The Fifth Dawn

CHAPTER 27

Forced to take Geth’s word she wasn’t being followed, Glissa stepped to the bronze door hanging open on one side of the rebuilt Panopticon. Glissa entered at the bottom point of a diamond shaped section embedded in the platform.

Dark and empty from outside, the room erupted flooded with light from blue and white glowstones as she stepped into a sort of foyer. A large round door that appeared to swing on a central axis was set in the far wall, and a few small, harmless-looking artifact creatures skittered about on the floor, taking no notice of her entry.

“Okay, the twins have gotten tired of watching,” Geth’s raspy voice whispered. “I think it’s time to go in. Is there a door?”

“Wait, I’m not-”

“Ready?” the head retorted. “Too bad. Come on, they’re getting closer!”

Glissa glanced over her shoulder, and saw the pair of Malils approaching on twin hovercraft. She pulled the bronze door shut to buy a little extra time and then pressed against the right side of the circular disk-shaped door, which swiveled on its center and slid ninety degrees inward. She slipped inside and swung the door shut behind her.

She stepped into a much larger round room that was eerily silent and less brightly lit. It appeared to be a storage area, and she had to step over even more of the small arachnoid constructs that littered the floor. More than once she got the strange feeling that their eyes were following her even as they went about whatever they were doing.

A flat round disk sat floating a few inches off the floor in the center of the room. The room had no doors that she could see. Glissa cautiously stepped onto the flate round plate and walked to the center.

The ceiling hissed and slid apart directly overhead. Glissa held her sword out for balance as the disk lurched and floated upward. She placed a hand on the Miracore to make sure it was still secure as rose through the floor of the room above.

This had to be an important control center of some kind. The cavernous room with a domed ceiling that also appeared to be devoid of people. The walls were lined with silver panels inlaid with crystals and gemstones that pulsed with arhythmic light. In the exact center of the room, a huge silver ovoid structure lined with inscriptions, more pulsing gemstones, silver and copper pipes, and giving off just a little steam sat expectantly. The panels displayed moving images of several different locations on Mirrodin, including what looked like the battlefield of Krark-Home. Glissa choked back a cry at the sight of the devastation.

Glissa had not yet seen Memnarch, but she had a good guess where he might be. That giant, ovoid egg was just big enough to hold him and still afford a little breathing room. The half-empty translucent tank of serum that was fused to the side of the machine looked murky, like stagnant oil. But the tank was a dead giveaway. If the Guardian wasn’t in there now, he spent a lot of time in the structure.

“Glissa?” Geth hissed over her shoulder. “Turn around, but whatever you do, don’t scream.”

Glissa turned around, and screamed.

The elf girl could not believe her eyes. Glissa had walked right past him, focused on the images of Krark-Home and the ovoid. But there he was, plain as day, and alive-barely. She could only tell because the limbless, sallow form hanging in the barbaric-looking rack was drawing shallow, erratic breaths.

Slobad.

The elf girl had no idea how to get her friend out of this, or if he could even survive if she did. Pink crystals, focal points for serum energy, were embedded in his skin and all over the top of his withered, bald head. His skin had gone the same dingy gray as the clouded serum in the tanks before her.

“Slobad,” she whispered and tentatively reached out to touch the goblin’s sunken cheek. His eyes were open, and appeared milky and unfocused. Perhaps even blind. But his ears, and his nose, appeared intact.

Sombody tapped Glissa on the shoulder, and she whirled.

No one was there.

Another tap, this time on the other shoulder.

“Glissa?” Geth’s head said, “There’s something on your shoulder.”

“Gyah!” Glissa yelped, and flailed blindly. She connected with a hard metal object and knocked it away.

One of the numerous little arachnoid constructs clattered to the ground on its back, legs kicking. Glissa picked up the small construct with both hands, careful to keep out of reach of its diminutive legs. It resembled, she realized, a tiny version of Memnarch She turned it over a few times in her hands, but didn’t see anything on it that looked like a weapon, so she set it back down on the floor.

Glissa had expected the tiny construct to flee, but it simply stared at her with a single gemstone eye.

“Shoo,” Glissa said, glancing nervously at the ovoid as it vented a hiss of blue steam. The construct followed her to the ovoid and tapped her on the boot, then began tapping its tiny feet against the floor in an odd rhythm.

