Agents of Artifice

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Slowly, so slowly, the rush of returning memories, of a returning life, subsided. Shivering violently despite the night's warmth, Jace Beleren opened his eyes, and found himself once more in the alley-once more today-lost no more in the memories of the past. For the first time in months, he was himself, rather than the man whose thoughts and recollections he'd stolen.

His hands and legs were coated in refuse from where he'd fallen, and the stench of the alleyway permeated his clothes. He noticed neither. The sounds of the city, muted but hardly silenced after the setting of the sun, crept into the narrow walkway behind him, and he ignored them as well.

How long he'd lain there, he couldn't say. He felt as though he were awakening from a long sleep, a sleep beset by nightmares of his own device. Jace rocked back on his heels, wiped a sleeve across his face to clear the worst of the tears from his cheeks.

A dozen times he drew breath to speak to his absent friend, a dozen times he faltered.

"How can I?" he whispered finally. "How do you apologize for something like this? 'Oh, I'm so sorry I lost control of the spell. I never meant to steal your mind; I just meant to commandeer it for a while and stick it somewhere else. Still friends?'"

Jace shook his head, and sniffled once or twice. "You'd know what to say, Kallist. I don't know if I'd want to hear it, but you'd say it. I was so sure. So certain I knew what was best for you, so certain I could do it. The great Jace Beleren couldn't fail, could he?"

Jace sank until he sat on the filthy ground.

"You know I came to Favarial to save you?" he said with a bitter laugh. "Well, to save 'Jace.' And it was your strength and your decision that brought me here. You who decided to do the right thing, not me.

"There's so much I wish we could have settled, Kallist. Even if I could never have made up for what I did to you, I could have tried. Maybe even been friends again, now that I understand why Liliana did what she did, why she left 'Jace' for…"

And then he was up and running, cursing himself for a thousand kinds of fool. Here he was, moping in alleyways, with who-knew-what still happening to Liliana. He remembered her cry from the stairwell, and a surge of magic passed through him, a spell he could only have wished to cast when he'd still thought himself to be Kallist. He directed his magics sharply down and allowed them to lift him skyward, spreading out in invisible wings of pure telekinetic force that brushed the buildings to each side, the feel of the stone cold against his mind. He took to the air, arcing over the nearest buildings, angling sharply toward the apartment that his mind in Kallist's body had called home.

This was Ravnica. Nobody gave the soaring figure more than a second look.

Before him was an open window, broken and shattered in Semner's attack. Jace swooped inside, the psychic wings fading into nothingness even as his feet touched the floor.

Liliana stared with wide, red-rimmed eyes from the floor, where she'd slumped exhausted against the fallen table. Shaky as a newborn fawn she rose, and made her way toward him with tentative steps. He feared, at first, that she was injured, but the blood that stained her gown was not hers.

"Jace?" she asked softly, her hand rising, her fingers brushing the side of his face, as light as hummingbird's breath. "Jace?"

He nodded once, trembling at her words, her touch.

"Oh, Jace, I'm sorry!" He almost found himself falling back as she wrapped her arms tight around him, as though afraid he'd simply vanish once more. "I wanted to explain, I wanted to fix it," she sobbed into his chest. "I didn't know how."

"It's all right," he told her through tears of his own. "It's not your fault. I did it to myself, to me and to-to Kallist." His words ended in a soft gasp, and he refused to turn his gaze, to look at the room beyond the woman he held. "I wonder… I don't think the right one of us survived, Liliana. I think he deserved it more than me."

"What was it like?" she asked gently, face still pressed against him.

"It… It didn't really feel like anything," he replied slowly, thinking back over the past six months. "I mean, I was just him. It didn't feel like anything had changed. Even when…" She felt his chest move as he shrugged. "We're not exactly identical twins, but it somehow never occurred to me that my face had changed. If I thought about it, I could have said 'Jace was the one who lost a toe to frostbite,' yet whenever I looked at the stump, it just felt natural. I never even questioned it."

"Your soul," she suggested.

"What?"

"You traded minds, Jace, not souls. Your soul was still you. Maybe that was its way of protecting your mind. Maybe knowing what had happened without being able to fix it would have-damaged you."

"I'm not sure I believe there's any such thing as a soul separate from the mind," he admitted.

"There is." It was scarcely more than a whisper. "Believe me, there is."

Jace nodded, and finally steeled himself for what was to come. Tenderly but firmly, he pulled himself from Liliana's grasp and stepped across the room, ignoring Semner's mutilated corpse as he searched for-

Jace dropped to his knees, felt Liliana's hand on his shoulder and couldn't even turn to meet her gaze. He'd known Kallist was dead, of course, had known since he awoke in the alleyway with his own memories, but to see it…

"I couldn't save him," she whispered to him.

