by Cory Herndon
Of Yulyn or any of the other Viridian elves, there was no sign. “I hope those all cleared the village,” Glissa said softly when her jaw would work again. “The Tangle can’t take much more of this.”
“What happened, huh?” Slobad asked.
“Memnarch’s not dead,” Bruenna said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Glissa replied.
“All right, something you don’t know. My people are,” Bruenna said. “My village, at least. I can only guess what might have happened to the workers in Lumengrid.”
“Your people are what?” Glissa asked.
“Dead.”
“Oh, Bruenna,” Glissa whispered, raising her claws to her lips. “I’m …”
“Sorry?” Bruenna shot back. “Don’t be. They died fighting. Fighting those.” The mage waved a hand at the mess of wreckage and shattered forest. “Too bad I didn’t ask you to come back with me. You could have stopped them at any time, couldn’t you? You could have stopped them all with that green fire.”
“I don’t—I don’t know,” Glissa said. “I don’t understand this power I’ve got, Bruenna, and I don’t know where it comes from.” Not the entire truth, but it was as much as Glissa wanted to share right now.
“You see, lady,” Lyese said, “She doesn’t understand anything. Death just follows wherever she goes, and the rest of us have to follow or get out of the way.”
“Seven hells, Lyese!” Glissa exploded “I didn’t ask for this!”
“Yeah?” Lyese barked back, stepping close enough to get into her sister’s face. “No one did. No one ever expects anything, and no one’s at fault, right? You’re just a hunter. You don’t want to defend our home, you just wanted to run through the woods playing games with Kane.”
Glissa drew a sharp intake of breath at the mention of her dead friend.
“Oh, sorry, he’s dead too, isn’t he?” Lyese asked innocuously. “Well, I didn’t ask to lose an eye, Glissa. I didn’t ask to see half the village disappear into thin air when you called up that damned moon. And I didn’t ask to find pieces of Mother and Father in the garden. But at least you’re alive. So why don’t you crawl back inside the world and stop bringing death down on everyone around you?”
Glissa opened her mouth to speak, but she’d forgotten how.
“Child, shut up,” Bruenna interrupted. “You’re not the only one who’s suffering. And she’s right. She’s not the cause of this, she’s the focal—”
Lyese’s sword was in her hand and within an inch of Bruenna’s windpipe in the blink of an eye. “Call me a child again, human. You’re not much better than Glissa. I never saw you before today. How do I know you’re not as guilty as she is?”
“EVERYBODY QUIET!” Slobad screamed at the top of his lungs. The three women froze, staring at the furious goblin. “You,” he said, pointing at Lyese, “Don’t know what Glissa’s been through, huh? Glissa, sister was scared. Now she suspicious. Got every right to be, huh? But sister will learn she’s wrong.” Slobad’s eyes narrowed. “You both family. Slobad got no family, huh? Get over it, elves are both alive. That’s family. Be happy for that, huh?”
“Goblin, I couldn’t have said it better—”
“And you!” Slobad said, cutting Bruenna off and jabbing a stubby claw up at her chin. “Uh … actually, you okay,” The goblin said once Bruenna’s words had made the perilous journey through his ears and into his brain. “Uh, thanks. For support, huh? Sorry about your tribe. That’s rotten, huh?”
“That’s a good word for it,” Bruenna agreed. She turned to the one-eyed elf girl and bowed slightly. “You are Glissa’s sister? It’s an honor to meet you.”
Lyese, surprised, took the Neurok woman’s offered hand.
“Bruenna, meet my sister Lyese. Lyese, meet Bruenna of the Neurok,” Glissa said.
Bruenna appraised Lyese. “The family resemblance is uncanny.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” Lyese said with a scowl.
“We’re—uh, it’s a long story,” Glissa said. “Lyese, Bruenna is not your enemy. Any more than I am. If you’d really earned that armor, you’d speak with more respect.”
“Don’t tell me what I earned, Glissa!” Lyese snapped, “I’ll make my own judgments.”
“Bruenna, what happened?” Glissa asked with a sigh. “I need details.”
“They attacked us, intentionally,” the Neurok woman replied. “Hunted down every last one of us.”
“Except you, huh?” Slobad said.
