by Cory Herndon
With the kind of internal logic that springs up in all huge metropolises, the Orzhov district was not considered part of the “undercity” section of Ravnica, like the Golgari and Rakdos territories were. This was true even though the mansion district spread both upward and downward to encompass several vertically adjacent areas of the City of Guilds. The district’s own towering, interlocked structures prevented daylight from ever reaching any but the uppermost spires, casting the entire area in perpetual darkness cut only by the glowspheres that hung everywhere—but never close enough to each other to prevent a few stretches of permanent night.
It was typically busy inside the cathedral. Spectral messengers floated to and fro, indentured to serve the patriarchs beyond death by ironclad Orzhov contracts. Clusters of statues celebrating the achievements and wealth of the guild, especially those linked to the family Karlov, gave the place the feel of both a museum and a tomb. Few actual Orzhov were there. However, mansion-district residents enjoyed an extremely sedentary lifestyle. More active types like Teysa tended to live in the city proper.
The lifestyle in the mansion district would not have been possible if not for the thrulls, gargoyles, and other semi-intelligent (and sometimes fiercely intelligent) servant races employed by the Orzhov. But creatures like the one Teysa and Melisk now approached were the primary reason the Orzhov had been able to stay so well protected in their mansions and estates.
The creature was an intelligent golem that had slaughtered its creator, a wizard whose name had been lost to history and that the guardian would not repeat. Its body was composed of stone, bone, and raw elemental magic in the form of an enormous scorpionlike creature, long extinct, called a solifuge. The guardian usually stood in a perpetual state of attack: all eight primary limbs bent at the first joint and jammed down into the granitelike stone pillars, each one twice as tall as Teysa. Its forelimbs were raised to the sky like horns, and its eight crystalline eyes took in all angles. One could only enter the mansion on foot by walking beneath the guardian, and the guardian could impale someone with both fangs before he cleared the second set of limbs. The huge arachnid was working off a vengeance contract that the Orzhov had fulfilled their end of several millennia ago. It would be working off the contract for several thousand years to come, as well.
The creature, ancient beyond reckoning, had wanted a lot of vengeance.
“Hello, Pazapatru,” Teysa said, and extended her arm, hand out, palm up. “How are you?” Her robe slipped away from her forearm and exposed a set of three black stones set into her skin. The stone solifuge’s mammoth head creaked and scraped until it faced the advokist. Its forward set of eyes shone red for a few seconds, and the stones in her wrist reflected the light.
Pazapatru spoke, a sizzling series of hisses and clicks that Teysa’s Orzhov blood let her understand as easily as if the ancient creature had been speaking common Ravi. “Teysa. I am well and look forward to my freedom in precisely 2,281 years, nine months, eleven days, two hours, forty-four minutes, and … ten seconds. On that day I will destroy you all.”
“I don’t doubt you will, but I hope to be a ghost by then.”
“That would be wise. Only one guest?”
“Yes,” Teysa said. “One attendant guest. Don’t eat him, please. I look forward to your vengeance as always, old friend.”
Click-scrape-grind-screech. “Enjoy your visit, Teysa. Eventual death to you and your attendant guest.”
“And to you,” Teysa said. The guardian reared up on its four hind legs, Teysa nodded to Melisk, and they headed inside.
By the time they’d reached the entrance to Uncle’s chambers, the welcoming glowspheres of home no longer seemed inviting, since this was only home to her now in the sense that it was her place of origin. The old patriarch had better have had a good reason for calling her all the way back here. She’d forgotten how long and monotonous the halls could be in this place: wing after wing of statues, paintings, glowing mana sculpture, and chiseled-stone likenesses, all depicting the pure Orzhov greatness of the house of Karlov. It was all gaudily lit, all overdone, all, in general, nauseating to any being that possessed a modicum of taste—especially when every single piece of “art” in the halls depicted the same person: the patriarch she called Uncle.
Teysa had long wondered why there were no matriarchs but privately suspected it was because no woman in her right mind would want to spend a life of near-immortality with the patriarchy.
