Time Spiral

by Scott McGough

  No, little Ghitu, not until the false god Karona had her rise and fall. Indeed, as you suspected when you asked.

  Fear returned, prickling at the back of Jhoira’s neck once more. This entity was still flipping through her brain like the pages in a book, pulling out whatever tidbits of information struck his fancy, or even worse, he had already taken all of her thoughts and was sifting through them even as she tried to distract him.

  The schism became a source of misery before Karona’s War by a millennium or more. When poor, mad little Ravi rang her terrible bell and the Garden ceased to exist, the echoes of that destructive chime reached far and wide, all the way to the Talon Gates and the rift they attend. The tolling of Ravi’s chime opened the rift wider and deeper, extending it all the way across the cosmos to another realm. When it reached this new place, a place where flesh and spirit existed in perfect balance, the rift disrupted that balance.

  It also created a link between this world and that one, a path for any suitably powerful and opportunistic spirit to tread. Soon such a spirit found that path and used it to come to Madara, and once here she cursed it with the plague Umezawa. The bitter seed she planted continues to bear fruit, for a member of this wretched clan arises every few generations, bent on destroying the status quo and twisting the traditions and institutions of Madara toward their own enrichment. The voice had grown strident and bitter, but it quickly recovered its former grace and poise. There now, it said. I have told you more than you knew about the Madara rift. Now you will tell me something new.

  “Sensei,” Jhoira said, “you are far wiser and longer-lived than we. What could I, in my meager experience, tell you that you have not already learned for yourself?”

  You are too humble, the voice said, and its tone was not complimentary, and your experience is not so meager as your youthful features pretend. Is it?

  Jhoira swallowed again. “No, Sensei.”

  I would learn more of the man called Venser, he said, his voice clipped and demanding, and more of the woman Radha. Show me your fire, warrior.

  Radha barely moved, her voice low and tight. “Nothing to show.”

  A canard, Keldon. You are smoldering right now as you look forward to your next battle. I think you wonder if it will be with me.

  Radha did not react.

  I have heard much of your tribe, of you magnificent bloodthirsty beasts. You are the first I have personally encountered. Even so, you are unique among your people, are you not, daughter of Freyalise?

  Her square teeth clenched, but for once Radha seemed in no danger of losing her temper.

  A pity, the voice said. One hates to settle for the second choice, but when circumstances demand….

  Young man, he said, startling Venser from a deep, almost contemplative state in which he had focused all his will on not being noticed. You hail from Urborg?

  “I do.” Venser widened his eyes at Jhoira imploringly, but she could only shrug. Anything she did to help would likely make things worse. She just wished Venser would relax. Nervous people made mistakes.

  Did you come here by choice, Venser, or were you swept along as part of the group?

  “I was glad to come,” Venser said, a defiant tinge in his voice. The flinty tone evaporated as he continued. “But I did not intend to.”

  Well, the voice brightened. I trust you do not overmuch regret the error, as it led to our meeting. I myself am already grateful for that.

  “Thank you,” Venser said. From the dry, winded sound of his words, Jhoira suspected the artificer was only a few exchanges away from screaming.

  “Sensei,” she began, but a tight band of force seemed to close around her chest, restricting her breath.

  I am not through with Venser, my dear. Now then, my boy. What is it you do in Urborg?

  Venser saw Jhoira’s distress, as did the rest of the party. There was an awful, gravid moment, then Venser spoke.

  “I am an artificer, Sensei. I build and test machines.”

  Fascinating, but I gather a dedicated young man like yourself would prefer to be back among his tools rather than stranded on a lonely beach.

  Jhoira wanted to shout, to warn Venser off giving the answer he was preparing to give, but she only managed to wheeze. To her horror, the sound prompted Venser to answer, rushing as if his words could restore her breath.

  “Well, yes,” he admitted. “That is what I’d prefer, truth be told.”

  I can help you, the voice said. It still came with perfect diction, perfect confidence, and perfect manners, but now it also held the soft, sinuous underpinnings of a seduction. If you wish I can send you back instantly with but a thought. I will not miscalculate, as your bald friend did. I will not send you on an aimless journey through the void. I will simply send you home.

