by Doug Beyer
That morning’s dispute was not a salacious one—some squabble over land rights in the olive groves bordering Valeron—but the rafters were full beyond their capacity nevertheless. For although the petitioner from Jhess had chosen a mere squad of local mercenaries to represent him, fighters who would be passably entertaining at best, the defendant from Valeron had chosen as his champion Rafiq of the Many, Knight-Captain of the Order of the Reliquary, Bant’s Grand Champion of Sigils, and the most decorated knight in the world.
Outside, the judge was announcing him. The audience erupted, thundering the stands with more than a thousand feet.
Rafiq put his forehead to his sword and prayed. “Asha, gentle archangel, thank you for last night’s rest,” he said. “Let your morning’s light cleanse the world. Let your mind’s wisdom guide my—”
His second, the gruff rhox Mubin, called from the door. “Rafiq!”
Rafiq rolled his eyes. “—wisdom guide my soul,” he continued. “Let your heart’s bounty fill the fields. Thereafter may you rest, while I battle in your stead, bringing your benevolence to all, that you may then lead me safely home and keep me through the dark of night.”
“Rafiq!”
“Yes, I know—they’re introducing us. It’s time to go.”
“Yes,” said Mubin. “But that’s not why I’m here. It’s a Blessed. She wants to talk to us after the dispute is settled.”
“One of the Blessed caste is here? Who?”
“Aarsil, from the courts of Valeron. No idea why she’d be way out here. She’s here with a delegation of the Order of the Skyward Eye.”
“Why has she come personally? She could have sent someone of Mortar caste. We should talk to her. It must be urgent.”
The big rhox shook his head. “She said to settle up with the Jhessians first. Then come talk to her.”
Rafiq grinned. “I guess she just likes to watch us fight.”
When Rafiq and Mubin appeared from the defendant’s gate, the audience stood and cheered. They bowed, letting their numerous sigils of patronage hang dramatically from their breastplates.
The mercenaries representing the plaintiff’s side had already assembled on the other side of the arena. They were just youths: gangly and awkward-looking young men and women in their front-heavy, ceremonial armor. Their swords, though, looked suspiciously sharp, possibly enchanted. Rafiq wondered whether those blades had been inspected for battle regulations, or whether he simply misjudged the glint on their edges.
The combatants all bowed to the judge, then bowed to each other, then bowed to the Valeron magistrate, Aarsil the Blessed, as she nodded gracefully. The judge led a prayer for all assembled, as everyone directed their outstretched hands to the sacred statue of the archangel’s throne, beseeching her grace over the dispute to be resolved.
Finally, the judge called the rhox knight, Mubin, and three of the Jhessian mercenaries forward. According to custom, the seconds of the champions always fought first. It was time to settle the dispute as the law of the angels intended.
Rafiq watched the face of Aarsil the Blessed, seated in the royal box in the audience. She was too far away to speak with, but he could see that she was seated next to a mage in robes embroidered with the sigil of the Order of the Skyward Eye. The mage whispered to her, and she nodded. As Rafiq watched, her eyes strayed from the center of the arena to where he stood on the sidelines. He gave a slight nod and thought he caught an indication of a smile before the magistrate turned back to watch the action.
Whatever was on her mind, it would have to wait. Rafiq saw Mubin walk out into the arena, and smiled. Nothing pleased him more than seeing justice being carried out.
NAYA
Ajani only wanted to trudge back to his lair and sleep off his wounds. He wanted to lie still until the festival, and forget about the whole thing. Maybe he would find some other way to win the pride’s trust, or maybe it was simply time to go. But someone noticed him on his way into the den. It wasn’t his brother Jazal, but Zaliki, a childhood friend of the brothers. Thankfully, she was one of the only people in his pride who saw past his albino fur. Seeing the blood streaked across his white pelt, she gasped, and intercepted him at the entrance to his lair.
“Ajani, is this your blood?” she demanded. “What happened to you?”
He realized in that moment that the whole enterprise had been stupid. It was useless to try to buy the pride’s favor with a reckless stunt. He was outraged at Tenoch and his gang, but humiliated with himself.
