by Cory Herndon
“It will be done,” the curious voices replied.
“Wait,” Teysa said. “Make it three minutes, and get those goblins out from underneath it first.”
“How? We are but three,” the shadewalkers said. “Even we cannot move that many in so short a time.”
“You’re invisible assassins,” Teysa snapped. “Scare them!”
“We will.” Without a splash the shadows disappeared completely. A few seconds later, a cacophony of ghostly warnings filled the air, sending even more goblins screaming out of the Cauldron through any exit they could find. She doubted it was all of them—goblin engineers could be dedicated to the point of mania—but she’d done all she could for them.
Teysa jumped out of her skin when a low, raspy voice floated over her right shoulder. “We are here, O Baroness. What do you ask of your taj?”
* * * * *
Zomaj Hauc had forgotten the sheer beauty of the words. The language was the original tongue spoken by the first dragons when Ravnica was a world of jungles and monsters. True Draconic required years of training to learn, and Zomaj Hauc was one of the few beings on this world that could speak it. He’d last spoken it when he finished the enhancement to the Orzhov device, the mana-compression singularity bomb, almost half a century ago.
His entire world was focused on the mizzium-alloy courier’s limb, and it glowed at his attention. The human was beaten, and Hauc had managed to do it and still conserve more than enough power for this most critical task. Zomaj Hauc walked to the edge of the platform and gazed down at the eggs. All three showed signs of life, life he had saved after Niv-Mizzet had left them to die thousands of years ago. The Great Dragon did not deserve them. Hauc had found them, cared for them, and nurtured them with souls.
The ghostly sounds in the air and the nattering wojek were nothing. The only words worth speaking were the glowing figures carved into the arm. It had not been easy burning them out of his mind so the dragon would not find them. Crix had taken good care of the words, but her betrayal stung.
“Vsyo dovzer zsya mene, drazzac, drazzavh, drazzaugh,” he recited precisely. “Tiyava silz naya, ti silya nayana—”
Several hundred pounds of angry Gruul cut him off in mid-phrase and knocked him against the sloping mizzium floor. The savage beast-man roared in his guttural, apelike dialect and pounded his chest.
“You should not have done that,” Hauc said, eyes flashing. “I have just enough power to spare for you.”
“You should do something about your tunnel vision my lord,” Crix said as she swooped down from above and snatched her arm back from the distracted magelord. She sent a blast of flame into his chest before she launched herself over the nest and disappeared behind the dragon eggs.
“Crix, you cannot have them!” Hauc shouted. “And I did not authorize you to—”
“Shut up,” Golozar said and slammed the magelord’s face against the mizzium flooring. The world spun around Zomaj Hauc as the Gruul pulled him up by his collar and tossed him over the side. Hauc’s back struck the blue-mottled egg hard enough to knock away a hexagonal plate of shell.
Hauc looked up at the blue egg, and the occupant of the egg looked back.
“No,” Hauc whispered to the egg’s occupant, “not yet. Wait, just wait!” He pulled himself up and scrambled through the ankle-deep water in the direction Crix had disappeared. He had to get that arm back or the brood would be lost to him. Lost forever. He had to get that arm back or the world would never be united under the benevolent and wise Zomaj Hauc. And the world needed him.
* * * * *
Teysa hoped she’d never hear anything scream like the hydropyric weirds again, until she heard the screams of the taj who sacrificed themselves to kill the elementals. Those were even worse.
The taj were in essence ghosts, trained to possess soulless corpses. They were fast, deadly, and impervious to harm, but they fought with steel like most warriors, steel and a few half-empty bam-sticks carried by battered and abused Gruul corpses. The hydropyrics were completely immune to such weapons, Teysa already knew.
But the weirds were, in their way, alive. The only way to stop them was for the taj to leave their bodies and try to take over the hydropyrics themselves. Fire and water against cold, final death.
And it worked—it only took a few seconds, in fact—but the cost was even more of her shrinking “Guildpact army.” The taj who left their Gruul bodies behind consumed the essences of the weirds, but the weirds in turn burned away the taj. The result was explosive, took out two more virusoids, and left lingering screams in the air.
