Summary: Ranewen, an elf arboromancer from the Tajuru tribe of Zendikar, has her life turned upside down when her planeswalker spark ignites. She is recruited into the motley bunch led by Sorin Markov and Jace Beleren in order to help eliminate the Eldrazi, but little does she know where her quest is about to take her...
The first chapter of multiple. I was tired of not being able to find any MTG fanfiction that was strongly character-driven but didn't focus purely on original characters (I'm a huge fan of the canon walkers, especially the neowalkers), so I decided "Screw it! I'll write my own." All of this is based off of an MTG rpg that my I'm doing, and is purely for fun. A few of the characters are original, such as the one from whose perspective the story is being told, but none are direct author inserts.
Comments and criticism are always welcome!
*** Chapter 1:
It was strangely cold for midsummer.
My breath came out in a huff as I darted around a tree trunk, flattening my back against the smooth wood. As I paused to reassess my surroundings, I noted how grateful I was for the change in temperature, however odd it might be. Perhaps the Roil was to blame - But then again, who knows? All I knew for sure was that the chill air and slight breeze kept me from overheating as I ran, and that it dulled my quarry’s senses enough so that they were a little less dangerous than usual. Perfect. I could just kill what I needed and then go straight home. It had been a long day, and every single one of my muscles felt as if it were throbbing, not to mention the fact that my eyelids drooped whenever I stood still for too long. I needed to go to bed. Eat and wash first, perhaps, but then go to bed and sleep till sun’s height the next day. Ah yes, that would be nice…
But just then, I was pulled out of my reverie by the shrieking cry of a baloth – one that sounded far closer than it should have.
My heart leapt in my chest as I spun, and for a horrible moment I couldn’t concentrate past the tight grip of fear on me to tap into the mana of the forest all around, to sink my mental fingers deep into the wells of green that flowed through every trunk, every stem, every blade of grass. But then, in a rush, I made the connection, and I felt my body surge with power even as the hulking form of the baloth thundered through the trees and into sight.
I lifted my hands in front of me, and at my unspoken command a little creature made of tangled vines flickered into life at my feet. I let the baloth charge closer, closer – but just as it neared enough to skewer me on one of its lowered head spikes, I whispered something under my breath, and the vine-thing suddenly stretched and entwined its tendrils into a thick net that caught the baloth and sent it crashing to the ground. The beast thrashed about, roaring, but try as it might, it couldn’t get free. I took this moment to whisper something else, and an instant later the baloth was scooped up by heavy branches that dipped low, and then passed higher, from branch to branch, before being thrown down with astounding force. I had barely enough time to crouch and brace myself for impact. The subsequent boom, accompanied by a sickening crunch that signaled the beast’s skull cracking, shook the earth, and me along with it. When the tremors passed and the baloth finally lay still, I sighed in relief and allowed myself a triumphant grin. I could feel my body relax. That had to have been record time for a kill!
With a wave of my hand, I dismissed the summoned creature, and then pushed myself to my feet so I could walk over and affectionately stroke the bark of the tree that had aided me. I carefully avoided the blood that was beginning to pour from the dead baloth and pool around my boots. “Thank you,” I murmured, smiling as I felt the pulse of mana from within the tree that I always fancied to be its heartbeat. “You were a great help, as always.”
The tree responded by reaching one of its tinier limbs down and gently caressing a stray lock of my hair, turned from white blond to nearly brown by the mud that I had fallen in earlier.
I laughed at the gesture. “Yes, I know – I need to take a bath, don’t I? This stuff is all over me.” Reaching down, I picked a piece of dirt off the hem of my hunting dress. “And wash my clothes, too. They’re pretty filthy.”
Just , I felt any icy claw of dread rake across my stomach.
I let out a gasp at the strength of the emotion, and the abruptness, and I could do nothing to stop it from bringing me to my knees. With each passing second it intensified, pulling the breath from my lungs until I felt as if I were suffocating. I wielded magic of considerable power, and I even got a taste of it in return from time to time, but…I had never felt anything remotely like this before. To be honest, I didn’t even know if it was magic. What in the name of the Roil was going on?
But then, with a start, I recognized the withering touch of black mana.
It was on me before I knew what was happening.
There was a horrible, ghastly wail that sounded like a thousand tortured souls packed into one breath, and then two immense, razor-like claws – real ones this time – sunk into the forest floor on either side of me. An equally immense mass of metallic chest followed, then jagged, spindly legs that planted themselves inches away from my chest. I was fenced in.
Choking back panic, I forced myself to look up. I immediately regretted the decision, because what I saw made me want to scream.
Above me loomed the creature’s head, which was disproportionately small for its body but still large enough to dwarf my entire torso. A metallic mask covered where its face should have been, similar in material to the metal covering its chest, and two utterly black holes served as eyes that thinned and stretched grotesquely all the way down to its chin. Above its head floated several hedron-like shapes, spinning and twirling in irregular patterns that made me dizzy to watch. I didn’t watch for more than a second, though – There were other, more important things to worry about. Like not dying.
Grunting, I rolled to the side just in time to avoid one of the spindly legs spearing me in the gut, and I thrust my consciousness out to the forest around me, and to the rolling hills and stinking swamps that I knew lay beyond. The mana of those places sensed my desperation, and it filled me to the brim in a swirling vortex, an incomprehensible mass that sent me reeling. I couldn’t hold onto the differing powers for long, however, and it was a mere moment later that I let it all burst forth from my body in a tremendous explosion. A rift appeared in the air before the creature, shimmering and shifting as it caught the light. The creature shrieked and reared up, legs clawing the air, but before it had time to react further, it was being pulled headfirst into the distortion. Another wail echoed through the trees as its body swiftly disappeared from view, and once it was completely gone the rift simply closed and vanished as well.
I sank down into the bloody dirt, my chest heaving. What was that thing?!
But I didn’t have time to contemplate the answer, because a deafening chorus of wails announced the arrival of reinforcements from hell.
This time I reacted instantly, letting out a furious cry as I thrust my clenched fists to my sides and lifted my head to the canopy above me. I called upon whatever green mana I hadn’t drained dry to bring forth three towering creatures from the aether – great trees with limbs made of gnarled sections of trunk and faces carved into bark – and I entreated them to attack the incomers, to protect their summoner. They creaked and groaned as they obeyed, moving forth to meet the nightmarish swarm head-on.
It was no use. The trees had barely gotten in two swipes on one of the creatures before they were surrounded by ten more, and each hacked to pieces that dissipated as soon as they tumbled to the ground.
Exhausted from my expenditure of power, I fell to my knees. My breath was coming in ragged gasps as I pleaded, frantically, for help from the trees around me again.
This time, there was no answer.
More and more creatures poured into the grove around me from all sides, some identical to the one I had first killed and its brethren, and others of entirely different shapes, sizes, and even mana signatures. Each one was more terrifying than the last, with limbs that flung outward at impossible angles or gaping maws of teeth as long as my forearm, or tentacles that writhed and extended toward me, snakelike, presumably to wrap around me and squeeze the life from my body.
As the horde drew closer, I felt a terror like nothing I had ever known.
As they formed a circle around me and slowly, methodically, reached out, I screamed.
No!
I don’t want to die!!
As that final thought raced through my mind, I felt something swell inside me, something that seemed to erupt from my very center. At first it was like a hum, vibrating my core and spreading outward to my arms and legs as I knelt, drained and helpless, before the dozens of creatures that would in mere moments be the bringers of my death.
But then that hum quickened and turned into a pulsating heat, scorching veins and nerves alike as it raced throughout not only my body, but through my soul.
Inside me, everything was on fire now.
For a moment, time seemed to slow down.
And then, without pretense, my body and soul and everything around me exploded in a blaze of heat and light.
I screamed again as the unearthly inferno whirled around me, around everything – And as I lost myself within its flames, I felt nothing at all.
When I had previously imagined my own death – idle thoughts that I had never let linger too long in a mind that could be put to use towards other, better things – I had always guessed that it would be a great night, falling over me like a shroud that took away every sight and sound and touch, leaving nothing but a darkness that held neither moon nor stars.
Regardless of the probability, though, I could feel the beginnings of a terrible ache spreading from my lower back all the way up to my head, and the sting of bloodied wounds. I opened my eyes slowly, cautiously.
What in the name of every spirit had just happened?
Nearly ten feet off the ground, I lay cradled in the boughs of a young jaddi-tree, my entire body miraculously balanced on only two branches. My limbs were tangled rather thoroughly in a net of hanging vines, which, despite being uncomfortable, helped support my weight and kept me from tumbling to the forest floor below.
When I looked down to that forest floor, though, my entire body stiffened in shock.
There was hardly a patch of ground to be seen amongst the pools of black blood that littered the clearing, as well as the dozens of mangled corpses of the creatures from which it gushed.
Creatures that were supposed to have killed me.
I could feel the strangest mix of profound awe and profound dread spreading through me, chilling my own blood like ice. My head spun. How could this possibly have happened? How? I should have been dead, I had been dead, I was sure of it! But the beasts were the ones that were lying there lifeless, not me. This was so absurd, so unthinkable…
Finally, after several long moments of baffled pondering, I realized that I wasn’t going to be finding the answer I was looking for anytime soon, and decided that my efforts would be put to better use trying to extricate my limbs. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t budge them an inch. It didn’t help that none of my muscles quite seemed to be working, and that I couldn’t find the voice to whisper words of supplication to the tree. Wonderful. What good is being alive if I’m stuck up here without the strength to call for help?
As if in answer to my silent gripe, there was a rustling in the underbrush below, and a figure emerged.
I had never met anyone in my life who really fit the label of ‘tall, dark, and handsome,’ but this stranger…he fit it almost too perfectly.
A foreigner, for certain. He wore the garb of a decorated swordsman – long black cloak; shining, filigreed silver armor; even an elegant longsword hanging from his belt. His skin was the color of charred pewter, and his hair was long enough to fall neatly about his shoulders, and white enough that I guessed him to be a very old man. A very well-built old man, perhaps, but no – When he stepped out into the clearing, unconcerned with the blood or the corpses of baloth and eldritch abomination alike, I got a better look at his face. I was surprised to see that it belonged to a young man. He couldn’t have been older than his late twenties – a very attractive late twenties, might I add. Despite having just risen from the dead (or whatever in the spirits’ names had happened to me), I felt my skin flush when he paused, looked up, and flashed me a smile as dazzlingly white as his hair.
Wordlessly, he strode over to where I hung limp, and his remarkable height combined with the reach of his sword had cut me free from the vines in mere moments. With those bonds no longer holding me fast, my balance on the branches wavered. I didn’t have the physical strength to right myself, much less lower myself safely down, and so I could do nothing but let out a squeak as I felt myself slip away and into the air. Mercifully, however, the fall was cut short. The man let out a little grunt when he caught me, arms snug beneath my knees and around my shoulders – a perfect bridal carry.
I blushed another five shades of red.
“Um…who are you?”
Gently lowering me to the ground, the man gave a soft chuckle. My breath caught in my throat at the sound of it, at the too-perfect way it rumbled like thunder in the hills, and from that point on I couldn’t stop looking at him. Where his hand remained on my arm to steady me, my skin tingled. “You, my young planeswalker, may call me Sorin.” He pulled back then, drawing up to his full, impressive height. “I cast a spell last I was here in order to tell me when another of us was born, but I must say…I did not expect Zendikar to choose another young, comely elf maiden.” He shrugged languidly, his lips curling in a roguish grin. “But such is fate.”
I knew he had said something else that I should be focusing on, but that focus would be hard-pressed to control me. A mage too? I must be dreaming.
And my cheeks were on fire! They had to be. How else could I explain their heat?
“Do you hope to gain something with this flattery?” I could hear my voice, though the girlish giggle it was now wrapped up in made me doubt that it was my own. To my even greater surprise, I found myself looking up at him and smiling coyly. Coyly! Since when have I been such a flirt? “I must admit that I’m…unaccustomed to receiving it.”
The man – Sorin – shrugged again, though not without an intimate raise of his brow. “An ally, perhaps. I see you have met the brood lineage.” For a moment – far too long a moment, if you asked me – his gaze left me to travel in a circle around him, noting the abominations littering the ground, grotesque even in death. “Their masters are my concern, and I am gathering allies in order to contain them once more.”
Despite my sudden and powerful infatuation, his mention of the creatures piqued my interest enough to wipe the smile off my face and send my eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “Brood lineage?” I asked, head tilting. “Is that what you call these…things?” I gestured vaguely with a hand, too weak still to lift my arm very high.
Sorin nodded. “Indeed. Their masters are known as the Eldrazi, and they are the real threat. The brood lineage is merely a symptom of a far graver sickness.” He hefted a sigh and looked down at the body parts strewn about his feet, an expression of distaste marring the beauty of his visage. His gaze didn’t seem to be on them, though, but on something else entirely. “They are the minions of the titans, parasites from the Blind Eternities that I, along with my allies, sealed away here long ago. But with the Eldrazi newly released from their prison, these beasts roam free – sowing destruction and chaos in their wake, preparing for their masters to finish the job. It is…troubling.”
I shook my head, letting this new bit of knowledge sink in. I had no idea where the Blind Eternities was, and neither had I heard of it from any of the travelers that had previously stopped in my village. That was a question for later, though. If I was to ask the question that hovered at the edge of my mind, it was now or never. “This ‘brood lineage…’” For a moment I hesitated, and my still-weak voice cracked slightly. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me. “I was out hunting when they surrounded me. I thought I was about to die. But I didn’t. I…” Shaking my head again, I lifted my hands, palms-up, to eye level. “There was this huge burst of fire, and then I lost touch with everything. When I was aware again, I was up in that tree, and they were all….like this. Dead.” After a breath I looked up at him, straight into his eyes, which I noticed to my surprise were red. It was unnerving. “You must have been close by when all of this happened, right? So did you see anything?”
Far from what I had expected his reaction to be, Sorin chuckled again. I felt a shiver run down my spine at his baritone voice, and it took every ounce of my willpower to hold back from throwing myself at him. “Ah, my beautiful girl…did you not hear what I said? How I called you ‘planeswalker?’”
I frowned, having to think past the fact that he had just called me beautiful in order to remember what he was speaking of. “I…yes, I do, actually. But I don’t know what that means.”
He laughed now, sounding genuinely amused. “It means, dear, that you can traverse the space between planes. The Blind Eternities.
“You are one of the gifted few who can walk among worlds.”
For a moment I didn’t seem to process what he had just said. But then a moment after that, the weight of his words hit me like a wave, and I gasped aloud. My knees buckled beneath me, and I thanked the spirits silently that Sorin, who reached out to slip an arm around my waist and right me, had good reaction timing. When it was clear that I wasn’t going to tip over, his arm released me, though not before his hand ghosted upwards, featherlight, across my own arm. Goosebumps raised on my skin wherever he touched.
“Wha---what did you say? I can walk among worlds?”
Still looking amused, Sorin nodded. He appeared as if he were trying to hold back a smile. “Yes, that’s right. Though I have to admit, I’m surprised – It isn’t odd to you, the thought that there are other worlds beyond your own?”
Reeling, I shook my head. “No. No, not really. I’ve felt mana from unfamiliar places before, once or twice, when using my magic. I didn’t know why I knew, but I knew that it wasn’t from Zendikar. It was just…a gut feeling, I guess. A really strong gut feeling.”
Sorin shrugged, the motion fluid. “It makes sense. I’ve seen such things happen before, in other walkers.” He reached out to touch my chin with a single crooked finger, and let out his breath in a soft laugh. “So don’t get a swelled head and think yourself special and unique, despite your most enchanting appearance. If you are to prove yourself as powerful, then you must earn the use of that word.”
My cheeks were aflame again from his touch and his compliment, however hard I tried to prevent it. And this time I was trying, because I could feel a distinct something gnawing at my gut, doing its damndest to get me to pay attention to it. I would, but…just not yet. “So…wait. You said that I’m a planeswalker, which is all well and good if this isn’t just some crazy rite of passage to enter into the afterlife, but you didn’t say what that has to do with…this.” I gestured with a sweep of my arm around me, indicating the brood lineage. “With why they’re lying here slaughtered.”
Another shrug from Sorin. I marveled a second time at how smooth and elegant he could make a mere roll of the shoulders. “Simple. Your spark – the magical potential inside of you that makes you a planeswalker – ignited. Strange things happen when planeswalker sparks ignite.” He hesitated for a moment, surveying his surroundings again with a cocked brow before turning back to fix me with a wry grin. “From the looks of it, you were thrust through the Blind Eternities to a plane of pure green mana, where you called upon all that mana to aid you here. Can you not see the remnants of your efforts?”
I hadn’t looked closer at the dead brood than I had thought I needed to, but now that I glanced around with a more scrutinizing eye, I saw shredded bits of thorned vines, both scattered among what foliage still remained on the ground as well as impaled through massive heads and torsos. I closed my eyes and focused what little energy I had left, trying to catch whatever traces of the spell still hung in the air. When I did, I recognized my mark, indicating the spell as mine, as easily as I would recognize my own scent.
Suddenly, I found it very hard to breathe.
“Well? Do you believe me now?”
Sorin’s voice brought me swiftly out of my own head and back to the world around me. He was watching me with a patient expression, his arms crossed over his chest. When I opened my mouth to speak, found that I didn’t know what to say, and closed it again, he sighed. I could do nothing but nod.
“If you truly are convinced of the truth of what I say, then I will finish my explanation, and then we can discuss what steps we need to take next. Fair?”
I nodded again.
He cleared his throat and paused for a moment to smile at me, a slow, almost easy sort of smile. Casual. Something that he would only share with an intimate companion.
That something in my gut roared up again, even as my pulse fluttered.
“So,” he began, “as I was saying. If the Eldrazi titans can be contained, then the remnants of the brood lineage can be slain easily enough, and no more will spawn. But also as I said, the brood is not our main concern. The Eldrazi feed on existence itself, consuming mana and souls. They thrive on death.” His eyes darkened as he fixed me with his gaze, and I could feel my chest tighten under its weight. “If left unchecked, then they will eventually consume your whole world and spread throughout the multiverse with their insatiable hunger. As long as they exist, unimpeded, this fate is inevitable. That is our concern.”
My body trembled slightly as I tried to imagine creatures more terrifying than the ones I had already faced, and then proceeded to imagine them wreaking havoc across all the lands that I had grown to know and love. All the jaddi-tree forests, the wind-swept plains…even the black and putrefying swamps, with their strange clicks and cries that never failed to pique my curiosity as to what lay in their depths.
But what was worse, what chilled me to my very core, was the thought of them taking the lives of everyone I held dear.
“No…” I found myself whispering. “My tribe…”
Sorin’s gaze hardened as he stared at me, somehow managing to turn even more solemn that it had been previously. “Not only your tribe,” he murmured, “but the very earth under your feet will be gone. Once they devour all magic, matter will be next, and this combined consumption will free the titans from their prisons of flesh that I managed to force them into. They will become one with the aether, and will be able to traverse the Blind Eternities from world to world as we walkers do. Then…”
He shook his head, closing his eyes and reaching out to place a hand on my shoulder. His grip was firm, and somehow…colder than when he had touched me before. I blinked at the strangeness of the difference, but tried not to pay it any heed as I continued listening, rapt, to what he had to say.
“Then we will be utterly lost.
“There is one small consolation, however – I chose this plane, Zendikar, to be their initial resting place because mana here is chaotic and powerful. They will have difficulty accessing it, much less draining it. It is not something they are familiar with. It will buy us some time…but some is not forever. ” Sorin opened his eyes again, and they were startlingly wide when they found my own and held my gaze in an iron grip. His hand on my shoulder lifted, tracing a path up the side of my neck as it made its way to my cheek. Where it passed, his fingernails left tiny red lines that stung ever so slightly.
“Every heart runs dry, given enough time to bleed.”
Suddenly, with a jolt, I realized that looking at him didn’t make me feel as if I wanted nothing more than to faint into his arms and melt again his lips.
It made me feel fear.
“Sorin…” I whispered hoarsely, reaching up to place my hand over his wrist. My heart was racing, though not for the same reason that it had earlier. “It’s awfully convenient that you were right there when my planeswalker spark ignited…isn’t it?”
He chuckled darkly, and the hand that caressed my cheek suddenly dug its fingernails into my skin. Hard.
“Ah, my dear one, I was afraid this might happen.
“But luckily, I planned for this…eventuality.”
As his gaze bore into me, I found that I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even move. A surge of want, stronger than I had ever imagined feeling, threatened to overwhelm me.
“You’ll be just as useful as my slave as you would have been my ally.”
I could think of nothing but the sound of his voice, the scent of his skin, the heat of his breath against my lips as he pulled me in, closer …
“NO!”
I gasped in air, thrusting my palms against his chest and shoving hard. My legs felt like lead as I stumbled backward to slump against the trunk of a nearby tree. Everything was spinning. My heart pounded. My stomach churned. I felt violently sick.
The horrible realization hit me even before his lips drew back in a monstrous grin to reveal gleaming white fangs where his incisors should have been.
Before I could even react, Sorin had drawn his longsword in a clatter of steel and was lunging toward me.
I threw myself to the side, though not swiftly enough. The blade slashed forward with vicious intent and left a long cut across the length of my throat, just barely missing my jugular. When the pain flared as I fell and rolled away on the ground, I gasped, and clutched my hands to my wound in a desperate attempt to staunch the flow of blood. This accomplished little, except to stain my fingers a bright red. There was no time to think.
I rolled again, away from the stabbing blow he had aimed right at my heart. When I forced myself to my feet and ducked to avoid a powerful slash, my entire body was coated in the stinking black blood of the brood.
Already being as weak as I was, and now with the still-bleeding cut on my throat that was making me dizzier by the second, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up this dance much longer.
Sorin’s eyes were lit with a fire from within. The grin that curled his lips as he threw his entire weight into a diagonal slash – which hit its mark and sent me tumbling backwards, crying out – was feral, bestial. When I hit the ground hard and found myself looking up into his twisted expression, panic clawed at my heart.
There was no strength left in me to move.
But just as Sorin raised his sword high above his head to deliver the killing blow, the air in front of me swirled and distorted, and formed itself into a shimmering cerulean curtain that parted as I watched.
Out from that curtain stepped a figure.
My vision blurred as I fought back unconsciousness, but even so, I could see that the figure was a young man. He wore a cloak of deepest blue and adorned with arcane white symbols, and the hood was lifted over his head so that I couldn’t see his face. What I could see, however, were his gloved hands at his sides – and both of them were clenched into fists, reining in the glow of crackling blue energy that was now traveling all the way up his arms and down his back to bathe him in an ethereal light.
“Back off, Sorin,” he growled. There was a threatening note in his voice that sent a chill down my spine, even as I realized that he was saving my life. “This isn’t what we agreed on.”
To my dazed surprise, Sorin straightened and laughed, letting the hand that was holding his sword fall slowly to his side. His laugh was hearty and deep, holding none of the primality of his expression mere moments before. “Well well, Jace – a man after my own heart!” He spread his arms wide and grinned, flashing those ever-so-sharp fangs of his. “Rescuing damsels in distress is a surefire way to bed a lady, but I do believe you’ve forgotten who’s in charge here.” When his gaze flicked down to me, lying prone and helpless against the corpse of one of the brood, and then back up to the newcomer – Jace, he had called him – his eyes gleamed. Dangerously.
Jace scoffed in derision, but said nothing. He crouched lower and widened his stance.
Realizing that the fight was about to begin and that I was also about to lose my chance, I at last found the strength to open my mouth and speak, though my words came out in barely more than a strained whisper. I sounded as pathetic as I had ever heard myself. “Are you here to help me, or is this another trick?” I tried to lift myself to a sitting position, but found that I couldn’t even do that. “I don’t know what to believe!”
Jace turned his head for just a moment and looked down at me. His face was indeed young, and rather handsome – in a more natural, normal way than Sorin’s eerie beauty. Jagged white tattoos ran the length of it, from forehead to chin, and then further down along his throat to where they disappeared beneath the shadows of his cloak. The shock of dark brown hair that hung over his eyes – glowing with the same blue energy that sheathed him – waved back and forth as he shook his head. “You’ll just have to trust me,” he murmured. “I can’t convince you now.”
For whatever insane reason, I believed him.
Jace turned sharply back to face Sorin, though not quick enough to dodge a sudden slash aimed directly at his face. He gasped and drew back a little, his hand rising to the newly formed cut on his cheek that began welling blood. He clearly hadn’t been anticipating the blow.
Sorin stood back and lifted his blade to his lips. Ever so slowly, he ran his tongue across the sharp edge, licking Jace’s blood away before it could drip off and onto the ground.
“Blood is power,” he breathed exultingly, when he noticed the other man’s body stiffen at the sight. “You would do well to remember that, little mind-mage. So concerned with the thoughts of others that you neglect to notice what lies so close within your own reach…”
“Shut up!” Jace snarled. Even through the folds of his cloak, I could see the muscles of his back tighten. “I have no intention of allowing myself become anything remotely close to scum like you.”
Sorin shrugged. “And yet you work with me still. Are you so sure of your convictions, Jace?”
Jace’s eyes narrowed, and the aura around him doubled in brightness. “You know as well as I that this is only a temporary deal. Once we’ve eliminated the Eldrazi, I’d be perfectly happy if you dropped dead. …Or at least, more so than you already are.”
Sorin barked a short laugh, and with a whoosh he pointed the tip of his sword straight at the center of Jace’s throat. “Very funny. I hope you know that the feeling is mutual.” His own eyes narrowed, and the yellow glow that seemed to be emanating from his irises grew infinitely more sinister. I felt my breath catch in my throat when their gaze shifted slowly, and after a few agonizingly long moments, finally came to rest on me. They looked…hungry. “Just give me the girl, and I’ll let you off easy this time.”
“No,” Jace said simply.
Sorin let out a long sigh, sounding as if he were holding the weight of the world on his shoulders already and Jace was only adding to it. “Well, when you’re lying in your cozy bed back in Ravnica, bruised and bleeding from every orifice, don’t complain to me that I didn’t ask nicely.”
With that, he thrust his palm forward and let loose with a blast of dark energy.
Jace reacted instantly, flicking his wrists to shake off a little bit of his own blue energy, and in a matter of milliseconds there was another him, standing right at his side, identical in both physical appearance and posture. The double leapt in front of Jace to take the attack for him, and as soon as the blackness crashed into its chest, it vanished into the aether with a soft hiss. Jace stood calmly behind it, unscathed.
Sorin didn’t look amused by the trick, though, and with a growl he sank the blade of his longsword deep into his forearm. I felt my stomach turn as blood poured from the wound, thick and bright and red. This can’t be good.
And indeed it wasn’t. With a guttural cry, Sorin grasped at the air in front of him and tugged, as if he were reeling in some invisible tether. Jace grunted and clutched at his arm, yanking up the fabric of his sleeve to see a wound identical to Sorin’s beginning to form, ripping open like a seam and spilling blood all over his cloak. But before the spell could complete itself, before his skin could tear entirely, he held his hand over the growing wound and muttered a few words under his breath. There was a sharp crack, like a bolt of lightning, and his flesh knit itself together as if nothing had happened. I could feel the black mana of the spell dissipate.
Wait…
I can sense mana again!
Slowly, tentatively, I tried moving my arms and legs at once. They obeyed.
Hardly daring to hope, I reached out with my mind to try and grasp onto different sources of mana from places I knew, places I held dear.
It rushed into me, as easily as a moth flies to a flame. I nearly gasped at the sensation of being so suddenly filled.
Jace must have sensed what happened, because he froze in the middle of tracing a rune of blue energy in the air before him with his forefinger. Across from him, Sorin was doing the same with a black rune, murmuring something indistinguishable under his breath as he did so.
Are you strong enough to fight?
Now I was the one who froze, though to be fair, you couldn’t exactly call my slight stirrings the exemplar of movement. I hadn’t heard the words aloud, but in my thoughts, as if someone was circumventing my ears and speaking directly into my mind.
And at once, I recognized the sound of the voice.
Jace?
Yes.
What…How can you speak to me like this?
There’s no time to explain. If you want to live, then help me.
How? What do you want me to do?
Cast something that can hurt him. I’ll double it. It’s all I have the mana left for.
The entire time that we had been having this mental conversation, Jace hadn’t shown a single outward sign that it was going on. He was still tracing that intricate rune, still staring with admirable focus at the lines and curves of its form, and the way that the energy it was composed of flared brightly every few seconds or so.
I forced myself to focus now as well, though on something else entirely.
A familiar power swelled within me, and I could feel it threatening to explode outward from every pore of my body.
So I let it.
There was a great concussive blast that shook the earth beneath me with its force, and before I even had the time to look up and see the rift that I knew would be forming to suck in Sorin’s longsword – the object to which I had necessarily attached my spell in order to target him without killing – there was another blast, identical in strength to the first.
Sorin was forced to his knees by the torrent of mana that emanated from the rift and clawed at him, swallowing the longsword at his belt as well as the great creature he had just summoned. A distinctly feminine shriek echoed in the air, and I turned just in time to see that the creature in question was a tall, naked woman, with skin so pale as to almost be translucent, and an aura of purple swirling like mist about her. She writhed, snakelike, as she tried to free herself from the pull of my spell – but it was to no avail. Within moments she was gone, and the distortions in the air made by the twin rifts had vanished. Only Sorin was left, panting as he tried to catch his breath, his eyes seething with fury when he looked up at both Jace and I in turn.
But try as he might, he couldn’t stand.
Jace, on the other hand, stood up straight, and fixed Sorin with an almost haughty glare. His blue aura faded, and I could feel the rush of its mana as it swept past me and back into the aether.
“You may be the most powerful, Sorin, but you don’t rule with an iron fist. The lady gets to keep her blood and her will.”
Upon mentioning me he turned, and with a rush of air as his cloak billowed about him, he dropped to his knees so that we were at eye level. Now that I could see him up close, and with the glow of blue mana gone from his eyes, I noticed that they were themselves a brilliant blue, nearly the exact same color as his cloak. How ironic.
“I don’t think I got your name,” he said softly.
There was a pause in which I had to remind myself to breathe, now that the tension of the battle was over and I didn’t have to keep myself from hyperventilating. “Ranewen,” I said at last, sinking back against the brood corpse that had been propping me up all this while. My muscles slowly began to relax, and I could feel their ache as they did. “Ranewen of the Tajuru.”
Jace nodded, and allowed himself a tired smile as he looked me directly in the eye. “Well then, Ranewen…My name is Jace Beleren, and the troublesome one behind me is Sorin Markov. But we’ll have time for proper introductions later. I think we need to get you cleaned up first.” His gaze fell to the bloody wounds on my throat and chest, and for a moment he hesitated. “But once that’s done, if you would be so kind…I think the three of us have a few things to discuss. Wouldn’t you say?”
Jace hefted a sigh as he drew back, having just mended the gash across my chest with his magic. He shook the remaining white mana from his hand, frowning, and after a few moments he at last turned his gaze down at me. “I’m sorry, Ranewen, but that’s the best I can do for now. Healing magic isn’t my specialty, so it takes a lot of strength to muster even a simple spell.”
I shook my head, hoping that the little smile I flashed him would mitigate his apologetic look. “It’s okay,” I insisted. “I can take it from here. Besides, you already did enough to save my life.” Having had time to regain my strength, I wrapped my arms around myself and called upon the mana of the plains of Murasa, holding an image of their swaying grasses in my mind as I felt the warmth of it seep into me bit by bit. My remaining wounds began to close as I channeled that mana into a healing spell – far more powerful than Jace’s, but still nothing overtly special. When I felt the last cut knit itself together, I sighed and leaned back against the arm that he was using to hold me up. Seeing that I was at last alright, he used it to gently lower me to the ground, and then scooted back to give me breathing room. His face held an expression of relief that mirrored my own.
“I thought you were just a blue mage. I wasn’t expecting you to know any healing spells,” I admitted, squinting into the beam of sunlight that had poked its way through the canopy high above our heads. Its warmth felt nearly as good as the white mana.
Jace finally smiled. “I didn’t, until about a year ago. My friend Emmara is a healer, and she taught me… sort of. But that’s not important right now. Do you think you can stand? Or do you need me to help you up?”
I laughed, embarrassed at how weak and raspy my voice still sounded. What a great first impression. “I don’t think the whole ‘staying standing’ thing will be any trouble, but I’m not so sure about getting up there in the first place. I might need a hand.”
“Then here.” Jace slid one arm around my back, and held my wrist with the other. He lifted me enough so that my feet could find purchase, and then used his leverage to support me until I was standing fully straight. Once I had found my balance, he let go, and I smiled gratefully at him. He stepped away and smiled back.
“Already at it, Jace? What did I tell you? Playing the knight in shining armor is a surefire trick.”
Jace snorted and turned to Sorin, who was leaning against a nearby tree and rubbing his temples. The vampire looked no worse for the wear from the previous battle, save for the fact that he was lacking one lovely silver longsword, and he didn’t show it in his face either. Instead, he looked up and fixed Jace with a roguish grin. He made sure that his fangs were showing.
“Is that all you think about, lech?”
Sorin shrugged nonchalantly. “Few things in life are so interesting…or so pleasurable. Why not?”
Jace pressed his fingertips between his eyebrows and let out a long sigh. “Whatever. Just ignore him, Ranewen. He’s always like this.” When he looked back at me again, I saw that the apologetic expression had returned. “He’s an arrogant ass of a parasite, but he’s also the strongest planeswalker I know, save for one. And he’s the only one who knows how to seal the Eldrazi. So…we kind of need his help, like it or not.”
I folded my arms over my chest and cocked an eyebrow at him. “We? What, so I’m a part of this now?” I winced immediately when the words came out biting, rather than lighthearted as I had intended. I wasn’t angry, just curious.
Well, maybe a little angry at Sorin. But Jace was being enough of a gentleman to make up for it.
The mage shrugged at my comment. “Well, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about. It is a very important matter, and I’m sure you have plenty of questions anyway, so…”
When I saw from his expression that he was expecting a response, I nodded, making sure to keep my tone bright this time. “Of course. As long as I get answers in return to those questions,” My gaze flicked to Sorin for an instant, “and as long as he doesn’t lunge for my throat again, then I’m game.”
Jace gave a little laugh. He had a rather handsome laugh, I noticed. Deep and rich. Textured. “Deal.” He turned his head all around for a moment, taking in his surroundings, and after another moment, he turned again to me. “Now is there anyplace private around here that we can go, where we aren’t completely surrounded by blood and corpses?”
***
“First order of business,” Sorin said loudly as soon as we had settled in, “is that you owe me a new sword.”
Jace chuckled. He finished rinsing the blood off his arm in the little spring coming out of the rock wall at our backs, then began to wipe himself dry with the hem of his cloak. The whole while, he didn’t look up, but held an amused expression all the same. “Fair enough. I’ll buy you one as soon as we get back to Ravnica. But for now, can we please get to the topic at hand?”
Sorin grunted his assent.
“Good.” Finally finished with what he was doing, Jace let his cloak drop to settle around himself again and looked back up at me. His gaze was friendly. “Do you have any specific questions for us, before we start?”
“Yeah, I do, actually,” I found myself saying. A laugh bubbled up in my throat as I pondered the suddenness and ridiculousness of the whole situation, and I just couldn’t help myself. “Is it customary, to set upon new planeswalkers like this? Or is Sorin just especially battle-hungry today and I looked like an especially good target?”
Jace, clearly not expecting the question from the expression that passed across his face, let out a laugh of his own. Any joke at Sorin’s expense, it seemed, was right up his alley. “Yes, unfortunately, though not in the way you had to experience it.” His blue eyes glimmered. “You’re the first walker we’ve actually been able to get ahold of, so we don’t really have a tried-and-true recruitment plan. When we discussed things before, we just decided that we would pull people aside in the most effective way possible, and then have a rather convincing chat. Short and to the point.” For a moment he pondered the bloodstains on the sleeve of his cloak. “You experienced far more fighting than you needed to today. Planeswalker sparks are always ignited through some sort of conflict, or more rarely some sort of profound spiritual experience – but for you, it looks like what you needed was a brush with death. You didn’t need another brush with death on top of that, though, so I apologize for my companion’s behavior.”
Noting the sullen look on Sorin’s face, I shrugged. “It’s okay. No harm done, right? But if I could ask, before you say anything else…What is a planeswalker spark, exactly?” I hated changing topics so abruptly, but I wanted to make sure I understood everything at hand before we moved any further.
Jace still didn’t look up. He turned his arm over so that he could examine how bad the stains were on the underside, and paused for a moment before he spoke. “It’s a sort of magical potential. Very few people have it, and even fewer people have the right sort of experience that can ignite it. But once it is ignited, it gives you two things: the ability to survive the Blind Eternities and walk from plane to plane, and the potential to become immortal.”
My jaw dropped, and I gaped openly at him. “Wait, what?”
Both Jace and Sorin chuckled at the shocked tone of my voice. “The potential, Ranewen. Don’t get too excited yet.” Jace finally stopped examining his cloak, and looked up to smile knowingly at me. “If you can find a way to become immortal, which could vary completely depending on the type of mana you use as well as what you’re willing to do, and you succeed, then it will work. People without planeswalker sparks can do those things and extend their lifespans greatly, but never become truly immortal like us.”
“What about you?” I whispered, feeling suddenly in awe.
Jace shrugged, and his smile turned a little mischievous. “I’m nearly 4,500 years old. What do you think?”
I could only stare.
Seeming to not want to waste any time, though, Jace jumped right back into his explanation. “Sorin, along with a few people who work for me back home, has been monitoring several planes for new walkers. We need every ally we can to fight this war, since the Eldrazi mean the end of all life. They have only recently been released, but they don’t seem to be weakened any by their millennia of imprisonment. It’s an incredibly serious threat.”
“How were they released?” I asked, leaning in. This was the part that I was especially concerned about. I didn’t much like the sound of these Eldrazi, much less the fact that they were roaming free around Zendikar. My home.
All of a sudden a curtain of fire leapt into life behind me with a loud snap, and I yelped. The curtain shimmered in the air like a heat wave, and when I turned quickly to face it, shielding my face with my hands from the incredible light and heat, I saw it begin to part as it was pushed to both sides from the center.
“I can answer that for you,” said a woman’s voice, as its owner stepped forth from the flames.
“We unleashed them. By accident.”
The newcomer, who was a rather pretty young woman about my age, put her hands on her hips and blew a lock of red hair out of her eyes, then tucked it snugly under the strap of her goggles when that failed. The fire she had just emerged from vanished back into the aether. “Someone lured us here under the promise of some great, secret power in the form of a scroll, and we were stupid enough to follow. Then they tricked us into breaking the seal on the Eldrazi. All in all, it was a pretty good day.”
Jace brought his palm up to his forehead and groaned.
I looked back and forth between him and the woman, trying to read both of their expressions. Hers was one of very evident dislike as she glared down at Jace, and he, in turn, looked like he had just been kicked in the stomach. Clearly, he was trying to figure out a way to recover from her brutal honesty.
“Er, well…If it helps, I’m not judging anyone here,” I piped up, though my voice did sound a little hesitant. Hopefully a little sarcasm might diffuse the tension. “You don’t seem to be the type to unleash a world-eating monstrosity just for the fun of it, and hey, accidents happen, right?”
Jace lifted his head with a look of complete surprise, which quickly melted into relief. “Well, I’m…glad you believe her,” he said, sighing slowly. “I thought for sure that would scare you off.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “Nope. It’ll take more than that.”
Jace smiled right back, and I could see the gratitude in his eyes. “That’s good to hear.” He took a full minute to pause and collect his thoughts, glancing up to the woman when he did so and returning her look of dislike. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he must have decided that I was a far more agreeable conversation partner, because he almost instantly turned back to me. “As far as the scroll goes, we still don’t know who planted it for us or why – All we know, and all that really matters at this point, is that we need to contain the Eldrazi.”
His gaze softened. “We have enough death on our hands already.”
Feeling my heart twist at the pain in his voice, I gave him the kindest smile I could manage. “I don’t know what use I can be, but I promise that I’ll do whatever I can. I mean it. Even if I have to leave my village. If it’s for the greater good, then I---”
“Oh, you’re an elf!”
Both Jace and I turned to look at the woman, who was inexplicably grinning down at me. The rust-colored tunic that poked out from beneath her armor fluttered around her like a skirt when she knelt, meeting my bemused gaze at eye level.
“Yes,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. “See the ears?”
“Ranewen, this is another of my unsavory allies, Chandra Nalaar.” Jace raised an eyebrow when she whipped her head around at the insult and glared daggers at him. He didn’t seem fazed in the least. “She’s a pyromancer, in case you couldn’t tell by her entrance.”
Chandra, having apparently just decided to ignore Jace, turned back to me and flashed a genuine smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Ranewen. I was hoping we would get another girl in the group at some point.” Her smile widened into a grin, and she tilted her head to the side. “I didn’t expect another elf, though! Boy, this plane sure is picky.”
My eyes widened. “Another elf? From here? What’s their name?”
“Nissa Revane,” Jace answered. “She’s from Bala Ged, I believe.”
From behind Jace , Sorin snorted derisively and muttered something under his breath.
For a moment I racked my brain for any recollection of the name Nissa, but came up empty-handed. “No, I don’t know the name. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize!” Chandra said, standing up straight and smoothing her tunic. It didn’t do much, but she looked pleased anyway. “And as far as being useful goes, I can personally guarantee that won’t be a problem. We can’t even stand up to a single one of the Eldrazi in a fight, let alone all three! Last time, it took, what…” She paused for a moment, lifting a finger to her lips as she thought. “an immortal spirit dragon, Sorin, and some powerful rock mage to get them all locked up, and the seal was still broken.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered, feeling the first twinges of anxiety pull at my stomach.
Jace scowled at Chandra, then turned to face me with a calm smile. He laid a hand on my arm as he looked directly into my eyes, and I could see that he was trying as hard as he could to look reassuring. “Look,” he said, his voice quiet, “we’re not facing them today, and we’re not doing it alone. All I’m asking you right now is to come back to Ravnica and have a drink with me. I promise, you can ask me anything you want then, and I won’t pressure you into helping us if you truly feel like you can’t handle it once all is said and done.”
Chandra let out an odd little sound, between a giggle and a scoff. “Very smooth, Jace. Barely met the girl and you’re already trying to woo her?”
I blushed almost reflexively, and fortunately Jace missed it by turning to her with an irritated expression. “Would you all stop that?” he snapped. “I’m sure you’re making her feel so welcome.”
Chandra shrugged, and looked down at me with a smug smile. She definitely noticed my blush. Great. “You should tell her about your last one. I’m sure she’d be a welcome change from Li---”
“Chandra.” Jace’s voice had suddenly dropped an octave.
“What? All I was saying is that she---”
“Chandra.” There was no mistaking the threat in his tone this time, and it was so strong that it took me by surprise. I could see as he glared at the pyromancer that his eyes were starting to glow blue, and they crackled with energy.
Remind me not to get on his bad side.
“Sheesh, alright, alright. Touch-y.” Chandra threw her hands up and turned away from the both of us.
There was a moment of awkward silence before Jace finally sighed and looked back at me. His eyes had, thankfully, stopped glowing. “Well, no matter what she says, the offer still stands.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, and he suddenly sounded extremely tired. It made me wonder who this ‘last one’ was. What exactly had she done to make the mere mention of her name such a trigger?
“Of course,” was all I could think to say.
“Back to Ravnica, then?” Chandra said from beside us, though she still didn’t turn around. “I’ll see you there, blue boy.”
There was a sudden ripple of heat, and her hair lit up on fire like a torch. I blinked, startled, but before I had a chance to open my mouth and ask what was going on, another flaming curtain had formed in front of Chanda with a snap. Without another word, she stepped into it and vanished.
“I’m going too,” Sorin grumbled suddenly. “I need a drink.” He pushed himself to his feet and, not bothering to so much as look in our direction, pulled at the air with curved fingertips to rip open a distortion of his own. Its edges flowed, tumbled, and then flowed again, giving the impression of a semi-viscous liquid – something like blood, perhaps.
He, too, stepped into the distortion and vanished.
With the both of them gone, Jace sighed heavily and leaned back against the rock wall behind him. I wanted to say something to him, to cheer him up, but I had only known the man for a few hours at this point – I didn’t know what I could say. So instead I just smiled at him, hoping that it would do a least a little good. Or something at all.
A minute passed, and still Jace didn’t speak. I decided to just give it a shot. “So, uh…she’s certainly something.”
Jace snorted. “No kidding. I’ve spent the past year and a half chasing her around, trying to get back that damn scroll she stole. I’ve done plenty of insane things – joining and then taking over a multiplanar corporation; chasing its previous owner, who’s sworn revenge against me, across the Blind Eternities and back; getting myself caught by a sadistic elder dragon – but none of them have frustrated me as much as she has. And then at the end of the whole chase, I found myself here. In Zendikar. At the Eye of Ugin. At the lock that I didn’t know existed, yet still somehow managed to open.”
“You mean the lock on the Eldrazi?” I asked, resting my chin in my hands and my hands on my knees. If Jace needed to get this rant out, then by all means, I was going to let him.
He nodded. “A mad planeswalker had been there waiting for us, and he attacked us both in the Eye. Chandra used this invisible fire, which turned out to be a spell that replicated the breath of the spirit dragon, Ugin – one of the three who made the Eye and sealed the Eldrazi in the first place – and that spell, along with the presence of three planeswalker sparks, triggered the release of the seal. And there you have it.” He sighed again, deeply. “She saved our lives only to endanger the entire multiverse.”
I shook my head sympathetically. “That sounds like quite a mess. I’m sorry you had to be a part of it.”
“So am I,” he murmured.
There was another long pause, and then I finally decide to break the silence again. I cleared my throat delicately and put my hand on Jace’s arm for just a moment, until he looked up at me. “Well, as you said, I’m sure we can discuss things in more detail over a drink.” Smiling wryly, I pulled my hand away and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I’m sure we could both use one, after today.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, his breath coming out in a soft laugh. “That we could. Though to get there, you’re going to have to planeswalk.”
At the mention of that word I froze, my heart skipping a beat. Whether it was in nervousness or excitement, I couldn’t tell. “How do I do that?”
“It’s…kind of hard to describe,” he said slowly. His brow furrowed in thought. “You need to find something you draw your power from and commune with it. It takes a lot of mana, so having a deep connection is always good. Then you think of where you want to go, and just…walk. After the connection, everything else is instinctive.”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. “Well…alright. I guess I have no other choice but to try.” Rising to my feet, I stretched my arms behind my back, and let out a little groan when I felt my spine pop. That felt good. “Where are we going, though? I don’t want to end up in the middle of an ocean on accident.”
“What magic comes most easily to you?”
I answered without even thinking, though he hadn’t answered my own question. “Anything that concerns trees and plants. Sometimes I can even speak to them without using magic, though it’s easier when I do.”
Jace cocked an interested eyebrow. “Hmm. An arboromancer. Rare to see those outside Lorwyn.”
“Another plane?” I asked.
He smiled again at last, though it was a small one. “Perhaps you’ll see for yourself soon enough. But for now, come with me.”
I followed closed behind as he walked over to the nearest jaddi-tree and placed his hand on its smooth, silvery-brown bark. Where he touched, the tree seemed to distort, though by now I knew that it was the aether distorting, and not the tree itself. I had guessed as much about the physics of this from watching all three of my new acquaintances planeswalk previously.
“I’m a mind-mage, so I draw my power from within. I don’t need to commune with anything in the outside world to walk. But you do, so what I’m going to do is create a portal to the Blind Eternities right in front of this tree, which will allow you to draw green mana from it more easily than you normally can. You don’t ordinarily need to do something like this, but since it’s your first walk, I want to take a few extra precautions.”
I nodded. Just then, I remembered what Sorin had said about my spark igniting, how I had walked to a plane of green mana without even knowing I had done it.
“Just follow me through the portal, alright? When planeswalkers enter the Blind Eternities, we leave an aether trail, which differs in appearance depending on the person. Apparently mine is a bright blue mist, so I’m sure you won’t be able to miss it.”
I nodded again, unable to tear my gaze away from the swirling distortion. Am I really prepared for this?
“Here,” Jace said, his voice suddenly gentle. When I looked up at him in surprise, he took my hand in his and held it tight. “This will make it easier.”
This time, I was sure he saw my blush.
“Now focus.”
I did, with all the strength I had in me. I forced the feeling of his hand and my own embarrassment out of my mind, and directed my thoughts as hard as I could toward the tree in front of me, thinking of nothing but its bark, its branches that reached high up into the darkening sky, its leaves that wavered in the slight breeze, its roots that reached deep down into the earth and fought for dominance against the never-ceasing Roil.
The mana came to me not in a steady flow as I was used to, but in a flood. I could scarely breathe as the sensation overwhelmed me.
“Are you ready?” I could hear Jace’s voice next to me, faint against the roaring tide.
I nodded a third time, my head spinning.
And without further pretense, he stepped forward through the portal and pulled us both into the Blind Eternities.
As soon as I stepped through the portal, everything changed.
The world around me fell away – save for Jace, whom I clung to like a lifeline – and it was replaced by an incomprehensible chaos.
A sound that wasn’t sound roared, deafening, in my ears, almost in sync with the raw mana that clawed at me with a strength that I thought might rip my flesh from my bones. I could feel every color of it flowing through my body at once whenever it touched me, though I knew that I would never be able to harness even an ounce of it. Doing so would kill me instantly, I was sure.
With every surge of mana, I saw formless masses of light dance before my unseeing eyes – bolts of red, wisps of blue, halos of white. The sensation was dizzying, and became even more so when I realized that there was no solid ground beneath my feet, or solid anything besides myself and Jace.
Besides us, there was nothing but an endless blackness.
As we walked forward – if you could even call it walking – I lost track of how many seconds had passed. We could have been within that place for minutes, hours…maybe even days. Within it, I lost my sense for judging time. It was strange and frightening, and I found myself clinging to Jace’s hand as if it held the answers to everything that had ever existed. He didn’t stop or look back at me, but after a time I felt a gentle, almost reassuring squeeze in return.
And then, after even more time, we arrived.
I could feel the pull of unfamiliar mana from someplace a little ahead of us, but it felt distant, faint – as if it were hidden within a thick fog. The difference between that mana and the mana that buffeted me even now, threatening to knock me from my feet, was that the mana ahead felt tangible. Real. It felt like something I could channel and control.
As I watched, Jace took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and gazed into the blackness.
The aether parted before us almost instantaneously, and he pulled us forward into the hole.
It took me a moment before I realized that we were no longer in the Blind Eternities, but that instead we were standing in the middle of a dirty, crowded tavern. Every single patron in the place – and the vast majority of them looked like unfriendly thugs – was staring at us, silent as death. I stiffened under the weight of their gazes. A cold shiver of dread crawled its way up my spine. Great – Way to pick a good place for us to end up, Jace.
But when I turned to him, I was surprised to see that he didn’t look concerned in the least. In fact, he nodded calmly to a few of the tables, and as soon as he did, quiet chatter resumed and everyone went back to their own business. It was like it had been some sort of predetermined signal.
My jaw went slack in amazement.
“You can relax, Ranewen,” he said, releasing my hand and stepping off to the side of the room, out of the aisle of chairs. “I own this place. It’s a front for that multiplanar corporation I was talking about – the Infinite Consortium. The back room is members only, though you don’t need to fear any of these fine gentlemen here. They’re what I like to call the frontline of my security.” I stepped over next to him, and he leaned close so that he was speaking directly into my ear. “If they fail, then there’s always the magic defense system my employees and I established. But I’m confident in their skills, so I don’t think that will even be an issue.”
“Well, that’s certainly a relief to hear,” I whispered back. “I was starting to think that we were in for a fight.”
He chuckled a little, and nodded to the left with his chin. “If we were, I can guarantee you that it would be a quick one.”
When I turned, I saw two familiar faces at the bar – Sorin seated, sipping a glass of red wine, and Chandra leaning against the worn wooden planks toward the bartender to order another drink. I wondered why I had missed them before, but then decided that it was because I had been too distracted by thoughts of an imminent beating. As I looked, Jace walked over to each of them in turn and tapped them lightly on the shoulder. When they turned and saw him, and then me, they stood and walked toward a door at the back of the room. Jace then turned and nodded in my direction, and I scurried through the mess of chairs to follow.
“Planning to show the lady your private selection, eh Jace?” Sorin sneered. He took a long moment to let his gaze rove over me, looking significantly happier than when I had last seen him. I assumed it had something to do with the drink he was still holding. It certainly looked enough like wine, but the way it smelled even from here, tangy and metallic…I stepped back a foot.
Jace ignored him. “This door is enchanted so that whenever I, or someone I’ve enchanted it to react to, steps through it, they’ll end up in our headquarters at the edge of the Rubblefield. It’ll just take me a second to modify that enchantment so you can pass through, so hold on …” He closed his eyes and pressed his hand to the doorknob, and blue energy began swirling around his fingertips.
“I hope this isn’t a secret plan you three have contrived to test my strength with another battle,” I said, laughing weakly. With the way Sorin had looked at me, though, I was only half kidding. “I’m not sure I can handle one more of those just yet.”
A moment later Jace finished his work, and he drew back and straightened. The blue glow around him disappeared. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who attacked you, if you remember correctly.” He let out a quiet laugh, and when he turned to me, he stopped to shoot an accusatory look at Sorin. “You’d be a bloodsucker right now if not for my help.”
The vampire simply shrugged.
I smiled teasingly at Jace, hoping that I could coax more than just that little laugh out of him. For whatever reason, I felt personally responsible for bringing him out of the funk that Chandra’s mention of his ex – or whoever it was – had sunk him into. “Which I am, of course, very grateful for. I’m not sure I would like the taste of blood.”
Jace’s return smile was hesitant. He didn’t say anything more, though – just turned, opened the door, and walked through, beckoning with a hand for me to follow. Chandra went first, then Sorin. When it was my turn to cross the threshold, I felt a tiny tingling sensation run along my shoulders and arms to my fingertips, and the air around me buzzed. It was…odd, to say the least.
Though not nearly as odd as being in the Blind Eternities.
Once I was through the doorway, the tingling and buzzing stopped, and I found myself at the foot of a large spiral staircase. There was only one way to go – up – and so I went, following the sound of boots on wood as my companions walked ahead of me.
When I reached the top, I gasped aloud at what I saw.
I had been to the human settlements on Zendikar once or twice before, but I had never seen anything there as fine as this place.
The room we were in had a high, slanted ceiling topped with crossbeams, and on every side of us where walls should have been, there were only windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. Outside of those windows loomed spires taller than any tree I had ever seen, and of every color – though the vast field that stretched out before the buildings was mostly filled with crumbling grey, white, and black stone, save for the occasional squat shed to one side or another. When I tore my gaze from the vista and back to the room around me, I noticed the polished wood floors leading to another spiral staircase in the back. Atop those floors stood many chairs and tables and couches, their metal frames twisting into artistic designs that I had a sudden itch to examine more closely. To one side stood a large marble countertop, behind which were shelves upon shelves of what appeared to be liquor bottles. A beautiful golem, made entirely out of translucent crystal, stood in the bartender’s place behind the counter, polishing an ornate wine glass with a rag.
Jace and Chandra immediately went over to the bar and placed their orders – Jace hadn’t yet gotten anything, after all, and Chandra had been interrupted mid-order before – and then came back to sit on a few of the couches that were arranged in a circle. Jace held a glass of what looked like expensive, sparkling burgundy wine, and Chandra immediately started drinking from a heavy mug of…something. I could smell its pungent odor, even from here. Sorin, for his part, remained standing the entire time.
Not knowing what to do, I took a few steps toward the couches and remained standing as well.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured appreciatively after a minute. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Jace noticed my awe as I returned to staring out the windows, and he smiled. “Welcome to Ravnica, the city of guilds, and my home for the moment.” He paused to take a sip from his glass, and then gestured with a wave of his hand toward the bar. “If you’re going to get anything, I would suggest the Selesnya white. Very good.”
I looked back and forth from him to the bartender for a moment, and then let out a tiny embarrassed laugh. “I’m afraid to say that I haven’t had a drink in a long time, much less a proper one.” My arms came up to fold over my chest. “My tribe had to make do with whatever we had. Wine was saved only for special occasions, like births and weddings.”
“It’s true,” Sorin chimed in suddenly as he paced past to walk behind Jace’s couch. “No place to grow or ferment good wine. Probably why the vampires there are so brutish.”
Jace’s brow raised briefly. “Well, at least you can tell who the vampires are here. Moroii don’t look even vaguely human.”
“I suppose I should call myself fortunate to have never seen one before,” I said, glancing at Sorin with a small smile. “If they all employ the same tactics as you, then they might just have worn me down after awhile.”
Sorin scoffed. “Who, the Moroii?”
“No, I meant the---”
“Those brutes just chase you down on the wing and drain the youth out of you with a touch! I’m insulted that anyone would lump my kind together with them.”
I sighed, realizing that Sorin probably wouldn’t buy it if I tried to correct his error. Guess I just have to roll with it. “Well then, forgive me for my presumption.”
Chandra paused from her enthusiastic drinking for a moment to let out a snort and roll her eyes at Sorin. Pointedly. “Yeah, because seducing young, drunk women and then bleeding them as soon as you finish is so much more refined.”
He just gave a leisurely shrug, his lips curled into a smile.
“I must admit, Sorin,” I said slowly, allowing myself a laugh that came out more nervous than I had anticipated, “you do scare me…just a little. So I’m going to try to avoid drawing your ire from here on out. Let me know when I’m starting to head down that path, alright?”
Chandra, clearly missing the note of sarcasm in my voice – or only hearing my nervous laughter – set her drink down and shot to her feet, her hair bursting into flame just like it had done before she planeswalked. She rushed over to me, seized me by the shoulders, and hauled me over to sit down next to her on the couch. “Don’t be so timid, girl!” she exclaimed. She picked up her mug of brew and set it down firmly in my lap, though the heat from her fire as she passed it to me caught it ablaze. She didn’t seem to notice, though. “He’ll just push you around. Here, drink, relax. I’m not going to let him eat you.” She grinned, and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in my ear. “Besides, he’s not that scary. Just ask Jace about his last girlfriend – Now she was creepy.”
Across from us, Jace’s grip tightened noticeably on his wine glass.
Hurrying to change the subject before he could get a chance to brood any longer, I looked down at the flaming drink between my knees, and then back up at Chandra. “Er…Maybe you can, Chandra, but I’m not so sure I can drink fire.” At this, I couldn’t help but let out a little giggle.
“Oh!” For the first time, she seemed to notice the roaring blaze that was threatening to ignite my leggings, and reached out a hand to cover the mug and smother the flames within. When they died, she combed her fingers through her hair to quench those flames as well. “Sorry.” She laughed. “I do that when I’m excited sometimes. Or angry.”
“She means that she has no control over her power whatsoever,” Jace said with a smirk.
Chandra’s hair roared to life again. “Watch your tongue, Jace, before I burn it out!” I winced and drew back from her a little bit when flames began to shoot from her fingertips.
He just chuckled and took another sip of wine.
Desperate to diffuse the growing tension, I picked up the mug Chandra had given me and swirled the thick, brownish liquid inside, trying not to cringe as its acrid smell burned my nostrils. “I may as well get acquainted with the different types of drinks here, if I’m going to be staying awhile.” It took everything I had not to choke on my own words. “What do you call this?”
Jace cocked an eyebrow, and a faint smile turned up the corners of his lips. “That is a Golgari whiskey. Very potent.”
My heart lifted at the smile, and I flashed him one back. “Meaning that this might not be the best choice for my first real drink?”
Chandra scoffed and clapped a hand on my shoulder. She had doused her hair again, thankfully. “Nonsense! Be a woman!”
For a moment I seriously contemplated whether or not my urge to make the polite choice would kill me. Finally, though, I sighed, and took a long look down at the whiskey. “Well, I don’t want to be ungracious, so…cheers.” Bracing myself for whatever might happen, I lifted the mug to my lips and took a large swallow.
As soon as I did, however, I fell into a fit of coughing, and had to set the drink down on the end table next to me. I hadn’t braced well enough, apparently. Spirits, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!
Jace, Chandra, and Sorin all laughed at once.
When my coughing had subsided and my eyes had stopped watering, I took a deep breath and leaned into the cushions at my back. “That was…mmm.” My voice came out rather hoarse. “Let’s just say that didn’t win a place on my list of favorites.”
Jace smiled, his blue eyes glittering in amusement. It was enough to make me forget about the awful burning sensation in my throat. “Well, we do have a wide selection. Next time, just ask the golem – He knows the history of every vineyard and brewery in the city, and all the alcohol they produce. It’s why I hired him, after all.”
I coughed again, though it didn’t stop my face from breaking out into a grin. “I’ll have to do that, as soon as I’ve recovered.” For a moment I paused, and looked all around at my three companions. A thought had just occurred to me, and I knew that it would nag at the corners of my mind until I put it to voice. “I have a question first, though, if I may.”
Jace nodded as he took a drink, and Chandra leaned forward and clasped her hands over her knees. Sorin continued pacing back and forth, but his gaze had moved from the window to me. I took all of their actions as a cue to continue.
“This is all really sudden, as I’m sure you’re aware. One moment I was out hunting baloths, and the next I’m being swept away to this wondrous little place and being told that I’m going to be a great help in this war, against these creatures I’ve never seen, let alone heard of.” Hearing the note of uncertainty in my voice, everything that had happened over the past couple of hours suddenly came back to me in a rush. It felt like a stone tied to my feet, pulling me down into the murky depths of an emotion I couldn’t quite describe, let alone comprehend. “Despite the insanity of all this, I believe you. Don’t ask me why, but I do. I just…” I shook my head, slowly. “I’m baffled. I’m sure there are plenty of other planeswalkers out there, ones who are far more experienced and talented than I am. Even if you are convinced that I’ll be able to hold my own in a battle, I’m sure it’s going to take awhile for me to train myself up. So what I’m wondering is – Why me?”
There was a stretch of silence in which everyone could do nothing but stare into their drinks, and the longer it continued, the uneasier I felt. Finally, though, Sorin walked up behind me and leaned against the top of the couch, his arms draped over it to either side. His face came up close to mine as he bent forward.
“Because, m’lady, we found you.” His voice was casual, as if he were speaking of something as mundane as the weather. I shivered a little when I felt his breath on my cheek, and wondered whether or not he was trying the same trick that had sucked me in before. “It is as I said – I was maintaining a spell on Zendikar that would detect if any creature with a drop of blood became a planeswalker. And you did, so there we have it.”
Jace frowned a little at Sorin, but when he spoke his tone didn’t show any emotion. “Like I said, we planeswalkers are born in struggle. An event like the Eldrazi awakening is more likely to ignite a spark, which is what I’m guessing happened to you.”
Sorin suddenly turned to Jace and glared. “I know you did. You ask to see if I was telling the truth?”
Puzzled, I blinked and looked back and forth between the two of them. “Um…what?”
Jace shifted his gaze to me and suddenly noticed my confusion. “Oh, sorry. I was just talking to him telepathically.”
“Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable,” Sorin added, giving me a smile that was, for the first time since I had met him, free of lecherous undertones.
“Ah. No, I’m not uncomfortable. It may make me a fool, but I trust you both.” Though I did wonder what it had been that they were hesitant to say aloud.
Beside me, Chandra shrugged. “Not much of a choice for us ladies out here. Either we fight with the boys, or we wait for the Eldrazi to kill us all.”
“And I’m not too fond of the second option.” I muttered glumly. I wished that I had a glass of something to glower down at, because my mood had swiftly taken a turn for the worse.
“Awww, Ranewen, don’t let your pretty little ears droop!” Chandra must have picked up on my mood, because now she was leaning over to drape an arm around my shoulder, and she fixed me with a kind smile. “We have time. It will take them decades to erode Zendikar.”
The thought of it being eroded at all made my stomach churn, but I didn’t want Chandra’s efforts to cheer me up to go to waste. “I certainly hope so. My home means a lot to me, and I would do anything to protect it.”
Suddenly, I remembered something and sat up straight. “Oh!”
Turning to all three of my companions, I smiled apologetically. “Where are my manners? I forgot to thank you for rescuing me…well, in a way. I’m not sure I would have lasted long out there if you hadn’t found me.”
Despite my efforts, I could feel my cheeks heat up a bit when my gaze fell on Jace. “Especially you, Jace. That was quite the well-timed entrance.”
He shrugged. To my disappointment, his expression was unreadable. “Chandra would have been there and done the same had she not taken so long to follow my aether trail. We both know how Sorin gets.”
I turned to the vampire, and when I suddenly realized how close he was to my neck, I scooted closer to Chandra. My lips twisted into a scowl. “Flirtatious to innocent women?”
“More like dangerous,” Chandra muttered.
I chuckled softly when Sorin made a show of rolling his eyes. “Well, I know that by now. I’m not going to be falling for any of your tricks again, though, mark my words.”
“Consider them marked,” he said pleasantly. That oddly normal smile was still there.
I chuckled again and shook my head. "Well, anyway…” I folded my hands in my lap and turned back to Jace, who was still sitting calmly and sipping his wine. “Is there anything else you need me to know, so I’m ready to play whatever part you want me to play in all this? I don’t want to go in unarmed, after all.”
Sorin, however, was the one to speak. He strolled around in front of the couch and finally sat down in a large armchair next to Jace, then sunk deeply into it and sighed. He draped his arms luxuriantly over the upholstered sides. “My plan is to replace the team from all those years ago. I need someone capable of casting Ugin’s flames, someone with power over spirits, and a stone mage that can create a new central hedron. So far, I only have one of those.”
Chandra waved at me cheerily.
When he didn’t say anything else, I paused for a moment to think, rubbing my thumb over my chin. “Well, I can commune with some spirits – anything that’s tied to nature, like trees.” I smiled hopefully and looked up at Sorin. “You think something like that would help?”
Jace was the one to answer me, though. “Maybe, maybe not. But a fresh mind wouldn’t hurt either way, especially since the problem of finding people – much less planeswalkers – with the exact powers we need is…difficult to solve.” His eyes met mine briefly, and I could see in their depths that he was pondering something . “Any ideas you might have would be appreciated.”
I smiled and nodded, then a second later brightened when a sudden idea did, in fact, come to me. “Could I learn how to extend my powers to spirits beyond those in nature, you think?” I was almost surprised at how eager my voice sounded. “I know it would probably take a great deal of time and effort, but still, I’d be willing to give it a try!”
Chanda leaned forward, grinning. “She’s right, you know. Just because we all have our specialties doesn’t mean we can’t try to branch out! I could play around with stone for a bit, see what happens…”
Jace snorted. “Like you would be able to keep that up for long.”
She scowled at him darkly, and I leaned away when her fingertips began to glow again. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try.”
Sensing a heated argument on the horizon if they were left to continue, I jumped off the couch and stood in the center of the circle, spreading my arms wide. “Right, so I can try!” I gazed around the room at Jace, Chandra, and Sorin in turn, and tried as best I could to look serious. “That is, if you’ll have me. If you wish to keep searching for someone more skilled, though, then be my guest. I understand. I just…want to be of as much aid as I can, that’s all.”
Chandra laughed and patted the cushion next to her, waving me with her other hand back over to the couch. “Sit down, Ranewen – You’re not our servant!” She smiled at me almost fondly. “We’re all in this together, remember?”
I appreciated her words, but now that I had the floor, I wasn’t about to give it up. “No, I mean it. I will not see my home destroyed and my people slaughtered while I am still able to protect them, Chandra.” I shook my head vehemently. “This isn’t just about feeling compelled to return the favor to you three, you know. I have my own reasons for wanting to fight.”
Chandra’s gaze softened, and she tilted her head as she regarded me. “There you go, see? This is why we’re not going to get rid of you.” She was still smiling, but I noticed a warmth in it that hadn’t been there before. “You’ve got not just motivation, but spirit too. You’ll do just fine.”
I was taken aback at the compliment, and could feel myself beginning to blush. “Well, um…thank you.” My voice was shy, as was the little smile that I couldn’t hold back. “I certainly hope I do. After all, I…want to live long enough to try other drinks than just that foul concoction you pushed on me. I won’t go to my deathbed with only that under my belt!”
Chandra laughed heartily, sounding more cheerful than I had heard her yet. “Well, let’s see if you survive my scathing tomorrow, then!” She picked the mug up off the table where I had placed it and, to my disbelief, downed the remainder of it in one large gulp as she stood. Once she was done, she sighed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “I’m tired, though, so I’m heading up to bed. ‘Night, all!” Before anyone had the chance to respond, she turned and darted up the wooden stairs with her tunic trailing behind her.
I shook my head once she was gone, chuckling under my breath. “I have no idea how she does that. Does her fire magic burn away all the taste?”
Sorin stood and stretched his arms high above his head, When he strolled past me toward the staircase leading down, cracking his knuckles as he went, his shoulder brushed mine. He didn’t even seem to notice the touch. “All things are appreciated by the connoisseur, Ranewen. Speaking of which, though…I should go. Night falls.” As I watched, his body just vanished, and in its place a thick black mist hung in the air. Before I could blink, the mist was gone, and I was left standing in the middle of all the couches with a confused stare.
After a moment, I shook my head again. “And here I thought vampires were nocturnal.”
“They are,” Jace said from his couch. “He’s not going to sleep, he’s going to hunt.”
I could almost feel the realization dawn across my face. “Ah, that’s…interesting. Good to know.”
After another moment I decided to go sit down, and it took more than a little bit of courage to force myself to pick a seat on the couch next to Jace. When I did, I gently poked the wine glass still in his hand with a fingertip. It was nearly empty by now. “What’s this called? It looks like something that might be more suited to my tastes.”
“I hope it’s not blood,” I added quickly after a second. “I’ve had one too many vampire surprises for one day.”
Jace shook his head with a small smile. “No, it’s not, don’t worry.” He took another sip before continuing, then looked in the glass to see how much was left. Barely enough for a full swallow. “I normally drink irimberry wine, but I wanted something a little bit stronger after today. This particular brand is a sparkling liquor imported from Bant, which is a plane that used to be ruled by angels but now lies in ruin.”
My gaze softened. I hadn’t been expecting that little bit of exposition. “That’s sad.”
Jace shrugged, not taking his own gaze off the glass. “Unfortunately, the maelstrom wasn’t kind to Bant. But that’s just how things are.”
There was a long pause. After what Jace has just said, I found myself unable to stop thinking about Zendikar, and whether or not I would be back to see my home anytime soon. I had pledged my word to these people to help them in their fight against the Eldrazi, which was all well and good, but I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye to the people I loved – my friends, my shaman mentor, my cousins…not even my mother or father. Would they be worried when I didn’t come back to the village tonight? Would they come looking for me? If they did, they would never find me.
Or worse, they would think that I had been killed by the brood lineage.
My stomach felt suddenly sick, and with a shaky gasp my head fell into my hands.
When Jace noticed, he set his glass down and turned his entire body to face me. “Ranewen, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, feeling my nose rub up against my palm. “I’m worried for my home,” I murmured. My voice came out muffled through my hand, though, and I doubted he was able to understand it. “Between fighting the brood lineage earlier and hearing all of your stories about the Eldrazi…It’s really hard not to be afraid. I’ve spent my entire life among my tribe, and I care about them all deeply, so the thought of losing anyone, even just one person…”
To my surprise, I felt an arm slide around my shoulders, and when I looked up I saw Jace smiling down at me, gently. “Look around you, Ranewen. Despite the dangers, you see life here, don’t you?”
I looked all around the room and then, when I didn’t see anything except the furniture and the golem, I followed his gaze out the window. Despite the fact that the field surrounding the compound was in complete ruin, people – so tiny from here as to look like ants – still strolled back and forth across roughly hewn paths, going about their daily business.
“You’re right,” I said slowly. “But I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.”
“Would you guess that there was a war here just three years ago?”
My eyes widened. “Really?” For a moment I looked out the window again, at the towering buildings beyond the Rubblefield that stretched from one horizon to the other. “But that can’t be. The city looks so vibrant.”
