A fist-sized fungus rose up directly beside her face on a six-inch tower of vines. The fungus rippled as the vines below wove themselves together, making a thicker and stronger column. The appendage began to sweep around the area, probing for Radha like a long switch with a meaty bulb on its end.
Utterly fixed on the approaching fight, Radha caught the bulbous end of the saproling stalk and crushed it, splattering yellow goo across the forest floor. She wiped the effluent slime on the still-swaying column of vines, her hand stripping away the small, sharp leaves as it went.
The ragged green stump continued to flail. Radha’s hand stole down to her hip. There was a flash of metal and a sharp, whispering sound. The length of vine collapsed, shorn off cleanly at the base. It continued to wriggle and unravel as the thin tendrils crawled back into the main thicket to be reabsorbed.
Radha pushed aside another stray vine with her empty hand. She watched the battle begin, elves, the strangers, and the raiding berserkers all coming together like storm clouds. She could feel the gathering carnage’s rhythm, knowing its entire shape, its ebb and flow even as the first blows landed. She was eager to see what the newcomers could do, especially the two big scaly ones. She was eager to see if her battlefield predictions were as accurate as ever.
She was also eager to see the Skyshroud elves defeated—not killed necessarily, but routed. Once Llanach and his dried-up rangers had fallen, the protector of Skyshroud would be forced to turn Radha loose, and this time she would not stop until she had pursued the false Keldons all the way back to their camp. There, she would challenge their leader to single combat, during which she would break off all his arms and his legs and slit him open from groin to gullet before pulling off his head and using it as a commode.
This time, Radha told herself, she would succeed. Not even Freyalise herself would stop her. She smiled again, remembering the feel of the branch as it cracked in her fist.
The raiders and the elves finally met out in the open valley and their swords rang like bells in the frigid air. Away from the battle, the strangers stood ready but did not join in. The little ones, the dark ones in red, had their weapons drawn, and as Radha watched the ends of those weapons burst into bright yellow flame.
Radha’s dark eyes widened, glittering in the flames. She stared transfixed, her mouth stretching into a large, hungry grin. She licked her lips. Perhaps she would have to join this battle sooner than she thought.
Teferi’s scream lost all its force as soon as he found himself alone and upright in a quiet glade.
It had all happened so fast. Freyalise had appeared and the world had gone away, but the heat and shock from the rift had flared and died like a match struck in a high wind. He had been blind, deaf, and helpless in the skies above Skyshroud, but now he was just as suddenly restored and standing in the heart of the forest.
He sensed a profoundly strong magical aura close by and turned. After a moment Freyalise stepped out from behind a thick tree, glaring at Teferi as she strode into the glade, coming directly at him.
Like Teferi, Freyalise chose to appear in the body of the mortal she had been. She had always been connected to and worshipped by elves, though Freyalise herself was not precisely like any of the elves that lived on Dominaria. Lean and compact, she stood no more than five and a half feet tall. Her skin was fair and her stiff blonde hair hovered around her head like a cloud, spiked up straight and swept back from her face. Only one piercing hazel eye was visible; the other was hidden beneath a gogglelike accessory strapped across her face like a pirate’s patch.
Freyalise wore an elegant sleeveless dress that stretched from just below her collarbone to just above her knee. The garment had been woven from two or three wide strips of leathery material that alternated green and white. She also wore a long ranger’s cloak that flared out behind her as she moved, pinned to her shoulder by a fanglike splinter of bone. Her arms were encased in a pair of green gloves that covered her from the tips of her fingers up past her elbows.
Everything about the protector of Skyshroud’s appearance was piercing, almost threatening, and with good reason. Over the centuries Freyalise had nurtured an especially violent form of isolationism in all of the elf tribes that worshipped her. They would sooner kill an innocent who accidentally ventured into their woods than risk the potential damage an uninvited human could cause. Humans carried axes, built cooking fires, and left the ground strewn with poisons. Humans cleared large sections of timber to clear space and build cages for their livestock, and then they used whatever wood was left to fence themselves in.
