by Jess Lebow
It seemed they had run forever, the landscape changing with each step, before they reached the great clearing in the deepest part of the forest. Here the trees just simply stopped growing. Their roots reached deep into the ground until they touched the circle. This was the Radix, marked from one end to the other with strange runes and symbols.
Glissa had come across it many times. It wasn’t a place she liked to visit. It was here that the elves went for their memory cleansing rituals. The place seemed haunted with the thoughts and minds of generations past, and all those ghosts kind of creeped her out.
Already she could hear the sound of the Kaldra Champion smashing his way into the Tangle. She knew that meant the trolls were gone, and that now only Slobad and she remained.
“What do you think we do now, huh?” asked the goblin.
Glissa pulled her sword from her belt. “We fight.”
The crashing grew louder, and Glissa could see the tops of the trees falling in the canopy.
Closing her eyes, Glissa tried to relax as she drew in mana for a spell. She could feel the magical energies of the Tangle flowing to her easily—as quick and as smooth as they had in the interior of the plane. Then she cast her spell, reaching out to all the trees and metal plants surrounding the Radix.
Green lightnings flashed over the surface of the forest clearing. Jolts of power surged over the ground, arcing between trees and plants, playing over Glissa’s fingertips, and reaching into the sky.
The metal forest came alive, shaping itself into a wall around Mirrodin’s savior. Boughs bent and stretched, weaving together. Bushes sprouted up, filling the gaps between. The thick branches formed a barrier around the circle. The leaves, vines, and thorns pushed their sharpened edges and points to the outside, becoming an imposing wall to any who neared.
Slobad padded over the newly formed hedge and climbed to the top. “I see him,” he shouted. The goblin pointed across the circle. “There.”
Glissa turned. Over the top of her barricade, she could just make out the great helm of the Kaldra Champion.
The magical construct beat his fists against it, shaking the trees and scaring a flock of birds out into the sky. Then the interior of the tangled wall began to glow blue. The vines and branches shrank, separating from each other and falling away.
A pair of glowing blue fists punched through the slowly growing hole. Fingers wrapped around branches, followed by the squealing sound of distressed metal. The Champion tore through the hole. His hands moved at a blinding speed, tearing away the Tangle, throwing bits of the woven barricade into the distance.
With another tremendous roar, the Kaldra Champion stepped through into the center of the Radix.
Glissa backed up reflexively. Glancing around, she realized the folly of creating her magical wall. Instead of keeping the Champion out, it now kept her in.
Raising her hands, she drew mana. The floor of the Radix sparked and crackled with green energies. Glissa’s feet stuck fast to the surface as mana flowed through her and out into a spell. The same trees and brush that had formed the ringing wall now reached out to entangle the Kaldra Champion. Vines wrapped themselves around him. Trees battered him from all sides, and the brush clawed the magical construct to the ground.
The creature struggled, able to tear away large bits of the forest by the handful, but it wasn’t enough. The mana continued to flow through the elf, and the Tangle rallied to her call. The Kaldra Champion was pulled to the ground and covered completely with writhing metallic brush.
Glissa shut down the flow of power, and the forest stopped moving. Every pore in her body tingled. Her head buzzed, and the sound reminded her of the humming mana core.
Before her, where the Kaldra Champion had been, a huge mound now obscured him from view. Glissa walked over to examine it. The vines were wrapped tight. The trees were firm. The brush would not let go of its captive. Nothing moved.
Looking back over her shoulder, she saw Slobad standing on top of a tree. The wall was no more, having been disassembled by Glissa’s spell. The goblin clung to a stout branch, trying not to fall off.
“I think you can climb down now.” She looked back over her shoulder, checking once again that the Champion was buried by the foliage. “He’s not going anywhere.”
A terrible tearing sound erupted. The ground shook, and Glissa lost her balance. Dropping to her knees she steadied herself. Slobad was yelling something, but she couldn’t hear it over the ripping of vines and bashing sounds of metal being pounded.
Behind her, the Kaldra Champion tore himself free of his jungle cage.
Glissa prepared to cast another spell, but she was immediately lifted from the ground. The Champion had her in his crushing grasp. Her arms were pinned to her sides, and her legs were held tight. She felt several bones in her chest give way with a pop, and a blinding pain shot through her whole body.
Then they were moving, heading into the jungle. Glissa couldn’t hardly breath, only able to take short, quick breaths without causing herself tremendous pain. Her vision began to dim, and she struggled against her captor with what strength remained. He was just too huge, too powerful, and nothing she did could make him budge.
She looked up at the avatar, his face calm, void of any triumph or emotion. He would simply carry her back to Memnarch, following the orders of his current master until he was given another. He had no concerns about the fate of Mirrodin. He couldn’t be swayed by sympathy or rhetoric. He knew only brute force and blind loyalty, and he would do whatever it took to return her to his current master. It was over. The fight had been lost.
