Agents of Artifice

CHAPTER THIRTY

As Jace gradually, awoke, an armada of aches and pains laying siege to his body, his first thought was to wonder if he should be surprised that he still lived. He decided it wasn't worth the effort, and cracked open his eyelids.

He lay on a pallet of old straw, its needles poking him unpleasantly. He was naked, save for his trousers, and so badly bruised and beaten that he looked as though he'd been rolling in purple paint. One side of his current quarters was a solid wall of metal; thick bars of a matte-gray alloy formed the other three. Other than the pallet and a cracked clay chamber pot, the cell was featureless. He couldn't even see an obvious door, locked or otherwise.

The place probably smelled, too, but over his own stale sweat, he couldn't tell.

The cell itself stood at one end of a large metal chamber, equally featureless, with a single heavy door on the far wall. Jace was pretty certain he was somewhere within Tezzeret's sanctum, but beyond that, he couldn't be sure of a damn thing.

Staggering to his feet with a series of pained grunts, Jace wobbled over and tapped a knuckle on a bar. Solid, very solid, but not as cold as he'd have expected. It wasn't etherium, but neither was it typical iron or steel.

But of course, Tezzeret wouldn't have been even remotely so stupid as to try to keep a planeswalker in a normal cell, would he?

Just to be sure, and because he felt as though he should at least make the effort, Jace summoned his will, to walk, to cast a spell, to do something.

Nothing. He might as well have harbored no Spark at all, might as well never have heard of magic or mana.

"Ah, excellent. You're awake!"

The door had slid open without a whisper, and Baltrice stood framed within. She sauntered to the cell, wearing perhaps the cruelest grin Jace could ever recall seeing.

"Fascinating, don't you think?" she said, tapping on the bars with Jace's manablade before replacing the weapon at her own waist. "Another little secret we, um, borrowed from the Church of the Incarnate Soul. The bars are enchanted to absorb mana, Beleren. Inside, for all practical purposes, magic doesn't exist."

He sneered at her, crossing his arms over his bare chest. She chuckled and aimed a finger toward the wall at his left. The metal shimmered, flickered, and Tezzeret's face appeared.

"Why am I alive?" Jace asked bluntly, refusing to give the bastard a moment to gloat.

Tezzeret merely lapsed into a thoughtful expression. "I believe I've explained to you on past occasions how poorly I take betrayal, have I not?"

Jace rolled his eyes.

"You are alive," the artificer said, "partly because I want to give you some time to truly comprehend the depths of my disappointment-but mostly because I require a few months to complete my arrangements for you. You see, Beleren, since I've actually managed to take you alive, I've decided your talents are too valuable to waste. Mind-reading is a precious commodity indeed.

"So if I cannot trust an agent to perform such tasks for me, I'll simply have to construct a device to do so. An artifact that will preserve and manipulate the portions of your brain that allow for such wonders."

Despite himself, Jace felt the urge to fall back from the image on the wall.

"I should think," the artificer said with an oily grin, "that if I build the device just right, I can retain enough of your persona that you'll remain conscious and aware of what's happened to you, without the slightest ability to do anything about it."

Baltrice leaned in toward the bars, enjoying her captive's fear, no matter how hard he sought to mask it.

"You'll try to escape, of course," Tezzeret said matter-of-factly, as though it were a foregone conclusion. "And you'll fail. Even if you somehow find a way past the bars, I've poisoned you while you were unconscious. It's an eldritch toxin, dormant for now, thanks to the lack of magic in that cell. Step beyond the bars, though, and you'll be so sick as to be nearly dead in a matter of minutes." The image shrugged. "It'll metabolize out of your system in a few months, but I imagine I'll have your new accommodations ready by then."

He nodded to Baltrice, and the image faded from the wall. She grinned in anticipation, overjoyed as Jace began to tremble openly. "In the meantime," she exulted, "the boss has told me that until he's ready to cut you apart, as long as I cause no permanent damage- you're mine!"

Flames erupted on the three open sides of the cell, inches beyond the enchanted bars, and if magic couldn't penetrate the claustrophobic prison, the heat and the smoke could. Jace fell back, arms thrown up to protect his face. His skin blistered, his lungs cried out for air, but he swore, he swore, that he would not scream.

It was an oath he succeeded in keeping for almost a minute.

He lost track of time, there in that manmade purgatory. How long at a stretch was he left alone, filthy and starving, wondering if the next time that door opened would be the last? How many times did he flinch when the door did open, before he knew if it was some servant come with gruel and water, or Baltrice eager for another of their "sessions"?