Teysa finally opened her eyes as the screams faded. The platform was still in the air, she could see through the haze, and there were five taj still standing. Where the hydropyrics had stood lay pieces of virusoids and zombie bodies, dead—truly dead—Gruul bodies, and rainbow pools of oil that were all that remained of Hauc’s elementals.
She could hardly believe it. They’d won the ground fight, and the workers were finally getting the idea that they should evacuate. She might just pull this off, if the shadewalkers dropped that platform out from under Hauc soon. She could hear Barkfeather, now an elf again, shouting for the goblin workers to follow him to safety.
“Come on,” she said to the remaining taj while eyeing the magelord, standing tall at the edge of the platform. “Get clear. This is going to be—”
Crix the goblin shot down from the ceiling, threw a hulking Gruul at the magelord, and flew off to the other side of the Cauldron. Teysa saw the Gruul pick up the magelord by the top of his skull and throw him over the side, then he stooped to help Pivlic’s security man to his shaky feet.
At that second, she knew with absolute certainty that three minutes was almost up.
Teysa’s warnings, obscured by the clamor of dying power plants, cracked steamcores, and screaming goblins, did not reach the platform in time. With a trio of loud metallic snaps the platform’s supports gave way and it dropped, one end still snagged in the metal nest. They dropped onto the purple egg just as a black, scaly head cleared the edge of the shell.
The platform crushed the dragon’s head flat with a wet crash, showering the immediate area with blackened brains and charred bone. The dragon died, suddenly and without warning. Fifteen times fifteen thousand years in the making, and Teysa had killed it.
Now that was power. But she and her shrinking forces were by no means out of trouble yet.
“Dreka-Tooth,” she said, “did you see where that Izzet magelord landed?”
“That way,” the mercenary said, pointing beyond the crushed egg to its cracking neighbors.
“Right,” Teysa said. “Two more to go. Taj,” she said, turning to the last few assassins she had left. “Go with Dreka-Tooth—this fellow—and find that magelord. If you can’t find him, find the flying goblin. Hauc can’t get that arm back. But if those eggs crack open, get out of there. I’m going to see if I can get to those two on the platform and get them out.”
“We live to serve. We die to serve,” said a taj.
“Easy for you to say,” Dreka-Tooth grumbled, but he followed.
“And I just have to take care of everything else,” Teysa said. Cane in hand, she half-hopped, half-ran to the collapsed platform and the two figures atop it who hadn’t moved since it came down.
Applicants for the licensed title of ADVOKIST must demonstrate fluidity in a minimum of five modern languages and three ancient ones in addition to Ravi. Does APPLICANT so swear? Check I for ‘yes’ and II for ‘no.’
—Application for license to practice advokism
(revised 10009 Z.C.)
3 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.
“I know exactly where you’re hiding, Crix,” Zomaj Hauc called. He wasn’t taunting either. She was close enough now that she could actually pinpoint the magelord without seeing him now that she had her arm back. Unfortunately, its violent removal didn’t allow her to simply snap it back on—the clasps were scrap. So she clutched one arm of metal in a hand
of flesh and bone and focused on the recipient of the message.
There. Hauc’s head was visible just over the top of the redmottled egg, the only one that was merely cracked. The purple one was smashed, and the occupant’s brains were dashed over the igneous rock—an unbelievable sight. Of the remaining two, the blue one was making progress, but Red was a slowpoke.
Crix yelped and Hauc froze when the goblin, backing away from the magelord, stepped on another goblin who’d been lying faceup in the water. Crix knew this goblin. It was Hauc’s chief observer, Vazozav. The chief observer awoke with a start and coughed up brackish water.
Hauc turned and looked Crix directly in the eye. He didn’t burn her, or even smile, he just disappeared around the side of the red egg.
“Chief!” Crix said. She scrambled to the choking goblin and helped him turn onto his side and cough out the rest of the water. “You’ve got to get any goblins left in here out. Come on. You with me, Chief Observer?”
Vazozav blinked. “You—You’re that courier.”
