home?”

“I can’t make any promises like that,” he said. “All I can do is offer you my friendship.”

“How do I know that I can trust you?” Joe asked.

“Simple,” Clive said with a grin. “Instead of visiting yourself from the future, you visited
me.
If I was dangerous to you, wouldn’t
you
warn
yourself
that I am dangerous?”

Joe was a man of logic even when logic seemed to have gone to hell. He had no argument for Clive. Besides, Clive was the only person Joe knew at the moment. He reached out in front of him and took the shot glass and held it in the air.
 

“Here’s to six years, I guess.”

The liquid burned all the way down.

Autumn, 903 A.O.M.

The smell of sizzling bacon wafted through the small house in the woods, traveling to Nate’s nose and waking him from his slumber. He had fully expected the world of Galamore to be a dream; but he instantly knew it was real when he smelled his breakfast. He sighed with his eyes still closed, wishing he could figure out why he was here in the first place. As usual, his thoughts drifted to Joe. He hoped he was all right.

He opened one of his eyes and the light through the open window in the main room made him squint. His belly rumbled because of the smell in the room, and he hoped the old man had made some food for him.
 

Nate had slept on a mat in the middle of the floor next to the fireplace. It had been a lot better than having to sleep in the barn as he suspected he might have had to do. But Alban had been gracious to him on account of saving Marum’s life. He sat up from the mat and brushed his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. He thought about the events that had transpired and how it was actually pretty lucky that he’d woken in a jail next to Marum. Alban had been more than courteous.

Nate’s head started pounding. He had knocked back the rest of the whiskey from the bottle when the others had gone to bed. Now he was paying for it. He burped and his stomach felt like it was on fire. He rubbed his face where his few-days-old stubble was starting to turn into a full beard. He needed a good shave and a bath. He felt dirty. But he guessed there would be no time for that before they set out for their trip.

He stood in the middle of the room to find Alban in front of his stove in the kitchen with Rachel sitting at the table eating breakfast. The old man whistled a soft tune to himself as he cracked an egg into a pan. Rachel looked up and noticed Nate standing, scratching the back of his head. When he walked to the table, Alban turned to see him and smiled widely.
 

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “I hope you’re in the mood for a decent breakfast.”

Rachel looked away from him as he sat.

Alban walked over to Nate and set a plate in front of him with four strips of bacon, a large portion of scrambled eggs, and two large biscuits covered in molasses. Nate could feel his stomach groan for the food.
 

“Go ahead,” Alban smiled. “Mine is still cooking.”

Nate didn’t argue with him and dug in. At the other end of the room, Marum came through her bedroom door, her black hair pulled back, her clothes different than the rags she had been in before. She didn’t wear a dress like Rachel, rather long pants and tunic with a long coat. They were Alban’s clothes, but they actually fit the gray elf well.
 

“So,” Nate said with a mouth full of food, “this Foreseer is the real deal, is she?”

“Cara is good,” Alban said as he bit off a piece of bacon. “I’ve been to see her many times and she has always predicted my future accurately.”

“Give me an example,” Nate said.
 

Alban stared at him for a moment, almost as if he had not been expecting him to call him out on it. “Well,” he said, setting a hot plate in front of Marum. “There was this one time she told me that I would come across a traveler on the road and that he would need my help.” Alban leaned forward. “She told me that if I helped him, that he would become a close friend of mine, and would help me in turn. Sure enough, not two days later did I meet a traveler that needed a ride to Somerled. Even though it was a couple of days out of my way, I took him.”

“So, did he help you then?”

“Well, I would say so,” Alban said, with a smile. “The man introduced me to my future wife, Iris.”
 

Nate looked up at Rachel and then at Alban. “This really happened?”

“The man was a very interesting person,” Alban said. “We have had many adventures.”

“Are you still friends with him?”

Alban glanced at Rachel and then stared down at his plate for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. I’m not.” He took a large bite of eggs. “Cara told me many things. Some of them good, some of them grim.”

Nate decided no to press Alban further. After breakfast, Alban and Rachel cleaned the dishes while Nate and Marum sat and waited. Before he knew it, the four of them had set out for their journey. He hadn’t expected Rachel to go with them, but there she was riding in the back of the cart. Marum rode alongside the cart on Devlin’s horse they had stolen which had been fitted with new reins. Nate looked at Alban as he sat on top of the buggy next to him. The older man wore a tight smile across his wrinkled face as though this new day promised endless possibilities.

“Who’s going to watch your place while you’re gone?” Nate asked.

“Well,” Alban said, “we’re only going to be gone for a night or two. But I left a note for Bill, our hired help, to take care of things while I’m away.”

Nate looked behind him in the cart. It was a clean, wooden back with a few supplies neatly stacked and roped to the side. Rachel sat comfortably with her knees to her chest. She still wore her green dress which was spotless. He didn’t imagine the father and daughter had a lot of possessions, nor the need for a wardrobe of endless colors. They seemed to be simple people. One of them, Alban, craved adventure and new possibilities, and the other, Rachel, liked things to stay the way they were—without surprises. With any luck, Nate would meet with Cara the Foreseer and get enough answers to leave the trio behind so he could get back home, get his money, and retire in peace.
 

The day’s journey was not without event. More than once they had a scare when they saw a rider along the road. Each of them feared the worst when they thought it might be one of the president’s Rangers, but it never was. More than likely it was some peddler on his way to Tel Haven.
 

