Sam gave him a wild-eyed look. “Space.”
“Excuse me?” Wiltshire said.
“Just space. It doesn’t time travel.”
“So you know the guy? Tay-lore told me he was Zabe’s younger brother,” Wiltshire said.
“Zurrah is alive?” Sam exclaimed; he and Shandra exchanged optimistic glances. “Maybe it’s a clue to Zabe’s whereabouts!”
Shandra calmed him down and told their new companion, “Zurrah is not our thief. There is a man, a member of a group called the Heptobscurantum…”
“I’m familiar with them,” Wiltshire interjected.
“Their leader, a Wizard named Jacob Sisyphus, controls one of these machines. They can open holes between places, even between dimensions, but they come at a terrible cost,” she nodded to Sam.
Sam bobbed his head. “I was hooked up to one of the earliest versions, connected to a bleeder contraption. Much like the dimensional gates that power the planeswalking portals that brought that device to you from our mutual friend, it requires blood magic to activate. I can’t imagine the constant supply required for Sisyphus’s continued use of it.”
Shandra shrugged, “Although Respan once hypothesized that it needs less if you have a more potent source, like a prisoner taken from the Prime.”
“Jenner’s father… Professor Jarfig?” Sam speculated.
Shandra nodded.
Wiltshire looked back and forth, not really following the conversation or those names he failed to recognize.
“One thing is certain,” Sam said, “If Sisyphus stole the amulets from our house, they must be reclaimed. If he wants them, it can only be for ill purposes.”
“But after we find Zabe and return to the Prime,” Shandra insisted.
“There might not be a Prime left, if Tay-lore was right,” Wiltshire interrupted what began to feel like a private side conversation.
Sam grimaced. “He must have been wrong. Tay-lore is smart, but not infallible. He can be tricked into certain routines—he’s almost more fallible in that regard.”
“He’s also dead,” Wiltshire reminded him.
“I’m sure you must be mistaken,” Sam stated. Besides, we know that Nitthogr is dead, annihilated by Sh’logath the Devourer. He’s not just dead and gone—he was pulled into a void that lies beyond existence.”
Shandra explained the reluctance to take Wiltshire at his word, “Tay-lore is the last member of homo diurnus, a race that almost defeated humanity in a great war two generations ago. Surely he could fend off an enemy. In that era, it took three of my order, highly trained members of the Merciful Hammer, to take down just one android.”
Wiltshire swallowed the dryness in his throat and turned over the reader. “Beta-lore, play video,” was all he said.
***
Tay-lore only glanced once at the camera that recorded him, as if to say goodbye to those watching his final moments. He turned and began working at Respan’s computer terminal. He composed a message when the mist crept in from the hallway.
The android stood straight and turned to meet the individual who lurked beyond. Shjikara entered the room. “I see you’re reporting on me.”
“No. I was just working on a report to…”
“You’re lying. I can read the message from here. You’re a terrible liar.” The High Priest strolled into the room and read the message aloud. “‘Do not trust Shjikara. He is not what he seems. He is actually…’” He turned to face the automaton. “You did not finish your message. What am I?”
Tay-lore struggled to put his words together. His fear seemed very real, even if he wasn’t supposed to have had emotions. “I was merely…”
“What am I!” Shjikara shut him up with an angry shout.
Tay-lore slumped and admitted. “I saw you. You are Nitthogr.”
No sooner did he say the name than the man’s flesh shifted and took the form of the long-gone sorcerer. Only his one fist remained stone, and he leapt for Tay-lore in a rage.
The robot whirled to his side and unfurled twin laser cannons from each forearm. They blasted with brilliant bolts of energy that passed through the sorcerer who exploded into a mist and instantly reformed into solid mass behind him.
Nitthogr grabbed and hurled Tay-lore across the room with uncanny speed and strength. Tay-lore crashed through a bank of lab equipment. He tried to right himself, but Nitthogr was already upon him, smashing him with his stone fist and driving massive dents into the armored sections of his body.
