Mercadian Masques

Chapter 20

Darkness gripped the deck of Weatherlight. Squee awoke, soaking wet and tied hand and foot to a chair. He turned and twisted, trying to free himself. Water splashed coldly over him, drawing a cry of protest from his throat. "Is not that enough? Is he not awake once more?" Unfamiliar voices. Squee struggled again. Shapes moved before him in the murk and slowly took form and substance. Two Kyren were standing there, both in rich robes. To one side was a Mercadian, tall and slender, his simple robes indicating his servile status. The Mercadian held an empty bowl, which he had evidently just emptied over Squee. The dark cave ceiling hovered far above.

Squee struggled against the ropes. He gave a piteous yelp as they scraped his flesh. His chest and head ached. Tiny shapes swam before his eyes.

The Kyren paid no attention to him.

"Will not his companions miss him if he is gone?"

"Is it not possible, though, that they sent him away on purpose, knowing his nature to be superior to their own?"

"May your words not be truthful, but even so, is it not equally possible that he was sent by his party to spy upon us and to bring word of this to those who must not know?"

"Should we not question him to learn the truth of this matter?"

Both Kyren nodded solemnly and turned to Squee.

"Do your companions know of your whereabouts?" asked one, whose slightly larger size and more authoritative demeanor made Squee think of him as the leader.

The little goblin shook his head. The larger Kyren took Squee's chin in his long, slender fingers and twisted it back and forth. Squee gave a loud yelp and bit the hand. The Kyren jerked back, slapping the prisoner soundly across the mouth. Squee wailed and felt blood running down his chin.

The other Kyren stepped forward. "Are not we your friends, Squee?" he asked. His voice was gentle, and he patted the cabin boy's shoulder. "Are we not of one people? Are we not all klomahamin?"

Squee nodded without speaking.

The other, larger Kyren, who had been nursing his hand, suddenly grabbed the bowl from the Mercadian and with a shout brought it down on Squee's bony knee. The bowl shattered.

Squee felt something pop in his leg. A wave of agony shot through him, and he screamed until his throat felt raw.

Both Kyren stood watching him impassively. When he'd shouted himself hoarse, Squee slumped in the chair, and the smaller of the two Kyren stepped forward again.

"Again I ask, do your companions know of your whereabouts?" he asked calmly.

Again Squee shook his head.

"Do you know where Gerrard and his companions have gone?"

Another headshake.

"Do you know when they will return?"

Squee tried to shake his head a third time, but the pain in his leg was so great that he found himself falling into the comfortable, dark shadow world. His eyes rolled back in his head. His body sagged against the ropes that bound him to the chair. He felt the room falling away. At the same time, as from a great distance, he heard the conversation in the room.

"Must we not revive him and continue?"

"Have we not received answers?"

"Is he not lying? Does he not know where his friends have gone? Do we not have a clear obligation to continue until we are satisfied he truly knows nothing?"

From farther away, Squee heard another voice break in. The voice was tantalizingly familiar. "He knows nothing."

"Is one completely sure?" The Kyren's reply was deferential.

"I am sure."

"Shall we release him, then?"

"No. Keep him here. Question him again. Above all, he must not be allowed to communicate with his companions."

"Is it not easier to kill him?"

Squee struggled to remain conscious. Amid the pain, he felt a new pressure in the air, as if some being, vast beyond his conception, was bearing down on him, pulling at his mind, seeking to dominate it, to tear it apart. The presence was strong, growing stronger.

"No. I do not wish him killed. He will provide useful leverage against his comrades, and when this is over, it may amuse me to have him serve me."

A hand touched Squee's forehead, and he suddenly saw a great hallway filled with gleaming mirrors. He turned this way and that, and each of the mirrors he saw reflected a small, frightened face-his own. Slowly, he walked down the endless hallway. Each image of himself became subtly different. As he progressed, the images grew leaner, the skin tighter. With each reluctant step, Squee felt his body contract and contort.

He was starving. He was alone. He would never again see his friends. He would never again taste food. The goblin knew with certainty that in all the multiverse, in all the countless planes and worlds, there was no one but him. Through space and time, there was no one but him.

No one.

