Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (19 page)

The behemoth would not sleep. Nissa shimmied across the wrist-sized rope to tell it to stop, and either the creature did not hear her or it did not understand. If the behemoth did not sleep, neither could Nissa. She leaned against the mast with her cloak pulled tightly around her, holding up the pathway stone as often as she could to check their direction.

Their dry tack was long gone. For water they had the little still residing in their canteens that they had filled before going to bed at the inn. If the trip lasted no longer than another day, they would survive. Nissa knew the Joraga fasting mantras, and she could last without food for another week.

There was no sign of any landmass when the sun rose the next morning. Had they missed it in the darkness?
Doubtful
, Nissa thought. More likely she had mistaken a cloudbank on the horizon for a landmass. The light
had
been fading after all.

They sailed the rest of the day with no sight of land. When the sun was five hands high above the ocean, a flock of something appeared at the horizon. Nissa had a bad feeling about the creatures immediately. Her apprehension rose as they beat closer showing no visible wings, and for the first time she wished she could jump away, as she had when she’d first learned to planeswalk. But Nissa knew that she had to see the trip to the Eye through. Where had running away ever got her? No, she would continue on her path.

Soon the creatures were close enough that Nissa could see tentacles. She narrowed in on the creatures. “Flying brood,” she announced.

The brood flapped closer. When they were close enough that Nissa could hear the wind rushing through their tentacles, the brood lineage turned and circled over the boat. She watched their tentacles squirm as they circled. Nissa looked to Sorin. There were large dark circles under his eyes. He appeared as though he had not slept in days. Did he have the stamina to fight off the brood circling the ship? His was the only ranged weapon they possessed.

The behemoth’s eyes showed their whites as it struggled to raise its head enough to watch the brood.

If they glided down slowly in just the right formation she could perhaps use the stem in its whip form and dispose of two in quick order. Conceivably, Anowon could use one of his teeth.

Nissa was just preparing to pull her stem from its staff when the brood lineage moved out of their circling motion and moved away, flying west. Soon they were specks on the horizon again. The wind gusted, and the behemoth’s breath puffed. Sorin’s left hand was on top of his head holding his hair out of his eyes as he watched the brood disappear.
Why had they gone?

The others slept that night on the deck of the ship. Nissa was not looking forward to another night of managing the behemoth, but she sat at the front of the ship trying not to fall asleep, holding the pathway stone Khalled had given her, and watching the immense creature she’d summoned churn the brine water to foam.

The stars were bright enough to cast pale shadow on the deck. Anowon was at the other side of the ship with a nub of a candle burning as he read one of his
cylinders. Nissa could hear Smara muttering somewhere below decks where the jars of turntimber bark were lashed … packed in Zulaport for the markets of Guul Draz.

Nissa checked the pathway stone again. Sorin was standing across from her when she looked up.

“Why did the brood leave us alone?” Nissa said.

Sorin’s face showed the annoyance the question caused him. “How do you suppose I would know that?”

Nissa looked back at the stone hanging from the cord in her hand. A gust of wind blew it sideways, and she put it in the pocket of her cloak.

“I know what you are,” Sorin said, suddenly.

“What did you say?” A knot immediately formed in Nissa’s throat.
He knows
.

“I know what you are able to do,” Sorin continued. “That you posses the ability to walk to other planes.”

Nissa set her eyes on Sorin, and gave him what she hoped came off as a steady, level stare. “I am not oddity. Why would you suppose I was?”

“We are not ‘oddities.’”

Nissa felt as though she might swallow her tongue. Her heart hopped. She found herself making a conscious effort to control her breathing. She took a deep breath and released it. When she opened her eyes she had her center once again.

“Why do you tell me that you know this about me? Who are you?”

“I am like you,” Sorin replied.

“You are not like me. I do not slay juveniles. Not even brood lineage juveniles.”

“You would if you had seen their parents.”

Nissa let that statement hang in the windy air. She hoped he’d say more, and when he did she could barely contain her smile.

“The brood are only the minions,” he said. “That is why we must put them all back in their prison, and hold their parents in check with them.”

