The Architect King

by Christopher Schmitz

  “Uh, yes,” said the flustered voice on the other end of the line. “We feel confident that we understand the late Doctor Walther’s notes. We are certain we can get the machine working within one or two days if you bring us the part.”

  “I’m touching down in just a couple more hours. You’ve got one hour to make it happen, so have your act together.” Sisyphus spoke with ultimate authority.

  “But sir! We’ve never even seen this thing operate… the science is purely metaphysical and we barely understand its nature.”

  Sisyphus growled, “Then you better re-read those notes; you don’t need to understand the science, you just gotta make the machine work. I’ll stretch my time line to ninety minutes,” he agreed as if he were acting benevolent. “After time expires, I’m killing one of your family members every ten minutes until you get the thing operating. Do we have an understanding?”

  He could practically hear the scientist gulp.

  “Y-yes sir. Ninety minutes.”

  Sisyphus heard him scrambling in the background, hissing demands to the men and women of his team as he tried to get everything ready for the wizard’s arrival. They would need to make optimal use of their time. “Good,” Sisyphus told his minion. “Get ready to fire it up right away… I’ve already got the next location picked out and I’m not willing to delay. Ninety minutes.” He pressed the red button and ended the call.

  Chapter 20

  As they traveled, Cerci Heiderscheidt worked feverishly on the designs for her new machine. She’d barely looked up from her sketchbook, spending most of the time drawing diagrams and jotting notes. She wrote down the necessary supplies on a separate sheet.

  Sam and Claire put an X next to each item on her list as they researched supplies and called in orders from local vendors around Duluth’s bay area. They paid a premium to have them delivered and left on their doorstop. Everything they could think they needed would be ready and prepared for them once they arrived.

  Cerci could begin work immediately on arrival. Luckily, she’d helped build three of these machines in the past—if Walther is dead, that makes me the foremost expert in the world, Cerci thought.

  She had promised them a quick turnaround, especially if Sam and Claire could take direction and help with the assembly. Cerci finally clapped the notebook shut with only a few minutes left before the plane’s planned descent. “It won’t be pretty, but we’ll get it constructed fast… and it will work. Shouldn’t take us more than a few hours if we hurry and don’t screw it up the first time.”

  Claire raised an eyebrow, “You’re telling me that a machine capable of piercing the fabric of reality can be built in a few hours and from hardware store parts?”

  Cerci grit her teeth. “Not quite,” she admitted. “The machine will be ready; the rift machine is actually fairly simple. The program that runs it, however, took years to develop, but it doesn’t require anything special to run—any modern laptop should be able to handle it… that and one other key ingredient.”

  “And you can just whip that software up?” Clarie asked. “I guessed you were a genius, but…”

  Cerci held up a flash drive. “I’m not that kind of genius, but I’m smart enough that I did make a copy of the software. We’re still going to need Walther’s notes. Calibrating the machine is the tricky part. There is a complex algorithm tied to the Earth’s magnetic field, solar constants, and lunar positioning. Without those things we have no point of reference and activating the machine could have disastrous consequences.”

  “Such as?” Sam asked.

  Cerci bit her lip. “The rift could open inaccurately and flare wide open in the middle of you or me, eviscerating one of us and leaving chunks of our flesh in another dimension. Alternatively it could tear open in the center of the Earth’s core and destabilize our planet’s travel, sending us hurtling out into the galaxy, flash freezing the population or burning us to a crisp if Earth falls into the sun.”

  Both Sam and Claire stared at her wild eyed, surprised she and Doctor Walther had even experimented with this thing to begin with.

  “Don’t worry,” Cerci said. “The former is much more likely than the latter.”

  Sam only blinked, still wild eyed. He couldn’t help the sarcasm in his voice, “Oh, don’t worry? Okay.”

  “As long as they can get me those notes, everything will be fine,” Cerci reassured him.

  “But we have everything else we need, then, aside from them?” Claire confirmed.

