“Not today.”
She tried to claw her way back up onto the bridge, but the rusty metal flaked away under her claws. She decided to swing her legs up to get a foot onto the bridge, but before she got her feet up high enough, Glissa heard footsteps above her. She let her legs drop underneath her and slowed her breathing.
It was too late. The footsteps stopped right above her. Glissa heard metal scraping against metal and looked up to see the head priest standing above her. In one hand he had his ceremonial fire tube, Glissa’s sword in the other.
“You have damaged the Great Furnace,” said the shaman. “For that alone you should die, huh? Are you also the one who freed my prisoners?”
“What prisoners?” spat Glissa.
“I think you know. I’m sure it is no coincidence, huh? An intruder destroying the Great Furnace as prisoners are free? Two are connected.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” gasped Glissa. She tried to swing her leg up onto the bridge again, but the shaman swatted at her with the flat of the sword.
“Tell me where cultists are. I’ll let you live, huh?”
“Give me back my sword,” replied Glissa, “and I’ll let you live.”
“This sword?” shrieked the shaman, brandishing the weapon. “I found this on the bridge! It belongs to me now!”
“Help me up and I’ll show you where your prisoners are.”
“I have seen you fight, huh?” said the shaman. “I believe I am safer with you there. Now, you tell me what I want to know. I have upper hand here.”
“Maybe,” grunted Glissa, “but I have your foot.”
She dug her claws in with one hand and grasped the ankle of the shaman with the other. With a quick yank, she pulled the shaman’s leg over the edge. Unbalanced, he dropped unceremoniously on his back above Glissa. She yanked on his leg again and pulled him off the bridge.
The shaman swung below Glissa, upside down at the end of her arm. She held on tight but could feel her grip on both his ankle and the bridge slipping. The goblin grabbed her sword in both hands.
“You want this sword so much,” he said. “I give it to you, huh?”
“Do that and we both die.”
Glissa heard the lesser shamans scrambling above her. “Stay back or I’ll drop your chief priest into the bowls of the Mother,” she shouted.
The scrambling footsteps receded.
The shaman glared at her, a defiant look in his eyes. “Drop me, and you lose sword.”
“I don’t have time for this,” muttered Glissa.
More footsteps, heavy ones. The goblins above her screamed. One by one, they fell over the edge. Glissa saw a massive club swinging back and forth above her, knocking goblin after goblin off the bridge. She looked back down at the shaman and smiled.
“My ride is here. It’s time to go.”
The goblin shaman screamed and swung the sword at Glissa, but the elf was too fast for him. She kicked her feet at his hands and knocked the sword up into the air, then released her grip on the goblin’s ankle and grabbed the pommel as it dropped past her. The shaman fell down into the blackness, screaming and flailing his arms. A moment later, Bosh’s massive hand reached over the ledge and pulled Glissa up onto the bridge.
Bosh bent over to pick up his club. It was the golem’s other arm. He grasped his own hand in a weird handshake and stood up. “No time to finish reconstruction,” said Bosh. “You required help.”
“Thank you,” said Glissa. “Slobad make it out okay?”
The golem nodded.
“We’d better leave as well,” she said. “We can’t let him beat us there.”
* * * * *
Glissa climbed onto the golem’s shoulders. Bosh ran straight through the furnace cavern, only using the paths when he needed to cross a chasm. Any goblins who dared come near were greeted by the golem’s massive, iron arm. Bosh swung the improvised club back and forth in front of him as he ran.
Once out of the furnace room, they went through several goblin-made passageways. Glissa could see other caverns to the sides as they ran, though none as large as the furnace room. The golem stopped, and Glissa peered over his shoulder. They stood at a doorway into a cavern that dwarfed the furnace room. Glissa couldn’t see the other side or the ceiling of the huge cave, but she could see a massive hole in the center. She had been wrong. The furnace didn’t sit on top of the Mother’s Womb. It was right there in front of her.
