by John Delaney
She had always hated swamps. Jeska had come of age in the Pardic region of Otaria where the vast expanse of wasted salt flats didn’t even have a name. The Otarian marshes that bordered her mountain home were nonetheless infamous among the brass-skinned warriors of her tribe—nothing healthy grew there, and no one who went in healthy came out that way.
From her home among the crags and peaks of the Pardic range, young Jeska looked down on the flats that stretched all the way to the big city on the horizon. Though she dreamed of journeying there to compete in the games, she never relished the idea of the trip—too many of her people had told too many horror stories about hiking through the marsh. Her reluctance proved out years later, after her first trip to the city, when she peeled off her sodden boots to reveal a series of searing salt burns—a fungal infection from the noxious mire.
Her feet were dry now on the sodden ground of Urborg, one of the largest swamps and most potent sources of black magic in the world. It galled Jeska that her first visit to Dominaria in ages had to start here, among the restless dead, muck beasts, and foul swamp gases.
It was dark and gloomy under the heavy curtain of clouds overhead, but Jeska had no trouble surveying her surroundings. The landscape was half-submerged in tar and half-covered in gritty soot for as far as she could see. The endlessly churning bog was consuming everything, forest, mountain, and lowlands alike, until all of Urborg stood tainted by a near-uniform layer of rising corruption. Wide expanses of filthy water connected jagged stone ridges and bottomless tar pits. These pits had countless metal limbs, bleached bones, and hunks of rotting meat bobbing on their surfaces in a ghastly stew. Ink black pine trees dropped barbed needles that smoked when they hit the ground, sometimes bursting into sickly gray flames. Thick, greasy fog billowed and rolled over the surface of the mire, fueled in part by the caustic vapors that rose from the bubbling muck. Unseen creatures screeched and howled in the gloom. Brittle, red eyes flickered among the ebon pines, and scaly crests left long ripples in the fetid water.
Urborg was also bitterly cold for some reason, with chunks of melting ice floating in the bog and a thin layer of frost covering every single blade of speargrass as well as the black bark on the trees.
Loathsome as it was, this place was where Jeska had to start. She wished her mentor had not disappeared at all, but she vehemently wished Karn had not disappeared from this wretched place. She would search until she found him no matter what, but she would have preferred to begin somewhere less appalling.
At least she was making progress. Of the three people present when she arrived, two were familiar to her. She had no idea who the pale, nervous-looking man was, but the Ghitu woman was definitely Jhoira, her mentor’s oldest and dearest friend. Karn spoke of Jhoira often and had described her in vivid detail, so it was easy for Jeska to recognize Jhoira’s deceivingly youthful appearance and her wise, penetrating eyes.
Jeska also identified Teferi from Karn’s descriptions. Physically, Teferi was as Karn had said: tall, dark-skinned, and bald. Karn had also said that Teferi was a powerful planeswalker and a profound thinker but that he was childish, a lover of secrets and wordplay. The bald man in front of her matched Karn’s description, but he was clearly a mortal wizard and no planeswalker. She made a mental note to ask about this if the trio satisfactorily answered her more important questions.
Both Teferi and the pale man deferred to Jhoira and waited for her to speak, but the Ghitu stood silently with a hesitant look on her face. Jhoira did not seem afraid but rather like someone unable to choose from the many things she had to say.
Teferi stepped forward and ended the awkward silence. “Hail, Jeska, friend of Karn.” he said. He had one arm folded across his stomach as the other swept out to its full length. Without straightening, Teferi said, “We who were also his friends hope now to be yours as well.”
“That depends,” Jeska said. Her hand was still clamped on the hilt of her sword, and she forced her fingers to relax.
Teferi stood straight. “On what?”
“On whether you answer the simple question I’ve already asked. Where is Karn?”
Teferi’s face became somber. “We don’t know,” he said.
Jeska waited a second or two for more, but patience had never been an asset of the Pardic people. “And?”
Teferi’s smile did not change. “I’m sorry?”
“What do you know? Did you see him at all? Or talk to him?”
