The World in the Walls (excerpt) by Christopher Plover

These are two discoveries of the Fillory and Further novels.  (From the Magicians, by Lev Grossman)

One is an excerpt from "The World in the Walls, below.  The other is a biography of Plover and the Chatwins, in a world that knows magic. 

The World in the Walls: Book I of Fillory and Further
By Christopher Plover

Chapter 1: The Wonderful Clock

Martin Chatwin was not an ordinary boy, but he thought that he was. In fact he was unusually clever and brave and kind for his age, he just didn’t know it. Martin thought that he was just an ordinary boy who lived in a rather nice but otherwise ordinary house in London, with two nice parents and four nice but occasionally absolutely infuriating brothers and sisters, and that was the end of it.
I find that this is very often the case. Extraordinary people tend to think that they’re ordinary, and the reverse is true as well — the world is filled with people who believe that they are special and unusual, when in fact they are mediocre in every possible respect. But even Martin would admit that what happened to him at his Aunt Maude’s house was out of the ordinary, if you asked him, which I’m sorry to say that you cannot do. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves — it hasn’t even happened yet.
When our story begins Martin isn’t living in London. He and the other Chatwin children-Fiona, Rupert, Helen and Jane-have been sent to Cornwall to live with their Aunt Maude, who was Mrs. Chatwin’s sister. Why this should have happened is difficult to explain, and Martin himself wasn’t at all sure that it had been properly explained to him. Apparently his father had gone away to fight the Germans at place called Passchendaele, which he could just about pronounce but not spell, and why the Germans needed fighting at all in the first place was very unclear. Meanwhile in his father’s absence his mother had become exhausted and had gone away to a place in the country that was supposed to be very quiet and restful, where she could recover in peace.
More than that Martin couldn’t get out of the adults he asked. Even though they looked at him very kindly and comfortingly, they were very stingy when it came to giving out actual information, as adults often are.
The house to which Martin and his siblings had been sent, Aunt Maude’s house, was in one of those tiny villages in north Cornwall that seem to exist by accident, tumbled in with huge boulders and rugged hills and old stone circles erected a long time ago by nobody is precisely sure who. The house was very grand — three stories tall, with a façade made of brick and stone, and enormous windows, and endless numbers of fireplaces and window seats and curving back stairs and other advantages which the Chatwins’ London house distinctly lacked. Among those advantages were the sprawling grounds around the house, which included long straight alles and white gravel paths and dark green pools of grass.
When I first met the Chatwin children they were arranged around the edge of a round fountain in back of Maude’s house, collars turned up and hands thrust in their coat pockets against the icy wind, trying to make some sense of their new surroundings. It was a chilly afternoon in late October, and I can only assume they’d been driven outside by that feeling of boredom and restlessness for the sake of which children will endure almost any discomfort. My own house was a mile or so away, closer to the village, and I had come over to make arrangements with Maude about the hunt next weekend, but she was not at home, and to be completely honest I was a little out of sorts at having made the trip for nothing.
The Chatwins were out of sorts too, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they were both in and out of sorts at the same time — if you’ve ever had that happen you’ll know exactly what I mean. They missed their mother, and they were terribly worried about their father, but they were also very excited about their new situation — grand old house, a bare minimum of lessons, a crackle of important events in the air — and they also felt a bit guilty about feeling so excited, so they weren’t sure whether they were feeling happy or unhappy or excited or guilty, and in the end they felt a bit of each all at once.
The eldest Chatwin — who was 11, and who I did not know yet was named Martin — sized me up warily, as if he thought I might try to deprive him of his newfound kingdom.
“Who are you?” he said, not entirely politely. His face was sharp with precocious intelligence.
“My name’s Plover,” I replied. “I came to see Maude, but she isn’t here. Who are you?”
“I’m Martin. I’m Maude’s nephew. These are Fiona, Rupert, Helen and Jane. Jane’s the littlest, she won’t talk to anyone who wears whiskers, so try not to be offended. Rupes will talk your ears off, but you don’t have to listen. I never do.” “I see,” I said, and I imagine that I did. I didn’t feel offended at all. They were a curious little tribe, who’d obviously spent a lot of time looking after each other. You wouldn’t ever catch them saying or doing anything openly affectionate, or even particularly acknowledging one another’s existence, but at the same time a current of absolute loyalty ran between them, as if even then they shared some momentous secret.
“When do you suppose your aunt will be at home?” I asked. “I need to speak with her about the arrangements for the hunt.” (I’m sorry for repeating myself, but that is what I said, as Martin didn’t know it yet.)
“We don’t know. No one ever tells us anything. If you like I’ll help you with the hunt, I’m very good with horses. Everyone says so.” “I don’t,” his sister Fiona said lightly. “So not everyone does.”
“Martin’s got a big head because he came second at jumping at school,” Rupert said. “I’m not allowed to jump yet,” he added, as if I’d demanded clarification on that point. “What’s your horse’s name? Do you do ride a great deal?”
Little Jane merely regarded her reflection in the water with an air of melancholy thoughtfulness that seemed beyond her years. The fountain had absolutely monstrous goldfish swimming in it, and she was so small I worried that an enterprising fish might seize her by the hand and try to drag her under. Helen watched Jane watching herself, as if it were on the tip of her tongue to remind her that vanity was a sin.
“Buttons, and yes,” I said, and made my excuses. I really did need to find Maude.
I next saw Martin and his brothers and sisters the following weekend, on the day of the hunt. I wasn’t planning on going out, and neither was Maude. She wasn’t mad about hunting, nor was she mad about being a mother to her sister’s children, but she was exceptionally good at giving parties, so that’s what she did. She was so good at it that almost nobody bothered with much actual hunting anymore. Hardly anyone even wore red. When I arrrived, well-dressed individuals of all descriptions were posed in flattering attitudes around the first floor of the house and on the rear terrace.
Maude herself was in full cry and looking very sleek in a black dress well set off by a single long rope of pearls. The talk was mostly of the war-not being in it, everybody wanted to look as if they knew what it was like for those who were, and they wanted everyone else to know they had very good reasons for not being in it.
As a single man of what might charitably be ruled early middle age, I was something of an anomaly at the Maude’s parties. But I was not as much of an anomaly as the five Chatwin children. After the first hour they were bored of all the grown-up talk, even the grown-up talk that was intended to interest them, and they had stolen all of the hors-d’oeuvres that any self-respecting child could plausibly bring him or herself to eat. So naturally they slipped away up one of the curving back staircases to see what they could see.
I only learned much later of the adventures that befell them there. Of course I wasn’t there myself — these are the kinds of adventures grown-ups cannot go on. But Martin and the other Chatwins told me all about them later on, and I will tell you exactly what they told me.
Martin had a hobby, one that interested him and bored his younger siblings so intensely that it sometimes reduced little Jane to tears. His hobby was clockwork: he loved taking apart and then re-assembling the mechanisms of watches and clocks and little wind-up toys, though admittedly he was better at the first half of the operation than the second. A few days earlier he had encountered a truly stupendous specimen in a back corridor of one of the upper floors of his aunt’s house. It was a grandfather clock, a really wonderful timepiece with a face lavishly adorned with dials and numbers and zodiacal symbols, designed to keep track not only of the time of day but the months of the year and the seasons and the phases of the moon and goodness knows what else. Martin knew what else, and what he didn’t know he was determined to find out.
While Fiona and Rupert and Helen and Jane looked on, in various states of near-fatal ennui, Martin stared at the clock, observing the movements of its hands, until he was confident that he understood what function each of them was intended to perform. Only then did he gently open the glass case that covered its face.
“Martin, no,” Fiona said. “You’ll break it.”
“I won’t.”
“You know he won’t, Fi,” Helen said.
“But what if he does? We’ll all be blamed.”
“Martin could knock it over and stamp it to pieces and Aunt Maude wouldn’t notice,” Rupert said. “I doubt she’s been up here in 10 years. I don’t think she’s interested in this sort of thing. She probably doesn’t even know it’s here.”
At that moment, as if to make his case for him, someone downstairs began playing the piano and singing a tipsy chorus.
“Somebody must come up here to wind the thing, anyway,” Fiona said. And it was true, the clock was ticking and tocking along heartily.
“It’s immaterial,” Martin said, never taking his eye off his quarry. He had discovered that he could use words like that correctly, and he loved doing it. “I won’t break it. Bother, I can’t get at the works this way.”
He closed the glass case and turned his attention to the large wooden cabinet that made up the body of the clock. But it was locked. He felt around for a key — in his experience they were generally left on top of the item in question — but whoever was in charge of winding the clock had kept the key for him or herself.
While Martin pondered this new setback, silent Jane stole forward. Removing two pins from her hair, she pushed them in the keyhole of the cabinet. She spent the next minute quietly manipulating them, pushing and nudging the hidden tumblers in ways the others couldn’t see. Then the lock clicked open.
She withdrew again, without a word.
“Thanks, Janey,” Martin muttered, abashed. He had long since learned that he could never, ever know what to expect from his youngest sister.
Martin thought he knew what to expect from clocks — it was one of the things he liked most about them. When he opened the door he did the first thing he always did when he was trying to disassemble a complicated, expensive, forbidden device: he stopped it, in this case by taking the pendulum in his hand and preventing it from swinging. Once he had done so he was surprised for the second time in the span of a minute: the clock continued to tick along happily, oblivious to the fact that there was no obvious way it could justify doing so. Now, Martin liked things that came with explanations, and of late he had been experiencing a marked shortage of them. But he was not easily daunted. After all, since the war began he had become, not just the father of his little family, but for all intents and purposes a widower at the age of 11. A newfangled technique for driving clockwork was not about to stop him in his tracks. He proceeded — as any English boy in his position would have done — to stick his head inside the clock.
But now there was another thing that demanded explaining, or three things to be exact: the gentle breeze that issued from the open cabinet, and the smell of sweet grass that it carried with it, and the sound of a whinnying horse and the clash of arms.
I wish now that I could have been there, to tell him to turn back. But I didn’t know then what I know now, and in any case I was downstairs playing “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” on the piano, and not very well at that. And even if I had told him, no force in this world or any other could have held Martin back from his destiny at that moment.

