Chapter 3
~ Retrieval ~
High above even the highest peak of the mountain, an old man wearing royal robes sat perfectly still in his throne, just staring through his reflective-lensed glasses and observing the room before him. The current focus of his attention was in the center of the room, a shiny black sphere larger than the average man’s body that constantly rotated around in circles, connected to the floor and ceiling only by arcs of pale electricity that occasionally jumped between them. The old man, ruler of those with pointed ears, spent most of his time these days simply staring into this orb, watching as it showed him visions of the world around him.
He raised his hand for a moment, and the orb stopped rotating, the image within it pausing on something that had caught his eye—a pillar of orange light bursting forth from around the outskirts of a forest located many miles away. The old king didn’t even need to wonder about what the cause might be, as he already knew that there was only one possibility.
“Master Isahralah!”
Isahralah’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden arrival of a messenger, clothed in blue-gray robes, who came running into the room at full speed. He stopped just short of the viewing sphere and bowed, dropping down on one knee, before raising his head once again and delivering his message.
“I have a message from Lord Mekedzis,” he said, glancing up at the orb and noticing for just a moment that, for once, it was not moving. “The Kuan Nusku has been activated.”
“Yes,” the man sitting on the throne said, moving his hand slightly and causing the black orb to begin its rotation once again. “I am already well aware of this.”
“Lord Mekedzis requests permission to dispatch a retrieval force to the site of the activation,” the messenger said, “And furthermore, he requests permission to personally lead said force to ensure its success.”
Isahralah paused for a moment, reaching up and scratching his rather large beard as if deep in thought. The eye-like markings on his collar almost seemed to look around for a few seconds, though the messenger was unsure if this was actually happening or if it was all in his mind, nothing more than one of the hallucinatory effects of being at such a high altitude for this long. Eventually, after what seemed like at least a few minutes, the old man gave his answer.
“The Kuan Nusku and she who bears it must be retrieved,” he said, pausing for just a moment to turn his head ever-so-slightly downward to direct his words toward the messenger. “Relay this order to Mekedzis: he is to send a retrieval force to the location immediately, and he may personally accompany that force if he so chooses.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Aykathla and Basjon had just returned home after their unexpected trip through the woods, and they were both exhausted. Of course, this didn’t necessarily mean that they could rest now—they still had chores to do, after all, and today both of them had the very important (in the mind of Mrs. Gersham, at least) task of pulling weeds in the garden. The two came into the house and got something to drink, with Jon gulping it down almost instantly while Aykathla slipped off to her room to return her unusual scroll back to its secret hiding place. When she returned, she made sure that neither of the two adults were around and then leaned over to whisper something in the boy’s ear once again.
“If you ever want to see it again, it’s in a secret compartment behind my dresser,” she said, making sure that she was quiet enough that anyone walking in on the conversation still wouldn’t be able to hear much of anything. “All you have to do is slide the dresser over and then push one of the loose boards in. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Do you think I could ever learn how to use it?”
Aykathla paused, having to think about his question quite a bit before she could come up with an answer. Even then, she wasn’t entirely sure, since as far as she knew the only other person who had been able to use the scroll was her mother.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “But… probably not. You’re welcome to try, though… just remember to always take it somewhere away from here first, just in case.”
The boy nodded, then got up and put his now-empty cup of juice away before heading outside to start the long and boring task of figuring out exactly which of the many plants sprouting from the family garden were considered “weeds.” In another few minutes, Aykathla joined him, slightly more enthusiastic about the job at hand due to the fact that she had never actually seen many of these plants before and was hoping to learn what they were while in the process of digging them up and tossing them aside.
For several hours, they sought out and uprooted the unwanted visitors in Leah Gersham’s vegetable garden, tossing the piles of defeated plantlife into a nearby cart so that they could be taken elsewhere to be recycled into compost for next year’s garden. Just when it seemed that they were almost finished, however, Basjon suddenly was halted by an overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. He paused where he stood, a few stray plants still in one hand, and just stared off into the distance, not sure exactly what was going on. After nearly a full minute had passed, Aykathla noticed his unusual silence and immediately spoke up.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… I dunno,” he answered, tossing the handful of weeds into the cart as he shook off the feeling of dread that had come over him. “I just felt… really bad all of a sudden.”