A pair of bald, statuesque angels flanked the gold-leafed doors to his chambers. They were not Boros angels, of course, but angels of a darker hue, more suited to Orzhov needs, and, from the look of it, fighting was only one of the needs they’d been built to answer. Teysa had it on good authority that the angels’ blind devotion to the patriarchs—a devotion carved into their very beings at the time of their creation—often led to scenes that the advokist would rather not consider for too long. Their black, feathered wings flared as they spotted the newcomers, and their solid-white eyes glowed softly in recognition of Teysa’s Orzhov blood.
Uncle was unusual in some respects. Unlike most other patriarchs, he preferred not to use an elaborate and impressive-sounding name to bolster his authority. He was simply “Uncle” to anyone with Orzhov blood, “Patriarch” to all others. And unlike his fellows, he had left the district in the last twenty years, a firsthand witness to the bizarre events at the Decamillennial convocation more than a decade ago. His angels of despair had accompanied him and, by Uncle’s personal account, had saved his life from the onslaught of the Selesnyan quietmen. Teysa could believe that. Though useless in long, subtle, more effective campaigns, the Orzhov angels were deadly in swift, straightforward combat.
Uncle’s angels slapped the flat of their sword blades against opposing shoulders and took a precise sidestep that revealed identical golden collections plates mounted on small pedestals. Teysa placed enough zinos in each to buy a small starter mansion—this offering was not just to the Orzhov, it was to her personal patriarch, and in those cases the “offering” was more like a tribute. As each coin dropped atop its fellows, she spoke ancient words that praised Uncle’s longevity and health.
When the clinking of coins stopped a few seconds later, a panel in the right door slid aside like clockwork to reveal the sallow face of Mr. Yigor, Uncle’s personal doorman. His face could hardly have been more skeletal if one had gone through the trouble of skinning it. For a long time Teysa had thought that Mr. Yigor was some kind of thrull or zombie, but he was actually just a very old, very overworked human with an attitude and independence spawned from countless faithful years at Uncle’s side.
“Yes?” Mr. Yigor said.
“Don’t act surprised. We’ve been sent for.”
“And?” the doorman said.
“And you should open the door before I remove your eyes, servant,” Melisk said in a slightly muffled voice from behind his mask.
“Very well,” Mr. Yigor said. He never did anything until threatened, as was the custom when a personal servant was dealing with anyone but the one to whom he, she, or it was indentured. Teysa suspected Mr. Yigor also enjoyed the ever-so-tiny opportunity to give a little guff back to his betters, if the old creature could be said to enjoy anything.
Melisk took up his staff and readied the mask, a superficially beatific representation of Uncle’s face. Teysa reached inside her robes and produced a slim, fragile mask of her own that bore a face almost identical to the one Melisk was using. Teysa’s was an heirloom, a brittle-looking shell of painted mother-of-pearl, nine hundred years old. It had been a gift from Uncle. She pressed the heirloom to her face and felt it affix to her skin—it would come off whenever she actively willed it to do so, but for now it would stay put.
Uncle’s chamber was as opulent as it was old, packed with the gaudiest décor yet. Aside from Mr. Yigor, Uncle was the only truly living thing beneath the vaulted ceilings, but that didn’t mean the place was empty. Thrulls and gargoyles lined the walls and hung from
the ceiling, many of them cackling or calling out to the new arrivals like a flock of caged birds in a coop—all but the tallest thrull, which stood tall, silent, and filled with quiet menace behind Uncle’s left shoulder. His bulbous eyes flicked from Teysa to Melisk before they resettled on Uncle and stayed there.
Garish tapestries hung over sections of the windowless walls, partially concealing ancient but continually revised murals. Both hangings and paintings depicted lascivious and salacious entertainments that had been Uncle’s primary pastime in his younger days, including, as expected, extensive scenes that included the very angels they’d just passed. Teysa could not imagine Uncle had ever had younger days. Most others who had shared such times with him had been dead for years, some by his hand. A few sat on the Obzedat, the ghostly council that led the Orzhov. Uncle fully expected to join them someday, he’d often said, but not any sooner than necessary.
