by John Delaney
He leaned to one side, past Radha’s feet, and said, “I really have no idea what you’re talking about, you know.”
“You drew the Otarian swamp mana toward us.”
“And I explained that was not a conscious act. Besides, you made sure to avoid it, and I scrupulously accommodated you.” Leshrac waved Radha away so that she went drifting toward the ocean. “I admit I make a convenient scapegoat, but you’re overlooking the most obvious explanation: your own personal history and your own strong connection to the marsh.”
Jeska snared Radha and redirected the Keldon back behind her.
Leshrac said, “It’s one of the reasons I sought you out in the first place.”
Jeska stepped forward and drew her sword. “I’m tired of this,” she said. “Tell me what you want with me. If I don’t believe you we will fight, and one of us will die.”
“If we must.” Leshrac grinned, and his crown began to spin. “But don’t be hasty. I believe I have just what you need.”
“How convenient.”
Leshrac slowly extended his hand and conjured a white, porcelain mask that was surrounded by a crackling, magical aura. “Behold this relic, a powerful artifact from another plane.” He rotated his finger, and the mask’s interior spun to face Jeska. “It takes in black mana through this side”—another spin of his finger spun the mask’s face toward her—“and emits it through the other. It’s part storage battery, part lens.”
Jeska inspected the mask, careful not to touch it in any way. “Not sure how this is what I need.” She looked up at Leshrac. “Especially since this is one of the oldest games in the book—creating a problem and then offering a cure.”
“I’ve told you this is no game. Not to me.” Leshrac was no longer smiling. “I make no secret of it: I always intended for you to wear this mask. You have a weakness for black mana that you struggle to resist. This will draw off any you might encounter and unintentionally absorb.”
“Why? Why are you giving this to me?”
The spinning crown stopped. “Because I don’t want Phage to return,” he said. “Competition, for one thing. All mana is hard to come by these days. As Phage, you commanded and consumed quite a lot of it.” He paused to smile again, but only briefly. “Quite frankly, there’s only enough for me.
“I also don’t want Karona to return. You to Phage to Karona has happened before, and this sort of grand tragedy has a habit of repeating itself…especially when the players can’t break out of their roles.”
“Shut up.”
“You asked, Jeska Planeswalker. This is the service I offer. This is my gift: the power to control yourself, to choose who you will be.”
“I see. And what happens to the dark power the mask collects?”
“It would be my pleasure to take it off your hands and your conscience,” Leshrac said. His eyes burned into Jeska’s. “You don’t need it. You don’t want it. You don’t intend to use it and are in fact hostile to it.”
The Pardic woman laughed without humor. “That’s your deal?”
“That is my proposal. If you care to we can discuss acceptable terms.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m not interested.”
“Pity. Are you certain?”
“Not interested,” she said again, “in the deal or in continuing this discussion.”
Leshrac closed his hand, and the porcelain mask disappeared. “I understand your position,” he said. He gestured to Radha. “But I have been proven right so far, haven’t I? Isn’t the Keldon all I said she’d be?”
“I’m still determining that,” Jeska said.
“You might also want to determine if water is wet,” Leshrac said. “I am equally confident of both outcomes.” A cold wind swirled around Leshrac, and he folded his arms. “Radha is the key, Planeswalker, a skeleton key that opens many doors. A lock stands before you. Can you make the key fit? Can you turn it?”
The Pardic woman did not answer.
“I wish you well, Jeska. Do what you must. I will not oppose you. We are not rivals.” He bowed. “Not yet. And I still have hope for a fruitful alliance.”
The chill wind rose, a great wave crashed over the rocks, and Leshrac’s body disappeared. His mind lagged, watching Jeska as she stared at the dark magic lingering in his wake. Jeska seemed angry, almost daring it to approach until it too was gone.
Leshrac pulled back, settling into safe anonymity as he continued to observe.
