by Cory Herndon
“Now’s not the time,” Fonn said, but a tiny part of her appreciated what, from Jarad, was high praise indeed. Maybe, she thought guiltily, their marriage had needed danger to survive.
* * * * *
Myc wanted many things. Cold air to breathe. His freedom and the freedom of his fellow scouts. He wanted to know where the deathmongers had taken poor Lily. A glass of water would have been nice.
More than anything, he wanted to be home at Vitu Ghazi or in the labyrinth with his father. Or anywhere else, so long as it wasn’t here. Yet he could not keep himself from craning his neck to watch the demon Rakdos return to the world.
The demon’s horns emerged from the lava first. They glowed dull orange in the smoky air, fading to a glossy black as they rapidly cooled. Then came the top of the demon’s head, revealing a bony, exposed crest, a heavy brow that kept his eyes out of view, and a long, caprine snout. Then the shoulders emerged, supporting a pair of black batwings dripping with molten rock. The demon was lined with bulging veins that glowed with inner fire.
The blood witch continued her wailing chant as the demon roared, pulling himself to his full twenty-five-foot height and spreading his dire wings. The demon’s face was only a few feet from the scout’s own, and he found himself unable to look away.
The arrival of the demon-god had finally torn Izolda’s concentration away from Myc. She floated before him, raising the bowl with its mixture of blood and that strange, quicksilver liquid over her head, calling to Rakdos. Slowly, she raised the edge of the bowl to her lips—
With a clang, a distinctive Devkarin arrow knocked the bowl from her hands. The arrow continued on to strike the rope holding Myc’s left hand, and he pulled it free with a painful jerk that reopened the jagged cut across his palm.
Izolda screamed in fury. The bowl tumbled into the air, scattering its remaining contents over the head of the demon, over Myc, and into the roiling lava below. The silver bowl disappeared into the pit.
A second arrow followed a fraction of a second later, severing the ropes that bound his legs together. He grabbed on to the remaining ropes with both hands and let himself swing around to the side of the effigy tree opposite the floating blood witch. He found himself staring up at the chin of Rakdos and felt his skin blistering anew in proximity to the demon.
The boy did not see what happened to the blood witch next because the moment the contents of the bowl struck his face, his world changed.
Myczil Savod Zunich fell into the grip of something like madness. His entire being was seized with primal, animal rage, rage he knew was not his own.
He did not feel imprisoned. He felt free. He felt … gigantic. A tiny section of Myc’s mind told him he felt, more than anything, like Rakdos looked.
He was a demon-god. Blinded by rage and lust, Myc did not see the demon reach down with a wickedly clawed hand. Rakdos chuckled, a deep, deliriously exhilarating sound to the addled ledev scout, and plucked Myc from the effigy tree like a piece of fruit. He lay there, on his back, in the demon’s open palm, looking up at that terrible face. He found that he was no longer afraid, and that his sadistic cravings were giving way to something like … curiosity?
Could a demon-god be curious? Or was this Myc’s own feeling? He could not tell.
The demon looked him over. Without taking its huge, black eyes off of the young ledev, the demon reached out with his other hand and knocked the blood witch out of the air with a casual swipe. She shrieked in surprise, flew into the revelers, and was swallowed up by the crowd. That triggered at last the tiniest bit of self-preservation instinct, and the deathmongers drew back from the resurgent demon-god with awe. Izolda’s chant had faded, though the assembled cultists and performers of the unholy carnival screamed their own chants more loudly than ever at the sight.
Myc felt an alien wave of satisfaction wash over him. Neither this nor the lust for blood and flesh were his own. As the thought passed through his mind, he could hear another consciousness, vast and ancient, cunning and evil.
I hunger, the mind said. What are you, I wonder? A morsel?
I am not food, Myc thought back. Put me down.
Food, the demon-mind said. Yes, I must feed. I will destroy them all, drive them before me, hear the lamentations—
I get it, Myc cut in. Then he grimaced. Now he was hungry too.
Yes, it is time to feed, the demon-god said inside their shared mind.
Feed, Myc told him, on those clowns first.
