Zendikar_ In The Teeth Of Akoum Part 16

"There is a way," the head man said. He looked until he saw what he wanted. The group made their way over to where the const.i.tutent parts of a shattered large hedron were floating just above the ground. The head man took a bit of dulam rope and fashioned it into a la.s.so. He waved them to a larger chunk of the hedron, and carefully they climbed onto it and clung as it bobbed.

Then the head man scaled the chunk of hedron. He stood atop it and swung the la.s.so until its loop went around a nearby tip of a hedron. Then the head man pulled. At first nothing happened. Then slowly the rock began to move. When it moved past the hedron he'd la.s.soed, the head man yanked the loop off and swung the la.s.so onto another hedron and pulled again. Their hedron moved a bit faster. Soon they were floating at a walking pace over the hedrons in the fields.

"We dare go no faster," the man said. "Some of these stones are higher than others, and we may need to slow to dodge one of them."

"How long does this rock field continue?" Nissa asked.

The man turned to her and blinked.

They traveled in such a way for three days. Another of the goblins disappeared in that time, as did the merfolk who had come with the head man. Anowon made no pretense. He shrugged when Nissa found the goblin's left sandal hanging near the edge of the hedron.

The head man had already shared the meager tack he had. He looked at Nissa and pointed ahead.

"The land changes ahead and there should be game," he said.

Nissa looked. There seemed to be no end to the hedron and crystal fields. The horizon was dotted with more floating hedrons. She knew she could rig a snare or some form of trap if they could only find a place where living things could be found. She glanced at the head man again. "He said the terrain is about to change," she said to the others.

Anowon, who was nearby, looked past her at the head man pulling on the rope looped around his chest and arms.

"The man is Eldrazi feed," Anowon said.

Nissa did not know what to say.

Anowon continued. "His people were the feed of the Eldrazi."

"I thought they did not eat like we eat?"

"True," Anowon said. "They live on pure mana. But they had my people collect energy by feeding, and then tapped us."

"Why?"

"Our blood condenses mana," Anowon said. Nissa edged closer a bit, as much as she dared. "Our blood is a sort of distillate of the mana from every victim. The Eldrazi beasts kept us for that sole purpose."

"And the hooks?" Nissa said, pushing her luck, she knew.

But the vampire smiled faintly, something Nissa had almost never seen him do. He looked down at the hooks that extended from his elbow.

"For labor. They could strap us into their harnesses all day, let us feed, and then tap us all night," Anowon said. "The arrangement was wonderful ... for them."

"You said was," was," Nissa said. "But the brood do the same thing. That is how we found you in the Turntimber." Nissa said. "But the brood do the same thing. That is how we found you in the Turntimber."

"But they were copying their masters. They did not know how to strap us in. I virtually had to show them."

"How did you know?"

The vampire looked out over the hedrons. "Some memories are kept alive, by the Bloodchiefs."

Bloodchiefs were the very old vampires. "You were created by a Bloodchief?" Nissa said. Anowon was of that lineage, of course-not your normal shadow creeper.

"Yes," Anowon said. "My Bloodchief was an original slave. She told me about the hooks. She told me about The Mortifier, the first vampire who sold his own kind to the Eldrazi as slaves." Anowon looked out at the hedrons. Nissa looked down.

The sun crossed the sky, and by late afternoon the hedrons had started to become less frequent as the land split into deep canyons. The trenches radiated away on all sides and echoed with strange calls.

Each canyon was almost a league wide and many more deep, and composed of dark gray rocks covered with crags. The canyons were not empty, however. The tops of vast pillars formed a patchwork level with the top of the canyon. Branches from vines and trees climbing up and around the pillars filled the s.p.a.ces between them with dense growth. The top of each pillar was covered with gra.s.s or rock, and raw crystals protruded through some.

Standing some leagues away was a pillar larger than the rest. It did not originate in a canyon, but stood on flat ground atop a raised hill. Even from a distance, the strange, geometric designs that covered the tower drew their eyes. As they watched, a loud grinding sound filled the air and the tower began to move. Like an immense puzzle, shapes poked out of the tower as its sides shifted. When its angles had rearranged themselves into an altogether different configuration, the protruding shapes snapped back into place, and the tower was still.

