Journey Into Nyx

by Jenna Helland

  “You thought it was in that room?” Xenagos shoved her back down on the couch. “Stupid girl. She didn’t even know it’s gone.”

  The satyr motioned to the hooded figure, who stepped forward. The small fire burning in the brazier illuminated the man’s features. Elspeth would have screamed, if the satyr had permitted her the use of her mouth. The hooded figure was Sarpedon, the man she had met in the Temple of Phenax in Akros. He was the Priest of Lies who had read her mind and urged her to seek Heliod, but his handsome face had been ruined. His lips had been cut off and the skin sewn together with rough black stitches. His veiled eyes were stark and gray, like the sky before a storm.

  “Phenax didn’t like the way Sarpedon handled his encounter with you, planeswalker,” Xenagos sneered. “But an oracle as powerful as he is never unclaimed for long. No vessel is too damaged for the God of the Underworld to covet for his own.”

  Outside, blades clashed against each other. They sliced into flesh as desperate laughter turned to mad ravings. The discordant music was accompanied by what sounded like a pack of hounds tearing into their prey. Again, Elspeth tried to force the satyr out of her mind and recapture her free will. But the only memory she could conjure was being with Daxos at Hunter’s Crossing, and the memory of a forest gave her no power at all.

  “Fortunately, Erebos was willing to share him with me,” Xenagos said. “And for such a small price. He’s wanted Daxos for such a long time.”

  Elspeth tried to cry out and warn her friend. But Daxos was still not moving, and her fear for him made her weak. The satyr forced Elspeth to stand with Sarpedon directly in front of her, looking down at her with his strange gray eyes. Since he’d been claimed by Erebos, his body was filled with the air of the Underworld. When he breathed, he filled the room with poisonous despair.

  The choking air of the Underworld filled Elspeth’s lungs. It reeked of dark earth, grief, and perverted desires. It was like the air in Athreos’s Shrine where the souls begged for passage away from the misery between life and death.

  “Kill her,” the satyr told Sarpedon. “Kill them both. I’ll find the sword without her.”

  The Priest of Lies kissed her with his mutilated mouth, and Elspeth could feel the life draining from her. Her strength and will to live leaked from her pores like water through a sieve.

  “You know the futility of existence,” Xenagos said as he turned to leave. “You know what it’s like to feel lost in the infinite. You should have found a world and made the pathetic mortals bow before you. You should have crushed your enemies beneath your feet and made them whimper at the sight of you. You should have done that … anywhere but here.”

  When Xenagos was gone, the Priest of Lies clamped his hand around her throat. But Elspeth found a ledge in her mind and braced herself against it. She envisioned the storied battlefield of the Four Winds Plateau where she and Daxos had faced the hydra. She felt the wind sweeping across the open expanse. She cast off the satyr’s magic and slammed her elbow into the priest’s face.

  The unnatural skin on the priest’s face split open, and his jaw dangled off his skull. Searching desperately for a weapon, Elspeth kicked the priest away from her. He reeled back and crashed into one of the wooden couches on the far side the room.

  “Daxos!” Elspeth screamed, trying to rouse her friend.

  The Priest of Lies regained his balance, and Elspeth’s legs felt too shaky to fight him hand to hand. She darted across the room to give herself some distance. She wanted to cast a spell to make him vanish out of existence, but slowing him down was the best she could manage at the moment. The priest jerked to a halt, there was a flash of light, and he paused. Elspeth picked up an end table and bashed it against him. Under the influence of her spell, he couldn’t move to defend himself. He crumpled to the floor. As he fell, he cracked his head against the heavy wooden arm of the couch. The impact split his skull open, but Elspeth didn’t notice because she’d bolted across the floor and flung herself beside Daxos. She shook him roughly and begged him to open his eyes. Behind her, the noxious fumes of the Underworld leaked out of Sarpedon’s corpse as if a shaft to the Underworld had opened inside the tent itself. Daxos’s eyes flew open.

  “I forgive you,” he said.

