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Chapter Text

Had he not materialized chest-deep in brackish water, Gideon would have fallen to his knees as soon as he arrived.  He took his first, heaving breaths of Dominaria's air and grit his teeth so as not to gag. Swampland surrounded him, and the air reeked of sweet-sour rot.  The trees here were black-barked and skinny and shot out of the fetid water in tight clusters. A few older, gnarled oaks stood here and there, but they were dead, or nearly so, and seemed to serve only as scaffolding for heavy moss and twining vines.  Patches of mosses and dead, flattened reeds formed possible dry ground snaking through the bog.

The thick water transitioned smoothly to viscous mud, which had swallowed his sandals and now grabbed at his ankles. He was sinking, and Gideon realized dazedly that he would not be able to pull himself free.  His wounded arm hung useless at his side, and his other could reach only a few of the thin, nearly branchless trees. He grabbed at one and pulled, but the supple trunk simply bent under his weight. He groaned. Blood from the claw-wound in his shoulder already soaked his side; he could not stay here.

He shouted, and winced as doing so caused pain to flare in his wound.  Several ribs were broken, at the least--he could hear the edges grind against each other as his inadvertent movement caused them to shift.  Still, no cause to worry yet--he had followed Nissa’s trail through the aether, and she must be nearby. She wasn’t the healer Ajani was, but she could set a simple fracture and stitch over a cut.  There was no need to worry, not yet.

Sloshing behind him made him turn inasmuch as he could, and he waved with his good arm as he spotted Nissa picking her way over the wet terrain toward him.  Her moss-green jerkin would have provided her excellent camouflage anywhere else, but here she stood out among the blacks and browns like a candle in the dark.  Once he had spotted her, he could make out the dark form of Liliana trailing not far behind, her stained dress providing her better concealment, but despite the bright clothing favored by his other companions, he could see no one else.

Nissa's hands outstretched and slowly closed into fists.  Pressure grew around Gideon's legs as she cast a spell to raise and harden the ground where he stood.  He stumbled on the still-soft ground and fell to his knees, catching himself with his uninjured hand. The impact jostled his wounded shoulder; a sensation that was not quite burning and not quite freezing ran down his arm in a spasm.

He took a deep breath that wasn't as steadying as it should have been, then a second.

"He's been stabbed," Nissa said.  She knelt in front of him, eyes wide, and ran a finger just above the rent hole in his armor.  She turned to Liliana. "Help me get his armor off."

The two women unbuckled his breastplate and lifted it over his head; his shirt was simply cut off once it became clear that his injury prevented removal any other way, and Liliana used the fabric to fashion a makeshift sling while Nissa examined the puncture with a tendril of mana.  At first, Gideon tried to help them, but it soon became apparent that he was most useful staying still.

"This is deep," Nissa said after a minute's examination.  "I can slow the bleeding, but I don't think I can stop it entirely."  She pulled a sprig of moss from a pouch on her belt and cupped it in her hands.  She blew on it softly, as if it were an ember she was trying to relight.

"This will hurt," she warned apologetically, and she delicately pushed the ball of moss into the wound as far as her finger could reach, then laid her palm over his shoulder.  At first, it felt only odd, a pebble trapped in a shoe, irritating but not exactly painful. Then the moss began to grow, and it was as if someone had reached into the wound with both hands and was trying to bodily rip his arm from the rest of him.  Nissa misjudged, he panicked. She’d lost control of her spell, was tearing him apart, was going to kill him, and Gideon found he could do nothing but groan and gasp at the sensation, incapable even of forming words.

Then the pain plateaued and faded to something agonizing but not mind-destroying.  Gideon shivered and slumped forward, forehead resting on Nissa's shoulder, simultaneously too hot and too cold. He wondered just how much he had bled--though diluted by swampwater, blood coated his chest and side and dripped onto Nissa's pants. 

"...carry him?"

"No, not for miles.  Not in this terrain."

"Can you conjure an elemental, then?  There's nothing here intact enough to bother raising."

"The ground is...sick, but I will try."

"Well, it's that or leave him."

"I can walk," Gideon said, forcing himself to sit up and wipe the sweat from his face.  “I can walk.” Nissa’s face said she wasn’t sure she believed him, but while pain made him feel weak, his legs were uninjured.  He could make it to somewhere safer, surely. Time to move out, hoplite.

Nissa stood and offered him a hand, and then they walked, Liliana leading and Nissa beside Gideon to catch him should his balance fail.  Their progress was slow, and would have been even without Gideon's injury--Liliana stopped often, looking for some waypoint to orient herself, and the swamp was utterly inhospitable, a twisted maze of semisolid ground and sucking mud with little to differentiate one from the other.   All of the older trees seemed to be dead; Gideon wondered what blight had befallen them. Insects chirped, unseen, and now and again a lone bird cawed, but those were the only signs of animal life, and nothing here suggested people had ever passed this way before. The land was indeed sick, as Nissa had said.

Despite the apparent ill health of the swamp, the vegetation was thick, and Gideon could seldom see more than a dozen feet ahead.  Blood trickled in a long, slow line down his stomach even with the dressing on his shoulder, and each breath caused an uncomfortable pressure in his chest.  He counted his steps; when he could no longer remember what number he had reached, he set goals instead. Make it to that stump.  Make it to that puddle.  Make it to that purple flower.  You'll rest when you reach your destination.  For a time, this sufficed to keep him moving, but the increasing trembling in his limbs and the feverish chill he felt despite the humid air made it clear his endurance was reaching its end.

"How much further?" he asked.  

"I don't know," Liliana answered.  She was flushed with exertion beneath the mud and blood still streaking her face.  She resettled her heavy skirts and shrugged. "It's been a long time since I was here.  There should be a small town close by."

"I should scout ahead," Nissa said.  "I can move faster than either of you."

"We shouldn't split up," Liliana said, looking at Gideon.  "If Gideon needs help--"

But Nissa was already gone, running in an errant zig-zag as her feet sought the firmest ground.  Liliana swore and leaned against a tree. Gideon considered sitting, but knew if he sat down he would not stand back up.  They could not have traveled far, likely less than a mile, yet his legs wobbled as if he’d been running all day. Dread clutched darkly at the edges of his thoughts; he had kept it at bay during their march, but it caught him now.  His heart thudded too-fast inside his chest, like a trapped bird.

"Why here?" he asked to distract himself.

"We agreed to regroup on Dominaria," Liliana answered shortly.

"No, why...here?" He nodded his head slightly, indicating the squelching ground around them.

She shrugged again.  "It wasn't a bog the last time I was here."

"Oh," he said.  The shaky feeling of exhaustion was transmuting into actual dizziness.  He leaned against a tree, a blackened hollow dead thing that felt cool on his forehead, and closed his eyes.  Nissa was fast; she would be back soon, with help, and they would be able to rest. He wished she'd hurry. He needed her to hurry.

A bird complained harshly somewhere up the tree. Liliana said something; her words wouldn't order properly in his head.

He fell.

This was not the homecoming Liliana would've chosen for herself.  She was not a maudlin woman, and she certainly hadn’t expected her birthplace to be unchanged after so many years, but she had once known Caligo Forest better than she had her family’s manor house, and to see it so altered disoriented her.  Once, she had known the exact location of dozens of plants; now she couldn’t say for sure how close they were to the town, reliant as she was on landmarks long dead and mana currents that had warped and shifted since she was a girl. She couldn’t even say for sure that there still was a town.

A raven cawed unseen, as if mocking her, and she looked up, scouring the thin canopy for sight of the thing.  A visit by the Raven Man was the last thing she needed; he’d never appeared in front of another person before, but trust him to do it now and give her yet another sin in need of explaining.

“You can keep your opinions to yourself,” she told the unseen bird.

Something splashed behind her, and she whirled in time to see Gideon slip under the surface of the swamp and bob back up.  She cursed and scrambled to the bank to grab him and pull him back onto the drier ground. Her shoes slipped in the mud at the water’s edge; the water grew deep quickly here, so that even a foot out she doubted she could stand.  She grabbed at his waistband and pulled him closer to shore, then set her feet as well as she could to pull him back onto the solid ground. Nine hells, the man was heavy, and for a second she panicked that she wouldn’t be able to move him at all.  She heaved, throwing all her weight backwards, snarling with the effort, and inched him up the bank, her task made slightly easier by the slick mud.

When only his feet still dangled in the water, she let go.  Her arm burned under the skin; she’d managed to pull something dragging Gideon back ashore.

“Hey!” Liliana slapped his face lightly and called his name, and let out a shaky sigh when his eyelids fluttered uncertainly open.  He muttered something indistinct; she ignored it for the moment, and turned instead to examining his wound, which had been jarred by the fall.  Already it had been leaking slowly, despite Nissa’s attempt at packing it, and now the moss clump hung partially out, soaked with swamp water.

Liliana spent a moment cursing Bolas for being Bolas, Nissa for running off, Gideon for getting himself stabbed, the swamp for existing, Jace and Chandra for not being here when she could use them, all the while pulling the sodden moss from the wound.  She could’ve fit her entire hand in it. Something pooled darkly inside it; she couldn’t tell whether it was blood or water or both. She had nothing to re-pack the wound with, no physical means of cleaning it, and no idea when Nissa would return or if she would come back with help.

In her youth, Liliana had trained as a healer, and--though she had kept her studies secret--she had started refreshing herself on the basics of healing magic.  It seemed only prudent, surrounded as she was by people determined to throw themselves headlong into danger. She had imagined scenarios in which she valiantly, unexpectedly saved the day, impressing the Gatewatch and ensuring their continued loyalty to her.  It was vexing that no one else was here to see it, but she knew what had to be done, and knew she had a decent chance of doing it successfully.  Still, she hesitated. The last time she had attempted to heal someone, it had gone horribly wrong, and her imagination couldn’t restrain itself from an image of Gideon, twisted with malice, wrapping bloodless hands around her throat…

She blinked away the image and chided herself for being silly.  

She sopped the liquid out of the wound with a bit of her skirt.  It wasn’t clean, but nothing here was. Disinfecting the wound was the easiest part; the magic was not unlike the magics she favored for killing her enemies, simply aimed at much smaller targets.  The actual healing proved more of a challenge. The power to kill, to unmake, to destroy, this all flowed easily for her, responding eagerly to her call and doing exactly as she bade. The power to heal had always been more finicky, stolid and disinterested and hot, and she took the time to gather her power carefully before she sent it flowing into Gideon, finding each broken blood vessel and teasing it back together with a flare of mana.  The spell was one she’d learned centuries ago, one she’d practiced on scraped knees and cuts from childhood mishaps, but she had not had cause to use it in some time, and the exact shapes and forms of it wavered as she worked it, trying to hold the thing steady.  She let the spell slip as soon as the worst of the damage was repaired; better to let the body heal itself than to continue with her uncertain magic.

Gideon had slipped back into unconsciousness, but his chest still rose and fell, so she let him sleep.  No new blood seeped into the cavity, and Liliana could just make out the pale pink flesh where new, magic-forced tissue had begun to grow.  She shook the heat from her hands and resettled herself on the driest ground she could find. They could rest until Nissa found her way back.

Perhaps she let her guard down; there was little living in the bog, only minnows and solitary birds, and Liliana was tired and had much to think about.  Perhaps the trio was simply well-guided, familiar enough with the swamplands to avoid splashing in errant puddles. Regardless, Liliana didn’t notice the intruders coming up the same path she, Gideon, and Nissa had traveled until they had nearly reached the spit of land where she and Gideon sat.  Another necromancer, with a pair of well-formed zombies in tow, all three of them sporting an insignia Liliana recognized with bitter memories: the Cabal, descendants of the same cult that had plagued her father’s lands when she was a girl, that had cursed her brother Josu with wasting sickness. How unfortunate that they had not died out in the intervening years. 

Liliana rose with a snarl and a spell curled in her fist.  The other necromancer, a short, pale man garbed in black robes, brought up his own hands to cast something, but Liliana had honed her skills under masters from a dozen worlds over the course of centuries.  If Bolas wasn’t going to die today, something was.  With a savage gesture, she wrested control of one zombie from its master and set it against the man.  The zombie ripped out its master’s throat before he could launch his spell. He fell sideways, dead before he could hit the ground, blood sinking into the mud.

The other zombie stopped its charge.  Its eyes burned yellow for a moment before it abruptly dissolved into dust.  Liliana felt some cold presence attempt to reassert control over the zombie she’d stolen; out of curiosity more than anything, she relinquished control, and that zombie too disintegrated.  She cast around, using magical and innate senses to search for more attackers, but the swamp now seemed as dead as before. A quick check of the necromancer’s pockets found nothing of note or value.

Still, better safe than sorry.  Who could say what might have been watching through the zombie's yellow eyes?  She returned to Gideon and jostled him.  “Wake up. It’s not safe here.”

Gideon stirred reluctantly, murmuring something like I’m tired or let me lie here.  She shook him again; his eyes opened, but she waited until they focused on her before speaking.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

“Don’t think so,” he murmured.  “Where are we?”

“I’m going to try something,” she said, ignoring his question.  She had to get him moving.

The other necromancer was small enough that she doubted he could carry Gideon, but she raised him anyway.  He could be her little bodyguard while Beefslab was out of commission. Then she returned to Gideon’s side and started a spell.  She’d used it on Jace, once upon a time, when the two of them had found themselves in similar straits.

“Don’t struggle,” she warned.

The swamp may have been empty of corpses--well, except her new zombie friend--but it had no lack of spirits.  She selected a weak one, something quiet and biddable, and had it connect itself to Gideon, spreading throughout his body, latching onto muscles and nerves.  Then she directed it, forcing it to control Gideon’s body like a puppet, mana doing the work that blood and muscles no longer could. He rose stiffly to his feet, and either obeyed her direction not to struggle or was too confused or tired to mount a resistance.

They set off northwards, Gideon shambling behind Liliana.

It was warm and bright and soft; it smelled of fire and unfamiliar incense and soap; and he was so tired that, really, what harm was there in falling back asleep?

But he'd woken before, hadn't he?  He remembered impressions, half-dreamt snatches of scenes.  He'd woken many times, just for a second or two, and each time he'd made the same choice that tempted him now: return to sleep.  It must be long past morning.

Gideon opened his eyes.  It took more effort than it should have; his eyes were crusty with sleep, and fatigue weighed heavily on him.  The room had walls and a ceiling of dark, varnished wood, but the midday sun streaming through the windows made the room bright.  He was tucked into a bed, propped up on pillows, underneath a heavy woolen blanket. This was not where he'd fallen asleep, he knew, but his memory was patchy as to what he had been doing before he had awoken.  His every muscle ached; there had been the battle, right? He pushed at the blanket, intending to sit up, but hissed and froze as moving his right arm caused shivery thrills of pain to cascade up and down his arm and chest, intense enough that he wondered how he'd managed to sleep at all.

"Careful now.  If you undo all my hard work, I can't promise I'll save you a second time."  Liliana appeared above him, leaning over the head of the bed.  

Gideon made a noise, an attempt at a question that died inside his parched throat.

"In a minute."  She walked around to the nightstand; pain flared in his stiff neck as he twisted to watch her.  She took a pitcher from the bedside table and poured a drink, then took a pinch from a paper packet and crumbled it into the water.  She handed it to him, reaching over him to place the tin cup in his left hand.

"Where are we?" he asked after he'd drained the cup.  Numbness descended on him like a fog as the potion took hold; the pain was still there, distantly, but it was as if it were out of sight, afflicting a body that didn’t belong to him.

"An inn in the town a few miles north of where we arrived," she said.  She took the cup from him and refilled it; this too he swallowed thirstily.  "This is where I intended us to planeswalk in the first place, but, well, I haven't been here in literal centuries, so my aim was slightly off.  Still--no harm done. You're welcome."  She collapsed into a chair near the bedside in an exaggerated display of exhaustion.  Her hair was pulled back, damp and curled from recent bathing, and she no longer wore the elaborate dress she had sported on Amonkhet.  Instead she wore an ill-fitting, faded blue dress that had clearly been made for a woman larger than she; it sagged on her slight frame in a way that made her look like a child playing in her mother's clothes.

"Dominaria.  We arrived in the swamp," he mumbled, forcing his memories to put themselves in the proper order.

"Yes.  And then you fell face-first into that swamp.  Warn me the next time you feel like fainting, would you?"

"Where's Nissa?  And the others?"

"Nissa's around here somewhere.  She needed ‘space to think'," Liliana mocked the elf’s airy tone.  Her brow furrowed. "I don't know where Jace and Chandra are." 

“We have to look for them,” Gideon murmured, but already his eyes were threatening to close against his will.  Even speaking sapped what strength he had left, and while he realized he should feel alarm at the news, he was too drained to feel anything.

“You won’t be leading any search parties.  You’re lucky you’re not dead,” Liliana said.  “Nissa and I will take care of it.”  But Gideon was too far asleep to answer or to hear her.

When he woke again, it seemed as if no time at all had passed, as if he’d merely shut his eyes for a moment, a blink.  The reddish sunlight through the windows said that it was much later however, either dawn or nightfall. Gideon couldn’t say which.

“You know, you’re a very boring sleeper,” Liliana said.  Once again, she came to the nightstand and fussed about mixing the bitter herb with water.

“How do you feel?” Nissa asked from the room’s other bed.  She sat cross-legged atop the covers, her staff laid across her knees as if she had been meditating, but her face was creased with tension and dark marks marred the skin under her eyes.  If Liliana looked like she hadn’t slept well, Nissa looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

"I'll be fine," Gideon replied, closing his eyes.  He could not remember a time he had felt so battered and exhausted; he had felt more alive running between the Eldrazi invasion on Zendikar and the goblin gang war on Ravnica than he did now.  But while he could sleep for another week, he was alive, and the bed was comfortable. Liliana nudged the cup with the painkiller into his hand and he drank it slowly. The unappealing taste was more apparent when he wasn’t so desperately thirsty, but the same numbing fog settled over him in mere moments, and that seemed worth the taste. “Chandra?  Jace?”

“I cannot find them,” Nissa answered quietly.

“Nissa searched the swampland where we arrived, and checked Chandra’s mother’s house,” Liliana expanded.  “I went to Ravnica. No sign. Here, by the way. The innkeeper didn’t have anything that would fit you, and yours were ruined.”  She tossed a bundle of clothing onto the bed; some of his spare underclothes that she must have found in his room on Ravnica, and a long, loose, sleeveless nightshirt he didn’t recognize.    

“Chandra might have gone to Regatha,” Gideon said.  He pushed aside the blankets left-handed, and shivered at the cool air.  His right shoulder was encased in bandages that made moving the arm nearly impossible, and he didn't like to think what might be under them.  The arm did not hurt at the moment, thanks to whatever herbal concoction Liliana had had him drink, but it felt strange, tingling and spasming all up and down its length.   He sat up slowly and waited for the wave of dizziness to pass. Liliana made a show of busying herself with something at the hearth; Nissa simply traced the patterns on her staff with her finger.  He heaved himself to a sitting position and fumbled one-handed with his shirt, managing after some difficulty to get it over both arms and his head, but the effort left him shaking and sweaty.

“I don’t know the way to Regatha,” Nissa said. 

"We don’t have time to check every place they might have gone.  We'll need to get moving in a day or two.  Benalia City is two weeks from here on horse, and we don't have horses," Liliana said, lips pursed.  Gideon, still shaking, managed to twist enough to pull on his underthings and tie them. He slumped back into the bed, desiring only to sleep.  He considered whether he could planeswalk to Regatha, and quickly dismissed the notion.

“They were both injured.  They might need help--” Nissa protested.

“It’s been two days.  If they needed help either they’ve found it, or they’re beyond any help we could give,” Liliana interrupted.  “We made arrangements to meet everyone in Benalia City. We’ll find them there.”

“We cannot abandon them!” Nissa exclaimed.

Liliana rolled her eyes.  “We’re not abandoning anyone.  We just don’t have time to search the entire multiverse--”

“It’s not your decision to make,” Nissa interjected.

“Fine!  I’m going to Benalia City, you and Gideon can do whatever you want!” Liliana snapped.  She sat down at the room’s small table, back to Nissa and Gideon, apparently done with the discussion.  Gideon shifted uncomfortably, trying to think of something to say to diffuse the tension in the room, but his thoughts were sluggish and poorly formed, and he couldn’t find the words.

Nissa came and knelt beside his bed.  Quietly, she said, "We need to talk about Liliana."  Gideon turned to look at her, confusion plain on his face.

"Would you like some privacy, or were you planning to talk about me as if I'm not here?" Liliana interjected sharply from the table.

Nissa barely glanced at the other woman.  "She sabotaged our mission on Amonkhet--"

"I did no such thing--"

"She lied about her demon.  She pledged her allegiance to Bolas, in front of all of us," Nissa continued resolutely, ignoring Liliana.  "We can't allow her to stay."

"I didn't 'pledge allegiance' to anyone; I surrendered, once it became clear the battle was lost," Liliana said.  She turned around in her chair to face them, sour-faced. "I begged all of you to come with me.  How is it my fault that the rest of you don't have the sense to run when you're beaten?"

Gideon pushed himself back into a sitting position and held up his good hand placatingly.  He hadn’t given two thoughts to Liliana or her actions on Amonkhet since awakening; he’d barely had the wherewithal to think about anything.   “Let’s discuss this calmly.”  

"There's nothing to discuss," Nissa said.  "She betrayed us. Chandra might be dead because of her!"

Gideon’s breath caught in his throat.  Despite the potion-induced fog, a chill rose from the pit of his stomach and burrowed its way into his chest. It hadn't been Liliana driving the Gatewatch forward when it was clear they were too weary to fight.  Liliana hadn't rushed into a battle with no plan. Liliana hadn't let her fury lead them into ruin. It would be comforting to lay all the blame for their disastrous rout at Liliana's feet. It would absolve him of his guilt.  But the Gatewatch had been following his orders, not hers, and he knew better than to blame his failures on those under his command, no matter how convenient it would be.  

If Jace--or, gods forbid, Chandra--was dead, it was his fault, and his alone.

"You're being unfair," Gideon said.  He meant to say more, but his throat was suddenly thick and dry, and he wanted so desperately to sleep.  How much blood had he lost?

Nissa stared at him, green eyes wide with some unstated emotion.  She sat back on her heels and twisted her hands in her lap. "No.  I don't think I am. She cannot stay."

Gideon had no answer; he made a few stumbling starts to explain why Nissa was wrong, how it was his fault, but his thoughts came too slowly and he couldn't order them into words.

"I swore an oath, just like you, and I intend to uphold it," Liliana said slowly.

"Do you expect me to believe you?" Nissa asked.

"I do," Gideon whispered, eyes closing, stamina utterly spent.  

He hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but he found himself startling awake, the vestiges of a dream leaving his heart pounding.  The blanket was too heavy, holding him down, and he couldn’t feel his right arm. He spent a panicked, disoriented second imagining it had fallen off while he slept.  His other hand, frantically patting, confirmed it was still attached, but it felt...odd, as if it weren’t properly connected to the rest of him.  He forced his right hand to make a fist, and watched his fingers stiffly move without feeling them move.

“You alright?” Liliana asked from across the room.  She stood by the window, arms crossed, a dark silhouette against the brightness outside.

“I don’t think so,” Gideon admitted.  “I can’t feel my arm.”

“It’s probably just swelling pinching the nerve,” Liliana said quietly.  “I asked around for a healer, but this backwater doesn’t even have a midwife.”

“Where’s Nissa?”

Liliana hesitated before answering.  “Gone. Off to find Chandra, I guess.”

“She was angry,” Gideon remembered.

“She was.  Probably best to give her some space to cool off.”  Liliana spoke slowly, almost without inflection. “I think she’s mad at you too, now.”

“Sorry,” Gideon said.

She turned from the window then.  Hidden in shadow, he couldn’t read her expression, but her bemusement was clear enough in her voice.  “Not sure what you’re apologizing to me for.”

“It...it just needed to be said,” he replied, squeezing his eyes shut until stars burst behind his eyelids.

“Fair enough.”  He heard her walk, her heeled boots clicking against the floor, and then the squeal of a chair being dragged out.  “You should rest. We’ll deal with it later.”

Chapter Text

A fierce wind blew grit into Nissa’s eyes and mouth and threatened to knock her over. Bala Ged no longer had trees, nor hills, nor anything to break the wind, and the air had picked up a frightening speed racing unimpeded across the continent.   Though she had known what she would see when she set foot on its shore, the scope of the Bala Ged’s destruction still lurched in Nissa’s chest.

She pulled a wall from the earth and sheltered in its lee and coughed and gagged and spat out the dust that Ulamog and his kin had made of her world.

When she had been a girl, the Roil had struck hard in a grove south of the Joraga enclave she and her mother had been sheltering with at the time.  A trio of volcanoes sprouted from nothing, growing to tower over the rolling hills, and each spewed forth a torrent of magma and scorching smoke. The jungle was too wet to burn, but everything the slow-moving lava touched blackened and smoked, and the conflagration consumed several stands of trees before the magic of the Roil passed and the volcanoes turned dormant, burning themselves out absent their animating magic.  Nissa had gone to see the destruction with a group of other young elves. The ground had still been hot and strangely soft, cracking underfoot. A pair of massive, ancient heart trees had fallen, crushing smaller trees and shrubs beneath them and leaving an area a dozen paces wide and many times as long of...nothingness. Blackened wood, newborn stone, and a hole in the canopy. Something grew on every single surface in Bala Ged; those two trees were the first time Nissa had seen something dead and truly understood what the word meant.

Her mother reassured her that the trees would be fertile soil for the next generation of plants, and indeed when Nissa visited again a week later the fallen trees had already been criss-crossed by opportunistic vines and sprouting spores.  Within a season it was impossible to pick out what the lava had destroyed, except by climbing a very tall tree and noting the patches that weren’t quite as thick as their neighbors. The vegetation-encrusted volcanoes were simply the tallest hills for miles.  Zendikar was irrepressible.

Despite the wind and the dust, some life had found a foothold in even now, growing in the pockmarks on the shore, sheltered from the wind.  Nissa knelt to examine the moss-like plants. A kind of semi-aquatic seaweed, perhaps, one that would have grown in the tidal pools that must have once lined these shores.  She’d never known the aquatic plants well. She smiled at the tiny leaves, and ran her hand over the patches, sending down a burst of growth magic. Zendikar would recover. It always did. 

Nissa sighed, and stood.  A part of her low in her stomach roiled uncomfortably, as if she had eaten something rotten.   Not nausea, but close, and it made her wince, made her steps halting. It had stolen over her sometime during the Amonkhetu slaughter, and neither meditation nor brief snatches of sleep had quelled it.

Nissa did not expect to find Jace or Chandra on Zendikar, but there was someone else here she desperately wanted to see, and she reached out into the world for her old friend.  "Ashaya," she called, and the world answered, forming a body for itself out of the chalky, porous ground. Ashaya shook like a bathing gnarlid, sending up a plume of ash-like dust.  Then the elemental stood, unmoving, waiting.

"I am sorry I was gone so long, my friend," Nissa said.  "I meant to visit more, but...there is so much to do." Nissa had returned to Zendikar a few times before, when the press of people and buildings and unrelenting noise of Ravnica overwhelmed her, but this was her first visit in nearly four months.  She did not know if Ashaya had any conception of other worlds or of where Nissa went when she planeswalked.  She couldn’t say if Ashaya even noticed when Nissa was gone. Even so, she explained where she had been and what she had done.  Nissa told the elemental about the dark forests in Innistrad's perennial twilight; the strange, regimented parks of Ravnica; the swirling aether of Kaladesh; the little oasis in a vast desert that had been Naktamun.  She spoke of her friends, and of her enemies, and of the people who were somehow neither. The Joraga had split the world into other Joraga, who were safe, and everyone else, who were enemies.  It had been a simple, intuitive system. Now Nissa was uncertain how to classify people like the moon-mage Tamiyo, who were not enemies but were not exactly friends either, or Liliana, who proclaimed herself an ally but wielded loyalty as a weapon.

Ashaya listened patiently to Nissa's tales, or at least stood silently with her head cocked as if she were listening.  Even so, Nissa could sense a tension in the elemental, a desire to be elsewhere, and she felt a flush of embarrassment for calling her old friend here when Zendikar had so much to do.  Restoring the plane to its former verdant, wild glory would take decades. It might not be completed in Nissa's lifetime, even granting the long lives enjoyed by her kind. And here Nissa was, taking up some of that precious time to...what?

Why had she come here?

Nissa broke from her story and placed her hand against the elemental's chest.  The wind whistled over the makeshift wall. "Ashaya," she whispered. "I swore an oath to protect other worlds.  To save them, as Zendikar was saved. But I do not know what to do now. I would stay here, always, and never planeswalk again if you needed me."  A part of her hoped Ashaya would nod, or take her hand, or give some signal, a sign. She could spend the rest of her days undoing the damage the Eldrazi had done, walking a familiar world, nurturing new life on the plane that had birthed her and been her constant companion.  The trees she planted at Sea Gate would mature, and Nissa would take their seeds and spread them across the land as the Joraga had once done at the beginning of each rainy season. She would renew the world alongside Ashaya, if only Ashaya asked her to.

Ashaya remained motionless.

After a moment, Nissa pushed against the mana bonds that had called Ashaya to her.  Ashaya had her own will and could not be dismissed like a common elemental, but she could be asked to leave, and Nissa did so.  The elemental resisted long enough to rest a chalky hand on top of Nissa's head, then it crumbled, returning to the soil. The will of Zendikar's soul dissipated, thinning as it spread to encompass the entire plane once again.

Nissa looked once more across the grey landscape, remembering the fertile jungle it had once been, imagining the life it might birth anew.  Then, in a blink, she was gone.

She hung in the nothingness between worlds for some time.  It was odd, this... freedom?  That didn’t seem to be the right word, but Nissa could think of no other that came close in meaning.  She had so many choices spread before her, and nothing pushed her to pick one over another. She supposed she may as well go to Kaladesh; maybe Pia would be home this time, and if anyone knew where Chandra was, Pia would.  But she could just as easily go to Ravnica, and see if Jace had returned to his apartments. She didn’t think Liliana would lie about Jace’s whereabouts when they could so easily be verified by another, but she was no longer sure what to think about the necromancer.  She could return to Zendikar, for all the good that would do. She could return to Dominaria, though she found she didn’t want to. Any option, or none of them, was acceptable.  It had been decades since she’d had such choices; since she had, barely out of girlhood, dreamed of Emrakul and found Ashaya. She had thought her path clearly carved in that moment, her life’s work laid before her, as unchangeable as a river.  And yet here she was, the Blind Eternities churning formlessly around her, a maze without walls.  

Which way do I go?

Pain finally prompted her to move.  The swirling aether nipped hungry at her fingers and she felt breathless--an odd sensation, given that she wasn’t certain she needed to breathe between worlds.  Now, she had no choice; even a planeswalker could not linger forever in the Eternities, and the fire-ice tearing at her skin warned that her time was growing short.  She moved without thinking about where she was going, jumping forward in bounding, miles-long strides until she spotted the tell-tale solidity of another world and threw herself heedless back into reality.  

Ocean.  Water surrounded her, agitated and swirling, glinting an evil red.  Her feet could not find the bottom. She choked and flailed and kicked, only just keeping her face above the roiling surface, and sputtered and spat seawater.  Stormclouds darkened the sky, their lumpen forms illuminated by the near-constant lightning jumping from cloud to cloud. Persistent cracks of thunder made her ears ring, but under them lived another sound.  Nissa mistook it for her own heartbeat at first, a low, thrumming sort of noise just loud enough to be heard over the thunder and waves, but the sound possessed an artificial quality, a chiming timbre like ringing glass.

She turned her head and saw.  Something stretched from horizon to horizon, rising up so tall she could not see its peak.  It glimmered red and blue in a scintillating, iridescent pattern like an aurora, though it was far more solid.  Something moved within it, blurred and indistinct but huge.  Nissa’s limbs stilled in the water as she watched the wall of lights flicker and swirl.  She sank, entranced, stinging eyes fixed on it.

A jerk like something had grabbed the collar of her shirt and tossed her across a room, and then she was gone, spinning and falling and flying and twisting.  She hit rocky ground with a breath-stealing thunk; a final wave crashed sullenly onto the rock after her.

Coughing and clutching at her bruised ribs, she staggered upright.

She was not where she had been.  Where before there had been stormy skies and water stretching in all directions, now there was only a calm, cloudless night and a cliff overlooking a bay.  A forest of tightly-packed conifers stood behind her. A whiff of woodsmoke carried on the flight breeze. Of the wall of lights, there was no sign.

A full moon hung in the sky, and etched on its surface was a familiar sigil.  Its twin lived on Zendikar, at Sea Gate.   Innistrad.  Somehow, she must have planeswalked without meaning to or realizing it.  She had been in the ocean for mere minutes, but whatever that world had been, it was not Innistrad.

She drew her sword and scanned the dark treeline for any of the monsters that had infested the plane on her last and only visit.  She had arrived on a naked bluff overlooking the sea. The trees were still, and the moon was bright enough to illuminate the scenery in somber grey hues.   The binding sigil etched into the moon’s surface shone brighter still, white against the silver moon, and it repeated again and again in reflections on the wet rock.

She found herself hesitant to look away, as if the moon were a venomous snake that might strike the instant she lowered her guard.  A foolish notion, but still she stared, unconsciously tracing the lines of the binding sigil against her sword hilt. After a moment, she  forced herself to look away and sheath her sword and sit, back resting against a tree trunk, waiting until she felt steady enough to planeswalk again.  Despite the burning sensation that still tingled across her arms and legs, her limbs appeared unharmed. Regardless, It had been reckless to stay in the Blind Eternities so long, and she needed to be surer of her destination before she planeswalked again. She squeezed the seawater from her hair and traced the sigil again and again against her thigh.  The moon caught her eye again.

Unbidden, the words she had--dreamt?--on Amonkhet came back to her.  Don’t be a queen, or a pawn.  Be the hand that moves.

She understood the reference, of course--Jace had tried to teach all of them chess in an attempt to get to know them better, though only Gideon had shown any aptitude for the game--but she could not say why she would dream of such a thing, why Kefnet’s trial would unearth it as if it were some precious chunk of wisdom.  It had seemed so portentous to her at the time, but...it was nonsense, wasn’t it? Pretty words that bore a resemblance to wisdom, nothing more. It was probably something Jace had told her when they played, advice meant to remind her to consider the game as a whole, advice she’d forgotten until it unexpectedly surfaced in the dream-vision.   The words had not helped her against Bolas. At the last, the leylines had collapsed beneath her fingers, eager to serve a different master, and she had been left powerless.

Be the hand that moves.  

“The hand that moves what?” she asked the moon.  “What do I do now?”

Amonkhet had been long sick, and perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised when the leylines betrayed her for Bolas.  At the time, it had felt like she should have been stronger, able to pull the ground itself out from under Bolas, to deny him power in his own kingdom, just as she had done to Kefnet.  But the leylines had refused to bend as she willed them. Then again, the same had happened on Innistrad, and that had not felt so much like a betrayal. Innistrad did not wish to listen to her; it was a dark plane, huddled in around itself, wary and snappish, and she understood why it fought against her.  Amonkhet was sick, deluded, febrile and mad, and perhaps she too had been mad to imagine it would--could--grant her any power over the monster who had left it in such a state.

A shift in the mana currents; Nissa scrambled to her feet.  The leyline on the bluff visibly shuddered at the changing tide, and dark ripples in the air heralded the arrival of another planeswalker, one whose essence she recognized with a jolt of old memories.

“Sorin Markov,” she greeted.

“Revane.  I’m surprised you would dare come here.”

He looked...different.  Disheveled and thin, his usual pallor even paler, seeming indicative of sickness or injury.  His hand rested on the hilt of his own sword, a warning, and the characteristic armor she remembered so well was absent.  What he wore now was plain, unadorned and artless, and seemed too big on his frame.

His voice, though, was unchanged from her memories, imperious and dark.  “Why are you here?” 

“I--” She cut herself off, unsure how to answer the question.  Instead, she raised her chin defiantly. “I didn’t know I needed to explain myself to you.”

“I keep close tabs on everyone who visits my world.  That’s your handiwork, isn’t it?” He nodded behind himself, toward the moon.  He needn’t have bothered; she had kept an eye on it even as he arrived. “Were you working with her, hmm?  Ransoming your backwater plane with a promise to destroy mine?”

“We weren’t working with her.  We saved your world. It was all we could do to imprison her.”

“You captured Nahiri?” Sorin took an sharp step forward, eyes suddenly bright, his lip curling to reveal sharp teeth.

Nissa took a step back.  “No. I don’t know who that is. We captured Emrakul.”

Sorin stared at her, frozen, and after a long moment he seemed to decide something.  His snarl softened into a mocking smile and he chuckled dismissively, a gesture oddly reminiscent of Liliana.  “You’ve listened too long to your people’s campfire tales. That thing”--he jerked his head again toward the moon--“is no her.”

It did not seem prudent to mention the visions that Nissa and the rest of the Gatewatch had had of Emrakul and of the angel Emeria, who certainly seemed like a her.  Nissa said nothing, and after a moment Sorin raised his hands expansively.

“And so?  Are you here to check up on your prisoner?” he asked, his voice returning to a highborn drawl.  

“I...I suppose,” she answered.  “I was just leaving.” Sorin deserved no more explanation than that, and--given the way his hand still gripped his hilt--she did not think it prudent to say more anyway.  Three planeswalks in one day would be taxing, but she had no desire to stay on Innistrad. 

“Good,” he said.  “Innistrad remains under my protection--see that you do not overstay your welcome.”

His tone made it clear that she already had, and she nodded curtly.  Still, a nagging question at the back of her mind prompted her to ask one last thing.

“Who is Nahiri?”

He looked at her appraisingly.  “A planeswalker. A kor, from your plane.  She summoned the Eldrazi here, and did her damndest to kill me.  If you hear word of her, let me know.” Sorin’s grip shifted on his sword.  “We have unfinished business to settle.”  

Nissa took a last look at the moon.

She landed just outside Yahen--outside the house that had been Yahenni's.  She wasn't sure who occupied it now, and she turned from its familiar door to walk out into the streets.  Pia Nalaar lived a few dozen blocks south, and that was where Chandra would be, provided Chandra had come here at all.  If she hadn't--well, Nissa would have to let Chandra find her. Chandra had spoken of Regatha, but Nissa had never been, and Nissa could not say where else her friend might have gone.

Ghirapur was never quiet, even now with the stars out and the moon sinking back behind the horizon.  Aether lamps filled the streets with a glow like midday sunlight, and despite the late hour market stalls still thronged the streets, selling fried foods and icy drinks and flashy jewelry to the noisy crowd.  Ghirapur, freed from Tezzeret's tyranny, was a never-ending festival. The metallic music and competing smells grated on Nissa’s jangled nerves, and she walked in silence, smiling politely and refusing to make eye contact--a trick Jace had taught her for dealing with the pushy salesmen in Tin Street Alley, back on Ravnica. 

Winding her way through the night races and quicksmith matches and their packed crowds took some time, and it was approaching an hour later when she stood before Pia Nalaar's door.  Pia lived in a quieter part of town, for which Nissa was grateful, though the raucous crowds could still be heard, even streets away. The house sat in a close-set row of mismatched buildings, each a different color and style.  Pia’s was red, with circular, brass-bordered windows staring from either side of the door. The dark curtains inside were drawn, as they had been when Nissa visited yesterday. It felt empty.

Nissa walked up the steps, took a breath, and pressed the ornamental bell set in the center of the door.  She could hear its warbling trill repeat inside, an imitation of some native bird. No one answered, and she heard nothing when she pressed her ear against the door.

Nissa sat on the front steps and tried to think like Jace.  She needed a plan. She could wait until Pia returned. She could knock on the neighbors’ door and hope one of them knew where Pia Nalaar was.  She could try to find where an injured person would be taken in Ghirapur, although she had little idea how to navigate the city. She could return to Zendikar, to Sea Gate, and hope that Chandra came in search of her.  She could go searching for Jace. She could return to Gideon, and to Liliana, though that option filled her with unease. She did not want to face Liliana alone. Liliana was adept with words and could manipulate people as easily as she breathed, whereas Nissa had never had any facility with words and struggled to understand other people’s motivations.  Liliana had turned Gideon to her side so effortlessly Nissa still could not see how she had done it, although the memory of Gideon staggering bonelessly behind Liliana as the pair emerged from the woods did make her wonder whether darker forces were at play.

Nissa had been certain, in that moment, that Gideon was dead and that Liliana had raised him as a zombie, and she’d drawn her sword on the necromancer before Liliana could get a word out.  Most vexing had been Liliana’s flippancy: the necromancer had shoved Nissa’s sword aside with an exaggerated sigh and explained what she’d done in the tired tones of a parent lecturing a child, as if it were perfectly commonplace to allow spirits to possess and puppet the bodies of one’s friends.

Irritatingly, Nissa couldn’t tell which of them was being unreasonable.

She sat on the steps, fidgeting with her staff and paralyzed by the choices before her, weighing each against the other in hopes one would, when considered enough, prove to be the correct one.  Pia was not here, and Nissa’s instincts said no one had visited the house in days, though instincts honed in the wilds of Zendikar could not necessarily be trusted in this urban environment.

She stood and investigated each window again, but nothing could be seen past the curtains, and the windows were locked, unopenable from the outside.  A curious smell, sharp and acrid, lingered around the stoop, and while Nissa had smelled it before occasionally wafting on the breeze on Ravnica, she did not know what it was.  A metal guard on the door hid a slot that opened into the house, and Nissa peered through, straining to see any clue in the darkness--

“Miss?  Is this your home?”  A light fell upon her, and Nissa turned.  A dwarf in a Consulate uniform stood on the sidewalk, a hooded lantern in his hand and a tall, willowy automata by his side.  Nissa raised her hand against the sharp blue light. She hadn’t heard him approach.

“I’m looking for my friend,” Nissa explained.  “This is her mother’s house, and I thought she might have come here.”

“Why don’t we go to the station, and we can see about finding your friend,” the dwarf said.  His tone was guardedly friendly, as if he expected she might resist, but Nissa agreed, though she didn’t know what the station was.  The dwarf said a few words to the automata and doused the aether lantern, then beckoned her to follow him.

“Is that a weapon, miss?” he asked, nodding to her staff.

“It can be,” she replied.

“Then let’s let my friend here carry it, how ‘bout that?” the dwarf suggested brightly, nodding to the automata.  Nissa tentatively held out her staff to the automata, who snatched it away with mechanical quickness.

They walked in a line with the automata in the rear and the dwarf in front through a series of winding neighborhood streets.  They were moving even further away from the hectic city center, and the streets were quiet and empty aside from the occasional cruiser.

“You from around here?” the dwarf asked as they walked.

“No,” Nissa answered.  “I am from Peema. I just arrived in Ghirapur tonight.”  A lie Chandra had had her practice, back when the Gatewatch was hiding out in the city during Tezzeret’s crackdown.  Chandra had come up with elaborate fake backstories for each of them, just in case.  Nissa had not had the confidence to ask in case what?

The dwarf grunted in response, and Nissa took it as acceptance.  He asked a few more questions as they walked, idle chit-chat, and she answered as best she could, pulling on the stories Chandra had told her of her childhood.

The station was a collection of desks and benches inside a squat, unornamented building, and the dwarf bade her sit while he went to complete some errand.  The automata stayed by Nissa, sitting next to her on the bench, her staff resting in its curled facsimiles of fingers. The dwarf stepped into another room, and if she craned her neck Nissa could just barely see him discussing something with a few other people.  After a few minutes a young elven man came out of the room. He gave her a small smile as he hurried outside into the night.

She was left alone after that, except for the automata.  Time passed and the dwarf did not return, and Nissa began to wonder whether he had forgotten her, but she had lost sight of him and could not say where he went, so she closed her eyes and began to meditate.  The calming rhythm of meditation had been elusive in the days since their fight against Bolas; she let her senses wander, remembering the wonderful perfection of the swirls and pulses of aether in the clouds, trying to rejoin it, to feel part of the world, part of anything.  She traced the patterns in the air with her mind, let them uncurl before her, and for a moment of perfect stillness she knew exactly where she was.

“Miss?”

The dwarf.  Nissa opened her eyes, disentangled herself from the aether.  She swallowed against the pang in her stomach. Behind the dwarf stood Pia Nalaar, and Nissa smiled to see her, but Pia’s face was wan and tense and she did not smile back.  Half her hair had escaped her braid and a bit of ink or oil was smudged by her temple. Nissa’s hands clenched around each other.

“Yes.  I know her,” Pia said.

Outside the station, Nissa began to ask questions, to which Pia hissed, “Not here!”  A cruiser was parked in the street.  Pia climbed inside, and when Nissa didn’t move, Pia opened the passenger door and told her to get in.

"Two days ago," Pia said, as soon as Nissa had climbed inside.  "Two days ago, my daughter--my daughter who I only just learned was still alive--appeared on my doorstep, barely alive, bleeding everywhere.  What happened?" She looked Nissa up and down, as if searching for signs of injury, and appeared to grow angrier at the lack of any.

"We made a mistake," Nissa said quietly.  "Please, is Chandra all right?"

"No thanks to your lot." Pia swore, and fiddled with the controls of the cruiser.  It lurched into motion. "Where are the rest of you, anyway?"

"We agreed to meet on a world called Dominaria," Nissa replied, clutching her seat as the cruiser swerved.  “Jace is still missing, and Gideon is injured, so I came alone to find her. I visited your house yesterday but no one was there.”

 Pia didn’t respond to that.  Her knuckles were white on the cruiser’s controls and she stared straight ahead.  Nissa watched Ghirapur fly past through the window. A light rain began, and the droplets chased each other across the glass, forming patterns to mimic the aether lines in the clouds.

"I’m sorry.  I haven't been sleeping well," Pia said.  She took a shaky breath. "Chandra--she's doing okay, but it gave me a fright, seeing her like that.  And now the gossip going around, it's reignited the political situation--I shouldn’t have taken it out on you."  

"I'm sorry," Nissa said.  She could think of nothing else to say.  Relief at finding Chandra mixed with guilt at her own culpability for Chandra’s condition, for the worry she had caused Pia, and the worst of it was that she didn’t know how to make amends.

The hospital room was filled with flowers, red and pink and purple, housed in an assortment of metal containers shaped like animals and clouds and--Nissa had to take a moment to study that one--a goblin.  Chandra lay on a plush bed, head propped up on pillows, surrounded by plants and deeply asleep, not stirring at their entrance. Bandages wrapped around her knuckles and chest, and a twining artifact covered one hand and part of her arm.  She seemed pale, and Nissa couldn't tell if it was an effect of the moonlight or not.

"The healers have been keeping her asleep, for the pain," Pia said.  She hung her coat haphazardly on a hook and then slumped into a chair, pulling an orange blanket over herself.  "They say there's limits to how much magical healing a body can withstand at a time. They've had to work slowly, doing a little every few hours."

Nissa stepped to the side of the bed and laid her hand over Chandra's.  Despite her paleness, Chandra’s fingers were warm, and they twitched under Nissa’s touch.  

"She's been awake a couple of times.  She asked for you, and your friends," Pia offered.  She picked up a newspaper by her chair, scanned the headlines, and put it down with a sigh.  The lines in her face deepened as her eyelids pinched close. Behind Pia, through the window, the barest tinge of orange heralded the coming sunrise.

“I tried to come earlier but I could not find you,” Nissa said again.  Another chair, a stool wrought in bronze swirls, was pulled up near Chandra’s bedside, and Nissa sat wearily, suddenly aware of the lateness of the hour.  She should return to Dominaria, she knew, and let Gideon and Liliana know that Chandra was alright, but she had barely slept since Amonkhet, taking only brief snatches of naps when exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her, and she had already planeswalked several times today.  Gideon and Liliana could wait.

She interlaced her fingers with Chandra’s.

Chapter Text

The small, dust-choked town where Angrath had grown up was one of a dozen interchangeable towns scattered throughout a few hundred miles of range.  Rustcliff was bigger than most of the others, large enough to boast a proper stone bridge across the White River and four full streets. The town was the unofficial capital of the region; a trickle of traders and travellers stopped each night in the small hostel run by Mrs. Perkins, and on the rare occasions government people came down from Plateau, they came to Rustcliff first.

It was not an exciting place to live, perhaps.  After finishing their chores, the children of Rustcliff spent their days following game trails through the low brush or fishing for chub in the river.  Angrath had spent his childhood imagining he was somewhere else, dreaming of the day he would be old enough to travel east across the mountains, to see the great twin cities Aguila and Jackseye, visit the Floating Markets at Carroz, watch the shows at Laven Zoo, try his luck prospecting for haune.  He papered his bedroom with brochures and advertisements cut out from newspapers filched from the tavern, and begged his parents for maps and compasses at Soltide so that he would be ready the instant he was allowed to go.  

A certain trader visited the town once every few months, a wizened human with leathery skin and half an arm gone who brought exotic and hard-to-find items to the isolated communities.  Angrath, to his chagrin, could no longer remember the man’s name, but the man’s visits had been the highlight of his childhood.

After sundown, when the shops had closed and the trader had concluded his business with the adults, he would retire to his camp on the riverbank, followed by a dozen eager children, each with a small treasure clutched in their fist--banded rocks, cactus flowers, sticks twisted into interesting shapes, skulls found out in the dust.  At night, the trader bartered for stories; it was, so far as young Angrath was concerned, the most important good the man brought. Angrath gave him whatever small project his mother had given him to practice in the forge that day; lumpy nails and crooked rings, uneven forks and cups with holes in them.

The trader would take each object and inspect it closely, making an appraising noise.  And then he would say, “Ah, this is worthy of a grand tale!” and the children would lean forward and clamor to hear their favorite stories.  The man had a thousand stories, yet it seemed to Angrath that even now he could recall each one, remember how it had burned in his imagination, promising intrigue and adventure if only he could get past the endless hardscrabble rangelands.  Rustcliff never changed, but the wider world was a smorgasbord of experiences waiting to be sampled.

The trader had been a sailor in his youth, plying his wares across the water rather than the range, and he had visited a hundred ports all around the world--Raq, far to the north, where there were dragons still; Tarawa, where it never stopped raining; South Haven, ruled by angels and outcasts; Ratonport, the clockwork city; Lan Pris, built on the side of a volcano.  But Angrath had loved the tales of the sea itself best. He had yet to venture further than a handful of miles from home, and compared to the turgid, silt-clogged river that ran through the town--no one had ever been able to explain how it had earned the name White River--and the barren hills where a lucky person might see a single antelope or hare in a day, the sea was endlessly alluring, mysterious, full of the promise of adventure.  The trader spoke wistfully of sapphire-blue waters sparkling under the noonday sun; of the many ports, each distinct in look and sound and taste; of beautiful creatures, sleek dolphins and gargantuan whales, mysterious leviathans, schools of shimmering fish.  The idea of the sea had been enchanting, a neverending paradise to anyone with a boat and the know-how to sail it.

What Angrath wouldn’t give to tell his younger self to simply stay home.

The Devil’s Chains jerked in the water as someone abovedecks changed course.  Angrath growled, roused from his brooding reminiscence. What now?  They were too far from the mainland to run into the Legion, the Sun Empire didn’t sail, other pirates knew better than to test Angrath’s crew, and no one else should have been down this far south regardless.  This area of sea was tricky and remote, far from any habitation. He flung open the door to his quarters and stomped up the stairs to the main deck.

“Benji!” he shouted to his first mate.  “What is it?

“Hilla spotted something, captain,” Benji shouted back, pointing off the port side.  Without a telescope, Angrath could see nothing but a scattering of sea stacks and sandbars.  “A white flash, and a person too. There, on the atoll.”  

Benji handed Angrath his telescope as Angrath arrived on the forecastle.  A white flash? Benji had served with Angrath for years, and he knew damn well there was only one thing Angrath would bother changing course for: a key to escaping Ixalan.  Angrath focused the telescope, inspecting each rock and reef, but saw nothing. He couldn't make out a person or a flash, but he trusted Hilla’s eyes. She saw what she saw.  

Even if she hadn't, he couldn't pass up the possibility of finding another planeswalker after all these years.

"Well then," Angrath announced.  "T'would be unkind to leave a stranded sailor to their fate, aye?  Holt, bring us closer!" A useless order as they were already en route, but a crew, even one as seasoned as Angrath’s, needed constant reminders of who was in charge.  Many a complacent captain had grown permissive with their crew and lost their ship over it; Angrath had stolen the Chains that way.  

He kept searching with the telescope as the ship approached, and as they came into range he finally saw what Hilla must have seen: a patch of unnatural blue and a dark smudge that might have been a head, sitting huddled in the shadow of a sea stack and only just visible against the color of the ocean.  The smudge of hair moved slightly as the person shifted position. Then--Angrath almost dropped the telescope as the viewport turned blinding white. Squinting, he could just see traceries of gold outlining a familiar, hated spell. Angrath smiled and snapped the telescope closed.

"It is a planeswalker," he muttered, tossing the telescope back to Benji.  "Poor bastard. Hell of a place to land--there’s no one here for miles.”  This area of the Stormwreck Sea was hellish to traverse, shallow, full of small islands and atolls and tricky littoral currents.  The Devil’s Chains had only come this way chasing down a myth--one that had indeed led to treasure, though not the kind Angrath was interested in.  Jade, gold, and obsidian filled the hold, weighing down the ship and making her sit low in the water. They would not have been able to get too close to the atoll even in an empty ship; as it was, they were forced to drop anchor some ways out.   Angrath shouted, calling for a boat to be prepared.

The planeswalker on the atoll waved at them as they approached, creeping out of the shadow of the sea stack.  A human male, of middling and unremarkable features. The man’s sodden clothing was all wrong for the environment, heavy and thick and clearly not of Ixalan--Angrath had explored every damned inch of the blighted plane, and never seen stark, geometric patterns like the man wore.  The man wore armor, of the ornamental sort merchants liked to turn aside an assassin’s dagger in the market, but carried no visible arms himself. Aside from the clothes, he wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a stool at any tavern in High and Dry, but he was in a sorry state, shivering with ocean chill, lips chapped and tinged blue and skin red from the sun.  The small atoll held no fresh water; the sea stacks provided the only shelter, and poor shelter at that.  

“Well met!” Angrath called as the boat beached upon the sand.  He jumped out and sloshed his way through the shallow water while Duffle shipped the oars.  “You look to be in a bit of a bind.”

The man nodded, arms wrapped around himself as he shivered.  “You could say that.” His voice came out in a croak. He did not seem intimidated by Angrath’s appearance; minotaurs were relatively rare across the multiverse, as far as Angrath had experienced, and Ixalan itself had none.  Yet the man did not seem perturbed in the slightest, and only grinned at the sight of his rescuers.

 “Hell of a place to land.  It’s lucky for you we were nearby.  Usually no one comes this way. Your first time?”

“First time what?” The man squinted, tilting his head in confusion.

“Ah.  It can take you like that, your first time.  You’ve never ended up somewhere you ain’t never been before?”

“I--I’m not sure,” the man said, brows drawn in puzzlement.

Angrath bit back on his disappointment.  A newly fledged planeswalker would be of little more use than a random Ixalan native; he had hoped the man might be able to give some insight into the binding magic that surrounded the plane and prevented planeswalkers from leaving.  

“I‘m Captain Angrath.  That’s Duffle.” Angrath nodded to the orc, who was already offering the man a waterskin.  “He’s the cook, but he knows a few things about healing, and is a damn fine rower too.”

The man took the waterskin and drank greedily, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth to wipe away escaped rivulets.  “Thank you.”

“You got a name, then?” Angrath prompted.

The man shook his head, his expression turning sheepish.  “No. I mean, I know I must have one. But...I can’t seem to remember it.”

The man could remember little, as it turned out.  He told his story in scattered, repeated fragments, as if he was having trouble ordering his thoughts.  The first thing he could remember was splashing down into the ocean and nearly drowning, pulled under by the weight of his waterlogged clothing.  He’d managed to worm his way out of his cloak and kicked off his boots, and had been able to alternately swim and float until he reached the dubious safety of the atoll range.  He spent the night huddled against one of the sea stacks, trying to stay out of the rain and racking his mind for any trace of who he was and how he’d come to be in such a predicament.  In the morning he’d spotted a lush island--aside from the rain, likely the only source of freshwater within reach--and had begun making his way to it, swimming from atoll to atoll.  

The island was over a mile away, as Angrath judged it; it would be a hard swim even for an experienced swimmer, and likely impossible for the shivering, dehydrated man. 

When Angrath mentioned planeswalking, the man’s face lit up, then twisted in frustration.  “I can almost remember it, like a word on the tip of my tongue. I knew I could go... somewhere else, but I couldn’t figure out how.”

Angrath shook his head wearily.  “Planeswalking’s impossible here.  There’s a ward--that damned white sigil--that pulls you back whenever you try to leave.  Been tryin’ for years now to get around it.” Still, that the man had any memories of planeswalking at all was an encouraging sign, and, just for a second, Angrath let himself enjoy the hope that this man held the key to leaving Ixalan forever, if only he could be compelled to remember it.  

Back on the ship, Angrath left the man in the care of Duffle, as the orc was the closest thing the ship had to a healer.  With luck, a warm meal and a good night’s sleep would fix the man’s addled mind, though Angrath had been on Ixalan far too long to trust in luck.  

The Chains resumed course to High and Dry, and Angrath retired to his own cabin and opened the ledger he used to document everything he’d done to try to get off this thrice-damned plane.  The ledger had been small when he started, merely a list on a scrap torn from a stolen book, but now it was a monstrous thing, bound in leather and overstuffed with pages. With a vicious scratch that tore the paper, he crossed out his latest tip about the abandoned Itenco Temple--this from Captain Parrish, an old friend who headed the Red Eel --as a dud.  The half-sunken ruin had indeed been wondrous, an ancient, forgotten thing stuffed with relics of a bygone era.  It had netted his crew a hold full of treasure, but it had gained him no leads, no insights into what the binding spell was, what power sustained it, how to break it.  

His remaining options were getting increasingly unsafe.  Atzal Cave, deep in mountainous territory controlled by the Sun Empire, hundreds of miles from the sea.  The Primal Wellspring, some merfolk holy site, far upriver and mostly underwater. The ruins of Azcanta, not holy but also mostly underwater.  And, of course, Orazca, the damned lost city that every would-be explorer searched for and never found. Angrath had followed every lead he’d come across, all for nothing.  

Well then.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A short knock pulled him out of his musings.  Before he could bellow at the knocker to go away, the door opened and Hilla entered.  She alone of all the crew was granted the privilege of this impropriety. Angrath had grown inordinately fond of the old siren during his ranging.  Her feathers were dulled with age, and her skin had taken on the color and texture of well-worn leather, but her eyes and tongue were still sharp. She reminded Angrath of the old mayor of Rustcliff: a woman who had matured well past the age where she could be bothered to give a damn about others’ opinions.  Angrath had found himself in much the same mood as his imprisonment on Ixalan wore on; they shared a comradery there, an agreement that they had both suffered too much to be put upon more.

“Not what you were hoping for, was he?” she began without preamble, coming around Angrath’s desk to look over the ledger.

Angrath snorted.  “No. Did you talk to him?”

“Only a little.  Duffle gave ‘im a drop of laudanum that sent him right out before we could really chat.  Nice enough sort, very polite. Head full of nothing, though.”

“You ever heard of someone not bein’ able to remember their whole life?”

“Can’t says as I have.  A good night’s drinking will steal a few hours from you, and I’ve heard tell the bloodsuckers can do things that’ll leave a man doing nothing but gibber, but I don’t think you can drink your whole life away, and the boy’s got too much blood left in ‘im to be a victim of a vampire.”  She thumbed through the ledger, flipping past where Angrath had been marking the results of the looting of Itenco Temple. “List’s getting short.”

Angrath grunted noncommittally and took the book back from her.   “I suppose. Parrish will have something for me, count on it. And at High ‘n Dry we can find some loons willing to risk their necks on a fool’s errand.  Was thinkin’ ‘bout trying for Azcanta next. It’s hard to get to; there might be something there yet undiscovered. But ‘twil be fighting if we go upriver.”

Hilla chuckled, low and melodious.  “Well, we’re running out of places that aren’t upriver.  And I’ve never known you to shy away from a fight.”

“Aye,” Angrath agreed.  He’d been a peaceful man, once, but that had been long before he met her.  He rubbed at the scar cutting across his brow. “To my bones, I am tired of this place.”

Dreams chased Angrath from his bed before sunrise.  Cold in his bed where his wife should have lain; silence where the giggles of his girls should have been.  He didn’t dream of them often anymore, and he dreaded the rare nights that he did. On occasion, as they had last night, they accused him, blaming him for leaving, blaming him for not finding a way home.  Don’t you love us?

Love wasn’t going to get him out of this situation.

He stomped a heavy perimeter around the ship, glaring at the night’s watch, who made a show of being busy for his benefit.  Aside from Hilla and, on occasion, Benji, Angrath didn’t fraternize with his crew. He’d spent a long time cultivating the image of a short-tempered brute--it helped that the image was true, to an extent.  It cultivated respect from the crew, who obeyed his orders without fuss, and from other pirate captains, who took pains to stay in his good graces lest he turn his cannons on their ships. And now, his image allowed him to sulk in peace, without anyone making any asinine attempts to lift his spirits.

Angrath halted his ill-humored pacing at the forecastle and gazed out over the lightening waters, the deep blues of night slowly retreating under the shimmering turquoise of day.  They were past the sea stacks now and the sky was clear across the horizon, so that the green shore of the continent of Ixalan was just visible off the port side. White beaches highlighted the edges of a chain of islands ahead of the ship, their palms fluttering in the warming, salt-soaked breeze, colorful seabirds and flying dinosaurs diving and chasing and fighting for fish.  It was becoming a beautiful morning. It wasn’t home.

His crew knew better than to approach him when he was in such a mood, but the new planeswalker didn’t, and as the sun cleared the horizon the man came and stood next to Angrath, leaning against the ship’s railing as Angrath was and tracing his finger down the grooves and scratches in the wood.  The night’s rest had done him well. His eyes no longer held a fevered glint, the sea salt had been washed from his skin, and proper clothes had been found for him in the ship’s stores. Aside from the strange tattoos, he looked a proper pirate.

“You’re up early,” Angrath remarked.  He made an effort not to sound resentful of the man.

“Headache.  I couldn’t sleep,” the man replied.  “I wanted to thank you again. For rescuing me.  And--” He pulled a small velvet bag from his pockets and opened it, fishing out a coin.  “I thought you might be interested in this. I was looking through everything in my pockets for clues and noticed it.”

He held out a small coin to Angrath, who took it and held it up so it caught the light of the coming day.  On the backside, the coin had only an unornamented 1 written in a heavy script, but an eerily familiar pattern was inscribed on the front.  It wasn’t the binding spell, not quite, but it was close, a triangle broken by a circle, and Angrath laughed and smacked his fist against the railing at the sight.

“I knew it!  The first planeswalker I ever meet here, I knew you had to have some sort of key.  We just gotta get what’s in there--” he jabbed a finger at the man’s forehead “--just gotta get it out.”  Angrath closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. He wasn’t free, not yet, and he knew he shouldn’t get too excited as he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to get the man’s missing memories to return--but finally, finally he had a clue, a lead, the first handhold towards climbing out of this pit.  He could float away with the thrill of it.

The man rubbed his forehead where Angrath had poked him.  Angrath, heedless, clapped the man heartily on the back, sending him stumbling.  “We’re going home, you--I don’t know what to call you. You remember a name yet?”

The man shook his head and began to say ‘no’, but Angrath, excited, was shouting again before he’d managed to do more than open his mouth.

“Oy!  You, Henri!” Angrath pointed at the closest crewman, who hastily put down the buckets he’d been carrying.  “What was your granddad’s name?”

“He was Henri too, captain,” the man replied, looking confused.  “I was named for him, you see.”

“Well, you’re no help, are you?” Angrath huffed.  He clapped the other planeswalker on the back again.  “Our friend here needs a name!”

“Had an uncle, name of Barrett,” Henri offered, the confusion on his face increasing at his captain’s giddiness.

“Ha!  You’re Barrett, then,” Angrath told the other planeswalker.  “Leastways til you remember your own name.”

The newly-christened Barrett nodded.  “I--there’s a few more coins. I was wondering if you knew where they came from?”  The man pulled out a few more. They were larger than the first had been, the size of buckeyes, and heavy, pure gold or close to it.  Instead of the triangle and circle they had a sun pattern engraved on their face.

“Seen a few coins that looked a bit similar, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that exact sun before,” Angrath said.  The giddy rush of the first coin was dissipating. How to use it? How to unlock the secrets in Barrett’s head?

“Oh.  Well, I can pay you for passage, at least.” Barrett jangled his coin purse, which, though small, was clearly stuffed.  He probably had been some kind of merchant before he landed here, Angrath mused. It would explain the fancy dyed-leather armor, and the man’s apparent wealth.

“Keep it,” Angrath said.  “I’ve got a hold full of more gold than I care to spend.  You help me break this binding spell, and you’ll have paid for your passage a thousand times over.  I might even be in your debt.”

“Right.  You want to get back to your family,” Barrett stated.

“Hilla tell you that?  Meddling bint.”

“No.”  Barrett’s brow furrowed.  “I suppose I must have overheard it.”

Angrath grunted.  “It’s not a secret, not exactly.  The crew, they’ve all lost their homes, so they understand, in a way.  But they’re also an opportunistic lot, so it doesn’t do to go waving your weaknesses around.  They ain’t above using ‘em.”

“I understand,” Barrett said.  “Do you--are there any books on board?  On magical theory, or the like? I can almost...it’s like a sneeze that won’t come.  I almost have an idea, or I can almost remember something about this symbol, and maybe I can find something that will jog it loose.”

Angrath smiled.  “That’s what I like to hear.  Got a few around that might hit the mark.  Weren’t no help to me, but might be to you.  And who knows what the crew might have stashed in their bunks.  Garner and Ives, they’re clever lads, they might be able to puzzle it out with you too.”

Angrath sent Barrett off with an armful of stolen books and then spent the morning haranguing his crew, so as to let the man study in peace without Angrath breathing down his neck.  Over the years, Angrath had amassed a tidy collection of books, pilfering anything he could find that dealt with anything resembling binding magics--a grimoire detailing Legion blood rituals, a Sun Empire treatise on the proper restraint of dinosaurs, a scroll explaining the means of magically hiding a cache of treasure.  They’d been of little use to him; his mother had never taught him the whys of magic, only how to wield the powers of heat and forge.  He’d made little progress in his self-study since, although who could say if that was because he was reading the wrong books, or because he hadn’t the knowledge needed to comprehend the spells.

He braved the mess after the worst of the lunch ruckus had passed.  Barrett had had a few hours to work, and Angrath had spent the entire morning imagining the man cracking the code and spiriting the pair of them away from Ixalan.  It wasn’t going to be that easy, he knew, but the longer he had to wait, the harder Angrath found tempering his expectations.

Barrett had ensconced himself in a corner of the mess with an array of papers and the pile of books Angrath had given him.  He had sketched out the binding spell several times in impressive detail, focusing on a different aspect of the spell each time.  Now he was carefully measuring distances between lines with a pair of compass calipers. He startled when Angrath sat across from him.

“You’re making progress.”  Angrath beamed. He had no idea what Barrett was doing, but it looked promising.

"Some.  The coin and the binding spell aren’t as similar as I initially thought," Barrett said, pushing some of the papers forward so Angrath could see better. "The sigils on the coin are symbolic, not an active spell.  It makes sense--it's a coin, you wouldn’t necessarily want to enchant it. But the glyphs do imitate a real spell, and it has at least a passing resemblance to the binding spell. I think they probably do similar things. The binding spell itself is complicated. Look, here--there's at least six main components to the spell, and each component is itself made up of a hundred smaller spells, all intertwined and disguising each other. Look, the termination line of this one is also the locus of this one, and it’s hiding a tacete in this one. It's cleverly done. "

“You understand it?” Angrath asked.

“No.  I mean, I understand some of it.  This bit here, see--” Barrett traced his finger along a particularly squiggly line “--that doesn’t really do anything, it’s mostly there to make it harder to dispel.  It looks like a fetter, and if you didn’t know better you’d attempt to attack the spell there, but you’d be wasting your time.  The whole thing, though?”

Barrett sighed and leaned back, stretching his shoulders and neck.  “It’s like the difference between a bundle of twigs and a tree. I understand some of the little bits, but I don’t understand how they come together into what they are, and I don’t know how to begin to unravel it.  Attacking its source of power is probably the easiest way to disable it.  I don’t think it can sustain itself without some constant outside source of mana, although I could be wrong.  Whoever made this was a genius.”

“You’ve made more progress in four hours than I’ve made in fourteen years,” Angrath said.

“Maybe, but I don’t know if I can unravel the whole thing.  I’d like to try.” Barrett smiled. His smiles always looked slightly apologetic, Angrath noticed.  “It’s interesting work.”

Angrath considered.  Maybe Barrett hadn’t been a merchant--a scholar perhaps, although his explanations were closer to the excited patter of a student than the measured tones of a professor.  The pirates of the Brazen Coalition were many things, but few of them were studious, and almost none of them had any formal education to speak of. They were clever, though.  Combine their cleverness and Barrett’s apparent knowledge of this kind of spell, and perhaps something could be made of it.

Four day’s travel yet to High and Dry, where he already intended to meet with Captain Parrish.  She had a network of resources he could bring to bear, now that he had a thread to pull on. Put her and Barrett on the mystery of the binding spell, fund whatever enterprises they needed to undertake to unravel it.  

It would be high summer in Rustcliff.  He could almost smell the sweet honey of the coneflowers, hear the buzzing of the cicadas.

Angrath reached across the table and clapped Barrett on the shoulder.  “Good man. Whatever help you need, I’ll see that you get it.”

Chapter Text

The ceiling was made up of eleven wooden planks so heavily varnished they appeared nearly black, their grain only visible when the light hit just right.  The room had one door, and directly opposite it a modest brick fireplace with a small table in front of it. Four chairs surrounded the table; at one point, a floral design had twined around their backs, but time and visitors had worn the pattern away and now the chairs merely looked lumpy.  Most of the furnishings were like that: clearly once well-made and expensive, but now chipped and faded and stained.  Windows sat on either side of the fireplace, latched closed against the lingering chilly nights of spring, made of thick, rippling glass that distorted the view of the world outside. The walls were whitewashed and without adornment. A mouse had chewed a hole in one corner just above the baseboard, and while Gideon had yet to see any mice, the inn’s scruffy grey tomcat liked to stake out that corner, tail twitching as if in anticipation.

Gideon had come to know the room very well.  He hadn’t left it since he arrived. He spent most of each day asleep, and what time he wasn’t asleep was spent either lying in bed, groggily tracing the dark swirls of wood grain in the ceiling, or walking a slow, halting circuit around the room, which left him breathless even though the room was not very large.  The feverwillow tincture Liliana made chased away whatever pain he might feel, but it did nothing against the trembling weakness that had captured his limbs. He felt... unsolid, as insubstantial as steam, and aside from his heart--which flailed like a panicked bird inside his ribs at the slightest exertion--he moved slowly, as if he were underwater.  Even his thoughts seemed wrong. They percolated molasses-slow, and he found it difficult to concentrate or to follow a conversation.

All this was normal, Liliana assured him, growing more irate each time she had to say it to him.  He had been stabbed in the chest and lost a significant quantity of blood before the bleeding could be stopped.  He was anemic, and his body was still devoting all its energy to recovering. It needed to rest.

Liliana had stopped insisting they get moving, as it was clear Gideon couldn’t travel, and instead spent her days gathering supplies for the day they departed, bringing back clothes and boots and books and money from Ravnica, or else sitting at the small table, reading.  She had become taciturn whenever Gideon spoke to her, rarely teasing or joking as she was wont to do, and while she never looked tired--Gideon wondered whether it was even possible for her eyes to get bags under them--she carried herself in a slump that spoke of fatigue. Possibly she was bored, standing vigil over his sickbed.  He certainly was, stuck inside and immobile, and the only saving grace was that he was asleep for most of it. 

He was never left alone.  When Liliana left on her errands, one member or another of the innkeeper’s family would sit with him.  There had been Mari, the innkeeper’s young daughter, who smiled shyly and stammered over her words, and Anton, her teenaged brother, who talked eagerly about his plans to become a knight and seemed disappointed when Gideon could give only disjointed answers to his questions about fighting.  Usually though, Leta, the innkeeper’s wife, sat with him when Liliana was gone.

Gideon liked Leta.  She was a stout woman with a hearty laugh, and she was delighted by his company, poor as it was.  He wasn’t up to much conversation, but she had enough gossip and chit-chat to handle both sides of the dialogue.  She reminded him of Chandra, in a way; she had an opinion on everything, and was more than capable of carrying on a conversation without his input.  She nattered on about the town and the coming of spring and how the planting was going, and he listened contentedly, soothed by the humdrum description of life in the little town.  It was mundane in a way his life had never really been.

“It‘s nice to have people in, whatever the circumstances.  Most folks don’t travel this way anymore, if they can help it.”  Today, Leta sat at the table, a pile of darning in front of her and a basket for completed items by her feet.  Her well-practiced hands darted over the fabric, mending holes in minutes.

“Why not?” Gideon asked, eyes half-closed.  

“Why, the curse, of course.  You came this way and didn’t know?”

He shook his head slightly.

“Ah, well, the whole area is cursed, or such is the tale.”  She finished a sock and dropped it in the basket, then selected another.  “That’s the reason the forest drowned, so they say, and why the Benalish army can never seem to chase the Cabal away from here.  ‘Course, I’ve got my own ideas about that. I think they just don’t care enough to bother patrolling this far out. More’n one caravan’s been lost in the Caligo, so the merchants don’t travel our road anymore, and there’s not many folks still living out this way without their trade. You and Lily were lucky to escape those bandits.”

 He frowned at the nickname for Liliana; he’d only ever heard Jace call her Lily, and even then only in an accidentally-overheard private conversation.  Leta continued oblivious, complaining about the effects of the Cabal on the local villages, and Gideon tried to catch the thread of the conversation again, sleepily asking clarifying questions whenever Leta paused for breath or for a fresh item in need of repair.

“When did the Cabal become a problem here?” he asked at one point.

“Oh, they’ve been a pain round here for centuries and centuries now,” Leta said.  “Couldn’t say when they properly got their start, but they’re in a bit of a resurgence now.  My father complained about them, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, and he said that even his grandfather had run-ins with them.  Still, I don’t remember them being so much trouble when I was a girl.  I spent many a day wandering the Caligo as a girl and came to no harm, but I’d never let my own children alone out there.”

“I wish I could do something,” Gideon murmured sleepily.  The Cabal sounded like the sort of problem he was--had been, before his injury--well-equipped to solve.  But he could offer little help to anyone wounded as he was. Even contemplating a plan of attack seemed out of his grasp.

Leta smiled her toothy smile.  “Oh, don’t you worry about it. We’ve been managing just fine, and you’re helping plenty here now, keeping an old woman company.”

Liliana returned that afternoon, a pack slung across her shoulders and a sour expression on her face.  For once, Gideon was awake when she returned; an attempt had been made that first night to clean the swamp water and mud from his skin and hair, but it had doubtlessly been difficult with him unconscious, and the missed dirt now itched against his scalp.  The inn didn’t have showers, a luxury he’d grown very fond of on Ravnica, but Anton and Leta had fetched a small tub and heated water for him, and he was--slowly, as with everything nowadays--rinsing the last of the soap from his hair when Liliana arrived.

“Glad you’re back safely,” Leta greeted.  “Don’t like the thought of you out there on your own.”

“It’s fine.  I can take care of myself,” Liliana replied.  She had explained to Gideon that while planeswalkers were a known quantity on Dominaria, they were not well-liked, and so she had invented a story about how their caravan had been attacked in the swamp, and told Leta that her excursions to Ravnica were trips to retrieve supplies from this supposed lost caravan.  The innkeeper had accepted the explanation without question.

The two women exchanged a few more pleasantries while Gideon began the process of toweling his hair dry.  It was difficult to do one-handed; he was finding most things were. He hadn’t realized just how many things required the use of his dominant hand, nor how clumsy his left was in comparison.

Once Leta had packed up her things and left the room, Liliana unpacked the contents of the backpack she’d brought, arranging the items on the room’s small table.  More clothing for the both of them, pilfered from their apartments on Ravnica; a bag stuffed with Orzhov coinage; more bandages; another book; a small dagger in an ornate leather sheath; paper-wrapped packages of dried, cured trail food. 

“Nine hells!” Liliana swore as she extracted a final item from the bag, a crystal bottle the size of a fig containing a dim, green-grey liquid.  It emitted a foul odor when Liliana pulled the stopper out, and she quickly restoppered the bottle and tossed it on the table, away from the rest of their goods.  

“What was that?” Gideon asked, picking up a comb.

 “A potion to restore blood volume, courtesy of the Simic,” she said with a sigh.  “Might’ve gotten you on your feet faster. I didn’t think it would curdle on the way over, and no one around here has the right ingredients to brew one.  I’m not sure I still remember how to make it, either.”

The town was small enough, only a dozen houses, that it didn’t have an apothecary or a dedicated healer.  The closest thing was an old woman who served informally as a midwife, her only training her own large family.  Otherwise, the townsfolk tended their injuries and illnesses on their own, using whatever folklore had been passed down through the years.  Liliana had complained heartily about the lack of a proper healer when she found out.

“That’s too bad.”  The comb caught in a snarl, and Gideon fumbled with it one-handed.  “Was Jace there?”

“If Jace or anyone else had been there, I’d’ve told you already.  Oh, give me that,” Liliana snapped. She snatched the comb from his fingers, and set to work combing out his damp, sleep-tangled hair.  She was the last member of the Gatewatch he would have picked to be with him in this situation, but she had, Gideon thought, done an admirable job thus far at playing caretaker.  She was not a caring woman, but she was efficient and thorough and, importantly, the only one here; an able, mostly-patient caretaker, who despite ample opportunities had not left him behind, nor stooped to mocking his feebleness.  Really, the only thing he could complain about were her hands, which were cold enough that he twitched involuntarily whenever she touched his bare skin.  

“Thank you,” Gideon said.  She had his hair combed in seconds, and began to weave it into a simple braid to keep it out of the way.  “You’ve been very kind.”

Still, she was still Liliana.  He could hear her grin.  “Only because I know how fragile men’s egos can get.”  She tied off the braid and patted him on the top of his head, as if he were a small child; he frowned at her for it, and for a moment her old, wry smile returned.  “You should’ve seen--” She stopped mid-sentence, and the smile vanished, and she turned to busy herself rearranging their things in their packs, whatever story she had been about to tell a mystery.

By the second week in the little inn, Gideon began to spend more time awake.  He ventured to the downstairs common room daily, an exercise that left him breathless and needing to nap in the wing chair by the great fireplace, but despite the effort, it was freeing to leave the sickroom, even just to go downstairs.  Leta was inevitably there, cleaning or sewing or doing other indoor work. Each time he came down, Gideon offered to help her with her chores, and each time she chuckled, not unkindly, and warmed him some soup and told him that keeping an old woman company was the best help he could give.  She had sewn a proper sling for his right arm, which remained mostly numb. 

Leta had commandeered one of the room’s half-dozen tables for her lace-making, a hobby she had taken up, she explained, to supplement the family’s income after the Cabal had chased all the travellers away from the morass that had been Caligo Forest.  The bobbins clicking and rolling under her hands and the slow formation of fabric underneath made an entrancing show, and Gideon watched and listened as Leta gossiped about the town--a neighbor’s daughter had left the town to marry a tradesman; someone’s chickens had been stolen; and Keril, the oldest man in town, was going to Rennick to petition for additional patrols in the Caligo, in light of recent attacks by the Cabal.

 “Are you a knight?” she asked at one point.

 “No, ma’am,” he said.  “I...didn’t have the temperament for it.”  This was not precisely untrue, provided you considered hoplites knights.  The Akroan army took itself too seriously for games, and everything had been a game to Kytheon Iora.  He hadn’t lasted long.

Leta appeared to take his stumbling attempt at deception as personal discomfort at some incident in his past, and let it be.  “No shame in that. They’re not what they used to be, Benalia’s knights. When I was a girl we never had these problems with witches and necromancers.  Someone was causing a problem, you talked to your lord, and quicker’n a cat after a rat, a squad of knights would be out and they’d deal with it, if you catch my meaning.  Nowadays, though, you’ve got to go all the way up to Rennick to talk to anyone, and they say they’ll do something but they never seem to get around to it.  Scared of the curse, I’ll wager. Cowards.”

“I thought you said the curse wasn’t real,” Gideon said.

