Vahn and the Bold Extraction, The

by Mason, Shane A.

  Quesob stared bewildered at him, saying, ‘What......?’

  The leafy thing spoke, its face moving amongst the leaves.

  ‘I have watched you for many years. You are nobler than this. It is time to leave your master.’

  ‘GET THAT ONE?’ Captain HeGood boomed across the battlefield spying Iam.

  The Inquisat wheeled on his command, charging toward the strange looking leaf creature. Volleys and volleys of arrows rained down on Iam. The arrows and spears hit his body, but crumbled to dust.

  ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, from earth you came, back there to go you must.’

  Captain HeGood rode his horse hard toward Iam crying out for his men to capture him. Several Inquisat grabbed nets and threw them over Iam only to have the nets crumble to powder.

  ‘GRAB ITTTTT!’ Captain HeGood yelled in desperation.

  Four Inquisat rode on to Iam and leapt from their horses crushing him to the ground, though they stood up empty handed.

  ‘Here I am,’ Iam squelched behind them.

  They whirled about drawing their swords and hacked into Iam with all their might only to witness their swords powder to nothing.

  Iam walked around them while they attacked him to no avail, touching various parts of their clothes. Each time he touched something on them it crumbled until soon the four Inquisat attacking him stood their naked and weaponless.

  ‘Hurry children,’ Iam yelled across to the cousins. He turned and pointed at the opening in the thorny bush.

  Seizing the opportunity all three cousins ran like crazy toward the open gap. Quesob stepped out to block them, but now unsure of his actions, he offered weak resistance. The Kockoroc hung its head over the side of the bush and screeched at him, knocking Quesob off his feet.

  Quixote in his scintillating suit burst through the entrance ahead of the others, entering as a sparking ball of light. Ari and Melaleuca ran after him.

  Daquan and Lexington hung upside down, bound tight together by thick ropes. They swung from precarious gallows, and knives and sharp arrowheads pricked against Lexington's body.

  Despite Lexington’s predicament, the upside-down baby face of Daquan drew their attention straight away. What was a baby’s head doing on an adult’s body? As they each wondered who the baby-headed person was, Daquan creased his face in an evil looking smile.

  Ari drew his sword out and raced toward them.

  ‘Ari wait!’ Melaleuca cried out.

  Ari stopped, poised and ready to spring. Quixote strode up beside him, his costume spitting small balls of light.

  ‘It's a good thing you stopped,’ Daquan said. ‘You see, any slight movement and she will die. Observe the knives and spears millimeters away from her body. They are poison tipped. Attack me and she gets pushed on to them. Try to cut her free and she falls on to them. Try to smash the machine and the springs release them killing her. She is trapped!’

  ‘Back away,’ Melaleuca said to Ari and Quixote.

  ‘We will do as you say,’ Melaleuca said nodding to Quixote, who took the cue to use the speed boots.

  In the few nanoseconds it took for Quixote to check out the gallows, he saw thick ropes suspending both Lexington and Daquan from wooden beams placed across four upright poles. All around Lexington’s sides spring-loaded knives and spears sat - milimetres from her naked body. They hung from above her and stuck up from beneath her.

  Quixote materialised by Melaleuca’s side whispering, ‘I don't know. She looks trapped, but there is more, look.’

  He pointed to a small thread attached to Daquan’s toes and fingers that trailed behind him upwards to a higher erected frame, closer to the roof up in the darkness. Thin shafts of light revealed two, large logs latched on to swing ropes, waiting to crash down on to Lexington. The pin stopping the logs from moving looked fragile.

  ‘Yes feast your eyes. One tug on me and the logs crash into her. Oh and don't worry about me, it is perfectly aimed to hit her and her alone.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Melaleuca asked.

  ‘Want? Want? I want the power that was denied me thirty years ago. I, Daquan, descendant of the original transplanted, demand power.’

  ‘You cannot hurt her. You must know she has the protection of the bracelet.’

  A cackling laugh like a nervous chicken chuckled from the entrance to the cave. Doctor Thurgood moved out of the darkness into the shafts of light, holding in his hand the yellow bracelet that Lexington had worn.

