Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  The demigod looked slightly comical wearing an incredibly thick pair of oven mitts; he returned the greeting. He looked much the same as before, but he held a small hierophanticus which looked far eastern in origin and carved of the foreign darquematter in the shape of an idol. His dog rested next to him.

  Caivev’s forces stopped mid-stride when they saw her enter. Idrakka tipped his head ever so slightly in greeting to Jarkara who didn’t dare return a nod.

  She pointed at her supernatural partner who stood in response, curling his lip in a delighted sneer.

  “What’s going on?” the beefy Skrom asked.

  “It’s time to show them what we’re onto,” Caivev said. “Enough games. Let’s show the Black who you really are.”

  Akko Soggathoth nodded. A split second later his form melted into the decaying half-goat, half-man form he truly was.

  “Is that the hierophanticus you sought to awaken your first brother?”

  Soggathoth nodded. “It is the key that will open to Akko Nuggezeth.”

  Idrakka, Skrom, Charobv, and Kreephast stood in silence. They knew just enough of their own mythology to understand that the shapeshifter was an alternate Sh’logathian herald of prophecy. Their silence allowed enough of a lull for the banging on the door to be heard. Only Jarkara was startled by it.

  Caivev felt a twinge of guilt as she glanced at the mystic chamber where time refused to advance. Nitthogr’s kidnapping of Zabe’s brother Zurrah had been one of her first missions when she’d secretly fed intelligence to the sorcerer after he’d captured her heart… before his eventual betrayal. She didn’t envy the boy’s eternal imprisonment—still, she couldn’t exactly free such a valuable asset without any personal gain.

  Kreephast, half made up in his fake diplomat costume, leaned in and whispered. “Caivev. A word in private? Just you and your trusted leaders?” He nodded slightly to indicate Akko Soggathoth.

  Idrakka intoned, “Is there anywhere we could go that he could not hear if he chose?”

  Caivev shot him a nervous, sidelong glance. The scrawny vyrm had climbed into the top ranks quickly. He wasn't particularly skilled—but his loyalty was paramount. She trusted his instincts, and it worried her if Idrakka was wary of him.

  Kreephast pointed to the door opposite of Zurrah’s. The others followed him in and Akko Soggathoth watched them curiously as he stroked the tentacles of his abyssal auraphage. They left Jarkara, still an outsider, and Akko Soggathoth to stare at each other across the room while they held a meeting.

  As soon as the door latched shut it opened again and the party exited. In the second chamber, time continued to pass while it did not in the real world—the reverse of the other time-locked prison.

  Caivev had much to think on. Though a second had passed, she'd held council with her generals for hours in the stasis chamber and Kreephast had proved his extensive knowledge of history and atheology after she laid out their plan for them: awaken the Seven Brothers and release Sh'logath independent of Basilisk, the remaining Herald. She'd also brought them up to speed on the truce between the tarkhūn and the Black and Basilisk's insistence that Jarkara accompany them to ensure the lasting peace.

  They were in agreement to pursue an alternative Awakening. Still, Kreephast’s warning ringed in Caivev’s ears. “We cannot put too much trust in Akko Soggathoth; he is a fickle trickster of legend. Be on guard in case this is no more than a game to him.”

  “Is there a problem?” Akko Soggathoth asked as they returned.

  “No problem,” Caivev promised.

  In response, her four generals bowed and pledged their service to the demigod’s plan.

  “No problem at all.” Where Nitthogr had failed, Caivev swore she would succeed.

  ***

  Sam skootched closer to Shandra as they bent over the book Zabe had brought them. Zabe watched them work while Tay-lore analyzed the data from the scanners.

  “This book is old,” he said with his mechanical monotone. “Very old.”

  Shandra gingerly turned a page and looked at it with intrigue. The spine and cover had been embossed with an emblem similar to that of Zabe’s family crest—perhaps an earlier precursor to what it eventually became.

  Sam consulted the lexicon to verify the translation. “It’s titled the Lineage and History of Vangandra.”

