The Moons of Mirrodin

CHAPTER 22

“Time to dive,” called Bruenna. “The sea gets deeper around Lumengrid. Bosh will pull us under any time. I need to start my air spell.”

Bruenna sat in the back of the diver and began moving her hands in an intricate pattern. Her palms danced around each other as she twisted her wrists and slid her arms over and under one another in a sinuous rhythm.

Glissa felt the pressure build around her as the mage’s arms wove their spell. It felt uncomfortable at first, and she found it hard to breathe.

“Relax!” called Bruenna. She spoke slowly and precisely. “Breathe normally. Close your eyes. Lie down. It will help.”

Slobad came over to Glissa and helped her lie down on the bottom of the diver. “Why … aren’t you … having … trouble,” gasped Glissa.

“Underground, undersea,” said Slobad, “no different to goblins, huh?”

He massaged Glissa’s temples. After a few minutes, she was able to breath almost normally again. The elf sat up and looked back at Bruenna. Her arms continued to weave in and around each other. The mage’s eyes had glazed over.

“Are you well?” asked Bruenna. Her voice seemed distant, as if she weren’t really in the diver anymore.

“I’m fine,” Glissa said. “Thank you. Thank you both.”

Glissa turned around to see where they were headed, but she could no longer see Lumengrid. She saw the taut rope coiled around the invisible the golem ahead of them, but they had completely submerged. All she could see above her was swirling quicksilver at the edge of the invisibility bubble.

“Does he know where to go?” she asked Bruenna, pointing toward the end of the rope.

“Hard to miss, huh?” said Slobad. “Lumengrid huge. Bosh not need eyes to walk straight.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Glissa, speaking so the goblin alone could hear her. “I feel trapped in here. What if something happens to Bosh or Bruenna? We should have a plan.”

“If plans make you happy,” said Slobad, “plan away. I sit and rest for both of us, huh?”

Glissa stared out the front of the diver and watched the rope bounce up and down. As the minutes wore on and the diver moved through the invisible quicksilver, Glissa became increasingly aware that she was completely out of her element here. She must rely on her friends. It was a strange sensation.

A swarm of the eels slithered from the opaque quicksilver, nipping at the invisible golem again. At first, the attack went as before. Glissa could see their open mouths stop short and bounce off when they hit what must have been Bosh’s legs. One wrapped itself around what must have been the golem’s neck or head-it was well above the ropes and narrower than his chest. It was strange watching the eel try to squeeze something that Glissa couldn’t even see. None of the eels seem to bother Bosh at all. At least, he wasn’t doing anything about them. The ropes continued to bounce up and down and the diver kept moving forward.

Glissa wondered how long it would take for the eels to give up again. Several more creatures joined the first one around Bosh’s neck and head area. They seemed to merge together and grow longer. Once four or five had wrapped themselves together, Glissa could see the golem’s head and neck outlined in the bodies of the silver eels. The eels striking at the golem’s feet also merged together and wrapped around both of his legs. Glissa almost laughed as she looked at the strange golem with a silver head and legs but no torso.

Bosh came to a halt, unable to move his legs any longer.

Glissa jumped up. “Slobad, Bruenna!” she called. “Bosh is in trouble.”

“I cannot help him,” said Bruenna, her face pale. “I must concentrate on the air.”

“What matter, huh?” asked Slobad groggily.

“He’s being attacked by those silver eels,” said Glissa. “They’ve wrapped up his legs. He can’t move.”

“What can we do?” asked Slobad. “Bosh out there. We in here, huh?”

Glissa watched as Bosh’s eel-wrapped head bent down. The sea creatures around his legs began to pull away. The golem was trying to pull them off. Glissa knew how hard it must be, since Bosh couldn’t even see his own hands. The eel around the golem’s head peeled away slightly and swam upward, yanking Bosh’s head back straight. The eels around his legs tightened their grip again. Several more eels merged together and began coiling around the middle of the golem.

“They’re wrapping up his arms now,” cried Glissa. “He needs help! I must get to him.”

“You cannot,” said Bruenna. “No air out there.”

“You control the wind,” shouted Glissa. “Make some air!”

Two eels broke away from the attack and headed toward the diver. Glissa didn’t flinch this time as the eels slithered toward her. She thought they might merge and attack the diver. Instead, they cut across in front of the diver and bit through the ropes tethering it to Bosh. The diver began to drift up and away from Bosh.

