by John Delaney
“You are delaying me, Multani.” Jeska set her jaw. “That makes me suspicious.”
“Then I shall delay no longer. Let me share my knowledge with you. It will help you in your work.”
“No, thank you. All I require is that you stand aside.”
The wooden face creaked as its expression became concerned. “Surely you would not refuse a potential advantage.”
“I would. I don’t need it. In fact, I don’t even require you to stand aside.” Her skin began to shine, and her hair curled and writhed like a nest of snakes.
“Very well. But understand my role. I exist to serve the forest, and of late I have been lax in my duties. I am eager to protect my home now that I am once again able.”
Jeska waved, bringing Radha to her side. “I would not choose to fight you, Multani, but if that is your preference…”
“Not at all. I merely seek to learn the extent of your experience. What do you know of Nature’s ways?”
“I know enough,” she said. She thought of her brother, who had abandoned the Pardic way to become a forest-dwelling druid. “I am originally a mountain dweller, but since then I have gleaned some knowledge of all types of magic.”
“I do not doubt you. But Yavimaya is a forest like no other.”
“Not from what I’ve seen,” Jeska said.
“Then you have not seen enough. Let me show you more.”
“I don’t—” Jeska never finished her thought, as a sudden plume of greenish yellow dust emitted from Multani and surrounded them both. She made her body immune to poison, rendered it physically inert, but the dust was mystical, magical, and affected her nonetheless.
She swooned as set of minstrel pipes begin to play softly. She lost sight of Radha. She lost all feeling in her arms and legs. She lost the ability to concentrate on anything but the strange green man and the soothing, hypnotic sound.
“Be at ease, Warrior. Be patient. There is no rush, no urgency. Let the knowledge I have for you take root. Let it blossom and grow. Tend it, that you might reap the harvest you seek.”
Jeska tried to speak, to warn or threaten Multani away, but her tongue was heavy. Her limbs were leaden, her eyelids drooping. She felt something like sleep taking hold of her, surrounding her, engulfing her. The sky-high trees and exposed roots of Yavimaya faded, and she found herself in the Krosan forest of Otaria, lush and alive and familiar as it had been when she was human.
This is what you know, Multani’s voice said. You do not know Yavimaya.
Jeska said nothing. She allowed her mind to drift through the comforting forest landscape of her youth. The music she heard grew slightly louder. As Multani spoke, his words fell into the cadence with the melody.
Nature is vast and diverse. The world-goddess decreed long ago that life would expand and adapt to fill whatever home it could find. You know about the rifts. You know about Krosa. You must apply what you know to what you do not yet understand. Imagine such a rift in the forests of Otaria. Would you risk destroying a whole world just to save a single part?
Jeska fought to disagree, not with Multani’s question but with the growing distance between her mind and the real world. She was most comfortable in action, and now that she had begun to act she didn’t want to lose her momentum.
Krosa called out to her, luring her with warm and comforting memories. She had been too long from home, too long away from a healthy and vibrant Otaria. There was much she wanted to see and experience in the forest-that-was. This place had been part of her life once. Where was it now? Where was the life she had?
A Krosan hawk screeched as it stooped down on its prey. Jeska smiled at the sound. The last of her reservations vanished, and she plunged deep into a place that only existed in her dreams and memories.
* * *
—
Awaken, daughter of Keld.
Radha came to slowly. The voice in her head was not Jeska’s, which she took as an encouraging sign.
She opened her eyes and took in the largest trees she had ever seen. She tried to sit up, but pain and lethargy kept her flat on her back. Her muscles barely responded, and she felt as if all her joints had been packed with slivered glass. Her ears were ringing, and her head was three times heavier than she remembered.
She struggled on for a moment before giving up. She would have to lie still until at least some of her strength returned. As she waited, she heard a heavy tread crunching toward her across dead vines and broken sticks.
A mulch-man with a wooden face peered down at her. “Welcome,” he said.