  But the Breath of Erebos overcame her, and Elspeth was jarred into a very dark place. Gone were the blue walls of the tent and the sounds of madness outside. Elspeth believed that she was back inside the chamber on New Phyrexia, beneath the throne room where Koth had left her. He’d sealed her legs into the rock floor and told her to planeswalk away from the ruined plane. But the Phyrexians had broken down the door faster than she could cast her spell. The nightmarish Obliterator loomed above her. Where was her sword? She fumbled desperately. She must have dropped it. Her hand closed on something sharp and metal. It felt smaller than her sword, but she snatched it up, desperate for anything that would save her from the Obliterator.

  The Obliterator was an abomination designed solely to kill. She saw the rows of teeth ripped from the mouths of living beings. Multiple bladelike arms shredded the air while noxious fumes leaked out of its chest cavities. It wore the skin of the dead and carried a legacy of crushed and broken lives. It took a single step, and it was on top of her. She swung the sharp metal wildly at the creature. It was trying to grab her, throw her to the ground, and pin her arms. With all her strength, she plunged her small weapon into its heart.

  The Obliterator reeled back and crashed to the ground. She’d killed it. She stared down at its grotesque corpse. She was reliving the moment of her deepest despair, but the circumstances were different. When she’d faced it before, she’d been gravely wounded. This time, she’d slaughtered it, this Phyrexian weapon of pain and chaos. Why didn’t she feel triumph? The ground beneath her feet buckled, as if it were fighting its own demons. A rumbling noise filled her ears. And there was screaming. Thousands of people were screaming in pain. It sounded as if they were screaming her name.

  Elspeth! Elspeth! It was just one person screaming her name. She felt hands on her back. They plucked at her dress ineffectually, like a child trying to move her. She whirled around and saw Nikka, sobbing, with a look of absolute horror on her face.

  “It’s dead, Nikka,” Elspeth assured her. “The Obliterator is dead.”

  Like the covers of a book being slammed together, Elspeth experienced a strange collision of reality. Nikka and the Phyrexians belonged in different worlds. It was Nikka who was still screaming her name. Elspeth! Elspeth! She whirled back to the corpse of the Obliterator. Except it wasn’t what she expected to see. It was a human lying on the ground. It was Daxos. He was dead. He’d been stabbed through the throat with one of the metal skewers from the brazier. She looked down at her hands, which were bloody and shaking.

  In one hand, Nikka clutched Elspeth’s spear-blade. She shoved it at Elspeth.

  “I’m sorry,” Nikka babbled. “I’m sorry. I took your blade. Elspeth, I’m sorry.”

  “Who killed Daxos?” Elspeth asked stupidly. She took the spear-blade from Nikka. The girl’s eyes grew wide and she backed away as if Elspeth might hurt her.

  “You!” Nikka cried. Then she started screaming incoherently.

  Something thrashed against the tent. Strange, clawlike hands reached under the tent, trying to tear it open. Daxos was dead, but had she done it? His eyes stared lifelessly. His chest, stained with blood, did not move. His heart was still. The ripping sound of the monsters tearing into the tent jolted Elspeth into action. She could see distorted, grotesque faces peering in from the outside.

  She grabbed Nikka’s hand and pulled her into the entry room. She grabbed her chest plate and threw it on over her head. She jammed her legs into the metal greaves. Nikka’s mouth was still moving but no sound came out.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Elspeth said.

  Elspeth was afraid Nikka would resist, but the girl allowed Elspeth to reach for her. Hand in hand they plunged into the chaos of the night. The encampme
nt had turned into a nightmare. Most of the tents had been ripped down, and the bonfire was raging out of control. Something—Xenagos the satyr?—had afflicted the minds of the revelers, who were overcome with madness. Some still danced amid the startling violence. Bleeding bodies lay scattered like driftwood on a beach as the crowds surged mindlessly around them. If this was Xenagos’s final revel, his power had replaced reason with the twisted drive for pleasure. With Nikka in tow, Elspeth had just escaped the horrific scene when the girl stumbled, bleeding from a wound in her side.

  “You’re injured?” Elspeth said.

  But a mob trailed behind them, and the sky was pulsing with a frantic, strobelike light. It looked as though Nyx itself was about to shatter and explode. Clutching Nikka’s hand, they fled for the mountains.

  The journey from the raging encampment, through the darkness, and up the rocky path to Heliod’s Shrine seemed to exist outside of time. No one followed her into the darkness, and the sounds of the bacchanal grew more distant with every hurried step. When she looked back on that night, all she could remember was the weight of her grief. To Elspeth it felt as if her soul was crumbling into dust. It was like the edges of her being were folding in in a desperate attempt to protect the vital center from the world trying equally hard to crush it.

