Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  His idea intrigued her, but still, Caivev balked at such a grandiose proposal. “They would never go for it. I know the Black,” she said. “And besides, that project I am so preoccupied with makes the entire idea useless.”

  Basilisk grinned. “Do tell.”

  ***

  Zabe rolled his eyes as he tossed the length of rope down the old mineshaft at the outskirts of the military facility near the Prime's training academy. The girls' high pitched prattling nearly drove him nuts… not because of the noise, but because he couldn't make sense of it. For the life of him, he couldn't follow whatever their words meant—like they had some kind of highly advanced secret girl-language his brain couldn't comprehend.

  He merely sighed and stuck to the original plan: an afternoon with Claire that would hopefully give them both privacy, plus a romantic setting. Zabe glanced back at Jackie and then at the carved symbol. It had been etched into stone inside the mouth of a newly unearthed hole

  If his plans for romance turned out to be a bust, he’d at least be able to do some exploring. The engraved sigil bore too much resemblance to his family crest to be mere coincidence and nobody had yet been inside this cave that construction crews discovered during the post-Nitthogr repairs.

  “You girls are still coming, right?”

  Claire nodded and cinched up her friend’s harness properly. She didn’t miss a beat, nodding to Zabe and keeping step with Jackie’s worried conversation… boy drama.

  Zabe didn’t pay it much attention because he already had everything he ever wanted—or almost did. He felt certain that would all change soon. He grinned as he swung a leg over the lip of the descent and dropped in.

  They kept discussing who Jackie should date. Zabe was certainly rooting for his cousin to come out on top.

  “Are they still watching us? They’re watching us, aren’t they?”

  Claire resisted the urge to look. “How should I know—but don’t turn around!”

  “I can’t not! I can feel their eyes. They’re both watching me.” Jackie nearly wept like some kind of junior high drama queen. “I always wanted to be treated like a side of beef and now the universe is finally getting me what I want and it’s awful! Why? Oh God—why have I been doing all those crunches? This is what happens!”

  “You do look great, by the way,” Claire interrupted. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  “Aww. Thanks,” she responded, momentarily pulled out of her self-pity—she’d worked hard and the military made her into something of a beefcake. “But seriously! I’ve got to look!”

  “Don’t you dare! You’ll only encourage them both. You have to talk to them one at a time.”

  Jackie grimaced and stared down the hole where Zabe had already begun his descent. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right. But it’s crazy hard!”

  ***

  Wulftone and Harken walked towards each other and met in the middle, where Jackie had just fled from them to join Claire and Zabe.

  “Harken,” Wulftone greeted the man.

  “Wulftone.”

  Jackie floundered to catch up with the two and both of her suitors chuckled at the absurdity of it. They watched her suit up and could tell she’d intentionally ignored them… as if men from the Prime suffered the same kind of petty and jealous rivalries that Earth boys were prone to.

  “Earth girls,” Wulftone chuckled.

  Harken joined his laugh.

  Jackie suddenly turned and looked back at them.

  Harken stuck his chest out slightly, trying to play it cool.

  Wulftone sighed at his rival’s hubris. When he tried to wave Jackie startled as if she hadn’t realized she’d even turned back—and then she flung herself into the chasm, perhaps with too much vigor.

  ***

  Already at the bottom of the cavern, Zabe waited for Claire to finish rappelling and decided that now was the best time he was going to get. The constant interruptions would never quit—and he wanted to make his intentions official.

  High above them, Jackie still floundered with the momentum that she’d dropped into the pit with and her flashlight played all across the deep grotto, splashing the whole chamber with light that caught in the luster of crystals embedded in the substratum. The entire cavern danced with illumination.

  Claire, only a few feet from the bottom quipped, “We just need some music. It’s like a disco ball down here, or something.” She focused on disconnecting from her rigging as Jackie called back down.

  "I got you covered!" The light show intensified as the clumsy climber momentarily fidgeted with an mp3 player. A second later music flooded the shaft, reverberating off the walls.

