Chateau Cascade

by Dusty Ridgeman

  Seeing Jak's pupils dilate, Quentin laughed loudly and slapped him on the back. “There you go, farm boy!” He was speaking louder and faster now. “Now, about this jackass.” He put away the Parphateen and sprinted – skipped, really – to the spot where Derik lay gagged on the ground. He kicked the man in the side, hard, with the tip of his boot.

  Karzt looked on approvingly, but Jak was startled out of his drug-haze reverie. He knew Quentin was a sarcastic joker and, at times, he could be more than an ass, but he had never taken it this far. “Come on, Quentin. There's no need for that,” he said. Karzt grimaced at the boy's softness. The hangman had wanted to pass summary judgment immediately and shoot the Easterner in the face but knew that the Enforcer's office would give a better price for a living mage, one who could be questioned before execution.

  “He tried to kill us, son,” Karzt said. “He should be happy I haven't taken his head yet.”

  Quentin chuckled. “Oh, he's fine. I bet you barely even felt that, did you, my augmented friend?” Quentin knelt down and removed the gag from Derik's mouth. The Easterner lay there silently, staring with his bizarre cat-like eyes. Quentin knelt down and removed Derik's half-mask as well as all the cloth covering his head, revealing an unremarkable desert-tanned face and bald scalp. “Baldy! What, hair isn't on the augmentation menu over in the Affiliation?”

  “Hair is a liability in combat,” Derik said. For a man who had been badly beaten and mutilated, he was surprisingly calm. He stared intensely at Quentin, making awkward eye contact from his prone position.

  “Not if it looks as good as mine.” Quentin pulled the top hat off his head to reveal his thick dark hair. With one hand he slicked back his already slicked-back hair, and then bowed deeply to no one in particular before putting the hat back on. “Now, listen everyone. This man has been changed by Affiliation magic. He's stronger, quicker... more tentacled. Well, he used to be, anyway.” Quentin chuckled to himself. “People like him, they're called augments. Augments aren't mages, though. The mages rarely augment themselves, at least not in this manner. I hear it can be dangerous.”

  “How do you know all this, Quentin? I've never read anything specific about it,” Jak said.

  “Because I've been to the Affiliation, stupid. I've been all over, stupid. Teleportation.” Quentin flashed a wide smile, his impossibly white teeth gleaming in the flickering light of Jak's sword. “Where's your boss, augment?”

  “If you know so much about us,” Derik said, “then you know I won't tell you anything.”

  “Quite right,” Quentin replied. “But it is obvious that you are indeed an augment from the Affiliation. Is your Tower Lord really this desperate to start a war? Does he honestly believe that he can take on the entire Imperium? I bet he's acting alone, too. Two Tower Lords can barely agree on what to have for breakfast.”

  Derik simply stared at Quentin with his cat-eyes. His face was made of stone.

  “See, much as I hate the little bastard, Rafael would be useful here.” Quentin tapped his cheek thoughtfully. He delivered another kick to the Easterner's side with his clownishly large boots, and the exaggerated motion almost tipped him over. Like a stumbling drunk, he made a great show of balancing on his other foot before righting himself. “Whoooo!” he yelled. His face had turned red. Jak knew that something was wrong with Quentin, but he felt a sort of crazed euphoria overtaking him as well. He struggled to contain it.

  “Are ya crazy? Shut yer fuckin' mouth, we don't know what else is still here,” Karzt said, grabbing Quentin's shoulder. He let go as Quentin started delicately brushing his shoulder with his hand as though it was covered in dirt.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Let's try plan B.” Quentin started patting down the prone man, looking for hidden pockets in his clothes. Finding one, he reached a hand in and pulled out a small folded piece of parchment. Unfolding it, he saw a crudely drawn charcoal map.

  Karzt leaned over, studying the page. He placed a callused finger on the section marked GAOL. “If the Ouroloans are still alive, they'll probably be penned in here. Let's move.”

  “What about him?” Jak said, pointing at the Easterner. He felt like he was speaking very slowly, with slurred speech. In reality, his words were racing nearly as fast as his heart.

