The Moons of Mirrodin

CHAPTER 3

Glissa froze, one hand on the ledge above her, the other still holding the sword she had stolen from Chunth. She waited for what seemed an eternity for the responding horn, hoping that the first horn had been a mistake or a trick of the wind. She was terrified of the levelers. They had tormented her dreams since childhood. Her father assured her over and over that the family was safe in their home, so high in the trees and so close to the Radix. Nevertheless Glissa woke screaming any time the horn of warning invaded her dreams.

Now that fear paralyzed her. She knew they were coming for her this time. Chunth had said as much. But they wouldn’t find her hiding in her bed, shivering under the vorrac hides. They would find only Father, Mother, and Lyese.

She wasn’t far from her father’s tree, but there was no easy route between the two trees. Earlier that day, it had taken her and Kane at least five minutes to work their way down to the vorrac carcass. She didn’t have that kind of time. Her family needed her now, yet she couldn’t move.

A second horn blared. In her mind, Glissa could see the gleaming levelers scrambling up the Tangle tree toward her father’s house, just as they had in her childhood nightmares. But this was real and she was no scared little girl. Glissa forced the fear from her legs and allowed her warrior instinct to take control. Dropping back down onto the terrace, the elf broke into a run. As she approached the spot where she had caught the vorrac, she took three long strides and launched her body off the terrace.

Glissa ran through the air, her legs pumping furiously as she arced up and away from the terrace. Thirty feet out she passed the level of the dead-end terrace and began to fall through the Tangle, edging ever farther away from the Tree of Tales. As she fell, the elf warrior twirled the sword around and brought it over her head, point forward. She clutched the pommel. Arching her back and spreading her legs to slow her descent, Glissa fell toward a terrace on a nearby tree.

The swordpoint struck the trunk of the Tangle tree and dug into the metal. As her body whipped around, Glissa brought her legs in to absorb the impact. Her feet slammed into the tree, and she bounced, but the sword held, cutting a jagged line down the trunk as she continued to fall toward the terrace. Glissa marveled at how easily the sword cut through the Tangle tree metal. She’d expected it would slow her fall, but the terrace was coming up fast. Far too fast.

She kicked at the tree hard with both feet, pulled the sword free, and flipped into the air again as she passed a spire. Catching the spire in one hand, she rotated around it once, hung for a moment, then released to fall the last twenty feet. She rolled and came up running. She had cut precious time from her journey but was still two trees from home.

The next jump was far easier. She had made this leap a hundred times. When she came to the end of the terrace, she sprang out as before, but at the top of her arc she kicked her legs back and flew facedown for a moment before tucking in her head, legs, and arms and rolling slowly head over heels toward the oncoming terrace. She would hit on her shoulders and roll with the blow, but she hadn’t counted on the sword.

Glissa hit and rolled, but the sword blade cut into the terrace, throwing her off balance. She slammed hard into the trunk of the tree before slumping down onto the terrace. Turning onto her hands and knees she tried to push herself back up to her feet, but her head felt thick, and she had a searing pain between her shoulder blades. She looked up and tried to focus on the next tree. She was nearly home, but the dim light from the gelfruits was swirling in circles in front of her.

Glissa shook her head and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. With a long groan, she forced her body off the terrace and looked again. She could see the dark opening into her father’s home just above her, but she also saw several gleaming forms crawling up the side of the Tangle tree. The levelers looked like huge, silver bugs. They were slightly larger than vorracs, but instead of horns, they had blades that were half again as long as their body. These spearlike pincers sliced back and forth ahead of them as they moved, while several rows of razor-sharp blades twirled just below the levelers’ mouths. They could level anything-or anybody-that got in their way, leaving behind nothing but a bloody stain.

Three levelers scurried up the trunk toward Glissa’s home on long, triple-jointed legs. Their legs ended in spikelike claws that dug into the trunk as they climbed. Glissa ignored the pain between her shoulders and forced her feet to move again, jogging, then running, across the terrace. She was sluggish now and wondered if she had enough speed to make the last jump. She had to try.

She leaped off the edge of the terrace and sailed through the air toward the levelers. Remembering how easily her new sword had cut through the Tangle tree, she brought it over her head as she flew. At the last moment, she slammed the sword forward, piercing the lowest leveler’s head. The blade sliced right through the metal creature and bit hard into the trunk beneath the beast. Glissa landed on the leveler’s back and let her weight carry the blade down through its body before leaping off and grabbing a fold in the tree.

The gutted leveler fell away from the tree, plummeting to the terrace below. Glissa began to scramble up the tree, using familiar hand- and footholds to quickly move up behind the next leveler. The creature hadn’t even noticed the loss of its companion. It kept climbing mindlessly up the tree.

When she got close enough, Glissa swung the sword at the back legs of the leveler. The amazing blade cut through both legs without slowing. The beast continued to climb, leaving its rear paws stuck in the tree behind. After a few steps, the leveler stopped to look back. It skittered around in a circle until it was facing Glissa. The warrior froze. She had never been face-to-face with a leveler before. Inside her, the scared little girl was screaming. The beast had no eyes, only a giant, gaping mouth lined with jagged teeth. The mouth opened and closed again and again as the metallic beast descended. Like a fly caught in a web, the elf couldn’t move.

