It was huge. A grotesque, irregular, twisted skeleton of barbed bone and pitted metal shot through with bands of stretched sinew and muscle. An amber glow emanated from deep in its rib cage and then it opened its alloy mouth to reveal rows of chipped teeth.
The lunge came suddenly. Elspeth manage to sidestep the strike, but the force of it knocked her off her feet. She was up in a second. With numb fingers she hoisted her greatsword. The blow caught the creature between the eyes, but the bright blade glanced off, and Elspeth had to fight to keep it from flying out of her hands. The creature lunged again. Elspeth twisted away. She regained control and whispered the words she knew so well. White fire leaped momentarily from her sword’s tip. Elspeth stepped forward and brought her blade down in an overhead sweep. The moment before impact a white light filled the room and thousands of flashing blades blurred the air. The strikes seemingly came from all angles at the same time. Venser rubbed his eyes and looked again at the creature’s body where it lay hacked as though by one hundred swords.
Venser would have asked Elspeth about her sword right there and then if not for Koth. The vulshok ran to the wet rumple of his mother’s skin and dropped to his knees. His tears smoked as they ran down his cheek. “Mother,” he wailed, holding the skin in his large hands.
But there was no time for grief, and less for tears. A shadow moved in the next room. Venser sensed it first, of course … the creature from the dark doorway, the one who had been controlling Koth’s mother through the wire she dragged with her. But no sooner had he detected its brain movement in the next room than it exploded through the wall. A hulking creature with long, filthy claws and a dark metal head shaped like a gigantic, battle-chipped spear tip. Most of it was grown of black, chipped metal and burned bone, and its jaw extended well past what was typical on any plane Venser had ever traveled to, and only the end of the jaw was toothed and vicious. It brought its head down and charged Elspeth, who swept up with her sword and caught the creature in the jaw, slicing it delicately in half.
The horrific thing reached up and took hold of its bisected jaw and tore the parts loose with a wicked chortle. The black blood ran down its stretched muscles and soon a torrent of fluid was splashing from its gullet. It tossed its jaw pieces aside, turned, and charged Venser. The artificer waited until the creature was almost upon him before disappearing in a sudden blue flash and reappearing on the other side of the room. Meanwhile, the creature continued in its charge, running headlong into the house and driving its head blade halfway into the metal of the structure. Thus trapped, Elspeth ran, screaming at the beast, chopping it until it breathed no more. She kept hacking with tears running down her own cheeks and froth collecting at the corners of her mouth, until Venser’s yelling stayed her hand and she stood blinking in the flickering lights from the magma lamps.
Walk the Blind Eternities …
Discover the planeswalkers in their travels
across the endless planes of the Multiverse …
AGENTS OF ARTIFICE BY ARI MARMELL
Jace Beleren, a powerful sorcerer and planeswalker whose rare telepathic ability opens doors that many would prefer remain closed, is at a crossroads: the decisions he makes now will forever affect his path.
THE PURIFYING FIRE BY LAURA RESNICK
The young and impulsive Chandra Nalaar—planeswalker, pyromancer—begins her crash course in the art of boom. When her volatile nature draws the attention of megalomaniacal forces, she will have to learn to control her power before they can control her.
TEST OF METAL BY MATTHEW STOVER
Beaten to within an inch of his life and left for dead by the psychic sorcerer Jace Beleren, Tezzeret has lost control of the Infinite Consortium—an interplanar cabal he commanded with a power and influence few in the Multiverse have ever achieved.
ALARA UNBROKEN BY DOUG BEYER
The fierce leonine planeswalker Ajani Goldmane unwittingly uncovers the nefarious agency behind the splintered planes of Alara and their realignment. Meanwhile, fellow planeswalker Elspeth Tirel struggles to preserve the nobility of the first plane she has ever wanted to call homeand. And the dragon shaman Sarkhan Vol finds the embodiment of power he has always sought.
ZENDIKAR: IN THE TEETH OF AKOUM
BY ROBERT B. WINTERMUTE
Nissa Revane, a planeswalker and proud elf warrior, is witness to what the Eldrazi can do when she stumbles into the vanguard of their monstrous brood. What she doesn’t know is that they are merely pale reflection of the titans that spawned them. But the ancient vampire planeswalker Sorin Markov knows all to well the power of the ancient Eldrazi titans. He was among the original jailers of the ancient scourge and he has returned to Zendikar to make sure they do not escape.
And revisit these five classic planeswalker
tales, repackaged in two volumes
ARTIFACTS CYCLE I
THE THRAN BY J. ROBERT KING
THE BROTHERS’ WAR BY JEFF GRUBB
ARTIFACTS CYCLE II
PLANESWALKER BY LYNN ABBEY
BLOODLINES BY LOREN L. COLEMAN
TIME STREAMS BY J. ROBERT KING
Magic: The Gathering
Scars of Mirrodin:
The Quest for Karn
©2011 Wizards of the Coast LLC
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC
Magic: the Gathering, Scars of Mirrodin, Wizards of the Coast, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.
