by Cory Herndon
Three new dragons in the world. Utvara had enough problems without that. Teysa did not consider herself the world-saving kind, but she did not see how anyone could benefit from releasing those creatures. Perhaps the Obzedat themselves would be safe, being ghosts, but what was the point of surviving in a world on fire?
Obviously, a madness had infected the Obzedat, as surely as the kuga had infected her barony, a barony that would be a bowl of ashes soon if she didn’t find a way to unite these people. Teysa was counting on the cure to win their initial loyalty, and she had plenty of other resources yet to fall back on if needed.
The trio of Gruggs followed a few paces behind, Phleeb watchful, the other two jabbering in random, meaningless syllables. Fresh thrulls always took a few hours to settle down, but they were immediately obedient, at least. Once she made a stop at the construction site in the slums, she would send them on another mission, assuming everything went as planned with the wageboss. If Teysa couldn’t buy the half-demon, the entire plan was likely to fail, but she had faith in her own judgment. To an Orzhov who knew her business, Aradoz was a diamond in the rough, ready to be shaped for her purposes. A diamond she knew just where to cut.
The half-demon spotted her as she rounded the new path his crews had sliced from the slums. A few buildings had been left standing, those that still had aesthetic appeal, and Aradoz seemed to have an excellent eye for architecture. A few workers came and went from these structures. Obviously they’d also been saved to serve as housing for the wageboss’s laborers.
She’d made a sound choice when she pinned this one, Teysa reckoned. She’d given him nigh impossible goals, but he was finding ways to meet them, financially and ahead of schedule. She was pleased. Finally something was going exactly as Teysa had planned.
Wageboss Aradoz hopped with surprising agility from the second story of the mansion’s growing framework and landed in a crouch before them on the path. He straightened and bowed with the exaggerated formality of one who rarely, if ever, bows before anyone.
“Baroness,” he said, rising to face her, “an honor, once more. Truth be told, I had expected you earlier, but as I told your attendant, we broke ground not four hours after I met with you. I would have journeyed to your tavern to report, but I feel I’m better used here, keeping us on track. There is little time to waste.”
The towering half-demon wageboss exuded fealty, and to her surprise she couldn’t find a trace of insincerity in it. Eagerness, even. Yet he wasn’t telling the whole story, that much was clear. It would have been clear to a blindfolded first-year advoklerk. The wageboss must have found a treasure vein while laying the foundations. It was the only thing that made sense.
So be it. Teysa would get her cut later. Right now she welcomed his eagerness to help. She needed all she could get. She nodded to Aradoz and turned on her cane to take in the breadth of burgeoning structure. She could almost make herself believe she would end up living in it. “Well done. Wageboss, I’m also pressed for time, so I’ll dispense with pleasantries for now. First, I want you to add a little something onto the work order.”
The half-demon bristled, but the genial expression fought its way back to his visage before he said, “More work. At the same … rate as we discussed earlier?”
“Here’s the renegotiation,” Teysa said. “You can take it or leave it, and if you leave it, well, the polar factories always need wagebosses. You know, the mortality rates and all.” Aradoz nodded and failed to quell a scowl.
“I’ll take it, I’m sure,” Aradoz said.
“Knew you were smarter than you looked,” Teysa said. “You’ll get me four of the biggest, toughest bruisers on your work crews. I’ll pay you the market share for them, and they’re going to go with me to the Cauldron for an important conference with that Izzet. When we’re done, if they’re alive, they’ll be free to hire on at equitable rates as bodyguards or other positions suiting their abilities. If they seek it out, I will sponsor their petitions to become dues payers.” The wageboss’s eyes widened, and his spiked jaw clacked against his metal tool apron.
“Guild membership?” Aradoz said. “Baroness, these are just laborers. Are you sure they deserve such a rich prize? You must need them very badly.”
“Don’t spoil my generous mood with haggling.”
“You wound me. I merely—”
“Aradoz, I’ll make you a deal. Let me finish and I will let you keep both of your horns.”
