Agents of Artifice: A Planeswalker Novel (35 page)

“You’re sure?” she whispered, when she was certain nobody paid her much attention.

“You told us,” the voice continued, and now she could barely make out a ghostly, humanoid shape among the other shadows, “keep watch as we spread our tales, keep watch for those who would respond to them. Do you doubt us now?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then be warned. They come.”

Damn. She’d hoped to have a few more days. They must have really rushed, to get here so quickly!

“Go,” she told the lurking specter, “and gather the others. Keep watch over him. Warn or protect him where you can, but do not let yourself be detected.”

The specter nodded, vanishing with a faint hiss into the shadows once more. And Liliana herself dived back into the crowd, heading back the way she had come, the words of a spell already skittering like spiders across her lips.

Jace felt a faint cold chill running down his spine, a shudder with no apparent cause. His hackles rose, and he spun swiftly to see nothing unusual at all: Just the press of the crowd, the occasional lizard-drawn cart, the various stalls, the buildings rising up beyond the bazaar’s borders. He saw nothing alarming, and almost attributed the sudden shiver to an errant breeze, but it had felt so much like the necromantic energies Liliana commanded, the touch of her aura. Was she here, somewhere in the crowd? Was it an attack, something with an effect he hadn’t yet sensed? Or …

Just then Jace spotted him at the edge of the crowd. He’d never have noticed him had that strange chill not caressed him, causing him to turn; and he’d never have
paid much attention even then, for the blue-skinned folk were hardly a rarity in Ravnica’s many districts.

But the vedalken stared at him in turn, and Jace needed only to meet his eyes to recognize Sevrien’s intense and unblinking stare.

They found us!

Immediately Jace was fighting his way through the crowd, his burning urgency and rising fear at war with his desire to remain hidden, unnoticed. He saw them everywhere he looked, now, men and women who might be wearing the simple garb of laborers rather than their accustomed chain shirts, but who nonetheless moved with the poise of trained Consortium soldiers. He even recognized a few faces, and why not? He’d dwelt in the same building as these folks for quite some time, even if he’d never bothered to learn most of their names.

From all sides they converged, slow but inexorable, gliding or shoving their way through the crowds. Jace glanced back over his shoulder, saw Sevrien turn and shout orders to someone else Jace couldn’t detect, pointing not in Jace’s direction but off to the side. Was he ordering someone around, to try to intercept him, or …

Liliana. Had they found Liliana?

He was all but running now, as much as the press of the throng would allow. Eldritch syllables dripped from his tongue, and with every few steps he was someone else, illusion after illusion flitting across his body. Now he was an old man, shuffling along, wrapped in rags that had once been beautiful finery; now a loxodon, his tusks and trunk and platter-sized ears protruding from above the heads of the crowd; now a goblin, peering this way and that for a merchant who might be willing to deal with her kind. Sometimes the images came from his imagination alone, other times from individuals he saw or bumped into in the crowd; anything to confuse the many watching eyes. Few in the packed bazaar even
noticed the sudden changes, so intent were they on their own endeavors, and those who did could only blink and stare, uncertain what they’d just seen.

For a time his misdirection kept his pursuers at bay, confused and uncertain where he’d gone, or even who he was. Still there were so many, and they knew well whom they faced. And slowly, oh so slowly, their noose drew tight, as ever more Consortium swords converged on the market’s center.

“Everything ready?” asked Kallist, standing in the doorway of a great warehouse beside a wagon that creaked beneath a dozen heavy crates. Already a series of administrative and paperwork delays had kept the imported textiles out of the market for hours; half the day was already wasted. The boss was not going to be happy if they lost any more time, but Kallist had his procedures, and procedures would not be rushed.

“Not, uh, not entirely, Commander,” reported the guard whose job it was to scout the streets between here and the vendors, to watch for any dangerous activity on the part of their rivals.

“And what does ‘not entirely’ mean?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with us. But something’s going on in the bazaar. A whole lot of people there, Commander, and pretty heavily armed.”

Kallist scowled. Was the cold war between the merchant families about to combust? “Could you tell who they work for? Or at least whose shipments they’re trying to intercept?”

“That’s just it, though. They’re not moving in a single block, and they’re not focusing on any given family or guild. I’ve seen manhunts before, Commander, and I’d swear they’re looking for a person.”

Kallist’s heart sank. It could have been someone else they were after—but who? Who in Lurias was that important?

And in that moment, the past months ceased to matter. All that mattered was that the man who’d been his friend and brother, the man who’d saved his life, was threatened.

“The shipment stays here,” Kallist barked. “And so do you.”

He was off and running, one hand on the pommel of his broadsword, before the guard could even draw breath to question.

So focused was he on maintaining his illusions, Jace never saw her coming.