“It’s true,” he said. “The guilds were fighting amongst themselves, and a full-scale war erupted when they were finally dissolved. It was chaos.
“But now, life returns.”
There was a pause, and then at last I allowed myself a smile. Before I knew what I was doing, I leaned into Jace’s arm that still held me, and breathed out in a deep sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Being so pessimistic isn’t doing anyone any favors, huh?”
He nodded, and his smile broadened into a grin. “Exactly.”
For a moment we sat there, just like that, and then at last Jace yawned and stood, pulling away from me slowly. “I think I’m going to retire for the night.” He pointed to the staircase leading up, where Chandra had gone. “There’s a guest room up the stairs and to the left that you can use. If you want to clean off all that blood, there’s a bathroom with running water a few doors down from the guest room. No one uses it, so you won’t have to worry about being bothered.”
When I looked down at myself and finally noticed how disgusting my clothes were, caked in mud and dried blood from nearly head to toe, I laughed. “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.” I reached up to run my fingers through my hair, and found that it was hardened and stuck together with the same substances. I must look lovely. “I’ve only heard of a few places on Zendikar with running water, though, so this should be an interesting experience.”
Jace chuckled. “Glad I can be the provider for you.”
When he started to head toward the stairs, I had a sudden moment of clarity and reached forward to catch his arm. “Hey, Jace?”
He turned at my touch. “Hm?”
I smiled, feeling a warmth spread through me from where my fingers touched his cloak. “Thank you again for all your help earlier. I owe you my life, you know.” I couldn’t hold back the sarcastic little quip that had just come to mind, so I let it out and laughed. “Becoming a vampire has never been a life goal of mine.”
Jace smiled too, and gazed at me with the same unreadable expression from before. “You’re welcome. I couldn’t do anything else.” There was a pause, and then he shrugged. “And as far as vampires go, we do need allies…even parasites like Sorin. They have their uses and their places in the world, just like us.”
“True enough,” I agreed.
There was a brief silence, broken after a moment by another yawn from Jace. “Well,” he said softly, “I should go. I have business to attend to in the morning.”
I nodded, and walked with him to the foot of the stairs. He continued to walk up, his hand ghosting over the metal railing, but I stopped after a few steps and just looked up at him. For whatever strange reason, I was unable to follow him so close behind. “See you then, I guess?”
He turned to glance over his shoulder for just a moment, and the look in his blue eyes when he did made something tighten in my chest, though I didn’t quite know why.
Please forgive me if it's unpalatable to write the impression of your story in this thread.
Though I mimic your word, I'm a huge fan of the canon walkers, especially the neowalkers,too!
I really like Chandra's personality in this story. She welcomed fellow girl into her fellowship and kind to fellow girl.
Magic is usually for boys and men, but your story is from a female point of view.
That's nice!
I like your description of Blind Eternity. It makes me remember prologue of Agents of Artifice.
Keep up the good work!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sorry for my poor English.
From Japan with love \('-'*)
Thank you very much for your post! I always appreciate comments and criticism, especially since this is my first time posting on MTG Salvation.
I've noticed that MTG is indeed very male-driven, which is fine - But being a woman, sometimes I feel a little left out in the fandom! That's why I decided to write this story. I know I'm not the only female player or fan out there, so I was hoping to bring a few of them out of the woodwork.
I just finished Agents of Artifice a few weeks ago, and I very much liked the way Ari Marmell described the Blind Eternities - more so than in Test of Metal or The Purifying Fire - so I made that book's description my own personal canon.
I'll be posting Chapter 6 very soon, so I encourage you (and any lurkers who like my story - Thank you, guys!) to check back in a day or two. The only thing that's stopping me from writing is the fact that I do have to go to work!
I groaned and pulled my pillow over my head. It was far too early for anyone to be sounding that cheerful.
But whoever it was, they weren’t about to let up.
“C’mon Ranewen, it’s time for our battle! If I could roll out of bed, then so can you!”
Finally coming to enough to recognize the voice as Chandra’s, I suddenly sat up with a start. Wait. That’s not right.
Where am I?
I blinked at the assault of light against my unprepared eyes when I looked, bleary and bewildered, around the room. The plush bed I was sitting on and the soft sheets I was tangled in weren’t mine, and the wood panels covering the walls across from me were wholly unfamiliar. This isn’t my room! This is---
Oh.
At once the fog cleared, and I remembered everything that had happened yesterday. The baloth hunting, the assault by the brood lineage, meeting and fighting Sorin, meeting Jace and Chandra, planeswalking…
Planeswalking.
I’m a planeswalker.
I marveled at the realization anew, and shook my head as my gaze fell on Chandra. She was standing in the doorway, clad in the full set of skin-tight metal armor that she had been wearing yesterday, though this time she wore greaves that reached all the way up her thigh-high boots and had a crimson tunic poking out from beneath her breastplate rather than the rust one. She was staring right back at me with a concerned expression.
“Feeling okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I wasn’t exactly fine, per se, but I was as good as I was going to get. What Chandra didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “I’m just a little dizzy.”
She smiled and plopped down on the bed next to me with a clank, and for the first time I noticed that she was holding a glass of water. When she saw my gaze, she held it out to me. “Here, I brought this for you.” I took the glass, looking a little confused, but that only made her smile widen. “I figured you wouldn’t know where Jace keeps the glassware. He hasn’t told me yet either, but I haven’t had much better to do lately than poke around.”
I laughed, though it came out more like a cough. “Why am I not surprised?”
Chandra shrugged and continued smiling. “Because he and I hate each other with a burning passion, maybe?”
“Literally.” I chuckled faintly, and then lifted the glass to take a sip. The cool water soothed my dry throat, and in a couple more seconds I had downed the rest of it in a few long drinks, not caring if it would make my stomach feel sick. When I was finished, I set it down on the little bedside table. “What’s with you two, anyway?”
Chandra snorted derisively, and I could see the gleam that entered her auburn-flecked eyes. “Besides the fact that he nearly killed me trying to get the scroll back, and then succeeded in mind-wiping me? I hate his brand of magic. Hate it. Mind-mages just piss me off. Thoughts are supposed to be private, always, so why the hell should he be able to mess around with them however he likes? It’s disgusting!” Her hair had begun to hover about her like a red halo, and it looked dangerously close to bursting into flame. I scooted backward on the bed.
“Well, you don’t seem to hate him enough to want to burn him into ashes, so that’s something!” I was hoping against hope that if I said something cheerful, it might cool her fury. …Or it might not. “If you did, then I’m sure you would have done it already.”
To my surprise, though, her hair fell back onto her shoulders, and her expression softened ever so slightly. “Yeah…” She let out a sigh, blowing a lock of those bright tresses away from her cheek where it had fallen. “As much as I hate to admit it, it’s a lot easier to work with him when I’m not thinking about the most creative way to spill his guts. And I do have to work with him now, so…” She shrugged. “I guess fighting a crazy planeswalker-turned-dragon is a pretty good bonding experience, too. I can’t deny that.”
I smiled and nudged her shoulder with mine. With the water in my system, I felt much more awake – and, strangely, in a much better mood. “Hey, you said something about a fight when you came in, didn’t you?”
Chandra’s eyes lit up like a child’s at solstice feast. “Oh, yeah! That’s right! Thanks for reminding me!” She turned to me with an excited grin, and seized me by the shoulders more firmly than I had expected. “Blue boy managed to get an arena for us to practice in, and I haven’t gotten to burn something in weeks. Please, please, Rana – Will you let me battle you, just this once?”
Rana. I hadn’t heard that nickname in awhile. “But aren’t you hungover at all from last night? That drink you had was so strong…”
Chandra scoffed. “What, the whiskey? I mean, yeah, I’m a little hungover, but getting the chance to light things on fire would be more than worth it. So come on, please?” She clasped her hands, prayer-like, in front of her face, and her bottom lip began to quiver.
I had to hold back a laugh at how ridiculous the expression looked – Though I had to admit, it was rather endearing. Probably because it was so unexpected.
“Fine, fine,” I sighed. “I’m not feeling too great, myself, though, so don’t expect anything fancy out of me.”
Chandra tilted her head a little as she regarded me, her expression suddenly gentle. “Well, you had a rough day yesterday. It’s not like I forgot.” She smiled. “Besides, all of us planeswalkers face death in some way, shape, or form to really become what we are. That generally involves getting a little singed in the process.”
As was usually the case, I couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. Or my grin. “So I should just expect fire metaphors at all times from now on?”
“Who wouldn’t use that? It was so appropriate!”
I laughed, genuinely, and extricated myself from the sheets so I could grab my hunting tunic – which I had washed in the bathroom last night before I went to sleep – and my boots. With everything I needed to change into shortly in hand, I headed over to the door. “Just give me a minute to change, and I’ll meet you downstairs in that common room we were in, alright?”
“Sure.” She stood and brushed past me through the doorway, though not rudely. When her arm touched mine, she turned to give me a teasing wink. “Don’t take too long in there, though. You don’t need to fret in front of a mirror – You’re pretty enough as is.” Before I could respond to her compliment, though, she had trotted down the spiral staircase and out of earshot. It reminded me of the way she had departed last night.
Smiling, I headed down the hall and into the blue-and-white tiled room.
For a moment I did indeed regard myself in the mirror, as Chandra had warned me not to do – my lithe elven frame hidden by the too-large nightshift I had found in my room’s closet; my white-blond hair that I so loved, which fell loose in the faintest of waves down to my breasts; my pale, pale green eyes that held a combination of excitement and uncertainty, along with a barely noticeable hint of fear. All of this I took in with a deep breath, and as I watched my chest rise and fall I noted how I looked exactly the same as I had before I had come to this place, to Ravnica. A little more scraped and bruised, perhaps, but otherwise identical.
How long, I wondered, will it be until the changes inside begin to show?
***
“Wow,” I breathed. “What is this place?”
Chandra smiled at me sidelong as we stepped through the archway and into the arena. It was more massive than I had imagined, with rows and rows of stone seats nearly five stories high on all sides, emblems of flaming fists adorning every space on the walls and above the doorways, and a shimmering, translucent white barrier serving as the vaulted ceiling. The entire place was empty save for us, and it echoed with the crunch of our boots against the dirt floor.
“Jace says that some group called the Boros Legion uses it for training,” she answered, her voice echoing eerily in the vast space as well. Once we reached the center of the floor, we stopped walking, and she turned to face me with her hands on her hips. “I’m not familiar enough with Ravnica to know what that is, but apparently he has some connections in their ranks or whatever. So when I talked to him this morning, he said we could go here.”
“I see,” I murmured, though I wasn’t looking at Chandra. My gaze was stuck on the ceiling-barrier, beyond which I could see patches of bright blue sky between the towering outlines of buildings. “I can’t tell what that is, though. I can feel white mana from it, but…”
“That? It’s a seal,” she said. “If there wasn’t one, then who’s to say some of the combat that goes on in here wouldn’t bust a hole in the wall and spread to the outside?”
“True,” I admitted with a shrug. When I finished admiring the sights around me a moment later, I turned back to Chandra and smiled. “Though I hope our fight today won’t be that intense.”
She giggled wickedly, and a second later both her hair and her upraised hands had burst into searing flame. I had to step back a foot to avoid catching the sleeves of my tunic on fire. “You really think I’m not going to go all out just because you’re a girl? Puh-lease. Prepare to get burned!”
“No!” I exclaimed, my voice indignant as I prodded the aether for a connection of green mana that I could hold onto. I found it quicker than I had expected, and in an instant I had little leafy vines twisting from my hands up to my arms as I channeled its power throughout my body. “I thought you wouldn’t go all out because I almost got killed twice yesterday!”
Chandra laughed, a surprisingly feminine sound from someone as clearly tough a warrior as she was. “Nope! Sorry Rana, but you’re about to get your ass kicked for a third time. And your blue knight isn’t going to swoop in and save you, either.” She grinned widely when she said the last bit.
I balked, and could feel storm clouds gathering around me when I inadvertently began to channel black mana as well in response to her words. “My what?”
She laughed again. Her eyes were nearly glowing with amusement now. …Or maybe that was fire. “Oh come on, I saw the way you were looking at him yesterday, all blushing and everything! I mean, I hate the guy personally, but I have to admit that it might do him some good to have a lady in his life. Maybe he’d leave his office and stop brooding for on---”
“Chandra!” I nearly shrieked. I could feel my face heating up, and it had nothing to do with my companion’s brightly burning form. “I…he…I was not looking at him in any particular way! If anything, I was just noting that he’s an attractive man, that’s all!”
“Uh huh. Suuure.” Her grin as she looked at me had turned devious, and I felt my heart sink all the way down to my stomach at the sight of it. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want Sorin to be right.”
I scowled darkly, but try as I might, I couldn’t think of a good rebuttal. Great. She caught me. “Well, what about you? You may be teasing me now, but I’m sure you have your eye on some lucky fellow too.”
The question seemed to have caught Chandra off guard, because she blinked at me and relaxed her battle-ready posture a little. Even the flames licking at her seemed to dim. “Well, I…” She opened and closed her mouth a couple times, and I felt a surge of triumph when I caught a faint blush coloring her cheeks. She seemed to regain her composure after a second, though, and with a laugh, she waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not interested in any mortal men, Rana. I don’t have time for that, anyway, what with this whole ‘saving the world’ thing we’re doing.”
I smirked at her and cocked an eyebrow. “So it’s an immortal man, huh? A fellow planeswalker, maybe?”
Her blush returned in full force, and I savored the following few moments that she spent spluttering, trying to find the right thing to say.
Finally, she just gave up. “Okay, that’s it.” Her flames leapt to life again, burning brighter than ever, and the air around her bent and wavered with their heat. “You’re gonna be crispy when I’m done with you!”
“Try me,” I shot right back. I could feel the wind of the gathering tempest behind me against my neck, and at once I realized that I felt good. Powerful.
Chandra was going down.
With a cry, I thrust my bent hands upward, like I was pulling some great root from the earth – and indeed, something did erupt from the ground. Three more of the young treefolk that I had summoned against the brood lineage burst forth from the dirt beneath my feet, still shimmering with the ghostly aura that lingered for a few moments after their emergence from the aether.
Well, that was pretty cool. Last time they just appeared!
I didn’t stop to wonder at the difference in their summoning, though – I was too busy focusing my will to direct them to attack Chandra.
Poor, overconfident Chandra.
She was just standing there, grinning, as my treefolk approached her, branch-arms swaying freely at their sides in preparation for a strike. When they got close enough, she let loose with several roaring fireballs – and gasped aloud when they just bounced off the trees’ thick bark. By that time, however, they were too close for her to do anything to protect herself. She screamed as all three of them wound up and backhanded her across the chest, and she went sailing across the battlefield to land hard in the dirt nearly ten yards away.
When she rose to her feet, slowly, I could see the blood trickling from her mouth and nose. She reached up to wipe it away with a gauntleted hand, and fixed me with a glare that held both anger and astonishment. She was breathing hard.
And, apparently, she was not going to take that blow sitting down.
Her arms flew skyward, and an instant later, a creature that I could only describe as a shrieking, fiery cloud tumbled from the aether, opening its beak-like maw wider than any archway in the arena and soaring straight toward me. My treefolk couldn’t react quickly enough to come to my defense, so I did the only thing I could do – I crouched down on my knees, folded my arms in front of my face, and braced myself.
The fire engulfed me with a roar, and it took everything I had to hold back a scream as I was consumed by the horrible pain of being burned alive. The smell of my own scorched flesh and hair reached my nostrils, and I felt violently sick.
But before I could recover for even a second, I heard a crackling whoosh as Chandra summoned another fire-cloud, and sent it hurtling toward me with a wordless cry.
Bracing myself didn’t do me much good this time, either.
As I choked, gasping for air only to find smoke and dancing, incessant flames, I felt a sudden surge of mana rush through me. The familiar sensation of swelling from within distracted me from my agony enough for me to focus for that one moment, that one desperate moment that I needed more than anything else in the world right now.
The mana answered me as silently as I had called it, and power exploded outward from every pore in my body.
Chandra screamed as she was thrown onto her back by the force of the blast, and when she and I looked up in unison – her face twisted in an expression of shock, mine in a grin of relief and triumph – the rift formed by my spell sucked in her swirling, screeching fire-clouds that were powerless to fight against its pull. A strange tearing sound rent the air as they passed into it, and then, without so much as another sound, the distortion was simply gone. Chandra lay there for a moment, staring at where it had been in stunned silence.
That’s right – She wasn’t there before to see me cast that spell!
I had been calling upon more mana to cast something else while she was distracted, but she shook her head and jumped to her feet before I could even form a connection. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Damn it!” she growled furiously. Her gaze was even more livid than her tone when she turned on me, brushing a bit of dirt off her tunic as she did so. “You can’t just do that! I’m mad now!”
Shivering with pleasure as the green mana I called from my home forests of Zendikar flowed into me, I couldn’t resist another one of my little jibes. I knew it would make her angrier than she already was, but I just felt so…good. I could handle whatever she might throw at me. “Oh dear, spare me!” My voice dripped with sarcasm, and as I had thought, her eyes narrowed dangerously when she heard it. “I’m so scared, Chandra! Please don’t hurt me!”
Her hair had been ablaze this entire time – but where it had been a bonfire before, now it was an inferno. “Too bad,” she snarled. “This is gonna sting. A lot.”
Not bothering with any of the flourishes she had used before, she simply snapped her fingers, and a gigantic, humanoid mass of flickering flame and dripping lava came into existence at her side, staring down at me with its glowing eyes. I didn’t even stop myself from letting out a scoff. Am I supposed to be intimidated by that?
Black mana from the swamps beyond my home mingled with the green mana already pulsing through me in time with my heartbeat, and another explosion, bigger than the first, shook the foundations of the arena.
Chandra was thrown back yet again, and could only watch in growing horror as my second rift swallowed her elemental like some great eldritch beast devouring its meal – in a single bite, no less.
When she stood this time, I could see that her eyes were wide and her legs were trembling. Though she was still clenching her fists in determination, and though she was still wrapped in an aura of fire that never burned her, whatever she was looking at was apparently as terrifying as her own personal hell.
With a start, I realized that her gaze was fixed squarely on me.
“Come on, Chandra,” I heard her whisper, shakily. “Adversity into advantage.”
Quick as lightning, she darted forward to land a flaming punch directly into my gut. I gasped at the unexpected melee blow, and doubled over with my hands covering my aching stomach to both mitigate my pain and swat at the bit of my tunic that had caught fire.
“I thought trees were supposed to burn!” she yelled as she pulled back from me momentarily, a note of desperation in her voice. My own treefolk stood motionless behind her, awaiting orders from me that, in my exultant distraction, had never come. “Why couldn’t my fire beat them before?”
As she wound up to throw another punch, I suddenly lifted my head to look her directly in the eyes, and she froze.
Just…froze.
I, on the other hand, smiled. My voice came out barely louder than a whisper, and in an unsettling tone that chilled me to my core.
“Looks like you’re running out of luck, Chandra.”
Power burst forth for a third time, and Chandra screamed in terror as she was suddenly caught up in the heart of it.
Her flaming gauntlets – the target that my spell had latched onto – were yanked forcefully off of her arms as she was dragged, helplessly, toward the yawning rift. Her boots scrabbled at the ground as she tried to gain some footing, tried everything she could to escape the irresistible pull of the blackness beyond the distortion in the aether – but to no avail. There was nothing she could do to break free.
For a moment, it almost looked as if she was going to be sucked in along with her vanishing equipment.
But then Chandra screamed again, and there was a fiery explosion that incinerated my trees in an instant and sent me careening through the air. I hit one of the walls of the arena behind me with a sickening crack, and my vision darkened for a long moment.
When I at last opened my eyes, pain blossomed in the back of my head, and I let out a groan.
All that was left to indicate that there had been a battle was some blackened, smoking earth where Chandra and I had been standing just before, and little bits of dirt and crumbling stone littering the battlefield and the first few rows of seats in all directions. When I saw the pyromancer’s body lying facedown, several yards away, I felt my stomach twist into knots.
“Chandra!” I called hoarsely.
I stood, fighting the pain and the dizzying explosion of color that clouded my sight, and stumbled as fast as I could over to where she lay to kneel down beside her. The fire that had wreathed her the entire battle had died down to nothingness, but her body was still hot when I reached out a shaking hand to touch her.
She groaned.
“Chandra?” I whispered hopefully. Oh spirits, I overdid it. I lost control of myself, and I could have killed her---
“Unnngh…I guess it was a good idea to recruit you. Way too strong…”
“Chandra,” I breathed, my voice thick with relief. I bent closer to her as she rolled over onto her back and looked up with me, her eyes clouded with pain and confusion. I pressed a hand to her cheek. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed by guilt.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, trying to keep my hand steady as I fumbled in the endlessness of the aether with my mind for a tether to white mana. “I went overboard without even realizing it, and I…” I shook my head, and tried to concentrate on a healing spell when I finally found the line that I was searching for and held onto it tight. “I’ve never been that powerful before. Never. I have no idea what happened. Chandra, I’m really sor---”
“Stop,” she murmured, interrupting me with a quiet laugh that took me completely by surprise. She reached up to touch my arm, and for the first time I realized how badly charred my tunic was. Parts of it were burnt away completely, leaving the exposed skin beneath a bright, raw red. “I went a little overboard on you too, so don’t sit there and berate yourself. It’s good to know the extent of your power, especially since you’re part of our group now.”
I knew I had to focus on the spell that I had finally begun to cast, but I couldn’t stop myself from protesting. “But I---”
“No buts,” she insisted, sounding stronger by the second as the mana flowed into her and healed her wounds. She sat up, though she didn’t push my hand away from her cheek. Instead, she reached out to touch it with her fingertips, and smiled. “I’ve been hurt worse, anyway. I’ll live.”
At her kind expression, I couldn’t help but smile myself. “No thanks to me, right?”
She looked almost affronted at that. “Yes, thanks to you! Look at you, Rana! You may have been pretty damn terrifying in that battle, but you’re not a bad healer either!” Indeed, the color had returned to her previously pale cheeks, and her eyes had regained their vivacity. As I finished up the spell and let my hand drop into my lap, she chuckled. “Sheesh. You’re in, a hundred and ten percent. Welcome to the team, already!”
I chuckled too, and already I could feel the guilt washing away into the aether with the remnants of my spell. What was it about these people that allowed them to calm me down like that? “Well…thank you, I guess!” I smiled warmly. “I’m glad the entrance exam is over, because I do not think I could do that again anytime soon.”
Chandra stood and held out a hand for me, which I took. Gently, she pulled me to my feet. “Nah, the only thing you need to do now is go and talk to Jace. He told me that he has a few things he wants to discuss once I was done with you. Which I am, now.”
Relieved that she hadn’t made any comments at the mention of him, I nodded. “Where can I find him? In that common room?”
She shook her head and brushed a few chips of stone out from between the chainmail that she wore beneath her breastplate. “Probably not. I would guess he’s in his office, as usual. It’s up a set of side stairs in the common room, straight down the hallway from the landing.”
I tried to picture the common room in my head, but the only set of stairs I remembered seeing was the one that led up to the bedrooms, aside from the one that led down to Jace's portal to the bar. Guess I’ll just have to look around. “Aren’t you coming?”
Chandra shook her head again, though she smiled this time. “No, sorry. I need to go to Dravhoc district first and run a few errands at the market before I come back and get myself clean.” Her smile turned into a wry grin, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Good thing you patched me up first, though, otherwise I’d look more than a bit conspicuous. Not like I already don’t, but still – Don’t want to attract too much attention.”
I laughed a little. It took me a considerable bit of effort to push back the twinge of worry that was rising in my chest again. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
Chandra’s gaze softened, and she reach out to clap me gently on the shoulder. “Rana, hush. I’m fine, I promise. Stop worrying about me and go see Jace, okay?” For a moment she held her tender smile, and then, seemingly just as unable to resist as I was powerless against my flares of sarcasm, she cocked an eyebrow and pursed her lips into a devilish smirk. “I’m sure that will cheer you up.”
I stifled a groan. I should’ve known better than to think that she was going to leave without saying something suggestive. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Chandra.”
She giggled, and turned to head out the door opposite from where we had come in. “It does now.” Once she was there, she lifted a hand to wave at me over her shoulder, though she still didn’t look back. “See ya soon, Rana!”
When she was gone, I hefted a sigh and started to make my own way back towards the entrance, calling upon the last bit of white mana I could manage for another healing spell. In the state I was in, I wasn’t sure if I would make it out of the arena – let alone back through the tunnels under the Rubblefield to the compound – without collapsing in a charred heap. As I walked and felt the warmth of the spell flow through me, I exhaled deeply through my nostrils. I was completely spent, but at least I wouldn’t be half-unconscious and nearly fried to a crisp, as Chandra had promised.
Even once the spell had taken effect and cleansed me of all my wounds and burns, it still took me the better part of an hour to navigate my way through the labyrinth of subterranean passages back to the basement of the compound, and from there another twenty minutes just to find the damn common room. When I finally reached it, I wanted nothing more than to collapse down on one of the couches and sleep. Possibly for days.
But no – I had an obligation to fulfill.
Looking around the room for the staircase that Chandra had mentioned, I suddenly spotted it in the far left corner, partially hidden behind a bookshelf that jutted a little too far out from the wall. I didn’t even bother to wonder why I hadn’t noticed it before – In the state I had been in yesterday, asking me to pay attention to every detail was like asking a baloth to sit and stay on command. Fruitless, and utterly impossible.
I climbed the spiral staircase and, slowing my pace when I reached the top, walked down the hallway at leading down from the landing until I reached a dead end and a heavy door. Curved, intricate designs, like swirling spirals of mist, were carved into its dark brown frame, and at once I was reminded of the detailed rune Jace had drawn yesterday, in his fight against Sorin.
Hesitating for a moment, I at last lifted my fist to the wood and knocked.
Slowly, I pushed the door open and poked my head inside. It was heavier than I thought it would be, and moving it aside enough to squeeze my entire body through took a good ten seconds.
Beyond it, though, lay Jace’s sprawling office. Plush blue carpet lined it from wall to wall – one of which in the back was, like the common room, composed entirely of windows, and the other three of which were composed of bookshelves. Two upholstered benches sat to either side of a long, narrow table near the window-wall, a couch sat just inside the door, and two rather comfy-looking chairs sat facing his desk, which was carved with the same designs as the door and made out of the same rich brown wood. Books and papers were stacked in neat piles across its large surface, leaving plenty of room for Jace’s feet to rest atop it as he leaned back in a chair of his own. When he saw me cross the threshold, he smiled at me, and ushered me forward to one of the chairs with a brief wave of his hand.
“Ranewen. I’ve been waiting for you. Come, sit down.”
I did. The chair was even comfier than it had looked, and I couldn’t help but let out a little groan as I sank into it and felt the throbbing ache in my legs wash away.
He noticed, and chuckled. “Still tired from that fight with Chandra?”
I groaned again, and tilted my head over the back of the chair to look up at the sconces on the ceiling, which flickered with soft blue light. “Exhausted. I didn’t think I would be able to beat her, but somehow I did. It took more out of me than I thought.”
Jace’s voice took on an odd tone that I couldn’t decipher – Amusement? Curiosity? I hadn’t a clue. “I thought that first rift-spell would’ve taken all your mana like it did against Sorin. Imagine my surprise when you didn’t just stop there, but you went ahead and cast two more.”
My head shot up to look at Jace – whose equally odd expression matched his tone – and gaped at him in shock. “Wha…How do you know about that?”
He chuckled again, and I finally saw the first hint of amusement on his face as the corners of his lips turned up in a smile. “I’m a mind-mage, Ranewen, remember? Just because I was elsewhere doesn’t mean that my awareness is restricted.” He folded his hands behind his head, cocked an eyebrow at me, and then uncrossed his boots on the desk before crossing them again. “It was a good fight.”
I shook my head at him, in part to hide the fact that I wasn’t doing a very good job at keeping a straight face, and in part because I was still bewildered. I was busy praying to every spirit in existence that he hadn’t seen enough of the battle to catch Chandra’s repeated comments about him and I – because if he had, then that would just be awkward as all hells. I was awkward enough on my own without assistance.
“I’m going to have to keep my eye on you,” I murmured. Once I was sure enough that I had regained my inner composure, I looked at him and forced myself to smile. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard. “You’re too unpredictable, and I’m not really one for surprises.”
Before I knew what I was doing, I realized that I was wrapping a lock of my hair around my finger ever so slowly as I met his gaze. Damn it! Stop it, Rana!
But Jace’s reaction didn’t exactly encourage me to do that. He met my gaze head-on with a raised brow and a mischievous gleam in those too-blue eyes of his, and as he regarded me, he lifted a hand to idly stroke his chin. “Huh. Well then, I’ll remember not to send you anything without first informing you exactly what it is, and exactly when you’ll get it.” His lips curled into a grin. “And here I thought women liked surprises.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help but marvel at the feminine grace with which I batted my eyelashes. Had Sorin cast some sort of spell on me before, when he had been trying to ensnare me with his…vampire-ness? “I mean, I do sometimes, but it depends on the kind of surprise.”
His grin widened. “Duly noted. But…I’m afraid we’ll have to get back to the task at hand, because it is rather important. If you’re ready?”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” I straightened in my chair, trying as best I could to wipe away the stupidly coy smile that had begun to spread across my face.
Jace nodded. At once his expression, too, changed – In a matter of seconds, he looked utterly businesslike, and any traces of his previous mirth had vanished. He took his feet off the desk, and leaned forward over it to face me, hands clasped tightly in front of him. “So I talked to some of the Consortium spies this morning, and they’ve been able to provide me with a few leads.”
“Leads?”
He nodded again. “Leads as to where we could find other planeswalkers. Potential allies. All of them are equally viable, so I thought I’d run them by you, see what you think.”
“Me?” I was a little confused as to why he would want my opinion since we had just met, but I decided not to ask questions. “Um…sure. I’m listening. Go on.”
“Right.” Jace licked the end of his fingertip, and then began flicking through a stack of parchment at his elbow that appeared to be stuck together. After a moment, he pulled out a rather ink-stained sheet, and laid it out before him to pore over it for a minute. I leaned in to see what was written on it. With a start, I realized that it was in a language I didn’t recognize. Of course. This isn’t Zendikar. “The first option, and in truth, probably our best bet, is the plane of Mirrodin. It is rather dangerous to go to right now, but planeswalkers flock to danger like moths to a flame, so that’s why it’s the most obvious choice.”
“What’s so dangerous about it?” I asked. After yesterday, I wasn’t exactly worried about danger, but I was curious.
Jace sighed. “There’s, uh…a full-scale war going on, between the natives and the invading Phyrexians. War itself isn’t anything too out of the ordinary, but…” His brow twitched, and for a moment he hesitated. “Well…the real problem is, Phyrexians have a tendency to….vivisect people. Planeswalkers especially. They think the planeswalker spark is some organ they can harvest.”
I stared at him in abject horror. “Are you kidding me?”
Jace’s gaze softened in sympathy with my emotion. “No, I’m not. They can prolong the experience for an extended period of time, though no one knows how. Believe me, I wouldn’t like getting cut into and studied for years on end just as much as you wouldn’t.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone would,” I murmured. After a moment of staring down at my hands on my lap, I looked back up at Jace, who was just sitting and waiting patiently for me to say something. “Is there any way we could just…avoid those Phyrexian guys?”
He tilted his head as he looked at me. “Avoid them entirely? No. Avoid getting caught? Yes, we can do that. It’s going to involve fighting either way, though. The Phyrexians are like the Eldrazi in the fact that they have the ability to travel across the Blind Eternities, so there’s no saying that they won’t come here when they’re finished with Mirrodin.”
Great. More world-walking bad guys. I pursed my lips in thought. “But you did say that Mirrodin was our best bet, right?”
“I did. There’s rumors of at least two planeswalkers there, maybe more.”
I nodded. So Mirrodin, then. “Okay, well, could I hear the other options before making a final decision?”
Jace suddenly smiled, and a flicker of appreciation passed through his eyes as he looked at me. It caught me off guard, and quickly, I bent down under the pretense of retying a loose lace on my boot in order to keep him from seeing the color spread to my cheeks. Damn it, why does this keep happening?
“Of course,” he said. After a moment I was able to sit up straight again, and when I did I saw that his expression had returned to the calm, businesslike one from before.
“First, there is someone here on Ravnica, in the undercity, who seems to be trying to revive the Cult of Rakdos – a bunch of demon worshippers known for torture and human sacrifice. His own followers worship him as a god, which makes me think that some sort of mind-altering planeswalker magic is at work, or maybe some sort of domination. From what I can gather, his name is Alanor Fireheart.”
“Subtle,” I muttered. “Sounds like my type of guy.”
Jace’s lips twitched, in what I hoped was an attempt to hold back a smile. When he spoke, I caught a well-concealed note of humor in his voice, so I guessed myself to be right. “I know he doesn’t sound like someone we could trust, but we have to at least learn a little bit more about him, maybe find out what his goals are. The Cult of Rakdos used to be an important part of the balance among the guilds, after all – They gave people someone to fear, which then drove them into the arms of the Boros Legion for protection.” He shrugged. “Besides, if worse comes to worse, we can just get rid of him. I’m sure the last thing this city needs is some overpowered fanatic running around killing people.”
Though murder wasn’t exactly something I felt comfortable with, I had to concede that Jace had a point. Slowly, I nodded. “You’re right. I don’t think I want to put him first on the list of priorities, though – He sounds too…volatile, for me. Or maybe that’s just the inexperience talking.” I offered a weak smile.
Jace took the bait, and smiled back, briefly, before returning his gaze to the parchment and scanning over it for his next lead. “Very well, then. We can scratch that one off for now. So let’s see…there’s a goblin invasion on the plane of Mercadia, which we also suspect is being led by a planeswalker. Does that sound interesting?”
My brow furrowed as I scrunched up my face into a disgusted scowl. “Ugh. No, not really. Goblins were always scurrying around our forests, trying to ambush people passing through.” I folded my arms over my chest, feeling my frown deepen as the memory of being attacked by one on my very first hunting expedition – and then having to chase it through the trees to recover my stolen knife – was pulled from the depths of my mind. “Awful little creatures. Maybe goblins on this other plane are different, but the ones back home…no thanks.”
Jace chuckled. “You should tell that to Chandra. She’s not too fond of them, either.”
“Maybe I will.” I shook my head. “Then we can sit together and commiserate over a bottle of wine.”
At this, Jace barked out a laugh, shortly followed by a groan as he pressed his palm to his forehead. “Oh Ranewen, don’t. That’s a horrible idea. She doesn’t hold her wine well – and believe me, you do not want to see her drunk.”
I paused for a moment – his sudden outburst had surprised me a little – but then I smiled and shrugged. “Fine then. I’ll take the wine, and she can just have that…whatever it was last night, that whiskey. I’m certainly not going to be drinking it anytime soon.”
Jace smiled at me back, warmly, and I could feel my face heating up again. “Well, we’re going to have to go to Mercadia sometime, I’m sorry to say. The plane used to be ruled by goblins, and they were overthrown a long time ago. That’s why this invasion is apparently a big deal – goblins from all over are gathering and amassing behind this mysterious would-be planeswalker of ours, hoping that they can take the plane for themselves again. Make some sort of goblin utopia.”
I just stared at him, not even bothering to hide the incredulity in my expression. “And that’s supposed to convince me to go?”
He laughed. “No, it was just supposed to give you some context. If we help them out with this revolution, and it succeeds, then we would likely have some pretty powerful help on our side.”
I shrugged, then found myself letting out a little laugh of my own. It may be important, but no way. Never. Not in a million years. “That we would, but I’m still going to put this option at the very bottom of the list. You are not going to convince me otherwise!”
Jace, too, shrugged. He cocked an eyebrow at me as he let out his breath in a sigh, and when I saw him do that, I tried – and failed – to read his expression. “If you say so. I guess you’ll be wanting to hear the last option, then?”
“You guessed right.”
“Well.” He glanced over the parchment one last time, and then gently set it to the side, beneath a stack of very old-looking books that were bound in leather and smelled of ancient dust, even from here. He picked up a quill pen in its place, and began idly twirling it between his fingers. “The last lead I was able to get concerns a rather strange individual, who I’m almost certain is a planeswalker due to the fact that he’s been seen here, on Lorwyn, and on Naya. He calls himself the General of Death, and apparently he’s been going around gathering all kinds of…specimens. Native creatures that don’t have enough of a presence of mind to realize they’re being kidnapped.”
I frowned. “That’s…also extremely unsubtle. What does he look like?”
Jace shrugged. He was still twirling his pen, and I noted with a hint of surprise that he hadn’t dropped it even once. Either this was a practiced habit, or he was very deft with his fingers. “No one knows what he actually looks like, since he’s always wearing a suit of heavy black armor. Could be either dwarf or human. I’m guessing dwarf, but that’s just a hunch.”
“Your guess is as good as anyone’s,” I murmured. I leaned forward to rest my elbow on his desk, and then placed my chin in my hands as I thought. “I’m assuming that’s all you’ve been able to find out about this guy?”
He nodded. “Right. He was last seen in Lorwyn, so if we wanted to follow up on the lead, we could go there and see if any of the locals have heard of him. I’m sure someone must have, with an outfit that conspicuous.”
There was a pause, and then Jace finally set down the pen and lifted his head to look directly in my eyes. I could see the hesitancy in his gaze. “There is one other lead…though I can tell you right now that I don’t think any good will come out of it.”
“What is it?” I asked. I winced when my voice came out sounding a little more curious than it should have.
Jace huffed, then began to rub one of his temples with his fingertips. “You…remember Chandra saying that there was another elf planeswalker from Zendikar? Nissa Revane? Well, I was thinking that we could try and find her, ask her to help us out, but…”
“But what?”
“But…she was the one who destroyed the central hedron, which was the last thing holding the Eldrazi back besides the lock we broke. She did it on purpose. She thought that they would leave Zendikar the second they were free, and spare the plane entirely, but…she was wrong.”
Abruptly, and quite unexpectedly, I felt a hot mixture of anger and hatred swell up inside of me. It burned my chest from within like lava. “So, what…you’re saying that someone from my own homeworld, of my own race, no less, is the one responsible for dooming everything to destruction?”
For once, it seemed like Jace was the one who wasn’t able to read my expression. He drew back in his chair a little bit, and fixed me with a look that seemed at once sympathetic and wary. “In a roundabout way, yes.”
I clenched my hands over the arms of the chair. It took a few long, deep breaths to slow my heartbeat from its rapidfire pace, and to cool the heat that threatened to ignite my veins. So this must be what Chandra feels like when she makes herself a human torch. Finally, after a few long moments, I sighed and slumped back, limply, before fixing Jace with an expression that must have looked tired. “Besides that reason, why else would it be a bad idea to go looking for her?”
Jace caught my gaze and then looked quickly down, still pressing his fingers to the sides of his head. “Sorin was traveling with her when she broke the hedron, and he says that she was acting nearly mad right before it happened. He seems to genuinely hate her, though, so that could just be his own personal bias talking.” He shook his head, which sent his dark hair falling in front of his face like a curtain. “Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just abandoned or betrayed us when it suited her needs. From what Sorin told me, she’s very…self-absorbed.”
“I don’t want anything to do with her,” I growled instantly, surprised at my sudden certainty and at the hardness in my voice. “My vote is that we go to Mirrodin. There you have it.”
The room fell into silence for a time. I sat in my chair, arms crossed, breathing hard, and Jace sat in his, staring down at the wood of his desk with another – surprise! – unreadable expression. After a minute had passed, he finally sighed, and looked up at me. Now he was smiling, though faintly. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
For another minute he paused, and then he reached out across the desk to gingerly touch me on the arm. I flinched, startled by the unexpected contact, and couldn’t stop myself from looking directly up and into his eyes just as I began to blush. Of course.
His voice was soft when he spoke. “Ranewen, I promise that we’re going to let you fight for your people. That’s why I wanted to include you in all this. You’re part of the team now.” He leaned in further, though only a little, and allowed his smile to widen. “Like Chandra said, you’re not our servant – You’re a new set of eyes, and though it may take a while for you to adjust to things, that doesn’t mean your perspective isn’t useful.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “That is a pretty good metaphor,” I admitted.
He chuckled too, and at that moment I noticed that his hand was still lingering on my arm. Though I had a gut feeling that I should, I didn’t make any moves to brush it away. “Glad you think so. Sorin is betting against you, you know – He thinks you would have been better off had he just drained you and made you his slave. I’m trying to prove him wrong.”
“Thanks for that,” I murmured. I hadn’t intended for my voice to come out so quiet, but it did nevertheless.
Jace grinned. “You’re welcome.” Finally, he pulled away so that he could lean back in his chair, and I realized that my skin still felt warm where he had touched. I missed it instantly. “Sorin needs a good blow to his ego, anyway.”
“Glad I can be the provider for you,” I said. It took me a moment before I realized that I had just echoed his words from last night.
He smiled again, and for a moment we sat there in silence, doing nothing but regarding one another with our own curious expressions and our hands folded in front of us – and as I watched him, I found myself wondering why Sorin and Chandra both had been so fond of teasing him, of teasing us. Perhaps there was something I wasn’t seeing. That wouldn’t surprise me, given how oblivious I’d always been…
“So, would you mind accompanying me to Mirrodin tomorrow morning? I’ll do my best to make sure we stay out of trouble so that your first mission won’t be too traumatizing.”
I snapped back to reality with a start at the sound of his voice – But before I even had time to think about his question, I found myself nodding enthusiastically.
Chandra and Sorin were nowhere to be found the next morning.
I had been hoping to see the pyromancer one more time before planeswalking to Mirrodin with Jace – who had decided that attracting too much attention with a large party wouldn’t be wise, and that it should be just the two of us going – but unfortunately, she had absconded on another errand. Jace assured me that it was an important one, so I let go of my disappointment and focused on other, more urgent matters.
Like my first solo planeswalk, for instance.
Jace also assured me that I would be fine so long as I followed the bright blue of his aether trail – and, sure enough, he was right. It was certainly unpleasant, being buffeted by what I had coined the Mana Roil of the Blind Eternities (in honor of the dear old Roil back home), but I was able to focus my will well enough to keep myself from being ripped to shreds by it. Besides being able to see the vividness of Jace’s trail, I could feel the unique aura that it emanated – At times, however, neither of those things were quite enough. I eventually found my way again every time I stopped to reorient myself in the dizzying swirls of color, though not without feeling as if my heart were about to burst right out of my chest with its beating.
Finally, I stumbled through the open portal that Jace had left behind.
I emerged in some sort of large, metallic tunnel, with ceilings that sloped high above me at jagged angles and spires of some sort of crystalline rock that grew up from the ground. It stretched ahead of me for what must have been miles, judging by the way it fell into pitch-darkness after a distance, and everything – the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the spires – glowed pale red under what I could only guess was its own light.
For the spirits’ sakes, is there anything green outside of Zendikar?
Suddenly, that thought reminded me of something – someone – and my heart skipped a beat.
Where’s Jace?
Frantically, I spun around to search for my lost companion. I could feel my breath coming hard and fast now, as the realization hit me that I was alone on a unfamiliar world, sans guide, and with very little planeswalking experience under my belt in case I needed to make a run for it – Besides the fact, of course, that something bad could have happened to Jace. Which was the last thing I wanted.
Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to find him.
Unfortunately, he was frozen nearly solid in a large specimen of crystal spire.
One of the most enormous men I had ever seen – if you could indeed call him a man – stood leaning against that spire, an utterly blank expression on his face as he regarded me from an adjoining tunnel. He was bare-chested and dark-skinned, with thick, ash-colored spikes of metal serving as his hair and fingers, and twisting up his arms and across his abdomen to form vents that seemed to…glow, with an unearthly, fiery light. He appeared to not even notice that Jace was trapped within his armrest. Or care.
However stupid it might have been, I opened my mouth to yell out and started to rush forward to Jace’s aid – only to find my legs rooted to the ground. When I looked down to see what in the hells was going on, I saw massive, thorned vines growing out from the earth and wrapping me tightly from toe to thigh. My heart stopped.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
When I turned my head to see who had spoken, I suddenly found that I couldn’t breathe.
A veritable swarm of horribly misshapen figures – which I realized, with a start as I squinted in the dim light, were merfolk – stood behind me, each one with some sort of nasty-looking weapon drawn and at the ready. Some of the figures stood on triple-jointed legs, others had four pairs of arms running down their sides, and still others had claws that looked as long as my leg, and twice as thick.
Before I could wonder what in the name of the Roil had happened to them, another figure stepped forward from the crowd as it parted for him like water.
This mer was taller than the rest, and had no visible deformities save for a scar or two across his bare chest, which shone pale against the slick blue-green of his skin. He wore nothing but a gold loincloth, and the spear that he held in his hand was simple – made of coral, and tapering into a sharp, reddened point. He had no adornments either, save for the traditional coral headpiece that covered the front of his scalp and held back his mess of hair, long and beaded and braided in the front and black as night---
Coral headpiece. Beaded, braided hair.
Legs.
Then that means…
With an audible gasp, the realization washed over me.
“You’re from Zendikar,” I breathed. For a brief moment I forgot everything else around me – the tunnel, the metal man, Jace in his crystal prison behind me - everything besides this mer, and the weight of the implications his existence held.
Whatever he had been expecting out of me, though, it certainly wasn’t that. One of his slim eyebrows arched, and he took a step closer to me, walking all the way around so that he could meet my gaze directly.
“What are you doing here?”
“Seeking help,” I answered honestly. Despite the fact that the tip of the mer’s spear had been lifted to hover a few scant inches away from my throat, if my guess was correct, then we would surely be able to trust him. Or so I hoped. “My friend and I are planeswalkers. We’re looking for others like us who can aid us in an important fight. We don’t mean any harm.”
“So you say,” he murmured. His voice was deep, with a faintly rough edge to it that brought to mind the merfolk raiders from back home. “But how am I to know that you can be trusted? You could easily be Phyrexian in disguise.”
I swallowed. Just what are these Phyrexians? “I’m not, I promise.” As he looked me squarely in the eye, I fixed him with the most pleading expression I could manage, and prayed silently that he would see my sincerity. “He’s from Ravnica and I’m from Zendikar. I can answer anything you want to prove it, and I’m sure he can too if you just let him go.” For a second my gaze went to Jace, who had been frozen mid-crouch, one hand covering his face and the other outstretched as if in the middle of casting a spell. His eyes, which were the only things he could move, were wide and worried as they gazed toward me. I finally noticed a tiny hole in the crystal right at the level of his face – a breathing hole, it must be. I hoped it was enough. “Please, can you do that?”
The mer scoffed, and stood up straight so that we were no longer face to face. My heart sank into my stomach. “Not likely.” For a moment he fingered the ridges that ran the length of his spear, his touch as gentle as a lover’s caress, and then he turned to look at me again with an expression even more unreadable than Jace’s had ever been. I braced myself, expecting him to say something – But instead he reached out, lightning-quick, and pulled a long strand of hair from my scalp. As I winced and rubbed my head, I couldn’t help but shoot him a glare.
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “What was that for?”
But he was too busy sniffing the hair to respond. His expression was intent and thoughtful, as if he were pondering some great mystery of the cosmos.
What in the hells---?
“Ah,” he muttered after a moment. He rubbed his fingers together to dislodge the strand and send it floating to the ground. Still he didn’t turn to look at me, but a little bit of the hardness in his voice had evaporated, which I took to be a good sign. “Indeed. You were speaking the truth, about Zendikar. And I detect no traces of the Phyrexian taint, either.”
“How---”
He held up a hand to silence me. “But that means little. I have no reason to trifle myself with you or your…friend.” His gaze flicked to Jace for an instant, and then to the dark-skinned metal man still standing impassively beside him. “Come, Koth. We should make our way back to the refugee camp before the bulk of the horde arrives.”
The man – Koth – shrugged, cracked his knuckles, and stepped forward to make his way to the mer. The two of them, along with the group of mutated merfolk, began to head out the side tunnel from where they must have come – and at once I realized that if I didn’t do something, then both Jace and I would be stuck here. Which likely meant our deaths.
“Wait!” I yelled. Despite the panic that threatened to overwhelm me, I forced myself to stand up tall when the mer stopped and turned to me, wearing an expression of disinterest. “You’re fighting the Phyrexians, aren’t you? We can help!”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” He sounded almost bored.
I refused to let the tone of his voice get to me, however, and instead I focused on channeling the familiar sensation of green mana as it flowed into me and through me. As I had hoped, the bonds around my legs responded to my mental probing, and with a single thought they sloughed off and to the ground. I stepped onto them, satisfied at the crunch they made when the heel of my boot crushed a thorn underfoot.
“I am an arboromancer,” I said firmly, “and he is a mind-mage. We are not as defenseless as you may think us to be.” I clenched my fists at my side, feeling the chill of black mana envelop my entire body as I called upon it – cold, cruel power that sent goosebumps up and down my arms. I didn’t want to fight, but if that was what it took to free Jace, then I would do it. I wasn’t a coward. “I would strongly suggest that you let him go.”
At this the mer barked a laugh. There was an odd sort of gleam in his slanted eyes as he stepped forward to meet me, and it made me nervous. “You’re either very brave or very foolish, little elf, to be challenging me.” In mere seconds he had closed the whole distance and was standing right there, looming like a giant over me, leaning in so close that our noses were almost touching. I could feel the heat of his breath on my face. Suddenly, I found myself rethinking my decision. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“No,” I said simply. “Didn’t I tell you that we’re not from here?”
His eyes narrowed at my flippant tone – which I immediately decided had been a very bad choice – and his own voice lowered to a growl. “Then I would strongly suggest that you stop throwing about empty threats, before one of them gets you killed.” I felt the sudden pressure of his spear against my neck, and it drew a whimper from me that I could do nothing to hold back. “I have more important business to attend to than babysitting either of you, planeswalker or no, and I---”
“Vincenius,” came a gravelly voice from behind us, sharp with alarm. “The bastards found us.”
The mer whipped around, scanning the tunnel ahead of us with eyes that had narrowed even further into thin slits – and as I watched, they suddenly shot wide. When I followed his gaze, I had to clap a hand to my mouth to restrain my horrified cry.
If I had thought that the Eldrazi were the stuff of nightmares, then these creatures must have been the scions of madness itself.
Metal limbs twisted at sharp angles from every part of their bodies, bladed like massive knives and gleaming silver-black in the red light. Gaping maws loomed wide, with jagged teeth that looked as if they could rip a man’s head from his neck with a single bite, and they uttered wordless shrieks that shook the earth beneath me and set every nerve of my body alight with terror. They reached out toward us as they charged forward from far down the passage, all twenty or so of them, with their equally bladelike arms that bent back on themselves and then back again. I couldn’t speak. Once again, I couldn’t breathe.
“Damn them,” Vincenius hissed, taking a few steps back. His grip on his spear tightened, and after a moment he spun to look at me. His eyes were blazing with anger. “You and your friend want to prove yourselves? Fine. Here’s your chance. Fight these Phyrexians with us, and then, perhaps, we’ll talk.”
“You have to let him go first!” I nearly cried, backing up and away from the advancing monstrosities until my body hit another crystal spire.
“Koth.”
The man grunted his assent, and then thrust an arm out in the direction of Jace’s spire – which, at his unspoken command, shattered into a million pieces. Jace fell forward and onto his knees, with the shards of his prison falling about him like glimmering rain. Immediately, he began to cough and gasp for breath. I rushed to his side.
“Jace,” I whispered urgently. “Jace, are you alright?” For a moment, the Phyrexians could wait. I put one hand to his chest to keep him from toppling over entirely, and my other arm curled around his shoulders.
“I’m…fine,” he rasped. His voice was hoarse from all the coughing. I could see, too, that his body was shaking from the vehemence of his nearly hacking up a lung, and I wondered if I should cast a healing spell. “Damn that geomancer to every hell, he would have just left me here!”
“I wouldn’t have let him do that,” I assured.
For a brief second, his blue eyes lifted to mine, and I saw a flicker of something cross them too quickly for me to catch it. “No,” he said quietly, “you wouldn’t. Thank you, Ranewen.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Vincenius suddenly snapped. Jace and my heads shot up in unison to look at him, and I noted the strange mixture of anticipation and blind fury that consumed the mer’s young face, and seemed to almost hover in the air about him like an aura. “Whatever you have to discuss, it can wait. Right now, we fight.”
I nodded, and in a second I had leapt to my feet and helped to pull Jace to his own. My heart skipped a beat when I saw how much distance the Phyrexians had gained. They would be upon us in less than a minute. “What do you want us to do?”
“You come with me. Boy, you go with Koth – There’s another squadron closing in two tunnels away, and he’s taking my men and heading them off. Fight with all you have, if you want to live.”
I saw Jace’s brow twitch at the order, but he said nothing. Quickly, he turned to me and fixed me with a serious look.
“He’s right. I should have told you more about the Phyrexians before we came here, and I’m sorry I didn’t. They’re nothing to be taken lightly.” He hesitated for the span of a second, and then finally reached out to place a hand on my shoulder. Even through my tunic, I could feel its warmth. “I wasn’t expecting something like this
to happen, but I guess we have no choice now. Just…” His voice grew quiet, and suddenly soft. When I looked in his eyes again, I found that they held the same worry as before. “Don’t get yourself killed, alright?”
“I’ll try.” I forced myself to smile.
With that, Jace’s hand left me, and he said nothing more. He simply turned, nodded to Koth as he stood beneath the sloping archway marking the entrance to a side tunnel, and rushed off to join him. The remainder of the merfolk had already left, and as I watched, Jace’s cloaked figure and Koth’s muscled one, too, disappeared into the darkness.
I was alone with Vincenius, and a horde of twenty onrushing Phyrexians.
Please forgive me if I'm impolite. The reason is that my English is not good, and my intention doesn't want to be impolite to you.
It's heart-warming to see that Rana begins to feel some support and friendship to Chandra.
Koth's power trapped Jace...It's nice.
Koth is not only one of my favorite but also one of canon 'walker.
The fact that it is canon character(not OC) to defeat canon character is felt sweet for me.
In only my personal value, I'm often bored in some fanfic (not only Magic) that uses canon characters to show how someone's OC is capable(of course,villain OC aside), make a display of OMC and OFC's affection for each other for a long time when they ignore canon characters and storyline.
I felt that your story has evaded this problem well. Great work!
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sorry for my poor English.
From Japan with love \('-'*)
Nothing to worry about - You're not impolite at all!
With Ranewen and Chandra, I felt that they're too much alike in their passion for life to not become friends, though they're certainly different from one another in many other ways.
You'll definitely be seeing more of Koth, and soon! I finished Quest for Karn a short while ago, so I think I have a better sense of his personality now.
And as far as OCs go, I completely agree with you. I love seeing the way people put their own spin on canon characters, so I decided to give that a large amount of focus in my own fic. I don't like to spoil things, but I'm making an exception for this - I can tell you now that, though Vincenius is the OC of someone I know in real life, he and Ranewen don't end up together. In any way. You'll see why this is as the story goes on. I'm trying not to rush any sort of romance subplot, actually (though, of course, there is one - and it's rather convoluted, too!).
Thank you for your post! I appreciate the comments a lot.
Just a quick addendum: I fixed a few things in Chapter 8, where I had improperly described the group's location (I had previously misplaced my notes and forgotten where I had intended for everyone to be). They're not near Lumengrid at all, but rather in some tunnels underneath the Oxidda chain where a group of Mirran refugees has set up camp. Sorry for the confusion!
“Vincenius,” I whispered, “we can’t take them alone.”
The mer chuckled, and as I watched, his muscles seemed to…roil beneath his skin. His grip on his spear tightened.
“Can’t we?” he growled.
Before I could blink, he had launched himself straight toward the Phyrexians in one single, impossible leap. Before I could cry out in alarm, he was wholly upon one of them, standing with perfect balance atop its back as it shuddered and writhed in an attempt to shake him off.
Before I could scream, his arm bulged to the size of my entire torso, and he reached down to rip its shrieking head from its body.
As I gaped at him in a mixture of shock and horror, Vincenius tossed the head aside as carelessly as if it were a child’s toy and then leapt off of the dead Phyrexian before it crumpled to the ground. The others began to emit ear-splitting cries at the sight of their fallen companion, and they all turned their glowing red gazes to its killer. The way they suddenly began clicking their disgusting metal limbs together filled me with a sense of dread.
“No!” I gasped.
I could feel the mana still flowing through my veins, belonging there as much as every drop of my blood. As I rushed down the tunnel toward the beginning battle, I called upon it to pull a creature forth from the aether that I had only summoned twice before – a great treefolk, bigger than the trio that I had brought against Chandra and the brood lineage. It wrenched itself forth from the red ground with a crack, and before the Phyrexians could realize what was happening it had flung two of them aside with one powerful sweep of its root-arm. Their limbs fell apart from the force of the blow, and they lay against the wall, twitching and dripping some foul-smelling black substance.
“Vincenius!” I screamed suddenly. “Behind you!”
But the mer had already seen the object of my attention. The Phyrexian rearing back on all of its hind limbs, poised to launch itself atop him, received a swift spear to its exposed underbelly that sent it staggering backward into the horde. Several of its brethren toppled over upon being hit, and Vincenius leapt upon them with a savage snarl that dropped my heart all the way to my stomach. I caught a flash of hideous, serrated teeth as he tore at them, his muscles swelling to freakish proportions as he rent them apart like some sort of rabid beast.
The sight and smell of it made me sick.
Just who is he?
By the time I reached the edge of the fray, my treefolk was caught up in a struggle with several of the Phyrexians that had latched their blade-limbs into its trunk. It shook its entire body side to side, thick branches swaying and leaves rustling, but no matter how hard it tried, it couldn’t dislodge them. Feeling my stomach churn with anger at the sight, I thrust my palms forward and let out a cry.
“Take this, bastards!”
But before my spell could even take form in the aether, something heavy and hard and sharp landed atop me, forcing me to the ground beneath its weight. My face hit metal, and the breath rushed out of my lungs. When the adrenaline kicked in and gave me enough strength to roll over, I found myself staring up into the beady, unblinking eyes of a Phyrexian. Hot, black liquid dripped from a gash in its belly onto my own, and the scalding pain that flared at its touch returned my voice and set me screaming. Loudly. Its stench hit my nostrils in one giant wave, and suddenly, in the middle of feeling as if I were being boiled alive, I realized what it was.
Oil.
Struggle as I might, I couldn’t wrench myself from the Phyrexian’s grip enough to focus on casting a spell. I could only watch in terror as it lifted one of its remaining limbs, the blade of it dripping even more oil, and poised it directly above the center of my forehead.
“Get away from her!”
Before it could make the killing strike, something brown and wriggling flashed through the air in front of my face, and struck the Phyrexian full-on. The monster fell off of me with a shrieking crash, and after a few moments of flailing uselessly against whatever creature was assaulting it, it fell limp. I still couldn’t move, though. The oil felt as if it had soaked its way through my skin and mixed in with my blood to pollute me from the inside. With every beat of my heart, I felt as if I were being stabbed by a million tiny knives that came from every direction.
But I had to get up. If I continued to lie here like this, then I would die.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I forced myself to roll over and onto my knees. As I did, I finally saw just what it was that Vincenius had sent flying into the Phyrexian’s face – a giant leech. I drew back from its still-squirming form in repulsion. If there was anything I hated more than goblins, it was leeches.
There was no time to dwell on my own particularities, though. As I clambered to my feet, I saw that the Phyrexians were making their way further and further up my tree’s trunk, clawing viciously at the tiny roots that made up its face, and I could see the sap pouring from hundreds of cuts and gashes across its surface. Try as it might to pick them off, though, to send them flying into the wall and break whatever metal bones were in their bodies, it just couldn’t handle so many of them at once. My heart sank. There was nothing I could do to save it…or even to destroy the Phyrexians, at this rate.
Unless…
“Vincenius!” I yelled, sidestepping a glob of oil that came soaring through the air toward me as the mer sliced a Phyrexian into bits with arms that he had turned into blades of his own. It took everything I had not to retch at the way his skin nearly bubbled as his muscles flexed. “Move, now!”
He didn’t have time for pride. Turning to meet my gaze for the briefest of seconds, he nodded and leapt easily over the head of the Phyrexian he was dicing, rolling beneath another that lunged for him as soon as he hit the ground. When he rose, so too did it – though skewered on the ends of the razors that stretched out from his elbows.
With the coast clear, I said a silent apology to my tree for what I was about to do, and called upon my mana to latch a spell directly onto its face.
A moment later, there was a sound as if the universe itself were being torn in two, and then the entire tunnel shook with the force of my rift as it exploded into existence.
I was thrown backward and into another Phyrexian by the shockwave, and as its oiled blade sliced my side upon impact, my vision went white. I screamed and screamed, falling to the ground in utter agony, and I could feel my body twitching uncontrollably when I reached my hand up to the wound that now trickled a steady stream of blood. I might have called out Vincenius’s name, or Jace’s – so lost was I in my own torment that all awareness of the battle around me faded away, and even whether or not I was still alive.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, my senses returned.
I hadn’t died.
Perhaps only a few moments had passed, for everything was still raging around me as heatedly as ever – Vincenius, who stood directly over my prone form, was pushing the Phyrexian that I must have gotten knocked into off of the end of his spear and fixing his gaze on an armored, blade-armed humanoid that stood several yards down the tunnel from the other Phyrexians. My vision was still swimming too much for me to see whoever it was with any clarity, but I knew from the stiffness in Vincenius’s posture that their arrival didn’t bode well for us. And with my tree gone – though it had taken nearly five Phyrexians with it – I was providing no aid.
When I tried to move and felt an unimaginable pain flare through me, I gasped and sank back down onto the metal earth. I couldn’t provide any aid. Not in this state.
Above me, Vincenius flicked his wrist, and a shimmering, translucent merfolk appeared directly in front of the humanoid with a whoosh, fins trailing behind her like beautiful silk – and before it even had time to react to her appearance, she fell atop him like a tidal wave.
Even from this far away, I saw her press her lips to its neck as a lover would before sinking her teeth in and tearing out its throat in one swift, almost graceful motion.
Not just from my pain, I felt as if I might vomit.
There was a sudden screech as one of the last remaining Phyrexians came scurrying toward us, half of its limbs extended in a battle-ready position. I could hear Vincenius scoff at what I presumed to be its audacity, and he artfully twirled his spear between his fingertips before turning to meet it face-to-face.
However, what he didn’t see was the other Phyrexian circling around behind us to throw itself at his exposed back.
My breath caught in my throat. Vincenius did indeed notice this other Phyrexian, but too late – it slammed into him square in the stomach as he turned, blades flashing and blurring as it sliced him relentlessly, leaving long, oil-stained cuts in its wake.
The other Phyrexian was quick to take advantage of the distraction, and it, too, fell upon the mer in a flurry.
As he grunted in pain and effort, struggling to push the looming creatures off of him so he could have room to fight back, I felt a burst of mana suddenly, inadvertently bloom to life inside of me. It pushed away the pain that darkened my vision and sapped the last of my strength, and replaced it with power. Thick, tangible…consuming.
Black mana.
Before I could even think, I felt my body lifting off of the ground to hover a few inches in the air, and my vision darkened even further with the storm clouds that lifted my hair and tunic in their brewing tempest. Vincenius’s eyes widened ever so slightly when he saw me, though he never once took his entire attention away from his attackers.
There was a flash of blinding purple light, and then I crumpled into a heap once more as the world around me melted away.
***
“I think she’s awake.”
“Ranewen. Can you hear me?”
My only response to the voices was a groan. I couldn’t feel the unmistakable pain of the Phyrexian oil burning through my body, but my head hurt like no other. I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears.
“I can’t tell if that was a yes or not. You’re going to have to use your words.”
Jace. That’s Jace’s voice.
“Shuddup,” I slurred. I still didn’t open my eyes, but I could feel the fog evaporating away. “I feel horrible.”
Several people chuckled. From the sound of it, there must have been three of them.
“Ranewen,” came Vincenius’s voice, suddenly smooth compared to its harsh rasp from before, “I healed you. For all intents and purposes, you’re fine. We need to speak, so please, sit up.”
Sighing, I forced myself to open my eyes. I was lying on my back in a bedroll, and Jace was sitting beside me with his hands on his knees. Vincenius was sitting cross-legged beside him, a calm, almost pleasant expression on his face, and Koth was sitting in the far corner away from everyone. The roof over our heads was made of sharply slanted metal, resembling some sort of tall tent. As I blinked and looked around, Jace placed one hand on the small of my back and helped lift me into a sitting position, which I was able to hold after a few seconds of steadying myself. I blinked a few more times to clear my vision.
“Where are we?” I mumbled.
Jace gave me a sort of half-smile. “We’re in the refugee camp a couple of miles down the tunnel from where we planeswalked in. We did it. Koth and I beat our squadron of Phyrexians, and you and Vincenius beat yours. Apparently you let loose with some dark magic at the end to help finish them off.”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t remembered that before, but now the memory of the nearly unbidden spell was coming back to me. It wasn’t an unfamiliar spell, for certain – I often used it when I needed to kill a number of baloth hatchlings that were chasing me through the woods – but I couldn’t remember having the strength to call upon my mana, let alone cast it. Very strange. I decided to let the matter go for now, though. I would have time to ponder it later.
“How did your battle go?” I asked, curious. Koth was – like the last time I had seen him – almost perfectly silent and expressionless, and I suddenly wondered if he was as vicious while fighting as Vincenius had been. Maybe it was a Mirrodin thing.
But Jace’s hesitation before answering was definitely not a good sign, “Ah…we’ll talk about that later, alright? I think we should probably get to business while there’s still time.”
“Oh.” I looked around at the others, and found myself holding back a confused frown when I noticed Vincenius’s hands folded neatly in his lap and the way he was fixing me with an ever-so-patient look – What happened to that deranged killing machine from the battle? “Uh, if you say so.”
“Good,” Vincenius said, coolly. “I have a great deal of business to attend to, so I would appreciate it if we could keep things short.”
Jace nodded. I did the same.
“Koth,” he said, sweeping his arm in a grandiose gesture toward the corner of the tent where the metal man sat, “I do believe that you haven’t introduced yourself to the lady.”
“Neither have you,” Koth returned gruffly.
Vincenius’s brow arched, and the corners of his lips curled up in a small smile. “Very well.” He turned back to Jace and I and allowed the smile to widen before bowing his head just a little, a few strands of his black hair falling loose about his face. “Vincenius, mer biomancer and head doctor of the Mirran refugee army, at your service. I apologize for my behavior earlier – I tend to get rather irritable when I’m out on patrol, as Koth can attest.”
The man snorted.
Suddenly finding myself unable to quell my mounting disbelief, I let out my breath in a sigh and shook my head. “Is that…is what you did back there, in the battle…part of your powers as a biomancer?” I shuddered at the memory of his bulging muscles, and teeth, and his arms-turned-blades. I had never seen anything like it in my twenty-five years of life. “You could have taken on all those Phyrexians alone!”
Vincenius simply shrugged, and held his thin smile where it was. “I could have, yes. But I figured that allowing you and your friend – Jace, was it? – to fight with us would give you a chance to prove yourselves, as I said before. And here we all are, so I would say that things turned out rather well, wouldn’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes, but…you didn’t answer my question.”
At this, Vincenius’s smile faded. Nothing replaced it – just a blank expression. “Well…” His gaze held mine, and for a moment I thought I saw him **** an eyebrow at me. “When you live for ten thousand years, you learn to keep a few messy tricks up your sleeve. Never pretty, but they work like a charm.”
Next to me, Jace’s jaw dropped in unison with mine.
“Ten thousand years?!” he spluttered. I noted with some surprise that it was the first time I had seen him lose his composure – and if Vincenius’s revelation hadn’t been so shocking, I might have laughed. “But that means…you must have…”
Vincenius’s smile returned, and he nodded. “Yes, indeed. I was a planeswalker long before the Mending. I gave up a good deal of my power in order to help close the time rifts, but still I live.” An almost mischievous gleam grew in his eyes as he watched Jace’s own nearly pop out of his skull, and he chuckled. “Surprised, mind-mage?”
Jace could only shake his head.
Though my companion still seemed to be in a state of semi-shock, Vincenius waved a hand dismissively and turned his body back to Koth. “But enough about me. That’s a tale for another time. Koth, if you could take it from here, please?”
The man sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. From his body language – coupled with his perpetual, almost impersonal silence – I gathered that he didn’t seem to like talking very much. Now, though, he grudgingly spoke, in a gravelly rumble that sounded as ancient as a mountain. “I am Koth of the Hammer, one of the last of the Vulshok. I have sworn a vow to see Mirrodin purged of every last Phyrexian, every last drop of their glistening oil, before I draw my dying breath.” He paused for a moment, seeming to note our surprised expressions at his rather intense opening statement, and then shrugged and continued. “If you two wish for us to help you, as the boy said to Vincenius and I previously, then I have an offer for you. It will not be easy, but it is the only offer I can give.”
“And what is it?” Jace asked cautiously. From the way his eyes narrowed when he looked at Koth, I could tell that he was still holding a grudge about the whole imprisonment-in-crystal incident. I didn’t blame him. Had I been in his shoes, I would have too.
Koth hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded, though more to himself than to either Jace or I. “Two of our allies – planeswalkers themselves, no less – went to the heart of the Phyrexian empire, Ish Sah, on a scouting mission very recently. They were scheduled to return yesterday morn, and neither of them yet have.” For the first time, a flicker of emotion passed briefly across his face – and to my surprise, I recognized it as fear. It was gone an instant later, however. “Their names are Venser, and the lady Elspeth Tirel. He is an artificer, and she a knight of the plane of Bant. We need them both, back here. Alive.”
“If you can do this,” Vincenius finished, for Koth seemed to have exhausted his desire for speaking by the way he sank back against the metal of the tent, folding his arms behind his head, “then we will aid your cause however we can, so long as it doesn’t interfere with our fight against the Phyrexians here.”
A silence fell over us all as Jace stared down at his knees, buried in thought, and I stared at him in turn. This was clearly not my decision to make.
Finally, after a minute, he lifted his head and spoke.
“Fine. We accept your offer.” His voice was firm, somehow different from the businesslike tone he had taken when discussing our options with me back in his Consortium office. He paused, and for a moment his blue-eyed gaze came to meet mine. I nearly gave a start, for there was a look of determination there that I couldn’t recall having ever seen before, and it was so strong as to catch me completely off guard. “That is, unless there are any objections?”
I trusted Jace’s judgment on this matter far better than I did my own. “No objections,” I said. Though my head was racing with thoughts of what I might have to endure now, I kept my voice calm.
Vincenius smiled broadly at this. Even Koth managed a nod. Clapping his hands together in front of him, the mer stood, and walked swiftly over to the sewn-cloth entrance of the tent.
“Excellent. With us being so shorthanded as of late, I can assure you that we are very grateful for your help. Now Koth, we should leave these two alone to rest. They’ve had a long day, and we can begin preparations for the excursion in the morning.”
Without any further word, the vulshok stood, and then both him and Vincenius departed from the tent and into the darkness of whatever part of Mirrodin lay beyond.
Once Vincenius and Koth had left the tent, Jace and I spoke little – It was too hot, and we were too exhausted from our respective battles. Two bedrolls had been set up for us in the small space, and so we fell to them almost immediately – though not before Jace pulled off everything save for his leggings, and I undressed down to my underclothes. I blushed and averted my eyes from him for a moment before I realized that he didn’t give a whit about modesty in this heat, and neither should I. Still though, old habits were hard to break, and I wrapped my thin sheet around me tight so that when I stood to go to the tent flaps, it hung down from me like a dress.
“Where do you suppose we are?” I mused. I poked my head out between the cloth in an attempt to answer my own question, and found myself staring into a gigantic cavern that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. The entirety of it was packed from nearly floor to ceiling with crudely built metal structures – some tents like ours, others apartment-style buildings stacked one on top of the other. A few of them were large, and built out of different types of metal than just scrap. One of them stood catty-corner from us across the narrow street, with smooth walls and carved panels on the towering front doors. I wondered vaguely who it might belong to.