  Claire turned around and found Zabe kneeling and holding an engagement ring. The lights flashed off of that gem, too.

  “I asked your father this morning,” he said. “I would very much like to set a date and marry you, Claire Jones.”

  "Ohmygodyes!" she practically leapt into his arms and held him tight. In the back of her mind, she felt a foreign sense of confusion. Regret. Betrayal? Remorse. The duality in her mind that was Bithia's presence retreated slightly. Claire couldn't interpret the feeling—but it scared her. She held Zabe tighter because of it.

  Jackie practically screamed as she watched her friends below. “Did you just pop the question?”

  Claire turned and wiped the tears that she assumed were from joy and gave her a thumbs-up. Something in the dancing lights caught her eye.

  “Zabe, Isn’t that your family crest?” she pointed to a large, bound tome lying haphazardly against the wall amongst some other random items from antiquity.

  ***

  Basilisk steepled his fingers and watched Caivev with rapt interest as she explained her discovery of the Lost Temple of Koth and her meeting with Akko Soggathoth. The demigod claimed he would awaken his brothers, trapped in their Darque Dimension prisons, and then call Sh’logath out of the nether—through the mythic Nihil Bridge.

  “Perhaps it was always this way? The Thousand Elders could have been wrong,” Caivev wondered aloud. “Maybe it was always destiny that the Seven Brothers of the Winnowing herald the agod’s arrival.”

  The tarkhūn leader shrugged. “Perhaps. It is possible that there was some error—a forgotten prophecy perhaps, or maybe the clashes between the followers of Rasthakka and Kadrist were so blinded by their allegiances that they overlooked or reinterpreted the old writings.”

  Caivev toyed with him. “Then perhaps they were all wrong and the Rovers were right.” She grinned with delight as Basilisk wrinkled his face in disgust.

  “Maetha is a lie,” he spat and then calmed himself. “I’m sure that the tarkhūn and the Black can all agree that there is no truth outside of Sh’logath.”

  Caivev tilted her brow in measured agreement.

  “Do you really believe that Akko Soggathoth will bring about the Awakening?”

  “I think it is my duty to try.”

  Basilisk looked at the stalemated game board. He knew that Sh’logath was peace—it was central to the entire theology of the vyrm’s cult—and he had struggled to come to any concrete conclusions ever since that day the Syzygyc war ended so long ago. But he’d recently felt his own awakening. He’d finally begun to make decisions and recognized that peace’s definition might be more subjective. Looking at the tentative Dunnischktet he’d finally begun to understand what he really wanted out of life.

  “I will make you a deal, Caivev. You and I will reach a concrete deal for a coexistence between the Black and the tarkhūn. As a show of good faith, I will return to you every member of your caste which we hold in captivity so that you are at your best when you present our alliance deal to the tribal heads. I will even lend you some of my own highly valued soldiers whom I will send to your temple in short time. But when Akko Soggathoth’s plan fails, you will serve me and I will lead the vyrm into their glorious destiny.”

  “What makes you so sure I will fail?”


  Basilisk stepped to another game table and moved the pieces back and forth while he talked, playing both sides as he so often had in the past. “Your pieces are in motion. You certainly have all the pieces that you need in order to win… but I know the opponents that you face.”

  “Claire Jones,” Caivev muttered under her breath.

  "No, dear Caivev. It is not Claire Jones you face but the power of the Architect King which has marked her with destiny." He stood in silence for several long moments as he stared at the table. Finally, he stated, "You are free to go. You have free reign in the Desolation and your prisoners will be returned before you depart."

  Caivev bowed low and accepted his deal. She felt certain that whoever the tribes installed as the new chiefs following the assassinations leading up to her capture would be amenable to an accord—especially if it meant the return of thousands of their lost kinsmen.

  “One more thing,” Basilisk said. He snapped his fingers and a recognizable figure stepped out of the shadows. “I have someone to introduce you to.”

