Gatecrash: The Secretist, Part Two (11 page)

The projection of Niv-Mizzet swept his great head across the battlefield as most of the Selesnya faithful, Rakdos rioters, and other guilds paused their fighting, but a few of the fighters persisted. The great dragon breathed a sheet of fire that swept through the air above the battle. Though it was only a projection of fire, unable to ignite the buildings it touched, it crackled and roared like real fire. It had the desired effect. The battle stopped.

“Citizens of Ravnica,” the dragon boomed, as loud as if it had been in person. “I have an invitation for you. One I implore you to consider.”

Jace tilted his head. He heard an echo of the dragon’s words as he spoke them. He wondered how many Izzet mages were projecting this message around the city, and how many audiences were being terrified by Niv-Mizzets.

Silence draped the scene for a few more heartbeats, until a Rakdos warrior, twitching with bloodlust, screamed and ran her trident through a nearby Selesnya elf. The elf grunted in surprise, coughed blood, and slumped to the ground.

Other Rakdos warriors began to agitate again, raising their weapons to fight. From his rooftop, the Izzet mage pointed at the offending Rakdos warrior, and a bolt of blue lightning sizzled from the high ledge down across the battlefield. The warrior took the bolt full in the chest. She fell over dead next to her victim. The other Rakdos rioters stopped again.

“This great city of ours hides a deep secret,” the
image of Niv-Mizzet went on. “My Izzet mages have discovered an ancient maze that runs throughout the district, whose purpose and power we have only now come to understand. It is an Implicit Maze, winding through and constructed of the very streets and tunnels of the district, and its path is unknown.”

Jace could hardly believe what he was hearing. The secret he had studied, that the Izzet had taken on as their covert project, that he had purged from his memory and laboriously recovered again—it was being broadcast to everyone, in public, by the Izzet guildmaster. But Jace noticed that Niv-Mizzet was carefully leaving out important details, such as the specific route to follow to solve the maze. Jace couldn’t fathom why the dragon would invite all the other guilds to undertake the same project that he and the Izzet had studied for so long.

“But we know that at its end lies great power,” said the dragon, “and that in order for it to be solved, all the guilds must participate at once.”

Murmuring swept through the crowd. The Niv-Mizzet-image spread his wings from his hovering perch, which directed their attention back to him.

“Each guild will send one champion as its delegate in the running of the maze. At the appointed time, our champions will meet at the Transguild Promenade, and embark on a race through the twists and turns of the maze. We shall see who triumphs, who gains the power behind it for their guild, and who falls to its dangers. Until then, I bid you prepare.”

The image of the dragon swept his great head around the battlefield, and Jace wondered whether the real Niv-Mizzet, back in his own aerie, was actually seeing everything that this and other images saw, or whether the dragon was practicing a kind of fearsome,
illusionary pantomime. The illusion-dragon spread his wings and took off again, creating the noise of a savage whirlwind, but without actually disturbing the air, and then the illusion shimmered into nothing.

Jace noticed that the Izzet mage who had cast the lightning spell looked directly at him for a moment before moving back from the ledge and disappearing.

With the dragon’s speech concluded, Exava turned back to Jace with a warped smile. “Well, that was quite interesting,” she began.

There was a thud as someone clubbed her across the head from behind. As she collapsed, Jace saw it was Captain Calomir.

“Greetings, Beleren,” he said.

Mages in midnight blue emerged out of nowhere, appearing behind the Rakdos ruffians and efficiently inserting long daggers into the base of the ruffians’ necks. The Rakdos cultists fell dead, and the newly-appearing mages took hold of Jace’s bound arms in turn. A blindfold came down over his face and was fastened behind his head.

“Calomir, wait,” he said.

“Let’s go somewhere where we can talk privately, shall we?” said Calomir, close to Jace’s ear. “Move.”

There was a shove at his back, and he walked. Somehow they walked down stairs that had not been there before, and somehow, within moments, he was being led through the cool, echoing dank of the undercity.

“Jace?”

“I’m here
,
”
he thought to Emmara.
“Don’t worry. I’m coming for you.”

UNMASKING

They walked Jace for what must have been several city blocks, down sloping tunnels and over creaking wooden footbridges. He could see nothing through the blackness of the blindfold, but he tried to keep his wits about him. For a while he tried to memorize the route they took, so if he escaped he could retrace his steps. But his Dimir captors led him in spirals, pushing him through shifting walls and over echoing watercourses, over unidentifiable surfaces designed to confuse the senses.

Finally they sat him on a wooden stool. When the blindfold was removed, Calomir stood before him in a misty undercity chamber, incongruous in the bright green and white of his Selesnya soldier’s dress.

Jace checked that the mage-assassins were still behind him. They were, no doubt with a bevy of spells ready to destroy Jace if he made a move. He looked back at Calomir. “What are you?”

“It is time we met formally,” said the elf. “I am Lazav.”

What had been the figure of Calomir melted,
dripping away like a sped-up wax candle, and then reformed again into a new shape. This new man wore a hooded cloak, like Jace’s, except it was worn and threadbare with age. Jace could only see the bottom half of the man’s face. His skin was as worn as his cloak, wrinkled and thin.

Jace didn’t know if he should know the name Lazav. He had the feeling few did.

“The dragon’s little announcement is unfortunate,” said the man Lazav. “We’ll have a bit more competition now. But we’ll have to adapt, won’t we?” The man’s voice was hollow, and yet full of menace. It was too close, too knowing, too possessed of a stillness that signified confidence in his own power. “But the fact that they’ve opened up the maze to all the guilds also means that the Izzet haven’t been able to solve it by themselves yet.”

Jace’s brain flew, putting together the pieces. “You’re Dimir,” he said. “A shapeshifter of some kind, with enough mind magic to keep me from spying.”

