Bloodlines

by Loren L. Coleman

  The scent of the charred meat now suddenly stung at her sinuses and burned acrid in her throat. She swallowed dryly and removed the wrist-mounted magnifying glass as if it represented the same principle of augmentation. This type of procedure would create a never-ending process of replacement and refinement until…what? The word came to her at once, both appropriate and obscene in the same instant: until compleat.

  * * *

  Timein had scheduled no meetings. He had, in fact, dismissed for the day those few students who had left the academy to join him at the Colony. He felt exhausted in that pleasant way which reminded someone of a full day’s valuable effort. From the new well he helped dig to the students he—hopefully—enlightened on a few of the finer points in thaumaturgic studies. He needed a warm bath and perhaps some time for private reflection. He was looking forward to an early retirement for the day.

  Why, then, was there a light on in his home?

  The sorcerer did not think to be worried. Nothing dangerous happened on Tolaria—not counting Urza’s catastrophes of course. He paused a moment upon discovering the door to his home still locked. His mind still puzzled on this as he turned the key in the lock and swung the door open. Someone waited within. The man’s back was to the door and he studied a shelf of books all written by Timein. Timein saw only blond hair trimmed at shoulder length and a coat of finely tailored leather.

  “Can I help you?” Timein asked, noticing the golden staff leaning nearby—its headpiece of joints, wires and gears—just as the figure turned. It was Tolaria’s one recurring catastrophe—Urza Planeswalker.

  “Timein, it is good to see you again.” The ‘walker looked about the single-room home. He nodded approvingly. “You’ve done well here.”

  Timein steeled himself against the false flattery, doubting Urza ever lived in such fashion. “It’s simple,” he said of his surroundings and the Colony both, “but it suits.” He crossed his arms over a narrow chest. “It pales next to the academy, of course, but then we’ve had far less to work with in the way of material and resources.”

  If Urza caught the reference to the island’s slowly deteriorating state, the ‘walker either did not care or was more concerned with other subjects. The two stared at each other for a silent moment before Timein reminded himself that Urza was not of true flesh and so would win any staring contest.

  “What is it you need, Urza?”

  The ‘walker looked nonplussed. “You act as if I’ve done something against you, Timein. I can read it in your posture as well as your voice. Have I given you cause for anger or grief?”

  Timein unfolded his thin arms, relenting only a little. Pulling off his hat, the sorcerer tossed it over to his bed. “If you haven’t you are likely about to,” he said, loosening the drawstrings on his cuffs for comfort.

  This apparently amused the planeswalker. “Sorcerer and soothsayer?” He smiled, his face lined and careworn as a middle-aged man. “Do you think you know why I am here?”

  Nodding, Timein moved over to his desk and leaned back against its edge. Urza, he noticed, had a way of wearing people down very quickly. He wondered how Barrin stood up to it for all those centuries.

  “You’re here to bring me and the others back into your program,” he predicted. “Come to bring the strays home?”

  “I want your help, yes,” Urza said, shaking his head. He picked up his staff and laid it in the crook of one arm. “But I’ve never forced anyone to do work he hasn’t wanted or at least agreed to do, ever, Timein. Remember, you never complained about serving under Gatha’s instruction. And so long as you didn’t I needed you there.”

  In Timein’s view, Gatha had kept control of the younger man’s life those early years. The sorcerer had never had the chance to complain. “You’re saying I have the choice to refuse you or not?”

  Urza shrugged. “Of course.”

  Timein almost said it then—refused without hearing the proposal to be rid of Urza Planeswalker. The Colony was Timein’s home now. It was a place where occasionally Tolarian students sought refuge when they could no longer reconcile conscience with the work being done at the academy. Some returned to the school, eventually, but others were often ready to take their place here. So long as Timein hosted this refuge, he wanted it kept clean of Urza’s influence.

  “What do you want of me?” the sorcerer asked.

  Urza accepted the invitation to speak with a simple nod. “I need more detailed processes for judging empathies—a person’s connection to the lands of Dominaria and any predisposition toward…other…lands as well.”