Teferi had sat with at least a half-dozen forest avatars, marosorcerers, and nature spirits during his lifetime, so he had reliable witnesses to some of the heinous deeds Freyalise’s children performed in her name. These were terrible stories of elf warriors maiming farmers who cleared trees and brush to plant crops, hunting poachers for sport and making trophies of their heads, and burning alive families who cut down live trees for wood. The goddess’s edict was that humans were inferior to elves, inferior even to trees. When humans transgressed against the forest, human blood would flow until the scales were balanced.
Apart from this anecdotal evidence and what he’d read in the archives, Teferi knew very little about Freyalise. With all his resources, not even he could say where she originally came from, how she became a planeswalker, or how long she had been one. If Freyalise had spoken truly and Teferi had been gone for three centuries, then she herself had been actively traveling the multiverse for at least four thousand years.
Teferi smiled pleasantly as the daunting woman came near. Freyalise would be a true challenge. She was ancient, vastly powerful, a seasoned combatant, and fiendishly smart. She was well-versed in both forest and mountain magic. She was experienced at casting massive, world-altering spells. She was phenomenally self-assured and monumentally stubborn. Most important of all at this juncture, Freyalise hated Teferi and all he stood for and stood openly opposed to his goals.
Teferi’s smile was perfect and he kept it that way. Freyalise’s discouraging aspects did not outweigh or cancel out his need to speak with her. She had done what Teferi now needed to do. She had also lived here, on the site of that event and this new perplexing rift phenomenon for three hundred years. Formidable as she was, dangerous as she was, Freyalise had information and experience Teferi needed. He might never force it out of her, but that didn’t mean he would never get it.
“Before we fight,” he said brightly. “Can you at least tell me what just happened?”
Freyalise kept walking until she was within a handsbreadth of Teferi. She stopped and folded her arms as her cloak caught up. After it had re-draped itself across her shoulders, Freyalise tilted her head back and said, “For the last time, none of this concerns you.”
“But it does, and it will concern everyone everywhere if I don’t act now.”
Freyalise’s face colored, flushing an angry pink. “What would you know about ‘everyone everywhere’? You haven’t been here. Nothing you know is still valid.” Her face continued to change color, beyond the first flush of rising passion and on toward the brilliant scarlet of a salamander’s belly.
Calmly, Teferi noted Freyalise was unaware of her change in appearance as he sank to one knee. “Please,” he said. “That is why I’m here. I don’t know enough, but you can educate me, Freyalise. Tell me what happened so I can prepare for what is coming.”
Eyes averted, Teferi heard the elves’ goddess hiss derisively. “Get up, you sycophantic fool.”
Teferi craned his head. “I don’t want to fight, Freyalise. I have work to do, people to protect, as do you.”
Freyalise color slowly returned to normal. She gestured impatiently. “You already know anything I could tell you,” she said. “With your resources, you probably know more.”
Teferi rose to his feet. “The rift,” he said. He pointed up over their heads, to the sky above the forest canopy. “When was that formed?”
Frey
alise turned away. She clenched and unclenched her gloved hands. “This one,” she said, “existed from the moment I brought Skyshroud here. I thought it was a wound that would heal over time. I thought it was a natural stress fracture in the fabric of the multiverse, the kind you and I see all the time.” She paused to glance darkly at Teferi.
“It seems we have something in common after all, Freyalise,” Teferi said gently. “We have both cracked a part of the world we were trying to help.”
“The rift has always been a problem for planeswalkers,” Freyalise said sharply, her tone a stinging rebuke of Teferi. “I felt it fighting me, resisting Skyshroud as I guided the forest here. It has been the forest’s shadow since the very beginning, and it has always made planeswalking unpredictable and dangerous. The closer to it you are when you ’walk, the more dramatic the results.” Freyalise paused, considering.
“Did it always draw mana to it?”
The goddess glared. “Not always.” She clenched her jaw. “Not until Karona came.”
