Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 265

"Faster," Brontes urged as the bedraggled survivors hurried into the depths, "Faster!"

"It would help if we knew where we are going!" Jordig snapped.

"I can't explain," Brontes retorted, "Your mushy little brain couldn't understand anyway."

For nearly an hour the ragged group had raced into the depths under the crystal pyramid, running through a maze of bisecting corridors and branching passages. The black walls were featureless and grim, without sign or lumen orb. Were the Skitarii not carrying stablights on their weapons they would be marching in darkness. Brontes was at the fore, marking every turn against directions given to him by Polydorus, an exact route he could only follow precisely.

In his wake marched three hundred Skitarii, all that remained of their army. So, few to stand against the Hungering, but it was all they had. Brontes was in no doubt the rearguard had fallen already, swept aside by hordes of constructs. Even now they would be spreading through the maze, seeking a path to its heart. Doubtless many would be stumbling through the dark in aimless confusion, but since the Hungering had nigh-infinite numbers to send it would only be a matter of time until they stumbled on a way through. Time was running out.

As they ran Jordig informed the group, "I've lost all contact with Zar-Quaesitor, we're on our own."

"Always bloody are," Wulfe snorted.

"We weren't getting any reinforcements anyway," Brontes muttered, "We'll have to finish this ourselves."

Pycelo was marching along with his weapons aimed backwards but he spoke up, "Something is off with this maze."

"You dannae have to tell me," Wulfe grunted, "This stone is... wrong."

"Has the Nanoswarm replaced it?!" Jordig spat.

"No," Kerubim reassured him, "I would see it, the walls remain mere stone... for now."

Pycelo however said, "The geometry is off, distances make no sense. I've been charting our path in my internal guidance cogitator and by my reckoning we've travelled far beyond the Pyramid's boundaries. The turns are wrong too, unless we've crossed our path several times the corners in here add up to more than three hundred and sixty degrees, which is impossible."

"Don't trust your feeble compass," Brontes muttered, "It's only designed to work in three dimensions."

"What do you mean?" Kerubim asked in confusion.

"We're travelling through a multi-dimensional labyrinth, built through non-Euclidian space."

"Is such a thing possible?"

"It was based on the scribbling of a Polymath of Firenzi, long held to be unsupported theoretical speculation, until someone actually built it."

"Bloody tinkerers," Wulfe spat, "They couldnae even leave decent space alone."

"It should slow down the Hungering," Brontes chided, "It will have to walk these passages as a man, instead of simply eating the whole place."

"And when we get to the centre?" Jordig pressed.

"One problem at a time," Brontes grunted.

Silence fell as they advanced, following Brontes' route. Time dragged by at a crawl, every second made torture. Brontes was sure the town above was gone, absorbed utterly. Soon the planet would follow suit. Then the Hungering would spread, he'd seen it before, it would spill across the stars and make all things part of itself. Every world, every star in the galaxy, and beyond. No others remained who could stop it, there was only himself and the faint promise of the failsafe. If his makers had been wrong, if their last defence proved insufficient, then all matter was doomed. Their greatest mistake would be the end of all life in the cosmos.

After another hour had passed the group sensed a sudden change. "Wind!" cried Kerubim in eagerness.

"My auspex registers an open space," Pycelo proclaimed.

"Quickly," Jordig urged, "We must claim..."

The passageway they were following opened up into a vast arena, so broad the eye could barely see the far side. Spherical in shape and covered in staircases, arches and balconies, none of which obeyed the laws of physics. Stairs crossed each other at impossible angles, meaning people would be looking down at others walking upside down, or at right angles. Surfaces that were floors viewed from one angle would be walls from another, or ceilings to others. Stairs led to nowhere, unless one twisted about and walked up the wall, in which case the stair had only ever been receding wall. It was impossible, it made the eyes hurt to look upon and in the centre of the vast sphere pulsed a mighty machine that leaked energised light and plasma to illuminate the space.

"What the Frak?!" Kerubim gasped.

"I think we've fallen into the Warp," Jordig gulped.

"Non-Euclidean geometry," Brontes muttered, "I did warn you."

"Your sodding lot could never build anything right," Wulfe grunted, "Show them a simple straight ruler and they'd find some way to bugger it up."

Pycelo was directing auspex vanes upwards and said, "I'm detecting massive energy surges from, whatever that is, a frequency I've never witnessed before."

"That is a Brane Shield generator," Brontes explained, "It creates a pocket dimension, within which the Noxia Interregnum will be held. We need to shut it off and let the failsafe loose."

"I don't understand," Kerubim started, "It's not inside the Pyramid?"

Brontes explained, "The crystal pyramids aren't so decorative as I was led to believe. They serve as anchor points, grounding rods for the Brane shield, a locus for multi-dimensional forces."

"So, we switch that thing off and this pyramid will spew up the Noxia Interregnum?" Jordig asked.

"How tiny your mind is," Brontes snorted, "It won't just happen here, it will happen everywhere. Every single pyramid on the surface is connected to the Brane shield. Take it away and the failsafe will be enacted globally."

"Right then," Wulfe spat as he hefted his gravity hammer high, "Let's blow it up!"

"Stop you dolt!" Brontes yelled, "You don't have any idea how much power that generator is pumping out. It could well incinerate us like a supernova going off."

"So, what do we do?" Kerubim asked.

"There's a deactivation rune somewhere in here, all we have to do is find it."

