The Last Protector (36 page)

Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the tower's deserted lobby. A wide spiral staircase, also seemingly deserted, made two complete revolutions before disappearing into the ceiling. Sculptures hung in the center of the spiral, occasionally producing a musical tinkling as they moved in the gentle breeze.

He cautiously circled the center of the tower, peering up at the stairs, looking for any signs of hidden opponents. Seeing neither people nor shadows cast by light coming in the tower's windows, he returned to the door and signaled that the coast was clear.

Jape and Nalia hurried across the clearing and entered the tower. He looked nervously at the stairs rising into the dark, and turned to Nalia. “Can you sense anything up there? Maybe the Orb, or the Captain planning an ambush?"

She furrowed her brow in concentration for several seconds. “Not really. I feel a little sense of anticipation and nervousness, but that's probably me.” She shrugged. “I don't really know what I'm supposed to feel."

"Hmm.” Jape looked again at the stairs. “Mister Saughblade, what do you think?"

"They could be up there. But look:” Scrornuck pointed at the stairs. “One way in and out. If the bad guys are up there, we're fine, we can get out ahead of them. But if they're waiting outside and come up behind us, we could be in for a fight."

Jape thought for a moment. “Well, you've handled worse. Let's go."

Nalia hung her backpack from the railing at the base of the stairs, while Scrornuck stooped to read from a faded sign:
"Observation tower—please keep to right. For the protection of our guests, please follow these safety rules."
He skimmed the rest of the sign, which enumerated in fine print all the various rules and regulations of the tower. “Wouldn't it be simpler to just say
No Fun Allowed?"

"Wouldn't satisfy the lawyers,” Jape said.

They started up the stairs, Scrornuck in the lead. He stopped to look out each window they passed, seeing no signs of activity in the woods or the clearing. Maybe the Captain hadn't set up an ambush, after all. He climbed faster, soon taking the steps three and four at a time.

Tired and cold as he was, it was inevitable that he would slip. “Shit,” he muttered, and slammed his fist into the wall, punching through a thin layer of stucco and exposing white plastic foam behind it. “What the..."

Jape examined the hole. “Fake stone. I wonder if they were in a hurry to finish this place."

Nalia poked at the stuff with her finger, crumbling the soft foam. “I'm glad Taupeaquaah isn't made of this stuff."

Jape picked at a bit of the plastic. “If Taupeaquaah were made of this stuff, there wouldn't be anything left of the place after a hundred years. Of course, that's the lodging section. I can see it being built better than this place.” He broke off a piece of the stucco and found it was almost an inch thick. “The stuff's not that flimsy.” He glanced at Scrornuck. “You're going to have a sore hand tomorrow."

They approached the top, where the staircase disappeared into the ceiling. “Wait here,” Scrornuck instructed. “If the Captain is waiting for us, I don't need to trip over you two.” He reached the top in three strides, and cautiously stuck his head above the stone railing. Seeing no opponents, he stepped onto the deck. The staircase emerged about ten feet from the deck's rim, which was guarded by a waist-high stone railing. An airy, conical roof made of tinted glass atop an intricate metal lattice rested on eight broad, square pillars standing several feet from the railing. The dark stone and glass framed a panorama of frozen lake and towering black cliffs that made him stare in wonder.

Pulling his eye from the view, he scanned the platform for signs of danger. He saw nothing; nobody hiding beneath the low stone benches, or in the latticework overhead. His eye followed the slender metal beams from the roof's edge, no more than ten feet above the floor, to its peak, a good thirty feet up. From the very peak of the conical roof hung a stout metal chain, which supported the purple light...

"Hey!” Jape called from below. “Is it safe or isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's safe."

"You don't sound very excited."

"I'm not."

Puzzled, Jape hurried to the top of the stairs. There he got a good look at the source of the purple light. “I see,” he said. “That's disappointing."

"Sure is,” Scrornuck said. “Makes me feel like I'm in a cheap motel.” The violet light was nothing more than a decorative knot of glass tubing, filled with glowing gas and accented with flickering blue-violet bulbs. “Some Orb."

Nalia gazed at the coils. “Looks pretty cool to me.” The lamps flashed as she spoke. “Look, it can hear us!"

"Really? Testing, one, two, three! Sound check! Check! Check! Check!” Various segments of tubing flickered in time with Scrornuck's shouts.

