Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (magic:the gathering)

by Robert B. Wintermute

  Is it? the vampire said.

  Is there anything else I should know about the kor?

  Nothing you do not already. They give away one of their children to the wilderness, as you know.

  They what? Sorin said. He bent close to hear what they were saying.

  The elf knows what I saw is true, Anowon said.

  Nissa said nothing.

  Truly? Sorin said.

  It s called a world gift, Anowon said.

  Most die. Some wander out of the wilderness and are assimilated among other races. But many of those who were assimilated go back to the wilderness.

  Nissa found herself staring at Smara squatting in the dusty rock dust watching the burial. She spoke without taking her eyes off Smara.

  Are the world gift kor that survive accepted back into the group?

  Anowon looked back at the ceremony. You know they are not.

  Nissa felt her breath catch in her throat. The kor priest kept the bundle spinning near the smoking fire. A tear edged down Smara s filthy face.

  Do they want to come back more than anything? Nissa asked. She stared off at nothing as she spoke. Do they ever try and see if their elders will allow them to return home and be part of the tribe again. Do they apologize?

  Anowon frowned at her tone of voice. Are you ill? Anowon said. To Nissa, his tone conveyed anything but concern.

  I am not ill, Nissa said, searching his smooth face for any expression that might explain the comment. Finding none, she straightened and put her chin up. I just happen to know something about exile.

  I am sure you do, replied Anowon.

  Let us be away. Ghet Sorin said. His voice carried through the canyon, echoing off the walls so the kor priest looked up from his spinning. Sorin stood and began walking.

  Anowon turned and followed.

  Nissa caught his arm. Why do you follow him thus? she asked. What power does he have over you?

  Anowon opened his mouth, then closed it. He was clearly about to tell her something. Finally, he shook his head and turned away to follow Sorin.

  Nissa followed them both, and the sounds of the funeral and Smara s muttering trailed her as they all walked away. Soon she felt hot tears on her face and wiped them away hard with the back of her glove. She had been a young warrior. What did a young elf know about right and wrong? About proper and taboo? How was she to have known that the ability she possessed was something to be hidden away? But the truth was she knew, even then. She knew that she was different and she flaunted it. And when her mother and father exposed her to the Deep Council for displaying non-Joraga tendencies, it was exactly what she deserved. And she was better for it.

  Are you done with your little weeping? Sorin said. If it pleases you, we will leave now.

  I am coming, she said.

  They walked into the foothills with no sign of pursuit. And by sundown the red foothills flattened to rolling grassland. Where the sward on the other side of the Piston Mountains had been bare, the plains were absolutely covered with huge diamond shaped stones hedron stones. Most of the stones were the size of a houses, but many were smaller, and some were buried in the ground at various positions and depths. As Nissa watched, six stones pulled together so their tips touched and formed a huge star floating above the grass. She continued to watch as it broke apart and the pieces drifted away.

  Most of the hedrons were floating above the ground with tips pointing at the sky and the green grass. On the horizon Nissa could see the dark shadow of the ocean topped by banks of purple clouds.

  Zulaport lies on that shore, Nissa said as she pointed. She could smell the salt air on the breeze. She glanced down at the rocky debris she was standing on and guessed that the trail had not been used for many weeks, and that it had last been used by goblins. She could see where the faint digs from their toenails had degraded with the rains and wind.

  A hedron stone bobbed slightly as they walked past. Each of the stones was grooved with the strange designs found on all the crumbling edifices on Zendikar, but Nissa had never seen so many in one place.

  The Fields of Agadeem, Anowon said. I have never actually seen them.

  The brood did not drag you this way? asked Sorin.

  He did not even turn at her taunt. No, they did not, he said. He looked out over the fields as they walked. A bird of prey was perched on the tip of the nearest hedron. It watched them with shining eyes as they passed.

  A bit further they found the blue striped, dead body of a juvenile sphinx. It floated in a knotted eddy of humid wind formed around a pack of stones. The mana in the gravity well refracted light like it was underwater.

