by Cory Herndon
“But Mat’selesnya is in all things,” one of the recruits, not Myc, piped up. “The living must be free.”
“Yes, and that’s why we don’t do what the Rakdos do. But they have their belief system, and we have ours. The Guildpact says that we must respect that, so we do,” Fonn said. “Just because everyone doesn’t respect the law doesn’t mean we stoop to their level.”
“But haven’t we left those boundaries by leaving the city?” This from her son, who had some philosopher in him and a fascination with history.
“Technically, that may be true, except for the road itself,” Fonn said. “The highway network encompasses all of Ravnica, from the northwest pole to the southeast pole, but it’s all really one road to us, and those roads also run through the city.”
“So the ordinances apply?” Myc said.
“Yes,” Fonn replied, “and we enforce them. That’s why you won’t see these jokers trying to take, say, one of our dromads for their cages. And if they try, we prevent them from doing so.” With a smirk that none of the scouts saw, she added, “And you’ll address me as ‘sir’ when we’re on duty, Scout.”
Fonn heard a few snickers from the other trainees. Most of them had a few years on her son, who may have been as physically mature as the others for the most part but had still only had eleven years of real experience in the world. She momentarily regretted the public correction. Both of them were still getting accustomed to this. But Myc had wanted this more than anything, and he was of age, if just barely. Elves and those with elf blood had very long life spans, but they matured quite early, especially the Devkarin “dark elves” who spent most of their lives underground. Myc was half Devkarin and had grown up fast. She’d welcomed him into the guard as a scout recruit with a little apprehension but also a great deal of pride.
When they divorced, Fonn and Jarad agreed to let Myc follow his own path. Fonn had half-expected the boy to reject them both, but in the end he had shown more wisdom than she could have hoped, choosing to split his time between them as best he could.
The marriage had been an unlikely one and hadn’t lasted beyond their son’s sixth birthday. She must have been mad to ever think it would work out. In retrospect she chalked up the brief fling with matrimony to the exhilaration of survival the two of them had felt right after the Decamillennial. At least, for Myc’s sake, they were still on relatively friendly terms. Fonn trained the boy in the ways of the ledev, and Jarad took him on hunts through Old Rav from time to time. It could have been worse.
Fonn had crammed a great deal of experience into a relatively short time as a ledev, and the Conclave had taken notice. She’d been made a member of the Order of Mat’selesnya, which came with the new title of centuriad, a permanent home in Vitu Ghazi, and responsibility for training recruits. The rank also made it easier to pursue her part-time work with the wojeks. It probably didn’t hurt that her one-time wolf mount Biracazir had himself joined the Selesnya Conclave, the central ruling body of her guild. Even at this great distance, she only had to concentrate a moment to feel his reassuring presence in the song.
It wasn’t the same song she remembered from the old days, but it was still strong. It connected all Selesnyans to one another, and with the world of living things. And it was different than it had been. In the last decade, the ledev guardians had cut back on global patrols, moving more and more troops back to the home territory in the Center of Ravnica. Vitu Ghazi had been fortified, and refortified, until it hardly resembled the living Unity Tree she remembered. It resembled, if anything, an organic version of the wojek citadel of Centerfort. A very, very tall version. It had always been visible from a great distance, and she knew that if she looked back she would see it clearing the top of the city gates, rising even above the towering sentinel titans. She would also see new spires and towers growing from it, landing platforms for griffin patrols, and watchtowers manned by sharp-shooting Silhana bowmen.
The protective mother in her wanted to turn back over one shoulder constantly to check on Myc, but she forced her eyes forward. She’d already embarrassed the boy once today. No need to make it worse. Boy or not—and to a mother, an eleven-year-old was still a boy even when he had a long sword slung over his shoulder and wore drab, green scout’s chain mail cut in close proximity to the Devkarin style—he was committed to the life of the ledev, and he deserved a chance to prove he could do it. That meant letting him take his lumps.