"Must have a voice-recognizer,” Jape mused. “Nice touch.” He turned his back to the lamp and took a step toward the stairway. “Well, it's going to be a long trip back to Taupeaquaah. We might as well get started."

"Yeah,” Scrornuck said dejectedly. “All this way for a light bulb.” As much as he despised the Orb and dreaded being shocked and burned yet again, he was disappointed. He'd been awakened far too early, wounded and burned by the dragon, frozen beneath the ice of the lake, beaten and almost skinned by the Captain and her guards, and on top of everything else he'd been forced to drink coffee—and now that they'd reached their goal, it was just a stupid light. All that work for nothing, he fumed.

Slowly and softly at first, then faster and louder, he cursed the people who had built this place, calling them the offspring of prostitutes, barnyard animals and assorted vermin. His voice rose as he cursed the people who'd hung this light bulb, elaborating in great detail on the specific, and physically impossible, acts their parents must have committed to bring them into the world. As he raged on, the lamp flickered in time with his tirade, growing brighter and brighter as his voice grew louder.

Having exhausted the potential of the common tongue but not his anger and frustration, he cursed this world, the people who built it, the Captain and the still-unseen Lord Draggott up, down and sideways using every language he knew, from French to German to Russian to Swahili, finishing with a strangely melodious string of Gaelic obscenities directed at the UniFlag Entertainment Group.

"A bit frustrated, are we?” Jape called.

Scrornuck responded with a string of epithets, this time in the common language, describing in explicit detail just what Raggott the gerbil and Spafu the Friendly Dragon must have done with an army of disease-ridden foreign prostitutes to create this misbegotten world.

"Good thing you're not talking like that in Taupeaquaah,” Jape said.

"Yeah,” Nalia added, “Rosaiah and the Captain would string you up."

The Captain? Scrornuck thought suddenly. “Hey, Jape,” he asked in a tentative voice, “if this thing's just a big light bulb, what were the Captain and her two-bit army doing here?"

Jape thought for a second. “Beats me."

"Let's get out of here.” Scrornuck turned toward the stairs, suddenly very unhappy to be on the top of a tower.

"Now!"

For an instant the three looked at each other, as if to ask
Who said that?

"It's a trap!” Jape shouted as twenty archers, hidden on the safety ledge behind the stone railings, stood up and raised their bows.

"No shit, Sherlock!” Scrornuck yelled, drawing his sword and advancing as Jape and Nalia retreated to the top of the stairs. A moment later, thirty more soldiers stormed over the railing, some armed with swords and others with pikes topped by the treble-clef insignia they'd seen in the parades, sharpened to a nasty edge. The Captain climbed atop the railing, gestured for her soldiers to hold their positions, and looked down at Scrornuck with an expression that said,
I've got you now, sucker.

Scrornuck spat in her direction. “I
knew
I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"I feel the same way,” she answered dryly. “And now that I have that chance, I'm going to take it. You've cost me some good soldiers, you've interfered with my lord's plans, you've embarrassed me personally, and most of all you've blasphemed repeatedly. I'm going to enjoy watching you die, demon, and I'm going to enjoy offering those fancy boots and that obscenity on your chest on Spafu's altar."

"Kill me, skin me—shee-yit!” He stepped closer. “I am so sick of you, bitch!"

"And I of you, Dizzer-demon.” A touch of smugness crept into her voice. “But now, we have you where we want you. Once we realized you were coming here, we knew you'd be drawn to the light, just like a moth to a flame."

Jape and Nalia poked their heads above the stair's railing. “So the Orb isn't here?” Jape asked.

The Captain turned, as if noticing him for the first time. “No, outsider, the Orb of McGinn is safe and sound, with my master at Darklord Castle."

"Darklord Castle? Where's that?"

"I'll be happy to take you there—just as soon as I've disposed of your demon."

Scrornuck snarled with rage as Ol’ Red condensed into a ten-foot lance aimed right between the Captain's eyes. “I have a better idea,” he said. “How about I stick your head up on a pole, to warn the next fool who puts her trust in plastic armor and a stuffed lizard..."

"Enough!
How dare you profane the name of the Great Dragon?” She trembled, struggling to control her anger. “Ever since you arrived, you have tried to undermine all we hold dear in my city. Time and again you have publicly defiled the mighty Spafu and his sacred Temple..."