  Chapter 40 - Crunch Time

  Around Quesob, decaying bodies of kidnapped children lay. Shame filled him as he thought of how little fight he had put up, though he could not bear the thought of one more child dying. He walked into the forbidden place determined to save the cousins.

  Iam strolled around turning weapons into dirt, laughing and reciting limericks and short poems. Captain HeGood screamed and screamed, trying different attacking formations but to no avail.

  Inside the Forbidden Place, Daquan ranted, rocking Lexington’s body toward the sharp, poison-tipped knives.

  ‘IT SHALL BE MINE. IT WAS ALWAYS MINE!!’

  ‘We need to calm him down,’ Ari said eyeing the blades.

  Quixote made his hand into a gun and hid it behind his back.

  ‘Let me get the cowboy outfit and shoot him.’

  Melaleuca gripped a piece of his clothing.

  ‘Too risky.’

  ‘I’ll use the speed boots then. Someone shoot him and someone grab Lex.’

  ‘Maybe, but any movement on that string and….Look…I am going to do a Lexington philosopher idea.’

  Melaleuca stepped forward, kneeling, and with a lowered head, said, ‘Our parents sent us here to locate you. Their death revealed to us a map and information telling us to find the last bracelet wielder so that he could instruct us in the way.’

  ‘LIES!!’

  She made eye contact with Daquan and despite him being upside down, a rush of images burst into her mind, stopping at one scene alone.

  A young in-love Daquan stared at her mother, Karena, as she told him she loved another and not him. Heartbroken, wild confused hurt engulfed him, and he slunk back angered.

  ‘You loved her.’

  ‘AND NOW I HATE HER!’

  ‘I am my mother. I offer myself in her place, take me. Learn to love me.’

  Lexington, with her only possible movement, opened her eyes wide in protest, anguish marring her eyebrows.

  ‘Mel, no,’ Ari whispered.

  She dismissed him with a flick of her hand.

  Daquan considered her words with disgust.

  ‘If you want her to live, enter the cave and retrieve for me the power source that New Wakefield protects, and then take off your bracelets and reveal to me the whereabouts of the other bracelets and the costumes.’

  Ari grabbed Melaleuca and turned her around.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘Please tell me you have a plan,’ Quixote said.

  Melaleuca moved them out of earshot of Daquan.

  ‘Yes. We humor him and then enter the cave to buy some more time. Quixote races back and reports to Argus. Any other ideas? Think, fun, weird, the impossible.’

  Quixote poured forth a heap of ideas, giving the others no time to suggest any.

  ‘Freeze them so they cannot move. Slow time down. Teleport her out. Give her an antidote, or, or or…grab the bracelet off that guy and stick it back on Lexington.’

  He zipped off and back, checking out his last idea.

  ‘No can do. Her arms and hands are wrapped tight. Could cause movement and then spluck she is dead.’

  Melaleuca placed two hands on Quixote to settle him.

  ‘Okay. Let’s move into the cave and then when out of sight, Quixote, you go and tell Argus what it is happening.’

  Agreeing to Daquan’s demands, they walked into the cave, pitch-gray darkness swaddling them as they did so. Quixote ripped back and forth using the scintillating light costume to illuminate the
tunnel, though he found that if he timed his speed right, he could imitate a strobe light, which very soon became annoying.

  Melaleuca could see sense in some of Lexington’s words about Quixote.

  ‘Quixote, take that costume off so you will not be seen. Go and get the ninja costume so I can see in the dark. Then go back to the mansion.’

  He roared away from them in a burst of light, though returned seconds later with the Ninja costume and without the scintillating light costume on. Melaleuca put the ninja costume on, and the grey light became clearer. Up ahead, the rocky cave walls ended and a brick lined tunnel branched left and right.

  ‘Okay Quixote, go now.’ Melaleuca said.

  ‘I think I will just have a quick look down here first.’

  ‘Quixote, go back,’ Melaleuca said her in most commanding tone, though he had already trotted off down the left tunnel.

  ‘Go and get him,’ she said to Ari. ‘I am going right. Come find me if anything turns up.’

