by Teri Mclaren
Song of Time
( Magic the Gathering )
Teri Mclaren
Teri McLaren
Song of Time
Ancient Sumifa 3000 BCE
The white marble face of sumfa's monumental sundial brightened by small degrees as the red sun rose above the crawling dunes of the distant high desert. A tall, thin, basalt head of Caelus Nin, Sumifan god of time and patron of the ancestors formed the sundial's double-faced gnomon and stood silent entry at the village's main gate. The eastern face's weathered expression looked fiercely into the burning light, a full hourglass in its knotted hands, while the equally severe western face remained cloaked in cold darkness.
Samor the Collector moved quietly to his study, locked the door, and opened the only copy of the Holy Book of the Confessors, forbidden by Mishra since the first day he had seized power in Almaaz. Since it was written in a language that he himself could not read, Mishra did not trust the Book, or its followers. He feared their teachings almost as much as he feared losing his power to his brother Urza.
Samor raised his head, sang the oath of the Circle aloud and waited, while all over the countryside, certain mages, members of Mishra's court and highest counselors every one, stopped their work, their breakfasts, their conversations, and withdrew to quiet places, making ready to receive the words only they could hear. When he sensed their expectancy, Samor sang from the precious Book its message for the day. "Fear not," the spirit of the Book had commanded, its voice insistently echoing in Samor's mind, the urgency more personal than usual. Puzzled, Samor released the Circle, closed the book, and retired to the courtyard to ponder the words.
But before he could meditate on the message, there came an odd summons, a message from Mishra borne by Porros, one of the younger mages, who came racing in on a thundercloud through the early morning sky. Porros dropped to earth inside the courtyard and handed Samor a message written on a torn corner of a campaign map in three faint, sand-scrubbed words- "Trouble. Come now."-with Mishra's royal imprint as signature. A small circle around the Borderlands marked the location.
"We fly to Mount Sarrazan. I will guide you," shouted Porros, dusting the sand from his robes into the high winds. Samor caught a mouthful of it and turned his head as Porros went on obliviously. "Call all of the others to attend us. Mishra has need of our greatest strength. It is a cockatrice, Samor. It seems you were right; they are, indeed, real"
"Mishra is there? Why would he lead troops to fight over a ch'mina crop? Does he yet live? It is said that all who meet the gaze of such a beast die. And who summoned this creature?" the Collector cried in alarm.
"It is Urza's doing. A trap for his brother. Urza must have a spy in our midst; our lord Mishra was tricked into leading the troops himself," Porros replied, his eyes strangely fixed on the Collector's several gold rings. "But there is no time. You are the only one who knows the song. And the only one who knows every member of the Circle and can bring us all." The unnatural storm raged around them, whipping the palm fronds in every direction, threatening to denude the carefully attended gardens.
His robes tangling around his legs, Samor looked hard at the young man, but Porros refused to meet his eyes. "Wait here." The Collector ran to his study to gather and warn the Circle about the cockatrice. But he called only a handful of them, those whose voices would blend toward the old spell he hurriedly copied from his bestiary. He rejoined Porros and, quickly lifted by the dark magic of the thundercloud, they flew over the desert toward Mount Sarraza.
As they glided to earth, the beast flew around the other side of the mountain. The Circle's mages appeared one by one in winds of their own, each marking with unbelieving eyes a twenty-foot-deep crater, with a wide ring of split rocks and melted earth at its perimeter, as they set down in the confusion and din of the battlefield. Samor silently noted the arrival of everyone he had called as they scattered into a loose network across the torn land and began tending the wounded. When they were all in place, Samor gathered their strength to his own, each second passing in expectancy of the beast's return.