“Never mind, Zaliki,” said Ajani. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s obviously far from nothing. Here, come into the lair and sit. I’ll bandage you, and then you’ll tell me everything.”
He sat while she bandaged him, but he didn’t tell her any details. “I was hunting. There was some … trouble in the forest. I broke my dark iron axe—the one that matches my brother’s.”
“You’re always so closed, Ajani,” Zaliki said. “You keep it all to yourself. There’s nothing in you that wants to come out? Just tell me. I can help you if you tell me. Where have you been? What did you fight? What do you think about the future?”
Ajani raised a brow at her. “That’s a broad question. Do you mean the festival? That’ll go fine. Jazal will make his speeches, and everything will work out as it always does.”
“No, no. I mean, this pride. Do you see yourself here forever? Do you think things will go well for us all in the future?” Her contrasting orange stripes glowed oddly in the gloom of the lair.
“I guess I see myself here,” said Ajani. “My brother is the kha, and I must support him. Although I’ve wondered whether I’m doing him more harm than good here in the pride.”
“I just feel like … I don’t know. What would happen if things were to change? Would we all still be a family? Would we all still stay together?”
Ajani smirked. “Why would things change? Jazal is the most stable leader this pride has ever had. Everyone loves him. We’re the most thriving pride of wild nacatl in all of Naya. What’s really on your mind?”
“It’s hard to explain. We’ll always be friends, right, Ajani?”
“Always.”
She sighed and smiled. “Thanks. That’s what I wanted to hear. So you’ll let me help you? You’ll let me in on what happened that gave you these wounds?”
Ajani’s face fell. “I told you. It’s nothing to be upset about.”
But as he should have expected, she understood anyway. He could never hide much from her. She stood and let the bandages fall.
“All right, you stubborn chunk of stone. Let me tell you what happened, and you nod when I’m getting close. Ready? Let’s see … You’ve suffered some new slight, probably by members of our own pride, and it led to a fight. You lost the fight, but you let them go, thinking it was somehow all your own fault, and now you’re holding on to all your emotions about it, and shoving them deep down inside yourself. You’ve come back not to avenge your tormentors, but to lick your wounds and hide, while the same idiots in our pride go unpunished. How am I doing?”
Ajani faced the wall. “Thank you for the bandages,” he said. “You can go now.”
Zaliki scoffed. “Look. Putting yourself in front of the evils of the world doesn’t make you a hero, Ajani,” she said. “It just makes you a target. Don’t try to save everyone. Don’t try to win, because it’s not a contest—it’s survival. You’ve got to figure out who holds the power in this world, and then get out of their way. Life’s hard enough without trying to overturn the way of things, or to try to turn it into something about honor or integrity. Promise me this—that you’ll get out of the way next time? Won’t you?”
Ajani just lay down on his bed.
Zaliki looked at him for a long moment from the lair entrance, and sighed. Then she left him alone.
JUND
In the two years Sarkhan had spent on the plane of Jund, he had seen dozens of dragons. He followed them with the eyes of a naturalist, watching their fl
ight patterns and their eating behaviors, memorizing maps of nesting locations and broodmate relationships, judging the strength and heat of their dragonfire, and calculating their age, relative size, and approximate overall power. But he had never found the one.
Sarkhan was not a hunter by training. As an adolescent on a plane torn by the machinations of warlords, he had supposed his avocation to be war. He had fought in brutal conflicts across his home plane, tearing giant holes in the defenses of his enemies through a personal will and doggedness that his grandfather called “unmatched among our people.”
For a time, sick of the petty quarrels of the battlefield, he had joined a shamanic group dedicated to the veneration of dragons. From them he had learned of the dragons’ rage and uncompromising predation. But the dragons had been hunted almost to extinction on his plane. With no dragons to revere, he had returned to his war career, believing he would never feel the heat of dragonfire or the fury of those beasts of old.