“The refugee camp,” Jace finally answered, drawing up to sit beside me on his knees. This close, and in this place, the heat of his body felt like a furnace. “Vincenius said that we’re beneath some mountain range near a place called Kuldotha, which is why it’s especially hot here.”
“No kidding,” I muttered.
That comment brought a smile to his face, albeit a tired one. “He said that everyone’s been building it up bit by bit over the past several years, with whatever material they can scavenge from the tunnels and the surface, when it’s safe to go up there. It’s like a little city, almost. Vincenius even has a clinic all the way in the back.” He rested his elbows on his knees, and as I was doing, he observed the myriad of people walking through the streets, human and elven and goblin and a few other races that I had never seen before. All of them seemed in a terrible rush, even this late – though I only knew that it was, indeed, night because Jace had told me so earlier.
I shook my head. “It’s bigger than almost every human settlement I’ve seen back on Zendikar, that’s for sure.” Reaching up, I wiped away the sweat that was beginning to bead on my brow with the back of my hand.
Beside me, Jace did the same. Part of his hair stuck out at messy angles, and the rest of it was plastered to his forehead and the sides of his face. I had only seen him once or twice with his hood down, but now I realized that without it, he looked almost…boyish. Young, like me, instead of long-faced and brooding as his true 4,500-year-old age seemed to demand.
I also noticed, with some interest, that his tattoos only went down to his collarbone.
“So what do you think?” I asked after a short stretch of silence, leaning back from the tent flaps and allowing them to fall closed. Jace had stopped looking outside a few moments ago, and had turned his attention instead to the blood and Phyrexian oil that stained the clothes he had set aside. “About this search-and-rescue mission of ours?”
At that, it was his turn to shake his head. “Honestly? I’m not sure what to think. I just know we don’t really have a choice if we want their help.” He flopped back onto his bedroll with a huff, and for a long moment he stared up at the slanted ceiling, his eyes half-closed. He looked and sounded wearier than I had seen him yet. “Ish Sah is an incredibly dangerous place, and full of Phyrexians even worse than the ones we fought today, but yet…There are two other planeswalkers we could get on our side if we can manage to pull this off. That would just…” He sighed, and pressed a hand over his eyes. “That would be the biggest success, Ranewen, you have no idea!”
I scooted back onto my own bedroll, and lay down on my side so that I was facing him. My whole body ached. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to sleep. “Then why do you sound so troubled?”
Jace turned his head then to look at me, and when I saw the expression he wore I felt my breath hitch. There was something akin to pain there in his blue eyes, and…guilt. A great deal of guilt. They were almost sad as they held me in their gaze.
“Because I’m dragging you into something horribly dangerous – and on your very first mission, no less! What kind of leader does that make me, Ranewen? What kind of person?” His voice was soft, and held the same emotion as his eyes. I found myself unable to turn away. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. Do you know how much I sat here worrying, when Vincenius carried you back here covered in blood? I was terrified out of my mind that I’d gotten you in too deep.” He shook his head, slowly. “And now I’ve done even worse.”
“Don’t say that,” I murmured. I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his arm, to give him a comforting sign, but some part of me held me back. “Jace, I’m doing this of my own will. I know I don’t really have a choice either, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here.” I felt a measure of relief wash over me when he stirred and looked me in the eyes again at my words, and that encouraged me to continue. A small smile broke out across my face. “So please, stop worrying. What was that I said before…‘being so pessimistic isn’t doing anyone any favors.’ Right?”
Finally, finally, he chuckled. It was faint, and weak, but…it was still a laugh. It was something, and I held onto it tightly. “Right. I’m sorry. I think it’s just the lack of sleep talking.”
I laughed too. He was smiling at me now, and I felt significantly lighter than I had just a moment before. “Then go to bed! I’m certainly not stopping you.”
“True enough.” He pulled his sheet up to his chin, and rolled over onto the far side of his bedroll. His back was to me now, but he lifted his head briefly to flash me another small, tired smile before he lay his head against his pillow. “Goodnight, Ranewen. Thank you again, for everything today.”
“Yeah.” I was surprised to find that I could barely speak above a whisper. My heart was doing funny things in the bottom of my throat, and for the life of me, I couldn’t seem to push my voice up past it. “You’re welcome. Sleep tight, Jace.”
“You too.”
But I didn’t. Try as I might to close my eyes and drift off, I continually found myself snapping awake to one thing or another – the sound of conversation from somewhere outside our tent, the creak of expanding metal all around, a sudden wave of heat that covered me and clung to me with near desperation. And always, there was Jace’s quiet, even breathing, in time with the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as I watched him in the pale red light that came from everywhere and nowhere.
When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed of home – a dream of fire, and the acrid stench of death.
***
The entirety of the next day rushed by in a blur.
Jace was nowhere to be found when I awoke – discussing mission business with someone, I assumed – and so I was left to my own devices for a good deal of the morning, with nothing to do but explore my temporary place of residence.
Eventually, I wandered my way into Vincenius’s clinic.
The mer himself was busy organizing some supplies in a trunk by the arched front entrance – which was rather convenient, since the clinic proper was massive, and would have likely taken me hours to navigate. After a few moments of ‘good-mornings’ and ‘how-did-you-sleeps’ and other such pleasantries, I proposed to him the idea that I had been brooding on during my walk – a brief training session, to better prepare me for the dangers I would face against the Phyrexians of Ish Sah.
Vincenius was rather surprised, but he didn’t refuse.
After a quick breakfast of some strange, tough meat that tasted vaguely of copper, he took me to one of the tunnels behind the clinic which was, like the one Jace and I had arrived in, littered with crystal spires that clung to both floor and ceiling. We made our way to an open space between them, and for the next hour or so he lectured me on the nature of Phyrexians – what they looked like, what their weaknesses were, how they fought…even how their twisted mockery of a society functioned.
Nearly everything he told me was frightening, but the most so out of it all was their complete lack of mercy.
He told me that not only was the oil that they bled poison, but it was also the source of the corruption that had been slowly devouring Mirrodin from the inside out. With the memory of its burn fresh in my mind – and on my skin – it wasn’t hard to believe him.
In order to combat that corruption, he said, I would have to learn how to summon a creature that was impervious to its effects, and that could cleanse others of the taint it left behind.
Fortunately, he continued, since coming to Mirrodin he had developed just such a creature, and for just such a purpose.
It took several more hours for Vincenius to teach me how to summon that creature from afar, to call an aether-form replication of it to my side whenever I should have the need. It was a time-consuming process, and tiring – deep concentration and meditation were not on my list of specialties, regardless of the fact that the creature was one of green mana, and a treefolk, even. When I inquired as to why he had chosen its nature as he did, he simply smiled and shrugged. “Am I not allowed to miss the forests of Zendikar as much as you do?” he asked, almost knowingly. “They were never any sort of home to me, but they were a familiar sight all the same.”
In that moment, I felt an immense surge of appreciation for the mer.
Finally, once I successfully made a mental connection with this creature I had become so anxious to meet, everything happened in a rush. Out from the ground it burst, in the same fashion as had my own treefolk from yesterday’s battle, with a flourish of gnarled limbs and waving vines. It was tall, humanoid – the bark that curled to form fingers and twisted into a grimacing face was blue-green, almost like a marsh at dawn. Tiny straw-and-cloth heads – scarecrows, Vincenius called them – topped the branches on either side of its own head, and when I saw them I felt chills run the length of my spine. From the way Vincenius grinned, that had apparently been the intended effect.
“Now let’s see how you fare commanding it!” he exclaimed, crouching down low with his knees spread. It was a battle-ready posture.
I blanched. “There’s no way!” I cried. My voice sounded more than a little fearful – rightly so, I decided. “I can’t battle you, you’ll tear me to pieces!”
Vincenius shrugged, offering nothing but a small, guarded smile. “Maybe so. But good practice always leaves you with a few scrapes and bruises, doesn’t it?”
I could feel the knot growing in my stomach, but I forced myself to ignore it. “Well…yes. Though I don’t think getting your head ripped off by giant teeth counts as either of those.”
At that, Vincenius chuckled. “Just try and hit me, Ranewen. That’s all I ask.”
I shook my head. “If you say so…” Clenching my fists at my sides, I began to concentrate. I willed with all of my might for the treefolk to send a blow Vincenius’s way, to attack him with as much physical force as it could muster – and, to my immense surprise, it obeyed. I hadn’t been expecting my command to work on the first try.
What I also hadn’t been expecting was for Vincenius to not only dodge the blow, but to leap all the way over to me and send a powerful punch of his own directly into my gut.
The force of it sent me tumbling backwards, gasping and clutching my stomach. I managed to roll to my knees, but for a horrible second I thought I would vomit all over the metallic earth. I could see Vincenius approaching me again out of the corner of my eye, walking as slowly and casually as if he and I were on a pleasant afternoon stroll, and my insides tightened even further with fear. Desperately, I called out to my tree, pleading silently for it to do something, anything, to keep him from hitting me one more time.
But too late. As I saw the tree turn and begin loping across the battlefield, Vincenius slipped up behind me as easily as a fish would in water. I saw the flesh of his arm bubble and warp into a thick, flat blade, and an instant later he brought it down onto my head with a crack and a dizzying tide of pain.
“Too slow,” I heard him say.
Some battle, I thought in return, as I sank for the second time in just as many days into unconsciousness.
***
“Ranewen.”
The voice that called to me was familiar, but not enough that I could recognize it in this state.
“I can see that you are waking. When you open your eyes, I would like to have a word with you.”
So formal. Who talks like that?
…Oh. Of course.
“Koth…?” I groaned, forcing myself to sit up. I was, as I had expected, back in the tent, in my bedroll. Vincenius must have healed me again, and then brought me back here…again.
The vulshok, who was sitting calmly at the entrance to the tent, nodded. “Yes. May we speak?”
“I…” I didn’t know what else I could say to him, so I just sighed and rubbed my still-throbbing forehead. That mer bastard must have healed me just enough so that I could still feel some pain, as a reminder. “Sure. What do you need from me?”
Koth tilted his head to the side ever so slightly. “I was hoping to ask a favor of you, if I may.”
Well then, out with it! I wanted to yell, but I didn’t. “And what favor would that be?”
His mouth hardened into an even thinner line than it had been before, and his hands tightened their grip where they rested on his thighs. I found myself wondering if he had ever smiled in his life. “I wish to accompany you to Ish Sah in your companion’s place. I am here to request your permission to make this so.”
My eyes widened, and for a moment I could only stare at him, mouth hanging open as I tried to find the right words. That had certainly caught me off guard. Finally, I managed a puzzled “But…why?”
Koth shrugged. “It would be satisfying to finally strike a decisive blow against my enemies, and to do so in the name of my home. Is that not enough?”
Now there was something I couldn’t argue against. It was something I could sympathize with, even. And Mirrodin was Koth’s native plane, so perhaps he might know its byroutes better than Jace would… “Ah.” I paused, rubbing my temples in an attempt to relieve some of the ache that was making it so damn hard to think. “I’m not sure that decision is mine to make. Have you talked to Jace about it yet?”
Koth shook his head. “You know as well as I that he does not regard me fondly. I doubt he would even listen to my request, let alone heed it.”
He had a point. Practical as I had come to know Jace to be, he also seemed to be the type who held fast to grudges – especially when they had formed in a life-or-death scenario. “So…what, you want me to ask him then?”
Koth nodded. “Yes. I would be most grateful if you did so, little one.”
I wasn’t exactly pleased with the title, but my head was pounding too hard for me to complain. I sighed. “Sure. As soon as I find him, I’ll ask. I promise.”
Koth nodded again, and rose to his feet. He was so tall – or the tent so small – that his head scraped the metal ceiling when he straightened, and the sound of it made me flinch. But the vulshok seemed to have not even heard. “Evening falls,” he said, strangely soft underneath all that commanding rumble of his. “The boy shall be returning to you shortly, I imagine. You do not need to go searching for him.”
Before I even had the chance to respond, he had ducked his head and left, with the tent flaps fluttering gently in his wake.
I lay back down on my bedroll and closed my eyes. My head was spinning now, and I couldn’t make out a single shape in front of me without having to squint, so I decided to just bypass both of those problems by taking a quick little nap. Koth had said Jace would be coming back soon, so I was sure some rest wouldn’t hurt…
I couldn’t tell whether it was minutes that had passed, or hours, when I finally heard the clink of boots against metal close by, and opened my eyes to see Jace kneeling down next to me.
“So I hear Vincenius beat you pretty soundly, huh?”
I groaned and resisted the urge to throw my pillow into his grinning face, however tempting it might be. “You weren’t supposed to find out about that,” I protested, in a voice just a little too whiny for my own tastes. “Or did Vincenius parade me through the streets when he brought me back here, with music and dancers and everything?”
Jace chuckled, and shrugged his thick blue cloak off of his shoulders. He was still shirtless underneath it. “If he did, then no one told me. I was off getting information from the local scouts on how best to get to Ish Sah from here without getting sliced in half by a hundred Phyrexians.” As he spoke, I noticed the pack he had set at his feet, and the ends of rolled-up scroll that poked out from inside. “We’re going to be leaving early tomorrow morning. The scouts will lead us all the way to the surface, and then we’re on our own from there. They were telling me how it’s safest to travel alone or with just one other, to avoid detection.”
And here comes the fun part. “About that,” I cut in, wincing inwardly when he closed his mouth and then smiled down at me pleasantly, waiting. “Koth, um…he was here, just a bit ago. And he was asking me if…” Oh hells Rana, just hurry up and get it over with! “…if he could go to Ish Sah with me, instead of you. He says he wants a chance to get the Phyrexians back for all they’ve done. And to be honest, I feel sorry for him.” I finally managed to lift my head and look at Jace, and immediately I felt a rush of guilt at his expression, at the dawning mixture of anger and confusion that lit his eyes like blue fire.
“Oh, so the metalhead thinks I’m not up to the task?” he said hotly. I drew back from him a little, involuntarily, and he noticed the gesture and gave me a hurt look. “Ranewen, he’s a bipolar maniac. You didn’t see him in battle. He was so driven by his emotions that he was barely paying attention to what was going on, and got several of Vincenius’s men killed as a result. Do you really trust him, to be the only companion by your side on a dangerous mission like this? Do you?” He reached out and grabbed me by the arm, though not roughly. As he pulled me in closer to look me directly in the eye, I saw that he wasn’t angry – he was worried, almost desperately so. My heart wrenched.
“Then why don’t you go with Koth instead?” I gently removed Jace’s hand from my arm, and found it momentarily hard to breathe when his touch lingered on mine for a few seconds before he pulled away. “You’re far more experienced than I am. I’m sure I would just get in the way.”
Jace shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. I brought you here on this mission so that you could have a chance to get experience, so that you could see what kinds of things a planeswalker has to deal with by being in such a position of power.” His hand resting on his lap – the hand that had held me – twitched briefly, as if it had been about to move before he thought better of it. “I don’t want you to start feeling like you’re here just for decoration. You’re not. You’re clearly intelligent and headstrong, and you have the potential to be powerful and do great things, if you make the right choices.” His gaze had softened considerably when I met it now, and that combined with the sincerity of his compliment brought a red glow to my cheeks. Fortunately, Mirrodin’s ambient lighting did wonders in hiding it.
“So you’re saying I have to go, then,” I said, quietly.
Jace nodded. His own voice had grown quiet too. “Yes. I want you to go. I want you to see things for yourself. The multiverse is a widely different place outside of Zendikar.” He paused to draw in a deep breath, and then after a moment he let it out in an equally deep sigh. “So you have to pick. Either Koth, or me.”
Though I knew my answer, that didn’t make it any easier to put to voice. “If I have a right to fight for my homeland,” I whispered, “then so does he.”
Jace looked almost crestfallen, but his voice betrayed no emotion – only a piercing calm. “Fair enough. I wish you two luck when you leave tomorrow.” He stood, bending low to keep his head from hitting the ceiling as Koth’s had, and scooped up his cloak and pack under one arm as he did so. At first I thought he wasn’t going to look back, but then, finally, after a long moment, he did – over his shoulder, and with a hint of sadness as he held one hand on the tent flap and the other on the pocked metal beside it.
“I hope you stay safe, Ranewen,” he murmured, “or else you won’t be the only one regretting your decision.”
Then he was gone.
***
By the time our entourage of scouts left us behind as we stepped out onto the surface of Mirrodin, I was hot, sweating, and tired. And we still had several days’ journey ahead of us.
Jace hadn’t been there when we had departed. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of him returning to the tent and crawling into his bedroll beside me, but in the morning he was nowhere to be found. My heart dropped into my stomach at the memory. I knew he wasn’t happy with the decision I had made, but I hadn’t been about to back down from it just because of that. What I had said was true – Koth deserved to be able to fight for Mirrodin, just as I deserved to fight for Zendikar. It was as simple as that.
Now, as we trudged silently across the hot, windless plane, with the five suns beating down on our heads and reflecting off of the jagged metal ridges all around, I couldn’t seem to push thoughts of him from my mind. I hoped beyond hope that he wouldn’t resent me for what I’d done. His kind support was one of the only things that had pulled me through everything I had experienced so far, and I truly didn’t want to lose it…If I did, I wasn’t sure what I would do.
There was nothing for me to do now as we walked but take in the scenery, and brood. And I considered the towering, sharp-edged mountains on all sides more hazardous than picturesque, despite their lovely pinkish-red tint.
Koth spoke very little as the day wore on. He continued to remain reserved even as we set up camp for the night in a small alcove beneath the crest of a hill. I wondered as I popped a gel fruit into my mouth and he tore at a chunk of meat on the bone whether this was just the way he had always been, or if perhaps he had a lot on his mind lately. Like me. Perhaps normally he was the chatterbox of the refugee camp – though somehow, I couldn’t see that option even being a possibility.
The next day passed similarly to the first, and then the next – endless skies stretching out above, endless heat that blazed about us like a furnace, endless miles and miles and miles of walking over inhospitable terrain and, on occasion, hiding behind the nearest jagged prominence as a group of Phyrexians moved by. I never saw them – Koth was adept at detecting them before they showed their faces – but I could smell them, always. They smelled of oil, and of the cloyingly sweet, unmistakable scent of decaying flesh.
Every time they passed, I felt a harsh shiver course through me.
Nearly five days from the time that we had first set out, our surroundings began to change. The hills and mountains flattened abruptly, fading away into the earth like the bodies of dead giants. The air thickened and almost glowed, with an eerie, unsettling green haze that hung over the twisted metal tree trunks like a curtain. All around, there was the smell of dead things, and of rot.
The Mephidross, Koth called it. He said little else as Phyrexian oil began to bubble up beside the narrow walkway, and splashed onto our boots.
After another day of traveling through this filthy wasteland with nothing happening of note, the vulshok suddenly fell to his knees, and pressed both of his hands to what little earth there still was.
“By the great red sun,” he whispered, “I can feel a battle being waged.” For a moment he hesitated, as if he hardly dared to believe whatever it was he was feeling, and then he looked up at me with wide eyes. His voice was soft. “Perhaps they still yet live, little one. Perhaps Sheoldred has not had her way with them yet.”
One of my eyebrows darted up my forehead. “Sheoldred?”
Koth nodded, and rose to his feet. “Yes. One of the Phyrexian praetors. Last I heard from my scouts, she was here at Ish Sah, taking the place of its usual leader under temporary orders.”
“Wait,” I gasped as realization dawned on me, “here? You mean we’re close?”
Koth nodded again. “Yes. The reason we have not encountered many Phyrexians of late is because they all lie beneath our feet, crawling under the surface like the worms they are.” He clenched his fists at his sides, and his black eyes hardened. “What comes next will not be easy, for we need to find a way---”
Suddenly, there was a loud pop behind us, and we spun in startled unison just in time to see a figure fall, coughing and gasping, into the oily marsh.
In an instant, Koth’s vents were alight. He took a step toward the figure, looming so tall and menacing that I couldn’t help but recoil from him, and it looked as if he were about to bring all of his might crashing down in one blow before a hoarse voice stopped him dead.
“Koth,” it said, as the figure lifted his blood- and oil-covered head to look up at us both. I realized, with a start, that it was a young man, hardly older than me or – at least in appearance – Jace. He held a dented metal helmet beneath his shaking arm. “Koth, it’s me.”
The vulshok’s eyes went even wider than they had been before, this time in wonderment. “Venser?”
The figure nodded, and struggled to his feet. It didn’t occur to me to help him up until after he was already standing. “They have Elspeth,” he said breathlessly. For the first time, I noticed the gash across his lower abdomen, which was dripping blood. “I have to go back and get Vincenius. If she doesn’t get a healer soon, she’s finished. I---”
“I’m a healer,” I interrupted quietly. Feeling a sudden sense of resolve come over me, before either of the men could turn to look I stepped close to Venser, and held a hand out over his wound. For a moment I closed my eyes in concentration, and then at once I felt the mana bloom inside me, warm and white and pure and wholly familiar. At my command, it spread outward and into him to knit the torn tissue and flesh tightly together until it was new. When I finished, stepped back, and opened my eyes, the man was staring down at me with a look of awe.
“Well, that’s convenient,” he murmured.
At his tone, I couldn’t help but smile. “Ranewen of the Tajuru, at your service.” I placed my first two fingers to my forehead and then pulled them stiffly away in a salute, as I had seen Vincenius’s men do to him. It just felt like the right thing to do. “You’re Venser, then?”
He nodded, and a wry grin of his own spread across his lips. Despite the layer of filth that coated him, in that moment his handsomeness shone through. His smile was of the infectious kind. “Yeah. Sorry for not introducing myself, but given the situation I’m sure you can understand.” He wiped a hand on the ragged sleeve of his tunic in an attempt to clean it before he held it out to me. “Venser of Urborg, artificer and transport specialist, at your service.” I shook the offered hand firmly.
“If Lady Elspeth is truly in the danger you say she is, then we do not have time for this,” Koth hissed suddenly, behind us.
“Ah.” Venser shook his head then, as if clearing away a mental fog. I had done it before myself, so I recognized the gesture. “Right, right. Sorry.” His gaze instantly grew solemn as he looked into Koth’s eyes. “I managed to escape, but the Whispering One still has her. I don’t know what she’s doing, but from the sounds of it…” He winced. “That’s why I thought I’d go back and get Vincenius. He’s a healer and a fighter both, and I thought he would be our only chance at saving her.”
“Well, we don’t have time for that,” Koth said, harshly, “not even with your teleport. You have to take us there, now, before that abomination lays another corrupted finger on her!”
Venser nodded, and before I had a chance to say anything he stepped forward and wrapped an arm securely around my waist. Koth reached out to take his other hand.
“Hold on tight,” the artificer whispered, and then in a rush and a blur the Mephidross was vanishing from around us, and a sensation like being pulled apart in two different directions overwhelmed me.
When I became aware of my surroundings again, I found myself in a dank place that smelled of blood and rotten meat.
It was too dark to see anything. Beside me, I felt Venser’s arm remove itself from my waist, and then a second later a blue wisp of light sprang to life a few feet in front of our faces. It cast flickering shadows on the walls around us, which I realized with a start were made not out of any stone or metal, but of flesh – hideous pink flesh that quivered like jelly as I watched. I clasped my hand over my mouth in an effort to hold back my gag. Vincenius hadn’t warned me about this part.
Venser seemed to notice my discomfort. “Awful, isn’t it?” he whispered. When I turned to look at him, I could see that his own face was wrinkled up in an expression of disgust, though at his side Koth was as impassive as ever. “The first time I came down here, I just wanted to turn right back around and get the hells out. It gets worse, even, which is just great.”
“Much worse,” Koth added quietly.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to believe the both of them, but I knew that I would be a fool not to. I just couldn’t imagine what in all the hells I would need to prepare myself for that could be worse than the Phyrexians I had already seen, or the flesh walls pulsing around me.
What a lovely first mission that Jace had sent me on.
Cautiously, the three of us began to inch along one of the walls and into the encompassing darkness. Venser’s wisp only lit up perhaps a three foot radius all around, and so we had to stick close as we crept along into spirits knew where, following his lead. Though he said nothing, he seemed to recognize the surroundings and have an idea of where we were, as well as where we were headed. I had no choice but to trust him.
“Do you think Elspeth will be alright?” I whispered after awhile. I had been wondering why we hadn’t just teleported straight to her, though I was sure Venser had some good reason for it. Koth wasn’t protesting, after all, and that was the best sign I could look for.
There was a pause, and in the brief silence I could hear our footsteps echoing back at us from high above. So we’re in a cavern, then. “I really don’t know,” he murmured. His voice was soft, and not just from his efforts to keep quiet, as we were all doing. “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the Whispering One in person, thankfully, though I’ve…heard stories. Plenty of them. And none of them end well.”
My heart began to pound in my chest then. I could feel the nauseating wave of anxiety rush up into me all of a sudden, and it took nearly every ounce of resolve that I had simply to quell it. Fortunately, the darkness was effective at concealing my expression from my companions – As much as I felt they wouldn’t judge me for being nervous in a situation like this, I didn’t want them to get any ideas that I was a coward. I wasn’t. I was just…
…in a little over my head.
Suddenly, there was a grating screech from behind, and Koth and Venser whirled in unison as quick as lightning. My heart pounded harder.
“Negator mage!” Koth shouted, and his vents leapt to life like some great bonfire. Standing so close to him, I could feel the heat coming off from them in waves.
Venser darted in front of me. With him in the way, I couldn’t get a good look at whatever was coming for us, despite Koth’s additional illumination. “It’s got the Whispering One’s minions,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Three of them.”
“We do not have time for this!” Koth roared. I could see his vents flare even brighter when he yelled.
When I finally pushed my way forward to look over Venser’s shoulder, I let out a gasp. There was a blade-armed humanoid, similar to the one that Vincenius had taken out before but smaller, and behind him – her? It? – were three twisted figures. Long, thin necks topped with tiny heads, huge eyes, and birdlike beaks poked out from armor shaped like skulls and painted in blood, and their equally spindly limbs seemed to writhe about for no reason. All of them were charging toward us now, all the while letting out horrible shrieks that sounded like Koth’s metal hair scraping the tent, but magnified a thousandfold.
“Got any bright ideas?” Venser called over the clamor as he spread his arms. For a moment, I could swear that I saw his eyes flash blue.
“Just one,” Koth returned. He had spread his own arms as well, and now his vents were flaring brighter than I had seen them yet, and hotter. It was as if his blood had turned to lava and was now leaking out through his skin. “Take her and run. I will be right behind you.”
“What are you doing?” I cried, but I didn’t have time to hear Koth’s answer, if he had even responded. Venser’s hand had grabbed mine and he had set off across the cavern at a dead sprint, dragging me along behind him. For a moment I stumbled, but then the artificer’s hand was on my elbow, pulling me up, and we were off again. I didn’t know why we were running. I wanted to know, wanted to turn and look back, to see what Koth was doing---
And then a terrible rumbling sounded, like the moving of a mountain, and the ceiling high above our heads began to cave in.
The ground beneath us shook violently as metal came crashing to earth. More than once it threatened to either throw Venser and I or send us tumbling – but miraculously, we both managed to keep our balance, even as thick and choking dust began to swirl about us from behind. I felt hundreds of little pinpricks from the sharp bits of debris that struck my back as we fled.
“Koth!” Venser screamed suddenly, and then he was turning, facing the avalanche, and reaching out his other arm even as he continued running forward.
A metal-streaked hand reached out in turn to seize it, and then the crumbling world around us began to spin away.
A second later, we were collapsing onto the floor in a heap before another flesh wall.
It took a few long moments for us to catch our breath, and to sit up and regain our bearings. Venser was the first to rise. He leaned against the wall behind him, still panting, and brought to life another blue wisp so that we could see where we were. Nothing much different from before, save that the ceiling was directly above our heads…and not in pieces all around us.
“Well, that’s one way to get rid of them,” I muttered as I struggled to my feet. Venser held out a hand to help me up, and I took it.
Koth merely shrugged as he, too, rose. I marveled at the fact that he didn’t have a single scratch on him – or at least, not any that I could see. “It worked, did it not?”
“We’re here,” Venser interrupted then, quietly. As I had been inspecting Koth, the artificer had turned to examine the flesh wall behind him, and even in the dim blue light I could see where it was (ugh) quavering beneath his touch. The outline of a vaguely oval-shaped door had formed, and there was a faint light poking through the unbroken seam – red, like the ever-present glow back in the refugee camp.
There was no noise from the other side of the door. I had been expecting screaming, or Phyrexian shrieking, or the whirring of the terrible machines that Vincenius had said they used on their captives to change them…But no. Nothing. Nothing, save an utter, eerie, almost palpable silence.
Venser and I shared an uneasy look, and even Koth shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Nowhere to go but ahead,” Venser whispered, and his palm on the door suddenly flashed a bright blue. There was a wet sound, a disgusting sound, and then the flesh wall retracted into the ceiling, leaving the doorway open before us.
When I saw what lay beyond it, I fell to my knees in horror. Venser drew in a sharp breath as he staggered backward, and Koth gave an outraged cry.
The room, illuminated entirely by that red light, was surrounded on all sides by flesh walls and bare save for a single long table in the center – an operating table, made of gleaming silver metal. On that table lay a figure…Human. Female. Long, thick black hair, splayed all about her to drape over the sides like a mourner’s veil. It was beautiful hair. I remembered as a child that I had several times asked my mother if I could trade my sister for her hair, because it was so dark and shiny and smooth and so different from mine, from my bird’s nest that was always tangled and strewn with leaves and dirt, and that never fell the way I wanted it to no matter how hard I tried. My mother had always responded by telling me that I would come to love my own hair in time, that it made me look like my father, that it was unique and perfect just the way it was. It had taken me years to believe her.
Now as I stared at this woman with my sister’s hair, I saw that every inch of her skin was flayed open and pinned to the sheet beneath her.
I could see her muscle. In some places, I could see her bone. I could see bits of her organs, too – her heart, wet and still beating; her lungs, still rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
I bent close over my knees and retched.
“Ahhh,” came a voice – no, two voices, speaking as one. Part of it was the soft breath of a woman’s whisper, of seduction, and the other part of it was a deep and monstrous growl that I could only imagine emanating from the mouth of a hell itself. It chilled me to my core, and even in my state of shock and revulsion, I couldn’t help but lift my head to face it.
“The little cockroach has returned,” it continued, “and this time he brings guests!” There was a shadow of movement from the other side of the room, but my eyes were too blurred with tears to see clearly what it was. All I knew was that it was large. And that I was afraid. “So…will either of you have any more reason than he?”
“This is an ABOMINATION!” Koth roared in response. “I will CRUSH you where you stand, Sheoldred!”
“Koth, no---!” Venser cried, but too late. From behind me, the room was suddenly lit with the blaze of the vulshok’s vents, and a wave of heat washed over me. It burned away all the tears in my eyes, and after a moment of frenetic blinking, I realized that I could see.
Immediately, though, I wished that I couldn’t.
Standing above Elspeth, holding a wickedly sharp scalpel to her closed eye, was the head and torso of a woman, clad in silver armor over bare muscle. She had a great, black horned helmet obscuring everything from her eyes on up, and the fingernails that I could only call claws were dripping with some dark substance – blood, it must have been. Or oil. Or both. The way she was smiling at me – me! – flashing her hideously serrated teeth, sent my heart dropping all the way to my toes.
Then I saw what her torso was attached to, and it was all I could do not to scream.
A gaping, equally toothy maw that was nearly the length of the operating table balanced on four legs covered from tip to joint in blades. From the look of them, I guessed that unbent they would stretch higher than Koth, Venser, and I all standing on one another’s shoulders. The woman seemed to meld into it all seamlessly…like she belonged there, like she had been born that way. Perhaps she had been.
“Leash the vulshok,” she snarled, “before I slay this one.”
“Koth,” Venser said again. His voice was hushed, anxious. “Please.”
Reluctantly, Koth lowered his upraised arms and allowed the furious glow emanating from him to die down to embers. He refused to take his eyes from Sheoldred, though, and as he stood I could see him begin to shake. Whether it was with fury or with effort, I didn’t know.
“Now,” the monstrosity whispered, and with a feeling of the utmost dread I just knew that she was speaking to me. “You. You are neither a servant of the Father of Machines, nor one of those natives who have derided our Great Work.” She spoke the word ‘natives’ as if it were a vulgarity. “So tell me, child – Where are you from? Do not be afraid to speak the truth. This need not end in violence.”
Venser whirled to look at me, and I could see the wild desperation in his eyes. He was afraid, too. For some sick reason, that comforted me – perhaps because it made me feel just a little less alone. At least, that was what I hoped.
“I…” I managed to choke out. My voice was like rocks scraping together, rough and hoarse. “I am not from here. My home knows of no such horrors as…as this.” I tried to avoid looking at Elspeth as I spoke, but it was useless. Her violated body drew my eyes like a flame draws moths, and when I did look at her I felt a sudden swell of something inside of me that took a moment to recognize. Disbelief. Anger. Rage. Hate. Black hate, black as night, black as the void, so black that I felt like I was drowning in darkness---
Please don’t, please, please don’t touch her, don’t, no, don’t hurt her, anything but that, please, please…
“Ah, I see. So you are one of the unenlightened, then.” Sheoldred let her scalpel fall lazily to the floor with a clatter, and she took a few steps closer to me. Her blades clacked against the hot metal as she moved. I felt sick.
What are you doing? No…no! Stop it! Please! Let her go, she didn’t do anything to you, let her go!
“You are the same as those who once dwelt in our New Phyrexia. The very same…But child, you see, this is progress - This is the path of ascension!” Sheoldred’s voice rose in an almost fanatic exultation, but even louder than that I could hear my own blood pounding in my ears – incessantly. Unmercifully.
“We are continuing the Great Work of our beloved Father of Machines!”
Long, thick black hair, splayed all about her…
“All Will Be One!”
…and beneath it, blood, soaking into every strand.
She’s dead…she’s dead, she’s dead, you killed her, SHE’S DEAD!
“AMITA!” I screamed, and before I knew what was happening I was unleashing a torrent of magic, like water from a burst dam.
There was a shriek as Sheoldred was thrown, and instantly, even as I felt myself being pulled to my feet by a force I couldn’t see, both Koth and Venser sprang into action. Koth lurched forward, shouting like a man half-crazed in a language I didn’t understand. His entire body glowed as if it itself were aflame, and he threw himself atop the Phyrexian’s struggling body to pummel her with a flurry of blows. Venser shot a brief glance back at me, but before I could catch his expression he was spreading his arms wide and bowing his head. Blue light danced across his hands to his fingertips, and then a strange creature was simply there in front of him, pulled from the aether, long and lean and blade-beaked and with a tail that coiled about its head like a spiked whip.
“No better way to kill bizarre genetic mutants than with bizarre genetic mutants,” he muttered under his breath, in a strained almost-laugh. With a flick of his wrist, the creature launched itself into the air and toward Sheoldred. “Take this, freak!”
Sheoldred shrieked even louder as the blow connected, and I could see her torso-mouth snapping at Koth as he continued to wrestle her, aiming his punches at her exposed throat whenever he could. I took the moment to summon a creature of my own – the little tangle of vines that I knew so well, that had never failed me. I was still reeling, and even as I felt my adrenaline begin to take hold, it was all I had the concentration to call upon.
But then Sheoldred let out a cry, and in one powerful swipe she had shoved Koth off of her and sent him rolling hard into the wall. “Shortsighted fools!” In an instant she was on her feet again. Though her eyes were hidden, I could feel their gaze boring into me like molten lead. She waved her hand in my direction, and before I could react there was a cloud of thick smoke covering my creature, choking it, turning it back into the aether from which it had formed. A jolt of fear ran down my spine. “All the worlds could know peace if the Great Work was completed, but no – You have to fight it! You have to stand in our way, time and again! YOU are the ones who fight what we bring, the beauty and the completion that we so kindly offer you! YOU are the ones who are dooming your own people by continuing to wage your pointless ‘rebellions,’ which do nothing but slaughter the suns that would burn brightest within our ranks!” Her entire body was wreathed in an aura of hissing black mist now, and suddenly the room felt very cold. Venser took a step backward, bumping into me by accident, and when his arm brushed mine I could feel it trembling.
But Koth was on his feet again too. His gaze was livid as it held the Phyrexian unwaveringly, and I knew right then that she was in for it. “Taint and corruption,” he spat. Blood was dripping from the corners of his mouth, and he reached up with his palm to wipe it away. “Taint and corruption, everywhere, that is all you bring. I will tolerate your delusions no longer!”
The metal floor beneath Sheoldred suddenly stabbed up and into her, drawing a gasp as it pierced the jaw of the torso-mouth. Her aura began to fade as she lost her concentration, and almost reflexively, I reacted by calling upon the strongest creature that I knew. Venser, beside me, was yelling at his blade-beak that had so neatly dodged Sheoldred’s swipe to go back and aim for her throat. It did, and it connected, just as the looming treefolk that I had summoned in my first battle alongside Vincenius burst forth from the ground to land a perfect uppercut right into her gut.
Even in her pain, though, Sheoldred was not about to give up. She let out a wordless shriek that sprayed bloody black spittle into the air, and thrust her hands toward Venser, who immediately collapsed to his knees and screamed. I ran to him. He was groaning now, clutching his head in both hands, even as Sheoldred skittered past Koth and advanced on him with claws extended. I felt my heart drum hard against my ribcage. It reminded me suddenly of Elspeth, and her exposed organs…
“Protect us!” I cried.
And in an instant, my tree was on her, holding her back. She growled and snarled and struggled against the grip that its thick branches had twined around her, but to no avail. She had been weakened too much by our attacks to free herself quickly.
It would buy us time, but only a moment.
A moment, however, was all we would need.
When I turned to Koth, I could see him crouched low to the ground, chanting something over and over under his breath in that same, foreign language. His eyes were beginning to glow red, and to pulse in time with his vents. When I turned to Venser, he was recovering from his momentary incapacitation, shaking his head and closing his eyes in an effort to concentrate.
My weakness hit me in a rush then. I nearly let out a gasp at the sensation of it, at the way my legs wobbled and threatened to buckle beneath me. I had expended so much mana without barely even a pause, and now it was all catching up to me at once. But yet…
I could feel that I still had enough left in me for one more spell. One more…just one. If it didn’t work, then I had only my tree for protection until it was defeated, and then I would be completely useless for the rest of the battle. I would be at the mercy of my companions’ strength, and Sheoldred’s, and my own athletic skills – which didn’t amount to much, in a place like this with no trees to climb.
But if it did work…
I heard Venser’s wordless shout and the screech of his creature as it came diving down on Sheoldred’s head, heard her own screech in response as she clawed and bit at it even as my tree still held her fast.
Then I saw the aura of black mist growing around her once more, and I knew that it was now or never.
I let loose with everything I had left. There was an explosion of purple light.
Sheoldred screamed.
My head spun as the mana left me, and I could do nothing to stop myself from falling to my knees for a second time. I felt limp, almost boneless. I could hear a loud ringing in my ears, too, for whatever reason, but it was not loud enough to block out what I heard next – a roaring cry that lifted my spirits and sent them aloft. I looked up, just in time.
“FOR MIRRODIN!”
Koth stood, towering over Sheoldred as she lay toppled on the floor beside my tree. His arms were raised to the ceiling, and a heady mixture of bloodlust and triumph twisted his weathered face.
My tree suddenly reached out both arms to grab Venser and I and pull us beneath it, beneath the operating table and Elspeth, and then boulder-sized chunks of metal came raining down from the ceiling in a tremendous cacophony.
Sheoldred let out an unearthly wail each time one of them hit their intended mark. Like before, when Venser and I had been running, I felt little razorlike shards pelt me from all directions, though my tree blocked the worst of it. I covered my ears with my hands, and beside me Venser did the same. The amount of noise in the room was almost too much to bear.
After a minute that seemed more like an hour, the Phyrexian finally fell silent.
Koth let his hands drop to his sides. The second he did, the deluge stopped, and my tree allowed its battered form to fade away back into the aether. Venser and Elspeth and I had been nearly completely untouched by the attack – and for that, I said a silent prayer of thanks to the spirits. The last thing we would have needed was for Koth to defeat the Phyrexian at last, but then accidentally kill us all in the process.
Jace was right. Good-intentioned as he may be, the vulshok was indeed a rather careless individual.
As I forced myself to my feet and stumbled into a corner of the operating table, I noticed the new hole in the ceiling, and the clawed hand that poked out from the towering pile of rubble below. It just…lay there, unmoving.
“Ranewen, are you alright?”
The sound of my own name startled me. It was Venser’s voice, right at my side. He sounded worried. “Did you get hit in the head? You look like you’re about to topple over.”
“ ‘M fine,” I muttered, ignoring the artificer and turning my attention instead to the mutilated woman on the table before me. Elspeth. Elspeth the planeswalker. Just like me. And black hair, just like my sister. Like Amita. My vision swam. “We have to…heal her. Someone help me, hold her skin back in place…”
I was vaguely aware of Koth coming up close and looking over my shoulder, then turning his head away. When I caught a glance, I saw that his face was pale. “I know nothing of this,” he said quietly. There was something almost like a stammer in his voice, which I hadn’t expected from him. “Venser, you are the one whom Vincenius is training. You help.”
Venser was pale too, but he didn’t shy away from the table. “I…alright.” I heard him swallow hard, and then he reached out to place a tentative hand on a flap of skin that hung loose from her shoulder. His arm jerked. Still though, he kept his hand where it was. “Are you sure you can do this, Ranewen?” he asked after a moment. His voice was strained, but soft. It sounded like an echo inside my skull. “You don’t look well at all.”
“Neither do you,” I retorted, meaning to imply that he looked pale but instead worrying whether it had come out sounding more like an insult…but then, it didn’t matter. Elspeth was what mattered. Elspeth. She was all that mattered. I was the only one here that could save her.
I wished that I had thought beyond the battle when I had cast that spell. I wished that I had left myself with more mana, to make what I was about to do easier. But at the time, I hadn’t anticipated myself surviving – and if I hadn’t cast the spell to stop Sheoldred from casting her own, perhaps I wouldn’t have. So I supposed I couldn’t blame myself…not really.
I have to do what I have to do, I thought. No matter what the cost.
After ten minutes of us working together, and as quickly as we could, Venser’s careful hand and my healing magic had sewn Elspeth’s skin back into place all over her body. She needed further help, though – much more than what I could give her. She needed Vincenius. And soon. That was the sole thought that my mind was able to grasp at that point, since everything else just faded away in a blur as darkness crept up into the edges of my vision and I felt myself sliding, falling limply into the operating table.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Sheoldred’s hand no longer poked out from the pile of metal. But a second later, even the remembrance of the thought vanished, and I was left wondering desperately how Elspeth was going to get back to Vincenius in time. I felt so dizzy…
Suddenly, there was a loud bang from across the room. It sounded miles away to me.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” I heard Venser say. Where was he? He sounded so distant too. I couldn’t see anymore. Everything was so blurry that I couldn’t make anything out.
I heard Phyrexian screeches, and then a different type of screech as metal scraped against metal. There was a grunt.
“I have the passage blocked,” Koth called out. “Go, now! It will not hold for long!”
I felt something being lifted from the table as I lay slumped halfway across it, and then there was an odd pop. I knew that I had heard that sound before…but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where.
A few seconds later there was another pop. It was followed by more screeching and then rattling, and I felt someone wrap an arm around my torso to hold me tight. Whoever it was, they were warm. I was so cold that I was shivering, and the heat felt wonderful.
“Koth!” Venser’s voice came again, and this time it sounded as if I were hearing it from underwater. I couldn’t hold myself up any longer. I sagged against whoever was holding me, and felt my eyes slide shut.
Then there was a sensation like being pulled apart in two different directions, and it was strangely familiar. The colors behind my closed eyelids bled together until I didn’t know what I was looking at anymore, and everything was getting so dark…and then, suddenly, there was just nothing at all.
For a moment I thought they might be talking about me, but no – As my eyes slid slowly open and found the two mer, I saw that they were standing hunched over something to my left. A bed. Like the one I just now realized I was lying in. I was a little dizzy, but I could still make out the sheets covering me from foot to chin, and the small metal table that stood to one side, with a myriad of glass jars and vials and spirits knew what else. I must be in Vincenius’s clinic.
And indeed I was. There were a few more beds to either side of me, or at least to the right – I couldn’t see anything to the left, what with those mer in the way – and individuals of varying races scurried back and forth down the aisle in front of me, each one clad in a white smock overtop whatever else they were wearing. I recognized nearly everything. Vincenius had taken me on a brief tour before our practice battle, and I remembered this place to be the recovery room. There was a carved-metal balcony overlooking the entirety of it, and when I slowly shifted my gaze to look up, groaning at the pain that flared through my neck, I gave a start. Vincenius himself was perched on the ledge, legs dangling over the side as he perused some sort of chart in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes went straight to me. He smiled.
Casually, he let himself slip off and into the air. But instead of falling, and before I could so much as gasp, a pair of immense, finlike wings unfolded from his back, and with one graceful stroke they propelled him down to the floor at the foot of my bed. When he stood up straight, they folded themselves back in and just vanished. I was left staring at him in utter disbelief.
“Is there anything you can’t convince your body to do?” I asked. My voice was far too weak for my own liking.
Vincenius chuckled at that. “Nope,” he said simply, coming closer to sit on the edge of my bed. His hand reached out to brush my forehead, briefly, and then after a moment he nodded to himself and pulled it away. I assumed that he had been feeling for my temperature. “Six days, 11 hours, and 21 minutes. Small price to pay for what you did, wouldn’t you say?”
I reeled. “It’s been that long?”
Vincenius nodded. “Indeed. I was intending to postpone purging the glistening oil from you until after you had returned from the mission to Ish Sah, but in retrospect…that was probably not the best idea. I had to keep you under for several days after you had already recovered from your shock and exhaustion and whatnot.”
“Glistening oil?” I remembered stepping in it, getting it on my arm several times during the trek to Ish Sah, and especially during our time beneath the surface. Strangely, though, I didn’t remember it burning like before. “What, so it was…inside me?”
Again Vincenius nodded. He reached underneath my bed to pull out a brown glass jar, and though I couldn’t see its contents clearly, I could see that whatever was inside was moving. “It’s poison, you remember. It slowly corrupts whatever it touches. After your first exposure, it stops burning because your body begins to take it in, and you are essentially immune to its effects. But it changes you.” He unscrewed the lid of the jar, paused, and then screwed it back on again. “That’s why I had to get it all out. I did the same with Jace, while you were gone, though it was far quicker for him. I’m just glad I could get to you in time.”
“Jace,” I whispered. I had almost completely forgotten about him, what with everything else that I had to worry about. “How is he?”
Vincenius shrugged, leaning over to set the jar on the table before looking back to me. “Fine enough. He took Koth’s place in the patrols, and helped ward off several Phyrexian attacks. Could use some training, for certain, but…he’s a natural fighter. My soldiers breathed easier whenever he was around, and not off taking care of business back in Ravnica, or here checking up on you.”
A blush spread across my cheeks, too quickly for me to hide. Vincenius must have noticed. “He didn’t need to do that.” I remembered how we had parted ways, how I had worried whether or not he would be angry with me when I returned. Now all that worry died away, and was swiftly replaced by a growing warmth in my chest – which, I had to admit, could have just as easily been some odd result of my recovering state, but I chose to dismiss that notion.
Vincenius let out a snort. “That’s what I told him too. But he’s stubborn. He kept on coming, every day that he was free, even when it started to affect his sleep. I finally told him that I would be waking you today, and that I had everything under control and he should go rest for once. Looks like he finally listened.”
The thought of Jace, coming to visit me day after day just to ensure that I was alright, made my heart beat faster – But before I could allow myself to dwell in girlish delusions overlong, I gave myself a good hard mental shake. There were other things to be worrying about. Other people. “What about Elspeth?” I asked after a moment. For whatever reason – frailty, perhaps, or fear – the words seemed to stick in my throat, like they were hesitant themselves to come out.
Vincenius smiled then, a sad smile, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one. “Ah, Ranewen.” His voice was quiet, and as he spoke he reached out a hand to place overtop mine. “You didn’t act alone, of course, but your bravery has done us all a great service. You saved her life.” I felt the most overwhelming sense of relief wash over me, but I barely had time to process it before he continued. “With what the Phyrexians did to her, she would not have survived Venser’s teleport. Useful as it may be, it is taxing on those who are already weakened. Thus, had you not been there, to heal her as much as you were able to…she would have died, for certain. And so I thank you.”
The mer gestured with his other hand, and when I looked I saw that the two attendants to the left were gone – and that laying atop the bed they had been bent over, was a woman, her long black hair splayed out across her pillow and her bandaged body rising and falling in time with her breathing. There was just the faintest flush of color in her face, and she stirred a little every time there was a loud noise. She was alive.
“Elspeth,” I breathed. I felt my eyes grow suddenly wet.
Vincenius smiled again, this time a little happier. “I plan on waking her tomorrow, though she will still need a few more days before she can fight with the best of them again. That’s the good thing about my treatment – Messy at times, but it does get the job done. Speaking of which…” He reached back over me to pluck the brown jar from the bedside table, and unscrewed the lid again. This time, he plucked out a wriggling, slimy, utterly horrifying leech, nearly as long as my whole hand and apparently just as mobile. I squeaked.
“What in the nine hells are you doing with that?” I had backed my entire body up against the bed’s headboard, and with the sheet kicked off I could now see that I was clad in a clean white nightgown. That didn’t really matter at the moment, though. There were leeches. Right there. In front of me. Right. There.
Vincenius cocked an eyebrow. I felt a dawning horror as he suddenly got it and a wicked smile began to creep across his face, ever so slowly, ever so painfully. “What, you’re not fond of these little fellows?” He held one up for my inspection, far too close for comfort. I squeaked again and dove under the sheet. “But they’re what I used to drain the oil from you! How can you hate them when they saved you from being turned into a Phyrexian? I even picked out some of my favorites for you!”
I wanted to cry. I wanted to vomit. Forgetting where I was and why I needed to keep my voice down, I threw the sheet off of me and shrieked. “You let those things suck my blood?!”
“Mostly the oil,” Vincenius corrected with a chuckle. Finally, he placed the leech back in its jar and screwed the lid on tight, to seal it and all of its villainous little brethren away. “I suppose I’ll wait to do Elspeth’s treatment until you’re safely away from here, since you’re so squeamish. And here I had expected better of you…” As he stood, tucked the jar back beneath the bed, and stepped out into the aisle, he threw me a teasing look. Maddening. “Now I’ll be right back – I’m just going to go get your things, since you’re free to leave whenever you wish.” He headed out through a nearby door, and then returned a few moments later with two bundles in his arms. He dumped both of them in my lap, since I was now sitting upright and eyeing him warily. I must have looked well enough to him.
When I saw what he had given me, though, I couldn’t help but smile. “Wait, this is for me?”
One of the bundles was my own clothes and boots, complete with my hunting knife, all freshly washed and stain-free. But the other…the other was an outfit of glimmering gold, an ornate bra and skirt, with delicate pauldrons and thigh guards that looked as if they would fit like a glove. There were even boots, too – long, knee-length ones, completely unworn and so very beautiful. I could hardly believe my eyes. I had seen many of the humans around the refugee camp wearing similar outfits, but to be holding one in my own hands…
“Of course,” Vincenius said. When I looked up at him, I noticed that his smile was genuine this time. “I had a nurse fit you for it while you were sleeping. This plane has five suns and a geothermal furnace – You didn’t think I was going to let you walk around in that forever, did you?” He gestured toward my hunter’s outfit and grinned. “You may have been fine with it on Zendikar or even Ravnica, but the heat out here would have gotten to you eventually!”
I grinned too, and hefted the weight of the outfit as I took it in my arms. It was surprisingly light. “So what’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just get out there and enjoy being alive, while we still have a moment of peace.”
To the mer’s surprise – and, to some degree, my own – I responded by standing and enfolding him in a warm hug, beaming. My legs didn’t shake one bit.
“That,” I said, “I can do.”
***
One wardrobe change and two hours later, I was out wandering the streets of the refugee camp.
I was trying my best not to look too lost, but I was also pretty sure that my efforts were in vain. I just passed that square, didn’t I? Oh, damn it…
Finding Venser’s workshop was proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Vincenius had told me that the artificer had also been inquiring about my health while I was unconscious, and that since Koth was on patrol and Jace was (finally) sleeping, I should go drop by, tell him I’m doing alright. I had agreed. Venser had helped out Koth and I greatly on our mission, and he hadn’t been unkind in the least. Besides, if he was to be one of our new companions, well…I figured that it would be a good idea to learn more about him. Vincenius had given me some vague directions, and then off I went.
I’m pretty sure the place is right around this corner…
When I rounded the precarious stack of apartments, I was surprised to find myself standing right across the street from our tent. The carved and polished building I had noticed on the first day we had come here was just a few steps away, and at once I realized that it must be Venser’s workshop. Of course. He’s an artificer, isn’t he? Why wouldn’t he take the time to make his place look nice? For a moment I was sorely tempted to make a brief stop at the tent, but…no. I pushed the thought out of my head. I can see Jace later. Right now, he needs to rest. For another moment I marveled at the irony of the structures’ proximity, and then I began to head across the adjacent street and over to Venser’s huge front doors.
They were cracked open when I reached them. From inside, there was a tremendous racket of buzzing and whirring, and intermittently the grinding screech of metal on metal. Cautiously, I peered inside.
The whole place was just one large room, covered in shelves and tables and tools and bottles and rags and huge, hulking pieces of machinery that gleamed, having been polished until they looked brand new. Venser himself was at the back. He was standing on his tiptoes in front of one of those machines, facing away from the entrance and me. The machine he was working on was spiderlike, with many legs poking out from the glass tank that served as its body, and spirits was it tall! Inside the tank hung what looked like just a plain old sphere, of dull metal – But from the way it floated in midair, unaided by anything I could see, I assumed that there was more to it than met the eye. From the way sparks were flying from the metal around Venser’s hand – and from the noises – I also assumed that he must be grinding the metal smooth. Either that, or doing something too technical for me to already know about. I took a tiny step forward and pulled the door shut behind me.
“What’s that you’re working on?” My voice was just barely audible over everything, but still he turned. The second he did, all the noise stopped.
“Windgrace’s whiskers!” He set down the tool in his hand and leaned back against the machine, pushing the protective goggles he wore up onto his forehead. He smiled. “The sleeping beauty wakes. I was wondering when Doc would be finished with you!”
The artificer’s tone was so jovial that I couldn’t help but smile back. Coming closer, I hopped up to sit on an empty table across from him. “Just this morning.” As I moved, my gold outfit clinked together softly. “I thought I’d stop by, since I have a bit of time on my hands.”
Venser chuckled. One of his hands wiped away the sweat gathering on his brow, leaving behind a little smudge of grease. He noticed and wiped at that too. “Well, I’m happy to have you. I haven’t had company in, uh…well, ever, to be honest.” Washed clean of the blood and oil and grime that had completely covered him in Ish Sah, I could now take a good look – He was a little taller than Jace, and a little more built. His lean face appeared as if it hadn’t been shaved in a couple of days, but he wore the look well, and the way his eyes – a deep, rich brown – smiled down at me more than made up for any dishevelment his profession caused. He tried to push his mess of brown hair flat to his scalp, but it stubbornly refused and continued to stick out instead. He sighed. “Sorry that last jump of mine shocked your system so much, by the way. There really wasn’t anything I could do to prevent it, but…I still feel bad.”
I shook my head insistently. “No, no! Don’t apologize! I should be the one thanking you – You saved my life back there!” I smiled again, awkwardly. Typical. “So, um…thank you, Venser!”
He cocked an eyebrow in return, and the machine behind him bowed – or at least, as much as the enormous spiderlike contraption could manage. “You’re very welcome. And thank you for saving Elspeth. She wouldn’t have survived the jump without your help.” He had a mischievous gleam in his eyes now, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning in amazement.
“How did you make it do that?”
He turned to pat the machine, affectionately. “It’s a Phyrexian machine – a psychosis crawler. I scavenged it from one of the battles awhile back. It’s supposed to be full of brains, but since that’s a little too…Phyrexian for me, I’ve retrofitted it with a device that allows me to control it with my mind instead.” As if to prove his point, the crawler clicked and whirred and waved one of its slender legs at me. Venser grinned. I giggled.
Simple terms, I found myself noting. He talks like a teacher. “That’s fascinating!” I slid off of the table and onto the floor, then came to stand next to Venser so I could get a better look at the crawler.
The artificer gave it another pat before turning to face me. “Sometimes it interprets other people’s thoughts besides mine, or thoughts that aren’t meant to be orders, but I’m sure I’ll figure out how to fix it soon enough. I don’t really have any other projects on my to-do list.”
Suddenly, I felt a childlike curiosity overcome me, and I turned to Venser. My hands were clasped together in front of my imploring grin. “Oh, could I try? Pretty please?”
Venser seemed to be genuinely taken aback by my request – I could see it on his face, in the way his eyes went wide and his jaw momentarily slack. “Wait, you’re…” He paused. “You’re serious? You’re really that interested?”
I nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
All he could do was shake his head – in disbelief, I guessed. After a moment though, a slow smile began to spread across his face, and he regarded me with an expression that made it seem as if he were really seeing me for the first time. “Huh. Well, it’s nice to know someone appreciates my work – Koth and Elspeth want me to smash everything I see, and everyone else here just seems scared. It’s a nice change of pace.” His smile grew warm. “Luckily Doc sees the value in understanding your enemy, otherwise this little place of mine would be shut down, and I’d have to walk to Urborg any time I wanted to get work done.”
I put aside my interest in the crawler, for the moment. “Is that where you’re from?”
Venser nodded. “Yep. A lovely little corner of Dominaria where there’s nothing but swamp, swamp, and, ah…more swamp as far as the eye can see. And that’s just my neck of the woods” He leaned his head back against the crawler again and sighed. “Even though Koth dragged me here against my will, I’ve grown fond of the place. I’d like to stay here – Not just because I’m not up to my knees in muck constantly, but because I want to protect it. I’ve seen enough Phyrexian corruption back home. I don’t want to see it here too.” He snorted. “Though I have to admit, it’s a little late for that wish.” There was a short moment of silence, and then he turned just his head to me, a questioning smile on his handsome face. “If I may ask, m’lady – What about you? Where are you from?”
Though it was endearing – and a little flattering – I had to shake my head and laugh. “Oh no. I’m no lady, Venser. I’m way too rough and tumble for that. You haven’t seen me hunting the baloths back on Zendikar.”
The artificer laughed too, a sound that was just as infectious as I had first found his smile. “Fine then. If you insist.” He stroked his chin, pretending to look deep in thought. “So…Ranewen? But that sounds too formal. Do you have a nickname you prefer?”
I found myself grinning again. “Rana.”
“Rana.” He tried the word, and then must have decided that he liked the way it tasted on his tongue, because he smiled approvingly. “So, Rana, tell me about…you said Zendikar, right? That’s the same place Doc said he’s from.”
I nodded, and finally decided that it was safe to lean against the crawler beside him. I was sure my extra weight wouldn’t be enough to tip it over…or break anything. “I don’t know exactly where he’s from, but it’s certainly not where I grew up. Merfolk don’t spend much time all the way up in the jaddi-trees. They don’t have the climbing implements we do, or the good balance. They’d fall and break their necks in ten seconds flat.” I chuckled softly. “Though maybe he might last a bit longer. He has wings. I’d give him an extra minute.”
Venser nearly choked on his sudden laughter, but in an instant he had composed himself. His grin was even wider than mine had been, once he had caught his breath. “I would tell you not to underestimate the great Vincenius, but I swear that mer has ears everywhere. He’d cuff me over the head next time I stopped by for an alchemy lesson, just for a bit of sarcasm.”
I giggled. “I highly doubt that.”
In response, Venser gave a short shrug. “Who knows? I sure don’t. All I know is that he’s a great leader, and great leaders have great spies.” He eyed me with mock suspicion, raising his brow. “In fact, I could be talking to one right now.”
I giggled again, and gave him a playful swat on the arm. “Oh, stop that. I’d be a horrible spy. I’m no good at stealth, or keeping a straight face.”
Venser laughed. He then pretended to rub the hurt out of where I had hit him. I had been wavering on the thought for some time now, but in that instant I finally decided that I liked him – At the very least, he was much more fun to talk to than Koth. “Well then, why are you and the dour knight here on Mirrodin, seeking us out, if you don’t have some hidden agenda? Doc never got around to telling me.”
The dour knight. This time, I was the one who nearly choked. “It’s…complicated.” Once I had suppressed the bout of laughter that was bubbling up in my chest, I sighed, and shook my head. “You really want me to tell the whole story right now? It’s…kinda long. And not very happy. It involves giant creatures that destroy everything, and then eat what’s left of the plane afterward.”
But as soon as the word “destroy” escaped my lips, the crawler behind us jerked. Venser and I pulled away quickly enough, but suddenly there was a terrible grating sound, like a thousand Koths scraping against a thousand tents, and it was so loud and overwhelming that I staggered backward into the empty table. My hands flew up to cover my ears.
“Ah!” Venser cried. “S***! Sorry, sorry!”
I saw him reach out a hand that flashed blue, and then the sphere disappeared from the crawler’s glass tank and reappeared a second later in his open palm. He closed his fist around it, and at once, as quickly as it had started, the noise stopped. The artificer turned to me with an apologetic look.
“Guess I might want to fix it sooner rather than later, huh?”
I was a little shaken, but otherwise fine. My breath came out in a nervous laugh. “I see that’s what you meant.”
Venser nodded before setting the sphere down on the nearby workbench, beside his grinding tool. “Yeah.” He smiled thinly when he turned back to me, and ran a few fingers through his hair. It only served to mess it up more. “Science isn’t always pleasant, especially when it comes to Phyrexian technology. I mean, it all has a tendency to self-destruct, for one thing.” He shrugged. “But I’ve been studying the stuff my entire life, so I guess I’m used to it. Or at least, more so than most people. I don’t think there’s a person alive who could ever get completely jaded to anything Phyrexian. Except the Phyrexians themselves.” His voice suddenly took on a faraway tone, even as his eyes glazed over - and in that instant I realized that he was staring right through me, thinking of someplace else, perhaps sometime else. “I’ll be the first to admit that the means are horrible, but the wonders of those devices…amazing. I’ve been able to make great things out of them before.”
His mixed emotions of nostalgia and awe struck a chord in me, and I smiled. “Well, the way I see it, things can do either good or bad depending on the hands they’re placed in. That’s how the whole world works. Or at least that’s what I think.”
He smiled too, slightly, but I could see that his eyes were still unfocused. For a moment, a hint of anger flashed across his face. “Koth thinks that ambulators will ‘destroy the delicate balance of the planes.’” He scoffed. “He doesn’t get it. I just want to give other people the opportunity to experience what we do, to travel from plane to plane and see new things. Is that really so bad?”
I didn’t answer his question. “…Ambulators?”
“Planeswalking devices.” His voice was suddenly soft. “I made my first one before my spark ignited.”
The way he spoke, it almost sounded as if he were recalling a long-dead lover. I found myself at once both sympathetic, and curious. “In that case, it sounds to me like Koth is just being narrow-minded. So long as they don’t fall into the wrong hands, what’s the problem? They sound like they would be really useful.”
“That’s the thing,” Venser muttered, and he slumped wearily against the unmoving crawler. “The Phyrexians have them already. That’s how they got to Mirrodin in the first place.”
Well, that explains it. I was wondering how they traveled. I leaned back again too, next to him. “But that doesn’t make any sense.” I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Why wouldn’t Koth want the good guys to have access to the technology too? That would level the field. It’s not fair otherwise.”
Venser threw up his hands in exasperation, and let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “Who knows? I’m half-convinced the man’s cracked, really. One minute he’s calm as a statue, and then the next he’s in an unstoppable blood frenzy. Maybe that’s what the heat here does to you, if you stay out in it too long.” Finally he smiled again, and allowed it to engulf his entire face as he lost himself in his thoughts once more. Happy thoughts this time. “It gets me excited, just thinking about what we could do if I could build even just one more ambulator. Imagine if Vincenius could bring his entire merfolk army to fight with us – or if Elspeth could take her people to a new home, far away from Grixis’s horrors!”
His mention of Elspeth was like a needle in my heart. Suddenly, I felt sad. “Or if I could take my tribe somewhere else,” I whispered, though I hadn’t meant to. My gaze was on the floor, on the toes of my new gold boots. “Somewhere safe.”
To my surprise, instead of getting a slew of questions in response to my unbidden outburst, I felt a hand rest itself on my arm. When I looked up, I saw Venser smiling down at me, kindly. There was just as much warmth in his gaze as there was in his touch. “If I do build one,” he said then, “you’ll be the first person I tell.”
I gave a start at that. His words were so much more of a surprise than his gesture had been that I found myself laughing, out of nothing more than disbelief. “Now that can’t be true.” Even so, I couldn’t help but smile. “I just met you, Venser! You do know that you don’t have to be nice to me, right?”
Venser chuckled, though at the same time his gaze seemed to…deepen, almost. I realized with another start that he looked utterly serious. “And you’ve shown far more interest in my work than anyone has in centuries. No joke. I do believe, Rana, that I’m allowed to take that into account.”
I was at a loss for words. All I could think to do was smile more…and so I did. “Well, um…thank you. I appreciate it.”
The artificer smiled back, and in one fluid motion he had pushed himself off of the crawler and turned to a rack of shelves on the other side of his workbench. He began to rummage through their contents, pushing aside large bags and racks of glass vials in his search for…whatever he was searching for. I took a step closer. “Need any help?”
“I’m looking for grain,” he answered. His voice was muffled on account of his head being buried nearly two feet deep in cluttered shelf. He was leaning forward, stretching to see if his object of interest had perhaps fallen behind the structure of the rack – but unfortunately, it looked liked it hadn’t. “I brought a couple sacks in from Dominaria a few days ago, was thinking of getting some food…”
“Grain?” The word was unfamiliar to me.
Finally Venser pulled back, and when he had extracted himself from the tangle of metal enough to stand straight, he let out his breath in a huff and turned to fix me with a puzzled look. “You know…for making bread.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “I’ve never heard of either of those things before. We must not have them back on Zendikar.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then he burst out laughing. Loudly. “You’re serious! Oh, wow…I guess it makes sense, though. Vincenius said it’s hard to grow anything there with that Roil phenomenon.” He grinned then, and leaned in to me with his hands on his hips. “You have to try it. It’s really good if you make it right.”
I acknowledged that my stomach was growling – quietly, to my good fortune, but I still felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. With the length of my forced unconsciousness, perhaps I hadn’t. “Alright,” I agreed, folding my arms over my chest. “I guess I’ll have to trust you on this one.” I felt the corners of my lips twitch before turning up in a grin to match his. “What is it, anyway?”
Venser reached out a hand to me. “Here. I’ll show you.”
I knew what he was intending by offering the extended limb, but I decided to tease him anyway. For the first time in weeks, I was feeling back to my usual self again. Joking. Cheerful. “What, is there some sort of ritual we have to do before we can make it? I wasn’t aware that Dominarian cooking required that much effort.”
The artificer snorted. “Yes, Rana, I need a human sacrifice before I can even mix the ingredients together. Now come on. Let’s go, before Doc bursts in here with some odd job for me to do.”
Giggling at his failed attempt to keep a straight face – and mine – I finally took his hand, and the vaguely organized clutter of Venser’s workshop blurred around me as we teleported away.
***
Making bread was a far more daunting task than I had anticipated.
You had to crush that grain substance into dust, then mix it together with another powder and water until it was a paste, and then knead the paste into a squishy, pliable consistency before finally baking it in a little slot over a fire. By the time the last step had been accomplished, my arms were sore and I was thoroughly covered in a layer of the grain-dust – the sight of which had sent Venser doubling over his knees with laughter, when I had accidentally spilled it all over myself. I had not been so amused. I thought it was going to stick to me forever, and to the shiny metal surface of his counter. Fortunately, though, it seemed as if a wet cloth sufficed to get it all off. After that point, I had laughed right along with him.
The entire time that the two of us had been working, I recounted the story of what had happened to me ever since I had started this interesting journey of mine – from my first encounter with Sorin, all the way up to the moment that I met Venser in the Mephidross. He had listened attentively, smiling and joking and asking questions every now and then, when they were called for. He even asked a little more about my life in Zendikar, too. I had obliged each of his requests, and in turn asked him about his life back in the swamps of Urborg – though he, unlike me, didn’t have much to say. His mother had passed away when he was young, and his father had disappeared into the swamps, never to return, a few years after that, leaving little Venser all alone to fend for himself. “That,” he had said with a roguish grin, upon seeing my sympathetic expression, “is how I learned how to cook. No motivator quite like death by starvation staring you in the face!”
His good humor hadn’t faded in the least since the time I had first walked into his workshop. In fact, the longer the day wore on, the brighter his mood seemed to get. By the time the bread was ready to eat, and we both sat down at his tiny little table in his crowded little kitchen in his cramped little flat, he was positively beaming. I found myself realizing that if I hadn’t had a friendly visitor in awhile – let alone years, as he had said – I would probably be acting the same way. Not as if I begrudged him his behavior. In truth, I found it endearing, just as much so as when he had called me ‘m’lady.’
“So what do you think?” he asked now, fixing me with an expectant smile. I had just taken my first bite into the little piece of bread I had cut for myself.
I chewed, and chewed, and then finally I swallowed, and when I did I could almost feel my eyes light up. “Spirits, you’re right! That does taste good!” I stared down at what remained of the slice in my hands, unable to stop myself from letting out a short laugh of wonderment. “That’s such a shame, that we can’t grow these grain crops of yours on Zendikar. I could have packed this for my hikes, or for when I went hunting out of range! It’s the perfect size, even!”
The expression on my face – or the tone of my voice, or both – must have been amusing to him, because Venser chuckled. “This is why planeswalking is so wonderful,” he said, simply. “Every world has something new to experience.”
I grinned, and rested my chin in my hands before giving him a conspiratorial wink. I took another bite. “Well,” I said, once the food was safely down my throat, “you’ve got me convinced. We’ll just have to keep it from Koth then, won’t we?”
Venser laughed heartily at that. His brown eyes were alight, even from all the way across the table. “I have to say, Rana, I like your thinking.”
“Good! It’s about time I found someone I can actually talk to. I thought I wasn’t going to find a single person on one of these planes who isn’t either broody, crazy, or in danger of lighting me on fire whenever we hit a touchy topic.” I giggled, and took a sip of the gel fruit wine that seemed to be the drink of choice here on Mirrodin. It was so sweet that I could barely taste the alcohol.
Venser shrugged. He gave me an easy smile in turn as he, too, took a drink from his own glass, and when he was finished he set it back down lightly. “I’m always here if you need me.” For a moment he paused, and when he looked back up at me again his smile had broadened into the warm, buoyant grin that I had come to know in so short a time. “Especially considering your other options.”
The thought that I now had a friend I could come to gave me comfort, more so than I would have expected before today’s events. “Thank you, Venser. Really.” The haze of the wine – which we had both been drinking all evening – was starting to hit me at last, but I kept my smile steady as I looked at him and felt a sudden rush of gratitude.
The artificer wasn’t one to miss details, though. He chuckled. “You’re swaying a little, you know. Not practiced at holding your alcohol?”
I laughed. It was a little embarrassing that he had noticed, but I wasn’t going to let it bother me. “I’ll be fine, I swear! I’ve barely even touched my food. I’m sure I’ll be better after I get a little bit of it in me.”
“We’ve been here all evening,” Venser reminded me, gently, “and you’re going to find that that particular type of wine makes you pretty tired once its effects set in. Why don’t you take the rest of your bread, I’ll take you back to your tent, and you can stop by tomorrow if you still want? Here, I’ll even save some for you so we could try this again then.”
I had to admit that he was right – I was starting to feel strangely sleepy, and at once I remembered having the same experience after eating my first gel fruit on Koth and my trek to Ish Sah. With the wine’s alcohol, though, the effect was more potent this time. “Fine,” I relented, “I guess. But only if you promise that we get a do-over.”
