Ravnica

by Cory Herndon

  Svogthir nodded to her. “Well done.”

  “Guildmaster,” Savra said and bowed.

  The two flanking gorgons hissed and snarled, but Ludmilla did not. The leader of the trio merely placed a hand before her face and waved, dropping her mask and sending the teratogens fleeing for the far corners. A few weren’t fast enough and were unable to avoid locking eyes with one of the gorgons before turning away. One of the first harpies that had joined them instantly became a flying rock, crashed into the steps, and shattered. The petrified bird-woman barely missed Savra, but she didn’t flinch. Despite the danger, she did not close her eyes to hide from the Sisters, as virtually every other living thing in the chamber had done.

  She didn’t turn around either. No point in committing suicide.

  “The great Svogthir is our parun and guildmaster,” Savra said. “You have had your chance. Now stand aside if you will not join us. This is your last chance, Ludmilla.”

  Svogthir didn’t say a word but placed both fists on his misshapen hips. At first only Savra and the Sisters saw him raise his head to stare Ludmilla directly in the eye. If the gorgon’s stony glare had any effect at all, it was to make the old god-zombie grin. When he spoke, a few brave creatures risked a look in the direction of the voice and saw it too. Whispers of surprise from the bold ones spread throughout the cavern in seconds, a little wave of awe with Svogthir at its center. Savra could almost hear them all thinking simultaneously: It’s true. He is a god. He looks her in the eye and stands defiant. They cannot hurt him. He is the strongest.

  “Hello, ladies,” Svogthir said. “You’ll find I’m feeling a bit better than the last time we spoke. Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted by your seizure of my guild?”

  “You think we are impresssed, prisssoner?” Ludmilla said. “We are not helplesss without our gazsse.”

  “Let’sss take him apart,” Lydya cackled.

  “Sssave me a leg,” Lexya laughed.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” the god-zombie said. “Golgari! Watch the gorgons learn a lesson in respect!”

  Svogthir seemed to grow taller as the teratogens roared his name. Savra stepped aside and joined the growing ring of peculiarly poised spectators, all of whom attempted to watch the action using their peripheral vision. The matka simply closed her eyes and watched it through the god-zombie’s instead. Not the ones in his head, of course. Those, like the rest of his cranium, had been resistant to every spell she’d tried. It had been far easier to plant a few extras here and there in Svogthir’s refurbished frame—unobtrusive little orbs embedded in the center of his chest, the right and left shoulders, and between the shoulder blades, such as they were.

  Only one more detail to add. This was a duel between champions and deserved an arena. Besides, it wouldn’t do to have the gorgons attack her unawares. She clutched the staff in both hands and concentrated on the talismans, charms, and dormant necroclusters, letting them guide a part of her to the earth beneath the stone steps, buried under centuries of urban decay. Her focus brushed against seedpods, spores, millions of tiny parcels of life, lying as if dead and ready to be reborn—reclamation without the necromancy. With a little gentle coaxing, they burst into full growth almost instantly.

  A wall of vines, trees, giant fungi, and combinations of all three sprang through the steps behind Svogthir, cutting him off from Savra and the ring of spectators.

  She didn’t just do it to protect herself and the beings she hoped to lead. Savra also realized the importance of theatrics. The wall wasn’t tall enough to block sight of the giant god-zombie as he popped knuckles the size of kneecaps and readied to meet whatever the Sisters planned to throw at him in lieu of their deadly stares.

  The gorgons had spoken the truth. They’d never relied solely on their gaze to kill. Each one wore a long chain wrapped around her torso, tipped with a different weapon. Lydya favored a solid bludgeon, Lexya’s weapon of choice was a spiked iron ball, and Ludmilla’s chain ended in a triple-bladed steel pinwheel that spun like a saw blade when the chain was swung overhead.

  With a lack of imagination that didn’t surprise the priestess at all, the gorgons split apart, Lexya taking Svogthir’s left side, Lydya his right, and Ludmilla attacking from the front.

  Svogthir, for his part, stepped forward to meet them and, Savra suspected, give himself some room to maneuver away from her wall. He settled into a surprisingly light-footed wrestling stance and awaited the first strike.