He had not long to wait. The beast tore around the peak with a scream that sent a hard chill down Samor's spine. When he lifted his eyes to gauge the creature's distance and, he had to admit, to see what sort of creature had caused the damage smoldering before them, he expected a huge monster, at least as large as Mishra's tower. But the cockatrice, winging around the mountaintop with seemingly impossible speed, was only the size of a large horse. Samor nearly forgot his caution and continued to look at it, his curiosity was so instantly fired by how the red-and-green-scaled creature could have ravaged such a huge portion of the fertile mountainside in such a small amount of time. But then he broke his stare and looked again at the battlefield, suddenly sure that he had never seen such ruin, even when the brothers had fought before, even after they had stripped whole Almaazan forests of timber, or mined great open wounds into the earth. The cockatrice had already laid waste to an entire village and a mountainside; the precious ch'mina crop Urza and Mishra had gathered to fight over lay in total ruin. Even the elves' water source, the headwaters of the Sarrazan River, ran foul and dark.
Samor covered his eyes as the creature circled again high above them. "How did it do such harm, POTTOS?" he shouted over the din on the field.
"Three hours before dawn it came," said Porros, "and at first we thought it one of Urza's machines. At the turn of every new glass, it changed subtly in shape, direction, and tactics. We could not see clearly what threatened us until dawn. Most of those who died from its stare must have looked upon it before the light came. Apparently, it mutated the acids in its breath and the fire in its eyes, countering all spells the novice mages tried to work on it. By dawn, its breath had slain hundreds and its gaze turned to stone hundreds more. As you see, the brothers continue to glare at each other over their failing armies and their defeated magicians. They have no answers. We had to let the women and men who fought the creature drop in their tracks, their bravery unmarked, the battle raging over their bodies," Porros cried bitterly. "Finally, Mishra sent me to fetch you."
Samor blotted his brow, wondering now if the old song he had taken from the bestiary's pages really would work. Again, he had little time to question; high above them, the beast circled the peak, gathering speed, winding its path outward like a clockspring. If he did not act now, soon all of Almaaz would look like Mount Sarraza.
"Shield your eyes!" Samor reminded the mages as they heard the beast shrieking back down the mountain. "Look not upon it!" Porros took the word on down the lines. Samor finally saw Mishra and moved to his side.
"I know of only one song for such a creature, and that unpracticed," pleaded the Collector blindly to his lord as the hot wind rushed upon them.
"Well, use it or be damned with the rest of us!" Mishra bellowed from under his gauntlet, its bronze arm guard held hard against his face.)ust then, the cockatrice swooped low over them, its glance vaporizing an unprepared warrior in his armor, the empty, seared plates falling to the ground in a molten heap. The beast crowed its exultation, exhaling a great gasp, its hot, foul breath splitting several huge boulders in its path, circling its rounded furrow again and again. As he waited for it to come near enough, Samor felt a sudden, overwhelming temptation to view the beast up close, just one time, to collect information, to get a look at it for the sake of giving the sketch in his bestiary the proper scale. Realizing his foolishness, Samor shook his head, chasing the feeling away.
Upon the next turn, with the cockatrice's brilliant red eyes shining through his sleeve, beckoning to him, unable to remember all the words or follow the unfamiliar music, the Collector sang for the first time the most intr
icate protection spell he had ever attempted. His heart beat painfully out of time with the music as the song filled the air. Some of the Circle linked their silent magic in protection, while Samor's oldest friends, risking discovery, joined their voices with his and amplified the music until the beast's crowing was lost in the song.
At first, nothing much changed; the beast only swerved and rolled in the air, righting itself and lashing out madly with its beak and claws. Then abruptly the sky cleared of its dark confusion, the waters of the elves' small lake stirred and leapt as the bright notes charged across their waves as their cascading tones interrupted the beast's flight, tangling its wings. A moment more, Samor thought, and we'll have him down and dead.
Then a sharp, foul note peeled out over the true ones. Samor's voice broke in surprise as the song was altered, its power diverted and fouled with dark energy. Struck to earth by the music, the beast lay thrashing, merely confused. And far from dead.
Can it be? he wondered in amazement. Someone has sung untrue. We have only sent it to sleep! His eyes still covered by his sleeve, Samor could only listen in horror as the cockatrice tried to rise again and again, its beak clacking together and its wings beating at the air.
