Agents of Artifice: A Planeswalker Novel

by Ari Marmell

  “Look,” Kallist began, “I’m not saying you’d need to work in a place like this or anything, but—”

  “Oh, for the love of … Kallist, give it a rest!”

  “I don’t think so, Jace. It may be your gold, but it’s our lives, damn it! This isn’t only about you. We need—”

  “What we need, Kallist,” Jace said seriously, “is to make a few more urgent decisions.”

  Kallist opened his mouth, closed it as the barmaid brought their drinks, and then began again. “Such as?”

  “Such as who we are.”

  “I don’t—Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kallist frowned. “Well, I’ve never been on the run from anyone like this before. Are pseudonyms necessary?”

  Jace pondered, taking a large sip of wine. “I’ve used them a lot,” he said, working it through his mind as he spoke. “In fact, I’ve already got a name set up here, with my various accounts. Darrim.”

  Kallist blinked. “Weren’t you Berrim back in Dravhoc?”

  “Yeah. I find it easier to remember them all if they’re not too dissimilar.”

  He continued to deliberate; Kallist continued to let him.

  “Yeah,” Jace said finally. “It’s a good idea, at that. It’s probably unnecessary—I don’t think anyone from the Consortium is likely to happen to pass through, and happen to overhear someone speaking our names. And anyone who knows enough to be actively looking for us here in Lurias is someone who’s not going to be fooled by fake names anyway. But still—”

  “You,” said a voice from just beyond the booth’s wall, “would be Jace Beleren and Kallist Rhoka, right?”

  For a split second, the two of them gawped at each other, and all Jace could think to say was, “See?”

  Both turned, prepared to lunge from the booth. Kallist’s hand had dropped to the hilt of his broadsword, Jace’s lips were already moving in the first stages of a spell.

  “Oh, stop it. If I wanted to fight, I’d have set your booth on fire from behind.” The woman who stepped into sight was taller than average, slender, with midnight-black hair and eyes deeper than the Blind Eternities. She wore a burgundy vest and a pearl-hued gown, and her hands were ever so slightly raised, perhaps to show that they were empty.

  “How the hell do you know who—” Jace began, only to snap his lips shut as Kallist rose, shoulders clearly tensed to draw his blade.

  “I know you,” he snapped at her. She raised an eyebrow.

  “That makes one of us,” Jace muttered irritably.

  “I’m sorry.” The woman turned, seemingly unconcerned with the jumpy swordsman at her side. “My name is Liliana.”

  “Jace,” Jace said reflexively. Then, a bit embarrassed, “But, uh, you already knew that.”

  “That would be Liliana Vess, Jace,” Kallist hissed at him.

  The young mage’s jaw clenched.

  Liliana rolled her eyes, flopped down in the booth next to him, and polished off the wine remaining in his goblet.

  Jace looked at Kallist, who seemed as much at a loss as he was.

  “How did you find us so quickly?” Kallist demanded.

  “It wasn’t hard. There are only so many tables in here, so I just checked each one.”

  “Don’t play games! I—”

  “You,” Liliana interrupted, “are assuming, because I’ve done a few odd jobs for the Consortium here and there, that I must be working for them now and looking for you.”

  “It’d be a remarkable coincidence if you weren’t,” Jace told her.

  “It might be,” she admitted, “if you hadn’t come to Lurias.”

  “Huh?” Jace and Kallist asked at once.

  Liliana sighed and waved over one of the barmaids. “I’m going to need more wine. I’m here for the same reason you are, Jace Beleren. Because it’s as far as I could reasonably get from the Consortium without abandoning Ravnica entirely.”

  “You’re hiding?”

  Liliana looked at Kallist. “He’s a quick one, isn’t he?”

  Jace scowled. “Then how did you know we weren’t here after you?”

  The newcomer threw her head back and laughed, a musical sound that somehow put Jace at ease even though he knew he was being mocked. “I still have my sources, Jace. I think everyone who works for, freelances for, or has even heard of the Infinite Consortium knows that Tezzeret’s offering a sack of gold the size of a kraken for your head. Hell, I could probably get back in good with them by turning you over.

