The Colors of Magic Anthology (magic: the gathering)

by Richard Lee Byers

  The goblins ran forward toward the cavalry in small groups, keeping as low as they could. The knights' charge hit the forward edge of the goblins and tore them apart. The goblins tried to fight, but they were too short to effectively engage the knights without the element of surprise. Many turned to run back to the orcs once more but were skewered in the back as they tried to run.

  Elkan began to yell. "What have you done?" he screamed. "Why have you sacrificed them? You heartless bastard…"

  "It was you who were going to sacrifice us, wasn't it, mage?" the general yelled back at Elkan. Jonar shoved him off to the side. The general ran out in front of his line. In his best parade voice, he yelled. "Are we going to take this slaughter? Are we going to allow this to go unanswered?"

  The hearty yell was nearly drowned out by the fighting not a hundred yards to their front.

  "Then charge!"

  The drummers had been waiting for the command. In unison, they began to beat the quick staccato of the attack order. The orc line leaped forward.

  The cavalry had broken down into small fighting groups, each chasing goblins in one direction or another. Their commander yelled to them to pull together but he could not be heard. A handful of knights readied themselves to receive the orcs.

  Two thousand orcs came on.

  They had to cover only a hundred yards to close with their enemy. The knights who had not rallied were caught off-guard. Orcs sprang on their backs, pulling them from their mounts. They speared others, both beast and rider falling in unison in death.

  The battle flowed around the two hundred remaining knights in the center. They formed a tight circle, lances pointing out, defensively, just as the orcs had done previously. Their commander, now holding the Kjeldoran standard, stood in the middle.

  Jonar waited. The battle lasted only a few minutes. A hundred knights fell. No more than twenty orcs met the same fate.

  The remaining knights broke off contact with the orcs and retreated five hundred yards before they turned and faced their enemy. The blue-and-white checkerboard livery was spattered with blood and grime. Even the army standard was ripped in two. The survivors, numbering fewer than one hundred, formed a battle line again.

  Jonar and his standard bearer walked across the intervening five hundred yards, right up to the lance point of the first knight, and stopped. The knight had murder in his eyes, but discipline kept him in check. The commander rode forward.

  "I am Sir Michand, knight commander of the Orders of the Griffin and Phoenix. " He saluted solemnly.

  Jonar removed his battle helmet and bowed low. "I am Jonar, general of Balduvia and commander of the Orc Clans. I am willing to offer terms of surrender. "

  Elkan was only a step behind. "What? You can't be serious? I am in command here! I…"

  The mage never finished his sentence. Jonar turned and slammed his sword into the mage's gut, thrusting upward. The blood did not show on the mage's ruby robes as he fell forward.

  Jonar pulled the weapon free. He wiped his weapon in the snow, then on the mage's robes, before returning it to the scabbard.

  "Why?" Elkan gasped.

  Jonar shook his head in disgust. "You were going to sacrifice us to win this battle. Instead we sacrificed the goblins to save ourselves. Now I am sacrificing you to this knight as a gesture, and as a warning. No one sacrifices the pride of the orcs-not at Balesh Pass and certainly not here."

  The light that flickered in the mage's eyes went out. He slumped over, face first into the snow.

  Jonar turned back to the astonished knights. "As I was saying, I am ready to offer terms."

  The knight commander was visibly shaken. "I will not surrender my command to be slaughtered by you brutes. We would rather die with honor."

  The knights immediately around their commander tightened their grips on shields, weapons and reins. Their mounts shifted under them.

  Jonar nodded thoughtfully. "Fair enough. I then offer you this-you may take your command, or what is left of it, and return home. All I ask is that you surrender your battle standard."

  Sir Michand sat with his mouth slightly open in surprise. He quickly caught himself and straightened his posture.

  "Very well, General. You have beaten us in fair combat. My honor demands that I do no less. I accept your terms."

