Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  “Law?”

  Trenzlr shrugged. “As much as they are denizens of ultimate chaos, they are bound by rules which only they obey—and maybe only they know. I believe Akko Soggathoth is in charge only because he was the first to be released from his prison by a foolhardy band of cultists.”

  “And the ‘Mother’ and ‘Father?’”

  “The original high priest and priestess of Mae’le-ggath… the original cult of Sh’logath worship that formed when the vyrm walked away from Maetha. It’s more of an honorific than anything else.”

  Wulftone’s hopes perked up. “Will they have to listen to them—is there a chance that we could somehow kidnap or impersonate someone they must obey?”

  Trenzlr grimaced and shook his head. “No. Mother and Father were sacrificed long ago—centuries before my people discovered the breach and entered Edenya… back when we, too, were creatures of the Darque. Even if that line continued, it would’ve ended generations ago with the Thousand Elders of Neggath.”

  Shjikara walked past them as the rest of the Veritas prepared to head into war with the Guardian Corps and the military. Four clerics followed on his heels.

  Wulftone called out, “Where are you going?”

  The leader of the Order paused and looked at him as if deciding whether or not he owed him an explanation. “The Veritas fight with you. I cannot. There are reasons that I must remain inside our halls—things I’ve been away from for too long, even now. I must return and maintain a skeleton crew to protect the sacred monastery grounds.”

  Wulftone watched the leader go. True, the Veritas had helped his family during the last invasion of the Prime, but he'd never been fond of Shjikara who seemed to loathe fighting for the things that were truly important—and it was always Wulftone and Zabe's family who ended up paying the price for his reluctance.

  ***

  Jackie leaned over the rail of the hospital bed and clutched Gita’s hand as the doctors tested the tissue around the blaster wound. The young girl’s breathing came in ragged gasps.

  "I'm sorry this happened to you, Gita," Jackie said. With a final squeeze, she set her friends hand down.

  She asked the doctor, “Is she going to make it?”

  With a tight-lipped shrug, the doctor treaded between cold practicality and positive bedside manner. "I really have no idea. The tissue damage is deep. I'm most worried about electrical damage to the central nervous system—she might seem to be in relatively good health, and then experience total organ failure out of the blue." He tsk-tsked and shook his head. "Things were simpler before these blaster weapons became the norm—I might actually miss the good old days of swords and arrows."

  Jackie nodded and thanked the doctor. She stood and took two steps from the door when Gita spoke.

  “Hey. Where do you think you’re going,” she rasped groggily.

  Jackie turned around and took Gita’s hand again. “I’m heading back to the battle. We have one final chance to stop him—to shut down whatever this demon Akko Soggathoth is.”

  “Hold on,” Gita said with heavily lidded eyes. “Lemme grab my stuff. I’m coming, too.”

  Jackie shook her head. “No. Stay and rest.”

  “Rest? Pfft. If you’re going, I’m going.”

  “You just got shot!”

  With a chuckle, she lamented, "How come I always hafta be the one who gets shot?" She opened her eyes and tried to angle her head enough to look at her chest. "No wonder I feel so awful… wait. Who the heck shot me? We weren’t fighting anything with guns.”

  Jackie looked away sheepishly. “Jenner.”

  Gita groaned. “Crap. Here I thought he might’ve been sweet on me… hashtag relationship goals, right? Did he at least make it out alive so that I can return the favor?”

  Jackie laughed through a few tears of joy, even though her friend butchered the usage of the earth phrase. “Yeah. He’s just down the hall. He would’ve sealed the Darquegate on his own—had we arrived thirty seconds sooner. But he’s in pretty rough shape, too.”

  “Great. If you come back and learn someone smothered him in his hospital bed I may ask you to be my alibi.”

  Jackie smiled. “I’ve really got to go now. In twenty minutes every soldier we can muster is going to charge against that monster and burn him to the ground. Sh’logath will never rise while we live.”

  Groggily, Gita growled, “Well, not every soldier. Gita, Jenner, and the Veritas will stay back and mind the fort.” She spat the last one.

