War of the Spark, page 3
Following the orders of his former guildmaster—Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind—Ral had attempted to unite all ten of Ravnica’s guilds to grant the dragon Niv the power to go head-to-head against the Elder Dragon Bolas. Ral had gathered—or believed he had gathered—a core group of like-minded individuals to help him, including Kaya, Tomik, Lavinia, Hekara…and the gorgon Planeswalker Vraska. Ral had been slow to trust Vraska, who had admitted up front that she had once been an agent of Bolas and had risen to power as guildmaster of the Golgari Swarm thanks to his aid. But Ral had his own dark history with Bolas and had eventually come to think of Vraska as a true friend and ally—right up to the point where she betrayed them all.
The fragile alliances Ral had been building among the ten guilds had shattered like the bell tower’s glass window. Niv-Mizzet was forced to face Bolas without the boost in power he had been expecting. Now Niv was dead, Hekara was dead, and Bolas was loose on Ravnica.
“And Vraska?” Kaya asked as she disengaged from Ral.
“I blasted her with enough lightning to fry her to a crisp—but not enough to completely incinerate her. Since her corpse is nowhere to be found, we’ll have to assume she planeswalked away.”
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
“When the smoke from Bolas’ fire clears, maybe. I hope so. And I hope I’m still alive when she does. I very much want to kill her for all this.”
“Ral.”
“She made her choice.”
“Or Bolas made it for her. You and I both know what he’s like. How easy it is to fall under his sway. How hard he is to break from.”
“And yet somehow we both managed.”
She didn’t respond.
But another voice said, “Apologies.” It was Lavinia. She had regained consciousness and was standing over Hekara’s corpse.
Ral swallowed with difficulty and forced himself to speak: “It wasn’t your fault. It may have been your hand that slew Hekara, but only because Bolas had possessed you.”
“I know that,” Lavinia said coldly, like the hard-ass officer of the law she had once been. “I wasn’t apologizing for killing Hekara. I was apologizing for giving Bolas’ henchman the opportunity to get the drop on me in the first place. For allowing Tezzeret to slap the device on my neck that gave the dragon control of my mind.”
Kaya said, “It’s just another reason to bring the dragon down.”
“We didn’t need any more reasons.” Lavinia turned away from Hekara and seemed to instantly forget about her. She approached the Beacon. “You managed to get this thing working?”
Ral joined her in front of the large humming device and looked down at its locked and coded keyboard. “Yeah,” he said. “The Beacon should summon Planeswalkers to Ravnica from throughout the Multiverse to help us fight Bolas. And neither the dragon nor his minions will be able to shut it off. Hell, I can’t even shut it off.”
“I hope you’re right. The ten guilds have never been so divided, and the Living Guildpact is still missing.”
Ral found himself shrugging: “Maybe the Beacon’ll draw Mr. Guildpact back to save us.” He heard the bitter sarcasm in his voice and frowned. Ral had decidedly mixed feelings about Jace Beleren but reluctantly admitted to himself that there was no one he’d rather see at this moment. Beleren’s my-word-is-magical-law Guildpact powers might be their last best chance against Bolas.
From behind them, Kaya said, “He can’t get here soon enough…”
They turned to see a wide-eyed Kaya staring out the broken window in fascinated horror.
“Why?” Ral asked. “What now?”
Liliana Vess stared daggers at Nicol Bolas, Elder Dragon, former God-Pharaoh of Amonkhet, former God-Emperor of multiple multiversal planes and current God-Damned psychopath.
He took no notice, and she eventually gave up, silently lowering her eyes in bitter frustration.
Bolas and Flunky Supreme Tezzeret were manipulating some rather impressive magics to raise the ground beneath their feet, with Liliana along for the ride. Utilizing no subtlety whatsoever, they sculpted something akin to a stone step pyramid on the far end of Ravnica’s Tenth District Plaza—directly across from the Embassy of the Guildpact, where Jace Beleren kept his office, library, living quarters and quaint notions about right and wrong. The new structure was big, bulky and brutalist, an aesthetic nightmare completely out of place amid the elegance of Ravnica’s multifaceted architecture.