“My—Yes. Dues payers. I’m sure I have just the people.”
“Now here’s the part you should have waited for before you started in with the haggling. I can’t rightly give them membership unless I buy them from a licensed Orzhov agent. Therefore, you are now dues-paying member as well, effective immediately, by my power as Baroness of Utvara.” The wageboss’s eyes widened, and he stood frozen in shock as she stepped forward and pinned a small stone to his collar. It matched the one on his chest and marked his full and instantaneous status as a senior dues payer. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Baroness,” the wageboss managed. “This is the most profound—”
“Listening, Aradoz. It’s the single most important skill you can ever learn. Master it and you’ll go far in this guild. Now show me who you’ve got for me.”
“Right now? I need to go over the manifests, sort by seniority—”
“Not right now you don’t. I’m in a hurry.”
“Of course, Baroness, but I will need at least a few minutes to gather them together. Despite appearances, not all of these ones are fighters. Those ogres over there? They can crush rock with their bare hands and bend struts with their foreheads, but they’re no good in a throw down. Too many blows to the head. But they’re tough. If you just need cannon fodder, they’re perfect.”
“The best fighters you’ve got, and they’ve got to get along and take orders,” Teysa said. “No cannon fodder. I made an honest offer. And before you go, one more thing,” she added as a seeming afterthought, laying on a dash of number nineteen: Why, this just occurred to me. “I want you to hire up any and all guildless you’ve got left. Sign them to standard contracts. I’ll seal them later. Put them to work rebuilding the surrounding structures. They’re going to need places to live, places they can go home to after a hard day’s work pumping zinos into the economy.”
“Instant citizens,” the wageboss nodded.
“You catch on quickly, Aradoz. Now these workers of yours,” she continued, pointedly failing to call the workers ‘slaves,’ “will be very busy in the coming months and years turning this valley into a shining new city, one where their progeny will live full lives under the house of Karlov. If they have the strength for it.”
Teysa knew that many of the guildless were exiles and castoffs from the Rakdos and Gruul, and the challenge of strength was something most of them would have trouble resisting.
“When do you need these four fighters?” Aradoz asked. The leering fool she’d first met had completely transformed, and an efficient businessman had taken over.
“Now, Wageboss,” Teysa said. “Get to it.”
She turned to the Gruggs. “Brothers, come here.” The thrulls ambled over obediently on all fours, knuckle-walking like gorillas. Gorillas with wicked, gold-plated claws, not a stitch of fur, and frog’s heads to match their amphibian legs. She needed a second Bephel, and his brother would have to do. She placed a palm on the lead thrull’s forehead and said, “Phleeb. Speak.”
“Phleeb speaks, Baroness, great, sweet, Baroness, she who—”
“Speak when spoken to,” Teysa clarified, and the thrull clamped his wide mouth shut. “Listen. Take your new brothers and head north to the Husk. You’re looking for Kos and Pivlic. Do you remember them?”
“Took other brothers, they did!” the thrull said, eager to get as many words in as possible as long as he had this new power of speech. “Can find them, for sure! Sure! Brothers still alive!”
“Good to know,” Teysa said. “Then go find them,
and if that courier’s with them, bring them back. If the courier’s not with them, help them find her—female goblin, blue robes, red topknot, with an arm that glows, you can’t miss her—and bring her back. If she won’t come back, kill her. And kill anyone who tries to stop you. Do you understand? It’s very, very important that you can find her even if something has happened to Bephel and Elbeph. You understand me?”
“Yes! Blue robes! Bring back! Won’t come back, she gets the claws! The claws! Got it!” Phleeb said. “Bephel and Elbeph, they’ll be there! Gruggs hard to kill!”
“I’m counting on that,” Teysa said. “Good luck.”
