Bloodlines

by Loren L. Coleman

  “You expect to train a successor then?”

  The administrator within Barrin took over, considering the years, decades perhaps, that it would take for Urza to even locate enough suitable candidates, especially if he wanted to form an army from such a program’s detritus. The sheer logistics for such a limited return did not seem prudent.

  “Not train,” Urza said, dismissing the idea with the easiest shake of his head. “Not as such. What I have in mind will require of a candidate too many specific traits that could never be learned, even in the time given some mortals here on Tolaria.” He turned from the board, fixing his hard gaze on Barrin. “Our new army and the heir to the Legacy must be bred.”

  Book I

  The Human Component

  (3385-3571 A.R.)

  The difference in designs between demon and man is often that razor-thin line which divides the intentions of one from the other. No one has demonstrated that principle to me better than Urza. When forced to descend to the level of one’s enemy, that fine blade may be the only path remaining back to sanity.

  —Barrin, Master Mage of Tolaria

  Gatha gazed out one of the nearby teardrop windows, his arms crossed defiantly over his chest as Barrin answered questions for a batch of new students. Smoke-tinted glass stained the outside world a dull gray, physically expressive of Gatha’s own darkening mood as Barrin continued to make him wait. Rain spattered off the window’s upper curve, at times hard and insistent and then fading to a light drizzle. The latest buildings for Urza’s new laboratories had been completed just in time. Tolaria’s stormy season had begun.

  “We’ve been over this before,” Master Barrin explained in answer to a question Gatha had ignored. The mage’s voice remained patient, though at a glance the senior student noticed a tightening around Barrin’s hard green eyes which forewarned of a darkening mood. “The magic presents no direct influence on the developing child. It is a procedure used prior to conception, to accent the traits which the child already stands to inherit from its natural parents.”

  He was still discussing the Bloodlines project: Urza’s controversial plan to develop some kind of master warrior. It was now six years into its first generation of subjects. Gatha shrugged aside concern for Barrin’s argument and began tapping his foot to illustrate his impatience.

  Like sheep with their shepherd—in Gatha’s judgment—the new students flocked around Barrin at the front of the workshop. The space had been cleared and cleaned by the senior student in preparation for this orientation class. Except for the half-built gestate cradle pushed into one forward corner, it was the same as every lecture hall in the main academy buildings. Gatha might have found better uses for his time, though a request from Barrin was never to be ignored, and there was something to be said for any recognition by the academy’s chief administrator. The senior student held his silence and his place, occupying himself by studying the latest arrivals to Tolaria. The group was one short of a full dozen. Their eyes burned brightly with interest over the tour of the new labs and the information imparted by the master mage. Many of them aspired to be the next prodigy, of course—the next Teferi or Jhoira—or like Gatha himself. At the island academy such visions of personal grandeur were expected, even encouraged, if one owned the talent. A few students fell outside such a generality, though. They glanced about, troubled and nervous. Gatha labeled these ones right away as the next set of ‘able hands.’ They might work on the major projects, even on the Legacy itself, but always under the exacting direction of others, tools in the hands of masters like Barrin, Rayne, and one day soon, himself.

  One such student raised a nervous hand. He was whipcord thin with hair the color of rhubarb and a nose which battled and defeated the rest of his face for attention.

  “The plans for these ‘Metathran’ we’ve heard discussed in the hallways and amphitheaters.” His reedy voice grew in strength and confidence as he progressed. “Simulacra given true life through focused mana? Forced development, probably through overlaid patterns cloned off desired predecessors?” He glanced around for support, found it wanting. “A slave race?” he asked, confidence finally waning and telling in his restless stance.

  Gutsy, Gatha decided at once, awarding the junior student credit for calling Barrin on the morality of Urza’s newest plans. Strong opening, near-brilliant supposition but ultimately dumb.

  The senior student looked back to the window, catching a light reflection of his own face in the tinted glass and of course unable to ignore the triangular tattoos decorating his forehead. It was a debatable honor to be given an artificial set of the Keldon triple widow’s peaks. The marks were placed on his entire family after his father served as military liaison to a Keldon warhost hired to fight for Argive.

  He turned his attention back to the group of new students. Gatha looked at the gutsy inquisitor who had engaged Barrin. The younger student dwelled too heavily on the methods, not enough on the potential. He would amount to little. Urza Planeswalker supported the plan, and therefore it would happen. It became now, to Gatha’s way of thinking, a question of who would lead and so be recognized by the chancellors for promotion to tutor status. Anything else was a waste of a student’s time.

  Barrin, however, seemed able to dip forever into a well of patience when it came to the newer students. “Timein, isn’t it?” he asked, favoring the student by remembering his name.

  Gatha shrugged off any concern for competition. The other’s scarecrow build guaranteed some measure of easy recall.

  “We were speaking of the Bloodlines project, dealing with human generations. These ‘Metathran’ you ask about are, as you said, simulacra,” Barrin continued. “Still, I won’t disagree with the idea that we are raising new philosophical issues at the academy,” he said, switching his address to the entire class. “You’ve all had your first classes in Phyrexian physiology and psychology by now, so you have some idea of what we are up against. We’ll need the Metathran to fight them, and no,” he returned to Timein on a more personal note, “they will not be slaves. Gatha,” he called out, “what is the second criteria of Metathran psychology?”

