The Moons of Mirrodin

CHAPTER 8

“The skyhunters will carry you to the edge of our lands,” said Raksha the next morning. “They will leave on their daily patrol as soon as you are ready, but they cannot take you into the Mephidross and dare not stay on the ground long at the Mephidross border.”

“How do we find this Vault of Whispers?” asked Glissa. She looked up at the pteron she was supposed to ride. It was little more than skin stretched across bones. The beast hopped back and forth on long legs, tethered to a metal stake. It towered over Glissa, but its legs were no thicker than Slobad’s scrawny arm. She had no idea how it could get itself off the ground, let alone carry its rider and a passenger.

“You must follow the black sun in the morning,” said Raksha. “By midday it will rise above the Vault before descending over the Glimmervoid.

“What you call suns, we elves call moons,” said Glissa, “and the black moon is difficult to see even at midday. Its light is often washed out by your yellow moon … sun.”

“As it should be,” said Raksha, smiling. “It will be easier to see within the Mephidross. The haze that hangs heavy over the chimneys dulls Dakan’s sun and limns the foul black orb.”

“Slobad can see Ingle fine, huh?” said the goblin. He was standing behind Glissa. She didn’t know if he was more afraid of Raksha or the pterons. “Goblins see Ingle on starless days. Sits like dark hole in sky, reaching for goblin souls.”

“We know,” said Raksha. “That is why we have sent you on this mission. You shall be Glissa’s eyes in the Dross. Now it is time for the skyhunters to leave.”

Raksha grasped Glissa’s hand and shook it hard. “Glissa, go with the sun!” he said. With a swift movement, the Kha grabbed Slobad and lifted him in an embrace. “You,” he said. “Stay alive and return to us. We have missed you.”

Glissa thought Slobad’s face turned an even brighter red than its normal rust color. Raksha tossed the goblin up onto the pteron, behind the skyhunter. Glissa looked up at her own escort, a slight-built female leonin.

“Watch the beak,” said the skyhunter as Glissa clambered up the side of the beast. “A pteron can cut you in half, even back here.”

The elf hitched her leg into the folds of skin under the beast’s front legs. The pteron immediately squawked and swung its head back to glare at Glissa. She could see dozens of sharp teeth sticking out along the edge of the creature’s beak.

“Avoid the wings,” said the skyhunter. “They are sensitive.”

“Those are its wings?” asked Glissa, looking at the skin folded underneath the beast’s long arms.

Glissa perched behind the skyhunter. There was no room in the saddle, so she had to rest on the bony back of the pteron.

“How long will it take to get to the border?” Glissa asked the leonin female.

“No more than a few hours,” she replied. “We should have you on the ground before the last sun rises.”

With that, the skyhunter kicked the pteron and pulled back on the reigns. Glissa watched in amazement as the beast unfolded its wings. They were made of skin and stretched from long claws on its front legs all the way down to the beast’s bony hips. The wings were enormous, each three times as long as Glissa. The pteron flapped its wings, but they did not rise from the ground.

“Ready?” asked the skyhunter over the din of the flapping wings.

“For what?” shouted Glissa.

It was too late. The pteron stepped off the battlement and plummeted toward the valley below the leonin tower. Glissa tried to catch her breath, but the wind whipping past her face made it impossible to breathe. The pteron continued to beat its wings slowly until-about halfway down-they caught the wind and the beast began to level out and curve away from Taj Nar.

Below them, Glissa watched scores of leonin haul nim bodies away from Taj Nar. In the distance she saw smoke rising from a large fire. “You burn the bodies of your enemies?” she asked, pointing at the bonfire.

“No!” exclaimed the skyhunter. “The fire is reserved for leonin fallen, to send their souls into the light. Nim bodies are left for the duskworkers. They eat anything. The nim bodies help keep the duskworkers in check.”

“Quelling their hunger so they don’t attack leonin?” asked Glissa. She forebore to ask exactly what kind of creatures the mycon were.

