Zendikar_ In The Teeth Of Akoum Part 4

"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 ma.s.sing 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 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." 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sume 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."

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 s.h.i.+vering 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 Gla.s.spool. 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 thras.h.i.+ng 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 rus.h.i.+ng; the next moment the stones that had been suspended in mid-air fell cras.h.i.+ng 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 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 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 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 s.h.i.+ny 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 pa.s.sages which Nissa led them through. She heard the crevice miners' carapaces clacking against each other as they struggled through. Soon the pa.s.sages became so tight in places that even Nissa had to squeeze to pa.s.s. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 splas.h.i.+ng through a small river of sluggish water meandering downhill. The sun had pa.s.sed 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.