Sarkhan’s might and legendary stubbornness had soon earned him accolades, rank, and a military force of his own. Expected to do great things in command, he had been put in charge of a massive campaign to defeat the forces of an enemy warlord. He had slain the warlord personally, but as he had surveyed the battle from the warlord’s tower, he had felt hollow, seeing the tiny ants scuffling below. Frustrated and seeking answers, he had entered a shamanic trance, just as his training had directed.
The spirit of a long-dead dragon had appeared to him, whispered a spell into his mind, and then vanished forever. With the incantation of the spell, a huge dragon made of fire had streaked out of Sarkhan’s body, and invaded the battle, blasting the battlefield with a torrent of fire. Fascinated, Sarkhan had watched as his men and those of his enemy were burned to cinders. It was a display of ultimate rage and power that surpassed everything he had ever seen. It had stoked a passion in him that had never before flared to life, and along with it, his planeswalker spark.
Sarkhan had been relieved of duty that day, but had not cared.
He had spent years traveling from plane to plane, hunting for the most monumental dragons he could find. He had given solemn obeisance to some that earned his respect. And he had killed some others that didn’t, believing that any dragon that fell to his humble human hands deserved to die, and that the way he would find the one, the ultimate expression of draconic glory, was by meeting his match.
He had never stayed on any plane longer than a few months until he found the primordial world of Jund. It was home to hundreds, maybe thousands of dragons—a more robust population than any other plane Sarkhan had seen. And yet, life teemed on Jund. All shapes and sizes of reptilian creatures, carnivorous plants, and a strangely ratlike species of goblin, thrived in the hot, volcano-driven climate. Taut and muscular humans swarmed over the plane, adapted to the constant threat of physical danger. And tiny fungal creatures tottered between the noxious pools of tar, apparently even lower on the food chain than the goblins. It was only the enormous buffet of life that could support the high density of draconic predators. To Sarkhan, it was paradise.
The upper atmosphere was thick with volcanic gases, a serious danger for any mountaineering. The scarlet haze could be ignited by any major eruption, or even by the breath of a passing dragon. Sarkhan would have to go into the interior and scale up a lava tube if he was going to make any progress up the mountain.
His goal was a dragon named Malactoth. He had heard the lore of the colossal beast, that he laired deep under an active volcano, and that his hunger was legendary. He had to know whether the creature could be the one he sought, the one whose rage was most pure, the one to whom he could devote a lifetime of tribute.
The lava tube grew tighter. The jagged igneous rock of the ceiling descended as he walked, bringing the smoke from his torch lower and lower. Then a gust of hot air from deep inside the volcano blew out his torch entirely. The lack of smoke was a relief for a time, but it was getting harder and harder to see. With a little pyromancy, Sarkhan relit the torch by blowing a short cone of flame onto it.
To his surprise, as the torch flickered to life, he saw humans staring back at him.
He had come to a small chamber under the mountain. There were a dozen people gathered, he guessed, and they were suited for combat. Several of them were streaked with tar—a few of them were coated in the stuff from head to toe. Some of them bore obvious injuries. A large man and a shaman woman approached him quietly.
“I am Kresh, Tol of the clan Antaga,” the large man whispered. “Please go back the way you came. This is a dangerous place—we slay a dragon here today.” The shaman looked Sarkhan up and down from behind the speaker.
Sarkhan grinned. “I seek this dragon as well. But I have slain many in my day, Kresh Tol Antaga, and I would recommend your little band be the one to turn around and head back. You’re injured and unready to face this beast.”
Kresh grimaced.
“The rage in our hearts is always ready,” said the shaman.
“Rakka is right,” said Kresh. “We face this dragon today. If you want to help us kill it, so be it. But the glory belongs to clan Antaga.”
Sarkhan was still grinning. “Very well,” he said. Your bravery is only eclipsed by your vanity, he thought. But I won’t have to punish your conceit today. The dragon will do that for me.
“You bring up the rear,” Kresh said to him, and marched on.