“Poisoning them to keep their numbers down,” replied the skyhunter. “Have you ever smelled the foul gas that comes from a nim?”

What a pragmatic race, thought Glissa. As they winged across the Glimmervoid, though, she began to understand them better. Outside of Taj Nar, most leonin lived in small settlements. They were cut off from one another by wide expanses of bare metal and razor grass. How different from from the Tangle, thought Glissa as the miles whipped by beneath her. In the Tangle, we live on top of our neighbors. We count on them for everything from protection to hauling water.

Glissa concluded she couldn’t live like the leonin. Or like Slobad had, either. Glissa glanced back at the goblin, hanging on so hard she could see his white knuckles even from a distance. She felt a fondness for the strange little tinkerer, beyond the appreciation she owed him for saving her life. He’d had a hard and lonely life.

* * * * *

Hours later, the rolling hills were replaced by craggy terrain. Where once Glissa saw hills and half-moon mounds that formed homes for leonin settlers, she now saw only broken spires-perhaps the chimneys Raksha had spoken about-and an occasional mound that appeared to have been looted and destroyed. The chimneys were dark, much blacker than the surrounding silver expanse of the remaining Glimmervoid. They jutted up from the flat plain like columns, with wide bases that tapered to jagged tops. Looking past her escort, Glissa saw they were flying toward a black curtain that cut across the Glimmervoid like a dark line. It was as if the moons did not shine past that line.

Glissa couldn’t make out any details past this border between light and dark. A thick green haze obscured the air above the land. All she could see was a glistening sheen on the ground near the border of the hazy curtain. The land dipped down toward the haze, and Glissa was certain that the border moved slightly as she watched.

“What is that?” she called to the skyhunter, pointing to the ground ahead of them.

“The Mephidross,” shouted the leonin. “You won’t enjoy slogging through that.”

A few minutes later, the skyhunter circled the pteron around one of the last chimneys before the curtain of haze. “I have to set down on top, or we won’t get airborne again,” she said to Glissa.

Glissa watched the haze as they drifted lower and lower. The other pteron circled a second chimney. The pteron landed on a small ledge at the tip of the chimney. Glissa crawled down from the flying lizard more nimbly than she had ascended but still landed on her rear when the creature pulled its wing from the way just as she reached for it. She felt sure the pteron smiled at her. It spread its wings and dropped off the edge of the chimney.

The elf rose, brushed herself off, and looked for a way down from the chimney. The outside was sheer and smooth. It would be much harder to climb than a Tangle tree. She peered down into the interior of the chimney, but the yellow moon was still low in the sky and she couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t tell if there was any way out at the bottom.

She looked around for Slobad and spotted him on the ground. He had somehow made it to the bottom of his chimney. Then she noticed movement in the haze. A moment later, a squad of nim appeared, moving right toward her. The chimney might be defensible, but Slobad was already on the ground. She couldn’t leave him alone.

Glissa pulled out her sword and jumped over the edge of the chimney. She twisted in the air as she fell and plunged the sword into the metallic structure with both hands. I hope this works again, thought Glissa as her feet slammed into the side of the chimney. She plummeted toward the ground. The sword sliced through the chimney as easily as it had through the Tangle tree. Glissa slid down the slight incline at breakneck speed.

The sword hardly slowed her down at all. She pushed with her feet and dug the blade in deeper. Glissa began to slow down, but she could see ground coming up fast. As she neared the bottom, she tensed her muscles and flexed her knees. About five feet from the ground, she released the sword and kicked off hard with her legs. The change in direction didn’t lessen her momentum, but instead of slamming into the ground, the elf skipped across it and rolled to a stop.

Slobad came running over to her. “Hey, crazy elf,” he called, “why not use stairs like normal person, huh? You not see stairs with bad elf eyes, huh? Crazy …”

“No time,” said Glissa, panting from the exertion. “The welcoming party is right behind me.”

