Song of Time (magic the gathering)

by Teri Mclaren

  "Lord Mishra, I would beg you to take my life before I could agree to place the world at such risk again. I respectfully ask you to consider that it is not only your enemy this horror will attack. I pray instead you let me correct my mistake now and find a way to contain the beast forever, or perhaps send it deeper into the earth. Keeping it would mean nothing but the one and only end of all things. For where a way is made to release it, a will follows. Please do not ask me to make the way."

  "Do it, or by the Six Curses of Caelus Nin, and by my sacred scepter, I will take from you forever your most beloved possessions, Samor.* It took no divination to know that he meant Claria and her mother, Lesta. "Do you actually dare behave as though you were a free man? I can always find another mage while you decorate my rack. And how many others would follow you there, hmm? You have the grace of two days," growled Mishra.

  The Collector could only bow, his eyes pained with unspilled tears, and nod his head. What did twenty years of honorable service mean when he was so easily replaced in Mishra's opinion? What did family mean to Mishra, who had set about to destroy his own brother? The Grand Artificer would have his will, and someone, eventually, would discover the way to wake and free the beast.

  Long after the brothers and their armies had marched down the mountainside, Samor lingered, deep in thought, the smoke of burning trees heavy in his nostrils, the keening voices of grief-stricken elves playing across his heart all night long. There seemed to be no satisfactory answer. If he did what Mishra wanted, the world would likely see such ruin as had never before been. If he refused, Mishra would destroy his family and his life, and the Circle would be exposed, the Book burned, the Artificer's wrath poured out upon them, and Atmaaz left without protection from his wanton whims. As it was, the Circle were the only ones who kept the land, who healed it after Mishra and Urza trampled it. And the only way to open a crystal wall that had been locked together by the Circle was with a sound so overwhelming that it would likely deafen the user. No human voice could produce such a vibration.

  The constellation of the three sisters had risen at twilight and still he wrestled with his fear, his conscience, and his imagination. At midnight, when the moons rose, he began to walk blindly down the mountain.

  By dawn he had blundered into a strange valley. All around him stood towers of glittering ganzite, some rising hundreds of feet in the sky, thin fingers that played the air as he moved among them, producing sighs and whispers of bright music like the voices of the elves themselves.

  Then the Collector looked up to see the sun strike the crystal wall, producing a blinding, painful glare in his swollen eyes. It seemed that he had come no further toward a solution than when he started.

  But when the sun rose upon the ganzite towers, the wind suddenly swept down through them and Collector found himself amid a thunderous chorus of glorious music and a thousand bizarre distortions of his own image. Samor began to laugh hysterically despite himself, despite his trouble and crushing care, causing echo upon echo upon echo, each reflected sound growing louder and more powerful. He began to try bits of melody against the crystals, from the lightest airs to the most ponderous dirges. In a few more moments, he believed he had found a way to give Mishra what he wanted.

  He fell to work, walking through the strange valley, testing each spire for its peculiar properties of resonance and light. By dark, he had found the right spire. It was the tallest in the valley, with a small slit through its base at about the height of Samor's eyes. If the slit were plugged, the wind's voice across the spire would make the towers around it echo and repeat their own strange music, so loudly that eventually the noise would sunder them. The Collector knew what such violent tones could further do. Their vibration would call a great wind storm to pull through the deep recesses of the natural gorge. And the unfettered voice of that storm would gather, and gather strength as it poured through the barren, empty valley; when it reached the mountainside, the deafening surge would create the sound that would cause the crystal door to break open.

  At length, Samor found a small piece of ganzite that would fit into the notch of his chosen spire, like a key. He sang a dividing song over it, carving it into a precise fit for the slit in the spire, and then placed the crystal in his sleeve. All that was left was Mishra's victory song.

  He looked up the mountainside again at the shining wall that blocked the beast. Rainbows danced off its surface, reminding him of the glory of the creature's plumage. Immediately, his heart began to race at the remembrance of the creature's stare, almost as if the beast could yet sense his presence. Samor took a deep breath and said, "By the spirit of the Holy Book, you have no power over me. I condemn your evil! I swear this: the song that frees you will destroy you!"

