Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

Nissa Revine heard a rustle and a snap, and she knew Hiba was running toward her through the undergrowth. She moved carefully as an accipiter beetle perched on her hand, keeping a wary eye on its venom-tipped spike. As she watched, the insect unfolded its hairy, purple wings.

Come quick, Hiba said, bursting out of the foliage.

Nissa looked up and saw him freeze, his eyes on the fist-sized beetle. He took a step back, but it was too late. Sensing him, the beetle suddenly shot at his face. Hiba ducked and stumbled backward as the bug whizzed past his ear and away through the trees. Nissa watched it go.

Stealthy as always, she said, her eyes on the gap in the branches the beetle had flown through. A breeze rustled the leaves, and Nissa sighed.

One day, Hiba said. You ll stop saying that.

She watched as he brushed himself off. In the heat of the forest floor, the smells of moss, sweaty leather, and jurworrel-tree sap wafted off him.

We Tajuru don t spend our days sneaking around down here, he said, also glancing in the direction the beetle had flown. Doing whatever it is you do down here.

Nissa smiled inwardly as she took his measure. Like most Tajuru, Hiba was lightly armed and well tethered. Only a short sword dangled from his belt, clanking against his climbing hooks and rope. His torso and thighs were crisscrossed with complex waist-harness loops and shoulder slings of warthog leather and turntimber bark, the latter nearly indestructible. His arms were saddled with long muscles capable of sudden feats of quick strength. He could, in half the blink of an eye, find a grip on a sheer cliff face, and support three other elves with one finger. She d seen him do it more than once. He had saved her life in Teetering Stone Canyon when she d missed a toe hold. Unlike the Tajuru, her own Joraga elves weren t much good at climbing a failing more than made up for by their stealth, summoning ability, and combat prowess.

She shrugged the strap of the long staff slung over her shoulder back into place and followed Hiba.

The way back to the home tree took them shimming up a towering, corkscrew turntimber trunk and along moss-carpeted branchways wide enough for ten elves to walk shoulder to shoulder. They soon found the rope bridge hidden among the hanging lichens that always reminded Nissa of snakes moving in the breeze. Snakes, she thought, swallowing hard. Snakes teemed everywhere on Ondu in fact, there was one wrapped around the rope handrail as she approached. Snakes. Nissa tried not to shiver as she passed by the handrail. Only vampires are more disgusting than snakes. Hiba noticed her grimace. The young elf smiled as they walked.

Still afraid of snakes, he said, more of a statement than a question.

I think you meant, still afraid of snakes, Captain Leaf Talker? she corrected, using her official Tajuru ranger designation. Is that what you meant?

That is exactly what I meant, Captain Leaf Talker, Hiba said. He was teasing her she knew, but she did not mind too much. Hiba was as near to a friend as she had in this place among the weaker elves.

They were very near the tree she could tell by the smell of fires. But the tree was so well camouflaged that the forest seemed to extend in unbroken stillness until they were virtually at its trunk. Only the continuous creaking of the turntimber trees filled the close silence.

Silence was yet another odd aspect of the tribe that had adopted her. She did not understand their need for quiet. Her old home in Bala Ged had been a noisy place. But she certainly could not go back to the Joraga elves there. Not until she d completed her appointment with the Tajuru. It was something all great leaders of the Joraga did; to live abroad with another tribe for a time. But Nissa had done so much more. She d traveled out past the blind eternities to flat lands of endless of grass, to lands of alloy and fire, even to endless cities where people stood on each other s heads. But none of those planes were her place, and no plane had more mana or beauty than Zendikar, so she soon felt drawn back.

Nissa snapped out of her thoughts. Hiba had stopped walking and was standing stock still in the middle of the bridge, a long ear cocked upward. Far below she could hear air passing over the wings of a bird of prey circling the floor s duff. Above, the green tangle of corkscrew branches held strangely still. Then she heard it: a rhythmic scraping somewhere ahead and up. She knew better than to make any noise as she very carefully freed her staff from the strap slung over her shoulder.

It could be many things. The Turntimber was full of dangerous predators; simm cats that kicked with their sharp back claws; forest trolls with their swords made of chipped stone. Perhaps it was even the undead Tajuru from the kor tales that wandered the forest floor at night, waiting to suck the brains of the living out through their eye sockets.

Or it could be something else. Lately there had been whispers of a new threat in the forest. Something had been seen.

The scraping sound continued; the sound of long claws sharpened across the hard wood of a turntimber branch. Onduan baloth, her mind suddenly screamed. She d seen one, many times the size of an elf, hop casually from one trunk to another a jump of nearly fifty body lengths and swipe a Tajuru in half with its thick claws. They fought casually, and could eat whole families.

Nissa and Hiba stayed still and listened to the scraping and the creak of the trees until Hiba smiled and took a hook from his belt. He very carefully drew it across the nearest branch as a pass sign. Soon a whistle echoed through the boughs, and Hiba clipped the hook back on his belt and walked forward.

Two sentinels were perched above a ladder in a nest of moss. They were so well camouflaged that Nissa had to look at the nest for some seconds before the outlines of the elves revealed themselves. One nodded as they passed. The branch behind the two was wrought by clever enchantment into a long horn that could be blown to alert the home tree.

She had to give credit to the Tajuru architects as the full view of the home tree settlement opened before her. She d lived here only a month, and the sight still made the hairs on her arms stand up. Thousands of brightly colored wood-and-moss, hedron-shaped huts clung to huge belts of woven bark girded around the branches and trunk of a vast turntimber. Complex strut works of wood, rope suspension bridges, and planked walkways festooned the tree in arcing loops. The fact that the turntimber tree healed over any attempts to penetrate its bark only heightened her amazement the clever tribe had been able to make the marvel without even one nail.

The rope bridge joined into one of the plankways, and with creaking steps, Hiba led the way to the longhouse atop a massive branch. Other Tajuru were walking together in the same direction. Many were talking in whispers among themselves, and were fully outfitted in ornate harness systems and slender bladed weapons. None of the tall, fine Tajuru looked like the Joraga, who, ever-hard in Nissa s memory, hissed vows as they smeared the blood of fallen enemies along scars they d received in battle.

The longhouse was full to capacity when they arrived. Aggressively casual, some Tajuru were even sitting on the white jaddi wood windowsills and passing small bags of dried wolf berries back and forth. In the center of the room, standing on a slightly raised platform, Nissa saw two elves she s never seen before. She could tell by the hushed tones in the hall that the visitors were important.

Hiba leaned close to her ear.

Speaker Sutina, he said.

She had seen a couple of messengers and important visitors stop by the home tree in her time with the tribe. But even the tribe s large size didn t seem to constitute such visitors as the two that stood on the platform. Nissa looked carefully at the female that stood in the center of the room. Speaker Sutina was wearing a jerkin of simple green leather, and her advisor was similarly dressed: no ropes, no harnesses. Neither Sutina nor her assistant seemed to be armed in the least. Their lack of gear alone should have alerted Nissa to their stature. But the Tajuru didn t think in terms of importance and stature, and she had already started adopting their ways of seeing the world.

Nissa forgot about what Sutina was wearing when she put her arms out and started to speak.

Friends, Speaker Sutina said. The word seemed to hang shimmering in the air above their heads. Nobody spoke. One of the Tajuru dropped his bag of wolf berries on the wood floor. With the smallest trace of a smile, the Speaker s eyes cast around the room. When they met Nissa s eyes, her smile faded. Friends, she repeated in a voice suddenly louder. I won t mix words now that I have traveled so far to visit you. We have come to Ondu to alert others to a great rot in the roots of the forest.

Sutina s eyes fluttered for a moment. When she spoke her lips were dashed with green phosphorescence, and the words that came out of her mouth were guttural, rasping, and filled with chirps. Her eyes fluttered open, and the smile flitted across her lips again.

This is the language of the infection traveling in the forest right now. Do any of you recognize this talk?

Nissa didn t bother to look at the faces around her. She knew the language belonged to nothing from their plane It sounded like flint chips knocking together. Even mountain trolls spoke more pleasantly.

Sutina s eyes fluttered and went to their whites again as she channeled something else. What is that? a concerned male Tajuru s voice echoed out of her throat.

What are those holes? Stina, Rawli, give that thing a volley.

But the wind, this time a female voice. The wind.

A silence lasting nearly thirty heartbeats followed.

Nissa watched the muscles in Sutina s cheeks and around her eyes twitch and spasm. Her chin jerked side to side and up and down, and Nissa knew she was reliving the last moments of each of the scouting party s lives. Then the whites of Sutina s eyes blinked back into place, and she smiled. All around her the Tajuru had grown quiet. All the elves had bowed their heads. Their lips had all become slightly green, she noticed with a bit of unease. The elves did that sometimes at meetings.

A Joraga would never share consciousness with her tribesmen it would be a shameful action. But the Tajuru seemed to want to do it when even the smallest thing went wrong. Nissa waited. Through the windows of the longhouse she could see patches of sky through the trees.

Stina is my sister s name, a Tajuru said from the crowd. We haven t heard from her in a week.

Another spoke up. That was Leaf Talker Gloui s voice.

He patrolled the far west, someone else said, almost in a whisper.

Wind, Nissa thought. Where was there wind in a forest? Breeze, yes, but never wind. She still didn t know the topography of the Tajuru s lands as well as she would like, but she did know that wind would be something of a rarity in a forest.

Hiba leaned over. His lips weren t green, Nissa noticed.

The Binding Circle, he whispered. It s on a plateau.

Just then, in response to his thought, someone across the room said, The Binding Circle is in the west.

The Binding Circle, other elves repeated, almost in unison.

Nissa hated when they did that, speaking together like the undead.

Nissa, Speaker Sutina s voice said, suddenly speaking in her head. The Speaker s eyes were on her, and then she spoke aloud, You will take a force of Tajuru and your own significant abilities to find and eliminate this threat.

Nissa nodded. She d been a Leaf Talker for the Tajuru ever since her arrival in the Turntimber. The Tajuru always gave her the most difficult assignments. Many at the home tree were impressed with her abilities, she could tell; and many others thought she was a threat the first step to a Joraga invasion. But for whatever reason, Nissa liked taking the dangerous assignments. What was she leaving anyway? A cold room in the home tree with a slug oil lantern and the distrustful stares of the Tajuru.

Nissa looked around the longhouse. Most of the Tajuru were filing out of the hall. She walked toward the door with Hiba following close behind.

The other Tajuru edged away from her as she passed. That was as it should be, she figured. It wouldn t do for them to get too friendly with a Joraga. Hiba was different. He appreciated her Joraga ways of disciplined magic and combat. When she d first come to the home tree, some Tajuru had refused to sit at the same dinner table with her. She couldn t blame them. The experiences they d had with the Joraga had not been pleasant. Nothing about the Joraga was particularly pleasant, unless your idea of pleasant involved training all day, leading raiding parties all night, and sleeping on the hard ground in between. Except for their distrust of scholarship, Nissa liked the Joraga lifestyle. She had the fetid jungles of Bala Ged in her blood, but she couldn t go back yet. And so she was leading a scouting party to defend the land of elves who distrusted her.

As Nissa walked out of the hall, she recounted what she d heard about Speaker Sutina. The leader lived far away in the Tumbled Palace an ancient structure crumbling to pieces on the cliffs of Sunder Bay. It sat clutched in the boughs of an ancient jurworrel tree which was slowly walking its way to the edge. Rumor had it that the Speaker partnered with the Moon Kraken once a month when that creature made its disastrous rise from the depths of sea.

Hiba s hand closed around Nissa s shoulder, stopping her mid-step. She turned. Tajuru in rustling silks and dyed leathers walked quietly around them. Her lieutenant s long ear was cocked to the sky, and his large jaw was slack, listening. That ear was his best asset in many ways, and it alone made him useful to have around. He could hear an owl preening from three tall timbers away, and that was impressive even for an elf. And from their scouting expeditions together she d come to know his facial expressions very well. She could tell what creature lurked by how his lip curled and where his eyelids sat on his eyes. But the expression he showed just then, standing on the boardwalk outside the longhouse, was new to her.

A moment later the warning horns began to moan through the undergrowth. The Tajuru on the boardwalk stopped walking and stared down at the forest floor. Nissa fell to a crouch, and her hand went to grasp the staff strapped to her back. Before she could get to it, however, Hiba grabbed her wrist and pulled her off the edge of the branch. The ground rushed up as Hiba snatched a hook off his belt and threw it away, catching the crevice of an old tree. The rope jerked hard when it caught, and Nissa felt her teeth snap shut, but then they swung in a long arc away from the tree.

As Hiba let go of the rope, Nissa caught a spinning, blurred look at the branch they were hurling toward, gauged the distance, and executed a tight flip that plunked her feet squarely into the branch s mossy duff. She grabbed Hiba s arm and pulled him in as the larger Tajuru teetered on the narrow branch. Somewhere far off an eeka bird cried. A brace of giant hedron stones floated in the tree canopy above their heads, knocking unceremoniously together. It was a sight so common she barely took notice, but today their movements seemed more patterned than normal. They listened for the sounds of battle but heard nothing; neither horn, nor the sizzle of magic coursing through the air; not even the clash of steel. For a moment Nissa thought she heard a far-off scream, but when she asked Hiba, who was listening hard, he shook his head.

A moment passed, and then another, until suddenly Hiba jerked his head. They are coming, he said. He seized the short sword clipped onto his belt, and Nissa held her staff firmly in both hands. She heard a low whistle and moved her staff at the last moment to deflect the dart, or some such thing, away into the greenery. And then, whatever it was in the trees was jetting toward them, chirping as it flew.

She got almost no look at it gray with many arms before she and Hiba were knocked off the branch and falling through the air. Nissa heard Hiba slice at the air with his sword, before they hit the forest floor and rolled off in opposite directions.

Nissa hopped to her feet and held her staff in both hands while she whispered the incantations she knew so well. As always, her staff felt burning hot as the lines of energy rippled through her body to spin around her head and away. She felt her mana lines stiffen and intensify until they were like glowing veins running straight from the jungles of Bala Ged. And in a moment, the four Joraga warriors she had summoned from the ther were standing in loose formation around her, blinking in the dim light of the forest floor, and smelling like spicy jungle orchids. Their eyes were sharp. They snatched small bows from their backs, nocked arrows, and drew back in one fluid motion. The arrows flew to the two beings squatting in the trees looking down at them.

Black and gray with highlights of vivid color, and covered with geometric plates of chitinous material, each of the creatures arms was split into two; their legs were shiny tentacles. They had no heads only bumps on their shoulders. And their bodies were covered with lidless blue eyes that stared down without expression as their thin arms knocked the arrows away. From behind, Nissa heard a titter and chirp, and she turned to see four more creatures swinging silently on branches. The Joraga released more arrows, but most were knocked away by the creatures. One arrow did find its target, catching the thing in the upper torso, and the creature gave a strange moan, pitched foreword, and fell spinning to the ground. The remaining creatures jumped with surprising fluidity and found their way to the forest floor to surround the one that had fallen, touching it all over with their tentacles.

The Joraga nocked their arrows and shot another creature as it stood over its fallen comrade. The remaining four turned slowly. It was their eyes that caused Nissa to pause those blue, expressionless eyes that covered their bodies. There was no anger or sadness in those eyes, no evil or good. She had the unsettling feeling that they saw her the way she might see a zeem beast as prey.

The Joraga shot a third creature and the three remaining beasts broke into a smooth charge on their powerful tentacles. One seized the Joraga next to Nissa with its thick arms and pulled him to meat. With a muttered incantation, Nissa took up her staff and thrust a blow into the chest of the nearest creature. The thing stepped back, and its blue eyes looked at the green glowing dent in its hard flesh. Suddenly a stalk and a leaf popped out of the impression.

Nissa had seeded adversaries in the past, of course, but never had one reacted so. She had once seen a petra giant yank the plant out. When he had taken hold and pulled, the root had popped out of his chest clutching his pumping gray heart. But this tentacled creature watched as the plant grew, shimmering and stretching, until it was taller than the monster itself, at which point a bud appeared and opened to reveal a mouth that snapped shut around the creature s head.

Something whizzed by Nissa, and the monster that had been poised behind her fell with Hiba s short sword sticking out of its chest. Its tentacles kneaded the handle of the sword as it lay in the rotting leaves on the forest floor.

The last creature knocked away the arrows the remaining Joraga fired. Nissa struck her staff into the earth and took a deep breath, feeling the energy pulse up through the soles of her feet and along her spine, and shimmer all around. She ran and jumped into the air, swinging her staff so that it connected with a dull thump on the top of the creature s head. It stood still for a moment in the dappled light coming through the trees, and then crumpled to the ground.

Nissa landed, turned, and walked back to the creature. She bent down for a closer look at its body. To her surprise, the plants trapped under its body had turned brown and died. She would have liked to investigate further, but Hiba was already running back to the home tree. Nissa took one last look at the creature on the ground before following him with the two remaining Joraga keeping in step.

Hiba stopped at the base of the gigantic home tree so thick it would have taken one hundred elves holding wrists to encircle it. But instead of elves, twenty of the tentacled creatures lay still around it. Some were festooned with arrows, and one was strangled with vines. All had fallen from above. Hiba wasted no time in hopping onto the tree and climbing. Nissa and her Joraga followed.

There were at least twenty more of the dead creatures scattered on the platforms of the settlement, some of which were still writhing. Small groups of Tajuru were walking from creature to creature with long knives clutched in their pale hands. Nissa watched as an elf shoved the blade of his knife deep into one of the creatures, stilling it forever.

Here, Hiba said. He was running to the longhouse. He stopped outside the door of the house, near a small crowd. The elves in the crowd were bending down and lifting something.

It isn t her, Nissa said to herself as she ran.

But by the time she arrived, they had already lifted the body of Speaker Sutina. She was still wearing the same smile on her lips, but the elf leader s leather jerkin was torn and bloody. Her arm flopped free and something rolled out from her dead grasp. The object bounced twice, rolled over a plank, and came to rest in a crack. Nissa glanced at the other elves. None seemed to have noticed. Without thinking, she bent down and plucked the smooth object, which appeared to be a large pearl.

As the body of the Speaker was borne away, a small group of Tajuru around the door of the longhouse did not help hoist the body, but watched the procession leave. When it was gone they turned and looked at her, each with a less-than-friendly expression. Nissa glanced at the two remaining Joraga leaning against the side of the longhouse. Wonderful. Had they all seen her take the pearl? She hoped not.

Nissa turned her back to the other elves and had a closer look at what the Speaker was holding when she died. A pearl the size of a human s eye rolled in the palm of Nissa s hand. She had never seen one so smooth and round. A strange, squiggled script was etched into its blue opalescence. She could feel the mana emanating from the script. Where had Sutina gotten such an object, and why was it in her hand when she died? It didn t bear thinking about. She looked back at where the Speaker had fallen. Two creatures lay crumpled on the stairs nearby. She bent over one.

What are you doing? Hiba said.

Nissa ignored him. She knelt. The creature s tentacles were not moving. She carefully looked the thing over from tentacle to tip, moving its appendages. She found one curious thing. Under the creature s right arm, a proboscis-like tube extended four feet. The tube was fleshy and very thin, and looped so that it did not dangle down.

Strange. They have no mouths, she said, glancing up. The small group of Tajuru watched her silently from the door of the longhouse.

So they have no mouths? Hiba said. He glanced at the group.

How do they eat? she said, poking at the spongy tentacles. She could almost hear Hiba s shrug, but she didn t look up. Why were they here if not to eat?

Maybe they don t like Joraga? Hiba said. The comment was meant for her, but she ignored it.

