Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (magic:the gathering)

by Robert B. Wintermute

  Nissa continued. How many days can we expect to climb to the Eye?

  From Affa, two perhaps three days, the goblin said.

  And what will happen then? Nissa said. What are your and your mistress s reasons for traveling there in the first place? I suppose I never asked.

  Mudheel looked down at the face of Smara, who looked up at the pocked, mole-covered face of the goblin. She feels drawn by the spirit in her crystal.

  There is a spirit in that?

  A most fabulous one, the goblin said. The words were barely out of his mouth when Smara began struggling again. She bucked her body up and snapped her legs out. Mudheel struggled to hold her. When Smara s struggling became more violent, Mudheel gently put her down on the ground.

  The gift is in the loam, Smara screamed, suddenly. She kept screaming it.

  Should we both carry her? Nissa said.

  The goblin nodded. Nissa took the kor s ankles and Mudheel her wrists, and they hoisted Smara and began walking with her, struggling, toward the edge of the settlement. She stopped screaming.

  Nissa waited a couple of beats before speaking again. What ails your mistress? she asked.

  Nissa could not see the goblin s face as it walked ahead, but she imagined a wince.

  It started after she heard you and the vampire speaking yesterday.

  You heard that? Nissa asked.

  I did not, Mudheel said. She did.

  But how do you know she heard it

  She speaks to me, the goblin said as he stopped walking for a moment. In my head.

  What did she hear? asked Nissa.

  She was bothered by the Sorin vampire s plan.

  Was she?

  Her ghost tells her to release the Eldrazi, Mudheel said. He tells her to kill you all. He tells her to burn things.

  The hairs on the back of Nissa s neck stood. Really?

  Yes, the goblin said. Kill you in the fire of the Eye of Ugin.

  I see.

  The gift in the loam must be released.

  You want to free them?

  It is not I, the goblin said. It is the desire of my mistress s ghost.

  And who is this ghost?

  The knower of all things, the goblin said.

  The predictor of everything.

  And it says free the Eldrazi?

  From the back, Nissa saw the goblin look left and right at the mention of the word Eldrazi. It says: free those who shall not be named.

  Once again the hairs on the back of Nissa s neck went up. Smara began to thrash violently and to scream words Nissa did not know. Nissa watched the goblin wrestling with the kor. The kor had been cast out of her tribe and given to the wilderness and somehow lived. She had grown up apart from her people through no fault of her own, and after all that a crystal that spoke to her, telling her to burn things and free the Eldrazi.

  Smara kept screaming. She thrashed out of the goblin s arms and staggered around as Mudheel spoke in a low voice trying to calm her. The inhabitants of Affa turned and watched the kor. Soon a small crowd had formed outside of a small dry-stack stone building with a flagon of wine painted above the door. Mudheel began shoving Smara none too gently down the lane, and soon they were out of the center of the settlement and hurrying between the tents.

  The tents and rough stone shacks started to thin as they reached the far side of the settlement and the boulders started. The huge rocks had been in the settlement, of course people had leaned wood and bones against them as a roofs. One could not hope to move boulders of that size without true magical talent, and from what she saw in the camps as they walked, there was not a great deal of that to go around. The inhabitants were mostly petty peril seekers.

  The real power seekers would be excavating other locations like Tal Terig, the tower they had passed that lay under brood siege, or the Hagra Cistern. A real adventurer would not be hovering around at the base of the Teeth of Akoum like an eeka bird. Affa was a place where goblins brought the small relics and Eldrazi charms they had found and could not make work.

  As she walked, a form appeared out of the deep shadows that lay far from the fires. Smara kept screaming as hard as her lungs could.

  What is that lovely sound? Sorin said. Oh, it is the kor, of course.

  Smara reacted to Sorin s sudden voice in the darkness. She struggled and pulled free from the goblin s hands, turned on Sorin, and let loose a string of words Nissa could not understand. Smara sputtered as she spoke. To Nissa they sounded more like complete sentences than the ravings of a mad person, and Sorin listened with a smirk forming at the corner of his lips.