The crumbled hedron that they had been riding slowly came to a stop. They stood and stared at the huge tower.

"Tal Terig," Sorin said. "Where the Eldrazi buried their dead. We will skirt well around that place, I think."

The head man stopped coiling his rope. "The path into the mountains lies behind the puzzle tower. We have to pa.s.s near it to enter."

The mountains extended away to the right and left. Nissa had a moment to look at the tower. Something about it seemed impossibly wrong: its angles appeared off somehow, as though it was suddenly top heavy and might fall at any moment. As she watched, the tower started to grind and squeak and rearrange itself.

"That sound has brought woe to many an archeaomancer's ears," Anowon said. "The tower is full of unimaginable treasures ... ancient weapons too deadly for the Eldrazi beasts, it is said. But the halls are riddled with magical traps of every clever devising, and every time the sun changes its angle, the tower rearranges itself, guaranteeing that the halls you have just memorized and the traps you have just uncovered are forever changed so you do not know them anymore. Beings that know their way through those towers are uncommon in the extreme."

"Something is there," Nissa said. She squinted, and noticed many tiny figures milling around the base of the tower.

"Brood, yes?" Sorin said, looking back at the ocean, not at the tower. He slowly turned around.

"Yes, brood," Nissa said. "A very great host of them."

Everybody stared at the tower and the huge dark splotch, clearly visible, of brood milling at its base.

"What are they doing?" Nissa said.

"Seeking egress, I should think," Sorin said. "They know it is the burial place of their masters, and they want to enter."

Nissa made note of how Anowon's pale eyes trained on Sorin as he spoke. His face clearly betrayed his disbelief.

"Can they enter?" Nissa said.

"Doubtful," Anowon said, pulling his eyes away form Sorin. "Very doubtful. The entrance shifts. The door is obscured and locked with powerful magic. There are some that have found the door and ventured within. From them we know that the tower you see extending above the ground is but a fraction of the its true length. Most of it is underground."

Nissa could hardly imagine. "It must be a league deep!" she said.

"Yes," the head man interjected. "And the mountains lie on the other side of it. I have only traveled as far as the tower. Past that I do not know the way. Perhaps you do not need me anymore?"

"You do not have leave," Sorin said.

Suddenly Nissa heard a whoosh. She turned and had a brief look at the floating creatures that swept down on them: large brood with ma.s.ses of tentacles extending from funguslike bodies composed of pocketed lattices. One brood's long, split arms reached out.

Nissa had only a moment. She sucked mana from the aether and concentrated on making her self appear as a patch of dirt to the flying brood. Her camouflage spell had been effective before, but this time the brood made a guess as to where she was squatting, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her off the hedron despite her spell.

Nissa was flying through the air with thick tentacles wrapped around her. She had to struggle to move her head enough to get a good breath, and even after she did, she could not see or speak. She felt the air rushing on the backs of her calves.

The tentacle wrapped around her face smelled like dirt and rock dust, and she could feel the blood pulsing through it. Nissa thrashed against the tentacle, but it seemed only to tighten, so that by the end she was barely able to pull in a breath at all.

She flew like that for a time, and then the brood holding her suddenly jerked. It spasmed three more times, and as the tentacle around her face went limp, Nissa began to freefall through the air.

It should have been a common enough feeling for Nissa, but she could only think of childhood nightmares as she spiraled toward the sharp surface of Akoum.

Her impact was sudden and punctuated with the sickening crack of bone. She found herself rolling with the sun filling her eyes and the colors blurring.

Nissa rolled over and cast a wary eye around. She stood. The bodies of five other floating brood were strewn over the top surface of one of the columns in the canyon. Arrows with fletches made from the stiff leaves of some unfamiliar green plant stuck out of them. Nissa fell into a crouch and ducked behind the body of the brood that had been carrying her. She looked around.

She had crashed quite near the tower. She could see the different sizes of the brood milling around the base of Tal Terig, and see the holes they had dug. Some brood were bent over the holes or moving their tentacles in the air above the holes. Doing what, exactly? Doing what, exactly? Nissa wondered. She looked around hoping to catch a glimpse of the bows that had struck down the brood. Nissa wondered. She looked around hoping to catch a glimpse of the bows that had struck down the brood.

