Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

Zabe, already scorched from the glancing firebrands, leapt to his cousin’s defense. He swung the Stone Glaive and barely nicked a group of pouncing vyrm with a spinning whirl, freezing their surprised looks as they turned to stone. The other enemies stepped back and gave him wide berth.

  Skrom snatched up one of the stone soldiers and wielded it as a club. Zabe and Skrom traded blows as more vyrm rushed towards them; the door had nearly closed behind them. Jackie and Bithia screamed for his retreat.

  Zabe glanced at the horde of vyrm pouring towards him and didn’t see Skrom’s windup with the club. He smashed the lycan and knocked the Stone Glaive free. The mythic blade clattered towards the Kith Gate.

  Howling in response, Zabe slashed the tarkhūn behemoth with his claws, staggering him backward. The lycan snatched up Wulftone's body and chucked his friend through the gate. Zabe slashed at the other vyrm as they tried to grab a hold and then sprinted for the gate.

  The lycan turned his body and squeezed through just in time. He turned and glared, meeting Caivev’s gaze as she burned the closing door with her hateful scowl and the air echoed with the sounds of the pyramid’s collapse.

  With a resounding thud, the Darque gate of Koth closed and entombed the Caivev and her forces in the dimension cut off from the multiverse.

  ***

  At insurmountable speeds, the inky splotch flew through the air. It instinctively knew its host, instructed by the Master.

  Squeezing through keyhole and crack, the thing slammed through any objects in its way and rolled over anything that did not yield like an inanimate object fluent in parkour. It rolled itself in human blood and skidded across ancient runes, bridging arcane connections, and activating sigils that allowed it to pass into realms beyond—to where its destiny called.

  Soil and grass were of no interest to the fleshless blob as it passed over the splendor of the Prime. Beauty did not move it and compassion would not deter its dark purpose: conceived of nihil, ether, and rage.

  There was no way it could breach the ultimate object of its desire—the Chamber of Secrets was beyond even its ability. It searched for the host, finding a petrified soldier in Respan’s lab. The insolent child of Jarfig, filled with fury and bitterness, paced nearby.

  If the thing could have laughed, the onyx smear would have. As it hovered high above the castle and looked across the land, it saw all and it pulsed with expectant, hideous glee. It knew who to possess by sheer impulse.

  It moved quickly and took its host with no resistance. Burrowing its way in, it felt the warmth of human flesh as it regained a body and senses. Overcoming the host mind, he seized control and inhaled a deep breath. He had forgotten what it was like to be human—the creature had not been human for a long time.

  With returning senses, so too did memories and emotions. Hate burned like a fiery star in his heart. He turned to face the Royal City and its gleaming castle.

  The long game had resumed for the hidden enemy. Nobody would know he even existed until it was too late.

  Chapter 28

  Mere days had passed since returning to the Prime, though the campaign felt nothing but a victory. Too few had come back, but the casualties seemed low compared to the last two attempts at awakening the Agod Devourer.

  Even throughout the wake of Caivev’s campaign, the royal military had kept busy training the next class of soldiers who were ready to step into the shoes of their predecessors. Luckily, with fighting subsided, they were readily employed in whirlwind cleanup efforts and they kept earth-side evidence of any alien forces to a minimum.

  Tay-lore even sent out false signals to sidetrack paranormal researchers and occult experts like Vikrum Whiltshire to keep them from stumbling upon fresh truths while the Prime’s forces buried the incident in layers of fresh dirt. He’d gone so far as directly hiring Whiltshire for a wild goose chase. The Veritas had long insisted that the Architect King’s special Earth dimension remain as undisturbed as possible—they had to make a renewed attempt at the mandate, at least. At the top of that list was the destruction of the Koth Gate.

  Other than the missing faces, things appeared to have nearly resumed normalcy. Changes were subtle. The Veritas were found more readily in the palace hallways—especially Shandra who often accompanied Sam Jones.

  “Please, call me Princess,” became a common request. Only select people knew how Bithia’s reemergence and Claire’s traumatized catatonia from the Darque.

