Chapter Twenty

Mercury and Garrett dashed to their small boat and jumped into it, Garrett fumbling to untie it from the shore. Soon, they were rowing strongly towards the open sea, where they would meet with the great Fleet of Shadow. Once they had left the small bay they were in, Garrett stopped rowing.

“Garrett? We need to get moving!” But right at that moment, Garrett spun around. A look of utter loathing was fixed on his face. He growled. Mercury stared, surprised. Then, he slowly unsheathed his sword. Garrett obliged, unsheathing his own sword quickly. “Garrett, what the hell are you doing?” Mercury asked. But Garrett only growled. Then, both Garrett and Mercury moved their swords into fighting positions.

Suddenly, a vast black shadow fell over them. Mercury looked up in time to see Cray as Cray yelled, “Cerebrum Aclara!” Garrett’s sword clattered to the bottom of the boat as Garrett sagged to his knees. Then, he stood and picked up his sword.

“What the hell just happened?” he asked.

“My question exactly,” Mercury replied calmly, sheathing his own sword. “Cray can probably tell us,” he said, pointing to the dark figure on the ship of Shadow. Garrett sheathed his sword, too, and quickly climbed up the ladder that had just been thrown over the ship’s railing, followed closely by Mercury,

When they reached the deck, Cray began to tell them exactly what had happened.

“The Trickster has gained enough power that he could use Garrett’s feelings,” he frowned at that word, “against him.” Garrett frowned as well.

“We need to get to the Master Mage as fast as possible,” Mercury interceded. “We have something for him.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you, Mercury,” Cray said. Mercury, for the hundredth time that night, pulled out his sword.

“I’ll have to fight you in that case,” Mercury replied. Seconds later, the ten other people on the deck unsheathed their swords.

“Will you fight all of us, thought?” he asked. Mercury hesitated.

“If it becomes necessary,” Garrett said, stepping forward to stand beside Mercury with his sword out. “And we will defeat you, if you force us to fight.”

“So be it,” Cray said.

At once, the Keepers lifted their swords. But before they could advance, ten Mages ran onto the deck and muttered something. Promptly, the swords were ripped from the Keepers’ hands before they had a chance to notice what had happened. By the time the commotion was over, Mercury and Garrett had disappeared and their boat was speeding away towards the Mage encampments.

The Keepers, however, were not worrying about the two thieves. They had disappeared into the shadows by habit, hiding from the Mages of Shadow. But the Mages were not to be fooled. One of them went to the helm and turned the boat around, and the other nine also disappeared into the shadows. Soon, the Keepers emerged and ran across the deck to get to the four boats that were there. When they were almost there, however, the nine Mages of Shadow emerged from the darkness of the railing. Within moments, the ten Keepers were knocked out.

“Wait a minute,” one Mage said. “Where is Keeper Cray?”

Two miles away, Mercury and Garrett were rowing quickly and strongly.

“This could present a problem,” Garrett said.

“What could?” Mercury asked.

“Now that Cray knows what we’re doing, he may very well notify the Keeper Council… and who knows if they’ll support or despise our actions… we’d better move quickly.”

“We definitely had better!” Mercury exclaimed, looking behind them and discerning another boat. “Cray is on our tail!” Garrett groaned.

“At this rate, we’ll have to kill him before he’ll leave us alone.” Mercury privately agreed, but all he did outwardly was to row harder and faster. Soon, the superior power of two paddles made Cray disappear in the slight fog. A quarter of an hour later, the boat scratched on the sand as it hit the bottom. Mercury and Garrett jumped out of the boat, not bothering to tie it down. They dashed to the tent they knew to be the Master Mage’s… and found him inside, dead of a dagger in his back. Garrett pulled Mercury out of the tent and into a patch of shadow, whispering in his ear as they went.

“We’ll have to do it alone, Mercury. The Keepers are fighting against us now. Seeing as how we can hide in shadows, I’d say we could perform this spell ourselves, courtesy of the Magic of Darkness.” Mercury nodded.

“Do you know of a place we could go? The Keepers’ll find us quickly if we’re in an obvious place.”

“Yeah, I know a place. A cave where I used to hide when I was a kid, back when the Keepers still didn’t know who I was.”

“Let’s go, then,” Mercury said. Garrett led the way towards the nearby mountains. They walked over rough rocks and were reaching the mountainside when Garrett turned. All of a sudden, a knife came hurtling towards them. Garrett’s arm moved backwards as his hand caught the knife by the blade. Then, the arm flew forward and the blade hurtled back the way it came. A dull yell came to them through the fog, which had been deepening as the night began to die.

Mercury ran to see John staggering, the knife nastily protruding from his arm. Mercury pulled the dagger out of his arm and viciously pushed him to the ground.

“You just couldn’t stay away from me, could you? You just had to watch me and follow me through the portal, eh? And, of course, you stuck to the Trickster. Your time of glory has RUN out, John!” Mercury dragged him over the rough terrain and to Garrett. Garrett pulled John to his feet and swung him over his shoulder, then walked off to the mountainside.

After walking to the east for several minutes, Garrett stopped next to a small cave.

“It seemed a lot bigger when I was five,” he said apologetically. Then, the two thieves crept into the cave carefully, dragging John behind them. Once they were inside, Garrett lit a torch hidden somewhere in the darkness. They tied John with his cloak, and then Garrett pulled out the materials and the parchment with the spell to destroy the Trickster on it.

“Put the Eye in the middle,” Garrett told Mercury. “Then balance the bronze rod on it. Now come read with me. I have to write the words as well.” He pulled out a pen and they began.

“Alara tumshe, Engoniul taradom, destructo malado, atara Kedama!” they read out. All of a sudden, a bright light engulfed the eye and the bronze rod.

“Stand back!” Mercury roared. He didn’t’ have to say it twice.

The bright light got brighter and brighter, and the color became white.

A second later, the bronze rod shot out of the cave. Mercury and Garrett scrambled out of the cave avoiding the light that the bronze rod left in its wake. They had completely forgotten about John. They looked on as the rod sped through the air, disappearing from view.

All of a sudden, behind them, they heard a yelp and then a long, sustained, blood-curdling scream. They wormed their way back into the tunnel and saw the cause of the scream: John was standing, gripping the Eye as his legs began to disintegrate. Mercury and Garrett looked away, disturbed. Two minutes later, when they looked back, he had disappeared. Soon, they were outside again.

Far away, a white light erupted as a straight one into the air. A great explosion – or the sound of one – reached Mercury’s and Garrett’s ears. A great scream of fury quickly followed the sound of the explosion. A moment later, the sound of cheering reached their ears. By this time they were jogging to the Mage camp.

When they arrived, the entire camp was celebrating.

“He’s gone, then?” Mercury asked a passing Mage.

“Yes! A great shaft of light destroyed his minions, too! We all saw it!!”

“And we are finally free of terror… again,” Garrett muttered in his ear as Mercury grinned.

The End