Hiba walked over to the group standing around the door. Nissa could hear them muttering, but couldn t make out any words. Instead she looked more closely at the creature.

It was like nothing she had ever seen on Zendikar. It had tentacles, yet no webbing between its digits, and no gills. Its lidless eyes and ridged skin spoke of a subterranean life, but how could something without a mouth live underground? There were no weapons and no clothing. And the creature smelled somehow clean and tangy, like she imagined a snake would. She curled her lip in disgust.

Still, something about the creatures was familiar. She had felt it the second she had seen them squatting on the branch. While she considered that, Hiba came down the stairs and stood.

Do they look familiar? she said, standing.

Like something from a children s story, he said.

That was it! They looked like the monsters in the old stories she d heard from the kor troubadours. Those that lurk.

Do those that lurk have tentacles? she asked.

We did not call them that, Hiba said. And I do not think ours have tentacles. Ours have horns.

She nodded. Still, there was something about them.

Hiba jerked his chin at the Tajuru at the door of the longhouse.

One of them just stumbled in from MossCrack. These creatures attacked there before they attacked here.

MossCrack was the next settlement, just down the forested gully through which the WhiteShag coursed.

What else did he say? Nissa asked.

That he does not care for Joraga, Hiba said. He gave her a grim little smile.

That he does not care for Joraga, Nissa repeated.

That is comical. She thought for a couple of seconds before deciding. Alright, she said. We ll take the zip. Collect those in the doorway and any others Tajuru who care to make a trip to MossCrack. She started walking down the boardwalk, then stopped. Or they can cower here and let the Joraga deal with this menace.

The zip, Leaf Talker? Hiba yelled after her.

The zip, she confirmed.

By the time Hiba arrived at the zip-line platform he had twenty elves, grimly outfitted and smeared with their combat colors. Some wore red circles around their eyes; others had blue lips. Each configuration represented the elf s personal totem. Very pretty, she muttered to herself. But can they fight? She was painted in the fashion of a Joraga: black bars that came in from all sides of the face and pointed at the eyes. It meant she was Joraga. It meant she trusted only her own. The heart of another is a dark forest, the Joraga saying went.

They all squeezed into the topless gondola made of woven vines. It was attached to the zip-line by a curved vine and two jaddi-wood pulleys housed in a turntimber-bark sleeve. The bark-twilled zip led away into the greenery.

The compartment bobbed and swayed as Nissa stepped on. She d ridden it once before, and despite its appearance she knew it worked well enough. Those were the contraptions that the Tajuru excelled at. Still, Nissa could not totally blot out the realization that working well or not, the gondolas made good targets.

Hiba was at the front. With a foot pedal he could slow their speed, but he didn t seem to know that, Nissa thought, as they hurled at greater and greater speed through the forest. Branches slapped at the sides of the car, and the wind sang through the gaps between its vines. Soon she could see the WhiteShag far below, smashing down through the rocks. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment when a lean Onduan baloth stood on its hind legs next to the river and watched them intently. But even a baloth couldn t catch them in the zip.

She knew they were near MossCrack when the Tajuru began unhitching bows from their back and fixing arrows. Nissa closed her eyes and felt the wind whistling over the tips of her ears. She breathed in the forest, and felt the sap in the trees rising in her blood, and she felt the great raw lump of the ground far below pulse as though it was rising to meet her.

Soon MossCrack s home tree rose before them above even the tallest turntimber. Hiba had not slowed their speed, so Nissa reached out and allowed her hand gather the energy that writhed up and around every tree in the Turntimber. She let a moment pass to bond with the invisible mana that permeated the entire forest. The trees all grew around these spikes of mana in their characteristic twisted way. By bonding to to the mana, Nissa was able to slow the car s progress, and she eventually pulled it to an easy stop. When she opened her eyes the elves were all looking at her.

Did you think we would march right into the midst of them? she said. I know you re not the best warriors in the forest, but try to keep up. She could feel them bristle at that, but instead of looking back she peered over the edge. The forest floor was far below, mostly obscured by undergrowth and tree branches. Ready, she said. Without waiting for a response this wasn t a tribal council meeting, there would be no handholding she hopped out of the gondola and landed softly on the nearest branch. After a moment, they grudgingly followed. When they were all on the branch, she turned to them. In the dappled light, her black and white camouflage blended perfectly. Now, she whispered. You are all honorary Joraga. As Joraga, we are going to fall upon our enemies unawares and destroy them, whatever they are.

She turned back and led them down the branch and to the next, and over many more until they neared the home tree. Nissa stopped frequently. But, strangely, she heard nothing. Then Hiba stopped and flicked the tip of his long ear and pointed off to the left. Soon she heard it too: a particular cracking sound and the swish of branches. They crept closer, and the sounds grew louder until they saw movement through the trees.

Her Joraga stopped and took out small, dried scute-bug shells. As the Tajuru watched, her Joraga carefully dipped the points of their arrows in the shells before quivering them again. Then they held the bug shells out for the Tajuru to clumsily dip their own arrow heads in.

Distillate of bloodbrier, Nissa hissed. Shoot for the neck if they have one. She motioned to Hiba, and they got down on their hands and knees, crept to the edge of the branch, and carefully parted the leaves.

Hiba was the first to get a good look. Nissa heard his sharp intake of breath. And in a moment, she understood why. The creatures were there, at least one hundred of them. But it wasn t their numbers that shocked her. It was the sun. There was sun on the forest floor. With turntimber trees around there was never full sun on the forest floor. But the creatures had managed to do what Nissa had not thought could be done. They d felled a small turntimber. They d dug large holes and were in the process of stripping the leaves off the fallen tree, hauling them to the holes, and stuffing them in. And the creatures were not all the kind they d fought earlier. Some flew and were only masses of floating tentacles with thin and vile arms extending out. Some were tentacled and crawled on the ground with round, white heads that appeared to be made of solid bone and lacked even the slightest face. Some were huge the size of a stomper and just as thick. Others were the height of three elves, and as she watched one grunted and stood, towering over all the rest. That one must have killed the tree by pushing it over, Nissa muttered. It goes first.

Some among them had no tentacles. They were white-skinned even as a corpse might be and they were bound at the shoulders and elbows with what looked like leather straps. Some of those pale beings were stripping the leaves off the trees. Others were bent over the Tajuru strewn over the ground, sucking their blood from their bodies.

They have vampire slaves, Hiba hissed.

As Nissa watched, one of the tentacled creatures casually seized a vampire by the neck. It wasn t done cruelly, exactly. More like an elf might seize a wild fig off the branch. The tentacled creature searched until it found the tube under its right armpit, and it jabbed it into the vampire s chest. Then the creature squatted and stared down at the ground, while the vampire stood stock still, growing whiter and whiter.

What is it doing? Hiba whispered.

Prepare the attack, Nissa said. She pulled her eyes away from the grisly scene. Right now.

The words were not fully out of her mouth when a branch snapped in the forest behind them, and the tentacled ones were upon them. The climbing kind they d met at the home tree, perhaps thirty of them. They charged from branch to branch.

Nissa brought her staff sweeping from the right, pulling energy from the branch she was standing on and directing it in a wide swath out the tip of the staff. The mana touched the trees, and they animated and pulled in together, forming a wall of branches and vines that reached out for the beasts. The elves began shooting between the branches at the creatures, two of which fell as Nissa watched. The other creatures threw themselves at the wall, thrashing against it as the elves shot them dead.

Nissa heard a swish behind her and turned to see a squad of twenty flying creatures rushing at them. On the ground, more creatures converged on the tree they were in. The giant one lumbered on tentacles twice as wide as her waist. This could be the end, Nissa thought.

She screamed a warning, and some of the elves turned, but not before the flying creatures crashed through the foliage. One of the beasts bashed into the Tajuru standing next to Nissa, and she knew by the impact that the elf was lost. Another came at her, but she whispered the secret name of her favorite flower, the dendrite, and with that spell delivered a blow with her staff that sent the creature shooting backward off the branch. Other elves had turned and shot many of the flying creatures before they reached their ranks. And the climbing creatures on the other side of the grasping wall of branches and vines, Nissa noticed with a quick glance, were much diminished.

Then she felt the turntimber under their feet jerk hard to the right. She regained her footing, but the tree shifted again. She looked down and saw the huge creature through a gap in the leaves, pushing against the trunk of the turntimber.

One of the flying creatures slammed against her, and they fell crashing through the leaves. She silently mouthed words that pushed mana ahead of her like a pillow, and in a moment she was falling slowly, eventually landing next to the creature that had fallen with her, its body still.

And then they were on her again: two of the creatures with blue eyes, and the giant one the size of two forest trolls. The giant had lowered its shoulder against the tree and was pushing, its tentacles churning up the soft earth as it struggled for purchase. She focused her mind and felt the mana boiling, making her hands glow green. She twisted her staff and pulled out her stem sword a long, thin green shoot hidden inside its wooden sheath just as the first creature lowered its head and charged. She stepped to the side and pivoted hard to her right leg. As the beast barreled past she inserted the rigid stem neatly into its side, just where its heart ought to have been if it had one. She pushed the sword all the way to its wooden handle before yanking it out. With a whispered word, the bloody stem became flexible. She snapped it like a whip, and the stem lashed out and took off the arm of the behemoth pushing on the tree. It turned its body and regarded her calmly, as pale blood bubbled out of its arm stump. No scream, no anger, she thought. Not even a sneer. The creature simply planted its other shoulder against the trunk and kept pushing.

She was about to take the behemoth s other arm off when the second creature charged hard into her side. But as she fell, she kicked away and turned, whipping half its tentacles off with a puff of emerald-colored mana.

She landed just as the tree shifted to the right. Its flat root ball heaved up and out of the ground, slapping Nissa violently against the giant creature. She clambered up its back and onto its shoulders, and wrapped her stem sword around what should have been its neck. As she pulled and twisted, the creature s hundreds of blue eyes blinked and turned to look at her, but still the creature did not stop pushing. She d seen single-minded animals in her life, but never anything like the giant. She pulled hard for some minutes, and began to fear that the creature had some enchantment about it, but eventually she heard a crack and the creature went slack and fell forward into the trunk.

They must have a spine, Nissa thought. She looked around as she sheathed her stem sword in her staff once again.

The tree had settled into its new position, pitched off to the north. She followed its trunk with her eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of her squad through the branches. But she heard neither the twangs of their bows nor their battle cries. She walked away from the trunk. A loud grinding sound echoed somewhere through the canopy. A common sound of two floating hedrons rubbing against each other in the sky above the trees came to her.

She walked to the clearing, ducking under the white-barked boughs of a young jaddi tree.

A narrow draw extended to her right, and farther down it, the pound of the WhiteShag thundering through its deep ravine echoed off the still trunks. The sunlight shone through the trees ahead and she walked toward it as if in a dream.

Nissa stopped at the edge of the forest. Once her eyes had become accustomed to the sunshine, she saw the swath of land dotted with what forest plants the creatures had not stripped and stuffed in their holes, dug in irregular intervals throughout the cleared land. The bodies of MossCrack s Tajuru were strewn about between the holes. The nearest was only thirty paces away, lying on its side with a crushed skull. A handful of vampires on hands and knees were bent over the corpses almost tenderly. They were wearing rags, and their matted hair was dull in the bright sun. She wasn t sure if the rank smell was the dead Tajuru or the vampires. Or was it the tentacled creatures standing behind each vampire, sucking vampire ichor through the proboscuses under their armpits? Nissa swallowed the lump rising in her throat.

Suddenly, there was a chirping sound behind her, and Nissa turned with her staff at the ready. She expected to see the Tajuru and Hiba running toward her with a handful of creatures following. She closed her eyes and felt the nearly inexhaustible power of the forests of Zendikar rise in her blood and pull in from the vines around and the soil under her feet. She would show the beasts, those killers of trees, how the Joraga of Bala Ged dealt with interlopers, with barong outsiders. And it would not be pampering, Tajuru justice but the savagery of the jungle meted out with plenty of hate.

She opened her eyes and nearly dropped her staff in shock. Where were her rangers? Where was Hiba? Instead, at least two hundred creatures of different sizes and shapes stood at the tree line they had created, staring at her. They were alike in only one way: they all had tentacles. One had a harnessed, growling vampire on a long lead.

But none, not even the four or five specimens larger than the one she d killed in the forest, seemed angry with her. They simply stared at her. One cocked its head as it studied her. Some were spattered with blood, she noticed with a pang of regret, and many were festooned with short Tajuru arrows. She knew at that moment that her squad and Hiba were dead. She looked down to see her scarred hands, white and shaking, as they squeezed her staff.

The creatures ambled forward, their tentacles writhing and touching one another as they moved. When they were about forty feet away one stopped, and they all stopped. There was no speaking; there were no hand signs only squirming tentacles. Where had she seen that behavior? It was like some insect. Like Ants!

There were close to two hundred creatures grimly arrayed before her. The odds were not good. Her eyes wandered to the blue sky above the approaching host. A gentle breeze stirred her hair. Far away a lone stele floated over a high mesa. Beyond that, dark storm clouds promised a good rain by nightfall. It was a beautiful day.

Nissa twisted her staff. The stem sword she had gained the day of her coming-of-age-reckoning back home in Bala Ged slid easily out of its scabbard. She held the rigid green shaft before her eyes.

Where had her life left her? She was standing in a clearing in the Turntimber Forest, outnumbered and about to perish. Yes, she had traveled to a couple of filthy planes that had neither the beauty, nor the power of Zendikar, and were full of big-nosed humans and beings as nasty as any she could imagine. She glanced at the creatures ambling forward. Beings like those outlanders, she said to herself.

She could planeswalk away, at that moment, and nobody would be the wiser for it. Her squad was dead Hiba included. But if she ran, she would be running for the rest of her life, alone and wandering a shadow out of the jungles of Bala Ged. Nissa drew a deep breath and released it slowly. She was a Joraga, and she would die as such. She scanned the ranks of the creatures, close enough for her to smell their mushroomy skin. She could take perhaps forty of them with her. She raised her sword and prepared to charge.

Suddenly, something caught the creatures attention, and they all turned to the right to look. Nissa turned as well.

A lone figure stepped out of the forest: a human, by his height, dressed in black leathers, with shiny silver plates on his shoulder and a small silver breast plate. His hair was white and brushed back long off his forehead. A great sword on his belt clattered as he walked forward and clapped his hands together.

What have we here, the stranger said in an accent that she d never heard before. Yet another barong, Nissa thought.

Have you all slipped your chains already? the strange man asked as he walked. I am lost and looking for the Eye of Ugin.

The creatures stood stock still, only their tentacles writhed back and forth between Nissa and the strange new addition. The man walked toward their side and flank. She could sense the creatures dilemma. What they didn t want was to be flanked. I d attack if I were them, Nissa thought. Attack.

And they did. With no obvious signal, the creatures began to charge. Nissa looked at the man. He raised his arms, and in a moment she could feel the air rushing past her ears, drawn toward him. Rivulets of dim energy condensed on the orbs suddenly blooming around each of his hands. And then he began to speak in the most booming, deep voice she had ever heard, but in a language she had never heard. The air between the stranger and the charging horde refracted and bent, and then each of the creatures fell to the ground in a lump, simply falling into a rotted mass.

As amazing as that spell was and it was one of the most amazing and disturbing things Nissa had ever seen still more startling was the reaction by the remaining creatures. Perhaps six of them were, apparently, out of the range of the man s spell. With their compatriots lying at their feet, the creatures continued charging at the dark-clad man. He said a few more grim words, and the remaining creatures fell.

Nissa wasted no time. She turned and started running back into the forest to the tree. Once there, she glanced up and confirmed her worst fear. She climbed the trunk in seconds.

Her wall of vines was still in one piece, and it was with no small amount of pride that she counted nineteen dead creatures hanging from it, with arrows bristling out of them. But when she looked behind the wall, her heart caught in her throat. Some of the bodies of her raiding party were still there, torn into parts in the dappled light. Naarl flies the size of Nissa s fingers buzzed over the bright red meat. More parts were thrown into the branches around her. The buzz of the flies was suddenly too loud in her ears. When she turned to leave, the face of a decapitated elf was lodged in the crotch of a branch, looking out at her with fixed eyes.

She found him on the forest floor. His right arm was crushed flat, and both his legs too, but he was breathing. His left hand still held the grip of his bow, and she could not pry it free from his fingers, no matter what she did.

Hiba, she whispered in his ear. Hiba, I thought you were dead. Take a deep breath. She put her arms under his neck and under his buttocks and brought him, screaming, into the clearing. She put him down as carefully as she could.

The stranger was walking among the dead creatures shaking his head. He turned when Nissa approached and he watched her put the stricken elf down. The way he stared made her uneasy, but she busied herself by making Hiba as comfortable as she could. She tried to forget the spell she d just seen the stranger cast as she cupped her hands around her mouth and turned to him.

Do you have water? she yelled. She made the drinking gesture. Water?

He walked over to where she sat. Up close he was taller than she d thought and his gold-flecked eyes gave his pale face a curious intensity. He took only a casual glance at Hiba. His eyes sat on her.

This one will die shortly, he said without looking down at Hiba, in a voice that echoed from deep in his throat.

This one is already dead.

She couldn t be absolutely sure if the stranger was talking about Hiba, or one of the creatures on the ground.

Who are you? she asked.

He looked out over the clearing. I am called Sorin.

Sorin turned back and settled his golden eyes on Nissa again. Hiba moaned.

And you are a Joraga elf, I should think, he said.

Nissa Revane, she said, placing her right hand on her heart and bowing slightly, as was the elf custom.

Something moved in the middle of the clearing. An arm flopped. Sorin followed her eyes. A vampire slave apparently lives, he said.

Vampires, Nissa said. She had not meant to, but her lip curled.

The strangers watched her for an extra second before a slow smile stretched his pale lips. Yes, he said. Quite.

Sorin turned and walked to the middle of the clearing. He bent down and seized the vampire and lifted him by the wrist as easily as he might lift a water skin. He dragged the creature back to where Nissa was standing and dumped him unceremoniously next to Hiba. Nissa inadvertently took a step back.

Sorin chuckled. Your home of Bala Ged is near Guul Draz. Is it not?

It is, she said. And we fight to keep these from our borders.

The creature at her feet was different from the other vampires she d fought. His hair was not in his eyes, for one. It was pulled into a tight, long braid. His skin was just as pale and bluish, however; and he was painted: a red line extended up his bare chest to his chin, then continued from his forehead to the top of his head through a shaved channel. He had the same vestigial horns extending in black curls from his shoulders and elbows.

Where s his bampha? she asked.

Sorin s face remained blank. Oh, he said.

You mean its weapon. The brood lineage took it, I suspect.

Bampha. Nissa shuddered at the thought of their long, two-handed weapons of sharpened bone. Long elegant weapons left long elegant slashes. She had the scars to prove it.

What did you call these things? Nissa asked, toeing a dead creature s tentacle.

These are brood lineage.

Brood lineage, she said, licking her lips.

Lineage of what?

Her words hung in the air.

They have been slumbering all these years, the slave vampire said suddenly. Abed in the stones of Akoum.

A bellowing growl echoed across the clearing. Sorin seemed not to notice the sound. He was looking down at the vampire, who was looking up at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Those eyes, Nissa thought. Those black, iridescent eyes.

How do you know of the lineage? Sorin barked.

Sorin s voice had a certain sharpness to it. The slave vampire winced with each word as he struggled up and carefully stood. There were numerous metal cylinders dangling from his belt. His hair braid, as thick as a man s forearm, reached almost to the ground. He wasn t nearly as tall as Sorin, but just as slim and lithe. He felt for each of the metal cylinders before continuing.