Venser smiled. He reached over across the table, and put his hand on my forearm, firmly. “Not a do-over,” he said, “just another try.” There was a faint flush on his face that I attributed to the impending effects of his wine, and I wondered vaguely if I had it too, if that was what had keyed him in to my state of not-so-sobriety. “I’ll, ah…I’ll see you around, Rana.”
And before I could say anything in response, I was spinning and spinning and getting suddenly dizzy, and Venser’s desk and stacks of papers and trinkets in the background were disappearing, and then I was just elsewhere, in my tent…alone. Even Jace was gone.
Still holding my bread – though my hunger was all but forgotten in the wake of my sudden exhaustion (or had it been there this whole time?) – I pulled off my gold garb as carefully as I could, curled into my bedroll with the sheet tight around me, and then allowed myself to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Though it took a good deal of effort, my eyes finally slid open.
Jace was kneeling on his bedroll beside me, a piece of parchment between his fingers and an odd expression on his face. He raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. “You, ah…alright there?”
As I sat up, I frowned. I was too tired still to be all aflutter, and damn everything to the nine hells, my head was pounding! I reached up to rub my fingers against my temples, but somehow that only seemed to make things worse. “What do you mean?”
To my surprise, Jace’s response was for a faint blush to color his cheeks, and then to sigh and turn his head. He stared fixedly at the parchment in his hand as he held it out to one side, and when he spoke, he sounded almost…embarrassed. “Apparently, you’re not decent at the moment.”
“Huh?” When I looked down, all the fog in my head evaporated in an instant – The sheet I had wrapped around myself when I went to bed last night was slowly slipping down, exposing the top of my bare chest. I let out a little squeak and pulled it back into place before I accidentally showed off anything improper. My face burned. “Uh…sorry. I was too tired to change into anything before I went to sleep.”
Jace shook his head, but I could see that his lips were twitching as he tried – and failed – to hold back a smile. “Is it safe to look now?”
“Yeah.” I tied the ends of the sheet together under one arm with a knot. I figured that that would do until he finished whatever business he had in here, and left the tent so I could change. My new gold Mirrodin garb was too bulky to deftly slip into underneath the sheet – and what with all the pointy parts, I would probably just end up ripping a hole in it anyway. “What’s that you have? It looks like a map.”
Jace turned back to me, scooting a little closer so that he could hold out the parchment for me to see. “That’s because it is,” he said. “It’s crude, but it shows all the entrances to the refugee camp. While you were sleeping, I was out setting up illusions here,” he pointed to the map, “here, and here to keep any stray Phyrexians at bay. Not sure how well it will work at this point, but I figured that it was worth a try.”
I shrugged and offered him a grin. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Jace nodded. His voice had grown quieter, but only a little. As he spoke, he reached up to brush a fallen lock of hair out of his eyes, and then again with a flicker of irritation when it fell right back. “I had to keep myself busy somehow, while you were recovering.”
My groggy temper vanished as I suddenly remembered Vincenius’s words back in the clinic – How Jace had lost sleep coming to check up on me, day after day, even though he was already giving his all in the fight against the Phyrexians. I smiled, warmly. “From what I hear, you kept plenty busy. Vincenius told me how much of a help you’ve been.”
For a moment Jace blinked, as if surprised, but then his gaze settled back to normal and he smiled at me in return. “Well, that’s good to know. I’m not used to the style of fighting they use here – It’s far too melee-oriented for me, and I thought I was doing horribly.” He paused, and then his smile widened. “…He really said that, though?”
I laughed. The way he looked – head tilted to the side, curious eyes, hopeful expression – gave him that air of boyishness from before, that rare humanity that all the planeswalkers I had met so far, save for Venser, seemed to have trouble finding most of the time. “Yes, Jace, he said that. He also said that you, um…” I blushed, though I had been trying my best not to, “…that you were checking up on me, every day. Is that true?”
Jace grinned unabashedly. Hearing that Vincenius found him useful seemed to have lightened his mood, and my suspicion was confirmed when I heard the teasing note in his voice. “Well, someone had to make sure that the crazy fish doctor didn’t inject you with too many chemicals. I mean, we did lose a few of his soldiers in the battles – Who’s to say he wouldn’t take you on as a replacement?”
Though I scoffed at his words, inside I felt a secret rush of relief. Jace seemed to have let go of whatever negativity he was holding against me before Koth and I left for Ish Sah – either that, or he was just in an exceptionally good mood. Whichever option, though, I felt much better. “I say so!” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. I tried to keep my expression deadly serious as I gazed at Jace, but…to be honest, I was pretty sure I was doing an awful job. “Vincenius made a point of telling me the very first time I visited his clinic that his army is made up entirely of volunteers. He wouldn’t just whip out his magic and start mutating people willy-nilly! I’m sure even you know that!”
Jace chuckled. “For someone who was complaining about how fearsome he is in battle just a couple of weeks ago, you certainly have a lot of faith in him.”
I shrugged, and reached a hand out to finger the metal of one of my pauldrons. “He can’t be that bad.” I managed to keep a straight face for a good five seconds after my deadpan, and then immediately I broke out into a grin. “He gave me a present.”
Jace chuckled again before reaching out too, and delicately he lifted the gold off of the ground a few inches so that he could inspect it. “Hmmm.” After a moment he set it back down, and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Well, other than the ears, I bet you blend in perfectly with all the other auriok now.”
I opened my mouth to ask him, curious, what an auriok was – But before I could, there was a rustling at the entrance to the tent, and a blue, finned head poked its way through the cloth flaps. Involuntarily, I withdrew even further under my sheet.
One of Vincenius’s mer soldiers stood in front of us half-bent, with the cloth flaps spread out across his bare shoulders like a blanket he had long since outgrown. Jace must have known him, because the two exchanged a brief nod before the newcomer turned to me. When he did – and saw my own bare shoulders poking out from beneath the sheet – his eyebrows darted up his forehead, and a knowing grin slowly began to spread across his face. Oh, s***.
“Am I…interrupting something? Should I come back later?”
I turned a thousand different shades of red. Quickly as I could, I averted my gaze, but Jace (damn him), only made things worse by letting out a hearty laugh. To my relief, though, it didn’t last long. When I finally had the courage to look up again, he was waving a hand at the mer dismissively.
“No, no, you’re fine, Efrem. I just got here a short while ago, and she just woke up. Nothing to see here.”
“Ah.” Efrem rested a hand on his hip, and when he moved I caught a brief glimpse of the serrated spear that he was holding in his other hand, outside the tent. “Well, I just came to tell you that Commander Vincenius has requested both of your presences in the dining hall of his clinic. He says that you have important business to discuss.”
All at once, Jace’s jovial expression sobered. It happened as quickly as donning a mask. “Business…” He stood swiftly, gathering up what few possessions he had strewn about as he went. Though it was still as blazing hot as it ever was here, he began to pull on his dark undershirt and his dyed-blue leathers, layer after layer. Buckling the straps tight, he paused in his efforts only to throw the bulk of his cloak over his shoulder.
“Time to pack up, Ranewen,” he said, looking down at me for a brief second. The mirth in his eyes had vanished when I met them, and had been replaced with his usual calm unreadability. My heart sank at the sight of it. “It looks like we might be heading back to Ravnica soon. I’ll meet you outside the tent in a few minutes.”
***
Once I had gotten dressed and ready, I stowed my other outfit and my hunting knife in the leather bag that Jace had given me before we left for Mirrodin, and we were off. The walk didn’t take as long as usual – likely because Efrem knew the byways of the refugee camp better than I, and thus was able to take every available shortcut. I stopped listening to the conversation between him and Jace after the first five minutes. They were talking strategy and weaponry and Phyrexian this and praetor that, and for once my insatiable curiosity seemed to be missing in action. Perhaps it was because I was still a bit tired, but…for some reason, I just wasn’t interested. At all. The only thing I found myself thinking about was Zendikar.
Home.
Lately I had been berating myself for not saying my goodbyes before I left, for getting caught up in all the strangeness and excitement of my spark igniting and the handsome mage coming to my rescue against a vampire, and…well, now the guilt was finally catching up to me. It hurt, far more than I had expected it to.
But before I could dwell on my own darknesses more, I realized that we had arrived. Efrem led Jace and I through the clinic’s myriad of rooms until we finally emerged through a set of tall, polished double doors – Venser’s handiwork, perhaps? The carvings looked nearly identical to the ones adorning his workshop entrance – into a spacious hall. A long table spread down the length of the room at the center, and the first several yards of it were covered in dozens of clay bowls of the most brightly colored, delicious-looking fruit I had ever seen, and steaming platters of dishes that I couldn’t even guess at. They all smelled mouthwateringly fantastic, though. I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was until that moment.
Vincenius was sitting at the head of the table, smiling. “Jace! Ranewen! Good of you two to join us. Thank you, Efrem – You may go. I will speak to you later.” The soldier departed with a bow, leaving Jace and I to stand there in the doorway and take in the scene. Koth was sitting to Vincenius’s left, and a white-robed, dark-haired figure to his right – which I realized, as I breathed in deeply, was Elspeth – and there were three sets of silverware laid out in front of three empty chairs. Venser must be coming too, I noted. He was nowhere to be seen, but as I took a few steps closer to the table there was suddenly a loud pop, and then the artificer was just standing in front of me, pulling out one of the empty chairs.
“Here, I got that for you,” he said. He tilted his head a little and smiled at me roguishly.
I grinned. So did Vincenius, and beside me I heard a soft breath of feminine laughter. As always, Koth remained stony-faced – how could anyone expect anything different? – but as Jace took the empty seat next to him, I thought I caught a hint of a frown as it crossed his lips. But I could have been wrong.
When I took the offered chair and Venser sat down beside me, Vincenius folded his hands and leaned forward across the table. He nodded officiously. “Thank you, everyone, for agreeing to come to breakfast with me this morning. I am sure you all have some idea of the business I convened this meeting to discuss – after all, the evidence is sitting right here among us.” He turned to Jace and I in turn with an inscrutable smile, and though Jace’s expression didn’t change, I found myself smiling back. I couldn’t help it.
“These two planeswalkers came to us in their hour of need, and though our fight was not theirs, they provided us with invaluable assistance nonetheless. They have helped us not only to defend Mirrodin against the Phyrexian horde, but they have returned two of our number to us, safe and sound, from a captivity the likes of which I would not wish on my worst foe.” The mer’s voice was smoother than I had heard it yet, and it rang with a clear note of authority derived from years of commanding the respect of others. “I speak for all of us when I thank them again, and inform them that we are at their service, so long as what they may request of us does not prove too dire, or entirely impossible.”
I sat enthralled. I knew Vincenius was a powerful commander and planeswalker, but I had never expected him to speak so eloquently. When he signaled that he was finished by sitting back in his chair and sweeping an arm toward Jace, though, my attention instantly shifted. I didn’t know if Jace wanted me to chime in at any point – much less what I would actually say if he did – but I wanted to be prepared, just in case.
“I won’t speak long,” he said then as he stood, his voice sounding clipped but firm. “Vincenius has been a gracious enough host to share food with us, and I won’t be so careless as to allow it to go cold.” He nodded once before continuing, and then shifted his gaze to meet mine. I felt inexplicably self-conscious. “As I have informed you all over the past week, a great force threatens Ranewen’s home plane, as it does the rest of the multiverse if allowed to proceed in its actions unchecked. The Eldrazi are incredibly dangerous creatures, as are their spawn that we call the “brood lineage.” Not only can they walk worlds, but they can…consume them – in a matter of days, even, or so the legends say. The only way to defeat them is to amass as much power as we can in a head-to-head confrontation, to which end I call upon you, my fellow planeswalkers, for assistance. There are still many other walkers my team and I back on Ravnica have yet to find, and any assistance you can field in that realm would also be greatly appreciated. However, the main thing that we are asking of you, the only true thing…” He paused momentarily, and looked around at Vincenius, Koth, Elspeth, and Venser in turn with an expression so grave that I felt the beginnings of a chill crawl down my spine, “…is for you to fight by our side in the great battle to re-imprison the Eldrazi. We fight not only for Zendikar and its denizens, but for the fate of the entire multiverse, even the Blind Eternities itself.” There was another pause, and then Jace seated himself back down, quickly, and with what I assumed to be an intentional flourish of cloak. The entire room had fallen silent as its inhabitants stared off into their own bits of space in thought.
Suddenly, I heard a voice rise from next to me. “Hells, I’ll go.”
I turned to face Venser, my movements and expression sharp with surprise. Across from me, Jace looked much the same as I felt. “Venser?” I asked, dubiously.
He turned to me, and then to Jace, and then back to me again before nodding. “Yeah. I mean, aren’t I the obvious choice?” He shifted a little in his chair, the fabric of his long brown tunic rustling against his curved silver pauldrons. There was a note of something in his face that I couldn’t quite decipher. “Vincenius is the commander and head doctor – People need him here. Maybe he could planeswalk away for short periods of time, but in the long run…no.” He shook his head, and I watched his brown-eyed gaze shift across the table to the vulshok as he gestured. “Koth’s fight is for Mirrodin, against the Phyrexians. I don’t think any of us could, in our right minds, ask him to leave his people.”
“Wisely spoken, tinkerer,” Koth responded, interrupting like a sudden rumble of thunder. There was a pause, and then he said, more quietly, “Though I would not shy away from a single battle where my strength is greatly needed.” He turned to fix his steely gaze on Jace. “To that end, boy, and to the end that we already agreed upon, my magic is yours.”
“As is mine,” chimed in Vincenius. When I looked over at him, I saw a small smile twisting the mer’s lips. “I will stand beside you against the Eldrazi, but until then, my place is here. If you have something you wish of me in the meantime, I am but a short walk away.”
“I, for one, am in agreement with Venser. As soon as I have made a full recovery, I am yours to command whenever you so wish.”
At once the entire table turned to face the soft voice that had just spoken, to Elspeth. She sat calmly with her hands folded in her lap, staring straight ahead at the wall with blank grey eyes. Her utter lack of expression troubled me. Was she recalling the horrors that she had endured under the Phyrexians? Was the trauma of it all too much for her to take? I had an instinctive urge to reach out and place my hand over hers, as my sister had always done to me whenever I was lost in my own thoughts way back when, but of course that would be foolish. She didn’t know me, I didn’t know her. The gesture would just come off as being patronizing, and that was the last impression I wanted to make.
“Elspeth,” Vincenius said gently, “Venser. Are you both sure of your decisions?”
Elspeth simply nodded, but Venser spoke up from my other side. “Why not?” He shrugged, and I felt a warm rush of gratitude when he put on his most charming smile in what I assumed was an attempt to lighten the serious tone of the conversation. He threw me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve always liked seeing new places, and if I go with them now then I get to see at least two. Besides, I can come back here at any time if someone needs me to build something.”
Several moments passed in silence, and then finally, slowly, Vincenius nodded. “Very well,” he said. From the note of finality in his voice, it was clear that the discussion was well and truly complete. “The decision has been made. Venser will return to Ravnica with Jace and Ranewen, and Elspeth shall remain here under my care until she is in fighting form again. Any objections?”
There were none. There were, however, several pairs of hungry eyes on the buffet of food, mine among them.
Vincenius noticed and let out a short laugh. “Well then, I won’t delay you all any longer. Go ahead, eat – That’s what it’s here for!”
And eat we did. The meat that had smelled so good on my way in was still warm, and still tasted slightly of copper, but it was spiced enough that it didn’t bother me at all. Despite that, however, and despite all the other dishes laid out in front of me, the fruit had to be my favorite thing at the table. I hadn’t seen anything like it before – there were spheres of green with tough rinds and tart centers, crisp yellow oblong shapes that tasted of sweet summer rain, pale red globes that looked similar to gel fruit but were far softer, and far more flavorful. I relished every bite. After a few minutes of eating in silent wonder, Venser leaned over to me, close enough so that he could be heard over the conversation that Vincenius had started up across the table with Koth and Jace.
“None of these are native to Mirrodin, did you know that?” He noted my look of confusion (it was all I could do with my mouth full) with a chuckle, and sat back in his chair a little. “Doc has a garden plane all to himself. He claimed it for his own long before the Mending, or so he says – Me, I think what with all the power planeswalkers used to have, he might’ve just built it. Every couple of days he heads out there to recuperate, and when he comes back he brings all this with him.”
I finally swallowed my bite, and looked over at Venser with a smile. “Well, it’s better than gel fruit, that’s for sure.”
The artificer grinned. “Wake up with a headache this morning?”
Remembering the throbbing ache in my skull that had only just eased up, I tried to scowl. Instead, it quickly dissolved into a giggle. “You knew the whole time that was going to happen! You bastard, you should have warned me earlier.”
He put a hand to his chest in mock affront. “But m’lady, I did! It’s not my fault you were so eager to prove you can hold your alcohol!”
“Which apparently, I can’t yet.”
He shook his head, and smiled. “Ah, you’ll get the hang of it eventually. It just takes a bit of practice and pacing.” For a moment he paused, and then his smile turned a little more sincere as he regarded me. “Looks like we’re going to have to postpone our dinner though, huh?”
Now it was my turn to shake my head. “Not necessarily.” I smiled too. “We might just have to relocate it, that’s all. Not so bad, right?”
Venser laughed, a soft rich sound. “No, not at all. I look forward to it.”
Then, before I could say anything more to him, I felt a sudden warmth against my hand where it lay on my lap – and to my utter surprise, when I looked down I found Elspeth’s hand covering my own. My eyes widened. I lifted my head to face her, and when I did I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Her gaze was completely unlike before, deep and haunting and full of too many mixed emotions for me to distinguish. I found myself momentarily unable to breathe. “Thank you,” she whispered. Without pretense, she turned my palm upright in hers, and then I felt something cool and heavy drop into it. I didn’t dare look away from her though – not yet. “Vincenius told me that you were the one who saved my life. This is…not much, but I wanted to give it to you as a small token of my thanks. It was mine, once.” She closed my fingers around the smooth object in my palm, and finally, I pulled my eyes from her grey ones to chance a look down at it. My heart skipped a beat.
“But Lady Elspeth, I…” I held up the large gold medallion she had given me with reverence, taking in the beautifully etched symbols on it, the gleaming sun and the majestic eagle soaring over a field of flowers. “You shouldn’t be giving me this. Vincenius was the one who nursed you back to health, not me. I don’t deserve it.”
But Elspeth shook her head vehemently. “No, dear Ranewen. You valor in battle will not go unrewarded, not so long as I live. You may not realize the bravery of what you did, not yet, but…I do.” Her hand still remained clasped over mine, and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears as I met her gaze again. It held such powerful sincerity that, for a moment, just one…I almost believed her. “Where I once called home, these sigils were given for great feats of strength and self-sacrifice. You have done such a thing on my behalf. It is a debt I cannot hope to repay, but until I find some way that I can, somehow, I offer you a piece of my own honor.”
For a long moment, I couldn’t find the right words for what I wanted to say. After another moment, I gave up trying. “Thank you,” I said. My voice was faint, almost strained, and as I looked at Elspeth and her worn yet beautiful face, at her black hair that fell loose over her shoulders, I felt an all-too-familiar ache build in my chest. “I will cherish this always, my lady.”
But Elspeth said nothing else. She merely smiled, and with that she turned back to the food in front of her and resumed eating.
***
The breakfast continued on for another hour or so before Jace finally stood, nodding to Venser and I as if to say, ‘Time to leave.” Goodbyes were brief, since we all knew that we would be seeing one another again shortly – Though as I slung the strap of my bag over my shoulder and headed to the empty space by the door with Jace and Venser on either side, I stole one last look at Elspeth. Vincenius stood behind her chair, smiling and waving, but she herself did not move. Instead, she remained seated with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes followed me wherever I went. When I at last found them with my own she treated me to a small smile, so delicate that if I could hold it in my hands I was sure it would break instantly.
Before I could stare overlong, though, Jace tore apart the fabric of reality with his mind, and he stepped through the shimmering cerulean curtain into the Blind Eternities. I followed, with Venser right at my heels.
My third planeswalk was no less strange and arduous than the first two, but despite the lack of a sense of time in the void, it felt somehow shorter than them both. It wasn’t long before I was stepping out from the swirling, dizzying masses of light and color and sound and onto one of the plush rugs of the Consortium compound’s common room. I sank right down onto the nearest couch. Compared to Mirrodin, the Ravnican air was so cool that I began to drink in deep breaths of it like water, until Venser at last emerged, dazed, where I had been standing a moment ago. As soon as he exited, the portal vanished.
“Ugh.” He groaned, rubbing the side of his head as he stumbled his way over to sit next to me. When he did, he let out his breath in a huff. “I don’t think I was prepared enough for that one. Must not have been concentrating when I entered from Mirrodin…”
Jace then stepped away from the window that he had been staring out of, and came close to rest a palm on the arm of the couch beside me. His blue eyes were alight. “Hey, it happens. At least we all made it here in one piece.” For a moment he paused to favor me with a smile, which sent a flurry of butterflies to wing in my chest, and then he straightened and began to pace back and forth across the length of the rug. “And I managed to get Koth to agree to work with Sorin, who’s going to planeswalk to Mirrodin as soon as he gets back with Chandra so he can teach him how to remake the central hedron.”
Venser chuckled and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid I lost you there, captain.”
Jace shook his head. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll explain everything to you later.” He hefted the pack that he had been carrying into a more comfortable position, and then started off toward the stairs without so much as a glance back. “Right now I need to get a few things settled, so just relax, have a drink, take a walk around Ravnica…whatever you like. I’ll be back down by sunset, and we can discuss the situation then.” He didn’t wait for a reply from either of us, and instead took the steps up two at a time, his cloak billowing out behind him the whole way. When he had disappeared from sight, Venser chuckled again.
“Well, he’s certainly in a hurry.”
I smiled, wistfully. “Yeah. He always seems to have something or other to do.”
“But we don’t!” Grinning, Venser stood, and he held out a hand to me once he had smoothed the wrinkles from his tunic. “Why don’t we take him up on that last option? I haven’t gotten to see Ravnica up close yet. Hells, I haven’t even gotten to see it from afar.” He tilted his chin toward the towering windows, and then paused for a moment, as if he had just thought of something. Still grinning, he nodded to me. “Though I’m going to venture a guess that people here don’t exactly walk around wearing outfits made of pure gold.”
I snorted. Fortunately, the sound came out almost ladylike. “Yeah, you’re right.” I took his hand, and allowed him to help me to my feet – which, to my surprise, took almost no effort on his part. Once I was upright, I adjusted the weight of my bag’s strap where it hung from my shoulder. “I’ll go change into something a little less conspicuous, and we can head out after that. Deal?”
Venser nodded. “Deal.”
***
Clad in the long, flowing white tunic that someone had bought for me while I was gone and then left in my closet – Chandra, I guessed, from the little smiling face drawn on a scrap of paper that I had found pinned to one of the sleeves – and my usual brown leggings and boots, Venser and I made our way out of the compound. It took nearly a half hour of walking to pass through the entire expanse of the Rubblefield once we had achieved that feat, but when we finally did we strode purposefully, side by side, into the city proper.
Buildings stretched high above us all around, with twisting spires and looming archways and glittering stained-glass windows the likes of which I had never seen before – and that was only what lay above my head. At eye level the streets were packed with throngs of brightly-dressed people, either walking from one place to the next, or stopping on street corners to chat, or examining the wares that vendors hawked from behind the shade and safety of their wooden carts. Venser and I had been holding idle conversation about our surroundings up until now, but the further we walked from the compound, the more my brewing idea came to a boil in the forefront of my mind. It took nearly all of my effort to keep my tongue in check, but finally, as we rounded a corner near a market square, I realized that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Venser,” I said. The tone in my voice must have caught him off guard, because he stopped dead in his tracks to look down at me. Someone bumped into him from behind and grumbled, so he stepped off to the side, against the wall of a modest brick building. I followed.
“What is it, Rana?” he asked. The note of concern in his voice made me feel suddenly guilty, but I wasn’t about to back down now. I couldn’t. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to ask him anything terrible.
“Do you know if…” I swallowed, and looked around briefly to see if anyone was obviously listening in on us. No one was. No one even seemed to notice us, now that we were out of the way of the foot traffic. Slowly, I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. “…if planeswalkers can sense one another, when they walk? I need to know. It’s important.”
Venser looked taken aback by the question, but his expression quickly settled into one of deep thought. After a long moment, he shrugged. “Well…there are spells for it, yes, but other than that…no, not passively or anything.” He examined me closely, and as I watched his brow began to furrow. “Why? Are you hiding something?”
Hearing the suspicious tone that had found its way into his voice, I held up my hands and shook my head vigorously. “No!” I exclaimed. “No, I’m not. I just…” I sighed, and reached up to twirl a lock of hair around my finger – the same habit I always resorted to whenever I was anxious. “I want to go home, Venser. Just once. I didn’t get to say my goodbyes before I left, and it’s haunting me, and I want to go back for just a little while so I can…so I can do that. So I can tell everyone where I’m going, and what I’m fighting for.” There was a moment’s pause, and then my gaze shifted to the worn cobblestones beneath my feet, unable to hold onto anything else. Especially not Venser’s eyes, kind as they were. “They probably think I’m dead by now, anyway. I want to let them know that I’m safe and well.”
Indeed Venser’s eyes were kind, and intent too, because when he spoke next I couldn’t stop myself from looking up and into them. “Well, why not just go?” A flicker of anger crossed his face then, and all of a sudden he took ahold of my shoulders, though not roughly. I balked a little at the sharp severity that had overcome his voice. “Are they keeping you here against your will? Is that what’s going on?”
“No!” I realized right away how indignant my own voice sounded, and I worked to correct it. Gently, I took his hands off of me and lowered them to his sides. “It’s not that. I’m fine. What it is is that…” I hesitated, and then I let out a long groan. “Oh, this is going to sound so stupid. I’m…I’m nervous, to go by myself.” Shaking my head, I ignored the loose pieces of hair that began to tumble down into my face. Hells, all the better – they hid the embarrassed flush that had just now spread to my cheeks, and that made me feel uncomfortably warm under the mid-afternoon sun. “I don’t want to get attacked by the brood lineage again, or get lost in the Blind Eternities, or anything like that. I wanted to ask Jace, but he’s always been too busy. Chandra and Sorin are gone, too, off doing who knows what. When I met you, though…” I smiled, despite myself, and tilted my head a little as I met Venser’s questioning gaze. “I was sure that you would help me. Or at least, I hoped so. You said you love to see new places, right…?”
Slowly, a smile of his own began to turn up the corners of the artificer’s lips. “Right. So, when are we leaving?”
For a moment his words didn’t register – and then, a moment after that, their meaning hit me at once. All I could do was blink at him in surprise. “Wait, really?”
Venser laughed. “Yes, of course really! I want to see Zendikar, you need a traveling partner – It’s that simple, isn’t it?” He took my hand, and quick as lightning he pulled me around the corner, into the darkness of the alleyway between the brick building and its neighbor. There was no one around. “We have the whole day. Why don’t we just go right now? I’m sure we can be back to see Jace by the time the sun goes down, and I can follow your aether trail on the way there.” His voice was so earnest, so eager, that I couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh as I stared up into his now wide, bright eyes. Is it really this easy? Is this all it’s going to take?
“Sounds like a plan,” I breathed. I could barely contain my excitement as I closed my eyes and focused my will, calling upon all the mana I could find in the multiverse that would bend to serve me. It came, and it answered my call not in a trickle but a torrent – a heady, intoxicating rush that nearly sent me reeling with the sheer raw power of it. Immediately, I directed that power into my body and Venser’s, and curling, leafy vines began to twine about us from toe to head as I pulled us both into the space between worlds. The last thing I heard before I vanished outright was Venser’s voice, laughing distantly, as if he were someplace very far away.
“Well, looks like you’ve finally figured out how to make a flashy exit!”
And then the streets and buildings and people of Ravnica were all gone.
When I stepped out of the Blind Eternities and into existence, I found that I couldn’t see – at least, not for a moment. Something was obscuring my vision.
I coughed and waved a hand in front of my face, and slowly the smoky grey began to clear from my eyes. It took a good full minute until my sight – and my other senses, which were oddly dulled – was restored, but I was willing to wait. A minute was nothing compared to how long I had waited to return home.
When they did, however, every last fiber in my body went numb.
I wondered briefly if something had gone wrong in the planeswalk, if I had taken us somewhere besides Zendikar, somewhere we shouldn’t be – but just as quickly as the thought had occurred, I knew that I was fooling myself. I knew that this was Zendikar, knew it as surely as I knew my own name, that I was Ranewen of the Tajuru – arboromancer, healer, and covert black mage, and now planeswalker errant.
But to my horror, I also now knew that everything was gone.
I was standing in the middle of an expanse of pure and utter nothing – There were no jaddi-trees, no ferns, no flickering fires from where my village’s canopy houses should have hung, high up, a half-mile away. I couldn’t even feel any mana, from anywhere near or for miles and miles in any direction. The land had been drained completely dry.
All that did remain was the earth beneath me, and the sky above. Both looked as if they had been burned several times over until their last vestiges of life were nothing but ashes. Dark clouds roiled over my head, and in the distance there was a growl of thunder.
Venser’s hand was on my shoulder then, and I could hear his voice saying my name, whispering something about how he was so sorry…but I didn’t heed it. I shook him away, roughly, and bolted off at a dead sprint into the emptiness ahead.
I ran. It was all I could think to do. I ran until my legs and lungs burned in unison, then even more until my eyes burned, and my cheeks, and then still more until every part of my body felt as if it were aflame, with Venser’s own footfalls echoing behind me all the while as he tried to keep up. I didn’t care, though. I didn’t stop for even a moment until I had reached the spot where I knew my family’s own jaddi-tree should be, where I had spent nearly every evening of my life cooking dinner with my mother and listening to my father as we all sat by the fire and he told his stories to Amita and I, where we had scattered that same sister’s ashes over the balcony and into the wind one cold dark night as I watched with a heart that felt as heavy and lifeless as stone. I fell to my knees now, staring up at where the jaddi-tree should be and into nothing – into only blackness, into smoke and embers and ash that permeated everything.
It had been a long time since I felt such pain.
Being someone who embraces her emotions freely – each and every one, from the most heart-rending agony to the most uplifting joy – I was used to letting an array of feelings wash over me like a tide, to drown me, to drag me under and swallow me whole in the maw of their depths.
But this…nothing before, nothing, could compare to this.
My senses failed me. Everything else around me melted away into the shuddering violence of my screams, and…spirits, I didn’t know if I was breathing, or if my heart was beating. All I knew was that my body was useless, every muscle that wasn’t trembling swiftly falling limp and leaden. I slumped over across my knees like a dead weight, still screaming. Now I could feel the new sensation of hot tears pouring down my face, to drip off and stain my leggings and the blackened, charred earth beneath them. This isn’t real, I decided, even as my throat began to protest the sounds still erupting from it. This can’t be real. I won’t let it be.
But as I finally sucked in a gasping lungful of air and drew in the stench of pure death, I knew that I had no choice in the matter.
My screaming at last gave way to huge, racking sobs when the pain in my throat made it clear that I could do the former no longer. I didn’t know how long I knelt there like that, but eventually I managed to cry myself hollow – until there was nothing left in me but a hole and a crushing, indescribable ache.
“I…I don’t…understand.” The sound of my voice, so feeble and hoarse, almost startled me. I hadn’t thought I was capable of speaking. “How can this have happened? How..?” I shook my head, disbelief fighting its way to the forefront for just an instant. “This is madness!”
From behind me, Venser’s voice came, so soft that I had to strain to hear it. When I turned to face him I saw that he was standing close, stock still, his eyes wide with his own disbelief. Bright, clear brown had gone murky under its influence.
“I guess this is what we’re fighting,” he whispered. “Total annihilation.”
At the sound of another voice besides my own in what I could no longer call my home, in what was now nothing more than a desolate wasteland, more feelings bubbled up inside of me – Guilt. Anger. They rose into a rolling boil before I could even process them, and forced me to my feet. My legs were not prepared to withstand my weight, however, and so they buckled beneath me, sending me falling to my knees once more. I spoke again. “I shouldn’t have…” As my body sagged, I began to shake my head, back and forth in tune to the rhythm that pounded agonizingly against my skull. “I shouldn’t have left. I could have done something.” I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a quiet sob – but then, what was the use in holding it back at this point? Rage swelled within me, directed at anything and everything, and my voice nearly choked on its own bitterness. “But now everyone is DEAD!
“DAMN IT!”
I slammed my fist into the ground with as much physical force as I could muster, and almost instantly a searing pain blossomed and shot its way up my arm. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care less, actually – I welcomed it, and the sting of the blood that now began to drip from my knuckles.
It took me a moment to notice that Venser had come closer to kneel beside me, albeit a few feet away. He had a concerned look in his eyes now but said nothing, merely watching me, giving me space until I was well enough recovered from my shock and from the torrent of emotions that still had me caught up in its eddies. I didn’t think I would be for quite some time, though.
“Somehow…” I murmured, lifting my gaze to meet his own. I couldn’t seem to focus on him. “Somehow I knew this was going to happen. And yet…I didn’t do anything to stop it.” Hurt blossomed as swiftly and as easily as the pain still throbbing in my hand, and I squeezed my eyes shut for a long moment as I fought back more tears. “I could have asked them, asked Jace or Chandra or Sorin or anyone to come back with me before we left for Mirrodin, even though they were all busy, but I…” It was much harder to hold back the tears now, and they welled rebelliously in the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill over if I didn’t stop talking. But it was too late for that. “I did nothing.”
“You did what you thought was best, Ranewen,” Venser replied almost instantly, leaning towards me with a solemn expression. His mouth had hardened into a thin line, though his eyes still held their compassion, their worry. “You couldn’t have beaten them on your own. You knew that. You knew you had to wait for help.” After a moment’s pause, the creases in his brow softened, and the faintest traces of a sad smile lifted the corners of his lips.
“Sometimes,” he said softly, “you just have to run away.”
I said nothing. What was there to say? I wrapped my arms around myself when I finally noticed that I was shivering, partly from the bodily shock, partly from the force of emotion, and partly from the cold winds that ripped intermittently across the barren expanse to lift Venser’s tunic and stab me all the way down to my bone. He noticed, of course, and finally deemed it safe enough to move closer so that he could pull me against him in an embrace. Once his warmth had seeped into me enough to stop my teeth from clattering, I shook my head. I wanted to cry still, but I had run out of tears. All that was left was hurt. Everything hurt, so badly that I couldn’t stand it. “So this is the part where I’m supposed to retreat inside myself and become all distant and unemotional, right?” Instead of choking me this time, the bitterness dripped from my voice like venom. My hands tightened into fists in his tunic, wadding the fabric between shaky fingers.
“Believe me, you wouldn’t be the first.” I could feel the vibrations from his voice all the way down to my feet. Its low, sympathetic rumble was almost calming. “But…that’s not the only option.”
“And what is the other option?” My own voice could do no better than a rasp after all the screaming I had done.
Venser shrugged, and my body rose and fell with his movements. “You could try overly emotional,” he offered.
At that I couldn’t help but look up at him, at his gentle smile and the faintly hopeful gleam in his eyes. They were clear once more, like a lifeline in the ocean of my own personal hell, and for more than a few moments I clung desperately to them. “You’re not alone, you know,” he continued as he met my gaze. One of his hands reached up to stroke my hair. “You have plenty of people you can turn to. You don’t have to hide in yourself.”
I let out an almost-laugh, a stilted, awkward sort of sound that was alien even to me. “Overly emotional does sound like me,” I admitted. But then I remembered where I was, what had happened, what all I had lost, and…I was shaking my head again, burying my face between where my hands clutched at him. I let out a deep sigh that did nothing to carry the weight of the world off my shoulders. “I don’t want to be alone, Venser.” My voice was quieter than I had anticipated. “But it’s…it’s already half-true now. I can’t just pretend that it’s not.”
Tilting my head so that the side of my face rested against his chest, I stared off into the distance without really seeing. “Some part of me had hoped I could come back here once all of this was done and have a happy homecoming, like I had just gone off on a little trip.” When my eyes came back into focus, I immediately shut them, not wanting to see the swathe of destruction that surrounded me. “I guess I’m just naïve for thinking that.”
This time it was Venser’s turn to shake his head. I could feel the slight movement and the exhale of his breath against my hair. “None of us can really come back, Rana.” His voice was somber, and somehow sounded as if he were speaking from far away. “Not after our sparks have ignited. Not once we’ve learned what kind of power has been forced upon us.” His fingers were still enmeshed in my hair, but they had stopped moving. I tilted my head up again when I noticed so that I could look at him, but my heart sank even lower than it already was at the expression of deep sadness that had suddenly overcome his face. I could do nothing except blink in surprise when his gaze – not on me but on something else entirely – hardened, and his free arm tightened around me. His fingers dug ever so slightly into the shoulders of my shirt.
“Things are different for us planeswalkers. Our equals aren’t men and women, but angels and dragons and…monsters. Like these.”
I looked away then, not wanting to see the darkness in his face anymore, not wanting to see anything. Instead I rested my forehead against the hollow in his collarbone and just breathed in the smell of him – warm leather and oil, a mélange of earthy woods, and the faint tang of metal, all mixed with the scent of his own skin – as unique to him as a fingerprint. For some reason unbeknownst to me, it quieted the storm inside my head and heart until it was just a dull roar, nearly insubstantial as the gathering fog. That storm blanketed me still, yes, but for the first time since I had seen the horrors that greeted me here, I felt…calm. I could think without falling prey to the howling assaults of my own grief, could speak without feeling as if each word was sapping my strength. My eyes closed, and for a moment I drifted.
“I wonder if this route is better, then,” I spoke, barely above a whisper. “To have your bridges burned for you, so you don't have to hang onto something you know will never really be yours again.” New tears at last loosed themselves, though silently. As they fell, my voice broke.
“It doesn’t feel like it now, though. That’s for sure.”
Venser took a few moments to respond, and when he did, his voice was hardly louder than mine.
“No…there’s always something more you can’t have. That doesn’t change.”
Despite myself, I felt a chuckle rise in my throat, past the lump that always formed whenever I cried. It wasn’t of humor, or even of bitterness – I didn’t quite know what it was, in fact, only that the impulse took over me and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t move my head from where it was, still not wanting to look at him. “Like what?” I asked. My voice came out muffled from against his chest. What more could I have possibly wanted than home?
His breath hitched, and I could feel it. There was a long pause. “That’s…too personal.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So for the second time that day, I didn’t say anything.
We remained just like that for a while, his arms wrapped around me and mine still fisted in his tunic. As the seconds passed, my grip continued to loosen, and it eventually fell away entirely. I couldn’t bring myself to lift my arms and hug him back, though I didn’t want to break the embrace either. It was comforting, and without it I don’t think I would have made it out of this – I didn’t want to call it a situation, because that word seemed too casual, too impersonal, but it was all my torn mind could think of at the moment – situation alright. But as it was, I was finally beginning to feel calm enough to push things aside, at least for now. Later was a different story. But now…now, at least everything had gone numb, like that blissfully agonizing moment when I had first arrived.
“I…don’t know what to do.”
Hearing my words, Venser made the decision for me and stood. He pulled me up with him effortlessly, hands lingering on my shoulders to steady me when, sure enough, I wobbled. Once he was sure that I could remain standing on my own, though, he stepped back to a normal walking distance and fixed me with a melancholy smile.
“I think it’s time to go.”
My heart twisted a little at the thought of leaving Zendikar behind, but…when I forced myself to turn and look around me one last time, I realized that there really wasn’t any reason for me to be here. Not yet. Until I could return with as many planeswalkers as our little ragtag group could muster, intent on fighting to the death and not looking back for anything, my place was elsewhere. Where specifically, I didn’t know. Ravnica. Mirrodin, maybe. Honestly, it didn’t matter – So long as I did whatever I needed to do in order to help bring the Eldrazi down, I could be living in the filthiest, most crime-ridden city slums, for all I cared. My hands shook now as I clenched them into fists at my side, and as I stared beyond the ruins of what had once been my world to the looming outlines of the creatures that lay far beyond in the distance, I felt thick, hot hate rise in my chest. It blocked out everything else, all my pain and disbelief and sorrow, and for a moment my vision went red at the edges.
“I will kill you,” I whispered, “all of you. No matter what it takes.”
And with that I turned to take Venser’s outstretched hand, and a sheen of golden light flared around our bodies as he planeswalked us both away.
***
When we were both safely back in the Consortium compound, Venser took me up to my room and encouraged me to get some rest. He said that he needed to return to Mirrodin for the evening so that he could inform Vincenius of everything that had happened, that he thought the mer commander would like to know, that he would be back the next morning to explain everything to Jace, he swore on his heart. I hadn’t put up a word in protest, and so without further ado he had left. Thus I found myself alone, and also at a complete loss as to what to do.
I was exhausted, but I didn’t think I would be able to sleep. Sunset was nearing – the first tinges of red and purple were visible at the edges of what sky I could see between the buildings outside my window – but I didn’t want to talk to Jace. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, really. Venser had said that he would take care of things tomorrow, and I planned to take him up on that offer.
After a time, I finally decided that my best possible course of action would be to drink until I passed out.
I crept down into the common room and had the golem bartender – whose name I would have to remember to get, when I was less inclined to make myself forget as many of the day’s events as possible – procure me a bottle of rich, aged red wine and a gleaming crystal glass to go with it, both of which I carried snugly under my arm as I hurried back up the stairs.
Apparently I was in such a hurry that I had forgotten to shut my door, because just as I was about to pour myself a third glass, a familiar face poked its way into the room.
“Ranewen?”
I gave a start, and had to catch the wine bottle before it could tilt too far and spill all over my sheets. Fortunately, my reflexes hadn’t yet been affected by the alcohol – just my emotions. Or maybe it wasn’t the alcohol at all, maybe it was just because I had recently found out that everyone I knew and loved was dead. Either or.
“Jace.” My voice came out as bitter as it had been earlier, back in Zendikar. I could feel anger swelling in me as he stepped fully into the room and I looked at him. Why didn’t he stop to think about me? His eyes widened in concern when he saw the expression on my face, but that only incensed me even more. Was what he had to do so important that he couldn’t have warned me before we left about what might happen? That I would be leaving everyone behind to die? My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass, and they shook. Was he so busy that he couldn’t stop for one minute to take me back, and help save everyone’s lives before it was too late?
I gritted my teeth, and suddenly, before I could compose myself, I felt tears stinging their way down my cheeks. “I thought you should know that the Eldrazi are progressing further on Zendikar than we had originally expected.”
For a moment Jace just looked confused, bewildered even – and then, at once, he understood. He rushed over to sit beside me on the bed, taking the wine bottle and empty glass from my hands before I had a chance to react, and putting them aside.
“This is what I was afraid of,” he whispered. He took one of my hands in both of his and stared directly into my eyes. “Ranewen, I’m so sorry.”
The sincerity of the grief in his gaze caught me off guard. I almost believed him, believed that he hadn’t anticipated this, that he was sorry…My anger faltered, and I allowed him to continue holding my hand instead of brushing him away. Still though, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Sorry for what? You could have prevented this at any time. This didn’t have to happen.”
Jace closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, and shook his head. I tried to convince myself that he didn’t look profoundly sad, but it wasn’t working. “No, I couldn’t have. There was nothing any of us could have done, not even if we had tried the day we found you.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” he hesitated, and then slowly lifted his blue eyes to settle on mine. “…that the brood lineage had probably already reached your village by the time that squadron attacked you. They travel fast, and they…” He shook his head again. “...they…consume things even faster. The only way to save anyone would have been to take them through the Blind Eternities, which no planeswalker has been able to do with a mortal since the Mending. There was no way anyone could flee on foot fast enough.”
I opened my mouth, then just as quickly snapped it shut. For a moment, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So you…you knew, this whole time?” Now I shook my head. I could feel an incredulous laugh building in my throat. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”
Jace smiled, without mirth. “If you were in my place, would you have wanted to?” After a moment his shoulders sagged, and in the span of a few seconds his expression grew very, very tired. “Besides, I…wasn’t even sure. I thought…I hoped that there was some chance, however small.”
My vision began to blur with tears then as the full realization hit me – If what Jace just said was true, then everyone had been doomed from the start. There was nothing that I…any of us, could have done. Nothing. Destiny, fate, whatever in the nine hells people liked to call it, had come that day to take its toll, and it hadn’t been in the mood to delay its journey.
“No,” I breathed, and the voice that I heard wasn’t mine but someone else’s – a frightened little girl’s voice, small and confused and helpless. “No, no…” I felt my head dropping onto my chest. It took every shred of willpower I had to keep myself from crying. I can’t. I won’t. No more. I have to be strong…
“I’m so sorry,” Jace said again. He squeezed my hand, and somewhere in the haze of my mind I realized that his were shaking. There was a long pause. “If you need to talk to anyone, I’m here. My situation is vastly different from yours, of course, but I…know what it’s like. To feel betrayed. To lose someone.”
The hollow ring to his voice pulled my head up, and my gaze to his. He didn’t look back at me, though – He was staring straight ahead at the closet door, as intently as if he knew it were going to spring to life any second. I looked away. My gaze instead settled on my lap, where he still held my hand in a tight grip. “What happened?”
A minute passed before he answered, and when he did his voice was as soft as I had ever heard it. “I…” He sighed, heavily. “I put my trust in the wrong person. More than that, I loved her. Stupid as I was. She took everything from me, everything that mattered. My home, my friends…Kallist…” He squeezed my hand so hard that I winced. “Ah.” He had noticed. “Sorry. But…anyway, you don’t want to hear it.” He scowled, seemingly at himself. “It’s going to make me sound like a pathetic little child, especially after what just happened to you.”
I shook my head. I hadn’t been expecting him to open up so suddenly, and as dour as the subject matter was, it was a welcome distraction. “No, Jace, tell me.”
But he shook his head too. “I…no, Ranewen, I can’t tell the whole thing. Not right now. I’m sorry I mentioned it. Maybe later, but…”
“Jace.” I stared at him until he finally looked up at me, but as soon as he did I knew that even then he wasn’t going to relent. Apparently, this really was something that haunted him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and smiled faintly as he stood and pulled his hands from mine, “but I need to clear my head if I want to have any hope of discussing that subject rationally. When I do, though, I promise I’ll let you know.”
“What, so you’re just going to leave?” I knew it was a selfish thing to say, but I had blurted it out before I could think. I had realized that he was going to go off and do whatever important planeswalker-Consortium-whatever business he needed to do, and I didn’t want him to go. Not now. Just a short while ago I had wanted to be alone, but now that I had started talking, now that I had cracked the veneer of brooding solitude I had built up around myself…I wanted him to stay. Needed him to.
“If you want a chance at getting revenge on the Eldrazi,” he said then, and the quiet force behind his words gave me pause, “then yes. I need to go. If you want some company, you know where my office is. I can’t guarantee I’ll make fantastic conversation while I’m poring over my reports, but…” He smiled again. “…my door is always open to you.”
And with that he left, and I was once again alone with nothing but my own thoughts – and this time, too, a half-empty bottle of wine.
If I may say so, this is very good. Like, really, really good. After the...less then steller writing of the latest block novels, this provides a nice change of pace. It feels more professional then the professionals, at least thus far. I'm gonna be keeping an eye on this. Great work so far.
I agree with you about the latest novels. I'm a huge, huge fan of the storyline - both pre-Mending and post - but recently I've found myself a little disappointed in the quality of the writing (except the Planeswalker novels, because Agents of Artifice, Test of Metal, and The Purifying Fire were FANTASTIC.). Here's hoping for Innistrad, right?
Seriously though, thank you. It perpetually amazes me that people are not only reading my work, but enjoying it too. Please feel free to share any feedback you have any time, because I'd love to hear it!
I agree with the Planeswalker novels (I have a soft spot for ToM). I find the characters you've created are interesting, and more importantly, they're likeable. I find myself caring about the lead, and her journey. I'll be honest and say i was terrified when Sheoldred showed up...I thought things were gonna get really bad for her...like Crovax vs. Tsabo Tavoc bad.
The only part I like more is how well you treat the actual characters. I'd actually love to see you handle Bolas. I have no doubt you'd do better then most of his other apperances lately. Koth and Venser were surperbly handled, and I actually liked Jace. And I hate his guts normally, so, great job there.
I haven't found anything that makes me dislike this. So far, if this was a published novel, and I had to chose between it and Zendikar's...I'd pick yours no question. I can't wait for the next chapters. And yes, I mean that.
Sir (or madam), I hope you know that you've made my day. Not exaggerating.
I'm so, so glad that you like Ranewen - It's difficult to strike a balance when I write, because I want her to be a confident, able-to-take-care-of-herself woman who is allowed to show her weaknesses (and to just be a woman, sometimes), but I don't want her to be overpowered or needy. Looks like I must be doing something right, if I have your seal of approval!
Jace...Oh, Jace. I think that in pretty much everything except Agents of Artifice, he's been overexposed to the point of HOLY CRAP I WANT TO THROTTLE HIM. In the book, to me, Ari Marmell did a great job of bringing him down to our level, so that we can see him for once as a regular guy (as much as a planeswalker can be, haha) with flaws, the same as everyone else. I tried to channel that into this version of him. Venser is easy (he's one of my favorites), and Koth is even easier, but as far as Jace goes...I hope I can keep his persona going, I really do. Some days he's easier to write than others, but I always try!
Bolas? MUAHAHAH---Er, *ahem*. Sorry. Carry on. I'll just say thank you again for the kind words, and duck out before I talk you to death...or get a little too excited about a certain elder dragon.
But really, it's comments like yours that keep me going.
I'm over-joyed to hear that (and I am a sir lol). I found that you actually used the Preators, ala Sheoldred, an incredable increase over QfK...where the most we got was Glissa. The way you've handled Chandra, Sorin, and others only makes me want to see Tezzerat, Sarkhan, Bolas...maybe even Karn ^_^. But the point I really have to state is that I really wish Ranewen would be made into a full character. Anyway, I'm gonna stop here before I devolve into inane rambling lol. Keep it up, and I look forward to more.
A/N: Yeesh. Sorry this chapter took so long to get posted, but I just moved into a new place. It's been a busy week.
By the time I woke up the next day, it was mid-afternoon.
My head hurt even worse than it had the morning after my dinner with Venser. I knew that lying around in bed all day wouldn’t do me any good, though, so I just grit my teeth and bore it as I rolled to one side – and accidentally off the bed, dragging several sheets with me. I groaned when I hit the floor.
Eventually, I managed to struggle myself into an ankle-length green dress (another gift from most likely Chandra), and tied on a pair of laced brown sandals (yet another gift – It seemed like my mysterious benefactor had made it a personal goal to attend to my distinct lack of a wardrobe). When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I did have to admit that I looked nice…even nicer when I took a few minutes to tease the bedhead from my hair, which was not an easy task. When all was said and done, I couldn’t help but smile. Feeling pretty wasn’t something that I ordinarily concerned myself with, let alone something that I savored – but today, it managed to cheer me up, just a little. Perhaps my recovery from all that had happened wouldn’t be in giant leaps, but in baby steps. Perhaps this was the first of many.
Ignoring the pounding that assaulted my ears every time I moved, I descended the stairs to the common room. I could hear several voices from the top landing – one of them unfamiliar – but once I stepped into view the noise died down in an instant. Five pairs of eyes made their way to me, and the only response I could muster was to blink back at them, and to shift awkwardly.
Jace and Venser sat on two couches flanking a little table, and across from them Sorin lounged in the large, plush armchair, looking as content and comfortable as the housecats I had seen humans keep. My heart leapt when I saw Chandra, sitting up straight on another couch with her hands folded in her lap – but just as quickly as she had drawn my gaze, it alighted on the man sitting next to her. He was tall, broad – a warrior’s build, and clad in a warrior’s heavy blue-and-silver armor – and had thick black hair so long that he had tied it in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. At his belt, a strange whiplike weapon gleamed. When I met his steel-blue gaze he stood, smoothly, and bowed at the waist.
“Ranewen of the Tajuru,” he said. His voice reminded me of Vincenius’s, deep and resounding and commanding. His, however, was more gravelly, and it had all of the solemnity and none of the mirth. “My name is Gideon Jura. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, though I would also like to express my deepest sympathies as to the loss of your home. I imagine this is not an easy time for you.”
Behind him, Chandra and Venser winced. Jace lowered his eyes. Sorin yawned.
I was tempted at first to correct Gideon, to tell him that I was no longer Ranewen of the Tajuru and instead just Ranewen, but it was a momentary impulse…and anyway, I knew it wasn’t true. Despite the fact that my tribe was gone, they were just as much a part of me as they had always been, and they always would be. Besides, Gideon hadn’t seemed to have meant any harm by the statement. I took a slow, deep breath, and allowed my brief bitterness to pass.
“You guys don’t need to walk on eggshells around me, you know,” I sighed, letting out the breath in an equally deep exhale. I met Gideon’s gaze again, and nodded to him and smiled politely. It took effort, but I did it nonetheless. “It’s good to meet you, Gideon. I appreciate your kind words.”
He nodded too before sitting back down beside Chandra. I couldn’t help noticing the look she shot him then, and the swiftness with which he returned it. Very suddenly, and despite myself, I had to stifle a grin.
“We found him making his way here to the compound on our way back,” Sorin broke in, his voice coming low and languid from the cushioned depths of his armchair. His yellow eyes – still eerie after all this time – met mine, and he paused. “Well, she found him. I just got the information out of him. Apparently he’s met the Eldrazi in person and lived to tell the tale, and such a fateful encounter motivated him to come find the Infinite Consortium and petition us for help.” He shrugged. “Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?”
“Very convenient,” Jace muttered. He was eyeing Gideon from beneath his ever-present hood, but he looked more curious than suspicious.
There was a moment’s pause. “You’re welcome to sit down, Rana.” Venser’s voice was quiet when he spoke, and when I turned to face him he patted the cushion at his side with a hesitant smile. Once I had come to sit next to him I returned that smile warmly, and his face took on a look of relief.
“Gideon, you’re sure about wanting to do this?” Chandra was looking at the warrior full-on now, and with an expression of open dismay. It was a good cover for the way her hands twitched on her lap, so close to his own, and for the hint of joy you could see hidden behind her narrowed eyes – that is, if you looked closely enough. Which I did.
Gideon shook his head, and I saw his own hand twitch. Like Koth, he was remarkably good at keeping his face impassive. “You are, aren’t you? So why can’t I?”
“Because…” She faltered, and her gaze dropped down to her lap. “Well, because you got dragged into this because of me. You would have never even heard about Zendikar if it wasn’t for me, and the scroll, and…” She shook her head now too. “I just don’t want you throwing yourself into the middle of this huge conflict because you feel like it’s your responsibility or something.”
“It is my responsibility.” The only time a flicker of an expression crossed Gideon’s face was when he looked at Chandra – for a half-second, I caught an odd mixture of frustration and compassion. “These beings are threatening the order of the entire multiverse, and even if I’ve renounced my devotion to the Order of Heliud, that doesn’t change who I am. And I’m not the type of man to stand by when I can do something to help, especially when people I care about are in danger.” From the grin that spread across Sorin’s face – out of Gideon or Chandra’s line of sight, thankfully – I was sure that I wasn’t the only one who had caught Gideon’s pointedly affectionate look. Chandra’s response to it was to blush, which cemented my certainty.
“I…guess there’s nothing I can do but stop worrying about it, huh?” was all she could say. Softly, at that.
Before the two could make eyes at each other any longer, Sorin sighed and leaned forward in his chair. All traces of his previous grin were gone from his lips. “So that settles it, then.” His voice was suddenly cold. “Gideon stays with us, so long as he provides the assistance he is so eager to give. And you, Jace, you can stop your nonsensical worrying as to my…contributions, to this group.” He stood, his own elegantly embroidered cloak flowing around him like water, and flashed the mage a look that seemed to be saying a rather irritated ‘I told you so.’ With that, he turned his back to the room. “I’ll be in my chambers if anyone finds themselves needing me. Which, as always, I don’t suspect.” He strode out through a side door, head held high and boots clicking against the wood as he went. Before he disappeared, though, I noticed that he had a new longsword – even more ornate than the first one, with swirls and vines and other intricate patterns decorating both its hilt and its sheath. Then he was gone, and I had no more time to appreciate it.
“He’s not in the best of moods, is he?”
Venser’s humor was met with a grunt from Jace, who was resting his elbow on the arm of the couch and his chin in his hand. He looked sullen. “He never is. You’ll get used to it, if you hang around here long enough.”
“I think he’s mad at you, Jace,” Chandra corrected. Her voice had returned to its normal, half-flippant tone, instead of the girlish sigh that she had taken on when talking to Gideon. Her gaze shifted from Jace to me and then back to Jace, and the brief grin she sent my way lifted my spirits. “What, are you two arguing again? You seriously need to stop pissing each other off, or we’re never going to get anything done around here.”
“I know how to handle him.” But Jace didn’t sound so sure – more than anything, he sounded tired. I sympathized.
“Well, if we’re not going to continue this conversation, can I…uh…go? I want to talk to Rana.”
Hearing my name, my ears pricked up. I did want to talk to Chandra a great deal, but if we had important things still to discuss…
But Jace nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. I need to talk to you two – ” he gestured at Gideon and Venser with a wave of his arm, “ – anyway. I’ll let you know if we need either of you again.”
Throwing Gideon one last sidelong glance, Chandra stood, and made her way over to my couch. She stopped in front of me and offered a hand. The smile she wore was a welcome sight.
“Come on, missy. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
Venser smiled at me as I took her hand and stood, and as we made our way over to the stairs I thought I caught Jace’s blue eyes on me as well. Before I had time to analyze his expression, though, we were bounding up the steps – I had forgotten to let go of Chandra’s hand – and hurrying down the hall toward her bedroom, so fast that I found myself flushed and out of breath.
***
“So,” the pyromancer said, “tell me everything.”
And I did. We had settled down into the two chairs in front of her fireplace – the dominant fixture in her room, and a terribly appropriate one at that – and she, in turn, leaned forward to listen as I talked myself hoarse. It took quite awhile for me to explain it all. I had to stop briefly to compose myself when I got to the parts both about Elspeth and about the Eldrazi, but Chandra was an attentive and sympathetic audience. She reached out to hold my hand at those difficult moments, and once they had passed she sat right back, hands folded over her knees and eyes wide, and simply let me talk. The openness of the expression on her face gave me some small measure of comfort. Once I had finished, I sank back into my own chair and sighed. It wasn’t as cushy as the furniture downstairs, but it was something.
“Do you really think we have a chance?” I had been trying not to let my negative emotions get the best of me, but after recounting the tale of everything that had happened, it was hard to hold them back. I shook my head, slowly. “They just…obliterated my home. Completely. Mana and all. How can even fifty planeswalkers hold their own against them, much less, what…eight? We have eight. Against three giant demons, and their armies of hellspawn.”
“Hey, don’t think like that!” I looked up sharply at the sound of her voice, and when I did I was surprised at how…alight Chandra’s eyes were. Isn’t this supposed to be a somber topic? She clucked her tongue chastisingly, and shook her head. “You’re supposed to be little miss cheery, right? So act it! We need your optimism, Rana, even if it’s a little, uh…misplaced, sometimes. I overheard Jace talking about how you barreled straight ahead on Mirrodin, and I mean, come on! Look at where that got you! You saved Elspeth’s life!” I blinked as she bent forward and grabbed my hand again, lifting it to her eye level. “Yeah, the Eldrazi are insanely powerful. Yeah, they’ve already done a ton of damage, and are probably going to do a ton more. But us planeswalkers aren’t so bad ourselves! You’ve only seen a few small battles – You haven’t seen us really in action. Maybe then you’ll change your mind, huh?”
I shrugged. It was hard to be morose when you had a bright-eyed, beaming redhead staring you in the face, and damn it all if I didn’t feel a smile coming on. “Maybe. Do I want to, though? I think I’d be nervous about getting caught up in the crossfire.”
Chandra giggled and shook her head again. “No, trust me, you want to. They can get a little dangerous, but…if you’re not one of the combatants, why the hells not? Real planeswalker duels are exciting to watch.”
Gently, I took my hand from hers, and rested it on her knee. I chuckled. “Maybe for you, but I think I’ll pass on that offer. I’d rather keep my mortal body intact, thank you very much.”
Chandra rolled her eyes and swatted my leg. “Oh, you’re no fun.”
“Ow! Hey!” I winced. That stung. “Me? You’re the one who’s no fun, not telling me about this new arrival of ours. You both were staring like you were going to eat each other.”
Chandra’s newly red face took on an indignant expression then, but she couldn’t help letting out a snort of laughter. Nervous laughter, from the sound of it. “What, Gideon? We…we’ve known each other a long time, that’s all. I met him on Kephalai, and we helped each other out on Diraden---”
“Oh, save it, Chandra. I’ve seen those looks plenty. I’ve given and gotten them a few times, too – Hells, I probably give them to Jace whenever he walks in the room.” I giggled, and cocked a teasing eyebrow. Now I could feel the blush creeping into my own cheeks at the mention of Jace, but my point had been made, and that was that. “You two have a thing, and everyone who was in that room knows it. So stop trying to hide it and just spill!”
There was a long pause, then a long sigh, then a huff and a folding of arms across chest, and then finally Chandra relented. “Damn you, Rana.” I could see the smile tugging at the corners of her lips, though, and I knew that she wouldn’t be able to stall it for very long. “Alright, fine. I…like him. A lot. I liked him before, but he and I parted ways awhile back on bad terms, and I thought that was enough to make me forget about him.” Her voice softened a little, though I would put gold on the fact that she hadn’t meant it to. “Well, it wasn’t. I couldn’t keep him off my mind, and when I saw him on the streets today, it was like…” She held her hands out in front of her, palms up. Her hair swayed into her face as she shook her head. “I don’t know, it was like a…a dream, almost. Everything slowed down, and my legs just started running toward him without me even knowing it.” Her hands fell limply into her lap. “He told me that he followed me to Zendikar. Because he was worried about me. He’s changed since we last met, too – He denounced the order that he used to belong to, and took advantage of the chaos I left it in to reform it and make it less oppressive. He did everything that I thought he wouldn’t. And now I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.” She laughed, quietly, and the mingled emotions in her eyes sent a jolt of something straight to my heart.
Before I knew what was going on, and before I could stop myself, I was leaning forward to hug her.
“You’re supposed to enjoy your time with him while you still have it,” I said, just as quietly. I could feel her body stiffen in surprise at my sudden embrace, but she quickly relaxed, and her arms tentatively reached up to wrap around me and pat me on the back. When I kept going, my voice came out muffled from against her shoulder. “You were right, you know.”
“About what?” Chandra sounded puzzled. Understandably so, considering how I had just tackled her. Still though, the gesture didn’t seem like it had been unwelcome.
“About holding onto that optimism of mine. Venser told me that yesterday, and you’re telling me it now. There’s too many things for me to do for me to keep getting all…down like this, you know?” I pulled away and hesitated, finding her reddish-brown eyes with my own. “For instance, you getting to be with someone you care about. I can’t be selfish. Yes, I have to avenge my tribe, but…there are people still living that I can fight for, too. Aren’t there?”
Chandra opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. She tilted her head as she regarded me. “I…Rana, I…”
I shook my head. “No, it’s the truth. I need to keep my chin up. Maybe I still haven’t really accepted it, but…” I smiled, and shrugged. “...you guys all seem to need my help. Or at least appreciate it. And if I can do even just one more thing for you all that matters, then, well,” I stood up, stepping away from the chair and closer to the door, and I saw Chandra’s eyes follow me there. “I’ll be happy.”
“Where are you going?” she asked. Her voice was still quiet, and she hadn’t risen from her chair. She looked even more puzzled than she had sounded before.
At that my smile widened, and I reached out to place a hand on the doorknob. “To see Sorin. He knows the most about the Eldrazi out of all of us, so if I want to learn things and help out more around here, I figure he’s the best place to start, right?”
But I didn’t give Chandra a chance to respond – I was in determined mode, and nothing was going to delay me now that I had my heart set on a goal. I flashed her a grin before she could open her mouth to speak, and then I pulled the door open, stepped over the threshold, and shut it with a tight click behind me.
“You could try overly emotional,” Venser had said. Well, here I was, giving it a shot. And already I felt better.
With purpose, I strode my way down the hall and to the stairs.
***
It took me awhile to find Sorin’s chambers, but with a little direction from a passing guard, I finally did.
His room was large and long, with windows as big as those in the common room, and twice as many bookshelves. There was a couch across from his four-poster bed, facing his fireplace – bigger than Chandra’s by half – and there he sat, legs crossed over one another and a book in his hand. He didn’t respond when I knocked on the open door, or look up when I entered. Only when I was halfway across the room toward him did he say anything.
“And what business could you possibly have with me, kitten?”
“Kitten?” I stopped. I probably shouldn’t have even acknowledged the nickname, but the oddness of it forced my tongue into motion. When I resumed my walking and came to stand in front of him, I planted my hands on my hips. “What, is that your way of declaring affection?”
“Hardly. You’re a tiny mewling thing who’s just now whetting her little claws and teeth, and until then, you need the help of your betters to keep you safe. Hence, kitten. Now what do you want?”
The nonchalance of his tone and the way he still didn’t look up from his book – not even counting what he had just said – infuriated me. I clenched my fists at my sides, and took a deep, steadying breath. “I want,” I said, calmly as I could manage, “for you to help me, if that’s at all possible.”
“Help you?” Finally Sorin looked up, though only briefly. He brushed aside a lock of powder-white hair from his eyes, met my gaze, and chuckled. A condescending sound. “Interesting. And what assistance do you think I can provide, then? Transformation into a vampire? If that’s the case, then I can certainly help you.”
I gulped. The darkness that had slipped into his voice crawled across my skin, and the way he was now grinning at me, baring his gleaming fangs, sent chills down my spine. Relax, Rana. Relax. He can probably smell fear…or something like that. “No. That’s, uh, definitely not it.” I shook my head, and slowly, I lowered myself down onto the couch beside him. His eyes never left me as I did. “I wanted to ask you about the Eldrazi. I...I want to know what I’m facing. If I want to make any difference at all in this…thing we’re starting, then I need to know all that you know. Everything.” I steeled my gaze when I turned to look at him, and clasped my hands together tightly in my lap.
But Sorin merely laughed. Suddenly, I was aware of how attractive the sound was as it vibrated through me, from my head to my toes along my nerves, like fire. I found myself staring into those yellow eyes of his, flecked with smoky grey, longer than I should have, longer than I knew was safe – and then half a second later he was just there, right in front of me. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t, not even as my heart began to race and something inside of my head screamed frantically. My body recoiled as he bent low over me, his hands gripping the arm of the couch on either side of my head. I felt myself bump into something solid then, and I couldn’t back away any further.
“Give me a reason why I should tell you,” he growled, “and we’ll see.” I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face like a thing alive. His lips were mere inches away from my own, but the mixture of lust and terror that I felt now paralyzed me. I couldn’t move. I knew that he was trying the same trick from before back on Zendikar, but that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop his…magic? Was this magic? Or something else? Whatever it was, knowing that he was doing it didn’t help me in the least. If anything, it only made me more panicked – and now I was sure that he could see my pulse fluttering in my neck, or hear my heartbeat as loudly as I did. S***. S***.
“N---” I tried to speak, but my mouth felt like it had gone numb. It was a struggle to make my lips form words. “N-No…” He was so close to me now that I could feel the brush of his cloak against my sides, featherlight, and the tickle of his hair as it fell down around his face and mine. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to stab him. I cursed myself silently for not having my hunting knife on me, but I was wearing a dress, and I hadn’t thought to strap the damn thing to my thigh. Not in the compound. I was supposed to be safe here.
“Come now, Ranewen, I’m waiting.” I could almost feel his lips as they moved, and the sensation turned my blood to ice. His voice was low, deep, dark, smooth as silk and so utterly intoxicating…
“NO!”
The second I flashed back to the moment when I had broken away from him before, I repeated the motion. My hands pushed against his breastplate in a shove, hard as I could muster, and it forced him to sit back heavily on his knees. I curled against the arm of the couch, breathing hard. My legs came up to my chest. I hugged them tightly.
“Damn you, Sorin,” I croaked. “I’m not your little plaything. Stop doing that to me!”
But all the vampire could do was shrug. He pursed his lips and widened his eyes, giving his face a sickeningly innocent expression that made my blood boil. “What? I was simply asking for you to give me a reason. I’m not going to help you for nothing, you know.”
“That’s a lie,” I hissed. My arms came up to fold over my breasts protectively, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to quell my shaking. “You were trying to get something from me that I’m not willing to give. Just because you can have your choice of whatever women you want here in Ravnica doesn’t mean that you can just try to…to take me, like that. I’m not like them.” My face reddened.
At this Sorin barked a harsh laugh, and he leaned forward again, toward me, which sent me scooting as far away from him as I possibly could. It wasn’t much, though, since his body blocked me from climbing off the couch, and I was already backed into a corner. “Ah, kitten, didn’t I tell you before not to get a swelled head?” His brow arched imperiously. “Just because you have a pair or two of eyes on you doesn’t mean that everyone wants a piece. You’re just a backwoods elf girl who was lucky enough to be born with the spark. I’ve met plenty of women who are far more attractive than you, far more…interesting.” Before I had time to be offended by the comment, he reached his hand out to caress my cheek. I flinched. “No, the only part of you I want…” he trailed his fingertips to my jawline and down the length of my exposed throat, “…is this. But unless you give it to me willingly, then there’s nothing I can do. Beleren sleeps with one eye trained on me already, and if I do anything to hurt his pretty little pet, then I’ll never hear the end of it.” I made a small strangled noise and moved to slap his hand away from me, but he drew it back before I could. My attempt seemed to amuse him, and he chuckled. “The only thing keeping me here in this fine company is my knowledge of the Eldrazi, and if I give that to you, then I’m as good as useless to them. They may respect me, but they don’t trust me in the least. I know. I see it in their eyes every time I look at them. Powerful as I may be, no one wants to work with a vampire.” In different circumstances I might have felt sorry for him then, sympathized with his now-bitter tone or with the strained look that passed across his face for an instant – But no, not today. Not after what he had tried to do, or what he had said.
“So there’s nothing I can do, then.” I took advantage of the fact that Sorin had straightened up as he spoke last, and hastily stood up off of the couch. I smoothed my dress with both hands. “There’s no way I’m going to get any information out of you, unless I want to turn undead and lose my free will. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.” Sorin relaxed into the cushions, stretching his legs out now that I was gone. “Or perhaps I would be willing to part with some information, for the right price.”
Some information. What did he mean by that? And for that matter, what in the world could he possibly be willing to take from me, if not my life? I thought for a long moment, staring past him and out the window beside his bed, and then at once an idea came to me. I turned back to him, eyes wide. “Sorin. I learned some unique spells from spending time in the swamps of Zendikar, awhile ago. You use black magic, right?”
He scoffed and folded his hands behind his head. “You think that any of your wild, unrefined tricks would be useful to me? You’re even more foolish than I thought.”
I let my breath out in a huff. “Yes, I think my magic would be plenty useful to you. My rifts helped best you in combat before, didn’t they? I have more than that, too. I have all kinds of spells known only to the people who live around the swamps, or the travelers who brave them. I would teach you every single one if you just…told me something. Anything.” I did my best to put aside my anger – momentarily, of course – and gave Sorin my sweetest, most entreating look. “Please? Come on, you have to say yes. Let me try, just this once.”
Sorin chuckled again, but from the look in his eyes I knew I had won. A wry grin curled his lips as he pushed himself upright and onto his feet in one swift motion, and then he sauntered his way over to me, hand darting out lightning-quick to seize my arm. I froze. My eyes stared up into his, and my mouth dropped open to say something that my brain never quite formulated.