“Oh, I don’t think it is, but it’s an old story and it’s gotten around.”  Leta paused to untangle a knot in her thread. “It’s the only thing most people know about this place, I bet.  The last proper lord we had--and this was ages ago, mind, my great-grandfather’s time--he and his whole family met a grisly end.  It was quite the scandal at the time. They were talking about it even in the capital, or so I’ve been told. It’s a sad story; Cormick tells it better than I do, but the gist of it is the lord’s wicked daughter murdered his only son.  That was the start of the curse, supposedly. Hold on a tick, I’ll show you something. You’ll like this.” She settled her lacemaking and took the empty bowl from Gideon and placed it on the counter to be washed, then bustled into the back room; something dropped with a rolling clatter and she swore.  Gideon rose to help her, but she returned before he made it halfway to the door and waved off his concern. Under her arm she clutched a leatherbound book with pages edged in silver.

“This was my father’s,” she explained.  “His most prized possession, he said. He’d read us tales from it every winter, after the sun went down and we were all stuck inside.”  She opened the book and started paging through it; while she treated other objects in the inn with brusque efficiency, these she moved carefully, laying each page down tenderly as she turned it.

“Here we are,” she said, toward the end of the book.  “The Fall of the House of Vess .  The town’s little entry into history.”  Gideon could not read it, but the first page of the tale was embellished with a painting of a young man and woman, both pale and black-haired.  The woman held a cup in her hand that glowed an evil green, and the man reached for her with clawed fingers, thin lines of blood trickling from his mouth.

An apprehension gripped Gideon; he had noted the name in the story, and realized he might be treading upon something private, something he should leave alone.  But he could not think of a way to stop Leta that wouldn’t cause the woman to ask hard-to-answer questions, and that, coupled with a curiosity made hungry after so much time cooped up, stilled his tongue.

“Lord Mattias Vess begat six children by his wife Eukenne, a single son and five daughters.  We need not concern ourselves with the younger daughters. They were beautiful girls, and dutiful, and their tragedy is that the track of their lives was ended before they could find their path in this world,” Leta read, tracing her finger along the lines.  “Our tale concerns instead Lord Vess’s secondborn, his son; and his eldest child, his darkling daughter.

“Josu was the son’s name, and he was a strong, tall boy, and good with a sword, and beloved by his father’s subjects.  The daughter, Liliana, took after her father in spirit. She was a headstrong girl, prone to wandering, and none could say to her that she was wrong, nor bring her to reason when her mind was made.  Beautiful she was, as were all the Vess girls, but her beauty was as the bryony in winter. Still, all was well until Lord Vess went on campaign, trying to drive the wicked Cabal from his lands, and his enemies, spying an opportunity to weaken the ancient house, cursed his son Josu with a terrible illness.  For weeks the stricken boy lay in his bed, and none could soothe the fever on his brow or assuage the horrid nightmares that plagued the boy even unto waking.

“Liliana, it is said, loved her brother most dearly of all, and she searched night and day through her family’s vast libraries in search of a cure.  Healers there were also, of great talent, for the Vess family in those days was powerful and wealthy with the bounty of the old forest, but neither they nor young Liliana could find a way to break the curse.  Until one day Liliana announced she had the way of it, and needed merely to find the ingredients for a potion that would free her beloved brother from the curse-made sickness.

“She left immediately for the forest, heedless of the warnings her father’s men gave that there were witches and worse walking the woods. It cannot be said what befell her in the forest, but the girl who entered the woods and the girl who came back were alike only in form, for that very night Liliana slew her brother Josu and cursed him anew with death everlasting.

“The potion the girl made was poison, and she would let no other look upon it, but rather with persistence akin to madness forced her way to her brother’s sickbed, whereupon she dripped the vile liquid down his throat before any could stop her.  The boy Josu fell dead upon an instant, and then rose again in a grim mockery of life. He set about those around him, filled with such a hatred of the living that he could not bear their presence.

“His hatred for his dark sister though was greatest of all, and he chased the girl through the house and out into the dark woods, and though a great search was called to find the missing Vess children, no one ever found the body of young Josu, nor that of his murderous sister.  News was sent to Lord Vess, and he recalled his troops with haste to help in the search, but even they could find no trace of either child, and while they searched the enemy encroached even further, uncontested. At long last Lord Vess was forced to face them again, but weakened with grief for his lost son and daughter, he fell against them and was slain.  Lady Eukenne fled then, declaring the house and family cursed, and she took her remaining daughters with her, but whether curse or misfortune, a dark power followed her, and she passed a short time later of a sickness in her chest, and left the four remaining sisters orphaned. Each of them would fall in turn, aside from Anara, the youngest, who fled to Stonehaven on Corondor upon the deaths of her sisters, and who might have made it far enough to avoid their fate.

“It is said, on dark nights, you can still see the light of Liliana’s lantern out in the Caligo.  Those who follow it are doomed to join her endless flight.”

Gideon made an effort to stay awake until Liliana came back to their shared room, watching the dance of the low, banked fire in the small hearth and thinking upon the story the innkeeper had read to him.  It was likely Liliana would not be happy about what he had learned; she was always been private about her past, answering either cryptically or weaving elaborate, obviously false stories whenever the matter came up.  Gideon spent the time planning out what he would say to best avoid upsetting her. Hiding the matter entirely was out of the question; he knew full well he would not be able to face Liliana until he confessed what he had learned.  It would be good, too, to learn the truth of the matter from her own perspective. What, after all, might be said of him and his disastrous charge against Erebos?

"You’re still up,” Liliana remarked upon entering.  He wasn’t sure where she’d been today; she didn’t always say where she went when she left him alone, and was evasive when he asked, saying only that she was planning their trip to Benalia City.

“I spoke with Leta today, and she showed me a book,” Gideon said.  

“That’s nice,” Liliana responded absently, uninterested.  She knelt by the backpack that now sat at the foot of her bed and rearranged the contents of one of its pockets, pulling out a thin shawl.

“It had a story in it.  I think it was about you.”

At this, Liliana stiffened and stood, pursing her lips.  “Oh? Did it, now?”

“I didn’t know it was about you when Leta started reading,” Gideon said.  It wasn’t fully the truth; he had certainly suspected it might be about Liliana, though he hadn’t known.  “She said it was from a long time ago.”

“And what do they say about me, nowadays?”   There was a warning edge to her voice, a tone that sounded playful but decidedly wasn’t.

Gideon continued regardless.  “That you tried to save your brother’s life, but poisoned him instead.”

Liliana hmmed again, but this time her tone was irritated, and she pulled the shawl from her shoulders and balled it up and pushed it back into the confines of her backpack.

“I wondered if you wanted to talk about it,” Gideon said, keeping his tone as noncommittal as he could.

“A word of advice, Gideon,” Liliana said.  “Don’t insert yourself into the affairs of others.  It’s only borrowing trouble.” She yanked the flap of the backpack closed.

“I’ve also lost people close to me.”  He braced himself; he hadn’t even told Chandra about the Irregulars. “I know--”

“Oh, spare me,” Liliana groused.  “It was a lifetime ago. Several lifetimes ago, in fact.  I don’t need a shoulder to cry on, or whatever it is you think you’re offering.”

“I understand.  I only wanted to make sure you’re alright.  I’m sorry for prying.”

She threw her hands up in an exaggerated display of nonchalance.  “Pry away! We’ve got nothing else to do here. Would you like my whole life story?”  She wasn’t shouting, not quite, but her lip curled in a snarl and her voice was strident with anger.  “Once I murdered a woman because she had a beautiful cape, and I made her zombie hand it to me. Would you like to hear about the time I murdered Jace’s best friend?  Or there was the time I cursed Garruk--he looked a bit like you, only even bigger and uglier. Anything you’d like to know, please, just ask!”  She took a handful of furious steps toward the door, then turned, seeming to realize that there were few places she could go in the small building. She stared at him for a moment, jaw working as if she were trying to figure out how to say something, then turned and wrenched open the door.  It slammed behind her.

Gideon tried to wait up for Liliana’s return, worried that he had offended her terribly, but she hadn’t returned by the time, well after nightfall, that he fell asleep sitting at the table.  She wasn’t there when he awoke sometime in the deep of night, neck stiff from laying in the pool of his arms, nor had she returned to their room by the time he awoke again at sunrise.

He rose, put on his sling, and made his usual halting way down the stairs to the main room.  Perhaps Liliana had spent the night there, by the big fireplace, and if not he could ask Leta if she’d seen her.  Liliana was mad, obviously, and avoiding him, and he wasn’t sure if another apology was the best way to soothe her anger, but he felt obligated to offer one all the same.  He wished Jace was here; Jace was only slightly better than he was at figuring out Liliana, but any insight would be a godsend.

He found LIliana in the common room, sitting around a table with Leta and Cormick, the innkeeper, as well as a golden-haired young man Gideon didn’t recognize.  The four of them held a map spread between them. Leta saw him coming down first, and smiled and waved him over. Liliana didn’t look at him at all, in a way that Gideon knew must be intentional.  He’d hoped to have a chance to talk to her privately.

“Just going over the route with Lily,” Leta said as Gideon came to the table and pulled out a chair. 

“Route?” Gideon asked.

“I’ve been talking to Cormick about our travel problem,” Liliana said dryly, her gaze fixed on the map.  “His friend Derrill here takes a boat down the river once every few months to sell things in White Bay. He wasn’t due to make the journey for another month, but he’s agreed to take us there as soon as you’re fit to travel.  From there we can book passage on a ferry across the bay to Benalia City. We might even make Ajani’s meeting on time.”

“It’s an easy route,” the young man said.  “Follow the river the whole way, just make sure to stop before the ocean.  Nice to meet you, by the way."  He held out his hand to shake, and then, spotting Gideon’s sling, half-retracted it, looking sheepish.  Gideon returned the handshake with his left hand.

“Nice to meet you.  Thank you for taking us.” Gideon smiled.   “Sitting on a boat isn’t any different than sitting here.  I can travel.”  Now that the opportunity was in front of him, he was eager to leave, to make it to Ajani’s meeting and rendezvous with the rest of the Gatewatch--especially now that Liliana was irate and avoiding him.  Perhaps a change of scenery would improve her mood too.

“We can leave tomorrow, then,” Liliana said.  “That should give us enough time.”

“A shame to see you go,” Leta said, resting her hand on Gideon’s uninjured shoulder.  “It was nice to have visitors again.”

“Perhaps we’ll come back this way,” Gideon offered.  Liliana shot him a withering expression at this, finally deigning to look his way, but now he ignored her in turn.  Cormick and Leta had been wonderful hosts, and if time permitted he would like to come back to visit someday.

“What do  we need to prepare?” Gideon asked.

“Nothing, really,” Derrill said.  “Just got to bring the boat around.”

“Everything is packed already,” Liliana said.  “We can leave tomorrow, at sunrise, but I have a few errands to run before that happens.”

“What errands?” Gideon asked.

She scowled for a moment, before papering over her expression with a small smile.  “Nothing you need to worry about. Focus on resting up for tomorrow, hmm?” She left before he could figure out a response to that; she couldn’t be going to Ravnica again, not that he could bring that up in front of Cormick and Leta, and he couldn’t think of what errands she still had to do.  Likely, it seemed, she was making up some reason to avoid him.

No light came through the windows, and the fire had burned down to cinders, washing the room in muzzy shadows.  Liliana was back, sitting at the table, a small oil lamp burning low in front of her. Though she’d changed into a nightgown, the covers on her bed were untouched.  It took Gideon several seconds to figure out what had woken him--a tink tink noise from a moth  circling the glass lamp, hitting it over and over in a futile attempt to reach the flame.  Liliana was watching it, her lips drawn tight, her hand resting atop a closed book.

He pushed his covers back.  

“Go back to bed, Gideon,” Liliana said slowly, not breaking her gaze from the moth.  Her voice was low and thick; if she were anyone else, he would have thought she was sick, or about to cry.

“Are you alright?” he asked.  He sat up and squeezed his eyes closed as he waited for the burst of lightheadedness that accompanied any movement to pass.

She didn’t answer.  “You need to rest. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

He walked to the fireplace, where he bent with a sigh to place a few more logs on the dwindling fire.  His back had tightened from too much sleep. He stretched, then sat in the chair next to Liliana, leaning back to rest his aching neck on the headrest.  She stopped watching the moth long enough to glare at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Who says anything’s wrong?” she countered, smiling a smile she likely intended to be playful, but which the flickering shadows from the oil lamp made eerie.

“Please, can we just talk?” he asked wearily.  “We both know you’re upset.”

The smile vanished, and she huffed and picked up her book and opened it to a ribbon placeholder, running her finger down the page to find her place.  “It’s nothing to do with you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”  Her foul mood had to have at least something to do with him and what he’d learned about the death of her brother.  

“Gideon, it has nothing to do with you,” Liliana repeated.  “Go to bed. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”  

“You’ll forgive me if I have a hard time believing that.”

“What do you want me to say?” Liliana snapped the book shut.  “It’s nothing.  Just...things I hadn’t realized I’d forgotten.  It’s not a threat to you, or to the Gatewatch, so leave it be.”

“I didn’t think it was a threat.  I wanted to make sure you were okay.”  He tried to smile in a reassuring way, but she refused to look at him, eyes fixed once more on the wandering moth.  “I’m sorry again for prying.”

She hmmed an acknowledgement of his apology, but otherwise said nothing.  Gideon considered his next words carefully. It was not a subject he was eager to broach, for his own pride and for fear of how Liliana might react.  But he had never quite known how to reach out to Liliana, to understand her as a friend and a teammate, and, painful though it would be to build, he saw a possible bridge between them.  “I know there are things I wouldn’t want people to know about me--”

“Oh, now this I have to hear,” she mocked.  “What, did you stay out past your curfew?  Steal an apple from Farmer Spence’s tree?” 

He let out an irritated breath.  “No--well, yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes.”

“See, that’s the difference between us.  You’ve made mistakes.  I knew exactly what I was doing...and I did it anyway.”  Her expression didn’t change, still that same derisive sneer, but something about her demeanor shifted, and Gideon was no longer looking at a young woman but an ancient one, a being that had been old before he had been born and had experienced more than he ever would.  

“You meant to kill your brother?” he asked, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice.  He held no delusions about Liliana’s morality, or rather her distressing lack thereof: she was far too comfortable committing barbaric acts, far too cavalier about the great burden inherent in taking another’s life, and the “good heart underneath” that Jace had vouched for came to the surface rarely enough that he doubted its existence in her worst moments.  But killing her own supposedly-beloved sibling was a step further than he thought even her capable.

    “No.  I didn’t mean to.”  The lamp flickered and she was young again, eyes shining too-bright in the red glow of the fire.  Gideon resisted the impulse to lay his hand on her shoulder, as he would have for Chandra or Jace.  “My last demon is here."

“Alright,” he said, uncertain how best to react to the non-sequitur.  The sudden, unprompted way she said it made him sure her words were a feint, a sacrificial pawn meant to distract him from something she wanted to discuss even less than another deception about her demons.  “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re not angry?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself.  She was testing him, he was certain, probing for some answer or another, and he wondered what she was after.   Was she, in her roundabout way, attempting to apologize for springing Razaketh on them on Amonkhet? Did she want him to be angry?  Was he angry? It had been Ajani, not Liliana, who had suggested they meet on Dominaria, and while she could have--should have--said something then, she was at least not waiting until the last moment to warn them about her demon this time.

He settled on, “I wish you had said something earlier.  But there are bigger things to worry about.” They still didn’t know Bolas’s plan.  Nissa had yet to return; Jace and Chandra had never arrived. Everyone would reconvene with Ajani in Benalia City, but beneath Gideon’s exhaustion, an open question festered, fed by his ignorance of his friends’ fates.

It was hard to tell how she took his answer; she fidgeted with the book cover, finally standing and placing the book on the mantle shelf.  Then she returned to the table, and prepared a dose of the feverwillow tincture; but rather than hand it to him, she threw back her head and swallowed the glass in one gulp, her face pinching at the bitterness.

“You’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to escape your pact,” Gideon said, daring for one more question.  “Why did you make it in the first place?” The question had puzzled him since he first met Liliana, and he’d never before had an opportunity to ask about it.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she replied tersely.  She sighed and removed her headdress and combed her fingers through her hair, shaking out the tangles.  “You’ve never been old.”

Gideon couldn’t think of a response to that, so he said nothing.  Liliana blew out the lamp and went to her own bed. The moth landed on the table, and Gideon pressed his finger against its legs until it climbed onto the back of his hand, then went to the window to let it outside.  Behind him, Liliana turned down the sheets, then slipped under them and resettled the covers, turning her back to him.

“Go to bed, Gideon,” she said.

He unhooked the latch, pushed open the window, and let the moth fly out into the night.

Chapter Text

As far as Domri was concerned, Rhuka Kel was the most beautiful woman Ravnica had ever produced.  Skin the color of ripe acorns; thick, curly hair that rose from her head like smoke from a burning factory; amber eyes that, coupled with her filed teeth, lent her a feral, untamed look.  She wasn’t a tall girl, which suited Domri just fine, and she still wore her curves uncertainly, which, in Domri’s eyes, only served to make her more becoming. Just a smile from her was enough to get him aching--not that she was smiling much tonight.  Tonight she sat pinch-faced, clutching her bowl of stew tightly between her hands, her eyes darting nervously between Domri and her mother.

Oggi Kel might have once shared her daughter’s beauty; if she had, it had been around the time Cisarzim still led the Gruul.  Supposedly she wasn’t even all that old, only sixty or seventy, but she had wrinkles on her deep enough that her face looked like a cobblestone street, and a fight with a battalion of Boros in her youth had left her with a misshapen jaw and half her teeth knocked out.  Which was fine and all; Domri wasn’t here to ogle her, but he’d’ve felt a bit more comfortable with the evening if he didn’t have to see the drool dribbling out of the slack side of her mouth, or watch her loose skin wobble like congealing fat hanging off a spitted deer.  

“You’ve told him about the ritual, yes?” Oggi demanded.

Really, the wound couldn’t have been that bad.  It wasn’t as if she’d have needed to go to a biosculptor.  Old Rakki had teeth made of wood that made his face look normal when his mouth was closed, and surely one of the healers in the tribe could have set her jaw straight.  Did the woman want to look like a failed Simic experiment?

“Yes, Mama,” Rhuka replied.

Scars were awesome, obviously, and Domri wore his with pride, but the injury didn’t even make Oggi look more fearsome.  It made her look pitiable, like those poor twisted sops who preyed on the soft-hearts in the rich districts.

“And he’ll do it?”

Krokt, he’d envied those bastards when he still had to beg for his supper.  You could find a dozen runny-nosed orphans on any given street corner. No one cared about them.  The cripples, though--if you were missing an arm or a leg, or better yet, had one limb that was all shriveled up or turned the wrong way round, you’d be set for the year in an hour.

“Yes, Mama.”

Aww, toss her a zino, would you?  Look, the poor dear can’t close her mouth properly!

“He can’t say it for himself?”

Rhuka’s sister, Pirka, snorted and tried to hide her laughter with a cough.

“I’ll do it, yeah,” Domri said, blinking and turning his gaze to the fire, which was possibly the only safe thing to look at in the hut.  He didn’t have to look to know that Rhuka was glaring at him. The plan had been simple: go over to her mother’s for supper, announce Rhuka’s pregnancy, pledge to do some ritual malarkey, make nice to Rhuka’s family.  She’d spent days drilling Domri on what he had to say, but now in the moment the words ran out of his head, eager to escape. He hadn’t realized what Rhuka’s mother was like. He knew of Oggi, of course; the old seer was one of Borborygmos’s closest advisors.  But he’d never interacted with her, nor even really seen her except from afar.  Rhuka had tried to warn him, but he hadn’t realized just how serious her warnings had been.

“Good,” Oggi said, sopping up meat juice with a hunk of brown bread.  “If one of my daughters loves a scrawny cobble roach, well, that’s her business.  I’m not unreasonable. But we still hold with the old gods, and I won’t see my granddaughter enter the world without the protections of Dazbanek and Czaj.”

Domri bit a huge hunk out of his own bread before he could say something Rhuka would make him regret.  He wondered how angry Rhuka would be if he hit her mother. ‘Cobble roach’ was fighting words.

“You should have started preparing already,” Rhuka’s sister said archly.    

“The baby isn’t gonna be born until spring,” Domri groused around his mouthful of bread.  “We have time”.

“The mugger hawks will be migrating, if they haven’t left already.  If you don’t catch one soon you’ll have to go south all the way to Gorach to get one."

“I’ll get one, don’t you worry.”  Plenty of mugger hawks overwintered in the steamworks.  The Izzet paid kids a zib a day to chase them out. What was the big deal?  

“Hare, snake, hawk, fox, deer--Rhuka explained it all,”  he said.  Domri swallowed and grinned at Pirka. Pirka was the sister Rhuka didn’t like, right?  She’d probably be glad if he socked Pirka.  “I’ll get you your sacrifices, no problem, and I’ll say whatever words over ‘em you want.”

“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously,” Pirka sniffed.  Krokt, she looked like a Orzhovan school teacher. Domri had only talked to Pirka twice before, but she was possibly the most annoying person he had ever met.  She thought she knew better than everyone else, and was right just often enough to be insufferable .

“And I think you’re all taking this way too seriously.  I said I’ll do it, and I’ll do it, and that’s the end of it.”

“Pirka’s right.  You should have started preparing already,” Oggi said.  She placed her tin plate beside her log and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Well, I didn’t, so I guess Dazbanek and Czaj are just gonna have to make do with shitty sacrifices.”  He gestured with his plate, spilling drippings onto the ground. “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be grateful, seeing as it’s all they’re gonna get this year.”  Most of the Gruul didn’t bother with this tradition anymore. Domri hadn’t even known about it until Rhuka told him.

“We will do the ritual of Oshlon, Mama,” Rhuka said.  Her nose twitched. She wanted to make a face, Domri could tell, her shut your fucking mouth face, but she still held herself carefully motionless, like a rabbit who hoped the wolf hadn’t yet seen it.

“It’s not you I’m worried about, my child, it’s him.  Your brothers would be glad to do the ritual for you, you know.”

“What?  They haven’t started preparing either!” Domri protested.

“They understand how important it is to give the baby the blessings of the gods,” Pirka said.  “Bogdan and Vzen did it for my first, remember? After Hynek refused.”

“I’m not refusing!”

“You’re not a believer,” Oggi said, pronouncing the words as if accusing him of some hideous crime.

“No!  No one’s a believer anymore, ‘cept for you kooks!”  Domri stood, and dumped the rest of his meal into the fire.  The flames leapt and sputtered at the fatty meat. “Way I see it, there’s a billion people out in that city who ain’t got the blessing of Dazbanek or whatever, and they don’t seem to be hurting for it.  Don’t know why you’re all making such a stink about the whole thing.”

“Domri!” Rhuka growled.

“No, no, let the boy speak his mind.”  Oggi folded her arms across her chest like a chieftain.  “This is who you’ve chosen, Rhuka.”

“Well...that’s all I really had to say ‘bout the matter,” Domri finished lamely.  The likely repercussions of his outburst flickered through his mind, too late as always.  Rhuka wasn’t going to be happy. He set his plate down on the log where he’d been sitting, and turned to leave.  “Gonna go home. Gotta get ready. See you around, I guess.”

“You’re going to have a visitor tomorrow,” Oggi declared as he turned away, halting him in his tracks.  “See that you don’t miss him. It’s important.” She gestured for him to leave.

Domri stared.  Had that been a threat?  She wouldn’t warn him if she had sent someone after him, would she?  She wouldn’t send someone to attack him just because he was with Rhuka, surely?  It was only a vision she’d had, it had to be. Unsettled, he shot a last glare at Pirka then ducked under the low lintel into the night.

Rhuka abandoned her own meal to chase after him as he left the hut, but when she caught up to him she said nothing, only matched his stride.  Pine needles and fallen leaves crunched under their matching footfalls. He expected her to erupt as soon as they were out of earshot of Oggi’s hut, but she remained silent as it passed out of sight, and as they wound their way through the dark encampment, trusting in memory to keep from tripping over unseen obstacles.  

The winter camp was only half-full this time of year; more people arrived each week as the weather got colder, seeking the protections of the Burning Tree’s semi-permanent winter home.  A variety of structures made up the camp: simple tents, like the one Rhuka and Domri had made; huts like Oggi’s, which used half-demolished buildings as their foundations; dome-shaped koplas, covered with skins or rushes against the wind.  Fires were visible through some doorways, but autumn’s chill had arrived swiftly this year and no one save Domri and Rhuka was outside. Their breaths formed clouds as they walked.

Rhuka still hadn’t spoken by the time they arrived at their own tent.  They went through their evening chores in silence, rebuilding the fire and taking down the laundry and harvested reeds that had been hung to dry.  Domri couldn’t tell whether Rhuka’s silence was anger or something else. She was a Gruul girl through and through, and rarely shied from speaking her mind, especially to him.  Did she have nothing to say?  

Nothing for it.  He stepped outside with a flask of pilfered whiskey for himself and a bucket of scraps for Pig.  The great boar came running out of the woods at his call and nosed eagerly into the bucket. Domri scratched the boar’s shaggy mane and sipped at his flask.  It was a shame they’d given most of the stolen whisky to Oggi as a gift. She hadn’t seemed overly impressed, even though it was expensive stuff and breaking into the warehouse where it was stored had been a challenge that nearly ended with a Boros blade through Domri’s chest.  He’d barely twisted out of the way in time; unfortunately, the blade had been sharp enough that the scar where the blade had nicked his arm was nearly invisible.

Pig nudged him hard in the stomach when the bucket was empty, the boar’s twin tusks narrowly missing Domri's sides.  Domri grinned and grabbed the beast’s huge face and leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

 “You want more, you gotta go get it yourself, mate,” Domri whispered.  “I got other shit to worry about.”

Pig grunted.  Pig had only one grunt, and it was always demanding. The boar nosed at the flask, and Domri laughed and let him have a few swallows before finishing off the whiskey himself.

“Look,” Rhuka said when he returned to the tent.  “It’s fine. I can ask my brothers to do the ritual.”

“What?  I said I’ll do it.”

“No, that’s not fair.”  Rhuka shook her head. “You don’t believe in the old ways, and that’s fine--”

“Oh, c’mon, Rhuka, you don’t even believe all that old stuff.”

“No, but…”  Her hands balled into fists, and she let out a frustrated huff of air.  “But I should. Nobody keeps the old ways anymore, ‘cept for us. We have a duty to pass on our traditions to our child.”

Domri shrugged.  “Don’t know about that.  I’ve never seen much point in traditions, really.”

“I know.  That’s why I should ask Bogdan and Vzen to do it.  They’d be happy to.”

Domri groaned and threw up his hands.  “Look, I'm not gonna pretend I believe, cuz I don't. But it's important to you, so I'll do it.  I want to.”

“You promise?”

“What’ve I been doing all fucking night?”

Rhuka grinned at him, and he couldn’t help put grin back.

He flopped onto their bed.  “Come to bed, eh? It’s too cold to sleep alone.”  For once, it was true, even if that wasn’t why he said it.

But she shook her head.  “Not yet. I want to see if I can see the baby’s future.”

Domri groaned and buried himself under their huge, heavy quilt.  “It won’t be born for months. It’s not even like a person right now, you know?  The Simic have this museum, I went once when I was little, and they had a bunch of models of babies in the womb, and they didn’t even look like people until right at the very end.  Baby probably looks like a tiny miniature wurm right now, or like a shaved mouse or something.”

Rhuka cut him off with a sharp ssh and a raised hand.  Domri groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

It began to rain at some point during the night, a gentle rolling patter against the tent.  Rhuka had brought Pig in, and now slept nestled against the snoring boar's side.  Domri was loathe to leave the warm cocoon of the quilt, but he wriggled free and placed another log onto the fire, then carried the quilt over to where Rhuka was curled up.  He sat beside her on the compacted dirt and settled the quilt over the two of them.  Rhuka's lips twitched into a tiny smile, and she dragged her eyes open.  This close, he could see how puffy and red her eyes had gotten. She'd barely slept last night, then. 

“You see anything?” Domri asked.  Rhuka wasn’t a true seer, not yet, not until the baby was born, but she still saw.  Usually it was inconsequential things, but she had a knack for interpreting fire, or so he’d been told.  He’d never really understood the divining arts.

“She’ll be born in the snow,” Rhuka replied.  

Domri counted in his head.  “Spring must come late next year.”

“Or the baby comes early.  The fire wouldn't say.” She picked up the stick and jammed it into the coals, raking them into a pile around the new log and sending up waves of sparks.

They sat together for a while, until Rhuka rose and put on a pot of water to boil.  Domri stuck his head outside. The day was grey and drizzly and chilly, as most of them were this time of year. Not good weather for hunting; the animals would be hunkered in whatever shelter they could find.  Still, he had a ritual to do and a point to prove. ‘Should have started already’, ha. He’d set out once Oggi’s visitor, whoever it was, came and went. They’d better be punctual.

He declined Rhuka’s offer of nettle tea, instead chewing on a short length of squirrel jerky while he got his things together, strapping on his knives and a length of thin rope and pulling on his cloak.  Thunder rumbled overheard and wind shook the branches as the drizzle grew into a proper storm, but inside it remained dry and warm. He was still proud of the tent. Rhuka and Doshana, her other sister, had done the majority of the sewing, and her two brothers had helped them with the design, but all of the skins came from beasts felled by Domri’s hand, and the poles had been cut down and carved into shape by him and his friend Lakki.  He was a good hunter, and he enjoyed it, and he was going to hold the most impressive ritual of Oshlon the Burning Tree had ever seen.  Fuck Oggi.

The sound of twigs snapping underfoot alerted him to someone outside.  Not Gruul, not if they were being this loud. Domri stepped out into the rain to greet the visitor.

Tall, craggy-faced, with a mess of shaggy grey-white dreadlocks falling to his shoulders--Domri hadn’t seen Tezzeret in months now, but he recognized him instantly.  The man had made only the most cursory attempt at hiding his metallic nature, covering himself with a long jacket that would only have hid his metal chest casing and arcing lightning core from someone standing half a mile away.

“Rade.”  Tezzeret looked around the camp in obvious disdain.   Or maybe that was just how his face looked; Domri had never seen any other expression on it.  “Our mutual friend has something he would like you to see.”

“Yeah?  Not going to take too long, is it?”

Tezzeret stared.

“It’s just I’ve got some stuff to do today, y’know?”

Tezzeret didn’t break his stare, but his form began to waver, and after a moment he vanished in shower of red-purple sparks.  Domri grinned and began his own planeswalk. It was so easy to needle Tezzeret, and the man’s dour, arrogant bearing made doing so irresistible.  But he was curious too what their ‘mutual friend’ had to show him. Bolas had promised impossible things the last--and only--time they’d spoken, but Domri hadn’t heard from the dragon in close to a year.  He had begun to think he’d never hear from Bolas again.

Domri punched through reality into the Blind Eternities.  Reflexively, he squinted against the swirling brightness, which never seemed to help against the unreal lights.  He searched, and located the twisting, metallic sheen Tezzeret left in his wake, and streamed after it before it could be lost.  Ahead of him, Tezzeret slipped through the shell of a red-tinted plane that wavered in the aetheric chaos like a heat mirage.  Domri didn’t recognize it, but he braced himself and pushed his way back onto solid ground.

His first unwary breath on the unknown plane left him hacking.  Dust and sand and smoke swirled around him, some of it stirred up by his sudden appearance but most already hanging in the air, as if a stampede had just gone by.  Twin suns stared down from the sky like lopsided eyes.  It was balefully hot.  The tang of blood hung heavy in the air, and it wasn’t hard to determine the cause. Wherever Tezzeret had taken him had been a city until very recently.  Its citizens laid sprawled in the streets, bodies still stiffening, flies and locusts buzzing hungrily about the corpses, blood soaking into the cracks in the flagstones. The buildings had been caved in, as if a giant hammer had smashed them, and fires still sputtered here and there, almost choked out by the haze of dust.  Domri pulled his shirt over his nose to keep from breathing in the fumes.

Tezzeret, seemingly unaffected by the air--did the man still have lungs under all that metal?--jerked his head to indicate Domri should follow him, but Domri didn’t need a guide.  It was obvious where the two were headed. They stepped over bodies and rubble, heading toward the tallest building still standing, where Bolas lazed in the dust-choked sunlight, wings spread like a sunning vulture, easily visible.  As they approached, the dragon folded his wings and clambered head-first down the structure until they had to crane their necks only a little to see him. 

“Rade,” the dragon nearly purred.   “It’s been too long.”

“I suppose.  What’s this about, then?”

The dragon extended a wing, indicating the newly-made ruins around them.  “I thought you would appreciate my handiwork. A taste of what’s to come.”

It was an impressive display of destruction.  He’d certainly have been proud, had the Gruul caused such carnage.  It looked like the entire city had been leveled; hundreds, if not thousands, slaughtered.  “What was this place?”

“A familiar story,” Bolas said.  “A city that grew too large, destroying the natural world to fuel their endless growth.  They have been in decline for some time; everything around them has been scoured clean, leaving naught but desert.  I have now cleansed this world of their contamination.”

The dragon paused for a second, raising his head to study the horizon, then stilling and stiffening like a predator who’d just caught a whiff of prey.  A human-like smile crawled across his face. Lowering himself again, Bolas chuckled.

“And now I turn my sight to the greatest corruption of them all.”

“Ravnica’s a lot bigger than this, mate,” Domri pointed out.  He wanted to believe Bolas could do what he had promised, but he had also witnessed first-hand Ravnica’s resilience.  The Gruul stole a street, and the city retaliated by taking a neighborhood. Block by block, the Gruul had been pushed back, their victories only ever temporary, their way of life disintegrating under the inexorable pressure of the city.  Something had to change. Domri was willing to take a gamble, but he’d yet to see any evidence Bolas was one worth taking.

The dragon’s smile grew, turning animalistic.  “No. It’s not. That is where you come in.”

“Yeah? And what do you need me for?  What can I do that you can’t?”

“Your people are strong, battle-hardened, and hungry for revenge, but your leaders are weak and complacent.  They’ve given up. They no longer believe victory is possible. There will be no triumph under their banners.  The Gruul need a new leader.”

“Borborygmos is a good bloke,” Domri protested. 

“No doubt he is,” Bolas said.  “But there’s more to being a good leader than being nice.  Indeed, I often find nice people make poor leaders. Has he been successful?”

It was hard to argue he had; Borborygmos hadn’t prevented the rebirth of the Guildpact, nor had he managed to claim the Guildpact’s powers for the clans, nor had he been able to hold the tribe’s territories in the Ninth District when the Boros finally came to claim them anew.  Maybe someone else could have done better, and Domri already saw where Bolas was going, but the idea seemed absurd.

“You want me to do it?  You think I should, what?  Take over the Burning Tree?”

“I think you should take over the Gruul in its entirety.”

The laugh that burst forth from Domri’s lips knocked loose his nose covering.  “No offense, but I don’t think you understand much about the Gruul, mate.”

“Oh, I think I understand enough.”  The dragon climbed down from his perch and bent double before Domri, bringing his face uncomfortably close to Domri’s own.  “All groups are the same, at their core. They want to be led.  They want to be shown the way.  It’s easy to control them, once you know how.  I can teach you.”

“They’re already being led.  And Borborygmos doesn’t roll over when someone comes challenging his leadership, he smashes their head in so they don’t come challenging again.”  A fight against Borborygmos would be a disaster. Domri was quick, and strong for his size, but that was the whole problem: for his size.  Even for a human, he was small; compared to the cyclops and centaurs and orcs and such that made up most of the clans’ leaders, he was a gnat.

“You don’t need to challenge Borborygmos.  It’s the Gruul you need to lead, not a single clan.  The Gruul currently have no guild leader; the position has sat vacant for centuries.”  Bolas settled back onto his haunches. “As written, the Gruul guild leader must be chosen by a council comprised of the heads of each individual clan.  They haven’t bothered to do so for quite some time. The trick, then, will be convincing the clan leaders that a leader must be chosen, and ensuring that you are the obvious--and only--choice.”

“That sounds even more ridiculous than trying to beat Borborygmos.”

Bolas waved a claw dismissively.  “Disappointing, but if you don’t want to take the risk, I can always find someone else.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to try, it’s that I don’t see how this is going to work.”

The dragon’s lips curled once more into that too-human smile.  “Leave that to me.”

Bolas explained, and Domri, with increasing excitement, listened.

“Don’t know about this, Dom,” Lakki said.  “Doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

The three of them, Domri, Whip, and Lakki, sat on the curb that delineated the Rubblebelt from the city.  The street itself was seldom used, being so close to Gruul territory, but the buildings across the street were occupied.  The city was bursting at the seams and couldn’t pass on the housing. Lamps--magelights this far out, not electric--flickered in the windows, and he caught glimpses of the people inside going about their lives.  Few of the windows had blinds or drapes, and many had obvious cracks or crooked sills. Only people who had no other recourse, the poor and the outcast, lived this close to the Rubblebelt.

The people inside were enemies.  He needed to turn them into allies.

“‘Course it’s a good idea,” Domri said.  Words that had sounded so convincing, so clear, so obviously correct coming out of Bolas’s mouth stumbled coming out of his.  “The Guildpact is like...the Guildpact, like, gave each of the ten guilds a sword, right? And we dropped ours and have been trying to make do with our fists while everybody else is swinging some great honkin’ swords around, right?  So why keep using fists? We can pick up our sword. We’ve got rights under the Guildpact.”  

At Lakki and Whip’s confused expressions, he clarified.  “There’s stuff we’re supposed to get and stuff the other guilds can’t do to us, ‘cept they are, ‘cuz we’re not using our sword like we ought to be.”

Whip sniggered.

“I’m being serious, here,” Domri said.  “Look, I need you guys. I got all the baby stuff to do too.  We all got a friend or two in the other clans, yeah? We need to start talking, start putting the idea in people’s heads.”  He jerked his head towards the buildings across the street. “And we gotta start talking to them people too. You think they’d live like that, if they thought they could do something about it?  They don’t know anything better. We’re gonna show them. By the time we’re done, they’ll tear down that building themselves. They’ll tear it all down. They just need someone to show them how.”

An elf woman exited the tenement across the street, stooped under a ratty cloak and dragging a coughing, tangled-hari child behind her.  Spotting the three Gruul boys, she snatched up her child and scurried down an alleyway, out of site. Domri settled his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands and studied them until they were out of sight.

“All we gotta do is show them the way.”

Chapter Text

Chandra was a difficult patient.  While Gideon had spent his days so still that Nissa could tell he was alive only by the subtle rasps of his breaths, Chandra--when not sedated--was agitated, arguing with the healers and her mother, pushing her way out of bed, refusing to drink the calming and sleeping potions the healers encouraged her to take willingly.  She spent much of each day sedated now, potions snuck into her food and water or begrudgingly swallowed after an argument with her mother, and Nissa suspected this was as much an attempt to get a reprieve from a difficult patient as it was to force Chandra to rest and heal. Already, she had pulled out stitches in her hand, and had accidentally rebroken just-healed ribs by falling while trying to get out of bed.

Chandra was possessed of a frantic energy--understandably, Nissa thought, even if it was hard to watch her friend damaging her own recovery.  Attempts at meditation, Nissa leading Chandra through familiar mantras, helped little--Nissa too felt an acute sense of restlessness, a desire to do something, even if she wasn’t sure what exactly that something should be, and her nervous energy seemed only to fuel Chandra’s own.  

Unlike Chandra, Nissa, at the very least, could indulge her restlessness.  She had returned to Zendikar, to Sea Gate, in search of Jace. He hadn’t been there, nor had she expected him to be, but she dutifully asked Governor Tazri to keep watch for him, and to tell him to come to Kaladesh if she saw him.  Jace’s apartments sat empty; Nissa went to the trouble of finding a store that sold paper and inks, and asked them to write a note for her, which she left prominently atop a stack of books at the large table in Jace’s library. We are at Pia’s--Nissa and Chandra.

The urge to return to Amonkhet was strong, even though Nissa couldn’t say what she expected to find there--not Jace, certainly.  She did not return to Dominaria. Partly, this was because Chandra had asked her not to go until Chandra could come with, in a loud, confused, and profanity-filled rant about Liliana, who Chandra appeared to blame for being stuck in the hospital.  Partly, it was because Nissa was still upset herself, still unsure of her place, of how to proceed. Partly, it was because she had been busy. Multiple planeswalks a day sapped strength more surely than anything else Nissa knew of.  Kaladesh offered no reprieve either; Chandra spent more time asleep than awake, but her waking moments were difficult. Nissa had never considered herself much good at caretaking, and though she was called on only to be a friendly ear and a mediator between Chandra and Pia, doing so was proving exhausting.  Pia’s temper was not as explosive as her daughter’s, and Chandra was not quite as stubborn as her mother, but the two of them together, both overtired and stressed, had proven to be an incendiary combination. It was a relief when, on the second day after Nissa’s arrival, Pia returned to work, saying she had some important business that she could only do at the Consulate.

The relief was short-lived, however.

Pia was visibly tense when returned from her first day back at work.  Distractedly, she asked how the day had gone, how Chandra was feeling, what the healers had said about the nagging infection in the cut running across Chandra’s chest.  Chandra, for her part, answered rotely: fine, fine, fine. And then--

“Dovin Baan would like to visit,” Pia announced.

“The fuck does he want?” Chandra dropped her spoon onto her tray, splattering a crimson sauce across her blanket.  Nissa hastened to take the tray, moving it to a night stand where it couldn’t be overturned.

Pia shrugged out of her coat, tossing it across the back of a chair, and plunged ahead as if she hadn’t heard Chandra.  “He would like to visit, and I would like you to welcome him and be pleasant.”

“Why?  You remember what he did, right?  He broke our ship! He sicced that psycho on--”

“And now he shares an office with me, Chandra!” Pia said sharply.

“He was working with Tezzeret!  He’s probably working with Bolas-- ”

“Part of politics--the most important part of politics--is making allies out of your enemies,” Pia continued, ignoring her daughter’s accusations.  “I don’t need you to like him. I don’t need you to trust him. But he is, at least for the moment, an ally--”

“Ha!  He’s probably plotting against us right now!”

“--and I don’t want him to be an enemy again.”  Pia grabbed the half-eaten bowl of rice from Chandra’s tray.  “I spent years fighting, Chandra.  You can be nice for half an hour.”

“What, he’s gonna flip out just cuz I didn’t let him visit?”

Pia sighed and rubbed at her forehead.  “It’s not just him, it’s... everything.  Tensions are high because of yo--because of what people are assuming about why you were hurt.” 

Pia corrected herself quickly, but Chandra still flinched at the accidental accusation. Chandra had been unusually emotional of late, and Nissa could see the very beginnings of tears forming in her eyes.  She reached out and pulled Chandra’s hand in between her own, stroking her fingers down the back of Chandra’s knuckles, wishing she knew a better way to help her friend. Pia and Chandra always argued so quickly that the fight was over before Nissa could think of anything to say.

“It’s all the newspapers are talking about,” Pia continued, gesturing with the rice bowl.  “It’s only been a few weeks...there are still people who resent me and the renegades and the rebellion.  They think you were attacked as retaliation against me. We need to show them that everything is fine, everyone is still on friendly terms.”

“We were never friendly to begin with,” Chandra said sullenly.

“Chandra!”

“Alright, fine!” Chandra acquiesced.  “He can come, but only for a little while.”

“Thank you,” Pia said.  “Tomorrow evening. Only for a little while.”  She took a bite of the rice, then looked at it disapprovingly.

Chandra chewed on her lip, as if she was trying to physically prevent herself from saying something more.

“Do you want me to go pick up some real dinner?” Pia asked with a placating smile.  “There’s a wonderful tandoori place on the corner--”

“Yeah.  Sure. That’d be great.” 

Chandra’s hands grew noticeably hotter; Nissa feared another outburst was on its way; but the outburst was contained to a single, loud swear growled out as soon as Pia had left the room.  Then Chandra pulled her hands free, laid back, and clutched at her sore ribs.

“I’m sorry,” Nissa offered.

“It’s fine.  She’s right... fuck!” Chandra swore again, staring at the ceiling.  “This is gonna suck. I don’t do politics.”

“You’ll do fine,” Nissa reassured her.

“He’s gotta be up to something.  Maybe we can at least learn what Bolas is planning.”

“Maybe,” Nissa agreed.  “We’ll figure it out, you and I.”

And at that assertion, though Nissa couldn’t see what about it upset her, Chandra finally did cry.

Nissa’s compulsion to return to Amonkhet made little sense, even to her, and she knew she would not be able to explain her desires to Chandra.  It wasn’t a good idea; it was dangerous, and Nissa could think of no benefit to revisiting the plane other than to soothe some shapeless anxiety scratching at the corners of her consciousness. So Nissa waited until Chandra was asleep, drugged after yet another treatment, and Pia had gone to work, and then she pulled her stem sword from its sheath, took a handful of steadying breaths, and planeswalked.  If she went fast, she would be back before Chandra awoke, and well before Dovin Baan’s planned visit.

It was impossible to know whether Bolas was still on Amonkhet, or whether he had left after completing whatever horrid deeds had drawn him to the plane.  Nissa angled herself as Amonkhet drew close, aiming away from Naktamun, well outside the ruined city, hopefully close to where the Gatewatch had landed only a week ago, though it seemed like more time must have passed than that.  She arrived crouched on slippery sand, in a low spot between dunes, sword held before her. Quickly, she circled, searching for enemies; little was visible aside from the steep walls surrounding her, but no danger was immediately present.  Still, she kept her sword out, and climbed, the sand falling in cascades where she stepped, until she reached the peak of the dune.

Naktamun was visible to the west; or rather, a smoke cloud where Naktamun had stood was visible.  Traces of ash and blood and burning bodies were faintly detectable on the slight breeze. Nissa wondered whether the city still stood, if any of its people had managed to survive Bolas’s onslaught, and where they would have gone if they had.  Everywhere was sand, stretching horizon to horizon, with only the smoke to break it up. There was nowhere for a band of people to hide, nowhere for them to find shelter outside the city. The world was ruined utterly.

Nissa finally sheathed her sword.  No zombies were visible, nor any wurms or other creatures.  She thought she was close to the Gatewatch’s initial arrival point, but the glass dome Chandra had erected on their previous visit wasn’t there.  Destroyed, maybe, or buried, or perhaps Nissa was not where she thought she was--it was impossible to tell one featureless patch of sand from another.

 Blinking against the fierce sunlight, Nissa drew in a deep breath and extended her senses, sending her consciousness to course down Amonkhet’s leylines, her awareness splitting and reforming as the leylines did, submerging herself into the pulse of the world.

Something dark and malevolent crouched like a spider to the west, in the direction of Naktamun.  Bolas.  He was still here, then.  Her breath hitched; Nissa shied away, diverting her awareness away from the city, and thinning herself so that her essence would better blend in with the essence of the world itself.  Her eyes fixed unblinking on the plume of smoke, waiting for wings to break through the cloud and race toward her, and she gathered mana to herself in anticipation of another hurried planeswalk.  But either the dragon had not spotted her, or had not cared that she was there; Nissa waited until the frantic beating of her heart returned to its normal rate, but still nothing came from the city.  

Carefully, slowly, she returned to the leylines.  The world did not resist her; indeed, the world barely seemed present at all.  Quiescent, torpid, it neither welcomed nor hindered her. Possibly, it was not aware of her at all.  With the dark presence to the west, she dared not press too hard, but she investigated, sinking herself deep into the world’s mana.  Amonkhet itself could give her no explanation, was not capable of doing so in its addled state, but perhaps she could discover what had been done to it in the weave of its soul, discover how Bolas had broken it, maybe even how it might be undone.  Answers must lay beneath the sands.

Amonkhet was not soaked in dark mana, as some worlds were; instead, the world was tangled in it, wrapped in it, veins and arteries contorted into unnatural configurations by the pull of it.  Nissa traced the distorted paths of the leylines, imagined how they would lie without the dark scars of mana. It would take effort, and time, and likely the world would rebel at her interference, so used to its altered shape.  But if she focused, she could cut the dark strands and push the leylines back into their proper shapes. Her hands began to curl around the beginnings of a spell--

She pulled back before her musings transformed into action.  She couldn’t begin, not yet. Not with Bolas sitting only a few miles away.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, she sat cross-legged on the dune and took a drink from her waterskin.  Already sweat rolled uncomfortably down her back and neck, and her ears felt heavy as they flushed red to dissipate heat.  How long would Bolas stay? He’d been here a week already; what more business could he possibly have in the wreckage of Naktamun?

Nissa placed a hand on the ground.  Spying on Bolas directly was too dangerous, but he had not reacted to her presence in the leylines, and perhaps that granted her an opportunity.   She eased in again, letting herself be carried by the currents of mana so as not to draw attention. The current swirled around Naktamun, reluctant to enter the city proper, so Nissa got only quick impressions from afar--Bolas, perched high above the ruins, surveying the wreckage; bandage-wrapped zombies dragging the dead underground; the endless blue-coated Eternals forming lines in the streets.  Then the pull of mana dragged her past the city, back out into the desert. She waited until she was well clear--

A vibration in the leylines caught her attention, stopped her before she pulled her consciousness free again.  Instead, curious, she let herself be pulled forward, toward the source of the constant, steady rumble.

Sand gave way to dark, jagged stone that reminded Nissa of the Teeth of Akoum, bedrock heaving haphazardly out of the ground in a twisted maze of sharp-walled canyons.  The leyline snaked through the shallow canyon, pulling Nissa along with it. A turn, then another, then--

Survivors.

It was hard to gauge how many people there were.  A few hundred, perhaps, more than she would have thought possible after the massacre at Naktamun.  They rested in the shade granted by the stone walls on either side of them, unmoving. Asleep, or too exhausted to go on?  How had they survived thus far, traveling through the inhospitable desert?

Nissa snapped herself free of the leyline and stood, then began a sliding descent down the dunes toward the survivors, picking up speed as she hardened the sand beneath her feet and called on the ground to launch her forward.  She ran. The group of survivors was dozens of miles away; it would take time to reach them, even with land itself propelling her forward. But she had to go.

Amonkhet’s twin suns stared at her.  Sweat trickled across her scalp, through her hair, down her face and neck, down her back, soaked her clothes.  The sand no longer slid under her feet, but threw her forward, so each of her steps covered a dozen paces. Even so, she was forced to stop before she was even a fraction of the way there, lungs and throat burning, and take a few more swallows from her waterskin.  She continued this way for hours, alternately running and taking a few minutes to rest, until finally she reached the rocky canyons. Here she slowed, mindful of the jagged rocks, and made her way carefully to where the survivors huddled, waiting out the day’s heat in the shade of the canyon.

No guard had been posted around the makeshift camp.  It didn’t matter, Nissa supposed; the people here were too exhausted to pose much challenge to Bolas or sandwurms or whatever else might chase them.  The camp had no tents, no blankets, no supplies at all, only a collection of haggard people arranged in loose circles, sitting and lying on the bare ground.  Children made up at least a third of the camp; they did not play or run, but sprawled on the dusty stone, as listless as the adults. Up close, Nissa could not tell how these people had managed to survive.  Even on Zendikar’s worst days, she had never seen a people so defeated.

She walked through the camp unchallenged.  People followed her meandering trek with their eyes, but made no effort to rise, or even to call out to her.  Nissa wondered who she should talk to, or whether she should just announce herself to all of them. What could she do to help these people?

A large being unfolded itself from the deep shadows of an overhang.  Nissa took an unconscious step backward. The sun glinted off of a golden canine head; one of Amonkhet’s gods, the one who had captured the Gatewatch and forced them into the arena--Hazoret.  The god stepped toward Nissa, but she moved gracelessly, unbalanced. Nissa frowned; one of the god’s arms was missing, and Hazoret seemed somehow reduced, as if she starved alongside her people.

“Trespasser,” Hazoret said.  Her voice, still, was firm. “I am surprised to see you return to our lands.”

“I wanted to help,” Nissa said.  Was ‘trespasser’ an accusation, or simply how Hazoret described planeswalkers?  “I did not realize anyone had survived.”

“Who were you expecting to help, if not survivors?”  The golden mask that comprised Hazoret’s face didn’t allow for subtle expressions, but the god cocked her head quizzically.

“The--the world,” Nissa replied.  How much did Hazoret understand about worlds and their souls?  Could she understand that Amonkhet was sick, having nothing to compare it to?  Was she, as an extension of the world, willing to let it be changed? “The Curse of Wandering--your plane is sick.  I thought I might be able to help. Something similar--well, somewhat similar--happened to my world. We called it the Roil.”

Nissa began to explain Zendikar and the Roil and the Eldrazi.  Hazoret did not seem to know how to parse this information; the god’s head remained cocked, and possibly her eyes narrowed, but Nissa couldn’t tell whether the god’s expression actually changed under the mask, or whether it was a trick of light reflecting off her face.  The lethargic people did not react to Nissa’s words at all--whether they didn’t understand what she was talking about, or were too tired to care, or perhaps simply trusted that their god would lead them through this crisis, Nissa couldn’t say.

Haltingly, Nissa finished her explanation, hoping she had been able to explain well enough for Hazoret to understand.

“We are in no position to turn down aid,” Hazoret said after a pause.  “We are happy for whatever help you are willing to give.”

Nissa looked around the camp and the weary, depressed people.  

“Bolas is still here.  I dare not try anything until he is gone, lest I draw his attention,” she said.  “But, perhaps I can help you find--”

A sudden short crack interrupted her.  She startled at the sound, and at the sudden flood of mana that followed immediately behind it.  The god did not move except to turn her head toward the sound expectantly, a rigid smile forming.  The people finally began to shift and stand.

Nissa did not immediately recognize Samut, as the human was bent under the weight of her load.  It was not until people approached her--quietly, even the young children forming orderly lines--and began to take away the many bags that burdened her that she straightened and Nissa could see her face.  

“The Curse of Trespassing may have doomed Naktamun,” Hazoret intoned quietly, for Nissa’s ears only.  “But it may also save her people.”

The bags were waterskins, full to bursting, and each person swallowed a mouthful and passed it to the next person in line.  Samut was a planeswalker, Nissa realized, and--since the desert offered up no water to the thirsty refugees--she was transporting water from some other world to here, two dozen waterskins at a time.  How resourceful, Nissa thought. Who knew how far out habitable land might be, but with a steady supply of water the survivors of Naktamun could search for some time. Weapons could be brought in to arm them against the wurms and the zombies prowling the wastes; clothing and tents against the beating sun and sandstorms; even food, provided it was properly preserved.  And two planeswalkers could carry twice as much, equip the survivors that much faster...Nissa felt something inexplicable ease in her chest.

This is what we were meant to do.

Heady with ideas, Nissa misjudged her planeswalk back to Kaladesh, and ended up on the highest floor of the hospital.  She had to ask directions back to Chandra’s room from one of the nurses; the woman’s concerned expression prompted Nissa to realize how she looked--braid messy from her run, hair wet with sweat, face dirty where dust had adhered to her skin, sand falling from the folds in her clothing, yet unable to fully banish the smile from her lips.  Nissa shook out the sand as best she could as she skipped down the stairs, and scrubbed at her face with the edge of her tunic as she hurried down the hallway to Chandra’s room.

“You left,” Chandra accused when Nissa entered.  Upon seeing Nissa’s disheveled state, she frowned.  “Where were you?”

“Later.  After Baan comes,” Nissa told her.  The sun was sinking behind the horizon already.  “I didn’t miss him, did I?”

She pulled her hair free of its braid and shook the sand out of it as best she could, then began to braid it again.

“No, but they should be here soon,” Chandra said.  “You went back to Amonkhet.”

It was hard for Nissa to say whether Chandra’s tone was disapproving.  “I did,” she admitted.

Whatever Chandra might have said in response was interrupted by a knock on the door.  Pia entered, followed by Dovin Baan carrying yet another small bouquet of flowers.  

"I am glad to see you are mending quickly, Miss Nalaar.  I was distressed to hear you had been hurt," Baan said, bowing slightly.  Chandra nodded jerkily in acknowledgement, an attempt at a friendly smile stretching her face.  "A pleasure to see you as well, Miss Revane." Following Chandra's lead, Nissa nodded at him.

Pia took the flowers and added them to the collection already overwhelming the room’s window sills, then offered Baan a chair.

"It is unfortunate that the investigators working on your case have yet to make any headway in identifying your assailant.  I have, of course, taken to overseeing the case personally," Baan said without preamble. He steepled his fingers in front of his face.  "Would I be correct in assuming that the attack on your person occurred, shall we say, outside city limits?"  The twist he gave his words left no doubt as to his actual meaning-- on another plane.

"Yeah," Chandra said tersely.

"I see," Baan tilted his head toward Pia.  "That will complicate matters. You and your daughter are popular”--Here, he nodded to the assortment of flowers--“and there exists a contingent of people who will not be satisfied until Miss Nalaar's assailant is brought to justice.  Unfortunately, we lack both the jurisdiction to pursue the guilty party and the ability to bring them in."

"We could say it was an accident.  A cruiser crash would explain her injuries," Pia offered.

"I fear we would still need to produce a perpetrator.  Without a confession, it will appear to be a cover-up, and I do not think it wise to further decrease our citizen's faith in our peacekeepers.  The delay before announcing the cause of her injuries will also cause questions."

Pia hummed a noncommittal response.  “I think they’ll be satisfied if Chandra and I say something.  After all, if they think Chandra’s injuries were an attack on me--”

“What if we just told them the truth?” Chandra interrupted.  “I mean, Rashmi’s already figured out that other worlds exist all on her own.  Eventually it’s all gonna get out.”

“Informing a mob that your assailant was a being from another plane of existence that cannot be seen or visited by most people is similarly unlikely to be received well,” Baan said.

“It’s not a mob, Minister Baan.” Pia smiled ruefully.  “It’s just a group of people who have become very protective of me, and they get... overexcited, and start letting their imaginations run away with them.  They’ll listen to me.”

“So, did you just want to come here to figure out how to cover up my being...here?” Chandra asked, waving her hand around to indicate the hospital room.

“No.  I am genuinely concerned for your well-being.  And…” Baan’s cheeks actually flushed, as if he were admitting to some embarrassing weakness.  “I must admit some modicum of morbid curiosity. You and your friends, your ‘Gatewatch’, proved to be formidable adversaries.  What enemy cast you down so quickly?”

Chandra snorted, then pressed a hand against her chest and winced.  “You’re saying you don’t know?”

“You worked with Tezzeret,” Nissa said, searching Baan’s face to any sign of treachery.  His eyebrows raised in apparent confusion, but his face remained otherwise calm, composed, as it had been since he arrived.  If he was lying, Nissa couldn’t tell, but then she had never been much of a judge of character. “Surely you knew.”

Baan shook his head, frowning as he puzzled out their meaning.  “I knew he was a planeswalker, and he spoke of a ‘benefactor’ who had enabled his rise as Head Judge, but he was not eager to share information, especially as concerned this benefactor.  Tezzeret was unhappy that I attempted to solicit the services of your group, true, and seemed to have history with some of you, but despite his viciousness I cannot imagine Tezzeret alone being capable of causing such damage.  You defeated him easily enough when he had the strength and ingenuity of the Consulate at his call.”

“Bolas,” Chandra said sharply.  Her own eyes were trained on Baan, searching for a reaction, as Nissa had.  But if Chandra saw something, she didn’t say, and Baan’s expression remained inscrutable to Nissa’s eyes.

“I’m afraid I don’t recognize the name,” Baan said, spreading his hands in an apologetic gesture.

Nissa didn’t know how to proceed, nor did Chandra, to judge by her silence.

“I think the cruiser story is our best bet,” Pia said at last.  “We should go over the details while we’re all together.”

“I suppose, given our limited options,” Baan agreed.  The two began to discuss what they would announce; Chandra caught Nissa’s gaze, her expression questioning, but Nissa could only shrug.  If Baan knew anything of Bolas or Bolas’s plans, he was far too good a liar for Nissa to see through.

Nissa struggled to follow Samut through the aether; the human was out of sight--well, what passed for sight in the nothingness between worlds--before Nissa could orient herself, squinting against the too-bright onslaught of the Blind Eternities.  Zendikar was bright, brighter than any world Nissa had visited, its leylines shining and tangling against the comparative drabness of its life, but the Eternities were incandescent, a sun engulfing her, erupting out of her. A ripple, a cloud of disturbed aether, showed the way Samut had gone, and Nissa hurried after her, tilting forward to fall along the path Samut had taken.

Chandra had not wanted Nissa to go, had wanted Nissa to wait until she could come as well, but Nissa feared that the situation was too tenuous to allow waiting.  More than that, she needed to return to Amonkhet, to help Samut and the survivors of Naktamun.  The food she’d brought--jars of preserves and bags of dried meat, as much as Nissa could carry, that Pia had bought after Nissa explained the situation--had been the first thing to bring life to the refugees.  Smiling, the children had licked the sugary fruit from their fingers; the adults had looked at her, eyes filled with hope.

For the first time since she had watched the Eldrazi titans burn, Nissa was certain she was doing exactly what she ought to.

It seemed an interminably long time before Nissa found the world Samut had gone to.  It was not one Nissa recognized; it corruscated and shimmered in the aether, half-patterns forming and dissolving on its surface in an ever-present dance between order and chaos.  It seemed strangely flat from the outside, as if it existed only in two dimensions, and Nissa hesitated for a moment before reaching out to the small rent in reality that Samut had slipped through.

Nissa emerged and gasped, her eyes filling with stars.  Zendikar was bright; wherever here was was brighter still, its leylines less numerous but stronger, each of them glowing like the sun.  Nissa had to squint against them, turning her head to the side to protect her eyes. She willed her vision of the leylines to fade, to fall away.

“I thought I’d lost you back there,” Samut said.  “Are you alright?”

“I am--I am fine,” Nissa said.  “It’s just--it’s very bright.”

“It’s nighttime,” Samut said, her voice bemused.  Nissa blinked rapidly, clearing the tears and the echoing lights from her eyes.  It was indeed nighttime, though the stars were so numerous and luminous that the world around the two planeswalkers was lit like the dawn.  She stood straight and unhooked her staff from her back. Samut, apparently satisfied that whatever spell had taken Nissa had passed, turned and led the elf down a steep embankment.  A narrow switchback path was hewn into the sheer near-black rock, only wide enough to allow a single person to pass at a time. Samut descended with quick, sure steps; Nissa followed somewhat more slowly, her attention captured by the stars above her.

“The stars here move,” she remarked.

“Is that odd?” Samut asked.

“Yes,” Nissa said.  Like the plane itself, the stars in the sky formed patterns, coming together to form hints of a head, of a sword, of a wolf, of a flower, and then dissolving again, spiraling away from each other to form something else.  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’ve never really seen stars before,” Samut said.  “You can see them sometimes, dimly, at home, but never this many, never like this.”

They continued to the riverside.  The river here ran swiftly, slicing against the rock walls of the small canyon.  The end of the stairs was a small shelf, slick, but mostly out of the water, and the two women crouched there to fill up their many waterskins.  The current threatened to tug each skin from their hands, and Nissa was worried that the filled skins, stacked behind them, might roll off into the river and be lost, but they completed the task without incident, Samut working with a quick efficiency that put Nissa in mind of the automatons she had seen on Kaladesh, their artificial hands moving so quickly the eye couldn’t track them.  They split the load of waterskins between them, and with a nod, moved to return to Amonkhet.

Samut vanished from Nissa’s sight before Nissa could begin her own planeswalk.  Nissa looked up at the strange, bright, dancing stars one last time. For a moment, the patterns remained nonsensical; then, directly above her, a pair of eyes seemed to form, staring down right at her.  A hand formed below them, and it reached out for her, and despite the distance of the stars Nissa felt something solid brush down the side of her head and land on her shoulder. Reflexively, she swatted at it like she would a biting fly, but her hand hit nothing.  Then the mana she had gathered burnt a doorway into the Eternities, and she was gone.

She arrived on Amonkhet out of breath and whirled around to see if someone or something was there behind her, but there was only Samut, already making her way back to the camp.

Chapter Text

High and Dry was unusual, as cities went.  It had grown aimlessly, unplanned, from the collection of lashed-together shipwrecks that formed the nucleus of the city.  Successive generations of pirates added to and built upon it with whatever building materials could be scavenged or stolen: old ships, driftwood, felled trees, captured swords and cannons, and in at least a few places, actual bone.  Nothing was straight except the masts, which stuck up through lopsided buildings like trees. Docks and streets were one and the same, winding through hijacked ships and floating buildings with no thought to efficiency or common sense.  It had taken Angrath days to puzzle out the path from the main docks to the main marketplace the first time he had come here; despite their relative closeness, the main street arced around and behind the marketplace, leaving a five-foot gap on both sides that opened into the ocean.  Drunks didn’t lie in the gutter at High and Dry.  

For the pirates, of course, High and Dry was nothing special.  Many of them had been born here, at one of the great women’s houses where pregnant women stayed when their time was near and the rigors of ship life became too much.  They’d spent their childhoods chasing each other through the streets whenever their home ship made port.

Angrath had found it mesmerizing the first time he visited, the sheer insanity of the floating, makeshift city demanding his awed study.  High and Dry was his childhood dreams made manifest, ever-unfolding, garbage and flotsam transformed into a work of art, every plank and nail possessing a fantastical story.

It had lost much of its charm in the intervening years.  Each time Angrath turned his rudder to the city nowadays, he vowed it would be the last time--this time, he’d break the binding.  This time, he’d find the key.  This time, the Devil’s Chains would sail back to the city without her captain.  This time, he was going home.

Each time, he returned.

Still, Angrath understood how breathtaking the sight was.  Barrett’s face spread into a gaping, awed half-smile as the city came into view, eyes jumping from improbable building to improbable building.  Angrath hoped his own expression hadn’t been so stupid the first time he saw High and Dry. But the man’s earnest excitement was infectious, at least to people not so jaded as Angrath.  Hilla hung by Barrett’s side, pointing out the features visible from the approach, gossiping about the many misdeeds that had happened at each of them. Garner and Shale, two of the younger pirates, were promising to take Barrett to each of the eighteen bars High and Dry boasted, all in one night.

Angrath wasn’t quite sure what to make of the other planeswalker.  Despite the fact that he was obviously a man grown, Angrath kept having to stifle the urge to call him ‘boy’.  He was oddly childlike; he trusted too easily, and while he was a never-ending stream of questions, he never seemed to ask quite the right ones.  Angrath suspected that, were he to ask Barrett to jump overboard, the man would do so in the blind assumption that Angrath would only ever ask him to do such a thing for a good reason.  Barrett had all the judgment of an unweaned puppy, and not a particularly smart one.

It wasn’t that the man was stupid--no, clearly he had had both a formidable intellect and an expensive education before whatever accident had landed him on Ixalan.  He simply didn’t pay much attention to people, preferring instead to devote his scrutiny to the puzzle of the binding spell. Every spare scrap of blank paper on the ship was now covered with his notes and diagrams on the spell--he’d quickly outpaced Angrath’s hodge-podge knowledge of magical theory, and he’d blown past Garner and Ives’s limited education within half a day.

Perhaps it was a simple lack of remembered experience.  Even after a week, Barrett remembered very little--his real name still escaped him--though memories did come to him, at random times in random orders.  Prompting him seemed to make the memories come faster; he’d remembered slews of magical knowledge after tearing through Angrath’s few books on the subject.  After a jovial interrogation by the crew over dinner, he was fairly certain he had no children and wasn’t married; that he’d been living in a large city, though he couldn’t remember either the name of the city or what plane it resided on; and that he’d worked as some kind of political advisor.  He’d gotten his strange facial tattoos as a teenager, though he was foggy on why, and his missing toe had been lost to frostbite--a foreign and alarming concept to the pirates, who lived on a plane that never got within sniffing distance of freezing.

He’d even remembered some magical ability.  After Barret ran through the ship’s meager supply of paper, Garner had taught him a spell to pull dried ink from parchment.  Barrett used the spell to wipe away a page of notes and then, the act seeming to trigger some remembrance, sheepishly said, “oh, right” and curled his fingers into a different spell, conjuring an illusionary replica of the binding all traced out in blue.  Barrett had spent most of a day refining and improving the model; the replica now resided in Angrath’s cabin.

No breakthrough had yet been made on unravelling the binding, but it could only be a matter of time.

From the forecastle, Angrath watched the crew break into a burst of frenzied activity to bring the ship to port.  Sharp shouts to coordinate; heaving lines, flown to the dock by sirens, used to pull heavy hawsers ashore; and then the Chains was pulled flush with the dock.  Gangplanks were run out and secured; despite the crew’s eagerness to disembark, none did until the ship was fully docked and Angrath gave an approving nod.

Angrath pulled Hilla aside after she climbed down from the crow’s nest, and nodded toward Barrett, who was climbing down the gangplank flanked by Garner and Shale.  “You’ll keep an eye on him, aye?”  

“I can keep him out of trouble, never you worry.” Hilla smiled.  “You’ll be meeting with Parrish, then?”

“Aye, at the Lighthouse.”

The Lighthouse got its name from the gargantuan, shining beacon that its founder had stolen from an actual lighthouse in Torrezon, or so the story went.  Angrath had heard a half-dozen accounts of how the man had done it, several from the lips of the man in question, and none of them were believable. Privately, he’d always thought the man--Innis Tarren, now a crooked-back, bald fellow--had simply found a vampire willing to take a hefty bribe of Sun Empire gold.  Less dashing, but then, Tarren wasn’t a man who inspired much imagination.

It was Parrish’s favorite spot; she liked to be up high, or so she’d told Angrath, and the Lighthouse had been built as a facsimile of an actual lighthouse.  It was six stories tall--a dangerous proposition when built by pirate construction--and leaned a few degrees to one side. The Brazen Coalition had become expert shipbuilders since their exile, but they were cavalier about things like “squaring up” when building anything not intended to float.  Angrath hated the building. The stairs were crooked enough to give a person vertigo.

Parrish was on the top floor at her usual table, back to a window grimy and crusted with salt, hand curled around a foggy glass, an open book and bottle in front of her.  The narrow room held only five small, circular tables, all empty except for Parrish’s. Plates of half-eaten food covered the four unoccupied tables, as if their occupants had only just left, and done so in a hurry.  Parrish did have something for him, then.

Melesina Parrish, captain of the Red Eel, was pale, as pirates went.  She sailed only once or twice a year, spending the rest of her time at High and Dry, studying old books and maps for clues to ancient secrets, as well as cultivating an extensive network of intrigue and gossip.  She wasn’t known for daring thefts or improbable escapes or miraculous victories; she was known for what she knew, which was as close to “everything” as anyone Angrath had ever met. She’d been the first to seek him out when he arrived at High and Dry, eager to learn what there was to learn about him.  They’d reached a fulfilling partnership in the time since: he enchanted her with tales of other worlds beyond the stars, and she in turn supplied him with leads towards breaking the binding spell.

He joined her without preamble, grabbing the least-uncomfortable-looking chair at the table.  She snapped her book closed and stole an empty mug from the table next to them, perfunctorily wiped it out with a corner of her blue jacket, and poured him a shot of whatever she was drinking--something dark, and foul enough that he could smell it across the table.  He took it all the same, throwing his head back to down the liquor in one gulp. Spiced rum, and poor quality at that. His lip curled. Parrish could afford better, yet she insisted on drinking swill.

“How was Itenco?” She poured him another drink and capped the bottle.   

“I didn’t find what I was looking for,” Angrath huffed, examining the dirt-brown liquid in his mug.  “But I found more than enough gold to keep the crew happy, so the trip wasn’t all for naught. And you’ll get your cut, so don’t bother asking.”

“Of course.  Shame about the temple; there was talk some powerful artifacts might’ve got left there.  Least you got something out of it.”

“We found somethin’ coming back too,” Angrath said.  He took the second shot. It went down as unhappily as the first.  “Another planeswalker.”

She froze for a second, then put down her glass and leaned forward in her chair, resting her chin on hand.  “Oh? And what does he have to say?”

“Nothing much, more’s the pity.    Got a coin on him that looks real similar to that damned spell, but the poor sap can’t remember which way his own head’s facing,” Angrath groused.  He wanted a drink, something other than Parrish’s rum, but no waiter had appeared to take his order. Parrish’s overprotectiveness of her secrets had its downsides.  “He’s a useful enough sort, all the same. He knows his theory, and can conjure a bit of illusion. Could send him to work with you, when he’s a little steadier on his feet.”

“Well then, that does make my news less exciting,” Parrish said.  She picked up her glass and swirled it speculatively.  “Do you even still want it?” One eyebrow raised and she smiled coquettishly as she took a sip.  She had something good.

“Parrish, you salty old sea hag, what do you have for me?”  Angrath chuckled. Giving up on a waiter, he took one of the half-filled mugs from the neighboring table and downed it.

“There’s a new captain’s set sail,” Parrish said, leaning back.  “Killed old Ocana, she did, and took his ship for her own.”

“Ah, that’s a shame.  I liked Ocana. Good storyteller,” Angrath said.  “That ain’t the news, though.”

“I’m getting to it.  You know how they’re saying she did it?  Turned ‘im into a statue. Like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect.  “Poof and he was stone dead-- literally.  Nobody’s ever seen anything like her.  She’s got rope for hair, or maybe dino tails, or maybe little snakes--nobody seems quite sure on that count--but they all say her hair moves, like it’s got a mind of its own.  She’s got green skin, too. Talk at High and Dry is she must be some sorta demoness or suchlike, or some weird creature from one of them far-off little islands what carries plague.  Of course, I think different--she ain’t from around here, if you catch my meaning.”

“Seems possible,” Angrath said.  Another planeswalker!   “Never heard of any green women with rope hair, but it’s a big world out there.  She say what she wants with a ship?”

“That’s the best part.  She was telling anyone who’d listen about how she’s gonna find the Immortal Sun and Orazca, that she’s got a surefire way to do it.  Picked up a huge crew, she did, with that promise. Supposedly she showed some of ‘em how she was gonna do it, as talk like that ought to get you laughed overboards, but everyone believed her.”

“Where is she?” Angrath asked.  “I think me and her need to have a drink.”

“Set sail, three weeks hence.”

“What?” Angrath jumped to his feet, knocking his chair to the ground.  “And you’re just now tellin’ me?” He turned to the stairs and began jumping down them two at a time, heedless of the shoddy construction.  They buckled under his weight.

“Oh, get back here, you great oaf. You’ll not catch her on foot!” Parrish called after him.  Her lighter steps followed behind him, just fast enough to keep him in sight and no faster. “Besides, you were at sea, what was I supposed to do?  Send up smoke signals?”

“Not just sit here, waiting for me to get back!  You could’ve followed her!” He reached the bottom of another corkscrew turn.

“And then who’d be here to tell you what I saw and which way to go?”  

“Well? Which way did she go?” Angrath demanded, stopping at a landing.  Their shouting and race down the stairs had attracted several onlookers, who poked their heads out into the stairwell to better catch the argument.

“West.”  Parrish caught up to him, her book under one arm and her bottle clutched in the other.

“Of course she went west, you useless harridan: which west?  Towards Ytzico? Towards Caxtilan? Northwards, towards the Bastion?”

“West, towards Pachatupa,” Parrish said.

Angrath took a deep breath.

“...Is she mad ?  Did no one warn her?”  he bellowed, and resumed running.  Pachatupa, the Sun Empire’s capital, sat in the large bay formed where the Ichca River met the sea, and the river and bay were solidly under the Empire’s control.  The Sun Empire might not sail, but that was little help to any pirate attempting to navigate upriver. Safe behind the walls of their fortress, the mages of the Empire could set a ship aflame from a mile away.  “We need to go after her. I’ll not have my chance at freedom sink to the bottom of Tiutik Bay.”

“She’s got a three week head start.  Even the Eel couldn’t catch her now; the Chains certainly can’t.”

“We’re going after her,” Angrath repeated.  “We need to empty the hold tonight, resupply, set sail by dawn.”

“The markets are closed, you won’t be able to sell anything--”

“We’ll dump it into the harbor if we have to!” 

Finally, he reached the front door of the Lighthouse and shoved it open.  It crashed into the opposite wall with a satisfying crack, swinging back wildly on loose hinges.  Passersby, already swaying with drink, startled and stared and him. Angrath paused five steps into the street.  

“You’re completely mad,” Parrish opined.  But she continued to follow him out into the night.

“Where’s your runner?” Angrath demanded.  “You had someone watching the docks for my ship to come in, where are they?”

“He’s probably out having a nice drink, seeing as how there’s nothing left to watch for,” Parrish said.

“Find me another.  I need runners sent to Benji and Hilla.  They gotta get the crew back, unload the ship.  I need to find Lindan, make him open his warehouse.”

Parrish sighed and adjusted her book under her arm.  “I’ll find Benji and Hilla for you. You go get supplies.”

Angrath beamed and wrapped the protesting Parrish in a hug.  Her bottle dug uncomfortably into his ribs. “Thank you.”

He let her go and licked his lips, plans and futures and dreams roiling in his mind.

“This time, this is it--I’m sure it is.”

It took more than two hours to locate Lindan Small, bribe him with entirely too much gold to open his stores and resupply the Devil’s Chains overnight, and make his winding way back to the docks.  The flare of excitement at Parrish’s news had fizzled and curdled into a mix of anxiousness and impatience as the night wore on; it sat uneasily in his gut alongside Parrish’s cheap liquor.  The green woman might be a fraud. He could be chasing the moon yet again, swindled by fool’s gold and pixie dreams.  

This time felt different.  But the previous times had all felt different, too.

“What’re you all standing around for, then?” he bellowed at his crew as he arrived on the dock.  Parrish had evidently found Benji and Hilla, and they in turn had rounded up the majority of the crew, who now milled aimlessly on the dock.  Quite a few were obviously drunk, ruddy-faced and swaying, and they looked from person to person at Angrath’s shout, unsure what their captain wanted them to do.

“Evening, Captain,” Benji greeted.  “We’re waiting for you to tell us what this is all about.”

“Is Parrish here?” Angrath asked.

“She went off, said there were things she had to get ready,” Benji said.  “What’d you need all of us for?”

“Empty the hold,” Angrath ordered.

“What?”

“Empty the hold.  We need to be ready to make way as soon as possible.”

“The entire hold?” Benji asked incredulously.  The people around him wore similar expressions.  “It’s nearly midnight, captain, and we didn’t unload anything when we came in—”

“Just make it happen!  We’re heading out tomorrow,” Angrath said, loudly enough so everyone on the dock could hear.  “Parrish found a lead, but it’ll vanish if we wait too long. We need to leave at dawn.”

A burst of muted chatter greeted his announcement; some confused, some annoyed, some disappointed, some truly outraged at the loss of their promised holiday.

“Most of you have served with me for a long time,” Angrath barked over the clamor, heading off the unrest before it could grow.  He stood a full head taller than everyone save the orc Duffle, but still he took two steps up the gangplank so everyone could see him.  “And you know what it is I’m after, and what I’m willing to do to get it, and you know how I help those who help me. Together, we’ve pillaged temples thought unpillageable.  We’ve sunk an armada’s worth of ships. We’ve amassed riches enough to make Admiral Brass herself jealous. We’ve sailed off the edge of the map. There’s no crew finer. I’m proud to be your captain.

“But if our partnership ends tonight, so be it.”  He paused, letting his gaze pass slowly from person to person.  “The Devil’s Chains sails tomorrow: with her crew, or with whatever bilge rats I can dredge up before sunrise.”

Silence, then, aside from the slight waves lapping at the edges of the dock.  A few people--the younger ones, mostly, who hadn’t been with Angrath very long--still stood frowning, arms crossed, but the bulk of the crew had quieted and now looked on expectantly, awaiting orders.

“Where are we putting everything?” Benji asked.

Angrath grinned, and climbed down from the gangplank to clap his first mate on the back.  “We’ll figure it out as we go.”

Unloading the ship took most of the rest of the night: the gold was heavy, the statues and idols awkward, and finding places to put everything turned into a challenge once the dock began to sink under the weight of all the treasure.  Lindan’s crew of delivery people took away their half, leaving behind barrels of water and food and other supplies. The rest of the treasure, minus Parrish’s cut, was given to the crew, with instructions to get rid of it as quickly as possible.  Most scurried off to settle debts; some doubtlessly went to whorehouses or liuqui dens, or splurged on the best food and drink they could possibly buy. All had strict orders to return by sunrise. Angrath wasn’t going to wait for stragglers.

The eastern edge of the horizon had begun to lighten by the time Angrath truly stopped to rest, brow lathered, arms sore, head and eyes beginning to ache from a night without sleep.  The crew had begun to trickle back from their errands, looking just as tired as he felt, and those who had returned already lounged on whatever relatively comfortable surface they could find to catch a few minute’s sleep.  He spotted Hilla curled up, high in the crow’s nest; Barrett had fallen asleep leaning against the capstan; Duffle was sprawled on a pile of ropes.

