by Cory Herndon
Jarad had no escape route, in a conventional sense. But as long as he had walls, a Devkarin hunter had a way to get a leg up. He crouched against the middle of the tunnel and vaulted against the wall with what, to anyone obeying the usual laws of gravity, looked like a wild, flying kick. At the same time Jarad mentally triggered a silent enchantment that he had learned as a small child. He bolted up the wall, using three limbs for stability, fast enough to get above and then behind Izolda. The Golgari guildmaster gripped the kindjal in both hands and swung the blade around for a sharp, pile-driver blow, then dropped.
The dead girl caught his leg on the way down with a sickle he had not seen concealed beneath her cloak. She hooked the curved blade around his shin and pulled, tearing a gash in what felt like a fairly important artery. Worse, the girl threw him off course enough that the tip of the kindjal slammed against the stone, and Jarad struck soon after.
Izolda brought a black leather boot across his jaw with the strength of an ogre. Jarad tried to roll with the kick but couldn’t get enough leverage to avoid taking most of its power. The tunnel spun like a windmill overhead, and he spat out a tooth.
“Do that again,” he said.
The blood witch merely smiled her cold smile and hooked a finger at the dead girl in the cloak. “Go ahead, little ragamuffyn.” Without taking her eyes off of her new plaything Izolda drove the toe of her boot into Jarad’s ribs. It was a different boot, and this one bore a long iron spike on the steel toe. He bit almost all the way through his lower lip when the spike separated two of his ribs and punctured something he was sure he wanted to keep in one piece—a lung, from the feel of it. Jarad didn’t make a sound, but grabbed on to the witch’s ankle with one hand and did not let go. He yanked the spike out of his side and turned the foot 180 degrees. That move should have crippled Izolda for life, if not torn her foot completely off, boot or not boot.
Instead, Izolda spun her entire body around with it, almost horizontally. She drove a heel into Jarad’s chin and flipped backward, ending up standing, fearless, beside the dead girl.
“I’m going to kill you,” Jarad said. “What do you want with my offspring?”
“Oh, we would have been happy with you, had we known you would stay here to be taken—and alive at that, Guildmaster,” she replied. “I doubt you’re going to kill me. I assure you it would be quite redundant. It’s just that guildmasters have certain protections that even I respect. Makes a child so much easier to take, and use.”
“Use for what?” Jarad coughed. “What have you—”
The dead girl sliced off the top half of Jarad’s left ear with her sickle. He snarled and lashed out with a leg but found he barely had the strength to move it.
“Do not fear yet, or too much, Guildmaster,” Izolda said as the dead girl fascinated, toyed with the triangle of pale flesh that had until recently been attached to the side of Jarad’s head. The world was no longer just spinning, it was swimming. The open artery in his leg had taken its toll quickly, and Jarad’s hand slipped in a pool of his own blood when he tried to push himself onto all fours. He settled for a roll onto his side.
“I’m bleeding to death,” he said, smiling. “Guess you won’t be getting any of this after all.”
“Nonsense,” Izolda said. “Stay back,” she ordered the green-bitten cultists. She crouched over him and hissed an incantation. Rough black threads sprouted from the skin around Jarad’s wounds and then drove sharp points into the other side. Within seconds his injuries had been bound in what he was fairly sure was the most painful way imaginable. “And as for your bugs,” she added, “I’ve been putting a vaccine into their blood swill for decades. I’ve been following you for a while now, you know. You, I think, will take the boy’s place. His blood was lost. The exchange was incomplete. I do despise an incomplete act of bloodshed.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?” Jarad said.
“You have no choice,” Izolda said. “If you think the demon will release the boy of his own free will, you are a fool. But if you serve my purpose, the demon will have no choice but to do so. I’m afraid it will mean the end of your life, naturally. You are quickly running out of both room and options, I think. What is your answer, Guildmaster?”
Why do you think I’m here? Svogthir thought. Because that wretched Devkarin has taken my rightful mantle. He has stolen my guild. And I want it back.
Good luck with that, Kos replied. I mean why are you in this body?