  Black

  Black, the symbol of death and despair, can be characterized as morbid, impatient, incorporeal, and stagnant. It is the color of pollution and pestilent, festering swamps. Those who show fondness for this color are not the type to show off. They will impress those worthy of their time by their real substance and weight. Black leans on the side of mystery and darkness but can be mighty and dignified. Black is a stark color, the beacon of nothingness, but those who favor this color abhor inevitability. They would hold to the present forever if they could and they will probably try. Black is for those who hide their darker sides behind an air of sophistication, for those who lurk in alleyways and dark corners, and for those willing to pay the price of greatness.

  Dark Water

  Vance Moore

  Tayva walked from the stone hut, the morning crisp and cool with a light dusting of dew. She stretched her back and heard the creak of aging bones and poor bedding. She called over her shoulder in a raspy voice that had begun to shrill with age. "Loria, I'm going to check the birds. "

  Usually Tayva checked the pigeons later in the morning, but some of the caged birds had looked unwell the day before. She coughed in the cool air as she tried to clear the dust and smoke of the night's fire from her throat. Nerving herself to face the day, and unwrapping the greasy shawl from her shoulders, Tayva threw it into the dark doorway behind her. She just missed tangling the feet of her cousin.

  Loria exited and tilted her face to the sun burning through the morning haze. Her features were finer and more delicate than those of Tayva. She wore dull rags, but they hung neatly, and while patches and crude stitching formed most of the smock, there were no actual holes. She held a wooden comb in her left hand and rubbed her eyes. Turning back to the hut, she picked up a crude bucket with her free hand.

  The hut the two women exited was small and poorly thatched. The walls were of irregular rocks and turf the pair had cut years before, while the smoke from the stoked fire oozed through the roof. The dry weather had allowed repairs to the roof and walls to be delayed, and it appeared more ruin than residence. The hovel lay on the shore of a new lake, the water clear and cold in the morning light. The doorway looked out at bare and eroded hills in the distance rather than the water close at hand. The cousins cared little for what they saw.

  Tayva walked to the back of the hut, as Loria continued to the lake edge and filled the bucket with water. She began wetting and combing her hair to look her best for the coming day. Tayva sighed as she considered how pathetic Loria's morning routine appeared, the careful and complete beauty preparations of their youth reduced to a soapless wash in cold water.

  Tayva moved to the dovecot set behind the hut. The building was backed with carefully cut and fitted stone, and the roof and three of the walls were a woven lattice of wicker and pieces of wood. The wood was in the form of barrel staves, bought at great cost for two poverty-stricken women. The cot, though weathered and aged, was far better than the near ruin the women inhabited.

  Tayva swept the ground with her eyes as she stood by the cot. As carefully maintained and constructed as the building was, she still feared it would be raided, but as usual, there were no tracks other than her own. She opened the door and quickly stepped through to prevent any birds from exiting.

  The pigeons nested in open racks and wicker cages. The birds were quiet. She could hear only soft cooing and the occasional movement. Usually, when she renewed the feed dispenser, a swirl of birds would envelop her, but now she radiated stillness. The birds looked at her without expectation. Tayva peered through the dappled light and saw that one of the pigeons had died in the night. She immediately took the small cage from its mounti
ng and carried it to the entrance of the cot. There, by the door, stood a small barrel of feed and behind it a pottery vessel of herbal oil. A large crock of the oil rested behind the back wall of the dovecot, but she kept a smaller vessel inside for quick use. Gathering up the bottle and two basketlike cages, she returned to where the dead bird lay.

  Tayva poured the herbal oil over the straw and hay on the floor of the cot and doused the hook from which the cage had hung. The oil was to control and cloak whatever disease might have killed the bird. Then with tender hands she gathered immediate members of its brood and gently transferred the torpid birds to the traveling cages. She could identify the family relationship among the birds with the same surety that, in decades past, she would have known the names and particulars of her own social circle. She passed the baskets and the dead bird out of the cot and took them behind the stone backing of the building. Kneeling by the large crock, she removed the cap and brought out the dead pigeon-a male in the prime of life when it died-and immersed it in the oil. She began to croon strange off-key melodies. Her care in rubbing the oil into all the feathers of the bird, and her odd reverence, would not have been out of place in the internment of a king.