Teferi’s features grew slightly more tense. He glanced at Jhoira and said, “Both.”
“Then we’re getting somewhere. Can you tell me where he went? I’ve already checked most of the places he’d go, and he isn’t there.”
“We don’t know. Honestly.”
Jeska waited for a moment more. She drew her short sword, an act that raised a very satisfying look of concern on Teferi’s face. She clenched the hilt of the gladius tight and said casually, “Are you going to tell me what happened freely, or do I have to keep prying it out of you one sentence at a time?”
Teferi and the pale man took a step back, but Jhoira of the Ghitu stood firm. Her anxiety faded, and she was calm and unruffled as she appraised Jeska’s weapon and intent. Jeska tapped the flat end of her sword into her open palm.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
“Forgive me, Jeska.” Teferi bowed once more. “I hesitated to volunteer the meager information I have so as not to provoke an angry reaction.”
“That tactic failed. Try a new one.”
“I’d prefer to dispense with tactics,” Teferi said, “and speak frankly with all swords sheathed.”
“Oh, to the Hells with this,” Jeska said. She held her gladius out at arm’s length with her muscles rigid and concentrated. Her spellcraft was derived from the copper and iron ridges of the Pardic mountains. Like Jeska herself, her magic was more suited to direct confrontation than parley or negotiation. If she needed information, the Pardic way was to best that information’s holder and force it from them through victory in combat.
She was also a planeswalker with unlimited access to the Multiverse and its endless supply of magical energy. She could erase these three with less effort than it took to clear her throat, but that wouldn’t answer her questions. This instance required more subtlety, a more Karnlike approach.
The golem would surely advise her to single out the person most likely to have the information she needed and learn what she could. She was far from fluent in the mind-to-mind communication her mentor and other planeswalkers employed, but she knew Teferi was the best target for it. Logically, her own crude but effective methods of grasping through others’ thoughts would have a greater chance of success with someone like him, whose brain was full and ordered and wouldn’t require much rummaging.
Teferi smiled at her calmly. “I think I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “And it’s polite to ask permission first.”
She paused, taking in Teferi’s oddly mischievous air. Jeska’s determination to read his mind faltered. Karn had said Teferi was slippery, that the bald planeswalker was famously proficient in the ways of mind magic and evasion. Not only was he aware of what she intended, he would probably avoid Jeska’s amateurish digging entirely. Worse, he might give her false information that she would not be able to distinguish from the truth.
“Please,” Teferi closed his eyes and leaned forward. “See what I have seen. In good faith, I offer you the answers you seek, such as I know them.”
Jeska did not wait for him to reconsider. Her mind sprang forward, seizing the precise moment Teferi made himself vulnerable. She tried to be the dagger rather than the cudgel, cutting as narrow and clean a swathe as possible as she plunged into his thoughts.
Teferi’s mind was indeed full and ordered. Too much so, in fact. In her mind’s eye Jeska saw herself standing outside a massive stone castle with no doors or windows, somehow knowing that inside were a million tomes filled to the margins with priceless knowledge…and that each was written in sym
bols she could not read.
She withdrew from Teferi’s mind. She had neither the time nor the inclination to sift through the entirety of the bald wizard’s memories, especially if she could not trust what she found there. Her eyes flickered over to the pale man and decided he would be next.
But the pale man, whose name she now knew was Venser, had mental barriers almost as solid as Teferi’s. She gleaned some general information from him, but someone else had traumatized Venser’s psyche, and had done so quite recently. His consciousness seemed callused at its center and frayed along the edges, as if it had already endured too much traffic. The artificer was still recovering from that experience, not so much guarded or defensive as damaged and healing. Even if she could get what she needed from Venser, she would almost certainly do more damage to him in the process.
That left Jhoira. With less than a moment’s regret and apologies to Karn, Jeska focused on the Ghitu…and was confounded once more. She touched Jhoira’s mind and found only what Jhoira allowed her to see: respectful greetings, genuine concern for Karn, and a heartfelt desire to keep anyone present from getting hurt. The rest of Jhoira’s thoughts were so tightly under their thinker’s control that they were bound together in an impenetrable knot.
