Part Thirty Eight: The Siege

	The fighting remained just as intense despite the addition of another combatant to Caleb's side, something which eventually caused the old gunslinger to start to idly wonder about just how many robes the Cabal could manage to fit inside this building. Although he was always made aware of the boy's presence due to the sounds of gunfire and the pained death cries of his enemies nearby, Caleb and Johnny's paths were not to cross again. The castle they were in was simply too massive for that, and besides, they each had their own stories to weave for themselves now. Caleb instead started to focus his mind once more on his ultimate objective, and set out in search of the location of his scroll. The cult could have hidden it anywhere around here.

	Not since the days of his first bloody rampage of vengeance against the cult had he seen it necessary to inflict so much damage. Johnny it seemed was trying his best to operate as a force of almost anarchic terror, leaving it up to Caleb to more systematically cleanse an area of all the opposition that remained after he made his first sweep of it. Even with the boy's help it still remained quite a struggle, and every step that either of them took had to be made on top of the spilled blood and mangled bodies of their adversaries. A realization slowly dawned on the old gunfighter that if the cult really was investing this much energy in trying to stop him then it must mean that he really was going in the right direction. Why else would they be willing to give up so much for comparatively so little?

	As he went Caleb made his way through great Gothic stone and brick halls, strange reverberating chapels and shrines, comfortably furnished dormitories, a well stocked kitchen, a library filled with shelves of books, and even a brightly lit common room with a fire burning from the hearth. This castle had obviously been a place where the Cabalists could enjoy all of the comforts offered by their own strange cultic existence in peace. Caleb and Johnny's red repainting and disruptive sense of interior decorating was going to put a crimp on all of that of course though. As time carried on Caleb eventually began to notice that the almost endless stream of Cultists that had been pouring towards him almost since he had arrived at the castle had at last started to become nothing more than a slow trickle; even the sounds of Johnny's struggles in the distance had grown far fainter and less frequent.

	When at last no one appeared to come out and challenge him, Caleb finally allowed himself to stop and think on the problem for awhile. He knew that the tenacity and the placement of the Cultists here had not been an accident. The cult was obviously trying to stop him from reaching some central point, and at that central point it would be logical to assume that they had hidden his scroll away. He just needed to divine where and what that place was. Why had the cult taken the scroll to this place as opposed to all others? He recalled the entry in the book he had read all those many months ago back when Johnny was still at his side, remembering how it mentioned that the castle itself was to contain a gateway to the otherworld. If that was the case, where was this gateway?

	Caleb had been feeling a strange sensation for awhile now that he was only now being able to consciously realize. Something nearby seemed to pulling at his attention, something repulsive and at the same time all consuming. Seeing nothing else for it, the old gunfighter decided to let his feelings guide him and allowed his gut to lead him the rest of the way. Eventually he came to a massive stone door with marked switches on either side of it. Each switch, when pressed, would then show an area designed for the depositing of a specific key, something that Caleb had thankfully been mindful about earlier, having taken the precaution of picking up and carrying every single key he had come across. Once all of the keys in his collection had been placed in the slots, the door, through some power or force of its own, swung open to reveal a sight like the old gunslinger had never seen before.

	Inside was a large circular room with a suspended platform that somehow managed to hang over an unfathomable abyss, wisps of ethereal white fog billowing out from the walls on every side. In the centre of the room the platform extended to large round portal. Something about the portal made Caleb feel a deep sense of uncontrollable loathing, as if by its very presence the portal was somehow disrupting the natural order of things. He had never had such a strange adverse reaction to such a thing as this before. Still, he knew that this must be the gateway that the book had spoken of, and in spite of how much the prospect presently seemed to irk him, he knew that he needed to take advantage of this rift between the worlds in order to complete his mission. His scroll must have been placed somewhere through the gateway; it was the only reason the Cabal would have chosen such a place. Caleb made his way down the suspended platform and jumped into the portal.

Hamish Paul Wilson
November 23, 2014