Cover art by Jason Chan
eISBN: 978-0-7869-5916-7
U.S., CANADA, EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS
ASIA, PACIFIC, & LATIN AMERICA Hasbro UK Ltd
Wizards of the Coast LLC Caswell Way
P.O. Box 707 Newport, Gwent NP9 0YH
Renton, WA 98057-0707 GREAT BRITAIN
+1-800-324-6496 Save this address for your records.
Visit our web site at www.wizards.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
About the Author
Finest of all the things I have left is the light of the sun,
Next to that the brilliant stars and the face of the moon, Cucumbers in their season, too, and apples and pears.
(trans. Bernard Knox)
—Praxilla of Sicyon
They scuffed over a small rise from the south, with the blinding rays of the Sky Tyrant in their eyes and the heat of the other four suns burning at their backs. Underfoot, the hills themselves creaked and popped as their metal sides expanded in the hot morning sunlight. Venser of Urborg pulled off his helmet and surveyed the rusted horizon before casting a wary eye at the two beings walking ahead of him. One
towered over the other and both dragged their feet over the tarnished hill.
“I would have come on my own if you’d only asked,” Venser said.
The large one stopped and turned. In the almost blinding light of the five suns the iron spikes growing from his shoulders looked dull and tired. But not his teeth, as a sly smile spread over his face.
“Would you really have come, artificer?”
“Venser is my name.”
The muscular vulshok shrugged as if to show just what he thought of a name like Venser.
“And yes, I would have come,” Venser said.
“Well, this is my world and my people,” Koth the vulshok grunted, bringing his foot down on the metal floor. “I do not have the luxury of pleasantries.” He looked out over the jagged razor of mountains jutting against the horizon. “We should arrive at my village by nightfall,” he said. “Be ready for meat and drink served by those with fire in their veins. We will find the one who will know what has become of the situation.”
Venser watched the vulshok walk away.
“I can hardly wait,” he said.
As the rest of the day passed, the suns switched places in the sky and a far range of dun-colored, symmetrical mountains grew closer. Their chipped tips of jagged metal thrust at uniform angles, and the round clouds that massed around their serrated tops reflected the rosy brilliance of lava in the valleys below. The vulshok stopped walking.
“Why have we stopped?” Venser asked. “We should keep walking. I haven’t had enough walking.”
The third companion turned away and Venser thought he heard a stifled laugh from under her hood.
“Kuldotha, the great mother of thunder and fire nears,” Koth said.
“What? In there?” Venser said, pointing to the valleys between the lumbering mountains.
The vulshok turned slowly to look at the young artificer. “You have fear in your heart?” Koth said. It was more of a statement than a question, but Venser held Koth’s gaze.
“No,” Venser said. “I was simply saying that canyons are perfect for ambush.”
“And you are a leader now, as well as a prodigy?” Koth said. “Elspeth, what do you think?”
The other figure raised her hands and pulled down her hood.
“I think he is right,” she said, adjusting the greatsword strapped at her hip. “You brought him here against his will. The least you can do is listen to him,” she said.
“Well,” Koth said, flustered. “There is no other way to Kuldotha but through the canyons of the Oxidda Chain.”
Elspeth squinted at the near mountains.
“That is true,” Venser said.
“How would you know truth in the Oxidda Chain?”
“I have been to this plane of yours.” Venser slipped his helmet back on his sweaty head. Through its eye slit he watched as Koth scowled at him. “A clockwork planet,” the artificer said. “Karn brought me here.” He stopped short. The geomancer was watching him intently and when Venser did not continue speaking, Koth’s eyes widened.
“Karn?” Koth said.
“An old friend,” Venser said, looking away.
Koth’s mouth tightened. “I know nobody by that name,” Koth said.
“Do you know every being on Mirrodin?” Venser said, still looking away. He showed an uncharacteristic tightness around his eyes and mouth. Koth’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“We are here to see if the stories I have heard are true,” Koth said. “If they are, we will fight. This is why we brought you here. You will perform.”
A wry smile appeared on Venser’s face. “You do your world no good by threatening those you wish to recruit. You attack me, suffocate me, and expect me to do as you instruct. You are mad if you—”
A squeaking sound was blowing on the wind, and Venser cocked his head to the side taking the sound in. How far, three leagues or just over the next hill? It was hard to judge distance in this steely place … without vegetation sound could echo and travel great distances unobstructed. But Koth appeared not to have heard the sound. He was absolutely red in the face and taking shallow breaths as he stared at Venser.
“Are you well?” Venser said.
“It is you who will follow me and do what I suggest on my plane.”
“I think it may be time to separate the boys from the women,” Elspeth interrupted, her own head cocked, listening to the sound that had caught Venser’s attention.