Angrath spotted a familiar blue jacket on the dock, and called down to his friend.

“Parrish!  Was wondering where you got off to!”

The gangplank creaked as she climbed aboard.  “Had to make sure my own preparations got done,” she said.  “Had a bit more warning, didn’t have to work quite so hard as you lot, but there were still things to do.”

“Aye?  What’re you up to, then?  You planning on coming with?” Angrath asked.  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d ridden along in order to witness a particularly interesting find.

“‘Course I’m coming with.  I’m not going to miss the finding of Orazca,” Parrish said.  “Got my crew bringing around the Red Eel as we speak.”

“You’re bringing the Eel?” Angrath asked.  Parrish had owned the clipper for as long as Angrath had known her, but she sailed rarely.  She didn’t even have a full standing crew, instead hiring loose hands whenever she needed to go out.

“Aye.  Don’t look so surprised.”  She thumped him playfully on the chest.  “The Chains isn’t going to catch the green woman.  I don’t much like the Eel’s odds either, but she’s got a better shot than this old tub.  I can scout ahead, you follow behind with the muscle.” She nodded towards the Chains’s cannons.

“Our own little flotilla.”  Angrath grinned.

Parrish returned his grin.  “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

The sun crept up over the horizon as the last of the crew made their way aboard, and the Devil’s Chains was unmoored shortly thereafter, picking up speed westward, chasing the garish red sails of the Eel.  Angrath didn’t bother to monitor their departure, trusting Benji to oversee everything; instead, he sat in his cabin with Hilla and Parrish and Barrett, a map of the Ixalan coast spread between them, trying to figure out where to begin looking for the green woman and Ocana’s ship.

“She can’t have gone to Pachatupa.  No pirate would dare sail up the Ichca,” Hilla said.  “Even if this woman doesn’t know any better, there’s no crew that’ll follow her to certain death.”

Parrish spread her hands.  “That’s the way her ship went.  I watched her myself until she was over the horizon.  She was heading straight for Pachatupa.” Parrish leaned back in her seat, stroking her chin.  “It’d make sense for Orazca to be there, too--no pirate nor bloodsucker’s ever sailed up the Ichca.  Even the merfolk avoid it, or so I’m told. The river’s never been explored.”

“If Orazca’s on the Ichca, those dinofuckers would’ve found it ages ago,” Hilla said, flicking a wing dismissively.

“Well, where do you think she went?”  Angrath prompted, gesturing at the map.  “There’s not many places safe to land around Pachatupa.”  Sharp lines on the map denoted the cliffs and mountains that surrounded the Sun Empire’s capital.

“I don’t know why she went that way.  Maybe she was trying to fool anyone who might be spyin’ on her,” Hilla said, directing a pointed look Parrish’s way.  “Maybe she changed course soon as she was out of sight.”

“You best hope she didn’t, ‘cuz we’ll never find her if she did,” Parrish said.

“No, we have to assume she went towards Pachatupa.  We’ll have to search the whole ocean otherwise,” Angrath agreed.

“Well, then I don’t know,” Hilla said.  “I don’t have any experience in coming to a new world, stealing a ship, and setting sail blind.  That’s your expertise, Angrath.”

It was, but Angrath could make little sense of the woman’s actions or why her crew would follow her knowing the dangers at Pachatupa.  “You’re certain she didn’t have any betwitching magics?”

“Can’t say.  Never saw her myself.  She came and went in a hurry,” Parrish said.

“Maybe she is going to try to go right up the river,” Angrath mused.  “Maybe she convinced her crew, or ensorceled them, or maybe they’re more scared of her than of Pachatupa.  Maybe she’s got some trick. I can’t see where else she’d be going.”

The three of them lapsed into contemplative silence.

Barrett, who’d sat silently throughout their discussion, leaned forward and addressed Parrish.  “You said she turned a man to stone, and had ropelike hair. Was she a gorgon?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Parrish said, shaking her head.

Barrett looked to Angrath, who similarly shook his head, bemused.  He’d never heard of such a thing.

“They’re…” Barrett’s face scrunched up as he tried to force his mind to remember.  “They’re a kind of biped. Their gaze can turn people to stone, and they have snakelike tendrils instead of hair, and scaly skin, and they’re usually a grey or a brown color.  They live underground. All of them are female, too.”

“Ha!  What’d I tell you?” Angrath said to Parrish, pointing to Barrett.  “Man don’t know much, but what he does know is damn useful!”

“How do they make more gorgons if they don’t have any men?” Hilla asked.

“I’m...I’m not sure.  But wherever I’m from, there are gorgons there,” Barrett said, nodding, sounding surer of himself.  “They’re very dangerous. They work as assassins, mostly.”

“She could be from where you’re from?” Angrath asked.  “We could use that, if we knew anything about where you’re from.”

“Sorry,” Barrett said.

“It’s looking at them that turns you to stone?” Parrish clarified.

“Kind of.  You’ve got to make eye contact with them, and they have to want to do it, I think.  But it happens fast, and you can’t counterspell it or ward against it.”

“Does it work through glasses?  Or clairvoyance?”

“I don’t know,” Barrett replied.  “It doesn’t work if you don’t look them in the eye, but I don’t know if lenses would stop it.”

Parrish hummed at that, and narrowed her eyes.  “Are there limits to how often they can turn someone to stone?”

“I’m...I’m not sure,” Barrett said apologetically.

“We should be careful when we approach,” Parrish said.  “She might not like us sniffing around, and if it’s that easy for her to kill us, we can’t take any chances.”

“We have to find her first,” Hilla reminded them.

“Aye, we do,” Angrath agreed.  He looked to Parrish. “You should return to the Eel and let her loose.  We’ll follow as fast as we can.  Head toward Pachatupa, but be sure to stay well clear of the fortress.”

Parrish nodded her agreement.

Angrath did his best not to yell at the crew over the next few days.  He had taken their time off from them without warning, and they had all spent too much time on the water in the past few months.  They needed a break, and unfortunately circumstances had conspired so that they wouldn’t get one until this last voyage was finished.

The urge to demand more speed nagged at him nevertheless.  The Chains could never keep up with the Eel: the Devil’s Chains was a fearsome ship, and agile in a dogfight, but she was built to prey on and ambush other ships, not to win races.  Even so, Angrath had to bite his tongue to keep from insisting they try to catch the Eel as it pulled further and further ahead.  By the third day, it was only visible via spyglass.  On the fourth, they lost sight of it entirely.

It reappeared on the fifth day, along with the sprawling coastline of Ixalan.  The Eel had dropped anchor and furled its distinctive red sails some distance from the coast, well outside the range of the Empire’s mages.  By the sixth day, the Chains was close enough that a pair of sirens could carry Parrish over.

“She tried to run up the Ichca River, all right.  You’ll see when we get closer--all the bridges across the river are smashed.  She rammed right through them,” Parrish said as soon as her feet touched the deck.

“She made it up the river?”

“Well...no.  The ship’s run aground.  I’d wager they lost control and hit a sandbar, or maybe lost too much speed hitting the bridges and wallowed in a shallow bit.”

“Any sign of the green woman?” Angrath asked.

Parrish shook her head.  “I got a few crew who could pass as Sun Empire, and I sent them sneaking into the city to see if they could learn what happened.  But they ain’t back yet.”

Angrath swore and slammed his fist into the railing.  Blazes and crows; he shouldn’t have gone to Itenco. “We need to find her.  We need to get on that ship, too.”

“They painted the sails black.  Probably doused all their lights and went in late at night all quiet-like, hoping to catch the Empire off-guard.  Looks like it almost worked,” Parrish said. “But I don’t think it’ll work a second time. You’re gonna have to wait.”

Seven days after leaving High and Dry, the Devil’s Chains dropped anchor alongside the Red Eel, two miles out from the city-fortress of Pachatupa. The white stone walls of the city stood tall and proud like a challenge, taunting Angrath.  His freedom lay inside those walls, stolen by sun-worshipping zealots. He struggled to tear his gaze away from them.

Parrish’s spies had returned, their story confirming Parrish’s guesses.  The front of Ocana’s old ship had been reinforced into a battering ram, the sails had been painted black, and the green woman had taken her upriver under the cover of darkness, attempting to use speed and surprise to bypass Pachatupa’s defenders.  The gambit had nearly been successful, but the ship had hit a bridge at the wrong angle and veered off-course, beaching herself. The crew had not had time to free her before the defenders of the city overwhelmed them; they were now captured, hanging in cages around the city center.  But though the citizens had told Parrish’s spies that the ship had been full of monsters, no trace had been found of the green woman. She was not among the captured crew.

“I need to get into the city,” Angrath muttered.

He’d said it to himself, but Parrish overheard.  “We’ll dress you up as a ceratops. You’ve got the horns for it.  They’ll never see it coming.”

“It’s not a joke.  I need to find her.”

“I don’t disagree, but you’ll be spotted and stuck full of arrows before you get within spitting distance of the city.  You’re conspicuous,” Parrish said.  "And two ships ain't near what we'd need to properly besiege Pachatupa."

She was right, but that didn’t soothe Angrath’s restlessness.  He took his spyglass out again, and scoured the shoreline. There was the ship, listing against the bank; there were the remains of the bridges, hanging in the water; there were the walls of the city, hiding his prize from him.  Repairs had begun on the bridges, and Angrath could just make out the ant-like forms of Sun Empire workers, sinking new pilings into the riverbed. He could not pass as one of them.

He needed to get into the city, nevertheless.

Chapter Text

They rose well before sunrise.  Liliana said nothing about their midnight conversation, so Gideon didn’t either, mindful of her space.  He pulled on the clothes Liliana had fetched for him; they weren’t his clothes, and they were slightly too big, but that made pulling them on a bit easier one-handed.  He still needed Liliana’s help to thread his injured arm through the sleeve of his sweater and to tie the laces on his boots, but he was able to pull on the loose, woolen pants unassisted.  It was the first time he’d properly gotten dressed in weeks, and he smiled to himself at this small sign of recovery. His injured arm remained numb and useless more often than not, and he had to take care how he held himself to avoid jarring his shoulder, but he had regained much of his lost stamina in short walks around the inn.

“It will be good to see everyone,” he said.

“Are you so eager to be rid of me?” Liliana pouted, pulling her mouth into a dramatic, doleful frown.

“Of course not,” Gideon chuckled.  “Just excited to see everyone else.”

“It will be nice,” Liliana agreed.  She finished packing her nightgown away and tossed her bag onto her bed.  “Sit. Let me do your hair.”

“It’s strange that Nissa never came back,” Gideon said.

“I’m sure we’ll hear all about it at the meeting,” Liliana said, gathering his hair in her fist and combing out the tangled ends in short, terse jerks.  He couldn’t see her face, but her voice carried a note of resentment.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Splendid.  Looking forward to leaving,” she replied.  “Hand me that tie, would you?”

He handed her the short leather tie, and she finished the braid and tied it off with the strip.  Gideon settled his arm in his sling, and they gathered their bags, one for each of them, and made their way downstairs, where Leta had prepared a breakfast of eggs, porridge, and greengage compote.  For the standards of the little town, it was a feast. They ate, chatting amiably, and said their goodbyes when they had finished their meal.

Liliana pressed a small purse generously stuffed with coins into Leta’s hands.  “For your trouble.”  

“Oh, we can’t accept this,” Leta protested.

“You’ve already settled with us,” Cormick said, frowning.

“Consider it a gratuity,” Liliana told them.  “You’ve done more for us than you had to.”

“Thank you,” Cormick said.  Leta seemed more uncertain, but she didn’t attempt to give the purse back.  She engulfed Liliana in a hug, whispered something in her ear, then patted her on the shoulder as they broke apart.  She turned to Gideon.

“You take care of yourself out there, y’hear?” she said.  

He stooped to hug her.  “Of course. You as well.”

He shook Cormick’s hand, and he and Liliana walked off into the foggy morning.  The sandbar and hitching post that served as Derril’s dock were a mile from the town, where the boggy, mud-choked waters of the Caligo strengthened and cleared into a wide, shallow river.  The path from the town was barely more than a game trail, a narrow strip cut through the undergrowth, slick and muddy with dew and fog.

“That was kind of you,” Gideon said.  He adjusted his pack. His shoulder prevented him from wearing it as intended, and he fidgeted with it, trying to find a position where it wouldn’t slip.

“The money?  It’s nothing.  Ravnican gold is worth a lot more on Dominaria.  Besides, they’ll need it,” Liliana said flatly.  

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t feel it?”

He shook his head, unsure of what she could be referring to.

“There’s a dark power in this area.  Even I find it noxious,” Liliana said.  “I placed some protections of my own around the town while we rested, but they’ll fade quickly.  This place is cursed.”

“What’s causing it?”

“I don’t know, and I didn’t think it wise to advertise my presence by poking around.”  Liliana glanced behind them down the path. Due to fog, the little town was already out of view.  “The Cabal, if I had to guess. They’ve been a problem around here for centuries.”

Squelching footsteps from further ahead of them caused Gideon to stop short.  A zombie shambled forth from the fog, and Gideon slung his pack off, letting it fall to the muddy ground, and looked around for something to use as a weapon.

“Relax.  It’s one of mine,” Liliana said.  She shrugged off her own pack and handed it to the zombie, who stiffly took it, skin shredding off on the straps as the zombie forced its rotting arms through.  Still, it was relatively fresh, as far as zombies went. Its clothes, some kind of black robe, were damp but not yet rotting, and while its skin was soft and sagging and its eyes had fallen out, it remained mostly intact.

“And where did it come from?” Gideon asked.  Leta would have told him if someone was missing in the town, wouldn’t she?  The zombie looked like it had been a young man, before death.

“I told you.  The Cabal’s been a problem around here for centuries.  This particular necromancer decided to test his skills against mine and came up wanting.”  She pointed to Gideon’s pack. “Go on, he doesn’t mind.”

Gideon gave a snort that turned into a small chuckle.  He picked up the pack and held it out to the zombie, who took it and attempted to put it on as it had the first, with limited success.  Its arms bent back unnaturally, but it turned and began walking. Liliana rolled her shoulders, stretching as if she’d been carrying the pack for miles, and followed it.

Liliana set a lazy pace, sauntering behind her zombie.  Gideon appreciated it; his walks around the inn had returned a portion of his stamina, but he still felt himself becoming unaccustomedly winded as they walked.  The sun rose and began to burn away the heavy fog, and the path firmed up underneath their feet as it turned toward the mouth of the river and trees thinned into grasslands.  It was an oddly quiet morning, the wind ruffling the grass and the distant burble of the river the only sounds aside from their own footfalls. The Caligo had little in the way of birds or other wildlife to greet the dawn; even the insects made their presence known only in occasional, short chirps.

Derril’s “dock” was an old, lightning-struck tree overhanging a section of still backwater.  A thick, moldering rope wrapped around the blackened trunk and extended out to the boat, which was little more than a raft of logs planed flat and strapped together with rope, with a short “railing” of stripped tree trunks running around its perimeter and a small tent of oiled canvas pitched on the back half.  Derril had pulled the boat halfway up the sloping bank, and was loading it with the assistance of a woman who greatly resembled a younger Leta. A dozen old flour sacks, enchanted with a weak spell to repel water, were making the journey to White Bay with Gideon and Liliana, each one stuffed with wares from town to sell at the port town.

Liliana waved a hand, and the zombie took off the two packs and wandered away back towards the swamp.  She stooped and handed Gideon his pack, and resettled her own on her shoulders, and they picked their way down the gentle hill to the river.  Derril spotted them and waved a greeting. He and the woman finished loading the boat, and they shared a brief kiss before the woman picked up the traces of their small handcart and hauled it away, back towards the town.  Derril shoved the boat into the water, and beckoned Liliana and Gideon.

“You’ll want to sit in the middle, I think,” Derril advised as Gideon climbed aboard; the boat dipped under his feet and brackish water sloshed under the railing, over his boots, and onto the deck.  “It wasn’t really made for passengers, aside from me.”

Gideon sat in the center as he was bade; the raft did not sink so alarmingly when Liliana stepped onboard, and she took a minute to walk the raft’s perimeter.   Twenty steps marked the edge; Liliana sighed and let her pack slip down next to Gideon before sitting herself, trying to arrange her skirt so it wouldn’t catch between the slats and fall into the water.  The rough deck was not made to be sat on, and Liliana fussed and shifted beside him, trying to find a comfortable spot. Derril unhooked the boat from its mooring and produced a long pole to shove the boat into the river, and they were underway.   

It was slow-going at first, on the edges of the marshland where the current was almost nonexistent.  Derril was soon sweating despite the early-morning chill; Gideon regretted that he couldn’t help, only sit uselessly on the deck.  He couldn’t punt a boat--his shoulder burned if he did so much as let the full weight of his arm dangle. Instead, he satisfied himself making smalltalk with Derril, who was only too happy to talk about his children.  Little Serra, just turned six, was showing a propensity for herbal magics, while her toddling brother Dorin had just begun to speak in actual sentences. Derril treated the achievements as equally miraculous.

The reeds and thin black trees and floating masses of moss and algae thinned, and the current swelled so that Derril needed only to guide the boat with his pole, not propel it.  The trees grew tall and thick, with full canopies that formed a tunnel of green over the waterway, the sky only visible when the wind blew the leaves aside. Sheets of deep green moss hung down from the branches, some so long they trailed into the dark, opaque water.  The river widened and deepened, and the sun through the leaves drew auroral patterns on its surface.

Gideon made his backpack serve as a pillow, and leaned back and watched the birds singing and chattering in the trees, and the small animals hopping from branch to branch.  The deck wasn’t comfortable, and part of him missed the soft bed he’d been confined to most of the past weeks, but it felt good to be moving, and the sounds and life around their small raft was soothing.  Even Liliana’s mood seemed to lighten as they floated down the river; she didn’t sit so stiffly beside him, and let her hand fall over the railing to trail in the water.

He must have fallen asleep; he woke when Liliana prodded him in the ribs and handed him a wrapped bundle of bread and hard cheese.   Derril had punted the boat into a small lee in the current formed by a large rust- and vine-covered piece of metallic shrapnel; most of it seemed buried in the sandy mud, yet it still stood at least twice as tall as Gideon. 

“Piece of Thran technology.  An old civilization; they left their ruins absolutely everywhere.  They seemed to have liked making huge machines.,” Liliana informed Gideon quietly, so Derril couldn’t hear. “They worked good metal.  Surprised this one hasn’t been taken for scrap.”

Small holes pockmarked the metal.  A spiderweb, coated in dewdrops, decorated a hole, while a centipede crawled out of one hole and into another.  A small cascade of flat fungi, stacked like griddle cakes, formed the imitation of a staircase leading from a protrusion in the structure up to a large, gash-like rent in the metal that might have been big enough for a fox or raccoon to squeeze through.  Gideon chewed his lunch contemplatively as he studied the odd apparatus.

“What was it for?” he asked.

“No idea.  Some war or another, probably.  Dominaria’s had plenty.”

In the distance, an animal let out a wailing cry that silenced the birds in the trees, until a crow cackled overhead and broke the spell.  Liliana grimaced at the noise, then threw the crust of her bread into the river, where a group of small fish surfaced to fight over it.

“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” Liliana said, apropos of nothing.  “We can’t hang around here all day.”

Gideon glanced to Derril, who returned his confused look.  “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” Liliana said with exaggerated emphasis, as if the question was ridiculous.  “We’re going to miss our meeting.”

They made camp shortly before nightfall at a sharp bend in the river.  The ground on the eastern side of the river had risen higher and higher as they proceeded, until it formed literal cliffs on one side, but here the rocky cliffs abruptly ended in a jagged, arrow-shaped point, while the river tacked back northwards toward the sea.  Derril and Gideon pulled the raft up the rocky, sloping western shore; Gideon was glad to finally be able to do something.   A fire was struck in a makeshift fire pit that Derril had constructed many voyages previous, and they set their wet things by it to dry while Derril warmed some sausages and beans for their supper.  They ate as the sun fell behind the horizon.

“Have you been to Benalia City before?” Derril asked.

“No,” Liliana answered.  Gideon shook his head.

“Me neither,” Derril said.  “Always wanted to go, see the gates and the floating cathedrals.  Angels sing the Song of All there, every hour of the day.”

“My father went often, on business,” Liliana said.  “He said he’d bring me along one day, but he never did.”

"You’re from Benalia, then?”  Derril asked.

“When I was young, yes.  I’ve moved around quite a bit since then.”

“And you?” Derril asked Gideon.

“I’m not from Benalia, no,” Gideon said.  He realized too late that he didn’t know enough about Dominaria to come up with a believable birthplace, but before Derril could ask where he was from, a piercing, coughing ksah-ksah-ksah howl echoed over the water.

The three of them froze.  Even the crickets fell silent in the wake of the strange howl, and Gideon looked from Derril to Liliana expectantly.  He did not know anything about Dominaria’s creatures and could not judge whether the howl was a danger to them or not.  Derril looked confused; Liliana was already moving, standing and knocking out her tin bowl against the side of a rock.

“We need to go,” she said tersely.

“What was that?” Gideon asked.

“I don’t know,” Derril answered, scratching at his blond beard.  “Ain’t a fox, ain’t a bird. Leastways not one that I know.”

“It’s not an animal.  It’s undead,” Liliana said.  She filled her bowl with water from the river and dumped it out over the fire.  The fire died in a cloud of steam, leaving them in twilight. Dominaria had only a single, large moon, and tonight only a fraction of it was visible.

Gideon didn’t know how Liliana could tell the howl came from an undead creature, but her knowledge of the undead was possibly without peer, so he hefted their packs in his good hand, and began to carry them back to the raft.

“The Cabal never comes this way,” Derril protested quietly, but he too got to his feet and collected the cooking pot and utensils.  Liliana only shrugged in response, and gathered their wet clothing into a bundle. Hastily, they secured everything to the raft and pulled on wet socks and boots.  Derril dug through one of the sacks and produced a small hand crossbow, which he secured to his belt. Liliana fetched the small dagger from her pack and secreted it away in her bodice.  Gideon felt acutely the loss of his sural, dropped on Amonkhet. Given the injury to his sword arm, he hadn’t bothered asking Liliana to find him a replacement weapon, but the lack of one--even one he could wield only imperfectly, left-handed--suddenly felt like a mistake. 

The coughing howl rang out again as the three of them shoved the raft back onto the water.  Gideon peered into the dark, searching the opposite shoreline for a sign of the creature that had disturbed them, but the sun was now wholly sunk behind the horizon, and the sliver of moon offered only the faintest suggestion of light.  Derril moved to the prow of the raft as soon as it started moving, for it was difficult otherwise to see where the raft was headed, and used the punting pole to avoid obstacles in the water as he took the raft around the sharp bend around the arrow-shaped cliffs. 

“Do you know what it was?” Gideon asked Liliana.  “Some sort of zombie? A shade?”

“I don’t know.  It wasn’t alive,” she whispered back.  She stared toward the opposite shoreline, searching for the creature herself.  He fists clenched and unclenched in a nervous pattern.

“Is there something we should watch for?” he asked.

Liliana shrugged.  “The kinds of things you’d usually watch for, I suppose.  The Cabal likes necromancy, and the twisted kind of mind magics that leave you a gibbering wreck.  Shades, zombies, horrors, that sort of thing.”

The thing howled again, louder now, and Gideon tried to hear which direction it was coming from, but the echoes from the cliff and the odd way the sound carried over the water made it impossible.  It sounded like it came from behind them and ahead of them simultaneously. Liliana moved to the tent at the back of the raft, keeping watch for anything that might come up from behind them, and Derril manned the front of the raft, so Gideon looked from shoreline to shoreline, searching for any flicker of movement, or the beginning traceries of a spell.  The forest remained vexingly dark, impenetrable to his eyes, and he could spot no movement, no irregularity on the stone cliffs that defined the other shore.  

The raft rounded the bend.  The coughing howl came again, and Gideon swiveled his head back and forth, searching for the source--

Erebos.

The air froze in Gideon’s chest.  Erebos, here, contorting himself into being from Dominarian stars, staring down, staring at him, reaching out a dark, glittering hand--

Not possible.  Not possible. Theros’s gods could not leave Theros, and Gideon was on Dominaria.  He had not been back to Theros since he was a boy.  It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t.

He shouted a warning, or maybe he didn’t.  He couldn’t hear his own voice, couldn’t hear anything but the death-rattle of Erebos’s chuckle as the starborn god wrapped his fingers around the raft.  Gideon clenched his eyes shut. The raft lurched, and he fell sideways to his knees, caught himself with his good hand, scraped his palm against the rough surface of the deck.  He kept his eyes closed, but pushed himself up, trying to regain his footing, trying to shut out the laughing of the impossible god--

The deck jerked underneath his feet, and he tumbled over the rail and into the river.  The shock of the cold reoriented him and gave him a moment of lucidity, but he was underwater, dragged off his feet by current and momentum, one arm nearly useless.  The water was only slightly higher than head-high here; he kicked in the direction he thought was up, waving his good arm in front of him to guard against obstacles.  He kicked, and surfaced, and sucked in a gasping breath, and lunged for a dark shape in the water. His fingers slid against something slick, wet, metallic--another piece of Thran metal?--and he could find no purchase until his questing fingers caught in a crack in the surface.  He spat out water, freed his arm from its sling, and wiped awkwardly at his eyes with his wounded arm, which would not move the way he wanted. Again, that ksah-ksah-ksah howl.  Where was the raft?

He kept his gaze low, for he did not dare look at the sky and what might be there, as he searched for the raft in the dark night.

Something heavy and large pressed down on his head, forcing him under.  He yelped in surprise, sending huge bubbles of air boiling to the surface, and let go of his handhold to push against whatever was holding him down.  Something furry, wet, large, with claws, a beast. He grappled with it, thrashing against its hold. He had no air. His feet found purchase against the beast and he kicked as hard as he could, sending himself flying backwards.  He surfaced and gulped in desperate breaths. Kicking feet found the bottom of the river and he waded backwards, away from his attacker. He wiped water from his eyes, blew it from his nose.

A glint of gold where his attacker stood.  Gideon blinked, and again, and the form resolved itself into a leonin, pale fur shining even in the wan moonlight.  His handhold had not been Thran metal, but armor.  A heavy golden mask, its expression wrought of rage, hid the leonin's face, but Gideon knew who it was. Other forms waded into the river behind it, clothes torn, skin grey with rot, unmoving golden faces contorted into animalistic fury.  They did not speak, did not even make a sound as they slid through the water towards him.

He gibbered, no no no no no, and waffled in the water, caught between fleeing his dead friends and moving forward--to aid them; to end their sick, mocking half-life; to throw himself down and beg forgiveness at their feet.  Jace’s mask was coated in blood and sat askew, as if his neck were broken under its weight; the air around Chandra rippled, and the water boiled where she passed; Nissa’s sword was drawn, and aimed for his head; innumerable others followed behind, though to his shame he could not name them; and Ajani led them all, striding forward through the water decisively, looming, paws balled into fists.  Gideon closed his eyes.

A woman’s furious scream pierced his awareness.  Liliana.  Liliana could still be saved.

He half-ran, half-swam through the water, away from the dead, toward the beach.  A flare of dark light left stars bursting in his vision, even as it did nothing to illuminate the midnight landscape.  The stony shore writhed and undulated like it was alive, breathing; Gideon tore a rock from its pebble-coated skin. Something hot and stinking bubbled up from the wound in the ground’s surface.  Though he would not look at the sky, he knew, with ancestral knowing, that Erebos still stood on the horizon, smiling a skull’s smile.  This was his doing.

Another wordless shriek; Liliana, surrounded.  Dark hands grabbed at her arms, trying to stop her casting.  She pulled dark forces to her side, tearing directly at the life of her attackers.  Nearer the shore, Derril swung the punting pole wildly, side to side, hitting targets more by happenstance and swift strength than by skill.  Gideon heaved the bloody rock in his left hand and raced forward. Their enemies were dark, cloaked, darting things that swirled and twisted like murmuring starlings, making it impossible to focus on one or another. 

Thin, clawing hands reached out from the coiling mass.  Gideon swung; wrists broke, and fingers went flying under his blows.  An eyeless head coalesced out of the swirl, and he bashed at it with the rock, caving in the thing’s skull.  Artless, but effective. The creature fell forward, unconscious or dead, falling out of the dizzying dance of its peers.

A hand clamped onto his injured shoulder, nails digging into the still-forming scar--he bellowed, raised his shield belatedly--and whirled him around.

“Do you not recognize your friends?” the hand’s owner spat.  Drasus, his face sagging in death, only his eyes alive and hateful.  Behind him, Olexo, blades out and dripping. They were dead, incinerated--they could not be here, they had no bodies to reanimate.  A trick. A vision. None of it was real.

Gideon bared his teeth, and brought the rock crashing into the side of Drasus’s head-- not Drasus, an illusion, a fake.   The abomination’s skull crumpled under the blow, brains and blood and rotting skull bursting forth to coat Gideon.  He nearly dropped the rock. It was a trick. It had to be.

Unlike the first, Drasus did not fall.  His hand took a wild swipe at Gideon’s face, rotten fingers sharpened into claws; the blow glanced off of light as Gideon shifted his shield to cover his face.  Little Olexo darted forward, under Drasus’s arm, blades catching on the meager moonlight. Light swirled in anticipation of the blow, but Gideon misjudged the angle of attack.  One dagger skidded against solid light and found no purchase; the other blade bounced, then bit into his hip, stopping only when it thunked against bone.

Gideon kicked at Olexo.  A miscalculation. The kick connected, sent Olexo sprawling, pulled the dagger from his hip with a burning, sucking slurp, but Gideon too lost his footing on the wet, shifting ground.  Drasus followed, pinning him, clawing at him. The top of Drasus’s face was gone, but most of Drasus’s mouth remained, pulled into a slavering smile. Gideon struck with the rock, sent Drasus’s jawbone flying; and again, bringing the rock down on the thing’s arm, dislocating it entirely, the bone popping free of the socket to be held on only by scraps of fetid flesh and rags.  Drasus fell sideways, unsupported, and Gideon shimmied out from under him and got to his knees.

Headless and maimed, the vision, the trick raised a hand as if begging for mercy.  Gideon reared back and smashed the rock down, shattering the hand, the arm, the chest.  Ribs snapped, and finally Drasus was still.

Gideon made to stand, but Olexo was on him before he could get to his feet, arm wrapping around Gideon’s throat in a choke hold.  Gideon stabbed blindly backwards, missing Olexo entirely, then flung himself forward, intending to break Olexo’s grip.  Olexo had been the youngest of them, always the smallest, barely half Gideon’s size, and he shouldn’t have had the strength to prevent Gideon’s movement, should have gone flying over Gideon’s head.  He didn’t. His arm was like metal, immovable and impossibly strong--but his flesh came apart like overcooked meat when Gideon clawed at the arm around his throat. Gideon’s fingers sank in, found the curves of the bones in Olexo’s arms, and pulled. Olexo didn’t let go until the bone snapped into splinters.

Gideon pushed himself to his feet before Olexo could tackle him again.  He gulped in air, shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears. His stamina had improved since his injury, but he was not in fighting shape.  His hip burned where Olexo’s blade had stabbed him, and he felt cold, and light, like a falling leaf could knock him over.

Derril still stood, smacking enemies aside with the punting pole, though his movements were pained, erratic, and he was now pinned against the river, water up to his ankles; Liliana…

Gideon couldn’t see Liliana at all.

Olexo crashed into Gideon’s side; Gideon stumbled but kept his feet.  Another body hit him from behind, jumping up to wrap its arms around his shoulders and its legs around his waist.  He wrapped his shield around himself; Olexo stabbed uselessly at his stomach, the creature behind him chewed hopelessly on his neck.  Gideon dropped the rock and reached for the creature behind him. Hands slipped over slime-covered bone, and he came away with only a handful of rotten skin and hair.  His shield would not hold much longer.

He twisted sharply, trying to throw the thing off his back, but it shifted with his movement, allowing itself to slide sideways and set its feet on the ground, and pulled him over to the ground.  He fell hard and the rocky shore stole his breath away.  His vision filled with stars and sky, and Erebos shook his head and raised a glimmering hand.

A noise like pealing thunder, and then whiteness overtook everything, bright enough that Gideon had to cover his eyes lest he be blinded.  Mana surged and strengthened around him, becoming a palpable force that pressed against him body and soul. With the last of his strength, he reinforced his shield, ensuring it covered all of him. The attackers’ hands grew hot and fell from him, and the rancid smell of burning bodies made him gag.  He rolled over to spit out the sick.  

A hand touched his shoulder.  Gideon startled and raised his head, hand clenching once more around a rock.

“Easy there, big fellow.  Just seeing if you’re alright.”  The hand and voice belonged to a grey-haired man who knelt in front of him, clad in highly polished armor which clanked as he moved.  Somehow, Gideon hadn’t heard him approach. Lanterns now lit the riverside, carried by knights, armored as the grey-haired man was, who knelt to examine the corpses littering the shoreline.  The swirling mass of attackers was gone, and the bodies couldn’t account for all their number.

Gideon tried to push himself to his feet, but now, as the rush of battle left his limbs, he became painfully aware of the stab wound in his hip, of bruises where he had been tackled, of how overwhelmingly tired he was, wet and cold.  Trembling, he slumped back on the shore, holding himself only partly up against a piece of driftwood.  The lanterns shone like sunlight, creating a bubble of midday in the night, and their light washed out the sky and drove back the stars.  

“The sky.  He was in the sky,” Gideon murmured.

“It’s alright.  There’s nothing in the sky but the stars,” the grey man said kindly, slowly, in the cadences a parent would use to calm a frightened toddler.

No face marred the sky now, but Gideon looked away all the same.  The man took Gideon’s shaking hand and splashed water over it, washing away the gore that covered it, and Gideon limply allowed him because he could not find the strength to do otherwise.  

To his side lay the form that had so recently been Olexo.  It was a woman, short and yellow-haired and long dead. Her skin was blackened and tight from decay, pulling back her lips and forcing her face into a perpetual snarl.  In the light from the lanterns, she looked nothing like Olexo at all.

“He was my friend,” Gideon said.  The word triggered another thought, something he had lost in the shock of the counterattack.  He turned his head to and fro, scouring the shoreline. Liliana’s rich dress should stand out among the tattered, black mass of the zombies, the fabric reflecting the lights of the lanterns, but Gideon could not see it. “Liliana.  Where is she?”

“Let’s take care of you first,” the grey man said.  He had unfastened his heavy cloak, and now draped it around Gideon’s shoulders. He nodded towards Gideon’s right arm, which Gideon held tightly against his chest.   “Are you hurt?”

“I need to find Liliana,” Gideon answered, shaking his head.  He settled his arm back in its sling, sucked in a bracing breath, and moved again to stand.

“Easy, now” the man warned.

This time, Gideon made his feet, but his knees wobbled like a newborn colt’s and the muscles in his hip spasmed where he’d been stabbed.  The grey-haired man moved swiftly to his side to help support him, but succeeded only in slowing Gideon’s fall back to the pebble-covered shore.

“I need to find her,” Gideon repeated, but he made no further movement.  He tried to figure out what he needed to do next, but it was as if his mind was dreaming.  His thoughts wandered one to the next, heedless of reason or logic, and he could not direct their flow.  He could not stop shivering, and clutched the man’s cloak tighter around his shoulders.

“In time, in time,” the man said.  “You’ve had a shock. Rest a little.”  The man stood and whistled, and a pale grey horse walked up to them and laid down when its rider commanded.  The man helped Gideon to sit with his back resting against the horse’s thick neck, but though the animal was warm, its warmth seemed only to highlight, not ease, the coldness that had settled in Gideon’s core.

Sitting, he could see more of the shoreline.  Derril lay near the water, attended by a pair of knights who wove a luminous latticework of magic over a rapidly spreading stain of red on Derril’s stomach.  A line of large warhorses, all pale like the one the man had called, waited obediently for their riders to return. A dozen or so knights moved in twos and threes from corpse to corpse, examining and then incinerating each in a burst of holy light.  The raft was beached nearby, several large harpoons embedded in its wood, each connected to a thick rope that must have been used to pull the raft to shore.

Of Liliana, though, there was no trace.  Had she been forced to planeswalk?

“She’s not here,” Gideon whispered.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal flask.  He took a sip, then held it out to Gideon. “You want some? It’d probably do you good.”

Gideon took the flask; the stench of strong liquor wafted from it and made him queasy, but he swallowed some anyway.  The alcohol curdled in his stomach and brought a flush that rose in him like a fever, fighting uncomfortably with the cold that clung to his insides.  He handed the flask back and rested his head against the horse.

Time passed in a daze.  Eventually, the wound in his hip bled enough to soak through his pants and leave a visible stain, which prompted the man to call over one of his compatriots, and the two of them used a shimmering, iridescent liquid to close the wound; Gideon felt a pinching sensation wherever the liquid touched, coupled with an almost-painful sensation of heat, as if a candle was being held next to the injury.  A familiar numbness spread around the new scar.

The man and his compatriot helped Gideon to his feet and told the horse to stand.  It took both of them to help him into the saddle. Derril too was lifted atop a horse, though a knight rode with him to hold him steady in his saddle.  The grey-haired man took the reins of Gideon’s horse and led them away into the forest. Soon enough they came to a clearing with a path cut through the knee-high grass, and the small company turned to follow the path as it wended its way uphill.  Gideon wondered where they were going, how far they had to travel, but he could not find it in himself to ask. He wanted a warm bed and dry clothes and a mug of something hot and a quiet place to lay until he felt like himself again, but none of these things were available in the wilderness, so he sufficed with shivering under the grey-haired man’s cloak.  He had suffered worse before. He would survive this.

The path climbed and switchbacked across the hills, becoming steep enough that Gideon had to lean forward in the saddle lest he slip off the backside of the horse.  The night insects hummed a constant, unchanging song and lanterns lit their immediate surroundings. But everything past the lantern’s reach was impenetrably dark, and a ludicrous fear saw fit to whisper into Gideon’s ear: that the company had become trapped in their little bubble of brightness and had not traveled any distance at all, like an insect trapped under a jar, running and running yet making no progress.  It was a ridiculous thought, yet still he felt uneasy. He rubbed his palm down his face. He needed sleep. That was all.

Time was impossible to measure in the immutable darkness, but at long last they came upon a palisade encircling a large encampment.  The gate was just a gap in the walls, flanked by two sentries who waved them through with a yawn. Inside, the camp was made up of rows and rows of tents, with a few rough-hewn, crude wooden structures scattered about.  Gideon and Derril were helped down from their horses and shown to one of these buildings, and given cots to lie down on and changes of clothes. A healer was roused, and he attended to Derril first, given the greater severity of Derril’s injury.

Gideon struggled out of his wet things and into the loaned clothes; pain flared in his shoulder as he moved it to get his sweater off and put on the loose linen shirt he’d been given, and Gideon was surprised to see a bruise over the scar there where the zombie had grabbed him, and blood in his hair where the thing that had looked like Ajani had clawed at him.  Then, exhausted, he collapsed onto his cot. The blankets were enchanted with a spell that made them pleasantly warm, as if they’d been laying out in the sun, and he wrapped himself in them and shivered, hoping their warmth would chase away the chill.

He intended to sleep; if the healer wanted to look over him, he could do it while Gideon slept, or he could rouse Gideon if he had to.  But though Gideon closed his eyes and slowed his breathing and let himself sink into the warmth of the blankets, his mind would not quiet and sleep would not come.  He listened to the rustling movements of the healer, the stifled noises Derril made whenever the healer did something that smarted, the crunch of gravel as people and horses walked by outside.  The blankets warmed his skin, but were unable to penetrate deep enough to reach the cold he felt in his bones. A knot of ice seemed lodged high in his chest, and it spread biting tendrils across his collarbones and down his arms to his fingers.  His thoughts churned--where was Liliana? Did she need help? And if she did, how could he help her?

Either she had planeswalked, or had run into the wilderness and not returned, or had been captured by the forces that had attacked them, though that seemed unlikely.  It was not impossible to trap a planeswalker, but it was difficult. If she had planeswalked, he had already lost his chance to follow her into the aether, never mind that he doubted his ability to planeswalk, injured and fatigued as he was.  If she had she fled on foot--he was no tracker, and would need help to follow any trail she might have left. And if she had been captured...he had managed, barely, to slay three zombies, and been stabbed for his trouble. He could not free her himself.

Enough.  Liliana was a planeswalker, and that alone should ensure her ability to extricate herself from almost any situation.  Moreover, she was a terrifyingly effective mage, and more than capable of taking care of herself. Certainly more capable than Gideon was, at least for the moment.

Gideon pushed back the covers and walked outside, unsure of where he needed to go but certain he could not rest here.  The grey-haired man was resting on the steps outside the little hospital, and he turned and gave a little smile when he heard Gideon step out.  The very first of the morning birds had begun to sing, though the sky was still midnight black outside the encampment.

“Coming to join me, are you?” the man asked, nodding to the space next to him.  Gideon hadn’t been planning to, but he hadn’t been planning to do anything except search for answers, and perhaps this man had some.

“Thank you,” Gideon said, sitting.  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever got your name.”

“I’m Aurel,” the grey man said.

“Gideon.  Thank you, Aurel.  We would have been in trouble had you not arrived when you did.”

“Well, it’s lucky you slowed them up.  We’d been chasing that pack for two days, and they kept outrunning us.  Not sure what they were after. The Cabal never goes this far south; there’s nothing for them to take.”

"It was the Cabal, then?” Gideon asked.

“Yeah, that was them, all right” Aurel confirmed.  “Think a few of them managed to escape before we got off the cleansing spell--those damned skeleton horses of theirs are fast--but we got almost all of them.”

“If they don’t come this way often, could they have been after us?”  

"Could’ve been.  You rich? They like to ransom people, sometimes.”

Gideon shook his head.  No, money wasn’t the lure, but Liliana was a powerful necromancer.  Had they sensed her power, desired it for their own ranks? Could they have felt the Chain Veil and tried to steal it?  He could think of no other reason for the Cabal to go out of their way to attack them.

“Why were you still on the water, so late at night?” Aurel asked.

“We heard something in the woods,” Gideon said.  Already, their fright at the noise seemed like a distant memory.  He’d almost forgotten it. “Like an animal, howling.”

Or, he realized belatedly, like a hunting dog baying as it cornered its prey.

They sat in silence, until Gideon finally said, “I...saw things during the fighting.  Impossible things.”

“That’s dementia magic, the Cabal’s specialty.”  Aurel pulled out his flask and took a sip. “Makes you hallucinate, see things.  Gross things, mostly.”

“I didn’t realize it would be so...convincing,” Gideon said.  Leta had mentioned how horrid the Cabal’s magic was in passing, but he had paid only polite attention.  It hadn’t seemed relevant.  

“Yeah, it looked like they got you good.” Aurel smiled kindly.  “The first time’s usually like that, for most people, ‘specially if you’re not ready for it.  Serra Above, the things I saw the first time it got used on me. I puked all over my horse.” He held out the flask.

Gideon waved away the offered flask and wished he had brought the warm blanket from the cot out with him.  The sun still hid under the horizon, though the sky was lightening in preparation for its coming, and the last minutes of night were cold.

The knights could spare little, but they were willing to loan Derril and Gideon a cart and a pair of donkeys, along with two young squires as an escort to White Bay.  Their things--the sacks of Derril’s goods, and Liliana and Gideon’s two packs--had been recovered and loaded into the cart, and Derril and Gideon were helped in after them. The squires, a human barely out of boyhood who went by Mikkel and a young elf lady named Naia, walked ahead, leading the donkeys down the enormous hill on which the encampment sat.

They rode through the morning and reached grasslands, great flat, sprawling fields of green.  Seedheads, just turning purple at the tip, brushed against Gideon’s knees as he dangled his legs over the edge of the cart.  The path through the grass was wide enough for a horse, but not a pair of donkeys and a cart, and they had to stop several times to clear stems from the wheel or move debris out of the way.  But by evening, the little path joined a cobbled road, heading straight northwards, and they picked up their pace, no longer having to clear the wheels, or be watchful of holes or tripping branches.  They occasionally passed carts, or small groups of travellers, but for most of the journey they were alone. The squires chatted amongst themselves. Occasionally Gideon or Derril would interject some tidbit, but mostly the two men were quiet, each tired and lost in their own thoughts.

“I’m sorry about your boat,” Gideon said at one point.  The cart bumped across the cobblestones, and each man winced as the motion jarred their injuries.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Derril replied.  “I’d be selfish to care about a boat when a person’s missing.”

“Still,” Gideon said.  The knights had pledged to search for Liliana, though no trace of her had yet been found.  Gideon didn’t think much of their chances for ever finding anything. She must have planeswalked, he reasoned.  Hopefully, she would be able to make her way to the Gatewatch’s reunion in Benalia City. If not...well, he’d have to deal with that when it happened.  It was no use worrying over something that had yet to come to pass.

And yet, despite the heat of the midday sun, he found himself shivering.

Chapter Text

The memory of the strange face in the sky tormented Nissa.  She told herself she had not been frightened, but if she were honest, she knew that this was not true.  If she understood what the face was, why it was there, why it had appeared to her--for Samut had never see any face in the sky--then perhaps she would feel differently, but as it was the what-ifs gnawed at her.  Samut insisted she did not need Nissa’s help, that Nissa need not return to the starry plane.  Nissa’s instincts too told her to stay on Amonkhet, where the threats were real but recognizable and easily repulsed.

Still, Nissa found herself once more setting foot on that strange, bright plane.  She had to know. To understand was to be no longer afraid.

As she knew what to expect, the brilliance of the leylines did not bother her this time.  The sky was much as it had been before, an ever-changing swirl of stars forming the suggestions of shapes and things before losing coherence and returning to chaos.  It was still night, which struck Nissa as odd--they had come here at many different times, and always it was night. The lights were still out in the settlement over the hill, and the river still rushed noisily through the canyon below, drowning out any other sounds the night might make.

“Does the sun ever rise here?” Nissa asked.

“It’s been night whenever I come here,” Samut said.  She studied the sky. “Maybe it’s the twin of Amonkhet, but here the sun never rises.”

“Strange.”

“I don’t see any faces.”  Samut turned her gaze from the sky to Nissa, shrugged, and began her way down the winding path to the river.  “Perhaps you imagined it. I see things in the aether sometimes too.”

Jace had had a word for that.  Nissa couldn’t remember it, but she knew it didn’t apply here.  The face had not been a trick of the light, a deceiving pattern,  a mere suggestion of a face.

She shook her head.  “No. It was real.”

“Well, if we’re lucky, it will stay away from us,” Samut said.

“Part of me hopes it comes back,” Nissa admitted.  “I want to know what it wants.”

Samut did not reply.  Nissa followed her down the slippery, switchback path to the river’s edge and knelt to begin filling the waterskins.

“There must be some people here,” Nissa remarked.  “Someone carved that path. The people in the settlement must come here to get water.”

Samut shrugged.  “I suppose. I’ve never seen anyone down here.”

Nissa dipped another waterskin under the rushing water.  The current quickly filled it, and Nissa removed it and inserted the cork, then grabbed yet another from the pile of empty ones.  This one too was filled within seconds, and Nissa capped it and placed it with the other full ones. Movement in the sky caught her gaze.  Her breath hitched, and she looked up and froze--but it was nothing. A group of stars clustered together into a markedly brighter patch that flashed and resembled, just for a moment, a winking eye, but it was gone as soon as she looked at it.  Nissa let out a small sigh.

Returning to her task, she reached for yet another empty waterskin, uncapped it, and placed it in the river, but now she was distracted, and the current pulled the waterskin from her fingers.  Without thinking she reached and grabbed for it; Samut caught the strap of her jerkin before she could tumble into the swift-running water. For a moment Nissa hung suspended over the water, and in that moment, in the distorted reflection of the sky in the water, the face appeared.  Its lips moved as if it said something, or perhaps it only seemed to speak because of the way the water made its features ripple. Nissa didn’t have time to tell. With a grunt, Samut planted her feet and heaved them both backwards, away from the river’s edge.

“Careful!” Samut scolded.

“The face--I saw it again!” Nissa said.  But when she looked, the sky was filled with the same formless patterns.  She stood and brushed damp sand from her clothes. “I want to go to the settlement.  Maybe they know what’s going on.”

“We’re only here for water.”  Samut inspected her leg, which had scraped against the rock.  A weak trickle of blood ran down her calf. “Come, we’re almost done.”

“I’m sorry,” Nissa said.  “I have to know.” She shoved her pile of waterskins away from the water’s edge, into a slight depression where they couldn’t roll away.  Then she began the walk back up the path. She heard Samut grumble something under her breath, but after a moment Nissa also heard the slap of the other woman’s feet following her up the trail.

They walked up the trail, then over the hill toward the settlement.  No lights shone at all, which seemed strange. It was possible the entire little town was asleep, or that it had been abandoned, but if people lived there she would’ve expected at least one or two fires shining through the windows.  They made their way through the fenced pastures surrounding the settlement; the cows slept sprawled on the ground, the ponies and donkeys dozed on their feet, sheep and goats slept in tight clumps. Nissa and Samut did not make much noise as they walked, but neither did they attempt to be silent.  Even so, none of the animals roused as they walked, which seemed to Nissa very strange.  Few animals slept so soundly they would not react to an approaching person.

Nissa walked to one of the ponies and tentatively laid a hand on its flank.  The animal twitched as if a fly had bit it, but did not wake. She spoke to it, softly at first--something about the quiet night made her nervous about making too much noise--but then louder when it didn’t react.  Even when she nearly shouted, the pony did not open its eyes.

“What’s wrong with it?” Samut asked.

“I don’t know,” Nissa said.

“They’re all like that,” Samut said.  She went to another pony and shoved it; the animal moved enough to catch its balance and its eyes fluttered open for a second, but then its head and neck drooped again and it returned to sleep.

“Let’s keep moving,” Nissa said.  She unhooked her staff from her back and clutched it tightly.

As the presence of animals suggested, the settlement wasn’t abandoned, but as they walked down the little town’s outermost street, Nissa wished that it was.  An abandoned village had a thousand reasons to exist: war or calamity might force people to move on, wells could run dry, soil could lose the ability to grow crops, disease could decimate a population.

But here, everyone was simply...asleep.

The people of the village were intact and unharmed.  The slow rise-fall of their chests attested to their continued survival.  Some, glimpsed through open windows, were in their beds, tucked under their covers, but many seemed to have fallen asleep suddenly, having had only a few seconds to arrange themselves.  Some lay in the middle of the street, arms pillowed under their heads. Many slept sitting up, backs to walls or trees. Their heads lolled from side to side as they dreamed. The animals slept here too. Cats lay curled on eaves or atop baskets; donkeys stood with their heads bowed and eyes closed, still attached to their carts; dogs lay sprawled by their masters’ sides, their legs twitching as they chased dream prey.  When she cautiously pushed open the door to one storefront to investigate, Nissa found that even the flies were asleep.  Their wings buzzed slightly while they rested on the countertop of the bakery.

“I don’t understand what’s doing this,” Nissa said.  The air smelled of magic, but it was far too diffuse to be an active spell.

“Some sort of curse?  A trap?” Samut suggested.  “I don’t think we should stay.  If we become affected, my people have no one.”

“Yes,” Nissa agreed, but she still went to a rack next to the huge bakery oven and pulled out a loaf of bread that had been placed there to cool.  The end of the loaf had begun to mold, and the crust was rock hard. “Whatever happened, it happened several days ago. And no one has come to do anything.  None of these people are harmed. Some should have died of thirst already, but they haven’t.”

“Maybe whoever did it came to steal something.  We wouldn’t be able to tell if something was missing,” Samut said.  She had retreated to the door, one foot back in the street. “Whatever happened, we should go.  Come on.”

Nissa followed reluctantly.  Everywhere, it seemed, worlds were despoiled by dark powers before which she was insignificant.  Now that she was looking, she noted that this world’s birds were perched asleep in the trees, which was normal for the nighttime, but the crickets too clung unmoving to the tall grass surrounding the little town, and Nissa even managed to find a small vole, fast asleep out in the open.  She and Samut followed the winding path back to the river where they’d left the waterskins, and the more Nissa searched, the more she realized something was horribly awry here.

“It isn’t just the town,” she said.  “Everything is affected.”

“It could be like the Curse of Wandering,” Samut said.  She stopped walking and her eyes grew wide. “Everything drinks.  Could the water be unsafe?”

“I don’t know,” Nissa said.  Then, seeing Samut’s fear, she continued, “But no one on Amonkhet has been affected.  And spells don’t carry through the Blind Eternities.”

Samut resumed walking, but her expression of unease remained as they continued in silence down the hill to the edge of the cliff.  When they arrived at the pile of filled waterskins, she picked one up, unstoppered it, and sniffed at the water. Apparently unable to find anything wrong with the smell, she poured a small amount out into her cupped palm and studied it in the starlight.

“I can’t tell if there’s anything wrong with it,” Samut said.

“You and I have both drunk it,” Nissa pointed out.  “And neither of us have been affected. Something else must be causing it.”

“I suppose,” Samut said, but she picked up her waterskins reluctantly.  “If there are truly endless planes, we should find a different one to get water from.”

“I don’t think the water is the problem,” Nissa said.  She thought of the face she had seen in the sky and then in the river, and the cold hand on her shoulder.  Could it be the cause? Some presence, haunting the world, forcing all its inhabitants into a never-ending sleep?  She picked up her waterskins, arranging each so the straps didn’t dig too painfully into her shoulders.

“You should go first.”

It took a moment for Nissa to understand what Samut was referring to.

“Why?” she asked.

“I’ve never seen any faces or had something grab me,” Samut explained.  “If there is something here, maybe it only wants you. You shouldn’t be here alone.”

Nissa couldn’t find the words to argue with Samut’s logic, though part of her wanted, if Samut was correct and the thing would only appear to Nissa alone, to stay behind to confront the apparition.  But she didn’t argue, and after a brief preparation the river and the canyon and the starry sky faded from view.

Upon arriving on Amonkhet, Nissa handed out her water to the waiting people and watched anxiously for Samut’s return.  Several minutes after Nissa’s arrival, Samut appeared, and Nissa hurried to her side.

“Did you see anything?”

“No.”  Samut shrugged.  “Nothing.”

The monks at Keral Keep taught a meditation to every one of their novices: they gave each novice a lit candle and instructed them to sit and watch the flame.  After a few minutes, when the novices’ breaths had slowed and the youngest among them grew antsy, the monks told the novices to add to the flame.

“Your emotions are kindling.  Your fears, your grievances, your unhappiness--feed it all to the fire.  Watch as it grows.”

The younger novices often laughed when they came to this part, a self-conscious giggle made once their flames grew large enough to look preposterous balanced atop the thin candles.  The candles of shy novices either didn’t grow at all, or grew tall enough to lick the ceilings. More practiced novices kept their flames small, but encouraged them to burn furiously white-hot.

When the flames stopped growing, the monks gave their final instruction: “Blow out the candle.  See how the smoke rises and disappears. So too do your fears, your grievances, your unhappiness.  Feel them leave you. Feel them rise with the smoke and evaporate.”

Chandra couldn’t remember how many times she’d done the candle meditation.  She didn’t need the actual candle anymore. She could visualize the candle perfectly: the pale yellow petal of the flame, which had always put her in mind of champa flowers; the way the fire jumped and danced as the air changed, the purple-blue penumbra edging the bottom of the flame; the perfectly formed droplets of wax dripping onto the tabletop; the slightly rancid smell of cheap tallow candles.

She’d never been able to make the flame go out.  At least, not the way the monks intended.

Mother Luti had first taught her the technique as an attempt to soothe her nightmares of her father’s death, but against the enormity of the grief crushing her chest, blowing out a candle was pathetically inadequate.  For one, it was hard to blow one out when you were sobbing. For two, she could never imagine all her grief fitting into a single flame, nor could she believe that emotions could be snuffed as easily as a candle. It was like trying to save yourself from starving by watching water boil.  Her grief remained, while the wick smoked and the cinder turned from orange to black.

For three...well, maybe, maybe she wasn’t ready to stop.  Once, she hadn’t blown the candle out at all. The taper had had only a few hours left, and she’d watched it burn until the flame extinguished itself, leaving behind a small, sad puddle of wax.  Mother Luti had left, exasperated, after ten minutes.

But though she didn’t like the meditation, Chandra often found herself working through it.  She had been made to do it so often that it had become a sort of nervous habit. And, even if she didn’t think it worked like it was supposed to, sitting still and focusing on a single thing was a distraction, at least, even though it wasn’t one she could rely on.  Her mind knew when it was being tricked.

Nissa’s meditations worked better, but only when Nissa was there to walk Chandra through them.  There must be some trick to them that Chandra hadn’t figured out yet, and at present the meditations only reminded her how much she wished Nissa was here.  It was a selfish, jealous, childish wish; Nissa was on Amonkhet, helping the survivors of the Naktamun massacre, and that was far, far more important than Chandra’s mild discomfort at the thought of speaking in public.

It didn’t make her miss Nissa less.

The room contained only six people, aside from her mother and Baan.  Somehow, that made her nervousness greater, not less. If the large room, with its rows and rows of chairs, had been packed with people, she could have let her eyes glaze over so she never actually looked at any one person and saw only an amorphous crowd.  But with six? She couldn’t help but stare. The room itself offered no distraction.  The walls were a neutral pinkish tan. There were no windows, but there were a few inoffensive landscape paintings that could charitably be called “pleasant” hanging where windows might be.  The chairs were uniformly brass and brown upholstery. A small table held a pitcher of water, a pitcher of kaapi, and an untouched plate of gulab jamun dumplings with little toothpicks in them.  A wirework sculpture of a potted plant sat in the far corner.

She scooted her chair on the room’s raised stage so she was better hidden behind the podium.  No one else was seated yet; the six, all journalists from Ghirapur’s local papers, her mother, and Baan milled about, chatting and smiling and laughing like old friends--which, she reasoned, they probably were.  From the stage, she could hear only fragments of the conversation--Baan’s quiet voice carried no further than it needed to--but what she did hear was insipid enough to make her want to stand up and throw her chair across the room.

“--Kannan placed in the Youth Aeronautics Competition--”

“--heard about Manoj’s father, didn’t you?  So sad, he wasn’t very old--”

“--we’re very proud--”

“--still not sure about that new harvesting technology--”

“--saw them perform at last year’s Blossom Festival--”

Chandra could throw her chair, and it would crash into all the other chairs and knock them over and make a horrible, satisfying clatter.  Everyone would stare, and she’d stare back. Her mother would probably yell at her, but no one else would dare say anything. Baan would make excuses for her behavior to the journalists.  It’s very simple, you see, when the body is healing, emotions often become erratic, more so in people who were already very erratic.

Or, better than throwing the chair, she could go down and mingle.  Remind everyone what Baan was. Clap him on the back, laugh along with all the others, gossip vapidly.  Haha, this guy, such a kidder, right?  I remember when he tried to kill me and my mom--of course, that wasn’t a joke, and it was only a month ago, but we’re all friends now, aren’t we?  Who among us hasn’t enabled a psychopath to take over a city? The revolt had just ended a few weeks ago!  She shouldn’t have to remind them.

It was a selfish, jealous, childish thought.  But he shouldn’t be allowed to act so normally.  Baan hadn’t been just another enemy, he’d been Tezzeret’s second-in-command.  Yet apparently all had been forgiven. Even her mother seemed not to mind him, to treat him as a friend, despite the fact that Baan had nearly destroyed the entire rebellion.

Baan broke from the group of journalists and went to the table and filled a glass of water.  Chandra tried to force her expression to be neutral as he then stepped onto the stage and held out the glass to her.

“Here.  You appear to need it.”

“Oh.  Uh...thanks, I guess,” Chandra said.  Her mouth was dry, but she didn’t like that Baan had been able to tell.  She didn’t like that her mouth was dry to begin with. This whole event was supposed to be simple, just a little press conference with a few local journalists.  Baan was going to make a statement--a lie--about her injuries, and Chandra and her mother were going to answer a few questions, probably with more lies. Chandra still thought it was a bad idea.  She was going to say the wrong thing or hesitate suspiciously or something, and that would be all the fodder the newspapers needed to think up elaborate conspiracy theories and make things hard for her mom.

“Are you nervous?” Baan sat beside her, a polite smile on his face.

“Of course not,” Chandra lied.

“I wouldn’t worry.  Everyone is aware of the extent of your injuries, and they will not ask you anything difficult.”

“I’m not worried.  And I feel fine.  They should ask whatever they want,” Chandra groused.  She had been discharged from the hospital yesterday, with strict instructions to limit her physical activity until she finished healing, but she felt more-or-less like herself.  Her chest ached if she coughed or laughed or cried too hard, or if she took a breath that was too deep, but she had escaped Bolas basically unscathed. Granted, she would have died if she’d made it to the hospital five minutes later than she had--and oh, did the doctor, an elderly dwarven woman who Chandra couldn’t help but resent, repeat that every chance she could.

But now Chandra was fine, except for an occasional twinge.

Baan inclined his head in deference to her words, then stood and walked to the podium to call the meeting to order.  Chandra took a gulp of water from the glass he’d given her. Her mother stepped onto the stage and sat in the chair Baan had just vacated.  She gave Chandra an encouraging smile and gave her hand a quick squeeze.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.  It doesn’t have to be this big thing,” Chandra huffed.

Her mother looked worried for a moment, but then Baan began to speak and her expression settled into a look of placid attention.

“Thank you all for coming,” Baan began.  “Today I would like to share with you the preliminary findings of the investigation into the recent assault of Chandra Nalaar.”

Chandra rubbed her hands together nervously.  Baan described the investigation’s “findings” exactly as the three of them had agreed: she had been struck by a speeding cruiser late at night while walking to her mother’s house, resulting in multiple broken ribs, a broken collarbone and wrist, and bruising of the heart and lungs.  The cruiser had sped away. Chandra had managed to crawl to her mother’s house, and her mother had rushed her to the hospital. The cruiser had not been identified, and Chandra could not remember what kind it was. Baan downplayed a possible political motivation for the hit-and-run by stressing the lack of street lights where Chandra had purportedly been struck and highlighting the severity of Chandra’s injuries, which rendered Chandra’s memories of the incident almost useless.

“Are you saying this was an accident?” one journalist, a young human, asked.

“Unfortunately, I cannot confirm either way,” Baan replied smoothly.  “We do not have sufficient evidence to make a determination. We have interviewed the residents where the incident occurred, but due to the lateness of the hour they were asleep and did not witness it.  Ms. Nalaar’s own recollection is hazy, for obvious reasons. It seems the only person who could answer that question is the pilot him- or herself, and they have not come forward.”

“In your opinion, was it an accident?” the young man pressed.

“I do not form opinions without sufficient information, and I do not currently possess sufficient information,” Baan answered.  “But please, let us hear from Ms. Nalaar.”  He stepped back from the podium and gestured to Chandra to step forward.

Chandra rose and rubbed her damp palms on her pants and went to the podium. 

“Hi,” she said.  She resisted the absurd impulse to wave.

An elderly elven woman raised her hand and asked, “Can you confirm Councilman Baan’s account?”

“I...well...see…” Chandra began.  All she had to say was yes , but it wouldn’t come out.  They would know she was lying.  She was horrible at lying, just like everything else.  “I guess...no? The truth is, I got mauled by this evil dragon from another world that no one else can go to.”

Silence.  From the corner of her eye, she saw Baan’s hands tense into fists.

“Sorry.  Sorry...I was only...that was...I wanted...it was a joke,” Chandra stammered.  A few polite chuckles at that, which sounded all the more pathetic because of the emptiness of the room.  Her face flushed hot red. “‘Cuz of...all the...weird ideas people have been saying, I guess. I don’t know.  He’s-- Mr.-- Councilman Baan is right, so far as I can remember.”

“How are you feeling, dear?” a vedalken woman asked.

“I’m doing good,” Chandra said with forced brightness.  “Nearly all better. The hospital is amazing, obviously.  They do good work, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t know much about healing magics, but I’m all good now, so--they’re good.”

“What would you say to the cruiser pilot, if they were listening?” the young man asked.

“Um...drive more carefully, I guess?  Kids play in the street, y’know. Probably not at midnight, but you get my point.”

“Do you think the crash was an accident?”

“Yeah, probably?  I guess, if it were me and I’d almost killed someone I hated, I wouldn’t keep quiet about it.  I’d send them, like, a mean card or something at least. And I got a lot of cards but they were all very nice.  And it was dark and whatever.”

The questions ended, and, shakily, she stepped back from the podium.  Her heart was doing uncomfortable things in her chest. The journalists’ attention turned then to Chandra’s mother, who answered a few more simple questions then brought up the possibility of enacting legislation to improve road safety.  This interested the journalists greatly, and they dove into the intricacies of the proposed improvements--where would the money for more street lights come from? Was she not worried that safety regulations would infringe on the creative freedom of artificers?  How would speed limitations be enforced?

Chandra sat and tried to relax, her part in the deception now over.

Baan leaned over to whisper to her.  “I find, when speaking to the press, that it does not do to tell jokes.  But you recovered well.”

“Man, fuck off,” Chandra whispered back.

Pia’s house smelled like roasted doica leaves.  It was a strange thing; after the razing of the Eldrazi, Zendikar no longer had any doica plants, and Nissa realized she was one of, if not the only, person alive who could remember what roasted doica smelled like.  The Joraga had harvested the thick, spear-shaped leaves eagerly at the end of every wet season and celebrated the end of the monsoons with a great feast, of which doica was the star.  But there weren’t any Joraga anymore except for her, and no doica, and no celebrations for the ends of the rains. Nissa wasn’t sure what item in Pia’s house created the wonderful, festive smell, but she inhaled deeply each time she returned, delighted to find a slice of her lost home somehow thriving on another world entirely.

The smell didn’t extend to Pia’s kitchen.  There, other smells reigned, foreign ones Nissa was only just becoming familiar with--cardamom and clove and fennel and chilli.  Kaladeshi cuisine was more elaborate than the simple foods Nissa had enjoyed on Zendikar, but she was gaining an appreciation for it.  The pungency had overwhelmed her at first taste--she’d eaten nothing but plain bread during the Gatewatch’s first few days on Kaladesh--but gradually she’d grown accustomed to it, and now she’d grown to like it.  Pia must be cooking now, for the spices could be smelled even in the bedroom where Nissa had arrived. Nissa followed the scent out into the hallway and down the stairs.

Something sizzled in the pan on Pia’s stove.  Pia herself was chopping some sort of lumpy brown root, while Chandra measured milk into a bowl and then stirred it.  For a moment, Nissa watched them from the stairs. Her own relationship with her mother had always been strained, due to Nissa’s animist aptitude and the Joraga’s hostility towards that sort of magic.  Nissa had run away before she and her mother could be forced out of the tribe, and she had lived happily for many years alone in the wilds of Zendikar, thinking of her mother only occasionally. She had not seen her mother among the refugees at Sea Gate--indeed, she had seen no Joraga at all.  The elves had perished alongside their jungles.

“Can’t I just fix it?” Chandra was asking.

“I don’t think it’s worth it,” Pia replied.  “Your armor’s in my workshop, if you want to take a look.  But I warn you--we had to cut it off you with an aether torch.”

“You didn’t have to--”

“Chandra, it was dented so badly that we couldn’t even unhook the breastplate!  Besides, there’s much better materials than steel nowadays, and you’re not much of an artificer.  I saw all the modifications you made to the regulator. Starting fresh might be for the best.”

“It worked fine,” Chandra said.  She leaned back in her chair and caught sight of Nissa.  She smiled widely. “You’re back!”

“Yes,” Nissa said.  She finished walking to the bottom of the stairs and came into the kitchen.  Like much of Kaladesh, it was decorated in brassy hues. Shining metal canisters held flour and sugar, and a wirework basket held various fruits.  Well-used pans hung from a curlicue contraption in the ceiling. The cabinets were painted a brilliant orange hue, and the countertops were made of some sort of black stone, glossy enough that she could see her reflection in it.

“How’s Samut?  And Amonkhet?” Chandra asked eagerly.

“She’s fine.  Amonkhet is fine.  But we still have not found a new home for the survivors,” Nissa replied. 

“I should come too, the next time you go,” Chandra said.

“The doctor said you should take things easy,” Pia reminded her.

“It’s just walking around,” Chandra said.  “Plus, I’m going nuts stuck here.”

“You haven’t even been here two days,” Pia said, rolling her eyes.

“Well, here and at the hospital and all.  I wanna help out,” Chandra insisted.

“I...I would like some fresh air,” Nissa said.  She caught Chandra’s eye for a moment, and hoped Chandra understood her expression.  “I will be outside.”

Pia’s backyard was small, and the plants surrounding the small deck were wilted from lack of water.  Nissa infused them with a spell to keep them going until it rained again. The flowers were in the midst of blooming, and wonderful, earthy scents carried on the breeze.  She bent to sit on the steps.

Chandra followed her outside, as she had hoped.  Pia called after them that dinner would be done soon, and Chandra hollered back that they’d only be a minute.

“You okay?” Chandra asked, sitting down next to Nissa.

“I am fine.  Merely...thinking,” Nissa said.  “Strange things are happening.” She explained the face she had seen in the sky and the phantom hand she had felt on her shoulder and the sleeping curse that seemed to have taken hold of the starry plane.  Chandra listened with a frown on her face, asking clarifying questions when she needed to, but otherwise saying nothing.

“I do not know what these things mean, or what I am to do about them,” Nissa finished.

“Well…” Chandra began.  “I’m no Jace, but I can come and look, see if I can figure it out.”

“Is that wise?”

“Yeah, why not?” Chandra asked, suddenly cross, her voice rising in pitch.  “If you don’t want me to come along, you can just say so. You and Samut can go.”

“It is not that I don’t want you to come,” Nissa replied, her brows knitting together in concern.  “I’m merely worried that you might re-injure yourself. And I overheard your mother saying your armor and regulator are broken--”

“I don’t need armor if everyone’s asleep, I can just wear regular clothes.  And I’m not gonna get hurt. I’m fine.”

“If you’re sure, I’d be glad to have you along,” Nissa said.  But her instincts said that Chandra wasn’t being fully honest with her.

“Great.”  Chandra sighed and slumped, leaning back until she was laying on the deck.  “Sorry. It’s been a stressful day. And not interesting-stressful, like yours.”

“I do not think I would call it that,” Nissa said.  “If I am honest, I’m...frightened. So many worlds are in trouble, and I do not know if I can save them.”

“Well, you don’t have to do it alone, right?  That’s what all the oaths and Gatewatch stuff was about,” Chandra said, smiling and staring up at the clouds.  “If we can’t figure it out, we’ve got Ajani’s meeting and we can bring it up there and get everybody’s help. Easy.”

“Oh,” Nissa said.  She hadn’t thought about the meeting since finding the survivors of Naktamun.  “Yes, I suppose we can.”

Something about her tone must have sounded odd to Chandra, because she turned to look at Nissa with a puzzled expression.

“You’re going to the meeting, right?” Chandra asked.

“Yes,” Nissa said, although she couldn’t tell whether or not she was telling the truth.  “I simply forgot about it.”

They met Samut early the next morning.  As Samut refused to go to the starry plane again for water, Nissa led her to Kaladesh, and they filled the waterskins in Pia’s kitchen sink.

“Is the sky different on every plane?” Samut asked, pointing to the spiraling Kaladeshi clouds visible through the window.

“No, most of them are just blue, but this one’s pretty cool,” Chandra replied.

“The trees are curly too,” Samut observed.

“The aether does that, I think.  They covered it in school, but I don’t really remember.  Something about the way aether moves changes how everything else in nature moves, or something like that.  Most places don’t have as much aether as Kaladesh.”

“You’re from Kaladesh, correct?” Samut asked her.

“Yeah,” Chandra said.

“And you,” Samut addressed Nissa, “You come from Zendikar?”

“Yes.”

“What is Zendikar like?”

“Most of it is wastelands now,” Nissa admitted.  “There were great monsters called Eldrazi trapped in a mountain, and when they were freed, they ravaged my world.  It is recovering, but much was lost.”

“I see,” Samut said slowly.  Water began overflowing out of the waterskin she was filling, and she hastily pulled it away from the faucet.

“Before the Eldrazi, my people lived in a vast jungle.  It rained nearly every day, and during the wet season it rained nearly every hour,” Nissa continued, trying to imagine which parts of Zendikar Samut would find most amazing.  “The trees were hundreds of feet tall, and a thousand different kinds of plants lived on them. Everything grew so thickly that the sunlight never reached the ground. It was like night if you went below the canopy, so plants grew on the trees themselves.”

“What is it like now?”

“Wind and dust,” Nissa said flatly.

“Like Amonkhet is,” Samut said.  Nissa did not understand what the edge in her voice meant.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Where did the Eldrazi come from?  Were they always there?”

“No.  They are creatures of the Blind Eternities.  A dragon trapped them on my world--”

“Bolas?” Samut interjected.

“No, his name is Ugin.  But it was Bolas who tricked us into freeing them.”  Nissa took a deep breath and clasped her hands together so they wouldn’t tremble.

“That’s why you oppose him,” Samut said.

“In part, yes.”

“We’d fight him even if he hadn’t, but that was the thing that kinda kicked this whole thing off,” Chandra explained.  “It’s how we all met.”

“Bolas has ruined more than my home,” Samut said.  She blinked rapidly, as if she had something in her eyes.

“You wanna come to this big meeting we’re having?” Chandra asked.  “We’re all going to meet up and discuss how we’re going to take down Bolas, ‘cuz it turns out that’s hard.  We were supposed to find allies to bring, but we sort of haven’t done that part like at all yet.”

“Of course.  I’d be honored to come,” Samut said, her expression and voice growing solemn.

“Are you sure?” Nissa asked.

“If I can help defeat him, I feel I must,” Samut said.  She finished filling the final waterskin.

“Who will bring supplies to the survivors?”  Nissa asked. “We have not yet found another source of water on Amonkhet.”

“We could spend a few hours bringing over a bunch so they’ve got like a week’s supply,” Chandra suggested.

“We don’t have that many waterskins,” Nissa said.

“So we get more,” Chandra said.  “Or like jugs or something.”

“How will they carry them?”

“I don’t know,” Chandra said, throwing up her hands.  “But we have to go. We said we would and, like, I’m sure these people would like to know that we’re fucking up the asshole who blew up their city.  And who knows, maybe Bolas is wrecking other places too and the sooner we take him down the fewer refugees there’s gonna be.”

“We will find a way,” Samut reassured.

“It’s like you don’t want to go,” Chandra accused Nissa.

“I do,” Nissa said, though she still wasn’t sure.  “But I left Zendikar before it was fully healed. I don’t wish to leave another world undone.  I do not know what I can do against Bolas, but I do know how to help the people of Naktamun. I must at least do that.”

“You don’t have to know what to do against Bolas.  None of us do! That’s why we’re all meeting up so we can talk about everything and figure it out.  It’ll only be like a few days,” Chandra said. “Besides, you want to go fix this whole other plane too, and we’ll probably need help to do that--”

“I said I was going!” Nissa snapped.

Chandra shrank back in her seat.  “Sorry.” 

“We should take these back to Amonkhet,” Samut said tensely, gesturing to the filled waterskins.  She began picking them up and slinging them over her shoulder.

“We’ll go to the other plane when I get back,” Nissa told Chandra.  She rested her hand on Chandra’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.

“Yeah.  That’ll be great,” Chandra said, but her voice was tight and she would not look into Nissa’s eyes.

“I can manage alone, if you need to stay,” Samut offered quietly to Nissa.

Nissa hesitated.  She had made a commitment to the people of Naktamun.  But so too did she have a commitment to Chandra, more ephemeral but no less imperative.  She sighed and nodded to Samut, mouthing her thanks to the other woman.

Nissa knelt next to Chandra’s chair.

“What if we went now?”

It was night on the starry plane, as it had been every time before.  As it must always be, here. Nissa led Chandra to the same place Samut had led her, to the top of the cliff with the turbulent river below crashing through its narrow canyon.  The settlement slept a half-mile away over the low hill. Nissa hoped it would not be too far for Chandra to walk; she sensed that Chandra was hiding how much her injuries still lingered, but Nissa did not know how to discuss the matter without Chandra getting angry.

“Wow, so that’s...weird,” Chandra said, gesturing towards the sky.  Her head tilted all the way back as she stared. “Kinda makes me dizzy.  It’s like I’m drunk. Or just got hit on the head.”

“That’s where the face was,” Nissa said.  She searched, debating with herself whether she should shout to the sky and challenge the face to come out.  The lack of animal noises in the night set her instincts thrumming--the jungle was only silent when a predator stalked near.  But she had to know.

“I am here!” she shouted into the night.  Chandra flinched in surprise, and Nissa laid a hand on her shoulder in apology.  Nissa took another deep breath. “Come, tell me what you want!”

The stars shimmered.  A section of them abruptly darkened, and the dark patch moved, shrinking and falling down towards the horizon until it stood before them.  It shifted, taking on the form of a person, but the person was created not out of substance, but out of the suggestions of shadows and starlight.  It was tall, taller than both of them, and it spread four arms wide in a gesture Nissa couldn’t understand. A threat? A greeting?

Next to her, the heat from Chandra’s body sharply increased.  Chandra had not yet ignited, but the mirage-like waves of heat rising from her body warned that she could at any moment.  Her fists raised in a fighting pose.

“Wait,” Nissa whispered to her.

Nissa Revane, the form said.  It sounded like the rustle of leaves in a distant valley, soft yet made up of many voices, and Nissa did not hear it wholly with her ears.  Welcome.  You carry with you cataclysms and salvation.  I have need of you.

“What are you?” Nissa asked.

I am called Kruphix.  I am a god of this world, the last left undreaming.  The rest have succumbed. I do not know what will replace them, though I fear it.  Its birth cannot be allowed to come to pass, but I am powerless to stop it.

“How would I stop it, if you cannot?” Nissa asked.

I do not know.  There is a power I cannot ken.  A motive I cannot comprehend. An invader I cannot see--I, who sees all.  It begins in Nyx. It is there you must go.

“What is it doing?” Chandra demanded.  Ghosts of flames licked over her knuckles.  “Is it saying something?”

The form, the purported god, was speaking to her alone, Nissa realized.  Chandra couldn’t hear it.

“Chandra is my friend and ally.  You can speak to both of us,” Nissa said.

I cannot, the god said.  My strength wanes, and I have nothing to say to her. 

“You would not appear to Samut at all.”

The starlight seemed to shudder.  She carries in her the truth of awful things, and I am too weak to face them now.  Tell her not to return. I cannot forget what I have learned, but I need not bear the presence of its courier.

“But they could help.”

 They cannot.  It must be you, Nissa Revane, and it must be soon.

“Why me?”

You can see what others cannot.  Perhaps even that which is invisible to me.

"What is it doing?" Chandra demanded again, but Nissa gestured to her to wait.

“I have made promises already.  Other people already depend upon me.”

I must beg for your aid all the same.  It is you, or no one. The gods are dying.  The people dream, but they do not dream of us, and without dream and love and devotion and fear, we perish.  And without us, what will become of our people? Will they wake again, or will they pass into the night? Who will protect them from what is to come?  

I beg of you, Nissa Revane: you must restore Theros, and defeat the dreaming darkness that has engulfed it.

Chapter Text

The windowless walls of the little room were scored, as if a giant comb had raked across the stone leaving shallow gouges the width of a finger.  The room had an inexplicable feeling of heaviness; the air smelled musty despite the pomanders hanging in the corners of the room. This place, wherever it was, had been a mine before the Cabal moved in, Liliana reasoned.

Nevertheless, an attempt had been made to make the room feel cozy.  A patterned carpet had been laid on the well-swept floor, though the walls were bare aside from candle sconces that, judging by the lack of wax, were newly installed.  The bed was small, but came with a feather mattress and a warm, heavy quilt embroidered with pink and purple flowers. The candles burned white with the sweet scent of good beeswax, and a small metal globe in one corner emanated heat so that the room remained at a comfortable temperature.  A full jug of water and a pair of cups, all freshly polished silver, rested atop a small table beside the locked door.

Liliana would’ve felt more comfortable inside an oubliette.  She couldn’t planeswalk--it was the first thing she tried, but she found she could not gather the mana for it.  The leylines were rich here, and she could feel the power just outside her grasp, could actually see it pooling in the damp corners of the room, but she could not use it.  Thin bracelets wrapped around her wrists and ankles slowed what should have been a gush of mana to the barest trickle.  They were made of a dark, highly reflective metal and did not seem to have any clasp or gap she could use to lever them open. The slightest trace of chilled white smoke rose from them where they touched her skin.

She still wasn’t sure what had happened.  An ambush; she had been holding her own until--a moment of distraction, a critical second when her attention wavered and her careful weave of spells faltered and collapsed in on itself like a burning building.  The dark knights had boxed her in, grabbed her, forced the anti-magic bracelets onto her, and she had found herself helpless and whisked away by a skeletal gallop before she even had time to shout for help.