"You shouldn't have had to," Jace rasped, rising slowly. "This is my fault."

"Jace-"

"It is. I did this. It's my fault.

"But," he added, turning around, eyes sweeping the room, "it's not my fault alone."

There, lying off to one side, half-propped against the wall, one of Semner's men still breathed. Jace watched him for a long moment, and gathered his concentration as he'd not done in ages. The air around him began to glow, a wintry breezy to waft through the chamber, as he drew on sufficient mana to rip into the man's mind.

There was no finesse, no care, only power and purpose. Jace slashed through thoughts and memories like underbrush, leaving a wake of devastation behind him. The unconscious fellow twitched and shuddered as entire swathes of his life were frayed. He wouldn't die of this. Jace had no taste for killing, not with memories of the Lurias marketplace fresh in his mind. But neither would he leave one of Semner's thugs behind, unpunished for his sins. The result was a drooling imbecile, a man who might be trusted to push carts or carry boxes in exchange for food and shelter. A grim life, but a life nonetheless, and perhaps more than the bastard deserved.

Deeper Jace delved, without sympathy or compunction; he cared about one thing only, held to but one objective. Yet no matter how thoroughly he sifted through the shreds of what had lately been a sentient mind, he couldn't find it. Eventually he had to concede that it was never there.

"He doesn't know," he said to Liliana as he allowed the spell to lapse, ignoring the faint babbling and drooling emerging from what was no longer entirely a man. "He doesn't know who hired Semner. I doubt any of them did except Semner himself."

Liliana gently took his hand in hers. "Is there really any doubt?" she asked him.

"Why would they have sent someone like Semner?" Jace challenged. "They'd have known he wasn't up to the task. If it'd actually been me, instead of Kallist…

"So maybe they didn't send him. Maybe he found where you were-where 'Kallist' was-and decided to try for the bounty they've put on your head. But either way, it's ultimately their fault, isn't it?"

Jace looked away. "It is," he agreed.

"So what," she said, taking his chin and forcing his face around to meet her gaze, "are we going to do about it?"

"We could walk somewhere. Like we meant to do before. Somewhere the Consortium would never find us."

"Is there any such place?" she asked. "Would you really want to live in a strange place, without friends, looking over your shoulder every day?

"Would you really," and her voice grew suddenly hard, "want to let them get away with what they've done to Kallist? To us?"

Again Jace pulled away from her, moving across the room to stare out the window at the flickering lights of Favarial. Fear and anger warred across his face, staking out territories in the depths of his soul.

"You don't know Tezzeret," he whispered finally. "Not like I do. I can't-we can't beat him, Liliana.

"But-''

Jace turned, shaking his head. "We can't," he insisted. "But we don't have to.

"The Consortium will regret what they've done, Liliana. And we can blind them in the process, throw them into enough disarray that they won't be able to come looking for us. Not for a while, at least, not until we're well and truly gone."

It wasn't enough, not nearly. But she dared not push any further, not so soon. And at least it was a start. She nodded, and if Jace noticed the sudden tension in her shoulders, he surely attributed it to the evening's horrors.

Jace returned to the body of his best friend and knelt beside him one last time. Ignoring the blood that was already drying into a thick stain, he lifted the heavy blue cloak that had always been his favorite. He wrapped it around his shoulders and joined Liliana in the doorway. Later, when he'd had the chance to rest, to draw mana from the waters below, he would sprout his wings and take to the sky once more, carrying them as far as he could. For now, they had only their feet on which to rely as they began the long, monotonous journey toward the Rubblefield.

"Damn it to raging puss-soaked hell!" Paldor ranted at the blinking glow that limned his beard and fleshy features in a blood-red aura. "Why are you doing this to me? Why?"

Oddly enough, the desk didn't answer.

Constructed by Tezzeret, Paldor's desk was attuned to every external door and window in the building through an intricate magical alarm system. Should anyone other than members of the Consortium attempt to enter the complex, the wood glowed, alerting Paldor to the possibility of intrusion.

This was the seventh time the damn thing had gone off in the past three hours.

Paldor practically ripped the speaking tube from the wall and held it to his mouth. "Captain Sevrien! This needs to stop!"

A few moments of silence, and then a breathless voice replied. "Captain's not in the office, sir. We're stretched thin, so he's gone to check on the latest incursion himself."

Paldor muttered something under his breath that threatened to melt the mouthpiece. Then, "Wake the day shift, if you're that shorthanded!"

"Uh, we already have, sir."

More flowery muttering.

