Chateau Cascade

by Dusty Ridgeman

  At the precise moment when Aksazyx reached Jak, the chant finished. Jak held the greatsword aloft, parallel to the floor, and an oval sphere of icy blue energy enveloped the blade. The energy expanded with such force that a spray of icy water and hoarfrost splashed backwards, coating Jak's body. In front of him, however, the effect was much more extraordinary than anything Jak had come to expect from his magic. An enormous blizzard of ice, sleet, and cold exploded forth from the blade, permeating the entire hallway. The elemental's torrential fires danced with the blizzard just as it had with the scimitar before. Like the last time, it was clear which was stronger. The creature's otherworldly death rattle filled the hallway as its conflagration was dispersed in a dazzling display of fire and ice. A popping sound echoed down the hallway as it vanished from existence. In its place there was a black sphere of energy; from it, a blast of force erupted outward. Jak was once again knocked back many feet onto the floor, and the hallway collapsed in on itself all around the sphere. All the men dropped to the ground as the building shook violently.

  It wasn't long until a slow but steady avalanche of stone chunks was falling on and around the intruders. As the structure shook, Jak ran to meet the others at the staircase. He was very nearly struck by a giant slab of ceiling-stone which landed just next to him.

  “QUENTIN, WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” he screamed, shouting over the din of the crumbling building. He grabbed onto Karzt, then Quentin. Quentin looked at them quizzically, hesitantly.

  More rocks landed, and a sharp stone chunk the size of a goose egg smacked the hangman in his shoulder, leaving a rip in his jerkin and a bleeding gash in his flesh. “GOD DAMN IT! NOW!” Karzt screamed. He had half a mind to simply make a run for it up the stairs but decided in the heat of the moment that trusting the Cascadian Knight's power was the only way to survive.

  “Ooooookay,” Quentin said, his voice taking on an if-you-say-so sort of tone. He closed his eyes and they were gone. Seconds later, an avalanche of stone and dust crashed down into the hallway, obliterating everything in sight.

  Aftermath: Atrocity Denied

  Quentin awoke hours later, the hot desert sun baking his face. The sun had risen at some point, though it was hard to say if it happened while he was passed out or while they were fighting beneath the temple. He was tired, drained of power, and sick. He turned over and vomited into the warm sand. After retching for a few minutes, he looked up and saw that he was where he had intended to be – perhaps a quarter mile from the temple. In the sunlight's glare, he saw that the structure was now even more of a ruin. The temple's remaining columns and arches had all fallen. Both causeways had suffered badly in the collapse and were mostly destroyed. If anyone wanted to reach the inside of the temple now, they would need wings.

  He stood up, felt dizzy, and sat down again Indian-style next to the mess he had made. He felt and looked like the living dead; one might have easily mistaken him for a corpse if not for his movements. From his sitting position he looked around and saw that he was alone with the camel and wagon. Both rested in the sand, exactly where they had been left the night before.

  As he had expected, things had gone wrong. His powers had always been inexact at long distances and often downright unreliable when he brought people with him. What's worse, he couldn't even see the intended destination and was forced to visualize it instead. In his experience, this rarely worked. While testing the limitations of his power against various objects and scenarios, he had inadvertently embedded more than a few objects into walls. He shuddered to think what would happen if he ended up like that. What would the ladies of the Chateau do without him?

  He steadied himself and waited a moment for his stomach to settle. Finally standing, he brushed the sand off of his long legs. Could be worse, he thought to himself, my brain could be embedded in a cactus. Somehow, despite the Parphateen hangover, despite the strain of the inadvisable group-teleport, and despite everything else that had happened, Quentin retained some of his usual sarcastic cheer.

  He spotted a dot moving on the horizon, some distance to the south. He focused on that point and willed himself to move there. Instead, he doubled over and again vomited from the effort. He decided that trying his luck with the reins was a better idea.

  Driving the wagon turned out to be less complicated than he had imagined; the camel awkwardly plodded along, occasionally making annoyed mewling sounds as the hot sun bore down on it. Neither Quentin nor the camel was used to moving in the bright daylight heat of the desert, and both felt very sour about the situation.

