by John Delaney
“I’ve come to meet you, Jeska. To talk with you and share information.”
Jeska casually drew her sword. “Now would be a good time to start.” She was not an expert at reading minds, but she had spent more than enough time in the pits to size up a potential opponent by his posture. Leshrac was maddeningly opaque, however, so far completely defying her well-honed talent for reading and assessing potential threats.
“Of course. You won’t need that, by the way. My intentions are peaceful.”
Jeska did not move. She stared fixedly at Leshrac. He watched her for a second with a slightly concerned look on his face and stroked his chin. “I’ve frightened you, haven’t I?”
“Not at all.”
“Your clenched teeth and knuckles say otherwise. It’s almost as if you know my reputation. I dispute nothing you might have heard, but I would ask that you at least hear me out.”
“I don’t know you at all,” Jeska said. “Nor do I care about your reputation. I just don’t like what I see.”
“Well, that’s a bit of an ego crusher. In some places I’m used to frightening small children. ‘Eat your vegetables or the Walker of the Night will get you.’ ‘Only Leshrac’s curse could have brought me luck this bad.’ I try not to take it personally. Legends always spring up around anyone who has lived as long as we have.”
“What do you want?”
Leshrac’s face tightened. “I need to speak with you.”
“Why should I listen? All I’m sure of at this point is that you want something from me.”
“On the contrary,” Leshrac said. “I have something for you.” When Leshrac did not continue, Jeska noticed the leading edge of the swamp fog drawing near. Was this his game? Delay her until he could claim the local mana and add it to his personal store?
Jeska sheathed her sword and said, “I’m going higher. If you want this to continue…you may follow.”
Leshrac nodded. He gestured at the grimy, brown fogbank and said, “I wish it known that is not due to a conscious act on my part. I draw it to me like lungs draw air.”
“Exhale, then,” Jeska said. She glanced up to the highest peak on the edge of the marshes. Her vision shimmered, then Jeska appeared on that peak. Her feet slid slightly on the wind-polished rock, and her coarse red hair whipped back and forth across her shoulders.
Leshrac appeared a respectable ten feet away, his hands folded in front of him. He cocked his head, puffed out his cheeks, and blew heavily through pursed lips. “There,” he said. “And again, my apologies.” He glanced back down. “It will find me eventually, but it moves quite slowly. We can stay one step ahead of it while we converse.”
“I’ll listen for as long as it takes me to decide if I should ignore you or knock you out.”
The sharp, white edges of Leshrac’s teeth appeared between his smiling lips. “You don’t have to bluster so. I only want to talk.”
“Then talk.”
Leshrac folded his arms. “I’m afraid I’m used to getting as much respect as I give.”
“That’s your problem. I don’t know you, Leshrac, but you seem evil to me. And not just because you draw black mana to you.”
“Evil? And what constitutes evil to a Pardic warrior?”
“Scheming,” Jeska said. “Selfish.”
Leshrac nodded. “I will not deny I am that.”
“Dishonest. Consumptive. Cruel.” She ticked off the examples on her fingers. “Indirect. Cowardly.” Jeska sneered as her thoughts turned inward to memories and regrets. “Political.”
“A fine list. Very thorough.” Leshrac’s crown brightened. “But I say evil is something else. You speak of personalities, of traits and leanings. I speak only of actions. To me, there is no such thing as evil as a personality trait or spiritual condition. There is only sin, concrete and deliberate action that is simply wrong.
“It is what happens when one goes against one’s nature. It germinates in the shadow of risks untaken. It ripens in power unexercised. Beings like us can take risks no one else can and exercise power no one else has. We have the greatest capacity for sin, through action or inaction.”
“I’m not interested in a lecture.”
“No lecture, Jeska. A simple disclosure so you will know who I am. What I am. What you’re dealing with. I want you to understand I’m not here to help you through the goodness of my soul. It serves my purposes to help you, and to do nothing when I can do something is offensive to me.”
Jeska planted a clenched fist on her hip. “So you’re here to help me? With what?”
