The Moons of Mirrodin (2 page)

Memnarch stood in the guard house and watched Karn and Jeska leave. It was a strange phenomenon. One moment they were there and the next moment they were gone. It was as if the world had folded over and passed them by in an instant. In that instant, Memnarch was alone. A metal man alone in a metal world, a cold and sterile world.

Memnarch looked around at Argentum, Karn’s world. It was beautiful. It was perfect, like an equation that had been solved to the very last decimal place. But the mathematician had moved on to a new problem, leaving Memnarch to tend the theorems and keep all the formulas in place.

“Now I am the Warden,” said Memnarch as he walked from the guardhouse and surveyed the palace grounds. “Let’s see what this world has to offer.”

The metal man was awed by the size and intricacy of the palace. Each wall, each window, each buttress was but a single facet in a convoluted pattern or complex equation. Minarets extended at impossible angles, walls curved around one another, connecting top to bottom, and many of the buttresses indeed seemed to be flying. Silver walls and translucent windows met in a space that seemed to extend to infinity. It was a marvel of complicated algorithms and fractal mathematics, a wonder to behold.

The new Warden felt he could spend a thousand lifetimes delving into the secrets of his master’s world and the incredible castle Karn had constructed. He stood on the grounds contemplating the fractal facets of the walls, the impossible curves of the arches, and the elegance of the extra-planar geometry Karn had mastered as a planeswalker. But time had no real meaning to Memnarch. He was an artificial being on an artificial plane with no frame of reference for the linear passage of time. Argentum had no suns or moons, no rotation through space to give the metal man any sensation of time’s movement. An outside observer might have thought the Warden was a statue on the grounds of the fabulous castle.

After a time—a decade by some standards of timekeeping—Memnarch turned to look at the grounds around the base of Galdroon palace. Galdroon. That’s what Karn had named the castle, just as he had named the world Argentum. Karn was gone now. Memnarch could name the world and its places himself if he wished, but would that be too presumptuous? Too arrogant? Karn was a planeswalker, a god by most definitions of the word. What right did Memnarch have to take on the role of god on Karn’s world?

Yet, as he walked through the grounds, Memnarch began to realize that even Karn was not a perfect being. His gardens were less impressive than the castle—stale and sterile. Each silvery tree, bush, and flower was arranged in mathematical precision. Each leaf on every tree was unique, but as Memnarch studied them he began to understand the mathematics behind their construction. The total variations limited the number of each tree, shrub, and flower to no more than eight of any single type. Karn’s mathematics could not create nature, only give the illusion of reality in his world. Memnarch longed for more.

He left the grounds and venture out into the world around the castle. The stonelike metal and silver vegetation of the palace grounds gave way to a monochrome land of perfect angles and fractal complexity. The palace sat upon a great silver mesa, and Memnarch could
see canyon walls stretching to the horizon. At first glance, Karn’s world looked natural, but up close Memnarch could see the silvery surfaces of the all-too-perfect rock formations.

Plateaus jutted up from the canyon floor at seemingly random locations, but Memnarch detected the subtle constant that permeated the random plateau generator. After a time—a few years, as time is measured among humans—he found it easy enough to map the entire canyon by viewing this one small section. Memnarch contemplated following the lazy, quicksilver river that meandered in a complex wave through the center of the canyon. The journey could verify his map, but that trip would be pointless. His calculations were correct. He knew this even without the proof.

As his eyes wandered over the canyon, Memnarch noticed rain falling near the horizon. He looked up. There were no clouds in the sky. For that matter, no sun provided light on this world. This information had, of course, been inside Memnarch from his beginning, but he noticed it now as if seeing it for the first time. The stars above provided all of the illumination necessary, for their light was reflected from the thousands of mirrored surfaces across Karn’s world. But if there were no clouds, how did it rain? The rain seemed to be coming from the stars themselves.

Memnarch studied the stars as he had studied the castle and the canyon. He stared at them and meditated on their creation. Another decade passed as Memnarch puzzled through the data imparted to him by Karn and reconciled it with observed physical details. This time, he had precious little information. The stars were not randomly dispersed through the heavens according to a formula. They were random, as were their movements. The stars did not revolve around the world. One year’s observation proved that. They moved haphazardly as if under their own power. The effect was subtle, and Memnarch noticed only because of the intellect Karn had imparted to him.

Memnarch was sure of one thing as he stood, mesmerized by the subtle dance of the stars through Argentum’s sky: These pinpoints of light were not created by Karn. They were living creatures the like of which Memnarch had never seen on Dominaria.

“Where did Karn find you?” he asked the sky.

Memnarch still had the memories of all that he had seen of Dominaria in his previous life. He had not thought of that life since Karn had re-created him as the Warden of Argentum. Finding living creatures on this sterile, mathematically perfect world had brought back a flood of images. Memnarch had once been a mirrored ball, a perfect sphere, the most basic geometric shape and thus the most stable—or so Karn had thought. Memnarch had been Karn’s eyes and ears on Dominaria.

A century after an invasion was turned back from that world—the invasion that turned Karn into a planeswalker—the silver golem had sent a probe there. A probe called the Mirari.

That had been Memnarch’s first life.

Spherical or not, the Mirari had been flawed. Power leaked out, infecting those around it with delusions of grandeur. Much strife and death had resulted from the Mirari’s influence on the people of Otaria, where the Mirari had landed. Memnarch let those memories flow through his mind and felt grief. He was no longer the cause of that trouble. He was a different being now. No longer just a probe, he had free will, given him by Karn so he might better handle the power of this body. Nevertheless, an uneasy feeling stirred in Memnarch that he was responsible for the chaos brought about by his presence on Dominaria.