And the noise. The cacophony filled the air with the cracking of pavement, the toppling of neighboring buildings and the scraping of massive stone block against massive stone block.
Plus the shouting. There’d be plenty of that today, no doubt.
Nor was the dissonance limited to the observable world; Liliana was a necromancer not an elementalist, yet she could practically hear the land screaming in protest over the forced creation of this monstrosity.
As he did his master’s bidding, sunlight glinted off Tezzeret’s armor and his fully mechanical—and fully monstrous—right arm. The artificer had done his best and cruelest work upon himself. Below his dreadlocked head, he was more machine than man. Liliana thought him appalling. Bolas merely thought him useful.
When the pyramid had reached a sufficient height to be seen from all four horizons, Bolas and Tezzeret ceased their efforts. Liliana glanced up and spotted an armored angel, her crown helmet gleaming in the morning sun, pull up short in midair and then quickly fly off to inform her Boros Legion superiors of what by now they couldn’t have helped noticing even from their Sunhome Fortress half a district away.
Towering over his two minions (because, she thought, what am I at this point except another minion of Bolas), the dragon regarded his work with a devious smile that contorted his features and flattish head into a death’s-head grin.
Something’s missing, he thought to them, not bothering to speak out loud.
Then from the air itself he conjured up a stone throne, which floated thirty feet above the pyramid’s flattop apex. With a single flap of his wings, he rose and sat upon it. Now if Liliana and Tezzeret wanted to look at his ugly face, they would have to crane their necks back as far as they could stretch. It made Liliana feel small and insignificant, which she was quite sure was the point.
We’ll call it the Citadel of Bolas, thought the self-satisfied dragon.
“You’re giving them a target,” said a frowning Tezzeret.
Exactly. In fact, I believe I’ll give them two…
With one crooked finger, Bolas gestured toward the marble pavement in the middle of the plaza. Instantly a huge obelisk in the style of Amonkhet began to rise up into the sky, towering even higher than the God-Emperor’s new Citadel. Bolas smiled again, mouth open this time to show his complete set of razor-sharp teeth. Then he spit a gout of fire, which traveled as a flaming whirlwind toward the top of the obelisk. The blaze engulfed its capital before quickly calcifying into a life-sized statue, patinated copper with accents of gold, of the ever-modest Bolas himself.
Now, that is a target, he thought at them smugly.
He laughed telepathically, the simulated sound of his unfiltered mirth entering Liliana’s mind, contaminating her psyche with pure unadulterated Nicol Bolas. She thought she might vomit. In fact, she must have thought it clearly enough that for the first time since her arrival on Ravnica, he actually deigned to look at her.
You vomit, he threatened, and you clean it up. With your tongue.
She scowled but said nothing.
He telepathically chuckled, probably to test her. She maintained her scowl but otherwise didn’t react.
With supreme confidence, he dismissed them with a slight wave of the tip of one wing.
You both know what to do.
Tezzeret nodded as the armor covering his abdomen irised open, revealing a hollow core where his innards should have been. He planeswalked away, his body imploding into his own void.
It was a beautiful morning. It had rained just before dawn, and the air now tasted crisp and clean. The sun had risen just a few minutes ago, and the skies bore the colors of ripe plums and peaches. Knowing what was in store for the day, Liliana felt like crying. And a part of her wanted to cry. Wished she could cry. But there were no tears. The woman that could allow herself to cry was a century gone, and she possessed no necromancy powerful enough to bring that woman back to life, nor to raise actual tears from soul-dead eyes.
Lowering her head, Liliana slowly descended the Citadel’s steps. She glanced back only once: Bolas wasn’t watching her, had all but forgotten her, taking her cooperation—her servitude—for granted. Instead he admired his handiwork and smiled.
Teyo Verada was on his hands and knees, coughing up sand. The first thing he noticed was the stone beneath him. Not shifting sand. Stone.
The next thing he noticed was that he was alive.
