Planar Chaos

by Timothy Sanders

  And he did feel himself moving, following the memory of Jhoira’s call for aid and comfort. Careful not to break the meditative state he had achieved, Karn nonetheless paused to mentally congratulate Teferi. His method was working.

  A much longer gap existed between this memory of Jhoira and the next, so Karn concentrated on the times he had thought of her over the last few centuries. He had come close to calling out to her over the years, even considered searching for her as he and Jeska explored the multiverse. Jhoira never seemed to be available when he was, and vice versa, but that didn’t stop him from imagining her, what she was doing, and her irrepressible vitality. There were viashino scattered all across the planes, and each time Karn saw one he thought of Shiv, then the Ghitu, then Jhoira herself. In an empty, blasted desert plane, Karn had carved a small boulder into a bust of Jhoira’s face, leaving it as a welcoming monument to whomever visited next. The inscription across the base of the stone read, in elegant Old Thran, “Jhoira is my friend.”

  His progress grew swifter and more sure. He considered calling out to Venser but instead redoubled his efforts to root out memories of Jhoira, or things that reminded him of Jhoira between now and Tolaria’s fall.

  A beetle-shaped toolbox that Jeska used to keep her whetting tools organized. He had forgotten if Jhoira had given it to him or if he had conjured it to remind him of her, but every time the beetle clicked across the stone floor, he thought of Jhoira.

  A precocious little girl from Rabiah playing with a clockwork bird. Her hair, skin, and eyes were all light brown. She looked up at the robed, hooded stranger and smiled at him. Karn thought of Jhoira.

  His own reflection in a clear pond of still water. The inscription on his chest, the name she had given him. He thought of Jhoira.

  A small powerstone-processing plant on the metallic planes of Mirrodin. It had been modeled after the Shivan Mana Rig that Urza found and refurbished, a foundry where goblins and viashino worked together under the observation of Tolarian students. For a time the rig was managed by Jhoira.

  An elegant, metal sculpture of a woman and a man embracing. The piece had been fashioned from Thran metal, so carefully crafted that as the amazing substance expanded, the figures in the sculpture aged and grew. They started as children, but when Karn saw it they were both middle-aged. Who first brought Thran metal to Urza, then helped him pioneer its large-scale production? Jhoira.

  He was hurtling through the Blind Eternities now, surging upstream against the tides of time like a spawning fish, slipping past the forces that tried to bear him back.

  He remembered standing on the decks of the great skyship Weatherlight as it soared through the clouds, trading spells and cannonfire with the Phyrexian armada. The ship had been constructed almost a millennium before the Invasion began. Its maiden interplanar journey was to the exalted home of angels. Its first captain had been Jhoira.

  He had now crossed the biggest gap in his personal memories of his friend. There would be more for him to choose from, stronger, more vivid memories, but they would be grim and painful, images and emotions from the Invasion itself. Getting close now, he sent to Venser. Be ready to observe and learn.

  I’m ready.

  The sight of the hole that had once been half of Shiv. The anger and despair he felt when he realized that Teferi had taken her out of the world. Urza had been outraged that they hadn’t stayed to fight, the Weatherlight crew had been amazed by most of a continent’s simply disappearing, but Karn had simply and quietly mourned the loss of Jhoira.

  Tolaria. The hidden island that Urza made, then wrecked, then made again. Karn had been born there and had met Jhoira and Teferi there. He had reached his destination, and though there was nothing of Jhoira that called him to the scene of Barrin’s last stand, Karn’s memories of the place were completely intertwined with thoughts of Jhoira. With the final internal utterance of her name, Karn forced his mind to go blank, and he felt himself come to a sudden stop.

  I’m here, he sent, but the moment the thought left his mind he felt the almost irresistible pull of time upon him. He was no longer a fish swimming upstream. He was an elderly man struggling up a steep hill with forty-pound stones lashed to each limb. He didn’t dare try to move forward to the shores of Tolaria for fear of falling and rolling back the way he’d come. Until he gathered his strength and got his bearings, it was all he could do to hold his ground.

