Future Sight

by John Delaney

  Venser squeezed her hand and teleported her back to the rift site. Jhoira heard the artificer gasp at the state of the place. She knew how he felt.

  The root wall still stood, but everything else in sight had been leveled. The trees, the vines—all of the plant life that had surrounded the site was now gone. She took some comfort in the fact that the deadfall was also gone, along with the rift’s green glow.

  “This is horrible,” Venser said. “Obscene. Why is she doing this?”

  “She’s a planeswalker,” Jhoira said. “And a warrior. She will keep going in a straight line until she reaches her goal or destroys it.”

  “Can we stop her?”

  “We have to.” Jhoira found what she was looking for and stooped to pick it up. She held Multani’s face in her hands. It was no longer the avatar’s avatar, no longer a vibrant icon of Yavimaya’s collective will. It was just a piece of lifeless wood, inert and unchanging.

  Tears welled up, and Jhoira stifled a small sob. Of all the transcendent beings she had encountered, only Karn could compare to Multani’s selfless nobility, and now both had fallen to the rifts. There was no sign of the hero who changed the course of Urza’s lifelong obsession, trained Dominaria’s heroes in maro-sorcery, and beaten back Phyrexian armies on two continents. Nature’s champion, the world’s most dedicated disciple of life and abundant growth, was no more.

  Jhoira wiped her eyes. There was some hope, as Multani had returned from seemingly fatal circumstances before. That hope quickly faded in the still silence of the forest. Multani was very hard to kill, especially in Yavimaya…but there was no life here, not in the clearing or in her hands. If this noble, vibrant creature had survived, it would take decades or even centuries for him to return.

  Venser kept a respectful silence as Jhoira knelt and scooped away the hard-packed dirt. Gently, she placed the wooden face in its shallow grave and covered it up. Dead or alive, Multani deserved to rest in the arms of his beloved Yavimaya.

  Jhoira stood and said, “We can go now.”

  Venser remained silent and respectful as he took her hand. She squeezed it reassuringly, and he squeezed back. When he relaxed his grip they were back on the shoreline.

  Teferi stood waiting by the ambulator. “How bad is it?”

  “The rift is sealed,” Jhoira said. “Jeska and Radha have moved on. Multani is…is…”

  Teferi bowed his head. “First Zhalfir,” he said. “Now this.” He closed his eyes and said, “I can still see them, my people. Their faces. Their wide, hopeful faces.” He opened his eyes. “So many of them went willingly into phase. Some even celebrated.

  “Do you think they knew? Did they see me at the end, as I saw them? Did they understand how horribly I had failed the entire nation?” He clenched his fists and pressed them into the sides of his head. “I am lost, Jhoira. These thoughts cause me physical pain, but I can’t stop thinking them. Being mortal, knowing what I know…it’s too much. I can manage the hunger, the fatigue, and the blisters. I can be mortal again. But I can’t stop seeing those doomed, hopeful faces.

  “This is what I feared most, Jhoira, the path that I could see but could not bring myself to follow. For I started from a premise that you taught me, one that I hoped would stop me from becoming like Urza: No one, not even planeswalkers, can save a world by destroying it. I thought I knew what that meant, but I see things more clearly now, oddly enough. I daresay it’s impossible for a godlike planeswalker to truly understand.” Teferi looked up and met Jhoira’s eyes.

  “I understand,” she said. “I understand that you are responsible for setting this in motion, not where others take it. You still see the world as a planeswalker would, in grand terms. Remember that even as a planeswalker you couldn’t control everyone and everything to make your plans work. Now you’re a mortal who trucks with the infinite. Trust me—you will learn to expect things to spiral out of control, to feel helpless when they do, and to drive yourself mad with regret and self-recrimination over what you could have done differently.

  “It’s easy to despair at times like these. But I’ve never known you to surrender to that way of thinking, not as a mortal or as a planeswalker. This is not yet over, Teferi. We can go on….We have to go on. I’ve spent a lot of that time preventing these sorts of disasters, but I’ve spent far longer cleaning up after them. Given the choice, I will always pick the former. Even if we only lessen the havoc Jeska will wreak, it is well worth the effort. We owe it to those who have fallen. We owe it to ourselves.”