I was present for their release, the vampire said. In the Teeth of Akoum.

Is that so, Sorin said. At the Eye of Ugin?

The same.

Another growl, louder that time, cut through the trees. Nissa bent down and put her arms under Hiba. We must go, she said. If that brace of baloth should catch us in the open like this

But Sorin seemed not to hear. His eyes were on the vampire.

Who are you? he asked.

Anowon, he said. Formerly of Family Ghet. I was taken prisoner at the eye.

Well, Sorin said. Do you know where I am now, Anowon, formerly of Family Ghet?

The vampire s eyes fell on Nissa as she hoisted Hiba.

Somewhere in the Turntimber, he said. When Sorin said nothing, Anowon continued. On Ondu. Still Sorin said nothing. Zendikar? Anowon ventured.

And I don t suppose you know the way to the Eye of Ugin? Sorin asked.

It s on Akoum, Anowon said.

Sorin chuckled. That s not what I asked. And if you want to bandy cute words, I will tear your heart out of your chest and have the elf eat it.

Nissa shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other.

I know the way to Akoum, Nissa said, glancing casually at the dead brood laid out in the clearing. At least I can start you on the way. Anything to get you out of my forest.

Excellent, Sorin said. Finally, a bit of good news. You know this land. You will be our guide, yes. You will show us the way. He turned to Nissa. That, he pointed at Hiba, is dead. You are guiding us through this morass to Akoum. I knew the way once, you see. But I cast a forgetting spell on the place so it might be lost for all time. A forgotten blight.

Why would I help you, Nissa asked, when I could go back to into the turntimber and leave you two to be shredded by those baloth howling in the forest?

Because, dear savage, Sorin said, what you saw here is just the vanguard of the true army. The rest are bearing down on this and every other location on this backwards plane even as we speak. If you want to have any hope of saving your people, you will assist me in containing this sickness, and in putting these broodlings back into their prison, which will not be easy. But it seems to fall to me to accomplish.

Nissa looked down at Hiba and felt a lump rising in her throat. He was dead. She swallowed and started to speak.

But Sorin continued. Only I can cast the Eldrazi back into the crypt from whence they came. Only I can send them back into their forever sleep.

Nissa seemed to consider his words before speaking. These are my terms: You both will help me bury my friend in the forest, she said. And I will not travel with an unbound vampire. He must be bound and gagged, or you will have to navigate the teetering stones without me.

Anowon s mouth went to a sneer. Joraga moon slug, he said. I would not deign to touch lips to the likes of you. Your people taste of dirt and moss. Mushroom eaters.

Nissa smiled, despite herself. She hadn t heard that insult in quite some time. Strangely, it reminded her of home. Part of the reckoning ritual involved eating cut fungus. Invariably the young warrior died from it. Most lay dead for some minutes before blinking awake and sitting up gasping. If you survived, you survived. If you died, then you weren t meant to be a Joraga warrior, and your body was tossed into the Great Hollow Tree.

Bound, Nissa said. Or not at all.

As if in answer, another baloth howl drifted slowly through the trees, and Nissa started to walk.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

They walked once again into the deep forest, and buried the fallen elf Hiba near a young jaddi tree. While Nissa kept watch, Anowon dug a hole with a length of turntimber bark. With a face that betrayed neither thought nor emotion, Sorin watched the vampire sweat in the humid air. When the shallow grave was dug, Nissa dropped down from her high perch and placed a green paphian flower picked from a clump she d found growing in the crotch of a jurworrel tree in Hiba s gnashed fingers.

An hour later they were traveling the branchways of the turntimber. Nissa, in the lead, was careful not to shy away from the serpents that hung like vines in that part of the forest, careful not to show her strange traveling companions any sort of weakness.

At sundown they stopped at a huge hedron stone, pointed at each end and broken in two enormous pieces, with a huge jurworrel growing out of the largest fissure.

We dare not stop for too long. Nissa said. She wondered how long it would be before the Onduan baloth caught up. Before it tore them apart. A baloth was a creature that floated at the edge of every action in the turntimber a pure predator that could cut through bone and muscle with the slightest slash of its claw, and which possessed an appetite large enough to devour a whole Tajuru squad. Those who lived there never left the safety of home without thinking, however briefly, about the likelihood of encountering one.

Sorin nodded once and looked back the way they had come. Fool, Nissa thought. He has no idea. She climbed to the top of the ruined hedron and cupped her hand to her long ear. They are eating our scent even now.

Sorin yawned. He casually took a handkerchief from an inner fold of his black cloak and dabbed his brow. You are the fool, he said. His voice was soft so soft that Nissa found herself leaning in to hear him, unnerved that he had somehow read her thoughts. You are a fool if you do not understand the true nature of the danger we are in. Do not trifle over whatever is following us. We must watch for the brood, and hope they haven t grown too powerful to counteract. He put the handkerchief back into the folds of his cloak and cupped his hands around his mouth. Ghet! he yelled.

Anowon looked up from where he had been peering at the hedron stone s inscription. Even though his wrists were bound, he had managed to pinch a small book between his thumb and first finger, and was copying the engraved symbols into the book with a bone pen.

Find me food, Sorin commanded.

Nissa hopped down off the hedron. I can bring you game.

But Sorin was looking ahead at the rising mesas in the distance.

The Ghet will acquire my food. I have special tastes.

Nissa looked from Sorin to Anowon, who was tucking his small black book into a little pack he d rigged from vines strung through the leaf of a gourgi bush. The vampire walked over to Sorin, who untied his hands.

How do we know he will not flee? Nissa said. Or waylay us to our doom, she thought.

He will not, Sorin said, looking at Anowon, who kept his eyes forward. He is an archaeomancer; his interest lies in the magic of this ruined empire. He has no use of such things as ambushes or bold combat. Anyway, he wants to take us to the Eye of Ugin. Don t you, Ghet? Sorin s voice raised in volume and pitch. DON T YOU? he repeated.

For a moment, Nissa could feel the weight of Sorin s ominous words float in the air like a physical presence, and then they settled onto Anowon. The vampire s pupils dilated, Nissa noticed. He nodded once, then turned and walked under a branch and disappeared into the high grass.

Nissa looked at Sorin. Why would a vampire do what a human ordered him to do? she wondered.

He will meet the baloth, she said. And die.

You don t know vampires, Sorin said.

And you do? Nissa thought. She moved her staff to her other hand.

You don t know baloth. A vampire bleeds like anything. I have proven that many times.

He raised an eyebrow. Yes, but they have the rather unerring ability to sneak up on things. A bit like elves, I must say, Sorin said, laughing.

The shrill screech of a barutis bird rang out in the high canopy.

Where do you want to travel? Nissa said, once her pulse had calmed. The barutis s cry, so senseless and without reason, always shocked her.

I have told you. Akoum The Teeth of Akoum, Sorin said.

But do you have a path in mind?

I believe it is called Graypelt now, Sorin said. He was looking into the west again, at the high mesas.

Graypelt? Why travel through Graypelt? Graypelt is full of trappers and stinking humans, Nissa said as she looked down at the ground and cursed herself inwardly. Of course there s nothing wrong with humans, she said. Humans are fine.

Humans? Sorin said, drawn out of his own thoughts. Oh yes, humans. They re wonderful. Such large noses!

Soon the sun fell in the sky. The forest took life, and the crash and hiss of insects was so loud that Nissa s ears rang. Something loud but slow crashed through the forest to their right. Probably a fang deer, Nissa thought. Or worse. But it was no baloth Nissa knew that from the sound. One did not hear baloth.

She gathered wood and stood it with the tips together over a small wad of special moss that had been soaked in flammable sap.

No fire, Sorin said, suddenly loud in the total darkness. With her elf eyes she could see him sitting cross-legged. His lips were moving, but she could hear no sound. An incantation of some sort perhaps. She wondered if he could see her as well as she saw him.

Baloth hate fire, she said.

Brood lineage love it.

Brood lineage love it, she repeated. What are the brood lineage?

Sorin s lips stopped moving. He turned to her in the darkness. How can you not know? Have you not traveled? he asked.

Only a bit. I am from Bala Ged on the other side of the ocean, Nissa replied, sensing a trap. Tell no one of your abilities. It was more of a curse than anything else this ability to planeswalk. It allowed her to lose her family and be exiled from her tribe and people. And to make matters worse, it wasn t worth it.

Sorin s lip curved up and to one side. Only a bit, he said, his turn to repeat.

He knows. How can he know?

Sorin cleared his throat. Do you know the Eldrazi? he asked.

A childhood fable the ancient ones of Zendikar.

He nodded. They are no fable, he said. Believe me. These are their children, free at last.

The Eldrazi are real?

Did we not bury your little friend in the forest? he said. Did you not interact with their brood today?

Nissa felt the sweat on her forehead in the cooling night air.

And these brood dance in their crumbled palaces and eat sky mushrooms and steal children? Like the stories say?

They are both children and minions

But what are they? Nissa interrupted.

Sorin kept talking. and they will eat this plane.

But how. Why?

Sorin didn t reply. He was looking up at the star-spattered sky. Nissa waited. Soon a particular sound, a rustle, issued from the forest. She listened for a time, expecting against expectation a red-eyed baloth to come bounding out of the trees. Or a troupe of tree stalkers, the baloth s smaller relative. They were almost as bad as baloth. Some said they were worse, because their size allowed them to sneak better than a baloth. One thing was sure: they had all the ferocity and cunning of their larger cousin.

With baloth, and tree stalkers for that matter, it was wisest to be on the ground when they attacked. In the branches, an individual was vulnerable from all sides and from above and below. On the ground and with somewhere to put your back, you had only one area to guard.

Sorin took first watch.

Nissa kicked a depression in the moss on the forest floor for her hip and lay on her side with her back against the hedron stone. It gave off a curious heat.

In the dark she listened to the waja lizards tearing the bark of the trees while the screamer bugs split their shells in the high branches. The trees knocked together in the breeze, and in a moment Nissa fell asleep. She dreamt for a time that she was floating in the deep, black space above her head. She screamed down at the green forest below, but still she floated higher and higher.

Suddenly she started awake. Sorin was standing above her in the dark. As she watched, he bent down over her. Her staff was beside her, and she knew she could have her stem out in a split second. What is it? she said.

Sorin froze.

It s your watch, he said, after a time.

She rose in the cold dark and stretched, feeling the kink in her back loosen. The stars overhead had the quality of the finest velvet and a certain depth that Nissa had always liked. Anowon was back. She could smell him sleeping someplace nearby and even hear his slow breaths. He must have been as stealthy to not have woken her. She pulled her cloak around her bare neck and drew her knees up. She sat with her arms holding her knees and her back to the hedron and listened.

Sorin was awake, she could hear. The breaths he drew were less even than Anowon s. He sat back against the hedron watching her. She imagined she could hear him scheming in the dark. Who was he really? She had intended to ask him, but the right time hadn t presented itself. Well, if he slept tonight, if he ever slept, she would know. It was all fine to creep into camp and breathe quietly, but nobody could be stealthier than a Joraga, and she intended to prove it. But first Sorin had to fall asleep.

And he did. But by the time his breathing became steady and long, the stars had moved in their nightly rotations past the jaddi tree s top branch, and the sky to the east was starting toward gray. She stood and stole as quietly as dust to where Sorin slept next to the hedron. She d seen him draw his handkerchief out of an inner pocket of some sort. She carefully put her fingers to finding the pocket. But she couldn t. He was wearing a black leather jerkin with plates affixed to it. There were no pockets in his cloak that she could find. It seemed that no part of his attire involved pockets, but the one pocket she could find in his pants contained only a common gray stone..

Nissa crept back to her lookout. No pockets. How no pockets? A human appears in the Turntimber Forest, widely known on Zendikar as an extraordinarily dangerous place, with naught gear but a smooth gray stone? And he is lost. How did he find his way into the forest without knowing his way out? It is as though he appeared in the middle of the forest. Strange, unless he is a planeswalker. She backed against the warm rock and looked out at the dark shadows in the forest. When the hedron she was leaning against had fallen long ago, it crushed flat the trees that had been growing. Tajuru popular legend named the huge hedron the sudkin, and many believed that one could hear the trees pushing and scratching underneath. And that the trees will try but never move the stone. There was even a saying about it: That will happen when the sudkin moves. Meaning never.

A form moved in the darkness. Nissa blinked and leaned forward. She stared until her eyes went dry, and she had to blink again. Anowon and Sorin were asleep to her left. Their breathing was the only sound in the forest. The only sound. A stiffness began to radiate from the back of Nissa s neck, and her stomach turned suddenly. The only sound. The forest was never quiet, yet it was, and so suddenly. It had very recently been teeming with the sounds of spiral beetles foraging in the spent leaves on the floor of snail, and the claw birds scrapping at the crotches of the turntimber and jaddi trees nearby, looking for bugs and frogs. But there was nothing anymore.

She rose quietly, holding her staff with both hands. Nothing moved in the shadows. She stood and watched, unmoving. She stood for so long that a snake slithered across her foot, and she looked down for a split second to see if it was poisonous. But it was only a nectar snake, with dark circles on its back. When she looked up again a shadow had moved. A normal eye would not have noticed it, but Nissa s eyes weren t normal. The change was slight: what looked like the shadow of leaf was curved ever so slightly, whereas previously it had been straight. Nissa bent and took hold of the jaddi nut that she d placed next to her when she took watch. She brought the nut to her lips, whispering a spell, kissed it, and tossed it into the shadows. A green mottle arced up, following the nut s path as it flew through the air. It is almost time to wake up anyway, she thought.

The nut hit the ground with a sudden flash of light. The tree stalkers three, in fact were caught standing, blinking their eyes in the flare. One was young probably the one that had moved enough for her to detect it but even in the blinding light it did not move again. She had precious seconds. Unlike the baloth, the stalkers fur was white. They were lean. Their teeth-crammed mouths hung open tasting the air, and as was their way, each was standing on its hind legs with its two over-sized front legs dangling so their purple claws almost touched the ground.

She had fought one soon after her rite of passage, of course but three. The lead stalker groaned and leaned to the side before pouncing, and she stood and swung her staff, catching it on the chin. Its head jerked to the side, as it fell and rolled. Nissa whispered and reached out with her mind and a turntimber branch swung down on the stalker and pinned it to the duff.

The two remaining creatures jumped at Nissa. She felt movement next to her and smelled Sorin. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him jump forward, and for a moment the lead stalker shied as it flew through the air. With a word from Sorin the creature fell into a stinking pile on the ground, leaving one of its eyes bouncing away through the leafy duff.

The first creature s paws hit her, shoved her backward, and knocked her staff out of her hand. Suddenly the stalker was on her chest, digging in its claws and crushing the air from her lungs. She gasped and tried to roll out from under it, but the creature was four times her weight and bore down on her, opening its wide mouth to her face. She heard a high whine and felt the creature shudder, and something heavy cracked out of the stalker s chest. She could feel the heat from the object on her right cheek as the creature s legs buckled, and it fell with an audible thump on the ground next to her head. Nissa twisted as it started to fall, but the creature s head fell on her back, slamming her into the leaf mold.

Nissa lay on the forest floor looking up at the trees. It felt as if she were floating on a cloud of air. She was dimly aware of movements and sounds all around her, but she couldn t move her arms. Then she blinked and took a breath. She managed to tip the stalker s head off her. There was no sound except the rushing of blood in her ears, and no feeling except the pain in her chest. Soon the swish in her ears subsided, and she could hear the stalker trapped under the tree branch struggle and moan against the leaves.

She sat up and was immediately greeted with a jab of pain in her chest. Wincing, she stood. She went closer to the fallen creature and saw the ragged folds of the heart, where it had exploded under the body like a melon. In the raw dawn light, the stalker s fur seemed as soft as a blanket. Nissa reached out to touch it.

Perhaps a cloak?

Nissa turned. Sorin was standing against the hedron looking like he hadn t slept on the ground with his hip in a hole. Anowon was standing next to him with his hands bound in front, watching Nissa with an expression that she could not read.

Why did you kill them? she asked Sorin.

Sorin laughed. Anowon did not.

You would have had it bite your face off?

She turned back to the dead stalker where it lay sideways with its legs straight out. My death would have been the way of things.

Sorin laughed again. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be plenty of possibilities for you to lose your life. He put his shoulders back. Now, which direction is it to Graypelt?

You really don t know? Nissa asked.

How would I?

You seem to know a great deal about Zendikar. You know how to walk the branchways. You know to avoid the cut fungus. You knew to lunge at the tree stalker to make it shy before attacking.

Sorin watched her.

Is that all? he asked. I hope I know more than that. He started to walk north toward Graypelt, and then he stopped and turned back.

You fought well against those creatures, for an elf, Sorin said. Not as well as me, of course, but perhaps you will be useful for more than scouting. He turned and began walking. Without a glance, Anowon followed.

If he knew the way to Graypelt, then why was she involved? Nissa wonderded. She walked over to where her staff had been flung and picked it up. The stalker under the branch struggled. Its red eyes followed her as she walked. She stopped. She swept her hand through the air, and the branch snapped up to where it had been. The creature sniffed the air, glanced at her, and bounded up the nearest turntimber and away.

Sorin watched it go. We ll walk on the ground from here.

Once again he had the right of it, Nissa thought. From the edge of the great mesa, Graypelt was best reached on foot. Soon they would descend to the ladders and perhaps even the zip line the Tajuru had strung years before, when the treasure hunters that flocked to Graypelt were considered friends. They had since become barong, interlopers. She would not be surprised in the least to find the zip line broken by vandals.

They walked all day, ducking the branches and dense undergrowth that grew at the edge of the mesa. They passed abandoned camps, where signs of struggle were everywhere, but nothing else remained. Sometimes the remains of a site were no more than stones piled in a rough circle. Once they cut a wide arc around what had been a large camp, erected around the floating remains of a huge statue with tentacles for legs and symbols and words engraved into its crumbled base. A massive turntimber had grown up under the figure, and its trunk and branches had wrapped around the strange effigy. Patches of the tree s bark had been peeled away, and a broken box was strapped to each patch. Nissa stopped and spat into the loam. It took deleterious magic to keep the turntimber from healing itself.

Blood suckers, she said, glancing at the boxes strapped to the trees. Sucking the land s energy. The barong put quartz in those boxes to absorb the energy of the turntimber. They sell the stones to other fools in Graypelt who think it will cure their ills.

Sorin walked closer to the abandoned sap boxes. Anowon followed. Sorin looked at the box for a moment before inserting his hand into the back of it. A smile spread across his face.

Yes, he said. Yes. Very pure. He turned to Nissa. Why would this place have been abandoned?

She pointed to a place on the trunk above his head. A small scuff.

An arrow hit there, she said. Or I am much fooled.

An elf arrow, Anowon said. He had been quiet for so long that both Sorin and Nissa turned when he spoke.

Just so, Nissa said turning back to the tree.

This forest is stewarded by the Tajuru.

But not you, Sorin said.

I am Joraga.

You are a fool to not utilize this power, he said, removing his hand from the box.

All elves receive power from the land. We do not need to cut and hack and burn as humans do. She looked from Sorin to Anowon. You are all, human and vampire, suckers of life. You are the same in our eyes.

Are we? Sorin asked, smiling and raising an eyebrow. The same?

In a manner of speaking.

The smile stayed on Sorin s face. He started walking.

In that case, let us continue to Graypelt and see what we see.

Why Graypelt? Nissa asked, walking after him.

Because it lies between us and our destination in the west.

The Teeth of Akoum?

The Eye of Ugin.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. Anowon stood next to a box strapped to the tree, watching as Sorin began walking the footpath that led west from the camp. His hands were bound, but still she stopped.