But instead she saw Sorin and Smara tossed in the gra.s.s near the brood that had been carrying them. As she watched, Sorin rolled over. She waved to him, and he began crawling toward her. She heard a groan and saw Anowon stumbling in her direction. When he was near, she grabbed his cloak and yanked him down. She brought her finger up to her lips and listened.

The breeze stirred the clump of gra.s.s next to her. The dead brood's tentacle twitched once. Anowon leaned against the flank of the creature, and when Sorin finally crawled the distance to them, he also leaned back.

Nissa could neither see nor hear anything moving. But whatever had shot the brood was waiting somewhere nearby. The gap between pillars was the height of a man. Nothing moved except the gra.s.s caught in the wind.

One of Smara's goblins stumbled over to Smara's insensate form, the other perhaps lost to the gaps. The goblin took her gently under the armpits and swore under its breath as it pulled the mad kor to where Nissa and the others were squatting behind the dead brood.

"Where is the human guide?" Anowon asked the goblin.

Sorin rolled over and looked at Anowon, who was watching Smara. "You only want to know where the human is because you want to feed on him," Sorin said.

The goblin did not reply. Instead it propped Smara against the cooling beast and began fanning her face. The kor stirred, and her eyes popped wide.

"The t.i.tans stir," she said quite clearly.

Anowon said nothing. Sorin stood.

A movement caught Nissa's eye. "Look there," she said. Nissa saw the tip of what looked like a bow disappear behind the edge of a pillar. They all turned to look. When the bow did not reappear they waited. But there was no bow, no movement of any sort.

"Do not move rapidly," said a voice from behind. Nissa turned. A small force of elves was arrayed behind them, with bows drawn and nocked arrows trained. Nissa immediately recognized the arrow fletches of their shafts as the same ones sticking out of the dead brood.

"Throw down your weapons," said a female elf with a strange accent. Nissa could not place it. She could not tell what kind of elves they were-their skin was darker then hers, and they were shorter and stockier. Their bows glittered in the sun, and Nissa realized with a start that they were constructed of some wood she had never seen before.

"Who are you?" Nissa said.

"Close your mouth, foreigner," said the female elf. "Throw down your staff."

Nissa let her staff fall with a thump. Sorin slowly took his great sword out and laid it carefully on the gra.s.s. Anowon kept staring down.

The elf commander turned her head. "Collect the weapons and bind the vampire's hands," she said. "Drag the human out from under the tentacled menace."

An elf collected Nissa's staff. Nissa watched him move. He was muscled like a human and harnessed as heavily as a kor. There were scars all over the exposed skin of his hands and face, and the tip of his right ear was missing, replaced by a thick edge of scar tissue.

The elves all crouched as they worked. The commander kept her eyes on the sky, holding a nocked arrow in her bow. She was as scarred as the other elves, and her eyes glowed.

Nissa's eyes lingered on the ma.s.s of brood moving around the base of the tower. They looked as though they were building something. A square wooden form was clearly visible in their midst.

"What are they doing there?" Nissa asked.

The commander turned and took a quick look at Nissa before looking away again. "They are preparing an attack," she said, simply.

The elf pressed Sorin and Nissa's weapons into the commander's hand. Was that really everything we have? No wonder we captured by the elves Was that really everything we have? No wonder we captured by the elves, she thought.

The elf commander turned Nissa's staff in her hands. Her fingers detected the seam and pulled, then twisted.

"Be careful with that," Nissa warned.

A drum started beating at Tal Tarig, and once it started, others pulsed behind it. The elf commander twisted the staff back together and turned. "We go," she said.

They were crowded together into a tight group by the elves. The human was there too. The commander broke into a run and launched herself into the air at the end of the pillar, landing on the other pillar top. One by one, each of them jumped the pillar gap. Nissa looked down when she jumped and saw the deep undergrowth of the trees and shrubs that grew between the pillars, and below them a long, long fall into darkness.