Keeping one eye on the Rakdos cultists was proving difficult. A sudden shift in the wind had blown a smoky haze in from Utvara, which mingled with a bank of early morning fog. It reeked of sulfur and burning flesh. It perversely reminded her again of Kos’s pyre.
Fonn wouldn’t say she missed Kos exactly. She’d hardly seen her father’s former partner in the last twelve years and had gotten used to his not being around to help her learn the ropes of ’jek work. She had been a bit hard on him over her father’s death and still wasn’t sure Kos wasn’t at least partly responsible for Myczil Zunich’s fall. But now that he was gone, Fonn missed the concept of Kos, the idea that here was one final living link to her son’s namesake.
But Kos was no more. She’d seen the pyre, had stood shoulder to shoulder with Jarad when Kos’s mortal remains had gone up into the heavens.
This was no pilgrimage. Utvara was just conveniently located for her purposes. It was a long ride but not tortuously so—a fairly busy road, not too crowded, not too empty, with the shanty tower throughway ahead that provided an opportunity for challenging but not necessarily deadly training. And the Husk always presented a challenge or two, in the form of Gruul outcasts, wild animals, and other strange creatures. The route she’d planned would actually take them around the Husk, not through Utvara proper. The ledev had been cordially uninvited to protect the road into the place. That job was handled now by the baroness’s Utvar Gruul patrols. Fonn had met the Gruul’s leader, a loutish but intelligent man named Golozar, and been impressed with his plans to protect the interior of Utvara and its booming population.
She heard whispering from the recruits. They thought they were speaking quietly enough that their dromads’ hooves concealed it, but Fonn had the sharpest ears in the party and easily picked out the sound if not the content.
Ahead, the Rakdos cultists had become enshrouded in fog, though she could still hear their mad dirge of a marching song. Another mile, maybe. An irrational fear for Myc gripped her, and she quickly squelched it. This was exactly why she had chosen this route, to present the scouts with a challenge. So long as the kids didn’t panic. She decided to ensure they wouldn’t by maintaining normality until they reached the prayer-gang—or the prayer-gang reached them.
She reined the wolf to a halt and wheeled on them.
“Recruits, you’re here to learn,” Fonn said with all the authority she could muster, which, with the added emphasis of her raised hand, immediately silenced the chattering youths. “Now pretty soon it’s going to get foggy, and you’ll want to make sure you know where the others are, so we’re going to get in a quick protocol lesson beforehand.” She raised a hand again to silence the unsolicited groans and mutters that students on every plane involuntarily emit when told they’re about to do something dull. “We’re going to keep talking. One, because it’s going to be hard to see. And two, because there’s nothing more deadly than silence on a long journey. You want to sap your spirit and lose track of what you’re supposed to be doing out here? Just ride along staring. Before you know it you’ll be asleep at the reins.” She turned her mount forward again, and resumed moving forward. “Therefore talking is encouraged.”
The soft clops of the dromad’s hooves were the only response.
“I’ll start us off with an easy one then,” Fonn said cheerfully, “a simple, random question: What’s so funny?”
“Ma’am?” the oldest recruit, a young human girl with golden braids and a supreme overestimation of her importance in the world, blurted. Her name was Lilyeyama Tylver—“Lily,” nat
urally—and her parents had wanted a son to carry on an aristocratic Tylver family tradition of theological politics. Lily had chosen the ledev guard instead, a decision Fonn respected even if the girl’s reasons were more than a little fanciful. Lily wanted to be some sort of warrior-baroness. Fonn had overheard her tell the others. She was also the only recruit with a cape, and over more than two hundred miles of travel from the gates of Ravnica it had remained dust-free and spotless. It was black with green silk lining, and Fonn hadn’t seen the girl so much as brush it. The half-elf had decided to allow the affectation. Customized uniforms were a ledev tradition. Myc had done much the same with the Devkarin-inspired chain mail.
None of that changed the fact that generally, in Fonn’s experience dealing with groups of untrained rookies, the first person to say something—anything—was usually the one who knew precisely what was so funny.
“I said, what’s so funny?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” Tylver replied. She didn’t stammer a bit.