* * *
—
Radha dreamed of the mountain. She was on a stone platform surrounded by torches and the jeers of a hostile warhost. Once more she stood in single combat against her first and greatest enemy, the Gathan warlord Greht. Defeating him on the mountain had been the final step in her quest to become a warlord herself, in forging a direct bond with Keld.
In this dream her enemy was still alive. Greht wore the same terrible, metal battle mask, but otherwise he was not Greht. Instead of a towering, heavy-muscled man, this Greht was a small, red-haired female. The deep fissure Radha had gouged into Keld was open behind the strange, new Greht, though in the actual battle it had not existed until Radha had struck her death blow. The dream fissure tugged at her, pulled her toward it as if eager to consume her, completely opposite to the strength and power the true fissure had bestowed upon her.
Radha growled in the back of her throat. She was no longer the person she was in this dream, no longer fighting solely for herself. She was a leader now, a warlord to her ’host and a shepherd to the homeless Skyshroud elves. Without her, Keld’s new beginning would flicker and die without ever reaching its full intensity. She had to return to that. No one else wanted the job of keeping the fire lit, and no one else was capable. She had too much to do. She had to get back.
A loud, disembodied voice said, “Warlord, I need you conscious.”
Radha woke, bound and immobile as she hovered high over an unfamiliar ocean. The cold night air and torchlight faded into sea mist and haze. The Pardic woman was here, floating alongside Radha and staring intently at the coastline below.
Radha’s glared, her eyes darting all around. They were alone, high over some foreign shore. The situation was strange and alien, but the more awake she became the less Radha cared.
“Hoy, you Pardic sow,” she said. “Had enough?”
Jeska’s lip curled. “Be quiet,” she said.
Radha huffed and looked down at her chains. Her legs were bound together at the ankles and knees by thick, curved bands of Keldon stone. Both wrists were threaded through a thick sheaf of rock at her waist. Another band of stone encircled her upper body, pinning her biceps against her ribs. She wriggled her arms to test for slack and found none. She remembered her injuries and said, “Why aren’t my arms broken?”
Jeska sighed. “Because I fixed them.”
“To the Hells with that. I refuse your help.” She lifted her wrists as much as she could. “Break my arms again.”
Jeska continued to stare out at the shoreline. “I should.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because I don’t need to. You’ll break your own arms before you break those bonds.”
Radha felt the stirrings of a smile at the corner of her lips. “You have got to be the stupidest enemy I’ve ever met,” she said.
Jeska continued to pointedly ignore Radha, so she missed the Keldon’s smile’s growing wider and sharper. Radha’s throaty voice raised to a squeaky, girlish, frightened tone. “Oh no. Jeska Planeswalker has encased me in stone. Whatever shall I do?”
“I said shut up.”
“Keldon stone.” Radha’s derision grew more fervent as she spoke. “And I am Keld, you stupid lump.” There was not a significant amount of mana in the rocks that held her, but they resonated back to the stone field from which they came. They were the land, pieces of Keld’s foundation, connected to the bedrock and to the sacred mountain that was the cornerstone of Keldon society.
Radha continued to mock, foam spraying from he
r frenzied lips. “What will you do next, Little One? Tie a spider with its own web? Imprison a hungry bear in a cage of bones? Pitiful.” Radha summoned up the power of her home and channeled it into the rocks that restrained her. The stone bands grew warm, then hot. They cracked and split.
The sound caught Jeska’s full attention, and she turned toward her captive. “Stop that.”
Radha’s bonds exploded. She forced the flaming shrapnel away from herself and directed it at Jeska, covering the planeswalker beneath a cloud of dust and small, jagged stones. Radha flexed her arms and legs, but she was still floating. Jeska was stupid and buried under a cloud of hot debris, but she wasn’t beaten.
So the stones were a mistake, the planeswalker’s voice said. I can admit that. But I never really needed them….
An invisible force pinned Radha’s arms and legs together once more, exactly as they had been. She struggled and spat fire, but if anything she was less mobile than she had been.
Jeska came from the center of the dust cloud completely unmarked and unharmed. “I need you alive. I need you awake.” Jeska clacked her own teeth together, and Radha felt her jaws freeze shut. “And I prefer you silent.”
