by Cory Herndon
“Perfect,” the vampire said. Then he placed his palms against Savra’s ears, gave a quick twist, and snapped her neck.
If there are only nine guilds, why are there ten sentinel titans? Ten sections of Ravnica? And ten points on the badge of a wojek? Surely this is more than mere coincidence.
—“Tenth Guild: Fact or Fallacy?” the Ravnican Guildpact Journal (13 Zuun 9451 Z.C.)
28 ZUUN 9999 Z.C., DAWN
Savra dropped to the dais like a broken toy. As she hit the ground, the Selesnya Conclave dropped to their knees and screamed. The dryads writhed and twisted as if on fire, tearing hunks of their leafy hair out by the roots, and clawing at their own skin. Then, one by one, they flopped over onto their sides, twitching.
“Fonn!” Kos shouted. “Jarad! Gharti! Anybody! Snap out of it!”
“I don’t think so,” the vampire said. “Lupul, deal with them.”
Valenco and Forenzad—at least, things that looked like Valenco and Forenzad—stepped forward and latched themselves onto Fonn and Jarad, which must have been enough to break the spell they’d been under. Kos realized with dawning dread that Gharti wouldn’t be snapping out of it anytime soon. The thing restraining him was not Gharti at all but something like the worm-creature Phaskin had been. Well, he thought, this was one way to get out from under that promotion.
“Savra?” Jarad said as he saw his sister’s broken form lying next to the black-robed vampire. “Savra!” Jarad whirled on the vampire. “What have you done, creature?”
The vampire ignored the Devkarin and raised his long-fingered hands, palms out, to address the confused assembly, who had just begun to awaken from Savra’s spell. The quietmen moved when he did, floating apart and fragmenting their wall formation to split into two groups. The groups each formed into a column and flanked the vampire, one on either side, then floated back to place themselves in contact with the inner trunk that rose around the convocation circle.
“People of Ravnica,” the vampire said, “for ten thousand years, you have kept me prisoner. Your guildmasters and your Guildpact have kept me from threatening their ‘peace.’ You are all complicit in this crime, and you will all pay.” He smiled and flashed wicked silver teeth. “Needless to say, you will pay in blood. But first, the end of—”
Kos heard a low, animal growl from behind him, and a mass of golden fur went soaring over his head. Biracazir the wolf, freed of the song and unrestrained by an imposter, charged at the black-robed figure that addressed the crowd. Kos saw real surprise in the vampire’s eyes for the briefest of moments, but as Biracazir leaped at the living myth, jaws wide, the black-robed figure brought up a fist that slammed into the side of the wolf’s head. Biracazir went skidding across the circle to land on his side, breathing hard. Kos could not see the wolf’s head from this angle, but the way Biracazir was wheezing it didn’t sound good. He heard Fonn scream the wolf’s name and curse Szadek. Jarad joined her.
The wojek could still barely believe that this really was Szadek. But after everything that had happened in the last couple of days, he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. Right now, Vitu Ghazi could have grown legs and marched to the polar regions and Kos wouldn’t have been surprised.
“As I was saying,” the Lord of Whispers told the gathering, “today, your Guildpact dies.” He turned to the twin columns of quietmen and said, “Now.”
* * * * *
Fonn thought she might be sick. First she’d lost Bayul—twice. But even that was nothing compared to the soul-crushing agony of feeling the entire Selesnya Conclave die at once, and now Biracazir had sacrificed himself pointlessly as well. Not for the first time, she wished desperately that she and her charge had never returned to the City of Ravnica. She was running out of friends, and it weighed heavily on her heart.
A wheezing gasp snapped her out of the self-pity jag. Biracazir was still breathing! If she could get to him she might be able to help him. It looked like he was bleeding badly from the mouth, but his side rose and fell. He was alive. That kept the nausea from overwhelming her, and she turned her attention back to the vampire and the quietmen.
On the vampire’s order, the two groups of quietmen pressed their bodies against Vitu Ghazi. Their bodies began to glow, pulsing with green and blue inner light that made them look like they were made of tinted glass. The light flared within them, and after a few seconds that forced Fonn to close her eyes to keep from going blind, both columns of quietmen disappeared in simultaneous flashes.
