by Cory Herndon
What about me? Svogthir demanded. This thing has no master now! The cytoplasts will return with no intelligence to bond to. The entire thing will fall apart!
Guess you should have thought of that a while ago, Kos replied. Obez, get me out of here.
My pleasure, Obez said.
“Are we safe here?” Pivlic asked when he came to again. “Aren’t those a little clo—Krokt almighty, that’s the demon Rakdos!”
“Fill you in later, Pivlic,” Kos said. He turned back to Fonn. “And that’s why I look like this.” He spread Obez’s arms wide and gave an experimental turn, like someone displaying a new suit.
“It’s really him, Pivlic?” Fonn said, skeptical but not unconvinced from the sound of it.
“Him? You mean Kos? The fat human here?” Pivlic said. “Oh yes, my friend, that is him. Well, was. Kos, you are in there, yes?”
“Yes, Pivlic,” Kos said. “Your favorite drink is—”
“All right, all right,” Pivlic said and genuinely smiled. “It is good to see you back, my friend.” After several introductions and reintroductions, the impromptu meeting was, as Pivlic had predicted, interrupted by the clashing demon Rakdos—cast free of the influence of the eleven-year-old Myczil Zunich, something that was definitely going to warrant more explanation later—sometime when Kos hadn’t been lied to, sent on a fool’s errand, and put in the path of a raging demon and the out-of-control Simic project.
It hadn’t really sunk in until now that Kos had killed a guildmaster. He wondered what that would do to Augustin’s delicate balance of power and how he was supposed to find Szadek now. Or whether Szadek was even the real threat.
Enormous mass of fibrous tissues and fungal growths that had been Novijen and was now the thing called Kraj, Kos supposed, shrieked, a sound the demon apparently took as a challenge. The air was filled with cytoplasts, clouds of them, all flying toward this new monster and adding to its bulk and bizarre shape. Kos wondered what it would have looked like had Momir Vig lived to see it through to its completion. He also wondered whether he should have left the god-zombie in there. He hadn’t mentioned that part to Fonn yet and wasn’t sure exactly how he would.
Rakdos roared back at the ecological nightmare that was Project Kraj. Without further challenge, the demon drew back a knotty fist and threw what Kos thought was a respectable roundhouse punch that connected and kept on going. Soon Rakdos’s arm was encased in slimy cytoplastic material and the spiky botanical monstrosity that made up the rest of Kraj. The demon roared again, this time definitely in pain, and tore its arm free with a jerk. Much of the flesh on his forearms was gone, exposing pulsating muscles that glowed with fire and crackling bones that were charred from within.
The demon-god was not a fool. He backed away and spread his wings, preparing to take to the air. He cleared perhaps fifty feet before the shambling bulk of Kraj reached him. It extended a slimy pseudopod that reminded Kos disturbingly of lurkers and wrapped it around the demon’s leg. It pulled Rakdos easily back to earth, but the demon did not hit the ground. Kraj, or whatever intelligence it still possessed with Vig gone, slammed Rakdos into its own body, engulfing the unholy guildmaster in a roiling mass of translucent cytoplasts, shattered growth, and—Kos was certain—a wide variety of deceased Simic who had aided their guildmaster’s plan.
After a few minutes of writhing and kicking, with muffled roars from within the body of Project Kraj, the demon’s legs stopped moving and finally fell still. Kos wasn’t willing to bet Rakdos was dead. This was an original parun who slept in lava pits. But Rakdos wasn’t tearing up the city, for now. Kraj, facing no threat but without any apparent guiding intelligence, remained where it was, pulsating. After a few minutes, it, too, stopped moving. Perhaps swallowing a pill as bitter as the demon-god ruined your insides no matter what you were made of.
“Shouldn’t we do something about them?” one of Fonn’s scouts, a centaur who had introduced himself as Orval, asked expectantly. “Sir?”
“They’re awfully close to Vitu Ghazi,” the other said. “What if they wake up?”
“I don’t think so,” Fonn said, pointing.
“Are those—?” Kos asked.
“Quietmen,” Fonn said darkly.
