The Fifth Dawn

by Cory Herndon

  “Glissa?” Geth’s head said, “There’s something on your shoulder.”

  “Gyah!” Glissa yelped, and flailed blindly. She connected with a hard metal object and knocked it away.

  One of the numerous little arachnoid constructs clattered to the ground on its back, legs kicking. Glissa picked up the small construct with both hands, careful to keep out of reach of its diminutive legs. It resembled, she realized, a tiny version of Memnarch She turned it over a few times in her hands, but didn’t see anything on it that looked like a weapon, so she set it back down on the floor.

  Glissa had expected the tiny construct to flee, but it simply stared at her with a single gemstone eye.

  “Shoo,” Glissa said, glancing nervously at the ovoid as it vented a hiss of blue steam. The construct followed her to the ovoid and tapped her on the boot, then began tapping its tiny feet against the floor in an odd rhythm.

  “What?” Glissa asked. “What do you want? Geth, what does it want?”

  “I don’t know. Do you hear hovercraft?”

  The miniature Memnarch lifted one thin leg and pointed at Slobad. Then it slowly pointed to itself.

  Twice.

  “Um,” Glissa stalled, not sure she wanted to believe what her eyes told her. She got down on all fours and whispered, “Slobad? Is that you?”

  “Are you dense?” Geth’s head said. “Of course it is. Even I can see that. Look at your friend, there. He’s getting a constant stream of serum. He’s hooked into this whole … machine … hmmm.”

  “What?” Glissa asked.

  “This big diamond building is connected to the disk, right?” Geth replied. “And the disk is connected to those struts, which are connected to…everything else.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Glissa hissed over her shoulder.

  “No, the—those buttresses and supports … those big needles, and the Panoppi-whatzit, everything,” Geth said, sounding oddly excited. “They’re all part of one machine. And we’re standing—okay, you’re standing—right in the middle of it.”

  “You’re saying Memnarch made some kind of … giant artifact … out of the world?”

  “Couldn’t be him,” Geth said. “He’s de-fleshing himself. Had to be the goblin.”

  The four-legged bug began to hop and click.

  “Slobad did this? I don’t—that’s crazy,” Glissa managed.

  “He’s telling you the truth, elf,” an arrogant, tinny voice that Glissa knew well called from above. Glissa looked up into a smaller round door now open above her.

  She was looking into the face of Raksha Golden Cub, his face twisted in pain. She heard a thud, and the leonin dropped like a sack of gelfruit at Glissa’s feet.

  “Raksha!” Glissa cried.

  “He’s alive, for another few minutes,” Malil’s voice said again, drawing Glissa’s attention away from the unconscious leonin. Looking down imperiously through the small opening was Malil. Or rather, the Malil who had left his flyer parked outside. The metal man’s eyes flashed red with hate, and maybe something else.

  Something familiar. Something that reminded her of a Vulshok priest she’d fought long ago in the Krark foothills.

  “Your sister sends her regards,” Vektro said with Malil’s voice. “I had to leave her, I’m afraid. She just wasn’t holding up under the pressure. Or that rocket she took in the chest.”

  Without warning, the metal man took one step forward and dropped through the hole. He landed with a resounding clang on the floor directly in front of Glissa. He threw a gleaming silver boot into Raksha’s side, lifting the unconscious leonin bodily in the air and slamming him against the wall. The Kha sank to the floor in a heap and didn’t move.

  Vektro lashed out and seized Glissa by the upper arms, then squeezed with superhuman pressure. Glissa let out a strangled cry as she felt bones snap, and her sword clattered to the floor.

  Glissa looked around her feet for the Slobad-bug, but it had disappeared. Vektro shook her violently, snapping her head back. The body the thing had taken was definitely one of the oldest Malils, assuming one could judge their individual ages by the size and number of flesh spots mottling each body. Not quite as old as the one she had beheaded in the lacuna, but getting there. Glissa wondered dizzily as her head collided with a wall whether Vektro could possess a being of pure metal. As the chamber spun madly about her head, she felt herself lifted as easily as a rag doll. Vektro carried her to another vicious-looking piece of torture equipment on the wall opposite Slobad, shoved Glissa roughly into the rack, and strapped her in with blurred, magically augmented movements. When he was finished the elf was unable to do much more than wiggle her fingers and toes, which were already starting to feel numb.

