Suspicious, Karn slowly lifted the pendant from his neck and surrendered it.

  Malzra looked it over keenly. “Where did you get it?” There was a greedy gleam in his eye.

  Karn opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught short. Malzra’s mad ravings still rang in his head. If the master started poking around in Jhoira’s room, he might find out her secret. She might be expelled-or worse.

  “I found it. It was snagged on a piece of driftwood that washed ashore.”

  “Driftwood,” Malzra said dubiously.

  “Driftwood,” Karn repeated.

  Shaking his head in irritation, Malzra said, “Into the machine then, Karn.”

  This time the regression took him to a scene of great carnage. The place was evil beyond Karn’s imagining. Men, or what had once been men, lay in broken death across the grassy ground. Some were nearly complete, marked only by telltale roses of blood on their hearts or bellies. Others were missing limbs, likely dragged away by the wild dogs that loped shamelessly among the dead. Even less remained of some warriors. They had been torn in half by unimaginably sharp blades or blasted into fragments by fireballs. Smoldering war machines hulked on the horizon. The smell of waste, smoke, offal, maggots, and disease filled the air.

  Surely this devastation has been caused by the horrors and evils Malzra spoke of, the silver man thought.

  Karn had never felt sick before, but now his silver bulk quivered as with a tarnish that reached to the very core of him. He had been asked to gather some sign of his journey, but he could not bring himself to pry a sword from the hand of a fallen man or pull loose the helm that had failed to save a life. Instead Karn found a single shield, lying alone and bloodless on a windblown tuft of grass. This he lifted and held against him, waiting miserably for the master to recall him.

  When Karn returned, he sorrowfully presented the shield to Malzra. The master identified it-a bracer from New Argive. To the silver man’s description of the battle, Malzra merely nodded grimly-a battle had occurred in that spot only two days before. Karn had regressed only a day and a half. The master was frustrated and angry. He brusquely handed the pendant back.

  “If these are the atrocities you spoke of, Master Malzra,” Karn said solemnly as he donned the amulet, “I understand now why you fight so hard.”

  Malzra’s smile-an unusual sight-was sardonic. “These atrocities are nothing, the result of human hatreds. What I fight is the hatred of demons.”

  Monologue

  Sometimes I forget all Urza has seen, all he has done.

  The silver man returned from New Argive. We debriefed him and shut down the laboratory. That night, during the reading session in Urza’s study, he let the volume he was reading slide down to lie open on his lap. He stared straight ahead for some time. I lowered my book as well and waited. Urza’s eyes had that faraway look, and I glimpsed the halves of the Mightstone and Weakstone showing through. Beyond the high windows, sea winds argued among the palms.

  “I was fighting a whole world, not just Gix, but a whole world,” he murmured.

  Cautiously, I ventured, “Fighting a whole world?”

  “In Phyrexia. I had gone to fight Gix, but there was a whole world of Gixes. Demons, witch engines, dragon engines, the living dead and the dead living. And at the heart of it all, a god. A dark, mad god.”

  I wryly imagined the same description coming from an invader of Tolaria.

  “I fought to destroy a whole world, but Xantcha-she fought only to regain her heart.”

  I drew a deep breath of sea wind. “Yes. That one stone was a whole world to her. It is a whole world to Karn.”

  A gleam of sudden realization shone in Urza’s dark, ancient eyes. “That’s why they act the way they do.”

  “Who?”

  “The students, the tutors-even you and Karn. Every one of you is defending your own heart, your own world.”

  He is not mad, not wholly. He is ancient and inhuman, transformed by the millennia, but he is not wholly mad.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Don’t you remember how it feels? It is a lonely, dangerous struggle, one that will, one day, kill us all.”

  - Barrin, Mage Master of Tolaria

  Chapter 5

  Teferi sat on a wind-blasted crest of rock above the restless nighttime sea.

