Battle for Zendikar

Collected Stories

Compiled by Kimberly J. Kreines

Contents

Copyright

1. Slaughter at the Refuge

2. The Silent Cry

3. The Believers’ Pilgrimage

4. The Survivors of Sky Rock

5. Memories of Blood

6. Nissa’s Quest

7. Home Waters

8. Nissa’s Resolve

9. Revelation at the Eye

10. Shaping an Army

11. The Liberation of Sea Gate

12. Hedron Alignment

13. At Any Cost

14. Promises to Keep

BATTLE FOR ZENDIKAR: COLLECTED STORIES

© 2015 Wizards of the Coast LLC.

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First Printing: December 2015

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1

Slaughter at the Refuge

By James Wyatt

Sea Gate has fallen, joining Sejiri and Bala Ged in annihilation in the wake of the Eldrazi. As the city teetered on the brink of destruction, the Planeswalker Gideon Jura went to find help: a thinker who could help the fleeing scholars of Sea Gate solve the "puzzle of leylines" that could tilt the odds back in the Zendikari's favor. He went to Ravnica and convinced Jace Beleren to return to Zendikar with him.

For Jace, though, extricating himself from the responsibilities of the Guildpact took some time—time that the refugees of Sea Gate did not have.

They stepped into carnage.

Gideon's gut wrenched as the enormity of the slaughter pressed itself on his mind. Vorik's purple banner flapped in the wind that wheezed down the ravine and stirred chalky dust and black ash into whirling eddies across the blasted ground. Smoke still rose from glowing embers here and there, where campfires had spread in the chaos to engulf whatever other shelters the defenders had built. The Eldrazi corruption covered the ground, an intricate meshwork of thin white filaments.

And bodies—bodies were everywhere.

Some looked like the casualties of any other war, blood soaking their chests and streaking their faces, limbs torn free, gore spilling from gaping gut wounds. But more—so many more—had partially crumbled away, leaving heaps of dust where heads or legs or arms had been. The smell of blood and entrails mixed with the carrion odor of the Eldrazi and turned Gideon's stomach.

During the final assault on Sea Gate, Commander Vorik had established a camp here, a refuge for the people fleeing the advancing Eldrazi. Last Gideon knew, it had been safe—or as safe as anyplace on Zendikar. It was sheltered in a narrow ravine that's mouth was almost blocked by a huge fallen hedron. If nothing else, the hedron served to choke off the approach to the camp, but Vorik had seemed to put some stock in the hedron's magical ability to ward off the Eldrazi as well.

But Vorik's camp was clearly no longer a safe refuge. Gideon's mission had taken longer than he intended: Jace had had work to attend to on Ravnica, and Gideon had needed the attention of a healer. Then they had gone to Regatha in a fruitless effort to recruit Chandra Nalaar. And while they had delayed, the Eldrazi had apparently overwhelmed Vorik and his defenders.

Art by Aleksi Briclot

"Gideon!"

He spun on reflex and saw Jace crouching defensively as a pack of Eldrazi spawn spilled around the wreckage of a nearby wall, squelching and skittering as they moved.

Gideon leaped between the Eldrazi and Jace. His sural swept around him, hurling the Eldrazi away, crashing them into each other and shattering the featureless, bony plates that passed for their heads. Then the camp lay silent again.

Gideon snatched up a short, round-bladed sword that was half-buried in a pile of white dust. "Take this," he said, offering the hilt to Jace.

For a moment Jace looked as if Gideon were handing him a snake, but then he took the blade and gave it a few swings through the air.

"Not exactly my specialty," he said.

"Do what you can," Gideon told him.

"So where is this scholar you want me to talk to?"

Gideon looked down at the much smaller man. "Is that all you can think of? Here? Now?"

Jace shrugged, but something in his eyes told Gideon that the mind mage was just covering his own dismay.

Gideon turned away. "We need to move," he said. He looked around to get the lay of the land. "Up the ravine. If anyone survived this, that's where they'll be." Even as he said them, he felt the weight of his words. What if no one had survived?

If he had been here, the camp would not have fallen.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Trust me," Gideon said.

To his credit, Jace nodded and drew closer, ready to follow where Gideon led.

The ravine narrowed and rose sharply behind the camp. Scattered clumps of small Eldrazi ranged around the gully, leaving a spreading pattern of chalky meshwork behind them. Gideon suspected they were feeding, though he couldn't imagine what sustenance they could derive from the bare rock. His first inclination was to destroy all the Eldrazi he could see—but he had Jace to think about, and there was no time to lose in looking for any survivors from Vorik's camp. So he picked a path along the rocky ground that kept them away from the Eldrazi.

Only the occasional Eldrazi veered from the bulk of its fellows to come at them. Gideon quickly dispatched those stragglers, and before long he crested a rocky ridge and his heart lifted.

A wall blocked the ravine ahead, a rickety wooden barrier that looked like it had been torn from a shed and wedged into a choke point. Spears bristling over the top testified that some Zendikari, at least, had survived the slaughter at the refuge.

But between Gideon and those survivors, hundreds of Eldrazi crowded in front of the wall, reaching long tentacles and sharp claws up and over the top. The spears jabbed frantically at any Eldrazi that came within reach, but it was clear that the survivors were vastly outnumbered and outmatched.

Gideon bellowed, "Zendikar!" and charged. His sural whirled around in front of him, clearing a path through the massed Eldrazi as he rushed toward the ramshackle wall.

A lone voice from behind the barricade echoed his cry, followed by a ragged chorus as spears jabbed out with renewed vigor.

"Gideon!" someone shouted. His first thought was to shoot a glance over his shoulder—he had all but forgotten Jace in his eagerness to reach the survivors. But Jace was right behind him. The shout had come from behind the wall, and again it was picked up by a group, even louder than the first.

He reached the wall and whipped his sural back and forth as the Eldrazi continued to press the assault.

Art by Dan Scott

"Now what?" Jace said.

Gideon's sural swept in a wide arc to clear them some space. Then he laced his fingers together and nodded to Jace. "Up you go."

"Really."

Jace had missed his chance. The Eldrazi crowded close again. A surge of them from his left drew his attention for a second too long—when he whirled to his right, he saw a wriggling spawn lunging at Jace. Gideon was too slow. Jace threw his arms up to cover his face—and some unseen force pushed the creature back an instant before it could skewer him with a sharp appendage. It wasn't a powerful blow, but it was enough that Gideon had time to get his sural around the Eldrazi's neck.

Then Jace staggered and yelped as a sickly blue tentacle coiled around his leg. Gideon lifted the first Eldrazi into the air and smashed it down on the tentacled one.

"Are you all right?" he asked Jace.

Jace nodded and his eyes flickered with blue light as another spawn scuttled away from him, knocked back by what must have been a telekinetic blow.

Again Gideon swept his sural back and forth to clear a path. Eldrazi bodies were piling up, slowing the advance of the rest of the swarm. He laced his fingers again, and this time Jace promptly put a foot in place. Gideon heaved him up and a hand from the other side of the wall helped him over.

His back to the wall, Gideon faced the remaining mob—squirming spawn and faceless drones, bestial extensions of their titan sire's alien will, of Ulamog's unending hunger. These creatures didn't know who stood before them. They didn't care that he was Gideon Jura, the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.

But the people behind the barrier knew. He was hope to them, their one chance to survive this dire threat, their salvation and deliverance. That was what he had been to countless soldiers across Zendikar, and now he had to do it again.

"I just hope I'm not too late," he said to himself.

Art by Eric Deschamps

He stood his ground and fought, sweeping his sural back and forth, his mind preoccupied with talking to the survivors and getting Jace safely to Jori En.

"Gideon!" came another chorus from behind the wall.

It was time. A larger spawn with heavy bone plates on its head came rushing toward him. He crouched, awaiting the perfect moment, then jumped. One foot came down hard on the Eldrazi's head, then he leaped up, flipped backward, and vaulted over the wall.

His feet kicked up clouds of dust as he landed and laid eyes on the survivors of Vorik's camp.

Eight haggard soldiers sat with their backs against the wall, evidently enjoying the moment of respite that Gideon had brought them. A skittering and clawing at the wall told them that respite was over, and they pulled themselves to their feet again, leaning on their spears for support.

Gideon's sural knocked an Eldrazi off the top of the wall.

"Tell me you're not the only survivors," he said.

One of the soldiers, a kor, jerked her head toward the higher end of the ravine. "Commander Vorik is leading the rest," she said. "But most of them are worse off than we are."

Considering the array of bandages and splints that adorned these eight soldiers, that said a great deal. Gideon frowned.

"How many?" he asked.

The woman shook her head. "A few dozen."

"I should have been here," Gideon said under his breath.

She made a half-hearted jab with her spear at an Eldrazi coming over the wall, her face telling Gideon that she was only pretending not to have heard him.

"Does Vorik have a plan? Where is he taking them?"

"I think getting out of this death trap of a ravine is his first objective. I'm not sure he's thought beyond that."

Jace snorted. "What kind of leader—" he began.

"No, he's right," Gideon said. "We all need to get out of this ravine. I'll hold this wall as long as I can." His sural punctuated his words as more Eldrazi fell dead at his feet. "Go rejoin the others, and take Jace with you."

The kor nodded, not bothering to hide her relief. And, Gideon noted, not bothering to question whether he could hold the wall for long. His reputation had spread widely.

"Jace," he said, "when you get to the others, look for a merfolk named Jori En. Tell her I brought you to help with the puzzle, and she'll give you everything she knows."

"Assuming she's still alive," Jace said.

Dread knotted Gideon's stomach. He hadn't wanted to put that doubt into words. He hadn't seen Jori En among the dead in the camp down below, but that didn't mean anything. She could be dust blowing in the wind, or perhaps she never escaped Sea Gate at all. Maybe he had brought Jace all the way here for nothing.

Which made Gideon's prolonged absence all the more inexcusable. He tasted bile. "Go!" he shouted, and the soldiers limped away from the wall as fast as they could manage.

Art by Tyler Jacobsen

Without having to worry about Jace, Gideon could give the Eldrazi his full attention. Now that the soldiers had left, the Eldrazi scuttled over and around the wall faster than Gideon could strike them down. He fell into an easy rhythm of slaughter, a dance that had become second nature to his muscles. His sural cracked and whistled, golden light gleaming along the length of the four whip-like blades as he channeled his magic through it. His buckler alternately deflected blows and became a weapon itself, smashing into bony plates and breaking limbs. And ripples of energy washed across his skin where the Eldrazi threatened to touch him, warding him from harm.

Maintaining his defenses was actually the harder task. Against human foes, it was easy to anticipate every stab and thrust, and thus make sure that any strike that got past his whirling sural and his buckler would bounce off skin fortified with his magic. Against human foes, he was virtually invulnerable.

Against the Eldrazi, though, he was more susceptible to injury. Especially when he was tired, as he had been for days. Their movements were harder to anticipate. Their limbs were bifurcated, or they were writhing masses of tentacles. He often ended up shielding more of his body than he needed to, which was a drain on his energy, or he misjudged and took a hit. That had happened too many times in the last week.

As much as he hated to admit it, if Jace had not dragged him to see that healer in Ravnica the night before, he might not have been much help in the camp's defense anyway. He might have been dead.

He glanced over his shoulder as the Eldrazi corpses piled up around him. Jace and the Zendikari were out of sight. And in front of him, it seemed like the Eldrazi advance was beginning to slow.

Which might just mean they had found an easier route to the tasty morsels of Zendikari flesh behind him. He started backing his way up the ravine, his sural gripping and slicing at the Eldrazi that followed him. Occasionally, too, he struck high on the side of the ravine, sending a shower of gravel or a few larger chunks of rock down onto the Eldrazi.

Then a huge Eldrazi surged up behind him—not Ulamog, but something very like the enormous titan. It had no legs, just a writhing mass of tentacles, and it pulled itself along the broken ground with its arms, making the ground quiver each time a huge, clawed hand struck the ground. Bony plates ran up the backs of its arms and covered its shoulders, so its head was just one more plate among many. A tangle of tentacles reached skyward from just behind its head.

Art by Slawomir Maniak

One great claw hit the ground, squashing a slithering spawn in an eruption of purplish slime. Neither it nor the surrounding spawn paid any heed.

Gideon planted his feet and took a deep breath, steeling himself. How do you win a war, he wondered, when the enemy has no fear of death and nothing to lose? They never tired, they apparently fed on everything—so what would ever stop their advance? How many had he killed here in this ravine, just today? And still they kept coming.

Now the Eldrazi lifted its upper body so it loomed over Gideon, more than twice his height. What looked almost like a second head and torso protruded forward from the thing's chest, squirming independently of the larger body as if trying to pull itself free.

Did it mean to scare him, showing off its much greater size? Or was this more of an animalistic threat display, like a wolf's bristling fur making it look larger? Was there some calculated intent behind that bony plated head?

It didn't matter. One of those great claws came swinging toward Gideon. With the barest movement of his arm, he wrapped his sural around the creature's hand, then he pulled, yanking the Eldrazi off balance.

No. That move would have pulled a human off balance, or even a giant. But the Eldrazi's tentacles barely shifted on the ground, keeping it perfectly grounded. Without hesitation, it grabbed at him with its other claw. He batted the claw aside with his buckler and lashed his sural upward, where it slashed and coiled at the creature's neck.

Neck? Head? He wasn't sure the words even made sense when applied to an Eldrazi. Did it draw air from some opening in its head, down its neck to lungs in its chest? Was its brain located behind that bony plate at the top of its body? Did it even have a brain, or lungs, or a heart, or any vital and vulnerable organs? For all the Eldrazi he had killed, he had never cut one open and studied its anatomy, and he'd seen many continue to fight despite what he would have assumed to be mortal wounds.

And this one seemed unconcerned as Gideon's sural tightened around its neck. The mass of tentacles supporting the creature surged forward and engulfed him, coiling around him and squeezing. Golden light shimmered and rippled over his entire body, protecting him from injury, but maintaining that shield would drain his energy as quickly as the Eldrazi would squeeze the breath from his body if he let it down.

Kicking and thrashing, he managed to loosen the creature's hold enough that he could pull on his sural, dragging the Eldrazi's head down. Then, on a hunch, he brought his shield hand up to punch the smaller second head that grew from its chest.

It was a good hunch. The tentacles loosed their grip. Gideon pulled his sural free from the Eldrazi's neck, and the creature staggered backward, depositing him on the ground. Two more quick slashes with the glowing blades severed first the smaller head and then the larger, and the Eldrazi fell dead to the ground.

Art by Jason Felix

Gideon had no time to celebrate his victory. While he had fought the larger Eldrazi, at least a dozen spawn had skittered past him, following Jace and the Zendikari soldiers up toward the other survivors, and more were advancing with every passing second, swarming over the Eldrazi corpse. Sweeping his sural through every crawling and squirming spawn he could reach, he strode up the ravine.

The rocky ravine walls grew closer and closer together as the ground rose. At last, his body spattered with ooze and gore from dozens of Eldrazi spawn, he reached a narrow choke point where bare stone walls opened just wide enough for him to pass through. He jumped up a few natural stone steps and paused for a moment in the narrow gap, surveying the crowd of spawn that still surged up the ravine behind him.

He ran a few more strides past the gap. As the ravine opened up again, he stopped, turned, and lashed out with his sural—once, twice—striking the rock walls and breaking rubble from both sides of the gap to shower down on the Eldrazi below. More strikes, the whip-like blades cracking like a miner's pick on the stone, and larger stones were sheared from the walls, squashing more spawn and blocking the advance of the ones behind. A few more hits, carefully placed, and he had created a defensive wall.

It would not hold, of course—not any better than the one the Zendikari had erected in their retreat. He could hear the Eldrazi scuttling and scraping at the boulders, shifting the rubble as they started to climb. But with any luck, the wall would buy him enough time.

He took off at a run, leaping from stone to stone as he neared the top of the ravine. Then, at last, he heard a woman's voice shouting orders, and a moment later the Zendikari survivors came into view.

"So few," he said to himself. A few dozen, the soldier had said—very few, if he was seeing the whole group. From the top of the ravine, they were making their way along a high ridge. He saw many crutches, many makeshift stretchers held by limping soldiers, and bandages on almost every living body.

Jace's blue cloak stood out among the grays and browns, the plain fabrics and dirt-caked clothes of the Zendikari. The mind mage was standing beside an armored human woman. Gideon hurried to join them.

"You made it," Jace said. Was that a touch of admiration in his voice?

The woman turned to face him, and her eyebrows rose in recognition. "You must be Gideon," she said.

"Did you find her?" he asked Jace. "Jori En?"

Jace shook his head. "I asked everyone."

"Did she . . . Was she—"

"She never got to the camp. One of the merfolk said she never got out of Sea Gate."

Gideon's chest clenched. "She died there?" He had left her in the middle of the battle, abandoned her to make her own way to the camp while he went to find Jace. If she was dead, it was his fault.

"Probably," Jace said. "But perhaps not. The man I talked to said that a small group got trapped, cut off from the evacuation. He thinks Jori En was among them, and they might have found shelter."

"So they could still be alive. They could still be in Sea Gate." His shoulders sagged at the thought of what he had to do next.

The woman cleared her throat. "I'm Tazri," she said.

She was a brown-skinned woman in elaborate plate armor, adorned with small wings at her shoulders and a glowing metal ring like an angel's halo, but around her neck. A heavy, flanged mace hung at her belt.

"Sorry," Gideon said. He extended his hand, the blades of his sural trailing on the ground.

She took his hand gingerly, eyeing his weapon. "I'm glad you're here."

"Where is Commander Vorik?" Gideon asked.

"Right here," came a hoarse voice from behind Tazri.

Tazri turned, and Gideon saw Vorik. He was a strongly built man with deep brown skin and curly gray hair cropped short. His shirtless chest was wrapped in bandages, and some blood had seeped through them at his left side. He leaned on a staff as he shuffled toward them.

"Hello, Gideon," he said, his voice a harsh whisper.

"Sir," Gideon said, keeping his concern out of his tone. Vorik was a proud man, and Gideon knew better than to patronize him. "We don't have much time. I slowed the Eldrazi advance, but I couldn't stop it."

"Gideon Jura, the savior of Fort Keff," Vorik said, a touch of wonder in his voice. "Perhaps now we'll call you the defender of Vorik's gully."

Gideon looked at the ground. "I should have been here earlier."

"Yes," Vorik said flatly. "We could have used you."

"What's your plan, sir?"

Vorik heaved a deep sigh. "What can we do but keep running? About three miles down this ridge, there's another fallen hedron in front of a large overhang. That'll make as good a camp as any."

Gideon frowned. "A protected entrance is good. But no way out?"

"If we can't hold them back from in there, we're doomed anyway. There's no way we can outrun them, even if the great defender of Vorik's gully stays around this time."

Gideon looked around the ridge, rubbing his chin. They stood at the crest of the Bulwark, the great ring of mountains that encircled Tazeem, though the ring was lower here, close to Sea Gate, than it was on the other side of the island. To his right, the land sloped gradually down to the Halimar, the great inner sea, fed by Tazeem's many rivers and held in place by the enormous dam that was the city of Sea Gate. To the left, a much sharper slope led down to the ocean. The curve of the land and the tangled trees of the Vastwood shielded Sea Gate from view.

A few hedrons hung motionless in the air nearby, fallen only halfway from the floating hedron field high above Tazeem to the sea below. Gideon let his gaze drift up to the hedron field. Ropes dangled from several of the lower hedrons and connected some of the ones that hovered in the sky.

"I have another idea," he said.

Vorik frowned at him. "You know a better place?"

"I think I do. Look." He pointed at the nearest hedron. "There's practically a staircase waiting for us."

Art by Winona Nelson

"Have you gone mad?" Tazri said. "You have two dozen people here who can barely walk, and you expect them to climb ropes and perch on hedrons?"

"Yes. For many of them, it will be easier than walking. And with enough hooks and ropes, we can help the others up." He turned back to Vorik. "Sir, with the sheer number of Eldrazi on the ground here, I believe there's no other place that can offer a similar level of protection."

"Fine," Vorik said. "Lead the way."

Tazri gaped at her commander. "Sir?"

"Gideon is right, Tazri," Vorik said. "Help him get the people ready."

Together, Gideon and Tazri worked quickly, despite her reservations. First they talked to the kor among the survivors, drawing on their skill with ropes. While some kor worked to build harnesses and slings that could carry the wounded up the heights, others scouted the path and fixed ropes in place to ease the ascent. Then they distributed what meager supplies the survivors had managed to take with them from Sea Gate and the destroyed refuge, giving heavier burdens to those who were strong enough to carry them. In just a few hours, they were ready to begin the climb.

The kor scouts led the way, with Gideon right behind them. He used his sural much as they used their ropes, though its whip-like blades weren't as long. He lacked their slender grace, but made up for it with strength and speed. Jace, though, was not a skilled climber nor an athlete of any sort. He trailed behind Gideon, offering meager assistance to the kor who were carrying those too injured to move themselves.

Most of the hedrons, tilted askew in the air, offered a relatively smooth and level surface to move along. It was easiest to crawl—which was the reason Gideon had said it might be easier than walking for some of the wounded. Crossing on ropes between hedrons was more challenging, as an act of both balance and courage. But these were hardy folk, accustomed to life on Zendikar with all its dangers. They made the ascent with no complaints, no missteps, and no further injuries.

A huge hedron near the bottom edge of Emeria proper offered a large, flat surface to establish a new camp, at least for the short term. It also offered a spectacular view of Tazeem, with all its rushing rivers, tangled woods, and clear lakes. The Halimar glittered in the evening sunlight and Sea Gate—

Art by Slawomir Maniak

Gideon stared long and hard at Sea Gate. Even at this distance, he could see the Eldrazi corruption spreading across the city. Buildings had crumbled to dust or turned into elaborate chalky meshwork. The great dam, which held in the waters of the Halimar, showed no signs of that corruption yet. But how long would it continue to hold? How long would its lighthouse stand?

"So now what?" Jace asked, startling him out of his musings.

"Jori En could still be there," he said, nodding toward the city. "I have to go find her." If he couldn't find her, then it was all for nothing. He had abandoned Sea Gate to go find Jace so Jace could help Jori solve a magical puzzle. Spending that time with Jace had meant that he wasn't at Vorik's camp when the Eldrazi came, and all those people had died. If he couldn't find her, they had died for nothing.