  Caught in the midst of his personal reflection, Gatha started. A hot flush raced from the back of his neck up over his scalp—a discomfiture which lasted all of three seconds. He swallowed away the dryness in his mouth his brief embarrassment had brought. Eyes were upon him now, and he managed to look both contemplative and studious as he turned back to the assemblage. Gatha did not mind an audience.

  “To restrict their mental functions to areas of personal survival and martial ability,” he recited verbatim from Urza’s text, adding his own dramatic touch to the quotation, “with a limited concept of self and society.” He traced one finger along his jaw, then smoothed a pleat along the front of his white robes. “In effect, they are a type of golem.”

  Nodding his approval of Gatha’s conclusion, Barrin’s steady gaze still conveyed a measure of warning to the senior student that he should pay more attention. “Like any artifact, the Metathran will obey its programmed instructions. As with the Weatherlight, they are instruments of our defense.”

  No one raised another question, though the shuffling gestures of several students—Timein among them—suggested that the issue was not completely answered to their satisfaction.

  Barrin seized upon the opportunity to end the session. With one hand he tugged at the golden mantle to his robes, straightening it, and with the other he waved toward the workshop’s door.

  “That will be all for today. Return to your regular classes.” They moved toward the door. “Gatha, you will remain, please.”

  As the students filed out, Gatha caught mixed looks of curiosity, admiration and jealousy from the new students. He drew strength from those stares and glares. Such expressions meant that his name was known, as he wanted it. Only Timein offered nothing for him at all, glancing over with a simple expression of frank appraisal, as if he were weighing Gatha’s worth by observation alone.
Gatha smiled back, tight-lipped and challenging.

  “What do you think?” Barrin asked when the room cleared and Gatha had shut the door.

  It was a purposefully vague question, meant to elicit more than basic information but also something as to how Gatha himself thought. The student did not mind, confident in his own ability.

  “A verbose way of saying that the ends justify the means,” he said, immediately seizing upon the earlier drama in which he’d had a part. “Most of them are still trying to untangle the argument.”

  The hints of a smile tugged at the corners of Barrin’s mouth, though not necessarily one of encouragement or humor. “You think you see more clearly than they do?” No hints of approval or disapproval in his tone.

  In place of answering, Gatha walked over to the half-completed gestate cradle. One of the new modular designs that Urza had requested, its sledge-shaped body would be capable of full growth support for the Metathran soldier created within, if the artificers worked out the majority of the design problems, that is.

  “I’ve read the academy histories,” he finally answered, circumspect. He reached out to place a hand upon the slick metal casing, noticing a touch of oil to its surface. Being able to touch a thing always made it seem more real. “I have yet to find even one project that has advanced this far along that was not carried through to completion.” A polite way of saying that arguments were pointless at this late stage.

  Barrin nodded and then headed over toward the door. He paused, hand on the knob. “Coming?” he asked.

  Gatha quickly fell into step behind the mage master.

  “Your achievements have not gone unnoticed,” he said as they walked down a long hall, past doors leading off to other workshops. The labs still smelled of new construction, raw wood and finishing paint. “You have made certain of that. Still, self-promotion aside, you excel in your studies of the magics and your natural grasp of artifice is impressive as well.” He pulled a key from within the folds of his robes and used it to unlock a door at the end of the hall.

  This new workshop had been modified and outfitted for immediate use. Blue metal file drawers had been mounted into one wall. Metal tables sat in the center of the room with trays of instruments, some obviously magic in nature but most of pure artifice, arranged on top of it. The room was well lit and spotless, but it was very cold. Their breath clouded in front of them. Gatha shivered involuntarily, one hand clutching at the front of his blue tunic trying to draw it tighter against his skin.

  Barrin closed the door behind them and locked it. He gave Gatha another frank look of appraisal, eerily reminiscent of Timein’s earlier expression. The student bore up under the scrutiny, for the first time feeling a bit awkward. Finally, Barrin awarded him with a reluctant nod.

  “I’m adding to your duties,” he said, moving to the file drawers. The master mage threw a catch on one of them, then leaned his weight outward as if pulling it open against great weight.

  Gatha sucked in a cold breath and held it. Resting in the drawer, on a long plate of metal, was a blue-skinned humanoid of impressive height and elongated skull. Dark blue glyphs—magical sigils perhaps?—decorated the naked body, reminding Gatha of his own tattoos. There was an elegance to the sexless, lean-muscled creature. The master mage did not need to tell Gatha that he looked upon his first Metathran. Part of Urza’s newest labs were obviously functional.

  He looked to Barrin, found the elder man staring at him levelly.

  “What do you think?” the mage asked again.

  What did he think? Gatha recognized immediately that he had achieved the next step in his education here on Tolaria. He was being trusted with a new responsibility and his next break would come from his own ingenuity and his ability to make things happen.