The girl paused for a moment and then nodded, kneeling to the ground and closing her eyes. She pressed the palm of one of her hands against the soil and waited for a moment, then gasped and immediately bolted upright.
“We need to get out of here,” she said, pulling on Jon’s sleeve and almost dragging him along as she started to run off toward the forest. “Now!”
“What’s going on!?”
“They’ve sent someone after me,” she said, “Normally I wouldn’t be able to sense them coming, but this time…”
“Sense who coming?”
“They’re… I’m not sure how to explain this,” she began, leaping over a fallen log as the two ran deeper into the woods. “Let’s see… you’ve heard the legends about metal statues moving on their own, right?”
“Yeah,” Basjon said, ducking under a low-hanging branch and then picking up speed a bit to catch up with his friend. “What about ‘em?”
“Back home they call them golems,” she explained, “They’re sent out to capture criminals and people who leave without permission.”
The two stopped in the same clearing where they had first met, though it was slightly less clear now thanks to the brush that had grown up around the edges. For the first time since they had taken off running into the woods, they both stopped to catch their breath, and Aykathla continued her explanation of what was going on.
“I can’t sense them because they aren’t really alive,” she said, “But this time, someone else is with them… I’m sure they’re coming to take me back to the mountain, there’s no other reason why they would be so far out here.”
Basjon placed one hand on her shoulder reassuringly.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, “We can fight ‘em off. My dad’s really strong, and the lady at the gun shop—“
“No,” Aykathla interrupted. “You don’t understand. The one they’re bringing with them now… if anyone here tries to fight him, they… they’ll probably die. We can’t let them get involved.”
Before either of them could say anything more, Aykathla noticed the sound of something rustling through the leaves of the trees somewhere behind them off in the distance. A second later, Basjon’s somewhat-less-sensitive ears picked up the same sound, and the two glanced at each other for a moment before taking off running back toward town.
“They’re coming from the other side of the forest,” Aykathla said, “This is not good…”
Before long, the two had left the shelter of the trees and headed back into town. For a moment, they stopped at the edge of the village and looked around for the nearest hiding spot, but the only place that came to mind was the Gersham house, and neither of them really thought it was a good idea to essentially lead their pursuers directly to their place of residence. Unable to decide on such short notice, after a while they just took off running in the first direction they thought of, passing by the house and going further into town. Before they got very far, however, a vaguely-humanoid creature made entirely of golden metal descended from the sky in front of them. It was essentially faceless, with only a single glowing white eye; its arms were tipped with only two large fingers, which clamped together like shackles at the end. Its lower torso resembled little more than a metallic spine, and in place of legs were two tentacles tipped with wide, spearhead-like blades. Needless to say, the situation had just gotten a lot worse.
While Aykathla backed away at the mere sight of the golem, Basjon apparently was unafraid, picking up a good-sized stick from the ground and swinging it as hard as he could. Upon colliding with the machine’s head, the stick shattered into splinters, sending broken chunks of wood flying everywhere; though its head had been pushed slightly to the side by the force of the impact, it appeared to be completely unharmed.
Aykathla screamed and ran off in another direction, only to be ambushed by another of the hovering automatons. Hearing her voice outside, her adoptive parents charged out from the door only to find themselves witnessing something that they had no idea how to explain—their son was slowly backing away from one robot while flinging rocks and stray bricks at it, while the girl they had come to see as the daughter they never had was attempting to flee from another of the same creatures. Beysal took off back into the house, only to reemerge a minute later carrying a rather heavy-looking shotgun. He quickly shouldered the weapon and cocked the hammer, taking aim at the nearest of the mechanical creatures and then waiting for an opening. The instant that Aykathla was clear of the line of fire, he pulled the trigger, producing a deafening boom and a cloud of smoke. This was followed a split-second later by the clang of metal against metal; Beysal had hit his target.