  A half hour later the figure came more clearly into view. First, Quentin saw the glint of the sun reflecting off something on the figure's back. Realizing it was the greatsword, Quentin recognized that the figure must be Jak. The boy seemed to be spending a great deal of physical effort on something – he was kneeling in the sand, repeatedly flailing his arms. As Quentin stared at him through blurred vision, he eventually concluded that the trainee was digging. Quentin kept driving the camel, and the wagon rolled slowly through the sand, toward the boy.

  As he approached, he saw that Jak looked nearly as dead as he did. “Hey, farm boy,” he said, hopping down from the driver's seat. He tried to land neatly on the ground with a flourish but ended up stumbling instead. Pretending nothing happened, he continued. “What the hell are you doing?” The boy was kneeling, scooping great chunks of sand out of the ground and throwing them off to the side.

  Jak grunted with effort, then moved to the side. “Come on, Quentin. Help.”

  In the ground, Karzt was buried up to his chest in the sand. His head lolled to one side, and the skin of his face was cracked from the sun. It was clear that he was suffering from sunstroke. Judging by the pile of dug-up sand and rocks beside him, he had been buried up to his head before Jak started exhuming him. Quentin went over and began to help dig.

  “What are you doing,” Jak said. “Can't you just move him out?”

  “No,” Quentin said. He did not elaborate, and they continued to dig until the hangman was free. They carried his immobile body into the shelter of the covered wagon and sweated together in the shade.

  Throughout the day they rationed the small bit of canteen water which remained from their journey. They took catnaps, drank camel milk, and ate camel jerky. Karzt woke up once they put water to his lips. He was delirious but alive and slept for the better part of the day, only waking to drink water. Quentin and Jak passed the time with some small conversation. Both of them had gravelly, tired voices, another aftereffect of the Parphateen.

  Jak broke the silence first as they all leaned against the thin walls of the wagon. “I don't want to take any more of those pills.”

  “Don't be a pussy,” Quentin said.

  “Quentin, I wasn't myself in there. I was reckless. We all could have been killed by that thing. I don't want to be some redgrass-drunken fool.”

  “It's not redgrass, but whatever. More for me.”

  They fell silent, and both men rested their eyes. Jak suddenly jolted awake and began frantically pawing at his satchel.

  “Oh. Oh no. Quentin, he's gone. Where is Lunarm? Do you know?”

  “Maybe it's on one of the two moons.” A hint of a smirk appeared on Quentin's tired face.

  “This isn't funny, Quentin. Where is he?”

  “No, really. I don't know. It could be up there, for all I know. It could be anywhere. We shouldn't have teleported like that. You're lucky your head isn't up Hohaym's ass right now.”

  Jak's eyebrows came down in a worried scowl. “Anywhere?”

  “Anywhere. Whatever, don't worry about it. If anyone finds him while he's inert they'll just think he's a statue or something. He'll wake up and find his way to the Chateau.”

  “It's not that simple, Quentin. If he's in the West they'll think he's magic.”

  “It is magic,” Quentin said flatly.

  “That's not the point. They'll probably kill him.”

  “Whatever. Acelia will just ma
ke another.”

  Jak was too tired to rebuke him further and fell silent with a scowl still on his face. He was worried for his friend.

  They rested awhile. Then, after maybe an hour had passed, Quentin spoke abruptly.

  “How did you do that?” Quentin asked. “I've only seen one mage do anything like that, and that was Acelia.” Quentin usually didn't bother himself very much about magic; he was far too self-obsessed. The scene in the temple, however, had been enough to pique his interest.

  “Huh?” Jak said. He had been half asleep.

  “The sword. That blizzard. You banished an elemental – that shouldn't have been possible for somebody like you. I've seen half a dozen Cascadian Knights taken down by something like that. You, you're just a kid. You should be dead right now, crispy as a cracker.”

  Jak paused for a moment to consider. “I don't know,” he finally said. “It must have been the sword we found. I've never done anything like that before. I needed that scimitar and its special runes to do anything other than heat up my hand. I guess the sword from the temple must be even stronger somehow.”