  And then Sorin did something that Nissa could never have predicted. He spoke back to Smara in the same tongue she had been speaking to him. They were talking back and forth, arguing really.

  From behind, Nissa detected movement and smelled the dusty smell of Anowon. But the vampire stood still, listening.

  The arguing continued, with Smara becoming more and more aggravated. At one point the kor stepped forward and swung at Sorin, who stepped back and let the blow pass harmlessly in front of his face.

  Nissa remembered how long she had gone without food or drink. She suddenly felt too weak to go any further, and she sat down on the ground. The stars were bright, and the fires of Affa were behind them. They had no coin and no hope of finding any. They would need to steal, and after that they would need to flee. She was tired enough at the thought.

  The screaming continued until Smara began spitting. Sorin laughed, and Smara turned and wandered away into the darkness with Mudheel trailing after her. They did not see her again.

  Nissa forced herself to stand, and they kept walking. Ahead the dark shapes of the long mountains loomed. Nissa walked up behind Anowon.

  We need supplies, she said. Rope and food and water. We will all die without water.

  The vampire stopped. Then you had best get some.

  We still have no coin, Nissa said. Nothing has changed there.

  Sorin stepped up behind her in the dark. It looks like a bit of theft might be just the thing.

  I do not want to do that, Nissa said. But I will.

  It just so happens I would like to make a stop, Sorin said. I will see what is lying around unattended.

  When Sorin had left, Nissa caught up to Anowon.

  I should have known Sorin was one of you.

  He is not one of me, Anowon snapped. He is an outlander a barong, as you elves say. He is an enslaver, from out there. My people do not enslave their own.

  Not so sure of that, Nissa thought, but she swallowed the words. Instead she said, What was Sorin saying to Smara?

  They were arguing over what to do at the Eye. Smara wants to free the vile ones and let them live among us, and share their wisdom with us.

  That did not sound like a good idea to Nissa, if the Eldrazi titans were anything like their children, the brood lineage.

  Do they suck the mana from holes in the earth like the brood? Nissa said.

  The ancient texts say different things. Some say they lived off the blood of their vampires. Others say that they drank the land.

  Nissa sniffed in the cold breeze blowing down out of the mountains. That does not sound very good, she said.

  If they are large I would reason they could drink plenty of land.

  Anowon kept walking with Nissa next to him. How long had they been walking? Nissa wondered. She had lost count. It felt like months. Every step was slow and heavy. She stopped and plopped down on the ground for a rest. The fires of Affa were well behind them now.

  Anowon stopped and turned to look at Nissa sitting on the ground.

  Anyway, Anowon said. The Eldrazi will not tarry here. The mad kor wishes in vain. They would flee into the sky.

  How do you know?

  All the texts agree they came from there, Anowon said. Why stay here?

  You yourself said they eat mana. Why not stay here and enslave us all?

  If what you said before is correct, then there are many other pla
ces, Anowon said as he raised his hand to the dark mountain. Out there.

  Nissa looked up at the star-strewn sky. She recognized the constellations she had seen her whole life: the scute bug and the vorpal weed, the dragon s claw and the hedron. And there were the other vast planes separated by gray areas in space. Would the Eldrazi prefer these places to Zendikar?

  Nissa, Anowon said. We must rid Zendikar of this parasite.

  Nissa turned and regarded Anowon. What did you see at the Eye before the brood took you prisoner?

  The vampire s voice appeared very close suddenly in the dark. I was there looking at the strange crystal formations and the even stranger writing on some of the crystals. Writing I could not read. Writing that is utterly unknown to Zendikar. I imagine it is writing from Sorin s place, but I was unaware that the Mortifier was more than myth.

  Nissa nodded.

  I was studied these unusual writings before I found two strange beings, perhaps one like you and Sorin not from Zendikar?

  I am from Zendikar, Nissa said. I have always been from Zendikar.

