Test of Metal

THE METAL ISLAND

On the shore of the Metal Island, under the blank etherium stare of the Metal Sphinx, the small blue sun between Nicol Bolas’s horns flickered once, then winked out. The jet-chains of energy that had linked the blue sun to Tezzeret’s head vanished as well.

“Don’t stop now…” The human, still hanging within the crackling white Web of Restraint, seemed to be breathing with some difficulty. “You were just getting… to the good part…”

“Quiet.” Bolas enforced his command with a gesture that sewed Tezzeret’s lips shut with white fire.

The dragon lifted his head, and his immense forked tongue flickered out, stirring air into his even more immense nasal cavity, though what had captured his attention was not a scent. It was a peculiar imminence-a gathering of potential that was escalating toward the actual-and the sensation it produced was not one for which there are words in ordinary languages, because to feel this sensation required senses far from ordinary.

“We’re about to have company,” the dragon said in a tone suggesting that unexpected guests were not necessarily unwelcome, as long as they brought food-or, alternatively, were food. “Some friend of yours? Oh, right, I forgot the friends thing. A lackey, then. Reinforcements? Who is our Special Mystery Guest?”

Immobilized within the web of white energy, Tezzeret could do nothing but breathe and blink. So he did both for several seconds, until Bolas hissed in exasperation and gestured again.

The white fire vanished. Gasping in sudden relief, Tezzeret collapsed on the etherium plinth between the forepaws of the Metal Sphinx. “You do that… a lot,” he wheezed. “Act before you think… then have to undo what you’ve done. Embarrassing, isn’t it? Must make you feel rather… ah, hmmm. What’s the word I’m looking for? Starts with st and rhymes with oopid?”

Smoke trickled up from the fire in the dragon’s eyes. “Who is this incoming Planeswalker of yours?”

“How can you tell a Planeswalker is coming?”

“He starts breathing hard,” Bolas said absently. “It wasn’t a riddle? Never mind. I’ll let you make any necessary introductions.”

The dragon wrapped himself in his wings and with a shrug wiped himself from existence. Even his footprints disappeared from the etherium sand.

With considerable protesting of his abused joints and muscles, Tezzeret slowly organized himself into a seated posture on the eastern edge of the plinth, letting his feet dangle above the riddle’s first line.

Not far up the metal beach, air rippled with heat shimmer. This effect intensified until a thermocline refraction of the images of etherium and ocean spun into a shining swirl of metal and sea. Out from this swirl stepped a woman.

Apparently human, she was large enough that one might be forgiven for speculating that a giant or two had contributed to her bloodline. She was nearly a head taller than Tezzeret-who could be fairly characterized as a tall man-and though Tezzeret was muscled like a boxer, the woman’s shoulders were half again the width of his.

Her hair was gray, and cropped close to her skull in an “I’m too damned busy to waste time doing my hair” style. She was dressed in a similarly utilitarian fashion, heavy drakeskin boots, with tunic, pants, and jacket of tightly woven fibers of stonewort, a Bantian mountain herb widely recognized for its fire-resistant properties. The reason for her peculiar ensemble was prominently announced by the flames that licked from both of her hands, and the swirl of fire dancing across her head and shoulders.

Due to an array of carefully maintained pyromantic magics, she herself was virtually fireproof; she wore stonewort and drakeskin because she had simply gotten tired of having to replace her outfit every time she got in a fight-which was, as announced by sundry scars on her face, neck, and head that she did not bother to conceal, an all-too-common occurrence.

A more curious feature of her equipment appeared to be a sort of harness, constructed of thin metal cable strongly resembling etherium. As the woman strode forward from the mirror-swirl of reality, she dragged into the world a young man who appeared to be unconscious, tethered to her by the same cable that made up her harness. As soon as he was fully on the beach, she shucked her harness and undid the one around the young man’s chest. Exchanging her personal flame for a more general fire shield some ten feet in diameter, she threw him over her shoulder as if he were no more than a broken mannequin.

She moved along the metal beach with the alert caution of a warrior in enemy territory. Her expression had the blank intentness that signifies complete concentration on surroundings and movements, and none at all on doubts, fears, or anything that might go on inside her instead of outside; she moved as though she’d decided not to worry about what to do until after she discovered to whom she’d have to do it.

So it was that when Tezzeret spoke, she jerked and her sizzling globe of fire shield crackled outward around her, bright enough to hurt the eyes, even though all he said was, “Baltrice. Over here.”

The blazing shell around her dimmed, but it did not fade away. “Tezzeret?”

He waved to her, and she moved cautiously along the beach until she could see him. When she could, she stopped and straightened up, frowning. “You’re naked.”

Tezzeret nodded. “And you’re not.”

Baltrice’s frown dissolved, and she shrugged. “Better than the other way around, I guess.”

