by Doug Beyer
And yet, there he was—climbing down to an elvish shrine with a sphere of black dragonscale.
He crested the last of the foothills at dusk, and the valley spread out before him. The Relic of Progenitus was down there—he could just make out the torchlight of the shrine. It was time to do what he always did: deepen his sin, and hope his soul survived. He held up the dragon-scale sphere to his eye, wondering what the magic inside of it would do to the elves in the valley.
ESPER
The lighthouse keeper sank very fast. The vest pulled his head down, and his body began swimming downward into the cold depths. He could see nothing ahead of him, but the reflectors on the vest twirled rapidly in the darkness, making him relatively obvious to anything that might be looking.
You went to a lot of effort just to drown me, he thought at the mentalist.
She said nothing to him. He was alone. The pressure began to build rapidly. The water pressed against his lungs, making it hard to keep his single breath inside. It was painful. He wanted desperately to blow out the air, but his body kept his diaphragm unnaturally rigid and his mouth shut tight. Down, down, down he swam, unable to save his own life.
Something moved in the darkness. There were lights.
A broad, gently curving surface, like the hull of a ship, slipped silently past him in the darkness. The fibers that made up his vest began to glow, catching the reflectors and immersing him in a corona of blue light.
What was that thing? What’s going on? Am I bait? I’m bait. You’re fishing.
Still downward he swam. His head tilted once to look behind him. His mind recoiled at what he saw, but his eyes didn’t: the hulking sea creature was behind him. Twin rows of small, round eyes had locked directly onto him. The beast’s mouth was like the hatch of an enormous cargo ship, the jaw opening downward to wash him into its deepest holds.
His limbs pumped frantically, sinking him deeper and deeper. He had never swum so fast before, or so far into the cold blackness. His head turned back down to the depths and he saw something else: the spire of an underwater mountain. His body was swimming straight for it. It was encrusted with blue coral and razor-sharp barnacles. He was getting close enough that he could almost see the millions of tiny barnacle mouths and their wispy tentacle-tongues.
His breath was about to give out—or maybe it had already gone out, and some magic conjured by the mentalist was forcing a trickle of air into his lungs. His eyes stayed locked open, but he was losing his consciousness of what he saw. His head felt like it was being crushed; he could feel the delicate bones in his ears bending painfully. Would his body keep swimming after he passed out from lack of oxygen, he wondered? Would he slam into the reef mountain below, or be swallowed by the sea creature above?
Stay conscious, the voice in his head commanded.
So she was still watching, he thought dimly. What kind of mad game was it? His thoughts swam with weird imagery—the blue glow of his vest, the coral mountain, the lenses in the optics room. He saw his lighthouse broadcasting a beam of cool light around and around—out to sea, across the land, out to sea again. How many ships had seen that light over the years? How many ships had he protected from that very reef? He saw the light sweeping past him, rhythmically flashing in his eyes. It beat like the awful pulse in his head, the sideways knifing of his heart against the pressure on his chest. Would his legacy be that sweeping light? Or would his final task?
The lighthouse keeper strained against a dark blot in his mind, but it wrapped its claws around him—and then, in a crushed moment between pain and darkness, he lost the fight with unconsciousness. He never felt the leviathan’s jaws close over him, closing also over the peak of the reef. He never felt its jaws crush the coral, breaking the reef free of the structure underneath, or felt gratitude that his death came without awareness. He never saw the leviathan wander away afterward, leaving behind it an ancient underwater obelisk of smooth stone.
The vedalken mentalist collapsed on the ground at the edge of the cliff, exhausted. She looked up at the longhaired human who had accompanied her, a man she had just met hours before.
“The obelisk has been freed, sir,” she said. “It is done.”
“Good. I’ll inform Master Bolas,” said Sarkhan.
