by John Delaney
Turn me loose, Planeswalker. You’ll get no sympathy from me.
Radha was here, somehow aware of or part of Jeska’s most private memory. The lazy, aimless mood of their surroundings seemed to slow her reactions, but Jeska privately thanked providence that this particular memory hadn’t started a few moments earlier. If it had, Radha would have seen how Jeska-turned-Phage woke up screaming for her mentor, her homeland, and the brother who struck her down.
The memories began to mesh together, each woman’s life overlapping the other’s. As Phage, Jeska and Radha occupied the same body as they led the Cabal’s army across the Nightmare War’s blood-soaked battlefields. As Radha, they ambushed and cut down a score of Gathan raiders on the rocky hills of Keld.
Similarities and differences nearly overwhelmed Jeska. She felt every enemy’s death as a bitter and painful wound, but Radha regretted nothing. Yes, they had both led armies and slaughtered the enemy, but Radha reveled in the violence. She counted each murder and mutilation with joy instead of regret. That joy eclipsed Jeska’s more dour reaction, and the planeswalker swooned. Radha’s unrepentant bloodlust summoned up a piece of Jeska she preferred to keep buried, fanning that spark into a bright, hot flame.
Over the great city Averru, Radha fell alongside the angel Akroma and Zagorka, who was Phage’s right hand. All three were sundered by Kamahl’s axe, only to merge together and rise again as the all-powerful Karona, their individual personalities completely subsumed by that of the false goddess. At the same time, Jeska hung in the air beside Venser as Nicol Bolas used her to open a path back to Dominaria. She howled in helpless fury as the dragon seized an essential part of her being and commandeered it for his own purposes.
Jeska’s mind separated from Radha’s, but the agony they shared continued. What Jeska now did had been done before, to Radha as well as to herself, but it was working. To continue would be to repeat one of the worst sins committed against them both. To stop now would probably kill them and unleash the fury of the Zhalfirin rift on the Jamuraan coastline. Worst of all, it would mean that all they had endured to this point was for nothing.
Radha wanted her to stop. Jhoira, Teferi, and Venser begged her to. Deep down, Jeska herself wanted to stop, to end this pointless striving and accept the fate of the world instead of trying to change it.
Then Jeska’s thoughts came into sharp focus. Karn had not wavered. The full consequences of his actions were still unknown, but the main results were clear. He had sealed the Tolarian rift and ended the large-scale time distortions that sprang from it. He had deemed the act worthy of his life, worthy of calling him away from everything he had been and built for the past two hundred years. If sealing the rifts were important enough for him to leave her without a word of explanation, she had to trust it was also worth carrying on in his name.
Jeska tightened her grip on Radha and the rift beyond. She brought her limitless power to bear once more, knowing that despite the concern and wise counsel of others, she could not stop, would not stop, and ultimately did not want to stop.
Jeska unleashed the full force of her transcendent will. Excruciating ecstasy blotted out everything but the sounds of Radha’s cries mixed with her own. She wished she could tell where one ended and the other began, but more than that she wished it mattered.
* * *
—
Everyone screamed at once, Radha in pain, Teferi in anguish, and Jeska in mad, exultant triumph. A searing ring of white-hot force expanded out from Radha, spreading wider until it had encircled the rift and matching shoreline in a blinding halo. The rift-cloud hardened and crystallized, and for a moment the entire tableau hung frozen in the storm-tossed sky: Jeska with her head bowed and arms extended, Radha knotted in agony, the calcified cloud looming beyond.
Jhoira looked into the cloud as flat, refractive surfaces formed within like the facets of a new and unique gemstone. Within, she saw glimpses of the thriving Zhalfirin civilization she and Teferi had excised; the opulent, white, stone castles; gleaming, silver aqueducts; bustling marketplaces; and fields thick with wheat. She saw wide, paved roads bearing parades of finely dressed soldiers that preceded royalty and nobility in precious jewelry and exotic, colorful clothes.