  Quentin laughed, but his laughter turned into a hacking cough. “That scimitar,” he said, clearing his throat. “Herk's not gonna be happy about that. You're probably not getting lucky with Anne anytime soon either.”

  Jak frowned at Quentin's lewd remark and wondered if the quartermaster's delivery girl would actually be upset with him. He didn't want to say it, but thoughts of spending the night with her were not far from his mind. Hearing Quentin talk about it so cheaply, however, filled him with a shameful, grimy feeling. He tried to change the subject. “They're going to put me in debt, aren't they?”

  “Hey, good one. You know the rulebook. You break it, you buy it. Going into debt on your first mission, eh newbie? Ah, well. They'll probably let you trade in that greatsword for a good chunk of change. Certainly worth more than the scimitar was.”

  “I don't know, Quentin. Shouldn't I keep it? It saved our lives.”

  “Your call, farm boy. I'm no mage, but I'm thinking you don't know enough to control it. Liable to turn yourself into an icicle if you pull a stunt like that again. Maybe ask the Queen Bitch about it.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed, then Jak spoke up again. “Something very bad was happening here, Quentin.”

  “No shit?” Quentin was smirking while looking askance at Jak through half-lidded, bloodshot eyes.

  “You don't understand. Those runes. The tattoos on the Ouroloans we found. I think they were goëtic. The forbidden magic.”

  “So?” Quentin replied, boredom plain in his voice.

  “So I think they were going to be sacrificed.”

  At this, Quentin raised an eyebrow. “For what purpose?”

  “I don't know. To power some kind of evil magic, I guess. Maybe they were summoning a demon.” At this, Quentin snickered but did not reply.

  They settled into silence and drifted off for the rest of the day. The moon was high in the night sky when they rose. Karzt was sunbaked but finally conscious. He and Jak took turns driving the wagon toward the closest settlement, Crystal Sands. They needed to rest and recover; all of them were worn to the bone from their harrowing experiences in the temple. Thankfully, the factory city was only a few days away. During those days, Quentin's Parphateen-weariness caught up with him, and as a result he spent most of the time soundly sleeping. This gave Karzt and Jak time to converse without any of the Cascadian Knight's usual rude interjections.

  “You feel like a hero yet, son?” His voice was gruffer than usual due to his time in the desert sun, but Jak could tell that it was meant to be friendly.

  “I don't know, Mr. Taker. I guess I feel lucky to be alive.”

  “Smart. Keep feelin' that way. That's usually the best we get out here.”

  Jak nodded as he ruminated on the battles they had fought.

  After a moment of silence, Karzt spoke up again. “You still sore at your pa? Maybe now ya understand why this kind of life ain't for everyone.”

  “Wh... what? What are you talking about?”

  Karzt chuckled. “Guess ya don't remember what you was talkin' about on that night when Hohaym was getting you an' the other one drunk off cactus wine.”

  Jak thought for a moment, then felt a rising shame as he remembered the drunken rant he had gone on. “Oh, I, uh. It's not like all that. I just wonder why he'd want to raise goats when he could have been out keeping the peace with the Cascadian Knights. He's a strong man, my pa. Could have done a lot of good in the world.”

  “Oh? Is that what ya lot do? Keep the peace? Seems ta me like ya stick yer noses in other people's business more than anything. Like yer some kind of schoolteacher breakin' up a fight. What gives ya the right?”

  The question surprised Jak. Wasn't it ideal to avoid war by any means necessary? He hadn't really considered any complications with this idea; he was young and idealistic, and high-minded ideas like sovereignty often failed to penetrate his worldview. “Well... I'm just a trainee,” he said, “but I have read a lot about it. Do you really think the Imperium should go to war with the Affiliation?”

  Karzt laughed, but it came out more like a cough. “Go to war? Hell. We're already at war, son. Look at what they was doing out here. Them Easterners want to burn everything down west of the Sphynx. Hell, they want to burn their own country down. It's up to us to stop 'em.”

