His right eye was clouded with blood but, with his left, he could see Karzt standing above him, the smoking revolver in one hand and his hatchet in the other. They heard the moans grow louder around them; if the creatures hadn't known they were there before, they certainly did now.
“Go – go now!” Karzt yelled, hastily putting his weapons away. He grabbed roughly at the chest of Jak's banded mail, pulling the young man to his feet. Jak fetched his own weapons from the ground and they both took off running. Jak stumbled at first, nearly falling on his face as he struggled to catch his breath. Exiting the rubble, they saw what must have been hundreds – or even thousands – of glowing figures converging on them, all moaning in a horrible, phlegmy chorus.
There was still maybe thirty feet between them and the rectangular archway. There, in the dim light, they saw Quentin standing just a few feet inside. He didn't seem to be overly concerned with the hoard of creatures rapidly converging in on them. Instead, he was holding both his arms out like a crucified man, lackadaisically beckoning the two men in with his fingers. With the creatures in hot pursuit, Jak and the hangman made a mad dash across the remaining few feet. They turned around to face the hoard as they reached Quentin, drawing their weapons. The hallway became a choke point; without saying a word, they had both decided it would be where they made their final stand against the enemy.
A look of deep concentration flashed across the Innate's face. All of a sudden, a massive broken column materialized in the entrance of the hallway, just above the ground. It fell with a loud crash, which was proceeded by more deafening crashes as a pile of rubble and chunks of broken statues came after it, clogging up the hallway. It wasn't long until the archway was fully blocked.
Without the moonlight filtering in, the hallway was pitch black; a few anxious seconds passed as the men listened to the muffled moaning and scratching sounds from the other side. Then, Jak whispered something under his breath. His scimitar lit up with softly crackling flames, lighting their way. They now saw that they were standing in a long hallway made of the same dark, grey stone as the rest of the temple. In the distance they could see a four-way intersection.
Karzt stared at the rubble, rage slowly mounting in his face. Then, with the swiftness of a snake, he grabbed Quentin by his rose-patterned vest and slammed him against the wall. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spoke through gritted teeth. His voice was low and deadly.
“What? I saved us, we're fine.” He spoke less boisterously than usual, but nevertheless managed to evoke a noticeable degree of self-amusement. Despite this, the Cascadian Knight's face was slick with sweat and his breathing betrayed the effort he had tried to disguise. Karzt mistook all of this for fear.
“You left us to die. Why didn't you just move us like before?”
“Oh, now you want my help. Just a few minutes ago I was a big bad wizard man who deserved to be shot.”
Jak stepped between them and placed a hand firmly on Karzt's shoulder. He was beginning to suspect that Quentin had a good reason for what he did. The top-hatted man had admitted the difficulty of moving so many people. Perhaps there were things about his power that they did not understand, but it seemed obvious that there were limitations. Of course, Quentin being Quentin, he probably did not want to admit to any of this. Since Jak had known him, he had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped on the precise details of his powers.
“Come on, Mr. Taker. We don't have time for this,” he said. Karzt glanced over at him as Jak continued, “There could be more coming from the other direction, and we just made a lot of noise. You want to go kill that wizard, right?” At this, the hangman lowered Quentin to the ground and turned toward Jak.
The right side of the boy's face was a mess of blood; it was hard to tell just how bad the wound was. Karzt was a bit surprised that Jak hadn't pissed himself; in his experience, it wasn't uncommon for young men during such a close brush with death. He was impressed with the boy's presence of mind in the face of such an injury, especially after making what was presumably his first kill. He began to feel a sort of fatherly, protective instinct for this boy and was struck with a sudden urge to turn him from his magical studies before it was too late. Now was not the time for such distraction, though. He pulled a roll of thick bandages from his backpack and, with a practiced hand, quickly wrapped a length of the fabric around Jak's head lengthwise and tied it off.
“No time for yer little friend's tricks. This'll keep the blood out of yer eye for now,” the hangman said. He loaded a round into his revolver, grim purpose painted across his face. “Come on. We have a wizard to execute.” He strode off into the hallway, the two men following closely behind him.