NAYA
It was dawn when Marisi finished the ritual at the Relic of Progenitus, a worn disk stood upright on its edge, like an enormous sandstone coin. The carvings on its front surface showed spiraling patterns of a long-necked, three-headed hydra. In the center of the disk glowed a single red shard of quartz, the gem that formed the central eye of the hydra god in the carving.
Marisi planted the dragonscale sphere in the weeds behind the Relic and chanted the words as Bolas had instructed. The dark-scaled globe gaped open into a hemisphere, releasing swirling purplish magics that chilled Marisi’s soul. Tendrils of magic reached inside the Relic, causing deep corruption that Marisi couldn’t fathom. The deed was done. He left the dragonscale bowl to do its work, and climbed out of the valley. Perhaps when he reached his mountain home again, Bolas would be waiting for him there, ready for the news that the ritual was complete, and that he had some new task for Marisi. Or perhaps he would be alone with his misery.
As he reached the first foothill out of the valley, he was startled by a white-furred nacatl standing before him.
“Marisi,” said the white-furred cat, squinting at him, looking him up and down. “Is it you? No. You couldn’t be.”
“No,” said Marisi. “Leave me alone.”
“Chimamatl said I’d find you here, Marisi the warrior-hero, the Breaker of the Coil. She said you’d have mahogany fur with black stripes, as you do.”
Marisi’s heart bounced. The white-furred nacatl knew Chimamatl, the old power-mad witch who wanted her son to be kha of her pride. Chimamatl was a connection to one of Marisi’s many sins—and she had sold him out. Could the white-fur know his secrets?
“I must go,” Marisi said. “You are mistaken. Marisi is dead.”
“Chimamatl said that Marisi visited her. If you are he,” said the white cat, “then I have serious questions for you. My brother was killed in an attack of dark magic.”
They heard rustling in the valley below. A procession of elves, including a young, black-haired elf girl riding on the back of a gargantuan, pushed through the jungle. They were making their way to the knoll where the Relic of Progenitus stood.
Marisi heaved a breath. “What is your name, White-Fur?”
“Ajani.”
“Ajani, I am sorry to hear about your brother. But I … I am not the one you seek.”
In a flash, Ajani pulled out his double-headed axe and put a blade to Marisi’s neck. His voice was even but flecked with rage. “I think you lie. I think you were involved in my brother’s death. And if you don’t tell me what I want to know—”
“Kill me,” said Marisi suddenly, tipping up his chin, leaving his throat exposed.
“What?”
“Take my life, destroy me, and I will have died with a modicum of honor. It would be mercy. Kill me.”
“I … I cannot just kill you,” said Ajani, pulling the axe away. “I must know if you’re the one. You’re Marisi, aren’t you? You are the Breaker of the Coil. And my brother’s—”
“The Beast of Antali, some say,” said Marisi. “Listen, my friend. There are forces at work here that you do not want to be involved in. This is much bigger than you realize. My guilt is great, but I am not your brother’s killer. Your brother’s death was of his own making.”
“Liar,” Ajani roared, raising the axe again.
“It was. Your pride is Wild Nacatl. Let it stay that way. Don’t try to reach out to the Cloud Nacatl, as your brother tried to do. Don’t ask dangerous questions, or try to break down the master’s plans. It’s not about the Coil, it was never about the Coil, it’s …”
“What master? You’d better start making sense in a hurry,” said Ajani.
There was a tremor under the
ir feet. The earth bucked and tossed like a skittish animal, shaking all the trees around them. It stopped as quickly as it had started, but the rumbling sound, a profound snarl deep underground, spread throughout the valley, echoing from hill to hill and on up through the mountains. The procession of elves down in the valley looked distressed.
“Oh, gods, it’s happening,” said Marisi.
“Jazal,” demanded Ajani. “What did you do to Jazal?”
“Kill me, quickly! Before it all happens.”
“Why? Before what happens? Tell me, now!”
