Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

Nissa turned and looked blankly at him. We wait until it falls again and rises, and then we run through.

The goblins looked at each other.

Nissa waited, but not even Sorin had anything to say. So they waited all the rest of the day. Night fell, and they kept waiting. They spent the night huddled against rocks waiting for the mountaintop to fall. As the sun rose, Nissa was already at the cut, peering in.

The dry tack was gone, and all the goblins were accounted for. She suddenly threw down the dry twig she was chewing and stood.

Where are you going? Anowon said.

Nissa had been watching a small flock of birds bob from rock to rock. She ignored Anowon s question and approached the rock the birds had massed on. At her approach the flock flew off and to another rock, where they complained noisily. Nissa peered carefully at the base of the large boulder. Then she dropped down onto her knees and put her face within a foot of the seam where the sandy soil met the boulder.

Sorin looked over casually and raised one eyebrow as Nissa sniffed tentatively at the dry soil. Unsatisfied, she moved an arm s length to the right and sniffed the ground again. She moved six more times before she found what she was looking for: a small hole in the dirt. A small patch of bright green lichen grew in a spiral pattern above the tiny hole, Sorin noticed. Even Smara watched Nissa quietly.

Then the elf began digging. She dug with her hand, carefully piling the sandy dust next to the rock as she worked. After a good time at it, Nissa began to hum. The hole deepened. It was not morning anymore when Nissa began to heave. She pulled three times before looking over at Sorin and Anowon. They approached the hole.

It s soft, so you have to grip hard, Nissa said.

What little gift have you found here in the loam? Sorin said, glancing over at Smara as he bent and took a handful of what felt like a wine skin filled with jelly. It had not rained in weeks, yet the soil was damp at the bottom of the hole.

Smara cocked her head at Sorin. She gave no indication she had understood his taunt.

Now pull, Nissa said.

It took six heaves before it came free. A large, bright red blob of material popped out of the hole.

Sorin jumped back despite himself. Anowon bent for a closer look.

A grit slug, Nissa said. She collected dead limbs from the low and gnarled evergreen shrubs clinging to the cracks between the rocks, and built a small fire.

What will you do with that? Sorin said of the fire.

Cook the slug, Nissa said.

With that?

Just so.

Nissa lit the fire with a flint and steel and constructed a small shelf of rocks around the fire.

That fire will never heat that thing, Sorin said.

I only have to boil one area, and the slug will cook in its own skin, Nissa said.

It took hours to cook the thing, nonetheless. And the whole time the mountain did not fall.

When Nissa poked the slug and pronounced it cooked, Smara and the goblins flocked around. Even Anowon seemed interested and drew near.

I thought you only ate blood, Nissa said to the vampire.

Anowon shrugged. I prefer blood, he said.

Nissa used the eating knife stowed up her right sleeve to cut jiggling wedges out of the slug. The color was a dull red. The goblins threw their pieces down their gullets and put rough hands out for more.

It tastes like raw human fat, Anowon said.

Sorin scoffed from where he stood at the periphery.

Nissa made a sour face hearing Anowon s words. She cut the goblins more slug, and then ate three wedges of her own as fast as she could, with the viscous juices running down her knuckles and dripping off her forearms.

Smara held her piece up to the sun to watch the light diffuse through it before eating.

How did you know the slug was there? Anowon asked, licking the juice off his thin fingers.

The birds were waiting for its eye to poke through that hole they told me, Nissa said.

I did not see anything like an eye pop out of that hole, Sorin said.

It would not have, Nissa said.

Why?

Because the slug was dead, Nissa said. Had been for days.

Sorin shook his head and swallowed hard. Anowon looked away from the half-eaten slug.

Nobody except the goblins ate any more of the slug. Then they sat against the rocks and watched the flies ply the gelatinous corpse, waiting for the mountain to hurtle down.

I think we should run through now, Nissa said.

Anowon stirred in his torn cloak.

If we wait here any longer Nissa said. She did not need to finish. Even in her cold sleep she could feel the brood closing in on them from behind, and the others felt it too, she knew.

Sorin groaned and sat up. He blinked at the gap. Then he patted the pommel of his great sword. But I love the shape it is in right now, he said. It would not have the same charm if flattened.

Walk around if you have fear in your heart, Nissa said.

Fear in my heart, Sorin repeated. I like that. He stood and yawned. Then he walked over to the gap, ducked calmly, and disappeared. Anowon hopped up and followed, and so did Nissa.

Nobody said a word while they walked under the mountain. Even Smara, who was last through, was absolutely quiet. Nissa put her palms on the damp rock above her head as she walked. Rough hewn, but split with the grain. No tool had done the work on the mountain. But what had, then?

Their foot falls echoed on the wet stone. The echoes that returned to their ears were affected by a strange chirping, so for a moment Nissa thought the brood must have entered the cleft from another part of the mountain. The more she listened, the more she detected the scurry of mice in the odd echo. But it was hard to tell.

Soon the line of sunlight opposite became wider, and Nissa could see rock through the gap and something else. She stopped and squinted. Sorin had seen it too. He was in the process of very slowly drawing his great sword from its sheath.

They could only see the bottom half of it, but what they saw was large easily as large as a forest troll, but not quite as tall as the trench giants. It had thick arms, hands, and torso, but its legs were stunted and tiny. Its tail was long and thick like that of a rat. It was sitting with its body against the rock and its tiny legs sticking straight out. Its overall appearance was almost comical. But judging by the keen way Sorin had his sword at the ready, Nissa guessed he was not in the joking mood.

They neared the gap and could see the whole creature its massive shoulders and large-jawed, reptilian head and its closed eyes. Nissa watched as its chest rose and fell rhythmically.

Asleep, Nissa whispered. She stepped out of the gap on tiptoe. The sun had grown bright and seemed to be shining directly into her eyes. Still, she could see clearly enough the rusted, flattened remnants of armor and splintered bone strewn around the creature, and she could guess why the thing waited at the edge of the cleft. The meat must already be well tenderized by the time he pulls it out.

Nissa motioned to the others and crept around the creature and through a cut in the rock. The huge thing smelled like rotting death lying in the sun the way it was, snoring softly. Soon Nissa saw why it stunk so badly she passed the pile of cast off parts. Bright red flies buzzed off the rotting pile as the intruders passed.

But then one of the creature s eyes popped open.

Anowon noticed the open eye too late. The thing was up on its knuckles in a moment. The speed and quickness with which it swept its stunted legs forward and landed a kick on Anowon s chest shocked Nissa, and then he was tumbling through the dust.

Sorin drew his great sword with its blade as black as night.

Anowon was up on his feet the moment after he stopped rolling. His teeth were bared, and his long-nailed hands were up and ready for attack. Small trails of blood were falling from around Anowon s red eyes. A deep growl that Nissa did not like at all came from the vampire s throat. Then he charged at the creature.

Nissa drew her stem sword and swung, hoping to catch the creature before it reached Anowon, but it caterwauled forward and swung in on its knuckles for another kick. Just then Sorin s blade slashed through the creature s back.

As soon as the blade bit into its flesh, the creature s body began to shrivel. In two breaths it was no more than a dry shell. In three breaths it fell to a large pile of gray dust. Soon the wind was blowing it away.

Nissa exhaled and leaned against a rock.

I thank you, Anowon said.

Yes, you do, Sorin said, sheathing his blade.

And the Parasite Blade.

Anowon felt for his metal cylinders before smoothing his hair.

It is called that? Nissa asked, making a face as though she d bitten into an unripe nectarpith fruit.

Quite, Sorin said, patting the weapon s pommel. It draws the mana from whatever it cuts. It can drain creatures to their doom, as you saw.

Where was such a thing created?

You would like to know.

Nissa looked away. No, I really would not like to know, she said. It smacks of vampires.

Rather, Sorin said. Then he said no more.

They left the pile of dust and continued walking. Nissa thought they were still on the trail, but it was impossible to tell for sure. There were no tracks to follow, and the rocky gravel they walked on looked pristine and untouched.

Nissa took out the map and sat down on a rock. Even with the map, she could not be absolutely sure they were in the right place. Clearly the trail was descending, as the map said it would.

What was that thing? Sorin said.

Anowon said nothing, but stared at Smara and the goblins. The kor was in an advanced state of excitement, blathering more than usual so that two of her goblins were stroking her hair and singing to her. Nissa could tell Anowon was listening to the kor.

I think it was a hurda, Nissa said, without looking up from the map. They re not evil creatures, but they do throw tantrums that can be dangerous. I would have expected him on the plains more than here. They are shameless scavengers, so I guess it makes sense, really.

What does?

To see a hurda scavenging a meal where best it can, Nissa said, rolling the map up and sliding it carefully back into the leather tube. It is the natural way of things.

Sorin shook his head. Elves.

Nissa stood. We should be coming out of the mountains soon enough. If we push we might be able to make the Fields of Agadeem by nightfall.

Smara talked, and Anowon took out a piece of parchment and jotted something down with a bit of charcoal.

They descended into the foothills by late afternoon. The sun was bright, and the air was cool. The wind that had plagued them on the ascent was blocked by the mountain itself, and the path was clear and easy going. Yet Nissa worried. Catastrophe was surely waiting in the Fields of Agadeem. There was no reason to think such a thing; she just felt it to be true.

Anowon stopped and put his arm up in a fist. Nissa halted. The vampire had been walking ahead and to the left. He brought his finger to his nose, tapped it, and made an exaggerated motion of sniffing. Nissa understood and took a deep breath herself. There was a sweet smoke in the air. She sniffed again and pointed left. They followed the scent down a side canyon until they spied a small force of kor with a fire burning on the ground next to them.

As they watched, a kor dressed in a robe of beads threw a bough on the fire. It burst into flames, sending thick blue smoke into the air. His barbells were so long that he had tucked them into his belt. The other kor stood, gaunt, off to the side as the kor in robes went to a bundle wrapped in leathers and hanging from a rope anchored in the canyon wall. He began to spin the bundle, wafting handfuls of the smoke against the spinning bundle.

Anowon leaned into Nissa and whispered. There is a body inside. Next they will cut it.

The vampire s mouth was too close to her skin for Nissa s comfort, and she took a step back.

They hack it up, Anowon said. For the eeka birds to eat. The spirit flies away with the birds.

Nissa looked at the bundle spinning in the smoke, then at Smara. The kor had become very quiet. As she watched the ceremony she pushed her crystal against her lips. In that instant Nissa knew she could not stay and watch the kor funeral. She turned and walked back up the canyon. Sorin was smiling when Nissa passed him. Anowon followed Nissa. She stopped and turned.

That is horrible, she said. To dismember the dead.

Is it? the vampire said.

Is there anything else I should know about the kor?

Nothing you do not already. They give away one of their children to the wilderness, as you know.

They what? Sorin said. He bent close to hear what they were saying.

The elf knows what I saw is true, Anowon said.

Nissa said nothing.

Truly? Sorin said.

It s called a world gift, Anowon said.

Most die. Some wander out of the wilderness and are assimilated among other races. But many of those who were assimilated go back to the wilderness.

Nissa found herself staring at Smara squatting in the dusty rock dust watching the burial. She spoke without taking her eyes off Smara.

Are the world gift kor that survive accepted back into the group?

Anowon looked back at the ceremony. You know they are not.

Nissa felt her breath catch in her throat. The kor priest kept the bundle spinning near the smoking fire. A tear edged down Smara s filthy face.

Do they want to come back more than anything? Nissa asked. She stared off at nothing as she spoke. Do they ever try and see if their elders will allow them to return home and be part of the tribe again. Do they apologize?

Anowon frowned at her tone of voice. Are you ill? Anowon said. To Nissa, his tone conveyed anything but concern.

I am not ill, Nissa said, searching his smooth face for any expression that might explain the comment. Finding none, she straightened and put her chin up. I just happen to know something about exile.

I am sure you do, replied Anowon.

Let us be away. Ghet Sorin said. His voice carried through the canyon, echoing off the walls so the kor priest looked up from his spinning. Sorin stood and began walking.

Anowon turned and followed.

Nissa caught his arm. Why do you follow him thus? she asked. What power does he have over you?

Anowon opened his mouth, then closed it. He was clearly about to tell her something. Finally, he shook his head and turned away to follow Sorin.

Nissa followed them both, and the sounds of the funeral and Smara s muttering trailed her as they all walked away. Soon she felt hot tears on her face and wiped them away hard with the back of her glove. She had been a young warrior. What did a young elf know about right and wrong? About proper and taboo? How was she to have known that the ability she possessed was something to be hidden away? But the truth was she knew, even then. She knew that she was different and she flaunted it. And when her mother and father exposed her to the Deep Council for displaying non-Joraga tendencies, it was exactly what she deserved. And she was better for it.

Are you done with your little weeping? Sorin said. If it pleases you, we will leave now.

I am coming, she said.

They walked into the foothills with no sign of pursuit. And by sundown the red foothills flattened to rolling grassland. Where the sward on the other side of the Piston Mountains had been bare, the plains were absolutely covered with huge diamond shaped stones hedron stones. Most of the stones were the size of a houses, but many were smaller, and some were buried in the ground at various positions and depths. As Nissa watched, six stones pulled together so their tips touched and formed a huge star floating above the grass. She continued to watch as it broke apart and the pieces drifted away.

Most of the hedrons were floating above the ground with tips pointing at the sky and the green grass. On the horizon Nissa could see the dark shadow of the ocean topped by banks of purple clouds.

Zulaport lies on that shore, Nissa said as she pointed. She could smell the salt air on the breeze. She glanced down at the rocky debris she was standing on and guessed that the trail had not been used for many weeks, and that it had last been used by goblins. She could see where the faint digs from their toenails had degraded with the rains and wind.

A hedron stone bobbed slightly as they walked past. Each of the stones was grooved with the strange designs found on all the crumbling edifices on Zendikar, but Nissa had never seen so many in one place.

The Fields of Agadeem, Anowon said. I have never actually seen them.

The brood did not drag you this way? asked Sorin.

He did not even turn at her taunt. No, they did not, he said. He looked out over the fields as they walked. A bird of prey was perched on the tip of the nearest hedron. It watched them with shining eyes as they passed.

A bit further they found the blue striped, dead body of a juvenile sphinx. It floated in a knotted eddy of humid wind formed around a pack of stones. The mana in the gravity well refracted light like it was underwater.

Later, Sorin stopped and put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the low sun. What would that be? Sorin said.

Nissa followed his eyes to a bit of movement on the plains below. She looked closer and saw a half-built structure cut into the turf. The structure was simple, no more than four walls built as high as Nissa s chin. Something was moving around the structure s shell.

What are they doing? Nissa said.

Anowon squinted. They are brood, he said.

And they are building.

They walked closer, being careful to creep from hedron to hedron. But Sorin ignored Nissa s and Anowon s attempts at stealth and walked straight for the strange building site. The wind was blowing into their faces, which was a stroke of good luck perhaps the only one they would get.

Soon they were as close as they dared go without risking detection, and Sorin stopped for a moment, then walked even closer. Nissa would have liked to have remained concealed, but they had no choice but to follow Sorin as he bulled ahead. Smara followed some distance behind.

Nissa felt like cuffing Sorin when she caught up, but one look at his eyes and she lost that feeling. He had drawn his great sword and was looking at the brood in a certain intent, unblinking way that spoke of violence.

The brood were dragging stones, or rather their vampire workers were dragging stones using harnesses bound to their shoulder and elbow horns. Nissa looked at Anowon s elbow horns. The vampire caught her staring and turned away.

There were perhaps thirty brood, including something she had not seen before: juvenile brood. At least that was what she thought they were. They were half the size of the other brood.

We will take them unawares, Sorin said. Elf he pointed off to the right you start there and sweep in. Ghet, you go there and run straight in.

Straight in, Anowon said, without the slightest inflection.

Yes, that s what I said.

And what will we Nissa started.

We will destroy them all, Sorin said.

We will destroy them all? Nissa repeated. But then she thought of Speaker Sutina, the leader of the Tajuru whom the brood had slain. Yes, we will, she said.

I have no weapon, Anowon said.

Sorin looked at him, measuring him up. Use your teeth, Vampire, he said. Then one of Sorin s smug smiles spread across his face. Are you not angry at that lot? Look at your brethren toiling there. Sorin s eyes stayed on Anowon. See here, they are vulnerable to biting and tearing attacks. Most of them are unarmored, and their flesh is soft. They bleed easily. They will not expect us. They are building whatever they are building. We can take them in the flank.

Anowon s mouth twisted into a growl. Nissa thought it was more for Sorin than the brood.

But Sorin misinterpreted the look. That is more of what I had in mind, he said.

Nissa moved off to the north to squat behind a hedron stone, awaiting Sorin s nod.

As they watched, a brood with tentacles for legs moved to the rock Nissa was hiding behind, and leaned its bony head against the hedron stone. It stayed that way, making sucking sounds. The sweat cooled on Nissa s forehead. What was it sucking off the rock?

Nissa was ready when Sorin nodded. She twisted her staff and slid the stem blade out. With a flick it went limp, and she used it as a whip, snapping it around the rock and neatly severing the brood s head from its shoulders.

Sorin began to run toward the half-built structure. After a moment, Nissa followed, and so did Anowon. The first brood had their backs turned, helping the vampires push a huge block along runners of logs. Sorin and Nissa cut the brood down, and they slumped over the block they had been moving.

The rest of the brood fled to the structure they were building. As they charged, Sorin spoke in his rhyming voice. Nissa listened as it rose and fell to its own rhythm. She could see the cone of sound ripple in the air as the energy tunneled into the brood. Within seconds, their flesh began to tumble off the bone. Before her eyes the creatures fell to pieces, their bones freed from the sinews that held them taught.

