Agents of Artifice p-1

by Ari Marmell

  Paldor went on, and Jace tuned him out. He knew he probably ought to pay attention to what else was going on around him, keep up with the cell's activities, but today he just didn't have it in him to care. He scarcely noticed when the servants scurried by, sliding a dish of mincemeat and bread in front of his face.

  Only when he heard his name did he raise his head to stare dully at Paldor, who had flecks of meat and a tiny stream of juices dribbling down the side of his chin. "Yes?"

  "Nothing too difficult for you this week," the lieutenant told him, dabbing at his lips with a napkin. "One of the Rubblefield landowners is being stubborn about the value of a property we want for expanding the complex. You and Kallist will be posing as two brothers representing the 'merchant family' that wants to buy it. Kallist will be handling the actual negotiations. Your job is to take a peek inside the man's head and find something we can use to, ah, persuade him to be more reasonable."

  "Uh-huh. And if there's no such thing?"

  "There always is. You don't get to be a landowner in Ravnica without stepping on folks. But if not? Then you make him sign at our preferred cost. The long-term solution's the better one, but we do what we've gotta do."

  Jace nodded, pushing idly at his dinner with a fork. "How many guards, if things go wrong?"

  Paldor shrugged. "My sources say he usually travels with four. Should be easy enough for you."

  "Is that easy like 'real world' easy, or easy like 'nezumi village' easy?" Jace inquired before he could think better of it. "Because if it's the latter, I might need backup."

  Several pieces of silverware clattered to the table and a number of mouths stopped chewing as six pairs of eyes fastened on him in wide astonishment. Jace, however, was too angry to feel self-conscious about it.

  "I see." Paldor, too, swallowed his current mouthful and lay his fork and napkin down before him. For a moment, his gaze swept over the entire table. "Is anyone here," he asked calmly, "unfamiliar with the recent unfortunate events to which Jace refers?"

  Everyone looked away, perhaps trying to spare Jace the embarrassment. While few of those in the room knew anything about other worlds, they'd all heard a somewhat edited version of Jace's recent "failure."

  "And you, Jace," he continued. "You feel you've been treated unfairly?"

  At that point, even Jace had come to the conclusion that it might be wiser to shut quite thoroughly up, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. "I feel like I've been punished," he said, idly rubbing his aching gut, "for someone else's mistakes."

  "Indeed." Paldor leaned back in his chair, stretching his great bulk until his spine unleashed a trio of audible pops. "It's normally not done to speak ill of the leadership of another cell," he said slowly, "but it hardly matters anymore at this point.

  "Yes, Jace. The mistakes were, for the most part, not yours. People got lazy, complacent, and didn't bother to check what they were told. My understanding is that the new cell leader is trying very hard to salvage the nezumi situation, since Tezzeret expressed his displeasure to the previous leader in no uncertain and, ah, final terms."

  Several of the diners murmured into their hands or their glasses, but nobody said anything intelligible.

  "As for Baltrice…" he continued.

  Paldor reached into his left sleeve and then slammed his right hand down on the table. "Do you know what this is?" he asked Jace, even as several of the others recoiled.

  He didn't, but sure as the Eternities were blind it wasn't a normal dagger. The blade was a strange gray metal that shimmered without the need for external light-it might, Jace realized with a start, even be forged of etherium, or at least an alloy thereof. A faint dark mist wafted from the weapon's edge, as though it were slowly evaporating in a cold night, though the blade itself never diminished.

  "It's called a manablade," Paldor said when Jace remained silent. "A rare weapon, acquired by Tezzeret some years ago from the Church of the Incarnate Soul."

  "Never heard of them."

  "Not surprising, and also not the point. The blade doesn't just draw blood, Jace. Oh, when used against someone like me, it's normal enough. A knife is a knife is a knife, right? But," he continued, leaning forward, "it cuts into a mage's soul. Bleeds his very essence into the aether. Wound a caster with this, and he doesn't just lose blood, he loses his bonds to mana. I'm told it's just about the most excruciating experience imaginable."