  Zabe the son of Zahaben walked towards them in his monstrous, lycan form. Caivev’s face fell with sudden betrayal, and then the werewolf’s form melted down into that of a regular vyrm of the Black.

  “Take Jarkara with you. He is perhaps the most gifted shade I’ve employed in some time; he’s capable of shapeshifting so well that he can even phase out his tattoo. Few shades can do that without the added help of makeup. I’m sure you will find him useful. In fact,” he glanced at a nearby game board as if he’d predicted some future move, “he might just save your life.”

  ***

  Claire returned home. Her smile gleamed almost as brightly as the ring on her finger. She found her father sulking at the table.

  He brightened when she walked in—though it was somewhat forced. “Do you have important news for me?” he asked.

  She hid her ring hand behind her back. “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you. Spit it out and stop bottling it up.”

  He laid his head down on the table in faux-defeat. “Lady troubles,” he groaned pitifully and laughed.

  Claire laughed at the reversal of situations. “You want to talk about it?”

  “I tried talking to Tay-lore.”

  “How’d that go?” she giggled.

  “About how you’d expect. I’m not sure if he’s mastered humor and was messing with me or if the android is that bad at understanding human emotions… he described relationships with some kind of analogy about downloads and gigawatts. It was weird and creepy,” he sulked like a teenage girl.

  Claire chuckled again. “So, do I know her?”

  “You know everyone, Claire,” Sam kissed his daughter’s forehead, “and Bithia.”

  She gave him a lopsided hug. “Well, tell me who she is.”

  “The Cleric who has been working with me on my research into the nature and history of the Prime. You know, blonde—gorgeous. Green eyes that sparkle and see through you at the same time?”

  “Shandra,” Claire said as her father nodded. “But she’s never looked at me like that. I mean Bithia. And we’ve known her a long time. You’re on the verge of reciting poetry, though so you must have it bad.”

  “It’s so strange,” Sam said honestly and with less humor. “I have so little in common with her—like we’re almost opposites, but being with her is like…”

  “Electricity,” Claire interrupted him. “Like you’re from two opposite planets but drawn together by something stronger than either of you?” She sighed wistfully. “I’ll brew the coffee while we stew in all the feels.”

  Sam grinned and nodded. He grabbed his daughter by the wrist. “First, show me that ring.”

  ***

  Jackie stood still as a stone as she hid in the women's locker room. She held her breath and tried to remain as silent as possible, even though she melted inside as she listened to Gita answer the rap at the door around the corner. For all Jackie's bravery, she sent a tiny girl to answer the door so she could avoid her crush.

  “I’m sorry,” Gita said. “You must’ve been mistaken. I’m the only one in the locker room.”

  “That’s weird,” Harken said from the other side of the door. “I could’ve sworn I saw her duck in here.” He chuckled knowingly.

  “Nope,” the pint-sized female member of the Guardian Corps responded. “You want me to tell her anything?”

  Jackie’s ears prickled as she leaned slightly closer to hear him best.

  “Well,” Harken mock-sighed, “I was going to ask to see her later, but I suppose that will have to wait. I had this made for her—that Earth recipe she likes so much.”

  “I’ll take that,” Gita said as she swiped the paper sack from his hands.

  “Alright. But you’re sure that—”

  Gita slammed the door shut. “I’m changing—don’t open up!” she hollered at the door while she walked deeper into the locker room and greedily pulled the pastries from the sack. She shoved a whole one into her mouth and moaned with pleasure as the flavors hit.

  Jackie snatched one from the bag and did likewise. Her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel at a nut stash. She mumbled through her mouthful, “Hashtag: blessed.”

  Gita raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s something they say on earth when they’re excited and want people to know.”

  “Hashtag: I wish someone gave me the Krispy Kreams.”

  Jackie busted a gut with laughter. “That’s not quite how it works—you sound like you need to see a doctor for personal problems.”