  It had been quite a feat, reaching this point. Jhoira was lithe and athletic. She had moved quickly and soundlessly from her room after lantern-call that evening. Despite Teferi’s invisibility enchantment, she sensed she was being followed. Twice, as she made her way through the empty corridors of the school, she looked back. The first time, Teferi fetched up against a recessed doorway to the forge room. The handle of the door rattled. She peered a long time back in the feverish night, and Teferi dared not breathe. When at last he looked again, she was already gone. He caught up to her in the Hall of Artifact Creatures-a museum where Malzra placed important but obsolete inventions. The place was unnerving enough by day. It was filled with statuesque creatures of metal plate and guy wire, each posed with limbs extended as if beseeching the viewer to reactivate them. At night the museum was downright frightening. Wiry, dog-headed Yotian warriors menaced in their crouches. Backward-kneed su-chi lifters seemed behemoths from some far-off world. At the far side of the mechanical menagerie, Jhoira was no more than a fleeting triangle of cloth. The door she exited led to the western laboratory-a half-used structure that was beastly hot in the height of summer and dank in the drear of winter.

  Once again, he almost lost her. There was no sign of her in the lab. He cast a spell, seeing the fading heat of her footprints on the floor. They disappeared as he followed. She’d gotten away. Teferi stepped on a slightly skewed grating. It rang with possibilities. He knelt and stared down into the darkness below the grate. Jhoira’s tampering had been evident even in the dark-at least to a mage’s eye-and the trick of her specially engineered bolts took only minutes to divine. After that, it was easy enough to reach the wall. He saw her slip from the channel as the guards overhead cursed some nocturnal bird. Teferi conjured a real bird to do the task for him, a skycaptain that nearly spooked the men into jumping. With the bird and his invisibility, the young prodigy followed with ease.

  Jhoira was not so cautious thereafter. Perhaps, once away from the school, she thought no one would be around to detect her. Perhaps, once near her hideaway, she was too eager to be careful. Even in the patchy light of the Glimmer Moon, Teferi made good time through the steaming woods and to this spot, just above the sea, just beside the mouth of the dimly flickering cave. He dispelled his invisibility, drew a deep breath, and with a smug smile, started into the niche. He stopped just in time.

  Teferi saw what lay within, who lay within.

  In a fit of disgust, he withdrew, unable to bear any more. He’d expected to find something to use against Jhoira, something with which he could extort a kiss from her, perhaps-but not this, another man. Even if Teferi mentioned that he knew her secret, he could not win her heart with it. She would only hate him all the more. He sat there while the sea toiled ceaselessly below and the wind dug its claws into the clouds overhead. He rose and headed back toward the academy, his mind abuzz with questions.

  As he pushed past the pawing undergrowth of the western isle, a new thought occurred to him: it was possible there were certain things in life that could not be attained through manipulation and trickery. Nothing he had done had won Jhoira to him. No amount of misdirection, cajoling, humiliation, artifice, boasting, or innuendo had convinced her he was great. Teferi was honestly confused.

  He had never met a person so resistant to the obvious truth of his supremacy. She couldn’t see any of his overwhelming virtues, determined to focus on the difference in their ages. “Grow up,” was all she could ever think to say to him. He was growing up. How could he grow up faster? He didn’t have a time machine….

  That’s when he felt the hand seize his shoulder and thrust his face to the ground.

  “Teferi knows about Kerrick,” Karn said to Jhoira. The silver man hunched just outside the doorway in the nervous light of morning.

  Drowsy, Jhoira blinked at her friend. She had gotten back only an hour before, during the sunrise change of the guard.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They caught him outside the academy this morning. He was coming back from the western shore.”

  Her stomach sinking, Jhoira motioned Karn into the room and closed the door behind him. She ran her hand through her tousled hair.

  “Now, what’s all this about?”

  “Teferi’s been watching you,” Karn said with quiet intensity. “He probably followed you. They caught him on his way back from the shore. He must have seen-”

  “Who caught him?” Jhoira interrupted.

  “The guards from the western wall. One had seen something rustling in the jungle when he left. The guard followed until she lost the trail but waited on the path for him to return. They interrogated him for hours-they’re angry about your mechanical birds and think Teferi conjured them. They got nothing out of him, though, not even the route you used out of the school, and half an hour ago they turned him over to Master Malzra himself.”