Nissa could see the toll such an expenditure of power made on Sorin. When he closed his mouth he had to reach out and steady himself on a hedron stone. His white hair was matted with sweat to his forehead, and his skin was so pale she could have seen veins.

But Nissa did not have time to look for veins in Sorin s skin. A group of brood peered out from behind the corner of the half-built structure, and as she watched they spread out in a line and started running at her.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

Many of the brood were of the tentacle-and-bone variety, Nissa noticed, but at least one of them was the large kind with the many blue eyes. Its tentacles were as thick as a man s chest as they churned up the dirt while running at her. The creature s squat front tentacles dug for purchase as lines of muscle rippled. Behind, four more brood with bone heads ran, followed by three of the kind that flew.

Nissa had a matter of moments before the flying ones were on her. She fell and put her forehead and palms on the ground and took a deep breath. In a moment, the vigor of life pulsed up through the dirt and shot up her veins and arteries and into her head.

And she was not the only one. Anowon charged forward and slashed savagely at one of the flying brood with his long-nailed hands. He bit and tore a head-sized chunk out of its tentacle.

Nissa formed an image in her mind. A moment later a shrill cry split the air and a huge, six-legged basilisk was blinking its oily black eyes in the sun. It swung its head and caught one of the flying brood by a tentacle and flipped it into a nearby hedron. The other brood fell on the lizard like a stone. The lizard hit the brood hard on the top of the head and threw it off into the weeds. From the way it hit the ground, Nissa could tell the brood was dead. The basilisk shook its head, tripped, and almost fell. But it did not, and a second later the brood on foot reached it.

One of the winged ones had snuck past her basilisk. Nissa looked up just as the brood threw one of its long tentacle-arms out to catch her around the neck. Nissa caught the tentacle in her hand and gave it a tug, and the brood had to pull wildly to stay aloft. But stay aloft it did. It snapped its other tentacle out, and with a deft movement Nissa sheared it off with her stem. Still the brood did not cry out. Nissa marveled at that. Perhaps it did not have a mouth.

Another of the creature s tentacles came out and struck her on the forehead. Nissa fell back and pulled her feet up over her head and flipped as best she could. She landed face down, and the brood was on her. She rolled to the right, but the brood grasped her neck and pulled her up and threw her. Nissa flew through the air and was able to easily flip and land lightly on her feet.

To her left the basilisk she had summoned was making wide sweeps with its head. The two horns protruding from its forehead were already blood-spattered, and as she watched, the huge brood rammed into the basilisk s haunch. The lizard screamed and turned for a bite, but its fangs snapped on air the brood-bull had backed away.

Nissa eyed her stem where it lay in the grass between her and the flying brood. The stump of the brood s tentacle was dripping blood, she saw, but the creature regarded her as mildly as if she had waved hello to it. She gauged the distance and guessed she could reach the weapon before the brood reached her.

Nissa had always been a fast runner, even for an elf. Joraga prided themselves on sprinting, and she had won most of her tree s weekly races while still only a juvenile. But she had never seen speed like the brood produced. It was past her stem and coming directly for her before she was halfway.

Nissa used her last step to jump up and over the brood. She put her hands before her and snatched her stem before tucking her head, rolling along the turf, and popping up on her feet. The brood was too far away, otherwise she would have snapped it while its back was still turned. Why should she, a Joraga, be concerned with the formality of honor when these plagues were running roughshod over Zendikar?

She started running at the brood again. The creature turned and, seeing her running, attempted to fly, but Nissa snapped its right, split arm off with her stem.

Nissa firmed the stem into a spike, tucked its handle under her armpit, and ran its tip into the middle of the brood. She drove it all the way in until it rested against its chest.

The brood stopped moving as Nissa drew the stem back out. Its tentacles and arm went limp, and its body pitched foreword.

The basilisk had destroyed almost all of the brood. The large brood lay on the ground gasping for air with a horn-puncture through its chest and brown foam at its mouth. She walked past the fray, toward the building where Sorin was wiping the blade of his great sword on a clump of grass. A juvenile broodling lay hacked in two pieces not far away.

Sorin looked up at Nissa s frowning face. Sorin glanced at the dead brood juvenile and smiled.

Would you have rather taken him home? Sorin asked.

She was about to respond. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Perhaps he was right. What was wrong with killing the young of such creatures? Were they not brutes? They wanted Zendikar. They wanted to clear the trees and dig holes and suck on rocks.

Look at this. It was Anowon s voice, and it came from near the structure. Nissa and Sorin followed his voice around a corner. A brood with a crushed skull lay slumped against the half-built wall. Nissa looked at Anowon and then up to see the vampire slaves fleeing through the hedrons to the mountains, with their harness ropes untied and trailing behind them. There was no sign of Smara and her goblins.

Anowon, however, was peering at the rocks used in a finished part of the structure. He had a small sliver of glass which he held before one of his eyes as he looked closely at some carvings.

A thought immediately occurred to her: how had the brood carved that? She looked around. There was no sign of any tools. How had they cut the blocks? Where had they quarried them?

Anowon waved them closer. Look at this, he repeated. The stones he gestured at had strange glyphlike patterns chiseled into them like many of the other structures and hedrons that floated in crumbled glory across Zendikar.

Nissa looked up at Anowon.

Do you see anything different? he asked. He pointed at one of the hedrons floating nearby. Look at that first.

Nissa looked at the floating stele, which was bobbing an arm s width away. Anowon was right. The design on the new structure was similar to what was on the hedron, but not the same. The structure s design was rougher somehow. The lines were neither as symmetrical, nor as clearly graven.

Why would that be? Nissa said.

The vampire gave a knowing curl to his lip. Well, the designs are similar at first, but very different on closer inspection.

Sorin rolled his eyes.

They are very different, Anowon continued. He pointed to the nearby hedron. The big brood pushed that stone this close. It was what it was doing when we attacked.

Why would it push it that close? Nissa asked.

To copy the design, replied Anowon.

Nissa was silent for a moment. I would have thought those designs are a language, or some known part of the brood s life. A story perhaps?

They are language, Anowon said. Power glyphs in ancient Eldrazi. This one says, There is no power but our power. The vampire pointed at a panel of glyphic lettering on the stele, then pointed to a similar marking on the building. But this means nothing. This is not even close in shape.

Sorin sniffed.

Nissa bent for another look at the hedron glyph and then the glyph on the structure. They looked the same to her.

Do you not see? Anowon said, pointing to the hedron. The words on this are copied imperfectly on this, he pointed to the structure. Copied to meaningless gibberish.

Why would they have to copy? Nissa said.

A good question, Sorin said. Sharp as jurworrel thorns you are.

Nissa ignored him and turned to Anowon, who regarded her as he stroked his chin.

They must be unable to write ancient Eldrazi, he said. They are copying something that they have forgotten how to produce. They either have forgotten or they never knew.

But who wrote them, then? Nissa said. And why are the brood copying them?

The brood idolize the authors, obviously, Anowon said.

Gods? Nissa said.

Perhaps.

Sorin smiled. As interesting as this little lesson of archaeosophy is, do you not think we should arrive at Zulaport? I am not feeling my best.

Nissa could hear the distaste in Sorin s voice, and she suddenly realized that she hated him for it. But it was true that Sorin did not look like he had when had they set out from Graypelt. He was noticeably thinner, and papery somehow. After rot-talking during the attack on the brood, he looked positively stricken, like he was possessed by a horrible disease that made his eye sockets deepen and his skin look like dead leaves.

Anowon paid no attention. He was staring at the building. A moment later a strange look crossed over his face. He muttered something to himself and began fumbling in the leather pouch on his belt. Soon he drew out his scraps of parchment and scraped something on one with a piece of charcoal. He stopped and felt for one of the metal cylinders hanging from his belt. He pulled the cylinder up and read the letters on it, holding it very close to his face, turning it slowly as he read.

Sorin watched with a bemused look on his face. I suddenly feel like I am intruding, he said. Do you want to be alone, Ghet?

Anowon looked up and blinked. What do you want? he asked.

Are you ready to visit beautiful Zulaport?

Zulaport?

You know? Sorin pointed down to the sea. The town that lies there where we will hire a craft to take us over the water to Akoum? That Zulaport.

Yes, of course. I am ready, master.

The smile dropped off Sorin s face. He glanced at Nissa before smiling again. Master you say? What foolishness you speak? Let us walk.

And Sorin began walking.

Master, Nissa thought. Interesting. That would explain many things. But why?

The grassland swept several leagues until it ended abruptly at the blue ocean. The trail was clearly marked, and they followed it until the sun buried itself in the jagged pink and yellow surf. Soon the lights of Zulaport showed bright in the dusk.

They entered the town at total dark, greeted by the barking of feral Onduan hounds that howled around them on their three legs. Sorin fetched one a kick in the ribs and sent it yelping away, and the rest melted into the darkness.

Nissa frowned. She could hear Anowon sniffing the air next to her, smelling the many beings in the small settlement. At one point he closed his eyes, and his head bobbed to a rhythm only he could hear. Vampires could hear and feel the blood of prey. If a vampire let it, the pulse, as it was called, could be strong enough to whip one into a frenzy. But as Nissa watched, Anowon opened his eyes and took a deep breath.

Yet Sorin took Anowon by the scruff of the neck, and when the vampire turned, shoved him forward so he almost went sprawling on the ground. Keep your fangs in your mouth, Sorin said.

Shed blood here, and I ll exact a toll on your flesh tonight.

Nissa stepped back from Sorin. Any vampire she d ever encountered in Bala Ged would have attacked at such a provocation. But Anowon skulked ahead and did not even turn.

Sorin leaned in. Anowon has wanted to feed on you, but I have kept him at bay.

Nissa did not know what to say to that. Let him come, she said finally.

Indeed, Sorin said, and moved away into the darkness.

The town itself seemed composed of small shacks of thatch and sod as was typical in a Zendikar settlement. The rush of the ocean surf punctuated the darkness as Nissa walked. The wind off the ocean was humid and cold, and the acrid smoke from the animal dung fires stung Nissa s eyes. Ahead a large fire burned, and they walked toward that light like moths.

A group of larger shacks were grouped around the large fire. It blazed huge and sideways with each gust of wind. One shack was larger than the rest. In the wild flicker of the bonfire a sign made from a piece of driftwood swung in the wind above its door.

Anowon drew the hood of his cloak up over his head. Nissa watched the reflection of the flames dance on his eyes for a second, and then Sorin spoke.

What is that supposed to be? Sorin said. He reached up and took hold of the swinging sign, stilling it.

A kraken, Nissa said. But what is it doing to that cuttlefish?

Sorin, tilting his head sideways, looked at the sign. I do not uh he righted his head I see now.

The Way of Things, said a voice from within the door. Eyes were looking out from the peat hole. The door opened to reveal a short human, hunkered as though by deformity. Or perhaps it was the man s heavy armaments he was wearing a contraption strapped over his left arm. To Nissa it looked to be a mechanism that fed one of the many knives lined up along his arm into his hand. Humans loved such devices. And he was wearing armor plenty of armor another human weakness. Only his bald head and huge red beard were free from rusted plates fit together with only a small seam. Even though elves loathed armor, she could tell the suit he was wearing had once been quite expensive.

Welcome to Zulaport. You will be wanting to speak to Indorel at your earliest possible convenience. He runs this place.

And you are the welcoming committee? Sorin said.

In a manner of speaking, yes, the man said.

I keep this small inn here. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the large shack, an action that caused a multitude of squeaks and creaks to issue from his armor. I watch. For Indorel.

When the man turned, Nissa noticed a great sword covered with runic etchings at his side. His armor was accented with various hooks, and riveted with small loops for affixing ropes and rope systems. And his hands were covered with what looked like tattoos of fire. Flames over every bit of exposed skin on his hands.

Do you have coin? the man said.

Nobody said anything.

There are two places to sleep in Zulaport: Here or there. He pointed into the dark where the ocean crashed, and Nissa could just make out the outline of a small lighthouse on a hill.

And you are not getting in there without fins on your ankles. He held out his hand. I take coin or trade. He looked them over carefully. In your case I can see it will be coin.

That seemed to offend Anowon in some way. He straightened up and lifted his chin. Smara stumbled out of the darkness with her goblins behind her. Nissa waited for more, but none appeared. Were they really down to only three? she wondered. Had there not been nine when they had climbed out of the Makindi Trench?

So, do you have coin? the man said, in a tone more like a demand than a question.

Oh, we have everything you would want, Sorin said.

The man smiled, showing teeth as brown as his armor, and lines at the corners of his eyes. But his smile fell away when he saw Smara and her goblins. Superlative, but the goblins have to sleep in the stables due to the smell.

I m sure your little inn cannot smell that bad, Sorin said. The goblins can endure.

The man did not smile at Sorin s joke. I meant due to the goblins smell. It is too much. And the kor too, cannot enter for obvious reasons.

How do you feel about vampires, Sorin said, with his smug smile on his lips.

Vampires pay double, the man said. And if he slips his chain in the night we are not responsible for skewering him, be warned. And you still pay double.

The inside was worse than the outside. It smelled like seaweed and was as damp as a grave. Nissa could feel the shafts of wind through the cracks in the daubed timber-and-peat walls. But the man who said his name was Aleen showed them a room with slips filled with dry grass that lay on low wooden frames lined up against the wall. The beds were only a bit stained, but the grass was sweet smelling. Nissa fell asleep almost as soon as she layed her head down.

She was shaken violently awake. Get up, a voice shouted in the dark. Up.

A hand grabbed her by the hair and dragged her painfully to her feet. By the raw strength of the man she knew she could not attack directly, and her staff was unreachable next to her bed. Wincing in pain as he pulled her through the dark, Nissa planted one foot, squatted, and braced for the pain. The man stopped and began to pull, but Nissa shot her other foot out and planted it in the small of the back of his knee, forcing the knee to bend and the man to lose his balance and fall into her. He was a large specimen, she thought as she easily caught him, pivoted on her hip, and threw him head first into the wall.

She could see quite well once her eyes had become accustomed to the dark. She was on top of the man quickly. She had his belt off and around his neck in a split second, and she put her knee in the space between his shoulders and pulled until his throat made a certain gagging noise. Then she pulled more until he stopped making any noise at all. She walked back to their room and picked up her staff. The other beds were empty, but there was a small window cut into the wall.

Outside the wind was gusting as hard as it had been before. Nissa left the room and walked down to the water and the dock that the inhabitants of Zulaport had built in the crescent shaped Bay of Bayeen. Nissa had been on the ocean only once in her life, when she had left Bala Ged to sail to Ondu four months ago. In the bay. she saw tethered ships bobbing in the pitch of the surf. Some had sails and some did not. One had what must have been a sail bound in a tight bundle and lashed to the bottom of the beam that went perpendicular to the mast.

Nissa walked back to the inn. The bonfire had burned down, but a group of people stood around it. The body of the man Nissa had strangled lay on the sand before the fire. Smara and her three goblins were standing with men behind them holding their arms. Sorin was smiling in the firelight, looking like he was enjoying himself immensely.

Where is the other one? The being was tall, wearing black leather armor made in such a way as to be formed entirely of swirls. His hair hung in his face in stringy, black wads. Nissa realized it was a vampire, and a start of revulsion went through her.

She knew Anowon was there behind her before she felt him touch her shoulder.

That is Indorel. Anowon hissed. A credit to my race. He controls this shore-rat s nest. He makes his coin extorting the peril seekers, and sucking the weak among them dry.

How do you know?

Anowon did not say anything.

Why is he so angry?

He found two of his henchmen, Anowon said.

Bled dry. She could hear the wet way he was forming his words, and the sound made the gorge rise in the back of her throat.

Nissa shook her head. The goblins were not enough for you?

It was not I, Anowon said. She could hear the mocking tone in his voice. Why did he even joke about not killing the henchmen, Nissa thought. Who else would it have been?

They watched the vampire question Sorin and Smara. The kor babbled and Sorin smiled, responding with single syllables. With each of Sorin s responses Indorel became angrier and angrier until he was stomping around in the sand throwing his arms up in annoyance.

I feel like that, talking to Sorin most times, Nissa said.

Anowon pushed his jaw out and said nothing.

The men around Smara and Sorin were heavily armed, and further out in the shadows, Nissa could sense something else. Something larger was waiting.

Why does Sorin not give them coin and be done with it?

I do not know that he has coin.

But he said

Anowon raised his eyebrows in a way that said, I pity you for your foolishness.

Nissa looked back at the fire.

Maybe we should leave? Anowon said. Sorin will be fine without us.

No, Nissa said. Only he knows how to stop the Eldrazi and send them back into their slumber.

I know where the Eye of Ugin is, do you not remember? Anowon asked.

Yes, but how do we work it? Nissa asked.

The surf crashed behind them.

Do you even know why we travel to the Eye? Anowon said.

No. But it must have something to do with imprisoning the brood.

Right, of course, Anowon said. But the vampire did not sound convinced. An outlander thinking about the good of Zendikar?

Indorel suddenly shoved Sorin, who fell back in the sand. Indorel raised his arms and rivulets of black and purple power crackled and bled down his arms.

Sorin reached out and took hold of the ankle of the dead henchman. His body convulsed at Sorin s touch. But when it lifted its head an instant later, long drips of bloody fluid were coming from its eyes and from its mouth as it struggled off the sand and reached for Indorel.

The vampire stepped back and spit into the sand to his right. He extended one finger and touched the flesh between his eyes. He whispered some words, and his finger glowed. At the same time the zombie swung a clawed hand at Indorel, which caught the vampire in the ear and caused him to stagger sideways a step. But then Indorel took a step forward, reached out, and touched the zombie. It locked and fell dead.

Anowon began chanting softly.

Indorel seized the air, and Sorin fell onto the sand, writhing with convulsions. He arched his back and grunted.

