“You will carry this, now,” he insisted. “In one hour, close all the gates—it will be enough time for my army to have mobilized through the portals.”
Gita hung her head and obeyed.
***
Earth
Sisyphus felt the rumbling of the explosion more than he heard it. He opened the door to the panic room area of the floor he cohabitated with Doctor Pietro Walther.
Walther’s side of the top floor of the German high-rise was more suited to scientific and technological pursuits while Sisyphus’s was geared to the arcane. The wizard walked towards the door, guessing that some kind of experiment of his partner’s had gone awry. Sometimes those things happened, it’s why Sisyphus had engraved mystic sigils of binding on each of his walls to contain any potential gremlins that might act up in an errant summoning spell or what not. He didn’t worry much about the adjacent laboratory; Walther was always very cautious.
The separating wall between them was thick and well insulated. Sisyphus was surprised he’d noticed anything at all, but figured he should check in on Walther.
He opened the door to total anarchy. Sirens blared around the corner and he heard the crackling of fire as well as the distinct sounds of things being smashed. Voices shrieked somewhere in the distance. He dashed around the corner and sprang into action.
The twisted bodies of three female interns, all Heptobscurantum members, lay draped over furniture in the receiving room. As a legitimate business office for one of the Seven’s shell companies, they employed a half-dozen people, all who could assist the scientist when he needed it—though perhaps not as ably as Cerci Heiderscheidt had..
Sisyphus stepped up to the corner; enemies cackled on the other side. He suddenly realized he’d left all his magic items back in his section of the building, and Walther had been researching his newly acquired darquematter amulets. No kophesh, no mystic trinkets, no bags of Primal fuel… it’s just me—and ain’t that enough? His blood boiled.
He heard distinctly vyrm voices, and a woman screamed, louder than the sound of a sickly thud that had probably ended her life. Another intern.
Sisyphus didn’t dash in blindly—he had to find out what he faced, first.
“This! This is what they are hunting—the one who is killing our kind! It must be cleansed!” The creatures howled, followed by more crashing noises as they smashed and destroyed things.
Judging by their noises and voices, he figured there were three of them. The wrestler steeled himself and then stepped around the edge in time to watch one of them cut down the last employee he could spot on site, their resident fixer: a man skilled at combat and responsible for collecting the homeless transients they Walther sometimes needed for his experiments.
“This will show your boss not to mess with the vyrm!”
The fixer cried out as the scaly enemy slashed him across the face with his jagged claws; a talon opened the victim’s jugular.
“What do you think you’re doing in my home?” Sisyphus demanded.
One of the vyrm looked up, caught red-handed. He clutched the collection of darquematter amulets that Sisyphus had recently stolen. The vyrm shook them in the air, “This is why you are killing us? Rooting us out and murdering us one by one—you seek the mystic metals?”
The Doctor had hoped to learn more about the odd material from a scientific perspective. Perhaps they would lead to new breakthroughs.
“Put those down!” Sisyphus howled a spell and blasted the speaker with a fierce bolt of arcane fire. It incinerated him in an instant. The amulets clattered to the floor.
The other two creatures altered form, both of them grew in size and shape to match Sisyphus, becoming near-perfect copies. He grinned, knowing that would not be enough to stop him.
A set of glass vacuum tubes connected to the portal machine’s internals had been destroyed—Sisyphus didn’t know what exactly was in them, but he knew that if they were ever opened or if the glass cracked, they would cause instant explosions. The state of the machine had proved that true.
Its ruins lay busted and blackened where it had caught fire. The invading vyrm stopped smashing remaining equipment around the portal generator and charged at him.
“Shades,” Sisyphus hissed, taking a defensive stance. He leapt forward and flared his arms wide, clotheslining them both. They had his form, but not his bulk.
Sisyphus snatched one of them and lifted him overhead, before smashing him to the ground. He whirled just in time to dodge the other assailant and then he lifted his hands to blast the attacker.