“And I’ve got a message for you. The Cauldron is going to be in very bad shape very soon. Get any goblins left out of here.”
“Except—” the old scientist coughed, “except you, I take it?”
“Right,” Crix said. “I’ve got to keep this away from—the enemy.”
The old goblin grinned as he rolled to his feet. He spit out a bit more water, and Crix was reminded of the old Izzet legend about the saboteurs of the great Sigil of Ravnica.
“Keep it away from the enemy,” the old goblin grinned. “I’ll get our people out.”
“Take them to the township for now,” Crix said.
The magelord rounded the edge of the red egg, which loomed over his head like a god-sized halo. The floor of the Cauldron shook with dropping chunks of masonry and the thunks and pops of the cracking eggs. The shells broke apart with claps of thunder.
“Go, Chief!” Crix shouted and heard the goblin stagger off as fast as he could.
It was hard for Crix to concentrate. Using the lifts drained more than just the pyromana stored inside her artificial shinbones. She’d used a lot of emergency energy and didn’t want to risk a flight that might end in a long fall just yet.
Besides, if she tried to fly out of this she’d be an easy target for Hauc. Crix tucked her courier’s arm under her remaining arm and ran. She heard a whoosh and a splash behind her, and the magelord vaulted over her head in a somersault. Hauc landed directly in her path and crossed his arms. His scarlet face grew frightfully grim around his burning scowl.
“Crix,” Hauc said over the thunderous sounds of hatching dragons, “I need that back.”
“My lord, I—”
“The message, Crix. Deliver the message.”
“I did,” the goblin said. “I’m taking it back. You shouldn’t have this.”
“You are telling me what I can and cannot have, little creature? Goblin vermin?” Hauc said, his short temper shattered. “Return it to me.”
Crix did the only thing she could think of. She clutched the arm to her chest, ducked her head, and ran. Hauc put out a hand to stop her, and she slammed the end of the severed message arm into his knee as hard as she could—but the magelord, his power saved for this day, was supernaturally fast. He latched one hand around the end of her improvised weapon and immediately resumed his chant. Crix pulled with all the leverage she could get, but the magelord just stood there, reciting the spell, frozen in a weird sort of bliss. His grip on the arm was like a vise.
“Vaykena hadsya yasyz,” Hauc said carefully, “Liynwryza drava, drava ti selya, xizzaya Zomaj Hauc ditezzya.”
The magelord completed the last word just as the top of the blue-mottled egg shattered and sent a shower of sharp debris flying into the air. Crix covered her eyes against the deadly fragments, some of which were as big as sentry shields. She opened her eyes again when she heard the magelord scream in shock and surprise, and she tumbled over backward, the sudden winner in the impromptu tug-of-war match.
A thick chunk of dragon shell had cleanly severed Hauc’s right hand at the wrist. Hot, red blood poured from the stump into the murky water at their feet.
“I will not deliver the message!” Crix said. “I won’t let you do this. One guild—one man—can’t have that much power.”
Hauc clutched his bloodied stump. “You would presume to lecture me?”
“Not any more. I presume to stop you,” Crix said. Fire blazed in her soul as she added, “I quit.”
Hauc’s eyes flashed, and Crix waited for the burning lances that should have been her severance. Instead, the magelord aimed the beams at the stump of his hand and cauterized the wound.
A shiny blue-black dragon’s head rose behind Hauc like an enormous hypnotized snake. Thick obsidian plates on its throat pulsed as it drew its first long breath. Then it roared in the din and eyed the magelord with one massive orb. Most of its body was still in the egg, which made it look serpentine.
“You,” the dragon said. Its voice blanketed out all other sounds or concerns. “Zomaj Hauc.”
“Yes,” the magelord said and bowed his head. He’d seemingly forgotten completely about Crix and his missing hand. “I am Hauc. I am your master.”
Crix found she could not move. Even if this magnificent thing was about to kill her, she would regret every second she did not take in its magnificence. She had only seen great Niv-Mizzet from afar and heard his voice distantly, for the great one desired privacy.
