by John Delaney
Jhoira shook her head. “A fire would be dangerous to the forest. It won’t like it.”
“Exactly. It won’t like it, but it will respond to it. Especially if you augment our blaze with Ghitu magic. Yavimaya has responded to fire mana in the past, even incorporated it into the life matrix. If we build a contained pyre right here on the beach, we have it both ways: The fire draws attention but does very little actual damage.” He smiled. “It’s flawless.”
“We could go back to the canopy,” Venser said. Seemingly startled by his own voice, the artificer hesitated. He blinked and turned toward Teferi and Jhoira as he said, “Not over it. On it. I can take us to the surface of that giant face, and we can shout or cast spells or build a fire there. If it is your friend’s face, he’s sure to notice, right?”
“We’re not sure it is Multani,” Teferi said, “or if it’s even alive. It could just be a monument. I’ve seen places where the trees and hedges organically grow into recognizable figures, and Multani is a huge part of this place.”
“It’s worth a try,” Jhoira said. Teferi looked slightly hurt, and she added, “At least as a start.”
Teferi muttered. Then he said aloud, “Is it strong enough to hold us?”
“We should leave the ambulator here,” Jhoira said. “But yes, I think it is strong enough. If not, Venser can bring us down gently as he did before. Venser?”
“Absolutely.”
“There is another option,” Teferi said. Jhoira didn’t like the guilty look on her old friend’s face, but she waited for him to continue. “Venser is a planeswalker as well as a teleporter,” Teferi said. “He can go anyplace. Even a quick trip to the Blind Eternities and back might get the forest’s attention.”
“And put Venser at risk. The forest has trapped planeswalkers before.”
“I want to try,” Venser said. To Teferi, he added, “Where should I go?”
“Hold on,” Jhoira said. The excited look on Teferi’s face was all too familiar, and it bore out Jeska’s sharp criticism of their methods. He was ready to plunge in and take action for its own sake, mostly to see what would happen as a result. Jhoira did not share Teferi’s blind faith in their ability to respond. She also found his enthusiasm misguided, even chilling. Though mortal once more, Teferi still thought like a planeswalker, and now more than ever Jhoira felt the awful, joyless drag of the need to rein him in before he made things worse.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is this is another one of your ideas that you haven’t thought through. We don’t understand the risk, and there’s no guarantee of reward. This is not the time to experiment with a new unknown.” She turned to Venser. “We have to be more cautious than that. Your life and your power are both at risk.”
Venser’s face fell. “But I want…I need to learn how to do this.”
She stepped back so that she could see both men at once. “Take us up to the canopy, Venser. We’ll try to reach Multani from up close as you suggested. If that doesn’t work, we’ll decide on our next step then.”
“All right.”
Deflated, Teferi sighed. “Very well.”
“But if we succeed or not,” Venser added, “I would like to be trained.” To Teferi, he said, “When this is over I want to hear whatever you have to say on the subject of planeswalking.”
“Thank you, Venser. I look forward to that.”
“Let’s press on.” Jhoira held out her hand, and Venser took it. The artificer stretched out his other hand to Teferi so that they were all linked. Then he concentrated. Golden light sizzled across his skin and spread to Teferi and Jhoira.
Then all three were standing on the top side of the Yavimayan canopy. There were soft, leafy spots and gaps in the hardwood, but otherwise Multani’s face was as firm and solid as a castle’s stone foundation.
Venser smiled as he stepped down from Multani’s room-sized nose. “Dead center,” he said. “My aim is improving.” Teferi surveyed the great mask upon which they stood. “If Multani had ears,” he said, “we could go to them and yell. He’d probably hear that.”
“Yelling is a last resort,” Jhoira said gently. “I prefer your idea of starting a fire.” The men exchanged a nervous look, and Jhoira said, “A magical fire, as you suggested. I won’t burn anything Yavimayan. We can’t initiate mind-to-mind contact, but if unfamiliar mana starts flowing up here, either Multani or Yavimaya is likely to take note.”