Yes, the demon-mind agreed, and Myc saw the demon taking in the crowd in his mind’s eye. I hate clowns.
So overpowering was Myc’s inexplicable connection to the demon-god, he could not hear his own mother screaming his name.
“We’re too late,” Jarad whispered, notching another arrow but unable to see what he should be shooting at.
“Myc!” Fonn called from the edge of the vent tube that opened inside the cavernous Rakdos temple. “Myc! Can you hear me?”
The boy sat in the open palm of the demon-god Rakdos. He was not dead—from the look of it he was struggling within his bonds—but he did not reply either.
“We’ve got to get down there,” Jarad said and reached to his belt. He produced a long, thin line with a collapsible hook, like those the wojeks sometimes carried. He scanned the ceiling of the hive, searching for something that might hold the grapple he swung in a small loop at the end of his hand.
“Myc!” Fonn called again. No response, but she hadn’t really expected one. Some of the freakish cultists down below heard her, however, and a few pointed and shouted. Tinier figures that had to be goblins scrambled toward them and began to climb the sheer wall under their perch.
“Jarad, we’ve been spotted,” Fonn said. “What’s going on?”
“There,” the Devkarin said and let slip the grappling hook. It lanced out and wrapped around a coil of heavy chain not far overhead. Without ceremony he stepped to Fonn’s side and put his arm around her waist. “Hold on,” he added. Fonn did as she was told.
“Is that sturdy enough?” she asked.
“I hope so,” Jarad said.
“Wait!” Fonn shouted. “Holy mother of—Look!” She pointed at the demon as Rakdos placed her son almost delicately upon his shoulder. Myc, bloody but otherwise intact from the look of him, clambered from the demon’s shoulder to a great chain Rakdos wore around his neck. Her son took a seat on the links.
Myc smiled viciously at the mob and said something Fonn could not hear. He paid no heed to either her or Jarad.
“What is he doing?” Jarad asked.
“I have no idea,” Fonn said. She listened for Myc’s note, and found it easily—but it had changed. It was still her son, but there was a deep, abiding, ancient rage there as well. A sour note, out of tune.
The ledev’s concentration shattered when the first goblin made it over the lip of the tunnel in which she and Jarad stood. The chattering creature, snarling, was preceded by a coterie of red-eyed rats that they kicked away frantically. The goblin met Jarad’s booted foot squarely between the eyes, and the creature flew out into open space, landing with a sizzle and a scream in the lava pit. Another almost immediately replaced it, and another. Fonn got in a few good kicks, but they couldn’t last this way forever.
Fonn drove her sword through a goblin’s eye and kicked his lifeless form over the edge. “I see more cages,” she said, pointing. “That must be the other kids.” Please, she added silently, be the other kids. I can’t take much more of this.
“But Myc is over there.”
“They’re all my responsibility,” Fonn replied, though her heart screamed to take flight and head straight for the demon, which had already lifted a massive hoofed foot from the pit and would soon be completely clear of the lava. “Get us down there, and I’ll go for the scouts while you see what you can do about that demon.”
“On three,” Jarad said at last, once again taking her by the waist. “One. Two.” He planted a foot in the face of another goblin, and i
t went over backward with a scream.
“Three,” Fonn said.
Civilian air traffic within the City of Ravnica shall adhere to regulated flight paths at all times. This regulation does not apply to authorized law-enforcement officers.
—City Ordinances of Ravnica
31 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.
Kos was probably the first inside the Senate chamber to notice the shadow of the Parhelion float across the tinted glass of the Senate dome. He cried out a warning that interrupted the hasty planning he, Feather, and Teysa were engaged in, and a second later the broad prow of the floating fortress collided with the skylight. The thick, colored glass shattered with a clamor of cracks, pops, and whining, twisting metal. Then the golden vessel struck a pair of support beams, and the entire roof of the cavernous hall crumpled with a successive series of booms.
To say the sound was deafening was like saying an angel had wings. It was a tremendous, bone-shattering noise, and Kos’s borrowed bones didn’t enjoy the feeling one bit. Then, to his surprise, he dived under a table as Obez Murzeddi’s survival instincts overwhelmed the stunned and momentarily awestruck wojek ghost.