It made sense, though. Looking back over the schematic on the desk, it seemed that each false alarm-if indeed they were false-was as far from the previous ones as possible. The guards were running themselves ragged, not merely investigating each new alert, but leaving a pair of men behind to watch the portal in question; of course they'd already called in every available blade.

Paldor shook his head as the flashing ceased. Could magic simply malfunction? As long as he'd worked for Tezzeret, he still didn't really understand more than the basics of sorcery. But if it was an attack, or a prelude to attack, where was the enemy? So far, the guards hadn't found a threat, or even an explanation as to how the alarms were triggered.

Not for the first time, Paldor glanced at the glass contraption on the wall. And not for the first time, he rejected the notion before it had fully formed. Tezzeret would not take kindly to an interruption without a tangible threat. Until Paldor knew for certain what was happening, he was better off not troubling him.

"Aarrggh!" In a tempter tantrum worthy of a colicky child, he pounded his fists on the desk when it lit up once more, indicating a window clear on the other side of the building. Grumbling, he rechecked the array of weapons concealed both under the desk and on his person-as he'd done each of the last seven or eight times-and seethed.

But this time, finally, the results were a bit different.

"Got it, Paldor." The voice, the vedalken captain's own this time, emerged clearly from the speaking tube.

"You know what's going on?" Paldor asked hopefully.

"I positioned some men at the windows that hadn't been triggered yet. We got lucky, finally caught 'em in the act."

"And?"

"Faeries," Captain Sevrien reported, disgust in his voice. "We're being pranked by a swarm of bloody, damned faeries. Would've pulled the bug's wings off myself, but it vanished when it saw we were waiting for it."

Paldor nodded, even though Sevrien couldn't see him, but his brow furrowed in consternation. It was certainly possible; some of the smaller and less malevolent of fey-kind were known for such annoyances, and even the great city of Ravnica, lacking the groves and woods of which the creatures were most fond, wasn't completely free of the pests.

But why here? Why in such force? Something knocked faintly on the doors of Paldor's memory but refused, for the moment, to step over the threshold.

"What sort of faerie, Captain?" He hadn't even known he was going to ask the question until it had moved beyond his beard, but suddenly he had to know.

"Come again, sir?"

"What sort of faerie?"

Paldor could all but hear Sevrien shrug. "Beats me, sir. I don't know the first thing about the little bastards. I-"

"Then go to the library or the workroom," Paldor ordered through a vicious snarl, "and find someone who does!" He slammed the speaking tube back into its slot in the wall.

The desk had flashed two more alarms, leaving

Paldor gritting his teeth hard enough to have milled a sack of grain, before the captain's voice emerged from the tube once more.

"What have you got, Captain?" Paldor interrupted.

"Well, sir, according to Phanol down in the stacks, based on the description I gave him…"

"Yes?"

"He says it was a cloud sprite, sir. Pretty much harmless. Weird thing is, sir, he said they're not known for this sort of mischief, that they…"

Paldor wasn't listening any longer, for the memory lurking just outside his conscious mind had finally burst its way in. No, cloud sprites weren't known for this sort of thing. Nor were they particularly common anywhere on Ravnica, and certainly not in the midst of the larger districts.

But most important, he'd finally remembered exactly when he'd last heard tell of the tiny sprites.

"Call your men back, Captain! Set them up guarding the main passageways, and for the heavens' sake, group them into units larger than pairs!"

"Sir, I'm not sure I-"

"We're under attack, Captain!"

Paldor heard Sevrien move the speaking tube from his mouth long enough to bark at his runners to order the guards to regroup. Then, "By whom, sir?"

"Jace damned Beleren!"

Alas, it never occurred to Paldor that, when dealing with a potentially invisible foe, any precautions he might order were already far too late. The faeries weren't a distraction against an incursion to come, but an incursion already committed; and the cell's security had been breeched as early as the third "false" alarm.

"Sir!"

It wasn't the captain speaking, then, but one of his runners, breathless and panting, addressing the captain. But Paldor, growing ever paler, heard it all through the speaking tube. "Sir, I–I…"

"Calm down, soldier!" Sevrien barked. "Take a breath!"

"But-but sir, Ireena's team… the entire team is down!"

"What do you mean 'down'?" Paldor and the captain spoke at once, Paldor having forgotten that the runner couldn't hear him.

"Oh, gods, sir!" Paldor could have sworn he heard the younger soldier's voice about to break. "Three of the men, sir, I… It's as though they were rotting for years, sir! I–I slipped in one of them, they're all over me, they're-"

Paldor heard the sharp retort of a slap, and Sevrien shouting for calm even as a murmur passed through the other men and women in the chamber. Tezzeret's lieutenant found himself sweating.

"— the others?" the captain was demanding. "Or Ireena herself?"

