Keepers: Blood of The Fallen (6 page)

“He probably needs to come out of the suit,” Asia said.

“I don’t know how to get him out of it. We just have to wake him up, then maybe he can walk us through getting it off of him.”

I tried to wake him up again, by slapping him. His eyes opened for a second. “Hey, hey, stay with me. Wake up. You’re ok big guy,” I said.

“Why?” He said groggily.

“Why what?”

“Why did you spare me? I would have killed you.”

“I doubt it. Not even a Navarium can kill me.”

“Navariums are very deadly creatures. They kill everything they can touch.”

“I’m a Keeper. They can’t kill us.”

“What blasphemy is this? We have lost so many brothers to the hands of those vile creatures, that I have lost count!” he said, as he started to rise up from the floor.

“But we were told that they couldn’t kill us, only corrupt us.”

“Oh, they
can
kill Keepers. They can. They have and continue to do so. Navariums are capable of anything. If they get close enough to a Keeper to simply corrupt them, then they will surely kill them instead.”

I looked at Asia, and she looked back at me with wide eyes. It was at that moment that so many suspicions were about confirmed. That would mean Santana wasn’t a Keeper. Her father wasn’t a Keeper. My mother probably wasn’t even a Keeper. There was always something that kept me from worrying about my parents. I always thought it was the fact that I thought they could handle themselves, even though I knew my dad was as good as dead. It was a cold way to feel, but I always had that feeling that something wasn’t right with them; I just knew I wasn’t supposed to get involved. I had the feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I stood up from my kneeling position and walked towards the wall where the door used to be. I didn’t care about being incognito anymore, so I punched a hole in the wall, and watched a beam of light shine through the hole. I could hear the knight struggling to stand up, but I was no longer worried about him as a threat. I could feel Asia walk up next to me, but I didn’t look at her. I just stared at the wall. I punched it again. And again. The hole grew wider and wider. Eventually the hole was big enough for me to fit through, so I went through it, without a second thought. I had a new objective. I wanted to find Santana, and I wanted to go back home.

However, when I stepped through the hole in the wall, something that shouldn’t have been there was. “Sunlight.” The light took me aback, but I was still trying to maintain focus.

“It’s not the sun,” the knight said.

“It’s bright, and it’s warm. It’s called a star big guy. It’s the sun.”

“It’s not the sun. It’s the Keepers of the Light. The Lucifers.”

“Where I’m from, that name isn’t very welcomed, my friend.”

“Lucifer means light bearer, little witty one. They shine the light up on us. In actuality, the sun and the statue that you love and appreciate are in fact, Lucifers.”

“It’s true, Mo,” Asia said.

“Hm.” I didn’t really care. I just didn’t like the name. Like I didn’t like my own.

After Asia stepped through the hole to join me, the knight broke down that section of the wall, making a whole big enough for him to fit through. I felt like he could’ve saved us all a little trouble by doing that in the first place, but I let it go, it wasn’t like my hand hurt or anything. The knight proceeded to tell us that his name was Brama, and that he was a Keeper of Arms. He was like a general for the army that protected the temple. Apparently, the other knights were also living beings, but they had orders to stay put and silent.

Brama had never been allowed to see past the hallway he was stationed in. He was not granted that kind of permission, but since I had already made my way in, there was nothing he could do. He mentioned that he would be beheaded and drained regardless, so he may as well break protocol and travel with us. I can’t say that I was sad for him, because he tried to cut me up, but I did feel a slight bit of remorse. Even though Asia wept a single tear down her beautiful face for him, he was smiling. He was content with dying with honor. I saw no honor in killing a man that risked his life to keep a place safe, but I almost took him out, myself.

Sentiments aside, I lead us on. For some reason, the hallway lead outside, then we had to go through another much smaller door. I assumed it was because they didn’t expect any intruders to make it past Brama and his knights. When we got to the temple door, we didn’t even have to knock, it was already open.

“That’s strange. No door in this world is allowed to be left open. It usually carries a very heavy punishment,” Brama said, scratching his dirty black beard.

“Well, it says open invitation to me,” I said.

Asia was still silent. She just followed me, momentarily grabbing my hand, then letting it go, so she could look behind us. She was paranoid. I wanted to tell her that everything would be ok, but I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t want to lie to her either. Once inside, we could smell a sweet scent, and the decorations in the temple were amazing. The curtains covering the big stained glass window were made of satin, and the walls were made of brick. There were beautiful marble columns aligned in a circle around the room. On the floor was a gigantic design of swirls and stars. The lines twisted around one another, with a small star in each loop, and in the center of the floor was a star, bigger than the rest, that had a small circle in the middle of it.

There was so much red, gold, and silver in that room that it started to feel like Christmas. The big star in the middle of the room was red, and the little circle inside of it was silver. It was weird, but beautiful. On the ceiling, was a painting of the sun, and it had a hole in the center of it that allowed light from the outside to shine through. It lined up perfectly with the circle on the floor. I figured they used it as some sort of clock, like back in the Stone Age. Brama assured me that the technology in that strange place was far more impressive than anything I had ever seen back home. That was coming from a guy who still used a sword and mace to fight.

“What time is it right now, Brama,” Asia asked, as she veered off to look at the entire room.

“It’s the time-of-day, clearly.”

“The time of day?” Asia was confused, and so too was I.

“Yes, the light is shining, so it is the time-of-day.”

“Do you not have time here?”

“Yes, we have time. Do you not observe it the same way in your home world?”

“Not at all. Right now, it would be around 10:00pm. Which is night time at home.”

“Well,” he said with a chuckle, “there are four times here. The time-of-day, the time-of-night, the time-of-birth, and the time-of-death.”

“That sucks,” I said confusedly.

