Chapter 15- The Gate's Keeper

Chapter 15 of Vector to the Heavens

The morning sun flooded the garden when just a corner of it was peeking over the roof.  Link slowly got up, feeling a bit stiff due to the fact that they were sleeping on a hard stone floor.  He walked over to one of the gardens campfire pits and got a fire started for cooking some breakfast.  As he started making the first portions of the food, RIku walked up to him with something in his hands.  In his left hand, he held a vial similar to the one that he was working on in the tunnels yesterday.  Link saw that in his other hand he held two similar vials.  What made these vials stand out was that they all had a slight golden glow emitting from the liquid.  Not like there was a light or a illumination spell on it, but it glowed as if it were a candle.
                “Uh, Riku?  What is that supposed to be?”
                “Look out at the main room and tell me what you see.”
                “Huh?”
                “Just do this Link.”  Slightly confused, he obeyed and looked out at the giant room.  There was a large tree that grew through the roof.  Some of the branches even stretched through some of the windows that lead into the garden where they now were.  Link could also see what he assumed was the gate.  It was a large doorway made of stone and it seemed to lead nowhere other than into a wall of stone.  There were strange runes decorated around the doorway that Link also assumed were related to the Guardians.  Alongside that, he saw a large amount of rubble that seemed to be placed there after an avalanche.  He assumed that this was the original doorway that was sealed long ago.  Link walked away from the doorway and saw Traito and Thrito getting up and getting their share of the morning meal.  He went up to Riku and he asked,
                “Well?  See anybody?”
                “What?  No.  Why would anybody be in there Riku?  Thrito told us, this place hasn’t been used by the people of that mountain village for a long time.  Why would anybody be there now?”  Riku then took the vial in his left hand and held it out to Link.
                “Put a few drops of these into your eyes.”
                “Riku, will you please stop giving me all this cryptic talk and just tell me what is going on?!  I get enough of this in my dreams these days.”
                “What?”
                “Nothing.  I’ll tell you about it later.  Just, give me the eye drops I guess.”  Riku handed him the vial, and Link put a few drops of the glowing liquid into his eyes.  He blinked for a few seconds as the drops worked their way around his eye sockets.  As his eyes re-adjusted, he looked around and saw nothing different.
                “Now go take a look outside at the main room again.”  Link shrugged his shoulders and whirled back around to face the main room, and what he saw caused him to nearly fall back onto his rear.  For as if like magic, there was now someone, or something in the main room that Link had not seen before.  At the base of the tree closest to the gate sat a giant that while sitting down was about a quarter as tall as the tree, and his skin was a dark red-ish color, and his arms were covered in black flame marks like tattoos.  He had a single horn on the left side of his head and where a normal person’s mouth would be was nothing but a giant scar, which was curved in the shape of an evil grin.  As Link collected himself, he was still gasping for balance due to the sheer enormity of this creature.
                “Is…is that…it that the one evil god you told me about?  The one who killed all the gods before the new gods?”
                “Who?  Him?  Oh no.  Trust me, I’ve seen Demise up close and trust me, he is not as big as that guy.  No Link what we are dealing with here is a gatekeeper I believe.”
                “Care to shed some light upon the subject of these so-called gatekeepers?”
                “I’m not entirely sure.  I only read through the stuff about Demise in Eraqus’ library.  I have no knowledge about these things.”
                “Did you say Demise?”  Turning their heads, they saw Traito and Thrito walking towards them, with Thrito still having food in his mouth.  “Our people know of Demise well.” said Traito.  “The dark god who destroyed everything and was sealed in another dimension.  What of him?”  Riku then explained the whole story of how Demise came to the Observatory and laid his hands on the golden power and everything he had learned about Demise.  Thrito swallowed his food and piped in saying,
                “Very interesting Riku, but you got one thing wrong in your story.”
                “What do you mean?  I told you everything that happened to me.”
                “No, not your personal story, but rather your findings about Demise.  He wasn’t a half-god son to the brother of one of the high gods.  He was the offspring of the god of the dead and his mother was the goddess of war.”
                “Are you sure?  What I told you came from the oldest library Galor has to offer.”
                “Our elder took books from the libraries of Hylia before he escaped from a slave ship years ago.  I think their libraries would be older than Galor’s.”
                “Um, guys?” Link interjected.  They all turned to look at him.  “The gatekeeper is starting to get up.”  He was right.  However slowly it may have seemed, the gatekeeper was getting up.  Thrito and Traito looked out the window and saw nothing, thinking Link was crazy.  Riku then gave them their own eye-drops to make them see the gatekeeper.  When they saw it, they nearly fell flat on their backs as well.  They got up and grabbed their weapons while quickly heading to the nearest exit into the main room.  Riku went up to Traito and asked him what he knew about the gatekeepers and if he could shed some light.
                “Well, everything I know about these creatures is not as grand in comparison to what the elder knows, but I believe the ancient legend said that this is one of the beasts who guarded the gate of darkness that allowed Demise to access the realm of the new gods.  I don’t know if it can be beaten, but we can certainly try.”  The party reached the trap door that lead to the main room just as the gatekeeper was a few giant paces away from the garden (paces by terms of his size).  As the party reached the floor, Riku immediately drew his sword and started slashing at the ankles, trying to knock the beast off balance.  Thrito followed in suit, while Traito held Link back from the fray.  The gatekeeper was not the fastest of creatures in the eyes of the party, but the power in each strike on the earth by the beast was devastating.  Traito waved his staff in the air and he and Link immediately started floating in the air.  After a few quick instructions, Link and Traito flew right into the face of the beast, with Link slashing at his neck and face, with Traito casting fireball spells at his chest hair to try and throw him off guard.  