  Venser was no fool. He saw the looks on the others’ faces; he understood he was being lured. He still had no better answer than, “You will?”

  I will. I don’t even require payment. I can do this for you at any time and all you have to do is want me to.

  Venser blinked, confused. “Want you to? I already want you to. I just said so.”

  Say so again, the voice urged. Think about the time you’re missing, the spare parts you’re not collecting. Think about the gladehunters turning your hard work into shrapnel and debris. You carry those stones to power machines, correct? What are they powering while you’re here? What are they doing besides rattling around in your pocket?

  Can you see it, Venser? Can you see your chance for greatness vanishing because you’re not there to seize it? You want to go back. You want me to come to you and take you home.

  “Yes,” Venser said. His eyes were cloudy and unfocused.

  Ask, the voice said, reduced to a hissing whisper. Call me to you.

  “Don’t be his tool, Venser,” Radha called, shouting the words Jhoira could not. “Don’t do it.”

  Venser was already half-entranced. When he spoke his eyes were blank and his face was slack. “Sensei Ryu,” he said. “Come and take me home.”

  All across the cloud-thick sky, gorgeous nekoru turned and fled, streaking away like startled birds. Their huge wings carried them out of sight as they hurtled out to sea, inland, up the coast, and anywhere that wasn’t near the cliffs.

  At last.

  Venser and Radha suddenly both jerked into the air, choking on their own screams. Black light shone in their eyes, blue-gray winds whipped through their hair, and fire crackled in their silent, open mouths. The two shivered and twitched in the air as the light, wind, and fire flowed from their faces, braiding themselves into a corkscrew beam of searing energy. The twisted, tri-color beam blasted out toward the sea and then stopped dead, spreading outward as if it had struck an invisible shield.

  A patch of glowing fog materialized around the beam’s blocked end. The braided energy faded but the fog remained, forming an oblate shape at the edge of the cliff. The shape had a sphere of bright white light at its center that somehow cast a purple and blue sheen. A thin red line stretched up and down from the center until it had vertically bisected the oval into two perfect halves.

  Radha and Venser went rigid. The swirling energy around their faces vanished and they fell forgotten to the rocky ground. Neither was visibly injured, but both were dazed and slow to move.

  A dragon’s head emerged from the glowing oval field, mottled green and larger than a warship’s launch. Long, sharp horns curved out to the sides from the top of the head and sharp, triangular ears arced up to touch the horns. The monster’s round forehead jutted up, large and bulbous over his elongated snout, giving him the air of a reptile-simian hybrid. His eyes completed the impression, blazing yellow nuggets that combined the sharp, predatory glare of a dragon with the calculating, appraising eye of a man.

  The dragon paused, scanning the cliffs from left to right. A wide smile stretched across his face, displaying row upon row of saberlike teeth. He snapped his mouth shut and black lightning ripped out of the oval patch of fo
g, spearing out toward each member of Jhoira’s party at once. All were able to dodge easily, but the blasts hadn’t been intended to kill or wound, only to distract.

  As she recovered her feet, Jhoira no longer saw the oval shape that framed the dragon’s head like a hunter’s trophy. For a moment, silence reigned as everyone waited for some sign of the monster. Then Venser turned toward Jhoira and let fly with a torrent of words.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t stop; I couldn’t think. He asked and I had to answer. I knew I shouldn’t say anything but I just kept talking. What did I do—”

  “Shh,” Jhoira said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Here he comes,” Radha called. She had two blades drawn but kept them at her sides, watching the dragon as it forced its way into this world.

  The sunless sky swirled as a funnel formed in the clouds. The cyclone’s tail lashed down and brushed the cliff’s razor edge, kicking up a small burst of dust and sharp rocks. The tornado swelled grotesquely, expanding horizontally and splitting vertically in multiple places like a snake’s egg at the hatching. The edges of the ever-shifting shape hardened, fixing the outline of a gigantic winged beast more than one hundred feet tall.