  Well, the female had fire for hair. I wanted to feed on them both, to be truthful. But before I could, I was waylaid. By whom, I do not know. She moved on without me, but I met a mind mage on the trail who was pursuing the fire mage. I led him to the Eye of Ugin. I was locked out of the chamber, though. I don t know what happened, or how they released the scourge.

  What is Ugin?

  Ugin was a dragon, Anowon said. I do not know what Ugin is now.

  Ugin is a bother and a pain, no doubt, Nissa thought. Like everything on this expedition.

  Why did they release the brood? Nissa said.

  Anowon had been looking down at Nissa as he spoke. Now he folded his legs and fell into a cross-legged position.

  I don t know that it was their intention, Anowon said. But whatever they did, it weakened Ugin s ability to hold in the brood.

  You think they accidentally released the brood?

  Anowon bowed his head a bit. As you say.

  How do you think they released them? Nissa said. If she knew how the planeswalkers had released the brood, perhaps she could release the titans if she could convince Sorin to allow it. And if he does not consent? Nissa thought.

  They found a way to open the lock of Ugin, Anowon said. A lock that has defied the Eldrazi for thousands of years. I have no idea how it was done. Perhaps it was their very presence that triggered the lock.

  Just then there was a scuff, and Sorin appeared out of the darkness. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and moved his great sword s scabbard so it was in the proper position. He smiled.

  I have found what we need, and it is close, he said.

  What? Nissa asked.

  Supplies, Sorin said as he turned and began walking. Come.

  They walked through the darkness back in the direction of Affa. Nissa could hear Sorin s scabbard thumping softly against his thigh as he walked. They neared a fire, next to which a figure was lying, apparently asleep.

  Why does this settlement appear so calm and unprotected? Nissa thought. The brood are running feral over the land, and I have not seen an armed guard yet in this settlement.

  As they neared the fire, Sorin put one finger up to his lips and pointed at a large tent. The two dulam beasts tethered next to it snorted as Sorin approached, but Nissa stroked their necks and they calmed.

  Nissa was unsure how it was going to work. They would wake the man if they went through his tent. He would hear them, surely. Sorin carefully threw back the flap of the tent and entered.

  The vampire started handing items out to Nissa and the others. Rope appeared, as did wedges and mallets for climbing, small bags of zim grain and dried meat. Sorin kept handing out goods, but when Nissa saw the jar filled with a glowing substance appear in his hand, she snatched it and tucked it into an inner pocket of her cloak. It was Berm-bee honey a kind of honey made by a berm bee which only collected nectar from the mana imbued flowers blooming in the surging growths after the Roil. A drop filled one with euphoria and prophesies. Three drops caused brief flight. More than three drops caused death.

  Soon each of them had more than they could carry. Sorin stepped out of the tent, and without even looking at the sleeping figure, began strapping all they had on one of the dulam beasts. He used a length of rope to strap on two large panniers and filled these large baskets with goods. The rest, long tent posts and odds and ends, he strapped lengthways along the beast s back.

  Sorin took the beast s halter rope and led it away into the darkness. Nissa looked back at the sleeping figure before following. If stealing from that poor man would allow her to save Zendikar, then that was how it had to be. The man would probably be glad if she told him the full story. As she reasoned with herself, Nissa fumbled for an earthenware canteen of water Sorin had placed in the left pannier, and helped herself to a long draught of warm, sulfurous water.

  They walked into the darkness for a time before Nissa felt comfortable speaking.

  We must have the stealth of a baloth. Nissa said.

  Nobody said anything.

  Did you drug the man? Nissa asked. He could have woken at any moment.

  End this charade of innocence, Sorin said.

  He will not ever wake. I slaked my thirst on him. I even supped on his heart.

  She walked in silence holding the dead man s water jug. They had not slept in days, and suddenly Nissa felt very tired. Yes, it was time to end the charade.

  They stopped to sleep at the base of the mountains. The Teeth of Akoum jutted straight off the plateau. It would be a hard climb, she knew. To compound the difficulties they would encounter, they had lost Mudheel when Smara left. Goblins could be unbearable, but they always knew a good path and how to proceed along it. And Mudheel had been easier to live around than any goblin Nissa had ever met.

