Chapter Seven

“Wait up!” Mercury said, following him. Marco was behind them both, and, as the graveyard door opened, he stepped ahead of them. They walked into the graveyard, and Garrett looked around.

“Follow me,” he said. Mercury and Marco followed him, amidst crypts and tombs, amongst catacombs and to a short flight of stairs. Garrett went down to the door at the bottom of the stairs, and started picking the lock. By the time the other two thieves had arrived, the door swung open easily… revealing a large stone figure with a reddish substance inside. Mercury put his hand on the stone, touching it gingerly, getting ready to pull back if anything happened.

“It’s not poisonous. It’s a portal,” Garrett said quietly. “I thought, when I stepped through the other side, that I would end up in the Pagan Forest, where I have… friends. Instead, I ended up here. I heard of you yesterday in the equivalent, I guess, of the Crippled Burrick. I think it’s called the Llama’s Tongue or something. I thought I’d see who you were.”

“Yeah,” Mercury answered, “well, that doesn’t matter. We should get going.”

“You don’t want to see my world?” Garrett asked sarcastically.

“Why not?” Mercury replied, taking Garrett by surprise. Garrett gave a slight nod and stepped through the portal, disappearing. Mercury took a deep breath and followed, but Marco stayed behind. As fear built up in him, he ran through the portal, thinking his heart would burst if it went any faster.

On the other side, a surprise awaited the two thieves – a room almost identical to the one they had just come out of. Garrett was already at the door when Marco came charging through, sidestepped Mercury, and accidentally hit him as the momentum carried Marco’s body forward. As he collapsed, Garrett grunted, his breath knocked out of his lungs by the heavy body on top of him. Marco scrambled off the poor thief, and Garrett painfully got to his feet.

“That’s twice now,” he said. “What have I done to you two?”

Mercury smiled, Marco blushed, and Garrett laughed his deep, booming laugh. Then, serious again, he turned back to the door and opened it. Outside was another graveyard, subtly different in the style of writing, the carving of the wood and stone, and… the top of the graves did not have crosses on them, Marco realized. Instead, he saw hammers sculpted in various manners out of the stone.

Garrett led the way out of the graveyard, pausing at one grave, muttering a quick prayer, and flipping a coin near the grave. When Mercury asked who it was, Garrett only said, “A friend,” and kept going. Clearly it was a memory he did not want to touch upon, so Marco and Mercury left well enough alone. As they exited, the three thieves split up without consultation, slipping into their own patches of shadow.

They began to follow Garrett through streets that looked medieval with the exception of the occasional electric light. The torches and lamps provided quite a bit of light, but the three skilled sneakers easily exploited the remaining shadows.

Guard carrying broadswords periodically walked past, whistling. More rarely, they could see the powerfully built, red-clad men carrying massive iron hammers. Hammerites, Garrett had called them. Occasionally, a large man carrying a mace and clad in blue or a woman carrying a crossbow and dressed the same way would walk past. Garrett told them the gear displayed on their clothing identified them as Mechanists.

Finally, they arrived at Garrett’s home. He pulled a key out of his pocket – unmarked, mercury noticed – and put it into the lock. The door opened onto a modestly spacious apartment.

“Not bad,” Mercury commented.

“Thanks. Yours is bigger, but the City is more cramped than the town you’re living in.”

“I see. Be that as it may, were you planning on telling us anything more of value? Because we do have to be getting back to our own city to get some sleep before the dawn awakens us.”

“Yes. This man, Constantine, that you’ve been hired to steal from. He is… not what you think he is. The man who hired you, this Carlysle. He is a Keeper. Not time to explain who they are right now. However, if you do try for the medal, do two things.

“First of all, don’t get the medal and give it to Carlysle. Keep it until I – or we – can find out why the Keepers want this medal. Second, if you do decide to do the job, be careful. I cannot stress this enough. Constantine is a dangerous man. With that, you can go. I have to sleep as well, though I usually do that during the day. Good luck.”

Garrett’s sweeping cloak disappeared behind the door of his apartment.

“So, are we gonna do it?” Marco asked after a slight pause.

Mercury thought for a moment. Clearly, Garrett was fairly sure of the dangers this Constantine character presented. However, he was bound to be rich, and the job would pay very well. After weighing the odds, Mercury made up his mind.

“Yes,” he said, and got back on the streets

 

Two weeks later, it was time for the job at Constantine’s house. Every once in a while, Garrett had come through the portal or they had gone to him for updates on the search of the medal’s significance. Every time, they had come up with nothing. Hundreds of books were now in the category of those which had no information in them. Garrett had made several trips to the university library to no avail. There seemed to be a very small amount of knowledge on the Keepers.

