by Cory Herndon
“And I thank you on behalf of the agricultural collective,” said the foreman in charge of this stretch of farmland. The foreman was also a zombie, though he was dressed in finer clothes than the torch-bearing laborers who ringed the farmland spreading out below them. He extended his hand and Jarad shook it firmly.
“Foreman Ulkis,” he said. “Good to see you. Is everything ready?”
“Yes,” the priest cut in. “The prayers have been made. All that we await is your order.” There was that impatience again. Jarad understood the man had been forced to wait, but his tone was unseemly for dealing with a guildmaster.
Jarad had never enjoyed negotiation, compromise, or profit margins. These days not an hour passed when he didn’t have to consider at least one of the three in some capacity. Jarad had not wanted to leave his son to Fonn and the Selesnyans for long stretches of the boy’s life. He had not wanted to watch his sister snapped like a twig. He had not coveted her power. But he was guildmaster, and he was damned well going to have the respect of the priests.
“Nillis,” he said, “you seem to be in quite a rush. Have I kept you long?”
“No, Guildmaster,” the priest said, predictably obsequious. “I only long to begin the cycle of renewal that will see the end of one harvest and the beginning of another. It is a holy time, and if I seem impatient it is only because of my eagerness to see it through, from start to finish.”
“You sure?” Jarad said, walking past the bowing priest to stand at the edge of the overlook. The field was dotted with small, white packet bombs of incendiary substances, covered over with broken chunks of dead dindin stalks and the half-plowed stumps of rotting meatshrooms. The hundred torches awaiting his command cast dancing shadows on the walls, the huge sunfungus overhead was in the darkened nighttime phase. Even dimmed, the gigantic, spherical sporophore cast enough light to reveal a few things that should not have been out in the fields, large, brown, lumpy things that didn’t match the detritus of the harvest or the bright, white sheen of the incendiaries.
Jarad whirled on one foot and marched back to the high priest, who raised his head hopefully, ready to receive the guildmaster’s order. He received the guildmaster’s fist across the jaw instead.
The Devkarin holy man’s staff clattered to the floor next to him, and he groaned. “Guildmaster? What—?”
“You have placed sacrifices in the fields,” Jarad said steadily, anger barely in check. “This practice is no longer allowed, Nillis. Why have you defied the decree of your guildmaster?”
“I—No, there is—”
“Don’t lie to me, priest,” Jarad said. “I don’t want excuses, nor am I going to debate. You will personally retrieve every one of them and return them to their parents. The burn will have to wait until tomorrow.” He turned to the foreman. “Ulkis, did you know anything about this?”
If the zombie foreman did, he was smart enough not to say it. He wasn’t the most expressive being Jarad had ever met, regardless. He simply shook his head and looked at the priest sternly.
“Krokt,” Jarad swore. He didn’t have time for this. He was due to meet with the Simic guildmaster in just an hour. He didn’t trust the priest either, but he wasn’t going to have stolen human children burned alive no matter what the “god-zombie” wanted. The god-zombie was dead. His sister had seen to that. The god-zombie wasn’t going to care either way, and whatever Nillis or the other priests thought about it, stealing kids and burning them in a field was not the way to gain respect for the guild. It was not the way that Jarad vod Savo ran things.
“All right,” he said to the foreman, “You are going to watch Nillis here, and you’re going to make absolutely certain he goes out there and personally frees every one of those children. Then we’re going to meet here tomorrow and try this again. I’ve still got contacts with the ’jeks, and I will be checking with their missing children’s bureau first thing in the morning. There had better be …” he counted quickly, “there had better be twelve success stories in their records by then.”
“But Guildmaster,” Nillis objected, “the calendar does not allow—”
“You should have thought of that before you defied my edict,” Jarad said. “You’re lucky I don’t have Ulkis put you in a bag and leave you out to burn there in their stead. So don’t push it. You’ve got work to do.”