  Toward Phyrexia, Timein translated. He had no doubt that Urza could talk straight out about it but was hedging for the sorcerer’s benefit. “Why not do it yourself?”

  Urza spread his hands. “No one is as adept at these magics as you are, Timein. You are a mage of the natural body, the near-physical spirit. By inclination and more than three millennia of work, I am still primarily an artificer. Not even walking the planes changes you so much that you deny your basic nature.” He lowered his arms. “Nothing you develop will be—can be—used to change someone’s nature, if that helps, but the Bloodlines project will continue, and the better my tools the fewer my mistakes.”

  Now that admission rattled Timein’s belief, if slightly. Urza Planeswalker admitting to mistakes had to be a rare sight indeed. His cynical side argued that the ‘walker could afford to save such momentary admissions for just such occasions. Dealing with Urza reinforced Timein’s admiration for Barrin.

  “Directly or indirectly, I would still rather not,” Timein said, surprised that he did not say no at once. It felt more as if he was slowly talking himself out of it. Obviously, Urza’s appeal on behalf of the bloodlines subjects had hit him hard. “I’ve worked hard to help this colony survive on its own and to make a small refuge here away from the madness of the academy.”

  “I have no wish to disrupt the colony,” Urza said. “I wouldn’t think to spoil your exemplary work here. I’m simply asking you. Indirectly you help all the time, Timein. This refuge you’ve created gives students something we never thought to include—a place to escape for a time and so come back with minds fresh and unburdened by too many years of pressured work. Also, there’s your silence. Barrin and I would trust you to leave Tolaria, but once away you could ruin the Bloodlines project by making it public. What local nations did not find out and interfere in, the Phyrexian sleepers would.” He looked at Timein with frank interest. “If you are so opposed, why haven’t you done this?”

  Timein couldn’t help but wince at Urza’s detailed evaluation of the sorcerer’s work and life. He felt as if Urza had laid bare his mind and knew better the sorcerer’s reasons and motivations than Timein did himself. Truth be told, Timein knew that so long as he remained on Tolaria he wasn’t truly free of the academy and its work. He was still a part of the pattern and likely forever would be. Had he been waiting all these years for someone to arrive and offer him a reason to come back?

  “I’ll do it,” he said softly. “On my own time and without anyone else’s involvement, but I’ll do it.” He shuddered, knowing the nightmares he would open himself to because of this. “I’ve often wondered, Urza, what my research would show me of your nature. Have you ever wanted to look into it?”

  “All the time, Timein.” Urza nodded, slow and slightly sorrowful. “All the time.” Then, with a final tight smile, the ’walker was gone.

  Timein cursed both Urza and himself for the necessity that had drawn him back into the ’walker’s plans. If his work could prevent the suffering of people in Dominaria, didn’t he owe it to them to try? He sat behind his desk, leaning his lanky frame back in the padded chair as he stared up at the ceiling. Urza just might be right. That was the problem Timein faced anytime the ’walker came for assistance.

  If Urza was right, would Timein’s years of inaction necessarily be proven wrong?

  Summoned to the Stronghold’s throne room, Davvol smothered his anger over Croag
’s blatant ploy to show the steward as subservient. His armored boots struck heavily against the floor, grinding his rage against the flowstone surface. Before entering the room he settled a neutral mask over his face.

  “You requested my presence, Croag?” The words were drained of any emotion, spoken between thin, humorless lips.

  The member of Phyrexia’s Inner Circle seemed melded into the huge metal monstrosity that was the Stronghold’s throne. Sharp edges gleamed dully in the cold lights of the room, and the ridged back shone with a light sheen of oil. Even as uncomfortable as it looked, Davvol craved it for his own—to be shared with no one.

  “You were inspecting the machinery?” Croag asked, voice full of rasps and squeals. “Down in the secondary attractors?”

  Not that Davvol needed the reminder because the summons had come while he was doing an inspection only added fuel to his ire. Flowstone production was up to levels never before known to Rath, pushing back the energy curtain that surrounded the artificial plane.