He was not alone. Both the thief Capobar and the baroness had the same idea, and the three—four?—of them winced and covered their heads as the noisy destruction continued above them. Any second, Kos expected a hunk of roof or the Parhelion itself to come crashing down on the heavy, metal table, crushing them all flatter than a roundcake.
Like you had a better idea, Obez mentally challenged.
Don’t do that again. I’m either in charge here or I’m not.
Who said you were in charge?
But the crush, the collapse, never came. After a few minutes, the noises faded, and the Senate chamber was filled with eerie silence.
“Is everyone okay?” Kos whispered.
“Who said that?” a woman’s voice, Teysa’s, replied.
“Me, Kos,” he said. “Sort of.”
“Will you people be quiet? I’m trying to hear what’s going on out there.” This from Capobar, who sounded like his drunken haze had fled in a hurry, leaving behind someone as terrified as he was grumpy. Kos knew the feeling.
The silence continued for another few seconds, then Kos heard a cough, and another, outside their makeshift shelter. “I’ve got to see what happened,” he said. “I’m going out.”
He wriggled Obez’s plump body from under the half-collapsed table. Several large chunks of stone had dented the top, but it could have been far worse. He could have been the acting Boros guildmaster, for example. One of the support struts of the glass dome had fallen free and dropped into the seats of the Senate, where it had stuck, quivering like a spear. The spear almost completely obliterated wojek Commander-General Nodov—only a single leg remained.
The Grand Arbiter had been behind the ’jek, and Augustin’s throne must have been thrown over onto its side by the impact. The Grand Arbiter, looking very like a helpless old man, lay on the cracked steps amid shards of glass but resolutely pushed his legless body into a sitting position. Feather had been nearest the loxodon, and Saint Kel owed his life to the angel, who, it appeared, had tackled him before a chunk of stone as big as a dromad crushed the Selesnyan’s seat.
Missing completely were the three bailiffs and the poor stenographer, but one look at the rubble, the wreck, and the blood left little question as to their fate. The soulsworn were still flitting about uselessly, unable to aid their Azorius master and unable to serve their usual purpose—to agree with Augustin IV in every argument.
The Parhelion itself, the agent of all this destruction, stared Kos in the eye, mute and unrepentant. The invizomizzium windscreen hung overhead but was scorched dark; he could not make out anything inside. The entire flying fortress had become wedged into the Senate chamber, the square peg in a round hole taken to ridiculous extremes. The two floatspheres on the vessel’s belly—the only two Kos could see from this angle—were dark, charred orbs. The great reality engine was silent.
There was not an angel in sight.
“Feather,” Kos said, “you all right?” He called to the others, telling them it was safe to emerge, and clambered over the steadiest-looking rubble to reach the fallen judge.
“I am intact,” Feather said. “I regret that, shackled as I am, I could not reach the commander-general in time.”
“The shackles will be removed,” Augustin said softly but with a judge’s resonance as Kos helped the sage guildmaster back to his floating throne. As the Azorius spoke, the silver rings clattered into the shards of broken glass, and Feather’s eyes blazed.
“Thank you,” was all she said as she helped the loxodon to his feet.
“Feather,” Kos said, “get help. We need to—”
“You need to go to Novijen,” the Grand Arbiter said, and it was not an observation. It was clearly an order. “You will enter the greenhouse. Momir Vig has been harboring the Dimir, according to my intelligence network. You have work to do, Guardsman.”
Kos ground his teeth, but he felt inexplicably compelled to obey. “Feather, as soon as you get me to the greenhouse, you have to send help back here.”
“The guildmaster is not going anywhere,” the Grand Arbiter said.
Feather looked apologetic but nodded slowly in agreement. “The Grand Arbiter is correct, Kos. This duty falls to me now. I must explore the Parhelion. You must find Szadek.”
“But I was counting on you to get me there,” Kos said. “Feather, if I run into—”
A shadow passed over his head, making him jump. The shadow resolved into a huge, golden bird with an improbable rider that settled onto the upper Senate steps.