The Gathering Storm - Chapter Twenty (Official Magic Story)

The Gathering Storm - by Django Wexler
Chapter Twenty (final chapter!)


Vraska and Lavinia. Ral looked at the pair of them and narrowed his eyes. But it's not, is it?
         
          "Lavinia would never work for Bolas," he said aloud. "Not voluntarily."
         
          "He has a sort of . . . emissary," Kaya said. "A fragment of his spirit, I think. It can control people."
         
          Ral, remembering Glademaster Garo and his attempted coup at Selesnya, nodded slowly. "I've met the thing."
         
          "So . . ." Hekara said. "Is she on our side, or their side, or what?"
         
          "She's on their side," Ral said. "But try not to kill her."
         
          "Ah, Ral," Lavinia said, stepping forward. The voice was hers, but the tone, the manner, was all wrong. It was Bolas, or at least the fragment of Bolas that had been flitting around Ravnica. "In the old days, such concerns would never have troubled you. When did you get so soft-hearted?"
         
          "When I got away from you," Ral said.
         
          "So quick to anger, too." Lavinia put on a self-satisfied smirk. "Almost like you have something to be ashamed of."
         
          "I've done a great many things I'm ashamed of," Ral said. He looked at Vraska. "That doesn't mean I have to add to my sins by helping him."
         
          "Don't pretend you understand me, Zarek," Vraska said, loosening her saber in its scabbard. "And don't try to claim the moral high ground here. There's a ruined city full of my people you have to account for."
         
          "We had no choice," Ral said. "If you hadn't betrayed us in the first place—"
         
          His eyes went back to Lavinia, who was still smiling. Ral stopped abruptly.
         
          "They want to drag this out," he said quietly. "If Bolas gets away from Niv-Mizzet, he can smash this place to fragments. We have to end this as quickly as we can."
         
          Kaya gave a grim nod. "So what's the plan?"
         
          "I'll handle Lavinia." Power crackled in his hands. "I can probably stun her. You and Hekara keep Vraska busy. Don't get too close, she can—"
         
          "I've fought gorgons before," Kaya said. "I can handle myself."
         
          "And besides, turning to stone might be fun," Hekara said. "I would try to make sort of a silly face, like bleh! And then that'd be a statue forever."
         
          "Let's try to avoid that," Ral said.
         
          He stepped to the left, toward Lavinia, while Kaya circled to the right and Hekara walked nonchalantly down the middle. Vraska and Lavinia both drew their swords, matching their opponents. Ral gave the gorgon a last glance, then shook his head and concentrated on his own opponent. I hope Kaya's high opinion of herself is justified.
         
          He'd never seen Lavinia fight. In her Azorius days, however, she'd been a famed duelist, and her crisp stance with the blade indicated she hadn't let her skills go to rust. Ral raised one hand and launched an exploratory bolt of lightning, which crackled across the room and earthed itself on her chest. Lavinia didn't flinch, and magic glowed from her armor.
         
          Lightning ward. Like Glademaster Garo, she'd come prepared. So this isn't going to be easy.
         
          Another step forward, and Lavinia moved, as suddenly as if he'd crossed a tripwire. Her footwork was so smooth she seemed to flow over the ground, sword flicking out in a casual thrust that would have run Ral through the throat. He sidestepped, caught her next swing on the steel bracer extending back from his mizzium gauntlet, and let loose a burst of lightning at close range. This time Lavinia did flinch, but only slightly, and the lightning ward buzzed as it consumed most of the power. Lavinia reversed her swing, and Ral retreated to put a steel support pillar between them. He thought furiously as she circled around.
         