He was covered in sand. Covered in it. Not buried in it. He wiped a sandy arm across his eyes in a futile attempt to clear his vision, and looked up, expecting to see the lights. But the lights were gone. Instead he saw the light of a single rising sun shining between two massive buildings of stone and glass, each big enough to hold four monasteries of the Order.
Wait, one sun? Where’s the other one?
He thought he must be dreaming, but he didn’t believe he had the imagination to dream what he was currently seeing. This wasn’t the desert. This wasn’t his village or the monastery. This wasn’t even Oasis.
By the Storm, where am I?
Still spitting up sand, he lowered his head and saw a bronze-skinned, dark-haired girl sitting on an iron railing, regarding him with curiosity. She appeared to be about sixteen, and her garb was truly bizarre, decorated with patches of fur and tusks, ribbons and bells hanging from her shoulders, her tunic cinched with braided vines of leaves and berries. Studying Teyo intently, she absently picked a small blood-red berry off her belt and popped it in her mouth.
The blood from his still fresh diamond wound trickled into his own mouth, its copper taste mixing with the sand. He spit again, endured a fit of coughing, and—still on his hands and knees—called out to the girl for help.
Surprised, she pointed to herself and said, “Me?”
He nodded desperately and coughed out, “Please…”
She grinned broadly, hopped off the railing, and raced to his side, saying, “Hardly anyone notices me. I’m so insignificant.” She helped him to his feet and began brushing sand off his tunic.
He murmured a thank-you and struggled to order his mind.
“Where am I?” he asked, finally.
“Transguild Promenade,” she said with a shrug.
“What?”
“You’re on the Transguild Promenade. And there’ll be thrull-carts coming through here any second in both directions. So unless you want to be crushed beneath ’em, we better move.”
He let her pull him forward. Rubbing his hand furiously back and forth over his scalp, Teyo tried to get the sand out of his hair as he walked across a stunningly massive bridge beside the petite girl with the dark hair and strange clothes. She began talking nonstop at a mile-a-minute pace.
“We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Rat. I mean Rat’s not my real name, of course. It’s more of a nickname. Folks call me that. Well, not a lot of folks. But you get the idea. My real name—or, you know, my given name—is Araithia. Araithia Shokta. So Rat is shorter, easier to say. You can call me Rat. I’m not offended by the name at all. Truth is, it’s kinda perfect for me. Perfecter than Araithia, I guess. Although I think Araithia is prettier, you know? My mother still calls me Araithia. So does my father. But they’re pretty much the only ones. Well, there’s this centaur I know, but he’s kinda my godfather, so it’s the same idea. Parents get stuck on the names they pick. But I’m fine with Rat. So you go ahead and call me Rat, okay?”
“I—”
“I’m currently Gateless, in case you were wondering, but I was born into Gruul Clans, so my parents want me to officially join their guild, except I just don’t think I’m angry enough, you know? Plus I have good friends in Rakdos and Selesnya—yeah, yeah, they couldn’t be more different, but some days I feel like I fit well in the one, and then the next day, the other. Anyway, those are my big three: Gruul, Rakdos, Selesnya. I’ll definitely join one of those. Probably. Are you in a guild? I don’t recognize the outfit.”
“I—”
“Oh, and what’s your name? That should come first, I guess. I don’t talk to a lot of new people, so I may not get the order of things right. I always have so many questions, but I usually have to figure out the answers on my own, you know?”
“I—”
“That was rhetorical. We just met. I don’t actually expect you to know how I get through life instantaneously. Besides, we’re having a conversation here. There’s no rush. We’ll get to all the important stuff eventually, right? How’s your head? That’s a pretty nasty cut. I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but we should really get it cleaned up—get the sand off it and bandage it or maybe find you a healer who can cast a little mending spell. I can take you somewhere they can do that for you, but even a little healing magic can get a little pricey. Still, it’s such a little cut, they might do it gratis, if you ask nice. Or if you’re too shy to ask a stranger for help—you seem shy to me, but I don’t want to presume too much since we only just met—I can patch you up myself. I mean, I guess I’m a stranger, too. But I feel like we’re bonding a little. In any case, I’m a fairly decent medic. I’ve had to learn to do that for myself over the years. It’s not like my mother wouldn’t do it for me, but she’s a Gruul warrior. She’s not always available. Besides, I’ve never really been hurt all that badly, you know? Cuts and scrapes. I’m relatively short and bigger folks are always bumping into me if I’m not too careful. Ravnica’s a busy place, you see.”
