by J M Guillen
For a time we just stood there, companionable in a comfortable silence. After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “Delacruz.” I pointed at her. “You’re up.”
“I am?”
“We need a good count and ID on those skinny little assholes.” I pointed toward the gateway. “I expect they’re the lowest level of the Hidden Road’s minions.”
“Those copper-masked thralls?”
I nodded. “They’re dumb. More animal intellect than anything else. Wraith up and go find out. Place a quarrel or two.” I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get caught.”
“That’s fair, Mike. Okay.” After a moment, she faded from sight.
“I don’t know if we’ll see as many of the aberrations this close to the Variance.” I scratched my chin and thought. “Amir is a little bit of a control freak. If he’s not that excited about this particular apocalypse, he may not want his ritual area to be loaded up with Phothu-nacyi.”
“That’s fine with me!” Rachel shuddered. “I’m getting pretty tired of those aberrations.”
“Thing is, the Stinger is an amazing weapon against Froggy.” I shrugged. “But, then, I suppose viral mecha devouring Zealators is pretty wicked as well.”
“That is correct.” Rachel smiled. “I am wicked.”
“What I don’t understand are the changes that’ll happen to our Preceptor and our Artisan once the Sovereign Prerogatives have been triggered.”
“I’m planning on having three things on my quick trigger.” Wyatt fiddled with the Tangler. “Stasis field, electric snare, and the ice spikes, just in case we see Froggy.”
“Okay.” I waited to see where he was going with this. He hadn’t exactly answered my question.
“Once the Artisan Sovereign Prerogatives kick in, my primary focus will be to stabilize Rationality. I’ll place spikes for the purpose of weakening and containing the Variance. So, I won’t be capable of complex mathematics to turn people’s skulls into helium or anything.”
“But you’ll still be able to use the quick triggers?”
“Right. They’ll be easy.”
Other than in Dhire Lith, I have never had my Sovereign Prerogatives triggered. Anya seemed a touch ill at the thought.
“I remember,” I said. “A bit freaky.”
I have a strong understanding of the topic on an intellectual level. I will undergo a polarity shift within my telemetric Hyper-Rationality relays. Rather than drawing in Irrational information, I will project Hyper-Rationality in an effort to weaken the Variance.
“The point is to reduce the levels of divergence until the Irrationality spike is more reasonable,” Rachel clarified.
“Until Diego can be killed,” Wyatt interjected. “That’s the point, Hoss. I stabilize Rationality to create somewhat safe locales. The Ice Princess here attempts to stabilize the Variance itself.” He shrugged. “Then he can be killed.”
“And due to the Sovereign Prerogatives, neither of you will be as focused on self-defense as you might be otherwise.”
“That’s the shit of it,” Wyatt agreed. “Gotta keep us safe enough to do our jobs.”
That was the part I had a difficult time planning for. We had no way to know how many cultists would defend the Variance. The thought of Delacruz, Rachel, and I covering Wyatt and Anya during mass combat sounded unlikely.
“Okay.” I nodded. “You remember the homework—?”
Alpha! Delacruz cried. I’ve been made! There’s a Zealator over here—
Her link cut off suddenly, a fact punctuated by a brilliant, violet light.
I heard laughter and a cry of fury from the gate.
Delacruz! I’d already started running before I sent the link. Need you to check in, Sofia!
I saw activity by the Gates had increased significantly. By the light of those huge braziers, the silhouettes of Zealators and gaunt thralls scattered out into a defensive pattern.
We’re on the move!
Rachel had been closer to the gate, so she had a head start. Anya ran next to me, and I heard Wyatt huff as he came up behind.
Answer me Gatekeeper! I felt panic burn in my chest. This had been stupid. So stupid. Hadn’t I just told them I would take care of them? Hadn’t I promised I’d get them out of here?
Sofia Delacruz is tech adrift, Alpha, the system prompt stated. If this Asset does not reconnect to the Lattice, then Asset will be presumed lost.