“What?” Glissa asked. “What do you want? Geth, what does it want?”

“I don’t know. Do you hear hovercraft?”

The miniature Memnarch lifted one thin leg and pointed at Slobad. Then it slowly pointed to itself.

Twice.

“Um,” Glissa stalled, not sure she wanted to believe what her eyes told her. She got down on all fours and whispered, “Slobad? Is that you?”

“Are you dense?” Geth’s head said. “Of course it is. Even I can see that. Look at your friend, there. He’s getting a constant stream of serum. He’s hooked into this whole … machine … hmmm.”

“What?” Glissa asked.

“This big diamond building is connected to the disk, right?” Geth replied. “And the disk is connected to those struts, which are connected to…everything else.”

“You’re not making sense,” Glissa hissed over her shoulder.

“No, the-those buttresses and supports … those big needles, and the Panoppi-whatzit, everything,” Geth said, sounding oddly excited. “They’re all part of one machine. And we’re standing-okay, you’re standing-right in the middle of it.”

“You’re saying Memnarch made some kind of … giant artifact … out of the world?”

“Couldn’t be him,” Geth said. “He’s de-fleshing himself. Had to be the goblin.”

The four-legged bug began to hop and click.

“Slobad did this? I don’t-that’s crazy,” Glissa managed.

“He’s telling you the truth, elf,” an arrogant, tinny voice that Glissa knew well called from above. Glissa looked up into a smaller round door now open above her.

She was looking into the face of Raksha Golden Cub, his face twisted in pain. She heard a thud, and the leonin dropped like a sack of gelfruit at Glissa’s feet.

“Raksha!” Glissa cried.

“He’s alive, for another few minutes,” Malil’s voice said again, drawing Glissa’s attention away from the unconscious leonin. Looking down imperiously through the small opening was Malil. Or rather, the Malil who had left his flyer parked outside. The metal man’s eyes flashed red with hate, and maybe something else.

Something familiar. Something that reminded her of a Vulshok priest she’d fought long ago in the Krark foothills.

“Your sister sends her regards,” Vektro said with Malil’s voice. “I had to leave her, I’m afraid. She just wasn’t holding up under the pressure. Or that rocket she took in the chest.”

Without warning, the metal man took one step forward and dropped through the hole. He landed with a resounding clang on the floor directly in front of Glissa. He threw a gleaming silver boot into Raksha’s side, lifting the unconscious leonin bodily in the air and slamming him against the wall. The Kha sank to the floor in a heap and didn’t move.

Vektro lashed out and seized Glissa by the upper arms, then squeezed with superhuman pressure. Glissa let out a strangled cry as she felt bones snap, and her sword clattered to the floor.

Glissa looked around her feet for the Slobad-bug, but it had disappeared. Vektro shook her violently, snapping her head back. The body the thing had taken was definitely one of the oldest Malils, assuming one could judge their individual ages by the size and number of flesh spots mottling each body. Not quite as old as the one she had beheaded in the lacuna, but getting there. Glissa wondered dizzily as her head collided with a wall whether Vektro could possess a being of pure metal. As the chamber spun madly about her head, she felt herself lifted as easily as a rag doll. Vektro carried her to another vicious-looking piece of torture equipment on the wall opposite Slobad, shoved Glissa roughly into the rack, and strapped her in with blurred, magically augmented movements. When he was finished the elf was unable to do much more than wiggle her fingers and toes, which were already starting to feel numb.

Vektro yanked Geth’s pack from her shoulder and kicked it across the floor, then slipped the Miracore from her neck and held it aloft in Malil’s mottled hand. The hand betrayed an nervous tremble as he slowly lifted the chain over his head and-

A loud hiss and a cloud of blue-white steam erupted from the base of the ovoid in the center of the room. Vektro jumped and almost dropped the Miracore, but caught it before it slipped away.

“Watch yourself, Vektro,” Glissa said. “Daddy doesn’t like sharing his toys.”

The imposter backhanded Glissa across the jaw, and her head struck solid darksteel. Vektro/Malil stepped to the ovoid, dropped to one knee and bowed, holding the Miracore above his head like a shield.

A thin, glowing blue line appeared in the center of the ovoid, and grew wider as clamps released, atmospheric pressure found equilibrium, and whining gears slowly pulled the apparatus open like an overripe fruit. A looming shadow appeared in the steam and fog, took on definition, shape, and finally identy.

