Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (34 page)

There was no familiar, glowing dent where her staff had struck the hedron, and Nissa began to despair her effort. From behind, Sorin sucked in air for an incantation that Nissa suspected would almost surely be his last, fatal strike against her.
All for Zendikar
, she thought as she sank back, expecting the blow from behind.
All for the forest. The brilliant stars and the face of the moon
.

When the blow did not come, Nissa turned. Sorin was standing with his eyes closed, still singing. A certain blackness emanated from his mouth like fine smoke as he sang.

Then a crack appeared in the hedron. Nissa turned in time to see. At first the crack was as thin as a spider’s leg, then it widened, and a second later the tip of a bright, green leaf unfurled from within, and the crack widened. Nissa leaned forward just as a shoot,
thick as her arm, uncoiled and rented the crack wide. The crack traveled up the hedron until it stopped at the tip, and the hedron broke cleanly into two pieces and tumbled with a tremendous crash onto the stone floor. Green arced from shard to shard, and then the fire blinked out altogether.

Sorin’s voice boomed louder from behind. But clearly the vampire could not undo what had been done. Moments later his song took on a high, screeching sound, and then stopped abruptly. Nissa looked back at Sorin. His eyes popped open to reveal corneas the color of molten gold.

“Well,” Sorin said, clapping his hands together. “This is my queue to leave. You, my dear fools, can deal with the consequences. They will be far worse than anything I can do to you.” The vampire brushed a hand down his tunic, and Nissa turned her attention back to the broken hedron.

The hall echoed and shook as the hedron halves rocked in place. But instead of quieting when the halves came to rest, the cavern continued shaking, until large chunks fell from the darkness above and the cave floor began to pitch. The eyes of the stone dragon’s face were still glowing. She smelled Anowon suddenly standing next to her.

“Well?” Nissa said to Anowon who said nothing, but stood at the edge of the causeway looking down into the darkness at the bottom of the cavern.

A
s the cavern shook, small jags of lightening snapped between the hedron halves. Nissa closed her eyes and squared her shoulders as she waited for the last moment. Zendikar would flourish once again and the Eldrazi would be gone forever.

Mudheel was next to her retching—he wiped the corner of his mouth and looked up at the hedron with tears streaming down his face. “Mistress …” he said. “No.”

The cavern started to shake. Three massive tremors shook the cavern sending more rocks showering down. And from somewhere deep in the mountain came a sound so ominous that Nissa turned away from the face of the dragon and started running. But the sound followed her, like the moan of ten thousand undead, and something else—a rushing roar.

“Out,” Anowon yelled above the roar.

They ran. Twice Nissa almost slid off the causeway, catching herself at the last moment. Of Mudheel, there was no sign.

They crisscrossed over the causeways with rocks falling all around until they saw the light of the cave entrance ahead. The cavern shuttered again and Nissa turned back for a final look at the Eye or Ugin.
Something was rising out of the depression under the causeway. Shapes danced in the darkness. The shadow of a tentacle larger than any she’d ever seen flopped on the causeway behind, shattering it to pieces. She felt the stone around groan and buckle as it came undone and fell to bits.

The drakes were still perched atop the crystals when Anowon and Nissa burst out of the cave mouth. The small dragons surveyed them standing in the billows of dust issuing from the cave’s mouth. Then they took off and flew away.

The ground began to shake more violently. The roar behind suddenly swelled to a deafening bellow and Anowon and Nissa leaped back against the rock next to the cave mouth.

And just in time. Moments later enormous tentacles snaked out of the cave mouth, followed by jagged, bony arms. The very mountain began to come down around the tentacles. What could only have been an Eldrazi titan glided out of the hole, its tentacles slathered in mucus.

Nissa began to run. The others followed. Whatever was coming out of the cave mouth was huge. The ground was fracturing under it. Nissa glanced back as she ran—the red tooth, the spire at the top of the mountain, cracked and tumbled down over the creature’s bony neck. Nissa and Anowan ran as hard as they could until the ground was not shaking as much. Nissa stopped and turned.

As Nissa watched, the creature nuzzled its bulbous bone face into fine scree and rubble which was all that was left of the mountain. In appearance the beast looked much as a brood lineage, but larger by far. As tall as a turntimber tree. And the smell! The smell made her want to die. Rotting meat and
mushrooms and sulfur from the very bowels of the rock.

But there were differences, aside from its immensity. The small plants eking out an existence in the scree withered to black smudges on the stones as the titan neared. A stone pig fled its burrow in terror, but fell to sludge as it passed near the titan’s tentacles. Nissa felt the terrible power as well. She felt the force within her body pulling toward the tentacled menace, as iron to a magnet. It was hard for her to work her lungs at pulling air. Next to her, Anowon shuddered and slipped down the rock they were huddled against.

The next titan to emerge from the ruined mountain was nothing more than a mass of tentacles. The porous latticework structure floating above it scraped the top of the cave mouth as it was born from the cave mouth. Nissa blinked and found herself crumpled next to Anowon on the ground, she did not know she was holding her breath until she exhaled.

The last titan used its split arms to drag itself out of the mouth of the cave. It was a long creature, longer than the other titans … and more terrible somehow. Once it had pulled its rear tentacles out of the cave, this titan straightened itself. Its chitinous exoskeleton crackled as it stood taller than anything she’d ever seen. Nissa found herself cringing.

All standing together, the titans moved down the canyon. The very light around them bent as a desert mirage might, and the rock they moved over cracked to dust. As they neared the edges of the canyon, great chunks or red rock broke off and desiccated to dust filtering down to the canyon floor.

