by Doug Beyer
Rafiq circled back around to meet it again. The reaver skidded to a halt, its flanks heaving and rib bones showing through, and turned to face him as well. The two of them charged one another.
It would never end by using the proper wartime etiquette he had been raised on, Rafiq thought. The undead would never fall from mere tissue damage. He would need to do something more drastic.
As his leotau rode toward the monster, Rafiq unhooked his boots from the stirrups. With his sword in one hand, the horn of the saddle in the other, he crouched on the leotau’s back, compressed like a spring. Just as he saw into the hollow depths of the dreg reaver’s eye sockets, he leaped, pushing the leotau out of the path of the beast and himself up into the air. On impact with the creature’s face, he rammed the sword deep into its skull, and then somersaulted down its back. He crashed into the undead creature that rode the beast, and the two of them fell off onto the ground.
Rafiq recovered onto his feet, but so did the rider. Swordless, Rafiq was forced to dodge the zombie’s attacks as it slashed at him with a sawlike weapon of bone and metal. He glanced back to see that the dreg reaver had collapsed and skidded to a halt, its face crushed.
There was a chorus of unholy screams. Rafiq looked up to see that demons had taken wing to meet the angels. The sight so distracted him that Rafiq’s undead combatant almost landed a lethal blow, but just before it could, one of the other Bant knights came riding by and sliced the creature in half. Rafiq nodded in gratitude.
High above, two of the demons collided with one of the angels, consuming her in a mass of claws and batwings. There was a shriek, and as the demons parted, there was a burst of light and white feathers where the angel had been.
Asha, thought Rafiq, if you’re going to appear, it would be a good time.
THE MAELSTROM
What is it?” shouted Kresh, shielding his eyes. The storm of light before them was huge, filling the valley between the worlds. It arced and thrashed with power as streams of energy poured into it from four directions.
“It’s mana,” said Ajani, his eyes tearing as he stared into its center. “It’s raw mana.” It would have taken staggering amounts of funneled mana to create such a manifestation, Ajani thought.
That was the key, he realized. That was the goal of all the machinations. That was the meaning behind the destruction of worlds slamming into worlds—the storm of raw mana, that naked spectacle of power. Rakka, Marisi, Chimamatl, Mayael, and dozens, perhaps hundreds of unwitting minions throughout the five worlds of Alara—all their work was in the service of that maelstrom. And the master of all those unwitting minions, the nexus of that plane-spanning web, was Bolas, the dragon of shadow.
And, no doubt, he would be there soon—if he wasn’t there already.
“It’s beautiful,” said the elf prophetess Mayael, the power glinting in her irises.
“Anima,” said Ajani. “You’ve come to war?” Behind her, elvish legions stood in formation.
“Greetings, white cat,” said Mayael. “We come to help however we can, for the sake of Naya, and all worlds.”
“I thank you for your help,” said Ajani. “But you should go. This storm is not stable. Your people are in danger here.”
“Ajani,” said another voice he recognized.
Ajani turned, and saw Zaliki. Behind her stood an army of nacatl.
“Zaliki, what are you doing here?” said Ajani. He blinked. “Who are …How did—”
“I needed answers,” Zaliki said. “I followed the stream of mana from the obelisk at Qasal, and it led me here. “And an army came with me. They wanted answers too. They’re Cloud Nacatl, Ajani.”
“I don’t understand,” said Ajani flatly. “But you, you all need to go. It’s very dangerous here. Something dire is about to happen.”
“Ajani,” she said, her face serious. “I have to tell you something. This is very important.”
“No, you need to go, now. I can’t have you here. There’s a dragon coming, and he’ll—”
“I’m Jazal’s murderer.”
Ajani’s words petered out, until his mouth was just hanging empty.
Ajani ushered Zaliki aside, away from the glare of the mana maelstrom.
“I’m so sorry,” said Zaliki. “I’ll understand if you want to kill me, or never see me again. But you have to know. I was given the task by Marisi.”
“What? Marisi? You know he’s alive?”
“I’ve known for over a year, Ajani. The witch Chimamatl contacted him, because she heard there might be a threat to his plans, and hers.”