Then Anowon snapped his fingers, and Indorel suddenly stumbled releasing Sorin.

Anowon kept chanting.

Sorin hopped to his feet and began to run. Smara and the goblins followed, shaking off the henchmen s grasping fingers.

Nissa twisted her staff and released the stem sword. She rushed forward and caught one of the henchman in the chin as he struggled to grab the fleeing Sorin. The henchman s head slid easily off his shoulders and fell with a thunk in the sand, his mouth gasping. The henchmen were all around her then, with more coming out of the inn. But she reached her target. Indorel stepped back as she neared him, and two henchmen stepped between them. Nissa joined her stem sword to the staff and dived between one of their legs. She twisted and hopped to her feet and in an instant poked the vampire with the bottom end of her staff. Then two henchmen were swinging, and she bent her knees and hopped back. Indorel looked down at the place where Nissa had jabbed him.

The henchmen pushed their advantage. They rushed forward into the darkness at the edge of the fire and brought their swords down where Nissa should have fallen, but struck only sand. Nissa snapped out the stem sword and one of the men fell with a grunt, clutching the stump of his right arm, severed above the elbow.

Nissa knew the seed she had planted in Indorel s chest would have rooted throughout the vampire s body. And as she watched from the darkness, with his body silhouetted by the raging fire, she saw a small bud poke out of his sternum and through his leather armor and burst into bloom. Nissa took a running start and flipped into the air over the henchmen squinting into the dark looking for her. She cleared their heads easily and landed with a thump in the sand in front of the vampire. Nissa stopped only a split second, just long enough to seize the flower stem and yank it out of the stunned vampire s chest. The firelight flickered and, pop, there was the vampire s heart, still beating in the stem s roots. She dropped the flower and heart and ran.

Smara and Anowon were standing in the sand, as was Sorin. When Nissa reached the dock, she ran directly to the boat with the sail lashed to the mast. In a moment Anowon stomped onto the dock s lashed logs.

How do you make this sail? Nissa said.

The vampire s eyes glowed slightly in the dark. The sun was lighting the eastern sky, but even so it was too dark to see if they were being pursued. The fire in front of the inn blazed, but nobody was standing around it that she could see.

I do not know how to sail this, Nissa said as she looked over her shoulder at the dark.

Can we create wind? Anowon said.

But how do we get the sail up?

Nissa heard running from behind. Sorin and Smara appeared on the dock. The goblins arrived seconds later.

What is this? Sorin said.

A boat, Nissa said. And we do not know how it works.

We have little time, Sorin said. Can we push it or pull it? He looked genuinely harried.

Then Nissa had an idea.

Find rope, she said.

Nissa sat down on the deck and took a deep breath. The plains that stretched around were foreign to her and held little power she could use. But Nissa recounted the route they d taken to get here. In her mind s eye she followed their trail backward, over the grassland, down the trench and up onto the mesa to Turntimber Forest.

Soon the power from the turntimber trees was flowing into her. She collected it in herself until she felt so full of the energy that she could burst. Then she imagined the largest creature in the forest. A creature of the deep forest a ziru behemoth. Ten humans standing head on foot would just reach its burly shoulder, and the Behemoth had plates of horn extending from the tip of its nose all the way over its shoulder in a loose row. The underside of its jaw had plates as well. Its legs were long and muscular, and its feet were splayed and slightly webbed, which was why she summoned it.

Nissa began drawing the image into herself, and when she opened her eyes the huge creature was standing on the beach, its feet sunk into the wet sand. It snorted its pug nose into the gusting wind and stamped a foot.

Now that is exactly the creature I would have expected you to summon, Sorin said. He threw up his arms. One with neither fin nor wing. Why not something with wings?

Nissa and Anowon used every coil of rope they found on the dock to fashion a harness of sorts. While Sorin kept lookout, they looped the rope into a huge circle and put it around the behemoth s neck. To that circle of rope they tied other long pieces of rope. Nissa asked the creature to enter the water, and when it had, they tied the loose ends of the rope to the masthead of the small ship. The rope was not long enough at first, so they tied more on, and soon it was long enough.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

The ship responded surprisingly well to being dragged behind the behemoth. The creature swam with its head low in the water, so only its eyes, nose, and the top of the head jutted above the low waves.

By sunrise, the continent of Ondu was only a line of land topped with a fringe of round mountains behind them.

By midday there was no land to be seen in any direction. Nissa used Kahlled s pathway stone to point the way, and they followed it. If the behemoth veered, Nissa crawled over the rope and whispered in its ear.

Soon the azure water changed to dark blue, and its surface became choppy. All the rest of the day Nissa watched a line of clouds at the horizon grow larger, until finally they were overhead.

The map showed the blue ocean gap between the continents of Ondu and Akoum to be only the length from the tip of her middle finger to its first digit not a long trip. But Nissa had no way to tell how fast they were traveling. So, by measuring with her finger how long it took them to travel from the Turntimber Forest in the center of Ondu to the coast, she guessed they would be traveling on the boat for two days.

Still, the behemoth never seemed to tire so it would perhaps be faster. The creature paddled its feet in the manner of an Onduan hound and moved along fast enough to create a small wake. Before night fell Nissa thought she d seen a landmass on the horizon.

The behemoth would not sleep. Nissa shimmied across the wrist-sized rope to tell it to stop, and either the creature did not hear her or it did not understand. If the behemoth did not sleep, neither could Nissa. She leaned against the mast with her cloak pulled tightly around her, holding up the pathway stone as often as she could to check their direction.

Their dry tack was long gone. For water they had the little still residing in their canteens that they had filled before going to bed at the inn. If the trip lasted no longer than another day, they would survive. Nissa knew the Joraga fasting mantras, and she could last without food for another week.

There was no sign of any landmass when the sun rose the next morning. Had they missed it in the darkness? Doubtful, Nissa thought. More likely she had mistaken a cloudbank on the horizon for a landmass. The light had been fading after all.

They sailed the rest of the day with no sight of land. When the sun was five hands high above the ocean, a flock of something appeared at the horizon. Nissa had a bad feeling about the creatures immediately. Her apprehension rose as they beat closer showing no visible wings, and for the first time she wished she could jump away, as she had when she d first learned to planeswalk. But Nissa knew that she had to see the trip to the Eye through. Where had running away ever got her? No, she would continue on her path.

Soon the creatures were close enough that Nissa could see tentacles. She narrowed in on the creatures. Flying brood, she announced.

The brood flapped closer. When they were close enough that Nissa could hear the wind rushing through their tentacles, the brood lineage turned and circled over the boat. She watched their tentacles squirm as they circled. Nissa looked to Sorin. There were large dark circles under his eyes. He appeared as though he had not slept in days. Did he have the stamina to fight off the brood circling the ship? His was the only ranged weapon they possessed.

The behemoth s eyes showed their whites as it struggled to raise its head enough to watch the brood.

If they glided down slowly in just the right formation she could perhaps use the stem in its whip form and dispose of two in quick order. Conceivably, Anowon could use one of his teeth.

Nissa was just preparing to pull her stem from its staff when the brood lineage moved out of their circling motion and moved away, flying west. Soon they were specks on the horizon again. The wind gusted, and the behemoth s breath puffed. Sorin s left hand was on top of his head holding his hair out of his eyes as he watched the brood disappear. Why had they gone?

The others slept that night on the deck of the ship. Nissa was not looking forward to another night of managing the behemoth, but she sat at the front of the ship trying not to fall asleep, holding the pathway stone Khalled had given her, and watching the immense creature she d summoned churn the brine water to foam.

The stars were bright enough to cast pale shadow on the deck. Anowon was at the other side of the ship with a nub of a candle burning as he read one of his cylinders. Nissa could hear Smara muttering somewhere below decks where the jars of turntimber bark were lashed packed in Zulaport for the markets of Guul Draz.

Nissa checked the pathway stone again. Sorin was standing across from her when she looked up.

Why did the brood leave us alone? Nissa said.

Sorin s face showed the annoyance the question caused him.

How do you suppose I would know that?

Nissa looked back at the stone hanging from the cord in her hand. A gust of wind blew it sideways, and she put it in the pocket of her cloak.

I know what you are, Sorin said, suddenly.

What did you say? A knot immediately formed in Nissa s throat. He knows.

I know what you are able to do, Sorin continued.

That you posses the ability to walk to other planes.

Nissa set her eyes on Sorin, and gave him what she hoped came off as a steady, level stare. I am not oddity. Why would you suppose I was?

We are not oddities.

Nissa felt as though she might swallow her tongue. Her heart hopped. She found herself making a conscious effort to control her breathing. She took a deep breath and released it. When she opened her eyes she had her center once again.

Why do you tell me that you know this about me? Who are you?

I am like you, Sorin replied.

You are not like me. I do not slay juveniles. Not even brood lineage juveniles.

You would if you had seen their parents.

Nissa let that statement hang in the windy air. She hoped he d say more, and when he did she could barely contain her smile.

The brood are only the minions, he said. That is why we must put them all back in their prison, and hold their parents in check with them.

Why must we?

Because if we fail to do so they will eat this and many other planes, Sorin said. Planes that you perhaps have visited?

Nissa had, in fact, visited only a handful. One had been a staggering metropolis of beings standing virtually cheek to cheek amid towering buildings. She had walked the street for about an hour and in that time it had seemed that the amount of people grew and the height of the buildings lengthened. There was nothing green that she could see. She had left soon after.

Another plane was stranger than the first. There had been natural features like mountains and forests, but on closer examination they turned out to have straight angles that showed they had been created. She had watched in amazement as a range of mountains were moved with the wave of a hand by a being with metal arms and an elongated head. She d been taken prisoner fairly quickly by one of those beings and barely escaped with her life. She would not be traveling to anywhere like those places again, if she could help it. Still, she said nothing in hopes that Sorin would keep talking. And he did.

If we do not contain the brood, they will free their titans, and Zendikar will cease to be what it is now.

What are these titans?

They are terrible creatures that eat energy, as the brood do, Sorin said. As he spoke he stared out over the starlit ocean. Small white crests appeared on the low choppy waves. They suck the very energy out of a plane and move on to the next one. Destroyers of planes. They are dreadful foes to anyone who stands against them.

And they are imprisoned now?

Yes, in the Eye of Ugin.

On Akoum? Nissa said.

Sorin nodded.

Nissa looked out at the water. How will we put the brood back in the prison the vampire saw them escape from?

Sorin did not say anything for a moment. We cannot, he said finally.

Did you say we cannot?

Yes.

Why is that?

They are too dispersed at this point. But they are not the true danger. If the titans escape he raised his eyebrows in the starlight there will be utter catastrophe. And the brood lineage are trying to accomplish this, they just do not know how yet.

So this brood will have to be hunted down, and their parents imprisoned?

Sorin nodded.

And what would happen if we allowed these titans their freedom?

They would wreck Zendikar, Sorin said, without hesitation.

But Nissa sensed something a certain tightness around his mouth and eyes that she had not seen before. She looked again, and it was gone. Could he be lying? she thought. And for what reason?

Why do you tell me all of this now? Nissa said.

I am already helping you on this quest. You saved my life in the Turntimber, and I am repaying you.

We are near Akoum. Somebody has to understand what we will shortly face.

Why?

Sorin exhaled. I will need your skills later.

Nissa did not like how that sounded. And if I refuse? she said. Later?

You cannot refuse. Zendikar depends on it.

Nissa sat looking out at the water. Why would the brood or the titans be on Zendikar in the first place? Were they native to that place? Clearly the Eldrazi had been on Zendikar a long time. Eldrazi ruins could be found in almost every corner of the plane.

And who was Sorin, really? Who had sent him to make sure the Eldrazi stayed contained, and why? Why would beings from other planes be so concerned with keeping the Eldrazi on Zendikar? How did he know the truth of the Eldrazi when she, a native of the plane, had never heard even a whisper of what he d said? She only remembered the Eldrazi as a childhood nighttime story. And in those stories, the Eldrazi were the sort of beings that built castles that reached to the sun and ate golden fruit from trees that floated in the air. And Sorin was telling her they lived on energy, on mana from the land?

She turned to ask Sorin how he knew so much about this situation, but he was gone. She was left with the sound of the waves chopping against the hull of the ship and the behemoth s massive legs chugging in the water.

Nissa sat with her back against the mast and let her mind wander. Above her head the stars moved along their paths. Soon her mind was reworking what Sorin had said, and before she knew it, the eastern horizon went as red as blood.

Nissa could see a line of land ahead. Above the land towered high, strangely pointed spires of sharp tipped mountains. As she watched, the morning sun reflected red off the crystal-studded peaks.

Nissa felt a presence and turned. Anowon was standing on the other side of the mast, staring at her.

Truly you are lucky to be a Joraga, the vampire said. And to have taken the Joraga tincture of cut fungus and asta weed.

Good morning to you, Nissa said, turning back to the blood-red shore of Akoum. I wonder why Sorin has not fallen to your fangs?

Perhaps he is not to my liking.

And I am?

Anowon looked away from her and at the land on the horizon.

Akoum, Anowon said. The kor called it the place where things were lost. Low level Roils are nearly constant. The very land is as sharp as a knife s edge. The sun refracts through those pointed crystals creating areas of extreme heat that could cook an unsuspecting elf traveler in a manner of moments. And the denizens, Anowon said as he grimaced malevolently, taste horrible.

As if in response to Anowon s monologue, the ocean suddenly pitched to the right. There was a sudden, deafening rush, and the water immediately next to the ship began to impossibly lift up. Soon a huge globule of swirling water was floating above the tip of the mast. Nissa could see the dark shapes of ocean creatures six times larger than the behemoth caught in the huge bubble. And when she looked over the side of the ship, she could see the plant life of the ocean floor flopped to the side in the early morning sun. A loose fish flopped on a bare patch of sand.

It s the Roil, Anowon said.

Nissa watched as the ball of ocean floated gracefully up into the sky, with its fish swimming within.

Sorin walked to the front of the ship, brushing his long hair with a silver comb. He glanced up at the piece of disembodied ocean.

Look! Even parts of Zendikar are trying to get away from Zendikar, he said.

They were still a league from the shore. Nissa unrolled Khalled s map to look for a possible port in which to land the ship. Akoum appeared like a large circular landmass. She wiped the map off with the palm of her calloused hand and peered closer.

What troubles you? Anowon said.

Our map is wrong. The ports are not marked on here.

The map is not at fault. There are no ports on Akoum.

Oh, this is excellent, Sorin said.

The shore is too perilous for ports, Anowon said.

However, the probability is high that a group of humans is forming a rescue party on shore even as we speak.

To rescue us? Nissa asked. Boats! Why did I ever get on a boat?

It is possible to land a ship, Anowon said.

But the water is filled with crystalline points invisible to even the most trained lookout.

And we do not even have that. Nissa said.

Precisely.

Why did you not say something about this sooner?

Anowon shrugged. One point more: There is a good chance that those human rescuers could also be bandits.

But how did the brood that took you prisoner get you to Ondu?

By wing.

Oh, lets do that, Sorin said.

Nissa ignored him. When she looked up, it seemed like the shore of Akoum had raised three hands higher, like a great maw opening to receive them.

This must be the welcoming party, Sorin said, pointing off the starboard side. A great field of bubbles erupted on the surface of the water. Soon the water churned with movement, and huge tentacles began to break the surface. A fleshy dome the color of a bled corpse broke the surface. Even Sorin drew his breath in sharply when two great, malevolent eyes opened in the dome and focused their long irises on the ship. Soon the full head appeared, with the tentacles where the mouth should be.

Nissa held her staff up. A kraken, she thought. What could happen next? She glanced at Sorin. Had he recouped his power enough to strike down such a large creature? Even though Sorin was smiling, she could see the lines of exhaustion on his face.

The kraken rose immensely next to the ship. Its right tentacle held a huge, spiked shell, and on its back was another even larger shell. The creature s other limb was huge, an armored claw easily as long as the ship they were standing on. The six gills running up its chest opened and closed in the early morning sun.

Why do you disturb the slumber of the sleeper in the deep?

Who is he? Sorin said innocently.

The eyebrow shells above the kraken s eyes dropped.

He is Brinelin, the Moon Kraken. He is I, the creature said.

For some moments, Nissa could only stare at the tremendous creature, dripping and glistening in the light.

Brinelin, Nissa said, raising her voice above the churning made by the kraken s tentacles. We did not mean to break your slumber.

The Moon Kraken harrumphed. An apology will not save you.

What will save us, great Brinelin? Nissa said.

Nothing will save you.

Nissa remembered the rumor she d heard about Speaker Sutina and the Moon Kraken. The rumor of a secret friendship.

Anowon stepped up beside Nissa. Do you have a riddle for us, great Brinelin?

The kraken regarded Anowon through round unblinking eyes. Riddle? it said. Riddles are a sphinx s folly. It raised one tentacle to its mouth. Brinelin demands red sacrifice! The kraken swam to a small rock sticking out of the ocean, and hoisted itself up into a sitting position.

Will you take this offering? Sorin said. He casually took one of the goblins by the scruff of the neck and tossed it screeching into the water, where it thrashed wildly.

The Moon Kraken regarded the panicking goblin for a moment before sighing and falling off the rock. It hit the water with a large splash and slipped under the surface. The goblin, showing the whites of its eyes, scratched desperately at the side of the ship, looking for a handhold. It did not cry out, but whimpered in a way that made Nissa s stomach turn. The other two goblins stared down at their feet while Smara sang what sounded like a song under her breath, oblivious to the goblins whimpers. Sorin chuckled. Anowon watched Brinelin s air bubbles approaching the goblin with a blank expression.

And then the goblin was simply gone, pulled under with a sudden jerk. The Moon Kraken surfaced a moment later.

