by Ari Marmell
“Jace!” Paldor said standing behind his desk as the door to his office burst open. “You’re supposed to be—”
Jace whispered a sound that was not a word. Paldor staggered a single step and fell senseless to the floor by his chair.
“Dead?” Kallist asked softly.
“No. Not even unconscious in the most technical sense. But it’ll be hours before he can form a sentient thought again.”
“And what would we have done if Tezzeret had been here?”
Jace shrugged once, moving toward the leftmost wall. “Died, I imagine.” He took a long moment to examine the æther-filled contraption hanging from the wall. Then, “Lock the door. You get started on the window while I deal with this.”
Carefully, examining each tube, every knot-like twist, Jace began to construct an illusory duplicate of the device whose destruction could call Tezzeret to Ravnica. And then, just as carefully, he began to shatter that illusion, while cloaking the real device in an image of blank wall.
He had no idea how long the image might last once he was gone—he’d rarely tried to maintain such an illusion from a distance—but every moment of delay was a moment they could run that much farther. With Paldor down and Tezzeret unreachable, the ensuing confusion might buy the fugitives extra hours, possibly even days.
Kallist worked diligently at the massive window that occupied one wall of the room, attempting to provide them an unguarded exit. He knew well that the magically augmented glass would never shatter, so instead he struggled to pry it loose from its moorings, even going so far as to jam the tip of his broadsword into the top of the frame, wiggling it as a makeshift pry-bar. And if he occasionally envisioned Jace’s face when he slammed the blade home into the wood, if the clench of his jaw was as much resentment as it was exertion, well, it didn’t distract him from his endeavors.
It took them half an hour—a half-hour they really couldn’t spare, but would be worth it if it bought them more time to run—but finally Jace was content with the broken image he’d made of the device, finally the window slid from the wall to strike the carpet with a muffled thud. The warm, sweat- and dirt-flavored air of the slowly recovering Rubblefield wafted into the office, tousling hair and sleeves and Jace’s cloak.
“So what now?” Kallist asked gruffly. “You going to fly us out of here?”
“Actually,” Jace began, “that’s exactly what—”
The door to the office slammed open, the wood splintering as the heavy bolt was torn aside. Baltrice stood framed in the open doorway, fire dancing across her fingertips, something long and scaly writhing through the cloud of smoke that filled the hall behind her.
Jace cursed, even as he spun toward her, hands raised. Damn it all, he hadn’t even known she was on Ravnica! What was she doing here now? He could probably take her—almost certainly could, if Kallist was willing to help—but could he do it fast enough? Could he do it before the guards arrived, or with sufficient strength remaining to make his escape?
She took one step forward, a second, and then, with a bitter curse, dropped her hands to her sides. “Get out of here, Beleren!”
For an instant, Jace couldn’t move. He couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d announced that she was having his baby. “What?”
“For Kamigawa,” she snarled. “We’re even now, Beleren, your life for mine. If you’re stupid enough to let me catch you after this, I will kill you, and I’ll enjoy every minute of it!”
Still thunderstruck, Jace nonetheless turned toward the window. He’d have time to be flabbergasted later, damn it! Sporadic flashes of azure light whipped about him, carried by a wind that gusted up from the floor in time to his steps as he moved toward Kallist and the open window. Pure telekinetic force lifted them high, spreading forth from Jace like invisible wings. And then they were gone, speeding off into Ravnica’s darkened skies, already beginning to descend beyond the nearest buildings as Jace’s strength quickly burned out.
And behind them, in the office now open to the night air, Baltrice grinned broadly. Let him go; they’d find him, sooner or later. But even if they didn’t, it hardly mattered now. Jace Beleren was, at least to her, to the position and the power she’d worked so long to achieve, no longer a threat.
She almost found herself whistling as she turned and strode from Paldor’s office, not even bothering to check on the fellow who lay, staring at nothing, behind his desk.
