Chateau Cascade

by Dusty Ridgeman

  The freakishly tall one in the top hat was being especially careless, speaking at the volume of a normal conversation. Derik heard him say that he could sense a portal in the room ahead – could this one be yet another wizard? Despite the mystic nature of the first two men, he thought the third looked the most dangerous. That one had a grizzled look about him, with an axe at one side and a revolver on the other. Derik had never seen a firearm, but he had heard enough about them to be wary. He decided that the two men with him must be self-taught hedge wizards from the Chateau – powerful enough to be concerned about, but nothing compared to a Tower Lord or even the summoner. The real threat was the grizzled man in the ten-gallon hat – augmentation or no, a bullet would probably rip right through Derik. He decided that the grizzled man must be his priority target and continued observing the group from the shadows in the dark hallway.

  The men walked into the vault. The portal inside churned and bubbled; its eerie, sanguineous light washed dimly across the room. If one listened closely, they might hear an extremely faint, pained moaning coming from inside of it. “See, I told you,” Quentin said casually. “I'm good with these things.” Jak couldn't understand how, even now, Quentin was being so cavalier – between the portal, the room, and his head wound, he was beginning to feel very queasy.

  ✽✽✽

  “It's evil,” Karzt said, punctuating his sentence by spitting on the ground. “It must be destroyed. How do we do it?” He stared at the archway-portal; it sat on a platform a full foot off the ground, and stone steps were raised to allow one access. He did not know it, but this room was a perfect duplicate of the one in the temple at the top of the Peril mountains. Its runic symbols glowed bright crimson, and the portal itself was the same roiling, bloody stew.

  Quentin looked at Jak inquisitively, and Jak raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I don't know anything about this. Those are chaos runes around the portal. Nobody knows much about chaos magic, just old myths. Besides, it's banned in the Chateau. Can't you just... I don't know, teleport it in half?”

  In a shrill, high-pitched voice, Quentin mocked him: “Just teleport it in half, Quentin! Wipe my ass for me, Quentin!” He shook his head, then replied in a more serious tone. “Look, it doesn't work like that. But... I suppose I could try to...” He trailed off, then held an arm out toward one of the massive chunks of steel on the ground, a remnant of the broken vault door. It disappeared, then reappeared a few feet above the portal. With an ear-splitting clang, it bounced off the archway harmlessly and landed a few feet away.

  Derik, now lurking just outside the vault door, watched with fascination, studying his foes and their powers. He noted that the one in the top hat suddenly looked quite pale; his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed with effort.

  “Y'all are about as useful as tits on a steer. Magic an' all sorts 'a other shiet and ya can't deal with something like this? We're gonna have to come back with a hell of a lot of azure powder. Blow the whole thang to smithereens.” He didn't raise his voice, but his annoyance had made his old accent come out stronger.

  At that moment, Lunarm's glowing arms popped out of Jak's satchel and the creature hoisted itself halfway out. Craning his little rocky neck, he stared into the portal and spoke, “Oh no! This is very bad!”

  “Lunarm, what are you doing? It's not safe here. Get back in the bag.” Despite his youth, Jak spoke with the hushed tones of a concerned parent.

  “Wait! Lunarm can fix this. This is nasty chaos magic! Let Lunarm try!”

  The three men exchanged dubious looks, but Jak hesitantly pulled Lunarm out of the satchel, climbed up the steps, and set him down a few feet away from the portal on the edge of the top step.

  The creature stood straight up and held his arms out. He opened his mouth and a blast of blinding golden light emerged. The eerie groaning of the portal reacted by intensifying sharply. A strange new humming noise could be heard as well, and it was coming from Lunarm. The golden light focused into three solid beams which emanated from Lunarm's hands and mouth. The light plunged directly into the portal and seemed to diffuse into its bloody surface.

  Watching from his corner, Derik realized he could not wait any longer. He had thought they'd try to cross through the portal, giving him a chance to pick off one or two of them in an ambush. The situation had quickly devolved into something much worse. The summoner was still on the other side, collecting another colony of mutants. If the intruders destroyed the portal now, the entire mission would be a failure.