A green flash came from nowhere, landing on the Champion’s shoulder.
Slobad!
The goblin had leaped from his treetop perch. Flopping to his belly, crowbar in hand the brave little green man began prying the Sword of Kaldra from the Champion.
Glissa’s hope swelled. If Slobad could unsummon the Champion …
The goblin attracted the Champion’s attention. The magical being swatted at Slobad. The goblin ducked, but the Champion swung again, and he was forced to scamper back, his work unfinished.
Turning his head to look down on the pest, the Champion flung a single finger at the meddling goblin, flicking Slobad off his shoulder like an elf shooing a housefly.
Glissa watched in horror as her friend flew backward into the dense Tangle. Branches broke, brush rustled, and the sound of the goblin’s body falling was followed by a small thud.
Glissa felt empty inside. She had seen so many of her friends die, why did she want to live anymore? What was left here on Mirrodin for her except pain and more death?
But then that emptiness began to fill up. Her skin tingled, and her insides burned. She glared at the Kaldra Champion with a new hatred that overtopped anything she had ever felt. This creature, this construct that she had work so hard to revive had repaid her for her gift of life by killing her two best friends—killing the only two trustworthy creatures Glissa had met on this godless ball of metal.
A wave of warm, embracing rage flooded up her spine, erasing the pain in her ribs and filling her with a new strength. She wanted to torture the Kaldra Champion, make it feel the same betrayal that she had felt, make it suffer as she had, make it pay for the deaths of Bosh and Slobad.
The Radix lit up with green fire. The inscribed runes and symbols glowed with a preternatural light, and jags of power leaped from the ground to the trees and up against the Kaldra Champion.
In that moment, Glissa felt the mana of the Tangle flow to her without her willing it. The power of the forest, the entire forest, was at her command, and she funneled it into her rage, shaping it with her anguish, focusing it with her pain into the Kaldra Champion.
Suddenly, the Radix exploded. A ball of green mana, as large as the moons of Mirrodin, burst through the ground. In a blink the plate was evaporated, and the trees for miles in each direction fell to the ground, laid low by the force of the blast.
The green lacuna ha
d come. The new green moon shot from the ground and smashed into the Kaldra Champion. The shield, sword, and helm were all consumed in a flash of green energy. His magical fists and head dropped away, and with them Glissa too dropped to the ground into the tangled burning wreckage.
Glissa awoke jammed between two downed, partially melted trees. Her head hurt. Her ribs hurt. Even her teeth hurt.
How long she’d been out, she did not know.
She sat up and looked around. Where the Radix had been, there was now a huge hole, much like the other lacunae. All around, the Tangle had been melted or bent. The trees lay in straight rows like neatly combed hair, and everything was burnished or molten.
Nothing moved.
Glissa laid her head back and closed her eyes. She thought of Slobad. She tried to imagine what the last few moments of his life had been like, falling through the trees … She had to stop herself. It was too painful.
Something poked her in the head. “Crazy elf going to lie there all day, huh?”
Glissa’s eye’s popped open. “Slobad?”
The goblin’s face was covered in soot. He smiled, his dingy yellow teeth showing brightly through his blackened visage.
She grabbed him by the elbow, unable to get up for an embrace. “I thought you were dead.”
Slobad shook his head. “Naw.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Slobad just bounced, huh?”
* * * * *
Memnarch stood on top of the ruined wall of his laboratory. His skin was scorched, the wound on his leg was cauterized and sterile, and two of his eyes had been ruptured. He limped as he walked, barely able to keep himself up.
Panopticon had toppled to the ground, blown to bits by the green lacuna. Its insides were burnt and ruined. The windows in the observation level had all been blown out, their glass vaporized by the tremendous blast.
He looked up at the new hole in the floor of the interior. The green lacuna had finally come to pass. The world would be out of balance for some time to come.
In the wreckage of his tower fortress, Memnarch found Malil, lying on his side, still inside the darksteel Eye. The impervious metal frame of the scrying device had saved them both from being vaporized in the blast.
The Guardian of Mirrodin bent down and touched the metal man’s chest.
Malil’s eyes shot open.
Memnarch smiled. “Come, Malil,” he said. “We have much work to do, much work to do indeed.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jess Lebow has lived in Washington State all his life and can prove—with the help of anecdotal evidence—that he is indeed a fourth-generation Seattleite. On a good day, you might find him running near the waterfront, scuba diving in the Sound, or looking for the best happy hour within a four-block radius of his tiny apartment. He considers himself somewhat of an expert on the subject of fine tequilas, and his friends generally humor him in this area. He supposes that’s why they’re still considered friends. The Darksteel Eye is his third novel.
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