The Keeper Ch. 12-13

Chapter Twelve

Niamh awoke in the dark, cold, and in pain. She was naked and chained to damp a concrete wall. A necklace of some sort encircled her neck. Madness struck when she realized what it was--a Sidhe slave torc.

She tried to shift and her world exploded in agony. She blacked out.

Sometime later she awoke again. Her fingers gingerly explored the torc. She realized it was made to imprison were-folk. It was spelled to read body functions and dished out punishments as soon as it detected a shift starting.

She was trapped.

Helpless.

A wave of utter panic consumed her. She went into a frenzy of jerking her arm to try to pull her wrist out of the cuffs holding her wrist to the wall.

The resulting pain in her wrist brought her back from the edge of panic.

She took a deep calming breath.

"Okay then. I'm trapped here, but I am not helpless. Stop and think." With a sliver of metal or a bobby pin, she could get out of any handcuff made. She had none of those things.

I wonder how long it would take to chew through my wrist.

The torc tightened a warning. Thoughts that went to body harm were punished as well.

Okay, that idea is out.

The obvious solution was to shift, and her arm would slip out automatically, but the torc wouldn't let her do that.

She sat up, brought her knees up against her chest, trying to conserve as much body heat as she could, and let her mind wander its way to a solution.

"There is always a way." Her voice echoed in the blackness.

The Sidhe both light and dark had to develop the tool to control the slaves they created. You could use the magic to create a half bear--half-human to guard your household, but it did little good when your creation could and would turn on you the first chance it got. The deepest fear of any slave-holding society was a revolt. When their wizards developed the torc, they found a perfect solution to their fears. The collar was powered by magic, and magic in Alfheim was as common as sunlight. No need for recharging or batteries--when a slave was collared, it was forever. The spell-craft for removing them was lost in the mists of time.

She relaxed and fell into a fitful sleep. Only to be galvanized sometime later by the thought that there was no need for batteries in Alfheim. But Oldtown was a different story. Here the available magic was far less, not as bad as earth but a lot less than Alfheim. The torc wouldn't be as efficient unless you were camped on Opari's edge.

The question was, how many shocks could she stand?

"As many as it takes," she whispered.

She shifted.

Screamed and blacked out.

Again.

Again

Again

Was the pain lessening?

Again

Again.

Shift. Familiar pain as muscle and bone realigned to a new shape and function.

The manacles slipped from her paws.

Niamh Harpe was loose and very angry.

In her were-form the room once midnight black now became dimly lit. Growling softly, the huge panther circled the room three times, then slipped in the grim-gray discipline of no-time to wait--fully alert and fully ready. She laid down, nose pointed to the doorway, relaxed but coiled for the killing time.

The shifter Niamh Harpe was a killer in both of her personas.

Her captors were going to learn what others had learned before, she was hard-wired to attack threats rather than run from them.

***

Niamh awoke instantly from her doze as soon as she heard voices just outside the door.

"Open it." She recognized the rich melodic voice of the Leprechaun.

She tucked her hind legs under her torso and stretched her tail out behind her for maximum balance, preparing to leap as soon as the door opened.

"Hold. She may be free," the other voice sang.

The elf.

"How could she be free? She's drugged. Besides, she's collared and chained to a wall."

"Everything I've heard about her talks of her resourcefulness. Why take a chance. Do you yearn for the true death?

Niamh quickly shifted back and moved over to the manacle in the wall.

The door opened slowly; the Leprechaun peeked in.

"Hah, it appears you overestimated her. She's still unconscious.

"You are a fool," sang the elf. "How have you survived this long? The torc is inactive."

He waved his hand and lassitude overcame her once more.

I deserve whatever these assholes do to me, she thought disgustedly. Stupidity and overconfidence define me this day.

Blackness.

Chapter Thirteen

Interlude

Thirteen years ago

The Vísdómur came again for the boy, Lachlan Quinn at midnight on mid-winters eve. He'd been with his foster father for seven years.