  The first gorgon to lose her cool and lash out with her chain was Lydya, whom Savra had always thought of uncharitably as the dumb one. She was definitely the youngest, whatever her intelligence, and as usual had proven to have the least self-control.

  That was exactly what Svogthir had been waiting for. He out-massed the individual Sisters five to one, and that meant their flashy choice of weaponry was about to come back to haunt them. The god-zombie raised one hand and let the bludgeon strike his palm. The heavy iron ball sunk halfway into his hand when it struck, but the sturdy snake-vines held fast. Svogthir closed his fingers over the ball and into a fist, then yanked the gorgon into the air like a marionette on a string. The chain around her waist cinched tight, and she screeched in agonized surprise.

  The god-zombie twirled her over his head twice, then slammed Lydya headfirst into one of the massive pillars that framed the entrance to the lair. The gorgon’s skull caved in like an eggshell and painted a grisly rosette on the stone in gooey chunks of brain matter and pink gore.

  The remaining Sisters screamed in fury, but each backed up a few steps. Svogthir was not done with the dead gorgon. He spun Lydya’s shattered corpse in a tight circle on the end of the chain, showering the Sisters in blood, then swung the body just as Lydya had swung the ball. The corpse slammed into Lexya and knocked her off her feet. While the stunned gorgon was on her back, Svogthir hurled the iron ball at her with all his considerable strength. The bludgeon caught the gorgon in the chest just as she attempted to sit up, plowed into her rib cage, and came to rest lodged against the inside of her spine. The gorgons’ displaced innards, with nowhere to go, exploded from her torso and spattered in pieces on the ground.

  Two down. Savra hoped she was playing this right. If this went wrong there would be no second chance.

  As the priestess had commanded him, Svogthir paused and made Ludmilla an offer.

  “Gorgon,” the god-zombie said, “You need not die like them. You are now the last of your kind. Will you end not just your life but the very existence of your species?”

  Ludmilla hissed, and the tentacles atop her head waved uncertainly in the air. Rage contorted her angular face as she gazed at the ruined bodies of her kin, cut down in as much time as it took to say their names. The Sisters had been running things for a long time and had long ago begun to believe in the myths of their own invulnerability. The god-zombie had corrected that in seconds.

  “I … yield,” Ludmilla said. She unwrapped the chain from her waist and dropped it in a pile at the top of the steps, then dropped to one knee before the god-zombie and stared at the floor. “Guildmassster.”

  Svogthir laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that began somewhere near his feet and traveled upward through his body like a small earthquake. “Yes,” he said at last, “and you serve the guildmaster, do you not?”

  “I ssserve,” Ludmilla mumbled.

  “What was that?” Svogthir said.

  “I ssserve the guildmassster,” Ludmilla hissed.

  “Replace your mask, face your people, and tell them.”

  The gorgon did as she was told, and Savra called the wall back into the earth to allow the gathering crowd to see the last Sister. Many in that crowd eyed the dead gorgons hungrily. “Golgari,” Ludmilla said, “Teratogensss, I … relinquisssh control of the guild to the guildmassster.”

  That was exactly what Savra was waiting to hear. She opened her eyes and stood, then walked to Svogthir’s side.

  “Guildmaster,” she said, “I t
hank you. Do you remember what I said?”

  “Of course I do,” the god-zombie said. “I think I’m going to enjoy being a figurehead.”

  “Yes,” Savra said and waved her hand. “I think you will too.”

  “What are you—?” Svogthir said, but his objection was cut short by his own two hands. At Savra’s command, the god-zombie placed a palm against either side of his undersized head. With a quick twist, Svogthir’s arms pulled his head off with a sickening pop and handed it to the Devkarin priestess.

  Savra knew she had only seconds before the stunned crowd turned on her, unless she seized the moment. She held Svogthir’s head aloft in one hand and her staff in the other, and turned to the assembled teratogens. Ludmilla hissed in confusion behind her. Svogthir’s body, to the surprise of most, remained standing and actually stomped over to place itself between Savra and the gorgon, just in case.