“Well then. If you truly want to prove to me how powerful your spells are, then test them against me now…alone. No dashing blue-eyed hero to swoop in and save you, no handicaps, no nothing.” His grin widened into something wicked. “Just you, and me. That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”
It took me a moment or two to recover from that brief, horrible instant where I thought he was going to turn me then and there, but when I had cleared my head, I straightened my shoulders and stood tall. Sorin’s hand still gripped my arm, but I tried to ignore the almost painful pressure. “Fine. I accept your offer.” However stupid this choice might end up being, I knew that it was the best chance I had right now. I would accept whatever consequences it brought later.
Sorin’s grin widened even further, and my heart began to beat double-time when I saw that his fangs were now on full, menacing display. “Good. Then let’s take this somewhere where we won’t be disturbed, shall we?”
Before I could ask him where in the nine hells he intended to go, his free hand molded the fabric of reality into a liquid, dripping portal, and he pulled me inside for a dizzying rush of a journey through the Blind Eternities.
The first chapter of multiple. I was tired of not being able to find any MTG fanfiction that was strongly character-driven but didn't focus purely on original characters (I'm a huge fan of the canon walkers, especially the neowalkers), so I decided "Screw it! I'll write my own." All of this is based off of an MTG rpg that my I'm doing, and is purely for fun. A few of the characters are original, such as the one from whose perspective the story is being told, but none are direct author inserts.
Comments and criticism are always welcome!
***
Chapter 1:
It was strangely cold for midsummer.
My breath came out in a huff as I darted around a tree trunk, flattening my back against the smooth wood. As I paused to reassess my surroundings, I noted how grateful I was for the change in temperature, however odd it might be. Perhaps the Roil was to blame - But then again, who knows? All I knew for sure was that the chill air and slight breeze kept me from overheating as I ran, and that it dulled my quarry’s senses enough so that they were a little less dangerous than usual. Perfect. I could just kill what I needed and then go straight home. It had been a long day, and every single one of my muscles felt as if it were throbbing, not to mention the fact that my eyelids drooped whenever I stood still for too long. I needed to go to bed. Eat and wash first, perhaps, but then go to bed and sleep till sun’s height the next day. Ah yes, that would be nice…
But just then, I was pulled out of my reverie by the shrieking cry of a baloth – one that sounded far closer than it should have.
My heart leapt in my chest as I spun, and for a horrible moment I couldn’t concentrate past the tight grip of fear on me to tap into the mana of the forest all around, to sink my mental fingers deep into the wells of green that flowed through every trunk, every stem, every blade of grass. But then, in a rush, I made the connection, and I felt my body surge with power even as the hulking form of the baloth thundered through the trees and into sight.
I lifted my hands in front of me, and at my unspoken command a little creature made of tangled vines flickered into life at my feet. I let the baloth charge closer, closer – but just as it neared enough to skewer me on one of its lowered head spikes, I whispered something under my breath, and the vine-thing suddenly stretched and entwined its tendrils into a thick net that caught the baloth and sent it crashing to the ground. The beast thrashed about, roaring, but try as it might, it couldn’t get free. I took this moment to whisper something else, and an instant later the baloth was scooped up by heavy branches that dipped low, and then passed higher, from branch to branch, before being thrown down with astounding force. I had barely enough time to crouch and brace myself for impact. The subsequent boom, accompanied by a sickening crunch that signaled the beast’s skull cracking, shook the earth, and me along with it. When the tremors passed and the baloth finally lay still, I sighed in relief and allowed myself a triumphant grin. I could feel my body relax. That had to have been record time for a kill!
With a wave of my hand, I dismissed the summoned creature, and then pushed myself to my feet so I could walk over and affectionately stroke the bark of the tree that had aided me. I carefully avoided the blood that was beginning to pour from the dead baloth and pool around my boots. “Thank you,” I murmured, smiling as I felt the pulse of mana from within the tree that I always fancied to be its heartbeat. “You were a great help, as always.”
The tree responded by reaching one of its tinier limbs down and gently caressing a stray lock of my hair, turned from white blond to nearly brown by the mud that I had fallen in earlier.
I laughed at the gesture. “Yes, I know – I need to take a bath, don’t I? This stuff is all over me.” Reaching down, I picked a piece of dirt off the hem of my hunting dress. “And wash my clothes, too. They’re pretty filthy.”
Just , I felt any icy claw of dread rake across my stomach.
I let out a gasp at the strength of the emotion, and the abruptness, and I could do nothing to stop it from bringing me to my knees. With each passing second it intensified, pulling the breath from my lungs until I felt as if I were suffocating. I wielded magic of considerable power, and I even got a taste of it in return from time to time, but…I had never felt anything remotely like this before. To be honest, I didn’t even know if it was magic. What in the name of the Roil was going on?
But then, with a start, I recognized the withering touch of black mana.
It was on me before I knew what was happening.
There was a horrible, ghastly wail that sounded like a thousand tortured souls packed into one breath, and then two immense, razor-like claws – real ones this time – sunk into the forest floor on either side of me. An equally immense mass of metallic chest followed, then jagged, spindly legs that planted themselves inches away from my chest. I was fenced in.
Choking back panic, I forced myself to look up. I immediately regretted the decision, because what I saw made me want to scream.
Above me loomed the creature’s head, which was disproportionately small for its body but still large enough to dwarf my entire torso. A metallic mask covered where its face should have been, similar in material to the metal covering its chest, and two utterly black holes served as eyes that thinned and stretched grotesquely all the way down to its chin. Above its head floated several hedron-like shapes, spinning and twirling in irregular patterns that made me dizzy to watch. I didn’t watch for more than a second, though – There were other, more important things to worry about. Like not dying.
Grunting, I rolled to the side just in time to avoid one of the spindly legs spearing me in the gut, and I thrust my consciousness out to the forest around me, and to the rolling hills and stinking swamps that I knew lay beyond. The mana of those places sensed my desperation, and it filled me to the brim in a swirling vortex, an incomprehensible mass that sent me reeling. I couldn’t hold onto the differing powers for long, however, and it was a mere moment later that I let it all burst forth from my body in a tremendous explosion. A rift appeared in the air before the creature, shimmering and shifting as it caught the light. The creature shrieked and reared up, legs clawing the air, but before it had time to react further, it was being pulled headfirst into the distortion. Another wail echoed through the trees as its body swiftly disappeared from view, and once it was completely gone the rift simply closed and vanished as well.
I sank down into the bloody dirt, my chest heaving. What was that thing?!
But I didn’t have time to contemplate the answer, because a deafening chorus of wails announced the arrival of reinforcements from hell.
This time I reacted instantly, letting out a furious cry as I thrust my clenched fists to my sides and lifted my head to the canopy above me. I called upon whatever green mana I hadn’t drained dry to bring forth three towering creatures from the aether – great trees with limbs made of gnarled sections of trunk and faces carved into bark – and I entreated them to attack the incomers, to protect their summoner. They creaked and groaned as they obeyed, moving forth to meet the nightmarish swarm head-on.
It was no use. The trees had barely gotten in two swipes on one of the creatures before they were surrounded by ten more, and each hacked to pieces that dissipated as soon as they tumbled to the ground.
Exhausted from my expenditure of power, I fell to my knees. My breath was coming in ragged gasps as I pleaded, frantically, for help from the trees around me again.
This time, there was no answer.
More and more creatures poured into the grove around me from all sides, some identical to the one I had first killed and its brethren, and others of entirely different shapes, sizes, and even mana signatures. Each one was more terrifying than the last, with limbs that flung outward at impossible angles or gaping maws of teeth as long as my forearm, or tentacles that writhed and extended toward me, snakelike, presumably to wrap around me and squeeze the life from my body.
As the horde drew closer, I felt a terror like nothing I had ever known.
As they formed a circle around me and slowly, methodically, reached out, I screamed.
No!
I don’t want to die!!
As that final thought raced through my mind, I felt something swell inside me, something that seemed to erupt from my very center. At first it was like a hum, vibrating my core and spreading outward to my arms and legs as I knelt, drained and helpless, before the dozens of creatures that would in mere moments be the bringers of my death.
But then that hum quickened and turned into a pulsating heat, scorching veins and nerves alike as it raced throughout not only my body, but through my soul.
Inside me, everything was on fire now.
For a moment, time seemed to slow down.
And then, without pretense, my body and soul and everything around me exploded in a blaze of heat and light.
I screamed again as the unearthly inferno whirled around me, around everything – And as I lost myself within its flames, I felt nothing at all.
When I had previously imagined my own death – idle thoughts that I had never let linger too long in a mind that could be put to use towards other, better things – I had always guessed that it would be a great night, falling over me like a shroud that took away every sight and sound and touch, leaving nothing but a darkness that held neither moon nor stars.
I was wrong. There was only light.
I’m…
…alive…?
But that can’t be possible…
Regardless of the probability, though, I could feel the beginnings of a terrible ache spreading from my lower back all the way up to my head, and the sting of bloodied wounds. I opened my eyes slowly, cautiously.
What in the name of every spirit had just happened?
Nearly ten feet off the ground, I lay cradled in the boughs of a young jaddi-tree, my entire body miraculously balanced on only two branches. My limbs were tangled rather thoroughly in a net of hanging vines, which, despite being uncomfortable, helped support my weight and kept me from tumbling to the forest floor below.
When I looked down to that forest floor, though, my entire body stiffened in shock.
There was hardly a patch of ground to be seen amongst the pools of black blood that littered the clearing, as well as the dozens of mangled corpses of the creatures from which it gushed.
Creatures that were supposed to have killed me.
I could feel the strangest mix of profound awe and profound dread spreading through me, chilling my own blood like ice. My head spun. How could this possibly have happened? How? I should have been dead, I had been dead, I was sure of it! But the beasts were the ones that were lying there lifeless, not me. This was so absurd, so unthinkable…
Finally, after several long moments of baffled pondering, I realized that I wasn’t going to be finding the answer I was looking for anytime soon, and decided that my efforts would be put to better use trying to extricate my limbs. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t budge them an inch. It didn’t help that none of my muscles quite seemed to be working, and that I couldn’t find the voice to whisper words of supplication to the tree. Wonderful. What good is being alive if I’m stuck up here without the strength to call for help?
As if in answer to my silent gripe, there was a rustling in the underbrush below, and a figure emerged.
I had never met anyone in my life who really fit the label of ‘tall, dark, and handsome,’ but this stranger…he fit it almost too perfectly.
A foreigner, for certain. He wore the garb of a decorated swordsman – long black cloak; shining, filigreed silver armor; even an elegant longsword hanging from his belt. His skin was the color of charred pewter, and his hair was long enough to fall neatly about his shoulders, and white enough that I guessed him to be a very old man. A very well-built old man, perhaps, but no – When he stepped out into the clearing, unconcerned with the blood or the corpses of baloth and eldritch abomination alike, I got a better look at his face. I was surprised to see that it belonged to a young man. He couldn’t have been older than his late twenties – a very attractive late twenties, might I add. Despite having just risen from the dead (or whatever in the spirits’ names had happened to me), I felt my skin flush when he paused, looked up, and flashed me a smile as dazzlingly white as his hair.
Wordlessly, he strode over to where I hung limp, and his remarkable height combined with the reach of his sword had cut me free from the vines in mere moments. With those bonds no longer holding me fast, my balance on the branches wavered. I didn’t have the physical strength to right myself, much less lower myself safely down, and so I could do nothing but let out a squeak as I felt myself slip away and into the air. Mercifully, however, the fall was cut short. The man let out a little grunt when he caught me, arms snug beneath my knees and around my shoulders – a perfect bridal carry.
I blushed another five shades of red.
“Um…who are you?”
Gently lowering me to the ground, the man gave a soft chuckle. My breath caught in my throat at the sound of it, at the too-perfect way it rumbled like thunder in the hills, and from that point on I couldn’t stop looking at him. Where his hand remained on my arm to steady me, my skin tingled. “You, my young planeswalker, may call me Sorin.” He pulled back then, drawing up to his full, impressive height. “I cast a spell last I was here in order to tell me when another of us was born, but I must say…I did not expect Zendikar to choose another young, comely elf maiden.” He shrugged languidly, his lips curling in a roguish grin. “But such is fate.”
I knew he had said something else that I should be focusing on, but that focus would be hard-pressed to control me. A mage too? I must be dreaming.
And my cheeks were on fire! They had to be. How else could I explain their heat?
“Do you hope to gain something with this flattery?” I could hear my voice, though the girlish giggle it was now wrapped up in made me doubt that it was my own. To my even greater surprise, I found myself looking up at him and smiling coyly. Coyly! Since when have I been such a flirt? “I must admit that I’m…unaccustomed to receiving it.”
The man – Sorin – shrugged again, though not without an intimate raise of his brow. “An ally, perhaps. I see you have met the brood lineage.” For a moment – far too long a moment, if you asked me – his gaze left me to travel in a circle around him, noting the abominations littering the ground, grotesque even in death. “Their masters are my concern, and I am gathering allies in order to contain them once more.”
Despite my sudden and powerful infatuation, his mention of the creatures piqued my interest enough to wipe the smile off my face and send my eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “Brood lineage?” I asked, head tilting. “Is that what you call these…things?” I gestured vaguely with a hand, too weak still to lift my arm very high.
Sorin nodded. “Indeed. Their masters are known as the Eldrazi, and they are the real threat. The brood lineage is merely a symptom of a far graver sickness.” He hefted a sigh and looked down at the body parts strewn about his feet, an expression of distaste marring the beauty of his visage. His gaze didn’t seem to be on them, though, but on something else entirely. “They are the minions of the titans, parasites from the Blind Eternities that I, along with my allies, sealed away here long ago. But with the Eldrazi newly released from their prison, these beasts roam free – sowing destruction and chaos in their wake, preparing for their masters to finish the job. It is…troubling.”
I shook my head, letting this new bit of knowledge sink in. I had no idea where the Blind Eternities was, and neither had I heard of it from any of the travelers that had previously stopped in my village. That was a question for later, though. If I was to ask the question that hovered at the edge of my mind, it was now or never. “This ‘brood lineage…’” For a moment I hesitated, and my still-weak voice cracked slightly. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me. “I was out hunting when they surrounded me. I thought I was about to die. But I didn’t. I…” Shaking my head again, I lifted my hands, palms-up, to eye level. “There was this huge burst of fire, and then I lost touch with everything. When I was aware again, I was up in that tree, and they were all….like this. Dead.” After a breath I looked up at him, straight into his eyes, which I noticed to my surprise were red. It was unnerving. “You must have been close by when all of this happened, right? So did you see anything?”
Far from what I had expected his reaction to be, Sorin chuckled again. I felt a shiver run down my spine at his baritone voice, and it took every ounce of my willpower to hold back from throwing myself at him. “Ah, my beautiful girl…did you not hear what I said? How I called you ‘planeswalker?’”
I frowned, having to think past the fact that he had just called me beautiful in order to remember what he was speaking of. “I…yes, I do, actually. But I don’t know what that means.”
He laughed now, sounding genuinely amused. “It means, dear, that you can traverse the space between planes. The Blind Eternities.
“You are one of the gifted few who can walk among worlds.”
For a moment I didn’t seem to process what he had just said. But then a moment after that, the weight of his words hit me like a wave, and I gasped aloud. My knees buckled beneath me, and I thanked the spirits silently that Sorin, who reached out to slip an arm around my waist and right me, had good reaction timing. When it was clear that I wasn’t going to tip over, his arm released me, though not before his hand ghosted upwards, featherlight, across my own arm. Goosebumps raised on my skin wherever he touched.
“Wha---what did you say? I can walk among worlds?”
Still looking amused, Sorin nodded. He appeared as if he were trying to hold back a smile. “Yes, that’s right. Though I have to admit, I’m surprised – It isn’t odd to you, the thought that there are other worlds beyond your own?”
Reeling, I shook my head. “No. No, not really. I’ve felt mana from unfamiliar places before, once or twice, when using my magic. I didn’t know why I knew, but I knew that it wasn’t from Zendikar. It was just…a gut feeling, I guess. A really strong gut feeling.”
Sorin shrugged, the motion fluid. “It makes sense. I’ve seen such things happen before, in other walkers.” He reached out to touch my chin with a single crooked finger, and let out his breath in a soft laugh. “So don’t get a swelled head and think yourself special and unique, despite your most enchanting appearance. If you are to prove yourself as powerful, then you must earn the use of that word.”
My cheeks were aflame again from his touch and his compliment, however hard I tried to prevent it. And this time I was trying, because I could feel a distinct something gnawing at my gut, doing its damndest to get me to pay attention to it. I would, but…just not yet. “So…wait. You said that I’m a planeswalker, which is all well and good if this isn’t just some crazy rite of passage to enter into the afterlife, but you didn’t say what that has to do with…this.” I gestured with a sweep of my arm around me, indicating the brood lineage. “With why they’re lying here slaughtered.”
Another shrug from Sorin. I marveled a second time at how smooth and elegant he could make a mere roll of the shoulders. “Simple. Your spark – the magical potential inside of you that makes you a planeswalker – ignited. Strange things happen when planeswalker sparks ignite.” He hesitated for a moment, surveying his surroundings again with a cocked brow before turning back to fix me with a wry grin. “From the looks of it, you were thrust through the Blind Eternities to a plane of pure green mana, where you called upon all that mana to aid you here. Can you not see the remnants of your efforts?”
I hadn’t looked closer at the dead brood than I had thought I needed to, but now that I glanced around with a more scrutinizing eye, I saw shredded bits of thorned vines, both scattered among what foliage still remained on the ground as well as impaled through massive heads and torsos. I closed my eyes and focused what little energy I had left, trying to catch whatever traces of the spell still hung in the air. When I did, I recognized my mark, indicating the spell as mine, as easily as I would recognize my own scent.
Suddenly, I found it very hard to breathe.
“Well? Do you believe me now?”
Sorin’s voice brought me swiftly out of my own head and back to the world around me. He was watching me with a patient expression, his arms crossed over his chest. When I opened my mouth to speak, found that I didn’t know what to say, and closed it again, he sighed. I could do nothing but nod.
“If you truly are convinced of the truth of what I say, then I will finish my explanation, and then we can discuss what steps we need to take next. Fair?”
I nodded again.
He cleared his throat and paused for a moment to smile at me, a slow, almost easy sort of smile. Casual. Something that he would only share with an intimate companion.
That something in my gut roared up again, even as my pulse fluttered.
“So,” he began, “as I was saying. If the Eldrazi titans can be contained, then the remnants of the brood lineage can be slain easily enough, and no more will spawn. But also as I said, the brood is not our main concern. The Eldrazi feed on existence itself, consuming mana and souls. They thrive on death.” His eyes darkened as he fixed me with his gaze, and I could feel my chest tighten under its weight. “If left unchecked, then they will eventually consume your whole world and spread throughout the multiverse with their insatiable hunger. As long as they exist, unimpeded, this fate is inevitable. That is our concern.”
My body trembled slightly as I tried to imagine creatures more terrifying than the ones I had already faced, and then proceeded to imagine them wreaking havoc across all the lands that I had grown to know and love. All the jaddi-tree forests, the wind-swept plains…even the black and putrefying swamps, with their strange clicks and cries that never failed to pique my curiosity as to what lay in their depths.
But what was worse, what chilled me to my very core, was the thought of them taking the lives of everyone I held dear.
“No…” I found myself whispering. “My tribe…”
Sorin’s gaze hardened as he stared at me, somehow managing to turn even more solemn that it had been previously. “Not only your tribe,” he murmured, “but the very earth under your feet will be gone. Once they devour all magic, matter will be next, and this combined consumption will free the titans from their prisons of flesh that I managed to force them into. They will become one with the aether, and will be able to traverse the Blind Eternities from world to world as we walkers do. Then…”
He shook his head, closing his eyes and reaching out to place a hand on my shoulder. His grip was firm, and somehow…colder than when he had touched me before. I blinked at the strangeness of the difference, but tried not to pay it any heed as I continued listening, rapt, to what he had to say.
“Then we will be utterly lost.
“There is one small consolation, however – I chose this plane, Zendikar, to be their initial resting place because mana here is chaotic and powerful. They will have difficulty accessing it, much less draining it. It is not something they are familiar with. It will buy us some time…but some is not forever. ” Sorin opened his eyes again, and they were startlingly wide when they found my own and held my gaze in an iron grip. His hand on my shoulder lifted, tracing a path up the side of my neck as it made its way to my cheek. Where it passed, his fingernails left tiny red lines that stung ever so slightly.
“Every heart runs dry, given enough time to bleed.”
Suddenly, with a jolt, I realized that looking at him didn’t make me feel as if I wanted nothing more than to faint into his arms and melt again his lips.
It made me feel fear.
“Sorin…” I whispered hoarsely, reaching up to place my hand over his wrist. My heart was racing, though not for the same reason that it had earlier. “It’s awfully convenient that you were right there when my planeswalker spark ignited…isn’t it?”
He chuckled darkly, and the hand that caressed my cheek suddenly dug its fingernails into my skin. Hard.
“Ah, my dear one, I was afraid this might happen.
“But luckily, I planned for this…eventuality.”
As his gaze bore into me, I found that I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even move. A surge of want, stronger than I had ever imagined feeling, threatened to overwhelm me.
“You’ll be just as useful as my slave as you would have been my ally.”
I could think of nothing but the sound of his voice, the scent of his skin, the heat of his breath against my lips as he pulled me in, closer …
“NO!”
I gasped in air, thrusting my palms against his chest and shoving hard. My legs felt like lead as I stumbled backward to slump against the trunk of a nearby tree. Everything was spinning. My heart pounded. My stomach churned. I felt violently sick.
The horrible realization hit me even before his lips drew back in a monstrous grin to reveal gleaming white fangs where his incisors should have been.
Vampire.
Before I could even react, Sorin had drawn his longsword in a clatter of steel and was lunging toward me.
I threw myself to the side, though not swiftly enough. The blade slashed forward with vicious intent and left a long cut across the length of my throat, just barely missing my jugular. When the pain flared as I fell and rolled away on the ground, I gasped, and clutched my hands to my wound in a desperate attempt to staunch the flow of blood. This accomplished little, except to stain my fingers a bright red. There was no time to think.
I rolled again, away from the stabbing blow he had aimed right at my heart. When I forced myself to my feet and ducked to avoid a powerful slash, my entire body was coated in the stinking black blood of the brood.
Already being as weak as I was, and now with the still-bleeding cut on my throat that was making me dizzier by the second, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up this dance much longer.
Sorin’s eyes were lit with a fire from within. The grin that curled his lips as he threw his entire weight into a diagonal slash – which hit its mark and sent me tumbling backwards, crying out – was feral, bestial. When I hit the ground hard and found myself looking up into his twisted expression, panic clawed at my heart.
There was no strength left in me to move.
But just as Sorin raised his sword high above his head to deliver the killing blow, the air in front of me swirled and distorted, and formed itself into a shimmering cerulean curtain that parted as I watched.
Out from that curtain stepped a figure.
My vision blurred as I fought back unconsciousness, but even so, I could see that the figure was a young man. He wore a cloak of deepest blue and adorned with arcane white symbols, and the hood was lifted over his head so that I couldn’t see his face. What I could see, however, were his gloved hands at his sides – and both of them were clenched into fists, reining in the glow of crackling blue energy that was now traveling all the way up his arms and down his back to bathe him in an ethereal light.
“Back off, Sorin,” he growled. There was a threatening note in his voice that sent a chill down my spine, even as I realized that he was saving my life. “This isn’t what we agreed on.”
To my dazed surprise, Sorin straightened and laughed, letting the hand that was holding his sword fall slowly to his side. His laugh was hearty and deep, holding none of the primality of his expression mere moments before. “Well well, Jace – a man after my own heart!” He spread his arms wide and grinned, flashing those ever-so-sharp fangs of his. “Rescuing damsels in distress is a surefire way to bed a lady, but I do believe you’ve forgotten who’s in charge here.” When his gaze flicked down to me, lying prone and helpless against the corpse of one of the brood, and then back up to the newcomer – Jace, he had called him – his eyes gleamed. Dangerously.
Jace scoffed in derision, but said nothing. He crouched lower and widened his stance.
Realizing that the fight was about to begin and that I was also about to lose my chance, I at last found the strength to open my mouth and speak, though my words came out in barely more than a strained whisper. I sounded as pathetic as I had ever heard myself. “Are you here to help me, or is this another trick?” I tried to lift myself to a sitting position, but found that I couldn’t even do that. “I don’t know what to believe!”
Jace turned his head for just a moment and looked down at me. His face was indeed young, and rather handsome – in a more natural, normal way than Sorin’s eerie beauty. Jagged white tattoos ran the length of it, from forehead to chin, and then further down along his throat to where they disappeared beneath the shadows of his cloak. The shock of dark brown hair that hung over his eyes – glowing with the same blue energy that sheathed him – waved back and forth as he shook his head. “You’ll just have to trust me,” he murmured. “I can’t convince you now.”
For whatever insane reason, I believed him.
Jace turned sharply back to face Sorin, though not quick enough to dodge a sudden slash aimed directly at his face. He gasped and drew back a little, his hand rising to the newly formed cut on his cheek that began welling blood. He clearly hadn’t been anticipating the blow.
Sorin stood back and lifted his blade to his lips. Ever so slowly, he ran his tongue across the sharp edge, licking Jace’s blood away before it could drip off and onto the ground.
“Blood is power,” he breathed exultingly, when he noticed the other man’s body stiffen at the sight. “You would do well to remember that, little mind-mage. So concerned with the thoughts of others that you neglect to notice what lies so close within your own reach…”
“Shut up!” Jace snarled. Even through the folds of his cloak, I could see the muscles of his back tighten. “I have no intention of allowing myself become anything remotely close to scum like you.”
Sorin shrugged. “And yet you work with me still. Are you so sure of your convictions, Jace?”
Jace’s eyes narrowed, and the aura around him doubled in brightness. “You know as well as I that this is only a temporary deal. Once we’ve eliminated the Eldrazi, I’d be perfectly happy if you dropped dead. …Or at least, more so than you already are.”
Sorin barked a short laugh, and with a whoosh he pointed the tip of his sword straight at the center of Jace’s throat. “Very funny. I hope you know that the feeling is mutual.” His own eyes narrowed, and the yellow glow that seemed to be emanating from his irises grew infinitely more sinister. I felt my breath catch in my throat when their gaze shifted slowly, and after a few agonizingly long moments, finally came to rest on me. They looked…hungry. “Just give me the girl, and I’ll let you off easy this time.”
“No,” Jace said simply.
Sorin let out a long sigh, sounding as if he were holding the weight of the world on his shoulders already and Jace was only adding to it. “Well, when you’re lying in your cozy bed back in Ravnica, bruised and bleeding from every orifice, don’t complain to me that I didn’t ask nicely.”
With that, he thrust his palm forward and let loose with a blast of dark energy.
Jace reacted instantly, flicking his wrists to shake off a little bit of his own blue energy, and in a matter of milliseconds there was another him, standing right at his side, identical in both physical appearance and posture. The double leapt in front of Jace to take the attack for him, and as soon as the blackness crashed into its chest, it vanished into the aether with a soft hiss. Jace stood calmly behind it, unscathed.
Sorin didn’t look amused by the trick, though, and with a growl he sank the blade of his longsword deep into his forearm. I felt my stomach turn as blood poured from the wound, thick and bright and red. This can’t be good.
And indeed it wasn’t. With a guttural cry, Sorin grasped at the air in front of him and tugged, as if he were reeling in some invisible tether. Jace grunted and clutched at his arm, yanking up the fabric of his sleeve to see a wound identical to Sorin’s beginning to form, ripping open like a seam and spilling blood all over his cloak. But before the spell could complete itself, before his skin could tear entirely, he held his hand over the growing wound and muttered a few words under his breath. There was a sharp crack, like a bolt of lightning, and his flesh knit itself together as if nothing had happened. I could feel the black mana of the spell dissipate.
Wait…
I can sense mana again!
Slowly, tentatively, I tried moving my arms and legs at once. They obeyed.
Hardly daring to hope, I reached out with my mind to try and grasp onto different sources of mana from places I knew, places I held dear.
It rushed into me, as easily as a moth flies to a flame. I nearly gasped at the sensation of being so suddenly filled.
Jace must have sensed what happened, because he froze in the middle of tracing a rune of blue energy in the air before him with his forefinger. Across from him, Sorin was doing the same with a black rune, murmuring something indistinguishable under his breath as he did so.
Are you strong enough to fight?
Now I was the one who froze, though to be fair, you couldn’t exactly call my slight stirrings the exemplar of movement. I hadn’t heard the words aloud, but in my thoughts, as if someone was circumventing my ears and speaking directly into my mind.
And at once, I recognized the sound of the voice.
Jace?
Yes.
What…How can you speak to me like this?
There’s no time to explain. If you want to live, then help me.
How? What do you want me to do?
Cast something that can hurt him. I’ll double it. It’s all I have the mana left for.
The entire time that we had been having this mental conversation, Jace hadn’t shown a single outward sign that it was going on. He was still tracing that intricate rune, still staring with admirable focus at the lines and curves of its form, and the way that the energy it was composed of flared brightly every few seconds or so.
I forced myself to focus now as well, though on something else entirely.
A familiar power swelled within me, and I could feel it threatening to explode outward from every pore of my body.
So I let it.
There was a great concussive blast that shook the earth beneath me with its force, and before I even had the time to look up and see the rift that I knew would be forming to suck in Sorin’s longsword – the object to which I had necessarily attached my spell in order to target him without killing – there was another blast, identical in strength to the first.
Sorin was forced to his knees by the torrent of mana that emanated from the rift and clawed at him, swallowing the longsword at his belt as well as the great creature he had just summoned. A distinctly feminine shriek echoed in the air, and I turned just in time to see that the creature in question was a tall, naked woman, with skin so pale as to almost be translucent, and an aura of purple swirling like mist about her. She writhed, snakelike, as she tried to free herself from the pull of my spell – but it was to no avail. Within moments she was gone, and the distortions in the air made by the twin rifts had vanished. Only Sorin was left, panting as he tried to catch his breath, his eyes seething with fury when he looked up at both Jace and I in turn.
But try as he might, he couldn’t stand.
Jace, on the other hand, stood up straight, and fixed Sorin with an almost haughty glare. His blue aura faded, and I could feel the rush of its mana as it swept past me and back into the aether.
“You may be the most powerful, Sorin, but you don’t rule with an iron fist. The lady gets to keep her blood and her will.”
Upon mentioning me he turned, and with a rush of air as his cloak billowed about him, he dropped to his knees so that we were at eye level. Now that I could see him up close, and with the glow of blue mana gone from his eyes, I noticed that they were themselves a brilliant blue, nearly the exact same color as his cloak. How ironic.
“I don’t think I got your name,” he said softly.
There was a pause in which I had to remind myself to breathe, now that the tension of the battle was over and I didn’t have to keep myself from hyperventilating. “Ranewen,” I said at last, sinking back against the brood corpse that had been propping me up all this while. My muscles slowly began to relax, and I could feel their ache as they did. “Ranewen of the Tajuru.”
Jace nodded, and allowed himself a tired smile as he looked me directly in the eye. “Well then, Ranewen…My name is Jace Beleren, and the troublesome one behind me is Sorin Markov. But we’ll have time for proper introductions later. I think we need to get you cleaned up first.” His gaze fell to the bloody wounds on my throat and chest, and for a moment he hesitated. “But once that’s done, if you would be so kind…I think the three of us have a few things to discuss. Wouldn’t you say?”
Jace hefted a sigh as he drew back, having just mended the gash across my chest with his magic. He shook the remaining white mana from his hand, frowning, and after a few moments he at last turned his gaze down at me. “I’m sorry, Ranewen, but that’s the best I can do for now. Healing magic isn’t my specialty, so it takes a lot of strength to muster even a simple spell.”
I shook my head, hoping that the little smile I flashed him would mitigate his apologetic look. “It’s okay,” I insisted. “I can take it from here. Besides, you already did enough to save my life.” Having had time to regain my strength, I wrapped my arms around myself and called upon the mana of the plains of Murasa, holding an image of their swaying grasses in my mind as I felt the warmth of it seep into me bit by bit. My remaining wounds began to close as I channeled that mana into a healing spell – far more powerful than Jace’s, but still nothing overtly special. When I felt the last cut knit itself together, I sighed and leaned back against the arm that he was using to hold me up. Seeing that I was at last alright, he used it to gently lower me to the ground, and then scooted back to give me breathing room. His face held an expression of relief that mirrored my own.
“I thought you were just a blue mage. I wasn’t expecting you to know any healing spells,” I admitted, squinting into the beam of sunlight that had poked its way through the canopy high above our heads. Its warmth felt nearly as good as the white mana.
Jace finally smiled. “I didn’t, until about a year ago. My friend Emmara is a healer, and she taught me… sort of. But that’s not important right now. Do you think you can stand? Or do you need me to help you up?”
I laughed, embarrassed at how weak and raspy my voice still sounded. What a great first impression. “I don’t think the whole ‘staying standing’ thing will be any trouble, but I’m not so sure about getting up there in the first place. I might need a hand.”
“Then here.” Jace slid one arm around my back, and held my wrist with the other. He lifted me enough so that my feet could find purchase, and then used his leverage to support me until I was standing fully straight. Once I had found my balance, he let go, and I smiled gratefully at him. He stepped away and smiled back.
“Already at it, Jace? What did I tell you? Playing the knight in shining armor is a surefire trick.”
Jace snorted and turned to Sorin, who was leaning against a nearby tree and rubbing his temples. The vampire looked no worse for the wear from the previous battle, save for the fact that he was lacking one lovely silver longsword, and he didn’t show it in his face either. Instead, he looked up and fixed Jace with a roguish grin. He made sure that his fangs were showing.
“Is that all you think about, lech?”
Sorin shrugged nonchalantly. “Few things in life are so interesting…or so pleasurable. Why not?”
Jace pressed his fingertips between his eyebrows and let out a long sigh. “Whatever. Just ignore him, Ranewen. He’s always like this.” When he looked back at me again, I saw that the apologetic expression had returned. “He’s an arrogant ass of a parasite, but he’s also the strongest planeswalker I know, save for one. And he’s the only one who knows how to seal the Eldrazi. So…we kind of need his help, like it or not.”
I folded my arms over my chest and cocked an eyebrow at him. “We? What, so I’m a part of this now?” I winced immediately when the words came out biting, rather than lighthearted as I had intended. I wasn’t angry, just curious.
Well, maybe a little angry at Sorin. But Jace was being enough of a gentleman to make up for it.
The mage shrugged at my comment. “Well, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about. It is a very important matter, and I’m sure you have plenty of questions anyway, so…”
When I saw from his expression that he was expecting a response, I nodded, making sure to keep my tone bright this time. “Of course. As long as I get answers in return to those questions,” My gaze flicked to Sorin for an instant, “and as long as he doesn’t lunge for my throat again, then I’m game.”
Jace gave a little laugh. He had a rather handsome laugh, I noticed. Deep and rich. Textured. “Deal.” He turned his head all around for a moment, taking in his surroundings, and after another moment, he turned again to me. “Now is there anyplace private around here that we can go, where we aren’t completely surrounded by blood and corpses?”
***
“First order of business,” Sorin said loudly as soon as we had settled in, “is that you owe me a new sword.”
Jace chuckled. He finished rinsing the blood off his arm in the little spring coming out of the rock wall at our backs, then began to wipe himself dry with the hem of his cloak. The whole while, he didn’t look up, but held an amused expression all the same. “Fair enough. I’ll buy you one as soon as we get back to Ravnica. But for now, can we please get to the topic at hand?”
Sorin grunted his assent.
“Good.” Finally finished with what he was doing, Jace let his cloak drop to settle around himself again and looked back up at me. His gaze was friendly. “Do you have any specific questions for us, before we start?”
“Yeah, I do, actually,” I found myself saying. A laugh bubbled up in my throat as I pondered the suddenness and ridiculousness of the whole situation, and I just couldn’t help myself. “Is it customary, to set upon new planeswalkers like this? Or is Sorin just especially battle-hungry today and I looked like an especially good target?”
Jace, clearly not expecting the question from the expression that passed across his face, let out a laugh of his own. Any joke at Sorin’s expense, it seemed, was right up his alley. “Yes, unfortunately, though not in the way you had to experience it.” His blue eyes glimmered. “You’re the first walker we’ve actually been able to get ahold of, so we don’t really have a tried-and-true recruitment plan. When we discussed things before, we just decided that we would pull people aside in the most effective way possible, and then have a rather convincing chat. Short and to the point.” For a moment he pondered the bloodstains on the sleeve of his cloak. “You experienced far more fighting than you needed to today. Planeswalker sparks are always ignited through some sort of conflict, or more rarely some sort of profound spiritual experience – but for you, it looks like what you needed was a brush with death. You didn’t need another brush with death on top of that, though, so I apologize for my companion’s behavior.”
Noting the sullen look on Sorin’s face, I shrugged. “It’s okay. No harm done, right? But if I could ask, before you say anything else…What is a planeswalker spark, exactly?” I hated changing topics so abruptly, but I wanted to make sure I understood everything at hand before we moved any further.
Jace still didn’t look up. He turned his arm over so that he could examine how bad the stains were on the underside, and paused for a moment before he spoke. “It’s a sort of magical potential. Very few people have it, and even fewer people have the right sort of experience that can ignite it. But once it is ignited, it gives you two things: the ability to survive the Blind Eternities and walk from plane to plane, and the potential to become immortal.”
My jaw dropped, and I gaped openly at him. “Wait, what?”
Both Jace and Sorin chuckled at the shocked tone of my voice. “The potential, Ranewen. Don’t get too excited yet.” Jace finally stopped examining his cloak, and looked up to smile knowingly at me. “If you can find a way to become immortal, which could vary completely depending on the type of mana you use as well as what you’re willing to do, and you succeed, then it will work. People without planeswalker sparks can do those things and extend their lifespans greatly, but never become truly immortal like us.”
“What about you?” I whispered, feeling suddenly in awe.
Jace shrugged, and his smile turned a little mischievous. “I’m nearly 4,500 years old. What do you think?”
I could only stare.
Seeming to not want to waste any time, though, Jace jumped right back into his explanation. “Sorin, along with a few people who work for me back home, has been monitoring several planes for new walkers. We need every ally we can to fight this war, since the Eldrazi mean the end of all life. They have only recently been released, but they don’t seem to be weakened any by their millennia of imprisonment. It’s an incredibly serious threat.”
“How were they released?” I asked, leaning in. This was the part that I was especially concerned about. I didn’t much like the sound of these Eldrazi, much less the fact that they were roaming free around Zendikar. My home.
All of a sudden a curtain of fire leapt into life behind me with a loud snap, and I yelped. The curtain shimmered in the air like a heat wave, and when I turned quickly to face it, shielding my face with my hands from the incredible light and heat, I saw it begin to part as it was pushed to both sides from the center.
“I can answer that for you,” said a woman’s voice, as its owner stepped forth from the flames.
“We unleashed them. By accident.”
The newcomer, who was a rather pretty young woman about my age, put her hands on her hips and blew a lock of red hair out of her eyes, then tucked it snugly under the strap of her goggles when that failed. The fire she had just emerged from vanished back into the aether. “Someone lured us here under the promise of some great, secret power in the form of a scroll, and we were stupid enough to follow. Then they tricked us into breaking the seal on the Eldrazi. All in all, it was a pretty good day.”
Jace brought his palm up to his forehead and groaned.
I looked back and forth between him and the woman, trying to read both of their expressions. Hers was one of very evident dislike as she glared down at Jace, and he, in turn, looked like he had just been kicked in the stomach. Clearly, he was trying to figure out a way to recover from her brutal honesty.
“Er, well…If it helps, I’m not judging anyone here,” I piped up, though my voice did sound a little hesitant. Hopefully a little sarcasm might diffuse the tension. “You don’t seem to be the type to unleash a world-eating monstrosity just for the fun of it, and hey, accidents happen, right?”
Jace lifted his head with a look of complete surprise, which quickly melted into relief. “Well, I’m…glad you believe her,” he said, sighing slowly. “I thought for sure that would scare you off.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “Nope. It’ll take more than that.”
Jace smiled right back, and I could see the gratitude in his eyes. “That’s good to hear.” He took a full minute to pause and collect his thoughts, glancing up to the woman when he did so and returning her look of dislike. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he must have decided that I was a far more agreeable conversation partner, because he almost instantly turned back to me. “As far as the scroll goes, we still don’t know who planted it for us or why – All we know, and all that really matters at this point, is that we need to contain the Eldrazi.”
His gaze softened. “We have enough death on our hands already.”
Feeling my heart twist at the pain in his voice, I gave him the kindest smile I could manage. “I don’t know what use I can be, but I promise that I’ll do whatever I can. I mean it. Even if I have to leave my village. If it’s for the greater good, then I---”
“Oh, you’re an elf!”
Both Jace and I turned to look at the woman, who was inexplicably grinning down at me. The rust-colored tunic that poked out from beneath her armor fluttered around her like a skirt when she knelt, meeting my bemused gaze at eye level.
“Yes,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. “See the ears?”
“Ranewen, this is another of my unsavory allies, Chandra Nalaar.” Jace raised an eyebrow when she whipped her head around at the insult and glared daggers at him. He didn’t seem fazed in the least. “She’s a pyromancer, in case you couldn’t tell by her entrance.”
Chandra, having apparently just decided to ignore Jace, turned back to me and flashed a genuine smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Ranewen. I was hoping we would get another girl in the group at some point.” Her smile widened into a grin, and she tilted her head to the side. “I didn’t expect another elf, though! Boy, this plane sure is picky.”
My eyes widened. “Another elf? From here? What’s their name?”
“Nissa Revane,” Jace answered. “She’s from Bala Ged, I believe.”
From behind Jace , Sorin snorted derisively and muttered something under his breath.
For a moment I racked my brain for any recollection of the name Nissa, but came up empty-handed. “No, I don’t know the name. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize!” Chandra said, standing up straight and smoothing her tunic. It didn’t do much, but she looked pleased anyway. “And as far as being useful goes, I can personally guarantee that won’t be a problem. We can’t even stand up to a single one of the Eldrazi in a fight, let alone all three! Last time, it took, what…” She paused for a moment, lifting a finger to her lips as she thought. “an immortal spirit dragon, Sorin, and some powerful rock mage to get them all locked up, and the seal was still broken.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered, feeling the first twinges of anxiety pull at my stomach.
Jace scowled at Chandra, then turned to face me with a calm smile. He laid a hand on my arm as he looked directly into my eyes, and I could see that he was trying as hard as he could to look reassuring. “Look,” he said, his voice quiet, “we’re not facing them today, and we’re not doing it alone. All I’m asking you right now is to come back to Ravnica and have a drink with me. I promise, you can ask me anything you want then, and I won’t pressure you into helping us if you truly feel like you can’t handle it once all is said and done.”
Chandra let out an odd little sound, between a giggle and a scoff. “Very smooth, Jace. Barely met the girl and you’re already trying to woo her?”
I blushed almost reflexively, and fortunately Jace missed it by turning to her with an irritated expression. “Would you all stop that?” he snapped. “I’m sure you’re making her feel so welcome.”
Chandra shrugged, and looked down at me with a smug smile. She definitely noticed my blush. Great. “You should tell her about your last one. I’m sure she’d be a welcome change from Li---”
“Chandra.” Jace’s voice had suddenly dropped an octave.
“What? All I was saying is that she---”
“Chandra.” There was no mistaking the threat in his tone this time, and it was so strong that it took me by surprise. I could see as he glared at the pyromancer that his eyes were starting to glow blue, and they crackled with energy.
Remind me not to get on his bad side.
“Sheesh, alright, alright. Touch-y.” Chandra threw her hands up and turned away from the both of us.
There was a moment of awkward silence before Jace finally sighed and looked back at me. His eyes had, thankfully, stopped glowing. “Well, no matter what she says, the offer still stands.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, and he suddenly sounded extremely tired. It made me wonder who this ‘last one’ was. What exactly had she done to make the mere mention of her name such a trigger?
“Of course,” was all I could think to say.
“Back to Ravnica, then?” Chandra said from beside us, though she still didn’t turn around. “I’ll see you there, blue boy.”
There was a sudden ripple of heat, and her hair lit up on fire like a torch. I blinked, startled, but before I had a chance to open my mouth and ask what was going on, another flaming curtain had formed in front of Chanda with a snap. Without another word, she stepped into it and vanished.
“I’m going too,” Sorin grumbled suddenly. “I need a drink.” He pushed himself to his feet and, not bothering to so much as look in our direction, pulled at the air with curved fingertips to rip open a distortion of his own. Its edges flowed, tumbled, and then flowed again, giving the impression of a semi-viscous liquid – something like blood, perhaps.
He, too, stepped into the distortion and vanished.
With the both of them gone, Jace sighed heavily and leaned back against the rock wall behind him. I wanted to say something to him, to cheer him up, but I had only known the man for a few hours at this point – I didn’t know what I could say. So instead I just smiled at him, hoping that it would do a least a little good. Or something at all.
A minute passed, and still Jace didn’t speak. I decided to just give it a shot. “So, uh…she’s certainly something.”
Jace snorted. “No kidding. I’ve spent the past year and a half chasing her around, trying to get back that damn scroll she stole. I’ve done plenty of insane things – joining and then taking over a multiplanar corporation; chasing its previous owner, who’s sworn revenge against me, across the Blind Eternities and back; getting myself caught by a sadistic elder dragon – but none of them have frustrated me as much as she has. And then at the end of the whole chase, I found myself here. In Zendikar. At the Eye of Ugin. At the lock that I didn’t know existed, yet still somehow managed to open.”
“You mean the lock on the Eldrazi?” I asked, resting my chin in my hands and my hands on my knees. If Jace needed to get this rant out, then by all means, I was going to let him.
He nodded. “A mad planeswalker had been there waiting for us, and he attacked us both in the Eye. Chandra used this invisible fire, which turned out to be a spell that replicated the breath of the spirit dragon, Ugin – one of the three who made the Eye and sealed the Eldrazi in the first place – and that spell, along with the presence of three planeswalker sparks, triggered the release of the seal. And there you have it.” He sighed again, deeply. “She saved our lives only to endanger the entire multiverse.”
I shook my head sympathetically. “That sounds like quite a mess. I’m sorry you had to be a part of it.”
“So am I,” he murmured.
There was another long pause, and then I finally decide to break the silence again. I cleared my throat delicately and put my hand on Jace’s arm for just a moment, until he looked up at me. “Well, as you said, I’m sure we can discuss things in more detail over a drink.” Smiling wryly, I pulled my hand away and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I’m sure we could both use one, after today.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, his breath coming out in a soft laugh. “That we could. Though to get there, you’re going to have to planeswalk.”
At the mention of that word I froze, my heart skipping a beat. Whether it was in nervousness or excitement, I couldn’t tell. “How do I do that?”
“It’s…kind of hard to describe,” he said slowly. His brow furrowed in thought. “You need to find something you draw your power from and commune with it. It takes a lot of mana, so having a deep connection is always good. Then you think of where you want to go, and just…walk. After the connection, everything else is instinctive.”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. “Well…alright. I guess I have no other choice but to try.” Rising to my feet, I stretched my arms behind my back, and let out a little groan when I felt my spine pop. That felt good. “Where are we going, though? I don’t want to end up in the middle of an ocean on accident.”
“What magic comes most easily to you?”
I answered without even thinking, though he hadn’t answered my own question. “Anything that concerns trees and plants. Sometimes I can even speak to them without using magic, though it’s easier when I do.”
Jace cocked an interested eyebrow. “Hmm. An arboromancer. Rare to see those outside Lorwyn.”
“Another plane?” I asked.
He smiled again at last, though it was a small one. “Perhaps you’ll see for yourself soon enough. But for now, come with me.”
I followed closed behind as he walked over to the nearest jaddi-tree and placed his hand on its smooth, silvery-brown bark. Where he touched, the tree seemed to distort, though by now I knew that it was the aether distorting, and not the tree itself. I had guessed as much about the physics of this from watching all three of my new acquaintances planeswalk previously.
“I’m a mind-mage, so I draw my power from within. I don’t need to commune with anything in the outside world to walk. But you do, so what I’m going to do is create a portal to the Blind Eternities right in front of this tree, which will allow you to draw green mana from it more easily than you normally can. You don’t ordinarily need to do something like this, but since it’s your first walk, I want to take a few extra precautions.”
I nodded. Just then, I remembered what Sorin had said about my spark igniting, how I had walked to a plane of green mana without even knowing I had done it.
“Just follow me through the portal, alright? When planeswalkers enter the Blind Eternities, we leave an aether trail, which differs in appearance depending on the person. Apparently mine is a bright blue mist, so I’m sure you won’t be able to miss it.”
I nodded again, unable to tear my gaze away from the swirling distortion. Am I really prepared for this?
“Here,” Jace said, his voice suddenly gentle. When I looked up at him in surprise, he took my hand in his and held it tight. “This will make it easier.”
This time, I was sure he saw my blush.
“Now focus.”
I did, with all the strength I had in me. I forced the feeling of his hand and my own embarrassment out of my mind, and directed my thoughts as hard as I could toward the tree in front of me, thinking of nothing but its bark, its branches that reached high up into the darkening sky, its leaves that wavered in the slight breeze, its roots that reached deep down into the earth and fought for dominance against the never-ceasing Roil.
The mana came to me not in a steady flow as I was used to, but in a flood. I could scarely breathe as the sensation overwhelmed me.
“Are you ready?” I could hear Jace’s voice next to me, faint against the roaring tide.
I nodded a third time, my head spinning.
And without further pretense, he stepped forward through the portal and pulled us both into the Blind Eternities.
As soon as I stepped through the portal, everything changed.
The world around me fell away – save for Jace, whom I clung to like a lifeline – and it was replaced by an incomprehensible chaos.
A sound that wasn’t sound roared, deafening, in my ears, almost in sync with the raw mana that clawed at me with a strength that I thought might rip my flesh from my bones. I could feel every color of it flowing through my body at once whenever it touched me, though I knew that I would never be able to harness even an ounce of it. Doing so would kill me instantly, I was sure.
With every surge of mana, I saw formless masses of light dance before my unseeing eyes – bolts of red, wisps of blue, halos of white. The sensation was dizzying, and became even more so when I realized that there was no solid ground beneath my feet, or solid anything besides myself and Jace.
Besides us, there was nothing but an endless blackness.
As we walked forward – if you could even call it walking – I lost track of how many seconds had passed. We could have been within that place for minutes, hours…maybe even days. Within it, I lost my sense for judging time. It was strange and frightening, and I found myself clinging to Jace’s hand as if it held the answers to everything that had ever existed. He didn’t stop or look back at me, but after a time I felt a gentle, almost reassuring squeeze in return.
And then, after even more time, we arrived.
I could feel the pull of unfamiliar mana from someplace a little ahead of us, but it felt distant, faint – as if it were hidden within a thick fog. The difference between that mana and the mana that buffeted me even now, threatening to knock me from my feet, was that the mana ahead felt tangible. Real. It felt like something I could channel and control.
As I watched, Jace took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and gazed into the blackness.
The aether parted before us almost instantaneously, and he pulled us forward into the hole.
It took me a moment before I realized that we were no longer in the Blind Eternities, but that instead we were standing in the middle of a dirty, crowded tavern. Every single patron in the place – and the vast majority of them looked like unfriendly thugs – was staring at us, silent as death. I stiffened under the weight of their gazes. A cold shiver of dread crawled its way up my spine. Great – Way to pick a good place for us to end up, Jace.
But when I turned to him, I was surprised to see that he didn’t look concerned in the least. In fact, he nodded calmly to a few of the tables, and as soon as he did, quiet chatter resumed and everyone went back to their own business. It was like it had been some sort of predetermined signal.
My jaw went slack in amazement.
“You can relax, Ranewen,” he said, releasing my hand and stepping off to the side of the room, out of the aisle of chairs. “I own this place. It’s a front for that multiplanar corporation I was talking about – the Infinite Consortium. The back room is members only, though you don’t need to fear any of these fine gentlemen here. They’re what I like to call the frontline of my security.” I stepped over next to him, and he leaned close so that he was speaking directly into my ear. “If they fail, then there’s always the magic defense system my employees and I established. But I’m confident in their skills, so I don’t think that will even be an issue.”
“Well, that’s certainly a relief to hear,” I whispered back. “I was starting to think that we were in for a fight.”
He chuckled a little, and nodded to the left with his chin. “If we were, I can guarantee you that it would be a quick one.”
When I turned, I saw two familiar faces at the bar – Sorin seated, sipping a glass of red wine, and Chandra leaning against the worn wooden planks toward the bartender to order another drink. I wondered why I had missed them before, but then decided that it was because I had been too distracted by thoughts of an imminent beating. As I looked, Jace walked over to each of them in turn and tapped them lightly on the shoulder. When they turned and saw him, and then me, they stood and walked toward a door at the back of the room. Jace then turned and nodded in my direction, and I scurried through the mess of chairs to follow.
“Planning to show the lady your private selection, eh Jace?” Sorin sneered. He took a long moment to let his gaze rove over me, looking significantly happier than when I had last seen him. I assumed it had something to do with the drink he was still holding. It certainly looked enough like wine, but the way it smelled even from here, tangy and metallic…I stepped back a foot.
Jace ignored him. “This door is enchanted so that whenever I, or someone I’ve enchanted it to react to, steps through it, they’ll end up in our headquarters at the edge of the Rubblefield. It’ll just take me a second to modify that enchantment so you can pass through, so hold on …” He closed his eyes and pressed his hand to the doorknob, and blue energy began swirling around his fingertips.
“I hope this isn’t a secret plan you three have contrived to test my strength with another battle,” I said, laughing weakly. With the way Sorin had looked at me, though, I was only half kidding. “I’m not sure I can handle one more of those just yet.”
A moment later Jace finished his work, and he drew back and straightened. The blue glow around him disappeared. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who attacked you, if you remember correctly.” He let out a quiet laugh, and when he turned to me, he stopped to shoot an accusatory look at Sorin. “You’d be a bloodsucker right now if not for my help.”
The vampire simply shrugged.
I smiled teasingly at Jace, hoping that I could coax more than just that little laugh out of him. For whatever reason, I felt personally responsible for bringing him out of the funk that Chandra’s mention of his ex – or whoever it was – had sunk him into. “Which I am, of course, very grateful for. I’m not sure I would like the taste of blood.”
Jace’s return smile was hesitant. He didn’t say anything more, though – just turned, opened the door, and walked through, beckoning with a hand for me to follow. Chandra went first, then Sorin. When it was my turn to cross the threshold, I felt a tiny tingling sensation run along my shoulders and arms to my fingertips, and the air around me buzzed. It was…odd, to say the least.
Though not nearly as odd as being in the Blind Eternities.
Once I was through the doorway, the tingling and buzzing stopped, and I found myself at the foot of a large spiral staircase. There was only one way to go – up – and so I went, following the sound of boots on wood as my companions walked ahead of me.
When I reached the top, I gasped aloud at what I saw.
I had been to the human settlements on Zendikar once or twice before, but I had never seen anything there as fine as this place.
The room we were in had a high, slanted ceiling topped with crossbeams, and on every side of us where walls should have been, there were only windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. Outside of those windows loomed spires taller than any tree I had ever seen, and of every color – though the vast field that stretched out before the buildings was mostly filled with crumbling grey, white, and black stone, save for the occasional squat shed to one side or another. When I tore my gaze from the vista and back to the room around me, I noticed the polished wood floors leading to another spiral staircase in the back. Atop those floors stood many chairs and tables and couches, their metal frames twisting into artistic designs that I had a sudden itch to examine more closely. To one side stood a large marble countertop, behind which were shelves upon shelves of what appeared to be liquor bottles. A beautiful golem, made entirely out of translucent crystal, stood in the bartender’s place behind the counter, polishing an ornate wine glass with a rag.
Jace and Chandra immediately went over to the bar and placed their orders – Jace hadn’t yet gotten anything, after all, and Chandra had been interrupted mid-order before – and then came back to sit on a few of the couches that were arranged in a circle. Jace held a glass of what looked like expensive, sparkling burgundy wine, and Chandra immediately started drinking from a heavy mug of…something. I could smell its pungent odor, even from here. Sorin, for his part, remained standing the entire time.
Not knowing what to do, I took a few steps toward the couches and remained standing as well.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured appreciatively after a minute. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Jace noticed my awe as I returned to staring out the windows, and he smiled. “Welcome to Ravnica, the city of guilds, and my home for the moment.” He paused to take a sip from his glass, and then gestured with a wave of his hand toward the bar. “If you’re going to get anything, I would suggest the Selesnya white. Very good.”
I looked back and forth from him to the bartender for a moment, and then let out a tiny embarrassed laugh. “I’m afraid to say that I haven’t had a drink in a long time, much less a proper one.” My arms came up to fold over my chest. “My tribe had to make do with whatever we had. Wine was saved only for special occasions, like births and weddings.”
“It’s true,” Sorin chimed in suddenly as he paced past to walk behind Jace’s couch. “No place to grow or ferment good wine. Probably why the vampires there are so brutish.”
Jace’s brow raised briefly. “Well, at least you can tell who the vampires are here. Moroii don’t look even vaguely human.”
“I suppose I should call myself fortunate to have never seen one before,” I said, glancing at Sorin with a small smile. “If they all employ the same tactics as you, then they might just have worn me down after awhile.”
Sorin scoffed. “Who, the Moroii?”
“No, I meant the---”
“Those brutes just chase you down on the wing and drain the youth out of you with a touch! I’m insulted that anyone would lump my kind together with them.”
I sighed, realizing that Sorin probably wouldn’t buy it if I tried to correct his error. Guess I just have to roll with it. “Well then, forgive me for my presumption.”
Chandra paused from her enthusiastic drinking for a moment to let out a snort and roll her eyes at Sorin. Pointedly. “Yeah, because seducing young, drunk women and then bleeding them as soon as you finish is so much more refined.”
He just gave a leisurely shrug, his lips curled into a smile.
“I must admit, Sorin,” I said slowly, allowing myself a laugh that came out more nervous than I had anticipated, “you do scare me…just a little. So I’m going to try to avoid drawing your ire from here on out. Let me know when I’m starting to head down that path, alright?”
Chandra, clearly missing the note of sarcasm in my voice – or only hearing my nervous laughter – set her drink down and shot to her feet, her hair bursting into flame just like it had done before she planeswalked. She rushed over to me, seized me by the shoulders, and hauled me over to sit down next to her on the couch. “Don’t be so timid, girl!” she exclaimed. She picked up her mug of brew and set it down firmly in my lap, though the heat from her fire as she passed it to me caught it ablaze. She didn’t seem to notice, though. “He’ll just push you around. Here, drink, relax. I’m not going to let him eat you.” She grinned, and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in my ear. “Besides, he’s not that scary. Just ask Jace about his last girlfriend – Now she was creepy.”
Across from us, Jace’s grip tightened noticeably on his wine glass.
Hurrying to change the subject before he could get a chance to brood any longer, I looked down at the flaming drink between my knees, and then back up at Chandra. “Er…Maybe you can, Chandra, but I’m not so sure I can drink fire.” At this, I couldn’t help but let out a little giggle.
“Oh!” For the first time, she seemed to notice the roaring blaze that was threatening to ignite my leggings, and reached out a hand to cover the mug and smother the flames within. When they died, she combed her fingers through her hair to quench those flames as well. “Sorry.” She laughed. “I do that when I’m excited sometimes. Or angry.”
“She means that she has no control over her power whatsoever,” Jace said with a smirk.
Chandra’s hair roared to life again. “Watch your tongue, Jace, before I burn it out!” I winced and drew back from her a little bit when flames began to shoot from her fingertips.
He just chuckled and took another sip of wine.
Desperate to diffuse the growing tension, I picked up the mug Chandra had given me and swirled the thick, brownish liquid inside, trying not to cringe as its acrid smell burned my nostrils. “I may as well get acquainted with the different types of drinks here, if I’m going to be staying awhile.” It took everything I had not to choke on my own words. “What do you call this?”
Jace cocked an eyebrow, and a faint smile turned up the corners of his lips. “That is a Golgari whiskey. Very potent.”
My heart lifted at the smile, and I flashed him one back. “Meaning that this might not be the best choice for my first real drink?”
Chandra scoffed and clapped a hand on my shoulder. She had doused her hair again, thankfully. “Nonsense! Be a woman!”
For a moment I seriously contemplated whether or not my urge to make the polite choice would kill me. Finally, though, I sighed, and took a long look down at the whiskey. “Well, I don’t want to be ungracious, so…cheers.” Bracing myself for whatever might happen, I lifted the mug to my lips and took a large swallow.
As soon as I did, however, I fell into a fit of coughing, and had to set the drink down on the end table next to me. I hadn’t braced well enough, apparently. Spirits, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!
Jace, Chandra, and Sorin all laughed at once.
When my coughing had subsided and my eyes had stopped watering, I took a deep breath and leaned into the cushions at my back. “That was…mmm.” My voice came out rather hoarse. “Let’s just say that didn’t win a place on my list of favorites.”
Jace smiled, his blue eyes glittering in amusement. It was enough to make me forget about the awful burning sensation in my throat. “Well, we do have a wide selection. Next time, just ask the golem – He knows the history of every vineyard and brewery in the city, and all the alcohol they produce. It’s why I hired him, after all.”
I coughed again, though it didn’t stop my face from breaking out into a grin. “I’ll have to do that, as soon as I’ve recovered.” For a moment I paused, and looked all around at my three companions. A thought had just occurred to me, and I knew that it would nag at the corners of my mind until I put it to voice. “I have a question first, though, if I may.”
Jace nodded as he took a drink, and Chandra leaned forward and clasped her hands over her knees. Sorin continued pacing back and forth, but his gaze had moved from the window to me. I took all of their actions as a cue to continue.
“This is all really sudden, as I’m sure you’re aware. One moment I was out hunting baloths, and the next I’m being swept away to this wondrous little place and being told that I’m going to be a great help in this war, against these creatures I’ve never seen, let alone heard of.” Hearing the note of uncertainty in my voice, everything that had happened over the past couple of hours suddenly came back to me in a rush. It felt like a stone tied to my feet, pulling me down into the murky depths of an emotion I couldn’t quite describe, let alone comprehend. “Despite the insanity of all this, I believe you. Don’t ask me why, but I do. I just…” I shook my head, slowly. “I’m baffled. I’m sure there are plenty of other planeswalkers out there, ones who are far more experienced and talented than I am. Even if you are convinced that I’ll be able to hold my own in a battle, I’m sure it’s going to take awhile for me to train myself up. So what I’m wondering is – Why me?”
There was a stretch of silence in which everyone could do nothing but stare into their drinks, and the longer it continued, the uneasier I felt. Finally, though, Sorin walked up behind me and leaned against the top of the couch, his arms draped over it to either side. His face came up close to mine as he bent forward.
“Because, m’lady, we found you.” His voice was casual, as if he were speaking of something as mundane as the weather. I shivered a little when I felt his breath on my cheek, and wondered whether or not he was trying the same trick that had sucked me in before. “It is as I said – I was maintaining a spell on Zendikar that would detect if any creature with a drop of blood became a planeswalker. And you did, so there we have it.”
Jace frowned a little at Sorin, but when he spoke his tone didn’t show any emotion. “Like I said, we planeswalkers are born in struggle. An event like the Eldrazi awakening is more likely to ignite a spark, which is what I’m guessing happened to you.”
Sorin suddenly turned to Jace and glared. “I know you did. You ask to see if I was telling the truth?”
Puzzled, I blinked and looked back and forth between the two of them. “Um…what?”
Jace shifted his gaze to me and suddenly noticed my confusion. “Oh, sorry. I was just talking to him telepathically.”
“Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable,” Sorin added, giving me a smile that was, for the first time since I had met him, free of lecherous undertones.
“Ah. No, I’m not uncomfortable. It may make me a fool, but I trust you both.” Though I did wonder what it had been that they were hesitant to say aloud.
Beside me, Chandra shrugged. “Not much of a choice for us ladies out here. Either we fight with the boys, or we wait for the Eldrazi to kill us all.”
“And I’m not too fond of the second option.” I muttered glumly. I wished that I had a glass of something to glower down at, because my mood had swiftly taken a turn for the worse.
“Awww, Ranewen, don’t let your pretty little ears droop!” Chandra must have picked up on my mood, because now she was leaning over to drape an arm around my shoulder, and she fixed me with a kind smile. “We have time. It will take them decades to erode Zendikar.”
The thought of it being eroded at all made my stomach churn, but I didn’t want Chandra’s efforts to cheer me up to go to waste. “I certainly hope so. My home means a lot to me, and I would do anything to protect it.”
Suddenly, I remembered something and sat up straight. “Oh!”
Turning to all three of my companions, I smiled apologetically. “Where are my manners? I forgot to thank you for rescuing me…well, in a way. I’m not sure I would have lasted long out there if you hadn’t found me.”
Despite my efforts, I could feel my cheeks heat up a bit when my gaze fell on Jace. “Especially you, Jace. That was quite the well-timed entrance.”
He shrugged. To my disappointment, his expression was unreadable. “Chandra would have been there and done the same had she not taken so long to follow my aether trail. We both know how Sorin gets.”
I turned to the vampire, and when I suddenly realized how close he was to my neck, I scooted closer to Chandra. My lips twisted into a scowl. “Flirtatious to innocent women?”
“More like dangerous,” Chandra muttered.
I chuckled softly when Sorin made a show of rolling his eyes. “Well, I know that by now. I’m not going to be falling for any of your tricks again, though, mark my words.”
“Consider them marked,” he said pleasantly. That oddly normal smile was still there.
I chuckled again and shook my head. "Well, anyway…” I folded my hands in my lap and turned back to Jace, who was still sitting calmly and sipping his wine. “Is there anything else you need me to know, so I’m ready to play whatever part you want me to play in all this? I don’t want to go in unarmed, after all.”
Sorin, however, was the one to speak. He strolled around in front of the couch and finally sat down in a large armchair next to Jace, then sunk deeply into it and sighed. He draped his arms luxuriantly over the upholstered sides. “My plan is to replace the team from all those years ago. I need someone capable of casting Ugin’s flames, someone with power over spirits, and a stone mage that can create a new central hedron. So far, I only have one of those.”
Chandra waved at me cheerily.
When he didn’t say anything else, I paused for a moment to think, rubbing my thumb over my chin. “Well, I can commune with some spirits – anything that’s tied to nature, like trees.” I smiled hopefully and looked up at Sorin. “You think something like that would help?”
Jace was the one to answer me, though. “Maybe, maybe not. But a fresh mind wouldn’t hurt either way, especially since the problem of finding people – much less planeswalkers – with the exact powers we need is…difficult to solve.” His eyes met mine briefly, and I could see in their depths that he was pondering something . “Any ideas you might have would be appreciated.”
I smiled and nodded, then a second later brightened when a sudden idea did, in fact, come to me. “Could I learn how to extend my powers to spirits beyond those in nature, you think?” I was almost surprised at how eager my voice sounded. “I know it would probably take a great deal of time and effort, but still, I’d be willing to give it a try!”
Chanda leaned forward, grinning. “She’s right, you know. Just because we all have our specialties doesn’t mean we can’t try to branch out! I could play around with stone for a bit, see what happens…”
Jace snorted. “Like you would be able to keep that up for long.”
She scowled at him darkly, and I leaned away when her fingertips began to glow again. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try.”
Sensing a heated argument on the horizon if they were left to continue, I jumped off the couch and stood in the center of the circle, spreading my arms wide. “Right, so I can try!” I gazed around the room at Jace, Chandra, and Sorin in turn, and tried as best I could to look serious. “That is, if you’ll have me. If you wish to keep searching for someone more skilled, though, then be my guest. I understand. I just…want to be of as much aid as I can, that’s all.”
Chandra laughed and patted the cushion next to her, waving me with her other hand back over to the couch. “Sit down, Ranewen – You’re not our servant!” She smiled at me almost fondly. “We’re all in this together, remember?”
I appreciated her words, but now that I had the floor, I wasn’t about to give it up. “No, I mean it. I will not see my home destroyed and my people slaughtered while I am still able to protect them, Chandra.” I shook my head vehemently. “This isn’t just about feeling compelled to return the favor to you three, you know. I have my own reasons for wanting to fight.”
Chandra’s gaze softened, and she tilted her head as she regarded me. “There you go, see? This is why we’re not going to get rid of you.” She was still smiling, but I noticed a warmth in it that hadn’t been there before. “You’ve got not just motivation, but spirit too. You’ll do just fine.”
I was taken aback at the compliment, and could feel myself beginning to blush. “Well, um…thank you.” My voice was shy, as was the little smile that I couldn’t hold back. “I certainly hope I do. After all, I…want to live long enough to try other drinks than just that foul concoction you pushed on me. I won’t go to my deathbed with only that under my belt!”
Chandra laughed heartily, sounding more cheerful than I had heard her yet. “Well, let’s see if you survive my scathing tomorrow, then!” She picked the mug up off the table where I had placed it and, to my disbelief, downed the remainder of it in one large gulp as she stood. Once she was done, she sighed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “I’m tired, though, so I’m heading up to bed. ‘Night, all!” Before anyone had the chance to respond, she turned and darted up the wooden stairs with her tunic trailing behind her.
I shook my head once she was gone, chuckling under my breath. “I have no idea how she does that. Does her fire magic burn away all the taste?”
Sorin stood and stretched his arms high above his head, When he strolled past me toward the staircase leading down, cracking his knuckles as he went, his shoulder brushed mine. He didn’t even seem to notice the touch. “All things are appreciated by the connoisseur, Ranewen. Speaking of which, though…I should go. Night falls.” As I watched, his body just vanished, and in its place a thick black mist hung in the air. Before I could blink, the mist was gone, and I was left standing in the middle of all the couches with a confused stare.
After a moment, I shook my head again. “And here I thought vampires were nocturnal.”
“They are,” Jace said from his couch. “He’s not going to sleep, he’s going to hunt.”
I could almost feel the realization dawn across my face. “Ah, that’s…interesting. Good to know.”
After another moment I decided to go sit down, and it took more than a little bit of courage to force myself to pick a seat on the couch next to Jace. When I did, I gently poked the wine glass still in his hand with a fingertip. It was nearly empty by now. “What’s this called? It looks like something that might be more suited to my tastes.”
“I hope it’s not blood,” I added quickly after a second. “I’ve had one too many vampire surprises for one day.”
Jace shook his head with a small smile. “No, it’s not, don’t worry.” He took another sip before continuing, then looked in the glass to see how much was left. Barely enough for a full swallow. “I normally drink irimberry wine, but I wanted something a little bit stronger after today. This particular brand is a sparkling liquor imported from Bant, which is a plane that used to be ruled by angels but now lies in ruin.”
My gaze softened. I hadn’t been expecting that little bit of exposition. “That’s sad.”
Jace shrugged, not taking his own gaze off the glass. “Unfortunately, the maelstrom wasn’t kind to Bant. But that’s just how things are.”
There was a long pause. After what Jace has just said, I found myself unable to stop thinking about Zendikar, and whether or not I would be back to see my home anytime soon. I had pledged my word to these people to help them in their fight against the Eldrazi, which was all well and good, but I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye to the people I loved – my friends, my shaman mentor, my cousins…not even my mother or father. Would they be worried when I didn’t come back to the village tonight? Would they come looking for me? If they did, they would never find me.
Or worse, they would think that I had been killed by the brood lineage.
My stomach felt suddenly sick, and with a shaky gasp my head fell into my hands.
When Jace noticed, he set his glass down and turned his entire body to face me. “Ranewen, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, feeling my nose rub up against my palm. “I’m worried for my home,” I murmured. My voice came out muffled through my hand, though, and I doubted he was able to understand it. “Between fighting the brood lineage earlier and hearing all of your stories about the Eldrazi…It’s really hard not to be afraid. I’ve spent my entire life among my tribe, and I care about them all deeply, so the thought of losing anyone, even just one person…”
To my surprise, I felt an arm slide around my shoulders, and when I looked up I saw Jace smiling down at me, gently. “Look around you, Ranewen. Despite the dangers, you see life here, don’t you?”