Two days after Constantine’s job, the three would enter the Keeper Compound that Garrett had so long ago left behind. For the moment, however, they were keeping watch on both sides of the portal to see if any Keeper traffic existed – for only the Keepers or the Pagans could have altered the portal into the Pagan forest to lead into Mercury’s world instead.

Mercury and Marco, however, were too preoccupied to care for the moment. They were crouched inside the long, tall fence that surrounded Constantine’s large house. Garrett had been kind enough to provide them with some goodies from his world – namely a few so-called rope arrows and two gas arrows. The rope arrows were simply normal arrows with a rope twisted around them in such a way that it would uncoil on impact, deploying a climbable rope.

The gas arrows were also fairly simple. Attached to the end of the unsharpened wooden shaft was a small crystal with a green haze contained inside, one that moved about easily. The crystal shattered on impact, releasing the toxic and thus knocking out anyone near enough to the point it struck. This was the weapon that Mercury and Marco had seen Garrett using outside the graveyard.

Mercury was happy enough for the additions to his arsenal, but he didn’t need it. After the error a few weeks ago that Marco had made, Mercury was twice as careful as before. Marco was the same – his fright after they had been discovered had clearly been enough of an experience in itself to discourage him from making another mistake. They were both ready for this job.

They had easily crossed the wall with the assistance of the rope arrow, recovered it, and dropped down to the grass below. Garrett had shown them how to recoil the rope so that the arrow would work again. Mercury was busy doing that while Marco was counting the time it took for the guard to go around the house.

Two shots rang out from around the corner, startling both Mercury and Marco. They were instantly on their guard, and the newly coiled rope arrow disappeared into Mercury ‘s quiver. A dark shape came running around the corner, followed closely by two guards.

“Hey, stop, thief!” cried one of the guards.

The dark shape sped into a corner and disappeared into the shadow. Mercury realized what was going on. The Keepers had somehow found out about Garrett and them, and had come to get the medal themselves. Mercury let a gas arrow fly into the area where the Keeper was hidden, and the two guards that were searching for him dropped as the gas spread.

Mercury ran over to the Keeper and checked him. Sure enough, he was carrying the Keeper medal. Mercury pocketed the medal, put the Keeper over his shoulder, and walked back over to Marco, who was looking startled at what had just happened in the brief span of two minutes.

“Let’s go,” Mercury said. “Now that we have what we need plus an added bonus,” he continued, pointing to the figure slumped on his shoulder, “you have to contact Garrett.”

“Didn’t he say he had a job today?”

“Yeah. You take this guy home, tie him up, lock him in the windowless bathroom, lock the front door, and wait for me. I’m going to go get Garrett – he told me where he’d be going, in case something went wrong.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Mercury took to the streets, easily bypassing the very few policemen on night duty by hiding for a few minutes in fair shadow. After arriving at the graveyard, he made his way to the crypt without delay, and stepped through the portal without a second thought.

As he emerged from the other side of the portal, he noticed the door was closed and locked. He knew what that meant – someone had gone through the portal. Mercury could only assume it had been the Keeper he had caught. He pulled out the map of the City that Garrett had kindly provided him and traced the path he would have to take with his eyes.

Pulling out his lock picks, he stepped forward to the door. After he opened it, he exited into the fresh air and walked on the soft grass to the gate of the graveyard on this side. There, he stopped. Two Mechanist guards lay still on the ground, their eyes open and wide with terror; their mouths open in a silent scream, and blood oozing out from under their heads. Mercury shuddered, muttered a prayer, and closed their eyes. Then, he slipped into a nearby shadow and began his difficult trek through the City.

Unfortunately, the City itself was much better guarded than Mercury’s town, so it took him a long time to reach Lord Bafford’s manor, where Garrett was supposedly stealing a scepter. By the time he got there, he realized Garrett would be coming out soon, so he settled down to wait. It didn’t take long, however, for a tall, thin figure to slip past the gate guard and start moving towards the north of the city. Mercury followed at a discreet distance until they arrived at Garrett’s house.

There, Garrett opened the door, and Mercury tapped him on the shoulder. It turned out to have been a bad idea. Within nanoseconds, a bright flash of light blinded Mercury. Reeling backwards, he felt Garrett’s strong hand grab his arm and pull him inside the house.

“Sorry,” Garrett said after Mercury recovered his eyesight. “I was a bit twitchy.”

Mercury laughed out loud at the tremendous understatement, but decided not to comment. Instead, he launched into an account of the night’s events.

“And when I arrived here,” he finished, “our brief episode happened.”

Garrett looked at him for a few moments, contemplating the events and the assumptions that Mercury had made.

