The Architect King

by Christopher Schmitz

  The big man’s muscles rippled, and he stretched forward, smashing one in the face with a big kick. Other strigoi ducked beneath his massive limbs and clawed for him.

  Sisyphus slashed at them with his kophesh and the pale creatures slunk back towards safety, hurling more ranged blasts at him. The wrestler growled and brought his shields up back in time to block them, but barely, and then he blasted them with elemental energy, alternating between ice and fire, trying to catch the scrambling creatures with an array of magic.

  Strigoi evaded his spells. They crawled across the walls and roof as if gravity meant nothing to them.

  The wrestler cursed. “Tell me where the mirror is!”

  “You will not get it from us,” the strigoi leader hissed as he ducked beneath a ray of flame. He screeched something in a tongue more animal than man. The other strigoi surged forward again.

  Sisyphus groaned as he slashed at one of them. He recognized the tactic: they were testing him, looking for patterns and weaknesses they could exploit. He beat them back again and prepared for the next wave of arcane energy bolts that they blasted him with.

  Raising his shields again, thirteen blasts of pure esoteric energy streaked at him from thirteen different angles in rapid fire succession. With each missile that pummeled his shield, the mystic aegis flickered and the thirteenth one broke through, knocking a surprised Sisyphus backwards. His torso smoked where he had taken the damage.

  Grinning, the strigoi’s spokesman snarled, “Attack!”

  Sisyphus yanked a plastic sack from his jacket pocket and sank his dentally implanted fangs into it, consuming the blood pack he’d drained from his doppelganger, Professor Jarfig. He’d kidnapped him from the Prime dimension after discovering he could amplify his mystic power tenfold or more by siphoning the primal energies. Jarfig’s blood ran down his chin and neck as the faux-vampire sucked down the viscous, red liquid.

  He felt the blood magic swell within him. Every cell in his body brimmed with energy. Sisyphus laughed as his body overflowed with raw power channeled from the Prime dimension. He’d baited the strigoi into overplaying their hand. Without hesitation he unleashed a massive blast of preternatural fire that incinerated his closest enemy, burning him to ash and cinder as the other strigoi scrambled to evade a similar fate.

  The wrestler poured energy into the handle of his mystic kophesh and reached out with his senses. He grabbed the next nearest enemy with a telekinetic grip. Sisyphus cocked his head as if working a kink from his neck and broke the vertebrae below his enemy’s skull.

  “Where is my mirror?” Sisyphus roared with a voice that boomed like thunder and echoed down the lengths of the long cave. He dropped the crippled solomonari and stomped on his chest, pressing him against” the stone floor.

  He stretched out again with his telekinetic powers and tried to tear the books from all their shelves, but they caught on the chains that bound them to the armariums inset within the carved walls.

  Beneath his foot, the creature groaned. Paralyzed but not dead, he gasped pained heaves as he spoke. “It… it is not here. We’ve not possessed it for one hundred and fifty years.”

  “Hmmm,” Sisyphus brooded momentarily.

  The pause proved just enough of an opening for the Scholomance to snatch their friend and drag him to safety. With a quick invocation, they dissolved into mist and evaporated, fleeing beyond Sisyphus’s reach.

  He meandered through their private chamber, still sensing their nearby presence like a foul order. After a brief inspection of the sparsely appointed room, he rattled off a string of curses.

  “The puny wizard wasn’t lyin. It ain’t here,” he turned an arc with a scowl. He wanted to smash something, but there wasn’t much in the place that was not made of stone. He shook his head and spat profanities into the darkness until he calmed down. The surge of raw power coursing through him from Jarfig’s blood soon evened off and tapered down to its normal levels.

  Sisyphus touched the tender, blistering spot on his chest where the strigoi wizard had blasted him and laughed to himself, “Yeah… I gotta get me one of those darque-matter amulets to take the edge off those attacks.” He stared into the darkness. “Cuz this ain’t over, Doc. We ain’t done until we find that artifact… and whoever’s got that mirror is probably meaner and nastier than this nest of strigoi, if that’s even possible.”

