by Cory Herndon
“Why can I see you?” he blurted.
“All is seen in this chamber.” A distinct, cytoplastically enhanced voice slithered from the tangled green mass of life directly before him. The neuroboretum, the extended intelligence of the Simic guildmaster, Progenitor Momir Vig. The client. His client.
The shadewalkers might be keeping their word after all. Whether the two could successfully make the transaction without Vig’s discovering that the prize had been shared was still open to conjecture, but he could still cling to the hope.
Capobar should have recognized the greenhouse just from the humidity, but he’d been discombobulated. The greenhouse was a constantly changing living structure atop the Simic guildhall, Novijen. Novijen itself had, by all accounts, been grown rather than built, but it was the greenhouse that the progenitor seemed to use as an ongoing experiment in biomanalogical architecture.
Momir Vig was there, standing upon a flattened platform that resembled a giant, silver lily pad amid the tangle of tubes, vines, strange fungal plants, and indescribable organic growths that formed his neuroboretum. Sunlight filtered into the chamber, feeding the thriving life inside the greenhouse. Momir Vig rarely left the greenhouse, and with good reason. Capobar could feel the tingle of mana infusing the humid atmosphere and knew that Vig was said to thrive on it.
The guildmaster of the Simic was not alone. To the right of the neuroboretum stood a figure who had once been a female Devkarin elf but had obviously been heavily altered by necromancy. Her skin—and there was a disturbing amount on hideous display—was charred and wrinkled like tree bark. Her sallow, sunken face sat atop a neck that bent at an unnatural angle beneath tangled mats of wiry, black hair. Capobar could make out a vertebra jutting through gray skin. She wore tattered, scant robes that looked religious in nature, perhaps some kind of zombie priestess. She could have used a hood, if only to keep Capobar’s stomach from turning somersaults.
The figure to the thief’s left was harder to make out. He seemed not just to lurk in shadow but also to be a part of the shadow. He was tall, thin, in a black cloak, and had a pair of glowing eyes that were the only clear things in the darkness.
Capobar looked up again at the membranous windows overhead, then back at the shadowy stranger. Whatever the stranger was, he seemed to be creating the shadows on his own, bending the yellowed sunlight around him. Nice trick.
He glanced at the shadewalkers and noted that they were staring at the shadow man. Their third arms coiled apprehensively, but they said nothing.
The awkward silence lasted until Capobar cleared his throat and decided to go for broke. “Hail, Guildmaster,” he said. “We have retrieved the objective. My associates should be able to take care of everything from here. And since that’s the case, I think I will try to get back to the office and catch up with some paperwork. It’s been a pleasure.”
His body wouldn’t move. Should have expected that, he told himself.
“Welcome, master thieves,” the Simic guildmaster said. “We’re all quite pleased to see you. All of you.”
“Right,” Capobar said. “And as I said, I believe we’ve completed our end of the deal. My apologies to your honored guests. I do not wish to be rude. But a successful thievery doesn’t run itself.”
“No need to apologize,” the progenitor said. “Since you’re not going anywhere.”
Finally one of the shadewalkers spoke up. “Progenitor, we did as you ordered. The death cultists were allowed to share in the prize.”
“Well done,” the Simic said.
“You ordered?” Capobar said, a question that hung unanswered in the humid, magical atmosphere.
“With plenty left over for your project,” the second shadewalker said. “So we will leave the prize to you now. We trust that all proper payments have been arranged, as per our contract.” The shadewalker pulled the giant syringe from under his bandages and set it on the spongy floor, then pushed it with its foot. The blunted tube rolled to a stop before the Simic guildmaster.
The undead elf cackled. “Oh yes,” the broken-necked priestess hissed. “I do hope you brought enough of that stuff to go around. Big plans, you know.”
“God-zombie,” the shadow said, and the undead Devkarin creature’s laughter stopped abruptly. Her lopsided grin didn’t.