Unfortunately, when the smoke cleared, the robot was still hovering in the air just as before, seemingly unaffected. A couple of the little balls of lead had become embedded in its metallic “skin” and others had left a few insignificant dings and scratches across part of its upper torso, but it seemed that all the shotgun blast had really managed to do was stun the golem momentarily.
“What in the name of…”
Beysal slowly backed off a bit, ejecting what was left of the spent shell and reaching into his pocket for a fresh one. Before he could reload the firearm, his wife grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back inside, slamming the door behind him.
“It won’t do any good, Beysal…”
“That’s my son out there,” he said, “And Aykathla too. I can’t just leave ‘em!”
“No, and you shouldn’t, but… it doesn’t look like there’s much either of us can do here.”
Back outside, Basjon had just run out of rocks to throw, and once again was forced to retreat from his mechanical opponent. Or opponents, actually, as several more had appeared since the fight had started, attempting to close in on Aykathla but being halted every few moments by another rock bouncing off of their bodies. It seemed that the only time they actually acknowledged the boy’s existence was when he actually managed to hit them with something, otherwise only floating closer and closer toward their intended target. She had resorted to throwing rocks as well by this point, but her aim was not quite as good and she usually didn’t even manage to distract them. Backing away from the robots, she eventually ended up running into a wall; there was nowhere left for her to go. Just as her would-be captors closed in, Basjon turned and noticed what was happening and immediately let out a yell.
“Aykathla!!”
With a sudden surge of strength, he lashed out at the nearest of the golems, slamming his bare fist into its chest with enough force to actually send it hurtling backward several feet. It floated there for a few moments as if dazed, giving him just enough time to rush past it and toward the two that had clamped their shackle-like hands down around Aykathla’s wrists.
“Let her go!”
With a flying leap, he landed on the back of one of the two robots and slammed both fists down onto the top of its head, forcing it to the ground and causing it to immediately release its captive. Turning to the other one, he spun around and delivered a powerful kick to its back, causing it to spin downward and slam face-first into the mud below it. Aykathla, now free, rubbed her wrists for a moment and then took off running. Basjon, apparently not noticing, continued his assault on the robots, grabbing one of the two by its arms and swinging it so that it smashed into the other at full speed. This, it seemed, was what it took to damage these things—as soon as the two collided, both were shredded apart in a massive explosion that took a chunk out of a nearby house and sent the boy who had caused it flying back and skidding to a stop in the grass nearly a dozen feet away.
Though that kind of fall would be a bit discouraging for an ordinary person, it didn’t even seem to faze the boy, who immediately pulled himself to his feet, brushed some stray grass and dirt off of his pants, and then rushed over toward the remaining robots. Before he got a chance to attack, however, he was distracted by a sudden rumbling in the ground beneath his feet. Glancing around for its source, he noticed that the town well was bubbling up and overflowing, and yet somehow none of the water ever hit the ground around it. Something strange was definitely going on.
“Oh no,” Aykathla said, her voice so quiet that it was barely audible. “He’s… he’s here…”
At that very moment, a pillar of water erupted from the old stone well, destroying the little roof that had been set up over it and continuing to rise into the air at least a few dozen feet. As the torrent finally began to recede, the silhouette of a tall, thin man became visible within it; as it sputtered out and dribbled back down into the well, his form became clear, and he stepped out of the water and perched upon the edge of the well. Like Aykathla, he had pointed ears; unlike the little girl, however, his hair was blue in color and he seemed to have a suspicious smirk permanently plastered on his face.
“Hmm… what’s this?” he said, glancing around at the village around him. “Looks like someone’s been giving my retrieval force a hard time today.”
He crossed his arms and glanced across the battlefield, first spotting the smoldering remains of the two destroyed golems next to a lightly-damaged house. He then shifted his gaze toward Aykathla, who was attempting to escape from three that seemed completely unharmed. Finally, he turned to face Basjon; he was the only one there that the newcomer did not recognize.
“You’re the one, huh? Hard to believe,” he said, hopping down from the edge of the well and taking a few steps toward the boy. “You’re just a kid… there’s no way you’re a match for the golems. This has got to be some kind of joke, right?”
