Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  Tay-lore had no doubt that she would have him dismantled if he ever leaked sensitive information.

  “The pieces that reacted to the Tesseract and exploded during the vyrm’s first encounter, thousands of years ago, seemed to be imbued with special properties—fragments of their champion’s broken armor. There are other pieces of darquematter from other sources. They have a different sort of ability. Could these readings you’ve detected be from those sorts of objects?”

  Tay-lore nodded. “I suspected that very thing. One of the vyrm myths was called The Seven Keys. It is a particularly wicked fairy tale about a vyrm child who found a hierophanticus that unlocked a gate to where Akko Sxkakzacros, the vilest of the brothers, slumbered in the Darque.

  “The seven Darque hierophanticese—the seven keys—each open a portal into the prisons where the Brothers of the Winnowing sleep. Each one is specifically set to open via a special key and by sacrifice.”

  “How much of that is legend and how much do you suspect is true?” she asked.

  Her statement confused him—her vocation was centered on faith. Tay-ore had assumed she’d immediately reach the same conclusion he did. “I think it’s all true… except for the vyrm child in the story who is a sort of ‘everyman,' or in their case ‘everyvyrm.'"

  The religious woman muttered a bunch of curses typically unbecoming of her position. "I've seen the texts you mentioned, but we haven't had them fully translated yet. We've only begun to work backward through old texts with the information Trenzlr has provided." She sighed and looked upward as if in apology for breaking sacred rules. "The Architect King was quite specific when he set Earth apart and told us to leave it alone. We've already bent so many rules for the sake of the Jones family."

  Tay-lore watched her coldly. His findings led him to only one course of action: intervention. “We must collect the hierophanticese and prevent the opening of any more portals into the Darque. I believe Akko Soggathoth is the one at work and I think he’s awakened one more already—probably Akko Nuggezeth, according to a gematriac sequence clearly encoded in the text.”

  “So we can predict his plan?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But there is an old end-game written within vyrm prophecy. We know this demigod’s ultimate goal.”

  Shandra swallowed hard and nodded. Enough texts had been translated for her to know that. “The rise of Sh’logath.”

  Tay-lore nodded slowly. “I think that Akko Hormundlyr is next. Time might be critical.”

  “I said that I didn’t like your plan; it makes me uncomfortable to planeswalk at all, let alone into Earth. But I did not say that I disagreed with it. It may be necessary to intervene in the affairs of the Earth realm—the fate of the Tesseract may rest on collecting these hierophanticese and preventing our enemy from piercing the Darque.”

  ***

  Caivev strolled through the dim corridors in the Lost Temple of Kith’s belly. She kept a wary eye out and eventually found Akko Soggathoth in the large chamber where the Koth gate had closed.

  He glowered at the barrier which he was incapable of opening on his own and stroked the heavy tome. The Darque denizen heard her approach but paid her no mind.

  “It won’t open with you just staring at it.”

  The goatman chuffed animalistically. “I am aware, child.” He mumbled a few choice curses, and then grinned manically with a giggle. “The enemy thought he could wreck, imprison, and even lock us from our home realm.” He drummed his fingers upon the clasped book. “I guess we shall see who has the last laugh in the end, so-called ‘Architect King.’”

  “You miss your home?”

  Akko Soggathoth looked at her incredulously. “Never. There is far too much fun to be had here to yearn for that broken place.” He smirked at her confusion and then turned back to the door.

  Caivev thought better than to try and figure out the twisted fiend. “My agents have reported in. They are close to finding the next hierophanticus. Others from the Heptobscurantum are seeking the rest of the artifacts. It will take some time to arrange for all the bribes to fall into place and get us access to the hidden places so we can access the Darquegate with minimal interference. We don’t want any prying eyes ferreting out what we’re up to until it’s too late. As soon as the Prime realizes our plans they will attempt to stop us.”

  Akko Soggathoth nodded but didn't look back to her. "You have the sacrifice secured?"

  She nodded. “Your pet found one, as promised, though it did eat its handler in the end.”