The vyrm pulled off his charge and spun to his side to avoid the eldritch blast. He scrambled off behind a bank of equipment to get a better attack angle. His partner rushed for the wrestler.
Sisyphus spotted him in the nick of time and lifted the man overhead in a gorilla press. He hurled the copy of his own likeness across the room using the creature’s momentum and then flashed a mystic shield up just in time to block the trio of bullets the other shade snapped off from behind cover.
With his free hand, Sisyphus made a sign and growled a spell that lit his fist on fire. He blasted the cover with a wave of black fire that sent the vyrm scrambling.
Pressing both wrists together and aiming, he launched another spell. A dark orb sought out the creature before he could escape and smashed into him. The vyrm exploded into a cloud of ash and his charred skeleton clattered to the floor.
The wrestler growled a pained yelp as the remaining, wounded vyrm wrapped an arm around his neck from behind and slipped him into a choke hold.
Sisyphus’s last spell had drained too much out of him for such an impromptu battle. Without his artifacts to aid him, he could only rely on brute force at this point.
Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision. The scaly enemy had locked in the grapple and stopped his airflow.
“You will die, too. Just like your friend,” the scaly opponent hissed as his skin melted back into his vyrmic shape.
Sisyphus moved his eyes and spotted the bloody figure in the corner. Doctor Walther laid against the machine, as broken as the contraption, and just as destroyed. His head was bowed and his neck ran red with blood. The man would never watch another wrestling match or invent another machine to push the bounds of science.
Sisyphus howled and jammed a massive elbow into the ribs of the creature behind him. He pivoted and turned his hips out so he could grapple with the vyrm and he dug his fingers into the attackers neck, picked him up and then smashed him down overtop of his knee.
The vyrm cracked like a brittle plank. His spine and bony bits poked out at chaotic, wrong angles and the creature lay twisted in a gnarled and broken repose with a surprised look froze upon his face.
Scrambling to his feet, the big man hurried over to Walther. He checked for a pulse and confirmed his fear. Walther was beyond medical attention.
Sisyphus paused, standing over the body of his fallen friend and greatest fan. He was confused. “What did they mean… someone was killing them because of the amulets? I don’t understand…”
Walther was dead, and the machine was ruined. The scientist and his contraption were critical to his plans. Without it, Sisyphus had no idea how he would be able to maneuver as freely as he had in the past or position himself to take want he wanted. Sisyphus could no longer come and go unseen, easily killing any who got in his way.
The question bothered him… who is killing random vyrm shades on Earth, and why? He only knew he could not ask them because he’d just killed the only three who could answer his questions. Someone… some thing is rooting out those cells hiding in this dimension and the shades believe it’s tied to the amulets.
***
The Desolation
Chartarra’s churdachk earned him incredible speed. It had been a brisk two-day journey for the small cohort and it had taken less than a day for one rider to cross the plains and return to the rovers’ camp. The creature’s versatility allowed him to ride through areas that the sma
ll group had to detour around, and at quick speeds. Churdachk’s feet and ankles were covered in thick hide that even copses of knee-high razorbrush couldn’t harm.
His mount scampered into the cavalcade’s edges where Klewdahar and Gerjha rushed out to meet him. Hirdac breathlessly chased after Klyrtan who followed them, eager to see who had returned.
“News… what news from Limbus?” Klewdahar called out.
Chartarra handed the reins of the churdachk off to a local who took it to be refreshed.
“Is Caivev our Maetha?” the chieftain asked. Hope welled in his eyes—he wanted to believe it was true.
Chartarra admitted that he could not say either way. “Caivev is… different. Something in her has changed. Her rage is tempered. She is not the same, but I cannot say that she has become a Seeker… only that she is no longer a tool of Sh’logath.”
Gerjha listened in on them and noted, “All can be used by Maetha, sometimes even despite themselves. It is not unknown for bad persons to be moved to do good things by a higher power.”