He walks in front of me, she yelled to Sorin, keeping her eyes on Anowon.

Ghet! called Sorin.

Anowon started walking, keeping his eyes straight ahead. He passed Nissa, and she watched his long braid sway slightly as he walked.

They went one behind the other along the narrow path though the forest. The way was fraught with boulders and thick, rank growth. Eventually the trail ended completely, as if the beings that had once walked it had ceased to exist in mid step. Nissa backtracked on her hands and knees until she was able to locate a track in the ground that was not too old and pointed west to their destination. Since the trail itself ended, they would have to follow the faint reminders of past travellers and hope they led to Graypelt. They followed signs for the rest of the day: a broken twig, a torn patch of moss. The forest echoed all around them. A little past when the sun was highest in the sky, they crossed a small river, and Nissa searched for a sign on the other side. She found it.

We are close, Nissa said. She could see that the toe digs and heel divots of varying creatures had previous converged on their small path. There were the toe claws of goblins and tracks of at least six different hobnailed humans, as well as a barefoot kor and an elf. The footfalls were clearly visible to the eye. On the breeze she smelled sweat and wood smoke and something else she couldn t exactly place. The land had grown rockier, as she knew it was supposed to at the edge of the great mesa. Just ahead somewhere, she said. Prepare yourself.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

They encountered the first ragged tent when the sun was low in the west. Many of the tents were gray and of different sizes and materials, but some were fire-blackened and abandoned. Others were flattened, as if stepped upon. Past the tents the forest dropped away, and Nissa could see the sun setting blood red behind rows of jagged peaks capped with snow.

Sorin looked about him with a bemused smile on his face. Graypelt.

So named because of the Turntimber warthog tents.

Sorin appraised the destroyed tents hugging the end of the mesa.

Since when are warthog skins called pelts?

A sudden gust sent a piece of burnt tent flapping. The wind caused some of the cook fires in front of the tents to blaze to life. Somewhere a dog whined. At least, Nissa hoped it was a dog.

Above the nearest fire pit, a carcass was skewered over a pile of low coals. A human squatted back on his heels and turned the meat slowly. He looked up at them with crossed eyes. On his head he wore a helmet with the tip of a hedron affixed to the top.

Sorin pushed his jaw at the skewered meat. What do you have there? Elf meat?

The man spat and turned his eyes back to the fire.

Warthog, Nissa said, her eyes scanning the tents. She found a tent larger than the rest and black in color and led them to it along the makeshift streets of mud. They passed two men standing on either side of a horse. Both were wearing heavy armor fixed with strings, and on each string was tied a stone. Climbing hooks curled off their elbow couters and the tips of their sabatons. They were busy lashing a folded green tent and long poles to their horse. With each movement the tiny stones tinked against their armor.

Power sellers, Nissa whispered. Each of those stones is imbued with a bit of the Turntimber s special raw mana. They sell them.

Sorin looked back where the men stood, watching them. How much do they cost?

Less than that, Nissa replied.

Sorin looked where she pointed. A bright red drake the size of a large dog sat on a roost in front of a gray, scale-skinned tent. The creature s bright eyes watched them as they passed.

They find those drakes in the Makindi Trench, Nissa said, approaching the black tent. She stopped and looked back the way they had come. Every eye in the camp was on them. She turned and said, Keep your lips tight together, and don t look at it.

With a deep breath, Nissa pushed back the stiff hide hung over the hole and slipped into the tent. The others followed. It was almost totally dark inside. A strange smell filled their noses so that Sorin groaned and Nissa held her breath. Anowon shuffled his feet. Something was buzzing in the tent.

Khalled? Nissa said.

There was no sound except for the buzzing.

Khalled? Nissa repeated.

More buzzing. Then something stirred. Yes? called a voice.

Khalled, it is Nissa.

Nissa. Come closer, child. The voice sounded like it hadn t spoken for millennia.

She walked in the darkness, feeling ahead with her foot before each step. When she was nearer to the buzzing, a rough hand groped her face.

Nissa Revane. My nectar.

She heard Sorin sniff.

I am here with two friends.

Friends? They don t smell like friends. Or rather, they smell like friends to each other but not to you.

Nonetheless

Have you seen the beautiful flowers outside, Nissa?

Flowers? I saw no flowers.

What? No flowers?

I saw some destroyed tents, Khalled.

The hand left her face.

Friends you say Light! Suddenly light from many tiny points filled the room. What was amazing to Nissa was not that Khalled had hundreds of light beetles tethered with string in the corner of the tent. What amazed her was that he d been able, with an enchantment of his devising, to have the beetles light at his command.

The sides of Khalled s tent were bookshelves, and each and every space on the shelves was crammed with books, scrolls, and reed papers bound with string. Nissa even recognized writings from her people: flat pieces of pale nadi wood graven with pictographs. Nissa noticed that Anowon s eyes were on the books, and for the first time since she had allowed him to travel with them, his eyes were fully open. As he stared, he brought his bound hands up and scratched the side of his nose. She turned.

Khalled was looking at each of them carefully. Half of his face had been torn to the bone by a kraken, and he wore no adornment except a cloak thrown over his right shoulder and a loin cloth. Nissa noticed that the merfolk had started unbinding his wrist and ankle fins, and their translucent blue shone in the tent.

I dreamed of an angel with a halo running across its eye line, he said, his eyes moving between Anowon and Sorin.

With a pulsing, tentacled heart in its hand.

Sorin smiled uncertainly.

Ahhh, Khalled said. He reached out and touched the vial of water he had given Nissa, which she kept on a lanyard around her neck. You still possess this. Wonderful.

It is always my companion, Nissa said.

That one, Khalled said, pointing at Anowon, is a vampire.

He is bound, Khalled.

The ancient merfolk shuffled closer. What do you have hanging from your belt? he asked Anowon.

Anowon moved his eyes from the books to the merfolk. He looked down at the metal cylinders hanging from his belt.

Are those text imprinters? Khalled asked.

For clay?

Anowon nodded. The merfolk leaned over and took one of the cylinders in his hand and looked closely at it. After a minute, he let the cylinder go, and it bounced against Anowon s thigh.

Khalled straightened and looked at Anowon. An archaeophile? Khalled asked with an inflection to his voice that said he approved. How do you come here?

He was Sorin started.

I was not speaking to you, friend, Khalled said.

Sorin s smile disappeared.

Khalled put his iridescent green eyes back on Anowon.

I was enslaved by the Eldrazi brood lineage, Anowon replied, and brought on their forage raids into the Turntimber Forest.

Nissa spoke. MossCrack is no more. The Tajuru home tree was attacked, and Speaker Sutina is buried.

Khalled blinked like he d been slapped. He looked up at the ceiling of the tent where the bugs buzzed and tittered.

They attacked here some days ago, he said.

Many have fled. Some were killed.

Yet you stay?

The Turntimber is not yet mapped, Khalled said.

And with the increasing Roil, it becomes ever more difficult.

But surely, my friend, you would rather travel back to Tazeem, Nissa pressed. To your lighthouse?

Yes, I can see where you might think that. But no. Khalled said, sighing. Speaker Sutina. She was an unusual elf. I ve told you what I knew about her and that kraken?

Yes, Nissa said. But Khalled, these two need to get to the Teeth of Akoum. It is found on

I know where the Teeth of Akoum are, dear child.

Would you have a map?

I might, Khalled said. He looked at Sorin for a while. What is it worth to you, and why do you want to go to that place? It is dangerous, and these creatures, these brood as you call them, are everywhere. I have received a speaking hawk from The Lighthouse at Sea Gate telling news of great hordes in the lands to the west.

The news seemed to trouble Sorin. He pursed his lips. I have my own reasons, old map maker, he said. But maybe I can make it worth your time. He put his hand into his jerkin, and it came out holding something.

Nissa watched him open his hand. A small black ball, the size of an acorn, rolled in his palm.

How? Nissa thought, leaning closer for a better look. That wasn t in his pockets when I went through them this morning. There was nothing in those pockets. Where did he get it?

What is that? Khalled asked. One of the beetles landed on his hand. He stroked it gently, and it glowed brighter.

It is magic from far away.

How far away?

Far.

The Jah-creed merfolk eyed the ball in Sorin s palm.

Sorin pushed it toward him. It sees. Would you like to see what it sees?

No, Khalled said, after a long pause. This smells dark to me. And as much as I love the dark, it tends to have too large an allure for me.

Sorin s hand closed over the ball. His faced showed no emotion, but Nissa could smell his metallic embarrassment in the air.

Perhaps Khalled could too, for he shuffled forward. These two will have their map, Nissa. But why do you help them?

Sorin saved my life, she said.

Twice, Sorin said.

Twice, Nissa said.

Khalled nodded and turned to Anowon. You will make me copies of your books. That is payment for the map Khalled turned Raspin! he called. Oh Raspin?

A young human boy poked his head into the tent.

Would you fetch clay? You will find it in the supply tent in the box marked Glyphs.

The boy pulled his head out.

And Raspin?

The boy put his head back in.

Check with Margen and find out if we ve spotted the enemy today in the west.

Khalled turned back to the group. We see them almost daily. But they seem to be passing around us. They are odd. First they seem brutes, but then sometimes they do things with extreme forethought. Like the ambushes they have caught us in.

Sorin said nothing, but Nissa knew he possessed secrets of the brood that he had yet to reveal. They re like ants, Nissa said. It s like they talk with their tentacles like ants do with their antennae.

Khalled nodded as he thought about this. Then nodded. His eyes turned to Anowon. You say these are the Eldrazi of myth? These are the ones who build the palaces and places of power the ones who were put down in the uprising?

Anowon glanced at Sorin, who was smirking again.

I am not sure, Anowon continued. I know they came from the Eye of Ugin, which in some of the research I have done is associated with the last resting place of the ancient ones.

What family do you hail from? Khalled said.

Anowon looked at the merfolk for an extra heart beat before replying. My family was Ghet. I have been formally cast out.

Khalled raised his eyebrows. He turned and walked to one of his packed and drooping bookshelves. He drew out a slim but wide book and opened it. As they all watched, he licked his finger and began turning pages. Ah Ghet. He was quiet as he read.

Sorin yawned.

Yes, Khalled said as he read. An old family, but of minor designation. Disciplined in past conflicts. Khalled looked up. Your seat is not in Guul Draz?

Malakir.

The most marginalized of the vampire families there.

Anowon said nothing.

The boy arrived with the clay. He threw aside the flap and walked in teetering under the weight of an entire block. He staggered over to a table and dumped the block on it. The tentacle creatures have been seen massing at the northern gap, he reported.

Anowon began unwrapping the block with his bound hands. As Nissa watched, he tore a corner of the reddish clay off and began kneading it flat on the table. When it was smooth and of a thickness that seemed to be sufficient, he unclipped one of the metal cylinders from his belt. Carefully, with his hands pressing down, he rolled the metal over the sheet of clay and imprinted what the cylinder contained.

What is written on these tablets? Khalled said.

These are all records of my research and findings. Mostly about the Eldrazi.

What language are they written in?

Ancient Vampire, Anowon said. But there are no maps.

Alas, one makes do.

Khalled, they will need provisions, Nissa said.

But I have decided that I will stay here in the Turntimber. My promise was to bring them here. With your map they have no other use for me. Let them be gone.

The merfolk wasted no time. Raspin, he said, bring provisions and gear.

We do have a use for you, Sorin said, a smirk on his long face as he glanced at Anowon. The Ghet here is no scout. And his combat facility leaves something to be desired. Also, he smells like a beast.

Khalled watched Anowon make the next imprint. I would warn Nissa about you, vampire, but I would be more worried for your well-being should you anger her.

Anowon said nothing. But as they watched, he made imprints of each of his cylinders and lay the tablets out on the table to dry. He was finishing the last when Raspin entered, staggering under the weight of a large pack with shoulder straps.

Excellent, Raspin, Khalled said. He handed Nissa a horn stopped at each end with a tree-bark plug. This map should get you to Akoum. This location of the Eye of Ugin is unknown to me. But the vampire book-maker says he knows the way.

Nissa turned and handed the map to Sorin, who accepted it with obvious misgivings. And I will stay here, in the Turntimber, Nissa said. The Tajuru borders have been defended, and my place is back at the Home Tree.

Khalled took Nissa s arm and led her a couple of steps away.

Lately my dreams have been filled with ill tidings, Khalled said. I have deep misgivings about this brood. The birds I have received bear strange news of whole towns destroyed, castles crushed. Many of the birds themselves arrive on the edge of death.

There could be many explanations.

The merfolk was quiet for a time. Quite. Khalled said at last. He pointed at a large, flat table top of rough rock standing in the corner. The table legs were the huge femur bones of some extinct creature.

Let me show you my fear, Khalled said. He snapped his fingers, and wisps of what looked like blue smoke wafted around the top of the table. Slowly the wisps formed into terrain and land features. Nissa recognized the continents of Ondu and Akoum separated by a great undulating sea. There was the Puzzle Tower, the Knuckle of Forgotten Ones, and the dense swath of the Turntimber Forest. The Makindi Trench gaped through the land like a wound begging for suture.

As Nissa watched, a pool of dark dots spread out of a mountain range she could only assume was the Teeth of Akoum. The dots spread in all directions and soon covered the land. Soon the blue wisps began to disappear, leaving only the black. As she watched, the Turntimber began to disappear in chunks, like the bites from a sopfruit, until the forest was no more.

Have you seen the wild linnestrop? Khalled asked.

Nissa felt her lip curl at the mention of the plant. Of course.

And where is it from, originally?

Not from the Turntimber, Nissa said. Yet here it grows, choking out the plants that have lived within these green boundaries for time immemorial.

And have you heard of the simeon plant? Do you hate it as much?

No. That plant lives together with the others. You can heal with it and

Yet it is also not native to the Turntimber.

You are right. It is a stranger.

Like me, Khalled said. Like you.

Nissa looked up from the terrain phantasm on the table top.

I suppose, she said.

I have a strong fear in my hearts that these brood are of a sort with the linnestrop.

Nissa watched the merfolk snap his fingers again, and the wisps on the table dissipated.

I believe the Turntimber and all Zendikar beg for help, Khalled said. You, my sweet friend, are a leader of elves. The power of Zendikar is yours but I fear it will wither under the tentacles of this new addition.

Nissa nodded. She remembered the day she had first returned from her planeswalk to the faraway plane where densely packed beings had stepped on each other s feet and tried to kill each other. She had returned to the forest and sat for days watching the slow bloom of an incisor orchid s flower bud. It took three days for the bud to open, but when it finally did, its smell glowing purple stamens brought her to tears. The idea that such a flower would cease to be

You must travel with this menagerie, Khalled said as he swept his hand toward Sorin and Anowon. To the Eye of Ugin. Zendikar begs you.

Sorin watched. He and Anowon were standing near the entrance to the tent. Anowon was strapping the pack Raspin had brought onto his own back.

Nissa looked around the tent and took a deep breath. Where was her tribe now? Either the Joraga or the Tajuru? Where were they to help her with this burden? No, she would not do it for either of her tribes. She would not embark on such trip for the tribe that had cast her out, or the one that hated her. She would make the journey for Zendikar. And for Nissa Revine.

I will do as you suggest, my friend, Nissa said.

Khalled smiled, showing his strange, small teeth. Well then, keep vigilant around that one.

The book maker?

No, the other, Khalled said. He is also

At that moment a horn blew outside. Nissa looked at Khalled.

Change of the guard. Nothing to be concerned with, Khalled said.

Let this be our time to depart, Sorin said.

Nissa turned back to Khalled. The merfolk nodded. Thank you, Nissa said to Khalled, placing her hand above her heart and bowing.

Khalled held a necklace out to her. A pathway stone for your journey, he said. Keep it well. It was cut off the Puzzle Tower itself.

I thank you, my friend, Nissa replied.

Remember what I said, Khalled said. And remember that vampires live on blood.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

They left Graypelt with night falling. Three stones pitch away from the last tent, the mesa fell away, and the land became vertical. They made a fireless camp near a trail that wound down the mesa s edge in a zig-zag of switchbacks, leading finally to the dark at the bottom of the canyon. In the starlight, the river at the bottom of the gulch appeared a long, gray scar.

Makindi Trench, Nissa said. Our way lies there, unfortunately.

Sorin and Anowon sat with their backs propped against the boles of the few young Jaddi able to eke out a living at the edge of the mesa where the soil was exposed and infertile. Watches were decided upon, and Nissa took a spot in the notch of a tree. A Gryphon screamed in the darkness over the trench as it hunted nighthawks. And then she was asleep.

Nissa heard the rain drumming long before it hit them, then the storm was on them with huge raindrops that hurt. Even the hood of her warthog cloak could not fend off the rain. She was soaked and shivering all night. But with morning the rain had ceased, and the giant drum toads croaked their booming dialect from the trench below.

Nissa woke the others when the first light tinged the night sky, and by dawn they were standing on the trail in the moist chill, blowing into their hands. The Makindi Trench was still dark below. Far down the trench a fire lit the canyon. Sorin blew into his hands and stamped his cold feet. Nissa gnawed on a square of hard waybread wondering what creature Anowon had eaten last, and which would be next. The archaeomancer hoisted the provisions pack onto his back and tied the waist and chest straps before offering his hands to be bound.

They made their way down a steep trail composed of wet stones. Twice Anowon lost his footing and slipped. Once he tripped and would have fallen forward if Nissa hadn t taken hold of his pack and swung him back.

At one point the trail became so steep that Nissa stopped and took rope from the pack. As she was taking it out, she glanced down at the charm Khalled gave her when she had first come to the Turntimber. It was a small vial of enchanted water taken from the ruins of Ior at the bottom of Glasspool. The only significant source of fresh water on Akoum was sacred to the kor.

As she watched, the water in the vial bubbled to life, a warning of what was to come. Roil! she yelled. Hold on.

Still clutching the coil of rope, Nissa dashed for a small tree and just reached it when the first tremors began. She dove into the cage of exposed roots and fumbled her harness s belay line out, snapping its clamp onto the nearest root.

She watched Anowon scuttling for his own tree, and then the Roil hit in force, and Nissa could not see anything. She watched the trench below them buckle like a great rug, and the needles of the dwarfed pines writhe and whip. The ground began to jolt violently, and she was thrown against the roots. Nissa put her hands over her head, but the thrashing continued while the sudden wind howled and boulders crashed. She could hear the stone groaning and snapping all around her, and then the Roil stopped as suddenly as it had started. One moment the air was rushing; the next moment the stones that had been suspended in mid-air fell crashing down, and many of them rolled down the side of the mesa and into the trench.

Soon the rumbling stopped, and so did the ringing in her ears. Nissa unfastened herself and crawled out. The breeze smelled like raw sap. She peered around. The trees had grown. But the new growth was either snapped off or twisted into strange corkscrews that reminded her with a dark shudder of brood lineage tentacles.

Nissa had been through many Roils, but lately every one seemed worse than the last. That one had been fairly minor. Once in the Turntimber she d found herself in the top canopy of a tree after the Roil.

But not this time. The trail was gone, and the rocks that had been stacked up in cairns to mark the switchbacks scattered. It took her a moment to understand what had happened: the Roil had torn a chunk out of the ground, and it floated high above the ground. Every so often a rock rolled off and came tumbling down.

The vampire and Sorin, she thought. They were nowhere to be seen. She looked around at the heaps of newly piled stones. They re lost if they are under those. She looked up at the floating land. They could be on that. She looked down. Far below she could see two black dots on the trench floor. She had to move fast.