The lights in the chamber neither dimmed nor brightened. The consistency of the food never changed. Jace slept fitfully, never knowing how long, never knowing if he'd wake up again, or even if he wanted to. His hair was brittle and uneven where the edges had burned away, his skin charred in spots and patches, some of which might never fully heal.

And Jace endured, for what else could he do?

It might have been days, then, or possibly weeks, when the door to the outside world opened once more, and it was neither Baltrice nor a food-toting servant who stood within.

"Hello, Jace."

"Get out of here," Jace demanded, his voice made hoarse by smoke and screams.

Liliana allowed the door to slide shut behind her. Tentatively, as though each step pained her, she moved through the room until she stood barely more than an arm's reach from the bars.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she told him, her voice quiet. "I told Tezzeret that I was trying to deliver you to him, but it took him some time to even start to trust me, even after his damned truth elixirs. As it is, he's 'letting me stay' while we discuss my future place in the Consortium mostly so he can keep an eye on me."

"Either go away," the prisoner growled, flexing his fingers, "or take a step closer."

"Damn it, Jace! They're going to kill you!"

"So I'm told. You came to watch?"

"I came to get you out, you idiot!"

For the first time in who knew how long, Jace laughed, laughed until his battered lungs could take no more and he collapsed against the bars in a fit of choking.

"Of course," he gasped, when he could finally speak once more. "Because you've helped me so much to this point."

"I have!" she insisted, her face distraught. "How many times have we saved each other's lives, Jace? How many times would you be dead now, if not for me?" "For all the good it's done me," he muttered, but he couldn't deny the point. "You really want to help me escape?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to see you go through what they're planning to do to you."

Jace shook his head. "No. No, Liliana, you don't get to play that card anymore."

"Even if it's true?"

"No. I want the truth. All of it. I want to know why-not just why you want to help me escape, but why all of it." Jace crossed his arms and stepped back from the bars. "Otherwise, I see no reason to depart this delightful establishment."

Liliana's jaw dropped. "You're joking!"

"No, I'm not." His tone left no doubt, no doubt at all, that he meant it. "This hell I'm in, Liliana? It's nothing compared to the one you put me through. So if you expect me to trust you even so far as getting me out, to believe that this isn't another trick, you're going to have to convince me." He glanced meaningfully at the door behind her, then at the wall where Tezzeret's image had appeared. "And I'm guessing," he continued, "that you don't have indefinite time."

She sighed. "No, but I have some. Tezzeret and Baltrice are off-world, and the guards outside the door are possessed. Once I release them, they won't remember me being here at all.

"All right, Jace." She lowered herself to the floor, sitting cross-legged before the cell. After a moment, Jace did the same, waiting expectantly.

"I never did anything," she started softly, staring down at the floor, "that I didn't have to do."

Again Jace found himself laughing, and laughing harder still at the hurt expression that flashed across her face. "Where do betrayal and murder fall on the list of necessities, Liliana?" he asked her.

"What do you know?" she snapped at him, her whole body tensing. "It's all come so easily to you, Jace! When did you work for anything? Your mind-reading? You just discovered you could do that. Your money? You blackmailed rich idiots until Tezzeret dropped an opportunity in your lap! Some of us have had to struggle a very long time for what we've gained."

"Oh, please," Jace scoffed. "You're, what, maybe a year or two older than me? You haven't had a very long time to struggle."

"You're off," Liliana whispered, "by about a hundred years."

Jace opened his mouth to deny the possibility, and then froze at the expression on her face. "How?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper. "Even archmages age, and you're no archmage!"

"Someone made me a better offer." Her lips twisted in a faint, self-mocking grin.

And with that, Jace knew. "You made a deal with something," Jace breathed, shaken to the core of being. "Damn, Liliana, I've done some stupid things in my life, but you…!" He shook his head. "A demon?" he asked, remembering her reaction on Grixis.

"Four of them," she told him. "Four demons, four deals. Jace, you can't imagine what they offered in…" She consciously unclenched her fists, which had risen of their own accord as she spoke. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Who they were, why I did it. The point is, I was young, I was stupid, and I did it."

"And let me guess," Jace said, mind racing. "Payment's due."

"Not quite yet. Soon, though." She shuddered. "You have no idea the terrible things they'll demand of me, in order to keep my magics-and my soul."

"Terrible things?" Jace scoffed. "Worse than, oh, say, betraying the man you claim to love, and then conspiring to slaughter his friends?"

"Yes," she told him without hesitation.

Jace stood and paced the cell, the singed straw crunching and crumbling beneath his bare feet. She watched him in silence.

"What's this got to do with me?" he finally demanded. "What did it ever have to do with me?"

"The Consortium," she said simply. "I need a way out, and the Consortium's got the resources to help me find it-if I'm in control. Or if I have enough influence over the one who is."