  Samor stood shaking as sudden power filled his words, freeing him from the crushing fear. He could feel the beast thrashing in his sleep, trying to draw him back into that awful memory, make it new, make it real again. "No," he said simply, and in his mind, the image of the beast flickered out, as if it had never troubled him, as if it had never held his imagination captive. Relieved beyond measure, exhausted, Samor knew there was work yet to do. Idly fingering a pendant around his neck, he thought of his little chroniclave's whirring, chiming song, the same tune as Claria's namesong-that simple, perfect little melody that always made order of chaos. It rang in his mind over and over.

  He checked his calculations. Checked them again. And then he smiled. When Mishra inserted the ganzite key and sung his "song of triumph," that song would be Claria's little song, with its ringing harmonic overtones, and it would collapse the crystal door forever, sending the beast back to its own rightful place.

  Mishra would have his clock. And Almaaz would still have time.

  His steps lighter now, Samor walked back up the mountainside to the ruin of the battlefield. Huge green-bottle flies hovered over the still-smoking ravines and gullies, open wounds on the land itself. The smell of death filled Samor's nostrils. In another day, Mishra's masons would come here to begin the huge hourglass of standing stones that the Artificer had deemed the proper marker for his new grand armament. It should have been a gravestone, thought Samor, for the thousands who died in this obscene conflict. But the forest was healing itself, with help from the elves, apparent in the greening of the scarred ground and the tiny new leaves on the bare trees. Very soon the evidence of the Day of the Beast would be hidden altogether in the tightly woven undergrowth of the Sarrazan forest.

  "Yes, it will. We will see to it," said a silvery voice. Disconcerted, Samor turned sharply to find a tall, fair-haired elf standing only a few feet behind him.

  "You can hear my thoughts?" Samor queried, his curiosity piqued as his irritation diminished.

  "Not exactly. But I can read your heart. And watch your eyes, where they go, what they find. We have watched you all night long. We wondered whether we should make it easy for you and put an arrow through your heart. But the tyrant would send someone else, and that one might not care for life as you do. We decided to wait and see if you would win over your fear. You have fought well."

  Samor shook his head. "No, friend. I am but a slave, and I have chosen between evils. I have only picked the lesser, and that out of selfishness. I pray that Mishra will forget this place, this thing he has demanded. May there come one who can destroy this creature forever. It is not I."

  "As you say. The beast, like all things, will find its way home. There will be time," said the elf.

  "Yes. For now, there will be time. I pray there will be enough. Tell me, companion, who are you and what do you call this valley? I would have the name for my books."

  The elf considered, standing silently for a long time, then answered, "I am called Sh'Daran. This place we call the Chimes. Though you know the name, soon not even the warring brothers will be able to find it again. Our worlds seem to be drifting apart, though they will probably always somehow be joined. Obey the unjust tyrant for now; that is your duty and your honor, though he be hono
rless. You will have help. Only watch well for yourself. Another, who spoils the harmony, has also followed your path this night and day." The elf quirked his mouth into a peculiar, knowing smile.

  Before Samor could ask the identity of the traitor, the elf stepped back and shouted a word in his own language. A curtain of light became visible between them, and immediately, the vines and shrubs at their feet rustled and grew up, hiding the elf completely. A breeze diverted suddenly and trickled down the valley, taking the elf s command, echoing it back to the mountainside. The Collector watched in awe as the battlefield greened over before his eyes, the mound where his friends lay springing up with flowering vines and a mature forest replacing in an instant what the beast had rent.

  But the crystal wall remained, a bright scar upon the mountain that could not be healed with the greening, no matter the gentle song of the breeze. A gust of air rattled the open shutters, dissipating instantly. Inside the village wall, Samor's large house began to cool in the long shade of a grove of date palms, their slender shadows playing through the high windows and over the blue-tiled floor. Samor wiped the gleam from his brow as he absently pondered his impossible choice, looking up from his untouched curry to find himself alone at the table, the patient steward waiting to clear the dishes and clean the room. Slightly embarrassed, Samor abandoned the cold dish and climbed the stairs to his study, looking in on his small daughter before shutting himself behind the heavy teakwood door for the night.