Marum was really the only one who needed to fear. No one would recognize Nate, but apparently most people in these parts had a disdain for gray elves. So much so that it wouldn’t be improbable for someone to attack them on sight. Marum kept the horse on the edge of the road in case she needed to dart through the woods and disappear suddenly.
 

But these events brought questions to Nate’s mind. “So,” he said, “if people around here aren’t friendly to gray elves, what’s your story? How is it the three of you are friends?”

“That is a long and good story,” Alban said. “Once upon a time I was part of the Crimson Army. Rachel wasn’t more than five or six. Iris, my wife, took care of her whenever I was away. Anyway, during that time there was a push from the ravagers from the south, and the Crimson Army required the aid of the gray elves to help stave them off.”

“Ravagers?” Nate asked.
 

“Terrible creatures,” Alban said solemnly. “They are a lot like humans, but evil and twisted. Their skin and hair are cotton white and they cut off the tips of their noses at birth.”

“Why would they do that?”

Alban shook his head. “To add to their savagery. They don’t like to speak the common tongue, but can if they are made to. A lot of people don’t believe it, but the ravagers eat their victims if they are hungry enough.”

“Oh, father, that’s not true,” Rachel said.
 

“I wish it weren’t true, my darling. But I’ve seen it.” Alban shook his head. “Anyway, it was a time when the gray elves and man actually worked together for a mutual benefit and it was good. Since the gray elves were up here, there were some who camped near my home. I became friends with Marum and Droman’s father in battle.” Alban sighed and waited a few moments before continuing. “Eventually, and some might say inevitably, there was a conflict between the men and gray elves. We had fought off the ravagers, but that wasn’t enough. A lot of the gray elves wanted to stay here up north where they had been fighting for so long, but the president at the time didn’t want them to. He tried to push them out and there was resistance. So, during the backlash, Marum’s father left Marum and Droman with me and Iris. Marum’s parents were killed in the struggle and the two young gray elves were left with us to live until they were older.”

Nate looked behind him. “How long did you live there?”

“Until about seven years ago,” Marum answered from the horse. “Droman became extreme and saw for himself what men of that time had done to us—that men had turned their backs on the gray elves. After all that time we’d spent fighting beside each other.”

“It was tragic,” Alban said. “Long story short, Droman is one of the most feared and wanted people in Galamore. He’s raised a small army against the president. And you,” he said, looking at Nate with a smile, “happened to rescue his sister from a most terrible fate. There is no doubt he will be in your debt.”

“If you were caught by Droman,” Marum said, “more than likely it would mean death rather than torture
then
death.” She smiled. “A bit of mercy.”

“Sounds like a nice guy,” Nate said.
 

“I don’t think he’s evil,” Alban said. “There is a lot of anger in him against men. A lot of anger against most people groups in Galamore.”

Nate didn’t say it, but he thought that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if this Droman character was killed. He looked back at Marum. “So, why’d they want to kill you?”

“To draw my brother out,” Marum said. “President DalGaard sent messenger birds to Gray Elf Country that I was to be executed on yesterday’s date. That is why I thought you might have been sent by my brother to help me.”

Nate turned away from her and stared ahead as they crawled along the road at a slow pace. The unspoken observation was that Droman had done nothing to help his sister. Each of them were silent for several long minutes after this part of the conversation. No one wanted to speculate as to why her brother hadn’t at least tried to negotiate a release.

Nate thought about what he would do in that situation. He couldn’t think of a person in the world for which he would give up his life, except maybe Joe. If Nate had gotten word that someone was about to hang his little brother unless he turned himself in, Nate would undoubtedly march to whatever town it was and offer up his life.

He shook his head at the thought. He wouldn’t offer up his life. He would go in with guns blazing. He always kept enough money back to hire fighters for such an occasion. He would go into the town, fire bullets into whoever threatened him, get Joe, and get out of there. Of course, such an act might send every one of them to the grave, but he wouldn’t so willingly sacrifice himself. Nate couldn’t imagine going down without a fight.
 

This was all to say that though Nate might not have given himself up, he would have done something if he were in Droman’s shoes. To do nothing showed an apathy deep within that was darker than sin.
 

Maybe Nate didn’t understand the way of the gray elves. Maybe they had different customs that had something to do with honor. Perhaps they thought it was best to die than to try and get out of it. However, given Marum’s attitude toward the situation and the fact that she pleaded for him to break her out of her cell told Nate a different story.

Alban looked behind him a couple of times and finally shook his head. “I wish there was something I could have done, Marum. When I heard you were captured, Rachel and I tried to visit you, but the guards wouldn’t allow it.”

“One of them even said that it was just a rumor that you were there,” Rachel said. “We couldn’t even know if the story was true.”

“How were you captured?” Nate asked.
 

Marum looked away at the road that crawled below them. The only sounds were the hooves of plodding horses and wooden wheels grinding against the dirt path. Finally, she looked up at Nate and said, “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. There are a lot of people who want my brother dead. I shouldn’t have been careless.”

Nate didn’t mistake her reply for an answer, but he left it alone all the same. It was rare that he even asked such questions. In his line of work, people didn’t like to talk much and Nate felt the same way. Too much talk usually led to bragging, and outlaws who bragged often ended up dead. Though the other two in the cart might not have caught it, Nate knew that Marum’s apprehension to tell them how or why she had been caught implied that she might have been doing something she shouldn’t have been doing, which meant she wasn’t as innocent as she might like them to believe.