Marisi’s eyes flashed with fire. The strings inside his mind were snapping. “It doesn’t matter—even if you don’t kill me, we’ll all be dead soon,” he snarled. “You’ll perish, just like the rest of them. You can’t stop him. The dragon is much too big for you, for me, for this world, for all the worlds. Nicol Bolas will consume us all!”
Another quake hit—far stronger than the first. The earth beneath their feet launched upward, sending Marisi and Ajani into the air. Marisi fell against a tree, knocking the wind out of him. The white-furred nacatl tumbled down the hill trail into the elves’ valley, where the elves themselves were toppled to the ground all around the ancient Relic.
Marisi didn’t wait to see what became of the white cat, or to see what disaster he had wrought in the Valley of Progenitus, or even for his breath to fully return. He took the opportunity to steal away into the mountains.
Perhaps it was a sign, he thought as he climbed into the mists. He would never get out from under the claws of Bolas; he could never be his own person. “Marisi” was nothing but the lies wrapped around his name. But at least he could take pride in one truth—that the lie had power. The lie could still inspire the hearts of warriors, and he could still wield that lie like a sharpened spear.
NAYA
Ajani’s rolling fall was halted by a prone gargantuan, the same beast that Ajani had seen the elves riding before. Its body lay clumsily on the ground as its huge legs tried to find purchase. The beast harrumphed in annoyance through its mouth harness.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” asked a feminine voice.
Ajani looked up and saw that he was surrounded by elves. There were dozens of them, noble smooth-skins with sharp features and elegantly swept-back ears, all in the hand-embroidered robes of ceremony. The one who had spoken, a young elf girl with flowers in her dark hair, appeared to be in charge.
Ajani looked around for Marisi, but the old nacatl had disappeared. Next he checked for his axe. He spotted it nearby, but one of the girl’s attendants stepped on it with his foot, shaking his head, and Ajani didn’t reach for it. Instead he addressed the girl.
“Forgive me for trespassing, elves,” he said. “I am Ajani of the Wild Nacatl. I sought a nacatl near here, but he escaped … when the earth shook. What happened?”
“We do not know,” said the elf girl. Her syllables formed a steady rhythm, not quite a melody, but with a rising and falling tone that sounded like a pulsing heart. “But now you must go. This is a holy place, not meant for your kind, and we have business here.”
Ajani beheld the Relic of Progenitus. He had heard of the place, reported to be the resting place of the elves’ hydra-god, Progenitus. The mound on which the stone disk rested had shifted during the earthquake, and it stood precariously slanted.
“I fear you are in danger here,” Ajani said.
In the underbrush near the Relic, he spied a bowl of black dragonscale. It was the same kind of artifact he had found in the ashes of his den’s home fire, mingled with Jazal’s remains.
“Is that … yours?” Ajani asked, gesturing to the bowl.
“It belongs to Progenitus. But no nacatl is allowed near the Relic,” said the elf girl.
“I don’t mean your Relic,” said Ajani. “I mean that black bowl.” If the elves knew something about it, then maybe it could help him find Marisi, or learn his plans. But even if they didn’t, the presence of the dragonscale bowl surely meant danger.
One of the elf attendants retrieved it. “Anima,” he said. “It’s a spell vessel.”
“What’s a spell vessel?” Ajani asked. The attendant had called her the Anima, Ajani realized. He knew little of elf culture, but he knew that the Anima was a place of honor among the elves—a leader, but not like a kha, more like a high shaman. The elves, particularly the Anima, were said to know far stranger mysteries than even the eldest nacatl shamans. “If you’re the Anima, then you might know something about it that I don’t,” said Ajani.
The Anima took the bowl and inspected it with a frown on her face. Her eyes had a light gray haze over them. Ajani wondered if she could see at all, but then she looked straight at him—coldly “I am Mayael, Wild Nacatl Ajani,” she said. “The current Anima. But I suspect you know more than I about this. A spell vessel is an artifact used to hold magical energies and to spread them. But I’ve not seen one like this. Have you brought it to our valley?”