He nodded to the foreman and concentrated. When he spoke again, a slight echo tinged the edges of his voice, and the words he said would be impossible for the zombie to disobey. The Devkarin was not the necromancer his sister had been, but he knew a few tricks that he’d been able to practice to great effect in his new capacity as guildmaster. “Foreman, see that he does it. I’ll see you both tomorrow, and I will know if you have not done as ordered. Both of you.”
“Yes, Guildmaster,” the defeated priest said.
The foreman nodded and agreed. “If he fails, I will break his arms, Guildmaster.”
“No,” Jarad said. “Save those for me. You can break a rib if you like. Just to let him know I’m serious.”
“Guildmaster, really,” the high priest sputtered, but by that time he was talking to Jarad’s back.
Maybe that hadn’t been fair. He had been late, after all. But that defiance of his personal policies had been too much. What was the point of being guildmaster if your minions wouldn’t listen?
As it was, he was late to his next appointment too but not because of the gharial or the fight with the deadwalker raiders. As his huntress bodyguards stepped in behind him, he took the long way through the undercity, in no hurry to meet with the Simic. He stopped off at one of Old Rav’s better tailors and picked up a new vest, a cape that was not too audacious, and took the opportunity to clean himself up. By the time he reached the receiving chamber in the labyrinth he had pulled back and knotted his dreadlocks, pinned the Golgari sigil to his breast, and once again affixed his Devkarin mask firmly to his face. His lieutenant met him at the door with the guildmaster’s staff of office, an ornate piece of ebony topped with a simple, green stone into which the Golgari symbol was carved.
Jarad set his jaw and strode into the receiving hall with as much majesty as he could muster. Of all his duties as guildmaster, diplomacy was another one that he did not particularly enjoy. Like it or not, however, he did have to admit he had a knack for direct negotiation. It was not unlike the deceptions every hunter employed when dealing with tricky prey, even if this was more verbal and far less bloody, in most cases. And Jarad found that he was best at diplomacy when dealing with someone he did not like. It was just his luck that one such someone rose to his feet and approached Jarad as he walked into the receiving chamber. The Simic representative was a vedalken, one he had dealt with before and whom Jarad had only allowed to call again because the Simic guild seemed to have difficulty grasping his position. In fact, they were ignoring it.
“Dr. Otrovac,” he said with an almost imperceptible bow. “Welcome. I trust we did not leave you waiting too long. We are between harvests, you understand. Much to do.”
“I was not waiting long,” the vedalken lied. Jarad felt something like a tingling in his scalp. No matter how many times he tried and failed, Dr. Otrovac always made a bold attempt to read the guildmaster’s mind, every time the two met. It didn’t work now, hadn’t worked before, and wouldn’t work in the future.
“Please don’t be tiresome, Doctor. You know you can’t get in there,” Jarad said, tapping his forehead. “Guildmaster’s privilege.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” the Simic said. “It is good to see you, Guildmaster. I bring a message from the great Progenitor Momir Vig, who sends his deepest respect and honorable greetings from the great greenhouse, along with respect from all of the elders of Novijen.”
“And?”
“And?” the vedalken said, caught off guard. “And … and gifts, of course, with which we may open our negotiation.”
“Are they the same gifts you brought last month?” Jarad said.
“Well, in part,” the Simic admitted. “But I have also brought—I’m sorry, is there someplace we can speak more privately?”
“Of course,” Jarad said. He led the Simic to an antechamber that he used for private meetings, ordering his bodyguards to stand watch at the door and keep an eye on the Simic’s entourage.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing at a chair in front of a simple desk that dominated the room. Jarad tapped on a few more glowspheres and sat down behind the desk. “Well?”
“You are direct, as always,” the Simic said. “Since you have not seen fit to accept our previous offers, I have been authorized to ‘sweeten the deal,’ as the merchants say.”
“I’m listening,” Jarad said, placing his elbows on the desk, his hands together and his fingertips against his chin. The Simic soldiered on.