  Both girls laughed for a moment.

  “Still, I can’t believe you’re not jumping at Harken,” Gita rolled her eyes as she took another doughnut. “I mean, he went to all the trouble to have these made for you—plus he’s soooo hot!”

  Sighing Jackie eyed the remaining stash of crullers. “I don’t know what to tell ya, kid. I don’t know how I feel… but these things sure are good.”

  Gita nodded.

  “Besides, he’s not the only hottie around here. How about that Jenner—eh?”

  Gita shrugged and chomped another mouthful.

  “I can't get these guys to take it down a notch. I don't think that even overdosing on doughnuts would make them leave me alone! Especially with the Guardian Corps' workout regimen… a fat lot of good it's doing me, now. I mean, look at me.” Jackie stood up and pointed to her body.

  “You look normal to me,” Gita said, confused.

  “Exactly! I lost like thirty pounds since Zabe upped the preparedness drills! I’m too good looking—how will I know when someone likes me for who I am instead of how I look? Honestly, even I want a piece of this,” she joked.

  “General Zabe,” Gita said, fearing protocol. She’d tried so hard to get into the Corps that she played as close to the rules as possible… at least when it came to Zabe and Claire.

  Jackie waved the comment away. “Whatever. He’s engaged to my best friend. As long as I’m not in a sensitive crowd I could call him General Doodie-head if I wanted… I think.”

  “Best friend?” Gita looked confused. It wasn’t a common term in the Prime.

  “Someone you’re very close to.”

  “Are we best friends?”

  Jackie’s face softened towards the younger girl. “Of course,” she said. “People can have a few best friends.”

  Gita smiled and lay back on the locker room bench. “You know, I think Wulftone has been sweet on you since before you ever even met Harken.”

  “Argh!” Jackie growled, feigning rage. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore!” She jammed a pastry into Gita’s mouth and then stuffed one into her own.

  She mumbled her words through her full mouth. “Tell me about your family. What was it like growing up in the Prime? Where are they now?”

  Gita went quiet. She barely even made chewing sound. “They are all gone—it was horrible… I’d prefer not to talk
about it.”

  Chapter 5

  With a flash of eldritch power, Caivev and Jarkara materialized at the portal site deep in the Central American jungle. The ozone sizzle in the air dissipated quickly and yielded to the humid, heavy air laced with the odor of thick vegetation.

  She put up her hands and turned a slow circle when she heard the distinct sounds of cocking guns all around The Crag. “It’s me, you idiots.”

  Jarkara, plain and ordinary as any vyrm could be, did likewise and faded towards the back of the confrontation.

  The vyrm guards she’d set to watch the location lowered their weapons and slinked towards her from behind the mounds of carved ceremonial bones the natives had piled nearby for generations. They didn’t even bother with human disguises and they let their scales show. Nobody was supposed to be here except the forces of the Black, the fictional General Nyagittari had seen to that.

  “They reported that you were taken by the tarkhūn,” one stated as he eyed her up and down.

  “The new tribal chiefs are already arguing over who will lead following your capture.”

  Caivev glared at them both. “The rumors are obviously greatly exaggerated.”

  “How do we know you’re not a shade?” One guard asked astutely, readjusting his grip on the weapon.

  “Ashes of Roanoke,” Caivev gave him the passphrase to prove her identity.

  The other guard raised his gun. “They could’ve had a lich siphon that out of her mind!”

  Both Caivev and the other guard glowered at the zealous sentry. “I’ve had psychic training,” she spat. “It would take more than a mere lich to break into my mind and pull out anything useful.”

  He lowered the weapon sheepishly.

  “Keys,” she demanded. A few moments later she bounced through the jungle trails in the old jeep, traveling the handful of klicks between the portal and the Lost Temple.

  She found her generals in complete disarray. The man and his dog sat bored against the wall, flipping his hands back and forth. Caivev nodded to the imposter who she knew to be Akko Soggathoth.