Hundreds, even thousands, of goblin-made buildings of all sizes surrounded the hole. A small army of goblins had left the city on the edge of the Womb. They marched up the path toward the entrance, heading straight for them.
“Why have you stopped?” demanded Glissa.
“I know this place,” replied Bosh.
THE INNER WORLD
“Is that the way out?” asked Glissa. She pointed toward the approaching goblin army.
“No,” said the stoic golem.
“Tell me about the hole later,” screamed Glissa, “and get us out of here.”
Bosh turned from the Mother’s Womb cavern and ran down the hall. Soon the hammered walls gave way to natural metal formations. Tubes ran up the walls and across the ceiling. The hammered floor continued for a while longer but eventually gave way to the rusted iron tubing that seemed to run throughout the goblin complex. The corridor had turned into a cave, and Glissa could finally see the entrance ahead. Light from the red moon washed over the floor like blood.
They emerged from the cave in the middle of a mountain range. Tubular metal formations spread out ahead of them in every direction. The mountains looked much like the furnace. Iron tubes sprang up from the ground and intertwined with one another around a central core to form metal buttes that dotted the landscape. Many of these tubular mountains were larger than Taj Nar. The ground was a twisted mass of iron tubes. A layer of rust coated everything, giving the mountains a dull red appearance.
Glissa glanced back at the entrance to see if they were being followed, but Bosh’s long legs and tireless pace had left the goblin army well behind. The mountain behind them was enormous. It dwarfed the surrounding buttes. They were about a quarter of the way up the side and yet the top was obscured from view, fading into the sky and stars above. The entire mountain was made of the same tubular metal Glissa had seen inside the caverns. In fact, all the formations around her looked like they were connected through an endless iron pipeline.
“What the flare formed all of this?” she asked out loud.
“Memnarch,” said Bosh.
“Memnarch made all of this?” asked Glissa. “The mountains, the furnace, the big, flaring hole?”
“He shaped the world to create homes for everyone.”
“What is he?” asked Glissa. “A god? A planeswalker?”
“I cannot … remember.”
“Well, don’t hurt yourself.” Glissa slapped him on the shoulder. “It will come back. Give it time. For now, tell me about that big hole—the Mother’s Womb.”
“I ascended a hole similar to the … Womb,” said Bosh. “I recall the inner world that Slobad described. I remember emerging from such a hole and seeing the stars and moon above.”
“Wait a minute. You said ‘a hole similar to that one.’ Are there others?”
“Yes,” said the golem. “I believe so.”
“How many?”
“Three,” said Bosh. “Perhaps four.”
“Do you remember anything else?” asked Glissa.
“No.”
* * * * *
Bosh ran on in silence. Glissa turned around and watched the red moon disappear behind the mountain. She examined herself in the dim light of the blue moon, the one the goblins called the Eye of Doom. The wound over her ribs had closed, but her feet had swollen in the hours since the battle on the furnace floor. She summoned mana from the distant Tangle and let it pulse in her palms. She rubbed her feet lightly with the energy. It soaked into her blistered flesh and soothed the pain. She would need
new boots, but her feet would heal. She had been lucky.
Glissa glanced up at the Eye of Doom again. They must head toward the Eye next, which always seemed to hover at the horizon. Chunth said the moons were heading for a convergence. Each moon, she knew, would rise over its own land. During her time with the leonin, she had seen the yellow moon—what the leonin called a sun—rise high above Taj Nar. The red moon—Slobad’s Sky Tyrant—was almost directly overheard when they emerged from the goblins’ lair. She was sure the Eye of Doom shone most brightly over the Quicksilver Sea. That was where they would find the vedalken. That was where she would find her answers.
Eventually, Bosh slowed down. “We are near the entrance to the cult lair,” he said.
Glissa glanced about. The only light came from the distant blinkmoth stars. While her eyes were poor in pitch dark, they worked well enough in the dim twilight. She spotted a faintly illuminated rectangle outlined in a tubular outcropping.