  Failure was not well-tolerated in the East. If he made it back to Affiliation territory, he would be lucky to receive a swift death from his Tower Lord. Derik decided that he would not let that happen. Thankfully, two of his foes seemed transfixed by the magical display, even while the tall one in the top hat leaned against a wall with a bored expression on his face. No matter. That one was weak, and his powers could be easily circumvented. The gunman needed to be dealt with. That one stood next to the boy with the fire sword, and both were on stairs leading up to the portal. Derik decided to use the unstable terrain against them. The Easterner rushed forward with supernatural speed, entering the ruddy flickering yellow-red light of the portal vault.

  “Oh, shiii—” Quentin had spotted him out of the corner of his eyes and was screaming his surprise. Before the curse had fully escaped his lips, Derik was upon his companions. Three of his augments, massive horrific tentacles each the length of two men, tore out from the flesh of his back and snaked their way out from beneath his robes. Two wrapped around Karzt's midsection with lightning speed, squeezing his arms close to his body at the wrists. Another swept Jak's legs out from under him, and he fell off the platform. On instinct, he flung his hands out in front of himself and saved his face from a nasty impact with the ground. His flaming scimitar tumbled away from him.

  The suddenness of the attack had caught them all off guard. Quentin, however, was the only one of the three who had not been struck, and so he was the first to act in their defense. He theatrically raised an arm to the sky and a metal chunk of the keyhole door vanished from the ground and appeared a few feet above Derik.

  A normal man would have had his skull unceremoniously caved in by the falling metal, but Derik was not a normal man. Having witnessed Quentin's power, he had expected this exact attack. His magically enhanced reflexes sprang into action as the fourth and final tentacle ripped free from his back. With superhuman strength, it slapped the metal chunk in mid-air and sent it sailing back toward Quentin. At the last possible second, the Cascadian Knight disappeared, reappearing a foot away. The metal hit the wall with a cacophonous clang, tearing out stone chunks and falling to the ground. Out of breath, Quentin dropped to his knees and his vision started to go black. His powers were starting to take their toll. Moving himself was easy. Moving giant chunks of metal was not.

  Near the portal, Lunarm stood oblivious to the unfolding battle. The creature was in some sort of trance – its humming was louder now, and its golden light brighter. Derik decided he had to buy some time and took the risk of focusing his attention on the rocky moon-man. “Stop what you're doing or die,” he shouted in his throaty gurgle. Lunarm, however, continued humming, unperturbed and oblivious, as if Derik had said nothing. Diplomacy wasn't his strong suit, and so he resolved to get what he wanted by force. His two free tentacles pulsed and throbbed, rising up into the air and coming down hard onto the moon-man.

  The attack simply rebounded as if it had bounced off of an invisible barrier. As the tentacles made contact, he could see a golden sphere refracting light at the point of impact. Derik was briefly confounded – what was this, some sort of magical shield? No matter. More force would break it. He raised his two tentacles to try again, but Jak had recovered and was rushing him down with the scimitar. The boy's mad tackle was sloppy. Derik moved with alacrity, using his martial training and supernatural speed to sidestep the boy and bring him down with a swift side kick to the abdomen. Satisfied that the boy was disabled for now, the Easter
ner hammered heavy, tentacular blows down against the barrier, determined to break it. Cracks of golden light began to form in its glassy surface.

  All the while, the two fleshy, purple tentacles around Karzt had been tightening. The massive veins pulsed and bulged out with the force of the constriction. Karzt was beginning to turn blue, and his wrists felt like they were about to break. If only he could reach his revolver!

  Just as he was about to pass out, he felt a familiar, warm sensation. Allowing it to wash over him, he suddenly found himself kneeling on the ground several feet away, free from the constriction of the tentacles. Now his own snakelike speed would be tested against Derik's magic. He drew down on the tentacled Easterner. Six thundering shots reverberated through the room, a flurry of violent blasts in quick succession. In the enclosed room, the noise was utterly deafening; all the men's ears now rang painfully. Derik, though not shot in the head, began to bleed from both ears. There could be drawbacks to magically enhancing your hearing, and this was one of them.