"Come," the eldest's grating voice woke him out of a sound sleep. She took his hand in her green-skinned fingers and led him still dressed in his pajamas and bare footed through the drifts of one of the region's rare snowstorms and into the forest behind the old man's cabin.

The boy, now fully awake, shook in utter terror. He remembered well the night of the glyphs. He'd had nightmares about them long after the pain of his healing had passed.

The three paid his distress no mind. Inside the forest, the air was summer warm--the chill of winter left behind. They walked swiftly, the boy stumbling along beside them until they came upon a massive vine-swathed maple tree. They laid him down on thick moss that mantled the tree's base.

Once again, the three took a position around him and chanted a singsong spell, and once again the boy was aware but paralyzed. The youngest stroked a comforting hand through his hair.

"Do not fret, boy. There will be no pain this time."

Stone-still, they sat legs folded in a lotus position, the Vísdómur stood watch over his body.

"The Goddess Opari comes," the eldest whispered to him. "Few get to meet her. Watch and learn, boy."

A blue butterfly--no it was a tiny, winged sprite fluttered about the flowers of a hanging vine then flew in a circle around his face and lighted on his head. Her feet tickled him as she walked around his face with dainty feet. She peered into his eyes and giggled.

"She's curious and getting to know you." the voice sounded far away.

The butterfly sprite walked to a spot directly above the bridge of his nose and stopped. Lachlan's eyes crossed as he watched she preened her antenna. She spoke a tiny whispering that reached into him and tickled the deep recesses of his mind. The whispering quested and snuffled and rummaged about in his mind. He stood to one side and watched passively.

His memories began to unfold. They came and went as if the pages of his life were turned. Some good--most awful.

He watched himself as a three-day-old baby when a bearded dirty face loomed into sight, interrupting his cries of hunger and cold. Huge hands came into the dumpster and lifted him into the frigid air.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, there's a baby in this dumpster. Jeff, go call the cops."

Once more he watched as a toddler as his new father placed him in the hands of a neighbor and run back into the burning house only to perish in a futile effort to rescue his new mother.

He watched himself go through the fearful process over and over of awakening in another new group home full of uncaring strangers he'd only met the night before.

Once more he met Annie, the little blond-haired girl who was his first friend. The two were inseparable and snuggle slept the terrors away. She held him when he cried himself to sleep at night. He did the same for her. Once more he watched with helpless terror from the closet as the daddy of the house slapped her for stealing food that he had stolen--slapped her so hard that she crumpled to the floor and he couldn't get her to wake up no matter how he tried. He had let her take his punishment; he hadn't protected her because he was terrified of the daddy.

Now this reliving in inexorable technicolor was a dreadful re-punishment for that awful sin of all sins that ruled his life. Tears welled up and tracked down his cheeks. He was too paralyzed to sob--too paralyzed to do anything but endure and witness--and witness--and witness--the memories that continued to flicker.

Finally, the sprite arose with blurring wings and beckoned him into the Opari.

The boy's spirit arose and followed.

"His heart has stopped," he heard the youngest say.

"Let him go," the eldest said. "He survived the mirror testing. Few have done so. She now shows him the wonder of Opari.

Lachlan's spirit wandered rootless with the Goddess into the gloom. She took his hand and led him down deep underground into the tangled chaos of a million roots. He sensed the forest's slow ponderous heartbeat--the pumping of nutrients upward and the tiny pinpricks of light energy that danced downward to an immense maze of fungal netting of symbionts and parasites that tended it all. She sang to him of the joy and purpose of a self-organized life. Her whispering beckoned him further down--his mind blossomed--he followed her into--Blackness.

Lachlan Quinn awoke in his bed five days later, changed once again.

All commented on the fact that the brilliant blue eyes that had been the first thing they had noticed about the Keeper's Boy were now the deep emerald green of a summertime forest. What they didn't see because no one saw the boy with his shirt off was the intricate delicate green vine tattoo that encircled his torso.

The Goddess had marked him as her own.