Chapter Five

    On the way, he did some thinking. He constantly wondered how good of a friends Marco was to John, to be willing to put himself in such a dangerous and hostile position as he had in order to protect his friend.
    When Mercury arrived at the Llama's Tongue an d went in, everybody stared. The limp figure on his shoulder was clearly attracting attention, so he decided to put their thoughts to rest by swinging Marco down. Every person's eyes followed the body and saw it hit the table with a barely audible thump. The bartender broke the long silence.
    "Wha' happened, Merc?"
    "This guy left a note at my house saying he'd kidnapped. John. I went to get my partner back."
    "This deserves punishment, even you must agree, Merc!" piped up an angry voice from alongside the bar.
    "It normally would," replied Mercury. "However, he didn't do it. John pretended to have been kidnapped so that he could get out of the area before I discovered his betrayal."
    "Betrayal?" asked the bartender, wiping his hands on the towel that was slung over his shoulder.
    "Yeah. Betrayal. He became my partner just to find out my secret for the creation of flash bombs. Once he had it, he left the area. In fact, this man should be rewarded. He had enough guts to uphold his friendship with John, even if it meant losing face."
    "All right, then. Let me get the whisky and we'll give this guy a treat," the bartender said, moving toward his back room.
    "No," ordered Mercury. "Everyone leave the bar and wait outside. Mark, come with me." The bartender obediently followed him, and the bar quickly emptied. In the back room, Mercury shut off all the lights in the bar, and told the bartender to keep quiet.
Slowly, Marco came to. Looking around, he thought he was being held captive in the bar. He flexed his arms and crouched as he got off the table. Keeping to the shadows, he slowly sneaked towards the door. As he neared it, he came out of the shadows and walked to the door. Suddenly, however, a hooded figure peeled away from the shadows and tackled Marco, pinning his arms and legs down on the floor. Marco soon stopped struggling, and the figure gave some invisible signal to an unseen person. As the lights came on, Marco recognized Mercury looking fiercely down at him.
Getting off him, Mercury said, "That was terrible. I could see you all the way through. You have to learn how to sneak in shadows better." Marco was clearly startled at being addressed in such a non-hostile fashion. "Don't sit there looking at me. Get up," said Mercury, brushing himself off. Marco slowly got to his feet.
    "What happened?" he asked.
    "I knocked you out and went down the stairs. I found John's note. And then I brought you here. I wanted to see your skill through the shadows."
    "Oh… So you know what happened?" he asked, looking downcast.
    "Yeah. I'm glad that I might be able to trust you better as a friend than John. You seem to be quite the person to put one's trust in," Mercury replied, approvingly. He was leaning back on a table in the bar, looking at Marco from under his hood, his face invisible in the shadows cast by the cloak.
    "Really?" Marco asked, his face brightening.
    "Really… But, we have one problem."
    "What?"
    "Your sneaking skills. You're a thief, not an army soldier. You made too much noise, and you were much too visible in the shadows. However, you're off to a good start. We'll see if we can't improve on those skills. Meanwhile, time to reopen the bar," he said, his head turning towards the bartender. The bartender nodded and bowed slightly to Marco as he walked out of the bar to call his clients back in.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

    After a week of training, Marco was ready to try his own luck with Mercury. "You learned faster than John," Mercury had commented, making Marco blush with happiness.
    "Tomorrow we start," Mercury said after a particularly difficult training exercise. "The governor's house is the last job John got me before he left. I might as well carry it through."
    While he was washing, Marco thought about the map he had memorized. It was particularly detailed, and featured a guard patrol route of the guard who had been bribed to ignore them. If he saw them, that is. It would be a hard job, probably involving a whole lot of dodging and much more patience than usual would be involved.
    Mercury, meanwhile, had washed. Lying down in his room, he thought about the last week's events. Marco had worked his way along very quickly, and he had a very large amount of skill. Mercury had to think of new exercises to constantly keep Marco - and himself - on his toes. His bright new student was promising, with skills rivaling his own, but tomorrow's job would put great strain on both their sneaking and their observation skills.
    Both Mercury's and Marco's dreams were filled with ideas of success and failure, wealth and death, and power and corruption,

