Agents of Artifice

PROLOGUE

Through a place that wasn't, where time held no meaning, the figure walked.

Winds blew, and they were not winds. Without source, without direction, they tossed the outsider's hair one way, clothes another. They were the hot gusts of an arid desert, the frigid breath of the whirling blizzard. They bore the perfume of growing things, the rancid tang of death, and scents unknown to any sane world.

The ground rolled, and it was not ground. Shifting grays and black-not a color so much as a lack of color-formed a surface scarcely less treacherous than quicksand. Through it, deep beneath it, high above it in what could hardly be called a sky, snaked rivers of fire, of lightning, of liquid earth and jagged water, of raw mana. Colors unseen by human eyes flew overhead, refusing to congeal, soaring on wings of forgotten truths, borne aloft by stray gusts. Mountains of once and future worlds wept tears of sorrow for realities that never were, unchosen futures that no other would ever mourn.

Chaos. Impossibility. Insanity.

The Blind Eternities.

Far behind, and falling ever farther, a curtain of viscous light separated the maddening expanse of raw creation from one of the many worlds of the near-in finite Multiverse that existed within. There was nothing special about this world, at least not when viewed from without, save that this was whence the figure had come, and where it must soon return.

The figure. Here, in this realm beyond worlds, that was all it was. Was she male? Was he female? Short or tall? Human or elf or goblin, angel or demon or djinn? All and none, perhaps, and none of it of any import. Any normal mortal would already have been lost, body and mind and soul torn apart and absorbed into the twisting maelstrom of what was, is, and could be.

Not this one. Anchored by a spark of the Blind Eternities itself that burned within the figure's soul, a planeswalker strode through the tide, and the maddened chaos between worlds was just another obstacle on a road that few would ever walk.

Danger and distaste aside, the figure persevered, continuing ever onward for who knew how long. Finally, when perhaps a whole heartbeat and perhaps a mere century had passed, another curtain of light loomed from the roiling instability. The traveler passed through and was born into a new reality, standing once more on the solid ground of a real world.

It had no name, this world, for it had long since died. No winds blew, the stale and nigh-poisonous air sitting heavy on the earth. No trees or mountains broke the featureless contours, and nothing but a fine dust coated the world's skin. Long dead, lifeless, desolate…

Private.

And there the planeswalker stood, and waited, and paced, and waited longer still, until the Other finally appeared.

The figure's first thought was not relief that the wait was over. That would come shortly. No, that first thought was, instead, Next time, I choose the meeting place!

That would not, of course, be the most political thing to say. So the figure bowed, deeply enough to show respect, shallow enough to say I do not fear you. "Have you decided?"

The Other gazed unblinking for long moments. "I have. Perhaps a better question would be, 'Are you still certain?"'

The walker shrugged, a strangely mundane gesture in so peculiar a discussion. "I've put too much time into this, and I've too much riding on it to back out now. You know that."

"This is a complex scheme you bring me. Convoluted; labyrinthine, even. A great many things must go precisely right if you're to deliver me what's mine.

Another shrug. "My bargain comes due before too much longer. It's not as though I've much left to lose."

"There is that, yes," the Other conceded.

"And this way, I'm protected. If I were to go after it myself, and I were discovered-"

"Yes, yes. So you've explained.

The walker lapsed into silence, a silence that stretched horribly across the entire world.

Then, "You know what must happen now?" the Other asked. "To ensure the mind-speaker cannot just pull the truth from you?"

One deep breath, a second, and a third, to calm a suddenly racing heart. "I do."

"Then do not move."

And then there was only the scream, breathless, endless, a scream that would have drowned even the roaring of the Blind Eternities… as the Other stretched forth inhuman fingers, reached into the planeswalker's mind and soul, and began, oh so carefully, to fold.