Venser caught the fluttering ray of hope before it passed his lips. “He’s not dead then?”
“He is gone, as you said. But he may well return when Urborg needs him most. He will always be the ultimate protector of this dark and troubled place.”
“Oh.” Venser glanced around the shabby interior of his workshop. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Karn is never tired,” Jhoira said, causing Venser to realize he hadn’t heard her voice since Windgrace had sealed the rift. “Even before he ascended he could walk across the bottom of the ocean without pausing for rest.”
“And now there is an even greater task before him.” Teferi coaxed Karn deeper into the room with a gentle hand. “Jhoira has outlined your idea.” He turned toward the Ghitu. “Briefly. I would like to hear more.”
Karn also glanced at Jhoira before saying, “The time rifts are aptly named,” Karn said. “They are rife with temporal energy. They might have been even without the contributions of Urza’s wayward experiment, but that experiment did happen. It was an unprecedented and unrepeatable event. Tolaria remained permeated by time magic for thousands of years, and when Barrin razed it down to the bare rock he opened the Tolarian rift wider and released that chronal energy into the larger network.”
“And you intend to travel back to a time before the island was leveled.”
“Yes. I intend to arrive just long enough to do what I have to, a matter of minutes before Barrin cast that terrible spell.”
“I see. Why?”
“My experience tells me the journey will not be an easy one. Every backward tick of the clock will require major effort and expose me to incredible strain. The impact on Dominaria will also be considerable, and I intend to minimize it.”
“How?” Teferi did not even bother to hide the keen interest that invigorated him. “How will you do it?”
“It was Jhoira’s position that we should ask you.”
“Really? I am humbled.”
Cold silence reigned for a few moments until Jhoira said, “Can you do it?”
“No,” he said cheerfully. “But I believe I can show Karn how.”
Jhoira scowled. “I don’t understand.”
“There is nothing about a planeswalker that allows him to move through time, but Karn is special. He was made to be a time traveler. Silver is the only substance Urza found that was well suited to the rigors of the temporal stream. Provided Karn’s body is still made of silver and not some ersatz silvery alloy concocted by his own brilliant mind—”
“I can be pure silver again,” Karn said.
“Then all we need is the method.”
“Wait,” Venser said. “How will sealing the Tolarian rift reverse the cold here and in Keld?”
“The unnatural winter is a result of time’s being bent by the rifts,” Teferi said. “You recall the alternate worlds we saw when we were in the network? I believe the cold comes from one of those, from an alternate version of Dominaria where Freyalise never cast her World Spell and the Ice Age never ended. That world’s Phyrexia must have invaded thousands of years before ours did, so its creatures have adapted to the cold.” Teferi shrugged. “That part’s just a theory, but it’s a solid theory from where I’m standing.”
“And will our theory kill Karn too?” Jhoira had risen silently and crossed the room on the far side of Venser’s table. Teferi’s good cheer grew strained.
“I doubt it,” Karn said. He turned to Venser and said, “I am special inside as well as outside. Though I am functionally identical to a naturally born planeswalker, structurally I am very different. My being was comprised of a series of powerful, integrated artifacts called the Legacy. Among other things, within me now is a planewalking engine, a vast store of arcane knowledge, and several major powerstones.” He turned back to Teferi. “I may be able to bring more power to bear than I need. Even if it drains me completely and reverts me back to my original status as a sentient golem, I will still contain the Legacy. I can use it to ’walk back here.”
Venser spoke up, intrigued in spite of himself. “How will you return through time if your power is spent?”
“Returning to one’s natural place in the time stream requires no effort,” said Karn. “Rather, all of the stress and strain comes from taking one’s self out of that natural place. If I lose most or all of my abilities, I will be drawn back to this era like a pea through a straw.”
Teferi dusted the last of the bread crumbs from his robe. “The sooner we start the better. I will need a short time to gather my thoughts so I can suggest a method. Would an hour be acceptable?”
“Perfect,” Karn said. “I have preparations of my own that will take at least that long. He turned to Venser. “I’d like you to come along if you’re willing.”
“Me? How? Why?”
“Because you are also unique. If Dominaria survives, you and people like you will be the new vanguard that leads it into the future. I’d like you to see the past just for your own edification, but I also want to see your power in action. If you’re agreeable, we can consider this a research mission as well as a rescue. We will travel together, I’ll observe you, you’ll observe me, and we’ll both come out with a stronger understanding of our roles in the multiverse.”
“But I’m not made of silver,” Venser said. “I can’t go through time.”
“Ah, but you can go to the Blind Eternities. I know because I’ve seen you there. Come with me as far as that and I’ll make sure you’re aware of my progress with every step I take along the rest of the way.”
Venser looked at Jhoira, but her face was inscrutable. When he spoke his voice was low and solemn. “I’ve already seen Tolaria burn,” he said. “I didn’t like it.”
“You misunderstand,” Karn said. “I want you to be exposed to the multiverse itself. Not just to the wide range of people, places, and things it contains but to its essential structure, its very nature. What happened on Tolaria and what we’re about to do there are both extraordinary. You’ll never have a better chance to see how vast it is and how complicated, or how easily it can all be thrown into chaos.”