  Zabe raised an eyebrow while Shandra tugged at her lip thoughtfully. “What does that mean?”

  “There is an old legend about Vangandra,” She responded. “He was an ancient hero: the first defender of the Tesseract.”

  “It is very obscure,” Tay-lore agreed. “His guardianship supposedly took place before the creation of the Chamber of Mysteries. I’ve only encountered snippets of it from one source in the archives of the Veritas.”

  Shandra nodded.

  “But what does it have to do with my family?” Zabe pointed to the crest.

  “Vangandra and King Leolon were the only survivors of an attack by the vyrm—the first attack they ever made, actually,” she explained. “They were after the tesseract. Vangandra slaughtered all but four of the vyrm who escaped and he and his children, the ‘Wolf Folk,’ went on to protect the tesseract as the original Guardian Corps.”

  “Almost,” stated Sam as he leaned over the book and his lexical resources.

  “That is the legend,” Tay-lore said.

  “I mean that this book offers some corrections to that,” the archaeologist responded. “It claims to have been written by Vangandra’s descendants who were told a slightly different account.” He quoted a loose translation.

  “When the scaly men attacked they killed without mercy or remorse, heading directly for the Tesseract which remained with the royal line at all times—as directed by the Architect King and the priests. Their champions wore armor and rings of strange elements which reacted violently to the power of the Great Gem.

  Men of the Prime rallied around King Leolon and when the invading champions drew too close they vibrated with unexpected resistance—the weaker ones withdrew to safety but the champions persisted. Within a hand-span of the sacred jewel, the vibrations disintegrated nearly every man and enemy nearby, crumbling them to dust—reducing them to atomic content. Only Vangandra and the King remained for us.

  The champions’ armor exploded into fragments. Most pieces dug deep within the enemy. It liquefied and burned deep inside and was absorbed. They burst out with different powers—as did Vangandra who had shifted into the first lycan hybrid and fiercely defended his friend and king to safeguard the tesseract and Leolon’s honor.

  Repelled by the ferocity of the lycan, the scaled ones displayed symptoms of madness. They retreated and in their frenzied bloodlust slaughtered their own, leaving the hillside littered with reptilian corpses before they winked out of existence in full retreat.

  When they’d exploded, pieces of their armor were flinged into the distance as if from a trebuchet. One of these shards of alien material was recovered and great care was taken to keep it a far enough distance to prevent another, similar reaction. Artisans crafted a totem from the wreckage as a reminder of this day.”

  “Here is their example.” Sam flipped a page and turned the book to show them a crude drawing of a very distinct artifact resulting from that incursion. The Dimensional Inversion pendant.

  Zabe stared dumbfounded by the book—as did Shandra. The implications were as far-reaching as they were mysterious.

  Shandra looked very uncomfortable. “I have someone under the protection of the Veritas who should see this.” She looked at Zabe apologetically as he cocked his head.

  “We have something of an expert on the vyrm in our care: someone who has an intimate knowledge of their fanatical religion.” She bit her lip sheepishly. “This is all very confidential.”

  The leader of the Guardian Corps could see it in her eyes: they were harboring a vyrm. He did not like it one bit that they had kept one of their enemy hidden and without
his knowledge—it directly contradicted his mandate as leader of the corps and he was sure that Claire would’ve told him if she had known. Zabe demanded gruffly, “Is he Black or Tarkhūn?”

  “Neither,” she said, surprising him. “Trenzlr came to the Prime quite accidentally and identifies himself as a Seeker of Maetha—a rover—part of a religious movement that predates the Sh’logath cult. I will make introductions.”

  ***

  “Do you want some food?” Cerci Heiderscheidt asked through the door. She’d occasionally visited the narthex and had conversations with the prisoner on the other side.

  “No thank you,” the young voice responded. “I just ate a little while ago, before leaving with my father, General Zahaben. We were separated. My brother fought off the wizard’s forces, but they still got me. That was not so long ago… my father is coming, you know.”