  The fallback to formality helped obscure that fact and such a request did not strike anyone as odd. It was difficult only for Sam, Jackie, and Zabe.

  The archaeologist was able to fling himself into his work or his new relationship with the attractive cleric. Jackie and Wulftone were disgustingly in love and focused on each other. Zabe… took the change with difficulty.

  Popping his head into Bithia’s room, Zabe rapped gently on the door frame. “Princess?”

  Bithia waved him in. “Come in, please.”

  He looked around uneasily. Perhaps the most awkward change had been her relocation back to her old room. It was a stark contrast to the one Claire had kept in her father’s apartment. That room had been free of royal vestments and pretense… it allowed Claire to be freer and escape the shadow of the crown. It was not necessarily better… just different.

  Perhaps for the first time in the days since their return, Zabe had been capable of putting everything back in order and finding some personal time. Nothing required his immediate attention and he could take a shower and relax.

  Zabe remembered how he and Bithia connected—it was different than his and Claire’s connection. The internal struggle between the two eroded his gut with emotional tension. He wasn’t sure he knew how to be alone, though—Bithia or Claire, he couldn’t imagine a life without her.

  “Would you like to accompany me to supper? It’s probably good to be seen in public after all the recent turmoil.” Zabe almost blushed. He didn’t know why he felt the need to excuse the invitation.

  “I would like that,” Bithia said. Her eyes sparkled a little more vibrantly than they had since her reemergence.

  Zabe escorted her to the bistro that had come on such high recommendation from his cousin. Through the front window, they spotted Jackie and Wulftone sitting as they arrived. He'd just begun walking again with his leg finally healing thanks to his altered forms incredible regenerative abilities. Despite that, however, he retained a slight limp whenever he took his lycan shape.

  “Should we sit with them?” Bithia asked—she desperately yearned to spend time with Jackie. Bithia never had a female friend as close as her but she knew from Claire’s memories that it was something she greatly desired.

  “No,” Zabe said. “Let’s stay incognito and not steal his thunder. I think he’s got something special planned tonight.”

  ***

  Pollando stood with Minas, Perribelle, and Druen outside the door. They’d been knocking for hours, trying to ascertain that Shjikara would not—or could not—open the door to the Sacristy. None of the faction leaders had seen him in days.

  Though Pollando could not speak, it was clear that he agreed with the other leaders of the four disciplines: they should open the door. Such an act was considered an extreme measure within the halls of the Veritas.

  Perribelle, the studious bookworm and head monk of the Wax Order, reinforced the gravity of their decision. "Only once previously has the four heads agreed to open the doors without the High Priest's lead."

  Minas rolled his eyes. The leader of the Order of the Flame had heard his peer tell this story countless times. “Yes, yes… Master Tangellaf was so diligent that he died while executing his duties and had to be retrieved by the four heads.”

  Perribelle frowned at the more brazen head of the arcane branch of studies. It was probably that trait which had helped propel him to his current rank… but it would likely never allow him to take Shjikara’s seat… in the event that he’d met a similar fate. The Verita
s had remained conservative ever since a previous head of the Order of the Flame grew too zealous and fell: Nitthogr.

  Druen, with a silence almost as stoic as the mute Pollando, thrust his fist into the lock of the door. His surprised peers did likewise on their specific ports, each one engraved with the crest of their discipline.

  The door warmed and vibrated momentarily. Finally, it unlatched and yielded before them.

  Drawn and haggard, with a thick growth of stubble on his face, Shjikara looked up from his seat at the long table. Books upon books lay open and a variety of artifacts had been pulled from shelves. The sight made Perribelle glow with camaraderie.

  All at once they noticed their leader’s fist. From the forearm to fist his left arm had been turned to stone—the same kind of living stone that resulted from the Stone Glaive’s power. They stared at Shjikara in awe.