  Later, Sorin stopped and put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the low sun. What would that be? Sorin said.

  Nissa followed his eyes to a bit of movement on the plains below. She looked closer and saw a half-built structure cut into the turf. The structure was simple, no more than four walls built as high as Nissa s chin. Something was moving around the structure s shell.

  What are they doing? Nissa said.

  Anowon squinted. They are brood, he said.

  And they are building.

  They walked closer, being careful to creep from hedron to hedron. But Sorin ignored Nissa s and Anowon s attempts at stealth and walked straight for the strange building site. The wind was blowing into their faces, which was a stroke of good luck perhaps the only one they would get.

  Soon they were as close as they dared go without risking detection, and Sorin stopped for a moment, then walked even closer. Nissa would have liked to have remained concealed, but they had no choice but to follow Sorin as he bulled ahead. Smara followed some distance behind.

  Nissa felt like cuffing Sorin when she caught up, but one look at his eyes and she lost that feeling. He had drawn his great sword and was looking at the brood in a certain intent, unblinking way that spoke of violence.

  The brood were dragging stones, or rather their vampire workers were dragging stones using harnesses bound to their shoulder and elbow horns. Nissa looked at Anowon s elbow horns. The vampire caught her staring and turned away.

  There were perhaps thirty brood, including something she had not seen before: juvenile brood. At least that was what she thought they were. They were half the size of the other brood.

  We will take them unawares, Sorin said. Elf he pointed off to the right you start there and sweep in. Ghet, you go there and run straight in.

  Straight in, Anowon said, without the slightest inflection.

  Yes, that s what I said.

  And what will we Nissa started.

  We will destroy them all, Sorin said.

  We will destroy them all? Nissa repeated. But then she thought of Speaker Sutina, the leader of the Tajuru whom the brood had slain. Yes, we will, she said.

  I have no weapon, Anowon said.

  Sorin looked at him, measuring him up. Use your teeth, Vampire, he said. Then one of Sorin s smug smiles spread across his face. Are you not angry at that lot? Look at your brethren toiling there. Sorin s eyes stayed on Anowon. See here, they are vulnerable to biting and tearing attacks. Most of them are unarmored, and their flesh is soft. They bleed easily. They will not expect us. They are building whatever they are building. We can take them in the flank.

  Anowon s mouth twisted into a growl. Nissa thought it was more for Sorin than the brood.

  But Sorin misinterpreted the look. That is more of what I had in mind, he said.

  Nissa moved off to the north to squat behind a hedron stone, awaiting Sorin s nod.

  As they watched, a brood with tentacles for legs moved to the rock Nissa was hiding behind, and leaned its bony head against the hedron stone. It stayed that way, making sucking sounds. The sweat cooled on Nissa s forehead. What was it sucking off the rock?

  Nissa was ready when Sorin nodded. She twisted her staff and slid the stem blade out. With a flick it went limp, and she used it as a whip, snapping it around the rock and neatly severing the brood s head from its should
ers.

  Sorin began to run toward the half-built structure. After a moment, Nissa followed, and so did Anowon. The first brood had their backs turned, helping the vampires push a huge block along runners of logs. Sorin and Nissa cut the brood down, and they slumped over the block they had been moving.

  The rest of the brood fled to the structure they were building. As they charged, Sorin spoke in his rhyming voice. Nissa listened as it rose and fell to its own rhythm. She could see the cone of sound ripple in the air as the energy tunneled into the brood. Within seconds, their flesh began to tumble off the bone. Before her eyes the creatures fell to pieces, their bones freed from the sinews that held them taught.

  Nissa could see the toll such an expenditure of power made on Sorin. When he closed his mouth he had to reach out and steady himself on a hedron stone. His white hair was matted with sweat to his forehead, and his skin was so pale she could have seen veins.

  But Nissa did not have time to look for veins in Sorin s skin. A group of brood peered out from behind the corner of the half-built structure, and as she watched they spread out in a line and started running at her.