  “Actually, no. Even the Veritas have finally turned out against the enemy.”

  Gita blinked with surprise and even perked up for a second. “Well… that’s a shocker.”

  Jackie almost had to push her back down. She didn’t want her friend to overexert herself and she’d heard more than enough times about the girl’s resentment of the Order; she felt they had abandoned the Prime during Nitthogr’s invasion.

  “You know, my parents would still be alive if they’d acted during the last battle.”

  “I know,” Jackie kissed her forehead in order to plant her back into her pillow. “But I’ve still got to get back. The battle won’t wait for me. I’ll be back soon.”

  “You’d better be,” Gita warned her. “You’re the only family I’ve got left.”

  ***

  Charobv’s thoughts went out to his son, Chartarra. He hadn’t heard from him in a long while and could only assume he had died in battle. With the alliance formed between The Black and the Tarkhūn forces, he wouldn’t have been under deep cover or on any sensitive mission against Basilisk’s agents any longer. He frowned.

  General Nyagittari slapped his lieutenant on the shoulder. Charobv was the only other one in the vehicle with Kreephast, so they could talk freely. Together they’d invented Nyagittari and engineered a revolution out of the preexisting civil unrest. “What’s the matter?”

  Charobv shook off the dour mood. “Nothing—I’m excited that the Awakening is finally at hand… it’s just that I had hoped others would be with to watch it come to pass.”

  Kreephast feigned a wounded ego. “I see. If the great General Nyagittari is not good enough company for you, then I don’t know how I’ll be able to cope.”

  His longtime friend and accomplice punched him back with a laugh. Suddenly, everyone near the Crag began moving forward as if something had happened.

  Kreephast put binoculars to his face and stared across the distance. The two vyrm had the advantage of height from their place inside the cab of the missile truck and he was able to catch a glimpse of a metallic, egg-like device as it crackled with lightning-like energy. Suddenly, amidst the crawling arcs of electricity, a second egg appeared alongside the first.

  “What in the thirty-three worlds…”

  Chapter 22

  “Please, stay back,” Tay-lore begged the humans. They gave the synthetic man a wide berth as he finished assembling the large, elongated silver orb upon the portal location. “I would hate to make a mistake and have others pay the price." He twisted a few loose wires together and replaced the control panel; even though his origins were mechanical in nature, he was not immune to error—in that regard, he was just like everybody else.

  The input controls lit up and Tay-lore set a count-down timer. Hurrying, he took the second, similar orb and did likewise—offering up a brief prayer for his own safety as he activated weapon number two. Tay-lore synchronized the timers and waived to Yardi who began walking towards the edge of the mustered troops.

  Zabe caught his one-legged officer in a firm grasp. “Be careful. Be safe.”

  Yardi winced as he winked, despite the pain in his mangled face. "I volunteered for this because I'm probably the least likely to have any significant impact on the coming fight," he said, limping towards the Worldgate on a cybernetic leg he'd barely gotten the feel for.

  Zabe nodded, understanding his meaning. If something went wrong—Yardi knew he was more expendable than th
e next able body in this important fight. “That’s unlikely, but I agree with risk mitigation—even if it should be me at the front.”

  Yardi stumbled as he walked backward towards the set of bombs as nonchalantly as possible. He used a dagger to cut his palm. "That's where we disagree. You're too important to take the risk—even if it is only minimal."

  Zabe knew Yardi was right. He’d told Bithia and Claire that exact same thing countless times… and yet she stood beside him, prepared to rush into battle even now.

  Tay-lore returned to his spot at the edge of the battle line next to Bithia and Jackie. “The timer is set on both devices. The bio-EMP should detonate twenty seconds after arrival.”

  His species had specifically designed a weapon capable of disrupting the electrical signals traveling through the nervous systems of biological creatures. It was the machines’ answer to the electromagnetic pulse devices the humans had built to use against Tay-lore’s brethren. Because the humans had finished their design first, the bio-EMP never saw the light of day. “Weapon number two will go off half a minute later.