  “But it’s been days since I last talked to you,” she said.

  “Days? Has it been that long?”

  Heiderscheidt scrambled to her feet when she saw Doctor Walther and Caivev approach. She distanced herself from the forbidden door.

  Using the old lexicons borrowed from Caivev’s generals, she’d translated almost everything she could get her hands on. Heiderscheidt had a pretty good idea what their sponsor’s plans were about—and she’d hoped to eventually get out before things got too ugly. She was always looking for the next adventure, the next great mystery to unravel. Maybe the boy behind this door was it.

  “There you are,” Walther said. “Our benefactor has been looking for us. We have a new assignment,” he stated, eagerly wringing his hands.

  “Not that I haven’t enjoyed using our machine to rob the world blind, but I will be grateful to push the boundaries of science again,” she said. Only Heiderscheidt knew she lied—the thrill of the heist as she and Walther raided caches of diamonds and pillaged vaults of refined gold and platinum had been the most exhilarating thing she’d ever done. She’d needed the excitement, not for the fact that it pursued some kind of ideological ends like propping up the newly formed Chiriquí country, or funded their scientific endeavors.

  Heiderscheidt knew that Walther, to some degree, had channeled funds to his own causes. He’d given several gifts to his friend Sisyphus, the former pro wrestler, and helped reinvigorate some clandestine organization. They’d also worked on some kind of joint experiment in the past which she knew very little about, except that it involved cloning blood cells. But recently, Cerci Heiderscheidt’s drug of choice had switched from the rush of knowledge to the surge of adrenaline.

  “What are we studying?” She asked as she followed Caivev to the massive double door that towered deeper within the pyramid-like temple.

  Caivev pointed to the door which had already been identified as a gate to the Temple of Koth. Akko Soggathoth stepped out of the shadows, nearly startling the poor scientists who’d come to accept undead fauns, lizard people, and alternate dimensions as part of a reality that had long been hidden from their eyes. Little shocked them anymore.

  "Have you practiced the signs?" The goatman's voice hissed like a viper's.

  The scientists watched Caivev nod. Akko Soggathoth grinned as she held up a fist and flashed a series of very specific hand motions. They each noted that the man-beast had six digits on his hands and so he could not accurately make the hand symbols.

  “Good. Make the first sign: middle fingers down, thumb tucked.”

  Caivev made something like the “horns” symbol that people raised up at rock concerts.

  “The second.”

  Heiderscheidt grinned as Caivev struggled to transition between them. She enjoyed watching important people fail.

  Caivev lifted the middle finger and flared her thumb wide. The scientist memorized the transitions, wondering if she could perform them if pressed.

  “The third and fourth?”

  The third came easy. All four digits stretched out and the thumb crossed, like a command to halt. The fourth merely tucked the pinky down to meet the thumb.

  “Excellent,” Akko Soggathoth said. “It is time to prove that you can do them by awakening the eye and opening the door.” His appearance shimmered for a second and he transformed back into the human shape.

  The man looked confused as a black kind of mist pulled away from him, as if shadowy ether evaporated off of him. Heiderscheidt guessed the fiend must’ve relinquished his host.

  “What… where… you again!” he reeled wild-eyed from Caivev who snatched him by the wrist.

  “Hold still,” she commanded as she reached for a knife.

  “No!” He struggled and wriggled free of her grasp. Turning a wide circle he called out, “Victoria! It’s Quintin—where are you, Victoria?”

  "Fine," Caivev spat, grabbing him again with both hands. "Have it your way." She bit off half of his pinky finger and dragged the bleeding man towards the door. He howled in pain but remained too disoriented to continue fighting her physically. She used his bleeding stump to paint an oval with a line on it, much like a crude eye. Caivev dragged his bloody hand in a pattern around the eye which resulted in a seven-pointed star.

  Quintin staggered back when Caivev released him but howled in terror again, only seconds later, as the blackness re-enveloped him. The decaying goatman returned to her side as she performed the hand motions in front of the sigil scrawled with blood.

