by Cory Herndon
It was said by the ignorant that in Utvara there were no ghosts. This was not entirely true. There were ghosts in the Schism itself. Those lost souls provided the raw power he needed to complete the task Niv-Mizzet had set for him. The courier, of course, was needed to complete the related task Hauc had set for himself.
The mirrorlike pneumanatic device was already ignited, though colliding ripples obscured its surface. Someone was trying to communicate with him. He’d wasted too much time on the goblin. More delays, more inefficiency.
Not that he minded making his contact wait a bit. The Orzhov were demanding partners, but soon he wouldn’t have to worry about them either. The urge to show them all who their true master was had overwhelmed him at times, but he bled it off with little jabs like this.
Hauc placed a small offering in the brazier; said a short prayer in praise of the Great Dragon and all that Niv-Mizzet the Firemind was, is, and would be; and ignited the token with a snap. The crystal hummed as it made contact with the aerial leylines, and the ripples in the surface smoothed to reveal the familiar white mask floating in a swirling black ether.
The mask was not smiling.
“Tell me,” the magelord said without preamble, “that you have located her.”
“Yes, my scouts have spotted her, but we may have other problems,” the mask said. “She’s beginning to suspect me. I’m concerned she might—”
“She who?” Hauc said. “Suspect what?”
“You know good and well,” the mirror said. “I cannot speak her name here.”
“I suppose I do,” the magelord said. “Whatever you say. I forget how secretive you people like to be.”
“You forget nothing,” the mask said. “And as far as secrecy goes—”
“Yes, yes, your point is made,” Hauc said.
“She is beginning to remember. It is getting more difficult to keep her in the dark.”
“I suppose that’s true too,” Hauc said. “Your problem is not mine. Mine is the courier. Get her here. I would prefer for her to be alive, but that is not critical.”
“I will do it, but keep your eyes open. My scouts tell me that the goblin is definitely not in the camp. She is moving fast in your direction and should arrive soon, with or without my help.”
“Well, why in the name of the Firemind did you not tell me this earlier?”
“You seemed more interested in word games,” the mirror said.
“And you seem obsessed with recriminations,” Hauc replied. “Get that courier to me. I will be here, waiting.”
“You cannot even take that contraption of yours into the air to give us some help?” the voice in the mirror said. “You could easily find and grab her, and I could set my scouts to the task for which they were intended—finishing the Gruul.”
“This ‘contraption’ is the only thing keeping the one being that must not learn of our connection from seeing this communication. It will stay here until necessary, and I will stay in the Cauldron until our glorious end is achieved,” Hauc said. “Your scouts have found the goblin. I’m sure they will retrieve her soon. Good-bye.”
“Have it your way,” the voice replied and disappeared behind a ripple of energy.
* * * * *
“This way!” Crix shouted. “The Cauldron is this way!”
“How do you know that?” Kos shouted, gasping for breath. The goblin pointed overhead to a fork in the trail that ran back up the Husk and, it seemed, away from the looming Cauldron to the west. “The other one looks like it heads straight there. I thought you’d never been in the Husk before!”
He’d been running for ten minutes straight, longer than he’d run for any reason for more than a decade. Having Crix on his back didn’t help, but Golozar was taking potshots at the pursuing forces of Aun Yom, and Pivlic was scouting ahead, so the only way to keep up their speed had been for Kos to carry the goblin on his shoulders. Kos didn’t believe in gods—he did believe in vampires, which was a separate issue—but if he did, he would have prayed that, no matter what, he wouldn’t die like this, with a chatty, obstinate goblin clinging to his neck. He would have set her down, but even if she had recovered her senses her short legs would still slow them down. Pivlic’s legs weren’t much longer, but even in his miner’s suit the imp was bounding ahead of them. Imps didn’t weigh much, and their legs were made for launch. The same couldn’t be said for goblins.
“Homing instinct, you might call it,” Crix said. “Keeps us from getting lost. Couriers, I mean. That other trail is a false one. This is the right way.”
