by Doug Beyer
“I wanted to ask you here to tell you … to give you … something,” she stammered.
“That’s nice of you,” he said.
He was so polite and gracious. That made it harder. She almost wished he would yell at her, so that she could deliver the blow more easily.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh. I, uh—” What was she going to give him? She didn’t actually know. It struck her that she had no memento of Bant. There was no plaque, no ring, no ornately-framed painting to commemorate that she had ever been there. When she had arrived she had owned nothing, and she never came to possess anything of consequence while living there, no token of her connection.
She truly was an orphan, she thought. So she deserved to feel like one. Who calls a place a home, and then fails to defend it as her own?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I don’t really have anything to give you.”
Mardis pressed his lips firmly together. His words came out clipped. “You’re leaving Valeron.”
Elspeth swallowed. “I … Yes. I’m leaving … Valeron.”
“But why?”
“It’s important that I leave.” I can’t stay, she thought. I can’t stay and see what war has done to Bant.
“But where will you go?” asked Mardis. “The whole world’s like this. Surely you’re not moving to one of the other shards?”
“I’m not sure yet.” No, she was leaving Alara altogether, which her friend couldn’t understand. But she could see that he understood how serious she was.
“But you can’t leave,” said Mardis, finally displaying true emotion. “You’re of the Sigiled caste. You’d be deserting your post. You’d be violating your oath as a knight.”
“I know.”
“But that means you could never come back.”
“I know.”
Mardis looked stung. That was the face, she thought. That was the face she had predicted he would make, that somehow she had hoped he would make. That was the true gift she could give him—to make him hate her, to sever their friendship under brutal circumstances, so that she could never be missed. She had called him there to betray him, so that he would have good reason to move on, to live his own life, and forget her.
“I’ll remember you,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
But no, you won’t, Mardis, she thought. After I go, I’ll fade from your memory, and you’ll fill your life with your loved ones again. There’ll be nothing left of me, nothing to show that I was ever on bant. It is what I am. It is my life, always trying to find native soil, but never leaving footprints. But I’ll remember you, Mardis. I’ll remember Bant forever. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
They almost embraced, but instead shook hands awkwardly. He looked like he was about to say something more, but instead he turned and walked out. The door shut gently.
Elspeth turned back to the window. Outside, an acolyte wheeled a cart over to one of the funeral pyres, and tipped someone’s son or daughter onto it.
She closed the shutters on the window, and then waited until dark to planeswalk away.
Mubin recognized the snarl of the leotau first, coming in through the window. Then he recognized the particular jounce of metal armor and sigils as the man climbed off the steed. Then he recognized the voice.
“Mubin?” the voice called. “Are you in here?”
It was Rafiq, the so-called hero. He’d finally come back from the war.
“You old bastard,” Mubin said to the paladin as he entered. “I owe the clerics a bag of coin now—the errant knight has returned.”
“That’s Knight-General to you,” Rafiq said.
“Oh ho, is it now? No, I think I should call you Knight-Idiot for the stunt you pulled. That mission to Esper was ours. I was supposed to go with you, and when I got hurt—” He stopped.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Mubin,” said Rafiq, full of cheer. “I’ve done it. I have it. I’ve returned with the etherium. It’s the only good thing to come out of this war—you’ll be able to walk again.”
Mubin allowed his spirits to jump for a moment. “You did?”
Could he actually have done it? Mubin wondered. He mouthed the gasp of hope that he wanted to breathe. Still, even in his rising mood, he felt the weight of guilt. “You risked your neck unnecessarily,” he said. “Anybody could have been sent to do this.”
“Nobody more motivated,” said Rafiq dismissively. “We’ve got everything we need out in the cart. I’ve already got the clergy working on the incantations.”
Mubin felt wary. An alien form of magic, intruding his body? A ritual using borrowed words and components from a world away? But if he refused to try, Rafiq would never see him walk again. Worse, Mubin’s immobile limbs would serve as an eternal reminder of his friend’s error—and of the rift between them. If he never got out of his bed, it would make Rafiq’s arduous mission all for nothing.