They’d spoken little after that, during the many days of their journey. Kallist had brooded nearly the whole way, his every expression and monosyllabic grunt discouraging all attempts at conversation. They passed through a dozen districts via wide open streets and underground passages so cramped they had to crawl on hands and knees, atop bridges so high that clouds passed beneath them, blocking all view of the ground, and alongside buildings so massive that even their shadows pressed down with the weight of years. And ever so gradually, they felt the first easing of the tension they carried between them like a wounded companion, as the territories of the Infinite Consortium fell ever farther behind them.
Eventually, their route took them to the banks of one of Ravnica’s great rivers, and the streets that ran beside its coursing waters. For many days more they followed it downstream, until the breezes turned cooler and the tang of saltwater spread before them, the whispering voice of a sea that was now partly buried beneath the great city’s unstoppable sprawl.
And finally, as they neared their destination, Kallist had begun to open up again. “Why Lurias?” he’d asked Jace one morning. “I’ve never even heard of the district before now.”
“That’s partly why,” Jace had answered. “And because my friend Rulan—did I ever tell you about Rulan? Well, he’s … Let’s say he’d have made a great Orzhov, except that he’s not a completely soulless bastard. He’s got a lot of contacts with moneylenders and banking guilds. And Lurias is one of the smaller districts where he helped establish one of the accounts I’ve been feeding with everything the Consortium paid me. We’ll have funds enough here—for a good while, if we’re careful.”
“Sounds positively fantastic,” Kallist muttered.
There was more to it, of course, but Kallist—even with the limited magic Jace had managed to teach him—would pick up on that soon enough.
Built on the delta of this nameless river, buildings not nearly as tall or grand as those of Dravhoc lined the lengths of streets not nearly as wide. The arches were modest, the rare spires made of simple stone or brass rather than crystal. It wasn’t a poor district by any objective measurement, but it was certainly far less than Kallist or Jace were accustomed to.
Of potentially greater import, however, was the world beneath those humble streets. Most of the delta was soggy, shallow marsh—which was itself responsible for Lurias’s poor foundations and irritating insect population. But at the district’s far end and along the banks of the river, the waters rushing into the buried sea were clean and clear. Those neighborhoods were built not atop swampy knolls but on tiny islets, and it was there—there amid the saltwater and its rich mana—that Jace hoped to make his home.
The first halfway acceptable option they found was a fourth-story flat, decently sized for the price, albeit in need of a fierce cleaning. It boasted three rooms, a number of tiny windows, and walls a hue so drab that it couldn’t even muster up the enthusiasm to qualify as gray. Jace negotiated the landlord down to a rent that wouldn’t eat through his reserves too quickly—without using any magic, thank you very much—and then he and Kallist ensconced themselves within like it was a fortress. Jace ventured out only under cover of an illusory disguise, acquiring what supplies they considered absolutely vital. They didn’t want to show themselves on the streets until they were certain the Consortium hadn’t somehow followed them here.
So Jace gathered foodstuffs; a few bits of cheap furniture to suffice until they could acquire better; and new clothes, since nothing either of them owned was of sufficiently low quality to blend in with the other citizens of Luria
s. Jace chose the garish bright hues of the middle classes—mostly in blues, of course—while Kallist instead adopted the drab and colorless garb of the lower.
And then there was nothing to do but wait and talk. For days.
“… isn’t going to work,” Kallist was insisting one morning, over a breakfast of cold eggs, warm juice, and cheap meat. “I’m not prepared to live like this, Jace. Not indefinitely.”
“You think I am?” the other replied around a mouthful of egg. “It’s just for a little while, until it’s safe to find someplace a little more … more …” he floundered, shrugging.
“More like a home, and less like a refuse pit?” Kallist finished bitterly.
“Something like that.”
“And how,” Kallist continued, getting up from the table, “do we plan to afford said palace?”
Jace could only roll his eyes and pour himself another glass. It was an argument they’d had at least five times over the past two days, and he was already well and truly sick of it.