“Jazal.”
“Yes. Your brother was seeking answers. Why had the nacatl clans divided? Why did the humans have a prophecy that required your death? What was the meaning behind the celebrations for Marisi, breaker of the Coil? But these questions interfered with Chimamatl’s plans for the pride, and with the plans of far greater forces.”
“So they killed him.”
“I killed him. It was I who planted the magics in the bonfire that night. I caused those horrors to emerge at our den.”
“Zaliki, why?”
“I’m so sorry. They told me it would just scare everyone, that it would help the pride unify around a common enemy. They told me it would be a convincing illusion, to help quiet the voices against Marisi. I had no idea it would be … an assassination.”
Ajani’s heart pounded. The pain of Jazal’s death flooded over him anew.
Ajani, said Jazal’s voice in his mind. The sound of his voice was jarring.
“Brother,” Ajani answered silently.
This isn’t the end of your road, said Jazal. Remember who she is.
“She killed you,” said Ajani. “She brought the spell vessel to the pride. She brought those creatures to harm you.”
She was given the task blind, brother, said Jazal. She meant to scare me. She didn’t know what it would cause. You would destroy Zaliki for delivering another man’s poison? Look at her. You’ve been friends your entire lives. She’s the only one alive who sees under that white fur of yours.
Ajani boiled with rage. Zaliki’s eyes didn’t rise to meet his own, and tears flowed down her face.
Or if you think it’s right, continued Jazal, then do it. Kill her. Avenge me. You’ve reached your goal—-you’ve found my killer at last. My spirit will finally rest! So what are you waiting for? Enact your vengeance!
Ajani’s teeth clenched tight. His brother’s voice spoke the truth, but it jabbed him in the heart. Zaliki had made a mistake, influenced by Marisi. Jazal’s blood was on Marisi’s hands, if anyone’s. He was the one who had delivered Bolas’s dragonscale orb to the pride. He was the one who had brought it into Zaliki’s hands. And yet Ajani still wanted to close his claws around her neck.
It’s your choice, brother, Jazal said, and then fell silent.
“I knew in my heart it was wrong,” Zaliki was saying. “I knew the spell was meant for Jazal, and I even knew it was meant to hurt him.”
“Zaliki, I—I need to know. Where is Marisi now?”
“He’s dead. I killed him with my own hands.”
Just like that, Ajani’s chance at vengeance was taken away from him.
“Ajani, I’m so sorry. I should die. I should die so that Jazal can rest.” She buried her face in his chest. “I—” Her voice broke into heaving sobs. She said something over and over, something obscured by the tears. Eventually Ajani made it out. “I killed him,” she was saying.
An alloy of pity, disgust, and grief melted together in Ajani’s mind. He wanted to push her away, embrace her, and crush her all at once—all forces that fought each other, paralyzing him. After a tortured moment, he stood.
Zaliki was a harbinger, not an assassin; in his heart he knew that. Taking revenge on her would only deepen the injustice Jazal had suffered, and reward the sins of the dark forces far beyond her. Ajani’s pursuit was not over—just refocused. He would not stop until the being who truly began the chain of events, the evil ul
timately responsible for Jazal’s death, was punished.
BANT
Knight-Captain Elspeth Tirel had been at the ruins of Giltspire Castle since word came that the demon army approached. She had a private contingent of knights, the responsibility granted to her in Rafiq’s prior absence. Among her legion were some of her knight companions from back in Valeron. Any minute now, when the moment came, she would have to order them into the fray, to ask them to die for the world that she had only recently adopted. Her heart was as heavy as a stone. Though she loved that world, Bant was truly theirs, not hers. Thw white stone obelisk behind her, the remains of a great citadel, was not a cherished landmark to Elspeth, but a reminder of the fragility of all she held dear —family, honor, peace.
High above her, angels smashed into screeching demons. Before her, the army of Malfegor approached, thrashing through Asha’s Army without so much as a slow in their pace. If Bant’s fighters weren’t ready for the mages of Esper, Elspeth thought, then they could never conceive of the horrors of war with demons and the undead. Her home was being overrun. She felt a stab of paralyzing terror as the morbid things approached—it was like she was back on her home world again.
