Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  The Voice glared over at his servant and caught him frowning. “Is there a problem, Keldric?”

  “No. I’m sorry, I just… shouldn’t we concentrate on the Sacrifice?”

  Croaking with laughter, the saggy old vyrm grinned and rested in his chair. “But what comes after the Birthing?”

  “Sh’logath rises and stabilizes all with the peace of his glorious destruction! When he exists and all else is set right, everything will be nothing and nothing will be everything!”

  The Voice regarded him skeptically. “It will not be as simple as that,” he insisted. “The Birthing will not establish the Devourer’s presence—not until Sh’logath’s Heralds awaken him.” The Voice flicked his eyes towards the foreigners.

  Keldric frowned again.

  “Don’t worry. I have prophesied a great many things and have one more to make before I give my power to the Brothers of the Apocalypse: the Dunnischktets.” He took the forlorn vyrm into his hands and looked Keldric in the eyes. “Something deep within tells me that you will be alive to see the Awakening.”

  Keldric smiled at that, but still glared at the interlopers with apprehension. Only the older brother could pass for vyrm.

  “I understand your reluctance,” The Voice comforted him. “You have always been my most zealous adherent. But take comfort—if the Dunnischktets fail, the Brothers of the Winnowing will arise and initiate the final Awakening.”

  Keldric stared at the old vyrm, tight-lipped. Long ago the aged crone had gone by the name Krakkath—and he had been alive to know the ancients before they passed. He had been steeped in the aroma of the old ways. In his youth, Krakkath revered the seven demigods who nearly destroyed the vyrm race in an effort to build a bridge to Nihil for their long-forgotten purpose.

  “Few know the legend,” he replied, also drawing Nitthogr and Basilisk into the conversation. The older brother handed the amulet to the younger one and The Voice continued. “It is a long-lost prophecy etched into the Tablet of Rasthakka—recorded long before we understood the nature of reality—the Tesseract—or knew about the Lurking Devourer beyond the veil. Rasthakka, the High-Priest of the pre-Sh’logath cult knew about realms beyond the Tesseract, even, and personally knew the Seven Brothers of the Winnowing.” He sighed, thinking of days long past.

  “Rasthakka’s works were largely destroyed, but a copy of them remains in the temple of Koth… presumably Kith, too. It indicates treachery in the ranks of the Brothers. The Awakening will happen—either by the Brothers of the Apocalypse or the Brothers of Winnowing. That much is assured.” His eyes gleamed as if he had some secret insight that he would not share.

  Keldric looked down and saw Nitthogr holding the chain.

  The jewel-like artifact pointed directly at him while Nitthogr anchored it around one finger. Keldric reconfirmed his prophecy with the old priest. “And I will be alive to see it?”

  “You will be… of sorts.” The Voice nodded and Nitthogr slashed his blade across Keldric’s neck, completing the second Dunnischkte.

  Chapter 1

  Recently…

  Earth.

  “Pack it all up!” Vivian howled. She stormed through the door to Bruce Cannon’s underground facility in a flurry of urgency. With her entourage in tow, she stomped through so quickly that she nearly knocked the scrappy Cerci Heiderscheidt off her feet.

  Heiderscheidt glared daggers at the woman who she only knew as Nitthogr’s assistant. A massive man put his hand on her and gave her a terrifying glance. As she stared into his horrible face she spotted the tell-tale scales under his makeup disguise. He was vyrm.

  “Skrom!” Vivian barked. “Stay close.”

  “Miss Vivian,” Doctor Pietro Walther greeted amidst the confusion. “What is going on here?”

  She bristled at her pseudonym. “Plan B. And call me Caivev from now on,” she ordered. The ruse was over: Claire Jones knew she had been an imposter.

  “Plan B?” Walther stammered, “But… Sisyphus has surely got it all under control, whatever it is your comrades have planned for Nebraska, that is.” The scientist refused to give up hope in his personal hero, Jacob Sisyphus.