  Only the man's enhanced reflexes saved him from being gut-shot by the storm of retributive revolver-fire. Acting on instinct, the Easterner leapt into the air, performing a spectacular backflip which brought him at least seven full feet upwards. His tentacles flailed awkwardly in the air as he did this. They brushed against the high stone ceiling of the vault, and then they were flung beneath him as he tried to tumble out of the way of the gunfire. The end result was that he avoided being shot in the gut only to be shot in his treasured augments instead.

  Thick with dense muscle though they were, they were not bulletproof. All six shots had found home in three of his tentacles. Stinking purplish blood sprayed out of each bullet hole in great, gory fountains. The three injured tentacles reflexively withdrew into his body to heal; only one remained uninjured. After being gunned down by a fully loaded revolver, most men – if they lived – would have passed out from the shock. Instead, Derik simply cracked his neck grotesquely and prepared to continue fighting. He realized that he had badly miscalculated; the one with the teleportation magic should have been killed before the others.

  His final unhurt tentacle shot out with great speed and strength at Quentin. It whipped around the room as the man teleported from place to place. Only a moment passed before Derik's superior reflexes overwhelmed the Cascadian's powers. In his panic to avoid the tentacle, Quentin had finally made a mistake: he warped too close to his enemy. Before he could warp away, he received a strong kick to the head. The tall man hit the ground, his top hat and sunglasses miraculously remaining in place. He was out cold.

  Jak had finally caught his breath. The scimitar had gone flying across the room when he was kicked, and he had no time to recover it. Instead, he again rushed forward, this time thrusting his short sword toward the Easterner's midsection. Derik caught and gripped the blade with one of his bare hands. He should have been cut deep, but his flesh had been made supernaturally durable. Only a thin trickle of blood poured down his palm, and he caught Jak with a simultaneous punch to the throat. The boy went down again, affording Derik a brief moment to take stock of the situation. Time seemed to slow down as he analyzed the unfolding battle.

  Three out of four tentacle augments disabled. Two enemies disabled. Two enemies remaining. The first, a gun-wielding man – still on his knees, struggling to reload his pistol with shaky hands. The other, a tiny golem, destroying the portal with golden light. Derik couldn't be sure, but it seemed like the magic of the portal was being overwhelmed. Its bloody surface had been almost entirely overtaken by the enveloping sea of shimmering, golden light. The portal's survival was paramount, so the golem would have to be his first priority. The gunman was of secondary importance but still had to be defeated quickly. The bullets had, after all, proven capable of harming Derik. He could die if he wasn't careful. In an instant, Derik had decided on his strategy: simultaneous combat.

  Derik's final tentacle began slamming itself down on Lunarm with renewed fury, sending splinters of golden light sparkling off the mysterious golden shield. At the same time, he ran toward Karzt. Having finally finished reloading, the hangman took aim, but he was too slow. Derik slapped the weapon out of his hands; it clattered off the stone and skidded a few feet away. The Easterner swung his fist, but Karzt tackled him at the waist. They wrestled on the floor. Despite the distraction of his fight with Karzt, Derik's tentacle continued its brutal assault on Lunarm. He could feel the shield begin to give way under the terrifying force of his augment and felt sure that it was nearly destroyed.

  Karzt was badly outmatched. His enemy's strength and his martial technique were both fearsome. Due to the suddenness of the tackle, the hangman had the upper hand for the briefest of moments. Then, Derik flung him off with great force, throwing him across the room and into one of the stone walls. As he turned around to focus all his attention on the golem, he felt his body seize up with great pain.

  Sparks of electricity were dancing down his tentacle and making their way across his entire body. All of his martial training was for naught; the muscles in his body were contracting involuntarily – he was unable to move. His body felt as if it were on fire. Glancing over, the Easterner saw that the battered boy had made his way up the steps and caught Derik's tentacle in his hand. Derik now recognized that hand as the source of the lightning energy which now coursed through his body. With a look of relentless determination on his face, Jak held his grip ferociously until Derik lost consciousness.