“All lessons worth learning,” Jhoira said, “especially if you plan to travel from plane to plane.”
“I don’t, actually.”
Teferi smiled. “But this adventure might just change your mind, eh?”
Venser started to rebut the planeswalker but stopped when he realized he had no honest retort. To travel across time and space with a one-of-a-kind sentient artifact as his guide…
“All right,” Venser said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good man,” Teferi said. “And with your permission, I’d like to come along too.”
Venser could almost hear Jhoira’s jaw clenching in the silence. At last Karn said, “You’re also not made of silver, Teferi. And you are no longer capable of surviving in the Blind Eternities.”
“But the ambulator is. I’ve been itching to try Venser’s machine anyway. And you both could use my help, at least as far as the point where the planeswalk ends and Karn’s timewalk begins.”
“The machine may not work for you,” Jhoira said. “It may not work at all. Since it brought me here I haven’t even been able to turn it on. It was roughly treated in Skyshroud. It may need major repairs.”
Teferi was undaunted. “Still, I’d like to try. With your permission, of course.” He nodded to Venser.
He noticed both Karn and Jhoira were watching him intently. Did they know he had removed the ambulator’s powerstones? Were they signaling him to keep them hidden?
“By all means,” Venser said. “I’ll show you how to operate it. Oh, and there’s the control rig to put on, that’s very important.” He glanced back and saw relief in Jhoira’s expression. Relief and amusement that Venser had instantly sought to saddle Teferi with the rig that he himself hated to wear.
“Thank you,” she mouthed.
Venser nodded. “Right this way, Teferi.” He
felt light and exhilarated. He had not forgotten the sacrifices of Freyalise and Windgrace, could not and would never, but this was many of his lifelong dreams combined. To learn from a master, to see the universe, to do the right thing even though he was afraid. The fact that doing so made Jhoira smile was an unexpected bonus.
He put the rig on Teferi’s shoulders, seated him in the chair, and ran through the ambulator’s basic operation. He stepped off the dais and let Teferi sit anxiously for a few minutes before he confirmed Jhoira’s diagnosis. Something was missing or broken from the ambulator, and it would take time to find and more to fix.
Teferi responded as Venser knew he would. “Time is something we don’t have to spare,” he said.
Venser nodded, the look on Jhoira’s face behind Teferi filling him with warmth and purpose. Teferi asked him for a slate and some chalk to lay out his thoughts, and Venser provided them. Karn lumbered off behind the workshop and stood as still as the statue he appeared to be, strange lights flickering behind his warm, black eyes. Left more or less to themselves, Jhoira came to him, and they walked to the edge of the marsh.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Between you and me, I would rather have you for company than Teferi anyway.”
“Teferi and I should stay behind,” Jhoira said. “We need to talk.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Of course. Worry about him, though. He’s not going to like what I have to say.”
Venser let his thoughts wander for a moment. “Will this work?” he said.
“I think so. For better and for worse, Teferi’s more like his old self. He’s got his shortcomings, but he’s also brilliant. No one understands time better than he, except maybe Karn, and that’s a maybe. We’ve never combined his insight and Karn’s power in the past, but it’s a natural pairing. I expect grand results.”
“What about you? What will you do?”
“I’m already looking forward to our next challenges. There are still rifts to close, and I don’t know any more planeswalkers on whom to call. If you and Karn succeed, the whole situation could change all over again. Maybe you’ll create some new opportunities that we can pursue.”
“Jhoira?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
She laughed and waved her hand dismissively. “For what?”
“For everything. For helping me cope and spurring me on. For being refreshingly straightforward…though I do wish you had mentioned the extra bits you built into the ambulator.”
“I am sorry about that. I was looking for a reason to tell you rather than not to tell you. One never came up.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “The ageless part too. You might have mentioned that. I spent the first few weeks thinking you were an especially precocious and driven young girl.”
Jhoira laughed, a light, honest sound that made Venser smile. “Who says I’m not?” she said. She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. “Stay close to Karn,” she said. “Do what he tells you. If he says run, don’t ask why, just run.”
“I promise.”
Back at the workshop door, Teferi emerged with a slate full of small, cramped notes. He scanned the marsh and waved excitedly when he saw them.
“I think Teferi’s ready,” Venser said.
Jhoira nodded. “Are you?”
He looked into her endlessly fascinating eyes and nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Then it’s time to go.”
Teferi assembled them outside Venser’s workshop and went into full-blown lecture. Back in Shiv, Jhoira had told him Teferi apprenticed with a famous Jamuraan storyteller named Hakim, and it was clear Teferi had worked hard to hone his oratorical skills.
“As usual,” Teferi said, “we start with Urza. Some of us have intimate knowledge of his time travel experiment, though no one has ever been able to repeat it. I think I know why—and it’s not simply because Urza was mad.
“Urza’s mistake was the same one he always made: he over-thought and overprepared. He made his machine entirely too vast and complicated, mostly to deal with any number of unexpected occurrences. But the more working parts a machine has, the more likely something will go wrong. Would you agree, Venser?”