“It started with levelers,” Bruenna said.
“Levelers?” Glissa, Slobad, and Lyese asked at once.
“They came ashore from Lumengrid. The vedalken said they wanted peace, but … We fought back, but it was late. Most of the villagers were cut down in their beds.” Bruenna coughed awkwardly, and Glissa could tell she was on the verge of breaking down. “I fought them, with everything I had. But then the ’phin swarm came across the sea from that cursed vedalken city, and they hit a tower I was using for cover. It toppled and pinned me underneath.”
“Lucky,” Lyese remarked. Her good eye was still examining the human with suspicion.
“Yes,” Bruenna nodded. “Very lucky. I was standing over an underground food storage area. The tower fell and knocked out the roof of the warehouse cave the same time it came down on me.”
“You fall through ground and land in a cave, huh?” Slobad said. “That happens to Slobad all the time.”
“We’ll have to swap cave-in survival tips sometime, goblin,” Bruenna said. “When I came to, everyone was … it was a slaughter. I can only imagine what happened to the poor folk that lived in Lumengrid itself. So I borrowed a flyer from a vedalken.”
“Didn’t see you coming, huh?” Slobad asked.
“No, he didn’t,” Bruenna said with a grim smile. “Bastard was picking through the bodies, checking for wounded, I guess, but wasn’t finding any. Caught him with a bolt of lightning right in the fishbowl. Then I hopped on the flyer, which must have woken up the ’phins and levelers, because took off after me.” Bruenna shrugged wearily.
“What’s a fishbowl?” Slobad asked.
“Later,” Glissa interrupted, and swung Bruenna around by the shoulders. “There are levelers coming too?” Even as she asked the question, Glissa’s sharp ears picked up the clacking of the leveler hordes, still many miles away but closing. And between the elf girl and the sounds of metallic death was her home.
“Flare,” Glissa swore. “This is not good.”
“Can you stop them?” Lyese demanded. “Can you do to them what you did to these?” She waved an arm to indicate the shattered aerophins.
“I’ve got to try,” Glissa said. “Otherwise, Viridia’s going to be destroyed.” Privately, she didn’t think she had it in her, but she was Viridia’s only chance.
“Let me help,” Bruenna said, brushing flecks of copper and oil from her robes. “Together, maybe we can—”
“No, I’ve got to do this myself,” Glissa insisted. “You three need to get someplace safe. Someplace where there might be an army big enough to take on Memnarch.” She turned to the goblin. “Slobad, you’ve go to lead them to Taj Nar. Raksha might be able to help. At the very least, he deserves to know what’s happening. And I can’t think of any safer place on Mirrodin right now.”
Slobad shook his head. “Oh, no. Where you go, Slobad goes.”
“Viridia’s my home, too, Glissa,” Lyese interrupted. “If you’re going back there to fight them, I am too.”
“Both of you are being foolish,” Bruenna said softly. “Glissa is right—she must go alone. I’ve seen how many there are, and we wouldn’t last five minutes. But if Glissa’s magic can do it all at once …”
Lyese looked from Bruenna to Glissa then back the way they had come. She placed her hands on her hips and stared a dagger at her older sister. “Okay, go. But if I find out you’re just going back to help them finish the job, I’ll kill you.”
Glissa g
rimaced, but nodded. “If I don’t succeed, you probably won’t get the chance. But I’ll try and save you a piece. Now please, go with Bruenna and Slobad. You can trust them, even if you still don’t trust me.”
“Glissa,” Lyese said, “just go.”
Glissa turned from her sister to Bruenna and spread her arms wide. “So, think you can get me airborne?”
Bruenna grinned. “I can do better than that, now that my feet are back on solid metal.” The Neurok woman closed her eyes and began summoning the magical power of flight.
Glissa caught up to the levelers a few hundred yards before they would have swarmed over Viridia. They were well over a thousand strong, each one bristling with blades, claws, teeth, and armor, gleaming green in the moonglow. The constructs flattened most of the smaller trees in their path, skirting the larger trunks that even levelers would be hard pressed to bring down. But Glissa wasn’t concerned with the plant life, destructive as Memnarch’s creatures were. The unsuspecting people of Viridia were hers to protect now, for better or worse.