  “Not,” she added at the sudden glint in their eyes, “that I’d do that.” Appearing slightly nervous for the first time, she downed a generous gulp of wine.

  “I don’t buy it, Jace,” Kallist said, oblivious that his hovering around the booth with a hand on his hilt was beginning to draw stares. “It’s far too convenient. Ravnica’s a big world, and this isn’t exactly the only district to hide in.”

  Liliana leaned in close to Jace. “It’s true, I could have chosen other neighborhoods, some more comfortable. But have you tasted the mana here? There are other districts built on marshland, but frankly they’re even uglier than this one.”

  Jace nodded slowly. Just as he’d sought out the fresh-waters of the coastline, she could easily be here for the swamps beneath the rest of Lurias. But still … “It’s not that small a district,” he protested. “It still seems pretty unlikely.”

  “It is,” she admitted. “Look, I didn’t come to Lurias looking for you; I was already here. But I did seek you out when I learned you were here, too. Oh!” she added, as the pair of them went pale, “don’t worry. The dead told me; they sensed your power. But there’s not another necromancer in the Consortium with the power to command ghosts that strong. Not on Ravnica, anyway. You’re safe.”

  “Until you turn us over,” Kallist hissed.

  Liliana sighed. “I sought you out because we have a common problem, and I thought we’d be safer watching each others’ backs. That’s all.”

  “If you know me,” Jace said carefully, deliberately, “then you know there’s an easy way to prove what you say.”

  “Jace …” Kallist began, but an upraised hand silenced him.

  Liliana blanched but nodded. “I’ve no interest in fighting you. Too much attention. It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “All right. Do it.”

  A moment of intense concentration, and Jace was inside the mind of Liliana Vess. For a moment, he felt the urge to turn away from the intensity. This was a powerful mind, one of the most potent he’d been in since Alhammarret’s own, and a confusing one. A love of life but a fascination with death, contentment mixed with ambition; a passion easily ignited, for good or ill.

  Stranger still, though, was what lay beyond—the foundation of Liliana’s mind. It had … No words existed to match precisely—a texture? A flavor? A contour? Something about the feel of her mind was different, unlike any Jace had touched before.

  But then, Jace had never delved so deeply into the mind of another planeswalker. And whatever the case, Jace sensed no deception in Liliana’s mind—not about the topic at hand, at any rate—nor any hostility toward him or Kallist. He considered delving further, to learn why she was hiding from the Consortium or to unearth some secret that he might use if necessary, but he refrained. He feared she might sense if he took too long in her mind, and the last thing they needed was another enemy.

  Slowly, Jace opened his eyes. Liliana blinked once, then shook her head.

  “Was it good for you?” she asked with a grin. Then, as Jace fumbled for an answer, she rose. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. It’ll be nice to talk to someone about something other than fishing and how far the swamp’s expanded this year. I’m quite certain I’ll be seeing you both around.”

  And just like that, she vanished into the crowd, with two separate stares—one flummoxed, one suspicious still—trailing in her wake.

  Good morning, Kallist. Or have you decided on a ne
w name yet?”

  Kallist spun, hand dropping to his sword, before he recognized the form behind him as Liliana’s. The sun was still low in the east, casting a cobweb of shadows over the breadth of Lurias, and the air smelled more of dew than of the baked cobblestones and packed throngs that would come later. The streets were largely clear, so soon after dawn, but filling swiftly as humans, elves, viashino, and others set about their daily labors—or perhaps to grab a plate of breakfast prior to said labors.

  “Morning,” he said gruffly as she fell into step beside him. Then, reluctantly, “Ah, Jace told me that we should trust you.”

  “But you don’t.” It wasn’t a question.

  Kallist shrugged. “Well, I’m not about to stab you on principle anymore. But Jace—Jace is a weird one. He uses people he should trust, trusts people he should avoid, and avoids people he could use. So no. No, I don’t trust you yet.”

