The Architect King

by Christopher Schmitz

  “Oh, it’s worse than that,” Shjikara said. His features melted away and revealed his true form.

  “Nitthogr,” Jenner hissed. “Are you here to kill me?”

  He rubbed his temple again and resumed Shjikara’s form. “No. Sh’logath does not wish it—I am here for my own pleasure alone.” He met Jenner’s eyes and drank in the prisoner’s anguish. “I am here because your suffering brings me joy, and once the Awakening begins, all will be burned away, including even that joy.” He massaged his forehead again, trying to stave off the punishment Sh’logath inflicted upon him for taking personal pleasure in something outside of his direct commands.

  “We’ll stop you. I’ll get out of here and I’ll put an end to this madness once and for all!” Jenner howled at the sorcerer who’d begun to leave.

  Shjikara turned and spoke over his shoulder. “How will you do that? Besides me, you’ve only had one visitor this whole time. You think little Gita can help you? She’s your only outside connection.”

  “She’s stronger than you know, she is fierce and she is loyal.”

  The fake priest laughed so hard he had to put a hand on the wall to prevent collapsing. He looked Jenner in the eyes. “You haven’t figured it out yet? The identity of the traitor? It was Gita all along.”

  Panic and despair shocked Jenner into silence. It destroyed his remaining defiance and any spirit of hope he clung to.

  Shjikara turned and left. Shutting the door behind him, he addressed the two guards posted by his hall. “He is quite mad, I think. Raving about conspiracies. I think the boy has lost his mind.”

  The guards shrugged. Neither had formed an opinion; it was beyond the scope of their jobs.

  “Are you both faithful adherents?”

  “Yes sir,” they both responded. Shjikara was the most recognizable figure in the Prime’s religious field.

  “Excellent. You are both doing good work here. I shall praise you to the crown.” He shot a skeptical look backwards at the door to Jenner’s hall. “The murderer’s connections may go deeper than we suspect; he could be in league with terrorists such as the AVA. Make sure you keep him in isolation unless I send word otherwise.”

  Both guards nodded and snapped to attention.

  Shjikara returned the nod, bid them farewell, and departed.

  ***

  The Desolation

  Chartarra and Trenzlr plus two other rovers walked along the barren wasteland ridge. They did not need to carry much for supplies, but Klewdahar had insisted that they take a churdachk.

  The rat-like beast carried their packs with ease. Churdachk had adapted to the harsh climate of the realm and thrived where so many other creatures had failed; many vyrm had domesticated them and even used them as mounts. As excellent climbers, the creatures could go where few others could.

  The vyrmic party had made excellent time, due in part to their relative youth and tenacity. In the hazy distance, Limbus loomed before them.

  Chartarra asked, “Have any of you been to Limbus before?”

  None of them had ever gone beyond its outskirts, past the refuse holes where they sometimes scavenged. Even then, they were always fearful in the shadow of the city.

  “You should all follow my lead,” Chartarra said. He swallowed hard, hoping he fared better this time than last. He’d only been to Limbus once before and it had cost him his life… but also had it given back to him.

  The travelers kept to themselves and bartered in the lower districts to swap out their clothes for something less readily identifiable as Maethan garb. Their mission demanded some level of secrecy.

  Each day for two days they swapped watchers and camped near the main road into the Imperial Citadel, where Basilisk and Caivev lived. After two day’s worth of watching, they finally ascertained which of the rooms belonged to Caivev.

  They watched a commotion around them on the far side of the citadel’s gated wall with curiosity. A large, wheeled platform carried Basilisk’s most prized possession away from his home. The statue of the Architect King was being returned to the Prime as part of an arrangement with Princess Claire. They’d heard some buzz about it as they purchased new clothes in the proletariat sector at the edge of town. Most of the population felt indifferent, either way regarding the statue, but some of the Black were upset that it might demonstrate weakness on the part of the vyrm. They also seemed to resent Basilsk for his role in representing their voice at all.