“Do you think that she could be the chosen one despite herself?” Chartarra asked.
“I only know what is possible and what Maetha tells me.”
A ripple of murmurs zigzagged through the growing crowd. With equal parts excitement and worry some of them pointed skyward. “A sign!” someone shouted.
Night had nearly come on, but the daylight had actually brightened. The pall that normally painted everything in the Desolation with shades of sepia had suddenly disappeared, like some world-wide filter had been removed from the light spectrum. Seekers squinted against the unfamiliar light as they shielded their eyes and stared into the sky.
“A sign—a sign.” Others repeated.
No matter where they searched on the horizon, they could not spot the lurking dread of the Great Devourer. Sh’logath’s presence on the threshold of reality had disappeared.
“Is it true? Is it really a sign?” Klewdahar asked. He looked around for Gerjjha but the prophet had already left his side. “If it is a sign, then should we move towards Limbus? It is where Caivev lives.”
He moved out from the swelling horde of bodies, looking for Gerjha. People were already proclaiming the day of Maetha had arrived. Klewdahar looked out and saw that Gerjha had already begun heading towards the capital city on foot and with nothing but the clothes on his back.
The crowd began to follow after him, chasing the Maethan prophet on his journey into the wilderness.
Seekers began journeying down from the cliffs and emerged from various nooks and crannys where they’d been hidden. They moved as one people, a disjointed parade with one purpose: a pilgrimage to Limbus to see if a dunnischktet was the prophesied one.
“That one is crazy, I think,” Klewdahar pointed to the prophet and noted when Chartarra caught up to him.
“Isn’t that the way of faith?” Chartarra asked as he departed, heading for the suddenly mobile caravan. He did not yet know what to make of the disappearance of the Lurker, but he understood why the people thought as they did. Sh’logath’s presence had departed. The agod’s presence was the single greatest blight upon the realm of Desolation—old Edenya. So long as it remained, they could never hope for restoration.
Chartarra wanted to believe Sh’logath’s disappearance was a divine encouragement, but could not shake a seed of worry that coiled through his heart. His worry only strengthened when he looked at Klyrtan.
He remembered the look of glee on the simpleton’s face several mornings ago when the visions began. The way Klyrtan looked around expectantly only reinforced Chartarra’s dread.
Klyrtan knew something the rest of them did not, Chartarra felt certain of it.
***
Basilisk looked up to the sky from his home in Limbus. Many things had changed in his garden retreat. The game tables were gone; he no longer endured the endless stalemates. But the change of scenery was not the only shift. Something intangible had altered the light.
He looked around and then spotted the difference. The sky had cleared. Sh’logath was gone. Basilisk recognized the laughter nearby and found Charsk, the High Priest of the Sh’logath cult.
Charsk was drunk, not an uncommon occurrence for him, especially given the hour.
“What do you think?” Basilisk asked him. “An omen? What does it mean? Is Sh’logath gone… destroyed, perhaps? Or maybe he’s finally been restored to eternal slumber…”
“Gone?” Charsk laughed some more and took a heavy swig from his bottle. “No. You cannot simply remove something like the mighty agod.” He rose to leave and see to whatever other business he might need to attend to. Something significant to the cultic faith had happened for the first time in many years; he might be needed. Charsk almost fell over in a stupor and he barely caught himself on a door frame to keep from stumbling.
“Then what of his disappearance?” Basilisk tried to mask any optimism from his voice. He’d already made the decision to politely decline following through on any future plans to unleash Sh’logath from the Nihil prison; that decision was partly what prompted his engagement to Caivev and the efforts to unify the vyrm as one. The writings of Rasthakka had suddenly made sense to him.
Charsk chuckled and wiped the drool from his reddened face. “Disappearance? Ha. That is not the vyrm way—and Sh’logath is our patron deity. Sh’logath is not gone… he is only hidden. And in the dark he grows more powerful than ever. He stirs, but is no longer trapped between the parting veils… he might now walk among us.”