  Each of them stooped and kicked hip grooves in the dirt before falling on the ground and asleep.

  Do you know the way? Nissa asked Anowon. She was beginning to wonder if Anowon had fallen asleep when the vampire spoke.

  More, or less, he said.

  That is reassuring, Sorin said.

  I know the general path, Anowon said. My camp had been here in the Teeth, but it was raised in the wake of the brood. I can get us to the Eye.

  Perhaps, Nissa said. She fixed her eyes on the tall mountains above her.

  Later, in the dark, things seemed unusually quiet. Nothing moved. A lizard croaked somewhere far off, and then another closer by, and suddenly Nissa was wide awake. She rolled onto her stomach and took hold of her staff, waiting for the next lizard call to signal an attack.

  But none came. She heard no more lizard calls. The stars blinked above in the empty sky, and in a moment her eyes felt heavy again.

  She woke in the dawn darkness as Sorin jostled her shoulder with his boot.

  Up now, the vampire said.

  Nissa rubbed her eyes and looked around. What had happened to the ambush? She wondered. When the light was good enough she got on her hands and knees to look for signs among the scrubby grasses. But she found only that of a nurm rat.

  There was not time to look further. Anowon began to walk.

  The climb up the mountains started out hard and never stopped. After just three hours, Nissa was breathing as hard as she ever had. The well worn trail was riven with runoff channels and switched back and forth on an ascent so steep that she felt like roping in. But that would have slowed her down. Nissa knew she could not afford to be slow when the man was found dead beside his fire, there was a high likelihood that someone from Affa would send out a search party.

  There was also the issue of last night. Nissa was sure someone had been in the darkness watching them. The lizard calls had been too uniform and their distance too staggered. But Anowon had been on watch, and he had not mentioned anything about the strange calls. Perhaps Affa had sent their party out sooner than she thought, and they were watching for a chance to attack?

  Bel
ow them Affa was an unmemorable scrabble of huts and tents, and above them the peaks appeared to go on forever. The mountain was constructed of the same red, gritty sandstone as the other mountains in the area, with one large difference: the Teeth of Akoum were as smooth as incisors. Where the earlier mountains had been bulbous and rounded, the Teeth were buffed smooth by the winds which blew continuously and hard. It blew so hard that whoever had created the trail had been forced to cut it into the very rock to allow feet purchase. Without the trail s lip the group would have been blown off the side of the mountain and away within two hours of starting their ascent.

  The wind howled so that Nissa finally had to tie a piece of her cloak around her head and ears to protect them and keep her brain from feeling like it would explode.

  And exploding was a distinct possibility. The Roil occurred frequently. Nissa could feel them erupting, echoing off the mountains. As they staggered along the trail, the Roil rent the rock above them, and lava gurgled forth from the cracks. The very mountain seemed to rock on some axis before straightening and settling. Another Roil was so severe that Nissa had to fall to the ground and brace her arms and legs against the rock.

  Sorin, on the other hand, had begun to float away, pulled by the Roil. But Nissa managed to whip out her stem sword and catch his ankle before the crackling mana drew him far out into the chasm.

  After the last Roil they all agreed to use the rope they had stolen in Affa. Nissa was the only one with a harness. She rigged a harness for Sorin out of the rope, which Anowon sneered at as he tied his own.

  Vampire style, he said. The harness Anowon tied on himself looked strange to Nissa, constructed as it was with long pieces of rope that wrapped around the hip and shoulders, a style she had never seen. Elf harnesses, and human ones for that matter, looped around the legs, hips, and abdomen. The strangest harness she d ever seen was surely the merfolk s little more than two pieces of rope strung through the crotch and around the shoulders in a figure eight. Anowon s harness took more rope, but appeared, she had to admit, very stable.

  The trail became steep enough that they had to use their hands to half-climb, half-walk along the rough scree.