          I could overload the ward. That's what he'd done to Garo, but it had its risks. It would use up much of the power left in his accumulator, and probably kill Lavinia if he didn't gauge the discharge just write. Damn, damn, damn. I should have insisted on sending someone with her. She said she was tracking down Bolas's lead agent—that has to be Tezzeret. He must have gotten the drop on her.
         
          "What's the matter, Ral?" Lavinia said, in Bolas's mocking tone. "You don't seem to be throwing yourself into violence with your usual verve."
         
          "Why Lavinia?" Ral said, circling cautiously. "If you wanted someone here to stop me, why not send Tezzeret?"
         
          "Because you'd love the chance to settle the score with Tezzeret," Bolas said. He made Lavinia's face pout, the expression looking utterly unnatural on her. "But hurting poor Lavinia will break your heart."
         
          "Break my heart?" Ral said, incredulously. "This is to hurt me?"
         
          "Oh, you have no idea what I'm going to do to you," Bolas said. "I don't like it when people don't pay their debts, Ral Zarek. I made you what you are, and when I asked for a favor in return, you turned your back on me. For that, Lavinia's going to die. Your friends here will die. But you I will keep, because you are going to watch everyone you care for die screaming. Starting with poor little Tomik. Such a nice boy." Lavinia's lips twisted unnaturally into the dragon's awful grin.
         
          Ral did his best to keep a lid on his anger. "Seems like a lot of work for someone busy taking over the Multiverse."
         
          "It's worthwhile to pay my debts. It . . . creates a useful reputation. Besides, it amuses me." Bolas shrugged. "On the other hand, maybe I'll just kill you here and now. We'll have to see—"
         
          Lavinia shot forward again, fast enough that Ral nearly missed the move and got skewered. He threw himself to one side as her sword scraped against the support pillar, drawing sparks. Her leg hooked out and wrapped around his, sending him tumbling to the floor, and he rolled sideways just in time to avoid a downward strike. Ral put his hands out, unleashing a powerful burst of energy, and the force of it picked Lavinia up and hurled her against a pillar. Her armor rang against it with a sound like a gong, and she dropped to one knee.
         
          Ral grabbed a hanging cable and hauled himself to his feet. Lavinia straightened up as well, a line of red dribbling from the corner of her mouth.
         
          "Oh, I felt that." Her lip quirked. "Or rather, Lavinia did. Careful with your toys, Ral, or you'll end up breaking them."
         
          Damn and double damn. He glanced briefly over his shoulder and saw Vraska and Kaya dancing among the steel pillars. Kaya couldn't seem to get close enough to use her daggers, but her ability to simply walk through the obstacles had kept her out of the way of Vraska's serrated sword and away from her deadly gaze thus far. Hekara lurked at the edge of the fight, sending razor-edged projectiles at the gorgon whenever she had a clear shot.
         
          Holding their own, but not winning. And Bolas had to be getting closer. We need to get past them—
         
          Ral glanced at the security keyboard, but Lavinia followed his gaze and shook his head.
         
          "Thinking of running out on me, Zarek? The dance is only half done." She raised her blade. "Come on, then."
         
          No choice. Ral let power gather in his gauntlets as he closed the distance. He ducked under a slash, blocked another with his bracer, and reached for Lavinia. She spun away, laughing and cutting at him from another angle. Ral went after her, pent-up power in his gauntlets growing white-hot, but she was too fast. Her counterstrokes nearly caught him several times, and he had to desperately backpedal to avoid a quick sideways cut.
         
          "Ral!" A pair of Hekara's knives sailed past Lavinia, making her take a half-step back. The razorwitch summoned more, blades dropped into existence in her hands, and Lavinia ducked and dodged through the pillars, the knives caroming off the steel. Ral, catching his breath, went after her.
         
          "Try and hold her attention!" Ral called.
         
          "That's what she said!" Hekara called back.
         
          "I don't—" Ral shook his head as the girl cackled, and kept his mind on the fight.
         
          Having to watch Hekara restricted Lavinia's movements, and Ral quickly closed in. Soon Lavinia was on the defensive, slashing to keep him away while she ducked and dodged the barrage of blades. Ral waited until one strike came a little too far forward, then bulled into it, scraping the sword away with one bracer as he brought his other hand around, crackling with deadly power—
         
          "Ral!" Lavinia shouted, in her own voice. "Don't!"
         
          Ral hesitated. Not for long, but it was enough. Bolas's smile coiled across Lavinia's face, and she kicked him in the stomach, doubling him over. He sank to his knees, gasping for breath.
         
          "Idiot," Bolas said, as Lavinia's sword came forward.
         
          There was a moment of frantic motion, and then a moment of stillness.
         
          The three of them were close, close enough to embrace. Ral, struggling to rise, and Lavinia, her blade extended. Between them was Hekara, taking Lavinia's sword high in the chest. It passed cleanly through her leather-motley suit, the tip emerging a few inches from her back just inside the shoulder blade, far enough to dimple Ral's skin without piercing it.
         
          Ral's caught her before she could fall. "Hekara!"
         
          She leaned back to look up at him, still grinning. "Mates, right?"
         
          "Mates," Ral said, through gritted teeth.
         
          "'Sides," Hekara said, her hands coming up to touch the spot where Lavinia's sword entered her flesh, "never been stabbed all the way through before. Always wondered what it was like." She coughed, spraying blood across the steel, and stared at it in fascination. "'S not so bad. Doesn't hurt as much as I thought."
         
          Lavinia stepped away, pulling her sword free with a tooth-rattling scrape of blade on bone. Hekara's eyes went very wide, and a gout of blood pulsed from the wound.
         
          "Oh," she said in a small voice. "That's more like it." And she died, with a little shiver that jangled the bells in her hair.
         
          "You see, Ral?" Bolas said. "You see what your mercy gets you—"
         
          Ral surged to his feet with a roar, springing across Hekara's body. Lavinia pivoted and swung, and Ral blocked with his bracer, sword impacting with bone-shaking force. Before she could pull it away, his other hand shot out, grabbing the blade near the base. It cut into his palm, but he didn't care—power surged through him, flowing down the wires linking his accumulator to his gauntlets, torrenting into the steel. The blade began to smoke, and Lavinia let go of it reflexively as it grew too hot to touch. It sizzled as it hit the floor, glowing cherry-red, slowly losing its shape as it melted into a pool of slag.
         
          Lavinia danced backward, but Ral stayed with her, grabbing her arm and yanking her off balance. She aimed a kick at his midsection, and he accepted it with a grunt, his other hand grabbing for her throat. There was something there, a bit of metal with a glowing crystal in it, that Ral had seen when she'd leaned in to stab Hekara. He didn't know what it was, but the look of the thing made its origin unmistakable. Tezzeret. He grabbed it and yanked it free.
         