  Karzt smiled grimly, and in that smile there was the deep satisfaction of a man who is about to do something that he knows he is very, very good at. Leaning down, the hangman grabbed the knot on the rope between the trussed man's hands. He roughly pulled Derik to his feet and knelt down. His hands worked quickly, loosening the ropes in very particular ways. Derik could now move his legs enough to shuffle along but not enough to perform any of his gymnastics or martial kicks.

  For a moment, the Easterner considered trying to use his enhanced strength to break or loosen the ropes. Karzt noticed as the captive shifted his feet in preparation. Derik then felt the cool gunmetal of Karzt's revolver touching the nape of his neck. The hangman said, “You got a little rabbit in you, son? You just keep on walkin' where we tell you and your brains won't have to take a vacation.” They walked.

  It wasn't long until they reached the area on the map marked GAOL. It was down past a dark, spiraling stone staircase. Expecting the Easterner to try something on the staircase, Karzt kept a firm grip on the ropes restraining Derik and forced him to walk in front. As they descended, they became uncomfortably warm, even though it had been cool in the dark tunnels above. They reached the bottom of the staircase and perspired as they sucked in the dry, hot air. They noticed a dark green moss covering the walls; it did not seem to mind the heat, and as they went deeper it grew more pervasively. Entering a long hallway, they saw that the walls were lined on both sides with empty jail cells. Each square cell was about ten feet in length. Within each cell there were a few cots and a simple, stone, brown-stained trough dug into the walls. The entire area stank of excrement, sweat, and death.

  As they walked past the first pair of cells, they heard an odd, high-pitched voice quietly beckon “hello!” from somewhere off to the left. They gathered together and peered into the darkness; a short figure was crouching in the shadows at the far-end of the cell.

  “Hello!” it said, much louder this time. “It's me, Koboldan!”

  “Fuck,” Karzt said, spitting on the ground to emphasize his curse. “It's one o' them. You in there, keep yer voice down.” Karzt's own voice had become a hissing whisper.

  It walked – more of a waddle, really – out of the shadows and came up to the bars. It was fat little thing, completely covered in dark green scales and nearly three and a half feet tall. It stood on two legs, like a man; its legs ended in feet which were cloven like a pig's and were tipped with two sharp-looking yellowish claws. The shape of its body was odd; its squat height and foot-long prehensile tail gave it the appearance of being permanently bent over a bit, with the tail helping to keep it balanced. This one wore a simple red cape on its back that did nothing to preserve its modesty, and instead just hung there like decoration. Its fat belly hung down over its genitals, sparing the men from an unsightly memory. The creature's reptilian face was strangely endearing. It was like a chubby, happy crocodile, with its snout resting above a mouth that seemed to be perpetually curved into a delighted smile. Its two beady little black eyes squinted in the darkness at the intruders; the creature was well-adapted for the dark and could see all three of them perfectly. As it approached the bars in its awkward waddle, its arms stayed out in front of it like some sort of tiny T-Rex. Those arms ended in miniature clawed hands which displayed a slight but near-constant tremble.

  “No!” it screamed petulantly, “Let me out, slaves!” Like the rest of the creature's speech, the reply was loud, tinny, and obnoxious.

  Quentin and Jak exchanged a glance, the former smirking at the other’s confusion. “Did he just call us slaves?” Jak asked, his eyebrow raised.

  “Come on,” Karzt said, pointing down the hallway.

  Quentin stood against the wall and chuckl
ed at Jak’s protests. “Wait, what? We can't just leave him.”

  “Kobolds are useless,” Karzt replied.

  “Come on,” Jak pressed. “He might be able to tell us something.”

  At this, Quentin piped up. “Farm boy might have the right idea. Hey little guy, what do you know about all this?”

  “Everything! The wizard asked me a lot, but I heard him talking too. They needed information about the area! Let me out and I'll tell you everything I heard!”

  Quentin flashed another smirk at his companions, then shrugged. He reached his hands through the bars, at which point the creature waddled backwards fearfully, quicker than seemed possible for such a chubby little reptile.

  “Keep your hands off me, slave!” The kobold's voice rang out, loud and indignant.

  “You have to take my hand if you want to get out of here,” Quentin said.