  Their scientist set her jaw and shook her head. “Almost.” She wrote a final item on the list. Wundrefluvium.”There’s a reactionary agent that is necessary to instigate the quantum equlibrator… it’s what keeps people stable as they pass through the dimensions—without wundrefluvium, the rift-gate is just a fancy way to smash yourself into atoms.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “I read about this stuff. Super volatile and very expensive. There has been lots of recent research on it… some kind of new lab-created element with strange properties?”

  Cerci nodded slowly. “There’s a small vial of it at one of the research labs at UMD. Stuff’s expensive to make and can be explosive. It is really not much more than a curiosity at the moment, but it resonates at the right frequency to filter out the harmonic resonance that all matter vibrates at.”

  Claire nodded along, trying to track with the sciencey talk that followed, but her mind latched on to the harmonic resonance part. “Are you saying all reality vibrates to a set pattern or frequency?”

  Cerci shrugged, “Something like that. Almost like everything that exists was sang into existence by some higher power. It could be the sound caused by the big bang, or maybe there was a divine song that sang the world into being…”

  Sam grinned at the skeptical note in her voice. He’d been equally skeptical before his time in the Prime and his exposure to the teachings of the Veritas. “Like the Jews and Christians believe?”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” Cerci crooked her jaw. “I was referring to the ancient Pythagoreans or the Ainulindalë, the creation song from Lord of the Rings.” She shrugged again, “Maybe they’re all correct in their own ways.”

  Sam nodded and steered the conversation back to the matter at hand. “I can get it for you: the wundrefluvium. I spotted a set of keys last time we were at Jecima’s house. I should be able to sneak into the labs and get it for you.”

  Cerci nodded and their jet touched down with only a slight bump and squeak of the tires. “Just don’t open the tube. If it’s exposed to oxygen, the stuff will explode… not as violently as nukes or anything, but it’ll be bad—bad enough that the military stopped exploring it for weapon related purposes due to instability concerns.”

  “Got it. Don’t blow up,” Sam confirmed.

  Several minutes later they arrived at the Jecima estate and left the motor running. Cerci began setting up and bossed Claire around as Sam hustled towards the house. That’s not going to last real long, I think, he grinned and hurried inside.

  He hustled through a long hall and into one of the many rooms stuffed with antiques and obscure mementos which Miles had collected through his many years. He stopped in front of a large, ornate mirror on the second level. The white drop cloth that covered it provided a perfect backdrop for the fancy end table where Professor Jecima’s identification lanyard, pass, and university keys had been left.

  Sam glanced at the white sheet. He momentarily wondered about the mirror beneath it, and then he turned and left. Time was critical, and he needed every advantage he could get.

  ***

  The Desolation

  Klewdahar walked at the front of the line, leading his rovers. The cracked, barren ground of the Neggath Plains had begun to slope up and into a gentle rise, capped by Basilisk’s city. Limbus was only a short distance away, now, and it loomed tall before them. The city had no walls, but many structures ringed the edge like teeth.

  Tension rippled through the burgeoning cluster of Seekers. They numbe
red several thousand, but possessed barely a dozen weapons between them, not that they needed them. “Maetha will provide safe passage,” Klewdahar had insisted.

  Unprotected and uncounted, the mass of vyrm approached from the wasteland. Each step had become one of faith.

  Beside Klewdahar walked Gerjha and Chartarra with Hirdac and Klyrtan behind them. The simple-minded vyrm had been eager to walk towards the front, though Hirdac struggled to keep the same pace as the others.

  “Oh good,” Klewdahar said, noticing movement in the city “they are sending a committee to welcome us.”

  Before them, a murky line of bodies bled out from between the buildings and approached like a swarm of glrg-worms. It writhed and moved towards them with the speed of a rested churdachk.

  Chartarra put a spyglass to his eye and scanned the horde. He focused on the vyrm leading the charge. “Hold!” he ordered, overriding even Klewdahar’s desire to reach the city. The group stopped. “It’s Jeerzha, the one who has been rallying the Black for our blood.”

  “Blood,” Klyrtan repeated behind him with a giggly kind of voice.