  After its oil bath, Tayva carried the avian corpse and the baskets of pigeons to the slough only a hundred feet away. An offshoot of the lake, the slough was an aberration in the surrounding country. A pustulant green in the surrounding pastels, it drew and fascinated the eye. Nothing disturbed its surface, and no insects flew over its stagnant waters. She arranged the cages around a patch of packed earth and placed the live birds near the water. The dead bird she lifted from the cage and carefully positioned it to form the tip of a triangle in relation to the live birds, the point facing away from the water. Tayva stooped and cupped a handful of water from the slough, then straightened with difficulty and poured it over the still bird. The water left a coating of decay on her hand, and only with conscious effort did she refrain from wiping it clean. Drawing a single deep breath, she knelt at the edge of the water with eyes closed. Her tension and breath eased out of her in a sustained exhalation until she slumped forward, totally empty. Suddenly Tayva's head snapped back and tremors rippled along her body. A grimace swept her visage, emotions unknown and incomprehensible trying to express themselves. Her hands jerked and pawed at her sides. The birds called in fear and tried to flee. When Tayva's hands finally grasped the baskets the birds attacked her fingers. Any pain she might have felt was swept away by something else as she lifted the birds over the still water and then plunged them through the surface. The cages submerged only halfway, slowed by strange wiry plants hidden in the water. A blast of stench came from the disturbed water that blinded Tayva and tears poured from her eyes. The birds beat the water with their wings and pecked at Tayva, the wickerwork, each other, and even the water. But their movements grew more feeble by the second, and Tayva kept pushing the baskets down. The pigeons were laboring and dying, pulled down one by one, as if some small animal was inside the basket with them. Tayva forced one cage beneath the surface completely and had to use both hands to push the other down. Only one bird was left. It attacked her fingers as she forced her hands below the roiled surface. She nearly fell in as more tremors shook her and then sat back on her heels hard. She shuddered and shook her head as though dislodging flies. Tayva heard the rustle of damp feathers behind her. The dead bird preened itself and looked at the small of her back with one dull eye. A great slow smile spread over her face, and she clasped her bleeding, scarred hands together and groaned with pleasure and remembrance of better days.

  Tayva and Loria reclined on cushions piled along the walls. Though the room was in a basement, it had been carefully decorated to suggest freedom. The walls and ceilings were covered in swathes of cloth that gave the room the appearance of a great tent. A thick layer of sand covered what should have been a muddy floor, and good drainage kept it dry. Vents from a holocaust drove a continuous stream of hot air over everything. Despite the warmth, braziers sat in every corner burning great blocks of incense, throwing streamers of smoke through the air. Loria and Tayva took no notice of their surroundings. Their eyes were steady on the woman in the center of the room.

  She was old and worn, her dress that of a household servant. Her eyes were wide and staring into oblivion. She stood upright, but her head moved in an irregular circle as she swayed.

  "Come in, Uncle Brucius," Loria called. Tayva and Loria both wore flowing clothes that matched the cushions on which they reclined. The man pushing through the hanging cloth missed them initially because they blended so well with their habitat. He rubbed his arms vigorously when inside, as though scraping away webbing.

  "This is ridiculous. Why have I been kept waiting? You should have greeted me the moment I arrived." His upper body was covered by goose bumps, and he masked his disquiet with offended dignity. "And why are we meeting down here? You should receive your guests properly." He turned to look for a seat, but no chairs were set for him, and he found the notion of reclining on the floor like his nieces distasteful. He elected to stand over them.

  "May we ask why you are here today, Uncle?" Loria questioned, tilting her head only enough to keep him in the corner of her eye.

  "You know very well why. I've come to talk some sense into you. I can't imagine why no one else in the family hasn't done so!" Brucius's arms waved and punched to lend emphasis to his diatribe. "Have this woman dismiss herself immediately!"

