“The big men with swords,” she prompted. “Did one of them wear a metal mask?”
The boy stared sightlessly at her for a while longer. Then he slowly nodded his head.
“Keldons.” The child’s voice was thick and hoarse.
“Gathans,” Radha said automatically, but the boy scarcely heard.
“They lined us all up.” His chest heaved and his slack expression began to waver as fresh sobs came. “They said, ‘don’t look.’”
“But you looked.”
The boy nodded, tears washing through the sticky sheets of red on his cheeks. “I looked.”
Radha glanced down at the other two bodies. She wondered if they died before or after the boy was blinded. “Here.” Radha crouched down and pressed one of her tear-shaped blades into the child’s hand. “Put your fingers here. And here. See how they fit? Now squeeze. Good.” She gently took his free hand and pricked his thumb with the tip of the blade. “Watch out for the sharp end. Hold it like this, inside your sleeve.”
She pulled a chunk of hard tack from her belt and pressed into the boy’s other soft, pliable hand. “That’s food. It will keep you strong until they come back.”
The boy made a panicked sound but Radha held both his hands tight. “Oh yes, they’re coming back. And when they do, wait until they’re as close as I am, until their voices are as loud as mine is now. And they will be, because they’ll want to look at you and laugh in your face.”
She stood, releasing the boy’s hands, leaving him with the blade and the rations. “When you hear that, ram the sharp end up toward the sound as hard as you can. Keep your legs beneath you, lean forward, and push.”
Radha turned and walked to the mouth of the alley without a backward glance. She smoothly turned sideways and slipped through the gap. The last thing she saw behind her was the razor-tear in the boy’s hand, glittering in the dim light as he tested its weight and feel.
She stepped onto the thoroughfare and something hard slammed into her forehead. Radha’s vision blurred and she fell back against the wall of the storage shack. The butt of a club or a farmer’s tool cracked across her jaw, this time sending her clumsily to the ground.
Three heavy bodies immediately piled on, pinning her arms and legs. She heard a man’s voice call from the alley, “Two more dead in the alley! Bright lady, there’s a little boy here, too!”
“What did you do to those people?” The woman’s voice was shrill in Radha’s ear. She pulled back on Radha’s hair and screamed again. “What did you do that child?”
Radha heaved with all her might, driving the back of her head into the raving woman’s face. She continued to arch her spine, snarling as she pulled the men holding her arms with her.
“Hold her down, you idiots!”
But Radha had already loosened one captor’s grip. She snatched her hand free of his and clamped onto his windpipe. He was a fat man and his neck was wide and rubbery. Radha’s fingers sank in as if she were digging into a loaf of uncooked bread.
They held this preposterous position for several seconds, Radha’s legs and one arm pinned to the ground, half her torso almost vertical. The settlers had her three-quarters pinned, but she was quickly choking the fat one to death with her free hand.
Radha suddenly turned and spat at the man holding her arm. Green fire flared from her lips, and though it did not burn it startled the settler into easing his grip. Radha pulled her other hand loose, twisted at the waist, and dug it into the fat man’s neck.
Using the big man as an anchor, Radha hauled herself forward, out from under the men holding her legs. Some of the people in the street shouted as she kicked free and planted her feet under her, her fingers still buried in the settler’s throat. She strained, muscles in her neck and shoulders bunching, and then Radha straight-arm lifted the fat settler over her head.
When her arms and legs were fully extended and his feet were a clear foot off the ground, Radha arched her back again toppled over backward. She flung the big man as she fell, hurling him onto the remaining settlers behind her and taking fully half of them out of the brawl in one loud, clumsy fell swoop.
A nervous-looking man with a saber jumped clear of the muddle and stepped forward. Even with a sword and a half-dozen settlers at his back he was on the verge of panic.
“What do you want?” he yelled. “Haven’t you taken enough?”