A living wisp of smoke, the elf Ireena twirled and flowed through the crowd. She spun around flying elbows, ducked beneath arms that reached for various goods, and none of it touched her. Her eyes stung mercilessly, thanks to the powders she’d sprinkled into them, but she refused to blink them clear. Through the alchemical haze, she studied the crowds, watching, waiting for …

There. The powder allowed her to see the faint aura of magic emanating from Jace Beleren as he strove pitifully to hide from them, to follow his movements no matter what pathetic guise he chose. Dancing and spinning like a delighted child, she drew ever nearer to him, and in her hand she cupped another batch of powders, wrapped in a protective leather pouch.

Jace had just worked his way past yet another fishmonger when she appeared, spinning out from behind the stall. With a brilliant white grin that looked somehow hideous in her darkly tanned face, she slapped a handful of bitter particles across his mouth and nose.

But Jace, while stunned by the sudden unexpected attack, was not entirely unprepared. Though he instantly began to cough as the drug worked its way into his lungs, fell choking to the cobblestones and felt the world grow hazy around him, he was able to deflect
a portion of the powder with a fierce telekinetic thrust. His eyes watered as his body screamed for air, but he did not fall nearly as helpless as Ireena had intended.

Even as she stepped in to admire her handiwork, Jace rose to his knees and lashed out. His fist, wrapped in the same telekinetic force that had dispersed some of her powder, slammed into her solar plexus with a terrible strength. Ireena fell to lie beside him with an ear-splitting scream, clutching her gut and writhing like a landed fish. She’d live—probably, if it didn’t take too long for her to get help—but she was certainly no further danger to him.

Jace tried to rise to his feet and failed, falling back against the fishmonger’s stall and then once more to the street as his choking fit continued. His face reddened and he felt himself on the verge of passing out as he struggled desperately to breathe.

The people around him, a few of whom had finally turned his way to see what was wrong, suddenly scattered before the thunder of approaching hoof beats. Jace looked up to see the silhouette of a centaur looming above him. Xalmarias; it had to be Xalmarias, though between the drugs and the angle of the sun he couldn’t see enough to be certain.

Paldor really had sent everyone, hadn’t he?

The centaur reared, a short spear clutched in his right hand, his iron-shod hooves sharpened almost into blades in their own right, and Jace could only choke, trying to clear his lungs of the powder in time to do something, anything to save his life.

Another figure lunged from the crowd, leaping atop the centaur’s back as though he were a wild horse in need of breaking. Xalmarias cried out in indignation as a powerful hand reached out and snagged his spear, trying to yank it from his grip, even as the other buried itself in his hair, wrenching his head back sharply enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“Jace!” Kallist cried out, struggling to keep his seat as the centaur bucked and thrashed, “Go! Run!”

Staggering to his feet, the coughing fit finally beginning to subside, Jace did just that. He hurled himself once more into the crowd, which was now backing fearfully away from the struggle in their midst, trying to lose himself within.

As he pushed and elbowed his way through, Jace carefully cast out with his mind. Remembering every detail of Tezzeret’s lessons, he touched first one, then another, spreading himself as wide and as thin as he ever had. He couldn’t read a single true thought this way, but then, he didn’t need to. Most of the crowd felt little save boredom, maybe casual excitement or—near where Kallist and Xalmarias fought—a growing fear. Jace hoped, prayed, that even his casual touch would alert him to another killer in the crowd, that the sudden bloodlust of a coming attack would warn him before a Consortium blade took him in the back.

And then the emotions around him turned to panic as a dozen people screamed, their eyes turning skyward. Jace immediately dived to the ground in a roll made awkward by his lingering shortness of breath, coming to a stop beneath a cheap vegetable stand. Only then did he look up, and he wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to keep rolling.

It flapped through the air above him, awkward but frighteningly swift. It had somehow sprouted wings that it had lacked the last time Jace saw it, that horrible night in his room, but he recognized the old man’s cackling face, the scorpion-like stinger that quivered, eager to strike, above its back.

Coming to his feet, he allowed himself to be carried along by the press of the panicking throng. That he could summon something to tear the little horror from the sky, Jace had no doubt, but it did him no good if he couldn’t find its summoner—Gemreth,
almost certainly, unless Paldor had called in one of the Consortium planeswalkers.

Straining to maintain his mental “net” over the crowd, ever alert for a secondary attack, Jace cast his sight up and out, trusting the press of the throng to keep him moving while his senses hovered elsewhere. From above, he peered about him in all directions, seeking the dark robes and grey-speckled beard …

There! Roughly a hundred feet across the market, Jace spotted his foe, crouched atop a merchant’s wagon. Allowing his eyesight to return to his head, still moving with a portion of the crowd, he worked his way forward. As he advanced, he glanced over his shoulder, desperate to keep track of the minuscule fiend as well.