  The girl lay sleeping in her bed, her exhausted nurse sprawled across the threshold, snoring softly, while one black-clad juma guard, her golden eyes glowing, sat alert in a darkening corner near the window. Samor hummed the girl's namesong as he stepped over the nurse and adjusted the netting over Claria's bed. The guard never changed her position, but the Collector saw her eyes on him and her hands flexing in the dying light, repeating the endless motions of the exercises she and her company constantly practiced.

  The juma could kill with the flick of a finger, or the small quick thrust of an elbow. Samor bowed to the guard a silent goodnight and left his daughter to her sleep. A moment later, in the confines of his cluttered study, he sank his solid build comfortably into a red silk pillowed chair, the little tune still upon his lips.

  Samor's only wife, Lesta, had busied herself downstairs in the sheltered courtyard with her women, their bright music now competing with the jewel-eyed parrots' talk and the gurgle of the pink-and-turquoise tiled fountains. The noise and the music rose and fell pleasantly. But as always, in a little while, the only sound Samor would notice would be the constant machinery of his chroniclave, its brass pendulum swinging back and forth like a heartbeat. The chroniclave, an odd combination of timepiece and music box, was the only thing he had from his homeland and the only remembrance of his freedom.

  Though he had not enjoyed it for a while now, this was the Collector's favorite time of the day. He loved this wondrous building; loved this odd country with its chill, dry evenings, the spicy fragrance of night-blooming jasmine floating on a gentle breeze, and in the hazy distance, the rocks of his desert homeland, Halquina, glowing redly. No movement troubled the dunes, no sound stirred the air other than a near-constant chorus of heat-loving cicadas. Eastward, darkness already mantled the Grand Artificer's glorious palace, its soaring white towers outlined by thousands of everburning torches. But here in the fortified city of Sumifa, where Mishra had positioned Samor, his historian and sometime ambassador to Almaaz, there was a little light remaining, despite the sifted hourglass in the time god's western hands.

  Samor checked the chroniclave for the hour. He could delay no longer. His gaze returned to the window as he took in a last look westward before the long night ahead. His forehead creased a bit when he noticed a small puff of dust, outlined by the sunset, dancing at the base of the red rocks. Maybe a chariot, or a seasonal wind squall, but it was too early for them by nearly a fortnight.

  He chased a darker thought from his mind. The Circle often traveled by whirlwind, and one other- the betrayer-knew what Samor was doing about Mishra*s demand. Though Samor had no proof or witness, he knew it surely in his heart: Porros, his favorite, known among them as the Raptor, the prince and future king of Sumifa, and too impatient, too proud, to wait for Samor to give him the leadership of the secret magical brotherhood, had broken his vow. The puff of dust disappeared from the horizon.

  Ah, no. Samor rubbed his eyes. I am tired and my imaginings are perhaps groundless. You could not know more than you saw on the Day of the Beast. There will be a better moment for you to try to take me, I am sure. Samor made a warding sign and rebuked the darkness from his thoughts.

  The insistent ticking of the chroniclave brought him back to his immediate purpose. Turning the delicate machine sideways and inserting the amulet he wore around his neck into its keyhole, he wound the music box, waited a moment, and then listened carefully as the bright tune chimed. He sang along, searching for harmonies and variations on its theme, letting his mind be calmed as the pendulum's smooth movements kept time with his improvisations. The chroniclave's machinery always gave him a feeling of steadiness-of tightness.

  He relaxed, beginning to believe that he would make Mishra's impossible deadline and could, in just a few hours, meet Mishra's messenger with the news that he had found a way to give the Artificer what he had asked. Then Samor could rest as easily as his daughter slept. The small chroniclave ticked steadily in the room's sudden stillness.