Using her staff, she managed to scramble down the rest of the way to the bottom of the trench, but it still took the better part of an hour. It was fast work, yet still she was not the first to reach them. A creature with six legs was clambering over the rocks, its long curved tail tipped with a savage-looking stinger. It had pincer mouth parts and a curled proboscis tucked between the pincers. Crevice miners always seemed attracted to Roils. They were nothing more than scavengers, but still She was lucky there were not more. She stepped closer to the two unconscious forms. The crevice miner stopped, its pincers, each half as long as her arm, opening and closing. One more step, and she would be forced into action. Crevice miners were some of the most succulent bush meat to be found. Many said they tasted like crab, but Nissa had never eaten crab, preferring to not to eat things that fed upon the dead and decaying.

Nissa twisted her staff and slid the stem sword into the daylight. The miner sensed her threat and rose up on its two back legs. It skittered forward a few steps, hoping to drive its spikelike pincers down on her, but Nissa sidestepped and let the pincers dive down on blank rock. The creature rose up and came down again, but Nissa stepped the other way, and its pincers crashed into the rock again. After three more tries the crevice miner turned and scurried away.

Nissa rushed over to where Sorin and Anowon were lying at the base of the scree. They were much bruised and covered with abrasions, but Anowon was awake. He watched her approach but did not try to move. She noticed with a start that his hands were unbound. Why was she helping these two? She could turn and go back home. There was nothing holding her.

Are you hurt? Nissa said.

Anowon s strange eyes regarded her coolly.

Are you hurt? she repeated.

This one has not woken yet, Anowon said, regarding Sorin with the most casual of glances.

Is he? She could suddenly feel Hiba lying still in her arms.

Dead? I don t think so.

Nissa approached, keeping one eye on the unbound vampire. She placed her hand over Sorin s mouth and felt a tiny puff of breath.

He lives, she said. She raised her hand and brought it across Sorin s face with a loud slap. His eyes snapped open, and his upper lip drew back across his thin incisors. His eyes were narrowed, and Nissa took an involuntary step back. Then recognition spread over his face.

An elf, he said. His gold-flecked pupils were wildly different in size, and the sweat was popping out on his forehead. When he turned his head, the knot above his ear was clearly visible. Only an elf.

Nissa nodded. Only the elf who saved your life.

Sorin grabbed a handful of Nissa s sleeve and drew her to him. I know about you, he said, slurring his words.

I can tell you have left this place before. He tapped his forehead. I can tell.

Nissa yanked her sleeve out of his surprisingly strong grip.

I am sure I do not know what you mean, Nissa said. But she did. Planeswalking. She turned her head so Sorin could not see her face.

Where is Lysene? Sorin said.

There is no Lysene here. Nissa said. She turned and eyed him critically. It would be hard to move him should he prove unable to walk. Can you walk? she asked.

Sorin looked blankly at her and blinked.

Look, said Anowon in his reedy voice.

She turned. Four more crevice miners were mincing through the scree piles behind them. She knew that they would become more interested if she attacked them. And she could easily kill them, but more would be attracted by the blood.

He must move, Nissa said. I am not sure he should, but he must or we die here.

Anowon nodded. He casually took his long braid and brought it over his shoulder. The braid was as thick as Nissa s arm. Anowon parted some of the black hair and opened the small metal door of a box buried within. From the box he carefully pinched out something white and shiny with a symbol on it.

Is that a tooth? Nissa asked. The crevice miners were standing just out of a stone s throw s range, opening and closing their pincers.

It is. Anowon said. A molar imbued with a merfolk s phantasm. He made a fist around the tooth and threw it at Sorin. Immediately the outlander began to float. When his body reached shoulder height, Anowon took hold of him. Without tethering, he will float away. And that would be such a shame.

Nissa shuddered at the thought of the tooth. One of the crevice miners stepped closer, and she had to throw a rock. It stepped back again.

That will work once, maybe twice, Nissa said. She did not know if Khalled s map said they should walk down the Makindi Trench, but she did know that it was the only direction open to them. Walk, she said. Quickly and without turning. Miners are eaters of the dead; they like their meat bloated and tender. They do not favor attack, but the sight of wet eye balls can excite them into a frenzy. If they see us moving quickly, they may just give up and consider us too much work. Still, the crevice miners followed behind.

The floor of the trench was wide enough for one hundred to walk abreast, but boulders and large rocks of various sizes were strewn across it. The field of boulders created a maze of tight passages which Nissa led them through. She heard the crevice miners carapaces clacking against each other as they struggled through. Soon the passages became so tight in places that even Nissa had to squeeze to pass. It was perhaps their only chance to out maneuver the beasts, and Nissa seized it.

Run, she hissed.

The crevice miners heard the sudden movement, and sensing that their meal might be leaving, they surged forward. But the lead creature became trapped, and the others crammed against it in a desperate rush, entangling their long, hairy legs. Sensing their predicament the miners struggled and became utterly entwined and stuck in a space between the boulders.

Nissa and Anowon scrambled to the top of the boulders with Sorin in tow, and hopped from one to the other until they had put a good distance between the scavengers and themselves. But the effort was great. By the time Nissa stopped, her breath was coming out in rasps.

The miners were far behind, clattering their hard shells against one another and making a high keening cry that drove the hairs on the back of Nissa s neck rigid.

Some time later, the boulders gave way to sand and rocks, and eventually they were splashing through a small river of sluggish water meandering downhill. The sun had passed its zenith, and the darkness in the trench was almost total again. Nissa stopped to listen, putting her hand on Anowon s chest to stop him. He looked down at her hand and then at Nissa.

No frowning, Nissa whispered. She listened for scratching echoing from behind, and, hearing none, took her hand off Anowon s chest.

They walked in the shade of the trench. The swath of sky overhead was an overcast purple. Soon the first rumble of thunder tumbled down the canyon, and Sorin spoke.

Ghet, you will lower me now, he said.

Anowon pulled Sorin down. When his feet were firmly on the sand, Sorin brushed off his sleeves and shiny shoulder plates before clipping his scabbard back onto his belt. He turned and marched ahead, and did not turn to look back at them. Anowon followed at a distance. Soon Nissa was walking next to Anowon.

Where did you get those?

Teeth? Anowon said.

Yes.

They are from sacrifices at the Tal Terig, Anowon said. He waited a moment before continuing. The Puzzle Tower.

Nissa knew of the place: a gigantic tower on Akoum assembled of dissimilar shapes. An ancient site. She could see it: the assembled vampires in a circle, all with their dirty hair blowing in their eyes and arms raised, watching a priest tearing a merfolk s teeth out. She felt the gorge rising in her throat.

Nissa cast a long look around as she walked. Ahead, Sorin s unusually loose gait had him weaving unsteadily as he walked. At least he can be hurt like the rest of us, she thought. She found herself not caring particularly if he went to sleep tonight and did not wake. She watched Sorin walk, strangely comforted by his obvious vulnerability, before turning back to Anowon.

And these Eldrazi lived there? she said.

Anowon nodded. I have always studied them. Their monuments. Their writings. The Hagra Cistern where they generated their power from waste. The crumbled temple under the smooth water of Glasspool. Their remains were he looked up at the darkening clouds compelling.

Were? What are they now?

You have met them.

Nissa frowned. How could the beings she fought have constructed the palaces she had seen? They seemed incapable even of picking up eating utensils.

Anowon glanced at Nissa s face before speaking. Yes, he said. How could they have made that. He swept his hand forward in a grand gesture. Nissa had not noticed the thing ahead. It loomed large in the exposed strip of sky: a floating palace, mostly in pieces. As she stared, a jag of lightning traced the sky behind it, and a boom of thunder shook the canyon walls. She felt the fine hairs on her arms vibrate with the noise. A gust of wind swept down the trench.

There must be something more to them, Anowon said.

And then the sky opened, and it started to rain.

Had it been a quick downpour, everything would have been fine. Nissa would have kept them walking and pulled up the hood of her warthog cloak. The rain would have soaked them through, and they could have made a fire to dry. They could have continued on their way with little or no disturbance. But this was Zendikar, Nissa was careful to remind herself as the fat raindrops fell in arcing sheets. Soon the rain obscured their vision, and the sand beneath their feet turned swampy.

In what direction are we walking? Sorin yelled over the hammering raindrops.

Nissa could not tell. She put her hands over her eyes, and through a tiny slot between her first and index finger she could see the barest image of the sky, which was still dark with rain that showed no sign of abating.

This, Sorin shouted. He pointed up and around in an exasperated sweep. And this.

She felt it too. The rain was falling hard. It drummed at her skull and made thinking all but impossible. It hurt. He head was numb with it. If the rain turned to hail they would be pummeled to death. Their time was fading. She put her hand over her eyes again and peered around. The shadow of the canyon wall was close, and slowly she made her way to it, sloshing through the rising water. The others followed.

There was no cave, only the steep incline of the canyon wall. Still, being so close to the wall of the canyon stopped some of the rain, and they hunched against it.

Nissa looked closely at the canyon wall. He eyes traced upward from between her fingers until she saw, some three heights up, a stunted tree clinging to the bare cliff face. A small rick of branches and dead grass had been swept into the bend of the tree s trunk. A small shelf jutted above the tree. Her eyes stayed on the small tree, and the wedge of plant material swept as if it was moving downward.

Rope she screamed at Anowon. Hurry. The vampire shrugged off his pack and hurried to free the rope. The water in the trench was already up to their shins. If the torrent continued further up in the trench, there would soon be a wall of water pitched down their part of the rock chute. As Anowon worked, Nissa glanced up once again at the dwarfed tree, where the terrific force of the surging water had wedged what it carried between the rock and the trunk. As he uncoiled the rope, she fumbled through the bag. It must be here, she thought. There must be one here.

She found the grappling hook and would have yelled for joy if the rumbling hadn t started. It was low, but as she snatched the end of the rope from Anowon, the low growl increased in volume. Her numb fingers slipped the rope through the eyelet of the hook and fastened it with a quick hitch. In one fluid motion she stepped back and threw the hook with every bit of strength she had. The hook fell short of the shelf above the tree. She tried again, and the same thing happened. The sound from up the canyon was a roar now. Not like this, she thought. Not this way.

Anowon took the hook and leaned back and threw. It fell short.

When Sorin took it and threw, the hook traveled far up but tumbled back down not catching the rock. Nissa had to jump out of the way. On his second throw, the hook s tines caught a bit of rock, and they each scrambled up in turn.

Nissa was the last to climb the rope. When she was half way up, she stopped and turned. With the raindrops stinging her eyes, she watched as a wall of green water crashed by, so high that for a moment it lapped around her ankles.

The wall of water was gone almost as soon as it had passed. They stayed on the shelf, and Nissa wondered if what she d seen had been real. The rain was still falling hard. Perhaps she d only imagined the water touching her feet.

Soon the downpour lessened, then stopped altogether.

Nissa waited until the cloudy sky above their head broke up and patches of pink sunset showed in the clouds of the swatch above their heads. Then she climbed back down.

Well, said Sorin, once he was standing on the soggy sand. I suspect we have heard the last of those scorpions. Surely they Sorin stopped in mid-sentence. He cocked his head to the side. Do you hear that?

Nissa listened. The faint sound of movement echoed off the canyon walls. She could hear something kicking rocks as it moved up the canyon. She glanced at the ledge.

Then the noise stopped. Nothing moved. The very canyon itself seemed to be holding its breath. Sorin sniffed. Well, he said.

Hush. Nissa said, putting up her hand.

After a time she swept her hand down, and they crept forward through the rocks. They moved quietly and passed around a boulder to the left and came face to face with a host of three hundred kor, their strange hooked weapons at the ready.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

The kor hookmaster was missing an eye. The socket wept yellow globules down the hookmaster s long and thin face, and he wiped the discharge away with the back of a slender hand. The fleshy barbels typical of the kor hung under his chin and almost to his belt. He was crisscrossed with harness works of pockets and loops. His clothes were tanned skins. And tethered with chains to various parts of his body were no fewer than four hooked and bladed climbing tools that Nissa was sure could double as weapons. In his left hand, he held a long, notched sword with a small hook dangling on a chain off its pommel.

All the other kor, males, females, and children, were similarly out fitted. None moved or spoke. In the silence, a rock skittered down the trench wall behind. A snail falcon cried overhead.

Nissa had seen kor fight before. They could be savage, if threatened. The Joraga had always been friendlier with the kor than other elf tribes they respected the kor s avoidance of speech.

Nissa knew the kor to be nomadic, but from the packs they carried on their backs, they looked to be fleeing, their caravan reduced to the things they carried. She noted the signs of battle: Many were bandaged, and some were using jurworrel-wood branches for crutches. And some of their weapons were missing blades, or had only half a blade. They were tired, clearly. Some were stooped so badly with exhaustion that she feared they might fall. How had they survived the flood? she wondered.

Nissa opened her hands and put them palms up the kor greeting.

The lead kor s eye moved from her to Sorin and then to Anowon, where it stayed for a longer time. The vampire stared back. Nissa could almost see him lick his lips. It occurred to her that she didn t know how long it had been since Anowon had fed.

Well, savages? Sorin said. Going for a stroll?

Nissa cringed inwardly. They re refugees. Or are you blind as well as rude?

Sorin said nothing.

Nissa kept her palms out. May we speak? she asked.

The old kor regarded her for a time. In the failing light of the canyon, the quietness of the kor was unnerving. Nissa found herself shifting her weight from foot to foot as she waited for the kor to decide whether or not they would speak.

Finally he nodded.

Nissa waited.

Oh, this is thrilling, Sorin said.

She shot him a glance before turning back to the kor. Please, she said. From where do you come?

When the kor spoke, his voice was unusually deep. It echoed off the near canyon wall. We come from the west, the kor said.

I m glad we ve figured that out, Sorin said. Can we go now?

Nissa ignored him.

What have you found?

We have found those that have woken.

Nissa put her hand in front of her mouth and wiggled her fingers like tentacles.

The kor nodded.

Brood lineage, Nissa said. Is that why you are traveling?

The kor leader looked back at the other kor and gave a signal to move on.

Nissa turned and caught Sorin yawning. Behind Sorin, Anowon stood staring at her. The vampire was always staring at her, she realized with a chill.

The kor are the lost creatures of Zendikar, Anowon said, with a strange twist to his lips, as if his comment should remind her of other lost creatures. They believe they are followed by the ghosts of their ancestors. Because of this they never stop moving. The mothers bear their young while suspended in a harness, and their fathers curse the ground nightly while imploring the sky. Both sexes use the bones of their ancestors in their daily rituals. Some go so far as to prop the dessicated corpses of their dead ancestors at the eating table. I like that last bit. A nice touch.

Why are you telling me this? asked Nissa.

I am fascinated with the kor, Anowon hissed, moving closer. Nissa inched back. I think you are fascinated with them, as well. Did you know they walk so much that the nursing mothers keep vessels of their milk on their hips, which are turned to cheese by week s end?

Nissa stared at Anowon. He had never said so many words to her, and on such an odd topic. She was not sure she liked it. In fact, she was sure she did not.

The kor left as silently as they had come. The only sound as they walked was the muted clink of the hooks hanging from their shoulder harnesses.

When they were gone, Nissa began looking for a place to sleep. The light in the sky was gone, and already the damp of the trench s floor was turning to a fine fog. The sand was wet, and they spent an uncomfortable night on the ground.

Nissa watched Anowon as they stood shivering in the predawn gray. How was the vampire feeding? She d been eating hardtack and dried warthog for the last two days.

Anowon caught her looking at him.

What are you eating? she asked.

The vampire stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together. His breath came out of his mouth in a puff. I eat when I am hungry, he replied.

He eats when I tell him, Sorin said, who also seemed well fed to Nissa. He stood in the cold as pink and as warm looking as if he d been traveling in the jungles of Bala Ged.

They walked between boulders large and small. The sand was wet under their feet, and that made the walking harder still. The crested sedge that grew on the sunless canyon floor brushed against their hands as they passed. At one point they stopped to drink from a rock pool. A huge boulder stood at the far side.

The water appeared as crystal clear as one might expect in a Bala Ged oracle pool, Nissa thought. Sorin was the first to near it. When one of the stones at the bottom of the pool moved, Nissa looked closer. Why was there a pool like this at the bottom of the trench? Nissa wondered. And after a flood. Stop, Nissa said.

Sorin turned with a scowl on his face.

That is no pool, Nissa said. Step back.

Sorin peered closely at the pool. Tiny fish were swimming in the clear water.

Step back slowly.

After a couple of heartbeats Sorin did as Nissa told him. Nissa glanced at Anowon, who was watching the proceedings with an impassive face. But for just a second, Nissa thought she saw the side of his mouth rise in the barest glint of a smile at Sorin s predicament. Then it was gone, and Sorin was back by their side.

Watch, Nissa said as she took a stick from the ground and tossed it into the pool. In a flash, a lip appeared from behind the boulder on the far side and snapped down over the entire pool with an audible snap that shook the ground slightly. Some black and green birds sitting in a nearby shrub took sudden flight.

Ah, Zendikar, Sorin said, shaking his head. He turned back to the trail, chuckling. But Nissa saw he wasn t smiling.

They saw other groups of kor who passed without word or gesture in the day and night, looking like they had been resoundingly beaten by more than one enemy. The trench became deeper as they walked. The line of sky above grew more and more narrow. And as they walked, the rock changed. Where there had been red walls of crumbly sedimentary rock, there were sheer, sweeping walls of steel gray granite. Nissa did not like the look of it. No toe holds, she thought. No boulders on the canyon floor to shelter behind.

At midday they came to a fork in the trench. A massive statue, half the height of the canyon, was carved into the stone wall. It was a being Nissa had seen in statues in other parts of Zendikar, and although it was crumbled and missing limbs, she could tell what it had been: a creature with a large head, four arms, and tentacles that started at its waist brood lineage. But who had carved the statue, and how long before? She thought of Anowon s words before the rainstorm that had created the flood: There has to be something more to them. As she looked up at the strange creature, she wondered if he wasn t right.

Nissa took the leather tube containing Khalled s map from her pack and consulted it. There were many lines extending from the trench. She found the tiny picture of the statue and realized they could follow the canyon branch that angled toward the sun, or the other which traveled but wound back in the same direction. She showed the map to Sorin, who eyed it suspiciously. He put one long, thin white finger on a landmass that lay on the other side of the sea.

Akoum, he said. Both trench ways moved them in that direction. If it wasn t for this plane s volatile energy, I would walk in the air and be there in seconds. I wouldn t need you or the Ghet. He waved a dismissive hand at them.

Nissa chose the left fork. The sun was half past mid-sky and the shadows were deep when Anowon stopped them. The canyon wall next to them was filled with images engraved into the smooth stone.

Illuminated pictographs, Anowon said as he unscrewed one of his metal cylinders and slipped a piece of paper out of the hollow place within. He went to the pictographs and squatted before them. He consulted the piece of paper as he deciphered the writing.

These are old, Anowon said. It is unknown to me why they are written here in this wilderness. He kept reading, speaking as he did. Perhaps this trench was not always as it appears now. Perhaps this trench was once an aqueduct used by the ancient Eldrazi for power creation.

Perhaps, Sorin said. His mocking smile visited his lips again.

This main panel tells the story of the Mortifier, Anowon said, pointing.

Sorin stopped smiling.

Who is that? Nissa asked.

Anowon s fingers traced the image of a pictograph of a figure daubed with black. He used both of his fingers to trace the line. The figure daubed with black pigment stood with three huge, monsterlike creatures, but appeared to be a simple being. It did not have the tentacles of the other three. Before the figure were other beings, attached to it with long lines.

These are ropes, Anowon said, tracing the lines.