  He smiled cruelly. "Don't worry about the Prime. I have been masking us from their weaker psychics. They would be hard-pressed to find someone skilled enough who could pierce my veil from their plane. Even if they do, they won't understand until it is too late."

  Caivev waited and watched him for a few minutes, but Akko Soggathoth had no more to say. With her skin prickling from his disconcerting aura, she retreated back towards more familiar parts of the structure.

  ***

  Zabe walked towards the broken, crumbling wall of the Old Keep. The previous home of the Guardian Corps had been entombed within creeping vines and flowering tendrils of greenery.

  Wulftone kept step with him. “I haven’t been here since…”

  Zabe nodded solemnly. “That was the first time I ever saw my father shift—when he’d been so hard pressed to get back to us. I’d only ever seen Shardai turn lycan before that.”

  “We both lost family that day,” Wulftone said. “My father… your brother.” He spat and cursed Nitthogr’s memory for the repeated invasions.

  “It was the first time Zahaben had worn this,” Zabe pointed to his leather wrist-cuff which indicated he was the leader of his house. “I’d always thought that it was what made him lycan.”

  Wulftone raised his eyebrows with intrigue. “Then what is it?”

  Zabe held out his book, The History of Vangandra. Dozens of cards with written translations had been tucked between the pages so that it could be read. “It’s family… something far more important that brings on the change. Wearing Zahaben’s crest only meant that I understood the depths of what I was fighting for at a deep level.”

  They stood for a silent moment at a spot and both looked down. Both men understood the significance of the location.

  “This was where it happened.”

  Zabe nodded. He handed his wrist cuff to his cousin who'd been like a brother all of these years—a surrogate brother for the one he'd lost that day. "Try it on. Perhaps it will inspire you to reach deep down and harness the hunter within."

  Wulftone looked back to the grassy slope where Claire and Jackie sat on a blanket, chatting in the sun with a picnic basket and a bottle of fine djat-berry wine. “I think I understand that deep yearning to protect and to fight for my own.”

  ***

  “I’m so glad you two could come,” Claire bumped her shoulder against Jackie’s playfully. “So… you and Wulftone, then?”

  She grinned. “I dunno. I’m taking it slow and still kinda splitting time between him and Harken. I still haven’t made up my mind—but I’ve made up my mind to make up my mind.”

  Claire grinned lopsidedly. She understood and couldn’t help but envy her friend—but not for the romance side of things. Jackie’s problems were a lot more tangible than wrestling with a fractured psyche, ruling the galaxy, and planning a wedding.

  “I’m just so happy to get away for a few hours,” Jackie groaned as she over-filled another glass of wine. She nodded towards where the two men seemed to be paying their respects to something. “Do you suppose that’s where it happened?”

  “Where what happened?”

  Jackie’s jaw almost dropped. “You don’t know?”

  Claire thought back. She even accessed Bithia’s memories, but came up blank. “I know there was a huge battle that destroyed the old keep. That was like a decade ago… Zabe’s never talked about it Bithia was… otherwise indisposed.”
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  “I read about it in a book on the Guardian Corps’ history. It was actually collected by Professor Jarfig, Jenner’s father. Zabe lost his little brother in that battle. It was really bad from what I read. They never found him.”

  Claire furrowed her brow and remembered the small Guardian Corps armor she’d worn that day they broke into the throne room through the secret tunnels below the castle. She knew there was more to that story, but didn’t want to push Zabe on it. Claire wanted him to open up on his own.

  They watched their guys for a few minutes as they started pushing each other around a little. All of the sudden, Wulftone stretched and shifted into a lycan form similar to Zabe’s.

  “What the crap!” Jackie spilled her wine in surprise. “Since when can he do that?”

  The two returned to the picnic. Wulftone, in his werewolf form, sauntered triumphantly. He scooped Jackie up effortlessly as a test of his strength.