  “He got his army and they’re coming this way—fast and angry!”

  A collective gasp rippled through the Seekers behind them. They formed a tight cluster and packed together instinctively.

  Klewdahar turned to their prophet. “Did we choose rightly?”

  Gerjha grimaced. “Right choice rarely means the chooser shall be spared from harm… obedience seldom equates safety…”

  Klewdahar cursed. “Speak plainly! Will we survive?”

  The prophet only shrugged. “I do not know.” Despite his ignorance, Gerjha’s eyes looked as if he felt peace.

  As Jeerzha and his army thundered towards them, the rocks trembled from the shaking of the baked tiles underfoot. Chartarra withdrew an old, rusted sword from beneath his cloak, an item he’d picked up before leaving Limbus once Caivev had freed him.

  Hirdac chuffed, “Will that do any good here?”

  Chartarra responded over his shoulder, “I only know what I was prepared for. I am formerly of the Black and was made for battle. It makes me no less a Seeker if I have different strengths than the rest… but I was bred for war and will defend Maetha’s people with whatever I have within me.”

  Klyrtan stared at the blade as if transfixed.

  Jeerzha and his hunters howled war cries as they surged ahead and closed the gap. Raising their weapons high, they had nearly fallen upon the defenseless enemy when sirens blared from Limbus, an official call to battle.

  Klewdahar’s posture sank. “So this is it, then? All of Limbus turns out against us?”

  Barreling down from the edge of Limbus came a host of tarkhūn riding tyradons; the soldiers carried weapons from the backs of their battle-bred lizard creatures. From both sides, speedy skiffs arced around the edge of the city, approaching with uncanny velocity.

  Rovers cried out for Maetha to save them. Such an enemy would easily wipe them out.

  “I cannot believe this is the end,” Chartarra insisted. “I refuse to believe that we are abandoned!”

  Right before Jeerzha and his crew could smash into them with brutal force, the skiffs tore through the guilds-men’s flanks and opened fire. The air filled with scents of blood and smoke and with the sounds of screams and hate as the tarkhūn turned on Jeerzha’s hunters.

  ***

  Earth

  Sam got back to the house only a short while after committing a low-key larceny and identity theft. The first room off the entryway had been haphazardly cleared of its contents which were strewn through the main hall. Jecima’s old belongings had been deposited wherever they could be stacked with no thought given to value or purpose. Space was a premium.

  Piles of machinery and items were stacked around the edges of the chamber and connected by layers and layers of cable and cords. He watched as his daughter and Cerci worked in feverish silence—he thought it probable that they’d had some sort of blow-up in his absence, as he suspected two strong women might have. The resulting quiet had helped establish new boundaries.

  He held aloft the vial of mysterious wundrefluvium. “So, uh, how’s it going in here?”

  “Good,” Claire said curtly as she connected cables and checked them against Cerci’s notes. The length of cord failed to reach, and so she pulled out a wire stripper and cable crimp to connect a new set of ends for a longer one.

  “We are right on schedule,” Cerci assured him, snatching the vial and placing it some place safe where she could remember to hook it into the contraption. The machine looked like an exploded view schematic as it lay in interlinked parts around the room. “Now be a dear and bring in the rest of the stuff from outside.

  He began the arduous task of hauling in the remaining spools of cable and pieces of equipment that had been delivered by his suppliers. Sam had no idea what most of the items were, except that they looked like set pieces from Frankenstein’s lab. He set the final bank of scientific machinery down. Between labored pants of breath he groused, “You’d think I would have ordered a wheeled dolly or a cart or something, too.”

  Sam stood and pushed his hands against his hips, cracking his spine. He overheard the girls talking in the adjacent room. “We’ve got to get to Gita. She is the key,” Claire insisted. “We still don’t know where Zabe is and I’ve got to assume he’s tried to get back to the Prime to find us by now. Without the gates opened, he’ll never be able to get back and we’ll never find him-and they won’t open without Gita.” Claire said sorrowfully, “The universe is a big place, and I’ll never be the same without him.”

