by Doug Beyer
The troll whirled around. “Who goes?” it roared. “Come out, darkling. I can smell the meat in you.”
Jace could feel his illusion dissolving. The troll’s senses were too good to be tricked by the delusive spell, and in moments he would be in clear view again. He thought through what other spells might help protect him here, but in the panic of the moment, he was coming up short. He pressed his back against the Izzet pipes, hearing the hissing of their pressurized contents, and tried to avoid the troll’s club.
“There you are, little darkling,” said the troll.
Eye contact. He was visible. Jace prepared countermagic on impulse, but that would do nothing against the troll’s massive club.
“You invade my gate? Is that it? You bring your meat into Swarm land, thinking you’ll best me and take what’s ours?”
Jace looked around, and grabbed a jagged dagger from one of the dead Rakdos warriors, just to feel armed. Then he had an idea.
The troll laughed. “Go on,” he said. “Take a swipe at Varolz. Hit as hard as you can.” He spread his arms wide, exposing his scar-laced chest, and grinned needles.
Jace turned to the wall behind him, jammed the dagger into the brass pipes, and dived away. A flood of pressurized, superheated water sprayed out of the rent, crashing into the troll. Jace rolled, trying to maneuver around the distracted troll, and recovered his feet again.
The stream of water had already fallen to a trickle. A cloud of steam cleared, and the troll still stood, chuckling in deep, chest-shaking grunts. The scalding water had eaten away several layers of the troll’s chest, exposing glistening muscle, but his skin was already spreading in regenerative patches over the wound.
“Now Varolz’s turn,” said the troll.
“Jace!” called a woman’s voice from the darkness. “Get down!”
Nevertheless, the troll’s club found its target. Jace’s world became a blinding explosion of pain, then a black void, as he fell limp onto numb stone.
When Jace awoke he was looking into the face of a monster. But it wasn’t Varolz the troll.
The creature looking down at him was an enormous, vaguely humanoid mass of vines, foliage, and white marble. He was still in the dank Golgari chamber, but this monster wasn’t Golgari. It bloomed with life, a sculpture made of plant matter, animated by an inner light.
A hand touched him. To Jace’s immense relief, was Emmara, kneeling at his side.
“I thought you weren’t going to make it,” she said. She was weaving spells, healing his wounds. Just like old times.
Jace looked up at the gigantic nature elemental again, and back at Emmara. “I thought you’d been kidnapped,” Jace said.
“Change your thinking,” Emmara said dryly. “That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?”
“The Rakdos … didn’t the Rakdos take you?”
“Well, I went with them, but by choice. They crashed their way into the room at the inn and made a show of breaking the place up. They knew my name, and they tried to threaten me. They told me to come with them. That’s not their style—the Rakdos are killers, not kidnappers. I think someone must have put them up to it.”
Jace thought of the cloaked figure he had seen in the blood witch’s memory. “Someone did. But I don’t know who yet. But why did you go with them?”
“Because of you. If it had just been me there at the inn, I could have dispensed with them immediately. But you were busy destroying your own mind.”
“I was … what?”
“They thrashed the room, and you fell, but you didn’t wake up. Then one of them had you by the throat. They were going to kill you. So I made a deal with them.
“They left you alone,” Emmara continued, “and I let them lead me down here. They brought me here, and we waited. I think they were meant to hand me over to someone else. But instead I summoned my friend here, and he killed them all. He was enough to drive off that Golgari troll, too.”
Jace took in the massive Selesnya elemental. It was bowing down to fit, even in the high-ceilinged chamber. It was powerful magic to summon such a creature. Jace had seen her construct small living constructs before, but those were toys. He had never seen her accomplish a summoning like this.
Emmara looked up at the elemental, and bowed her head to it. It returned the bow with its great head, and she let her summoning spell lapse. The creature glowed for a moment, lighting the chamber. Then its massive bulk became transparent as the magic dissipated out of it. The elemental dissolved into the air, leaving behind only a few green leaves that floated down to the chamber floor.