  With Caivev’s window identified, Chartarra got to work. He used a laser signal and aimed it at her window. He tapped a message out, repeating the pulse signal with a code used by the Black Army since before Nitthogr had taken the Prime. He knew that she would recognize it instantly.

  Your loyal servant and soldier of The Black Army has returned from the dead. Meet me outside the servant gate. Come alone.

  After repeating the loop for what seemed like ages, they finally spotted the Empress sneaking out of the castle. She looked over her shoulder repeatedly and made her way past the gates unnoticed.

  Trenzlr waved to her and Caivev pulled up her hood, trying to remain inconspicuous. Chartarra pulled Trenzlr’s arm down.

  “Not like that. You draw too much attention. She would have found us. We are already out of place here in the Tarkhūn district.”

  Trenzlr shrugged an apology as Caivev wandered over to their cluster.

  She took stock of each of their faces. None were familiar until she came to Chartarra’s.

  He nodded when she recognized him. “It is I, the son of Charobv.”

  She greeted him. “You live, despite your mission.”

  Chartarra lowered his head. He’d previously been an assassin, trained by his father who had been a general in her army. During one foray, he’d been sent to murder Basilisk. “I failed in my mission,” he admitted, “and there was a cost.” He pulled aside his tunic to display the wounds he’d taken after Basilisk had discovered him. “I assume that, given current politics, the mission has ended.”

  Caivev nodded curtly.

  “How is my father? He was always opposed to working with Tarkhūn.”

  “He died in my service,” Caivev said flatly.

  Chartarra nodded, thin lipped. He tried to hide his disappointment. “Then there is no risk in my coming to you and you’ll know that nobody has leveraged me into this.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You have a purpose in coming now, or is this mere devotion?”

  Chartarra agreed. “Devotion, yes, but not to the Black or to Sh’logath. My devotion is to you… Empress.” The word felt odd, coming from his lips. The Black had always served a ruler, appointed by the heads of the five Black vyrm tribes, but only the Tarkhūn had ever had an emperor and empress.

  Caivev stood waiting for the message. She was no-nonsense, a trait valued by the Black.

  “I have abandoned the service of Sh’logath,” he confessed. “I’ve found new meaning and purpose—a new god to serve, one who spared me and sent me to you.” Chartarra expressed his uneasiness with the Great Devourer and his uncertainty that the Awakening was the right path. “The Seekers have told me older legends and they tell older tales than even those told by Kadrist the prophet. Rasthakka, Kadrist’s philosophical opponent always said that the Maetha would come from a royal line.”

  Caivev crossed her arms. “I know some of the old tales. What are you getting at?”

  “You are now royalty, Caivev. You are Empress,” Chartarra said. “There is another prophecy, a new prophecy given by the rovers’ prophet, this one’s cousin,” he pulled Trenzlr forward to vouch. “The new prophecy is that a Maetha will be dunnischkte.”

  She bit her lip. “You think I am going to be this Maetha, the one who paves the way for the restoration of Edenya? I’ve been no friend to the rovers; I have hunted and killed them for sport.”

  Chartarra cocked his head. “Is there cause to hate the Seekers? They only seek. They… we only want to see restoration rather than annihilation. It’s been said that you
and Basilisk have sought to unify the race. Kadrist’s teachings would say that unification is achieved by purification: destroying all but one line, the Black or the Tarkhūn. You can’t follow Kadrist’s teachings if you merged the two. But Rasthakka…”

  She held up a hand to talk him down. “I do not hate the Seekers,” she admitted with a sigh and looked around to make sure no one else could hear. “I have my own reasons. But I too have reevaluated my loyalty to Sh’logath.”

  Before Chartarra could excitedly continue, she stayed him with a hand. “But know that I am no Maetha. Your prophet could be wrong. Prophesies are rarely exact in their symbolism.”

  “How do you plan to stop Nitthogr, if you now oppose Sh’logath?” Trenzlr interjected.

  Caivev met him with a blank stare. “Nitthogr is dead,” she finally spat, looking from face to face.

  Chartarra shook his head solemnly. “He has returned and is raising an army. He sent dreams and visions to the Black in order to muster his forces for war. Have you not experienced them too?”

