Zabe nodded at Wulftone. “This is surely a weapon we’d want—even if deploying it offensively seems unlikely. Not much makes me want to revisit my time in the Desolation.” He watched Wulftone’s overeager study of the sword. “Is this maybe a distraction for you?”
Wulftone pretended he didn’t know what his cousin implied.
“You’re using this project to put your focus on something other than Jackie?” Zabe poked him in the ribs and lowered his voice.
Wulftone bit his lip. “I’m trying really hard not to hate that charismatic tool,” he muttered quietly—even he didn’t really dislike the guy… but he privately resented the competition.
Zabe patted him on the shoulder while he vented the rest of his frustrations—most of them came out as newly invented curse words he’d created specifically for Harken. “Hey. He’s a hero, you know—a real people’s champion and a good soldier.” Zabe rapped Wulftone on the chest, “But you’re a better man. Jackie will see that. Stay the course.”
He sighed. “I hope you’re right. I’m playing it cool, but it’s my experience that nice guys usually lose to cute dimples… stupid, cute dimples.”
The entire room flashed with red lights and ear-splitting klaxons. Everyone in the lab immediately sprang into action; the military alert signaled invasion.
Zabe snatched up the Stone Glaive, ready to fly into action. The other soldiers in the room prepared to dutifully follow him to battle stations, but he paused and looked down at the weapon. “You need all the time you can get to unravel the blade’s secrets, Respan. Make this your highest priority. We have no idea when a solution might be absolutely necessary.”
***
Basilisk stood as regal and proud as if he were a welcomed and invited diplomat. He stood upon the immense stone slab that was the Prime’s central world-gate. Behind him, some inanimate object, covered by a sheet, had been brought through the rift with him.
Members of the Royal Army, plus the highly specialized Guardian Corps, formed a thick ring of opposition around the tarkhūn leader where he stood on the dais; thousands of guns remained steadily trained on him. The portal point lay just outside the military base and only a few klicks from the walls of the royal city.
Zabe and Wulftone, with Jenner in tow, hopped off the anti-grav sled they’d raced to the gate. They picked their way through the formation and found the command unit.
“Good work, Harken.” Zabe rapped the soldier on the shoulder as they arrived. He’d performed perfectly and detained the intruder as protocol dictated.
Harken nodded and saluted.
Zabe gestured back. Even Wulftone gave an obligatory return salute.
“What does he want?”
“We don’t know,” Harken replied. “He came through and has just been waiting there patiently.”
Basilisk picked Zabe out of the crowd and his face brightened. He waved to get the commander’s attention.
Zabe grimaced and then joined the reptilian leader on the platform. “Basilisk.” He greeted him with a tight-lipped, curt bow.
Basilisk responded with a stiff-backed, formal bow. "Commander Zabe of the Guardian Corps." He winked. "I wondered if you might have been wearing that marvelous sword you acquired the last time you toured my home. And where is Bithia Claire Jones?" He rattled off the names as if they were one word. "She really ought to be here."
“You’re going to have to deal with me, for now.”
Basilisk raised his eyebrows and then a voice called out.
“I am here,” Claire yelled as she glided through the air on an anti-grav sled of her own. She quickly parked the unit and then joined them. Her presence obviously unnerved Zabe, who flashed her nonverbal warnings to try and keep back. She pretended not to understand it.
The vyrm leader grinned broadly. “Words are a far more dangerous weapon than any invention of man, don’t you think? However, I’d hate to see a nervous finger ruin a diplomatic mission.”
Zabe turned and gave a hand signal to the troops. They lowered their guns but kept them at the ready.
“I’ve come to sue for peace,” Basilisk stated.
Zabe stifled a laugh.
Basilisk cocked his head at the man, not understanding what was so funny.
“I have arranged for a true cessation of hostilities with the Black,” he said proudly. “I am nearly in total control of them, entirely, as it always should have been. In the meanwhile, the tarkhūn plan to pursue peace with our neighbors.”
Claire’s face softened towards the scaly leader. “You have finally made your choice? You know how your game plays out?”