“I—”
“I don’t have any healing magic, mind you, and I don’t think I have anything I can use as a bandage, but I can steal something easy enough. Or maybe you wouldn’t want a stolen bandage. I forget that not everyone’s okay with me being a thief. The Azorius Arresters wouldn’t approve, that’s for sure. Um, you’re not Azorius, are you?”
“I—”
“Nah, look at you. You can’t be Azorius. I’m guessing you’re—”
At his wit’s end, Teyo stepped into her path, faced her and roughly grabbed her by her arms, shouting, “Listen!” In fact, he was so rough, he hesitated, worried he might have hurt her.
But she seemed pleased by the contact, smiling up at him with her bright eyes. He noticed she had irises of a deep-violet hue. “I talk too much, don’t I?” she said. “I spend a lot of time alone, and I talk to myself too much. I’m always telling myself that. Then I get with other people, and you’d think I’d learn to listen more. I want to learn to listen more. So yeah, I’ll listen to you, uh…You know, you still haven’t told me your name. Start with that, and I promise I’ll listen.”
Flustered and flummoxed, he said “Teyo,” his voice rising at the end, as if he was asking her whether he had his name right. Truthfully, he was so completely off balance, if she’d told him he had it wrong he wouldn’t have been particularly surprised.
“Teyo,” she repeated. “That’s a nice name. Are you in a guild, Teyo? You’re injured and off your game. Is there somewhere I should take you? Someone I should take you to?”
“I’m not in any guild. I’m an acolyte of the Shieldmage Order.”
“Huh. Never heard of it.”
“You’ve never heard of the Order? How is that possible? What do you do during a diamondstorm?”
“Never heard of a diamondstorm, either, but it sounds pretty. Sparkly. I like sparkly things. It’s kind of immature, but there you have it. If I see something sparkly, I take it. I mentioned I’m a thief, right?”
Teyo let go of her arms and walked to the bridge’s stone railing, looking down at the immense river passing beneath. He’d never seen quite that much water in any one place. The single sun was just rising. It was morning, early morning, dawn, basically. But it had been late afternoon when the Eastern Cloud began to blow; he was sure of that. And he was sure he hadn’t been buried overnight. He’d have died if he’d been buried for that long.
And where is the second sun?
His hands gripped the railing tightly, turning his knuckles white. He muttered, “She’s never faced a diamondstorm? Never heard of the Order? That makes no sense. The Monastic Order of the Shieldmage is famous the length and breadth of Gobakhan. The people depend upon it.”
Joining him at the railing, she smiled and shrugged, speaking quietly and at a more moderate pace: “I’ve never heard of ‘Gobakhan,’ either.”
He slammed his hand down on the railing and stomped his foot on the ground. “This is Gobakhan! Our world is Gobakhan! You’re standing on Gobakhan!”
She put her arm through his and propelled him forward. Again she spoke slowly, softly, kindly. “Teyo, this…” Without slowing her pace, she gave a little hop on the paving stones, her bells jingling softly. “….is Ravnica. This world is Ravnica. Teyo, I’ve a feeling you’re not on Gobakhan anymore. I’m guessing you’re a ’walker.”
“We’re walking. I’m walking. Of course I’m a walker.” He was angry, though the truth of what she was saying—to the extent he understood—was starting to dawn.
“Not that kind of walker. I don’t know too much about it. Just stuff I overheard Master Zarek and Mistress Vraska discussing when they didn’t know I was hanging around.” Her voice began to speed up again. “I mean Hekara asked me to follow Master Zarek, so it was almost a mission, an assignment, right? She wanted to know where they went when they went wheres without her. That’s almost a quote, by the way. She talks like that, Hekara. Anyway, I was supposed to follow them, but I also eavesdropped a bit. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I’m a chronic eavesdropper. I really can’t help myself.”