          "Still you persist in your attempt to—" Lavinia, backing away from him, stumbled and clutched at her head. "No. Stop it." And then, in a voice much more like Lavinia's own, she bellowed, "Get out of my head!"
         
          She doubled over, clutching her skull, and something burst out of her. A misty, spectral shape took form above her as she collapsed to the floor. It was indistinct, but nevertheless Ral could see its outlines—vaguely humanoid, but the head was topped by long, curving horns.
         
          Poor fools. The voice was Bolas through and through, now, scraping against Ral's thoughts. All I have to do is find another body. You know you can't stop me.
         
          "He can't," said Kaya, emerging through a pillar in a burst of purple light, "but I sure as hell can." A pair of daggers, ablaze with energy, caught the Bolas-thing in the back. "I think we are all very sick of you."
         
          The spirit made a sound that started as a dragon's roar and rose to a teakettle scream. Its incorporeal form writhed, then blew apart like a dandelion touched by the wind, bits of its essence scattered in all directions before fading away.
         
          "Hated that bloody thing," Kaya muttered. Then, taking in the two women on the floor, her breath caught. "Hekara—"
         
          "Kaya, down!" Ral shouted. His hand came up, and lightning crackled out, but his aim was off and it struck and earthed on the steel pillar beside Vraska. The gorgon swung around it, serrated sword whistling through the air.
         
          Kaya got her daggers up in time to block the cut, but the force of the blow knocked her back. Before she could recover, Vraska brought the saber around in a vicious pommel strike that cracked the guard against Kaya's temple. Kaya crumpled, laid out on the floor beside Hekara and Lavinia. Vraska stalked past the three unmoving bodies, tendrils spread and writhing, focused on Ral.
         
          "Brave girl," Vraska hissed. "But foolish, to take her eyes off the more dangerous opponent."
         
          Ral gave ground, backing toward the outside edge of the room. He sent a bolt of lightning at the gorgon, but she dodged behind a steel pillar, and his electricity wrapped uselessly around it.
         
          "I, on the other hand, have been watching you," Vraska said. "And what I know is that you spent entirely too much of your power. Melting Lavinia's sword?" She clicked her tongue. "Surely that was unnecessary."
         
          "I have enough left to deal with you," Ral said, still backing up. He didn't dare let her close—at short range, there was no way to avoid the gorgon's deadly gaze. Electricity still crackled over his gauntlets, but Vraska was right. He'd spent power recklessly, here and fighting the soldiers down below.
         
          "Then do it." Vraska stepped away from the pillar, matching Ral's easy steps backward. They were well away from the core of the beacon now, approaching the exterior of the dome. "Blast me to pieces. Go on." When he didn't move, her grin widened, tongue darting over sharp teeth. "As I said."
         
          "Is this really what you want?" Ral said, letting a hint of desperation into his voice. "For Bolas to win? You think he'll let you keep running your little empire?"
         
          "Of course not," Vraska said. "I'm sure he'll kill me as soon as I'm no longer useful."
         
          "Then—"
         
          "But you're missing the point," Vraska said. "He's going to win anyway. Niv-Mizzet can't stop him. Your beacon won't stop him. And if the only chance for the Golgari to survive is to join the winning side . . ." She shrugged. "I have to take it. No matter what the cost."
         
          "He lies. You should know that. Whatever he's promised you, he has no reason to deliver."
         
          "I know." Vraska's eyes narrowed. "But it's all I've got."
         
          Ral's back came up against the copper dome. Vraska licked her lips.
         
          "Nowhere to run, Zarek." She levelled her sword. "We've done this before. And this time, there's no angel to rescue you."
         
          "There isn't," Ral agreed. "But this time, we're on my turf, not yours."
         
          He reached up, and found the edge of one of the gratings that let wires and conduits pierce the dome and reach the outside of the tower. It was made of thin copper wire, twisted together, and Ral sent all the power left in his backpack running through it. It sparked, then sagged, melting away. Cables flopped to the ground, leaving an opening in the dome a yard square.
         
          Outside, the storm had finally broken. Rain drummed down on the city in torrents, ringing on the dome and sluicing off it in sheets. The dark clouds that had hovered all day had descended, and bright bolts leapt from one to the next, followed by distant peals of thunder. Ral could feel their power echoed inside him, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He smiled, very slowly.
         
          "You beat me when we fought in the Undercity," he said. "Now let me show you how powerful I am here, under the skies of Ravnica!"
         
          Vraska snarled and lunged forward, eyes beginning to glow with their killing light. But it was far too late. Lightning arced out from the closest clouds, a dozen strokes at once, groping like searching fingers for the hole in the dome. They threaded through it like the eye of a needle and slammed into Ral, surrounding him with a crackling, scintillating aura of brilliant white. Every hair on his head stood on end. Pieces of his backpack whined and fused, but he didn't need it, not now. He raised one hand, and let the power flow. The bolt was a monster, fed by the pent-up energy of the long-denied storm, and it crossed the space between him and Vraska in a fraction of a second.
         
          When the light faded, she was gone, replaced by a long smoking streak on the steel floor.
         
          Ral staggered as the power faded. Channeling that much was difficult, even for him, and combined with everything that had come before he suddenly felt as though he'd run laps around the Tenth District. Nearly done. He forced himself to keep moving, lurching across the room.
         
          He knelt beside Hekara, on her back in a pool of crimson, and reached down to close her staring eyes. Beside her lay Lavinia, and Ral made sure she was breathing easily. He did the same for Kaya, a few paces further on; there was blood on her head where Vraska's sword-hilt had cut her, but it didn't look like the blow had cracked her skull. Satisfied she would be all right, he struggled to his feet and shuffled onward.
         
          When he finally stood in front of the beacon, staring down at the security keyboard, his mind went suddenly blank. For a moment, his stomach churned, terrified.
         
          Elias. A bit of music his lover had tapped on a keyboard, a lifetime ago. Before everything. Ral reached down, hand trembling, and pressed the keys.
         
          With a hiss, the core of the beacon opened. Above the keyboard, a single large button emerged from a locked compartment. Only one control, in the end, because the beacon had only one function. Once it was turned on, its light would shine across the Multiverse.
         
          The button was, of course, bright red. What Izzet engineer could resist?
         
          Well. Ral stared at it for a moment, then took a deep breath. It's time to roll the dice.
         
          He brought his hand down hard.

 

---

 

          Deep under the city, the kraul death priest Mazirek scuttled through a damp tunnel. Storrev glided along beside him, resplendent in her rotten finery, and an escort of Erstwhile flanked the pair of them. Mazirek paid the zombies little heed; his mind was elsewhere.  

          Storrev had brought a message arranging a meeting. She didn't know the source, but it was obvious to Mazirek, given the timing. Bolas. With Vraska gone to serve the dragon directly—and hopefully to die painfully—Bolas had promised Mazirek leadership of the Golgari. Finally, the power I deserve. The time had come for the dragon to deliver on his pledges.