The thrull trio cleared the edge of town by the time Aradoz came back with his picks from the laboring masses: a pair of minotaur siblings, male and female, who had more brands than skin, and mizzium rings through their noses that marked them as one-time Izzet workers. Good choice. They would be eager for payback. The third was a goblin who stood a head taller than any she’d seen before, tall enough to look her in the eye without raising his chin. No, not completely goblin. Those eyes and teeth showed some troll ancestry, which also explained his height. The fourth was an elf, Devkarin from the look of her, eyeing Teysa like a cat examining a mouse. The Devkarin looked away when Teysa met her gaze with her own. Nobody did cat on mouse like an advokist.
“Aradoz, introduce us and get to work on the other matters we discussed,” Teysa said.
“Gladly, Baroness,” the half-demon said. He pointed at the minotaur male and said, “That’s Sraunj and his sister Enka. Found them at a Gruul camp. They’d killed everyone there, but the plague had knocked them down. The pollen works wonders. The fellow with the teeth is Dreka-Tooth. Guess why.”
“No,” Teysa said. “Hello Sraunj, Enka, Dreka-Tooth,” she added, nodding to each in turn. “Welcome to the team.”
“All right, all right, pressed for time, my apologies, Baroness,” the half-demon said. He’d gone from the stunned phase to giddiness in record time. “The lady on the end is Nayine Shonn. Say hello, Nayine.”
“Hello,” the Devkarin said. The elf smiled, showing glistening teeth capped with mizzium points. Her black eyes reflected the moon beneath tangled, green dreadlocks matted with dye and clay. Teysa had heard of the tooth-capping custom among those Devkarin who still ate raw flesh, a practice that had been in decline for several years, but she’d never heard of mizzium being used in the process.
“Has the wageboss told you what’s happening?” Teysa said.
“You need fighters,” Nayine said. She seemed to be the speaker of the group, or at least one the others deferred to. “You own us. We help you, we go free. We can even sign up for your chump guild. Am I leaving anything out?”
“No,” Teysa said. “But remember who’s in charge.”
“Of course, Baroness,” the elf said with brazen insincerity Teysa chose to ignore.
“Release their shackles, Wageboss,” she said, and the half-demon did as she asked. Teysa pulled one of the tubes of the plague cure from her robes and approached the minotaur. “Hold still,” she said and pressed the end of the tube against the brute’s shoulder. When she’d done the same with the other three and the wageboss, who sputtered an objection but held still just as the others had under the power of the blood, she handed the tube to Aradoz. “This must get to every one of your workers within the next day. It’s a cure for the plague. That should be enough for you to get the job done, but it’s got to be done fast. If I find out you’ve charged a soul for any of this, you’ll be out of the guild permanently.”
“I—” the half-demon’s jaw dropped all over again. “Yes, Baroness.”
“Good man,” Teysa said. “Follow me, you four. We’re making a few stops before we get to the fighting.” If we get to the fighting, she added silently.
All over Ravnica, the ledev guardians patrol the roads and keep travelers safe. Everywhere but here. Why? What are they afraid of? Perhaps the rumors are true. Perhaps the Selesnyan Conclave’s power is finally fading, and we bold pioneers must step into the void and protect ourselves. For if we don’t, who will?
—Editorial, the Utvara Townsman (11 Golgar 1009 Z.C.)
2 CIZARM 1002 Z.C.
Teysa’s small group had grown to a small army by the time they reached the edge of the Vitar Yescu compound. She’d gained the temporary allegiances of a dozen of Dr. Nebun’s tough, resilient virusoids. They were misshapen creatures composed of the raw components of disease itself, or so the Simic had told her. She didn’t need a verity circle to believe him on that count. They didn’t have names as such, but she’d assigned them numbers, and the doctor had been kind enough to etch the numerals into their chests with acid. They would answer only to her until the doctor told them otherwise, and he would be hard at work in his lab. Teysa made sure of that with a few outrageous demands she knew the vedalken would find challenging. She’d turned down the proffered services of Uvulung the frog aberration.