The déjà vu was weighing heavily on him now. The place was labyrinthine but Karzt seemed to somehow know the path. He led them through the intersection without turning. For several minutes they made unmolested progress, passing by several rooms that held rotting furniture and bedding. Karzt led them past many more intersections with uncanny certainty.
As they passed through one such intersection, Jak and Quentin shared a dubious, uncomfortable glance. Both were wondering the same thing: why was the hangman so sure of the path? Karzt had given up asking himself that same question; he had resolved to trust his instincts, and so trudged onwards with grim purpose. His chest felt heavy with apprehension, and with each step down the stone hallways the feeling became more and more burdensome.
The hallways led deeper and deeper into the rock of the mountain. Eventually, they saw moonlight in the distance and smelled the desert air. They walked forward and found themselves in a disused fane. A rectangular hallway entrance was on the other side of this round room. It was carved into the mountain like the tunnel they had just come out of. Moonlight flooded in through several holes in the domed ceiling; Jak figured that this room must have been built on a low point in the mountain, connecting the two tunnels. A single sconce at the far-end of the fane held a flame. Despite the small size of the fire and the cool night air filtering in from above, the room felt uncomfortably warm. The largest gap in the ceiling was in the center-most point. Unlike some of the other holes, it was not the result of disrepair but instead it was a purposefully carved octagon. Moonlight poured down from this hole onto a high altar. A large two-handed sword was lodged into a slot in the altar. Realization hit Karzt like a freight train and he broke into a sprint toward the altar, climbing its steps with great speed. Alarmed, Jak's hands went to the hilts of his blades. Quentin simply inclined his head curiously, his top hat somehow remaining firmly in place despite the gesture.
Karzt knelt and ran his fingers over the markings carved into the base of the altar, glyphs of warning and danger written in many languages. He looked at the exposed part of the blade and once again glimpsed the runes of Chaos and Knowledge. This was the same place from the vision that Kanderu had given him, the place where the man had been torn apart and transformed into something else – something inhuman.
This was the blade that somehow performed this vile act. He swore and spat on the ground. Was the accursed shapeshifter to blame for all of this? It had been years since the tragedy at Woodswood. Kanderu had disappeared without a trace; the only remaining evidence was Karzt’s own nightmares. After all this time, had the creature surfaced again here in the Ourolo? Was it a coincidence, or was it all a part of some intricate, nightmarish scheme? Why would it have devoted so much time to Karzt’s suffering? What could he, a single man, possibly mean to such a demon? All of these thoughts and more raced through the hangman's head as he grimaced toward the blade.
With Jak a few paces behind him, Quentin walked up the steps and knelt down in front of the altar, putting his hands together in a mock gesture of prayer.
“You don't want to pray here,” Karzt said flatly.
“Oh, relax,” said Quentin. He had retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe the grimy, sandy dirt from the base of the altar. Below the glyphs of warning, some writing came into view. I
t was an ancient but still-legible form of Ouroloan; it was close enough to modern writing for all three men to make it out:
HERE LIES THE BLADE
HERE LIES THE GOD
CHAOS AND KNOWLEDGE, WEAPONS SEALED IN A WEAPON
MAY THEY REST TOGETHER UNDISTURBED FOR ETERNITY
“Huh. Well, we didn't come here for a sword. Let's go.” Quentin stood up, his back cracking as he stretched out theatrically.
“Wait,” Jak said. “What’s going on here? Do you recognize this altar, Mr. Taker?” Karzt's strange behavior had raised his interest, but so had the blade and the writings. Something tickled his thoughts from just past the edge of his memory, but the specifics were eluding him. He reached out to touch the hilt and Karzt reacted with snake-like speed, grabbing his wrist with enough force to hurt. Jak looked up in alarm as the older man began to speak.
“Ya don't want to touch that. Just trust me.” He loosened his grip, and Jak rubbed his wrist with his other hand.