  Teferi smiled gratefully, and Jhoira nodded. “There’s nothing left for us here,” she said. “Jeska has moved on. We can best honor Yavimaya and Zhalfir by following her.” Jhoira led Venser to the ambulator’s dais.

  “Where to?” Venser said.

  “The only rifts left are in Madara and Otaria,” Teferi said.

  “It will be Madara,” Jhoira said. “She’s said she’s already been to Otaria and apparently did nothing. I believe she’s saving it for last.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” Venser said. “What will we do once we find her? We can’t fight her, and she won’t listen to reason.”

  Jhoira scowled, her mind racing as she spoke. “Jeska is being driven by her own demons, but Multani said there was also someone else in her mind. We need to make her see that, to show her a real enemy she can conquer. If we can pry her will loose from whatever is influencing it, she may stop. She might even come around to our way of thinking. She will definitely want to punish whoever has been toying with her.” Jhoira smiled. “There’s still hope, Venser. There’s always hope.”

  “I’m hopeful,” Venser said, “just not very confident.”

  “You have been a great help to us already, and to all of Dominaria,” Jhoira said. “If you do not wish to go on, I understand. I only ask that you lend us your ambulator so that we can continue.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Venser said, “Not on my own. I want to see this through, too….I will see it through. I just don’t want anyone else to die so needlessly. Not Radha, or even Jeska. None of us.”

  “I suggest we approach Jeska openly,” Jhoira said. “She hasn’t tried to harm us directly. Not yet. And she’s not afraid of us.”

  Venser laughed nervously. “She has no reason to be.”

  Teferi stepped up. “Jhoira’s right. If we’re not hostile and she’s not afraid, the worst that can happen is that she’ll continue to ignore us. She will try to seal the Madaran rift no matter what we do unless we open her eyes to whoever’s been manipulating her.” Teferi looked at Jhoira and smiled for the first time since Zhalfir. “That’s not much to go on, is it?”

  “It’s a start,” Jhoira said. “If you’re ready, my friends…we should leave now.”

  Venser stepped onto the machine. Teferi climbed aboard on the opposite side as Jhoira settled into the chair and slid the control rig over her shoulders. She spared one last glance for Yavimaya and said a silent prayer for Multani.

  The Ghitu’s fingers tapped the ambulator’s controls, and the chair vanished under a nimbus of golden light.

  Jeska took Radha straight to the shores of Madara. She left the unconscious Keldon on the beach and stared out at the Talon Gates as they maintained their endless vigil a full mile out to sea. The Madaran rift hung between the great, curving spires, a small, narrow, and endlessly deep chasm.

  She was still drained from Yavimaya, still angry and distracted. At least the Madaran rift was a simple affair. It was far more like the Zhalfirin rift, though it was different in size, shape, and scope than what she had seen of the coast of Jamuraa. Madara’s was the one rift whose cause no one seemed to know. Teferi and Jhoira had theorized that Nicol Bolas had something to do with it, but it predated any written history, so there were no reliable records and no living witnesses. The only obvious fact was that it was very old and very deep.

  Jeska steeled herself and turned back to her captive. She was reluctant to wake the Keldon for a host of good reason
s, but Radha’s previous dealings with this rift forced her hand. Jhoira said the warlord had interacted with this rift before, and Jeska could see the evidence on Radha’s nascent potential. There was no lasting connection between Radha and the rift, but she bore its mark the way a sand-blasted boulder shows the direction of the wind that sculpted it.

  Jeska prepared another spell to revive the exhausted Keldon. Her magic flowed toward Radha but was shunted aside before it touched the warlord. Jeska felt the healing mana bump up against a similar force already within Radha, one that was already restoring the warlord’s vitality.

  Jeska was impressed. In the short time they had been in Yavimaya, Radha had managed to tap into the forest’s rich green mana supply as surely as if she’d been born there.

