Planar Chaos

by Timothy Sanders

  “I made the control rig to learn still more. I designed it so you could be its template, so you could teach it how to planeswalk. Now that you have, the rig can share that knowledge with the chair, and anyone who knows how to use the chair.”

  Venser clutched both arms of the ambulator. “That’s a fine line, Jhoira. I’m not seeing a big difference between teleporting and planeswalking. Is it possible you’ve mistaken my teleportation device for something grander?” But even as he said it, he remembered how different it had felt.

  “No one teleports to the Blind Eternities,” Jhoira said. “And you were there. Only planeswalkers can do that.”

  Venser tilted his head and propped it up with his elbow on the ambulator’s armrest. “All right,” he said. “I yield to your extensive experience. What should I do?”

  “Move quickly,” she said. “It will only take a few seconds for me to signal Karn.”

  Venser sighed. “And you think he’ll come this time?”

  “I hope so. If he does, we will be in a much stronger position with much better options.”

  “Only if Karn is completely unlike the rest of the planeswalkers we’ve encountered.”

  “He is. He has changed much since I last saw him, but he is still entirely unique. He cannot be judged by standards set by Freyalise or Windgrace.”

  “Or Teferi.” Venser stood up. He stared down at Jhoira, sighed again, and hooked his fingers under the control rig. He wrestled it over his head, noting once more how light it was. Jhoira had been right about that, right about so many things. He could do much worse than to trust her judgment now.

  Venser handed the metal yoke to Jhoira. “Don’t leave me alone here too long,” he said. “You may think I can planeswalk on my own, but I don’t want to rely on that if Freyalise or Windgrace come looking for me.”

  Jhoira took the rig and gracefully slipped into it. It looked odd on her shoulders but not uncomfortable. “I won’t be long,” she said. “And you won’t be alone. Jodah can…”

  The Ghitu’s voice trailed off as she glanced past Venser. He turned to follow her eyes, surveying the otherwise empty valley. The archmage was gone.

  The look of confusion and concern on Jhoira’s face pained Venser. “Go,” he said. “Bring the silver man here.”

  Jhoira stared at Venser from the dais. “Are you sure?”

  “The sooner you go, the sooner you can return,” he said.

  “What about Freyalise? And Windgrace? And the Weaver King?”

  Venser stepped off of the ambulator. He folded his arms behind his back and planted his feet. “Windgrace has Urborg to worry about,” he said. “And I’m ready for the Weaver King. He can’t surprise me when I know he’s coming. Besides, he has already antagonized Freyalise. They should both be fully occupied with stalking each other for the foreseeable future.” Venser thought of the planeswalker-mortal pairings he had seen and experienced over the past month. “And if Jodah has gone after her as I think he has, punishing me will be the last thing on her mind.”

  He thought Jhoira might argue, might correct him on the finer points of Jodah’s aims and Freyalise’s reactions. Instead, the Ghitu nodded and settled into the chair.

  Envious and impressed, Venser watched as Jhoira operated the controls as quickly as he ever had but with far more efficiency. It was in Venser’s nature to be meticulous, to flip every switch and move every lever several times to make sure he had left no room for error. Jhoira did everything once, with a delicate touch, and she did not repeat herself.

  The ambulator began to whine, and the familiar yellow glow scintillated across its metal surfaces. She turned to face him, and just as the envelope of energy extended over her, she mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

  Then Jhoira disappeared, leaving Venser alone with the rotting corpses of Gathan brutes and the skeletal remains of Skyshroud’s trees.

  * * *

  —

  Jodah moved through the forest. It was dark, and the terrain was unfamiliar, but his past experience with Freyalise and his affinity for strong magic guided his steps. Thunder roared nearby, and Jodah felt the ground shake. Bright flames lit up the dim skies to the east, and he heard the excited clicks and screeches of a thousand frenzied slivers. Freyalise had clearly decided not to allow the Weaver King an extended opportunity to strengthen his hold on his newly assembled legions.