"Unlikely," Jace said gently. "Given what we know, she is probably dead. We should find another approach."

"You should," Gideon said. "We don't have Jori's notes, but maybe you can figure out what she was talking about. She said leylines and hedrons. Plenty of hedrons around—see what you can learn. And I'll find Jori En and bring her back here."

"It's a fool's errand," Jace said, as Gideon had known he would.

"It doesn't matter. I have to find her. If I don't, then what was all this for? Why did I bring you here at all, when I could have been here defending the camp from the beginning? If you and Jori En don't solve this puzzle of hers, then it was all for nothing."

"It's all for nothing if you die trying to find her in a city teeming with Eldrazi."

"Jace." Gideon put a hand on the mind mage's shoulder. "Look at what we've done today. Greater deeds lie ahead for both of us. Trust me."

Jace squirmed out from under his hand, stepped back out of reach, and met his gaze. He opened his mouth to speak, then paused.

"Trust me," Gideon said again.

"I do," Jace said, with a touch of wonder in his voice. "I still think it's foolish, but I do."

"Thank you. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I believe you will," Jace said. "Good luck."

"You too." He turned away and walked along the edge of the hedron face, making a wide circle around the camp until he reached the rope leading downward. Luck, skill, the power of his magic, the lessons of his training—Gideon would need them all, surely.

"I have to do this," he told himself, gripping the rope. "They can't have died for nothing."

2

The Silent Cry

By Kimberly J. Kreines

Having finally let go of the doubt and fear that was holding her back, Nissa has bonded fully with the power of the land, the soul of Zendikar. Her connection allows her to move as one with the towering tree-like elemental, Ashaya, coordinate attacks with ranks of smaller elementals, and wield aspects of the forest—trees, vines, land, and foliage—as extensions of her being in her battle against the Eldrazi. She carries with her a bundle of seeds from trees that have been wiped out by the Eldrazi, and she will not stop until she can plant them safely on Zendikar again.

She fights with a singular focus: to seek out and destroy the Eldrazi titan responsible for siring the swarms, in order to save Zendikar—her home, her world, her friend.

How was it that Nissa had lived on this world—this tenacious, bewitching, beautiful world—for so many years and yet missed so much?

Every day there was something new, something Zendikar taught Nissa that surprised and delighted her. The land had hundreds of magnificent secrets, and it was sharing them with her.  

She would never have guessed that the giant mantises secreted a scent meant to simulate the odor of fresh worms and thus attract small song birds—but not for the mantises to prey on, rather for the purpose of enjoying the birds' melodies. The songs were one of the few things capable of lulling the mantises into an easy sleep.

Art by Lake Hurwitz

Nor would she have known that the vines draped between the close-growing, towering heart trees of the Vastwood Forest were more like arms than vines—arms that were holding hands. Each vine grew out of the trunks of two trees; it did not belong to one tree more than the other, it was shared equally between them, a tether that bound the trees. The vines connected one heart tree with its chosen companion, and allowed the two to share memories, feelings, and dreams.

These trees were linked forever; they mated for life.

And the gnarlids, the silly, beastly, sneaky gnarlids; they had a ritual that they managed to keep hidden from most everyone else on Zendikar. On the darkest nights, when there was no moon but the skies were clear, the gnarlids scaled the tallest trees, poking their heads above the canopies, and they laughed at the stars. Little breathy snickers that to anyone else listening sounded like nothing more than the leaves of the highest branches rustling in the wind. It was an inside joke meant only for them.

Art by Kev Walker

Equally as impressive was the tribe of humans who lived in the lowest canopy of the Vastwood's trees—not in a central encampment, but spread out through the expanse of the forest. Five or six humans shared each treehouse hamlet, and there were over a dozen hamlets. The tribe was able to stay well informed of each other's movements and needs thanks to their ancestors, who had closely studied the language of the chatter sloths. The people sent messages to each other by speaking to the nearest chatter sloth. It was only a matter of minutes before the sloth would relate the gossip to its neighbors, who would pass it along through the network of tree dwellers. Soon all humans in the tribe would know of the hamlet's news thanks to the little gossipmongers.

Today, the message was a distress call.

Ashaya relayed it to Nissa as she stirred from sleep at the first light of dawn.

Fartree Hamlet under siege. Two Eldrazi. Send help. 

They would go.

Yes. Of course they would go.

Whenever something not of this world endangered even the smallest of Zendikar's creatures, be it a beast of the forest, a fish of the sea, or a flower of the plains, the world would rise up against the threat. Nissa and Ashaya were the world; while they stood together, nothing that belonged to Zendikar would have to stand alone.

They followed the sloth chatter back toward the source, running together stride for stride, the forest parting around them to make room. It wasn't long before they could feel the Eldrazi themselves, feel the destruction and pain the monstrosities were causing. But the chatter was wrong; there were three Eldrazi, not two. Nissa and Ashaya could distinctly feel three.

"We have to go faster," Nissa said.  

Ashaya slowed for just long enough to offer Nissa one massive branch-like hand, lying it open on the forest floor before the elf. Nissa took hold of Ashaya's thumb and climbed into the elemental's palm. A chill of power, of belonging, of Zendikar, rushed through her as Ashaya lifted her up to the top saddle-like cleft of her branches.

Art by Raymond Swanland

Nissa stepped into the place between the elemental's two thick wood horns. From there she could see over the tops of many of the trees as Ashaya rushed through the forest. Ashaya's long strides moved them twice as fast as Nissa could run alone. They crested a low hill before the next round of sloth chatter faded—and from there they could see the Eldrazi.

There were three, just as Nissa had felt, and each was leaving a trail of corruption behind it as it moved. The trails ran like rivulets through the Vastwood.

Two of the monstrosities were moving very close to each other, their destructive paths running in parallel. They were tall and shared the same body structure with bony faceplates, long, leg-like tentacles, and tentacles coming out the backs of their heads. They were on course for the treehouse hamlet and the dozen or so humans who had collected to defend it.

The other Eldrazi was much smaller. It was moving alone, slithering more than walking on pink worm-like tentacles, off course from its relations. This Eldrazi was heading straight toward a thicket of ancient, towering heart trees.

Ashaya came up short. Which way should they go?

Nissa stiffened, her stomach clenching.

There was only supposed to be one target: the hamlet. But there were two. Two families were being threatened, two communities were in desperate need of their help.

Which way should they go? Ashaya did not know.

Getting to both the hamlet and the thicket in time was not a guarantee. The two were too far apart, and the Eldrazi were too close to their targets.

For a breath, neither Nissa nor Ashaya moved. 

"We have to give the most help we can give," Nissa finally said. She pointed to the hamlet and the twin Eldrazi. "We have to go that way."

Ashaya agreed. Two first. Two, because two caused more destruction than one.

"And then that one." Nissa pointed to the third worm-like Eldrazi.

They would get to the heart trees in time. Wouldn't they?

Nissa pushed her doubt aside. A call had been made.

Ashaya raced down the hill toward the hamlet. In a matter of moments, they reached the collection of treehouses.

The twin Eldrazi loomed above, and the humans were making their stands in the trees, brandishing their weapons—their swords and spears, bows and daggers—weapons that would never be enough for such enormous foes. But Nissa could face the Eldrazi; with Zendikar at her side, she could face them.

Art by Jack Wang

The nearest of the two Eldrazi reached out with its bifurcated arm, swinging at the branches where the humans had collected.

It was met with screams and stabs, but not enough to send it off course; it knocked one of the humans out of his perch.

Ashaya reacted, reaching for the falling figure, plucking the man out of the air and setting him on solid ground.

The man looked up at the towering elemental dumbfounded.

"Get back!" Nissa called to him. She jumped down from her mount on Ashaya's head. "Over there." She pointed to a large rock that would provide temporary cover. "Go!"

The man hesitated for another moment, but then took off at a crouched run.

Nissa looked to Ashaya. "We have to get the others out of there."

Ashaya plunged her massive hand into the branches of the trees, scooping two women and a man out of the canopy, and turned to set the confused and terrified humans down next to the man behind the rock.

Nissa knew a faster way. She reached out with her hand and with her mind, performing the gesture Ashaya had taught her, the one that would open her to the power of the world.

The next time she blinked, the world was alight. Glowing, green leylines crisscrossed the hamlet, running through the treehouses, the people, and the trees themselves. It was a network of power and Nissa was at the nexus of it.

"Hold on up there!" She called to the rest of the humans in the trees.

By now they had all turned to watch the giant elemental that was picking them out of the trees. Their horrified looks said that they did not know which way to point their weapons. To them it must have seemed that danger was closing in from all sides.

"It's all right," Nissa called. "We're here to help. I'm going to get you down!"

She thrust her arm out, aligning it with the leyline that coursed through the trunk of the thickest tree. As both Eldrazi monstrosities lashed out with all eight hands, Nissa pulled on the tree, urging it to bend to her. The tree complied.

It dipped downward as though performing a bow. The people clung to its leaves and branches, dangling sideways from the canopy—and the Eldrazi's hungry fingers swiped through nothing more than air.

"Come on! That way." Nissa waved for the people to get to the rock. "It's safe over there."

With only slight hesitation, they let go of their holds on the tree and dropped to the ground, running as soon as their feet hit. The Eldrazi were gnashing now, their limbs flailing toward the bent tree.

"Stay down," Nissa instructed the group. "We will stop them."

"Thank you." One of the women took Nissa by the hand as the others rushed past. "By the angels of the land, thank you."

"Go!" Nissa gestured for the woman to run, and when she had joined the others behind the rock, Nissa reached out through the leylines that passed through the soil around it.

Art by Wesley Burt

She pulled on the land itself, rolling it upward into a low wall, forming a protective barrier around the people, using the rock as an anchor point.

They would be safe, they would not be harmed. But the heart trees . . . Nissa's mind drifted.

They were losing time.

Ashaya pulled her back.

Here. There was pain here. There was need here.

"You're right."

With the people safe behind them, Nissa and Ashaya turned to the twins. It was time to end their reign of destruction here in the Vastwood Forest.

The twin in front lurched at them, reaching through the gap left by the bent tree.

"There is nothing here for you," Nissa said. "So get out." She released her hold on the tree—more she threw her weight behind it—sending it springing back up with a force so great that when it smacked into the Eldrazi, it smashed right through the monster's bony faceplate.

Thick, white chunks of bone rained down.

The Eldrazi staggered back.

"Finish it," Nissa said to Ashaya.

The elemental clambered through the trees and dug into the exposed gore of the Eldrazi's face with her branch-like fingers.

The Eldrazi squirmed and thrashed, but only for another moment. Ashaya reached through its face and deep into its neck, yanking out an enormous chunk of its innards. Its limbs went limp, and then the monstrous thing teetered back and crashed to the forest floor.

Cheers rang out from behind the rock.

"One down. Two to go," Nissa said.

Ashaya turned to the second twin just as the Eldrazi reached for the elemental's horns. It clamped its thick fingers around Ashaya's horns and pulled her down, twisting and yanking. Then it coiled two of its thick, ruby tentacles around her head, trapping her.

Nissa felt the elemental's panic, her pain.

Ashaya was in danger; Nissa acted on instinct.

She followed the leylines that ran through the thickest, deepest roots in the ground and latched onto them.

Each root became an augmentation of one of her fingers. She lifted the roots up out of the ground, and chunks of land, rock and detritus rained down. She stretched her fingers and the roots stretched; she clutched her hands and the roots reacted in kind. Now Nissa had her very own tentacles—and she whipped them at the Eldrazi. Ten lashing roots sliced into the remaining twin.

"Let her go." With a flick of her wrists, Nissa retracted the roots and then thrust them again. This time she dug in, the barbed parts of the roots acting like her nails; she hooked them into the Eldrazi's muscle, securing her hold. Then she heaved, dragging first one tentacle and then a second off and away from Ashaya.

Free, the elemental burst out of the Eldrazi's reach and rose up to her full height, rumbling like an earthquake. Ashaya wasted no time, she turned on the Eldrazi, pummeling it in the exposed part of its abdomen again and again.

Nissa lashed her root-fingers out once more, adding her attack to Ashaya's. She coiled them around each of the Eldrazi's tentacles, holding each one separately, and then she pulled the tentacles apart, splitting the monstrosity's base, tearing its foothold out from under it.

Unable to fight off Ashaya's attack and maintain its balance at the same time, the Eldrazi wavered. Nissa pulled harder, not satisfied with merely knocking it over; they didn't have time for anything but efficient destruction. She plucked the tentacles right off the Eldrazi. It hissed, and squealed, and died as it plunged toward the ground—right toward the people huddled behind the wall of rock and land.

Nissa reeled around, dropping the roots at her fingertips and reaching into the land itself. She called on the leylines within the soil, moving the land, rocks, and vegetation up in a great wave that carried the people back and away as the Eldrazi struck the ground.

They screamed as they were lifted up into the air, but they were safe; Nissa had saved them.

"Two down, one to go." Nissa said to Ashaya.

The people of the Vastwood rushed down to Nissa, effusing their gratitude. They grabbed her by the shoulders, they hugged her, and they wept into her cloak.

Though she was surrounded by their warmth, the only thing Nissa could feel was the pain of the heart trees. The third Eldrazi had arrived in the thicket.

"We have to go," Nissa said.

"No, stay!" the woman clutching Nissa's elbow said. "You have to stay. Celebrate this victory with us."

"This is not a victory," Nissa dropped her head, extricating herself from the grip of the people. "There is still another Eldrazi."

"Where?" A young man looked around, brandishing his spear.

Nissa pointed toward the thicket. "I have to go."

"Oh, that one." A tall man waved his hand dismissively. "I saw it from above. It's on a course that won't bring it anywhere near here. We're safe."

"Stay," the woman urged again. "Let us thank you. We'll make you something to eat. You must be famished."

"You are safe, but the heart trees are not," Nissa said. She looked to Ashaya and nodded. The two took off for the trees without further word to the people. There was no time; they had already taken too long. 

Zendikar shared Nissa's anxiety. As she raced through the forest, trees parted, roots moved aside, and rocks smoothed to make way. Branches offered themselves to her, handholds to help her along. With the forest's help, Nissa moved just as fast as Ashaya.

The closer they got, the stronger the sensation of loss and destruction became.

They were too late.

Nissa came up short at the sight.

The thicket was no longer a thicket; it was a corrupted wasteland. All that remained of the grove of ancient heart trees was a single pair. They stood, linked by their tether, in the middle of a chalky white clearing. All the others had been turned to dust.

And now the third Eldrazi was perched up in one of the two remaining heart trees, its tentacles wrapped around the tree's trunk, about to siphon the life out of it.

Art by Izzy

"No!" Nissa cried.

Both she and Ashaya lunged, but the Eldrazi was too quick. It tightened its grip, and it fed.

The corruption spread fast through the tree, down its trunk, up through its branches, and out into the tether.

With a rumble of rage, Ashaya batted the monster out of its perch. It tumbled to the ground.

Less than a breath after it hit, Nissa called out to the land beyond the corruption on both sides of what was once the thicket, willing it to rise up like two tidal waves and crash down on top of the Eldrazi.

The monster was both killed and buried in the same stroke.

Ashaya looked to Nissa. Three. They had eliminated all three.

"But too late." Nissa turned her gaze to the pair of heart trees.

The vine that hung between them had been broken. The corrupted part had disintegrated. Now what remained of the trees' bond hung limply from the single remaining tree, blowing in the breeze—a breeze that would be unfamiliar to a tree that was used to living in a protected thicket.

So much had changed for this tree in such little time. How could Nissa possibly explain it?

The tree's companion was gone . . . gone forever. But the living tree could not know that, it would keep holding onto their bond, it would continue to reach out with its hand, with its heart, with its soul—and it would be met with only emptiness, always emptiness.

How could Nissa make it understand? How could she tell it that its companion had not left by choice? That one heart tree would never leave another—ever?

Nissa approached the last tree, walking across the rubble of the Eldrazi's grave. She placed her palm on its trunk. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry we were too late." Her throat tightened and heat burned the corners of her eyes.

Ashaya joined Nissa, placing her own massive palm on the tree's trunk. Nissa could feel the message Ashaya sent to the tree on behalf of Zendikar. Zendikar promised that the heart tree's companion would never be forgotten. Zendikar would fight back. Zendikar would not stop until the Eldrazi were gone, until this kind of pain could be ended forever.

Zendikar still hoped for that day.

Ashaya still hoped.

Nissa drew her hope from her friend.

They would press on. They would forever press on—until they had found the titan, until they had destroyed it, until they had won.

Nissa and Ashaya stalked through the Vastwood for days. As long as they continued to see Eldrazi with more regularity, as long as the forest was becoming more densely populated with spawn, Nissa believed that they were on the right course, that they were headed toward the titan.

Their pursuit had taken them from the far south end of the forest, through the thickets, and now out toward the sea again.

Perhaps the smell of salty sea air meant that the titan they were stalking was not on Tazeem. So be it. They would travel by boat to Guul Draz then, or Akoum, or Murasa—Nissa would even go back to the fallen land of Bala Ged, if that's what it took.

But for now, right now, she would stop, for just a moment, and drink. They had come upon a thin winding stream, one that fed into a waterfall; Nissa could tell by the sound of the rushing, falling water just beyond the grove of trees.

Nissa climbed down from her perch on Ashaya's head, glad to be in the shade for a moment. She knelt by the stream and cupped her hands for a drink.

Between sips of fresh water, Nissa leaned back, taking in the beauty of this unspoiled grove. From where she sat, she saw no Eldrazi corruption. It was a perfect pocket of Zendikar.

Ashaya joined her in the feeling of peace.

This pocket of Zendikar was lucky. It had not known hurt yet. And Nissa promised that she would do all she could to ensure that it never would.

Art by Andreas Rocha

Having had her fill, Nissa looked up to her friend. "Shall we walk to the sea?"

Ashaya bent, lowering her hand, and Nissa grabbed hold of the thick branch-like thumb—

—and then her breath hitched, catching in her throat—she could not get air.

A sharp pain shot through her chest, freezing her in place.

An Eldrazi . . . it must have been an Eldrazi . . . she had been stabbed in the chest.

Where had it come from?

She looked down, expecting to see a tentacle or a bony protrusion sticking into her chest—but there was nothing there.

She scanned the grove—nothing. No Eldrazi. No corruption.

Underfoot, Ashaya's hand began to tremble. The elemental was in pain too. Excruciating pain.

A second, more brutal wave of pain shot through Nissa, this time it felt as though her insides had been ripped out of her stomach. 

Ashaya racked and thrashed, sending Nissa tumbling off her hand, gasping for strangled breaths.

Nissa reached for her friend, but the world seemed as though it was expanding infinitely, the space between Nissa and Ashaya widening into an endless abyss.

It was not Nissa's insides that had been ripped out of her, it was Zendikar—Ashaya—their connection that was being torn away

Ashaya pivoted and staggered toward Nissa, her movements stilted and unsure. Nissa could no longer feel the elemental. Could Ashaya no longer feel her either?

"Ashaya!" Nissa's cry came out broken.

The elemental bent her head in the direction of Nissa's voice. She had heard—or perhaps it was merely that she was falling. Ashaya came crashing down, her thick tree-trunk body aimed straight for Nissa.

Nissa braced herself—there was nothing more she could do.

But then at the last moment, Ashaya thrust out her arm, launching herself to the side and away from the small, breakable elf.

Nissa watched as Ashaya's branches snapped and shattered on the ground. "No!"

A third wave of pain tore Nissa asunder.

And all went dark.

For an endless time there was nothing.

No sound.

No light.

No life.

When Nissa's breath came back it was in great gasps; she couldn't get enough air.

The silence around her was heavy and oppressive. And her vision was dull.

Ashaya. All she could think was Ashaya.

Nissa reached out into the land to summon the elemental.

But there was nothing there to grasp.

Ashaya.

She reached deeper, plunging her feeling into the land.

But that was where the silence was coming from.

Nissa's ears rang and the world spun.

Ashaya.

She dragged herself over to the pile of branches and mounds of dirt. Her trembling fingers flitted over the broken pieces. Which splinter of wood had been Ashaya's finger? Which leaf had grown from the top of her head? Where were the roots that had held her soul?

Ashaya.

The silence was overwhelming.

Nissa staggered to her feet, but the sensation of vertigo sent her back down. She hit the ground with a hard smack. A sharp rock cut her cheek and a mound of dirt dug into her side. The land did not cradle her, it didn't protect her—it hurt.

No.

This made no sense.

Ashaya.

Nissa pulled herself up, holding on to the thorny branches and the flimsy vines.

Alone, she worked her way to the edge of the tree line where the stream turned into a waterfall.

She looked out over the land, searching for her friend.

The view before her was not what Nissa was expecting to see. They had reached the edge of Tazeem—she could see the sea not far off. But down below was another sea, one made of piles of Eldrazi so thick that Nissa could not make out the ground.

Had it been those Eldrazi? Had they done something to Zendikar? Had they taken Ashaya?

Ashaya.

Nissa looked back to the fallen branches.

There was nothing there. Ashaya was not behind her.

She pressed forward, stumbling down the crag toward the sea of Eldrazi below. She could make out the lighthouse of Sea Gate in the distance. But she could not see Ashaya.

If these Eldrazi had taken Zendikar, had taken Ashaya, Nissa would make them give it back.

She fell once and again. The land did not react to her presence. The brambles did not move so she would not get scratched. The vines tripped her rather than supporting her.

It felt like she was missing her own limbs. It felt like she was missing part of her soul.

Nissa staggered into the mass of Eldrazi. They gnashed and scraped all around her.

"Ashaya!" she called, lurching between the monstrosities. "Ashaya!"

She tried reaching into the land again, but there was nowhere to ground herself; there was so much corruption, so many crisscrossing trails of it—was there anything of Zendikar left at all?

Art by Jung Park

"Look out!"

The cry came from behind her, but before Nissa could turn, something large, sharp, and hard slammed into her back, sending her straight down into the corrupted ground.

A cloud of white chalky dust engulfed her, and when she tried to push herself up, two arms pinned her down by the backs of her shoulders. "Stay down."

Nissa twisted as much as she could to see what had pinned her. It was a merfolk, one clad in thick, sharp armor made of seashells.