“To a point.”
“Absolutely. So I have gone in just the opposite direction. There is no machine. There isn’t even a spell. Karn has traveled through time, and he has the power to do it again. He will serve as both vessel and pilot. His own inherent strength, guided by his mind, is all that he needs.
“We’ll leave the future aside for now, as we’re heading into the past, but in both cases the mind is the key. Thoughts and memories are not constrained by time. I can recall experiences and emotions from a thousand years ago and see them as clearly as the day they happened. All of us remember our most hated enemies and our most beloved friends, and those memories don’t create the memory of emotion but new emotion, raw and fresh and powerful.
“Planeswalkers are nothing more than minds and magic. Minds are thoughts and memories and emotions. Magic makes them real. Once I made a work space for Jhoira by combining her ideas with my magic to create a physical form. Karn must use his memories and his magic to create motion, a direction and the impetus to travel in that direction. You must meditate, old friend. Isolate and organize those thoughts that will lead you back to Tolaria, back to the era of the Invasion. Focus on each successively older memory in turn. Use them as stepping-stones. Keep your progress slow and deliberate, at least at first. Start with what happened this morning, then move on to last night, yesterday noon, then yesterday morning. Treat each memory as a link in a chain and pull yourself along that chain. When you reach the link that is Tolaria at the moment Barrin cast his spell, make one more link, take one last step. The rift will be there and so will you. You can seal it then and there. Afterward, all you have to do is let yourself go and the time stream will bring you back to where you should be.”
Venser waited until he was sure Teferi had finished, then said, “This all sounds very esoteric to me.”
“That’s because you’re so practical-minded. You’re accustomed to measurable goals and reproducible results. Trust me that trial and error will not work this time. Karn knows where to go. He simply has to let himself follow the most reliable path back across his own memories.”
Venser shrugged. “I still don’t get it.”
“But I do.” Karn strode forward, his massive arms swinging at his sides. “I’d like to begin now.”
Teferi bowed. “I am finished.”
Karn extended his large, square hand to Venser. “With your permission,” he said, “I will start us off.”
Venser reached out but pulled his hand back before Karn could clasp it. “You’re sure I’ll survive in the Blind Eternities?”
“I am.”
“Because there was an impostor there last time I went. He wore your face and tried to get me out of the ambulator. I think he was trying to kill me.”
“If the Blind Eternities were a danger to you, you’d be dead now. The essential nature of planeswalking dictates that the ’walker go through the void on his way from here to there. If it were capable of killing you, you would have arrived dead the first time you ’walked.” Karn turned to Jhoira. “Did he arrive dead?”
“Hardly,” she said.
“There you have it. If they could have harmed you at all, the Eternities would have certainly finished you off then. There are extreme stresses and primal forces that destroy anything and anyone who feels them. You’ve never felt them. You are entirely safe.” He stretched his long arm out. “Trust me,” he said.
Venser puffed out his cheeks as he blew air through his lips. He took Karn’s hand.
“Now,” the silver golem said, “we go.”
* * *
—
Karn brought Venser to the edge of the void, where they both became solid. The young man actually held his breath for as long as he could befo
re he finally relaxed. Eyes full of wonder, Venser said, “I’m alive.”
“And so you shall stay. I will ask you to wait here and not ’walk farther. Distance and location mean nothing here, but it will be easiest for us to find each other if you stay put and I stay in contact.” The golem’s thick, square lips pressed together. Is this comfortable?
“Tolerable,” Venser said. “Wait. Should I have said that out loud?”
It doesn’t matter. What matters is you can hear my thoughts and I, yours. I shall move away from you now so that you do not get swept along with me when I go. Stay alert, my young friend. You are in no danger, and this is going to be extremely interesting.
“Good luck, Karn.”
Thank you, Venser. Karn drifted out into the larger expanse of emptiness and color, his hands open at his sides.
Teferi had advised him to start small, with the freshest memory he had. Karn had not said so in front of the others so as not to embarrass Jhoira, but he had already chosen the milestones that would carry him back to Tolaria. If he was forging links in a metaphorical chain, each and every one would be inscribed with her name.
Karn pictured his dear friend’s face at the moment she watched him leave Urborg, not moments ago. She seemed sad, even angry, and he did not like to see her so. He thought back to when he first arrived outside Venser’s workshop to find Jhoira on the ambulator. The momentary spark of joy she showed when she recognized him was familiar and comforting, but it didn’t last long. She was wise to suspect him of being the Weaver King in disguise, a small crime for which Karn would never forgive the mind raider.
Farther back now, to the strangely metallic sound of Jhoira’s voice being broadcast through the ambulator. It was not her voice, not even really words, but Karn heard the coded signal and recognized his oldest friend. A machine himself, he found it an easy matter to translate and configure the piercing sonic waves into actual words that could have come from Jhoira’s mouth. “Karn. Please come at once. Catastrophe brewing. Follow the sound of my voice.”
Planar Chaos Page 27