“Trouble,” Pivlic, out of breath, gasped as he slid wearily off of the roc’s back. “Trouble is on the way.”
“Pivlic?” Kos and Teysa said simultaneously.
“Who else would it be?” the imp said, then did a double take. “Excuse me, who are you? How do you know my name?”
“Pivlic, I don’t have time for this,” Kos snapped. “What trouble? I mean, other than that?” He jerked a thumb at the fallen Parhelion.
“Kos?” Pivlic said, recognition dawning as the familiar tone, cadence, and half-voice sunk in. “How is this possible, my friend? How is this possible? You—”
“Later,” Kos said. “Trouble. Tell me about the trouble.”
“Right,” Pivlic agreed. He did not appear completely convinced, but he had been a part of the Orzhov guild long enough not to be too surprised at this turn of events. “Do you remember the nephilim of Utvara?”
“Those ‘immortal monsters’ the Gruul swore were gods?” Teysa, obviously feeling a sudden stake in this conversation, interjected. “Golozar mentioned them.”
“I fear Golozar may be dead. I have not seen him since the attack.”
“Attack?” Teysa said sharply.
“The nephilim, baroness,” the imp said. “Something’s happened to them. They’re bigger. And—Baroness, I am sorry. Very sorry.” He gulped and bowed his head. “As your appointed representative, your friend, and most importantly your assurance agent, I regret to inform you that the township of Utvara may well prove a total write-off. The property damage outweighs the loss of life, I believe, but—”
The rest of whatever Pivlic had been about to say was drowned out in an unholy roar. The nephilim had arrived in the big city.
Crixizix felt the last of her pyromana charge give out just as she came to rest at the edge of her makeshift “field hospital” with the proprietor of Giburinga’s Hardware draped over her shoulders. The hospital was an open space on the flats near one of the only remaining mines. There Dr. Nebun did what he could for the injured with the help of the mine’s owner, a friendly ogre named Garulsz who had once run a bar in the City of Ravnica and therefore had plenty of experience treating bruises and abrasions. Crixizix had carried the woman from the wreckage of her devastated shop, and the goblin set her down as gently as she was able. Giburinga was unconscious, but Crix
izix had found no broken bones and suspected from the laceration across the hardware seller’s brow that she was simply concussed. The master engineer was getting pretty good at that particular diagnosis.
It was both gratifying and frightening to find so few dead among the wreckage. Utvara’s scattered, decentralized architecture was the one reason, Crixizix theorized, ever the thoughtful mage. There had been plenty of room to flee, and the initial appearance of the nephilim had given more than enough warning. The population was already easy to spook, thanks to the dragon attacks a few weeks ago. That probably saved many of them.
Or so she told herself to avoid sinking into despair. There was no way for her to account for the number the ravenous nephilim had consumed. Bits and pieces of them littered the streets, a reminder that there was very little good to be found in any of this.
The mining station was one piece of good. It miraculously gave the only Simic doctor in town a place to work that miraculously still possessed running water and exterior glowspheres to fight the encroaching night. A few hundred people of various species lay in somewhat orderly lines on the open ground, for the most part, though the worst cases had been placed on crates or still lay on homemade stretchers.
Nebun’s laboratory was almost entirely gone, though a few of his living specimens had escaped. The frog aberration Uvulung hopped along beside the doctor as the Simic greeted Crixizix and launched into a quick summary of the butcher’s bill.
“Concussion,” Dr. Nebun agreed as he examined the unconscious woman. “She will be fine. There is room here yet. She may stay until she recovers.” The Simic produced a small blob of a translucent, jellylike substance.
“Cytoplasts?” Crixizix said. “She doesn’t need a new limb. She got knocked in the head. What will that do?”
“Please, goblin,” Nebun said.
“Crixizix, if you please,” Crixizix said.
“Certainly, Crixizix,” Nebun said with no venom, just the tired tone of an arithmancer explaining basic mathematics to a child for the umpteenth time. “This is a new type of cytoplast designed as a less drastic form of healing—something that might replace the commonly used teardrops someday.”