The high priest staggered off towards the road back into the heart of Limbus beyond the Imperial Keep. Charsk left Basilisk staring at the evening sky.
Sure that he no longer had shades stationed nearby to protect him… or to overhear his startling admission, Basilisk muttered, “This is not good.”
Chapter 14
Earth
Sam paced back and forth through the front of the old church. Shandra scowled as she watched him practically wear a hole through the path that he repeatedly walked.
Wiltshire lounged on a pew, waiting more patiently than the others. “So, to get this straight, we’re going to travel to a different dimension and rescue a princess while possibly starting a kind of civil war?”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those types who doesn’t believe in that kind of stuff?” Sam asked. “I used to be one myself. I thought multi-verses and magic were all clever fictions.”
“Oh, I believe,” Wiltshire admitted. “I just wanted to be clear on the plan… it doesn’t seem like a very good one, is all. I mean, you saw how easily this enemy killed Tay-lore.”
“We just need to notify our friends,” Shandra insisted. As soon as everyone discovers Nitthogr’s return, all factions of the military will turn out against him. Enough of the populace harbors a grudge after the last takeover that I expect civilians will show up with pitchforks and farming tools to help fight him.”
Wiltshire nodded thoughtfully and checked the time. “Are we ready?”
Shandra checked her own timepiece and nodded; she’d already explained that they had to wait for a certain time window for the portals to line up so they could travel where they needed. The group moved to the portal location. Sam joined her and Wiltshire stood behind them both. The cleric cut herself across the forearm and splattered the activator. She stared forward vacantly.
After a few moments Wiltshire asked, “Should I be feeling something yet? How long does this normally take?”
Shandra turned to the others. Worry contracted her eyes. “It’s not working.”
“What do you mean it’s not working?” Sam asked, consulting his notes on the portal charts. He read and re-read them. “But this is right—the equations match. The portal should work!”
Sam cut his own arm and tried the passage again, but he did not planeswalk. He looked up and glanced from Shandra to Wiltshire. “Something is wrong, you guys… the portal no longer works! We can not return to the Prime.”
&nbs
p; ***
Zabe could feel the urban vibrations of the city above him as he stalked through the dark tunnels. His lycan eyes allowed him to see capably in the dark and his senses reported that he was close. Even in the subterranean black he could read the graffiti. Hadyuka. The word, and a spray-painted snake, marked that he’d been following the right trail.
He wore one of Respan’s scanner gadgets. Before leaving the Prime weeks ago, he’d had just enough wits about him to grab a few supplies, the scanner among them. Using the device, he had tracked down any lead he could find, and there was a heavy concentration of leads in the Odessa catacombs. He’d had to rely on his keen lycan sense of smell while in his wolf form. The scanner showed the location and distance to the brightly glowing blip, but the Ukranian tunnels beneath the city of Odessa created the largest labyrinth on the planet. Tracking his prey through it required more than a heading and distance.
Zabe sniffed the ground near the marker. It smelled strongly of vyrm scents. The odor from the air near the next turn had grown to its strongest yet. Maybe two turns until I find the nest?
He growled in the dark and hurried through the catacombs. Zabe twisted around one corner and turned the next. He met the surprised faces of a vyrm cell.
The wolf roared and leapt upon the first one. The next two put up a little resistance, but Zabe easily overpowered them in his massive werewolf shape. He whirled in the dark and turned to a group of six shades. They wore the disguises of local politsiya and had their firearms trained on him.
Zabe did not want to kill innocent folk who might be caught up in extra-dimensional affairs they knew nothing about.
They shouted orders for him to stop in the local language and stiffened their gun arms as the werewolf growled and slowly turned to face them. Their smell filled his nose and confirmed their vyrmic identities to Zabe. Definitely shades.
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