Brinelin brought its huge shell out of the water and slammed it down on the water. The wave from the impact of the shell hit the hull and washed over the deck, drenching everyone on it.

You will do me further tribute, the Moon Kraken said. One of the goblin s arms was sticking sideways out of the kraken s beaked maw, and as they watched, a tentacle swept it away and into the water.

The two remaining goblins looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

The shore was not far away. Nissa could see the long crystals jutting out of the water. They would never make it through them without being guided. A narrow beach of white sand started behind the crystals, and a high cliff of black basalt extended almost vertically from the white sand. Nissa thought she saw movement among the crystals at the water s edge.

If you have nothing better to offer me, the kraken mused aloud. I will crush your skulls and suck out your brains and make tributes of you all.

You will not be eating anyone s brains today, Sorin said. Surely you know that?

The kraken regarded Sorin. I am Brinelin, the Moon Kraken, he said. I know nothing of the sort.

And I am Sorin Markov. If you do not stand aside this very instant you will be destroyed, and we will leave your body for your subjects the fish to devour at their leisure.

Sorin s voice had taken on a different tone as he spoke. It was both deeper and sharper. It hurt Nissa s head to hear it.

But the kraken did not move. Instead it stood up to its full height and pushed out its white breast. Your magician s tricks will not work on the Moon Kraken, little wizard, it said. I have battled other, greater magic users than you.

Sorin uttered no words. He spoke no incantations. His eyes simply went black, and his hands began to glow with a smoky light. The kraken noticed it, too. It dropped down into the ocean so that only its top gills showed above the surf.

Do you not remember me, fishmaster? Sorin boomed.

Nissa had to crouch down on the deck of the ship. Something about Sorin s voice made the parts inside her stomach and chest vibrate, and she suddenly felt nauseous.

The kraken looked closer at Sorin. You? it said after its examination. You have returned?

Stand aside, or you will be disposed of, Sorin boomed. Stand aside, now!

The timbre and volume of his voice was so great that Nissa had to clap her hands over her ears.

The kraken moved out of the way of the ship, and the behemoth started paddling again.

Why have you returned? the kraken said.

Sorin frowned, and his voice returned to normal, as did his eyes.

Be a good little fishy and guide us through the crystal fields, he said.

The kraken s tentacles casually slipped out of the water and wrapped loops around the small ship; Nissa had to jump back to avoid being caught up in the sudden lassoing. Soon the ship was entirely covered with tentacles. Nissa pinched her nose. How had Speaker Sutina endured this smell?

I will squeeze your ship to splinters before you end my days. Then you can make your sad way to shore with your tiny feet and hands, The kraken said. And there are things in these depths that do not slumber.

Nissa looked again at the shore. She did not see the movement she d seen before. The glitter of white sand looked terribly far away.

Sorin must have noticed it, too. That, or he realized that his power was at such ebb that he dared not call the kraken s bluff. The smoke wafting off his fingertips blew away.

Brinelin chuckled, and bubbles broke the sea s surface. The Moon Kraken began to squeeze and Nissa felt the ship buckle and crack.

Nissa stepped forward.

Moon Kraken, she said, fingering something in her pocket. I have an offering greater than blood sacrifice.

The Moon Kraken twisted its beaked mouth into a terrible smirk. It squeezed harder. Now Nissa was sure she could hear water shooting into the hull.

It concerns Speaker Sutina, Nissa said. Important news of her welfare.

The kraken s smirk fell away.

What of the Speaker? the Moon Kraken blurted.

Nissa could feel his tentacles loosen.

Release the ship, Nissa said.

It did. The kraken pulled its tentacles back under the surface of the water.

I will tell you what I know, Nissa said. But you must promise to guide us to shore.

If it pleases Brinelin, the kraken said.

Nissa thought about this. He might not be in the best mood after he hears that Speaker Sutina is dead.

Take us to shore first, Nissa said.

The kraken thrust its fleshy chin out. Tell me now.

Do you promise to take us to shore after I tell you?

The Moon Kraken makes no promises.

Then it saddens me to tell you that Speaker Sutina is no more.

The expression on the kraken s face fell. Nissa felt a twinge of pity for it. The creature sank deeper into the water, before floating higher again.

You lie! the kraken spouted water from its gills. All of its tentacles shot straight out of the water and into the air.

You are lying to save your barnacles. Your falseness will not save you.

I am not lying. She died in an attack made by the new scourge that plagues Zendikar, the very scourge we are on a journey to stop. Nissa said. From her pocket she drew the pearl Speaker Sutina had dropped the day she died. Nissa held the pearl up. Behold the pearl you gave her. The assumption was a gamble, but it was all she had. The kraken s eyes squeezed together when it saw the gift. A small tentacle lifted out of the water and came close to the pearl. With a gentleness that surprised Nissa, the tentacle caressed the pearl before taking it carefully. The kraken brought the pearl to the front of its face, and examined it through sad eyes.

Tell me everything, the Moon Kraken said softly, without looking away from the pearl.

Nissa told the creature the story of Speaker Sutina s death and of their quest to imprison the brood lineage. When she had finished the only sound she heard was the not-so-distant sound of waves breaking on the white shore.

What did she say before she fell away? the kraken said.

Nissa cast her mind for a good lie. She spoke of the ocean, Nissa said.

That is not true. Sutina hated the water, the kraken said, softly. But I will let you pass.

The kraken moved out of the way of the ship, and the behemoth started paddling again.

The kraken s white face crumpled as it slipped under the water. Soon it broke the surface of the ocean and waved them forward. The creature guided them through the deadheads lurking just below the surface of the water, and crystals as long as three of their ships, one of which had at its tip a human skull pierced through the brain pan and clacking in the wind.

Soon they were near the shore. The Moon Kraken moved to the side and let the behemoth clamber onto the shore, dragging the ship through the sand. The ship tilted right off its keel and onto its hull, and Nissa had to grab a railing to keep from sliding off into the sand. She dismissed the behemouth and immediately felt stronger.

Go forth from here, the kraken said, glumly.

Brinelin will do his part to rid Zendikar of this scourge. With that, he slipped below the surface and was not seen again.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds overhead and sparkled on the white sand made of crystals ground to grains. The beach extended to a sheer cliff. Nissa s heart sank as her eyes followed the cliff up. It was a league high if it was an arm s length, rising in one uninterrupted sweep so high that Nissa could see clouds moving at the top. Crystals protruded at irregular intervals from the cliff s sheer face.

Anowon brushed past her to evaluate the cliff, suddenly the guide on the continent she had never visited. The creatures that have adapted to live here are as hard and as spiny as this land, the vampire said. And tougher by far.

We cannot scale this cliff, Nissa said, suddenly understanding the kraken s malicious smile before it submerged.

Anowon looked up from the cliff s base.

For one, Nissa continued. We lack rope enough for even one ascent. Second, none of my pegs will penetrate that crystal.

Anowon turned as though he had not heard Nissa. He walked back to the shore, pushing through the goblins that drew back from him as he passed. Even Smara stopped mumbling to watch what he was doing. When Anowon reached the shoreline he began to dig. He soon unearthed the badly rotted wooden mast of a ship.

I saw another ship broken and scattered in the shallows there, Anowon said, pointing just off shore to a massive crystal as thick as their whole ship. And now this one.

The vampire looked up from the hole he d dug and peered at the top of the cliff, where clouds skittered by. I wonder

Nissa waited for Anowon to explain what he was thinking. He walked a bit up the shore and began to dig again. Sure enough, he uncovered a broken piece of hull.

This place is a graveyard for water vessels, Anowon said.

Nissa waited, but the vampire said nothing more. A moment later he knelt and closed his eyes. He stayed in the position for long enough that Nissa thought he might have fallen asleep, but then she saw his fingers moving like spiders over one of the metal cylinders dangling from his belt.

Ghet, Sorin said. Oh, Ghet.

Anowon opened one of his eyes and curled his lip at Sorin.

Sorin chuckled. You were only just about to explain your hypothesis to us.

We cannot scale that cliff, Anowon said.

The elf said that already.

Anowon opened both of his eyes with a sigh. If ships ruin here commonly, then there must be something taking advantage of it. On Akoum nothing is wasted.

The waves broke on the beach. The wind blew hard across Nissa s ear. So we wait? Nissa said.

Yes, Sorin said. For imminent attack.

They waited the rest of the day and into the night. Brightness, Nissa learned, was never much of an issue on Akoum, where the ever-present crystals magnified even the dimmest light.

So it was easy for Nissa to see almost as clearly as day when figures slowly rappelled down the side of the cliff later that night. They rappelled in a way she had never seen before face forward with their harness at their belly, belaying the rope that way. The figures were short and lightly armed. When ten were on the sand, they branched out and drew small knives.

Nissa waited to give the signal until the men were almost on top of them. Then she whistled, and they jumped up, Nissa with her stem sword drawn and limp next to her. Anowon s eyes glowed pale in the starlight and Sorin s silhouette, as black and as deep as velvet, drew in the surrounding light.

The beach combers looked from Nissa to Sorin to Anowon to Smara and to the two goblins, then to Sorin s parasite sword, which seemed to pulse darker than the night around it. They were clearly weighing their chances. The combers had obviously been counting on surprising them, and with that gone, they wondered if they had the numbers to carry the fight. The decision was made when the lead scavenger dropped his dagger. The others soon followed.

Stop, one said, stepping forward and holding his hand with the palm facing out. We are not your enemy. We have come to help.

That is a relief, Sorin said. Because I thought you wanted to cut our throats in our sleep and then plunder whatever goods we might have.

We saw your ship from above, the head man said. He was a human, without a doubt.

Anowon threw down a tooth, which began to glow. The combers were a mixed group some goblins, some humans, two world-gift kor even an elf a Tajuru-splinter by how he wore his quiver with a dire look in his eye. Nissa put her stem sword back into the staff and stepped forward. Come, she said to the combers, gesturing next to the tooth. Sit here.

When they were seated under the eyes of Anowon and Sorin, Nissa went around and collected the knives. Each knife was different, clearly salvaged. One of them was even made of flint. She took the knives to the water and threw them in.

Those took a long time to collect, the head man said.

They will still be there when you return for them later, Nissa said.

Are we your prisoners now? the human asked.

No, Sorin said. You are now our guides. At least until we get to the top of that cliff. At that point we will decide if you have been helpful. If you have not, we will let our vampire drain your veins. I must say, you do look tasty.

The human looked at the sand between his feet and did not speak again.

As soon as the sun broke on the eastern horizon, they rose, stiff with cold, and proceeded to the cliff.

How long will this take? Sorin said.

All day, the human replied. In the sunlight Nissa could see that he was a short man with every inch of exposed skin covered with puckered white scars. A scraggly beard clung to his chin, as did remnants of armor to his wiry body.

He began strapping his harness to one of the ropes they had descended the night before. Nissa took the rope in her hand, feeling its odd, firm texture.

What is this made of? she asked.

Dulam beast hide, the man replied, taking out a coil of thick rope and deftly looping it to his harness and then to the rope. The crystal has trouble cutting it, he said before pulling himself up, catching each foot in one of the loops he had tied to the harness. He pulled so the loop cinched around each foot, raised one of them, and stepped up. The rope caught and raised him up one step. He repeated the action with his other foot, and soon he was ascending the rope as though it was a ladder.

Stop, Sorin said. Wait there. We would not want you getting up to the top and alerting whatever associates you have up there to our presence.

Three of the combers stayed on the beach while Nissa, Sorin, Anowon, and Smara ascended. The combers strapped them in and tied their foot loop tethers. Smara s goblins, both of them, looked at one another and simply climbed Smara s rope without harness or tether.

Nissa looked down at the beach after she had been climbing for a couple of hours. The three remaining combers were sanding at the base of the cliff, eyeing the ship tipped on its side.

Soon Nissa was too high to look down; the clouds obscured her view, and the wind blew so hard that it caused the rope to bow and snap against the crystals. But the rope did not break, unlike the sleeve of her jerkin, which sliced easily when she grazed a crystal halfway up the cliff.

The crystals were everywhere as they climbed. Sorin managed to cut his hand, and the blood fell in rivulets, only to be blown away in the wind. When the comber climbing near her saw Sorin s blood blowing away he made a certain whistle and pointed to Sorin. The head man stopped and looked down.

You must bind your gash, the man said. Certain animals can smell blood on the wind. He closed his mouth and turned back to climbing. Nissa noticed that all of the combers doubled their pace. Nissa doubled hers also, and soon they were above the misty fog and in the bright sun. The ocean below was a blurry outline.

And still they climbed, Nissa becoming more confident with the ingenious rope system. At midday the combers stopped on a small ledge, the flat side of a crystal that had had its sides chipped and dulled enough that it did not cut them. They sat on the shelf with their feet dangling over the edge and drank water sloshing in canteens made from the exoskeletons of large beetles. There was no food there had not been any for more than three days, and Nissa s stomach had stopped hurting. She did not even miss it.

They attained the top of the cliff by late afternoon. Sorin poked the top of his head over the edge and seeing no sign of movement, scrambled up. The dulam hide ropes were tied to huge crystals that had first been wrapped with more layers of hide as thick as Nissa s finger.

When they were all up and resting in the strange, wavy shadows created behind the crystals, Sorin looked over at Anowon. The vampire had closed his eyes again and was kneeling on the hard rock, moving his fingers soundlessly over the writing on one of his metal cylinders. The combers sat opposite Anowon, pretending not to notice him.

So, Sorin said to the combers. You were not totally unhelpful.

We traveled down to help you, the head man said.

We never meant you any harm.

Um, Sorin said, and then turned. Ghet?

Anowon opened one eye.

Ghet, do you know the way from here to the Teeth of Akoum?

The vampire s eye moved to the head man and stayed there.

Not precisely, Anowon said.

Sorin addressed the head comber. You will come with us and act as a guide. You will bring another Sorin turned to Anowon and asked, Two?

Anowon nodded.

Sorin turned back to the comber. Bring two of your associates, he continued. One of them might be eaten by the end. I feel I must tell you.

And if we refuse? the comber said. He spoke very calmly, without fear or uncertainty. Nissa found she liked him for that.

If you refuse, then we will destroy all of you, Sorin said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Anowon. And he will turn you into nulls.

They spent that night at the top of the cliff, protected from the nearly continuous wind by a huge crystal lying on its side. In the morning two of the beach combers had gone, and the others got together to decide which of them would accompany the party.

The head man volunteered, as did a merfolk who Nissa had not seen at first. The rest of the combers said hasty goodbyes and left, disappearing into the rocks. Sorin and Nissa noticed how brief their parting words had been.

If I were you, Sorin said, turning to the two remaining combers, I would have told my associates to meet us somewhere up the trail. Maybe a loose boulder could be pushed. Maybe there is a certain ledge or hole only you people know about. No?

The two combers stood looking down at their shabby sandals made of what Nissa took to be dulam hide stitched to other, older pieces of the same hide. Their shins and knees were wrapped with the same material.

Is that what you were talking about before they left? Sorin asked.

No, the headman said. He stood up tall. Nissa thought he really was a fine specimen of a human, despite his thick, black beard. Growing a beard was an ability human males seemed to relish, for most of the human males she had seen displayed some type of one. The head man s beard was long enough that it touched his chest. You have my word, he said. We spoke of no such thing.

Smara muttered to herself off behind a crystal. One of the goblins cooed at her. Sorin narrowed his eyes at the head man.

You are an interesting human, Sorin said.

I feel there is more to you than meets the eye.

The head man said nothing.

Perhaps it is the first blood, Sorin said as he squatted before the head man, as one might with a child. Your people were some of the first in this place. You and the kor. Now the vampires, Sorin said, brushing his hand in the direction of Anowon. They are relative newcomers. The merfolk too.

He was speaking in the same tone he had used to tell Nissa of the Eldrazi titans, still buried in the rock. What Sorin had not told her was why he knew all of this about old Zendikar. Could he have been on Zendikar in the first place, to see the old races and know about the vampires of old? And how old would that make him? she wondered.

Without bothering to reply, the head man turned and slowly began to walk, with the merfolk who had also volunteered following close behind. They stopped and shouldered the supplies that the other combers had left.

Nissa pulled on the pack that Khalled had prepared for her in Graypelt. Sorin brushed off his hands and walked behind Nissa. Smara tripped after them, with a goblin fore and aft as she walked. Anowon followed last, turning a metal cylinder and running his fingers over it as he walked.

They walked up a series of small rises until they stopped at the top of the last one. Stretched out before them was Akoum. Below lay a rick of hedrons of all sizes jumbled together, with most being many times larger than any Nissa had ever seen. A mist sat low on the land, obscuring the ground, but in many of the cracks of the hedrons, Nissa could see the faint pink glow of molten rock. Scattered among the fields were crystals, some of them as large as the hedrons. They fit so close together, there was hardly a space between them. Broken bits of hedron stones floated above the larger hedrons.

How do we move through that? said Nissa.

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 constitutent 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 lasso. 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 lasso 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 lassoed, the head man yanked the loop off and swung the lasso 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, 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.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

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 spaces between them with dense growth. The top of each pillar was covered with grass 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 pass 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 masses 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 ther 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 snatched 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? 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 grass 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 grass 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 grass 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 titans 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 grass. 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 mass 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, 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 grass 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? 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 impassable. 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, snatching 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 eyeballs 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.

How long will it last? Nissa asked.

Not more than a day, the commander elf said.

But you shall soon see one that has lasted over a hundred years. And with that, he turned and began walking.

Soon a different tower than Tal Terig appeared on the dark horizon. When they were nearer, Nissa saw that this one did not have the same smooth sides of the Puzzle Tower. Its irregular form stood out like a natural monument in the dry basin.

Ora Ondar, the elf commander said. The Impossible Garden.