“Which tattoo tells you all that?” Kos asked. He had to leap sideways to clear a fissure in the oxidized iron trail to get to the fork Crix pointed at, but he made it without losing the goblin or any limbs. His heart was pounding but not racing. He could tell the difference, and despite his hours-long exposure to the plague he knew that his heart wasn’t going to kill him. Aun Yom’s pursuit gang might, or the Husk itself, and most certainly the plague if he didn’t get exposure to the pollen soon, but not his heart. Not now. He wouldn’t let it.
“It’s not like that,” Crix said, “but I can’t really tell you what it’s like. Professional secret. But trust me.”
“You don’t know how it works, do you?” Kos said.
“I resent that,” the goblin sniffed, “but, truthfully, no, not entirely. It’s part of the job.”
“I know what you mean,” Kos said. “I don’t know how the Guildpact works, but if it didn’t, I’d never have been able to make an arrest in my life. Or so they told me.”
“Of course. I forgot that you’re a wojek,” Crix said, ducking to dodge a black arrow that whizzed overhead.
“Used to be a wojek,” Kos said. “This is my retirement plan.”
“You don’t seem very retired to me,” the goblin said. “Nor do you look like an agent of the Orzhov. How do you know Golozar?”
“His zuriv chief is a friend of mine,” Kos said. “But Golozar and I know each other from the city. You can ask him about it sometime. It’s not my story to tell. But I try to keep my nose in everyone’s business. Bad habit, I know.”
“Kos! Quit yapping and keep running!” Pivlic shouted over a cracking sound from Golozar’s bam-stick. Kos didn’t risk looking over his shoulder—the path was too treacherous and growing worse the closer they got to the Cauldron—but he heard a meaty thump as the shot struck one of Aun Yom’s bandits. There was no scream, but there was no sound of a falling body either.
“This is insane!” Golozar shouted. “I’ve shot seven of them. They barely seem to notice! How did you do it, imp?”
“What have those Gruul got that can stop a bamshot, friend Golozar?” Pivlic said. “I simply shot one in the head.”
The crack of another shot, then Golozar said, “Nothing is stopping them. The shots are going right through them, and they don’t even seem to care.”
Kos cursed as he put what the Gruul said together with the savage feeding frenzy they’d seen. “You don’t have many undead in the Husk, do you?”
“Not especially,” Golozar shouted back.
“Aim for their legs,” Kos said. “Knock them down. Or if you think you can deadeye them, go for their heads. I don’t think those are Gruul, Golozar. I knew they looked too pale.”
“Undead?” Pivlic said. “I hate the undead. With the notable exception of our beloved and holy Obzedat and all patriarchs who have chosen that path in lieu of—”
“You’re not in an audience chamber. Just keep running, Pivlic,” Kos said, “or start shooting.”
“I can’t,” Pivlic said. “Golozar is using my bam-stick.”
“What?” Kos said.
“The ammunition spheres are not infinite,” Pivlic said.
“All right, Golozar, start aiming carefully, and when that one runs out there’s one more on my back,” Kos said. “And I mean carefully. We can’t afford to run out of shots before we get there.”
“Who put you in charge?” Golozar shouted.
“I did,” Kos replied. “When those friends of yours killed our thrull, the collar came off. Are we going to start this again?”
“No,” Golozar said. “Forget it. Just get us there.”
Kos had to slow to a jog to avoid a fan of spikes jutting out from a rubble spire. Whatever the mizzium fence had once guarded had long since rusted away, but the twisted spikes still grasped at the fleeing group like claws. The Husk was littered with stray pieces of mizzium. It was one of the most sought-after substances prospectors and miners looked for, but prospectors never ventured into the Husk. The threat of Gruul raids was too great, to say nothing of the ever-present danger of things like the nephilim.
“Mr. Kos,” Crix said, “we will not need to count our ammunition for long. Look at that.”
“It’s just ‘Kos,’” the old ’jek said. He turned his head in the direction the goblin indicated and saw a dragon—no, a drake, he corrected himself, few had ever seen a real dragon—take flight from the center of the Cauldron’s dome. Drakes were not true dragons, but they were close enough. This one looked big enough to roast the four of them alive if it chose.