It was--vexing, and unlike her, and now she could only hope that her captors were poor enough guards to give her an escape.  Waiting for rescue was a fool’s notion. Gideon was useless, crippled and broken, and as for the rest of her “friends”--well, the less said, the better.  She had no rescue coming.

The Chain Veil was inert, hanging limply from her belt, the voices inside silent.  She could draw no power there. Her captors, curiously, hadn’t tried to take it, but Liliana wished they had tried--perhaps they would have been successful and relieved her of at least one of her worries.  Her pack was lost back on the raft, but, like the Veil, her captors had left her the dagger she had stolen from Jace’s apartments. They must know she had it--she had placed it in her bodice so it would be close to hand, not to hide it--yet no one had taken it from her.

Perhaps they knew it was nearly useless to her.  Generally, she relied on her necromantic talents to get her through any obstacle.  She’d taken the dagger only in case she needed to hide those talents--Benalia did not look kindly on necromancy, not after the Cabal came, and Liliana preferred not to have to massacre a village of angry idiots if she could avoid it.  It took too long.

Liliana poured a drink from the jug and sipped slowly, contemplating her situation.  She was on her own. The months she’d spent cultivating the Gatewatch had resulted in disaster.  The weeks she’d spent tending Gideon had amounted to nothing. Oh well. She’d spent her entire life alone, taking care of herself, without need or want of anyone else.  The past half-year was an aberration, not a permanent altering of her state of affairs. They’d killed Razaketh, at least.

She hurled the silver cup at the door.  Her nerves were somewhat gratified by the tlank as it hit the door and bounced off onto the rug.

At the noise, a girl entered the cell, a waifish thing in a thin but clean sack dress, hardly older than eight or nine.  She did not look at Liliana, head bowed and eyes hidden behind a fall of dark straw hair. She had barely needed to open the door to slip through.  Liliana hadn’t been able to see what lay on the other side.

The girl did not speak.  She stood just inside the door, hands folded and head bowed. 

“Well?” Liliana snapped when the silence grew long.  “What is it?”

The girl did not answer, did not even move.

“Are you mute?”

The girl did not answer.

“Deaf, then?  Or just an idiot?”

At this, a minute shake of her head, made visible only by the movement of her long, loose hair.

“What are you, my lady-in-waiting?”  Liliana looked around again at the strange, well-appointed prison cell.  Someone wanted her to be comfortable, clearly. “What is this place? No, of course, you won’t answer.  Fine. Fetch me something to eat, girl.”

Silently, the girl turned and slipped through the door again--without knocking, without any passphrase Liliana could hear or see.  There was, of course, no handle on this side of the door, and Liliana could not see how the girl had opened the thing at all. Some sort of enchantment, keyed to the girl’s touch?  Liliana ran her fingers over the door; she could not draw magic, but her senses were not dulled, and the traceries of magic in the door were palpable now that she tried to find them.  Warding magic was not her forte, and she could not say exactly what the ward did, but she recognized its sharp-edged, blocky forms.

She huffed in frustration and paced around the tiny room.  Five steps from headboard to footbooard, three steps across, another five steps from footboard to headboard, turn.  She had the dagger. The girl, perhaps, could be convinced to help her. The girl could let her out, lead her to freedom.  She didn’t need anyone else.

When the door opened again, Liliana turned with a sweet smile stretched across her face.  The girl held a large bowl in her hands containing some sort of salad. She placed it on the table and bowed.

“Thank you, darling,” Liliana cooed.  “Doesn’t it look lovely. I’m so hungry, and you look hungry too, dear.  Won’t you join me?”

The girl hesitated, glanced up, and then scurried back through the door.

“Well then,” Liliana huffed.  “Nothing’s ever easy, is it?”

The salad was curious: spinach, berries, and seeds, the first of spring, all freshly picked and dewy.  Not the sort of cuisine one expected inside a prison cell, but neither did her cell seem like a prison--aside from the fact that she couldn’t leave it, of course.  Someone wanted her happy and comfortable. It was Belzenlok. It had to be. Who else on Dominaria knew who she was and would be so prepared to counter her abilities?  But playing games like this did not seem like Belzenlok’s way, and as she ate Liliana tried to imagine who else might bother to confine her in such finery. She could think of no one.  The “enemies” she’d made at sixteen were all other girls, bickering pettily over the inconsequential concerns of highborn not-quite-ladies. They were all long dead, and hardly capable of this sort of feat anyways.  She hadn’t been back to Dominaria since then. No one here should know who she was.

Was she being held for ransom by someone who thought she was nothing more than a wealthy woman?  But why? The clothes she’d brought back from Ravnica were well-made, but she’d deliberately avoided anything ostentatious.  She’d paid the innkeepers well, yes, but only on the last day--there hadn’t been time for word to spread that someone moneyed had stayed there.  It didn’t make sense.

Either way, it was time to start testing boundaries.  Liliana finished her meal, stashed the silver fork under the bed’s pillow, and knocked on the door, angling herself so she could get a peek at the hallway outside.  The girl came through immediately; Liliana got the barest glimpse of a dim stone hallway and a dark suit of armor.

“Here,” Liliana said, handing the girl the empty bowl with the most grateful smile she could muster.  “It was lovely, thank you. I wonder, though--my dress was ripped in the fighting. I need to fix it or it’ll tear more and be ruined.”  

She twisted to show the girl the rip running up the side of her skirt.  Her captors must know she had the dagger, but would they be willing to give her further weapons? 

“Could you bring me something to fix it with?  There’s a good girl.”

The girl said and did nothing about the missing fork, simply slipped through the door again.  Liliana sat heavily on the bed.

“Devious.  That’s the Liliana I know.  And here I’d feared you’d lost your way entirely.”

Liliana held herself perfectly still.

“No swarm of crows to announce you?  How novel,” she drawled, refusing to turn around.  “I must say, I prefer it. Much quieter, and much less mess.”

The Raven Man walked slowly around the bed, chuckling to himself, until he stood before her.  He looked as he always looked--well-dressed, but in clothes centuries out of fashion; a face that might have been handsome before age softened its sharp edges; golden eyes that seemed to smirk no matter his expression.

“I was beginning to think you might play a nurse for the rest of your life.  How dull,” he said.

“We do what we must,” she said, feigning a yawn.  “If you don’t like it, feel free to ply your advice to someone else.  It would be difficult, but I’m sure I could muddle through without you.  And think--there might be some poor girl out there who could use your guidance more than I.”

“Indeed.”  He smiled, but his face returned to a dour expression so quickly it looked like a spasm.  “And yet, here you sit, imprisoned. No one’s coming to rescue you. Don’t you think a second perspective might prove valuable?”

“A second perspective, perhaps, but not yours,” Liliana said dryly.  How quickly she tired of this...whatever he was. “If you’ve only come to mock, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave--”

“--and if I came for any other reason, you’re afraid you’re going to have to ask me to leave all the same,” the Raven Man interrupted.  “How witty. If sass could serve as a pry bar, why, you’d be out of here already.” 

With unusual quickness he knelt before her, one leg forward like a troubadour, and leaned forward so that his face was uncomfortably close to hers.  She forced herself not to react.

“Listen to me, Liliana--you’ve been handed an opportunity you cannot waste.  A chance to be free, finally,” he said quietly and quickly. He tried to capture her gaze, but she refused to meet his eyes, instead sighing like a bored debutante.

“Yes, yes.  I’m sure you’ll tell me true freedom is found when one is least free.  Is that a proverb? It sounds like it ought to be,” she said.

“One more demon.  We’re almost there--”

“We?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.  “What do you gain when my last demon dies?”

“The satisfaction of a job well done,” he said smoothly, without pause.  “I have only ever wanted what is best for you.”

“Liar,” she said.

“What’s best for you,” he repeated.  “And now, I’ve put you in a prime position to strike--”

“Prime position?” She couldn’t help but laugh.  “I’m in a cell!”

Only then did she realize the import of the rest of his words.  Her capture--her spell, which had faltered just long enough for the Cabal’s knights to seize her--

“You.  You did this,” she snarled, anger growing in her stomach.  Of course it was him. He, somehow, had interfered with her spellcasting--something he’d never shown himself capable of doing before.  He’d spoken to her, annoyed her, but he had never before interactedwith the world around him, instead directing her.  She had come to assume he was like a ghost, squatting in her mind, insubstantial and incapable of affecting the living world.  That he had this sort of power--even if it was only to distract her for an instant--

“I’m going to have Jace rip you out of my head,” she said evenly, as if she were describing what she was going to have for breakfast.  She stared into his strange yellow eyes. “Rip you out and grind you up until there’s nothing left but bird shit.”

The Raven Man sighed and shook his head like a disappointed parent.  “Jace Beleren is dead.”

“No, he’s not,” she insisted, hating how small her voice suddenly sounded in her ears, how hollowly the lie echoed when spoken aloud.  “He escaped.”

“Don’t lie.  Not to yourself,” he chided her.  “You know he’s dead. You heard how he screamed.”

A scream she was well-acquainted with.  Not a scream of pain, or surprise, or terror.  A scream of regret, of grief; the last, horrified sounds of someone realizing their allotted time was now unexpectedly spent.  She had heard it before, many times. She knew what it meant. Usually, she relished it--the sound of an enemy giving in to despair, capitulating under her unquestionable power, regretting every mistake that placed them before her.  Once, years ago, she’d resigned herself to hearing such sounds from Jace, knowing with bitter experience the path she’d placed both of them on. And yet, in the moment...

“Come now.  This is unbecoming.”  The Raven Man’s thumb brushed the tear from her cheek.  Liliana heard her breath hitch.

“Stop it!” she demanded, growling through the lump in her throat.  She batted at his hand, but he pulled back before she could hit him.  Viciously, she used her sleeve to swipe away the wetness from her eyes, leaving stinging red trails of irritated skin behind. She set her jaw.  She would not cry. Not now, not in front of him, not over Jace.

“There was once a boy who you fancied very much, I remember.  Tall, gangly, with red hair. He worked in the stables, I believe, one of your father’s servants.”  The Raven Man folded his arms behind his back and began to pace like a lecturing tutor. “A daring boy, arrogant, to court the eldest daughter of his lord.  But he was kind. He went out into the forest and picked flowers for you.”

“What do you want?” Liliana sighed.

“Your first love.  You promised to marry him, as I recall.  You didn’t dare tell your father, of course, but you planned to elope with him--”

“What do you want?” Liliana repeated, louder.

“It’s just--” the Raven Man tapped a finger against his chin in exaggerated deep thought “--I can’t seem to recall what his name was.  Do you?”

Liliana folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.  Of course she couldn’t remember the boy’s name. It had been so long that she could barely even remember him.  She could recall fleeting impressions--red curls, the hiccuping way he laughed, the way he smelled so alluringly of sweet hay and sweat--but the bulk of it had been forgotten long ago, swept away to make room for newer and more potent experiences.  He was simply a story now, as real to her as childhood fairytales.

“Are you done?  Have you made your point?”

“You were always going to lose Beleren.  You are immortal. He was not.” The Raven Man stopped his pacing  “Now, five years, fifty years--he was always going to leave you. Eventually you will forget him, so forget him now!   You have work to do, Liliana.”

“Work you’ve made that much harder,” she snarled, seizing on the opportunity to change the subject.  “Stuck here, without the Gatewatch--”

“The ‘Gatewatch’ is now a single, crippled soldier.  They cannot help you!” the Raven Man snapped, his venom suddenly matching her own.  “I’ll admit, fooling them into killing Razaketh was a clever move. But they have outlived their usefulness.  How much time did you waste nursing that oaf? Belzenlok could be dead already if you’d simply left Gideon to his fate!”

“I’m immortal, as you pointed out,” Liliana sneered.  She leaned back until she was lying on the plush bed. She stared at the ceiling and ran her fingers over the embroidery.  “My time is limitless. This isn’t a bad place, as prisons go. I’m in no hurry.”

The Raven Man stiffened and glanced towards the door.

“I came with a message,” he said, his voice turned quiet.  “A warning, useful information. But you’d rather bicker. So be it.”

He vanished. The door opened a sliver and Liliana sat up to see who it might be.  But it was only the girl, clutching a small wicker basket which she handed to Liliana before quickly departing.  The basket contained hanks of thread, a pincushion with needles, several scraps of fabric, and, to Liliana’s mild surprise, a tiny pair of embroidery scissors with a blade no longer than her thumbnail.

It was a start.

Even with the fine thread, Liliana could find no gap in the mana-cancelling bracelets.  Their fastening must have been magic, leaving no physical means to open them short of breaking them.  The dagger could not so much as scratch them; neither could the embroidery scissors, which snapped in two when she tried them.  Nevertheless, she secreted the two short but razor-sharp blades away, hiding them in a fold in her dress.

She continued to test what would be brought to her.  The girl never said whether she would return with the requested item or not--she had to be mute, Liliana decided.  A request for wire cutters went unfulfilled, as Liliana had assumed it would; so did a request for something to read.  She did get a roll of bandages, and a teary story about being afraid the candles would go out and leave her in pitch blackness earned her a small tinderbox.

The wooden door was enchanted against fire, she learned after a quick test.

Asking for a bottle of wine got her only a cup, but asking for fried trout for supper did, to her surprise, result in the requested trout being brought to her room a few hours later.

Liliana finished the last of the wine, and set about rubbing the oily fish over her hand and the bracelet.  She’d always hated trout; it tasted of nothing but grease and whatever spice the cook had felt like dumping on it today.  But, though the bracelet was tight, she thought it might be possible to slip out of it with enough effort. Her hands with thin, her fingers long but narrow.  The anklets would require a different approach, but perhaps all four of the pieces were required to maintain the anti-magic effect. If she could just get one of them off…

All she needed was an edge.

She laid out her tools.  With a sewing needle, Liliana poked the edge of a bandage between her bracelet and her skin, looping it over and tying it to form a handle.  She made another on the other side and began to pull. Initial success quickly gave way to frustration; she managed to worm the bracelet halfway up her palm, but she could not get it past the base of her thumb.  Standing on the ends of the bandages to get greater leverage, she heaved, and stuffed her other hand in her mouth to stifle her whimpers so the girl wouldn’t come and investigate.  The bracelet eked further, but as the pain increased it became clear that something in her arm would break before the bracelet slipped loose.

Cradling her arm and sucking at the wound where the metal had scraped away her skin, Liliana eyed the dagger.  The bracelet would slip off easily if she had no thumb, but...no. She wasn’t that desperate, not yet. The tinderbox offered possibilities too--the oil from the fish would catch fire and give her a nasty burn.  Given the quality of her accommodations, she was certain her captors would treat her wounds. But would they take her somewhere else to do so? Far easier to escape from a medical ward than a prison, but not worth the pain if they kept her here…

She untied the bandages from the bracelet and rinsed her hand with water from the jug.  Her arm smarted at every joint; she had probably wrenched something. The girl would probably bring her something for the pain, but Liliana didn’t knock on the door again.

With no windows and thus no sun, it was impossible to accurately judge the passage of time.  Liliana did her best by marking the burning of the candles. It took a taper, what, half a day to burn down?  She didn’t know for sure, having never paid much attention to candles. But it gave her an acceptable approximation.

The girl came when the candles were low, six fresh tapers in one hand and a small step stool in the other.  Carefully, she placed the stepstool under each sconce, lit the taper from the guttering remains of its precedent, and wedged the new taper in the wax of the old.  Liliana watched her curiously. The girl was thin, but it seemed to be more the thinness of a rapidly growing child, not the result of mistreatment. She never spoke.  Her clothing was always impeccably clean, even if it was of poor cloth. She worked quickly, as if she wanted to spend no more time in Liliana’s cell than necessary.

Liliana couldn’t tell if her niceties were having any effect on the girl.  The girl ignored Liliana’s offer to place the new candles and ignored any offer of food.  She didn’t react to praise or to greetings or to thanks, and Liliana quickly stopped speaking to the girl altogether. 

Clumsily, Liliana repaired the holes in her clothing.  She inspected every inch of her cell, top to bottom, even shoving the bed over to the wall so she could see if anything might be found in the crevices at the top of the wall.  Nothing but stone.  

On the second day, by her count, the girl delivered her a book.  Liliana drew some small amusement from the idea that the delay between asking for and receiving something to read was caused by the need to send a Cabal soldier to the market to purchase a tawdry romance.  The book was trite and dull, but it offered her something to do aside from think. Liliana didn’t like being left alone with her thoughts.

Four days had passed before the girl entered and, instead of replacing candles or waiting for Liliana’s direction, motioned for Liliana to follow her.  Two guards in dark armor and helmets that obscured their faces fell in behind them when Liliana and the girl stepped into the narrow, dimly lit hallway.  Their smell suggested they were undead. The air was chilly. Liliana memorized the path the girl led her on--right, up a short flight of stairs, down a wider hallway, take the second left, then the first right.  Aside from the two that followed her, there were no guards, nor did they pass anyone else in the hallway. 

The room they entered reminded Liliana of Innistrad, all black leather and gold.  Animal heads adorned the walls; here and there a goblin or an elf head hung among the beasts.  A chair that could only be described as a tacky, wannabe throne dominated the room. A closed door was behind it, which the girl went and knocked on.

Cabinets and shelves lined one wall, and Liliana went to investigate them.  The guards made no move to stop her, nor did the girl. The wood was ancient and gouged in places, but it doubtlessly had been nice once.  Her father had had a piece like this in the study which she had been forbidden from entering. At the time, it had been stylish. Now, it was a mouldering relic.  Papers were scattered chaotically across the tops of the cabinets, as if they had been in piles that had been violently knocked aside and only half-heartedly restacked.  She picked up a few. Dry reports of troop movements, supply chain reports, bits of espionage, all done in the crisp hand of a professional scribe. She reached to open one of the cabinets.

“Come now, you know it’s rude to pry.”

Liliana started, pulling her hand away from the cabinet door.  She turned, though she didn’t need the confirmation. She knew that voice.

“Josu,” she whispered.

He stood by the chair, resting his hand on its back, looking exactly as he’d looked the last time she saw him.  The day he had died. The day she had killed him. He still had the wan, waxen complexion of the grievously ill, still wore his hair long and loose.  His bloodless lips cracked into a mesmerized smile.

“You haven’t aged a day,” he said, with a tone so joyous Liliana was certain he would be crying were he capable of doing so.  He nodded to the guards, who nodded back and smartly marched out the door, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a something small, wrapped in paper, and handed it to the girl, who smiled and jumped in delight as she unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.  A piece of candy, Liliana realized, staring befuddled. The girl scurried out of the room after the guards.

Josu closed on her, arms raised, and Liliana flinched away and raised her own arms defensively, but he swooped in merely to hug her, trapping her arms between their chests.  He squeezed her painfully tight and she could only make an animal grunt in protest.

“My dear sister!  I never thought I’d see you again!” his said, voice high and excited like a child welcoming home a dog that had run off into the woods.  Liliana pushed, trying extricate herself, and after a moment he relented. His eyes--she’d avoided looking at his eyes, afraid she’d see that same eternal hatred that had so warped him in their last encounter.  When she’d killed him, and he’d tried to kill her in kind. But now his eyes glinted feverishly, pupils wide and stark against the dullness of his skin. He looked her head to toe, then back again, and again. “You really haven’t changed at all.”

“Neither have you,” she replied breathlessly.  She wanted to run from him, from Dominaria, from everything, but he stood between her and the door, and the bracelets blocked her path to another world.  She edged sideways, hopeful she might able to trick him into giving her the space to dart through the door. The guards were doubtlessly just outside, but if she were quick enough…

“I almost didn’t believe Belzenlok, when he said you’d returned.  I asked him, you know, I asked him to call you back so that I could see you.  He didn’t tell me, didn’t tell me you were coming last time, and so I missed you!  I missed you! And he wouldn’t call you, even though you would be such a help. There are plans, you see.”  He turned toward the cabinets and rummaged through the papers there, carelessly knocking some to the ground and treading them under his heavy metal boots.  Liliana sidled toward the door.

“Ha!” he exclaimed and triumphantly raised a paper in his fist.  “Here it is! Let me show you. We have such plans. Such plans!”

She nodded and smiled at him and took careful tiny steps backwards, away from him, toward the door.  The Chain Veil hung inert at her hip, the voices inside silenced, and never before had she craved their cacophony like she did now.  The Raven Man had gotten her into this mess, but she’d even welcome his presence at the moment.  Anything to keep Josu’s manic attention away from her, anything that would allow her to get away.

He followed after her in big, striding steps--he’d always been so tall.  “Come see! Come see!” He waved the paper crumpled in his fist.

“I have plans too,” she said.  Josu talked with the rambling insanity of a ghost, his mind incoherent.  Liliana had known a few liches in her time, people who had taken the unorthodox step of dying to attain immortality.  Liches took special care to safeguard themselves for the dangerous crossing into undeath, but Josu had not had such protection.  Liliana had not meant to kill him, had certainly not meant to raisehim, and she had hoped, after she sparked, that her absence from the plane would cause him to fade and crumble away as the source of his animating energy ran out.  “I need to go. There are things I need to do.”

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head, causing his hair to fall over his face.  “We’re a family, you and I. Brother and sister! You can’t go!”

“I have to,” she insisted, hoping he would not grow angry.  Hoping his insanity was so great he would let her leave if she asked.

He shook his head more.  “We have plans. Belzenlok has plans.  We have to do Belzenlok’s plan and then we can do ours.  Do you remember our plan?”

She did.  The two of them had been inseparable, once.  Born only a year apart and, until little Rosalia arrived six years later, the only children in the house.  Their father had been an old-fashioned man who believed that a man who could not spare his wife and daughters from the evils of war was no man at all, and so Liliana had been forbidden from the military training that occupied most of Josu’s time, despite her keen interest in the subject.  War was not a woman’s domain, according to her father--but healing was, and so a young Liliana had devised a plan. Josu would, of course, become a knight and a lord, the only option available to him. Liliana would learn the healing arts, and in time become a cleric of the Forward Order--not a typical choice for a highborn lady, but one even her father could not countermand.  The Forward Order was storied and pious, and she would be dedicating her life in service to a noble cause. Josu would ride as a knight, Liliana as a cleric, and never would they be separated.

“I remember,” Liliana said simply.  The plan had filled Liliana with rebellious glee throughout her teenage years, but everything had fallen apart when Josu was stricken by his illness and Liliana had, in her folly, listened to the poison advice of the Raven Man.  And then the universe had blossomed before her, and all the hopes and desires of her old life had been abandoned.

“We have plans,” Josu repeated, his eyes roving side to side as if he was trying to remember something.  “Are your quarters comfortable?”

“I could do without these.”  Liliana gestured to the bracelets on her wrists.  “They don't match my outfit.”

“Ha!  Always so clever.  You gave my men a challenge.  They told me, a challenge. You killed Saben and Tibe.  That’s fine. Even in death, one can serve the Cabal. I do.  And so you must wear those. Clever devices, aren’t they? Belzenlok invented them.”

“I don’t remember Belzenlok being the tinkering type.”  She was only a yard from the door now. It opened inward, which was inconvenient.  How best to get it open?

“Very clever, he is.  But you know that, don’t you?  You already know that. Why else did you turn to him?”

“You’re talking in circles.  What do you want?” she demanded.  “You brought me here for a reason.”

His mania seemed to dim, and he nodded.  “I did, yes. I wanted to see you. Belzenlok wants you.  Belzenlok declares you are his, and I must respect Belzenlok’s wishes.  I cannot kill you. I cannot kill you, not yet. But do not worry--I’ll find a way.  I found our sisters, and Father. Mother died before I could find her, and I don’t think I shall find her now.  But you never cared much for her anyway.”

“You killed them,” Liliana said.  She had known her family must be dead; at some point, reveling in the power a planeswalker, it had occurred to her just how much time had passed, and what that must mean for the family she had left behind on Dominaria.  Dispassionately, she had noted that they must all be dead. She had cared little for her younger sisters, all chittering and vapid. Her father she barely saw at all. He scarcely had time for his only son and spared none at all for his daughters, though Liliana had grown up with your father won’t be pleased chasing every action she took.  Her mother was similarly distant, busy with Liliana’s younger sisters or with the challenges of maintaining a house in wartime.  Liliana had not been surprised to find her heart held no grief at their passing.

But that Josu, or at least the twisted undead that inhabited his body, had killed them...the meal she’d eaten rose in her throat, a combination of fear and guilt and disgust and bitter anger.

“I brought them home!” Josu protested.  “I cannot go to them, but I can bring them to me!”  He closed the distance between them again; she backpedaled until her back was pressed against the door.  Her fingers wrapped around the doorknob, but one of his hand grabbed her wrist, while the other cupped her chin.

“Don’t worry,” he said.  “We’ll all be a family again.  We’ll go home, and everything will be like it was.  You’ll see. You’ll see.”

Chapter Text

“No, no, that’s still not right.” Garner squinted and crossed his arms.  “His face is all--it’s moving too slow or too jerky or something. It’s like a puppet.  You’ve seen puppet shows, haven’t you, Barret?”

“I don’t know,” Barret sighed.  He slumped forward over the table, his face in his hands and his fingers at his temples to rub away the headache settling behind his eyes.  The illusion of a Sun Empire warrior covering Ives faded away, and Ives--his revealed face moving properly--smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry, mate.  Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m doing something wrong.  Never used any illusions before.”

“No.  No, it’s something--I can’t quite remember.  There’s a trick.” Barret sighed again and pressed his fingers into his eyes.  “Give me a minute and we can try again.”

“Maybe we ought to give it a break.  We’ve been at this all morning,” Garner said.  He flopped down on the bench next to Barret and took a sip of weak beer from a tin mug.

Barret shook his head.  He could nearly see it--a room, dark at the edges but lit in the center with bluish magelights, with bookshelves floor to ceiling on every wall.  Something spun slowly in front of him, a map perhaps, suspended magically in the air. Someone spoke to him, someone with a deep voice, a man’s voice, authoritative, professorial.  If he could only remember what the words had been, he would know how to make the illusion work, what simple little trick he was forgetting. He concentrated, willing the details of the room to fill in, willing the voice to become clear and form actual words.

But his efforts seemed only to muddle the room, to muffle the voice.  The memory darkened, the room fading into undifferentiated greys. The voice became a dull, wordless roar and merged with the sounds of the sea out the window.

“I’ve almost got it.  It’s just--” He hated how whiny his own voice sounded.

“Let’s take a break.  Go abovedecks, get some sun,” Garner said.  He reached over to jostle Barret from his defeated slump.  “You can huff and puff ‘til you’re red in the face, and you’ll not make the ship go any faster.  C’mon, Barret.”

Barret nodded slowly, and pushed himself resentfully up from the table to follow Garner and Ives out of the mess.  He didn’t like the name Barret. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn’t his name, and it niggled at him like a splinter in his thumb every time someone said it.  It seemed absurd, somehow, that he couldn’t remember his own name and yet could know that Barret wasn’t right--wouldn’t some part of him have to remember what his real name was in order to know what his name wasn’t?  And why then would that part of him not share what it knew? 

Everything was like that.  Everything reminded him of something he couldn’t quite recall.  Despite his efforts, memory remained elusive. A pattern did exist--he remembered how to do things better than he remembered events, and he remembered general knowledge better than he did knowledge specific to himself--but many things, like his name, remained frustratingly out of his grasp.  If he could remember his name, he was certain, he’d remember lots of other things too; names were special, after all, and surely once he held that key, he could unlock his mind from whatever force that fettered it.

He’d made a list.  Barret was wrong, but it felt close to right, giving him a place to start, and he had played with it, changing sounds and swapping letters.  Barrem felt more right than Barret, but in a confusing way.  Barren jarred even more, like two instruments just slightly out of tune--it was so close to being right.

But he had only limited time to work on the mystery of his real name.  Captain Angrath would want to see progress made on deconstructing the binding spell.  Barret despaired at ever truly unraveling it--the more he studied it, the more he was convinced the thing had taken years, if not decades, to write in the first place.  Nevertheless, he would have to produce something sooner or later.

The deck was mostly empty.  With the ship anchored, most of the crew had been given other duties--sharpening swords, taking inventory, cleaning the nooks of the ship that never got cleaned.  Captain Angrath stood with Benji and Parrish at the prow, gesturing sharply towards the white-walled city. His obsession with finding the green captain had, for the moment, taken the focus off of Barret’s attempt to undo the binding spell, but Barret still felt the oppressive force of Angrath’s hope in him.  And now he had another plan, another way to show his worth, if only he could figure out the illusion spell…

Garners and Ives stretched in the sunlight, turning their faces toward the beaming noonday sun like growing plants.  Barret leaned against the railing and stared down into the ocean. Shadows of fish were visible under the calm surface.

“Was thinkin’ ‘bout getting another tattoo,” Garner said.  “There’s this goblin, name of Jeery. That girl at the Crow was showing me some of his work and--”

“You’d trust a goblin to give you a tattoo?” Ives said.

“Did you see it?  On her shoulder?”

“This was the girl seeing how many bottles she could balance on her tits, yeah?  No, I wasn’t looking at her shoulders.”

“Lech,” Garner jibed.  “She had this heron tattoo.  It was gorgeous.”

“Well then, go get a heron tattoo from a goblin.  You’ll look a right old pirate when the infection rots your arm off.”

“Wouldn’t get a heron.  And it won’t get infected.  He does good work.”

“He’s a goblin,” Ives laughed.  He leaned on the railing next to Barret.  “You could get just lines, like Barret. Do they mean anything, Barret?”

“I don’t know,” Barret replied, not looking up.  Something larger moved through the water below--a turtle, he decided after a moment’s study.  An old one.

“Nah, I know what I’m getting.  A phoenix,” Garner said.

“Phoenixes aren’t real,” Ives said.

“Are too.  And it’s a tattoo, who cares what’s real?  I could get a tattoo of you kissing a girl if I wanted.”

“Phoenixes are real,” Barret said.  A memory bubbled up--a bird formed from fire, heat on his skin, rocky ground, an intense urge to cough, a snarling girl with red hair.  “I’ve seen one.”

“Ha!  He’s seen one!” Garner crowed.  “What about a chupacabra?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Barret said distantly, still examining the memory of the firebird and the girl.  They’d been fighting in his memory, but he felt happy and only slightly annoyed to see her face.

“Maybe you call ‘em something different where you’re from.”  Garner pulled off his shirt and turned around so they could see his back.  He had a tattoo on his shoulder blade of some sort of toothy beast; he contorted to point at it.  “One of these, yeah?”

The tattoo was simple, traced in thick black lines and comprising only a few strokes.  Yet Barret found he could imagine what the creature would look like: a gaunt face, halfway between feral dog and human, with long teeth protruding out from under snarling, thin lips and a nearly nonexistent nose.  Strange how so simple a representation could conjure the original. Something stirred again in his mind--not the memory of this creature, but words stated in a deep, authoritative voice.

An illusion should never look like the original.

“He hasn’t seen one because they’re mythological.”  Ives rolled his eyes.

The eyes know when something is too perfect to be real.  A perfect replica paradoxically looks nothing like the original.

“Of course he hasn’t seen one.  Everyone who sees a chupacabra, well, the chupacabra’s the last thing they ever see, right?  But maybe he’s heard of ‘em.”

To fool, an illusion needs to find the distilled essence, the most important features of what it is replicating.

“That’s stupid.  How could they be real?  Supposedly they got teeth made of gold.  You know gold. Soft as shit. Imagine trying to chew your dinner with a mouthful of that.”

You need only create those, and the eyes will do the rest.  Eyes will see what they want to see. Let their eyes do the work.

“I want to try again,” Barret said.  He smiled and brought his hands up to cast.   “I want to try the illusion again. I know--I remembered.”

Angrath stared at Pachatupa.

He’d made and discarded a hundred plans.  They were all the same plan, or variations of the same plan: row in under cover of darkness and blitz through the city, killing all in their path,  until they found the green captain. Sometimes he decided to construct kitesails instead of row. Sometimes they boldly went during daylight. Sometimes he split his raiders into decoy parties to disguise their objective.

It didn’t matter.  None of it would work.  The city was too big, too used to repelling invaders.  A ship he could take in his sleep, but Angrath had never besieged a city.  Plundered dead ones, yes, but that was feeling more and more like poor practice for the task ahead of him.

Maybe he could set the whole bay on fire.

“You’ve been muttering to yourself for an hour now.  Don’t think you’ve blinked this whole time either,” Parrish said.  “Maybe it’s time for a break.”

“Even once we get in, look how big it is,” Angrath said.  “She could be anywhere in there.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘anywhere’.  Maybe a dozen places to check--still a lot, but you don’t keep prisoners like that just anywhere.”

“She could be dead already, too,” Angrath said.  A cloud passed over the sun and the white walls of the city took on a greyish hue.  “If she’s so dangerous they may have just killed her.”

“Could be.  I won’t say it’s not possible,” Parrish agreed.  “But I know you. You’re going to try so long as there’s a chance she isn’t, so no point worrying about it now.  Hello, Hilla. Come to join the brainstorm?”

“I guess,” Hilla said.  Angrath heard her delicate steps coming up behind him.

“You sound unusually unsure of yourself,” Angrath remarked.  He didn’t look away from the city. Any moment now, he would think of the solution.

“Captain?” Hilla asked.  “Can I ask you something?”

Angrath laughed and finally turned around.  “What’s got into you? Since when do you ask so politely?”

 Hilla spread her arms and glanced down at herself.  “How do I look?”

Angrath’s brow furrowed in confusion.  He glanced at Parrish and Benji.

“Like an old bag of bird bones, how you always look.  What, did you get a new shirt in port? It’s very lovely.”  Angrath frowned. “You drunk or something?”

Hilla smiled widely--a strange expression on her face, one he’d never seen on it before--and then it was not Hilla standing before him, but Barret, grinning and rubbing his hands together.

“I figured it out,” he said breathlessly.  “An illusion spell. A disguise. We can look like whoever we want and get into the city.”

Angrath stared, flabbergasted.  Barret’s grin faltered when no one said anything.

“That helps, doesn’t it?” Barret asked tremulously.

“He wants to know if it helps!” Angrath boomed.  “We can just walk in the front door without anyone being the wiser and he wants to know if it helps!”  He chuckled, which turned into a rolling belly laugh that brought tears to his eyes.

“Ignore him.  The sun’s made him loopy,” Parrish told Barret over Angrath’s laughs.  “How many can you do at a time?”

“I’ve only tried with three, but I think I could manage four easily.  Maybe five. Is he going to be alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Angrath laughed.  “Go, everyone--get your weapons, get a rowboat ready.  It’s time we see what the city has to offer us.”

Angrath, Parrish, Hilla, and Barret rowed into the docks under cover of night and stashed their rowboat among the light skiffs the Sun Empire used for fishing.  Alarms would be raised if it were discovered in the morning, but with luck they would be well away before even the earliest fisherman awoke. The docks were empty, even though it was only an hour past sunset.  The hairs on Angrath’s nape rose as they climbed out and examined the edge of Pachatupa.

“Barret--here.  Don’t forget it,” Hilla said, passing him a sword.  Barret’s illusion made her appear human, hid her wings and feathers, yet she remained fundamentally Hilla, grey and sharp.

Barret made a face.  He had changed little--skin a bit darker, face a bit wider, hair swapped for an Empire style and clothing transformed into the armor of a guard.

“I don’t know that I’m very good with these,” he said, examining the scabbard.

“Well, better to have it, just in case.  The basics are easy enough any sop can do it, and with luck you won’t be called on to do anything difficult.”

“Remember--be discreet.  Don’t draw attention to yourself.  I’m talking to you too, Angrath,” Parrish whispered as they began their way up the hill toward the heart of the city.  “You’re not used to subterfuge. Follow my lead.”

“Don’t you be worrying about me,” Angrath said, though he found it hard not to break into a run and whoop and squeal like a mud-covered hog.  They were in the city, stealing in plain sight. Soon he would have the green captain and her secrets. It was enough to make his blood sing in his temples and his hands quiver at his sides.  Soon.

They walked in a loose formation, doing their best to look like a squad of guards on patrol.  The streets were made of well-cut stone, laid expertly so that it was smooth and appeared almost like a single, solid piece.  Fire burned in short pillars at regular intervals, fed from a shallow dish of oil, but while here and there tiny pepeñasaurs rooted through the day’s refuse in search of edible tidbits, people were few and far between.  They came across only two people before reaching the city’s heart, both of whom nodded respectfully towards the small party and scurried past as if in a hurry to be off the street.

“I think the main square is this way.” Parrish pointed down a wide boulevard.  “Nene said it was at the end of a long, wide street.”

"Why're the streets so empty?" Barret wondered.

"Well, they're a respectable people, aren't they, the dinofuckers,” Hilla chuckled under her breath.  “Go to bed when their momma tells them to. Don't stay up all night being disreputable." 

“Don’t care for it much myself,” Angrath said quietly.  “Makes us rememberable, if’n we ain’t supposed to be on the street.”

“No help for it, is there?” Parrish whispered.  “Don’t panic. People rarely remember guards, even when they’re in the wrong place.  Come on.” She led the way down the long boulevard, hugging the buildings on the right side of the street.

“I ain’t panicking.  Just ain’t happy,” Angrath said.  He adjusted the chains hanging invisible on his chest.

The buildings grew taller and more elaborate as they followed the boulevard.  Some of them were painted in warm oranges and rusty reds instead of being left plain white, and most bore carved ornamentation of suns and dinosaurs around their lintels.  Sweet-smelling flowers grew on small, manicured trees set in clay pots. The burning oil lamps gave way to enchanted chunks of amber that glowed with a light like sunlight.  Still, though, there were no people.   

The boulevard rose sharply when they reached the hilly back half of the city, and between the incline and the warm night they were all sweating and panting before long.  They should have brought water along, Angrath realized. It hadn’t seemed important at the time, intent as they were on perfecting Barret’s spell and readying their tools and weapons.  The flask on his belt had only half a mouthful in it, and Hilla and Barret carried nothing at all.

Angrath passed his flask to Barret.  “Here. If you faint, we lose your spell, so you best not.”

“I’m fine--” Barret protested, but Angrath continued without paying him mind.

“Hilla, there’s no one around.  Fly up all discreet-like and make sure we’re heading the way we ought to.  Might be worth looking for a water pump or well or suchlike too.”

“If she’s seen--” Parrish warned.

“Who’s to see her?” Angrath retorted.  “Apparently the whole city goes to sleep at sundown.”

Hilla took off.  Barret’s illusion didn’t crack as she flew, which created an odd sight: a human, flapping their arms and somehow levitating.  Angrath had to chuckle, but he also watched her circling flight with trepidation. The streets were nearly empty, but only a single person needed to look up to raise an alarm…

But he needn’t have worried.  Hilla alighted soundlessly on a nearby rooftop after two large circles.

“I see the square,” she called down as quietly as she could and still be heard.  “Lots of cages with pirates in ‘em. Couple big fountains there too, which is a help.  Don’t see anyone out, not even guarding the cages. Come, it’s not far.”

A dozen more blocks and they were at the square.  It was huge, big enough that Angrath could’ve comfortably parked the Chains in it had he some way of getting the ship from the harbor up the hill.  A trio of large cascading fountains ran down the center of the long square, surrounded by benches and more flowering plants growing from heavy, ornamented stone boxes.  The cages that Parrish’s spies had reported were easily found; they hung at irregular intervals from the walls surrounding the plaza, each stuffed with two or three members of the green captain’s crew.  A few had obviously perished already; pepeñasaurs nibbled at their flesh, bold in the knowledge that the cage’s other occupants hadn’t the strength to shoo them away. The living pirates were gaunt and sunburnt, and had bruises where children had thrown rocks at them.

The cages were woven from green branches and vines and had no obvious door.  Clearly, they were intended to be used only once before being discarded. Angrath pulled his knife out and walked to the nearest cage.

“Keep a lookout, aye?” he asked Hilla.  To Barret, he said, “Go fill up that flask in the fountain.  See if there isn’t something else around we can use to carry water as well.”

“We should come back for them,” Parrish whispered so only Angrath could hear.  “They’ll draw too much attention to us, and they’re not what we’re here for. Better to get the captain first.”

“We might not come back this way,” Angrath said.  “‘Sides, maybe they’ll be a distraction. Give us an opening”

“You’d use them as bait?” Parrish asked.

“I’m willing to give them a chance to free themselves, which is a sight more than they have now.  It’s not up to me what they do with it. If’n they’re stupid enough to be seen with the city as empty as it is, that’s on them.”  Angrath shrugged. “Way I see it, either way helps us.”

He set about cutting apart the vines enough to let the cage’s two occupants slip through.  Parrish drew her own knife and went to the next cage. The vines were fibrous and tough as rope; they didn’t want to break apart under his knife.  After a few tries, he resorted to magic, heating his fingertips and pinching the vine between them until it withered and charred and snapped. Barret returned from the fountain and helped Angrath pull the bars apart, and the cage’s two occupants--two humans, a male and a female--practically fell out when the gap became wide enough.  Freed, they sat on the ground, cowering and looking sidelong at him. They didn’t take the flask when Barret offered it to them, dripping from the fountain.

Angrath looked at his hands, which looked as if they were covered in pale, thin, bald human skin.  Of course. They saw guards coming to get them in the middle of the night.

“We’re with the Coalition, you idiots,” Angrath said.  “We’re in disguise. Where’s your captain?” 

“They took her,” the man said hoarsely.

“Thank you,” the woman whispered, equally hoarse.  She took the flask from Barret and poured water greedily into her mouth, then passed it to her companion.

“Where did they take her?  Do you know?” Angrath demanded.

The man nodded toward a gigantic building to the north and swallowed a huge gulp of water.  “The palace, it looked like.”

“Your captain said she knew how to get to Orazca,” Angrath said.  “She tell you how she knew?”

“She’s got a...well, she calls it a compass.”  The man gestured, drawing out the object’s shape with his hands.  “But it’s like no compass I ever saw. ‘s got a dozen hands that all point different directions.  Like if you combined an astrolabe and a sextant, maybe.”

“Interesting,” Angrath said.  He flipped the knife so he held it by the blade and held it out to the man.  “Get the rest of you out. Your ship’s still in the river. Your longboats are probably still there too.”

“Wait,” the woman said.  “How do we get out of the city?”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?  Nobody’s watching the streets.  You work quick, you can sneak out any door you like.  Hilla! Find us a way up to that building!” Angrath called, pointing to the palace the man had indicated.  To his side, Parrish finished cutting open the second cage, freeing a human and a pair of goblins. The siren that had been with them was dead.

“We need more than just a knife if we’re to survive,” the man said.  “We’ve got no weapons, and people are injured--” 

“Ho!  Strange to hear a starving man complain that his soup’s got no onions in it,” Angrath smiled dangerously.  “I ain’t here for you, matey. I’m here for your captain. You’re on your own. If you don’t like your chances, I can always stuff you back in one of these cages.  Parrish! Barret! Let’s go!”

The palace was the tallest building in Pachatupa.  By the time he was halfway up the stairs leading to its entrance, Angrath wished he had been counting the steps since the beginning of the climb.  It was absurd the way these people built their buildings, though perhaps there was some wisdom to it--any invader would exhaust himself simply getting to the front door.  He dragged himself up the final steps and had to stand a minute, unmoving, while he waited for the blood to return to his legs.

Guards were posted outside the door; though they looked surprised at the appearance of four other guards at this hour, they took no action to stop Angrath and his companions as they entered the building.  Angrath walked quickly and gave only a slight nod of acknowledgement as he passed the guards. People who appeared to be in a hurry were seldom questioned, in Angrath’s experience.

“Where to?” he whispered when they were inside.  The hallways inside the palace were large, their ceilings high to accommodate dinosaurs.  Doubtlessly rare flowers grew out of pots of gold, and murals were carved into the walls, depicting events both historical and mythological.

There was no indication, though, of where a pirate captain might be kept.

“Dungeons are often in the lower levels,” Parrish said.  “We should see if we can find any stairs going downwards.”

“I feel like--” Barret began and then stopped.

“Spit it out,” Angrath commanded.  “It’s no time to be bashful.”

“I feel like she’s this way,” Barret said, nodding towards a hallway leading deeper into the palace.  “But I can’t explain why.”

Angrath eyed the hallway.  It was no better a choice than any of the others, but no worse either.  He shrugged.

“Who wants to see where Barret’s gut leads us?”

They made their way deeper into the palace.  Angrath prompted Barret each time there was a split in the hallways, and Barret, with some hesitation each time, chose one.  The decorations became richer as they went. Gems and gold studded the murals in the wall, which had become yet more elaborate.  The floor became a colored, patterned mosaic, and splashing water could be heard from somewhere out of sight. More guards were present in this direction, though no servants seemed to be about.

“Here,” Barret whispered finally, nodding towards a patterned door flanked by a pair of guards.  “I think--I think it’s here.”

Unlike the others, these guards reacted when they approached.

“The emperor is not to be disturbed,” one said.

“We bring urgent news for the emperor,” Parrish replied smoothly.

“From where?” the other guard asked.  He squinted. “I don’t recognize any of you.  Where do you serve?”

“At--I cannot say.  It is a matter of secrecy, for the emperor only,” Parrish replied, quickly recovering from her slight stumble.  Still, the guards noticed it. They glanced at each other uneasily.

Angrath silently signalled Hilla.

“Nevertheless, he’s asked for privacy.  You’ll have to--” the first guard began, but he never completed his sentence.  Hilla darted forward, and Angrath grabbed the guard as soon as he saw her move.  He clamped his hand over the guard’s mouth and, lacking his knife and lacking room to deploy his other weapons, gathered mana to him and willed the guard’s blood to boil in his veins.  The guard’s eyes grew wide in pained terror and a small noise escaped from his throat, but within seconds he was dead. Angrath lowered the body to the ground carefully so it wouldn’t make noise.

Hilla pulled her long dagger from the eye socket of the other guard.

“Quickly, now.  We haven’t seen no patrols, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” Angrath said.  He pushed on the door, which glided open without a sound.

“I could’ve talked my way in,” Parrish complained quietly.

“Shush,” Angrath cautioned.

The four of them crept into the room.  The door opened into a small antechamber before widening into a grander room.  Three people were present, though none seemed to have noticed the new arrivals.  The night air wafted through the room through two small windows, and doors were visible on either wall.  A man, the emperor presumably, lounged on an upholstered chaise lounge, snacking on nuts from a jeweled, golden bowl and sipping something from a large goblet.  Beside him a woman, who sat stiffly and properly. The third, blindfolded and tied to one of the columns that lined the room, had to be the mysterious green captain.  Angrath grinned.

“--see what you can find,” the man was saying.  “In nature, there’s never only one of something.  Some record, however old, must exist.”

“I am happy to serve, of course, your highness,” the woman said.  “I will speak to our sages. But I have spent my entire life studying the stories of our people, and never have I come across a description that would fit the likes of her.  I do not know every story, of course, but I know most.  I fear there may be nothing to find.”

“Try,” the man said.  “If she holds the key to Orazca, we must do everything we can to learn what she knows and what she is.”  He turned to the woman and opened his mouth to say something further, but in doing so, he spotted the four of them hanging by the door.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” he demanded, standing up in indignation.

“An emperor will have more guards than just those two!” Parrish hissed.

“Just grab her!” Angrath said.  He unhooked his chain from his belt and began to swing it.  The others drew their swords.

“Your highness!  Stay behind me!” the woman shouted.  She jumped in front of the emperor and drew two half-circle, fan-like blades that she held like knuckle dusters.  The emperor yelled for his guards and drew his own weapon from a hidden scabbard by the couch. At the noises, the green captain startled and struggled in her bonds.

“Keep them out of the way!” Angrath commanded, indicating the emperor and the woman.  He ran toward the green captain. The woman moved to intercept his charge; he caught her wrist in his whirling chain and jerked, throwing her off-balance enough for him to dodge past.  He kept running, vaulting the couch, trusting Hilla and Parrish to deal with the woman and the emperor.

“We’re rescuing you,” he told the green captain.  Her hair looked more like giant overcooked noodles than it did rope, he thought.  He dropped his chain and tried to catch her hands to free her bonds. “Only we don’t have much time now, so stop squirming!”

The green captain froze, and he grabbed the rope binding her hands and forced it to burn and char.  Something crashed behind him, and a woman screamed--Hilla? Angrath ignored it, intent on his task.

“You’ve got some sort of compass, they say.  Where is it?”

“He took it,” the green captain said.  Her voice, husky yet mellow, put Angrath in mind of old-fashioned tales of witches luring children to their deaths.   “Heard a door close.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the eastern wall and a door to another room.  

“Angrath!  Let’s go!” Hilla shouted.  Angrath looked over the situation: someone--Barret, certainly--had toppled over a cabinet, blocking one of three doors leading into the room.  Shouts could be heard from people on the other side attempting to force the door open. Parrish had taken off her jacket and used it to tie shut the handles of the door they had entered through.  Hilla bled freely from a cut across her neck, but she still stood, she and Barret having managed to herd the woman into the corner of the room. The emperor, disarmed, stared defiantly at Parrish, trying to bait her into giving him an opening to retrieve his weapon.

Angrath pulled the green woman to her feet.  The green woman pulled the blindfold from her face and blinked unsteadily at the light.

“Which way’s the way out?” Angrath demanded.     

“You’ll never get out of the city,” the emperor laughed.

Angrath picked up his chain and resumed twirling it.  “Don’t recall asking your opinion. Just asking which way’s the way out.”

Before he could grab her, the green woman moved toward the only available door and pushed it open.  Angrath swore and followed her, afraid to lose her in the huge building; Hilla, Barret, and Parrish followed his lead, retreating carefully through the door, keeping their swords pointed at the emperor and the woman, who followed at a distance, still a threat.

Barret threw his weight against the door once they were all through.  “Find something to wedge in front of this.” He gritted his teeth as something thumped into the door from the other side.

The green captain was tearing her way through the small room, knocking things off of shelves and throwing open cabinets.  Searching for her compass. Angrath looked around; the room they were in was small, no larger than his cabin on the Chains.  Its only door led back into the room they had come from.  Cabinets and chests and racks of exotic weapons filled the room; war trophies, from the look of it.

Hilla and Parrish maneuvered a heavy chest in front of the door.  Someone was hammering it from the other side, but the chest held for the moment.

“We’ve got a problem,” Parrish said.  “There’s no way out of here.”

“Here it is!” the green woman gasped.  She pulled something the size of a papaya out of a cabinet and smiled contentedly.

“That’s the compass?”  Angrath asked. The woman nodded, then, seeming to realize she had no idea who Angrath was, clutched the object tightly to her chest, hiding it from him.

“Easy now,” Angrath said.  “I’m a planeswalker. Barret here, he’s a planeswalker too.  All we want is the same thing you do--to get off this backwater.  We can work together, aye?”

The woman nodded uncertainly.

“I know you,” Barret said slowly, studying the green captain.  He smiled a childlike smile. “I’ve seen your face before, I know I have!”

“We need to figure a way out of here,” Parrish insisted.

The green captain’s eyes narrowed and she studied Barret in turn.  Then her eyes widened and her tentacle-like hair twisted in on itself.

“Beleren!  You followed me!” she shrieked.  Her eyes shone yellow; Hilla’s wing snapped up in front of Barret’s face and Hilla hid her own face in the crook of her arm.  Angrath realized belatedly what was happening--gorgons like the green captain could turn people to stone by looking into their eyes.  

The green captain had tried to kill Barret.  Only Hilla’s reflexes had saved him.

Angrath grabbed the green captain and spun her around so her back was against his chest.  One arm pinned her against him; with the other, he clamped his hand over her eyes.

“None of that, now.  We’re trapped in a city full of people who hate us,” he growled into her ear.  “You kill us, how’re you going to get outta here? And we kill you, and we can’t get to Orazca.  We need each other!” To the others, he mouthed find something to cover her eyes!

“You sabotaged me!” the green captain yelled.  She tossed her head from side to side, trying to wriggle free, and dug her fingernails into Angrath’s arm and pulled, opening long bloody gouges in his skin.  Angrath groaned at the pain and squeezed the arm against the green captain’s chest tighter. The pounding on the door increased in volume. A crash as Hilla and Parrish dumped one of the chests over and begin pawing through it for something useful.

“We don’t have time for this!” Parrish said.

“Snap the bitch’s neck and be done with it, Angrath!” Hilla said.

“Just stop!” Barret shouted.  His fingers twitched into an odd shape.

The green captain stopped struggling in Angrath’s arms, and Angrath, without knowing why he did it, let her go.  She slid down against one of the cabinets and sat quietly. Angrath felt strangely tired, as if it would be good if he joined her and they rested for a moment.

Barret, for his part, looked like he might vomit.

“Here--here,” he said, shakily pointing to the wall.  “In the other room, there were windows on this wall, right?  This is an outside wall. If we can make a hole in it, there’s our way out.”

Parrish had found some small tapestry, and was busily cutting it into strips.  “You hear that, Angrath? Knocking holes in things, that’s your specialty.”

Angrath nodded mutely and took his blacksmith’s hammer from its place on his belt.  He hefted its weight contemplatively and then, since he had been told to, smashed it against the wall.  A crack appeared where he’d struck, and a divot of stone fell to the ground.

“Well?  Keep going!” Hilla urged.  She took one of the tapestry strips and wound it around the shallow wound across her neck.  “Sounds like they might’ve found a battering ram of their own out there!”

Parrish took the strips of tapestry and wrapped one around the green captain’s wrists, the other around the green captain’s deadly eyes.  Only they didn’t look deadly now, Angrath thought. Now they were unfocused, and instead of feral yellow they were a pleasant shade of green.

He hit the wall again.  More stone fell away. Barret came up beside him, hefting a mace from one of the piles of foreign weaponry strewn about the small room, and clumsily hit the wall himself.  A bit more stone fell. Previously invisible seams in the wall appeared as the stones forming it shifted under their blows.

A bit of night sky became visible on Angrath’s fifth blow.  Now that it existed, the hole wanted only to grow, and it quickly became large enough that all four of them could work on it at once, then large enough that even Angrath could squeeze through.

Hilla went first, her keen senses alert for any more guards, then Parrish.  Angrath and Barret helped the green captain through; she went quietly, doing exactly as they asked.  Barret slipped through, the compass tucked under his arm, and finally Angrath, exhaling and making himself as thin as he could so he could shimmy through the hole.

“This way,” Hilla said when they were all through.  “I hear shouting that way.”

They ran.  They had emerged from the room into some sort of enormous courtyard on the back of the palace.  Bushes provided them cover. Herbivorous dinosaurs slept here and there under manicured, ornamental trees, and a fake river almost too wide to jump ran down the center. 

The fog cleared from Angrath’s mind as he ran, and he wondered what exactly it was that Barret had done to him.  Barret thought he knew the green captain, and the green captain certainly thought she knew Barret. She had accused him of following her here and sabotaging her.  Had he? He had somehow known how to find her. But though Barret had proven surprising, he’d never seemed nefarious.

They followed the river to the end of the garden, where the river became a waterfall passing through the fence and over the edge. They all leaned over the railing to look at the drop, aside from the green captain, who did not seem to be throwing off the effects of Barret’s command as easily as Angrath.     

“Not too far.  Maybe fifty feet?  How much rope do you all have?” Hilla asked.  She untied the rope wrapped in an X shape across her own torso; between what she and Parrish carried and Angrath’s chain, they spliced together a line long enough for all of them to rappel down.  They tied the line to a post in the fence and tossed it over the side.

“Ladies first,” Angrath said, gesturing to Parrish.  She began to climb, while Hilla flew down. The green captain went next, nodding agreeably when Angrath told her what to do, then Barret.  Angrath waited until they had reached the bottom to begin his own climb, due to his bulk. He could hear the distant shouts of the guards, but they had not yet come close.  Slowed by having to check all the bushes, no doubt. Horns were sounding now, too. They had to hurry out of the city.

When he reached the bottom of the line, Angrath sent up a wave of hot mana to incinerate the rope and slow their pursuers.  His chain fell, and he picked it up and began winding it across his chest again.

“There’s a gate in the walls not far from here.  I saw it on my way down,” Hilla told them.

They ran through the sleeping city, heedless now of making noise.  Guards were posted at the gate, but the gate was open and the five of them were through it before the guards realized what was happening.  They ran through the mazelike streets that made up the poorer outskirts of the city, and at long last spotted the jungle that marked the edge of Pachatupa.  They ran through the trees until the city could no longer be seen, and only then did they stop to recover and figure out their next steps.

“The rowboat will have been discovered,” Parrish said, glancing towards the rising sun.  “We can’t get back to the ships that way.”

“If we wait until nightfall, I can fly back and tell them what happened.  You four can go up the coast to the shoals and meet the ships there,” Hilla said.

“We threatened their emperor.  They’ll be mobilizing everyone they have to find us,” Parrish said.  “I don’t think the shoals are far enough. We could see if any longboats are left on the ship in the river--”

“They’ll expect us to try to get to shore and the ships,” Angrath said.

“And?” Parrish said.  “We have to head back to the ships.  There’s no getting around that. But the pirates we freed, if they got to their ship, they might not have used all the longboats to flee--”

“Where I have to go is Orazca,” Angrath said.

“Don’t be silly.  We’re not equipped to travel overland,” Parrish said.

“Maybe,” Angrath said.  He stood and stretched stiff muscles.  He checked briefly on the green captain, who had fallen into a deep sleep, and then went to where Barret sat, fiddling with the compass.

“Figure anything out with that?” Angrath asked.

“No,” Barret said.

“Well, maybe she’ll be feeling divulgatory when she wakes,” Angrath said, nodding toward the green captain.  “She called you ‘Beleren’. That your name?”

“Jace,” he said shortly.  “My name is Jace Beleren.”

“Nice to meet you, Jace,” Angrath said.  “You sound kinda angry about it.”

“I’m not.  It’s just--I thought I’d remember everything if I could only remember my name.  But I don’t. It doesn’t mean anything. And, she...” he glanced toward where the green captain lay sleeping.  “She tried to kill me. She realized who I was and tried to kill me.”

“You know anything about her?” Angrath asked.

“I know I’ve seen her before.  That’s all.” Barret--Jace--put down the compass and ran his hands through his hair.  “What if there’s a very good reason I can’t remember anything?”

Angrath frowned.  “What d’you mean?”

“What if someone took my memories to...to protect others?  Or what if I couldn’t live with something I did, and did it to myself?  What kind of person was I, that someone’s first reaction to me is to try to kill me?”

“I don’t know.  Plenty of people’s first reaction to me is to try to kill me.  I worked hard to have that kind of reputation,” Angrath remarked with a shrug.  “Sides, maybe she’s a cur. Or maybe it’s something silly, like you used to be lovers and you left her for someone with prettier tentacles and now she’s jealous.  Shit, I once saw a woman run a man through because he’d leered too openly at a barmaid.”

Jace slumped, obviously unconvinced.  “The only thing I remember is...a desert, and thunderstorms.  And I feel like something horrible happened to get me here, and like it was my fault.  Maybe I was following her, and something happened…”

“No use worrying about it now.  You don’t even know if anything happened,” Angrath counseled.  “What we need to be doing now is figuring out how we’re going to outrun a posse of pissed-off dinofuckers.  Don’t suppose you can do that suggestion trick on a whole army?”

Jace shook his head.  “I shouldn’t have done it at all.  I could’ve hurt you. I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

“Well, yes, don’t ever use it on me again,” Angrath agreed.  “But them...probably good for ‘em to get knocked off their pedestals a bit.”

A sound at the edge of hearing pierced his ear.  Birds shrieked in the trees and the ground began to rumble.  Angrath jumped to his feet. He searched for the source of the disturbance, but there was nothing but trees and his companions, all also confused.  The rumble turned into actual shaking, violent enough to threaten his balance.

“It’s just an earthquake!” Hilla shouted.  A dead tree branch, dislodged by the shaking, crashed to the ground and shattered at their feet.

“‘Just’, huh?” Parrish answered.  “We should get to the river!”

Angrath picked up the green captain, who was woozily awakening, and slung her across his shoulder.  Barret stashed the compass once more in his pockets. The ground was too unsteady to run on, but they picked their way through the debris as quickly as they could.  The huge Ichca river was not far from where they’d been resting, only a few minutes’ jogging; by the time they’d reached its banks, the shudders rippling through the ground were already subsiding.  Even so, they waded into the shallows, out from under the trees and the hazard of falling debris.

“Does that happen often around here?” Angrath groused.

“Fairly often, I think,” Parrish said.  “I’ve known a fair number of ex-Sun Empire citizens, and they’ve all lived through one or two.”

“Look at the sky,” Barret said.  “It’s not supposed to look like that, is it?”

They looked.

The sun had turned a baleful red color.  An odd corona of sparkling ruddy light surrounded it, and the sky around the sun was darkening as if blood was pouring out from the sun, blue swallowed up by the spreading stain.

“Any of your ex-Sun Empire friends, they ever mentioned anything like this?” Angrath whispered.

Parrish could only shake her head.

Chapter Text

The sea surrounding White Harbor was the hard grey of cold, deep water.  The town’s docks, crowded with small sailing vessels, were more extensive than the town itself, which sprawled raggedly back from the ocean, a collection of squat wooden structures weathered by the salt and wind.  A crude, incomplete palisade surrounded the town, but the beginning of a stone wall was being erected. Footings were in place, and a group of sweating men were unloading a massive cart laden with stone. The people here seemed as weathered as their buildings.

The buildings on the town’s northern shore were black and ruined--a fire had evidently swept through.  The remains of a huge structure, now only a large pile of blackened wood, sat at the center, and the surrounding streets were dyed black from the runoff of melting snow and spring rains combining with the char.

“What happened there?” Derril asked, nodding toward the burnt-out buildings.

“The Cabal.  What else?” Mikkel snapped rhetorically.

“Mikkel, he doesn’t know,” Naia chided.  The elven squire turned around in her seat to look back at Derril.  “The Cabal surprised us with raids on White Harbor over the winter. They’ve never been bold enough to strike at the town before--we’ve got a garrison here, since it’s convenient, but the town has never needed much protection.  The fishing is good and it’s a useful port, but that’s all it is.”

She pointed to the construction.  “Now that the ground is thawed, we’re working on improving the town’s defenses.  We’d have to pull more knights back to properly guard the town and, well--we’d rather not.”

“What does the Cabal need access to a port for?” Derril asked, his face creasing with worry.

“There’s no invasion coming,” Naia said, shaking her head and smiling reassuringly.  She nodded at a passing watchman as she guided the cart toward the city center. “We keep tabs on their ships.  The majority are still in Urborg. We think it was a desperation raid--they looted the fish factory and the canneries.  They might’ve run out of food.”

“They took captives too,” Mikkel said.  His voice carried no inflection, but Naia winced all the same.

“Yes. They did,” she said.  She laid on Mikkel’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

Quietly, to Derril, Gideon asked, “What use does the Cabal have for captives?”

“The rich ones they ransom,” Derril said with a shrug.  “The rest they take as slaves, for labor or to press-gang into their armies.  Some go to the fighting pits to amuse the Cabal’s court.

“Liliana is wealthy,” he continued, smiling reassuringly.  “They’ll try to ransom her, and she won’t be harmed if the ransom’s paid.  She’ll be fine.”

Gideon nodded absently.  Somehow, he doubted a ransom was the reason for the attack.

Passage to Benalia City was easily found.  A dozen ships regularly made the run, and all ferried passengers as well as cargo.  Gideon found the captain who was leaving soonest and paid for passage--the captain seemed surprised when he immediately paid what was asked, but Gideon found he had no patience to haggle.  They would leave at midday tomorrow; provided nothing delayed the ship, Gideon would arrive in Benalia City exactly on time.

He considered planeswalking somewhere else and attempting to return to Benalia City itself.  Ajani had described the way to the city, but the chance of materializing somewhere even further away than he was now was high, and Gideon knew he should continue as planned.  That he would continue as planned, following the last commands he’d been given.  He could wait, even if he didn’t want to. He wanted to see Chandra and Jace; he wanted to know what had prevented Nissa’s return; he wanted to meet the allies Ajani had promised.  He wanted to see whether Liliana had escaped whatever force had abducted her, or whether he must go after her.

But they would not be in Benalia City sooner because he was there sooner.

He and Derril shared a quiet dinner at an inn near the docks.  Naia and Mikkel, the squires, had unloaded their bags into a rented room before departing to the garrison, so they ate alone.  The inn’s other patrons ate in ones and twos, as silently as Gideon as Derril. The chairs and tables were crude and seemed to be made of scavenged ships--scratched paint and varnish made an irregular, map-like pattern on the table top.  The food was similarly coarse, mealy bread and a watery fish stew that tasted intensely of dill. Derril’s expression said he didn’t care for it any more than Gideon did.

“I don’t usually stay here,” Derril admitted.  “It’s closer to the docks, but the Lavender up the hill is run by a friend of mine.  Still--” he leaned back, winced, and laid a hand over his injured abdomen “--being closer to the docks might be convenient, on this occasion.”

Gideon nodded and chewed the last of his bread.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out Liliana’s coin purse.  It was lighter after booking passage to New Benalia, and he’d secreted a handful of coins to pay for anything else he might need on his voyage, but it still contained a good sum.

“I wanted to give you this,” he said.  “So you can buy a new boat.”

Derril took the purse and weighed it in his hands.  His eyebrows raised. “This’ll buy more than a boat.”

“Don’t say you can’t accept it,” Gideon said.  “I--We didn’t mean to, but we put you in danger.  Let me make it as right as I can.” He thought of Derril’s young daughter and toddling son and how close they came to being orphaned.  Derril’s injury so easily could have been fatal. It would have been, had the knights of Benalia not been so close.

Derril’s hand curled around the purse and he put it in a pocket on the inside of his jacket.  “Thank you. And I’ll keep an eye out for Liliana, on my way back.”

“Don’t put yourself into danger.  But thank you.”

Gideon rarely had cause to travel by ship, but he’d never liked it.  It was too confining; he was constantly in the way on the deck, so he stayed in his small quarters for the most part, either laying on the narrow, thin-mattressed bed or pacing back and forth to the extent the tiny room allowed until his hip began to cramp.  Muscles always had a tendency to cramp for a few days after they’d been magically repaired.

He had slept so much in the past weeks that now it seemed he could barely sleep at all, and he had few other ways to pass the time.  His restlessness, already growing on the ride to White Harbor, became almost unbearable. He wanted to run, to climb, to move, to sweat until even that last chill deep in his chest was banished--but he was stuck inside the little cabin.

He remembered winters in Akros, sitting with his mother before the hearth in their little home while a blizzard blew down the mountain, begging to be allowed to go outside.

And what will you do outside, Kytheon Iora? his mother had snapped, growing impatient with her unruly child.  Your feet will freeze to the ground, and then how will you play?   He hadn’t had an answer, or at least he no longer remembered what he had told his mother, but he had kept begging and eventually she relented and told him to go outside, then, if he was so desperate.

His innate shield had been a help against the wind, but not the cold.  The snow had piled in the street up to his chest; it melted against his warmth and soaked into his clothing.  How old had he been? Five? Six, perhaps? Old enough to stay outside until his teeth chattered and his bones ached, defiant after working so hard to be allowed to go out.  Young enough that he began to cry when he returned inside and his mother scolded him and made him take off his wet things before he could sit again by the fire.

He lost himself in remembrance.  It was better than letting his thoughts chase themselves ceaselessly, his mind emulating the movement his body could not make.  In prison, he had been too exhausted to ever be restless. He wondered if Hixus still ran the prison in Akros. It had been, what, a decade since he had left Theros?  Hixus had not been a young man, but he would not be so old now that he would have retired from his post. Gideon had never returned to his birth plane, but he wondered now if he might want to, to visit Hixus.  To talk about the things he’d seen, the things he’d done. To thank the man, for what wisdom he had managed to force a young Kytheon to understand. To see what wisdom an older Gideon might be ready to understand now.

Eventually, he turned toward his and Liliana’s packs.  He knew some of what she had packed, having seen her do it and having dug through them quickly to find the coin purse, but much of the work had been done while he slept.  His own pack contained little of interest: a second set of clothing; his armor, the breastplate unusable due to the hole Bolas had left in it; a straight razor--Jace’s, he was fairly certain, not his--with a small travel strop but no soap.  Food for traveling: crackers, cured meat, hard cheese. The remains of the money: a few dozen small, silver Dominarian coins and ten golden Ravnican zinos.

In her own pack, Liliana had managed to store four different outfits, including a second set of boots, and a small vial of perfume that smelled strongly of lavender and almonds.  More interesting were the pair of books. The first was clearly expensive, with vellum pages and hand-illustrated diagrams both magical and anatomical. He glanced only briefly at the magical ones, not knowing how to interpret their looping, intertwined shapes.  The others showed bodies--human, elven, goblin, merfolk. Some were drawings of only bones. Some showed musculature, others mana pathways, others organs. An unnaturally blue eye was drawn in cross-section, as were teeth, with additional views from both the top and side.  Liliana had made notes on several pages in a slanted script--at least, he assumed it was her hand. With some effort, he worked out the stylized calligraphy of the book’s title: Anatomy, a Reference for Healers.

He didn’t bother trying to read any of its contents.  His mother, Meletian by birth, had done her best to teach him, scrawling out letters on the wall with the end of a blackened stick for him to copy, but there had never been time nor money enough to teach him true mastery over letters, like Jace or Liliana had.  It had been important to his mother, but Akroans had little patience or use for the written word.

The other book was cheap, printed on rough, flimsy paper, the text cramped so badly the lines nearly ran together.  The Mysteries of Precinct Six.   A slip of ribbon halfway through marked where Liliana had been reading.

Shivering, he put the books back with a sigh.  He hoped he would find her waiting in Benalia City and return it to her.  There was nothing he could do but hope.  

Benalia City shot up from the ocean like a cliff, its towering buildings seeming to rise from the sea itself.  In the noonday sun, it hurt his eyes to look directly at the white stone that made up much of the city. Pristine and proud, the city seemed to glow as if it itself was another sun, brought to the ground and moulded into walls and spires.  People scurried about in the dockyards and streets, dark and dull by comparison, looking like millions of little black ants crawling across a skull. Even from here, Gideon could see how crowded the city was.

He disembarked gladly.  The sun’s heat was a welcoming embrace and the sights of the city provided diversions to a mind that had been woefully understimulated of late.  The docks were a mess of activity; people ran, shouting, coordinating the unloading and loading of cargo, the coming and goings of ships. Fishermen walked by, carrying lines heavy with shining fish.  Merchants clamored for the attention of passengers, selling street food and newspapers and trinkets.

A mass of people waited by the gates into the city: refugees, by the look of them.  Some, like Gideon himself, sported obvious disabilities, leaning on crutches or using crude mechanical devices in place of missing limbs.  Many were gaunt, underfed and pale, and carried no possessions aside from the clothes on their backs. A wall encircled the city, starting some ways back from the dockyards, and a colorful shanty town of makeshift tents and huts clung to the outside of the wall, the temporary homes of those who had not yet managed to make it inside the city or who had been turned away at the gate.

He hefted his bags in his good hand and joined the crowd at the gates.  The line moved in fits and starts, at times stagnating for a half hour, at other times moving at a brisk pace.  Gideon couldn’t tell what controlled the flow at the gate. Guards ventured up and down the line, pulling out groups--pregnant women and those with infants or very small children, those nursing obvious injuries--to take to the head of the line.  One approached Gideon, but he waved the man on. He could endure; he didn’t need special consideration.

The guard saluted with a weak smile.  Gideon returned the gesture.

Two hours after leaving the ship, judging by the city’s bells, he reached the gate.  After explaining he had not come seeking shelter, merely to meet with a friend, he was quickly waved through, given a small blue chit and vague directions on how to get to the Twin Bells Inn.

Inside the walls, Benalia City was somehow impossibly more crowded than outside, a glut of people that reminded Gideon of the livelier districts of Ravnica.  He wove his way through the crowds, thankful that his height mostly stopped people from jostling his injured arm, stopping here and there to double-check his directions with the boisterous criers stationed at nearly every corner.

The Twin Bells was in a less crowded area, near the city center and well away from the dockside gate.  People could walk without running into each other, and the shops, streets, and people were all better kept, orderly and clean compared to the roiling near-chaos at the edges of the city.  The inn itself was a beautiful thing, a four-story building sitting at the head of a square, constructed of dark timber and white stone, with a large stained glass window of a pair of ringing bells sitting above its main door.

Gideon took a heavy breath, and entered.

The common room was massive, the ceiling hanging twelve or fourteen feet above the floor and boasting delicate, ornately carved chandeliers lit with magelights.  Several small groups of people sat together at tables, waited on by an elven lad, but to his discomfort Gideon recognized none of them.

He approached the gray woman manning the bar and explained who he was looking for; to his relief, she nodded and told the elven boy to go fetch Mr. Goldmane.

Gideon set down his bags and ordered a glass of water from the gray woman.  He held it in his left hand; his right, in its sling, unconsciously clenched against his chest.

Noise on the stairs pulled his attention--Ajani, his long legs taking the wide stairs two at a time.  He was alone. Gideon told the thrill of ice in his chest that that did not mean anything. He wished he had Liliana’s sour certainty to bolster his own wavering conviction.

“My friend!” Ajani greeted him with a smile and an encompassing hug, great cat paws thumping affirmingly on Gideon’s back.  Gideon smiled back, but he pulled away quickly, desperate for information.

Still, it was Ajani who spoke first.  “Surely it isn’t just you?” His brows furrowed and his one eye darted around the room, searching for where the rest of the Gatewatch hid.

“No one else is here?  Gideon asked, forcing his words out through a sudden breathlessness.

“Only those I invited.”  Ajani shook his head slowly, and Gideon sat back down in his chair, reaching mindlessly for the glass of water to wash away the lump in his throat.

No Chandra.  No Jace. No Nissa.  No Liliana. It didn’t mean anything, not yet, he tried to assure himself.  There was still time for them to arrive. Perhaps they too had been waylaid.

“You’re injured,” Ajani noted.  His brow furrowed. “Has something happened?”

“Do you have a room?” Gideon asked.  He didn’t want to have this conversation in the open.  He didn’t want to have it at all.

Ajani took his bags, and Gideon followed him up two flights of stairs to a large corner suite which contained a pair of beds, generously sized for the leonin’s proportions, and doors to a balcony, as well as a bathroom and a  small closet where Ajani’s axe rested, leaning against the wall. Ajani deposited the two bags next to his axe, then bade Gideon to sit and helped him remove his shirt so that Ajani could examine his shoulder.

“It was my fault,” Gideon began.  It was not how he intended to start his recounting of the events of the past month, but it tumbled from his mouth before anything else could.  “After you left, we decided to go to Amonkhet, to see what we could learn. It all got out of control. I let it get out of control.”

Ajani pulled his gaze away from the wound in Gideon’s shoulder, his expression alarmed.  Gideon began again, falling into a monotonous retelling: recounting Amonkhet, the strange ritual of the Trials, the paradoxical existence of the gods.  Bolas’s sudden arrival, and the carnage that followed, gods and children slaughtered alike, the Gatewatch powerless through it all, able to provide only the merest shadow of cover for the fleeing Amonkhetu.  Their forsaken confrontation with Bolas--Jace screaming; Liliana fleeing; Chandra broken and collapsed; Nissa entombed by the very elementals she called; himself, impaled upon Bolas’s claw. Finally, he told of the weeks he had spent on Dominaria: Nissa leaving and not returning, the ambush at the river, Liliana’s disappearance.

Ajani listened without comment; Gideon could not bring himself to look at Ajani’s face and see what reaction his tale engendered.  He started resolutely at the center of the cross in the window, unblinking, cold and numb to everything. Warm magic intruded, spreading up and down his arm from Ajani’s investigative spell and the gentle pressure of his fingers.

When at last Gideon ran out of things to say, Ajani spoke quietly, gently.  “You said Liliana healed this? She did an admirable job. A more experienced healer would have left less scarring, but this was a grievous wound.  I would not have thought her capable of repairing it.”

Gideon nodded automatically, his eyes still fixed unseeing on the window.  “I would have died without her.” It was not a thought he had voiced yet, not even one he had consciously realized, and the realization brought home how disastrously he had failed on Amonkhet.  He could have died; all of them could have died.  Some of them might have; Chandra was not here.  Jace was not here--

Ajana placed his paw over the raised scar on Gideon’s chest and wove a spell; something twisted and then snapped audibly in Gideon’s shoulder with an uncomfortable but not painful sensation, akin to the unpleasant rush of blood back into a limb after the circulation had been cut off.  The sensation of heat returned to his fingertips and he flexed his hand experimentally. It still felt off, his fingers responding unevenly to his desire to move them, and his grip was weak.  But the omnipresent tingling had lessened.

“It will take some time for the scars to weaken their hold, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong that can’t be fixed.  There is a market nearby; I will have time to stop in the morning and see if they have something to soften the scars,” Ajani said.  He stood and offered Gideon a hand up. “There is a tub in the bathroom. You can wash off the grime from the road. I’ll get supper for us from downstairs.”

“We have to--” Gideon protested, though he didn’t complete the sentence, unsure of what he and Ajani needed to do.  What could they do? If Chandra didn’t come, if Jace didn’t come--

“In good time,” Ajani said, his deep voice quiet.  “There is nothing to be done about it now.”

Gideon swallowed.  “I’m sorry.”

Ajani frowned.  He gently pushed Gideon toward the bathroom.  “Go. Clean up. I will have food brought to us.”

The copper tub was huge, sized for people of Ajani’s height, and took up wholly half of the floor of the bathroom.  It was nearly large enough that Gideon could’ve used it as a bed. A sigil on the wall, when touched, caused the tub to fill rapidly with hot water.  A small window high on the blue-tiled walls prevented steam from building up; it opened automatically when the room grew foggy from condensation.

Gideon disrobed, leaving his clothing in a pile on the floor, and climbed in.  A patina of dirt floated on the water where he entered--dust from the road, salt from the ship, and the grime the body accumulated day-to-day.  He swept it away with his good arm, chasing it under the water.

Ajani was right; there was nothing to be done now.  Leaning his back against the side of the tub, Gideon tried to let the heat relax tense muscles and fight back the chill in his chest, tried to let the distant patter of people and horses outside lull his mind into silence.  It didn’t matter that the rest of the Gatewatch wasn’t here yet. They would come soon. There was still time. They might already be outside, looking up at the inn’s huge stained glass window, climbing the stairs to Ajani’s room…

They weren’t dead.  They couldn’t be.

He had not realized how much he had come to depend on Liliana’s mirthless, mocking reassurances.  She had rolled her eyes every time he asked whether Chandra or Jace had arrived at Leta’s little inn, her exasperation at his questions obvious even if she never spoke it: of course they’re on their way, you great lummox.   As they planned the journey to Benalia City, it had been an unspoken assumption that the rest of the Gatewatch would be making their way to the city too.  It was absurd to believe otherwise.

Or at least, it had felt absurd with Liliana at his side.  Now, he wondered why he had ever believed that the Gatewatch would be waiting for him.  So foolish, persisting in denial because he was not strong enough to face the truth.

He could not continue in a world where Chandra’s death was his fault.  The idea of a multiverse without Chandra’s playful warmth, without Jace’s keen insight, one where he himself had extinguished their lights...it could not be borne.  Already he was responsible for Drasus, for Olexo, for Zenon, for Epikos; for the lives he had failed to save on Zendikar, wasted on poor planning or distraction; for the citizens of Naktamun, whose apocalypse he could not avert.  It was too much; it had been too much when it was only the Irregulars.  Every action he took seemed only to increase a load already far too heavy.

Then why did you charge?  Why did you urge them on to destruction?  Was your first folly not enough of a lesson?

He had no answers.  He rested his head against the hammered copper of the tub, too tired, too numb, too overwhelmed even to cry.

A knock on the door.  Soft, but Gideon startled all the same, causing water to slosh against the sides of the tub.

“Are you alright?” Ajani asked from the other side of the door.  “Your food will be cold soon.”

“Yes,” Gideon answered.  How long had he sat in the tub, feeling sorry for himself?  The water was nearly cold, his fingers pruned, but he felt as if barely any time had passed.  He hadn’t even washed his hair yet. “In a moment.”

He took a deep breath and let himself sink under the surface to wet his hair.  Water pressed against his nostrils; he remembered the searing pain of muddy water flooding his sinuses as Ob Nixilis held his face down in the muck until he had no choice but to inhale.  He remembered the river, not-Ajani’s heavy paw holding him under the water. Drowning him, as punishment for his crimes. Vengeance, for those Gideon had, in his arrogance, led to their deaths.