He took a few more steps forward, then nodded toward the three golems. Immediately, they all swooped in on Aykathla and two grabbed her by the arms with their shackle-hands; when she began flailing about in an attempt to break free, the third moved in and pinned down her legs as well, effectively immobilizing her. When she opened her mouth to say something, she was silenced by the sight of one of the robots’ spear-tipped tentacles hovering just inches from her face. When Basjon rushed forward in an attempt to free her, the blue-haired man intercepted him with a knee to the gut which sent him crashing to the ground, groaning and clutching his stomach in pain. He then knelt down to take a good look at the boy.
“Huh… down in one hit,” he mused to himself, “Guess I’ll never know how you ever managed to take out a couple of golems all by yourself.”
He walked right past the spot where Basjon had fallen to the ground, stopping just short of Aykathla and the three golems hovering in the air around her. He motioned for them to move their spear-tentacles away from her face, then grinned up at her. Her only response was to scrunch up her face in disgust, then stick out her tongue at him.
“Well, that’s not very nice,” he said, crossing his arms and. “I come all the way out here to rescue you from this tiny little bug-infested mudhole and that’s all the thanks I get?”
He leaned in a bit closer, which caused Aykathla to pull her head back. She still only glared at him, saying absolutely nothing. For a moment he actually looked genuinely distressed, though this expression was quickly replaced with his usual smug smirk.
“I guess you’re right, I probably shouldn’t have expected a warm welcome after so long,” he said, taking a few steps away from her and pacing about. “I mean, these savages you’ve been living with… who knows what kind of nonsense they’ve filled that little head of yours with? You just need some time to get it out of your system.”
He paced even further away, glancing down at Basjon for a moment. He saw the boy struggle to push himself up off the ground for a moment, only to fall back down; once that was over, his focus returned to the girl being held in midair in front of him.
“I’m sure you’ll thank me for this later. Just hold still and try to relax, it’s going to be a long way up the mountain and you’ll get yourself all sweaty struggling like that.”
He was about to say something else when his ears picked up the sound of a sudden movement behind him. Spinning around almost instantly, he only barely managed to avoid Basjon as the boy rocketed past him at incredible speeds, winding back for a punch. Though his initial target had slid out of the way just in time, he settled for the robot directly behind the pointy-eared man, which had its shackle-hands clamped tightly around Aykathla’s ankles. For just a moment before impact, his fist flashed with some sort of orange energy; the next moment, it slammed into the golem’s midsection, shattering its armor plating and nearly disconnecting its upper torso from its spine. It immediately lost its grip on Aykathla and went flying backward, stopping only when it slammed into a nearby building.
“Now that’s more like it!” the blue-haired man laughed. “I don’t have the slightest clue what that was, but it certainly does explain how you were able to blow up a couple of golems earlier!”
Basjon gave him an odd look, not entirely sure what he was talking about. As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything extraordinary—he had merely punched the robots, and for some reason it had actually worked. Before he was able to say anything, however, the blue-haired man interrupted.
“Now, I don’t believe I ever bothered to introduce myself,” he said, “How rude of me, huh?”
He motioned toward the two remaining golems, who rapidly backed away from where Basjon was standing and carried Aykathla along with them, before continuing.
“I am Lord Mekedzis, second advisor to Master Isahralah, commander-in-chief of the retrieval and investigation forces,” he said. Before he continued, he pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb, grinning widely. “Aaaaand … future husband of none other than this lovely young lady.”
That particular bit really seemed to set Basjon off. He roared in anger as he charged Mekedzis, throwing punch after punch at him but narrowly missing every time. Eventually, however, he managed to land a solid hit… only for his fist to pass through the blue-haired man effortlessly, causing him to splatter away into a puddle of water right before his eyes.
“What the heck!?”
“Oh, you thought you hit me, huh?”
Jon turned around and glanced all about, unsure of exactly where Mekedzis’s voice was coming from. Eventually he looked up and spotted him sitting casually on one of the rooftops, looking rather comfortable. The blue-haired man waved at him and laughed.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “But I’ve been up here the whole time. What you were fighting down there? Not much more than a reflection of the real thing.”