Far across the battlefield, over the warring armies, Elspeth saw the demon-dragon abomination, the Grixis general Malfegor. She saw it rear back, spreading its batlike wings to blot out the sun—and saw that its eyes were locked on the white obelisk behind her. Malfegor uttered a vast noise from the bowels of its chest, and raised two of its arms high. Even from where she was, Elspeth could see that between its hands, it was conjuring a noxious tangle of black magic. Bant soldiers and Grixis undead alike began screaming in bloody agony, writhing and toppling onto the battlefield.
“Legion, attack!” Elspeth called. “Mages, fire on that demon! All cavalry, charge that demon! All infantry, destroy that demon!”
Elspeth’s troops rode into combat ahead of her, charging into the fray to face Malfegor. She took her place in the saddle of her leotau steed, and was about to follow after them, when she heard a call from behind her, from the road behind the obelisk.
“Elspeth!” shouted her monarch, Aarsil the Blessed, riding a noble stallion at a full gallop, her robes flying in the wind. There was a procession of her servants behind her, but she rode faster than all of them. Aarsil held aloft a shining sword, pointing at Elspeth with it. “Elspeth, this is the Sword of Asha. You must get this to Rafiq!”
Malfegor’s spell was proceeding as planned. The obelisk opposite him was free, but had never come to life, had never spread the mana of Bant to the center of the maelstrom as Bolas wished. The demon could sense the lattice of protection spells surrounding it. They were powerful, holding in what must be an impressive storage of pure mana, protecting that mana from escaping Bant. But Malfegor had plenty of resources at his disposal to rip down the sheltering magic: there was an entire battlefield of vessels of life energy before him, ready to be torn open to power his spell.
He reached above his head and called up a baleful glyph, and used the power of the spell to drag all the life force from everyone around him—even the tiny scraps of life left in his own undead troops. He had no need nor desire to win this battle, he thought; he only needed to kill enough creatures to bring down the magic protecting the obelisk, and then he could be on his way.
As he held the spell, he saw a rush of knights and mages charging at him, dodging around the writhing mortals caught in his spell. Before they could reach him, he crushed the glyph between his claws, breaking loose its power. A shockwave of death rippled outward, leveling everyone before him.
Most of them died instantly, their souls torn roughly from their bodies to feed Malfegor’s spell, leaving a wake of crumpled bodies.
It was plenty of power to do the job. Malfegor was sorry to waste such a delectable fusion of soul energy, but he cast it at the obelisk in the form of a black bolt of death.
Down on the battlefield, Rafiq was blasted off his feet by Malfegor’s wave of death magic. He felt excruciating, wrenching pain as the sorcery attempted to twist his soul free of his body, and as he tasted firsthand the force of death itself.
When the surge of pain abated, he was alive—but one of only a few. As he looked around him, he saw that nothing stood within the blast radius around Malfegor, as if the demon had swung an enormous scythe to reap both the living and the dead.
Malfegor’s magic slammed into the white obelisk, enveloping it in sickly black tendrils for a moment, and then dissipating. The obelisk flared to life with an explosion of white light, blinding Rafiq momentarily. When the light subsided, a stream of distortion led from the top of the obelisk away into the distance, and the demon Malfegor was walking away, back in the same direction.
“No,” said Rafiq aloud. It couldn’t happen that way. Where was his glorious victory? Where was the fulfillment of Asha’s prophecy? Where was Asha herself, lifting high the holy weapon that should have slain this terrible beast?
“Rafiq!” shouted the Knight-Captain Elspeth, riding toward him at speed. She held up a sword by the scabbard, and without warning, flung it at him.
Rafiq caught it. It was incredibly heavy, and warm to the touch even through the scabbard. He unsheathed it, and it was as if the sun had been encased in the leather. Its blade glowed, even at the junction points where it had been fused together by a blacksmith only hours before. And built into the cross-guard of the sword was the Sigil of Asha, the same sigil he had been awarded as Knight-General. Finally, he wielded a part of history—the Sword of Asha.