I should’ve known. I’d sent her away. How many times had we spoken about staying together? Now she was out of reach. I wasn’t close by to help, and she’d gone adrift.
Just like Gideon.
It took the cadre less than forty-five seconds to reach the gargantuan gateway. Sofia hadn’t responded, nor had we seen any of her crimson apertures unfurl in the darkness.
Kill them. I scowled through the link. We have no idea where Delacruz is. These fuckers could be slicing her apart right now.
Don’t hold back, Wyatt nodded. Got it.
With that order, the ending began.
2
By the time I came upon the first of the thralls, I had my disruptor in my left hand and a katana in my right.
The copper-masked man lurched toward me, an honest-to-God meat cleaver in one hand.
“Hey there.” I toggled the Adept while still four steps away and spun toward the figure, quicksilver-swift.
It whispered. A soft susurrus of garbled madness poured like a river from between the mask’s unmoving lips.
The Shogun katana sliced into its throat, and it opened in a spray of blackened blood.
While the emaciated horror stumbled forward, already dead, I kept running. I brought my Stiletto up and shot another of the thralls squarely in the throat with the force of a locomotive.
The creature spun backward and grasped at its new wound.
I simply kept running.
Behind me, I heard the Tangler fire. I didn’t see where the spikes went, yet off to my left a silvery stasis field blossomed into existence.
WHUF! WHUF! WHUF! WHUF!
He just kept shooting.
Anya slipped among the cultists and shot them down with their own weaponry. Her every move perfect, she conserved motion and strength.
Rachel shadowed Anya and reduced cabalists to screaming, smoking corpses in her wake.
We were chaos, the fury and fire of battle. We were the howling wolves of war, loosed upon the unsuspecting worshippers of darkness.
Michael. Anya’s link came across professionally smooth, even though we were in the first stage of deadly insanity. I have telemetry on Asset Delacruz.
You do? How? She’s still adrift!
I asked each of you to carry a resonator.
Yes! I still had the marble-sized sphere in my pocket.
The resonator she carries is still active. Assuming it is still upon her person, I have her location.
Anya… I shook my head, my smile manic.
Here’s a token. As she linked, a spring-green circle appeared on my visual to highlight an area of the darkness within the gargantuan chamber.
Amazing, Anya.
“Damnit!” Wyatt swore as one of the thralls hurled its blade at him. He staggered backward and clutched his shoulder. “Oh, fuck!”
Deal with Wyatt, I linked Rachel. Those weapons are completely covered with filth.
Understood, Alpha. Rachel ran to assist him.
“[Another blind fool.]” The woman’s voice cackled from over near one of the braziers. Her words dripped with poison, with savage darkness. By its light, I saw her eyes were dead-white, yet she stared at me. She gestured with a harridan’s bent fingers. “The Savage Umbra shall show you the truth, Asset.” She spat and grasped at something with both hands…
And shattered the token.
Instantly, a diadem of darkling horror burned upon her brow. It shone a halo of terrible, dark fire and violet wrath.
Michael! Anya linked a warning about the dip in Rationality. Truthfully, however, I’d already seen it. The
readout she’d placed on my visual reflected a sudden drop of three points.
A sharply blinding pain stabbed into my temple and I staggered. Darkness surrounded me.
Optical systems offline. Error 61a.
For a moment I thought I might be actually blind, in the next I realized the truth. Just like when Isabella stepped out of the elevator, my optical systems had been shut down.
With only the light of the braziers to see by, the room seemed infinitely darker.
Take down as many of these as you can. I whirled my Stiletto toward the woman and sent a baseball-sized pulse squarely into her skull.
The impact cracked sickeningly, and she dropped.
You are going after Asset Delacruz?
From Anya’s link, I knew she stood somewhere off to my right. As if to confirm that, the crack of her automatic weapons shattered the darkness.
I am, I confirmed. The rest of you will follow immediately after. I’d just like you to clear out a few hostiles so they aren’t on our trail.