  He turned and walked back towards the dimensional gate where Walther waited. “We’ll find it, Doc—but if the Scholomance don’t have it, we’re back to square one… luckily I’ve got plenty of plans for the meanwhile.”

  Walther enlarged the gate slightly to make sure that it was easily passable. Touching the seams between worlds would prove dangerous, even fatal, as they’d seen in the past. The scientist asked, “Was attacking the Scholomance directly wise?”

  Sisyphus shrugged. “I think I’ve proved my point to them—chased em right out of their house. We won’t see them for a while,” he grinned. “I’ll track them down one at a time and eliminate them at my pleasure. They’re already down one of their number… maybe two.”

  The wrestler nodded to the scientist, and he closed the gate. As soon as it winked out of existence, the shadows melted and turned back into the Solomonari. All but their leader returned to their lecturns. They reset their desks and resumed writing.

  With a hiss, the chief strigoi threatened, “That is what you think, Mister Sisyphus.”

  He whirled on his heel and headed towards the deeper darkness of the subterranean tunnel. “Continue your work,” he rested his taloned hands on the shoulders of their youngest member, a cadaverous, gaunt man with a freshly shaven head, “especially you.”

  “Yes, Weathermaker.” He began dutifully scribing texts.

  The Weathermaker stalked into the shadows that descended deeper into the mountain. “I go to awaken the dragon.”

  ***

  The Prime

  The doors to the throne room opened and someone announced Chira’s arrival. Bithia didn’t yet raise her eyes from the file which Tahnak had grudgingly delivered her. It contained everything that Tahnak had uncovered about the AVA.

  His files indicated a bunch of things—chiefly that it had been run by an extended family who had tried on more than one occasion to incite violence that had only been shut down by accident or direct military intervention. The envelope contained a spread of photos from the leadership’s family tree. One photo stared up at her: Chira’s.

  She understood why Tahnak had been so loathe to give her the documents. They seemed a damning report against his friend. Tahnak had even written a few notes in margins where he disagreed with the findings or data that seemed to implicate Chira might know more about the AVA than he let on.

  Bithia closed the binder as her military commander waited, standing at attention. “Thank you for answering my summons,” she said. “I am certain that you are quite busy preparing for the arrival of our guests who will arrive shortly.”

  Chira nodded curtly, as if he very much wanted to get back to that work.

  Bithia studied him. She knew that he took great pride in his work; despite their recent adventures together, she did not know his family, and she’d never heard him mention them. Then again, a good spy never would.

  She sighed. Bithia rarely had need to worry about subterfuge before. It was notoriously difficult to spy on a psychic, though not impossible. She’d already grown tired of the festering cloak and dagger activity that seemed to loom around the shadows of the throne.

  “I will make this quick, then,” she said. “I want the military to be on special guard against this group called the AVA. You might use the Guardian Corps as additional resources if necessary, though I’ll still need them for personal protection detail when the vyrm arrive.”

  “Princess?” The look on his face revealed it all, he wasn’t sure that she’d considered the AVA much of an issue until now.

  “What do you know about them?”

  Chira set his jaw. “They
are activists. They hate the Veritas, that much is plain just from their title, and they hate the vyrm.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  Chira frowned and then nodded. “Not as of yet. But I do think that they have the potential to become homegrown terrorists. There is too much hate in them for anything else.”

  “I suspected as much,” Bithia said. “Make sure you clear out anybody associated with the AVA before our diplomats arrive. Use force if necessary; lock them up if you have to, but I don’t want them on the streets when the vyrm diplomats arrive. If the envoy suspects weakness at all on our part, they might view us as having lesser bargaining power… and we need all that we can get.”

  Chira raised an eyebrow.

  Bithia leaned forward conspiratorially. “We are trying to talk our way out of a war that has been raging for generations. I won’t let the threats of violence forced on us by someone else to hold us in a conflict which will certainly require more of the same. If the vyrm are truly considering peace with the Prime, I want to give those negotiations every chance to succeed.”