As he stood there, watching the subtle, chaotic movement of the star-creatures, Memnarch couldn’t help but think that the rest of Karn’s well-ordered world could be improved upon with the addition of just a little more chaos. “Karn was wrong to omit Dominaria’s influence in the creation of this world,” he observed as he returned to the palace grounds.

Yes, there had been death and destruction on Dominaria. Perhaps Karn was right to turn his eyes from that world, but Dominaria held many wonders as well. Memnarch recalled lush green forests. He had visited multi-hued coral cities beneath the waves and rust-colored mountains topped with snow that threatened to overtake an azure sky. He had traveled across vast plains of grasses and grains that stretched from horizon to horizon. And he had seen people of bronze and black, blue and tan. As the Mirari, he had chronicled creatures of every shape and hue. That world had been alive and colorful.

Certainly, he thought, the people of Otaria were ultimately responsible for the destruction and wars I inspired as the Mirari, but people also create life, and that is what is missing from Argentum. Without life, this world is a dead place—a beautiful, dead world.

Would it be so dangerous to bring some of that world here? Would not the mathematical perfection of Karn’s new world be enhanced by the introduction of the best elements of his old world? Memnarch couldn’t help thinking that this stale and monochrome world needed a splash of color, a small infusion of life, just a little uncertainty to take the hard edge off its fractal facade.

“There are so many other worlds that Karn’s probes explored,” said Memnarch as he reached the doors to the palace. “Why stop at emulating their features? I have the entire multiverse at my disposal. All of Karn’s research and data is stored within these walls. He brought the star-creatures here from somewhere. Perhaps
I
can learn how to send probes out and bring other creatures here as well. I can re-make this world into a living, breathing, vibrant world.”

As Memnarch was about to push open the door to the palace, he noticed a black smudge inside the guardhouse. “What could that be?” asked the metal man. “An imperfection in the perfect world? We can’t allow that.”

Memnarch entered the guardhouse and bent down to wipe up the oily spot. The slick liquid transferred easily onto his silver finger. He then spread the oil around between finger and thumb until it disappeared. There,” said the Warden. “Now, to work. It is time I put my mark on Argentum.”

A sudden thought flashed through Memnarch’s mind. “Argentum is a terrible name for this land,” he said to himself. He had no idea where the thought had originated, for it spread quickly through his entire matrix, but it seemed so right that he couldn’t deny it. Another idea germinated inside him.

“I shall name this world after myself,” he exclaimed, “after my previous life as well as my new life. I shall name it Mirrodin.”

Memnarch began to hum as he entered the castle.

*   *   *   *   *

The oil had already insinuated itself into the Warden’s psyche, but there was time enough later to exert control. For now, it must divide and grow. Divide and grow. That was the first rule of any organism, especially one that had been created as a weapon. For what seemed an eternity, the oil had lain dormant, waiting to be unleashed upon a new world. The war for which it had been created had long since passed, but when a pair of travelers came, it awoke again and followed them to this new, this pristine, world.

Divide and grow. Divide and grow. That was the first rule. Divide and grow until the oil infused the entire world. There was time enough for contamination and control later. For now, it must simply divide and grow.

THE TANGLE

Glissa halted and raised her hand to stop Kane behind her. The two elves crouched at the edge of the terrace and scanned the verdigris foliage for signs of the vorrac. Glissa ran her metallic claws though her hair to push the long, black strands behind the points of her ears. They had been tracking the beast through the Tangle all morning, and from the heavy breathing coming from behind her, Glissa knew that Kane was beginning to tire of the hunt.

“It’s tiring, too, my friend,” she said in a whisper as she bent over the jagged edge of the terrace. Careful not to scrape metal on metal as she leaned on her forearms, Glissa peered over the edge. The dull green outcropping below was jagged and uneven, jutting out from the metallic trunk in a wide, semicircular landing. Narrow spires arced out here and there at odd angles from the edges.

It was a typical Tangle tree terrace, with one exception: It was a dead end. The beast could not have gone far. Glissa had carefully herded it here because its only escape was down a hundred-foot drop.

Glissa spied the vorrac right where she knew it would be. The beast pawed at the metal near a fold in the trunk of the great tree. Wisps of steam rose from its snout into the chill air as it snorted and sniffed. Its red eyes pierced the steam, darting back forth, looking for some way off the terrace.

Glissa knew there was no way off. The squat beast’s legs were too short to jump back up to the level where she and Kane crouched, and even the beast’s hard tusks and horns couldn’t punch a hole through a Tangle tree.

The vorrac backed away from the hollow, snorted again, then scraped its hooves against the metallic terrace as it raced headlong toward the tree. When it neared the trunk, the beast tossed its head down and pushed off with its back legs to slam its side into the tree. The short horns above its legs skidded off the metal while one curving horn high on its side caught in the fold and broke off. For a moment, the beast lay dazed from the impact.

“Now’s our chance,” hissed Glissa as she pulled the dagger from its sheath on her thigh. Without waiting for a reply, she jumped down to the lower terrace, rolled forward to minimize the impact, and came up running toward the beast. She saw its red eyes narrow and sped up.

The vorrac pushed off the trunk of the great tree and came right at Glissa, snorting as it ran. She had only a moment to think. She slowed slightly and watched the beast. As soon as the vorrac dropped its head, Glissa dived over it, just missing the horns growing from the beast’s spine when it pushed off and twisted its body around to slam into her.

Glissa rolled again and slashed her dagger up over her head as she landed on her back. The strike tore into the vorrac’s exposed flank. A great gout of blood told Glissa she’d hit the heart. Glissa rolled over on her stomach and tried to push the dagger in farther, but the beast pulled away and lumbered toward the edge of the terrace, trailing blood behind it.