Their end rope was belayed crossways around Anowon s shoulder, so the vampire could with his weight act as the anchor. Nissa had counseled Anowon against the idea. What if he fell, or was carried away by the Roil? But Anowon was leading the ascent, and that meant he chose the rope system. Their climb would be in the vampire style. Nissa sighed and started climbing again.
Nissa wondered how Smara and Mudheel would have made their way up the trail Would the goblin have led? Was theirs even the trail the two would have taken? There were other trails; Nissa had seen them branching off. They were mostly small trails, more than likely used by animals, but Mudheel had been the only one among them that actually knew the way to the Eye of Ugin. Anowon had, by his own admission, only the roughest idea of where the Eye lay. In fact, as Nissa watched the vampire take each of his toe-holds, she wondered more and more if he had any ideas at all where the Eye was.
Nissa wondered where the kor and her goblin minder were. Surely they did not give up their quest to get to the Eye just because Smara argued with Sorin? What if they reached the Eye first and managed to free the Eldrazi?
Nissa had never seen Sorin with so little to say and with such a serious look on his face. Every time the switchback turned back on itself, Sorin stopped and closed his eyes and did not move. Whatever magic the vampire was utilizing was not giving him the answers he desired, for he was frowning when he opened his eyes again and scrambled over the rock.
The way became steeper. and at the same time the switchbacks stopped and the trail steepened. It clung to the side of a cliff that fell away below and spanned above past all their abilities to see. The trail was just wide enough for the dulam to move through. Nissa led the beast as it inched along.
Twice Nissa heard a loud crack and looked up to see a boulder bouncing off the cliff with great bounds as it plummeted toward them. One crashed past, knocking a divot out of part of the trail, which Nissa guessed happened fairly often judging from the chewed-upon state of the trail.
The second rock that fell was larger than the first, and Nissa knew the moment she looked up that it was falling directly at her. She waited until the rock was almost upon her before jumping to the side. She slipped in her haste, and tumbled off the trail.
The wind blasted past her ears. The thought flashed through her head that her rope had not held, but it took up the slack, and her harness jerked her to a jarring stop. She hung leagues above the ground swinging in the gusts.
Nissa has fallen before, of course. Falling was nothing new. Even zeem monkeys fell from trees, after all. But hanging so far above the ground where Nissa had to squint at the ground to make out even a boulder was something new. With shaking hands she hoisted herself up and continued to climb.
By late afternoon the group was higher than the clouds, and the air had turned cold. The crystals that stuck out of the red sandstone were red themselves and as sharp as sword blades. Sorin cut his arm as he passed one, and when he turned to look at the cut he tripped and teetered. Nissa reached out and caught him just before he fell off the side and onto one of the many tipped crystals jutting out of the cliff.
The light of the setting sun shone directly in their eyes as they walked, making stepping even more dangerous. Nissa s breath was a cloud in the high air as she stopped. At that moment the dulam beast missed its footing and struggled desperately as it slipped off the edge and fell soundlessly into the void below with all their supplies. Nissa waited for a sickening thud.
There was no sound. Finally Nissa turned and began walking again.
The night was frigid. The wind had mostly disappeared, but still the air was icy and bit hard at their shoulders and faces. Twice Nissa thought she heard the lizard call that had woken her out of a dead sleep days before echoing through the peaks.
Do you smell smoke? Nissa whispered. Any sound echoed off the crystals, sounding deceptively close or far away.
Anowon shook his head, but Nissa was sure she smelled smoke. And when she stood first watch, the smell drove her to stand and go for a look around. Nissa knew it was not a good idea to walk in the mountains in the dark, especially those mountains, but she could not stand smelling wood smoke without trying to find where it was coming from. It could be some travelers that knew where they were going, after all.
As good as her eyes were in the dark Nissa still tripped. The land around was red from the sandstone and stretched out and down in long jags. She stepped around an outcropping of crystals and stopped. She could tell something was standing against the rock. She wished she had thought to bring her staff and cursed herself for making such an unwise mistake.
Come out, she said.
A figure emerged from against the rock. Mudheel pieced his way to her walking carefully in the dark.
You? Nissa said.
The goblin bowed slightly.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
Nissa watched as the goblin approached. She d last seen him some days before, following Smara as she stormed away after hearing Sorin s plan to refortify the Eldrazi s prison.
Are you following us? Nissa asked.
It is you who should be following us, Mudheel said.
Why?
You are on the wrong path.
How do I know you are not trying to mislead?
You do not know this, The goblin said. Except why would I, young elf?
He was right, Nissa thought. The goblin and Smara had left, not the other way around.
Why are you telling me this?
The goblin smiled, showing lines of teeth like stones in a graveyard. He hesitated a moment before speaking.
I miss you, he said.
Wonderful, Nissa thought.
And I did not want to push the rock.
You pushed that boulder down on us?
The goblin nodded slowly. Twice.
Both times?
The goblin nodded again. But I did not want to. She made me.
Where is she now?
Sleeping. Mudheel said. She has been sleeping more and more the closer we get to them.
Why are you here? Nissa said. To finish the job?