Not like the blue dragon. This creature was simply alive, and it was beautiful. Crix felt a part of her heart break when it lowered its great head and rested its chin in the muck to allow Zomaj Hauc to climb aboard its neck.
“Blue,” Hauc said, “do you see the sky above us?”
“Yes,” the dragon said. It sounded … sad, somehow, grief stricken. Crix could only imagine what enslavement felt like to such a creature, but it made her anger flare even greater at the magelord.
And yet still she could not bring herself to move.
With Hauc astride its neck, his hand clamped around a spiky horn, the blue dragon looked up.
“Take us to the sky, and take the breath of life, my finest servant,” Hauc said. Crix was amazed at his pomposity.
“Yes,” the dragon said and spread its wings. The rest of its eggshell prison shattered, finally breaking the goblin out of her daze and sending her fleeing for cover. From the shelter of a toppled wheel she saw the blue dragon take flight. It tucked its wings at the last moment to slip out of the Cauldron with ease, roaring into the fractured sky.
Then Crix heard another thunderclap as the last egg cracked, the dragon inside clearly itching to join its kin in flight. Hauc’s spell was supposed to control them all, wasn’t it? Crix wasn’t sure, but then the dragon’s ghostly white snout pierced the cap of the egg.
The arm was glowing again as more of the albino dragon emerged from its shell. The color of the dragon’s snout was identical to the light the engravings emitted.
“No, I can’t do this,” she said aloud. “It won’t work. She’s going to hatch, and she’s going to eat me and kill us all because he’s the magelord. I’m just a courier. This won’t work.”
The figures on the arm were similar to some ancient languages she’d studied. She might be able to pronounce some of it phonetically. And who could say it would even work twice, or for anyone other than Hauc?
Crix certainly couldn’t, but she was out of ideas.
She started to sound out the first syllable in her head. The albino’s red eye emerged from the egg and regarded her with intense curiosity. She wasn’t getting it, and cursed her limited education. Surely the magelord had been keeping knowledge from the goblins. She could see it clearly now. She needed someone with an extensive education.
Crix spotted a shape in black robes climbing the toppled landing pad and supposed it was worth a shot.
* * * * *
Kos was fairly sure he’d been in more pain than thi
s on at least one or two occasions, but he couldn’t have named any of them now if he’d tried. The landing platform had given way just as Golozar, coming out of nowhere to toss the magelord overboard, had helped him to his feet. Kos guessed the thing just couldn’t take the extra weight, but he could hardly blame the Gruul. Golozar had saved his life.
It might have cost the Gruul his own.
Kos made a quick check and found nothing broken, though Golozar was badly cut and seriously bruised. He hoped the blood he was spitting out was only from the missing teeth and not symptomatic of worse injuries he couldn’t see.
He patted the back of his belt. It was still there. The lucky ’drop. It would be the last one he ever used, when he had no other choice, and that hadn’t happened just yet. Kos knew the teardrop would almost certainly kill him, but he also figured he’d have a few good minutes before the end.
It looked like Golozar might need the ’drop much worse. The Gruul had tried to stay standing on the platform when it fell, unlike Kos, who’d dropped as soon as the first cable snapped. The impact had thrown Golozar against the deck hard, and he wasn’t moving. From this angle Kos couldn’t even tell if he were breathing.
The old ’jek finally regained his footing, ready for the platform to shift again with every step he took toward Golozar. There was an explosion of shattering shell on his fourth step that almost made him fall, but the shower of plates and fragments didn’t reach them. Kos watched slack-jawed as the goblin courier grappled with the magelord for control of the message arm and won, thanks to an errant piece of eggshell. His relief at that quickly deflated when the magelord staunched the flow of blood, climbed onto the dragon, and launched into the sky.
“Well?” Golozar said weakly. “Did we do it?”
Kos offered the Gruul a hand. “No. You going to make it?”
“Nothing broken,” the Gruul said, grimacing as he popped a shoulder back into place with an agonizing snap. “Nothing important, anyway.”
“Kos!” a voice called, and they both turned to see the baroness clamber over the side of the fallen deck. She hauled herself up before they could reach her, and she waved away their assistance with the end of her cane.
