Chapter Fifteen

Garrett and Mercury swam back to the ship and left with another boat, Garrett with a firm resolve to avenge Viktoria. Mercury made several attempts to lighten the mood, but dark shadows remained behind Garrett’s eyes and his laugh was still hollow and mirthless. Finally, the small boat hit the shore and ran aground.

Garrett swiftly got off and headed into the night. Mercury scrambled to tie the boat down before Garrett disappeared from view. When he caught up with him, panting, Garrett didn’t even spare him a glance. He continued to walk. Soon, they came to a dark, beaten up sign with letters scratched on it:

The Old Quarter

But Garrett did not stop. He kept going through the roads, without entering any buildings. But Mercury’s spectacularly large patience was running out. He came up next to Garrett and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, effectively stopping him dead.

“Hey, look Garrett, I realize you’re not feeling too well, but I’d appreciate it if you told me what it is that we are doing wandering aimlessly in the streets of the Old Quarter!” Garrett looked at him for a few moments.

“I did a job here a couple of years ago, when I was trying to destroy the Trickster. There are tons of undead, but I went in anyway to get some stuff. Now, the general idea is that the forces there come from the Eye, something that belongs to the Trickster. But, there is a problem with that reasoning. The Eye is no longer there. And the undead still are. I think there is another source of power they’re feeding off of. When the Eye was removed, I’m convinced they simply began to consume that power. I think that source might be the magic that protects those scrolls. That’s what I’m looking for.”

“You can feel that power?” Mercury asked, subdued.

“Oh yeah, I can feel it,” he said vehemently. “You’ll be able to as well. Trust me.”

“Right then, let’s go. The faster we find this, the less time the Trickster has to attack or otherwise hurt the City and the Mages of Shadow.”

Garrett agreed and started off again. They wound through large streets and narrow alleyways, all empty in the face of the approaching danger. They felt the increasing power just as strongly as Garrett had implied they would.

Suddenly, they stepped into an alley and the strength of the power went up incalculably. The two thieves staggered and fell to their knees with the force of the increase. Mercury clutched at his head as Garrett recovered.

Garrett rushed to his side and whispered three cryptic words: ‘fast goes slow’ Mercury looked up at him with a questioning glance and suddenly felt the pain disappeared from his brain. Garrett continued onward.

They quickly came to a large barrier with many chinks in the wall where it was beginning to crumble. Garrett began to climb the wall, and Mercury swiftly followed suit. Garrett stepped onto the top and began to climb down. Mercury looked down, calculated he was about twenty meters from the bottom, and made up his mind not to think about it. As Garrett approached the bottom, he jumped off the barrier and had his sword drawn before he hit the ground. Only this sword was not the same.

“Put that away!” Mercury hissed as he hit the ground beside Garrett with his sword drawn. Garrett’s sword was giving off a powerful glow that illuminated all the area around them.

“Nope,” Garrett replied. “This sword kills undead.”

“So does mine!”

“Nope.”

“The Keepers told me it did! Now put that away!” Garrett put the sword away.

“But I’ll pull it out again if I deem it necessary!” he warned Mercury. Mercury nodded. They continued to walk, but this time they were three times more careful. Garrett was a bit jumpy and every once in a while he would leap into a nearby shadow, closely followed by Mercury. During the first half hour, they met no undead, which began to scare Garrett.

“The undead have probably been trying to get across the barriers since the Trickster arrived, seeing as how he is a much more powerful power source,” Garrett surmised. Mercury looked at him dubiously, and neither of the two relaxed.

As they arrived near a decrepit old house, both of them could feel that this was the source of the power. Garrett proceeded cautiously, making near to no noise, invisible in the dark shadows of the house. Mercury was on the other side, sneaking through the building just as carefully as his friend. All of a sudden, the sound of screams and chains made itself audible. Garrett signaled for Mercury to go back, but it was too late. A skeleton dress in Hammerite clothing and carrying a hammer came around the corner.