It was a lot for Jace to sort out, and he was sure he wasn’t understanding it all. But there was a detail Emmara had mentioned that he understood the least. She had said that when they were at the inn, he was destroying his own mind. Before Jace had a chance to ask her what she meant, a presence joined them.
A vampire appeared out of the darkness, as quiet as a breeze. He was stripped to the waist despite the chill underground, and his eyes reflected light like a cat’s. He floated effortlessly down from the upper reaches of the chamber, and alighted on the chamber floor near the two of them.
“I am Mirko Vosk,” the vampire said. “And it appears you’ve bested those Rakdos lackeys. Thank you. You’ve spared me the trouble.”
“You’re Dimir,” said Emmara.
“Unlucky for you. But it’s time I collected you, my dear, as my master does not like to be kept waiting. And you, Beleren, will be a bonus—he’s had his eye on you for some time.”
Kavin climbed tier after tier of luminous stairs, slowly spiraling his way up through one of the towers of New Prahv. He had a writ of passage in hand, signed by the head of the Azorius gate-guard, and he showed it to each bureaucrat, scribe, or lawmage he encountered. Anyone looking at the vedalken man would have said his face looked placid, but there was a hardness in him that could have ground stone to dust.
A pair of flanking guards opened the door for him. Lavinia’s office was surprisingly compact.
“It’s been a long time, Kavin,” said Officer Lavinia. “Tea?”
Kavin walked in and sat down opposite her small desk. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
“You said you have information for me? About Jace Beleren?”
“I do.”
“Where is he?”
“I do not know his current whereabouts.”
“When did you last see him?”
“It was three days ago. He brought me to an inn near his sanctum, where I worked for him on his research. But that sanctum has been destroyed. I assumed you knew that much.”
“What kind of research did he conduct there?”
“I cannot recall many of the specifics. At that last encounter, he destroyed most of my memories related to what we had discovered.”
“He is capable of magic that destroys memories?”
“Yes.”
“And he used this magic to prevent you from remembering your research?”
“Yes. But as he performed the memory destruction spell, I fled. I was able to record some notes to myself before the spell was complete.” Kavin produced a scroll of hastily-scrawled lettering and set it on the desk. “I don’t understand everything I wrote, but it’s written in my hand. I wrote of clues found carved in city buildings, and of a message written in an ancient Azorius code. I wrote of a path that the Izzet are attempting to discover, that could lead to power that could unbalance the guilds. And at the end, I wrote your name.”
“I’m very glad that you did.”
“You realize I have no way of knowing that any of what I wrote is true. I still feel that these notes might be part of some elaborate joke. But I thought that it was something that should be brought to the attention of the proper authorities.”
Lavinia set down her cup and folded her hands. “You should come back to us, Kavin. You were a good lawmage. We could use you.”
“That’s not my life anymore. Besides, the Guildpact is gone. Old Prahv i
s gone. I’ve no place in this guild anymore.”
“Are you sure it isn’t sentimentality, Kavin? Loyalty to that man you call Master Beleren?”
“Don’t insult me. How loyal could I be? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are. Kavin, would you be interested in helping us contacting Beleren?”
“You mean setting a trap.”
“I mean doing what it takes to restore order in this district.”
“He may not be of much use. He was planning on destroying his own memories, as well. He might know less than I do.”
“Did you know that a high-ranking Selesnya official was with Beleren, on the night the sanctum was destroyed?”
“Yes, I remember that much. His friend, Emmara Tandris.”
“A favorite of Trostani, the dryad sisters. Were you aware that she was abducted on that same night? And that neither have been seen since?”
“I was not. You’ve confirmed this?”
“Much more is going on than you know, Kavin. Come back to us.”
“But it’s like I told you, Lavinia. He won’t know anything about this maze. If he’s anything like me, he’s lost his mind.”
“That may be. And maybe that’s all the better for him. Right now that might be the only thing that’s keeping him alive.”
TO BE CONTINUED …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Doug Beyer started out as a MAGIC: THE GATHERING® fan, then became a web developer for magicthegathering.com, then a prolific flavor text writer, and eventually, a writer and creative designer for the Magic™ R&D creative team. He resides in Seattle, Washington.