“Anyone else hear anything?” Fonn pressed. “Maybe it’s just these ears of mine, sometimes you pick up echoes in the canyons.” She waved a hand at the towering walls that lined the road down to the underpass. Stark and flat, the smooth walls of the ancient public apartment complexes long since abandoned by the original tenants were also full of guildless squatters, Rakdos cultists, and varying forms of wildlife. “But maybe I heard voices in those buildings. We may need to investigate.”
“Mo—Sir,” Myczil piped up. Fonn sighed. She had hoped, for the boy’s sake, he wouldn’t be the next to speak up. He was the youngest if not the smallest of the recruits. The last thing he needed was a reputation as a snitch. But she also should have anticipated it.
Perhaps it was a mistake taking him out now. Perhaps she should have insisted he spend at least a few years in Old Rav with Jarad. He could be learning to track giant slugs with his father, and she wouldn’t be fighting the need to keep an eye on him every waking second.
“Yes, Zunich?” she said with exaggerated dispassion in an attempt to hide her ill-concealed sigh.
“Sir, we’re ready to investigate if you are,” her son continued. “If you hear something, there must be something out there. We certainly weren’t saying anything.”
A little overdone, but Fonn was glad that her position at the head of the group kept the other recruits from seeing her smirk break into a full-blown smile of pride. Good boy. “Perhaps it was nothing after all,” she said. “That still doesn’t mean we can’t all have a little conversation on the road. Does anyone know any traveling ballads?”
“Can we ask you questions?” another recruit said. Sounded like Aklechin, one of Tylver’s sidekicks. He had the makings of an excellent swordsman but not, unfortunately, the makings of a scholar. He was a human, sixteen, and had a mildly polar accent, probably from the almost perpetually snowbound Monastery Territories in the far northwest. Alone among the recruits, he had dressed like he was heading to a desert. The others, even Myc, had brought along foul-weather gear—the central city was in the middle of another few weeks of the rainy season.
The ledev realized all of the scouts were waiting. She looked over at the Rakdos, still marching through the fog, ever closer. They’d pass them soon. Very well.
“You can ask me any question, any time. I won’t always guarantee an answer, but never think you can’t ask.”
“Er, yes,” Aklechin said. “Okay then. Will we get to fight?”
“Good question,” Fonn replied. “Terrible timing.” She called back to the fourth recruit and the only one who had yet to speak. “Orval, can you tell me why it was terrible timing before I give Mr. Aklechin his answer?”
“Yes, sir,” the fourth recruit said. He was the only one not riding a dromad, since the four extra hooves would have been quite superfluous. “It was terrible timing, sir,” Orval continued, “because it’s a jinx. Any idiot knows that. Proven fact. Ancient centaur proverb. And it’s particularly bad because it appears some deathmonger—beg your pardon, Rakdos deathmongers—are coming toward us. Sir. And there might be a fight now, even if there wasn’t going to be before. Law of jinxes.”
“More or less accurate,” Fonn said, genuinely impressed. “Call it superstition if you will, or call it a challenge to fate. But only a fool begs for trouble. I don’t think we need to worry about them, though. They’re just travelers. Just make sure you know where your sword is. A ledev prepares for trouble so she doesn’t—”
Tharmoq the wolf froze and dropped into a crouch, growling at the road ahead. Fonn also froze, in midsentence.
The fog was very dense indeed and rolling unnaturally down the road toward them. The marching dirge had quickened to a sound similar to an out-of-tune pipe organ played by a band of lunatics.
“Everyone, form up,” Fonn said. “Stay close, and no matter how thick this gets, do your best to keep me in sight, or failing that one of your fellow scouts. And keep talking.”
The trainees responded with a staggered chorus of “Yes, sirs,” all of which sounded as nervous as she felt. The smoky cloud kept coming, completely blotting out the road ahead.
“Stay sharp, scouts. We’re going to keep moving. We don’t run from clouds.” She half-expected more groans but welcomed the second prompt round of “Yes, sirs,” this time in unison and a little stronger. “That’s better. Let’s go.”
Unfortunately, Tharmoq refused to move.