Radha moaned angrily, trying to squeeze out a terrible slur on Jeska’s parentage.
“Not silent,” Jeska said, “but it’ll do.” She floated toward the shore, and Radha swung behind her, trailing like a child’s truck on a string. “Come,” Jeska said. “I have work to do.”
Jeska towed her down to several hundred feet above the water. The coastline nearby was a sheer arc that curved far inland. There was no sign of ports, ships, buildings, or people.
As Radha watched, Jeska made the scene change. The sharp coastline was still visible, but over it now hung a massive, swirling bank of white clouds. The edges of the slow-moving vortex glimmered, outlining the exact same shape as the missing shoreline below it.
Radha was carried forward alone until she was between the coast and the cloud. She could not turn to face Jeska behind her, so Radha simply clenched her teeth and waited. Soon the planeswalker’s voice sounded in her skull.
You are almost inside the Zhalfirin rift.
Is that supposed to mean something to me? Radha thought back. Because it doesn’t.
Teferi said this would be the simplest one to seal.
Am I supposed to care? Because I don’t.
Jeska drifted forward into Radha’s peripheral vision. “They were all right about you,” she said aloud. “You are connected to this phenomenon.”
Not this one, Radha thought, but Jeska was no longer listening, and the Keldon’s words only bounced around inside her own head.
“You and Venser,” Jeska said, “had the same potential. But he accessed his, brought it to life and made it active. Yours is dormant, almost forgotten. It is useless to you.”
Radha did not waste energy on a reply but strained against the invisible force that held her.
Jeska stared deep into Radha’s eyes. The Keldon did not like the vague, distracted, and undeniably hostile look on the planeswalker’s face. Jeska didn’t seem to remember Radha was there, though she was speaking directly at her.
“You don’t need it,” Jeska said, her words suddenly dull and lifeless. “You don’t want it. You have turned your back on it and will never use it.” The Pardic warrior blinked, clarity returning to her eyes, and raised her hand. Jeska displayed her flat palm in a gesture the Keldon could not decipher and said, “But I can. Fiers forgive me, I can.”
Jeska’s eyes flared to a lurid amethyst, and Radha felt waves of pure magical energy flowing from the planeswalker, washing over her like torrential rain. The Keldon’s chest felt as if someone’s hand was worming around inside it, moving her heart and lungs aside in search of a far more precious treasure. Strong, ghostly fingers closed around something deep and integral, and squeezed. Radha growled again, the sound muffled by her frozen jaw.
Stop this, she thought. Her words were hers alone, however, and if Jeska heard them she paid no heed.
Radha’s insides expanded, pressing outward on her ribs and spine. She tried to scream, but she had no breath, no voice. She felt something vast moving through her, stretching her, shredding her, tearing her apart from deep within. Maddened by pain and driven by fury, Radha thoughts flickered back to the dragon Bolas, who had seized her and used her as a passageway into this world. Jeska’s actions were just as painful, just as overwhelming, though now power alone coursed through her without an accompanying person.
Her paralysis broke, and Radha let out a full-throated yell that echoed across the shores of Zhalfir. Her arms and legs spasmed, and she jerked like a badly strung marionette. She felt herself slipping away from her body, as she had in the past when grievously wounded or exhausted beyond endurance.
Radha snarled fiercely and flailed. She would not die here, not at the Pardic woman’s hands. She had a ’host to run, elves to corral. She had a boy to train.
The anguish suddenly ceased, and Radha’s limbs snapped back against her body. She hung motionless, breathing heavily, until Jeska floated in front of her.
“Leshrac was right,” Jeska said. “I…we can do this.”
“But I won’t,” Radha said. “Kill me or turn me loose, Planeswalker. I will not be your toy.”
Jeska frowned, and Radha’s jaws froze once more. “You are an arrogant, childish beast, Radha of Keld, but you can yet do the world a great service. Gather your strength. Prepare yourself.”