Tay-lore scrambled and tried to get away, but his enemy tore one of his arms free and chucked it across the room where it toppled a tray full of tech gadgets. “Guards! Someone help,” his monotone voice elevated to broadcast at maximum volume.
“Fool,” Nitthogr laughed as he grappled with him. “I have already cast a spell of silence over this area. None outside this room will hear you.”
The monster leaned in close and gloated. “You all think you are so smart. I broke the Guardian Corps with a simple traitor—and you locked up the wrong one as soon as you suspected him. How it made my heart sing to watch the hope dying in poor Jenner’s eyes… and to know that the traitor was his lover all along? The irony is delicious—even the true Shjikara, as self-centered as he was, would have noticed the shade’s marking and prevented this madness,” the beast cackled as he wrenched on his prisoner’s mechanical joints.
“You did not fool us all,” the automaton insisted. Tay-lore’s servos whined as he tried to break free from Nitthogr’s grasp. With his one remaining arm he grabbed a loose cord and lassoed it around the sorcerer’s neck.
Nitthogr could not free himself without releasing his prey and Tay-lore tightened the cable and began to strangle the villain. The enemy’s arm suddenly burst into a writhing mass of tentacles; they coiled around Tay-lore’s head and each of his knees as they pulled, meeting force with greater force.
Tay-lore actually yelled, cried out with pain simulated by his subroutines. His shriek twisted in pitch and warbled and then suddenly went silent. His chassis gave way and the sorcerer, who was now more a mass of prehensile appendages than anything else cackled, strewing broken parts of the loyal automaton through the room. Whitish effluence bled from his synthetic internal organs and blackened hydraulic fluid sprayed from his limbs in spurts.
Nitthogr drew himself back together and sank to his knees, mounted over Tay-lore’s severed head. The victim’s body laid nearby, ripped open and separated into pieces. Returning to Shjikara’s form, the attacker brought his stone fist down like a club and crushed Tay-lore’s head with a resounding thud.
After wiping himself mostly clean, he composed himself as if nothing had happened. Shjikara wiped all the data banks clean in the lab’s computer terminals. He deleted everything in the system and then smashed it with surprising ease.
The monster looked across the contents of the room to take the final measure of it. His eyes swept over the shelves where the drone rested in what looked to be a deactivated mode. They passed over and took no note of the recording device. Finally, Shjikara turned and left.
A long pause followed. Several minutes passed on the video feed. The lights went out, and then the drone awakened into a fully active mode. It hovered over to the far wall where several vials of blood were racked in a cryosuite; it used a grappler to retrieve one, and then it fled into the night, bearing the last record of Tay-lore and the extinction of homo diurnus.
Vikrum Wiltshire ended the replay mode. Nobody could speak for a few moments after witnessing such violence that the sorcerer had visited upon their friend.
Shandra’s face twisted into a mask of rage. “We’ve got to stop him… that liar! Shjikara is bad enough, but we’ve been dealing with an impostor for who knows how long, now?”
“Yes. We’ll stop him, alright,” Wiltshire insisted, “but let’s do it like he asked. Tay-lore said we’ve got to find Zabe. You saw him, this Nitthogr guy is crazy powerful. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
> “We have a whole army at our disposal,” Shandra insisted, hefting her hammer. “We must planeswalk at the first available portal,” she said.
“Three armies, actually,” Sam said, agreeing with her. He snatched a notebook where he kept a chart detailing the astral alignments.
“You don’t think Tay-lore knew all that? He still insisted I find Zabe. Tay-lore sacrificed himself to make sure I got that message.”
Sam looked Wiltshire in the eyes. They burned with unmatched urgency. “You don’t think I know that? That… that… thing has access to my daughter. Right now, she’s trapped in another dimension and doesn’t know the danger she’s in! I’m going with Shandra, and we’re going to stop that thing. You can come or you can stay—but if Zabe’s not around to protect her, then I will. That’s what fathers do!”