“Why must we?”

“Because if we fail to do so they will eat this and many other planes,” Sorin said. “Planes that you perhaps have visited?”

Nissa had, in fact, visited only a handful. One had been a staggering metropolis of beings standing virtually cheek to cheek amid towering buildings. She had walked the street for about an hour and in that time it had seemed that the amount of people grew and the height of the buildings lengthened. There was nothing green that she could see. She had left soon after.

Another plane was stranger than the first. There had been natural features like mountains and forests, but on closer examination they turned out to have straight angles that showed they had been created. She had watched in amazement as a range of mountains were moved with the wave of a hand by a being with metal arms and an elongated head. She’d been taken prisoner fairly quickly by one of those beings and barely escaped with her life. She would not be traveling to anywhere like those places again, if she could help it. Still, she said nothing in hopes that Sorin would keep talking. And he did.

“If we do not contain the brood, they will free their titans, and Zendikar will cease to be what it is now.”

“What are these
titans?”

“They are terrible creatures that eat energy, as the brood do,” Sorin said. As he spoke he stared out over the starlit ocean. Small white crests appeared on the low choppy waves. “They suck the very energy out of a plane and move on to the next one. Destroyers of
planes. They are dreadful foes to anyone who stands against them.”

“And they are imprisoned now?”

“Yes, in the Eye of Ugin.”

“On Akoum?” Nissa said.

Sorin nodded.

Nissa looked out at the water. “How will we put the brood back in the prison the vampire saw them escape from?”

Sorin did not say anything for a moment. “We cannot,” he said finally.

“Did you say ‘we cannot’?”

“Yes.”

“Why is that?”

“They are too dispersed at this point. But they are not the true danger. If the titans escape”—he raised his eyebrows in the starlight—“there will be utter catastrophe. And the brood lineage are trying to accomplish this, they just do not know how yet.”

“So this brood will have to be hunted down, and their parents imprisoned?”

Sorin nodded.

“And what would happen if we allowed these titans their freedom?”

“They would wreck Zendikar,” Sorin said, without hesitation.

But Nissa sensed something—a certain tightness around his mouth and eyes that she had not seen before. She looked again, and it was gone.
Could he be lying?
she thought.
And for what reason?

“Why do you tell me all of this now?” Nissa said. “I am already helping you on this quest. You saved my life in the Turntimber, and I am repaying you.”

“We are near Akoum. Somebody has to understand what we will shortly face.”

“Why?”

Sorin exhaled. “I will need your skills later.”

Nissa did not like how that sounded. “And if I refuse?” she said. “Later?”

“You cannot refuse. Zendikar depends on it.”

Nissa sat looking out at the water. Why would the brood or the titans be on Zendikar in the first place? Were they native to that place? Clearly the Eldrazi had been on Zendikar a long time. Eldrazi ruins could be found in almost every corner of the plane.

And who
was
Sorin, really? Who had sent him to make sure the Eldrazi stayed contained, and why? Why would beings from other planes be so concerned with keeping the Eldrazi on Zendikar? How did he know the truth of the Eldrazi when she, a native of the plane, had never heard even a whisper of what he’d said? She only remembered the Eldrazi as a childhood nighttime story. And in those stories, the Eldrazi were the sort of beings that built castles that reached to the sun and ate golden fruit from trees that floated in the air. And Sorin was telling her they lived on energy, on mana from the land?

She turned to ask Sorin how he knew so much about this situation, but he was gone. She was left with the sound of the waves chopping against the hull of the ship and the behemoth’s massive legs chugging in the water.

Nissa sat with her back against the mast and let her mind wander. Above her head the stars moved along their paths. Soon her mind was reworking what Sorin had said, and before she knew it, the eastern horizon went as red as blood.

Nissa could see a line of land ahead. Above the land towered high, strangely pointed spires of sharp tipped mountains. As she watched, the morning sun reflected red off the crystal-studded peaks.

Nissa felt a presence and turned. Anowon was standing on the other side of the mast, staring at her.