“The Lady Teysa Karlov,” Mr. Yigor announced with reliable tardiness and waved in Teysa’s general direction, “with an attendant,” he finished. He bowed and slipped back to his corner near the door, joining the shadows there as easily as a fin-snake slipping into the placid water beneath the Bone Walk.
Uncle, facing away from them in his enormous, high-backed floating throne, spun slowly in midair and smiled a corpulent smile at his great-great-great-great-grandniece. He did not acknowledge Melisk—a mere attendant deserved no such attention, especially one without Orzhov blood. The smile cut horizontally above four rolls of chin that sunk to the middle of his mercifully concealed belly. His eyes were tiny pits in the wrinkled sacks that made up his cheeks and wide mouth.
Teysa fought back a shudder. She hadn’t seen him in two years, but in that time, the patriarch’s own blood-related infirmities had begun to run rampant.
Naturally, he was eating. Keeping a human body alive for more than a millennium required energy. His robes were a mess, and it wasn’t all because Uncle had become a particularly sloppy eater in the last two years. His condition had seriously deteriorated, due to both to his Orzhov blood and his age. The blood extended an Orzhov’s lifespan by centuries, but it exacted a toll in the form of random deformities and inherited diseases. Some were apparent at birth, like Teysa’s crippled leg. Others, like Uncle’s necrotic decomposition, manifested very late in life.
“Uncle, it is good to see you well,” she lied. “You look like a million zinos.”
The patriarch laughed and raised a tankard of wine in her direction. His laughter erupted like a cross between a belch and an earthquake, causing his entire glistening form to launch itself in different directions, jiggling. After the nearest imps and gargoyles were thoroughly showered in mucus, his laughter subsided enough for him to speak. His voice wheezed like a dying animal, but there was still power in its depths.
“Don’t insult your Uncle with faint little lies,” the patriarch said. He took a gulp of the wine that mostly went into his mouth, and a few more wheezing breaths, before he continued. “I taught you how to lie, Teysa. Don’t forget that.”
“As if you’d ever let me get away with it,” Teysa said and shrugged. “But do you want me to tell you what you really look like?”
“You’re too honest for someone who works in a courtroom,” Uncle said. “I’m fully aware of how I look. It is nothing like those sweet, beautiful faces you and your attendant hold to my eyes. When I take my place on the Obzedat, all masks of my likeness must be burned along with my body. Eternity looking back at that face for all time does not appeal to me.”
“I will see to it personally, Uncle,” Teysa said, “though I do not believe you intend to leave us anytime soon for that august body.”
“And why do you say that?” Uncle replied. “Look at my ‘august body.’ My skin rots through. My robes—soaked with infection. I am decomposing, child. I’m already dead, but my body, it’s taking some time to get the point, I think.”
“Is that why you summoned me? You really think this might be the end?” There was little hint of anything but concern when she spoke, though Uncle would have been gravely insulted had she not also included a dash of expectancy and perhaps even anticipation. “Where is your physician?”
“He spoke out of turn one too many times,” Uncle said and rumbled out another wet, messy laugh that he washed away with another half-missed drink from the tankard.
“He was a fool. You are as alert and scheming as ever,” Teysa said.
“Perhaps you are right,” Uncle replied. “But my condition is not why I summoned you here. It is your condition, or disposition I should say, that is of concern to me. Of concern to this family.”
“Mine?” Teysa said, eyes flicking momentarily to the cane in her hand. “What about my condition?”
“Not that deformity. That’s nothing. I’ve seen lungs growing outside bodies. Arms lined with blind, dry eyes. Teeth and tongues growing from foreheads. That leg of yours, that is but a peck on the cheek from the family blood. You are a lucky young woman.”
“I’m not that young,” Teysa said, allowing indignity to creep into her voice. “I also have cases to work on.”