  The mage pushed his thoughts away, rang for the steward, who came immediately and poured him a cup of tea laced with visionbright, then left as silently as a shadow. The Collector lifted the dagger's-length of absolutely clear stone from under the false panel of the chroniclave's base.

  He had decided that the glittering obelisk, the first key to Mishra's "clock" would be Claria's naming totem. As Mishra had ridden away from the desolation, Samor had asked permission and the Artificer, distracted, had granted it, asking only if she was old enough, having escaped the Nine Horrific Infant Diseases, to have one. Mishra cared not how or where Samor hid the spell, only that he have it.

  The stone block tapered gracefully from base to blunted tip, a perfect prism, now catching the very last of the sun's strong rays in its crystalline heart and separating their colors, bouncing a rainbow off the gold rings on his left hand, magnifying it under the chroniclave's dome, and finally losing the bright beam in the thick scroll of Jerubian carpet at his feet.

  The Collector hummed his tune again, adding the magic of his four-stone ring. The gemstones glowed, and the rainbow danced in response, its colors dividing and springing up into tendrils and curls in the air, weaving themselves through his song like the ribbons Claria wore in her long black hair. The Collector gave the song full voice, singing Claria's name in the glyph language, and the colors wove themselves into a woman's graceful handprint, the distinct shape of his beloved Lesta's hand, the fingers long and beautiful, the first and second fingers slightly crooked at the first joints. In Lesta's family, once in each generation a woman displayed this peculiar trait-the archer's hand, her family called it; no one knew why anymore. From the way her small fingers already curled over, Samor knew Claria's hand would fit this print someday, too.

  The Collector ended the song and smiled as the rainbow rejoined and settled into its tight beam once more. He polished the smooth, cold stone with a soft cloth, removing his own fingerprints from its surface, but carefully leaving the thumbprint Claria had pressed upon it near the base. He placed a jeweler's loupe over his eye, and from under his scarf brought forth the chroniclave's key again, comparing its engraved print with the fresh one. Exactly the same. He took a clamp, a delicate hammer, and a miniature diamond chisel from the top desk drawer and laid them on his desk.

  The breeze gathered strength, making for a sudden chill in the study. The end of even the most scorching day could leave one cold here in upper Sumifa. Could make you shiver and make your hands shake. It had to be the cold. The Collector took a s
ip of the hot, fragrant tea to settle his nerves and focus his eyes, pulled his rich purple robes more tightly around him, and concentrated on the shape of the names of his ancestors before he began to cut them into the totem. Even if none of the old ones would, one day maybe Claria, or one of her children, could understand what he had done. Maybe by then, if he hadn't found it himself, they would know how to kill the beast. The Collector allowed himself a glimmer of hope.

  He placed the diamond chisel to one side of the prism's perfect face and began to carve, sending the rainbow into a kaleidoscopic dance. At the window, the wind picked up the white linen curtains and puffed them rhythmically with its tide, rocking the cedar shutters on their hinges. The musical clock chimed its tune again.

  A few minutes later, little by exact little, the six glyphs covered one side of the totem, taking the history of his family down through the known generations, their ancient nameshapes purling the tribe together with the signs of sunshadow, sky boat, lightning, sword's edge, river, adding his own chosen sign of the basket, until he reached Claria's fingerprint, the pattern for the last glyph. In the intricate whorls of her left ring finger's print lay the actual letters of her name, marked upon her hand with the namesong at her birth. The print was small to begin with, the intricacies tedious to carve, even with the visionbright.

  Pushing aside the loupe, the Collector looked up and rested his eyes on the book by his hand. He stretched his arms above his head and rose to pull the shutters over the large window; the breeze had risen considerably and it felt as though the sand squalls were indeed coming. The thought nagged at him again that it was early for the scouring storms-and there was an odd, high-pitched note to the sound of the wind. The Collector shut the cedar slats over the window and lit an oil lamp. Deciding to give his carving a bit of a rest before attempting the last glyph, he picked up his quill, turned to the last two pages in the Holy Book. Here, for the Circle, he would hide the only written record of the keys and their true mechanism.