Capobar heard a whispered curse from the shadewalker to his left and almost had to laugh. It was plain as day that the shadewalkers were as surprised to see the others as he was and that their plans had also been thrown off the path and sent barreling into a ditch. He suspected their sudden visibility was distressing them almost as much. The shadewalkers shifted from foot to foot, visibly anxious, unused to concealing their body language at all.
Desperate, he took a shot in the dark. “But what about those other creatures?”
The progenitor’s eyes flashed. “Other creatures?”
“Yes,” Capobar said. “The creatures that, er, ate what was left of the dragon. The nephilim of Utvara. They were growing at an amazing rate when we left. I know, sir, that you have an interest in such things. Unusual forms of life.” The last he tried to say with a friendly grin, but he feared it probably looked more like lunatic desperation. Which wouldn’t have been far off.
Momir Vig turned to the Capobar and eyed him like a spider sizing up a juicy bloodbug. “How many?”
“Er,” the thief said, “five. And they’re huge. Getting huger by the minute, I don’t doubt.”
The bald, pale face turned back to Capobar. Vig had once been an elf—some of the few remaining original parts left on the progenitor’s head were distinctively pointed ears that gave him a demonic look in the misty light. Vig’s race of elves had long since died out, their name long forgotten, killed in tribal wars with the pre-Guildpact armies of the ancient Silhana and Devkarin. The two surviving elf races agreed on very little, but they both agreed that Vig’s kind had been an especially cruel and ruthless strain of the species, and their passing was mourned by no one, not even the progenitor himself. “Thank you for telling me of this, master thief.”
The first shadewalker, still a step behind, said, “We had assumed you knew, Progenitor. We will gladly return to Utvara and bring you—”
“No, I don’t think so,” the Simic said. Without warning, glistening, ropy blue cytoplastic vines sprang from the floor and snaked up the shadewalkers’ legs and around their torsos, growing and spreading until the shadewalkers’ wiry bodies were fully encased in translucent fibers. It happened so quickly that the shadewalkers didn’t have time to make a sound, and after another few seconds their blue eyes went dark.
Capobar felt his muscles relax slightly, and he experimentally flexed one hand. He could move again.
“My agreement was with you,” the progenitor said in response to Capobar’s incredulous look. “The agreement is fulfilled. And you have done me an additional service, as well. I have long wished to have my own shadewalkers upon which to experiment. These two, I think, will do nicely.”
Capobar, bewildered, said, “So I’m—I’m free to go?”
“Of course,” Momir Vig said. “When I have need of your services, I shall contact you again. Go, enjoy what remains of your life.”
Ten minutes later, as he walked across the pavilion in a daze, breathing in clean, cold air that smelled of impending rainstorms and no magic whatsoever, Capobar was still trying to figure out whether “what remains of your life” had been simply a figure of speech.
A mental picture formed of what the Simic progenitor might be able to do with the giant nephilim—which, Capobar realized, with an uncharacteristically guilty conscience, he had told the guildmaster about—and started walking a little faster.
He wasn’t a drinking man, but he had the urge to crawl into a barrel of bumbat and never crawl back out.
Wenslauv’s steed gave a keening call that mingled with the whistling wind. She was pushing the bird to its limits, aiming for the open landing deck closest to the Parhelion’s command floor.
They were still outside the city. There was still time. Time for Flang to clear out Prahv, a little less to try to regain control of the slowly descending angelic vessel.
She still hadn’t seen any sign that anyone, angelic or otherwise, was aboard the Parhelion, but if she could get to command in time, Wenslauv might be able to keep the thing in the air until help arrived. Otherwise Prahv, and a lot of the rest of the Center, might well be doomed.
Her mount’s wings flapped furiously to maintain the speed and bearing Wenslauv desired as they entered the flying castle’s lee and the wind disappeared along with the sun, both completely blocked out by the shape of the mammoth vessel. The artificial eclipse revealed that the landing deck was dark and seemingly empty. The platform should have been brightly lit by glowspheres. A legionary of the watch should have stood at the edge of that platform, directing traffic.