"What were you doing?" The merfolk's tone was accusatory. "You almost walked straight into that thing." She nodded to the right where a massive Eldrazi was grinding along. "Are you hurt?"

Yes, Nissa was hurt. The pain was still there, in her gut, in her chest—all over; everywhere that Zendikar was not—and Zendikar was not anywhere anymore.

"I don't see any wounds." The merfolk was assessing Nissa. "No corruption." She let up on her hold on Nissa's shoulders; the grinding Eldrazi had passed by.

"Listen, I know we're in a bit of a rough place right now, but I need you to stay with me here," the merfolk said. "That's the only way we're going to get out of this alive. Are you listening?"

"It's gone." Nissa blinked at the merfolk. "Did you feel it too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," the merfolk said, struggling to her feet. For the first time Nissa noticed that the merfolk was injured, quite badly. One of her legs was wrapped in a tight tourniquet that was soaked through with blood. "But I do know it's time to move." She yanked on Nissa's arm. "Come on!"

The tugging. The blood. The tension in the merfolk's voice. The Eldrazi closing in. The realities of the world around Nissa suddenly started to sink in.

She shuddered. It was as though she had wandered blindly into this nightmare.

Ashaya was not here, that much was clear. And now Nissa was in extreme danger. So was the merfolk. There were too many Eldrazi.

"Come on." The merfolk tugged again. "It's coming!"

One of the Eldrazi—a thick one with too many limbs—was pulling itself straight toward them.

Nissa had to do something. She pushed herself to her feet. "That way is out." She pointed back the way she had come, toward the crag.

The merfolk nodded, and half hopped, half dragged herself along. She would never make it, she wasn't fast enough. Nissa had to do more.

"I've got you." Nissa lifted the merfolk and shouldered her. Just in time. The nearest Eldrazi sent a flailing tentacle toward them. 

Nissa ran.

How was it that she hadn't seen any of this on her way in? The bodies, the destruction. The corruption.

This was Sea Gate—she remembered having seen the lighthouse—Sea Gate was Zendikar's seminal civilization. It was a center of trade, a bastion of knowledge; there was power here, magic. Thousands of people lived and worked here, and thousands more had fled to the safety of its walls. How was it possible that Sea Gate was now . . . this? How was it possible that Sea Gate had fallen?

Was that why Ashaya was gone?

A crashing tentacle cut through Nissa's despair.

A long purple Eldrazi hauled itself into her path.

Art by Chase Stone

She came up short, shifting the merfolk's weight on her shoulder, turning in a circle, searching for an out, an opening. All she saw were tentacles and appendages all around.

The merfolk tensed and twisted. "There's too many!"

Nissa clamped her arm tighter around the merfolk's shell armor, holding her still. "I know."

She took a breath and drew her sword.

The action felt strange.

It wasn't something she had done in a very long time. The blade felt unbalanced, the hilt felt hard and unnatural. It was nothing like the living leylines she was used to wielding, nothing like an army of elementals, or the land itself, but it would have to do. She had no other choice.

Putting all of her strength behind the blade, Nissa sliced at the fleshy part of the long purple Eldrazi. The impact reverberated through her palms, sending shockwaves of pain up her arms and into her chest. She had forgotten how physical it was to battle this way. But she didn't stop. She yanked the blade out of the shallow gash it had made in the Eldrazi's side and hacked again.

This time, the Eldrazi hit back, swiping down at her with one of its front legs, and sending Nissa flailing off balance. With the unfamiliar weight of her sword and the merfolk on her back, she couldn't keep her footing.

They fell to the ground in a heap, and Nissa's sword spun out away from her, sliding across the corruption.

The Eldrazi's arm came for them again—but just before it hit, the merfolk tore off the spiked shell covering her shoulder and held it up like a shield. The Eldrazi's hand hit hard, but didn't come through.

It recoiled; it would swing again soon.

"Do you think you can hold it off while I get my sword?" Nissa asked the merfolk.

The merfolk nodded.

"I'll be right back." Nissa scrambled across the ground toward her blade, staying low, hoping she was out of the Eldrazi's sensory range.

Three times she tried to reach out through the land for the sword, to bend the ground so it would slide it back toward her, to ask for Zendikar's help. But there was no answer.

The infinite silence continued.

Nissa felt so alone. In the middle of this swarm of Eldrazi, she felt as though there was nothing left.

One of the Eldrazi's thick back tentacles crashed down as Nissa dove for her weapon. Her hand closed around the hilt, but the tentacle landed on her arm. It was like the monster had known, like it had aimed for her arm to stop her. But it couldn't have known. They didn't know—not like that.

She pulled on her arm with her all, but the tentacle was too heavy. She was trapped.

Panic welled up inside her. What would come next? Would it feed on her? Her arm might have been succumbing to the Eldrazi's corruption that very moment—how would she know if this was the end?

From somewhere above, three ropes shot down, each one with a long, sharp hook at the end. In quick succession, the hooks sank into the Eldrazi tentacle on top of Nissa

The next moment the tentacle was pulled off of her—and then ripped from the Eldrazi's body.

As the Eldrazi squealed, Nissa rolled away from it. Her first thought was her arm. Not daring to breathe, she looked at it. There was no sign of corruption. She would live. But her shoulder was injured badly enough that she had to pick up her sword with her left hand.

"Up here!" Another rope with a hook came down, and Nissa followed it up to a sea of faces staring down from atop a high, floating rock. The pale white face of a kor was in the front. Nissa had never been so grateful to see a kor in her life.

"Take the rope. Tie the merfolk to it," the kor instructed.

Nissa reeled, having forgotten the merfolk in the commotion. She let out a breath of relief seeing the merfolk still there on the ground, crawling along.

"This will work," the merfolk said, panting. "Tie me to it."

Nissa dropped to her knees and worked to secure the merfolk in the crook of the hook. Then she looped the rope to her own belt so she could pull the merfolk up with her as she climbed. 

She tugged the rope to indicate they were ready, and turned to merfolk. "My arm's out. Take the sword."

"Gladly." The merfolk looked thrilled to have the weapon. She gripped Nissa's sword in one hand and the neck of the hook in the other.

Nissa began to climb, hauling the merfolk up with her, favoring her left arm. As she did, the kor and his companions pulled the rope up, hand over hand. This doubled, if not tripled the speed of Nissa's ascent. She hoped that would be enough.

Tentacles and other appendages flailed around her, and she could hear the merfolk hacking into the Eldrazi below her, but Nissa ignored all of it. She focused only on the rope, only on her climb.

At some point, when her arms were tired and her palms sweaty, the wind stirred through Nissa's hair, cool and crisp and fresh. They had cleared the top of the swarm. The day wasn't as dark as it had seemed from the ground. The next breath Nissa took was the first in a long time that wasn't laced with Eldrazi, rot, and blood . She breathed deeply and she allowed herself to pause for just a moment.

"Almost here," the kor called down as he pulled up another section of rope. "We've got you."

Nissa smiled up at him. Then she glanced down at the merfolk. "We're going to make it."

The merfolk returned the smile, loosening her grip on Nissa's sword, relaxing; there were no Eldrazi to fight up here. "We're going to make it."

Below was the jungle of Eldrazi they were leaving behind, with its boney carapace canopy, tentacle vines, and bifurcating branches. Nissa couldn't see a single patch of ground, not even the place they had just been standing. They owed their lives to the Zendikari on the rock above.

"No!" The merfolk screamed.

The rope lurched and Nissa followed the merfolk's horrified expression upward. An Eldrazi the size of a large leviathan had launched itself from the edge of a second floating rock. It crashed onto the rock where the kor and his companions stood. Three of the Zendikari were crushed under the giant, writhing monstrosity—and one tumbled over the lip of the rock, plummeting past Nissa and the merfolk. There was nothing they could do to stop his fall.

Art by Clint Cearley

The remaining Zendikari drew their weapons and slashed at the thick, blue appendages. Nissa clung to the rope as it swung violently under the quaking rock.

"It's too big!" the merfolk shouted from below.

She was right. "Give me the sword." Nissa reached down.

"What are you going to do?"

"The sword!"

The merfolk handed Nissa her sword. Nissa sheathed it, unbound herself from the hook, and climbed, ignoring the pain in her shoulder.

"Be careful!" the merfolk called.

The time for caution was long gone.

Nissa kept her eyes trained upward as she ascended. The only cues about what was happening on the rock above were the sounds: the gnashing, the grinding, the slashing. Was it the kor and his party who were cutting into the Eldrazi, or was it the other way around?

When she got to the top, she saw a mess of tentacles and appendages. She pulled herself up over the sharp, jagged lip of the floating rock, drew her sword, and began hacking into the thick blue flesh in front of her again and again.

Eldrazi gore splattered her face, blurring her vision. Her next swing was a whiff, slicing through nothing but air. Nissa reset and swung again—where she thought she could make out a tentacle through the thick sludge that ran through her eyes. That one was a whiff too. She wiped her face with her sleeve just in time to see four glowing, white whips fly through the air and lash into the Eldrazi's side. The whips wrapped around four of the Eldrazi's thick appendages. With an unnatural squeal, the monstrosity convulsed—and then it was yanked backward and flung off the rock.

Two of the three Zendikari who had been trapped beneath it staggered to their feet, gasping for breath. The third, an elf, lay motionless, his skin a blistering latticework of white chalk.

"Help me pull them up!"

Nissa spun at the sound of the voice, brandishing her sword.

There was a man crouching at the edge of the rock, a massive man, a human with skin the color of jurworrel bark and shining armor that bore patterns and shapes that Nissa had never seen before. She knew instantly that he was not from Zendikar. A Planeswalker.

One rope in each hand, the Planeswalker was heaving both the merfolk and the four other Zendikari up onto the rock. Though he had called for it, it didn't look like he needed help from Nissa or the others who stood gaping next to her. Nissa ran over anyway. She grabbed hold of the rope that held the kor's companions and yanked.

Why was he here? She would have thought all the other Planeswalkers would have left long ago, especially the ones who were not from Zendikar.

"Jori En!" The Planeswalker cried out at the sight of the merfolk who pulled herself up over the lip. "Jori En, it's you! You're alive!"

"Gideon." The merfolk looked just as shocked as the Planeswalker. "I thought you were gone. When you went over the ledge with the Eldrazi—"

"It wasn't as bad as it looked." The Planeswalker, Gideon, smiled. His smile was crooked, Nissa noticed. "I thought you were gone."

"Managed to hang in," Jori said.

"And good for that," Gideon said. "I brought him back. The man who can help, Jace is his name. He has a knack for puzzles—and he already knows a thing or two about hedrons, as it turns out."

"Where is he?" Jori glanced around.

"Back at the encampment." The Planeswalker nodded over his shoulder. Then he looked around at the rest of the Zendikari atop the rock, his gaze passing just as swiftly over Nissa as it did the rest. "Don't worry, I'm here to get you out of this. Is this all of you?"

The kor nodded solemnly. "We were the last group. We thought the rest of you gave up on us."

"Never." Gideon smiled again. "There's an encampment to the south—or at least it will be an encampment soon. For now, it's safe and it's not far. Fall in and follow me."

It was astonishing how quickly he had shifted from sharing pleasantries to giving orders. But no one seemed to question his authority—or his unfamiliar accent or armor. If this man knew a way to safety, the Zendikari would follow him.

He hefted Jori onto his broad shoulders; the rest in the group were well enough off to make their way on their own. With a flick of his four-bladed weapon, he tugged a thick vine down from the nearby floating rock that the Eldrazi had launched itself from. He pulled it taut and tied it off on a rocky protrusion near his feet. "We cross two at a time. We stay together. When you get to the next rock, wait for me."

The Zendikari steeled themselves, nodding, and the first pair stepped up to cross.

Gideon was a good leader. He was steady and sure, and he was strong. He directed them confidently from rock to rock.

Nissa could see the place, not too far in the distance, where the plague of Eldrazi hadn't yet spread. It looked as though they could get there without having to descend back into the fray, and this Planeswalker seemed to know the way. For that Nissa was grateful. She kept her eyes trained on the clear land ahead, and she followed him until they made it to the outskirts. There, he directed the group back down to the ground, and their task changed from navigating vines and floating rocks to trudging through the fallen—the gore of monster and man jumbled together in the destruction.

As they made their way through the trenches, they only had to face three Eldrazi. Nissa watched Gideon the Planeswalker during battle; his whip-like weapon glowed when he lashed the monstrosities, and light beaded on his skin when a tentacle or appendage came too close. This man was powerful.

Art by Dan Scott

Nissa waited until they were in the clear, until she could see the tension fall out of his shoulders. Then she walked up to the front of the group and matched Gideon stride for stride. She had things she needed to ask him. If there was anyone else who might have felt what happened to Zendikar, it would be another Planeswalker in tune with the plane's power. And she had to know.

Gideon carried his glowing weapon in one hand and Jori in the other—the merfolk had lost consciousness not long before, but the kor in their group was a healer and had done his work on her, assuring the others that she would be fine as long as they could get her to the encampment soon.

Sensing her at his side, Gideon glanced at Nissa.

"Hi," Nissa said.

"Hello."

"I'm Nissa."

"Gideon. Nice to meet you." He smiled that crooked smile again.

It puzzled Nissa how he could manage to smile so often in the face of this kind of devastation.

"That was some strong fighting back there," he said. "You took out a big one." He was referring to one of the Eldrazi Nissa had helped him fell along the way.

"That wasn't how I'm used to fighting," Nissa said. "Or at least not how I'm used to fighting lately. I suppose before everything happened that was how I did things, with the sword and arrows, but now I'm used to—well a lot more. All three at a time shouldn't have been a problem for me. Wouldn't have been a problem. Even if I was alone. I have greater powers than what you saw."

Gideon laughed. "I'm glad to hear the enthusiasm. And don't worry, there'll be plenty of time to prove yourself in the battles that lie ahead."

"That's not—no. I'm not worried about that, about proving myself." Nissa was affronted. "I—I'm a Planeswalker. Like you."

"Oh?" Gideon cocked his head, looking at her in earnest.

"That's why I'm here talking to you in the first place. I wanted to know, since you're a powerful mage, if you felt something strange. Earlier today. When the sun was high. It happened suddenly. It was just . . . torn away."

Gideon furrowed his brow. "What was torn away? What happened?"

"When you reach out for your power—I saw you do it with the glowing whorls—it's still there? You don't feel anything different? Nothing changed?"

"Yes. No." Gideon shook his head. "It's still there. Nothing changed. Why? Did yours . . . ?"

Nissa met and held his gaze. "Mine is gone. It was ripped away. I've never felt so much pain. I've never felt so alone. Zendikar is just . . . gone." As she said it, Nissa felt the loss all over again. Ashaya. Her chest constricted around the empty space inside her.

"I'm sorry," Gideon said. "But I—"

He was cut off by a voice crying out from up ahead and above. "They're back!" A ladder dropped down from a massive floating hedron not far in front of them. "He brought them back!"

Three figures raced down the ladder and ran toward them, a kor woman leading the way.

Nissa took a step back.

"Dest, is that you?" The kor woman dashed into the arms of the kor healer. "I thought—" Her voice broke as his embrace overwhelmed her.

"It was him," the kor, Dest, said, indicating Gideon. "He saved us."

"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" The kor woman took Gideon's hand.

Gideon's eyes brimmed, and he clasped the woman's small hand in his large one. "Glad to help."

Cheers rose up from the encampment above, and more Zendikari descended the ladder and streamed toward them, crying out in welcome.

Nissa removed herself from the pocket and watched from a distance as the others first huddled together laughing and crying, and then climbed back up the ladder up to what they promised was an encampment above.

She did not want to be absorbed in their warmth right now. That wasn't where she belonged. She belonged with Zendikar. And that was all she wanted—to reconnect with her world, her friend.

She knelt in the massive hedron's shadow and placed her palm on the cool ground.

"It's me," she whispered. She collected herself, all of herself, every bit of her being and her soul. And though she was perhaps more afraid than she had ever been—afraid of what she would find . . . or what she wouldn't—she sent all that she was out into the land, reaching as deep as she could, probing, searching . . . hoping. "Where are you?"

Silence.

Zendikar.

She reached further.

There was only silence.

Ashaya.

Her friend was not there.

Zendikar was empty.

Nissa was empty too.

She was alone.

As the sun set on the hollow world, Nissa stood and walked toward the ladder, her hand clutched tightly around the hard hilt of her sword.

3

The Believers’ Pilgrimage

By Doug Beyer

Gideon Jura brought Jace Beleren to Zendikar in hopes that the mind mage could crack what the merfolk scholars of Sea Gate called the "puzzle of leylines," the mystery of the network of stone hedrons that float in the skies of Zendikar. The hedrons are tied intimately to the Eldrazi, serving as lures, bonds, and—the scholars hope—weapons.

But with Sea Gate fallen and the scholars' records lost, there may be only one place on Zendikar where Jace can get what he needs . . . and only one guide who's willing to help him get there.

Jace pressed his forehead against a hedron, running his hand over its runes. The structure jutted out from the grass at an angle, mostly submerged in the earth, a slouching iceberg of stone. Strewn across the rocky fields from here to the encampment, and to Sea Gate beyond that, were the bodies of slain Eldrazi, lying like jellyfish washed up on a beach.

He sensed someone approaching behind him, from the direction of the encampment. "Jori En, is it?" He turned to her.

"And you're Jace," she said. She was a tall merfolk, outfitted for the wilderness. She moved with the self-assured bearing of someone who had traveled Zendikar for years, but with the taut, careful look of someone who had witnessed devastation very recently. "I'm here to share what I know."

"Good." Jace poked at a dead Eldrazi creature with his foot. Its tissue deformed in colors of magenta and teal. He looked up at Jori En. "People used to worship them as gods, didn't they?"

"Some still do. Can't much blame them."

"We need to stop the problem at its root."

Jori nodded. "That's what the researchers hoped to do, at Sea Gate. Extinguish them."

"With the hedron network."

"Yes."

"And you've had success using the hedrons?"

"I only saw some of their research. But I'll tell you everything I can remember."

Jace focused his glance on a space just between Jori's eyes. "I have a better idea, if you're amenable."

Jace's consciousness toured Jori's mind, swimming through imagery of goblins strapping small hedrons to sticks, kor warriors painting their faces to mimic hedron runes, and merfolk researchers at Sea Gate plying their magic on hedrons. He focused in on one memory in particular—a team of Zendikari, led by a human woman, using the magic of the hedrons to guide the Eldrazi creatures' movements. The puzzle of leylines. The woman, Kendrin, had been close to understanding something crucial about how the hedron's magic could be used—and turned into a weapon against the Eldrazi.

Unfortunately, Jace also saw the memory of Jori putting her hand on Kendrin's forehead as the dead woman's body crumbled into brittle ribs of gray dust. She had died to the Eldrazi slaughter before she could pass on enough of what she knew.

Art by Cynthia Shepherd

Jace opened his eyes and sucked in a breath, emerging from Jori En's mind as if he were breaching the surface of an ocean.

Jori was squatting above him, on top of the hedron, looking down at him. "That was fascinating," she said, smirking with a twitch of her finned jawline. "I could almost feel the second presence in my mind."

"Sometimes I can sense the person perceiving my perception of them. It's like catching my own reflection in a mirror. Sort of."

"So do you know all my dark secrets now?"

"I know Kendrin was close to something." But Jace also knew he couldn't yet solve the puzzle he was brought here to solve. He needed more—and he knew where he needed to go.

Before he could explain, footsteps crunched toward them. "Hello, Gideon," Jace said.

Jace and Jori turned to see Gideon approach, sunlight pooling on the warrior's armor like liquid light. "Tell me you have a breakthrough," Gideon said gruffly.

"We're close," said Jace. "We have to go to the Eye."

Jori's facial fins spread in surprise. "The Eye of Ugin? You want to go all the way to Akoum?"

"It's the lynchpin to the hedron network. That's where we'll find the answer."

"No," said Gideon. "Absolutely not. We just established this encampment. We have injured. We can't go separating the group."

"We already have," said Jace. "Nissa left in the night."

Gideon was aghast. "What? Why?"

"I didn't talk to her. Only got surface thoughts as she left. I gathered she had a mission that was important to her."

"More important than solving the nature of the hedrons?" Jori snapped. "We have to focus on life and death here."

"I tend to agree," said Jace. "Come with us, Gideon."

"I am focusing on life and death," said Gideon stonily. "This place is life and death, every minute. I can't—we can't afford another refugee death. I'm not leaving to protect you on a cross-country mission." Gideon nodded at the merfolk. "You have Jori's account. Can't you solve it here, together?"

Art by Eric Deschamps

"I only have what they accomplished, not why it worked," Jace said. "Look. You're not seeing the bigger picture here. This was what I came here to do. Let me do it."

"If you leave the encampment, these people will die, and so will you."

Jace spread his hands wide, embracing the whole horizon. "If I don't get to the Eye, everyone on this plane will die."

"Have you ever—changed things?" Jori asked, holding reins in her hands. "While you were in there?"

Jace sat next to her on a small coach pulled by a single hurda. It was the best the encampment could spare. They rode out from the encampment—without Gideon.

Jace paused. "Sometimes that becomes necessary."

"You could have removed my memory of her, for example. Of Kendrin. Of her death."

Jace thought of Jori's hand touching the dead woman's forehead. It felt like his own hand, in his memory. He could feel Kendrin's skin, how it was too cool and too thin, and dry to the touch. "You didn't want that."

"But you could have."

"Yes."

"How do I know you didn't alter anything else?" Jori asked. Then she added, "There is nothing you can say that will prove it to you either way, is there?"

"I'm told I am not an easy person to be friends with."

"Did you think about—you know—changing his mind?" Jori asked. "You could have made him a believer in the mission, couldn't you?"

He had thought about it, yes. One quick spell, and he could have "convinced" Gideon to come. "I consider every possibility," said Jace.

"Not sure I'd have the same restraint you do," she said. "Seems like there'd always be possibilities he would never consider."

Art by Michael C. Hayes

"He's hard to budge, in more ways than one. A difference between us, I suppose."

"And yet you chose not to meddle with his mind. Maybe you're more alike than you think."

Jace looked at the horizon beyond the packbeast that pulled the coach. "If we were alike, he'd see the importance of the Eye. He'd have devoted all his resources into making sure we understand the hedrons. He'd be here, with us."