There was a sound of chains scraping together for a moment, and then Mekedzis raised his hand and revealed an unusual scythe-like weapon. He began to lazily swing it above his head, his expression never changing from the same annoying smirk.
“You want to hit me for real, don’t you? Well, feel free to try, kid!”
With that, he leapt from the rooftop, swinging his scythe blade toward Basjon with one hand while holding the other behind his back as if hiding something. The boy ducked out of the way, then rolled along the ground to avoid the scythe on its return trip as Mekedzis yanked it out of the ground by its chain and reeled it back in. Jon never saw the next attack coming—his opponent swung the other half of his weapon, smacking the boy straight in the chest with the heavy weight on the end of the chain and almost instantly knocking the wind out of him. Before he even realized what was going on, the scythe blade flew out once again, swinging past the boy and whipping around to slash him across the back before being yanked out and back so rapidly that its victim spun in midair before falling to the ground. His shirt was nearly torn in half, with what was left quickly being dyed red by the fresh wound beneath it. Aykathla’s eyes widened for just a moment, and then just as quickly shut—she had passed out from the shock, and now hung limply from the hands of the two golems.
“You’re pretty tough for a kid,” he said, looking down at Basjon from his full height. His eyes were still open, and he was still struggling to breathe; it almost seemed as if he was ready to get up again despite his injuries. “Somebody your age should be dead by now, with a cut like that.”
He gripped his scythe’s handle and then swung it down again with blinding speed, leaving a deep vertical gash across Basjon’s right shoulder. Seeing that the boy was somehow still conscious and glaring death up at him, he slashed at him again and again, only stopping when his chest and upper arms were thoroughly shredded and, at last, his consciousness slipped away.
“Who are you!?”
Mekedzis froze for a moment at the sound of this unfamiliar voice, then slowly turned around. Standing just a few yards away was a bulky man with a dense black beard, aiming a shotgun straight at his head. The larger man caught a brief glance of Basjon, lying bleeding and unconscious, on the ground behind the stranger; this, of course, only angered him even more.
“What the hell did you do to my son!?”
He cocked the hammer of his weapon and took another step forward, keeping his aim steady the whole time despite being almost shaking with rage.
“You’d better start talkin’,” Beysal said, “Believe me, I ain’t afraid to use this.”
Mekedzis just laughed. Before the bearded man could react, he flicked his weapon’s blade forward, slicing the gun’s barrel clean off and causing the loaded shell to slide forward and fall to the ground harmlessly. When Beysal pulled the trigger a split-second later, there was nothing but a light click, followed by the thud of the barrel falling to the ground and the swishing of the stranger’s weapon being yanked back through the air at incredible speeds.
“Huh. Pretty slow reflexes you’ve got there. You must be getting old,” Mekedzis said. He spun his weapon in the air a few times, then looped it over his shoulder and let it hang there. “Nah… just ‘old’ doesn’t quite cut it. You must be going senile if you really thought that would work.”
Beysal growled. He was still shaking, though now it was an equal mixture of fear and anger; he had no idea just what this strange man was capable of, but what he had just seen made it very clear that he was outmatched.
“What a joke,” the blue-haired man said, turning and completely ignoring Beysal as he walked past Basjon’s unconscious body and toward Aykathla and the golems. “At least your son had the sense to use that weird power of his… I’m not even going to bother with you.”
With that, he motioned to the golems, causing their eyes to glow brightly for a moment before they shot off into the air. Before Beysal could so much as make a move to grab Aykathla away from them, they had already vanished above the clouds, presumably carting her off to whatever strange land she had come from. Mekedzis himself just walked over to the well and hopped in, vanishing with a splash of water. By the time Beysal managed to run over and peer into the pit, there was no sign of him.
The bearded man slammed one of his massive fists against the edge of the wall, smashing one of the stones to bits and causing cracks to spread among those surrounding it. He stared down at his own hand for what seemed like forever, and then, as tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes, Beysal Gersham lifted his head up to the sky and screamed.
No comments:
Post a Comment