“That’s sound logic,” Teferi said.
“You should also phase something out if you can. Your magic will stand out in strong contrast.”
Teferi nodded. “More of an eye-catcher.” He raised his metallic staff. “How about this? It’s already loaded with blue mana. If I phase it out and bring it back, the fluctuation will be like the flash of a signal mirror.” He smiled. “This is a better idea than I thought.”
“Let’s get started. Venser, be ready to take us back down to ground level if anything goes wrong. We don’t know what kind of reaction this will provoke.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Teferi and Jhoira separated and sat roughly ten paces from each other with Venser standing in between atop Multani’s rounded nose. The bald wizard set the end of his spinelike staff in a knothole so that it stood upright and placed his hands on either side of it. Chanting inaudibly, Teferi closed his eyes.
Jhoira turned her attention to her own spell. Her access to mana was limited, but now that Shiv was whole again her memories of the volcanic wastes were enough for the task at hand. She prepared a simplified version of a Ghitu guiding spell, drawing mana to her and shaping it into a tall pillar of flame. Her people used the guides to find their way across the trackless deserts and through blinding sandstorms. She had not given the pillar a destination, however, so it simply hung in the air above Multani’s face, growing larger and brighter as Jhoira fed it more mana.
By now Teferi had infused his staff with so much blue magic that rich, azure light gleamed from between the brass vertebrae. He spread his hands wide and the staff rose out of its niche, gleaming as Teferi’s cloudlike mana swirled around it. The wizard opened his eyes, smiled, and then fluttered his fingers. The staff winked out of existence, leaving a thin waft of liquid, blue smoke behind.
Jhoira kept her eyes on the fiery pillar. “How long?” she called.
“Just a few seconds,” Teferi said. “I can phase it in and out as often as it takes.”
Jhoira wondered how long that would be. So far the forest didn’t seem to notice the foreign magic. Teferi’s staff reappeared, and he quickly phased it out again with a casual gesture.
Suddenly, the canopy creaked and groaned like a century oak in a high wind. Jhoira looked across the platform and saw movement in the huge eyebrow ridges. She remembered the giant eyes that rolled into place as she and Venser fell toward them.
“I think it’s working,” Jhoira said.
Multani’s face shuddered beneath her and started to tilt, the eyes and forehead rising as the mouth and chin lowered. They were relatively safe at the center, but that would change quickly if the tilt continued. “Venser,” she said.
“I’m ready.”
Teferi’s staff reappeared. He turned toward Jhoira, who said, “Again.” Teferi nodded and phased out the staff once more.
My friends…
“Did you hear that?” Venser said.
“I did,” she said. Then, more loudly, “It’s good to hear your voice, Multani.” The avatar’s thoughts always put Jhoira in mind of forest sounds. The wind in the leaves, the call of wild birds, the coughing snort of jungle cats.
Hello my friends….
“We need to talk to you,” Teferi said. He stood wavering as the ground shifted beneath him and held out his empty hand. The spine staff appeared and Teferi closed his fingers around it. “We need your help.”
Can’t hear…can’t speak…not like this….
“Where are you?” Jhoira stood up but maintained the pillar of fire.
> Here. Yavimaya. Words are…difficult.
Jhoira waited, unsure of what to say.
Always here. I am Yavimaya.
“We can come to you. Tell us where.”
“Tell us how,” Venser said.
The platform’s motion stopped at the sound of Venser’s voice. For a few seconds the three stood and waited, listening to the sounds of leaves and branches tumbling down to the forest floor.
Venser shouted in alarm. Jhoira turned just in time to see the wood under Venser split like a seed casing. The artificer stumbled back as vine tendrils shot up from the sundered canopy. The entire surface shifted again, and the incline pulled Venser, Teferi, and Jhoira onto their backs. Jhoira found a handhold, but Teferi and Venser slid and rolled toward the lower end of the platform.