Jeska lowered her sword and grunted angrily. “Why can’t I get anything out of you people?”
“Telepathy is never easy,” Teferi said. “And our minds are each as unique as yours.”
“None of this makes sense,” Jeska said. “You’re supposed to be a planeswalker, but you’re not. And I don’t know what you are.” She pointed to Venser. “You’re mortal, but you’re something else. Something new. The bastard son of a planeswalker and a clockmaker.”
Venser scowled. “Hey.”
Jeska glanced from Venser to Jhoira to Teferi. “I need to know about Karn,” she said. “And I’d rather not kill one of you to make you understand how important it is to me.”
“Please,” Teferi said. “We are all Karn’s friends here, and I for one am eager to share information. Ask me your questions, and I will respond as best I can.”
“I’m tired of asking. I don’t like your answers.”
“Hm. Well, perhaps we should start again.”
Jeska exhaled. She paused, then said slowly, “All right. You say Karn was here but he left.”
“Yes.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where he went?”
“I couldn’t even guess. He was alarmed, I can tell you that.”
Jeska shook her head. “I still don’t like your answers.”
“Jeska.” Jhoira stepped between Jeska and the others. “Allow me. We are not your enemies, and we are not trying to obstruct you. We also want to know what happened to your mentor. Together, perhaps—”
“Are you his envoy?” Jeska thrust the sword’s tip toward Teferi.
Jhoira blinked. “No.”
“Are you anyone’s envoy?”
“No.”
“Neither am I. Let’s everyone stop talking like dignitaries and get to the point.”
Jhoira nodded. “I’ll be brief.”
“I’d prefer that.”
“The fabric of reality has split,” Jhoira said. “We three have undertaken its repair. We needed considerable amounts of help. I called out to Karn. He answered my call. He helped. And then he fled without word or explanation.” The Ghitu folded her arms into her sleeves.
Jeska scowled. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I agree. If he were alive he would have contacted one of us by now.”
“Or me.”
“I was including you.”
“Don’t.” Jeska sheathed her sword. “Not yet. I’m not sure I trust you or what you’re telling me. Until then we’re not allies, and you’re not safe from me.”
This caused another flutter of consternation across the faces of the men. Only Jhoira remained calm.
“If it helps,” Venser said, “I was closest to Karn when it happened.” He stood taller. “I felt you trying to read my mind just now,” he said, “and I resisted. As a rule I’m scared of mind readers. But Jhoira is right, we are not your enemies. I probably have the best information out of the three of us. I’m willing to share it.”
Jeska shook her head. “Forget it. It’s too raw and tender in there. I’m likely to trample something important.”
“If you like,” Teferi said. “I could help you. I used to be a fair hand at this sort of thing. I might be able to instruct—”
Jeska’s lip curled. “I’ll find my old mentor before I take on a new one, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Of course.”
“Venser,” Jeska said, “if you will let me in, I will not consciously harm you.”
Venser turned to Jhoira, who nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”
Jeska focused on the pale man’s forehead. She reached out with her mind, and her vision fogged.
Then she was inside Venser’s mind, seeing through his eyes and hearing his thoughts. Her mentor had been in mind-to-mind contact with Venser at the end, and that connection to Karn resonated with Jeska’s own. The sum of Venser’s memories was densely packed and confused, and the parts she needed were fragmented and scattered like flecks of iron ore through a chunk of rock. Jeska focused her transcendent perceptions on this unrefined nugget, heating and hammering and sharpening it into a polished, razor-sharp blade.
She saw Karn in the primordial chaos of the Blind Eternities as he resisted the flow of time and forged into the past. She saw her mentor return to Tolaria on that dark day the Phyrexians came to spitefully tear it down. Karn had only ever spoken of this event in generalities and only in the context of the Invasion’s complete history.