  Vektro yanked Geth’s pack from her shoulder and kicked it across the floor, then slipped the Miracore from her neck and held it aloft in Malil’s mottled hand. The hand betrayed an nervous tremble as he slowly lifted the chain over his head and—

  A loud hiss and a cloud of blue-white steam erupted from the base of the ovoid in the center of the room. Vektro jumped and almost dropped the Miracore, but caught it before it slipped away.

  “Watch yourself, Vektro,” Glissa said. “Daddy doesn’t like sharing his toys.”

  The imposter backhanded Glissa across the jaw, and her head struck solid darksteel. Vektro/Malil stepped to the ovoid, dropped to one knee and bowed, holding the Miracore above his head like a shield.

  A thin, glowing blue line appeared in the center of the ovoid, and grew wider as clamps released, atmospheric pressure found equilibrium, and whining gears slowly pulled the apparatus open like an overripe fruit. A looming shadow appeared in the steam and fog, took on definition, shape, and finally identy.

  Memnarch’s skin shone like quicksilver. Glissa could not see any of the flesh that had once mottled this Guardian’s skin as it had Malil’s. Memnarch radiated power from the glowing serum tanks that he carried on his back to the insectoid legs that held up his massive metal bulk.

  The Guardian stepped confidently from the hibernation chamber and into the light. “Karn,” he thundered, “I am restored. Pure. The flesh is cleansed.” The crab-like metal man looked down at his servant. “Malil … no, my Creator, it is not Malil.”

  “Master—” Vektro began.

  “Vektro was to remain on the surface, yes!” Memnarch said. “It should not be here. But that is unimportant.” The Guardian snatched the Miracore from the false Malil’s hands and held it up to the light. Vektro remained, his head down.

  “Master,” Vektro repeated, “the surface battle is all but over. The fools could not have reached my explosive, and it is only a matter of time before—”

  Without removing his eyes from the Miracore, the Guardian swept a gleaming silver hand through Vektro/Malil’s torso, neatly slicing him in half. There was no explosion of gore, but a thin mist of glowing red energy seeped into a cloud. The plasma swirled as if trying to gain cohesion.

  “It was useful, Karn,” Memnarch said wistfully, “but ultimately a failed idea. A creation of a tainted mind.” He waved a hand, and the glowing red energy that was Vektro blew away like smoke before the wind. Memnarch waved again, and a swarm of the small four-legged construct bugs scuttled into the room and covered Malil’s corpse. Bright blue beams of energy shot from their gemstone eyes and reduced the remains to nothingness. The bugs scuttled back to their corners, and one of them tapped Glissa deliberately on the toe as it passed.

  The elf girl’s stomach did gymnastics. Slobad was alive, apparently controlling those little machines somehow, but what kind of life was this? Was Glissa going to find herself nothing more than a mind connected to a machine, only able to communicate via bug-talk?

  “I’m sorry, Slobad,” Glissa said softly.

  With a smooth flourish, the Guardian lifted the Miracore’s chain over his head and let the asymmetrical disk dangle on his chest. On the Guardian, the talisman looked miniscule.

  “Rest, Karn,” Memnarch said
with a cheerfulness that made Glissa wonder if that tone was just the beginning of the torture. “Rest and recuperation was what we needed. A good long rest to cleanse the soul. Good for the spark, too. It has kept the spark safe. It returned, as we knew it would. Now, in this pure body, I shall surely be worthy, Karn.”

  “Nice,” Glissa said. “Very shiny.”

  “The spark thinks it needs a tongue to be of use to me, my Creator,” the Guardian said. “Perhaps I shall remove it.” The bulky silver creature crab-walked to a silver panel and tapped out a pattern on colored gemstones. The entire Panopticon, including the rack that held Glissa in place, began to vibrate with a deep hum. She felt her guts lurch as the diamond-shaped structure started to slide toward the center of the great platform outside, taking them all with it. After a few minutes, a loud clang sounded as an enormous latch somewhere below snapped into place. If Glissa didn’t miss her guess, they were now sitting directly over the large hole cut into the center of the platform. There was nothing between her and the simmering mana core but this structure, which suddenly felt much less solid.