The white ring gleamed blindingly and let out a shattering boom. The halo contracted, dragging the rift-cloud into Radha’s body with it like a billowing, silk sheet pulled through a thin, metal pipe. The images of Zhalfir distorted as they shrank and vanished into the Keldon elf, each image fading from view long before it reached her.
Venser took Jhoira’s hand and teleported them away. She shared his desire to escape the conflagration, but Jhoira also felt the urge to stay and see it through. If this was to be the end of her last attempt to do something good and constructive for Dominaria, she wanted to watch it fail firsthand.
They reappeared on the shore beside Teferi. In the split second it took Venser to teleport, the mad storm’s fury had completely vanished. The vortex was gone, and the storm clouds were breaking up, but the ocean still churned and the ground was still steaming from the rain. Teferi’s robes were plastered to his thin frame, and tears flowed freely down his face. He had the same dazed posture and vacant expression he had worn after he sealed the rift in Shiv.
“Gone,” he said. “Gone for good.”
A grating, boisterous howl floated down from above. Jhoira went to Teferi and crouched down, gently laying her hand on his shoulder. “We tried, old friend,” she said, “but Jeska has had her way.”
“She’s coming,” Venser said. “Radha too.” He was watching the sky intently as the two female figures descended.
Jhoira rose and folded her hands into her sleeves. Jeska had achieved her purpose here, but the results of that achievement were still very much uncertain. Now the planeswalker casually carried the unconscious Radha in one hand, holding her by the back of her thick, leather belt. The Keldon hung limp, doubled at the waist so that her long arms and legs brushed against one another. Radha’s face and head were hidden beneath a cascade of coarse, black hair.
“The rift is gone.” Jeska’s self-satisfaction was vivid on her features, so strong it almost seemed alive in and of itself. Her skin shone, and her bright, red hair had darkened to a deep, rich crimson. “And I am still here.”
Jhoira leveled her eyes at the planeswalker. “You have done a terrible thing,” she said.
“Ha! So you say. Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Jhoira of the Ghitu. I have done what you could not with a whole host of planeswalkers. I have improved upon your method. I have sealed a time rift, and I am still standing, more willing and able than ever to continue my work. Will you join me now?”
“This isn’t your work,” Jhoira said. “You cannot continue.”
Jeska tilted her head. “Can’t I?”
“No. Not alone and not with Radha. Look at her, Jeska. See what you have done.”
Jeska did not look. She simply shrugged and said, “She’s alive. She will stay that way until I need her again.”
“And after that? These are primal forces you’re tampering with, magic on a cosmic scale. Do you really think a mortal being can survive much more?”
“She’s tougher than you think,” Jeska said. “And I can repair any damage.”
“Not if you exhaust her spark. Not if you burn her up like an unoiled wick.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.” Jeska nodded politely, acknowledging Jhoira’s point even as she dismissed its import. “If necessary, I will find an alternate filter to employ.” She turned her eyes toward Venser. The artificer paled.
Jhoira stepped between Jeska and the others. “You must stop, Jeska. Listen to us. What you’re doing is dangerous and destructive. The rift network is incredibly unstable and we don’t fully understand—”
“I understand that I just saved Zhalfir,” she said. “Even if you dispute my methods, you should thank me for the result.”
“Thank you?” Teferi’s voice was sharp, almost hysterical. He bolt
ed to his feet and snatched his staff from the sand. He threw his head back so that he was looking straight up at Jeska and said, “The result is the complete loss of an entire nation. My nation.”
Doubt flickered across Jeska’s face. “What are you saying?”
Teferi’s voice rose higher, angrier and more strident. “Three hundred years ago I removed Zhalfir from its rightful position in time and space. The magic I used helped to create the rift you just closed. Our goal here was not simply to seal that rift but to seal it in concert with Zhalfir’s return. The timing was critical. Now the rift is gone and my nation with it. Zhalfir is lost. It cannot be unphased.”