“Flare!” shouted Glissa. “We’re heading for the surface.”

“Wait,” said Bruenna. “Let me try something.”

She increased the speed of her hand-dance and muttered a few more words. The pressure Glissa had felt on her chest since they dived under the quicksilver decreased. The diver dropped to the bottom of the sea. The sudden jolt startled Glissa. She forced herself to take a few slow deep breaths to relax.

“Extended air bubble … out to Bosh,” gasped Bruenna. “Quickly. Cannot … hold it … long.”

“Slobad,” called Glissa. “Come with me!”

The elf dropped her cloak and scrambled from the diver. It took her several tries to grab the lip. She couldn’t see her hands or the diver. She had to feel around for the opening, then pull herself up. Getting Slobad out proved even harder. She couldn’t see his hands, and he couldn’t see hers. He finally held his satchel up, and she grabbed at it, pulling the goblin through the hole.

Glissa jumped off the diver to the sea floor and sank up to her ankles in muck. Slobad dropped beside her, but his wide feet kept him from sinking as far. Glissa tried to lift her legs, but her feet were stuck fast. She pushed her hands down into the muck to pull them free. An invisible claw skewered her boot and scraped her leg as she struggled. When she finally pulled that foot free, Glissa could see her hands again. The muck had coated them. She pulled her other foot free, then drew her sword and spread mud on the blade.

She turned toward Bosh. He was almost completely covered in thick eels. They didn’t seem bothered at all by the air surrounding the golem. They writhed around him. Glissa could see his entire shape now. Those eels caught swimming when the wave of air expanded now slithered across the seabed toward the golem.

Slobad stood staring at his hands. Glissa couldn’t tell what he was doing until a jet of fire sprang forth from his fist. His fire tube was invisible as well, but she could see the flame.

Slobad fiddled with the tube until flame turned into a bright white blade of fire, then moved up to an eel slithering on the ground and jabbed it with the flame-blade. The thin flame sliced through the eel, cutting it in half. The heat from the flame scarred and blackened the edges of each half as it cut. The two halves flopped uncontrollably. The blackness spread along the silvery eel’s body. After a moment, there was nothing left but a pile of ash atop the muck.

Glissa moved in slowly behind the goblin, walking on her toes to keep from getting stuck again. “Use your fire on the eels covering Bosh,” cried Glissa. “I’ll keep the others off you.”

Glissa stabbed an eel slithering toward the goblin’s foot, slicing it in half. She skewered a second and third eel as Slobad burned away the writhing mass attached to Bosh. She glanced at Bosh and Slobad. The goblin had cleared off most of the golem’s legs, which were covered in ash. The rest of the eels continued to squirm around Bosh. They bulged around his torso, as if Bosh was trying to break free from the inside.

Glissa scanned the surrounding quicksilver to see if any more eels might swim into the air bubble. She saw a few eel heads poke through the silver curtain, but they disappeared a moment later. The elf looked back toward the diver to check behind them. She saw the wriggling halves of the eels she cut inching their way across the muck. Each half had grown a new end. Where there had been three eels, Glissa now had six to contend with.

Several more creatures poked their heads from the quicksilver behind the diver. They didn’t push all the way through, yet Glissa noticed the ones trapped in the air pocket with them continued to attack. It was odd. They must react on instinct, thought Glissa. They could survive in the air, at least for a time, but they weren’t willing to leave the quicksilver on their own. Glissa stepped up to the first half-eel and kicked it toward the side of the bubble. It landed short of the quicksilver wall but bounced into it. Once it hit the quicksilver, the eel retreated into the liquid and didn’t return.

Glissa kicked three more times, sending the eels flying through the air bubble into the quicksilver wall. It was sort of fun. Two left. She turned. The last two merged back into one large eel. She kicked at it anyway. But it had enough mass and length to collapse around her foot. When the two ends met behind her ankle, the eel began to constrict. Her foot went numb as blood stopped flowing past her ankle. She fell down into the muck. She couldn’t cut the eel for fear of slicing her own leg. The creature’s mouth opened up and snapped at her hands as she tried to grab it. She needed Slobad.

“Glissa!” called Slobad.

“What?”

“We got problem, huh?”