The thieves’ guild had assigned a trio of shadewalkers to her for forty-eight hours, after which she’d promised to pay triple for their services as needed. She assumed they were following along at the position she’d assigned them but was glad she couldn’t make them out against the shadows. That meant they were doing their jobs, watching over the rest of them and ready to strike anyone who threatened her. The thieves were not a true guild of the Guildpact, though there had long been rumors that they answered to the master of the Dimir, the vampire Szadek. The rumors had struck most sensible people, Teysa included, as ridiculous, at least until the Dimir master had reportedly appeared at the Decamillennial Convocation only to be arrested by the very man she’d sent with Pivlic the imp to track down Hauc’s courier.
Whatever its members were and whomever they served, Teysa knew the thieves’ guild considered contracts to be as sacred as any Orzhov did. Their operations would collapse if a thief’s word could not be trusted. Nor did they confine themselves to mere thievery. Many were private investigators of sorts she’d used herself during more than one important case.
There were no useful Rakdos in Utvara. The Gruul had long ago wiped them out during the fallow period—the two “tribal” guilds were bitter enemies. But she had gotten a quartet of hulking Golgari ogre zombies. Half-plant, half-dead flesh, they were not much smarter than the virusoids but would do the job. They would be due back at the farmsteads in forty-eight hours as well. If she hadn’t succeeded in forty-eight hours, it would all be pointless anyway. They marched beside a pair of Haazda, the two sober ones she’d found at the station. The two men volunteered for the promise of free drinks at the Imp Wing for life, but they didn’t get a nip until she released them from their promise to serve her. Haazda were not like wojeks, their oaths not as binding. They were probably the least effective members of her multiguild force, but their presence added to diversity, and therefore the strength, of her own personal Guildpact.
She only had three more guilds to take under her wing—the Selesnyans, the Gruul (assuming they were still alive, with the taj tearing the Husk apart looking for the courier), and finally any Izzet who chose to abandon their insane magelord.
“Shonn,” she called, and the Devkarin stepped up to her side. “Stay here with the others. This will only take a moment.” Teysa still didn’t trust her, but the elf was effective at helping her manage her “troops.” Watching Teysa throw around her zinos this evening, she suspected Nayine Shonn had begun to see the potential benefits of the baroness’s goodwill in ways mere words hadn’t gotten across. The cure, distributed for free, had seemed to work wonders too. It was very un-Orzhovlike of Teysa, the Devkarin had said after the baroness paid off the thieves’ guild, which was of course what the baroness was counting on.
Teysa took a deep breath and almost immediately sneezed as she inhaled the pollen-rich air. The small group jumped almost in unison, though she couldn’t be sure about the shadewalkers.
“Everybody wait here,” Teysa said. “I’ll be right back.”
&
nbsp; She walked down a path of stone cut into a small, bleak field of mottled grass and thin, unhealthy-looking trees with cracked, oozing bark. The Golgari had more success in the metallic soil that bordered the flats than the life churchers. Only the Vitar Yescu was anything close to healthy in their compound. If it had been a structure, it would have been ten, twelve stories tall. There were spiraling ramps and stairs hitched to lookout posts where stood the first ledev guardians Teysa had seen since arriving in Utvara, but most of the Selesnyan population was there to protect the giant tree, not live on it. Instead, the various monks, acolytes, and high holy types made their homes in a small forest of fast-growing veztrees.
Teysa noted the Golgari had been only allowed a small portion of the structures, but that didn’t surprise her. There hadn’t really been enough Golgari for them to completely displace the Selesnyans, despite her order. The Vitar Yescu looked healthy as near as Teysa could tell, so apparently the nearby undead had not affected it. Not that the Vitar Yescu would be necessary, not unless the plague somehow mutated yet again.
One of the benefits of the two Haazda: They were as honest as one could hope for in law enforcement. The path forked just where they’d said it would and opened into a more complex web, with spiders the size of small dromads clinging to the veztrees. The arachnids spun long cables of glistening silk that the Selesnyans harvested for all the purposes one might expect—armor, weapons, construction, and art. Glowglobes hung from thick web lines, illuminating what the web-filtered moonlight couldn’t.