She half-snorted at him. “What are you supposed to be?”
“I am Multani,” the man said. He offered his ivy-encrusted arm. “Take my hand, Keldon. You are most welcome here.”
Multani did not reach all the way down. Radha instinctively tried to latch on to him, but her arms were still numb. Multani stood as he was, waiting for her to move, and Radha growled.
Swallowing the pain, forcing her aching mind to concentrate and her slack muscles to tighten, she stretched up her arm and touched Multani’s hand. A shock ran through her, and Radha’s eyes opened wide.
All of her injuries vanished at the mulch-man’s touch. She felt limber, clear-headed, and strong, stronger than she had been for quite some time. Still clinging to Multani’s hand, Radha sat up and jumped to her feet.
“Where are we?”
“Yavimaya. Gaea’s stronghold.”
Radha sneered. She started to crush the leaves and sticks of Multani’s hand, and she stared hard into his wooden face. “You’re one of those forest types,” she said. “Any second now you’ll start spouting off poetry about Nature this and Green Lady that.” She squeezed harder, and more stick cracked in her grasp.
Multani watched her impassively for a moment. He angled his face down toward their hands and said, “That doesn’t hurt, you know.”
“Oh.” Radha released Multani’s hand. “Just as well. As long as you don’t start preaching about Nature’s bounty, we’ll get along just fine. Thanks for fixing me.” She scanned the clearing, and her face soured when she saw Jeska.
“What’s she doing here?” The Pardic planeswalker was standing rock still, her eyes unfocused and her mouth hanging open. A thin curtain of red and black flowers had crawled up her legs and covered her up to the waist.
“She came too close the rift.” Multani gestured with the small tree he carried, indicating the wretched tangle of plant life overhead. “Her method would have damaged my home beyond repair and brutalized you. I have lulled her for now so that we may consider how to proceed.”
“Thanks again,” Radha said. She slipped the broken broadsword from her belt and advanced on Jeska.
“What are you doing?”
“You can consider all you want,” Radha said. “I’m cutting her head off.”
“That won’t help,” Multani said. “In fact, it will almost certainly rouse her from the spell I’ve cast. She will awaken, become enraged, kill me, and then retake you as her prisoner. She might not even put her head back on first.”
Radha paused in midstep, her blade still ready. “What do you suggest?”
“I suggest we wait. We have some powerful friends in common, and they are on their way here.”
“Hellfire,” Radha said. “You mean Teferi and Jhoira and that slab of fish belly from Urborg, don’t you? They’re no help at all.”
“I must disagree. They have already been extremely helpful to me.”
“That makes one of us.” Radha sheathed the sword. “All I ever get from them is ‘Follow me’ and ‘Do what I say’ and ‘Don’t kill that one.’ But you’ve done me a good turn…and I don’t have any other ideas, so I guess I’ll stick it out with you until they arrive.”
“Splendid. Let me say again how glad I am to have you here.”
Radha arched her brow. “Why is that?”
“A Keldon elf is a rare treasure,” Multani said. “The elves of Yavimaya are scattered across the island. They�
�ve fallen into barbarism and intertribal conflict because I have not been the shepherd I was meant to be.”
“Barbarism’s not so bad,” Radha said.
“It is not as desirable here as it is in Keld. Which brings me to another small pleasure. You are the first Keldon warlord to ever set foot in this place.”
“Hmm. And that’s desirable how?”
“For all that we have in common. I’ve met Keldons before, of course, but none have ever come here. I am keenly interested in your battle magic, in the collective effort a warhost makes. You and your followers are very much like a single entity, aren’t you? One leader who combines the strength and resources of all.”
“Close enough.” Radha shrugged. “But only if I’m the leader.”
Multani’s face creaked into a smile. “We are alike in that respect, Radha. Yavimaya is a huge collective of disparate living things, but it also works as a single whole. I am its voice, its face, its eyes and ears. I am its hands. The entire forest acts and reacts as individuals, but it allows me to set the course.”