The Unity Tree shook beneath their feet like an earthquake.
“Fonn,” Kos asked, “is the tree supposed to do that?”
“What is it?” Jarad said. “What’s happening?”
“I think,” Fonn said with abiding dread, “he’s trying to release Mat’selesnya.”
“But she’s a myth,” Kos said but reminded himself that he’d already seen one myth return to life today. “Isn’t she?”
“No,” Fonn said. “She’s real. She’s in the Unity Tree.”
“I thought that was a figure of speech,” Kos said.
The rumbling grew stronger, but the iron grips of the imposters held them fast. Fonn could get no leverage and was certain that they would soon be engulfed in worms. She gazed mournfully at Biracazir, whose breaths grew steadily further apart. She kicked and flailed at her captor, but the ersatz wojek’s arms didn’t budge. She called to Biracazir, but the wolf couldn’t even lift his head to acknowledge her.
The structure at the center of the tree folded back in on itself, resembling an enormous tulip bulb. It glowed like the vanished quietmen had, pulsing in green and blue, and Fonn got the sickening feeling she knew where the quietmen were.
No sooner had it closed than the bulb folded open once more, like a flower. A dead flower, with petals that peeled and rotted away from the center and onto the convocation dais with a wet slap. Layer after layer of the cocoon turned dark blue and flopped open, until the contents emerged into brilliant view. The glow from the huddled, fetal figure in the center of the platform was astonishing and washed over the Vitu Ghazi concourse like green sunlight. The figure unfurled and straightened inside the dome, which shattered as she reached her full height.
The figure was female, Fonn knew immediately. This singular creature was the original Selesnya Conclave collective, a single elemental made from the merged forms of a dozen ancient dryads who had sacrificed their identities and their freedom ten thousand years ago to give their world a chance for permanent peace. She was more elemental than dryad now, encased in roots and fibrous skin, with crystals the size of barrels embedded in her legs and arms. A single, huge crystal encased her head. The parun of Fonn’s guild, transformed by ten millennia inside the nurturing embrace of Vitu Ghazi. She was unity. Hers was the heart of the Guildpact. Without her, the laws that bound the guilds of Ravnica would have fallen into chaos long ago. This wasn’t just a Selesnyan belief. It was history. Ravnica had a lot of it, and Fonn had read as much as she could. History had made her admire and love this creature more than a thousand convocations or assemblies. She’d never imagined she’d ever see the holy mother, at least not in this lifetime. No one had.
“Mat’selesnya,” Fonn whispered.
The song had returned, but it did not cast a trance over her. This was the raw song of life. It took her breath away with its beauty, but it was not controlling or dominating in any way. Her heart skipped a beat when the holy parun slumped sideways and collapsed heavily to the floor, her light scattering around Szadek’s feet. She could not support her own weight after so long inside Vitu Ghazi.
The vampire hooked twin sets of terrible talons into Mat’selesnya, hunched over her still-glowing form, and pulled her in close as if to receive a lover’s kiss. He spared a glance at them as he opened his mouth wide and almost appeared to roll his eyes.
“Obviously, I should have been more specific, lurker,” the vampire said. “When I say ‘Deal with them,’ I meant kill them. Now.” Then he bowed his head
and started to feed.
* * * * *
The man restraining Kos shoved him to the ground, where he landed hard between Fonn and Jarad. All three were dazed and tried to kick back away from the wojeks. But these weren’t wojeks at all. The things that had looked like three of the most trusted members of the brass became three human-shaped masses of writhing, blue worms and closed in on the prone wojek and his allies.
“Any ideas?” he asked as the three of them got back to their feet. The lurkers advanced steadily, pushing them back toward the dais, where even now the vampire drained the life from the holy mother of the Conclave.
“Jarad,” Fonn said, “before, you were able to—”
“Barely,” he said, “but it’s worth a try. I may need a little help.” His eyes flickered to Savra’s corpse. “If I can get to the staff maybe I’ll be able to control them. When they’re in this form I can feel them like I feel insects.”