Nissa knew the stories, as did every elf and most humans. Examples of every plant that grew on Akoum grew on a basalt tower that shot up out of the wastes. The tower was shaped similarly to the pillar that had formed after the lava Roil she d seen, except Ora Ondar was larger.

As they neared, Nissa could see the fabled plants growing off the pillar in a lush cascade.

Formed by the Roil more than a hundred years ago, the commander said. And tended continuously by the Nourishers. Come.

She led them to a hole at the base of the tower. Stairs chiseled out of the black rock spiraled upward. Again, the commander led the way. Nissa noticed with a pang of alarm that the elves waited to go last, and that they did so with arrows nocked on their bowstrings. As the group walked up the staircase they passed doorways that led out into the rooms where the plants grew. Each level of the tower seemed to grow another kind of plant. One level had only a plant that smelled like water and produced flowers as large as an elf. Another was all tall ferns. Yet another had plants with flowered mouth parts that lunged at the elf keepers who protected themselves with huge shields of skins stretched across frames.

Where are we going? Nissa asked.

The elf commander said nothing.

They climbed the spiral staircase until Nissa s thighs burned and she was huffing with exertion. On the top level, the sky was dark and huge. A group of elves with crystal lanterns was busy picking something off the small trees that grew there a white fruit that glowed slightly as it hung off the boughs.

The elves that had come behind up the spiral staircase pushed the group forward with their short bows. Soon a figure stepped out from behind a tree. He was an older elf with fruits in each of his hands. As they watched he took a large bite out of one of the fruits. Juice ran down the corners of his mouth as he gave a wide grin. His teeth glowed. His eyeballs glowed. His unkempt hair looked like a snipe falcon s nest on his head. He smiled again.

I had a dream last night, the figure said.

In this dream a voice said, Ser Amaran? and I said yes? Ser Amaran took another bite out of the fruit in his right hand. He chuckled as though he had just remembered a good joke, and more juice ran from the corners of his mouth. The he frowned, and his whole face seemed to fall. This voice told me that Ora Ondar would fall. The voice told me that our sacred kolya fruit would be scattered across the barren waste that the Eldrazi will make of our world those parasites in the deep. His glowing eyes flashed from Nissa, to Sorin, to Smara, to Smara s goblin, and finally rested on Anowon.

You have all been captured for being too close to the forbidden tower, the elf chief said. What were you doing there?

Nobody said anything.

Speak. Or are you minions of the tentacled creatures with the beautiful hearts?

Nissa looked out the corner of her eye at Anowon, but the vampire s face had the same perplexed look she imagined she had. Beautiful hearts?

Very well, do not tell me, he said, taking another bite of the fruit in his hand. But I will know this vital piece of information. An odd party such as yours clearly does not travel for pleasure. You are spies, of course. Vampire spies for the tentacled invasion.

The elf commander hurried forward and whispered in the chief s ear. Ser Amaran turned his head as the commander spoke, but he did not take his eyes off Anowon.

Lock them away, all of them. At dawn throw the bloodied one from the grove, and feed his crushed body to the slaughter shrubs. Throw the guide to the salt flats.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

Nissa, Sorin, Smara, and her goblin were thrown into cells carved out of the basalt. They tried to sleep, but the spiny floor would not allow them.

Anowon was in another cell, and all that night the stone door of the cell opened and closed, opened and closed. Once Nissa heard Anowon moan. But aside from that, there was no sound from inside the cell.

We have to free him, Nissa said.

Sorin shrugged. Vampires do not fear pain or death, he replied.

He is not that way, Nissa said.

Sorin turned to her and raised his eyebrows. He is not what exactly? A vampire?

He is not that kind of vampire.

Sorin smiled. He s the kind that wanted to drain you before I dissuaded him.

The door of Anowon s cell slammed shut.

But he is our only guide, Nissa said. The human is gone.

Sorin said nothing.

The goblin coughed and glanced at Smara. I know the way, the goblin said. To Teeth of Akoum.

They both turned to the goblin, who had not spoken since Smara had bumbled into their camp in the Makindi Trench.

Smara also stared at the goblin, who clapped its claw over its mouth.

Sorin turned back to Nissa. You see, there is our new guide.

But Anowon saw how the brood was released. Perhaps he knows how to put them back?

Sorin s smile dropped a jot. The vampire does not know how to put the brood back, he said. You can trust me.

The door to Anowon s cell opened. Someone laughed as they exited his cell. Then the cell door slammed again. She could understand some of what the strange elves were saying. Two were talking about the fruit eater whoever that was.

Who is this Ser Amaran from the grove of fruit trees? Nissa said.

Sorin waved his hand. Some minor figure.

Anowon would know who Ser Amaran is, Nissa said.

Sorin snorted. We should be more concerned with how we are going to get out of this cell.

When they open the door, you can use your rot talk to destroy them.

I cannot risk that not with this many crystals and lava rock around. The sound could echo. And nobody wants that.

Then I will have to end whoever opens the door, Nissa said.

Perhaps if there is one guard or two, Sorin said.

But six? I think not.

Nissa pushed her chin out. I am Joraga, she said.

You are unarmed, Sorin said. Anyway, I don t think they plan to let us out.

They have to some day.

Do they? Sorin said. Did you happen to notice what the kolya trees were growing in? Or were you too busy watching the minor elf stuffing his mouth with his sacred fruit?

I did not notice anything unusual about the bed the trees were growing in. This pillar is the remains of a life bloom Roil. Did you not hear the elf?

Nissa waited for Sorin s response.

Yes, Sorin replied. But I also heard her say that most life blooms last a day or two at the most.

Nissa s trap had worked: Sorin had been listening. He had good ears for a human, as she had been at the end of the line and he d been the first. She would have to watch him closer. Humans did not have ears capable of hearing a whispered conversation from half a mile away. That was an elf s ability or a vampire s.

I saw bones protruding from the soil under the trees, Sorin said.

Bones? Nissa said. Could elves do something like that kill and bury beings to ensure their plants lived? Sure, she thought. Her own people often killed any sentient beings they found in their forest, regardless of species. If these Nourisher elves tied their way of being, their tribal identity, with those trees, then they would do any sort of thing to ensure that they thrived and prospered.

Yes, bones, Sorin said. If they are to use us for fertilizer, why not kill us here in this cell with poison?

Nissa looked down at the empty bowl of gruel her jailer had shoved at her. She d eaten it all without a word, gagging slightly at the grubs which she had seen the elves picking off the kolya leaves earlier that day. But at least she had known they were fresh.

Then we need to free ourselves quickly and rescue Anowon, she said.

Are we not back to the discussion we were having before? Sorin said.

From far away Nissa heard the low drone of a horn. It was a tremendous dusty sound, the loudness of which increased then dropped off then built again to a crescendo. She heard the sound of thick-soled sandals shuffling in the hallway.

What was that? Sorin said.

Death, Smara said, suddenly. Death, death, death, death.

Hush, Nissa said. She listened to the horn for a while longer. A signal horn. They use a similar code to the Tajuru a force approaching.

Well, we must get out now, Sorin said. He cast his eyes around the cell. They had been over the cell in the daylight and found nothing. The simple bench was carved out of the wall, and there was no window. The solid door was the very piece the builders had cut to make the doorway, presumably. It fit into the doorway so snugly that Nissa could not see light at the seams.

Sorin got to his knees before the door to look at the lock. After a moment of inspection he inserted his long first finger into the keyhole and drew it out again.

If the door were wood, he said, if it had ever been alive, I might have had some enchantments that could putrefy it or make it an entity for us to command. Sorin pushed on the door, and when it did not move he strode over to the bench and sat down.

Nissa bent down for a look in the keyhole. She d heard the elf unlock and lock the door three times when he and the others put them in the cell at Ser Amaran s order, and the two times they had been brought food. She had never heard the jingle of keys, or the scrape of metal on metal, or metal on rock. They were elves after all. If she were to design a lock, it would not feature metal a useful but untrustworthy creation. She would use something natural. Nissa looked into the lock hole again.

The hole was dark, or course. But Nissa could see clearly enough the hallway on the other side of the door. There was no keyhole shape to the hole, just a circle. What kind of key would fit a circle? she wondered.

One thing was certain: the cell had not been built to hold elves. Either the occupants of the Impossible Garden never thought they would imprison an elf, or there were other cells for elves elsewhere in the tower. The door was very small, and Nissa concluded that the cell had been built in all likelihood for goblins. Even the cruellest elf would leave a window if he knew elves were being held. Not being able to see and smell the outside world was paramount to the most inhumane torture for an elf. No, their cell had not been built for elves.

Nissa looked into the hole again. Silent figures passed in the hallway. Inside the lock s hole the opening from keyhole to keyhole was absolutely smooth. She pushed her finger into the hold and felt a sensation. The feeling was neither hot nor cold, but buzzed slightly.

There is a field of power here, Nissa said.

Sorin rolled his eyes. You are coming to that realization only now? he said.

Nissa ignored him. Goblin, she said. Have you looked? You are of the Lava Steppe Tribe, are you not?

The lead goblin stood and walked to the lock. He did not glance at Nissa. With a grunt he bent and peered in the rock. He looked up at Nissa, then back at the lock, and then back at Nissa, before shrugging.

They heard footsteps approaching in the hall. Soon something was inserted into the keyhole from the other side, and the door swung out into the hallway. A force of six armed elves strode in. They had bright bladed scimitars and armor composed of pieces of chipped slate wired together.

Nissa could smell the fear on them, and it smelled like warm copper coins. She peered closely at them. They are not afraid of us, she realized as their eyes jumped toward the hallway. The lead elf tucked something into a pocket in his robe. A key, Nissa supposed. He closed the door and frowned at Nissa.

Sorin took a deep breath. Nissa saw what was to happen, and she just had time to clap her hands over her ears. A moment later a string of rasping, somehow vile sounding words emanated from Sorin s open mouth. Many of the words came with a guttural boom from the back of his throat. Sorin snapped them off in such a way that his tongue clicked wetly in his mouth.

The effect was instantaneous. The elves fell dead and rotting a moment later. Nissa found herself on the basalt floor as well. The very room vibrated when she stood, as did the contents of her skull.

Sorin stood in the middle of the floor, cleaning his fingernails with his small eating knife, which he pointed at the mess on the floor. Now, Sorin said. Who will find the key in all that muck?

The smell in the small cell was overwhelming. The sloughed bodies of the elves were already in an advanced state of decay, and just looking at them caused Nissa a bit of unease.

I thought it was to risky too use your rot talk among the crystals? Nissa asked.

I decided it was a risk worth taking. Now, goblin

Fetch. Sorin pointed at where the head elf s slate-plate armor lay crumpled and wet.

The goblin looked at Sorin for a long moment as though he had not fully understood the language he was speaking. For a moment Nissa thought he would say something, but instead he blinked once and then stood and proceeded to the bodies.

It took some mucking about in the bodies, but finally the goblin produced the key and held it out to Sorin. The human eyed the dripping key warily.

Well, Sorin gestured at the door. Use it.

The goblin walked to the door, inserted the key in the hole, turned it, and nothing. The key did not click in the lock, and the door did not open to either pushes or pulls.

Sorin threw up his arms. Wonderful, he said.

The horns had grown louder. And Nissa thought she could hear something else: a deep growling, maybe. Like boulders dragged across a flat place.

Sorin took the key between two pinched fingers and tried it in the lock. It turned but would not open.

When it was Nissa s turn, she stood before the door and looked closely. The basalt was worn smooth around the keyhole, and a similarly smooth area was visible where the elves put their hands to push the door closed. There were also two patches on the floor where the elves feet had worn it smooth. Nissa placed her sandaled feet in the smooth areas. She inserted the key and turned, and the door snapped open.

Sorin stood and moved to the door. He took a wary look out to make sure some of the scuffling feet they had been hearing in the hall were not passing. Smara was muttering under her breath behind Nissa as she slipped out of the cell. Sorin was standing in the middle of the hall. The doors of four similar-sized cells were visible in the light of the torches that sputtered in the hall. Nissa opened them all and found them to be empty until the last. Anowon was waiting, and he brushed by Nissa when the door opened. Without stopping, he walked down the hall, sweeping past Sorin.

You could at least thank the elf, Ghet, Sorin said. I would have left you.

Nissa followed Anowon, and the others followed her. They passed empty rooms, some with plates of warm-looking food still in them.

Wait, Nissa said. She ducked into a room. Sorin s great sword and Nissa s staff were propped in a corner. She seized them and left.

The first attack involved something large hitting the tower. The tremor seemed at first like the Roil, until Nissa checked the vial of enchanted water hanging from her neck and saw it was not boiling. But the tower shook all the same. Anowon was some distance ahead, and they all ran to catch up. A brace of elves charged out of a room to Nissa s right, and Sorin drew his sword and cut them down where they stood. Their bodies were withered husks when Nissa stepped over them, and Sorin s sword pulsed deep and black. He sheathed its hungry blade, and they ran after Anowon.

Once free from the cells, they descended the stairs. On every level elves were among the plants shooting arrows out. Nissa saw forms flying through the night. On the level where the plants with mouths lived, Nissa watched as a plant snatched a flying brood lineage out of the air and chewed it down. She also saw eight elves pulled out of the bushes and dropped by flying brood.

Nissa stopped. How are we going to get out of this tower? she asked nobody in particular. But Anowon did not stop. He charged down the spiraling stairway. Soon they were at the second to last level Nissa recognized the giant ferns and she could see the assembled host. Their dark shapes extended far into the darkness. There were no torches and no battle cries only the screams of elves pulled from their positions and the harmonic music of bowstrings released in staccato.

Nissa stopped again, taking Sorin s shoulder. We cannot win if we step out through those doors, she said. Sorin nodded. Anowon was ahead, but Sorin ran after him and caught the vampire before he turned the spiral corner. Sorin spun Anowon around, and the look on Anowon s face made Nissa start. His lips were stretched back and showed his fangs. His eyes were red and narrowed, and blood was coming out of the corners of his eyes. He was crying blood.

None of that seemed to bother Sorin, who dragged Anowon back up the stairs as though he were a toy. Nissa threw down any elves they met with her staff. There was a tremendous collision, and the tower shuddered. Elf screams erupted from below.

They ve broken through, Nissa yelled.

The stairs ended, and Nissa and the others found themselves on a wide platform. Kolya trees grew in raised beds. Three brood were standing next to the stairway entrance, and Nissa charged through, tripping on the body of an elf and falling. She twisted her stem sword free and connected with the verdant energy of the Turntimber.

Mana moved through her and she camouflaged herself to a patch of basalt. The brood that had been descending on her pulled up and hovered above the entrance. The brood s head moved back and forth, searching for Nissa s form.

But the creature did not have long to look, for Anowon came through the doorway behind her and grabbed one of the brood s hanging tentacles. The creature tried to pull away, but the vampire punched the tentacle with his fist, and the creature fell dead. A glyph glowed red on the tentacle where Anowon had struck.

Sorin was next. The two remaining brood took a look at Sorin, tall and pale with his great sword unsheathed and glowing like the starry night sky, and they turned to fly. But a keening song came to Sorin s lips, and the brood froze midair and fell as lumps of flesh into the darkness below.

They turned to Anowon. In a moment the dead brood stirred and moved slowly back into the air. The Glyph glowed softly on the tentacle as it moved.

Come, Anowon said. This will fly us down.

Nissa s skin itched seeing the effects of Anowon s vampire-rapture.

Another tremendous impact shook the tower. That was enough to dispel any unease Nissa had about the zombie brood. At Anowon s command, the creature wrapped one tentacle around her waist and stepped off the edge of the tower. The flying brood lineage could not fly normally while holding all five of them in its tentacles, but it controlled itself enough and glided fast toward the ground in a sort of controlled freefall. As they passed, Nissa could see that each of the tower s ledges held hundreds of roosting brood. In the starlight Nissa could see the land around the base of the tower. Six massive brood had planted their shoulders against the tower and were pushing it back and forth.

The zombie brood held them tightly as it glided far out into the night on wings of flesh. It finally skidded to a landing in the dusty flats half a league from the tower.

Anowon took a deep breath, and his jaw tightened as he gnashed his teeth. The veins in his neck stood out, and the muscles in his cheeks and arms clenched. A series of grunts emanated from deep in the vampire s throat, and when he opened his eyes they were red and without pupils. He looked at the null brood, and the creature dropped dead.

In a normal situation, Nissa would have felt a bit of pity for the dead brood. Nothing deserved what a vampire gave. But there was no time for pity. The night spread on all sides. Nissa turned and realized her pathwaystone was back in the tower, as was the pack that Khalled had given her.

I do not know what direction we should travel, Nissa said.

Anowon was in a similar quandary, Nissa could tell. The vampire was looking at the stars, trying to gain his direction. His blood tears had dried on his cheeks and flecked off. But the curl to his lip had not disappeared. He jerked his hand up and pointed. That way is west, he said. It is somewhere there.

Ghet? Sorin said. You told me you were at the Eye of Ugin. How can you be unsure how to travel to the Teeth of Akoum, Ghet?

Anowon looked hard at the smiling Sorin. Both sides of his mouth curled back, and he spoke in a voice as menacing as any Nissa had ever heard. Having visited a location is different than knowing the way there, the vampire said.

Ghet, Sorin said, his face clearly showing his mock disapproval. You have lied to us, and we demand an apology.

Smara s goblin looked from one to the other of them, then at Smara. I know the way, he said.

Nobody said anything. Smara cocked her head and stared at the goblin as though she d only just noticed him for the first time.

You? Sorin said. Again?