He cried out in despair. His scream, high and plaintive, echoed down the mirror corridors and found no listener. Try as he might, Squee could see nothing but his own endlessly repeated image.

Kneeling, he wept, his tears puddling on the floor. They congealed into sparkling ice and spread out on either side of him, forming a gleaming pool rimed with frost. Within the ice, Squee saw his own frozen shadow, trapped forever in sorrow. He knew with a horrible certainty that he would never escape, that he was imprisoned for eternity.

With a kind of relief, he felt his mind slip away. He heard the goblins ask the same questions as before, but this time he did not hear his answers. The dream world faded, and the tiny flame that was his mind flickered with one final thought before it went out.

Volrath…

Hanna and Karn waited nervously in their latest hideout in the lower city. It was a deep cellar hewn from rock, small and solid and dark. A single candle burned by the stairs- the last of the candles. It cast the cellar in a dingy light. The place was better suited for potatoes than people, which made it perfect for Karn. He had a tendency to break through the floors and walls of rundown shacks, and no disguise allowed him to move safely about the daytime streets. At night, he made his way by wrapping sackcloth over his silver skin and pretending to be a runty giant. Hanna was almost as conspicuous-slim, blonde, and clean. Only in the company of Squee could Karn and Hanna safely navigate the nighttime streets, and Squee had been missing now for days.

Sitting beside a bushel basket of carrots-her main sustenance since Squee's disappearance-Hanna shook her head. "He's been captured, Karn. That's the only explanation."

"I fear as much," the silver golem replied from the dark corner where he crouched, donning sackcloth. "It should be night by now. We'd better brave the streets and rendezvous with the Ramosans. They might have word of Squee."

"Do we dare risk it? We don't want to lead the Mercadians to the rebels."

Karn shrugged. "We haven't much choice. We're out of water-"

"Shhh," Hanna hissed. She glared toward the dark stairway that led above. Metal shifted, and a latch furtively drew back. "Someone's coming." She drew away from the bushel basket of carrots and moved toward Karn.

Hinges complained as the shabby doors above lifted away. A foot quietly settled on the top stair. Grit crackled beneath that furtive tread. A few more steps, and the doors swung closed above.

Hanna whispered to Karn. "I don't imagine you're ready for a fight?"

Silver flesh shuddered beneath half-donned cloths. "I've learned to bluff."

Down the dark wedge of stairway stalked a slim, muscular figure-as lithe and brutal as a bullwhip. The shadow reached the last stair and ducked into the cellar. Even in the murk, the fiery shock of red hair was unmistakable.

"Takara!" Hanna blurted, clutching her panting chest. "You scared the daylights out of us."

"There you are," Takara said, striding into the room. She bore a bag in one hand. "What are you doing hiding in the dark-and under those… rags?"

"We didn't know who you were," Hanna responded, emerging from the corner.

Karn drew the sackcloth from his shoulders. "How did you find us?"

"Squee told me where you were," Takara said levelly. "He's been living it up in the Magistrate's Tower."

Hissing, Hanna said, "And I thought he'd been reformed."

"I was sure he'd been reformed," Karn said suspiciously.

"I've come to take you out of here." Takara upended her bag. Its contents emptied atop a bulging grain sack. Out tumbled five stones, the size and general shape of hands laid out flat. They glowed brightly, red and white, green and blueone even cast a purple-black tone over everything around. The candle's light was tepid murk beside the stones' collective gleam.

"The Bones of Ramos!" Hanna knelt down beside the grain sack. Her hands trembled above the stones, shaking with awe and excitement and hope. "They're beautiful."

Karn loomed up behind her, staring down at the glimmering crystals. "More than that. There is an intelligence in these stones."

"That's Ramos himself. He has infused the crystals with power," Takara said.

Hanna gingerly lifted the Heart of Ramos. "I can feel it-a warm vitality." She looked up at Karn and Takara, her eyes full of wonder. "Now, we need only find Weatherlight, insert the stones, and get everyone aboard-"

"That's the sad news…" Takara interrupted. "We can't gather everyone."

Karn's jaw dropped slowly open.

A cloud of worry passed over Hanna's face. She lowered the Heart of Ramos among the other gleaming stones. They cast inverted shadows under her eyes. She stammered, "Wh-what are you s-s- Where is everybody else? Wh-where is Gerrard?"