The beast’s curving blades were just above her. Glissa jumped away from it and caught a spire off to the side. The leveler turned and slammed its mouth closed again. Glissa willed her eyes away from the beast’s horrible face. Holding onto the spire with one hand, she steadied her feet on the trunk and drove the point of the sword into the leveler. Ripping the blade up and out, she cut a huge gash in the beast’s mouth, ripping through blades and legs as the leveler reached for her.

With only one set of claws digging into the tree, the leveler couldn’t hold on any longer. It plunged downward and disappeared. Glissa looked up at the last leveler. It was nearly to the front door. With her doubts and fears firmly tucked away, the elf pulled herself up onto the spire, crouched, then jumped toward it. She grabbed the creature’s hind leg with her free hand and swung the blade through the beast’s pelvis. The leg she held came free of the body, but the claws held, leaving Glissa hanging from the severed appendage.

Still, the leveler crawled up the trunk. Its front legs had reached the lip of the entrance to Glissa’s home. She had to stop it before it got inside. Flipping the sword over in her free hand, she grabbed the blade just above the guard and flung it like a spear. The sword sliced easily through the rear of the beast and slammed into the trunk of the tree, pinning the leveler.

The creature squirmed and pushed with its legs, but it was held tight against the trunk. Glissa grabbed a fold in the tree and found her footing again. She reached over and pulled the severed leg free, then began climbing up toward the pinned leveler. When she got close enough, she slammed the spiked paw into the beast, shattering the red dome covering its back and tearing off a huge chunk of metal. Still the beast tried to climb. Glissa smashed it again.

After the third blow, Glissa could see inside the beast. Curiously, there was no blood. The leveler was completely made of metal, with no flesh at all! Other than the Tangle trees themselves, all living things in the forest had at least some flesh intermixed with their metallic parts. Once one cut through the metal, there was flesh, bone, and blood underneath. Inside the leveler’s body, though, all she could see were metal rods connected together and moving back and forth. Glissa slammed down again, lodging the makeshift club between the rods. A horrible screeching sound erupted from inside the leveler as the rods bent, broke, and scraped against the embedded leg.

Smoke billowed from the hole, and the leveler tried to turn around. Glissa pulled on the leg, but it was wedged fast inside the beast. Weaponless, Glissa stared in horror as the creature twisted around, its sweeping pincer blades coming closer and closer, the grinding of the spinning blades growing louder. The elf grabbed for a knothole but couldn’t reach it. Just as she was about to let go and drop from the creature’s reach, fire erupted from the back of the beast. The force of the blast slammed the leveler against the tree, snapping two of its remaining legs.

The blades, an inch from her face, had stopped moving. She felt a pain and could see a gash across her forearm. A warm trickle of blood left a red trail down her arm to her shoulder. The beast appeared dead, but Glissa wasn’t taking any chances. She moved down to regain her footing, then climbed up and around the beast, giving it a wide berth. Once she reached the lip above the dead leveler, she reached down and grabbed her sword. She pulled it free of the beast and watched as the carcass fell to join its two dead brothers. Elated by her victory, she entered her home.

* * * * *

As Glissa stepped through the doorway, her heart leaped into her mouth. At least half a dozen levelers were crawling around the main room, grinding everything in their path and tossing furniture around with their waving pincers. They looked as if they were searching for something. From the spire rooms Glissa could hear sounds of more beasts.

Chairs, tables, and gelfruit lay in ruins on the floor, cut to pieces by the levelers’ blades. Pots and pans, mangled into unrecognizable shapes, were scattered amidst the shards of her mother’s bone plates. In the dim light coming from outside, Glissa could see a dark shape just below the entrance to her parents’ spire room. Dark splatters on the floor and wall near the body told Glissa all she needed to know.

Glissa whipped the sword up in front of her and screamed.

Almost as one, the levelers turned from their search and advanced on her. More of the gleaming creatures emerged from each spire. From the pincers of one of the beasts hung the gelfruit-laced tresses of Lyese’s hair. Glissa’s temples pounded, and her ears rang as the blood raced through her body. Tears welled up in her eyes and her hands shook. All her fears and nightmares had finally come true. The levelers had come for her, but she hadn’t been home, and her family had paid for that.

A battle raged inside Glissa as the levelers advanced upon her. The screams of the little girl could not be quelled, but the adult knew that emotion could be harnessed. She transformed the little girl’s fear and sorrow into a rage that quelled the tears and stilled her shaking hands.

As the first leveler came near, the elf ran and leaped over the gleaming blades, landing on the creature’s silver back. She plunged the sword down through the side of the red dome above its mouth, then wrenched the hilt down to rip the blade out and shatter the dome completely. Inside, she could see faceted gems on metallic stalks that turned and seemed to look up at her. She swiped at them with her blade.