All eyes were on the goblin, and he swallowed hard before speaking. I was in the Teeth for my mistress, the goblin said, motioning at Smara. She had suddenly become quiet, listening to the goblin speak. My mistress sent me through the Cypher of Flames to find the Eye of Ugin and return with a path to it. We were traveling to the eye when the fates of the ancient ones put us in your path.

The ancient ones? Sorin said. Do you mean to think that the Eldrazi sent us to you?

The goblin clapped its clawed hands over its ears. It peered at the dark sky from under a furrowed brow. You must not speak the ancients name, it said.

The gift is in the loam, Smara said, her pupilless eyes staring up at the sky.

Yes, the gift in the wherever, Sorin said. He turned to the goblin. Well, lead on then, he said.

Wait, Anowon said. The vampire had advanced on the goblin and was not less than an arm s length away.

I did not see you. I did not smell you, he said.

But I saw you, vampire, the goblin said. I saw you held outside the doors as the magic wielders fought. And the dragon. And I saw you

That is enough, Anowon said, holding up his hand.

A sly smile spread across the goblin s dry, cracked lips.

The vampire does not want me to speak of what I saw?

You will remain quiet, or you will sleep with your friends.

The goblin bowed, turned on the ball of its right foot, and pointed into the darkness. The Teeth of Akoum lie there.

They walked all that night. The wind that blew across the flats was cold, and soon Nissa s teeth were chattering. But when the sun rose, the flats heated quickly. By the time the sun fell shining in their eyes, the ground was so hot that none dared stop, for fear that their sandals might start ablaze. The goblin was the exception its feet were the color of rock and seemed as thick and as hoary as dulam hide.

For three days they walked. At the goblin s request they traveled at night until the land split into shallow canyons with long-dried stream beds at their bottom.

Anowon remained in a dark mood. He traveled far behind the others and began to lose weight. There was nothing for him to eat, as Sorin slept next to Smara and the goblin, knowing that if they lost the goblin they would all be lost and at the mercy of the crystal flats.

To make matters worse, there had been no water since they had found a hedron plant, a low gray plant covered with thorns and roughly shaped like a hedron. They d found it in a low draw, and without a moment s hesitation, Nissa had cut the top off. They had scooped out the pith and sucked the water from it. That had been the day before. At that moment, Nissa s tongue felt so large from lack of water that she could barely close her mouth.

Nissa and the goblin topped the bank of an arroyo and saw shapes moving on the flat before them. Nissa squinted at the moving shapes, but the sun was in her eyes, and she could not see well.

Brood? Nissa said. Goblin, is it them?

The goblin looked at the movement. Mudheel, it said. I have told you. My name is Mudheel. Or will you not like to speak the name of a goblin? I am not some Saltskull. I have a brain and a tongue, and I know how to use them.

You are certainly the most unusual goblin I have ever met, Nissa said.

Mudheel, my name is Mudheel, the goblin said, bowing mockingly. If it pleases my lady.

Mudheel, Nissa said. What I said before.

Mudheel looked to the flats. It is the City that Walks. The Goma Fada Caravan.

Does it have water?

I do think, Mudheel said. If not they would die in this waste. A body needs water.

Thank you, Mudheel. I ll keep that in mind, Nissa said, struggling forward. Speaking hurt as much as walking, and her throat burned from talking to the goblin to Mudheel. Still there was one question that was burning her as much as it had before, as much as the scorching air around them. Nissa turned to Mudheel.

Why do you stay with this party as the other goblins have slowly disappeared? Nissa asked. Are you not afraid that you are next? Why have you not fled in the night?

Mudheel turned to Smara. She needs me.

Nissa waited for more.

She is like a wife to me, Mudheel said.

A wife? Nissa thought. Of all the responses the goblin could have given, that was the one that Nissa had least expected.

A wife? Nissa said.

The goblin nodded and turned to look at Goma Fada. Nissa also turned toward the mobile city, her mind reeling from what Mudheel had said. A kor and a goblin? she thought. Nissa understood then why they traveled. Either of their people would strike them down for being together. Suddenly Nissa felt pity for Mudheel, but also shuddered at the though of their unnatural coupling. Goblins! she thought.

In the bright glare she could barely make out hundreds of small buildings, some with pointed roofs and others with flat. Large dulam beasts were pulling the buildings.

The Goma Fada Caravan was slow moving and they made their hobbling way to it just as the sun was fading. It was a huge caravan, composed of hundreds and hundreds of enormous wagons. Each cart held a small building of wood or mud. One that Nissa saw was a small stone holdfast with turrets and a portcullis. Some of the carts were long and flat and pulled by braces of dulam beasts. Those were filled with dirt and plants. One such cart had a small grove of fig trees growing in it.

A flock of birds flying above the caravan cried out as the party approached. Soon a merfolk riding a slim beast rode out to meet them. He pulled up on the reins, and the animal snorted and stopped. Nissa noticed that the bit and bridle were studded. She had never liked bits and bridles. She was not sure she liked the merfolk rider, either.

He was dressed in long flowing white robes. A hood was pulled up over his head to keep the sun out. His lips, painted to accentuate their natural blue, pulled tight into a mirthless smile. His green eyes glinted beneath the shadow of his hood. Yes? he said.

We mean no harm, Nissa said. Suddenly the sun felt very heavy on her shoulders. She took a step, and the world moved its alignment. She touched the vial around her neck, but it was not boiling. We are in need of water, she said.

The rider looked from her to Sorin, to Smara, to Mudheel, and finally to Anowon, where his eyes stayed. The vampire is not welcome, he said. But I will be the benefactor for the rest of you. Do you have coin? Strangers must have a benefactor to enter the caravan. There are no exceptions. Hurry, the Caravan Sheriff will arrive shortly.

Nissa waited for Sorin to speak. When he did not, she opened her mouth. We have no coins, she said. But we have items of power.

The merfolk rider waited. If you say hedron chips I will call the Sheriff myself right now, he said.

Nissa thought desperately for something they could barter with.

We have teeth, she said.

Teeth?

Magic teeth.

Let me see, the merfolk said.

Nissa turned to Anowon, who was scowling. The teeth are owned by the vampire, she said.

Perhaps he can enter if properly bound. Let me see these teeth, the merfolk repeated. He held out his hand, palm up.

What kind are they? he asked. When Anowon did not move, the caravaner snapped his webbed fingers.

They are merfolk teeth, Anowon said, and seized the emissary.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

The hardest part was hiding the body. Anowon had the sense to grab the merfolk and drag him between two carts to do what he did there, while the rest of them kept a look out. Nissa felt the bitter gorge rise in her throat as the merfolk thrashed. Amazingly, nobody in the caravan had seemed to notice. At least nobody had said anything. An if someone had seen Anowon drain the merfolk, they had not raised an alarm. It was the time of the day when people eat before the night comes, Nissa guessed, and the occupants of the caravans were inside.

Anowon disposed of the body by hoisting it and propping it against the side of a smooth adobe house built atop a wagon. The merfolk s legs hung over the side of the platform.

They walked into the midst caravan, where it was shady and strangely cool. A wagon with an immense tower built on a steel bed lumbered by. Two carts on a dray rocked and bobbed, each carrying a small crop of grain planted in straight rows. They wandered deeper into the caravan, hopping over the steaming dung piles left by the dulam beasts.

It appeared that the caravan never stopped moving. Beings tossed their privy pots from high windows. Even a huge wagon, three of its steel-shod wheels turning and squeaking, was being repaired on the move a wheeled jack held the corner up as a human hammered a new wheel onto its axle.

Soon they were in in the middle of what was a small village. Many small carts, each pulled by a male and a female human, traveled together, virtually touching edges as they rocked. On each cart was a small wattle hut, each identical to the one next to it. There were even guards. At four corners sentries stood, naked except for turntimber-bark armor. Each grasped the shellacked stalk of a vorpal weed.

Past the moving village, a strange beast with long white fur and twirled horns plodded with a group of humans and mermen surrounding it. There were two immense copper tanks strapped to its back. Two of the men wore various sized metal disks that clinked against each other as they walked. Each of the men had a cup on a lanyard around his neck.

Water, one cried. We have water.

Nissa looked down at her feet. Her boots were not worth much anymore, and she would need them. Still, if she did not have water soon She turned to Anowon, who drew back the white hood of the cloak he d taken from the merfolk. He held up his hand. Pinched between his fingers was a glowing tooth.

Is it fresh? Sorin croaked, through cracked lips.

Anowon smiled. The teeth in that merfolk s mouth were not fit for magic. This is one of the original teeth.

Whose are they? Sorin said. I ve been curious all this time.

Anowon did not look at Sorin. You will never know, Mortifier.

Sorin had been grinning, but when Anowon called him Mortifier, his smile disappeared.

In exchange for the tooth, the water vendors let them drink all the water they could from their cups. Then they turned a spigot on one of the tanks and shot a glistening stream of cool water into three new skins and gave them those. The water was piney tasting, flavored with Jaddi sap. It tasted like the finest thing Nissa had ever had in her life. Even better than a roasted thrak toad.

Nissa looked ahead, but could not see the end of the caravan. Buildings lumbered, and whips snapped. The smell was that of sweat and dung. The spicy dust blowing in between the wagons off the barren land mingled with the smoke from fires. Overhead a small creature, perhaps a young kor, was flying, being towed on a rope, with a pair of hide-and-wood wings strapped to its back. In the hard desert wind the winged creature dipped and soared, and the sun flashed off the reflective objects it wore.

Nissa took another deep drink and wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

What did you mean by Mortifier? Nissa said to Anowon. Anowon was watching Sorin walk some paces ahead.

He knows what I mean, replied the vampire.

He knows. Did you see the expression on his face?

Knows what?

That I know he speaks the ancient dialect of the vampires.

Oh, Nissa said.

Yes, Anowon said. His rot talk. It sounded strange at first, and then I consulted the cylinders. He rot talks in a language that appeared suddenly during the reign of the third Eldrazi titan. It did not evolve as most languages do. It had no precedent in other, earlier languages. It simply appeared in texts at exactly one time.

So, where did it come from? Nissa said.

Anowon smiled and shrugged. Ask the Eldrazi, he said.

Nissa took another gulp of her excellent water. With each drink she felt more like herself. You ask the Eldrazi, she said, smiling.

I leave that to you, Nissa the elf, the vampire replied.

I will tell them if you will answer this one question, Anowon of Ghet?

Anowon held up his water skin and squeezed it, sending a concentrated stream of water into his open mouth.

Why do the Eldrazi Titans have to be kept in the Eye of Ugin? Nissa asked. Perhaps they would flee if released, and this place would stop being so dangerous. Perhaps they would flee to another plane.

Nissa closed her mouth. She s said too much. She d assumed that because of his knowledge he d figured that bit of fact out, but apparently not.

But Anowon just continued walking, seeming to consider her words.

I just meant Sejiri, in the north, Nissa said.

They could go there and leave the rest of Zendikar.

But Anowon was looking at the dry ground as he walked, keeping up with the rest of the caravan. His fingers moved down to one of the metal cylinders hanging from his belt.

I just meant Sejiri, Nissa repeated. You know. The region in the north?

Still Anowon did not speak, but walked with his eyes on the ground and his fingers reading the ancient scripts copied on the cylinders that hung from his belt.

I am aware that there are other planes of existence, he said, turning to her as he walked. That certain creatures can travel between here and there.

Nissa felt the blood rush to her face. But Anowon was not done talking, and he began again before she could speak.

The Eldrazi are clearly these types of beings. All the texts claim they came from nowhere. That they simply snapped into existence. Obviously they came from another plane.

Obviously, Nissa repeated.

Over the next days, Anowon walked with the hood of his white robe pulled down low and his fingers moving slowly over a different cylinder. The caravan moved like a lumbering city over the dry pan. Nissa could see the fringe of a mountain range rising out of the haze at the horizon. As they had no coin, and Anowon simply did not answer questions leveled at him, they had no choice but to sleep where they could. One night Nissa slept in the window of a building pulled by dulam beasts. The next night she curled up in the fig grove as it shook and swayed in the starlight. On the fourth day they saw a dulam beast die. The large wheeled tent it had been pulling slowed a bit until another younger beast was led from the trailing herd trail and harnessed in. The other wagons simply turned to avoid the beast s carcass as a human bent and butchered it, slopping the meat and vital organs into a wheeled barrel.

One night Nissa was able to steal some grilled dulam sausage from a seller the next day she found two loaves of bread rolling in the dust near the communal oven. The goblin took whatever she offered it, breaking the food in half and feeding part to Smara, who stared into the goblin s eyes as he fed her.

What does she see in your eyes? Nissa finally asked.

The oracle sees the ghost she channels in my face, Mudheel said. And she is content.

Teeth of the dragon! Smara blurted out.

Mudheel stroked the kor s hand. Yes, we are going there. We are going.

But the caravan stopped later that day. Every cart, wagon, and dray slowed and then stopped. Nissa and Sorin walked past the wagons until they found the front of the caravan. The front wagon was stopped just behind an area of what looked like plants made of rock. The rock garden had maybe sixty plants, and some trees and each one was black and stone.

A human stood near them, leaning on a staff as he looked at the fossilized plants. Nissa watched is disbelief as a tear rolled down his cheek, leaving a trail in the grit and dust. Beautiful is it not? the man said. Truly luck is with us. We will make the mountains by the day after the day after next, surely.

Nissa turned back to the formation, for that was surely what it was. What is it? she said.

An igneous Glen, of course, the man said. When he saw she did not know the name he continued. Caused when a lava Roil burns the site of a Roil bloom. This reminds me that plants grow here on this rock. The kor say they are sacred. It is truly a great omen. We need such omens now that the tentacled menace has sacked Ora Ondar.

They have? Nissa said. Does it still stand?

The man shrugged.

More humans and some mermen had gathered at the edge of the stone glen. Nissa even recognized a couple of elves with glowing eyes, and the white kolya fruit emblazoned on their flowing robes. The elves did not appear to be searching for anyone their eyes stayed on the bloom. Refugees, possibly, Nissa thought. Still, she would have to keep an eye out.

Each of the onlookers, Nissa noticed, acted as if they were in the presence of a miracle. One merfolk with his ankle fins unbound and his beard a scraggly mess fell to his knees and planted his face in the dust.

Nissa turned back to the strange forest a monument to something that had once been alive and teeming, but was dead, cold, and no more than a sad memory. It was certainly nothing compared with the beauty of a true green growing place. The Roil had created it. And if she was to trust both Sorin s and Anowon s hints, Roils had more to do with a perversion of Zendikar s nature and more to do with Zendikar s desperate attempt to contain the Eldrazi in their restless slumber.

How could humans and merfolk find the garden beautiful? she asked herself. Beautiful? It was an abomination.

If the Eldrazi kept spreading like an alien plant, like the choking linnestrop Khalled had mentioned, they might devastate the wilderness to such a degree that such a garden would be the only nature many ever saw. The thought made Nissa s stomach twist and her nostrils flair.

She walked forward into the glen and started swinging her staff, hitting the fossilized remains of the plants and shattering them. They were more brittle than she could have hoped. In a matter of minutes the whole grove was reduced to shreds. A mermen rushed forward and seized her.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

The crowd yelled and cursed at Nissa as she was dragged out past the wagons and thrown down on the flatness. One of the mermen spit at her before he turned.

I will never understand elves, Sorin said, evaluating his fingernails. Such a confabulation of dirt worshipping notions.

The caravan began moving again and slowly went past. Nissa, Anowon, Sorin, Smara, and Mudheel squatted in the dust, with the hot wind snapping at their clothes. They had three skins half full of water, no food, and the red mountains on the horizon.

How far might those be? Sorin said. Like the others, he d taken to wearing his hood up as protection from the sun and lashing a headband around it to keep the wind from gusting it off.

Two days? Nissa said.

Mudheel coughed and said, Those are the Teeth of Akoum, and they are three days journey, I should say. The goblin put its hand above its eyes and peered at the mountains, which appeared to float above the ground on a pillow of air. Or four. Yes, four days, it added.

And we possess how much water? Sorin asked.

Three skins, Anowon said. Half empty.

Every member of the expedition figured how much water they would need for a four day walk in the wastes. Each put that number against how much water they actually had. The silence that followed left nobody in doubt about the findings of their grim calculus.

We should all perish, Sorin said.

Nissa started walking. Then let us fall dead as we walk.

After the first day they moved only at night. During the day they slept face down with their cloaks and hoods wrapped around their bodies, so that anybody who saw them lined up on the wastes would think they were a line of corpses shrouded for the grave.

By the end of the second day their water skins were empty, and they threw them away. They rose at dusk on the third day and stumbled toward the high mountains. Suddenly to their right, a huge dark form moved. In her weakness Nissa tried to pivot and raise her staff, but instead she lost her balance and fell. Sorin managed to pull his sword, but dropped it when it proved too heated by a week of desert air to hold.

The form floated in the sky. At first Nissa s thirst-addled mind saw a huge baloth with claws forward in mid pounce. But she shook her head and looked again. A tremendous congregation of boulders floated above the flatness, banging together. She watched the rocks float until she saw one rock with lines cut in it. Upon closer inspection she recognized stairs and a turret thrown together and chipped to almost nothing. The ruins had once been a palace.

They stood and watched as the rocks passed over their heads and moved out to the wastes from which they had come.

Nissa would have liked to ask Anowon about the huge palace, but she was too weak. There had been no water for a day, and her tongue filled her mouth completely again. Her lips were cracked to scabs. She could barely see, and her whole body hurt. Stepping was agony where the hard pack had burned the bottoms of her feet right through her worn boots.

Nissa started to fall the next morning. They had decided to not sleep during the day, knowing that if they did not attain the mountains soon, they would all die. So they continued. By midday the sun was so intense that Nissa felt as if she were made of fire.