  He bent low and retrieved the severed finger as Caivev struggled through the first transition. She completed the sequence and nothing happened.

  “Again,” Akko Soggathoth commanded. With a giggle, he popped the finger into his mouth and chewed it to paste.

  Caivev growled and this time succeeded with the proper hand shapes. The door clicked with a loud groan and a sucking sound as if from a leaky airlock. She held the herald in her gaze, wordlessly asking for the next step.

  "Now you may enter the Darque," he stated menacingly. "I will go and make preparations to release my brother. There is one more thing I need first. Retrieve the book you find on the other side."

  “Where will I find it?”

  Akko Soggathoth shrugged playfully. “I’m certain that you will.” He turned and departed.

  Slightly unnerved and more than a little wary, Caivev pushed open the doors to the gateway and the scientists followed her within; they left the door ajar for good measure. Inside, Koth looked like a mirror image of their temple; the door read Kith from this side.

  Akko Soggathoth’s book lay irreverently on the floor as if it had been flung inside from the other temple door. Caivev retrieved the old tome which had been inlaid with some kind of darquematter filigree and latched shut with a clasp of the same material.

  She tucked it under her arm and led them past a ceremonial chamber and through the winding corridors before coming to the pyramid-like structure’s entrance at the hallway tied to the mirrored structure’s narthex. Koth’s layout was the exact opposite of the sister temple.

  They gazed at the blasted glassine and obsidian landscape which took their breath away. There appeared to be no sky—only an empty blackness spilling into the void. Iridescent, shimmering seams of energy cracked reality in the distance, like solidified lightning. “It is just as Akko Soggathoth described it,” Caivev said reverently.

  “It is marvelous,” Walther whispered, equally impressed. “And it’s obviously well outside of the thirty-three dimensions we’ve been able to open with my machine.”

  The sky flashed with an even darker flare as if an electrical storm in the nether burned with darkness beyond the color spectrum’s black. The otherworldly energies sent shudders down the spines of the trio, calling their attention upwards.

  Venturing only a little beyond the yawning entrance they looked skyward. The Temple of Koth was crowned by a set of curving, obsidian spires at its flat top; far above that, a massive ring hung in the sky, terrible and dark like a concrete funnel cloud churning with slow malice. The Nihil Bridge.
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  Caivev turned to her madcap scientists and said very seriously, “Whatever it takes, you must find a way to access this location from your machine. Unless given another immediate task, this is your primary mission.”

  Walther hesitated. “I don’t know that it will be possible.” He looked around fretfully, almost overwhelmed by her request. “I will have to take some readings.”

  “Whatever it takes,” she repeated. “I’m sending you two to Germany soon. General Nyagittari—Kreephast—has built up an embassy there. Your equipment will arrive soon. Remember, whatever it takes.”

  Chapter 6

  “Thank you so much for this opportunity,” said Respan as Zabe unsheathed the Stone Glaive from behind his back. The long-hafted, massive sword might have actually belonged to Claire, but it had been Zabe’s trademark since his triumph over the sorcerer Nitthogr.

  “It’s in good hands,” Wulftone told his cousin. “I’ve known Respan since before the invasion.”

  Jenner stood to his tiptoes in order to get a better peek at the mythic Stone Glaive. The son of the missing historian had become something of a page to Wulftone who’d helped mentor the young man.

  “He’s as good of a scientist as there is,” Wulftone stated of the researcher whose expertise crossed the realms of both mechanical and supernatural sciences.

  Respan laughed nervously as he laid the huge blade upon his examination table with due caution. “I’m just trying to not turn myself to stone, here.”

  Jenner stated the obvious, “The ability to turn all our kin trapped in the Desolation back to flesh would give us an instant army. The Prime could finally have its revenge.”

  “Well, that’s only if I can figure out the blade’s secrets, much as Basilisk has done.” Respan made charcoal rubbings of the sigils engraved upon the ancient blade. “Reverse engineering the blade’s powers will prove no small task.”