Basilisk smiled through his snake-like mouth. “I have decided how this ends.”
Zabe eyed him skeptically. “How can there be peace? You will never gain control of all the vyrm.”
“I have assurances from the Black that in a short time they will come under my yoke.”
“But there are more than the two factions. What about the rovers that you call the Followers of Krakkath or the Seekers of Maetha?”
Basilisk wore a visibly upset face. “You have my assurance that those renegades will have soon disappeared entirely. They are a candle in the wind and their light is all but faded.” He kept his voice low, not wanting to lose his composure. Basilisk turned to Claire. “I was pleased to learn that I’d heard wrong about your father.”
Claire nodded graciously, although the depths of the tarkhūn leader’s knowledge always unsettled her. “We ought to discuss the terms of our truce,” she said in a very Bithia-like tone.
“Agreed. But first, I wanted to bring a gift I have no right to keep.” Basilisk yanked the sheet away from the nearby statue and revealed a defiant-looking Zahaben. Every detail had been preserved in stone.
Zabe reeled back in surprise. “Father!” he rushed to the figure. “What have you done with him? Turn him back this instant!”
“I’m sorry,” Basilisk stated. “There is no way to undo the effects, at least none that I’m aware of.”
Zabe whirled to face him. His eyes flashed with danger and his skin seemed to bristle as if he might shapeshift into his lycan form and tear his enemy to pieces. “Why have you done this?”
Claire looked into his eyes with a pained look of apology. They begged him not to blow what might be the Prime’s first opportunity at true peace.
“I am sorry for his condition,” Basilisk said. I have many spies in the ranks of the Black. One of them whisked away Zahaben before my brother could take him alive.”
“But I saw him die!”
“Did you see him actually expire? Did you check to see if his body still drew breath as he battled the invading armies?”
Zabe merely growled in response.
“He did not cooperate with me in the least. This was almost four years ago, before I had the revelation that inspired me to seek peace—before you and Claire came to me in Limbus. I can only apologize for it, but I felt it wrong to keep him hidden while I hold palaver with his son and soon-to-be daughter in law.”
Zabe could only nod slowly, diplomatically, and accept Basilisk’s story. But he didn’t have like it, or believe it. From what he understood of the petrified condition, he hoped that Respan was up to the task.
***
Jarkara adjusted his knit, wool cap and walked the long decks of the cargo ship as it plowed through the choppy Atlantic waters. He kept to himself as he’d done since entering the oceanic region. Just a day and a half ago the shade killed a sailor and assumed his place on the barge specifically for his mission; he knew he’d find his target soon.
He watched over the waters in the failing light with keen vyrm eyes, knowing exactly what to search for. Finally, he saw it: the wreckage of a sailboat and its marooned passengers. Jarkara sprinted for the captain so that they’d be able to stop the massive craft in time make a rescue.
“I don’t know how you could even see them that far away,” Captain Woodson congr
atulated the shade as the slowing cargo ship drew closer and he dispatched a rescue crew to pick up the marooned sailors. Woodson greedily rubbed his hands. “I’m pretty sure that’s the Wainsmith girl! I read about her sailing out this way in the newspapers—some kind of charity project.”
“I know who she is,” Jarkara grinned and Woodson clapped him on the shoulder, mistaking his humor for an expectation of an extra payday.
“Funny that she didn’t radio for help from the Coast Guard,” he noted. “Maybe her equipment malfunctioned?”
“Or maybe it’s ours?” Jarkara suggested. “I suppose we might not be receiving if they’d tried to alert any nearby vessels.”
Woodson furrowed his brow. He didn’t like that thought and tossed the imposter his key to the bridge. “Run up and do a radio check for me? I’d like to be here when we bring them aboard.”
Jarkara nodded and headed towards the radio room with every intention of sabotage.
***
Woodson had just finished wrapping his guests in warm, dry blankets and begun an unsolicited tour of his craft when gunfire erupted. The captain nodded to the six young teens that accompanied the young woman. “Go back that way and you'll be safe.” He unsnapped the strap that held his sidearm fast and muttered, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“Is it pirates?” Holly Wainsmith asked.