  She shook her head. “I am not a blackborne. I am a dunnischktet and I have never been vyrm.”

  The others nodded, understanding. Mostly, the rovers had not had them either, only Chartarra, who was once a loyal follower.

  Caivev’s mouth twisted, “But it certainly explains why my Black have been…” A loud voice interrupted her.

  “Halt! We have you surrounded,” yelled Skrom. He and a contingent of mixed vyrm rushed to prevent any escape.

  Chartarra and his company froze.

  Caivev whirled in a panic and identified herself.

  Skrom straightened. Next to him stood Jeerzha from the Hunters Guild. “My apologies, Empress. Jeerzha and his guild identified four rovers in the city two days ago… Chartarra? Is that you?” The massive soldier recognized his former peer.

  Chartarra nodded and nearly spoke up to acknowledge his role in the group. Caivev pulled him away from the other three. “Yes. It is Chartarra, son of Charobv. He has been on a secret mission from me for a long time.”

  “Yes,” said Jeerzha, scanning Trenzlr and his companions for confirmation. “Yes. These are the ones. I am sure of it—they have a rover look about them. But there was another.” He turned his gaze back to the last member of the party.

  Caivev eyed the wounds on Chartarra’s neck again. “There was a fourth, but he has died,” she stated truthfully, though in another manner of speaking.

  Jeerzha shrugged and withdrew a knife. The zealot was intent on killing their captives.

  “Hold your blade,” Caivev said forcefully enough to stop the radical vyrm in his tracks.

  The guilder looked at her wild-eyed.

  “I gave you the kill the other day because you had captured them. These ones are mine and so their punishment is mine to deal and not yours.”

  Jeerzha hissed slightly, but turned the handle of his blade to her so that she might carry out the execution.

  “The law does not demand their deaths. You admitted this yourself?”

  He scowled, but nodded.

  “Skrom, take them to the dungeon until further notice.”

  He bowed and dutifully began escorting them towards the citadel. Jeerzha scowled and Caivev noted how the Black in Skrom’s party of hunters bristled at the command, but they obeyed, for now.

  Caivev felt exposed with the tension running high. She bowed to Chartarra, understanding his new path more than she let on. “Chartarra, I release you from my service. Your mission has ended.”

  The Empress returned to the safety of her walls and left him behind.

  Chartarra had nothing left he could do, but he was inspired by the discovery that Caivev, too, had reservations about Sh’logath. Chartarra climbed aboard the back of his company’s abandoned churdachk to make as much speed as he could. He had to report the news to Klewdahar.

  Caivev claimed she was not Maetha… but she was dunnischkte, and she was no longer a follower of Sh’logath.

  ***

  The Prime

  Shjikara looked up from his studies when a young monk knocked on his door. He recognized the woman as a relatively new adherent to the order and a member of the Mystic order; he made sure that he maintained his psychic defenses. Shjikara did not think such a low-level Mystic could scan his psyche, but if anyone was foolish enough to try, it would be someone completely unqualified to attempt it.

  He grasped for her name. “Yes, Veranna, is it?”

  A smile twitched at her lips and she closed the door behind them for privacy. “Not quite.” Veranna’s shapely figure smoothed out and her skin peeled back, taking the shape of scales.

  Shjikara smiled. Krenyr was good, very good.

  “My mission has been accomplished,” the hunter said. “Your meddlesome scientist will only be found by the flesh gnawers at the bottom of great Muck-a-waa Swamp, two hours north of the Crystal Sea. None will suspect a thing. Before the doctor announced a temporary leave for mental health reasons, I gathered and destroyed whatever scanners I could find.”

  Shjikara nodded. “Perfect. I have your next assignment for you. Surveil and disrupt my enemies on earth. You will need to planeswalk for this task.” He gave him brief instructions of the process. “This may be a one-way trip, my friend. It is not likely you will be capable of returning, but if you are capable of eliminating all the targets I mark for you, you might find a man called Jacob Sisyphus. If you impersonate him, you could use his men to return you here. You might find him a difficult target to eliminate… the same could be said for these other four targets.” He slid a collection of graphics over to Krenyr for him to look at.