Jeska’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you have cast Zhalfir into oblivion, never to return. Phasing is my magic, conceived and developed by me alone. I understand it, I feel it as I do my own body.” He straightened his spine and gathered as much of his dignity as his grief allowed. “I do not feel Zhalfir any longer. It is not here. It is no longer where I left it. It is gone, and without my planeswalking spark there is no chance of recovering it.” His face twisted in anger. “Come, Jeska. Boast to us how you can repair this as easily as your Keldon victim.”
Jeska’s eyes darted between Teferi and Jhoira. “I…I…”
Jhoira seized on the Pardic woman’s hesitation, trying to work out what to do before she left them behind. She had declared her intent to continue, to repeat this action elsewhere, and they must not allow her to do so.
Send her to me.
Jhoira started. Multani? she thought. The avatar’s voice was faint, but he sounded stronger and more clearheaded than he had.
Send Jeska to me. I shall be ready for her.
Jhoira nodded. Conferring with Teferi and Venser was possible, but it simply wasn’t worth the risk. “Jeska,” she said, “stop what you’re doing and think. Listen to us.”
The Pardic warrior drifted lower until Radha’s fingers scraped the ground. “There’s too much to do,” she said. “I have to keep moving.”
“Where? Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.” She stared out over the Kukemessa Sea, half-ignoring the others. “Madara, I suppose, or Yavimaya.” She looked back at Jhoira. “I’ve seen Otaria.”
“We want you to stay here,” Jhoira said. “But we know we can’t stop you. If you must go, let it be to Madara.”
Jeska regarded her suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because Radha has interacted with the Madaran rift before. It may simplify things for you, perhaps even limit the unintended consequences for her and the land.”
Jeska considered. “I know Radha will continue to resist me. When you say ‘interacted’ with the Madaran rift I presume you mean she drew strength or mana from it?”
Jhoira allowed herself to look guilty, uncomfortable. “Not exactly.”
Jeska smiled and nodded to herself. “You are wily, Ghitu. I will not give this beast any more chances to distract me. A new source of power will only let her aggravate me further.”
“Please, Jeska. Don’t do this. Let us help you, or at the very least let us offer our counsel—”
Jeska shook her head. She rose higher and rotated so that she was facing Teferi. “I regret the loss I caused you,” she said. “But a greater good has been served.”
Teferi had regained his composure, but his voice was still dull and distant. “A million Zhalfirins would disagree.”
Jeska nodded gently. “I will add that to a long list of regrets,” she said, staring at the trio as she shot up into the sky with Radha in tow, “after I have perfected my methods in Yavimaya.” The two women flickered out of sight high over the empty shoreline.
Teferi slumped and settled back onto the ground. He let his staff fall forgotten as he stared at the ground and spoke silently to himself.
“Come on,” Jhoira said. She waved Venser closer and stepped over to Teferi.
“Back to Yavimaya?” the artificer said.
Jhoira nodded. “Did Multani speak to you too?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Whatever he has planned, we should be there. Even if we can’t help, we should bear witness.”
Venser swallowed hard. “In case we can’t stop her there, either?”
Jhoira didn’t answer. Instead she nudged Teferi and said, “Clear your mind, old friend. We need you now.”
“Gone,” Teferi muttered. “Gone forever.”
“But Dominaria remains,” Jhoira said, “as do the rifts. Come on,” she said again, offering her hand. “We’re not beaten yet.”
Teferi stared dully at her hand. He tentatively raised his own, allowing Jhoira to take it. “Is this how it always feels when planeswalkers meddle?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I’m starting to understand exactly how you get yourselves into these situations. Remember this frustrating sensation of helplessness if and when your full power is restored.”
“I will never forget it,” Teferi said.
“And I will remember this terrible onus of making decisions for the whole world. Venser,” she said, “we need to go now.”
The artificer slid his palm into hers, took hold of Teferi, and squeezed. They left Jamuraa as it was, safe from danger yet irrevocably changed.
