The Fifth Dawn (16 page)

There were the glittering hexagonal plates that covered the
Glimmervoid and provided purchase for dozens of different species of razor grass, running to the edge of jagged, rusty scabs that could only be the Oxidda mountain range, whence came Slobad and his goblin kin. The Tangle she felt in her bones before she saw it, the forests pulsing with the magical energies to which she was most closely attuned. From this distance, it looked like an especially large hunk of moss clinging to a tarnished silver ball. The Quicksilver Sea shone like a glittering mirror, reflecting the light of the moons, while the dark stain of the Mephidross seemed to devour the glow of four satellites—the green moon was absent—spewing a huge cloud of brownish-green ochre into the atmosphere. From her godlike point of view, Glissa could see that those fumes spread much farther than anyone below suspected, dissipating across the plane in a thin haze.

And they were moons, not suns. She saw that now, there could be no doubt. Four glowing balls of energy, each spinning around the hollow world that spawned them, twirling in a complicated, unpredictable dance. Mirrodin reflected and absorbed the energy the orbs projected.

She wondered if this was what it really looked like when one flew through the heavens, or if this was the best her imagination could muster. She was beginning to suspect this was more vivid hallucination than flare, for this was not a vision of the past. There were simply too many moons.

Glissa felt an unbidden urge to swoop down close to the Tangle. The forests of home rapidly grew before her into a rich carpet of green, then crystallized into the familiar verdigris foliage she’d hunted for decades. There was something there she needed to find, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something she’d lost, or maybe something that had lost her. Or someone. She pulled her focus down and watched the world move by below her, scanning the ground. She became a moon of Mirrodin herself,
soaring around and around the great metallic sphere in an expanding orbit, taking in the entire surface. And everywhere she went, everywhere she looked, whether skimming the Quicksilver Sea or knifing through the thickets of the Tangle, she noticed one thing was absent from this living metal world.

There were no people. Every settlement, from Taj Nar to the Vault of Whispers, from Lumengrid to Viridia, was completely devoid of anything walking on two feet.

No, there was one thing. A small silver dot that ambled over the dream-Mirrodin on four legs, like a crab. Memnarch walked the surface of the metal world, and he was utterly alone.

Glissa felt a pang of sympathy, then quickly buried it. Served the twisted monster right. Alone on an empty world, with no one to worship him as a god, not even his favored vedalken. The metal monster’s face turned up to stare at her with six glittering eyes, and he opened his mouth as if screaming, yet Glissa could not hear.

The globe below her began to visibly shake, vibrating impossibly fast as Memnarch’s wail reached into the heavens, eventually striking Glissa’s keen ears. What appeared to be simple vibration from her vantage point became massive tectonic quakes on the surface as the hollow sphere began to crack. And still Memnarch screamed, as white light sliced through the widening crevices in Mirrodin’s skin, raw magic that erupted violently now.

The latticework of cracks finally gave way. The globe of Mirrodin collapsed inward in a colossal implosion, then the mana core exploded. In a conflagration of energy and power never before seen by mortal eyes that lasted no longer than a heartbeat, Mirrodin suddenly ceased to be.

“Glissa?” Lyese said, “What happened? Can you stand?”

Glissa blinked. The flare was over. She shook her head and allowed Lyese to pull her to her feet. “I’m fine.”

“Was this a ‘flare’?” Bruenna asked as she pressed a silver
cloth against Glissa’s forehead. The stabbing pain that had preceded the flare disappeared instantly.

“Either that, or I’m losing my mind,” Glissa said. “But this one was strange. I’d seen other worlds before, this seemed—almost like someone was trying to give me advice.”

“Is it good advice?” Bruenna asked.

“I think so,” Glissa said. “Something along the lines of ‘keep doing what you’re doing.’ So right now, that means we help the Kha with his immediate problems, which are also our problems, and somehow we all might come out of this—whatever ‘this’ turns out to be—alive.”

“Makes sense,” Bruenna replied in a tone that indicated the matter was anything but settled, but she wasn’t going to push the point. She eyed the sky and saw the small group of skyhunters who were heading out to meet the mage at the edge of the Mephidross. “It’s time we split up if I’m going to keep my appointment.”