  Suspiciously, the kobold crept forward and took Quentin's hand into his trembling scaled one. “This doesn't mean I'm your boyfriend!” it said, even more indignantly this time.

  For once, Quentin was on the receiving end of annoyance. Exasperated, he said, “Oh for the love of – just shut up and open your mind. Relax.” A moment later, the kobold was a few feet away from the group, outside of the cell.

  “Aha! I'm free!” he screeched, then let loose an expletive at the men in his tinny, grating voice. The kobold pulled a small, round black pellet out of a pocket on the inside of his cape. He yelled “smoke bomb!” and then threw it at the floor with all the might his feeble body could muster. In an instant, the air in the hallway filled with a black sooty fog. The men were momentarily incapacitated as their raucous coughing masked the pitter-patter of escaping kobold feet.

  “God damn it,” Karzt said, clearing his throat. “I told you boys kobolds are useless. Come on.”

  “Shouldn't we follow him?” Jak said while wiping his eyes.

  “Let's just go,” Quentin said. “He probably didn't even know anything.”

  After walking past many more cells, they began to hear a low murmur. As they crept forward, the air grew hotter still. The area was lit with the occasional wall-sconce mounted torch and, at the end of the long hallway, they found a massive cell. In it were the emaciated nude forms of the Ouroloans, bearded and sweating. They spoke to each other in their incomprehensible language as they huddled on the ground. Strange mystical runes had been burned into seemingly random locations on their bodies; some of the men bore more such markings than others, but all were marked in at least four places. At the end of the hallway a singular torch blazed exceptionally brightly against the darkness.

  Spotting the approaching men, the Ouroloans stood one by one. A great bearded man, who was somewhat less emaciated than the others, stepped to the front; before he was captured, he had been the leader of his caravan. He spoke through the thick vertical iron bars. “You must save ush,” he said, his throaty accent prominent. “They haff done terr-ee-ball theengs.”

  Jak rushed to the prison door. The Parphateen had now thoroughly suffused his system, and he was feeling extremely manic. In this state, his first thought was to rip the door off the hinges in order to save these people. Karzt grabbed him and pulled him back just in time; as he reached out to touch the door, a gout of flame suddenly erupted from the bright torch. It was a massive, hypnotic swirl of flames and smoke.

  Great waves of heat rolled out from the flames as the conflagration swept through the cell, liquifying the bars and the Ouroloans alike. They had no time to scream – they merely stared in horror, and then their lungs were nothing more than ash. The flames split into many tendrils, crawling with blazing speed into each man's open mouth and nose and ears, burning them from the inside out with horrifying alacrity.

  In the same moment, Quentin grabbed his allies and acted on instinct. Concentrating, he once again employed his gift. His companions had become accustomed to accepting the Innate's touch. The now-familiar tingling sensation suffused their bodies and their surroundings shifted; dizzied, they found themselves much closer to the staircase from whence they came. The Easterner was not among them; the force of the blast had knocked him to the ground, and he now lay at the end of the hallway near the flames. The sound of retching echoed down the hallway as Quentin fell to his knees and vomited up a blood-tinged pinkish mess.

  “It's an elemental,” he said between heaves. “We have to get the hell out of here, now! Can't fight it.” He looked up at his two companions, naked terror in his eyes. Those eyes might have alarmed Jak under other circumstances, for Quentin had never seemed more serious.

  Jak's eyes, on the other hand, were bloodshot and filled with a Parphateen rage. “Forget that,” he said, spitting the words out like a curse. He held his flaming scimitar aloft, then chanted the incantation he had once learned from the stolen book. His voice was shaky with anger, but the arcane effect took hold anyway. The flames around his blade curled in on themselves and disappeared as they were replaced with sparkling hoarfrost and an aura of chilling cold. As soon as the frosty energy finished coalescing, Jak broke into a sprint. The young man headed back toward the flames, screaming bloody murder while his companions simply stared at him, mouths agape.

  “Farm boy's gone crazy,” Quentin said. “Come on, let's go.” He reached up and began pawing at Karzt's hand frantically, trying to pull himself to his feet.

  Karzt shoved him back to the ground and pointed his revolver into the darkness. “Shut up,” he said. “I need ta line up a shot.” Quentin responded only by coughing up blood onto his own fine clothes as he lay slumped against the stone wall.