The sword sliced through both eye stalks, and the twin gems tumbled down inside the beast. The creature hesitated a moment, then turned as if to follow Glissa. The elf was still standing on top of the leveler, though, and as it turned, it met the twirling blades of another leveler. Metal scraped against metal as the blades cut through each other. One of the blinded leveler’s blades dug firmly into the body of the other creature, severing its pincers and front leg.

“Die!” screamed Glissa as the blind and mindless leveler chewed its comrade.

The elf jumped off her mount and landed on the next one’s back. She intended to blind it as well, spurring the huge metal beasts to tear each other apart as they had her parents and sister. Instead, as she landed, the creature twisted its body and reached for her with its pincers. Glissa lost her footing and fell backward. Her foot slid down past the beast’s head, close to the twirling blades. She pulled her feet up and rolled backward onto the floor, landing hard amidst the rubble of the kitchen, her back against the rear wall.

The levelers turned-all except the blinded one, which had made its way back into a spire room. Glissa pushed on the floor with her hands and legs, inching her way up the wall, but there was nowhere left to go. The levelers advanced on her, one behind the other. Glissa thought about jumping over the front creature’s rotating blades and trying to run across the backs of the killers and escape. The warrior inside her couldn’t bear to retreat in the face of her family’s executioners.

“This is it,” she said. Her family was gone. Her life was over. All she had left was this moment. “You’ll pay dearly for my family’s deaths before I die!” she growled.

Glissa held her sword up in front of her. The tip wavered a little. She readied for the attack, then stared at the tip of the sword. It glowed faintly. Soft green tendrils of energy played up and down the length of the blade. It was the same energy she had seen in her flare, and it was building. Now the entire blade was bright green, and the energy was climbing her arm. With a blinding flash, a tendril of energy lashed out from the tip of the sword at the nearest leveler, engulfing it in green fire. Glissa could feel the heat from the intense flame, but the fire died quickly, leaving nothing but slag where the beast had stood.

The other levelers still advanced, their blades sweeping from side to side as they inched closer. They seemed totally unaware that she had just turned one of their number into a puddle of molten metal. Like hunters who had caught scent of their prey, they would never turn away before the hunt was concluded.

The elf tried to fling another tendril of energy from the tip of the still-glowing sword, but the energy would not obey her command. The glow began to fade as she waved the sword back and forth in front of her.

“No,” she cried.

The green energy was gone. She tried to summon it again as the levelers inched closer, but it was no use. Whatever force had brought the energy from her twice this day was not under her control. She glared at her blade and tried to will the energy to reappear.

She was aware of something strange happening in front of her. Glissa watched in amazement as the levelers stopped, then turned in unison and headed for the door.

She couldn’t believe her luck. What had happened? Why were they retreating? Were they afraid of the sword or the green energy? She didn’t think so. They had continued to press the attack even after she had blinded one leveler with her blade and destroyed a second with that strange energy. Was something controlling them? And, if so, what or who was it?

All of these questions flashed through her mind, but Glissa decided she didn’t need answers. She needed vengeance. With their backs turned, the levelers were vulnerable. The elf hacked at the retreating beasts with her sword, cutting off legs, pincers, claws, anything she could reach.

She pursued them all the way to the door, but none ever turned to meet her attacks. The carcasses of several levelers lay in pieces around her, but most of the silver creatures escaped down the tree. Breathing hard, sweat streaming down her face and mixing with the tears, Glissa thought about climbing down after them. The thought of her mother and sister stopped her at the doorway. One at least might have survived. She had only seen one body. She had to go back and check.

She turned back to the main room and heard movement. The blinded leveler bore down on her. She had no time to run or jump. The metal beast slammed into her, sending Glissa sprawling onto its back. Her ankle caught in the leveler’s broken blades. She tried to pull her foot free, but the blade dug into her tendon. She screamed in pain as the blades cut through her metal skin.

The beast lunged over the lip outside the door and headed down the tree. Glissa grabbed onto the back of the leveler as she began to slide down toward the broken blades. There was nothing to do now but hold on until the creature reached the ground, when she could kill it and extract her foot.

The leveler reached the forest floor. The pain in Glissa’s leg made her wince, but she got onto one knee, brought her sword up over her head, and struck down through the back of the creature. It didn’t seem to notice. Glissa struck again with as much power as she could muster.

A movement in the Tangle beside her caught Glissa’s attention. Perhaps Kane had come to help. Maybe Chunth had left his seclusion to watch the destined one die. From the corner of her eye she saw someone … or something … she’d never seen before. It was about the size of a troll but stood erect, covered in dark robes. The gelfruit light glinted off the stranger’s head in a way that suggested it was neither metal nor flesh. She could have sworn she saw four arms.

It was gone. Glissa stared into the Tangle, looking for the figure, but saw nothing but trees, now whipping by at an incredible speed as the leveler ran. She looked down at the beast and watched as its feet swung back and forth so fast they turned into a blur. Glissa reached down to pull the sword out, intending to strike the beast again.

Something struck her head and knocked her down onto the beast’s back. Everything darknened around her. Turning her aching head to look behind, the last thing Glissa saw before she blacked out was a low-lying spire swaying back and forth from a sharp impact.