by Jeff Grubb
Urza nodded. “The universe changes. Yotia falls. My brother leads the Fallaji. In Argive the crown has lost almost all of its power, for it let Yotia worry about the desert tribes, and now Yotia is gone. The nobles hold most of the power in Penregon, and they are very, very concerned about the Fallaji crossing the ridges and attacking.”
“Are you?” asked Tawnos. “Worried, that is.”
Urza opened his arms to include the room. “This is the result of that worry, Tawnos!” he said. “I can duplicate this tower in five days, given sufficient materials. I am working on a way to have the Yotian soldiers themselves build it. Imagine a line of these forts, manned by unsleeping soldiers, protecting Argive and Korlis from the Fallaji. Protecting them from my brother.”
Tawnos nodded. “I was surprised not to see any ornithopters.”
Urza shook his head. “They’re needed to the north, patrolling the passes. Besides, sending an ornithopter aloft is sending a flare for the enemy, showing him where you are. That’s another lesson learned at great price.” Urza stood there for a moment, grinding his palms. “Did I tell you we have another school, in Penregon this time? Rendall is there, and his brother Sanwell. He survived, along with a handful of others. The school is being overseen by an old friend, Richlau. Did I ever mention Richlau before?”
“Urza,” said Tawnos softly.
“I don’t think I did,” continued Urza. “Anyway, there is a whole raft of young nobles—well, not young anymore, but individuals who once worked with Tocasia and who know about artifacts, who value them and are willing to help me in my research.”
“Urza,” said Tawnos again.
“More than just power stones. I mean manpower, training, and resources. Argive is a rich country.”
“Urza!” said Tawnos a third time, sharply.
“What is it?” asked Urza testily.
“Kayla is here,” said Tawnos.
“I know,” the artificer said, and there was a long pause. Then he said, “I know” again, and there was a longer pause.
“You should go down to meet her,” said Tawnos. “And your son.”
“Is he really…?” started Urza, hotly, but letting the question die. “He has your hair,” said Tawnos.
“He has my father’s hair,” said Urza, and turned to look out the window again. “I wish you hadn’t brought them,” he said after a time.
“By all the gods of Yotia!” shouted Tawnos, and Urza jumped at the sound of the younger man’s voice. “We have been running and hiding for three years now. I delivered your son, yes, your son, in the middle of a thunderstorm. I bring them all the way here, and you don’t want to see them? Do you still hate her so much?”
Urza turned pale, and Tawnos was afraid the older man was going to flinch, to flee, to pull back further within himself. “No,” he said at last. “It’s not that. Not entirely. It’s just that I failed. I failed to see what was coming. I failed to anticipate my brother’s plans. I failed her, and I failed her nation.”
“And I failed,” said Tawnos grimly. “And she failed. We’ve had to live with that failure every step of the way from Kroog. Is that what it is, Urza? Are you ashamed that you’re just as fallible as the rest of us?”
A long silence between them for a moment. Then Urza sighed and said, “I’m a storm crow, Tawnos. A bird of ill omen. Disaster follows in my wake, and I don’t want to hurt her anymore. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. Only a fool would be at my side.”
“Then call me a fool, for one,” said Tawnos. “I would like to go back to being your apprentice. Kayla would like to go back to being your wife.”
Urza turned away again, and Tawnos saw him raise his hand to his face, perhaps to wipe away a tear. Yet when Urza turned back, his face was patient and calm, and his eyes were clear. The artificer smiled. “I have no need of an apprentice. And your skills with those statues prove that you are a master artificer in your own right.”
“Well, if you don’t need an apprentice, you need someone who will get behind you and give a good thwack from time to time,” said Tawnos. “That’s a job I can do as well.”
“And do well,” said Urza. “I need a friend, and you’ve been one to me. And to the queen. You have not failed either of us.”
“You’re wrong,” said Tawnos, “but we can talk about that some other time.”