With a gasp, Gideon surfaced and pushed wet hair back from his face.  He groped left-handed for soap and clumsily set to soaping his scalp. It had been nothing but visions, dementia magic.  None of it real, all of it meant to disorient him. A cruel trick by dishonorable mages. Still, it had seemed real, and in his mind’s eye he could see masked faces accusing him, Drasus’s head caving in.  The burning stench of charred flesh, boiled blood. Even the memory of the smell was enough to make him retch.

He lurched to the side of the tub to vomit onto the floor.

“Gideon?  Can I come in?” Ajani asked, in a tone that suggested he might come in regardless of the answer.

“Yes,” Gideon answered weakly.  There was no reason to say no. The door opened.  He hung over the edge of the tub, coughing to clear the last of the sick from his throat.  Water and soap dripped from his hair to mix with the vomit. He’d barely eaten today. There wasn’t much.

“I’m fine,” he insisted.  “I just felt nauseous. The soap smell...I haven’t eaten today.”

Ajani considered him.  “You look like you need to rest.”  He picked up a towel and dropped it over the mess.

Gideon nodded, then pushed himself back into the water and dipped his head back to wash out the soap.  Ajani handed him another towel when he climbed out, and Gideon dried his hair as best he could before wrapping the towel around himself.  He left his dirty clothes where they lay; he should’ve pulled out the clean ones before taking a bath, but he hadn’t been thinking.

In the main room was a table and chairs.  A neat stack of dirtied dishes was all that remained of Ajani’s dinner; Gideon’s lay across from it.  A plate of meat and vegetables and some sort of sauced grain, a small bowl of soup, a mug of something that smelled herbal.

“Would you like me to see if the kitchen can reheat that?” Ajani offered, but Gideon shook his head and began to eat.  His fingers were so waterlogged that he felt like he was wearing mittens as he gripped his fork. He must have sat in that bathtub for an hour, at least.  How long, he wondered, would he have had to sit there before he dissolved?

He ate slowly, not having much of an appetite after being sick.  The food was likely good, or had been when it was hot, but it seemed to him flavorless.  From time to time, he caught Ajani watching him, inspecting him as if for some flaw, and each time Gideon looked away quickly, swallowing away a guilt that would not stay dead.

“Grief is a strange emotion,” Ajani began when Gideon pushed his plate away, unable to force himself to eat any more.

“I suppose so,” Gideon said.  He didn’t want to talk, but Ajani continued.

“It feels, at times, like it has a physical existence, independent of our own bodies.  People talk about the heat of anger or the jolt of surprise, but it is grief, I think, that feels most tangible.”  His fingers absently traced the edges of the white, Bant-stitched cloak he always wore.

“Whose was it?” Gideon asked, nodding toward the cloak.  It was plainly not originally Ajani’s, being far too small for him, and Gideon had wondered in the past who its previous owner was.  He found, now that he had cause to ask, that he didn’t care. He asked to be polite. To head off a conversation he didn’t wish to have with one he would find more tolerable, if only just.

“Her name was Elspeth,” Ajani said, saying the name like it was a talisman, a charm he held close to his heart.  “We...traveled for a time, together. The details aren’t important. But she came, in time, to hold a heavy grief in her heart, and this grief led her to recklessness.  I was too slow to save her. I didn’t realize how heavy her burden was, or what she might do to relieve it.”

“I’m sorry,” Gideon said automatically.

“It might not have mattered either way.  There were...other forces at work. Betrayals I did not foresee.” Ajani waved his paw, a dismissive motion, and sighed heavily, steadying himself.  “In the end, it matters not. What I could have done matters only inasmuch as I know better now. That is the only debt we owe the dead: to learn, and do better.”

Words that could have helped, if Gideon had had something to learn.  What did defeat at Bolas’s hands teach him that he had not already learned?  Some part of him knew, even as he gave the orders, that the orders were wrong.  He had been angry, and he let his anger overrule his reason. He had refused Jace’s consul, ignored the warning signs, barged ahead with no plan, no strategy, trusting righteous fury to deliver victory.  It didn’t, of course. It never did. Passion was easy; discipline was the key to victory.  Control.   He knew that.  He’d known that since he was a child.

He’d known it, and he’d run headlong into the fight like an incensed drunkard all the same.

The reddish light of sunset through the window faded into the yellow glow of street lamps, and a bell somewhere tolled eight.  Ajani stood and came to rest a paw on Gideon’s shoulder.

“It is still a bit early, but we should rest.  I had planned to meet with everyone tomorrow, and you’ve been traveling,” Ajani said.  “Let us see what tomorrow brings us.”

The paw on Gideon’s shoulder tightened.  Doubtlessly, Ajani meant it to be reassuring, but all Gideon could think of was the Returned in the river holding him under.

Ajani slept soundly, so far as Gideon could tell, purring gently in his sleep, but sleep did not come so easily to Gideon.  It was too cold with no fire, and it was too quiet, with only Ajani’s soft breathing and the intermittent creaking of wood when someone padded softly by in the hallway.  Futilely, he tried to match his breathing with Ajani’s, to force himself to sleep, but his thoughts would not quiet and the tight muscles in his jaw would not loosen.

When the distant bell tolled eleven, he rose and went to paw through his bag for his clothes.  As a healer, Ajani might be right to call for rest, but Gideon judged he had rested too long already.  He needed to move, even if it was just to walk around the city.

He didn’t know what he would say if Ajani woke and asked what he was doing.  It didn’t matter--Ajani remained asleep, and Gideon slipped out of their shared room into the cool spring night.  He remembered the last time he’d wandered a city to fill some nameless need, a month and a lifetime ago on Amonkhet.

He would find no Oketra here.  She was gone, her godsblood mingling with that of her subjects to soak into the dust of Naktamun’s ruins.  He had felt no devotion to the gods of his birth for over a decade now; they were a plane away besides and could not hear his prayers.  And they were unlikely to offer succor even if they could hear him.

But still, he wanted to pray.  He wanted the ritual of it, the proscribed steps, the certainty of each action.

Iroas cared not for prayers; the clash of battle was his hymn, the exultation of victory his benediction.  He had a few songs, marching songs, but no one aside from the Stratians ever sung them. Gideon had learned a few before he had been expelled from the Akroan army, but he could barely remember them now.  His mother had sung for Karametra and for Heliod, softly to herself while she cooked or repaired the latest rip in his clothing. He remembered the melodies. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever known the words.

The city was relatively quiet, compared to the hubbub of the day.  From a few buildings came the sounds of raucous inebriation, music, parties, but the streets were mostly empty.  Gideon wandered, looking through lit windows as he passed. Here, a group of tired workers drank mostly silently. There, elves listened rapturously to a harp.  Young people danced and cavorted. A restaurant fed those still hungry at this hour.

He entered a tavern at random.  This one was lively, its tables packed with loud chatter and laughter.  A crowd in the back cheered as they watched a pair of knee-high granite elementals fighting in a small wooden ring; bets were being taken, and the cheers turned to dramatic groans of disappointment when one elemental knocked off the head of the other.

He eased his way through the crowd to the bar and handed the barman one of the Dominarian coins; this got him a serving of thick soup, a slice of heavy bread, and a flagon of dark beer.  He ate quickly, suddenly ravenous, and took the flagon to watch the fighting.

A new elemental had been placed in the ring; it had a smear of green paint on its forehead.  The previous round’s winner had a red smear, and one of its arms terminated at the elbow, the rest having been pulled off by its previous opponent.  It limped to the side, its left leg cracked. Its summoner, an elven man with dark hair and twisting scar running down his arm, was trying to repair the damage, but already he was being pulled out as the crowd chanted for the next round to begin.

The fighting began.  The elementals fought like elementals: mindlessly, with all the artistry of rabid animals.  A bookie elbowed Gideon, encouraging him to bet, but Gideon waved him away. Already it was clear that the green elemental, undamaged, would win.  Without strategy, no other outcome was possible, and the red elemental was incapable of strategy.

He finished his beer as the green elemental ripped the other arm off the red one and tackled it to the ground, beating it until its animating energy gave out and it became a pile of rock.  The crowd seemed to enjoy the show; the dark-haired elven controller made a show of grief, collecting the pieces of his former elemental and shaking his fists at the ceiling and at the other summoner.  Gideon wondered whether the whole thing was a show, or whether the crowd just delighted in the mindless savagery.

He turned away to head back into the night.  The Iroan Games, now--those, he had loved as a boy.  He and his friends had enacted their own Games out in the fields outside the Foreigner’s Quarters, making swords from sticks and shields from vaguely circular rocks.  Even as a child, he’d understood the art of fighting. Poets had alliteration and meter and rhyme; painters had light and color. Fighting had feints and parries, chokes and locks, takedowns and reversals.  It had always made sense to him; he would win every match of the Games out in the fields, until the others made him sit out so they could have a turn on the stone they’d dubbed the podium. It had come as easily to him as walking.

Had.   He clenched his fist in its sling.  Minor, compared to what it could have been, and still healing.  Ajani seemed certain the injury could be fully repaired. But what would he do when it was?  Charge the dragon again? 

Singing distracted him, a clarion voice cutting through the other noise, and he followed it--what else was he to do?--to a building whose architecture did not match its surroundings.  Too large, too refined to blend with its neighbors. It put him in mind of a Theran temple, and he walked inside, curious. The building had no door.

Like the inn, the building was high-ceilinged, made of bone-white stone, with massive stained glass windows wrapping around the entirety.  They seemed to tell a story; Gideon examined them, trying to discern their meaning. A woman crowned with a halo and surrounded by angels, holding between her hands a small, luminescent globe.  A man with gemlike eyes and a cruel aspect, holding fire in his fist. A tomb with a mob of weeping angels surrounding it, each placing a hand on a white casket.

At the center of the building a small fountain burbled, only an inch deep.  Four little bridges arched over the water, and the center of the fountain was a raised platform with an ornate stained glass podium showing a knight hovering proudly over a white city.  An angel stood at the podium, singing; her voice filled the space and echoed throughout the mostly empty cathedral, doubling back on itself so it seemed as if the angel comprised a full choir by herself.  Benches fanned out from the fountain in a star shape. Despite the late hour, there were still a few people sitting, listening to the angel sing.

The place did not feel special.  It felt loved , but it did not have the heat of divinity that Gideon had felt in the presence of Oketra, or even Heliod.  A place of worship, surely, but for a god too distant or too dead to care what its worshippers did. He sat anyway, feeling somewhat silly.  He did not know if there was some protocol, some ritual. The other people here seemed only to sit and listen to the singing angel.

“‘And the man wept, for in the darkness came the light of divinity, and he knew that there would be peace at last’.” A woman’s voice pitched low so only he could hear.  Without asking, she sat beside him, almost uncomfortably close. Her smile was alluring, almost wolfish in its hunger, her eyes dark with shadow. A wave of sweet scent engulfed him when she pushed her hair back to better display how low her dress was cut.  “I haven’t seen you here before.”

She was…incongruous.  He couldn't help but frown.

"It's my first night in the city," he said. 

"It must not be going well, then." She stuck out her lips in an exaggerated pout. "Poor thing. What brings you here?" 

He shrugged and turned his gaze back towards the singing angel. 

"Oh, come on."  She bit her lip and playfully batted his knee. "Everyone who comes here wants something, even if it's just a place to rest their feet." 

"I don’t think I want what you want" he said, leaning away from her.

She laughed, a thrilling sound that joined the echoes of the angel’s song. She was beautiful, in much the way Liliana was: her features were unreal, almost too perfect, like a statue carved by a master artisan; her beauty invited study, not ardor. 

"I want only to do my job: to locate the lost, and bring them home," she said.  She leaned close, trying to whisper in his ear, but he twisted so he was facing her, resting his bent knee on the bench as a buffer. 

"You work for the temple?" he asked, doubtful.

Her smile widened. "I work for a temple, yes." 

The bell overhead rang a solemn, solitary note.  

“Does she answer you?” the woman asked, nodding toward the stained glass window of the haloed woman.  Her face was suddenly serious, the coquettish cant to her lips drawing into a look of study. “When you pray?”

She continued without waiting for his answer.  “She never answered me. How could she? A dead god cannot answer prayers.  I don’t understand why anyone prays to her.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked.

“To show the lost another path: another god, all-powerful and eternal, who loves his children and showers them with gifts.  Who listens to their prayers and slaughters their enemies. A god deserving of worship.” She laid her hand lightly on Gideon’s wrist.  “You look like a man who has been let down before. My god will not disappoint you.”

Her hand moved to entwine with his own, and something small and cold pressed into his palm.  Automatically, he took it. She withdrew her hand and stood, bending over to whisper in his ear.

“If you want to know more, that will show you the way.”  Her lips brushed the skin next to his ear, the ghost of a kiss.  And then she turned and walked briskly away, disappearing into the darkness of the night.

He examined the thing she had handed him.  A small coin, no bigger than an olive. Both of its faces were flat and plain, but when he held it between thumb and forefinger he saw images: a building, one in this city judging by the architecture; the woman, smiling; a winding path out of the city that carved across land and sea to a dark tower.

And in his mind he heard a single name: Belzenlok.

Chapter Text

The vatha sample didn’t feel metallic at all; it slipped through Chandra’s fingers like fine satin, heavy and so smooth it felt almost oily, deliciously cool.  It didn’t heat even when she held a small flame under it to see how it handled fire. She ran the handkerchief-sized square through her hands again and again, marveling at the liquidity of the metal.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” her mother said.  “Only invented a few years ago. I’ve never worked with it before, but I’ve always wanted an excuse.  Here, let me show you something.” She took a mango resting on her workbench and wrapped it in another of the vatha sheets, then hefted one of her larger hammer, gave Chandra a mischievous smile, lowered her goggles, and brought the hammer down on the vatha-covered fruit.  Even knowing the ringing clang was coming, Chandra flinched; sparks flew off where the hammer struck, but when her mother unwrapped the mango and handed it to her, it was unharmed.  She ran her fingers over its skin. Completely unblemished, unbruised.

“It’s excellent at kinetic dispersal.  They’re hoping to use it in the manufacture of cruisers, though of course it’s too expensive right now.  One of Oviya’s friends, her son Pranav is opening a factory to produce it. These are some of his test samples.”  Pia took off her goggles and protective gloves and considered the vatha square. “It’s difficult to get right, he says.  He has an entire team of inventors working just to make a device for regulating the temperature of the aether bath. Tolerance of less than a hundredth of a degree to get it to crystallize right, he said.  It’s supposed to be easy to work with once it’s stabilized, though.”

“It’s amazing.  You could practically make underwear out of this and not know the difference,” Chandra said.

“Good.  I’m glad you like it.  I’m on the list to get part of Pranav’s first shipment, and then we’ll make you a set of armor that will make you the envy of the entire multiverse,” her mother said with false pomposity.  “They’re racing to get everything ready. The first shipment should be less than a month away.”

“How much is it?  I can buy the materials.  Or...some of it, probably.”

“Don’t worry about it,” her mother said, waving away Chandra’s concern.  “Let’s call it twelve years of missed birthday presents.”

“I’m serious, mom,” Chandra insisted.  “Like you said, I’m your ‘adult’ daughter and I know I don’t have a traditional job that pays, like, money, but I’ve got some, and I can figure out how to get more, and you shouldn’t have to just buy me everything--”

“Let me do this, please,” Pia said.  “I want to. It will be enough to know my little girl is safe--safer--out there.”  Chandra couldn’t tell if the shine on her mother’s eyes were tears forming, or just a trick of the bright aether lamps in the workshop.  “Oviya and her friend are kicking in some too, and Pranav is giving me an excellent deal.  It’s not as expensive as you think.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure,” her mother replied firmly.  She smiled then, her eyes crinkling playfully.  “Now, what are you going to get me for twelve years of missed birthdays?”

“I’m...I’d need to think about it.”

“It was a joke.  You don’t need to get me anything.  Let’s go upstairs, Nissa and Samut will be getting bored.”  Pia tossed the vatha square onto the worktop and turned towards the stairs.

“Hey...hey, mom?” Chandra waited until she had her mother’s full attention.  She had been planning to apologize for a week, but now that she finally had a chance she fidgeted with  the vatha square instead. She had to force herself to put it down, and smoothed her hands against her pants.  “I just wanted to say sorry for being such a...such a bitch, I guess, lately.”

“Oh, don’t call yourself that.  Come here,” her mother said, opening her arms to embrace her daughter.  Chandra sighed as her mother’s arms settled on her back and began to rub soothingly.  “I understand. No one’s at their best when they’re hurting. You know you used to pull my hair when you were teething?”

“No, I’m...sorry?” Chandra said, uncertain at the change in topic.

“You were not an easy baby.”  Pia laughed and patted Chandra one final time before starting up the stairs.  “I don’t know if you remember Abhay the Bunny. Your favorite toy; once you learned to toddle you dragged him everywhere, holding him by his ear.  I don’t remember how it happened, but one day his body must have got stuck on something and you managed to pull his head clean off.  You ran up to us screaming, waving Abhay’s head around, stuffing falling everywhere…”

The stairs creaked under their footsteps.  Chandra couldn’t remember any stuffed rabbit growing up.  It seemed unfair, sometimes, that she couldn’t remember her early years.  She’d had so little time with her father to begin with.

“We took him away from you until we could find his body and fix him, but you cried and cried and cried and cried.  Eventually your father went to our neighbor Jai, who ran a general store, almost at midnight, and asked if he could please buy a toy even though the store was closed because his little girl’s stuffed bunny had ripped in half and she wouldn’t stop crying.  He got you a deer with the most magnificent antlers, but you didn’t want it. It wasn’t your bunny. Your father tried so hard. ‘This is Dipali the Deer!  She is the most skillful seamstress in the forest, and tomorrow she’ll help you fix Abhay!’ On and on he went, but you wouldn’t have any of it.” Pia chuckled sadly, lost in old memories.  “I think you finally stopped crying because you were exhausted. And the next day we found Abhay’s body and fixed him, and then you dragged them both around, Abhay by the ears and Dipali by the antlers.”

“I remember Dipali, I think,” Chandra said.  She wished she could remember her father handing the toy to her.  “The antlers were almost bigger than her body, and they were all embroidered with gold thread or something.  And she had spots.”

Her mother nodded.  “I’m sure they were both lost in the fire.  Shame, they would’ve been wonderful heirlooms to give to your own children one day.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to think about that,” Chandra said, making a face.

“Neither was I, but I wouldn’t trade you for anything.  Now, do you have any requests for supper? It’s our last night before you go off again--if you ask nicely, I could be convinced to make grandma’s kofta.”

Nissa felt wilted, as if she had stayed out in the sun too long and the heat had melted her tendons and baked away her muscles.  A frantic back-and-forth of planeswalking had been undertaken to supply the survivors of Naktamun with food and water for several days.  Ten planeswalks? Twelve? She’d lost track. It had been fascinating, in a way--she’d never made so many trips so close together before, and for the first time she had been able to see the twirling, fractal disturbances she left in the wake of her travel.  The trail had gotten firmer, realer each time she went, the aether acting like grass trampled under a migrating herd, and Nissa wondered how long the path would remain.  Could anything in the Blind Eternities be permanent?

It was interesting too trying to figure out which foodstuffs could safely cross the barrier between worlds.  Jams and pickles survived mostly unscathed, though a few jars went bad every crossing with no discernible pattern.  Dried grains could not survive the trip at all, but flour did, as did crackers. Bread was more fickle. About half of the jerky made it, and nearly all the cheese, but the boiled eggs had been lost.  And Samut had had more luck than either Nissa or Chandra: her loads almost always arrived more intact than either of the others’.

Regardless, the survivors would have enough for a week if they rationed their supplies correctly.  More than enough to wait until Chandra and Samut got back from Ajani’s meeting to resume supplying them.

Already, Nissa knew she would not be returning with them.

Tomorrow morning, they would planeswalk to Dominaria, to the city of New Benalia.  Ajani had described how it looked from the Blind Eternities--a glowing nexus, shining almost too brightly to look at.  It would, she hoped, be easy enough to find. They had cut their timing to the bone to give the Amonkhetu as much help as they could.  Nissa thought that, after a long sleep, she could manage a single trip in the morning, but she did not think she would be able to hop around searching for the place.

Samut did not look quite as exhausted, but then Samut rarely let on what she was feeling.  She chatted amiably with Pia, describing how Naktamun had been before it had fallen. Chandra cuddled against her mother, nearly asleep already; Pia ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair as she asked Samut about Amonkhet.  An elaborate, whirling machine in the corner softly played music. It emitted a high-pitched buzzing that Nissa assumed the three humans could not hear, but she was too tired to find it irritating. Her dinner rested heavily in her stomach, encouraging her to slouch and sink into the armchair.

“I hope your meeting is successful.  The thought of something like that happening here…”  Pia shuddered.

“Something like that kinda did happen here,” Chandra said, her voice muffled by her mother’s shirt.

“No.  Maybe Bolas sped things up, but the revolt would have happened eventually regardless.  The city’s still intact. You could argue Tezzeret and everything was ultimately a good thing--it inspired people to finally stand up to the Consulate.”

“In a way, it was good for us as well.  Now we know the truth,” Samut said. Her dark eyes betrayed no hint of her thoughts.  “And now, I can do something about it.”

“I wish I could do more to help,” Pia said.  “I helped one of my professors, you know, devising a better way to drill borewells in the Dhavatri.  I haven’t kept in touch with him, but maybe it would be possible to build something on Kaladesh and have you carry it over.  Maybe Saheeli could help you assemble and run it--she understands hydraulics very well. There must be water if you drill deep enough.”

More discussion, then, of what it would take to give the survivors of Naktamun a new city.  Nissa couldn’t follow all of the discussion of aquifers and irrigation, but she listened, pleased.  It made her decision easier; or rather, it made her decision easier to explain to Chandra. She still did not know what she would say, because she still did not know why her path was set as it was.  She knew only that this was the way things must be: she would go to Theros. She didn't have a choice, or perhaps she had already made one, but regardless she would go. Amonkhet was in good hands. With Samut and Chandra, Amonkhet did not require her.

Now, she needed only to make Chandra understand this.

The healing cream Ajani had found smelled of overripe onions; the stench lingered even through the poultice bandage, and Gideon had to make an effort not to let his lip curl at the pungency.  He couldn’t tell whether or not the cream was doing anything--Ajani had recommended leaving his arm out of its sling for a time so the muscles could get used to working again, and any improvement was masked by the pain caused by his shoulder bearing the full weight of his arm again.  

It was only one of the things going wrong today.  A fuzzy headache had settled across his brow, and he felt slow with malaise.  The single ale he’d drunk last night couldn’t account for the ill feeling, and he'd slept in so late he shouldn't be tired; perhaps he was actually getting sick.  Caught a chill on the sea, or from sitting in the cold bath yesterday.

Or maybe it was shame.  Ajani had done exactly what he promised: nearly two-dozen planeswalkers sat or stood, crammed into the inn’s private meeting room.  Aside from Tamiyo, who sat across from him making notes on a scroll with brush and ink, Gideon knew none of them. It should have been exciting, exhilarating; so many coming together, so many willing to help, so many willing to fight to stop Bolas.  But Gideon had not only failed to find new allies of his own--he had lost nearly all of the allies he had had before.

He fidgeted with the strange coin the woman in the temple had given him, clenching it in the fist of his injured arm.  The muscles felt better when they were tensed.

“Thank you all for coming,” Ajani began, smiling warmly at the assembled planeswalkers.  “Truly. It is heartening to see how many of you were willing to make the journey here to help the Gatewatch put an end to the threat posed by the planeswalker Nicol Bolas.  I had hoped you all could meet the Gatewatch today, but a scouting mission undertaken to one of Bolas’s strongholds went awry, and many are now--missing. Only Gideon could be here today.”

Across the table, Tamiyo looked questioningly at Gideon.  Ajani’s smile faltered only briefly, but the reactions in the room were mixed.  A stern-looking woman in flowing gold and blue robes looked troubled by Ajani’s statement.  The older, dark-skinned man to Ajani’s left nodded his head as if unsurprised. A blue-skinned girl who could not be far into her teenage years seemed unconcerned, while the even-younger redheaded boy leaning against her wrinkled his face in confusion.

“Your aid, then, will be more important--and necessary--than before.  We have limited insights into what Bolas is planning, but in the past few months he has caused a war on one plane and an apocalypse on another.  You have all heard what transpired on Kaladesh. In addition, Gideon and the Gatewatch witnessed the devastation of a plane called Amonkhet, which Bolas had been corrupting for decades.  This alone would be enough to demand we act, but he has a long history of such destruction. A few years ago, he attempted the annihilation of my own plane, purely for his own amusement. Sarkahn reports he may have been involved in the near-destruction of Zendikar, a plot only narrowly averted by the Gatewatch and only at the cost of thousands of lives.”  Ajani nodded to a bronze-skinned man, who stood and smiled cruelly at Ajani’s words. The skin across the man’s shoulders was like that of a lizard, greenish and scaled.

“He’s not going to stop,” the man called Sarkhan said.  He loomed over the table, arms crossed, his gravelly voice an exhortation to war.  “Not until he’s dead, or everyone and everything is under is thrall. We fight him.  We have no choice but to fight him.”

“Not that I disagree,” the dark-skinned man to Ajani’s left said.  “But it will take more than what we’ve assembled here to kill him. I’ve faced him personally.  I’m lucky to be alive. You are lucky to be alive.”  The last, directed to Gideon.  Gideon wished he could say the man was wrong.

“I’ve known a lot of powerful people.  I’ve been one,” the dark-skinned man continued, chuckling.  His face turned serious, and he looked around the room, slowly, pausing to meet each person’s eyes.  “Bolas is something else entirely. Everyone in this room needs to understand that.”

Sarkhan seated himself with a grunt.  Gideon couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with the dark-skinned man or not.

“Thank you, Teferi,” Ajani said.  “We will need a plan of our own and a better understanding of what Bolas intends.  We have gleaned fragments of his plans from Kaladesh and Amonkhet, but the whole has yet to coalesce.  Gideon, can you speak to what you witnessed on Amonkhet?”

Gideon nodded and tried to order his thoughts.  How to explain the stark strangeness of Amonkhet--the little haven of Naktamun in the endless dead desert; the pure love its now-deceased gods had for the people they murdered; the easy camaraderie of its people, yet how easily those same people slaughtered one another for a poison prize.

“Amonkhet is a plane bent wholly to Bolas’s will.  Much of it seemed to be wastelands, and it is subject to some sort of curse.  Everything that dies there rises again as a zombie. We found a city, Naktamun.  Every person there was training for the ‘Trials’, challenges set by the plane’s gods that always ended in death.  We saw no one there older than thirty years old. Zombies farmed and cared for children. The zombies of the Trial winners were coated in a metal--lazotep, they called it.  The people of Naktamun considered it an honor.” Gideon shrugged. His headache made it hard to think. “He’s amassed an army there. Twenty-five, thirty-thousand strong, I’d estimate.  They are not typical zombies--the lazotep provides them significant protection from bladed weapons, and they don’t fight mindlessly. They’re difficult to deal with.”

“Are they planeswalkers?” an elven man asked.  “If not, they are confined to this Amonkhet. Sad for Amonkhet, perhaps, but they need not concern us.”

“Bolas must have built them for something,” Gideon said.  “There’s nothing on Amonkhet to conquer.”

Sarkhan snorted.  “Don’t underestimate his cruelty.  Sometimes, he just likes to play with those he considers lesser.”

“Perhaps Amonkhet was a test,” a green-skinned merfolk suggested.  The chairs here had not been designed with his long, fishlike tail in mind, and he sat awkwardly across two of them.  “Perhaps he was figuring out how to make these lazotep zombies work.”

The dark-skinned man, Teferi, raked his fingers through his beard contemplatively.  “He built them knowing he could move them. Or assuming he would be able to. Ajani, this planar bridge you told me of, the one the Kaladeshi woman built--do you think one of these metal zombies could use it?”

“I do not understand how the bridge worked well enough to know,” Ajani replied.

“The planar bridge was destroyed,” Gideon said.

Teferi smiled mirthlessly.  “If it was built once, it can be built again.  There used to be a way to move armies across the planes: planar portals.  They haven’t worked in half a century, ever since the Mending. But it seems someone has found a new way to make one.  I guarantee you: Bolas intends to move his army using one of these bridges.  You may have slowed him by destroying the Kaladeshi one, but the leopard has caught the scent.  He will build another.”

“The question, then: where will he move his armies?  What does he want?” the stern-faced woman said.

Gideon shrugged; Ajani shook his head.

“Dominaria,” Teferi suggested without pause.  “He has a long history here, and has ruled parts of it before.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.  My history with him suggests he has bigger plans than any one plane,” Sarkhan rebutted.

A dozen more guesses and questions came all at once, most unintelligible as different planeswalkers talked over each other.  The stern-faced woman’s clear voice cut across the growing chatter. “Is there some defense against this bridge? If we can stop its operation, it does not matter where he tries to build it, nor how large his army.”

“An excellent question, and one I do not currently have the answer to,” Ajani replied.

More chatter.  One person wanted to know if enough of the destroyed bridge existed to examine.  Another wanted a sample of lazotep to study. A third asked if anyone knew where Bolas made his home, and a fourth lamented that they were making no headway by talking.

“We need to spy on him.  It’s useless to speculate,” the blue-skinned girl insisted.

“How can we spy on him?  We don’t know where he is!  He could be anywhere!” This, from a pale, dark-haired man.

“All things in time, Ajani said, raising his voice to be heard.  “The first thing we must do is gather more information--”

A knock on the door cut him off.  The door opened slightly, and the elven lad who worked at the inn poked his head inside.

“Mr. Goldmane?  There’s someone downstairs for you.”

Though it was mid-morning on Kaladesh when the three of them left, they arrived on Dominaria sometime around midnight, appearing in darkness and chest-high grass.  They set off towards the glowing lights of a large settlement that was, with any luck, Benalia City, walking mostly in silence. Neither Nissa nor Chandra knew enough about Dominaria to answer Samut’s questions, and Chandra was always grumpy this early besides, snapping out single-syllable answers to any attempt at conversation.  She walked ahead, carrying a small ball of flame to serve as a torch. Nissa encouraged the grass to part before their feet so they could walk without tripping.

The plane was old.  Nissa felt its age, its arthritic leylines; the sleepy, sluggish way it reacted to her questing fingers, recoiling on a delay like a whispervine belatedly closing its leaves to a falling raindrop, or an enormous, ancient crab plodding away when disturbed.  Too big, too old, too thick with scars to consider anything a threat anymore, but still obeying some ancient instinct to avoid a pain that could no longer pierce its carapace. The traceries of old evils, old cataclysms, could still be felt in the plane’s pulsing heartbeat.  Here too something wicked had occurred.

By the time the sun rose, they had made it halfway to the city.  It hung high overhead when they reached its outer walls, weak compared to Amonkhet’s brutal twin suns, but enough that sweat trickled down Nissa’s back.  Chandra was panting, still recovering from her prolonged bedrest. They gladly hugged the shadow of the city’s walls, following it to the gate, where they joined a short queue of people to enter the city proper.

Inside, Nissa was reminded uncomfortably of Ravnica: too many people in too small a space, too many smells, too many sounds.  She didn’t mind the idea of cities, but she still wondered why the builders of cities insisted on putting everything so close together--surely she was not the only one who appreciated space.  Instead of Ravnica’s twisting sprawl, the city was laid out in orderly squares, but somehow that made navigating its streets more difficult. Each block was identical in size and composition, with no variance to separate where you had been from where you hadn’t.  Yet Chandra navigated them adeptly, keying in on some trick Nissa didn’t know.

They asked for Ajani at the inn and stood at the bar to wait.  Like Nissa, Samut had been overwhelmed by Benalia City at first, coming from the much-smaller Naktamun, but she had found her feet quickly and now gazed at the colored glass making up the windows in awe.  The glass turned the light in the room a strange color that Nissa didn’t care for. Too yellow, like the sky before a storm.

Feet clattered down the stairs; Chandra shrieked.  Nissa turned from the window in time to see Gideon sweep up Chandra in a one-armed hug, her feet dangling an inch off the ground.  Ajani followed only a step behind, grinning enormously.

“Put me down!” Chandra’s shriek turned into giggling, and this time Gideon listened and loosened his hold, though he didn’t fully let her go.  His hands remained on her shoulders and he stared at her, breathing hard, lips moving as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t decide what.

“Fuck, Gids, you’d think I’d died or something,” Chandra laughed, but then the corners of her mouth fell.  “Oh. Yeah. You--fuck, I can see how you might’ve--yeah.”

Nissa felt her ears wilt as Gideon’s astounded gaze turned to her, guilt unexpectedly flowering across her cheeks.  She had had her reasons for not returning to Dominaria earlier--Chandra had needed her more, and then she had discovered the survivors of Naktamun--but she knew also the primary reason she hadn’t returned: she had been angry.  At Liliana, and at Gideon for supporting the necromancer, and so she had put off returning again and again, letting other concerns take her time and attention until she nearly forgot about Dominaria altogether. She did not regret that she had spent her time at Chandra’s bedside, but she did regret, now, the hurt that she had only somewhat-inadvertently caused.

He didn’t seem angry, though; he nodded at Nissa and then looked to Samut, initial confusion turning into a wide smile.

“I’m glad you’ve both come,” Ajani said.  “And you’ve brought a friend! We were in the middle of our meeting.  Please, follow. What is your name?”

“Samut.  From Amonkhet.”

“From Amonkhet?  I am sorry to hear what became of your home,” Ajani said, paws thumping on the stairs.

“That’s why I came,” Samut said.  “I want to know what can be done.”

“How are you?” Gideon asked Chandra.  “The last I saw--”

“I’m good.  I’m good. Had to spend a few nights in the hospital, but--” she thumped her fist against her chest “--good as new.  Armor’s ruined, but that’s what it’s for, I guess.”

“I’m glad.”  The earnestness in Gideon’s voice made Nissa’s ears fall further.

“Has Jace come?” she asked.

Gideon shook his head, the joy he’d shown at their arrival falling in on itself.  “He’s--not here yet.”

“And Liliana?” Nissa felt compelled to ask.

“That’s...a longer story.”

Nissa found it impossible to keep track of the conversation.  So many planeswalkers had come; Ajani’s booming voice kept order as well as could be expected, but side conversations provided a constant counterpoint to the main discussion, stealing away her focus.  She yearned for quiet, a private meeting with just the Gatewatch so she could explain what she needed to do, why she needed to leave. It would be some time coming--a consensus had been reached, after much deliberation, that they needed more information on Bolas’s plans.  But even that simple resolution was met with a half-dozen caveats.

“We can search Amonkhet for more clues.  We found the zombies there, and we’d love some help anyway to get the survivors there settled,” Chandra proposed.

“We need to be careful not to narrow our focus overmuch,” an elven man said. 

“So much of our history has been erased,” Samut lamented.  “I’m not sure what more can be found. I doubt he left plans behind, and if he did, they’d be guarded by the Eternals.”

“We should at least look,” Chandra said.

“We’ll need Liliana’s help,” Gideon said quietly.  He had remained uncharacteristically silent for much of the discussion.  “She knows the undead better than anyone.”

A centaur woman, her skin and fur a matching deep brown and her mane a curly poof, raised a hand to be heard.  “I’m willing to help, but I’m not sure how I can. I’m a musician. I don’t fight. I don’t know how to fight.”  She pinned her large, round ears against her head nervously.

“And I will be of limited use--unless he chooses to deploy his army in the ocean,” the green merfolk said.

“Amonkhet is our primary lead.  We should see what can be found,” Ajani said.  “Are there volunteers to go with Chandra, Samut, and Nissa?”  He raised his hand. The centaur woman tentatively raised her own after a moment’s thought.

“I have something else I must tend to first,” Nissa said.  Unsure of what she ought to do, she stood and clasped her hands behind her back, as she had seen Jace do when addressing groups on Ravnica.  “Samut and I discovered a crisis on another plane. Everyone there, person and animal, is trapped in a cursed sleep. Their god asked me personally for help, and I must go.”

“I thought we agreed that Bolas has to take priority,” Chandra objected.

“We shouldn’t split our focus,” Gideon concurred.

“You want to spend time finding Liliana,” Nissa rebutted.  She bit back the urge to say something crueler. “She isn’t trustworthy, especially when it comes to Bolas.”

“We need her,” Gideon insisted.  He rested his head against his palm and sighed heavily.  “I know you don’t like her, and I know she’s not... ideal--”

“I’m not saying finding her is a waste of time because I don’t like her,” Nissa interrupted.  “She abandoned us on Amonkhet. She pledged allegiance to Bolas.”

“That’s not what happened.”  Gideon closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, as if he were disappointed.  The sympathy Nissa had felt for him evaporated under the heat of fresh irritation.  He was being unreasonable, and frustratingly she couldn’t make him see that. Chandra didn’t understand either--

“Perhaps this is a conversation we should have later,” Ajani said, a stern note entering his voice.  “Whatever else we do, it seems clear we must see what Amonkhet can tell us. I would like to go. I assume Chandra and Samut will go as well?  Who else?”

Scattered hands rose.  The centaur woman again,  the pale man with dark hair, the blue-skinned girl and her red-headed friend, the stern-faced woman.  Gideon’s hand notably stayed down, and Nissa felt an additional flare of anger that he hypocritically opposed her leaving and that Chandra seemed not to notice his abstention.

“Excellent.  Thank you all,” Ajani said.  “It will be time to eat soon.  Let us take a break, and we can reconvene after supper.”

Up close, Gideon could see Teferi was not as old as he had initially appeared.  His long beard and hair were now more grey than black and their untidiness made him appear elderly, but his skin was full and unwrinkled behind the hair and his eyes were clear and cunning.

“May I join you?” he asked.

Teferi quirked a smile and gestured expansively to a chair.  His clothing was heavy and rich. “By all means. How can I help you?”

“You seemed to know a lot about Dominaria and its history.”

“I’ve been involved in more of it than I care to admit,” Teferi said dryly.

“I wanted to know if you knew a name: Belzenlok,” Gideon asked.

Teferi’s eyebrows rose and he let out a small chuckle.  “Yes, I know the name. He’s the demon that restarted all this trouble with the Cabal.  Why do you ask?”

“A demon?” Gideon asked.  He had intended only to find out more about the strange coin the woman had given him, but instead he found the question of Liliana’s kidnapping resolving itself abruptly: not a ransom, not random chance.  Belzenlok must be her last demon. He had abducted her for some nefarious purpose, just as Razaketh had puppeteered her on Amonkhet. Gideon rubbed at his brow. The information didn’t change what he planned, not exactly, but it was worrisome all the same.

“Yes, a demon.  A group of idiot cultists attempted to summon--well, it’s not important.  But their actions released him from the Abyss, and he’s been causing problems ever since,” Teferi said.  “What interest is he to you? As I understood Ajani, your group concerns itself only with interplanar threats.  I don’t believe he qualifies.”

“I was curious.  Someone gave me this.”  Gideon handed the little coin to Teferi, who took it tentatively, flipping it over to examine it.  “I didn’t know what it meant.”

“Who was it?”

“Someone at one of the temples here.  I didn’t get her name.”

Teferi rubbed the coin with his thumb, then placed it on the table between them.  “My, they’re getting bold nowadays, aren’t they? The Cabal has sent recruiters even into Benalia City.”

“Could the Cabal hold a planeswalker?”  The only question left in his mind--was Liliana still on Dominaria?  Probably, if Belzenlok was her last living demon.

“Prevent them from planeswalking, you mean?  Possibly, I suppose. They have a regrettable number of powerful mages at their disposal.  Why do you ask?”

“One of my friends--a member of the Gatewatch--was abducted by the Cabal on our way here.  By Belzenlok, I assume,” Gideon said.

“My condolences.  It’s been rumored he has an especial interest in planeswalkers.”

Gideon hummed acknowledgement.  “Thank you. This has been helpful.”  He stood and picked up the coin and placed it in his pocket.

“You’re welcome,” Teferi said.  “You know...perhaps this is selfish of me, as Dominaria is my home, but I suspect Belzenlok will not be content with the conquest of only this plane.  Should he succeed here, he will look for a way to expand his reach further. Your Gatewatch might find value in curbing his ambitions while he is still relatively weak.  Before he truly becomes a multiplanar threat. I am biased, of course--my children live here. But something to think about, should you defeat Bolas and find yourself in need of a new enemy.”

Gideon nodded absently.  He needed to consider, to plan, to make sure he had weighed his options fully.  “Again, thank you.”

Chandra finally found Gideon on the balcony of the room he and Ajani were sharing, leaning against the banister to stare out over the city.  The sun would not set for another hour or so, but the sky had already turned a vibrant, persimmon orange. Really, she should have checked here sooner, she realized, but she’d been distracted by other things, and ‘maybe Gideon is in his room’ had somehow become less likely in her mind than ‘maybe Gideon is talking to one of the other planeswalkers’ or ‘maybe Gideon went down the street to get a snack from the flatbread vendor’.

“Hey,” she said, poking her head through the balcony doorway.  “Ajani said I should come see how you were doing.”

“Oh,” Gideon said.  “That was...kind of him.  I needed a break from all the talking.”

“That’s not very Gidsy of you,” Chandra remarked.  She opened the door the rest of the way and went to lean against the railing beside him.  “Usually you love to be in the middle of all this planning crap. Usually it’s me trying to run away.”

“How are things going down there?” Gideon asked.

“Uh...good, I guess?  A couple of them are going to go with me to Kaladesh to talk to Rashmi and maybe see if they can figure out a way to like jam the bridge if he makes another one.  And someone pointed out that maybe we should make sure she’s safe and stuff. She could be a target. Then a bunch of us are going to go crawling around Amonkhet.”

“Did Nissa leave?” he asked.

“...yeah,” Chandra said, letting loose a sigh.  “She’s been--she’s been really focused on all this, like, saving people stuff.  Which is good, I guess. But she’s kinda getting, like, monomaniacal about it. I don’t know.  You know how hard she is to talk to.” In part, Chandra thought, because it was hard to know whether it was truly better for Nissa to go try to save Theros or not.  She couldn't tell whether her desire to keep Nissa by her side was prudence or selfishness. 

“I think she’s angry at me.  And at Liliana.” He sounded resigned again, as he had the few times he’d spoken during the meeting.

“Well, sure, Liliana probably.  I’m still kinda mad at her a little.  What’s she got to be mad at you for though?”

“I’m surprised all of you aren’t angry with me.  Everything that’s gone wrong, it’s all been my fault.”

“What?” Chandra took her gaze from the sunset to look at him.  He didn’t return her gaze, remaining resolutely fixed at something in the middle distance.  “We all agreed together to go to Amonkhet. And maybe that was a bad idea, but we did learn about Bolas’s huge fucking zombie army.  So that’s something.”

“Is Jace’s death worth that knowledge?”

“I--we don’t know he’s dead.”

“If he weren’t, he’d be here.”

“Maybe he got lost,” Chandra countered.  “Or--Diraden? You remember Diraden? No planeswalking.”

“How would that be better?” 

“Well, it would mean he’s not dead.  What d’you mean, ‘how would that be better’?” Chandra snapped.

“It’d mean he’s trapped somewhere and none of us can help him,” Gideon snapped back.  He stood straight and clenched the railing. “We shouldn’t have gone to Amonkhet, or at the very least we should have left the moment Bolas arrived--”

“We saved people too.  There’s a couple hundred people on Amonkhet right now who probably wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t given them a chance to escape.”

“But now Nissa is gone, and Liliana is gone, and Jace is gone, and Bolas is on the move.  I can barely hold a weapon, let alone use one.” He gestured viciously with his injured arm, and hissed at the pain doing so caused him.  “It was--it was a bad decision. Tactically. We’re too weak to face Bolas. We were too weak to face Bolas, and now half of us are gone, and who knows how much time we have left to prepare--”

“Hey.”  Chandra laid a hand on his arm to halt his rant.  “Are you okay? When Ajani asked me to go check on you, I assumed it was like ‘make sure that weird cheese didn’t make him sick’, not, like...this.”

He pulled away from her, turning his back on the city and running a hand through his hair.  “I’m fine.”

He didn’t look fine, she thought.  He looked tired, and thinner than he had been, yet also somehow heavy.   She was used to him moving around like he weighed nothing, despite his size; now he seemed bowed under some great force.  For a moment, she wondered if she should get Ajani--she found herself in unexpectedly treacherous waters, unsure of how to proceed.  She wasn’t the person people went to for advice; she was the person always searching out others, hoping that this pearl of wisdom might turn out to be worth its shine.  What could she say that Gideon wasn’t capable of saying himself?

“I don’t think--”  She cast about helplessly.  The balcony had a small bench, and she sat and urged him to join her.  “Can we just talk for a minute?”

“About what?” he asked, but he wedged in beside her, and held up an arm so she could cuddle against his side.

“Just--stuff.  I haven’t seen you in a month.  I’ve barely heard what happened.  And you just...you don’t seem like you. ”  She glanced upwards to see his reaction, but his face had re-settled into a stoic non-expression she’d only ever really seen during battle.  “I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner, you know. Like, it’s obvious now, but it didn’t occur to me you might think that I’d--that I’d died, or been horribly hurt, or whatever.  Me and Nissa got so caught up in Amonkhet and everything.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said.  The arm around her shoulder squeezed tighter for a moment.

“I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault.  ‘Cept maybe Bolas, I guess.”

He shook his head.  “It was mine. I was arrogant.  I knew better.”

“Well...shit, give me a second.  I wanna say this right.” She took a few deep breaths, thinking, while he looked on, bemused.  “So...remember on Zendikar? After we escaped Ob Nixilis and saw what the titans had done? Jace wanted to leave, and you said that there was nothing any one of us could do against the Eldrazi, but maybe all four of us could do something.  Which--can we just admit that that was a fucking stupid thing to say? Like, we were looking at a routed army, people running in panic, all of us were all banged up, and we had no idea how to stop these two impossible monsters, and you were like ‘maybe the four of us can do something!’.  It was absurd. But...you were right. We stopped them. We saved Zendikar. And we couldn’t have done that if you didn’t look at a futile situation and say ‘I bet we can do something’.”

“Amonkhet was different.”

“Not really.  Can you honestly say Bolas is worse than a pair of Eldrazi titans?  And...look, I know Amonkhet didn’t go down the way we wanted, but...it felt the same as it did on Zendikar.  You said ‘maybe the four of us can kill the titans’ and we fucking did it, Gids!  When you said we would kill Bolas, I believed you.  And I don’t want to do another Amonkhet, but I also really don’t want to lose the Gideon who looks at impossible odds and says ‘we can do that’ and is right. ”

The arm across her shoulders tightened again and he pulled her into a hug, hot breath on her scalp as her head tucked under his chin.  He was not crying, but his shaky breathing suggested this was only because he was trying very hard not to.

“I--” he began, before cutting himself off with a guttural sound.

“It’s okay,” she said.  She shifted so she could wrap her arms around him and let a bit of heat rise to her surface.  “Look, we’re gonna go back to Amonkhet and figure everything out and stop him. It’ll be okay.  He’s nothing, not compared to us.”

She couldn’t see what reaction he might have to her words, but before long his breathing eased and his grip on her loosened.  Perversely, before she could stop herself, she giggled.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”  The giggle wouldn’t stop.  “It’s just I never get to do this.  Normally it’s other people telling me stuff so that I get over whatever.   I never get to be the mentorer.”

“You’re wiser than you think you are,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied primly, and rested the back of her head against his chest to watch the sunset.  He folded his arms over her, holding her comfortably tight. “Do you feel better?”

“Maybe,” he said.

They sat in silence on the bench, watching the sun paint the white stone buildings yellow and orange as it set.  They should go back, Chandra thought, but really the meeting didn’t need them anymore. They could afford a quiet moment.  They deserved it.  Ajani could keep everyone in line and tell them anything important later--

He kissed her.

Chastely, on the temple, a mere brush of lips against skin.  Innocent enough that they could pretend it was merely friendly, if they wanted.  Gideon had always shown affection physically, after all. The arms holding her loosened, allowing her room to move if she wanted to pull back, to rebuff his advance.

Did she?

She thought of Nissa, but--she owed Nissa no loyalty.  Chandra had pined over Nissa, imagined a future for them together, imagined how cool the elf’s hands would be, but Chandra had never been bold enough to ask, and Nissa either felt nothing for her or was too shy herself to do anything.

He was handsome, even if his incoming beard made him look like an ascetic monk, and he was kind, and funny in his own way.  How many times had she lain back and pretended he was there with her? Over the years, the fantasies had faded, replaced by new ones--mostly Nissa, nowadays.  He was her best friend. She no longer dreamt of him that way. Not often, at least.  He was like a brother.  Most of the time.

She didn't have to see him that way.  Part of her would probably always wonder until she knew, and if he was willing--why not?  At worst, a bit of fun.  At best...who knew?

Belatedly, she noticed that in the course of talking and gesturing and hugging, she had ended up sitting on his lap. It didn’t feel as awkward she would have thought.

After all...why not?

His beard was just long enough that she could thread her fingers through it and gently tug his lips down onto hers.

Chapter Text

Theros reached for Nissa like a drowning person, pulling her onto the plane with a force Nissa didn’t think she would have been able to resist, though she didn’t try.  It guided her to a speck of rock in a riotous sea, both an indiscriminate grey. The rock was empty except for a pair of enormous, intertwined olive trees with a cairn of sharp-edged stones at their base.  A grave, likely, though there was no marker to indicate whose it might be. Beyond the trees, the sea dropped off sharply, a waterfall that curved off into the distance as far as she could see in either direction.  It was not clear what she was to do here. She stroked the trunk of one of the massive trees; the bark was rough, bulbous, heavy and tangled, pale where stretch-mark splits had healed jagged. 

In the end, it hadn’t been hard to convince Chandra at all.  The memory of their conversation--if it could be called that, short as it was--kept intruding, demanding to be remembered.  After an initial protestation, Chandra had simply encouraged Nissa to do what she thought best, in a restrained tone that suggested disappointment, though Nissa couldn’t pinpoint in what.   Disappointment in Nissa for leaving?  Disappointment in herself for not going with?  Disappointment in the situation that forced them onto different paths?  She didn’t know, and she found that not knowing was causing her no small amount of guilt.

It didn’t matter.  She had a task. The plane had wanted her to come here; there was something here to find.  She felt the trunk, and then felt again, tracing the ancient being’s connection to the whole of Theros.  To her surprise, a flood of mana fed the tree and its twin, a great thickened knot of a leyline that ran out past the edge of the sea into the void, finally curving upwards far out of sight. Of course.  How else would the trees survive on this harsh outcropping? Keeping careful hold of a low branch, she stepped between the trees and leaned out over the edge of the stone to see what was below.

Only stars and seaspray, the ocean dissipating into nothingness.

“You’re here,” a voice creaked.  Kruphix, even smaller, the stars that made up his form weak and blinking.  He hung into the air, standing on nothing, holding out one of his many arms for her.  “At last. Come. You will not fall.”

Despite his words, she moved tentatively, placing a foot out into the emptiness while keeping a firm grasp on the tree.  Instinct was hard to override, and instinct told her that the fall into the void would be fatal. She wondered if that were true--there seemed to be nothing below her, and Zendikari children learned early that it was hitting the ground that hurt, not the fall.

Taking a steadying breath, she grit her teeth and pushed herself away from the tree.  A few wobbling steps to catch her balance--there was no ground below her feet, but an invisible force supported her.  It sank under feet like viscous mud, lowering her slowly, and she ran to Kruphix’s side and took his hand, wary that the not-ground might give way if she stood in one place too long.

Magic when their fingers touched; an instant of darkness that left stars in her eyes, a sensation not dissimilar from planeswalking, and then they were elsewhere.  A stone building, a ruin, grey walls cracked and overgrown, smudged with decades of dirt. Aside from the luminous dust that blew through it and the night-blackness through the windows, the building would not have looked out of place on Zendikar.  The broken tile underfoot slipped like gravel. The memories of old, weighty spells hovered in the air. Weathered statues stood in black marble alcoves, once-fine features ground away by time, offering bowls chipped and broken. Only one still had anything approaching recognizable features: an effigy of Kruphix, far to the back of the temple.

The real Kruphix was not with her, she realized.  He had never materialized in this new place. She strode to his altar.  His bowl was whole and filled with a liquid: clear, but too blue to be water.  She sniffed it; it had no scent.

“What am I to do?” she asked.  She did not expect an answer, though she hoped for one.  None came. Had transporting her here taken the last of the god’s power?

A puzzle.  A trial, like Kefnet’s.  A trap meant to keep out the unworthy and the unwise.  Ruins always had them, even on Zendikar. She circled the temple, searching for an answer.  The building had no door. The cracks in the walls were too thin for her to shimmy through, though that might not have mattered: the windows forbade her passage when she tried to exit there, an invisible force preventing her from leaving.

She examined the other bowls.  One smelled of beer, evaporated away.  Another of saltwater, with tiny salt crystals around the rim where the liquid had spilled.  This one smelled of sweat. That one, darkly stained, smelled of blood. One was caked in a thick, dried sludge that smelled like fetid decomposition, decaying leaves pulled up from the bottom of a swamp.  Was there a pattern to it? She couldn’t tell.

She returned to the blue water.  The obvious answer was that she was meant to drink it, but that seemed too simple.  Or was it? She didn’t like riddles. They made things complicated, requiring her to think in a manner alien to her, and the answers never made any sense at all even when patiently explained to her.

She went to one of the vines, pinched off a small shoot, carried it back to the bowl, and set the end in the water, urging the little plantlet to grow.  At the very least, she should ensure the liquid was not poison before drinking it.

The plantlet sent pale, hair-thin roots questing through the water, which began to vanish, sucked up by the thirsty roots.  She tried to halt the plant’s growth, but she found she could not maintain any spell focused on the plant. A bud appeared on the tip of the stem.   It swelled rapidly and, within seconds, opened to reveal a blue flower with blade-shaped petals, perfectly symmetrical. The pistil was dark orange, heavy with pollen.  The rest of the plant shriveled, leaving only the flower resting at the bottom of the bowl.

She scooped it out.  It filled her palm, surprisingly heavy.  The flower and the plant were foreign to her, but they were beautiful, resembling the Khalni Heart.  She brought it closer to her face so she could examine it. The petals were firm, full and stiff. The plant had vanished entirely, dropping off like an umbilical cord.  It had a potent scent akin to ripe paca fruit or to boiled giranas, bringing to mind memories long forgotten, of celebrations in mid-summer, sweet juice running down her chin, her mother wiping it away as another elf laughed and said to let her be, let her enjoy the bounty while it lasted.

Closing her eyes and inhaling deeply, Nissa brought the flower yet closer.  The pollen tickled inside her nose.

When she opened her eyes again, sighing deeply at the memory of carefree happiness, she was somewhere else entirely.

It would have been easier, Chandra thought, if it hadn’t been good.  It wasn’t perfect, of course. There was the usual clumsiness of two bodies not yet sure how the other would move, and the injury to Gideon’s arm affected matters, restricting what they could do.  The medicinal cream on his shoulder reeked so badly she wanted to go scrub out the inside of her nostrils to make the stench go away. It wasn’t bad, though; in another time, she might have been thrilled, eager to spend every available moment with her new partner, exploring and sharing.  A promising start.

Except it wasn’t a start.  And it was hard to explain what was wrong when, technically speaking, nothing was.

The heavy warmth of satiation tried to sink her into sleep, but her mind pounded in time with her heartbeat and did not slacken as her heart slowed.  She felt strangely disappointed, satisfied and yet yearning for more. It had been good, but…

She knew what she had wanted: that moment on Zendikar, when her hands and body and soul had all been perfectly aligned with another’s, a glacial second of pure togetherness, impossible intimacy.  In a way, it was unfair: she could’ve been happy now, she imagined, if she hadn’t known such a moment was possible, if she hadn’t experienced something so far beyond the bounds of normal physicality.  Sex seemed little more than a pale imitation, the echo of a song across a canyon; even flush with her, Gideon was impossibly distant. It was no longer enough to touch him, to look into his eyes. Those were barriers.  She wanted something more, another moment where skin and bone and all the inconveniences of bodies weren’t getting in the way.

There was, she realized, no guarantee she would ever have anything like that moment again, even with Nissa.  It had been the spell, after all, and the circumstances of it were so specific and its results so destructive.  With any luck, nothing like it would ever happen again. She shouldn’t want it to happen again. And yet...

“Do you ever wonder about how things might’ve been?” she asked.

Giden’s eyes were lidded but not quite closed.  They fluttered at her words, and the bedsheets rustled under his head as he looked at her.  “I imagine everyone does. Why?” She could just see his eyebrows quirk questioningly in the rapidly darkening room.

“I wonder, sometimes, about--I don’t know, the things I didn’t do.  The choices I didn’t realize were choices when I made them. And how those things might’ve changed my life.  And I’m not--I’m happy. I like what we do, what the Gatewatch does, and I like standing for something and helping and doing things that only we can do.  But, y’know, I can’t help but wonder sometimes if I’d’ve been as happy doing something else. Maybe even happier.”

More rustling as he shifted further.  “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.  My mom was talking about, like, me having kids and my first thought was--how could I stay on the Gatewatch if I have kids?  I don’t even know if I want kids, but I don’t know that I don’t want kids.  But I also want to keep doing stuff like what we’re doing on Amonkhet.  And how do you do that if, like, you have to stay home because your kid is sick?”

“I’m--I’m sure we could figure something out.  You wouldn’t stop being a member of the Gatewatch just because you had a child.”  She could hear the confusion in his voice, and realized she wasn’t being clear.

“That’s not--it’s not just about kids, or whatever.  It’s about...ways your life could’ve been. Like, once I would’ve been so happy if it was you and me and we settled down somewhere and had a few kids and never planeswalked again or worried about anything more than...I don’t know, finances.  Whatever normal people worry about. You could be the captain of the guard and I could be a potter and everything would just be simple.”

“You want to be a potter?”

“No.  Maybe?  I don’t know.  I bet I’d be good at it.  I was never any good at artifice, but I loved playing in my parents’ workshop.  I wouldn’t need a kiln. Anyway, it’s just...now, after everything, I don’t think I’d be happy with that life anymore.  And it’s kind of sad, you know?”

“I suppose.”

Now, the sheets rustled under her head as she turned to study him.  “You never dreamed about just having a boring, typical life?”

“No...I don’t think so,” he said slowly.  “There’s always been so many other things that needed doing.  It never seemed important.”

“Really?  What do you wonder about, then?”

He didn’t answer at first.  Chandra snuggled closer to his side, and he obligingly wrapped his arm tighter around her shoulders, pulling her close.  She laid her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. Under her ear, his heart beat slowly.

“What would have happened if I didn’t let you go into the Purifying Fire,” he said at last.

“Things would be different,” she agreed quietly.  She wondered which parts he imagined being different--if he didn’t imagine them settling down somewhere, then what?  Did he imagine them traveling from world to world, stopping to help wherever they were needed? Or perhaps the Order of Heliud was more powerful than she’d realized, and they would have been fugitives, running to stay one step ahead of the Order’s mercenaries.  She liked the first idea better.

There would be no Gatewatch, though.  She’d’ve likely never met Nissa, nor Liliana.  The Eldrazi would’ve finished their feast of Zendikar and of Innistrad.  Would Nissa have fled when the battle was lost, or would she have stayed, defending her home to the death?

Things were better the way they had happened.  Yet she still felt grief for the pathways she’d left far behind her.

He pressed a last kiss into her hair. 

“The balm is working very well,” Ajani noted as he peeled off the bandage and examined the raised, shining scar on Gideon’s shoulder.

“It would have to.  No one would put up with the smell, otherwise,” he said.  The scar was noticeably less red than it had been, and though Gideon couldn’t be certain, it did seem as if it had shrunken slightly over the course of the day.  But he didn’t care how the scar looked; he wanted his arm fully usable again, and on that front he felt little progress.

“Yes, it is unfortunate,” Ajani agreed.  “But it will only be a few days, with luck.  The internal swelling is receding, so I can see more clearly what still needs to be fixed.  Raise your arm as far as you can, would you?”

‘As far as he could’ was still not very far at all, barely enough so that his arm no longer touched his side, and he exhaled with relief when Ajani took some of the weight.  Questing magic like little pinpricks pinched deep inside his flesh, followed by surges of warm healing.

“We missed you after dinner,” Ajani said.

“I was tired.  I needed a break,” Gideon said.  “Chandra filled me in on the discussion, but she didn’t mention anything about rescuing Liliana.”

“No.  We don’t know where she is--”

“The Cabal abducted her.”

“Yes, but the Cabal has enclaves on half the continents of this plane.  We need to know where she is before we can mount a rescue. I did speak with Teferi about it.  He is willing to use his contacts on Dominaria to see if she can be found.”

“I should stay here to help him,” Gideon said.

Ajani’s paw faltered and his magics faded.  “I would’ve thought you’d want to come with us to Amonkhet.”

“What help would I be?  I’m no scholar.”

“Nor am I,” Ajani said, resuming the spell.  “But Amonkhet is a dangerous place, and they will need our protection.”

“I don’t think I’ll be doing much protecting,” Gideon said, glancing at his arm.  “I don’t even have a weapon.”

“Swords are easily found.  Besides, I find myself curious--if you do not think yourself capable of helping us, how is it you expect to help Teferi?”

“I can--” Gideon began, faltering when he realized he didn’t have an answer.  It was simply important that he rescue Liliana from whatever tangle she had found herself in.  How had been a more distant consideration.  “I know her. I know where she was captured--”

“I relayed that information to Teferi already.”

“I’ve fought demons, and the Cabal--”

“As has Teferi.”

“It’s not his fight.”

“He’s happy to help.”

Gideon huffed.  “Why don’t you want me to save her?”

Ajani hesitated, letting out a long sigh himself.  “I don’t think it’s wise to spread ourselves too thin.”

“You don’t trust my judgment.”  Not an accusation; a simple, resigned statement of fact. 

“I do,” Ajani said, voice carefully level.  “But I also think you’re recovering from a devastating injury, and that it would be better for you to stay with Chandra and I until you are whole.”

“You said only a few more days until it was healed.”

“Injuries like this are often more than just the physical damage.  Indeed, the physical damage can be the least troubling part.” He traced a finger down the scar that covered his missing eye.  “Besides, we are leaving tomorrow, not in a few days.”

As if to punctuate his words, one of the healing nodes grew hot for a moment, causing something to shift and pop in Gideon’s shoulder.  The sensation made him shudder involuntarily, as if someone had blown cold air across the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, but it was important you didn’t tense up,” Ajani said.

“It’s fine.”  He was getting sick of people prodding his shoulder, though.

“It will work out,” Ajani said.  Spell finished, he sat on the bed next to Gideon and rested a hand on his back.  “Let us go to Amonkhet. We will come back here in a week or so and see what Teferi has found.  I promise you: we will not abandon Liliana.”

Gideon nodded, bowing his head.  There was no point in arguing further.  “Is Tamiyo still here? I wanted to speak with her.”

“Yes, she’s staying until morning.  Up on the top floor, farthest room to the left.”

Nodding again, Gideon rose.

“Gideon?”

He halted at the door.

“You can’t see the stars from the forest floor, but that doesn’t mean the stars aren’t there.  You will not feel like this forever. Take care not to lose perspective.”

Gideon frowned, unsure what he meant.  It didn’t matter. “Good night, if I don’t see you before morning.”

He climbed the stairs to the top floor and waited outside the door for--for his heart to stop racing, for his mind to stop swirling, for a choice to become clear.  Pointless. He already knew what he ought to do; he simply didn’t want to make the decision. He couldn’t go to Amonkhet. He couldn’t go with Chandra, with Ajani.

Running off into the night like a thief felt cowardly, but what else was he to do?

She believed in him.  The bitterness of it set his chest aching.  She would follow him into victory and into disaster, and more and more Gideon realized there was no future where he led.  He could not subject her to that; nor could he make her see that she should not follow his path. That her faith was misplaced.  That his victories were lucky accidents, that he had been saved again and again by quirks of circumstance, that no weight should be ascribed to his words.  That she believed in him--she, who had cast the spell that killed a pair of immortal monsters, who had walked through the Purifying Fire unscathed--was absurd.  It was an honor he did not deserve, and he hesitated now only because he coveted it regardless.

He fingered the coin in his pocket.

A soft ‘come in’ answered his knock.  Tamiyo was not inside; he found her instead on her little balcony, where she had set up some sort of metal contraption.

“A telescope,” she explained.  “It helps one to see things that are far away in the sky.  Look, here.” She bade him look through a glass eyepiece. Something like mists or clouds was visible at the other end, an expanse of whiteness that had a slightly gritty look to it, like finely ground sand.

“Dominaria once possessed a second moon.  It was destroyed to power a spell. The fragments, though, still orbit, invisible to the naked eye.  What else might be out there, just waiting to be found?” She looked to the sky, a serene, contemplative smile on her face, then she faced him and folded her hands in front of her, expression turning inscrutable.  “But you did not come to see what was hidden in the sky.”

“Thank you for coming.  We--the Gatewatch--appreciate your support,” he began.

She fiddled with one of the many dials on the telescope.  “I cannot honestly say that you have it. The business with Bolas is troubling, but--one must consider whether the cure might be worse than the disease.  Of course your goals are noble,” she said, forestalling his objection, “but noble intentions are not themselves proof against disaster.”

“No,” he agreed bluntly.  “They’re not.”

“It is remarkable what you have achieved, however.  This is possibly the largest gathering of planeswalkers to ever occur.  Records are scattered, of course, and may not have been created in the first place, but you have inspired a...a camaraderie whose like I have not seen before.  I am honored to be a part of it.”

“It was more Ajani’s doing than mine.”  Indeed, it was entirely Ajani’s doing.  Gideon had done nothing but hamper their efforts to assemble a coalition.  All the more reason his choice was obvious, however wrong it felt.

“Nevertheless.”  Tamiyo waved a hand dismissively.  “Is there something else?”

“I...I wanted to know if you could write something for me,” Gideon said.

This seemed to surprise her.  “I suppose, depending on what it is.”

“It’s fine if you can’t.  I’m sure there are scribes in the city.”

“No, please--let us go inside.”

Inside, he described what he needed.  Tamiyo listened, face placid and unreadable, and Gideon wondered if she might spoil the whole thing by going immediately to Ajani.  What would he do then? But his fear was unfounded.

“I can do this for you,” she said slowly, as if still considering the proposition.  “However...it is your matter, and not my place to interfere. But I wonder if I might offer a word of wisdom.”

“Of course.”

“I understand your concerns.  But I do not believe this letter will achieve the outcome you seek.” 

He raised a hand helplessly.  “What else can I do?”

She had no immediate answer.  She unrolled a fresh scroll onto the desk and placed a paperweight on each corner, then retrieved a clean brush and uncorked her inkpot.  In less than a minute, she wrote out his message. From her sleeve, she produced a hand fan and snapped it open.

“I know that to a person such as yourself, doing nothing is anathema,” she finally said, fanning the ink to speed its drying.  “But it may be wiser to watch how things unfold and act only when circumstance provides a clear opportunity. The uncertainty you feel may be a warning that the time is not right.”

“I don’t feel uncertain,” he said.  “Only...disappointed.” In truth, it was hard to name what it was he felt.

“My apologies, then.  You know your own mind best.”  Ink now dry, she rolled up the scroll and re-tied the knot to keep it shut.

“You won’t say anything?” he asked.

“I will not lie if I am asked.  But it is not my place to interfere,” she replied, handing him the scroll.  Rolled, it was little, barely bigger than his longest finger.

He slipped it into his pocket beside the coin.  “Thank you.”

There was still one thing left he could fix.

Ajani was still awake when Gideon returned to their room; Gideon forestalled any further conversation by slipping into bed, still fully clothed, professing fatigue.  Deceit came uneasily to him, and he laid there, eyes closed, certain that Ajani would at any moment call out his lie for what it was, even if it wasn’t even really a lie--he was tired, and it was late.

Worry turned to annoyance, though.  Ajani said nothing further to him, but he padded around the room, going to the balcony, then the bathroom, then downstairs, then back to their room.  Finally, the bedframe creaked as the leonin crawled into bed. Gideon waited, listening for the moment when Ajani’s breathing evened out into the slow rhythm of sleep, and then waited longer, until he was certain Ajani was deeply unconscious.  As quietly as he could, he slipped out of bed, fished the now-slightly-crumpled scroll from his pocket, and placed it on his pillow where it would be easily found come morning. Then he padded across the room, forcing himself not to look at Ajani--if the leonin awoke, Gideon was only going to the bathroom, nothing more--to the little alcove where his pack sat.  Slowly he hefted it, praying his armor would not shift and clank; after a moment’s consideration, he took Liliana’s pack as well.

Once in the hallway, he moved more quickly, taking the stairs as fast as he could.  Chandra in particular often enjoyed staying up very late, and her he wanted to see least of all.  He had to go, and he would not be able to refuse her if she asked him to stay. But the hallways were empty, the bar untended, and he made out into the street without encountering another soul.

The coin told him where to go.  This, he realized, was the thing he had that Teferi did not--an opening, a connection to the Cabal that could be exploited.  This was why he needed to stay, why it must be him doing this.  He followed the coin’s wavering mental map down alleyways, past taverns kicking out their last patrons for the night, across a park, into a neighborhood full of dark windows and a door attached to a slim house, almost swallowed up by its bigger neighbors.  The metal knocker sounded abnormally loud in the midnight quiet.

He knocked again, and a third time, and a fourth before the woman from the temple finally opened the door, wrapped in a satiny black bathrobe, her face equal measures of confusion and annoyance.

“You need to take me to Belzenlok,” he said without preamble.

Confusion and annoyance gave way to fury, and she grabbed the collar of his shirt.  He let himself be pulled inside her house. It was dark inside, a single candle in a holder on the hall table failing to hold back the gloom.

“Are you mad?” she hissed.  “Do you think people aren’t listening?  That the angels can’t hear you?”

“You didn’t seem concerned before,” he said, holding up the coin in the dark.  “I could have given this token to the guards, and it would have led them right to you.”

“You could have.  But you are here now, not them.  I’m very selective with my gifts, though I may have erred--I took you for a simple man, not a stupid one.”  She picked up the candle holder.

“I need you to take me to him.”

“I don’t think you understand how our organization works.  Even supposing I was willing, I can’t just request an audience with our Lord.”

“The fighting pits.  They fight for Belzenlok’s court, don’t they?”

“Don’t say his name.  Things are listening! ”

“But he watches them?” Gideon insisted.

“The best fight for him, yes,” the woman said.

“Take me there, then.”

The candle cast strange shadows on her face as she considered the matter.  “It has been a while since we had a volunteer for the pits.  The novelty might be enough to get you a foothold, but you’ll have to actually prove yourself to fight in front of him.  He only watches the best.”

“That’s all I need.  Show me where to start, and I’ll do the rest.”

She snorted.  “Fine. I’ll take you to see Bellara in the morning.”

Chandra and Ajani would have found his letter by morning.  “No. I need to go now.”

“Pushy, aren’t we?  You don’t have any guards on your tail, do you?”

“No.  But it’s vital I leave as soon as possible.”

“Fine,” she sighed.  “Anything for a new convert.  Let me go get dressed. Do you know how to saddle a horse?  There’s a stable down the hill if you want to be helpful. The grey mare with the star is mine.”

At first, they wouldn’t let her hold the letter, which frustrated Chandra both because they were treating her like an unmanageable child and because they were probably right that she would’ve set it on fire if they’d let her have it while she was still yelling.  She had, she considered, reined in her temper admirably quickly.

He’d left a fucking note.

It was short.  I have a lead on Liliana.  I think it will be safer for everyone if I go alone.  I will find you as soon as I am able.   Even Tamiyo’s flourishing script couldn’t add any artistry to the mundane statements, written as if he was letting them know he had just snuck out to grab pastries for breakfast instead of going who-knew-where on some ill-considered quest to retrieve Liliana from a bunch of death mages all by himself...

But he had left.  And Nissa had left.  Liliana was missing. Fuck, Jace was probably…

She re-rolled the scroll and placed it on the table before she could crumple it or set it aflame.

“So now what?” she asked.  Ajani, Teferi, Samut, and Tamiyo sat with her around the small table tucked in the back of the inn’s main room.  She couldn’t find it in herself to be angry at Tamiyo; she was tired, and there were so many other people she had to be angry at already.

“I believe Amonkhet remains our priority,” Ajani said.  “Teferi, I wonder if you could have your contacts keep an eye out for Gideon as well as Liliana?”

“Of course.”

“We’re just gonna let him run off?”

“Do you think our time would be better spent searching for him?” Ajani asked.  She couldn’t tell if he was asking rhetorically or not.

“He seemed...messed up.  Look, I know all about doing dumb shit because you’re upset, and he was kinda acting like someone who might do something stupid.”  Fuck, had that been why he kissed her?  She hadn’t even thought of that. “And, look, with just you and me, I don’t know if we can manage everything.  One of us can lead people to Kaladesh, and Samut can lead people to Amonkhet, but then maybe we ought to try to get everyone back together and just regroup.  I don’t know if we can get Nissa back from Theros before she does whatever but maybe--”

“I’m sorry--Nissa went to Theros ?” Ajana interrupted.

“Yeah.  Didn’t we say?  Why? What’s wrong with Theros?  Ajani?”

Ajani sat for a moment, hands pressed to his mouth as he thought, ignoring Chandra’s increasingly worried questions.  Finally, he spoke, “No. She did not mention the name of the plane. Theros is...a deceptive place. There are many hidden dangers.”  He lowered his hands and tapped his fingers against the table.

“Well, shit.”

“I can handle the investigation on Amonkhet without you,” Samut offered.

“You might have to,” Ajani said.  He sighed and shook his head. “Someone must at least warn her.  I have...experience...with Theros and its dangers.”

Chandra poked the end of the scroll, making it turn in a little circle.  “What about Jace?”

“What can we do?  We have less information about his whereabouts than anyone else.”

“No, I mean...what if he’s dead?”

“We have no reason to believe he is.”

“No?  He isn’t here!  That’s pretty prime evidence right there,” Chandra said.  The excuses she’d given Gideon had felt flimsy even to her at the time, and they felt flimsier the more she considered them.  “If he died in the Eternities, we’d never know. If he died on some random plane, we’d never know. Shit, we’d never know even if he made it to Ravnica and, like, missed his house by a block and got picked up by a Golgari street sweeper before anyone noticed--”

“Chandra.  There’s nothing we can do either way,” Ajani said, a note of sadness coloring his voice.

“He was our friend.  We ought to do something.  Like, when do we call it? When we still haven’t seen him in a year?  In ten years? Fuck. ”  The curse felt good.  She said it again.

“Let’s give him at least a little longer,” Ajani said gently.  “For the moment: I will go to Theros and find and warn Nissa. Samut will lead the other planeswalkers to Amonkhet, where they will search for evidence of Bolas’s plans.  Teferi will see if any trace can be found of Gideon and Liliana.”

“I’ll lead the group that wanted to go to Kaladesh to Kaladesh, but then I’m coming back here to help Teferi,” Chandra said.

Ajani nodded, apparently satisfied, or at least unwilling to fight her over it.  The group dispersed shortly thereafter, but Chandra didn’t want to leave her seat, and Ajani remained as well, eyes affixed in the middle distance as he thought.

“This sucks,” she said after a time.  She picked up the scroll, read it again, and tossed it on the table with a disgusted huff.

“If it helps, he seemed troubled by what had happened on Amonkhet.  I don’t believe his decision had anything to do with you,” Ajani offered.

“I know,” she said.  That was the whole problem, wasn’t it?  She wondered how good Ajani’s sense of smell was--was his nose cat-like in function as well as form?  A simple air-clearing spell worked well enough for humans, but she hadn’t considered whether it worked for species with more sensitive senses.  Did he know what she and Gideon had done? Or was he referencing only their assumed conversation after he’d sent her up to check on Gideon?

“May I ask what you and he talked about?”

“Nothing much.  We...caught up. He was upset at first cuz of Jace, and kinda stressed out about everything, but he calmed down after a while.”

Or had her perceptions been wrong?  Had he seemed distant not because the physical paled in comparison to the overwhelming unity she’d experienced when casting that spell with Nissa, but because he had actually been distant, his mind focused on his own troubles and not on her?  Had he been imagining his escape even as he laid entwined with her?  She tried to replay everything in her mind, but now it was hopelessly tangled up in her own confused emotional state, painful to focus on yet as irresistible as a sore tooth.  She couldn’t stop poking at it, trying to force everything into a sequence that made sense.

Finally, she forced herself to stand, snatching up the note and cramming it into one of her pockets.  “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter Text

A shouted command echoed down the line, passed from rider to rider, and the wagon’s driver hauled back on his reins.  The wagon lurched to a halt. Liliana remained motionless, sitting arms folded on the narrow bench, but the pale, silent girl hopped out of her seat and jumped to the ground as soon as the wagon was stationary, jogging off into the foggy woods.

“Oy, girl!  Don’t you run too far!”  Their guard stuck his head into the back of the wagon and grimaced at Liliana.  “You coming out or what?” 

Liliana favored him with the slightest glance from the corner of her eye and remained where she was.

“Suit yourself, your ladyship, but we’re not stopping if you have to take a piss.”  The guard was gruff, the sort of man who had heard that soldiers were crude and a bit rough around the edges and had taken it as a personal challenge.  He tongued the inside of his lip, shifting around the rubia hash wadded there, and spat a gob of red juice onto the ground before moving on. Only once he was out of sight did Liliana stand, shake her skirt back into place, and lean to stretch out legs that had become cramped during the hours sitting on the wagon’s hard bench.  Someone had sewn a cushion for it, but they were either a poor seamstress or had only a theoretical knowledge of the purpose of a cushion. The fabric was new, but the padding inside was so beaten down it was little better than wood. Acceptable, perhaps, for a short journey, but the sun was now rising on their second day of travel.

Raised voices from farther up the line caught her attention; when it became clear she could not understand anything without moving closer, she reluctantly climbed out of the wagon, taking care not to let the dagger hidden in her bodice shift and fall out.  She’d sewn a loop for it on the inside of her shift, but she was no great seamstress herself, and she could feel how loose the dagger hung every time she moved. It was more hidden than it had been wedged in her bustier, at least.

The rasp of Josu’s voice was obvious, even if she couldn’t tell what he was saying from the wagon.  The guard’s back was to her as he fussed with the saddle on his undead horse, which, to judge by his swearing, would not stay snug.  He didn’t notice Liliana slip out of the wagon, nor notice her picking her way over the muddy ground toward the head of the line and the sounds of an argument.  It was not yet clear to Liliana how much freedom she was to be granted; thus far, she had been allowed to roam unattended out of sight, though not out of earshot.  The guards clearly knew there was nowhere for her to go. The forest here was old and dark, the trail they followed the only sign of civilization. She could not planeswalk.  She had no access to magic whatsoever. It might take her weeks to find a settlement to hide in, provided she could find one at all, and she would be fleeing on foot in unfamiliar land, while her pursuers enjoyed the speed of horses.  No, she had to stay with the caravan, at least so long as Josu kept up his pretense of friendliness, and everyone around her knew it.

She didn’t creep, but she made an effort to move quietly, hiking up her skirts so they didn’t rustle against the ground.  Mist swirled in her wake in the dim dawn light; she had to strain her eyes to make out anything more than a few feet in front of her, but the eyes of the undead making up much of the convoy would be less hampered by the slowly retreating gloom.

Voices resolved into words: Josu arguing with two others, one of whom was also undead, to judge by the rasp in its voice.  Liliana slowed, hiding herself behind the corner of the foremost wagon. Between the pair of undead horses that pulled the wagon, she could just make out the dark gleam of Josu’s armor.

“We were given orders,” the living voice said.  A man’s voice, crisp and almost perfectly emotionless, a slight elevation in volume the only clue to his annoyance.  A servant’s voice; he was closest to her, posture rigid, hands clasped primly behind his back, gently attempting to dissuade his master from some ill-considered plan.

“And we’re not disobeying them, no, no,” Josu snapped back in his childish cadence.  “He didn’t say when, only that we must. ”

“He may not have explicitly said when, but I believe his intent was that we convey your sister to Urborg immediately. ”

“It’s on the way.”

“Respectfully, sir, it’s not.”

“Well…” the undead voice interjected.  A woman’s voice, badly decayed, stringy and wet.  “We could catch a ship ‘round Baymuth, sail south around the continent.  Might be faster than dragging this convoy through the pass at Gattimeny.”

“See?” Josu crowed.  “It’s fine. It’s fine.  It’s better this way. Send a message.  Have a ship for us at Baymuth.” He gestured to someone to carry out his order and began to walk away--towards the wagon Liliana was hiding behind.  She swore silently and stepped backwards. It was likely fine for her to be here, but the less time spent in Josu’s sight, the better.