  His lips were cracked and his voice sounded raspy and weak from fasting. “My research has taken a serious turn.” He held up a stone chip that they all knew had come from the Stone Glaive, though it had never before demonstrated the ability to cause a transmutation. It had been on the Sacristy shelves since losing the weapon during the Syzygyc War.

  Shjikara looked at them with both fear and excitement in his tired eyes. "I've been at this for days, and can find no answer to my predicament," he tapped his solid fist on the table, "but I do believe that I have learned the secret of turning stone back to flesh and reversing Basilisk's curse—that is, for anyone else." He met Minas's gaze, "Of course, we all know the basic tenants of the arcane arts. ‘For every spell, there is a cost.' I think this may be just that for me."

  “To what end?” Druen asked.

  "There are so many," he rasped as his friends helped him to his feet so they could guide him to his bedchamber for some much-needed rest. "Chiefly among them is compassion," he said. "And I know exactly who to release first… as soon as I've perfected the technique."

  Pollando caught Shjikara with an askew look. A freed and restored General Zahaben would have several implications.

  “No, my friend,” Shjikara defended. “It’s not because of any particular disdain for Zabe—though I’ve made no attempts to hide my dislike for Zahaben’s son—we all want this, whether or not it deposes his command of the Guardian Corps.”

  The others let the topic rest between the two psychics. It could be discussed later, after Shjikara had gotten some rest and sustenance.

  As soon as the others left the High Priest on his cot and closed the door, Shjikara looked at his hand and smiled with a broad, mischievous grin. He’d always had plans, and crippled or not, they’d become easier with this new development.

  Shjikara grinned again. He might earn a nickname out of it, too. “Shjikara the Stonefist,” he whispered aloud… or even just Stonefist. He liked the sound of that.

  ***

  Wulftone pushed Jackie’s chair in for her.

  “Ooh, fancy,” she quipped.

  He sat opposite of her and smiled. “You have no idea. I researched some of your Earth customs and came up with your perfect night.”

  She leaned forward, intrigued, and playfully tapped his foot on hers. "You better be careful and not tip your hand too early.”

  Wulftone smiled and poured two glasses of sweet wine. He signaled the waiter who disappeared through the kitchen. “We haven’t yet revisited that last thing I told you in the Darque.”

  Jackie blushed. “I’ve been waiting for you to get around to that.”

  He smiled. “It is apparently a custom for you to receive a ring—and I know your favorite kind.”

  Their waiter appeared with a pale, pink box that he set on the table. It was far too large to be a diamond ring. She raised her brows inquisitively.

  “Tay-lore helped me locate a recipe from Earth,” he noted as she lifted the lid.

  A dozen warm and glazed imitation Krispy Kremes rested neatly in two rows. She looked up at him with eyes that twinkled like gems.

  “I hope these rings make you happy.”

  She sniffed the box as Wulftone bent onto one knee. “Jackie…”

  “Oh dear Lord, yes!” She exclaimed as she began stuffing her face with pastry.

  He took a ring from his pocket—he’d had it specially made from a fragment of darquematter. “Will you—”

  “I already said yes,” she said, stuffing a doughnut into his mouth and smashing most of it against his face.

  He ignored the sticky mess and put the ring on her finger anyhow as they laughed together.

  “I haven’t eaten this many in a long time—so be warned that you’re going to have to help me work off some calories later,” Jackie said playfully.

  ***

  Shandra walked down the hallway with a hip swagger that indicated she was on a mission. Her footfalls stopped clacking for a moment as she glanced into one of the research pods. She knew Trenzlr had made friends with Respan and Tay-lore and hoped to find the vyrm turn-coat in the area. Only Jenner was in the research pod.

  She stared at him for a few long seconds, frowned, and departed. Jenner had never struck her as someone prone to research, but he was an incredibly driven young man and it wasn’t out of the question that some task had inspired him to pour so deeply over data. Truth be told, the recent incidents had touched every person in different ways. No person involved in the fight against Caivev escaped the battle unchanged.

  The cleric poked her head in on the scientist-inventor Respan who appeared totally engrossed in some kind of test he’d undertaken upon the statue of Zahaben. He didn’t even look up.