          But he didn't know where this messenger was supposed to be meeting him. These were passages he'd never entered before, veering close to the surface and interlaced in places with the basements of some parts of the upper city. It made sense—Bolas was a creature of the surface in the end, and like all surface dwellers he was uncomfortable venturing too far into the underground kingdom of the Swarm. Still, Mazirek looked around a little nervously as Storrev led him through an archway of natural stone and into a larger cavern, which looked like it had been enlarged by human hands.

          "How much farther to this messenger?" Mazirek said, the words slurred and strewn with clicks.

          "I believe we have arrived." Storrev looked around the broad, dark chamber. "We have only to wait."

          "I do not like waiting." Mazirek's many eyes narrowed. "Have you lied to me, Storrev?"

          He let power bleed into his voice. He was the one who had awoken the Erstwhile. None of them, even free-willed liches like Storrev, could disobey a direct order or refuse a question.

          "No, my lord." The lich bowed. "I received a message requesting a meeting. I have brought you to the place it specified."

          "A message from whom?"

          "No one I know," Storrev said.

          Not Vraska, then. Mazirek was still half-convinced this was some trap of the gorgon's. He looked around, irritably, and caught the glint of burning torches against the moisture-slick walls. A man was approaching, wrapped in a hooded cloak.

          "You!" Mazirek clicked at him. "You are the messenger."

          "Yeah," he grunted. "I'm Brutus, of Brutus's Improvised Comedy Fun-Time Show." His hood fell back, revealing a large, bald head, layered over with scars.

          "Comedy show?" Mazirek said. "What nonsense is this?"

          "You don't look very funny," Storrev said.

          "Lotta people say that," Brutus rumbled. He reached under his cloak and came up with a huge butcher's cleaver, flecked with rust and dried blood. "But wait till you hear the punchline."

          "What?" Mazirek chittered. "Are you threatening us?"

          "Nope," Brutus said. "Just doing a favor for Hekara. She asked me to tell you that Vraska sends her regards."

          "Insolent—"

          Mazirek raised one claw to obliterate the fool, then paused as something moved in the dark. More figures in Rakdos red and black emerged into the light of the torch, all around them, broad-shouldered and well-armed. None of them looked particularly interested in comedy.

          "Storrev!" the kraul screeched. "You knew."

          "I did," the lich said. "Though, as I said, I have never met Brutus before."

          "You will defend me," he said. "You and your Erstwhile. Defend me to the death!"

          Storrev inclined her head. "I knew you would order that, as well."

          The Rakdos thugs closed in.

          "You will be destroyed!" Mazirek shouted.

          "Sacrifices are necessary," Storrev said. "The rest of us will be free."

          Mazirek turned away from her with a snarl, death magic leaping from his claws. There were a few moments of frantic violence, then silence, broken only by ugly chuckle of Brutus's laughter.

 

---

          It was autumn in Ravnica, and so it rained. The torrent from the sky splashed over gutters full of shattered glass and broken bricks, and drummed on the ruins of shops and houses. It soaked the clothes of corpses, cut down in the streets or half-buried in their broken homes. It cleaned the smoke out of the air, and banished the smell of burning metal. In places, where the sewer lines had been broken, it gathered into vast, stagnant pools.
         
          The rain soaked Tezzeret to the bone, weighing down his dreadlocks and soaking his robe. It beaded and ran down the surface of his metal arm, dripping from his clawed fingers. He shook his head, spraying water, as he turned the corner from a street that was half rubble and came into the presence of his master.
         
          Nicol Bolas sat in the wreckage of a row of houses, a pile of smashed bricks and shattered rafters for his throne. He looked, to Tezzeret's surprise, very much the worse for wear. Scorch marks and broken scales were all over his enormous body, and one huge burn on his chest was crisscrossed with deep cuts that wept black blood. None of it seemed to bother the dragon unduly, though, and as Tezzeret watched the wounds began to close.
         
          In one hand he held a huge white skull, which could only have belonged to another dragon nearly as large as Bolas himself. Scoured clean of flesh, it rested in the palm of Bolas's enormous hand, and Bolas regarded it with a mixture of pride and something like sadness.
         
          This world doesn't have a chance. Tezzeret permitted himself a private grin. It never did.
         
          He crossed the street and knelt in front of the dragon. Bolas contemplated the skull for a moment longer, then set it carefully aside and looked down at Tezzeret.
         
          "My faithful servant." Bolas's urbane tone, in person, was undercut by the deep bass of the dragon's rumble. "You have news?"
         
          "Yes, master." Tezzeret got to his feet. "Matters are proceeding well, and we have encountered no significant resistance so far."
         
          "You have not." Bolas glanced at the skull. "No matter. What else?"
         
          "Ral Zarek has reached the Beacon Tower," Tezzeret said, cautiously. "Vraska and your . . . ah, spirit confronted him, but they were successful. The spirit was destroyed, and Vraska's fate is uncertain."
         
          "And the beacon?"
         
          Bolas had to know. Tezzeret had known, the moment it had happened. The beacon burned in his mind, a bright flame visible to any Planeswalker, an invitation to Ravnica. He cleared his throat.
         
          "He has activated it, master."
         
          "I see." A slow smile spread across the dragon's enormous face. "Then everything is going according to plan."

The End

The Gathering Storm - Chapter Nineteen (Official Magic Story)

The Gathering Storm - by Django Wexler
Chapter Nineteen

          The Beacon Tower was on the corner of an otherwise nondescript residential block, close enough to New Prahv that most of the residents were clerks and functionaries who worked in that massive complex. On an ordinary day, Ral might have seen vendors selling street food or newspapers, carriages transporting the wealthier residents, and a sea of pedestrians huddled under umbrellas against the autumn rains. The tower itself had been used by a nearby scriptorium as extra storage space until Ral's team had displaced their boxes of paper and replaced them with crystals and mizzium wire.
         
          Today, of course, was anything but normal. By the time Ral reached the rendezvous, a block away from the tower, the battle between dragons was in full swing. Whatever attack Niv-Mizzet had unleashed against Bolas—a light so bright it had hurt the eyes, even through closed eyelids—had raised an enormous cloud of dust and debris, obscuring the horizon in that direction. The flashes and crackles of magic indicated the conflict was ongoing.
         
          In the rest of the district, everyone seemed to have gone a little mad. Most ordinary citizens had bolted for their cellars, ignorant of the true importance of what was happening. Others had taken to the streets in mobs, demanding answer from the guilds or clashing with whoever they thought was the enemy. There were brawls and looting, all the more so because the Azorius forces who would normally be deployed against such chaos seemed to have completely vanished.
         
          Boros Legion troops were deployed to push back against the panic, but they were spread thin, and the Gruul were making a bad situation worse. Bands of rampaging anarchs had boiled out of the rubble belts, attacking the Boros posts or slipping past to wreak havoc in the city. The rest of the guilds had tightened their defenses in response, leaving the city a collection of armed camps, while everyone watched the dragons slug it out and tried to imagine what might come of it.
         