  Radha’s eyes fluttered, and Jeska prepared herself. She was growing weary of besting Radha, but the Keldon was as relentless as she was overmatched.

  Radha sat up. She scanned the beach and the horizon, clearly recognizing the Talon Gates. She huffed angrily and rose to her feet, dusting the sand off her forearms.

  “It’s time,” Jeska said. It was disconcerting to have Radha simply stand and stare. Her eyes burned, and she toyed with the handle of her broadsword, but the Keldon neither attacked nor threatened.

  Radha held Jeska’s eyes and said, “Who was that brass-colored man with the axe?”

  The words hit the planeswalker like a blow. She did not fully understand the strange union that she and Radha experienced when sealing the time rifts, so she had tried to put it out of her mind. Now Radha was confronting her with her own most privately guarded thoughts, and Jeska realized she was on more intimate terms with her hated enemy than with anyone else alive.

  “He was my brother.”

  “Kamahl,” Radha said. She continued to stare, making no moves toward or away from Jeska. “Why’d he cut us down?”

  “He didn’t cut us down.”

  “Why’d he cut you down?”

  “He didn’t…I didn’t…” Jeska clenched her teeth. “Things went bad between us. Strong magic was involved.”

  “I saw that,” Radha said. “It was hard to miss.”

  Jeska shook her head. “You’re trying to get around me,” she said. “You want me confused so I’ll hesitate, so I’ll give you an opening.”

  “No,” Radha said. “I want to know why he looked at you like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you were the one who was betraying him. Also, I don’t have a brother, but if I did and he came for me with an axe that big, I would wonder why.”

  “I know why.”

  Radha cocked her head. “No you don’t,” she said. “If you did, I would.”

  “So you know everything then?” Jeska spit contemptuously to the side. “You must have gotten the better part of the bargain. For all the pieces of your life I saw, you still don’t make any damned sense to me.”

  “Freyalise looked at me like that,” Radha said. “When I told her Keld was more important than Skyshroud. I just wonder what you did to earn that look from your brother.”

  Jeska’s voice trembled. “You don’t know already?”

  “I know less about you than I did, Little One. You’re not a planeswalker. You’re a nightmare.”

  “I don’t know what I am.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t!” Jeska’s face twisted. “I’m supposed to appear however I want but I don’t even look like me. My skin is supposed to be brass, but it’s not. My hair is supposed to be red, but it’s not. I can choose to make them that way, but if I don’t concentrate…” She blinked away angry tears. “You’ve seen my life from my eyes, and you’ve always known what you are, so you tell me. What am I?”

  “I’ve just known what I wanted to be,” Radha said. “And that I didn’t want anyone else to decide that for me.”

  “I never had that luxury. Never.”

  “You have it now,” Radha said. “In spite of that horse-faced harlequin with the red-hot crown.”

  Jeska started. “What do you know about him? Can you tell what he’s done to me?”

  “I know he’s working on you, trying to push you toward something. He sees you as an opportunity, a tool. That’s all either of us knows.”

  “I know I don’t like it.”

  “Really? How awful for you. I can only wonder what that’s like.” Radha’s voice dropped low, and she spoke softly, almost solemnly. “Let me go, Jeska. My ’host needs me, the elves and the boy….Keld needs me. And I need them. I’m tired of fighting you, and not only because I can’t win.”

  Jeska shook her head. “I still need you.”

  Fire crackled around Radha’s coarse, black mane. “I said I was tired of fighting you,” the warlord said, “not that I wouldn’t.”

  But Radha’s eyelids suddenly drooped, and the flames around her flickered out. She groaned softly and fell hard onto her seat. Baffled, Jeska simply stared as Radha slumped back and fell into a deep sleep. An overpowering drowsiness took hold of her, and Jeska felt her own leg muscles failing. She felt herself floating aimlessly, and she strained to filter one clear thought through the fog in her brain. They had been talking about Leshrac….