Jori flicked the reins as the land trailed by. "You ever wonder what you'd be able to accomplish if there were just more of yourself around?"

Jace shook off thoughts of Gideon, and let himself chuckle. He cast a quick illusion spell, and three other Jaces appeared. The duplicate Jaces perched at odd angles on the hurda's back, all identical in their blue cloaks. "We wonder that frequently," they said in unison, and disappeared.

Jori gave him a skeptical smile, and shook her head.

It was days until they encountered any Eldrazi. They rambled past hedron-studded pastures, with knobby stone islands casting shadows down on them from the air above. They spoke little, and Jace struggled to piece together what he knew. He tried to find a reason they should turn back, a reason why their knowledge of the hedrons was somehow sufficient. He was probably even familiar enough with Sea Gate that he could planeswalk back there safely, via some other plane. But that would strand Jori En out here alone.

When the swarm of Eldrazi spawn crested the hill and scrambled toward the two travelers, the sun was behind them, and light glinted off all the angular elbows and framed the blank cranial faces.

Art by Todd Lockwood

"Drive!" said Jace.

Jori saw them, but cover was almost nonexistent. "Where?"

"Anywhere!"

Jori yanked diagonally on the reins—too hard. The hurda snorted in revolt and threw its weight in the opposite direction, snapping the reins out of Jori's hands. Jace and Jori clung on as the coach jackknifed and tilted, and something cracked down by the wheels. The coach righted itself, but now it was being pulled at the hurda's whims.

"New plan!" said Jace. "Stop!"

"You stop it!"

Before Jace could explain the folly of trying to mind-alter the beast, the hurda slapped the ground with its paws and shifted its weight again, now turning directly toward the wave of advancing Eldrazi.

That halted it. Jace and Jori lurched with the stopping coach.

Seeing the creatures moving toward it, the hurda slowly started backing up, pushing back into its own rigging, pushing back against the coach. The coach began to tilt, and something wooden was breaking—

A kor woman dashed past the coach, seemingly out of nowhere, holding sharp, curving grappling hooks. She leapt onto the rigging, ran up the hurda's back, and jumped onto the ground between the packbeast and the scrambling Eldrazi. Jace could see that her skin was smudged with symbols in black grease—like hedron runes, but perhaps slightly different.

Jori was incredulous. "Where the hell did she come from?"

The kor woman looked at Jace and Jori, and without breaking eye contact with them, sliced through the hurda's neck with one of the sharp hooks. With a bellow, the hurda fell to the ground. She stood there, blood dripping from her hook, looking at them.

Jace checked Jori's face to see his own mental state reflected back at him: extreme alarm.

"Come with me!" the kor woman said sternly. "Hurry! They'll eat the animal first."

With that, she bolted past them, heading toward a low hill.

Jace and Jori leapt down from the coach and ran after her, Jori grabbing a halberd from the coach and Jace grabbing—nothing, as usual. The kor woman disappeared over the ridge, and they followed her to the lip of a narrow chasm.

The kor woman had already deployed her lines and was rappelling down into the fissure. "Down here! Quickly!"

Art by Eric Deschamps

Jace looked back. Sure enough, the hurda was already being overwhelmed and torn to shreds by the Eldrazi creatures.

"I'm with her," said Jori En. She threw the halberd onto a strap on her back and lurched herself down the ropes, heading down into the chasm.

Jace had eight or nine distinct bad feelings about this. But he took hold of one of the lines and pulled himself down. He had a strange brainstorm of creating illusions of himself to climb alongside him. He imagined them losing their grip on the ropes and falling, and for some reason the thought was strangely comforting. Better them than him.

The kor woman helped him to the ground as Jori dusted herself off. "I am Ayli," she said. "We must get you to the sanctuary. Hurry, please!"

Jace and Jori En exchanged another look—the facial equivalent of a desperate shrug. Ayli dashed through the narrow chasm, and they followed. They squeezed through the walls on either side of them; some were defined by the flat surfaces of great hedrons, other sections bare rock. They tried to hurry, which became increasingly difficult as they descended into shadow. Jace tried to keep close to Jori's back, his mind racing with fallback options as they got farther and farther from the coach.

The chasm widened, and the sky opened overhead.

Jace's gaze arced up from Jori, who had stopped dead in her tracks—to the kor woman, Ayli, who stood serenely before them, her hands folded—to the wide swath hewn in the land ahead of them, edged with brittle gray dust—to the towering horror, the titan poised on a skirt of sinewy tentacles, the eyeless-skulled deity with its great bifurcated limbs.

Ulamog.

Art by Michael Komarck

Jace could barely move. The air felt wrong. He felt drawn forward somehow, as if gravity had shifted away from the earth and toward this thing. He felt like krill drawn toward a whale's maw, sucked inevitably toward its consuming bristles.

"Welcome, offerings, to the sanctuary," said Ayli, raising her arms. "The presence of the god Mangeni, whose second name is Ula, whose voice sings the Song of Devouring, will be your final sanctuary."

Jace turned to retreat, but he and Jori were surrounded. A dozen other priests stood between them and the gap in the chasm. They were all dressed alike, painted with dark, greasy streaks like Ayli, and they all bore weapons. Two of them held lengths of thick iron chain.

"We are the Eternal Pilgrims," Ayli intoned. "We shall forever roam!"

"WE SHALL FOREVER ROAM!" chanted the other priests.

"We present these world-gifts in Ula's name!"

"IN ULA'S NAME!"

Ulamog reached out with its tentacled bulk, grasped a quantity of earth, and then, horribly, began to drag itself forward. The sound of Ulamog's locomotion chilled Jace's soul—it was the sound of living earth having all its essence leeched out of it, of fierce and wild mana being silenced forever, of rich terrain turning to desiccated bone.

It was only for a moment, but Jace imagined his own body dissolving under Ulamog's mass, his tissues separating from each other, his flesh floating away from him like the floating islands of Zendikar—

This was what was going to happen to the entire world. The Eldrazi titan was consuming every flicker of energy on the plane, from the mana of the land to individual lives, slowly and inexorably.

In a flash, Jace perceived the pattern that would develop. The peoples of Zendikar would flee from the wasted lands, gathering together in the places that could still support life, concentrating their number around defensive locations and landmarks. And in turn, Ulamog would drag his towering form toward those concentrations. And those trusted landmarks would become—tombs.

Sea Gate.

That's why Sea Gate was being attacked by the scions of the Eldrazi. They were the farthest tendrils of Ulamog's spread, reaching out, sensing for the concentrations of population, sensing concentrations of energy.

Art by Slawomir Maniak

No, not sensing, he thought. Tasting.

Ayli and the circle of Eternal Pilgrims closed in on them. They raised the iron chains, and moved closer to Jace and Jori. Jori brandished her halberd, whipping it back and forth.

It was not a time for subtlety. Jace walked straight up to one of the Pilgrims who was in his way, a human with gray stubble.

"In Ula's name—" the man began, reaching forward to wrap Jace in chains.

"Stop," said Jace, and the man burst into flames.

The man screamed. He dropped the chains and flailed, pawing at his body, trying to slap at the fire that suddenly engulfed him. It wouldn't go out. He dropped to the ground and rolled against the grass, but it still wouldn't go out. He moaned in agony.

Jace looked around at all the Eternal Pilgrims, and they, too, erupted in flames.

They shrieked in unison, all of them grabbing at themselves, trying to shed their flame-consumed robes, writhing on the ground or running in random directions.

Jace and Jori were no longer surrounded.

"Which way out of here?" asked Jace.

Jori's mouth hung open. "Uh—back into the chasm. We can climb back up the other face."

As they raced back into the narrow fissure, Jori whispered at him. "How—? You're not a pyromancer."

"The important thing is," said Jace, "they don't know that."

Jori looked back. Over their shoulder, the Pilgrims weren't on fire at all. They patted at their perfectly whole bodies, thrashing around in the grass for no reason. Jace saw her shoot him a look, and they ran on.

Jace and Jori caught their breath. In the distance, Ulamog hauled itself forward in the direction of Sea Gate, carving its way through the landscape. The Pilgrims hadn't strayed far from their object of worship.

"I had never seen a titan before," said Jori.

"Neither had I."

It had become clear to Jace what needed to happen, and he didn't like it. Now he had to break the news to Jori, and hope she agreed.

"Well, we lost all our provisions in the coach. . ." Jori said.

"Jori," said Jace softly.

". . .So I can hunt for us for the next few days. I should be able to get us to the Eye on foot. We'll have to ask for help with the crossing, and then there's the Teeth of Akoum. But I have friends among the Tuktuk goblins who may be able to help. . ."

"Jori, someone has to warn them."

"Warn who?"

"The others, back at Sea Gate. Ulamog is headed right for them. Gideon has to know what's coming."

"And abandon our expedition to the Eye? You can't just . . . tell him? From here?"

"It's too far for telepathy."

"You could just . . . return. Right now. You're one of those."

"I'm not doing that."

"So, what? We just—head back?" Jori's neck-fins wrinkled. She turned away for a moment, toward the horizon, but then faced him again. "All right. Yes. We'll turn around. Head back as fast as we can. And we'll prepare for a fight at the encampment."

"You go," said Jace.

"What?"

"Go back and warn them. I'm going to the Eye."

"You're going on alone? Jace, no."

"It's what has to happen."

"But you'll never make it!"

"I have to."

"But then there's only one of you! I won't let you go alone, unprovisioned, unprepared."

"I'll have my illusions to keep me company."

"Not funny. Come on. You're coming back to Sea Gate with me."

Jace wondered if she knew her hand had involuntarily touched her halberd. "You're going to drag me back with you?"

"If I have to!"

"I thought you might say something like that." Jace backed away. He had to consider every possibility. "Goodbye, Jori."

"Wait," she found herself saying. "Jace. Wait. No. . ." Her voice trailed off.

Jori shook her head and looked around. The encampment wasn't far now—another day's hike would have her back there to warn them. She had made good time without the tenderfoot mind mage to slow her down. It had only been a few days since she had convinced Jace—

—Right?—Yes?

She furrowed her brow.

. . .Yes.

—since she had convinced him to go on to the Eye without her. It had been the smartest option. He just needed to see the bigger picture.

She stopped hiking. What had she just been saying to herself?

"Wait, Jace, no?"

Art by Adam Paquette

She scanned around, feeling like she needed to get her bearings. The sky above her was much as it had been for the past several days—broad and blue, and peppered with clouds and the occasional floating hedron, limitless and familiar and yet somehow odd. She felt an unsettling sensation, as if the dome of sky had just somehow bent into a new shape, suddenly and just outside her field of vision. She swiveled her head around. The grass and stones and distant trees all looked as they should. She looked at a stone on the ground. She kicked it.

"Goddamn it, Jace."

She heaved a breath and shook her head.

She adjusted a strap on her armor and walked on, on toward Sea Gate.

4

The Survivors of Sky Rock

By Kimberly J. Kreines

Sea Gate, Zendikar's foremost city, has fallen to the Eldrazi, and Gideon holds himself partially responsible for its fall. He left the fight briefly to go to Ravnica and collect Jace Beleren, hoping the mind mage would be able to solve the puzzle of the hedrons and help to turn the tide. When Gideon and Jace returned to Zendikar, Sea Gate was beyond saving. Gideon helped an injured Commander Vorik evacuate, along with a small band of survivors—all that remained of Zendikar's greatest city.

The group made camp atop a massive, high-floating hedron, and soon after, Jace left with the merfolk Jori En on a journey to the Eye of Ugin to look for more clues about the power of the hedrons. Jace tried to persuade Gideon to accompany him, but Gideon refused to leave the Zendikari for a second time. Their survival is the most important thing to him now—though he does not know how he will ensure it.

We must collect our strength.

We must regroup.

We must survive.

Commander-General Vorik's orders. The directives Gideon had sworn to serve.

Of those, survival was the most daunting.

Survival had never been straightforward on Zendikar, but recently it had become all the more elusive. Survival on this plane, in this time, in the face of these monsters, demanded patrols, fortifications, weapons, healing balms, food, water, shelter, warmth. The list went on.

So Gideon was taking it one step at a time.

Right now, it was the water that he was working on.

With help from the kor Abeena, he was in the process of repositioning the nearest floating rock waterfall so that its precious stream of life-giving water would rain down onto the far end of the hedron camp where the survivors could safely and easily access it.

Art by Adam Paquette

"All clear!" Gideon called to Abeena.

Abeena was balancing on the thin lip of the waterfall rock, which was currently too far away and turned in the wrong direction, pouring buckets of water down into an expansive canyon where it couldn't be reached or collected.

The kor had secured four ropes that trailed from the waterfall to the main, massive hedron camp. Gideon held two of the ropes, one in each hand. To his right, a merfolk and another kor braced themselves, cinching the third rope. And to his left, three humans clutched the fourth rope.

"Ready when you are!" Abeena called back.

Gideon nodded to the others. "All right, here we go. Heave!" He hefted the ropes, walking backward, planting one foot behind him and then the other.

The others pulled too, and together they lugged the waterfall closer to Sky Rock.

"That's it," Gideon encouraged. "Almost there." Sweat formed at his temples as he gave the great stone another yank. The feeling of exertion was one of the most satisfying he knew. And the rush of a crisp Zendikari breeze past his ears wasn't bad either.

His appreciation for this world had grown immeasurably in just the short time he had spent atop Sky Rock. The view from up here was unmatched. In another life, Gideon could have seen himself living here, spending his days climbing, hunting, exploring, and adventuring. It was easy to see why so many loved this world. Why so many fought for it.

"Hold it there!" Abeena called. "I'm going to turn it around."

"Brace!" Gideon ordered. He tapped into his reserves of power and grounded himself to the hedron; he became as immovable as the thickest of Zendikar's trees. The others tightened their grips and steeled themselves as Abeena flung another rope with a thick hook out to a third floating rock.

Art by Steve Belledin

With a wide stance, Abeena pulled on that rope, using it as an anchor to turn the waterfall around on its axis. She aligned the floating falls so that the stream of water faced the camp. "I think I've got it!"

A cheer rose up from behind, and Gideon turned to see that most every survivor at Sky Rock who was free and able had gathered around to watch. Their longing was palpable; they were anticipating that first quenching swallow of water.

"We have some thirsty people over here, Abeena," Gideon said. "Let's bring them some water!"

Another cheer.

"With pleasure." Abeena detached the fifth rope and knelt low on the hedron so she could guide its path. "Bring it in."

"This is going to shake us," Gideon warned the gathered crowd. "Hold on!"

A final yank heaved the waterfall straight over Sky Rock. The water pounded down on the far end of the hedron; the entire rock shifted at the weight of the turbulent stream. But both the din and the vibrations were drowned out as the Zendikari raced to splash under the stream, cheering, drinking, singing.

"Thank you, Gideon." Abeena said as she climbed down from the rock. "We're lucky to have you here."

"It's you we're lucky for," Gideon said. "Nice work with the ropes. I think you earned this." He handed her a cup.

"Cheers." She raised the cup and strode toward the stream.

Good. This was good, Gideon thought. They had water now. They needed water to survive. That meant they were one step closer.

"He doesn't want you wasting your time with this." Tazri's voice sounded from behind. She must have come from Vorik's tent; that's where she had been spending most of her time, talking and planning with the commander as three healers watched over him. The purpose of Tazri's vigilance was obvious to Gideon. If the persistent coughing that he heard from the commander meant what Gideon feared—Eldrazi corruption—then soon enough Tazri, Vorik's most trusted advisor, would take the commander's place. That would mean a lot of changes for the survivors of Sky Rock. And for Gideon.

Tazri had been cold toward him ever since Vorik had taken Gideon's suggestion over hers during their evacuation. It had been Gideon's idea for the survivors to retreat up to the top of the floating hedron; Tazri had wanted them to push on and evacuate further. Gideon still believed his had been the correct course of action, but he no longer wanted to argue with Tazri—he needed to earn her trust.

"Tazri." Gideon turned, making sure to keep smiling. "I have an extra cup. Do you want some fresh water?"

"Their time would have been put to better use preparing to continue the evacuation."

"They are preparing," Gideon said. "This will help. It'll be easier to fill their canteens."

"They were fine filling them down at the river. You used, what? Six healthy, strong people who could have been out there hunting. They might have felled a baloth, or even two by now. We need to collect rations. Commander Vorik's orders."

"We need water too."

"Not to splash around and play in." Tazri waved at the Zendikari who were still dancing in the stream. "This is a waste of time."

Gideon couldn't help but grin at the sight. "Keeping spirits high is never a waste of time."

Art by Dan Scott

"I know what you're doing." Tazri narrowed her eyes. The glow of the halo she wore around her neck seemed to intensify. "You're trying to make this place comfortable. Trying to find excuses to stay. You're waiting for him to come back. That other stranger. The one who is like you."

Jace. She was talking about Jace. This was not the first time Tazri had hinted that she knew Gideon was a Planeswalker.

"I heard you arguing with him," Tazri went on. "And I heard you lose."

Gideon bristled. He hadn't lost. He wanted Jace to solve the puzzle of the hedrons; he might have preferred that Jace had waited to go to the Eye of Ugin until things were more stable here, but he had agreed with the general plan.

"You can't make these people wait here for him to get back," Tazri said. "It's too dangerous. Do you have any idea how long he'll be gone? Do you know how far away Akoum is?"

Gideon did, but she didn't give him the chance to answer.

"No, you don't," Tazri accused. "You're not from here. I know about you, about him. Neither of you belongs on Zendikar, and you have no right to come here and put these people—my people—in danger." By the time she finished she was leaning in, her finger stabbing the armor on his chest.

Gideon held up his hands. He wouldn't lie to her; that wasn't the way to establish trust. "You're right. I'm not from this world." He took a step back, giving Tazri some space. This was his chance to explain; he needed her to understand. "But I do know Zendikar. I know it well. I have crossed its seas and climbed its mountains. I have seen its sun rise and set countless times. I have traveled to and battled on nearly every continent. And I will continue to fight." He met and held her gaze. "I care greatly for this land, and even more for its people. I am here only to help."

Tazri surveyed him, as though taking him in for the first time, really looking. Gideon stood tall, his expression earnest, willing her to see how much he meant each word.

She inhaled sharply. "Then you'll stop interfering. Vorik knows what's best. I know what's best. And it's not that." Tazri waved in the direction of the waterfall. "That's bad, Gideon. Don't you see? It gives the people a false sense of security. It makes them think that they can call this place home when they can't. They're not safe here. At any moment the swarms from Sea Gate might descend on us. At any moment we might be forced to fight for our lives again. So few survived the first time. How many do you think will survive a second assault?"

Survival was not easy.

"If you want what is best for these people, as you say you do, then help them hunt. Help them collect rations. Help them prepare to continue the evacuation. That's their only chance of survival."

A coughing fit from the direction of Vorik's tent drew both their attention.

"It's what Vorik wants." Tazri turned swiftly on her heel and strode toward the tent.

Gideon paced at the far north end of Sky Rock, the din of the waterfall barely audible in the distance. He was waiting for the rest of his hunting party; the same six who had helped him pull in the waterfall would now help him track a gnarlid—or a baloth, if they were lucky.

Art by Eric Deschamps

He was impatient.

They were losing light.

And Tazri was wrong about the waterfall.

The waterfall was good.

The water was good.

Survival was the directive, and Gideon had acted accordingly. The water would help the Zendikari survive, whether it was for one more night, one more week, or one more month.

The longer the better.

He disagreed with Tazri, and with Commander Vorik for that matter.

He thought they should stay.

Not only because of Jace, though Tazri wasn't wrong that Gideon wanted to wait for Jace's return. The mind mage wouldn't be gone as long as Tazri thought; it would be a long journey to Akoum, undoubtedly, but Jace would most likely planeswalk back to the camp after he found what he needed at the Eye. That would cut the total distance, and time, in half. And with the information Jace found, Gideon hoped their chances of survival would soar. The promise of the hedrons' power was the hope he clung to. If the Zendikari could wield that power, perhaps they would actually survive the evacuation that Vorik and Tazri wanted them to make.

Gideon couldn't protect them out there in the wilderness the same way he could here on the hedron. At least here they were all in one place, and he knew where they were. At least here they had access to food, they were building shelters—and they had water.

If the goal was to survive, Gideon didn't think they should leave.

So how long could they stay?

He looked north, in the direction of Sea Gate. Just the top of its lighthouse was visible from here.

What were the Eldrazi doing? Were they still clambering over its walls and spreading their corruption across the rocks? Or were they on the move, as Tazri suggested?

How fast did they travel? How long would it take them to reach this floating hedron?

How many would come?

How many could Gideon hold off?

If they came at a slow enough trickle, he could dispatch them one by one before they reached the encampment.

He could do it alone.

No one else need risk their life.

He would fight the whole blasted lot of them one by one if he had to.

But if they came in a group . . . "Hurry up, Jace," Gideon breathed.

"Gideon!" The voice came from above, startling Gideon—for just a heartbeat he thought, hoped, prayed it was Jace. But it was far too soon. Of course it wasn't Jace.

"Gideon!"

Gideon took a step back as an enormous blue and white manta descended from above and hovered an arm's length in front of him. The elf on its back looked slightly out of place, but not uncomfortable. She knelt tall, her back straight. Her arm was raised, holding a spear.

Art by Dan Scott

"Seble," Gideon said. "What is it?"

"Trouble. Get on!"

Gideon didn't question the skyrider; she was the camp's only patrol stationed in the air, and she had been the alarm system that had saved them from a potential Eldrazi attack more than a handful of times already.

He climbed aboard.

"There's a party coming in from the south," Seble called back over her shoulder as the manta shot into the sky. "And they're being tailed by an Eldrazi."

Gideon exhaled a relieved breath. If they were coming from the south, then whatever Eldrazi was tailing them wasn't part of the swarm from Sea Gate. There was still time.

"It's a flier," Seble said. "And it's big, Gideon."

Gideon refocused. Even if it wasn't the swarm, it was still an Eldrazi, one he would have to destroy. "Take me there." He gripped the back of Seble's belt as the manta surged forward.

"I think they're more refugees," the elf called back to him. "They looked pretty beaten up, from what I saw."

"Then let's make sure the last leg of their journey is as pleasant as it can be," Gideon said.