“So,” Mubin said finally. “When can we start?”
Rafiq’s laugh filled the room, and released a soul’s worth of pent-up hope.
JUND
Sarkhan reached back and snapped an arrow shaft that jutted from between his shoulder blades. As he walked, he tried to excavate the arrowhead out from his back with a knife. Elves make good quality arrows, he thought; they dig deep and clutch at you from the inside. He wondered whether the arrowhead lodged in his back was carved from the bone of some great Naya beast. He imagined the bone shard sizzling as it came in contact with his blood, the blood that was corrupted by drops from the veins of his master, Bolas.
The battle had not gone well for Sarkhan, and he was not eager to seek out the ancient dragon, wherever he had gone, and face his judgment. He was not eager to explain that his mana bonds were shorn from him by a neophyte planeswalker, and that he fled, the authority over his flight of dragons dwindling as his mana left him, all the way back to Jund.
He dug at the skin on his back, wincing slightly, and finally wrung the arrowhead free. He stopped walking up the trail for a moment and looked at it in his hand. It was no mighty bone shard; it was just a chipped stone triangle in a handful of blood. It struck him that it was his allegiance to Bolas, he thought. That was his fate, to be a weapon drowned in another’s blood. He had the brief, bizarre impulse to plunge the arrowhead into his eyeballs. The thought made him chuckle, and the chuckle turned into uncontrolled laughter that went on until he was hoarse.
Keep your mind together, he warned himself. But he thought of Bolas’s black silhouette on the sky, and couldn’t think of a reason why he should.
He walked to the edge of the Sweltering Cauldron, the volcanic caldera where he had taught a cat-man about fire and rage. The lava bubbled below him, oppressively hot, blackening his feet through his boots. He wondered what it would be like to be lowered, bit by bit, into that glowing red sludge.
He chortled crazily, and then planeswalked away from Alara.
BANT
I’m told this isn’t often done this late in life,” said the healer, a middle-aged human woman.
Mubin lay on the bed in the cleric’s temple, a broad protection circle surrounding the bed. The covers were pulled up, leaving his limp legs exposed. Next to him, Rafiq looked on with a brother’s worry. The healer bound her long sleeves up with loops of twine and arranged the translations of the Esper rituals along Mubin’s bedside.
Next to the bed, a small cauldron of silver metal roiled and bubbled. The liquid behaved as though it were boiling hot, but there was no fire under it, and it didn’t fume into the air. Either etherium boiled cool, or some magic in the cauldron was keeping it an unnaturally active liquid.
“Esper beings get etherium enhancements well into old age,” continued the healer, “but the first infusion is usually done on a young body, a body that’s still growing and easily able to heal. Healing helps the body incorporate the alloy. But in principle, this should work on an adult.”
“Don’t you worry,” Rafiq said. “She’s
the best. She was our balmgiver on our mission, and she was right there with us when we captured the formula. She knows everything that anybody on Bant knows about this process.”
That didn’t sound entirely promising. “Should I be asleep?” asked Mubin.
“It’s better if you’re awake, so you can answer my questions,” said the healer. “I’ll need as much information back from you as you can provide me. If you feel anything strange, tell me, all right?”
Mubin looked at his legs, and at the cauldron of silvery etherium. He felt strange, all right. But he just nodded.
Mubin’s legs were numb as the balmgiver did her work on them. He couldn’t see much over the raised sheet, but if he craned his neck, he could get a glimpse of how his legs had been sliced from thigh to foot, and the skin flayed open. The healer was chanting quietly and pouring the silvery alloy into the long wounds. The sight made him dizzy, and he lay down.
He had no sensation in his legs, but it wasn’t long before he felt a flood of strange sensations throughout the rest of his body. He felt energized, as if all the systems in his body were being organized more effectively and efficiently. He felt strength returning to muscles that he didn’t even realize had atrophied since his injury. He felt strangely youthful. His dizziness turned to euphoria.