    The next night, Marco and Mercury slipped out of the Llama's Tongue earlier than usual, saying that they were tired and wanted to go to bed. Minutes later, they were on the street near their house, hidden in deep shadow. With a slight movement of his hand, Mercury tossed a rock into the shadows on the other side of the street. As he hoped, the guards were very uptight and noticed the small sound the pebble made. Leaving the governor's gate, they went to investigate. Mercury leaped lightly into the shadows near the arch, closely followed by Marco.
    "Wind's strong tonight," one of the guards commented, finding the pebble and picking it up.
    "Yeah," answered the other guard, returning to his post. They hadn't noticed the figure that had crossed the lighted area between the shadows on either side of the gate.
    When the two guards had settled themselves back into their posts, Mercury and Marco each grabbed a guard's head and pressed the chloroform-soaked cloth to his nose and mouth.
    As the two limp bodies hit the ground, the two thieves stepped over them and Mercury got to work on the lock. Marco quickly checked over the guards to see if they had anything of value. After finding fifteen dollars and a ring, he tied them up so that they couldn't free themselves and gagged them with a piece of their own shirts.
    The gate swung open with a creak and, after having dragged the bodies into the shadows on either side of the door, the two thieves slipped into the shadows inside the governor's grounds.
    Within moments, a guard was walking in front of the shadows inside the gate. The guard walked past Mercury and he started counting. The guard was taking about one three-foot step every two seconds so that, assuming he didn't stop or alter his pace, Mercury could estimate the distance around the grounds.
After about five minutes, the guard came back around the corner, and Mercury did the quick math: 900 feet around the house. This place is big! he thought to himself. After a quick gesture to Marco, they both materialized out of the shadows.
    Moving as one, the two thieves approached the nearest door to the mansion. Mercury pressed his ear to the door, listening intently for any sign of human habitation. Marco shifted his weight impatiently, and then heard voices. He couldn't figure out where they were coming from, but, when he turned towards Mercury to tell him, Mercury was no longer looking at the door. Looking around carefully, Marco could barely discern Mercury's figure crouching in a shadow near the corner.
    Marco made as if to move towards the corner, but he distinguished a minor movement from his friend and stayed put. He soon saw why - a guard rounded the corner around the time that Marco would have gotten there, taunting some other person Marco could not see. An angry voice answered, and Marco had a thrill of foreboding.
    The other guard came running around the corner.
    "You little retard! You think you can insult me like that?" The first guard's voice was trembling with barely controlled rage as he turned around, fists clenched.
    "After what you said, yes, I do!" replied the other guard, his rage lacking any control and clearly showing on his red face and in his bulging eyes. Mercury signaled to Marco and he moved closer, getting ready to intervene if the conflict became violent. Their moral code was strict - they didn't allow deaths in their presence without trying to stop it.
    Suddenly, one of the first guard's fists caught the second guard's face. The second guard stumbled back a few steps, but the first guard followed him, punching over and over again. Finally, the second guard fell to the ground, unconscious. The first guard smiled and prepared to kill the second guard - inadvertently - with a powerful punch. Marco leaped onto the first guard's back and hit his neck. The first guard's legs buckled, and he fell to the ground, also unconscious. He'd never know what happened. Mercury gave Marco a thumbs-up to say well done and then they returned to the door.
    Inserting his lock picks into the keyhole again, it didn't take long for Mercury to realize neither of the two was working. Cursing, he tried another door, not far from the first, with the same result. Realizing that the governor had employed locks that could not be picked with his tools, Mercury decided to take the initiative and not use the lock picks.
    Walking over to the first guard, he checked him over for keys. Having found none, he checked the second guard. His search was rewarded when he found a key ring with a key and a sheet of paper attached. "Master Key," it said. This key would prove very valuable.
Mercury walked back to the first door and listened with a satisfied smile as all the tumblers fell into place at the same time. He opened the door and walked in, Marco following, to a room full of old, unused furniture. Covered with white cloths, these pieces of furniture were clearly from the last century, and the smell of the room made both of the thieves wrinkle their noses in disgust.
    "Let's check around here. Sometimes the most seemingly useless rooms can be the most useful ones. Look around for levers and such things to see if the governor is hiding anything," Mercury ordered, starting to search. Marco quickly followed his example, searching in every place he could think of for hidden money, compartments, and levers.
    Finally, Mercury uncovered one of the couches. Underneath were three cushions. Or so it seemed. On closer examination, however, the middle cushion was revealed to be a box. Mercury carefully picked the lock, and the box was soon swinging open. He murmured to himself as he pored over the gold coins and rings inside. After having estimated the relative value of the box, he carefully placed it outside, deeply enveloped in shadow, so that they could take it when they left. Then, gesturing to Marco, he moved near the door. They had placed the cover into its former position so that the couch looked unchanged, box replaced with a real cushion.

“Ok, this is your test,” he whispered to Marco. “You’re taking over the mission from this point onward. If the situation gets critical or you don’t know what to do, tap me on the shoulder, make an L with your right hand, and I’ll take over. All right?” Marco nodded and stepped in front of Mercury.

Mercury handed his lock picks over to his student and settled back to watch him doing his job, ear pressed against the door, simultaneously listening to the lock and the outside for any disturbances, hand skillfully turning the lock pick in the most effective manner for unlocking doors. He had learned the art of lock picking well, Mercury decided when Marco had gotten the door open, and could now do it with as much skill as his teacher.