Mercury wasted no time. He drew his sword and did not wait to see if the zombie would see him or not. He attacked. A bright flash blinded him seconds before the zombie noticed him. An explosion near his ear deafened him. When both eyes and ears had recovered, the zombie was still before him – blown up.

“Ummm…” was Mercury’s first reaction. “What…. Just happened?” was his next comment.

“Flash bombs get rid of zombies real fast,” Garrett replied calmly. “A bit loud and dirty, but safer than rushing the, head-on.”

“Oh…” Mercury replied strangely. “Well, then, let’s keep going,” he said, recovering his composure. But Garrett had already left, sweeping onwards into a room with a staircase.

“Up?” Garrett asked.

“Up,” Mercury agreed.

The two moved up the stairs quietly, avoiding any steps that seemed like they might creak. Several times, Mercury was about to step on a stair and the force, the power source, gained intensity quickly. Mercury pulled back, recognizing it as a warning, and skipped that step. He saw Garrett echoing his movements several times. Finally, when they reached the tope after five minutes of painstakingly slow advancement, Mercury felt the force to the left and Garrett to the right.

“Through the center, I presume,” Mercury said. Garrett nodded and they continued straight ahead until they came to a massive door. Garrett pressed his ear against it.

“I think it’s undead-free,” he whispered to Mercury. Mercury nodded and began to try picking the lock. Neither of his lock picks worked, and Garrett’s failed to yield results as well. Mercury’s mind flashed back to the rich doctor’s house and his job with John. It seemed so long ago, and yet it had only been a few weeks since that successful first mission and the subsequent disaster with this former ‘friend’. Mercury searched through his pockets until he found the red stick with the string sticking out of it.

“You think here are any more zombies in the house?” he asked Garrett. Garrett shook his head. Mercury struck a match and lit the dynamite stick he had placed next to the door. He pulled Garrett into another room.

“What was that?” Garrett asked.

“Gift from my world,” Mercury replied. “Nothing better to get rid of doors than good ol’ TNT.” Just then, the explosion shook the house to its foundations. “See what I mean?”

“No, but I definitely heard it.” Mercury chuckled.

“Now let’s go see that destroyed door,” he said.

They walked quickly to the door, or what had previously been a door. They leaped over the holes the explosion had left in the floor and through the hole it had left in the door. Inside was a dark, empty room. Except both Mercury and Garrett sensed something in the back corner. Mercury stepped over and felt around until his hands closed over a book and his face lit up with a triumphant smile. His hand moved back into the light and he gazed lovingly upon the sleek, black boat. Suddenly, the power they had been feeling for so long disappeared.

“Uh-oh,” Garrett said. Mercury looked at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“The power they were feeding on is gone. They’ll be coming here as fast as they can to see what happened. We have to run.” Mercury didn’t wait for further explanation; he ran. Garrett followed suit, his hand clutching the sword hilt. Mercury shoved the book deep into one of his many voluminous pockets, making sure it could not escape. Then, he pulled out a flash bomb. The two thieves staggered onward through the streets, trying to remember how they reached the house, cursing themselves for not having written it down. Finally, they reached the barrier.

“Uh-oh,” Garrett whispered from the shadows. In front of the barrier was another barrier of undead. Mercury took a pebble from the ground and tossed it behind the zombies. Sure enough, they all turned. He set the flash bomb’s timer to three seconds and tossed it in front of the zombies. Once again, they turned to find the source of the noise. Mercury chuckled and covered his ears. One of the zombies spotted the flash bomb and began to cover its eyes, but it was too late. Mercury looked away as the flash bomb ‘exploded’. A hug explosion that penetrated his hands reverberated through the streets. Mercury and Garrett did not delay – they dashed to the barricade and scrambled to the top. Garrett dropped another flash bomb behind them to avoid being followed. When they reached the bottom, they caught their breath and looked up… only to see twenty or so armed apebeasts approaching menacingly.