I looked all around the room and then, when I didn’t see anything except the furniture and the golem, I followed his gaze out the window. Despite the fact that the field surrounding the compound was in complete ruin, people – so tiny from here as to look like ants – still strolled back and forth across roughly hewn paths, going about their daily business.
“You’re right,” I said slowly. “But I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.”
“Would you guess that there was a war here just three years ago?”
My eyes widened. “Really?” For a moment I looked out the window again, at the towering buildings beyond the Rubblefield that stretched from one horizon to the other. “But that can’t be. The city looks so vibrant.”
“It’s true,” he said. “The guilds were fighting amongst themselves, and a full-scale war erupted when they were finally dissolved. It was chaos.
“But now, life returns.”
There was a pause, and then at last I allowed myself a smile. Before I knew what I was doing, I leaned into Jace’s arm that still held me, and breathed out in a deep sigh. “I suppose you’re right. Being so pessimistic isn’t doing anyone any favors, huh?”
He nodded, and his smile broadened into a grin. “Exactly.”
For a moment we sat there, just like that, and then at last Jace yawned and stood, pulling away from me slowly. “I think I’m going to retire for the night.” He pointed to the staircase leading up, where Chandra had gone. “There’s a guest room up the stairs and to the left that you can use. If you want to clean off all that blood, there’s a bathroom with running water a few doors down from the guest room. No one uses it, so you won’t have to worry about being bothered.”
When I looked down at myself and finally noticed how disgusting my clothes were, caked in mud and dried blood from nearly head to toe, I laughed. “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.” I reached up to run my fingers through my hair, and found that it was hardened and stuck together with the same substances. I must look lovely. “I’ve only heard of a few places on Zendikar with running water, though, so this should be an interesting experience.”
Jace chuckled. “Glad I can be the provider for you.”
When he started to head toward the stairs, I had a sudden moment of clarity and reached forward to catch his arm. “Hey, Jace?”
He turned at my touch. “Hm?”
I smiled, feeling a warmth spread through me from where my fingers touched his cloak. “Thank you again for all your help earlier. I owe you my life, you know.” I couldn’t hold back the sarcastic little quip that had just come to mind, so I let it out and laughed. “Becoming a vampire has never been a life goal of mine.”
Jace smiled too, and gazed at me with the same unreadable expression from before. “You’re welcome. I couldn’t do anything else.” There was a pause, and then he shrugged. “And as far as vampires go, we do need allies…even parasites like Sorin. They have their uses and their places in the world, just like us.”
“True enough,” I agreed.
There was a brief silence, broken after a moment by another yawn from Jace. “Well,” he said softly, “I should go. I have business to attend to in the morning.”
I nodded, and walked with him to the foot of the stairs. He continued to walk up, his hand ghosting over the metal railing, but I stopped after a few steps and just looked up at him. For whatever strange reason, I was unable to follow him so close behind. “See you then, I guess?”
He turned to glance over his shoulder for just a moment, and the look in his blue eyes when he did made something tighten in my chest, though I didn’t quite know why.
“Of course, Ranewen.”
Though I mimic your word, I'm a huge fan of the canon walkers, especially the neowalkers,too!
I really like Chandra's personality in this story. She welcomed fellow girl into her fellowship and kind to fellow girl.
Magic is usually for boys and men, but your story is from a female point of view.
That's nice!
I like your description of Blind Eternity. It makes me remember prologue of Agents of Artifice.
Keep up the good work!
From Japan with love \('-'*)
I've noticed that MTG is indeed very male-driven, which is fine - But being a woman, sometimes I feel a little left out in the fandom! That's why I decided to write this story. I know I'm not the only female player or fan out there, so I was hoping to bring a few of them out of the woodwork.
I just finished Agents of Artifice a few weeks ago, and I very much liked the way Ari Marmell described the Blind Eternities - more so than in Test of Metal or The Purifying Fire - so I made that book's description my own personal canon.
I'll be posting Chapter 6 very soon, so I encourage you (and any lurkers who like my story - Thank you, guys!) to check back in a day or two. The only thing that's stopping me from writing is the fact that I do have to go to work!
“Wakey wakey, sleepyhead!”
I groaned and pulled my pillow over my head. It was far too early for anyone to be sounding that cheerful.
But whoever it was, they weren’t about to let up.
“C’mon Ranewen, it’s time for our battle! If I could roll out of bed, then so can you!”
Finally coming to enough to recognize the voice as Chandra’s, I suddenly sat up with a start. Wait. That’s not right.
Where am I?
I blinked at the assault of light against my unprepared eyes when I looked, bleary and bewildered, around the room. The plush bed I was sitting on and the soft sheets I was tangled in weren’t mine, and the wood panels covering the walls across from me were wholly unfamiliar. This isn’t my room! This is---
Oh.
At once the fog cleared, and I remembered everything that had happened yesterday. The baloth hunting, the assault by the brood lineage, meeting and fighting Sorin, meeting Jace and Chandra, planeswalking…
Planeswalking.
I’m a planeswalker.
I marveled at the realization anew, and shook my head as my gaze fell on Chandra. She was standing in the doorway, clad in the full set of skin-tight metal armor that she had been wearing yesterday, though this time she wore greaves that reached all the way up her thigh-high boots and had a crimson tunic poking out from beneath her breastplate rather than the rust one. She was staring right back at me with a concerned expression.
“Feeling okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I wasn’t exactly fine, per se, but I was as good as I was going to get. What Chandra didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “I’m just a little dizzy.”
She smiled and plopped down on the bed next to me with a clank, and for the first time I noticed that she was holding a glass of water. When she saw my gaze, she held it out to me. “Here, I brought this for you.” I took the glass, looking a little confused, but that only made her smile widen. “I figured you wouldn’t know where Jace keeps the glassware. He hasn’t told me yet either, but I haven’t had much better to do lately than poke around.”
I laughed, though it came out more like a cough. “Why am I not surprised?”
Chandra shrugged and continued smiling. “Because he and I hate each other with a burning passion, maybe?”
“Literally.” I chuckled faintly, and then lifted the glass to take a sip. The cool water soothed my dry throat, and in a couple more seconds I had downed the rest of it in a few long drinks, not caring if it would make my stomach feel sick. When I was finished, I set it down on the little bedside table. “What’s with you two, anyway?”
Chandra snorted derisively, and I could see the gleam that entered her auburn-flecked eyes. “Besides the fact that he nearly killed me trying to get the scroll back, and then succeeded in mind-wiping me? I hate his brand of magic. Hate it. Mind-mages just piss me off. Thoughts are supposed to be private, always, so why the hell should he be able to mess around with them however he likes? It’s disgusting!” Her hair had begun to hover about her like a red halo, and it looked dangerously close to bursting into flame. I scooted backward on the bed.
“Well, you don’t seem to hate him enough to want to burn him into ashes, so that’s something!” I was hoping against hope that if I said something cheerful, it might cool her fury. …Or it might not. “If you did, then I’m sure you would have done it already.”
To my surprise, though, her hair fell back onto her shoulders, and her expression softened ever so slightly. “Yeah…” She let out a sigh, blowing a lock of those bright tresses away from her cheek where it had fallen. “As much as I hate to admit it, it’s a lot easier to work with him when I’m not thinking about the most creative way to spill his guts. And I do have to work with him now, so…” She shrugged. “I guess fighting a crazy planeswalker-turned-dragon is a pretty good bonding experience, too. I can’t deny that.”
I smiled and nudged her shoulder with mine. With the water in my system, I felt much more awake – and, strangely, in a much better mood. “Hey, you said something about a fight when you came in, didn’t you?”
Chandra’s eyes lit up like a child’s at solstice feast. “Oh, yeah! That’s right! Thanks for reminding me!” She turned to me with an excited grin, and seized me by the shoulders more firmly than I had expected. “Blue boy managed to get an arena for us to practice in, and I haven’t gotten to burn something in weeks. Please, please, Rana – Will you let me battle you, just this once?”
Rana. I hadn’t heard that nickname in awhile. “But aren’t you hungover at all from last night? That drink you had was so strong…”
Chandra scoffed. “What, the whiskey? I mean, yeah, I’m a little hungover, but getting the chance to light things on fire would be more than worth it. So come on, please?” She clasped her hands, prayer-like, in front of her face, and her bottom lip began to quiver.
I had to hold back a laugh at how ridiculous the expression looked – Though I had to admit, it was rather endearing. Probably because it was so unexpected.
“Fine, fine,” I sighed. “I’m not feeling too great, myself, though, so don’t expect anything fancy out of me.”
Chandra tilted her head a little as she regarded me, her expression suddenly gentle. “Well, you had a rough day yesterday. It’s not like I forgot.” She smiled. “Besides, all of us planeswalkers face death in some way, shape, or form to really become what we are. That generally involves getting a little singed in the process.”
As was usually the case, I couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. Or my grin. “So I should just expect fire metaphors at all times from now on?”
“Who wouldn’t use that? It was so appropriate!”
I laughed, genuinely, and extricated myself from the sheets so I could grab my hunting tunic – which I had washed in the bathroom last night before I went to sleep – and my boots. With everything I needed to change into shortly in hand, I headed over to the door. “Just give me a minute to change, and I’ll meet you downstairs in that common room we were in, alright?”
“Sure.” She stood and brushed past me through the doorway, though not rudely. When her arm touched mine, she turned to give me a teasing wink. “Don’t take too long in there, though. You don’t need to fret in front of a mirror – You’re pretty enough as is.” Before I could respond to her compliment, though, she had trotted down the spiral staircase and out of earshot. It reminded me of the way she had departed last night.
Smiling, I headed down the hall and into the blue-and-white tiled room.
For a moment I did indeed regard myself in the mirror, as Chandra had warned me not to do – my lithe elven frame hidden by the too-large nightshift I had found in my room’s closet; my white-blond hair that I so loved, which fell loose in the faintest of waves down to my breasts; my pale, pale green eyes that held a combination of excitement and uncertainty, along with a barely noticeable hint of fear. All of this I took in with a deep breath, and as I watched my chest rise and fall I noted how I looked exactly the same as I had before I had come to this place, to Ravnica. A little more scraped and bruised, perhaps, but otherwise identical.
How long, I wondered, will it be until the changes inside begin to show?
***
“Wow,” I breathed. “What is this place?”
Chandra smiled at me sidelong as we stepped through the archway and into the arena. It was more massive than I had imagined, with rows and rows of stone seats nearly five stories high on all sides, emblems of flaming fists adorning every space on the walls and above the doorways, and a shimmering, translucent white barrier serving as the vaulted ceiling. The entire place was empty save for us, and it echoed with the crunch of our boots against the dirt floor.
“Jace says that some group called the Boros Legion uses it for training,” she answered, her voice echoing eerily in the vast space as well. Once we reached the center of the floor, we stopped walking, and she turned to face me with her hands on her hips. “I’m not familiar enough with Ravnica to know what that is, but apparently he has some connections in their ranks or whatever. So when I talked to him this morning, he said we could go here.”
“I see,” I murmured, though I wasn’t looking at Chandra. My gaze was stuck on the ceiling-barrier, beyond which I could see patches of bright blue sky between the towering outlines of buildings. “I can’t tell what that is, though. I can feel white mana from it, but…”
“That? It’s a seal,” she said. “If there wasn’t one, then who’s to say some of the combat that goes on in here wouldn’t bust a hole in the wall and spread to the outside?”
“True,” I admitted with a shrug. When I finished admiring the sights around me a moment later, I turned back to Chandra and smiled. “Though I hope our fight today won’t be that intense.”
She giggled wickedly, and a second later both her hair and her upraised hands had burst into searing flame. I had to step back a foot to avoid catching the sleeves of my tunic on fire. “You really think I’m not going to go all out just because you’re a girl? Puh-lease. Prepare to get burned!”
“No!” I exclaimed, my voice indignant as I prodded the aether for a connection of green mana that I could hold onto. I found it quicker than I had expected, and in an instant I had little leafy vines twisting from my hands up to my arms as I channeled its power throughout my body. “I thought you wouldn’t go all out because I almost got killed twice yesterday!”
Chandra laughed, a surprisingly feminine sound from someone as clearly tough a warrior as she was. “Nope! Sorry Rana, but you’re about to get your ass kicked for a third time. And your blue knight isn’t going to swoop in and save you, either.” She grinned widely when she said the last bit.
I balked, and could feel storm clouds gathering around me when I inadvertently began to channel black mana as well in response to her words. “My what?”
She laughed again. Her eyes were nearly glowing with amusement now. …Or maybe that was fire. “Oh come on, I saw the way you were looking at him yesterday, all blushing and everything! I mean, I hate the guy personally, but I have to admit that it might do him some good to have a lady in his life. Maybe he’d leave his office and stop brooding for on---”
“Chandra!” I nearly shrieked. I could feel my face heating up, and it had nothing to do with my companion’s brightly burning form. “I…he…I was not looking at him in any particular way! If anything, I was just noting that he’s an attractive man, that’s all!”
“Uh huh. Suuure.” Her grin as she looked at me had turned devious, and I felt my heart sink all the way down to my stomach at the sight of it. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want Sorin to be right.”
I scowled darkly, but try as I might, I couldn’t think of a good rebuttal. Great. She caught me. “Well, what about you? You may be teasing me now, but I’m sure you have your eye on some lucky fellow too.”
The question seemed to have caught Chandra off guard, because she blinked at me and relaxed her battle-ready posture a little. Even the flames licking at her seemed to dim. “Well, I…” She opened and closed her mouth a couple times, and I felt a surge of triumph when I caught a faint blush coloring her cheeks. She seemed to regain her composure after a second, though, and with a laugh, she waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not interested in any mortal men, Rana. I don’t have time for that, anyway, what with this whole ‘saving the world’ thing we’re doing.”
I smirked at her and cocked an eyebrow. “So it’s an immortal man, huh? A fellow planeswalker, maybe?”
Her blush returned in full force, and I savored the following few moments that she spent spluttering, trying to find the right thing to say.
Finally, she just gave up. “Okay, that’s it.” Her flames leapt to life again, burning brighter than ever, and the air around her bent and wavered with their heat. “You’re gonna be crispy when I’m done with you!”
“Try me,” I shot right back. I could feel the wind of the gathering tempest behind me against my neck, and at once I realized that I felt good. Powerful.
Chandra was going down.
With a cry, I thrust my bent hands upward, like I was pulling some great root from the earth – and indeed, something did erupt from the ground. Three more of the young treefolk that I had summoned against the brood lineage burst forth from the dirt beneath my feet, still shimmering with the ghostly aura that lingered for a few moments after their emergence from the aether.
Well, that was pretty cool. Last time they just appeared!
I didn’t stop to wonder at the difference in their summoning, though – I was too busy focusing my will to direct them to attack Chandra.
Poor, overconfident Chandra.
She was just standing there, grinning, as my treefolk approached her, branch-arms swaying freely at their sides in preparation for a strike. When they got close enough, she let loose with several roaring fireballs – and gasped aloud when they just bounced off the trees’ thick bark. By that time, however, they were too close for her to do anything to protect herself. She screamed as all three of them wound up and backhanded her across the chest, and she went sailing across the battlefield to land hard in the dirt nearly ten yards away.
When she rose to her feet, slowly, I could see the blood trickling from her mouth and nose. She reached up to wipe it away with a gauntleted hand, and fixed me with a glare that held both anger and astonishment. She was breathing hard.
And, apparently, she was not going to take that blow sitting down.
Her arms flew skyward, and an instant later, a creature that I could only describe as a shrieking, fiery cloud tumbled from the aether, opening its beak-like maw wider than any archway in the arena and soaring straight toward me. My treefolk couldn’t react quickly enough to come to my defense, so I did the only thing I could do – I crouched down on my knees, folded my arms in front of my face, and braced myself.
The fire engulfed me with a roar, and it took everything I had to hold back a scream as I was consumed by the horrible pain of being burned alive. The smell of my own scorched flesh and hair reached my nostrils, and I felt violently sick.
But before I could recover for even a second, I heard a crackling whoosh as Chandra summoned another fire-cloud, and sent it hurtling toward me with a wordless cry.
Bracing myself didn’t do me much good this time, either.
As I choked, gasping for air only to find smoke and dancing, incessant flames, I felt a sudden surge of mana rush through me. The familiar sensation of swelling from within distracted me from my agony enough for me to focus for that one moment, that one desperate moment that I needed more than anything else in the world right now.
The mana answered me as silently as I had called it, and power exploded outward from every pore in my body.
Chandra screamed as she was thrown onto her back by the force of the blast, and when she and I looked up in unison – her face twisted in an expression of shock, mine in a grin of relief and triumph – the rift formed by my spell sucked in her swirling, screeching fire-clouds that were powerless to fight against its pull. A strange tearing sound rent the air as they passed into it, and then, without so much as another sound, the distortion was simply gone. Chandra lay there for a moment, staring at where it had been in stunned silence.
That’s right – She wasn’t there before to see me cast that spell!
I had been calling upon more mana to cast something else while she was distracted, but she shook her head and jumped to her feet before I could even form a connection. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Damn it!” she growled furiously. Her gaze was even more livid than her tone when she turned on me, brushing a bit of dirt off her tunic as she did so. “You can’t just do that! I’m mad now!”
Shivering with pleasure as the green mana I called from my home forests of Zendikar flowed into me, I couldn’t resist another one of my little jibes. I knew it would make her angrier than she already was, but I just felt so…good. I could handle whatever she might throw at me. “Oh dear, spare me!” My voice dripped with sarcasm, and as I had thought, her eyes narrowed dangerously when she heard it. “I’m so scared, Chandra! Please don’t hurt me!”
Her hair had been ablaze this entire time – but where it had been a bonfire before, now it was an inferno. “Too bad,” she snarled. “This is gonna sting. A lot.”
Not bothering with any of the flourishes she had used before, she simply snapped her fingers, and a gigantic, humanoid mass of flickering flame and dripping lava came into existence at her side, staring down at me with its glowing eyes. I didn’t even stop myself from letting out a scoff. Am I supposed to be intimidated by that?
Black mana from the swamps beyond my home mingled with the green mana already pulsing through me in time with my heartbeat, and another explosion, bigger than the first, shook the foundations of the arena.
Chandra was thrown back yet again, and could only watch in growing horror as my second rift swallowed her elemental like some great eldritch beast devouring its meal – in a single bite, no less.
When she stood this time, I could see that her eyes were wide and her legs were trembling. Though she was still clenching her fists in determination, and though she was still wrapped in an aura of fire that never burned her, whatever she was looking at was apparently as terrifying as her own personal hell.
With a start, I realized that her gaze was fixed squarely on me.
“Come on, Chandra,” I heard her whisper, shakily. “Adversity into advantage.”
Quick as lightning, she darted forward to land a flaming punch directly into my gut. I gasped at the unexpected melee blow, and doubled over with my hands covering my aching stomach to both mitigate my pain and swat at the bit of my tunic that had caught fire.
“I thought trees were supposed to burn!” she yelled as she pulled back from me momentarily, a note of desperation in her voice. My own treefolk stood motionless behind her, awaiting orders from me that, in my exultant distraction, had never come. “Why couldn’t my fire beat them before?”
As she wound up to throw another punch, I suddenly lifted my head to look her directly in the eyes, and she froze.
Just…froze.
I, on the other hand, smiled. My voice came out barely louder than a whisper, and in an unsettling tone that chilled me to my core.
“Looks like you’re running out of luck, Chandra.”
Power burst forth for a third time, and Chandra screamed in terror as she was suddenly caught up in the heart of it.
Her flaming gauntlets – the target that my spell had latched onto – were yanked forcefully off of her arms as she was dragged, helplessly, toward the yawning rift. Her boots scrabbled at the ground as she tried to gain some footing, tried everything she could to escape the irresistible pull of the blackness beyond the distortion in the aether – but to no avail. There was nothing she could do to break free.
For a moment, it almost looked as if she was going to be sucked in along with her vanishing equipment.
But then Chandra screamed again, and there was a fiery explosion that incinerated my trees in an instant and sent me careening through the air. I hit one of the walls of the arena behind me with a sickening crack, and my vision darkened for a long moment.
When I at last opened my eyes, pain blossomed in the back of my head, and I let out a groan.
All that was left to indicate that there had been a battle was some blackened, smoking earth where Chandra and I had been standing just before, and little bits of dirt and crumbling stone littering the battlefield and the first few rows of seats in all directions. When I saw the pyromancer’s body lying facedown, several yards away, I felt my stomach twist into knots.
“Chandra!” I called hoarsely.
I stood, fighting the pain and the dizzying explosion of color that clouded my sight, and stumbled as fast as I could over to where she lay to kneel down beside her. The fire that had wreathed her the entire battle had died down to nothingness, but her body was still hot when I reached out a shaking hand to touch her.
She groaned.
“Chandra?” I whispered hopefully. Oh spirits, I overdid it. I lost control of myself, and I could have killed her---
“Unnngh…I guess it was a good idea to recruit you. Way too strong…”
“Chandra,” I breathed, my voice thick with relief. I bent closer to her as she rolled over onto her back and looked up with me, her eyes clouded with pain and confusion. I pressed a hand to her cheek. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed by guilt.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, trying to keep my hand steady as I fumbled in the endlessness of the aether with my mind for a tether to white mana. “I went overboard without even realizing it, and I…” I shook my head, and tried to concentrate on a healing spell when I finally found the line that I was searching for and held onto it tight. “I’ve never been that powerful before. Never. I have no idea what happened. Chandra, I’m really sor---”
“Stop,” she murmured, interrupting me with a quiet laugh that took me completely by surprise. She reached up to touch my arm, and for the first time I realized how badly charred my tunic was. Parts of it were burnt away completely, leaving the exposed skin beneath a bright, raw red. “I went a little overboard on you too, so don’t sit there and berate yourself. It’s good to know the extent of your power, especially since you’re part of our group now.”
I knew I had to focus on the spell that I had finally begun to cast, but I couldn’t stop myself from protesting. “But I---”
“No buts,” she insisted, sounding stronger by the second as the mana flowed into her and healed her wounds. She sat up, though she didn’t push my hand away from her cheek. Instead, she reached out to touch it with her fingertips, and smiled. “I’ve been hurt worse, anyway. I’ll live.”
At her kind expression, I couldn’t help but smile myself. “No thanks to me, right?”
She looked almost affronted at that. “Yes, thanks to you! Look at you, Rana! You may have been pretty damn terrifying in that battle, but you’re not a bad healer either!” Indeed, the color had returned to her previously pale cheeks, and her eyes had regained their vivacity. As I finished up the spell and let my hand drop into my lap, she chuckled. “Sheesh. You’re in, a hundred and ten percent. Welcome to the team, already!”
I chuckled too, and already I could feel the guilt washing away into the aether with the remnants of my spell. What was it about these people that allowed them to calm me down like that? “Well…thank you, I guess!” I smiled warmly. “I’m glad the entrance exam is over, because I do not think I could do that again anytime soon.”
Chandra stood and held out a hand for me, which I took. Gently, she pulled me to my feet. “Nah, the only thing you need to do now is go and talk to Jace. He told me that he has a few things he wants to discuss once I was done with you. Which I am, now.”
Relieved that she hadn’t made any comments at the mention of him, I nodded. “Where can I find him? In that common room?”
She shook her head and brushed a few chips of stone out from between the chainmail that she wore beneath her breastplate. “Probably not. I would guess he’s in his office, as usual. It’s up a set of side stairs in the common room, straight down the hallway from the landing.”
I tried to picture the common room in my head, but the only set of stairs I remembered seeing was the one that led up to the bedrooms, aside from the one that led down to Jace's portal to the bar. Guess I’ll just have to look around. “Aren’t you coming?”
Chandra shook her head again, though she smiled this time. “No, sorry. I need to go to Dravhoc district first and run a few errands at the market before I come back and get myself clean.” Her smile turned into a wry grin, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Good thing you patched me up first, though, otherwise I’d look more than a bit conspicuous. Not like I already don’t, but still – Don’t want to attract too much attention.”
I laughed a little. It took me a considerable bit of effort to push back the twinge of worry that was rising in my chest again. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
Chandra’s gaze softened, and she reach out to clap me gently on the shoulder. “Rana, hush. I’m fine, I promise. Stop worrying about me and go see Jace, okay?” For a moment she held her tender smile, and then, seemingly just as unable to resist as I was powerless against my flares of sarcasm, she cocked an eyebrow and pursed her lips into a devilish smirk. “I’m sure that will cheer you up.”
I stifled a groan. I should’ve known better than to think that she was going to leave without saying something suggestive. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Chandra.”
She giggled, and turned to head out the door opposite from where we had come in. “It does now.” Once she was there, she lifted a hand to wave at me over her shoulder, though she still didn’t look back. “See ya soon, Rana!”
When she was gone, I hefted a sigh and started to make my own way back towards the entrance, calling upon the last bit of white mana I could manage for another healing spell. In the state I was in, I wasn’t sure if I would make it out of the arena – let alone back through the tunnels under the Rubblefield to the compound – without collapsing in a charred heap. As I walked and felt the warmth of the spell flow through me, I exhaled deeply through my nostrils. I was completely spent, but at least I wouldn’t be half-unconscious and nearly fried to a crisp, as Chandra had promised.
Even once the spell had taken effect and cleansed me of all my wounds and burns, it still took me the better part of an hour to navigate my way through the labyrinth of subterranean passages back to the basement of the compound, and from there another twenty minutes just to find the damn common room. When I finally reached it, I wanted nothing more than to collapse down on one of the couches and sleep. Possibly for days.
But no – I had an obligation to fulfill.
Looking around the room for the staircase that Chandra had mentioned, I suddenly spotted it in the far left corner, partially hidden behind a bookshelf that jutted a little too far out from the wall. I didn’t even bother to wonder why I hadn’t noticed it before – In the state I had been in yesterday, asking me to pay attention to every detail was like asking a baloth to sit and stay on command. Fruitless, and utterly impossible.
I climbed the spiral staircase and, slowing my pace when I reached the top, walked down the hallway at leading down from the landing until I reached a dead end and a heavy door. Curved, intricate designs, like swirling spirals of mist, were carved into its dark brown frame, and at once I was reminded of the detailed rune Jace had drawn yesterday, in his fight against Sorin.
Hesitating for a moment, I at last lifted my fist to the wood and knocked.
“Come in,” said a muffled voice.
Slowly, I pushed the door open and poked my head inside. It was heavier than I thought it would be, and moving it aside enough to squeeze my entire body through took a good ten seconds.
Beyond it, though, lay Jace’s sprawling office. Plush blue carpet lined it from wall to wall – one of which in the back was, like the common room, composed entirely of windows, and the other three of which were composed of bookshelves. Two upholstered benches sat to either side of a long, narrow table near the window-wall, a couch sat just inside the door, and two rather comfy-looking chairs sat facing his desk, which was carved with the same designs as the door and made out of the same rich brown wood. Books and papers were stacked in neat piles across its large surface, leaving plenty of room for Jace’s feet to rest atop it as he leaned back in a chair of his own. When he saw me cross the threshold, he smiled at me, and ushered me forward to one of the chairs with a brief wave of his hand.
“Ranewen. I’ve been waiting for you. Come, sit down.”
I did. The chair was even comfier than it had looked, and I couldn’t help but let out a little groan as I sank into it and felt the throbbing ache in my legs wash away.
He noticed, and chuckled. “Still tired from that fight with Chandra?”
I groaned again, and tilted my head over the back of the chair to look up at the sconces on the ceiling, which flickered with soft blue light. “Exhausted. I didn’t think I would be able to beat her, but somehow I did. It took more out of me than I thought.”
Jace’s voice took on an odd tone that I couldn’t decipher – Amusement? Curiosity? I hadn’t a clue. “I thought that first rift-spell would’ve taken all your mana like it did against Sorin. Imagine my surprise when you didn’t just stop there, but you went ahead and cast two more.”
My head shot up to look at Jace – whose equally odd expression matched his tone – and gaped at him in shock. “Wha…How do you know about that?”
He chuckled again, and I finally saw the first hint of amusement on his face as the corners of his lips turned up in a smile. “I’m a mind-mage, Ranewen, remember? Just because I was elsewhere doesn’t mean that my awareness is restricted.” He folded his hands behind his head, cocked an eyebrow at me, and then uncrossed his boots on the desk before crossing them again. “It was a good fight.”
I shook my head at him, in part to hide the fact that I wasn’t doing a very good job at keeping a straight face, and in part because I was still bewildered. I was busy praying to every spirit in existence that he hadn’t seen enough of the battle to catch Chandra’s repeated comments about him and I – because if he had, then that would just be awkward as all hells. I was awkward enough on my own without assistance.
“I’m going to have to keep my eye on you,” I murmured. Once I was sure enough that I had regained my inner composure, I looked at him and forced myself to smile. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard. “You’re too unpredictable, and I’m not really one for surprises.”
Before I knew what I was doing, I realized that I was wrapping a lock of my hair around my finger ever so slowly as I met his gaze. Damn it! Stop it, Rana!
But Jace’s reaction didn’t exactly encourage me to do that. He met my gaze head-on with a raised brow and a mischievous gleam in those too-blue eyes of his, and as he regarded me, he lifted a hand to idly stroke his chin. “Huh. Well then, I’ll remember not to send you anything without first informing you exactly what it is, and exactly when you’ll get it.” His lips curled into a grin. “And here I thought women liked surprises.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help but marvel at the feminine grace with which I batted my eyelashes. Had Sorin cast some sort of spell on me before, when he had been trying to ensnare me with his…vampire-ness? “I mean, I do sometimes, but it depends on the kind of surprise.”
His grin widened. “Duly noted. But…I’m afraid we’ll have to get back to the task at hand, because it is rather important. If you’re ready?”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” I straightened in my chair, trying as best I could to wipe away the stupidly coy smile that had begun to spread across my face.
Jace nodded. At once his expression, too, changed – In a matter of seconds, he looked utterly businesslike, and any traces of his previous mirth had vanished. He took his feet off the desk, and leaned forward over it to face me, hands clasped tightly in front of him. “So I talked to some of the Consortium spies this morning, and they’ve been able to provide me with a few leads.”
“Leads?”
He nodded again. “Leads as to where we could find other planeswalkers. Potential allies. All of them are equally viable, so I thought I’d run them by you, see what you think.”
“Me?” I was a little confused as to why he would want my opinion since we had just met, but I decided not to ask questions. “Um…sure. I’m listening. Go on.”
“Right.” Jace licked the end of his fingertip, and then began flicking through a stack of parchment at his elbow that appeared to be stuck together. After a moment, he pulled out a rather ink-stained sheet, and laid it out before him to pore over it for a minute. I leaned in to see what was written on it. With a start, I realized that it was in a language I didn’t recognize. Of course. This isn’t Zendikar. “The first option, and in truth, probably our best bet, is the plane of Mirrodin. It is rather dangerous to go to right now, but planeswalkers flock to danger like moths to a flame, so that’s why it’s the most obvious choice.”
“What’s so dangerous about it?” I asked. After yesterday, I wasn’t exactly worried about danger, but I was curious.
Jace sighed. “There’s, uh…a full-scale war going on, between the natives and the invading Phyrexians. War itself isn’t anything too out of the ordinary, but…” His brow twitched, and for a moment he hesitated. “Well…the real problem is, Phyrexians have a tendency to….vivisect people. Planeswalkers especially. They think the planeswalker spark is some organ they can harvest.”
I stared at him in abject horror. “Are you kidding me?”
Jace’s gaze softened in sympathy with my emotion. “No, I’m not. They can prolong the experience for an extended period of time, though no one knows how. Believe me, I wouldn’t like getting cut into and studied for years on end just as much as you wouldn’t.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone would,” I murmured. After a moment of staring down at my hands on my lap, I looked back up at Jace, who was just sitting and waiting patiently for me to say something. “Is there any way we could just…avoid those Phyrexian guys?”
He tilted his head as he looked at me. “Avoid them entirely? No. Avoid getting caught? Yes, we can do that. It’s going to involve fighting either way, though. The Phyrexians are like the Eldrazi in the fact that they have the ability to travel across the Blind Eternities, so there’s no saying that they won’t come here when they’re finished with Mirrodin.”
Great. More world-walking bad guys. I pursed my lips in thought. “But you did say that Mirrodin was our best bet, right?”
“I did. There’s rumors of at least two planeswalkers there, maybe more.”
I nodded. So Mirrodin, then. “Okay, well, could I hear the other options before making a final decision?”
Jace suddenly smiled, and a flicker of appreciation passed through his eyes as he looked at me. It caught me off guard, and quickly, I bent down under the pretense of retying a loose lace on my boot in order to keep him from seeing the color spread to my cheeks. Damn it, why does this keep happening?
“Of course,” he said. After a moment I was able to sit up straight again, and when I did I saw that his expression had returned to the calm, businesslike one from before.
“First, there is someone here on Ravnica, in the undercity, who seems to be trying to revive the Cult of Rakdos – a bunch of demon worshippers known for torture and human sacrifice. His own followers worship him as a god, which makes me think that some sort of mind-altering planeswalker magic is at work, or maybe some sort of domination. From what I can gather, his name is Alanor Fireheart.”
“Subtle,” I muttered. “Sounds like my type of guy.”
Jace’s lips twitched, in what I hoped was an attempt to hold back a smile. When he spoke, I caught a well-concealed note of humor in his voice, so I guessed myself to be right. “I know he doesn’t sound like someone we could trust, but we have to at least learn a little bit more about him, maybe find out what his goals are. The Cult of Rakdos used to be an important part of the balance among the guilds, after all – They gave people someone to fear, which then drove them into the arms of the Boros Legion for protection.” He shrugged. “Besides, if worse comes to worse, we can just get rid of him. I’m sure the last thing this city needs is some overpowered fanatic running around killing people.”
Though murder wasn’t exactly something I felt comfortable with, I had to concede that Jace had a point. Slowly, I nodded. “You’re right. I don’t think I want to put him first on the list of priorities, though – He sounds too…volatile, for me. Or maybe that’s just the inexperience talking.” I offered a weak smile.
Jace took the bait, and smiled back, briefly, before returning his gaze to the parchment and scanning over it for his next lead. “Very well, then. We can scratch that one off for now. So let’s see…there’s a goblin invasion on the plane of Mercadia, which we also suspect is being led by a planeswalker. Does that sound interesting?”
My brow furrowed as I scrunched up my face into a disgusted scowl. “Ugh. No, not really. Goblins were always scurrying around our forests, trying to ambush people passing through.” I folded my arms over my chest, feeling my frown deepen as the memory of being attacked by one on my very first hunting expedition – and then having to chase it through the trees to recover my stolen knife – was pulled from the depths of my mind. “Awful little creatures. Maybe goblins on this other plane are different, but the ones back home…no thanks.”
Jace chuckled. “You should tell that to Chandra. She’s not too fond of them, either.”
“Maybe I will.” I shook my head. “Then we can sit together and commiserate over a bottle of wine.”
At this, Jace barked out a laugh, shortly followed by a groan as he pressed his palm to his forehead. “Oh Ranewen, don’t. That’s a horrible idea. She doesn’t hold her wine well – and believe me, you do not want to see her drunk.”
I paused for a moment – his sudden outburst had surprised me a little – but then I smiled and shrugged. “Fine then. I’ll take the wine, and she can just have that…whatever it was last night, that whiskey. I’m certainly not going to be drinking it anytime soon.”
Jace smiled at me back, warmly, and I could feel my face heating up again. “Well, we’re going to have to go to Mercadia sometime, I’m sorry to say. The plane used to be ruled by goblins, and they were overthrown a long time ago. That’s why this invasion is apparently a big deal – goblins from all over are gathering and amassing behind this mysterious would-be planeswalker of ours, hoping that they can take the plane for themselves again. Make some sort of goblin utopia.”
I just stared at him, not even bothering to hide the incredulity in my expression. “And that’s supposed to convince me to go?”
He laughed. “No, it was just supposed to give you some context. If we help them out with this revolution, and it succeeds, then we would likely have some pretty powerful help on our side.”
I shrugged, then found myself letting out a little laugh of my own. It may be important, but no way. Never. Not in a million years. “That we would, but I’m still going to put this option at the very bottom of the list. You are not going to convince me otherwise!”
Jace, too, shrugged. He cocked an eyebrow at me as he let out his breath in a sigh, and when I saw him do that, I tried – and failed – to read his expression. “If you say so. I guess you’ll be wanting to hear the last option, then?”
“You guessed right.”
“Well.” He glanced over the parchment one last time, and then gently set it to the side, beneath a stack of very old-looking books that were bound in leather and smelled of ancient dust, even from here. He picked up a quill pen in its place, and began idly twirling it between his fingers. “The last lead I was able to get concerns a rather strange individual, who I’m almost certain is a planeswalker due to the fact that he’s been seen here, on Lorwyn, and on Naya. He calls himself the General of Death, and apparently he’s been going around gathering all kinds of…specimens. Native creatures that don’t have enough of a presence of mind to realize they’re being kidnapped.”
I frowned. “That’s…also extremely unsubtle. What does he look like?”
Jace shrugged. He was still twirling his pen, and I noted with a hint of surprise that he hadn’t dropped it even once. Either this was a practiced habit, or he was very deft with his fingers. “No one knows what he actually looks like, since he’s always wearing a suit of heavy black armor. Could be either dwarf or human. I’m guessing dwarf, but that’s just a hunch.”
“Your guess is as good as anyone’s,” I murmured. I leaned forward to rest my elbow on his desk, and then placed my chin in my hands as I thought. “I’m assuming that’s all you’ve been able to find out about this guy?”
He nodded. “Right. He was last seen in Lorwyn, so if we wanted to follow up on the lead, we could go there and see if any of the locals have heard of him. I’m sure someone must have, with an outfit that conspicuous.”
There was a pause, and then Jace finally set down the pen and lifted his head to look directly in my eyes. I could see the hesitancy in his gaze. “There is one other lead…though I can tell you right now that I don’t think any good will come out of it.”
“What is it?” I asked. I winced when my voice came out sounding a little more curious than it should have.
Jace huffed, then began to rub one of his temples with his fingertips. “You…remember Chandra saying that there was another elf planeswalker from Zendikar? Nissa Revane? Well, I was thinking that we could try and find her, ask her to help us out, but…”
“But what?”
“But…she was the one who destroyed the central hedron, which was the last thing holding the Eldrazi back besides the lock we broke. She did it on purpose. She thought that they would leave Zendikar the second they were free, and spare the plane entirely, but…she was wrong.”
Abruptly, and quite unexpectedly, I felt a hot mixture of anger and hatred swell up inside of me. It burned my chest from within like lava. “So, what…you’re saying that someone from my own homeworld, of my own race, no less, is the one responsible for dooming everything to destruction?”
For once, it seemed like Jace was the one who wasn’t able to read my expression. He drew back in his chair a little bit, and fixed me with a look that seemed at once sympathetic and wary. “In a roundabout way, yes.”
I clenched my hands over the arms of the chair. It took a few long, deep breaths to slow my heartbeat from its rapidfire pace, and to cool the heat that threatened to ignite my veins. So this must be what Chandra feels like when she makes herself a human torch. Finally, after a few long moments, I sighed and slumped back, limply, before fixing Jace with an expression that must have looked tired. “Besides that reason, why else would it be a bad idea to go looking for her?”
Jace caught my gaze and then looked quickly down, still pressing his fingers to the sides of his head. “Sorin was traveling with her when she broke the hedron, and he says that she was acting nearly mad right before it happened. He seems to genuinely hate her, though, so that could just be his own personal bias talking.” He shook his head, which sent his dark hair falling in front of his face like a curtain. “Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just abandoned or betrayed us when it suited her needs. From what Sorin told me, she’s very…self-absorbed.”
“I don’t want anything to do with her,” I growled instantly, surprised at my sudden certainty and at the hardness in my voice. “My vote is that we go to Mirrodin. There you have it.”
The room fell into silence for a time. I sat in my chair, arms crossed, breathing hard, and Jace sat in his, staring down at the wood of his desk with another – surprise! – unreadable expression. After a minute had passed, he finally sighed, and looked up at me. Now he was smiling, though faintly. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
For another minute he paused, and then he reached out across the desk to gingerly touch me on the arm. I flinched, startled by the unexpected contact, and couldn’t stop myself from looking directly up and into his eyes just as I began to blush. Of course.
His voice was soft when he spoke. “Ranewen, I promise that we’re going to let you fight for your people. That’s why I wanted to include you in all this. You’re part of the team now.” He leaned in further, though only a little, and allowed his smile to widen. “Like Chandra said, you’re not our servant – You’re a new set of eyes, and though it may take a while for you to adjust to things, that doesn’t mean your perspective isn’t useful.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “That is a pretty good metaphor,” I admitted.
He chuckled too, and at that moment I noticed that his hand was still lingering on my arm. Though I had a gut feeling that I should, I didn’t make any moves to brush it away. “Glad you think so. Sorin is betting against you, you know – He thinks you would have been better off had he just drained you and made you his slave. I’m trying to prove him wrong.”
“Thanks for that,” I murmured. I hadn’t intended for my voice to come out so quiet, but it did nevertheless.
Jace grinned. “You’re welcome.” Finally, he pulled away so that he could lean back in his chair, and I realized that my skin still felt warm where he had touched. I missed it instantly. “Sorin needs a good blow to his ego, anyway.”
“Glad I can be the provider for you,” I said. It took me a moment before I realized that I had just echoed his words from last night.
He smiled again, and for a moment we sat there in silence, doing nothing but regarding one another with our own curious expressions and our hands folded in front of us – and as I watched him, I found myself wondering why Sorin and Chandra both had been so fond of teasing him, of teasing us. Perhaps there was something I wasn’t seeing. That wouldn’t surprise me, given how oblivious I’d always been…
“So, would you mind accompanying me to Mirrodin tomorrow morning? I’ll do my best to make sure we stay out of trouble so that your first mission won’t be too traumatizing.”
I snapped back to reality with a start at the sound of his voice – But before I even had time to think about his question, I found myself nodding enthusiastically.
“No,” I said simply. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Chandra and Sorin were nowhere to be found the next morning.
I had been hoping to see the pyromancer one more time before planeswalking to Mirrodin with Jace – who had decided that attracting too much attention with a large party wouldn’t be wise, and that it should be just the two of us going – but unfortunately, she had absconded on another errand. Jace assured me that it was an important one, so I let go of my disappointment and focused on other, more urgent matters.
Like my first solo planeswalk, for instance.
Jace also assured me that I would be fine so long as I followed the bright blue of his aether trail – and, sure enough, he was right. It was certainly unpleasant, being buffeted by what I had coined the Mana Roil of the Blind Eternities (in honor of the dear old Roil back home), but I was able to focus my will well enough to keep myself from being ripped to shreds by it. Besides being able to see the vividness of Jace’s trail, I could feel the unique aura that it emanated – At times, however, neither of those things were quite enough. I eventually found my way again every time I stopped to reorient myself in the dizzying swirls of color, though not without feeling as if my heart were about to burst right out of my chest with its beating.
Finally, I stumbled through the open portal that Jace had left behind.
I emerged in some sort of large, metallic tunnel, with ceilings that sloped high above me at jagged angles and spires of some sort of crystalline rock that grew up from the ground. It stretched ahead of me for what must have been miles, judging by the way it fell into pitch-darkness after a distance, and everything – the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the spires – glowed pale red under what I could only guess was its own light.
For the spirits’ sakes, is there anything green outside of Zendikar?
Suddenly, that thought reminded me of something – someone – and my heart skipped a beat.
Where’s Jace?
Frantically, I spun around to search for my lost companion. I could feel my breath coming hard and fast now, as the realization hit me that I was alone on a unfamiliar world, sans guide, and with very little planeswalking experience under my belt in case I needed to make a run for it – Besides the fact, of course, that something bad could have happened to Jace. Which was the last thing I wanted.
Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to find him.
Unfortunately, he was frozen nearly solid in a large specimen of crystal spire.
One of the most enormous men I had ever seen – if you could indeed call him a man – stood leaning against that spire, an utterly blank expression on his face as he regarded me from an adjoining tunnel. He was bare-chested and dark-skinned, with thick, ash-colored spikes of metal serving as his hair and fingers, and twisting up his arms and across his abdomen to form vents that seemed to…glow, with an unearthly, fiery light. He appeared to not even notice that Jace was trapped within his armrest. Or care.
However stupid it might have been, I opened my mouth to yell out and started to rush forward to Jace’s aid – only to find my legs rooted to the ground. When I looked down to see what in the hells was going on, I saw massive, thorned vines growing out from the earth and wrapping me tightly from toe to thigh. My heart stopped.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
When I turned my head to see who had spoken, I suddenly found that I couldn’t breathe.
A veritable swarm of horribly misshapen figures – which I realized, with a start as I squinted in the dim light, were merfolk – stood behind me, each one with some sort of nasty-looking weapon drawn and at the ready. Some of the figures stood on triple-jointed legs, others had four pairs of arms running down their sides, and still others had claws that looked as long as my leg, and twice as thick.
Before I could wonder what in the name of the Roil had happened to them, another figure stepped forward from the crowd as it parted for him like water.
This mer was taller than the rest, and had no visible deformities save for a scar or two across his bare chest, which shone pale against the slick blue-green of his skin. He wore nothing but a gold loincloth, and the spear that he held in his hand was simple – made of coral, and tapering into a sharp, reddened point. He had no adornments either, save for the traditional coral headpiece that covered the front of his scalp and held back his mess of hair, long and beaded and braided in the front and black as night---
Coral headpiece. Beaded, braided hair.
Legs.
Then that means…
With an audible gasp, the realization washed over me.
“You’re from Zendikar,” I breathed. For a brief moment I forgot everything else around me – the tunnel, the metal man, Jace in his crystal prison behind me - everything besides this mer, and the weight of the implications his existence held.
Whatever he had been expecting out of me, though, it certainly wasn’t that. One of his slim eyebrows arched, and he took a step closer to me, walking all the way around so that he could meet my gaze directly.
“What are you doing here?”
“Seeking help,” I answered honestly. Despite the fact that the tip of the mer’s spear had been lifted to hover a few scant inches away from my throat, if my guess was correct, then we would surely be able to trust him. Or so I hoped. “My friend and I are planeswalkers. We’re looking for others like us who can aid us in an important fight. We don’t mean any harm.”
“So you say,” he murmured. His voice was deep, with a faintly rough edge to it that brought to mind the merfolk raiders from back home. “But how am I to know that you can be trusted? You could easily be Phyrexian in disguise.”
I swallowed. Just what are these Phyrexians? “I’m not, I promise.” As he looked me squarely in the eye, I fixed him with the most pleading expression I could manage, and prayed silently that he would see my sincerity. “He’s from Ravnica and I’m from Zendikar. I can answer anything you want to prove it, and I’m sure he can too if you just let him go.” For a second my gaze went to Jace, who had been frozen mid-crouch, one hand covering his face and the other outstretched as if in the middle of casting a spell. His eyes, which were the only things he could move, were wide and worried as they gazed toward me. I finally noticed a tiny hole in the crystal right at the level of his face – a breathing hole, it must be. I hoped it was enough. “Please, can you do that?”
The mer scoffed, and stood up straight so that we were no longer face to face. My heart sank into my stomach. “Not likely.” For a moment he fingered the ridges that ran the length of his spear, his touch as gentle as a lover’s caress, and then he turned to look at me again with an expression even more unreadable than Jace’s had ever been. I braced myself, expecting him to say something – But instead he reached out, lightning-quick, and pulled a long strand of hair from my scalp. As I winced and rubbed my head, I couldn’t help but shoot him a glare.
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “What was that for?”
But he was too busy sniffing the hair to respond. His expression was intent and thoughtful, as if he were pondering some great mystery of the cosmos.
What in the hells---?
“Ah,” he muttered after a moment. He rubbed his fingers together to dislodge the strand and send it floating to the ground. Still he didn’t turn to look at me, but a little bit of the hardness in his voice had evaporated, which I took to be a good sign. “Indeed. You were speaking the truth, about Zendikar. And I detect no traces of the Phyrexian taint, either.”
“How---”
He held up a hand to silence me. “But that means little. I have no reason to trifle myself with you or your…friend.” His gaze flicked to Jace for an instant, and then to the dark-skinned metal man still standing impassively beside him. “Come, Koth. We should make our way back to the refugee camp before the bulk of the horde arrives.”
The man – Koth – shrugged, cracked his knuckles, and stepped forward to make his way to the mer. The two of them, along with the group of mutated merfolk, began to head out the side tunnel from where they must have come – and at once I realized that if I didn’t do something, then both Jace and I would be stuck here. Which likely meant our deaths.
“Wait!” I yelled. Despite the panic that threatened to overwhelm me, I forced myself to stand up tall when the mer stopped and turned to me, wearing an expression of disinterest. “You’re fighting the Phyrexians, aren’t you? We can help!”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” He sounded almost bored.
I refused to let the tone of his voice get to me, however, and instead I focused on channeling the familiar sensation of green mana as it flowed into me and through me. As I had hoped, the bonds around my legs responded to my mental probing, and with a single thought they sloughed off and to the ground. I stepped onto them, satisfied at the crunch they made when the heel of my boot crushed a thorn underfoot.
“I am an arboromancer,” I said firmly, “and he is a mind-mage. We are not as defenseless as you may think us to be.” I clenched my fists at my side, feeling the chill of black mana envelop my entire body as I called upon it – cold, cruel power that sent goosebumps up and down my arms. I didn’t want to fight, but if that was what it took to free Jace, then I would do it. I wasn’t a coward. “I would strongly suggest that you let him go.”
At this the mer barked a laugh. There was an odd sort of gleam in his slanted eyes as he stepped forward to meet me, and it made me nervous. “You’re either very brave or very foolish, little elf, to be challenging me.” In mere seconds he had closed the whole distance and was standing right there, looming like a giant over me, leaning in so close that our noses were almost touching. I could feel the heat of his breath on my face. Suddenly, I found myself rethinking my decision. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“No,” I said simply. “Didn’t I tell you that we’re not from here?”
His eyes narrowed at my flippant tone – which I immediately decided had been a very bad choice – and his own voice lowered to a growl. “Then I would strongly suggest that you stop throwing about empty threats, before one of them gets you killed.” I felt the sudden pressure of his spear against my neck, and it drew a whimper from me that I could do nothing to hold back. “I have more important business to attend to than babysitting either of you, planeswalker or no, and I---”
“Vincenius,” came a gravelly voice from behind us, sharp with alarm. “The bastards found us.”
The mer whipped around, scanning the tunnel ahead of us with eyes that had narrowed even further into thin slits – and as I watched, they suddenly shot wide. When I followed his gaze, I had to clap a hand to my mouth to restrain my horrified cry.
If I had thought that the Eldrazi were the stuff of nightmares, then these creatures must have been the scions of madness itself.
Metal limbs twisted at sharp angles from every part of their bodies, bladed like massive knives and gleaming silver-black in the red light. Gaping maws loomed wide, with jagged teeth that looked as if they could rip a man’s head from his neck with a single bite, and they uttered wordless shrieks that shook the earth beneath me and set every nerve of my body alight with terror. They reached out toward us as they charged forward from far down the passage, all twenty or so of them, with their equally bladelike arms that bent back on themselves and then back again. I couldn’t speak. Once again, I couldn’t breathe.
“Damn them,” Vincenius hissed, taking a few steps back. His grip on his spear tightened, and after a moment he spun to look at me. His eyes were blazing with anger. “You and your friend want to prove yourselves? Fine. Here’s your chance. Fight these Phyrexians with us, and then, perhaps, we’ll talk.”
“You have to let him go first!” I nearly cried, backing up and away from the advancing monstrosities until my body hit another crystal spire.
“Koth.”
The man grunted his assent, and then thrust an arm out in the direction of Jace’s spire – which, at his unspoken command, shattered into a million pieces. Jace fell forward and onto his knees, with the shards of his prison falling about him like glimmering rain. Immediately, he began to cough and gasp for breath. I rushed to his side.
“Jace,” I whispered urgently. “Jace, are you alright?” For a moment, the Phyrexians could wait. I put one hand to his chest to keep him from toppling over entirely, and my other arm curled around his shoulders.
“I’m…fine,” he rasped. His voice was hoarse from all the coughing. I could see, too, that his body was shaking from the vehemence of his nearly hacking up a lung, and I wondered if I should cast a healing spell. “Damn that geomancer to every hell, he would have just left me here!”
“I wouldn’t have let him do that,” I assured.
For a brief second, his blue eyes lifted to mine, and I saw a flicker of something cross them too quickly for me to catch it. “No,” he said quietly, “you wouldn’t. Thank you, Ranewen.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Vincenius suddenly snapped. Jace and my heads shot up in unison to look at him, and I noted the strange mixture of anticipation and blind fury that consumed the mer’s young face, and seemed to almost hover in the air about him like an aura. “Whatever you have to discuss, it can wait. Right now, we fight.”
I nodded, and in a second I had leapt to my feet and helped to pull Jace to his own. My heart skipped a beat when I saw how much distance the Phyrexians had gained. They would be upon us in less than a minute. “What do you want us to do?”
“You come with me. Boy, you go with Koth – There’s another squadron closing in two tunnels away, and he’s taking my men and heading them off. Fight with all you have, if you want to live.”
I saw Jace’s brow twitch at the order, but he said nothing. Quickly, he turned to me and fixed me with a serious look.
“He’s right. I should have told you more about the Phyrexians before we came here, and I’m sorry I didn’t. They’re nothing to be taken lightly.” He hesitated for the span of a second, and then finally reached out to place a hand on my shoulder. Even through my tunic, I could feel its warmth. “I wasn’t expecting something like this
to happen, but I guess we have no choice now. Just…” His voice grew quiet, and suddenly soft. When I looked in his eyes again, I found that they held the same worry as before. “Don’t get yourself killed, alright?”
“I’ll try.” I forced myself to smile.
With that, Jace’s hand left me, and he said nothing more. He simply turned, nodded to Koth as he stood beneath the sloping archway marking the entrance to a side tunnel, and rushed off to join him. The remainder of the merfolk had already left, and as I watched, Jace’s cloaked figure and Koth’s muscled one, too, disappeared into the darkness.
I was alone with Vincenius, and a horde of twenty onrushing Phyrexians.
It's heart-warming to see that Rana begins to feel some support and friendship to Chandra.
Koth's power trapped Jace...It's nice.
Koth is not only one of my favorite but also one of canon 'walker.
The fact that it is canon character(not OC) to defeat canon character is felt sweet for me.
In only my personal value, I'm often bored in some fanfic (not only Magic) that uses canon characters to show how someone's OC is capable(of course,villain OC aside), make a display of OMC and OFC's affection for each other for a long time when they ignore canon characters and storyline.
I felt that your story has evaded this problem well. Great work!
From Japan with love \('-'*)
With Ranewen and Chandra, I felt that they're too much alike in their passion for life to not become friends, though they're certainly different from one another in many other ways.
You'll definitely be seeing more of Koth, and soon! I finished Quest for Karn a short while ago, so I think I have a better sense of his personality now.
And as far as OCs go, I completely agree with you. I love seeing the way people put their own spin on canon characters, so I decided to give that a large amount of focus in my own fic. I don't like to spoil things, but I'm making an exception for this - I can tell you now that, though Vincenius is the OC of someone I know in real life, he and Ranewen don't end up together. In any way. You'll see why this is as the story goes on. I'm trying not to rush any sort of romance subplot, actually (though, of course, there is one - and it's rather convoluted, too!).
Thank you for your post! I appreciate the comments a lot.
“Vincenius,” I whispered, “we can’t take them alone.”
The mer chuckled, and as I watched, his muscles seemed to…roil beneath his skin. His grip on his spear tightened.
“Can’t we?” he growled.
Before I could blink, he had launched himself straight toward the Phyrexians in one single, impossible leap. Before I could cry out in alarm, he was wholly upon one of them, standing with perfect balance atop its back as it shuddered and writhed in an attempt to shake him off.
Before I could scream, his arm bulged to the size of my entire torso, and he reached down to rip its shrieking head from its body.
As I gaped at him in a mixture of shock and horror, Vincenius tossed the head aside as carelessly as if it were a child’s toy and then leapt off of the dead Phyrexian before it crumpled to the ground. The others began to emit ear-splitting cries at the sight of their fallen companion, and they all turned their glowing red gazes to its killer. The way they suddenly began clicking their disgusting metal limbs together filled me with a sense of dread.
“No!” I gasped.
I could feel the mana still flowing through my veins, belonging there as much as every drop of my blood. As I rushed down the tunnel toward the beginning battle, I called upon it to pull a creature forth from the aether that I had only summoned twice before – a great treefolk, bigger than the trio that I had brought against Chandra and the brood lineage. It wrenched itself forth from the red ground with a crack, and before the Phyrexians could realize what was happening it had flung two of them aside with one powerful sweep of its root-arm. Their limbs fell apart from the force of the blow, and they lay against the wall, twitching and dripping some foul-smelling black substance.
“Vincenius!” I screamed suddenly. “Behind you!”
But the mer had already seen the object of my attention. The Phyrexian rearing back on all of its hind limbs, poised to launch itself atop him, received a swift spear to its exposed underbelly that sent it staggering backward into the horde. Several of its brethren toppled over upon being hit, and Vincenius leapt upon them with a savage snarl that dropped my heart all the way to my stomach. I caught a flash of hideous, serrated teeth as he tore at them, his muscles swelling to freakish proportions as he rent them apart like some sort of rabid beast.
The sight and smell of it made me sick.
Just who is he?
By the time I reached the edge of the fray, my treefolk was caught up in a struggle with several of the Phyrexians that had latched their blade-limbs into its trunk. It shook its entire body side to side, thick branches swaying and leaves rustling, but no matter how hard it tried, it couldn’t dislodge them. Feeling my stomach churn with anger at the sight, I thrust my palms forward and let out a cry.
“Take this, bastards!”
But before my spell could even take form in the aether, something heavy and hard and sharp landed atop me, forcing me to the ground beneath its weight. My face hit metal, and the breath rushed out of my lungs. When the adrenaline kicked in and gave me enough strength to roll over, I found myself staring up into the beady, unblinking eyes of a Phyrexian. Hot, black liquid dripped from a gash in its belly onto my own, and the scalding pain that flared at its touch returned my voice and set me screaming. Loudly. Its stench hit my nostrils in one giant wave, and suddenly, in the middle of feeling as if I were being boiled alive, I realized what it was.
Oil.
Struggle as I might, I couldn’t wrench myself from the Phyrexian’s grip enough to focus on casting a spell. I could only watch in terror as it lifted one of its remaining limbs, the blade of it dripping even more oil, and poised it directly above the center of my forehead.
“Get away from her!”
Before it could make the killing strike, something brown and wriggling flashed through the air in front of my face, and struck the Phyrexian full-on. The monster fell off of me with a shrieking crash, and after a few moments of flailing uselessly against whatever creature was assaulting it, it fell limp. I still couldn’t move, though. The oil felt as if it had soaked its way through my skin and mixed in with my blood to pollute me from the inside. With every beat of my heart, I felt as if I were being stabbed by a million tiny knives that came from every direction.
But I had to get up. If I continued to lie here like this, then I would die.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I forced myself to roll over and onto my knees. As I did, I finally saw just what it was that Vincenius had sent flying into the Phyrexian’s face – a giant leech. I drew back from its still-squirming form in repulsion. If there was anything I hated more than goblins, it was leeches.
There was no time to dwell on my own particularities, though. As I clambered to my feet, I saw that the Phyrexians were making their way further and further up my tree’s trunk, clawing viciously at the tiny roots that made up its face, and I could see the sap pouring from hundreds of cuts and gashes across its surface. Try as it might to pick them off, though, to send them flying into the wall and break whatever metal bones were in their bodies, it just couldn’t handle so many of them at once. My heart sank. There was nothing I could do to save it…or even to destroy the Phyrexians, at this rate.
Unless…
“Vincenius!” I yelled, sidestepping a glob of oil that came soaring through the air toward me as the mer sliced a Phyrexian into bits with arms that he had turned into blades of his own. It took everything I had not to retch at the way his skin nearly bubbled as his muscles flexed. “Move, now!”
He didn’t have time for pride. Turning to meet my gaze for the briefest of seconds, he nodded and leapt easily over the head of the Phyrexian he was dicing, rolling beneath another that lunged for him as soon as he hit the ground. When he rose, so too did it – though skewered on the ends of the razors that stretched out from his elbows.
With the coast clear, I said a silent apology to my tree for what I was about to do, and called upon my mana to latch a spell directly onto its face.
A moment later, there was a sound as if the universe itself were being torn in two, and then the entire tunnel shook with the force of my rift as it exploded into existence.
I was thrown backward and into another Phyrexian by the shockwave, and as its oiled blade sliced my side upon impact, my vision went white. I screamed and screamed, falling to the ground in utter agony, and I could feel my body twitching uncontrollably when I reached my hand up to the wound that now trickled a steady stream of blood. I might have called out Vincenius’s name, or Jace’s – so lost was I in my own torment that all awareness of the battle around me faded away, and even whether or not I was still alive.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, my senses returned.
I hadn’t died.
Perhaps only a few moments had passed, for everything was still raging around me as heatedly as ever – Vincenius, who stood directly over my prone form, was pushing the Phyrexian that I must have gotten knocked into off of the end of his spear and fixing his gaze on an armored, blade-armed humanoid that stood several yards down the tunnel from the other Phyrexians. My vision was still swimming too much for me to see whoever it was with any clarity, but I knew from the stiffness in Vincenius’s posture that their arrival didn’t bode well for us. And with my tree gone – though it had taken nearly five Phyrexians with it – I was providing no aid.
When I tried to move and felt an unimaginable pain flare through me, I gasped and sank back down onto the metal earth. I couldn’t provide any aid. Not in this state.
Above me, Vincenius flicked his wrist, and a shimmering, translucent merfolk appeared directly in front of the humanoid with a whoosh, fins trailing behind her like beautiful silk – and before it even had time to react to her appearance, she fell atop him like a tidal wave.
Even from this far away, I saw her press her lips to its neck as a lover would before sinking her teeth in and tearing out its throat in one swift, almost graceful motion.
Not just from my pain, I felt as if I might vomit.
There was a sudden screech as one of the last remaining Phyrexians came scurrying toward us, half of its limbs extended in a battle-ready position. I could hear Vincenius scoff at what I presumed to be its audacity, and he artfully twirled his spear between his fingertips before turning to meet it face-to-face.
However, what he didn’t see was the other Phyrexian circling around behind us to throw itself at his exposed back.
My breath caught in my throat. Vincenius did indeed notice this other Phyrexian, but too late – it slammed into him square in the stomach as he turned, blades flashing and blurring as it sliced him relentlessly, leaving long, oil-stained cuts in its wake.
The other Phyrexian was quick to take advantage of the distraction, and it, too, fell upon the mer in a flurry.
As he grunted in pain and effort, struggling to push the looming creatures off of him so he could have room to fight back, I felt a burst of mana suddenly, inadvertently bloom to life inside of me. It pushed away the pain that darkened my vision and sapped the last of my strength, and replaced it with power. Thick, tangible…consuming.
Black mana.
Before I could even think, I felt my body lifting off of the ground to hover a few inches in the air, and my vision darkened even further with the storm clouds that lifted my hair and tunic in their brewing tempest. Vincenius’s eyes widened ever so slightly when he saw me, though he never once took his entire attention away from his attackers.
There was a flash of blinding purple light, and then I crumpled into a heap once more as the world around me melted away.
***
“I think she’s awake.”
“Ranewen. Can you hear me?”
My only response to the voices was a groan. I couldn’t feel the unmistakable pain of the Phyrexian oil burning through my body, but my head hurt like no other. I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears.
“I can’t tell if that was a yes or not. You’re going to have to use your words.”
Jace. That’s Jace’s voice.
“Shuddup,” I slurred. I still didn’t open my eyes, but I could feel the fog evaporating away. “I feel horrible.”
Several people chuckled. From the sound of it, there must have been three of them.
“Ranewen,” came Vincenius’s voice, suddenly smooth compared to its harsh rasp from before, “I healed you. For all intents and purposes, you’re fine. We need to speak, so please, sit up.”
Sighing, I forced myself to open my eyes. I was lying on my back in a bedroll, and Jace was sitting beside me with his hands on his knees. Vincenius was sitting cross-legged beside him, a calm, almost pleasant expression on his face, and Koth was sitting in the far corner away from everyone. The roof over our heads was made of sharply slanted metal, resembling some sort of tall tent. As I blinked and looked around, Jace placed one hand on the small of my back and helped lift me into a sitting position, which I was able to hold after a few seconds of steadying myself. I blinked a few more times to clear my vision.
“Where are we?” I mumbled.
Jace gave me a sort of half-smile. “We’re in the refugee camp a couple of miles down the tunnel from where we planeswalked in. We did it. Koth and I beat our squadron of Phyrexians, and you and Vincenius beat yours. Apparently you let loose with some dark magic at the end to help finish them off.”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t remembered that before, but now the memory of the nearly unbidden spell was coming back to me. It wasn’t an unfamiliar spell, for certain – I often used it when I needed to kill a number of baloth hatchlings that were chasing me through the woods – but I couldn’t remember having the strength to call upon my mana, let alone cast it. Very strange. I decided to let the matter go for now, though. I would have time to ponder it later.
“How did your battle go?” I asked, curious. Koth was – like the last time I had seen him – almost perfectly silent and expressionless, and I suddenly wondered if he was as vicious while fighting as Vincenius had been. Maybe it was a Mirrodin thing.
But Jace’s hesitation before answering was definitely not a good sign, “Ah…we’ll talk about that later, alright? I think we should probably get to business while there’s still time.”
“Oh.” I looked around at the others, and found myself holding back a confused frown when I noticed Vincenius’s hands folded neatly in his lap and the way he was fixing me with an ever-so-patient look – What happened to that deranged killing machine from the battle? “Uh, if you say so.”
“Good,” Vincenius said, coolly. “I have a great deal of business to attend to, so I would appreciate it if we could keep things short.”
Jace nodded. I did the same.
“Koth,” he said, sweeping his arm in a grandiose gesture toward the corner of the tent where the metal man sat, “I do believe that you haven’t introduced yourself to the lady.”
“Neither have you,” Koth returned gruffly.
Vincenius’s brow arched, and the corners of his lips curled up in a small smile. “Very well.” He turned back to Jace and I and allowed the smile to widen before bowing his head just a little, a few strands of his black hair falling loose about his face. “Vincenius, mer biomancer and head doctor of the Mirran refugee army, at your service. I apologize for my behavior earlier – I tend to get rather irritable when I’m out on patrol, as Koth can attest.”
The man snorted.
Suddenly finding myself unable to quell my mounting disbelief, I let out my breath in a sigh and shook my head. “Is that…is what you did back there, in the battle…part of your powers as a biomancer?” I shuddered at the memory of his bulging muscles, and teeth, and his arms-turned-blades. I had never seen anything like it in my twenty-five years of life. “You could have taken on all those Phyrexians alone!”
Vincenius simply shrugged, and held his thin smile where it was. “I could have, yes. But I figured that allowing you and your friend – Jace, was it? – to fight with us would give you a chance to prove yourselves, as I said before. And here we all are, so I would say that things turned out rather well, wouldn’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes, but…you didn’t answer my question.”
At this, Vincenius’s smile faded. Nothing replaced it – just a blank expression. “Well…” His gaze held mine, and for a moment I thought I saw him **** an eyebrow at me. “When you live for ten thousand years, you learn to keep a few messy tricks up your sleeve. Never pretty, but they work like a charm.”
Next to me, Jace’s jaw dropped in unison with mine.
“Ten thousand years?!” he spluttered. I noted with some surprise that it was the first time I had seen him lose his composure – and if Vincenius’s revelation hadn’t been so shocking, I might have laughed. “But that means…you must have…”
Vincenius’s smile returned, and he nodded. “Yes, indeed. I was a planeswalker long before the Mending. I gave up a good deal of my power in order to help close the time rifts, but still I live.” An almost mischievous gleam grew in his eyes as he watched Jace’s own nearly pop out of his skull, and he chuckled. “Surprised, mind-mage?”
Jace could only shake his head.
Though my companion still seemed to be in a state of semi-shock, Vincenius waved a hand dismissively and turned his body back to Koth. “But enough about me. That’s a tale for another time. Koth, if you could take it from here, please?”
The man sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. From his body language – coupled with his perpetual, almost impersonal silence – I gathered that he didn’t seem to like talking very much. Now, though, he grudgingly spoke, in a gravelly rumble that sounded as ancient as a mountain. “I am Koth of the Hammer, one of the last of the Vulshok. I have sworn a vow to see Mirrodin purged of every last Phyrexian, every last drop of their glistening oil, before I draw my dying breath.” He paused for a moment, seeming to note our surprised expressions at his rather intense opening statement, and then shrugged and continued. “If you two wish for us to help you, as the boy said to Vincenius and I previously, then I have an offer for you. It will not be easy, but it is the only offer I can give.”
“And what is it?” Jace asked cautiously. From the way his eyes narrowed when he looked at Koth, I could tell that he was still holding a grudge about the whole imprisonment-in-crystal incident. I didn’t blame him. Had I been in his shoes, I would have too.
Koth hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded, though more to himself than to either Jace or I. “Two of our allies – planeswalkers themselves, no less – went to the heart of the Phyrexian empire, Ish Sah, on a scouting mission very recently. They were scheduled to return yesterday morn, and neither of them yet have.” For the first time, a flicker of emotion passed briefly across his face – and to my surprise, I recognized it as fear. It was gone an instant later, however. “Their names are Venser, and the lady Elspeth Tirel. He is an artificer, and she a knight of the plane of Bant. We need them both, back here. Alive.”
“If you can do this,” Vincenius finished, for Koth seemed to have exhausted his desire for speaking by the way he sank back against the metal of the tent, folding his arms behind his head, “then we will aid your cause however we can, so long as it doesn’t interfere with our fight against the Phyrexians here.”
A silence fell over us all as Jace stared down at his knees, buried in thought, and I stared at him in turn. This was clearly not my decision to make.
Finally, after a minute, he lifted his head and spoke.
“Fine. We accept your offer.” His voice was firm, somehow different from the businesslike tone he had taken when discussing our options with me back in his Consortium office. He paused, and for a moment his blue-eyed gaze came to meet mine. I nearly gave a start, for there was a look of determination there that I couldn’t recall having ever seen before, and it was so strong as to catch me completely off guard. “That is, unless there are any objections?”
I trusted Jace’s judgment on this matter far better than I did my own. “No objections,” I said. Though my head was racing with thoughts of what I might have to endure now, I kept my voice calm.
Vincenius smiled broadly at this. Even Koth managed a nod. Clapping his hands together in front of him, the mer stood, and walked swiftly over to the sewn-cloth entrance of the tent.
“Excellent. With us being so shorthanded as of late, I can assure you that we are very grateful for your help. Now Koth, we should leave these two alone to rest. They’ve had a long day, and we can begin preparations for the excursion in the morning.”
Without any further word, the vulshok stood, and then both him and Vincenius departed from the tent and into the darkness of whatever part of Mirrodin lay beyond.
I barely slept at all that night.
Once Vincenius and Koth had left the tent, Jace and I spoke little – It was too hot, and we were too exhausted from our respective battles. Two bedrolls had been set up for us in the small space, and so we fell to them almost immediately – though not before Jace pulled off everything save for his leggings, and I undressed down to my underclothes. I blushed and averted my eyes from him for a moment before I realized that he didn’t give a whit about modesty in this heat, and neither should I. Still though, old habits were hard to break, and I wrapped my thin sheet around me tight so that when I stood to go to the tent flaps, it hung down from me like a dress.
“Where do you suppose we are?” I mused. I poked my head out between the cloth in an attempt to answer my own question, and found myself staring into a gigantic cavern that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. The entirety of it was packed from nearly floor to ceiling with crudely built metal structures – some tents like ours, others apartment-style buildings stacked one on top of the other. A few of them were large, and built out of different types of metal than just scrap. One of them stood catty-corner from us across the narrow street, with smooth walls and carved panels on the towering front doors. I wondered vaguely who it might belong to.