Reaching into his satchel, Jak withdrew his tiny companion. The little rock-man came out resting his stony rump in the palm of Jak's big hand. He released a tiny yawn and exclaimed, “Hello! Was not Lunarm supposed to stay inside?” The creature craned his rocky little neck upwards and noticed Jak's bandages. “Oh no! Jak is hurt!”
“Lunarm, don't worry about that for now. Look at these runes.” Jak indicated toward the altar. “Doesn't this look like what we learned about in the history lessons? The one about that Ouroloan myth. The chaos thing.”
At this, Quentin piped up, “You actually paid attention to those classes? Heh, sucker.” He chuckled to himself. “That violet-haired witch tried to make me do that stuff, but I told her where she could stick it.”
“Not now, Quentin,” said Jak. “Lunarm, what do you think?”
“Lunarm thinks so! Nasty, mean, gelatinous gloober did bad things to sand-people. Sand people got mad, and gloober got caught! Uh oh, Jak! Sword is not glowing! Maybe glooby got out?”
“This ain't a joke. Put yer pet rock away already and let's get moving.” Karzt looked surlier than usual and was glowering at the little rock-man.
“Let it go,” Jak chided, “it's just how he talks. Thank you, Lunarm. Stay in my bag a little while longer, please.” Lunarm nodded and Jak gently placed him back into the satchel.
“I think I know what's going on here,” Jak explained. Karzt stared at him, rapt but impatient while the boy went on, describing what he had been taught. There was an Ouroloan legend set in ancient times, long before the Imperium. According to legend, magical spirits of chaos once walked the land in physical form. Some of these spirits were benevolent, many were malicious, but most were simply beyond the ken of mortal men – their motivations were ranged from esoteric to malevolent, and consorting with them was dangerous. In time, as the stars realigned to announce the coming of a new age, many of these creatures became unable to maintain their connection to this world. Only a few of the strongest and most rebellious creatures remained. These remaining spirits were beings of pure animus, ready to enforce their will on all the mortals of Genesis. According to the legend, the Ouroloans of the time were terrorized by a shape changing chaos spirit which committed unspeakable atrocities. Through its evil, entire villages were destroyed, and the souls of their inhabitants consumed. The most powerful Ouroloan shamans of the time worked together in an effort to find and defeat this creature but found that it was utterly indestructible. Neither steel nor sorcery could bring it low. “In the end,” Jak said, “they used magic to trap it in a sword. If these runes are what I think that they are... they trapped it in this sword.”
“That's stupid,” Quentin said from below the altar. Pretending not to listen, he had wandered a few feet away while Jak spoke. “Why wouldn't they just chuck it off the edge of the world? Why keep it here?”
“I don't know,” Jak replied. “Maybe we can check the library when we get back to the Chateau.”
“If you get back,” Karzt grimly corrected. He walked down the steps, leaving Jak alone next to the altar.
Jak put both hands on the hilt and pulled with his strong arms. The old stone loudly scraped against metal as the blade pulled free. As he pulled it out, it became clear that this was sword meant for two hands. It was a type of greatsword, perhaps eight pounds in weight. The hilt was made of some sort of bone, or perhaps petrified wood – Jak couldn't tell which – and it had been painted a vibrant blue. The blade itself was made of lustrous steel. Despite having been pulled from a dusty old altar, the moonlight glinted off the weapon as though it had just been polished. Jak took a few practice swings with it and found that it was well suited to his grip. It was extremely well-balanced despite its size and weight. He held the blade up to his eyes to inspect the tiny, intricately engraved runes which dotted up and down its face.
“Have you lost your damn mind, boy?” Karzt hissed, his voice low and fierce.
“It's like Lunarm said – whatever was in this sword is long-gone. Its magic is dead, but just look at the detail of these runes... might be even better than what I've been using.” As he spoke, he pulled some rope from his satchel. He sliced off a length of the rope and fixed it to the back collar of his banded mail. He finished by tying it off in a knot so that it would serve as a makeshift sheath. Finally, he placed the weapon on his back.
“Nothing good can come out of using that thing. Trust me,” Karzt said.
