The Darksteel Eye (22 page)

The nim who had trampled over her were now locked in combat with the levelers. Their bony claws did little to the armored hide of the killing beasts. Still, the wave of putrid flesh surged forward, throwing themselves fearlessly on the invaders.

Getting to her feet, Glissa found her sword and found Bruenna fighting a pair of levelers. The wizard bashed away attacks from all sides with a practiced ease. Except for the look of utter concentration on her face, the woman’s movements were as calm and smooth as if she were doing nothing more taxing than preparing a light spell.

Glissa stepped up beside her friend, engaging one of the levelers.

Bruenna’s staff came around and a huge bolt of energy shot from the end. The magic struck the leveler and spread out. Jagged lines of blue power crackled along the seams in the
artifact creature’s armor, and the leveler stopped dead in its tracks. Its scythe blades seized up, and its steering sail went limp.

Then the buzzing lines of energy slipped inside the creature. It was as if they had been sucked up in a giant breath from the leveler’s belly. The device shuddered once, then with a giant clang, things started falling off. Armored plates dropped to the ground. Scythe blades twisted and rolled away, making a satisfying ring as they hit the metal surface of the plain. All the plates and pieces that made up the insides of the leveler suddenly let go. With what seemed a final coughing gasp, the artifact creature splashed to the ground—completely dismantled, now nothing more than a collection of spare parts.

Glissa sidestepped as the shiny bits of the leveler’s insides spread out on the ground before her. Dodging an ill-timed strike by the other killing device, the elf twirled the Sword of Kaldra over her head. Grasping it in both hands as it came around, she brought the sharpened, magical edge of the blade down on the leveler’s head. The legendary sword parted polished metal as easily as it parted rotting nim flesh. Gears strained, and springs groaned, but they couldn’t overcome the might that Glissa had brought to bear.

With the unmistakable sound of metal crashing against metal, the leveler fell facedown onto the ground.

“What happened?” asked Glissa. “Why’d the nim stop attacking us?”

As if in answer, a trio of undead creatures lurched toward the two women.

“They didn’t.” Bruenna twirled her staff.

Glissa was faster. Bringing to mind the verdigris spires and thorny growths of the Tangle, the elf pulled in mana and funneled it into a spell. The ground shook and tiny motes of green
light seeped from the cracks between the metal plates on the floor of the plain. The zombies before her, caught within the maelstrom of magic, withered and melted, dropping before they got close enough to strike with a blade.

“Why didn’t you do that before?” asked Bruenna.

Glissa shrugged. “Magic is a delicate art form,” she said, a smile blossoming on her face. “It takes a lot of concentration—”

“You mock me now, but—” Bruenna was interrupted by a clawing nim. She cut the shambling beast in half then continued. “We should have this conversation later—” she glanced around, indicating the battle raging around them—“perhaps when we’re not in such immediate danger.”

Straight ahead, Glissa spotted Bosh, his head rising high above the rest of the battle. Al-Hayat stood beside him, Slobad on his shoulders. They were surrounded by a ring of attackers, metal and putrid flesh alike.

Meanwhile, all around, nim battled with levelers.

“So they haven’t stopped attacking us,” said Glissa, “but they
have
started attacking the levelers as well.”

“To their eyes, we all look like invaders,” replied Bruenna. “The nim don’t care much for who is chasing whom. As long as we’re in their swamp, they’ll fight to keep us all out.”

Glissa bashed aside another shambling undead. “Then let’s let the nim deal with the levelers.”

*  *  *  *  *

Malil stood knee deep in rotten flesh. He had no conflict with these creatures. Why were they getting in his way? Didn’t they know who he was? Didn’t they know how badly he needed to get the elf girl?

The metal man raised a heavy sword in one hand and brought
it down on an advancing group of zombies. Gummy flesh parted, and the oncoming ghouls fell to the ground in a bloody mess.

