“None thought that you could ever defeat the architect king,” Rob nodded to the petrified form behind him.
Basilisk snorted and replied. “I’m not sure that I really ever did.”
“You’d be wise to remember that. Some have prophesied that the king will eventually throw off his stony flesh and repair all the wrongs that have infected the Tesseract. You have the power to simply release him from this stony prison and return him to his service. He could overthrow Nitthogr!” Rob said.
Basilisk hissed. “You have no right to make such a suggestion! That is not how the prophecy goes!” He calmed himself in the moments that followed his outburst. The vyrm ruler returned to the matter at hand. “I’m sure your next move against my brother will become apparent in due time. You’d best formulate a plan sooner rather than later.”
“Tell us what we should do,” Claire asked. The same fiery zeal that Bithia possessed burned within her eyes. “You’ve obviously got a broader view of the situation and a great talent for strategy—how else could you have defended this realm for so long against Nitthogr’s army and their superior numbers: the Black outnumbers the Tarkhūn two to one!”
Rob raised an eyebrow. Clearly the vyrm poison had not blocked all her shared memories from The Prime.
“Let me tell you a story, Claire Jones,” he stressed her name as if to remind her that although she shared much with the princess, she was not actually Bithia. “Long ago, thousands of years before you born, in fact, Nitthogr and I left our positions and departed from The Prime in order to explore the dimensional doors. We were pioneers! We left on commission of the royal family who sought the empirical evidence to validate what their faith, my faith, already proclaimed.
“We found everything to be true and we proved it. As we continued to explore, we found new and wonderful things with every trip. And then we arrived here… before it became the Desolation. It was green and vibrant in that era. The people here, the vyrm, shared with us their fanatical faith—they truly believed. They needed no proof, no validation for what they knew in their hearts to be true: their deity, although he did not exist, was real and alive even in his nonexistence! Something in the simplicity of their faith appealed to us—their fervor, their abject devotion to their cause—even if it demanded that nonexistence meet with reality at the very cost of that reality!
“Only one could survive such an encounter, and we became enslaved to that glorious concept: that pure faith could produce a new reality. Something would come from nothing by the very fact of our dedication and devotion to such an ideal! And yet,” Basilisk looked far off into the distance where the black chunk of nether hung in the broken sky.
“I don’t know that we were ever fully convinced that this was best. Our zeal demanded action, but we didn’t think through the metaphysics. If Sh’logath exists, then by his nature as Agod of nonexistence, then nothing could exist! We would invoke total annihilation. We knew this, yet in our fervor we released him anyway; we invoked the foul ritual and called to him in his darkness.
“But then… the Architect King approached even as Sh’logath cracked the walls of reality. There were only a few options left to us, and doubt crept into my hybrid heart as the Tesseract’s very designer offered us a choice. Either embrace Sh’logath or return to the service of the King!”
Basilisk stopped and stood there in silence. He moved a nearby game piece and sighed.
“Well?” Claire exclaimed. “What did you do?”
He responded with a whispered, “Neither. The game remains at a draw. I alone hold reality in balance.”
“But the prophecy!” said Rob. “You cannot hold reality in the balance forever! Even if you could—you won’t.”
Basilisk gave him an accusatory look. “Perhaps you wish me to decide my fate right now? To throw in my lot with the prophecy?”
Rob threw his hands up, “No! No, I’m happy with the middle ground.”
“Then what was the point of the story?” Claire asked.
Basilisk narrowed his eyes. “I did not know what to do then, and I certainly don’t know what to do now.” He stepped to the other side of the game board and made a move, then returned to do likewise again.
Standing there in the growing silence, Rob took Claire by the shoulders and they started to back up, hoping that this was the sorcerer’s unspoken way of releasing them from his captivity. Walking backward for the first couple steps, Rob bowed and turned to leave, picking up his duffel bag.