They heard a yawn from across the room. Quentin's rambling, flippant voice rose up from beneath the altar. “Trust you, trust you. Like you know anything. Actually, it stands to reason that if your 'gelatinous gloober' was put down by this sword, then the sword might even have the power to do it again – maybe. I don't know spells. I just know more than a few magical jackasses like the farm boy here. Anyway, may we move on already, oh Imperious leader? I'm sure the gloober knows we're coming, so we had better hurry.”
They packed up and set off once again, proceeding further into the mountain temple. Behind them, living flames crept out of a sconce and quickly floated through the air back the way the group had come.
The Portal and the East
When Derik heard and felt the crash of Quentin's teleported stones, he assumed it was an avalanche from further up the mountain. He was walking with the fire elemental in a junction of the tunnel network, far off from the entrance. Knowing the fiery creature could move much faster than he could, he asked Aksazyx to take a look. Surprisingly, the elemental assented and quickly floated off. Derik surmised that, despite the creature's usual laziness, it had become bored with patrolling the temple grounds. Derik walked swiftly and quietly toward the sound but was many lengths of tunnel away. After about fifteen minutes, he felt the familiar warmth of the elemental and saw its flames rush around a corner toward him before expanding to roughly the size and shape of a man.
“Three intruders,” it rasped. “Sword room. Moving toward the portal.” Derik felt hot air blow against his face as it spoke; it was like standing next to a smoky campfire on a windy day.
Hearing this news, he tensed up, then took control of his breathing and forced his muscles to relax. Was this a group of Enforcers sent to investigate their attacks? He hoped that he could be so lucky. If so, this might be the first good fight he'd had in months. “Are you coming?” he asked, punctuating his question by clearing some thick mucus from his throat and spitting it out in a repulsive glob onto the ground.
“No,” the creature said and floated off without another word. Derik was unsurprised. The creature had its own motivations and was unpredictable under the best of circumstances. Without the summoner, there was no real way to coerce the creature into obedience.
Derik was untroubled by the elemental's behavior. He trusted in his own martial skills and he trusted his augments. The sword room, he thought to himself. A reminder of what this temple used to be. They had assumed the altar was trapped and left it well enough alone. After all, it had nothing to do with their mission here. He took off toward t
he room in an odd sprint, his body forming an L as his arms trailed behind him and his back went almost parallel to the ground. He didn't know it, but soon he was retracing the steps of Karzt and the Cascadians.
Despite his speed, Derik's footsteps made almost no noise. His shoes were made of the same soft, grey, cottony material that comprised the rest of his clothes, and they did an excellent job of muffling the sounds of his travel. He sped through the hallways like a wildcat, letting his augmented eyes take in his surroundings despite the darkness. He reached the now-empty room with the altar and came to an abrupt but graceful stop. He saw that the blade was missing and furrowed his brow thoughtfully. Realizing time was of the essence, he sprinted onward.
By now, the three intruders had reached the massive keyhole-shaped entranceway which led into the portal vault. The temple must have been looted at some point; some explosive force had blown the entranceway door inward, and great chunks of its now ragged-edged steel lay strewn about the vault. Derik slowed and began to creep in the shadows. He could already hear the men talking amongst themselves and marveled at the fact that they didn't seem to be making much effort to stay quiet or stealthy. One of them was even holding a scimitar which lit their way; gaudy flames danced up and down its length. Perhaps these fools wouldn't be much of a challenge after all. It occurred to Derik that the one wielding the fire-sword looked far more muscular than the mages he had met in the East; he was also much younger, barely a man at all.
These men looked too fanciful and well-equipped to be looters. They looked too disorganized to be Enforcers. Because a mage was with them, it was likely that the Chateau had gotten involved. His face twisted into a silent snarl as he thought about how sloppy he had been to bring this kind of attention down on their heads. He had mismanaged the attacks on the caravans and now he was paying the price. In the shadows, he shook his head free of his thoughts; now was not the time to ruminate on his failures. He focused instead on making out what the intruders were discussing.
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