“Indeed, we can,” said Urza, then nodded his head. “Let’s go down and see my wife. And my son.”
Slowly they descended the stairs from the tower. Tawnos wondered if sound carried as well in the tower as it did in the old palace of Kroog. Urza stopped once to point out some feature of the tower to Tawnos, then shook his head and pressed on. He realized, Tawnos thought, that he was delaying the inevitable.
They reached the waiting room. Tawnos waited at the door. Sharaman set down the tray of sugar wafers and retreated to the hallway as well. Neither man left, but neither remained in the room.
Kayla rose, and Urza walked over to her. They embraced, but it was a polite embrace, each resting hands on the other’s elbows. Still, they did not part, and Tawnos could see tears welling in Kayla’s eyes.
“It is good—” rasped Urza, his throat tight. He cleared his throat and said, “It is good to see you again.”
Kayla’s mouth moved, but Tawnos did not hear the words.
“Hey!” said Harbin, at their feet. He pulled on Urza’s smock and the artificer looked down at the lad.
Harbin looked at Urza, and with all the power that a two and a half year old can muster, said, “Unca Tawnos says you’re my daddy. Are you?”
Urza looked at Kayla, then down at the small child. He knelt and took the lad’s small hand in his own.
“I suppose I am,” he said. “And I’m very pleased to meet you after all these years.”
Gix the demon received the report from one of his monks, but no words were spoken. Instead the monk knelt beside the demon’s makeshift throne, and the demon’s elongated finger clasped the top of the monk’s skull. The monk let out a low moan as the talons dug slightly into the skin and demon’s claws connected with the nerves beneath the flesh.
It was a heady moment for Gix, slightly intoxicating. These fleshy creatures were filled with sensation. Even the monks, whom Gix had learned possessed an existence that was removed from the experiences of others of their race, were a cornucopia of emotions, a pit of conflicting desires, a rich, breeding tidal pool of feelings. The electric thrill of touching those feelings, even vicariously, rushed through him like a shot.
The demon would be loath to admit it, but he found the experience unlike any at home in Phyrexia. Delicious. That was the word for it. The touch of the monk’s nerves was delicious.
The emotions subsided—fear, anger, passion, concern, bliss—and Gix began to scan the monk’s mind. The monks prided themselves on their machinelike organization, but Gix found their minds a tangle of clutter, a jungle of conflicting thoughts more impenetrable than his homeland’s jungles. Slowly Gix extended his own consciousness, taming the wilderness and pulling the answers he needed from the living skull of his worshiper.
There had been those who had protested against his tender probings; they were buried in the sands outside, buried next to the weak, who collapsed in on themselves at the first gentle mental touch. Only the strong and the willing remained in the demon’s service, which was as he thought it should be.
He had learned much of the world through the monks, much about a world so different from his own, as organized as a goblin parade and as structured as an overturned anthill. Even those words were looted from the monks’ minds, for the pure chaos of the world did not connect in any way with his old life beneath the oily skies of Phyrexia.
This was a world filled with rogue units without coherent masters of any type. Perhaps this world had had masters once, but they died or went away, leaving brawling children in their place. There was an old, dead race called the Thran. Perhaps they had been the masters. But they were gone and left
their toys behind—simple, uneducated machines without a glint of true sentience, and now some of these squalling children had unearthed those toys and were playing dangerous games.
One of the children had found the way into Phyrexia and stolen toys from his betters. He’d stolen from those who would come looking for his devices. He’d stolen from Gix.
The child was called Mishra, the monk’s mind said. He was the master of the Fallaji, a crude and brutal people who lived in the dry regions. But to say he was their master was giving him too much credit, for all he was doing was riding a wave of their bestial organic nature. The tribesmen he led would slam against other bands of creatures like a random marble in a maze. This Mishra provided no more true guidance than an ornamental spur on a diabolic machine.