Venser followed the white-clad woman’s gaze. Far off, over the heat-bent air, a form was clearly visible. As they watched, it lumbered and jerked closer on four sprawled legs. As they watched, the thing suddenly came to an abrupt stop and its legs pulled into the main body. A tube came out of the top and turned until it was pointed at the three of them. No sooner than the tube had pointed at them, the creature hopped to its feet again and began scurrying toward them at an alarming speed. They watched it come.
“Is it a machine?” Elspeth said.
“A biomechanical entity, I would think,” Venser said.
“A biomechanical entity,” Koth said in a mocking tone.
“What do you think it is?” Venser said.
“You are both fools,” Koth said. “It is an artifact creature.”
“A biomechanical entity, as I said.”
The leveler sped over the dun-colored hill toward them. As it came nearer they could gauge its size better: larger than an average human and double as wide, with a dome-shaped turret on its top that spun with large, spiked metal balls affixed on chains. Its old, jagged metal sides squeaked as it glided across the space between them on small legs.
Venser stepped forward and took a deep breath. When he exhaled, the beds of his fingernails glowed a dull blue. Elspeth drew her sword and Koth fell into a squat. The creature shot directly at Venser, who was farther to the side than the others. Venser put out his hand. As fast as it was moving, the machine came to an abrupt and jarring stop at Venser’s touch, and the balls spinning around its turreted top jerked free and spun away to clatter over the metal hill. The machine stood still.
“Well, let’s take a look,” Venser said.
He rapped twice on the side of the creature and the rivets holding one of its panels in place popped free. Venser whispered a word under his breath and the panel snapped to his palm as though magnetized. He placed the panel carefully at his feet. Then, to Elspeth’s surprise, he pushed his head into the hole and began taking deep breaths.
Koth glanced at Elspeth. Venser suddenly jerked his head out of the hole.
“Fascinating and good.”
“What is fascinating?” Koth said.
“This creature, of course. It has never had any synaptic taint …,” Venser said.
Elspeth slipped her blade back in its sheath.
“That is good news,” Koth said.
Venser waited. “That means no taint of, uh, infection.”
“Superior,” Elspeth said. “One machine we don’t have to send to the scrap heap.”
She sounded confident and angry, Venser thought, but there was something else in her tone—some slight tremble in the upper ranges that did not sound confident in the slightest.
Koth knocked carefully on the artifact’s thick side.
“What do we do with this?”
“We will leave it and my spell will eventually wear off and this marvel will continue on its way.”
“Why not dismantle it now so we do not have to fight it later?” Koth said.
“Because it has done nothing to us,” Venser said.
“Except try to destroy us.”
“Let us keep walking,” Elspeth said, ignoring them both. “This heat tires me greatly.”
They kept walking. Soon the mountains they’d seen in the distance were upon them. Their dull iron sides shot up at right angles never seen in nature … at least never seen in any kind of nature that Venser had spent time in.
“The Oxidda Chain,” Koth said reverently.
The Chain seemed to be
composed of corroded, notched slab iron run through with winding conduit tubing. Dark caves and holes abounded in the tight valleys between the peaks. Unaccountably, walkways of metal welded to the sides of the mountains wound away through the valleys. Venser smelled oxidation in the air and something else … rotting meat maybe. Nothing moved. No tree limbs stirred in the hot breeze. There were no birds. No sand blew around the cornice of a hill. The view appeared as still and remote as a painted picture.
They pieced their way through the jagged debris that had corroded and rolled off the higher peaks and came to rest deep in the valley. Eventually they reached the base of one of the raised walkways and clambered up its side. The walkway’s metal gangplanks were buffed to a dull sheen, but many were oxidized through and derelict.
“Enough of this,” Koth said. He put his two sizable hands before him and made a seizing motion, as if to grab one of the huge iron boulders lying in the bed of the valley. To Venser’s momentary shock, three of the chunks rose off the ground and floated toward them, guided by Koth’s glowing hands. The chunks stopped, one in front of each of the Planeswalkers. Koth stepped on his, and soon Elspeth and Venser were on theirs. Koth’s boulder began to float out over the valley floor, a bit higher than the stature of a man. Venser was next. When it was Elspeth’s turn, she shot her arms out to her sides to steady herself as her chunk glided forward.
The heat seemed to increase as they moved deeper and between the riven spires of the Oxidda Chain. There was no noise save the wind skittering the loose metal flakes along the valley floor.
Koth had to maintain a lifting motion as the slabs flew. For a moment Venser considered teasing the geomancer for the pose, but then thought better of it and looked out over the raw landscape. He thought about how it had appeared when he visited all that time ago. The same. Just as harsh and, to his eyes, unforgiving. He remembered Karn’s pride in Mirrodin. He would go into great detail explaining how many days it had taken him to create a certain ridge, or sculpt a peak with just the right sheer. As Venser looked around at the tortured aspect of the Oxidda Chain’s brown and orange mountains, he wondered … where the creator of Mirrodin was. Where was Karn?
Scars of Mirrodin: The Quest for Karn Page 1