  Shaking her head in irritation, Jhoira swung wide the bone-inlaid doors of her wardrobe and rifled among her clothes. She chose her most formal white cloak, trimmed in gold piping, and slipped it on. Shedding her nightclothes beneath the robe, she selected a belt of gold rope and cinched it angrily around her waist.

  “What are you going to do?” Karn asked, stunned.

  “I’m going to go defend myself.”

  “Teferi hasn’t said anything yet,” Karn pointed out.

  “Teferi?” Jhoira asked, angry. “He’s holding out for the right price. He’ll sell me out as soon as he has Master Malzra twisted around his finger.” She shook her head again. “I want to beat him to the punch. I want to confess what I’ve done, so at least I have honesty on my side.” With a final snort of surrender, she turned and bent over her cot, her hands drawing up the covers over a lump Karn had not noticed before. “Let’s go.”

  As the two turned to leave, Karn glanced back at the cot, where he saw the curly golden hair of Kerrick.

  *

  Master Malzra was in a state. His face, always alight with a golden inner glow, was bright as a candle. His eyes seemed to cast twin red beams of hellfire. He paced, his blue robes crinkling all about him. In the dim light of the small study he was enormous and powerful, as though he wore one of the suits of power armor he had on display in the Hall of Artifact Creatures.

  Before him, fourteen-year-old Teferi looked as small as a sparrow.

  “Who are you, then? What are you? A spy? You’re too young to be a Phyrexian sleeper. You don’t smell like glistening oil. But you are smart and ambitious and incorrigible, just the sort of person the Phyrexians choose. What were you doing beyond the wall? Who were you meeting? Phyrexian negators?”

  Teferi kept his eyes averted on the blackwood tabletop where he sat. “I don’t even know what you mean by a Fire Ex-Fry Egg-Friar Ecclesian-”

  “Don’t mock me!” demanded Malzra, pounding the tabletop with his fist.

  Tapping an inner reserve of strength, Teferi raised his eyes to meet the glowing orbs of the master, which looked like the multifaceted eyes of an insect. Teferi drew a deep breath and roared right back at the man, “You’re mad, Master. Everyone knows it. You’re also a genius, of course. None of us would come here to study if we didn’t know that. You know more about artifice and magic than any man for millennia, but you are mad. Fire-Eaters and Fanatics, Demons and Dog-Faced Men, Invaders and Conspirators and Spies-the only invaders that ever come to this island are fish stupid enough to get stranded by the tide or seagulls who have lost their sense of direction and flown away from everything and into nothing. No one wants to get in here, Master Malzra, but I can think of about two hundred students and forty scholars who want out, and that’s what I was doing beyond the wall, believe it or not.”

  In the sudden, stunned silence, a knock came at the door. Mage Barrin shifted from the shadows and went to the door.

  While the latch sounded and hushed voices spoke, Teferi and Malzra stared into each other’s eyes. There was recognition between them. Despite the vast difference in their ages, the two knew in that moment that they were more alike than different-brilliant, driven, selfish, unstoppable, obsessive, irrepressible, and as deeply flawed as they were gifted. But there was something more to it, an undeniable spark of greatness-unmistakable among those blessed, or cursed, by it.

  Malzra’s eyes intensified. Teferi felt a presence in his mind. Sinuous as a snake, Malzra slithered through his thoughts. The master sniffed among skittering memories, snapped and swallowed them. Fear like a mouse went first into that maw, then jealousy and timid insecurity. The master’s mind snapped down images of the forest and the Glimmer Moon. The truth lay beyond. It smelled sour and strong. Malzra wound forward. In moments, he would know. He would know.

  Teferi’s eyes intensified, too. A cat came prowling among his thoughts-righteous indignation and pride-and it leapt on the snaking mind of Malzra. Fangs and claws, spitting and hissing, fur and scale, they fought in the young man’s mind. The battle was ferocious, though only their beaming eyes gave outward sign of it.

  Barrin discreetly cleared his throat to break the tension. “Jhoira and Karn are here.”

  “Another time,” Malzra growled.

  “She says she’s come to confess,” Barrin said, gesturing the young woman and the silver man into the small study.

  Malzra ended the staring match. His eyes flashed as he marked the Ghitu woman. She was dressed in her formal academy robe, the one she wore when inducted into the ranks of his senior students.