“I told you,” he began, in the tone of a man who doesn’t expect to be listened to this time, either. “I’m a mage. I’ll tote crates or stand at a vendor’s stall when my other choice is starving, but not a moment before. My savings—”
“Aren’t going to last nearly as long as you think, damn it. Even if you do stay in ratholes like this, which I, for one, have no intention of.”
“Oh, so you’re making plans for my gold now?” Jace challenged.
“Since I seem to have lost the means by which I was making my own, yes, I think so.”
For long moments, they glared at one another over the table.
“Jace,” Kallist said finally, voice much calmer, “why are you fighting me on this? We both know that you’d have no problem making money—without ‘lowering yourself’ to menial labor.”
“In a district like this? I don’t think so.”
“Not everyone here is poor. There are more than a few merchants, bankers, and politicians who could spare a few gold coins in exchange for their secrets staying secret.”
Jace found himself staring intently at the fruit juice—he didn’t even know what kind, he realized, and he’d already drunk a glass and a half—in his hand. “That’s, uh, not exactly the best way to lie low, you know,” he hedged.
“You’re an illusionist,” Kallist deadpanned. “I’m sure if you try really hard, you can think of some way to keep your identity secret.”
“Any major use of magic like that risks drawing attention, Kallist.” But the twitch in Jace’s voice told the both of them it wasn’t his only concern.
Silence again, for a couple of minutes. Jace actually squirmed in his seat, knowing how well his answer was going to go over. “I can’t,” he said finally, slowly, raising his gaze to meet Kallist’s own. “Kallist, I … I can’t go back to being what I was before the Consortium. If I do, everything I went through with Tezzeret was meaningless, and I can’t accept that. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Kallist’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged. Jace, who had more than once seen his friend’s expression just before driving his broadsword into someone’s torso, felt a sudden urge to back away from the table.
And then he lunged, not at Jace, but at the old used overcoat they’d purchased for him, hanging on an equally old, equally used coat rack. Without so much as a word, he was at the door.
“Have you decided it’s safe to be out and about on the streets?” Jace asked him.
“A lot safer for you than if I stayed here,” Kallist barked. The slam of the door cut off any retort Jace might have chosen to make.
At the terminus of a long hallway that led literally nowhere, a sheet of fire appeared from the æther. Though blindingly bright it emitted no heat, for it didn’t exist entirely within the bounds of any particular plane. It parted in the center, a curtain drawn back on the stage of reality, and Baltrice stepped through from the Blind Eternities. She was striding down the long passage before the flames had fully faded, her boots echoing on the floor.
Every surface here was metallic and cold, every angle severe. Through windows of mesh, she saw humanoid servants and clockwork golems tending to cables as thick as oaks, pulleys strong enough to heft an elephant, creaking brass platforms the size of cottages. The halls echoed with the constant sounds of movement, the hum of machinery, the crackle of magic, the tromping feet of guards. Doors rotated in and out of existence; entire rooms rose and fell, giant elevators that provided access to a number of levels.
There were no signs, no hints of how one might find one’s way around. Here, in the cold mechanical heart of the Infinite Consortium, those who belonged knew where they were going—and those who did not had far greater worries than becoming lost.
Baltrice knew where she was going. This hall, that staircase, this catwalk above a seemingly bottomless pit of machinery, that elevator that shuddered slightly as it moved not merely up but sideways, rotating as it went … And there she was, staring down a long hallway at a deceptively mundane door.
Standing before it was a figure clad entirely in armor of brass plates, covered with ornate etchings and fluting. Even Baltrice, arguably the master’s closest associate, had never learned if this were some humanoid garbed in plate, a mystic construct in vaguely human form, or—just possibly—a simple decorative sculpture. She knew only that it stood outside Tezzeret’s door, day and night, leaning slightly on an impossibly broad-bladed sword that no normal man could have lifted, let alone wielded.
The door slid open at her approach, rising into the ceiling with a series of clicks and clanks, and she stood at last within Tezzeret’s inner sanctum.