These figures are vampires, and they are slaves to the Mortifier, who is one of these Eldrazi it appears.

He is not, Sorin said, his voice a jot higher than Anowon s. Does he look like those Eldrazi?

Nissa considered the picture. No, she agreed.

But those three Eldrazi don t look very much like the ones we ve seen.

These large Eldrazi are the ones that we see as statues around Zendikar, Anowon said. Many scholars think they are deities.

Gods with slaves? Nissa said.

Perhaps, Anowon said. Why not? If this had been an aqueduct, then who dug it? Who built the fabulous palaces? And those slaves are not human.

No?

They are vampires.

Yes, Yes, Sorin said.

Nissa turned to Sorin. Do you know about these Eldrazi?

Sorin s eyes did not blink. I know that Zendikar is at risk, he said.

Nissa turned to Anowon. And why do you not question him further on this topic which so interests you? she asked.

He is clearly hiding information.

Sorin kicked at a loose rock. What I know is not for you or the vampire s ears. He knows not to overstep his place. Sorin said, staring at Nissa.

Nissa ignored Sorin s glare. What force does he have over you? Nissa asked Anowon.

Anowon looked up at the canyon wall.

Somewhere down the canyon a boulder crashed into rock.

Sorin coughed. Can we keep moving before we are caught by another stinking troop of kor? I do not think my nose can handle another onslaught.

Anowon stood and rolled up his scroll. As you wish, he said. As he was sliding the scroll back into its metal cylinder, Sorin came near Nissa.

We must go now, he said.

Bind the vampire and we ll go. she replied.

But he did not answer her. Instead Sorin started walking leaving Nissa to it. They walked until they were stumbling in darkness, at which point they stopped next to what looked like a huge crumbled stone grate lying on its side and half buried in the sand.

Sorin insisted on a fire, and Nissa and Anowon were able to find some debris to make a small blaze. In the flickering firelight Anowon investigated the disintegrating grate, covered as it was with intricate line tracing and glyphs.

The fire was no more than coals when Nissa heard speaking echoing off the canyon walls behind them. She had drawn first watch. She quickly stoked the fire and woke the others. They moved away and hid behind a boulder to see who came to the fire.

Soon a small group of goblins leading a female kor came around the corner. The goblins had small swords on their belts. One had a staff with a pathway stone floating at its tip.

The kor was strange looking and not at all like the refugees passing up the trench toward Graypelt and the Binding Circle. This kor s hair was wild and unkempt, and her clothes were nothing more than rags. Glass beads were knotted into her hair, and they flickered slightly in the firelight. She was wearing small bells somewhere, and they chimed lightly as she stumbled. As Nissa watched she tripped, and two goblins gently caught her and pushed her upright.

Most telling was that the creature wore no ropes or hooks, unlike all other kor. In fact, the only attribute that gave away her race was her long, thin skull and the pale skin stretched taught over it.

The kor s mouth was continually moving like some merfolk lull-mage engaged in his daily intonations. But when she saw the fire, she stopped cold. Then she saw the ancient grate and rushed to it, stamping one foot in the corner of the fire in her haste. The goblins rushed to catch up, but the kor paid them no mind. She fell to her knees before the grate and began chanting.

Anowon watched the kor intently as the goblins brushed her hair from her eyes and kneeled down next to her in the sand. They also began chanting.

Sorin drew his long sword from its dark sheath. To Nissa the sword seemed part of the dark. The coals did not reflect their red off it. It seemed to suck what light there was into it.

I will slay the first goblin, and we can enslave the others, he said. The saliva in his mouth made his words slur.

Anowon nodded vigorously.

No, Nissa said. They are barely armed. We will not kill them now. Let us see what they know.

But they are goblins, Sorin said.

Anowon nodded enthusiastically.

What is this all about? Nissa wondered. Why are they so keen to enslave the goblins? She stood from behind the rock and walked forward. If you want to find your way to Akoum then stay your sword for the time being, she said. Kor are some of the best guides.

The goblins did not sense Nissa until she was directly behind them, at which point they hissed and turned toward her. They struggled to yank out their small stone swords. One goblin ended up holding his dull blade and threatening her with the sword s wooden handle.

All the swords handles were wood. With a word from Nissa the wood in the handles shot out roots and grew solidly into the sand.

The kor continued to chant ignorant of the events around her. The goblins stood blinking, unsure of themselves in the firelight.

Sorin came out from behind the rock, his sword in his hand. Anowon stood.

They should travel with us, Anowon said.

Sorin turned to the vampire, then back to Nissa.

What is that kor babbling? Sorin said.

It is not kor, Anowon said. But it is a language.

I can tell that. What language?

Anowon shook his head.

Sorin leaned forward to listen, cocking his ear to the chant. Before long a look of recognition spread across his face. Nissa squinted in the dim light. No sooner had she seen the look on his face than it was gone. Sorin stood up straight.

This kor interests me, he pronounced. She and her entourage will come with me.

You recognized the language, Nissa said.

Yes I did.

Nissa waited. But it was Anowon who spoke first. Well? he said.

As a matter of fact, Sorin said, It is ancient Eldrazi the animal speaks.

Nissa felt herself blinking. She could not figure out what was stranger: that the kor was speaking ancient Eldrazi, or that Sorin recognized it as such.

How could you know? Anowon said, awed. It has not been spoken in more than a thousand years.

Sorin sniffed and turned. What does it have in its hand? Sorin said, pointing to the kor.

Nissa looked. It was a rock as big as the kor s fist but longer. The creature passed it from one hand to the other as she chanted.

The goblins glanced at each other.

A crystal, Anowon said.

Sorin leaned forward for a closer look. She will be able to help us. Yes.

Nissa turned. Why?

Sorin shrugged.

Who is this kor? Nissa asked.

The kor stopped chanting suddenly, as if she had heard. She slowly turned. Her corneas were red. Nissa couldn t be sure if it was the fire s reflection.

The kor began chanting again.

Take the goblins, Anowon said.

Why do you want the goblins so very much? Nissa said.

Are you jealous?

Nissa opened her mouth to reply, but Anowon stopped her words with a held up hand.

They listened to the kor chant.

Now it is the old vampire tongue, Anowon said.

Or I am a fool.

Sorin leaned closer. How can you tell? he asked.

The words are so muddled.

You know the ancient language of vampires, too? asked Nissa.

Sorin smiled. A person like me picks up many languages in his travels, he said.

It was Anowon s turn to smile knowingly. I am sure, he said. This language is one of those that is not spoken anymore, but lives only in books and is known only for the purposes of translation. A dead language.

What is she saying? Nissa asked.

Anowon listened to the chanting. She s simply repeating The gift is in the loam I believe.

The gift is in the loam? Nissa said. What could it mean?

We should leave this creature, Anowon said.

And take the goblins, Nissa said. I think you ve already said that.

Yes.

Nissa eyed the kor as she babbled. As she watched, a bug the size of Nissa s thumbnail ran out of the kor s hair.

She will travel with us to the Teeth of Akoum? Nissa said.

Both Sorin and Anowon were listening intently to the kor as she babbled. Again, she stopped speaking when she heard Nissa s words, and a moment later her body seized up tight. She stood straight with her arms at her sides, as her head began to wobble on her neck. Then she began to scream.

What is happening? Nissa said, above the kor s strange keening.

A fit, Anowon said, without looking away from the kor. But she is speaking.

The goblins rushed to the kor and began stroking her hands as they chanted.

Sorin was listening intently to the kor. She says she is an Eldrazi, if you can believe that. She says, the key is requested. And freedom is nigh. Sorin looked closely at the crystal clutched in the kor s white hand. That could be the key she speaks of.

Then seize and break it, Nissa said.

She could gain us paths we cannot know, Sorin said. She could allow us entry to the Eye.

The kor s screaming was hurting Nissa s ears. Something about the kor, perhaps her acidic smell, made Nissa extremely wary. That is assuming she is telling the truth and not raving at the moon, Nissa said.

Sorin s eyes never left the kor as she screamed out her words. Rather. But I do not think this one is fabricating

That crystal seems familiar somehow.

The goblins had been whispering among themselves. When Sorin mentioned the crystal, one of the goblins stepped forward. He was dressed in a much-used robe of thick worsted fabric, dyed red.

Crystal of the Ancients held by Smara, Chosen of the Ancients, it said.

And that is Smara? Nissa said, pointing at the kor.

The goblin bowed its head.

And are you all allowed to speak?

The goblin shook its head.

Only now, me, the goblin said. And I stop speaking now. Here I am stopping. I have stopped.

Nissa watched the goblin purse its gray lips together, trying not to speak. The other goblins watched with clear admiration on their faces. Did they admire his discipline or his ability to speak many times a challenge for a goblin? she wondered. The goblin stood before her with his chin up a bit. His discipline, Nissa decided. They all want to speak but are terrified by something.

I have stopped speaking, the goblin whispered.

Now.

Smara suddenly lurched forward, kicking the sand as she jerked a step. She was repeating words as she turned and began stumbling forward in the darkness with the chants on her lips. The goblins were on her in a second. But instead of bringing her to the fire, as Nissa expected, they led her forward, continuing down the trench and away into the darkness.

Sorin watched them go, as did Anowon. The vampire s face told a tale of loss and sorrow that Nissa could not help but chuckle at.

We must follow, Sorin said. He began walking after Smara. Anowon almost tripped in his haste to follow.

Why must we follow? Nissa said.

That one is somehow channeling an Eldrazi ancient, Sorin said, over his shoulder. We have in a strange way gained access to the enemy s camp.

Nissa looked up at the early evening as sling-tail nighthawks swept the skies clear of lion flies.

They trailed behind the goblins all that night and into the morning. It didn t matter if they wanted the kor and the goblins to travel with them or not. Smara was walking in the same direction they were; and the goblins, having no food that Nissa could see no provisions of any sort in fact kept close. They looked so forlorn that Nissa gave them hard tack biscuits.

But neither Anowon nor Sorin would eat her dry tack. They looked drawn in the early morning light. Nissa watched Anowon as he followed the goblins, who looked over their shoulders nervously at him.

They walked for the rest of the morning and stopped for a rest next to a spring. The sun was shining, and above the canyon large, dark birds circled. Then a roar split the air, and the attack was launched.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

One moment they were sitting on rocks around the spring, and the next moment the creature was upon them. It rushed forward with great simian lopes that shook the ground and knocked Nissa and Sorin back with the sweep of a powerful hand.

Nissa spun in the air and was up the moment she hit the ground, but Sorin had not been so quick he landed and lay motionless, slumped against the canyon wall.

The goblins drew their few remaining stone swords and looked at the head goblin, who looked back at them and frowned. He raised his sword for a charge and then lowered it again.

The trench giant rose up to its full height. Not quite as large as a proper giant, it reached the span of five human men and the width of a sizable cave. Its skin was the exact hue of the rock and the same roughness. The skin around its eyes and on its eyelids looked exactly like gravel. As she watched, the giant seized a goblin in its boulder-sized fist and snapped its head off with a deft nip. The blood spurted for a moment, and the giant waved the spurt in a merry pantomime. Then it chewed calmly on the head. Nissa could hear the goblin s cranium crunching in the giant s mouth.

It was surely the ugliest trench giant Nissa had ever seen. Stunted trees grew out of the crags that ran along its back. There were petroglyphs carved in its thigh. And even from where she stood, its breath was a foul miasma. But giants left scat, and that meant they had yeast in their stomachs and other small life. Nissa knew what she could do.

She planted her staff in the sand and whispered into the knot of carved wood on the top of it. And with the words of power, the staff started to hum in her hand as tendrils of mana wove up its shaft.

The giant tossed the body of the goblin aside and settled its gaze on Nissa. The ground shook when it took its first step toward her, and then the next; and then it was running full speed.

Nissa yanked up the tip of her staff and drew it level with the charging giant. The giant stooped down as it ran and brought its hand sweeping in from the right in a wide arc. Nissa stepped forward, bent her knees, and hopped straight up, and the giant s hand rushed under her feet. Unbalanced with the lunge, it tripped and tumbled forward with a tremendous crash that brought down a small landslide at the edge of the canyon wall.

The speed with which the giant regained its feet surprised her. It hopped up, turned, and charged again. Nissa ran at the giant and leapt. She planted the tip of her staff on the giant s forehead and vaulted over the top of it. The tremendous creature stopped and stood. From where Nissa landed some feet away, she could see from the cast of its eyes that something was wrong with the giant. The spot where she had planted her staff glowed slightly. Once she saw the glow, Nissa concentrated the mana in her fingertips and reached toward the giant s stomach. She felt the millions of tiny creatures living there move at her suggestion. In her mind she sang them into excitement, and in a moment the giant s eyes went wide. Nissa tickled the flora in its stomach further, and the giant s eyes screwed down in pain as its hands went to its belly.

As she concentrated, a drop of sweat ran down Nissa s nose. She incited the small creatures in the giant s stomach and intestines into higher and higher states of animation, and the giant fell to its knees. When she felt the giant had had enough, she severed her connection to the wildlife in the creature s gut.

The giant slowly fell over with a tremendous thump.

Nissa turned, and was hit so hard that the world went suddenly black.

Then the colors filtered back into her eyes, the tips of her fingers and toes were tingling. She could not move her limbs. When the tingling receded and she felt in control of her body again, she sat up slowly. There was a bump on the back of her head the size of her fist.

Across the canyon Anowon was standing opposite a second giant, His hands still bound. As she watched, Sorin stumbled up from where he had been thrown. Nissa turned, looking for her staff. The first giant was still on the sand behind her holding its stomach.

Her staff was nowhere to be found.

Then she saw it pinched between the second giant s thumb and forefinger. She stood and took a step and didn t fall, so she took another. Soon she was ambling toward the giant. But Sorin was there first. He paused and took a deep breath and began to hum. The he started to chant the strange words she d heard before, in the language with inflections like a wet fish flapping on a stream bank.

Nissa could see the effort tense Sorin s body, but the effect was almost instantaneous. The giant s body shuddered once, but did not fall. Sorin kept chanting, but the expression on his face told her that he was surprised by the giant s resilience.

With its attention thus diverted, Anowon snatched another tooth from the folds of his clothes. The vampire took a running start, jumped, and executed a series of flips that landed him in front of the giant. The giant lifted a foot and tried to stomp it down on Anowon, but the vampire rolled away.

Nissa stopped short. She surely did not want to run through Sorin s singing, but one look at his quivering legs, and Nissa knew he could not hold the song for much longer.

Anowon threw his tooth, and the giant s leg turned to white marble up to the knee. The giant tried to turn, but the marble leg was slow to move.

Then the giant did something that Nissa never would have expected. It pointed Nissa s own staff at her. It will not function, Nissa thought. How can it?

But the staff did work. The giant became calm, and a tendril of magical energy shot out from the tip of the staff. Nissa had to leap forward and roll to avoid what enchantment the giant had managed to weave.

Sorin stopped singing and fell onto the sand. Anowon went through his pockets again.

Nissa rolled out of her tumble and into a standing position, just in time for the giant to kick at her with its good leg. Nissa jumped back to avoid the stony toenail as big as a battle shield. The giant pressed its advantage and stomped down at her, dragging its heavy marble leg. Nissa rolled away, but the giant raised its foot for another go.

Then Anowon threw another tooth, and the giant s other leg whitened to marble.

The giant pulled and was able to drag one of its legs, and then another, but the effort of it was clearly too much to keep up.

Give me my staff, Nissa yelled up at the giant.

Or he will turn the rest of you to white stone.

The giant brought Nissa s staff up. It turned its head to the side and looked closely at it. Then it spoke. If you turn me to white stone, you will turn your staff as well, it said. The giant s rumbling voice sounded like boulders moving under water in a river.

It is only a piece of wood, Nissa said. I can make another.

Then you will not mind if I use it as a toothpick?

Nissa tried to keep her face impassive. Why would I mind? Except if you put it in your mouth the same thing will happen as happened there. She hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the other giant, still curled on the ground. As they watched, the giant moaned and rolled over onto its other side.

Free him, the giant said. I will give you back your toothpick.

Give me my staff first, Nissa replied. She knew better than to trust a giant. Any giant. They were known to be fickle and untrustworthy. Her eyes stopped on Anowon, still digging through his pockets. Fickle, she thought. Not unlike vampires.

Nissa heard Smara chanting from the other side of the canyon. The goblins clustered around the kor and watched the giant with faces like mushrooms.

We are not here to bandy words with the likes of you, Sorin said, suddenly next to her. He snapped, and Nissa s staff jumped from between the giant s fingers and into Sorin s hand. He took it in both hands and closed his eyes. For a moment he held the staff, and then his smuggest smile bloomed on his face. He handed Nissa the staff before turning to the giant.

I may let my elf use her toy staff on you, too, Sorin said. The giant on the ground moaned again.

Soon the blood will come out from both ends, Nissa said, looking at the giant on the ground.

To where do you travel? the giant said.

Nissa caught herself before she said too much. Giants were also shameless sellers of information if food was in the bargain.

West, Nissa said.

In the Teeth, Smara screamed suddenly. In the Teeth. The goblins standing around her were so shocked by what Nissa was not entirely sure, they must surely be used to Smara s screams that some dropped their stone swords. The head goblin barked an order in the goblin tongue, and they picked up their swords again.

The giant made a face like it had bitten down on something bitter. It looked from the goblins to Nissa.

Then you are walking to your death, the giant said.

What? Is your cooking kitchen ahead? Sorin said.

The giant looked at Sorin curiously. Nissa had to stifle a laugh. Do giants even cook? she wondered.

There is only the tentacled scourge in the trench ahead, the giant said. They have killed many of my kind.

Oh, not the tentacled scourge again? Sorin said.

They re everywhere like elves.

Nissa cocked her head for a look at Sorin. Perhaps he should be thrown against the canyon wall more often. It seemed to affect his mood for the better.

The giant bent its knees and lowered its voice. I know a better way to travel to Zulaport, it said.

Why does that not surprise me, Sorin said.

Nobody said Zulaport, Nissa said.

The giant smiled, showing teeth like gray, chipped flint.

Nissa sighed. How far is this path?

Very close.

How does it pass through the land?

My path moves through the Piston Mountains.

That way has perils, Nissa said. And it did. She d passed that way traveling to Ondu from Bala Ged. Four in her party had died, crushed between the mountains.

You will not live if you do not change paths.

So you say, Sorin said.

Keep hushed your forked tongue, the giant said.

Sorin, wide eyed, looked from the giant to Nissa.

The Piston Mountains, Nissa thought. Even on their current path they could be expected to travel another week before they ascended out of the trench. Then they would skirt the Piston Mountains to Zulaport. The giant s way could cut their travel in half. Still, the Piston Mountains.

I would avoid that path, Anowon yelled from where he squatted next to the moaning giant, copying the petrogyphs on its legs onto a scrap of paper.

Lead the way, Nissa said to the giant.

What? Sorin said.

The giant turned and heaved its marble legs.

I lead this expedition, Nissa said, walking after the giant.

Strange. Sorin started to walk. I thought I did.

Then open your eyes, Nissa yelled over her shoulder.

The giant labored its heavy legs four steps then stopped and pointed at the canyon wall. There, it said.

Nissa followed the giant s finger but saw nothing except sheer wall. She moved her head to the side in case there was an illusion in the rock. There wasn t. The canyon wall appeared as just that.

The giant hummed to itself, and the glyph lines on its legs burned to life. Suddenly the path in the canyon rock glowed with the same pink as the glyphs.

Zendikar! Sorin said. It is either in your hand, or it is at your throat.

Now, the giant said. Release my legs.

Do not do that, Sorin said. Need I remind you that this is a giant? We already have the path. Let s be on our way.