  ✽✽✽

  Lunarm was once again dormant. He stood on his two rocky little legs with his eyes shut, glowing softly. Just after Jak had managed to incapacitate the Easterner, the light show had ended and Lunarm immediately went to sleep. The portal was now a pile of rubble. Whatever Lunarm had done had not only erased its magic but also caused it to collapse in on itself. Without the portal, the vault was just another dark room.

  The men were all at least alive, if worse for the wear. All three were beaten and battered, but conscious and travel-ready; Quentin had woken up after some prompting from the water in Jak's canteen. Derik was securely hogtied on the ground, another benefit of Karzt's ample bounty hunting skills. All four tentacles had been forcefully pulled out of his back, then removed and cauterized with the hot edge of Jak's flaming blade. Karzt performed this gruesome task himself, without saying a single word. Derik had been woken by the incredible pain. After struggling for a moment, it became clear that – despite his supernatural strength – he would not be able to free himself from his bindings. He endured the agony, his mouth plugged with a makeshift gag. Even with his magically enhanced resistance to pain, he could not help but scream through the bindings as Karzt severed the fleshy abominations from his back.

  Jak had been against mutilating the man, but Quentin and Karzt agreed that it was necessary to prevent him freeing himself. He turned around during the actual excision; much later, the man's muffled screams would revisit him in nightmares. Afterwards, Jak spoke. “We have to get out of here, guys,” he said. “We're all hurt. I don't think we can survive another fight.”

  Quentin was rubbing the side of his head where a large purple egg had formed. “But we still haven't found the wizard responsible... or found out what happened to the captured Ouroloans.”

  Karzt pointed his now-loaded revolver at the prone Easterner. “There he sits. We'll drag his arse all th’way back to Saltflat and the Enforcers can decide what to do with him.”

  Quentin chuckled despite the painful throb in his head. “If that's a wizard, I'll eat my hat,” he said, rubbing his temple.

  Karzt just looked at him, not understanding. His back was aching from being hurled against the wall and he was not in the mood for Quentin's quizzical japes.

  Sensing the hangman's annoyance, Jak interceded. “Quentin, come on. We don't have time for your obtuse bullshit.”

  Surprised by the young man's sudden rebuff, Quentin looked at Jak with a wry smirk. “I'll explain in a minute. First, a little pick-me-up.” He pulled a li
ttle red-painted wooden tube out of his pocket and unscrewed its cap. On the side of the tube there was a flowing yellow script which read PARPHATEEN – For Emergency Use Only. From the tube he withdrew three tablets. He threw one into the air, catching it neatly in his mouth. Gulping it down, he held out his arm and stretched out his spindly fingers. Two more square-shaped tablets sat unassumingly in his open palm.

  “Some sort of healing magic...?” Karzt asked, looking at Quentin dubiously.

  “Nope. Extracted from plants, condensed and formed into tablets. Actually, the plant only grows in the Imperium. You may know it as Parpha leaf. The Ouroloans are known to chew it to put some pep in their step, you know.”

  Karzt looked at Jak questioningly, seeking some sort of confirmation. He didn't trust the Cascadian Knight but still believed the boy was good-hearted.

  “I don't think it's magic, Mr. Taker. Healing magic is... well, it's almost unheard of. I've never met anyone who could do it other than my friend Lunarm,” Jak said.

  “I'll pass,” the hangman said. Even if it wasn't magic, he knew of the Parpha leaf. The Ouroloans who chewed it often behaved excitedly. They were more energetic, but made poor, hasty decisions. Sometimes they even became violent after chewing the leaf.

  “Your loss. Come on, Jak.”

  Jak took a pill and hesitantly swallowed it. Almost immediately, he felt his blood rushing to his head. His vision sharpened, and everything in the room began to take on a strange fascination. He stared at his own fiery scimitar for a long moment, slowly tracing over the intricate runes and flickering flames with his eyes. Time felt like it was moving more slowly.