“Correct.”

“You sent the vampire.”

“And I had to put him away for a long time, because he failed to take from you what I wanted. But you’ve done well, haven’t you? You’ve recovered that which you lost.”

Lazav took a half-step toward Jace. His presence was stifling. Though the man was no larger than Jace, Jace felt a wall of pressure emanating from him, pushing into him, tipping him back on the stool.

Jace wasted no more time. He threw his psychic senses at Lazav’s mind. But Jace found no ingress. Lazav’s mind remained unreachable as when he had been Calomir, locked away from him, impenetrable.

“You’re Calomir,” said Jace.

“Oh, you’re just putting that together?” A grin spread across Lazav’s cracked lips. “To be entirely precise, poor Calomir’s been dead for some months now. He was a good soldier to the Conclave, and a wise advisor. I am merely his replacement.” He bowed theatrically. “Not a worthy one, I’m afraid. But the Selesnya, especially the lovely Emmara, seem to have accepted the performance.”

“You’ve been advising Trostani. Goading the Conclave into attacking the Rakdos. You had them declare war on another guild as retribution—for a kidnapping
you
engineered.”

Lazav shrugged. “I appreciate the recognition of my work, but of course that’s only part of it. To the Orzhov I’m a wealthy pontiff with the ear of the Grand Envoy of the Syndicate. To the Golgari, an advisor in Jarad’s inner circle. The Boros know me as a scout on a griffin, who always happens to deliver alarming news of the other guilds. And her irascible commanding officers always listen.”

“So you spread misinformation to the guilds.”

“The districts run on information. Secrets are the lifeblood of the world. I provide a valuable service to those in need.”

“You traffic in lies.”

“It gives you comfort to believe that, I know. But I am hardly to blame. I may spread information selectively, but people hear what they wish to hear. If my message finds a place in one’s heart, then it’s the heart that’s false, not the message.” Lazav spread out his hands, encompassing the chamber, the sleeves of his cloak hanging heavy from his arms. The mortar of the ancient bricks in the wall behind him traced a network of lines, twisting and spreading up into the ceiling, up toward the surface of Ravnica.

“I see it now,” Jace said. “It’s all for the maze. Infiltrating the Selesnya. Setting up the Rakdos. Warmongering to spark a guild war. It’s all cover for your plan to take what’s behind the Implicit Maze.”

Lazav’s grin flashed a remnant of yellowish teeth, a sight that Jace wished he hadn’t seen. “The maze is merely a means to my ends. It’s a delightful diversion for the guilds, while I grind away at the foundations of society under them. When I hold all the pieces, nothing will remain—no Guildpact, no peace, no law. No guilds! And therefore no competition for my ultimate command of all life and thought. It is simple, you see? I am a being of quite simple tastes. I only desire the annihilation of everything that is not under my power.” Lazav tapped a finger on Jace’s forehead. “Can you grasp that, mind mage?”

“I’ll kill you,” said Jace.

“Ah, then you
do
grasp it. Good. That means it’s time for you, finally, to divulge all you know about the maze.”

“I’ll tell you nothing.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find you have little choice in the matter. There’s someone waiting just below us who’ll be very anxious to redeem himself.”

Jace looked at his feet. There was nothing but solid stone floor beneath them.

Lazav’s form trembled, liquefied, and rearranged itself. He took on the persona of the Selesnya elf Calomir again. But Lazav’s grin remained on the elf’s face.

“And if you still don’t cooperate, well,” he said, now with Calomir’s elvish voice, “I’ll just have to apply more pressure. Perhaps I’ll have a conversation with a mutual acquaintance.”

“You’ll leave Emmara out of this.”

Lazav, in the guise of Calomir, nodded to the Dimir mages who stood behind Jace. They dragged him to his feet, then flipped him over and shoved him face-first onto the floor, pressing his chest down onto the stone. Their hands pressed on his back, and somehow they pushed him through the stone, his body falling through solidity, merging and slipping down through layers of earth like a ghost. Then he fell into air again, and collapsed onto a cold, hard floor. All was dark and quiet.

“Jace
,
”
said Emmara’s voice in his mind.

Jace struggled to turn over. His body complained, but he maintained the mental connection with Emmara.

“I’m here.”

“I need you to come to me now. I’m at the Conclave. They’ve imprisoned me. Please come.”

“I’m sorry,”
he thought to her.
“I can’t be there just now. Just keep listening to my voice. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I must tell you that Calomir—the actual Calomir—is gone.”

“What?”

“The man we’ve seen is an impostor. A shapeshifter set on infiltrating the Selesnya. Calomir is dead. I’m very sorry.”

Silence. Emmara’s thoughts did not form words that Jace could hear.

“So if you see someone posing as Calomir,”
Jace went on,
“stay away from him, if you can. If you can’t, do whatever you have to do to stay safe. Stall him. Don’t let on that you know his secret. I’ll be there soon.”

Another silence. When he again heard her thoughts, there was a certain strained vibration to them, like an earthquake held to a slight tremor by sheer will.
“This is true, isn’t it.”

“I’m afraid so. Emmara, I’m so sorry.”

“All right. I understand.”

There was another pause. Jace sat there in the darkness, waiting.

“Jace?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t lose contact with me.”

“I’ll be right here.”

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

The blackness around him was so complete that it felt useless having eyes at all. He smelled chilly, dank stone, and dust. He reached up and put his hand to the ceiling he had melded through, and touched the wall next to him. Both were solid, cold, and slightly rough, like cut granite. His breathing quickened. He may have been blindfolded during his journey down here, but he knew he was deep, far from sunlight—perhaps even far from a source of air.

He heard something move in the darkness, a shuffling against stone—something nearby.