The familiar white shapes swarmed into the sky from the direction of Vitu Ghazi. They looked like tall, thin humans, but were covered from head to toe in white silk robes that also hid their faces—if they had faces—completely from view. Many had already sullied the glistening silk with fresh blood.
The quietmen did not carry weapons. They were weapons, holy living weapons sent forth by the Selesnya Conclave by a deranged Living Saint. The quietmen were anything but insane, however. They coordinated their attacks silently, flying in tight formations that tore through their enemies with deadly precision.
“But they’re all supposed to be dead, aren’t they?” Kos said.
“So were you,” Fonn said. “Looks like the Conclave decided to keep a few around for emergencies.”
“Fair enough,” Kos said. “But what happens if they win?”
“I’m counting on Biracazir to keep them in line,” Fonn said. “I’ve got faith.”
“At least one of us does,” Kos replied.
For the first time in a while, Obez’s voice burst into Kos’s—well, technically Obez’s—head. This is all immaterial, he said churlishly. You must find Szadek. Do you know how much time you have wasted?
I’d say it’s been time well spent. A threat to the city has been eliminated.
Along with another guildmaster! Obez shouted in his mind.
You’re an avatar of the Azorius, and you have your orders. We’ll both be executed for this.
I’m not sure, Kos replied.
What does that mean? Obez replied, growing frantic.
It means I’m not sure, Kos thought. That felt like a wild gobhobbler chase. And I’ll stand by my decision to kill Vig no matter what.
And now you delay us further with this ledev and her brood, Obez thought back nastily. We are wasting time with your attempts at heroism. You were not returned to life in order to chat with old friends. We must track down Szadek.
Will you listen to yourself? Kos said. Szadek is not out here. I have an idea where he is, though.
Where?
Back where we started, Kos said.
“Kos?” Fonn said. “You still in there?” It wasn’t until then that Kos noticed her artificial hand—no, cytoplast hand—was gone. Fonn’s original hand had not been cut or even bitten off—it had been torn from her. The stump was grown over but had never been a pretty scar. She seemed to be rolling with the loss for now, however, with all of her attention on her son and her friends.
Watching the quietmen tear Project Kraj apart piece by piece, revealing a comatose Rakdos beneath, it occurred to Kos that perhaps everyone would be missing cytoplasts. And he felt pity for those who, unlike Fonn, had put their bodies through ridiculous physical changes to accommodate the Simic augmentation.
Wasting. Time.
Hold your dromads, Kos snapped.
“Kos,” Fonn said.
“What?” Kos said. “Right. Sorry, still here. Having a talk with the landlord.”
Kos refocused on the real world and let Obez’s shouts demanding his attention go unheeded. It wasn’t easy, but Kos had been both a bouncer and a lawman. Getting yelled at by lawyers was nothing new. “What were you saying? Oh.”
The quietmen were attacking both Rakdos and the Simic monster, using their own aerodynamic bodies as projectiles. The demon was wounded in a few places—the blood glowed orange like lava beneath the shimmering cytoplast surface.
“That actually works to my advantage,” Kos thought aloud. “They might just have this under control, especially if the skyjeks can mount another offensive. I don’t know why the titans aren’t doing anything—”
“No one is,” Fonn interjected.
“But if the quietmen can keep them penned in,” Kos finished, “I can get bac
k to—Feather?”
The angel’s shadow fell over them all, blocking out the just-risen full moon.
“Kos,” Feather said, “we need you back at the Senate.”
“See?” Kos said to the rest of them. “Now this is someone who knows how I think.”
Far below Kos, the quietmen, Rakdos, and Vitu Ghazi, Izolda the blood witch collapsed in a heap under the weight of the wounds she willingly shared with her demon-god. She drew shallow breaths, but the mob surrounding her barely took notice.
One had fallen. One who falls—any one that falls—became prey.
And prey was best devoured alive.
Without a sound from their former mistress, the Rakdos cultists consumed an unholy feast like none they had ever consumed. By the time they sat in a circle, cracking open Izolda’s bones, each one snarled with the soul of a demon. A soul that was split into hundreds of pieces.
From that day forward, the old Rakdos proverb, “There is a demon inside each of us, screaming to get out,” took on a quite literal meaning.