“Come on, boy,” she said, leaning down and whispering under her breath in the wolf’s ear. “Not in front of the scouts.” As she spoke the words, she felt a cold, clammy feeling wash over her, thick with the smell of sulfur.
The cloud swallowed Fonn and the scouts in seconds. The young recruits became a pack of shadowy shapes all around her, and they began to chatter, panicking. Only Myc’s voice was clear, parroting what his mother called to the others: “Steady there,” “Keep it together,” “Stay calm,” and so on.
Her son’s voice was the last thing she heard before the sound of chaotic Rakdos music drowned him out. Fonn saw other shapes in the gray—tall, scarecrow bodies, and hulking things that were all shoulders and arms.
Her head grew dizzy, and she called out Myc’s name. There was no reply. The wolf beneath her began to whimper loudly, turning in circles as panic seized his lupine mind. Fonn called for Myc again and got her sword halfway out of the sheath before a large, bony hand clamped an acrid-smelling rag over her mouth and nose. Fonn fought a losing battle to retain consciousness. Her hand slipped from the sword hilt and flailed lazily in the fog, striking nothing, before she finally lost balance, slumped over sideways, and hit the ground.
Darkness enveloped her mind as a gravelly voice whispered in her ear.
“You go to sleep now,” it said. The voice became a rasping cough, then a cackle that rang in her consciousness until it, and her consciousness, slipped agonizingly away.
Q: What did the zombie say to the neuromancer?
A: “You going to eat that?”
—101 More Zombie Jokes
(Dead Funny Press, 5410 Z.C.)
31 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.
Under Jarad’s watchful eye, a hundred zombies made ready to put several acres of subterranean farmland to the torch. It had taken most of the morning for the farmhands to spread the necessary fuel to ensure an even burn throughout the fields. Golgari farms did not dry out well since they were invariably underground, and modern irrigation techniques tended to keep the atmosphere quite humid and damp. Merely applying open flame to the month-old remains of the season’s harvest wasn’t the answer, even after flammable molds were allowed to grow. Yet the fields had to burn. It was tradition. It was also good agriculture.
The seasonal burn was enough of an event for the Golgari that the guildmaster was expected to oversee the ignition personally, and this season was no different. And once again, the guildmaster had been late. Zombie farmhands and the Devkarin high priest anointed to bless the blaze had been left standing for an hour. Several
had to go back for new torches.
Jarad arrived with several minor scrapes and wounds on his chest, arms, and face. He hadn’t the time to pick up his ceremonial guildmaster’s robes, but at least he’d managed to get some extra hunting in on the way back from handing off his son. For better or worse, the undercity was rife with gangs like the ones they’d destroyed the day before, and he had decided to work off some tension taking down a few more on the way home. The kill that he carried across his shoulders was just a lucky find he had come across in one of the wide sewerways he had taken to get back. Lately, if he didn’t get out and kill something at least every couple of weeks, he found himself getting extremely irritable, a condition that seeing Fonn had exacerbated. When the guildmaster was irritable, his decision-making suffered. Jarad may not have wanted the job at first, but in memory of the noble creature his sister had once been and in defiance of the stereotypes of the Golgari that abounded in the world above, he was determined that he would do it well.
“Guildmaster,” said the Devkarin high priest, “We honor your arrival and give you blessings of the god-zombie.” The pale old elf was clad in traditional leathers and bones and he wore his hair—and beard—in long dreadlocks that hung past his waist. He leaned on a simple, twisted staff of ebony wood and scowled beneath his half-skull mask, a more stylized and affected version of the artifact that Jarad word over his own face. “Guildmaster, pray, what is it you wear across your shoulders?”
“What does it look like?”
“A gharial alligator?”
“There you go, then,” the guildmaster said. Jarad did indeed carry a dead gharial alligator—a lucky find. Jarad shifted his weight and shrugged the big reptile’s corpse heavily to the floor of the overlook. “Found this fellow trying to get into the ceremony through an irrigation pipe,” he added. “I needed a new pair of boots anyway.”