“No,” said Ajani hastily. “But I’ve seen one that’s similar. It caused evil magic among my people. I fear it will do the same among yours.”
“Or it already has,” said Mayael. “How do we know that its magic hasn’t caused these earthquakes? That you haven’t planted it here to harm us, or to learn our secrets?”
Ajani spread his hands. “Listen, I don’t mean to pry into your affairs. The vessel was not my doing, but I believe it was the nacatl who I sought earlier who put it here. He’s dangerous, and so I believe is this artifact—I think we should all leave this valley, and soon.”
“We cannot, and will not,” said Mayael. “We have been culling the signs since the last moon, and we must stay here until we learn the truth. We must consult Progenitus for guidance, here and now. So you must leave. And take your artifact with you.”
They handed Ajani the dragonscale bowl and his axe, and sent him out of the valley. He wished they would listen. The oily, interlocking scales of the bowl—a spell vessel, the elf had called it—were of otherworldly origin; of that he was convinced.
Ajani walked up the slope out of the elves’ valley, despondent. Things were unraveling for him day by day. Jazal was gone. The “warrior hero” of legend, Marisi, was alive, but was somehow involved in Jazal’s death, and a lying fraud. There were four worlds just beyond the edges of his own, and for reasons he feared to contemplate, his world was experiencing earthquakes greater than the footfalls of the gargantuans.
He could chase Marisi into the mountains and try to find out more about his role on the night Jazal had died. He could trudge back to the den and pore over more of Jazal’s documents. After a moment, Ajani remembered: among his frantic words, Marisi had said a name. Nicol Bolas. He looked down at the black-scaled bowl in his hands.
NAYA
The elf prophetess Mayael knelt on the ground in front of the Relic of the hydra god, Progenitus. Her attendants arranged the train of her embroidered gown carefully on the grass, and sprinkled passion flower petals in a circle around their mistress. Two of the farseers, the young girls who were candidates to become Anima one day, began singing the traditional mantra to Progenitus.
Mayael had only traveled to the relic in person a few times, and felt strangely shy around it. It felt as if the red eye of Progenitus could see right into her soul.
There was no use feeling cowardly. She was the leader of the elves, and the prophetess for an entire world. The world was changing, and her people needed answers—and if anyone was meant to receive the knowledge Naya needed, it was she.
“Hold me, please,” she said to her attendants.
Still chanting, two of the farseers knelt next to Mayael and held her arms. Another sat behind her, facing opposite, using her own back to support Mayael’s. Another girl held the back of her head, to catch her skull in the event of powerful whiplash.
Progenitus never granted tepid visions.
“O shrine of the Blinded God,” she began. “I, one of your children, come humbly seeking an an
swer to the visions I have seen of late. The sacred gargantuans have shaken the world with their footsteps. The humans burn with an aberrant bloodlust. The cat-folk mingle with evil magics. What is the answer? What meaning lies behind these events?”
Clouds crept into the edges of Mayael’s vision. She continued to stare directly at the eye, not attending to the pearlescent mists that heralded the Whitecover Gaze, the vision-state of all the elvish prophets. The chanters’ voices took on a muffled quality, as though traveling through layer upon layer of gauze, until she couldn’t hear them at all.
The clouds of white mist enveloped everything but the Relic, setting the hydra god in relief. Mayael could see only the hydra itself, not the stone in which it was set.
Then it began to move.
The god’s three heads moved independently, as sinuously as snakes, exulting in the power of movement. One head took on a golden sheen, standing proud and noble. Another simmered into crimson, its scales alive like fire. The center head turned an emerald green, reflecting the majesty of the jungle. The three voices of Progenitus spoke.
“Anima,” they said. “Seer of the elves, child of Naya. Why did you blind me?”
“It was not I who blinded you, lord. It was Cylia, the first Anima, who cast the poison into your eyes.”
“Then I would speak with her.”
