As a planeswalker Teferi was limited only by his power and his force of will. The rift’s appetite far outstripped his power, but his will had conquered it. Just as that hand in a bucket of water could punch its fingers through the bottom of the pail to let the water out, Teferi had changed the rules of his contest with the rift, letting it feed on his near-omnipotence as he unmade it, as he turned it aside and back upon itself at its most basic, elemental levels.
It had not been easy, but he had done it. There was strength in the pride he took from this, confidence he could stand on. It would not be easy to bring other planeswalkers into his plan, but he had every intention of doing that too. He’d already set Freyalise and Windgrace to doing what was necessary, a subtle push here and there until logic and their own reasons led them to finish the job.
Freyalise was growing more desperate. She would have probably done the right thing on her own by now if she wasn’t so dedicated to the future of her elves. With Jhoira by her side, there was no way Freyalise could avoid coming to the only conclusion that made sense, the only path open to her. If Skyshroud was to be saved, Freyalise would have to make the ultimate sacrifice and abandon her power as Teferi had.
Windgrace was another matter. He was just as proud as Freyalise but far more vigorous. The panther-man might waste weeks or even months destroying the endless waves of cold-weather Phyrexians that emerged from the rift. Teferi had to make sure Windgrace acted in unison with Freyalise, or in close enough concert so that their efforts would be sufficient. By Teferi’s reasoning, sealing two rifts more or less simultaneously would have an exponentially larger positive effect than doing them in sequence. Closing the Shivan phenomenon had slowed the entire rift network’s chaotic effects on Dominaria for a time. Unhappily, the disruptive effect had already gone too far. It had its own momentum. An ever-growing weight of entropy could not be reversed by attacking it piecemeal.
The encroachment of this icy alternate reality was just one example of the worsening situation. Teferi’s power was almost spent, but he still had a strange, almost intuitive relationship with the rifts that he attributed to his interaction with the one in Shiv. However that perception survived, it was still his and it allowed him to sense where the rifts were and to some extent how dangerous.
For lack of a more accurate term, it also let him gauge each rift’s attitude. Just as each region and landmass in Dominaria produced different stripes of mana, each rift was partially defined by its surroundings. Shiv’s fissure was hard, hotly defiant, and unyielding as stone. Urborg’s was predatory and hostile, and gave rise to monsters. Skyshroud’s was proud and indomitable, partially isolated from its fellows as it sank its roots deep into the foundation of the multiverse while simultaneously stretching toward its upper limit. This instinctive grip on the rift phenomena was not as useful as limitless magic when it came to traveling the globe or clearing his path of obstacles, but it was invaluable for locating and prioritizing the rifts as he puzzled out the riddles they presented.
Whatever the Stronghold rift’s character, it had allowed Phyrexians from another place to bleed through the network into this world. Windgrace had to be convinced that the only way to stop the Ice Age Phyrexians from overwhelming Dominaria was to seal off their access.
Teferi’s mind wandered as he walked, his thoughts gently bouncing from notion to notion. He remembered Corus attacking him in Shiv but not how he had escaped. He recalled the secrets Jhoira built into the Ghitu ambulator but not the construction of the device itself. He knew Venser, Jodah, and Jhoira seemed angry with him but had no good idea why.
Teferi slowed as he approached the campsite. He spotted human sentries ahead with the gladehunter mark on their faces. He tried to gather his thoughts for what promised to be a very difficult discussion, but Jhoira’s name and face kept appearing to him, distracting him.
Teferi wanted more than anything to sit and talk through his confusion with her. He desperately wanted to know what had happened between them, but he also dreaded the answer.
Teferi pushed aside his thoughts and proudly stuck his staff in the mud. “Warriors of Urborg,” he said, “I have come to parley with your lord and master.”
The two sentries were alert and instantly drew steel as they approached him. Teferi didn’t worry. Things had gone pretty far astray so far, but his plan was still viable. By his lights, things could certainly be a good deal worse.