Jeska’s power blossomed forth once more, drowning Radha in an ocean of arcane forces. Helpless, motionless, voiceless, Radha’s mind screamed her deafening rage and frustration.
The cancerous deadfall that housed Multani and the rift quickly proved beyond the reach of simple teleportation. It required something far more complicated and dangerous. Teferi wanted Venser to test his nascent planeswalking ability in aid of rescuing Multani, and Jhoira did not, though she did not offer much in the way of rationale beyond the fragile state of the world and the unknowable risk to both it and Venser. Teferi repeatedly pointed out they had limited time and very few options to pursue, which was undeniably true, but every time he made this point it seemed to harden Jhoira’s resistance.
Venser kept quiet as Jhoira and Teferi debated the point. The artificer understood the stakes and the risks as well as either of them but did not join in the discussion. Experience had shown he could not talk either of them out of anything, ever, and besides he was torn between his own natural desire to explore his abilities and his reluctance to openly side against Jhoira in favor of Teferi.
For Venser wanted very much to help and to learn more about his abilities, and this seemed like the perfect way to do both at once. On the other hand, Jhoira was also correct that Teferi often chose to do many things at once without fully considering all possible outcomes. The more complicated their task, the more chance there was for things to go wrong.
Venser had spent the past several weeks with Teferi, but the former planeswalker remained an enigma. To be fair, the gregarious, bald man had been a moving target ever since Venser had met him, shifting from godlike planeswalker to catatonic trauma victim to cagey wizard. In all his guises Teferi had stayed true to his purpose, always trying to influence events. The wildly fluctuating level of his influence and his evasive personality prevented Venser from fully understanding him or fully trusting him. It definitely kept Venser from voicing confidence in Teferi’s position even though it was also Venser’s own.
Jhoira had always been reluctant to have Teferi lecture Venser in the intricacies of planeswalking, but she seemed dead set against his mentoring Venser in these circumstances. Venser was both slightly flattered and offended by her concern. As they came back around to the start of the argument once more, Venser decided to speak up.
“I’d like to try,” he said. Jhoira and Teferi both stopped in midsentence and looked at him. He went on. “It’s not as if this is entirely new to me, and I’ve faced a lot of danger since
I met you two.” He turned to Jhoira. “There may be a lot of planeswalkers you’d rather have mentor me, but none of them are here. None of them have a better understanding of how it works that Teferi does. If he can teach me the skill, you ought to trust me to employ that skill wisely.”
Teferi’s face lit up, and he nodded to Venser in thanks. Jhoira looked sharply at Teferi, then at Venser. “I’m more concerned with ‘safely’ than ‘wisely.’ ” But her resolve was starting to crumble, perhaps under the weight of the fact that she could not stop them from going forward without her.
“I will be safe,” Venser said. “Count on it.” He watched Jhoira consider this. Venser hoped he would not have to say more, to point out how Teferi had been far more forthcoming, more reliable since Urborg, or how he was unlikely to pursue a hidden agenda with Jhoira watching. The bald wizard had raised an eyebrow at the mention of other planeswalker mentors, and Venser didn’t want to insult Teferi any more than he had to, especially if he was going to put his planeswalking apprenticeship in Teferi’s hands.
Jhoira shook her head, but she said, “All right. But I want you to be absolutely clear about what it is you’re trying to do. I want you follow a step-by-step process, and if it starts to go astray at any time, I want you to quit and immediately ’walk back here to us.”
“I will.”
“I mean it. I’m concerned about you but also about the rest of the world. If you die or disrupt the rift our long journey will end right here.”
“I understand.”
Jhoira sighed. “Then you should get started.”
Venser was silently thrilled as he turned toward Teferi. It was impossible for either of them to keep their excitement in check.
“First and foremost,” Teferi said, “teleportation is deceptively similar to planeswalking, but they are very different. Moving within a single plane is child’s play compared to crossing from one plane to another. It’s like the difference between picturing paradise in your mind and actually going there.”