Worse still, he knew he was too close. Samor felt its evil breath, and a renewed temptation to look at the creature pounded at his mind. Stunned at the thought of a traitor within the Circle, his confidence lost in the only spell he knew for the creature, the Collector bowed to the unbearable pressure, flung out his arm, and dared to look directly at the beast.
He had expected an awful, ugly thing. He had expected to be repulsed. But instead, Samor was instantly mesmerized. He had never seen such beautiful colors, as if an entire rainbow had been captured in the beast's tail feathers and scales. As the capricious mountain light fell upon the creature, its jewel-like pinions changed hue, matching the brilliance of the sun as it broke through the clouds, fading as the shadows passed quickly over. The cockatrice flailed about, terrible and majestic as it fought the magical sleep, its yellow spurs gouging up great clods of the scorched earth, its clawed wings scraping raggedly across the shattered rocks where it had made its furrow. Samor quickly found his voice again, but could not look away before the beast turned one cruel red eye upon him and caught his stare, holding the Collector's gaze by the power of pure fear.
Samor's heart quelled within him. "Fear not," the Book had said. He fought to obey. But Porros had come too early; Samor had not had time to make the words his own, put them in his heart, where they would afford him protection. Spellbound, all Samor
could see was the intelligence and cunning in that molten ruby eye, how the creature had learned him, learned the song; how it hated him and any other living thing that would dare challenge its territory.
Samor's legs gave way beneath him and he dropped to his knees. The beast twisted its beak into the ground in rage, unable to bring his head around so that both eyes could bear down on the Collector and turn him into stone where he knelt. Shaking, his death mirrored in that sleep-dulled, crimson eye, Samor knew surely that his spell would never work again.
In the strange silence, the other mages had begun to stir. The novice nearest Samor crawled over to see to his unmoving master. Samor felt the boy's eyes upon him, but he could not respond, could not tear his eyes from the deadly stare. The novice thought fast. As quietly and deftly as he could, the boy removed his heavy cloak and whirled it before Samor's dazzled eyes, instantly breaking the power of the creature's fell glance. The beast hissed and wrenched itself up on its wings, its spurs snatching and tearing the boy to shreds as Samor fell backward, fighting the paralyzing fear, caught by the sound of the boy's screams, frantically searching his mind for another song.
There was nothing, nothing.
Seconds passed and the beast began to turn around, throwing off the sleep. In the panic, all Samor could remember was a little minor key ley, which he had just used to help Lesta dig her gardens. It wasn't deadly, it wasn't heroic, and it could easily fail to produce an opening large enough to contain the creature, leaving Samor completely without recourse. But it was all he had. The mage rose to his feet, clapped his hands over his eyes in a supreme act of will, and gave all of his heart to the little planting song.
In desperation, his voice rose to a strength he had never known. The stones in one of his rings became fired with the power they gathered from the land, and their facets glowed as brilliantly as the monster's plumage. Before he had finished, the mountainside, already laid bare by the beast, began to split and crack open, at last swallowing the shrieking, flapping cockatrice. The Circle's several mages joined the Collector again for the last three notes, their counterpoint raising crystal from the burned earth and sealing it over the cockatrice in a shining door. The mountain itself shuddered and compacted as the Collector held the final note, and this time truly, at last, the beast was heard no more.
A moment or two passed in profound silence. Samor looked around him, the waves of the last song's power and the shifting of the mountain reverberating in his sensitive ears, pounding in his bones, making him nearly deaf. But at least he could count that Almaaz, and Sumifa, and all the lands and their peoples beyond, seemed safe again.
His short battle had been expensive.
Along with most of the elven villagers and an entire legion of Urza's finest lancers, four members of the senior Circle lay dead, some hand in hand, their eyes open and their bodies sundered or turned to stone. Some could not be found at all.
His ears ringing and sore, his heart withered by the power of the beast's feargaze, the Collector climbed through smoldering, shattered maples and bone-white birches, up the ruined terraces of the elves' ch'mina crop for his last duties. He found and saluted Urza's chief mage, then walked back to what remained of his beloved Circle. After the last song, they had wisely scattered, losing themselves with the regular mages among the wounded and dying, caring for their last or future needs.