  Bithia gave a cold nod. “If this works, you may have saved us all, Tay-lore.”

  “I merely gave you a fighting chance,” he stated, trying to keep his voice devoid of any emotion. In truth, Tay-lore hated violence and it bothered him to play even this part in the conflict. He glanced at Bithia and felt an internal pain that convinced him he had a soul; he would violate every part of his emotional programming if it meant keeping his princess safe.

  At the edge of the portal platform, Yardi walked to the ancient stone plinths and touched his bloody hand to a set of runes etched upon it. A second later, the egg-shaped devices shimmered and disappeared.

  ***

  With a host of supporters at her back, Caivev made the arcane hand gestures in front of the blood-painted door at the heart of her buried temple. The musty smell of the deep intermingled with the tang of the fresh blood.

  A drained body lay discarded and blanched in the corner; it hadn’t been necessary to drench the door with so much that it killed the victim, but it brought pleasure to Akko Soggathoth. Six more local men and women, kidnapped from the nearest village, cowered nearby where they’d been shackled into a chain gang by heavy leg irons.

  Andrew Thornton gasped with pleasure as the mystically-sealed Gates of Koth opened. The oil baron joined Percival Wainsmith and Jacob Sisyphus as representatives from the Heptobscurantum. The rest of the Illuminati met to privately celebrate the Awakening on their own.

  Sisyphus pressed a small talisman into his two peers’ palms. “An insurance policy to protect you,” he mumbled, keeping his voice low, but not really caring if he’d been overheard or not.

  The other two members of the Seven tied the leather thong around their neck and let the twisted hunk of darquematter dangle just below their neckline. They were well-versed enough in arcane mechanics to predict that the alien metal would help prevent possession by the spirits of the Darque. Sisyphus clearly had contingencies covered and didn’t want his core team pressed into service alongside those other six souls clad in chains.

  Akko Soggathoth led the way into the Darque with his minion, Theera, in tow. The undead vyrm toted the book with the darquematter seal and carried a large, gilded reliquary box upon his back like a Sherpa.

  They entered the Darque Temple of Koth. A macabre collection of vyrm soldiers greeted them at the door; part of Caivev’s earlier team that had been abandoned at the Island of the Dolls, they had been trapped in tortured poses where they’d tried to escape through the locked door of Kith. One of the chaotic waves of energy had transmuted them into living crystal, much like the Stone Glaive’s ability which Basilisk had commandeered.

  The goatman walked past and pushed one over with a snicker. It tipped and then shattered against the stone floor, releasing a kind of ghostly form into the air. It shifted transparent like a reflection in a smudged window. The thing faded away and wandered towards the Darquelands as if drawn by an unseen river’s current.

  “This way,” Akko Soggathoth said, guiding them through the winding tunnels. He seemed intimately familiar with the layout. The party followed him through corridors lit by a faint glow emanating from patches of bioluminescent moss.

  As the ground lilted upwards they turned several corners until they came to a central chamber where various ancient religious artifacts and writings laid. Doors to either side mirrored the time-locked cells in the Kith temple. Nobody turned aside to see if they worked—who knew what might lurk inside.

  Akko Soggathoth paused momentarily and glanced down the long hallway which led to the surface of the Darque. Violet lightning flashed at the end of the tunnel and flashes of crimson burned the sky as a fiery hailstorm dropped molten chunks of slag beyond the aperture. He turned and went through the other door behind the party and continued the ascent through a set of winding stairs.

  At the flat peak of the pyramid, their door opened to reveal a crown of obsidian spires. They glowed with deeply etched sigils. A slow, churning ring of stone hung in the sky overhead; black, eldritch chains hung in the upper firmament and locked the shimmering portal in the fell heavens where the rips of energy zigged and zagged in the shape of the seven-pointed star. The Nihil Bridge.

  “It’s beautiful,” Thornton whispered as the party approached the circle carved into the stone pavement. Seven blank, circular spaces were drawn outside the main etching—each one awaited a Brother of the Winnowing.