  It roared from inside the cyclone, a heart-clenching shriek of triumph. The dragon-shape extended its wings and spread arms, legs, and tail out wide. The cyclone burst apart, casting its cruel winds out in every direction, then the monster stood revealed, rampant in ecstatic joy.

  The beast’s proportions were ultimately and strangely human. In every aspect he bore the subtle combination of reptile and ape and always the most formidable elements of each. His expression was wild and delighted, and his gleaming eyes radiated waves of yellow force.

  The dragon’s neck was short and densely muscled, his shoulders broad and solid. He had long arms and legs were separated by a barrel chest and an elongated, serpentine waist. He seemed equally natural and comfortable standing upright, stalking on all fours, or borne aloft by his huge, membranous wings.

  The dread creature glided down to the edge of the cliff. He hovered there, supported more by magic than the muscles in his back or the air beneath his wings.

  “I am Nicol Bolas,” the dragon said, his tone calm, his words booming like thunder. “Elder dragon, planeswalker. You have earned my thanks.

  “Now,” he said, and the unholy light in his eyes intensified. “How am I to reward such useful insects?”

  Jhoira’s mind raced, driven by fear and duty. Nicol Bolas. The oldest and most dangerous planeswalker ever known. One of the original dragons, one of the great elder legends, the source from whom all other dragons flowed. Bolas had been godlike even before he ascended to become a planeswalker, and ever since he treated the entire multiverse as his personal preserve, preying upon it longer than the oldest historical texts could record. Now he was here, on Dominaria once more, and Jhoira had only seconds to find a way to survive the cruel titan’s gratitude.

  Get away from her.

  The dragon’s triumphant expression never changed, but Jhoira felt her heart leap up. Teferi had found them at last.

  Then her old friend was there, tall and proud in his white robes, his staff glowing vivid blue along its spinelike curves. “Well met, Nicol Bolas,” he said. “Teferi of Zhalfir hails the god-king and father of all dragons.”

  Bolas’s sharp smile widened. He tilted his head past Teferi and addressed Jhoira. “Your missing captain, I believe.” He lowered his muzzle and locked eyes with Teferi. “I know you, little wizard. You are flattery and dissembling made flesh. You seek to catch time in a jar and study it like a sample of horse urine.”

  Teferi was stern and forceful. “True, all true, but I have other priorities today, Great Dragon.” He turned to Radha and the Shivans scattered around the area between himself and Bolas.

  “Gather ’round, my friends. We’re done here.”

  No one moved. Bolas continued to hover and smirk. “I gave no one permission to leave,” he said.

  “We are leaving nonetheless.”

  “No, time-chaser, not before I make good on the debt I owe your friends for releasing me.”

  Before Teferi could reply, Radha sheathed her weapons and started walking toward him. Venser quickly fell in behind her, though he could not stop glancing back at the dragon. Nicol Bolas took no action, making no move to impede them or stop their progress. Soon Skive, Dassene, and Aprem had all joined Radha and Venser near Teferi, forming ranks on his right side with Jhoira and Corus still at his left.

  The clouds darkened behind the floating dragon. While his expression had not changed at all, his smile had become far more of a glower. His voice took on a sinister, echoing quality. “I find it most discourteous for guests to depart in haste,” he said.

  “Then I hope you’ll excuse our rudeness,” Teferi said, “just this once.”

  Bolas’s wings folded and he settled to the ground. He crouched and lowered his head, his voice booming down at them from thirty feet above. “I am in a rare and expansive mood, my quasi-military friends, but I am a dragon and do not pride myself on patience.” He flexed his long, taloned fingers out. They sizzled in the still air. “Your willfulness is beginning to irritate me.”

  “I must go, Great Lord. My work will not wait.”

  “If you leave now,” the dragon said casually, “not all of you will make it. Those who do will not arrive whole.” He crossed his arms and puffed a blast of black smoke from his nostrils. “I will, of course, follow.”

  Teferi’s grip tightened on his staff. “Shall we duel then, O Bolas? Shall we wring what little mana we can from the rocks, the wind and the cold, lifeless tide? Let’s. Let us tilt at one another and waste precious seconds of your newfound freedom and my window of opportunity. What could be wiser or more productive?