The last titan slithered to the middle of the canyon, and even its sound did not adhere to the normal rules of nature. Instead of the crushing sound that should
have been heard as it made the rocks flat, Nissa heard a high-pitched squeak and low, moaning roll as the sound in the canyon bent and reverberated in the titan’s dominion.

The terrible creatures moved close and as their tentacles wound together they began to make a sound that Nissa could not have imagined in her worst nightmare. At once it was the shriek of wounded warthogs mixed with the sharp cut of a gale wind. The titans raised their clinging arms and began to bellow at the sky.

Nissa glanced at Anowon, expecting to see the fear that she herself felt at seeing these massive creatures screaming at the sky. But the vampire would not meet her eyes, and when he did it was not fear of the Eldrazi that she saw. It was hunger.
He’s hungry
, she thought with a dull dread.

Mudheel was gone. That left Nissa, alone with a vampire who had not eaten in days. Had not Sorin told her that Anowon was always trying to drain her? And that he, Sorin, kept this from happening? She did not doubt it seeing the hungry look in Anowon’s eyes just now.

But by this time the titan’s vocalizing had become deafening. Some of the canyon walls singed to vapor and the rest compressed to powder and blew away in the hot wind. Nissa watched as the creatures, their tentacles intertwined, moved down the canyon, knocking down walls. When they came to the mountain, they did not stop. The rock simply fell to pieces at their touch. And they stopped for a moment to nuzzle the rubble until it, too, was nothing more than powder sucked dry of any mana.

Nissa lay on the ground, exhausted. When she looked up Anowon was watching her, his chin resting on arms
crossed over his knees. The pupils in his strange dark eyes were narrowed to points as he stared.

Rocks clattered and a form lurched out of the dust, dragging one leg. Nissa hopped to her feet and felt for the stem sword. But the figure turned to her and chuckled.

“Oh, this is rich,” Sorin said. “You managed to break what could not be broken, and you almost did me to death in the process. Now
you
are responsible for what happens to your precious Zendikar.”

Nissa’s mouth must have gaped. “I did not know the seeding would undo such a desperate enchantment,” she stammered.

Sorin took a deep breath and released it. “What is done is done.”

Nissa looked to the path of destruction left by the titans.

With his most arrogant smile Sorin turned his eyes on the other vampire. “Anowon, come here.”

Anowon did not move, did not even meet the vampire’s eyes. “I do not serve you, Mortifier,” Anowon said. “You should be dead now.”

“I should,” Sorin agreed. “But now that the elf has released the scourge, I will be needed elsewhere.”

“First you will come with me to Guul Draz and answer for your crimes to the Septumvirate in Ib Nimana,” Anowon said.

“Thank you for the invitation, but I will have to decline,” Sorin hobbled over to a rock and sat down. His great sword clattered on the talus as he bent and sat down.

Nissa took a deep breath.

“You know what direction they are moving, don’t you?” Sorin said.

Nissa imagined the titan’s path and closed her eyes.

“Yes, you see,” Sorin said. “Toward your jungles.”

He looked from Nissa to Anowon, then back again. “What do you think will happen now?” he said. “Does your plane feel different now that the ancient enemy is released?”

“I will not even ask the Ghet,” Sorin said. “I can tell the answer from his face.”

Nissa glanced at Anowon. He was staring at Sorin with extreme distaste.

Sorin swept one arm out. “Zendikar is the same place as it always was. The brood still run rough-shod over your lands. The Roil will perservere … And elves will still bless the rest of us with their stunning opinions. But I,” Sorin leaned foreword and stood. “I will have to let you see how this all turns out.”

“You are not leaving,” Anowon said. “You are coming with me to Guul Draz.”

“Oh,” Sorin said. “You were serious before about visiting the Septumvirate? Again, I am sorry.”

Anowon stood.

Sorin was easily a head taller than the other vampire, and far more formidable, Nissa knew. He looked at Nissa. “Do not let him slake his disappointment-thirst on you,” he said.

There was a sudden crash and one of the mountains in the direction that the titans had traveled began to teeter and crumble. Anowan turned to watch as the high mountain rocked far to the right and began to very slowly topple.

Sorin closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. Nissa stepped back involuntarily when the vampire’s body tensed and began to shake. A deep growl emanated from his throat. Nissa could clearly see the veins standing out in Sorin’s neck.
Is the planeswalking?
After a short time the growl became a whine and then Sorin’s skin
began to glow very slightly. He opened both eyes and winked one of them at Nissa. Then Sorin was gone, and the air which had surrounded his body rushed with a sudden pop.

Nissa’s first inclination was to follow the vampire, to plead with him to come back to Zendikar and set things right—re-imprison the menace she had just released. But the moment passed and Nissa did not concentrate on moving through the Eternities.

Anowan had missed the whole event, but she felt he was meant to. He stood rapt, his eyes fixed on the crumbling mountain. Nissa did not want to explain what had just happened. It would be difficult to do so clearly, anyway. And there was something more important she had to make painfuly clear to the hungry vampire standing opposite her.

Nissa reached down and drew a long dirk from her boot and snapped it out so that the tip rested on the back of Anowon’s neck. Sensing the danger, he turned and lunged. Nissa stepped to the side, caught the back of his neck with her left hand, and with the force of her backwards step, whipped him to the ground face first. Then she drew a length of rope from the pack and bound Anowon’s hands behind his back.

Nissa yanked the vampire to his feet. “You will walk bound until Affa where we will part ways and I will travel to Bala Ged. My time trusting vampires has long since past,” Nissa said, as she pushed Anowon before her along the trail. “I am going home.”