  Jodah moved toward the sounds of battle. It was in fact far easier to track the patron of Skyshroud’s whereabouts than it had been to leave Jhoira and Venser behind. He had thrown in with them because of his role in bringing the Weaver King into their lives and because he believed in the threat of the time rifts, but he could not let Freyalise follow her own purposes without trying to dissuade her.

  As he expected when dealing with planeswalkers, circumstances had spiraled spectacularly out of a mere mortal’s control. The godlike beings were magnets for chaos, gathering the most powerful and disruptive influences to them no matter what their intent. They were titans whose power made the impossible happen, but they were also flawed, and their shortcomings were likewise amplified to fantastic degrees. Teferi’s childishness and love of mystery made him reckless and manipulative in his efforts to solve them. Windgrace’s uncompromising tenacity manifested as near-tyranny among the people of Urborg. Jaya’s impetuousness made her careless and eventually cost her her life. And Freyalise…Freyalise’s maternal rigor blinded her to the welfare of anyone beyond her extended family.

  Freyalise was not above making huge sacrifices to achieve her ends, especially if the martyrs were not of elf blood. She saved the world once, long ago, but she did so for her elves and without regard to the impact on others. Jodah himself had helped steer her World Spell toward a safer, less destructive effect, and now that she was heading down that road once more he was determined to minimize the damage she’d invariably do.

  Another peal of thunder and another gout of flame rocked the forest. He stumbled as the ground shifted beneath him, but he pressed on. At least she had the mirror, he thought. Freyalise was stubborn and proud, but even she would not hesitate to use a tool that increased her control over transcendent magic, as a similar artifact had done with the World Spell.

  He approached a stand of smoking, charred trees. Jodah steeled himself and climbed a slight rise. He was greeted by the sight of a newly cleared acre of forest, a broad, flat circle of fallen timber and shattered metal.

  Freyalise was marching inexorably toward the center of the forest. The small-seeming woman pushed back the seething mound of slivers and Phyrexians as effectively as a seawall during high tide, containing them but also driving them deeper into Skyshroud with each hard-fought step. The horde had piled itself high before her, its own weight crushing those at the bottom of the heap. The uppermost members of the Weaver King’s puppet army bounded high overhead, hurling themselves forward like fleas from a bear’s back, but none of them ever came close to the planeswalker. The best they could do was slam to a sudden stop twenty yards overhead before Freyalise’s magic cast them back onto the mobile mountain of insects and metal.

  Jodah was awed by the sight. Freyalise was glorious, her power surging around her like a bright, hot wind. She seemed so small, so brittle compared to her enemy, yet it was they who were giving ground. The archmage stood stock-still, his impetus withering as he considered his contribution to Skyshroud’s defense. He knew spells that would help, that would add force to Freyalise’s cause and allow her to conserve more of her strength. He dared not use any of them for fear of disrupting the planeswalker’s strategy but also because he did not wish to anger her further. At this stage, even a beneficial act could cause Freyalise to turn and destroy him for interfering.

  Follow your instincts, Archmage. Freyalise’s thoughts slashed through his mind like a scythe, though the planeswalker did not take her eyes or her power off the horde. Stand where you are until I have finished.

  Which is what I am trying to avoid, Jodah thought, but his words
stayed inside his own skull. He did not have the ability to project his thoughts, and Freyalise had clearly chosen not to hear them.

  Instead, the patron of Skyshroud raised her fists and screamed. It was an ugly, grating sound, the roar of a feral beast that came seasoned with equal measures of pain and fury. The mound of slivers and Phyrexians exploded, or rather the leading edge of the mound exploded, driving the rest back like leaves in a hurricane wind.

  Jodah was blown back against a tree trunk, and he slumped, dazed, to the forest floor. His first thought was that Freyalise had done what he feared most and given her ultimate effort without employing the mirror.

  Freyalise’s detonation only the ended this battle. Jodah’s ears stopped ringing and his vision cleared, allowing him to follow the glowing cloud of red-hot metal parts and flaming dismembered limbs that rose over Skyshroud. The survivors and the wounded were hurled along with the dead, all descending and disappearing together among the trees on the far side of the woods.