Wenslauv brought the roc down at the outer edge, where she could clearly see where she was landing, and dismounted. So much for what should have been. What was shook her to her very core.
The roc squawked over her shoulder as she peered into the gloom. The glowspheres had apparently been smashed. The remains were scattered over the floor before her. She turned back to the big bird and patted her on the neck. “Go back to the nest, Jayn,” she said softly. The air marshal wanted to tell the roc to wait with all her heart, but the odds were she would either pull this off or die in the attempt—there was no point in the loyal bird’s dying with her. With luck, Wenslauv would stop the Parhelion’s descent in time, and she would leave when help arrived. And if not, she wouldn’t be leaving. The five remaining floatspheres on the underside of the vessel would never withstand a collision at this velocity, even if the flame-pods burned out before impact. At best they would break, leaking toxic fuel into the Parhelion and the surrounding crash site. At worst, the floatspheres would explode, taking out the angelic sky fortress and a great deal of whatever happened to be near it—or inside it—at the time.
The roc looked at Wenslauv with familiar avian intelligence and cocked her head.
“Good bye,” Wenslauv said. “Be sure to get clear. Go on, now.” She slapped the roc’s neck to emphasize the command. “Go!”
Jayn the roc shuffled around and stuck her beak into the rush of air outside the slow-moving Parhelion. Her talons clacked against the mizzium floor twice, as if to give Wenslauv one last chance to change her mind. The air marshal just shook her head. With a mournful cry, the roc launched into the sky carrying an empty saddle and veered toward the Center, loyally keeping her distance but refusing to leave her master completely behind. Wenslauv smiled grimly and turned back to the darkness. With a practiced motion she drew a short silver baton and almost dropped it when the deck shifted a few degrees as the wind picked up. She twisted the hilt of the distinctive wojek weapon and the pendrek hummed to life. She wished it threw off light as well, but wishing wouldn’t make it so. Wenslauv’s eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to make out what had to be the exit to the rest of the Parhelion.
Focused on the dim doorway, faintly outlined by some distant illumination deep inside the vessel, she didn’t see the obstacles on the floor until one sent her sprawling. The skyjek managed to keep her balance and stay on her feet by dumb luck, which saw the deck shift again in precisely the right direction to keep her upright.
Wenslauv really needed to get some light in here. She found an open panel on a wall next to the vague outline of the exit and felt for the button that would send mana to the glowspheres. If they were all smashed, this would be worse than pointless, but if any remained intact. …
The landing deck flashed into existence all around her as at least a dozen remaining glowspheres flickered to full power. A painful jolt struck her hand, still on the switch, and she jumped back in alarm. She tripped over the same object on the floor and this time couldn’t catch herself before she went over backward. To her dismay, exactly what had tripped her up was exactly what she had feared most.
The dead angel had been partially dismembered. Only one wing remained affixed, twisted under the corpse, splayed like a flattened bough. The other wing lay crumpled into a feathery heap a short distance away. One arm was completely missing. Only a ragged black and red stump pierced by a sharp piece of jagged white bone remained. Wenslauv had tripped over the angel’s legs, which were facing the wrong way—a vicious red seam showed where something with incredible strength had twisted the angel at the waist, sending innards spilling out onto the floor. There should have been blood all over the place, and there was, but the mana-powered lighting revealed the corpse had definitely been here for some time. The pools of blood had dried and even flaked away in a cloud when a gust of wind found its way onto the exposed landing deck.
The angel’s face was one of the only things left intact, more or less—her eyes were open, staring, and shriveled. Her jaw was hanging slack, stuck, it appeared, to the floor. A silver sword lay in three pieces, two on the floor and one, the tip, stuck squarely between the angel’s eyes.
The angel’s dried, open mouth writhed with tiny white shapes.