“What you should be working on is your patience,” Uncle said. “I speak to you now of your status. You are a scion of this family, and you know you have always been especially dear to this house and to my own shriveled heart. You have been at your practice long enough.”
“I’ve barely gotten established,” Teysa said, struggling to control her voice. Fortunately, the mask obscured her face. She doubted even someone as well trained as she was could hide the look of anger and disbelief etched upon it. “Practicing law is an honored profession, Uncle, and if I’m going to—”
“Going to become another in a long line of famous con artists? You’re better than that, and it’s time we set you on another path.”
“No,” Teysa said. “No convent. I would find a way to escape it.” She looked sidelong at Melisk, whose mask concealed what, if anything, he thought of this development. She wondered how long it had been since someone had given Uncle a flat refusal like this, for his eyes widened even more, and his wheezing became ever so slightly faster.
“You doubt the wisdom of your elder,” Uncle rumbled. “And you should not presume to know my mind. Child, in your first three years, you’ve won more cases than your mother or aunt ever did. You’re a prodigy, my dear.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Teysa said with knee-jerk modesty. “I’ve received cases that, when you looked at the details, were obviously in favor of my clients.”
“That attention to the details is why you’re here,” Uncle said. “It’s why you are a successful advokist and why you will also be successful where we’re going.”
“Going?” Teysa said.
“Oh yes,” Uncle said. “You know of a place called Utvara, I take it?”
“Utvara?” Teysa said.
“A place Melisk already mentioned to you,” Uncle said. “Do not waste our time, please. It makes my back ache.”
“Utvara, then,” Teysa said. “But what of it? I have cases, Uncle.”
“That must wait until we are on our way,” the patriarch said. He waved a hand in the air at the arched ceilings and gargoyle-lined pillars. “This place is filled with ears—you know that. But I will tell you about Utvara. It is a curious place. I purchased it many years ago, not long before you were born.”
“Why?”
“An investment in the future. What do you know if it?”
“Only the name,” Teysa admitted. She didn’t like where this was leading. She was due in court in two days on another suit, to say nothing of her distaste for the hinterlands. To a city girl like Teysa, anything beyond the gates of Ravnica was hinterland, no matter how densely it was populated.
Utvara was also a curious type of investment. Curious enough to pique her interest.
“All right. Utvara. What about it?” she asked.
“It is your inheritance,” Uncle said, “Baroness.”
“Inher
itance?” Teysa asked. “But how am I to inherit anything if you’re—”
“Knew there’d be a catch, didn’t you?” Uncle replied.
Freedom from the mortal connection to crude coinage and simple riches allows the members of the Obzedat to pursue true and holy power, unshackled by worldly concerns. So why do they still pursue the coin with as much fervor as ever?
—Anonymous,
The Generational Manifesto for Orzhov’s Future (4582 Z.C.)
30 PAUJAL 10012 Z.C.
Forty-seven years after the Peripatetic Eye of Niv-Mizzet 9477 soared into the Izzet history books, another pair of eyes beheld the ostensibly lifeless Utvara region from a slightly less elevated viewpoint. The eyes belonged to a Gruul bandit chieftain, a viashino named Aun Yom, a reptile who knew his prey would soon walk right into his trap. Aun Yom knew this because the new arrivals could not have made their invasion of the Gruul’s territory more blatant. He tracked the Orzhov caravan as it broke around the edge of the ruins and entered the long canyon leading into the bowl-shaped center of Utvara.
The word “caravan” was something of a misnomer, as it consisted primarily of a single vehicle but one that did the work of many more. Six long carriage cars sat atop the flat back of a gigantic, segmented lokopede. Six mounted guards moving along at the same pace rode watchfully on skeletal mounts off each flank, the Orzhov sigils emblazoned on their shields glowing brightly enough to illuminate the immediate area but not much more. The guards had forsaken torches, it seemed, to keep their profile low in this dangerous night passage, but the sigils more than made up for it from a hunter’s perspective. The entire party moved over stone and earth, as if eager to keep their passage secret. Therefore they had no support from the air and would have no warning of his attack.