“Don’t be childish,” Leshrac said. He flicked his eyes skyward, and the gritty clouds overhead shimmered as the mountain and the salt marsh below were bathed in an eerie, purple light. The glow revealed a seething curtain of energy that covered the whole of Otaria like a pot lid. Its substance was smooth and calm as glass in parts, almost invisible even with Leshrac’s enchantment. The majority of the shimmering field was broken and choppy, its surface roiled by sharp swells that peaked and sprayed like white-capped waves.
“You are familiar with the time rifts?” Leshrac said.
“I am.” Jeska continued to stare. “Somewhat.”
“You should be familiar with this one. You caused it.” There was no judgment in Leshrac’s voice, no mirth in his face, so Jeska had no reasonable outlet for the sudden rage and shame she felt at his words.
“And I,” Leshrac said, “can show you how to fix it.”
Dinne stepped out of a pale nimbus of light onto the rock-hard, frozen ground. The night was bitter cold, and if Dinne breathed normally he was sure he’d see his breath billowing out from under his helmet.
He barely registered the cold, however, and concentrated on taking in his surroundings. His new master was far more focused than the Weaver King, and far more to Dinne’s liking. The Weaver King liked to drone on and was easily distracted. Leshrac issued a minimum of commands in a minimum amount of time, all to a single, larger purpose. Even though Dinne could not see the shape of that purpose, he felt a soldier’s satisfaction in the short, sharp, clear orders he had been given.
Dinne also relished the pain Leshrac had given him. It sharpened his senses and his strength, but it also awakened the Vec’s almost-forgotten sense of self. The psychic agony Leshrac inflicted was his alone, his to feel and endure, his own personal, private sacrament. He would not waver until he had been fully redeemed and could reclaim his full range of feelings and sensations.
Silent in his ghostly form, Dinne moved across the icy trail and up into the mountains of northern Keld. His quarry was here, but his orders so far were to find it and stand by. He recognized the sounds of an armed camp coming from farther up the mountainside and nodded to himself. Leshrac had placed him well.
He scaled the rocky ridge and stood invisible on its sharp, top edge. Below was a collection of torches and bivouac tents large enough for a small army. Teams of burly, gray-skinned warriors stood as sentries on each long side of the camp’s perimeter, with an especially fearsome-looking pair at the main entranceway. Dinne slid past them easily, but he did not linger in case they had magical resources more reliable than their eyes.
He skirted the edges of the tents and lean-tos as he moved through the compound. He peered inside each one, either by looking through the open flap or walking straight through their canvas walls. The soldiers here were a varied lot, stick-thin elves and overmuscled barbarians alike. They were a disheveled, motley crew that stood armed with a random collection of fine blades and sharp sticks and dressed in a mismatched series of chain mail, hardened leather, and animal skins.
For all their shabby looks, the Keldon horde was rigorously disciplined. No one seemed to be off duty, and every person Dinne saw was engaged in some industrious activity. There were no knots of drunken soldiers loitering about, no dice games behind the command tent, and no casual abuse of the grunts by the officers. It was not at all like the Rathi regiments in which Dinne served.
He st
ole along until he reached the largest tent at the center of the camp. Most of the soldiers gave the tent a wide berth, and as Dinne drew close he felt the air grow noticeably colder. There was powerful magic inside the tent that was affecting the temperature, similar to the artificial winter that had just ended in Urborg but far more localized. He crept around until he had a good view of the tent’s entrance and waited.
Soon two new warriors came out, and they were strange even among this discordant company. One was a tall lizardman, over seven feet high and whip-thin with a long, lashing tail. His sharp scales had a reddish tint to them, and their edges glinted crimson in the torchlight.
The other was a dark-skinned woman in a vivid, red tunic. She carried two wooden batons in her belt and bore a dagger with an oddly shaped handle on her hip. The woman raised her hand to move her hair from her eyes, and Dinne saw the reason for the unusual knife—the woman had lost the two smallest fingers on her left hand. She must have had the handle of her blade rebalanced so that she could wield it properly.