  Daxos.

  She felt mute terror at the realization that she’d done something horrible. Her mistake could not be reversed. Elspeth’s mind simultaneously tried to move forward—to Heliod, who she believed could help her—and reeled backward to the moment she saw the Obliterator. As inward as she was, she still saw the freakish changes in the sky. The stars and celestial creatures of Nyx drained from the heavens in rippling ribbons and left a void in their place. When Elspeth looked up, it was like looking up in the belly of a great cave, where no light had ever reached.

  By the time she reached the statue of the Sun God, the lights of Nyx had vanished entirely. There was only a veil of unnatural darkness. Nikka collapsed near the base of Heliod’s statue. The girl was barely breathing.

  “Please, Heliod,” Elspeth whispered. “Come back to the world. Help her. Help us all.”

  Below, it looked as though a fiery pit of lava threatened to swallow the city of Akros. Waves of mystical energy rippled across the open expanse of the flats. The Deyda River Gorge had become a snake of fire, and the ridge of mountains on the far horizon began to tremble. The tremendous mystical energy that Xenagos had harnessed through the perverted revel engulfed the satyr and transformed him from mortal flesh into something divine. The mountaintop burst into flames as Xenagos rose into the air. His essence pulsed with the stars of Nyx as his immeasurable form exploded into the sky.

  A star field flowed from the edges of his divine body, and all of Nyx came rushing back to the sky. But a new god-form took his place among the pantheon. As Xenagos, the God of Revels, ascended to the realm of the gods, a destructive shock wave radiated to the edges of the world. As if the sickening jolt had awakened her, Nikka sat up. Her skin was ashen and her eyes burned with white fire.

  “You are a traitor,” Nikka said.

  Nikka spoke with a god-voice that was not her own. The girl had been claimed as a divine vessel, and her words originated from both Heliod and Nylea.

  “You killed Daxos,” said the offended gods. “You helped the satyr break the barriers of Nyx and become a god. We’re coming back to the world. When we find you, we will destroy you.”

  Although no one was chasing her, Elspeth plunged deeper into the darkness of the Nessian Forest, which provided more cover than the open trails of the mountains. She ran blindly, harboring an irrational sense that if she just ran fast enough, she might catch Daxos before he disappeared into the Underworld. The forest was unnaturally still. There was no birdsong or rustle of branches. Even the wind had vanished. Under the mottled green canopy, the morning rays of sunrise were weak and ineffectual, as though they were hesitant to shine light on the changed world. Daxos was dead. Xenagos was a god. And Heliod wanted to kill her.

  Where do you hide from the wrath of a god?

  Elspeth saw a willow tree that towered above her, taller than the canopy. She pushed her way through the tangle of feathery leaves. Hidden from sight, she lay down at the base of the tree. Xenagos had used her to orchestrate his victory at Akros. He’d transformed the victory celebration into his ascension to godhood. He’d tried to steal her sword, and he’d taken control of her mind. He’d made her kill …

  She vowed not to leave Theros until she’d avenged Daxos’s death. And if she needed to force her way into Nyx and kill Xenagos herself, then she would do it. But first she needed to rest, to gather her strength, and to figure out where to go that Heliod wouldn’t strike her down. Clutching the hilt of her blade, she fell asleep under the wispy branches of the willow and dreamed of Daxos. He was crouched on the roof at the edge of the courtyard in Heliod’s temple. But instead of tossing pebbles at her feet, he was tossing tiny glass flowers that were similar to the amulet he had worn as a child. The six-petal asphodels crunched against the hard ground and then sprouted into shimmering white blossoms. Soon, the courtyard became a field of asphodels. The white flowers multiplied until they covered Meletis, and then they spread across the expanse of the world. You could walk to the ends of the world and see only the flowers of the dead.

  Elspeth awoke with a start. In her confused state, she thought she was back in Urborg on Dominaria. That wretched place always had a distinctive light. It was as if the air itself was old and slightly charred. There was even the smell of charred wood in the air. But then she felt the cool earth of Theros beneath her, and the nightmarish memory of the revel came rushing back. Elspeth pushed aside the hanging branches and found that the forest had changed dramatically while she slept.