Slobad let out a low whistle as Glissa stood up. She turned around. The nim emerged from the haze, headed straight for them.

“Is that defensible?” she asked, pointing back at the chimney Slobad had come down.

“We could keep nim out,” said the goblin, “but wouldn’t help. Nim don’t eat. They wait until we come out, huh? We starve or die; you pick.”

“Then run for the Mephidross!” shouted Glissa, pointing toward the green haze at an angle away from the oncoming horde. “I’ll catch up.”

She sprinted back to the chimney and pulled out her sword. The nim were almost on top of her. The lead nim grabbed for her, but Glissa dodged under the claw and ran toward Slobad. She glanced back and was happy to see she was leaving the nim far behind. They were slow, and now she could outrun them.

Glissa caught up with Slobad at the edge of the haze. The goblin had stopped.

“Come on,” she shouted at she passed him. “They may be slow, but they’re still coming.”

“Wait,” said Slobad. “Crazy elf, don’t-”

It was too late. Glissa entered the Mephidross … and sank to her knees in a putrid, purple-green muck. The swamp stretched before her as far as she could see into the haze. Beyond that, the air seemed to swirl around with an almost liquid quality. Dark wisps of slime hung in the air around them, mixed with the green gas. Glissa drew a breath to scream at Slobad, but the stench almost overtook her. It was a hundred times worse than when she had been surrounded by the nim at the gate of Taj Nar. She had no choice, though. To get to the Vault of Whispers, they had to go through the Mephidross.

“Come on!” she called again, then began coughing. Phlegm caught in her throat and she almost vomited. “If we keep moving, they can’t catch us.”

Slobad held back for a moment, then looked over his shoulder at the shambling horde and stepped into the haze. Where the muck came up to Glissa’s knees, it was almost at the chest of the short goblin.

“Raksha calls it the Dross,” he said. He held his satchel up over his head to keep it dry. “Say it stick to you for days, huh?” It wasn’t hard for Glissa to see he wasn’t happy.

“Just move as fast as you can,” she said. “They’ll have to wade through it, too.”

The two companions pushed their way through the muck. Glissa had to concentrate on her breathing to keep the bile from building up in her throat. After a while, her eyes stopped burning, and she could actually see a little better through the inky haze. There were several chimneys ahead of them. Now she understood why Raksha had given them that name. The dark wisps in the air seemed to be coming from their tops.

Unlike the chimneys outside the haze, these seemed to be active, almost alive. The black exteriors glowed with a purple energy, while clouds of black smoke belched from the tops. She could barely see strands of cable connecting the tops of the chimneys. She wasn’t sure, but Glissa thought she saw a ball of purple energy run along the cable from one chimney to the next. An eerie hum in the air was starting to make her teeth ache.

“Why would anyone live here?” grunted Glissa as she headed toward the nearest chimney. It might provide a way to get them from the Dross, even if for just a while. The ground did begin to rise as they neared the chimney. The level of the thick sludge fell to Glissa’s ankles. However, the hum intensified, and the ache in her mouth shot up into her temples.

Glissa looked behind. The nim were gaining on them. They seemed to glide right through the Mephidross. On the firm ground of the Glimmervoid, the nim’s shambling strides had made them slow. Here in the Mephidross, their long legs kept them above the muck, and they used their long arms to push the liquid from the way. Glissa and Slobad could not outrun them, especially with Slobad’s short, labored strides.

“Climb on my shoulders,” she said to the goblin as she hunched down into the Dross.

“Huh?” asked Slobad.

“Ride on my shoulders, you stupid goblin!” she shouted. “I can carry you quicker than you can run.”

Slobad handed Glissa his satchel and scrambled onto her shoulders. Glissa slung the satchel over her head and took off at a dead run around the chimney. She could see another chimney and headed toward it, trying to stay as much as possible on higher ground. She flitted from chimney to chimney. The elf was faster than Slobad, even with the weight of the goblin on her back, but still the nim gained on them. The combination of the liquid air in her lungs and the hum of the chimneys was wearing her down. She couldn’t keep up her pace much longer.