“Fine,” Kos said. “You get the staff and try not to get eaten by the vampire while you’re at it. Fonn, see if you can do anything to help Biracazir. I’ll try to keep these things occupied.”
Jarad and Fonn bolted to their respective assignments. Fortunately, Kos supposed, the three lurkers did not move to follow them but continued their slow advance on the wojek. Kos could do nothing but continue to back up. As the writhing worm-things drew closer, he had to bob and weave to avoid their flailing pseudopods. The lurkers were playing with him, confident that they would succeed. Now and then, one would take on a familiar shape: Gharti, Valenco, and others he didn’t recognize. Kos was rapidly running out of room.
His heart almost stopped when one of the lurkers congealed into a very familiar shape, for only a moment. A shimmering, almost ghostly shape that Kos recognized immediately before it fell apart again into a writhing mass of maggots.
The lurker had taken the shape of Myczil Zunich’s ghost.
Kos screamed.
* * * * *
Fonn made it to Biracazir in seconds. The big wolf was fading fast, wheezing and gasping for breath through its bloody, broken snout. The vampire’s blow had shattered the wolf’s jaw and caved in the side of Biracazir’s skull. Grief and anger vied for her attention, but grief soon won out. She placed a hand on the wolf’s head and stroked the fur behind his ears. He whimpered quietly.
“Ssssh,” Fonn said, tears flowing freely from her eyes to drop to the hard, cold wood. “It’s all right. It’s all right.” She looked at the stump of her wrist and pointlessly cursed her selfishness. Try as she might, she was drained. She had no healing magic left for the wolf. Right now, she would have given all her limbs, let alone a hand, to save him.
“Fonn!” Jarad called from the center of the dais, breaking the hold of the sorrow that had gripped her heart as fiercely as any lurker. The vampire, busy with his feeding, paid the Devkarin hunter no attention at all. He held Savra’s staff in one hand, and reached down to pluck something from Savra’s body. “Catch!”
The green stone that the priestess had stolen arced through the air toward her, and Fonn somehow found the presence of mind to snatch it from the air with her remaining hand. Jarad had very good aim.
Fonn held the stone in her palm, staring at its softly glowing facets. She had no idea what to do with it. The stone joined a being to the Selesnya Conclave, but the Selesnya Conclave was dead.
Or was it? The stone still glowed, faintly. And though the vampire was draining her life away, Mat’selesnya still lived.
Fonn lifted Bayul’s stone and pressed it to her forehead.
* * * * *
The lurkers pushed Kos almost to the edge of the dais, but Jarad caught the ’jek before he went over.
“You take the vampire,” Jarad said. “These are mine.”
“‘Take the vampire?’” Kos repeated. “How?”
Jarad didn’t answer but raised the staff, aimed the tangle of necroclusters and talismans at the three advancing Lupuls, and said “Stop.”
The lurkers stopped, though the worms that comprised their bodies did not. Jarad closed his eyes and concentrated, not an easy task.
You are not a slave. Jarad told them. You are not his creature. You are greater than he. You are greater than Dimir, or Szadek. The three separate lurkers merged into one, a writhing mass of a collective humanoid as big as an ogre and twice as wide.
“How did you do that?” Kos asked, his eyes wide.
“It is not much different from controlling insects,” Jarad said. “As long as—”
What had to be the vampire’s fist lashed out and finished Jarad’s sentence with a thud against his lower back. Jarad felt something snap, but he forced himself to absorb the pain. All his concentration was on the giant lurker-thing that hissed with a billion tiny screams.
You are greater than anything, even your master. Kill him.
Jarad opened his eyes again in time to see the swarm of worms engulf Szadek, pulling him away from Mat’selesnya, who fell limp atop Savra’s body. The crystals in her giant elemental body still shone with a dim emerald glow. Perhaps she was still alive. Perhaps, Jarad thought, that wasn’t such a bad thing.
The vampire screamed beneath the blanket of worms but still stood upright. Under Jarad’s power, the mass of writhing lurker fed on the vampire’s flesh, but not without a price. The Devkarin could feel, through the staff, each tiny, individual mind. And as they consumed the vampire, the vampire’s essence consumed them. They died like miniscule flares in his brain. Lupul and Szadek were devouring each other, and the turmoil was beginning to get to him. His mind strained for purchase on the horde of worms, forcing his will upon them even as Lupul tried to rebel.