  Gatha let out his breath and smiled. “Where do I begin?”

  * * *

  Rayne bent farther forward, leaning far out over the lens to inspect for flaws. Tall and lithe, she reached nearly to the middle of the four foot radius device. The muscles along the backs of her legs tightened and quivered, holding her from smashing through the delicate item. Silk bands tied back the wide sleeves of her flowing robes to prevent even their light brush on the lens’s surface. Hardly daring to breathe, wary of fogging the area over which she worked, she continued her search.

  The sapphire tint to the material partly reflected her own image, making detection of a flaw harder than if it had been clear crystal backed by a deliberate pattern. She studied her own raven-black hair, her thin nose, and her long slender eyebrows in the reflection. There, near the single curl of hair that tucked down in front of her ear was a mar in the lens’s otherwise perfect reflection.

  She rotated the special magnifying glass that a student had created for her over into her field of vision. The glass clipped comfortably to her forearm and moved about on a pliant, telescoping arm. It was light enough to almost be ignored and left both of her hands free in case they were needed. She couldn’t be sure if Gatha had put a touch of magic into the glass or not, but it cut the glare and allowed her to focus on the most minute object. Now it showed her the lens’s flaw in great detail, a large irregularity in the lattice structure.

  “Ruined.” She straightened up cautiously, still treating the lens with extreme care. It represented too much work to rate anything less.

  Karn moved forward, the silver golem’s massive frame dwarfing Rayne. He had waited quietly against the wall for three hours. “The crystal lattice again?” he asked, his voice soft and deep.

  Rayne smiled at him, recognizing his regular attempt at courtesy now that she had disengaged from her study.

  “Yes, Karn. Over five hundred student-hours, all told, ruined by a microscopic defect.” A flawed artifact, she turned her back on it. There was no wishing it to perfection. “Place it on the rack, please. Urza will want to inspect it himself, though I know the flaw is too large.”

  A scholar of artifice at the academy, Rayne normally commanded enough authority on such projects to make her own decisions—but never when it came to Urza. The planeswalker always double-checked her work when it involved his own projects.

  With a delicate care belying his great strength, Karn used a large, grooved fork to grasp the lens securely by its edge rather than the plane. He hefted it, pivoted and slid it carefully into a storage rack next to two others that had also failed to meet standards.

  Rayne had already moved on to a new activity. Her private shop always held at least three different ongoing projects, not counting students’ work that she had to check over in order to gauge and track their progression. The room smelled of oiled leather and metal. Tables appeared cluttered with tools and parts; though in truth, the clutter was actually a complicated but well-ordered system of easy access sorted by probability of use. Most residents of the academy failed to grasp the concept. A few of her better students had picked up on the system. It was also the one time she believed that she’d impressed Urza Planeswalker. On his one visit after her assignment to a Legacy artifact, he had walked in and actually said, “Very nice,” in reference to the layout. He never touched one tool, but four of his assistants were sent over that day to study the shop design.

  At a table, Rayne puzzled over a new clockwork engine built from Thran metal. The living metal kept growing, binding up joints and gears if not perfectly balanced for the expansion. She flipped the magnifying glass back into her line of sight, staring through it while working on the smooth, intricate pieces. Behind her, Karn finished moving the lens and then resumed his patient vigil

  “Barrin will be late again, will he not?” She paused to correct her own Argivian. “Won’t he?”

  “I do not know, Mistress Rayne.” Rayne stopped working and glanced back at the silver man. With a slight hitch to his shoulders, surely a learned trait, Karn elaborated. “He did not communicate such to me, but he did seem very involved in studying Gatha’s recent accomplishments.”

  Gatha was one of Barrin’s best pupils. “
But as much a curse, that one,” she said aloud, a touch of dry humor to her voice. First there was Teferi and Jhoira, and now Gatha. “Why do the brightest ones always bring with them so much trouble?” She glanced back to Karn. “What did he do this time?”

  The golem cast his gaze away. “There was an incident at the labs, something to do with enhancing certain traits among the Metathran. Gatha experimented with the Eugenics Matrix without the permission of Urza or Barrin. The facts bore him out, but the result was,” the golem paused, “messy.”

  Rayne shook her head, as much over the trouble surrounding Gatha’s lack of caution as the problem the engine presented her. Everything rests on the details, she thought in relation to both problems. It would help if she knew what the engine’s ultimate purpose was, but Urza had left her in the dark. Part of the Legacy, perhaps, or another refinement to the Metathran labs. Rayne felt frustrated working like this. It would be more frustrating, she imagined, to be saddled with Barrin’s problems.

  “Bring me a stool please, Karn. It will be another late night.”

  Conversation waned as she worked further into the delicate engine. What more was there to say? They both knew Urza to be a hard taskmaster at times. Barrin followed because he believed in Urza, in the ‘walker’s vision for defending Dominaria. Rayne’s vision was more limited to her own work, the creation and maintenance of artifice. In matters of greater scale, she trusted Barrin’s judgment. If the master mage thought his presence elsewhere important enough to remain away, then she could do no less than keep working as well.