Chapter Eight

Garrett pulled out a long broadsword and gestured the others to do the same. The Keeper removed from his sheath a long, thin, beautiful black sword. Etched within the hilt and blade were the ancient symbols of the Keepers. Marco and Mercury each pulled out their two belt daggers and prepared to spar with the apemen.

Garrett attacked first. Giving a vicious downward slash, he leaped towards the nearest creature. In one quick movement, the ape blocked the blow, falling to the ground with its force. Mercury leaped into action then, dashing in and slashing with both daggers, then pulling back, back, out of the ape’s reach. The Keeper’s sword came into the fight, moving skillfully against another apeman’s blade. Its black hilt flashed in the dim moonlight as the blade severed the apeman’s hand. And suddenly, the sword began to glow – later it was said with Keeper magic – and gave off a bright flash. The four men, who were looking away at the time, looked back on stunned enemies. Several slashes and stabs finished off the rest of the apes.

“Well, I think it’s time to leave ‘thout further d’lay,” Marco said. He was the only one who had been close to losing his life in the spar, and his lapse back into the accent of his youth showed his fear.

Garrett nodded and the Keeper walked out of the alley, slipping into a nearby shadow. The large amounts of light in the streets made it virtually impossible to progress quickly, so it took two hours for them to take the trip to the graveyard. At the portal, the Keeper stepped through first, sword drawn. Once the Keeper stepped through, Garrett quickly decided for safety/ He pulled out a gas arrow and knocked it on the bow. The bowstring quivered for a moment, then snapped forward, sending its arrow through the portal. Then, Garrett stepped through. On the other side was a scene of recent chaos.

The Keeper lay sprawled on the ground, two gashes on his chest bleeding profusely. Three apemen were also on the ground, one clearly dead, the other two having suffered minor injuries. Garrett dashed to the Keeper, fumbling with one of his cloak pockets. Soon, he had pulled out a vial of healing potion. The top dropped off as Garrett slowly fed the Keeper the concoction. The Keeper’s eyes opened, and then he scrambled to his feet. The gashes were gone, and the Keeper pulled out his own healing potions. Marco and Mercury had finally stepped through the portal.

“Use these next time,” the Keeper said, putting the potions back into his pockets. “We’re going to have to get moving. I think they were pure anticipation on the Trickster’s part, but I don’t know how long it will take him to mobilize more apes.”

The Keeper pulled the Medal out of his pocket and held it out in front of him. Both hands holding the Medal, which was pointing at the portal, he began muttering a spell. The Medal slowly began to glow, brighter and brighter, as the magic was invoked and awakened from deep inside of it. Suddenly, a bright shaft of light flew from the Medal to a spot a few feet in front of the portal. There, the light splintered into a cone of light that covered the entire gateway. Just as abruptly as it came into existence, the light disappeared. The Keeper’s hands came down, his hand came up, and his eyes opened.

“It is done,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The three thieves and the Keeper were soon out on the streets again. The Keeper, however, was looking worried. He kept twitching at the smallest sound, and once he almost gave them away when a passing Hammerite startled him. Then, Garrett took over the guiding, his impassive face never showing any sign of anxiety or fear. He wove through the buildings, receiving an occasional correction from the Keeper with a slight nod. At the pace he was setting, they got tot the Keeper Compound, on the outskirts of the City, in just under an hour. It was spectacularly plain for such a prestigious base of operations, but Mercury said nothing. Slowly, the Keeper realized that they were waiting on him to show them the way in. Grinning apologetically, he pulled out a strangely shaped key and walked to the door.

As the key turned in the lock, two dark shapes hit the Keeper from either side. The keeper yelled out in surprise, but Mercury attacked. Thin belt daggers in hand, he dashed in and stabbed at the two figures.

“Enough! Peace, Keepers!” yelled a deep, loud, authoritative voice. “Stop now!”

Even Mercury stopped at the sound of the voice. He turned towards the door, which had opened while he was fighting. Silhouetted in the torchlight streaming out from the entranceway was a tall, muscled Keeper. Looking to his right, Mercury saw the three other Keeper kneeling. The one who had accompanied them stood, walked over to the tall man, and whispered something in his ear. The man nodded, then gestured to the other two Keepers to stand.

“Follow me to where you will be staying,” he said to the three thieves.

Mercury, Marco, and Garrett followed him, while a Keeper locked the door behind them. Inside was a miraculously undecorated building. The building’s walls were all stone, and there were no paintings or other forms of decoration. Mercury, however, marveled at the few books he saw open in the library. The books had black backgrounds, and inscribed upon them were white figures, which Garrett told him were runes. The man had been identified as a Master keeper, one of the few decision makers in the Keeper sect. He seemed cold and indifferent on the outside, but the Keeper who had brought them told them that this was just the face he showed people he didn’t know.