“In addition to what would be your first shipment of cytoplast enhancements, the great progenitor has released eight million zinos to a private account with the Karlov Bank, which I trust you realize is the most trusted name in financial circles. The account shall be released to you as soon as the contract has been signed. What you do with it is up to you.”
“Zinos,” Jarad said. “Impressive.” His tone made it clear that the gold was anything but. “And?”
“And?” the Simic said. “I just told you that we set aside eight million—million—zinos, and you ask me ‘and’?”
“We do not sell our harvest for free,” Jarad said. “The slaughterhouses are not a charity. Well, we provide food for charities, but that’s beside the point. The point is I have zinos. You’re not offering me anything new, except what I already told you we don’t want.”
“Cytoplastic enhancement can increase the efficiency of your operations tenfold!” Dr. Otrovac said.
“Our operations are operating just fine without your enhancements,” Jarad said. He might have married a woman who wore just such an enhancement, but he had never seen why the Simic pseudoflesh should be used for any reason other than replacing a lost limb. That made sense. Letting another guild affix god-zombie-only-knew-what things to the members of his own people was another matter entirely, and he viewed it as wholly unnecessary. “The answer is still no,” he finished.
“All right, ten million.”
“No.”
“Fourteen million, and that is final,” the Simic said.
“Are you deaf?” Jarad said. “No. In fact, the more zinos you offer, the less sense you make. This whole offer of yours stinks, Otrovac. You say you want to improve our efficiency. You want to give us these cytoplasts of yours as gifts, and you’re offering me enough zinos to buy my own section of the Center of Ravnica.”
“Our reasons are simple,” the doctor said, “and I have explained them many times. We wish to achieve market penetration.”
“You want to make us reliant on Simic bioengineering,” Jarad countered. “What I don’t understand, and the reason I brought you back here, is why.”
“Why, good business, of course,” the doctor said.
“You’d make a lousy Orzhov, Doctor,” Jarad said. “I’ll give you one more chance. Why?”
“There is no need to make idle threats,” the Simic said, making to rise from his seat.
“I don’t make idle threats,” Jarad said. “You heard me.”
“And you heard me,” Dr. Otrovac said. “You have your answer.”
“Then you have yours,” the Devkarin replied. “Now get out of my labyrinth.”
Jarad did not even open the door for the doctor. He simply sat at the desk and watched the vedalken leave. He pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger and considered the meeting.
What was truly baffling was that the Simic were behaving so transparently. Their cytoplasts had been embraced by many industries on the place in the last decade. The Orzhov used them to justify raising the price of slaves. The Izzet appreciated the functionality. Others used them for more varied reasons, some illicit. The biomanalogical attachments affixed to tissue and augmented whatever body part they covered in ways understood only by the Simic themselves—formless transparent masses that wrapped around, say, a forearm and hand, then grew into a more functional, useful forearm and hand depending on the need.
At least, that’s what the Simic had told him. And it was true, zombies enhanced with cytoplasts would probably work faster and more efficiently. But Jarad did not trust it at all and especially didn’t like the idea of so much of his guild being changed in any way by the Simic.
Necromancy was one thing, and biomanalogical symbioses were another.
He pushed back from the desk and stood. Well, that had not been a complete waste of time. If the Simic didn’t get the point now, he’d be more than ready to kick them out again, and again. If they kept it up, he’d start putting vedalken heads on pikes outside of Old Rav.
A part of him wished they would try again. When his son was born, he had sworn on Myczil’s life that he would no longer harm anyone or anything that didn’t deserve it, the closest thing to a vow of peaceful behavior that Fonn could wring out of him. The marriage vows might have been dissolved, but for Myc’s sake he had kept this one.
It had been a long time since he’d found someone who deserved death quite as much as Otrovac. He just couldn’t place exactly why.