“There are no ships to the northwest,” the living man exclaimed, his calm facade reaching its breaking point.  Liliana took a few more quiet steps towards the rear of the wagon. “The Benalian navy is weak, but they still hold their own waters.  What ships we have are all to the east--”

“Liliana!” Josu cried.  She started; he had come up behind her, going around the far side of the wagon faster than she’d realized.  “How are you? Is your ride comfortable? Of course it isn’t, but not far now. Not far at all.”

“Not far to where?” she asked.

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken.  “But you must return to your wagon, poor as it is.  I’m sorry, it really isn’t up to standards, is it? But we must be underway again.  Travel by night, travel by night, and the night grows shorter already! Where is your attendant?  You mustn't wander. You could trip and get hurt.” His cold arm anchored itself on her shoulders, forcibly turning her around and walking her back toward the wagon.  She set her jaw and didn’t protest. Be calm, be compliant, play the docile dove--it wasn’t her favorite strategy, but she knew from experience how effective it could be.

The guard was still fussing with his saddle when they reached the back of the line.  He flinched and got his finger caught in the billets when he saw Josu approaching with Liliana, and Liliana allowed herself to feel a slight surge of sadistic pleasure at his discomfit.  Really, she shouldn’t concern herself with people like him, but there was so little lately she could take pleasure in.

“Keep a close eye on her,” Josu said.  “There are many dangers in the forest, and I do not want her harmed.”  

“Of course, sir.  Of course.” The guard nodded animatedly, eager to show his willingness to follow his master’s orders.

But when Josu was out of earshot, the guard seized Liliana by the arm and dragged her in close.  His bared teeth, stained red from long rubia use, were mere inches from her face.

“Embarrass me again, bitch, and see what happens,” he snarled.

She leaned back to escape his breath.  “A word of advice: to be effective, a bluff must be believable.  You’re not going to do anything except yell yourself red in the face.”  She tried to pull her arm from his grasp, but his fingers tightened painfully.

“You think I’m bluffing?” he growled.

“I think you’re a very good dog who only bites when he’s told to,” Liliana drawled, smiling mockingly.

Shouts from the head of the line.  It was time to get moving again. The guard stilled.  Liliana again tried to pull her arm free, but his grip was too firm, and her movement awakened him to action.  He dragged her to the wagon, picking her up when she dug in her heels, and sat her on the edge like a child.

“You stay where you’re supposed to stay.”

“Touch me again and you won’t have to worry about Josu,” Liliana hissed, embarrassed fury overriding judgment.

He laughed and spat more rubia on the ground, calling her bluff as surely as she’d called his.  “Your wings’ve been clipped. Take away your magic and you’re nothing but an angry little girl. I ain’t afraid of you, and no one else is either.”

He stomped away from the wagon and hollered for the pale girl.  Liliana bit back the urge to continue the fight; it was pointless, and beneath her anyways.  Her weapons at the moment were, admittedly, few. Men like him weren’t cowed by a weeping woman; they jeered at a proud one, and ignored the silent and obedient.  Being left alone was the best she could hope for, for now.

The girl appeared running out of the fog and climbed back aboard with a handful of something green clutched in her fist.  She plopped onto the bench across from Liliana and pulled a stem from the bunch, which she chewed on with the side of her mouth like a sheep.  Liliana stared at her; the girl seemed unconcerned about what she was eating, but was she old enough to tell edible plants from poisonous? Being trapped in the wagon with a puking girl would be the perfect capstone to the whole journey.

Misunderstanding Liliana’s look, the girl held out the fistful of vegetation.  She had, evidently, lost her fear after a day stuck together, and now she looked expectantly to Liliana, nodding at the plants, encouraging Liliana to take some.

Watercress and sourgrass, Liliana noted.  Not poisonous, though she was surprised the girl tolerated the bitter taste of sourgrass.  She hadn’t, when she was a child and the cook added the clover-like leaves to her salad.

“Careful not to eat too much,” she said, holding up a hand to refuse the offered plants.  “Sourgrass can make your stomach cramp if you eat too much of it.”

The girl smiled and stuck a finger in her mouth to dislodge a stuck leaf.  The wagon jerked forward. Liliana leaned back, trying to make herself comfortable.  The argument with the guard still simmered in her mind. “Clipped”, pah. She still had the dagger.  She didn’t need magic to take down a louse like him.

No.  Be docile.  Be the dove.

The girl was her only possible source of distraction.  Liliana watched her; she chewed loudly, cow-like, sticking her finger in her mouth now and again to fish out some errant piece of vegetation.  No one had taught the child table manners, obviously, and her pale hair, while clean enough (though she’d gotten the ends dipped in mud while foraging), was unstyled, simply combed straight, and looked as if it hadn’t been trimmed in years.  Liliana wondered how long the girl had been a prisoner or a servant or whatever she was of the Cabal. Long enough that she hadn’t been taught the basics of etiquette.

"Do you have a name?”  Liliana asked. “We've got plenty of time.  I can start guessing from the top of the alphabet and work downwards."

The girl nodded.

“Ara, then?  Amaya? Andra?”

A shake to each, then the girl darted across the gap to sit next to Liliana.  She pulled on Liliana’s shoulder until Liliana leaned her head down to be at the girl’s level.  The girl pressed close and began to quietly hum a song; it took Liliana several verses, but finally she recognized the melody as one of the hymns from the Song of All. 

Of course. The people of Benalia had long had an irritating habit of naming tow-headed children after the damned angel-mad planeswalker they mistakenly thought was a god.  Liliana’s second-youngest sister had been named Serra, as had two of the servants' children she'd known growing up.

"Your name is Serra?" she asked. 

The girl's happy grin confirmed it. 

"I should have guessed," Liliana sighed and slumped back against the wall of the wagon.  “So, Serra, you understand words and you have a voice. Why don’t you talk?”

The girl stuck her tongue out.  It was long but barely a finger-width wide, and split at the end--a serpent’s tongue.

“I see,” Liliana said.  “A curse?”

Serra shrugged and slumped, mimicking Liliana’s posture.  Did she not know, or simply not want to say? Liliana wondered how long the girl had been a captive of the Cabal--had they been the ones to curse her, or had they simply taken advantage of a child who couldn’t give their secrets away?  It was hard to remember how much interest the Cabal had taken in children before; she’d been warned repeatedly as a child not to go out into the Caligo alone lest the Cabal snatch her, but she couldn’t recall any actual incidents of the Cabal kidnapping children either.

Josu had always loved children.  He had delighted in playing with their younger sisters, and had spoken eagerly of becoming a father, daydreaming aloud about how he would be different from their own distant father.  Liliana had turned up her nose at the very idea of children, of course: by that age, her healing training included helping Lady Ana with midwifery, and the idea of birthing a child had lost any appeal.  She’d never been sold on children to begin with, and seeing how they entered the world...well, suffice to say she had decided that day that she would never be a mother.

But children had never lost their appeal to Josu, and Liliana wondered if Serra’s presence might be some perverse remnant of Josu’s paternal instincts, a kindliness that had persisted beyond death.  

She found the idea more disturbing than she anticipated.

Before long, the forest turned to swamplands.  Unlike the previous day, the wagons did not stop during the daylight hours; they continued on through the swamp, wagons and horses following a narrow pathway through the water, weaving their way through stands of small trees with trunks blackened with mold, and across crude bridges of rough-cut stone.  They had crossed into the Caligo, Liliana realized. The flooded forest. They had ventured south, retracing the path she and Gideon had taken, returning to the town of Vess--and the manor house.

Near midday, the house became visible, revealed as the wagons turned upwards to climb the long, shallow hill upon which the house resided.  Liliana hadn’t dared get too close during the weeks spent recuperating in the town of Vess, but she hadn’t been able to resist hiking to the bottom of the hill to see what had become of the old manor.  It was surprisingly intact for a near-three-hundred-year-old building, two hundreds years of which it had lain abandoned. It still stood, mostly, though the western wing was slumped and rotting; it pulled away from the rest of the house, creating a crack in the brickwork of the house’s facade.  What few windows weren’t broken were opaque with dirt. No vegetation grew on the mouldering house, no opportunistic ivy, but brambles and nettles had overtaken the yard, creating a shaggy beard girding the lower story.

Another detail became apparent as the convoy approached: Leta had been wrong.  The old Vess manor wasn’t cursed. It had simply collected an impressive amount of dark mana, like a rock in the middle of a stream accumulating branches and debris until a dam formed around it.  The mana was visible in places, thick, ropey strands of it hanging from the eaves like clotted blood. Something massive had happened here; possibly several somethings, to judge by what was left behind.  A spell big enough to leave permanent traces like cracks radiating from a struck mirror. Had her sparking done this? Her unintentional cursing of Josu? Something else, something yet more dire?

The wagons pulled into the old stable and Liliana disembarked.  It was curiously unemotional, returning to her childhood home after so many years.  She was led through doors that seemed familiar, like the memory of a dream, up to rooms she no longer remembered.  The furniture was broken and crudely repaired, the carpets threadbare and sunbleached, the curtains moth-eaten, the unclothed mattress sunken and grey with dust.  The house had not been maintained, merely preserved, magic used as a crude hammer to prevent rot and decay. Had these been her sisters’ rooms, once? She didn’t think they had been hers.  She’d had the corner bedroom, hadn’t she? Or had that room been Josu’s, and she was misremembering after centuries away…

Serra lit a fire in the hearth and set about drawing a bath.  The girl had to scrub accumulated dirt and dust from the cracked, aged-yellow ceramic before filling the tub; Liliana dithered, exploring the room.  Rat feces made a trail around the baseboards--the magical miasma hanging over the house was anathema to most creatures, but a few would see it as a safe haven, free from predators.  Doubtless the cellars were full of vermin continuing to use the house as shelter.

The windows in the room were still unbroken.  Liliana tied the curtains back to allow in what light could be let in; the curtains had been velvet once, she guessed, but now all that remained was gossamer webbing, insubstantial enough that strands broke at her touch.  A bookcase had toppled in the corner, decades ago to judge by the dust. She kicked a book free. Definitely one of her sister’s, she decided: the text was unreadable, the pages blackened with mold, but ancient , colorless pressed flowers fell from between the pages when she flipped through it.  She dropped the book and wiped her hands on her skirt then, with a glance back at Serra, still scrubbing, knelt and unhooked her dagger from its loop and hid it in the pile, and took the needles she’d stolen and poked them through the worn leather cover of one of the books.

The magical taps must have been re-enchanted recently; the bathwater was nearly scalding.  It was as close to luxury as Liliana had experienced in nearly a month, and that realization sent her to brooding darkly, wondering where exactly she’d lost control of the situation.  The whole point of nurturing a friendship with the Gatewatch had been so that she could share her burdens and relax, freed from the necessity of doing everything herself.  And now what? She’d had to take care of Gideon herself because Nissa had run off in a pissy snit; when Gideon was finally well enough to travel, they’d immediately gotten separated.  He had yet to rescue her, which probably meant he wasn’t going to. And where was Chandra? Where was Jace?

Dead, both of them, probably.  She tugged at a damp snarl. That was the problem with living allies, that was the problem she’d been steadfastly avoiding for over two hundred years.  Living allies were only valuable so long as they continued living, and every living thing stopped living eventually.  Well, most of them. Living allies were far more useful than the dead, but more temporary too, and she’d thought it a trade-off worth making, but…well, the Gatewatch had turned out to be very temporary, hadn’t it?

She was back exactly where she’d started.  She would have to kill Belzenlok on her own.  She would have to deal with the Raven Man and the Chain Veil on her own.  She’d have to escape Josu on her own, and deal with Bolas…even listing the tasks was exhausting.  She sank under the water and blew an exasperated series of bubbles.

The girl brought her a fresh set of clothes and sat on the floor to polish her boots.  Liliana dried off and examined the clothes. The dress had been white, but the silk had yellowed, and the embroidery decorating the neckline and sleeves was smushed and faded.  But Liliana thought she recognized the dress--it had been one of hers, hadn’t it? A gift from her parents for her birthday, which she’d been forced to wear to a handful of small galas so her mother could show off her grown daughter and, with any luck, marry her off to someone who mattered.

"This won't fit," Liliana complained.  Never mind the other problems with it. But the girl made a gesture, urging her to try, and Liliana slipped into the garment.  She’d grown an inch or so taller since the dress had been tailored for her, and her breasts and hips were larger than they had been when she was a teenager, but the clothes fit serviceably well.  Not stylish, but functional enough--the sleeves were too short and the bodice too tight, but she could manage.

“When will my clothes be back?” she asked.

Serra shrugged and mimed scrubbing something on a washboard.  Liliana sighed--the seams of the dress pulled uncomfortably when she took in a deep breath--and retrieved her boots.

Serra refused to set foot in the cellar.  She had followed Liliana downstairs and outside and even walked down the sagging stairway to the cellar floor, but she wouldn’t venture further than the last step.  She’d tugged on Liliana’s dress until Liliana ripped the garment from her fingers, and now clung unhappily to the banister, rocking back and forth as if torn between following Liliana deeper and running back into the daylight.

Liliana didn’t have time for girlish squeamishness.  She hefted a pilfered lantern and looked around. The cellars under the Vess manor were large, carved out from a natural cave system that extended underneath the hill.  And they were indeed infested with vermin. Not many--the food had been eaten through a century prior--but a few rats scampered here and there, and the mess told of countless generations living under the house.

Tools were kept somewhere in the manor, though she wasn’t sure where.  The cellar seemed a good place to start searching, and had the bonus of being completely ignored by the Cabal.  A saw, a file, tinner’s snips; something here could break the mana-blocking bracelets hamstringing her. All she needed to do was find it--the first item in a long list of tasks.  She sighed and started searching.

The first large room of the cellar had mainly been a pantry.  Nothing remained of the grain stores her mother had spent so much effort maintaining, but some things even the rats hadn’t touched.  Casks of beer, bottles of wine. A few ancient barrels of salt-packed meat and fish, crocks of wax-sealed pickled vegetables. Liliana remembered pickling season; her mother in a terror, counting the size of the harvest and calculating how much must be saved, haranguing the servants, shrieking at the children to stay out of the way.

Out of curiosity, Liliana unsealed one of the crocks.  The contents were mush but recognizably carrots, and there wasn’t any smell of rot.  Still, she dumped them out onto the floor for the rats.

“Can’t waste a single turnip, can we?” Liliana muttered.  “Not in wartime.”

She wasn’t here for food; she ventured deeper, searching.  The chandlery was bare, the rats having apparently eaten both candles and soap.  The larder had no meat, and new rock was forming around the rusting hanging hooks.  She wasted some time searching a room that appeared to be a dumping ground for broken things no one had ever bothered to fix; furniture and children’s toys, shovels and spades with snapped shafts, broken shields and bent training swords.  No tools she could use. Where had the servants actually fixed things?

The sound of creaking wood made her pause.  The girl hadn’t made that much noise following her down the stairs, had she?  Damn it all; someone else was coming down, and that meant her searching was about to be at its end.  She turned down the lantern as much as she could and darted into the last room.  Its original purpose was lost to time--had the cooper worked here, perhaps?--but immediately she spotted a hammer and rusty nails.  A workbench. A rolled leather holder for tools.

A shout from the main room.  “What’re you doing down here, your ladyship?”  The mocking twist on ladyship was unmistakable.  The guard.

She set the lantern down and moved to the case.  The ties had practically fused together after so much time, and she’d left the dagger behind in the room, unable to hide it in the tight gown.  She fumbled with the knot and broke a nail attempting to prise it open. In desperation, she gnawed at it--and one of the ties snapped under her teeth.

The old leather cracked as she rolled it open.  Tools. Chisels and files and knives. Nearly untouched by rust, thanks to the protection of the case.  She grinned, and selected two of the files and slid them into her boot, then rolled the case back up and placed it where it had been.  Nothing she could do about the dust she’d disturbed.

She blew out the lantern and left it.  Let him think she could see in the dark.  As quietly as she could, she left the sideroom, intending to circle back around the large main area so as to hide where she’d been.  She could see the light from the guard’s lantern--he’d moved off to investigate the chandlery. If she was quick, she might be able to exit the cellar without him spotting her at all.  She weaved between the racks, keeping a careful eye on the light--

Something slick gave way under her foot, and she careened forward.  For an instant, she caught herself on a shelf, and then the ancient wood snapped under her weight.  Crocks of old pickled vegetables smashed open on the ground; Liliana wasn’t sure what part of her hit first.  Pain registered in her arm, her knee, her temple. She pushed herself up out of the mess of smashed pottery and brine.

“Clumsy cow!”  The guard dragged her the rest of the way to her feet.  “What’re you doing down here?”

She wrenched herself out of his grasp.  The girl Serra huddled at the edge of the lantern light, twisting her hands together nervously.

“I was reacquainting myself with my childhood home,” Liliana lied blithely, not bothering to sound convincing.  Her head hurt, and he wasn’t worth the effort. “Josu and I used to play hide-and-seek down here.” Nine hells, had she given herself a concussion?  Blood welled up through the abraded skin at the base of her palm; she tilted her hand so it began to drip on the floor. A few pebbles had embedded themselves in her skin.

“If you were looking for a way out, you’re better off running into the swamp,” the guard growled.  “You won’t get away that way either, but we get to set the hollow dogs on you, and it’s always fun watching them run.”  He shoved her towards the stairs.

Outside, the sun had begun to set.  Liliana walked, chin high, refusing to show embarrassment or pain.  Wetness was beginning to soak her stocking where she’d scraped her knee, and a burning sensation near her ankle suggested one of the files in her boot had cut her.  She resisted the urge to touch the throbbing at her temple; there was nothing she could do about it anyway. Zombies and the few living guards the convoy had were criss-crossing the grounds below, no doubt searching for her.  She smiled wanly.

Josu waited for them in the main hall, discussing something quietly with an advisor.  He waved the elderly man away when he saw them enter.

“Dear sister!  I grew worried!” Josu cried, swooping close to examine her.  “What has happened to you?”

“She was down in the cellars,” the guard reported gruffly.

“Oh dear, oh dear.  Whatever were you doing there?  There’s nothing but rats,” Josu murmured.  He reached out his hand to touch the throbbing at her temple.  What skin remained on his fingertips was dry and leathery and rough.  Liliana stepped away from his touch and stumbled as she trod on Serra, who had been hiding behind her.

“Careful, careful,” Josu said, grabbing her arm to steady her.  He straightened and turned to the guard. “I told you she was not to be harmed.”

“I didn’t touch her,” the guard said, sounding something like offended.  “She fell, skulking around in the dark. Sir.”

“You were supposed to be watching her,” Josu intoned monotonously, the usual sing-song rhythm gone.  

“She snuck off--”

“That is why you were supposed to be watching her!”

“She was taking a bath!  You can’t watch a lady when she’s taking a bath!” the guard protested.  Liliana chuckled darkly at the indignation in his voice. Now he wanted to be chivalrous!

Josu shook his head; one of his few remaining lank strands of hair fell across his face, and for a moment he looked like her brother.  “She was not to be harmed.”

Mana currents swirled around Liliana’s ankles, drawn toward Josu.  His hand clenched in a fist.

“I--” the guard began, but whatever he had been about to say was lost to a bout of sudden, hacking coughing.  Josu’s fist raised, and the guard doubled over and retched, dark blood pouring from his mouth to pool at his feet.  Serra screamed and clutched at Liliana’s skirts. The guard clutched at his chest, his throat, eyes distended, and coughed his lifeblood onto the floor.  Liliana stepped backwards, shoving the girl further behind her, a tightness in her chest. She recognized the spell, though it wasn’t one she favored, given the mess it caused.

All of this was wrong.  Josu had been beloved by his men, praised for his sense of fairness, his easy-going temper, his warmth.  The way he listened to them and played cards with them. Not like a Vess at all, they’d laughed. Liliana had occasionally envied the easy camaraderie Josu boasted with seemingly everyone.

This wasn’t Josu, she reminded herself sharply.  The guard collapsed and twitched, his face swelling and flushing purple with burst blood vessels.  Uncaring, Josu stepped over his outflung arm and took Liliana by the shoulder. Liliana set her jaw, and told herself that the slight tremble she couldn’t still was merely the concussion.

“Come,” Josu said.  “We’re late for supper.”  He reached down behind her and grabbed the cowering Serra, and Liliana felt a flash of fear that he would kill the girl too--Josu, who had so beloved children.  But he merely disentangled her from Liliana’s skirts and shoved her towards the stairs, then steered Liliana toward the dining room.

Other things already sat around the table; Josu led Liliana to a chair and pulled it out for her, and she sat because she couldn’t do anything else.  The silverware was near-black with tarnish, the edges of the dishes were chipped, and the placemats and napkins barely held together, but otherwise the table was set exactly as her mother would have demanded it be set.  Precise, the forks and knife and spoons arranged more exactingly than most spells, each dish aligned perfectly with its neighbors. Fresh flowers, spring crocus and wild yellow lilies peppered with snowdrops, burst in a wild cluster from a low, wide vase in the center.  A cut glass pitcher sat at each end.

Liliana rolled her eyes.  Doing so caused her headache to worsen.  She tried to calm herself by remembering the files stashed in her boot.  Soon, Josu would be done with whatever silly game he was playing, and she could retire somewhere quiet and begin sawing through her bonds, and then her magic would be back and she would be free and this whole charade would be put to an end.  Let Josu take her to Belzenlok, who thought her powerless. Let him see just how wrong that assessment was.

Undead sat at the table with her.  Old zombies, four of them, tar-black skin stretched tight against bone, eye sockets empty and sunken, so quiet and unmoving she would have taken them for merely dead were she not able to feel the animating thrum of mana in each one’s core.  Unrecognizable, yet she had a feeling she knew who these bodies had once been. The one at the head of the table had been thin and tall, and even in death his features seemed pinched in disapproval. Father. Her mother’s spot was empty. Josu sat himself across from Liliana; next to him, their sister Serra, only a few blond wisps still gracing her head, and next to her Anara, whose corpse was toothless and crooked with age.  She, alone of all of them, had died elderly. Rosalia’s tall zombie sat next to Liliana, with petite Haizel on the end.

Josu had killed all of them, and brought them here in some bizarre recreation of life before his death.

“Josu, this is ridiculous,” Liliana blurted, too tired and exasperated and pained to rein the words in.  “We’re both far too old to be playing house.”

He ignored her, and pulled his napkin from its holder and settled it across his lap, then clapped his hands.  The door to the kitchen opened, and a man in chef’s garb entered holding a covered silver tray, followed by more zombies each holding a tray of their own.  The chef placed his burden carefully at the head of the table and pulled off the cover with a flourish, releasing a cloud of steam and revealing a roast suckling pig.  Liliana wondered what he thought of all of this, the absurdity of cooking for a table of undead who could not eat or enjoy his efforts, but the man’s face was professionally blank as he readied his carving tools.

The serving zombies deposited their own trays, revealing brown rolls and spinach salad with radish roses and asparagus in a white sauce and jellied fruit.  The chef began to carve the pig, depositing a slice on each plate, while the serving zombies took up spoons and distributed their own dishes.

“So wonderful to have everyone together again,” Josu said, clasping his hands in front of himself, the childish cadence back.  “A shame Mother could not be here, but Liliana has finally come home!”

“My lady,” the chef said as he placed a thin slice of meat on Liliana’s plate.  The smell of meat sat uneasily alongside her headache and growing queasiness

“Is there wine?” she asked.  She wasn’t sure she could sit through this parody of a family dinner without some kind of help.

“Our little runaway; I had despaired of ever seeing her again!  You remember, Father, I told you that she had gone to visit Belzenlok, and I did not find out until after she had left!  Can you believe it? Years apart, and we miss the chance to reconnect due to happenstance! How fortunate are we to get a second chance?”

The zombie of their father made a low rattling noise.  The corpse was, after so long, far too degraded to do anything but wheeze out a pathetic imitation of breath, but Josu laughed and nodded along, as if the zombie were actually speaking.  The other zombies clutched silverware in clumsy, jerking fingers and stuffed food into mouths no longer capable of swallowing.

“Of course, of course--what is it you always say?”

The zombie continued to rasp out pretend speech, while Josu pantomimed intent listening.  Liliana sighed and closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. One of the serving zombies poured wine into her glass, and she grabbed the glass eagerly and drank, swallowing the alcohol so quickly she barely tasted it.

The zombie of Rosalia moaned, and Josu turned to it.  “Oh, yes! What have you been up to, Liliana?  We’re all curious.”

“This is ridiculous,” Liliana repeated.  “If you want to play pretend, go ahead, but leave me out of it.”

Next to Josu, Serra’s zombie made a noise and gestured.

“Now, now, there’s no need to fight,” Josu placated, placing a hand on the zombie’s arm.  “She’s always been disagreeable, but that’s no excuse for name-calling.”

Another wave of queasiness surged forth.  Liliana shoved her plate away and rested her head in her hands.  The lights in the chandelier were too bright. The wet sounds of the zombies fake-chewing were too loud, too noxious.

“Well, fine, would you like to hear what we’ve been doing?  We’ve been doing very well, yes. Very happy, aren't we?”

Around the table, the zombies moaned.

“Yes, very happy,” Josu crooned.  “All of us here together. It took some time!  It took some time. Father came first. Do you remember, Father?  You came, after everyone else had fled, you came to the house with your men.  Such a misunderstanding! You yelled and yelled, and I had to throw you out the window before you would listen!”  The lich laughed. “Do you remember? Out the third-floor window, and then you finally would listen! Always so stubborn, always such a Vess!”

Liliana shoved her chair back and stood.

“Where are you going?” Josu asked.  “I didn’t say you could leave.”

“I’m going to lie down.  Enjoy the rest of your... this. ” She gestured to the table and the undead pretending to eat.  Rosalia had missed her mouth with her fork, and had a smear of runny sauce across her cheek.

“I didn’t say you could leave,” Josu repeated, more firmly.

“That’s too bad.”  Before she was halfway to the door, she heard the crash of breaking dishes.

“I did not say you could leave!” Josu shrieked.  His heavy footsteps echoed off the bare walls; Liliana darted for the door, but he caught her arm and dragged her back into the dining room.  “Sit down! We’re having dinner.”

“Enough, Josu!” she yelled back.  “I’m not playing this fucking game with you!”

“Always, always, always Liliana, causing trouble, causing strife!” Josu sing-songed.  Her boots squealed on the floor as he frog-marched her back to her seat. “Even just having dinner, and she makes problems!  No wonder Mother and Father were always so angry!”

“This isn’t dinner,” she growled.  “This is a crazy person playing make-believe with a bunch of corpses!”

“Sometimes I hoped you wouldn’t come back, you know,” Josu said, his words tumbling out in a torrent.  “Such a horrible thing to hope, that your sister never comes back. That she died far far away! But sometimes I hoped it!  Hard to forgive someone who tore your family apart!”

“You’re the one who murdered them,” Liliana said through gritted teeth.

“I put them back together!  Back together! The family you tore apart!” Dishes rattled as Josu’s fists struck the table.  The zombies continued pretending to eat, even though their plates were no longer where their forks expected.

She hurled the glass pitcher at him.  It clipped his shoulder and shattered against the floor.  “I didn’t do this! You did!”

“No?” Josu boomed.  “It wasn’t you who cursed me?  You who murdered me?”

“I didn’t mean--it wasn’t my fault!” she yelled.  She threw the wine glass; it went wide.

“We found your books, you know, after you left.  Such dark books! Evil things, not allowed. You should have heard Mother and Father wail--their own daughter!  Their own little girl. Where had they gone wrong? And to think, for years they’d been making excuses: Liliana is headstrong!  Liliana is difficult! Liliana has her own ideas! But no, no, they realized what they should have said: Liliana should have been smothered in her crib!  Liliana is evil. Liliana is cruel, lying, manipulative. Liliana does dark twisted experiments on her own brother. Imagine what she would do to her sisters if she caught them!”

“None of this is my fault!”

Josu’s plate was shattered on the floor; he reached for the pig and wrenched off a leg.  “They ran from you, you know.  Did you know that?  Oh, they feared me. They feared me until I explained.”  He took a bite from the leg, gnashing his teeth like a dog.  “But it was you they ran from. Mother was terrified. ‘What if Liliana comes back?  What will she do to us?’” His voice squeaked as he imitated a woman’s voice, and little bits of chewed pig fell from his mouth.

“You’re deluded.”  Anger only intensified the sharp pain in her head, and Liliana wanted nothing more than to bury herself under a blanket somewhere.

“No.  Mother never loved you, that can’t be a surprise.  Do you remember how happy she was when Rosalia was born?  I think everyone knew, even when you were little, that nothing good would ever come of you.”

“Then why do you want to play pretend happy family?” Liliana seethed.  “It’s a lie! It would be a lie even if they were alive. Just take me to Belzenlok.”

“Fine.  Fine. Fine,” Josu muttered over and over again.  Juice from the pig dripped down his chin. “You won’t see sense.  I can’t make you see sense. No, not until I take you to Belzenlok, no.  So fine. Fine. Run away, Liliana. Run away, run away, run away. Tomorrow we leave.”

Climbing the stairs to her room was exhausting; the pain in her knee intensified every time she bent it, and while it was far from the worst she’d ever experienced, it was draining when combined with her bleeding palm and the searing headache and the queasiness and the lingering, disquieting anger from her fight with Josu.  Serra ran from some hiding spot when Liliana finally made it to the room, rushing to bury her face in Liliana’s skirts, face red and blotchy from crying. Awkwardly, Liliana patted the girl’s head, then pushed her aside so she could go to the washroom and rinse the blood from her hands and see to her bruises.

She filled the washbasin with cold water.  Serra, trembling, came in to help her, and Liliana asked the girl to fetch whatever medical supplies the house had; then, after a moment’s examination of the dirt ground into the abraded skin on her palm, she retrieved a needle from its hiding place and set about digging the debris out of the wound.  When it was clean, she washed it out with soap, then she dipped her sleeve in the basin and rubbed at the polished silver mirror until it became clear enough to see herself in. She leaned close to better see the bruise at her temple. It was visibly swollen and dark; the blood had begun to drift and pool some under her eye.  It looked like the sort of bruise that might come from a fist; Josu doubtlessly thought the hapless guard had struck her in a fury. Well, so much for that. She found herself unhappy about the guard’s death, though she couldn’t say why. Upset perhaps that she hadn’t been able to personally give him his comeuppance. Or maybe the truth of Josu’s degradation made her uncomfortable--her brother would never execute a man as punishment.  But the lich Josu was not her brother.

The girl returned with a bag containing an eclectic collection of dried herbs and other supplies.  Liliana tied a bandage over scraped palm and sniffed at the herbs until she identified something that would take away the pain in her head.  Off came her boots and stockings; one of the files had indeed gouged an inch-long, shallow cut on her ankle, and her bruised knee bled lazily.  She rinsed the files and patted them dry with a towel, then cleaned the two wounds on her leg. The girl hovered the whole time, and Liliana wished the child had remained fearful instead of looking to her for support.  She had no comfort to give the girl, and at the moment her presence was irritating.

Injuries tended to, Liliana grabbed the files.  A thumb ran over their surface confirmed they still had some bite; she selected one and ran it experimentally over the metal bracelet.  It made less noise than she expected, quiet enough that she might be able to file away at the bracelet in the wagon if she went slowly. She held her wrist close to the oil lamp and smiled triumphantly.  Pale scratches, faint but undeniably there, marred the bracelet.

Her clothes, freshly cleaned, waited on the bed, and she changed into them gratefully.  She tossed the old silk dress, now dirty and stained with blood, out the window, then settled herself on the floor and began to rasp away at the bracelet.  Serra watched her owlishly, perched on the bed. Let her, Liliana thought. It wasn’t as if the girl could give away the secret.

By dawn, when the guard came to retrieve her--a different guard, young and surly and close-mouthed--Liliana had worked a divot a quarter of the way through the bracelet.  She hid the files again in her boot, replaced the dagger in its holder, and boarded the wagons with a smile. Let them think her helpless, let them think her beaten, let them think her nothing more than a broken-winged dove.

Soon she would show them just how terrible she could be.

Chapter Text

The grassland was as flat as pavement.  It extended to the horizon in all directions, a mat of tans and greens, its homogeneity broken here and there by stands of trees surrounding muddy watering holes and by great herds of grazing beasts that trudged from pond to pond, leaving a highway of crushed stems and mud behind them.  Swarms of insects followed in the beasts’ wake, feasting on what was left behind, and the insects’ presence drew flocks of agile birds that darted and criss-crossed low to the ground, catching insects on the wing.  Small, solitary, weasel-like predators came last, stalking the birds.

If any people had ever lived here, no trace of them remained.  If the plane had a name, Domri didn’t know it, and he liked to believe he was the only person who had ever stepped foot here, that he was the only creature here who had ever wondered about something as silly as names.

The grazing beasts were okapi-like in form, with smooth, dark red coats and short, nubby horns, but unlike Ravnica’s timid okapi, the beasts on this plane were utterly fearless.  Nothing seemed to prey on them, and by and large they ignored Domri.  They would shove him aside if he shoved first, but otherwise they hardly seemed to notice his presence.

He laid on his back on a fallen tree that jutted out over one of the murky little ponds.  The pond was brown with stirred-up silt; the grass all around it had been trampled into mud by the nameless herd.  They stamped and lowed, jostling each other out of the way with their horns.  Birds whistled and called, shrieking indignantly when a careless hoof came too close to crushing them.  But despite the animals, it was quiet here, quiet in a way Ravnica never was.  On Ravnica, it didn’t matter how deep into the wilds he went: he could always hear, however distantly, the crushing noise that could only be described as city.   People clamoring, machinery churning, wagon wheels running over cobbles, smoke and fire--the ceaseless commotion of billions of people living.  No individual sound was particularly loud, but the totality of them was overwhelming.  A single footstep on the street was silent, yet a million were deafening.

Here, the beasts grunted and the birds tittered and the insects buzzed, but something about the chorus was empty, hollow, leaving space for other sounds to come forth.  Even at rest, he could faintly hear the sluice of blood in his head, and if he turned and pressed his ear against the rotting log, he could hear little worms inside it nibbling away at the dead wood.  Domri liked it here.  It reminded him of what was possible, how things were supposed to be, how things had once been before Ravnica had careened out of all semblance of control.  And, he thought as he closed his eyes and let the sun soak into his bones, it was always nice to escape the chill of autumn.

Rhuka would never be able to come here; neither would the baby, in all likelyhood.  He’d tried, without success, to teach Rhuka to planeswalk.  Once he’d figured out the trick, it had seemed such a simple spell that he’d been certain he could teach it to others.  But no one else had been able to learn, not even people like Rhuka who were far more skilled mages than he.

The dragon Bolas had explained that the ability to planeswalk was something one either possessed or didn’t.  “Like wings,” he had said, flaring his own proudly.  “The spark is something a planeswalker possesses from the moment of birth.  Without it, one cannot planeswalk, no matter how powerful a mage he may be.”

Domri had pointed out that a person didn’t need wings to fly: there were spells you could learn instead, or you could ride an animal that could fly, or purchase artificial wings or a flypack from the Izzet.  Plus, there were things like caterpillars that were not born with wings but grew them later. 

Bolas had heaved a massive sigh and declared that wings were metaphorical and that the conversation was over.  Most of Domri’s conversations with Bolas ended that way.

A high-pitched chittering cut through Domri’s reminiscence and the beasts’ moaning.  Domri sat up and searched for the sound.  He spotted a pair of the weasel-like creatures, long-backed, larger than foxes but with legs so tiny they were barely visible underneath the creatures’ long, tawny fur.  The pair fought over some scrap, the one chasing the other through a maze of legs, shrieking in fury.  The beasts shifted and pawed at the ground, grunting as if annoyed by the sound.  The fleeing fox-weasel leapt and latched itself onto the shoulder of one of the grazing beasts, then swiftly clambered up onto its back.  The beast reared and bucked, trying to dislodge its unwanted rider.  The other beasts scrambled to get out of the way of striking hooves as the bucking beasts kicked and kicked, but the pursuing fox-weasel circled close, intent on its quarry.

With a final, violent buck, the fox-weasel on the beast’s back was thrown clear over the pond; hooves came stomping down on the other one as it misjudged and came too close.  The fox-weasel screamed; the beast slipped, righted itself with a snort, and trotted off after its herd, uncaring.

Domri slipped down off the tree trunk and pulled his dagger from its sheath.  The stepped-on fox-weasel still lived; it crawled miserably in the mud, making a wet sound with each breath.  It made a pathetic, fruitless attempt to run from him.

“Hey, now.  I don’t mean you no harm,” he told it.  With a gesture and a spell, he took away the creature’s fear, then knelt in the mud next to it.  The creature’s rear half hung uselessly; Domri could see the kink in the thing’s back where its spine had been crushed.  Its chest heaved with pained breaths.

“That’s the way it fucking goes, isn’t it?  Everything’s fine and then cronch.   ‘S alright, though.”  With a quick blow, he beheaded the creature.  “At least it doesn’t have to be long.”

The thing’s leg twitched as its blood pumped free from its body.  Domri wiped off his knife on the grass, then stood and began to prepare to planeswalk.  He’d tarried too long here already, reveling in the sun and the quiet; Whip and Lakki were probably waiting for him.

Just before he vanished, he stopped and re-anchored himself to the plane, eyeing the fox-weasel corpse.  The ritual of Oshlon called for a fox, which this creature definitely wasn’t--up close, its paws were tiny, eerily human hands, and its behavior and body were weasel-like, even though it had some superficial resemblance to a fox in the face.  Then again, the Gruul gods couldn’t afford to be choosy bastards, could they?  Maybe they’d even prefer a sacrifice from another world.  It took more effort, didn’t it?  And why kill a second creature, when this one should suffice?

He knelt again and skinned the creature while mumbling the incantation that Rhuka had taught him.  He scraped flesh and fat from the skin, taking his time to be thorough.  The water in the little pond was too dirty for cleaning, so instead he wiped his hands and knife off on the grass.  Lacking salt, he walked through the grassland until he found an area where the ground was sandy.  He sprinkled sand on the hide until all of the damp was covered, then brushed it off and repeated the process until nothing more would stick.  Satisfied the hide was as clean as he could make it here, Domri rolled it up and stuck it in a pocket, then prepared once again to planeswalk.

With a final glance at the endless grassland, he vanished.

The other pedestrians left a wide berth for the three Gruul boys atop their beasts.  The three of them had intended to set off earlier, before the crowds swarmed the streets like flies on a fresh carcass, but Domri’s dawdling on the nameless grassland had delayed them.  They cut a path through the worst of the morning traffic, heading first southward on the mostly-empty Straddling Road that marked the boundary between the Rubblebelt and the rest of Ravnica, then turning down 153rd Avenue into the overflowing heart of the Fourth Precinct.

The Izzet ruled here and the Izzet built constantly.  Blockades redirected traffic around active construction sites swarming with goblins and viashino.  Heavy machinery whirred and clanked and spat noxious smoke.  A large, mana-driven piston hammered mizzium stakes as wide around as a person and three times as long, driving them into the ground with a force that sent the whole precinct shaking.  Street vendors screamed themselves hoarse to be heard over the chaos; people formed lines to buy breakfast, apparently unconcerned that their food was marinating in smog, or that bits of debris, thrown by the construction, were falling into the cook pot.  Everywhere, noise and oily smoke were inescapable, so woven into the fabric of this part of the city that its denizens seemed not to notice how unnatural, how despicable it all was.  

Domri’s good mood evaporated under the onslaught of the noise and the smells and the crowd.  Compared to the simple grassland, the Fourth Precinct was a hellscape.  People weren’t supposed to live like this, and Domri found it baffling that not only would people tolerate these conditions--they willingly assisted in the construction of their prison.  They fought to be allowed on the most prestigious builds!  How could they all be so entranced by Niv-Mizzet’s vision?

He made a rude gesture in the direction of Nivix.  The spires of the aerie could not even be seen through the mid-morning haze of smog.

The streets narrowed as construction became inescapable.  The other pedestrians, no longer able to keep well clear of the three of them and their animals, took to glaring at the Gruul boys as the three kneed their beasts through the crowd.  A few yelled angrily, telling the boys to go back to the ruins, that there was no room here for animals; Whip and Lakki responded with rowdy insults of their own, but Domri continued on silently, finding he had no appetite for name-calling.  The crowd here, all of them, were deluded, going through noisy, pointless, and short lives, all for the enrichment of a dragon who’d eat them as soon as look at them.  Who cared what they said?  No one paid any attention to the ridiculous boasts and insults of children, and for all their professed intelligence, children was all the Izzet were.  How had Bolas put it?  Stunted, he had said, like a plant growing through a crack in the pavement, believing itself successful because it could not see the forest over the hill and could not imagine, impoverished as it was, any other life.

But Domri didn’t have to imagine.  He had seen, and he realized how lucky he was.  Let the crowds shout.  In time, they would see the truth.  Or they wouldn’t.  It didn’t matter--the truth was the truth, and the truth was that Domri was going to rip all their artifice down and replace it with a new world, a better world, a real world.

Some things, though, refused to be ignored.  The shouting attracted a Boros guard who had somehow managed to hear this commotion over all the other commotions on the block.  She swaggered to them, one hand hooked in her belt, the other resting on her sword hilt.  Domri took a deep breath and tried not to scowl too openly.

“What’re you boys up to?”  Her face--which was rather ugly, Domri thought, especially pinched in its current expression of superior amusement--suggested that no answer would be found sufficient.

“Takin’ a walk,” Lakki responded automatically.  “That ain’t no crime, so shove off.”

“You’re right, walking’s not a crime,” The Boros said, falling in alongside them.  “But draft animals require up-to-date registration and a special dispensation to traverse construction zones.  Now, I know how your people feel about paperwork...but I’m willing to overlook it for the moment if you tell me what you’re doing here.”

“We’re here ‘bout a job,” Domri said, forcing a smile.

“Aw, Dom, don’t say it like that,” Whip whined.  “Makes me feel all wrong.”

At the same time, the guard said, “A job, eh?  And who around here is so desperate that they’re hiring Gruul teenagers?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, isn't it?  You got your answer, so off you go, go on.”  Domri gestured dismissively and urged Pig into a trot.

“Hold on, now.”  The guard jogged ahead and, in a move either brave or bone-headed, stepped in front of Pig.  Domri pulled on the boar’s mane to stop him from trampling the Boros guard.  Tossing his head in irritation, the boar slid to a stop on cobblestones slick with the morning’s drizzle and contamination from a dozen factories.  The guard didn’t flinch.

“Watch it, lady,” Domri growled.  A scene with a Boros officer was a distraction he couldn’t afford.  Letting Pig trample the woman would be satisfying, but inconvenient--the Izzet and the Boros were currently in a cooperative mood, and any action against the guard would bring a battalion down on the precinct.

“You’ve piqued my curiosity.  What are three Gruul boys looking for a job for?”

“We wanna go see some great big Rakdos titties, ” Domri snapped, cupping invisible breasts and letting his irritation fuel the lie.  “And the thing about great big Rakdos titties, y’see, is that they’ll only show ‘em to you if you pay.   And I was trying to be polite and not bring it up, but you just wouldn’t let it go, would you?  So you can quit making that face and get outta my way, yeah?”

Next to him, Lakki sniggered into his fist.  He wasn’t the only one; the crowd laughed too.  It was hard to tell if the guard was disgusted, or merely disappointed that she’d uncovered a trio of horny teenagers and not an incipient Gruul invasion.  Either way, Domri didn’t wait for her to move.  He guided Pig around her and continued on his way.  Whip and Lakki followed, Lakki still giggling.

The steamworks was invisible, hidden in a cloud of its own making that regrew as quickly as the wind snatched it away.  Even close enough to knock, Domri couldn’t make out the building’s overall shape.  Cracks and fizzles of power, mana and otherwise, occasionally outlined wires and tubes, like lightning strikes revealing the shapes of dark clouds in a storm, but the building itself was obscured, a mass of undifferentiated shadows in the mist.

The goblin that opened the door didn’t want to let them in, but goblins tended to have trouble discerning whether other species were lying or not.  A smile and an insistence that the steamworks’s manager would want to see them--was expecting them, in fact--was enough to win the goblin over, and the three were led through a small atrium filled with piping to an office wedged in the corner between a pair of massive bronze canisters.

The vedalken man inside was elderly, his skin sagging and wrinkled and more grey than blue.  He squinted at the three boys through a pair of thick glasses, and started visibly when their forms became clear to him.

“Good morning, Yolov,” Domri greeted.  “You probably don’t remember me.”

“No.  I don’t.  Kallax, you said I was expecting these young men?” the vedalken asked, his voice gravelly with age.

The goblin shrugged.  “That’s what they said.”

Domri pushed the door closed, leaving the goblin out alone in the hallway, and sat, elbows resting on knees, on an empty chair.

“I got a proposition for you.  How much are you paying kids nowadays to chase out the mugger hawks?  It was a zib a day when I was little.”

The vedalken frowned, confused.  “It’s still a zib each a day.  Why?”

“How much you willing to pay to have ‘em gone for the winter?”

“I--” Yolov sputtered, shifting unexpectedly to business.  His fingers twitched as he counted.  “Well, over the whole winter we currently pay about twenty zinos--”

“Perfect.  I’ll take twenty zinos.”

“Hold on,” the vedalken said, settling more comfortably in his chair.  “Firstly”--he raised a long finger--”what is this all about?”

Domri shrugged and grinned.  “Why’s it gotta be about anything?  Call it an experiment--you folks like experiments.  I need some money.  Used to come here when I was a kid and chase out the birdies.  I liked it.  Maybe I’m thinking about going into business, becoming an exterminator or something.  Figure I’m a lot better at chasing out pests now.”

Yolov seemed unconvinced, but it was hard to tell with vedalken.  Their eyes never seemed to move, staying always in a look of mild disapproval.  “Twenty zinos is significantly under the going professional rate for pest removal.”

“Well, like I said, I’m just getting started.  Gotta make a name for myself.”

“Indeed.  And you can guarantee your work?  The hawks will not return this season?”

“Well, you can’t guarantee anything when it comes to wild animals,” Domri said.  “But I can promise you that the hawks currently shitting all over your machines ain’t ever coming back.”

The vedalken steepled his fingers underneath his chin and leaned back in his chair, considering Domri.

“Fine,” he said at last.  “I must admit I am intrigued.  I’ll pay a quarter now, a quarter in a month, and the remaining balance at winter’s end--provided, of course, we are not troubled by any vermin in the meantime.”

“A third, a third, and a third,” Domri countered.

“Agreed,” Yolov said, quickly enough that Domri realized he might have been able to get half and half.  “You will start immediately?  Is Kallax still outside?  She can show you the way to the main engine room.”

Mugger hawks got their name from their preferred method of hunting: namely, swooping down on inattentive pedestrians and grabbing whatever they could--food, clothing, jewelry, money, and on occasion, fingers, noses, and ears.  They were not the only creature on Ravnica that had adapted to the overrun of the city by learning to prey on the city’s citizens, but they were notable for their ferocity, fearlessness, and fecundity.

No laws protected mugger hawks, though they thrived all the same.  A patchwork assortment of groups, guild and non, had sprung into being to protect some of the other animals that had taken to making pests of themselves.  The feline maaka, infamous for dragging off  children and goblins, had at least a dozen groups that raised money to capture and relocate them, either to private collections, rare spits of reclaimed land, or poorer neighborhoods that couldn’t afford to hire a hunter to kill the giant cats.  The brushstriders and batterhorns had their defenders too, and the axebanes and the arynx.  The Selesnyans just about considered wurms sacred, for reasons Domri had never been able to understand.

No such group existed for the mugger hawks.  They were almost fundamentally unlovable, lacking the grace of the maaka and the arynx, the beauty of the brushstrider, or the usefulness of the axebane and batterhorn.  Their feathers were the mottled, ugly grey of an overcast, smog-filled sky.  Black eyes peered out from either side of an oversized, wickedly sharp beak that gave the animal’s face a look as if it were sneering cruelly.  Their talons were large, strong, and clever.  Tales abounded of the birds managing to open windows from the outside or unlatch carriage doors.  They stole indiscriminately and, like rats, bred year-round, having a keen talent for finding--and creating--entrances to warm places like the steamworks to shelter in.

The Gruul adored the birds.  Unlovable as the hawks were, it was always nice to see nature take a bite back.

Domri wiped sweat and steam from his brow and assessed the engine room.  Three stories high, it was filled with a tangle of pipes and boilers and goblins pulling levers.  Mugger hawks cackled from perches just out of reach, obscured by steam.

Domri pulled out his club and began muttering, casting a spell.  The chattering hawks grew quieter.  A few fluttered closer.  Then more, and then the whole flock, dozens of birds, was creeping closer, climbing over the goblins’ control panels, entranced by Domri’s lure spell.  One landed on the club’s shaft, head quirked inquisitively.

“Are you the one, then?” Domri murmured.  The hawk didn’t react, not to his words, not when he ran his finger down the bird’s beak and chanted the same spell he’d spoken over the dead fox creature, not when he grasped the creature’s neck and wrung its life from it.

Whip and Lakki moved through the flock, slaughtering the birds and attaching the corpses to long straps.  The goblins abandoned their posts to join in, doubtlessly enjoying the chance to get revenge on the animals that harassed them every day.  Domri marked the bird killed for the ritual and joined his friends.  Quiescent as the birds were, thanks to the spell, it took barely half an hour to kill all of them.  The goblins cheered.

Domri cut the head off the last hawk and retrieved a bundle of sticks from his pouch.  He affixed the head to the sticks and let the blood coat the wood completely, weaving a spell around the premade talisman.  He placed it on a windowsill when he was done and primed the spell.

“Hey, you see this?” he told the nearest goblin.  “You leave this here.  It’ll keep the hawks from coming back.  Do not touch it.  It’s gonna get all gross and smelly with flies and maggots and shit, but you leave it here, you get me?  Else nothing’s holding them out and they’ll come right back.  Tell everyone else, yeah?”

The goblin nodded his understanding.  Domri smiled and patted the little goblin’s head.

If any of them moved the talisman--which they would eventually do, either from curiosity or disgust or accident--the nascent talisman would activate, turning into a lure for every hawk, rat, and roach in the city.  He wondered how long it would be before one of them moved it.

Less than a month, probably, but seven zinos was more than enough for now.

“I can’t believe I agreed to help you with this,” Rhuka said, dropping another handful of feathers into a basket.

“D’you know the Izzet made a machine that plucks birds?  That’s how the posh restaurants do it--toss a dozen quails all in the machine and poof, no feathers,” Lakki said.

“No, they don’t,” Domri said.  “You’ve seen Izzet machines, how’d they make one that can pluck a bird without turning it into paste?”

“I don’t know, Dom.  But if you want to do anything like this again, I think you should look into getting hold of one.”

“It’s not that bad.”  It was, but Domri wasn’t about to admit that.  They were only halfway done dressing the dozens of hawks they’d killed.  “Quit your whining.  You’ve got the easy job.”

“Plucking the feathers is not the easy job,” Rhuka growled.  “Krokt, enough of this!”  With a hiss, she curled her fingers, and flame appeared on the hawk held between her knees, scorching off the feathers.

“We’re trying to save those!”

“I’m getting blisters,” Rhuka groused.  “Usually, Domri, you just save up feathers as you go.  You don’t try to pluck an entire mattress’s worth all at once.”

“Well, I don’t just need the feathers, do I?”

Rhuka rolled her eyes and handed Domri the denuded hawk.  He took it and cut open its abdomen with a practiced slice.

“Still think it’s a bit silly,” Whip said, disemboweling his own hawk.  “Why would people care that we gave them a snack?”

“Most of ‘em have never really eaten meat before--it’s too expensive.  They eat the fake shit the Simic make, or the Golgari slurry.”  Bolas’s words echoed in Domri’s head.  He wished the dragon had been more clear.  “They need a...a demonstration of value.   They need to know what they’re missing out on.  Y’know what they say, about how the city is better than living as barbarians, even if the city sucks and smells and all that, but they only say that because they don’t know how barbarians really live.  They don’t know how we live.  So we’re gonna show ‘em.  It’s like--”

He stopped to think and let the hawk’s entrails slither wetly to the ground.  “It’s like how no one on Ravnica has ever really experienced silence, real silence, or smelled air that ain’t been fouled by smog.  You guys don’t know.  You’ve never been.  I have.  And seeing it, it’s nothing like imagining it.  You can’t just keep pretending everything’s fine the way it is once you’ve seen the way it could be.”

He trussed the feet and wings and tossed the carcass into the waiting basket, feeling suddenly self-conscious when no one else spoke.  “‘Sides, we’ll have booze.  That’ll help.”

It took the rest of the day into the evening, but the birds--fifty-two of them, by Domri’s count--were cleaned, gutted, and trussed.  Whip hitched his nodorog to a ramshackle cart carrying wood for spits, an unsorted sack of spices and mugs from a pub destroyed in a raid, and ten barrels of beer, stolen especially for the occasion from a nearby brewery renowned for making cheap beer and hiring cheap security.

They returned to the Straddling Road and set to work building fires and spits.  Ideally, they’d have found a place closer to the city proper, given the lack of traffic so near Gruul territory, but there was safety in remaining near the Rubblebelt, and there were enough passersby and visitors for the experiment.  Teens looking for a touch of danger and a bit of ink, connoisseurs searching for a new experience, even traders hunting for a better price on furs and mushrooms than they could get from the Golgari: the Rubblebelt had a consistent, if small, stream of visitors, never mind all the people who lived nearby because they couldn’t afford otherwise.

At first, the people in the area watched them work from afar, puzzled and waiting for someone else to fall for what they thought must be some sort of prank or ruse.  Domri didn’t let them mill long.  He shouted across the street, inviting them to sit around the fire and drink while the hawks roasted.  The first to approach was a smirking teenaged elf, shoved forward by his companions, but once he had a mug of beer in his hand the others came quickly.  Before long a small, noisy crowd has formed, eager to get their share of free beer and to see what the fuss was about.  Some of the crowd were other Gruul--young ones, friends of friends--but most of the crowd came from the city.  Some were shift workers, stopping on their way home, and some came from the tenements across the street.  Many were teenagers who had been skulking in the area, looking for trouble in the narrow strip wedged between the end of Boros patrols and the beginning of Gruul.

Domri slipped through them like a cat, a mug of his own in hand.  Bolas’s instructions were often vague, but here he had been explicit: do not preach.  They don’t need to like what you say--they need to like you.  They’ll believe in our vision once they believe you care about them.   So Domri went, introducing himself, memorizing faces and names and stories, grinning and listening and encouraging.  He passed a bit of the money from the steamworks to those who seemed like they needed it.

The crowd swelled once the first of the hawks was cooked, as if an unheard clarion had alerted all the hungry in the city.  Officially, no one on Ravnica starved.  Every guild did some manner of charity, and worse came to worse the poorest could always queue in the Undercity for the nutrient slurry  the Golgari so graciously gave out.  Officially, the guilds crowed, they provided enough for everyone, through a complex and difficult partnership.  Officially, no one went hungry.

But Domri knew he wasn’t the only one who had refused to go to the Undercity for fear he’d never come out again, and who had found the handouts from the other guilds far from enough to fill his stomach.

The teenagers wandered away as the beer ran dry, but the hungry newcomers more than replaced them.  Goblins and viashino, old men, women tugging children behind them.  Dirty, ragged people who wore the colors of no guild and looked suspiciously at Domri and his friends.  Domri could feel his enthusiasm crash against their caution and be swallowed up.  It had been easy to chat and joke with the drinkers, but this new crowd was taciturn, and Domri found it impossible to tell whether they were swayed by his assurances.  They nodded shyly in answer to his questions, or shrugged, or smiled placatingly.  They eyed his money with distrust, and he had the feeling they were not listening to him, only playing at politeness so long as the food remained.

He felt himself faltering.  He made for the fire where Rhuka squatted, tending the spits and the roasting birds, her eyes unfocused on the glowing embers.  Pig lay beside her, crunching the bones of a hawk carcass like a dog.

“You want a break?” he asked.  “You look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

She rubbed her eyes and blinked rapidly.  “You always let things burn.”

“I like things crispy.”  He sat on the ground next to her.  “‘Sides, I don’t think these people’ll complain.  They won’t even say two words to me.”

“Hmm.  I thought it was going well.  We’re feeding a lot of people, yeah?  That was the whole point.”

“Yeah, but...I don’t know.  I thought it’d be easier to tell when they came ‘round to your side.”

“Dunno.  Me, I usually wait for people to tell me what they’re thinking instead of trying to guess.”  Rhuka leaned against him and whispered into his ear.  “By the way, there’s Boros coming.”

Alarm curdled in his stomach.  “The fire tell you that?”

She nodded.

“Krokt,” he swore.  “How many?”

“I only saw the one.”

He leaned back, supporting himself on his arms, and felt the anxiety leave him as quickly as it had come.  “Oh.  That’s alright, then.  We can take care of one lonely officer.”

“I wanted to ask: what’s that yellow thing you left drying on the rack?”

She meant the fox-weasel from the grassland, which he’d stretched across a drying rack that morning.  “It’s a fox.  For the ritual.”

“It’s not like any fox I’ve seen.” She wrinkled her nose.

“It’s a fox from another world.  Better than a fox from here, really, if you think about it.”

“If I think about it, I’m not sure it’s really a fox,”  Rhuka laughed, teasing.  “I’m not sure it counts.”

“What, you want another fox?  You want me to get two of everything?  Really impress the gods, that would,” he teased back.

“Maybe I want one fox from every world there is,” Rhuka said, imitating the nasally tones of an Orzhov noble.  “I deserve it, don’t I?”

“If that’s the case, you better hold that baby in, because it’s gonna take awhile to--”

A shout from the edge of the congregation cut him off, a deep voice that carried far.  Domri stood on tip-toe to try to see over the crowd; most of the streetlights had been smashed around here, and the fire had stolen away his night vision, but the bright red and polished metal of a Boros uniform was readily seen even in the twilight.

“Krokt, he’s a sneaky fucker.”  Domri waded through the crowd toward the Boros.

As Rhuka had seen, it was a single Boros guard, made tall by the shrinking, cowing crowd.  But despite being an older human, greying in hair and beard, the man had no rank insignia, and Domri thought he could detect a tremor of fear in the man’s heavy voice.

“Evenin’, officer!”  Domri bounded to the front of the crowd and forced a grin.  “You hungry?”

The Boros took a step back from him, lips compressed when he saw the tattoos wrapped around Domri’s exposed forearm and neck.

“You need to have a permit to sell food,” the Boros said.  “Do you have a permit?”

Domri spread his hands innocently.  “I ain’t selling any food.  It’s all free.  Would you like some?”

“It’s still--” The Boros stopped abruptly, seeming to think, and then continued.  “There’s still regulations.  For public health.  You can’t just hand out whatever you want, it could be contaminated--”

“Nah, I wouldn’t do that.  I promise it’s fine.”  The wind changed, blowing his hair into his face, and he pushed it back irately.  “I’ve been eating it too.  ‘Sides, the guilds are allowed to do charity as they see fit, aren’t they?  On their own territory.”

The Boros straightened, but his brow furrowed in confusion.  “Are you operating in an official...an official Gruul capacity?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, you could say that.  I mean, we don’t go in for paperwork, but it’s as official as anything else.”

“I don’t know if that’s sufficient--”

“Look, mate, I just want everybody to have a good time.”  It wasn’t a lie, though Domri’s idea of a good time probably diverged significantly from the Boros’s.  He slipped a quarter-zino coin from his pocket and flicked it to the Boros, who caught it reflexively.  “So come on.  Enjoy yourself.”

The coin was a gamble, but instantly Domri knew he’d bet correctly.  The conflict on the Boros’s face was pathetically visible.  He knew he was being bribed--but despite his age, he was merely a raw recruit, and the coin represented two week’s salary.  No one chose to be a Boros grunt when they were grey-haired unless something had gone badly wrong in their life.  His expression made it clear: he was desperate for money, and really, the Gruul weren’t doing anything wrong.  Technically speaking.

The Boros pocketed the coin with a guilty look.  Domri felt a thrill of perverse glee.

“Just keep it under control, alright?  If I get any complaints--any at all--I’m going to shut it down.  And don’t block the street.”

“‘Course, mate,” Domri agreed with a smile.  No one this close to the Rubblebelt filed complaints.  “You want a wing or something?  It ain’t the best meat, but it’s meat and it’s turning out better than I thought it would, honestly.”

The poor man looked tempted, but he shook his head and turned to go.  The crowd began to relax as he crossed the street.  Then another sound cut through the crowd’s muted conversation.  A high, hacking cry--a child, perhaps three or four years old, gagging and gasping.

At first, Domri thought the child was choking.  Unsure how to help, he took a few steps forward.  The rest of the crowd, made nervous by the Boros’s presence, decided it had had enough, and began to disappear into the nighttime shadows.  The child’s mother, a wan elven woman, pulled something small from her bag and forced it into the boy’s mouth.

“Oh, Aramin, not again, not again, we just went--” She patted his face and babbled quietly.

“What’s going on?” The Boros guard had returned, running back to see what this new calamity was.  “Oh, I said it could be contaminated--”

“The food ain’t contaminated!  ‘Sides, you should see how the people who do have permits cook.  What they’re making isn’t any better!”  Domri protested, though he had no idea what was wrong with the boy and worried now what sorts of things the hawks might’ve been eating in the steamworks.  The elven boy had turned ashen, and he coughed and wheezed as if he’d just inhaled a lungful of smoke.

“It’s fine, he’s sick, he has fits,” the mother said breathlessly, picking up her gasping child.  Domri realized he’d seen the mother before, carrying the coughing boy just as she was now, but he couldn’t quite feel relief given her distress.  “I just need to go, we need to go.”

“I’ll take you,” the Boros offered.  “I can call a wagon.”

“No, no, don’t bother.  I just need to go to Zonot Seven.  It’s fine.”  The elven woman waved away the guard’s help, but he followed her, insistent.  Domri stood, confused, wondering if he ought to follow as well, but they had crossed the street and disappeared down a side street before he made up his mind.

The wind shifted directions again, blowing the smoke from their cookfire into the trees.

The tenement was narrow and dim, the floor damp and molding.  Even goblins would feel constricted here, Domri wagered; larger species like ogres and minotaurs wouldn’t even be able to shimmy down the hallway sideways.  The building had been built to utilize every possible scrap of space as housing, and had left room for halls and doorways only to the extent absolutely necessary.  The noises of life were easily heard through thin walls, and the entry hall was a miasma of smells.  It was the unpleasant sort of place people only lived in when they had to.  It stood eight stories tall, but looking around at the ground floor Domri had no idea how it hadn’t fallen already.  Knocking it down might be a kindness.

He had no plan other than to knock on doors until someone told him where the elven woman and her sick child lived, and he set about it randomly.  He wasn’t sure what he would do when and if he found them; he’d brought a small bag of zarnego berries for the cough, but he felt somehow like he ought to apologize for what had happened last night, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.

The doors echoed hollowly.  Few people bothered to answer, but he could hear them inside, freezing at the sound of his fist against their door.  He rolled his eyes, irritated.  This was also, apparently, the sort of place people lived in when they didn’t want to be found.

Of those that did answer, most seemed to know of an elven woman who went tromping up and down the stairs practically every night.  It was easy enough to see why; the stairs squealed under Domri’s feet like the crowd at a Rakdos fireshow, regardless of how carefully he tread on them.  But aside from complaining about the noise the woman made, the people here knew nothing other than that she lived “above”.  Only when Domri reached the top floor did he finally find someone, a thin viashino of indeterminate sex, who directed him to the right door.

Frustrated and already bored of his self-appointed task, he knocked.  Inside, he could hear a child babbling and a quieter voice answering, though the words were indistinct.  Both went silent at his knock.  

After so many rejections, he was half-expecting the elven mother not to answer the door, but she opened it a sliver and peered through the crack at him, revealing only a single grey eye.

“I’ve got something for you,” Domri said, holding up a small bundle wrapped in oilpaper.  “Dried zarnego berries.  You can make tea out of it.  It’s great for coughs.”

The woman hesitated, but after a silent pause she reached through the crack and took the proffered bag.  “Thank you.”

The door began to close.  Whip-fast, Domri caught the edge and held it.

“Wait--can I ask you something?  What’s the matter with your kid?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

“I hope I didn’t make it worse, somehow,” Domri continued.  “The Simic, did they fix whatever it was?”

“It’s...complicated,” she answered at last.

“The Simic can’t do anything?" he asked, surprised.  "They’re at least as good at curing diseases as they are at making them…”

“What does it matter to you?” she asked.

“Well, it’s just--I’m curious,” Domri said.  “And like I said, I hope I didn’t make it any worse.  And if I can help you out, let me know.  The Gruul aren’t scientists or anything, but we’ve got a trick or two when it comes to diseases.”  He let go of the door.

She seemed to waffle, opening the door slightly and then pulling it just shy of closed.  Something clattered to the floor inside the apartment, and this finally roused her to action.  She turned to scold her child, but she also opened the door fully.

“It’s complicated,” she repeated, sounding apologetic.  But she stepped aside to let him in.

Inside, the apartment was tiny, smaller than his and Rhuka’s tent.  The walls were a dismal grey, but it was impossible to tell whether they had been painted that color or had merely become it as smoke and smog from outdoors stained the plaster.  In a corner by a fogged window sat a black single-burner stove with a large pot atop it, gently steaming.  The room’s one bed took up much of the rest of the room, with a small table and a single chair making up the balance.  Papers cluttered the tabletop, arranged in loose stacks.

The elven woman swept all the papers into a single pile and gestured to the chair, inviting Domri to sit.  She grabbed her son, who played on the floor in front of the stove, and placed him atop a blanket on the bed, then knelt to pick up the utensils he’d been playing with.

“It’s all a bit of a mess,” she said, putting the collected forks and spoons into a small jar and replacing it on the windowsill.

“That’s fine.  Don’t mind mess, me.”

“It...it only happens at night.  I’ve been taking Aramin to a Simic doctor who’s very interested in the case, but we’re not making much progress.  I’m relying on charity, obviously, and the doctor has to put priority on his paying patients.  He’s working on a cure, but it’s still very experimental…”

She fussed with the steaming pot, stirring and adjusting heat.  The boy, Aramin, clambered off the bed and came over to Domri, babbling happily, though unintelligibly.  His clothing was new--the only thing in the apartment that was--but several sizes too large.  Clearly, his mother intended him to wear it for some time.  The too-long sleeves and pants had been rolled back and pinned, and a cloth belt had been fashioned to keep the pants from sliding off.

“He’s never been the healthiest child, but in the past month he’s started having these fits where he couldn’t even breathe.  He’s not the only one either--I’ve talked to some of the other parents here, and they say their children get sick at night too, just not as bad as Aramin.  Dr. Rill--he’s the Simic doctor--he says it’s probably not related, that children get sick all the time, but I don’t know...I’ve been keeping track, somewhere in there.”  She gestured to the stack of papers.  “It always happens around nine or ten at night, and it seems to be worse on windy days.  I don’t know if you know anything, or if the--the Gruul have been affected.  You all live so close…”

She spoke in a disorganized rush.  Domri got the impression she’d been desperate for someone who would to listen to her.

“I don’t remember anyone mentioning anything,” Domri said.  He slid off the chair to sit on the floor in front of Aramin.  “But we’ve only been camped out nearby for a few weeks.  Most of the band was scattered before that.”

“Oh.”  She looked crestfallen, wringing her hands and sinking in on herself.  She seemed young, but elves seemed young for several hundred years before abruptly turning old and withered.  More than anything she seemed tired, hair and skin leeched of color.  Domri felt nearly obligated to throw her a lifeline.

“I’ll ask around again, see if anybody knows anything and just hasn’t said.”

“Thank you,” she said.  She started.  “I’m sorry, I’ve rushed right in.  I’m Svania.”

“Domri.”

Aramin babbled and pawed at the clasp of Domri’s cloak.  Domri undid the clasp and handed it to the boy, then pulled off his cloak and snapped it over the boy’s head so it fell and covered him completely.  Aramin shrieked and giggled, doing a little dance underneath the cloak.

“At least he’s a happy kid,” Domri said.

“Yes.  You’re good with him,” Svania said.

“I like kids.  Me and my girl, we’ve got a baby coming in the spring.  I’m looking forward to it.”

“Congratulations.  They’re wonderful when they’re little,” Svania said.  Her smile, if not the rest of her, was old, cracking under the weight of worry.  She sighed and shuffled through the papers on the table.

“You say other kids are sick too?” Domri asked.

“Yes, you can hear them sometimes coughing at night, or the babies crying with colic.  I swear it’s been worse since it all started, but...I can’t be sure anymore.”  She waved a hand helplessly.  “Dr. Rill says it’s just that Aramin has an unusual form of asthma and underdeveloped lungs…”

“Can’t be just asthma.  I’ve known kids who had asthma,” Domri said, thought he hadn’t, at least not for very long.  Sickly street kids were quickly scooped up by guilds looking to flaunt their largesse to the city at large.  “There’s a cure for it.”

“It’s not exactly a cure, but it’s not working for Aramin regardless,” Svania said.  She found what she had been looking for in the pile of papers, extracting a thin journal from the mess.  She flipped it open and wrote a few quick notes in it.  “Please, do let me know if you find anything.”

“Of course.”

“You know, I’ve...I’ve never known the Gruul to...to care much about what happens in the city.”

“Well, maybe we’re looking to change that.”  Domri smiled at Aramin, who had managed to free his head from the tangle of the cloak.  He imagined for a moment that it was his daughter falling mysteriously ill, his daughter wheezing for breath.  Anger rose, surprising him with its intensity; he bit down on the inside of his cheek to disguise it.  

The city was sick.  Everyone knew the city was sick, was sick-making, and yet no one did anything.  Everyone knew that staying outside too long on smoggy days would leave you dizzy for a week, yet no one pointed a finger at the factories and demanded they close.  Everyone knew that, on the rare days no rain fell, the very air left your eyes watering, yet people continued on as if this was only a minor annoyance and not a sign that something had gone badly wrong.  It was a form of madness, surely, one that had infected the entire populace with the idea that this squalor, this pollution, this desecration was normal.  A failure of memory, as no one could remember a time the world was anything other than what it was.  A failure of imagination, not to dream of something better.  Stunted, all of them.

“Yeah.  We’re looking to change that,” Domri repeated.

Outside, he took a deep, grateful breath of the cold autumn air.  Nothing so sweet as it was on other planes, but here near the Rubblebelt the air, still heavy with the morning rain, was only mildly tinged with the stench of the city.  Domri felt his head clear as if he was just awakening.

He turned north up the Straddling Road.  There were other things that needed doing today, but he felt a need to move, to think.  Svania had known less than he hoped, but she had given him the barest foothold.  Not quite enough for a plan, but enough for a sketch of what might become a plan.  Uncovering the poisoning of a child seemed like the kind of thing that would garner attention and sympathy; he just had to figure out how it was being done.

Bolas’s plan was simple, or at least had seemed simple when Bolas said it: improve Domri’s standing with the Gruul until he was selected official leader of all the clans, and have Domri do outreach to the guildless and the dispossessed to encourage them to see the city as the enemy it was.  But Bolas had largely glossed over the how, treating it as something perfectly clear that didn’t need explaining.  Something that Domri, as a native Ravnican, should obviously know how best to do.  Bolas had given hints, yes, and suggestions, and a long digression into the history of Azor and the Guildpact, but Domri found himself unsure how feeding a few hundred hungry people or helping a single sick child would scale into the revolution he and Bolas wanted.  A step seemed to be missing.

Or maybe it was all easier than he thought.  Maybe the city was precarious and the slightest nudge would send it tumbling, his small efforts precipitating a landslide.  He wasn’t sure if that would be better or worse; somehow, the idea that anyone could have changed the city and no one had ever tried was disheartening, even if it meant that he would have to do little to affect change.

The Straddling Road curved sharply east.  Supposedly, it was one of the longest roads on Ravnica, nearly encircling the Tenth District.  Over time, it had fallen into disrepair, the Izzet refusing to send crews to repair any but the largest potholes for fear of the Gruul.  Every other decade or so a multi-guild effort was mounted when the road threatened to become untraversable, the Boros and Azorius offering protection while Golgari zombies dug up the old pavement and teams of Izzet laid down new.  They’d be mounting another such effort soon, probably--grass grew freely through large cracks and water pooled in holes inches deep.  The winter freeze would be ruinous.  Merchants would complain.

Domri continued wandering, lost in thought, keeping an eye both on the ruins and for signs of any patrols.  The destruction here was ancient, nearly overtaken by ivy and bramble, but the truly desperate still sometimes tried to shelter in the ghosts of buildings at the edge of the Rubblebelt.  

The road became a bridge over a river that no longer existed, its corpse a furrow in the ground filled with weeds and broken things.  The marker of the boundary with the Ninth District.  It had been Gruul not long ago. One of the biggest expansions in their territory in a hundred years.  But they hadn’t managed to hold it long--the Boros had swept through and pushed them back.  Domri had been--barely--too young to fight, but he remembered listening at the edge of the firelight as the warriors planned how to counter the Boros assault, ultimately unsuccessfully.

The marks of Gruul occupation were still plain, but space could not be wasted on Ravnica: newer construction had risen, even here, so near the border.  Ugly buildings, cheaply made; rough warehouses and processing plants, nothing that would be overly missed should the Gruul make an earnest attempt to reclaim the territory.  Near the dry riverbed, a great pile of broken stone and rusted girders towered.  Workers must have been clearing debris for months.

Annoyance grew into anger.  The arrogance of it all; here they were, building in former Gruul territory, not even five miles east from the largest Gruul encampment on Ravnica.  Did they have so little respect?  Worse, did they have so little fear?   The presence of the Burning Tree clan so close should have made all the builders, the investors, the workers think twice about being here, about the potential cost of what they were doing.

But the Burning Tree weren’t as scary as they used to be, were they?  With the Guildpact back in force and the guilds emboldened, the Gruul had been losing ground steadily.  It had started with the loss of the Ninth District, but more and more they were boxed in and forced back.  Something had to change.  That was part of Bolas’s plan, after all; he saw the missed opportunity to use the Guildpact against the guilds, the chance to assert that the Gruul got what was theirs.

Domri slid down into the riverbed and climbed up the other side, onto the stone pile.  It was at least four times as tall as he was.  He climbed up on it, mindful of the sharp, rent steel interspersed with the stone and the loose bits of masonry that clattered loose under his grip.  He pressed himself flat on the top, doing his best to remain unseen.  At the start, he hadn’t intended this to be a scouting mission, but whoever had been scouting here hadn’t been doing their job.  The whole clan should have known this construction was happening; the whole clan should have been mobilized to tear it down.  They might no longer control the Ninth, but the Ninth was theirs.

The drag marks from pack animals and construction artifacts had yet to be washed away by rain.  Construction was still ongoing; Domri felt somewhat cheered that no animals or artifacts were in sight, despite this.  Some fear remained, at least.  They wouldn’t leave their expensive machinery where the Gruul could get it.

The big doors to some of the warehouses were open, and through them Domri could see that they were nearly empty.  No lights showed through the windows of most of the buildings, and he saw only two people moving on the wide pathways.  Little business was happening here.  The only building that seemed occupied was a squat, square building with a massive Izzet boilerworks installed on its roof.  Nothing came forth from its twin smokestacks at the moment, but they were already stained black at the tops.

He thought of Svania.  She’d said her son had only been getting sick for a month--how long could this factory have been operational?  Not long, given the ongoing construction around it and how new the building was.  And the wind blew from the east on the windiest days.  Domri smiled, and began the slow process of clambering down the masonry mountain.

He had a plan, after all.

From tent to tent Domri moved, telling everyone what he had found in the Ninth District.  “Better to rip it all out before they dig their roots in too deep,” he explained.

Many--more than he had hoped--refused to come; they remembered how the Boros had routed them before and feared what might await an impromptu raid.  But the rest needed little convincing.  Enough came: fifty or so.  Like Domri, most of them were young enough that they had not fought to hold the Ninth, but were old enough to remember losing it.

Rhuka lit the torch atop the arch of the guildgate and a raiding party began to gather around the ruined gate, sharpening knives, singing, shouting.  An ogre woman chanted while she wrapped her knuckles with cloth.  Another woman, a human, painted red runes on skin.  Goblins gathered in clusters, mixing explosive potions to blow down walls.  Elementalists called to the ancient fire beneath even the Undercity and were rewarded by great wurms of flame.  Skulls, hollowed out and filled with spirits, passed from person to person.  Shamans flung herbs into the growing fires and formed figures out of smoke to tell their stories.  Always the same sermon: the promise the city had made and then broken.  The wilds despoiled, the rivers poisoned, the trees felled, the animals slaughtered.  The details changed, but the story was always the same.  The raiders screamed their outrage nevertheless.

Domri sat apart, concentrating, calling.   Ideally he’d have had more time, but the raiding party had formed quickly; soon, they would leave whether he was ready or not.  He was not the only beast-caller here, and he could feel the spells of the others searching, asking, enticing the beasts of Ravnica’s scant wilds to their cause.  Domri took a different path, turning his spell away from the wilds towards the city itself.  There were great beasts there, pack animals, indriks and krovods and dromads.  Come, he told them.  Break your bonds and run wild.

Somewhere to the south an ember beast reared and roared and snapped the heavy chain around its neck.  The mages around it shouted, but their spell did not slow its escape.  Somewhere west, a gristleback at the bottom of a Rakdos bait-pit swept its heavy tusks left and right, sending ragemutts flying.  It charged the stands, its short legs heaving its bulk out of the darkness.  It trampled the crowd as it fled into the night, following Domri’s call.

One of the shamans let loose a long, ululating howl.  The raiders answered with howls of their own, and they stamped their feet and beat their fists against their chest.  A rhythm grew from the chaos, a primal song without words or form.  Soon, the raiders would move.  Soon, they would know the time was right, and without command or instruction they would make their way through the ruins to the Ninth, their prey.

Domri let his eyes flutter open.  He stood, moving in time with the song, letting it entrance him and seep through his blood into his heart until that too beat in time with fists and feet.  His vision tunneled and darkened and his muscles ached, straining, begging to be let loose, to run.

Hands grabbed his arms, and Rhuka stood before him, her fire-reflecting eyes the only thing he could see.  He grabbed her arms as she had grabbed his, bruising-hard, and they screamed in unison to the sky.  Somewhere, some far distant part of him wanted to tell her to leave, to go home to the tent and wait for his return.  She was pregnant.  Even if her day was still half a year off, it would be safer for her and the baby not to come.  There would be other raids.  But that part of him could not speak.  No part of him could.  He stomped and howled and danced along with the raging song.

His dance took him to Pig’s side; he felt rather than saw the boar, and curled his fingers around Pig’s rough mane and pulled himself up.  A warm weight on his back; Rhuka had climbed up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest.  His vision had devolved into shapeless textures: skin, fur, fire on stone, the crunch of dead leaves.  Animals were crashing through the woods, summoned by the beast-callers.  His ember beast roared, his gristleback bellowed.  The raiding party massed and twined and danced like murmurating starlings, moving eastward.

And then, as one, the raiding party knew the moment was right, and they broke into a run towards the Ninth.  The rhythm collapsed; another formed, galloping pell-mell.  The bridge to the Ninth drew itself across his eyes, but whether it was a mile away or whether he already stood on it, Domri couldn’t say.  He stared unblinking and urged Pig forward.  Across, across, across, across, to the Ninth, to catch their prey.  He could not see the rest of the party, could not hear them over the running melody of the song, but he knew they were there, charging beside him.

A cymbal-crash of tumbling bricks announced their arrival.  A krovod, its massive horns swiping through a wall as if it did not exist.  Behind him, Rhuka shrieked triumphant as she engulfed a shed in flames.  It collapsed in a shower of embers that burned themselves into Domri’s eyes, so that for a moment he could see only flame.  Pig ran where he willed; Domri swung his club at any target that presented itself, smashing windows, toppling pillars, cracking walls.  The clan swarmed around him.

A light ahead was too white, too clean to be fire.  Artificial light, Izzet light.  The factory.  Domri pointed and shouted wordlessly; whether anyone heard or paid heed was impossible to say.  But the raiders reached the factory and set about destroying it with fresh fury.  Workers were in the factory, though it was well into night.  Domri would have told them to run, to surrender, to curse their employers and forsake their posts, but he could not, and they did not need any warning.  They scattered, screaming.

Domri saw only in dazed, still bursts.  The ogre woman, her fist smashing through thick glass tubes to free the bubbling liquid within, her face showing no sign of pain as it burned her.  The ember beast, melting girders with blue-hot gouts of flame.  A half-giant, hefting a pillar as a club, hammering it again and again against the base of the twin smokestacks.  The air above them wavered with heat haze.  There was no smoke, but something was being vented to the sky.  Domri laughed and whooped and cheered when the two towers collapsed, smashing open like rotten trees on the ground.