Makes sense, Alpha. Wyatt nodded. We’ll be right along.
“Arrogance.” A Zealator sprang from the red-tinged shadows, a pistol in his hand. A brilliant, furious rune of violet wrath burned upon his forehead. It formed a crown around his brow, a halo of murky terror that sang of terrible sacrifice, of infinite pain, of despair.
He swung his pistol toward me and unleashed a hail of bullets.
I leapt, the smooth grace of the Adept guiding my every motion. When I landed, I twirled and fired three times.
The Zealator fell, shock on his face, blood on his chest.
I never stopped running, sprinting through that vast gateway.
The moment I stepped into the large room, darkness fell over me in sable, midnight curtains.
Cold. The room felt so cold.
I peered around as I edged toward Delacruz’s token.
Had it been so far away? The more I read my system, the more convinced I became that it showed Sofia on the move.
Delacruz? I linked. Are you green, Gatekeeper? Moving?
No response came.
Dizzy. On my visual, Rationality dipped two points.
The floor felt smooth beneath my feet, marble instead of rough-hewn stone.
As I pushed myself forward, the oppressive darkness of the room lay heavy on my shoulders. It became hard to breathe.
WHUF! WHUF! The sound echoed from an infinite distance away. As I turned, I saw the brilliant light from those braziers shine through the open archway.
It seemed far. I hadn’t run over a dozen meters, much less nearly a hundred. Yet my Crown insisted on the distance.
Dizziness washed over me again, and I stumbled.
Bish—p The link came garbled, and I couldn’t fine-read the source. Almo—t h— t— cl——d —t.
Send again? I cast the link into the darkness with no way to know if anyone heard.
Nothing.
I blinked and staggered forward.
The room grew even colder, and I watched with dismay as Rationality dipped another point.
“[Father of my fathers, Lord of Hosts, Binder of Light and Heaven, hear me,]” a vaguely Arabic voice whispered in the shadows.
I didn’t need to query the Lattice. I knew who that voice belonged to.
Amir Cadavas.
His slightly clipped accent taunted me from the darkness.
I spun around, desperate to see. Even though I knew it would be fruitless, I attempted to trigger my optics.
Optical systems offline. Error 61a.
The chanting of other voices followed Amir’s, bent, burning words, a chant that I didn’t comprehend.
I gasped for breath and tasted salt. I choked and felt as if I were stretched infinitely.
“[Enok’Achoi, He Who Binds, He Who Seeks, come to me. Attend me as I educate this fool.]”
Approximately three meters in front of me, a brilliant, magnesium-white light unfurled. That glow burned away all that was righteous, all that was true.
Before it, the darkness grew stronger.
That flame burned within Amir’s hand and cast stark shadows all across his face.
He stared directly at me.
“You were almost late, Michael Bishop.”
No words. I sprang toward him, a snarl on my face. With the speed of the Adept, I swung my pistol toward him.
Yet Amir was prepared.
Like a river of barbed wrath, an invocation poured from his lips. It struck me in the face, a physical thing.
My nose cracked.
Numerics boiled in my mind, a torrent of awful, cosmic complexity.
No… What? I shook my head in incomprehension, a child before their incandescent power.
Numbers. Nothing but twisted, horrific numbers.
Yet Amir cast the maddened equations forth with passion and senseless fury. Those integers burned within my Crown, building blasphemous truths. Reality around us trembled; Amir’s equations redefined existence itself, shifted it.
I stumbled as vertigo and dizziness washed over me like warm, fetid water. A loud tick sounded in my Crown, followed by an angry buzz.
CROWN NEXUS PRIME is no longer interlocked. Axiomatic mesh disengaging.
The token that represented Delacruz vanished.
“What?” I glanced up at Amir. Apparently, I’d stumbled into a crouch.
“It’s important to me that you understand how it was accomplished, Silent One.” Amir spoke with a wicked curve to his words. “You need to appreciate the artistry of the thing.”