The scarlet reptile wasted no time circling but spread its leathery wings and headed directly for them. It flapped in the hot, dusky wind and screeched a terrifying wail into the afternoon sky.
“Tell me why won’t we need ammo.” Kos said.
“Because,” Crix said, “it’s not coming for us, I believe—oh dear.”
“Oh dear?” Kos said.
“Duck!” Crix and Pivlic shouted at the same time. The goblin leaped from Kos’s shoulder and rolled into a ball before she hit the ground, while Kos managed to catch himself before he was impaled on the mizzium fence. Pivlic had actually shouted while he was already on the ground. The imp’s survival instincts were without peer. There was an “Oof!” when Golozar hit the earth just after Kos did, and the sky went black as the drake—small compared to a dragon but still boasting a considerable wingspan—sailed only handsbreadths overhead. A wave of heat washed over them and the drake’s cry was cut off by a blast of flame.
“Everybody alive? Was that one of us?” Kos shouted.
“No, it was one of them,” Crix said, the first back to her feet. “Nothing that belongs to Zomaj Hauc would think of eating his courier. Anyone else though …”
Crix didn’t have to finish her sentence. The drake had already circled around for another pass at Aun Yom’s group of bizarre undead Gruul, if that’s what they were. Kos was almost certain now, but almost was not good enough for court, as the saying went.
Aun Yom was not bothering to fight the drake. Unlike the nephilim, the flyer had a distinct advantage here. Instead, the pursuers scattered, hoping, apparently, that enough of them could get around the drake to keep up the chase.
Golozar scoffed. “Shameful. They already flee! Aun Yom, you are no Gruul.”
“I think that’s safe to say,” Kos said. The drake emitted a second blast of flame that immolated three more Gruul on the spot, and finally the scattering maneuver became a retreat. As they fled, Kos saw glowing light emerging from the wounds Golozar’s shots had created. Now everything made sense—they were undead but not the kind he’d been thinking. These were corpses all right, but the thing that kept them moving wasn’t necromancy. Not exactly. It was a form of ghostly possession.
“Can’t believe my luck,” Kos muttered.
“Yes, we were indeed lucky, friend Kos,” Pivlic said from up ahead. “We will be luckier if that drake does not return to us after it finishes with them.”
“No, I mean the bad luck,” Kos replied, breaking into a jog as the small group hurried toward their destination. “I hate ghosts.”
“Those weren’t ghosts,” Golozar objected. “Were they?”
“Look at those wounds,” Kos said. “They’re glowing. Those aren’t ordinary zombies.”
“Well, they’re fleeing, anyway,” Pivlic said. “And the drake is chasing. Would this be a fortuitous time to rest for a moment?”
“But we are so close,” Crix said. “We must go on.”
“I’m with Crix on this one,” Kos said. “That drake is a patrol beast. It will be back, and like she said the rest of us are vulnerable even if she isn’t.” Despite himself, Kos hadn’t felt this healthy, this strong, this necessary for more than a decade. You’ve been lying to yourself, Kos, he thought. You never should have retired, no matter how many dead you had on your conscience. The dead were still there, after all. Now he just had more time to dwell on them.
“They are fleeing toward Trijiro’s camp,” Golozar said. “My clan will finish them if the drake doesn’t. I will not shirk my appointed task, but I admit I yearn to join them.”
The temperature only grew more oppressive, the air thick with haze and plague. Crix was able to conjure some water to replace what they’d lost after they’d spent another half hour getting closer to the source of the steady rise in temperature. The goblin’s homing senses grew sharper with every step, and finally Kos was able to set her down. Crix walked on ahead to lead the small group. With her help, they avoided any further mishaps and had reached the perimeter of the Cauldron by the time the sun started to cast long, serrated shadows before them.