“You have free reign to walk about Limbus,” Basilisk called out after them, “at least, for now, anyway. But let me remind you that there are far worse things dwelling in the Desolation… things that I have no control over.”
They bowed again.
“Oh, and Claire Jones?”
She paused and met his gaze.
“I am very interested to see what move you make, especially now that your father has fallen?”
“What?” she yelled, growing stiff with shock. “My father is dead?”
“If not already, then he will be in short order. Caivev was sent to collect him.”
Claire looked at Rob, her heart full of confusion and rage.
“Caivev is Vivian,” Rob shared with her. “She’s a trained sleeper agent and assassin from the Prime.” He turned her shoulders back to the path, trying to get her to follow, but she meandered, distracted by the potential of such news.
They got outside of Basilisk’s immediate purview and Rob pulled out the tattered, yellowed pages he’d stolen from the Grimmorium Nitthogr. “Claire? Come on Claire, we’ve got to get to the next portal. We have to leave Limbus.”
“My father…” she trailed off, only vocalizing a portion of her thoughts.
He took her by the hand and looked into her eyes. “And my father too… We won’t let their sacrifices be in vain. We must not let that be!”
She clung to him and wept on his shoulder for a long moment, and then pushed back. “Okay. Where do we go next?”
Chapter 16
“Home. My home,” Rob replied. “We must enter the Prime.” They skirted the edge of Limbus, passing much the same way that they came.
As they passed silently through the somber city, a darker pall fell over the land. Likely it always existed, but the further they traveled from the center of Limbus, the more pronounced it grew; with less ambient heat, the air temperature cooled the further they got from the populated parts of the city.
Rob and Claire stood at the outskirts of Limbus. A very pronounced line distinguished the borders where the cracked, parched soil of the wasteland began. Rob exhaled a sigh; his breath crystallized into frost.
High above, the nearly starless sky reminded them of the danger of this realm. The obsidian monstrosity that hung above them, scraping the horizon, seemed to devour the light from even the furthest solar bodies, sucking it all away into the nethersphere. As the unholy devourer lurked at the threshold, awaiting the profane invitation, the darkness remained an ominous reminder of the high stakes.
Claire turned to Rob, her breath also exploded into mist. “Why didn’t we just go straight to the Prime from Stonehenge?”
“They would have been able to locate us immediately,” he replied. “From this realm, we could conceivably go anywhere. It takes us entirely off their radar; they won’t know where to begin looking—we’re in the wind, so to speak.”
“So then, we’re going to a new portal location?”
“Yes.”
“And what are the two possible locations for it?”
Rob was quiet a moment, knowing she would struggle with the choice. “Either to a secret place on the Prime, where any of my remaining kin will have gathered… or to Earth.”
Claire nodded. It was her turn to keep silent and introspective. She handed Rob the Stone Glaive. He stared blankly at her, convinced she didn’t know the significance of the gift she’d given him. “And what if I wanted to return to Earth?”
&
nbsp; “You want to rescue your father?”
Claire stared forward into the barren wasteland that stretched before them. “It doesn’t matter right now. We can’t do anything from Limbus.”
She stepped forward, striding ahead with purpose. The ground crunched underfoot like broken glass: the only sound for miles as the duo walked ahead, into the unknown.
. . .
Victor Adams drummed his fingers on the heavy magic book which the warlock had left behind as a monument to his sincerity. None of the Illuminati could decipher the writings, and so they remained indebted to Nitthogr unless they could find another person capable of understanding the eldritch text, preferably someone who was also able to wield its arcane power.
The book lay upon the wooden table that had always been the appointed place for The Seven’s meetings, except that their number was now one fewer. Adams looked down and stared at the weathered golden rings adorning his stumpy fingers.
How many men’s heads had he personally caved in with the golden, skull-shaped jewelry? He’d shed much blood back when he was a low ranking hit-man for the Persian Syndicate. That was before Nitthogr found him and made him great, before he became a part of the Heptobscurantum and decimated his opposition, seizing control of the Syndicate by his own power and the power lent him by his warlock advisor.