There was another, Mishra’s subordinate, but the red-haired one did not shine in Gix’s mind as did Mishra. He was the thief. Mishra was the one whose mind had brushed his all those years ago. Mishra came to him in dreams. (Had he dreamed before he encountered Mishra? Gix wondered. He had no memory of doing so.) Mishra invaded Phyrexia and took the dragon engines, the mak fawa, the creatures of the first sphere.
Mishra must be punished.
But Mishra was not alone, for there had been another in that initial mind touch, years ago, a shadowy figure alongside Mishra. At first he thought it was another subordinate, similar to the Ashnod-subordinate. But Gix soon realized that this other was instead a similar unit, issuing from the same basic components and manufacture. A brother, the monk’s mind said, though the word carried different flavors and sensations than when referring to other priests.
The brother, Urza: another master of another crude, brutal people. There seemed no end to such barbarians, the children of unknown, abandoned masters. Once Gix sensed Urza’s existence he could see him clearly—cut from the same cloth as his brother, no more and no less than Mishra was. Their minds seemed ordered, or at least more ordered than most he had encountered.
Each brother carried a legacy of the old ones, of the Thran. It was a stone split in two, each half containing the summation of the earlier stone yet altered to fit the organic unit they had bonded with. Gix could feel the crystalline longing of these halves, of the attraction they held for each other, and of their repulsion.
The stones stood like beacons to Gix, and even without the monk’s surrogate senses the demon could feel their power. The beacons had moved little in the past few years. One lay to the west, across a patch of uneven mountains. The other was in the south, among another barrier of titanically broken ground. They called to him. They pleaded with him to take them back to Phyrexia, back to where they would be truly used.
When he had first come into this fleshy world, Gix thought he would merely slay the thief and return with the recovered dragon engines. He could feel their calls as well, though one became weak and flickered out of existence a few years previously. He mourned for that one and almost sought vengeance.
But now there was more to his mission. He could touch the dreams of the thief when he was in Phyrexia, but in this world he could touch neither Mishra’s dreams nor Urza’s. Now they seemed proof against his blandishments. Was this part of the power of their stones or of the world itself? The stones seemed important. Should he recover them as well? And were these two organic children a danger to Phyrexia? If they had broken through the barriers, would not others?
Faced with questions, Gix was logical and precise. He sent his monks out to gather information. Once the information was garnered, he sucked it deliciously from their minds and formulated a plan.
Gix willed his orders into the mind of the monk. There was another low moan as old information was pushed out of the monk’s mind and organic circuitry rewired to comprehend the new orders. Gix had learned, through fatal trial and error, which parts of his worshipers’ minds they needed for basic functions, and he left those untouched.
Gix lifted his hand, and his talons slid loose from the flesh and nerves of his servant. The monk pitched forward, into the waiting arms of his brothers (brothers to a lesser extent than Mishra and Urza). The monk would be tended and cared for, and when his mind healed he would pass on the message of the god.
They were to gather their brethren and go to this Urza and to this Mishra. They would become part of their brutal and crude organizational units, part of their tribal courts. They were to watch, and they were to report. And when the time was right, they were to call Gix from his throne in the caverns of Koilos, and he would punish the brothers for their crimes against the machines. For their crimes against Phyrexia.
And he would take the stones from them, thought Gix, flexing his fingers before him. Droplets of the monk’s blood spattered against the demon’s chest, hissing and bubbling as they struck.
Yes, thought the demon. The stones were his by right of conquest. He would take them back to Phyrexia.
Ashnod’s reports to Mishra over the following months were regular, if not fully detailed. A few words on progress to date. A revised schedule of deadlines. A list of new supplies needed: sand for a particular type for glass; metal from a particular forge; fabric of a particular weave. And slaves—always more slaves.
The last were plentiful, but the remaining resources were beginning to wear thin. Most of Yotia had been plundered, and entire villages were now being impressed to work the mines that had not yet been stripped clean. The caravans from Tomakul and Zegon were less frequent than they should have been, and the quality of their tribute had fallen off. A number of representatives of those cities were dispatched to Ashnod as an example to the others. The Korlisians, still hiding behind a gauzy mask of neutrality, were increasingly troublesome. Mishra was convinced their caravans were havens for Argivian spies who reported everything back to his hated brother.