Radha sneered contemptuously at the man’s blade, not even bothering to draw her own. “I am no raider,” she said, “no Gathan thug.”
“Then why are you attacking us?”
“I didn’t. Your friends hit me with a stick and jumped on me. If I weren’t in such a hurry you’d all be dead now and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
The man swallowed hard. “But why are you here?”
“I’m hunting them. The Gathans who just came through here are prey to me.”
“What?” The swordsman looked pained. “Bright lady, why would you go looking …”
“For sport.” In the silence, Radha grinned while the settler with the sword tried to digest her point of view.
“You don’t look like one of them,” he allowed.
“She’s from the forest,” another said. “Look at her clothes.”
“I thought elves never came out of the forest.”
Radha’s face darkened. She glared into the shadows, toward the sound of that last comment. “I am a Keldon warrior,” she said.
The man with the saber relaxed. “This is some sort of joke, isn’t it? You’re a Skyshroud elf. Anyone can see that.”
A woman with a broken nose stepped forward, speaking through the bloody wad of rags she held pressed to her face. “Id dud madda wud she is. Shees dain-juss.”
By now, all of the settlers had disentangled themselves from the pile and were lined up behind the man with the sword, all together a score of them or more. The Gathans must have taken all the conscripts they wanted and left this rabble behind.
Emboldened by superior numbers, or perhaps by the fact that Radha had not harmed anyone since they started talking to her, the crowd’s mood began to change.
“She’s big for an elf.”
“Does this mean we can go into Skyshroud now?”
“I don’t trust elves.”
“I say she’s working for the raiders. She’s a scout or something.”
“Then why is she so far behind?”
“Maybe she got lost.”
“Maybe she tried to join them and they didn’t want her. She’s just a dog sniffing after the wolf pack.”
“Quiet!” The man with the saber was closest to Radha, so it was he who shouted. His warning had come too late, though, as green fire was already licking up past Radha’s eyebrows.
“Elf warrior,” he began.
“Keldon,” Radha growled. “I am Keldon.”
Before the swordsman could stop them, two voices rang out over the thoroughfare.
“Sure you are,” said the one.
“Prove it,” laughed the other.
Radha roared and threw herself at the last settler to speak, the tear-blade in her fist arcing down toward the bridge of his nose. She had also drawn a second blade and held it out to one side to cut the sword-wielding settler’s throat as she passed, but she never reached either target.
Instead, she found herself floating motionless over the thoroughfare. The entire scene had frozen, its players arranged like statues outside the narrow alley. Though she took a split second to appreciate the looks of fear and surprise on the settlers, Radha soon began to chafe at her own immobility.
I thought it was time for me to step in, Teferi’s voice said, before someone got hurt. You seemed to be having trouble assembling an effective and loyal fighting force.
Radha’s jaw would not move and her tongue was like stone. She tried to thrash her entire body from side to side, but none of her muscles would respond. Furious, she screamed at the front of her brain.
Let me go, wi
zard.
Planeswalker. I am a planeswalker, Radha, not a mere wizard.
Who cares? What’s a planeswalker?
His voice sparkled. I can show you. I can show you a lot of things, take you to a lot of places.
Radha continued to struggle against her paralysis. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I have work to do here.
Stupid girl. I’m not talking about anywhere else. I want to show you Keld.
We’re in Keld, you ass. I’ve lived here all my life.
But you’ve never been to the Necropolis nor to the mountain. You’ve never known the real fires of Keld.
Radha stopped thrashing. She spoke very slowly.
What do you know about the mountain? Or the Necropolis? Or the fires of Keld?
I know the mountain is where Keld begins, and the Necropolis is where Keldons end. That’s the Keldon way in a nutshell, isn’t it? Beginnings and endings, followed by new beginnings. Every twilight is followed by a new dawn, and so long as the fire keeps burning through the darkness and the cold, Keld will endure. Do you know the tinder spell?