He gave his rings a quick polish against the breast of his jacket. Any moment now Summers’ people would deliver their newest candidate, the current leader of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a man heavily endorsed by their other contacts within the Order of the Golden Dawn.
Trask had always proved a bit of a wild card in the past, and while his ideas had always seemed sound, something about the man had never quite sat well for Victor. In private conversations with his fellow council members, the other men of The Seven each agreed with the Persian mobster.
While Trask had seemed quite willing to go at odds with the sorcerer, a thing they each admired independently, the remaining six each feared that Trask had too much in common with James Shianan. Perhaps neither Trask nor Nitthogr had committed to the awakening ritual.
The door opened and his five remaining fellows of the Illuminati entered. Greyson and Cannon led the way. They had been in charge of the final vetting process. Cannon, an experienced assassin in his own right, was charged with the immediate elimination of any failing candidates whose vision did not align with that of The Seven. Knowledge that they even existed was too dangerous of a loose end. But this new candidate, Sisyphus, not only comprehended the writings of the Grimmorium Nitthogr, but also embraced the Heptobscurantum’s maddening manifesto.
Victor raised an eyebrow when Peter Greyson and Bruce Cannon sat down. “Well, Peter?” he asked in his thick accent.
Greyson nodded with a telling smile. “Jacob Sisyphus is a true believer. He may not have the raw power at his disposal that this sorcerer, James Shianan, wields, but he understands the ways of power as a wizard.”
Thomas Chelish rendered an inquisitive look.
Greyson explained further. “The power seems to indwell Shianan who controls it as it flows from him. Sisyphus wields power, too, tapping into it as he is available. He is an educated thaumaturge whereas James is a natural arcanist.”
The remnant nodded, each accepting that assessment. Having a powerful occultist in their group was a benefit. They feared the possibility of Nitthogr taking Trask’s empty seat and assuming total control over The Seven.
As it stood, currently, Nitthogr was supposedly removed from the ruling council of seven, even if he had originally engineered its construction. He was supposed to be only a counselor and consultant. The Seven had never openly defied any direct, overt orders he had impositioned them with, but that time would come soon. He’d recently given more and more dictates to these men who were not accustomed to being controlled.
There was also the problem that they had all seen in him. None believed in his devotion to Sh’logath. Too long had they seen him make choices or give advice which he had to defend or rationalize later.
The Persian leaned forward at the table and rapped his knuckles against the engraving. “Well… do we like Sisyphus?”
Nodding, Greyson leaned in and put up his hands to quell the excitement. “Brothers, we can’t vote yet. Let’s not be too hasty in calling this meeting to order; we ought to first discuss in secret our fear of James’s subversive nature. We don’t want to have those thoughts written into the minutes.”
A collection of nods circulated the room. They agreed in unison.
Greyson took charge of the conversation as the moderator. “We haven’t discussed this openly, but I believe we are all of the same thought regarding this so-called Herald of Sh’logath.” He scanned the table; the other five each nodded solemnly. “We could have initiated the Great Awakening during any of the last few lunar cycles had it not been for Nitthogr’s excuses. We’ve had the ability to collect Claire Jones at our leisure up until his personal plans exploded in his face.”
“I think we can all see how thinly veiled ‘his plans’ are,” Andrew Thornton intoned. “He’s obviously working some independent scheme and using us—using Sh’logath—as a part of that.”
Five of the six readily leaned forward with their hands balled in fists, ready to call for an official vote in the confidence they’d entrusted to the warlock. Bruce Cannon, however, stayed back; obviously he had more to add.
“Bruce?”
“All of this is true,” Cannon said, “and yet we’ve all been witness to the raw power that Nitthogr has at his disposal. Can this council stand in open defiance to Nitthogr if he cleanly breaks his allegiance to Sh’logath?”