Glissa glanced over her shoulder at Slobad and Bosh. The goblin had burned most of the eels off of Bosh. The golem’s ash-covered hands pulled at the remaining eels wrapped around his head. Glissa couldn’t see what had spooked Slobad. Then she saw the quicksilver beyond Bosh move towards them. She thought Bruenna was losing her concentration until the mass of quicksilver grew tentacles.

“What the flare is that?” cried Glissa.

She had no time to deal with the eel on her leg now. Glissa reached down. When the eel snapped at her, she slammed her fist down its throat. The eel slammed its jaws shut, digging its teeth into the invisible metal of Glissa’s forearm. She spread her claws inside the beast, puncturing through its neck. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Glissa pulled her arm up and away from her legs. The eel ripped apart, but the mouth continued to chew on her arm. Glissa scrambled to her feet and kicked the squirming mass at her feet into the quicksilver wall. She ran toward Bosh, half an eel still attached to her arm.

The quicksilver monster loomed in front of Bosh. It was a huge blob of silver at least ten feet tall with tentacles waving out in front of it. She could see Bosh and Slobad reflected in the silvery skin of the creature’s body. The ends of the tentacles disappeared as it moved forward. The air must extend past the invisibility bubble, thought Glissa. She’d better attack it before it disappeared completely. She slogged through the muck as fast as she could.

Slobad wavered behind Bosh. He looked as if he wanted to run, but he wouldn’t leave the golem’s side-his self-preservation at odds with his love for Bosh.

“Slobad,” she called. “Come here.” She moved forward, waving her eel-clad arm at the goblin. “Burn this off and I’ll take care of that thing.”

As she approached, the monster lashed out with its tentacle arms. Bosh was still pulling at the eels wrapped around his head. He didn’t see the attack coming. Neither could Glissa. The tentacles disappeared before they reached the golem. But the tentacles didn’t retract. Glissa saw Bosh’s ash-covered arms pulled away from his head. Then the golem was moving forward, only his legs weren’t moving. Bosh dug his feet into the muck and tried to pull back.

Glissa screamed. She looked down to see Slobad burning away the remains of the eel attached to her arm. Ash mixed with blood from dozens of puncture wounds on her invisible arm. More tentacles snapped out from the quicksilver beast and disappeared into the invisible air surrounding Bosh. Glissa slogged forward to attack, but the monster stepped back through the silver curtain and from the air bubble.

A moment later, the beast pulled Bosh out of the area covered by the invisibility spell. He was completely wrapped up in tentacles. They encircled the golem’s torso like the leather rope that tied Bosh to the diver. The golem waved his bound arms, trying to free them, but more quicksilver poured into the tentacles, thickening the ropes around the golem. Before Glissa could even scream, the tentacles pulled the golem through the quicksilver wall, leaving a furrow in the muck behind him.

Glissa looked down at Slobad. He had followed her and was now staring up at her. She could see tears streaming down his cheek.

“I couldn’t save him,” said the goblin dully. “I saw it, and I couldn’t move, huh?”

“I know,” said Glissa. She looked at the wall of silver. “I’ll get him.”

“How?” asked Slobad. “Can’t see in there, huh? Can’t even breathe. How you survive?”

Glissa pulled the vial of serum from her boot sheath. “This will help me see.” She uncorked the vial.

“You need serum, huh?” said Slobad. “Need it for Learning Pool.”

Glissa smiled. “Bosh is more important.”

“How you breathe, huh?”

“I’ll hold my breath,” said Glissa.

“How long you hold breath, huh? How long?”

“Long enough.”

Glissa brought the vial to her lips and poured the thick, blue liquid into her mouth. It tasted sweet, salty, bitter, and sour all at once. The serum activated all of her taste buds as it spread through her mouth. She felt the liquid seep down her throat, coating and burning like a smooth hot drink.

As the heat spread through her body, it seemed to coat every inch of her in a warm embrace. Glissa became acutely aware of everything around her. She could feel Slobad standing next to her, his heart beating quickly, his breath shallow in the compressed air of Bruenna’s bubble. She could sense the mage in the diver behind them. Her hands continued their intricate rhythmic dance, but sweat poured down her face. The area just outside the bubble teemed with eels squirming around each other. Ahead of her, Glissa could “see” Bosh and the monster, just outside the bubble. The quicksilver monster had completely enveloped the golem.

