Dragon's Maze

TO CHOOSE A CHAMPION

Trostani’s grove felt like it was made of eyes. The soldiers of Selesnya posted in the grove stared at Emmara as she approached, and the three interwoven dryads regarded her with quizzical looks. The red-bearded guard walked at her side, looking abashed before the guildmaster.

“What is the meaning of this?” Trostani asked. “Where is Captain Calomir?”

“He fled,” said Emmara. “I’m here to persuade you to choose me as the Selesnya maze-runner in his stead.”

“Of course not. Captain Calomir and I have discussed this at length. We had hope for you once, Emmara, but Calomir has proved himself the true manifestation of the will of us all, the avatar of the Conclave.”

“The one you believe to be Calomir is a Dimir spy.”

Trostani’s three faces all recoiled. “Now you sound like your friend Beleren. What gives you the right to make accusations like this? Guards, take this traitor back into custody.”

The young guard at Emmara’s side cut in. “It’s true, Guildmaster Trostani,” he said. “That—thing—wasn’t the captain. I saw it change. It was a doppelganger. A shapeshifter.”

“That’s impossible. Calomir is one of the Conclave’s oldest allies.”

Emmara’s face was steel. “Calomir is dead.”

“Even if that were true, you think that we’re going to send you to represent the Conclave? You, who refused to support us in the battle with the Rakdos? You, who’ve consorted with that mind mage?”

“Yes.”

“Why should we?”

“Because only I know the route.”

Trostani’s faces scowled. The three dryads turned and conferred among each other. Emmara couldn’t hear what they whispered to each other, but she could hear the distress in their voices. There was a new, upsetting sound to their voices, something Emmara couldn’t identify at first. She realized the sound was dissent. Two of the dryads seemed to be disagreeing with the third, breaking their usual harmony. Emmara had never heard anything but unanimity from them—they were a living symbol of many made one. She saw the three faces look back at her frequently, one of them with pained empathy, the other two with withering derision.

She felt the eyes of the Conclave on her again. The glares of the soldiers around the grove bored into her. They, too, were put on edge by Trostani’s dispute, and they knew she was the one who had brought it to the Conclave. They had not seen the shapeshifter melt away, taking Calomir’s visage with him. To them, she was still an enemy of the guild.

The dryads of Trostani finally came to some kind of resolution. They turned and took a long look at Emmara, and their faces were not at peace.

Ral Zarek stung with the humiliation of announcing Niv-Mizzet’s race through the maze, an invitation he sorely lamented having to extend. The other guilds didn’t deserve the barest whiff of information about his project. But at least now he could finally, officially run the maze for his guild, and complete it once and for all. He had a plan to run the routes in unpredictable ways, traversing the ten gates with a series of explosive maneuvers shrouded by a covering fire of storm magic and cyclops brutes. There would be teams of rival runners trying to beat him, and to thwart them he planned for a series of lightning barriers. The lightning barriers would not only protect him, but also hinder others as they tried to progress through the gates. He walked swiftly down into the main boiler lab, where the other experimenter-mages had said he could find his guildmaster.

He elbowed his way past a team of Izzet researchers and found the dragon. All eyes were turned to the device in the center of the room. The drive wheel of a great steam-driven dynamo rotated into a pit set in the floor, and suspended at its center was a weird: a living elemental composed of the fusion of clashing elements. The weird was shaped like a tall and athletic human, and made of electrified ice, a combination Ral had never seen before. Steam rose from its glistening-cold body as the spokes of the dynamo wheel rotated around it, and blue lightning sizzled from its arms and legs. Its head rested on its chest, its eyes blank, and it was naked of any Izzet gauntlets or armor.

Ral rushed over to the dragon’s side. “Guildmaster!” said Ral. “I wanted to go over with you my plans for running the maze. It involves a series of—”

“Ah, good,” puffed Niv-Mizzet, barely glancing at Ral. “Yes. Kindly tell Melek and his handlers all about it.”

“Melek? Who is Melek?”

“Oh, had you not met him?” asked Niv-Mizzet. The dragon waved with his claw at the elemental being suspended in the dynamo. “May I present Melek, the official Izzet maze-runner. My team of elementalists, chemisters, mindcrafters, and energy-binding specialists have manufactured him specifically to run the maze. They’ve taken into account everything you’ve learned, and they’ve built that understanding directly into Melek here.”

Ral laughed nervously. “What? I don’t understand.”

“He’s made via an experimental synthesis of mana-dynamical principles.”

“No, no, I see that,” said Ral, the bright flashes of Melek’s icy body reflecting in his eyes. “I just thought I would be the choice.”

“Oh, no, of course not,” said the dragon. “Do you have a transdynamic mana core? Is your skin made from conductive, self-repairing frost?”

“But you don’t even know all the routes I took. You weren’t there to see all the meticulous research I did.”

“Your associate told me all I needed to know.”

Skreeg the goblin emerged from behind one of the other Izzet mages. He waved sheepishly.

Wine-colored electricity crackled up Ral’s spine. “Great Firemind … please. I am the choice. I am the designated runner for our great Izzet League. I am your resource.” He shook his hands emphatically, not seeing Niv-Mizzet raise his chest and rear back his head. “Any other choice would be misguided, wrongheaded, and entirely idiotic!”

Niv-Mizzet breathed fire in a sweeping arc over the ceiling. A cascade of heat washed down over Ral and the Izzet researchers, and the girders and steam pipes in the ceiling warped, melted, and caught fire.

Ral said nothing. His hands grabbed each other.

“Melek will be representing us in the race for the maze,” said Niv-Mizzet, revealing his teeth on every syllable. “That is final. You may go and clear the promenade, Guildmage Zarek, and ready the starting place for the competitors.

Thank you.”