After a few flying passes, the giant seemed unfazed.  He struck the earth with a powerful fist and knocked Riku and Thrito off their feet and causing some of the walls to shake.  Link and Traito realized that these attacks were but mere annoyances to the creature and were running out of ideas.  Link, out of a desperate attempt to do something, flew up to the monsters forehead and stabbed his sword deep down into the center of it.  The gatekeeper looked like it was going to just roll it right off, but suddenly, Link’s sword began to glow and the gatekeeper let loose a scream of pain that cause anybody within a five mile radius to cover their ears and pray they didn’t go deaf (the noise seemed to come from his horn since he didn't have a mouth at all).  As Link withdrew his sword, the gatekeeper began to stagger and seem like it was going to fall right over.  Riku immediately ran over to the gate and began speaking in some random mumbo-jumbo.  As soon as he did this, the gate began to glow blue, and it seemed that there was some kind of gateway magic forming in the center of the gate.
                “Great gateway!  Grant me the power to return whence I came!  So that I might yet still serve the goddesses and fight off this evil!  Give me…” Riku never finished that last sentence.  For suddenly, a giant hand started ripping apart the gate.  Riku looked up and saw the gatekeeper with his dying breath grabbing the great gate and causing it to crumble to pieces.  The blue glow started to fade, and the gate began to crumble into tiny pieces with the gatekeeper falling along with it.  Riku was moving as quickly as he could, but he wasn’t going to make it out in time.  Before the monster and the rubble could crush him however, Traito swooped in and grabbed Riku before this could happen.  The monster fell on the ground dead, but not before taking the gate with him.  Traito landed and set Riku down.
                “You could have gotten killed Traito!  What were you thinking?!  You didn’t need to save me.”
                “My task from the elder was to make sure that you completed your mission and made sure that my people could return to this place.  I was making sure that you didn’t die in the process.”
                “Foolish man.  You shouldn’t worry about a stranger.”
                “Thrito seems to trust you.  And you seem to trust him.  Do I not deserve some trust?”
                “Trust has to be earned.”
                “I gave you, your companion, and my brother light in the darkness; I lead the way through the labyrinth that you would have likely died inside of.  I found a way into the garden, and I just now saved your life.  You cannot tell me that I have earned your trust.”  Riku pondered this, and looked back at him.
                “When we get back to your village, we need to talk in private.”
                “What for?”
                “I know of you and your brother’s history.  It is about time I told you mine.”
                “Are you sure we can trust me with such a secret?” Traito said sarcastically.  Riku, adopting a more serious tone responded,
                “Yes.  Yes you have.”
                “Hey! You guys!”  They turned to see Link hovering over them and Thrito running in their direction. “Check it out!  The shockwaves from the body caused an opening by the main entrance.  We can just walk out without worrying about the skeletons back in the labyrinth!”  What Link said was true.  Over where the main entrance used to be blocked with rubble and rock, there was now a ray of sunshine.  Riku got up and addressed the group,
                “My friends, thank you for helping us, but my quest is only partially complete.  Traito and Thrito, I will accompany you back to your village and tell your elder what has happened.  Then, Link and I will move on to the port city of Burnaria, and meet up with our ship.  I thank you for your help with my quest, and hope you can forgive me for leading you on a wild goose chase.”  Traito laughed, leaving Riku slightly confused.
                “Technically, this was a quest of our own, but we sort of let your quest come along for the ride.  Let’s not dwell on it too much now.  We need to get back to the village.  I’m sure that the elder will give you and Link provisions to reach your next destination.”  They got up, and made their way to the exit (Link flew back to the garden with what little flying magic he had left and retrieved the few supplies and provisions they left up there before battling the gatekeeper).  As they stepped out into the sunlight, they saw that it was still early in the morning as the sun still made the dew on the grass glisten.  Traito casted a retrieve spell and had the little magical thing retrieve the provisions that the escort party left for them back by the entrance to the labyrinth.  They decided that it was indeed possible to reach the village by nightfall if they kept moving all day, so they wasted no time in starting the trek back to the village.  Then Link got an idea.
                “Say, Traito, why don’t you cast that flying spell on all of us and we could make it back to the village in half the time?!”
                “That does seem rather efficient Traito” Riku added.
                “It’s not that simple.”  Traito said.  “The particular spell I casted takes a huge toll on the caster.  When a person casts the spell on himself and himself alone, he has the power of flight and can keep it for the duration of one day.  However, he cannot cast this spell again for two weeks.  When a person casts the spell on multiple people, then the caster takes a personal toll on the body.”  He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a slight discoloration in his wrist.
                “This is a slow acting poison on the body.  We in the village call it the ‘weak spot’ due to the fact that if not treated within a week, it will begin to spread and infect the body, killing the infected person in about a year.  We usually manage to treat our people who get the spot before it infects the body, but as of now, we have yet to find a cure for someone who has been fully infected.”
                “That sounds awful…” Link said in a worried tone.
                “Brother Traito, are you sure you are all right?  We should probably treat the spot before we get back to the village.”
                “Worry not Thrito.  For one, we will be back home by nightfall, and we can treat my wound then.  Also, I do not wish to use up this specific herb so hastily.  I haven’t kept a constant upkeep of my gardens, so I will likely need to make sure that I at least have one growing before I use the one with me now to treat myself.  Enough talk though friends, we have a long trek ahead of us if we wish to reach the village by nightfall.”

