Dissension

by Cory Herndon

  Cases like this didn’t come along every day, and she felt things were well in hand back in Utvara. Zomaj Hauc was dead and gone, and the Schism in the sky over her barony had faded to a barely discernible distortion. There were mysteries yet to be unraveled about it, but one such mystery was intimately linked to this case.

  The baroness brought her shivering under control with a silent, willful message to her Orzhov blood. It was not literal communication, but she found the blood responded better when she formed her will into words. Within seconds, the shaking subsided and her composure returned, though the room grew even colder when the guard shut the cell door.

  Whatever the physical cause, the shiver left behind an odd feeling of uncertainty, unease, as it departed. She resolved to get in touch with her surrogates back home—odd that she was already thinking of the place as home, but the word had arisen in her mind automatically—as soon as she was out of here. The blood had been known to warn of impending danger, and for one of the ruling family unease could be a sign of much worse to come.

  Teysa’s cane, one of the prices exacted on her body by the blood, almost slipped on the floor. Not just chilly, damp and chilly. The parts of Prahv the public saw would never have allowed molds and other … things to grow wild, but in the holding cells janitorial duties were a fairly low priority, it seemed. It hadn’t always been that way. She’d been in several such interview cells, and at one time they had shined. The Azorius were slipping. The Senate was filled with more and more sycophants and opportunists these days, seemingly more interested in long debate than in maintaining the façade of purity and justice Prahv had always shown to the world. They were becoming almost Orzhovlike.

  The Baroness of Utvara struggled to ignore the variety of odd smells that clouded the confined space in an unpleasant pastiche. She limped the short distance from the door to the transparent barrier without using her cane and stood eye to eye with the last known angel on Ravnica.

  Teysa had met this angel under different circumstances only a few weeks ago. The angel had emerged from the Schism while the baroness led a ragtag posse against the Izzet magelord who had tried to set dragons loose upon the world. The towering warrior, with timing typical, in Teysa’s experience, of law enforcement, had arrived just a little too late. By the time Teysa met her, the angel was grieving for the old man who had died fighting the dragons, a retired wojek named Kos. Such attachment to a “mortal” was not generally considered an angelic trait, and Teysa had found it curious at the time and assumed the angel was simply using it as cover to avoid revealing why she alone was there and where the other angels had gone. Their disappearance at the time of the Decamillennial was known the world over, a reliable topic at most any corner table at the local watering hole. In Utvara alone, Teysa had already heard more than twelve distinct theories on the subject in Pivlic’s tavern, which currently served as her base of operations.

  What Teysa knew was that the angel had spoken at the wojek’s funeral and disappeared a few days later, leaving even more questions behind. A few hours ago, the angel had reappeared, triggering the sequence of events that brought Teysa back to Prahv.

  The baroness had the chance to get some answers, both to satisfy her professional obligations and her personal curiosity—the Schism still hung over Utvara, smaller but still inscrutable, and Teysa felt she needed to learn all she could about it, whatever its current size. Then there was the fact that the disappearance of the angels was one of the great mysteries of the last century, and the woman who uncovered the truth would become a legend. Teysa did not crave notoriety for its own sake, but it did open new avenues to power that the barony of Utvara did not.

  That was the advokist talking, arguing the case of her natural ambition, and the advokist had a point. Teysa took the fastest zeppelid available back to the City of Ravnica as soon as the message from the angel had arrived in her office that morning, mulling over possible strategies and hypotheses the entire way.

  The angel stood in shackles. A coil of heavy, silver chain ran through the braces on her wrists and ankles and through mizzium rings bolted to a section of solid mizzium flooring, giving the prisoner room to move while adding another layer of security to the already indestructible cell. It was far below the base of the third tower of Prahv. The towers contained many such cells, where those awaiting trial awaited it in complete physical isolation that still gave them the ability to communicate with the outside, provided the outside came to them. The Azorius and their Senate guard allowed the accused to speak to visitors through thick plates of sound-conducting invizomizzium.

  The Guildpact was a harsh set of laws at times, but fair—if you could afford one, an advokist or lawmage would help argue your cause before the blind judges. The Senate prided itself on near-obsessive attention to such protocols. She wished it was more obsessive about the condition of this dungeon, but that was immaterial at the moment.

  The ministers of Azorius, the upper-middle class bureaucrats that kept Prahv running and populated the lower house of the Senate, were bound and determined, it appeared, to ensure no breaches of protocol would come between the angelic prisoner and prosecution. The smaller and more proactive group of vedalken speakers that filled the upper house of the Senate—which still had less collective political power than the judges—were no doubt just as eager to question the last angel as was everyone else, but the accused’s advokist had the right to first interview once charges were brought. Even the judges couldn’t interrogate before Teysa could.

  Word had leaked quickly to the newssheets and the “holy prisoner of Prahv” was drawing people to the Azorius stronghold. For the most part, those spreading the rumors implied that the Azorius were making a mistake by imprisoning the angel and that no good could come of it. Teysa had passed a few small groups of praying pilgrims on the way in. By the time she left, they’d probably be singing around a burning effigy of Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. The Azorius were walking a fine line with this.