Wenslauv choked back bile and fought to keep her stomach where it belonged. The air marshal was not of a weak constitution, but the worms were the straw that broke the dromad’s back. Only the fact that she had skipped rations that day kept her from adding to the already vile scene involuntarily.
The corpse was at least a week old. If whatever did this was still aboard, she had even less hope than she thought. But she had to try. Wenslauv stepped over the body gingerly one last time and headed into the gangway, turning in what she hoped was the right direction.
A few seconds after Wenslauv’s departure, a fistful of worms poured deliberately out of the dead angel’s mouth, rolled themselves into a cylinder, and gradually took on the physical form of a snake. More seconds passed, and details grew distinct. It was an Utvaran leaping viper, with the characteristic red stripes lining its spine.
The viper slithered quietly after the skyjek, careful to keep its distance.
The Boros Legion shall be the enforcer of the law. The Selesnya Conclave shall be the living spirit of the law. The Orzhov Syndicate shall be a check on the law’s reach and protect the rights of citizens to challenge any charge in a court of Ravnican law. The Azorius Senate shall be the ultimate interpreter of the law and sit in judgment on all court proceedings.
—Guildpact Article I, Section 2
31 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.
Golden sunlight cast a beatific light on the unusual tribunal that was called to order. The Azorius Senate chambers of Prahv rang with the clanging of a gigantic brass bell that hung suspended in a managravitic field under the silver keystone of the Senate dome.
The sound only slightly disrupted Teysa’s mental calculations. She’d heard it before, many times, though only rarely while sitting directly beneath it.
The cavernous Senate chambers of Prahv were largely empty, though the ghostly shapes of the soulsworn flitted to and fro over the largely empty benches ringing the amphitheater.
Teysa had entered a motion to hold the trial here, and she had successfully invoked the high tribunal statute. It was an obscure rule left over from the earliest days of the Guildpact, when the guilds of Ravnica had more frequently and fervently opposed each other. She got away with it because if Feather really was the last angel, as some of the crowds outside were chanting and she herself claimed, there was a good chance that she would be the Boros guildmaster by default. The angel had told Teysa she had no interest in becoming guildmaster, but the baroness had reminded her who was the advokist here, and she had dropped her objections, at least for purposes of the hearing. The topic of Boros succession had not been satisfactorily addressed in all the statutes, articles, amendments, and ordinances, Azorius scholars agreed. But to ensure complete fairness and accordance with the Guildpact, Feather would be treated as if she were the guildmaster, even though the current acting Boros guildmaster was in the chambers with th
em.
The tribunal system had many advantages, chief among them the diversity of opinion and viewpoints afforded by its very nature. It wasn’t much of an advantage—indeed, it might prove to be no advantage at all—but she’d still take this situation over a standard trial before a blind adjudicator and a jury of vedalken mind readers. Instead of a purely Azorius court, the accused would face three sages of three high guilds: Azorius, Selesnya, and Boros.
The current Selesnyan Living Saint of the Conclave, a loxodon named Kel, represented the Conclave. He entered with little fanfare except the bailiff’s formal announcement and walked heavily to his seat. From the other side, another of the tribunal judges did much the same but with a more deliberate step, a warier eye, and salutes from the bailiffs. The commander-general of the wojeks and acting Boros guildmaster was a lantern-jawed man with a dark, weathered complexion that testified to his decades of service in the roc-riding skyjeks. He wore a gleaming ceremonial breastplate of office adorned with the Boros sigil. He strode purposefully to the judges’ dais and stood at attention beside his chair, returning the bailiffs’ salute and waiting at attention for the tribunal leader’s entrance.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV descended into the chambers on a shaft of light and several thousand pounds of polished stone. The Grand Arbiter’s torso ended upon a throne of white marble lined with silver and borne upon four small floatspheres that he controlled with the palm of one pale hand. He touched down at the center of the dais without effort or even an adjustment in posture.