"Split up into teams and sweep the area," Pycelo ordered, "Anyone find a big red button: push it."

"Can't make anything bloody simple," Wulfe muttered as he turned and stomped away.

Brontes didn't watch the squat go, turning to a descending staircase and beginning his search. Kerubim and Jordig came with him, along with a half-dozen Skitarii. The others split off in knots of half a dozen, each taking a variable staircase. In moments they were all spreading across the impossible geometry, walking across roofs and walls as if gravity meant nothing. Brontes' internal cogitators soon began wailing as they failed to chart this knotted space, screeching that nothing computed. Knowing that the tangled weft of reality would be just as confusing to the Hungering as to him was no comfort. Strangely the organics seemed to have less trouble, swiftly learning to not look up and acting as if their feet knew where they were going. Though he would never admit it Brontes fell back a step, trusting organic intuition to lead where logic failed.

They reached the bottom of a stair and stepped onto a wall, walking up it calmly. Brontes' stabiliser subroutines screamed he was going to fall over, but he ignored them and stepped after, fixing his eyes on Kerubim's back. A knot of Skitarii passed by, walking upside down along an apron, before twisting about and stepping over a void, that became a floor as they walked down a wall.

Jordig spoke up, "I've been trying to estimate the size of this place and even a conservative guess put it at dozens of square kilometres."

"We could spend days in here and not find the target," Kerubim groaned.

"Better not," Brontes hissed, "We..."

His words were cut off as a crack of energy-weapons discharging rang loud. All eyes shot upwards and they spied a knot of Skitarii letting rip with Radium Jezails. Their target was a surge of bodies pouring into the impossible space, Hungering constructs spilling out by the score. A few were punched off their feet by rad-shots but the rest raced on, spilling down stairways and up walls. They couldn't possibly understand this realm better than Brontes, but they didn't have to, sheer weight of numbers meant they could swarm over any obstacle with ease.

"Fall back!" Jordig called, "Break away and move into the structure!"

"Too late," Brontes snarled as he spied a knot of constructs racing towards them.

His Fission-blasters came up and let rip, punching twin shots into the leading constructs. Radioactive blasts smote them off their feet but the rest pressed on, bringing las weapons to bear. A moment's calculations told Brontes their salvo would be deadly to the organics, and none too good for him, so responded by launching himself at them.

"Stay back!" he roared as las-fire pinged off his armour, a brief volley that merely scored his plates. A moment later he slammed into them, disruption-wreathed fists swinging. With a great sweep of his arm he smashed a half-dozen constructs apart, spraying silver droplets across the walls as Nanocytes were torn from their setting. The false Skitarii piled in, drawing shock-staves that crackled with disruptive force. Brontes gave them no chance to land a blow, surging forward like a freight train, using his bulk as a battering ram to slam constructs to the ground.

Hostile Nanocytes coated his plate, trying to Absorb his atoms, but his defences were robust. Microscopic machines of his own moved to thwart them, wresting atoms off the intruders and grappling with foreign invaders in his systems. Stalemate, neither side able to best the other, leaving them locked in a battle that could not be won, which was to Brontes' advantage. The Cadmus was proof against the Hungering's tricks, but sadly not physical attack.

His circuits flared with distress as a shock-stave was rammed into his hip joint, making him stagger. He was swiftly beset on all sides, constructs piling on till he was nearly coated in enemies. More and more, coming from all directions, crushing him in piled bodies. The world disappeared from his eyes but Brontes was not dismayed, this was the heart of war, where he was built to be. His cogitator presented a solution and he snarled with relish, "That's it, get in close, right where I want you."

Brontes' hand lashed out and grabbed a construct about the thigh. With a heave he pulled the foe off its feet and lashed out horizontally. The flailing man-thing slammed into its comrades, bowling them off their feet and sending them sprawling like toppled skittles. Brontes surged upright and swung left, driving the broken form in his hand through a knot of foes, battering them down. A gaggle of enemies backed up, trying to draw las-weapons but Brontes raised his arm high then brought down their comrades upon them, so hard the body splattered on impact, spraying them with silvery Nanocytes as the construct came apart.

Broken foes laying writhing on the ground and Brontes began putting Fission-blasts into them, ensuring they didn't get up again. He was aided in this by shots from his comrades, rad-rounds burrowing into foes to riddle them with toxic radiation. In moments they were alone with puddles of dissipating silver ooze. One knot of foes down, untold more to go.

"Quickly!" Jordig barked, "We must get..."

"Get where?" came a cold and ruthless voice.

Brontes' eyes came about and beheld the most hated sight of all. Ruuka, walking calmly towards them with sword in hand. The construct was grinning with his mouth but his eyes held nothing but cold contempt, an ire that endured beyond mortal death into the false existence of the Hungering. In his wake poured dozens of construct-Skitarii and among them Dannye, reborn again.

Jordig, Kerubim and the true Skitarii fell back as Ruuka snarled, "You led me a merry chase through the maze, but it's over. I have you at last, and you will join me in eternity."

Brontes stood his ground and hissed, "I'm going to end you, permanently."

"Come on then fossil," Ruuka snorted, "Let's not wait around all day, I've got planets to absorb you know."

Brontes responded the only way he knew how, his fists flared with power as he charged at the construct, seeking to bring an end to this madness once and for all. Ruuka merely raised his sword in salute then leapt to meet him, unafraid of the difference in size and strength. So, two orders of artificial being met, to battle for the fate of everything.