  He strengthened his heavy, silver limbs and added strength to his frame. The pressure eased somewhat, and he was able to stand straight.

  Venser? he sent. I have arrived. I am but a few steps away from Tolaria in the year AR 4205.

  Venser replied, I hear you. My eyes and ears are wide open. Tell me everything you see.

  Karn reentered the material world, his heavy feet splashing through the low tide. Tolaria was aflame, overrun with ugly, iron insects that spat poison and exhaled disease. The academy buildings he remembered so fondly were broken, burning, and spattered with blood.

  I’d rather not, he sent. Wait a moment. I’ll signal when I’m ready.

  Screwing up his courage, Karn stepped onto the shores of his birthplace. He cast a shroud of invisibility around himself, clenched his jaw, and prepared to witness a massacre.

  * * *

  —

  I’ll signal when I’m ready.

  Venser exhaled, relaxing slightly now that this first step was complete. Karn was everything Jhoira said he was. He felt much more confident than he had with Teferi.

  Venser. I think it’s time you and I had a heart-to-heart chat.

  The Weaver King’s voice startled the artificer, but his fear soon gave way to anger.

  “Go away,” Venser said, “or I’ll—”

  Oh, leave it. We’ve been here before, my friend. You can’t harm me, and you can’t leave. Your metal friend told you not to. Why don’t you just decide now—will you listen to me or disappoint the big silver ape?

  Venser stood his ground. “What do you want? Why do you keep following me?”

  I’m a part of you now, the Weaver King gloated. I can’t “follow” you any more than your hair, or your skin, or your left foot. I am you.

  “Liar. If that’s the best you’ve got you must really be desperate.”

  Oh, I am that. I need you, Venser. I need your power. I have problems of my own, and most of them are planeswalkers. There’s very little I can do against a god. But a man like you, with powers similar to theirs—you I can handle. If I had you with me always, I could go where I pleased. And if the planeswalkers came after me and I didn’t feel like playing with them…I could leave.

  “I’m not available,” Venser said. “Get yourself another pet.”

  Pets are all I have. I don’t want another pet. I want a host.

  Venser’s spine tingled at the way the Weaver King pronounced that last word.

  I am going to hollow you out, Venser. I will burn out your mind…no, that’s a bit of hyperbole. Your power resides somewhere in your mind, and I want to preserve that. How about this: I will shred your will and devour your personality. I will turn you into a living meat-robe that I can slip on or doff at my leisure. And you’re going to let me do it.

  Venser ground his teeth. He was not a warrior and had rarely thrown a blow in anger, but he knew how angry warriors talked. Right now he understood how they felt too, and so without irony or shame Venser snarled, “Prove it.”

  If you insist. Dinne, the Weaver King’s voice rose as if calling across the room, kill the Ghitu and the afterthought.

  Venser choked on outrage. He sputtered and tried to say something that would forestall the Weaver King’s order.

  That is, the Weaver continued, unless Venser puts aside his newfound bravado and opens his mind to me. Let me in, little builder. Close your eyes, tilt back your head, and let it happen. Rest now. The Weaver King giggled. Rest and relax. Soon it will all be over.

  * * *

  —

  “Teferi,” Jhoira said, “I’d
like to talk to you.”

  “At last.” The bald wizard was sitting on the floor of Venser’s shack. He dusted his hands on each other and got to his feet. “I was beginning to think you had disowned me.”

  Jhoira waited until he was balanced and steady on his feet, then said, “It’s about Corus.”

  She watched his jovial mask freeze. It cracked, ever so slightly, and he said, “What about Corus?”

  “You killed him. Didn’t you.”

  Teferi turned his head away. “I don’t remember.”

  “I think you do. And until you convince me otherwise, things will never be right between us.”

  He faced her once more, his expression tight, his eyes wide and dry. “Then that is a disappointment we’ll both have to live with.”

  “What happened to you, Teferi?”

  “I thought it was obvious.”

  “I’m not talking about the rift, or your planeswalking, or what you did to Corus.”

  “Or didn’t do to Corus.”