  Jackie blushed. She’d quite forgotten how hot a lycan’s furry skin was. Her cheeks flushed as she leaned into his rigid muscles and she wondered if she might’ve made some internal choices between Wulftone and Harken.

  Claire looked at Zabe and Wulftone incredulously. "Can you still shapeshift even without your crest?" she asked.

  “I believe so,” Zabe said. He closed his eyes as if concentrating. A few seconds later he changed, too. Grinning, he also scooped up Claire and the four collapsed on their picnic blanket in a heap with the women curled up on their lycan’s chests as if they’d been victorious conquerors.

  Simultaneously the guys’ lycan ears perked up. Hypersensitive hearing caught sounds that only they could hear. A moment later, an anti-grav sled crested the hill and settled nearby, ruining their remote get-away. Tay-lore and Shandra got out; Harken had accompanied them.

  Wulftone growled low with feral frustration on a register that only Zabe could hear.

  “It must be important,” Zabe said as his bestial form melted away into his human one. “I don’t even know how they found us.”

  Chapter 8

  Zabe and Claire sat at the head of the long table in the meeting room. Wulftone and Jackie sat nearby—they were already in the loop because of the android’s info dump. Wulftone sat unnecessarily close to Jackie as Harken took a seat opposite them. Shandra escorted Trenzlr into the room and Tay-lore presided over the stack of information he’d put together.

  “So what are we looking at here?” Zabe asked as he leafed through the sheaves of paper and focused on the highlighted portions.

  “We’ve got to go to Earth and stop the release of Akko Hormundlyr,” Shandra stated.

  Claire and Zabe stared at her blankly. The fact that a Veritas advocated planeswalking to Earth did not go unnoticed.

  Tay-lore guided the brief discussion on Akko Soggathoth’s release and the Herald’s ultimate plan to release Sh’logath and accomplish where Nitthogr had failed. “Princess, may I borrow the Dimension Inversion Pendant—the necklace your father gave you?”

  Claire removed it and handed it over; it no longer wielded mystic properties over her since Claire Jones was the last of her versions spread across the multiverse—although it still provided her some modicum of protection versus magic attacks. Tay-lore passed it around the room.

  Shandra introduced them to the material. “This item is made of a material known as ‘darquematter.’ It is the same stuff that our targets will be made out of—these items are also mystic artifacts and may or may not have special properties but each will probably be regarded as a powerful or special object. A hierophanticus, like this one,” she indicated the pendant, “is imbued with power so it can fulfill a specific task—the seven Darque hierophanticese are keys to a realm beyond the reach of the Tesseract. It is where the legendary Brothers of the Winnowing are trapped… two have already been released.”

  “We have deduced that the next brother to be pulled from the Darque is Akko Hormundlyr. It is probable that the brothers are being awakened in a specific pattern per the numerology Tay-lore discovered in the ancient legends.”

  Zabe held up a hand. "So the recommended course of action is a smash and grab? Identify and steal the hierophanticese before the bad guys can get them?"

  Shandra nodded.

  “That sounds simple enough—though with high stakes,” Zabe said.

  Harken interjected, “I’m not quite sure who these bad guys are? Akko Hormundlyr and Akko Soggathoth—they’re demigods. They’ve got to be working with someone… the Heptobscurantum, maybe, since so much of this activity revolves around Earth?”

  “The Heptobscurantum may be involved," Tay-lore agreed. "I have surveillance in the Earth realm. It appears that the vyrm are also involved—the Black, at least."

  Harken spat, “It figures.” His hatred for the Black was well known—his rise to popular position had been bought with the blood of his friends, relatives, and many of the senior military officers who preceded him. “That dirty tarkhūn lied to us in our home.”

  Claire leaned forward and spoke diplomatically. “Basilisk may have been sincere. He said the Black were coming under his rule—not that it was yet absolute… and besides, there are bound to be splinter cells of rogue vyrm all across the planes for some time even if he has been truthful.”

  “Do you trust him?” Harken asked.

  She laughed, “Not even close. But that doesn’t mean we should blow a major diplomatic victory over our suspicions.”