  Liliana smiled softly. “You’re wiser than he is.” The expression faded. “I’ve heard a lot about you two. Less in recent days, obviously, but … He’s dangerous, isn’t he?”

  “Very,” Kallist nodded. “And not just to his enemies,” he added with more than a touch of bitterness.

  With surprising gentleness, she placed a hand on Kallist’s forearm. “It was kind of you to take him under your wing the way you did. I don’t think a lot of people would have.”

  Kallist shrugged once more.

  “You two weren’t …?” She let the question dangle.

  “Lovers?” Kallist laughed. “Uh, no. We were friends, partners, maybe even brothers. Nothing more.”

  “Were?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Are. I said ‘are.’”

  “You said ‘were.’”

  “I meant ‘are.’”

  “Of course,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “Try the marketplace if you’re looking for work. A lot of the merchants are hiring private guards. Best of luck!”

  Kallist watched her as she turned and walked away, wondering what he should be thinking. His arm continued to tingle where she’d touched it.

  When they ran into each other again that evening—or when she sought him out, he wasn’t certain which—Liliana had suggested they stop for a bite to eat. Kallist, frustrated by his day, agreed. They sat in an open-air cafe that was little more than a few round tables with parasols, and a shack from which you could order anything at all, as long as it was some variety of bread and either fish or reptile.

  But then, they weren’t here for the food. Nobody was. Located near one of the few stretches of coastline not already built over, the patio faced squarely west. From here, each evening, a few dozen of the district’s citizens gathered to watch the gold-and-azure gleaming of the setting sun glinting off the waters and shooting like arrows between the taller structures nearby.

  Kallist tried to appreciate it, thank Liliana for showing it to him, but his heart wasn’t in it. The third time she caught him stirring his fishy stew and grumbling under his breath, Liliana actually stamped her foot.

  “Spit it out,” she insisted, “before you choke on it. This wretched stew’s hard enough to swallow on its own.”

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” he told her.

  “And we are? You think I like living here? You think he does?”

  “It’s all very well for the two of you,” Kallist snapped. “You can walk between whole bloody worlds! You don’t like your life? Hey, go find another one.”

  “If you truly think it’s that simple,” she breathed, and suddenly her voice could have frozen the nearby sea itself, “you’re the biggest fool I’ve met on any world.”

  “All right, maybe,” he replied, moderating his own tone somewhat. “But my point is you’re used to being uprooted, to seeing everything you know fall behind you. I was supposed to be with the Consortium for the rest of my life! I liked it there! And then Jace …” He shook his head. “He drags me into a mess deep enough to drown in and he won’t even take responsibility for helping me make the best of it. He owes me, Liliana. He owes me a life! But try getting him to see it!”

  “It was my understanding,” she said, turning so that the reflected lights flickered like a lover’s touch over her face and hair, “that he brought you along because he was trying to do the right thing.”

  “The right thing.” Kallist scoffed. “We were assassins, Liliana. Since when did that matter? But yeah, Jace has gotten really big on doing the right thing—for Jace. If he stopped to give two seconds’ thought as to whether it was the right thing for anyone else, well, that’d be two seconds more than he’s ever done before.”

  Smiling, Liliana put a hand on his. Kallist couldn’t begin to decide if it was just a friendly gesture or something more. “This place isn’t that bad, Kallist,” she told him seriously. “If you give it some time, I think you’ll find—”

  She stopped, her gaze suddenly rising over Kallist’s shoulder and out into the street. “Ja—ah, Darrim!” she called to the newcomer, who had been making his way toward the same patio, then slowed his pace as he saw who was waiting there. “Come join us!”

  “Liliana,” he greeted her with a smile, sliding between the neighboring tables. “I was just looking for you. It’s a fantastic view, isn’t it? I’m sorry I missed most of it.” He pulled up a chair and glanced to his right, his smile fading like the last of the daylight. “Hello, Kallist,” he said more quietly, to be certain he wasn’t overheard.

  “Jace. Or Darrim, if you’d like. We were just talking about you.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  Despite Liliana’s best efforts, the conversation ended soon after.