"Dead," Takara said. She stared unblinkingly down at Weatherlight's navigator. "They gave their lives for these stones."

"Dead?" Hanna echoed unbelievingly. "Ghouls attacked us." A faraway look came to Takara's eyes. "Deepwood ghouls. Tahngarth fought five of them himself. They surrounded him. He hacked off their limbs, but it wasn't enough. They sank their claws into him. They ripped open his stomach and ate his guts. He fought on. They clawed out his eyes. They split open his head. They ate his brains." Takara trembled violently and dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands.

"No," Hanna gasped out in horror. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Killed by ghouls…"

Takara sobbed into her hands. "That was just Tahngarth.

Sisay was… Sisay was… It's too horrible to say…"

"What?" Karn asked mournfully. "What happened to Sisay?"

"A wumpus attacked her," Takara said, shaking her mantle of gleaming hair. "A hulking beast, all hair and claws. It leaped down on her from the treetops. It crushed her body.

She split open like a burst sausage. And then the wumpus plucked her head loose as though it were simply a grape. It bit her face in half and…" The horrific account ended with more wracking sobs.

Through tears, Hanna said, "What about Gerrard? What happened to Gerrard?"

Takara's voice was muffled by her hands. "That was the worst of all."

"Tell me!" Hanna cried desperately. "I have to know."

"He and I were the only ones who had survived the ghouls and the wumpuses. We reached Ouramos. We were gathering the stones from the altar where they lay. Ramos appeared."

"Ramos!" Hanna echoed.

"He was a huge dragon engine, a hundred feet tall, with rending talons and fiery breath."

"Gerrard was burned alive!" Hanna said miserably.

"Worse."

"He was ripped to pieces…"

"No," Takara said, choking on her tears. "He died of fear."

"What?"

"As soon as the dragon engine appeared, Gerrard fell down dead. He died of fear."

"He died of fear?"

"Yes." Takara shook with weeping. "Of course, he soiled himself first." She lifted her head. In the weird light of the Bones of Ramos, Takara seemed to be laughing instead of sobbing. Her face seemed a hateful, leering mask. She drew a deep, raking breath, and then sobs transformed into gales of mocking mirth.

Hanna shook her head, tears streaming down. "What is it? What are you saying?"

"Gerrard soiled himself and died!" Takara shouted exultantly.

A vast silver hand struck her face, and the red-haired woman spun away. She was thrown like a rag doll into the comer.

"Vicious monster!" Karn growled, looming before the woman. "Hateful, vicious monster!"

Takara rose, blood replacing laughter on her lips. Fearlessly, she stared at the silver golem and growled, "Strike me again, Karn. Strike me again!"

Shivering in fury, Karn backed away. He hissed. "I want to, but I will not. If I struck you again, I would kill you."

Wiping the blood from her lip, Takara said, "Oh, no you wouldn't." In the strange light of candle and powerstones, her face changed. Red hair turned to gray skin and bone. Small black horns traced out the ridges of a rumpled skull. Human eyes became white, piercing orbs. The woman's whiplike body bulked into a powerful torso. Only Takara's mocking, bleeding smile remained the same. Otherwise, in her place stood Volrath.

"Strike me again, Karn! Strike me again!"

With a shout of animal rage, Karn lunged at the hateful figure. Volrath was too quick. He leaped aside, and Karn smashed into a stack of empty crates. He turned, bashing them aside. Wood hit the wall and fell in splintery showers. "I'm going to kill you, Volrath!"

"No, you aren't," Volrath replied placidly. He stood behind Hanna, one clawed hand clutching her neck and the other clutching her stomach. He held her up like a human shield. "If you try, your precious navigator dies of strangulation, and a broken neck, and decapitation, and evisceration right before your eyes."

Karn stood, quivering, his hands hungry to tear the monster apart. "You are a coward, Volrath. Skulking, sneaking, hiding, pretending to be a friend only because you feared to fight us openly. You are a snake and a coward. You have always been one, since the time you were Vuel, you have always been a coward."

