Jenner rammed the action shut and sighted down his barrel. He screamed and pulled the trigger on the UTV. The machine exploded in a ball of fire, destroying both the machine and the hierophanticus that anchored the fiendish bubble in reality.
A wave of purple energy blasted out from the key and the snuffed the dimensional link out of existence. The forest circle fell suddenly silent.
Jenner touched the gaping hole at his neck and then looked at the blood. His head swam with dizziness and heat. The soldier’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed.
***
Zabe leapt in front of the princess and swung his powerful fist, catching Tahnak in the jaw, cold-cocking him with a single blow. The soldier laid out on the ground, sprawled prone like a dead man.
“Are you okay?” Zabe felt for Tahnak’s pulse and verified that he was fine, albeit unconscious.
She nodded. “Just… very confused.”
Zabe stood and put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. He searched for confirmation. “What is your name?”
“Bithia,” she said, fully convinced of it.
“Tell me the last thing you remember?”
Bithia frowned. “It is difficult to tell. Every part of Claire’s memories seem as if they were recent—but my most intense memory is facing off against Regorik in the Royal castle… and… I…”
Zabe cupped her hands in his. He didn’t need her to continue. Claire had already explained Bithia’s sacrifice—a memory both minds had to endure. “Where is Claire, now?”
Her eyes moved back and forth as she searched her subconscious for some trace of her other half which had suddenly gone missing—the half that owned her body. “I… I don’t know.”
The spires in the circle around them began to crackle with energy again. In a few moments, they might discharge another wave of chaotic energy with random effects. Tahnak groaned in the dirt below.
Zabe looked from each danger and then to the princess—not quite sure what to call her. The lycan bit his lower lip with consternation as the wicked obelisks charged up. Finally, with a shout of anger and defiance, he stabbed the Stone Glaive into the center of the core. The organic looking growth that bubbled from the ground cracked and darkened as the mystic blade plunged deep into the heart of the Nebraska Worldgate.
The core seemed to implode as the blade cut a gash through the very fabric of the Darque. A black void tore open, not unlike the rip through which Sh’logath tried to enter via Claire’s blood a few years ago.
Zabe scooped up Tahnak’s limp body and turned to leap through the hole before the next eldritch wave hit.
Bithia grabbed Zabe by the wrist. “I’m scared!” she said.
Zabe cocked his head.
“Something in this realm brought me back to the surface—something foul and worrisome. What if that goes away, assuming this door leads back to reality?” Panic struck her face. “What if I disappear and Claire is gone too? Will the line of the Architect King end forever? Will I be nothing but an empty husk?”
Zabe glanced at the nearby threats. He knew they didn’t have time to entertain a philosophic debate. “Sometimes you just need to have faith,” he said, shouldering Tahnak’s body.
“But… but…”
Zabe grabbed the princess and leaned down and gave her a passionate kiss. As she leaned into his embrace, he tipped over. Tahnak, Bithia, and Zabe plunged through the dimensional breach just as the next blast of arcane power exploded off of the cursed ring of towers.
Chapter 20
Caivev screamed a string of profanities into the smug face Akko Soggathoth. Flecks of spittle streamed down the human form of the man’s face. “How dare you leave us trapped in the Darque like that? I lost many soldiers and I could’ve died!”
“You did not,” the shapeshifter stated with a calm inhumanness.
The vyrm leader rattled off another stream of expletives. “I have half a mind to just banish you and be done with it!”
Akko Soggathoth chirped with a slight giggle.
“Do you think this is some sort of game? I’ll show you how serious I am!” Caivev brandished one of the earlier hierophanticese and held it centimeters from his face. “I’m not stupid!” she screamed. “I know that if this touches you, you’ll be locked back in the Darque!”
Akko Soggathoth startled at the proximity of the artifact. He recoiled as she shoved it in his face and he switched forms into his true visage, the horrific goat-man shape.