  Caivev only flashed him a skeptical look. “World domination can’t be left up to guys like that,” she retorted. “Besides, that traitor Nitthogr might still have some nasty surprises in store for the great Sisyphus.” She spat the former herald’s name like a spurned lover. Once she would’ve welcomed any such advances, but not after the fallen hybrid’s betrayal.

  “I’m here to make sure that we retain an option to rebuild if everything goes to crap!” She pointed her tarkhūn guard, Skrom, towards Walther’s giant contraption which they’d used to breach the barriers between the realms.

  Skrom nodded and snapped off the bloody catheter tubes that powered the device before dragging it towards the exit. In a whirlwind of movement others in her private vyrm force boxed up whatever items and research looked important.

  "But… but all my research," Walther protested. "What I'm doing is groundbreaking—revolutionary work! It must continue. Did the Seven pull my funding even after all my results?” He fluttered around the lab in a tizzy and his eyes searched desperately for the woman he’d met only a few times prior. Walther only knew his billionaire benefactors were wary of Caivev’s lethality… but regardless, she’d somehow gained their total trust.

  The big guy, Skrom, rumbled in a low baritone, “Don’t worry, Doc. She’s got a plan. You won’t ever hafta worry about resources again.”

  Heiderscheidt and Walther’s eyes met. Everything suddenly felt different—quiet. The gentle, mechanical hum of the above ground business that hid the laboratory suddenly stopped. Everything switched off in huge banks as the grid shut down. They had no choice but to go with Caivev, whether they believed in the promises of an outsider or not.

  “Where are we going?” Walther glanced over to where their blood-donor prisoners remained tied down and unconscious. Remaining alive was only one captive; he’d been daisy chained to the blood bank used to fuel the dimensional breaching device. Caivev had delivered him personally to the facility.

  Caivev stepped around the corner and looked at the man briefly but discounted any value in keeping Sam Jones in her care—he’d only drain their resources and cause potential confusion and delay. “Leave him here to die in the dark.”

  She grinned at the doctor and then leered at Walther’s porcelain-skinned assistant, Mizz Heiderscheidt. “I hope you have some sunscreen around here.”

  ***

  Charobv and Kreephast stalked through the murky gloom of the old temple. Thick tangles of spider webs parted before them as Charobv used a stick to clear the path. The stale scent of an old world and humid earth spilled into their heightened vyrm senses.

  Bright LEDs lit their way as their beams washed the ancient corridors with visibility. No person, man or vyrm, had passed this way for millennia.

  “The hopeful Dunnischktet was right. It is the Lost Temple,” Kreephast whispered reverently.

  Charobv cleared a huge swath of webbing and the sudden, sterile light sent a horde of insects and spiders scurrying for cover. He revealed an ancient vyrm symbol engraved into the Central American stonework.

  Kreephast shimmied with excitement and encouraged his counterpart to activate the ancient technology.

  After tracing the symbols with an anxious finger, Charobv pressed his palm to the panel and it powered up. A bioluminescent light glowed through the cracks and seams between stones throughout the halls. It warmed up and intensified until the vyrm scouts no longer needed their LEDs.

  They walked the tunnels between the ancient chambers, mouths agape with wonder at the ancient site they’d only known through myth and folktale. A stack of dusty manuscripts lay piled atop a stone table in a kind of narthex area adjoined to a room with two opposite doors and a central hallway. An engraved slab lay between the sheaves of parchments.

  Kreephast bent over th
e stone tablet and whispered reverently, “The Tablet of Rasthakka.” He gently caressed the carving with a deep reverence. “Do you know how rare a find this is—and on Earth, of all places.” Next to that was a kind of ancient binder containing the mad scribblings of Kadrist, Rasthakka’s contemporary.

  “How do you know?” Charobv asked. The language was an early and dead version of the vyrm holy language. “Can you actually read it?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But I recognize some of the symbols from copies saved by the religious caste. There are tools available to help us translate.”

  Charobv held up a hand for silence. “Do you hear that?”

  Kreephast nodded. “It sounds like… singing?”

  Lilts from a barely audible voice emanated from within one of the doors. They crept close and eavesdropped as best as they could.