“The Keepers,” he finally said, “were not necessarily there because they knew what we were doing. They might have been there because they just didn’t trust you. But, we won’t know until we question the one you caught.”

Minutes later, Garrett and Mercury were back on the streets. After about another hour’s worth of dodging, the two thieves arrived back at the graveyard entrance. Garrett crouched down next to one of the Mechanists and touched the blood, bringing it up to his nose to smell.

“Yup,” he said. “Blood all right. These two were terrified, judging by the looks on their faces. This wasn’t the Keepers’ work. It’s too dirty. They are usually quiet, and, if they absolutely have to kill someone, that someone doesn’t know what hit him or her. No no. This is the Trickster’s work.”

“Great,” Mercury said. “Just great.”

Garrett didn’t answer. Instead, he went to and through the portal. Mercury followed him, and they exited the crypt and the graveyard.

“There aren’t that many guards in the streets,” Garrett commented at one point in their trajectory.

“Nope,” Mercury answered, smiling at the town’s ignorance. “They think they’re safe from people like us.”

As soon as they arrived at the house, mercury pulled out his key and opened the door. After the both of them entered, he turned back and locked it again, then turned to face Marco.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well, he’s right where you told be to put him. Your bathroom.”

“Ok, I’ll go…” But Garrett had already disappeared into Mercury’s room. He came back soon after and put the Keeper down on the ground. Mercury pulled out a small flask of greenish liquid. Healing potions were another addition to his ‘bag of tricks’ that he got from the City.

Five minutes later, the Keeper’s green eyes fluttered open. He looked incomprehensively at the hooded faces of Garrett, Marco, and Mercury. All three of them were leaning over him, and he thought he was back in the Keeper Compound. He made to sit up, but two rough hands moved him onto a couch. It was there that he realized he wasn’t at all in the Keeper Compound. In fact, looking around at the sparse furnishings, it dawned on him that he wasn’t in the City, either. Then, the events before he blacked out rushed back to him. He groaned.

“I’ll say,” Mercury answered.

“Where am I?” the Keeper asked.

“In my house,” Mercury replied amiably.

“Who are you?”

“The non-Keeper who was going to steal that spectacular medal you managed to make off with.”

“Ah… Well… The Keeper Council said you were not to be trusted, and that it was up to us to steal the medal.”

“Why?” Marco asked.

“Well… erm… that is to say,” the Keeper began with difficulty.

“The truth,” Mercury said with narrowed eyes.

“They said that you were a native of this world, so we couldn’t be sure that you would necessarily give the medal to us. Plus, they had evidence that you’d been through the portal, thought they didn’t think you’d developed any sort of relationship, informational or otherwise, with anyone on that side.”

“Evidently, they were wrong,” Garrett finally said.

“The Acolyte!” the Keeper exclaimed with a mixture of surprise and awe suddenly suffusing his grim face. “Garrett!”

“I’m so well-known with the Keepers that you recognize me from my voice? Wow,” Garrett commented cynically.

“But how did you… how did you get here? How did you know?” The keeper was looking more bewildered by the moment.

“Don’t worry about that right now. Instead, worry about telling us what is so special about this Keeper medal.”

“It’s not just a Keeper medal. It is the Keeper Medal. It belonged to the first Keeper. That is why our symbol is a keyhole. The medal possesses the power of 1000 years of keeper spells. Every time a new one is discovered, it is stored within the medal.”

“And the Trickster had it. How did he get it?”

“Some foolish Acolyte was transporting it to another compound for use and he was ambushed by three of those filthy apemen with swords.

Garrett gave a snort of disgust. “Is he alive?”

“Yes. But I fear the Trickster may be paying this house a visit shortly. And we may not be as lucky as he was.”

“I’m sure we weren’t followed,” Marco said.

“The Trickster has powerful magic of his own. You don’t need to be followed if you were carrying such a powerful magical object like the Keeper Medal. I think out safest place of refuge will be the Keeper Compound. Whether the Aco… that is to say, Garrett, likes it or not.”

“I don’t like it, but I agree it’s the safest place to be. The Hammers are quite capable of dealing with the Trickster’s minions, and we need to figure out how to get rid of him for good,” Garrett said.

“We have one chance to delay him. Once we go on the other side of the portal, we can invoke the magic of the Medal to alter it so that it once again points to the Pagan forest.”

“Then we’ll do that. But will it keep him away?”

“Not for long. At least I don’t think so. Like I said, he has powerful magic of his own. And he is the creator of the portals. He is quite capable of changing them for his own purposes.”

“Then we’ll have to hurry.”

Garrett and the other three exited the house quickly but did not expect what they saw outside. Four apemen were bearing down on them, swords raised.

 

Onward to Chapter Eight -->