Nissa regarded the giant. She reached out to the other giant s gut and soothed the creatures in it. The effect was almost instantaneous. The other giant sat up and turned.

Nissa did not like the menace she saw in its eyes.

The other giant pointed to its legs and gave a ghastly smile. Anowon found a tooth and threw it, and in a moment the giant s legs were back to normal.

Well, Sorin said. Now that we are all happy again, can we go? He turned to Smara and her goblins. Unaccountably, the kor was standing on her head, and one of her goblins had its finger in the nose of the goblin next to it. Sorin shook his head and started walking.

The giants watched them as they carefully threaded their way between the boulders and walked to where the path glowed in the canyon wall. Even with the way glowing slightly, it took Nissa some careful examination to find its beginning. The rock steps were so deftly fit into the canyon wall that they left little shadow to contrast. The path s invisibility was due to exceptional design.

Who could have built this? Nissa wondered. She was looking up at the symmetrical switchbacks, which looked so much like sutures holding the canyon together.

Anowon was standing next to her. The old stories say the giants were once great builders.

Of what? Booby traps? Sorin said. He squinted at the path. Fine droplets of sweat clung to his upper lip. He lifted one trembling hand to brush his hair back. He s afraid of heights , Nissa thought, filing that realization away for later use.

Are we all ready? Nissa said.

Sorin said nothing.

But Anowon stepped up and held out his bound wrists for Nissa to see. I have done all you asked. I am a vampire, but not all vampires are like the ones you perhaps met in the jungles of your home.

Nissa studied the vampire before responding. Just so, she said, and cut the rope from his wrists with a small eating knife she kept strapped to her inner forearm.

I thank you, Anowon said, rubbing his wrists.

Nissa nodded.

They began to ascend the trail. It started steeply from the canyon floor and became progressively steeper, but Anowon talked as they walked. Something had to build those monuments dotted over the landscape. It couldn t have been the vampires. We were personal slaves that were used for manual labor of certain sorts. But we lacked the raw strength to move the large blocks.

And you think the creatures that built the huge statues and palaces were giants? Nissa said.

It is possible.

They were all quiet as they climbed. Far behind and below, Smara and her retinue of goblins followed the switchbacks in silence. Nissa wasn t sure she had ever heard the mad kor speechless, but it was a good thing she was. The trail had become so steep that the travelers were compelled to use their hands as they ascended.

They used vampires, not giants. It was Sorin who spoke. Nobody else spoke for a moment, at which point Anowon asked the question hanging on Nissa s lips.

How do you know that? Anowon said.

I know, said Sorin. He looked back down the way they had come and grimaced. He was even paler than before. The droplets of sweat that had dotted his lip and forehead had grown into full sweat trails running down through the dust on his face. As Nissa watched, he unhitched his sword belt and slipped it over his shoulder before pulling the belt buckle tight again. No jokes now, Nissa thought and turned her attention back to the canyon.

This is madness, Sorin said. We should be harnessed in for this kind of climb.

This is nothing compared to what we will encounter in Akoum, Nissa said.

I can hardly wait.

Anowon scrambled up the trail in front of Nissa without the least hesitation. She noticed with approval that he always kept three of his limbs attached to the rock as he climbed. Something about the way his limbs moved reminded her of the Tajuru Hiba who had been killed by the brood in MossCrack. She pushed him out of her mind and kept walking.

The trail s pitch was somewhere between steep and vertical. Not so steep that they needed rope works, but steep enough that one could easily peel off the face if one slipped. The way forward involved handholds, and they climbed until the sun fell in the sky.

Later the moon rose in the dark sky, and the trail showed a ghastly pale silver. From the dark shadows cast by the moonlight came the moaning of rock lizards hunched therein, and soon Nissa s feet were staggering under her, and her numb hands fumbled over the rocks.

We must stop, she said.

Sorin s breath hissed out from between his teeth as he climbed. Nissa could hear the tightness in his voice when he spoke.

Stop where? he replied.

She leaned against the canyon wall and looked up. Even with the moon as bright as it was, the rock outcroppings obscured her view of the trail ahead. Nissa always found it impossible to gauge the height of a high place while actually climbing on it. The Joraga kept boards they could hang and sleep in. What she wouldn t have done for one of those.

Smara and the goblins were the last to arrive, and they all climbed in almost utter silence. When they attained a small shelf, the goblins plopped down and began playing a game, it seemed, that involved slapping each other s hands and then the rock trail. As Nissa watched, Smara took the corner of her robe and almost daintily dabbed the sweat from behind her ears and temples. She did not mutter or roll her eyes.

Climbing suits her, Nissa said, to nobody in particular.

Do you see where the crystal resides? Anowon said.

Nissa looked. The kor s odd crystal was tucked into the waistband that bound her rags to her body.

It is not in her hand, Anowon said.

Just so, Nissa said. It is not directly contacting her skin.

A rock rolled down from above. Nissa followed its descent as it plummeted by them and far to the right.

The trail might continue like this for a long time, Nissa said. She leaned against the cool wall. A warm breeze rustled her hair. If she could just close her eyes Sleep was about to take her when Anowon coughed.

We must continue, he said. She heard his metal cylinders clink off each other as he began climbing again. It took some effort, but Nissa leaned out from the wall and started climbing too. He was right. For one, they were as exposed as babies out here on the face. If a drake decided to sweep in for a snack, they would have little way to defend themselves. And the giants. Better to not wonder if the two giants were still shadowing them.

She listened for Sorin to begin climbing. Why had his destructive singing not worked on the giants?

She asked him.

They must be composed, he said, breathing hard as he climbed. Must be composed of stone. I am only able to rot the living.

Nissa turned back to climbing. Rot the living, she thought. She tried to speed up so Sorin was not so close behind her.

The first reddening of the sky found them still climbing, though slowly. Nissa found that if she stopped thinking about anything, her hands found their own handhold, and her progress was more satisfactory. Sorin must have found the same thing. The rhythm of his steps sounded more regular, and his breathing had steadied.

Farther down, the goblins followed behind Smara, pushing and heading her up the trail, making good progress. They lived in rocky crevices and could clearly move in high, precarious places easily.

They attained the lip of the mesa when the sun was low in the sky. Panting, Nissa clambered onto the grassy veldt. To the right, a river poured over the edge of the mesa and cascaded the heights into the dark mist of the canyon. Nissa crawled to the river and had a drink. Her hands were cut and raw, and she put them into the cold water and cried out with the sting. Soon Sorin and Anowon were at the river. Sorin put his whole head in. Anowon put only his lips in the clear water and sucked peacefully. After he was filled, he walked up the stream with his eyes on the stream bed as he walked.

What are you looking for? Nissa said.

Signs.

As she watched, he fell to his knees next to the water and plunged his hands into the rocks and pebbles at the bottom of the stream. His hands came out holding something.

What is that? Nissa asked. Her soreness made kneeling difficult, but she did it anyway.

The palms of Anowon s hands were filled with many small pebbles and a couple of rocks. Something about the scratches on the rocks set her curiosity on edge, and she bent to look closer at a green one. Soon a brow became apparent. Then slit eyes. The rock was crudely carved into the likeness of a head with an expression of anger. She looked up at Anowon.

Each is similarly carved, he said.

She looked still closer at the pebbles in his hands. He was right each of them, no matter how small, was carved to look like an earless head. Some had tentacles for mouths and some did not.

She looked at Anowon again.

I have heard of these streams near the Binding Circle, he said. All the streams around are filled thusly.

Suddenly Nissa had the feeling she was being attacked something was running toward her. But when she spun, the mesa behind her was covered only with dense grass that spread away into foothills. There was no enemy. Even in the slanted morning light she could see the gaps in the mountains where the ancient ones had sheared off the tops and put their magic in between so they rose and crashed down at irregular intervals. The foothills extended into blunt mountains capped with snow, and dark, purple rain clouds sat on the horizon. On either side of the stream, twin statues of grotesque, tentacled statues stood in massive repose. One was missing a head, and the other s body was floating slightly above its pedestal.

She turned back to Anowon, bewildered.

I feel it too, he said. We must be on guard.

She nodded.

Did you see it? asked Anowon.

No, Nissa said.

Anowon pointed. It was no more than a dot at the base of the mountains: a palace. It was in a sunless lee of the mountains and clearly crumbled, but it had obviously once been huge.

Is this the Binding Circle? Nissa said to Anowon.

I don t know, he replied.

The morning sun was bright and warm on her neck. Anowon went off to lie in the grass with the pebbles in his open palms. Sorin was already asleep, snoring loudly. As she watched, Smara clambered over the edge of the Mesa, pushed forward by her goblins. She was muttering again, with her crystal firmly clamped in her right hand. But as soon as the goblins had situated her in the grass, she clutched her crystal to her chest and quieted a bit.

Nissa stretched out in the grass and felt her muscles loosen. She believed that vampires liked to cut their prey before feeding. Their teeth were not overly sharp. Anowon had no bladed tool.

A low rumbling sound drifted somewhere far off in the mountains. The floating parts of the statues next to the river cast long shadows. And Nissa fell asleep, without setting a watch.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

Nissa awoke suddenly, shivering in the darkness, listening for whatever had woken her. But she was unable to hear anything except the gusting wind shaking the grass fronds around her. There were no stars or moon overhead, and Nissa could not hear Smara s incessant babbling. Her staff was by her side, and she very slowly reached out and put her hand around its smooth shaft. She waited and listened, but nothing came and she drifted off again.

She next opened her eyes to bright daylight. Her staff was still clutched in her hand. She sat up. Smara was speaking somewhere, and the wind had disappeared, but not the feeling of foreboding. Anowon was sitting in the grass watching her, with his bound hands wrapped around his legs. Sorin was standing with his back to her, looking at the mountains. The goblins and Smara were grouped together near the river.

Are you ready? Sorin asked, turning. He looked surprisingly fit. His face was full as he smiled. Anowon wanted to feed on you but I kept him from it

Nissa stood.

But you have something in your blood, he tells me, Sorin finished.

Nissa turned and adjusted the climbing harness she always wore.

I take the Joraga tincture, Nissa said. Once a month. She took Khalled s map from the tube strapped to her belt.

Where do you get that? Sorin said. Are you not a Tajuru, after all?

Nissa stopped. What did he say? she thought. She bristled at the taunt. Watch your tongue, human.

Sorin laughed.

Still, Anowon watched her.

I have fought many vampires in my time, Nissa said. And our tincture makes our blood poison to one. Now, if you are done? She unrolled the map and considered its ink lines. What had gotten into Sorin and Anowon? she wondered.

Did you sleep well? Sorin asked.

She looked up from the map.

One of Smara s goblins is gone. Sorin said.

She looked over at the group of goblins surrounding Smara. One, two, three yes, there were only nine.

Yes, and? she said.

We are wondering what happened to it, Sorin said, a smug smile on his face as he turned to Anowon. Aren t we?

She looked up in surprise. Why would I have knowledge of this?

Anowon didn t move.

Nissa looked from one to the other of them. A smile tickled the corners of her lips as the joke dawned on her.

I ate it, Nissa said. You have discovered me, human. She looked back at the map. More like the vampire did. He seems in a stupor.

The lines of the map were clear enough showing the jagged run of the trench. The problem came in finding just what part of the trench they had been in when the giants had found them and, thus, where they had climbed out of the canyon. She could see the shaded area marked

Piston Mountains. There was no sign of a palace on the map. A palace of that size should surely be there. Nissa looked up at the structure that had been sitting at the base of the mountains when they first topped the mesa.

But it was gone. From her distance, all that was evident was a huge crater where the palace had been. She located it far to the right floating in the air with the divot of earth it had been sitting on still underneath it. Even from far away she could see lines extending from the ground to the palace. This was Zendikar, and Nissa had seen plenty of floating objects in her life, including a whole lake suspended above the ground leaving a dry bed full of flopping fish. She d seen fields of hedrons numbering in the hundreds floating and banging together. But the palace was different. And judging from the lines of ropes, there were living things in that castle.

Something is wrong, she said.

You are coming to that realization just now? Sorin said.

She s right, said Anowon. He had come up behind her so silently that she jumped when he spoke. The flood, the refugee kor, and now the Palace of Zemgora floating loose in the air. Anowon s voice was soft, as always, and Nissa found herself leaning in to hear more. Did you notice how fresh the scars on those giants in the trench were? They were recently in a fight I fear they got the worst of.

That is true, Nissa found herself saying.

The Roils lately have become more severe. That last one near Graypelt was so sudden that my spirit-water vial barely boiled.

It is the brood lineage, Sorin said. They are wroth and throwing Zendikar out of balance. They must be put back into the earth.

Smara looked up from where she had been sitting. She rushed over to Sorin.

The gift is in the loam, she said. The gift is in the loam. Then she began talking in another language and soon was repeating the same words.

Anowon watched Smara closely, as did Sorin. At one point Anowon quickly drew a slip of parchment and a thin piece of charcoal out of an inner pocket and wrote something down on the slip.

Sorin smiled uncertainly as the kor s words degraded into raving. Then he glanced at Nissa to see what she thought of Smara s words. Nissa pretended not to notice Sorin s look. What is that one hiding? she wondered, turning her attention back to the floating palace. What is the gift is in the loam?

What did she say? she asked finally.

Some of it was classical Vampire, Anowon said.

The rest He looked at Sorin.

It was Eldrazi, but spattered with vampire, Sorin said. Look.

Nissa looked where Sorin pointed. The piece of earth the palace was perched atop moved slowly, pulling its tethers tight. Many tiny things were flying around the palace. As she watched, one of the ropes fell.

Suddenly there was a small tremor in the earth and a sharp creaking, and the fluid in the vial hanging from the leather thong around Nissa s neck began to boil so that she felt its heat all the way through her jerkin.

Roil! she yelled.

Nissa twisted her staff in two and drew the flexible stem blade from its sheath. With a snap of her wrist the blade stiffened enough for Nissa to jab it into the ground. She felt the green blade shoot roots out and anchor in the black dirt. And in the next moment the Roil was on them.

Before the shaking became too violent, Nissa was able to catch a glimpse of a grass bloom a wild and rapid groth of stalks that sometimes came with the Roil. A patch of earth jutted and tore out of the ground. Dirt sprayed, and Nissa closed her eyes and held onto the handle of the stem sword. The ground buckled and shook, and dirt sprayed down on her. Soon there was a massive tearing sound, and the ground heaved up and to the side. Nissa put her left hand over her eye, and through the slit between her fingers was able to see that the ground she was lying on was floating. If I roll off, I ll be at the mercy of the Roil, she thought. But staying would mean potentially floating high in the sky.

Nissa made the stem rigid, pulled it from the earth, and rolled off the ground she was on. She barely felt the fall. As soon as she hit the ground, the Roil bounced her back into the air, and she came down in a crater of some sort. She scrambled up, not wanting to sit in a low space if whatever had come out of the space slammed back in.

She was almost out of the crater when the Roil stopped abruptly. A shadow fell over Nissa. The land that had come from the crater was falling. She brought the stem sword back, and the blade lengthened and turned flexible as she snapped it out and wrapped it around a boulder that had not been there before the Roil.

Nissa was glad it was there. She pulled herself out of the crater and looked up, expecting the ground to slam back into the hole. But it stayed aloft.

The air seemed to shimmer after the Roil. She wiped the dirt from her eyes and looked around. The breath caught in her throat. Where there had been a plain of grass only moments before, there was an expanse filled with floating islands of ground. Nissa quickly counted seventeen of the islands, but more dotted the landscape. And the palace was not one of them. Where is the palace? she wondered.

She located the palace near the base of the mountains, lying on its side, perhaps a day s walk away if she judged the distance correctly. She heard a sound and turned. Anowon was standing near, looking out at the floating land. Smara was next to him somehow, talking to herself; or was she talking to Anowon? The vampire s face was impossible to read.

Behind them, Sorin was floating unconscious in the air, with his long white hair floating all around him like a shroud. As Nissa watched, he woke with a violent lurch that knocked him out of the air, and he fell with a grunt.

Sorin lay on the grass, which had shrunk again to the length of normal grass in the wake of the Roil. Many elves worshipped blooms, when plants and trees grew suddenly huge. And when the plants shrank back to their normal size after the fact, they saw that as divine as well. Not Nissa. Plant blooms did not seem natural. For the bloom to be holy, then the Roil would have to be holy, and that was something Nissa could not believe. Nothing holy could be that devastating. After a moment, Sorin stirred and rolled over. He put his hand to his forehead.

I m beginning to like Zendikar, Sorin said, sitting up. I really am. It feels like I ve been here for years, when it s been more like weeks.

When Sorin saw the floating islands of grassland, he shrugged.

Anowon was with Smara at the edge of the mesa, peering over the edge. He looked up at Nissa and showed his teeth. She walked over to where they stood. Anowon pointed down at the canyon floor far below.

How are your eyes? he asked.

She detected the movement on the canyon floor almost immediately.

Nissa doublechecked before speaking. Brood, she said finally.

What are they doing? Sorin said, standing next to her.

It s hard to tell, but some of them seem to be eating the ground.

Nobody said anything for a time.

Eating it? Anowon finally said.

There are some large ones with tentacles for back legs and long muzzles

Sorin moaned. Are their muzzles blue? he asked.

I can t tell, Nissa said. But, yes, it is possible, now that you put words to it.

Trackers, Sorin said.

But why would they

They are probably tracking the kor refugees, Sorin said. But they will find us in the process if we don t move.

How do you know these things? Nissa said.

The blue muzzles? The words were out of her mouth before she knew it.

Sorin said nothing, but looked over the edge and squinted. For a moment Nissa wished he d just step right off the edge. Then the feeling left her, and she wondered what his weak human eyes could see.

There must be four hundred of them, he said.

The floor of the trench is covered with them. Wonderful.

Nissa looked over the edge.

The giants were right, Anowon said.

The giants are down there, Sorin said. Their bodies are being dismembered right now. He was quiet for a moment. Rather interesting entrails.

Nissa turned. They will find our sign and ascend to us by day s end.

Oh, undoubtedly, Sorin said.

But we will not be here, Nissa said. She began walking toward the mountains, along the trail on Khalled s map. The trail would take them past the tipped castle. We should run.

And they did. They ran, holding what gear they had against themselves to keep it from bouncing. The goblins managed to carry Smara. One held each limb, and a fifth ran in the middle, while others scampered behind.

Nissa felt the mana from the grass course around her ankles as she ran. With this mana she spun a camouflage spell around the whole party, hoping to make them appear as a patch of grass on the expanse to any prying eyes that might be watching. Nissa dropped back a bit and squinted at her companions. But it was hard to tell if her spell had worked. She was too close to gauge its effectiveness. Nissa sped up.

The party ran through the shadows of the floating islands of land, which dropped clods of dirt from bare roots as they passed. Nissa saw a small rodent poke its head out of a hole and almost plummet the distance into the massive crater where the other side of its hole continued.

The wind picked up and began to blow in their faces as they ran. Soon they were sweating with exertion. Nissa couldn t help but think about how the wind in their faces would help spread their scent for the brood tracking them. She ran faster, and the others picked up their speed as well.

The sun was half-past zenith when they fell to the ground panting. Nissa laid her face down and breathed the rich smell of dirt and grass. Her tongue was swollen, and her cracked lips hurt. She needed water.

There might be water at that palace, she said.

The palace was closer, but it still lay tipped with its many tethers strewn around it. Nissa had watched for movement as they approached, but she had not seen any. It must have been inhabited by humans. They had begun to pass fields of grain, but what huts there were had been abandoned long ago. She was no judge of crops, but the stunted plants in the ground did not look like the most prosperous bounty she had ever seen.