  The assassin’s eyes locked on Wulftone. “This one wears the Vangandran bracer,” he grinned. “I will get to kill another of the werewolves.”

  Shjikara bobbed his head. “I could think of none more suited to the task. Go to earth, now. Remember, surveil and disrupt… they may have enlisted the aid of others so tread with caution and strike when you can do the most damage.” He remembered back to the first time he’d pursued Claire Jones as Nitthogr. The net had closed around her multiple times, and in each instance she seemed to slip away with the aid of others.

  Krenyr bowed low, gave his lord a vyrm salute, and then departed.

  Chapter 13

  Nitthogr sat naked in the chamber, as he had each night for the last few days. The darque-crown rested upon his head. This time, he only had one message for his minions spread throughout the multi-verse. “It is time.”

  He removed the circlet and placed it on the table before pulling his robe back over his body. Nitthogr wore his own face, now. He no longer hid; his time had finally arrived.

  Grabbing his communicator, he fired a simple text message to summon his spy. He had need of Gita soon. Nitthogr patted the statue of the child, Shara, on the head. She had been placed inside the Sacristy vault for safekeeping until now, when he needed leverage most. He tossed the communicator device aside.

  Unfolding the sheet he’d torn from the inventory codex more than a week ago, the sorcerer picked up a magical box that sat atop the table in the sacristy. It was the last piece he would need to complete the Birthing.

  Nitthogr looked down at it; the box’s dial bore the image of the royal crest and internal clock-gears connected the working mechanisms together so that it rotated to keep track of the astral alignments of the realms at all times. Two movable pieces indicated the sun and the moon in their astronomic positions and the different, surrounding nodes that represented the thirty-two other dimensions turned in tandem.

  It was such a small thing, then again, the most powerful artifacts were always the tiniest. He tucked the box underneath an arm and summoned an intense blast of eldritch energy that burst the Sacristy door’s hinges free. The vault access fell outward and smashed to the hallway floor in a smoldering heap.

  Nitthogr stepped into the hall. Screams echoed down the corridor and he smiled when he watched a shade slide his blade into the back of a Verita
s monk and then steal his face.

  The monk turned and bowed. “It is time,” he repeated back to the sorcerer, and then he turned a corner and went to to the main courtyard. Bloody splatters were all that remained of the sentries that normally watched the doors. None of the Merciful Hammer manned the walls any longer and the tent city that had sprung up barely two days ago had emptied since sending his psychic, three word command.

  Nitthogr sank to his knees beneath the white light of the full moon and set the box down before him. The lid clicked open when he released the tiny tabs that held it shut.

  Inside the box was a round mirror mounted onto positioning brackets; they let it turn in any direction. The sorcerer knew this device as a previous ranking member of the Order of the Flame, the arcanist class. He slowly, methodically positioned the focusing mirror until it was centered on the moon and then calibrated the device using two small wheels at the outermost corners.

  The box seemed to hum and glow with the energies it collected as he synced it to the fabric of space and the astral bodies.

  Nitthogr looked skyward. “I have all that you required, my lord. Your people are ready for the Birthing!”

  He glanced aside and saw Gita coming up the hill. Nitthogr had already trained her in use of the device which had only needed to be activated and attuned. In full view of her, he closed the lid and rotated the knob to realign the solar and lunar positions. All dimensional gates would be simultaneously flung wide, as they had been during the Syzygyc War. He depressed the central knob which functioned as a button and the new settings went into effect.

  Nitthogr screamed into the sky as it rumbled with ominous power. “A new Birthing is at hand!” The air shuddered and the very fabric of reality jittered under the stress of the shifts.

  Gita arrived just in time to see the change in Nitthogr. She gasped and her face drained pale. She could barely bring herself to keep walking towards the monstrosity that Nitthogr had become, but for her sister’s sake, she pushed forward and towards the squirming, inky black mass of tendrils and quivering flesh that molded and reformed back into Nitthogr’s shape as he handed her the box.