Vibrate. CLICK.
Current packet nonfunctional without primary nexus. ADEPT on standby.
Current packet nonfunctional without primary nexus. WRAITH on standby.
Current packet nonfunctional without primary nexus. MAGUS on standby.
Wide-eyed, I stared up at him as my Crown whirred inside my head.
Others stood around us, hooded figures and gaunt shadows I never would have seen were it not for the light Amir held.
“The Wayward taught us much.” Amir gave a casual shrug. “The eldritch emanations your Solomon’s Crown alters aren’t that different from the forces a Wonderworker wields. Both alter reality, simply from different perspectives.”
Mecha dialogues on standby.
Lattice connectivity on standby.
Latent signal on standby.
“You see how it was done?” He glanced over his shoulder and drew my attention to the men behind him. Between them, they carried the slumped form of Delacruz.
No crossbow. No Temporal Corona.
They tossed her on the ground at my feet.
She collapsed, a boneless doll.
I saw a syringe sticking out of her neck.
“You bastards,” I spat and raised my disruptor. I drew down on Amir's smug little face, and fired and…
And nothing. The weapon was just a clicking piece of metal.
“It’s simply a system of rules,” he continued conversationally. “As soon as your Lattice reports the loss of a signal, it communicates the Asset has been lost.”
I reached behind me for the katana I carried on my back. I might not have Shogun mecha dialogues to rely upon, but the weapons remained razor sharp. Deadly.
I pulled them and prepared to spring.
Yet I was slow. Heavy.
“No.” Amir gestured, and someone bludgeoned me from behind.
My head rang with a burst of white agony, and I fell, shattered and stunned. My face found the floor centimeters away from Delacruz.
“You motherfucker!” I glared at the syringe. Unconscious? Dead? I had no way to know.
My breathing came quicker. Rough.
“I am who I am, much as you are, Asset.”
Sofia seemed so beautiful, lying there. The lines of her scowl had smoothed away, and she bore the untroubled face of one whose problems were truly over.
“No.” I shook my head. A snarl blossomed on my face. “You don’t get to take…”
The Fierce One. The words growled in my mind.
I began to push myself up, my neck and back itching madly.
“We aren’t finished teaching you, Asset.”
Rough hands grabbed me from behind, one even buried its fingers in my short hair. My head was pulled back and to the left, and I felt the bite of the syringe as they plunged into my neck.
I roared in futile fury and dragged my right arm away from the thrall who held it. I flung the slender figure on the floor. My lips curled back in righteous wrath…
Blood.
Something was wrong with my blood.
They released me and I collapsed. Syrupy dizziness swam through my mind.
“The Unfathomable comes, Michael Bishop.” Amir’s words came heavy with barbed hatred. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The shadows of deepest night fell across me.
Followed Into Hell
I couldn’t move my arms.
I blinked and shook my head to throw off the bleary buzz in my mind. Everything lay cast in shadows around me. A few flames burned crimson but gave off very little light.
People spoke.
Chanted.
The sound echoed, a disfigured, fiendish symphony. The incomprehensible words held edges that burred in my mind.
I shook my head again and tried to force myself fully awake. My neck hurt on one side, and I couldn’t remember—
All at once, I did remember. The entire scene in the darkened room came back to me in a rush.
I jerked at my restraints. My arms and legs had been bound wide apart, strapped with thick leather. My shirt had been removed, as had my socks and shoes.
I glanced around frantically, trying to discern where I’d been taken.
Query: Crown diagnostic, I thought harder than I’d ever done before.
My Crown did not respond.
Query: Packet registry.
Nothing.
Fuck.
I lay on a rectangular surface, crafted of some unknown metal covered with thousands upon thousands of intricate, bas-relief sculptures. I couldn’t see much, no matter how I twisted, but it appeared as if the scenes depicted men and women engaged in insane debaucheries with inhuman monstrosities.
My arms and legs remained strapped down.
I stared up.