With his face pressed up beside Hanna's, Volrath smiled wickedly. "Perhaps, but what does cowardice matter when one always wins? I always win." He whistled once sharply. The cellar doors flung back, and down the stairs flooded a regiment of Mercadian guards.

There was a strange parade through the city streets that night. Mercadians surrounded a pair of pathetic figures. Both were shackled at ankles and wrists, prodded forward by a swarm of tridents. The woman, thin and blonde, stared unseeing as she hobbled up the street. Her face was wan, her eyes empty, her soul dead. Beside her clomped a massive man of silver. His arms hung hopeless at his sides. His head draped forward in defeat.

Before them capered the strangest figure of all. His muscular frame and gleaming gray armor showed that he was a warrior, and yet tonight, he seemed a taunting jester. In his hands, he held a pair of gleaming crystals, which he waved in front of the unseeing eyes of his captives.

Orim saw it all. Her heart broke to see Hanna and Karn captured this way. Spies had told her that Squee, too, was a prisoner within the city. Had she been within reach of her Ramosan allies, she would have mustered them to fight this regiment. Her heart broke for her friends, but it stopped altogether when she recognized the one who tormented themVolrath.

He could not so openly parade through the streets unless he ruled them, and all of Mercadian. He would not so openly parade through the streets unless he did it to flush out Orim and her rebel friends.

As much as her heart ached, Orim would not be drawn into Volrath's trap. No. Her despair and anger would not make her weak. She would not bring out her allies now. She would only better prepare them for the coming revolt.

It was a horrible night for Hanna.

First, there was the awful news of Gerrard's death- graphically described-and Sisay's death, and Tahngarth's. Then, Takara herself did worse than die. She transformed into Volrath. The villainous creature paraded Hanna and Karn through the streets, taunting them with his destruction of Gerrard, with the ways he manipulated the crew to gain Weatherlight, the Power Matrix, the Bones of Ramos. He regained them all, and then he captured the two crew members who would know how to bring them together.

All the while that they marched through the dark, twisting streets of Mercadia, Hanna watched the rankling roof line. She hoped at least that Orim and Cho-Manno would not be drawn into this latest trap of Volrath's. In dark archways and from shuttered windows, many eyes watched, but no one emerged to help.

Volrath led them to ground. As snaking as were the ways above ground, the caverns beneath were a mesmerizing labyrinth. Endless spirals, dipping shafts, shambling stairways, coiling corridors-the tread of the soldiers' boots echoed over blind and seeping stone. At least Volrath's taunts ceased the moment that they entered the caves.

Hanna staggered along as if descending into a delirious dream. At last, the passage opened up, and Hanna felt her heart leap in hope.

There, before her on a wide cavern floor, stood Weatherlight. She was beautiful. The ship's sleek rails gleamed like gold in the murk. Her spars jutted in solid newness. Her twin airfoils raked boldly outward. Her helm glimmered in torchlight. The once-shattered hull was smooth and whole, a vast black bulk on the floor of the great hangar. The ship was beautiful, and now with the Power Matrix and the Bones of Ramos, it was only hours away from flying again.

Hanna and Karn halted before the great airship, guards hurrying to surround the pair. Volrath walked up beside Hanna, resting his arm on her shoulder as though he were an old friend. The twisted evincar took a deep, contented breath, and his black plate armor crackled quietly.

"A glorious vessel, isn't she?" Volrath asked.

"Yes," Hanna replied reflexively. She shied beneath his arm but couldn't escape the clawlike grip on her shoulder. "But she isn't your ship. She's Gerrard's."

"My brother never deserved his Legacy. Not this ship, not Karn, not the Thran Tome-none of it. He is a toad dressed up to be a king. Weatherlight was never his, and now she is mine."

Hanna glanced at the Phyrexian armada that filled the hangar all about, receding into vast distance. "You have all these ships. Hundreds. Most are larger than Weatherlight. You want this ship only because you are jealous of Gerrard, only because it is his."

Volrath's hand struck her cheek with such force it flung her to the ground amid the chains. "The Legacy is mine. I have every piece of it. And now you will put those pieces together for me."

Looking up in anger, Hanna dragged a shackled hand over her bleeding mouth. "You can torture me, but you can't make me repair Weatherlight for you."