  "You have always lacked imagination, Uncle," Loria, replied. "Surely you recognize old Tomaya. She has been a nurse to two generations of our family. She's practically family herself." Through all this Tomaya swayed and stared at nothing.

  Brucius was livid that his orders should be refused and that he was considered related to a servant. He roughly grasped the old woman's shoulder and hurled her to the side. She fell like a tree and made no attempt to catch herself.

  "I have helped keep this family great when other families and nations have fallen to advancing glaciers. You are an investment in the future, Loria, and I won't have you destroying your value in the company of this spinster! You will leave this house." He turned to Tayva. This girl was dark and cold in a land where those qualities were abundant, and she had enjoyed few suitors. "You will turn control of this house to me!" he began to storm, but the words crashed against something in his throat.

  Tayva was a placid pool except for one hand that trembled with tension. Brucius felt that tension on his throat and was frozen. He could not even struggle to continue. Tayva held him with something much stronger than just her hand. He stared out of a body that was completely severed from him. He could hear Loria rising behind him, and she whispered in his ear.

  "You seem, very quiet, Uncle. Did you run out of orders to give?" Loria dragged one fingertip down his neck, and it burned. But even a whimper was beyond him. "You cannot command us. No one can command us. We are greater than you. We are greater than anyone!"

  Loria moved into the corner of his vision, and her face shook with intensity. "Show him, Tayva, why no one gives us orders."

  Tayva raised both hands. Brucius turned a half step and saw old Tomaya standing up, still looking at nothing, with a knife in her hands. His throat was not blocked anymore, and he cried out.

  "Stop! Don't hurt me! I'll do anything!" He was gasping for breath, and he tried to run without result.

  Tomaya raised the knife and stepped within a single pace of him. Her eyes finally seemed to focus, and she looked into his. Tomaya spoke, but her voice was young. Brucius recognized it as Tayva's.

  "Loria was right. You have no imagination at all." Tomaya raised the knife to her own wrinkled neck and cut a wide, red smile. Brucius screamed anew as Tomaya stood, looking in his eyes, blood pouring down her body.

  Suddenly Brucius felt relief as Tayva's grip on him loosened and he was given back control of his frame. Tomaya collapsed, and he ran from the room. The crash of furniture overturned by his flight faded only when he reached the out
side door.

  Both cousins had fallen at the same time as the corpse of Tomaya. Loria was the first to stand, despite the pain that knotted her muscles.

  "By the gods, why did you do that, Tayva?" she demanded as she reached desperately for wine to dull her pain. "We weren't nearly done with Uncle. And why did you let Tomaya expire so soon?"

  "I didn't allow anything to happen!" Tayva exclaimed as she too rose and reached for wine. She was even more unsteady than her cousin, and she cursed the decision that left this room without any chairs. "I don't know what happened!"

  More screams sounded throughout the house. Tayva reached down to Tomaya's cooling body and wrenched the knife from her dead hand. Loria squared her shoulders and gestured to the open door.

  "We need to find out what is happening. Ebnezzer should still be in the west wing." The pair climbed a wooden stairway up into the rest of the house.

  Ebnezzer had appeared as a refugee from some mysterious struggle in the south. He had been destitute and in dire need of a patron. Tayva had been delighted to provide him with the use of her own home. He became her tutor in the arts of sacrifice and control. Within a year the bored elite of the city had congealed around Tayva and Ebnezzer. Things were done in the night that soon had the city whispering, rites that turned most away except for a core of true devotees.

  Tayva had inducted Loria into this dark world. The cousins gained power that freed them from any need to conform or obey the rules of society or their families.

  Soon they dominated the group, and most of their compatriots in darkness had been sacrificed to feed their hunger for power. Loria ignored her branch of the family and moved in with her older cousin.

  If a servant vanished, well, times were hard and uncertain. Surely things whispered in terror of night could not happen when considered in daylight. Tayva and Loria reveled in their abilities. Now they wanted answers about what curbed their power.