The spell broke gradually.  The first thing he could see--truly see--was Rhuka, tracing the symbol of the Burning Tree onto a slab of broken concrete with mud, her eyes wide, her curly hair limp with rain.  She smiled at him blindly.  His club slipped from numb fingers and he sat in the dirt, in the center of what had been a street, and let the rain run down sore muscles.  His head moved without him willing it, taking in the destruction.  The factory was no more; the warehouses were razed, what little they held already being loaded onto beasts or rolled away to camp as spoils; the streets had cracked under the heavy footfalls of nodorogs and krovods; a few corpses, trampled almost beyond recognizability by the stampede, stained the street, but they were not Gruul corpses.

He felt himself smile.  It had all been so easy…

The raiding party was dispersing, people heading home in pairs and trios.  Domri’s connection with his summoned beasts had snapped; they would wander as they willed, finding new homes in the wilds.  Through the rain, across the street and well away from the wandering Gruul, Domri spotted a small group of Boros, huddled together in the shelter of the doorway.  Waiting for the Gruul to disperse so they could assess the damage.  They had not expected the impromptu raid, and they didn’t have enough swords in the area to stop it.  Only enough to try to mop up any stragglers.

Despite the soreness in his throat, he let loose a rough cry, warning the others that it was time to go.  He whistled for Pig and stumbled drunkenly to his feet.  His limbs felt heavy, and yet like they might float free from the mooring of his body.  He weaved his way to Rhuka and pulled her up and clutched her to himself.  She was fever-hot with the residue of fire magic.

They climbed atop Pig; Domri tossed a salute to the Boros as they rode westward.

Chapter Text

For a time, Angrath’s choices were made for him.  The necessity of getting away from Pachatupa overwhelmed all debate.  Horns sounded from inside the Sun Empire’s city, as well as the heavy footfalls of horncrests and the trilling calls of ripjaws.  The Sun Empire was mobilizing, and it didn’t matter why.  If he and his crew were caught, the result would be the same, regardless of whether the Emperor hunted for them or for whatever fell force had turned the sky red.

Angrath, his companions, and his captive struck out from the river, heading roughly northward.  As much as they were able, they attempted to stay parallel to the shore, but navigating through the dense jungle proved difficult.  Foliage forced them single-file; Angrath led, hacking a path through vines and bushes and ferns, fully aware that he was leaving a trail like a beacon should anyone be following.  Behind him,  Parrish navigated, using her compass to keep their path as true as possible, tapping Angrath’s shoulders whenever she wanted him to adjust course.  Then came their rescued prisoner, the green captain, followed by Jace, with Hilla coming last, guarding their rear with her keen eyes.

Angrath could feel in the pit of his stomach how precarious their situation was.  They ran when the terrain allowed it, but for much of the journey they were forced to a plodding walk.  The Sun Empire would have no such hindrance--not only had Angrath helpfully cut a path for them, but they had their dinosaurs.  The biggest couldn’t be deployed in this thicket, nor could the fliers, but the raptors could dart through the thickest vegetation like a fish through water.  He and his friends would be run down like an antelope on the open range, harried and herded until they were hemmed in on all sides.

Worse, they had no supplies.  Even walking was arduous in the heat and terrain; Angrath was growing desperately thirsty, but his flask had been lost in the city, and everyone else’s had run dry hours ago.  Behdin him, the green captain staggered drunkenly, panting; Jace had helped keep her from tripping at first, but now he and Parrish were flushed beet-red, exhausted, and he didn’t have the energy any longer.  Hilla’s feathers were matted down from the pressing humidity.  None of them had slept in over a day.

Just a bit further, Angrath told himself.  They had to get as far away from Pachatupa as possible.  Fighting raptors was a losing proposition; the Sun Empire ran them in packs of thirty or more.  A single mistake and you’d be swarmed before you could recover.  No, away was the only option.

“C’mon,” he urged gruffly, trying to hide the exhausted tremor in his own voice.  “We’re not baked yet.”

No one wasted breath answering him.  Angrath strained his ears, listening for the distinctive trilling call of a raptor following them.  If any were, he couldn’t hear them over the chirps of wild pterodons and pepeñasaurs and smallclaws.  Angrath glared at the tiny dinosaurs as they scurried in the underbrush or jumped from branch to branch, seeming to taunt him with how easily they traversed the jungle.  He hated them.  He hated the jungle.  He hated this whole world.  He hacked at the hanging vines and tripping saplings, venting his rage on the plant life, repeating over and over to himself that he wasn’t going to die here, so far from home.  He refused to.

Finally, the green captain forced a halt.  She collapsed, legs trembling; Jace tripped over her, too exhausted even to realize she had fallen.  He pushed himself up onto his knees, chest heaving, but did not stand.

“We can’t stop here,” Angrath said.  With a dry tongue, he licked drier lips.  The jungle was lush, full of water, and yet none of it was drinkable.  He hated this world.

“Think we’re stopping, even so,” Parrish said.  “Just for a breather.”

“We need water.”

“We’ll find some,” Parrish said.

“Some of the vines carry water in ‘em,” Hilla said.

“And some of them are poisonous,” Parrish cautioned.

“But not all.  Sit down a spell, and we’ll figure it out.  ‘Less one of you feels up to carrying her.  I ain’t.”

With a huff, Angrath sat and stretched his tired muscles.  Parrish found a flat spot on a jutting root and sat down with a sigh; Jace and Hilla helped the green captain move to a more comfortable position before resting themselves.  The green captain slumped limply, and Angrath felt a grudging pang of sympathy.  Who knew how she had been treated as a captive of the Empire?  There hadn’t been time to find out as they escaped--not after she’d attempted to murder Jace.  Another thing that needed dealing with.

Angrath closed his eyes and tilted his head back until it rested against the tree trunk.  He licked again at his chapped lips.  The moss beneath his head was damp, slowly soaking through his fur, and the loam where he sat was as well.  He hated this world.  How could it be that everything was so wet and yet he was so thirsty?  Rustcliff may have been surrounded by range so dry as to be almost desert, but at least everything was thirsty there.  The trees were scrawny and dessicated and few in number, the grass brown and wilting.  Not like Ixalan.  In Ixalan, everything was lush and beautiful, a dreamer’s vision of paradise...but a vision was all it was.

What Ixalan really was, Angrath considered, was a mirage.  As a child, his parents had warned him about mirages, along with every other danger the wilderness outside his hometown offered.  On hot days, the air on the horizon shimmered tantalizingly like water, and a desperate person could easily be fooled into chasing after it, taking themselves farther and farther from rescue in search of a lake that didn’t exist.  Always know where you are, his parents cautioned, and always know in which direction safety lies.

Angrath knew where he was.  Safety, however, was an elusive quantity on Ixalan.  With a snort, he rose, and grabbed a fistfull of vines from a tree.  “How d’you get water from these?”

Hilla didn’t even open her eyes.  “Find one that’s bigger ‘round than your thumb and cut it open.  If the sap’s clear and it doesn’t itch on your palm, it should be safe to drink.”

It took a few cuts before Angrath found one where the sap ran clear.  Water dribbled out into his cupped palm, just enough to almost fill it.  He slurped it down and cut another.  There wasn’t enough to fully slake his thirst; each cut garnered a bare palmful of water at most, and the sap out of most of the vines ran thick and white.  But there was enough for everyone to get a mouthful.

Experimentally, Angrath scraped damp moss from a tree trunk and squeezed it to extract the water it held.  He got a few drops that tasted of dirt.  He hated this world.

“Enough of this,” he said.  “To the shore.  We’ve all rest, c’mon.  Get some wind in your sails.”  He extended a hand to help Parrish up.

“The sun’s still red,” Parrish observed.  “D’you think it’ll still be red when it rises tomorrow?”

“It’s a bad omen, a red sun,” Hilla said.

“Only at dawn,” Parrish said.  “Should be getting towards a good omen, now.”

“A storm’s coming, that’s all a red sun means,” Angrath grumbled.  But there was no denying the unnaturalness of the sun.  Even obscured through the canopy, it stained the sky and gave the world a nightmarish cast, tinting the plantlife black and giving their skin a strange hue.  He’d never seen its like before, and looking at it made the fur on his neck rise.  It boded something.   Something was about to change.

“To the shore,” he repeated.

Their path began to trend markedly downward.  The land rose slowly from the Ichca River, and they had climbed a good distance without realizing it as they traveled away from it.  The path downward should have been easier, but they were already tired, and the ground, decaying loam that felt impossibly deep, fell away unevenly under their feet and made them slip.  A broken leg would be death, Angrath knew.  Anyone who couldn’t get out of the jungle under their own power wouldn’t be getting out at all; no one had the strength left to carry another, and they could not afford to stop.

But they made it through.  Angrath caught a glimpse of water through the trees, and called a halt when they reached the treeline.  He examined the shore carefully.  They would be plainly visible once they set foot on the sand, if anyone was there to see them.  But Angrath could see no sign of danger.  They stepped onto the beach.  Hilla, Jace, and the green captain collapsed onto the sand.  Parrish snapped open her spyglass.

“I can just see the sails of the Eel, ” she reported.  “I don’t think they’ve moved.”

Angrath squinted, but he could see nothing with the naked eye.  “How far out, d’you think?”

“Eight or nine miles from us, I’d say.  Ten on the outside.”

Far too far for Hilla to fly to relay a message.  Likely too far for any sort of signal, aside from something like a giant bonfire that would bring the Sun Empire running as well.

As if she knew what Angrath was thinking, Parrish said, “We cannot go overland.  We have no supplies.  We need to get back to the ships.”

“Aye?  You got an idea then, Captain?” Angrath asked.

“Hike back along the beach until we’re close enough for Hilla--”

“And risk running into a patrol from Pachatupa?  They’ll be looking for us.”

“It’s a risk, but less of one than trying to hike through that jungle,” Parrish argued.  “We’re all about to drop dead as is and it’s only been a day.”

Angrath hummed a disapproving noise.  Pachatupa was invisible from here, the city swallowed by the jungle.

“First things first, though,”Parrish said.  “We need shelter.  And food, if we can find it.”

A bit farther north, they discovered a tall, rocky cliff that leaned out over the water, offering acceptable shelter and a trickle of freshwater that ran down through the vines criss-crossing its surface.  Sand became stone, pitted and filled with tidepools.  The cliff wasn’t fully a cave, but it sat far enough back from the high tide line to be safe, and overhung far enough that all of them would be able to shelter under it.

“We’ll stop here,” Angrath announced.  “Tomorrow, we’ll figure out what to do.  Let me see that compass, and you all see if you can’t scrounge up something to eat in these tide pools.  Should be some driftwood to burn, too.”

“And what will you be doing?”  Parrish asked.  Behind her, Jace got to his feet with a groan.

“Keeping an eye on her.”  He nodded toward where the green captain sat.

He could see from Parrish’s face that she knew what keep an eye on really meant, and that she wanted to stay and hear whatever the green captain might say, but with a last longing look back she joined Jace and Hilla out on the rocky beach.

Gingerly, Angrath eased himself down on the rock.  Thanks to the long trek through the forest and all the vine-cutting, his back ached something fierce.  He wasn’t young any longer, and he bristled at the reminder of just how long he’d been wasting away on this damned plane.

The green captain sat where she’d been left, leaning slumped against the damp rock.  It was impossible to tell whether she was awake or not; Angrath wished he could remove the blindfold to see her expression, but of course he couldn’t.  Not until he’d figured out what was going on and how much of a threat she was.  Instead, he leaned over and jostled her knee.  Her head lifted a bit.

“I wanted to have a friendly chat, planeswalker to planeswalker,” he said.  If she was surprised to learn what he was, or that he knew what she was, she gave no sign.  “I’m Angrath, captain of the Devil’s Chains .  What do I call you?”

She shifted slightly so she could sit straighter.  “Vraska, captain of the Belligerent .  What happened to my crew?”

“Some of ‘em died, thanks to the Empire.  Not sure what happened to the rest--I freed them and pointed them in the right direction.  If they’re worth the name ‘pirate’, they’ll have found their way to the sea.”

Her expression was unreadable, and again Angrath wished he could see her eyes.

“Now, I can’t say that I’m an honorable man, but I’m an honest one,” Angrath said.  “I won’t lie to you, and I won’t hurt you, ‘less I need to to protect me or mine.  I hope you’ll extend to me the same courtesy.  I know you can’t see, but Barre--Jace and the others are down by the shoreline, well out of earshot.”

Her nostrils flared  at that, but she said nothing.

“So I’ll tell you what I’m thinking: thirteen years I’ve been trapped here, and in all that time I’ve not seen hide nor hair of another planeswalker.  I’ve been a planeswalker over thirty years and only ever met one other like me.  But now it seems I’ve come across two in as many weeks-- and they know each other.  Could be it’s just a wild coincidence.  But it also could be that there’s something going on.  Now me,  I don’t want any part in any sort of something .  I’ve got one aim here, and that’s getting back to my girls.”  Though of course they wouldn’t be girls anymore.  For a moment, as the thought grabbed hold of his throat, he paused.  The green captain said nothing.

“That’s the only thing I want Orazca for--I want to see if it’s got a way to get rid of that damned binding spell.  If you’re here for the riches, they’re all yours.  If you’re here for something else, well, we might have to discuss that.  So long as it doesn’t interfere with me getting home, I don’t really give a damn.”

“Very moving.”  Vraska smiled a sharp-toothed smile.  Angrath wished again he could remove her blindfold to see her eyes and better gauge her response.  Was she taunting him?  Or bluffing, playing brave to hide how desperate her position was?  “Would you like to hear what I’m thinking?”

“Please.” Out of habit, he gestured for her to start, before remembering she couldn’t see him.

“One of the most dangerous planeswalkers in the multiverse has manipulated you into taking part in a war you don’t even know exists.  You--”

“What, Jace?  You can’t mean Jace.”  Angrath glanced towards the shoreline where the man stood, bent double while he investigated something in a tidepool.  With a jerk, he darted forward, chasing something; he nearly fell as he reached out to grab it, but he caught himself on a boulder and rose, beaming that childlike smile, carefully holding a decent-sized crab, which he then showed to Parrish and Hilla, still grinning.  ‘Dangerous’ was not an adjective Angrath would have used to describe him, and Angrath’s impulse was to laugh at the absurdity of the description.

“He’s really got you fooled, hasn’t he?” Vraska snorted.

“Apparently so,” Angrath said, deciding to play along for the moment.  It was very hard to believe Jace was somehow dangerous--so hard to believe, in fact, that he wondered if it must be true.  If this Vraska knew Jace, she surely had to know how harmless he appeared, how outrageous such a lie would be.  Why use it, unless…?  “I’d be much obliged if you explained to me what it is I’m missing.”

“He’s a mind mage,” she said.  “He can convince people they agree with him and stamp out anyone who so much as thinks something disloyal.  He can control people like puppets.  You felt what he did in the palace, didn’t you?”

Angrath had--the sudden emptiness in his mind, almost like drunken exhaustion, that had him doing whatever he was told.  The sensation hadn’t been unpleasant while he was under the spell, but once he had been free to think, he had wondered just how suggestible he would have been.  Would he have obeyed an order to hurt Hilla or Parrish?  To kill himself?

“Imagine an entire city under the thrall of someone who can do that. He conquered my world and subjugated my people.  That’s why I’m here.  That’s what I want: to earn freedom for my people.”

Angrath glanced again toward the shoreline where Jace stood.  “Huh.  That so?  The man looks like he’d struggle to kill a horsefly.”

“Oh, he didn’t kill anyone.  He didn’t have to.  He was far more insidious than that.  But a bloodless coup is still a coup.  He must have followed me here to stop me.”

“What are you going to do--kill him?  What do you need this compass for, then?  And Orazca?”

“It’s...complicated.  The compass is a gift from a...an ally.  Someone sympathetic to my cause.  He wants the Immortal Sun.”  She continued more confidently.  “We made a deal--I will give him the Sun, and in return he’ll help me.”

Angrath considered this.  He prided himself on being a good judge of character, and his instincts said Jace was exactly what he appeared to be: an earnest man, clever but a bit foolish, who had somehow wound up hopelessly lost.  His distress at Vraska’s hatred had been pathetically genuine.  And his instincts said too that this Vraska was being, if not outright deceptive, at least misleading.  But he still needed information she had, though he wasn’t sure how to get it from her.

He pulled out the compass and examined it, turning it over slowly.  Something rattled inside it.  The outside was polished silver, well-made, and finely engraved with a seemingly meaningless pattern.  Angrath slid open the catch that held it shut, and the compass unfolded like a flower.  The lid slid into a hidden slot and four separate points all swung into place, quivering with mana.

He sighed.  “I’m a bit lost.  Let’s start from the beginning.  How did Jace--”

A crackle of thunder interrupted him.  Angrath looked up, startled--with the sun distorting everything, he hadn’t noticed the clouds darkening.  A second peal of thunder broke open the clouds, and the sound of the waves was drowned out by the sound of the rain against sand and stone.   Angrath scooted further under the jutting rock, holding the compass carefully.  The hands moved as he did.  One continued moving even after Angrath stopped, and Angrath watched it veer slowly sideways.  Parrish, Hilla, and Jace came running back, hunched over driftwood and scavenged food.  Angrath looked at the compass again.

It was pointing to Jace.

They lit a fire under the eave of the rock and made a stab at cooking what had been found in the tidepools.  Without a pot to boil water, they resorted to trying to roast what was big enough to roast and eating the rest raw.  It worked well enough; the crab was charred and the winkles were sandy, but it was food, and after the day they’d had Angrath was glad to have it.

With Jace present, Vraska said nothing else all night.  Angrath made sure she got a fair share of the food, which she downed quickly.  He imagined the Sun Empire hadn’t seen fit to feed her.

Angrath studied the compass again once everyone was fed.  He fiddled with the dials and moved it around, watching how the points moved.  One point was definitely tracking Jace, but he realized that a second and third point were tracking himself and Vraska.  Occasionally, which compass point pointed to which one of them would switch, but the three smallest points almost always pointed to one of them--once, they all swung away to some other direction, before swinging back. The large, main point seemed to move senselessly, bouncing around and never staying long in one spot.  The dials did something , but damned if Angrath could tell what.

With a frustrated huff, he set the compass down.  Across the fire, Hilla was explaining to Jace the difference between a limpet, a mussel, and a winkle, but despite Jace’s usual bottomless hunger for knowledge, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention.  He kept glancing towards Vraska and biting his lip.

He didn’t look like a killer.

Then again, Angrath thought, Jace could look like whatever he wanted.  He’d managed to look exactly like Hilla.  But everyone had immediately known something was wrong from the way he acted as Hilla.  But perhaps Jace had been hiding the extent of his abilities, pretending to be a poor actor to throw off suspicion?  But--why even help Angrath at all, then?  If Jace was as powerful as Vraska said, then he didn’t need Angrath--he could have killed Vraska immediately, if that was his aim, and vanished into the city under an illusory disguise.  He hadn’t.  In fact, he’d seemed alarmed at the coercive powers he’d displayed, and had helped guide Vraska through the forest.  He’d had ample opportunity to kill her and hadn’t.

The only conclusion, Angrath decided, must be that Vraska was lying, and trying to pass off an unbelievable lie at that.       He growled under this breath.  This was Ixalan.  Nothing could ever be easy : of course the person he needed information from was refusing to cooperate.

He offered to take the first watch.  Hilla and Parrish fell asleep quickly, but Jace remained awake, watching the embers of the fire die down.

“You should sleep,” Angrath said.

Instead, Jace pushed himself up into a sitting position.  “Did you...talk to her?” he asked in a whisper, jerking his head toward Vraska’s direction.

“Yeah.”  Was the nervousness on Jace’s face fear that Angrath might have learned some dark secret?  But why would a mind mage fear that--he could simply order Angrath to forget it, couldn’t he?

“Did she say anything about me?”

Angrath glanced towards Vraska.  Her chest moved slowly; she was probably asleep, but nevertheless he pushed himself to his feet with a groan.  “C’mon.”

The beach was much narrower with the tide rolling in; Angrath stood on the edge, glancing back to make sure he could clearly see the others should Vraska be awake and merely waiting for an opportunity to act.  After the rain, the air felt heavy, and the world around them was grey in the light of the nearly-set sun.  A wind had picked up.  Jace joined him out on the sands, arms wrapped around himself.

“Are you cold?” Angrath asked.  The wind wasn’t that chilly.

“A bit,” Jace admitted.  “Did she--what did she say?”

“Her name’s Vraska.  That ring any bells?”

Jace shook his head.  “No.  Not really.  It...feels familiar?  Maybe?”

“Well, she says she knows you.  Says you conquered some city.  Says she’s trying to free her people from your rule.  Says you’re dangerous.”

Angrath expected Jace to dispute Vraska’s accusations, but instead he just nodded.  Unexpectedly, Angrath found himself remembering the day, after a long bout of illness, that his wife’s mother had died, and he’d had to sit down Rumi and Jamira and explain to them that Nana wouldn’t be visiting them anymore.  Jamira had started to cry, but Rumi had simply nodded, sticking out her chin with all the stoicism that a little girl could muster, making exactly the same expression Jace was making now.

“Is she telling the truth ?” Angrath asked, dumbfounded.

“I--I don’t...maybe?” Jace answered.  “It...it doesn’t feel wrong.”

“What does it feel like?  You don’t seem the type.”

“It…” Jace closed his eyes and tilted his head back.  He took a shaking breath, then another.  “It...it feels like there’s this black shroud in my head, and I can’t see through it right now, but once I can...I won’t like it.  There’s something really bad there, something I don’t want to know.  I’ve...I’ve hurt people.  Somehow.  I know I have.  I’ve... done things, horrible things.  I don’t know exactly what, but...” He drifted off, breathing unevenly.  In the twilight, his eyes were glassy.  

Angrath frowned, now completely lost.  “That...kid, in my experience, cruel people don’t often cry about their crimes.  Killers don’t care about who they’ve killed.”  Angrath certainly hadn’t.  He thought back to the first person he’d ever killed, here on Ixalan--a member of the Legion, a vampire, who Angrath had found already exploring a forgotten temple Angrath wanted for himself.  Even now, he wasn’t remorseful about what he’d done, merely irritated that the bloodsucker had gotten in his way.

“I know--”

“No, you don’t.   You just said you didn’t.  So quit working yourself into a lather over it.”  The words came out more sharply than he had intended, but it had been a very long day and he’d never been a very sympathetic ear.  Even so, Jace took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded.

“I can stay up and keep watch, if you want,” Jace said.  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a while yet.”

It was a tempting offer.  “Fine,” Angrath agreed.  “But don’t spend all night chewing on this.  We still got work to do.”

Angrath woke to more rain.  It was hard to tell through the heavy cloud cover, but the sun appeared to have resumed its normal hue.  He picked himself out of the sand with a grunt, cursing the soreness in his back and legs.  Yesterday hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but he felt better after a night’s sleep.  He had the compass.  He had Vraska.  He had Jace.  He had Parrish and Hilla.  Yes, his ship was out of reach, and yes, he didn’t have all the answers yet.  But he had the means to get those answers, and perhaps he wouldn’t need the ships at all.

Parrish sat, stacking driftwood against the cliff wall.  Their canteens--they had three between the five of them--sat out on a rock in the rain, lids opened to catch rainwater.

“I talked with Hilla last night,” Parrish said.  “We think it’s best for Hilla to go back alone, until she’s close enough to fly back to the ship.  She can move faster with just herself, and she can fly away if she runs into any patrols.  This cliff makes a good landmark--we’ll wait here for the ships.”

“You’re talking like it’s already decided,” Angrath grunted.

“You got any better ideas?” Parrish asked.

“Not yet,” Angrath said.  “But I got some concerns.  Don’t let her hear me say it”--he dropped his voice to a whisper--“but she’s no spring chicken.  What happens when she trips and breaks something?  She’s out there alone, none of us having any idea where she is or that she needs help.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Parrish huffed.  “Have you ever known Hilla to trip over anything?”

“First time for everything,” Angrath said.

“Is there a reason you’re so dead-set against getting back to the ships, or are you just being stubborn to test my patience?”

“I’m sick of wasting time.”  Angrath picked up the compass again and flipped open the lid.  The three points quickly snapped into place, pointing at Jace, Vraska, and himself; the fourth point bobbed around the compass, stopping and starting randomly.

“You don’t even know where Orazca is.  That compass can’t make up its mind where it wants us to go.  Getting back to the ships isn’t ‘wasting time’.  We’re pirates!  We need our ships!  You can figure out where we need to go while we wait.”

“Hilla can’t fly in this.”  He nodded to indicate the downpour.

“Rake and thunder, Angrath!  It’s not going to rain all day!”  Parrish stood and walked to the edge of the overhang, as far away as she could get without stepping out into the rain.

Angrath turned back to the compass.  He twisted a dial; the fourth point, instead of circling the compass over and over, instead ticked between two points like a metronome.  He estimated the midpoint--it pointed back over the sea, towards Torrezon.  That couldn’t be right.  If the Immortal Sun remained on Torrezon, the vampires would’ve had it already.

“I think it’s broken,” Jace said, sitting up and wiping sleep from his eyes.  “I looked at it again last night, and if you tilt it, you can hear something rattling around inside.”

“It doesn’t look broken,” Angrath said.

“Maybe it’s supposed to work like that, but I don’t think so.  I don’t think I know much about artifice, but I’m pretty sure it’s basically a very advanced divining rod that isn’t working because it’s failing to differentiate the magical signature it’s looking for from similar signatures.  That’s why it’s spinning like that: it’s confused, basically.”

“You’ve seen something like this before?”

“I’m not--”

“You’re not sure.  Right.”  Angrath tilted the compass, examining its casing.  Tiny screws held the faceplate on.  The mechanism was hidden, protected by its case of silver.  The rattle was audible whenever the compass was tilted; Angrath had assumed it was sand that had found its way inside the case--Ixalan certainly didn’t lack for sand--but it could be a loose screw.  The turnscrew needed to disassemble the faceplate wouldn’t take much metal; he could form one from a buckle.  Still, there was another path.

“I was thinking, last night, that if you’re a mind mage…” Angrath glanced towards Vraska.  She seemed to be asleep.  “...you might be real good at getting information outta people.”

“Please, don’t ask,” Jace said.  His voice was firm, but his brows drew together uneasily.

“Was just thinking about it,” Angrath said.  “If worse comes to worse.  Breakin’ fingers and the like can work, but it’s just as likely to send you on a wild goose chase.”

“Things can go very badly with mind magics,” Jace said.  “I think maybe they already have.”

“That why you can’t remember anything?”

“I have to assume so.”  He rubbed his face and glanced out toward the rain, which had yet to show any desire to stop.

Breakfast had to be delayed until the tide went out and the tidepools were accessible again.  The four of them sat in a circle under the protection of the rockface, with their prisoner off to the side, as the rain continued to fall in sheets so heavy they obscured the jungle only a stone’s throw away.

“I’m going, Angrath,” Hilla insisted.  “We need the ships.”

Angrath bit the inside of his cheek.  He had no reason to disapprove of Hilla and Parrish’s plan, other than a vague feeling it was the wrong course, but the impulse to order Hilla to stay with the group was hard to overrule.

“You know what it’s called when a sailor doesn’t follow her captain’s orders?” he groused.

“If I have to mutiny to save you from your own stubbornness, then I’m a mutineer,” Hilla said flatly.

“It’s the best choice.  Unless you want us all to head back, dragging her along with us.” Parrish nodded towards Vraska.

Angrath looked to Jace.  “You got anything for me?”

“I--no.  I don’t really know anything about sailing.”

“Then fine.” Angrath shot Hilla a sour smile.  “You want to go traipsing around out in that muck?  Be my guest.”

She returned his smile with a wry one of her own.  “I’ll be fine, Angrath.”

He ignored her and picked up the compass again.  “Hey, Parrish--give me one of your buttons.”

“What?”

“I need a bit of metal to make a turnscrew.  Rather use one of your buttons than my belt buckle.”

“These aren’t cheap,” she complained.  But she pulled out her dagger and carefully sliced a button free, then handed it to Angrath.  “I’ll expect restitution.”

“Once we find Orazca, you’ll have all the restitution you want,” Angrath muttered.  He pulled a stiff twig from a vine and stripped it of its leaves, then held it to the button.  Mana was hard to come by with the rain, but he didn’t need much.  He heated the button until he was able to scrape a pea-sized glob off onto the stick, which he pressed against one of the screws until the pattern on the screwhead imprinted itself into the softened metal.  Gently, he pulled the stick and metal free to let it cool and harden.  It was a fragile tool, but it would suffice.  Angrath brushed sand from the flattest rock under the overhang and set the compass upon it.

The rain ended abruptly; they all looked up at the sudden silence.  The heavy rain had left behind wooly banks of fog that dampened sound and obscured anything more than a few dozen paces away.  While it lasted, it would hide them well, Angrath considered, but it would also make it impossible to spot an adversary until they were on top of the little camp.  He glared at the fog distrustfully.

“That’s my whistle,” Hilla said.  She stood, brushed sand from her clothes, and checked her weapons in a motion so smooth Angrath doubted the others noticed.  Hilla was always loath to let on when she was nervous.  Again, Angrath’s instincts cried out; he silenced them by getting to his feet and stamping hard to dislodge the sand sticking to his pants, then walking out into the fog.  At the waterline, he stopped, and stared.  Where the ocean should be was a bank of fog, and the waves were muted by its presence.  He only barely heard Hilla follow behind him.

“Don’t worry, grumpy,” she said.  Her voice too was distorted by fog--too flat, too low.

“I’m not worried,” he said, which was true to the extent that what he was feeling wasn’t worry , exactly.  Frustrated caution, maybe: something was wrong, and though he hadn’t yet identified what, it was more dangerous than he knew.  That ain’t thunder coming, it’s a stampede , as his father had liked to say.  

“Suit yourself.  I’ll be back before you know it.  Go fix that compass so we have our heading.”  She patted his arm.

“Be careful.”

“Of course.”  Then she walked, her steps swallowed up by the blanketing fog.  Her grey feathers quickly vanished out of sight.

The fog did not burn off as the day progressed; the sun remained hidden, a dull smudge behind dark clouds.  This too was unnatural, Angrath concluded, just as the red sun had been. Ixalan’s rains were intense, but short, and the clouds always ceded the sky shortly after the rain ended.  They weren’t supposed to linger.  And the fog had an almost sticky quality to it, swirling around their legs and arms and faces, clinging to the ground and refusing to be blown away.  The jungle was eerily quiet, or perhaps the fog simply dampened any sound before it could reach them.  It didn’t improve Angrath’s mood.  Every pirate knew that both vampires and merfolk used fog as a cover to attack; neither had materialized yet, and this fog seemed beyond their magics, but still his hair bristled.

The compass came apart easily.  The makeshift turnscrew did its job, and Angrath lifted off the compass’s faceplate to reveal the mechanism inside.  It was devilishly complicated; he had occasionally, in his previous life as town blacksmith, been asked to make new components for broken clocks, as the town had no clockmaker, and new parts from the city could take up to a year to come in.  It was a rare occurrence, but he’d hated it nevertheless: it was finicky work for which he didn’t have the proper tools, and his fingers had always felt too large when handling delicate gears and winding mechanisms.  Now, his tools were sticks and the remnants of Parrish’s button, and the mechanism inside the compass was more convoluted than the innards of any clock.  Metal met with magic in a dance that may have made sense to a skilled artificer, but which looked to Angrath like the work of a drunken madman.  The levers and gears moved and mana pulsed, all seemingly at random.

“I hate artifice,” he complained.

Beside him, Jace nodded.  The man’s eyes roved over the mechanism; Angrath couldn’t tell whether he could discern anything about the compass.  It was probably asking too much to hope he was an artificer on top of everything else.

Gingerly, Angrath pushed aside a swinging silver arm, searching for the source of the rattling.  Several gears jammed, unable to move if the silver arm was still, and the entire compass began to click in mechanical annoyance.  He let the arm go free.

“What if you just...shake it loose?”  Jace mimed the action.

Angrath sighed.  “Keep a close eye.  We can’t lose any of these pieces.”  Then he turned the compass over and smacked it with his hand.  Fine silt came out, and something rattled but remained stuck.  He smacked it again, and again, and then settled for shaking the compass up and down.

Something fell.  Small, a bead smaller than a shriveled pea.  It bounced once on the rocks; Jace grabbed it quickly before it could be lost among the sand and held it up between thumb and forefinger.

“It’s a rock.”

Angrath held out his palm.  Jace handed him the little stone, and Angrath brought it up to his face to examine it.  It was a rock, roughly spherical, rose-red and slightly transparent.  It glowed slightly; without the fog, Angrath wouldn’t have been able to tell, but it did give off a subtle, weak light.  More than that, it gave off a sense of power--it contained mana, a good deal of it, much more than its size would suggest.

“Is this the power source?” he wondered.

“Look at the compass,” Jace said.

Angrath looked; the gears and arms inside the compass continued to whir, but the points had stilled, all fixed in roughly the same direction: further inland and slightly south.  He considered the bead, then the compass again, then Jace.

“Do you think it’s working now?” Angrath asked.

Jace shrugged and made a face.  “I don’t know.  It’s acting more like a compass.”

“What is this, then?” Angrath asked, considering the red bead.  “There’s no gaps big enough for it to have gotten inside.  It must’ve been put there.”  He glanced towards Vraska, who sat a ways away, guarded by Parrish.  Would she know?  And could he trust anything she said?

“Sabotage?” Jace suggested after a long pause.  “That’s all I can think of.  If it’s giving off a powerful mana field of its own, it may interfere with the divining mechanism in the compass.  Maybe someone didn’t want her to succeed, and they found a way to disable the mechanism while still having the compass appear to function.”

A gift from an ally, Vraska had said.  Perhaps her ally was less helpful then she’d been led to believe, Angrath thought.  Or perhaps the whole story had been a lie.

He placed the bead in his pocket.  “Let’s put this back together, and see where it leads.”

Once the faceplate was back on, Angrath was able to move the dials until all the compass points converged.  They stayed stable, always pointing at the same point, as he walked up and down the beach to test.  West and slightly south.

“What’s west and south of here?” he asked Parrish.

“No idea.  I don’t have a map,” she replied.  “A lot of mountains, I know that much.”

“Let’s figure this out.”  Angrath drew a rough crescent in the sand.  “There.  That’s Ixalan, right?  We’re somewhere around here.” He jabbed the stick at a point opposite from the circle’s opening.  “Where the compass is saying we need to go is somewhere this way.”  He drew a line through the crescent.

Parrish picked up a handful of pebbles and placed them in the center of the crescent.  “There’s the mountains.  And about here”--she placed a leaf on the far side of the pebbles--“is Meyalli Lake.”

“How explored are the mountains?” Angrath mused.  “If Orazca was on the sea, it'd have been found long ago.  But if it were in the mountains…”

“I don’t know, Angrath.  The Coalition hasn’t explored them, and from what I know the Empire avoids them except for the known safe passes.  Takes too long to travel through them otherwise.”

“So Orazca could be in the mountains.”

“Could be,” Parrish agreed unenthusiastically.  “Could also be at the bottom of the lake, or buried under the jungle somewhere.”

“We won’t know until we start looking.”  Angrath considered the compass.  “We’ve got no way to know how far we need to go.  By ship, we’d have to go all the way around here to figure out where Orazca is.”  He traced a path around the point of the crescent.  “But by foot--it’s just a straight line.”

“Have you been listening?  It’s a straight line over something like eight hundred miles, most of which is mountains. ”

“If it’s in the mountains, we gotta go that way anyway,” Angrath pointed out.

“But I’d rather not start by taking the most difficult pa--do you hear that?”  Parrish stood and stared out into the mists.  Angrath and Jace stood as well, and followed her to the edge of the overhang.  For a moment, they stood silently.  Angrath strained to hear whatever it was she had heard--there was the tide going out, the waves weak and muffled, and the taps of droplets falling from the cliff overhead.  Nothing else.  There was no wind to rustle leaves and make the trees groan, or to whistle through gaps in the rockface.

He grumbled, “I’d rather not waste time running ‘round when--”

“Tch!” Parrish shushed him, raising a single finger.

“There’s eight of them,” Jace whispered.

“Eight what?”  

Then Angrath heard it.  A clink , like a chain hanging free and jangling in the wind, and heavy, muffled steps.  Animal steps, a four-legged creature, moving slowly.  The clink, its bridle moving as its rider adjusted the reins.  Muted speech, indiscernible.

“Empire,” Parrish breathed.

Angrath nodded and began to unwind his chain.  Parrish drew her sword.  Angrath gestured, and the three of them fell back.  He pulled Vraska to her feet and held her close, his chain coiled in his other hand.

“The Empire’s on our heels.  They’re no friend to you.  You willing to help us?”

The thick, snake-like tendrils of her hair curled uncomfortably against his skin.  She shook slightly under his grasp, and her mouth was drawn into a tight, angry line. She drew in breath sharply, but remained silent a second too long.

“That was a question to which I needed an immediate, hearty ‘aye’,” Angrath huffed.  She protested, but he dragged her around the far side of the overhanging stone and climbed up the hill there, Parrish and Jace following behind.  He left Vraska at the top of the hill and climbed out onto the jutting rock on his belly, not that much could be seen in the clinging mists.  Eight Empire soldiers--there was little point, Angrath judged, in doubting Jace’s report--would be a formidable challenge.  Better to let them pass.  They were coming from the way Hilla had gone; Angrath could only hope that she had had forewarning enough to take wing.

A patrol materialized, appearing out of the fog first as dark shadows, details and color filling in as they drew closer.  Eight, just as Jace had said.  Most of the soldiers were on foot, but two rode snubhorns, and another snubhorn, unmounted, followed on a line behind, weighed down with packs.

Supplies.  Supplies enough for eight humans, probably enough for a week or so, judging by their size.  They’d last longer for his group, Angrath calculated.  Probably three weeks, if they stretched.  Exactly the windfall he needed.

He moved.

“What are you doing?” Parrish hissed, grabbing his arm.

“Pirating,” he replied.  “Get ready.”

With the ease of long practice, he snapped the chain down; it just reached one of the men on the snubhorns, coiling around his neck.  Angrath leaned back and heaved on the chain, pulling the man from his saddle.  The man screamed before abruptly stopping and falling limp, neck snapped; his compatriots shouted, scrambling to arm themselves.

The chain uncoiled, but it had done its job.  Snubhorns were steady beasts, not prone to panicking, and the two unmounted ones had, without direction, stopped dead, pawing at the ground and lowing unhappily.  The soldiers let them be.  One pointed and shouted, spotting Angrath atop the rock.  Angrath smiled and hefted his hammer in his off-hand.

The Empire soldiers ran in a disorganized charge up the hill.  Still slick from the morning’s rain, the hill’s footing was treacherous, and Angrath’s chain had the advantage of reach.  He snapped it out again and again, catching a wrist, an ankle, and toppling the owner, who invariably slid back down to the base of the hill.  Parrish guarded the peak with Jace; neither were particularly skilled swordsmen, but the soldiers had been caught off guard, and Angrath was thinning their numbers enough that they only needed to deal with a soldier or two at a time.  Two lay dead at their feet already.

The man atop the other snubhorn could not ride the dinosaur up the slope and didn’t have time to find an easier route up; he dismounted and shouted, calling the soldiers back to him.  They formed a tight group, spears and swords raised, and began to march slowly up the hill.  Angrath grinned; the soldiers had no priest, or if they had, he had been the first man to fall.  They had no way to deal with Angrath’s chains and no way to attack from afar.

“Give us your supplies and we’ll let you limp home!” he shouted.

The soldiers, organized now under the command of their leader, didn’t bother to respond.  Angrath snapped his chain towards the soldier nearest him; the soldier caught the chain with her spear, but he tore it from her grasp and it went flying into the bushes.  Parrish and Jace threw stones and sticks down on the soldiers, but they held their formation, even the disarmed soldier who rose up the hill with the others, step for step, her hands raised in a pugilist’s stance.

Angrath’s chain whipped out at another soldier, but this time the soldier was able to deflect it and send it flying erratically away.  Angrath let the chain drop; the soldiers were now too close.  Pumping heat into his hands, his hammer, his horns, he bellowed and charged.  The disarmed soldier fell under his hammer stroke; the soldier next to her took a swipe at Angrath’s head and got his sword entangled in Angrath’s horns.  Reaching up a furnace-hot hand, Angrath squeezed the blade, letting it melt and deform and drip down his fingers to hiss onto the sodden ground.

“Demon!” the man gasped and dropped the useless hilt.

Angrath laughed, before a blast took his breath away.

It took him several seconds to realize the blast hadn’t been physical.  It had felt like the shockwave of an explosion, something that reached down into his chest and jostled his insides without bothering to cut its way past skin and bone first.  

A spell.  Cold mana made his fingers tingle.

Jace stood, gasping and clutching his arm to his chest, his eyes and hand still glowing with magic.  A soldier lay prone before him, eyes wide but motionless, bloody sword laying in insensate fingers.

As one, the remaining three soldiers turned and fled.  Angrath pursued them half-heartedly down the hill, chasing them just far enough to ensure they couldn’t steal back the three snubhorns.

When he returned, Parrish had shepherded Vraska and the wounded Jace back down the hill into the relative safety of the overhang.  It was plain now what had caused him to lash out: blood drenched his sleeve and shirt.

“Angrath, you speak angry beast.  See if one of those dinos has any bandages,” Parrish snapped.  “And some alcohol.  It’ll be hard to get this clean otherwise.”

Grumbling, but not about to argue with Parrish when she sounded so much like the hiss of a cannon’s fuse, Angrath found the ceratops, which had sidled slightly up the beach, away from the shouting.  They tossed their heads irritably at his approach, but he hummed an old lullaby, one of Jamira’s favorites, which calmed them enough for him to grab their reins.

His smile grew wider as he opened each pack. Tents, tools, food, water, even spare weapons--everything they needed.  Everything they would need, in order to launch a foray across the continent.  His hands shook as he untied the straps holding a bag of medical supplies to the saddle.  Everything, everything was finally going his way…

“Did you find anything?” Parrish yelled.

“Plenty!” Angrath crowed.  He hefted the bag over his shoulder.  He felt light, like he’d just downed a bottle of that fizzy wine they made in Luneau.  Parrish, hands bloody, glared at him as he returned and dumped the bag at her side, but he barely noticed.  He hadn’t realized it until just now, but he had every piece he needed.  Home was now one trek through the jungle away.

“Stop grinning like an idiot.  I need your help; I think his arm is broken,” Parrish said.  Jace grimaced, eyes watering; his shirt had been removed, and was being used to soak up the blood coming from a savage cut on his forearm.

“Sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Parrish snapped.  “ He’s the one who should be sorry.  What were you thinking, Angrath?”

“You’ve been going on and on about supplies, and here they are!  Don’t get short with me,” Angrath said.  “We got everything we need.  Almost went perfect too, ‘cept for this one trying to stop a sword with his arm.”

“It was either my arm or my head,” Jace ground out.  He hissed as Parrish dripped bloodstop into the cut.

“You could’ve gotten us all killed,” Parrish said.  “Hold this.”

Angrath held the stick against Jace’s arm while Parrish began to wrap a bandage around the splint.  “C’mon, Parrish, you’ve faced worse odds than that.”

“Not without a very good plan.”

“I had a great plan: surprise ‘em.”

Parrish tied off the bandage with a scowl.

She refused to speak with Angrath as the night came in, but Angrath found he didn’t mind.  They didn’t bother pitching the tents, but the sleeping mats the soldiers had carried were a welcome improvement over the stony ground.  Jace slept soundly, his injured arm held tightly to his chest; Parrish had found a bag of dried hebbin flowers to take away the pain, then, without a word, set about searching for anything dry to burn after a day of rain and fog.

Angrath went from corpse to corpse, seeing what could be salvaged.  He snapped off the spearheads and collected the swords, and took coins and trinkets from the bodies before dragging them deeper into the jungle, so that the smell didn’t attract dangerous dinosaurs to their camp.  The clothes of the man whose neck Angrath had snapped were nice and undamaged, and he pulled those off and tossed them in a pile for Jace.

At the top of the hill, he came across the man who Jace had felled with the spell.  To Angrath’s surprise, even though insects swarmed the man’s open mouth and eyes, the man was still alive and breathing.  He shook the man and smacked his face, but there was no response.

Unbidden, Vraska’s warning surged to the forefront of his mind.  One of the most dangerous planeswalkers in the multiverse….

Angrath slit the man’s throat.  The man looked no different dead than he had alive.

Down the hill, Parrish had a fire going and something boiling in a copper stewpot.  Vraska hunched, cross-legged, on her mat.  A bit away, the snubhorns grazed on the hill.  Angrath sat himself down by the fire.

“Hilla should be reaching the ships right about now.”

“Aye.”

“What do you think, they make it here round ‘bout midday tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

“Fog might slow ‘em down, if it sticks around.”

“Mmm.”

“It’s not natural, fog like this.”

“No.”

Angrath gave up on talking to Parrish and turned to Vraska.  “You.  You feel like chatting?  Jace is…” Angrath glanced at the man.  “He’s going to be out for a while, I think.”

“What’s there to talk about?”  She craned her head back in a gesture that was probably supposed to look aristocratic.  “You don’t believe me.”

Angrath frowned.  He’d hoped his acting, though poor, would be enough to fool a blindfolded person. “So convince me.”

“I’d rather not waste my breath, if it’s all the same to you.”

“We fixed your compass,” Angrath offered.

“Yes.  I heard.”

“Looks like someone was trying to sabotage your ally.  Or sold them a defective compass.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know when I see him next.”

“Tell us about him,” Angrath said.  “Been stuck here a real long time, me, and Parrish here always loves hearing about other worlds.”

“No.”

“How bout your home, then?  Or even just somewhere you’ve visited?  It’s amazing, Ixalan’s in the middle of this great bloody war and yet I’m bored of it all.”

“No.”

“Fine.  I’ll start,” Angrath said, his good mood refusing to be quenched by their dourness.  “I’d only ever met one other planeswalker before all of this.  I’ve told Parrish about her before.  Rindalin was her proper name, but she always went by Mint.  It was some sort of joke, but I never understood it.  One day she came stumbling into Rustcliff in a costume like a carnival barker, half-dead, covered in dust, burrs all stuck in her fur, demanding to know where all the water had gone.  I’d never seen anything like her before; or rather, I had, but not person-sized and walking around on two legs.  Had a face kinda like an otter, big black nose with whiskers going out to her shoulders.  I knew what she had to be and invited her to stay with me and my wife until she was feeling better.  Start of a great friendship.

“She came from a world kinda like this one, except it was cold more often than not.  Sometimes ice would float past on the ocean.  It was mostly water.  Bunch of little islands all scattered across the sea, all of ‘em so small you could get from one side to the other in a day.  Her people--she called ‘em Dakhaa--lived in these fishing villages scattered all about the little islands.  Incredible cooking.  I thought at first it was just the freshness of the fish making it so good, but even here on Ixalan I’ve had nothing like it.  For a while there, me and her’d get together a couple times a year, alternating my place and her place.  Sometimes we’d go off together, exploring worlds neither of us had ever been to before.

“We saw each other less once we had kids, of course.  She had twins just after Jamira was born.  Always thought it’d be fun to have a playdate, if only we could.”  Angrath paused, unexpectedly overcome with the bitter weight of happy remembrances.  Almost home, he told himself.  Just a little farther.  “I hope she’s been keeping an eye on my girls while I’m gone.”

A sloppy, wet noise interrupted the silence that followed his words; Parrish ladling up soup from the stewpot.  Vraska’s hands were untied so she could hold her bowl, and they each sat quietly, sipping at the hot broth.

At last, Vraska took a deep breath and let out a long-suffering sigh.  “I visited a plane recently.  It was a typical world in most respects, except for two things.  The first might not interest you, but I found it odd: their history is very short.  It simply ends , about a thousand years back.  This is highly unusual for a society as sophisticated as I observed, one that otherwise kept exceptional records.  The second odd thing was the storms there that birthed dragons.  I only observed one, and only from afar, but it was surreal: dragons appeared from nothingness and fell from the clouds.”

“How are there any people left?  Angrath’s told me about dragons before,” Parrish said.  “A single one’s worse than a pack of ferocidons, he said.”

Vraska shrugged.  “The dragons rule over everyone else.  It seems to work.”

“Sounds awful.  Imagine if every time it rained, a bunch of dinosaurs fell from the sky and announced they’re in charge.”  Parrish made a face.

They continued talking until well after the sun went down, Angrath and Vraska alternating stories of places they’d been, Parrish chiming in here and there to share some detail of Ixalan.  At last, with the fire burning down, the women went to sleep, and Angrath remained awake, keeping watch lest the three soldiers who’d escaped attempted to sneak back.  The night moved slowly, as it had in days long past when, as a boy, he’d been too excited by a holiday or festival to sleep.  The night was cloudy, so he could not even mark time by the progress of the moon across the sky.  Eventually, he’d have to wake Parrish so she could keep watch while he got a few hours’ sleep, but--

“I have to go back.”

Angrath, startled, nearly fell off his seat.  Jace had awoken and was staring up at the sky, his face contorted in horror.  Clumsily, he tried to stand.

“Easy, now,” Angrath cautioned.  “Go back to sleep, you’ll need it.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.  I remember.  I need to go back, I have to help them, they’ll be slaughtered--”

“It’s just the hebbin flowers, they can give you nightmares.  Don’t care for ‘em, myself, but they’re what we had.”

“No, I looked into the darkness.  I know what’s there.”  In the firelight, Jace’s eyes were glassy and feverish.  “There’s a dragon coming, and there’s a sliver of his mind in mine, and I can see what he’s planning.”

“You had a nightmare,” Angrath repeated.  “We were talking about dragons earlier and you overheard it in your sleep.

“Are these mine?” Jace’s voice abruptly calmed, and he held up the shirt Angrath had scavenged for him.

“They are now.”  Angrath returned to prodding the embers with a stick.  Hebbin flowers did miraculous things for pain, but also tended to make people, especially humans, loopy.  It could be funny, but it could also make caring for the injured tiresome.  He hoped Jace would fall asleep again.

“I don’t recognize them.”

“They’re new,” Angrath sighed.

“They don’t smell new.”

“Just put ‘em on, lad, and go back to sleep.”

Cloth rustled as Jace complied, then giggled.  Angrath glanced over; one of the items he’d taken from the dead man had been a hooded, oil-treated cloak.  In the Empire fashion, it was a ridiculous garment, brightly colored and cut to resemble feathers, with stitching on the hood to make eyes and teeth, but it was useful enough that Angrath couldn’t discard it.  Jace had put it on, hood up, and was now sitting cross-legged, clutching it closed and laughing quietly.

“It’s the latest fashion in Graytown,” he said, apropos of nothing.  “Twelve zinos, or nine apiece if you get two.”

“Lay down and go to sleep,” Angrath said.

The fogs and clouds had not dispersed come morning.  In all the time he’d spent on Ixalan, Angrath had never known it to be overcast for more than a few hours; even during hurricanes, the sun liked to be seen, and would muscle aside the storm clouds to shine down on the world.  Now it seemed the sun was hiding, embarrassed.

They built up the fire against the growing chill and milled about, wasting time as they waited for the Chains and the Eel to arrive.  Noon came and went with no sign of the ships, though Parrish noted it would be hard for them to spot the rock in the fog.  They built the fire even larger, creating a smoking bonfire on the sand that ought to have been visible for miles.  Still nothing came.

“I knew we shouldn’t have sent Hilla alone,” Angrath said darkly.

“The weather may have slowed her down, or gotten her lost.  Once it clears, they’ll come.”

“You don’t know that,” Angrath said.  “And I’m not gonna skulk under this rock forever waiting to find out.  It’s time to go.  We’ve got everything we need.  It’s a good thing we raided those soldiers, isn’t it?”

“ Don’t, ” Parrish snapped.  “It was a horrible idea when you did it, even if it helps now.”

“Pack up,” Angrath snapped back.  “We can still make a few miles before nightfall.”

Parrish offered only a token resistance before relenting.  They repacked the supplies and mounted the ceratops, Angrath holding the still-drowsy Jace while Parrish rode with Vraska.  Angrath had given her back the compass, in part to try to build on the friendliness of the previous evening, and in part because she was the only sober person who had a hand free.

Riding a dinosaur proved little different from riding a horse.  They went up the beach until they found a place where the incline was gentle enough for the ceratops to climb.  It wasn’t the most comfortable ride; the dinosaurs simply muscled their way through the jungle, pushing aside saplings and carelessly scraping their riders against trees, but progress was finally, at long last being made.

Very soon, I’m going home, Angrath promised himself.

Chapter Text

It was cold and damp at the edge of the world. Here lay Elspeth, underneath a cairn of rocks and driftwood piled atop a thin strip of stone that clutched the world like a limpet.  The sea, frigid and turbulent and dark, rushed around the spit of land, throwing itself over the edge and into the void below with a sigh.

Elspeth deserved better--somewhere warm, where the sun embraced the world and happy people went about simple lives, coming now and again to tend the grave of the mysterious woman who’d saved their world.  Somewhere with wide, rolling fields and burbling creeks, where the sky was brilliant blue and lazy, fat clouds drifted across the sky.

Here, the sky was dark, the sun unable to reach this distant shore, and the stars grey and feeble.  Stranded and distraught, Ajani hadn’t been able to move Elspeth’s body somewhere more suitable.  Instead, her makeshift tomb stood as a warning to any who would follow after her into the realm of the gods.

A warning that Nissa had, evidently, ignored.

Ajani knelt at the head of the cairn and unstrapped his axe.  The rock was wet from the ocean’s spray, soaking through his kilt; he gathered up the cloak that had once been Elspeth’s so it wouldn’t get wet.

“It has been too long since I was able to visit,” he said softly.  “Things have become...complicated.  I have sworn an oath, to protect those who don’t have protectors.  To find homes for those who have lost theirs, or who never had a home to begin with.”  He smiled sadly and rested his paw on the cairn.  “To do for others what I could not do for you.  I hope you’d like that.  I hope I’ve done well by your memory.”

He fell silent.  Not even birds ventured this far out.  He was alone, only the sound of the falling water to keep him company, and for a moment he was overcome by the enormity of the task ahead of him.  The Gatewatch had fractured.  Defeating Bolas would require a united force, and yet here they were, scattered, pursuing random goals, chasing down ghosts.  For what was to come, every one of them would be needed, as well as every ally they could scrape together, and yet…

Ajani took a deep breath and curled his hands into fists on his thighs.  One thing at a time.

He stood, and hefted his axe, and strode through the portal hanging between the twin trees.

It wasn’t that she was walking in circles, Nissa decided.  It was that the world, somehow, impossibly, was bending in circles to force her onto this same path again and again and again.

Nyx was a shadowland, a dreamland, an echo of the Blind Eternities, breaking and reforming like ripples in a pond.  Nissa strode through the massive heartwood trees of her childhood, which were--at the same time--the skyscraping towers of Ravnica, the obelisks and pyramids of Amonkhet, the giant legs of insects, waterfalls, gouts of flame.  Vines coated the trees/towers/legs, but they were not only vines, but blood vessels, gears, the gritty leavings of Ulamog, and the fleshy corruption of Emrakul.  The entirety of Nyx was a mirage, every place Nissa had ever been, every thing she’d ever seen, overlaid and twisted together, a contorted waking nightmare.

And yet she knew where she was.  If mana was water, what surrounded her now was ice.  Ancient power, rooted and unmoving.  Each step felt as if she were walking through stone, her own substance subsumed by her surroundings.  With animal certainty, she knew she could not linger, lest the boundaries between herself and her surroundings dissolve.  Still, the intimacy granted knowledge.  She should have been lost, yet she wasn’t, despite the way the landscape twisted under her feet.

Again and again, she came to the same pathway cut into the mountainside.  She knew where it led on Zendikar; the thought of where it might lead in this dreamworld chilled her.  Yet she could not escape it.  She walked in the opposite direction, she walked parallel, she attempted to walk in a great circle around it, but always she found herself back at the foot of that narrow, rocky path, no matter what trick she tried.

The world wanted to take her somewhere.  At last, seeing no other option, Nissa relented, and began the steep, treacherous climb up to the Eye of Ugin.

The path was unmistakable, even distorted as it was.  Once, Nissa had climbed it with the vampire Sorin, leading him up to the Eye so that he could reseal the Eldrazi in their prison.  Then, she had felt dread--dread that Sorin wasn’t what he said he was, that he came to Zendikar not to help, but for some nefarious end.  In her fear, she had defied Sorin’s orders and broken the lock holding the Eldrazi inside.

She felt dread now too, but she forced her mind to calm.  She would not make the same mistake again.  She would discover what was happening and make a calm, measured plan for what to do about it.  What she feared was only the unknown, and soon the unknown would be known and thus nothing to fear.

Noise was strangely deadened here; her feet made almost no noise as she walked up the steep, switchback path.  The silence made her heartbeat and breath sound too loud, and she became uncomfortably aware of the sounds her body made as she climbed.  Sweat ran down the sides of her face to drip onto her shirt, and each breath came with a rough sigh.  Her staff clicked hollowly against the stone.  It was a lonely feeling; Nissa was well used to solitude, but the solitude she was used to was the solitude of being alone in a thriving, living world.  This was different.  She wondered if she might be the only living creature here.  Figures flickered now and again in the shifting dreamscape, but they evaporated before they could form features--illusions, not alive.  No creatures, no birds, not even any insects.

Inexplicably, the landscape seemed to solidify as she neared the entrance to the Eye.  The ground beneath her feet became rock only, without traces of cobblestones or loam.  The cliff became solid rock, without windows or doors or eyes.  The towering trees and buildings evaporated, letting Nissa see straight to the sky.  A sun was out--a weak, pathetic grey thing--but so were stars.  Like they had in Theros proper, they shifted and danced in random patterns.  The sun felt hot on her face, despite its tepid light.

Liliana was waiting for her at the entrance.

Nissa halted, confused.  Liliana leaned against the rock, arms crossed, her lips curled into an expression that made the quelled dread in Nissa’s chest leap free.

“Liliana?  How did you get here?”

“I followed you, dear.  Obviously.”

“Then how did you get here before me?  Gideon said you had been captured.” Nissa had to cover her mouth and nose.  Liliana never smelled pleasant: the sick-sweet scent of death clung to her skin no matter what she was doing, and she tended to cover the smell with sour perfumes that made everything worse, at least to Nissa’s nose.  But now Liliana’s breath smelled alarmingly of blood and fouled water.

“I don’t waste time once it’s become clear where I need to go--unlike some.  I’ve been waiting for ages.”

Annoyance warred with dread, and Nissa bit back a denial.  It never took long for Liliana’s presence to irritate her.

“You should have been at the meeting, then,” she said instead.  “We could have come together.”

Liliana’s eyes glittered like a pair of carrion beetles, and she languidly pushed away from the wall and strolled towards Nissa.  “I couldn’t wait.  You feel it, don’t you?  A siren’s call.”

“Something drew me here, yes.” Nissa frowned.  “Is it inside?”  Despite the sunlight, it was pitch black beyond the entrance to the Eye.  Here and there the darkness seemed to flicker, as if something moved just beyond sight.

“It’s irresistible.  Hypnotizing, you might say.  Perhaps even seductive,” Liliana drawled, drawing closer.  “I can see why you had to come.  Too bad, I suppose.  It’s not really your fault.”

“What isn’t?” Nissa asked.  She took a step back as Liliana got too close.

“At least, you’d like us to believe you're not to blame, wouldn’t you?  Poor foolish elf; she didn’t mean to do it, it’s just that she couldn’t help herself!”

“What are you talking about?” Nissa asked.

Liliana darted forward; Nissa brought up her staff between them, but Liliana grabbed it and twisted it out of her hands with a strength Nissa knew she shouldn’t possess.  It clattered and rolled down the winding path.  Confused, Nissa found herself spun around, Liliana pinning her arms behind her.  Thrashing against Liliana’s grip, Nissa tried to free herself.  By rights, she should have been able to--Liliana was physically weak, even for a human.  But Liliana’s fingers dug into Nissa’s skin with the finality of roots through stone.  The smell of rot was overpowering.

“Traitor,” Liliana hissed in her ear.  “You thought we wouldn’t find out?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Nissa exclaimed.  Her mind raced; this couldn’t be Liliana, or if it was, it was Liliana augmented by some unknown power.  She pulled again, and succeeded only in bruising her wrists further.

“You swore an oath.  What happens to oathbreakers, hmm?”

Shadow fell on them; Nissa looked up to see Gideon.  She blinked.  He hadn’t been there a moment ago, she was certain, and she should have heard him approach.  In his hands he held a blood-red scabbard, and his face was wan and resigned.  With a sigh, he drew the sword from its sheath and dropped the scabbard to the ground.  The blade was black, baleful, and his fingers wrapped around the hilt reluctantly.  Nissa’s heart squeezed in her chest.

Liliana chuckled and shoved Nissa to the ground, planting her foot between Nissa’s shoulders and yanking back painfully on her arms.  The tip of her heel dug into Nissa’s spine.

“Stop!” Nissa demanded.  “This isn’t real!”  It must be a vision, like she’d experienced during Kefnet’s trial.  All she needed to do was remain calm and think her way out.  It was a puzzle, a test, like the flower.

“Shut up,” Liliana snapped and twisted her arm further.

Gideon stepped beside Nissa’s head.  All she could see of him was his feet, strapped in sandals.

“You don’t want to do this,” Nissa said.

“No,” Gideon agreed.  “But justice must be done.”

His feet shifted; Nissa noted the way the tendons in his feet stood out from his skin, how his toes splayed as he braced himself, and she wondered why she could not think, why this minor detail was all she could focus on even as he brought the sword around and down with a great swoop as it cut through the air toward her neck.

The sword struck something with a sound like breaking glass.  Something that felt like ice slithered down Nissa’s neck and shoulders--for a second of pure terror, she thought it was her own blood.  Gideon’s feet took a halting step back.  His knees struck the ground hard, then the rest of him collapsed in front of Nissa, empty eyes facing her.  His throat was slit; blood spewed from the wound, but as it pooled it took on an oily sheen and began to calcify in twisting squares.  His eyes turned black.

Behind her, Liliana screamed in fury.  A wet noise, and her scream ceased, and Nissa tumbled forward, suddenly free and unable to catch herself.  Her palms scraped against stone and her chin hit the ground hard enough to send her teeth smarting.  Rolling, heedless of the blood, she got clear of the slaughter and jumped to her feet.

An angel stood before her, face hidden deep in the shadows of a cloak, twin crystalline swords in hand, and Nissa had to fight back the urge to scream.

Emeria.

"Is this your doing?" Nissa demanded.  She couldn’t stop herself from shaking.  Dimly, she noted that the blood on her hands was cold, and prickled against her skin like poison sap.

"In times of drought, spiders leave their webs in search of dew," the angel said. “The rains, the floods, come in their time, but for now--climb.”

"Speak so that I may understand.   If I am to be tested, tell me what I must do!  Enough of these games!”

“This is not a test.  What will happen has already happened.  Time is sorted and put in its order.  Walk your path, Nissa Revane.”

“What path?” she asked.  At her feet, the bodies of Gideon and Liliana calcified, turning chalky and pockmarked.  The blood, dry now, shone metallically.  All familiar, too familiar.

What will happen has already happened.   Nissa looked to the entrance of the Eye, and back to Emeria.

“You want me to free you again.  Is that it?”

“Walk your path.  Walk it again.”

“I will not.  Freeing you is the worst thing I have ever done.”

“There is no right, nor wrong.  There is what was and what will be again.  The flood, the fire, the dark of night, they are not dreams.  They are what is.”

“No,” Nissa said.  “I will not make this mistake again.”  Putting her back to the entrance, she skirted around the glittering blood puddle towards the path down, keeping a wary eye on the angel.  She expected Emeria to stop her, but the angel stood silent, the hood following Nissa’s steps.  Nissa reached the edge and halted.

The path was gone.  Sheer cliff plunged down into misty darkness.  Nissa strode along the edge, breaking into a jog, but found nothing--no way down, unless she jumped.

Beneath her hood, the angel was staring, Nissa knew.  The stone landing at the Eye was not large, and Nissa ran its length three times before stopping.

“Let me leave,” she demanded.  “Bring the path back.  I will not help you.”

“Are you a pawn, or a queen?” the angel asked.

“I am neither.  Life is not a game.  Let me leave!”

The angel turned and strode toward the Eye.  “The queen is a powerful piece, but even it may be sacrificed in a drought.  Smother the king in his pocket.”  She stepped into the darkness and vanished, leaving Nissa alone on the landing with the chalky corpses.

A wail sounded from the darkness.  A voice, a woman, Chandra, sobbing for Nissa, begging her to come.  Nissa took a step automatically before forcing herself still.  No.  It was a trick, just as Liliana and Gideon had been--at least, as she hoped they had been.  Nyx was ever-changing, ever-dreaming.  It could create people as easily as it did trees and buildings, surely.

And if not--

Nissa paced around the edge of the landing once more.

There was a trick to it, there had to be; she simply had to figure it out.  But Nissa had explored every inch of rock outside the Eye, and could find nothing.  The path was not merely hidden: it was gone, erased from the reality of this strange place.  When she explored her magical senses, she found only the ice-hardness of the ancient mana.  She pushed against it, trying to weave it into something more useful, but the more she pushed, the more it resisted, sapping her heat from her and leaving her shivering, skin prickling.

It was hard to think with Chandra still crying from inside the Eye.  The corpses of Gideon and Liliana dissolved at the lightest touch, turning to ash just as Ulamog’s corruption always did.  The blood, hardened now to an oily, metallic finish, was inert.  Scattered around the bodies were fragments of steel, the shattered remnants of the dark sword Gideon had carried.  Nissa picked one up and examined it, but it was only metal.

There seemed to be only one way off of the cliff.  Nissa stepped to the edge of the landing.  Mist, far below, marked the edge of her sight; the ground was wholly out of view.  Even so, she could tell that, assuming the fall was survivable, it would be so only due to some strange property of Nyx.  The distance was great, and the cliff was sheer--a gibbon would struggle to find handholds here.  Nissa would find none.  She would have to jump, and trust that this world behaved differently from everywhere else she’d ever been.

The muscles in her leg tensed.  Having grown up high in the towering trees of the jungle, Nissa had little fear of heights, but she found her legs frozen in a half-crouch, unwilling to let her jump.  A bracing breath did not free her from her paralysis.

Jump--a gamble, possibly a fatal one--or face the Eye.

Her legs remained stuck.  She grit her teeth, took another deep breath, and closed her eyes--but she could not force herself to jump.

Reluctantly, she turned to the Eye.

Stepping over the threshold was like stepping through a waterfall.  At once, the feel of the world changed.  It was looser here, freer, the mana not so rigid, the sense of time not so staid.  She stood in a cavern she remembered very well, but instead of the keystone, the giant hedron she had shattered to unlock the Eldrazi’s prison, there was a large metal box, ornamented in the Kaladeshi fashion.  With a start, Nissa realized it was the poison trap she and Chandra had been locked in, months before.

Through the porthole window in the box, Chandra waved to her.

“Hey!  Hey, you!  Please, let me out!” Chandra begged, a desperate smile on her face.  She pounded her fist against the glass, and the metal thunked as she kicked the door.  “Hurry!  I can’t breathe!”

Slowly, Nissa approached.  It looked like Chandra, but Liliana had looked like Liliana and Gideon had looked like Gideon, and Nissa knew that Chandra was back on Dominaria, or at least was supposed to be, and so couldn’t be here.  And behind her, nearly out of sight in the shadows, Emeria stood.

“You are a trick,” Nissa said.

“What?  No, this isn’t some joke, I’d never joke about something like this, c’mon!” Chandra cried.  “Please, I’m gonna die.  I don’t wanna die.”

“I am tired of puzzles.  What am I supposed to do?”

“Not a puzzle!  Open the door, there, see, the lever?  Just let me out! Please!”

Nissa walked a slow circle around the box; Chandra’s cries turned to sobbing babbling when Nissa turned away.  Aside from the door, the box had no obvious mechanism, no pattern or oddity that might point to what she ought to do with it.  And the cavern itself, though large, was otherwise featureless.  Even the entrance back out onto the rocky landing had vanished.

The lock rattled as Chandra struggled to force it open from the inside.  “Don’t leave me here, please don’t leave me here.”

It was hard to shut out her pleas.  Nissa closed her eyes and put her fingers in her ears, trying to get a quiet moment to think.  Puzzles had solutions.  This box was a puzzle.  She had been led here for a reason; some power--Kruphix, perhaps--had forced her to take this path, and wanted her to take some action here.

But was the force benevolent?  If Liliana and Gideon were illusions, then Emeria could be as well--but the Eldrazi were not constrained by the rules that governed the living world.  Was there a reason this couldn’t be her work?  Was it a temptation?  Of course she wanted to free Chandra--but the thing screaming in the box wasn’t Chandra.

It was important to remember that.

“Am I to wait?  Is that it?  Is the test whether I can watch a friend die?  Do you want to see my cruelty?  I was very cruel, once.”

Chandra’s sobs were incoherent.  Nissa set her jaw.  When the heart leads, the feet lose their way, the Joraga said.  Emotions led to catastrophe.  Had her fear not set the Eldrazi free?  She would not fear now.  She would not despair, would not hate, would not lose herself to fury.  She would be calm, peaceful as the undisturbed river, her thinking unfettered by the unruly demands of her heart.

She would stand here, and watch Chandra-- not Chandra, an imposter --die.

The shrieks became more desperate, but the pounding of fists against metal weakened.  The imposter’s face, blotchy and red from crying, slid against the window as she lost the ability to stand.  Nissa forced herself to watch; to turn away seemed disrespectful, even if the thing in the box wasn’t real.  

“What are you, Nissa Revane?” Emeria asked from the shadows.

Nissa tried to reply, to tell the angel to cease speaking, but she couldn’t unclench her jaw.  Chandra’s fingers gripped weakly at the lip of the window, and her head had sunk so that only her hair was visible.  Wheezing, rasping breaths echoed dully against the metal of the box.  It wasn't Chandra--it wasn't.

“From the moment it unfurls its cotyledons, a tree knows exactly what it is and what it is for.  It must grow leaves to catch the sunlight.  It must send roots deep, to drink and anchor it in the soil.  It must grow flowers to feed the insects, and then fruit to feed the birds.  A tree knows what each part of it is for.”  Emeria’s calm recitation sounded perverse alongside Chandra’s choked sobs.  “What are your parts for, Nissa Revane?  Are your hands not for unlocking?  It is already done.”

“I will not free you,” Nissa said through gritted teeth.  Clenched tightly into fists, her fingers were going numb.

“I am free,” Emeria said.  In a blink, she stepped through the metal wall to stand uncomfortably close to Nissa.  “I will be free again.  But the king must be smothered in his pocket lest the atmosphere drown and the braids untangle.  What are your hands for?  What are you?  A pawn?  A queen?  A hand?  What am I?”

Even close as she was, Nissa could see nothing inside the angel’s hood.  From the box came the quiet thud of a body hitting the floor.

“I am a trick,” Emeria whispered, leaning closer.

Panic surged through Nissa’s limbs.  She shoved the angel aside and heaved against the latch holding the door shut.  The lever, long as her arm, groaned as it was forced to move, and the latches each came free with a metallic ping.  In a single motion, Nissa pulled the door open and knelt, gathering Chandra in her arms.  Chandra’s lips were dark, her skin so blotchy it appeared bruised.  Nissa picked her up and carried her out and laid her on the stone.

“Chandra?” she called.  She shook Chandra’s shoulders, pinched hard the flesh on her arm.  Chandra remained inert.  Nissa fumbled with her pouch, looking through the herbs stored there for anything that would help.  She gathered a slapdash bundle--cretus flowers to counter poison, asoran root to heal, kurd stems for energy--and twisted it together, then pried open Chandra’s mouth and wedged the bundle under her tongue.

Nissa’s heartbeat echoed in her ears as she waited.  She shook Chandra again, and cried out when Chandra groaned and her eyelids fluttered.  Slowly, Chandra awoke.

“Wow.  You’re pretty,” Chandra breathed.  Nissa smiled.

“Where’s Atha?  Who’re you?” Chandra asked.  But it wasn’t Chandra.  Like the trees that were also towers, the person laying on the ground was a man, one that Nissa didn’t recognize, while at the same time, somehow, being Chandra as well, like one of the Rakdos trick pictures where the same lines drew both a goblin and a bird depending on how you looked at it.  In her distress, she hadn’t paid enough attention to see the second side.

“I don’t know,” Nissa said, before realizing that was an absurd thing to say.  “My name is Nissa.”

"Am I sick?" the man asked. "Never been so tired in my life. And the dreams…sick dreams."  He stuck his fingers in his mouth and fished out the herbs and stared at them.  His arm, she noted, was stained a bright red.  It was getting harder and harder to see how she had mistaken him for Chandra.  His hair was about the same length as hers, but much darker; his eyes were set deep under his brow; he was taller, broader, though not as muscular as Gideon; an unkempt beard hid his jaw and mouth.  Even when she squinted at the scant similarities, Nissa could no longer see the man as Chandra.

“I don’t know.  I’m sorry, but--are you real?” she asked.  Her instincts said he must be--she had never seen him before, and whatever power that had created Gideon and Liliana and Emeria could just as easily have created Ajani or Jace in an attempt to fool her.  Why create a man she’d never met, who she would instinctively distrust?

“Think so.  Kinda hard to tell, but this headache isn’t imaginary.  I’m Dack.” The man extended his hand.  After a moment, when she remembered what the gesture meant, Nissa extended her own and grasped his hand and shook it.  “Got any water?”

Nissa’s hand reached toward her waterskin, but she hesitated.  Not knowing what she would find in Nyx, she had brought two full waterskins and a week’s worth of food, but that was it.  And she had yet to come across drinkable water here, or anything to forage.  Helping this Dack would mean expending scarce resources, possibly curtailing her ability to fix whatever was causing the sleeping sickness on Theros.

But...he could be a great help, too.  She unhooked the waterskin and handed it to him.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

Between sips, he told her.  “Went through a portal.  Me and Atha.  Gotta find her.  Last thing I remember, we’d just found Ashiok’s hiding place.”

“Who?”

“Ashiok.  The one who’s causing all this, with the mages and the sleeping sickness.  Is that what you’re doing down here?”

Nissa nodded.

“Oh, good.  That’ll save time.” Dack took a last drink, capped the waterskin, and handed it back to her.  She tried not to be dismayed at how much lighter it was.  Dack pushed himself up to his feet with a long groan.  “Urgh.  You ever get the feeling you’re getting too old for this nonsense?  No, you wouldn’t, would you?  You’re still young.  What is this?”  He went to examine the box, circling it.

“It’s a...a trap.  From Kaladesh.”

“Never heard of it.  What’s it doing here?”

“I think...I think it came from my memories.  You were trapped in it, but until I got you out I thought you were...one of my friends.  She and I were trapped in one once.”

“Ah.  Yeah, I’ve seen things like that here.  Things from my past.”  He turned away from her, brow furrowed.  “What’s this?”  He went into the box.

Nissa turned to examine the cavern.  Saving this man must have been the test, and yet the cavern hadn’t changed.  The doorway remained missing, the walls remained uniformly flat.  Something still prevented her progress.  Or had she just wandered into the same trap that had trapped this Dack, and now they were both stuck here?

“Hey, you, Ne--Nissa!  Come help me with her!”  Dack emerged from the box, a woman held in his arms.  He set her down on the cavern floor, as Nissa had set him down.  “She won’t wake.  How’d you wake me up?”

Nissa dug through her pouches for more herbs.  Dack lightly slapped the woman’s face, saying her name over and over.  “Atha.  Hey, Atha.  C’mon.  You can’t sleep here, remember?”

It took longer for Atha to wake than it had taken Dack, and Dack became increasingly agitated until at last she moaned and started to stir.  The last of Nissa’s first waterskin went to slake Atha’s thirst, to Nissa’s growing unease. 

But Atha’s awakening heralded a change in the Eye.  With a noise like falling water, the rock walls opened like a flower, cracking into thin slivers and falling outward, revealing a dark, starlit river valley.  The box melted like wax, shimmering metallically before soaking into the ground.

But for a split second, in the diverging currents, Nissa saw Emeria.  And though she had never seen the angel's face and did not see it now, she knew the angel was smiling.

The landscape of Nyx changed with all three of them walking.  Still at times Nissa saw the trees of her childhood or soaring Ravnican buildings, but the landscape was flattened, as if she looked upon a painting and not the real thing.  And the real--or what passed for real, here--seemed more solid.  It was easy to ignore the trees and buildings, and look through to what really existed here.

She spied her staff wedged between two rocks.  It felt reassuringly solid in her hands, and she held it tight as the three of them assessed their situation.  A river delta surrounded them, sinuous, breaking and curling into a thousand eddies and riverlets.  Sinkholes must plague the area, for in one more than one place Nissa saw part of the river divert and rush full force down a rocky channel that dead-ended.  The water never spilled out of the channel, though, and more and more water followed after.

They had to jump from rock to rock, crossing the narrow but fast water wherever they could.  Under the starlight, the water seemed to glow faintly blue.  When Nissa cupped her hands to draw up water, it ran through her fingers too quickly, so she got the merest sip.  But the empty waterskin filled when she held it under, and the water tasted like water and quenched her thirst.

“How long have you been here?” Atha asked.

“Less than half a day,” Nissa replied.

“We’ve been here four days, I think.  It’s hard to tell,” Atha said.

“Can’t have been more than four,” Dack said.  “This place, it’s really not that big.”

The river valley seemed to go on past the horizon, but Nissa said nothing.  Dack and Atha walked as if they knew where they were and where they needed to go, so she followed them, listening as they tried--unsuccessfully--to piece together how they had ended up in the trap, and worried about a missing gauntlet, and mused about how they should face Ashiok a second time.

“You spoke of an Ashiok before,” Nissa said.  “Who is that?”

“Good question!” Dack answered with a weary laugh.  “The bastard that’s behind all this.  A mage of some kind.  Real demented.  Got no face.”

“No face?”

“Nope, just a pair of horns.”  Dack traced curves with his hands to demonstrate.  With a twinge of unease, Nissa recognized the shape of Bolas’s horns.  Was this yet another world despoiled by Bolas?  She inhaled sharply.  But no--she shouldn’t get ahead of herself--plenty of animals had horns that superficially resembled Bolas’s.  Why shouldn’t this mage?

“We’ll need a plan--a good plan--before we face him again,” Atha said.  “If Nissa hadn’t come along, we’d have been trapped here until we died.  We’ll have to surprise him, somehow.”

“My plan was fine.  Excellent, even,” Dack said with exaggerated hurt.  “It just didn’t work.  So--anyone know how to sneak up on a telepath?”

With a surge of grief, Nissa thought of Jace, and how easy it had been to startle him when he was working.  “You distract them.”

“And how would you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Nissa said.

“We’ll have plenty of time to figure it out,” Atha said.  “It’ll be at least a day to get back.  Somehow we got dragged all the way back to the river.”

Ajani had never figured out how navigation worked in Nyx, but it seemed as if, somehow, the land took you where you needed to go--eventually, at least.  No one had ever mapped Nyx, so far as he knew; Theros’s legends spoke often of mortals tricking the gods and sneaking into--or out of--Nyx, but the legends never made mention of how the mortals knew where to go.

But Elspeth had found Xenagos, the false god, and Ajani had followed her without trouble.  And so he supposed he had only to keep walking forward to reach his destination.  There was no trace of where Nissa had gone, but the ground of Nyx wasn’t really ground, and the plants weren’t really plants.  They held no trails--no footprints, no broken twigs, no bits of hair snagged on a branch.  Even the air held no scent, smelling only faintly of rain, even though the sun shone down strongly.

He jogged across the plain, a slower gait he could maintain for miles.  To his left, in the distance, he spied a farmhouse, and he adjusted his course.  Forms--eidolons, he supposed--flickered into being and then evaporated in seconds, but the farmhouse stayed firm.

More structures came into view as he approached.  A fence surrounded the house, in disrepair.  Parts of the fence had been burned and sections of it had collapsed.  Grape vines, the fruit rotting on the vine, twined around what was left.  The fields around the house lay fallow; vegetables warred for space with weeds.  Ajani walked between the fields, looking for absent traces as to why this farmhouse stood here, alone on the endless plain.  It seemed abandoned.

A dozen yards from the house stood a stone well.  Its roof too had burned, and the rope hung limply, cut near the top.  The farmhouse itself seemed undamaged, though ivy had overtaken the chimney.  A cart, with traces for a donkey, lay lopsided in front of a dilapidated barn; the cart had been carrying bags of grain, which now spilled out across the ground.  Ajani strode forward, past the well--

A scream, and something thwacked across his shins.  Instinctively, he jumped backwards and reached for his axe.  Someone jumped out from where they had been hiding, back against the well, and screamed again, brandishing a sword.  A human.  A child.  The sword in his hand was wooden.