“You’re right,” Glissa said. “Good luck with Geth. Don’t trust him. Not even a little bit. And protect your neck at all times.”

“I can take care of myself,” Bruenna said. “And what I can’t take care of, the leonin will,” she added, nodding at the approaching riders.

“I’m sure of it,” Glissa said, though she was anything but. The flare had shaken her, but she still wasn’t sure why. The Mirrodin she had watched die had no green moon. The Mirrodin she lived on did and so far hadn’t imploded. What kind of message was that? ‘Stay the course’ had been her best guess for the others’ sake but Glissa knew that was an evasion.

Fortunately, she would have plenty of time to mull the matter over on the long ride out to the leveler cave, where they would hopefully find the Krark. “Okay, Lyese, you’re with me. Let’s go find some goblins. And remind me not to stare straight into the green moon.”

Glissa bit off a strip of dried djeeruk meat and handed the rest to Lyese. She wasn’t that hungry, and the thought of coming to Dwugget as a leonin ambassador—to say nothing of the residual effects of the powerful flare—already had blinkmoths fluttering chaotically in her abdomen. It wasn’t unlike the way she used to feel those rare times she and Kane been free of duties and studies long enough to enjoy each other’s company. Except Kane had never put her off her food.

Maybe that’s why I wanted Bruenna to do this, she thought. She’s a leader. Leaders negotiated. Negotiation was not Glissa’s style. Glissa liked problems that could be solved with a sword, or in exceptional cases, a construct-flattening explosion of magic. Still, they needed information to stop Memnarch, and the Krark seemed to know more about the inner world than anyone else on the surface, except perhaps the trolls and the vedalken. That the leonin might receive aid from the goblin cultists against the nim was secondary to Glissa, though ostensibly the main reason the Kha had sent them on this mission.

They had reined their zauks to a trot so they could eat while moving, giving the elf girl a chance to really take in the landscape of the Oxidda foothills. Their surefooted mounts easily navigated a collision of rocky outcroppings, flat, ferrous mesas, and corroded iron boulders. Here and there, magnetic energy held similar boulders floating above the ground, adding an air of unreality to the landscape.

The tall, rustling razor grass of the plains was gradually giving way to hardier varieties, and clusters of silvery scrub became thicker, rustier, and more frequent the farther they went. Corroded gullies cracked the dusky ochre ground, but the zauks easily cleared them with one step even at this pace. Glissa patted
the bird on the neck, and it cawed affectionately. Or hungrily. Or angrily. The elf girl really wasn’t sure.

Glissa slipped the seeksphere from a pouch on her belt and held it up to inspect the fine markings. The silver ball was no bigger than a goblin’s eye and bore tiny notches and symbols that remained fixed in position no matter which way she turned the object. Shonahn had shown her how to enchant the seeksphere to home in on a single individual, but Glissa had been called on to perform the spell herself, which consisted of simply saying the name of the person you were searching for three times while holding the ball close to one’s lips. The trick was that only someone who had seen that person could activate the device. Bruenna had one too, also enchanted by Glissa, to find Geth.

Despite Shonahn’s assurances that the seeksphere was such a simple artifact that it was virtually impossible to fool, Glissa was beginning to suspect the gadget was broken. At first, they’d seemed to be going in the right direction, but they’d veered off into the rocky foothills and now it seemed as if they were headed straight into the mountain caves ruled by the despotic goblin shaman and his fanatic followers.

“Lyese, this can’t be right,” Glissa said, waving her sister to a halt. She shook the seeksphere with frustration, but it still pointed straight into the iron peaks. “The Krark were not this far into the mountains. And the goblins that
do
live in the mountains aren’t friendly with the Krark or anyone else.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Lyese said with a game attempt at maturity. “Okay, maybe that’s an understatement. But is it possible your memory might be, I don’t know, a little knocked out of alignment?”