  Teysa settled on an angle for the angel within moments. The prisoner no doubt expected questions and more questions about her vanished kin, so Teysa would do the opposite. Her face sharpened into number twenty-seven: irritated protest.

  “Hello. Great to meet you. I want you to know that I should be back in Utvara,” Teysa said to the prisoner. “I daresay in the time you spent with us there you learned that I’m no longer a practicing advokist. I’m semiretired. And no offense, ma’am, but I hardly know you. What made you request me? Do you even know what I charge for my services? Do you even have a zib to your name?”

  No reaction. The angel just stood, hidden in shadow from the blue glowsphere that provided the only illumination.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, I’m over here,” she said.

  Nothing. The feeling of unease knocked on the back of her mind, demanding attention, and she squelched it.

  Then her eyes finally adapted to the darkness enough to clearly make out the angel in the shadows, and the shocking injuries she had suffered, protocols or no protocols. Even bound by the silver rings that made her golden wings hang paralyzed from her shoulder blades, her great angelic power largely suppressed, the tall prisoner was an imposing figure but also battered, bruised, and slashed. The wings made her look like a hunched and wounded raptor, especially once Teysa got a good look at the dried, spattered blood that glittered in the dull light of the cell’s lone, sputtering glowsphere. “Look, Miss—Pierakor Az Vinrenn D’rav,” Teysa added crisply—she’d memorized the name on the flight—“you’ll need to work with me a little more than this.”

  The angel turned and covered the distance between the baroness and the invizomizzium with two steps. The heavy chain around her feet brought her up just short of the barrier with a clang, and Teysa took an involuntary step back. One of the angel’s eyes blazed with rage and pain. The other was swollen completely shut beneath an untended wound that had cut to the bone. The gash ran from the center of her forehead to just above her left ear. A blood-soaked bandage was
wrapped tightly around her ribs, another bound her right thigh, and a third, her left shoulder. The angel’s left arm was in a simple prison-issue sling, and she wore a simple, gray prison tunic that had at best been made for someone shorter and much less … angelic. Her red tresses had been cropped close and short, from the look of it unintentionally and possibly with a torch. She was drawn and pallid. It was said angels were beings made of magic, but this angel was apparently also made of blood and tissue. If the baroness was any judge, the prisoner had lost a lot of the former in exchange for her injuries. Had the angel been human and not a semi-immortal physical manifestation of magical justice, Teysa would have suggested they begin by drawing up a last will and testament.

  The eye that was still open locked with hers, and for one split second Teysa saw fire aimed at her own soul. Then just as quickly it was gone. The angel relaxed and even attempted a smile. “My apologies,” she said. “I was thinking. You interrupted me, and I reacted instinctively. Confinement is a … peculiar state for me, especially at the moment. You are the Baroness of Utvara.”

  “And you’re—well, you’re hurt,” Teysa said. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I could fetch a healer, get you some teardrops. We can always meet later.”

  “No,” the prisoner replied. “I will heal.”

  “You’d heal faster if—never mind,” the baroness said. “Ma’am, may I call you Feather? We’ve met before, and at the time you said to call you Feather.”

  “You may,” the angel said. “That has become my name.”

  Odd way to put it. “So, Feather, while you were thinking did you actually hear anything I just—”

  “An angel always hears what a mortal says, when directly addressed,” Feather replied, “no matter the distance.”

  “Yes,” Teysa said, knocked off of her rhythm. “Right. So we’re on the same page. That trick could come in handy if you end up within the verity circle. It will help keep our lines of communication open. But we’ll get to that later.”

  “A verity circle will not be necessary,” the angel replied, and Teysa didn’t bother to tell her the truth-compelling magic would be there when Feather took the stand no matter what the accused thought necessary. “I will answer your questions,” Feather continued. “First, Pivlic recommended you. Second, I do know what your services are worth. If you check your bank records, I believe there has already been a substantial sum transferred to your primary business account. That amount will be finalized when you accept my case.”

  “Where does an angel get zinos?”

  “I was a wojek for twenty-two years, and the League insisted on normal wages, some kind of union rule, despite my … unusual status in the service. I never spent these wages but left them in the care of—”

  “Pivlic?”

  “Correct.”

  “It’s always Pivlic.”

  “He invested the funds for me in various business ventures that met the strict legal standards I required and over the last twelve years has apparently—how did he put it—’grown my wealth’ considerably. So you will accept my case.” It was not a question.

  Teysa scanned the angel’s face, looking for a hint of jocularity or insincerity. She found neither. Pivlic. Her new second in command never failed to surprise and never seemed to open all of his books. The imp made it his business to know everyone, which was one of the things that made him so useful. She made a mental note to draw up some contracts that would ensure his loyalty for the next hundred years. A well-connected lieutenant often wanted to become a well-connected boss.

  “So how substantial is—?”

  “Substantial,” Feather said. “I ran the figure past Pivlic before I sent word to you, and he agreed it was generous.”

  “I will check on it, but let’s say you’re not lying. Since you’re an angel. Don’t lie to me, Fea—sorry, is it Constable Feather?”