  Robert B. Wintermute

  Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

  Many of the brood were of the tentacle-and-bone variety, Nissa noticed, but at least one of them was the large kind with the many blue eyes. Its tentacles were as thick as a man s chest as they churned up the dirt while running at her. The creature s squat front tentacles dug for purchase as lines of muscle rippled. Behind, four more brood with bone heads ran, followed by three of the kind that flew.

  Nissa had a matter of moments before the flying ones were on her. She fell and put her forehead and palms on the ground and took a deep breath. In a moment, the vigor of life pulsed up through the dirt and shot up her veins and arteries and into her head.

  And she was not the only one. Anowon charged forward and slashed savagely at one of the flying brood with his long-nailed hands. He bit and tore a head-sized chunk out of its tentacle.

  Nissa formed an image in her mind. A moment later a shrill cry split the air and a huge, six-legged basilisk was blinking its oily black eyes in the sun. It swung its head and caught one of the flying brood by a tentacle and flipped it into a nearby hedron. The other brood fell on the lizard like a stone. The lizard hit the brood hard on the top of the head and threw it off into the weeds. From the way it hit the ground, Nissa could tell the brood was dead. The basilisk shook its head, tripped, and almost fell. But it did not, and a second later the brood on foot reached it.

  One of the winged ones had snuck past her basilisk. Nissa looked up just as the brood threw one of its long tentacle-arms out to catch her around the neck. Nissa caught the tentacle in her hand and gave it a tug, and the brood had to pull wildly to stay aloft. But stay aloft it did. It snapped its other tentacle out, and with a deft movement Nissa sheared it off with her stem. Still the brood did not cry out. Nissa marveled at that. Perhaps it did not have a mouth.

  Another of the creature s tentacles came out and struck her on the forehead. Nissa fell back and pulled her feet up over her head and flipped as best she could. She landed face down, and the brood was on her. She rolled to the right, but the brood grasped her neck and pulled her up and threw her. Nissa flew through the air and was able to easily flip and land lightly on her feet.

  To her left the basilisk she had summoned was making wide sweeps with its head. The two horns protruding from its forehead were already blood-spattered, and as she watched, the huge brood rammed into the basilisk s haunch. The lizard screamed and turned for a bite, but its fangs snapped on air the brood-bull had backed away.

  Nissa eyed her stem where it lay in the grass between her and the flying brood. The stump of the brood s tentacle was dripping blood, she saw, but the creature regarded her as mildly as if she had waved hello to it. She gauged the distance and guessed she could reach the weapon before the brood reached her.

  Nissa had always been a fast runner, even for an elf. Joraga prided themselves on sprinting, and she had won most of her tree s weekly races while still only a juvenile. But she had never seen speed like the brood produced. It was past her stem and coming directly for her before she was halfway.

  Nissa used her last step to jump up and over the brood. She put her hands before her and snatched her stem before tucking her head, rolling along the turf, and popping up on her feet. The brood was too far away, otherwise she would have snapped it while its back was still turned. Why should she, a Joraga, be concerned with the formality of honor when these plagues were running roughshod over Zendikar?

  She started running at the brood again. The creature turned and, seeing her running, attempted to fly, but Nissa snapped its right, split arm off with her stem.

  Nissa firmed the stem into a spike, tucked its handle under her armpit, and ran its tip into the middle of the brood. She drove it all the way in until it rested against its chest.

  The brood stopped moving as Nissa drew the stem back out. Its tentacles and arm went limp, and its body pitched foreword.

  The basilisk had destroyed almost all of the brood. The large brood lay on the ground gasping for air with a horn-puncture through its chest and brown foam at its mouth. She walked past the fray, toward the building where Sorin was wiping the blade of his great sword on a clump of grass. A juvenile broodling lay hacked in two pieces not far away.

  Sorin looked up at Nissa s frowning face. Sorin glanced at the dead brood juvenile and smiled.

  Would you have rather taken him home? Sorin asked.