"Can't I?" Volrath asked with a smile. He gestured toward the spars raking out beside and behind the ship. A chain connected the ends of the two spars, and something dangled on that chain. Not something-someone.

"Squee!" Hanna gasped out.

"Yes," Volrath replied. "Are you familiar with this form of execution? It is gradual and agonizing, a type of crucifixion. Squee's whole weight is held aloft by the shackles that bind his wrists. At first, the pain isn't too bad, but every moment, muscles and tendons grow weaker. Circulation ceases in the hands. Shoulders slowly pull from their sockets. Viscera stretch out the diaphragm. Chest muscles grow so weary they can no longer force air outward. Squee will eventually suffocate because he won't be able to exhale. He'll suffocate though his lungs are full of air."

"You bastard."

Volrath blinked placidly at that. "If, however, you repair the engines, you can use them to lower the masts and save your friend. You see? I impose no time limit on you. Only Squee does. And if you allow him to die, I'll simply have to bring your friend Orim down here and do the same to her, and Tahngarth, and Sisay, and Gerrard. It's up to you how many crew you'd like to kill as you repair this ship-my ship."

"So, they are alive!" Hanna said, hope rising in her.

"For the time being," Volrath said. "Let Squee die, and you'll see the others, one by one."

Karn's joints grated massively as he stooped to lift Hanna. "Come. Let us do this quickly. We haven't much time."

"We haven't much time," Orim shouted to the vast assembly gathered in another subterranean chamber.

It was a motley group-Ramosan rebels assembled by Lahaime; Cho-Arrim skyscouts and water wizards who had arrived on the night of the great storm; an elite contingent of Saprazzan warriors sent by the grand vizier; a Rishadan ship crew converted to the cause during Cho-Manno's sea crossing; and bull-men, boar-men, griffins, and other non-humans and nongoblins disparaged in Mercadia-a ragtag, rebel army. These few hundred would hardly be a match for the Mercadian guard with its cateran mercenaries-and its master Volrath.

"We have a new enemy," Orim continued. "This rebellion began against the corruption of the nobles and the vicious manipulation of the Kyren. We have felt ourselves mere pawns in their great game. Now it is clear that even these great enemies are pawns of a much more malevolent master. The Phyrexian steward, Volrath, is here in Mercadia. He rules the city through Kyren and nobles. He has captured the airship Weatherlight, the national treasure of

Saprazzo, and the very Bones of Ramos. In mere days, perhaps hours, he will combine these weapons and train them upon us and slay us. We haven't much time."

A voice rose from among the Cho-Arrim skyscouts. "How can we fight if the Uniter has not risen?"

Cho-Manno stepped up beside Orim and declared, "We can no longer wait for the Uniter to rise. The Uniter is in the hands of our greatest foe. We must be our own uniters, our own saviors. If we do not fight now, the Uniter will rise to fight against us."

A collective groan echoed through the stony cavern. The Rishadan captain interrupted. "These allies have told that their airship was hauled through doors at the base of the city. I will lead my forces through those doors and find your Uniter. Perhaps it'll yet rise-and fight for us."

Scar-faced Lahaime spoke next. "I will lead the Ramosans into position to strike against the Magistrate's Tower and the seats of government."

"My skyscouts and water wizards will produce another storm," Cho-Manno pledged. "The water will empower us and the Saprazzans to take the streets."

"What about the market?" someone shouted. "You can't win a battle in Mercadia unless you can take the market." Among the rebel leaders on the dais was a young man with tousled black hair, a man who many of the folks in the chamber had taken to be a mere page. His voice was still young, though he spoke with a calm confidence that impressed them all. "I am Atalla of Tavoot's farm. As with many other farmers, I have come to Mercadia with this season's harvest of simsass fruit. As with many other farmers, I am fed up with Mercadian rule. We farmers are united with your cause, and we fill the markets. I will lead my comrades to take the marketplaces, high and low."

"How can you, a mere boy, lead an army of peasants?" someone asked.

Orim grasped Atalla's shoulders and squeezed them affectionately. "He may seem young to you, but Atalla here is the man who made Gerrard and his comrades into heroes of the common people. Atalla is the man who made us into giant killers."