“I’m not sure,” Woodson said. “They’d be pretty brave to attack so close to the U.S.” One second later a bullet tore through his head and he collapsed.
Holly screamed and fled with the teenagers in her care. They rounded the edge of the main superstructure. Shipping containers made a confusing maze of chaos where surprised sailors fought an impromptu battle against hordes of green-skinned, reptilian humanoids.
Blood splattered the decks and small arms fire peppered the atmosphere. Loud blasts cracked the air as the invaders fired some kind of hand-held laser cannons that fried her unwary rescuers.
“Where did they come from?” one of the teenagers shrieked.
Holly pulled the girl to her side and then slid back the way they’d come. “I have no idea—but we’ve got to find someplace to hide!” She looked up to the windowed command bridge but could see the silhouette of someone smashing equipment—she assumed that was the radio. Her own had mysteriously malfunctioned after some kind of micro-explosion disabled her craft, slowly sinking them into the ocean with no alternative but to limp towards a shipping lane.
“There,” Holly pointed to a forty foot cargo container with her father's company name on it. The door hung slightly ajar and she noticed a crudely spray-painted star near the handle as she heaved it open.
A massive reptilian man stood within, holding an armload of strange equipment beneath each bicep. He set down the sci-fi props and grinned at the girl through his carnivore teeth and snatched her up in a flash, covering her mouth to prevent her from calling for help.
The woman nearby looked into Holly’s eyes and laughed at her fear. She stepped aside so that she could see the decaying goatman who lurked nearby with his mischievous, yet vacant eyes and a large book held under his arm. His oven mitts made the scene go beyond terrifying to absurd.
Holly Wainsmith thrashed and struggled as the behemoth cinched her wrists and ankles with cable ties. The woman gagged her mouth with a strip of duct tape when a line of teenagers stepped inside looking for their chaperone.
As soon as the first one’s eyesight adjusted to the dark she shrieked in terror.
“What should I do, boss?”
“Do your thing, Skrom. Throw all of the kids overboard for all I care.”
***
Zabe nodded to Respan as his crew of movers finished transporting the statue of Zahaben into the research facility. He’d made sure they took the greatest care possible with the figure trapped in stone.
With weary steps, he left the scientist to his work in his segment of the laboratory building and walked down a hall to a different wing where Sam Jones and Tay-lore requested his presence before a different meeting. He grumbled to himself over how the duties of Master at Arms of the Guardian Corps included a lot more meetings and diplomacy than he realized he'd signed on for.
He raked his hands through his scruffy hair and arrived at his next appointment. Finding the Prime’s most prominent enemy suddenly on their doorstep had been unnerving enough—but something about how he conducted himself during their “peace talks” deeply bothered Zabe. Basilisk knew too much—too many specifics of their recent inner workings. His spy network was legendary, but how could the tarkhūn leader know about things like Respan’s attempts to reverse engineer the Stone Glaive unless he had a mole?
Sam greeted him with a sympathetic tone as he entered. Tay-lore tried to show compassion in an admirable attempt and awkwardly tried to hug Zabe. Behind him, Sam tried to waive the automaton off from the maneuver but failed.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Tay-lore said in an overly weepy inflection as he nearly strangled the Captain of the Guard in a bear-hug. “I have a number of sympathy poems memorized. Would you like me to recite one?”
Zabe broke and burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. “With friends like you, Tay-lore, it’s a wonder that the vyrm ever thought they could make me miserable.”
Tay-lore recoiled. “I’m not sure what you mean. Did I not do it right? Should we hug again?”
“No.” Zabe held up a hand. “I’m fine. Respan will eventually find the cure. I’ll be okay until then. Tell me what you guys discovered.”
Sam turned the old book towards his soon-to-be son-in-law. “The Veritas, mostly Shandra, helped us finish translating the text from the story of Vangandra.”