  Melaleuca walked at a fast pace, hoping to quickly find whatever Daquan referred to. Twenty minutes passed and Melaleuca started thinking the tunnel would never end when she saw a faint light source up ahead and two figures heading toward her. She pushed herself against the wall, placed her hand on her sword, and snuck forward, though soon relaxed, recognising the figures as Ari and Quixote. Their side of the tunnel must have been a shorter route to this spot. They saw her and waved.

  Annoyed Quixote had not done as she asked, she at least felt gladdened by their presence. No doubt they would be helpful in retrieving the power source - whatever it turned out to be.

  ‘Once we get this thing,’ Melaleuca said to Quixote, ‘go back to the mansion.’

  The light source came from the end of a tunnel and it appeared similar to where they had left Lexington. As they trod forward they soon realized they were back where they had started.

  Daquan’s baby face screwed up at them.

  ‘WELLLLL. WHERE IS IT?’

  All three cousins appeared stumped.

  A derisive laugh poured out of Daquan, scorning them.

  ‘That’s the puzzle. You go in and then you come out.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ Melaleuca asked. ‘There is nothing in there!’

  ‘Last chance. It’s in there. Solve it or she dies.’

  He wiggled, and one of the blade tips pressed into the flesh on Lexington’s thigh, reddening the skin.

  Melaleuca took a bold step forward, closer than she had been before, standing within an arm’s reach of Daquan.

  ‘If she dies, then we will die with her rather than do any more for you.’

  Daquan relaxed.

  ‘Of course. So like your mother. But she does not have to die, just go in, that’s all.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘There are worse fates than death, little girl. You may have the bracelets, but I am black-hearted and evil in every sense of the word. Bide them well. Do not do as I bid, and you will all beg for death as a release for what I can unleash on you.’

  The three cousins stood there unsure, although one thing sounded certain – the chilling tone of truth in his words.

  ‘This puzzle,’ Melaleuca replied, ‘requires the brains of Lexington. Give her to us and I give my word we shall do as you ask.’

  ‘YOU TAKE ME FOR A FOOL! I TOO WOULD DIE ALSO BEFORE LETTING THESE BRACELETS GO!’ Spittle flew out of his mouth. ‘BRING ME THE POWER! BRING THE SECRET OF NEW WAKEFIELD! BRING ME MY BRACELETS!’

  Without warning Quixote disappeared and did not reappear. Worried, Melaleuca searched the torture-frame for signs of Quixote trying to free her. Nothing moved. Wherever he was, he did not appear to be there. Fearing Quixote might anger Daquan further, she said, ‘We shall go back in.’

  As Ari and Melaleuca walked toward the cave entrance, smashing and crashing noises sounded from deep within. They hurried forward, listening as the noises carried on.

  From deep within Quixote cried out in a faint voice, ‘Did it!’

  They picked up the pace and ran and ran and ran, deeper and deeper into the tunnel, passing many piles of smashed bricks and holes in the wall. After leaping over several of them, the last pile had Quixote standing by it, a large mallet in his hand.

  ‘Look,’ Quixote beamed, pointing into the last hole he had smashed.

  Inside a small alcove, a door of stone with engravings on it sat closed.

  ‘How did you know?’ Ari asked.

  ‘Remembered this hammer, so I raced back and got it and figured these must be trick tunnels. Have to be because we did not pass each other. I was looking for where they joined or crossed over. And I found this.’

  On the stone door sat the same pattern that was on Lexington’s medallion.

  Ari pushed on the door, though it would not budge and it had no handle. Quixote stepped up and let swing a mighty crack with his hammer, though it bounced off and sent him flying backwards.

  ***

  Uncle Bear-Nard entered the Forbidden Place, staring wild-eyed at Lexington tied up next to Daquan. Quesob approached him, drew his sword and held it out.

  ‘No further old man. Your time is gone,’ though the strength in Quesob’s voice faltered as he struggled to believe anymore in their purpose.

  ‘I have not come here to live.’

  Great resolve rang out in Uncle Bear-Nard’s words, and he walked forward onto Quesob’s sword. The tip pushed through his jacket and into his skin. Blood seeped out, staining his clothes.

  ‘Let me pass that I may do one final act and then if the desire so besets you, you shall have my head.’

  Quesob dropped the sword, his whole world filled with doubt. He could see love for the cousins burning in Uncle Bear-Nard’s eyes, and he could not stand the thought of Lexington dying. Some bug or sickness of her had fallen over him.