          What would they think if they knew it was just a distraction? Mighty Niv-Mizzet, hurling himself against the invader Nicol Bolas, all to buy time for Ral to climb a few stories and press a few keys on an incomprehensibly complex machine. I wouldn't believe it either.
         
          But Dovin Baan clearly understood, or at least had received detailed instructions. Ral, standing in an alley between a cake shop and a haberdasher, peered around the corner and grimaced. The Azorius troops that were missing from the rest of the Tenth District were present in force here. Squads of arresters manned makeshift barricades all through the streets near the tower, hundreds of them, backed up by hussars on horseback and a swarm of thopters hovering overhead.
         
          This, Ral thought, is not going to be easy.
         
          On the horizon, there was a flash of light, followed a few seconds later by a dull boom fading to a roll of thunder. Ral glanced up at the clouds overhead, but though dark and heavy they showed no inclination to add any natural pyrotechnics to the draconic maelstrom. He looked over his shoulder, found the alley still empty, and sourly went back to surveying the defenses.
         
          "Hey," Kaya said, behind him.
         
          Ral restrained himself with an effort. "Sneaking up on people is bad manners at the best of times. Right now it's a good way to get yourself electrocuted."
         
          "Sorry," she said. "Force of habit. I got your note."
         
          "That's something, anyway." Ral straightened and turned. Kaya was dressed in the practical fighting outfit he'd first encountered her in, without any Orzhov regalia, and her plain daggers hung at her sides. "Take a look at tell me what you think."
         
          She leaned out into the street briefly, and gave a low whistle. "That's a lot of swords. What's in that tower, anyway?"
         
          "Maybe our last chance." Ral glanced at the seething, flashing mass of smoke and cloud that was the ongoing battle. "I'm open to suggestions."
         
          "Is it something we can steal?" Kaya said. "I could get into the tower through the buildings behind it, I think."
         
          "Unfortunately, I have to get in there myself," Ral said. "And I'm sure there are guards in there, too."
         
          "Then we have a problem," Kaya said.
         
          "Any chance of reinforcements from Orzhov?"
         
          "I brought everything I could pry loose at short notice," Kaya said. She pointed upward, and Ral craned his neck. The rooftops over the alley were thick with ugly, misshapen stone faces. Gargoyles. "They're quiet, and they obey orders. Anything else means having a debate with the hierophants, which I didn't think we had time for. Tomik said he would do his best."
         
          Ral felt a pang, which he suppressed ruthlessly. Time for that later. "If they could cause enough confusion," he said, "we might be able to make it to the front doors, but—"
         
          "My mates!"
         
          A set of rapidly-approaching footsteps resolved in Hekara, moving at speed. Then Ral found himself being hugged, which was not an experience he was particularly interested in. He put one hand on Hekara's forehead to pry her away, and she happily transferred herself to Kaya, who bore the embrace with better humor.
         
          "I see you got my note too," Ral said.
         
          "Yup!" Hekara let go of Kaya and turned back to him, beaming. "I was down there waiting on His Flamingosity when it turned up, and he told me to go help you out. So here I am!"
         
          Hekara had been curiously absent the last few days, given her usual reluctance to leave Ral's side. Ral had refused to worry about her. Worry more about whoever she happens to. Still, he had to admit it was a relief to have her back under his eye.
         
          "I heard we've got some smashing to do," Hekara said. "All those iron-brains over there, right?"
         
          "More or less," Ral said. "We need to get to the tower. Do you have any ideas?"
         
          "I have lots of ideas!" Hekara said. "Did I tell you the one about the funny duck who wears pants?"
         
          "Relevant ideas," Ral amended, exchanging a glance with Kaya, who looked more amused than he was.
         
          "Maaaaybe," Hekara said. "A relevant is one of those big gray things with the ears like a giant loxodon, right?"
         
          "Hekara," Kaya said gently, as Ral ground his teeth. "How do we get past the guards?"
         
          "Oh!" she said. "That. Just wait a minute." She cupped a hand to her ear, listening, and in the stillness Ral heard a few discordant notes. "I brought some friends."

 

---

 

          At first it was just a sort of wheezing, gasping noise, as though someone were playing the accordion.

          As it grew, it became clear that someone was playing the accordion, and that they weren't very good at it. Then, as the level of sound grew louder, the listener perceived that not only was the accordion player not particularly skilled, but the instrument itself seemed to be mortally wounded discharging great blats of sound at semi-random intervals. It was quickly joined by a chorus of brass trumpets, no two in tune, and a phalanx of drummers, none of whom had shared their ideas concern what the beat should be.

          It was, in short, a cacophony, but a very deliberate one, a wall of discordant noise that somehow combined to produce a weird, lurching melody. It was captivating in its awfulness, swelling and falling, nearly coming together and then collapsing back into its component parts.

          A tiny man came around the corner, barely four feet high, dressed in an outlandish gold suit and juggling for all he was worth. A whirling galaxy of balls filled there air above him, interspersed with knives, axes, and rolling pins, and his hands were a blur as he expertly caught these objects and flung them back into the air on long, looping trajectories that were somehow in time with the timeless music playing behind him. The juggler was followed by a pair of tumbling girls in huge metal hoops, which wobbled down the street like spinning coins, their spangled occupants upside-down half the time. Behind them came a rank of drummers, six abreast, with three more standing on their shoulders.

          Behind that came a platform nearly as wide as the street and as long as several carriages. It was carried by a row of large, burly creatures on each side, ogres, minotaurs, and any other species tall and broad enough, all decorated in glittering red and black and adorned with gold and silver ornaments. Atop the platform, a pair of goblins capered with the foreshadowed accordion, which it turned out was not so much damaged as heavily and inexpertly modified with a huge tube and extra set of bellows. Trumpet players in motley strolled in a circle around the moving stage, periodically turning to reverse direction with much comedic stumbling and whacking one another with their ungainly instruments. More jugglers dodged through the fray, tossing unlikely things to one another and slinging insults at the trumpeters as they nearly tripped them up.

          More performers flanked the stage, jumping and tumbling, whirling long silk scarves, and blowing long gouts of fire into the air. Another rank of drummers brought up the rear, all of them larger creatures carrying deeper bass drums, providing a pounding underbeat. The heavy footfalls of the stage bearers merged with the deep booms to sound like an army on the march.

          "What," Ral said, raising his voice to be heard, "is that supposed to be, exactly?"

          "Master Panjandrum's Extraordinary Carnival of Delights!" Hekara said, bouncing excitedly. "His Rakkness told them to come give us a hand. Aren't they great?"

          "They're certainly loud," Ral said, as the stage went by.