“Are you giggling?” Rafiq asked incredulously.
“Was I?”
“I think you were. It’s difficult to tell on a rhox, but I wouldn’t know what else to call it.”
“That’s enough, you two,” said the healer. “I’m almost done here, but I don’t need you disturbing the patient, Knight-General.”
Mubin grinned, and tried to relax, as the healer chanted.
“The filigree is taking shape,” she said.
Rafiq’s eyes widened as he stared down at Mubin’s legs. “You should be seeing this,” he said. “It’s amazing. The metal is twining in on itself, branching and … stretching, as it cools and sets. It’s making … something. Something beautiful.”
“It’s making knees,” the healer said quietly.
Mubin was hardly prepared for the electric pain that stabbed through his body. He moaned as blades cut their way through his veins and tiny lightning excruciated his nerves. He didn’t have time to ask what was wrong before it overwhelmed his mind, and he passed out.
Rafiq watched purple splotches spread their way up Mubin’s body. The process was sickeningly swift; he could see the rhox’s skin bruising from the inside out, starting at his legs, moving up his chest and neck and out into his arms.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “Get it out of him. The etherium, it’s … poisoning him. Can’t you see that? Get your knives and cut it out of him now!”
The balmgiver was moving quickly, drawing angelic symbols across his body with sacred dyes, but she couldn’t contain the reaction. It was spreading too fast.
Mubin’s body jerked, and his back arched once, twice. His eyes were clenched shut, and sweat ran down his face. His lungs pumped up and down, making loose wheezing sounds.
“Do something,” Rafiq said. “You have to save him. Oh Asha, I’ve made a mistake. What have I done?”
“I’ll do everything I can,” said the healer. “I’m giving him a balm to ease the pain, but we have little knowledge of this kind of magic. It appears to be an infection of some kind, but the usual methods of treating it aren’t working. I’m afraid we have nothing to combat this infection.”
Mubin’s convulsions stopped, and his breathing slowed.
“He’s coming around,” said the healer. She touched Rafiq’s arm. “I’d advise you to make your peace.”
No, thought Rafiq. Not yet. “Every time,” he said.
“Every time I thought I was doing something right, old friend, I’ve done everything wrong.”
Mubin’s eyelids opened as slits. His eyes found Rafiq’s.
“How’s it going, old friend,” Mubin croaked.
Rafiq blinked rapidly. A lump was forming in his throat. “You’re doing well. It’s going to be fine.”
“Sure,” said Mubin. “I’ll be dancing. In no time.” “Don’t task yourself. Rest.”
“I’m fine. Growing pains.” The old rhox smiled. Purple contusions slithered up his cheeks.
“Mubin, I’m sorry,” Rafiq whispered. “I’ve failed at every turn.”
“It’s not about that, old friend,” said Mubin. “Your virtue … made you blind. While you looked into the sun, they stabbed you … You just never—”
Mubin gritted his teeth, and coughed black blood through them.
Rafiq hurried to wipe his lips, and pat the sweat on his brow. Mubin’s eyes closed, his head sagged, and he fell back into unconsciousness.
Mubin never woke up again.
“It’s time to go, Knight-General,” said the girl, Rafiq’s newly-assigned squire. She was the same young page who had once polished the faces of his sigils for him. She was more nursemaid than squire, he thought. He couldn’t remember her name.
“I’m not going to that thing,” Rafiq muttered. If Mubin were there, he wouldn’t try to make him leave his chamber. Not when he felt that way.
“You have to go, sir; you’re being honored,” she said. “You’re getting the Sigil of the Grand Laurel. I told you, remember?”
She was supposed to be very promising as a young knight-to-be, and she was of course humble to a fault when they were reintroduced. She admired him and his glorious deeds; it was an honor to see him again; it would be her privilege to serve as his attendant from now on. It made him feel sick inside.