  “The strongest leads,” Savra said, “for the strongest has power over life and death. You should have spent more time reading in the last thousand years, Guildmaster. Your memory isn’t what it used to be.” Svogthir’s mouth opened lazily and tried to gurgle a reply but got nowhere. Savra raised the wrinkled thing overhead and smiled when she caught a look of true surprise—the first she’d seen on the old guildmaster’s face since she’d found him—on his wrinkled features. She nodded and dashed the head against the stone. An eternity of accumulated power exploded in a green fireball of concentrated necromana.

  The priestess spread her arms wide and calmly spoke words that had cost her considerable time and fortune to acquire from the Orzhov. Alone, the words had power, but when spoken by a true matka of the Devkarin, they could do the impossible. These words were why Svogthir had not been able to destroy her predecessors, but the knowledge was lost before the Guildpact—most likely the god-zombie’s doing.

  The reason the Sisters had never destroyed Svogthir was simply that Svogthir had made himself almost impossible to completely destroy. No matter what happened to his body, the guildmaster had long ago ensured that his head would remain unaffected by any magic but the god-zombie’s own. But the words, the matka’s spell, were the chink in Svogthir’s armor. Instead of protecting and containing the god-zombie’s essence, his necromancy-sustained brain rejected it utterly. What emerged was raw power, and the matka who spoke the words got it all.

  What she hadn’t learned was how much it would hurt.

  All of Svogthir’s millennia of untold power fused with the energy running through her body, and it felt like it was devouring her from the marrow of her bones on out. Her back arched in agony, and she thrashed in the swirling mass of necromana. It soaked into her skin like acid and made her eyes feel as though they would swell and pop like overcooked fruit. A single, long scream, the last trace of Svogthir, savaged her ears. Then, with a flickering light and a lingering air of burned peat, it was over.

  Savra felt … different. Not bad. Different. Strong. Very, very strong. She raised a hand before her face and saw that her skin was aglow with fading green light.

  The crowd was silent.

  “You manipulated usss,” Ludmilla said. “You manipulated him.”

  “I,” Savra said, stooping to pick up what remained of the collapsed skull, “used my head. And his.”

  Savra held the broken thing aloft again. She let her staff rest against her shoulder and hooked one set of fingers through the intact jaw. With the others she peeled leathery skin from fractured bone, and the epidermal layer came off in a solid piece, leaving bare white calcification behind. She tossed the jaw aside, then with exaggerated ceremony set the cracked skull casing atop her staff. A necrocluster immediately sprang to life, and its tentacles soon made Svogthir’s cranium another permanent totem.

  “Isss that sssupposssed to frighten me?” Ludmilla said. “So you finissshed the old fool. I tamed him.”

  “No. This is supposed to frighten you,” Savra said. With a wave of her hand, vines snaked from the walls and ceiling. The questing whips lashed around the corpses of Ludmilla’s sisters, engulfing them in pulsing tentacles that bit into their dead flesh. The gorgons’ corpses twitched and popped as the vines fed Savra’s newfound power into their bodies, then pushed themselves up from the floor. They were more plant than corpse by the time they reached Ludmilla. Another wave from the priestess and her fresh creations halted, what eyes they had left staring lazily at the living creature they had so recently called “Sister.”

  “Would you like to join them?”

  Ludmilla hissed. She took one step backward, and the gorgon zombies each took one step forward.

  “I’ll make this simple, Ludmilla,” Savra said. “I can kill you now, and you will be a strong, obedient slave. Or you can serve your new guildmaster, your new queen, as something you were born to be—a warrior. You could be unstoppable on the field of battle, if you chose to lead my army.”

  “Army?” Ludmilla said.

  “You are going to lead the army for me. If not, you will die now. You can try to kill me first, and maybe you could outrun the speed of my thoughts. I somehow doubt it. And even if you somehow emerged the victor against me—which you would not—how long do you think you would last now that they’ve seen how easy your kind are to kill?” She pointed at the headless giant. “Or, you keep the oath you just made. Declare me guildmaster of the Golgari, and I will see to it that you need not die. Not now, not like they did.”

  “Why do you need thessse forcsssesss?” Ludmilla said, “Why do you need me?”