“I see. When was that?”
“A century after you left, maybe more. Time has always been hard to quantify when you Tolarians are involved.”
Teferi shrugged. “Perhaps. Who is Karona?”
She gaped at him in naked contempt. “How can you pretend not to know?”
“Because I don’t.”
“She spoke to you. Her followers in Otaria never stopped telling the story of Karona summoning to her the world’s mightiest magical beings then dismissing them as if she were interviewing footmen. You were reputedly among the dismissed.”
“I’ve never heard of her, never met her, and never spoken to her. If she says she met me, it was in a dream she had.”
Freyalise searched Teferi’s face for any sign of deceit. She clenched her jaw once more for a moment and then said, “Karona was the embodiment of magic, all magic throughout the world.” The planeswalker spoke in bored, practiced tones, an impatient master lecturing an inattentive student. “She didn’t last long, but while she lived, there was no mana for anyone else. She commanded it all, controlled it all. After she died, it all came flooding back.” Freyalise shrugged. “But it no longer flowed as it had before she came. Things changed after she died. They began to … deteriorate.”
The bristle-haired planeswalker’s voice grew sharp once more. “It’s hard to imagine how you missed Karona’s War and the impact of it.” Freyalise gestured to the blasted, stunted trees around them. “What did occupy your attentions during the last three centuries?”
“Something went wrong,” Teferi admitted. Though he was only starting to understand exactly what, he did not choose to burden Freyalise with his theories. “Suffice to say I lost track of time.”
“A tragically common failing among scholars from Tolaria.”
The hate in Freyalise’s tone chilled Teferi’s blood once more. Somewhat shaken, he said, “Why do you keep throwing that at me, Freyalise? Even the captain of your rangers did it on your behalf.”
Freyalise smiled coldly. “Those barbarians who attacked you,” she said. “You noticed something different about them.”
“I did. They are Keldons from another time.”
“Not Keldons,” Freyalise interrupted. “Gathans. They named themselves after the intrepid Tolarian scholar who made them. Gatha was his name, and he used Tolarian Academy magic, Tolarian Academy artifacts, and Tolarian Academy secrets to make the most dangerous and bloodthirsty warriors in the world more dangerous and more bloodthirsty. And he did it on purpose, with the full support of Urza and the rest of you Tolarian manipulators.” She mock-bowed, lowering her eyes. “In the grand tradition of all Tolarian success stories, Gatha succeeded, succeeded beyond his wildest dreams and his test subject’s darkest nightmares.”
Teferi waited for Freyalise to finish. “So,” he said, “the brutes who came through that rift on the beach are not Keldons.”
Freyalise shook her head. “True Keldons wiped out the Gathans even before you starting playing the fool in Zhalfir.”
Teferi grimaced. “And now they’re back.”
“Gatha’s work did not die easily. The bloodlines he infected took generations to weed out. It took Keld half a millennium to cull the Tolarian interference from their bloodlines.”
“What of the true Keldons? Where did they go when the Gathans returned?”
Freyalise shrugged. “We had an arrangement. The Council spoke for Keld and I spoke for Skyshroud. We left each other alone for more than a century. I suspect most of the nation had already ventured out into the world to raid and plunder when the first Gathans appeared, so there weren’t enough warlords or warriors at home to stand against them. The Gathans were mighty and numerous, and their warlords did strange things with the mana here. I believe Keld could not support both the Gathans and its own children at once, that its mana was a prize to be claimed only by the strongest.
“The Gathans were stronger. They changed the way Keldon magic worked, turning it to their purposes.” She shrugged. “They did to Keld what Keld has done to a hundred other nations: overwhelmed it and took control of its most valuable resources. I didn’t truly realize how profound the effects of this change were until the Gathans had already established total dominance.”
Teferi spoke softly. “Even then you saw no reason to interfere.”
“No,” Freyalise said bitterly. “At the time, I did not.”