“I don’t want any more sigils.”
“I’ll get your gown,” said Thilka, or whatever her name was. “Oh, the messenger was outside—do you know a couple called the Levacs? They say they had a baby. A daughter. And they want you to be her godfather.”
Rafiq wondered what he had said at Mubin’s funeral. Mubin’s body had been interred in the burial grounds behind the palace of Aarsil the Blessed, not far from the Twelve Trees of Valeron that the old rhox had helped dig up, and not far from the reliquary where he and Rafiq had first met so long ago. Rafiq barely remembered the ceremony. Had he given a speech? Had he raved like a lunatic? He hadn’t the haziest idea. He remembered the girl—Thenka or whatever her name was—escorting him to the carriage, and how he’d demanded she take him to the old watering hole in the neighboring village, and he remembered the painful hangover the next day.
The squire girl brought him his formal court-gown, and began the process of getting him inside it. He didn’t resist. He was watching a spot on the wall, where a spider was creeping up the wall. It moved a few inches, and then stopped, then turned, then moved a few more inches. Rafiq wondered if the spider was deciding on an overall course of action, or whether it was making turns at random and letting chance decide its destination. All his life he had tried to make the right and virtuous choices, he thought, but every time he felt that chance had twisted them beyond recognition. He had been the plaything of prophets, rulers, and demons. He had followed the path of virtue at every turn, and where had it gotten him?
The spider doubled back on its previous progress, crawling over a crack in the wood beams of the wall. There it stopped, and waited for something only a spider could understand. Then it zigzagged yet again and headed in a new direction.
It was worse than being a victim of fate. If his life had been just a sequence of random events, he might actually understand all the destruction, betrayal, and death. He might understand Mubin’s death as a tragic accident brought on by sightless fortune. But he knew that he had made choices in each of the tragedies that befell him. The common factor behind every misfortune in his life was himself.
“There you are,” said the girl—Thokka, or whatever. She had managed to get him in his gown despite himself. “How handsome you look. You’re all ready to receive the Sigil of the Grand Laurel. Now let’s go, sir, we can’t afford to keep the Blessed caste waiting. Would you like to wear your sw
ord to the ceremony, sir, or Knight Mubin’s?”
“I’m not one to choose,” he said.
As she led him out of the chamber, he watched the spider speed across the wall for a moment, then turn suddenly, then move in a slow arc back to the place where it had started.
NAYA
Ajani pushed a sponge into the bottom of the wooden bucket, soaking up the water and cleanser, and squeezed it out. He scrubbed the rough stone floor of Jazal’s lair, where the bed had been, wiping up the stains. The spot had discolored to black and had soaked into the porous stone, but Ajani worked at it with vigor.
“Ajani? Can I come in?” Zaliki’s voice.
Ajani didn’t look up. “I don’t know. Do you think you deserve to come in here?”
Zaliki watched him scrub the stain from the mouth of the cave.
“You’re right. I’ll go.”
“Wait, Zaliki. I have to tell you something.”
She stopped, but didn’t face him. “What is it.”
“I’m going. Tonight.”
“Where?” She turned. “Away from Naya?”
“Away from everything. Away from Alara.”
She watched him squeeze water onto the stain. Rehydrated blood flowed along cracks in the floor.
“Will you ever be back?”
“I can’t say,” he said. “I don’t think this world is … meant for me. I don’t know.”
“I’ll miss you,” she said.
“I’m appointing you kha.”
“What?”
“I’ve met with the elders. In light of recent events, they not only look me in the eye now—they’ve offered me leadership of the pride. But I’m abdicating the kha position to you. Please, do this for me.”
“Ajani, I—”
“I need to know that someone will take care of this pride. Someone who will carry on what Jazal was trying to do. Who will reunify with the Cloud Nacatl and communicate with the elves. Someone who will make sure no one is trying to infiltrate us again.”