Now, through Venser’s mind, she saw Karn blaze bright and join the battle. She watched him cut through the metallic horde like a scythe. She watched him confront the strange break in Dominaria’s planar structure, expending a significant portion of his infinite power to choke the phenomenon and mortar it shut.
Then she heard Karn’s last words, the awful panic in his sudden recognition of an unforeseen danger, and saw his headlong flight toward his unknown, perhaps unknowable, destination.
Jeska pulled free of Venser’s mind with a nauseating jerk. The artificer crumbled to his knees. Jhoira and Teferi stepped to his aid, and so no one saw the bitter tears in Jeska’s eyes.
“Thank you,” she called. Her voice was thick and she turned away.
“Jeska,” Teferi said, “please stay. Karn saw the value of our mission. In his name I ask you to help us as he did.”
Jeska stopped. Her throat cleared, and she felt the tears on her cheeks evaporate. “ ‘In his name’?” she said. She turned her fierce eyes on Teferi. “He’s not dead, you selfish bastard. He’s out there somewhere. I still intend to find him.”
Jhoira helped Venser back to his feet, and she said, “I don’t think he wants to be found.”
“Let him tell me that.”
Venser stepped up alongside Jhoira. “I can’t stop you from going. But he’s gone, Jeska. He was in the past when he disappeared. You’d have to start looking there, and as far we know, Karn is the only being who is capable of time travel.”
Jeska felt her pulse throb hard in her neck and a wave of heat across her face. “So I should join you…because you sent Karn on a mission with no means of return or rescue?”
“It was his choice.”
“I see. So he would have advised me to help you if he were here. But he isn’t here because he helped you.” She clenched her sword in her fist but did not draw it. “I should kill you all on general principle and leave your bodies to fester in this Urborg cesspool.”
“You have touched Venser’s mind,” Jhoira said. “And ours. You know our purpose and our posture. We did not harm Karn nor ever meant him harm. He helped us of his own free will. He would not punish us for that, and neither sh
ould you.”
Jeska made an angry hissing sound. She sank cross-legged to the ground, a glittering veneer of red sizzling against the muck as she settled in.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “Tell me all that you know. If it bears out, I will help you if I can.”
“Thank you,” Jhoira said.
“And in return,” Jeska said, “I expect your help in locating Karn, and in returning him, whole and healthy, to the here and now.”
“As you say, we will help if we can,” Jhoira said.
Jeska nodded, her red hair dancing before her eyes. “I’m listening.”
Jhoira nodded to Venser and Teferi, and she said, “We began in Keld.”
Jeska closed her eyes and concentrated as the Ghitu continued. This is what Karn would have asked her to do, what he had chosen to do when he disappeared. And the sooner she understood it, the sooner she could find him and bring him back.
Leshrac returned to Urborg to follow up on a minor bit of business. He was sorry to see the end of the swamp nation’s artificial winter—the cold was a familiar thing, even comfortable, though Leshrac had no hand in creating it. He had been happy to use the time and weather paradox to create a whole host of interesting opportunities.
One of these smaller opportunities had the most potentially interesting dividends, though at present it merely sat motionless on a mound of human bones in the thawing wilds of Urborg. Dinne il-Vec had been a warrior in the service of a Phyrexian governor, then a puppet in the thrall of a powerful psychic entity called the Weaver King. Both Dinne and the Weaver King were forever trapped between existence and oblivion as shadow creatures, but their status as phantoms made them no less dangerous. When Leshrac had opened the door for the Weaver King to enter Urborg, Dinne came along. Now the Weaver King was dead and gone, and Dinne had no one to give him orders, which suited Leshrac perfectly.
After decades of the Weaver King’s vicious mental conditioning and torture, Dinne retained only the barest sense of himself and was almost incapable of acting on his own volition. The Vec raider spent those days since the Weaver King’s death in a near-catatonic state, at least until the sun went down and he roused himself to go marauding. He preferred killing other warriors, as the pile of discarded weapons beside the mound of bones could attest, but he was not picky or proud—if there was no one to stalk but civilian women and children, the Vec cutthroat made do with them.