This would be the second group of refugees Sky Rock had welcomed in that many days. The last party of refugees was a group of kor who had been found by a hunting party, wandering around in shock after having seen Sea Gate. They had come from Akoum; they had traveled across two continents and the sea, all because Sea Gate was supposed to be a sanctuary. That was the word that had spread across most of the world, according to the kor. They promised that there were more coming, from all over. And here was more proof.

All of these Zendikari were fleeing to a sanctuary that did not exist.

As the manta circled under a large, broken hedron, Gideon caught his first glimpse of the giant Eldrazi Seble had warned him of. It was a low flier, with strikingly blue tentacles, and it was undulating along just above the treetops, winding its way between the vines that dangled down from the hedrons above.

Its course was set on a party in the distance, just as Seble had said. They didn't seem to be aware of the danger they were in.

"How close can you get me?" Gideon called up to Seble.

"How close do you want to be?" Seble kicked the manta's side, spurring it into a dive, angling straight for the Eldrazi. 

As the manta swooped, Gideon unfurled his sural.

Seble's pass brought them close enough for her to reach it with a solid thrust of her spear. As the point of her spear punctured the Eldrazi's side, the four blades of Gideon's sural slashed its back, slicing it open in four places.

But that was not enough damage to slow it down.

"Incoming!" a panicked voice called out from below. It was one of the refugees—a human woman with long silver-gray hair. She had seen the Eldrazi.

Art by Aleksi Briclot

The woman's agitation seemed to attract the monstrosity. It picked up its pace.

The refugees broke into a run.

"Another pass," Gideon called to Seble. "Hurry!"

On her second pass, Seble flew even closer than the first time. So close that Gideon could smell the Eldrazi's freshly-exposed innards.

He lashed out ahead with his sural and gore splattered out of four more slices on its side. But the injuries weren't slowing it down.

He had to slow it down.

He whipped his sural again, this time with the intention of ensnaring rather than slicing. With a flick of his wrist, the blades of his weapon coiled around the Eldrazi's tentacles.

Gideon yanked, pulling the Eldrazi backwards and off course, away from the refugees.

But he hadn't considered the physics of a sky battle. Without anything to counter the force of his assault, Gideon, Seble, and the manta were whipped through the air in the opposite direction.

They dipped and faltered, Seble scrambling to regain control. "Let it go!" she called back to Gideon.

Gideon flicked his sural, attempting to release the Eldrazi, but two of the blades of his weapon were tangled around the tentacle, caught; he couldn't pull it free.

The Eldrazi bucked and the manta was jerked to the side.

"Let go!" Seble called again.

Gideon realized she meant for him to let go of the sural—but too late. He lost his seat and slid off the manta's curved back.

For a moment he plummeted through the sky. Then his sural jerked him to a sudden halting stop, and he was left swinging from the Eldrazi's backside—he watched Seble and the manta plunge toward the ground.

The whole ordeal hadn't won him any time. The Eldrazi was still on course. Dangling from it, Gideon could make out the scars and wounds on the refugees' arms and legs.

"Stay away from them!" Using his sural like a winch, the way he had seen Abeena do, Gideon pulled himself up the Eldrazi's tentacles and onto the bony plates of its back.

The beastly thing thrashed and twisted, reaching for him with four arms that bent unnaturally backward, and still somehow maintaining its heading.

Gideon channeled the magic of his protective, glowing shields, putting one up first on his side, then his front, and then his leg, blocking all of its appendages as he climbed up the bony plates toward the Eldrazi's head.

He grabbed hold of its thinner head tentacles that looked vaguely like antennae, and using them like reins, he snapped the monster's head back. Then he thrust it forward, putting all of his weight into it and forcing the Eldrazi into a nosedive.

The thing reared and spasmed, flinging its tentacles about, but Gideon didn't let up. "I told you to stay away!"

With a final thrust of power, he drove the Eldrazi straight into the ground, putting his whirling shields of magic up just in time to protect himself from the impact.

The crash dislodged his sural and Gideon snapped it back, winding it up. He jumped off the Eldrazi, and with his next breath he lashed out at the monstrosity, once, twice, again. Slicing off tentacle after tentacle, ripping into the tenderest parts of its flesh.

The thing chattered and squealed; the unnatural noises only spurred Gideon on. He would slash the Eldrazi once for every Zendikari that had been lost to its kind. And once more for those who soon would be lost. All the people were doing was trying to survive, but there were too many of the monsters—too many that would come endlessly, spreading across the land. Forever. It would never end.

The Zendikari would never be safe.

How would they ever survive?

How?

A pile of Eldrazi gore and strips of flesh lay at Gideon's feet. There was nothing left to destroy. He dropped his arm and his sural fell motionless at his side.

They couldn't retreat to Zulaport.

No matter what Vorik said.

No matter what Tazri wanted.

The people of Sky Rock would never survive this. They would never make it across Tazeem, let alone across the sea.

There were too many Eldrazi.

They had to stay. If they wanted to survive, they had to stay here.

But what if they wanted to do more than survive?

A gust of wind and the beating of leathery wings drew Gideon's attention. He turned to see Seble hovering not far above, looking on, question in her eyes.

"Did they make it to camp?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Take me back."

She directed the manta lower so Gideon could climb on.

Before Gideon stepped off the manta's back, he could hear Tazri's raised voice. She was arguing with the new group of refugees. Gideon jogged over.

"Sea Gate can't fall," a kor in the party grunted as though the idea was absurd.

"It has," Tazri said. "We evacuated a few days ago. It is lost."

"No." The old woman with long silver-gray hair, who Gideon had seen from above, gripped Tazri's arm. "No." She shook her head. "This." She held up her other hand and lifted one bony, wrinkled finger. "This is what we fought for. This is why—" she bit her knuckle to fight back a sob. "You have no idea." Her voice shook but she didn't cry. "Do you know how far we have come? The Roil, four times. That monstrous Eldrazi. The swarm of them in the river. Tho, Zuri, Daye, Itri—they all fell knowing that we would find—no. This is why we came." She brandished her finger in Tazri's face. "This is Sea Gate. Sea Gate is Zendikar's only hope. Sea Gate is all we have left. We came for Sea Gate."

The others behind her held up their fingers too. Gideon recognized the gesture. The first band of refugees had made the same display. Their fingers were a sign for the lighthouse. Sea Gate. Their hope.

"I'm sorry," Tazri said. "Sea Gate is gone. You can come with us to Ondu."

"Ondu!" A young woman in the group balked. "There's hardly anything left of Ondu."

Art by Jonas De Ro

"Everyone from Ondu is going to Sea Gate. So is everyone from Akoum. Even some of the vampires from Guul Draz. And now you're telling us, all of us—after all that we lost, after all that we fought—that there is nothing? There is no end?" She looked from Tazri to Gideon. "This can't be true. Please. This can't be true." Silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

Gideon felt her desperation.

This couldn't be true.

"It's the commander." Abeena's voice cut in, clipped and rushed from behind. Gideon turned. "He called for you." She was looking at Tazri.

"I'm sorry," Tazri said to the refugees. She was already running for Vorik's tent. "I have to go."

"Both of you," Abeena said. "Gideon, he wants you too. Now."

Gideon could see it in her eyes. Vorik would not live to see the sun again.

"Stay with them, Abeena," Gideon said.

The kor nodded solemnly.

Gideon left the small group of refugees and raced across the hedron behind Tazri.

She looked back at him. "There are no new rations," she spat. "You didn't go hunting."

"No." Gideon caught up with her and held open the flap of Vorik's tent. "I didn't have the chance." Now was not the time for Vorik to die. Gideon was not ready to answer to Tazri.

Inside the commander's tent it was stuffy and smelled of dry, rotten fungus—the smell of Eldrazi corruption. It came from Vorik's breath.

Three healers stood back against the far wall, silently vigilant.

Gideon knelt at the commander's bedside and Tazri stood behind.

"Sir, we're here," she said.

Vorik opened his eyes; they were bloodshot and had the look of cracked glass. "I hear there are new arrivals."

"Yes," Tazri said. "It's a small party."

"Refugees. And there are more coming every day," Gideon said. "They were going to Sea Gate."

Vorik shook his head, regretfully. "Sea Gate." His voice was little more than a whisper.

Tazri glared at Gideon, a look that told him to stop talking, but he felt the urgent need to speak up. Vorik had to know the truth—now, before he passed. Now, while he could still decide the fate of the people here. "They're coming from all across the world, sir. From all the other places that are falling to the Eldrazi, Akoum, Guul Draz . . . and Ondu."

"Sea Gate should never have fallen." Vorik was still shaking his head, lost in thought. He didn't seem to have heard Gideon. He looked to Tazri. "And how are the preparations for the evacuation?"

"We're on track, sir." Tazri said. "The new numbers mean we'll need to collect a few more rations. But we can leave within the week if everyone does their part." She shot another glare at Gideon. "I have mapped a route across Tazeem and—"

"A route that will be rife with Eldrazi," Gideon cut in.

Art by Adam Paquette

"The safest route we could find," Tazri countered.

"There is no safe route across Tazeem," Gideon raised his voice over Tazri's protest; he had a point to make and he would make it. "There is no safe route on all of Zendikar."

"Our journey will be dangerous, yes," Tazri said. "But we knew that. And I have been assured by our scouts that once we make it to the coast there will be boats waiting to take us across the sea."

"Boats that have just made land," Gideon said. "Boats that carried refugees away from places like Akoum and Ondu. Because those places have fallen."

Tazri's nostrils flared and the halo around her neck blazed. She turned on Gideon. "I hear you! We all hear you! You don't want us to evacuate. You don't want us to go to Zulaport."

"No. I don't," Gideon said.

"So what would you have us do instead? Stay here? Sit here on this rock vulnerable and exposed, and wait for them to come for us? Wait to die?"

"No." Gideon realized that he did in fact have another plan. Sometime between slaughtering the flying Eldrazi, talking to the refugees, and seeing the cracks in Vorik's eyes, he had worked out what had to be done. He looked to the commander, meeting Vorik's fading gaze. "I would have us go back to Sea Gate."

"What?" Tazri cried. "Impossible."

"Sea Gate has fallen, Gideon." Vorik coughed, a cloud of dust rising up out of his mouth and floating in the air between them. "It's overrun. It's lost."

Part of Gideon wanted to look away from the dust, from the dying commander, but he respected and cared for the man too much; he didn't so much as blink. "It can stand again, sir," he said. "We can take it back. We gather an army here at Sky Rock—we're already halfway there with all the refugees that are pouring in. Once we have enough soldiers, we surround it just like they did, and we move back in and reclaim what is ours. You yourself have said that it's the most strategic location on all of Zendikar. We need Sea Gate, sir, we need it to—"

"You're insane," Tazri cut him off. "You were there, Gideon—for most of the battle at least. You saw our people fall. You saw the swarms of Eldrazi. How can you possibly think we stand a chance?"

Art by Aleksi Briclot

"The Eldrazi won't stay there for long," Gideon said. "Eldrazi don't operate like the sentient armies we know. They have no interest in keeping Sea Gate. They feed on what they can and then they'll pass through, just like they pass through any other place."

"They'll pass through and come straight for us!" Tazri said. "We can't leave soon enough."

"There is nowhere left to go, Tazri!" Gideon clenched his fists. Why couldn't she see? "You keep saying that we have to 'evacuate,' but there's nowhere to evacuate to."

"Zulaport," Tazri said. "We're going to Zulaport, commander's orders."

"And what's to say that Zulaport won't be gone too once we get there? What's to say it's not gone now? This is the end. The Eldrazi are taking over everything. If we don't make a stand now, all of Zendikar will be destroyed."

"Enough!" Vorik shouted, and with his shout came a coughing fit. Clouds of dust shot up into the air with each hack.

The three healers pushed past Gideon and Tazri.

Art by Anna Steinbauer

Gideon stood, taking a step back away from the commander's bedside.

"Fool," Tazri spat. "You're a fool. You would march these people, my people, Vorik's people, to their deaths."

"No, I would give them a chance to live."

"Their chance for survival is at Zulaport. You know that as well as I do."

"Survival is no longer enough, Tazri," Gideon said.

"How can you say that? Survival is the only thing."

"I didn't see it either. Not until just now. I've been so focused on what's in front of us. We all have. But we have to look at the bigger picture." Gideon recognized Jace's words on his lips. In this case the mind mage had been right. "It's not just Sea Gate that has been overrun. The swarms of Eldrazi are taking everything. They're everywhere. I've seen them myself. If we don't act now, if we don't fight back, then this world will be lost. Everything and everyone on it will be destroyed."

Tazri's bright eyes pierced Gideon. "Except for you. You will just leave."

Gideon blinked, taken aback by her accusation, but before he could counter, Vorik's voice rang out. "Stand down!" For a moment it sounded like the commander's strength had been restored, like he was shouting orders on the battlefield. "Stop clamoring around me and step back, already. Give an old, dying man a chance to breathe." He was talking to the healers. "Your work here is done." He nodded at them, his look firm. "Thank you for all you have done, but it is over." He looked past the healers. "Tazri, Gideon. Come. Time is short."

As the healers somberly stepped back, Gideon and Tazri approached.

"I am dying, and you are arguing."

"Sir—" Tazri started, but Vorik spoke over her.

"Now is not the time for arguing. Now is the time to listen. Listen to each other. You're each other's most valuable assets."

Gideon glanced at Tazri, but she continued to stare down at Vorik, stone-faced.

"If you will not listen to each other, then at least listen to me." Vorik propped himself up ever so slightly. "There is something important I must tell you." He licked his dry lips, but his tongue was even drier. Flakes fell from both. He cleared his throat. "When I was cornered out on the battlefield, when that Eldrazi monstrosity pierced me with its corrupted essence, it was the most terrible thing that I had ever experienced."

Gideon tensed.

"But in that moment, it wasn't terror I felt. Not even regret. No. What I felt was relief. I am ashamed to say it, but it is true. I felt relief that I would get to take the easy way out; that I wouldn't have to stay and face what came next."

Beside Gideon, Tazri shifted.

"But then I thought of my people," Vorik said. "I thought of all the Zendikari, and I felt remorse. I would be gone and they would be here, you would be here, you would have to watch the world end." Vorik paused, swallowing a cough. "But now I have hope," his voice was choked. "I have hope that that is not true. I have hope that there is still a chance for Zendikar. Gideon Jura, you have given me hope." He held up a finger.

Gideon thought the commander was indicating they should wait, that he was fighting another cough . . . but then he saw it—

"Sea Gate," Vorik said, holding his finger high. Then he turned it to point to Gideon. "These people need to be inspired the same way you have inspired me. They need to find hope, just as I have. They need a leader who sees the way to victory no matter the circumstances. When I am gone, you will lead these people. You will reclaim Sea Gate, Commander-General Jura."

"Sir." Gideon staggered. The title. . .

"No." Tazri gasped.

"Tazri." Vorik looked to his advisor. "You are strong and brave, and you have been my most loyal advisor. But you are too close. You are too close to me, to my ideas, to Zendikar. This world needs a fresh perspective, these people need a new reason to believe."

"But—"

"You know Zendikar better than anyone—better perhaps than I do. That is why the commander will need your help. You will stand by him as you have stood by me."

"You can't do this, sir," Tazri said. "He's not even a Zendikari."

Vorik coughed again. A hard, racking cough that brought up a chunk of corruption as large as a coin. He fought for breath, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter where he came from, Tazri. He has a Zendikari's stubborn spirit." Vorik reached out to Gideon.

Gideon closed his thick fingers around the commander's wilting hand.

"Don't lose that spirit," Vorik said. "Don't lose this land."

"I will not, sir," Gideon vowed.

"I leave Zendikar to you, Gideon." The words came out on a cough that tore through the commander's insides. His body convulsed, and then his hand fell limp inside Gideon's.

The funeral was held at sunrise at the edge of the hedron, looking out over the land.

Art by Adam Paquette

The Zendikari sang hymns, their voices starting low and strong, and swelling into something tumultuous and daring.

Gideon joined in when he could, but Tazri's sidelong glances confirmed that he was off-key.

Commander Vorik's body was wrapped carefully in cloths, and the Zendikari at the camp formed a circle around their fallen leader. In turn, each of them knelt and, with a dark charcoal rock, drew a mark on the burial cloth, whispering a chanted message as they did.

It came to be Gideon's turn.

"You don't know what to say, so say nothing," Tazri hissed under her breath as he stepped up to Vorik's body.

Gideon knelt. He picked up the dark charcoal rock and made the mark in silence.

Tazri was right, he didn't know the words of the burial. But he did know what to say.

He stood, inhaling a great lungful of Zendikari air and letting the scent of the wild land fill him. He looked out at the people of Sky Rock, his people. "Today we have lost much," he began. "More than just our commander. We are left without our leader, our champion, our guiding light. Like the lighthouse at Sea Gate, Commander-General Vorik stood tall and true even in the face of greatest adversity. And even though he is gone, we must do as he did, because we now face the greatest adversity Zendikar has ever known.

"In the same way that the corruption spread to claim our friend's body, so too do the corrupting monsters spread across this land. Each day is worse. Each day there are more. Each day they take more. We cannot let them do this any longer." He nodded to Vorik's body. "We have seen what happens when they are allowed to rampage at will. We cannot let what happened to our leader happen to this world."

Art by Vincent Proce

He paused, looking around at the fallen, desperate faces. "We have a choice before us today. We can choose to leave Sky Rock. We will be ready to evacuate within the week. We have rations and supplies. Boats wait for us at the harbor. We can retreat to Zulaport."

The people leaned in, anxious.

"But if that's what we choose, many of us will not make it. The journey will be dangerous. We will encounter scores of Eldrazi across the land and in the waters. I have been across the sea. I have seen the Eldrazi at Ondu, Kabira, Fort Keff, and all places in between. They are everywhere. And every day there are more. They might already be at Zulaport. Those of us who do make it to Zulaport may find nothing but more Eldrazi."

Tazri made to argue, but Gideon held up his hand and continued. "Or perhaps we will find that the safehold still stands. But if that is so, for how long? How long will anything stand?" He glanced at Tazri. "There is no saying, but at some point, if we choose Zulaport, Zulaport will fall. It will fall just as Sea Gate fell, just as every other part of Zendikar is falling. If we chose to retreat, we will be destroyed along with this world."

It was a hard truth, but it was the truth, and these people deserved to know the truth. They had to know the truth.

"But we do have another choice," Gideon went on. "We can choose to fight back. We can choose to stop running. We can choose to go on the offensive. To stand tall and true in the face of the greatest adversity. I stand before you today as your commander, and I ask you to choose to fight. I ask you to help me. Help me gather every Zendikari, from all corners of the world, from every continent, every last Zendikari who is willing to fight. We will assemble right here at Sky Rock. The full strength of Zendikar will converge in one place, and with that force we will fight. With the might of the world behind us, we cannot lose. We will use that power to reclaim Sea Gate."

A murmur rose up from the gathered crowd, but Gideon continued. There was more they had to hear. More he had to say. "Sea Gate is the heart of this world. It is the most strategic location, filled with weapons, food, and supplies. Fortifiable, defensible. Reclaiming it is only the first step. From there, we launch our own attack. We become the predators. We hunt the invaders. We wipe out the corruptors. We spread across the land and take back what is ours." He whipped his sural through the air. "We take back Zendikar!"

Art by Dan Scott

He looked at the gathered Zendikari in turn. "Who is with me?"

After a long moment, Seble raised her fist. "For Zendikar!"

"For Zendikar!" Abeena added her call.

Cheers rose up from the gathered crowd with such a force that the voices shook the very hedron the people stood on. "For Zendikar!"

Gideon looked to Tazri. She was standing at his side, her arms crossed.

"I will not leave," Gideon vowed. "I am here to the end."

Tazri met his gaze.

"You have my word," he said. "I will battle for Zendikar."

The halo around Tazri's neck glowed brightly, its light catching the wetness in her eyes. She nodded.

"For Zendikar, Commander, I will battle too."

5

Memories of Blood

By Ken Troop

When Kalitas and the Ghet threatened to turn all of the vampires of Malakir into thralls of the Eldrazi, Drana struck back, retaking control of Malakir and driving Kalitas and his traitors away from the city. But Drana's victory was short-lived, and she and her remaining people were driven from the city by ever-growing hordes of Eldrazi.

Their numbers have swelled with thousands of mortals who have no choice but to join them or perish in the face of the Eldrazi assault. They are the last remaining bastion of civilization on Guul Draz, and they wander the face of the ravaged continent in search of hope or succor in a world that has vanishingly little of either.

Against a sky the color of dead trees, a flock of birds dropped out of the air. No force impeded them, no arrow or spell punctured their flight. They just stopped and died, their lifeless bodies ceasing to carry on. Drana thought they had simply given up. Perhaps it was the reasonable choice.

Around her, enormous sleds groaned and buckled under the weight of thousands of refugees, vampire and mortal alike. Each sled was tethered to hundreds of the nulls, slavering and gibbering as they moved forward, ever forward. They were no longer moving toward something. Just away. Away from the Eldrazi, away from certain death. But each day there were fewer places to go in away. The land of away, here in Guul Draz, was being replaced by the presence of more Eldrazi.

Drana ascended through the air, a survey she knew would offer no hope, but she flew nonetheless. Six giant sleds, plus small scattered bands of vampire scouts and outriders and the few mortals who were still combat-ready. Fifteen thousand lives, at most, and perhaps a fifth of those worth more in battle than the delicious blood they carried in their veins. Back when they had first liberated Malakir from the traitorous vampires who had succumbed to the Eldrazi's call, back when they still thought this a winnable war, they had over three times that number—the vast majority of them useful vampire warriors.

Drana rose higher to view the large Eldrazi host behind them. She wanted to say there were thousands of them, but she did not like lying to herself. There were many more than thousands of them, a number so much greater that it was not useful to label it. There in the midst of the host was the enormous Eldrazi sire, towering over the neighboring hills, the clear lord of its domain. The sire was not as large or formidable as Ulamog itself, but it was still massive and powerful enough to lay waste to the continent of Guul Draz. Its multiple limbs waved a constant orbit in the high sky. The vampires had lost many to its rending arms in aerial assaults before the futility of such attacks became clear.