  “It is genius,” Memnarch said. “You see my new form, and the mycosynth spires are gone. The time of flesh has passed.” He gazed out a tinted crystal window at the enormous struts and spikes that comprised the world-sized machine Memnarch—or someone—had built into the interior.

  “I know what it thinks,” the Guardian said. “It thinks I built this great machine. But it cannot understand how, if I have been sleeping for five years. It thinks five years is a long time.” He laughed, a cold, mechanical sound. “Of course, the goblin built it, as you advised me. And I took the time to rejuvenate myself. To cleanse the spore. The goblin did very good work, don’t you think?”

  Even if Glissa had thought Memnarch was speaking to her—and apparently he wasn’t—she wouldn’t have answered. What the Guardian said had just sunk in. Glissa stared at poor Slobad, a hunk of sentient meat connected to nothing but serum and the tiny artifact creatures. In thrall to the Guardian.

  “Yes, wonderful work, built to specifications but with a few special idiosyncratic touches that shows it was goblin-made,” Memnarch said. “My very own Ascension Web.”

  SPARKS FLY

  “Can it feel the power gathering above? In the caged mana core below?” Memnarch asked. “Does the spark it has stolen tell it the time is near? Does the spark cry out, ready to feed my ascension?”

  Glissa could feel the power gathering. She strained against her bonds and said, “I can’t feel anything—all my blood’s stuck down in my boots. Think you could loosen this thing a little?”

  “How could you choose such an unworthy vessel, Karn?” Memnarch called to the sky. There was no answer that Glissa could hear. Memnarch nodded as if listening to a good joke, then burst into laughter. “Ah, of course,” the Guardian chuckled.

  “Uh, what did … er, Karn say?” Glissa asked.

  “Yes, all vessels shatter eventually, my Creator,” Memnarch said, ignoring her. “Mere storage.”

  Glissa’s skin was beginning to tingle. The alignment of the suns—moons—was so close she could taste it, and from the way Memnarch was raving he could tell, too. In desperation, Glissa tried to call on the destructive spark-magic. But something was cutting her off completely from the power. She hoped that didn’t mean the Tangle was already gone.

  Light poured in from above as the Guardian slapped another gemstone, and the top half of the diamond-shaped structure split open like a budding flower. What had been the ceiling folded flat against the exterior, and Glissa stared up into a reflection of the dazzling mana ball, occulted by the black shadow cast by the core of Memnarch’s Ascension Web.

  Memnarch slipped a pair of slim silver disks into his palm and scuttled over to Glissa. Without preamble, he slapped one disk to her forehead, where it stuck. He slipped the other one into a thin slit on the top of the Miracore. Then he busied himself with examining the flat panels that lined the walls, occasionally muttering, “Yes, yes,” or “Not long now, my Creator.”

  The elf girl bit back a cry as a sharp pain jabbed into the side of her neck. She strained her eyes and saw one of the construct bugs had mounted her shoulder and extended a thin silver needle into a spot just below her ear.

  Glissa, a familiar voice sounded inside her head, giving her a start.

  “Slo—” she caught herself. Slobad?

  What is left of Slobad. Glissa must listen. Must know what will happen. Maybe can stop. Huh.

  Why didn’t you say something before?

  Couldn’t. When crab-legs woke up, I could. Crazy magic. Huh. Did you see the needles?

  Needles? An image of the strange spires that dotted the surface flashed unbidden in her mind.

  Those needles. Seen them. Huh.

  Yes. What are they?

  They’re part of web. I made them from littler constructs. They’re filled with serum. All the serum left in the world, huh?

  Glissa examined the huge struts again that supported the mesh ball that caged the mana core. The serum absorbs magic, doesn’t it?

  Yes. The needles will take from suns and send it to the lacunae. The soul traps—

  Soul traps?

  Had metal man collect them all. All in those needles closest to lacuna. Those ones are hollow. He needs souls to charge serum. When suns line up over each lacuna, crab-legs sends all that hypercharged energy into the core. Then second wave destroys core, wipes out last soul traps, and takes your spark.