“Flesh is weak,” snarled Malil, cutting down another score of slogging creatures with a single flick of his wrist. “You will not stand in my way.”

The rest of his levelers were having an equally easy time with thenim, but the sheer numbers were staggering. Where a scythe blade cut one down, two more stepped up to take its place. There was an unending supply for these undead creatures, and they swarmed in. To make matters worse, in order to stop them from coming, a leveler had to cut the beast to shreds. Simple wounds didn’t stop their advance as they did with elves or humans—or sometimes other levelers.

“Damn,” shouted Malil.

He didn’t mind cutting down the beasts. He didn’t care who he had to slay to get what he wanted, but all this fighting was inefficient. He didn’t care if these creatures lived or died. He’d be glad to oblige them if what they wanted was a second death. Right now all he wanted was the elf girl.

But he couldn’t reach her.

He’d waited in this miserable swamp, separated from his master and the serum he desired, now only to be stopped by piles and piles of weak, rotting flesh.

Across the battlefield, Malil could see the elf and her companions. They too fought the nim.

“They like no one,” he said, taking the head from a desiccated figure that looked as if it once might have been an elf.

It appeared as if the elf was making her way toward the swamp. Caught between Malil and the nim, Glissa had chosen the undead, and now they were trying to once again get away from him. Driven by his desire, Malil pressed forward, urging
his troops to cut their way to his prize. But the harder he fought the more his devices were mired in putrid flesh, and his levelers came to a lurching halt.

As Glissa disappeared over the edge of the slope, down toward the swamp, Malil felt his burning desire well up again in his belly.

“I must have her,” he said to an undead humanlike creature. Malil stabbed his greatsword through the creature’s belly and pulled it straight up, cutting the beast in half. “I must. I must.”

*  *  *  *  *

Slipping over the lip of the slope, the only living flesh creatures in all of Mephidross fought their way toward the water. It was a hard fight, and Glissa’s sword arm was nearly numb from smashing nim to bits.

Bruenna had lost many of her wizards in the battle, but she had managed to consolidate the remaining few, and the group followed the elf down toward the swamp. Al-Hayat and Slobad were next, and Bosh came last.

The big, mostly metal golem moved from the plain onto the downward slope. The ground was slick with vile things—rotten organs, broken shards of bone, melted flaps of rubbery flesh, black fluids, red gobs of meat, and yellow bits of putrescence. Bosh stepped on a pile of this slippery stuff, and his foot slid out from under him. His arms flailing, he tried to bring his other foot around, but it too sank into the filth. With a tremendous clank, the iron golem hit the ground on his back.

“Look out,” shouted Slobad. The goblin pointed to the falling golem.

His arms waving and his legs kicked up in the air, Bosh slid down the steep slope, hydroplaning on a layer of filth.
Ruined zombies worked better than grease at lubricating metal, and the big guy picked up speed as he skidded toward the swamp.

Ten paces down Bosh crashed into a line of advancing undead. Even with eight legs, the creatures weren’t nimble enough to get from the way of the sliding golem. With a crunch and a splat, Bosh ran over them, squashing the nim flat against the hill and adding more lubrication to his decent.

Glissa watched this out of control slide. Where he slid, he cut a swath, and in his wake, Bosh left a wide corridor in the middle of the marching, gas-belching nim.

“Come on,” shouted the elf. Waving her hand over her shoulder to indicate the way, Glissa jumped into the air. Kicking her legs out in front of her, she landed on her rear and slid after the golem.

The filthy swamp smell was nothing compared to the odor coming off of the flattened nim. Glissa tried to hold her breath, but it was hard enough to stay upright. Using her sword as a rudder, she sat up, moving around the larger chunks as she slid toward the swamp. Down and down she went, picking up speed.

