The Last Protector (60 page)

Rosaiah stood in silence, his mouth hanging open—the Priest hadn't considered the possibility that here, on this final day of the Fortnight, Scrornuck would still decline to offer his boots. “Well, honored guest,” he said after much thought, “it is written that things happen in the Dragon's good time, and our law is above all to respect the Guests. Therefore, though I fear your going forth without the benefit of a sacrifice, I grant your request. Continue on your journey in peace, and may the blessings of Spafu go with you!"

"Nice job,” Jape said, patting Scrornuck's shoulder. “I see you were paying attention when I..."

"Stop right there, blasphemer!” The crowd moved aside as a young man with a bandage over his nose came forward. It was Ferinianne, the leader of the Servants of Spafu. With him came the remnants of his gang, down to five men and two women but zealous as ever. “The Priest might let you go, but the Servants shall not!"

"Be gone!” Rosaiah roared from the Temple porch. “Have I not rebuked you enough times already?"

"Shut up, fat boy!” The challenge to the Priest's authority silenced the crowd. “You are the past, Rosaiah! These are not Guests! It has been a hundred years, the True Guests have not come—and why not? Because under weak priests like you, the city has offered only token sacrifices! Now, the Castle of Darkness and the Ball of Purple Death have threatened our city. Only by the favor of Spafu have we survived, and then only after great losses! Why did we suffer in this way? Because of our weak-willed sacrifice! Your time is over, Rosaiah! The day of the Servants has come!” He extended his arm, pointing at Scrornuck's boots. “Now, blasphemer, there shall be no more excuses, no more refusals—give the Dragon what is his!"

"For the love of...” Scrornuck started to walk away, the Servants jumped him, and the brawl was on. He decked a few, while Nalia, no longer a powerful telepath but still knowing what the Servants were going to do before they did it, flattened a couple more. The Mayoral Guards mopped up the rest. Only Ferinianne remained, crouching on the Temple steps, back against the wall supporting Rosaiah's porch, eyes flashing with the wild, reckless look of a cornered animal. He waved a long knife decorated with images of Spafu, a knife that had become too, too familiar. “Put that thing down,” Scrornuck growled.

"Mister Saughblade,
halt!"
The Captain stood at Scrornuck's side, her face grim and determined. “This is my city,” she said firmly. “We have laws—this man is the Guards’ business, not yours.” Scrornuck nodded and stepped back. The Captain approached Ferinianne, offering her open hand and speaking in the gentle but firm voice of an experienced cop. “Come along, the game is over. You won't be hurt, I promise, but you must face justice. Now come with me..."

With a loud cry, Ferinianne sprang forward and stabbed her. Her eyes went wide—
Taupeaquaahns don't do this
—and she collapsed, a crimson stain spreading across her white uniform-shirt. Showing surprising strength, Ferinianne grabbed her about the waist and put the knife against her throat. “Stay back,” he hissed, “or I'll kill her right here.” Leaving a smear of blood on the white marble steps, he dragged her up to the High Altar, muttering in a soft, rapid voice, “Yes, they don't know what a sacrifice is, do they? You had the chance, Captain, you had the chance to do it right and you failed. You were weak, weren't you, Captain? Now, though, the Dragon will get a proper sacrifice, yes he will, yes he will."

Scrornuck took a step forward and felt something grip his left thigh. Seemingly by itself, the boot unrolled upward as if giving him a final caress. Then it relaxed and sagged, letting go of his leg. You know, don't you, he thought. As if to answer, the right boot gently let go.

With a sigh of resignation, he stepped out of the boots, picked them up, and cried out the name of the Spafuist leader at the top of his lungs. Ferinianne looked up just in time to see the wonderful jumping-jack boots, the apple of the Dragon's eye, sail over his head to land a few feet from the High Altar. He released his captive. She collapsed to the pavement as he ran to collect the prize. Scrornuck, Nalia, Jape and several Guards dashed up the stairs to the Captain's aid. By the time they arrived, Jape already had his medical kit out.

Ferinianne held the boots high overhead as he approached the altar. “No!” Rosaiah shouted, “a sacrifice must be voluntary!” The Servants’ leader and the High Priest scuffled for a moment, but the younger man was stronger, and sent Rosaiah sprawling. With a wild, blissful look in his eyes, Ferinianne dropped the boots onto the altar, stepped back and brought his foot down on the pedal that triggered the gas jets.