  Jace pushed open the door of the restaurant where he and Kallist had first encountered Liliana, and to which he’d returned—usually alone—a dozen times since.

  He’d learned more about it, in the weeks since their arrival, so that it was no longer just “that building with the faded sign.” The tavern was owned by one Eshton, a man of some local celebrity, and boasted the astoundingly imaginative name of “Eshton’s Tavern.” Thankfully, Eshton brewed beers, ground sausages, and baked dumplings with far greater skill than he named businesses, and the place was well known and well loved as an establishment where one could get a meal and a drink in relative privacy, for only a very slightly unreasonable fee.

  This time, once he’d allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim light within, Jace saw an opportunity to turn the tables. He swept across the room, waving to one or two of the other regulars, and dropped suddenly into the booth where Liliana was halfheartedly picking at something that could have been páté. Her yelp as he suddenly appeared beside her was almost cute.

  “Turnabout,” he said to her, taking a scoop of the páté and then wrinkling his nose at the taste, “is fair play.”

  “Oh, Jace, Jace, Jace,” she cooed at him. “You have no idea how many games I know.”

  Jace winced. “I really wish you’d call me Darrim when we’re in public.”

  “And you’re being silly. Nobody’s listening to us. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” he told her. “We haven’t really had a lot of time to talk.”

  “Haven’t we?” she asked archly.

  “Well … Not alone,” he amended.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she told him with a mischievous smile. “Right now, this so-called ‘food’ is enough to horn in on any conversation. Word to the wise? The sausa ge, the steaks, and the dumplings here are excellent. You should probably avoid anything else.”

  “Got it.”

  “You go get me something that’s actually, say, edible, and I’ll be happy to sit and talk with you.”

  “Yes, m’lady,” he told her.

  “Don’t get sassy. That’s my job.”

  Jace grinned and headed to the bar.

  Liliana watched him go, a thoughtful look in her eyes, and stretched languidly back in her chair. For a few moments she listened to the ambient noise of the resta
urant, the clink of glasses and platters, the dull hum of a dozen different unimportant conversations. And she glanced up as a shadow fell over the table, surprised that Jace was back so soon—and couldn’t help but roll her eyes heavenward when she saw it wasn’t Jace at all.

  It was an unfortunate fact of life, one she’d learned long ago, that in any tavern, any restaurant, any party—sometimes even in temple services!—there was always at least one man convinced that any halfway attractive woman couldn’t live without his attentions. Lots of people assumed such things occurred only rarely; these people weren’t the women in question. Was it something to do with the powers she commanded? Some unconscious death wish, or an attraction deep in the soul to one who had touched the spirits of so many others? Or was she seeking meaning where there was none, and it really was just a combination of poor upbringing and unabashed lust?

  In any event, Liliana looked up at the fellow standing over the table, leering down at her, and wanted none of it. Though at least this one kept his red beard decently trimmed, had all his teeth, and was clad in a clean outfit (in the usual garish hues of those who wanted to seem richer than they were)—unlike some of the others who’d sought to abuse her hospitality in the past.

  “Now what’s a beautiful—” was all he got out before Liliana deliberately yawned in his face and turned away.

  “Just a goddamn minute!” the fellow snarled, reaching across the table. “You’re at least gonna do me the courtesy of listening to what I’ve got to …” And again he stopped, his hand mere inches from her wrist. Liliana looked back, startled despite herself to see the fellow suddenly straighten up and clear his throat.

  “Well, this is awkward,” he said, and though his voice was the same, his tone, his inflection, were those of another man entirely. “I mean, here you are trying to enjoy your lunch, and I have to barge over and ruin it for you. I really must apologize.”

  She stared, utterly bewildered.

  “It’s got to be particularly awkward for your friend,” he continued. “I mean, he doesn’t know you very well. Would you want him to stay out of it, trusting you to handle it? Or to leap in and beat the crap out of me, even though I’ve got about fifty pounds on him? He’s got to be frantic, trying to figure out the right choice.”