Tezzeret privately agreed with her, though he was too wary of her temper to say so. “Thank you for coming-and for bringing Beleren.”

“It’s as good a time as any to find out if your word’s good.” She set the unconscious young man down on the etherium sand. “Hey-hey! You’re not wearing the damn ring!”

She shook her fist at him; on her smallest finger was a plain band of etherium, and in her eyes were flames. “Where is it, you bastard-where?”

He spread his hands, inviting her to inspect again his nakedness. “As you might notice, a number of my personal possessions did not accompany me on this journey. And you hardly need the ring when you have me, yes?”

“Well…” She looked down, sighing, then gave him an apologetic shrug. “I guess.”

“That etherium tether,” he said, “is an interesting workaround. Is that yours?”

She shrugged. “It lets me activate his Spark, kinda like secondhand. He’s out because-well, you’d be the one to know. Awake through a planeswalk? Your gadget would probably kill him.”

“It was designed to. My compliments on your solution.”

“Ahh, you know. Wasn’t my idea. Him, though, he’s good at figuring stuff out.”

“I remember. How is my father?”

Baltrice made a face. “Next time I see him, I’ll give him your love,” she said. “What in the hells is this place?”

He took a long, pensive look around. “It’s a mausoleum,” he said at length, “for the fondest dreams of Esper.”

“Oh, for the love of-” Baltrice shook her head, and the fire around her brightened. “Look, can we not start that crap this one time? Please?”

“Crap?” he said mildly.

“Where you talk in metaphors and literary references and junk to show me how smart you are. Just cut it the hell out, can you?”

He considered this with a slight frown. “I’m not sure I can.”

“So okay, do we do the thing now? I mean, this was the deal, right? I did my bit. Now you do yours. You’ve put Jace through enough already.”

“Oh, Jace, is it now?”

She flushed. “There’s been some hard types sniffing around-could be working for the dragon themselves-”

“Nicol Bolas’s interest in Jace is not homicidal.”

“Yeah, okay, but even so-”

“I am more curious about your interest in Jace,” he said. “You like him.”

“Sure I like him.” Her flush deepened. “He pays me.”

“Does he? Still?”

“Better than you ever did.”

“I had thought Jace’s personal finances might be currently… shall we say, a bit stressed…?”

She made a chopping motion with her hand that spilled fire on the beach at her feet. “He looks after his people.”

“Or is it that he pays you in coin that can’t be measured in weights of gold?” He peered into her eyes with a focused intent not unlike hers had been on arrival. “Does he give you reason to believe that he, ah, likes you back?”

Her flush now became a full-on blush-one that was accompanied by the kindling of dangerous fires in her eyes. “We get along,” she said evenly. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

“Ah. Friends. Has he ever told you what happened to his friend-his best friend-Kallist Rhoka?”

“That skull banger he jobbed with, back in the day? What about him?”

“Ask Jace. It’s an entertaining story. Jace Beleren trades in friendship as I trade in money. The difference between doing business with him and doing business with me is that money buys things you want.”

“That’s a long way from the only difference.” The flames in her eyes licked outward, threatening to ignite the air between them.

He held up a hand. “I’m not trying to antagonize you, Baltrice. If to remove my device from his brain is what you truly wish from me, I am willing-for your sake, not for his.”

“What do I care about why?”

“A fair point,” he conceded. “But I do hope you’ll keep in mind that the last time Jace Beleren had me at a disadvantage, he killed me. Murdered me, in fact, with malice aforethought.”

The fires around her dimmed a little. “You’re afraid of him.”

“I have reason to be.”

“I won’t let him hurt you, all right?”

“I’m flattered that you think I might trust you.”

“I mean, sure, you and me, we’ve had our differences-”

“A mild phrase for betrayal, torture, and several attempted homicides.”

“Still, you know, we worked together pretty good for a while, back before…” She shook her head again. “And then on this sphinx hunt of yours. I even chased off your little black-haired, zombie-sucking slut bag for you.”

“And I am grateful for it,” he said. “How is the… ah, zombie-sucking slut bag?”

“Better at hiding than you are.” She let the fires she’d been holding flicker out. “Tezzeret, I’m not here for a fight, okay? Just get your gadget out of Jace’s brain and we’ll be on our way.”

Tezzeret sighed. “There are two major flaws with your plan-and that’s if we overlook your presumption that I have told you the truth about myself and my intentions; specifically, that I am not only willing to remove the item in question, but that the item can actually be removed without killing Beleren.”

Flames around her hands brightened. “If Jace dies, so do you.”

“I believe you,” he said. “Here are the flaws in your plan. First, as you can see, here I have no facilities nor equipment nor tools, all of which might be required to make such an operation successful.”

“Then we take him to your damned-”

“Second,” Tezzeret said, raising a hand to interrupt, “is your presumption that either of us is going anywhere.”