  She was about to respond. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Perhaps he was right. What was wrong with killing the young of such creatures? Were they not brutes? They wanted Zendikar. They wanted to clear the trees and dig holes and suck on rocks.

  Look at this. It was Anowon s voice, and it came from near the structure. Nissa and Sorin followed his voice around a corner. A brood with a crushed skull lay slumped against the half-built wall. Nissa looked at Anowon and then up to see the vampire slaves fleeing through the hedrons to the mountains, with their harness ropes untied and trailing behind them. There was no sign of Smara and her goblins.

  Anowon, however, was peering at the rocks used in a finished part of the structure. He had a small sliver of glass which he held before one of his eyes as he looked closely at some carvings.

  A thought immediately occurred to her: how had the brood carved that? She looked around. There was no sign of any tools. How had they cut the blocks? Where had they quarried them?

  Anowon waved them closer. Look at this, he repeated. The stones he gestured at had strange glyphlike patterns chiseled into them like many of the other structures and hedrons that floated in crumbled glory across Zendikar.

  Nissa looked up at Anowon.

  Do you see anything different? he asked. He pointed at one of the hedrons floating nearby. Look at that first.

  Nissa looked at the floating stele, which was bobbing an arm s width away. Anowon was right. The design on the new structure was similar to what was on the hedron, but not the same. The structure s design was rougher somehow. The lines were neither as symmetrical, nor as clearly graven.

  Why would that be? Nissa said.

  The vampire gave a knowing curl to his lip. Well, the designs are similar at first, but very different on closer inspection.

  Sorin rolled his eyes.

  They are very different, Anowon continued. He pointed to the nearby hedron. The big brood pushed that stone this close. It was what it was doing when we attacked.

  Why would it push it that close? Nissa asked.

  To copy the design, replied Anowon.

  Nissa was silent for a moment. I would have thought those designs are a language, or some known part of the brood s life. A story perhaps?

  They are language, Anowon said. Power glyphs in ancient Eldrazi. This one says, There is no power but our power. The vampire pointed at a panel of glyphic lettering on the stele, then pointed to a similar
marking on the building. But this means nothing. This is not even close in shape.

  Sorin sniffed.

  Nissa bent for another look at the hedron glyph and then the glyph on the structure. They looked the same to her.

  Do you not see? Anowon said, pointing to the hedron. The words on this are copied imperfectly on this, he pointed to the structure. Copied to meaningless gibberish.

  Why would they have to copy? Nissa said.

  A good question, Sorin said. Sharp as jurworrel thorns you are.

  Nissa ignored him and turned to Anowon, who regarded her as he stroked his chin.

  They must be unable to write ancient Eldrazi, he said. They are copying something that they have forgotten how to produce. They either have forgotten or they never knew.

  But who wrote them, then? Nissa said. And why are the brood copying them?

  The brood idolize the authors, obviously, Anowon said.

  Gods? Nissa said.

  Perhaps.

  Sorin smiled. As interesting as this little lesson of archaeosophy is, do you not think we should arrive at Zulaport? I am not feeling my best.

  Nissa could hear the distaste in Sorin s voice, and she suddenly realized that she hated him for it. But it was true that Sorin did not look like he had when had they set out from Graypelt. He was noticeably thinner, and papery somehow. After rot-talking during the attack on the brood, he looked positively stricken, like he was possessed by a horrible disease that made his eye sockets deepen and his skin look like dead leaves.

  Anowon paid no attention. He was staring at the building. A moment later a strange look crossed over his face. He muttered something to himself and began fumbling in the leather pouch on his belt. Soon he drew out his scraps of parchment and scraped something on one with a piece of charcoal. He stopped and felt for one of the metal cylinders hanging from his belt. He pulled the cylinder up and read the letters on it, holding it very close to his face, turning it slowly as he read.

  Sorin watched with a bemused look on his face. I suddenly feel like I am intruding, he said. Do you want to be alone, Ghet?

  Anowon looked up and blinked. What do you want? he asked.