“Truly you are lucky to be a Joraga,” the vampire said. “And to have taken the Joraga tincture of cut fungus and asta weed.”

“Good morning to you,” Nissa said, turning back to the blood-red shore of Akoum. “I wonder why Sorin has not fallen to your fangs?”

“Perhaps he is not to my liking.”

“And I am?”

Anowon looked away from her and at the land on the horizon.

“Akoum,” Anowon said. “The kor called it ‘the place where things were lost.’ Low level Roils are nearly constant. The very land is as sharp as a knife’s edge. The sun refracts through those pointed crystals creating areas of extreme heat that could cook an unsuspecting elf traveler in a manner of moments. And the denizens,” Anowon said as he grimaced malevolently, “taste horrible.”

As if in response to Anowon’s monologue, the ocean suddenly pitched to the right. There was a sudden, deafening rush, and the water immediately next to the ship began to impossibly lift up. Soon a huge globule of swirling water was floating above the tip of the mast. Nissa could see the dark shapes of ocean creatures—six times larger than the behemoth—caught in the huge bubble. And when she looked over the side of the ship, she could see the plant life of the ocean floor flopped to the side in the early morning sun. A loose fish flopped on a bare patch of sand.

“It’s the Roil,” Anowon said.

Nissa watched as the ball of ocean floated gracefully up into the sky, with its fish swimming within.

Sorin walked to the front of the ship, brushing his long hair with a silver comb. He glanced up at the piece
of disembodied ocean. “Look! Even parts of Zendikar are trying to get away from Zendikar,” he said.

They were still a league from the shore. Nissa unrolled Khalled’s map to look for a possible port in which to land the ship. Akoum appeared like a large circular landmass. She wiped the map off with the palm of her calloused hand and peered closer.

“What troubles you?” Anowon said.

“Our map is wrong. The ports are not marked on here.”

“The map is not at fault. There are no ports on Akoum.”

“Oh, this
is
excellent,” Sorin said.

“The shore is too perilous for ports,” Anowon said. “However, the probability is high that a group of humans is forming a rescue party on shore even as we speak.”

“To rescue us?” Nissa asked. “Boats!”
Why did I ever get on a boat?

“It is possible to land a ship,” Anowon said. “But the water is filled with crystalline points invisible to even the most trained lookout.”

“And we do not even have that.” Nissa said.

“Precisely.”

“Why did you not say something about this sooner?”

Anowon shrugged. “One point more: There is a good chance that those human rescuers could also be bandits.”

“But how did the brood that took you prisoner get you to Ondu?”

“By wing.”

“Oh, lets do that,” Sorin said.

Nissa ignored him. When she looked up, it seemed like the shore of Akoum had raised three hands higher, like a great maw opening to receive them.

“This must be the welcoming party,” Sorin said, pointing off the starboard side. A great field of bubbles erupted on the surface of the water. Soon the water churned with movement, and huge tentacles began to break the surface. A fleshy dome the color of a bled corpse broke the surface. Even Sorin drew his breath in sharply when two great, malevolent eyes opened in the dome and focused their long irises on the ship. Soon the full head appeared, with the tentacles where the mouth should be.

Nissa held her staff up.
A kraken
, she thought.
What could happen next?
She glanced at Sorin. Had he recouped his power enough to strike down such a large creature? Even though Sorin was smiling, she could see the lines of exhaustion on his face.

The kraken rose immensely next to the ship. Its right tentacle held a huge, spiked shell, and on its back was another even larger shell. The creature’s other limb was huge, an armored claw easily as long as the ship they were standing on. The six gills running up its chest opened and closed in the early morning sun.

“Why do you disturb the slumber of the sleeper in the deep?”

“Who is he?” Sorin said innocently.

The eyebrow shells above the kraken’s eyes dropped. “He is Brinelin, the Moon Kraken. He is I,” the creature said.

For some moments, Nissa could only stare at the tremendous creature, dripping and glistening in the light.

“Brinelin,” Nissa said, raising her voice above the churning made by the kraken’s tentacles. “We did not mean to break your slumber.”