Mercury was shown to one of the Keeper rooms, where two Keepers were sprawled on their beds, sleeping off the day’s hard work. Two tall, quite Keepers were putting their pitch black cloaks over their black clothing. Suddenly, a loud wail filled the room. The two Keepers looked straight at the Master Keeper.

“Seal all the entrances. Dispatch patrols to all parts of the Compound. Make sure those damned apes don’t access the library!” he said in his authoritative voice.

The two sleeping Keepers had woken up in the middle of the exchange and were now hastily dressing. The Master keeper stepped past them to two empty bunks. He gestured to Marco and Mercury that these were their beds. Marco took off some equipment and then turned to Mercury. Mercury, in turn, turned heel and made to exit the room.

“Stop!” the Master Keeper exclaimed when he realized Mercury’s intentions. “This is Keeper business. Stay out of it!”

Mercury turned an amused stare at the Master Keeper, and then turned to leave again, as if he had not heard anything.

“Stop, I said!!”

Just then, another Master Keeper, identified by the gray band on his shoulder, staggered into the room, two long gashes across his chest and one on his cheek. He was almost dead from loss of blood, and the other Master keeper was frozen with amazement and horror at such injuries on a fellow Keeper. Mercury, however, crouched next to the dying man and gave him healing potion. When his last bottle was finished, he turned to the Master Keeper, who had begun to move again.

“That was my last one. I have no more,” he said with a helpless movement of his hand.

“It is enough. I thank you for your assistance,” the Master Keeper said. Mercury nodded, then turned to leave the room for a third time, Marco following him.

“Mercury!” Mercury turned again. “Good luck,” the Master Keeper said.

Mercury smiled his thanks, then finally left the room. In the banquet hall, a furious battle was raging. Apebeasts were attacking Keepers in every place. One door was being particularly well defended. The library, as Mercury presumed it was, was ready for three apebeasts at once – if that many could make it there. Marco could see Garrett clearing a path through the apebeasts. Two Keepers were walking in his wake, but an apeman suddenly dropped to the ground between Garrett and the two Keepers. Startled, the two men froze. The apebeast raised its sword high over its head, the two Keepers cowering in terror. Mercury, however, was not inhibited by such petty emotions as fear. He leaped onto the ape and grabbed its arm. Though much stronger, the ape could do nothing in its confused state. However, and Mercury knew this, if the apebeast recovered from its confusion, Mercury was as good as dead.

So, wielding his daggers with great speed and agility born of practice, Mercury stabbed the animal several times. As the final spasm of death crossed the beast’s body, the two Keepers stepped around Mercury, not giving him thanks or saying anything to him at all, and continued in Garrett’s bloody wake. Mercury stared after them with disbelief etched upon his broad face.

Marco, meanwhile, was fending off apemen left and right, with the assistance of a Keeper who wielded the long sword very effectively.  Mercury approached Garrett when he finally reached the door and leaned towards him.

“What can we do about this?” he asked anxiously, gesturing towards the continued warfare that continually blighted the elegant banquet room.

“I don’t know,” Garrett answered. “As soon as we can get out of here, I am going to notify Master Nightfall of what is happening. He may know how to deal with this from past experience, and we’ll need all the help we can get.”

“Who’s Master Nightfall?” Mercury asked.

“You’ll see when we get to the Circle.”

“Circle?”

“The Circle of Stone and Shadow…Nightfall’s place. Like I said, you’ll see when we get there.”

Then, Garrett leaped back into the action, sword flashing up and down, left and right, as his quick reflexes helped him avoid severe injuries. After three hours of painfully fierce fighting, the beasts were all dead. Five Keepers had died, and the three thieves were helping to move the injured people, of which there was a discouragingly large amount. The Keeper who had brought them, Keeper Cray, pulled Mercury aside at one point.

“Garrett is usually very selfish… This is the first time I’ve ever seen him helping anyone,” he said, looking slightly surprised.

“I think I know why,” Mercury replied thoughtfully. “You see, after the devastation and wreaking of havoc he saw here, he couldn’t refuse to help and still be human. He saw too much death here today. We all did.” Keeper Cray looked at Mercury a moment before turning to help his friends. A few minutes later, Garrett came up to him as he was lifting a Keeper whose arm had been mutilated by an unchecked apebeast.

“Mercury and I are going to the Circle,” he told Cray. “Are you coming?”

“Yes. I want to see if Nightfall has any information on why the apebeasts came through so quickly after the Medal sealed the entrance.”

“You know Nightfall?”

“The Keepers were the first to see him after he got off his ship.”

“Garrett looked at him doubtfully, but then he turned and walked away, towards the entrance. Cray hurried after him, and they rejoined Mercury outside the Compound. Slowly, they emerged from the dark alley. All three of them were twice as wary now that they had gone through three major attacks. Marco had stayed behind to assist the Keepers in their efforts to save as many as possible.