Jace's mouth twitched. No, he didn't buy it. Her plans were too complex, her need too immediate, to gamble everything on an organization that might help her find an answer.

But at the moment, he chose not to press. There were other answers he wanted-needed-first.

"All right," he said thoughtfully, replaying it all in his mind. "You heard about me, about my leaving the Consortium. And you decided I could do what you needed done."

She nodded. "Even if I thought I was strong enough to take on Tezzeret, I couldn't take him and Baltrice and his guards all alone. And there was no way for me to find him, anyway, or to take the knowledge necessary to run the Consortium from his mind. But you…"

"Right. But me, and my wonderful gift of mind-reading that's done nothing but get me reamed over and over for the past half a decade." The bitterness in his voice could have curdled the contents of the chamber pot behind him.

"So you sought me out, found me in Lurias-within days of my getting there, I might add. I don't suppose you care to tell me how? Somehow, I don't think it was really as simple as your specters picking me out of the crowd."

"No." Did she actually sound nervous?

"Fine. So you pretended to fall in love with me-"

"I didn't pretend!" she protested, but Jace plowed on, ignoring her.

"What I did to Kallist must have presented you some problems." Jace frowned. "Did he have to die, Liliana?"

"I'd hoped not," she said, and Jace found he actually believed her. "But when the spell didn't reverse itself, I didn't see any other option."

"Just like you had to do everything else," he spat. "But fine. Everything else was about making sure I had no choice but to confront Tezzeret, wasn't it? The first time, you tipped Paldor off that I was living in Lurias District. That's when he sent Gemreth and the others. So why not just tip them off again, the second time? Why go through Semner?"

"Because-"

"Ah, right. Because you needed me to be me, and you couldn't risk the Consortium sending someone who could actually kill me before that happened. You needed me to try to 'save Jace,' so I could be me again."

Liliana nodded sadly. "When Kallist was 'you,' he had many of your magics, but not all of them. And even if he had, he wouldn't have your Spark. It had to be the real you."

"So Tezzeret thinks I'm after him, I think he's after me. Every time he lost track of me, you pointed him in the right direction, didn't you? Every time I tried to walk away from the fight, you argued me out of it. And every time he came close to killing me, you fought to make sure it didn't happen."

"That wasn't the only reason," she said with another sigh. "But yes."

"And," he added, with sudden revelation, "now that it's all gone straight to hell, you get to foist all the suspicion off on me, and stay in his good graces. So what story did you tell him, exactly?"

"That the spirit you used to trace him here was yours, not mine, and that I decided it was safest to come with you and try to deliver you to him rather than to risk confronting you on my own." She smiled wanly. "Not the most waterproof story, but since his truth elixir didn't force me to change it…"

"And that would be why? No, wait. Same reason I couldn't read any of this in your mind when we met. You want to explain how that's possible?"

"No. That, you don't get."

"I know you couldn't have done it yourself, Liliana. You're powerful, but you're not a mind-mage. Who helped you?"

"No."

Jace glowered but let it go. "So if you've managed to keep pristine through all this, why help me escape now?"

"Because I don't want to see you suffer what they're going to do to you." Then, at his expression, she actually slammed a palm against the floor. "I mean it, Jace. I really do care for you. I won't pretend it'll stop me from doing what I need to do, but it's true all the same."

"Say I believe that," Jace said, and he was shocked to realize that he wanted to believe it. "What's the other reason?"

"Because I've gotten too close to give up!" Liliana leaned in, her eyes suddenly bright. "We can still win!"

Jace shook his head. "You're insane." "No, think about it! He won't be expecting a second attack, not from you!"

"I can't beat him, damn it!" He found himself clutching the bars, unsure of when he'd actually grabbed for them.

"Not alone," she whispered.

"You? So who handles Baltrice and the guards?"

"No, I didn't mean me. We get help, Jace."

"Who could… You're not serious!"

"You have a better idea? All we have to do is get Tezzeret to Grixis."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Much as he hates you? If he thinks you're escaping, he'll follow you just about anywhere. And if he realizes you're going to Grixis, he'll be that much more desperate to stop you! He knows as well as we do that he can't stand up to you and Bolas."

Jace could only stare. "Even if it proves that easy, you really think Nicol Bolas would interfere?"

"He helped us before. We might have to make a deal, but I think it'd be worth it, don't you?"

That was it, then. Jace could all but hear the last piece of the puzzle click into place in his mind.

Of course. The Consortium wasn't her prize, could not free her from her debt; it was payment, payment to the only one who could.

And now he knew what he had to do.

"If we're actually going to try this," he told her thoughtfully, "there are a few things I need you to find out first."