As the door opened, Marco’s hooded head quickly darted out, looking on either side of the hallway for any sign of guards. The hallway was well lit, they both noticed warily. So, Marco decided to wait and see how often a guard passed. That way, they would be able to gauge how far they could go before the guard returned.

Soon enough, the guard came out of a room at the end of the hallway. Marco quickly withdrew his head into the envelope of shadows that reigned within the room. The guard soon walked past their room, whistling softly, and Marco noiselessly clapped his hand to his forehead. He had forgotten to shut the door! The guard, however, walked by without a problem. Until the picture registered in his brain, that is.

“Hey! Who goes there? That there door ain’t supposed ta be open!”

Mercury had noticed Marco’s movement of frustration, and recognized the fact that the young man had noticed before the guard, which was always a good thing. The guard, meanwhile, had carefully entered the room, eyes poking at the darkness and ears prodding the silence, daring them to make a noise.

But they were too well trained to make such a foolish mistake. They moved with the shadows, without stopping, like a gurgling stream. They made less noise than a cricket makes when it jumps, calculating every step they took before they took it. The quiet and lack of movement that the guard thought he saw and heard soon persuaded him to exit the room, wondering what idiot had left the door open.

Ironically, however, he did not close the door behind him as he left the room. His footsteps became softer and softer until they disappeared, and only then did Marco and Mercury approach the door again. Looking around the doorframe, Marco made sure there were no longer guards in the area and walked softly to a shadow on the other side of the hallway, signaling Mercury to stay where he was.

Soon enough, the guard returned, but both Marco and Mercury knew that the length of time he had taken would be more than enough to get into at least one room. So, as the guard rounded the corner again, the two thieves emerged from the shadows and moved quietly to the next door.

Marco pulled out his lock picks again, but Mercury suddenly remembered the Master Key hidden within the folds of his cloak. Touching Marco’s arm. He handed it to him and winked. Marco smiled as he read the little sheet of paper on the key ring, and then inserted the key into the lock. The tumblers gave way easily, and Marco carefully opened the door, ready for the next room.

As they entered, Marco carefully tested the floor with his hand to check whether it was marble, carpet, or wood. He made the gesture to Mercury indicating it was wood, and continued into the darkness. Slowly, his eyes adjusted. Knowing the ground was wooden allowed him to walk the right way and to check for creaking, but without seeing, he could not guarantee that he wouldn’t crash into anything.

The room slowly materialized in front of their eyes, chairs that were not there one moment appearing the next. Marco walked softly to the table and grabbed one of the candles. Looking closer, he saw the gold that encrusted the holder. Giving a grunt of satisfaction, he put the loot in his deepest pocket and went deeper into the bowels of the room.

When they could both finally see as well as was possible, Mercury realized that this must be a meeting room. It took up much of the space on the estimated first floor, and Mercury realized it would be extremely well guarded. Looking around, he saw the alarm tripwire a moment too late.

Marco had just hit the thread with his foot, and the alarm activated. Mercury’s heart stopped. Marco’s, however, did not. He turned and crossed the distance to the door in three strides. Grabbing Mercury by the shoulder, he pulled out a flash bomb and opened the door, stepping out without hesitation.

Two guards were converging upon them, but Mercury had recovered. As the two thieves flicked up their cloaks, Marco’s hand propelled a flash bomb to the ground. As it struck, the two guards stumbled back, screaming in pain. Marco’s cloak fell away from his eyes first. The sight that greeted him was not good.

Three guards were coming at them from each side, and dropping another flash bomb would only attracted even more of them. In one leap, both the thieves had reached the door of the room they came in through. Marco’s hand quickly locked the door, and they heard the satisfying thud of the guards plowing into the locked gateway. They exited the room and locked the outside door as well, and, avoiding every guard they came across, they made their way out. Back at home, Marco spoke.

“Wow! I’ve never done such an exciting job!”

“That wasn’t exciting,” Mercury replied, voice full of barely contained anger. “That was a mistake.”

“I was talking about before. We were never seen when we were in the shadows! Even when we were moving, if we did it right!”

“The excitement’ll wear off with time,” Mercury said. “Meanwhile, we probably got more loot from those two rooms than I’ve ever gotten in any other job.”

“Let’s go again. Tomorrow night. We can find so much more!”

“You’re fairly new to the art of stealing… We can’t go tomorrow night. They’ll have upped the security because of tonight.”

“That quickly?”

“When wealthy people fear their fortune is being threatened, they act quickly to preserve it. Some quicker than others. Tomorrow, however, we can check whether he’s acted already, so that we will know in the future.”

“Oh,” said Marco, looking like a little child deprived of his toys. “How long ‘til our next job, then?”

“Probably a while,” Mercury answered, grimacing. “I’m going to try to find us an actual job this time, rather than just going somewhere to steal money. I want to start things that are of value for only certain people…. And that are challenging enough to us.”

 

Onward to Chapter Six -->