Bruenna’s flight magic gave her complete control over her movement in the air, meaning she could hover as she concentrated on calling forth the destructive energy that had wiped out the aerophins. It had worked before against levelers, though she’d never faced this many at once. She closed her eyes, willing the destructive green fire to rain down on her foes.
Nothing happened. With renewed urgency, she cast about deep inside herself, picturing the levelers bursting apart. Nothing. The power had been exhausted defeating the aerophins. Either that, or it was gone altogether. Glissa didn’t want to consider what that might mean.
If she couldn’t stop them, maybe she could warn the Viridians in time. Maybe that Sylvok could use some kind of druidic magic on the things. Glissa opened her eyes to check on the levelers’ progress.
The levelers were no longer advancing on the village. They weren’t advancing at all, not horizontally. As she watched in horror, the clattering silver beasts clambered over each other, slowly creating a mountain of levelers directly underneath her.
“They weren’t coming after Bruenna,” Glissa muttered. “They’re after me.”
To test her hypothesis, she flew back and forth in a straight line over the levelers. The crude pyramid of constructs attempted to shift direction as she moved, always tracking her.
And that meant she could still save the village, power or no.
Glissa shouted taunts at the levelers below, daring them to follow her as she started to circle, slowly widening her arc and moving away from Viridia. The swarm of machines moved like a giant living shadow, trying to keep up with their prey and snapping futilely at the flying elf girl. The role of bait wasn’t her favorite, but at least she was dangerous bait. If this worked, Viridia should survive. She hoped. The only problem was where she would lead them and whether her borrowed flight magic would last long enough to get there. But an idea was beginning to form.
However this situation worked out, Glissa had lied about meeting the others at Taj Nar. She wouldn’t be coming back until she had Memnarch’s misshapen head on the end of a sword.
Glissa tucked her chin to cut back on drag and gained just a little more speed. The army of levelers faithfully gave chase, still not comprehending they couldn’t catch Glissa as long as she flew above them. She wondered if, like the mindless nim zombies of the Mephidross, the levelers simply followed an order until given a new one.
Or maybe, Glissa mused, they know I can’t do this forever, and they’re waiting for me to drop. It didn’t strike her as likely that Memnarch would use constructs that weren’t at least smarter than the average walking corpse.
By following a wide slagwurm trail that led in the general direction she wanted to go, Glissa was able to keep the constructs from leveling too much of the forest in their wake. Even so, a cacophony of hoots, cries, and howls arose on either side of the army as wildlife fled in terror. For a second, Glissa’s heart jumped when she thought she saw a wolf, but it might have just been a shadow or her imagination.
Of all her lost friends, the death of Al-Hayat, the giant wolf, had been especially brutal. The ancient forest creature had joined her cause simply because it was right. Memnarch’s forces had cut him down, and the wolf’s heroic death had saved Glissa’s life. Bosh had been a marvel, and a good friend, but in many ways the golem had been like a child. Al-Hayat had been more like a surrogate father who had come along to protect Glissa just when she’d lost her own. Sometimes she missed the big wolf almost as much as her mother and father.
The elf girl returned her attention to her flight path, the construct army still clacking and rumbling along after her. The slagwurm trail had grown fresher over the last few minutes, and Glissa realized that this might work even better than she’d planned. A slagwurm could inflict some real damage on the leveler army. The mammoth, legless monsters spent most of their lives underground—well, underground depending on your point of view, she supposed, remembering the dazzling interior of the world—and only ventured onto the surface when hunger drove them to it. If this slagwurm was still above ground, it could prove a potent, if unwilling, ally. She didn’t see it on the trail ahead, but it could easily be concealed under the thick Tangle canopy. She hoped it was. With her spark-driven power apparently drained, she needed every advantage she could get.
Glissa glanced down. The levelers were still keeping pace, scattering stunned fauna and flattening inconvenient flora. Slobad passed languidly by and rolled so he faced upward. “So where we goin’ huh?”
“Slobad!” Glissa blinked. “How long have you been following me? I told you to go to Taj Nar!”
“What?” Slobad replied. “Hard to hear up here, huh? Where we goin’?”