Jeska appeared over a wide clearing at the center of the sprawling Yavimayan forest. Yavimaya was one of the places Karn often spoke of when recounting his personal history, but to Jeska it was just another name, a place she had not visited with Karn or bothered to seek out on her own.
Radha was still mercifully unconscious, and Jeska set her down on the forest floor to study her surroundings. Yavimaya was at least as grand and sprawling as the Krosan forest had been at its peak. It would have taken her days to scout the location of the rift if she had to search on foot. Thankfully, she was able to sense the phenomenon and hone in directly on it.
The ground shifted, and Jeska stepped back. She had seen no creatures in the forest, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. She prepared to greet whatever was coming up from the dirt with an appropriate response—cordial but firm dismissal or swift and sudden death.
The man-shape emerging from the soil did not seem hostile, however. If anything, he seemed indifferent, his arrival so close to Jeska’s a complete coincidence. He was an odd-looking thing, broad and hunched, with a wide, horned, wooden mask over his face. The vines and reeds and nettles that gathered to form his body continued to curl around each other, solidifying and filling him out, pressing his feet into the ground as his weight increased. A sapling grew up into his outstretched hand, and when he clasped the slender tree it popped out of the ground and shook the dirt from its own roots. The green man held this freshly grown staff to one side as penetrating brown-green eyes rolled down into the hollow sockets of his mask.
“Greetings, Jeska of Otaria. I am Multani.”
“Greetings,” she said. Multani’s name was familiar to her as one of the heroes of the Invasion. Karn had described him at length, but he was otherwise a stranger to her. Karn had said Multani was Yavimaya’s emissary to the human world, a nature spirit with powerful magic behind him. He was also a sometime ally of Jhoira and Teferi, so Jeska remained on guard.
“Why have you come to Yavimaya?”
“To examine the time rift.” Jeska pointed up at the withered deadfall hanging in the trees overhead. It glowed pale green from within. “To seal it, if I can.”
Multani nodded. He glanced past Jeska to where Radha lay unconscious. “And the Keldon?”
“She is my instrument,” Jeska said. “She has the potential to tap into the rifts themselves. Together we have already sealed the phenomenon in Zhalfir.”
“Congratulations. Is she still up to the task?”
“She will be.”
Multani stared blankly for a few moments. He started to nod, but he caught himself and said, “Excuse me. I have just emerged from a long…hibernation. My faculties are neither as sharp nor as crisp as I would like.”
“Don’t concern yourself,” Jeska said. “I will set about my work.”
“A moment, please. How familiar are you with this phenomenon?” He waved his staff at the deadfall.
“I just told you: I closed the one in Zhalfir.”
“I see. And you are confident your strategy will be effective here?”
“I am.”
“Because I have been observing this rift for some time now. I am less informed about the others, but I know this one intimately. It is unique, to say the least.”
“It feels the same to me,” Jeska said. She turned her face toward the deadfall and closed her eyes. Like Zhalfir and Otaria, this disruption simultaneously drew the local mana in and returned only chaos.
“It would. To you, this would seem like a related phenomenon, but my perspective is also unique. As it infects and infiltrates Yavimaya, so does the forest infect and infiltrate it. Through me.”
“You don’t seem infected or infiltrated.”
“I assure you I am. What you see is one small aspect of myself, of the forest. An important aspect to be sure, but the largest part of me is still elsewhere, bound up in Yavimaya herself.” He paused, then added, “As well as the rift.”
“You’re up there?” Jeska said. “Even as you’re talking to me here?”
“The forest is vast and complicated,” Multani said. “I am its caretaker as well as its voice. I must be everywhere, always.”
“Well, you might want to withdraw from here,” Jeska said. “What I have planned will not be gentle.”
“Regrettably, I cannot. It would be like asking you to walk away from your skin, your bones, your heart.” Multani caught himself and bowed. “Apologies for a bad example. Such a journey is obviously within your power.”