  “Yes,” he finally answered. “Some structural supports gave way last week from poor calibration of the bladed dials.”

  The screws turned easier now with Vec blood to grease the equipment, the responsible workers having been made a proper example of. Davvol wondered briefly how well the Inner Circle member would act as a lubricant. Very well, he thought—glistening oil being so much a part of his body.

  “You have a request?” he asked, stressing the word. The summoning message from Croag had used “demand.”

  Some bands wrapped up over Croag’s face, trailing oil over the taught gray skin that surrounded his mouth. His voice did not sound muffled when he spoke, as if the sounds were not made by his throat or mouth but simply reverberated from his entire being.

  “I would like you to conduct a new transfer,” the Phyrexian said.

  Davvol waited, but nothing more followed. He crossed his arms defiantly, deciding to risk a touch of Croag’s displeasure by pressing for more information. “Why?” he asked. When Croag volunteered less, it usually meant the Phyrexian trod uncertain ground—like the night they both visited Benalia.

  The Inner Circle member waited a moment, as if deciding what or how much to say. “Our sleepers in Askaranton reported a skirmish with a large number of warriors. Some possessed heavy affinities for Phyrexia. These warriors were not acting on their own interests but for Askaranton’s rival. Dominarians call such warriors mercenaries. Phyrexia might call them negators. I wish to assess their level of threat.”

  Croag was admitting that the Coracin was needed for more than the simple stewardship of Rath—even needed for something other than killing Urza Planeswalker. That concession alone was worth quite a bit. It was a simple enough request, Davvol decided.

  “Where and when?” he asked.

  “The armies are traveling back to their own lands now. We will meet them once they arrive.”

  “You want me to bring them here, to Rath,” Davvol said, predicting the request.

  “No,” Croag replied, the red embers burning dully in the dark recesses of his eye sockets. “I wish you to send an army there. To Dominaria. To Keld.”

  * * *

  War cries echoed off the steep passes that lead deeper into the Keldons’ mountain nation. The grinding internal noises of immense mechanical engines roared, and massive treads chewed at these softer, lowland grounds. Fire spewed out of heads forged into the shape of dragons and demons, raining a burning substance over rock and earth and Keldon warriors. For a very few, it was all they could do to stay on their feet while the fire ate down to bone. Others, too caught up in their own bloodlust, ignored the pain and fought on until they finally dropped lifeless. Blades and armor were splashed with dark ooze and glistening oil which sprayed from engines. One massive engine rocked and then toppled, its treads ripped from heavy iron wheels and internal mechanisms so ruined that balance could no longer be maintained. It fell onto a knot of heavy fighting, crushing the black-armored warriors and Keldon footsoldiers alike.

  At the head of three warhosts, the battle fury gripping Kreig elevated the witch king to new heights. Filled with the strength of his followers, he stood a titan over the battlefield. The sun’s corona licked at his temples, its fiery arms wrapped over his eyes coloring the field red as blood. He stood shoulders brushing mountaintops, raking down avalanches of white snow and gray rock. The cold touch of Keld anchored his feet firmly, and no creatures of Dominaria could shake them loose. He was the witch king, undisputed heir to the supreme army of the Necropolis. He was Kreig the Immortal—and in the histories of the Keldon people, nothing more need ever be written.

  Laden with plunder taken from the former kingdom of Askaranton, the army had shipped back to their own continent to begin the trek up into the mountains. An enemy encampment had held the main pass. Massive engines of warfare backed a legion of spindly limbed, black-armored troops. At their center stood such beings of grotesque shape and nature that Kreig had been reminded of Gatha’s failed subjects. They had leathery black skin, some parts scaled with a natural armor. Some were carrying or melded with strange devices. One immediately leveled an arm at the combined warhost, a stream of hellish energies whipping into several Keldon warriors and burning them alive. Kreig did not know of this enemy or how they might have brought a small army into his lands, but such an act he understood perfectly. Yelling the war cry handed down his line from Trohg and Kreyohl before him, Kreig charged forward leading his host to battle.