Venser led Jodah through the tangled swamps of Urborg. Though he was fraught with worries about Jhoira, Windgrace, the rifts, and Teferi, he was also pleased to be back in his element. Here in Urborg, working with his beloved machines, he was useful again.
They soon came to a boggy hollow between two icy ridges. A huge willow cast a curtain of its whiplike branches over the deeper recesses of the dank place, and three men of Urborg stood sentry, their gladehunter brands glowing and their thick knots of hair waving in the breeze. Venser waved Jodah down and raised a finger to his lips. The two peered through the mist and watched.
A heavy, bristle-furred shambler came around the eastern ridge, its broad feed scraping through the icy mud. The burly, bearlike creature was mottled brown, and its eyes glowed red over the gladehunter mark on its cheek. The stationary sentries barely acknowledged the beast as it patrolled by. Sniffing the air and growling, the shambler muddled off around the western ridge.
Less than a minute later another monster slithered in from the east. It had a broad, square head like a lion’s, but its hind end trailed off into a snaky tail. It hauled itself forward on short, stubby forelimbs and flicked its tongue in and out like a serpent. Venser heard Jodah stifle a gasp when the archmage saw that the beast’s bulbous tongue had a human face on it, a wizened, skull-like visage that was twisted and drawn into a miser’s sneer.
That horror moved along, and soon a third patrolling beast crossed in front of the hollow. This one was a long-legged insect with compound eyes along the length of its spine and veins of lurid purple inscribed on its transparent wings. A sharp spike jutted out of its soft, horn-shaped mouth, and it was accompanied by a cloud of ghastly yellow gnats.
They waited and watched until the shambler returned. Confident that these were the only guardians patrolling the area, Venser signaled Jodah so that the archmage would lean in close.
“It’s here,” Venser whispered. “The ambulator. This is the place.”
“Are you sure?”
Venser nodded. He had only stretched the truth a little when he told Jodah there were few places Windgrace could have stored the Ghitu ambulator. There were actually hundreds of caves and deadfalls and hidey-holes the planeswalker could have used, but Venser knew where his machine was as surely as he knew he had two hands and ten fingers.
Things had changed, he had changed since completing the journey from Shiv. The machine had dominated his thoughts for the last two decades and had always been a part of him figuratively. Since Jhoira helped him rebuild it and it carried them across great distances, he now felt connected to it. Even shut off and stowed, the ambulator tugged at him, called out and buzzed in his brain like an inspired idea that he had yet to articulate, demanding that he pay attention.
The stones in his pouch also resonated with the machine. They were no brighter or hotter than normal, but Venser felt them yearning for the back of the hollow as iron filings toward a magnet. He and the stones and the ambulator felt like part of the same larger machine, one that insisted on being complete.
Venser also felt a familiar pall, the cold, frustrating sense of reaching one’s limit. He sipped a long lungful of air and said, “This is where I need your help.”
Jodah smiled. “You got us here,” he said, “but it’s up to me to get us in?”
Venser colored. “Something like that.”
“Do you have any suggestions? Any spells to recommend?”
“I have no magic,” Venser said. “I’m a builder.”
“I see. Well, no matter. Rest easy, my friend. I may have just the thi
ng.”
Venser stiffened at Jodah’s choice of words. The Weaver King kept admonishing him to rest easy, and Windgrace had singled Jodah out as one of the Weaver King’s toys. Venser forced himself to relax. Jodah had proved himself reliable so far. Jhoira trusted him. Besides, the archmage was visible, and he wasn’t prone to fits of insane giggling.
“Which of those creatures is the fastest on its feet?”
Venser blinked. “The shambler,” he said. “Though I can’t be sure.”
“That was my thinking as well. And we don’t need to be sure. We just need to agree.”
“Can you do it alone?” Venser said. When Jodah raised an eyebrow, Venser pointed to the gladehunter mark on his own cheek and said, “I’m afraid of this betraying us to Windgrace.”
Jodah relaxed. He patted Venser on the shoulder and said, “On the contrary. That is going to get us close enough for my plan to work.”