  Soul traps? Glissa repeated. She didn’t hear Slobad’s mental response, if he sent one, because she suddenly received the most powerful flare she’d ever experienced. She stood in a clearing in the strange forest that she had seen long ago. Several other elves, their bodies made of soft flesh, surrounded her. She felt without knowing how that they had come here to hide. She also knew somehow that these elves were the last of their kind on this strange plane.

  Suddenly the elf closest to her disappeared in a flash, and within seconds the others popped out of existence one by one. Finally, a bright white light swallowed Glissa whole and the flare world vanished.

  Crazy streaks of color flooded her vision next. Flashes and streams of energy streaked past at impossible speed. She could not feel her own body, only the sensation of constant acceleration, faster, faster. The silver globe of Mirrodin appeared in the center of the light show and grew rapidly, and filled her vision entirely. This was a Mirrodin free of life, covered in odd geometric shapes. Unable to slow herself, she rapidly approached the surface then veered off toward a snarled mass of silver that she realized was the Tangle—only this ancient forest did not yet contain a hint of green. Disembodied Glissa skimmed low along the smooth silver forest floor then collided with a small boxy shape surrounded by leafless vines.

  She felt herself enter the shape, or maybe it absorbed her. Then, in another blinding white flash, Glissa was standing next to the small box, panting and out of breath. She looked down at her hands and saw the familiar green skin covered in metallic plates. She shook her head and felt cords of tangled cable hair whip at her ears. Glissa heard voices, and cautiously set off in their direction through the weird silver Tangle, the small box forgotten.

  As abruptly as it had begun, the flare ended, and she blinked. She was still bound into the rack within the Panopticon.

  Soul traps, the voice in her head said.

  That’s how he brought us here, Glissa thought. Memnarch was still scuttling about the Panopticon.

  Originally. But now he’s gonna use them.

  But why kill so many people? If he needed their souls?

  There was no response.

  Slobad?

  They not dead.

  What? There are thousands of dead.

  Nope, the voice rang in her skull. Bodies fallen. Don’t work. But the souls can’t go anywhere. It’s—

  Ghastly. What will happen when he drains the traps?

  That, not sure. Wasn’t important to construction. Maybe ever
yone goes home. Maybe all die.

  Can’t you do anything?

  Can’t yet. Working on—

  The voice ceased, and the elf girl felt a twinge of discomfort as the needle retracted from her neck. Memnarch had finally stopped fussing with his controls and crystal panels and now clacked his way over to Glissa.

  “It thinks Memnarch a fool,” the Guardian said. “Thinks I cannot hear. I shall have the spark, the power, and a new, pure world to shape. Before, I was as a child, playing with his father’s sword but grasping the wrong end through sheer ignorance, Karn. I allowed the flesh on this world out of hubris, thinking I could change it. Now we shall start over, you and I, as equals.”

  The air was humming like a swarm of wasps. At first, Glissa thought it was the energy continuing to build, but it sounded more like actual wasps, big ones.

  Or beetles.

  A monstrous, rusty iron blur dropped through the open roof of the diamond structure and slammed into the side of the Guardian’s head. The blow didn’t topple Memnarch—he was far too stable—but surprised him enough to make him momentarily forget the elf girl. Before he could locate the first attacker, another large black shape smashed into his back, shattering one of the bulbous serum tanks he wore and sending glass and silver-blue fluid spraying about the chamber. Memnarch screamed in fury.

  With that, the nim attacked en masse. They poured from the black lacuna in a great swarm, descending on the Guardian again and again, refusing to give him a chance to recover.

  “Psst!”

  Glissa looked to her left. Raksha was crouched in a shadowed alcove, holding Geth’s head by the ears so the necromancer’s eyes could stay on the nim. Glissa’s eyes widened and a silly grin spread across her face.

  “Told you I was the best damned necromancer on this plane,” Geth hissed with glee. “Body or no body. Just took me a while to get them to listen.”

  “Enough!” Memnarch screamed from the center of a dizzying black whirlwind. Memnarch’s shout had magic behind it, and a translucent blue sphere formed around his body. Several nim bounced off the force field and were sent flying off in every direction. The blue sphere expanded outward, washing over Glissa, Slobad, and the hidden Raksha without any effect. Geth’s head, however, was torn from the leonin’s grasp by the expanding anti-necrotic shockwave and flew high in a lazy arc. Glissa lost sight of Geth almost immediately, unable to turn her head.