The Black Pod Page 3

  “Lord Keeper Adams, the Raptor.” It sounded like a pronouncement. She reached around and took off an enormous bag that had been slung over her back, upending it to dump its contents onto the steps.

  At first glance, they looked like twelve wickedly curved daggers. She took a single step back and dropped her chin to her chest. Adams realized as he descended the stairs that they were the tail spikes from the Telis Raptors they had killed the day before. Wynn must have gone back and harvested them.

  He reached down and lifted the smallest one. It was still longer than a hand's breadth. The spike was incredibly sharp and the last tail bone made the perfect handle. He lifted her chin with his left hand. She stared at his bruised but healing wound. It was just a scar now.

  “Thank you.” He handed the tail spike to her. He wouldn’t know the significance of the gesture until much later.

  ***

  That winter his collection of tail spikes increased to twenty-three. The Telis learned to stay away from the Keep after that first year. The Telis were the reason people also stayed away.

  The land recovered, and the hunting became better. With Box’s help, Tony learned common tongue and Wynn learned the high speech.

  Each of the tail spikes was boiled clean and polished, and Wynn made a leather wrap for the grip. Each of them was stuck into the underside of the mantel as a trophy. At first it was just to dry the leather of the grips, but there they stayed.

  Box maintained radio silence, waiting for a retrieval signal that never came. Passive sensors saw one other ship get destroyed by the automated defense grid. But that was the last. There was a war going on it seemed. Adams remained at his post. They stayed quiet, as nuclear bombs destroyed the planets’ networks.

  ***

  Years passed and the world was silent. Refugees found them, bringing tales of mass destruction and chaos on a planet named Baytirus. Pilgrims came. Many stayed, if they were brave. They all believed Adams was a Keeper. A kind of spiritual leader.

  Adams let them believe it. He would sit on the throne and answer questions. He adjudicated disputes. It was easy with Box. It was a simple life as he waited. They repaired the Keep, planted gardens and orchards and fields.

  He envied their ignorance of the universe.

  Lane lived another nineteen years. He became a legend that no one actually believed, that is until they saw him sleeping at Adams' feet in the throne room. Eventually, he was cremated with every honor that a Keeper would have received. Adams personally tended the fire with Wynn, and collected the ashes for burial. It was then that he found Lane’s tail spike; it would not burn. It was larger than any in his collection. After that, he carried it with him always, in a sheath Wynn had made for the purpose.

  Thirty-two years after Adams’ arrival, the entire Keep had glass in all the windows. It was alive again. Vines covered the dome of the Black Pod. Forty-six adults and twenty-one children resided inside the Keep full time. It was clean and beautiful. Where the forest had once been burned flat was now dotted with farms and even a small village with a tavern.

  Wynn and her husband had four children and eight grandchildren. She was the Keep’s real leader, and the only one that had ever been inside the dome where Adams lived. She was also the only one that noticed that Lord Adams had not aged a day since they had met.

  ***

  “Box, will you please tell Keeper Adams that a guest will arrive in a few minutes. He wears the livery of one of the High Keeper’s Trackers.” Wynn knew that she could speak directly to Box from anywhere that had a line of sight with the vine-covered dome.

  By the time the hooded figure entered the Keep, Adams was waiting in the high seat. As he entered the great hall, instead of approaching the dais right away as was the custom, the High Tracker turned his back on Adams to examine the collection of Telis Raptor blades stuck to the mantel.

  Box was sitting in her usual spot on the steps just to the right of the throne. “Be very careful with this one,” she said to Tony in his HUD.

  The man turned his head then and lowered his hood, as if he had heard her statement and was responding to it. As the man approached the steps, Adams could see he, too, wore a huge Telis blade.

  The man approached and began to climb the stairs. Another breach of protocol, to climb the steps without invitation.

  “Hello, Caisy. It has been a long time,” the man said. Box didn’t reply but stood as Tony stood.

  Then suddenly Adams recognized him. They both froze. The man was two steps from the top, but he was still taller than Adams.

  “I was about to ask if you were ready to go home?” The man looked from Adams to Box, then over his shoulder at a crowd gathering in the courtyard.

  “I think I am home,” Adams said quietly.

  “I know… Me too.” His old friend smiled wide. “I hear you make some fine bourbon here.”