"Stuff
that stupid toy! I've had enough of that pompous ass of a priest, and I've had way, way, way too much of that lizard!"

"You heard his blasphemy!” she shouted to her soldiers. “He deserves to die!” Led by the Servants of Spafu among them, the troops raised their weapons and shouted agreement.

"You think you can take me?” Scrornuck roared.
"Well, come and get me, bitch!"

The Captain raised an arm. On her signal, the archers loosed their arrows. In a wild, spinning dance, hair flying, Ol’ Red's blade crackling, dividing, twisting, curling about like some demonic combination of lightning and fire, Scrornuck knocked the arrows away, sending some clattering to the floor, others bouncing off the ceiling. At the same moment the foot soldiers charged, only to retreat as Scrornuck almost casually cut down the first swordsman to get within ten feet.

Grinning wickedly, he picked up an arrow that had fallen at his feet. Flipping it over in his left hand, he locked eyes with an archer. “Don't you know you shouldn't play with these things? Somebody could get
hurt!"
As he spoke the last word, he flung the arrow like a throwing-knife. It caught the archer square in the right eye, penetrating a good three inches. The man screamed, raised his hands to his face, screamed, stumbled back and fell over the stone guardrail. His screams faded, finally ending with a sudden
thud.

For a moment the soldiers stared in disbelief at this demon who'd batted away their arrows and killed two of them in the first few seconds of battle. Then the archers again let fly, and once more Scrornuck batted away their arrows with a mocking laugh. The soldiers charged, but again fell back as Ol’ Red neatly snipped the ends off two pikes, inches from their owners’ hands.

Still laughing, Scrornuck leaped into the metal lattice supporting the roof. “What's the matter?” he called as the foot-soldiers milled about beneath him, looking for a way to attack. “Didn't your stuffed lizard teach you to fly?"

He scampered through the latticework, occasionally batting away an arrow, until he was at the very peak of the roof, next to the chain that supported the great violet lamp. With a flick of Ol’ Red's blade, he cut the chain and the power cable, creating a shower of sparks. The immense lamp crashed to the floor, crushing four of the attackers and sending the others diving to escape the flying glass.

With the soldiers in disarray, Scrornuck clambered through the truss work, looking below for the Captain. He smiled grimly as he spotted her, standing close to a roof-support pillar.
"Here I come, bitch!"
he cried, sliding down the support beam and dropping to the floor about fifteen feet from her. The soldiers stood frozen in fear as the red-haired madman advanced on their leader. Grinning an evil, toothy grin, he extended Ol’ Red's blade to its greatest length and strode forward, his eyes locked almost hypnotically with the Captain's.

A single swordsman, braver than the others, broke from the motionless army, darted in and landed a blow on Scrornuck's left side. It was only a minor cut, but it hurt. He bellowed with rage, and a moment later the fibersword's blade whipped around and amputated the soldier's sword arm. The man grasped his bloody stump and staggered in shock toward his commander. Scrornuck suddenly yelled,
"Make a wish, bitch!"
The blade flashed out and up, ripping the swordsman in half, right up the middle.

Gasping, trying not to vomit, the Captain stared at the bloody mess lying at her feet. “You still think you're gonna skin me?” Scrornuck taunted. “Maybe I'll skin you instead!” He flashed a wicked grin. “Would you rather be a jacket or a kilt?"

Pain shot through Scrornuck's left leg as a soldier slashed at him from behind. An instant later, Ol’ Red's blade leaped out and beheaded the attacker. Sheeyit, Scrornuck thought, spinning about and seeing soldiers on all sides, what was I thinking? In his eagerness to reach the Captain, he'd let himself get surrounded. A quick glance at the roof, barely a dozen feet above, told him there'd be no jumping away this time.

The soldiers, seeing it was possible to harm the demon, gave a ragged cheer and moved in closer, brandishing their weapons. The Captain urged them on, shouting, “Great offerings have been made in your name! Any who fall slaying the Dizzer will find riches in the next life!” So, Scrornuck thought, they've got rewards waiting in the afterlife? Fine, I'll send ‘em there!

A volley of arrows came in from his right. He batted them away, but as he did, a sword found its mark in his left arm. Whirling about, he hacked the swordsman apart, but not before his arm had received a long, bloody slash. His left hand suddenly felt cold and tingly. He stood for a moment, his right hand wrapped around the injured forearm, glaring angrily at the attacking soldiers.