The room was perfectly circular, its center occupied by a metallic ring-shaped desk. Its surface sprouted a vast array of glass rods and imbedded stones, all pulsing with mana, all controlling who-knew-what. A thick metal pylon rose from the hollow at the heart of the metal ring. This, she knew, was the support for Tezzeret’s chair. She looked up, past four separate levels of additional controls and pipes and iron frames, to the chair’s uppermost height. There, she could just make out a dark form seated in the ugly contraption, inhaling the mana-infused steam that flowed from the highest tubes. Even from here, she could see his entire body shudder in ecstasy at the touch of the vapors—all except the etherium hand clenched on the arm of the chair, which somehow remained still even as the shoulder and torso above it quivered like an angry serpent.
Patiently, though patience was not normally among her virtues, Baltrice waited. Eventually the flow of steam subsided, a single hiss fading from the symphony of sounds that permeated the chamber. A second, louder susurrus swiftly took its place, as the pylon began to rotate, the chair to descend—and in mere moments, Tezzeret sat before her, ensconced in his mechanical throne, a god who had deigned to descend from his clockwork heaven. His hair lay plastered to his forehead and cheeks by the lingering condensation.
“Welcome back,” he told her, slicking back his hair with his left hand. “I believe the Infinity Globes are almost perfected. Just a few more tweaks, and I should never again have to worry about being trapped like Bolas’s barbarians almost …” He stopped cold at her expression. “You bring bad news.” It was not a question.
Baltrice nodded once. “Of Jace Beleren.”
Tezzeret frowned. “Did Beleren fail at his assigned task?”
Trying hard to keep all traces of gloating out of her voice, Baltrice said, “It’s a bit worse than that, boss.”
Tezzeret sat, utterly still; even his breathing seemed to have ceased. And then Baltrice heard the sound of rending metal, saw one of the desk’s levers snap off in the grip of the artificer’s etherium hand.
“What,” Tezzeret whispered softly, “has he done to me now?”
It had been a nice break from the ongoing dispute, but a break was all it was.
“… know it’s a good amount of gold,” Kallist was saying as they left the flat behind them the following afternoon. “I just don’t t
hink we should rely on it.”
Jace shrugged. “Maybe not,” he said, only somewhat paying attention. “But,” he added, looking meaningfully at the streets and buildings around them, “what we have should go an awfully long way.”
“Emphasis,” Kallist said, glaring at the squat, unimpressive buildings and thinking back to his luxurious quarters in the complex, “on the awfully.”
They moved through the crowds, struggling to fit into a community where they clearly did not. The volume was jarring, but no worse than Dravhoc’s marketplace; Jace easily tuned it out. But he found the middle-class styles garish and the drab garb of the poorer folk depressing. It wasn’t that he particularly felt superior to them (he told himself); it was just that he didn’t belong.
They had no destination in mind, only a faint desire to get to know this place that might be their home for a good long while. So when Jace, growing ever more disdainful of his surroundings and ever more irritated at Kallist’s talk of work, saw what looked to be a tavern and restaurant across the street, he made a beeline for it without so much as a word, or even taking the time to read the sign above the door. Startled, Kallist followed.
The din of the crowd faded away, replaced by—well, by a different din of a different crowd. The floorboards were painted a hideous yellow-brown, jarring until Jace realized it managed to camouflage most of the dirt customers might track inside. It boasted a bar, like any good tavern, but this one was a perfect circle in the center of the room, rather than built along one wall. A spiral staircase ran up and down from within, presumably allowing access to a wine cellar below and who-knew-what above. The common room was filled with small booths, formed by freestanding C-shaped walls cradling small tables. A hideously inefficient use of space, perhaps, but it certainly inspired a feeling of privacy. A raised stage that currently lacked any sort of performer rose along one wall, and a door beside it constantly flapped open as servers emerged with dishes from the kitchen.
Jace decided he liked the place and grabbed one of the empty tables. He and Kallist listened attentively as a barmaid recited the day’s options, ordered, and then studied each other.