Lavinia climbed up a stairwell, the highest stairwell in New Prahv, up into sunlight. She emerged on the rooftop of the Lyev Tower, overlooking the whole of the Tenth, and a guard nodded to her. Before her perched the sphinx Isperia, guildmaster of the Azorius, her wings folded and her calm gaze already locked on Lavinia. And beside the sphinx stood the blue-skinned vedalken man, Kavin.

Kavin and Isperia were conferring in hushed tones. Lavinia had no idea that Isperia even knew Kavin, let alone held special rooftop meetings with him.

“She’s the only one,” Kavin was saying. “She’s the only choice.”

“It’s out of the question,” said Isperia. “Lavinia’s rank does not qualify her.”

“Then that will have to be rectified,” said Kavin.

Lavinia quickly stepped forward, stamping her feet slightly to announce herself. “Greetings, Your Honor.” She gave the traditional nod-bow.

“Lavinia,” said Kavin. “I’m glad to see you.”

“And I you.”

The city looked toylike beyond Kavin and the sphinx. Cold gusts whipped around them, but when Isperia spoke to her, her voice carried over the wind.

“We were taken by surprise, Officer Lavinia,” said the sphinx. “I don’t like surprises.”

Lavinia realized she meant the dragon’s announcement. “We knew the Izzet were up to something. And the criminal Beleren thought it was significant.” She looked at Kavin, whose expression was just as unreadable as Isperia’s. She couldn’t understand why he would be here, conferring with her guildmaster, apparently about her.

The sphinx’s eyes were like spheres of ice, frozen and unmoving. “We Azorius rely on prudence and preparation. We’re at our best when we have months to prepare, to weigh our options, to adjudicate. And now there’s no time to make a careful assessment. No time to deliberate on a choice of maze-runner.”

“That’s probably deliberate on Izzet’s part,” said Lavinia. “Hurry the schedule for the other guilds, while they’ve probably been training their maze-runner for weeks. But Your Honor, couldn’t this just be a trick on the part of the Izzet? Or another of Beleren’s ruses?”

The sphinx ignored this. “I need someone to run the dragon’s maze, and I need it now,” Isperia said. “It should be someone with knowledge of the district, and knowledge of the research Beleren conducted into the Implicit Maze. Civilian Kavin here has given me counsel on how we might proceed.”

The sphinx regarded Kavin, and he nodded. “If you want the Azorius to have a place alongside the other guilds, it’s the only way,” he said.

“Then I have made my selection.” Isperia stared down at her.

Lavinia hesitated. “You have, Your Honor?”

Isperia’s unnerving stare didn’t budge. She only waited for Lavinia to respond.

Lavinia’s hand flew to her chest. “Me?”

“I would have chosen someone else,” said the sphinx, “but knowledge of the maze is scarce. Kavin convinced me it should be you.”

Lavinia spoke carefully. “My present position as supervisor of the towers does not permit me to venture out into the

Tenth.”

“Your title is now maze-runner of the Azorius.”

“That position doesn’t exist.”

“I have made it so. But you should understand, Lavinia.

This is as important a task as I have ever bestowed on you. You will be representing our entire guild, and playing a part in history.”

Lavinia stood straight, and her face was a stark mask. “I accept.”

“So be it,” said Isperia. “Now, Kavin. You said you had another issue to bring to our attention?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Kavin. “Do either of you know of something called the verdict? The Supreme Verdict of Azor?”

Jace crouched near the ledge of the adjacent Azorius tower, his cloak billowing in the wind. A transparency spell shimmered around him, keeping him concealed from any nearby minds. With his mental senses, he eavesdropped with interest on the conversation that was still going on between Lavinia, the sphinx Isperia, and someone they referred to as Kavin.

He did look like Kavin. But Jace knew it couldn’t be the man he knew; he had left Kavin locked beneath miles of stone, a blood-starved vampire. Besides that, Jace couldn’t see into the mind of this vedalken man with whom they spoke. It was a negative hallmark, a sign of the shapeshifter Lazav that Jace could sense by the absence of perceptible thought.

He listened in on Lavinia’s mind instead. “Never heard of it,” she was saying.

Jace had come to pry secrets from Lavinia about the verdict, but after tracking her down, he found that Lazav was asking questions about the verdict as well. It was a coincidence that Jace didn’t like.

“Where did you hear of this?” asked Isperia.

“In my research with Beleren, we discovered it,” said Lazav, in Kavin’s voice. “I think it may be related to the maze. I need to know how it might be triggered.”

Lazav was lying, at least in part. Jace had never encountered this aspect of the maze until he found the bailiff. Lazav’s interest in the verdict gave Jace a cold, tight feeling in his stomach.

“The verdict is a powerful and ancient Azorius spell of devastating justice,” said Isperia. “It’s used only in times of extreme need. It’s said that the verdict was designed to punish all the guilty across an entire district at a time, if such a time ever came to pass.”

“And what if everyone were deemed guilty?” Kavin asked. “It would destroy the entire district?”

“Destroy it utterly, with a wave of devastating power,” said the sphinx. “That’s the nature of the verdict.”

“That’s terrifying,” said Lavinia. Her words echoed Jace’s thoughts exactly. “But what would cause an entire district to be judged guilty?”

“Of course,” said Isperia. “The Implicit Maze. The maze is the test. Azor’s test. And the end is Azor’s verdict.”

“Then all the more reason you should be chosen as the maze-runner, Lavinia,” said Kavin. “You’ve been this district’s most valiant protector for most of your career. You can keep us safe from the verdict. That’s why your choice was true, Your Honor.”

That wasn’t the reason, thought Jace. Lazav wanted Lavinia chosen because he thought he could manipulate her into triggering it, releasing a wave of ruin across the district, killing the thousands of people within it.