“With all the changes around here, I can understand how you’d overlook something like that. At least until the Gathans came looking for Skyshroud firewood.”
The forest’s patron simply glared, not deigning to reply.
“When was that, by the way? When did the Gathans first come?”
“Fifty years ago, more or less.”
Teferi paced back and forth, puzzling. He looked up at the massive rift over Skyshroud then back at Freyalise. “Too many pieces,” he said.
“What?”
“This puzzle has too many pieces. I came to see precisely how you moved Skyshroud in without causing long-term damage, but it seems that you didn’t, not completely. Then this Karona threw everything out of balance all over again anyway, which I didn’t even know about, despite the fact that everyone seems to think I was there. There’s the large rift and the smaller rifts, the Gathans and you, and there’s Skyshroud itself, plus a thousand other details that seem vital but don’t add up.” He shook his head, exasperated. “I need time to put all this together for Shiv, but it won’t go together. The pieces just won’t fit.”
The mechanism covering Freyalise’s eye flashed and she turned her face west. “I will return to my rangers now. You may accompany me if you wish, but I want us to be absolutely clear: you are not welcome here. Once the Gathans are dealt with, you and your attendants will leave Keld at once.”
“Agreed,” Teferi said. “Although I hope you and I will speak again soon. If what I’ve seen is accurate, even this won’t be a safe place for your elves much longer.”
“Then I will take them somewhere else,” Freyalise said. She extended her gloved hand. “Take hold,” she said. “Planeswalking this close to the rift requires experience.”
Teferi nodded, amused. “Unless you’re trying to knock a fellow planeswalker completely off his guard.”
Freyalise did not smile. “Come.” She took Teferi’s hand. “It takes practice, but you can ride the disturbance like a wave and not be battered by it.”
Verdant light shone from where Teferi’s hand touched hers. He felt a swooping sensation then found himself high above the forest once more.
“Damn her.”
Freyalise dropped Teferi’s hand but he was quite capable of keeping himself aloft. The forest patron tossed open her cloak, planted her hands on her hips, and glared angrily down at the valley below.
Teferi quickly tallied up the losses, relieved that the Shivan contingent was still unharmed. The elves and Gathans had a worse time of it, with over a dozen on each side cut down during the first
violent exchange.
Something pulled Teferi’s attention to a small patch of emerald-green fire at the edge of the battle. The planeswalker’s eyes went wide and a broad, lazy smile split his features.
“Damn her,” Freyalise said again. She saw Teferi and clicked her tongue. “What are you smiling at?”
“That woman,” Teferi pointed to the cluster of green-hued flames.
Freyalise waited. Her face registered a moment of something—interest? Concern?
Then she said, “Yes? What about her? She may not survive this day even if she does survive this fight. Why does the mere sight of her delight you?”
Teferi closed his eyes and let relief wash over him. The puzzle had too many pieces and none of them fit—the rift, the Gathans, the centuries-long gap in time. None of it fit.
Teferi opened his eyes and turned to Freyalise, who was still waiting for an answer. He pointed down at the green-fire woman and said dreamily, “She fits.”
In the name of Skyshroud’s goddess and protector, Radha restrained herself as best she could. True, it was easier to honor the goddess when Radha’s chosen target was not among the raiders yet, but Freyalise insisted on patience and forbearance … and that is what Radha now offered. It didn’t matter why she waited, only that she did.
She began counting to herself, ticking off the seconds in her head as if enough of them would prove her obedience and forestall Freyalise’s inevitable ire. Four seconds, five, six …
Given the Skyshroud Rangers’ current state of decrepitude, Radha did not expect to wait long. The elves so far had provided more resistance than Radha or the Gathan raiders expected, but Llanach and his rangers were but a delay, and not a very taxing one. Each individual berserker in the first charge engaged two or three elves apiece, giving those that came after free access to the rest of the valley, the forest, and the party of strangers. Though elven arrows continued to rain down on the false Keldons, the brutes simply ignored all but the most serious injuries.
Time Spiral Page 7
