Dragon's Maze

TEMPEST OF LIES

Jace and Emmara had passed through the Simic gate and now approached the zone of alchemical machinery and steam-driven arcana known as Izzet territory. Jace tried to watch the sky for the draconic shape of Niv-Mizzet, but he was oddly focused on how the strands of Emmara’s hair moved. A storm brewed over the Izzet area of the district, with attendant rolls of thunder, and drops had begun to spatter on the streets.

“Where did Vorel get off to?” Jace asked.

It felt strange talking with Emmara out loud. Somehow it was a bit embarrassing after all their mental speech. It was too real, too out in the open.

“I lost Vorel at the Gruul gate,” said Emmara. “Or rather, he lost me. Some of the Gruul seemed to know him. There may have been some bad blood there. But he made it out, I found out later. I saw him pass ahead of me just before running into the Orzhov.”

“And the other gates? How have you fared?”

“I’m in one piece,” she said. “I don’t think I’m winning this thing, though.”

A force of Izzet goblins came around the corner, recognized them, and charged at them with fire-tipped pole weapons. Jace pinpointed their minds as they rushed, and the goblins fell asleep in mid-charge, clanging onto the cobblestones in their bronze-colored metal armor. Jace walked on without breaking his stride.

“I don’t think you need to end up at the Forum of Azor first,” Jace said. “I just have to make sure you’re there, and in one piece. You’ll do the rest. You have a way of uniting people, of bringing them together. And I’m starting to see that that’s the most important thing in this world.”

“Jace,” Emmara said.

The way she said his name made him halt and turn to her.

“Yes?”

Her eyes searched his face, as if she sought for an answer that might be written there. For some reason, Jace thought of Calomir. He realized he had never actually met the man she had loved, that the real Calomir was a memory by the time Jace had met Lazav’s imitation of him. “I know all of this has been hard for you,” he said.

“Tell me you don’t have secrets from me,” she said.

“I …” Jace said, and stopped.

He saw the longing in her face. She had been through so much with Lazav’s deception, and she was still struggling to cope with the fact of Calomir’s death. She had been abandoned by her guild and left to fend for herself. She wanted so badly to put her trust in someone that it made Jace ache to see it.

He knew he kept so much from her, to shield her from the difficult realities of his life. He knew she could never know of his true nature, of the existence of other worlds beyond her own, of how strange and twisted his past was. But he longed to give her the reassurance she sought, to prove to her that she could trust him if only to prove to her that people could be trusted. She wanted to believe in people, and he wanted to give her the gift of one moment where she could feel she wouldn’t be betrayed. And at that moment, he wondered whether that trust wasn’t more important than the truth.

“I’d never keep secrets from you,” he said.

It stung to say, but her relief was his reward. She smiled and grabbed his arm, and for a moment, she pressed her smile into his shoulder.

Thunder pealed as they neared the Izzet gate.

“Let me check up ahead,” said Jace, feeling a tiny bit invincible. “I’ll come back for you when I know it’s safe, and we’ll cross through the Izzet gate together.”

Emmara arched an amused eyebrow.

“I know, I know,” he said. “You’re just as often the one getting me out of scrapes. But humor my protective instincts this time, and grant me this one.”

“Granted,” Emmara said. “But I get to choose how long to wait before I come bail you out.”

“Agreed.”

The sky looked bruised. Unnatural clouds writhed uncomfortably low over the city, concealing the tips of the tallest spires. Ropy lightning danced among the clouds, setting off chains of staccato thunderclaps. Jace could smell the humidity of the storm; under that, the scent of charged air; and under that, the warm, rough smell of rain on brick streets.

Jace found the gate unguarded, but not unprotected. The Izzet guild symbol loomed above, set into the towering wall. The symbol was not just an homage to the guild’s passionate minds, but to a single, vain mind, their draconic guildmaster Niv-Mizzet. The dragon-shaped symbol looked menacing in the storm’s flashes. And of more immediate concern were the jagged pillars of lightning that walled off the gate, like prison bars made of harnessed, frenzied electricity.

As the winds picked up and the clouds spiraled above, Jace sensed a presence nearby, and he called out, “Who’s there? Reveal yourself.”

Ral Zarek walked out of the gate. The lightning bowed apart just enough to let Zarek pass through, then sealed itself behind him again as he emerged. Jace was sure that if he attempted the same nonchalant walk, the lightning would treat him quite differently, and the experience would prove abundantly fatal.

“You’re Zarek,” said Jace. “Our host, and the runner for the Izzet.”

“And you are Beleren, the mysterious mind mage, who knew so much about the maze.”