  Cerci worked in silence a little while longer. “I only know his brother, Zurrah.” She seemed to blush as she spoke. “Tell me about Zabe; I wonder if he’s anything like his younger brother.”

  Claire began listing the things she liked about her fiance and gave examples. “He’s loyal and kind. He takes his duty seriously, but knows how to have fun when the opportunities present themselves… like when he surprised me in the middle of the day and proposed at a picnic—which Jackie crashed, in fact. It didn’t bother him when she did.” She trailed off after a few more examples and then started listing other things. “His skin is so hot—it’s great to snuggle against. He’s super cute…”

  Cerci laughed. “Yeah, sounds just like Zurrah.”

  The door behind Sam suddenly flew open, slamming loudly against the threshold. Wiltshire charged into the house with his gun drawn.

  Sam stood straight. “Geez, man, is this always how you make your entry.”

  Wiltshire stalked through the hall with his weapon ready. He walked past Sam, “Usually… at least with this house, I guess.” A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth, suggesting he’d made a joke, but his mission was deadly serious.

  Sam watched Wiltshire move through the home and check each room. “Is there something I can help you with, Vikrum?”

  “Where is it?” Wiltshire asked, eyes burning with deadly purpose. “Tell me where the mirror is.”

  ***

  The Desolation

  At the back of the battle, Basilisk’s loyal tarkhūn soldiers fell upon the rear of Jeerzha’s army. They struck from atop their tyradon mounts. A handful of frostmancers encased enemy vyrm in ice, freezing them solid; the lizard-mounted warriors crashed through the rebels and dashed them to pieces across the Plains of Neggath.

  A firelord washed a contingent of Jeerzha’s snarling followers with a tidal blast of flame. They collapsed in blackened heaps of melted scale and cinder that puckered and crumbled in the heat.

  Blaster fire bounced off of Caivev and Basilisk’s skiff as it plowed into battle. They cut a sharp line through the Black, targeting Jeerzha, the would-be leader of a mob that had turned out nearly a quarter of Limbus’s population including more than a third of its warrior class. Jeerzha snarled, defiant, “These rovers are parasites and should be destroyed. It is our way!”

  Caivev and Basilisk leapt off of the skiff an
d crossed blades with the Black who surrounded Jeerzha.

  Her countrymen screamed at Caivev, “You were supposed to be one of us, traitor,” and “You are unworthy of the dunnischkte!”

  She shrugged off their insults. Slashing with her blade and putting blasts of deadly laserfire through those who defied her, she pressed further into the fray.

  Basilisk’s skiff turned away and began strafing the enemy; its mounted weapons fired into the crowd of Black with merciless precision. The emperor activated his deadly stare as Jeerzha and his most capable generals tried to swarm him.

  “Do not meet his gaze!” Jeerzha ordered, too late. Most of those surrounding him had already been petrified by Basilisk’s arcane ability.

  Jeerzha roared and crossed blades with the emperor. He shrieked his accusation, “You have joined the heretics and turned your heart away from Sh’logath!”

  The game master lost a step against Jeerzha and thought about how long it had been since he had actually trained for martial combat. He wondered about how much his prowess had declined with his lack of focused training.

  “I did not begin this game with any intention of losing,” Basilisk fired back, slashing and blocking Jeerzha’s jagged sword. He did not know where Jeerzha had learned to fight, but he proved himself a capable warrior, doubtlessly trained by one of the martial masters of the Black before settling in Limbus with the merger of the Black and the tarkhūn.

  “You cannot defeat Sh’logath!” Jeerzha howled. “Sh’logath is hunger—Sh’logath is eternal!” He hacked with ruthless abandon, coming at the emperor like a tornado of blades and fury. Jeerzha kept his eyes fixed upon Basilisk’s plated chest so that he would not meet the deadly eyes of his enemy.

  Basilisk grinned, knowing that this soldier stood a very real possibility of beating him. The most exhilarating games are the ones with a chance of losing. “I always win,” Basilisk argued with himself. He would not have risked his wife had he not thought through the battle plan and weighed the odds.