  The princess looked Chira up and down and wondered again about her family. For the first time since losing her psychic ability, she felt the black gnawing of paranoia in her gut.

  “As you order, Princess Claire,” Chira stated formally. “We will not allow this so-called Anti-Veritas Alliance to ruin the peace that we all so desperately want.”

  She saluted Chira and dismissed him. Bithia picked up the file and opened it so that no one else in her presence could see her face. She missed Zabe, but right now—maybe more so, even—she missed her ability to read a mind, sense truth, and do all those other minor feats she’d taken for granted most of her life.

  Bithia bit back a frustrated tear that tried to escape. Claire had been right about how much she valued her abilities.

  ***

  Basilisk and Caivev, the royal couple from the Desolation realm, appeared in a flash and a whiff of ozone. A retinue of scaled bodyguards and envoys accompanied them at the main dimensional gate that lay a short distance from the royal palace. A large contingent of the Prime’s Royal Army met them there, flanked by soldiers from the Guardian Corps and a cluster of Veritas members from its warrior class.

  Yardi and Chira stepped forward to greet Basilisk and Caivev. Yardi bowed, swallowing his pride and trying to overlook the fact that Caivev had once been a chief antagonist and enemy of his people. For many of the residents of the Prime, Yardi knew she would always be considered an enemy… but that is the barrier that these diplomatic meetings were supposed to smooth over.

  Chira, representing the Prime’s Royal Army, remained thin-lipped and followed suit. Yardi’s cybernetic leg, lost as a result of Caivev’s most recent campaign against them, whined on its servos as he turned to show them the way.

  “Princess Claire,” Shjikara announced as they drew near a pavilion that they’d erected in advance of the historic meeting, “may I present Basilisk and his wife, Caivev.”

  The vyrm forces gave a curt, respectful bow to her. Those attendees from the Prime did likewise for the vyrm leaders. Neither Bithia nor Basilisk and Caivev bowed. It was against protocol for royalty to bend a knee to any other.

  “Please approach,” said Bithia who sat at a table where the two groups could come to terms and discuss future relations: an avenue that Basilisk had sought out just prior to his engagement to the Prime’s enemy, Caivev. Bithia hid her frown. If Basilisk had attached himself to Caivev sooner, she might have denied him an audience—or at least Claire might have done so. The discussions had opened under Claire’s authority… before Bithia seized control. She pushed away the dark cloud that tried to cast a pall across her emotions; this was no time to dwell on her mistakes or her secret feelings.

  Taking seats alongside of her were Shjikara and Tahnak, whose trials in the Darque alongside Claire and Zabe had given him a unique perspective—despite that perspective having caused him to attempt murdering her. Tahnak look uncomfortable for his place at such a high appointment. His eye twitched with a nervous, unstable energy.

  Bithia wished again, and not for the last time, that she knew where Zabe had gone; he should have occupied Tahnak’s seat. A hollow feeling deepened in her gut, exasperating her sense of abandonment. Zabe should have been here for this—or maybe even Sam, Claire’s father. Even Wulftone would have brought her comfort. Instead, her closest companions at the moment were her previously attempted murderer, a religious leader who felt as sleazy as a snake-oil salesman, and an emotionless automaton. Tay-lore stood just behind her, ready to consult from a perspective devoid of emotion or logical fallacy if objectivity was required.

  She actually liked Tay-lore’s presence; he’d faithfully watched over her and her family for decades. Bithia smoothed the wrinkles from her royal gown and put on as much of an air of royalty and diplomacy as possible.

  Caivev and her husband took seats opposite her. Basilisk looked momentarily puzzled at Shjikara’s presence. His eyes flitted to the high priest’s stone hand and then away. As directed by Sh’logath, he had placed a rune in the man’s fist prior to turning him to stone. How Shjikara had been mostly reverted to flesh was unknown to him, and Basilisk did not like to operate in a knowledge vacuum.