Ahead, Bosh tumbled over once, crushing more undead into paste. The slow moving swamp creatures couldn’t get out of his way fast enough, and a mound of ruined bodies piled up before him as he approached the bottom. With a splash the giant golem slipped into the briny liquid at the edge of the swamp. A wave of black swill shot into the air. Tendrils of the stuff separated, reaching up over Bosh like a skeletal hand.

The splashed swamp water peaked. The top curled over, making the hand look like a gaping, hungry mouth. Then it fell back down to the earth with a tremendous clap. The black, viscous slime completely devoured Bosh, and he disappeared from view.

Glissa didn’t have time to even blink after that. Scratching, clawing, and digging into the ground with her sword, she still couldn’t slow her descent.

Here I go, she thought. Then her feet hit the slime, and all went black as her head slipped under.

Memnarch stood at the window of his laboratory. A light breeze rattled the jagged bits of glass, reaching in through where the window had been to brush against his flesh. The cool air felt good against his hot skin, and he breathed it in, calming himself.

Out in the interior of Mirrodin, the mana core crackled and sparked. It was pregnant with energy, and soon it would release it. Already the blue-white sphere had begun to take on a greenish tinge. Time was getting short.

When the mana core did finally erupt, it would shake the foundations of the world, unleashing terrible force and temporarily unbalancing the perfection of Mirrodin.

The perfection of Mirrodin. Memnarch shook his head. The perfection of Mirrodin indeed. It was a myth. This world had never been perfect. Mirrodin had always had one fatal flaw—it wasn’t a natural world. This plane, like so many others around the multiverse, was a creation of a planeswalker. But for all their magic and wisdom, the most powerful beings in all of Dominia had never been able to create stable worlds.

Many a day had Memnarch stood and pondered this conundrum.

His creator, his god Karn, had the power to forge whole worlds from nothing more than a thought. Unless he stayed on
his world, though, maintaining it through his own force of will, it would collapse, imploding like an overripe star.

Karn had not been back to Mirrodin in a very long time.

The stuff of perfection was unstable. Could something that did not last truly be considered perfect? Was there such a thing as temporary perfection? Memnarch hoped so. But what really boggled his much-enhanced mind was the thought of natural worlds. If Karn could not create a stable world, then who could?

There were worlds beyond this one. Many, many worlds in fact. Memnarch had seen some of them. He had visited a few when the Creator had seen fit to take him along. These worlds did not collapse. They did not need a planeswalker to maintain their existence.

That meant Memnarch’s creator had a creator. In fact, Karn had spoken of another planeswalker, a man named Urza, who had created him. But if Memnarch’s Creator had a creator, then perhaps that Creator had a creator as well. And that Creator likely had a creator and he a creator too.… Could it really go on and on forever? There must be a starting point—one true Creator who created all other creators. If that were true, then how did that Creator come to be … created?

Memnarch’s head hurt. He’d been down this line of reasoning so many times, and each time he reached this very same point, the point at which he no longer cared to think about it any longer.

That wasn’t why his head hurt. It had been a long time since his last serum infusion. His mind ached for the lift, the joy, the mental strength that an infusion gave him.

He turned his enhanced gaze back out over the interior of the plane, trying to put that thought out of his mind. A giant blue-green spark arced through the air, hissing as it orbited the
glowing orb. Then, with a popping sound, the energy dived back into the surface of the mana core.

The super-charged interior sun of Mirrodin had erupted exactly four times since its creation. Each time it created one of the four moons. There was one for each color: white, blue, black, red—but not green.

Green would be the next.

When the time came, another lacuna would be created. The mana core would shoot out a glowing ball of plasma with such force and with such heat that it would burn straight through the mile-thick, solid metal crust of the plane. The new moon would breach the surface and rocket off into the sky, joining the other four moons and falling into its natural orbit around the plane.

Once the moon punched through the crust and shot off into the atmosphere, it would find its place among the other moons. Each of them would push or pull on it, as if they were magnets. The moon would wobble back and forth, finally settling into its place among the others. Until that happened, the forces of nature would be terribly out of balance.