“Don’t they ever give up?” she gasped through deep breaths of acrid air.

“Slobad don’t know much about nim, huh?” replied the goblin. “Raksha say they mindless. Never stop before reaching goal. Never stop. Never tire, huh? Mindless.”

“If they’re mindless, how do they know where to go and who to attack?” asked Glissa. “Could someone be controlling them?”

“Raksha sometimes sees humans behind nim in battle,” said Slobad. “Don’t know if they control.” Slobad thought they just turning into nim, huh?”

“If they’re being controlled,” huffed Glissa as she ran, “they might stop if we can take out whoever is controlling them.”

“What if they not stop, huh?” asked Slobad. “What if they not controlled at all? We stop; they not stop; we die, huh?”

“It’s better than running ourselves to death.”

They had come around another chimney. Glissa stopped. She hunched down so Slobad could slip off her back. “You continue on,” she told him. “Climb a chimney for safety. I’ll let the nim pass and try to find the controller.”

Slobad looked as if he was going to argue, but Glissa cut him off. “It’s our only hope. We can’t outrun them, and we can’t run all the way to the Vault of Whispers. Now go, and make sure they follow you.”

Glissa handed Slobad his satchel and pushed him off into the Dross. He looked back at her, then shrugged before trotting off into the haze. Glissa turned and looked at the sheer side of the chimney. She pulled out her sword, made several notches, and began scaling the chimney, cutting holes for her hands and feet as she went. Fifteen feet above the swamp, she stopped and waited. She hoped the nim were as mindless as Slobad had heard. If even one turned after passing the chimney, she’d be trapped.

* * * * *

From her perch on the chimney Glissa watched Slobad. He slogged through the Dross, holding his pack over his head. The humming intensified as she clung to the chimney, and her teeth were almost vibrating in her mouth. Below, the nim poured around the chimney. Glissa watched as row after row passed beneath her. Gas from the spouts on their sides wafted up, adding to the stench of the haze. Glissa closed her eyes and concentrated to keep the bile from welling up in her throat.

Once the nim passed, she opened her eyes, checking to see how close they were getting to poor Slobad. She couldn’t see the goblin. The elf was sure he couldn’t have gotten to the next chimney already, but there was no sign of battle in the ranks of the nim. Then, in the distance, she saw ripples in the muck. Slobad emerged from beneath the Dross just ahead of the nim army. The goblin screamed and waded as fast as he could away from the nim.

Glissa couldn’t wait any longer. If she didn’t attack them now, the nim would reach Slobad and tear him apart. No one seemed to be controlling them. She would just have to fight.

“Idiots!” came a voice from behind Glissa. “She’s back here! Turn around, now!”

Glissa turned.

“I’m guessing you weren’t talking to me,” she snarled.

He was a gangly man nearly as tall as the shambling nim, and had the same dull purple skin half-covered in Dross. Like the nim, the man’s mouth was like a gash across his face, but he lacked the exoskeleton and gas spouts of the nim. His features were almost humanoid-not human but not nim … at least not yet. Glissa could see the spark of intelligence in his eyes. It looked as if she had found the controller.

“Return!” he shouted.

Glissa glanced behind her. The nim turned around and began now slogging their way back toward her.

“I know just how long it will take them to get back here,” she said. “Call them off and tell me why you’re after us if you don’t want to die.”

The man looked over her shoulder and smirked. Glissa could hear the slosh of nim behind her.

“Who sent you?” she screamed. “Tell me or die.”

“It matters not what you do to me,” he said. His speech was slurred, as if his misshapen mouth couldn’t form the words correctly. “You’re as good as dead.”