Hearing the
whoosh
of gas, Scrornuck turned, and saw his boots disappear in the flames roaring from the altar. Drawn by the spectacle, the crowds surged forward, nearly halfway up the steps. He cried out at the top of his lungs, at the crowd, at Jape and Nalia, at the Guards. In desperation, he ripped the whistle from a Guard's neck and blew it, a piercing shriek that silenced the crowd. “Get back!” he screamed. “Away from the Temple!
Now!"

As if to back up his words, a thick, multicolored smoke surrounded the altar as a few of the boots’ hydraulic cylinders burst and their fluids ignited. The heavy smoke rose only a few feet before sinking back to the floor and running down the steps like a slow waterfall. Urged on by the smoke and the Guards, the people backed down the steps, slowly at first but with increasing urgency as the cloud thickened.

Scrornuck knelt to look at the Captain. “Can you stand?” She smiled weakly and shook her head. He gently picked her up and hurried down the steps. “We've to get away from here,
fast!"

As they reached the middle of the Square, Nalia looked back over her shoulder. Thick smoke now covered the entire Temple porch. “What's the big deal..."

Whump!
A flash of light cut through the smoke as something blew up on the altar. The columns lining the front of the Temple shuddered, and Ferinianne, waist-deep in the smoke pouring down the steps, looked up in bewilderment as cracks formed in the portico above him.

Jape, too, stared at the altar. “What
was
that?"

"One of these.” Scrornuck pulled a silvery cylinder from his sporran. It was a few inches long, and neat red letters on its side warned:
DANGER: HIGHLY REACTIVE ENERGY STORAGE CELL. DO NOT SHORT CIRCUIT, PUNCTURE OR DISPOSE OF IN FIRE.
“Each boot has twenty-seven of them..."

Boom!
Louder this time, as one of the larger energy-storage cells gave reason for the warning. The columns of the Temple facade swayed visibly, and fist-sized chunks of fake stone fell to the ground. Those closest to the Temple fled as heavier smoke poured down the steps and the ground shook beneath their feet.

Boom! Boom! Boom!
More cells detonated, one after the other, the sound echoing off the walls of City Hall and reverberating across the Square.
Boom! Boom!
Brilliant white explosions parted the smoke briefly, revealing flaming chunks of the altar and its other sacrifices, tumbling lazily through the air. The whole Temple shook and swayed. Making a hideous metallic grinding noise, the wings of the great Spafu statue rose and fell, as if the Dragon himself were trying to escape. Two more explosions ripped through the clouds of smoke, and with a loud and painful groan the statue's left wing twisted and sagged, dangling from its steel structure and swinging back and forth above the Temple steps.

A dozen blasts came in rapid succession, leaving people with headaches that would last all night. The peak of the Temple roof rose, lifted by the explosions until it stood nearly vertical, and then crashed down into the building. One by one, the columns lining the sides of the Temple collapsed inward, until only the front facade, still topped by the battered image of Spafu, remained standing.

Scrornuck whispered, “Timber!” Almost majestically, the Temple facade fell, landing atop what remained of the High Altar and leaving only the head of Spafu, still flaming from its mouth and nostrils, visible above the smoke.

For a few seconds there was silence in the Square, then a series of explosions, the most powerful yet, ripped through what was left of the Temple. With a blinding flash and a great
whooom!
that shattered store windows up and down the Square, the head of Spafu shot into the sky on a pillar of smoke and flame.

A great cloud of dust and brightly colored smoke, lit from within by a series of smaller explosions, settled over the remains of the Temple until, finally, all was quiet. A gentle breeze blew the smoke away, revealing a twisted mass of structural steel and great heaps of fake-stone, all that remained of the Temple. “Elvis has left the building,” Jape said softly.

"Yeah,” Scrornuck said. Leaving Jape, Nalia and the Captain behind, he slowly climbed the Temple steps. At the top, by the shattered remains of the High Altar, he found Ferinianne, crushed beneath a piece of the Dragon's wing. The ceremonial knife lay on the marble pavement, just beyond his outstretched hand. Scrornuck slowly picked up the troublesome weapon and inspected the intricate carvings on its blade. It was as beautiful as it had been the night he first saw it in the shop window, the night he'd thought it would make a good souvenir of Taupeaquaah. He began to shove the knife into his belt—and then he stopped, and with all his strength flung it to the pavement, where it exploded into countless shards.