  “I don’t,” Savra said, “but it would be easier to get them to follow you than Dainya. And there are the obvious benefits of having a gorgon at the head of the charge. As to why I need the army, that’s the best part.” She leaned in dangerously close to the remaining gorgon and whispered a few words. The gorgon nodded in understanding. Perhaps beneath the mask she smiled.

  Ludmilla stepped forward, head bowed. She took Savra’s empty hand in her icy reptilian grip and lifted it in the air like a referee at the gladiator pits declaring a champion. The gorgon didn’t need to say anything. The action made everything perfectly clear. The Golgari had a new guildmaster for the first time in a thousand years, and the Devkarin were in charge at last.

  Everything had gone exactly as Savra’s hidden ally had said it would.

  INCIDENT REPORT: 10/13MZ/430222

  FILED: 18 Griev 9943 Z.C.

  PRIMARY: Cons. Kos, Agrus

  SECONDARY: Lt. Zunich, Myczil

  Kos and Zunich found themselves under attacks, plural. Dozens of tiny, swarming, biting attacks.

  “Oh, I hate these thi—Ow!” Zunich managed.

  The silver “caltrops” sprang to life and skittered on asymmetrical limbs across the crumbling roof and over the wojek’s boots. Kos fought the urge to cry out as those tiny, jagged spikes drove through the tough leather around his ankles and pierced the skin.

  “Keep your feet in contact with the tiles,” Zunich said. “They get to the soles of your feet and you’re crippled.”

  “How do we get them off?”

  “We don’t. They’ll lose interest in a minute. This is a distraction. He’s trying to escape.”

  “No kidding. You sure they won’t crawl up my—?”

  “Sure I’m sure,” Zunich said. “They cling to your boots, and you’re supposed to try to pick them off. That’s how they get to your hands and face, if you’re foolish. I should have recognized them. I’ve seen those things before.”

  “Where?”

  “Golgari bounty hunter. One of the few who has the stones to hunt above street level.” The old ’jek cursed and shook a few of the caltrop bugs free. “He’s got a way with bugs. Something of a traditionalist.”

  Blood ran down to fill the inside of Kos’s boots. “They’re really doing a number on my feet, sir. It’s not easy to move.”

  “Stop calling me ‘sir.’”

  “Sorry, when I’m getting chewed to bits I get nervous. Old habits.”

  “Grin
and bear it, Kos. We’ll administer ’drops. No point in doing it now. Just keep scooting. I see him. He’s moving slowly.”

  “Not as slowly as we are.”

  “Confidence, Constable.”

  With both agonizing caution and more than a little agony, they cleared the crest and scanned the next set of rooftops to try and get some glimpse of their prey. Finally, the lieutenant returned to Kos with the precise steps of a barefoot man trying to keep his footing on a frozen lake.

  “Anything?” the older ’jek asked.

  “No,” Kos said, scanning the rooftops. “I think he probably went to ground. What’s a Devkarin doing outside the Golgari quarter, anyway?”

  “Welcome to wider Ravnica, Constable Kos. People don’t always stay were you put them. Still, that’s a mighty good question, and when we get down—”

  “Get down!” Kos cried and tackled Zunich to the roof. A silver throwing knife appeared to materialize out of a shadow, whipping over Kos’s head and coming to an abrupt stop against stone. Kos struck at the shadow with a fist, and a second knife clattered to the roof tiles and rolled down and off the edge several steps in front of them.

  The shadow Kos had struck shimmered and flashed in the light. The shadow of the hunter loomed.

  “A chameleon hex?” Zunich said to the shadow. “Now that’s just cheap.”

  Kos heard the figure expel a hiss as its disguise faltered and the discharging mana sent what looked like painful shocks through the elf’s nervous system. Kos already wished he had tried something more lethal, but at least he had cracked the exterior of their quarry’s camouflage.

  The bundle the Devkarin had been carrying was missing. He must have stowed it somewhere, but Kos couldn’t spot the bag and keep an eye on the hunter at the same time.

  Zunich was back on his feet, already taking action as their suspect staggered. Chameleon hexes were common as muck, but the inexpensive magic didn’t react well to sudden interference from certain metals, like the silver of a pendrek. The older ’jek brought his baton around in a low sweep, catching the Devkarin behind the knees.