Sarkhan rarely explained his planeswalker status to others, and never told others of his multiverse-spanning quest for draconic perfection. What was the point? On world after world, he met individuals like Kresh: brash and proud, but ultimately as fragile as a statue made of ash. They died in dragonfire with ridiculous expressions of surprise on their faces. So ignorant of their insignificance were they, so overconfident in their strength. They blended together in Sarkhan’s mind, as useless as brittle parchment. He watched impassively as Kresh’s warriors marched on to their doom, just as he had watched his own men burned to cinders during his first leadership. They certainly seemed cheerful about it.
When they came upon the dragon’s lair, Kresh’s clan marveled at the dimensions of the space. It was an immense bowl carved into the structure of the volcano, splashed with enough magma to destroy a city. One side of it was open to the central conduit of the volcano, which was filled with a black column of noxious smoke. Too long in here and they would all certainly perish, thought Sarkhan. They would have to claim victory quickly, before death did.
In the center of the chamber slept an immense, maroon-scaled dragon. His sides heaved as he breathed, and his nostrils flared with wisps of flame on every exhale. A smile crept across Sarkhan’s face.
Rakka spoke first. “The ritual must happen down there, next to Malactoth.”
“Couldn’t you summon all the elementals up here?” asked Kresh. “We need them for the first assault.”
“No. In this case it must happen right next to the volcanic vent, down there.”
“He’s a hellkite,” marveled Sarkhan. He hadn’t pronounced the rest of the sentence that was in his head: He’s a hellkite that will devour you all today.
NAYA
The celebration of the Feast of Marisi went late into the night. Ajani’s brother Jazal sat at the position of honor, on the raised bamboo dais by the bonfire. Flautists played an old melody, a song about spirits and the wildness of the world. Everyone conversed at once and chewed contentedly on the roasted gargantuan meat brought to them by Tenoch—all except Ajani, who hadn’t eaten or spoken a word. Ajani sat in the shadows by himself, winding straps of leather around the handle of his axe in an effort to repair it. It was doing little good.
Chimamatl, one of the shaman-elders of the pride and Tenoch’s doddering mother, stood and addressed the gathered group. “The hadu, the fireside tale, is how our pride maintains its long memory. The exploits of our beloved young leader Jazal—and other brave warriors, such as my son Tenoch—should be remembered for all time. And they will be remembe
red, as long as we relive their stories at the fireside, and remember to tell them to our children, and they to their own children. As we tell their tales, they must tell the tale of those heroes who came before them. Tonight we must remember a hero who made us what we are, who unshackled us from falsity and let our true selves shine forth. Tonight we remember Marisi the Wild, for the anniversary of his sacrifice approaches.”
Ajani pulled on the leather bindings of his axe. He hoped they would hold long enough for a proper repair. He watched a coal melt into ash deep in the heart of the fire, mesmerized by its slow decomposition. He wasn’t listening to the hadu; he was thinking about Zaliki’s words, staying out of the way of the powers that be. Should he just move on? If his place wasn’t with the pride, where was it? He was also trying not to feel the sting of watching Tenoch enjoy the praise for the feast that Ajani had rightfully provided.
“And now,” intoned the elder Chimamatl, “may I introduce the kha, Jazal.”
The pride shouted in two short, unified bursts, welcoming Ajani’s brother to the front of the dais. Jazal looked glorious standing before the fire; the gold of his fur seemed to gleam brighter than the flame itself. His mane was swept back, his chin was high, and his chest looked as hard as a warrior’s shield. He held his axe, the burnished-bright version of Ajani’s own axe, as a king might hold a scepter. Yet his eyes were gracious, picking out each and every member of the pride and thanking them with his glance. All the pride looked back in admiration, Ajani included.
“Marisi was a warrior,” said Jazal. “Like our heroes who provided this feast tonight. But Marisi’s was a troubled mind—a mind that could not abide the constriction of law, the law that governed all nacatl of Naya, the cursed carvings we know as the Coil. Marisi believed that we nacatl had forgotten something important about ourselves. He believed that the Coil was like a pestle, and the leadership its mortar, crushing our true natures between them. He believed that the true soul of the nacatl had fled our race, and was determined to put it back again.”