The vines between her and Venser grew longer and thicker and doubled back on themselves. They knitted themselves together into a hollow, vaguely human shape. Its body was squat and broad-shouldered, its outline rough and indistinct. Its head was a near-featureless mask of layered wooden staves, eyeless, mouthless, but clearly the same face upon which they now stood.
Still half-finished and hollow, the Multani-shape shambled forward. Both Venser and Teferi were clinging on to the evermore-vertical platform, but the Multani-thing made straight for the artificer.
“Multani! Stop!” The creature did not respond, so Jhoira shouted to Venser. “Get out of there!”
If Venser heard, he was too busy hanging on for dear life. The Multani-shape was unaffected by the platform’s tilt as the tendrils in its feet dug deep into the uneven surface of the canopy. It walked over to Venser, reached down, and plucked him off the wooden surface by the back of his tunic. It held him out at arm’s length for a moment, studying the artificer.
“Help me,” Venser yelled. He was struggling to twist out of the creature’s grasp, but he was either too panicked or too pained to teleport.
Its survey complete, the Multani-thing pulled Venser in close and wrapped both arms around him in a smothering bear hug. Its embrace forced Venser through the vines and leaves of its outer surface. His head and arm went in first, muffling his cries of protest. The stuff of the creature’s chest whipped and rolled around Venser, coiling around behind him and pulling him deeper in. Soon all of the artificer was squeezed into the man-shaped cell of wood and vines.
Still muffled and panicked, Venser’s voice continued to call out. “What’s happening?” he shouted. “Get me out of here.”
Teferi anchored himself with his feet and pointed his staff at the monster. Before he could bring his magic into play, the canopy shifted again, and he was forced to cling as best he could.
The Multani-thing gave a small hop, detaching itself from the canopy. It fell freely down the giant face until it reached the huge, square mouth. As it passed the upper lip, the creature hooked on with its hands and dangled there as Venser continued to pound and shout.
The lip moved, retreating from its twin, hauling the Multani-thing up with it. To Jhoira’s horror, the creature with Venser inside kicked out its legs, swung itself away from the canopy, and swung back. It released its grip and disappeared into the wide-open mouth.
As soon as Venser’s cries faded into silence, the entire canopy lurched back into its previous horizontal bias. Jhoira continued to hang on, as did Teferi, but after a few seconds all seemed safe. She unlocked her fingers and stood.
“Multani, Venser is our friend and ally,” she said. “Where have you taken him?”
He is…with me.
Teferi stole over to the still-open mouth near the bottom of the canopy. “He’s not down there.” He shook his head. “Not in the trees or on the forest floor. There’s no sign of him at all.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t think this is just a hole.” Teferi peered down into the mouth. “It’s a doorway.”
Yes. The mouth opened wider, its wooden lips creaking. Follow, Multani’s voice said.
Teferi looked up from the mouth. “We don’t understand,” he said.
You will.
Teferi studied Jhoira’s face, and he shrugged. “What do you think?”
Jhoira strode forward. She stopped by the edge of the mouth’s upper lip and glared down. “Multani owes us an explanation,” she said, “and Venser.” The Ghitu took a deep breath, held it, and stepped off the edge into the open mouth.
“Wait for me,” Teferi said, but by then Jhoira was already immersed in a deep, dank, slippery tunnel that smelled of moss and dead grass.
Jhoira slid through the loamy blackness until she felt solid ground under her feet. She was half-frightened and half-furious. Jeska’s disdain for their methods was proving all too accurate, as here they were once more struggling simply to survive, to make the barest bit of sense out of the predicament they had just hurled themselves into.
She stood and scanned the surroundings. There was glittering, white fog everywhere that caught and reflected its own light. Jhoira stepped forward, squinting against the translucent glare. She was standing on the edge of a large clearing. She could only see about six feet through the fog, but just beyond that she could make out a rolling landscape of indistinct mounds and ridges. She moved a bit closer and saw a chest-high wall of thick, woody roots. Jhoira followed the wall as far as her sight line, picturing the rest of the shape. Yavimayan trees had created a kind of organic arena.
“Jhoira?” Teferi emerged from the fogbound shadows.