Moving through the dark streets, the three men were like fluid shadow. They encountered many dead or knocked out guards where the apes had come through, but they finally took a fork to a road through which the apes had not passed. Finally, they arrived at a tall, circular tower. Garrett opened the door (Unlocked, thought Mercury, Strange.) and the three walked in. Inside, looking at a thick book, was a nobleman – or so Mercury surmised, according to his dressing style. The thick book was open towards the middle, and the reader seemed totally absorbed in the subject. Garrett cleared his throat and the man looked up. His face, which seemed quite mobile, lit up with a smile, and he got up quickly to shake Garrett’s, then Cray’s hand. His eyes looked questioningly at Mercury, but his entire face was covered with surprise at the sight of the Keeper.

“Good morning, Garrett,” the man finally said. “May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of having both a novice and a Keeper and you in my presence at the same time?”

“This is no novice, Master Nightfall,” Garrett said quietly. “Mercury is a thief with skills rivaling my own… from another world.” Nightfall’s face registered disbelief. “You do remember the portal I was talking about, right?” Nightfall nodded dubiously.

“The one leading to the Pagan forest?” he asked.

“Yes, that one. Well, the Trickster changed it so that it led to Mercury’s world, which made possible my contact with him…” Master Nightfall interrupted with a brief wave of his hand.

“I thought the Trickster was destroyed in the backfire of powers caused by the use of the false Eye which you provided him with?” he said pointedly.

“Believe me, I did too,” Garrett said. “But there’s only one guy who calls himself Constantine and controls apebeasts, and that’s the Trickster. Master Nightfall nodded acquiescence, but he then looked straight at Keeper Cray until the man realized he was being silently addressed,

“Oh! Well of course the Keepers didn’t know! Our runes told us the Trickster would be gone after what happened there, and would never return.”

“You and your blasted runes!!” Garrett suddenly yelled. “You trust them too much! If you keep falling prey to crap like that, how is the Keeper Order planning on surviving?? Huh? Those runes have almost gotten me killed about a thousand times. When they start doing the same to you, aren’t you ready to accept that all they are is ways for you to die?”

“Garrett,” Master Nightfall began,” perhaps you should not be talking about them like that. Just perhaps. After all, they did teach you much of what you know,” he said reasonably. “However,” he continued, turning towards Mercury, “I haven’t heard too much out of our new friend here. What is your name again?”

“Mercury,” Mercury replied. “Look, Garrett said you might have some information on how to destroy the Trickster for good. What can you tell us about him?”

“Alas, the Keepers and the Trickster have about the same amount of information on them in this library – very little. I’m afraid that, through all the years since I created the Circle of Stone and Shadow, I have not seen any information on the destruction of the Trickster. The only information presently in my libraries on that subject is Garrett’s destruction of the same. I have no more than that, I’m afraid.”

“That’s not good. Do you know where we might find information on his – or its – destruction?”

“As the good Keepers will tell you, long ago, I came to the City on a large ship. I was a mage, and came from another city. It is a very old one – dating back to the time of Karath-Din, the Lost City on which the foundations of this City are built. They were sister cities, and the civilizations that thrived in the two places were both derivatives of the Precursors. The ones who lived here, however, wandered too far into the magical and earthen arts. They were destroyed. The other city, however, Kunath-Loch, survived the chaos. It has resisted the temptation of going where the Precursors of Karath-Din went, and so it survives to this very day.”

“Well, that’s great… but it doesn’t’ tell me anything except your personal history and the history of your place of birth. Not that I don’t care, of course, but it’s just that… Well, I’d like to get what we came here for if you have it. So, could you tell us that this helps our search in?”

“Yes, of course. I was about to. You see, Kunath-Loch survived, and so it is extremely old. This, of course, leads to a very interesting fact: they must have been here when the Trickster came to be. Now, I didn’t spend much time in Kunath-Loch’s vast libraries, but I did notice that, one, they were there, and, most importantly, they contained massive amounts of knowledge because of the many ages they transgressed. In short, if they know how the Trickster was created, they probably know how to destroy him as well.”

“How far is Kunath-Lock from here?” the Keeper asked.

“One week by ship. And the Trickster cannot follow you.”

“He can’t?” asked Garrett, surprised.

“No. The Trickster and his minions are incapable of crossing the seas. You see, the seas were long ago infused with powerful magiks that made them destroy all powerful evil that touched them.”

“We must discuss this with the Keeper Council,” Cray said distractedly. “I’m sorry, Master Nightfall, but I must go.” He nodded his head in farewell and left the room.

“We might as well follow,” Garrett said, and the two thieves disappeared as well, leaving Nightfall free to return to his reading.

 

Onward to Chapter Nine -->