  Three witch kings fought at his side, each in nominal command of a separate warhost. They held the center of the field. Their courage and savage nature excited the warriors around them to greater acts of ferocity, even as those same warriors lent back a portion of their strength to encourage their leaders beyond bounds. No witch king inspired Kreig. He drew from each directly, just as he tapped every warrior brought to the field, filling his mortal shell with their strength and lifeforce. In return he offered them the pinnacle of Keldon achievement to which they might aspire but never reach.

  Now even he was brought to a standstill against the black abominations that fought with a savagery most Keldons would be hard pressed to match. They shrugged aside lethal blows. Hooked claws, bladed fingers, and artifice weapons struck back with incredible force, enough to rend a regular warrior in one swipe. The enemy warriors in regular black armor were more easily dispatched, arms and legs cut or ripped from the body with ease. He learned after splitting one open that those limbs were merely mechanical extensions, and the true warrior was a stunted growth of a creature hidden away in the main armored shell. It took several sword thrusts through the armored body to finally kill one of the strange knights.

  In the fifty years since his ascension, none had stood against the witch king Kreig, not his own people and certainly no outside force. Unlike some doyen, Kreig took to the field nearly every year, constantly challenging the world to match him. That these creatures even dared step into his domain offered an insult that demanded punishment, and here they presented a challenge that so far matched the best fight three warhosts offered. In a lesser race this would certainly have raised fear—in a lesser witch king, perhaps doubts or concerns.

  In Kreig it engendered a near-blinding rage, lending new strength and stamina to his already terrifying nature.

  The caustic scent of his own charred flesh overpowering the smoldering colos horn, Kreig shouldered his way past a stream of burning energy and closed with the largest of the demon-spawn. Nine feet high where its curved back finally hunched forward, head and shoulders actually at a lower level, the creature might once have been humanoid. Its evacuated abdomen was ringed with bands of blackened metal. Several steel tubes sprouted from its upper back, wrapping down to connect where the base of the spine might be on a normal being. Its feral grin of steel teeth was stained with the green-glowing slime. Large crystals set into its upper body threw out searing waves of focused heat which shimmered in the air and burned through armor and flesh. Kreig leapt
into an embrace with it, his greatsword held high and angled back down in front of him like a rock scorpion’s striking tail.

  It moved impossibly fast. Serrated talons fastened onto the witch king’s armor, points piercing through to flesh beneath. Its teeth clamped onto the hollow beneath his left arm, and the chest-mounted crystals flared with renewed assaults of scalding heat which seemed to strain at the very bones of his body. The viscous slime on its teeth burned through the wounds and into his blood, lighting his entire body afire. Kreig brought the point of his greatsword down into the muscled joint that held the creature’s shoulder and thick, scaled neck. Reveling in his own pain, a sense he had not known for decades, Kreig drew hard upon the battle frenzy of his warriors and continued to place his full strength behind his sword. It drove through, spearing the creature along the length of its body. It shuddered, claws now removed from the witch king’s body and flailing the air, but its teeth set in harder, crunching bone and rending flesh.

  It was as if a giant hand had reached down to swat at the Keldon who had thought to place himself on par with the gods. An eruption of flame picked him up and lifted him into the air. The roaring thunderclap deafened his ears to the shouts of his followers and the metal grinding of the war engines they fought. Acrid smoke clogged his nose, ran acidic down his throat and into his lungs, and then he was falling back to earth and into the charred ruin that had once been his opponent. The ground rushed up with bone-jarring speed, embracing him with crushing force.

  The witch king rose shakily to his feet. His armor gone, bare skin braced with blisters and angry burns, he barely felt the chill touch of the air. Blood trickled and then clotted as his wounds responded to the powers the combined warhost still engendered within him. Where the green spittle clung to him, those wounds did not close immediately and continued to pain him with agony like molten iron dripped into his veins.