Wolf of the Tesseract

Chapter 15

Claire gasped as her body simultaneously ripped apart on Earth and stitched back together on a new plane of reality. It felt like a spear of ice impaled her—but there was little pain, merely a sense of shock and intense cold that no person could prepare for.

Immediately a hand clamped over her mouth to keep her silent—Rob's hand. She huffed repetitively and her nostrils flared as she tried to keep her heart rate under control following the portal jump. She suddenly realized that she'd been screaming. Her hot breath steamed in the vapid cold of the place; their breaths were the only nearby sounds except the faint echo of her initial cry.

As Rob released her, sure she wouldn't scream again, Claire turned a slow arc. The sickly green sky appeared dead and the sun seemed to have collapsed inward upon itself; it more closely resembled a black-hole than a luminary body. Currently, they found themselves within some sort of ruined city. Their surroundings resembled a village market; a set of structures similar to Earth's Stonehenge surrounded them, jutting up from the surrounding foundations. Still, everything felt very alien in origin.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, getting a lay of the land. Claire kept glancing at Rob. Even in the dark and threatening surroundings, she saw his confidence brim. Her mind kept returning to that kiss. The new and sudden river of feelings it unlocked brightened her on the inside, even despite the dreary surroundings.

Everything nearby seemed painted in tones of the subdued: greys and blues, as if the spectrum of light in this place had suffered some critical breaking. The ground had cracked and peeled like old, baked mud; it crunched underfoot. Dust and soot covered everything in a thin layer.

They marched a few blocks from the portal where a skyline opened between two broken structures. Distant mountains loomed on the horizon, but most menacing of all was the giant, obsidian polyhedron which hung in the sky.

Rob put a finger to his lips to indicate silence. He pointed upward and whispered, "Sh'logath."

The sight instilled supernatural, abject terror when looked at for any amount of time. Even catching it in the corner of her eye greatly unnerved Claire.

Sh'logath appeared to lurk on the threshold of the planet, only just coming into existence; the object shimmered glossy as if it phased between reality and nonexistence. The sky glowed red and burned around its edges, flaring as the atmosphere ignited against the almost-touch of the petrifying agod.

"This way," Rob whispered. His muted words sounded like shouts as they broke the silent, dead air of the charred planet. He led her around a corner and into a dilapidated construction where he unzipped the duffel bag and withdrew some warmer clothing.

"Where are we?" asked Claire. But even as she asked, Bithia's memories crawled through her mind. The ruined realm, the site of Syzygyc War... the place where reality's destruction had been halted so long ago.

"We are in the Desolation." He looked around with trepidation. "I believe that we are in the city of Limbus, specifically."

"Limbus?"

"The Dead City, we call it. It's the capital of the Desolation, under minority control of the ancient houses of the vyrm. But they, the Tarkhūn, are still dangerous: a ruling caste born of ancient lineage. There was a civil war many years ago. The majority of Tarkhūn pledged fealty to Nitthogr's brother. The Black, the common, proletarian class, sided with Nitthogr."

"So we are safe here?"

"Claire Jones, you have never been in more danger than you are right now," he whispered. "The Tarkhūn have waged their own war against the blackborn vyrm and Nitthogr, but you are nowhere near safe. The Tarkhūn would gladly kill us or use us for their own plans." He did look at her sympathetically. She should have known all of this after merging with the princess, but for the vyrm poison and its psychic amnesia only let through snippets of information.