  "Definitely alive," he mumbled aloud. "So it can't be some kind of fake, or ploy that Basilisk is undertaking for nefarious purposes."

  She asked, “Have you seen Trenzlr?”

  He jumped, startled at her presence. Slightly embarrassed at his gaffe, he smoothed his shirt and shook his head, while pretending that he’d seen her all along. “No. Not since… before.”

  Shandra knew what he meant. She nodded and walked further down the hall to Tay-lore’s lab. The android sat on the edge of the workshop with a number of machines hooked up to opened ports on his animatronic body.

  “Greetings. Pardon my state,” he said, “But I'm in the middle of some routine diagnostics. I hope you're not offended by my…nakedness.” He tried his hand at humor again, but it dripped with over-the-top lewdness, complete with eyebrow-raising.

  It was all that Shandra could do to keep from laughing. She merely shook her head with amused disdain.

  “Too much?”

  She nodded.

  “What brings you here so late?”

  “I’ve been sent on a mission that I do not fully understand,” she said. “Shjikara has always been cagey, but he’s been even more so, lately. He hasn’t cared much for Trenzlr but his regular indifference has given way to something completely different since our return. He sent me to find him but nobody has seen him since that day we all planeswalked to Koth. I know he forged a bond with you—have you seen him?”

  Tay-lore seemed reluctant to answer. “Not since that day.”

  “Well, where did he go?”

  The android shrugged but did a bad job concealing that he might know more.

  Shandra crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Tay-lore grudgingly admitted, “He received a coded transmission that appeared meant for him. It originated from the Plains of Neggath.”

  The cleric frowned. “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Everyone was… preoccupied.”

  “But now—after he’s gone? I hope you have a copy of the message, did you read it?”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not—we’ve had security problems lately. It didn’t occur to you that our leak could’ve come from the only vyrm living on the Prime?”

  “You previously vouched so strongly for him. Besides, he’s our friend. It would’ve been wrong to go through his m
essages. I’m certain he couldn’t have been the mole.”

  Shandra crossed her arms and glowered at her synthetic teammate. She fumed for a few long moments. “Shjikara’s not going to like your answer. Speculate.”

  “Thankfully I only report to the Guardian Corps,” he said. “I don’t think Shjikara ever cared for me. Regardless, after he read the message, it seemed to give Trenzlr no end to his consternation. He disappeared later that afternoon. I had assumed he returned to the monastery and the Veritas.”

  Shandra held her severe posture, so Tay-lore continued.

  “I did catch one word he kept mumbling to himself. ‘Maetha.’ There is a high probability that the contents of his letter drove him to flee on some personal errand—probably religious in nature; it may have otherwise been a call home. There is a low probability that Trenzlr is the source of the security problem.”

  Shandra bit her lip, tempted to curse with frustration. She began her departure and muttered, “I think maybe Trenzlr and Shjikara both know something that no one else does.”

  ***

  Zabe reached across the table and took Bithia’s hands. He looked into her face, trying to stay positive, though inside he ached over what Claire’s disappearance might mean… was she dead, was this a split personality thing, were Claire and Bithia even different?

  He pushed down that internal struggle and locked it away in the deepest part of his mind and glanced across the room at the happy couple. Wulftone and Jackie seemed oblivious to the world around them. Zabe didn’t know if that was a good thing or not—but he wished he could stop the wheels of his mind and feel like that again.

  Bithia smiled. “It is good that they have finally found each other. The worlds can be so dark and hard at times… and life can be so short.” Her words hung heavy between them.

  “Too short,” Zabe agreed.

  Bithia glanced around and then stiffened her posture. Zabe followed her eyes; the other diners had recognized the royalty in their midst. Patrons already buzzed with excitement at seeing the engagement of a notable officer of the Guardian Corps—now they were treated to a visit from the most prestigious couple of the realm who had only recently made news of their own engagement public prior to Akko Soggathoth’s grand joke played out.