  Jace couldn't help but shudder. What was this church, that they could forge something like that?

  "Tezzeret gifted it to me a while ago," Paldor said, "as a reward for the completion of a particularly important operation. But he still borrows it, on occasion. And he borrowed it last week. My understanding," and now there was nothing jovial at all in that normally cheerful visage, "is that he kept himself to shallow cuts. He just wanted to make a point, after all, not permanently injure his best agent. Baltrice's scars'll probably be healed before you see her again. Or at least, the physical ones will." His eyes gleamed sickly. "I was there-Tezzeret let me watch, since it's my blade-and I think the memories will last her long, long after the scars have faded.

  "So don't come in here, Beleren, and whine to me about a little soreness after a failed operation." Paldor flicked his wrist, and the manablade vanished once more up his sleeve. "I promise you, you don't know what punishment is. Keep doing your best for Tezzeret, he'll keep making you rich-and you'll never need to know."

  Jace looked down at the table once more, and nodded.

  "Excellent." Paldor's face broke out in his accustomed grin once more. "So, who's up for dessert while we start talking details?"

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jace's face was a stony mask as he pushed through the door into Paldor's office, but those who knew him well could see faint ember of smoldering irritation, even resentment, behind his eyes. It was a look he wore frequently these days.

  "What could possibly be so urgent," the mage demanded while leaning both fists on the edge of the desk, his voice low but firm as iron, "that you had to pull me out in the middle of an ongoing assignment?"

  Paldor looked meaningfully at the desktop, then at Jace. He was not smiling. "Get your hands off."

  Jace straightened, but his expression didn't crack. "You know you left Kallist to finish the job alone? No blades, you said. Make it look like a natural death, you said. How is Kallist supposed to make it look natural without me, Paldor? Did you even think of that?"

  His face purpling, Paldor pointed across the room. And only then did Jace realize that a figure stood in the far corner, a figure he'd swept past without even noticing.

  "Really, Beleren," Tezzeret chided him. "Have you so little respect for your superiors anymore?"

  "Is there any way I can possibly answer that?"

  Tezzeret chuckled. "Probably not. I am sorry for pulling you away from your assignment, Beleren. I'm sure Kallist will do fine, though. He was doing this long before you showed up."

  "So he was."

  "But I need you for something more important. I need you to accompany me to a meeting."

  Jace's eyebrow rose. "Any chance that means you'll finally be taking me to your sanctum itself?"

  "Not at all. We're going someplace far less pleasant."

  Paldor snickered at Jace's disappointed expression. "Really, what'd you expect? I don't even know where his illustriousness takes his ease."

  "I've asked you not to call me that, Paldor," Tezzeret reminded him.

  "And I've asked to be taller," Paldor told him with a grin. Tezzeret scowled but said nothing more.

  "The meeting?" Jace prompted.

  "Yes." Tezzeret wandered behind the desk and gave Paldor a meaningful look. The lieutenant grumbled but heaved his great bulk out of the way so his employer might sit. The artificer scowled at the height of the chair, which made him look faintly ridiculous behind the equally short desk, but at least he had no doubt it would take his weight.

  He turned and gave Paldor a second look, equally significant.
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  "Oh, you've got to be kidding!" Paldor exclaimed. "Boss, this is my office. I-"

  "Should therefore know the fastest route to the door, shouldn't you? I'll let you know when we're done."

  Grumbling even more loudly, Paldor stomped his way to the door and slammed it behind him.

  "How have you been, Beleren? We've not spoken in a while."

  Deader every day. How about you?

  "Fine," he said. "Everything's just fine."

  "So glad to hear it. You'll be accompanying me to a rather delicate negotiation."

  "Oh?"

  Tezzeret waved a hand. "Bit of a conflict over mining rights in overlapping territories. Nothing that should particularly interest you."

  "That's nice," Jace said, "but actually, I meant who are we meeting with?"

  "Nicol Bolas."

  "Ah," Jace said, after replaying the answer in his mind to be certain he'd heard correctly. "This would be related to that messenger who came to us a few weeks ago."