It was all Brama knew, so I guess that it wasn’t that bad for him. I didn’t know where Asia was going with her questions, but I was curious. I watched her walk around the room, and I could hear her counting the columns in the room.

“It’s a clock!” She sounded and looked very excited.

“The room?” I asked.

“Yes! It’s a big clock. There are twelve columns, and there are six points on this star,” she said pointing to the big star. “I just can’t figure out what the circle is for other than representing midday. I don’t know how this thing works, but I want to know.”

Brama was silent the entire time. He had no perception of time, and the people that ran the place, the High Order, were not telling them how to perceive time. I started to feel like Brama and the rest of the people were just living to serve and die. “How old are you, Brama,” I asked.

“Seven cycles. Why do you ask?”

“Seven cycles, as in all the different times have passed seven times?”

“Not quite. The time of day and the time of night have passed seven times. The time of birth and the time of death are a part of the day and night times.”

To think that Brama was only seven days old was the craziest thought I had ever had, and I had a lot of crazy thoughts. The picture was becoming clearer about what we were dealing with, though. We left the clock room and went down another hall. Walking along the red carpet, we started to hear voices. It was a room full of people. I could see the fear in Brama’s eyes as one person spoke, and I had a feeling it was because whoever it was, was the ruler of his world. I had one mission. One plan. I wanted to find Santana, and I didn’t care who I had to hurt, to do so.

I walked into the room, and Brama immediately snatched me up by the collar. He looked at me with a look of terror. He was sweating profusely, and he was unable to speak. Asia put her hand on his arm and told him to let me go. He didn’t hesitate. I turned around and walked into the room. At first no one noticed me. I walked up to one of the soldiers that I remembered seeing running from his home. “Hey.”

Immediately, he was on his guard. Asia was standing next to me, and I could sense no fear in her. That was the first time she didn’t show fear, the entire time we were there. Brama didn’t enter the room with us.

“Intruders!” The puny soldier shouted with his weak voice.

Everyone turned around to see us. I started shaking my head slowly, trying to tell them that we were not the enemy. The guy in the middle of the crowd walked out with his sword drawn and demanded that I tell him my name and why we were there. “My name is Mo.”

“What kind of name is Mo,” he asked, laughing.

“My nickname is Mo. My birth name is Moses. She’s Asia. We are not your enemy.”

“Of course not! You are much too weak to be our enemy.” He was still laughing.

“Weak isn’t necessarily a word I would use. Inexperienced more like it. Still, we are not here to fight you. I’m looking for someone.”

“Well, then, you are looking for a fight.”

“I’m looking for a girl. She would be around my age.”

They all started laughing. I realized what I said made no sense to them, because they didn’t have any real perception of time. It was all a little overwhelming at the moment. I didn’t know why, but I started to feel like I had something to prove. A few of the men were big, but none of them too big, I thought. I had handled Brama, and he was bigger than all of them.

As the guy, who was seemingly the leader of their army, was laughing and taking a sip from his silver wine glass-like cup, I walked up to him. His eyes were squinted so tightly as he drank that they were unable to see me approaching, and for some reason, his men didn’t say anything; they just watched, still laughing. I smacked the cup from his hands, making some sort of brown liquid splash all over his beard and my shirt. Everyone got quiet, and the man’s laugh slowly died down from a hysterical chuckle to a smirk.

He looked at me, still smiling, and I could hear the metal of his glove rubbing together as he made a fist. I prepared myself for the worst, but I was ready to give as good as I got. He swung his massive fist at me, barely missing, and I fell back onto the floor, trying to scurry to my feet. “If you hold still, I’ll send you to your Navarium maker, quickly and painlessly. I can smell one of you creatures from miles away.”  He reached down for my shirt collar, and just as I tried to channel some energy, he tossed me to the side and into a table full of food.

As I was lying there on the table, I realized why Brama was so terrified of the man. He had to be the leader. His voice definitely resembled the voice that thundered in the streets. He was the leader of the army. He walked over to Brama, drew the sword from Brama’s hip, and walked over to me. He held the sword over his head, as if he was going to drive it through my stomach. Then, Asia ran over with both arms up yelling, “Stop!” He cut his eyes to look at her, and I sprang to my feet.

He swung the sword from side to side, trying to hit me, but he was much too slow. I was slowly starting to realize that the man was not a great fighter, but he had a lot of brute strength. I made my move. After he swung the giant sword to the left, I jumped in and grabbed his right leg. I tried to throw him down to the ground, but he didn’t really budge much. He laughed aloud, then, he raised the sword above his head again. I tried to move, but his legs clinched around my arm. I couldn’t break free. Then, he brought the sword down fiercely. Only, I didn’t feel anything.

I figured the blade was so sharp that it slid through me like butter. Maybe I wouldn’t feel any pain, but I would bleed out and die slowly. I knew I was dying, and I had surprisingly accepted my fate quickly. He let my arm go, and I stumbled back from him. Brama had actually caught the man’s arm, before he could impale me, and they stood at a stalemate. Brama looked as if he was terrified. The man looked confused. I believed at that moment that Brama had overcome his fear, but the look in his eyes told a different story. He was afraid, but he was also doing something he believed in.

Out of pure shock, they stood there staring at each other. Neither one of them were breathing. It almost felt as though Binatai had stopped time again. Had it not been for Asia’s eyes surveying the situation rapidly catching my attention, I would have searched the room for Binatai. Then, the silence broke. Brama started to sweat, and the other guy started to laugh at him.

“Oh Brama,” he said still laughing, “I don’t have to tell you what kind of trouble you’re in. You’re perspiring profusely!”

“S-sir. I apologize, but I cannot stand by and let you take his source energy.”