"Just-just sitting there in the midst of it all, sir!" the soldier sobbed. "Staring up at me, like they didn't even know who I was! Didn't even recognize their own names when I called!"

"Good gods," Sevrien whispered. "All right," he said, and Paldor knew from the shift in volume that he'd turned to face another of his seconds. "Where's Lieutenant Calran? I need him to-"

"He's in the hallway, sir," a third voice intoned, so softly Paldor could barely hear through the speaking tube. "He's just… sitting there, sir, playing with his sword and giggling like… like a schoolboy."

Silence fell, save for the frightened, labored breathing on both ends of the tube.

"Captain?" Paldor couldn't tell, from the tone, which soldier was speaking. "Captain, what do we-?"

Shouts and screams erupted from the tube as something-a door, perhaps? — shattered into a million splinters. Steel sang against leather as swords whirled from their sheathes, and the clatter of iron links of chain echoed through the narrow conduit. A dozen voices rose into a chaotic clamor, Sevrien's own barely audible as he shouted orders that nobody heeded.

Wood cracked, so hard that the floor beneath Paldor's feet trembled. Human voices disappeared beneath a monstrous roar, loud enough that he heard it clearly from the level below without need of the tube at all. The shouts of soldiers were transformed into shrieks of terror, wails of agony that ended in a series of horrible, wet thumps.

And then, once more, all was silent.

"Captain?" Paldor cleared his throat, hoping to still the quaver in his voice. He fumbled at the tube with sweat-slick hands. "Captain? Can you hear me?"

Nothing, nothing at all-and then, a faint childish giggle, accompanied swiftly by a second, a third, and a fourth. And all of them, each and every voice, sounded oh so familiar.

"Captain?" It was a whisper this time, a breath of horrified unbelief. "Captain?"

The speaking tube clattered as someone lifted it from where it hung, abandoned. "I'm afraid the captain can't hear you," a low voice responded. "Or at least he can't understand. He's not really himself anymore."

"Beleren," Paldor exhaled.

"He should have left me alone, Paldor," Jace told him. "Everything that happens now is on his head, and on yours." A squeal of rending metal nearly deafened Paldor as the far end of the tube was yanked from the wall.

He stood, the useless conduit in his hand, sweat beading his face, matting his beard, soaking in the folds of his chins. He cast a frantic eye at the door, contemplating making a run for it, and knew it was hopeless. With Beleren and his summoned monsters stalking the halls, Paldor wouldn't have given even a healthy sprinter fair odds of escape, and sprinting was far from his forte.

Besides, he had a greater responsibility.

With fingers that seemed determined not to work,

Paldor yanked a sequence of crossbows and daggers from beneath the desk, cocking the former, unsheathing the latter and hurling them about the room, that he might have a weapon easily to hand from any position. He reached into his sleeve, ensuring the manablade sat securely in its sheath.

Then, and only then, did he turn his attention to the device. He swung the pommel of a dagger, watched the bits of glass scatter across the floor, and though he'd long been an atheist-ever since he learned from Tezzeret of worlds beyond this one-he found himself praying to anything that could hear him, praying that Tezzeret wasn't busy with something else, wouldn't take too long to arrive.

Indeed, the door opened mere seconds later, but it certainly wasn't Tezzeret standing within.

Paldor spun with a dreadful cry. A tiny crossbow fell from his sleeve into his meaty hand, and he fired the weapon. But even as the bolt crossed the room, he simply froze, transformed into a statue of flesh and bone. Only his pupils still moved, widening as he sensed Beleren digging within his mind. He swore he could feel the touch of fingers upon his thoughts, the weight of eyes upon his memories, the warmth of breath upon his dreams.

"You should have stayed in hiding, you miserable rat!" Paldor raged internally, trying to shout, hoping that Beleren could hear his thoughts. "You want a war? You've got one! I know Tezzeret! He'll see every one of your friends dead. They'll suffer every imaginable agony before it's over, and they'll know it was your fault!"

He never knew if his threats had been heard. Jace closed his grip, and Paldor was gone. Oh, the body lived, and the mind could be taught; the corpulent creature could still be remade and remolded into a new life.

But as a person, as an avaricious and jovially cruel lieutenant of the Infinite Consortium, Paldor was dead.

But still Jace was not through with the man's mind. Into the vast emptiness that had once held a person, he implanted a message, a message that Paldor would speak only when Tezzeret finally appeared.

"That's Ravnica, Tezzeret." Jace spoke aloud even as he implanted the challenge in Paldor's mind, his tone deathly calm. "Perhaps Kamigawa next? Or Aranzhur, or Mercadia. There are so many cells to choose from.

"You should have left me alone. You want me, you decrepit, overrated tinkerer? Come find me!"