“You’re going to have to move aside, and dismiss your blockade.”

“No one gets through here. The race is over. It’s done.”

“So you’ve solved it?”

“Ten times over. There’s nothing to find. The dragon was wrong.”

“Then you won’t mind if my friend and I pass.”

“I told you. No one gets through here. Certainly not you.”

“You know as much as I do. The power behind the maze—it’s not for just anyone to wield.”

“That’s true,” said Ral with a grin. “It’s for me to wield.”

So Zarek did believe there was something behind the maze, at that. The Izzet mage was hiding something, if only a deep antipathy for Jace. Jace reached into Zarek’s mind with his senses, feeling for an explanation, or at least a weakness he might exploit. What he found surprised him. It was not that Zarek’s mind was a storm of wild thoughts—that he expected. It was the other little fact: Zarek had seen worlds beyond Ravnica.

“I am not your foe, Planeswalker,” said Jace.

“Oho! Another one like me, then, are you? You’ve heard tell of me on other worlds, I take it.”

“I didn’t know until this moment. Your mind is open wide to me.”

“In that case, you know I’m here to see you destroyed, fellow Planeswalker.”

“Your envy is misplaced, Zarek. You cannot have any quarrel with me—you know nothing of me. You know nothing of what I’m capable of, what I’m willing to do. Now, I implore you to step aside, and let me on my way. Please understand that that would be the best course of action for everyone—for the both of us, for your guild, and for this world.”

Ral chuckled. “Whatever you think you understand, you clearly don’t comprehend the danger you’re in right now. You do not make demands of me—not you, not the dragon, not anyone. You do not cross my path. You do not.” He looked up, beyond Jace. “Not you, either.”

Jace turned around. Emmara stood there, her hair darkened and plastered against her face by the rain, her robe gathered around her.

“Jace, what’s going on?”

Ral’s smile blazed. His hands sparked with static electricity, sizzling in the rain. “Your friend doesn’t know, does she?”

“Doesn’t know what?” asked Emmara.

“Leave her out of this,” said Jace.

“That’s the sign of a planeswalker, isn’t it? Condescending to speak for the planebound. Treating them like the ants they are. You’ve seen and meddled in many worlds, haven’t you, Beleren? How long until you scamper off and leave this one behind? How long until you find another toy to play with?”

“Jace, what is he talking about?”

“Go on. Tell her I’m lying. Tell her you’re just a frequent traveler, who spends much of his time in far-off districts. Give her your excuses for why you’re gone for long periods, why you don’t have any traceable family history. Tell her why you shut others out. Go on. It’s the usual speech. I’ve given it a dozen times myself, on a dozen planes.”

“What does he mean, planes?”

Jace was tempted to speak into her mind, to tell her that Zarek was lying. He could convince her. He could help her see what an unhinged mind Zarek was.

He could even prevent her from remembering any of this conversation, if he wanted.

Instead, he said, “Emmara, I have to tell you something.”

“No.” Emmara was not physically backing away, but he could feel her psychologically retreating from him. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.”

“I want you to know.”

“And I want you to tell me. But not this way. Not with him forcing you into it.”

Ral Zarek laughed. “She’s got a point, hasn’t she, Beleren?”

Jace ignored him. “Ravnica is only one of many worlds, and I’m not from here.”

“Stop.”

“I’m one of a few people able to traverse between planes. It’s called planeswalking, and it allows me to disappear from this world and travel to another one.”

“I don’t want to hear this. Stop.”

“It’s true, Emmara.”

“There are others like you? Who live here?” “You’re looking at one, my dear,” said Ral. He was almost purring.

Emmara’s face was hard, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Prove it.”

“I can’t,” said Jace. “There’s no one thing I can show you that will make you believe. I could planeswalk away from Ravnica and return later, but you won’t see it as much more than a disappearing act.”

“Then I don’t believe you. I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me, or why you’re trying to make a fool of me with your Izzet friend.”

“But it’s all true.”

“Stop it. It doesn’t make sense. Tell me one other place you’ve been.”

“I’ve been many places. Places very different from Ravnica. The details don’t matter. It’s only important that you understand that this is the truth about me.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you making everything so hard?”

“Because it’s the truth, and because he’s right. If I didn’t tell you the truth, I’d be holding back. I’d be keeping a wedge between myself and Ravnica. Between myself and you.”

Jace reached out to her with his mind, to explain in thoughts what he was failing to in words. But he felt her rebuff him. Her thoughts became a wall, a refusal as tangible as a blow. He saw that she was shaking, but whether from fury, despondency, or cold, he couldn’t tell.

“Is it true?” she asked, and he saw that she was looking at Ral Zarek.