“Here,” Jhoira said. She looked past Teferi, but there was no sign of any doorway or portal. “I don’t know where we are,” she said.
Teferi came closer so he could see her clearly. He smiled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. We’ve only just arrived.”
“No, I mean I don’t know if we’re in Yavimaya or in Multani.” She pointed to the edge of the root wall.
Teferi nodded as he stroked his chin. “Multani said he was Yavimaya.”
“That doesn’t help us. We’re physically walled in, but to me this doesn’t feel like a real place.” She waved her hand through the mist, creating a glittering swirl in the fog. “What do you think?”
Teferi stared up into the fog. “The rift is nearby,” he said. “That might explain some of this.” He blinked. “Wait! I’ve got something. It’s as you said earlier. When Urza came to Yavimaya, Multani lured him into a trap. He and the forest managed to imprison a planeswalker, body and soul.
Jhoira knew the story well. “Is that what you think happened to Venser?”
“That or something very similar. The Yavimaya mass-mind didn’t kill Urza or consume him. It punished him for Argoth, made him feel what the forest felt as he and his brother tore it apart and then blew it up.”
“That would make this some sort of crucible,” Jhoira said, “a testing ground. But I don’t believe Multani trapped us to punish us.”
“Nor I. But the forest didn’t just punish Urza. It communed with him. It merged with him until he truly repented. Then Yavimaya helped him atone. The forest and Urza became willing and active partners for thousands of years, and without their joint efforts the Phyrexian Invasion would almost certainly have succeeded.”
Jhoira considered. “Multani is trying to commune with us? Or at least communicate?”
“He did say words were difficult.” Teferi beamed and planted the end of his staff in the dirt. “And also that we’d understand. Whatever the case may be and wherever we are, we agreed to his terms when we jumped down that hole.” He smiled. “That was quick thinking, by the way. I hope it was the right thing to do.”
“That makes both of us.” Jhoira approached Teferi and stood beside him. “So we wait, but not for long. Venser’s been through too much already.” She crossed her arms and called out, “Multani. We are here.”
The glittering haze drifted silently for several minutes, and Jhoira heard the sound of dirt shifting and a series of small, juicy pops. She and Teferi both turned toward the sound.
The fog part
ed to reveal hundreds of small, green shoots struggling out of the ground. They yearned upward as they stretched long and grew fat. When the shoots were a foot high, each began sprouting lush five-pointed holly leaves.
The holly vines continued to grow, spreading out and up until they had formed a massive curtain against the root walls. Small dots of various color formed at each sharp tip of the holly leaves, dots that quickly expanded into tiny, round berries of varying sizes and colors. The natural mosaic shifted and undulated, new berries growing as others wrinkled and dropped to form a swirling tide of vivid color on the backdrop of deep green.
Witness. Multani’s thought-voice was hollow and distant.
Jhoira heard Teferi smile, and he said, “I see it now. This isn’t a crucible. It’s a stage.”
An image formed in the berries against the verdant curtain, an irregular shape composed of lighter green intertwined with brown vines. The plants inside the shape shifted and rearranged themselves into the familiar layered pattern of Multani’s face.
Home.
Deep-black and purple berries bloomed at the far side of the holly until they had formed a rough hourglass shape. These morsels quickly swelled to bursting and covered the hourglass in wet, noisome juice.
Urborg.
The image of Multani’s face seemed to blur as the plants split and divided. A second image of the Multani face separated from the first and slid along the green curtain toward the bubbling hourglass. The second Multani face flowed over the black berries like a jellyfish until it had totally engulfed the hourglass shape. The black berries were now hidden under the green mask, but they still existed, bubbling and dripping, and they jostled and shoved against the holly and the vines.
Jhoira began to understand. During the Invasion, Multani had transplanted his essence and that of Yavimaya to the swamps of Urborg. His goal was to counter the influx of Phyrexian mana with his own. It had made a difference at the time, but Jhoira had just come from Urborg and the transplant had not endured—Urborg today was far more swamp than forest.