Ajani dropped his axe, and raised his hands.  “I’m not here to hurt you, child.  I’m merely a traveler.”

The child ignored his words and charged forward, reckless and untrained.  Ajani easily caught the child’s arm as it came around in a wild swing, but to his surprise, the child passed the toy sword from right hand to left and jabbed it forward viciously, catching Ajani in the ribs.  He let out a pained groan; the sword couldn’t really hurt him, but it would leave a bruise.  He grabbed the child’s other wrist.

“Please, stop.  I will not hurt you,” Ajani said.  

“Isobel!  Isobel!” a woman cried.  “Stop!  He’s not one of them!”  Footsteps came running from the house; the child stilled in Ajani’s grasp.  It was not a boy, as he’d thought when he had only an instant to judge.  It was a girl, her head shaven, wearing a suit of armor that seemed to have been awkwardly assembled from bits of cutlery and flattened nails.  Bruises and cuts of varying ages adorned her head and arms.

“Please, sir, are you a knight?  You look like a knight,” the woman said as she reached them.

Ajani tore his gaze from the girl, and his heart froze in his chest.

Elspeth.

It was her, without question.  She wore peasant’s clothing and she looked older than he remembered, but it was her, definitely her, exactly as he saw in his nightmares.  Her dark hair spilled forth from her shawl and her eyes, heavy with tears, pleaded with him.

“Oh, please say you’re a knight.  Please say you’ve come to save us,” she cried.  “Please, every night they come.  Every night.  Please…”

Ajani let go of the girl and rose and wrapped Elspeth into a tight hug.

“Of course.  Of course I’ll save you,” he whispered.

“Monsters.  Demons, maybe.  They come every night, as soon as the sun’s gone down,” Elspeth said.  She fussed around the farmhouse’s modest little kitchen, making tea and assembling a tray of crackers and sweets.  “They’ve taken my husband and my son already.  It’s just me and the girl and the babe left.  We have no weapons.  We can’t even leave--the mule took one look at them and broke right through his stall door.  And where would we go?  Is anywhere safe from them?”

“I’m not sure.  I haven’t seen these monsters.”  Ajani took the proffered tea and considered the situation.  Elspeth could remember nothing of him or her past life--that much was abundantly clear.  An effect of death?  Of the afterlife of Nyx?  The uncertainty made him hesitant.  The presence before him felt like Elspeth, but there was a discordant note in the chord.

“So they’re not everywhere?  Oh, that’s the best news I’ve heard in ages,” Elspeth sighed.  She reached into the bassinet by the fireplace, pulled out the baby, sat him on her lap, and offered him a cracker to suck on.  “We might have a chance.”

Next to Ajani came a snap as the girl Isobel broke a hard cracker in two.  The girl stared angrily at nothing, and Ajani could hear her teeth grinding as she chewed.

“No one’s come this way in a long time.  I was starting to wonder if we were the only people still alive.  What brings you?”

Still alive.  The irony of the statement was hard to bear.  “I’m searching for a friend of mine.  I thought she may have traveled this way.  She’s in danger, though I don’t think she knows that.”

“Oh,” Elspeth said, and though she tried to hide it, Ajani saw the agony of disappointment cross her features.  She rallied, putting on an apologetic smile.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go all to pieces, but you can’t understand what it’s been like.  Every night, thinking this will be it, this will be the night they kill us…”

Isobel screeched and threw the cracker fragments at Ajani.  Elspeth scolded her sharply, but the girl only screamed again, kicked over her chair, and ran into the other room.  

“I’m sorry,” Elspeth said with a grimace, reaching over to help brush crumbs from Ajani’s fur.  “I can’t control her anymore.  She won’t even speak, not to me.  She runs out every night, screaming and trying to fight the monsters off with a wooden sword.  It’s no life for a child, no life for a little girl.  But what can I do?”  She ended plaintively, closing her eyes as if exhausted.

The desire to save Elspeth from her plight was nearly overwhelming, but Ajani had a duty to Nissa as well.  Nissa could even be in danger from the same force that was attacking Elspeth.  He sipped at his tea and thought.  The baby began to fuss; Elspeth bounced him on her knee.

“You say they come as soon as the sun sets?” Ajani asked.

“Yes.  As soon as it’s dark.”

“And how long is it until sundown?”

She got up, baby on hip, and opened the shutter.  “Perhaps six hours.  It’s a bit past midday.”

“Alright.  We have time to get well clear of here, then.”  Ajani stood.  “Pack up, only what you absolutely need.  Food, water, blankets.  Bring everything out to the cart.  I’ll escort you to safety.”  And in the process, he could continue his search for Nissa.

Elspeth’s gratitude was blinding.

He walked out to the cart and heaved it back the right way up.  The runners on one side were ruined, but the rest of the cart was sound.  He brushed off the dirt and adjusted the traces so they wouldn’t drag on the ground, then returned inside to help Elspeth carry out the bundles she’d packed.  Isobel watched them load everything sullenly, but she climbed aboard when asked.

All directions looked the same, so Ajani decided to keep going in the direction he had been going.  He wrapped the cart’s traces around his chest, then lifted up the shafts with a groan and began to pull.  As the cart gained momentum, pulling it became easier, and he soon settled into a steady pace.  Beside him, Elspeth walked with the baby strapped to her chest.

“Thank you again.  I don’t think I can ever repay you,” she said.

Again, the irony of her statement wounded him.  As if she owed him anything.  As if she owed anyone anything.  For a moment, he could say nothing, but she looked at him oddly so he fumbled to think of something to say.

“You don’t need to--I don’t require repayment.  It is enough to help someone in need,” he said.  “If you wish, you could tell me about this land.  I am a stranger here and know little about it.”

She smiled, and began to tell him about the farm and the seasons, about her missing husband and son, and about the creatures that had tormented her for months.

Ajani listened with growing unease, and wondered when the sleeping sickness Nissa described had started.  If even Nyx was infected...the scale of the problem was devastating, and it wasn’t a problem he felt they could spend a lot of time solving.  Bolas loomed large in his mind; the dragon would be ruthlessly focused on his goal.  He would not be distracted.  How much time did they have before he made his next move?

But, having found Elspeth, Ajani could not leave her.

Chapter Text

The guards at the gate out of Benalia City gave only the slightest of nods as Gideon and the woman passed by.  If they thought it strange two people were leaving the city in the dead of night, they gave no sign.  Instead, they nodded and blinked sleepily and adjusted their grips on their halberds so they could lean their heads against the hafts and return to napping on their feet.  Gideon resisted the urge to scold them; the night watch was the most important watch, even if it was usually the quietest.  Was he not, at this very moment, leaving the city to join forces with the city’s enemies?  Under false pretenses, yes, but the guards didn’t know that.  The guards should have stopped them, challenged them, detained them when their answers weren’t sufficient.  He couldn’t even say what the woman’s name was--

It wasn’t too late to turn back.

He could walk back to the inn, sneak into his room, toss the letter into the fireplace, and no one would ever be the wiser.  He should walk back to the inn; with every heartbeat, the dread that he was committing some grave error only increased, to the point that he found it odd no one seemed to notice how harshly his breath came or how he couldn’t help but shiver, despite the warm night, at the cold clinging to his ribs.

But perhaps it was good he felt uncertain.  When he’d thrown Heliod’s spear, when he’d ordered that final assault against Bolas--certainty had buoyed him up and driven him forward like a storm-swollen wave.  He had been utterly unwilling to make any other choice because this was the path, obvious and unstoppable.  Both times he’d crashed against the rocks of reality, broken, power and drive come to nothing.  What had certainty gotten him?  A list of people who had foolishly come to depend upon him, mistaking confidence for competence, and another list of the dead.

Chandra would be furious, of course, but she would also be safe, and that was worth any amount of emotional anguish.  She was too much like him; she wanted to fight and would recklessly place herself in danger to achieve her goals.  But unlike him, she was vulnerable.  Her body was a map of scars; he had been able to feel the subtle ridge where her ribs had snapped under Bolas’s fist, trace his finger down the narrow line where the Kaladeshi healers had had to cut her open to repair the damage done.  She could be hurt.  She had been hurt, and Gideon had been reduced to watching, helpless, as the deathblow came.  If Nissa had not been there, if Nissa had not seen, if Nissa had been just a second later, Chandra would be dead.  Gideon had been useless, completely useless.

He’d thought, maybe, that he could protect them all--that between training the Gatewatch how to fight and charging beside them in battle, he could prevent them from being hurt.  For a while, it had worked.  For a while, he had been lucky.  But he couldn’t protect them forever.  The safest place on a battlefield might be behind a shield, but far better to never be on the battlefield in the first place.  Some fights had to be fought, but that didn’t mean it had to be them fighting.  Not when he could fight for them.

Besides, he thought, glancing towards the woman: an entire group wanting to fight for Belzenlok would be suspicious, whereas a single man, alone, was inconspicuous.  No chance of being overheard while discussing plans.  No possibility for blackmail, or for Belzenlok to pit one of them against the others.  He would be able to blend into the crowd, discreetly find Liliana, and the two of them would kill Belzenlok.  Liliana had already killed two demons all by herself; really, all he needed to do was free her.  

He tried to replay the fight with Razaketh in his mind.  So much had happened that day that the details had blurred and he could recall only a few moments with nothing to connect one to another, but it hadn’t taken everyone to bring the demon down, had it?  Liliana had ripped the demon limb from limb by herself, needing him only to protect her so she could get close.  It wasn’t worth it to risk everyone, not when he and Liliana would be sufficient.  And then the Gatewatch would be...not whole, but as whole as it could be, and they could decide what to do next.

He thought of facing Bolas again, and couldn’t stop the groan escaping his throat.

“Don’t you complain,” the woman said from atop her horse.  “You’re the one who insisted we do this.”

They continued, the woman riding and Gideon walking beside her, through the night.  Magelamps stood every hundred paces, illuminating the road with white-blue light.  At dawn, the lamps flickered off, their piercing light replaced with the fuzzy orangeness of the rising sun.  Gideon felt he could see the light itself, little flecks of color like dust motes in the air, and he watched them swirl as he walked, eyes unfocused, the orange turning to pink and yellow before yielding to the full force of daylight, which was a white somehow more complete than the white of magelight.

Clouds rolled in around midday and brought with them a half-hearted rain, but by then they had reached a town a half-mile off the main road.  The town surrounded a small lake; a network of boardwalks provided shortcuts across its modest diameter.  The woman moved unerringly to a large inn, and dismounted and handed her horse to a waiting stableboy.

“Get us a drink, would you?  I’ll be right back,” the woman said.

Inside, a line had formed; other travellers, seeking shelter from the rain, and locals taking a break from their labors while the weather remained uncooperative.  They all chatted, the locals filling in the travellers on the local goings-on while the travellers shared news from further afield.  The barmaid seemed to know them all, serving up drinks without asking what people wanted.  Gideon felt like a stone in a river, surrounded by the conviviality but starkly apart from it.  He half-expected someone to come up, to challenge his presence here.  No one did.

“Haven’t seen you ‘round here before.  Let me guess--you’re here with Abena.  You look the type,” the barmaid said when he reached the head of the line. She smiled broadly at him.  “I suppose she wants the usual?”

He hadn’t ever gotten the woman’s name.  She might be Abena, or Abena might be someone entirely different.  Would the barmaid be so friendly with someone who was a recruiter for the Cabal, who snuck around in temples poaching those whose faith was weak?  The woman hid who she really was, of course, but if she had come this way so frequently that the barmaid knew her patterns, wouldn’t someone have become suspicious?

“Are you alright?” the barmaid asked.

He was taking too long.  “Sorry.  Yes.  Could we get her usual?”

“Of course.  Do you want the same?  Or I just opened some lovely yellow izarra--”

“No.  The same is fine.”  Gideon pulled out a coin--a Ravnican half-zino--and paid for the drinks.  The barmaid took the foreign coin with a strange look, flipping it over to examine both sides before she pocketed it.

“You want anything else, you let me know.  We’ve got a fire going ‘round back if you want to dry off.”

The rear of the inn had a large covered patio with a firepit in the center and rows of tables around the edges.  People encircled the firepit, talking and laughing as others were inside.  Drying jackets and cloaks steamed on hooks around the fire.  Gideon took a table at the edge where he could look out over the lake unobstructed.  The rain was hitting its stride; it came down in huge droplets, each one hammering a divot out of the lake where it struck.  He could feel the temperature dropping.  The townsfolk had all sought shelter inside, aside from a couple children who ran down the street whooping and stomping in puddles.

He left the drinks untouched.  They were yellow like beer, but had a strong scent of apple to them.  Leta had liked a similar drink, but he couldn’t remember what she’d called it.  She’d splashed it into her tea when she stayed up with him, during those early days when he’d been bedridden.

It was some time before the woman finally returned; Gideon had begun to doze in his seat by the time she found him.  In his half-dreaming mind, the sounds of rain on the lake and the fire crackling in the hearth had combined into the frantic footfalls of people running pell-mell from some disaster looming just out of sight over the horizon.  He tried to run against the crowd to see what the calamity was, but they pushed and jostled and carried him further and further away.

“Good news,” the woman said, sipping at her drink.  “Bellara can make tomorrow’s fight a double-header, get you in there.  If everything goes well, she’s planning on taking a group out ‘touring’ next week.  She’s got a good gang together, she says.  She’s got a room for you here.”

Gideon nodded.  The shadow of the dream still fell cold on him, alongside fatigue from a missed night’s sleep.

The woman lowered her voice.  “Keep out of trouble in the meanwhile, and head to the basement here tomorrow at sundown.  Win, or at least put on a good show, and you’re on your way.”  She winked and patted his hand.  “Good luck.  This is where you and I part ways.”  She downed the last of her drink and stood.  He watched her go in silence, and continued staring at the doorway long after she’d gone.

At sundown the next day, as instructed, he climbed down the stairs to the basement.  Already a few people were milling around, waiting for the night’s entertainment to start, drinks in hand.  Wooden boards placed atop logs made crude benches around the edges of the large room, but it was clear most people stood to watch the main event.  More boards made a roughly circular arena in the center of the room.  A woman, the only one present, stood at the gate, flipping through a sheaf of papers.  She was tall and had a look of strength about her, though her braided hair was streaked with grey.  A thick blue tattoo ran down from her hairline over her left eye.  Despite having only a vague resemblance, it made Gideon think of Jace, and he had to stop for a moment as grief overtook him.  But this was why he was here--so no one else needed to be hurt.  Or worse.

“You must be Bellara,” he said to the woman as he approached.

“And you must be Abena’s volunteer, ” she replied, pronouncing the final word as if it were a foreign oddity.  Her voice rasped as if she were ill or had suffered some damage to her throat.  “She said she had a tall one.  Welcome.  We’ll start in a half hour, once the crowd’s good and ready.  You ever been in a fight?”

“Not one like this.  What are the rules?”

“Less rules, more requests.  Nobody’s playing referee here.  But try not to do anything permanent--the crowd here likes a bit of blood, but gore turns them off, and if someone dies I can’t promise protection from the constabulary.  Fight ends with submission or knock-out.  If you take too long and the crowd loses interest, I might throw one of my veterans in to end it.”

“What about magic?” he asked.

“You can do magic?”  Her eyebrows raised.  “That’s a plus, so long as it’s nothing that’ll damage the building or the crowd.  People love a show.  You’re up first, with another newcomer.  Local kid.”  She jerked her head toward where another man sat at the edge of the room.  “Stay close.  I’ll get you when it’s time.”

Lacking anything else to do in the interim, Gideon went and sat by his opponent.  The other man was young but large, both taller and broader than Gideon.  Despite his youth, his skin was tanned and rough, and his hair was bleached from sunlight.  Likely a farmer’s son, Gideon thought, or someone else who worked outside all day lifting heavy things.  Strong, probably, but inexperienced.  A lucky break, given Gideon’s lingering injury.

The other man simply stared defiantly when Gideon tried to introduce himself, and Gideon resigned himself to sitting in silence.  He watched people coming downstairs to watch the fight--men, mostly, but women were scattered about the crowd as well.  Most of them were older, with early streaks of grey in their hair.  They nursed drinks and smoked pipes; before long the basement smelled of bodies and tobacco, and a haze of smoke clung to the ceiling.  The noise was curiously restrained, quiet chatter broken here and there with a loud burst of laughter.

From the center of the room, Bellara caught his eyes and gestured for him to come down.  He stood at the same moment as the young man beside him; the young man moved first, pushing past, using his shoulder to shove aside Gideon’s injured one.  Gideon had to grit his teeth at the sudden sensation of ice water running through his arm to his fingers.  Fighting through the injury would be a challenge, but he’d managed worse.  Caution would be key; he would need to be defensive until his opponent gave him an opening.  

The ice water sensation reached his stomach and curdled there.

“All set, the two of you?  Excellent,” Bellara smiled.  “Come into the ring when I call you.  I’ll get the crowd warmed up.”

The young man pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside and began to jump in place, shaking his arms to loosen up.  Gideon pulled off his own shirt and pulled his hair back in a clumsy ponytail.  He was surprised at the nervousness he felt.  In one way or another he had been fighting for as long as he could remember, and a one-on-one fight with another human was something he knew inside and out, something he could nearly do sleepwalking.  He could tell, simply from the way the young man moved outside the ring, how he would likely move in a fight, and was already automatically concocting his own counter.  He knew how to do this; one loss against a dragon didn’t mean he would fail here.  Trust in your experience, he told himself.

The young man entered the ring first--Gideon missed whatever name Bellara had given him.  He was undoubtedly a local boy; he ran into the ring to cheers, and clapped hands with several people as he made a loop around the perimeter.  One onlooker pushed a glass of something into the young man’s face, and he pushed it away with a laugh.  He came to the center of the ring and raised his hands and yelled; the crowd echoed him back with a roar.

Through ringing ears, Gideon heard his own name, and he walked into the ring, trying to portray a calm he couldn’t quite feel.  The crowd’s reaction was muted: a few cheers, a few whistles, but a few boos as well.  Gideon stood just inside the entrance, waiting for the signal to begin.  His opponent swaggered around the ring, his back to Gideon, waving his arms to encourage the crowd to get even louder.

A bell rang; with alarming quickness his opponent spun around and lunged, a messy attempt at a tackle that nevertheless had Gideon fighting to remain upright.  His opponent’s shoulder was in his gut, driving him backwards, and his arms had wrapped around Gideon’s waist, trying to pull him off his feet. Gideon smacked at the man’s exposed ear and shifted his weight forward to avoid falling, but his opponent had both strength and momentum on his side.  His opponent drove forward relentlessly, and Gideon felt himself tipping backwards.  

His head whiplashed as his back smacked into the wooden wall enclosing the arena and for a moment he was breathless, elsewhere.  He needed to get up.  Somewhere nearby, Jace was screaming and Nissa and Chandra were yelling, trying to coordinate a strategy.  Liliana called for his help, but Gideon couldn’t see her; his vision consisted of black and white motes that crossed and burst as they moved.  Sand sank under his feet as he pushed himself off the wall; they needed his help, but how was he to help, blinded as he was?  They would lose; again and again and again they would fail, and fall…

Again.  He grabbed onto the word and clung to it as if it were a branch overhanging a cliff.  Again.   This had already happened; this was not Amonkhet.  It was only a young man he faced, not a dragon.  Chandra was safe, a day away in Benalia City.  The screaming was just the crowd, the smell of smoke nothing but pipes.

He blinked, trying to force his vision to resolve itself.  There was no need for the panic squeezing his mind.  A simple fistfight; he’d been getting into those since he could walk.  He brought his hands back up defensively.  Control.  Balance.  Those were the keys.  Nothing disastrous would happen: it was only a fistfight, and if he lost he could find some other way to Belzenlok.

The motes blighting his vision began to clear.  His opponent stood, shaking his hand as if to shake off pain; droplets of blood flew from a gash across the back of it.  It had been caught between Gideon’s body and the wall.  A lucky break, but Gideon knew full well that luck ran out.  Sternly, he told himself to focus.  If he lost, it was only because he lacked the discipline to do what he needed to.  His opponent’s opening gambit had been fast and daring, but also sloppy and ill-considered.  The young man was every bit as inexperienced as Gideon had surmised, and if Gideon had had the wits to put himself in the right position, he could have ended the fight right there.

The young man went on the attack; he threw a series of fast strikes that Gideon let his shield absorb before finally, when his opponent’s guard slipped a bit too far down, answering back with a punch or a kick of his own.  His opponent’s footwork was sloppy, unguarded, and something more than the cut was wrong with the young man’s injured hand; Gideon suspected the man had broken one of his knuckles.  

Several times they repeated this dance, the young man pressing forward until Gideon sent him scurrying back with a well-aimed blow.  Gideon’s shield clearly frustrated the young man.  He didn’t seem to have the wits to attempt to feint and strike somewhere unexpected before Gideon could raise his shield in that area; instead, each time he moved in, he struck harder and harder, apparently attempting to break through the shield outright.  Gideon moved defensively, content to let his opponent exhaust himself against his shields.  He could afford to wait.  A mistake, an opening, one wide enough to end the fight, that was all he needed--

There.

 Gideon darted under the young man’s guard, grabbed the back of his neck, moved his own leg to trap his opponent’s, then stepped to the side and twisted, throwing his opponent to the ground.  He followed the man down, moving to pin him.  The crowd roared, yelling at the young man to get up, and beat their fists against the wood wall, thunderous.

Gideon and his opponent rolled and grappled on the ground.  The other man was stronger, but Gideon was more experienced and knew how to better use his leverage.  He trapped one of the young man’s arms; the other caught him off guard, before he could raise his shield, and he tasted blood in his mouth.  Despite himself, he smiled.  The hit, the blood; it was such a familiar sensation, like the scent of a childhood home, that he could not help but revel in it.

He fought for control of the young man’s other hand.  Over the years, he’d gotten used to being stronger than nearly everyone he faced, but he could feel how much strength he had lost in his wounded arm.  His opponent pulled his hand free no matter how Gideon tried to grab it.  No matter, Gideon told himself.  He’d beaten opponents who were stronger than he was; he’d beaten opponents who were bigger, who were faster.  It was only a matter of finding the balance, of figuring out how your strengths could be best utilized to overwhelm your opponent’s.

Eel-like, his opponent continued to twist in his grasp.  Gideon relented his grip enough for the man to turn until his back faced Gideon, but he didn’t let go of the man’s one hand, instead pulling it across so the man’s arm lay against his own throat and Gideon, with his uninjured arm, could pin the upper part of the man’s one arm against his chest while maintaining his grip on the wrist of the other.

Wildly, the young man tried to kick backwards at Gideon’s knees, but he could not see to aim the kicks and they went wide.  His nails clawed uselessly at the shield protecting Gideon’s arm.  Gideon struck with his right fist, pummeling the man’s head; it hurt, but the impact jarred his shoulder less than he had feared. 

The young man was stronger, but he no longer had any leverage and he could not free himself from Gideon’s grip; Gideon needed only to maintain it until the young man realized the fight was over.  He bared his teeth with the effort.  The sand on the floor scratched at his back, the muscles in his wrist cramped with the effort of holding on, and blood coated his beard and chin with sticky warmth from his split lip.  Nevertheless, his snarl felt more and more like a smile, and he struck again.

“Yield!” his opponent shouted.

The crowd erupted into a mix of delighted whoops and disappointed bawls.  Gideon relaxed his grip; his opponent rolled off of him and went to his hands and knees, spitting blood.  Pushing himself to his feet, Gideon wiped blood off his lip, then extended a hand to the young man to help him up.

“Well fought,” he said automatically.  Near the gate, Bellara stood smiling.  The young man mouthed something back, but Gideon couldn’t make out what he said over the noise of the crowd and his own heartbeat thrumming in his skull.  Someone pushed a mug into his chest as he walked past; he took it and downed it, grimacing as the alcohol irritated the cut on his lip.  The drink only served to make him thirstier; he’d have preferred water, not the sticky-sweet burn of cider, but the warmth of the drink settled under his ribs pleasantly as he pushed his way through the crowd, retrieved his shirt, and made his way back upstairs.

The common room had emptied, the inn’s patrons all flocking downstairs to watch the rest of the night’s entertainment.  The sounds of the crowd cheering filtered up through the floorboards; through the thick wood, they sounded more like beasts stampeding down a dusty road than people shouting.  The barmaid, who had introduced herself as Zori, was the only other person in the common room.  While he thought and ate his dinner, he watched absently as she went about collecting mugs and plates and washing them in the large basin sink behind the bar.  She could balance an impressive number of mugs in her arms.

Victory felt good.  It was such a simple pleasure, but he had forgotten how intensely distracting it was.  He had things to do, things to plan, but he wanted to run, to shout, to accost whatever people he could find and demand they celebrate with him.  Discipline kept him in his seat and gradually the wild impulses faded, but still he smiled as he ate, savoring the memory of every hit. 

Zori came over when he began to tear apart the bread that formed the bowl for his meal.  “You know there’s more, if you want it.  Usually we throw the trenchers out to the pigs.  They’re a bit chewy.”

She smiled when he nodded and returned swiftly with another bowl.  “You must like it.  It’s my favorite too.  The mutton comes from my family’s farm.  Everyone says we raise the richest mutton.”

“It’s very good,” he said.  In truth, Gideon had barely registered what he was eating.  A ravenous hunger had gripped him after the fight; unsurprising, given that he hadn’t eaten all day.  Silently, he chided himself.  How much of his pre-fight nervousness had been simple hunger?  He knew better than to ignore the body’s needs.

“Do you mind if I sit for a minute?  Been up on my feet all day.”  Zori smiled.  Gideon gestured to the chair across from him, and she sat perched forward on the edge, elbows resting on the table, like an eager child.  “So you beat Sendo, huh?  Good for you.  He was my neighbor growing up and he was always an ass.  I wish I could’ve watched.”

Gideon, mouth full, nodded.

“He was in here bragging last night about how he was going to get rich betting on himself.  It was all I could do not to dump a flagon on his head.”  She smiled again, biting her bottom lip.  “So what about you?  Where are you from?”

“Far away,” he replied.

“Oh, mysterious,” she laughed.  “Is it somewhere I’ve heard of?  I’ve heard of lots of places, working here.”

“I don’t think so.”

“C’mon, try me,” she insisted.

“Akros,” Gideon said simply.  He didn’t know enough about Dominaria to lie about his origins, and he wished Liliana was still with him so she could construct a story for both of them.

Zori’s smile faltered and her brow knit as she thought.  After a few seconds, she asked, “Is that on New Argive?”

Hoping that it would end that line of questioning, Gideon nodded and took a drink from his mug.

Zori’s smile came back even wider.  “See, I told you I’d heard of it.  What are you doing all the way over here?”

“I’m helping a friend.  She...she got into some trouble,” he said.  Hoping to forestall further questions, he asked, “Your family has a farm here?”

“Yes, up in the hills.  We specialize in sheep, but my oldest brother has been working on breeding grapes for wine.  I helped him cask the first batch last autumn.”

The noise from downstairs had quieted, and now people began to trickle up the stairs and out into the night.  Zori seemed happy to talk about her family, and so Gideon continued to guide the conversation in that direction as he finished off the rest of his stew.  He spotted his opponent, Sendo, walking past dejectedly, surrounded by a group of other young men.  Zori stifled a laugh in her sleeve at the sight of him.

“So, your friend--the one who’s in trouble--what kind of a friend is she?” Zori asked after Sendo and his group had passed.

“A--a complicated friend, but a dear one,” Gideon said truthfully.  Liliana had frustrated him immensely, but she had also proven steadfast.  She had remained when she could have easily left.  She had cared for him throughout his infirmity, and though she was acerbic she was also attentive and thorough.  Initially, he had balked at having her join the Gatewatch, but while he still thought his past self had been right to be cautious, he was grateful that Jace had convinced him to give Liliana a chance.

Zori was looking at him with a measured expression.  Belatedly, Gideon realized what she had been doing, why she had asked to sit with him, and felt a flush of embarrassment at the realization that his attempt to redirect the conversation might have been interpreted as flirting.  He had been too caught up in his own thoughts and the lingering emotions from the fight to give their conversation his full attention.  

He was grateful to see Bellara coming up the stairs, grinning, a sheaf of betting slips clutched in her fist.  Without asking, she came over and sat at Gideon’s table and favored him with a smile.

“Well, you’ve paid for yourself.  Locals always want to bet on a local boy, they never learn.”  Bellara sorted through the sheaf of betting slips before selecting one and handing it to Zori with an order for a drink.  “Rocky start, but you’ll do well if you can be a bit more flashy.  You’re experienced, I can tell.  You can afford to show off.”

“When are we leaving?” Gideon asked.

“Abena mentioned you were eager.  We’ll get going soon.  I have another set of fights in four days, and then out we go.”

“To Bel--”

“Ah!” Bellara cut him off.  “Yes, yes, we’ll get to him , never you worry.  A few detours on the way, but we’ll get there.  Were you a knight?”

Zori returned with Bellara’s drink, looking annoyed; Bellara waved her away.  The barmaid left reluctantly.

“Does it matter?” Gideon asked.

“Just curious.  You’ve got a scar exactly where one would be if someone stabbed through the gaps in a suit of Benalish standard issue.”

“No.  I wasn’t a knight.”  Gideon pushed his plate away.  “What would it take to leave immediately?  And go directly there?”

“Abena wasn’t kidding,” Bellara said with a chuckle, raising her drink.  “What would it take?  It would take the same thing as everything else: money.  A lot of it.  I’ve got fourteen matches lined up in the next three weeks.”  She picked up the betting slips and flipped through them.  “If you can make it more lucrative to go straight there rather than hold those matches, I’d be game.  But I somehow doubt you have the money.”

Gideon reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the Ravnican one-zino coins.  It was an Orzhov coin, with the eight-pointed Orzhov star on one side and an over-ornamented 1 on the other.  He flipped it over in his fingers while he deliberated.  Revealing himself felt like a mistake; Liliana had warned him that Dominarians did not care for planeswalkers.  But Teferi had told him that Belzenlok had an interest in planeswalkers, and getting to Belzenlok as quickly as possible was essential.  The longer it took him, the more likely it was something horrible would befall Liliana.  It had taken so long simply to get this far.

In his head, he pretended to weigh the pros and cons, but he knew as he did it that it was a pointless exercise.  He had already made up his mind--he had made it up as soon as the fight was over.  As soon as he’d proven to himself he could still fight.  Now he was simply dawdling, cowardly putting off the moment when his choice became irrevocable.

He placed the coin on the table and pushed it towards Bellara.

“I’ll save us both the embarrassment and tell you that’s not even close to enough,” Bellara said.

“Do you know where that coin is from?” Gideon asked quietly.

Eyebrows quirked, Bellara picked up the coin.

They didn’t go straight through to Urborg; Bellara insisted on keeping the matches that were directly in their path, sending messages ahead to renegotiate dates as needed.  But they went as quickly as the wind would allow, leaving Benalia and hopping their way across the Burning Isles.  For months, Gideon had felt like he was moving through the world asleep, mutely sleepwalking wherever he was directed.  Now, at last, he was awake and moving full-force towards his goal.

Initially, he resented stopping for the fights, but more and more he came to look forward to them.  He was an Akroan born, a child of Iroas; he had been bred for war, for fighting, and each match left him aching for more.  He shadowboxed in the narrow cabin on the ship and ran obstacle courses through the cargo hold.  His muscles responded happily to familiar exercises, and most days he could not even feel the residual pain from his injury through the soothing soreness of muscles well-used.  No victory was as sweet as the first had been, but each one buoyed up his confidence until his doubts were drowned beneath them.  He had a way in.  He had a plan.  He needed only to wait for the ship to reach its destination, and sharpen his dulled skills in the meanwhile.

When at last the ship slid into the Urborg harbor, he was nearly giddy with anticipation.  He stood on the deck to watch the approaching shoreline, but little of it could be seen.  They approached at sunset, and though the sky behind Gideon was a blaze of oranges and reds, Urborg hunched darkly under a deep purple sky.  The land seemed to transition smoothly into the twilight sky.  Few lights were lit, even in the harbor; many of the denizens seemed not to need light to navigate the docks.  One of the sailors threw an anchoring rope into the darkness, and while Gideon could not see where it landed, something must have caught it.  It pulled taut, dragging the ship into its dock.  Oddly, the harbor operated in close to total silence; water sloshed and wood creaked, but the usual raucous bustle of a harbor was wholly absent.

Bellara appeared with a lantern and led Gideon and a few of the other fighters down the gangplank and onto Urborg soil.

“Where’s everyone else?” Gideon asked, looking around.  The little party contained fewer than half of the fighters on the ship.  Sendo, who had pleaded his way onto the voyage, and the other fighters from Benalia were absent, as were the five fighters they had picked up in Orvada.

“They’ll come when they’re ready,” Bellara said.  “Let’s get the rest of you to the pits, shall we?”

As they turned away, a crash from the ship echoed through the harbor.  It wasn’t loud, and if not for the unnatural quiet they might not have heard it at all.  No further noises came, but even still Gideon turned back to see if anyone needed help.

Bellara grabbed his arm.  “You were so eager to get here, and now you want to go back on the boat?  Let the sailors handle whatever it is.”

Reluctantly, Gideon turned back to follow her into the gloom of Urborg.

Chapter Text

The market was only a short walk from Rashmi’s house, so Chandra took the time to slip away from the other planeswalkers.  She already knew all she needed to know about the planar bridge: Bolas had it and fire could destroy it.  Everything else was details, and Chandra had never been one for details.  Details swirled around in her head and slowed her down.  Better for her to be here, and for someone else to handle all that.  Even if that “someone” had to be Samut, because the rest of the Gatewatch had all left.

“Gather information” from Rashmi about the planar bridge, and then lead a group of strangers to Amonkhet for more “information gathering”.  That had been her instructions.  No one had seemed sure what information needed gathering; Ajani had merely told her to look for anything that might “hurt Bolas” without giving any instruction as to what such a thing might look like, leaving Chandra with a vision of herself staring right at whatever-it-was and not recognizing it as the windfall they needed.  Still, at least Ajani had given her some direction, unlike Gideon.  Or Nissa.

Chandra bit back on the bitterness rising in her throat.  There were things that needed doing.

Two dozen loaves of flatbread; a bottle of ghee; a few packets of garlic chutney; jars of honey and pickles; spun-sugar candies; Chandra went through the marketplace, buying anything she thought might survive the journey to Amonkhet.  Water was too precious to waste on rice or dried beans, but Chandra found tins of canned lentils and chickpeas, and she received odd looks from a street vendor when she purchased every one of his stuffed, fried vadas fritters.

In a way, it was fun--she’d rarely had cause to shop for food.  Jace had employed a cook, and at the monastery her meals had always been made for her.  She’d relied on inns and restaurants while traveling.  A few times, when going into more wild areas, she’d had to buy food for the journey, but that was the extent of her experience.  She didn’t know how much food was needed or what was best to feed the starving, marching survivors of Naktamun.  But, she mused morbidly, that was the beauty of bringing food to starving people: they would be grateful for whatever she brought.

She tarried over a display of aether lamps.  Most of them had been wrought to resemble animals: tigers and birds and gremlins.  She ran her hands over their cool, smooth surfaces, finally settling on one carved to resemble a leaping hare.  The aether wick lay in a depressed curve in the base, while the hare, balanced on a single paw, jumped over it as if it was crossing a stream.  Chandra placed it carefully in her basket, then examined a nearby stand of clockwork toys.  It wouldn’t take long for sand to infiltrate and jam the delicate mechanisms that made the toys move; nevertheless, she took a half-dozen, hoping they would last a few hours.  The sad, stoic children of Amonkhet deserved some joy.

Incense, candles, beaded bags, empty journals bound in linen, bolts of shining fabrics and rattling tubs of buttons and buckles; Chandra examined each in turn.  She was wasting time, she knew.  She didn’t want to go back, to have all those strangers looking to her as if she knew what she was doing.  It was nothing more than silly nervousness, the sort of jitters everyone got before speaking to a crowd--well, the sort of jitters most people got.  She’d asked Gideon, once, how he managed to speak in front of an entire army without shaking.  He’d sounded apologetic when he explained that he didn’t find it something to be nervous about.  That was why he was the one giving speeches: he was made for leading people and giving orders.  And Chandra knew, despite whatever Mother Luti or Ajani might think, that she wasn’t.  She could suffice, in a pinch.

Hopefully.

The straps of her pack, heavy with carefully wrapped jars and bottles, dug painfully into her shoulders.  They would have to find a more permanent solution for Amonkhet; they couldn’t carry packs full of food to the Naktamun refugees forever, not least because of the cost.  Whatever Pia said, it wasn’t fair to expect her alone to finance the feeding of a small town, and Chandra still hadn’t figured out any way of paying her mother back.  Yet one more thing that needed doing…

On impulse, she turned back down the row and added a journal to her stack of purchases.  Once that too was tucked away in her overstuffed satchel, Chandra hurried back towards Rashmi’s apartment.  Rashmi now lived at the edge of the greenbelt, having traded aether and metal for sunlight and wood.  She may have vowed never to craft another artifact, but her engineer’s instincts and aether-sense were too keen not to be used, and a local botanist had eagerly hired her as an assistant.

The walk was scenic, curving through an area of Ghirapur overwhelmed by vines and flowers.  Topiaries adorned each street corner.  Chandra was fairly certain she and Nissa had walked down this way sometime during Ghirapur’s uprising, in one of the quieter moments, or at least walked somewhere quite similar.  Nissa had liked the Kaladeshi gardens more than the Ravnican ones, though Chandra had struggled to understand Nissa’s line of reasoning.  Something about the way things ought to be arranged, some secret knowledge that only Nissa seemed privy to, something invisible and ineffable to Chandra.  She’d tried to understand, but she was a poor student, and if she were being honest Nissa hadn’t been much of a teacher.

She clenched her hands, suddenly angry.  She didn’t like the feeling that maybe, despite all the time they’d spent together, she barely knew Nissa at all.  She’d thought she’d known Gideon too, and yet his recent behavior had felt like the actions of a stranger.  She would have bet all her money--not that she had any--that Liliana was too proud to surrender, and yet Liliana had given up and run away the moment things turned sour against Bolas.  While Ajani’s leaving hadn’t been as graceless as Gideon’s, Chandra had still been left behind, confused.  And Jace...Chandra wasn’t even sure who needed to be informed of his fate.

She exhaled, forcing out air until it felt like her ribs were bending inwards.  It was all such a mess, all of them running around as if they’d been infected with brain maggots.  And the worst of it was that there was nothing she could do about it.  The best she could do was to lead the other planeswalkers to Amonkhet and hope they could somehow cobble together some sort of plan.  It didn’t feel like enough.

She shrugged out of the pack when she reached Rashmi’s building and shook her arms to restore some of the lost blood flow.  The others weren’t yet waiting where they’d agreed to meet, so she fished the journal and a vada out of her pack and settled cross-legged on a nearby bench.  Balancing the journal on one knee and her snack on the other, Chandra opened the journal to the first page and wrote To Do across the top.  On the next line, after a moment’s contemplation, she wrote 1. Kick Bolas’s ass.   She took a bite of vada and chewed slowly.  Indented a bit, under the ass-kicking, she wrote find something we can use on Amonkhet and find his planar bridge and destroy it (again).

She kept writing, drawing lines and arrows to keep things straight.  She’d have to copy it all onto another page later, but for the moment it felt good to write out everything that had been buzzing around in her head.  It was as if she’d been forced to carry everything in her pack with just her hands, trying not to drop any jars or let the little toys slip through her fingers, but now she could put everything down and not worry about it breaking.  And as she wrote, her mission became clearer.  She still wasn’t sure exactly what she would do on Amonkhet, but it felt less abstract to have her goal, nebulous as it was, written down.

The click of hooves on pavement interrupted her.  One of the planeswalkers from Ajani’s meeting, the centaur woman, approached, all alone.  Chandra forced herself to remember the woman’s name.  As she was now the sole representative of the Gatewatch here, she couldn’t rely on Gideon or Ajani to remember names for her.  Yenna.  Yenna, whose fur was brown like henna.

“Where’s everyone else?” Chandra asked, securing the journal back in her pack.

“Around back,” Yenna answered.  “Rashmi has an idea.”

Around back was a small barn half-covered in creeping vines.  Recent rains had engorged the nearby river, and sticky mud squelched under Chandra’s boots as she followed the curving trail to the barn’s entrance.  The hum of an aether engine and whirling metal grew loud, and as she approached the door she could see that the heavy wood was rattling with the force of whatever was inside.

The door flew back out of Chandra’s hand when she opened it, cracking against the side of the barn and nearly whacking her in the face.  Wind shoved its way out the door, and she had to hold up a hand to shield her eyes from dust.

Someone shouted an apology from inside; the aether hum died, and the mechanical whir clicked to a stop.  Chandra lowered her hand and stared at the contents of the barn.

“What is that?” she asked.

“It’s an airboat,” Rashmi said.  “For getting out onto the delta.  Turni crashed this one into a tree a few months ago and bought a new one, but there wasn’t anything wrong with it that couldn’t be fixed with...well, a lot of work.  Old habits.  I couldn’t resist.”

Chandra ran a hand over the interwoven back of the contraption.  A cage protected four long, curved blades, which formed a spiral around a cooling aether engine, in front of which was attached a flat boat with six seats.  The whole thing looked lopsided to Chandra, like the heavy engine would capsize the whole boat, but she’d seen enough of Rashmi’s artifice to know the vehicle must be impressive.

“I figured you could use it.  It’s intended for water, but it should still work on sand,” Rashmi continued.  “It won’t hit full speed, but it’ll be a lot faster than walking.  I can disassemble it and show you how to put it back together on...on the other side.  It’s very simple, mechanically.”

“We can use it to scout ahead and find somewhere to make a new city,” Samut said, smiling broadly.

“Wow.  Thanks, Rashmi,” Chandra agreed.  Anything that made Amonkhet’s vast miles of desert easier to cross would be a great help.  “It’s exactly the kind of thing we need.”

Again, she felt a pang for those who were not here.  Gideon or Jace would know the best way to deploy such a craft for maximum benefit.  Chandra had only a series of vague intuitions and goals she was hoping would coalesce into a plan, plus a bunch of strangers whose skills and personalities she didn’t know at all.  She knew she should be grateful so many planeswalkers were willing to help, but she couldn’t help feeling bitter about the people who ought to be here but weren’t.

Rashmi circled the boat with a set of wrenches, unscrewing the engine cage from the boat and setting it aside, then removing the seats from the boat.  She instructed some of the planeswalkers on how to fold and disassemble the seats; Chandra made herself recall their names.  Tamiyo she knew, and Sarkhan she wouldn’t forget, not after he’d nearly killed her on Zendikar.  But there was also the blue-skinned girl-- Jedora, with hair straight as straw --and her young human friend-- Rufus, the redheaded doofus .  Chandra hadn’t been happy about them tagging along; the boy couldn’t be older than thirteen, and the girl only a few years older.  The somewhat-handsome man was Murrow, who had a nice torso , which left only the quiet older woman Narset, who was easy to forget.   Strangers, who had volunteered to help, despite the danger.

“Do you think you can weld this back together?” Rashmi asked Chandra, interrupting her thoughts.  “The cage and boat itself will have to be cut apart, I think.”

“I should be able to,” Chandra said, running a finger over the boat itself, which was made of a thin metal painted bright blue.  “It won’t be pretty.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t,” Rashmi said.

An idea came to Chandra.  “Rashmi...you know the planar bridge?”

Rashmi halted midway through lighting her aether torch.  “Yes.  I do.”

“Sorry if it’s, like, inappropriate for me to ask, but...would you ever make another one?  Only this boat could maybe really help us over on Amonkhet, but having a bunch of them would help even more, and I don’t know where I’d get more, but the point is that it’d be better to send it through the bridge, right?  I can’t always count on having a bunch of other planeswalkers around to help me carry things over, and carrying everything over one piece at a time would take forever...we could use it to move food too, probably.  Probably anything that can be planeswalked over can be, uh, bridged over.”  As soon as the words flooded out of her mouth, Chandra felt as if the ground, too long quicksand, had solidified under her feet.  Bolas had a planar bridge, after all--why shouldn’t the Gatewatch have one?  It would make transporting everything to Amonkhet so much easier, and they could move other things too if they had to.  She recalled her mother’s idle speculation about moving well-drilling machines over to Amonkhet, in case water couldn’t be found.  A project like that would need the planar bridge. They could do so much with it….

The only real question was whether Rashmi was willing, and from the way she had stilled at the end of Chandra’s blurting, Chandra could tell that Rashmi didn’t like the idea.

“I’d...I’d have to think about it,” Rashmi said.  Her voice dropped.  “I...I want to help.  I can’t help but feel like all of this is my fault.  But...I don’t know.  If making another one made things worse…”

“Don’t stress about it,” Chandra said quickly.  “It was just a thought.”  The vivid plan--a bridge between Kaladesh and Amonkhet, ferrying goods until a new Naktamun was secure--faded in intensity, but she kept the image in her mind.

“Oh, and Rashmi?” she continued absent-mindedly.  “It’s not your fault.  It’s Bolas’s fault.  And we’re gonna make sure he pays for it.”

After days away, the heat of the midday suns smothered Samut like the thick, scratchy blankets the Dominarians used.  She had never before noticed the way the air seemed to suck the breath from her lungs until she had traveled to other worlds and discovered how strange her own was.  Dominaria had seemed chilly to her at first, but she’d quickly gotten used to its mild weather, and Amonkhet’s brutal heat seemed all the more intolerable now that she’d experienced an alternative.

  As usual, she was the first to arrive.  She dropped the heavy metal cage onto the sand and flexed her fingers, which had begun to cramp on the planeswalk over--a strange sensation when planeswalking, given that during the walk she felt like she had no body at all.  With a hand, she shaded her eyes from the sun and climbed to the top of the sand dune, searching for the other Amonkhetu.  She had planeswalked to the spot where the survivors had been resting before she left for Dominaria.  The large group couldn’t move quickly, not with so many children and lingering injuries, and so was still in sight, albeit at the very edge of Samut’s vision.  She could just make out the tall form of Hazoret, miles away.

The others arrived behind her in a series of pop s and whoosh es.  A general grumbling rose from the other planeswalkers as they encountered Amonkhet’s sweltering climate for the first time, and they set to reassembling the air boat quickly.  The pale woman, Tamiyo, connected the pieces of the engine together, following directions she’d written down, as dictated by the artificer Rashmi.  The boat had been cut into four parts to be carried across, and the two men held each part together while Chandra ran superheated fingers down the join, pinching the metal back together.  The blades and surrounding cage were screwed back together and attached to the aether engine, and then bolted back onto the boat.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Chandra sighed, and she laid her hand on the aether engine and sent a pulse of mana through it.  It emitted a high whine and made a series of hearty clunk noises, but then the blades began to turn faster and faster until they were a blur.  The airboat began to drift forward, kicking up sand.

“Alright!” Chandra yelled over the noise.  “Let’s see how many we can fit on here!”

They had left the boat’s seats behind.  The young boy crawled atop the centaur’s back, and the rest of them squeezed together onto the deck, except for the scaled man Sarkhan, who to Samut’s shock transformed into a form much like that of the false god Bolas and took wing.  Chandra took up a position by the controls at the back.

“Hold on!” she shouted as she adjusted the controls.

The airboat jumped forward in a series of lurches, causing its passengers to clutch at each other to avoid falling off.  Chandra fiddled with the levers and the lurching stopped, and the airboat began to slowly pick up speed.  Before long, even Samut’s heavy dreadlocks were lifted and blown about by the wind, and the distant shape of Hazoret inched closer and closer.  Samut shaded her eyes and searched for the flying form of Sarkhan.  He had fallen behind them, to her relief.  She would have to explain his form to the others lest they panic at the sight of him.

At speed, the woosh-woosh roar of the blades was deafening.  They skipped over the sand, leaving a great plume of dust behind them, chewing through miles in minutes.  When they were only a mile out, Samut squeezed her way to the side of the boat, cast a spell, and leapt off.

Mana burned through the muscles in her legs as she sprinted.  She pulled ahead of the airboat, kicking up a dust cloud of her own, and made for Hazoret.  In the midday heat, sweat evaporated as soon as it emerged from her pores.  She wouldn’t be able to keep up this pace for very long, not in this heat, but thanks to the airboat she didn’t have to.

The survivors of Naktamun had taken shelter from the sun in the scant shade between two sand dunes.  Hazoret stood tall facing the sun, and the children slept in the deeper shadow cast by her body.  Samut slowed and slid to a stop in front of the god.

“Samut, ” Hazoret intoned.  “ I have eagerly awaited your return.  You have brought...friends?”  The god inclined her head towards the approaching airboat.

Samut smiled.  “Yes.  And more.”

“The meeting went well, then.”

“Yes, I think so.  We do not yet have a plan to face the false god, but many planeswalkers agreed to help us.”  Samut took a drink from her waterskin.  “The others want to go back to Naktamun, to see if the false god left any clues behind.”

“A dangerous journey, ” Hazoret said.  “ But a necessary one.  We must know what it is we face.”

Samut nodded.  Once, it would have been Kefnet or Bontu insisting that an enemy must be studied and understood before it could be defeated.  Hazoret believed that righteousness alone would carry one to victory, or at least she had.  It seemed to Samut that the god had grown cautious since the Hours.

“One of the planeswalkers I travel with can turn into a dragon, like the false god,” Samut said.  The first sun was setting, and she could no longer see Sarkhan’s form in the reddish sky. “It seems dragons are common on other worlds, even though there are none here on Amonkhet.”

“Are there gods on other worlds?”

“I saw none on Dominaria,” Samut answered, wondering what had prompted Hazoret to ask the question.  “There was one on Theros, but he would not speak to me.  I don’t know why.”

The airboat drew near and slowed; the survivors awoke, roused by the noise from its engines, and ran up the dune to surround it.  Even Hazoret went to inspect the vehicle, leaning over everyone to see the strange device.

One person, however, didn’t join the crowd, but came running up to Samut.

“You’re back!” Djeru exclaimed.  They clasped each other’s forearms, and Djeru smiled so broadly his eyes vanished behind the curves of his cheek.  “You’ll never guess what we saw.”

Samut glanced around at the sand sprawling in all directions.  Rock formations jutted out sporadically, and the horns of the false god were present as always, but she could see nothing to cause Djeru such excitement.  “What was it?”

“Elephants!  A herd of them, on the horizon.  From the ground we could see only the dust cloud they made, but some of the aven flew up and saw them clearly.  Elephants.  Living elephants.  You know what this means?”

“There must be water close,” Samut said breathlessly.  “You remember Rhonas’s lessons--elephants aren’t like camels, they’re like us, they can’t go more than a day or two without water!”  She quelled the urge to shriek like she had when she passed her first trial, but she couldn’t help the gleeful smile spreading across her face.

“There must be water,” Djeru echoed.  “We can build a new city.  A real city, unburdened by lies.”  He paused, and the smile faded from his face, before he continued more quietly.  “It’s good we got some sign of life.  One of the little khenra boys died.  Mineb.  Many began to despair when they heard his twin wailing.”

“There should have been enough food and water.  What happened?”  No one had died in weeks.  There had been many casualties in the first few days after the Hours, as the injured succumbed to their wounds, but the survivors’ situation, precarious as it was, had at least been stable when she left.

“We spotted a brewing sandstorm and made haste to a nearby ruin for shelter.  But we moved too quickly and weren’t vigilant enough.” Djeru’s face twisted with guilt.  “Undead inhabited the ruins.  They were so old they fell apart to a stout blow, but you know how the little khenra run ahead, and we did not see the danger until it was too late.”

“I’m sorry.  Perhaps if I had been here…”

“No.  Don’t blame yourself.  We would be dead already if not for the help you have brought us.  Hazoret incinerated his body before it could rise again, so at least the little one will have some rest.”  Djeru gripped her shoulder.  “Come, tell me about the meeting.”

They watched the planeswalkers as Samut recounted her time on Dominaria.  Food was passed out and eagerly consumed.  The centaur woman, Yenna, pulled out a stringed instrument and played it while she sang, attracting a curious crowd.  The young planeswalker, Rufus, showed the Amonkhetu children how to work the Kaladeshi toys, and soon there was a herd of children laughing and shrieking as they chased swooping mechanical birds. 

There had been an argument over whether to allow Rufus and the other child, Jedora, to come along, one that had left Samut feeling uncomfortably strange.  Amonkhet held many dangers, yes, and the two of them were young, but they weren’t infants.  They weren’t helpless.  Rufus was old enough to have passed his first Trial, while Jedora could easily be preparing for her fourth.  The blue-skinned girl seemed only a year or so younger than Samut herself, and no one had thought Samut too young to come along.

Or perhaps they had, and had simply not voiced their opinion.  That thought throbbed like a headache deep in Samut’s mind.  She knew now how strange her world and people were.  Other worlds didn’t teach their children to hold a sword as soon as they could stand.  Other worlds had people who had lived seventy, eighty, a hundred years.  Hapatra was the oldest of Naktamun’s survivors, and she was only thirty-four, an age that had once seemed impossibly old to Samut, but half of the planeswalkers who’d come along were older than that.  How badly had the false god warped her and her people, that what still seemed to her a normal life was so abbreviated?  And what sort of society could she and the others build, when their sense of what was normal was so deranged?

“The first sun has set, ” Hazoret announced.  “ It is time to depart.”

“Let me know what you find,” Djeru said.

“I will,” Samut promised, and went to find Chandra.

Find everyone a job that suits their talents was, Chandra was fairly certain, something someone had once told her about leadership.  And in this case, at least, doing so was easy: no one knew what they might find in Naktamun, so it was imperative that she only bring along people who could defend themselves.  Herself and Samut, of course.  Tamiyo and Sarkhan, who themselves vouched for Narset, and finally Murrow, who insisted he was an excellent fighter.  The centaur Yenna was kind, but she herself admitted she could not fight, and Chandra refused to allow the two youngest planeswalkers to come along.  The three of them had been left behind with instructions to talk to the survivors in case anyone remembered something useful, and to help guard the survivors as they continued across the desert.

The other six of them boarded the airboat and made for Naktamun.  Bolas’s giant horns on the horizon were an irritating reminder of his unpunished crimes, but they also made navigation trivial.  Chandra pointed the airboat’s prow directly for them and let loose the throttle while wondering if it was possible to ever reach the horns.  They never seemed to move or get bigger or smaller, but surely they existed somewhere , and if they existed they could be destroyed .   She’d have to remember to add “pull down Bolas’s stupid statue” to her list of things to do.

Crossing the endless desert quickly became boring; despite the airboat’s speed, it would take hours to reach Naktamun, and the roar of the airboat’s engine made conversation impossible.  The weak light of the second sun painted the entire landscape in shades of red and black, but there was little to look at except sand.  Occasionally, far in the distance, she could spot things moving, but they were too far away to identify.

She was sure she was going to fall asleep any moment when Naktamun finally came into view.  She stopped the airboat well clear of the city and sent Sarkhan to fly ahead and scout, while the rest of them trudged through the sand towards the city.  It was eerily silent; nothing moved inside the buildings, and no animals or insects could be heard.  Even the wind was still.  The brush of her clothes as she moved and the slip of her boots over the sand felt egregiously loud, but despite her tension they came across no zombies, no Eternals.

Sarkhan landed in a cloud of dust.  “Your Gideon was exaggerating, but not by as much as I had thought.  There’s an army of thousands in the city.”

“Fuck,” Chandra said.  She had hoped that perhaps Bolas had already moved his army elsewhere and they could find some useful clue left behind.  “What are they doing?”

“Nothing.”  Sarkhan shrugged.  “They’re standing in formation.  They didn’t move when I flew overhead.”

“They might be inert,” Samut said.  “The mummies, when they weren’t needed, would find a place to stand out of the way and do nothing.”

“Can we risk it?” Chandra asked.  “You’ve fought them.  If we’re wrong, we’re dead.”

Samut’s jaw worked.  “I don’t want to leave empty-handed.”

“They aren’t everywhere.  Most of the army is either around the river or in a section of the city behind a huge gate,” Sarkhan said.

“The crypts and the gate to the afterlife.  That’s where they were kept,” Samut supplied.  “Were there any by the embalming chambers?  If we want clues for how to disable the Eternals, we could start there.”

In the sand, Samut sketched a rough outline of the city, and Sarkhan marked where the armies stood.

“We can start by the embalming chambers,” Samut said.  “They’re here, close to this edge of the city.  Then Kefnet’s observatory, here.  It’s close to the river, but so long as we’re careful we can reach it.  I don’t think any of the other gods would’ve left anything useful behind, but Oketra’s sanctum isn’t far, and there’s no zombies by Bontu’s.  We could check them.  I’d like to go to the Oracle’s Vault, but it’s blocked by Eternals...”

“Let’s see what we find in the embalming chambers first,” Chandra said, and adjusted the now nearly empty pack on her back.  “Who knows how much time we’ll have.”

Without the Hekma or the maintenance of the mummies, sand had begun to bury the city.  It covered the streets and piled up around the walls.  Near the edge of the city, some buildings had been nearly entirely entombed.  It wouldn’t be long, Chandra thought, until the city was nothing more than a few spires poking up through the sand.  They’d seen similar traces of buried buildings in the vast desert, and she wondered how many other lost cities dotted Amonkhet.

Samut led them down a series of short streets.  Chandra tried to orient herself using the many monuments and the omnipresent horns but she didn’t recognize this area, which was hardly surprising--the Gatewatch had only stayed a few days, and much of that time had been a hectic scramble from skirmish to skirmish, trying desperately to save what people they could from the freed Eternals.  They had moved out from the river, away from the horns, towards the giant snake-headed monument, hadn’t they?  She struggled to remember.  They had been on this side of the river, and not far from them there had been an obelisk covered in obsidian…

“Where is the river from here?” she asked.

Samut halted and pointed.  “That way.  But there’s--”

“Eternals.  Yeah, I know.  Just wondering.”

“The embalming chambers are this way,” said Samut, turning down another street.  She halted in front of a doorway a gearhulk could have driven through.  “Down here.”

“There are tracks.  The wind has almost erased them,” Narset pointed out.  “Something very large came this way.”

“Bolas?” Sarkhan asked.

“I cannot tell.”

“Let’s find out,” Sarkhan said.  He cracked his knuckles and lit a flame in his palm, then climbed over the small sand hill into the building proper.

But something had caught Chandra’s eye.  “I’ll be right back.”

“We shouldn’t split up,” Samut said.

“I know, but it’ll just be a sec.  I just want to look at something.”  Already, Chandra was moving away.  That glint, almost out of sight--that was the obelisk, wasn’t it?  Even under the second sun’s anemic light, it glistened like oil.  “You can come with me if you want, but I just need to check.  I’ll be right back.”

She broke into a jog, taking careful note of which streets she took so she could make her way back.  Down three blocks, then a left, and forward two more--there, that was the obelisk she remembered.  And if it was here, then forward again, and follow the rightward streets…

She stopped in a small, utterly ruined plaza.  The surrounding buildings had all been knocked down, their walls lying in piles of brick.  The ground was uneven, the cobbles split and cracked, and stalagmites grew out of the ground at odd angles--Nissa’s work, a desperate spell to protect Chandra.

Here was where it had happened.  Nissa had stood where she stood now; to the right had been Liliana, and past Liliana, Jace and herself, with Gideon across the plaza.  Bolas had been there , towering over them from his perch, mocking them as he picked them off, one by one…

Chandra ran a hand over one of the stone pillars and forced herself to exhale.  Wherever Bolas was, he wasn’t here.

She looked up at the sound of feet, only to see Sarkhan jogging up.

“Is this what you needed to see?” he asked, looking around skeptically.

“Yeah.”  To him, it must look like nothing at all, Chandra realized.  Just more ruins and sand on a plane that contained nothing else.  “This is where...where we fought him.  Where we lost.”

“And what, you forgot something here?” he sneered.

“Huh?  No, I just wanted to...to be here.  You know?  Remind myself about...why we’re fighting and all that bullshit crap whatever,” she trailed off, mumbling, her voice unconvincing even to her own ears.  Self-consciously, she unlatched her pack and pulled out the little aether lamp.  She didn’t know why she had to come here; she only knew that some force inside her had decided that coming here was important, so important it was worth leaving the others behind and going out alone, despite the danger.  She should have resisted the impulse, she knew, but it hadn’t occurred to her to do so in the moment, and now she was here, unable to explain what was so important.

She clutched the aether lamp tightly in her fist.  The battlefield had seemed much larger in her memories; she remembered feeling isolated, too far away from the rest of the Gatewatch.  But it was only a dozen feet from the remains of Nissa’s shattered elemental to the spot where Jace had lain, screaming.  Chandra set the lamp on the ground.  With a flick of her thumb, the wick ignited and began to burn a pleasing yellow.  The hare leapt over a river of fire.  Fed by the aether, it could burn for days.

She could feel Sarkhan’s eyes upon her.  She wished he would give her some privacy.

In those first few months after she’d sparked, when she couldn’t close her eyes without seeing her father’s dying expression of shock, she had wanted the world to stop.   Just for a little while, just until she had had time to catch her breath.  It seemed cruel, somehow, that she should still have to eat and drink and sleep when the images wouldn’t leave her.  How was she expected to move past it when trivial things--hunger and thirst, fatigue, the concerned questions of the monks at Keral Keep--kept demanding her fragile attention?

It wasn’t as bad with Jace.  Nothing, she was certain, would ever be as bad as her father’s death.  But still she felt herself yearning--a day, just one day, to properly grieve, to let all the sadness run out of her head until she was certain it was gone.  If even a single drop of grief remained behind, it would fester and grow until she could barely speak without crying or screaming.  

And the thing about grief was that she didn’t want to let it go.

The worst parts, just after she sparked, had been the moments when she had been distracted by a pleasant flavor or a monk’s words or a foggy dream and she forgot that her father had died at all.  Grief was a marker, a pall on the world that said this is not normal.   As long as she was sad, she could exist in a world that still ought to contain her father.  It was a silly idea, but as long as she was sad it felt as if the world might admit that there had been a mistake and give her her father back.   Letting go felt like giving up.  Letting go felt like letting him die.

The world hadn’t stopped then.  It wouldn’t stop now.  If anything, it was spinning faster.  She was no longer a child, with only her own physical needs to attend to.  Now, she had her obligations to the Gatewatch and the promises she had made to the Amonkhetu people.  That was the one part where Jace would be more difficult than her father--there was still a chance, however small, that Jace was still alive, and so the temptation to hold onto a world where he lived was that much stronger.

But she had to let go.  People were counting on her.

“Sorry, Jace,” she whispered.  She wiped at her eyes.  “I’ll do my best to make sure it was all for something, okay?”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes and visualized the river, as Nissa had taught her.  As always, it didn’t work as well without Nissa to guide her, but Chandra forced the river to grow calmer and calmer until its surface was like glass and the pressure in her chest eased.

She opened her eyes to find Sarkhan staring at her.

“What?” she snapped.

“Why do you stifle the fire inside?”  He had a curious expression, like she was a dog that had revealed an unexpected trick.

“What?  What are you talking about?  It doesn’t matter, we’ve got things to do.”  She swiped the back of her hand across her nose and stood and shook the sand from her knees, then took a final look around the plaza.

A glint caught her eye.  Across the plaza, something shone in the rubble, reflecting the red light of the second sun.

She recognized it before she was halfway across--Gideon’s sural, twisted and tangled in the broken bricks.  With a sigh, she began to toss bricks aside, digging until she found the dented housing.  She gripped it and pulled; the rubble shifted slightly, then with a ringing snap she found herself falling backwards, one of the sural’s suddenly shortened blades arcing towards her face.  Instinctively, she brought up her arms to protect herself.

She swore as it whipped across her forearm and bit down into the dirt by her head, then pushed herself back to her feet.  She picked up the sural and tried to wind its blades back, but it was ruined.  Between the blades, twisted and shorn, and the housing, badly dented, the mechanism no longer functioned.  One of the blades was missing entirely, and another had snapped in half.  Gideon would have to get a new one from...wherever surals came from.

It was still sharp, though.  When she examined her arm, she found the sural had scored a narrow line across the metal of her gauntlet.  Without a way to sheath the blades, she settled for leaving the sural near the aether lamp.

“Sarkhan?” she called.  He had vanished while she dug.

“Here,” he answered.  

She followed his voice around the corner to the foot of an obelisk.  He knelt in front of something that she at first took to be a small pile of rubble, until she caught its smell.

“Oh, gross,” she said as she realized what it was.  “Is that dragon shit?”

“Look,” Sarkhan said, pointing at various points in the pile.  “Someone was hungry.”

The pile was chest high and reeking, even in the desiccating heat.  Chandra buried her nose in her hand.  But she came closer, and looked where Sarkhan was pointing.  Parts of the pile were paler and slightly reflective, and after a moment’s bafflement she realized what they were: torcs and chest plates, armbands and cartouches.  The armor and clothing of Naktamun’s people.

Bile rose in her throat.

“Dragons typically burn off their prey’s fur or feathers...or clothing,” Sarkhan said.

“They weren’t ‘prey’, they were people, ” Chandra said.

“Do you think it matters what you call them?” Sarkhan chuckled.  “To a dragon, there is no difference.”

“C’mon.  Let’s get back,” Chandra snapped.  She didn’t like the way Sarkhan was looking at her: grinning, eyes dark and hair matted with sweat, it was too easy to imagine him as he had been when she first met him, a madman chanting riddles in a cave.

“Dragons do not see things as we do,” Sarkhan said as they stepped away.  “To a dragon, there is only itself and everything that is not itself.  They do not have compassion or empathy.  They do not love, or marry, or care for their young.”

“Sounds great,” Chandra muttered, retracing her steps back to the embalming chambers.

“It is true freedom.  A freedom we will never understand,” Sarkhan agreed, seemingly missing her sarcasm.  “Humans, we are tethered always by our obligations to kith and kin, and by our hatred of our enemies.  A dragon is not.  A dragon sees clearly.  I have come closer than most to knowing what it is to be truly free, but I can never let go entirely.  For humans, freedom is... unpleasant .  And I am still human.”

“Freedom isn’t unpleasant,” Chandra said.  “And caring about people isn’t, like, shackles.  I’ve seen tyranny, and it’s always control-freak jackasses who go berserk and throw everyone in jail if someone puts a toe out of line.  It’s not like...loving your mom, or whatever.”

“Could you kill your mother?”

“The fuck ?” Chandra stopped dead in the street.

“Something stops you?  You are not free to do so?”

“Don’t play word games.  She’s my mom.   I wouldn’t want to.  It’s not the same thing at all,” Chandra said, staring at Sarkhan.  He had a look on his face that reminded her of the monks of Keral Keep right after they’d spouted some meaningless platitude that was supposed to be wise.  It irritated her immensely.  “Why are you even here, if you don’t want to care about anyone?”

“Revenge,” Sarkhan said, calm smugness giving way to bitterness.  “Bolas stole my mind from me, and I must make him pay for that humiliation.  To that end--something is not right with him.”

“No shit.”

“Dragons burn off their prey’s clothing.  I’ve seen Bolas feed before, and he is no exception.  And yet he didn’t here,” Sarkhan said, tugging at his goatee.

“So?  What does that mean, is he like sick or something?” Chandra asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sarkhan said.  “But it bears considering.”

The interior of the embalming chamber was blessedly cool and completely dark; mummies needed no light to work, and no humans had passed this way since the Hours.  The planeswalkers’ torches cast strange shadows against the walls, and the hieroglyphs there seemed monstrous half-lit.  Samut kept seeing a person out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned it was only the flickering torchlight making the hieroglyphs seem to dance.

“These tell a story,” Tamiyo observed, holding her torch close to examine the hieroglyphs.  

“Yes.  About the Hours, and what was supposed to await us in the afterlife,” Samut said.  She had to force herself not to whisper.  “All a lie.”

“It is hard to learn you have been deceived,” Narset said.  “But could there still be some use in this knowledge?”

“No.”  Samut shook her head.  “It’s nothing but children’s stories.  If there’s something useful, something about the Eternals, it will be deeper inside.”

Somewhere hidden, she mused.  She wondered if anyone alive on Naktamun had known.  Bontu had betrayed the other gods, had known at least part of the truth of the god-pharaoh--had she been the only one?  Or had she confided in someone, a vizier, a disciple?  And had they been foolish enough to write down what they knew somewhere?  It seemed a faint hope, but it was all she had.

She led the way down the ramp into the main embalming room, followed by Narset and Tamiyo, with Murrow bringing up the rear.  The man was walking slowly, nervously looking from side to side, and Samut felt a surge of annoyance at how visibly he showed his fear.  It intensified her own trepidation.  Narset and Tamiyo, at least, seemed cautious but unafraid.

The embalming room was large, and ordinarily was filled with tables.  But as they entered, Samut saw that the tables were all gone.  They--or at least their components--were in piles near the entrance, table tops and table legs separated and stacked in orderly fashion.  Even the nails were stacked as neatly as their roundness would allow.

“They’ve taken apart the embalming tables,” Samut said.  She wished her torchlight could penetrate deeper into the darkness.  “Be vigilant.  Something is strange.”

Murrow let out a strangled scream and all four of them froze--but it was only a pair of mummies, crossing the room just inside the reach of their torchlight.  Samut took a deep breath.  The mummies carried a large golden square between them, etched with dark sigils that reflected a glittering blue.

“It’s part of a cartouche.”  Samut’s hand went automatically to her breastbone.  There was nothing there; her cartouche had been taken when she’d spoken out against the Hours.  But hers had been small, small enough to fit in her fist, while this one was incomplete and still nearly as big as the mummies carrying it.  Why would they need such a large cartouche...

She ran forward.  There were more mummies as she crossed the room, but they were engaged in their tasks and did not react to her presence.  She zigged and zagged between them, holding her torch aloft so as not to catch the mummies on fire.  There were dozens of them, all gathered around--

Samut halted and dropped her torch.

The body was large.  No wonder the mummies had disassembled the tables; head to toe, the body nearly fit the width of the room, and Samut wondered darkly if the room had been constructed with this eventual purpose in mind.  Had the false god-pharaoh always intended such desecration?

It had to be Oketra; it had neither Kefnet’s beak nor Rhonas’s hood nor Bontu’s jaws.  But it was unrecognizable.  All of Oketra’s softness, her loving compassion, was gone.  Samut ran her hand over the hard, savage lines of the body’s lazotep-plated cheekbone.

She felt an utter lack of surprise.

Of course the false god Bolas had done this.  Such desecration was unthinkable to her, and so she hadn’t even realized it was a thing he could do.  But it wasn’t unthinkable to him.  Nothing was.  He had already perverted the three nameless gods to his designs; why would he not profane the rest of them, now that they had outlived their purpose?  He had slaughtered generations of her people, turned her world into a wasteland, twisted her traditions and society until they served him.  

Of course he had done this.

“What...what is this?” Murrow asked, holding his arms tight to his sides and eyeing the mummies warily.

“Her name was Oketra.  She was our god,” Samut said flatly.  “She oversaw over the first Trial.  She taught us that we are strongest when we are united in a common purpose.  That all of us have our part to play.  But Bolas killed her.”

Tamiyo’s arm rested on Samut’s shoulder.  “My condolences.”

“They’re nearly finished,” Samut said, looking around calmly, as if entranced.  “Where’s Chandra?  Go find her.  Someone go get her.”

The dropped torch cast strange shadows on the others’ faces as they looked from one to another.  Samut clenched her fists so tightly her arms shook.

“Well?  Go!” she snapped, pulling herself free from Tamiyo.

“See if she is outside,” Tamiyo ordered Murrow.

“No way, I’m not going out there by myself,” Murrow said.  “If there’s anything out there, I don’t have any spells that can harm an undead--”

“I will go with.  Come,” Narset said.

The mummies continued to carry out their tasks, flowing around Samut and Tamiyo as if they were stones in a river.  Samut squeezed her temples between her fists; Bolas had killed her gods, her crop, her friends, her ancestors, her entire world--it was too much.  She felt as if she had been torn in two.  There was a part of her, all fury and grief and violence, that had slunk away and curled up somewhere deep inside her, waiting for its chance, but its heat did not touch the rest of her.  Or perhaps its warmth simply wasn’t enough to counter the enormity of what had been done.

“Everything,” Samut said quietly. “He--everything, he corrupted everything.  Everything in the world…”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Tamiyo said.  “You are here.  And your people.”

“But we’ve all been--we did the Trials, we all wanted the Hours to happen.  You don’t understand what...Djeru killed his brother because that’s what happens in the Trial of Ambition.  And I would’ve done the same thing, if I had been there.  I wanted to win.  I wanted to be worthy so badly, worthy of the love of that monster. ”

“All of you were deceived, on an unimaginable scale.”

“It all seems so stupid now…”

“Everyone feels weak after being knocked to the ground,” Tamiyo said.  She knelt and picked up the dropped torch and handed it to Samut, who gripped it numbly.  “But one must stand again all the same.”

Samut stared at the sharp lines of Oketra’s lazotep-encased skull.  Bolas’s deception had been so absolute.  Djeru had talked of building a new city across the desert, and Samut shared in his hope, but how were her people to build a new city?  They had erected obelisks for Oketra, yes, but that was not building homes and paving streets.  The mummies had done that.  The mummies had tended the crops, raised the livestock, cooked the food, cared for the infants, sewn the clothes, made the weapons...they had done everything so that the living could participate in the Trials.  And now that the Trials were no more, and the mummies no longer served the people, the living would have to fend for themselves, even though they had no idea how to build a civilization.  Samut knew how to fight.  She knew how to kill.  She knew spells for running fast and for surefootedness.  She did not know how to cook. 

Footsteps and light heralded the return of Murrow and Narset, with Chandra and Sarkhan in tow.  A tight ball of fire, painful to look at, hovered above Chandra’s head, illuminating nearly the entire room.

“Oh fuck,” Chandra gasped.  “Is that…?”

“Incinerate it,” Samut commanded, her voice devoid of emotion.

In an instant, flames curled around Chandra’s fists, but they quivered and went out as she hesitated.  “The mummies--if I do this it’ll probably set them off, and he’ll know we were here--”

“It doesn’t matter.  He can’t have her.  He can’t just use them.  They’re not swords. ”

“Okay, just--everyone, get back outside.  Down the street, around the corner,” Chandra said, waving them back towards the entrance.  “If I make a really big boom I can cave in the whole room and with any luck get all the mummies…”

They ran while Chandra pulled the ball of fire above her head back into her hands and grit her teeth and squeezed, compressing the brilliant light until it was the size of a fig, then an eye.  It was merely a pea when Samut reached the entrance to the embalming chambers and lost sight of it.  They continued down the street, taking shelter behind a barracks wall.

After a minute, Chandra came sprinting out of the embalming chambers.  Her spell went off just before she reached them; it knocked her off her feet and she landed in a heap, holding her arms over her head to protect herself.  A column of flame burst skyward and, in an instant, the embalming chambers ceased existing, a cloud of dust and smoke marking where it had stood.  Samut felt the ground shake, and stones the size of her fist rained down around them.

Chandra stood up, coughing and rubbing at her abraded hands.  “That oughta do it.”

Samut pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose and approached the spot where the embalming chambers had been.  The ground all around its foundations was cracked and uneven, Chandra’s explosion having heaved the pavestones out of alignment.  Thick dust prevented Samut from seeing what had happened inside; the explosion should have destroyed everything, but she had to be sure.  Lazotep coatings seemed unnaturally resilient.

“Careful!” Chandra called as Samut vaulted a slab of wall and slid down into the crater.

The air in the crater was thick as a sandstorm.  She held her breath and fumbled blindly through the wreckage.  Her feet caught on rocks and occasional bits of blackened bone, cracking as they cooled--all that remained of the mummies.  She ventured further, suppressing a cough, until her foot sent something metallic skittering away with a sound like a dropped sword.  Squinting against the dust, she followed the noise, and knelt to pick up a warm disk of blue metal the size of her palm.  

Lazotep, melted flat and embedded with bits of sand.

She heard, muffled as if through a wall, Chandra shouting her name over and over.  Pocketing the disk, she ran back the way she had come, scrabbling up the debris, her lungs burning as she tried both to run and not to breath in the dust too deeply.

“Samut?  We have to go!” Chandra yelled.

Hands grabbed Samut’s arms as she climbed over the rim of the crater, pulling her up and over.  Coughing and gasping for air, Samut pulled her shirt down and spat.  Her mouth tasted like chalk and her eyes were running, washing lines of grit down her face.  More hands pushed and shoved at her, prodding her to move.

“Get to the airboat!” Chandra commanded.

Behind her, Samut heard the sound of running, but with a metallic quality.  She turned: Eternals were following them, with more and more coming down the street every second to join the hunt.  The Eternals were slower than they were, hampered by their heavy metal exoskeleton, but it was a long run still to the airboat, and the Eternals would not tire.

Sarkhan stopped and turned, and with a noise like rustling cloth he transformed, growing massive, wings sprouting from his shoulders.  With a draconic roar, he spat a torrent of fire at the oncoming charge, then took off flying.

The rest of them ran pell-mell through the streets, retracing the path back to the airboat.  An Eternal came through a side street to cut them off and grabbed Murrow, but Narset struck its forehead with the base of her palm, and the Eternal quivered, trembling as if electrocuted, until it collapsed into a pile of blue-coated bones.  From overhead, Sarkhan obliterated another group, melting the lazotep with a white-hot burst of fire.

They reached the edge of the city and ran out into the sand.  The airboat was still a ways away, and running through the sand was challenging.  With only one sun in the sky, the temperature had dropped, but it was still hot.  Sweat ran down her face, and Samut felt her heart thudding in her chest; fear was a potent motivator, but exhaustion was beginning to creep into her limbs even so.

“Look!  They’re stopping!” Murrow gasped.

He was right; the Eternals had ceased their chase at the edge of the city.  Dozens of them stood in a line at the city’s boundary, weapons held ready, but they would move no further than they had already.  The planeswalkers slowed and eyes the zombies warily.

“Why?  Why would they stop?” Chandra asked between heavy breaths. 

“We are not a threat to them here,” Narset observed.  “Perhaps they protect only the city.”

“She might be right.  There are lots of wild undead in the desert.  If they chased everything that intruded, the whole army would scatter,” Samut said.

“I don’t like it,” Chandra said.  “C’mon.”

They continued towards the airboat at a slow jog, looking over their shoulders frequently to make sure the Eternals had come no closer.  But the Eternals remained unmoving, eyeless faces staring out across the desert.  

Neither Kaladesh nor Regatha had gods; Chandra had not encountered religion until, as a teenager exploring Zendikar, she had hired a kor guide who had told her stories about Emeria and Cosi and Ula.  The guide’s reverence had been incomprehensible to Chandra, who had found the stories a passable but not particularly interesting way to pass the time while they traveled.  She didn’t understand why Gideon and Samut had held Amonkhet’s gods in such overwhelming esteem, either.  The gods were big, and that was awe-inspiring, sure, but many things were enormous.  Nobody devoted their life to worshipping a baloth.

Still, she didn’t have to understand religion to understand that Bolas was a bully.  His victory on Amonkhet had been overwhelming, and defiling the slain gods was nothing more than him showboating over a fallen foe.  It infuriated Chandra--but this was the good kind of anger.   A smoldering anger, quiet but persistent, that burned away the stray cobwebby thoughts that cluttered her mind.  She had things to do--a list of things to do, all written down properly--and that anger drove her forward, turning what she had to do into the only thing she could do.  If she fed it right, it could sustain her for days.

She’d need it; running around, from Dominaria to Kaladesh to Amonkhet and now to Ravnica, was exhausting.  Her clothes were full of sand and, from the feel of it, her face was covered with grime and dried sweat.  She could sleep for a week, except she couldn’t afford to waste that much time.  Everything had fallen to her.

The drapes were drawn in Jace’s library, giving the whole room a dim, creepy vibe.  The air was still and utterly silent.  Chandra forced her attention away from the large table where they’d all once sat, and away from the mess of books and papers that marked whatever Jace had been working on before he left.  She couldn’t afford sadness, either.

Feeling like an intruder in a place that had, until recently, been her home, Chandra walked up the stairs and through the hallways towards the official offices of the Guildpact.  She really, really hoped Lavinia was there--Chandra had no idea where the other woman lived, and if Lavinia had stopped coming to the Chamber of the Guildpact, Chandra had no way of finding her aside from randomly asking people in the street.

But to her relief, when she opened the heavy door to the office behind the Chamber, she found Lavinia, sorting through a pair of piles of paperwork nearly as tall as she was.

“Chandra?” Lavinia asked, confusion cracking her stern face.  “You look as if you’ve fallen in a Golgari midden.  Is everyone back?”

Chandra shook her head.

“No.  I’ve gotta--I need to talk to you.  About Jace.”