The archmage stood up, towering over Venser. He reached down and helped Venser up. “Produce your beacon box,” he said. “And grab me by the scruff of the neck. It’s time to steal back your machine.”
The sentries completed two more cycles as Jodah outlined his plan and Venser worked up his nerve. Finally, Venser stepped out into plain view. He was sweating slightly in the cold but maintained a firm grip on Jodah’s robe. The taller man allowed Venser to half-drag him along as they approached the hollow.
“Brothers,” Venser said. He cast Jodah down into the muck and raised the beacon high in his clenched fist. “See what I have found in the swamps.”
The three knot-haired sentries reacted instantly, forming a line across the entrance to the hollow. Two drew short swords and the third a stout-handled morningstar.
The box blinked and hummed overhead. Venser gestured at Jodah and said, “This man was once my partner. He built this device to work in concert with mine. As a show of loyalty to our lord, I give him and his abominable machine to you.”
“Go back where you came from,” said the gladehunter with the morningstar. None of the sentries had moved, each resolute at his post. “Or you’ll be gutted same as him.”
The shambler loped into view, and Venser hesitated. The vaguely manlike brute slavered when he saw the box. He opened his six-fingered fists and flexed his long, sharp claws.
“Go on,” Jodah hissed.
“I will go,” Venser said. “But I would leave this, and him, here with you.”
“Steady,” the gladehunter with the morningstar told the shambler, who was preparing to pounce. To Venser he said, “We don’t want it. Or him. Take them both out into the swamp and bury them.”
Venser swallowed. “Now?”
“Now.” Jodah sprang to his feet with glittering, green smoke swirling from his fingertips.
The shambler was almost fast enough. It leaped forward before Jodah had reached his full height, its heavy body moving as swiftly and gracefully as a bird’s. If not for the smoke that floated between it and Jodah, it would have surely finished its short flight, crushed the archmage to the ground, and torn him apart.
As it was, the smoke flowed up into the monster’s face, and it froze in midair. It floated for a split second as two of the human gladehunters charged forward. The third, their leader with the morningstar, turned and shouted back into the hollow.
“Destroy it! Break the machine now!”
Whatever he spoke to had no time to act. Wreathed in emerald smoke, the shambler dropped down into the muck, bounded back toward the hollow, and took hold of an Urborg sentry in each clawed hand. Roaring, the monster thundered on, casting the full-grown men at their leader as if they were skipping stones.
Jodah was right behind the shambler with another spell already blossoming from his hands. Twin streams of blue-white liquid surged out over the shambler’s shoulders and slammed into the lead gladehunter, covering him in a translucent mound of foam. The man’s morningstar fell from his hand and splashed into the bog as the shambler and his two fellows all crashed into him where he stood.
Venser dashed forward, hoping to reach the ambulator before something acted on the leader’s command to wreck it. He quickly passed Jodah, who was still pouring gummy magic onto the struggling pile of gladehunters.
The other patrolling sentries quickly closed on the hollow, but Jodah now controlled the encounter. He kept one hand aimed at the shambler and the three humans while the other swiveled out to greet the insect-winged horror. It screeched like a demon as Jodah’s spell mired its limbs in foam. The last sentry tried to slither under the archmage’s magic, but he caught it before it came close enough to strike. Stepping back, Jodah continued to enshroud the sentries, working his hands back and forth until the sentries were all struggling under the same seething mound.
“Go,” Jodah said. “I don’t know how long this will hold them.”
Venser crossed into the darker recesses of the hollow. He stopped, quickly scanning for signs of any hidden guardians. Satisfied, he held the beacon box out so its blinking lights illuminated the area. He caught a brief glimpse of copper-colored metal before something thin, strong, and sharp encircled his neck.
Venser coughed and choked as he was jerked roughly into the air. He felt woody vines digging into his flesh and felt sharp-edged leaves tearing through his clothes. He cursed himself for overlooking the obvious, though he was also impressed by Windgrace’s forethought. With so many formidable monsters guarding the hollow, who would suspect that the most dangerous sentry was the willow tree?