Wiltshire stared Sam down long and hard. Finally he cursed and looked away. “Fine.” He took out and checked his hand gun before re-holstering it. “But you’re going to need all the help you can get.”
Shandra flung open the door. “And then you can help us take down the Heptobscurantum after we stop the sorcerer. I don’t know what part they play in all of this, but I’m pretty tired of this whole damned Sh’logath cult. First we exile Nitthogr, and then we burn them to the ground.”
Wiltshire followed the others outside. “Sounds like a tall order. How bout after that we kill some strigoi? You guys are going to owe me one after all this.”
Chapter 12
The Prime
Oh, Zabe… where are you? Bithia wondered, Everything is falling apart without you!
She stood next to Shjikara at the edge of the carnage in Respan’s lab. The poor scientist had found his friend shortly after dawn. He’d already spent the bulk of the morning with a grief counselor; the savageness of the murder had emotionally ruined the poor inventor.
Several investigators from the military peacekeepers scoured the room, buzzing around Chira, their chief. Tahnak was also on site and Gita had followed as well. The short girl had given Bithia a tearful hug. She shrank back slightly when she spotted Shjikara.
The high priest turned about the room, his face twisted with grief.
Confronted with the barbarity of the murder, the princess teetered between rage and a fugue. She only seemed to catch snippets of conversation between bouts of sheer terror. The murder happened just down the hall from the royal keep. Who could get in here and do this? She glanced sidelong at Shjikara and wondered if Tay-lore’s Veritas sympathies were part of the reason… Tay-lore had accompanied her to that AVA rally—maybe he’d been marked for death because of it?
Tahnak pulled Chira aside and mentioned that the security footage and all logs surrounding the time of death had been deleted. “It may have been someone with rank who is responsible… someone who has system access killed our friend.”
Shjikara leaned in close to Bithia and Claire and speculated, “We can really only trust us three.”
“What about Chira and Tahnak?” Bithia asked, eyeing the two as they talked in the corner of the room, trying to determine motive and method for the murder.
“How well do you really know them?” Shjikara wondered, keeping his voice low. “Tahnak did try to kill you on at least one prior occasion, and Chira’s background is… interesting,” he said as if he had access to secret information.
He knows about Chira’s family, Claire thought.
Shjikara continued, “Were it not for the heavy losses our forces took during Nitthogr’s invasion some time back, he never would have climbed the ranks or even been allowed into the Guardian Corps. His mother and father were excommunicated as heretics by my predecessor.”
Bithia surreptitiously watched Chira. She’d read the dossiers and knew that the part about Chira’s parents was true. He might have been overlooked for service otherwise, but Nitthogr’s invasion did happen, and he was the best they had—battle tested and approved.
“My dear princess,” Shjikara said with words dripping both honey and caution in a grandfatherly way, “You must take care to always guard yourself. There are many who would seek to take advantage of this opportune moment with Zabe’s absence. Keep your friends close.”
I need you Zabe… and you too, Claire…
Chira interrupted her thoughts. “What are we discussing over here?”
“Oh, uh…” Bithia jumbled her words.
Shjikara stepped in for the save. “Tay-lore was a true friend and faithful servant: loyal beyond all doubt. This is a true tragedy,” he said. “I’m wondering if we’ve looked into the domestic terrorism angle. I’ve heard of some anti-Veritas talk in the past,” he eyed Chira knowingly.
Chira stiffened, guessing by the High Priest’s tone that he wondered if Chira had some inside information given his family’s sordid history concerning the AVA. “I promise to look into it,” he stated flatly.
“You know,” Shjikara continued, “Tay-lore had worked closely with us and our agent Shandra on the Trenzlr situation. The AVA is opposed to any vyrm alliances; our kind treatment of the displaced Seeker of Maetha was met with hostility from them ever since news of it leaked to the public.”
“I’m not sure how this connects to…”
Shjikara talked over Chira, directing his words to the princess. “I would feel more comfortable if we could get a member of the Guardian Corps appointed as a liaison between the Veritas and the military? It would help handle these kinds of concerns in a timely fashion? I fear the violence will only increase after… all this,” he nodded his head to the dismembered remains of Tay-lore.