He stood, and turned to Malfegor’s retreating form. He charged the abomination on foot, running toward it despite being dwarfed by the demon’s size.
Behind him, Elspeth willed him all the power and protection she could muster, and Rafiq found himself floating as much as running, a charge that lifted him into the air right at the heart of the creature, just as the creature turned to face him.
For a moment, Rafiq felt the touch of divinity. He imagined wings spread out from his back as he held an archangel’s sword, soaring over the battlefield toward the lord of evil. I am Asha’s return, he thought.
As Malfegor saw the blade, and as the light from the blade approached his skin, he howled. As Rafiq flew toward him, the demon raked his claws across Rafiq’s body. Rafiq felt his armor tear away from him as if it were paper, but he didn’t feel the hellish claws cut his skin, nor did his trajectory waver. He fell into the beast, his destiny unalterable.
Rafiq swung once, twice, and the sword cut through the abomination, slicing deep channels of light all the way through his body. Two fissures in the shape of an “X” tore Malfegor open from his shoulders to his hips, and his body parted at the seams. The demon’s arms fell to the sides, his head rolled backward, and his body crumpled to the ground. The abomination collapsed, a mountain of death, destroyed.
THE MAELSTROM
Ajani’s tormented thoughts of vengeance were shattered by a blast of fire from above.
“Well met, Ajani Goldmane!” shouted Sarkhan, from the back of the dragon Karrthus. Behind them were more dragons, each tearing through the air in their own loops and patterns. As Ajani ran for cover, the dragons wheeled about, and swooped in to breathe fire over the armies of elves and nacatl. Dragon fire scorched great swathes of the humanoids, sending the armies into chaos.
“Destroy them!” shouted the elf Mayael.
The gorge around the mana maelstrom erupted with magic. Elves blasted the dragons with thorn-spiked winds, with particles of Naya jungles shredding their scales and wings. Zaliki threw strength magic across the humanoid armies, trying to boost their resilience to the flames. Even Kresh’s warriors cast symbolic war-curses into the fray as they leveled all their spears at the draconic enemies.
Torrents of magic whipped all around Ajani; he felt it thrashing at his mind. The dragons’ rage, the armies’ spellcasting—it all served to churn up the maelstrom of mana before him. As streams of mana flowed into it from four directio
ns, flares of jagged energy also surged outward from it, lashing the dragons and humanoid warriors alike. As magic swirled around the gorge, the maelstrom only got more and more violent.
They were contributing to it, he thought, and they needed to stop feeding it. If any entity was able to tap into that much primal power, it could overload, sending the maelstrom and the lines of mana that fed it into a chain reaction that could destroy all five worlds.
So when a new, fifth stream of mana flickered to life, from the obelisk in Bant, Ajani knew he had to do something drastic.
You’ve put it together, brother, said Jazal’s voice.
“I have to stop it,” said Ajani. “We’re causing the maelstrom. We’re feeding it.”
So, stop feeding it, said Jazal. “But I have to stop them all from feeding it.”
So, stop them all.
Ajani’s vision clouded. Around him he saw only the streaks of mana—nature magic, magic of fire and rage, magic of healing and protection, and others—thrashing back and forth between the humanoids and Sarkhan’s flight of rage-blooded dragons. All of them were fueled by bonds of mana, bonds that anchored their magic to the power inherent in the realms of Alara. To his surprise, Ajani could perceive the bonds directly, as if they had been beams of light revealed by smoke. He saw traceries of connection and correspondence all around him, joining every mage and monster with their sources of power all over the world. The volume of mana flowing from all corners of Alara was enormous, all cascading to the maelstrom at the intersection of all the shards.
It had to stop. He had to staunch the flow somehow.
Ajani saw his own mana bonds, bonds not only with Naya, but with the volcanic shard of Jund where he had first planeswalked. He saw the cauldron of lava into which Sarkhan had vaulted, and into which he threw himself in a moment of glory and rage. He summoned mana from all sources he knew, and cast it all out in one savage roar.