"Samor-" Aswi the Sender surreptitiously caught his sleeve as he passed by. "It's Praden… I think he was caught by a spur while the beast struggled on the ground."
In the center of the largest crater, Samor's best friend, Praden the Sower, lay clutching a large, smooth, ovoid stone, his hands clamped to the oddly veined rock as though he had been trying to crush it. All the blood had been drained from Praden's corpse; an ugly gash about the width of Samor's hand opened his neck.
The Collector wept as he lifted the pale body and laid it gently with the others, and again, the bitter tears came when Aswi brought the body of the young novice. Samor could not remember his name.
"Samor, the chrysalis spell… you must lead us." Aswi beckoned to him.
"I cannot…" said Samor.
"You must, Samor. You are still our master," Aswi quietly declared. "We will follow you. Just begin."
They entombed them, then, all of the mages of Mishra wearily cooperating to hollow the earth and gently place the broken bodies in the newly made chambers. In the quiet song, no longer able to hold his emotions back, Samor, who had never before known hesitation or compromise, began to shake violently as he was thoroughly consumed by clawing, all-consuming fear.
Throughout the peace rites, the warring brothers looked on, angry still, all the more so since neither could claim the day, Urza from his distant post at the top of the mountain, Mishra upon his charger on the smoking battlefield.
"Well, is it dead?" said Mishra, walking the snorting steed over to Samor, who was the last left at the new tomb.
"No. These… these are dead." He held out a hand to the mound before him. "The beast only sleeps. It is planted like a seed. Contained. Were the wall to shatter, the cockatrice would certainly rise and fly again, probably to nest. Look at the pattern of its ruin." Samor pointed to the rings of desolation cut into the mountainside and hung his head in shame, trying to find the words that would bring Mishra's forgiveness.
Before he could utter a one of them, Mishra began to laugh and clapped
him hard on the back.
"Well done, Samor, well done. Very clever of you not to kill such a fine and deadly creature outright. Good use of resources. Since you have been away from court, you seem to have grown much in power-as if you shared the strength of a hundred or more mages. I wonder why that is? Especially since all Almaazan magical orders have been banned under my rule. You wouldn't have any knowledge of such things, now would you?"
Samor looked away from Mishra's burning black eyes, certain that the Artificer would see every member of the Circle in his own.
"Of course you wouldn't," Mishra continued. "Samor, I have an idea. It won't take a mage of your capabilities much trouble to arrange. Compose for me a spell that will free this beast. An undoing, if you will. And add a song to declare my triumph. Something simple, memorable, almost humble," Mishra said, smiling evilly. "And I want my brother to know this- that I will leam to control what he could only summon. Samor, let us put a great image, a sort of clock is what I see, upon the mountainside to remind him that the Beast of the Hours sleeps only as long as I choose not to wake it." He reached down and picked up a handful of the blackened sand and let it drain slowly between his fingers. "I will be the incarnation of Caelus Nin. Urza's time is in my hand." Mishra smiled.
Horrified, the image of the beast's eye overwhelming in his mind, the Collector instantly thought of his daughter, Claria, laughing with her parrots, of his lovely, bright-eyed wife, of his unsuspecting neighbors in Sumifa, of the faces he had seen and voices he had heard on his journeys. And what of his collection, all that knowledge and art? Of the fallen men and women to whom he had just sung the sleep of transformation? Of Praden, who had died during the short moments Samor had wrestled with the cockatrice's deadly stare? The nameless novice? What desolation would they rise to find, come the time of the Great Awakening? He could no longer protect them. He shuddered as he looked long into the hard, iron-colored eyes of his determined king. One thing Samor knew: if he could not slay the beast now, he could never slay it. If it were loosed, it would overcome Almaaz with total desolation. He slowly shook his dark head, refusing Mishra for the first time in the twenty-odd years since he had been bought and brought to the Artificer's court.