"Are you he?"

"Huh?” Scrornuck looked up from the fragments of the knife and saw Rosaiah, the High Priest of the Temple of Spafu, emerging from the rubble. Soot and blood covered his face, his robes were torn, burnt, and filthy, and he held the scorched remains of a scroll.

"Are you he?” Rosaiah asked again.

"Am I who?"

Rosaiah unfurled the scroll and read:
"And the day shall come, though men know not when, that the Dragon shall depart his Temple in a blaze of glory. But fear not in that day, my people, for a new Prophet will come with good news from far away, and while the Dragon has moved on, his people shall not be alone. You shall listen to this Prophet, and you shall be blessed beyond all blessing."
Rosaiah stared deeply into Scrornuck's eyes and asked his question a third time. “Are you he?"

"I don't...” Scrornuck stopped. He looked back at Rosaiah, and at the expectant faces filling the Square, waiting for him to tell them what to believe...

"No,” he said, firmly. “I'm not the guy. Sorry."

"But if you are not the Prophet..."

"Who'll tell you what to believe?” Scrornuck turned, and started down the Temple steps to join Jape and Nalia. “Beats me. Maybe you'll just have to decide for yourselves."

"What a world!” Scrornuck said as they sat down to a sumptuous dinner in the Guest Quarter. “After the Temple blew up, I figured we'd be lucky to get out of town without being burned at the stake, and instead Rosaiah thinks I'm some kind of prophet!” He took a drink of his Black Sunday Lager and laughed.

"Yes, that's strange,” Jape said, taking a sip from his longneck. “Many things are strange. Do you really think the energy cells in your boots could make an explosion that big?"

Scrornuck shrugged. “Never tried burning one. I wasn't sure they'd do anything at all."

Jape pointed to a display on the softscroll. “I ran an estimate, and if they all blew up at once, they might crack the altar. There's no way they could have brought down the whole building. And there's more: did you notice how nicely choreographed the explosion was? Each explosion was a little bigger than the last, both sides of the Temple collapsed in unison, and at the end Spafu's head took off like it had a rocket under it..."

"Wait a minute,” Nalia said. “Are you saying it was all a big show?"

Jape nodded. “That's what it looks like to me. I think there were charges built into the Temple, and somehow Mister Saughblade's boots blowing up on the altar triggered them."

"But why?” she asked.

"I wondered that, too. Then I realized the answer was right under our noses.” Jape held out the softscroll, which displayed the latter part of the UniFlag meeting involving McGinn, the CEO and the lawyer:

The attorney riffled through his papers. “I see a possible problem with the ‘Church of Spafu’ concept,” he said. “In the unlikely event we lose the Schultz suit—"

"This possibility is already covered,” McGinn said with a smirk. “Although, Franz, I am quite certain that with your department in charge of the defense, we will be victorious."

Jape froze the playback.

Scrornuck shrugged. “I don't get it."

"J. J. Schultz created the character of Spafu. He'd sued UniFlag over the rights to the Dragon, the case was still in court, and there remained a chance UniFlag would lose its mascot. So McGinn built an escape clause into his religion: the Scroll of Prophecy. If UniFlag lost the case, the Temple would be destroyed in a big special-effects show. Then a corporate ‘prophet’ would show up to announce the company's new mascot, who'd be Taupeaquaah's new god. A rather elegant solution, really."

"Wow,” Scrornuck said. “They really did think of everything."

"But now what?” Nalia asked. “You said you're not the prophet, and UniFlag's out of business..."

"Like I told Rosaiah, they'll just have to decide for themselves. This town's been told what to believe for too long."

"And I can bring in a little help,” Jape said, as his fingers danced over the softscroll. “No prophets, but people who can teach.” With a bit of a flourish, he stabbed one last button. “There. I've sent out a request for some preachers who are looking for a bit of a challenge. With any luck, we'll have several by the end of the week.” He rolled up the scroll and stuck it into a pocket of his cape. “After all, if you two are going to get married, we need somebody to perform the ceremony."

"Another day,” Jape said, “another crisis."

On this bright Monday morning, a bewildered crowd stood by the ruins of the Temple, wondering where the day's supply of meat, cheese, eggs, fabric, and other necessities of life would come from. The narrow street along the Temple's west side was buried under tons of twisted steel and shattered fake stone, and with it the doors that normally opened to reveal the Gifts of Spafu.