The fire shield flared around Baltrice and Beleren until the etherium sand began to fuse at her feet. “I’d like to see somebody try to stop me.”

“Your wish is about to be granted.”

“You’re ready, aren’t you,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “You’re ready for any move I can make. Fight, walk away, cooperate, whatever. You’re ready.”

“It’s not impossible to surprise me,” he said. “It’s only difficult.”

“You planned all this,” she said accusingly. “You had it all worked out in advance.”

“I allowed for a range of possibilities. Something resembling this situation was among them,” he said. “I certainly didn’t plan for it to be here; here is a place that at the time, I did not believe existed. And I did not plan on being naked. Fortunately, there is one thing about you that I can always count on, Baltrice.”

“Yeah?”

“I can count on you to be Baltrice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you remember how I tried to teach you contingency planning? How to analyze a situation in all its possibilities and permutations, and how to be sure you’re prepared against the ones you won’t like?”

“Never cared much for lessons.” The pyromancer shrugged. “If I can’t blow it up or burn it down, I pretty much don’t give a damn.”

“I know.” He smiled a bit, a fond sort of smile, slightly sad, like that of a father watching his most difficult child leave home. “Do you remember my slogan-my watchword-about being thorough, careful, and distrusting anything that might blur your perception? ‘It’s never a question of whether you’re paranoid…’ ”

“ ‘It’s a question of whether you’re paranoid enough,’ ” she finished for him. “Yeah, sure, what of it?”

He sighed. “All you know are the words.”

Instantly the fire shield around her roared back to full power, and both of her hands ignited with the intensity of the sun. She could barely be seen within the sphere of raging fire. “I don’t much like the sound of that.”

He had to lift an arm to shade his face. “You’re a great pyromancer, Baltrice. You really are. You’re not only incredibly powerful, you are almost unbelievably fast. Better in a straight-up fight than anybody I’ve ever seen. Except…”

“Yeah?” Fire swept outward from her like a phoenix spreading its wings. “Except what?”

“Except fire magic won’t help you much against an elder dragon.”

“What?”

A massively taloned hand the size of a horse flashed into existence and clenched around Baltrice so tightly that it instantly extinguished her fire shield. As the rest of him returned to visibility, Nicol Bolas lifted Baltrice bodily into the air.

He said, “Let me explain.”

She snarled a string of obscenities while she summoned a flare of power around her right hand that would have done credit to a medium-sized star. Cords bulging in her neck, she ripped her arm free of his casual grip and aimed it at Bolas’s face.

“Really?” he said. “Well, since you’ve gone to all this trouble…”

He leaned down until the corner of his mouth was only a few feet from her outstretched hand, and he winked at her. “All right. How’s this?”

“You tell me,” she said, and a blast of incandescent flame roared from her fingertips and caught the dragon squarely in his right eye. The raging fire ripped across the dragon’s cornea. It almost made him blink.

Almost.

“Oh, you are adorable,” he said with an indulgent chuckle. “Hush now. Settle down before I smoke you like a cigar.”

Before she could even begin to regather her power, Bolas cocooned her in a Web of Restraint, sealing her lips as well as her limbs and magics. This web was more than double the size of the one he’d used on Tezzeret, which may have been a gesture of respect for her power, but probably wasn’t.

Many traits can be truthfully ascribed to Nicol Bolas, but respect is not among them.

He balanced her on one extended talon, regarding her with the dispassionate interest he might have given to an exotic insect. “I should thank you,” he said. “Until you got here, I had only Tezzeret’s memories to amuse me. Yours might be more entertaining. In fact, they’d have to be.”

He tilted his face back toward the artificer. “A couple hours of your life and I’m ready to strangle myself in my own vomit. How do you stand it?”

The artificer, still sitting with feet dangling over the edge of the plinth, appeared to give the question serious consideration. After a second or two, he shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Probably because, unlike you, I don’t have a choice.”

“About much of anything,” Bolas said. “You must be getting used to it.”

The artificer’s only reply was a blank stare. Nicol Bolas snorted, and without even a gesture, he buried Tezzeret in a fresh Web of Restraint. “I’ll be back with you in a minute or two. You won’t have time to feel neglected. I promise.”

The dragon returned his full attention to the pyromancer in his hand, and the searing blue star rekindled between his horns. “I should probably tell you this won’t hurt. But why lie?”

Scintillant blue energy lanced from the star and poured into Baltrice’s forehead-and didn’t burn her at all, likely due to her enchanted fireproofing, so there wasn’t even any stink; yet another way in which she was more agreeable than Tezzeret. “I think you and I are going to be friends,” he said. “Very good friends. Good friends don’t keep secrets, hm? So… let’s see what you were up to, the night I turned Tezzeret loose.”

Baltrice’s memories began to unspool into his mind.