“The refugee camp,” Jace finally answered, drawing up to sit beside me on his knees. This close, and in this place, the heat of his body felt like a furnace. “Vincenius said that we’re beneath some mountain range near a place called Kuldotha, which is why it’s especially hot here.”
“No kidding,” I muttered.
That comment brought a smile to his face, albeit a tired one. “He said that everyone’s been building it up bit by bit over the past several years, with whatever material they can scavenge from the tunnels and the surface, when it’s safe to go up there. It’s like a little city, almost. Vincenius even has a clinic all the way in the back.” He rested his elbows on his knees, and as I was doing, he observed the myriad of people walking through the streets, human and elven and goblin and a few other races that I had never seen before. All of them seemed in a terrible rush, even this late – though I only knew that it was, indeed, night because Jace had told me so earlier.
I shook my head. “It’s bigger than almost every human settlement I’ve seen back on Zendikar, that’s for sure.” Reaching up, I wiped away the sweat that was beginning to bead on my brow with the back of my hand.
Beside me, Jace did the same. Part of his hair stuck out at messy angles, and the rest of it was plastered to his forehead and the sides of his face. I had only seen him once or twice with his hood down, but now I realized that without it, he looked almost…boyish. Young, like me, instead of long-faced and brooding as his true 4,500-year-old age seemed to demand.
I also noticed, with some interest, that his tattoos only went down to his collarbone.
“So what do you think?” I asked after a short stretch of silence, leaning back from the tent flaps and allowing them to fall closed. Jace had stopped looking outside a few moments ago, and had turned his attention instead to the blood and Phyrexian oil that stained the clothes he had set aside. “About this search-and-rescue mission of ours?”
At that, it was his turn to shake his head. “Honestly? I’m not sure what to think. I just know we don’t really have a choice if we want their help.” He flopped back onto his bedroll with a huff, and for a long moment he stared up at the slanted ceiling, his eyes half-closed. He looked and sounded wearier than I had seen him yet. “Ish Sah is an incredibly dangerous place, and full of Phyrexians even worse than the ones we fought today, but yet…There are two other planeswalkers we could get on our side if we can manage to pull this off. That would just…” He sighed, and pressed a hand over his eyes. “That would be the biggest success, Ranewen, you have no idea!”
I scooted back onto my own bedroll, and lay down on my side so that I was facing him. My whole body ached. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to sleep. “Then why do you sound so troubled?”
Jace turned his head then to look at me, and when I saw the expression he wore I felt my breath hitch. There was something akin to pain there in his blue eyes, and…guilt. A great deal of guilt. They were almost sad as they held me in their gaze.
“Because I’m dragging you into something horribly dangerous – and on your very first mission, no less! What kind of leader does that make me, Ranewen? What kind of person?” His voice was soft, and held the same emotion as his eyes. I found myself unable to turn away. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. Do you know how much I sat here worrying, when Vincenius carried you back here covered in blood? I was terrified out of my mind that I’d gotten you in too deep.” He shook his head, slowly. “And now I’ve done even worse.”
“Don’t say that,” I murmured. I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his arm, to give him a comforting sign, but some part of me held me back. “Jace, I’m doing this of my own will. I know I don’t really have a choice either, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here.” I felt a measure of relief wash over me when he stirred and looked me in the eyes again at my words, and that encouraged me to continue. A small smile broke out across my face. “So please, stop worrying. What was that I said before…‘being so pessimistic isn’t doing anyone any favors.’ Right?”
Finally, finally, he chuckled. It was faint, and weak, but…it was still a laugh. It was something, and I held onto it tightly. “Right. I’m sorry. I think it’s just the lack of sleep talking.”
I laughed too. He was smiling at me now, and I felt significantly lighter than I had just a moment before. “Then go to bed! I’m certainly not stopping you.”
“True enough.” He pulled his sheet up to his chin, and rolled over onto the far side of his bedroll. His back was to me now, but he lifted his head briefly to flash me another small, tired smile before he lay his head against his pillow. “Goodnight, Ranewen. Thank you again, for everything today.”
“Yeah.” I was surprised to find that I could barely speak above a whisper. My heart was doing funny things in the bottom of my throat, and for the life of me, I couldn’t seem to push my voice up past it. “You’re welcome. Sleep tight, Jace.”
“You too.”
But I didn’t. Try as I might to close my eyes and drift off, I continually found myself snapping awake to one thing or another – the sound of conversation from somewhere outside our tent, the creak of expanding metal all around, a sudden wave of heat that covered me and clung to me with near desperation. And always, there was Jace’s quiet, even breathing, in time with the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as I watched him in the pale red light that came from everywhere and nowhere.
When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed of home – a dream of fire, and the acrid stench of death.
***
The entirety of the next day rushed by in a blur.
Jace was nowhere to be found when I awoke – discussing mission business with someone, I assumed – and so I was left to my own devices for a good deal of the morning, with nothing to do but explore my temporary place of residence.
Eventually, I wandered my way into Vincenius’s clinic.
The mer himself was busy organizing some supplies in a trunk by the arched front entrance – which was rather convenient, since the clinic proper was massive, and would have likely taken me hours to navigate. After a few moments of ‘good-mornings’ and ‘how-did-you-sleeps’ and other such pleasantries, I proposed to him the idea that I had been brooding on during my walk – a brief training session, to better prepare me for the dangers I would face against the Phyrexians of Ish Sah.
Vincenius was rather surprised, but he didn’t refuse.
After a quick breakfast of some strange, tough meat that tasted vaguely of copper, he took me to one of the tunnels behind the clinic which was, like the one Jace and I had arrived in, littered with crystal spires that clung to both floor and ceiling. We made our way to an open space between them, and for the next hour or so he lectured me on the nature of Phyrexians – what they looked like, what their weaknesses were, how they fought…even how their twisted mockery of a society functioned.
Nearly everything he told me was frightening, but the most so out of it all was their complete lack of mercy.
He told me that not only was the oil that they bled poison, but it was also the source of the corruption that had been slowly devouring Mirrodin from the inside out. With the memory of its burn fresh in my mind – and on my skin – it wasn’t hard to believe him.
In order to combat that corruption, he said, I would have to learn how to summon a creature that was impervious to its effects, and that could cleanse others of the taint it left behind.
Fortunately, he continued, since coming to Mirrodin he had developed just such a creature, and for just such a purpose.
It took several more hours for Vincenius to teach me how to summon that creature from afar, to call an aether-form replication of it to my side whenever I should have the need. It was a time-consuming process, and tiring – deep concentration and meditation were not on my list of specialties, regardless of the fact that the creature was one of green mana, and a treefolk, even. When I inquired as to why he had chosen its nature as he did, he simply smiled and shrugged. “Am I not allowed to miss the forests of Zendikar as much as you do?” he asked, almost knowingly. “They were never any sort of home to me, but they were a familiar sight all the same.”
In that moment, I felt an immense surge of appreciation for the mer.
Finally, once I successfully made a mental connection with this creature I had become so anxious to meet, everything happened in a rush. Out from the ground it burst, in the same fashion as had my own treefolk from yesterday’s battle, with a flourish of gnarled limbs and waving vines. It was tall, humanoid – the bark that curled to form fingers and twisted into a grimacing face was blue-green, almost like a marsh at dawn. Tiny straw-and-cloth heads – scarecrows, Vincenius called them – topped the branches on either side of its own head, and when I saw them I felt chills run the length of my spine. From the way Vincenius grinned, that had apparently been the intended effect.
“Now let’s see how you fare commanding it!” he exclaimed, crouching down low with his knees spread. It was a battle-ready posture.
I blanched. “There’s no way!” I cried. My voice sounded more than a little fearful – rightly so, I decided. “I can’t battle you, you’ll tear me to pieces!”
Vincenius shrugged, offering nothing but a small, guarded smile. “Maybe so. But good practice always leaves you with a few scrapes and bruises, doesn’t it?”
I could feel the knot growing in my stomach, but I forced myself to ignore it. “Well…yes. Though I don’t think getting your head ripped off by giant teeth counts as either of those.”
At that, Vincenius chuckled. “Just try and hit me, Ranewen. That’s all I ask.”
I shook my head. “If you say so…” Clenching my fists at my sides, I began to concentrate. I willed with all of my might for the treefolk to send a blow Vincenius’s way, to attack him with as much physical force as it could muster – and, to my immense surprise, it obeyed. I hadn’t been expecting my command to work on the first try.
What I also hadn’t been expecting was for Vincenius to not only dodge the blow, but to leap all the way over to me and send a powerful punch of his own directly into my gut.
The force of it sent me tumbling backwards, gasping and clutching my stomach. I managed to roll to my knees, but for a horrible second I thought I would vomit all over the metallic earth. I could see Vincenius approaching me again out of the corner of my eye, walking as slowly and casually as if he and I were on a pleasant afternoon stroll, and my insides tightened even further with fear. Desperately, I called out to my tree, pleading silently for it to do something, anything, to keep him from hitting me one more time.
But too late. As I saw the tree turn and begin loping across the battlefield, Vincenius slipped up behind me as easily as a fish would in water. I saw the flesh of his arm bubble and warp into a thick, flat blade, and an instant later he brought it down onto my head with a crack and a dizzying tide of pain.
“Too slow,” I heard him say.
Some battle, I thought in return, as I sank for the second time in just as many days into unconsciousness.
***
“Ranewen.”
The voice that called to me was familiar, but not enough that I could recognize it in this state.
“I can see that you are waking. When you open your eyes, I would like to have a word with you.”
So formal. Who talks like that?
…Oh. Of course.
“Koth…?” I groaned, forcing myself to sit up. I was, as I had expected, back in the tent, in my bedroll. Vincenius must have healed me again, and then brought me back here…again.
The vulshok, who was sitting calmly at the entrance to the tent, nodded. “Yes. May we speak?”
“I…” I didn’t know what else I could say to him, so I just sighed and rubbed my still-throbbing forehead. That mer bastard must have healed me just enough so that I could still feel some pain, as a reminder. “Sure. What do you need from me?”
Koth tilted his head to the side ever so slightly. “I was hoping to ask a favor of you, if I may.”
Well then, out with it! I wanted to yell, but I didn’t. “And what favor would that be?”
His mouth hardened into an even thinner line than it had been before, and his hands tightened their grip where they rested on his thighs. I found myself wondering if he had ever smiled in his life. “I wish to accompany you to Ish Sah in your companion’s place. I am here to request your permission to make this so.”
My eyes widened, and for a moment I could only stare at him, mouth hanging open as I tried to find the right words. That had certainly caught me off guard. Finally, I managed a puzzled “But…why?”
Koth shrugged. “It would be satisfying to finally strike a decisive blow against my enemies, and to do so in the name of my home. Is that not enough?”
Now there was something I couldn’t argue against. It was something I could sympathize with, even. And Mirrodin was Koth’s native plane, so perhaps he might know its byroutes better than Jace would… “Ah.” I paused, rubbing my temples in an attempt to relieve some of the ache that was making it so damn hard to think. “I’m not sure that decision is mine to make. Have you talked to Jace about it yet?”
Koth shook his head. “You know as well as I that he does not regard me fondly. I doubt he would even listen to my request, let alone heed it.”
He had a point. Practical as I had come to know Jace to be, he also seemed to be the type who held fast to grudges – especially when they had formed in a life-or-death scenario. “So…what, you want me to ask him then?”
Koth nodded. “Yes. I would be most grateful if you did so, little one.”
I wasn’t exactly pleased with the title, but my head was pounding too hard for me to complain. I sighed. “Sure. As soon as I find him, I’ll ask. I promise.”
Koth nodded again, and rose to his feet. He was so tall – or the tent so small – that his head scraped the metal ceiling when he straightened, and the sound of it made me flinch. But the vulshok seemed to have not even heard. “Evening falls,” he said, strangely soft underneath all that commanding rumble of his. “The boy shall be returning to you shortly, I imagine. You do not need to go searching for him.”
Before I even had the chance to respond, he had ducked his head and left, with the tent flaps fluttering gently in his wake.
I lay back down on my bedroll and closed my eyes. My head was spinning now, and I couldn’t make out a single shape in front of me without having to squint, so I decided to just bypass both of those problems by taking a quick little nap. Koth had said Jace would be coming back soon, so I was sure some rest wouldn’t hurt…
I couldn’t tell whether it was minutes that had passed, or hours, when I finally heard the clink of boots against metal close by, and opened my eyes to see Jace kneeling down next to me.
“So I hear Vincenius beat you pretty soundly, huh?”
I groaned and resisted the urge to throw my pillow into his grinning face, however tempting it might be. “You weren’t supposed to find out about that,” I protested, in a voice just a little too whiny for my own tastes. “Or did Vincenius parade me through the streets when he brought me back here, with music and dancers and everything?”
Jace chuckled, and shrugged his thick blue cloak off of his shoulders. He was still shirtless underneath it. “If he did, then no one told me. I was off getting information from the local scouts on how best to get to Ish Sah from here without getting sliced in half by a hundred Phyrexians.” As he spoke, I noticed the pack he had set at his feet, and the ends of rolled-up scroll that poked out from inside. “We’re going to be leaving early tomorrow morning. The scouts will lead us all the way to the surface, and then we’re on our own from there. They were telling me how it’s safest to travel alone or with just one other, to avoid detection.”
And here comes the fun part. “About that,” I cut in, wincing inwardly when he closed his mouth and then smiled down at me pleasantly, waiting. “Koth, um…he was here, just a bit ago. And he was asking me if…” Oh hells Rana, just hurry up and get it over with! “…if he could go to Ish Sah with me, instead of you. He says he wants a chance to get the Phyrexians back for all they’ve done. And to be honest, I feel sorry for him.” I finally managed to lift my head and look at Jace, and immediately I felt a rush of guilt at his expression, at the dawning mixture of anger and confusion that lit his eyes like blue fire.
“Oh, so the metalhead thinks I’m not up to the task?” he said hotly. I drew back from him a little, involuntarily, and he noticed the gesture and gave me a hurt look. “Ranewen, he’s a bipolar maniac. You didn’t see him in battle. He was so driven by his emotions that he was barely paying attention to what was going on, and got several of Vincenius’s men killed as a result. Do you really trust him, to be the only companion by your side on a dangerous mission like this? Do you?” He reached out and grabbed me by the arm, though not roughly. As he pulled me in closer to look me directly in the eye, I saw that he wasn’t angry – he was worried, almost desperately so. My heart wrenched.
“Then why don’t you go with Koth instead?” I gently removed Jace’s hand from my arm, and found it momentarily hard to breathe when his touch lingered on mine for a few seconds before he pulled away. “You’re far more experienced than I am. I’m sure I would just get in the way.”
Jace shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. I brought you here on this mission so that you could have a chance to get experience, so that you could see what kinds of things a planeswalker has to deal with by being in such a position of power.” His hand resting on his lap – the hand that had held me – twitched briefly, as if it had been about to move before he thought better of it. “I don’t want you to start feeling like you’re here just for decoration. You’re not. You’re clearly intelligent and headstrong, and you have the potential to be powerful and do great things, if you make the right choices.” His gaze had softened considerably when I met it now, and that combined with the sincerity of his compliment brought a red glow to my cheeks. Fortunately, Mirrodin’s ambient lighting did wonders in hiding it.
“So you’re saying I have to go, then,” I said, quietly.
Jace nodded. His own voice had grown quiet too. “Yes. I want you to go. I want you to see things for yourself. The multiverse is a widely different place outside of Zendikar.” He paused to draw in a deep breath, and then after a moment he let it out in an equally deep sigh. “So you have to pick. Either Koth, or me.”
Though I knew my answer, that didn’t make it any easier to put to voice. “If I have a right to fight for my homeland,” I whispered, “then so does he.”
Jace looked almost crestfallen, but his voice betrayed no emotion – only a piercing calm. “Fair enough. I wish you two luck when you leave tomorrow.” He stood, bending low to keep his head from hitting the ceiling as Koth’s had, and scooped up his cloak and pack under one arm as he did so. At first I thought he wasn’t going to look back, but then, finally, after a long moment, he did – over his shoulder, and with a hint of sadness as he held one hand on the tent flap and the other on the pocked metal beside it.
“I hope you stay safe, Ranewen,” he murmured, “or else you won’t be the only one regretting your decision.”
Then he was gone.
***
By the time our entourage of scouts left us behind as we stepped out onto the surface of Mirrodin, I was hot, sweating, and tired. And we still had several days’ journey ahead of us.
Jace hadn’t been there when we had departed. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of him returning to the tent and crawling into his bedroll beside me, but in the morning he was nowhere to be found. My heart dropped into my stomach at the memory. I knew he wasn’t happy with the decision I had made, but I hadn’t been about to back down from it just because of that. What I had said was true – Koth deserved to be able to fight for Mirrodin, just as I deserved to fight for Zendikar. It was as simple as that.
Now, as we trudged silently across the hot, windless plane, with the five suns beating down on our heads and reflecting off of the jagged metal ridges all around, I couldn’t seem to push thoughts of him from my mind. I hoped beyond hope that he wouldn’t resent me for what I’d done. His kind support was one of the only things that had pulled me through everything I had experienced so far, and I truly didn’t want to lose it…If I did, I wasn’t sure what I would do.
There was nothing for me to do now as we walked but take in the scenery, and brood. And I considered the towering, sharp-edged mountains on all sides more hazardous than picturesque, despite their lovely pinkish-red tint.
Koth spoke very little as the day wore on. He continued to remain reserved even as we set up camp for the night in a small alcove beneath the crest of a hill. I wondered as I popped a gel fruit into my mouth and he tore at a chunk of meat on the bone whether this was just the way he had always been, or if perhaps he had a lot on his mind lately. Like me. Perhaps normally he was the chatterbox of the refugee camp – though somehow, I couldn’t see that option even being a possibility.
The next day passed similarly to the first, and then the next – endless skies stretching out above, endless heat that blazed about us like a furnace, endless miles and miles and miles of walking over inhospitable terrain and, on occasion, hiding behind the nearest jagged prominence as a group of Phyrexians moved by. I never saw them – Koth was adept at detecting them before they showed their faces – but I could smell them, always. They smelled of oil, and of the cloyingly sweet, unmistakable scent of decaying flesh.
Every time they passed, I felt a harsh shiver course through me.
Nearly five days from the time that we had first set out, our surroundings began to change. The hills and mountains flattened abruptly, fading away into the earth like the bodies of dead giants. The air thickened and almost glowed, with an eerie, unsettling green haze that hung over the twisted metal tree trunks like a curtain. All around, there was the smell of dead things, and of rot.
The Mephidross, Koth called it. He said little else as Phyrexian oil began to bubble up beside the narrow walkway, and splashed onto our boots.
After another day of traveling through this filthy wasteland with nothing happening of note, the vulshok suddenly fell to his knees, and pressed both of his hands to what little earth there still was.
“By the great red sun,” he whispered, “I can feel a battle being waged.” For a moment he hesitated, as if he hardly dared to believe whatever it was he was feeling, and then he looked up at me with wide eyes. His voice was soft. “Perhaps they still yet live, little one. Perhaps Sheoldred has not had her way with them yet.”
One of my eyebrows darted up my forehead. “Sheoldred?”
Koth nodded, and rose to his feet. “Yes. One of the Phyrexian praetors. Last I heard from my scouts, she was here at Ish Sah, taking the place of its usual leader under temporary orders.”
“Wait,” I gasped as realization dawned on me, “here? You mean we’re close?”
Koth nodded again. “Yes. The reason we have not encountered many Phyrexians of late is because they all lie beneath our feet, crawling under the surface like the worms they are.” He clenched his fists at his sides, and his black eyes hardened. “What comes next will not be easy, for we need to find a way---”
Suddenly, there was a loud pop behind us, and we spun in startled unison just in time to see a figure fall, coughing and gasping, into the oily marsh.
In an instant, Koth’s vents were alight. He took a step toward the figure, looming so tall and menacing that I couldn’t help but recoil from him, and it looked as if he were about to bring all of his might crashing down in one blow before a hoarse voice stopped him dead.
“Koth,” it said, as the figure lifted his blood- and oil-covered head to look up at us both. I realized, with a start, that it was a young man, hardly older than me or – at least in appearance – Jace. He held a dented metal helmet beneath his shaking arm. “Koth, it’s me.”
The vulshok’s eyes went even wider than they had been before, this time in wonderment. “Venser?”
The figure nodded, and struggled to his feet. It didn’t occur to me to help him up until after he was already standing. “They have Elspeth,” he said breathlessly. For the first time, I noticed the gash across his lower abdomen, which was dripping blood. “I have to go back and get Vincenius. If she doesn’t get a healer soon, she’s finished. I---”
“I’m a healer,” I interrupted quietly. Feeling a sudden sense of resolve come over me, before either of the men could turn to look I stepped close to Venser, and held a hand out over his wound. For a moment I closed my eyes in concentration, and then at once I felt the mana bloom inside me, warm and white and pure and wholly familiar. At my command, it spread outward and into him to knit the torn tissue and flesh tightly together until it was new. When I finished, stepped back, and opened my eyes, the man was staring down at me with a look of awe.
“Well, that’s convenient,” he murmured.
At his tone, I couldn’t help but smile. “Ranewen of the Tajuru, at your service.” I placed my first two fingers to my forehead and then pulled them stiffly away in a salute, as I had seen Vincenius’s men do to him. It just felt like the right thing to do. “You’re Venser, then?”
He nodded, and a wry grin of his own spread across his lips. Despite the layer of filth that coated him, in that moment his handsomeness shone through. His smile was of the infectious kind. “Yeah. Sorry for not introducing myself, but given the situation I’m sure you can understand.” He wiped a hand on the ragged sleeve of his tunic in an attempt to clean it before he held it out to me. “Venser of Urborg, artificer and transport specialist, at your service.” I shook the offered hand firmly.
“If Lady Elspeth is truly in the danger you say she is, then we do not have time for this,” Koth hissed suddenly, behind us.
“Ah.” Venser shook his head then, as if clearing away a mental fog. I had done it before myself, so I recognized the gesture. “Right, right. Sorry.” His gaze instantly grew solemn as he looked into Koth’s eyes. “I managed to escape, but the Whispering One still has her. I don’t know what she’s doing, but from the sounds of it…” He winced. “That’s why I thought I’d go back and get Vincenius. He’s a healer and a fighter both, and I thought he would be our only chance at saving her.”
“Well, we don’t have time for that,” Koth said, harshly, “not even with your teleport. You have to take us there, now, before that abomination lays another corrupted finger on her!”
Venser nodded, and before I had a chance to say anything he stepped forward and wrapped an arm securely around my waist. Koth reached out to take his other hand.
“Hold on tight,” the artificer whispered, and then in a rush and a blur the Mephidross was vanishing from around us, and a sensation like being pulled apart in two different directions overwhelmed me.
When I became aware of my surroundings again, I found myself in a dank place that smelled of blood and rotten meat.
It was too dark to see anything. Beside me, I felt Venser’s arm remove itself from my waist, and then a second later a blue wisp of light sprang to life a few feet in front of our faces. It cast flickering shadows on the walls around us, which I realized with a start were made not out of any stone or metal, but of flesh – hideous pink flesh that quivered like jelly as I watched. I clasped my hand over my mouth in an effort to hold back my gag. Vincenius hadn’t warned me about this part.
Venser seemed to notice my discomfort. “Awful, isn’t it?” he whispered. When I turned to look at him, I could see that his own face was wrinkled up in an expression of disgust, though at his side Koth was as impassive as ever. “The first time I came down here, I just wanted to turn right back around and get the hells out. It gets worse, even, which is just great.”
“Much worse,” Koth added quietly.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to believe the both of them, but I knew that I would be a fool not to. I just couldn’t imagine what in all the hells I would need to prepare myself for that could be worse than the Phyrexians I had already seen, or the flesh walls pulsing around me.
What a lovely first mission that Jace had sent me on.
Cautiously, the three of us began to inch along one of the walls and into the encompassing darkness. Venser’s wisp only lit up perhaps a three foot radius all around, and so we had to stick close as we crept along into spirits knew where, following his lead. Though he said nothing, he seemed to recognize the surroundings and have an idea of where we were, as well as where we were headed. I had no choice but to trust him.
“Do you think Elspeth will be alright?” I whispered after awhile. I had been wondering why we hadn’t just teleported straight to her, though I was sure Venser had some good reason for it. Koth wasn’t protesting, after all, and that was the best sign I could look for.
There was a pause, and in the brief silence I could hear our footsteps echoing back at us from high above. So we’re in a cavern, then. “I really don’t know,” he murmured. His voice was soft, and not just from his efforts to keep quiet, as we were all doing. “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the Whispering One in person, thankfully, though I’ve…heard stories. Plenty of them. And none of them end well.”
My heart began to pound in my chest then. I could feel the nauseating wave of anxiety rush up into me all of a sudden, and it took nearly every ounce of resolve that I had simply to quell it. Fortunately, the darkness was effective at concealing my expression from my companions – As much as I felt they wouldn’t judge me for being nervous in a situation like this, I didn’t want them to get any ideas that I was a coward. I wasn’t. I was just…
…in a little over my head.
Suddenly, there was a grating screech from behind, and Koth and Venser whirled in unison as quick as lightning. My heart pounded harder.
“Negator mage!” Koth shouted, and his vents leapt to life like some great bonfire. Standing so close to him, I could feel the heat coming off from them in waves.
Venser darted in front of me. With him in the way, I couldn’t get a good look at whatever was coming for us, despite Koth’s additional illumination. “It’s got the Whispering One’s minions,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Three of them.”
“We do not have time for this!” Koth roared. I could see his vents flare even brighter when he yelled.
When I finally pushed my way forward to look over Venser’s shoulder, I let out a gasp. There was a blade-armed humanoid, similar to the one that Vincenius had taken out before but smaller, and behind him – her? It? – were three twisted figures. Long, thin necks topped with tiny heads, huge eyes, and birdlike beaks poked out from armor shaped like skulls and painted in blood, and their equally spindly limbs seemed to writhe about for no reason. All of them were charging toward us now, all the while letting out horrible shrieks that sounded like Koth’s metal hair scraping the tent, but magnified a thousandfold.
“Got any bright ideas?” Venser called over the clamor as he spread his arms. For a moment, I could swear that I saw his eyes flash blue.
“Just one,” Koth returned. He had spread his own arms as well, and now his vents were flaring brighter than I had seen them yet, and hotter. It was as if his blood had turned to lava and was now leaking out through his skin. “Take her and run. I will be right behind you.”
“What are you doing?” I cried, but I didn’t have time to hear Koth’s answer, if he had even responded. Venser’s hand had grabbed mine and he had set off across the cavern at a dead sprint, dragging me along behind him. For a moment I stumbled, but then the artificer’s hand was on my elbow, pulling me up, and we were off again. I didn’t know why we were running. I wanted to know, wanted to turn and look back, to see what Koth was doing---
And then a terrible rumbling sounded, like the moving of a mountain, and the ceiling high above our heads began to cave in.
The ground beneath us shook violently as metal came crashing to earth. More than once it threatened to either throw Venser and I or send us tumbling – but miraculously, we both managed to keep our balance, even as thick and choking dust began to swirl about us from behind. I felt hundreds of little pinpricks from the sharp bits of debris that struck my back as we fled.
“Koth!” Venser screamed suddenly, and then he was turning, facing the avalanche, and reaching out his other arm even as he continued running forward.
A metal-streaked hand reached out in turn to seize it, and then the crumbling world around us began to spin away.
A second later, we were collapsing onto the floor in a heap before another flesh wall.
It took a few long moments for us to catch our breath, and to sit up and regain our bearings. Venser was the first to rise. He leaned against the wall behind him, still panting, and brought to life another blue wisp so that we could see where we were. Nothing much different from before, save that the ceiling was directly above our heads…and not in pieces all around us.
“Well, that’s one way to get rid of them,” I muttered as I struggled to my feet. Venser held out a hand to help me up, and I took it.
Koth merely shrugged as he, too, rose. I marveled at the fact that he didn’t have a single scratch on him – or at least, not any that I could see. “It worked, did it not?”
“We’re here,” Venser interrupted then, quietly. As I had been inspecting Koth, the artificer had turned to examine the flesh wall behind him, and even in the dim blue light I could see where it was (ugh) quavering beneath his touch. The outline of a vaguely oval-shaped door had formed, and there was a faint light poking through the unbroken seam – red, like the ever-present glow back in the refugee camp.
There was no noise from the other side of the door. I had been expecting screaming, or Phyrexian shrieking, or the whirring of the terrible machines that Vincenius had said they used on their captives to change them…But no. Nothing. Nothing, save an utter, eerie, almost palpable silence.
Venser and I shared an uneasy look, and even Koth shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Nowhere to go but ahead,” Venser whispered, and his palm on the door suddenly flashed a bright blue. There was a wet sound, a disgusting sound, and then the flesh wall retracted into the ceiling, leaving the doorway open before us.
When I saw what lay beyond it, I fell to my knees in horror. Venser drew in a sharp breath as he staggered backward, and Koth gave an outraged cry.
The room, illuminated entirely by that red light, was surrounded on all sides by flesh walls and bare save for a single long table in the center – an operating table, made of gleaming silver metal. On that table lay a figure…Human. Female. Long, thick black hair, splayed all about her to drape over the sides like a mourner’s veil. It was beautiful hair. I remembered as a child that I had several times asked my mother if I could trade my sister for her hair, because it was so dark and shiny and smooth and so different from mine, from my bird’s nest that was always tangled and strewn with leaves and dirt, and that never fell the way I wanted it to no matter how hard I tried. My mother had always responded by telling me that I would come to love my own hair in time, that it made me look like my father, that it was unique and perfect just the way it was. It had taken me years to believe her.
Now as I stared at this woman with my sister’s hair, I saw that every inch of her skin was flayed open and pinned to the sheet beneath her.
I could see her muscle. In some places, I could see her bone. I could see bits of her organs, too – her heart, wet and still beating; her lungs, still rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
I bent close over my knees and retched.
“Ahhh,” came a voice – no, two voices, speaking as one. Part of it was the soft breath of a woman’s whisper, of seduction, and the other part of it was a deep and monstrous growl that I could only imagine emanating from the mouth of a hell itself. It chilled me to my core, and even in my state of shock and revulsion, I couldn’t help but lift my head to face it.
“The little cockroach has returned,” it continued, “and this time he brings guests!” There was a shadow of movement from the other side of the room, but my eyes were too blurred with tears to see clearly what it was. All I knew was that it was large. And that I was afraid. “So…will either of you have any more reason than he?”
“This is an ABOMINATION!” Koth roared in response. “I will CRUSH you where you stand, Sheoldred!”
“Koth, no---!” Venser cried, but too late. From behind me, the room was suddenly lit with the blaze of the vulshok’s vents, and a wave of heat washed over me. It burned away all the tears in my eyes, and after a moment of frenetic blinking, I realized that I could see.
Immediately, though, I wished that I couldn’t.
Standing above Elspeth, holding a wickedly sharp scalpel to her closed eye, was the head and torso of a woman, clad in silver armor over bare muscle. She had a great, black horned helmet obscuring everything from her eyes on up, and the fingernails that I could only call claws were dripping with some dark substance – blood, it must have been. Or oil. Or both. The way she was smiling at me – me! – flashing her hideously serrated teeth, sent my heart dropping all the way to my toes.
Then I saw what her torso was attached to, and it was all I could do not to scream.
A gaping, equally toothy maw that was nearly the length of the operating table balanced on four legs covered from tip to joint in blades. From the look of them, I guessed that unbent they would stretch higher than Koth, Venser, and I all standing on one another’s shoulders. The woman seemed to meld into it all seamlessly…like she belonged there, like she had been born that way. Perhaps she had been.
“Leash the vulshok,” she snarled, “before I slay this one.”
“Koth,” Venser said again. His voice was hushed, anxious. “Please.”
Reluctantly, Koth lowered his upraised arms and allowed the furious glow emanating from him to die down to embers. He refused to take his eyes from Sheoldred, though, and as he stood I could see him begin to shake. Whether it was with fury or with effort, I didn’t know.
“Now,” the monstrosity whispered, and with a feeling of the utmost dread I just knew that she was speaking to me. “You. You are neither a servant of the Father of Machines, nor one of those natives who have derided our Great Work.” She spoke the word ‘natives’ as if it were a vulgarity. “So tell me, child – Where are you from? Do not be afraid to speak the truth. This need not end in violence.”
Venser whirled to look at me, and I could see the wild desperation in his eyes. He was afraid, too. For some sick reason, that comforted me – perhaps because it made me feel just a little less alone. At least, that was what I hoped.
“I…” I managed to choke out. My voice was like rocks scraping together, rough and hoarse. “I am not from here. My home knows of no such horrors as…as this.” I tried to avoid looking at Elspeth as I spoke, but it was useless. Her violated body drew my eyes like a flame draws moths, and when I did look at her I felt a sudden swell of something inside of me that took a moment to recognize. Disbelief. Anger. Rage. Hate. Black hate, black as night, black as the void, so black that I felt like I was drowning in darkness---
Please don’t, please, please don’t touch her, don’t, no, don’t hurt her, anything but that, please, please…
“Ah, I see. So you are one of the unenlightened, then.” Sheoldred let her scalpel fall lazily to the floor with a clatter, and she took a few steps closer to me. Her blades clacked against the hot metal as she moved. I felt sick.
What are you doing? No…no! Stop it! Please! Let her go, she didn’t do anything to you, let her go!
“You are the same as those who once dwelt in our New Phyrexia. The very same…But child, you see, this is progress - This is the path of ascension!” Sheoldred’s voice rose in an almost fanatic exultation, but even louder than that I could hear my own blood pounding in my ears – incessantly. Unmercifully.
Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her, stop it, no…no, NO! STOP IT!
“We are continuing the Great Work of our beloved Father of Machines!”
Long, thick black hair, splayed all about her…
“All Will Be One!”
…and beneath it, blood, soaking into every strand.
She’s dead…she’s dead, she’s dead, you killed her, SHE’S DEAD!
“AMITA!” I screamed, and before I knew what was happening I was unleashing a torrent of magic, like water from a burst dam.
There was a shriek as Sheoldred was thrown, and instantly, even as I felt myself being pulled to my feet by a force I couldn’t see, both Koth and Venser sprang into action. Koth lurched forward, shouting like a man half-crazed in a language I didn’t understand. His entire body glowed as if it itself were aflame, and he threw himself atop the Phyrexian’s struggling body to pummel her with a flurry of blows. Venser shot a brief glance back at me, but before I could catch his expression he was spreading his arms wide and bowing his head. Blue light danced across his hands to his fingertips, and then a strange creature was simply there in front of him, pulled from the aether, long and lean and blade-beaked and with a tail that coiled about its head like a spiked whip.
“No better way to kill bizarre genetic mutants than with bizarre genetic mutants,” he muttered under his breath, in a strained almost-laugh. With a flick of his wrist, the creature launched itself into the air and toward Sheoldred. “Take this, freak!”
Sheoldred shrieked even louder as the blow connected, and I could see her torso-mouth snapping at Koth as he continued to wrestle her, aiming his punches at her exposed throat whenever he could. I took the moment to summon a creature of my own – the little tangle of vines that I knew so well, that had never failed me. I was still reeling, and even as I felt my adrenaline begin to take hold, it was all I had the concentration to call upon.
But then Sheoldred let out a cry, and in one powerful swipe she had shoved Koth off of her and sent him rolling hard into the wall. “Shortsighted fools!” In an instant she was on her feet again. Though her eyes were hidden, I could feel their gaze boring into me like molten lead. She waved her hand in my direction, and before I could react there was a cloud of thick smoke covering my creature, choking it, turning it back into the aether from which it had formed. A jolt of fear ran down my spine. “All the worlds could know peace if the Great Work was completed, but no – You have to fight it! You have to stand in our way, time and again! YOU are the ones who fight what we bring, the beauty and the completion that we so kindly offer you! YOU are the ones who are dooming your own people by continuing to wage your pointless ‘rebellions,’ which do nothing but slaughter the suns that would burn brightest within our ranks!” Her entire body was wreathed in an aura of hissing black mist now, and suddenly the room felt very cold. Venser took a step backward, bumping into me by accident, and when his arm brushed mine I could feel it trembling.
But Koth was on his feet again too. His gaze was livid as it held the Phyrexian unwaveringly, and I knew right then that she was in for it. “Taint and corruption,” he spat. Blood was dripping from the corners of his mouth, and he reached up with his palm to wipe it away. “Taint and corruption, everywhere, that is all you bring. I will tolerate your delusions no longer!”
The metal floor beneath Sheoldred suddenly stabbed up and into her, drawing a gasp as it pierced the jaw of the torso-mouth. Her aura began to fade as she lost her concentration, and almost reflexively, I reacted by calling upon the strongest creature that I knew. Venser, beside me, was yelling at his blade-beak that had so neatly dodged Sheoldred’s swipe to go back and aim for her throat. It did, and it connected, just as the looming treefolk that I had summoned in my first battle alongside Vincenius burst forth from the ground to land a perfect uppercut right into her gut.
Even in her pain, though, Sheoldred was not about to give up. She let out a wordless shriek that sprayed bloody black spittle into the air, and thrust her hands toward Venser, who immediately collapsed to his knees and screamed. I ran to him. He was groaning now, clutching his head in both hands, even as Sheoldred skittered past Koth and advanced on him with claws extended. I felt my heart drum hard against my ribcage. It reminded me suddenly of Elspeth, and her exposed organs…
“Protect us!” I cried.
And in an instant, my tree was on her, holding her back. She growled and snarled and struggled against the grip that its thick branches had twined around her, but to no avail. She had been weakened too much by our attacks to free herself quickly.
It would buy us time, but only a moment.
A moment, however, was all we would need.
When I turned to Koth, I could see him crouched low to the ground, chanting something over and over under his breath in that same, foreign language. His eyes were beginning to glow red, and to pulse in time with his vents. When I turned to Venser, he was recovering from his momentary incapacitation, shaking his head and closing his eyes in an effort to concentrate.
My weakness hit me in a rush then. I nearly let out a gasp at the sensation of it, at the way my legs wobbled and threatened to buckle beneath me. I had expended so much mana without barely even a pause, and now it was all catching up to me at once. But yet…
I could feel that I still had enough left in me for one more spell. One more…just one. If it didn’t work, then I had only my tree for protection until it was defeated, and then I would be completely useless for the rest of the battle. I would be at the mercy of my companions’ strength, and Sheoldred’s, and my own athletic skills – which didn’t amount to much, in a place like this with no trees to climb.
But if it did work…
I heard Venser’s wordless shout and the screech of his creature as it came diving down on Sheoldred’s head, heard her own screech in response as she clawed and bit at it even as my tree still held her fast.
Then I saw the aura of black mist growing around her once more, and I knew that it was now or never.
I let loose with everything I had left. There was an explosion of purple light.
Sheoldred screamed.
My head spun as the mana left me, and I could do nothing to stop myself from falling to my knees for a second time. I felt limp, almost boneless. I could hear a loud ringing in my ears, too, for whatever reason, but it was not loud enough to block out what I heard next – a roaring cry that lifted my spirits and sent them aloft. I looked up, just in time.
“FOR MIRRODIN!”
Koth stood, towering over Sheoldred as she lay toppled on the floor beside my tree. His arms were raised to the ceiling, and a heady mixture of bloodlust and triumph twisted his weathered face.
My tree suddenly reached out both arms to grab Venser and I and pull us beneath it, beneath the operating table and Elspeth, and then boulder-sized chunks of metal came raining down from the ceiling in a tremendous cacophony.
Sheoldred let out an unearthly wail each time one of them hit their intended mark. Like before, when Venser and I had been running, I felt little razorlike shards pelt me from all directions, though my tree blocked the worst of it. I covered my ears with my hands, and beside me Venser did the same. The amount of noise in the room was almost too much to bear.
After a minute that seemed more like an hour, the Phyrexian finally fell silent.
Koth let his hands drop to his sides. The second he did, the deluge stopped, and my tree allowed its battered form to fade away back into the aether. Venser and Elspeth and I had been nearly completely untouched by the attack – and for that, I said a silent prayer of thanks to the spirits. The last thing we would have needed was for Koth to defeat the Phyrexian at last, but then accidentally kill us all in the process.
Jace was right. Good-intentioned as he may be, the vulshok was indeed a rather careless individual.
As I forced myself to my feet and stumbled into a corner of the operating table, I noticed the new hole in the ceiling, and the clawed hand that poked out from the towering pile of rubble below. It just…lay there, unmoving.
“Ranewen, are you alright?”
The sound of my own name startled me. It was Venser’s voice, right at my side. He sounded worried. “Did you get hit in the head? You look like you’re about to topple over.”
“ ‘M fine,” I muttered, ignoring the artificer and turning my attention instead to the mutilated woman on the table before me. Elspeth. Elspeth the planeswalker. Just like me. And black hair, just like my sister. Like Amita. My vision swam. “We have to…heal her. Someone help me, hold her skin back in place…”
I was vaguely aware of Koth coming up close and looking over my shoulder, then turning his head away. When I caught a glance, I saw that his face was pale. “I know nothing of this,” he said quietly. There was something almost like a stammer in his voice, which I hadn’t expected from him. “Venser, you are the one whom Vincenius is training. You help.”
Venser was pale too, but he didn’t shy away from the table. “I…alright.” I heard him swallow hard, and then he reached out to place a tentative hand on a flap of skin that hung loose from her shoulder. His arm jerked. Still though, he kept his hand where it was. “Are you sure you can do this, Ranewen?” he asked after a moment. His voice was strained, but soft. It sounded like an echo inside my skull. “You don’t look well at all.”
“Neither do you,” I retorted, meaning to imply that he looked pale but instead worrying whether it had come out sounding more like an insult…but then, it didn’t matter. Elspeth was what mattered. Elspeth. She was all that mattered. I was the only one here that could save her.
I wished that I had thought beyond the battle when I had cast that spell. I wished that I had left myself with more mana, to make what I was about to do easier. But at the time, I hadn’t anticipated myself surviving – and if I hadn’t cast the spell to stop Sheoldred from casting her own, perhaps I wouldn’t have. So I supposed I couldn’t blame myself…not really.
I have to do what I have to do, I thought. No matter what the cost.
After ten minutes of us working together, and as quickly as we could, Venser’s careful hand and my healing magic had sewn Elspeth’s skin back into place all over her body. She needed further help, though – much more than what I could give her. She needed Vincenius. And soon. That was the sole thought that my mind was able to grasp at that point, since everything else just faded away in a blur as darkness crept up into the edges of my vision and I felt myself sliding, falling limply into the operating table.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Sheoldred’s hand no longer poked out from the pile of metal. But a second later, even the remembrance of the thought vanished, and I was left wondering desperately how Elspeth was going to get back to Vincenius in time. I felt so dizzy…
Suddenly, there was a loud bang from across the room. It sounded miles away to me.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” I heard Venser say. Where was he? He sounded so distant too. I couldn’t see anymore. Everything was so blurry that I couldn’t make anything out.
I heard Phyrexian screeches, and then a different type of screech as metal scraped against metal. There was a grunt.
“I have the passage blocked,” Koth called out. “Go, now! It will not hold for long!”
I felt something being lifted from the table as I lay slumped halfway across it, and then there was an odd pop. I knew that I had heard that sound before…but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where.
A few seconds later there was another pop. It was followed by more screeching and then rattling, and I felt someone wrap an arm around my torso to hold me tight. Whoever it was, they were warm. I was so cold that I was shivering, and the heat felt wonderful.
“Koth!” Venser’s voice came again, and this time it sounded as if I were hearing it from underwater. I couldn’t hold myself up any longer. I sagged against whoever was holding me, and felt my eyes slide shut.
Then there was a sensation like being pulled apart in two different directions, and it was strangely familiar. The colors behind my closed eyelids bled together until I didn’t know what I was looking at anymore, and everything was getting so dark…and then, suddenly, there was just nothing at all.
I awoke to the sound of hushed voices.
For a moment I thought they might be talking about me, but no – As my eyes slid slowly open and found the two mer, I saw that they were standing hunched over something to my left. A bed. Like the one I just now realized I was lying in. I was a little dizzy, but I could still make out the sheets covering me from foot to chin, and the small metal table that stood to one side, with a myriad of glass jars and vials and spirits knew what else. I must be in Vincenius’s clinic.
And indeed I was. There were a few more beds to either side of me, or at least to the right – I couldn’t see anything to the left, what with those mer in the way – and individuals of varying races scurried back and forth down the aisle in front of me, each one clad in a white smock overtop whatever else they were wearing. I recognized nearly everything. Vincenius had taken me on a brief tour before our practice battle, and I remembered this place to be the recovery room. There was a carved-metal balcony overlooking the entirety of it, and when I slowly shifted my gaze to look up, groaning at the pain that flared through my neck, I gave a start. Vincenius himself was perched on the ledge, legs dangling over the side as he perused some sort of chart in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes went straight to me. He smiled.
Casually, he let himself slip off and into the air. But instead of falling, and before I could so much as gasp, a pair of immense, finlike wings unfolded from his back, and with one graceful stroke they propelled him down to the floor at the foot of my bed. When he stood up straight, they folded themselves back in and just vanished. I was left staring at him in utter disbelief.
“Is there anything you can’t convince your body to do?” I asked. My voice was far too weak for my own liking.
Vincenius chuckled at that. “Nope,” he said simply, coming closer to sit on the edge of my bed. His hand reached out to brush my forehead, briefly, and then after a moment he nodded to himself and pulled it away. I assumed that he had been feeling for my temperature. “Six days, 11 hours, and 21 minutes. Small price to pay for what you did, wouldn’t you say?”
I reeled. “It’s been that long?”
Vincenius nodded. “Indeed. I was intending to postpone purging the glistening oil from you until after you had returned from the mission to Ish Sah, but in retrospect…that was probably not the best idea. I had to keep you under for several days after you had already recovered from your shock and exhaustion and whatnot.”
“Glistening oil?” I remembered stepping in it, getting it on my arm several times during the trek to Ish Sah, and especially during our time beneath the surface. Strangely, though, I didn’t remember it burning like before. “What, so it was…inside me?”
Again Vincenius nodded. He reached underneath my bed to pull out a brown glass jar, and though I couldn’t see its contents clearly, I could see that whatever was inside was moving. “It’s poison, you remember. It slowly corrupts whatever it touches. After your first exposure, it stops burning because your body begins to take it in, and you are essentially immune to its effects. But it changes you.” He unscrewed the lid of the jar, paused, and then screwed it back on again. “That’s why I had to get it all out. I did the same with Jace, while you were gone, though it was far quicker for him. I’m just glad I could get to you in time.”
“Jace,” I whispered. I had almost completely forgotten about him, what with everything else that I had to worry about. “How is he?”
Vincenius shrugged, leaning over to set the jar on the table before looking back to me. “Fine enough. He took Koth’s place in the patrols, and helped ward off several Phyrexian attacks. Could use some training, for certain, but…he’s a natural fighter. My soldiers breathed easier whenever he was around, and not off taking care of business back in Ravnica, or here checking up on you.”
A blush spread across my cheeks, too quickly for me to hide. Vincenius must have noticed. “He didn’t need to do that.” I remembered how we had parted ways, how I had worried whether or not he would be angry with me when I returned. Now all that worry died away, and was swiftly replaced by a growing warmth in my chest – which, I had to admit, could have just as easily been some odd result of my recovering state, but I chose to dismiss that notion.
Vincenius let out a snort. “That’s what I told him too. But he’s stubborn. He kept on coming, every day that he was free, even when it started to affect his sleep. I finally told him that I would be waking you today, and that I had everything under control and he should go rest for once. Looks like he finally listened.”
The thought of Jace, coming to visit me day after day just to ensure that I was alright, made my heart beat faster – But before I could allow myself to dwell in girlish delusions overlong, I gave myself a good hard mental shake. There were other things to be worrying about. Other people. “What about Elspeth?” I asked after a moment. For whatever reason – frailty, perhaps, or fear – the words seemed to stick in my throat, like they were hesitant themselves to come out.
Vincenius smiled then, a sad smile, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one. “Ah, Ranewen.” His voice was quiet, and as he spoke he reached out a hand to place overtop mine. “You didn’t act alone, of course, but your bravery has done us all a great service. You saved her life.” I felt the most overwhelming sense of relief wash over me, but I barely had time to process it before he continued. “With what the Phyrexians did to her, she would not have survived Venser’s teleport. Useful as it may be, it is taxing on those who are already weakened. Thus, had you not been there, to heal her as much as you were able to…she would have died, for certain. And so I thank you.”
The mer gestured with his other hand, and when I looked I saw that the two attendants to the left were gone – and that laying atop the bed they had been bent over, was a woman, her long black hair splayed out across her pillow and her bandaged body rising and falling in time with her breathing. There was just the faintest flush of color in her face, and she stirred a little every time there was a loud noise. She was alive.
“Elspeth,” I breathed. I felt my eyes grow suddenly wet.
Vincenius smiled again, this time a little happier. “I plan on waking her tomorrow, though she will still need a few more days before she can fight with the best of them again. That’s the good thing about my treatment – Messy at times, but it does get the job done. Speaking of which…” He reached back over me to pluck the brown jar from the bedside table, and unscrewed the lid again. This time, he plucked out a wriggling, slimy, utterly horrifying leech, nearly as long as my whole hand and apparently just as mobile. I squeaked.
“What in the nine hells are you doing with that?” I had backed my entire body up against the bed’s headboard, and with the sheet kicked off I could now see that I was clad in a clean white nightgown. That didn’t really matter at the moment, though. There were leeches. Right there. In front of me. Right. There.
Vincenius cocked an eyebrow. I felt a dawning horror as he suddenly got it and a wicked smile began to creep across his face, ever so slowly, ever so painfully. “What, you’re not fond of these little fellows?” He held one up for my inspection, far too close for comfort. I squeaked again and dove under the sheet. “But they’re what I used to drain the oil from you! How can you hate them when they saved you from being turned into a Phyrexian? I even picked out some of my favorites for you!”
I wanted to cry. I wanted to vomit. Forgetting where I was and why I needed to keep my voice down, I threw the sheet off of me and shrieked. “You let those things suck my blood?!”
“Mostly the oil,” Vincenius corrected with a chuckle. Finally, he placed the leech back in its jar and screwed the lid on tight, to seal it and all of its villainous little brethren away. “I suppose I’ll wait to do Elspeth’s treatment until you’re safely away from here, since you’re so squeamish. And here I had expected better of you…” As he stood, tucked the jar back beneath the bed, and stepped out into the aisle, he threw me a teasing look. Maddening. “Now I’ll be right back – I’m just going to go get your things, since you’re free to leave whenever you wish.” He headed out through a nearby door, and then returned a few moments later with two bundles in his arms. He dumped both of them in my lap, since I was now sitting upright and eyeing him warily. I must have looked well enough to him.
When I saw what he had given me, though, I couldn’t help but smile. “Wait, this is for me?”
One of the bundles was my own clothes and boots, complete with my hunting knife, all freshly washed and stain-free. But the other…the other was an outfit of glimmering gold, an ornate bra and skirt, with delicate pauldrons and thigh guards that looked as if they would fit like a glove. There were even boots, too – long, knee-length ones, completely unworn and so very beautiful. I could hardly believe my eyes. I had seen many of the humans around the refugee camp wearing similar outfits, but to be holding one in my own hands…
“Of course,” Vincenius said. When I looked up at him, I noticed that his smile was genuine this time. “I had a nurse fit you for it while you were sleeping. This plane has five suns and a geothermal furnace – You didn’t think I was going to let you walk around in that forever, did you?” He gestured toward my hunter’s outfit and grinned. “You may have been fine with it on Zendikar or even Ravnica, but the heat out here would have gotten to you eventually!”
I grinned too, and hefted the weight of the outfit as I took it in my arms. It was surprisingly light. “So what’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just get out there and enjoy being alive, while we still have a moment of peace.”
To the mer’s surprise – and, to some degree, my own – I responded by standing and enfolding him in a warm hug, beaming. My legs didn’t shake one bit.
“That,” I said, “I can do.”
***
One wardrobe change and two hours later, I was out wandering the streets of the refugee camp.
I was trying my best not to look too lost, but I was also pretty sure that my efforts were in vain. I just passed that square, didn’t I? Oh, damn it…
Finding Venser’s workshop was proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Vincenius had told me that the artificer had also been inquiring about my health while I was unconscious, and that since Koth was on patrol and Jace was (finally) sleeping, I should go drop by, tell him I’m doing alright. I had agreed. Venser had helped out Koth and I greatly on our mission, and he hadn’t been unkind in the least. Besides, if he was to be one of our new companions, well…I figured that it would be a good idea to learn more about him. Vincenius had given me some vague directions, and then off I went.
I’m pretty sure the place is right around this corner…
When I rounded the precarious stack of apartments, I was surprised to find myself standing right across the street from our tent. The carved and polished building I had noticed on the first day we had come here was just a few steps away, and at once I realized that it must be Venser’s workshop. Of course. He’s an artificer, isn’t he? Why wouldn’t he take the time to make his place look nice? For a moment I was sorely tempted to make a brief stop at the tent, but…no. I pushed the thought out of my head. I can see Jace later. Right now, he needs to rest. For another moment I marveled at the irony of the structures’ proximity, and then I began to head across the adjacent street and over to Venser’s huge front doors.
They were cracked open when I reached them. From inside, there was a tremendous racket of buzzing and whirring, and intermittently the grinding screech of metal on metal. Cautiously, I peered inside.
The whole place was just one large room, covered in shelves and tables and tools and bottles and rags and huge, hulking pieces of machinery that gleamed, having been polished until they looked brand new. Venser himself was at the back. He was standing on his tiptoes in front of one of those machines, facing away from the entrance and me. The machine he was working on was spiderlike, with many legs poking out from the glass tank that served as its body, and spirits was it tall! Inside the tank hung what looked like just a plain old sphere, of dull metal – But from the way it floated in midair, unaided by anything I could see, I assumed that there was more to it than met the eye. From the way sparks were flying from the metal around Venser’s hand – and from the noises – I also assumed that he must be grinding the metal smooth. Either that, or doing something too technical for me to already know about. I took a tiny step forward and pulled the door shut behind me.
“What’s that you’re working on?” My voice was just barely audible over everything, but still he turned. The second he did, all the noise stopped.
“Windgrace’s whiskers!” He set down the tool in his hand and leaned back against the machine, pushing the protective goggles he wore up onto his forehead. He smiled. “The sleeping beauty wakes. I was wondering when Doc would be finished with you!”
The artificer’s tone was so jovial that I couldn’t help but smile back. Coming closer, I hopped up to sit on an empty table across from him. “Just this morning.” As I moved, my gold outfit clinked together softly. “I thought I’d stop by, since I have a bit of time on my hands.”
Venser chuckled. One of his hands wiped away the sweat gathering on his brow, leaving behind a little smudge of grease. He noticed and wiped at that too. “Well, I’m happy to have you. I haven’t had company in, uh…well, ever, to be honest.” Washed clean of the blood and oil and grime that had completely covered him in Ish Sah, I could now take a good look – He was a little taller than Jace, and a little more built. His lean face appeared as if it hadn’t been shaved in a couple of days, but he wore the look well, and the way his eyes – a deep, rich brown – smiled down at me more than made up for any dishevelment his profession caused. He tried to push his mess of brown hair flat to his scalp, but it stubbornly refused and continued to stick out instead. He sighed. “Sorry that last jump of mine shocked your system so much, by the way. There really wasn’t anything I could do to prevent it, but…I still feel bad.”
I shook my head insistently. “No, no! Don’t apologize! I should be the one thanking you – You saved my life back there!” I smiled again, awkwardly. Typical. “So, um…thank you, Venser!”
He cocked an eyebrow in return, and the machine behind him bowed – or at least, as much as the enormous spiderlike contraption could manage. “You’re very welcome. And thank you for saving Elspeth. She wouldn’t have survived the jump without your help.” He had a mischievous gleam in his eyes now, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning in amazement.
“How did you make it do that?”
He turned to pat the machine, affectionately. “It’s a Phyrexian machine – a psychosis crawler. I scavenged it from one of the battles awhile back. It’s supposed to be full of brains, but since that’s a little too…Phyrexian for me, I’ve retrofitted it with a device that allows me to control it with my mind instead.” As if to prove his point, the crawler clicked and whirred and waved one of its slender legs at me. Venser grinned. I giggled.
Simple terms, I found myself noting. He talks like a teacher. “That’s fascinating!” I slid off of the table and onto the floor, then came to stand next to Venser so I could get a better look at the crawler.
The artificer gave it another pat before turning to face me. “Sometimes it interprets other people’s thoughts besides mine, or thoughts that aren’t meant to be orders, but I’m sure I’ll figure out how to fix it soon enough. I don’t really have any other projects on my to-do list.”
Suddenly, I felt a childlike curiosity overcome me, and I turned to Venser. My hands were clasped together in front of my imploring grin. “Oh, could I try? Pretty please?”
Venser seemed to be genuinely taken aback by my request – I could see it on his face, in the way his eyes went wide and his jaw momentarily slack. “Wait, you’re…” He paused. “You’re serious? You’re really that interested?”
I nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
All he could do was shake his head – in disbelief, I guessed. After a moment though, a slow smile began to spread across his face, and he regarded me with an expression that made it seem as if he were really seeing me for the first time. “Huh. Well, it’s nice to know someone appreciates my work – Koth and Elspeth want me to smash everything I see, and everyone else here just seems scared. It’s a nice change of pace.” His smile grew warm. “Luckily Doc sees the value in understanding your enemy, otherwise this little place of mine would be shut down, and I’d have to walk to Urborg any time I wanted to get work done.”
I put aside my interest in the crawler, for the moment. “Is that where you’re from?”
Venser nodded. “Yep. A lovely little corner of Dominaria where there’s nothing but swamp, swamp, and, ah…more swamp as far as the eye can see. And that’s just my neck of the woods” He leaned his head back against the crawler again and sighed. “Even though Koth dragged me here against my will, I’ve grown fond of the place. I’d like to stay here – Not just because I’m not up to my knees in muck constantly, but because I want to protect it. I’ve seen enough Phyrexian corruption back home. I don’t want to see it here too.” He snorted. “Though I have to admit, it’s a little late for that wish.” There was a short moment of silence, and then he turned just his head to me, a questioning smile on his handsome face. “If I may ask, m’lady – What about you? Where are you from?”
Though it was endearing – and a little flattering – I had to shake my head and laugh. “Oh no. I’m no lady, Venser. I’m way too rough and tumble for that. You haven’t seen me hunting the baloths back on Zendikar.”
The artificer laughed too, a sound that was just as infectious as I had first found his smile. “Fine then. If you insist.” He stroked his chin, pretending to look deep in thought. “So…Ranewen? But that sounds too formal. Do you have a nickname you prefer?”
I found myself grinning again. “Rana.”
“Rana.” He tried the word, and then must have decided that he liked the way it tasted on his tongue, because he smiled approvingly. “So, Rana, tell me about…you said Zendikar, right? That’s the same place Doc said he’s from.”
I nodded, and finally decided that it was safe to lean against the crawler beside him. I was sure my extra weight wouldn’t be enough to tip it over…or break anything. “I don’t know exactly where he’s from, but it’s certainly not where I grew up. Merfolk don’t spend much time all the way up in the jaddi-trees. They don’t have the climbing implements we do, or the good balance. They’d fall and break their necks in ten seconds flat.” I chuckled softly. “Though maybe he might last a bit longer. He has wings. I’d give him an extra minute.”
Venser nearly choked on his sudden laughter, but in an instant he had composed himself. His grin was even wider than mine had been, once he had caught his breath. “I would tell you not to underestimate the great Vincenius, but I swear that mer has ears everywhere. He’d cuff me over the head next time I stopped by for an alchemy lesson, just for a bit of sarcasm.”
I giggled. “I highly doubt that.”
In response, Venser gave a short shrug. “Who knows? I sure don’t. All I know is that he’s a great leader, and great leaders have great spies.” He eyed me with mock suspicion, raising his brow. “In fact, I could be talking to one right now.”
I giggled again, and gave him a playful swat on the arm. “Oh, stop that. I’d be a horrible spy. I’m no good at stealth, or keeping a straight face.”
Venser laughed. He then pretended to rub the hurt out of where I had hit him. I had been wavering on the thought for some time now, but in that instant I finally decided that I liked him – At the very least, he was much more fun to talk to than Koth. “Well then, why are you and the dour knight here on Mirrodin, seeking us out, if you don’t have some hidden agenda? Doc never got around to telling me.”
The dour knight. This time, I was the one who nearly choked. “It’s…complicated.” Once I had suppressed the bout of laughter that was bubbling up in my chest, I sighed, and shook my head. “You really want me to tell the whole story right now? It’s…kinda long. And not very happy. It involves giant creatures that destroy everything, and then eat what’s left of the plane afterward.”
But as soon as the word “destroy” escaped my lips, the crawler behind us jerked. Venser and I pulled away quickly enough, but suddenly there was a terrible grating sound, like a thousand Koths scraping against a thousand tents, and it was so loud and overwhelming that I staggered backward into the empty table. My hands flew up to cover my ears.
“Ah!” Venser cried. “S***! Sorry, sorry!”
I saw him reach out a hand that flashed blue, and then the sphere disappeared from the crawler’s glass tank and reappeared a second later in his open palm. He closed his fist around it, and at once, as quickly as it had started, the noise stopped. The artificer turned to me with an apologetic look.
“Guess I might want to fix it sooner rather than later, huh?”
I was a little shaken, but otherwise fine. My breath came out in a nervous laugh. “I see that’s what you meant.”
Venser nodded before setting the sphere down on the nearby workbench, beside his grinding tool. “Yeah.” He smiled thinly when he turned back to me, and ran a few fingers through his hair. It only served to mess it up more. “Science isn’t always pleasant, especially when it comes to Phyrexian technology. I mean, it all has a tendency to self-destruct, for one thing.” He shrugged. “But I’ve been studying the stuff my entire life, so I guess I’m used to it. Or at least, more so than most people. I don’t think there’s a person alive who could ever get completely jaded to anything Phyrexian. Except the Phyrexians themselves.” His voice suddenly took on a faraway tone, even as his eyes glazed over - and in that instant I realized that he was staring right through me, thinking of someplace else, perhaps sometime else. “I’ll be the first to admit that the means are horrible, but the wonders of those devices…amazing. I’ve been able to make great things out of them before.”
His mixed emotions of nostalgia and awe struck a chord in me, and I smiled. “Well, the way I see it, things can do either good or bad depending on the hands they’re placed in. That’s how the whole world works. Or at least that’s what I think.”
He smiled too, slightly, but I could see that his eyes were still unfocused. For a moment, a hint of anger flashed across his face. “Koth thinks that ambulators will ‘destroy the delicate balance of the planes.’” He scoffed. “He doesn’t get it. I just want to give other people the opportunity to experience what we do, to travel from plane to plane and see new things. Is that really so bad?”
I didn’t answer his question. “…Ambulators?”
“Planeswalking devices.” His voice was suddenly soft. “I made my first one before my spark ignited.”
The way he spoke, it almost sounded as if he were recalling a long-dead lover. I found myself at once both sympathetic, and curious. “In that case, it sounds to me like Koth is just being narrow-minded. So long as they don’t fall into the wrong hands, what’s the problem? They sound like they would be really useful.”
“That’s the thing,” Venser muttered, and he slumped wearily against the unmoving crawler. “The Phyrexians have them already. That’s how they got to Mirrodin in the first place.”
Well, that explains it. I was wondering how they traveled. I leaned back again too, next to him. “But that doesn’t make any sense.” I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Why wouldn’t Koth want the good guys to have access to the technology too? That would level the field. It’s not fair otherwise.”
Venser threw up his hands in exasperation, and let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “Who knows? I’m half-convinced the man’s cracked, really. One minute he’s calm as a statue, and then the next he’s in an unstoppable blood frenzy. Maybe that’s what the heat here does to you, if you stay out in it too long.” Finally he smiled again, and allowed it to engulf his entire face as he lost himself in his thoughts once more. Happy thoughts this time. “It gets me excited, just thinking about what we could do if I could build even just one more ambulator. Imagine if Vincenius could bring his entire merfolk army to fight with us – or if Elspeth could take her people to a new home, far away from Grixis’s horrors!”
His mention of Elspeth was like a needle in my heart. Suddenly, I felt sad. “Or if I could take my tribe somewhere else,” I whispered, though I hadn’t meant to. My gaze was on the floor, on the toes of my new gold boots. “Somewhere safe.”
To my surprise, instead of getting a slew of questions in response to my unbidden outburst, I felt a hand rest itself on my arm. When I looked up, I saw Venser smiling down at me, kindly. There was just as much warmth in his gaze as there was in his touch. “If I do build one,” he said then, “you’ll be the first person I tell.”
I gave a start at that. His words were so much more of a surprise than his gesture had been that I found myself laughing, out of nothing more than disbelief. “Now that can’t be true.” Even so, I couldn’t help but smile. “I just met you, Venser! You do know that you don’t have to be nice to me, right?”
Venser chuckled, though at the same time his gaze seemed to…deepen, almost. I realized with another start that he looked utterly serious. “And you’ve shown far more interest in my work than anyone has in centuries. No joke. I do believe, Rana, that I’m allowed to take that into account.”
I was at a loss for words. All I could think to do was smile more…and so I did. “Well, um…thank you. I appreciate it.”
The artificer smiled back, and in one fluid motion he had pushed himself off of the crawler and turned to a rack of shelves on the other side of his workbench. He began to rummage through their contents, pushing aside large bags and racks of glass vials in his search for…whatever he was searching for. I took a step closer. “Need any help?”
“I’m looking for grain,” he answered. His voice was muffled on account of his head being buried nearly two feet deep in cluttered shelf. He was leaning forward, stretching to see if his object of interest had perhaps fallen behind the structure of the rack – but unfortunately, it looked liked it hadn’t. “I brought a couple sacks in from Dominaria a few days ago, was thinking of getting some food…”
“Grain?” The word was unfamiliar to me.
Finally Venser pulled back, and when he had extracted himself from the tangle of metal enough to stand straight, he let out his breath in a huff and turned to fix me with a puzzled look. “You know…for making bread.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “I’ve never heard of either of those things before. We must not have them back on Zendikar.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then he burst out laughing. Loudly. “You’re serious! Oh, wow…I guess it makes sense, though. Vincenius said it’s hard to grow anything there with that Roil phenomenon.” He grinned then, and leaned in to me with his hands on his hips. “You have to try it. It’s really good if you make it right.”
I acknowledged that my stomach was growling – quietly, to my good fortune, but I still felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. With the length of my forced unconsciousness, perhaps I hadn’t. “Alright,” I agreed, folding my arms over my chest. “I guess I’ll have to trust you on this one.” I felt the corners of my lips twitch before turning up in a grin to match his. “What is it, anyway?”
Venser reached out a hand to me. “Here. I’ll show you.”
I knew what he was intending by offering the extended limb, but I decided to tease him anyway. For the first time in weeks, I was feeling back to my usual self again. Joking. Cheerful. “What, is there some sort of ritual we have to do before we can make it? I wasn’t aware that Dominarian cooking required that much effort.”
The artificer snorted. “Yes, Rana, I need a human sacrifice before I can even mix the ingredients together. Now come on. Let’s go, before Doc bursts in here with some odd job for me to do.”
Giggling at his failed attempt to keep a straight face – and mine – I finally took his hand, and the vaguely organized clutter of Venser’s workshop blurred around me as we teleported away.
***
Making bread was a far more daunting task than I had anticipated.
You had to crush that grain substance into dust, then mix it together with another powder and water until it was a paste, and then knead the paste into a squishy, pliable consistency before finally baking it in a little slot over a fire. By the time the last step had been accomplished, my arms were sore and I was thoroughly covered in a layer of the grain-dust – the sight of which had sent Venser doubling over his knees with laughter, when I had accidentally spilled it all over myself. I had not been so amused. I thought it was going to stick to me forever, and to the shiny metal surface of his counter. Fortunately, though, it seemed as if a wet cloth sufficed to get it all off. After that point, I had laughed right along with him.
The entire time that the two of us had been working, I recounted the story of what had happened to me ever since I had started this interesting journey of mine – from my first encounter with Sorin, all the way up to the moment that I met Venser in the Mephidross. He had listened attentively, smiling and joking and asking questions every now and then, when they were called for. He even asked a little more about my life in Zendikar, too. I had obliged each of his requests, and in turn asked him about his life back in the swamps of Urborg – though he, unlike me, didn’t have much to say. His mother had passed away when he was young, and his father had disappeared into the swamps, never to return, a few years after that, leaving little Venser all alone to fend for himself. “That,” he had said with a roguish grin, upon seeing my sympathetic expression, “is how I learned how to cook. No motivator quite like death by starvation staring you in the face!”
His good humor hadn’t faded in the least since the time I had first walked into his workshop. In fact, the longer the day wore on, the brighter his mood seemed to get. By the time the bread was ready to eat, and we both sat down at his tiny little table in his crowded little kitchen in his cramped little flat, he was positively beaming. I found myself realizing that if I hadn’t had a friendly visitor in awhile – let alone years, as he had said – I would probably be acting the same way. Not as if I begrudged him his behavior. In truth, I found it endearing, just as much so as when he had called me ‘m’lady.’
“So what do you think?” he asked now, fixing me with an expectant smile. I had just taken my first bite into the little piece of bread I had cut for myself.
I chewed, and chewed, and then finally I swallowed, and when I did I could almost feel my eyes light up. “Spirits, you’re right! That does taste good!” I stared down at what remained of the slice in my hands, unable to stop myself from letting out a short laugh of wonderment. “That’s such a shame, that we can’t grow these grain crops of yours on Zendikar. I could have packed this for my hikes, or for when I went hunting out of range! It’s the perfect size, even!”
The expression on my face – or the tone of my voice, or both – must have been amusing to him, because Venser chuckled. “This is why planeswalking is so wonderful,” he said, simply. “Every world has something new to experience.”
I grinned, and rested my chin in my hands before giving him a conspiratorial wink. I took another bite. “Well,” I said, once the food was safely down my throat, “you’ve got me convinced. We’ll just have to keep it from Koth then, won’t we?”
Venser laughed heartily at that. His brown eyes were alight, even from all the way across the table. “I have to say, Rana, I like your thinking.”
“Good! It’s about time I found someone I can actually talk to. I thought I wasn’t going to find a single person on one of these planes who isn’t either broody, crazy, or in danger of lighting me on fire whenever we hit a touchy topic.” I giggled, and took a sip of the gel fruit wine that seemed to be the drink of choice here on Mirrodin. It was so sweet that I could barely taste the alcohol.
Venser shrugged. He gave me an easy smile in turn as he, too, took a drink from his own glass, and when he was finished he set it back down lightly. “I’m always here if you need me.” For a moment he paused, and when he looked back up at me again his smile had broadened into the warm, buoyant grin that I had come to know in so short a time. “Especially considering your other options.”
The thought that I now had a friend I could come to gave me comfort, more so than I would have expected before today’s events. “Thank you, Venser. Really.” The haze of the wine – which we had both been drinking all evening – was starting to hit me at last, but I kept my smile steady as I looked at him and felt a sudden rush of gratitude.
The artificer wasn’t one to miss details, though. He chuckled. “You’re swaying a little, you know. Not practiced at holding your alcohol?”
I laughed. It was a little embarrassing that he had noticed, but I wasn’t going to let it bother me. “I’ll be fine, I swear! I’ve barely even touched my food. I’m sure I’ll be better after I get a little bit of it in me.”
“We’ve been here all evening,” Venser reminded me, gently, “and you’re going to find that that particular type of wine makes you pretty tired once its effects set in. Why don’t you take the rest of your bread, I’ll take you back to your tent, and you can stop by tomorrow if you still want? Here, I’ll even save some for you so we could try this again then.”