Crix never paused at the edge of the boundary and walked out into the open. Amid the chaotic network of outflow pipes and support struts that made up the Cauldron’s steamworks and power plants—a structured chaos, not unlike the great sigil built into the architecture of the City of Guilds—sat a gate big enough to admit Hauc’s drake, with a single djinn standing guard. Its translucent form glowed with a harsh, orange light that looked an awful lot like a bam-stick ammo globe.
“These three are with me,” Crix said. She strode boldly to the gate. “We are delivering a message to the great magelord Zomaj Hauc, may his flame never be extinguished.” The djinn did not speak but stepped aside as the courier stopped in her tracks, waiting, and it silently nodded. Crix beckoned the other three to follow.
“Is this absolutely necessary?” Pivlic said. “We’re here, right? Mission accomplished, as the wojeks say?”
Golozar stepped forward. “I swore to deliver this goblin safely. I’m going in.”
Kos shrugged. “It will get me out of this air. Maybe they’ve got a spare helmet. You can walk back if you like, Pivlic. I’m sure the baroness will understand when you tell her you’re pretty sure the courier got where she needed to go.”
“You’re responsible for my safety, remember,” the imp said. “I could make you come back with me. But you make a good point, my friend. And the baroness would no doubt make many more.”
The stone gate, which had looked like a solid block of granite when Kos first saw it, split along an invisible seam and swung inward. The short entry hall ended at a bend inside, and the entire entryway glowed with reddish heat from within that dueled with the torches to illuminate walls. A blast of warmth hit them full in the face, making Pivlic yelp in surprise.
Kos took a long pull on the water skin, hung it back on the belt of his torn, stinking suit, and stepped in after Crix and Golozar. Pivlic was the last inside.
“I’ll watch our backs, this time,” he said.
“You’d better,” Kos replied.
* * * * *
Still seated in the privacy of the Pyraquin’s cockpit, Zomaj Hauc did not see the courier when at last she arrived. But he felt her step through the gates and into his immediate domain. He smiled.
At long last, it was that simple. He should never have worried. Though she had never set foot in the Cauldron project, of course his faithful Crix would find her way, whether the Orzhov succeeded or failed. She was his creation. Most of her, anyway.
He would enjoy pointing out the Orzhov’s incompetence.
Hauc decided to wait a while before notifying his masked accomplice. Why stop his partner from slaughtering Gruul, if that was his intention? Hauc certainly didn’t need them alive, and their ghosts would provide far more us
e to him. Besides, the dragon’s gift let him feel every exhilarated jolt of triumph from the drake.
Hauc smiled, and his eyes glowed a slightly brighter shade of red as he pushed himself out of the flight chair and pressed the release for the exit ramp. He couldn’t imagine why he’d been concerned. His faithful courier had not failed him.
But these others would most certainly have to die for daring to follow her into the Cauldron. They would not understand what he was doing any more than Niv-Mizzet. The treasures he’d found in the Cauldron were his and his alone. And once they were free, the world would be as well. Freed from ten thousand years of unnatural order and abominable law.
The world didn’t deserve it, but Hauc was doing it all for them. His reign would be glorious. Those who needed wiping out—like the Gruul and perhaps even the Selesnyans—would be eliminated. Those who needed his wisdom, his strength, his magnificence to lead them would sing his praises. The Guildpact itself would crumble, no longer necessary, when Zomaj Hauc set Ravnica ablaze beneath his fiery banner.
Hauc gazed out through the transparent sphere and smiled at his charges. With them at his side, no one could stop him.
The Book of Orzhov—The Book of Deals—is nothing more than a web of rules, regulations, and complications that can be interpreted by anyone to mean anything that individual wishes. We’ve made an excellent start indeed, but there is much room for improvement, fellow patriarchs. We have work yet to do. The Book is a living document.
—Patriarch Enezesku, acceptance address to the Obzedat
(25 Paujal 9103 Z.C.)
2 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.
Teysa couldn’t decide which feeling would win out in the end: anger or disbelief. With no clear victor in sight for the foreseeable future, she decided to embrace both. She’d been used, used by those she—well, not those she trusted, since an advokist, let alone a Karlov, never trusted anyone completely—but by those she had thought served the same purpose as she.