Zabe nodded, familiar with Sam’s growing affinity for the cleric. His next appointment was with her, in fact.
“Yes, that too,” interjected Tay-lore. “I also wanted to bring up some of my recent findings—massive fluctuations in the Tesseract’s energies.”
“First, your thing,” Zabe said to Sam. “What did you find?”
He pointed to Zabe’s wrist cuff where the family crest of his line had been embossed. “There is no special significance to your father’s bracelet—at least, nothing more than sentimentality. I’m sure that previous scans revealed nothing because that has always been the case. Your shapeshifting ability does not come from any special, outside force or arcane artifact. It comes from within. According to your ancestors, all of Vangandra’s lineage had this ability—they just needed to learn how to focus and draw it out. Your father’s bracer merely gave you something to focus on before you knew how it worked.”
***
Idrakka watched Jarkara closely as they held the bound woman between them on the forecastle of the ship. She was far too precious to let escape.
The remainder of Caivev’s helpers dropped their modified buoys into the icy water at precise points determined by their global positioning devices. Nearby, an immense console that looked as if Doctor Walther might’ve designed it, stood affixed to a network of cords and cables connecting to wireless units that communicated with the floating devices.
Moments later handheld radios squawked as the teams reported in that they were all green lights. Charobv flipped a switch on the mysterious console.
Pulsing energy beams shot vertically from each of the floating contraptions that formed a large ring in the frothy water. Within seconds, the high-tech laser grid borrowed from a foreign dimension bored a hole through the water and created a dry tunnel that dropped to the surface far below.
Idrakka and Jarkara scooped up their prisoner and met Caivev at the motorized lifeboat where she waited with the fiendish Akko Soggathoth and his pet. The tentacle creature sniffed excitedly at Holly Wainsmith who writhed with horror. Grinning, the herald commanded the abyssal auraphage to stay while they piloted the craft to the first buoy and latched the boat to it, cautious not to let it slip over the edge which dropped more than thre
e miles to the bottom of the vertical shaft.
Using a mechanical winch system Caivev’s crew had strung between two of the floating stations, they rode a modified elevator into the depths. Skrom, Idrakka, and Jarkara repeatedly lit and tossed flares over the edge of the lift to provide light. As they finally drew nearer to the bottom, the illumination revealed the ruins of an underground city both ravaged and preserved by the pressures of the deep.
With the exception of Holly Wainsmith, Akko Soggathoth put a different hierophanticus into the pockets of each one on the journey. It would protect them from certain evils, he promised.
Ancient buildings stood in a variety of states of decay and broken pillars littered the landscape. The elevator stopped and Akko Soggathoth led the way as if he possessed intimate familiarity with the location. Skrom carried the weeping prisoner as if she were no more than a light burden.
“It is there,” Akko Soggathoth pointed to the temple near the center of the drop zone. “This is the source of those strange energies the native race has long mythologized in the Bermuda Triangle region. My brother lies within.”
They gathered outside the door and paused to examine the strange hieroglyphics carved into the doors. They appeared too similar to Egyptian logographic characters to be coincidental.
Skrom kicked in the door with a fierce boot. “We don’t have time to look at the pretty pictures. The laser grid only has so much power before it fails—and I ain’t getting crushed by the ocean because of some ancient poetry.”
Akko Soggathoth giggled in agreement and led the way through the dark. His companions lit a number of flares and followed until they came to a central chamber.
Skrom dragged the prisoner forward and laid her upon a thick slab of stone that resembled an altar; the central groove terminated in a small hole in the middle of the altar. Akko Soggathoth anxiously skittered around the room, using his talons to clean the slime and gunk out of the carvings etched within the nearby rock. He meticulously cleaned a large cube of plain granite with a single alcove hollowed out.
“We are ready,” the fiend said in his raspy voice and took out the ancient statue from its protective case, handling it carefully with his thick mittens. “Make the sacrifice.” Akko Soggathoth positioned the darquematter idol in the alcove and nodded to the vyrm who used a knife to cut open the victim.
Wolves of the Tesseract Collection Page 32