I had to admit that he was right – I was starting to feel strangely sleepy, and at once I remembered having the same experience after eating my first gel fruit on Koth and my trek to Ish Sah. With the wine’s alcohol, though, the effect was more potent this time. “Fine,” I relented, “I guess. But only if you promise that we get a do-over.”
Venser smiled. He reached over across the table, and put his hand on my forearm, firmly. “Not a do-over,” he said, “just another try.” There was a faint flush on his face that I attributed to the impending effects of his wine, and I wondered vaguely if I had it too, if that was what had keyed him in to my state of not-so-sobriety. “I’ll, ah…I’ll see you around, Rana.”
And before I could say anything in response, I was spinning and spinning and getting suddenly dizzy, and Venser’s desk and stacks of papers and trinkets in the background were disappearing, and then I was just elsewhere, in my tent…alone. Even Jace was gone.
Still holding my bread – though my hunger was all but forgotten in the wake of my sudden exhaustion (or had it been there this whole time?) – I pulled off my gold garb as carefully as I could, curled into my bedroll with the sheet tight around me, and then allowed myself to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
“Ranewen?”
Though it took a good deal of effort, my eyes finally slid open.
Jace was kneeling on his bedroll beside me, a piece of parchment between his fingers and an odd expression on his face. He raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. “You, ah…alright there?”
As I sat up, I frowned. I was too tired still to be all aflutter, and damn everything to the nine hells, my head was pounding! I reached up to rub my fingers against my temples, but somehow that only seemed to make things worse. “What do you mean?”
To my surprise, Jace’s response was for a faint blush to color his cheeks, and then to sigh and turn his head. He stared fixedly at the parchment in his hand as he held it out to one side, and when he spoke, he sounded almost…embarrassed. “Apparently, you’re not decent at the moment.”
“Huh?” When I looked down, all the fog in my head evaporated in an instant – The sheet I had wrapped around myself when I went to bed last night was slowly slipping down, exposing the top of my bare chest. I let out a little squeak and pulled it back into place before I accidentally showed off anything improper. My face burned. “Uh…sorry. I was too tired to change into anything before I went to sleep.”
Jace shook his head, but I could see that his lips were twitching as he tried – and failed – to hold back a smile. “Is it safe to look now?”
“Yeah.” I tied the ends of the sheet together under one arm with a knot. I figured that that would do until he finished whatever business he had in here, and left the tent so I could change. My new gold Mirrodin garb was too bulky to deftly slip into underneath the sheet – and what with all the pointy parts, I would probably just end up ripping a hole in it anyway. “What’s that you have? It looks like a map.”
Jace turned back to me, scooting a little closer so that he could hold out the parchment for me to see. “That’s because it is,” he said. “It’s crude, but it shows all the entrances to the refugee camp. While you were sleeping, I was out setting up illusions here,” he pointed to the map, “here, and here to keep any stray Phyrexians at bay. Not sure how well it will work at this point, but I figured that it was worth a try.”
I shrugged and offered him a grin. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Jace nodded. His voice had grown quieter, but only a little. As he spoke, he reached up to brush a fallen lock of hair out of his eyes, and then again with a flicker of irritation when it fell right back. “I had to keep myself busy somehow, while you were recovering.”
My groggy temper vanished as I suddenly remembered Vincenius’s words back in the clinic – How Jace had lost sleep coming to check up on me, day after day, even though he was already giving his all in the fight against the Phyrexians. I smiled, warmly. “From what I hear, you kept plenty busy. Vincenius told me how much of a help you’ve been.”
For a moment Jace blinked, as if surprised, but then his gaze settled back to normal and he smiled at me in return. “Well, that’s good to know. I’m not used to the style of fighting they use here – It’s far too melee-oriented for me, and I thought I was doing horribly.” He paused, and then his smile widened. “…He really said that, though?”
I laughed. The way he looked – head tilted to the side, curious eyes, hopeful expression – gave him that air of boyishness from before, that rare humanity that all the planeswalkers I had met so far, save for Venser, seemed to have trouble finding most of the time. “Yes, Jace, he said that. He also said that you, um…” I blushed, though I had been trying my best not to, “…that you were checking up on me, every day. Is that true?”
Jace grinned unabashedly. Hearing that Vincenius found him useful seemed to have lightened his mood, and my suspicion was confirmed when I heard the teasing note in his voice. “Well, someone had to make sure that the crazy fish doctor didn’t inject you with too many chemicals. I mean, we did lose a few of his soldiers in the battles – Who’s to say he wouldn’t take you on as a replacement?”
Though I scoffed at his words, inside I felt a secret rush of relief. Jace seemed to have let go of whatever negativity he was holding against me before Koth and I left for Ish Sah – either that, or he was just in an exceptionally good mood. Whichever option, though, I felt much better. “I say so!” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. I tried to keep my expression deadly serious as I gazed at Jace, but…to be honest, I was pretty sure I was doing an awful job. “Vincenius made a point of telling me the very first time I visited his clinic that his army is made up entirely of volunteers. He wouldn’t just whip out his magic and start mutating people willy-nilly! I’m sure even you know that!”
Jace chuckled. “For someone who was complaining about how fearsome he is in battle just a couple of weeks ago, you certainly have a lot of faith in him.”
I shrugged, and reached a hand out to finger the metal of one of my pauldrons. “He can’t be that bad.” I managed to keep a straight face for a good five seconds after my deadpan, and then immediately I broke out into a grin. “He gave me a present.”
Jace chuckled again before reaching out too, and delicately he lifted the gold off of the ground a few inches so that he could inspect it. “Hmmm.” After a moment he set it back down, and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Well, other than the ears, I bet you blend in perfectly with all the other auriok now.”
I opened my mouth to ask him, curious, what an auriok was – But before I could, there was a rustling at the entrance to the tent, and a blue, finned head poked its way through the cloth flaps. Involuntarily, I withdrew even further under my sheet.
One of Vincenius’s mer soldiers stood in front of us half-bent, with the cloth flaps spread out across his bare shoulders like a blanket he had long since outgrown. Jace must have known him, because the two exchanged a brief nod before the newcomer turned to me. When he did – and saw my own bare shoulders poking out from beneath the sheet – his eyebrows darted up his forehead, and a knowing grin slowly began to spread across his face. Oh, s***.
“Am I…interrupting something? Should I come back later?”
I turned a thousand different shades of red. Quickly as I could, I averted my gaze, but Jace (damn him), only made things worse by letting out a hearty laugh. To my relief, though, it didn’t last long. When I finally had the courage to look up again, he was waving a hand at the mer dismissively.
“No, no, you’re fine, Efrem. I just got here a short while ago, and she just woke up. Nothing to see here.”
“Ah.” Efrem rested a hand on his hip, and when he moved I caught a brief glimpse of the serrated spear that he was holding in his other hand, outside the tent. “Well, I just came to tell you that Commander Vincenius has requested both of your presences in the dining hall of his clinic. He says that you have important business to discuss.”
All at once, Jace’s jovial expression sobered. It happened as quickly as donning a mask. “Business…” He stood swiftly, gathering up what few possessions he had strewn about as he went. Though it was still as blazing hot as it ever was here, he began to pull on his dark undershirt and his dyed-blue leathers, layer after layer. Buckling the straps tight, he paused in his efforts only to throw the bulk of his cloak over his shoulder.
“Time to pack up, Ranewen,” he said, looking down at me for a brief second. The mirth in his eyes had vanished when I met them, and had been replaced with his usual calm unreadability. My heart sank at the sight of it. “It looks like we might be heading back to Ravnica soon. I’ll meet you outside the tent in a few minutes.”
***
Once I had gotten dressed and ready, I stowed my other outfit and my hunting knife in the leather bag that Jace had given me before we left for Mirrodin, and we were off. The walk didn’t take as long as usual – likely because Efrem knew the byways of the refugee camp better than I, and thus was able to take every available shortcut. I stopped listening to the conversation between him and Jace after the first five minutes. They were talking strategy and weaponry and Phyrexian this and praetor that, and for once my insatiable curiosity seemed to be missing in action. Perhaps it was because I was still a bit tired, but…for some reason, I just wasn’t interested. At all. The only thing I found myself thinking about was Zendikar.
Home.
Lately I had been berating myself for not saying my goodbyes before I left, for getting caught up in all the strangeness and excitement of my spark igniting and the handsome mage coming to my rescue against a vampire, and…well, now the guilt was finally catching up to me. It hurt, far more than I had expected it to.
But before I could dwell on my own darknesses more, I realized that we had arrived. Efrem led Jace and I through the clinic’s myriad of rooms until we finally emerged through a set of tall, polished double doors – Venser’s handiwork, perhaps? The carvings looked nearly identical to the ones adorning his workshop entrance – into a spacious hall. A long table spread down the length of the room at the center, and the first several yards of it were covered in dozens of clay bowls of the most brightly colored, delicious-looking fruit I had ever seen, and steaming platters of dishes that I couldn’t even guess at. They all smelled mouthwateringly fantastic, though. I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was until that moment.
Vincenius was sitting at the head of the table, smiling. “Jace! Ranewen! Good of you two to join us. Thank you, Efrem – You may go. I will speak to you later.” The soldier departed with a bow, leaving Jace and I to stand there in the doorway and take in the scene. Koth was sitting to Vincenius’s left, and a white-robed, dark-haired figure to his right – which I realized, as I breathed in deeply, was Elspeth – and there were three sets of silverware laid out in front of three empty chairs. Venser must be coming too, I noted. He was nowhere to be seen, but as I took a few steps closer to the table there was suddenly a loud pop, and then the artificer was just standing in front of me, pulling out one of the empty chairs.
“Here, I got that for you,” he said. He tilted his head a little and smiled at me roguishly.
I grinned. So did Vincenius, and beside me I heard a soft breath of feminine laughter. As always, Koth remained stony-faced – how could anyone expect anything different? – but as Jace took the empty seat next to him, I thought I caught a hint of a frown as it crossed his lips. But I could have been wrong.
When I took the offered chair and Venser sat down beside me, Vincenius folded his hands and leaned forward across the table. He nodded officiously. “Thank you, everyone, for agreeing to come to breakfast with me this morning. I am sure you all have some idea of the business I convened this meeting to discuss – after all, the evidence is sitting right here among us.” He turned to Jace and I in turn with an inscrutable smile, and though Jace’s expression didn’t change, I found myself smiling back. I couldn’t help it.
“These two planeswalkers came to us in their hour of need, and though our fight was not theirs, they provided us with invaluable assistance nonetheless. They have helped us not only to defend Mirrodin against the Phyrexian horde, but they have returned two of our number to us, safe and sound, from a captivity the likes of which I would not wish on my worst foe.” The mer’s voice was smoother than I had heard it yet, and it rang with a clear note of authority derived from years of commanding the respect of others. “I speak for all of us when I thank them again, and inform them that we are at their service, so long as what they may request of us does not prove too dire, or entirely impossible.”
I sat enthralled. I knew Vincenius was a powerful commander and planeswalker, but I had never expected him to speak so eloquently. When he signaled that he was finished by sitting back in his chair and sweeping an arm toward Jace, though, my attention instantly shifted. I didn’t know if Jace wanted me to chime in at any point – much less what I would actually say if he did – but I wanted to be prepared, just in case.
“I won’t speak long,” he said then as he stood, his voice sounding clipped but firm. “Vincenius has been a gracious enough host to share food with us, and I won’t be so careless as to allow it to go cold.” He nodded once before continuing, and then shifted his gaze to meet mine. I felt inexplicably self-conscious. “As I have informed you all over the past week, a great force threatens Ranewen’s home plane, as it does the rest of the multiverse if allowed to proceed in its actions unchecked. The Eldrazi are incredibly dangerous creatures, as are their spawn that we call the “brood lineage.” Not only can they walk worlds, but they can…consume them – in a matter of days, even, or so the legends say. The only way to defeat them is to amass as much power as we can in a head-to-head confrontation, to which end I call upon you, my fellow planeswalkers, for assistance. There are still many other walkers my team and I back on Ravnica have yet to find, and any assistance you can field in that realm would also be greatly appreciated. However, the main thing that we are asking of you, the only true thing…” He paused momentarily, and looked around at Vincenius, Koth, Elspeth, and Venser in turn with an expression so grave that I felt the beginnings of a chill crawl down my spine, “…is for you to fight by our side in the great battle to re-imprison the Eldrazi. We fight not only for Zendikar and its denizens, but for the fate of the entire multiverse, even the Blind Eternities itself.” There was another pause, and then Jace seated himself back down, quickly, and with what I assumed to be an intentional flourish of cloak. The entire room had fallen silent as its inhabitants stared off into their own bits of space in thought.
Suddenly, I heard a voice rise from next to me. “Hells, I’ll go.”
I turned to face Venser, my movements and expression sharp with surprise. Across from me, Jace looked much the same as I felt. “Venser?” I asked, dubiously.
He turned to me, and then to Jace, and then back to me again before nodding. “Yeah. I mean, aren’t I the obvious choice?” He shifted a little in his chair, the fabric of his long brown tunic rustling against his curved silver pauldrons. There was a note of something in his face that I couldn’t quite decipher. “Vincenius is the commander and head doctor – People need him here. Maybe he could planeswalk away for short periods of time, but in the long run…no.” He shook his head, and I watched his brown-eyed gaze shift across the table to the vulshok as he gestured. “Koth’s fight is for Mirrodin, against the Phyrexians. I don’t think any of us could, in our right minds, ask him to leave his people.”
“Wisely spoken, tinkerer,” Koth responded, interrupting like a sudden rumble of thunder. There was a pause, and then he said, more quietly, “Though I would not shy away from a single battle where my strength is greatly needed.” He turned to fix his steely gaze on Jace. “To that end, boy, and to the end that we already agreed upon, my magic is yours.”
“As is mine,” chimed in Vincenius. When I looked over at him, I saw a small smile twisting the mer’s lips. “I will stand beside you against the Eldrazi, but until then, my place is here. If you have something you wish of me in the meantime, I am but a short walk away.”
“I, for one, am in agreement with Venser. As soon as I have made a full recovery, I am yours to command whenever you so wish.”
At once the entire table turned to face the soft voice that had just spoken, to Elspeth. She sat calmly with her hands folded in her lap, staring straight ahead at the wall with blank grey eyes. Her utter lack of expression troubled me. Was she recalling the horrors that she had endured under the Phyrexians? Was the trauma of it all too much for her to take? I had an instinctive urge to reach out and place my hand over hers, as my sister had always done to me whenever I was lost in my own thoughts way back when, but of course that would be foolish. She didn’t know me, I didn’t know her. The gesture would just come off as being patronizing, and that was the last impression I wanted to make.
“Elspeth,” Vincenius said gently, “Venser. Are you both sure of your decisions?”
Elspeth simply nodded, but Venser spoke up from my other side. “Why not?” He shrugged, and I felt a warm rush of gratitude when he put on his most charming smile in what I assumed was an attempt to lighten the serious tone of the conversation. He threw me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve always liked seeing new places, and if I go with them now then I get to see at least two. Besides, I can come back here at any time if someone needs me to build something.”
Several moments passed in silence, and then finally, slowly, Vincenius nodded. “Very well,” he said. From the note of finality in his voice, it was clear that the discussion was well and truly complete. “The decision has been made. Venser will return to Ravnica with Jace and Ranewen, and Elspeth shall remain here under my care until she is in fighting form again. Any objections?”
There were none. There were, however, several pairs of hungry eyes on the buffet of food, mine among them.
Vincenius noticed and let out a short laugh. “Well then, I won’t delay you all any longer. Go ahead, eat – That’s what it’s here for!”
And eat we did. The meat that had smelled so good on my way in was still warm, and still tasted slightly of copper, but it was spiced enough that it didn’t bother me at all. Despite that, however, and despite all the other dishes laid out in front of me, the fruit had to be my favorite thing at the table. I hadn’t seen anything like it before – there were spheres of green with tough rinds and tart centers, crisp yellow oblong shapes that tasted of sweet summer rain, pale red globes that looked similar to gel fruit but were far softer, and far more flavorful. I relished every bite. After a few minutes of eating in silent wonder, Venser leaned over to me, close enough so that he could be heard over the conversation that Vincenius had started up across the table with Koth and Jace.
“None of these are native to Mirrodin, did you know that?” He noted my look of confusion (it was all I could do with my mouth full) with a chuckle, and sat back in his chair a little. “Doc has a garden plane all to himself. He claimed it for his own long before the Mending, or so he says – Me, I think what with all the power planeswalkers used to have, he might’ve just built it. Every couple of days he heads out there to recuperate, and when he comes back he brings all this with him.”
I finally swallowed my bite, and looked over at Venser with a smile. “Well, it’s better than gel fruit, that’s for sure.”
The artificer grinned. “Wake up with a headache this morning?”
Remembering the throbbing ache in my skull that had only just eased up, I tried to scowl. Instead, it quickly dissolved into a giggle. “You knew the whole time that was going to happen! You bastard, you should have warned me earlier.”
He put a hand to his chest in mock affront. “But m’lady, I did! It’s not my fault you were so eager to prove you can hold your alcohol!”
“Which apparently, I can’t yet.”
He shook his head, and smiled. “Ah, you’ll get the hang of it eventually. It just takes a bit of practice and pacing.” For a moment he paused, and then his smile turned a little more sincere as he regarded me. “Looks like we’re going to have to postpone our dinner though, huh?”
Now it was my turn to shake my head. “Not necessarily.” I smiled too. “We might just have to relocate it, that’s all. Not so bad, right?”
Venser laughed, a soft rich sound. “No, not at all. I look forward to it.”
Then, before I could say anything more to him, I felt a sudden warmth against my hand where it lay on my lap – and to my utter surprise, when I looked down I found Elspeth’s hand covering my own. My eyes widened. I lifted my head to face her, and when I did I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Her gaze was completely unlike before, deep and haunting and full of too many mixed emotions for me to distinguish. I found myself momentarily unable to breathe. “Thank you,” she whispered. Without pretense, she turned my palm upright in hers, and then I felt something cool and heavy drop into it. I didn’t dare look away from her though – not yet. “Vincenius told me that you were the one who saved my life. This is…not much, but I wanted to give it to you as a small token of my thanks. It was mine, once.” She closed my fingers around the smooth object in my palm, and finally, I pulled my eyes from her grey ones to chance a look down at it. My heart skipped a beat.
“But Lady Elspeth, I…” I held up the large gold medallion she had given me with reverence, taking in the beautifully etched symbols on it, the gleaming sun and the majestic eagle soaring over a field of flowers. “You shouldn’t be giving me this. Vincenius was the one who nursed you back to health, not me. I don’t deserve it.”
But Elspeth shook her head vehemently. “No, dear Ranewen. You valor in battle will not go unrewarded, not so long as I live. You may not realize the bravery of what you did, not yet, but…I do.” Her hand still remained clasped over mine, and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears as I met her gaze again. It held such powerful sincerity that, for a moment, just one…I almost believed her. “Where I once called home, these sigils were given for great feats of strength and self-sacrifice. You have done such a thing on my behalf. It is a debt I cannot hope to repay, but until I find some way that I can, somehow, I offer you a piece of my own honor.”
For a long moment, I couldn’t find the right words for what I wanted to say. After another moment, I gave up trying. “Thank you,” I said. My voice was faint, almost strained, and as I looked at Elspeth and her worn yet beautiful face, at her black hair that fell loose over her shoulders, I felt an all-too-familiar ache build in my chest. “I will cherish this always, my lady.”
But Elspeth said nothing else. She merely smiled, and with that she turned back to the food in front of her and resumed eating.
***
The breakfast continued on for another hour or so before Jace finally stood, nodding to Venser and I as if to say, ‘Time to leave.” Goodbyes were brief, since we all knew that we would be seeing one another again shortly – Though as I slung the strap of my bag over my shoulder and headed to the empty space by the door with Jace and Venser on either side, I stole one last look at Elspeth. Vincenius stood behind her chair, smiling and waving, but she herself did not move. Instead, she remained seated with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes followed me wherever I went. When I at last found them with my own she treated me to a small smile, so delicate that if I could hold it in my hands I was sure it would break instantly.
Before I could stare overlong, though, Jace tore apart the fabric of reality with his mind, and he stepped through the shimmering cerulean curtain into the Blind Eternities. I followed, with Venser right at my heels.
My third planeswalk was no less strange and arduous than the first two, but despite the lack of a sense of time in the void, it felt somehow shorter than them both. It wasn’t long before I was stepping out from the swirling, dizzying masses of light and color and sound and onto one of the plush rugs of the Consortium compound’s common room. I sank right down onto the nearest couch. Compared to Mirrodin, the Ravnican air was so cool that I began to drink in deep breaths of it like water, until Venser at last emerged, dazed, where I had been standing a moment ago. As soon as he exited, the portal vanished.
“Ugh.” He groaned, rubbing the side of his head as he stumbled his way over to sit next to me. When he did, he let out his breath in a huff. “I don’t think I was prepared enough for that one. Must not have been concentrating when I entered from Mirrodin…”
Jace then stepped away from the window that he had been staring out of, and came close to rest a palm on the arm of the couch beside me. His blue eyes were alight. “Hey, it happens. At least we all made it here in one piece.” For a moment he paused to favor me with a smile, which sent a flurry of butterflies to wing in my chest, and then he straightened and began to pace back and forth across the length of the rug. “And I managed to get Koth to agree to work with Sorin, who’s going to planeswalk to Mirrodin as soon as he gets back with Chandra so he can teach him how to remake the central hedron.”
Venser chuckled and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid I lost you there, captain.”
Jace shook his head. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll explain everything to you later.” He hefted the pack that he had been carrying into a more comfortable position, and then started off toward the stairs without so much as a glance back. “Right now I need to get a few things settled, so just relax, have a drink, take a walk around Ravnica…whatever you like. I’ll be back down by sunset, and we can discuss the situation then.” He didn’t wait for a reply from either of us, and instead took the steps up two at a time, his cloak billowing out behind him the whole way. When he had disappeared from sight, Venser chuckled again.
“Well, he’s certainly in a hurry.”
I smiled, wistfully. “Yeah. He always seems to have something or other to do.”
“But we don’t!” Grinning, Venser stood, and he held out a hand to me once he had smoothed the wrinkles from his tunic. “Why don’t we take him up on that last option? I haven’t gotten to see Ravnica up close yet. Hells, I haven’t even gotten to see it from afar.” He tilted his chin toward the towering windows, and then paused for a moment, as if he had just thought of something. Still grinning, he nodded to me. “Though I’m going to venture a guess that people here don’t exactly walk around wearing outfits made of pure gold.”
I snorted. Fortunately, the sound came out almost ladylike. “Yeah, you’re right.” I took his hand, and allowed him to help me to my feet – which, to my surprise, took almost no effort on his part. Once I was upright, I adjusted the weight of my bag’s strap where it hung from my shoulder. “I’ll go change into something a little less conspicuous, and we can head out after that. Deal?”
Venser nodded. “Deal.”
***
Clad in the long, flowing white tunic that someone had bought for me while I was gone and then left in my closet – Chandra, I guessed, from the little smiling face drawn on a scrap of paper that I had found pinned to one of the sleeves – and my usual brown leggings and boots, Venser and I made our way out of the compound. It took nearly a half hour of walking to pass through the entire expanse of the Rubblefield once we had achieved that feat, but when we finally did we strode purposefully, side by side, into the city proper.
Buildings stretched high above us all around, with twisting spires and looming archways and glittering stained-glass windows the likes of which I had never seen before – and that was only what lay above my head. At eye level the streets were packed with throngs of brightly-dressed people, either walking from one place to the next, or stopping on street corners to chat, or examining the wares that vendors hawked from behind the shade and safety of their wooden carts. Venser and I had been holding idle conversation about our surroundings up until now, but the further we walked from the compound, the more my brewing idea came to a boil in the forefront of my mind. It took nearly all of my effort to keep my tongue in check, but finally, as we rounded a corner near a market square, I realized that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Venser,” I said. The tone in my voice must have caught him off guard, because he stopped dead in his tracks to look down at me. Someone bumped into him from behind and grumbled, so he stepped off to the side, against the wall of a modest brick building. I followed.
“What is it, Rana?” he asked. The note of concern in his voice made me feel suddenly guilty, but I wasn’t about to back down now. I couldn’t. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to ask him anything terrible.
“Do you know if…” I swallowed, and looked around briefly to see if anyone was obviously listening in on us. No one was. No one even seemed to notice us, now that we were out of the way of the foot traffic. Slowly, I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. “…if planeswalkers can sense one another, when they walk? I need to know. It’s important.”
Venser looked taken aback by the question, but his expression quickly settled into one of deep thought. After a long moment, he shrugged. “Well…there are spells for it, yes, but other than that…no, not passively or anything.” He examined me closely, and as I watched his brow began to furrow. “Why? Are you hiding something?”
Hearing the suspicious tone that had found its way into his voice, I held up my hands and shook my head vigorously. “No!” I exclaimed. “No, I’m not. I just…” I sighed, and reached up to twirl a lock of hair around my finger – the same habit I always resorted to whenever I was anxious. “I want to go home, Venser. Just once. I didn’t get to say my goodbyes before I left, and it’s haunting me, and I want to go back for just a little while so I can…so I can do that. So I can tell everyone where I’m going, and what I’m fighting for.” There was a moment’s pause, and then my gaze shifted to the worn cobblestones beneath my feet, unable to hold onto anything else. Especially not Venser’s eyes, kind as they were. “They probably think I’m dead by now, anyway. I want to let them know that I’m safe and well.”
Indeed Venser’s eyes were kind, and intent too, because when he spoke next I couldn’t stop myself from looking up and into them. “Well, why not just go?” A flicker of anger crossed his face then, and all of a sudden he took ahold of my shoulders, though not roughly. I balked a little at the sharp severity that had overcome his voice. “Are they keeping you here against your will? Is that what’s going on?”
“No!” I realized right away how indignant my own voice sounded, and I worked to correct it. Gently, I took his hands off of me and lowered them to his sides. “It’s not that. I’m fine. What it is is that…” I hesitated, and then I let out a long groan. “Oh, this is going to sound so stupid. I’m…I’m nervous, to go by myself.” Shaking my head, I ignored the loose pieces of hair that began to tumble down into my face. Hells, all the better – they hid the embarrassed flush that had just now spread to my cheeks, and that made me feel uncomfortably warm under the mid-afternoon sun. “I don’t want to get attacked by the brood lineage again, or get lost in the Blind Eternities, or anything like that. I wanted to ask Jace, but he’s always been too busy. Chandra and Sorin are gone, too, off doing who knows what. When I met you, though…” I smiled, despite myself, and tilted my head a little as I met Venser’s questioning gaze. “I was sure that you would help me. Or at least, I hoped so. You said you love to see new places, right…?”
Slowly, a smile of his own began to turn up the corners of the artificer’s lips. “Right. So, when are we leaving?”
For a moment his words didn’t register – and then, a moment after that, their meaning hit me at once. All I could do was blink at him in surprise. “Wait, really?”
Venser laughed. “Yes, of course really! I want to see Zendikar, you need a traveling partner – It’s that simple, isn’t it?” He took my hand, and quick as lightning he pulled me around the corner, into the darkness of the alleyway between the brick building and its neighbor. There was no one around. “We have the whole day. Why don’t we just go right now? I’m sure we can be back to see Jace by the time the sun goes down, and I can follow your aether trail on the way there.” His voice was so earnest, so eager, that I couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh as I stared up into his now wide, bright eyes. Is it really this easy? Is this all it’s going to take?
“Sounds like a plan,” I breathed. I could barely contain my excitement as I closed my eyes and focused my will, calling upon all the mana I could find in the multiverse that would bend to serve me. It came, and it answered my call not in a trickle but a torrent – a heady, intoxicating rush that nearly sent me reeling with the sheer raw power of it. Immediately, I directed that power into my body and Venser’s, and curling, leafy vines began to twine about us from toe to head as I pulled us both into the space between worlds. The last thing I heard before I vanished outright was Venser’s voice, laughing distantly, as if he were someplace very far away.
“Well, looks like you’ve finally figured out how to make a flashy exit!”
And then the streets and buildings and people of Ravnica were all gone.
When I stepped out of the Blind Eternities and into existence, I found that I couldn’t see – at least, not for a moment. Something was obscuring my vision.
I coughed and waved a hand in front of my face, and slowly the smoky grey began to clear from my eyes. It took a good full minute until my sight – and my other senses, which were oddly dulled – was restored, but I was willing to wait. A minute was nothing compared to how long I had waited to return home.
When they did, however, every last fiber in my body went numb.
I wondered briefly if something had gone wrong in the planeswalk, if I had taken us somewhere besides Zendikar, somewhere we shouldn’t be – but just as quickly as the thought had occurred, I knew that I was fooling myself. I knew that this was Zendikar, knew it as surely as I knew my own name, that I was Ranewen of the Tajuru – arboromancer, healer, and covert black mage, and now planeswalker errant.
But to my horror, I also now knew that everything was gone.
I was standing in the middle of an expanse of pure and utter nothing – There were no jaddi-trees, no ferns, no flickering fires from where my village’s canopy houses should have hung, high up, a half-mile away. I couldn’t even feel any mana, from anywhere near or for miles and miles in any direction. The land had been drained completely dry.
All that did remain was the earth beneath me, and the sky above. Both looked as if they had been burned several times over until their last vestiges of life were nothing but ashes. Dark clouds roiled over my head, and in the distance there was a growl of thunder.
Venser’s hand was on my shoulder then, and I could hear his voice saying my name, whispering something about how he was so sorry…but I didn’t heed it. I shook him away, roughly, and bolted off at a dead sprint into the emptiness ahead.
I ran. It was all I could think to do. I ran until my legs and lungs burned in unison, then even more until my eyes burned, and my cheeks, and then still more until every part of my body felt as if it were aflame, with Venser’s own footfalls echoing behind me all the while as he tried to keep up. I didn’t care, though. I didn’t stop for even a moment until I had reached the spot where I knew my family’s own jaddi-tree should be, where I had spent nearly every evening of my life cooking dinner with my mother and listening to my father as we all sat by the fire and he told his stories to Amita and I, where we had scattered that same sister’s ashes over the balcony and into the wind one cold dark night as I watched with a heart that felt as heavy and lifeless as stone. I fell to my knees now, staring up at where the jaddi-tree should be and into nothing – into only blackness, into smoke and embers and ash that permeated everything.
It had been a long time since I felt such pain.
Being someone who embraces her emotions freely – each and every one, from the most heart-rending agony to the most uplifting joy – I was used to letting an array of feelings wash over me like a tide, to drown me, to drag me under and swallow me whole in the maw of their depths.
But this…nothing before, nothing, could compare to this.
My senses failed me. Everything else around me melted away into the shuddering violence of my screams, and…spirits, I didn’t know if I was breathing, or if my heart was beating. All I knew was that my body was useless, every muscle that wasn’t trembling swiftly falling limp and leaden. I slumped over across my knees like a dead weight, still screaming. Now I could feel the new sensation of hot tears pouring down my face, to drip off and stain my leggings and the blackened, charred earth beneath them. This isn’t real, I decided, even as my throat began to protest the sounds still erupting from it. This can’t be real. I won’t let it be.
But as I finally sucked in a gasping lungful of air and drew in the stench of pure death, I knew that I had no choice in the matter.
My screaming at last gave way to huge, racking sobs when the pain in my throat made it clear that I could do the former no longer. I didn’t know how long I knelt there like that, but eventually I managed to cry myself hollow – until there was nothing left in me but a hole and a crushing, indescribable ache.
“I…I don’t…understand.” The sound of my voice, so feeble and hoarse, almost startled me. I hadn’t thought I was capable of speaking. “How can this have happened? How..?” I shook my head, disbelief fighting its way to the forefront for just an instant. “This is madness!”
From behind me, Venser’s voice came, so soft that I had to strain to hear it. When I turned to face him I saw that he was standing close, stock still, his eyes wide with his own disbelief. Bright, clear brown had gone murky under its influence.
“I guess this is what we’re fighting,” he whispered. “Total annihilation.”
At the sound of another voice besides my own in what I could no longer call my home, in what was now nothing more than a desolate wasteland, more feelings bubbled up inside of me – Guilt. Anger. They rose into a rolling boil before I could even process them, and forced me to my feet. My legs were not prepared to withstand my weight, however, and so they buckled beneath me, sending me falling to my knees once more. I spoke again. “I shouldn’t have…” As my body sagged, I began to shake my head, back and forth in tune to the rhythm that pounded agonizingly against my skull. “I shouldn’t have left. I could have done something.” I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a quiet sob – but then, what was the use in holding it back at this point? Rage swelled within me, directed at anything and everything, and my voice nearly choked on its own bitterness. “But now everyone is DEAD!
“DAMN IT!”
I slammed my fist into the ground with as much physical force as I could muster, and almost instantly a searing pain blossomed and shot its way up my arm. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care less, actually – I welcomed it, and the sting of the blood that now began to drip from my knuckles.
It took me a moment to notice that Venser had come closer to kneel beside me, albeit a few feet away. He had a concerned look in his eyes now but said nothing, merely watching me, giving me space until I was well enough recovered from my shock and from the torrent of emotions that still had me caught up in its eddies. I didn’t think I would be for quite some time, though.
“Somehow…” I murmured, lifting my gaze to meet his own. I couldn’t seem to focus on him. “Somehow I knew this was going to happen. And yet…I didn’t do anything to stop it.” Hurt blossomed as swiftly and as easily as the pain still throbbing in my hand, and I squeezed my eyes shut for a long moment as I fought back more tears. “I could have asked them, asked Jace or Chandra or Sorin or anyone to come back with me before we left for Mirrodin, even though they were all busy, but I…” It was much harder to hold back the tears now, and they welled rebelliously in the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill over if I didn’t stop talking. But it was too late for that. “I did nothing.”
“You did what you thought was best, Ranewen,” Venser replied almost instantly, leaning towards me with a solemn expression. His mouth had hardened into a thin line, though his eyes still held their compassion, their worry. “You couldn’t have beaten them on your own. You knew that. You knew you had to wait for help.” After a moment’s pause, the creases in his brow softened, and the faintest traces of a sad smile lifted the corners of his lips.
“Sometimes,” he said softly, “you just have to run away.”
I said nothing. What was there to say? I wrapped my arms around myself when I finally noticed that I was shivering, partly from the bodily shock, partly from the force of emotion, and partly from the cold winds that ripped intermittently across the barren expanse to lift Venser’s tunic and stab me all the way down to my bone. He noticed, of course, and finally deemed it safe enough to move closer so that he could pull me against him in an embrace. Once his warmth had seeped into me enough to stop my teeth from clattering, I shook my head. I wanted to cry still, but I had run out of tears. All that was left was hurt. Everything hurt, so badly that I couldn’t stand it. “So this is the part where I’m supposed to retreat inside myself and become all distant and unemotional, right?” Instead of choking me this time, the bitterness dripped from my voice like venom. My hands tightened into fists in his tunic, wadding the fabric between shaky fingers.
“Believe me, you wouldn’t be the first.” I could feel the vibrations from his voice all the way down to my feet. Its low, sympathetic rumble was almost calming. “But…that’s not the only option.”
“And what is the other option?” My own voice could do no better than a rasp after all the screaming I had done.
Venser shrugged, and my body rose and fell with his movements. “You could try overly emotional,” he offered.
At that I couldn’t help but look up at him, at his gentle smile and the faintly hopeful gleam in his eyes. They were clear once more, like a lifeline in the ocean of my own personal hell, and for more than a few moments I clung desperately to them. “You’re not alone, you know,” he continued as he met my gaze. One of his hands reached up to stroke my hair. “You have plenty of people you can turn to. You don’t have to hide in yourself.”
I let out an almost-laugh, a stilted, awkward sort of sound that was alien even to me. “Overly emotional does sound like me,” I admitted. But then I remembered where I was, what had happened, what all I had lost, and…I was shaking my head again, burying my face between where my hands clutched at him. I let out a deep sigh that did nothing to carry the weight of the world off my shoulders. “I don’t want to be alone, Venser.” My voice was quieter than I had anticipated. “But it’s…it’s already half-true now. I can’t just pretend that it’s not.”
Tilting my head so that the side of my face rested against his chest, I stared off into the distance without really seeing. “Some part of me had hoped I could come back here once all of this was done and have a happy homecoming, like I had just gone off on a little trip.” When my eyes came back into focus, I immediately shut them, not wanting to see the swathe of destruction that surrounded me. “I guess I’m just naïve for thinking that.”
This time it was Venser’s turn to shake his head. I could feel the slight movement and the exhale of his breath against my hair. “None of us can really come back, Rana.” His voice was somber, and somehow sounded as if he were speaking from far away. “Not after our sparks have ignited. Not once we’ve learned what kind of power has been forced upon us.” His fingers were still enmeshed in my hair, but they had stopped moving. I tilted my head up again when I noticed so that I could look at him, but my heart sank even lower than it already was at the expression of deep sadness that had suddenly overcome his face. I could do nothing except blink in surprise when his gaze – not on me but on something else entirely – hardened, and his free arm tightened around me. His fingers dug ever so slightly into the shoulders of my shirt.
“Things are different for us planeswalkers. Our equals aren’t men and women, but angels and dragons and…monsters. Like these.”
I looked away then, not wanting to see the darkness in his face anymore, not wanting to see anything. Instead I rested my forehead against the hollow in his collarbone and just breathed in the smell of him – warm leather and oil, a mélange of earthy woods, and the faint tang of metal, all mixed with the scent of his own skin – as unique to him as a fingerprint. For some reason unbeknownst to me, it quieted the storm inside my head and heart until it was just a dull roar, nearly insubstantial as the gathering fog. That storm blanketed me still, yes, but for the first time since I had seen the horrors that greeted me here, I felt…calm. I could think without falling prey to the howling assaults of my own grief, could speak without feeling as if each word was sapping my strength. My eyes closed, and for a moment I drifted.
“I wonder if this route is better, then,” I spoke, barely above a whisper. “To have your bridges burned for you, so you don't have to hang onto something you know will never really be yours again.” New tears at last loosed themselves, though silently. As they fell, my voice broke.
“It doesn’t feel like it now, though. That’s for sure.”
Venser took a few moments to respond, and when he did, his voice was hardly louder than mine.
“No…there’s always something more you can’t have. That doesn’t change.”
Despite myself, I felt a chuckle rise in my throat, past the lump that always formed whenever I cried. It wasn’t of humor, or even of bitterness – I didn’t quite know what it was, in fact, only that the impulse took over me and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t move my head from where it was, still not wanting to look at him. “Like what?” I asked. My voice came out muffled from against his chest. What more could I have possibly wanted than home?
His breath hitched, and I could feel it. There was a long pause. “That’s…too personal.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So for the second time that day, I didn’t say anything.
We remained just like that for a while, his arms wrapped around me and mine still fisted in his tunic. As the seconds passed, my grip continued to loosen, and it eventually fell away entirely. I couldn’t bring myself to lift my arms and hug him back, though I didn’t want to break the embrace either. It was comforting, and without it I don’t think I would have made it out of this – I didn’t want to call it a situation, because that word seemed too casual, too impersonal, but it was all my torn mind could think of at the moment – situation alright. But as it was, I was finally beginning to feel calm enough to push things aside, at least for now. Later was a different story. But now…now, at least everything had gone numb, like that blissfully agonizing moment when I had first arrived.
“I…don’t know what to do.”
Hearing my words, Venser made the decision for me and stood. He pulled me up with him effortlessly, hands lingering on my shoulders to steady me when, sure enough, I wobbled. Once he was sure that I could remain standing on my own, though, he stepped back to a normal walking distance and fixed me with a melancholy smile.
“I think it’s time to go.”
My heart twisted a little at the thought of leaving Zendikar behind, but…when I forced myself to turn and look around me one last time, I realized that there really wasn’t any reason for me to be here. Not yet. Until I could return with as many planeswalkers as our little ragtag group could muster, intent on fighting to the death and not looking back for anything, my place was elsewhere. Where specifically, I didn’t know. Ravnica. Mirrodin, maybe. Honestly, it didn’t matter – So long as I did whatever I needed to do in order to help bring the Eldrazi down, I could be living in the filthiest, most crime-ridden city slums, for all I cared. My hands shook now as I clenched them into fists at my side, and as I stared beyond the ruins of what had once been my world to the looming outlines of the creatures that lay far beyond in the distance, I felt thick, hot hate rise in my chest. It blocked out everything else, all my pain and disbelief and sorrow, and for a moment my vision went red at the edges.
“I will kill you,” I whispered, “all of you. No matter what it takes.”
And with that I turned to take Venser’s outstretched hand, and a sheen of golden light flared around our bodies as he planeswalked us both away.
***
When we were both safely back in the Consortium compound, Venser took me up to my room and encouraged me to get some rest. He said that he needed to return to Mirrodin for the evening so that he could inform Vincenius of everything that had happened, that he thought the mer commander would like to know, that he would be back the next morning to explain everything to Jace, he swore on his heart. I hadn’t put up a word in protest, and so without further ado he had left. Thus I found myself alone, and also at a complete loss as to what to do.
I was exhausted, but I didn’t think I would be able to sleep. Sunset was nearing – the first tinges of red and purple were visible at the edges of what sky I could see between the buildings outside my window – but I didn’t want to talk to Jace. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, really. Venser had said that he would take care of things tomorrow, and I planned to take him up on that offer.
After a time, I finally decided that my best possible course of action would be to drink until I passed out.
I crept down into the common room and had the golem bartender – whose name I would have to remember to get, when I was less inclined to make myself forget as many of the day’s events as possible – procure me a bottle of rich, aged red wine and a gleaming crystal glass to go with it, both of which I carried snugly under my arm as I hurried back up the stairs.
Apparently I was in such a hurry that I had forgotten to shut my door, because just as I was about to pour myself a third glass, a familiar face poked its way into the room.
“Ranewen?”
I gave a start, and had to catch the wine bottle before it could tilt too far and spill all over my sheets. Fortunately, my reflexes hadn’t yet been affected by the alcohol – just my emotions. Or maybe it wasn’t the alcohol at all, maybe it was just because I had recently found out that everyone I knew and loved was dead. Either or.
“Jace.” My voice came out as bitter as it had been earlier, back in Zendikar. I could feel anger swelling in me as he stepped fully into the room and I looked at him. Why didn’t he stop to think about me? His eyes widened in concern when he saw the expression on my face, but that only incensed me even more. Was what he had to do so important that he couldn’t have warned me before we left about what might happen? That I would be leaving everyone behind to die? My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass, and they shook. Was he so busy that he couldn’t stop for one minute to take me back, and help save everyone’s lives before it was too late?
I gritted my teeth, and suddenly, before I could compose myself, I felt tears stinging their way down my cheeks. “I thought you should know that the Eldrazi are progressing further on Zendikar than we had originally expected.”
For a moment Jace just looked confused, bewildered even – and then, at once, he understood. He rushed over to sit beside me on the bed, taking the wine bottle and empty glass from my hands before I had a chance to react, and putting them aside.
“This is what I was afraid of,” he whispered. He took one of my hands in both of his and stared directly into my eyes. “Ranewen, I’m so sorry.”
The sincerity of the grief in his gaze caught me off guard. I almost believed him, believed that he hadn’t anticipated this, that he was sorry…My anger faltered, and I allowed him to continue holding my hand instead of brushing him away. Still though, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Sorry for what? You could have prevented this at any time. This didn’t have to happen.”
Jace closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, and shook his head. I tried to convince myself that he didn’t look profoundly sad, but it wasn’t working. “No, I couldn’t have. There was nothing any of us could have done, not even if we had tried the day we found you.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” he hesitated, and then slowly lifted his blue eyes to settle on mine. “…that the brood lineage had probably already reached your village by the time that squadron attacked you. They travel fast, and they…” He shook his head again. “...they…consume things even faster. The only way to save anyone would have been to take them through the Blind Eternities, which no planeswalker has been able to do with a mortal since the Mending. There was no way anyone could flee on foot fast enough.”
I opened my mouth, then just as quickly snapped it shut. For a moment, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So you…you knew, this whole time?” Now I shook my head. I could feel an incredulous laugh building in my throat. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”
Jace smiled, without mirth. “If you were in my place, would you have wanted to?” After a moment his shoulders sagged, and in the span of a few seconds his expression grew very, very tired. “Besides, I…wasn’t even sure. I thought…I hoped that there was some chance, however small.”
My vision began to blur with tears then as the full realization hit me – If what Jace just said was true, then everyone had been doomed from the start. There was nothing that I…any of us, could have done. Nothing. Destiny, fate, whatever in the nine hells people liked to call it, had come that day to take its toll, and it hadn’t been in the mood to delay its journey.
“No,” I breathed, and the voice that I heard wasn’t mine but someone else’s – a frightened little girl’s voice, small and confused and helpless. “No, no…” I felt my head dropping onto my chest. It took every shred of willpower I had to keep myself from crying. I can’t. I won’t. No more. I have to be strong…
“I’m so sorry,” Jace said again. He squeezed my hand, and somewhere in the haze of my mind I realized that his were shaking. There was a long pause. “If you need to talk to anyone, I’m here. My situation is vastly different from yours, of course, but I…know what it’s like. To feel betrayed. To lose someone.”
The hollow ring to his voice pulled my head up, and my gaze to his. He didn’t look back at me, though – He was staring straight ahead at the closet door, as intently as if he knew it were going to spring to life any second. I looked away. My gaze instead settled on my lap, where he still held my hand in a tight grip. “What happened?”
A minute passed before he answered, and when he did his voice was as soft as I had ever heard it. “I…” He sighed, heavily. “I put my trust in the wrong person. More than that, I loved her. Stupid as I was. She took everything from me, everything that mattered. My home, my friends…Kallist…” He squeezed my hand so hard that I winced. “Ah.” He had noticed. “Sorry. But…anyway, you don’t want to hear it.” He scowled, seemingly at himself. “It’s going to make me sound like a pathetic little child, especially after what just happened to you.”
I shook my head. I hadn’t been expecting him to open up so suddenly, and as dour as the subject matter was, it was a welcome distraction. “No, Jace, tell me.”
But he shook his head too. “I…no, Ranewen, I can’t tell the whole thing. Not right now. I’m sorry I mentioned it. Maybe later, but…”
“Jace.” I stared at him until he finally looked up at me, but as soon as he did I knew that even then he wasn’t going to relent. Apparently, this really was something that haunted him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and smiled faintly as he stood and pulled his hands from mine, “but I need to clear my head if I want to have any hope of discussing that subject rationally. When I do, though, I promise I’ll let you know.”
“What, so you’re just going to leave?” I knew it was a selfish thing to say, but I had blurted it out before I could think. I had realized that he was going to go off and do whatever important planeswalker-Consortium-whatever business he needed to do, and I didn’t want him to go. Not now. Just a short while ago I had wanted to be alone, but now that I had started talking, now that I had cracked the veneer of brooding solitude I had built up around myself…I wanted him to stay. Needed him to.
“If you want a chance at getting revenge on the Eldrazi,” he said then, and the quiet force behind his words gave me pause, “then yes. I need to go. If you want some company, you know where my office is. I can’t guarantee I’ll make fantastic conversation while I’m poring over my reports, but…” He smiled again. “…my door is always open to you.”
And with that he left, and I was once again alone with nothing but my own thoughts – and this time, too, a half-empty bottle of wine.
I agree with you about the latest novels. I'm a huge, huge fan of the storyline - both pre-Mending and post - but recently I've found myself a little disappointed in the quality of the writing (except the Planeswalker novels, because Agents of Artifice, Test of Metal, and The Purifying Fire were FANTASTIC.). Here's hoping for Innistrad, right?
Seriously though, thank you. It perpetually amazes me that people are not only reading my work, but enjoying it too. Please feel free to share any feedback you have any time, because I'd love to hear it!
The only part I like more is how well you treat the actual characters. I'd actually love to see you handle Bolas. I have no doubt you'd do better then most of his other apperances lately. Koth and Venser were surperbly handled, and I actually liked Jace. And I hate his guts normally, so, great job there.
I haven't found anything that makes me dislike this. So far, if this was a published novel, and I had to chose between it and Zendikar's...I'd pick yours no question. I can't wait for the next chapters. And yes, I mean that.
I'm so, so glad that you like Ranewen - It's difficult to strike a balance when I write, because I want her to be a confident, able-to-take-care-of-herself woman who is allowed to show her weaknesses (and to just be a woman, sometimes), but I don't want her to be overpowered or needy. Looks like I must be doing something right, if I have your seal of approval!
Jace...Oh, Jace. I think that in pretty much everything except Agents of Artifice, he's been overexposed to the point of HOLY CRAP I WANT TO THROTTLE HIM. In the book, to me, Ari Marmell did a great job of bringing him down to our level, so that we can see him for once as a regular guy (as much as a planeswalker can be, haha) with flaws, the same as everyone else. I tried to channel that into this version of him. Venser is easy (he's one of my favorites), and Koth is even easier, but as far as Jace goes...I hope I can keep his persona going, I really do. Some days he's easier to write than others, but I always try!
Bolas? MUAHAHAH---Er, *ahem*. Sorry. Carry on. I'll just say thank you again for the kind words, and duck out before I talk you to death...or get a little too excited about a certain elder dragon.
But really, it's comments like yours that keep me going.
A/N: Yeesh. Sorry this chapter took so long to get posted, but I just moved into a new place. It's been a busy week.
By the time I woke up the next day, it was mid-afternoon.
My head hurt even worse than it had the morning after my dinner with Venser. I knew that lying around in bed all day wouldn’t do me any good, though, so I just grit my teeth and bore it as I rolled to one side – and accidentally off the bed, dragging several sheets with me. I groaned when I hit the floor.
Eventually, I managed to struggle myself into an ankle-length green dress (another gift from most likely Chandra), and tied on a pair of laced brown sandals (yet another gift – It seemed like my mysterious benefactor had made it a personal goal to attend to my distinct lack of a wardrobe). When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I did have to admit that I looked nice…even nicer when I took a few minutes to tease the bedhead from my hair, which was not an easy task. When all was said and done, I couldn’t help but smile. Feeling pretty wasn’t something that I ordinarily concerned myself with, let alone something that I savored – but today, it managed to cheer me up, just a little. Perhaps my recovery from all that had happened wouldn’t be in giant leaps, but in baby steps. Perhaps this was the first of many.
Ignoring the pounding that assaulted my ears every time I moved, I descended the stairs to the common room. I could hear several voices from the top landing – one of them unfamiliar – but once I stepped into view the noise died down in an instant. Five pairs of eyes made their way to me, and the only response I could muster was to blink back at them, and to shift awkwardly.
Jace and Venser sat on two couches flanking a little table, and across from them Sorin lounged in the large, plush armchair, looking as content and comfortable as the housecats I had seen humans keep. My heart leapt when I saw Chandra, sitting up straight on another couch with her hands folded in her lap – but just as quickly as she had drawn my gaze, it alighted on the man sitting next to her. He was tall, broad – a warrior’s build, and clad in a warrior’s heavy blue-and-silver armor – and had thick black hair so long that he had tied it in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. At his belt, a strange whiplike weapon gleamed. When I met his steel-blue gaze he stood, smoothly, and bowed at the waist.
“Ranewen of the Tajuru,” he said. His voice reminded me of Vincenius’s, deep and resounding and commanding. His, however, was more gravelly, and it had all of the solemnity and none of the mirth. “My name is Gideon Jura. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, though I would also like to express my deepest sympathies as to the loss of your home. I imagine this is not an easy time for you.”
Behind him, Chandra and Venser winced. Jace lowered his eyes. Sorin yawned.
I was tempted at first to correct Gideon, to tell him that I was no longer Ranewen of the Tajuru and instead just Ranewen, but it was a momentary impulse…and anyway, I knew it wasn’t true. Despite the fact that my tribe was gone, they were just as much a part of me as they had always been, and they always would be. Besides, Gideon hadn’t seemed to have meant any harm by the statement. I took a slow, deep breath, and allowed my brief bitterness to pass.
“You guys don’t need to walk on eggshells around me, you know,” I sighed, letting out the breath in an equally deep exhale. I met Gideon’s gaze again, and nodded to him and smiled politely. It took effort, but I did it nonetheless. “It’s good to meet you, Gideon. I appreciate your kind words.”
He nodded too before sitting back down beside Chandra. I couldn’t help noticing the look she shot him then, and the swiftness with which he returned it. Very suddenly, and despite myself, I had to stifle a grin.
“We found him making his way here to the compound on our way back,” Sorin broke in, his voice coming low and languid from the cushioned depths of his armchair. His yellow eyes – still eerie after all this time – met mine, and he paused. “Well, she found him. I just got the information out of him. Apparently he’s met the Eldrazi in person and lived to tell the tale, and such a fateful encounter motivated him to come find the Infinite Consortium and petition us for help.” He shrugged. “Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?”
“Very convenient,” Jace muttered. He was eyeing Gideon from beneath his ever-present hood, but he looked more curious than suspicious.
There was a moment’s pause. “You’re welcome to sit down, Rana.” Venser’s voice was quiet when he spoke, and when I turned to face him he patted the cushion at his side with a hesitant smile. Once I had come to sit next to him I returned that smile warmly, and his face took on a look of relief.
“Gideon, you’re sure about wanting to do this?” Chandra was looking at the warrior full-on now, and with an expression of open dismay. It was a good cover for the way her hands twitched on her lap, so close to his own, and for the hint of joy you could see hidden behind her narrowed eyes – that is, if you looked closely enough. Which I did.
Gideon shook his head, and I saw his own hand twitch. Like Koth, he was remarkably good at keeping his face impassive. “You are, aren’t you? So why can’t I?”
“Because…” She faltered, and her gaze dropped down to her lap. “Well, because you got dragged into this because of me. You would have never even heard about Zendikar if it wasn’t for me, and the scroll, and…” She shook her head now too. “I just don’t want you throwing yourself into the middle of this huge conflict because you feel like it’s your responsibility or something.”
“It is my responsibility.” The only time a flicker of an expression crossed Gideon’s face was when he looked at Chandra – for a half-second, I caught an odd mixture of frustration and compassion. “These beings are threatening the order of the entire multiverse, and even if I’ve renounced my devotion to the Order of Heliud, that doesn’t change who I am. And I’m not the type of man to stand by when I can do something to help, especially when people I care about are in danger.” From the grin that spread across Sorin’s face – out of Gideon or Chandra’s line of sight, thankfully – I was sure that I wasn’t the only one who had caught Gideon’s pointedly affectionate look. Chandra’s response to it was to blush, which cemented my certainty.
“I…guess there’s nothing I can do but stop worrying about it, huh?” was all she could say. Softly, at that.
Before the two could make eyes at each other any longer, Sorin sighed and leaned forward in his chair. All traces of his previous grin were gone from his lips. “So that settles it, then.” His voice was suddenly cold. “Gideon stays with us, so long as he provides the assistance he is so eager to give. And you, Jace, you can stop your nonsensical worrying as to my…contributions, to this group.” He stood, his own elegantly embroidered cloak flowing around him like water, and flashed the mage a look that seemed to be saying a rather irritated ‘I told you so.’ With that, he turned his back to the room. “I’ll be in my chambers if anyone finds themselves needing me. Which, as always, I don’t suspect.” He strode out through a side door, head held high and boots clicking against the wood as he went. Before he disappeared, though, I noticed that he had a new longsword – even more ornate than the first one, with swirls and vines and other intricate patterns decorating both its hilt and its sheath. Then he was gone, and I had no more time to appreciate it.
“He’s not in the best of moods, is he?”
Venser’s humor was met with a grunt from Jace, who was resting his elbow on the arm of the couch and his chin in his hand. He looked sullen. “He never is. You’ll get used to it, if you hang around here long enough.”
“I think he’s mad at you, Jace,” Chandra corrected. Her voice had returned to its normal, half-flippant tone, instead of the girlish sigh that she had taken on when talking to Gideon. Her gaze shifted from Jace to me and then back to Jace, and the brief grin she sent my way lifted my spirits. “What, are you two arguing again? You seriously need to stop pissing each other off, or we’re never going to get anything done around here.”
“I know how to handle him.” But Jace didn’t sound so sure – more than anything, he sounded tired. I sympathized.
“Well, if we’re not going to continue this conversation, can I…uh…go? I want to talk to Rana.”
Hearing my name, my ears pricked up. I did want to talk to Chandra a great deal, but if we had important things still to discuss…
But Jace nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. I need to talk to you two – ” he gestured at Gideon and Venser with a wave of his arm, “ – anyway. I’ll let you know if we need either of you again.”
Throwing Gideon one last sidelong glance, Chandra stood, and made her way over to my couch. She stopped in front of me and offered a hand. The smile she wore was a welcome sight.
“Come on, missy. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
Venser smiled at me as I took her hand and stood, and as we made our way over to the stairs I thought I caught Jace’s blue eyes on me as well. Before I had time to analyze his expression, though, we were bounding up the steps – I had forgotten to let go of Chandra’s hand – and hurrying down the hall toward her bedroom, so fast that I found myself flushed and out of breath.
***
“So,” the pyromancer said, “tell me everything.”
And I did. We had settled down into the two chairs in front of her fireplace – the dominant fixture in her room, and a terribly appropriate one at that – and she, in turn, leaned forward to listen as I talked myself hoarse. It took quite awhile for me to explain it all. I had to stop briefly to compose myself when I got to the parts both about Elspeth and about the Eldrazi, but Chandra was an attentive and sympathetic audience. She reached out to hold my hand at those difficult moments, and once they had passed she sat right back, hands folded over her knees and eyes wide, and simply let me talk. The openness of the expression on her face gave me some small measure of comfort. Once I had finished, I sank back into my own chair and sighed. It wasn’t as cushy as the furniture downstairs, but it was something.
“Do you really think we have a chance?” I had been trying not to let my negative emotions get the best of me, but after recounting the tale of everything that had happened, it was hard to hold them back. I shook my head, slowly. “They just…obliterated my home. Completely. Mana and all. How can even fifty planeswalkers hold their own against them, much less, what…eight? We have eight. Against three giant demons, and their armies of hellspawn.”
“Hey, don’t think like that!” I looked up sharply at the sound of her voice, and when I did I was surprised at how…alight Chandra’s eyes were. Isn’t this supposed to be a somber topic? She clucked her tongue chastisingly, and shook her head. “You’re supposed to be little miss cheery, right? So act it! We need your optimism, Rana, even if it’s a little, uh…misplaced, sometimes. I overheard Jace talking about how you barreled straight ahead on Mirrodin, and I mean, come on! Look at where that got you! You saved Elspeth’s life!” I blinked as she bent forward and grabbed my hand again, lifting it to her eye level. “Yeah, the Eldrazi are insanely powerful. Yeah, they’ve already done a ton of damage, and are probably going to do a ton more. But us planeswalkers aren’t so bad ourselves! You’ve only seen a few small battles – You haven’t seen us really in action. Maybe then you’ll change your mind, huh?”
I shrugged. It was hard to be morose when you had a bright-eyed, beaming redhead staring you in the face, and damn it all if I didn’t feel a smile coming on. “Maybe. Do I want to, though? I think I’d be nervous about getting caught up in the crossfire.”
Chandra giggled and shook her head again. “No, trust me, you want to. They can get a little dangerous, but…if you’re not one of the combatants, why the hells not? Real planeswalker duels are exciting to watch.”
Gently, I took my hand from hers, and rested it on her knee. I chuckled. “Maybe for you, but I think I’ll pass on that offer. I’d rather keep my mortal body intact, thank you very much.”
Chandra rolled her eyes and swatted my leg. “Oh, you’re no fun.”
“Ow! Hey!” I winced. That stung. “Me? You’re the one who’s no fun, not telling me about this new arrival of ours. You both were staring like you were going to eat each other.”
Chandra’s newly red face took on an indignant expression then, but she couldn’t help letting out a snort of laughter. Nervous laughter, from the sound of it. “What, Gideon? We…we’ve known each other a long time, that’s all. I met him on Kephalai, and we helped each other out on Diraden---”
“Oh, save it, Chandra. I’ve seen those looks plenty. I’ve given and gotten them a few times, too – Hells, I probably give them to Jace whenever he walks in the room.” I giggled, and cocked a teasing eyebrow. Now I could feel the blush creeping into my own cheeks at the mention of Jace, but my point had been made, and that was that. “You two have a thing, and everyone who was in that room knows it. So stop trying to hide it and just spill!”
There was a long pause, then a long sigh, then a huff and a folding of arms across chest, and then finally Chandra relented. “Damn you, Rana.” I could see the smile tugging at the corners of her lips, though, and I knew that she wouldn’t be able to stall it for very long. “Alright, fine. I…like him. A lot. I liked him before, but he and I parted ways awhile back on bad terms, and I thought that was enough to make me forget about him.” Her voice softened a little, though I would put gold on the fact that she hadn’t meant it to. “Well, it wasn’t. I couldn’t keep him off my mind, and when I saw him on the streets today, it was like…” She held her hands out in front of her, palms up. Her hair swayed into her face as she shook her head. “I don’t know, it was like a…a dream, almost. Everything slowed down, and my legs just started running toward him without me even knowing it.” Her hands fell limply into her lap. “He told me that he followed me to Zendikar. Because he was worried about me. He’s changed since we last met, too – He denounced the order that he used to belong to, and took advantage of the chaos I left it in to reform it and make it less oppressive. He did everything that I thought he wouldn’t. And now I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.” She laughed, quietly, and the mingled emotions in her eyes sent a jolt of something straight to my heart.
Before I knew what was going on, and before I could stop myself, I was leaning forward to hug her.
“You’re supposed to enjoy your time with him while you still have it,” I said, just as quietly. I could feel her body stiffen in surprise at my sudden embrace, but she quickly relaxed, and her arms tentatively reached up to wrap around me and pat me on the back. When I kept going, my voice came out muffled from against her shoulder. “You were right, you know.”
“About what?” Chandra sounded puzzled. Understandably so, considering how I had just tackled her. Still though, the gesture didn’t seem like it had been unwelcome.
“About holding onto that optimism of mine. Venser told me that yesterday, and you’re telling me it now. There’s too many things for me to do for me to keep getting all…down like this, you know?” I pulled away and hesitated, finding her reddish-brown eyes with my own. “For instance, you getting to be with someone you care about. I can’t be selfish. Yes, I have to avenge my tribe, but…there are people still living that I can fight for, too. Aren’t there?”
Chandra opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. She tilted her head as she regarded me. “I…Rana, I…”
I shook my head. “No, it’s the truth. I need to keep my chin up. Maybe I still haven’t really accepted it, but…” I smiled, and shrugged. “...you guys all seem to need my help. Or at least appreciate it. And if I can do even just one more thing for you all that matters, then, well,” I stood up, stepping away from the chair and closer to the door, and I saw Chandra’s eyes follow me there. “I’ll be happy.”
“Where are you going?” she asked. Her voice was still quiet, and she hadn’t risen from her chair. She looked even more puzzled than she had sounded before.
At that my smile widened, and I reached out to place a hand on the doorknob. “To see Sorin. He knows the most about the Eldrazi out of all of us, so if I want to learn things and help out more around here, I figure he’s the best place to start, right?”
But I didn’t give Chandra a chance to respond – I was in determined mode, and nothing was going to delay me now that I had my heart set on a goal. I flashed her a grin before she could open her mouth to speak, and then I pulled the door open, stepped over the threshold, and shut it with a tight click behind me.
“You could try overly emotional,” Venser had said. Well, here I was, giving it a shot. And already I felt better.
With purpose, I strode my way down the hall and to the stairs.
***
It took me awhile to find Sorin’s chambers, but with a little direction from a passing guard, I finally did.
His room was large and long, with windows as big as those in the common room, and twice as many bookshelves. There was a couch across from his four-poster bed, facing his fireplace – bigger than Chandra’s by half – and there he sat, legs crossed over one another and a book in his hand. He didn’t respond when I knocked on the open door, or look up when I entered. Only when I was halfway across the room toward him did he say anything.
“And what business could you possibly have with me, kitten?”
“Kitten?” I stopped. I probably shouldn’t have even acknowledged the nickname, but the oddness of it forced my tongue into motion. When I resumed my walking and came to stand in front of him, I planted my hands on my hips. “What, is that your way of declaring affection?”
“Hardly. You’re a tiny mewling thing who’s just now whetting her little claws and teeth, and until then, you need the help of your betters to keep you safe. Hence, kitten. Now what do you want?”
The nonchalance of his tone and the way he still didn’t look up from his book – not even counting what he had just said – infuriated me. I clenched my fists at my sides, and took a deep, steadying breath. “I want,” I said, calmly as I could manage, “for you to help me, if that’s at all possible.”
“Help you?” Finally Sorin looked up, though only briefly. He brushed aside a lock of powder-white hair from his eyes, met my gaze, and chuckled. A condescending sound. “Interesting. And what assistance do you think I can provide, then? Transformation into a vampire? If that’s the case, then I can certainly help you.”
I gulped. The darkness that had slipped into his voice crawled across my skin, and the way he was now grinning at me, baring his gleaming fangs, sent chills down my spine. Relax, Rana. Relax. He can probably smell fear…or something like that. “No. That’s, uh, definitely not it.” I shook my head, and slowly, I lowered myself down onto the couch beside him. His eyes never left me as I did. “I wanted to ask you about the Eldrazi. I...I want to know what I’m facing. If I want to make any difference at all in this…thing we’re starting, then I need to know all that you know. Everything.” I steeled my gaze when I turned to look at him, and clasped my hands together tightly in my lap.
But Sorin merely laughed. Suddenly, I was aware of how attractive the sound was as it vibrated through me, from my head to my toes along my nerves, like fire. I found myself staring into those yellow eyes of his, flecked with smoky grey, longer than I should have, longer than I knew was safe – and then half a second later he was just there, right in front of me. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t, not even as my heart began to race and something inside of my head screamed frantically. My body recoiled as he bent low over me, his hands gripping the arm of the couch on either side of my head. I felt myself bump into something solid then, and I couldn’t back away any further.
“Give me a reason why I should tell you,” he growled, “and we’ll see.” I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face like a thing alive. His lips were mere inches away from my own, but the mixture of lust and terror that I felt now paralyzed me. I couldn’t move. I knew that he was trying the same trick from before back on Zendikar, but that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop his…magic? Was this magic? Or something else? Whatever it was, knowing that he was doing it didn’t help me in the least. If anything, it only made me more panicked – and now I was sure that he could see my pulse fluttering in my neck, or hear my heartbeat as loudly as I did. S***. S***.
“N---” I tried to speak, but my mouth felt like it had gone numb. It was a struggle to make my lips form words. “N-No…” He was so close to me now that I could feel the brush of his cloak against my sides, featherlight, and the tickle of his hair as it fell down around his face and mine. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to stab him. I cursed myself silently for not having my hunting knife on me, but I was wearing a dress, and I hadn’t thought to strap the damn thing to my thigh. Not in the compound. I was supposed to be safe here.
“Come now, Ranewen, I’m waiting.” I could almost feel his lips as they moved, and the sensation turned my blood to ice. His voice was low, deep, dark, smooth as silk and so utterly intoxicating…
“NO!”
The second I flashed back to the moment when I had broken away from him before, I repeated the motion. My hands pushed against his breastplate in a shove, hard as I could muster, and it forced him to sit back heavily on his knees. I curled against the arm of the couch, breathing hard. My legs came up to my chest. I hugged them tightly.
“Damn you, Sorin,” I croaked. “I’m not your little plaything. Stop doing that to me!”
But all the vampire could do was shrug. He pursed his lips and widened his eyes, giving his face a sickeningly innocent expression that made my blood boil. “What? I was simply asking for you to give me a reason. I’m not going to help you for nothing, you know.”
“That’s a lie,” I hissed. My arms came up to fold over my breasts protectively, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to quell my shaking. “You were trying to get something from me that I’m not willing to give. Just because you can have your choice of whatever women you want here in Ravnica doesn’t mean that you can just try to…to take me, like that. I’m not like them.” My face reddened.
At this Sorin barked a harsh laugh, and he leaned forward again, toward me, which sent me scooting as far away from him as I possibly could. It wasn’t much, though, since his body blocked me from climbing off the couch, and I was already backed into a corner. “Ah, kitten, didn’t I tell you before not to get a swelled head?” His brow arched imperiously. “Just because you have a pair or two of eyes on you doesn’t mean that everyone wants a piece. You’re just a backwoods elf girl who was lucky enough to be born with the spark. I’ve met plenty of women who are far more attractive than you, far more…interesting.” Before I had time to be offended by the comment, he reached his hand out to caress my cheek. I flinched. “No, the only part of you I want…” he trailed his fingertips to my jawline and down the length of my exposed throat, “…is this. But unless you give it to me willingly, then there’s nothing I can do. Beleren sleeps with one eye trained on me already, and if I do anything to hurt his pretty little pet, then I’ll never hear the end of it.” I made a small strangled noise and moved to slap his hand away from me, but he drew it back before I could. My attempt seemed to amuse him, and he chuckled. “The only thing keeping me here in this fine company is my knowledge of the Eldrazi, and if I give that to you, then I’m as good as useless to them. They may respect me, but they don’t trust me in the least. I know. I see it in their eyes every time I look at them. Powerful as I may be, no one wants to work with a vampire.” In different circumstances I might have felt sorry for him then, sympathized with his now-bitter tone or with the strained look that passed across his face for an instant – But no, not today. Not after what he had tried to do, or what he had said.
“So there’s nothing I can do, then.” I took advantage of the fact that Sorin had straightened up as he spoke last, and hastily stood up off of the couch. I smoothed my dress with both hands. “There’s no way I’m going to get any information out of you, unless I want to turn undead and lose my free will. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.” Sorin relaxed into the cushions, stretching his legs out now that I was gone. “Or perhaps I would be willing to part with some information, for the right price.”
Some information. What did he mean by that? And for that matter, what in the world could he possibly be willing to take from me, if not my life? I thought for a long moment, staring past him and out the window beside his bed, and then at once an idea came to me. I turned back to him, eyes wide. “Sorin. I learned some unique spells from spending time in the swamps of Zendikar, awhile ago. You use black magic, right?”
He scoffed and folded his hands behind his head. “You think that any of your wild, unrefined tricks would be useful to me? You’re even more foolish than I thought.”
I let my breath out in a huff. “Yes, I think my magic would be plenty useful to you. My rifts helped best you in combat before, didn’t they? I have more than that, too. I have all kinds of spells known only to the people who live around the swamps, or the travelers who brave them. I would teach you every single one if you just…told me something. Anything.” I did my best to put aside my anger – momentarily, of course – and gave Sorin my sweetest, most entreating look. “Please? Come on, you have to say yes. Let me try, just this once.”
Sorin chuckled again, but from the look in his eyes I knew I had won. A wry grin curled his lips as he pushed himself upright and onto his feet in one swift motion, and then he sauntered his way over to me, hand darting out lightning-quick to seize my arm. I froze. My eyes stared up into his, and my mouth dropped open to say something that my brain never quite formulated.
“Well then. If you truly want to prove to me how powerful your spells are, then test them against me now…alone. No dashing blue-eyed hero to swoop in and save you, no handicaps, no nothing.” His grin widened into something wicked. “Just you, and me. That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”
It took me a moment or two to recover from that brief, horrible instant where I thought he was going to turn me then and there, but when I had cleared my head, I straightened my shoulders and stood tall. Sorin’s hand still gripped my arm, but I tried to ignore the almost painful pressure. “Fine. I accept your offer.” However stupid this choice might end up being, I knew that it was the best chance I had right now. I would accept whatever consequences it brought later.
Sorin’s grin widened even further, and my heart began to beat double-time when I saw that his fangs were now on full, menacing display. “Good. Then let’s take this somewhere where we won’t be disturbed, shall we?”
Before I could ask him where in the nine hells he intended to go, his free hand molded the fabric of reality into a liquid, dripping portal, and he pulled me inside for a dizzying rush of a journey through the Blind Eternities.