“Hand me your fire tube,” she said to Slobad. She could hear her own voice both in her head and reverberating through the air bubble. It was disorienting. “Take my sword back to the diver. Tell Bruenna to collapse the bubble.”

“What you do, huh?” asked Slobad.

“Get Bosh,” said Glissa as she took the invisible fire tube from Slobad. “I’ll be back.”

The elf moved off toward the quicksilver curtain. She could sense the soft spots in the muck and avoided them. She held the fire tube in front of her as she reached the edge of the air bubble. The flame burned a hole in the swirling surface and caught the eel Glissa knew to be squirming inside.

She took a breath and followed the fire tube into the quicksilver. She had to push her body into the viscous liquid. It enveloped her like water and pushed against her like a stiff wind. The sensation was far more intense than the sudden rush of air from Bruenna’s spell. Her entire body felt compressed by quicksilver. Glissa fought back an urge to gasp for air. Her ears felt as if they would pop. Her chest tightened.

She focused on the eels and the monster. The fire tube cut an ashen swath through the quicksilver in front of her, melting any eels that dared swim near. She could feel Bosh kicking and punching inside the beast but knew the golem’s attacks were having no effect on the monster. It simply stretched and reformed after each assault. The monster was just a few feet farther, but Glissa was moving in slow motion. The creature stayed just out of reach. The elf began to drift up away from the sea bottom as swirling currents pushed her body around.

She tried to swim forward, waving her arms and kicking her legs in the quicksilver, but all that did was create an intricate pattern of ash with the fire tube. The current seemed to have a mind of its own. It shifted Glissa back and forth and turned her around. She twisted back around, then concentrated on the currents between her and the monster. She could sense it ahead of her. The sea floor was close beneath.

Glissa shoved her legs out to push against the sea floor. She jetted up a few feet into a current she detected above her. The current swept her along toward the monster. She lifted the fire tube above her head and pointed her toes as she approached. The current dragged her deadly fire across the shoulder of the beast. The quicksilver quaked as the monster screamed in pain. Glissa heard the scream more inside her head than through her ears. The vibrations resounded through the sea.

The current threatened to sweep her past the monster. Glissa reached out and grabbed a silver tentacle. Glissa could sense where the sea ended and the beast began. It had a solidity of being the amorphous sea lacked. She held on and brought the fire tube back around to drive it into the monster. It howled again. Glissa’s head began to ache from the pounding echo of the monster’s wailing and the lack of oxygen.

The quicksilver monster spat out Bosh and poured quicksilver into a dozen tentacles. Arms flailed at Glissa through the sea. With her enhanced senses, Glissa saw the monster’s attack almost before it came. She swung the fire tube in a slow arc through the quicksilver and cut off three tentacles before they reached her, but she was too slow in the thick liquid to bring the fire back around, and the other tentacles wrapped around her.

She bounced off Bosh. The golem grabbed at Glissa, but she knocked his hand away. They couldn’t escape the beast, not in its element. She had to kill it. She had to do it now. She allowed herself to be drawn toward the beast’s silver body.

The monster squeezed her mercilessly, constricting her chest and forcing the air from her lungs. Bubbles escaped from Glissa’s mouth and combined around her head in a small pocket of air. The beast squeezed even tighter, making it impossible for Glissa to draw another breath, and pulled Glissa closer.

Now was her chance. Glissa fought to bring her arm up. Tentacles slid, little by little, up her body. She got her elbow free and jammed the fire tube deep into the chest of the monster. The creature screamed and tightened its grip around Glissa. The pressure in her chest mounted, while the creature’s screaming pounded in her head. The monster tried to slide its body away from the fire. Glissa pushed back. She held her hand-and the fire tube-inside the beast.

The melting fire spread through the beast’s body. Glissa watched the beast’s torso turn to black ash. The Quicksilver Sea flowed in to displace the ash. The creature’s head soon followed, which finally silenced its head-splitting wail. The fire spread into the tentacles last, which dissolved around Glissa, releasing their hold on her.

With the pressure gone from her chest, Glissa’s instincts betrayed her. She immediately tried to draw in a breath of air. Instead, she drew quicksilver into her lungs. She choked uncontrollably. Every choke ended in a gasp, forcing more liquid into her lungs. She dropped the fire tube and grabbed her neck. But there was nothing she could do. Glissa’s enhanced senses closed down around her. The world began to go black. The last thing she saw was a looming dark form above her.