Doctor Otrovac hurried from the Golgari labyrinth and into the streets of Old Rav with his small entourage and tugged at the collar of his tunic. He unfastened a couple of buttons and pulled the fabric aside to reveal his own small cytoplastic augmentation. He was not an unimportant vedalken, nor an unimportant Simic. He was a respected doctor, an even more respected negotiator, and if he’d been honest with the Devkarin he would have agreed with him. The Simic’s offer didn’t make that much sense. Otrovac figured his master knew what he was doing, but it was disconcerting to feel so ill-informed.
Perhaps his master could shed some light on this.
When he had placed it against his neck months ago, the cytoplast had been nothing but a formless amoeba of sorts, one large enough to fill his hand. It had immediately affixed to his pale, blue skin and conformed to fit the basic function he desired.
Since Otrovac was one of Momir Vig’s personal ambassadors, that function had naturally also been what the progenitor desired. The cytoplast reshaped itself into the semblance of a single eye with a lipless mouth beneath it. Otrovac dropped his chin and spoke, softly. “You saw. He did not accept.”
“He is a fool,” the lipless mouth said with Momir Vig’s voice. “But this was not unexpected.”
“Honored Progenitor,” the vedalken said, “perhaps it was not wise to offer the zinos. It appears …” Otrovac fought his instincts for obsequiousness. “It makes us appear desperate. I do not understand.”
“You do not understand what?”
“Why have we not simply spread the cytoplasts regardless of his wishes?”
“That may yet happen,” the voice said. “Though I suspect that the next time you make the offer, it will be accepted.”
“Progenitor? What do you mean? He will kill me if I—”
“I suspect not,” the Simic’s guildmaster reasoned through the lipless mouth. “He has made a show of rejecting our offer twice, no doubt so that he will accept the third time with pride intact.”
“I don’t know, Honored One,” the doctor said. “He seemed determined.”
“Trust me,” Momir Vig said. “Do not be concerned, Dr. Otrovac. I believe I have solved our Golgari problem.”
“Yes, sir,” the Simic ambassador said. “I look forward to hearing your solution.”
“It is an intriguing one,” his neck said with Momir Vig’s voice. “Do not delay.”
“Understood,” Otrovac said, and pulled his collar back into place. He whistled to one of his attendants to fetch his carriage and puzzled over the progenitor’s statement. How could you solve the ‘Golgari problem’ and still leave this Jarad in charge? The man was impossible to negotiate with, an
d that didn’t seem about to change in Otrovac’s informed and trained opinion.
He was still puzzling over the question when the carriage arrived, drawn by two cytoplastically enhanced dromads that boasted longer, more powerful legs and extra joints.
As his carriage pulled up the long, spiraling road leading to street-level Ravnica he hoped it involved some kind of torture. Otrovac did not like Jarad vod Savo. Otrovac did not like him at all.
Ten years they have been gone. We must face facts, honored colleagues and lawkeepers. Whether they have abandoned us or somehow been destroyed, the angels are not here and we cannot find them. The Boros Legion must make permanent arrangements for the stewardship of our guild without angelic help. It will not be easy, but it is necessary.
—Wojek Commander-General Lannos Nodov,
Acting Guildmaster, Boros Legion
Address to the Azorius Senate, 19 Quaegar 10010 Z.C.
31 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.
Agrus Kos was dead. As far as he was concerned, fate should have been more than happy with that.
But no. That would have been too easy.
Over one century, and a quarter of another, he’d survived everything the old girl had thrown at him, until she finally turned on him. Kos knew this. He had died on the rocky ground of a dry place. He could not quite remember the name of the place, but there had been … wings. And a goblin, he thought. It was literally a lifetime ago.
But life, even for the dead, went on.
Especially if you’d signed certain documents at a wojek-recruitment desk that you could barely remember even when you were alive, since you’d lied about your age and joined the force when your voice was still changing. Especially if the possessors of those documents decided to hold you to them—like the one that bound one Agrus Kos, Lt. (retired), League of Wojek, Tenth Section, to a fifty-year stint in the Spectral Guard immediately following his death. He’d been at it for a few weeks or maybe a few years. He really had no idea. It wasn’t his job to know. And spectral guards were their jobs.