“So are you!” cried Glissa. She swung her sword with both hands. The blade caught the controller just below his shoulder, slicing through his upper arm on its way into the man’s neck. The silver blade cut through vertebrae just as easily as it had cut into the iron chimney. The controller stood for a moment, the smirk frozen on his face, before his head rolled off to the side and he crumpled into the Dross.

Glissa jumped up onto the chimney again, grabbing the notches she had made and scrambling back up to her perch. She didn’t know what the nim would do, but if they were truly mindless, they should continue past her, following their last orders. If not, the controller was right and she was as good as dead.

Glissa tensed and waited for the front line to get to her. They didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her. Their eyes were locked forward. She worried that the nim might stop when they reached their dead master’s body, but the corpse had all but disappeared under the Dross, and the horde continued on past the chimney, trampling him deeper into the muck.

She clung to the chimney until the nim had disappeared into the swirling haze, then dropped down again and ran off to find Slobad. He was standing where he had fallen, wiping muck off his pack.

“What happened, huh?” he asked. “Where did nim go? They coming back? You kill them? Huh?”

“They’re returning,” said Glissa, “just as they were told.”

She told Slobad about the controller and about the nim’s mindless march into the haze. The goblin looked horrible. The Dross hung off him like scabby skin. As she spoke, pieces fell off and plopped into the swamp.

“What happened to you?” she asked. “Did you fall?”

Slobad gave up on cleaning his pack. “Yes,” he said. His eyes gleamed, and a smile spread across his face. “Something big under here. Big and metal. Tripped over leg or something, huh? Fell on top. Something very big. Rolled off into Dross, huh? Think it some big machine, huh?”

“Machine? With legs? Like a leveler?” Her first instinct was to destroy it, but an idea occurred to her. “If it’s a leveler, and you can fix it, could we ride it through this?”

“Slobad can fix anything, huh?” said the goblin. “Anything. Fix Raksha’s doors. Fix cult’s boiler. Take apart leveler once-”

“Okay, okay,” said Glissa. “Let’s see what you found.” She reached beneath the Dross and felt around, then grabbed and lifted. With a huge effort, she pulled her find from the Dross. It looked like a metal boot at least two feet long from toe to heel, and it seemed to be attached to an enormous leg.

Slobad gasped, and Glissa dropped the boot. “What?” she cried. “What’s wrong?” She spun around to see if the nim were coming back, but the haze was still. When Glissa looked at Slobad, she thought the goblin was going to explode.

“What?” she asked again.

“I’ve heard stories,” said Slobad, “but never believed them. Myths. Not real. Always thought they just stories like Krark’s journey into Mother’s Womb. But we found one. We found one.” He was practically jumping out of the Dross, he was so happy.

“What?” screamed Glissa.

“Come quickly,” said Slobad. “We pull from Dross.”

Slobad slogged to the nearby chimney and opened his pack. He pulled out some leather rope and a metal tool with a series of wheels and a handle. He tried to screw one end into the chimney but couldn’t get it to go in. Glissa scanned the haze, looking for any sign of attack, but Slobad motioned for her to join him. She trudged through the muck to his side. The goblin screwed the contraption into a hole and looped the rope through the wheels. He gave one end of the rope to Glissa.

“Tie around foot,” he said. “Go, go. Hurry up, crazy elf, before nim come back.”

“Foot?” asked Glissa. She shook her head and trudged back into the Dross. She glanced around again, still wondering if the nim would ever return to look for their master, then worked on pulling the boot back up. She tied the rope around the boot, glanced around one more time, and headed back to the chimney. Slobad was trying to turn a crank, but it wouldn’t budge.

Glissa took over for him. The rope went taut as she strained at the handle. She feared the rope would break, but then the handle began turning more easily and the rope started to move. She looked back and saw a large metal object coming from the Dross. It’s a giant, thought Glissa. She could see a huge barrel chest, arms, legs, and a squat head coming toward them. As the Dross began to slip off the body, Glissa saw it was all made of metal.

“What the flare is that?” she asked.

“A golem,” said Slobad.