Somewhere in a night that seemed very far away, the bells began to toll midnight throughout Ravnica. Or they tried. Not many clock towers were still standing, from the sound of the distant, ghostly clangs.
From the command deck of the wrecked Parhelion, the sounds were distant indeed. Teysa suspected she would probably never hear them again, and the thought of missing that joyous midnight cacophony made her sadder than the thought of impending death. She had accepted she was going to die, accepted that it might happen soon, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hope to avoid it if the opportunity to do so arose.
She still didn’t entirely remember following all of the passages that led to this tilted, ruined command center of the angel’s flying fortress. There had been that compulsion, that dreadful compulsion to step inside, then the same compulsion—the unmistakable touch of Azorius magic—had led both Teysa and Feather to the deck.
Then, the sight of the wounded angel. And not just any angel. Razia, the guildmaster of the Boros, wounded but alive, had risen to greet them both.
The surprise was so great—especially on the part of the joyful Feather—that it took a fateful few seconds to put together the implications of the compulsion magic, the sight of the Boros guildmaster, and the dead—no, unconscious, she was breathing faintly—skyjek slumped in the corner.
Teysa managed to say, “Feather, that’s not—” before Razia exploded.
That was the only way she had to describe it. One second a wounded but stoic angel had stood there greeting them, and then Razia’s arms erupted into writhing pseudopods. Others sprang from her torso and knees, and three at once slammed into Feather and sent her flying into a bulkhead. Teysa had managed to dodge the pseudopods lobbed her way but lost her cane in the process.
Then the thing that was not Razia pulled the pseudopods back into her body and spoke. “That was a demonstration,” it said. “You cannot move fast enough to avoid me. And I will kill you if you try to get up.”
That had been a half hour ago. Teysa had expected Feather to defy the shapeshifter but had caught a look of concern the angel shot her way that made it clear Feather wasn’t going to risk getting Teysa killed. If she’d been able to risk speaking to the angel—the real angel, not this imposter—she would have told Feather to try it anyway, but when she’d tried that a few minutes earlier it had gotten her a pseudopod slap.
Finally, Teysa decided to risk asking a question of their captor herself. Itself. “Why?” she ventured.
“Why what?” the phony Razia said.
“Why are you holding us here? Why not kill us?”
“Auguries,” the imposter sneered. “You are to ensure they come true. The angels must become extinct. But not until the proper moment.”
Don’t say I’ve got the wings of an angel,
Don’t tell me that you want to fly,
Don’t tell me ’bout the wings of an angel,
When you’ve never even seen blue sky.
—Face of an Angel, by Shonya Bayle,
the Balladrix of Tin Street
1 TEVNEMBER 10012 Z.C.
Frej Ralinu, minister of tax collection, Seventh District, was also a full member of the Azorius Senate and entitled to call himself “Senator.” Ralinu was also a member of the higher house of that august body, which entitled him to use the loftiest entrance into the great Senate dome of Prahv. And as a human being, not a vedalken, he often spoke out on behalf of his much-maligned and populous species. Part of being on the biggest team, Ralinu liked to say, was that all the smaller teams—elves, goblins, vedalken, and the like—tended to go after you. Frej Ralinu possessed a wealth of experience when it came to the dangers of politics.
Yet even though he had entered the ruined chambers through the less prestigious lower-house entrance, that slight hardly entered his mind. What occupied his thoughts most earnestly was why the Grand Arbiter had issued the order to convene now, of all times. He said as much to Nitt Vinloskarga, the vedalken minister of budgetary management, Sixth District, as they stepped cautiously through the rubble-strewn floor of the hall leading into the chambers.
“He’s the Grand Arbiter,” the vedalken said. “He has sent the call, and we must answer. It is our duty to the Guildpact.” It was clear she thought that was the only answer necessary, but Ralinu pressed the issue.
“Look at this place!” he objected. “It’s hardly standing. We’re risking our lives coming here.”
“It is the Senate,” the vedalken said. “Where else should we convene?”
“Why do we convene?” he repeated. “To what end? What’s the point? Our city is being destroyed. It’s only a matter of time before those quietmen start picking fights with the ’jeks and then the rest of us. You remember the Decamillennial.”