  “It’s an older song. I recognize it from somewhere,” Charobv stated. “It was popular on the Prime many years ago.”

  Kreephast nodded, but he did not open the door. “I think I know what is inside... if rumors are true. But we will wait for Caivev before exploring it further. First, we must prepare the temple for her arrival. She will want everything ready.”

  ***

  Idrakka stalked through the silent halls of the abandoned building. The dry, Texan air tasted like iron and blood to the undersized tarkhūn. Someone, several someones, had died nearby—and recently—he’d bet his scales on it.

  His master had tasked the vyrm with monitoring the earth realm to locate and isolate a certain paranormal event that had been prophesied millennia before the rise of the Sh’logath cult. The weird happenings in Peco had been kept mostly under wraps by the reclusive group of occult dabblers he’d been watching—they loosely fit the description.

  Idrakka had long meant to look into their activities, but so many other leads appeared to hold more promise—until he stumbled onto a freshly published book during his research. Black Goat was a poorly written and terribly reviewed piece of fiction by some unheard of indie author—but the trashy, pulp novel seemed to bleed facts about an ancient prophecy Idrakka had been watching for.

  The author had recently been found dead—gripped by a madness that drove him to murder—and practically on the other side of the United States. He’d even kidnapped and murdered a reader, according to a report one of his sources had sent him.

  A psychotic author wasn’t a good lead. Idrakka figured that all writers were at least a little bit mentally unhinged, but the author had become obsessed with a seven-pointed star, a sigil, and it was a big clue.

  Idrakka quickly consulted the paperback to double check the details. His vyrm eyes had little problem reading in the dark. Idrakka’s home realm had long become accustomed to low light environments.

  A photo of the author’s crime scene and a seven pointed star drawn on the nearby door matched the second paper. Wedged inside the cover was a printed copy of an old carbon rubbing from the etchings of Rasthakka—an identical seven pointed star.

  Idrakka stepped through a door in the recently abandoned facility and walked into the central antechamber. He licked his lips; the smell of old blood nearly overpowered his other senses.

  The tarkhūn detective took in the scene. Bodies littered the stone floor, dead for weeks now in all likelihood. Idrakka paced through the area, shining a flashlight through the darkness to make sure he didn’t miss any details.

  Inset at the room’s center rose a stone slab. A seven pointed star was barely visible in the rock, engraved in ancient days and eroded by eons of weather before some builder had integrated it into the architecture. Encircling the macabre scene, a larger engraving shaped another mystic sigil.

  He rubbed a finger in the crevasse and touched it to his tongue. Blood. Idrakka traced the circumference until his forefinger caught the fine chain of a necklace nearest a dead woman. A large handgun lay nearby where her body had fallen.

  The vyrm lifted the charm and squinted at it. “A hierophanticus?” Idrakka was pretty sure it was one of the darquematter amulets stolen long ago before the Veritas or the Guardian Corps could sequester them all away within the massive vaults of the Prime.

  Glancing at the grisly scene, Idrakka knew he’d finally found what he had been looking for. The tarkhūn pulled out a hand-sized piece of glass encircled with a high-tech frame.

  He activated the communicator and set it on the ground. Several seconds passed before Basilisk finally answered the beacon. A three-dimensional, life-sized image sprang from the focusing gem.

  “You have something to report?”

  “Yes,” Idrakka told his master. He dangled the amulet so that Basilisk could see it clearly. “The Darque has been breached he noted the second sigil’s shape. It appears as if Akko Soggathoth has awakened.”

  The leader of the tarkhūn sat back in surprise. “Interesting,” he said with a grin. He paused for several long moments while Idrakka waited patiently.

  Idrakka knew his master was calculating the next move, planning for several steps in the future and guessing his opponents’ responses to each potential chain of actions.

  “I have a new task for you, ice-lord. I need you to act as one of my spies. I assume you have been keeping an eye on Caivev as well?”

  “Yes Lord, but I am a frostmancer, not a shade. My brother Jarkara would be of better service as a spy.”

  Basilisk cocked his head and regarded Idrakka callously.