Art by Tyler Jacobson

The Eldrazi host was massive and the host was inexorable and the host was death . . . but at least the host was slow. At times the sleds had pulled many miles in front, so that the pursuit was no longer visible. But there were smaller Eldrazi hosts that had come from both left and right, and in the angling back and forth to stay clear, Drana's force had allowed the pursuing host to catch up. Now the vampires were only a couple of miles ahead, and they were running out of room to maneuver. Soon they would be at the coast, and their only hope would be to double-back and . . . stay alive today, Drana reminded herself. That was the new goal. The only goal. Stay alive today.

The goal grew more difficult every day.

Eldrazi were everywhere, and the land she had known for thousands of years was evaporating underneath. Neither rock nor wood nor life resisted the chalky calcification that was the residue of the Eldrazi assault. Drana thought of the corpse of the land, being drained of essence and blood to feed the insatiable hunger of a merciless predator. We were made in the shadows of our makers, she thought, not for the first time. Not in image but in action. The painful truth, the essential truth, was the Eldrazi were better vampires than the vampires.

She turned to look toward the coast, their current destination. There, beyond the narrow waters, was Tazeem. Some of the vampires felt there would be refuge there, but more, including Drana, felt there was no reason there should be different than here. If vampires, the most powerful race on Zendikar, could not defeat the Eldrazi, what chance did lesser beings have? But every day a few more vampires left, carrying a foolish hope that sanctuary existed somewhere.

She spied a dot on the horizon, and the dot split into five dots, ten dots, then more. From the direction of Tazeem they came, and several vampire scouts flew off to get a closer look. An overseer flew up to join her. The dots resolved into clearer pictures. There were maybe a hundred of them. "Those are kitesails. Kor."

"Welcome or kill?" Kan had been one of her personal overseers for millennia. He knew the ways she thought, and she appreciated his laconic efficiency. Still, he sounded tired. She was tired. She had existed for thousands of years, and though she could not remember more than a fraction of that life, she thought she had never been so tired. A new experience. She gave a tight smile. I should be grateful.

"Welcome. They come to join us at the end of the world. We will be accommodating."

Art by Dan Scott

The leader of the kor delegation was tall, thin, but with a good amount of lean muscle. A warrior, as were the rest. Drana could smell the blood, the delicious scent of the healthy. She had not fed in a few days, and even that sustenance had been the blood of the dying and infirm. These kor smelled beautiful. She smiled widely, and she gave credit to the kor leader when he did not step back, did not even reach for his sword. Brave blood tasted best.

She put the regret of not being able to taste it on her list of regrets since the beginning of the Eldrazi rise. It had become a long list. The leader's name was Enkindi; he and the rest of his band had been sent by Gideon from Sea Gate to find other survivors on Guul Draz and bring them back to join Gideon's army. Drana had heard of Gideon from a few of the recent stragglers to join their camp. The rumors were that Gideon was a powerful human mage and warrior, but when Drana asked if he had defeated the Eldrazi on Tazeem, they could only reply, "No, but he survives." Drana could not see anything special about this Gideon. That's what they all were doing, surviving, until the time came they stopped. Do not stop today. But it could be tomorrow.

Still, if this Gideon could afford to send a hundred capable troops looking for allies on other continents, he was doing better than her army. But in the end, that didn't matter. That these kor could fly might.

The giant sleds had stopped. Vampire overseers walked among the nulls chained to the pull-rods, slopping out handfuls of decaying meat from large buckets. The nulls were the easiest to feed; the rest of their entourage less so. Mortals shakily left the sleds and were handed food in slightly better shape than what the nulls were eating. By this point there was no more fighting and rioting from the mortals over food. They were too exhausted to fight. But not too exhausted to stay on the sleds. Everyone who could moved away from the sleds. They had learned.

Art by Anthony Palumbo

As her vampires ranged amongst the sleds, getting what little nourishment they could from the dead and dying, she walked the kor through the thousands of refugees. There were still a few mortals who had both reserves and compassion. Mages, healers, warriors, they would walk amongst the huddled groups offering what succor they could. But everyone knew it was the vampires keeping them alive. Hunters and scouts were constantly foraging in a wide radius, bringing back everything resembling food they could. There was diminishing sustenance left in Guul Draz, though. Now when the scouts returned, they brought back little. More often they didn't return at all.

"You are dying, here." Enkindi's voice was rough, clipped.

There was no judgment in his voice, though, just an observation of facts. Still, Drana's voice carried an edge. "We live today." Though as she looked at the dirty faces surrounding them, visages absent hope or spark, she knew she stretched the meaning of "live."

"Yes, today. But to what end? Where does this end? Gideon believes we can make a stand. That if we all stand together, we can. . ."

"Die together?"

"Win. We can win. Many of you are still strong. We know what you can do in battle. Join us."

"And what are we to do with them?" Drana gestured toward various clumps of mortals who huddled with each other, faces turned to the ground until they heard the call to get back on the sled. No faces looked up. The mortals had no desire to gain the attention of any vampire. Drana understood. Eating the dying mortals was the best compromise she could enforce on her people, and if the mortals thought it horrible, it earned her no favor with those she led either.

"I. . ." Enkindi's voice faltered. "I don't know. But they are going to die either way, unless we can beat the Eldrazi." Drana led them toward a large group of small people on the outskirts of the sleds. There were a hundred of them, probably more. Here and only here were there signs of movement not strictly pertaining to survival. Many of the small people were still and huddled but some of them ran and played and shouted.

Only here had Drana posted several guards, her best and most trusted guards, ringing the group—watching for any potential harm. Eldrazi were not the only threat. Though the vampires had not attacked any healthy mortals under their care, at least not after the first transgressors had been punished fatally, she had posted the guards anyway.

"Children. They are. . ." Enkindi's voice had faltered before, but here it broke. Perfect.

"No, not children. Warriors. Like you." Drana's voice was languorous, soft and velvety, just as before sinking her teeth into prey. If she could not enjoy actual blood, at least she could enjoy the hunt. "Melindra, come here." She did not shout, but her voice carried.

One of the smaller children broke free from running and came over to Drana and Enkindi. Her hair was clipped short—shorn with a dagger, either by herself or one of the other children. She bore the same angular cheekbones and pale skin as Enkindi, marking her as kor, but there the similarities ended. Her face was filthy, and her clothes torn and ragged. Drana brought out a small piece of meat and palmed it to the child who gulped it down and smiled. Melindra had a beautiful smile.

"Are you children, Melindra?" Drana's voice continued its soft melody.

"No. We're soldiers. We're a brigade, you said. We're the Orphans' Brigade. You said we got to name ourselves, and we did." As she spoke, Melindra whipped out a dagger from a home-made sheathe, all ragged rope and hide. But the dagger was sharp and oiled. "You said. We get to choose. We're the Orphans' Brigade."

"And so I did, Melindra. And so you are. The Orphans' Brigade." She patted Melindra on the head, and Melindra looked up at her and smiled again.

Enkindi looked at the child, and back at Drana, tears and anger in his eyes. "They are children! Kor children. . ."

"And humans and merfolk and elves. All mortals are mortal. Becoming a parent does not seem to provide adequate protection against death."

"Do you actually use them to fight? How evil are you? They are. . ."

Art by Karl Kopinski

"Children, yes." She continued to stroke Melindra's rough-hewn hair. "Being a child seems no more protection against death than being a parent. This is war. In my experience, wars are usually very effective at killing children. Perhaps that's the point of war, to kill children."

Enkindi's hand started to flex and tremble, just a bit. His eyes tightened as his tears stopped. Drana had to be very careful here. She could not provoke him so far yet.

"Except in this war, Enkindi, against the Eldrazi, we are all children."

Enkindi's shoulders slumped, and his hand stopped flexing. He looked up at her, clearly lost. How do you save the unsaveable?

"I will not leave them to the Eldrazi. I will not leave any of them. You ask me to go across the narrow ocean to fight with this Gideon, to kill Eldrazi there instead of Eldrazi here. To save those children, but not save these children. I have a different proposal. I'll leave with you to fight with Gideon at Sea Gate, if you and your warriors fight with me first. Help me kill the Eldrazi behind us, who even now slither closer in their hunger. Help me win my battle, and I'll help you win yours."

She stuck out her hand, in the way mortals do, and successfully resisted the urge to bring his neck close and bite when he offered his hand in return. It was extra flair for Melindra to sheathe her dagger and stick out her hand in the same way, but Drana loved the child a little more for it.

Drana sent her lieutenants to begin preparations, and she arranged to meet with Enkindi in the air. They had a battle to plan.

The sun managed to show itself in the early afternoon, its light wan and pale. The Eldrazi seemingly sucked the energy from everything, even light itself. The battle plans had been drawn quickly. One of the few advantages to fighting against innumerable odds and a mindless, inexorable foe was that battle strategies were straightforward. Every day, every hour, her army weakened. Better to strike now. A buzz ran through the masses. After so many days of running and death, here would be a chance at resolution. No matter the outcome, tomorrow's reality would be different than today's fear.

She was not prone to careful introspection, but it was hard not to acknowledge this could be the last day of her existence. She had been alive for many thousands of years. But even several hundred years into that life she realized she had a choice. She could dedicate herself to remembering her past, every new day an exercise in keeping hundreds of years of memories alive, or she could . . . let go. She had chosen to let go.

Memories for the long-lived were a delicate edifice of pebbles. Pebble stacked upon pebble upon pebble. She could roughly trace the largest pebbles, but after so many years, everything in her foundation, in her earliest times, was buried. She wanted those earliest days, knew they would be essential to the vampires surviving this war. Today she would get those memories or she would die. She welcomed the prospect of clarity, regardless of the form in which it arrived.

Her opportunities for clarity were approaching on all three sides. The main Eldrazi host, centered around the enormous sire, came from due east. Two smaller hosts converged from the north and the south. She had placed the bulk of her army to engage the large host. The majority of that contingent was vampires supported by mortals she could trust in battle. Those mortals too fractious to reliably follow her orders were placed in charge of the frail and infirm. She didn't bother giving instructions of what they should do if the army failed. They would find out soon enough in the very short time left to them.

Drana's best overseers managed the few hundred fliers they had left. Her fliers, along with Enkindi and his additional hundred troops, would be key. Drana kept her eyes on the Eldrazi sire. It was both the main challenge and opportunity in this battle. They could kill all the other Eldrazi they wanted, but if they could not find a way to bring the sire down, none of the other deaths would matter. And they had no chance of killing the sire without fliers.

The Eldrazi were close. There were thousands, tens of thousands, more; different shapes and sizes running, crawling, slithering, slurping their way across the rocky ground, here on the outskirts of Guul Draz. Some even flew, their misshapen grotesque bodies an affront to Drana's domain. Occasional ripples surged through the masses and Eldrazi bodies would explode or be swallowed up into the earth. It was Zendikar itself rippling to rid itself of the foreign invaders, using the roil to fight its war.

Art by Raymond Swanland

But the weapons of the Eldrazi were more fearsome. Everywhere they touched life, life died. Everywhere they touched matter, matter disintegrated. Everywhere they touched the world, the world buckled. They are the end of all things. The Eldrazi came upon them.

Mortal and vampire alike met the initial onslaught with a fierce savagery. They blasted, hacked, and tore their way through the unthinking nodes of hunger embodied in gelatinous, tentacled forms. All the fear and despair of the last few weeks was converted to raw fury and power. If these were their last moments of life, they would be epic moments; moments worth a thousand years of story and song to commemorate.

The Eldrazi did not care. The Eldrazi kept on coming.

An Eldrazi drone lashed a barbed tentacle at her head. She bit through it and caught the free appendage, whipping it around to decapitate another Eldrazi behind her. The headless Eldrazi didn't know it was dead, mauling an open-mouthed mortal, sucking him in and eviscerating him in a single undulating motion. Two other mortals fled in terror before being killed by more pressing Eldrazi. Drana chopped an Eldrazi in half with her sword and then spun to punch through the body of another. Drana snarled as she did it, a feral, manic grin on her face. But no Eldrazi ran in terror. So much of the momentum in battle relied on creating fear and intimidation amongst your opponents; once the mind succumbed, the body followed. That approach was useless against the Eldrazi. The only available tactic was killing.

The Eldrazi broke through the front lines, penetrating deeper into the heart of her forces. More Eldrazi came behind them, and more waves were behind them, always advancing. There were too many. Killing would not be enough. Drana needed to pursue her other path to victory.

Art by Todd Lockwood

She rose high into the air, where Enkindi and his troops swooped and glided and tore flying Eldrazi to pieces with their sharp hooks and swords. Drana admired the efficiency and effectiveness of the kor kitesailers. They clearly had much practice killing Eldrazi. Drana hoped they would be competent enough.

"Kan!" Drana shouted at her overseer, whom she had kept close to Enkindi's forces. "Mobilize the Orphans' Brigade. Send them toward the sire!" Kan flew down without a word. Enkindi was also close enough to hear. He veered his kitesail in a wide loop to face Drana. "Monster!" His face contorted in anger and disbelief. He ripped his sword through an attacking Eldrazi, its gelatin droplets torn asunder and falling to the ground below, his face on Drana's throughout.

"You send those children to their deaths!" His screams wanted to rip her apart, but no hand of justice came from the sky to do his bidding. Drana would welcome such a hand, as long as it killed the Eldrazi as well.

"We're all going to die. Better to die while trying to win. We need to kill that sire, or we have no chance. The children will serve as necessary bait to lure the sire where we need it to be." She was calm, peaceful. Every word she said was true. The easiest lies were those that were true.

Fifty feet below, the mass of children moved closer to the front lines, ringed in front by her vampire guards. They had never yet intentionally known combat, though each child had experienced battle; every survivor had by this point. The Eldrazi did not care about intentional combatants.

Enkindi swayed in the air, rocking back and forth. Most of his people had gathered close to their leader, sharing his disgust, fear, and hate. He looked at the Eldrazi sire, one hundred feet tall, limbs coming out of limbs coming out of limbs—an impenetrable fortress in the shape of a single giant Eldrazi. Drana imagined the calculations going through Enkindi's mind. Surely he knew what chance they had against such a being. They all knew.

Hatred and despair warred on Enkindi's face as he came to his decision. She applauded his hatred. He deserved better. His snarling voice rang in the wind. "May your death be painful and long. May your death bring neither peace nor redemption." He turned to his group. "To me! We must take down the sire!" They fanned out as a group, angling their kites up and up to seek their fight with the Eldrazi sire.

Drana followed behind, not too close, preparing herself. She had only started to hope when she first saw the kitesails on the horizon earlier today. They were a possibility, a hope, one she had lost after the very first major battle with the Eldrazi weeks ago on the outskirts of Malakir. Her vampires were fearless, strong, relentless, and ferocious in combat—but thousands of vampires could never contemplate doing what a hundred kor might: sacrifice themselves for the good of others.

Enkindi led the charge directly into the head of the Eldrazi sire. Drana understood the plan. The head and neck of the creature, or at least those appendages most closely resembling those equivalents seemed the most vulnerable to blade and rupture. Though Enkindi and his group were moving fast, the Eldrazi moved faster. A large tentacle from the Eldrazi's head wrapped itself around Enkindi while a smaller attached tentacle wrapped itself around Enkindi's head and squeezed. Enkindi's headless corpse, still attached to its broken kitesail, plummeted uselessly to the ground. The kor were being slaughtered as the Eldrazi sire's numerous appendages lashed and pummeled them out of the skies.

Art by Karl Kopinski

Drana grabbed one of the falling kor midway before hitting his fatal destination. He was still alive, though unconscious and not long to live. She bit deep through his neck; and his eyes shot open, then closed. It was one of most exquisite tastes she had ever enjoyed, suitable for her last feed. She drained him utterly, letting his desiccated flap of skin waft gently to the ground. She needed every mote of energy for what was to come. She summoned the last of her reserve and cast a spell as she gathered speed toward the Eldrazi sire. Only a few kor were still flying free; the rest were dead or being grappled by the sire. The giant Eldrazi, even distracted by all the kor, could still move blisteringly fast. But this time, Drana moved faster.

She flew straight into the center abdomen of the monster, puncturing gelatin, flesh, and muscle into the very heart of the creature. Her world exploded.

The spell she cast allowed her to see more, to see energy and patterns normally invisible, even to one such as her. The energy was odd, alien, with a sickly magenta taint, but it was everywhere. I am the hunter. I am the predator. Everything is prey. Everything is mine. She had been so thirsty. She thrust her mouth into the beating magenta heart of this monstrous Eldrazi and she drank. She drank deep. Clarity blossomed.

In the beginning, in the very beginning, there was hunger. That was all there was, this hunger, this want, this need. Our purpose was to consume. We needed legs and eyes to find prey. Arms and teeth to grab prey. Minds and strength to overcome prey. We consumed and used the energy we gained to consume more.

The mission was clear. It was not clear in words. The words came later, a poor translation from truth to brain to words, those imperfect messengers of need. It was clear in her bones. You will consume. You will scour clean. The remnants of the broken must be consumed and cleansed.

She didn't know what was meant by broken, what the Eldrazi even thought of as whole, so they could compare and know what was broken. Perhaps to those monstrosities, everything that was real, that was the world, was broken.

She drank deeper, deeper. The energy from the large Eldrazi flowed into her, suffused every starved pore in her tightened flesh. The Eldrazi sire had a huge hole in its chest where she had burrowed, but it was still upright, still killing, still marching upon her people. She needed more.

Consciousness, a sense of me separate from the hunger, took years. Perhaps hundreds of years, though how could I know? The realization of consciousness came in waves, descending streaks of insight separating me from my hunger, me from my master. I was no longer an extension of it, of the consuming force named Ulamog. I was me. Drana.

But before separation, there had been an . . . unease. An unease that was part of her because there was no her, only the totality of Ulamog in many different forms. An unease that only later, in those dawn moments between being Eldrazi and being Drana, before she forgot it utterly, she understood a glimpse of a facet of a dream.

They were not supposed to be here. They were supposed to be away. Somehow, there was an away from Zendikar. There were many aways from Zendikar, and the Eldrazi knew, in so far as they could know anything, they should be there, and not here.

But they were here, and their purpose was to consume, and so they did.

For a brief second she remembered those dawn moments, the confusing blur of an awakening self, and how strong her purpose had been back then, thousands of years ago. That purpose washed over her, a giant wave of ocean crashing over her and subsuming her entirely.

You will consume. You will scour clean.

She was no longer remembering. She was becoming. The magenta alien energy she drank from the Eldrazi sire pulsed in her veins, no longer subject to her will. She was not devouring it. It was devouring her.

Art by Clint Cearley

You will consume. You will scour clean.

Tentacles erupted from her back and shoulders, living matter created instantaneously in the shape of her masters, her makers. We were made in the shadow of our makers.

You will consume. You will scour clean.

The strange creature residing at the heart of the Eldrazi sire, a misshapen form on the precipice of utter transformation, screamed. It was a scream absent peace or redemption. It was a scream heralding the end of a world.

Somewhere the shadow of a thought briefer than a heartbeat once calling itself Drana clung to a pebble of memory. The pebble said, I serve no one.

The pebble glowed black, a proud glow, a glow with gravity, and it attracted other pebbles.

You will consume. You will scour clean.

The pebbles were struck by a burst of energy, toppling and scattering them.

I serve no one. The pebbles reformed and coalesced into a shape. That shape emerged from the war between magenta and black light. The voice resonated throughout.

I serve no one.

You will cons—

I serve no one! I will be free! Drana reformed herself inside the Eldrazi womb.

She drank in everything, every particle of the Eldrazi energy around her. She obliterated it and consumed it and bathed in it. The empty meat surrounding her exploded, leaving nothing but Drana floating in space observing the massacre below her. Her army was being routed, and even with the loss of the sire, the Eldrazi victory was nearly complete.

This is what it feels like to be a god. Energy suffused every fiber in her being. She could obliterate armies, she could destroy the sun. With this power I could do anything. Her vision was boosted tenfold from normal. She could make out every face, every detail below. She saw the Orphans' Brigade, the outer rung of children attacked by the Eldrazi, while some of them fought and some of them ran and some of them died.

She should leave them all. They could not help her. She could go directly to Ulamog and confront it, destroy it. Or she could find this away from Zendikar. Why settle with dominating a world, when there were endless worlds to own? The energy inside her bucked and writhed. Veins split open, too rich with power to be contained by any physical form.

Her people were being destroyed. Should she save them? What matter these mortals, even her vampires, when worlds and gods awaited?

I belong to no one.

She saw Melindra run up to an Eldrazi spawn and stab it in the head while she screamed. The Eldrazi spawn sputtered and shook, but still coiled a tentacle in reactive tension, and Drana could see the whiplash intended to shear off its assailant's head.

I belong to no one. Melindra could not see the spawn's reaction, could not see the tentacle coming her way to end her life

I belong to no one . . . but they belong to me.

Drana screamed as she let loose the energy stored in her body, becoming a glowing magenta sun in the middle of the day. Rays of purple light struck her people, vampire and mortal alike, healing their wounds, making them stronger, faster, invulnerable.

Art by Mike Bierek

The Eldrazi's tentacle struck Melindra in her shoulder and the tentacle shattered. Melindra laughed as she tore the Eldrazi's head off its body. She ran to kill the next Eldrazi. In seconds the battle changed, and what was left of Drana's army began obliterating the Eldrazi forces.

The energy continued to pour from Drana. She had already lost more than half of the Eldrazi energy surge, and still she felt she knew no equal on this world. But her people needed more, and she gave it to them. Wounds closed, sickness fled, strength was restored.

The energy was fading, surges becoming dribbles, each pulse emanating from her slower and weaker than the last. With every pulse she came closer to the ground, unwillingly but obeying laws of exhaustion greater than her ability to fly. There were no more Eldrazi in sight, all had been destroyed by her empowered army. The desiccated chalk patterns on the ground grew closer. They are beautiful. They are horrible. Then she hit the ground and found oblivion.

Art by Jonas De Ro

"We can retake Guul Draz." In the millennia she had known him, Kan never sounded excited, but he did now. Excitement was the prevailing sentiment amongst the survivors, the two thousand of them that remained. They were healthy and refreshed, a combination of Drana's magic and the first taste of victory any of them had in weeks. Drana did not want to ruin their euphoria, but she knew the means of this victory was unique. She would not risk directly battling any Eldrazi the same way any time soon or ever. This time she had managed to preserve her identity, her very self. Next time, the results could be far different.