“Do you think she’s getting better?” the lizardman said. His voice was soft and sibilant.
“I think she’s adjusting. But she’s still in a foul mood.”
“The sun rising puts her in a foul mood. Did you ask her about that cursed thing?”
The woman shook her head sadly. “She won’t leave it. She says he needs it.”
“He doesn’t.”
“She says he does.”
“It’ll be full-on winter in a few weeks. It’ll be more than cold enough.”
“But it’s not cold enough now.”
The lizard-man hissed. “The bearers can only carry it for half a day, then they can’t do anything else for the next two. It’s slowing us down.”
“You have some place to be?”
“Anywhere that isn’t Parma,” the reptile said.
“You’ve got your wish. We crossed the border into Keld two days ago.”
“Anywhere that isn’t frozen solid,”
“You’ll need a boat. This is still Keld.”
“All right, anywhere that has a permanent storehouse for that thing.” He gestured toward the tent behind him with his thumb and his tail. “So that I’m no longer responsible for seeing it moved.”
“We’re on our way to just such a storehouse,” the woman said, “though it hasn’t been built yet.”
“Skive! Dassene!” The woman’s voice that speared out from the tent’s interior was rough and strong, a battlefield leader’s shout. Both the lizard and the red-clad woman exhibited the same series of incompatible reactions at the sound of that voice. They seemed simultaneously relieved and frightened, energized and yet fearful.
A broad-shouldered woman swept out from the tent, standing almost as tall as the lizardman. She bore a thin broadsword across her back and another on her hip. Dinne didn’t understand the need for this second blade, which was much wider and heavier, and broken halfway along its length.
The female warrior had extra-long arms and legs that made her seem even taller, and her skin was an earthy mixture of stone gray and wood brown. She was dressed no more elegantly than the rest of her rabble, but she managed to make her tanned skins and bits of cast-off armor seem respectable, even daunting.
Dinne almost smiled under his helmet. There you are, he thought. Radha of Keld.
Skive the lizard nodded to the newcomer, careful not to meet her eyes.
“He’s waiting for you,” the gray woman said. “No more training today, but you keep an eye on him. If he starts to go to sleep, wake him up. I don’t want him freezing to death overnight.”
“Understood,” Skive said.
“Radha,” the woman in red said, “when do you want us to start breaking down the camp?”
Radha paused as if momentarily fatigued, then said, “Tomorrow morning. We’ll go as far as the foothills and make a new camp there.”
“Understood.”
The barbarian leader straightened her leather tunic. “I’m going to sort out the elves.” She stepped past the woman and the lizard without waiting for them to move, so they had to scurry out of her way. She kept her eyes facing forward as she called back, “Keep him alive until I get back.”
“Done,” the others said together.
Dinne quietly eased back into the gloom. The first part of his mission was a success: He had located his prey. Now all he had to do was wait for Leshrac to evaluate this reconnoiter and issue instructions.
The Vec shadow raider stared intently at the entrance to the command tent, gauging what it would take to kill or incapacitate Radha’s subordinates. He would do no such thing without orders, of course, but Dinne was already looking forward to the next part of his job. It would involve killing, he was sure, and he planned to start inside that mysterious tent. He would learn exactly what the Keldon’s precious secret was, and he would heap blood and pain on anyone who got in his way or was unlucky enough to be inside when he arrived.
Dinne drew one of his round throwing spikes and rolled it across his fingers and palm. Soon, he told it. Soon we will both be unsheathed.
The Vec raider rolled the spike back and forth across his hand one last time, slipped it into the loop on his belt, and sat back to wait.
* * *
—
Leshrac only stared politely as Jeska struggled to reply. Finally, she said, “Explain. Pretend I know nothing.”
“Catastrophic magic causes the rifts,” Leshrac said. “And they in turn breed catastrophe. They have drawn the attention of powerful entities all across the Multiverse. I myself have been aware of this one for decades.” Leshrac stared off into space, his eyes inscrutable behind their gray veneer. “And I have been watching as Teferi and Jhoira attacked the problem head-on. They have done well so far, but now the endgame approaches.”