After a bit of rest and hard tack, Nissa stood and began running again. Sorin was on his feet in an instant and following her at an alarming pace. He had passed her easily as they ran earlier, and she had the distinct feeling that he was slowing his pace so the rest of them could keep up. Nissa sped up to keep ahead of Sorin. It is the poor food I am eating that is allowing the human to run faster, she thought as she pumped her legs. But what is he eating? she wondered again. How is his body functioning without food?

Anowon, on the other hand, was not having as easy a time. Vampires were capable of alarming feats of physical prowess. They were naturally stronger than most elves Nissa had met. In the jungles of Bala Ged, Nissa had seen a vampire literally run up the trunk of a tree. They could jump better than most elves, but Nissa had never seen a vampire freefall off a tree, spin in midair, and catch itself on a branch. Still, a vampire should be able to run at least as fast as an elf.

Anowon was not running as fast. In fact, the vampire was midway between Nissa and the goblins that were, after all, carrying a mad kor. She had little doubt that it had been Anowon who had disposed of one of Smara s goblins. If that were the case, then Anowon should be quite fit and able to run. Nissa found it strange.

They ran past more huts hunched next to the fallow fields, then topped a low rise. The palace loomed ahead. In its course it had floated away and then back again to its original crater, only to fall hugely canted to the right. There were three lines of smoke rising sideways from the ground around the palace.

Then Nissa saw the first hole. Soon she saw more dotting the landscape ahead. She stopped running. Each was about a man s length across and just as deep. Many of the holes were stuffed with what looked like crops. Others were empty. Brood holes, she muttered.

When Nissa saw a hole with a pair of bare legs jutting straight out, she jumped behind a nearby hut and crouched. When Sorin and Anowon joined her, she leaned over.

Brood, Sorin said before she could even open her mouth.

Anowon nodded.

Ahead the ground was flat and grassy with small undulating ridges. The huts were more common along the foot-trod path they had been following. Each hut was made of thatch and turf bricks, and as Nissa crouched behind one, she could smell cooking grease from within. A gust of wind blew her hair in her eyes, and with the hooked finger of her right hand she pushed it behind her long ear.

There were people cooking in this one earlier today, she said.

The brood holes that dotted the landscape were fresh, and as she looked, Nissa saw plenty more legs sticking out of them.

Why do they stuff the corpses in the holes? Nissa said.

Sorin and Anowon said nothing, but Nissa had the distinct impression that one or both of them knew why.

What s that? Anowon whispered. He pointed.

A large column of dust far to the right in the grassland. The point from which it emanated was hidden behind one of the rises.

That, friends, is the dust thrown up by a great host, Sorin said. He stood and began walking forward to a high point occupied by another hut.

When he reached the hut, he stopped and stared down. Nissa stared too. It was a group of something walking along the ridge between the grassland and the mountains.

Sizable, Sorin said.

The tentacled scourge, Nissa said. She could not make out the individual forms, but she could see that some were taller than others, and that some of them moved in strange ways.

I suppose we should count ourselves lucky to be seeing their backs, Sorin said as he turned and began walking toward the palace.

Nissa had never seen anything like it. The populations of Zendikar did not have the discipline to form ranks. Plus, there was never enough of anyone, other than the wild creatures and trees, to form any kind of organized fighting force. And even though the brood were not formed in anything like ranks, they were traveling in a group. Where had they learned to walk together in lines? she wondered. She did not know enough about the brood to answer the question. But she would find out, she promised herself.

Behind the brood, the grasslands swept up in a smooth transition to the Piston Mountains. As she watched, the top of one mountain came hammering down on the base, and the ground shook.

If we are very lucky, Sorin yelled over his shoulder as he walked, The brood that did this he kicked at a leg poking out of one of the holes will meet and join forces with the brood advancing on us even now from behind.

Nissa looked back the way they had come. There, far away, was a smaller dust cloud.

Should not be long now, Sorin said.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

The holes became more common as they neared the palace, which, itself, had bodies hanging from their riggings heavy humans, dead in their armor with strange fighting devices strapped to their arms. Plumes of smoke spiraled from within somewhere. The huge tethers Nissa had seen from across the plain lay strewn on the grass, as thick as a man s torso.

Soon they were past the last hut and near the roots of the mountains. Ahead, a huge rock stood on its end, balanced precariously next to the trail. Nissa stopped and took out her map. The trail wound into the foothills and then skirted to the right. They would be moving parallel to the brood lineage that were beating their way around the base of the mountains. Will they cut into the mountains when they find our path? she asked herself as she rolled up the maps.

The stone balancing next to the trail appeared to wobble in the gusting wind. Nissa had seen other teetering stones, as they were called. She had never known one to fall. On the other hand, she had never known creatures to kill whole villages and stuff the corpses in holes.

They passed around the teetering stone and kept running along the path.

Nissa stopped suddenly and crouched, putting her finger into a small depression. She always ran looking at the ground, watching for signs.

An odd track, she said. I have never seen it before.

Sorin and Anowon stopped for a look. Nissa traced the deep divots and deep knuckle grooves; it was as if something had dragged itself across the ground, but uphill. Nissa looked up at the treeless mountains ahead. There were small boulders and low clumps of grass, but nothing that appeared large enough for even a goblin to hide behind. And whatever had made the sign was larger than a goblin, by plenty. Each finger groove was longer than her shin.

Well? Sorin said.

Nissa shrugged. It is large, she replied.

But I do not see any indication of tentacles.

From behind, a drum boomed over the plains. Anowon and Nissa looked back. The dust plume from the brood that had come up out of the trench was nearly at the palace.

They have become musical, Sorin said. Perhaps I will sing them a song of my own when we meet.

Nissa did not feel as confident. With each passing league they drifted farther away from the forest. She took a deep breath. The grasslands were rich with a different kind of energy, a kind she did not know how to utilize very well. If she had the proper rest, she could recuperate and draw mana from the land But there was no rest to be had.

Sorin turned away from his view of the grasslands below and cast a wary eye at the tracks in the rocky dirt of the trail ahead. So, we are being advanced upon from the rear by a prevailing force he made a sweeping gesture with one hand and something of unknown potency is waiting in ambush somewhere ahead?

After some moments Nissa nodded.

Sorin unbuckled the belt that held his great sword in place over his right shoulder. He moved the belt to his waist and cinched it tight again. It is good to know these things, he said.

Nissa watched Anowon investigate the tracks in the dirt. He pushed his fingers around the deep indentations, nodding some secret confirmation.

Soon they were walking higher and higher into the foothills with the sun low in the western sky.

The first face they found was half buried in the sandy soil. Nissa knew such stone heads were called Faduun, and that one in particular was huge. It was so large, in fact, that Nissa suspected that fifty elves holding wrists could barely encircle it. Its nose was large, and its stern brow and angry eyes were set in a spiteful scowl. It was exactly the same face as she d seen carved in the river pebbles that Anowon had found.

They found a smaller face an hour later, cut into the side of an outcropping. Each of the eye sockets had something shoved inside it. Nissa reached for whatever was in the right one.

Do you really want to know what is in there? Sorin said.

Nissa put her hand in and took out a wad of cloth. She looked from Sorin to Anowon. The vampire shrugged.

The Faduun are old, he said. Do you see those? He pointed to some writing above the right eye, scratched into the granite in tiny script.

Nissa leaned close. Eldrazi?

No, Anowon said. It is older than Eldrazi script, and yet it bears a certain resemblance. Those designs under the chin are remarkably similar to what we see at many Eldrazi sites all across Zendikar.

These are not found in other areas? Nissa said.

Anowon shook his head. Only on Ondu. And nobody knows why.

I know why, Nissa said. At least I think I do, she thought. They are the first Eldrazi, she said. Nissa was not sure why she knew it, but having said it, she knew it to be true.

Anowon nodded once. So it is said by some, he said. But how can they not be there. How can the plane have no sign of their writing or design one year, and then they are present the next? Cultures take time to develop.

Perhaps they are from somewhere else. Nissa felt strange saying that.

But Sorin turned his eyes to her. A good deduction, elf, he said. Have you any proof?

Nissa s pulse jumped. What proof could there be? she said, backtracking. Such an idea is impossible, naturally.

Sorin looked at her for longer than was normal. Naturally, he said.

Nissa looked back down at the foothills they had traveled. Past those, the dust plume had reached well past the palace. We had better keep moving, she said.

The trail and hills were the smoothest rock Nissa had ever seen red rock utterly barren of vegetation. She was curious to see what could live on the barren hills leading into the mountains, and she walked ahead paying no mind to where she was stepping.

They had dipped into a wet swale through which a slow stream gurgled. The trail passed between some low shrubs with wide, thick leaves that were two-times Sorin s height in width. The plants in the low spot intrigued Nissa. They reminded her of the jungles of Bala Ged, and she ran ahead, heedlessly. Despite the wetness in the low spot next to the river, the plants were wilted. Nissa found something about their color disgusting. Their leaves appeared green, but with an undertone of red, somehow, as if blood beat through the leaves cells. But that was impossible. She stopped running, sniffed, and covered her nose. What was not impossible was their smell. There must be something dead here, she said. But she kept walking to the small stream, her mouth already tasting its cool waters. Nissa knew they would be as clear as the becks of Bala Ged.

She stopped. One of the plants seemed to have perked up, its leaves a bit stiffer. Nissa turned, and just as she did so, she caught the sudden sound of movement a branch stirred, and she instinctively ducked and shoved her staff forward. The impact that followed knocked her backward, and her staff flew out of her hand. She lay still where she fell.

Nissa was on her back, but slowly she pushed herself with her heels until she was looking up at the frowning Anowon. She stood. The plant was slowly drawing one long vine back into itself. Her staff was off to the side next to another plant. She could see a cleft in the staff s side that went almost all the way through. Anowon pointed off to the right.

A shape lay half-concealed under one of the plants. Its head lay on its side not far away, severed cleanly by the looks of it. The body was badly decayed, but Nissa recognized the form of a small drake.

Nissa recovered her voice. Snap ferns, she said.

I was not paying enough attention.

Anowon nodded. Something similar exists in Guul Draz. But ours shoot canes up through the water impaling the unsuspecting. Siffleeb we call them.

Hearing the guttural vampire-speak made the hairs on the back of Nissa s neck stand up. Or perhaps the feeling was caused by her almost dying a moment before.

Anowon was looking at her strangely.

Sorin inexplicably had her staff when she turned. He was smiling again and handed it to her. She took it and ran her palm along its smooth wood. The cut from the vorpal weed was higher than she had thought and went almost all the way through the shaft exactly at neck height. She passed her hand over the cut, and the wood knitted together and the cut was no more. She whipped the staff over her shoulder, strapped it in place and started to walk up into the mountains.

They followed the trail all the rest of the day until the light fell and the small robber birds began to follow them, landing in the dusty soil to turn their heads and regard them through cocked eyes.

Soon the dark of the mountains was on them, and there was no moon again that night. The cold wind intensified as they walked through the foothills, and the rocks took on a grayer, more sand-whipped texture.

The rocks where they stopped did not radiate anything like heat. But soon Nissa found an indentation in the lea side of a boulder, and they all hunched there, mostly out of the wind. Fire was impossible, she knew. But Anowon took out one of his teeth and dropped it on a bare spot, and it began glowing and giving off heat. They encircled it and bent close.

How many of those do you have? Sorin asked.

How many toothless humans have you made?

Anowon looked up at the rock they were crouching against. They are not only merfolk teeth. The vampire stood and took a step back and looked again. A smile curled one corner of his mouth, showing just the edge of an incisor. Look.

They were sheltering against a huge Faduun head, in the space created under its nose. Anowon stood staring at the face with the wind blowing his long braid almost sideways. His torn robes snapped in the wind.

The merfolk speak of three gods, he said.

And I have realized something. He looked down at them huddled against the Faduun s lips. There are three kinds of brood. Have you noticed?

Nissa had noticed. There were the large ones with all the eyes and tentacles for rear legs, those that were all tentacles and could sometimes fly, and those possessing a thick bony skull without a face.

Perhaps it is no coincidence, Anowon said.

That the mermen have three gods. Their stories are not as old as, say, the kor s. So, maybe the Eldrazi have only been here since those merfolk stories? The kor would never admit it, but their gods are the same gods by different names.

But the brood are many, Nissa said. The merfolk and kor gods are only three.

Perhaps the brood have gods as well.

Are they real? Nissa said.

Anowon s brow dropped in confusion. What a question.

But he said nothing more, and the wind howled around the stone.

Sorin sniffed.

Nissa glanced over her shoulder into the darkness where she knew the plains stretched thousands of feet below. When she turned back, Anowon was looking across the glowing light at Sorin.

Are they evil? The brood? she asked.

Sorin spoke quickly, which surprised her. They are consumers. Neither good nor evil. They eat.

And why do they put things in those holes?

He shook his head. I am sure I have no idea, he replied. But I do know they devour pure mana. Their methods must have something to do with that.

Nissa nodded. It seemed the wind was blowing harder.

The goblins tightened their circle around Smara, who had been mostly quiet that day. As Nissa looked, the kor rocked back and forth with her crystal held against her small bosom. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. Nissa watched her rock back and forth, and soon her own eyelids started drooping.

When Nissa opened her eyes, the tooth s glow had dimmed greatly, but she could still see the bare shadows of the others asleep. The wind had lessened a bit, but a deep cold had swept in on the breeze, and Nissa s teeth knocked together as she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. She chuckled to herself. Imagine perishing up here of cold after traveling through such danger, she thought. But Nissa knew the cold on the mountain was not severe enough to kill her, as long as she stayed out of the wind. The Piston Mountains were a very long but very thin range, and not the tallest mountains on Zendikar those were on Akoum. According to the map, they would crest and be on the other side of the mountains by the morrow. But that realization did not help the fact that for the moment, she was cold.

She stood up and stamped her feet. Then she took a couple of steps and heard a particular sound over the breeze. It sounded like a gargling gag combined with a sort of growl. The sound raised the hairs on the back of her arms. She saw a form in the shadows hunched over another form. She heard slurping.

As quietly as she could she turned and padded back to the circle. Her stomach, as empty as it was, fluttered, and for a moment she thought she might be sick. It was not the sound that had caused her such nausea, it was the smell. Blood had its own sweet smell, and arterial blood was the sweetest of all. She knelt on the ground and wrapped her cloak around herself and, surprisingly, she slept.

When she woke, the sun was just rising in the gray sky. She could see her breath in the cold air. The tooth s glow was gone. As Nissa suspected, one of Smara s goblins was gone as well. She looked again. Two of the goblins were gone. Anowon was staring at her from across the circle with his knees drawn up to his chin. Sorin was asleep next to him with his long head laid sideways on his own knees.

Nissa knew a vampire had to feed. She understood the natural order of that, mostly. Still, to see the feeding happening Nissa glanced at the sleeping Smara and then back to Anowon. Who is she? Nissa said.

Anowon lifted his head. I do not know.

What is that crystal she has?

He looked at the kor. It has power, he said.

Can you feel it?

Nissa nodded. She had felt its power the first time Smara and the goblins had rounded the corner in the canyon. But many objects radiated raw energy on Zendikar it was not uncommon. Even the seed pods of the turntimber trees could make a goblin s pathway stone twist and jerk, which was why outsiders had such trouble navigating the turntimber forest.

But Smara s crystal radiated a different kind of energy. There was something about the crystal and the way the kor coveted it that Nissa did not like. As she watched, its surface seemed to ripple and swell darkly in the early morning light.

I have been listening, Anowon said, shifting his eyes from the disturbing crystal to Nissa. To her. When she thinks she is alone.

Nissa leaned in to hear what he would say next. Anowon s eyes were as large as saucers as he spoke.

It is a strange mix she speaks to that crystal.

Of what? Is it what Sorin said? Nissa said.

Yes and no. Sometimes it is kor. Sometimes Eldrazi or vampire.

Yes?

The vampire hesitated before speaking again. Sometimes it is other languages that I have never heard spoken on Zendikar.

Nissa looked at him.

And I believe I have heard or seen written every tongue, he said, looking again at Smara sleeping in the middle of the goblins. It is good we have forgotten some tongues. Certain cultures should never have been.

Like vampire cultures, Nissa thought. But instead she said,

Well, maybe the Eldrazi had different languages. They did build amazing structures for a long time.

On the backs of my people, Anowon hissed.

Lubricated with our blood. His lips pulled back suddenly into a fierce snarl.

Nissa found her hand reaching for her staff. By the time she had it up, Anowon had a faint smile on his lips. You Joraga, he said, making a flourish with his hand. Always ready.

Nissa lowered her staff, slightly.

Anyway, Anowon said. I have been listening to the kor, as I said. She talks to the crystal. She talks, and he put his hand to his ear, imitating himself listening I think it replies.

What?

Do you know what a witch vessel is?

Nissa shook her head.

It is a being who is possessed by a ghost, Anowon said.

A ghost, Nissa said, looking at Smara asleep on her back. As Nissa watched, the kor s eyes snapped opened and she spoke a word.

Blood, Anowon translated. She said the word blood in middle Vampire.

Suddenly, Nissa could feel her own blood beating at her temples. The kor closed her eyes again, and Nissa turned to Anowon. Are you saying she is possessed by an Eldrazi ghost? Nissa asked. If you are then we should put her in the earth.

For the good of Zendikar?

The brood must be stopped. Otherwise they will do what they did at MossCrack. They must be put back in their crypt in the Teeth of Akoum.

Oh, I agree they must be stopped, Anowon said.

They must be stopped by casting them off Zendikar.

Nissa felt her pulse skip What do you mean? she said. Is he going to talk about other planes? she wondered. How can he know about planeswalking?

The vampire looked up at the sky. From my reading, I know they are not from this place, he said. Which means they must have come from somewhere else, and they should go back to that place. I have read accounts of beings that claimed to have traveled from other places they said, not on Zendikar. There have been writings.

And you believe them?

Anowon shrugged.

Sorin stirred. After a moment he lifted his head and regarded them through slit eyes. What are you discussing? he asked, pushing his white hair out of his eyes.

What indeed? Anowon replied. What indeed.

Robert B. Wintermute

Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum

The day progressed. Nissa knew they were in the mountains proper when she felt the ground under her feet shake. Most of the mountain tops in the range had had their tops sheared off and put back by with some magical process that allowed the tops to rise and fall, which they did without pattern. Every time the mountain crashed down upon itself, the rock dust and pebbles were rearranged, hiding the path further. It made keeping to the trail almost impossible.

They walked on, following the creases in the mountain upward until they were at the very top of the crest. The cap was up when they arrived, leaving a space between it and the mountain just large enough for any of them to pass through. Nissa bent down. The seam of light on the other side was not too far away, no further than a bow could shoot its arrow.

We could skirt this, Sorin said, looking uneasily at the seam of light on the other side. And not risk it.

Nissa had already consulted the map. It is a low mountain, but very long, she said as she looked over her shoulder. Going around would mean two extra days of travel at least. And they would surely fall on us in the meantime.

Why are you whispering? Sorin said.

Nissa did not know she had been whispering. But all day as they walked she d been thinking of the huge knuckle prints in the mud in the foothills. Where would such a large creature hide? she thought. No rocks were large enough to hide behind.

Whatever had separated the top from the base of the mountain had not done it cleanly. Both the top and bottom lips of rock had long jags hanging down. The effect was that the gap appeared to have fangs and a dark maw. She peered deeper.

I see metal hooks and swords smashed flat, she said, her voice echoing in the darkness.

They all knew what that meant, and nobody said anything until Sorin spoke. Well, if we leave our steel out here it will not be crushed flat, he said.