  “You are correct, Jeska,” said Leshrac’s voice. “I am here. I’m also pleased to see you. I hope I’m not interrupting this important barbarian chieftains’ summit?” The planeswalker appeared between Jeska and the ocean, his ashen, lilac skin oddly vivid under the evening sun and his crown of fire.

  Jeska’s vision cleared. Her thoughts sharpened, and she regained control of her muscles. She regarded Leshrac coldly. “You’re reading my mind now too?”

  “One does what one must when protecting one’s interests,” he said. “You followed my advice, but you refused my gift and my offer of help. I had to check in on you. Imagine my delight to find us both here, once again in the same place at the same time with the same overlapping goals.”

  “Why are you here, Leshrac?”

  “Same as you, my dear, to secure the future.”

  Jeska nodded. “And why am I here?”

  Leshrac cocked his head and thrust his jutting chin forward. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do. But I’ll rephrase: What did you do to me?”

  The gray-eyed planeswalker shrugged. “I don’t believe I’ve done anything.”

  “You were in my head just now, and I didn’t notice. You’re obviously better at that sort of thing then I am.”

  Leshrac smiled sharply. “Quite good at it, actually. Famous for it.”

  Jeska felt her anger welling up, but she controlled herself. “How long have you been in my head without my noticing?”

  “Not very long, or very often. Just enough to keep track and make sure you weren’t making things more difficult for me.”

  “I sincerely hope that I have.”

  “Now, now,” Leshrac said. “We’ve managed to be civil and cordial so far. Let’s not spoil it so close to the end.” His eyes took on a reddish sheen. “Point of fact, you’ve been very accommodating.”

  “That ends now. I’m going to kill you, Leshrac.”

  “Oh? Whatever for?”

  “For what you did to me in Yavimaya. That wasn’t Multani’s vision of my brother. It was yours. I can hear your voice in Kamahl’s words, in the things he said to me. You arranged for me to attack Multani.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Sending me after Radha was your idea in the first place.”

  “Now that is true, but you should be thanking me for it. You’d never have come this far if I hadn’t pointed the way.”

  Jeska closed her eyes and clenched her fists. It was all so base and banal, and she had fallen right into it. Leshrac had been manipulating her, and she had performed for him like a well-trained monkey.

  “This ends now. Let us fight, Leshrac.”

  “No.” The thin man spoke carelessly, unconcerned. “No, that won’t happen now. There are far more plea
sant ways to pass the time.”

  Jeska opened her eyes wide, and fire danced in her irises. “You don’t understand,” she said. “This is the Pardic way. You have harmed me. You have attacked me and insulted my family. I will have satisfaction.”

  “A duel then?” Leshrac was clearly amused. “Is that what you propose?” Power began to swirl around him in the a purple-black ribbon. “How fitting.”

  “Call it what you want.” Jeska gathered her own strength. “But this game between us, your game, is over.”

  “Oh no,” Leshrac said. “Not yet. The best is yet to come.”

  “You’ll get nothing more from me,” Jeska said. “I swear it.”

  Leshrac raised a puzzled brow. “Whoever said I wanted something from you?”

  “What?”

  “Your problem, my dear, is that too many people keep telling you how special you are, how unique. ‘Thrice-touched by Infinity.’ Please. Everyone, yourself included, is so awed by your past that they believe you worthy of awe. You’re a lost child waiting for someone to tell her she’s a good little girl. Rejoice,” he said. “You’re about to earn my undying gratitude.”

  “This is tedious, Leshrac.”

  “I agree. There’s no reason to continue this charade.”

  Jeska spread her arms and shaped the mana she had gathered into a ball of pure, concussive force. Leshrac’s face sharpened into a scowl, and he said, “Stand still, child.”

  Black mana buffeted her, and Jeska’s arms dropped. The spell she had ready fizzled out, and her body refused to obey her commands. She couldn’t even planeswalk.

  “Much better. You do realize I could have done this at any time? It’s amazing to me how someone so powerful can be so unaware. I’ve had my hooks in you since before we met, and if you hadn’t been so malleable you might have noticed. You might have even cared. As it is…you are mine.”