The goblin frowned. It was not you I was trying to knock off the mountain. It was the vampire. The one who wants to put the ancient ones deeper into their mountain. My mistress decreed it.
Then why are you here?
I want you to take the true path. Your days are few if you do not.
Why?
These mountains contain a protector. You have not seen it yet, but it has detected you. It stalks you.
And you have evaded detection?
Once again the goblin bowed slightly. Nissa wished he would stop doing that.
What is the nature of this enemy?
They are children of the ancient ones.
Brood lineage? Nissa said. We have handled them before.
Here in the Teeth they are the goblin wet his cracked and purple lips wilder.
Why have they not attacked us then?
I have been watching them for many days. They do not act as I thought they would. They seem to consider things more than I had thought.
Nissa looked at the goblin queerly.
So you want us to travel a different path to avoid the brood?
Yes, please.
I will tell you what I think, Nissa said.
I think you are trying to direct us down an incorrect trail by telling me that the brood are tracking us. I have not smelled brood or seen any sign in the dust.
The goblin sighed. On the morrow you will come to a split in the trail, he said. See if you do not. Take the right trail. It is the smallest trail.
And it ends at a sheer cliff?
No, the goblin said. It ends at the Eye of Ugin.
Assuming this trail does lead to the Eye, Nissa said. You know that Sorin will fortify the prison of the Eldrazi, correct?
The wind picked up suddenly and howled past Nissa s long ears at the mention of the ancient ones.
/> I know the Mortifier intends to do that. But you and the reading vampire have decided to release the gift in the loam, Mudheel said. My mistress will do the same thing. But
But what? Why should we come along if that is what she is doing?
I am unsure she can control whatever comes out of that hole.
Nissa thought for a quick moment.
And you want us there if the Eldrazi do not do what she says if they decide that Zendikar is as good a place as any to dwell?
The goblin nodded slowly before bowing and stepping back into the shadows.
Nissa slept that night on the hard rock. The next day she and the others ascended higher and higher into the mountains. The clouds flicked by so close overhead that Nissa felt she could reach out and touch them.
The trail entered into a series of switchbacks that took them until the sun was past its zenith in the sky to complete. Then the trail split. The main trail continued forward, but two small offshoots extended right and left and disappeared behind the rock. Of the two splits, the right one was the smallest path by far, composed of gravel and dust that had not been disturbed in days. How had the trail not been disturbed?
Let us take this smaller trail, Nissa said.
Why would we do that? Sorin said. It does not lead anywhere.
And this large trail does? Nissa said.
It looks more like a trail that leads somewhere than the small one.
Nissa paused. What could she say to convince them? I m telling you we should take this one, Nissa said.
Anowon stopped and cocked his head at Nissa.
At that moment Sorin pointed, and two mass-of-tentacles brood floated into view ahead. Each of them was different and larger than any the group had seen before. They had very large and thick looking obsidian-like rock mantles that floated around their writhing bodies.
At the same time, three brood with large bone heads and no faces scrawled their ways onto the large trail, pulling themselves on thick tentacles.
Both groups advanced on the party.
Sorin immediately began to sing. His voice boomed forth, knocking both of the large brood on the ground into heaps of blood. The wind blew the smell of putrefaction toward them. Nissa fanned out to the right to get away from it. The flying brood drifted closer. They seemed ponderously large to Nissa, incapable of quickness. But her thoughts were shattered moments later when one of the flying brood shot out a tentacle and caught Sorin around the neck.
Nissa twisted her staff and snapped her stem sword out, severing the creature s tentacle and freeing Sorin. Sorin pulled off the severed tentacle and flung it aside. He spoke two words and raised his right hand to the creature. The air around them went icy cold, and motes of power bloomed around Sorin s hand. The brood missing one tentacle trembled. The next moment a piece popped free from the brood s body and fell beating to the ground. The creature had no face that Nissa could see, but she had the distinct feeling that the brood was looking down at the beating thing on the ground, which could only have been its heart. In the next moment it crumpled and fell to the ground and lay like an empty wineskin on the red rocks.
The last creature flew at her.
Nissa put her staff on the rock of the mountain. When she took a deep breath her deepest fears were confirmed: only trickles of power were reaching her from the various mana tributaries she depended on. Nissa closed her eyes and took another deep breath. She seemed to be unable to catch her mana bonds. It was Zendikar herself that was hindering her, almost as if she wanted Nissa to fall here on this rocky spot. It had happened to Nissa before, of course it was part of the unpredictably of Zendikar but never at such a vital time. There was mana here, gouts of it. But it seemed to flutter around her, like a mothling around a lantern.
To make matters worse, two more brood appeared at that instant. One was the bone-headed variety the other, floating. As Nissa watched they both began moving toward her at an alarming speed. The floating brood tucked its tentacles close to its body, and charged.
Nissa had only a moment. She channeled what little mana she could and formed an image in her mind of an eeka bird a large, pest bird with a long beak. Nissa brought the bird to her and sent it hurling, beak-first at the brood.