  Theera ran on ahead, leading the chain gang to the center of the zone where they cowered beneath the twisting circle of chains and ether. He met his master’s gaze and set down a package he’d been lugging on his back. The ark-style golden box boasted a mount for the book; he cracked open the heavy tome and rested it on the crook before silently slinking away.

  “It is time to begin the rituals of the Winnowing,” Akko Soggathoth howled to the sky which responded with a peal of thunder. He signaled to Theera who traced a symbol over the heart of the lead captive on the tether and then unlocked his cuffs.

  "Akko Nuggezeth," the goatman called forth as the freed man tried to bolt. The sigil on the opened page of the codex burst into a black cloud. It struck the man like a viper and consumed him, making him into the avatar of Akko Nuggezeth. He turned and sneered at the others with empty, ebon eyes. In his human form, he caught Idrakka with his baleful gaze and scowled.

  Idrakka allowed himself a grin of his own. He hadn’t forgotten the creature’s threats in the Antarctic tomb where he’d bested the demigod.

  Akko Nuggezeth turned away from the vyrm and walked purposefully across the seven-pointed stage. He transformed into a rotting goat form hybrid similar to his brother’s and he took his place in the center of one of the tertiary rings.

  Jacob Sisyphus watched with rapt interest as the demigod used his own blood to draw his sigil at the base of his circular post. Gleaming, mystic chains snapped up from the seal and latched onto the daemon like squid taking prey.

  Nothing would stop the Awakening this time.

  ***

  Kreephast and Charobv watched their men stationed just below on the ridge. They reacted to the sudden appearance of the two odd items. Suddenly, one of the devices erupted in a brilliant burst of crackling energy. The white shockwave washed over the mustered troops knocking any biological creatures unconscious. Any persons caught in the surge crumpled like a bundle of sticks. Countless birds fell from the sky and fell to the ground seconds later like a rain of avian corpses, smacking the ground with a steady rhythm.

  As soon as the bio-EMP detonation erupted it seemed to fade, knocking out the bulk of Nyagittari’s front line. “What just happened?” Charobv screamed, glancing at the clock and noting the time. Both vyrm knew their enemy was to blame and so they activated the electronic locks on the missile truck. “The cab is bullet and blaster proof, right?”

  Kreephast nodded confidently.

  The phony General N
yagittari grabbed the mouthpiece for his loudspeaker. “All troops—stand by for enemy incursion.” He could see the sudden panic in the eyes of his faux countrymen who suddenly realized their General had not lost his mind: demons were about to invade from some hellish dimension! “Prepare to use the high tech weapons my scientists developed,” he lied about the vyrm technology he’d smuggled in from the Black’s caches.

  Kreephast snapped the binoculars up to his face and spotted a lone figure standing upon the portal site in the Crag. A massive werewolf who hefted an unmistakable stone blade taunted the enemy and took a lay of the land. “It’s Zabe—the Royal protector.”

  Charobv snatched the missile control unit and prepped the weapon on the mobile launching rail. “All troops, prepare for battle as soon as I launch the first assault!” He watched eagerly with his finger on the launch button, just waiting for a group of people to enter the earth realm so he could obliterate as many as possible with their opening salvo.

  Suddenly, the second egg erupted in a crackling blue bubble of energy, larger than the first—and with a bigger radius. Charobv gasped and smashed the launch button just as the electromagnetic pulse rushed for them and with Kreephast screaming, “No!” He tried to bat the launch system away before the ignition could be initiated—but too late.

  The launch sequence fired up just as the enemies began pouring in from the Prime and the distinctive EMP blast washed over their vehicle. Charobv pushed his fellow vyrm off of him.

  “What have you done?” Kreephast demanded with alarm in his voice.

  Charobv looked at his ally nodding towards the growing group of enemies as they began pouring through the planeswalking gate. He grinned wickedly as he thought he spotted Claire Jones breach the rift and stand within the Crag. “The missiles are shielded against EMP countermeasures.”

  Kreephast turned to look over his back at the rocket as the boosters rumbled and began to power up. “Yeah! But the rest of the truck isn’t—including the transport lock mechanisms!”