He had gotten lucky, Jarad knew. His power to control simple minds would have been useless if Lupul had shifted into another persona.
Jarad could no longer speak. His need to concentrate just to maintain control was far too strong. But he could think. He poured his own hatred of the vampire into their miniscule minds, feeding their ambition. It was a difficult dance. The lurker wanted to function with one mind, a collective mind but a complex one. Even with the focus and power provided him by Savra’s staff, if Lupul’s singular mind reassembled itself it would be beyond his abilities.
Szadek fell to his knees, still screaming in pain and fury. Jarad gritted his teeth.
He has used you for far too long. You are great. He is nothing. He has imprisoned you as surely as they imprisoned him. Feed. Feed and grow strong. Destroy Szadek. Destroy him now.
The worms did their best to comply.
* * * * *
The stone against Fonn’s forehead felt cold. There was no surge of magic, no flash of energy, no song—nothing. Just a rock. After another few seconds, she stopped trying and held the stone in her palm.
Biracazir wheezed softly, unable even to whimper. He didn’t have long. The tears returned, and Fonn could no longer take it. She broke down, sobbing, and threw her good arm over the wolf’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” Fonn said. “Biracazir, I’m so sorry.”
The stone, still in her palm, grew warm against her skin.
“Biracazir?” she whispered, and a ridiculous idea formed in her mind. Impossible. The wolf was an animal.
But then, weren’t they all just animals?
Fonn forced herself to relax, reining in her sobs as she crawled on hand and knees around to face the wolf’s ruined muzzle. She gazed at the stone in her palm, which was already shedding heat and becoming cold again.
With a trembling hand, she placed the stone against the top of the wolf’s head.
The result was instantaneous and very bright.
* * * * *
Kos had no idea what to do with himself. Jarad had engulfed the vampire in worms, Fonn wept over the fallen form of Biracazir, Borca’s ghost was gone, and Kos could do little more than watch. He was just a man, when all was said and done. He had no hidden mystical power, he didn’t have a partner anymore, and he didn’t even have a wolf. Kos had never felt mor
e extraneous in his life.
The crystals embedded in the prone form of Mat’selesnya lit up like a cluster of high-intensity glowposts. Their luminescence became an almost blinding glare, then the pale green light exploded. A shock wave centered on the Selesnyan parun washed over the convocation circle, followed by another wave, and another. Each one hit Kos like a palpable fist, pushing him back from the dais and into the open before it finally knocked him over onto his back. The wave didn’t hurt exactly. It just pushed. He craned his head to the side to see what was going on and barely saw Jarad flying toward him in time to roll back to avoid the elf, who landed on his back and skidded briefly before coming to rest.
The shock waves collided with the writhing mass of Szadek and Lupul—it was impossible for Kos to tell where one ended and the other began—and tore the lurker from the vampire’s body like a flood washing away ants. The wave carried the worms into the air in a cloud, and each one popped with a tiny explosion. Jarad clutched his head in both hands and gritted his teeth as thousands of the creatures—in a way, just one creature—died at once.
Stripped bare of his attackers, the vampire weathered the shock waves for as long as he could, then he too went down. Kos could not believe what Lupul’s betrayal had done to Szadek, once a living legend. In only a few minutes, the lurker’s fury had stripped away not just the vampire’s clothing but also most of his pale flesh. The worms had devoured the vampire’s robes, eaten away the muscle of his shoulders and upper arms, and feasted on a large portion of his chest, exposing blackened ribs. Szadek’s legs were little more than bone. Black smoke curled from the vampire’s body, and Szadek emitted a curiously human-sounding whimper.
The magic of the Guildpact was the strongest enchantment the plane of Ravnica had ever known. It wasn’t just a piece of paper or an agreement on trade. The Guildpact was a document, yes, but it was also a spell—a spell that empowered, among other things, the rule of law contained within. And the League of Wojek was the instrument of that law. He, Agrus Kos, was an instrument of the law.