  Where there had been an old-growth forest before, now the foliage had transformed into an unnatural corridor going both directions. All the existing plants and trees had been condensed into two flat walls that extended as far as she could see. The canopy had become a nearly solid ceiling of leaves that permitted little light. She turned and saw that the willow, too, had been subsumed into the wall of the corridor, almost like a living mural. She touched the wall of the corridor, and it felt like glass. She struck it with her blade, but it didn’t shatter. She could go left or right—those were her only choices—and they looked exactly the same.

  Elspeth turned left. After a few minutes the corridor reached a T. She turned left again. She repeated this choice several times and found herself back at the mural of the willow. There was a mist in the air, and Elspeth could sense the powerful magic that had transformed the trees into a labyrinth. This time Elspeth turned right, and then right again. As she stalked along the route, she scanned for any discrepancy that might show her a way out. But while the shape and color of the trees changed, they remained like a wall she could not cross. Elspeth turned a corner and ended up back at the willow.

  Elspeth attacked the willow mural with a spell of searing light. It remained unchanged.

  Elspeth went left again. Blinking yellow eyes stared at her from inside the walls of the forest maze, and they dogged her every step. Soon a breeze whistled down the corridor with her, and a young girl’s voice was carried on the wind: Murderer. Murderer. Mon-ster.

  Thinking maybe she could outpace the spell, Elspeth began to run. She enhanced her speed with spellcasting, and the shapes of the corridors changed. Instead of right angles there were curves and meanders. She could hear the footfalls of something coming up behind her fast. There was a howl of rage, and she saw a pack of Nyxborn wolves chasing her down. As she glanced over her shoulder, an arrow narrowly missed her head. A Nyxborn nymph rode on the lead wolf, and she was unleashing another arrow. Elspeth veered right down another corridor as the arrow whizzed past her.

  A light shone up ahead, and she stumbled into a ruined temple at the dark heart of the labyrinth. There was a cracked fountain at the center of a circle of ivy-covered pillars. Gasping for
air, Elspeth crouched beside its crumbling base. The inky black water inside the fountain began to ripple even though it hadn’t been disturbed. She glanced over her shoulder, but the Nyxborn hadn’t pursued her into the temple. She glanced at the water and saw Daxos’s face staring back at her. She cried out in surprise. She could still hear the young girl’s voice on the wind: Murderer. Murderer. Mon-ster.

  “You forgave me—did you know all along?” she whispered, as the image of his face dissolved into the distinctive shape of Kruphix’s Tree, which grew out of the waterfall at the edge of the world. Elspeth tore her eyes away from the vision as the wolves loped into view behind her. She readied her blade and turned to face her attackers, who had encircled her at the edges of the ruins. The nymph slid off the wolf’s back. She had a delicate build, hair that rippled like water, and her body was dappled with stars. When Elspeth come to Theros as a child, nymphs had helped her regain her strength. But this one glared at her with murderous intent.

  “Heliod wants you to face his wrath,” the nymph said. “My master, Nylea, just wants you dead.”

  The inky water in the fountain began burbling unnaturally. It sounded like a large object was rising from the depths. Whatever spell the nymph was casting, Elspeth didn’t wait to find out. She dived out of the way as tendrils of dark water snaked out of the fountain and lashed at her. She channeled her own magic to stamp the water back into the fountain. But as soon as the nymph’s spell failed, the Nyxborn wolves moved in and drove her closer to the fountain. Elspeth slashed her blade through the air, trying to keep them at bay, but they forced her toward the sickly water. She could hear the water again, rising behind her, reaching up to drag her down.

  The piercing blare of a hunting horn rang from somewhere outside the temple. Immediately, the strange glassy walls that had transformed the forest began to melt away. With the nymph’s spell broken, the forest returned to its natural state, although the ruined temple was unchanged. On a treeless rise just beyond the crumbling pillars, Elspeth saw a small band of hunters shadowed against the sun. As they charged into the ruin, she realized they were not humans. They were powerfully built leonins, a feline race who attacked with the fierceness of enraged predators. The Nyxborn wolves scattered in confusion at their unexpected arrival. Furiously, the nymph yelled commands in an unfamiliar language. Her voice was deep and primal, and it echoed between the sacred trees.