  "It would."

  Jace shook his head and allowed himself to fall back into one of the room's sundry chairs. "I've never entirely understood… This Bolas is pretty powerful, obviously. Obviously a planeswalker, or he couldn't have put together something like the Consortium. So why usurp it from him? Couldn't you think of any safer way of building an organization?"

  Tezzeret grinned. "Some while ago, Beleren, I found myself in the ranks of a cabal that called themselves the Seekers of Carmot. Sorcerers and alchemists, they claimed a great many fascinating discoveries-but the greatest of all, and one they promised to teach me once I'd proved worthy, was the rediscovery of the ancient arts for creating etherium!" He raised his artificial arm, as though he felt the need to remind Jace of its existence.

  "Well, of course I was intrigued," he said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The person, or the faction, that learns how to replenish the Multiverse's dwindling stores of etherium would be powerful enough to trade whole worlds!

  "Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that it was all a lie. That the tales of forging etherium were a deception orchestrated by the true master of the Seekers of Carmot as one of his various convoluted schemes. And imagine my anger when, upon realizing that I knew the truth, the Seekers attempted to have me killed! After all my years of service!" Tezzeret shook his head, then smiled once more.

  "Care to guess who the Seekers' master actually was?"

  Jace gawped at him. "So stealing the Consortium was-what? Revenge?"

  "I do not," Tezzeret told him blandly, "take kindly to treachery."

  Several moments marched by as Jace allowed that to sink in. "All right," he said finally. "So what about revenge? You think Bolas is going to meet with you peacefully, just like that? You aren't afraid he might, oh, I don't know, try to kill you?"

  Tezzeret smiled and began idly tapping his fingers on the desk. The wood made a hollow sound beneath the impact of the etherium. "Bolas controls his own network of organizations, Beleren, and he's agreed to meet with me leader to leader. He won't renege on the promise of a safe negotiation, not and risk word getting out to others he might need to bargain with later on."

  "And you trust that?"

  "Not at all. I only agreed to this meeting if we could each set up wards in advance, ensuring that neither of us can attack the other. And we'll be arriving early, to double-check those wards."

  "Well, if you're sure…" Jace frowned. "So what am I here for?"

  "Ah, that." Tezzeret's grin flipped itself over into a faint scowl. "The truth is, I'm not entirely certain what Bolas is capable of. More specifically, I don't know if he can read minds."

  Jace nodded slowly. "Paldor implied something similar. So you want me there to let you know if-"

  "No. I'm certain I'd sense it if he did it to me. You're there to block him." Jace blinked.

  "It doesn't do me any good to know he's reading my mind," Tezzeret said, "if he gets what he's looking for in the process. And there are certain details that might rather substantially weaken my bargaining position if he were to learn them."

  "So why meet him in person? Why not send a proxy?"

  "Part of the deal," the artificer groused. "He wouldn't meet with anyone but me, and this mining operation is worth a lot. I have to get this matter settled."

  Jace frowned. Something about that didn't ring true at all; he'd swear he almost heard an undercurrent of fear beneath Tezzeret's normally unshakable facade.

  He also knew better than to question the man. "You know I've never actually met another reader, as far as I know, right?" he said instead. "I've got a pretty good grasp of the theory behind how to block an attempt, but I've never put it into practice. I have no idea if I can do what you're asking."

  Tezzeret nodded. "But you're more likely than anyone else, aren't you?"

  That made sense; Jace nodded. "All right. Nicol Bolas. Anything else I should know about him, other than that he's a planeswalker with a serious grudge against you?"

  "Not really," Tezzeret said, rising to his feet. "Oh, except that he's a twenty-five thousand-year-old dragon and bigger than an ogre's barn.

  "Any more questions?"

  "No," Jace said sickly. "I think that'll do."

  After the third time Tezzeret tried, and failed, to pronounce the name of the world for Jace's edification, the young mage gave up on trying to master it. Frankly, it didn't much matter if he knew the name of the world.