Zarek only raised his eyebrows, like two extra smiles.

“How long?” she asked, back at Jace. “How long have you kept these things from me?”

Jace couldn’t tell if she believed him or not. Her confusion had flared into fury. He just knew he had to tell her everything, to trust her with everything, or he would lose her. “As long as we’ve known each other. Since the beginning.”

There was a long moment, and then she said, “Rakdos, and then the Forum of Azor.” She didn’t ask it as a question, but she waited for confirmation.

His eyes widened, then he gave a barely perceptible nod.

She stalked toward the gate. “Take it down,” she said to Ral.

Ral smiled, and the lightning barrier that protected the gate split open in the middle, parting like a curtain.

“I’m coming with you,” said Jace.

“You do not follow me.”

“I know I’ve lied to you. I know it’s a betrayal. But there are reasons. Don’t go.”

Emmara turned and walked through, and the bars of lightning covered the arch again after she passed.

Ral Zarek clicked his tongue. “A shame,” he said. “But it’s best we not get too close to our planebound pawns, isn’t it?” He floated in the air, lightning crackling from his limbs and eyes. He looked like a thunderstorm taken human form. “We must focus on the true powers, and the true threats of our world—fellow planeswalkers. Savor this moment, Beleren, for now I rid the Multiverse of you.”

Jace drew from all his sources of mana, and poured all of his fury and shame into his magic. The rain lashed down on him, streaming down his body, and thunder crashed all around him. He felt none of it. His body trembled with power, and his cloak billowed in its own winds, which ignored the course of the storm.

“Listen to me very carefully,” said Jace, his voice audible over the thunder. “That woman is going to win this, and you’re not going to stop her.”

“Why should I need to stop her? She’s heading into the demon’s territory. I mean only to stop you.”

A bolt of lightning crashed from the storm to the ground, impacting just after Jace darted to one side, but the force of its shock wave blasted him from his feet.

Jace rolled and sprung up again. He threw back a barrage of mind-crushing spells, but Zarek had raised a battery of mental defenses, and Jace’s assault crashed through the psychic barricades like rocks through endless layers of thick glass. Zarek’s mind was all dazzling shards of countermagic and ingenuity and ferocious ambition. Jace forced his way through it, trying to find the man’s sensitive inner psyche, but his consciousness felt like a windswept kite.

Zarek lashed into Jace with gusts of wind-spiked rain, knocking him back step by step. Then he clapped his hands together, and an explosion of thunder knocked Jace into a back flip and onto the pavement.

Jace crashed into the puddles. He spun away from another sizzling torrent of lightning, and fired back another volley of intrusive thoughts into Zarek’s mind, but only broke more of the never-ending mind barriers. He was making no headway, and meanwhile he was spending a lot of his strength on useless attacks.

Zarek had been prepared for this. He had been waiting for Jace to come through the Izzet gate and face him, with full knowledge of Jace’s abilities. Zarek would let Jace exhaust himself with as many mind-puncturing attempts as he wanted, and then would no doubt finish him off with a sky-shattering bolt of lightning.

But that plan had a flaw, thought Jace as he huffed with exhaustion through the rainwater cascading off his hood. It assumed Jace wanted the same thing Zarek wanted—to destroy his foe. As long as Jace took that line of attack, he would play right into Zarek’s prepared scheme. But Jace didn’t even want Zarek destroyed. He was the Izzet maze-runner. Whether he was officially selected by his guild or not, he would be that guild’s representative in the eyes of the bailiff, in the eyes of the maze. Jace needed him to finish the maze and appear at the Forum of Azor.

Jace pushed himself up out of the deepening puddles. As he stalked forward, the downpour hissed against the shoulders of his cloak, and his eyes glowed in the dark of his hood. Jace did not flinch as Zarek punctured his body with a stroke of lightning; he merely walked toward Zarek, holding his stare. As he neared Zarek, he stepped around him and marched up to the gate.

Jace walked directly through the lightning barrier and disappeared into the darkness of the archway.

The diversion worked. Zarek spun with disbelief, looking through the gate to find Jace, but he saw nothing but the dark passage beyond. He waved open an aperture in the bars of lightning and ran after him.

That’s when Jace—the real Jace, the invisible Jace who had sent his illusionary self through the gate before him—slipped through the barrier. He had to crouch quietly in the shadows in the passageway, his cloak dripping, concentrating on maintaining the illusion and letting Zarek get some distance ahead of him. All his urges told him to follow Emmara as quickly as he could, but he waited there, crouched in the dark. He sustained the illusion long enough to Zarek, then stood once more, and raced after them.