Radha kept silent, once more suppressing her thoughts to keep them from the wizard. He would not take the information from her mind, but Teferi went on without her help, perfectly reciting the words of the first and oldest Keldon incantation.
Coal and tinder, hearth and spark, Keldons are fire, and Keld commands—
“Burn,” Radha cried, and a sheet of emerald flames suddenly covered her from head to toe. Her restraints vanished and she fell to the ground, her body flush with rich, raw mana.
Radha quickly bounced back to a standing position with her blades ready. The settlers had all remained frozen, shock still etched into their pale faces.
Oh, Teferi said. You do know it.
“I know it works,” Radha said, “and so do you.”
Indeed. I have studied Keld’s history, but has that spell ever worked so well for you before?
She glanced down at the stone below her. An electric thrill raced through her, as she was standing in the middle of a perfect circle of charred, smoking soot. All of the ice and snow dust had boiled away, leaving the sheer, gray rock.
It seems you are a true Keldon after all, or rather, you could be. As I knew you could.
Radha holstered her weapons. “What else do you know?”
Teferi materialized overhead, floating above the frozen settler’s heads. He was smiling warmly as he extended his hand.
“Let me show you,” he said.
Radha glared at him. She crossed her arms defiantly, but then she glanced down again at the smoking circle. Radha considered this then slowly extended her arm.
Teferi reached down and took her hand in his. The soft blue glow surrounding him crawled from his fingers to hers, and soon Radha was also covered in a sheet of liquid light.
She felt her stomach drop as she and the wizard rocketed up into the evening sky, the frozen villagers and their ramshackle dwellings shrinking to a pinpoint before Radha’s eyes as she soared into the dusky sky on the wings of a wizard’s magic.
Teferi suspected Radha had been outside of Skyshroud valley before, but he was certain she had never seen her homeland like this. They were looking down from a thousand feet over the tallest mountain in Keld. The pale fields of rock and snow-covered ridges all reflected the fading daylight, giving Teferi and Radha a clear view of Keld’s southern half.
The badly worn mountains with their shattered caldera tops amazed Radha, but she kept her voice and her thoughts to herself as they soared, connected to each other by an envelope of glittering blue energy.
“Behold the embers of Keld,” Teferi said. “The forces that fueled the covenant between Keld and your ancestors have faded. They are spent but not gone. Not forever. They may yet slumber deep below the roots of the mountain.”
Radha continued to look but did not reply. She maintained the same intense, slightly displeased expression.
“Are those people down there?”
Far below, Radha had singled out one of the larger caldera bowls. From their vantage point Teferi could see small stone structures carved into the walls of the caldera and the natural shelves of rock that had been built up and shaped into dwelling places. Buildings dotted the upper third of the caldera’s interior, with one larger longhouse overlooking the rim. The Keldon elf had spotted a dozen or more tiny figures moving among the buildings.
“Yes,” Teferi said. “Would you like to see them up close?”
“Not particularly,” Radha said. “I’d rather see the Necropolis.”
Teferi was tempted to probe Radha’s thoughts, which were clearly buzzing inside her head like a swarm of bees. He decided against it and simply said, “Of course.”
The climbed higher, frigid air splaying harmlessly off the blue barrier around them. Onward they flew, north towards the center of Keld, until the broad, imposing base of the Necropolis swung into view on the western horizon.
The Keldon Necropolis was a massive mausoleum-fortress that had been carved into the heart of a mountain. It was both a war memorial and soldier’s cemetery, but at the height of Keldon prominence it had also been a meeting hall for the ruling council. Far below the great hall and the meeting chambers was a complicated network of tunnels and tombs that once held the remains of every great Keldon warlord.
It had also once held the fabled Golden Argosy, a massive, magical warship that only sailed to take the bravest Keldons to the most glorious battles … or so the legend said. The tale also said the Argosy would return after the battle was over, but the center of the Necropolis stood now cracked and hollow as an empty walnut shell, dominated by a void precisely the size and shape of a massive warship.