Caivev seethed and glowered at him. The gruesome visage of his presence had been reduced to mere novelty; the ranking vyrm had become familiar with it.
Theera rushed towards Caivev in order to protect his master. With lightning quick reflexes Caivev drew her pistol and put a jolt of hot laser through the vyrm’s face.
As Theera’s corpse tumbled at their feet Caivev fixed her trickster ally with a stern gaze. “Don’t you dare mess me again,” she seethed. “I mean it when I say I will cast you out of our reality once and for all.”
Akko Soggathoth met Caivev’s gaze, but neither apologized nor wilted beneath the heat of her glare. The two scowled at each other for another few seconds before Caivev turned and left in a huff. Skrom followed, glancing menacingly at him.
Resuming his human form, Akko Soggathoth shrugged and chuckled quietly. He would not change his nature—and he refused to acknowledge any true peril from a mortal.
Touching his minion’s wound, Akko Soggathoth poured energy into Theera’s lifeless body to speed up his regeneration. The wound stitched itself back together and after a few more seconds Theera gasped for air and resumed consciousness.
“Master?” Theera looked relieved that Akko Soggathoth remained unharmed.
“I am more than that, my dear friend. I am your god.”
Theera’s eyes twinkled as his heart burst with joy. “Forever and ever!”
***
Jackie returned to the edge of the desolate glade with Shandra and a handful of other soldiers. They couldn’t find a trace of the enemy—not even a blade of singed grass. The piles of dead vyrm and even the destroyed UTV had all been sucked into the Darque when the hierophanticus deactivated.
“Did we stop it?” Jackie asked Shandra. Her voice contained more hope than her heart did.
Shandra didn’t respond as they returned to the cover of the forest. She knew that Jackie wouldn’t really want false hope anyway.
They nearly stepped on Chira who squeezed Jenner’s bleeding gash between pinched fingers. He sprayed an adhesive patch over the wound to keep it together and then jammed an injector into the young soldier’s neck, administering a dose of stimulant.
Jenner jolted awake with a gasp. The startled youth looked around for a second and then crawled to his knees, and finally, onto uneasy feet.
Wulftone joined them moments later as the party regrouped and counted heads while he let his lycan form melt away. They hadn’t suffered any serious casualties in the final skirmish thanks to their dense cover.
“Did we stop them?” the Corps’ leader asked. “Did anyone see evidence that we sealed them inside?”
Chira shook his head. “I saw them escape with seconds to spare,” he reported. “That glowing energy portal they’ve been using to move so quickly appeared on the far side of the clearing… there’s more.”
Everyone stared at Chira. Their eyes beckoned for more information.
“I saw Caivev and her general, Skrom, come out of the Darque. They are still alive after Mexico City.”
Wulftone hissed a curse below his breath. “I’d really hoped this was it.” He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to hide his exasperation. “Everyone double check yourselves and your neighbor for injuries. We’ve got to get back to the Prime ASAP. We move out in two minutes!”
He pulled Chira and Shandra aside as he took out an electronic handheld. Wulftone keyed in a password and dialed up the astrological charts to find out how soon it would
be before they could return through the portal. Only the team leaders had access to such sensitive data. Despite that, he knew that the old royalty would be rolling in their graves if they knew how many people had access to the forbidden travel charts from the Grimmorium Nitthogr.
Shandra asked, “What are we doing, Wulftone?”
He sighed dejectedly. “I’m not sure. Stalling? I honestly don’t know—but I’m open to suggestions.” Wulftone cursed when the program, written by Tay-lore, showed they didn’t have any way back to the Prime for at least a day.
Chira looked over his shoulder. “We don’t have a day,” he muttered. “They could begin their Sh’logathian rituals any moment now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wulftone muttered, wracking his brain for a plan.
“Don’t panic,” Shandra said, trying to keep anxiety from overwhelming her heart, even though she felt an internal burning as a stress ulcer formed. “We don’t know how long their rituals take to perform or if they have any other specific conditions such as solar or lunar alignment.”