  Sadness rolled up into Jhoira’s throat. “You have fallen so far, my old friend. Urza was delusional. Urza was obsessed. Urza treated entire nations like tools in a box. But even Urza—”

  “I’m not Urza.”

  “No. Because even Urza would blink when confronted by a friend with the truth.”

  “Barrin would disagree. Maybe when Karn returns you can ask him about it.”

  “I will.” Sorrow quickly evolved into anger, and Jhoira felt her face grow hot. “But right now I’m asking you: Do you still want my help if this goes forward? Do you expect me to tag along to Zhalfir and Madara and all the other places that are on our itinerary, to trust you with my life and the lives of our companions when you don’t trust me?”

  Teferi shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He muttered something unintelligible.

  Jhoira strode past him toward the workshop door. Her hand touched the latch, and Teferi said, “Wait.”

  She stopped, stock-still, with her hand on the exit. She did not turn.

  “Corus attacked me,” Teferi said. “But he couldn’t touch me. My thoughts were unclear, but time phasing is as natural to me as blinking. If I were catatonic and you waved a torch in front of my eyes, I would shut them. If an eight-foot tall viashino warrior came at me with a mana star in his raised fist, I think I would phase myself out of harm’s way.”

  Jhoira lowered her hand. “Is that what happened?”

  “I don’t know! I remember him striking at me with the star. I remember it passing through me. I remember him roaring in frustration.”

  Now she did turn. “And?”

  “And he vented his frustration on the star. He took two of its points in each hand and folded it like a stale piece of bread. It cracked.”

  Jhoira knew to let him continue. His eyes were tearing, and his throat was clogged with emotion.

  “I reacted instinctively. I couldn’t let the mana release harm you, or Venser, or me. The first rays of light had just started to spill out from the crack. So I phased him and the star away.” Teferi cleared his throat and wiped his face. “I wasn’t fast enough. He went away for a few seconds, but enough of the star’s power had leaked out to melt the sand where he stood. I thought I had shunted the blast aside, that he would be safe in the phased state. But when he came back he was dead, burned, and broken. I hadn’t moved, not really, so I was still sitting on the ground where you found me. Corus sank into the molten glass before it cooled. By the time you and Venser returned, it had hardened.” Teferi bowed his head. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what I remember.”

  “And it’s horrible,” Jhoira said, “but not unforgivable. Why did you keep this from me, from everyone? Why did you try to swallow it and make it disappear? Did you think I would just forget?”

  “I didn’t think. I didn’t want to. I saved Shiv at the cost of three loyal Shivans whose only crime was to throw in with me.” Teferi lifted his face. “The glass storm went awry. More Shivans died, and even if they had formed an angry mob to dismember us, I thought you hated me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And for all I knew, Corus had already murdered you and Venser.”

  Jhoira opened her mouth, but it was the Weaver King’s voice she heard.

  Dinne, the gibbering harlequin commanded. Kill the Ghitu and the afterthought.

  A thick, round spike bloomed from Teferi’s shoulder. He hissed in pain and staggered back, knocking Venser’s table on its side. Jhoira whirled in place to find a tall, reed-thin man in motley armor glaring at her with white eyes nestled deep within his pointed helmet.

  Dinne’s arm shot out, his fingers tight around Jhoira’s throat. She gagged, and her eyes bulged. She battered his arm with her fists and tried to force a single gulp of air through her compressed windpipe.

  That is, the Weaver King continued, unless Venser puts aside his newfound bravado and opens his mind to me.

  The pressure on her throat stopped increasing but did not ease. Jhoira’s brain began to tingle, and her vision went blurry and red. Her mind raced, her thoughts ticking off her companions. Teferi was injured and bleeding. Karn was a full four hundred years in the past, heading for the epicenter of one of the most destructive spells ever known. Venser was alone against the Weaver King. And this gaunt assassin was choking the life out of her.

  Crazed from pain, she thought, Which of us is going to die first?

  Leading up to the Invasion, Karn had spent almost twenty years as a nonviolent pacifist. He was haunted by an accidental death he had caused, tormented by guilt to the point of near-paralysis. To salvage what he could of himself, he forswore aggression and tried to make amends.