“You—I said you should—”
“Yeah, thinking you want excuse to go back down that lacuna, huh?” Slobad continued. “Need someone who knows what’s going on, huh? Who knows better than Slobad?”
“Slobad, you might get killed,” Glissa said bluntly. “Especially if you don’t fly a little higher.” She nodded, indicating a wobbling tower of stacked levelers that snapped at the goblin’s feet. “Please, go back,” she said, gripping Slobad’s shoulder as he rose. “I’m not losing you, too. And they can’t find the den without you.”
Slobad just stared, and folded his stubby, clawed arms across his chest. “Got far enough to give directions. Wasn’t easy to convince sister elf, but Bruenna helped.”
“Look,” Glissa said. “This might not kill me. It’s dangerous, but I’m not suicidal. And I need you to look after Lyese. Slobad, you’re the only one I trust. Don’t you know that?”
“What about Bruenna? She big-time mage, huh?”
“Right,” Glissa agreed. “She also worked for the vedalken for a long time, and she’s just lost all of her people. She seems fine, but I’m not sure she’s stable. Please, Slobad.”
“Only if you say you come back, huh? Not going to let Slobad be a ball of string for Kha?”
“Okay, I’m coming back,” Glissa said. “Now go, will you? This enchantment won’t last all day.”
“But—okay,” the goblin sighed. “See you soon, huh?” Slobad added, veering off toward Taj Nar. Glissa watched him go for a precious pair of seconds, then continued on course. She glanced down to check on the levelers.
The constructs had completely stopped. Glissa was alarmed to see that many of them seemed to be watching a tiny, flying speck of goblin soar overhead. Once Slobad had passed the chittering levelers, something even stranger happened.
Half of the levelers followed Slobad. The other half continued to chase Glissa.
“Flare,” Glissa swore as she headed back after Slobad, half-expecting to drop out of the sky at any second. “What do you want with him?” Her voice raised to a shout as she closed in on the goblin. “Slobad! Wait! Come back!”
Slobad came to an immediate halt, turned, and headed back toward her.
“Hey, what they want with Slobad
?” he asked when he got within earshot.
“That’s what I want to know. But we don’t have time to find out,” Glissa said. “You’re just going to have to come with me. You were right. I’m going back inside.”
“Slobad knew it!” the goblin barked.
“But first, we’re going to get that to help us,” she said, pointing at a large shape that had burst through the treetops just ahead.
WURM’S TURN
“A slagwurm!” Slobad shouted at Glissa as the wind whistled past the elf’s pointed ears. “How you gonna talk to a slagwurm, huh? They’re monsters.”
“I know,” Glissa said, getting a good look at the thick, legless reptilian wurm as it whipped its toothy maw in the air, letting loose a keening screech that rang inside her head even at this distance. “But this one’s hungry. Hear that? It’s calling for its kin.”
“That’s how it says ‘soup’s on,’ huh?” Slobad asked, natural curiosity overcoming fear. Glissa knew that Slobad was fascinated with big things, though usually he reserved his adoration for large machinery. Like golems.
“Yes,” Glissa said and pointed at the swarm of levelers tracking them on the ground. “But it’s not getting another wurm for dinner this time. Look past the wurm,” Glissa said. “What do you see?”
“Trees, sky, a big … round … clearing. The lacuna!” Slobad exclaimed. “Wait, that full of monsters too, huh? Giant rats? Big bugs? Ring a bell?”
“You’re the one who said I was crazy,” Glissa said. “Now stay with me—we’re going to get close.” She explained what she had in mind then peeled off toward the writhing slagwurm.
Slagwurms were probably the largest creatures on Mirrodin, by simple virtue of the fact that they never stopped growing. Glissa had learned about their life cycle as a youth. They were not truly reptiles, despite their thick scales and plates of metallic armor. Slagwurms actually began life as foot-long grubs that hatched from egg clusters laid by the hermaphrodite parent.
They were also cannibals. The strongest, or sometimes simply the first, slaggrub would wait for the others to hatch then consume its kin ruthlessly as their writhing mouths broke through the rubbery shells. Each egg cluster generally produced a single wurm that reached maturity in under a week, though fortunately slagwurms laid them only once a year.