  “Forgive me,” he begged. “I have kept up to date with her as much as possible. What are your orders?”

  “Find her,” Basilisk ordered. “Become indispensable to her purposes. Your cover must be absolute. You know how to proceed.”

  Idrakka nodded. He pocketed the amulet and saluted his master. Finally, he smashed his communicator and then slid away into the night, heading deep into the cover of his enemies' forces.

  ***

  Since his return to the Prime, Zabe had officially assumed the Master at Arms position of the Guardian Corps—he’d taken his father’s job, and his grandfather’s before him. His cousin Wulftone came on as his second in command, a much deserved appointment after the battle of Earth’s Worldgate.

  Zabe walked in and stood at the raised dais in the center of the training hall where the new recruits stood at attention, waiting for his speech. He stretched and rolled his stiff shoulder in the socket; it still ached from the recent battle in Nebraska. Zabe nodded to Wulftone who walked a meandering circle through the clusters of hopeful troops.

  During the reclamation of the Prime, a promising young soldier named Harken became an easy favorite to command the Royal military. His efforts to overthrow the vyrm during Shardai's last-ditch efforts became the stuff of legend.

  Zabe glanced at the handsome man. He didn’t know if it was luck or fate, but everything Harken set his mind to seemed successful and he’d hurdled over many soldiers in the exams who had far more military experience.

  He adjusted the leather cuff on his wrist and looked over the crowd. Zabe recognized several of the faces from headshots he’d seen on enrollment applications.

  While he was happy for the influx of new recruits, it was still far too few. Nitthogr’s attack had proved wickedly devastating. In times past Zahaben had turned away applicants, only taking the best and brightest. Now, they accepted all who were willing into the academy.

  The once-proud armies of the Prime might not fully recover for an entire generation, and the realm would long remain in desperate need of soldiers to guard the dimensional gates and protect against future threats. This first class of troops was largely symbolic; more trainees would come along as the Prime recovered from the devastation, but this one was special—it proved their peoples’ resilience and dedication to all they held dear.

  Wulftone paused in front of a girl. She stood a full head shorter than everyone else and had notched her belt so it would fit. “How old are you? Are you even old enough to join the military, recruit
?”

  “By one day, sir,” she replied.

  “Are your parents around to verify that?”

  “All my family was killed by the vyrm, sir.”

  Wulftone looked hesitantly at Zabe. Zabe nodded his approval, hoping she might make up in zeal what she lacked in stature.

  Just as he poised himself to address the hall of new recruits, a door opened in the back and Claire entered. She wore the royal robes and a tiara-like crown that were appropriate; everyone kneeled as she walked. Jackie followed at a slight distance.

  Nobody else noticed, but Zabe could see the awkward smile on Claire’s face and the slight kilter in her gait—as much as she was a melding of Bithia and Claire’s minds and personalities, she still wasn’t quite used to her royal role.

  Her eyes twinkled as they met Zabe’s. “I have a request.” She leaned in and half-whispered, “I can do that, right?”

  Zabe chuckled and hid his smile from the trainees before nodding. His eyes caught Wulftone’s. His cousin stared at Jackie with a similar twinkle… and so did Harken.

  “Jackie wants to join the military.”

  Zabe grimaced slightly at the thought of putting their friend in harm’s way. “Neither the military nor the Guardian Corps is a safe place, you know—and nonprimes have never been allowed to join before.”

  Jackie grimaced at him.

  “That’s why I made a royal request,” Claire noted.

  Zabe asked Jackie, “Why do you want to join?”

  “I just want to help,” she said. “You’ve seen how I roll, Zabe. I might even have more experience fighting vyrm than many of these other recruits. And you know my loyalty is unwavering.”

  Zabe reluctantly bobbed his head. “This won’t be easy, you know.”

  “Oh good,” she said playfully. “I needed a new challenge. I’ve already watched more soap operas than the normal human psyche can handle and I was looking for my next mountain to conquer.”

  Zabe merely shook his head and shrugged. He pointed to a spot in the nearest group. Jackie stood next to the short orphan Wulftone questioned.