  Sweat covered Jak's body. The run could not have been more than twenty feet, but with his drug-and-adrenaline fueled awareness it felt like his mad dash was taking forever. He stared ahead into the flames, which were now coalescing into the rough shape of a man. Its arms and legs tapered into points and its face was a wavering column. Nebulous features came into view – smoky eyes and an inhuman maw. It laughed as the boy rushed forward, and the sound was all crackling leaves and roaring bonfires. Jak felt no fear as it rushed forward to meet his charge. It moved in for the kill head-first, its fluid body winding behind it like some sort of hell-spawned snake.

  The icy scimitar plunged into the body of the elemental. There was a brilliant flash of energy as the flames of the creature and the frost of the blade danced and clashed all around the combatants. It was over in an instant; the elemental power of Aksazyx was far too much for the Chateau-forged scimitar, and it exploded into black-iron shards. Chunks of the metal were embedded into the surrounding walls and Jak's hands burned. Jak himself was blown backwards many feet by the force of the explosion. At the same time, he felt dimly aware of the thunderous booming of Karzt's revolver. Bullets whizzed past him, finding home near the body of the prone Easterner. Jak heavily landed on his back, and he found himself struggling to catch his breath.

  “Hurry, Aksazyx. Free me,” Derik said to the creature, his partially unbound legs struggling against the ropes. He looked to his left and saw that one of the revolver's rounds had dug a hole in the stone just an inch from his head.

  “As you wish, manling,” came the creature's dry, raspy reply. It circled above Derik, letting waves of its heat permeate downwards and wash over the body of the prone Easterner. It let out another sadistic crackling laugh as the Derik’s skin began to blister.

  Derik spoke haltingly as he struggled for air. “S....stop... the summoner will... punish... don't...”

  “The portal is destroyed, and that spell-stealing jailer is on the other side. At last, I am free to roam this world as I please. Suffer, manling.” Its crackling voice had grown to a deafening volume. Derik's bonds were incinerated along with his clothes, which had caught fire under the merciless waves of heat. His skin blistered black as he was burned alive; soon, he could barely feel the pain and, instead, was only dimly aware of a dull, pounding pressure. After a few moments of this, the elemental turned toward the intruders, leaving the Easter
ner to slowly expire of his mortal wounds.

  Aksazyx’s betrayal had given Karzt enough time to drag Jak back to where Quentin lay limply against the wall. “Told you we can't fight it,” Quentin said, grabbing his Parphateen canister and popping another pill into his open mouth. He stood up with seemingly renewed vigor, but nevertheless looked about as healthy as a sweating corpse. “We have to get out of here now, or we're all going to die.”

  Jak finally caught his breath, and Karzt pulled him to his feet. “Son, he's right. Come on.”

  “No... it killed all those people. It killed all those people. We have to do something. I have to do something.” He drew the greatsword out of its makeshift sheath. His muscles ached even through the numbing haze of the Parphateen. His many wounds and the weight of the sword took their toll, but still he held it ready, and pointed the blade toward the elemental which was now rushing at them. He began to chant the mystical words of ice and winter.

  “Don't do it!” Karzt yelled. His instinct was to rush forward and grab the boy, but instead he stumbled back toward the staircase. The elemental was dangerous enough, but Karzt knew something of that blade and what it was capable of. It was one of the few things in this world that terrified him. Quentin was already standing at the staircase, watching curiously from many feet away. He felt lightheaded and disconnected from the developing situation as the second dose of Parphateen suffused him.

  “You cannot stop me, mageling. Your stolen power is feeble. You will die here.” The elemental rasped its words at Jak loudly as it approached.

  Jak continued chanting, invoking the lengthiest, most complex form of the spell to maximize its power.

  “I am Aksazyx. I was old when this world was young. Who are you to think you can stand before me? Who are you to bastardize the ancient pacts of the Ways Goëtia? You are just a man, and all men will burn for what they have done to us.” The creature was upon Jak now, and it reached out with one of its fiery tendrils. It would soon be inside him, erasing his pitiful existence just as it had done to many men before him. With cleansing flame, Aksazyx would return him to his purest form: ash.