Zendikar_ In The Teeth Of Akoum Part 10

"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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.ds," 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 G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds are the same G.o.ds by different names."

"But the brood are many," Nissa said. "The merfolk and kor G.o.ds are only three."

"Perhaps the brood have G.o.ds 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 peris.h.i.+ng up here of cold after traveling through such danger Imagine peris.h.i.+ng 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, s.h.i.+fting 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? Is he going to talk about other planes? she wondered. she wondered. How can he know about planeswalking? 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, pus.h.i.+ng his white hair out of his eyes.

"What indeed?" Anowon replied. "What indeed."

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 s.p.a.ce between it and the mountain just large enough for any of them to pa.s.s 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 they would surely fall on us in the meantime." 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? Where would such a large creature hide? she thought. No rocks were large enough to hide behind. 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 n.o.body said anything until Sorin spoke. "Well, if we leave our steel out here it will not be crushed flat," he said.

Nissa turned and looked blankly at him. "We wait until it falls again and rises, and then we run through."

The goblins looked at each other.

Nissa waited, but not even Sorin had anything to say. So they waited all the rest of the day. Night fell, and they kept waiting. They spent the night huddled against rocks waiting for the mountaintop to fall. As the sun rose, Nissa was already at the cut, peering in.

The dry tack was gone, and all the goblins were accounted for. She suddenly threw down the dry twig she was chewing and stood.

"Where are you going?" Anowon said.

Nissa had been watching a small flock of birds bob from rock to rock. She ignored Anowon's question and approached the rock the birds had ma.s.sed on. At her approach the flock flew off and to another rock, where they complained noisily. Nissa peered carefully at the base of the large boulder. Then she dropped down onto her knees and put her face within a foot of the seam where the sandy soil met the boulder.

Sorin looked over casually and raised one eyebrow as Nissa sniffed tentatively at the dry soil. Unsatisfied, she moved an arm's length to the right and sniffed the ground again. She moved six more times before she found what she was looking for: a small hole in the dirt. A small patch of bright green lichen grew in a spiral pattern above the tiny hole, Sorin noticed. Even Smara watched Nissa quietly.

Then the elf began digging. She dug with her hand, carefully piling the sandy dust next to the rock as she worked. After a good time at it, Nissa began to hum. The hole deepened. It was not morning anymore when Nissa began to heave. She pulled three times before looking over at Sorin and Anowon. They approached the hole.

"It's soft, so you have to grip hard," Nissa said.

"What little gift have you found here in the loam?" Sorin said, glancing over at Smara as he bent and took a handful of what felt like a wine skin filled with jelly. It had not rained in weeks, yet the soil was damp at the bottom of the hole.

Smara c.o.c.ked her head at Sorin. She gave no indication she had understood his taunt.

"Now pull," Nissa said.

It took six heaves before it came free. A large, bright red blob of material popped out of the hole.

Sorin jumped back despite himself. Anowon bent for a closer look.

"A grit slug," Nissa said. She collected dead limbs from the low and gnarled evergreen shrubs clinging to the cracks between the rocks, and built a small fire.

"What will you do with that?" that?" Sorin said of the fire. Sorin said of the fire.

"Cook the slug," Nissa said.

"With that?" that?"

"Just so."

Nissa lit the fire with a flint and steel and constructed a small shelf of rocks around the fire.

"That fire will never heat that ... thing," Sorin said.

"I only have to boil one area, and the slug will cook in its own skin," Nissa said.

It took hours to cook the thing, nonetheless. And the whole time the mountain did not fall.

When Nissa poked the slug and p.r.o.nounced it cooked, Smara and the goblins flocked around. Even Anowon seemed interested and drew near.

"I thought you only ate blood," Nissa said to the vampire.

Anowon shrugged. "I prefer blood," he said.

Nissa used the eating knife stowed up her right sleeve to cut jiggling wedges out of the slug. The color was a dull red. The goblins threw their pieces down their gullets and put rough hands out for more.

"It tastes like ... raw human fat," Anowon said.

Sorin scoffed from where he stood at the periphery.

Nissa made a sour face hearing Anowon's words. She cut the goblins more slug, and then ate three wedges of her own as fast as she could, with the viscous juices running down her knuckles and dripping off her forearms.