  “Confess to what?”

  “I am to blame for all this,” Jhoira said evenly. “I am the reason Teferi was outside the walls last night.”

  The young man goggled for a moment at her and then jumped in. “She dared me.” All eyes in the room turned quizzically on him. “I’m always trying to impress her, but she thinks I’m too young for her. Finally, she said she didn’t want to talk to me again until I did something brave and grownup.”

  “That’s not what-” Jhoira began,

  “You thought sneaking out of the academy would be grownup?” Malzra demanded.

  “I thought if I could get out into the woods at night, I could maybe catch a night loon. They have a beautiful song. They sing to the Glimmer Moon. I made those mechanical birds to impress her-she’s not interested in my magic, and I wanted to show her I was an artificer too-but she said only, ‘they’re fake, just like you.’ So I thought, if I caught a real bird, a rare nighttime songbird, and did it without magic, did it by going myself-”

  “To catch a loon?” Barrin asked, astonished.

  “I had a little chain with a metal collar. I was going to clip it around the bird’s leg and put a hood on his head, but they got knocked out of my pocket when the guard tackled me.”

  “A night loon?” Barrin repeated, incredulous. He turned to Malzra. “I don’t believe him. Malzra, I think in this case we could suspend the school’s moratorium against mind probes. I could cast a truth spell on him-”

  “No-” Something had changed in Malzra’s eyes, not a softening, but a hardening, a keen calculation. “No, this was no crime great enough to warrant such drastic measures.” A guilty look passed between him and Teferi. “He found a night loon all right, himself, but I daresay this stunt wasn’t enough to impress Jhoira. It was not brave or grownup. It was foolhardy and stupid.”

  Teferi swallowed and bowed his head. “Yes, sir.”

  Stunned, Jhoira realized her mouth was moving, but nothing was coming out.

  “What do you have to say, Jhoira?” Malzra asked. “Are you impressed by such exploits?”

  She took a deep breath and said, “Well, in a way, yes.”

  *

  After the students and the silver man had left, Barrin lurked among the book shadows of Urza’s library. For his part, the planeswalker sat, silent and brooding, at the blackwood desk.

  How to say this, wondered Barrin, how to say any of this? “There’s more to this, Urza. You know that.”

  “I know,” came the calm response.

  “You shouldn’t allow the truth of Teferi’s words-all that business about genius and madness and paranoia-to distract you from the fact that he was outside the school for more than night loons.”

  “Yes,” agreed Urza wearily. He drew a long, conscious breath, not something he needed to do to live, being a creature of pure energy. Simple acts such as breathing brought him an invaluable connection to the world around him. “There is a Phyrexian in the school. I smell it. It is warded, shielded, wary. Its smell is faint and diffuse, but it is here. A Phyrexian in Tolaria.”

  *

  The ruby light of the time-travel portal pulsed around Karn. He saw none of it. His mind’s eye was turned inward, to the confrontation among Malzra, Teferi, Barrin, and Jhoira. The outcome of that episode a week ago still boggled him. Kerrick should have been exposed, Jhoira and Teferi reprimanded and expelled, and the animosity between them become an unbreachable wall. Instead, the castaway had gained access to the academy by way of the secret passage, Jhoira and Teferi had only risen in Malzra’s estimation, and the young prodigy had won respect in the eyes of the woman he always sought to impress. How any of this had transpired, Karn still didn’t understand. He had the distinct sense that much of what had taken place in that strange meeting lay in words unspoken and deeds undone.

  Time slowed and stopped. Malzra and Barrin stood statue-still at their consoles. The whine of the machine reached a peak. Beyond was dead calm. Then the turbines of time reversed and began rolling backward. It was a dreadful instant, and in it Karn always felt utterly alone. With slow deliberation, Malzra and Barrin moved again, their hands withdrawing along the consoles, undoing all they had done and powering down the machine. The light deepened around Karn. This time, the pool did not shift. Malzra had achieved proficiency in spatial displacement-he seemed to have an especial grasp of that arcane endeavor-and so had set it aside to try to push the temporal envelope. With this trial, all the power of the machine was shunted to the temporal vector.

 

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