Tahnak had joined them by now. “I think I can make some arrangements.”
“Would you consider Gita, Princess?” Shjikara asked. “Since our meeting, I have come to trust her completely.”
Gita bristled at the request. Standing around the gory scene, nobody noticed.
Bithia barely heard the cleric. She’d been staring at the ruined face of her friend, half-crushed by some blunt object. Bithia waved her hand, absentmindedly granting his simple request.
I know you must have a good reason to remain away for so long, Zabe, but it’s the worst possible timing.
***
Jenner sat on the cot in his cell. The walls were plain. His sheets were drab. Even his prisoner jumpsuit was gray.
He stared at his hands and flexed them, seething with anger. Jenner knew he was innocent—he’d been set up, and now his commanding officer, a man who he looked up to like a brother, believed he was a traitor and a murderer. His eye twitched, and he heard the clanking of steel gates down the hall.
Jenner looked up when the door opened. Gita walked in. As soon as their eyes met, she turned them to the floor.
She still couldn’t look at him. Gita took her seat in the lone chair in the aisle outside of his cell. Only Jenner occupied this wing.
“Gita. Gita, look at me,” Jenner said. “Gita, I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe me.”
She finally swallowed the lump in her throat and reluctantly met his gaze. “I know you’re innocent. I never doubted that.”
Jenner breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you—thank you for believing in me. I’ve just… I need someone to believe that I’m innocent. The statue—whoever was in there was a vyrm shade. I saw the marking clear as day. I don’t know why it disappeared or what happened to it, but I saw it. I know I saw it.”
He looked up and tried to change the subject. “How is everyone… I mean, I assume that Zabe hates me and wants me executed, but everyone else? Our friends?”
Gita looked away again. “Everyone has moved on. Other things have happened. Things have only gotten more insane since you killed Zaha… since you killed the vyrm impostor.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked back again. “Zabe has disappeared. Tay-lore was murdered. Basilisk and Caivev have walked freely inside the castle walls. The AVA have caused riots.” She ticked off names on her hand, “Wulftone, Jackie, Sam, and Shandra are all away fr
om the Prime and have been for weeks, and Princess Claire is… I don’t even know. Things are just… wrong.”
Jenner furrowed his brows. Something didn’t fit right, and he mentally repositioned the pieces; they began to fit right, but only when he entertained ideas he previously thought were impossible. “That sounds like the perfect storm—like a scenario engineered so someone could try to take the crown from Claire.”
“There’s more.” Gita’s voice warbled. “I’m stuck. Someone is making me…”
“Making you what? Who is it? Who’s hurting you?” Fire lit in his belly; Jenner knew he had to protect her—she was all he had left.
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” Gita got up and rushed out of the hallway.
A few seconds passed, and the door clanked open again. “It’s okay, Gita. I want to help—just tell me how,” Jenner called, assuming she’d returned.
It was not Gita who entered but Shjikara. The Veritas leader surprised him for a moment, but it made a certain amount of sense. The nature of his crime made it unlikely Gita could have come to him for a visit… unless someone with power and influence helped make it happen.
As soon as Jenner met Shjikara’s gaze, the final piece fell into place; things suddenly made sense. “It was you, wasn’t it? The marking on the shade was there all along and you hid it!”
Shjikara smiled deviously and made a symbol with his hand to complete a simple, silent spell. The air shimmered briefly and the mysterious incantation took hold.
“You have begun to figure things out, I see. But it is too little too late.” Shjikara’s face looked pained as he spoke, and the cleric massaged his temples.
Jenner howled for the guards. Shjikara watched for several bouts and let the younger man scream himself hoarse. “My spell is quite unbreakable. No sound will pass beyond this room unless I release it.”
“You’re the one behind all of this. You want the throne—you’ve always been an ambitious little pretender.”
The Architect King Page 15