“That was before my election,” the vedalken said. “I heard the stories and read the newssheets.”
“So you know what I’m talking about,” Ralinu said triumphantly. “This is not a time to call the Senate to order. We should be locked safely in our homes while the angels—”
“As you said,” the vedalken replied, “look at this place. The angels do not appear to be present, and their fortress appears to be wrecked. I would not put your faith in the angels. Put your faith in the Grand Arbiter.”
Of course that was the answer, and every fiber of Ralinu’s being wanted to agree, but a stubborn, human part of him objected to that pat response. “It’s just—irregular,” he managed lamely.
“It is the Senate,” the vedalken said. “I for one am looking forward to seeing how many of us are left.” They walked on in silence, and it was with that grim thought in mind that Ralinu and his fellow minister emerged into the rubble under what had been the most magnificent dome in the city.
The answer to the vedalken’s question came with a quick look around the chamber. The ruined Parhelion dominated the view, lying nose down, right where it had crashed. With all of the other disasters erupting across the city, it almost looked peaceful. The chamber itself was barely there, a broken and crumpled eggshell of a structure. Roughly a quarter of the steps where senators usually sat remained intact, though small hunks of stone and brick lay scattered across them. On the seats sat no more than a dozen senators. Below them, atop his floating throne, Augustin IV steepled his fingers, his blind visage scowling.
“At last, the stragglers have arrived,” he said, nodding to Ralinu and Vinloskarga. “Please, ministers, have a seat.”
“Your honor,” Ralinu began but found he could not continue. He looked at the Grand Arbiter incredulously, but no words would form on his tongue.
“A seat, ministers,” the Grand Arbiter repeated.
“Come, Frej,” the vedalken said, and together they climbed the seats and settled next to the greatly reduced body of the Senate. Ralinu saw Borbin, the minister of tax collection for the Eighth, a colleague, a good friend, and one of the only other humans in the Senate. There were Illindivossk, Yindervac,
and Pollotorus, the three vedalken ministers of the Senate treasury (it was a big treasury). Others he only knew by name. Hovering amid them all were the soulsworn, whispering praise to the Grand Arbiter and, as usual, making the hair on the back of Ralinu’s neck stand on end.
“Very good,” Augustin IV said. “We are met. I hereby declare this a convocation of the full Senate, pending a check against surviving records. Do I hear any objections?”
Ralinu was completely unsurprised to hear that there were none.
“Excellent,” the Grand Arbiter said and shot a hand into the sky. Overhead, the bell of the Senate—still hanging by the lone remaining rib of the dome, the dome having fallen away in pieces—began to toll.
When the sound had faded away, the Grand Arbiter gestured again, and a living image sprang to life in the air before them. It was a common way to present facts or testimony in court or in the assembly when a witness was not available. The images moved in a swirling mass of blue haze, but their edges were sharp enough. This first one depicted the monsters that had torn into the city.
“Assembled senators, honored ministers, Azorius, Ravnicans,” the Grand Arbiter said, “it is my sad duty to inform you that after ten thousand years, our Guildpact—indeed, all of Ravnican civilization—is on the verge of erupting into total war.”
What followed would have dropped Ralinu’s jaw on his chest if he’d been able to move it. He had seen the wreckage, the rubble, the destruction; but even so had assumed this was a local problem, insofar as the City of Ravnica was “local.” It was also sprawling, and the nephilim of Utvara were not the only signs that the power of the Guildpact was slipping away.
“The quietmen, banned by Guildpact amendment, flying free through the skies,” the judge said. The image flickered. “The Simic greenhouse—indeed, most of Novijen—taking on a life of its own and tearing through the streets.” The image changed again.
The Rakdos uprising. Rakdos himself daring to set foot on the surface of Ravnica for the first time in millennia. The flying fortress of the Boros angels, lying like an enormous broken toy. And the ghostly Szadek, vampire guildmaster of House Dimir, impaling Razia of the Boros with her own sword. Gasps erupted in the small flock of ministers. After a short but interminable pause during which the image replayed over and over, one of the ministers—it sounded like Borbin—bellowed, “Enough!” and stood.