And she fell. The first time she felt her legs weakening, and she pitched forward onto her knees. Mudheel helped her up, and she started walking again. The second time she did not remember falling. She simply blinked, and she was sprawled out in the dust. She struggled to her feet and walked a couple of steps and fell again. Nissa looked for the others, but she could not see anything but the sun glaring in her face.

Through the brilliance a figure appeared. At first she thought it was Anowon with everything that was hanging from his belt, but then Nissa saw the two dulam beasts yoked together following behind the figure. He was wearing a huge cloak with a hood and a piece of wood strapped over his eyes in which there was carved a thin slot. He reached down and took Nissa under the armpits and lifted her onto her feet. He took a cup from the folds of his cloak and poured it full from a small earthen jar. The water he offered her smelled of sulfur, but she drank it and the next cup he offered.

Sorin had made it a bit farther before collapsing. Nissa helped the man in the huge cloak hoist Sorin to his feet and give him water. Anowon was still stumbling after the goblin who was carrying Smara on his back.

The man collected each of them and gave them water. Soon they were staggering along behind a brace of snorting and bellowing dulam that pulled a huge wagon with an even larger tank strapped to it, water sloshing back and forth in the tank as the beasts lumbered on. The man was tiny, Nissa noted, if indeed he was a human at all. His clothes were too billowing for her to see his body. He held a crop as long as himself which Nissa never saw him use on the dulam beasts, to her great relief.

With the water, Nissa s tongue returned to a manageable size and stopped throbbing. After a time spent sitting on the back of the wagon she walked to where the tiny man moved ahead of his beasts.

We cannot repay you, Nissa said. Even those few words sent stabs of pain down her tongue and throat.

The little man nodded and kept walking.

Where are you traveling? Nissa asked.

The man pointed at the mountains, red and looming high ahead.

Do you live there?

The man nodded and made a guttural choke in response, a sound that brought the hairs up on the back of Nissa s neck. No tongue, Nissa thought. His tongue has been cut out.

Over the next day, as the man guided his wagon up and over the gentle hills, Nissa developed the strong feeling that something was watching them from the foothills they passed into. Suddenly the man jerked the rope that controlled the dulam beasts, and they bellowed and came to a stop. He ran back to the wagon and yanked out a leather bag.

He then ran back past the dulam beasts, and Nissa saw what was causing him so much excitement. A small pond of crystal water was floating two of Nissa s foot s lengths high in the air. The man approached the shimmering glob and scooped a cup from it. He took some small bottles from his bag and began mixing powders into the water.

Sorin stepped up next to her. Imagine what kind of magnet this water is to every creature for two leagues in any direction. It is too dangerous to stay here.

Nissa looked down at the ground, knowing he was right. There were the tracks of many creatures scratched into the dirt, only some of which she knew. She recognized the hydra s claw scrapes, the drake s two footed hop, and the scute bug s scrabbling sign. But of the tracks she did not recognize were many humanoid ones. Nissa got down onto one knee and traced the outline of two particular tracks with the tip of her first finger. The first did not cause her as much concern as the second. The first was a made by a very heavy creature. Even in the hard land the splayed, three-toed footprint was stamped deeply. It was about double the size of a man s footprint, but not nearly the size of, say, a mountain troll s.

The second track was actually many tracks. Whatever had made them had come in a sizeable group. The tracks were thin and of average depth not disconcerting in themselves. Nor were there claw digs at the tips of the toes. The problem came in how much she could see in the track everything. She could see virtually every bone in the creature s foot. Whatever had made those tracks either had no skin or no fat under their skin.

We need to leave this place, Nissa said, standing.

Ghet! Sorin yelled. His voice traveled over the low hills.

Nissa cringed at the loudness of his voice, and the thought of what could have heard it in the hills.

Ghet, Sorin said when Anowon came limping over to them. We are about to depart. Do whatever disgusting thing that you will.

Nissa looked from one to the other of them. Anowon turned and walked away. The little man had extended a long hose from the back of his wagon and affixed it to the tank. The other end he was about to stick into the globule of water.

Nobody will miss one water scout, Sorin said.

Wait, Nissa said. She took a step toward the wagon.

Anowon walked up behind the small human, and in one fluid motion he swept down, sweeping his hood back. But Nissa was ready. She lunged and jabbed quickly with her staff. The end of the staff caught Anowon in the middle of the chest and knocked him off balance, and he stumbled backward and onto one knee. When she charged, the vampire seized a handful of sand and hurled it in her eyes. Nissa stopped dead in her tracks and swung her staff where she thought Anowon was, but she swung through empty air.

A moment later Nissa heard a snap followed by a rhythmic slurping. She sat down hard and moistened a corner of her jerkin with saliva from her mouth, what little there was. As she cleaned the sand and dust from her eyes, Nissa had to listen to the cracking of the water scout s ribs as, presumably, Anowon squeezed the body to drain it fully of blood.

When her eyes were clear enough to see, she glared at Anowon. The vampire was standing above her smiling contentedly. The body of the water scout was off to the side. Two razor-thin lines ran vertically along each of the big veins in his neck. Nissa understood immediately why Anowon kept long fingernails.

Next time it will not go so easily for you, Anowon said.

Nissa looked out at the flatness they had just crossed and swallowed hard. She was not sure what angered her more that Anowon had killed the scout that had saved their lives, or that Anowon had out maneauvered her.

Why not the witch vessel. Why not her? she asked, pointing at Smara.

The kor woman repulses me, he replied.

When she turned, Sorin was looking down at her with no recognizable expression on his long face. Nissa went over to where the goblin was sitting in the shade of the wagon trying to act as though it had not seen Anowon kill the water scout.

We should go, Nissa said.

The goblin nodded and rose, then helped Smara to her feet.

We ll take the wagon, Nissa said.

And they did. The terrain became more and more rugged as they traveled. Surprisingly there was a trail of sorts that led upward, and the dulam beasts pulled the water tank easily. They had not bothered to fill the tanks from the floating water, but even without filling they could hear that the tank was perhaps a quarter full.

By daybreak of the following day they passed the first plant Nissa had seen in weeks: a foul-smelling shrub that began to dot the draws between the foothills. The path turned to the east, and the shoulders of the mountains became noticeably steeper for the next two days.

The strange signs of the skeletal feet that Nissa had seen criss-crossed the trail, but never quite followed it. Whatever the creatures were, they seemed to move as a pack of maybe twenty and seemed to always be barefoot. Others traveled with them. But the beings that traveled with them wore boots and had tracks of average length, depth, and stride. Nissa suspected that whatever was making the tracks was probably aware of their presence, and was in all likelihood shadowing them. Who could know for what reason?

Anowon noted the signs with a grunt. When he did not think we was being watched, Anowon scanned the hilltops around. Once she found him taking big gulps of air and deep breaths through his nose, hoping to get a scent from the surrounding air. Whatever he detected in the air made him edgy and even worse tempered than before.

At one point the vampire stopped suddenly and closed his eyes for some moments. The rest of the group also halted. After a short time Anowon opened his eyes and kept walking as though he had not stopped.

Ghet, Sorin said, after Anowon had stopped twice.

What foolery are you engaged in?

But Anowon said nothing. That night he insisted on taking first watch, and he pushed Nissa away when she tried to relieve him later. In the middle of the night they were woken to the sound of a bellowing echo in the mountains and hills. It continued for some time then stopped abruptly.

The next day was no better. They walked higher, and the hills became taller and taller until the mountains seemed to loom no more than a day s travel away. Anowon became more agitated as the trail became steeper. At one point he stopped the party.

We cannot go that way, he said, nodding to a rather level way that turned sharply behind a swelled outcropping.

Why not, Ghet? Sorin said.

Nissa looked at the turn he was talking about. He s right, she said. It s the perfect place for an ambush.

We must leave the wagon here and travel rougher, Anowon said. If we can.

Are you going to tell us what you know? Nissa said.

No, Anowon said.

Why? Nissa asked.

Because I might be wrong, the vampire replied.

Vampires are wily trackers, Sorin said.

Nissa could not be sure if he was saying that Anowon was a good tracker, or that they were being tracked well by other vampires. She turned to check Sorin s expression, but it did not reveal his true meaning. The possibility that vampires were tracking them made her skin tingle with fear and excitement. Vampires were one of the two creatures she actually enjoyed killing.

Are we being tracked by vampires, or is Anowon a good tracker? Nissa said.

Yes, Sorin said. We will see just how good a tracker our pale friend is.

Nissa shook her head. A straight answer would be nice just once. Just once.

The group left the wagon and started on foot. They moved slowly over the boulders, staying away from possible ambush sites. They avoided blind angles, swinging wide around corners so as not to be surprised. Before they left the tank they drank as much water as they could, wishing very much that they had not thrown away their skins on the flat plain.

But by dusk they were thirsty. They had just moved up a steep alluvial fan of loose rock, a hard scramble but one with no blind spots, no possibility of ambush, when Anowon stopped suddenly.

There is something ahead, he hissed.

Where? Nissa said.

There, Sorin said, without pointing. At the base of that rock formation that looks like a cascade of blood.

Nissa saw where he meant. In front of an undulated red stone formation was what looked like a statue of a very tall, stout human with no face. What struck Nissa was the fact that the statue was not constructed of red stone It was light brown, almost a mud color.

It is a statue, Nissa said.

It moved, Anowon said.

Nissa looked back at the strange statue. It did have a face of sorts: its nose was a hole, as were its eyes and mouth. She noticed that rock cairns were piled up on either side of it. She watched the statue for long enough that her knees started to sting as she squatted in the loose rock. She was just about to stand when the statue moved.

I saw it too, Sorin said.

The goblin was standing very still with one of its large ears cocked up and a worried expression on its face.

Nissa took a long, slow look around. The Teeth of Akoum were different from any other mountains she had ever seen. The steep sides of the high foothills were strangely bare and featured steep faces of rounded, almost bubble-shaped rock. There was no soil to speak of, only rock crushed to various degrees. Natural rock bridges formed by the wind joined canyon walls. Fingers of rock jutted high in the air, topped sometimes with boulders that floated and bobbed above their tips.

Clear crystals shot through everything, making walking difficult in the daytime, where rays of heat were concentrated through the crystals and had to be avoided if one wanted to keep from being badly singed.

Nissa s green lands were very far away indeed, she felt. But when she closed her eyes, she could sense the roots that extended out of the bottom of her feet and led all the way back to her forests.

They could not be taken by surprise on the wide fan, where a high canyon above deposited all the small debris carried by runoff from the high peaks. Nissa knew if the party left the scree fan they would leave the protection of the open and again enter into the maze of boulder ways, where every turn could be an ambush. They had to continue up the fan, and that meant passing the statue.

Sorin had been watching her. You go first, he said. I ll cover your flank. Ghet, go with her.

You are too kind, Nissa said.

Think nothing of it, Sorin replied, chuckling.

Nissa walked forward, her staff at her side. There was no point in sneaking. If something was following them, it had clearly watched their progress. It must have figured out that their way would bottleneck at the strange outcropping.

On closer inspection the statue appeared to be made of clay, which struck her as odd. Odder still was its position; it was standing with its arms out straight on each side. The cairns of stone that she had struggled to see clearly from farther down the fan now turned out to be the sides of a rock window. Like the rock bridges, the windows were formed by the wind blowing away a middle portion of the red stone. The statue stood arms wide in the middle of this.

They neared the statue and stopped. It was covered with symbols and decorative etchings.

Third-reign Eldrazi, Anowon said, without hesitation. See the tentacle flourishes at the corners of those boxes?

What is it? Nissa asked.

Anowon shrugged. That is script on its forehead. It says, mover.

Mover? Nissa said.

They stood staring at the statue. A rock tumbled ahead. I have the strangest feeling, Anowon said, stepping away from the strange statue. That something moves ever closer.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

What is this? the goblin said, looking at the statue.

We were hoping you knew, Nissa said.

The goblin stared at the statue. It brought the finger from its right hand up and inserted it into its own nostril and began digging.

Interesting, Mudheel said.

It was a golem slave, I d wager, Anowon said. He spoke with his eyes on the surrounding boulders.

Ghet, Sorin said. I ll hear none of your learned descent today. Let us remember that we have long way to go and still no water to wet that treasonous tongue. There are vampires, apparently, tracking us though Ghet here has known that for days and not seen fit to tell the rest of us.

Anowon pulled his white hood off his head and scanned the boulders huddled at the edges of the scree fan. Let us travel, he said.

They clattered upward through the loose scree. Behind them they could see the tumbled boulders and the far off flats at the feet of the mountains. Nissa kicked free a small boulder, and it rolled, bounced, and clattered away into the larger boulders, echoing off the hills around.

Reaching the top of the fan, they moved through a slot in the rock and into a shallow cayon, dark and silent. Their footfalls echoed as they walked, and the valley began to shut them in. Soon the low sheer walls were close enough that they could not walk three abreast.

Anowon stopped them. To avoid waylay they climbed up and out.

As they pieced their way through the boulders, night was upon them. The moon rose and cast a pale light that turned every shadow deeply black. On a large outcropping of rock they came upon a guard tower of clear Eldrazi origin, tumbled and broken, with many of its blocks miraculously piled one upon the other in tall columns.

We must stop, Nissa said, panting with the effort of the climb. Let us take our rest in that guard tower.

Ahead, the goblin piloting their path stopped. It dropped into a squat, and its eyes darted from boulder to boulder.

What is it, Mudheel? Nissa asked.

There is something there, it replied.

Nissa looked to where the goblin pointed. The pale light from the moon laid silver swaths of light between the boulders. Something glinted in the shadows. Many somethings.

Fly, Nissa whispered, and she started running to the tower. She heard footfalls following behind, but her mind was not on the others. She twisted her staff and drew her stem sword as she ran. She heard the clatter as Sorin drew his sword. She was the first to the tower s crumbled stone ladder, which she scaled in three bounds.

The goblin was the next up, then Sorin and Anowon, and Smara running for the first time on her own.

Nissa s eyes were on the boulder field behind them. From the shadows many forms emerged and started to run. They were thin and dressed in all manner of rags and fragments of armor. Their skin was as white as the moon above their heads, and their long, emaciated shanks showed the fine outline of the bones under their withered skin.

But what made Nissa s breath catch in her throat were their faces. They ran out of the shadows and into the moonlight, and Nissa saw that they had neither eyes nor noses. Instead, a perfectly flat piece of skin covered the front of their face. Only a round, lipless mouth remained filled with sharp yellow teeth.

The creatures ran recklessly. The front-most creature tripped on a rock and fell into a sharp boulder, gashing its arm and head open so that a huge flap of skin flopped at the side of its head. Still, there was no blood that Nissa could see. The creature staggered to its feet and started running again, its mouth open in a dry scream.

Not nulls, Anowon said. Anything but nulls.

Nissa could hear the tension in his voice. She d seen nulls before in the jungles of Bala Ged, but never so many. Nulls. They were what remained after a vampire drained a creature to an inch of its life but did not kill it. What remained was a mindless husk.

There were so many of them. Nissa lost count at thirty, before Sorin stepped forward with his sword drawn.

My rot talk has no effect on the undead, he said.

Nissa settled the soles of her feet on the rock. She reawakened the roots of her body, and felt the energy of the forest slither across the wastes and mountains. Then the charge shot through the roots that extended from her brow and connected her with the green growing places she knew well: the Turntimber Forest of the Tajuru and the fetid jungles of Bala Ged.

She thought of trolls. Forest trolls with bug eyes and mossy hair and thick arms like tree trunks. She felt the energy dripping off her fingertips and pulling to a place in front of her where it distilled into two trolls holding long blood briar branches for weapons.

She did not need to point to the nulls who were almost at the base of the tower. The trolls hobbled on their knuckles down the side of the tower and into the frenzied host. Nissa heard fingernails scratching on rock behind her, and when she turned there were six nulls struggling over the back edge of the tower. Sorin swept past, bringing his great sword down and splitting one from the crown of its head to its chest. The creature fell bloodlessly to the side. Nissa whipped her stem sword out and snapped another s head off.

Stop! Anowon commanded in a booming voice.

The air seemed to drag as the remaining four nulls at the tower stopped in their tracks. One had a dented metal plate strapped over the top of its face where its nose and eyes should have been. They lowered their hands with their long, curling fingernails, closed their mouths, and waited.

Anowon pointed down at the other nulls, who were fighting the trolls. The trolls swung their arms out, sweeping up nulls in wide swathes. Attack! Anowon commanded.

Without a moment s hesitation the four nulls turned and threw themselves off the edge of the tower. The three that rose from the boulder below ran at their brethren and began tearing flesh and limbs.

They are easily controlled by other vampires, Anowon said. But only in small numbers. This force is no small number.

Something must be controlling them, Nissa said.

Below, the forest trolls were swinging at nulls with all their might. The many gashes they had received from the vampire zombies had begun to regenerate closed. But Nissa did not worry about the cuts that covered her trolls. Hers was another fear, soon borne out. For every null that the trolls mowed down, four more seemed to clamber onto the dead one s back. Soon mounds of nulls surrounded each troll, and when the piles were high enough, the remaining creatures simply surged up and over the trolls. They clawed the trolls eyes out and snaked their long arms down the trolls throats to yank out handfuls of whatever they could clutch. The trolls regenerated, but not fast enough. Some of the nulls scrambled over the trolls thrashing forms and charged at the tower.

Below, the last forest troll fell atop a pile of ruined null.

A primal yell came from Anowon s throat as he launched himself into the horde. Nissa was momentarily awed by the attack. As she watched, Anowon drove his long fingers into the nearest null, tearing out hunks of flesh. With his hands wrist-deep in one null he turned, and with a quick snap bit deep into another s neck and tore most of its throat out with the jerk of his chin. He freed his hands and mouth, sidestepped another null s clumsy swing, and countered by shoving his hands through the creature. His mouth began tearing chunks out. When that null fell, Anowon hopped up and spun to do it all again with a new null. A chill ran down Nissa s spine. It was one of the most savage attacks she had ever witnessed.