          "Sorry," Kaya said, watching a provocatively costumed woman bend in an unlikely direction and blow kisses made of colored smoke. "I don't think I'm keeping up. These are our reinforcements? A circus?"

          "With Rakdos, a circus is never just a circus," Ral said. "Come on, let's stay close. Can your gargoyles deal with the thopters?"

          Kaya nodded and shouted something up to the rooftops. A moment later, the flock of gargoyles took flight, circling the tower.

          "They'll wait for us to start," Kaya said, jogging to keep up with Ral. "Whatever it is we're doing."

          "Just watch," Ral said. "And get ready to run."

          Hekara bounced along beside him, clapping her hands completely out of time with the music.

          The Azorius soldiers, arrayed behind their barricades, could scarcely have missed the approach of the moving stage and its phalanx of performers. Apparently, though, they weren't clear in their own mind what to do about it, because there was a great deal of running about and consultation before an officer hurried down the street, waving his arms.

          "Gentlemen!" he shouted. "This area is under the direct control of the Senate, in accordance with Resolution 3842, concerning emergencies and appropriate conduct. Furthermore, your . . . entertainment ought to have been registered in advance with the Bureau of Street Use, and all relevant officials would have been notified. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to disperse."

          "Oh, dear."

          A man Ral hadn't noticed before unfolded himself from the front of the stage. "Unfolded" was exactly the right word—Ral had never seen a human so elongated. He was head and shoulders taller than Ral himself, but skeletally thin, with limbs that looked like dry sticks. A formal suit hung off him as though it were on a washing line, looking ridiculous, and a too-small hat sat absurdly on his bulging skull. His face was painted dead white, with lips and eyes outlined in brilliant crimson.

          "That's Master Panjandrum," Hekara confided.

          Master Panjandrum stepped off the edge of the stage, foot coming down smoothly on the back of a tumbler who contorted herself to make a stool. Even at ground level, Panjandrum towered over the Azorius officer. Beside him, the little juggler was still in full swing, miscellaneous objects whirling above him in an endless loop.

          "It's really too bad," the circus master said. "The lads will be so disappointed. What do you think, lads?" He raised his voice. "They say we have to go home!"

          The music came to an abrupt, discordant halt. The drummers stopped, the trumpeters froze mid-note, and the accordion went quiet after one last discordant blat. There was a moment of silence, and then a hundred voices shouted in chorus.

          "The show must go on!"

          "Well," Panjandrum said, as the music started up again. "There you have it."

          "W—what?" The arrester narrowed his eyes. "Now see here—"

          Then he stopped, because one of the objects from the juggler's whirling collection—a metal ball about the size of a fist—had gotten away from him and fallen from a considerable height to land square on the officer's head. The man toppled bonelessly to the cobbles.

          "Oops," Panjandrum said. His painted smile drew up into a huge grin.

          Hekara, still bouncing, elbowed Ral in the ribs. "This is where it gets good."

          "Captain!" someone shouted, from back in the Azorius ranks. A uniformed woman rose from cover, stepping forward, only to fall back with a butcher knife embedded in her eye. The little jester became a blur, objects spinning out of his hands into the ranks of Azorius troops. Knives, plates whose rims turned out to be sharp as razors, beanbags that burst into swarms of tiny silver darts, and even more unlikely weapons rained down.

          As one, the front rank of drummers smashed their instruments over their knees, revealing long, bladed whips stored inside. Those standing on the shoulders of the others jumped down, their new weapons swinging in wide, deadly arcs. Behind them, the trumpeters raised their instruments to their shoulders and pulled hidden triggers, causing them to spit steel-headed crossbow bolts.

          "Fire!" someone shouted, at the base of the tower. "Return fire!"

          Crossbows zinged, sending a rain of quarrels into the travelling circus and sending performers crashing to the cobblestones. One man, struck in the midst of spitting fire, exploded in a spectacular ball of flame. A bolt hit one of the tumbling women as she hurtled through the air, and she spun with its momentum, executing a perfect landing with arms outstretched before taking a long bow and then falling over dead.

          "Everyone's a critic," Master Panjandrum muttered, ducking amidst the hail of fire. "Show 'em what we do to critics, lads!"

          The Rakdos performers gave a roar and surged forward, letting the portable stage fall to the ground. Azorius arresters rose from cover to meet them, swords drawn, and battle was joined.

          Kaya looked on in disbelief, then turned to Hekara. "Are all your circuses like this?"

          "Not all," Hekara said, pondering. "Sometimes they have tigers!"

          "Remind me to skip that one," Kaya said, drawing her daggers. Overhead, gargoyles swooped and dove, tangling with the hovering thopters. "Shall we?"

 

---

 

          The square was chaos. Tumbling acrobats with bladed fingers slashed and spun, jugglers hurled their weapons, and a squad of ogres in clown makeup laid into the Azorius troopers in a way that suggested they were not at all amused. A group of hussars charged, sabers slashing. One of them cut a juggler's head clean off, only for the decapitated performer to pop back up a moment later and reveal himself to be two goblins in a long overcoat.

          Ral, Kaya, and Hekara worked their way through the press, heading for the front door of the tower. For the most part, the Azorius troops ignored them in favor of more obvious threats. Hekara capered delightedly, conjuring her long, thin blades out of nothing and hurling them in every direction, finding eyes, throats, and gaps in armor. Kaya took the lead, daggers out, and when an arrester came at her she simply let him pass through in a burst of purple light, then planted a knife in his back while he tried to work out what happened.

          Bits of thopter were raining down, gears and smashed crystals dropping steadily around them. The flying machines fought back, with spinning drills and electric sparks, and the occasional broken gargoyle fell as well, breaking apart and coming down as a rain of gravel. Ral looked up, not at the aerial melee, but at the flashes and glows in the clouds farther off, trying to gauge how that much larger fight was going. It was impossible to see anything from here, other than that it was still in progress. We're not out of time yet.

          In front of the tower door, a rank of disciplined arresters with heavy shields stood in front of a robed mage, who shouted commands that mostly went unheard. They caught sight of Ral and the others, and raised their shields in time to deflect a rain of knives from Hekara.

          "Out of the way," Ral snarled, raising his hands. Lightning crackled and spat from his fingers.

          "This tower is off limits," the mage shouted, raising his hands. White light rose around him in neat concentric circles. "You are forbidden to cross the threshold, by order of the Senate!"

          Glyphs glowed and spun, giving the lawmage's words the force of magic. Ral sent a bolt of lightning at him, but it broke against the ward. He set his jaw.

          "We haven't got time for this," he said. "Hekara, can one of your friend—"

          "I'll handle it," Kaya said. "Hold their attention."

          "Right!" Hekara said. She capered forward, summoning more blades. Kaya took a deep breath, then sank into the earth with a purple flash.

          Ral shrugged, and sent another bolt at the lawmage. The man twisted his hands, reinforcing his ward. Another bolt, and another, achieved just as little, and Ral saw the mage's confidence growing. He gestured his soldiers forward.