“No one allows me anything,” Radha said.
“I misspoke.” Multani nodded gracefully. “What’s important is that you are already in tune with Nature. Yavimaya’s healing magic worked far better on you than I had expected.”
“I was raised in Skyshroud. Freyalise wanted me to be one of hers, but I chose to be a Keldon.”
“Yet you still possess the longing for Nature’s power. As well as the facility for it. I can see it in you, a hollow space hungry to be filled.”
“Skyshroud is gone,” Radha said.
“But Yavimaya isn’t. Your natural inclinations have left you but a half step from forging a real link to my home. I can help you complete the process. You can replace what was lost.”
Radha sharpened her eyes and ears. There was much she didn’t like about Multani, his elevated tone, his presence in her head, his rhapsodic orations on Nature. He had helped her, however, and she could not deny the forest’s might, swirling around her. If it was available for the taking, she could see plenty of ways to put it to good use.
“Show me,” she said.
Multani stretched out a woody hand and gently caressed Radha’s cheek. She felt another jolt and another wave of restorative force surge through her. It was still novel, but now it was also familiar, a recognizable echo of the magic imbued in Skyshroud by Freyalise.
“You know this path,” Multani intoned. “All you need do is take the first step.”
Radha hesitated, but the lure of vibrant green was too strong. With a last glance at Multani, Radha opened herself to Yavimaya. The mass-mind and all its strength rushed through her, gorging her, filling her lungs and stomach and head with the potency of Nature. It was not Freyalise’s power filtered through Skyshroud, nor derived from the rift Freyalise sealed. This was pure green mana, intense and unrefined, straight from the land.
Fat, green flames bloomed around Radha’s head, and her face split into a wide, savage grin. In the past few weeks she had healed herself and been healed by Jeska and Multani, but nothing restored her as completely as the power of Multani’s forest. It went beyond healing, actually increasing Radha’s strength, making her feel whole again. This was a good place.
“Ha!” she cried. “Who needs Freyalise anyway?”
“Freyalise was an honored and respected ally,” Multani said gently. “We would benefit from her power and experience. She fell before her time, protecting her home to the end.”
“That’s Nature’s way, isn’t it?” Radha smiled cruelly. “Things are born, they live, then they die. One less planeswalker doesn’t stop the world from turning.”
“No,” Multani said. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t honor deserving heroes.”
“Hmm. As you say.” She looked around the clearing again. “I changed my mind…or Yavimaya changed it for me. I want to put this new power to work for Keld, for my ’host. Right now all I can do with it is heal, but I know there’s a lot more. Rest assured I’ll spend the next few weeks discovering. But right now I think I want to leave, Multani. Are you a planeswalker?”
“No,” Multani said. “Though you might have asked before you wished for fewer of them in the world.”
“I might have, but I didn’t. How far am I from Keld?”
“Almost as far as you can be,” Multani said. “On the other side of the world. But do you really want to walk away before this is finished?”
“I’m finished,” she said. “If I can’t kill Jeska I might as well go home. I’ve things to do. People to kill.” Her face creased as she remembered the armored dog who struck down Skive and the boy.
“Stay a while longer,” Multani said. “Please.”
Radha sighed. “How long?”
“Until now.” Multani turned toward the root wall surrounding them as three figures materialized in a golden glow.
“Oh, good,” Radha said dryly. “More planeswalkers.”
“Please restrain yourself. Teferi has suffered a great loss.”
“What happened? Someone punch him in the throat so he can’t talk?”
Multani shook his head. “Teferi has lost his transcendent power, and now he has also lost his home.”
“So have I,” Radha said. “Along with the Skyshroud elves and a third of my ’host. What makes him so special?”
The green man shushed her, but he was not annoying about it, so Radha let it pass. Together they turned to face the new arrivals.