Nissa snapped her staff back together and raised it. Only about half of the nulls were incapacitated, and the rest would clearly not stop until they were playing in their blood. Nissa raised her staff above her head, feeling the power rise in her like the sap rising in a spring tree. She moved her mind to the one creature she knew could destroy all of the creatures. She only hoped it would take a mortal wound before it got to her and the rest. Soon the rough outline of an Onduan baloth appeared in her mind.

Will they not Sorin began. She heard him grunt, and the next moment he was falling over the edge of the tower. Nissa received a blow from behind that knocked her forward and against a crumbled rampart. Darkness came abruptly, and she remembered no more.

She woke to a rhythmic jostling. Something was running as it carried her. Her eyes hurt, so she didn t open them. A sharp jab of pain spread through her head with every footfall, and she felt as though she were being torn apart. When she cried out, the running stopped, and she was thrown down on the hard ground. When Nissa regained consciousness, she opened her eyes and found that something was pulled over her face to keep her from seeing. A moment later the hood was yanked off, and the bright sunlight stabbed into her eyes, causing even more pain.

Nissa forced herself to make note of her surroundings. She was still in the high foothills, that much was obvious there were some small plants eking from a fissure.

A blurry figure approached. Nissa shook her head so the figure came into view, and soon wished she had not. A female vampire bent so her head was almost touching noses with Nissa. Her breath, rank with the smell of blood, was all over Nissa s face. A lip curled back to show one stout incisor, pointed and white.

It moves, the vampire announced. What a shame. I was hoping for a broken spine. The female vampire pulled a pink tongue over her white teeth. Easy meat.

Nissa looked past the female vampire. About eight nulls stood around them, their mouths gaping and drool running down their chins. Nissa noticed that many of the null had ruined limbs that dragged, or gashes and other signs that they had been in the brutal battle Nissa and the others had given.

You will rue the day you survived that fray, meatling, the vampire said. Rue the day.

It is you who will regret, Nissa said under her breath.

It speaks? the vampire said. Insolent animal?

The vampire backed up and turned, snatching a long, obsidian-tipped bampha stick from the hands of a skeletal null. She was dressed in tight leather with her head shaved around the side, front and back so that only a swath of black hair grew in tangles. Her skin was as pale as a null s, and she was almost as thin.

But as she took the bampha stick and swung it, she appeared to be the lithest thing Nissa had ever seen. She executed a complex hand over hand spinning attack that took a split second to execute and concluded with the obsidian tip coming to an abrupt halt an inch from Nissa s right eyeball.

Nissa could no more have dodged the attack as she could have flown on golden wings. But when the female vampire looked down, Nissa had slipped the top of her foot around behind the heel of the vampire s foot. Nissa lifted her other foot and pushed on the knee. With the vampire s heel caught on the top of Nissa s foot, the force of Nissa s push transferred to the upper body, and the vampire pitched backwards. She fell on her back, dropping the bampha.

Nissa did not have her staff, but even without it she was able to call down the mana and channel it into her mind where the outline of a giant Onduan python had formed. The huge coiled serpent snapped into being next to the female vampire and opened its mouth.

A second vampire appeared by the serpent and touched its scaly side. Immediately the animal shook and dropped its head. A moment later its head raised, a pale glow emanating from its eyes, and its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth.

The second vampire turned to Nissa. Thank you, elf, the vampire said. We need more bodies in our troop after you and your associates had your ways with us.

He turned to the female vampire, who picked herself up and snatched her stick off the rocks.

Biss, the male vampire said. Would you scout ahead for us?

Biss bowed and left, casting a hard look at Nissa before departing.

We have been tracking your progress for days, the male vampire said, turning to Nissa. And her hatred of the Mortifier is very great indeed. As is mine. The vampire raised one hand and snapped his fingers.

Behind the vampire, the zombie python began to writhe, knocking one of the nulls against a rock with its huge coils. Then it lay still. The male vampire looked at Nissa and shrugged.

What can I say? I love to kill things, he said.

Plus, it would have been another mouth to feed.

Why am I still alive, blood slave? Nissa said. They had called vampires that when she d been younger and in the jungles, mostly because vampires hated the name. But the vampire only smiled.

A good question, the vampire said. And you may call me Shir.

Shir must have sensed Nissa s disappointment that the name she called him had not angered him. His smile widened so that Nissa thought for a moment that he would lean over and bite her. Every yellowed tooth in his mouth showed as he spoke.

I would expect names such as that from one who travels with the Mortifier.

What is this Mortifier you speak of, blood slave? Nissa said. Or are you as dim as the rest of your kind?

The vampire studied her face for a moment. Could it be that this elf is not aware of whom she travels with? he said.

Perhaps she does not know what the Mortifier is?

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

They stopped only briefly. At Shir s orders, the nulls seized Nissa and ran with her bound on its shoulders. The nulls ran like they were being chased with Biss and Shir at the front and back.

At several points Nissa had to pull into herself, into the forest within, to avoid the pain of the thrall s sharp shoulder blades impacting her ribs, and to avoid the mineral smell of its breath in her face.

They ran all day and most of the night for two days, and by the second day they had passed through the foothills and onto a wide plateau surrounded by the jagged aeries of the Teeth of Akoum.

If she had her staff she could slice them apart, but it had been left at the tower she guessed, most likely among the bodies of her dead comrades. At one of their short and infrequent rest stops, Nissa attempted to connect with her mana and summon a creature, but when she reached her mind out for the lines of power that connected her to her known places, she found herself too weak. Once she managed to summon a gravity spider, but Shir simply touched the animal, and it rotted before her eyes.

Nissa was neither fed nor given water and by the second day was passing in and out of visions of her homeland of Bala Ged. She was near death when they stopped in the middle of the grasslands of the high plateau. The null threw her down in the sharp grass, and Biss stood taunting her. When Nissa did not reply to Biss s ridiculous questions she received a kick in her already excruciatingly painful ribs.

Null, Biss would scream when Nissa rolled over to protect her face. Roll her back over.

The nulls were the only creatures treated worse than she. Two of them fell and could not get up on the two-day run, but the others kept running. Biss even laughed at the struggling wretches.

But when they stopped on the high grasslands of the plateau, Nissa knew it was no rest stop. Shir had been stopping frequently to look at the dirt. At one point he even took a pinch of the dry earth and put it on his tongue and tasted it. Then he put his hand over his eyes to protect them from the sun as he scanned the distance.

There, he said, pointing, and broke into a run.

One of the remaining nulls grabbed Nissa s feet and began dragging her. When they reached the place where Shir and Biss stood waiting, they released her feet. She was scraped and bruised but also interested in what Shir was doing.

The male vampire fell onto his hands and knees and began touching the ground, feeling for something.

Why are we running? Nissa asked, but nobody said anything.

Nissa noticed some oddness in the grasses of the area as the vampires searched. Some looked a bit trampled, as though others had already been to that particular spot. And she saw signs in the dusty soil signs that Biss and Shir were not bothering to examine, which meant they knew who had made the tracks.

Or thought they knew who had made the tracks. As Nissa looked at the tracks the pulse of blood through her body began to speed up. Soon it was hammering at her temples, and it was all she could do not to smile. She looked around the great expanse and saw no forms in the distance.

Why are we here? Nissa repeated. Why were we running?

Shir looked up from his searching. There was sweat on his forehead and a sour look on his face. Somehow Nissa knew that the vampire did not like to have sweat on his face.

Null, he called. Come here and look for a seam.

The nulls fell to the ground and began scrabbling their long claws about in the dust.

Biss said something to Shir in the vampire tongue. Even though Nissa did not understand the language, the female vampire s facial expression told Nissa that she was not convinced the null could find what they were looking for.

Nissa stood and began scanning the soil a body span away from the vampires and their nulls. Her elf eyes were good at finding patterns, and instead of looking at the soil, she looked at the patches of grass that blew sideways in the wind. Soon she was able to see a rough line where the grasses did not grow.

She saw the sign that had given her such hope again near the seam footprints, and recently. Footprints she thought she recognized.

The seam you seek is here, I believe, Nissa said.

Biss looked up and sneered. Shir walked over to where Nissa had slumped back onto the ground, then to where Nissa pointed.

Yes, he said. It is here. Nulls, to me.

The nulls scrambled over and began feeling for the seam.

Thank you, elf, Shir said turning to Nissa.

For this your death will be quick. I will not leave you to Biss. I shall do it myself.

Why not kill me back at the tower? Nissa backed up as the null got their fingers in the seam.

We would have liked to, but your party escaped. We plan to use you as bait.

Who are you? Nissa said.

We are charged with fighting the Eldrazi brood lineage. When we came upon your band we saw an opportunity to kill or capture the Mortifier, who is perhaps the greatest Eldrazi sympathizer of all time.

How do you know this Mortifier?

We know. Vampire legend talks about him frequently, Shir said. He lives in infamy in our stories about slavery. He sold us into slavery to the Eldrazi, who utilized us as a food source, and when that was not diverting enough for them, as labor. They enjoyed greatly seeing how hard we could be worked until our bodies failed. The Eldrazi put us in chains all our lives.

I would have put you in chains as well, Nissa thought. But instead of speaking Nissa backed up, as the nulls heaved, and the outline of a stone became apparent in the loose soil. Soon they had the stone high enough that they could slide the heels of their hands under and push. The grasses that grew on the stone were planted in such a way that they did not slide off.

Biss smiled as the stone was raised. But the smile faded on his lips when the stone flew back and Anowon and Sorin burst out of the hole. Sorin had his sword out, and he and the vampire charged the stunned nulls, cutting down the remaining creatures in a matter of moments. Anowon swung hands with their sharp, claw-like fingers in savage arcs, tearing chunks out of the nulls, his mouth set in an ugly sneer. He spun his body around pivoting first on one foot and then jumping onto another to generate the inertia for his sweeping attacks. He even used his slashing feet.

Finished with the nulls, Sorin and Anowon turned to the vampires. Anowon bent and yanked a bampha from one of the null s hands. Biss was searching the ground, looking desperately for her own bampha, as Anowon lunged, driving the obsidian blade of his weapon firmly into her chest. The impact of his thrust knocked Biss off balance, and she took a series of steps backwards before falling still into the dust.

Shir sneered and made a grab for Nissa. But she had been expecting such a move and spun easily away. Anowon stepped forward. Shir hissed.

This is all your doing, Mortifier, Shir said to one of them, Nissa could not be sure which. We were driven from our land because of you, and we have been fighting the Eldrazi fiends because of you. And you will die before this moon s cycle has moved beyond the mountains.

Shir took a deep breath and closed his eyes. In a moment the air around them turned cold, and with a shock of revulsion Nissa noticed the grass around Shir s feet wither and die. Why do they have to be so creepy? Nissa thought as the vampire raised his arms. His skin began to hang off his body in patches, then without warning, the vampire s body fell to pieces before Nissa s eyes. First the arms hung so low that the attaching skin tore, and the arms fell. Then the legs buckled, and the corpse of Shir fell. When it hit the ground, its head bounced off the pebbles and rolled a short distance before stopping.

Nissa watched as the headless corpse withered to a bloodless husk. Sorin was not smiling for once. Anowon was already looking away to the west at the tallest mountains. Their peaks were so sharp that they truly looked like an upheaval of red fangs.

Did you do that? Nissa asked Sorin.

Sorin shook his head.

Nissa did not look at the loose pile of bones and skin. Instead she looked down at the square hole in the ground and the stone that had covered it for so long. What was this place? she asked.

A hiding place, Anowon said. I knew of this barrow. We have them in all areas of Zendikar. Many are joined with tunnels, as this one is. We entered at a location over there. He pointed.

Just then Mudheel came clambering out of the hole. He bent over and pulled Smara out. The kor did not notice Shir s body. In fact, she almost stepped on the vampire s now gelatinous thigh as she made her bumbling way to a small mostly buried hedron. Mudheel tilted his head as he stared at Shir s body, as though he was having trouble figuring out what exactly it was.

It is called a body, you turnip. Sorin said to Mudheel.

A turnip? Mudheel said, looking from Sorin to the pile of body.

Nissa let her eyes linger on the goblin.

Sorin handed Nissa her staff. Ghet was the one who insisted on tracking you, Sorin said. I would have left you, you know. You must know that?

I know that, Nissa said. You have a mission.

Yes, Sorin said. A mission. He took out a comb and began brushing his hair. Has that comb been with Sorin the whole time? Nissa wondered.

I know those mountains, Anowon continued, still staring at the extremely jagged red peaks. The Eye of Ugin lies there in that part of the Teeth.

That is true, Mudheel said. The goblin had received a cut across his forehead in the battle, and the tip of his ear hung at an angle. Both wounds he had dressed with a mud poultice.

Affa lies at the base.

Before he died, the vampire Shir Nissa began.

He is not dead, Anowon interrupted. He spoke with his back turned, as he looked out at the high mountains.

I know of this vampire Shir. He unincorporated. He dropped his body. He is from an old family. His line was made of a famous Bloodchief and has the funds to hire dementia summoners to dream him back into blood.

Nissa shook her head. She was rarely pleased to learn anything new about vampires. Such knowledge tended to keep her up at night.

Before the autumn of his flesh, this creature Shir spoke of the Mortifier, Nissa said.

Anowon turned. Sorin raised an eyebrow.

Mortifier? Sorin said. What did they want with this Mortifier?

Nissa shrugged. They did not say why they were looking for him. But I had the feeling that their main purpose was to find and destroy brood lineage, and finding this Mortifier was a coincidence.

They were attacking brood? Anowon said.

That is what I think, Nissa said. But neither vampire spoke much, except to taunt.

So they were not specifically tracking the Mortifier? asked Anowon.

It seemed they stumbled upon us. Nissa said. She watched Anowon s face for a tell something that would show her that he was the Mortifier, as she suspected him to be. The Mortifier was a vampire, after all. A vampire.

But Anowon s facial features did not vary or appear agitated. He simply nodded when Nissa told him about the vampires. Then he turned back to the mountains.

The Mortifier, he said.

Anowon was far ahead when they began to walk through the clumps of grass toward the thin lines of smoke drifting sideways from Affa at the base to the aerie peaks. They kicked through the grass all the rest of that day. That night they slept where they fell on the hard ground, with no food and not even a fire.

They rose before dawn and stopped to lick the dew off the blades of grass and their weapons. The sky to the east was a dull gray when they started walking again. They moved across the high grasslands, and midday found them with their cloaks thrown over their heads to protect them from the high-altitude sun which Nissa could feel as a weight on her skin. Clouds passed close overhead, carried on the constant wind.

In the late afternoon, the ground began to jump and jitter. The air seemed to pull in on Nissa. The tiny flask of water she kept around her neck boiled, and tremendous crack appeared in the earth. Moments later, lava shot into the air and pulled into a massive ball that quickly cooled to black, at which point plants began to grow all over it. It happened in a matter of minutes. Soon the floating ball was engulfed with greenery.

Nissa had fallen next to Anowon. They stood when the Roil was over and the cooling ball of magma floated in the air blasting heat. Nissa looked sideways at Anowon.

Thank you for getting me from the vampires, she said.

Anowon nodded. You did the same for me in the tower of the elves. We vampires drink blood, but some of us have honor, if it suits us. I gain from your presence, which is why you are still here.

How do you gain?

You are effective against the brood, Anowon said.

Perhaps you will be the same against the Eldrazi themselves.

Nissa changed her grip on her staff. Eldrazi? she said. You mean the ones that are still imprisoned? How would we fight them?

If we woke them from their slumber?

But we are traveling to the Eye of Ugin for Sorin to strengthen the spell of containment on the Eldrazi tomb. If they escape, it will be red slaughter.

That is what he told us.

And you do not believe him?

There are other places out there, Anowon said, waving a hand at the sky, referring to other planes. Since we talked I have become suspicious. This Sorin is from another plane, and he wants to keep the brood and their masters here? Anowon stamped his foot on the ground. Why? Why does he not keep them somewhere else?

Nissa opened her mouth and then closed it. The vampire had put voice to a question she had been wondering herself. I do not know why he wants them kept here, she said.

None of us do, Anowon said, casting a sidelong glance at Sorin.

What do you propose we do? Nissa said.

Freeing the Eldrazi, Anowon said. Let them go back out there. Once again he waved his hand at the sky. Have you noticed how the Roil has grown in severity lately, since the brood escaped?

I do not know when they escaped.

I was there. It was three moons ago.

Nissa thought back. It did seem as though the Roil had increased. But that could just be her remembering incorrectly.

And, according to what I ve read, the Roil was not always on Zendikar. Ancient texts first speak of the Roil only after the Eldrazi disappeared, Anowon said, pointing at Sorin.

After that one imprisoned them. And I know from my research that the hedrons did not appear until after the Eldrazi disappeared off the face of Zendikar. There were no hedrons on Zendikar when the Eldrazi walked its surface.

Well, Nissa said. What are they?

Anowon threw up his hands. Whatever they are, they clearly have something to do with keeping the Eldrazi asleep with channeling energy. Many of the strange phenomena of Zendikar occur around them, have you noticed?

That seems true, Nissa said.

And did you notice the inscription on that building the brood were building? The one in the hedron field near the ocean?

Nissa remembered that they had taken the brood by surprise and left none alive. But as for the building itself, she could not bring any of the inscriptions into her mind s eye. She shook her head.

The inscriptions were made by the brood copying the ancient Eldrazi style of decoration, Anowon said. Just as the markings on the hedrons are copies. The only original markings are on the palaces and crypts and various other buildings that once housed the ancients.