I have been ever since you foiled this one’s plans. It was child’s play to take it for my own. After a lifetime of necromancy, she was half dead anyway. I do miss my old skull, but the move was necessary. But, the god-zombie thought with mild surprise, I have not allowed you in.
Maybe that’s the point, Kos thought. It’s not your place to allow it. We’re both squatters in the corpse of a dead woman near as I see it. Now tell me what the progenitor is up to.
Kos, you have a mission to—Obez broke in.
Quiet, Kos said. We have company you don’t want to be talking around.
Svogthir’s long-borrowed form—the body that had once belonged to the Devkarin Matka Savra—was a very uncomfortable place to be, as far as bodies went. And Kos had already been in several, so he could think that with authority. What he had not been sure of was whether the Azorius power the Grand Arbiter had given him would be enough to take control of this body from one who had, in effect, already stolen it.
And to Kos’s surprise, he could. Easily. It must have been the stabilizing aid of his anchor, for he had driven the great god-zombie into one corner of the undead Devkarin’s mind with ease.
“God-zombie, the time is close at hand. The demon bellows in the night, and the beasts of old are tearing the lifeless stone world apart. We will be their saviors. We will remake it all. Do you wish to say a few words before we bring Project Kraj to fruition?”
Now Kos merely had to interrogate Svogthir without letting Vig know what had happened. It was almost like being back at the Tenth.
“Just get on with it,” Kos snapped, guessing that the god-zombie, a being who claimed to be the oldest on Ravnica, would not be patient with a grandiloquent biomancer.
“You are as much the parent of this magnificent creation as I,” Vig said, “for death we will bring, as much as life.”
What the hell is going on here? Kos demanded.
Did you want him to sketch it out on the floor for you in bright white chalk, wojek? Look around you, Svogthir said. Look at that enormous intelligence in the center of it all. Now picture this place from the outside.
Why?
Because we, you pathetic pustule of a spirit, are inside the head of Project Kraj, Svogthir said. That fool is going to unleash it on the city and with it wipe out the nephilim and the demon. He thinks.
You don’t? Kos asked.
“Svogthir,” Vig said, “you appear distracted.”
“The gravity of the moment,” Kos replied. “It is indeed awe-inspiring what we will accomplish.”
“You will have your undercity back, and I shall have this entire surface to cultivate,” Vig offered. “Project Kraj will deal with the demon and the old beasts, and the survivors will be ours to lead. Survival breeds change, the essence of new life.”
Nice plan, Kos thought. You are a real piece of work.
It’s a good plan, Svogthir replied. You weren’t part of it.
Too bad. I am now.
“Perhaps we should begin,” Kos said through Savra’s cracked mouth.
“You are anxious, aren’t you?” Vig said. “I would have thought someone as old as you would have learned patience by now.”
“Never forget who is in this body you speak to so dismissively, pustule of—” Kos, who had only let his mental guard down for a moment, cut off Svogthir’s outburst with a forced cough. Don’t try that one again. I will find a way to kill myself in this body if you try it again.
I doubt you would, Svogthir replied. You don’t strike me as t
he type.
“I forget nothing,” Vig said. “And you are right—the time is nigh. Look.” The Simic guildmaster waved to a virusoid, who walked to one of the translucent membranes and brushed a bump on the spongy wall next to it. The membrane shimmered to display the demon Rakdos facing off against the serpent-thing. The nephilim stood half again as tall as the demon, and sat upon a roll of coils at least twice as long as that. The demon, on the other hand, carried a chunk of mizzium ripped from some ancient piece of architecture—perhaps Sunhome itself—that he wielded as a sharp cudgel. As Kos watched, the demon spread his wings and took to the air.
It is a pleasure to see him fight again, I must admit, Svogthir said. He is a magnificent killer.