"Any of the envoys left alive?" Kan shook his head. Enkindi and the rest of the envoys had served their purpose well. She had no need to honor their sacrifice, nor did she feel guilt about her manipulation. Such were the dealings with prey. But even so. . .

"Make preparations to cross to Tazeem. We are going to Sea Gate." Kan raised an eyebrow for a moment before turning around and barking orders. Several other overseers did the same. There were no dissenting voices. Any desire to reclaim Guul Draz was swallowed by their fervent obedience to Drana. She had saved them in their most dire time of need.

Drana walked among her people, and all, vampire and mortal alike, bowed with her passing. Their heads looked up, though, searching for her eyes, their gratitude and pleasure clear. She met their gaze and kept walking until she found what she was looking for.

Melindra was among the other surviving children of the brigade, sharpening her dagger with a whetstone. The child, though still dressed in rags, looked nothing like the ravenous waif she had been. She looked strong, hale, a warrior in truth.

Melindra looked up, her face untouched by guile. Whatever she saw in Drana's face made her smile, and she went back to her whetstone and dagger.

Drana had made the decision before losing consciousness in the aftermath of the battle. She had sought out the Eldrazi sire, sought its energy to unlock her own ancient memories. And she had found what she was searching for. The Eldrazi weren't from here. Perhaps they didn't even want to be here, for whatever want meant to them. But most important, there was a there for the Eldrazi to go back to.

She contemplated what she would find at Sea Gate. She looked forward to seeing this magical warrior named Gideon, a strange man in strange clothes whom no one on Zendikar had ever heard of before now. Perhaps he came from this there, as well.

They have a place to go. We can send them away to there. Or we can go away to there ourselves.

Drana stroked the head of the child, and smiled.

Art by James Paick

6

Nissa’s Quest

By Kimberly J. Kreines

Nissa was closer to the power of Zendikar, and to the world’s soul, than ever before. She was able to channel it through the towering treelike elemental she called Ashaya, the Awoken World—her friend. And the land itself responded to her presence, augmenting her strength and acting as an extension of her being, helping her to battle the Eldrazi. But all of that was suddenly ripped away; the soul of Zendikar was taken from her and now it is no longer there when she reaches out to it. Nissa has been left nearly powerless and alone, and she believes that the Eldrazi—perhaps even the titan—must have something to do with this. She feels the burden of the bundle of seeds that she carries with her, those from trees that have been wiped out by the Eldrazi; she promised the world that she would not stop until she could plant them safely on Zendikar again. But now, while others around her prepare to go to battle to save the world, Nissa feels the emptiness all around her and worries that they are already too late, that there is no world left to save.

It happened more at twilight than any other time. A long, dark shape would move. A branch would stretch or bend. Nissa would catch it out of the corner of her eye and she would be sure—for just that moment, just that heartbeat—that it was Ashaya, the elemental manifestation of Zendikar's soul, come back just as she knew it would.

Art by Raymond Swanland

But then she would turn her head. Why did she always have to turn her head? And she would see that it was just a tree, just the wind, just the long shadows cast by the setting sun. Her breathing would return to normal, her heart would fall into rhythm again, and she would be left alone, sitting cross-legged on the hard ground, in the exact place on the bluff that she had been standing when Zendikar had been torn away from her.

She kept vigil there, returning each day to ground herself, reach into the land, and search for any hint of Zendikar. She was convinced that it was the Eldrazi titan that had taken it, or chased it away, or hurt it; she had seen once before how terribly a titan could hurt Zendikar. But she reasoned that if it were to return, it would return to the place it had last been—and she believed that it would return, she wanted to believe that it would return looking for her. When it did, she would be there. She would always be there for her friend.

But when Nissa reached out, all she ever found was emptiness, the shattered pieces of a shell. Zendikar never reached back. In place of its embrace, she was met with a frigid chill that worked its way up through her bones as night settled in.

The darkness and the cold meant it was time to head back up into her perch in the nearby massive willow. It wouldn't do Zendikar or anyone else any good if she nodded off and was consumed by an Eldrazi in the middle of the night.

She often considered going back to Sky Rock each night. There was something alluring about the security offered by Gideon's sky patrols, not to mention the protection of the formidable Planeswalker himself. But the allure didn't outweigh the drawback. If the others saw her again, she'd have to try one more time to explain—and she couldn't bear the thought of exposing her hurt only to face the skeptical looks and questions yet again.

She had tried to explain it to them, all of them. She had tried to explain it to Gideon, and then later to his friend and fellow Planeswalker Jace. She had told them that something horrible had happened to Zendikar's soul. It had been ripped away from her. She had lost her friend, and her access to the overwhelming well of power that flowed through the land.

But neither Jace nor Gideon seemed to understand, nor did anyone else—though Jace had been, at the very least, curious about her "perception of the world," as he called it. But the thing was, it wasn't her perception; Zendikar's soul was real. As were the souls of other planes; Nissa had felt them, she'd even communicated with Lorwyn's soul. But that kind of thing was difficult, if not impossible, to explain in words. The concept of a world having a soul was so foreign that it was easy for others to write her off, dismiss the truth as a single elf's "perception."

Nissa didn't blame Gideon or Jace, or any of the others. They didn't see things as she did. When they looked at Zendikar, they saw trees, rocks, brambles, beasts, rivers, and mountains. But they saw each of these things as distinct and disconnected elements. They didn't perceive the underlying bond. They were blind to the powerful leylines that connected every living thing on the world like a network of arteries, pumping power and promise from one beating heart to the next. They were deaf to the voice of the world that whispered and shouted and laughed and sometimes even cried out in pain. They could not see how truly alive Zendikar was . . . or used to be.

Art by Sam Burley

It wasn't anymore.

When Nissa looked at the world now, she too only saw broken sticks, fallen leaves, and tangled branches thick with thorns. She could no longer see the whole, she couldn't feel the oneness. She could not hear the voice of her friend.

The dullness of the world around her screamed reality. It made her memories feel like dreams, the fanciful perceptions of an elf.

If those dreams had ever been real, they were not real anymore.

"Are you really gone?" Nissa didn't want to believe it. There was something that told her that it couldn't be true. Yet . . . she lowered her hand, fingers outstretched, ever so slowly down toward the surface of the ground. She held her breath and touched the dirt.

But that's all it was: dirt.

If Zendikar's soul was gone, if the Eldrazi titan had destroyed it, then all of this dirt, all the brambles, and branches, and beasts, would soon be gone too. A world without a soul would not be a world for long.

Her other hand at her chest, Nissa clutched the silk packet of seeds given to her by the vampire what seemed like ages ago. If this was truly the end for Zendikar, then these seeds were exactly what the vampire had said they were: the world's last hope of enduring. On another plane.

Nissa swallowed, but the hot lump in the back of her throat worked its way up behind her cheeks anyway. She closed her eyes as a single tear trailed down the side of her face.

She held the seeds tighter. She had been so sure that she would prove the vampire wrong—no, she had been so sure that together she and Zendikar would prove the vampire wrong. She had promised the seeds that she would plant them here on their own world's soil when it was safe, when the Eldrazi threat had been eliminated, when they could grow into tall, strong trees and weave their lives in with Zendikar's soul.

But Zendikar's soul was gone. It was gone. How many more times would she have to reach out into the void to be convinced of it?

It's gone. She forced the words into her mind. Zendikar is gone!

Some part of her still refused to believe it.

She knew that all the evidence—everything she had seen, felt, and heard—said it was true, but somehow she couldn't believe.

Nissa opened her eyes to the twilit world of long shadows. Tonight, none of them were Zendikar, but one night, one of them might be. If it were to come back, this is where the world's soul would come.

So she would stay.

"Run!" The shrill voice of a goblin from behind startled Nissa.

Instinctively, she jumped to her feet and drew her sword.

"Run!" the goblin cried. It was barreling toward her, moving at a surprising speed considering one of its back legs appeared to be broken—or maybe even partially amputated, Nissa couldn't tell. "Run, now!"

Art by Johannes Voss

Nissa sidestepped as the goblin blew by her.

And then, in the distance, she saw the stampede. There were at least three dozen Eldrazi. Small, no bigger than the stump of a tree. They moved so quickly that each of the monsters looked like a hard, bony insect being carried along on a blurred cloud of dust that was its legs.

They navigated nimbly through the forest, coming straight for her, straight for the clearing—Zendikar's clearing.

She could not allow them to touch this place. She could not allow them to corrupt a single piece of grass.

She tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword—it was the only weapon she had. It would have to be enough; she would make it enough. She stepped forward to stand between the precious piece of land and the monsters.

They were so close that she could smell them now.

Disgustingly fleshy, scurrying creatures. They were never part of the oneness that was Zendikar.

The leader of their pack set its course straight for Nissa.

All of the pain and destruction here, it was all their fault.

They came in range.

Nissa swung her blade.

The steel hit the bony plate of the first Eldrazi, and Nissa powered straight through to the sinew underneath, slicing the miniature monster in half.

A beat later she pivoted and carried her momentum with her through her sword and into the head of a second Eldrazi.

Art by Daniel Ljunggren

Nissa hated these creatures.

She hated them so much she could squeeze each of their necks until their heads popped off.

She hacked and chopped at the horde as it surrounded her. They seemed to have forgotten about the goblin quarry they had been pursuing. Good. Then they would have no reason to tear through the clearing after it.

Nissa spun in a circle, blade out, severing no less than four bodies from their wriggling, scrambling legs.

One managed to latch onto her own leg. It scampered up, pulling on the fabric of her skirts, digging its sharp, pointed nubs of feet into her flesh.

"Get off me!" Nissa grabbed the thing by its bony back and ripped its legs out of her thigh. She launched it straight at a nearby tree with so much force that when it hit, its bony plate shattered and its insides splattered against the bark.

She didn't have time to watch the monster drip down the trunk; there were dozens more.

Art by Svetlin Velinov

If Ashaya had been there, the elemental would have stomped on them with one massive foot, taking out the whole swarm with a single thrust.

If Nissa could have reached Zendikar's well of power, she would have called up great walls of land to snap shut on them, crushing the whole lot in the space of a breath.

But as it was, she was only one, and she only had her sword. She choked up on the hilt and swung again and again and again.

It seemed they would never stop coming.

A caution tugged on the corner of her mind, the same caution that had been dancing at the edge of her awareness for the past few days any time she faced an Eldrazi. If it came to it, if she couldn't destroy the Eldrazi and she couldn't escape—then she would have to go. She would have to planeswalk away before their corruption touched her. She could not allow for the seeds to be turned to white, chalky dust in her pocket. Not if they were Zendikar's last hope.

Her insides tensed and the edges of her form tingled. Her body was prepared to planeswalk. All she would have to do was release her hold on this world, this place, and she could leave.

But leaving would mean that it was over.

And Nissa wasn't ready for this to be the end. Not yet.

She thrust her blade at two of the nearest Eldrazi, skewering the pair through their chests; at the same time, she kicked a third away from her legs, but the swarm only thickened.

The prickling intensified. Nissa's instincts were telling her that this wasn't a battle she would win easily.

She somersaulted out of the way of a fourth and punched a fifth in its underside, using the ricochet to catapult herself over three more that had come too close.

The trilling had worked its way up to a resonant frequency, and it tugged at the pit of her stomach.

No. Not yet.

She could still win this. She hacked down two more.

And then another four.

But eight more closed in.

She could feel the weight of the seeds in her pocket.

Are you really gone?

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the clearing.

Then, with a zip and a metallic clanging, a hook on a chain rushed past her and plunged into one of the Eldrazi, which—now that she saw it—looked like it was about to pounce.

The chain was yanked, pulling the hook back, and Nissa followed it to a broad-chested kor. He was holding one hook in each hand. Hedron tattoos glowed on his arms and forehead, illuminating his hard-cut facial features and the long bundle of barbels that hung from his chin like a beard. "I'll take this group, you focus on that bunch on the right."

Nissa nodded, turning her attention to the handful left to her. There were only five. That was manageable, even for just one elf. This would not be the end. She pushed the impatient tingling away from the edges of her being. She would not have to leave this world, not tonight.

When both Nissa and the kor were satisfied that there were no Eldrazi left, he turned to her, wiping the Eldrazi gore off his hooks. "You didn't happen to have seen a goblin pass through here, did you?"

"She went that way." Nissa pointed to the trees on the other side of the clearing. The beautiful, uncorrupted clearing.

"And I take it she's the one who brought the swarm with her."

Nissa sheathed her sword. "You could say that."

"I warned her. How many times do you have to tell a goblin to take it slow in order to get it through its thick skull?" The kor walked straight across the land where Zendikar had fallen and toward the trees where Nissa had pointed, but he didn't seem to see the trail the goblin had left behind; he was already wandering off course.

"I don't think goblins understand the meaning of 'slow,' " Nissa said. "And it's more that way." She crossed the clearing too, not taking a single step on the uncorrupted ground for granted. She pointed down at the packed underbrush where the goblin had run through, dragging her injured leg. "See?"

"Ah, right," the kor said, adjusting his course. "On both counts. You must be one of Gideon's rangers."

A ranger. Nissa hadn't considered herself a ranger for what felt like a very long time. An animist, a nature mage, a part of Zendikar. But not a ranger. Now that seemed to be the only thing she could claim to be. "Something like that," she said.

"Gideon's lucky to have someone like you out patrolling," the kor said as he traced the goblin's path. "So is Pili. Don't think she would have handled that swarm with quite the same . . . finesse as you did." He smiled, his glowing hedron tattoos lighting his sharp features. "I'm Munda, one of Gideon's squad leaders. Usually you wouldn't find me chasing around stray goblins, but tonight I drew the short straw."

Art by Johannes Voss

"Oh." Nissa said. The kor, Munda, was slightly off course again. The trail was harder to follow here. They were walking across hard, rocky ground now, which was significantly less revealing than soft dirt or leaves. "To your left."

Munda shifted course.

Nissa wasn't sure when she had agreed to help Munda track Pili, but here she was, a ranger again.

"She came in with the new recruits today," Munda said, nodding ahead, indicating the lost goblin. "Raving from the moment the healers fixed her up enough for her to regain consciousness. Something about her friend, Leek. Another goblin, I assume. From what I was able to get out of her, the two were separated at Sea Gate. She was picked up by the Dojir Nomads on their way over from the Calcite Flats. The other goblin, Leek, was most likely lost. But this Pili, she has it in her head that he's out there. I told her nothing is left at Sea Gate."

Nissa knew what it was like to feel something that no one else could understand.

"Did you see the numbers we got though?" Munda went on. "I didn't know there were that many outcasts at the Calcite Flats. Ah, but Gideon—Commander-General Jura, that is—he says they're not outcasts at all. We're all in this together. And so as soon as they stepped foot on Sky Rock, they were no longer the Dojir Nomads, they were part of our army. It's as simple as that. That man's something else." Munda scratched the barbels on his chin. "You might be surprised, but I knew him before all this."

His look indicated he was expecting some sort of reaction from Nissa. "Oh," she said. Most of her attention was focused on the goblin's tracks. They were headed in the direction of Sea Gate, just as Munda had predicted. Nissa wanted the goblin to be right, but she didn't see how Pili could be. Nothing was left at Sea Gate, she had seen it herself.

"We battled together, Gideon and me," Munda said. "Quite a number of times. Our paths would invariably cross, as neither of us shied away from taking on the biggest of the monsters."

"Oh," Nissa said again.

"That was before Sea Gate fell, of course. Now taking on one of the big ones is just considered foolish. Save yourself, because we need you for the fight that's coming, you know?"

Nissa nodded obligingly.

"Gideon's right," Munda said. "We need every single man, woman, and child this world has to offer if we hope to stand a chance. That's one of the reasons I'm tracking down this goblin. Pili's a fighter. Obvious by her spirit. We especially need the fighters. We all have to band together. It's now or never. As one, we'll reclaim Sea Gate. And from there, we'll take back Zendikar."

Nissa's breath hitched. She almost spun on the kor, she almost snapped, almost told him that Zendikar wasn't something you could "take back." Zendikar wasn't something that belonged to anyone. Not to the people, not to the Eldrazi, not even to the great Commander-General Jura.

Zendikar, the real Zendikar, was simultaneously bigger than anything they could imagine and so much more intimate than they could ever understand.

She almost told him that when they cried out—"For Zendikar!"—they didn't know what they were saying. She almost told him. And then she heard the sobs of a goblin.

Sitting at what was clearly the recently exposed mouth of a hidden, underground cave was the small form of the injured goblin.

"I told you to slow down," Munda's voice boomed. "You would have been devoured if it wasn't for—" he broke off when he saw her tears.

Nissa knelt at the goblin's side and rested her hand on Pili's heaving shoulder.

"Leek." The name came out on a sob.

Nissa looked to the hole in the ground.

"Hello?" A voice came up from below. It was weak and quiet. "Help. Please."

Pili sobbed again. "Leek." She shook her head.

Nissa looked to Munda. "Keep an eye on her. I'll be right back."

Munda nodded, though he didn't move any closer. He seemed out of his element in the presence of this small, sobbing creature.

Nissa climbed down through a tight tunnel that ended at a nearly-complete cave-in. There was the smallest sliver of an opening at the top. She reached to her belt for a flint and struck it against the wall. Holding the flame to the opening, Nissa could make out what at first looked like a hundred little glowing lights. But as her vision adjusted, Nissa saw the lights were eyes, those belonging to a large group of goblins.

"Help," one of them said weakly.

"Munda!" Nissa called up. "We're going to need some rope. And those hooks." She looked back at the goblins. "None of you is Leek, are you?"

Collectively, they bowed their heads. One of them pointed back to the far corner. Three bodies were lined up against the wall. "Oh," Nissa said. Her heart broke for Pili; the goblin had been so close.

With careful work and patience the cave-in was cleared away—Nissa could have done it in a heartbeat had she had access to her powers—and the goblins made their way out.

Munda was pleased at the size of the goblin army they had uncovered, and as he helped arrange for the injured to be carried back to Sky Rock by the others, he told them of Commander-General Jura and the plan to reclaim Sea Gate. He had the attention of most in their numbers. But Pili sat off to the side, alone.

Nissa approached slowly and knelt at the goblin's side.

For a long moment they just sat there in the dark in silence. Then the goblin inhaled deeply. "They said he was gone." She shook her head. "But I knew he went to the safe place. I knew." She pounded her fist into the dirt. "I should have been faster."

"It's not your fault," Nissa said.

The goblin gestured at her injured leg, which was now roughly bandaged and bound. "I should have run faster." She pounded the dirt again, and then once more, and then the tears came.

Nissa had never hugged a goblin before. It had been a long time since she had hugged anyone. But it seemed like the thing she was supposed to do. She understood Pili's pain. She understood what it was like to hurt on the inside. Hurt in a way, in a place, that no one could see or reach or fix. This was the kind of pain that existed in deep wells and came crashing down in overwhelming waves. Waves that worked their way up from an endless sea. Waves that would never stop crashing. Sometimes they would be rough, and sometimes they would be muted. But they would never stop beating against the shore.

Nissa squeezed Pili around the shoulders and waited for this wave to pass.

"They said he was gone." Pili said, wiping her tears. "But I knew." She hit her fist to her chest. "I knew here." She pounded her chest again. "Here!" She stood up. "I knew!" She spun around to face Nissa, her eyes narrowing as her sorrow turned to vengeance. "The monsters will pay for making him run. They will pay!" She stormed off to join the others, to listen to Munda's message.

Nissa's heart thudded in her ears, an echo of the pounding of Pili's fist on her heart.

It was just like Pili had said. Nissa touched her own chest. She knew. She knew just like the goblin. That's why she couldn't leave when her life was threatened, she couldn't planeswalk away even when she was surrounded by Eldrazi. That's why she kept vigil. That's why she refused to listen even when her mind told her that it was gone.

Zendikar was there. It was like a word on the tip of her tongue.

But where?

There was not a place where the world's soul went when it was scared or when it needed to regroup. Or when it was hurt.

No secret hideaway, or tunnel, or cave, or—

Nissa was on her feet, the edges of her being scintillating, ready to planeswalk before her mind had even caught up with what her heart knew.

There was a place. A safe place, a powerful place. A place that Zendikar could have retreated to.

Khalni Heart.

Art by Jason Chan

The expression of Zendikar's mana. The spot where all the leylines converged. If something had happened, if the titan had threatened the world's soul, that's where it would have run to. That's where it would be hiding.

Khalni Heart.

Zendikar was still here, just as Nissa had known all this time. It just wasn't here. Of course it wasn't here. Why would it come back to the forest where the horrible thing had happened? She had been looking in the wrong place all this time.

She laughed aloud and her heart lifted; she had forgotten what it felt like for her heart to be free and light enough to lift. The tingling came back, tugging on her again, pulling her from the inside. But not to another plane. This time to—

"Crazy elf."

The murmuring voice of a staring goblin brought Nissa back toward reality, back toward this forest where her feet were grounded—though not all the way. She had forgotten the goblins, and Pili and Munda, and Gideon and Jace, and even the Eldrazi. She had forgotten everything but Zendikar.

"I have to go," she said to no one and everyone at the same time. It was all she could do to run into the forest out of their line of sight.

From the trees of the Vastwood, Nissa set her sights on Bala Ged.

How fitting a destination that was—the place where she had met the world's soul for the first time. All the memories flooded back. It was like she was there again. It was like she was that young elf—that Joraga ranger—again. This night was like the night she had left her home so long ago. She had snuck out in the cover of darkness. She had made her way alone through the forest.

The difference was that back then she had been running away because she was scared of Zendikar—she had thought the land wanted to hurt her. This time she was running straight toward it. She couldn't wait to see it again; Zendikar was her closest friend.

Trembling, Nissa let go of the Vastwood; she stopped fighting the tugging, and the tingling at her edges worked its way inward. When it reached her center, Nissa planeswalked away—back home, back to Bala Ged, to find Zendikar.

Art by Dan Scott

7

Home Waters

By Kelly Digges

When we last saw the merfolk Planeswalker Kiora, she had narrowly escaped from a battle with a deity, the sea god Thassa on Theros. Although she hadn't gotten what she wanted out of the fight, neither had she left empty-handed, fleeing Theros with the sea god's sacred weapon in hand.