The eeka flew straight and buried its beak deep in the brood s mass of concentrated tentacles. The brood stopped its charge and used one tentacle to find the bird and throw it aside. By that time Nissa had drawn her stem sword as rigid as a spike and was charging forward. She pushed off from a boulder and jumped high into the air where she executed a flip and hurled downwards. She plunged the spike into the center of the mass of squirming tentacles, burying it all the way to her fists. Nissa knew that once inside a body, the stem would put out rhizomes and use the blood vessels and arteries to travel through the body. Eventually the roots would fill it.
But that did not happen to the brood beneath her. Instead it found her and began winding tentacles around her neck and body, squeezing until she could not breathe. Nissa clawed at the tentacles and pulled, but the brood s tentacles wrapped around her wrists and ankles and squeezed. She struggled, and the brood s grip tightened. Soon the red rocks and blue sky went black and white, and spots began to appear before her eyes. Nissa felt the strength pass from her.
Anowon ran to the brood and swiped a swath out of its tentacles. Another tentacle swept down at him, and he caught it and bit out a sizable chunk before flinging it aside. But before he could climb any closer to Nissa, another tentacle seized his ankle and threw him back and away.
The blackness was taking over Nissa s view when she felt something on her hands and ankles and neck the tickle of the rhizomes peeking out from the tentacles. An instant later the brood s hold loosened, and Nissa fell to the rock, gasping.
She looked up to see Sorin and Anowon fighting the last two brood. As she watched, Sorin touched the blade of his sword. It pulsed black, and the Mortifier swung and swiped off one of the bifurcated arms reaching for him. The rot from the cut spread like a blue shadow through the rest of the brood s body. The creature s bony head, void of any semblance of a face, inclined sideways at an inquisitive angle as its body suddenly withered to the texture of an autumn leaf and fell to the ground with a dry crack.
Anowon had a bampha stick he had taken from the vampire Biss, and its obsidian edges whirred through the air in a sudden and complex array of attacks so fast that Nissa could not see it clearly.
Nissa turned and looked at the brood that had almost strangled her. The rhizomes from her stem sword had turned into thick roots and tunneled into the rocks. In rich soil those roots would keep growing, she knew, and eventually a blood briar would grow.
But blood briar or not, she had to get her sword out. Nissa searched until she found the stem sword, buried almost past the pommel. She grasped its slimy grip and pulled and pulled. Eventually she was able to rip the sword from the wet body of the dead brood. Thick roots extended off the stem like a brush; she would pare them off with a small knife later. She watched as Sorin assisted Anowon in destroying the last brood. After Sorin jabbed the creature and it lay still on the rock, she walked to them.
Nissa watched Sorin tuck his white hair back behind his ears and smile an impish smile at her. Do you have any more shortcut ideas? he said to Nissa, motioning to the smallest trail.
We had better take it before more brood appear, Anowon said, out of breath. I could not do that again if my very blood depended on it.
With her knife Nissa cut the roots off the stem before sliding it back into its sheath. She tapped her staff on the mountain and started walking down the small trail, which narrowed as they walked. Soon the rocks began to shut them in. They were walking through a deeply cloven gully, silent and dim, with high, ridged headwalls of red sandstone on either side. Crystals with bases as thick and as gnarled as old jaddi trees hung out over the cliffs above, and more crystals bunched into inclines of glinting tips. But Nissa s eyes were on the ground before them.
What do you observ
e? Sorin said.
Nothing, Nissa said.
Nothing?
No tracks or any sign of recent disturbance, Nissa said, trying to sound more positive than she felt. She wondered how a trail could have no sign of any kind, not even animal tracks. But her throat hurt from the brood s tentacle, and she did not want to explain to Sorin why a trail without any sign was more dangerous somehow than a trail with a sign. As it was, she was going to have a hard time convincing the ancient vampire to release the very creatures he was on Zendikar to imprison. She would save her breath for that debate.
Sorin looked up and around. This place is familiar to me, he said. We are closer.
They walked up the long gulley. Above their heads the high alpine wind howled through the crystals, which stood virtually shoulder to shoulder. But in the gulley there was no wind. There had never been any, Nissa thought as she ran her finger across the top of a nearby crystal and saw it covered with dust.
At the top of the gulley they stopped and surveyed. Ahead the small canyon dipped and narrowed, so the talus and scree channeled down into the black maw of a large erosion hole.
This is the very entrance, Sorin said. This is where I stood long ago, dreaming this prison to life with the others.
Anowon spit into the rocks at his feet. After you meted out pain and anguish to my people, abuse that has lasted for generations, then you imprisoned the very empire you helped?
Sorin turned to Anowon. I was charged with containing them. And I only gave your people what they deserved tenfold.
Anowon rose up, a snarl curling the corner of his lip. Sorin took a step back and dropped one hand to the pommel of his great sword, his own lips curled back off his fangs.
Stop, Nissa said. Something about her voice stopped the two vampires in their places. She pointed upwards.
Anowon followed Nissa s line of sight. He whistled when his eyes fell on them. There were at least ten lava drakes, each perched on the tip of a huge crystal.
Sorin sniffed. No, he whispered. What energy I have left must be kept for the containment spell.
Nissa turned to Anowon.
I cannot sup on a drake s blood, Anowon said. Even if I was able to slay one of them.
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (magic:the gathering) Page 23