  “Most recently it was ‘Legionary.’ Before that ‘Constable.’ You may call me just Feather,” Feather said. “And I do not speak falsely. Angels do not lie.”

  “Cannot or don’t?”

  “Angels do not lie.”

  “Feather,” the baroness said, switching on number five: I’m the one looking out for you, so you can trust me. “Feather, everybody lies. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let’s just say I think you’re telling the truth. But before I take the case, I need to know a little about it first.”

  “I am accused on multiple violations. Desertion in a time of war. Striking a superior. Breaking oaths. Failure to attend to my duty as a wojek officer and as a Boros Legionary. I may well be guilty of guild-matricide as well.”

  It took Feather half an hour to go over the charges in detail—angelic memory was famously precise and frighteningly accurate. Teysa suspected much of what the angel said was rote recitation from the formal accusation. As an advokist, she found herself aghast when the angel told her that much of the information within the charges was from Feather herself, who had actually turned herself in.

  She wasn’t just working for an angel, she was working for an angel who was either insane, or else had brought a warning that everyone in power on Ravnica needed to hear. When Feather was finished, the baroness knew she had her work cut out for her turning the tale into a worthy defense.

  The mitigating circumstances were unbelievably compelling and would work to her advantage with the jurists. Those were her best hope since the angel insisted on testifying in her own defense. Within a few hours, her strategy became clear. Teysa actually had an honest client, and that was how she would win the case if she won at all. The truth, with a little assistance from her advokist, would set Feather free—or nothing would.

  Crixizix shuddered as the Great Dragon Niv-Mizzet came into view over the horizon and momentarily blocked out the dim sun. Relief and dread fought for dominance in her heart. Relief that this disaster would almost certainly end or at least move into a welcome rescue-and-recovery phase, for she knew with the certainty of faith that nothing could stand before the unleashed might of the Izzet guildmaster. Dread that her short career as a master engineer was about to literally burn up.

  The last time she called in to the sour dispatcher, Crixizix learned that the containment team was on maneuvers at the northwest pole and would be on their way as soon as contact could be reestablished—perhaps as long as thirty hours. The only other help to arrive, a small team of firefighting hydromancers who had teleported directly to the scene, unfortunately materialized on a spot that no longer had any ground beneath it. Crixizix watched helplessly, too far away to prevent them from plummeting into to the depths of Utvara’s cold, dead undercity.

  She aborted her first three landing attempts as more and more of Utvara fell under fists, feet, and other nephilim appendages. Crixizix then gave up on the idea of moving people out of the township one or two at a time in the cramped ’sphere when the terrified mob almost pulled the craft crashing to the ground.

  The goblin finally settled on staying in the air, where she could do more good helping evacuees find paths they could not see with public-address enchantments. Angry and even more terrified than before, the people chased her more than obeyed her instructions, but the results were the same. Crixizix had gotten dozens to relative safety—she doubted the nephilim would be confined to Utvara for long, at this rate—but saw many more snapped up by the monsters, consumed, or casually flattened.

  Had the dragon not agreed to handle the situation, Crixizix might have returned to the center and alerted the wojeks, the ledev, and the titans themselves. She did alert a minor Orzhov functionary, the highest level of attention she could get when the baroness could not be found on the leylines. She could not raise Pivlic, who at least would have been certain to have a way to contact Teysa Karlov. Regardless, the Izzet guildmaster had agreed to her first request, simply but with a great deal of underlying irritation. As promised, he arrived a short time later.

  Crixizix had just gotten a shocked viashino family to the edge of
the Husk when the dragon broke the long silence.

  This is not acceptable, the Firemind said in her head.

  The goblin did not respond but redirected the flame-pods and changed her vector to intercept and escort the guildmaster.

  The dragon passed over the Cauldron ruins, abandoned hours ago by the nephilim in their press outward. He opened his reptilian jaws and without ceremony belched an inferno into what remained of Zomaj Hauc’s legacy. The ruins were consumed in minutes, collapsing into drooping, molten shapes that soon merged completely with the volcanic caldera underneath. When the ruins were fully liquefied, Niv-Mizzet wheeled back over the surface and spread his great, leathery wings. He hovered, flapping mightily, and kicked up a tremendous dust devil centered directly over the volcanic scar. After another few minutes the winds had cooled the molten rock and metal before they dissipated into the open sky.

  It took seven minutes, in total, for Niv-Mizzet to obliterate the Cauldron and cap an active geothermic vent. Crixizix hoped that wasn’t the solution the guildmaster had in mind for the entire reclamation zone.

  As if in reply to her anxious thought, the Firemind asked, Why did you allow this to happen, Master Engineer? The remains of all my kin were to be incinerated. All. I resumed my meditations when you assured me that was taken care of.

  The mental image Niv-Mizzet projected—a perfect replica of his physical form—completely lacked the usual mental affectations others could not help. The goblin herself, for instance, could not get her mental knuckles off the mental floor when in his presence. She flinched when the projection cocked its head and mustered all the courage she had left.

  Well? Niv-Mizzet pressed.