It did not take long. The snake-nephilim was fast, especially for its size, but the constrictor was built for an enemy on the ground. Rakdos, though not quick to maneuver, could build up a tremendous head of steam on a dive, and the demon drew first blood when one of his horns tore a chunk from the serpent’s abdomen-face. The nephilim grabbed at him as he flew past, but the blow had knocked off the snake-thing’s equilibrium so badly that its strike missed completely. A second dive, and Rakdos drove the chunk of jagged mizzium—a piece of virtually indestructible metal the length of a zeppelid yacht—through the enormous yellow eye on the beast’s “chest.” The demon left the weapon there but on the way back up snagged one of the nephilim’s flailing arms in his opposite hand. Heaving his wings, Rakdos hauled it into the sky.
The nephilim flexed its coils and whipped its body at the demon in a desperate attempt to grasp onto and choke the life from the unholy guildmaster. Rakdos brought up a hoof and drove the mizzium spear out of the snake-thing’s back, drove the second hoof against the round metallic mouth, and caved that in on one side. Finally, Rakdos dived again. The nephilim’s momentum carried its serpentine body into the air while the demon plummeted in the opposite direction, headed straight for Vitu Ghazi. The snake-thing’s entire body whipped around to follow, still writhing pitiably, until it struck the side of the tree and was impaled on a row of spiky branches. They were part of the increasingly insular Conclave’s new defensive tactics, and in this bizarre case, at least, Kos thought they worked like charms.
The snake-nephilim twitched for a few seconds as its blood drained away down the side of the Unity Tree then its body drooped against the mammoth trunk just as a small army of ledev guardians swarmed toward it.
“Udom,” Vig said, and the virusoid struck the growth switch again. The filmy membrane was once again a mere window, allowing warmth inside. He turned to Svogthir. “Yes, it is time. The demon is the only thing that stands between us and mastery of this wild, new natural world we shall create. Life and death, two sides of the same world.”
“Yes,” Kos ventured.
“It is time to begin,” Vig repeated. After a moment, Kos realized the elf biomancer was frowning.
“Yes,” Kos repeated.
What is he waiting for? Kos demanded.
I hardly have to tell you that, Svogthir replied.
Listen to this joker, Kos thought. You really think he’s planning to share? You may be ancient, but I’d swear you were born yesterday. I can read him like a newssheet.
Who said I planned to share? Svogthir retorted.
“God-zombie, again I say,” Vig said, noticeably irritated, “It is time.”
What am I supposed to do? Kos said.
All right, Svogthir said. This could be interesting. He’s looking for the glass tubes—three of them—on your belt. He’s got the other three. All six will bring the project to life, and then there will be one more giant monster walking around out there. But this one is going to be something a little different.
Kos patted Savra’s belt as casually as he could, and found the tubes.
“Yes,” Kos said, “it is time.”
You need to slot the tubes in one by one, you and him, simultaneously. And after the third one … hold on.
Myc roared to the heavens, and Rakdos joined in. Now, for the life churchers.
The demon-god turned on Vitu Ghazi, seething. “Selesnya Conclave,” he bellowed, “your time has come to an end.” As he spoke, rats swarmed the streets, slipping through every grating and crack. They encircled the base of Vitu Ghazi, chattering so loudly Myc could hear them with his actual ears, even from his seat under Rakdos’s chin. The ledev had already take positions there along a low wall that had been built only a few years earlier.
Rakdos drove a hoof through the wall before Myc could stop him, and the rats poured into holy Conclave territory.
High in the Unity Tree, a Living Saint did everything he could to ensure they didn’t stay there long.
“Jarad,” Fonn said. Her voice was distant, tiny, as if heard through a network of pipes. “Jarad, where are you?”
Jarad blinked and was instantly gratified to find he could. He’d half-expected to awake, if he awoke at all, with his eyes sewn shut.
“Jarad, for the holy mother’s sake,” the voice echoed, and the Devkarin felt the sound not just in his ears—one of which was caked with blood—but on his chest. He reached for the speechstone but found his arms would not move. That was when he took in the rest of his surroundings.
Jarad hung tied, with both rope and rusty chains, to the effigy tree. There were fewer cultists here this time and little hope of rescue. If what Izolda said was true, however, Jarad was not sure he even wanted to be rescued. Was it worth his son’s promised freedom (a hope that required him to believe Fonn could save Myc if the boy’s bond to Rakdos was broken) to unleash Rakdos under the sway of a creature like the blood witch?