 

                “Explain, Elitrian, you say the gatekeeper of Gueron is DEAD?!”  Elitrian was trembling, for this was the first time in a long time that Demise was angry.
                “Well, you see my lord, well, uh, that is…”
                “QUIT YOUR STUTTERING FOOL!  I WANT ANSWERS TO MY QUESTIONS!”
                “Of course my lord.  You see, what I know of during the last thoughts of the gatekeeper when we recovered his soul, is that the mortal half-elf who stabbed him had no magical powers whatsoever, and his sword was a common blade.  But when his sword pierced his flesh, according to the gatekeeper, he saw a flash of bright light, then he began to fade.”
                “A flash of light?  Are you sure that is what the brute saw, Elitrian?”
                “Yes, y-y-yes my lord.”
                “How can this be?  Even in death, she still defies me.”
                “Who, my lord?”
                “None of your concern, Elitrian!  Just something to do with my host.  Now begone from my presence!  Make sure that the mission in Unto is carried out.”
                “Yes my lord.”  Elitrian started to walk away and out of the chamber of Demise.  Demise then strolled out to the balcony of his room that overlooked his domain.  He saw the spirits of the dead with their arms, aching for action.  The monsters of his creating, hungry for blood.
                “Spawns of darkness!  Your master calls on you!  Bring forth the commander of the unit of Gueron’s dead?!”  Immediately appearing before Demise was a skeleton, clothed in armor and bleeding from where his eyes would be.
                “So, you are sad that you are here and not with your family?  Forget them.  You are mine now, and the life you knew before, is gone.  Now you are my slave, and I want you to do something for me.”
                “Yes….my lord….Demise.”

Author's Note

long update, I know. Christmas break, snow days, blah blah blah. You guys know that feeling right? Just wanting to rest while you have the chance? But enough of my excuses.
Let me know what you think of the chapter!