Teferi did seem dazed and distracted. The bald wizard hung back behind Jhoira and Venser, bearing the desperately mournful air of someone who has lost everything. “Multani,” Jhoira said. “It’s good to see you.” She kept glancing over to Jeska, immobile as a trellis under her ever-growing gown of flowers.
“And you, Jhoira. Also, my thanks, Venser. It is good to be mobile.”
“You’re welcome.” Venser was staring nervously at Radha. “Hello again.”
“Pasty.” Radha nodded. “Ghitu.” She stretched tall to look down at Teferi over Venser’s head. “Gasbag.”
Jhoira stepped past them, closer to Jeska. “What have you done with her?”
“I have calmed her. Right now she is wandering deep within her own mind.”
“How long can you keep her this way?”
“That I cannot say. Jeska is extraordinary even for a planeswalker, and there is something else at work here, something hidden that is affecting her. I am not yet fully restored enough to isolate or identify it.”
“Hold her as long as you can.” Teferi’s voice was cold and much harder than Radha recalled. He must have had more to loose than she realized. “We must have a strategy ready when she emerges.”
“Can she hear us?” Venser asked.
“No, I should think not.”
“Are you talking to her the way you talked to me?”
“No. When I snared her she was starting to view me as an enemy…or at least an obstruction. For now I think it’s better to let her drift than to engage her.”
“Don’t cut her head off, either,” Radha said. “Won’t do any good.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Jhoira said. “Multani. Of us all, only you and Venser have touched Jeska’s mind. I think you should try to reach her, try to make her see the damage she’s done and the damage she will do. If we can’t divert her we have to treat her as an enemy.”
“Way ahead of you there,” Radha said.
“I am willing,” Multani said. “But I cannot say that I am able.”
“What else can we do?” Venser looked from face to face. “I mean that literally. If we can’t hold Jeska and can’t influence her, we should have a plan ready for when she gets loose.”
“A salient point,” Multani said. “Perhaps we should take Radha away from here. Jeska cannot act without her.”
Radha scoffed. “Not unless she comes after me. And she will.”
“She also threatened Venser,” Jhoira said. “Maybe it would be be
st for him to take Radha back to Keld. If Jeska comes looking, the two of you can stay out of her way until we determine how to stop her.”
“I’ll go to Keld,” Radha said. “But I won’t hide. If that tiny, redheaded scarecrow wants me—”
“She’ll come and take you like she did before,” Jhoira said. “You can’t just go away and leave this behind, Radha. You’re too important to too many people.”
The Keldon ran a finger over the edge of the tear-shaped blade on her hip. “Well, then,” she said. “We can’t run, and we can’t fight. We’d better let the plant-man do his thing.”
Jhoira nodded. Multani and Venser both agreed, albeit hesitantly. The Ghitu turned back to Teferi. “Multani is going to try to commune with Jeska,” she said. The wizard’s dull expression did not change, but his eyes flickered. “Do you object?”
Slowly, Teferi shook his head. “We need her,” he said, and Radha could see how much those words burned his throat.
Jhoira turned back and said to Multani, “Do it.”
The green man nodded. He turned and shambled toward the immobile form of Jeska. By now only her face and hair were visible above the flowers. Multani placed his staff on the ground, and its roots quickly squirmed into the dirt.
“Stand ready,” he told them.
Radha drew her broken sword. “If she looks at me funny,” she said, “I’m cutting her head off.”
Multani nodded patiently. “Let’s hope it does not come to that.”
Radha looked to the others, to Venser and Jhoira and Teferi. They were simultaneously expectant and anxious, both determined and fearful.
“You hope how you like,” Radha said. She viciously swiped the air in front of her with her blade. “And I’ll do the same.”
Muscles tensed, blade ready, Radha stood waiting as Multani settled in and fell silent.
Jeska floated freely through the Krosan forest, more comfortable and relaxed than she had been in centuries. No wonder her brother Kamahl had wound up here in the end. Why hadn’t she come here more often? She loved it here.