For that was the ceremony she had been trying to complete. Each guild had its own unique ways and distinct styles when it came to magic, but in many places those powers and ways overlapped. Izolda was performing some kind of domination rite: magic with the purpose of controlling another being. When he realized that, it was only a short step to the obvious fact that his arrow shot had stopped the first rite and caused Myc’s connection with the demon by freak accident.
“How do you expect this to work when your guildmaster is out there ripping up the Center?” Jarad asked.
“So he puts the pieces together,” Izolda said. “I had hoped you would not disappoint me. But do not concern yourself with that, my dear. It will work. The blood of a guildmaster—your son’s—has mixed with the burning blood in the pit and with the blood of the demon himself. With it I have blended the essence of a dragon.”
“But now you’ve just got blood,” he sneered. “Good luck.”
“Waste not, want not,” the blood witch replied, as she retracted her black claws with a slurping sound, and snapped her fingers. One of the simian thugs shuffled forward with a small bottle. Izolda produced the silver bowl and carefully poured in half of the bottle’s contents. This close, Jarad’s nose told him exactly what the substance was. Krokt, he thought, she could really do it. And if she did, Myc, Fonn, and the entire world would have to deal with it. The sacrifice would not mean much.
Silently, betraying no hint of emotion or the plan he furiously composed, Jarad reached out to find the common Ravnican acid-fly. He found four within easy reach and steered them at their top speed to the chains on his hands.
Izolda raised the bowl in one hand and handed the bottle of dragon cerebral fluid back to the thug. She kept the hand extended and called, “Child, the knife.”
The dead girl emerged from behind Jarad, where she’d been hiding in plain sight. She carried the jagged blade that had cut Myc’s hand open, still black with his blood. She held the knife up like a prayer offering, and Izolda gripped the handle, taking it with a nod. The girl retreated back to her corner. Along the way, she hummed a happy, broken tune that sounded like a twisting of a common Selesnyan hymn.
The acidflies alit upon the chains and ropes binding Jarad’s arms. The insects immediately spit the substance for which they were named, a potent corrosive that could, if the Devkarin w
asn’t careful, burn all the way through the chains, ropes, and his wrists if he didn’t pull them out in time.
The blood witch sniffed the air, and her white eyes widened in surprise a second too late.
Jarad jerked one hand free, then another, and let himself drop forward at the waist. He pulled the chains around his ankles free easily—they were not locked, just wrapped in long coils that he easily loosened—and then dived into a roll that brought him into a crouch at Izolda’s feet. Instead of kicking him, the blood witch stepped carefully back, cradling the silver bowl to her chest.
“What are you fools waiting for?” she demanded. “Grab him! Hold him down!”
Old habits die hard, and to the Rakdos individual combat was a natural way of living. They could barely form any kind of short-term alliances. Their broad guild bond was the closest they came to such behavior—and that was more of a common belief system tying them together, than true camaraderie. So, fortunately, Jarad only had to take on two at once. Fortunate, because he had no feeling but a dull tingle in his lower legs.
He rolled aside from the first simian zombie, pulling his legs up with his arms in a mad attempt to get his blood pumping. It worked. Now instead of a numb tingle he had the overpowering sensation of all feeling returning to his legs at once. Jarad still couldn’t stand, so he rolled back the other way when the second thug attempted to grab hold of his arms. He didn’t roll far and managed to catch the zombie’s wrist on the follow-through. He hauled downward, swinging the thug skull-first into the stone floor, and caving its head in with a wet splat and a spray of gray matter—dry, useless-looking gray matter.
The maneuver cost him, however, giving the blood witch a chance to shout another order. “All of you get him!” she bellowed. “Now!”
Jarad was hopelessly outnumbered, barely able to stand, and completely unarmed, and the crowd was literally after his blood. Yet he forced himself to his shaky feet, whirling dizzily to take in the foes that surrounded him on all sides and closed in relentlessly.