“Trenzlr might know those details,” Wulftone said, setting his eyes towards the monastery. “We’ve got to get back and come up with a new plan. The closest route is to wait a day and go back the way we came.”
Shandra and Chira both nodded.
Wulftone yelled and got everyone’s attention. “Everybody move out!”
***
Bithia watched Zabe drag Tahnak behind a piece of construction equipment. He’d transformed back to a man immediately after their return from the Darque and without his lycan strength, he struggled to haul the dead weight of their friend. She’d forgotten exactly how much she admired his tenacity.
Her cheeks flushed at the suddenly real senses that she’d repossessed in Claire’s human body. While her spirit and consciousness remained in the kind of half-life she shared with Claire, Bithia wasn’t connected the same way as she’d been before her sacrifice. This is everything she’d wanted, her conscience told her.
Bithia pushed the guilty feelings down deep where she wouldn’t have to confront them. Her inner demons—the creeping resentment she sometimes felt when Claire was at her happiest—were a monster for another day.
She looked around. Most of the streetlights worked and shed light on the small community’s downtown area. Mullen looked much as it had when she’d first seen it through Claire’s eyes. The town had undergone extensive construction to repair the damage caused during the Heptobscurantum’s attempted Awakening. Only the central area at the center of the town remained to be finished; it had been the epicenter of the interdimensional chaos. Craters and carbon scoring still scarred the land where the worst of the fighting occurred.
Ducking behind a bulldozer, Bithia avoided a flashlight and motioned for Zabe to stay down. He tucked Tahnak’s body behind a heavy loader and hid behind the wheels, holding his breath and keeping silent until the flashlight passed and its owner meandered away.
“It’s very late, here,” Zabe said a minute later. “That should help us. I don’t think we want anybody watching as we try to activate the portal back to the Prime.” He was surprised at the security presence in such a small town—but it made sense, given what had happened in the recent history.
Bithia nodded. “Have you found the world-gate’s controls?”
Zabe shook his head. Everything had been torn up during the construction and he feared the mystic guidance system had been either buried or destroyed. The portal location couldn’t be destroyed—by its nature the location’s power was immutable, but they couldn’t tap into that source without them.
He dug with his hands, frantically searching for any of the activators. Time was so sensitive that he hadn’t even stopped to discuss what had happened with Bithia. The threat of a revived Sh’logath was perhaps the only danger menacing enough to supersede his deep worry for her.
“I think I can find it,” Bithia said, reaching out with her senses. The eldritch rune stones, carved millennia ago, glowed on the astral plane as if they’d been covered with luminescent paint. “They are below us, buried in the dirt.”
The flashlight returned in the distance. Something about the way it swung seemed to indicate that its owner walked with purpose. He’d be there any moment. Even if Zabe shapeshifted and risked terrorizing any observers, it remained unlikely that even he could dig it up in time.
A swath of light washed over the area as the officer scanned the area. Bithia and Zabe hunkered down behind pallets of construction supplies. The beam paused near the loader where Tahnak’s legs peeked out from behind a tire. Audio static sizzled as the guard called for assistance.
“I don’t know what I’ve got,” he said into his radio. “Maybe an out-or-town drunk, or maybe another one of those weirdo cultists, but I’ve got an unconscious man laying behind the Bobcat and dressed for comic con.”
“We’re on our way,” a reply crackled.
Bithia stepped out boldly into the light. Their time window would expire momentarily, and they could not delay another moment. She reached out again with her senses and found what she was looking for.
Zabe reached for her, hissing with stern disagreement. The light caught him as well and the officer yanked his gun with the sound of steel on leather.
“Don’t move a muscle,” the guard howled in surprise.
“Bithia?” Zabe asked. “I hope you have a plan?” He suddenly noticed the stark difference between Claire and Bithia—Claire wouldn’t have taken this risk. Zabe didn’t like it—not with so much on the line.