  Twenty years of hell. Twenty years of standing by and letting people hurt him, attack his friends and comrades. Of letting foul goblins swarm over his body and carry him away. Letting half-Phyrexian sadists torture him with his own moral imperative. It took the full-on world war to shake him from his inertia, to remind him that sometimes action is better than nonaction.

  Revisiting Tolaria during the height of the slaughter was infinitely worse. The school had not been Urza’s primary research and testing facility for decades, but Phyrexia singled it out for total destruction just in case. Where there had once been mana-bred soldiers and masterpieces of artifact-killing machines, there were now aged academics and fresh-faced apprentices. They were not soldiers. They were students. And Phyrexia didn’t care.

  It was possible to change the past. He had proven that himself. The consequences were unimaginable, however, and once history had been changed he found he could not escape the feeling that everything that happened from that point forward was his fault. Everything everywhere was affected by the smallest alteration in the way things had been. A single life spared, a single enemy dispatched, could give rise to far greater horrors.

  These rationalizations meant very little on the killing grounds of Tolaria. It had been centuries since Karn had revisited the barbarity of the Invasion in his thoughts, but now he was here in the flesh. The agonized screams he heard were genuine. The blood that spattered the rocks and trees was real blood, fresh from the mangled bodies of teenage children. The buildings he had frequented, the pastoral glens and beaches he had strolled through, everything was covered in a ghastly veneer of blood, soot, and glistening oil.

  The plague spreaders were the worst. They stalked high above the fray on legs as long and sharp as spears, venting blackish purple clouds of contagion. The gummy smoke seethed and rolled as it spread, and those whom it touched died screaming as their bodies dissolved and rotted out from under them. Those who breathed it in died faster but no more mercifully. A single gasp was enough to bring their insides out, liquefied organs and blood vomiting up from their bulging throats, their viscera dyed black by the caustic disease.

  A doglike Phyrexian with elongated legs and a crocodile’s snout stumbled into him. Before Karn could withdraw, the beast bent its flexible spine and snapped its foaming jaws around his forearm. Jagged teeth dug i
nto his silver skin and acid smoke wafted up from the wound.

  Without thinking, Karn brought his huge metal fist over and drove it into the dog-beast’s narrow skull. The metal shell crumpled under the blow, and the brute’s bottom jaw separated and fell to the ground. With its teeth still deep in Karn’s arm, the Phyrexian thrashed and flailed to tear itself free. Karn regained his composure, concentrated, and seared the monster into ashes under a blinding-white light from his eyes.

  Dozens of other Phyrexians turned on this new threat, this new potential victim. They snapped and slavered as they closed in on him. The screams had stopped, and Karn realized he was probably one of the only few non-Invaders left alive. His heavy brow furrowed. Karn did not often get angry, not even after he had renounced his pacifism, but he felt the strange sensation of ice-cold rage boiling up inside.

  There was nothing for it now. They had seen him and attacked him, and he had responded in kind. They recognized him as an enemy, and they would not rest, would not stop until he was dead and in pieces.

  “So be it,” Karn said. He cast off the burden of protecting the history-that-was and prepared to fight.

  * * *

  —

  Hold still, said the Weaver King. I promise it won’t hurt much.

  Venser calmed himself and considered the situation. The Weaver King hadn’t paralyzed him as he had in Skyshroud. Why not? If he wanted Venser still and quiescent, all he had to do was take control of his body and force it to go rigid. What had changed between here and the forest?

  He could flee, he realized. He could go back to Urborg and help Jhoira and Teferi escape from the Weaver King’s shadow cutthroat. Karn had brought him here to observe and to learn, but he observed now that their lives were in danger, and he had already learned that such trials were beyond his ability.

  Your friends aren’t dead yet, the Weaver King said sweetly. But they will be if you leave.

  “They will be if I stay,” Venser said. He felt a cold, sharp length of wire stabbing into his forehead, and the Weaver King’s voice came through it, straight to the center of his brain.