Mishra found that Ashnod’s experiments served to increase loyalty and discipline among his own troops. It was soon reported that thieves and deserters were sent to Ashnod’s camp and never returned.
Finally, after many months, Ashnod appeared before Mishra with a working prototype. It listed heavily to the left. It drooled. It shuffled on two feet. It had oversized pins through its wrists, ankles, elbows, and knees, and metal plates strengthening its neck. It was hairless. It lacked teeth and had dark smudges where there once had been eyes. Its skin resembled bluish, cracked plaster, and it looked as if it had been cooked in wax. It could not speak, but made soft, mewling noises. It stank.
When Ashnod gave it the command, it disarmed and almost killed three of Mishra’s elite guard and ignored the pain as a fourth guard finally pinned it to the floor with his spear. It tried to fight its way up the impaling pole to claw at its attacker before its organs failed and it died at last.
Mishra was pleased and gave Ashnod permission and resources to build an army of her “transmogrants,” of these things that were once living beings but now were little more than organic automatons, controlled by Ashnod’s word.
If Ashnod noticed the fearful and disgusted faces of the Fallaji as her prototype was hauled from the room feetfirst, she said nothing. Nor did she notice the dark-robed northern priests among the assemblage, who whispered to each other in excited tones.
* * *
—
Despite the relative success of the first prototype, it took nearly a year for Ashnod to refine the process and guarantee a success rate of more than fifty percent. She spent another year organizing the transmogrified beings into something more than a shambling horde.
The red-haired woman’s methods were simple and ruthless. She bleached out the minds and wills of her captives as she pickled their skins, making them tough, resilient, and mostly mindless. The rudiments of intelligence remained—enough to follow simple orders. But any trace of personality was gone. It was good that the process warped the body as well as the soul, Ashnod reflected. It would do little good for a Fallaji warrior to recognize a criminal cousin among her ranks.
Finally the unit was ready for Mishra’s use. The tim
ing was excellent. The Korlisians were traitors, the new qadir had decided, and needed to be made into an example before they grew more powerful. Argive was protecting the northern passes, but if the qadir’s armies broke through in the south, near Korlinda itself, the Fallaji would have a foothold on the far side of the mountain chain.
Mishra sent Ashnod a message to ready her warriors for battle. The artificer replied that she wished to lead the attack herself. In his workshop, the other captains complained to the qadir. How could a woman lead? they asked. What real man would follow a woman? Particularly a woman with ill-omened hair?
Mishra thought about their complaints and sent another query to Ashnod, detailing his desire for her to contribute to the attack, though he made no mention of leading it. Ashnod took note of the exclusion and returned a second letter, the heart of which was that unless she controlled the entire army, she could not guarantee the performance of her forces.
There was a lull in communications, until Mishra issued a formal declaration making Ashnod a brevet general for the duration of the campaign into Korlis and commanding the other war captains to defer to her.
Mishra himself decamped from his workshop for the Suwwardi Marches, where the army was gathering, to review the troops and confer with the war captains one last time. Several, including old Jarin of the Ghestos clan, expressed one last time their concern about Ashnod’s leadership.
“She is a woman,” Jarin repeated at his final meeting with the qadir. Ashnod was not present, for she was readying her transmogrants for the long march. “An uncaring woman at that,” the old man added.
“She is my assistant,” said Mishra. “I trust her in all things.”
“Do you trust your war captains less, Most Wise of the Wise?” asked Jarin.
“I trust all to do their duty toward the Fallaji people,” replied Mishra.
“She is not Fallaji!” shouted Jarin, and several of the other war captains whispered to each other heatedly. “She traffics in the unspeakable! Her abominations frighten the horses and disturb the men. She uses outlander wizardry!”