Bithia smiled when Zabe called her by name. It helped reinforce her unspoken decision made in the Darque—it validated her on a fundamental level. She grimaced only momentarily and then knelt to touch Tahnak’s foot while reaching up for Zabe’s hand.
“I said don’t move,” the nervous officer shouted, gun hand wavering.
“Easy,” Zabe said calmly, trying to dispel the tension and keep from getting shot.
Bithia used her mind and felt for the runes—penetrated their defenses and reached deep inside them. Her mind fell for what seemed like an eternity and entered a deep place.
She dared not embrace her own hubris, but Bithia knew that Claire could never have achieved the level of communion she’d gained with the foundations of reality as she palavered with the mildly sentient rune stones. Her pride very nearly threatened to knock her out of the sacred, psychic grounds she’d intruded within, but she held fast.
Without words, without arguments, she convinced the eldritch stones they needed to activate, even without the requisite sacrifice—the Prime was in danger if they did not. The Tesseract would suffer if these stones did not open the portal immediately!
Claire’s eyes opened suddenly and reality spun back into motion as if it never missed a beat. Her gaze locked with their captor’s and she smiled.
With a flash of light, the three traveler’s bodies disintegrated. A jolt of cold rippled through the planeswalkers as the Tesseract tore them apart and knit them back together in a different dimension. The Princess had managed to psychically activate the portal, astrally flipping switches and sending them back to the Prime.
Tahnak groaned groggily as he sat up next to his friends who kneeled, looking awestruck at what they’d found. “What happened, guys?” His head pounded with pain, but at least he’d returned to his right mind since the Darque.
He did a double-take at the sight arrayed around the Prime's main gate, just outside the castle, and then stared slack-jawed by a sight he never thought he'd see. Then, all around them, another brilliant flash momentarily blinded those still standing on the portal site.
***
Basilisk sat in the uppermost chamber of his mansion perched atop Limbus. He focused on the black void hanging in the distant sky and communed with the Great Devourer which lurked on the threshold between reality and not.
The Dunnischktet’s eyes had clouded over and the two became one in essence—sharing a
bond in the ways of the Mae’le-ggath, nearly forgotten by all save the highest priestly caste since their flight to Edenya… long before the Desolation.
Emptying himself, the hybrid let his mind fill with the thoughts and will of the Hungerer. Basilisk drank from the mind of Sh’logath who guided him to the few actions he’d actually taken in service of his cause since the Syzygyc War, including the assassination of Princess Bithia’s father.
The dark one spoke to him in urges, communicated with impulses and visions that Basilisk didn't always understand in the moment. He learned what he must do and his body groaned with acknowledgment as the painful emptiness filled him… Basilisk knew he must act again for his master.
He looked away from the creeping doom that filled the sky and shook his head clear. Basilisk opened a tray and removed a flat, egg-sized stone and his engraving tools. The master commanded a rune be made and delivered—a rune of return.
Basilisk grinned. He did not need to understand in order to obey—but he didn’t also need to obey in order to be obedient. Even though he remained true thus far, he teetered on the cusp of the same sins as his brother Nitthogr, yet Basilisk played the game more expertly than the former, fallen darling of the Veritas.
Besides—the rune would not work anyway. He hadn’t lied when he said he could not return those made of stone. He didn’t understand why, but some component of power was missing; he’d already tried to engineer such a reversal of the stone-form curse many times in the past.
The tarkhūn leader avoided looking directly at the horror in his sky. Ever since claiming the Architect King as his trophy he’d become something else… since that day he’d never fully surrendered to communion with Sh’logath. Perhaps that was the root of division between us brothers, he mused. Basilisk never truly emptied himself for refilling by an outside master—there was always a little sip of Basilisk remaining at the bottom of the cup… and less and less it seemed with each filling.
Wolves of the Tesseract Collection Page 50