  Daquan squirmed in panic, rocking Lexington onto the blades.

  ‘KILL HIM YOU FOOL! RUN HIM THROUGH! STICK THAT PATHETIC BLADE OF YOURS INTO HIS GULLET!’

  Uncle Bear-Nard came within a few feet of the creaking gallows.

  ‘Let her down and you shall live.’

  Daquan started to protest, but stopped when Uncle Bear-Nard lifted his arms high above his head and let his sleeves fall down. Wrapped around both wrists were all the remaining bracelets, green glowing and darkly fuzzed.

  Daquan widened his glare.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

  Doctor Thurgood slunk toward the opening in the vines. Quesob held his sword to him, blocking his exit.

  Uncle Bear-Nard spat on the ground.

  ‘You were there when Karena used the incantations, the ones she had discovered. You were the one who caused her to recite them. Now, let her go or I will recite them again, and you will never see the bracelets, New Wakefield, Agorrah, or anything else you value ever again.’

  Daquan laughed, then stopped.

  ‘You old fool. You still reject the truth. All those years ago it was I who stopped her destroying New Wakefield. I have nothing else to live for either.’ He rocked his body and a small blade pushed deep into Lexington’s skin, but failed to break the skin. ‘Perhaps my last act of enjoyment will be seeing the last of the line of the originals wiped out.’ He gritted his teeth and snarled. ‘If I can’t have them then no one will!!’

  Uncle Bear-Nard held his arms up once again.

  ‘Lexington can you hear me?’

  She nodded as much as she could.

  ‘Understand this. A tree gives fruit to eat. Left untended it will still give fruit to eat. To enjoy it, you just have to let it grow, not understand how it works. Quixote is the key.’

  He crossed his held-up arms, joining all the bracelets; grunting and moaning and making noises that sounded more like a factory working than any language that might have been used for incantations.

  Daquan screamed with delight, yelling out that all could die. Doctor Thurgood tried to make a run for it, but Quesob knocked him to the ground.
>
  ‘If we are all going to die, then you can too.’

  ***

  Sounds of fighting echoed down the tunnel and Daquan screamed but the cousins could not make out the words. A terrible screech rent the air as if thousands of crows died at once in horrific pain. Deep, throaty bellows boomed like a hundred mutant cows had been unleashed. The cave shook, and vibrations rumbled through their hearts, curdling their insides.

  High pitched whines and jabbering as if screaming banshees from an evil place thrashed about. The sound of attacking bears, rampaging rhinos, mad elephants and wild dinosaurs brought the noises to a deafening level.

  They crouched down holding their ears and screwed their eyes shut tight. Dust and dirt fell around them as the ground shook.

  The noise died away leaving their hearing dazed and their hearts clamouring for calm. An eerie silence followed…………

  A blood-curdling scream soon shattered the silence.

  Melaleuca recognized it first.

  ‘Lexington!’

  Ari and Melaleuca took off at a sprint.

  In the blink of an eyelid Quixote stood at the entrance of the cave surveying the scene. Lexington lay on the ground unconscious. Where she had been tied up Uncle Bear-Nard hung trapped between the two logs, his body crushed and pierced through with swords and knives, blood seeping out of him. Daquan sat on the ground stunned along with Doctor Thurgood, who held Lexington’s bracelet in his hand, while Quesob had dropped to his knees, praying.

  Unable to decide what to do first, he zipped to Lexington, touched her and thought about the doctor’s outfit. She breathed deep and regular and a look of peace emanated from her face. He looked up at Uncle Bear-Nard bleeding, and went to move toward him, but caught sight of Daquan, and thought he better not let him escape, so moved toward him. Lexington let out a large contented sigh, followed by a groan from Uncle Bear-Nard. Quesob cried out, and threw more vigor into his praying.

  Quixote raced between them all, until confused, he wished someone would make a decision for him. He needed Melaleuca and Ari but did not have the strong man costume to carry them with. He knew that events had gone beyond them and that Argus would be needed. Thinking of Lexington and Uncle Bear-nard, Quixote thrashed his legs so fast, he felt as if he might leave the earth, and raced back to the Cathedral-Mansion to grab it.