When it was Anowon's turn to jump, the elves jabbed his ribs with the tips of their bows. "Run, blood slurper," they hissed. "Run, run." Anowon took a running start and easily jumped the gap, but an elf shoved him as he landed. Trying to regain his balance, Anowon spun, tripped, and went sprawling in the gra.s.s of the pillar. The elves broke into peals of laughter at this humiliation.

Nissa closed her eyes so as not to watch Anowon, hands bound, struggle to his feet. Did he not deserve the ridicule? Did he not deserve the ridicule? she thought. He was a vampire after all-a merciless vampire. He could not be trusted. On the other hand, he had conducted himself fairly, and who could blame him for feeding on the goblins, who were, after all, barely lifeforms. They were not children of the forest, but rather opportunists of the stone and dell. she thought. He was a vampire after all-a merciless vampire. He could not be trusted. On the other hand, he had conducted himself fairly, and who could blame him for feeding on the goblins, who were, after all, barely lifeforms. They were not children of the forest, but rather opportunists of the stone and dell.

In fact, Nissa reflected, most times Anowon was a scolar. He had not chosen this affliction of vampirism.

The elves lined them up, and they all jumped the next gap between the pillars. They jumped again and again, until everyone was at the other side of the canyon. With Tal Terig grinding itself into different positions behind them, they made their way through the rocky outcroppings that puckered at the edge of the canyon. Without the elves, the maze of rocky hills and crystals would have been impa.s.sable. But throughout the remaining daylight, the elves walked ahead and behind.

The sun was halfway below the skyline when the commander elf raised her hand and all the elves stopped. The commander looked behind and in all directions. Using her foot she brushed a patch of ground bare. Then she bent over and with her hands cleared away the branches and brush that had been pushed into the dusty soil. She revealed a hole, and without a word lowered herself into it, disappearing.

One by one the others followed. When it was Nissa's turn, she lowered herself down and felt ladder rungs. She descended the ladder in the dark, with the blotch of daylight above her head filled with the dark shadows of elves climbing down after her.

They climbed through the ground for so long that the hole that they had climbed through became a tiny dot and then disappeared completely. The elf above Nissa kept stepping on her fingers or putting his foot on the top of her head. The wooden ladder creaked in the small tunnel, swaying slightly.

A patch of light appeared below. It grew larger, and the elves below her were exiting though it. Nissa put her foot through the hole and crawled out onto sand. The light was too bright at first, and Nissa closed her eyes. When she was able to open them, she saw that they were in the bottom of a dry basin. Crystals poked out of the ground with their tips touching.

The elf commander started walking, and the others followed. They walked along the dusty basin until it was deep dark and the various night birds had arrived and were swooping around above their heads, s.n.a.t.c.hing the singing gnats and piercer midges out of the air.

Anowon tripped, and one of the elves delivered a kick to the vampire's forehead that knocked him sprawling. The vampire rose and began walking again. The elf next to Nissa chuckled.

Then Nissa noticed something strange. The elf that had kicked Anowon was glowing. She looked closer. His veins were glowing. She looked at the other elves. Not all of them had veins that glowed, but many of them did. Some of their eyeb.a.l.l.s also glowed.

Nissa turned to the elf that had kicked Anowon. His face was a spider web of glowing veins. "Why do you glow?" Nissa asked.

The elf put his hand over his mouth. A moment later the ground began to shake.

The shaking became violent. The vial of water around Nissa's neck began to boil telling her that the Roil was occurring. She threw herself on the ground, wishing more than ever for her staff.

A moment later the ground split open like ripe fruit. Amid the dramatic shaking, Nissa could see the orange glow of magma in the crack. She attempted to roll away from the fissure but only succeeded in bouncing back and hitting her head hard on the ground. For a moment Nissa lost consciousness, and when she woke a column of writhing magma was streaming upward out of the crack in the ground. It cooled to black rock almost immediately. In the next moment Nissa saw shoots peeking out of the basalt. Soon the spar was covered with the dense green fuzz of growing plants as the ground continued to shake. The plants grew until they covered the column.

The elf that had refused to speak to her before leaned close to her ear. "A life bloom," he said. "Truly we are blessed."

Nissa looked again at the strange living pillar. The ground stopped trembling, and the plants started moving in the wind. Well, maybe not blessed, she thought, but it was an interesting occurrence.