“There,” she said, pointing to the disguised door.
Bosh pressed on a tube next to the door to open it, and they slipped inside. Glissa dropped off the golem’s shoulders and led the way through the halls. She didn’t know the layout of the lair, but she was sure she could find the inner wall that housed Slobad’s secret scrying room. She watched for duct covers. After twisting and turning through the lair she found a long hallway that had duct openings placed at regular intervals, each across from an intersecting corridor.
“This is the spot,” she said. “I don’t know how to get in there, though.”
“I can get us through the wall,” said Bosh.
“I don’t think Slobad would like that much,” said Glissa. “We’ll just wait for him.”
A portion of the wall opened up behind them, and Slobad peeked out. “You right, elf,” he said. “Secret room not very secret with hole in wall, huh?”
“Slobad!” shouted Glissa. She ran over and dropped to her knees to give the little goblin a hug. “You made it out.”
“Of course.” He pushed the elf away and brushed himself off. “Slobad always survive. It what he do best, huh? You okay?”
“I could use some new boots and a good night’s sleep,” replied Glissa. “How are Dwugget and the others?”
“Alive,” said Dwugget, coming up behind Slobad, “thanks to you, my girl.”
“Thank Slobad. He got me there. He put me back together just as he did Bosh.”
Slobad looked at Bosh. “I need to finish job. Do better work on elf, huh?”
The goblin led the golem and Glissa into the secret room and began to work on the golem’s arm. Bosh held his limb in place while Slobad climbed onto the metal man’s shoulders to work. Glissa sat across from them and pulled off the tattered remains of her boots. She set the boot sheath aside and laid out the scorched leather to see what she could salvage.
Dwugget took the leather from Glissa. “Let us help,” he said. “We repair before we leave.”
“Thank you, Dwugget,” she said. “I’m going to need them. I have a long trip ahead of me this time.”
“Where will you go?” asked Dwugget. “What great mission take you and Slobad all across Mirrodin, huh?”
Glissa almost laughed. “I plan to go to the Quicksilver Sea,” she said. “I’m going to find the person responsible for the attack last night.”
“We thought it was the goblin shamans,” said Dwugget, “come to purify the Krark cult once and for all.”
“They probably helped,” said Glissa. “But those silver beasts belonged to someone who’s been trying to kill me. I’ve seen similar creatures before.”
While Slobad fixed Bosh’s arm, Glissa told Dwugget her tale. She explained how Slobad saved her from the leveler and how they had found Bosh in the Dross. She told him of the deaths of her friends and family.
“Those deaths not etched in your metal, huh?” said Dwugget. “They not your fault. Do not blame yourself for the corrosion of others.”
Glissa nodded. “We plan to cut away the corrosion so it cannot taint our metal any longer,” she said. “That’s why we go to the Quicksilver Sea, to find the person responsible.”
“Slobad tell me your destiny has something to do with Great Shaman Krark and our Mother’s Heart,” said Dwugget.
“I don’t know,” said Glissa. “It may all be connected somehow. My shaman, a troll priest named Chunth, told me of a world within our world. He believed it was very important to my destiny. What can you tell me about the inner world that Krark found?”
“Krark keep journal during trip,” said Dwugget. “Goblin shamans destroy, but not before I copy most, huh? We call it Book of Krark. I let you read.”
“Thank you.”
Dwugget took her boots over toward the cultists, who were resting on the other side of the chamber. Glissa turned to Slobad, whose hand had disappeared into the joint between Bosh’s arm and his shoulder.
“Where can we take Dwugget’s people where they can be safe?” she asked.
“We take to leveler lair as soon as Bosh fixed,” he replied. “Should be safe there again, huh?”
“You and Bosh take them there,” said Glissa. “I’m going to the Quicksilver Sea.”