Whatever mythical power the Golden Argosy held, Teferi knew it had actually sailed during the Phyrexian Invasion, and it had taken Keld’s greatest warriors into the heart of that struggle. The ship’s last voyage departed shortly after Freyalise installed Skyshroud, and as far as Teferi knew it had never returned.
Now the mountain sat broken, empty, and silent, the glorious ship and the bodies of Keld’s heroes both long gone. There had been conflicting accounts of what happened before the Golden Argosy’s last voyage, but most agreed that Keld’s honored dead rose from the Necropolis to take their place in the battle as prophesied, but then attacked their own descendents instead of the Phyrexian invaders. Teferi decided to omit that bit of information if Radha ever asked, if only to spare himself another bad-tempered outburst of her name-calling.
He needn’t have worried: Radha was awestruck, wide-eyed and mute from the mere sight of the place. Teferi again resisted the temptation to skim her mind—the satisfaction of knowing what she was thinking was not worth the risk of enraging her if she objected to his snooping.
“There’s something important I want to show you.”
“Good.” Radha’s face remained fixed on the Necropolis. “There’s something important I want to see. Take me to the upper ridge, down there.” She pointed.
Teferi smiled patiently. “We must start at the bottom. That is where Keld’s oldest secrets are interred.”
“I don’t care about that. I want to see the more recent tombs.”
“And you shall, but we will start at the bottom.” Teferi spread his arms and they began to spiral down into the Necropolis’s cavernous interior.
As they passed the rim of the caldera, Teferi saw more of the embedded stone dwellings carved into the rock. Radha saw them too, and she snarled angrily.
“Problem?” Teferi asked.
Radha glared at him then back to the makeshift homes. “This is a place for the honored dead,” she spat, “not living worms.”
“There is very little left of Keld,” Teferi said, “and her children have to survive somehow.”
They were now on the same level as most of the buildings. Gaunt, desperate faces peered out from many of the windows and doorways, their frightened eyes wide.
“These are your contemporaries,�
�� Teferi said. “Modern Keldons.”
“No.” Radha shook her head. “These are just citizens of Keld, those who were not worthy to be warriors.”
“They could have been. With the right opportunity and the right leadership….”
“What warlord would want them?” Radha flared.
“A prescient question. I imagine … a warlord without a ’host might find them useful? After all, a leader with no followers is hardly a leader at all.”
Radha fell quiet. Her eyes darted from one desperate cliff-dweller to another. “Take us away from here,” she said quietly. Her voice dropped even lower and she muttered “Even Llanach wouldn’t field soldiers like this.”
Teferi accelerated their descent and they dropped down in the darker recesses of the cavern. There was no natural light, but Teferi could see clearly. He expected Radha could also see their surroundings, as both sides of her ancestry had excellent night vision.
“Stop here,” Radha said. Teferi continued on without replying, and she drew one of her blades.
“If you cut me,” he said, “who will keep you aloft?”
“I’d rather fall,” Radha said, but the tip of her tear-blade wavered in her hand. After a moment she returned the weapon to its sheath.
The floor of the Necropolis appeared below them. It was dotted with a series of featureless stone vaults, each as large as a small house. They had been constructed and assembled so closely together that there was less than a foot’s width between them. Teferi brought them down in the center of this field of stone boxes, touching down as lightly as a bee on a flower.
“These are the ancient treasure troves of Keld,” Teferi intoned. He spread his arms out wide to encompass the entire area, his staff glowing softly in his hand. “The rarest spoils ever plundered by her armies, the greatest trophies ever seized by her generals, and somewhere among these vaults lies Keld’s history. This is what I’ve brought to see, for you must know Keld’s history if you intend to be its future.”
Teferi turned and saw that he was alone. “Radha?” he called.
He concentrated, opening up all his senses. She couldn’t have gone far, he thought … but then again, she kept finding ways to surprise him.
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