Memnarch’s skin shone like quicksilver. Glissa could not see any of the flesh that had once mottled this Guardian’s skin as it had Malil’s. Memnarch radiated power from the glowing serum tanks that he carried on his back to the insectoid legs that held up his massive metal bulk.

The Guardian stepped confidently from the hibernation chamber and into the light. “Karn,” he thundered, “I am restored. Pure. The flesh is cleansed.” The crab-like metal man looked down at his servant. “Malil … no, my Creator, it is not Malil.”

“Master-” Vektro began.

“Vektro was to remain on the surface, yes!” Memnarch said. “It should not be here. But that is unimportant.” The Guardian snatched the Miracore from the false Malil’s hands and held it up to the light. Vektro remained, his head down.

“Master,” Vektro repeated, “the surface battle is all but over. The fools could not have reached my explosive, and it is only a matter of time before-”

Without removing his eyes from the Miracore, the Guardian swept a gleaming silver hand through Vektro/Malil’s torso, neatly slicing him in half. There was no explosion of gore, but a thin mist of glowing red energy seeped into a cloud. The plasma swirled as if trying to gain cohesion.

“It was useful, Karn,” Memnarch said wistfully, “but ultimately a failed idea. A creation of a tainted mind.” He waved a hand, and the glowing red energy that was Vektro blew away like smoke before the wind. Memnarch waved again, and a swarm of the small four-legged construct bugs scuttled into the room and covered Malil’s corpse. Bright blue beams of energy shot from their gemstone eyes and reduced the remains to nothingness. The bugs scuttled back to their corners, and one of them tapped Glissa deliberately on the toe as it passed.

The elf girl’s stomach did gymnastics. Slobad was alive, apparently controlling those little machines somehow, but what kind of life was this? Was Glissa going to find herself nothing more than a mind connected to a machine, only able to communicate via bug-talk?

“I’m sorry, Slobad,” Glissa said softly.

With a smooth flourish, the Guardian lifted the Miracore’s chain over his head and let the asymmetrical disk dangle on his chest. On the Guardian, the talisman looked miniscule.

“Rest, Karn,” Memnarch said with a cheerfulness that made Glissa wonder if that tone was just the beginning of the torture. “Rest and recuperation was what we needed. A good long rest to cleanse the soul. Good for the spark, too. It has kept the spark safe. It returned, as we knew it would. Now, in this pure body, I shall surely be worthy, Karn.”

“Nice,” Glissa said. “Very shiny.”

“The spark thinks it needs a tongue to be of use to me, my Creator,” the Guardian said. “Perhaps I shall remove it.” The bulky silver creature crab-walked to a silver panel and tapped out a pattern on colored gemstones. The entire Panopticon, including the rack that held Glissa in place, began to vibrate with a deep hum. She felt her guts lurch as the diamond-shaped structure started to slide toward the center of the great platform outside, taking them all with it. After a few minutes, a loud clang sounded as an enormous latch somewhere below snapped into place. If Glissa didn’t miss her guess, they were now sitting directly over the large hole cut into the center of the platform. There was nothing between her and the simmering mana core but this structure, which suddenly felt much less solid.

“It is genius,” Memnarch said. “You see my new form, and the mycosynth spires are gone. The time of flesh has passed.” He gazed out a tinted crystal window at the enormous struts and spikes that comprised the world-sized machine Memnarch-or someone-had built into the interior.

“I know what it thinks,” the Guardian said. “It thinks I built this great machine. But it cannot understand how, if I have been sleeping for five years. It thinks five years is a long time.” He laughed, a cold, mechanical sound. “Of course, the goblin built it, as you advised me. And I took the time to rejuvenate myself. To cleanse the spore. The goblin did very good work, don’t you think?”

Even if Glissa had thought Memnarch was speaking to her-and apparently he wasn’t-she wouldn’t have answered. What the Guardian said had just sunk in. Glissa stared at poor Slobad, a hunk of sentient meat connected to nothing but serum and the tiny artifact creatures. In thrall to the Guardian.

“Yes, wonderful work, built to specifications but with a few special idiosyncratic touches that shows it was goblin-made,” Memnarch said. “My very own Ascension Web.”