“Leveler lair not far,” said the goblin. “We all go. Slobad know way. Bosh get us there fast, huh?”
Dwugget returned with a dark leather book. The cover was curved, leather wrapped around a piece of mountain iron. Inside, leather pages were bound together by straps laced through the iron half-tube. Glissa took the book as she had seen trolls handle religious objects during ceremonies. Touching it filled her with a sense of wonder and purpose she had never before experienced.
She bowed her head to Dwugget, then turned back to Slobad. “You two are staying,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
“That why we go,” grunted Slobad, pushing against some tool inside Bosh’s shoulder. “Keep crazy elf safe.”
“You will require our assistance,” said the golem.
Bosh’s commanding voice seemed almost comical as he sat holding his own arm in his lap while Slobad perched on his back, grunting and poking inside the golem’s shoulder. Glissa wanted to argue the point. She knew it would do no good. In the end, they were as stubborn as she was. For now she began to read the Book of Krark.
The Great Mother called to me again last night. She sent me a vision of her Heart. I floated down through her Womb into an inner world. Her Heart hung low in the sky, glowing with the might of the four suns. I reached for it, but the Heart was just out of my reach. It hung there, filling the inner world with power and light. I felt warm, as if I were standing before the furnace. I felt content, like I had found my true home.
* * * * *
Glissa looked up from the book to see an alien landscape. She stood on bare metal. The ground around her was featureless: flat, smooth, and gray as far as she could see. The Book of Krark had disappeared from her hands, but she remained in her own metal-clad body. Huge plantlike formations of crystalline material dotted the metal plains around her. The crystal plant towers reached hundreds of feet into the air toward a huge ball of energy that dominated the sky. They glittered and reflected the light of the Heart in every direction, creating rainbows of color that swept across the sky and collided with one another.
Glissa knew this was a flare, though she had never before recognized one while she was in it. How could this scene come from her life or from some racial memory? The elves had never been to the inner world. Or was she reliving Krak’s journey? Yet she was in her body, not some ancient elf or goblin body.
The vision began to dissolve around her as she pondered its reality.
“No!” she cried. The sound echoed strangely across the plains. It bounced back and forth among the crystal towers, multiplying into hundreds of noes winging their way across the inner world. The vision came back into focus as Glissa concentrated on the echoes.
She walked among the crystal towers. They seemed to reach into the sky toward the central moo
n … or was it a sun? High above her, Glissa could see white specks floating in the air. Blinkmoths? She couldn’t be sure. They seemed to glow, but perhaps it was the light of the orb passing through them. The orb pulsed like a beating heart inside the breast of the world. Each pulse sent a different color cascading around the orb—blue, red, white, black, green.
The specks began to swirl. The light pulses within the Heart cycled faster, and the tiny motes twirled faster as well. The effect was dizzying. Glissa’s knees buckled beneath her, and she fell to the ground. She stared up at the Heart. The colored lights sped across the Heart so fast they became a blur. The cloud of white specks turned into maelstrom, twisting around and around above her like a tunnel to the Heart.
The Heart turned bright blue for a moment at the other end of the storm, then burst in a shower of color. A blue orb of energy hurtled down the twisting tunnel like a bolt of lightning. A huge thunderclap shook the ground and tossed Glissa into the air. When she landed, the elf glanced up and screamed just before the blue ball slammed into the surface of the inner world … and her.
* * * * *
Glissa awoke with a start. The Book of Krark clattered to the floor. The room was dark around her. A single fire tube burned in the far wall above the cultists. They were asleep on the floor. Glissa picked up the book and set it on the table.
She rose and walked around the room. Bosh sat in a corner, his red eyes glowing in the darkness. Glissa could see Slobad curled up on the golem’s legs. He was snoring again.
“Are you all right?” whispered Bosh.
“Yes,” she said, “but why do they always have to end with my death?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing,” said Glissa. “Just had a bad dream.”
The Moons of Mirrodin Page 20
