The Keeper Read Online Free PDF Page B

words.
    “Indeed? And the glove?”
    “I had the pair but I lost one when we were running from beasts in the Quag. It has no powers,” I added, which was perfectly true.
    “Well, let’s try one out, shall we?” he said.
    He grunted a few more times, each one louder and more authoritative than its predecessor. Several ekos shot forward and picked me up clean off the ground.
    “Stop!” shouted Delph, but he and Harry Two were instantly surrounded by a wall of armed ekos.
    I shouted, “It’ll be okay, Delph.” I knew what I was going to do.
    The ekos carried me back into the room where the mountain of rock and the miner gnomes were located. Thorne followed us, as did Delph and Harry Two, at the sword ends of the trailing ekos.
    Thorne tossed the chain to me. “Now prove your statement,” he said.
    I wrapped the chain around me even as the ekos clambered up the mountain of rock, carrying me all the way to the top. They were strong and their grasses scratched and irritated my skin. We reached a ledge at the very top of the rock. The ekos set me down. I heard grunts from below. Thorne was obviously giving his final instructions. The git needn’t have bothered. I wasn’t going to wait to be forced off the ledge.
    When a pair of ekos reached out to me, I pushed them away so hard they fell back against the rock wall. “Bugger off!” I cried out.
    I looked down at Thorne with as much defiance as I could possibly muster, which wasn’t hard.
    And then I jumped.
    I soared straight downward. I looked at no one other than Thorne. I wanted him to see the revulsion on my face. He looked stunned, which ordinarily would have made me smile. But my anger was such that all I could do was stare daggers at him as I fell. At the last instant, I lifted my head and shoulders and pointed my arms upward. I soared over them and then lifted up, up, up, until I landed back neatly on the ledge.
    The ekos all drew away from me.
    I looked triumphantly at Thorne.
    He smacked his hands several times by way of applause and then beckoned me to join him below. I jumped once more and landed nimbly right next to him.
    He looked at me slyly. “From where did you come by such a remarkable thing as that?”
    “You know Stacks?” He nodded. “It has rooms that are secret. I found it there.”
    He looked lost in thought for a moment. “And Stacks was not always what it is now.”
    “That’s right. Did Julius Domitar tell you that?”
    “Alas, Domitar and I did not see eye to eye on much.”
    “Well, my respect for him just increased a hundredfold.”
    “You would do well to hold your tongue, Vega,” he said, sounding dangerous. He pointed to Delph. “Say you are sorry for disrespecting me.”
    “I’m sorry.” However, my stubborn features, I know, betrayed this as a lie.
    “There is a price to be paid for lying to King Thorne.”
    He grunted to the group of ekos and before I could react, it happened.
    One of the ekos shot an arrow into Delph’s thigh. He screamed and toppled to the rocky ground, holding on to the shaft that had suddenly sprouted from his limb.
    “Delph,” I screamed.
    I rushed to him. Blood was pouring out of him far too fast. I ripped off part of my sleeve and used it to try and stanch the bleeding. But it kept pouring out. Delph’s face turned chalk white and he stopped screaming. He sank flat to the floor.
    Harry Two stood in front of us both, his fangs bared as though daring any of the ekos to come closer.
    “Oh, Vega?”
    I turned to look at Thorne. He was casually holding up the Adder Stone.
    “Might you want to try this? Your purported healing rock?”
    Now I knew why he had Delph shot. As a way to prove that what I had said about the Adder Stone was true. As well as to punish me for my disrespect.
    I held up my hand. “Toss it here, quickly.”
    “Sorry, I don’t think that was quite what I was looking for,” he said smoothly, his manner unhurried.
    Swallowing both my pride and anger, I said in a pleading