  “Today we are gathered to discuss opening a possible trade alliance,” Bithia said. “We ought to set forth some boundaries and recommendations if we move forward. Of course, all of this is predicated on the ratification of our formal military truce—something more than a simple cease-fire.” She narrowed her eyes at Caivev. This woman had once nearly been a bridesmaid in Claire’s wedding. That ceremony had never happened because of her betrayal.

  Caivev, for her part, looked bored to be present. Her role as the wife of Basilisk required her presence, but it was plain to see that she would rather be anywhere else.

  Basilisk bobbed his head. “That is assumed and agreed upon. We have items that would benefit the Prime and the Prime has vital materials which could help redevelop the wastelands into a thriving agricultural base, just as it was when I and my brother discovered it, millennia ago.”

  Bithia bit her tongue, choosing not to point out that Basilisk and Nitthogr’s intervention had been the root of the woes for that realm. The vyrm had once called their home Edenya, prior to its change into the Desolation under the brothers’ guidance.

  Shjikara leaned forward and interjected a new condition to the terms. His solid fist clunked on the table as he set it down. “As a gesture of good faith, you must return all of the statues in your famous Statue Garden. We are aware that it is filled with prisoners you have taken throughout the years: men and women you have turned to stone and locked in eternal stasis. Such a fate is worse than death and we demand they be returned to us so I may seek their restoration.”

  Bithia batted her eyelashes in surprise. It seemed like a smart request, one which she had not thought of. She nodded, agreeing to his suddenly added condition. After Zabe’s father, she’d learned of the eternal torment the victims of petrification endured.

  Basilisk looked coyly at Shjikara and grinned. The master strategist recognized that they’d entered a new phase of the game—one in which he no longer knew the rules—but he was ever willing to play. “All of the statues?”

  Shjikara nodded enthusiastically, letting his jowls flap. “Of course.”

  “You know that my garden also includes political enemies of my own: vyrm who have plotted against me, both from the Black and the Tarkhūn factions. There are hundreds of statues and it would be difficult to distinguish which was which. Are you prepared to take them all?”

  Bithia looked to Shjikara who agreed. He explained, “After Trenzlr the Maethan spent time with us in our monastery, we have come to know some of the vyrm ways. I am willing to accept them and make those decisions at a later time.”

  Basilisk bowed his head with measured reluctance. “As you wish. Arrangements for their delivery will be made.” His eyes lingered again on the ston
e fist that encapsulated the rune he’d placed there. He wondered just what the high priest had in mind. And why did Sh’logath insist I deposit the Rune of Return there?

  “And the statue of the Architect King as well,” Bithia tried to tack on to the agreement.

  Basilisk paused and then shook his head. “That is impossible. He and I made an agreement upon the field of battle. That pact is personal, and he is in my keeping until an appointed time. I cannot surrender him without breaking my word—my agreement was to keep him safe and in my custody as long as I could ensure his protection and the terms of our arrangement were met. I’m not yet certain that the Prime is any safer than Limbus.”

  Bithia’s demeanor darkened, but the tone he’d spoken with implied that he would not be moved on the topic. Besides, the return of the other statues was already a political victory. “Alright, then. Back to matters of diplomacy and trade relations…”

  But her mind drifted back to Basilisk’s words and tone. He was renowned for his spy network and access to information. Bithia was sure that the vyrm leader knew of the brewing unrest and the AVA—there was little else she could suspect would make the Prime less safe than the Desolation.

  ***

  Gita stood in the overgrown glade outside of a dilapidated house. Vines wove through the bramble and knots of wild sumac where unchecked growth had begun reclaiming the abandoned property in the short amount of time that passed since the owners met their unfortunate end.

  She sank to her knees between the statues where they’d been frozen only a short distance from the silent house. Their forms were locked in terrified repose as they tried to flee.

  Gita frowned. “I don’t know what to do, Mom.” Her eyes shifted to her father and then her older and younger sibling. Gita was as old as her brother, now, and her sister might remain a toddler forever. She knew she’d give anything for a chance to talk with them again—to be a family one more time.

  Her mother did not answer, of course. Only a small breeze whistled through the reeds behind her.