  Harken shrugged with compromise. “So where does this leave us?”

  “Expect to see vyrm on Earth,” Wulftone said matter-of-factly. “Always expect them—and shoot as soon as you see scales.”

  Trenzlr cringed at the statement, but ultimately nodded. “Given what is at stake that might be a fair characterization.”

  “What if we fail?” Zabe asked. “What’s our backup plan? After all, the vyrm have a head-start on us.”

  “I’m certain a clairvoyant as powerful as Bithia would’ve been able to locate the portal locations that lead to the Darque. She could probably find the access points where they will pull Akko Hormundlyr through.”

  All eyes turned to face Claire. She swallowed her reluctance to give her mind over to her Prime version. Claire looked at Zabe and felt dark emotions well up in her gut—is this just proof that I’m not good enough for him? I’ll never be her. Could Bithia ever betray me and take over my body completely, forcing me out? …we’ve been somewhat less cohesive since Zabe proposed. Is that my jealousy or is that hers?

  Claire sighed and her eyelids fluttered as she momentarily surrendered control to Bithia. She eventually opened her eyes. “I am sorry, but I can’t detect anything. I wish I could help—maybe if I was on Earth?”

  Everyone at the table gave her worried looks. Bringing the last descendant of the Architect King away from the protections they’d built around her seemed like the definition of a bad idea.

  Zabe reached across and held her hand. “It’s okay. We’ll just make sure we get the hierophanticus first. What does it look like, Trenzlr?”

  “I believe I’ve found a link in ancient lore,” the vyrm responded. “Your ancient Earth was once ruled by a wicked ruler named Akroth. He and his brother were partly to blame for the beginning of the modern Sh’logath cult—they brought it one step closer to its current incarnation.”

  Tay-lore projected an image onto the wall nearby with depictions of Akroth, an early Egyptian pharaoh. He cycled a few images, some of which were museum artifacts on a traveling display. One in particular depicted a grisly scene of Akroth executing prisoners by scaphism—a torture where victims were force-fed and then stuffed inside confined containers so that they were devoured alive by insects. The plate caption read, Akroth was notoriously known for executing anyone accused of touching his royal scepter—even including his wives.

  “It seems most likely that his scepter is the hierophanticus we seek,” Trenzlr said. “But that’s not a guarantee.”

&nb
sp; “You noted that these items give off some kind of reading you can detect?” Claire asked Tay-lore.

  “Yes, Princess. I could create a sensor—Respan invented one already that I’m sure I can miniaturize. It would only be accurate within a thirty-foot radius or so, but that should be sufficient.”

  “Do it,” she said. “We can send one team to Akroth’s tomb to search with the sensor and send another team to collect the museum’s scepter.” Claire looked around the room and did not find any disagreement on their faces.

  “We’ll get you all as close as we can via the Hall of Mirrors,” Shandra said, “but you will have to make your way back here through the portals’ normal operation. I trust you each have a basic knowledge of how to locate and use them to planeswalk?”

  Nods circulated the room. They’d all either become familiar with the anathema chapter of the Grimmorium Nitthogr or personally experienced it.

  “Good,” Claire stated. “You will all leave as soon as Tay-lore can put together his device. Go steal me a scepter.”

  ***

  Sam flipped through the newspaper as he glanced out of the eighth-floor window of Jecima's recovery room in the New York City surgical ward. His elderly friend remained in an induced coma following his extensive surgery but was expected to make a recovery.

  Unlike Claire’s friend, he thought, scanning the headlines where he read about Holly Wainsmith. They’d found wreckage from her boat as well as a destroyed container ship which appeared to have been blown up by pirates or terrorists; ironically, both boats had been owned by the Wainsmith Holdings, adding financial injury to the distraught family.

  Sam looked up when he heard a knock on the door. Jenner, dressed in a poorly assembled tourist outfit, stepped into the room and greeted the archaeologist. Sam looked at him confused.

  “Jenner? How did you get here? Is everything alright—is Claire okay?”