  He just knew that it was damned cold.

  They stood at the base of an arctic mountain range, in a crevice that offered only mediocre protection from the howling winds. Streaks of snow and sleet whipped through the air, turned sideways by those winds, sifting downward past the various crags and stone arches. Sleet stung the face, flakes melted through clothes to shiver the skin beneath. Jace felt the presence of mana in the ice below, yet it was faint, almost anemic. Someone or something-Bolas himself, perhaps? — had drawn frequently and thirstily upon the magic within, leaving precious little until the region had time to recover.

  He huddled in a heavy, fur-lined cloak, wrapped about him and held with arms crossed over his chest. Even through his scarf, he saw tiny puffs of mist with every breath. Yet Tezzeret, who was clad in leather leggings and a heavy vest with multiple pockets and straps, looked quite comfortable. From the forearm of his prosthetic hung a brass globe, attached as though with some sort of magnetism or adhesive. It glowed a warm orange and emitted a low hum that made Jace want to reach into his own head and scratch his eardrums until they stopped itching.

  And possibly to punch Tezzeret in the mouth for bringing only one.

  "Where is he, anyway?" Jace called out, shouting to be heard over the roaring winds. "I thought we were supposed to meet him half an hour ago!"

  Tezzeret shrugged. '"Bolas does not wait for you,"' he quoted. '"You wait for Bolas."'

  "I've never cared for that expression." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, carried on the wind, echoing throughout the canyon. It was deep, the rumble of the mountain's roots as the earth shifted slowly above; it resounded in their ears, utterly unimpeded by the raging blizzard. "It makes me sound so pompous. I despise other people making me sound pompous."

  The canyon before them began to darken, as something unimaginably huge took shape. "I prefer," the voice continued, "to do it myself."

  And then he was simply there. The eldest plane-swalker. The Forever Serpent. Nicol Bolas.

  He filled the canyon, a living mountain of muscle and scale, fire and fang. His dark hide shown green against the backdrop of blinding white; the smoke that rose from his nostrils was thick and red, and rain fell from the heavens where the heat of his breath melted the falling sleet. Vast wings spread wide, extending hundreds of feet from the chasm on each side-and then, impossibly, he drew them in, tucked them tightly against his body and lowered himself to the canyon's floor. The great head turned, aiming a single eye at the two insignificant humans, and within they saw themselves re
flected in a black and bottomless abyss.

  Jace found himself unable to speak, scarcely even to breathe. Even Tezzeret blanched; anyone who had spent less time with him than Jace himself would never have seen it, but there it was. No matter how well he hid it, the artificer was terrified, and Jace found that more disturbing than the dragon itself. Then, taking a deep breath, Tezzeret strode forward, "accidentally" shouldering Jace aside in the process. The jolt was enough to get him thinking once more, and Jace cast his mind out in a net, surrounding Tezzeret's own. Still, he could not tear his gaze from the impossible beast before him.

  "You do us great honor with your presence," Tezzeret began, only the faintest quiver in his voice. "It is my hope, Nicol Bolas, that together we can come to a mutually beneficial-"

  "Shut up." Bolas shifted his head, causing a small avalanche of ice and rock to pour down from the ledge against which he stood. "I hate you, artificer, and I find rare cause to bother hating anyone anymore. The only reason I'm not currently picking your spine out from between my teeth is because you were smart enough to arrange these wards ahead of time.

  "More to the point," he continued, "I know full well you feel the same about me, no matter how you choose to doll up your words and trot them out like perfumed trollops." The dragon shifted, dragging a single claw across the ice with an ear-splitting screech. "So perhaps we can save the pleasantries for those who might actually care about them, and simply tell me what you propose?"

  "Very well. First, I want you to stop…" Tezzeret took a breath, coughed once to hide the fact that his voice had nearly broken. "Stop interfering with my operations in the Kankarras Mountains."

  "Your operations?" Bolas rumbled. "I seem to recall staking a very public-and perfectly legal-claim to the mineral rights all the way from the banks of the Ashadris to…"