  As Jodah rose, Freyalise fell to her knees. Her arms hung straight down so that her knuckles scraped across the charred ground, and her head slumped forward. Jodah ran toward her, wobbling as he came, but he was neither fast enough nor welcome to provide any assistance.

  Freyalise straightened her head as Jodah came close. He slowed to a walk as the patron of Skyshroud planted her palms in the layer of soot and oil, drew her legs up under her, and struggled to her feet.

  She turned to face him. She looked weary, weaker and more careworn than he had ever imagined.

  “Freyalise,” he said, “can we speak?”

  The planeswalker’s head lolled to one side, but she shook off her drowsiness, and her eyes gleamed, clear and full of purpose once more.

  “I do not know,” she said. “Can we? So far all you’ve offered is a steady stream of infantile needling.”

  Jodah nodded. “And I apologize,” he said. “I reacted to your shortness with me, to the hostility that I feared and you have so eloquently expressed.”

  “Answer your own question,” she said.

  “Can we speak?” Jodah glanced left and right. “I hope so. There’s no one else here, no audience for you to bluster before.”

  “Or for you to use as a shield. I would have killed you a hundred times over by now if doing so didn’t mean I was stung by the taunts of an insect.” She regally folded her arms. “We can speak, Archmage, but choose your words carefully.”

  “I want to help you,” he said. “I want you to save Skyshroud without destroying something else in the process.”

  “Always the voice of reason.” Freyalise tossed her head to one side, away from Jodah. “You can do nothing here, Archmage. My course is set.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “You don’t have to do this alone. And I say you shouldn’t.”

  “Is that all you have to contribute?”

  “Not all. I’ve already given you the mirror.”

  “Ah, yes.” Freyalise turned back and raised an eyebrow. She extended her arm out and the silver-handled mirror floated from her belt to her hand. “The trinket. You have truly exceeded your mentor, Archmage. This is a masterpiece, every bit as powerful as Voska’s mirror was. More so.”

  Freyalise’s praise worried Jodah more than her threats. He cleared his throat and mumbled, “It has its uses.” Louder, he said, “And I wish that you would use it when the proper time comes.”

  “You know my mind, then?” Freyalise smiled at him, for once without malice or scorn. “You know what I intend, and when? After all this time you still try to anticipate my actions. You think you understand me, that you can shame me or push me toward your goals.”

  “I want to live,” Jodah said. “I want Skyshroud and all of Dominaria to live. I want you to live, Freyalise.”

  “Then you are a glutton,” Freyalise said calmly. “For you only wish for more of what you already have in abundance.”

  “As you say. But to me the greater sin is not valuing the life you have. You have given too much of yourself. If you attempt another World Spell it will consume you utterly.” He leaned forward so that their faces were only inches apart. “And it won’t work.”

  “As you say.” The planeswalker’s pale, sharp features softened. Scorn returned to her face, but her voice remained level. “You do not know everything, Jodah. No one does.”

  “That would include you, Patron of Skyshroud.”

  “True.” Freyalise tucked the mirror back into her belt. “But I know my own mind. I know in my heart what needs to be done. And as much as you frustrate me, as maddening as your insolence is…I would see you far from here when I do it.”

  Jodah felt an unseen force slither between his feet and the ground. Freyalise’s eyes sparkled as her magic lifted Jodah up and carried him back toward the edge of the burned-out clearing.

  “Freyalise, wait.”

  “Good-bye.” The planeswalker reached up and covered her metal eye patch with her hand. She closed her fingers around the device, twisted it, and pulled it free. Her irises were mismatched, ice-blue on the left and ruby-red on the right. “I am sorry about Jaya, Archmage.” Freyalise rested her fists on her hips, and she smiled. “And thank you for the mirror.”

  Jodah called her name again, but the speed of his departure only increased. He stared at the small, elegant figure as she disappeared behind the rise, and he fought to fix that image in his mind as he floated away.