“Don’t be—” Glissa began, but the suggestion gave her pause. Who knew what toll the last few weeks had taken on her mind? What had the flares done to her sense of self? For that matter,
what had the frequent loss of blood done to her brain? “You could be right, I guess. Or maybe they just left. Or maybe … damn.”

“What?” Lyese asked.

“Or maybe I’m overlooking the obvious answer—they’ve been taken by the shaman’s followers. The mountain goblins might have attacked Dwugget’s people just out of spite.”

“You think they’re captured?”

“It’s the most logical conclusion,” Glissa replied. She cast her eyes back over the foothills to the open plains. “Those leonin had better show up soon.”

“Why?” Lyese asked.

“Because this just turned into a rescue.” She patted her saddle to reassure herself that her bow and quicksliver arrows were close at hand. “I’ll go without the leonin if I have to. You can stay here and let them know where I’ve gone.”

“No way!” Lyese objected. “I can fight just as well—okay, maybe not just as well as you, but I am Tel-Jilad Chosen, you know.”

Glissa turned her mount around to look her sister in the eye, and came face-to-face once more with the mutilation and injury Lyese had suffered. She was young, yes, but no younger than Glissa had been when she bagged her first djeeruk. And she was fairly certain that Lyese, young as she was to Glissa’s eyes, was much older than Slobad or Bruenna in actual years. What right did she have to keep her sister away from a fight? None, she knew. It was entirely selfish. She just couldn’t stand to put her sister in danger again. It wasn’t fair, but it was true.

With effort, she buried the impulse.

“Okay,” Glissa said grudgingly, “but don’t get out of my sight.”

“Touching,” a gravelly voice said. “We’ll make sure to lock you up in the same cell.” Glissa whirled and scanned the area, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. She needn’t
have bothered. In a flurry of movement, over a dozen armored, thuggish-looking goblins rose from the scattered scrub brush. Most had shortbows trained on the elves, while some brandished wicked hooked spears that Glissa knew were as deadly at a distance as they were in close combat.

“Lyese … don’t move.” Glissa said softly.

“Way ahead of you,” Lyese whispered.

“Stop this at once!” the gravelly voice bellowed, and Glissa saw a hulking human step from behind a large boulder. Glissa had never seen a human like him before. She hadn’t even know humans lived in these mountains. The man’s huge frame was clad in the robes of the priests, which covered jagged spiked armor that looked like the wearer had attached raw pieces of the mountain to his body. He wore black, irregularly shaped gauntlets covered in rough edges and what looked like dried goblin blood. Wiry scarlet hair topped his unprotected head, and the human’s eyes glittered with red fire. “Much as I would enjoy it, there is technically no need for violence. My lord wishes to speak with you, and would appreciate it if you were unarmed.”

“Your lord?” Glissa said. “New shaman in town, I suppose? What’s a human doing working for a goblin fanatic, anyway?”

“I am no mere ‘human.’ I am a Vulshok high priest, elf. And the old goblin shaman is dead,” the human replied. “These creatures have been called to serve a far nobler cause. Now, if you would be so kind to step down from those remarkable birds and follow me—keep them covered, my friends—everything will be made clear to you.”

The elf girl shot her younger sister a look, and saw Lyese return a faint nod. She was thinking the same thing. This was
not
a friendly invitation, and if the elves were going to act, it had to be now.

“Go!” Glissa shouted, and kicked her zauk firmly in the flanks. The bird reacted as expected, and bolted toward the nearest goblin warriors. She heard a squawk as Lyese did the same, and then cries from another group of surprised goblins. Those who had held drawn arrows released them at targets that suddenly weren’t there, and ducked as projectiles from their fellows opposite clattered to the ground around them.

Two goblins went down under Glissa’s charging zauk, and she was free. Arrows whizzed past her head and one ricocheted off her helmet, but the goblins, as it turned out, were not particularly good shots. “Come on, Lyese!” she cried. She received no reply except the sound of clashing blades behind her. As Glissa’s sleek mount bird charged toward the looming mountains, the elf girl looked back over her shoulder to see what the big human was doing. This Vulshok was an unknown quantity.