  “Much has changed since you were dead, Great Dragon. Stop a moment. See what has become of your holdings, what has happened to your empire on Dominaria. The mana here was unique, among the most complex and robust on the entire plane. Madara has always offered a rich and exotic feast for the epicure to savor.” Teferi smiled sadly. “Taste it now, great dragon, then tell me if you still wish to fight.”

  Nicol Bolas tilted his head, one eye half-closed, perhaps equally annoyed and amused by Teferi’s eloquence. As he stood there, the dragon’s scales glowed along their sharp edges. Moving gracefully for such a massive creature, he reached down with one clawed hand and pressed his scaled palm into the surface of the cliff. Colored light and smoke poured out from around his fingers. A bare moment passed, then Bolas straightened, breaking the vaporous connection between himself and the ground.

  “Dire,” he said. “You are entirely correct, little wizard. Much has changed here.”

  “It has, Great Dragon.” Teferi seemed to relax. “What I must do may be the only way to restore this world. Will you let us pass?”

  “Absolutely not,” Bolas said. He spread his wings and lightning jagged behind him. “I have been a shadow of myself for far too long. You will serve as a test of this world’s capacity to sustain me.”

  The thunder died down and the dragon contracted into himself, halving his size from one hundred feet down to fifty as purple light danced across his scales. Rather than diminishing Bolas’s awesome presence, shrinking seemed only to intensify it, distilling his incalculable power into a purer, more volatile package.

  “I shall add,” the elder dragon said, “for someone who keeps the company of Keldons, you are remarkably careless with fighting words.” Terrible fire vented from his mouth, wreathing his head in blue-black flames. “You offered a duel, Planeswalker. I accept.” The dragon’s eerily intelligent face twisted into a leer of unbridled hunger.

  Teferi’s face showed no fear. The tip of his staff flared, glowing so brightly that Jhoira had to shield her eyes. “So be it,” he said.

  Teferi felt a crippling chill run through him. He could do this, but his concentration and timing had to be perfect.

&
nbsp; “Hoy, clean-head!” Radha’s voice was faint and tinny to Teferi’s ears.

  What do you want? he sent.

  She instantly shot back, What the hells are you doing?

  I am protecting us from a power-hungry god.

  You’re provoking one. He said he was going to reward us.

  And you believe him? You saw how he treated you when he needed to get free. Do you really want anything he’d give you?

  I wouldn’t hit him for offering it. Why not wait and see—

  See? See what?

  If he truly means us harm, and if so, then rip his guts out. If we can.

  That’s pretty craven talk from a Keldon.

  No, it’s advice from a seasoned warrior. Nobody baits a dragon carelessly, not even in Keld.

  You heard him. He’ll pounce if we try to leave.

  So? Then he only gets some of us, and only maybe gets them. I say if you goad him into a fight now, get him all riled up, he’s damned likely to take us all.

  I thought Keldons always took the offensive.

  That doesn’t mean we walk face-first into the enemy with our hands at our sides. That’s not initiative, that’s stupidity.

  Do what you must, Teferi thought bitterly. Though I had hoped at least you would see the value of this. No matter. It’s too late to change course now.

  Spoken like a true wizard, Radha said, not a sailor, not a warrior, but a wizard. Good luck, you inexplicable ass. Nothing you do ever makes sense to me.

  Thank you, Radha.

  The dragon’s voice broke in, May we begin, or do you plan to argue with all of your underlings in turn?

  Teferi looked up at the great elder dragon. “I’m ready,” he said.

  “I’m ready.”

  With these words Teferi started the first planeswalker duel he’d had in more than four hundred years. The last had been against a raving mad, self-styled shark goddess in the deepest part of a maritime plane’s planet-spanning ocean. He had only wanted a sample of their mana-infused coral, but she was not inclined to give it up.

  That contest had not been a true test of his combat skills, as he simply harnessed the power of the gigantic sea, trapped the shark goddess in a mile-wide whirlpool, then phased her out of existence. Two minutes after the duel started Teferi had his coral and was preparing to leave. Two minutes after that the shark goddess reappeared, wondering where her foe had gone.