  He had failed. All his words and best efforts had been for nothing. He had the numb, disquieting feeling that this would be the last time he ever saw Freyalise. As such, he wanted to remember her as she was now, her beautiful face wholly visible for the first time in centuries. She was as he remembered her, as he always wanted to remember her: confident, focused, and relentless.

  “Good-bye,” he whispered, but he was already planning to resume his pursuit and find her again as soon as his feet touched the ground.

  Jhoira could have gone anywhere in the ambulator. Venser’s machine was limited by the places its pilot knew intimately, but she had studied or visited all of Dominaria’s rich and diverse landscapes. She had also visited other worlds, planes so numerous that even her well-ordered mind lost track of a few. As Teferi’s companion and the former captain of a plane-spanning ship, Jhoira had seen more than her share of the multiverse’s marvels.

  The irony of going nowhere was not lost on her. The Blind Eternities were both more and less than nowhere, but she had been there too, so it was but a small challenge to return. The trackless void always looked different, but it was always the same place to her.

  It was also mildly amusing that her first solo planeswalk (albeit assisted by Venser’s artifice) was intended to be so short. She allowed herself the luxury of lingering a few moments longer, both in the hopes of seeing Karn and to gather her thoughts in the blessed silence.

  As she expected, the Ghitu version of Venser’s machine worked perfectly without Venser, perhaps even better without him. He was not a planeswalker as she understood it, but he was something very much like a planeswalker. Sitting him down in a teleportation machine was akin to tethering an eagle to a long-tailed kite—even if the bird were able to steer the device, its own streamlined body and wings would affect the air currents that kept the kite aloft. Takeoffs and landings would be exponentially more difficult and dangerous.

  Jhoira, my dear. How splendid to see you at last.

  Something flashed in the distance, and Jhoira leaned forward in the chair. Her heart began to race as a heavy-limbed figure materialized from a vast, pinkish cloud of dust. It was Karn, and he was as silver and solemn as the day she first saw him.

  Jhoira had not spoken with her friend since he ascended over three centuries ago. He presented himself slightly leaner than she recalled, but she had grown quite used to planeswalkers altering their appearance even if they were not aware of the changes. He still bore his name proudly across his chest, “karn” being the Old Thran word for strength. She had given
him that name because of his physical size and strength but also for his determination.

  Karn was a true stalwart, enduring indignity and atrocity alike without ever wavering in the slightest. Urza gave him sentience and rudimentary emotions but treated him like a disposable tool. After killing an enemy in battle, Karn spent twenty years in mourning, practicing his own peculiar brand of pacifism that prevented him from harming anyone or anything no matter what the provocation. And though he never spoke of it directly, she knew he had braved the dangers of time travel for her, back when she was actually as young as she looked. As an alumnus of the Tolarian Academy, Jhoira had a terrifyingly clear notion of the risks such a journey demanded, both for the traveler and the world around him—and Karn had faced those risks and endured the agonies of temporal displacement simply to save her young life.

  He came to her now, his wide features bent into a happy smile. He was alone, without the planeswalking apprentice Jhoira had only heard about, and this made her glad. She knew very little about Jeska, but what she did know made her wary. Beyond the private joy of friends reunited, in the short term Jhoira preferred to avoid wild-tempered barbarians with histories of attempted world conquest.

  “Jhoira,” he said. He spread his arms wide and moved forward as if to hug her where she sat. She hesitated, both because of their awkward position and because of the strange, glassy sheen to his eyes. Karn’s artificial orbs had always been dark and somewhat mournful, but they had always been alive with intelligence. She looked into his face as he floated there, arms outstretched and a strained half smile on his lips. These eyes were black and lifeless, cold chips of stone with no warmth or animation.

  “Do not fear,” he said. “Step off your conveyance and embrace me, old friend. I will protect you.”

  “You’re not Karn,” she said. The figure before her shifted slightly, his outline undulating, and she felt something move in her mind.