“Speak plainly. What do you mean?”
“I mean your Teferi has fallen victim to a peculiar delusion among scholars: that because they discover a thing it becomes their responsibility. Usually they’re content to name the find after themselves and be done with it, but Teferi took a far more active hand. Thanks to him and his methods, the rifts are now fewer in number but greater in force. He has changed the equation so that his methods are no longer effective.”
Jeska scowled. “Make more sense.”
“Surely you see the futility in his approach.” Leshrac spoke sharply, his tone measured. “Fusing the cracks in reality with a planeswalker’s spark was an inspired breakthrough, but it’s hardly a practical long-term strategy. Planeswalkers are few in number, for one, and few are willing to sacrifice their lives and power. I am not among that exalted group. I daresay you aren’t either.”
“Leave me out of it for now. Why won’t Teferi’s way work?”
“The rifts here and in Yavimaya are incredibly complicated. They cannot be patched like a leaky boat. To try would invite disaster. Who among us wants to be the first to sacrifice everything only to realize it makes no difference? Not I.” Jeska felt the noxious cloud of Otaria’s marsh magic creeping up the side of the mountain. She pushed the distraction aside and said, “If you’ve been watching them so long, you must have a better plan in mind.”
Leshrac nodded. “I do. But it will require a certain level of dedication, perhaps even ruthlessness.”
Jeska sighed. “I take that to mean innocents will pay the price if you succeed.”
“All in the name of the greater good, I assure you. My proposal is no more selfish than the man who fights a fire in his neighbor’s house to keep it from spreading to his own, no crueler than training a bird to fly between your strongholds, then tying a message to its leg for delivery.”
“And in this grand scheme of yours,” Jeska spoke through clenched teeth, “am I to play the fire or the bird?”
“Neither. You are an exceptional being, Jeska. Thrice-Touched by Infinity. You would serve as the executor of this strategy, not its victim.”
“I’m moving again,” Jeska
said, “and if you follow, you can explain why you keep calling me that.”
“Of course.”
Jeska teleported to a higher peak near the center of the Pardic range. The visual effect of the rift faded overhead as she waited. She chose this spot to be clear of the swamp cloud without getting too close to her native village. Leshrac’s motives were still a mystery, but he did not seem above threatening her tribe to get what he wanted from her.
He appeared seconds after she did, in the same posture, with the same animated expression. “Shall I explain?” he said. “I would not wish to offend you with talk of your past if it is painful to you.”
“Speak.” Jeska growled. “You’ve come this far.”
Leshrac’s gray eyes gleamed. “You are Jeska now,” he said. “But once you were Phage.”
The name spoken aloud did not sting as Jeska feared it would. On Leshrac’s lips, it only made her angry.
“Phage killed thousands and fed their souls to the Cabal’s god of greed. She proved so valuable that she was chosen to bear the god’s divine child…though more accurately, it was a diabolical one. In either case, this was Jeska’s first touch of the infinite.
“Then Phage became Karona, the omnipotent avatar of all magic. There were three who merged to become the false god, but one was Phage, and another was Phage’s most trusted lieutenant. Once risen, Karona embodied of all Dominaria’s mana, but two-thirds of her was Phage. This was Jeska’s second touch of the infinite.
“When Karona was destroyed, Jeska emerged anew. No longer Phage, no longer an omnipotent god, she was also no longer mortal. Jeska ascended and became a planeswalker, and this was the third touch of the infinite.”
Jeska’s throat was tight as she said, “And where did you hear this fairy tale?”
“From Pardic hands,” Leshrac said. “From the walls of your very own village. Go there the next time we move, and I’ll show you the stonecraft and cave paintings that tell the troubled history of the mountains’ most tragic and triumphant daughter. I came to Otaria for you, Jeska, to meet you and show you what must be done, and how. For I believe only you can save us all.”