The tree keened and hissed as it wrapped its countless tendrils around Venser. His ankles, wrists, and throat were noosed and yanked tight. His face, torso, and thighs were scraped and squeezed by innumerable whip-thin vines. The switches burned where they touched his skin, and though he could barely breathe, Venser smelled a sickly, acid scent as his skin sizzled and melted under the tree’s caustic touch.
He tried to call out for Jodah, but he had no breath. He tried to shake his arms free, but he had no leverage. He tried to suck air through his constricted throat, but he had no strength.
The tree bore him up higher, drawing his body into the larger mass of squirming tendrils overhead. Over the pounding of his pulse and the sound of his eardrums about to burst, Venser heard Jodah calling. The archmage was bringing his magic to bear on this new threat, but his foam-trap was next to useless against such a large creature with so many limbs. Venser watched through red-rimmed eyes, helplessly observing the black, rustlike coating Jodah sent shooting up the tendrils holding the artificer in place.
Venser’s world went white. He stiffened and shuddered in the throes of a seizure, his own heartbeat eclipsed by a dull, buzzing drone. The cutting, burning pressure around his throat disappeared, and he coughed up something wet and painful. His arms and legs came loose, and he felt himself alternately floating and falling, though he couldn’t see anything.
Then Venser landed on the hard ground. He dug his fingers into the mud and pried his face free, wracked by spasmodic coughing. He was only bleeding slightly, but he felt seared and half-skinned by the cruel, clutching vines. Instinctively, he tried to roll away from the tree, but his movements were slow and clumsy.
Venser completed another awkward revolution before Jodah’s strong hand found his shoulder. “Easy,” the archmage said. “It’s all over.”
Venser slumped faceup on the ground. He wrapped his arms around his midsection and doubled over, drawing in huge gulps of air and coughing. He wrestled himself into a sitting position and struggled to see Jodah clearly through the haze of pain.
“What did you do?” Jodah asked. He seemed quite calm, almost tranquil. If there was a lingering danger from the willow tree, the archmage didn’t give it much thought.
“Me?” Venser sputtered. He waited for another wave of coughing to subside.
“You got yourself loose,” Jodah said. “I did some damage, but I don’t think I even got its attention.”
“What…” Venser managed. “What did you see?”
“It had a hold of you,” Jodah said. “Then it didn’t. I couldn’t tell if it just let go, or if you somehow wriggled clear.”
“Had me,” Venser said. “It had me tight.”
“Well,” Jodah observed. “It’s quiescent now. Look.” He gestured upward, and Venser followed his hand. The tree was still alive, but it was now placid and still, its seething tangle of vines slack and sluggish.
Jodah reached down and helped Venser to his feet. He was careful not to crush the beacon box still held tight in the artificer’s fist. “Has this happened before?” the archmage said.
Venser waited for his head to stop swimming. He cleared his throat and breathed deeply. “Once,” he said. “In Shiv.”
“I see. And I imagine this was of great interest to Jhoira? Perhaps Teferi as well?”
Venser eyed Jodah suspiciously. He did not like the probing, penetrating tilt to the archmage’s questions. “It was,” he said. “Though we didn’t have time to linger on it.”
“Just like now,” Jodah said. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the blue-white mass of Urborg sentries and monsters. “They’re good for another few minutes. If our leafy friend here is content to let us pass, I hope you can get your machine working before they break loose.”
Venser started. He swiveled his head and fixed on the darkest part of the hollow. His ambulator was there, the machine complete and intact. Best of all, Venser saw the way its network of blue lights flashed and realized it must still be in perfect working order.
“It’ll take no time at all,” Venser said. He opened his fist, checked the beacon box, and clenched it tight again. “Follow me,” he said.
* * *
—
How very rude, thought the Weaver King. He had taken special pains to aid one of his subjects in need, and the wretch didn’t even acknowledge the effort.
Planar Chaos Page 15