  “You don't think the Imperium has any blame? What about the slave traders that raid the Affiliation?” Having grown up in Chateau territory, Jak was well aware of the West's provocations. His father had told him that orcs were savage – little better than vicious animals. His father had also insisted that magic was evil, but the young man had just survived great danger through his use of spellcraft. Could his father have been wrong about the Affiliation as well? If his father had been wrong about these things, he might have even been wrong about orc-kind. As best as Jak could figure it, the most common folk across Genesis wanted the same thing: to live in peace. His encounter with Tusk, the enchanter's apprentice, had led him to question much of the conventional wisdom surrounding the orcish race.

  In response to Jak's questions, Karzt merely shrugged. He didn't care much for orcs.

  Jak continued, undeterred. “All right, fine. You hate wizards and orcs and who knows what else. But I've seen you protect people, Mr. Taker.”

  “Aye. That's what a good man does. A good man is strong. He gives all to protect his own people. Affiliation don't care how many of us die long as they get to keep playin' with their demon magic.”

  “So what happens to them if a real war breaks out? Let's say the queen opened up the gates, let you two fight it out. You burn their cities. They burn yours. How many of your own people would die?”

  At this, Karzt grimaced, grunted, and went silent for a time. “Best we get some rest,” he said. Jak couldn't tell if he had given the hangman something to think about or if he had simply tired of the conversation.

  Other than talk, the journey was blessedly uneventful. They soon found themselves before the iron gates of Crystal Sands. Above them, they saw countless smokestacks which belched thick black smog into the air. As it rose higher, the smog was inevitably caught on the wind and sent eastward up the mountainside. Karzt's credentials afforded them easy entrance and treatment by a trained Imperial doctor.

  The three of them spent the next several days recovering from their wounds and, for Quentin and Jak, their Parphateen hangovers. During his rest, Jak found that the pill's extraordinary burst of energy had come at great cost. He was somnambulant for almost an entire week; the lethargy was heavy on him like a boulder on his back. Thin, jagged scars had begun to form in the place of the scabs on his face. Three fetid claws had scraped all the way from his right temple to his chin, and he would wear their marks for the rest of his life. Thankfully, the Imperial doctor's ointments had spared him a nasty infection.

  Once they had rested, the men were afforded a place with a
Sandy Travels Shipping Company caravan heading west. They turned in the wagon and camel and helped the teamsters load up bags of azure powder and infused gems which were meant to eventually make their way to the Imperial capital.

  Karzt had taken to sullen silence since their escape from the temple. Whenever possible, he avoided his Cascadian allies and loaded up the caravan as he mulled over everything that had happened. Their time in the desert temple had produced far more questions than answers. Had the Affiliation really sent a wizard to make war? What were they doing with the captured Ouroloans? What – if anything – did all of this have to do with the shape changing nightmare that had turned his life upside down so many years ago? Everything about it unnerved him. They had almost died fighting the wizard's minions – if the wizard himself had been there, he and the two Cascadians would have surely perished.

  Jak and Quentin were further down the line with a small group of teamsters. A tall, bearded Ouroloan walked over to check on the group's progress. He wore a large red feather in his turban, the traditional sign of leadership amongst the desert people. Seeing what he thought was a familiar face, Quentin waved enthusiastically at the man, who just so happened to be the spitting image of Hohaym.

  “Hohaym!” Quentin called out. “I thought you'd be back west by now. Looks like you've been promoted already. Leading an entire caravan now, eh?”

  The man's face puckered as if he had eaten a sour fruit. “I ehm Hoheem,” he said, frowning at Quentin.

  “Yes, yes. I know, Hohaym. You missed some excitement back there. Didn't want to get your sword messy, I take it?” Quentin playfully slapped at the man's waist where his khopesh hung. At this, the Ouroloan took a quick step backwards and put his hand on the hilt.

  “Noh! I ehm HOHEEM, ahnd you vhill not be touch-eeng my weap-hon againh or you be loos-eeng head from shoulders.” The Ouroloan cleared his throat and spat a thick glob into the sand, then walked off.