Chapter Eighteen

Mercury arrived at the Thieves’ Guild’s hideout with one burning question lighting up all his thoughts: why did Garrett want to go to the Trickster’s mansion? He knocked on the door and it soon opened, one sword coming out to poke at his throat.

“It’s me,” he whispered, careful not to move too much. The sword withdrew into the basement and Mercury swung in. A much different scene from the one he had left behind greeted him.

Garrett was sitting around the same table with the same map (thought he had edited it a lot). Around him, however, instead of the three thieves from before, there were over forty, looking over each other’s shoulder and trying to catch a glimpse of the map. Garrett was explaining the layout of the mansion and the few security measures the Trickster had employed during his stay there.

“Garrett?” Mercury said, reluctant to interrupt. “Could I talk to you alone for a moment?”

“Sure,” Garrett replied. “I’m almost done here anyways, Give me one sec while I wrap up the layout of the Maw and I’ll give my full and undivided attention to you, ok?” Mercury nodded.

Garrett, meanwhile, turned around and continued to point at different parts of the recently drawn map, scribbling an occasional note or label to make his speech clearer. Mercury waited impatiently, wanting to know why they’d be going to the Trickster’s mansion. When Garrett finished, he pulled Mercury aside.

“What was it you wanted?”

“Why are we going to the Trickster’s mansion?”

“Why? Well… Well, you know… We gotta buy… I mean get! We gotta get supplies to fight him.”

“Garrett. We’re not going to fight him. We’re just going to destroy him from a distance. Remember?”

“Yes, Mercury, I do remember. But we need certain materials, even to destroy him from a distance.”

“That’s right. But we can get all of them elsewhere.”

“True… true… But, um, the ones from the Trickster’s mansion are safer!”

“How are they safer?”

“We’re surer that they’re real and… functioning and stuff.”

“No, not really we aren’t. Garrett, are you feeling all right? I mean, cause we can wait one more night to do this, you know…”

“No, no! Really! I’m… fine!” he replied nervously. Mercury narrowed his eyes.

“Are you sure? You know what, never mind. Don’t answer that question. When do we leave?”

“We leave now. If we don’t leave now, we may not get there in time.”

“All right, then. To the Trickster’s mansion and possible death!”

As the team of thieves exited the area, three apemen snuck into the basement of the house. After much rummaging, they seemed to find what they were looking for – a small piece of paper covered with Garrett’s scrawl. The three apes quietly slipped out of the hideout and up to the rooftops. Then, they vanished.

The thieves, meanwhile, went through the streets as a flowing stream, liquid shadows that flowed through side alleys and main arteries. But, as they approached the Trickster’s mansion, they all slowed down. They made sure that the fighting lines were well ahead. And then, it happened. Garrett turned around to look at Mercury.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then, a loud whistle escaped his lips. All of a sudden, two hundred apes dropped from the building’s roof.

The apes formed two lines, enclosing the thieves with one line ahead and one line behind them. Mercury stared at the apes open-mouthed at the unbelievable treason he had just witnessed. He stared silently at Garrett, then reached for his sword. But he didn’t reach it. A dreadful pain tore through his head as Garrett’s knee collided with it.

“Let be known,” Garrett announced, “that at this point you may surrender to the Trickster and save yourselves!” The leader of the Thieves’ Guild approached him.

“Why?” he asked.

“The Trickster has Viktoria, and I cannot allow her to die again when I can do something to stop it!”

“So be it. But be warned that, if we survive this, we will have our revenge!”

“I expect no less,” Garrett replied grimly. A yell went up behind him.

“Attaaaaaack!!!!!” Mercury screamed. And the thieves did. Garrett, looking around him in panic, disappeared into the shadows and left the makeshift enclosure made by the apemen. Two minutes later, however, he turned around. As he arrived at the buildings where the thieves were trapped, he saw pandemonium. Mercury’s call had mobilized all the thieves. The apes, who had been informed by Garrett that they would vastly outnumber the thieves, found that both sides had equal numbers after but a few minutes of fighting.

Garrett leaped into the fight. Left and right, he slashed the apes and felt his blade sink into ape flesh with a great sense of satisfaction. But all of a sudden, after he had saved a fellow thief from certain slaughter by driving his blade into an apeman’s back, he felt a blade pressed to his own throat. Looking down expectantly, he confirmed his fears: The blade was black, with Keeper carvings on it.

“I don’t like it when people knee me in the face,” Mercury snarled in Garrett’s ear. Garrett threw his sword to the ground.

“I will not fight you, Mercury. I have made a mistake, and I am ready to face the consequences of that mistake. Kill me.” The blade fell from his throat.

“Oh, come ON!” Mercury said with a laugh. “I thought I was a bad actor, but you clearly believed what I said was true!!” Garrett turned around.

“You mean you don’t care about what I did back there?”

“I knew you were faking it, Garrett, thought you might not have known it.”

“I think Viktoria is going to die, Mercury.”

“Not if the Trickster dies first. Let’s end this battle and go get those supplies!” Mercury disappeared into the swarm of bodies.

Garrett thought for a few moments before resuming the battle. Within ten minutes it was over. Dozens of steaming ape and human bodies were lying dead on the ground. And the thieves split up. Garrett and Mercury, in particular, left the main group.

“We have to find the supplies we need,” Garrett said, “and I know just where to do it.”