          Ral was the only one who saw Kaya step out of the ground, gasping for breath. Before the mage knew she was there, she was reaching around him, bringing her dagger across his throat. He fell in a tide of blood, and the spell shivered and vanished. Ral raised his hands and felt power flowing from his accumulator, gathering for a moment in his gauntlets before leaping out to play across the entire rank of Azorius soldiers. They collapsed like dominoes, and Ral and Hekara hopped lightly over the line of armored bodies.

          The door rattled when Ral tried it, but didn't move. He frowned, and glanced over his shoulder. The square was still full of Rakdos performers locked in combat with Azorius troops, but that wouldn't last forever—reinforcements were almost certainly on the way.

          "Stand back," he said, raising his hands.

          "Hang on a minute," Kaya said. She stepped up to the door, stuck her arm straight through it, and fumbled around for a moment. A heavy thump indicated she'd dislodged the bar from the other side, and she pulled it open. "Much easier."

          "That's handy!" Hekara said. "Hey, what would happen if you put your head through, right, and then someone tried to open the door, and—"

          "I try not to think about it." Kaya stepped into the dark space beyond. "This place looks empty."

          "The beacon is at the top," Ral said.

          He gestured Hekara inside, and closed and barred the door behind them. The tower was, in fact, largely empty, with a single broad staircase winding around its outer rim. It had once possessed more internal floors—the stone supports for the wooden floorboards were still there—but the Izzet engineers had ripped them out to make it easier to lift components up to the top with cranes. Looking straight up, Ral could see the underside of a complicated mass of machinery, interlocking gears, great hanging loops of mizzium cable, and crackling crystal accumulators.

          "I mean, I would have thought they'd have guards in here too," Kaya said. "If it's so important."

          "They may be waiting for us at the top as well," Ral said. "Be careful."

          "We gotta walk? Didn't you say there was one of those lifter things?" Hekara said.

          "It was more of a catapult, if I recall correctly," Ral said. "I think they took it back to Nivix when they finished the work."

          "Awww," Hekara said. "That sounds awesome."

          They started up the stairs, Kaya taking the lead with daggers drawn. Halfway up the first turn, Ral held up a hand, staring at the curving staircase ahead of them.

          "Something moved," he said, concentrating. "Watch closely."

          A ball of fizzing electricity appeared above his hand, and Ral blew on it gently. It drifted forward, expanding into a field of power, not strong enough to do anything more that raise the hairs on someone's skin. But it did outline everything in front of them with a brief crackling aura—the walls, the stairs, a loop of hanging coil—

          —and a dozen strange, spindly, six-legged things.

          Kaya tensed as the creatures stood up. They weren't invisible, exactly, just expertly camouflaged, their flat metal surfaces shifting color and hue to blend in with the stone behind them. They had long, asymmetrical bodies, with lean, stilt-like legs that twisted and hooked weirdly.

          "Here are your guards," Ral said.

          "What are they?" Hekara said.

          "Constructs," Ral muttered.

          Hekara cocked her head. "I thought those were all big and covered in gears. These are sort of cute."

          "These are Tezzeret's creations," Ral said.

          "Whatever they are," Kaya said, "we have to get past them, don't we?" She dropped into a crouch. "Let's get on with it."

          The leading construct came forward, legs clicking on the stone. Kaya ran at it, daggers extended, and it raised a limb to spear her on the needle-like point. By the time the blow came, though, she was gone, twisting sideways and phasing through one of the thing's other limbs to attack the next machine in line. Her daggers plunged into its side, points slipping through its steel skin with a flare of purple light to wreak havoc on its interior workings.

          Hekara put on the mad grin she reserved for hurting people or breaking things and conjured a brace of daggers from the air. The first pair simply bounced off the construct's tough outer covering, so the razorwitch created another pair, sharp and narrow as ice picks, and darted forward. She ducked under the lead construct, stabbing upward and driving her weapons into its belly.

          Ral followed her example. A lightning bolt would just slide over the things' metal skins, so he concentrated his energy in his gauntlets, holding a ball of plasma above his palm until it glowed white-hot. When a construct lurched toward him, he dodged its slash and slammed the concentrated energy against it. What passed for its head burst apart in a shower of superheated metal, and the thing stumbled drunkenly sideways off the stair, hitting the floor of the tower far below and bursting into a mass of twisted metal.

          Up ahead, Kaya was dismantling another machine with her daggers, and Hekara was keeping one occupied by punching it full of tiny holes. When her picks broke in her hands, she simply summoned new ones and kept at it, staying away from the construct's counter-strokes with contemptuous ease. Ral came in from behind and fried the thing with a touch, leaping over its collapsing body to intercept another before it could skewer Hekara from behind. Another construct fell off the stairs, four of its six legs detached already. In a few more moments of frantic action, the way was clear.

          "Nothing like a good fight with your mates, yeah?" Hekara looked at her two companions with a broad grin.

          "It can certainly be invigorating," Kaya allowed, with a small smile.

          "That can't be the last of them," Ral said. He looked up and shook his head. "Something's waiting for us up there."

          "Then we'll take 'em out, too!" Hekara said. "Come on."

 

---

 
          The last curve of the stairs was within the machinery of the beacon, so they were flanked by banks of coils and accumulators, control panels and hanging loops of wire. None of it looked damaged—Ral knew the core of the beacon was well protected, but he still worried Bolas's forces might have attempted to disable it. Apparently not. Their attention must be elsewhere.
           
          Where the stone tower ended, the stairs emerged onto a flat deck that formed the base of a broad copper dome. The machinery of the beacon was concentrated in the center of the room, arrayed around a single vast resonating crystal. That was the heart of the thing, the technology Ral had salvaged from Project Lightning Bug, vastly scaled up and inverted. When the proper current was applied, it would become a blazing torch, shining forth into the Multiverse. At least in theory, every Planeswalker would be able to see it, and find their way to Ravnica.
           
          In front of the core was a keyboard, like a piano's, complete with ivory keys. The security lockout. That was the final safeguard. If Ral keyed in the sequence he'd chosen, what felt like a hundred years ago, then the beacon would activate. And that activation was designed to be irrevocable—it would burn until its fuel ran out. Almost there.
           
          Unfortunately, the rest of the room wasn't empty. Steel pillars stood at regular intervals, supporting a complicated mesh of wires, conduits, and elaborate gear-trains. Some of the equipment passed through grates in the floor to connect with things down below; other wires reached for the walls, exiting through other grates that gave a dim view of the darkened sky outside.
           
          In the midst of this jungle, between them and the security keyboard, two women stood side by side. Lavinia had traded her hooded cloak for a bright set of blue and gold Azorius armor, and stood with one hand on her sword. Beside her, Vraska was all in black, her tendrils already writhing. The gorgon looked over the three of them with a toothy, contemptuous smile.
           
          "Well," she said, "it took you long enough."