Charles Summers, perhaps the most thoughtful and atheological of the bunch chimed in. “If our hearts are set on performing the grand Invitation and releasing Sh’logath but that results in our destruction—will that change anything?”
Cannon looked at him, confused.
“In one hand is the idea that Nitthogr has retreated from the true faith and we must usurp him to cause the Awakening. If we are destroyed because of our attempts it will be for Sh’logath’s glory. If we succeed, stopping a false prophet, it is to the Devourer’s glory! If we are wrong and Nitthogr has remained true to the agod’s higher plan and he is forced to destroy us in order to fulfill it, then this too glorifies Sh’logath. All roads lead to that eventual glory—Sh’logath rises regardless!”
His occultic fervor rose up. Passion interwove his words. The six slapped their palms against the table enthusiastically.
Holding up one more finger to tick off his second question he asked, “How will the vyrm react if we move against their leader?”
“Do we continue to need them? Enrollment into even the upper levels of the Heptobscurantum is on the rise. But there is always Vivian. She is a true adherent. She could initiate a coup against James if it becomes necessary… overthrow Nitthogr as the leader of The Black. Or else we can maybe identify one of the vyrm generals who could take his place.”
Cannon leaned forward, buying into the rhetoric. With his fist sideways he called for the vote. “Do we continue under the thumb of Nitthogr who we suspect may be a pretender to Sh’logath’s will?”
In unison they turned a thumb down. The vote was unanimous. Silently they stood and respectively unfolded their robes. Each pulled it over their bodies, drawing the hood around their face in order to properly convene. It was the one ritual formality the secret society held to.
Adams laid a new robe on the table and called the meeting to order. The first order of business would be to install their seventh member and ratify him as a legal member of the Heptobscurantum. Hopefully this occult magician could provide some protection against the warlock’s rage whenever he returned to Earth and learned of The Seven’s schismatic intentions.
He laid his arm out with fist balled up. Adams asked with his thick accent, “Jacob Sisyphus?”
Around the table each member signal
ed with a thumb’s up.
“Greyson? Please retrieve our brother and let us welcome him to The Seven.”
. . .
Day and night blended together. Very little light permeated the atmosphere deep enough to reach the cracked, alien surface of The Desolation; the eater of the light hung as a fixture in the sky. It seemed too close, an ominous reminder of the impending doom. It also remained a very real threat to their sanity, tempting their stressed psyches to break down and go mad.
Claire’s feet drug heavy against the crystalline shards underfoot. Jagged stones threatened to smash their ankles if they didn’t give enough attention to each footstep; the cold sapped Claire’s desire to keep pace.
She stumbled and Rob caught her, kept her from falling. He pointed in the distance and pulled her behind a rocky outcropping. She lay next to him as they peered out from behind their cover. Rob pointed towards the horizon where a group of vyrm rovers wandered far ahead: outcast members of the vyrm who sided with neither the Black nor the Tarkhūn—they were either rejects, outcasts, or members of a tiny population which held to a heretical faith in the long-since-exterminated royal line: a faction which hoped in a future vyrm redeemer. This was the third nomadic group they’d spotted since their departure from Limbus yesterday. Claire barely looked at them, though. Her thoughts during this journey had gone to war against each other.
Bithia’s thoughts, memories, and emotions had slowly crept back toward the surface. Claire knew that she had loved Rob far more intensely and purely than she had let him know. Her brilliantly sensual feelings toward him seemed to suddenly awaken after their first encounter with the nomadic vyrm drifters—the vyrm toxins had cleared her system, perhaps, bringing through more of Bithia and making Claire blush as she shared in them.
The intense feelings waged war against her darker thoughts; they helped distract from dwelling on the unknown fate of her father. Basilisk had given her no real information. He’d only opened the door to misery and despair, poisoning her thoughts in a more damaging way than the vyrm psychics who had bitten her in the ether.
Wolves of the Tesseract Collection Page 16