Now she returns to her home plane of Zendikar, ready to fight the monstrous Eldrazi that threaten her world with destruction. They are massive, unstoppable. But the Eldrazi are not only monsters. The merfolk of Zendikar have long worshiped them as deities.

And Kiora has already faced one god and lived to tell about it.

"Come on!" she said in a dream.

She took Turi's small, webbed hand in her own and tugged.

"Elder Misha's telling stories. Keep up! We're gonna miss it!"

She pulled her sister along with her, and the two young merfolk sat down on the beach with the other youths just as Elder Misha began to speak. The other adults had all retreated to the far end of the beach, barely visible in the moonlight, where they told their own stories—stories for adults. Misha's story was for children. The matriarch spoke above the surf in a soft but piercing voice.

"Long ago, but in our very own sea, the great god Ula was preparing for a hunt."

Ula, who had made the seas—the ocean-dwellers' highest god, dour and proud. She stuck out her tongue at him. Turi stuck her tongue out, too.

"Ula was furious at the dolphins, whose frolicking he took as an insult to his dignity. And so he planned to hunt one of them, as an example to the others. But dolphins are tricksters, and beloved of Cosi, the greatest trickster of all."

Cosi stories! All the best stories were Cosi stories, but the other adults never listened to them.

"And so Cosi decided to foul Ula's hunt. The night before the hunt, Cosi snuck to Ula's bedside at the bottom of the sea and swapped his great spear for a gull's feather, which he enchanted to look exactly the same. Emeria saw this from her lofty perch in the sky realm, but she said nothing, for she enjoyed watching the other two gods quarrel.

"In the morning, Ula set out for his hunt, none the wiser. He gave a great bellowing speech about his dignity and his station. The dolphins clustered around to hear, for they had been told by Cosi that they had nothing to fear. This only made Ula angrier. He struck with his spear-that-was-not-a-spear, once, twice—but the dolphins only laughed, for in truth it was a feather, and could do no worse than tickle their sleek sides."

Elder Misha did a shockingly good impression of the high, chittering laughter of a dolphin. The children giggled.

"Ula did not understand how the dolphins were unharmed, but he knew when he was being mocked. He lashed out at them more, struck again and again, tried to twist his spear inside the wounds he had not caused. The dolphins shrieked with glee. Enraged, Ula snapped the useless spear across his knee—and found himself holding two halves of a simple feather. The dolphins laughed so hard you can still hear them laughing, even to this day . . ."

Kiora hit the sand hard on her hands and knees, ears ringing, vision swimming.

Planeswalking. Ha.

Ha, ha, ha.

Kiora preferred to swim—to push down and down until the coldest, darkest depths of two worlds' oceans ran together to become one, bridging a senseless chaos far darker, far colder. But in this particular case, she was lucky to have arrived at all.

Home. Zendikar.

She coughed, sucking in air, gills opening and closing. She was trembling, exhausted, filthy—coated in muck from the bottom of an ocean a world away.

Her hands were numb, so she had no idea if she was empty-handed. She hoped the mud wasn't the only thing she'd brought with her from Theros.

Her vision cleared. She looked down.

There, still clutched tightly in both hands, was the weapon of a god.

She let out a long, rattling laugh.

I won, she thought. I beat a god. I won!

The two-pronged spear was unwieldy, longer than she was tall, though it had been far larger when the sea god Thassa held it. It seemed to have hardly any weight at all. As Kiora watched, the starfield that marked it as the work of a god—what the people of Theros called the touch of Nyx—seemed to thin and dry, as though evaporating, as though the air of this different world was anathema to the stuff of gods. Soon the bident took on the texture of dried coral. Disappointing.

Kiora hoped it was still a weapon worthy of a god. But even if it was just a spear, it was the finest trophy she'd ever taken. Perhaps she'd give it to Turi, to go with her other mementos of Kiora's travels.

If Turi was still alive. If any of them were.

If the Eldrazi hadn't killed them all.

Kiora stumbled to her feet. She was still dazed after a massive magical battle, being choked nearly to death by a god, and pushing through a desperate, messy planeswalk. But this was Zendikar. It wasn't safe, especially not now.

She looked around.

Art by Noah Bradley

She stood on the shores of Tazeem. Waves lapped against the beach. The sun shone. Great stones reached into the sky, defying the bonds of gravity.

Zendikar lived!

Kiora whooped and ran out into the slapping surf, letting the water of Zendikar's sea wash away the mud of Theros. The bident sang a brief, clear note when it hit the water. Only that—but it was promising.

Cool, clean water flowed over and around her, washing the sea-bottom taste of her fight with Thassa out of her gills. She was clean, and she was free, and she was home. She dove into a sea that tasted like no other, anywhere. She sped along the shore, spun, dove, and careened toward the surface, breaching in a huge arc.

Kiora was in midair when she saw it: an expanse of beach that was wrong, all fine gray dust, spongy and brittle—

She twisted to look, hit the water at a strange and stinging angle, and forced her way back to the surface. The beach looked wrong. It sounded wrong, too, each wave dissipating against it with a hiss and leaving the sand—if that was what it was—completely, impossibly dry. She dove, plucked a crab from the surf, and climbed onto the rocky shore near the dead beach.

"Sorry, friend," she said, and tossed the crab onto the unnatural gray beach. The crab righted itself, stood tall in a threatening display, and scuttled back into the water.

Satisfied that the stuff wasn't going to instantly kill her, Kiora stepped out onto the beach. The texture was fine, more dust than sand, and she could feel it draw the moisture from her feet. What had been solid stones were now pitted and crumbling lumps. Was this what the Eldrazi were doing to Zendikar?

A gust of wind whipped up puffs of the dust. Kiora's body reacted as though she were underwater—clearlids closed, lungs shut off, gills open. She spat in disgust and dove back into the sea, blinking.

She imagined that grit circulating through the ocean, clogging everything, until life became impossible.

Kiora gripped the bident and focused her will into it. Slowly, as she floated there, her senses expanded. Tides and currents, continental shelves and underwater vents, algal blooms and anoxic zones . . . she felt them all, stretching out around her, like the fingers of her own hand. The vile beach behind her was a great dead weight, a hole in her awareness.

Along the shore and even out on the sea bottom, in the open ocean, she could feel more dead places, robbed of all life by the encroachment of the Eldrazi. Eldrazi in the oceans! Bad enough when they'd attacked dry land. Now they had taken to the water, swimming through her ocean, sapping the life out of it, scraping away at the sea bottom. She could feel them.

But the Eldrazi weren't the only things out there. She couldn't sense them, but the merfolk of Zendikar were still alive out there, still fighting. They had to be.

Kiora swam away from the lifeless shore and turned northward to follow the coast, looking for any sign of habitation.

Art by Jason Chan

In some places, Zendikar was as it had always been. In others, it was a blighted wasteland. Merfolk settlements sat abandoned on the coastal plain, swallowed by seaweed or reduced to shifting, lifeless ruins choked by dust. Kiora cruised low over the first few to look for survivors, but found only small Eldrazi probing the ruins, sifting through the rubble, looking for gods knew what.

The gods do know what, she thought. Ula, Cosi, and Emeria—the gods of Zendikar's merfolk, since unmasked as the Eldrazi titans Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul. Were they gods? Did they have a plan for Zendikar? Or were they just mindless beasts, consuming without thought or purpose?

After spotting the Eldrazi poking around the ruins, she kept well above the abandoned settlements. Looking for unlikely survivors wasn't worth being caught unawares in tight confines.

As the sun sank low in the sky, she found a cave high on a cliff face to stay the night. With the last of her flagging strength, she called a giant octopus from Zendikar's depths. It lifted her up to the cave, then settled in to guard her against Eldrazi.

Beyond the narrow opening was an open cavern lit by a skylight. The chamber was worked stone, and at the far end stood an altar to the Three.

Art by Daniel Ljunggren

She had traveled with her tribe to an altar very much like this one more than once, to lay offerings at the feet of uncaring stone gods. The supplicants brought hedron shards and land-fruit for Emeria, shells and pearls for Ula—and nothing for Cosi.

She and Turi had snuck back in the night, to leave Cosi knotted ropes and whisper secrets in his ear, and his altar was never bare when they arrived. They'd been children, offering their devotion to the forbidden god just for the thrill, the sense of transgression. She'd wondered even then how many of her elders had done the same in their youth—and how many had never stopped.

No one worshiped Cosi. Everyone knew that. The adults refused to listen to the stories about him—not, she learned later, because the stories were childish, but because they were blasphemous, and it was shameful to hear them. So why had they let anyone tell the children those stories? Why not stick to the pious stories, the daytime stories, of the three gods creating water, earth, and sky? Why tell stories that made the gods seem foolish?

Why build statues of Cosi at all?

A shiver went through her. The gods' gazes were blank, pitiless. It would be easy, all too easy, to revere them still, to think that the monstrosities that had risen really were gods, worthy of worship. It would be easy . . . except that she remembered the stories of Cosi stealing Emeria's robes, or tricking Ula into swallowing a stone. She remembered sitting, shivering, on that moonlit beach, snickering at the hubris of the gods, the warm bodies of her kin quaking with laughter beside her, relentlessly mortal and alive.

Those stories had taught her not to fear gods . . . nor to trust them.

Her childhood, she had come to understand, had been a quiet battleground. The respectable merfolk of the world would prefer to wipe the worship of Cosi from existence, to forget the trickster god entirely. But his worshipers, secret and otherwise, would never let that happen. If they wanted to build statues of Cosi, to leave him things, to tell the children heretical stories . . . who was going to stop them? A trickster could make the tribe's troubles disappear in the night, now and then. But they could do far worse than that, too, if anyone tried to stop them. And there might be a trickster in any tribe.

Other cultures did not tell children stories like this—about mocking tradition and defying the gods. But other cultures did not have Cosi. Cosi had kept vigil. His tricksters made sure they remembered that even gods were fallible. How many would have turned to the monsters' side, or given up all hope, or simply gone mad when the Eldrazi rose, if not for those stories? Had that been the point all along? Or had they just gotten lucky?

Slowly, holding her breath without meaning to, she walked up to the statues of the Three. She looked up at them, towering above her. And she spit in Ula's blank, stupid face.

"You do not reign here," she said, her voice echoing off of damp stone. "Not now. Not ever."

Nothing happened. Nothing changed. There was only spit and stone and silence.

Kiora snorted, then curled up to sleep beneath the statue of Cosi.

The only honest god, she thought. We always knew you were a liar.

Under the stony eyes of false gods, clutching her stolen weapon, Kiora found uneasy sleep.

It was late the following day when she found her people.

She saw the Eldrazi first, swarming in the water and swooping down from the sky. They'd surrounded a school of merfolk and herded them away from the shore.

Kiora gripped the bident and sped up.

Art by Tomasz Jedruszek

There were perhaps a hundred merfolk, swimming in tenuous formation. Aquatic Eldrazi—Ulamog's lineage, from the look of them, with featureless, bone-white heads and masses of writhing tentacles—had gotten between them and the shore. There were soldiers among the merfolk, keeping the Eldrazi at bay with nets and spears, but the creatures were picking off stragglers. One of the Eldrazi grabbed a merfolk and squeezed. Then it relaxed its tentacles, but instead of a corpse, all that came out was a billowing cloud of that awful dust. Kiora shuddered.

She called to the great creatures of the deep—no need to summon, not when Zendikar would offer up allies freely. She called, and heard them answer. In the meantime: the bident. Finally!

She reached out, took hold of some nameless strand of water, and flicked the bident. A vortex formed near one of the Eldrazi, sending it tumbling. Tricky. She tried again, a bigger flick, and sucked another Eldrazi into the deeps. She laughed, bubbling. Oh, yes. This was good. But the bigger Eldrazi wouldn't go down so easily.

More vortexes—and then her allies were there, a few giant octopuses and a great gnarled serpent. They set to work, swiping up the smaller Eldrazi and wrestling with the larger ones. Meanwhile, the merfolk took advantage of her distraction to swim for shore, the soldiers among them hanging back to cover the retreat.

One of her octopuses fell, too many of its arms worn through. Another grappled with the largest of the Eldrazi, rolling and pitching through the water. Suckered tentacles intertwined with unnatural sinewy ones, a massive ball of flesh and fury that kicked up enough sediment to obscure the combatants. The first of the merfolk reached the shore, but if that big Eldrazi bested her octopus . . .

It needed help. She swam toward shore, channeling power through the bident. It glowed pleasingly. She felt the octopus surge, filled with the strength of the deep. She felt her way through the murky waters to shore and stood, triumphant, as the octopus squeezed the last trace of false, unsettling life out of the big Eldrazi.

Art by Tyler Jacobson

By the time she was finished and the wounded octopus slithered back into the depths, the beach was full of merfolk refugees. Not a hundred. But nearly. The survivors spread across the beach, huddled in tight-knit groups. It was a hodgepodge of tribes, and even though they were in her home waters, all the faces she saw were strangers.

Kiora sat down heavily on a rock apart from the main group, laying the bident across her knees. No one had thanked her, but she didn't begrudge it. They were busy tending their wounds and counting the missing. And who was she, to them? A stranger with a strange weapon.

"Kiora!" cried a voice from the throng.

She stood up.

A young woman shouldered her way past groups of survivors, eyes bright. She was laden with packs of scrolls.

Turi!

Art by Viktor Titov

She had just enough time to move the bident aside before the younger merfolk enveloped her in an embrace worthy of an octopus.

Turi turned to the survivors behind her, arms still wrapped around Kiora.

"It's her!" shouted Turi. "My sister! I told you she'd come back!"

Kiora rolled her eyes, still smiling. "What tales have you been spinning about me, little fish?"

Turi held her at arm's length and grinned.

"Only true things!" said Turi. "I told them my sister's been to places they've never even heard of, and she brings me treasures. And no matter how long she's been gone, she always comes back, even the time I saw her get eaten by a serpent with my own eyes."

Kiora shuddered at that memory, years distant. Turi made light of it now, but it had been the most horrible moment in their young lives. They'd been exploring too far out, at Kiora's urging—past the edge of the continental shelf—when a serpent had cruised up out of the darkness to swallow them. Kiora had darted out in front of it, got its attention, and shouted for her sister to swim hard and not look back.

Art by Trevor Claxton

Turi had looked anyway, and her panicked face was the last thing Kiora had seen before the serpent's jaws closed around her and the world dissolved, her Planeswalker spark igniting in a moment of boiling panic. It had been months before she'd found her way back to Zendikar and her people. The revelation that there were other worlds than hers paled in comparison to the certainty that she hadn't done enough to save Turi. When she'd finally gotten back, she'd found Turi stick-thin and glassy-eyed, wasting away, killing herself with guilt at Kiora's sacrifice.

They'd made a pact after that. Kiora had promised to come back, and Turi had promised to wait for her.

"And they believed you?"

"Well . . ."

Kiora hugged her sister again. "I'll see what I can do. I wouldn't want to let you down."

Turi examined the bident.

"Is that for me?"

Kiora often brought her trinkets from other worlds. On this trip, she hadn't had the time.

"No!" said Kiora, pulling it away with a smile. "I stole it fair and square."

"You stole it? From who?"

Kiora grinned.

"A sea god," she said. "A real sea god."

Turi stuck her tongue out at Kiora.

"It's true!" said Kiora, holding up a hand. "Cosi take me if I lie."

Turi paled. A couple of nearby merfolk stared.

"Kiora," said Turi quietly. "People don't . . . do that anymore. Swear by the gods."

Kiora cocked her head.

"Why not?" she asked, at full volume. "They'll blaspheme against gods, but not against monsters?"

"Please," said Turi, through gritted teeth. "Some of these people have seen Cosi. Kozilek. Before he left. Lost family and homes to him. Think about how they feel."

"Left?"

Turi groaned—not the point!—but she surely knew better than to stand in the way of her sister's relentless curiosity.

"No one's seen him in months," she said. "Or Emrakul. Only Ulamog. Some people are saying the other two have gone back to wherever they came from."

Kiora frowned. Was that possible? Could they have . . . left?

"I'll believe it when I see it," she said. "What about our tribe?"

Turi hugged herself, suddenly looking very young.

"I don't know," she said. "I was studying at Sea Gate—"

"Studying?" said Kiora. "You?"

"I like learning," said Turi, with wounded pride.

"So do I," said Kiora. "That's why I travel."

Kiora hadn't meant it to sting, but Turi flinched.

"So you were at Sea Gate," said Kiora, more gently. "Then what?"

"The Eldrazi," said Turi. Her eyes were distant. "They overran the place. I was lucky to get away. Not . . . not everyone did. I joined up with this group to try to get home. On our way out of Sea Gate, we saw Ulamog in the distance."

Art by Michael Komarck

"Ulamog is at Sea Gate?"

Wrong question. She knew it was the wrong question. But she had to know, damn it!

"I don't care where Ulamog is!" shouted Turi. "I'm trying to get home, Kiora! To our family. Do you even care what's happened to them?"

Now the others nearby looked away, pretending not to hear. Nice of them.

Kiora put her hands on Turi's shoulders.

"Little sister," she said. "I knew what was happening here. I worried for you the whole time I was away—for everyone, but especially you. You don't know what it means to me to see you well."

"Yes I do," said Turi quietly. "Every time you leave, I wonder if you'll come back. And I know that if something ever does happen to you, I'll never find out. I'll never be able to follow you."

"If I could take you with me, I would."

"No," said Turi, not unkindly. "You wouldn't. You'd want me to stay here. Stay safe. Wouldn't you?"

"Nowhere on Zendikar is safe," said Kiora. "Not now. That's why I'm not concerned about finding the tribe. That's why I'm headed for Sea Gate. If nobody stops Ulamog, everyone will die, no matter where they are."

Art by Slawomir Maniak

Too loud. People turned to look.

"Back to Sea Gate?" said Turi. "No."

"Kiora, is it?" asked a gruff voice, interrupting what was obviously a private moment. Lout.

Kiora disentangled herself from Turi and turned to the stranger. He was old and scarred, with the darkened scales of one who'd spent too long away from water. His accent sounded Sejiri, and he spoke like someone who expected to be listened to even so far from home. Kiora immediately disliked him.

"That's me," she said, with what she hoped was grating cheerfulness.

"I am Yenai," said the old merfolk. "Thank you for your assistance."

Art by Dave Kendall

"No trouble at all," said Kiora. "We're all on the same side now. Aren't we, Sejiri?"

Yenai looked pained, though she wasn't sure why. Merfolk ethnic divisions bred rivalry, not hatred. Had that changed?

"Of course," he said. "I hope we're traveling in the same direction as well."

"Depends," said Kiora. "I'm going to Sea Gate."

It was true. It hadn't been, a few minutes ago. But if that was where Ulamog was, she wasn't going to waste time hiding somewhere else.

"We've just come from Sea Gate," said Yenai. "We're not going back."

"That's a shame," said Kiora. "I suppose I'll take my sister and my sea monsters and go."

"Kiora, don't be stupid!" said Turi. "We're talking about a titan. A god. You can't stand up to that. Kozilek and Emrakul are gone. Maybe—maybe Ulamog will go as well. Maybe they'll all leave us alone. Throwing yourself in his path won't do any good."

"There's no shelter at Sea Gate," said Yenai.

He climbed onto a rock, letting his voice grow louder.

"Our plan hasn't changed. We're heading down the coast, away from the worst of the swarm. Away from Ulamog. Then, though the journey will be long and arduous, we know where we must go."

He turned and looked out over the great, wide ocean. What an idiot.

Art by Vincent Proce

"Across the sea, to Murasa. We've heard it's better there. It can't be worse."

There were nodding heads in the assembled crowd. One of them, to Kiora's frustration, was Turi's.

"A lovely speech," said Kiora. "You've got quite a voice. A storyteller's voice, in fact."

Yenai glared at her.

"Do you know any Cosi stories?" asked Kiora.

Yenai's eyes widened.

"How dare you—"

"You know," said Kiora. "Cosi stories. Like the one about Ula and the clam. Or the time Emeria mistook a jellyfish for the moon . . ."

"Blasphemy and mockery," spat Yenai. "Turi, you didn't mention that your sister was a trickster. It would have saved us some misspent hope."

"She's not a trickster," said Turi, though she looked far from certain.

Kiora wasn't one of Cosi's devoted cultists. Not really. She was just a mischievous soul who'd never quite grown out of thumbing her nose at the gods.

"It's fine," she said. "If you don't know any Cosi stories, you should have just said so."

Turi gripped her arm.

"Kiora, stop."

Kiora shrugged out of her grip and walked out into the surf, letting the bident's points trail in the water behind her. All those currents spread out like threads. She tugged on one and felt it move.

"I know a Cosi story," she said. "It's about the time Cosi taught a mortal how to steal Ula's spear."

She walked back up the beach, dragging the bident and the sea behind her.

"The mortal took the spear and ran. And when Ula came looking for his weapon . . ."

The crowd was silent, attentive—though whether rapt or furious, Kiora could not say.

". . . the mortal spat in Ula's eye."

A great wave broke over and around her, slapping against the beach but parting around the assembled merfolk so it did no more than tickle their toes, even as it thundered past them, up the beach, to roar against the rocks. She even spared Yenai from the wave, though she was sorely tempted to let it bowl him over and carry him and his fragile dignity somewhere else.

"I'm not going to wait around in some hole, or risk my life on a trek across the sea, while the Eldrazi devour the world," she said, over the rush of receding water. "I'm going to Sea Gate. I'm going to stand and fight."

She raised the bident. There was silence.

"Well?"

Around her, dozens of merfolk shook their heads, eyes wide.

"No," said Yenai. "You're out of your mind."

Kiora turned to Turi.

"Kiora, no," said Turi. "I can't go back there. I can't. Please. Don't."

"I have to," said Kiora. "You know I do."

Turi's lip trembled.

"I just got you back," she said. "We just found each other again, and I thought . . ."

Kiora gathered her sister in a long, warm hug.

"I'll come back," said Kiora in Turi's ear. "I promise."

Old words, well worn.

"I'll wait for you," said Turi.

Kiora stepped away then, into the surf, and began calling a serpent. If she wanted to get to Sea Gate before Ulamog hit land and rendered most of her assets moot, she'd need to hurry.

And half a dozen of the merfolk quietly came and stood beside her.

Yenai watched them go, crestfallen. He had to know she'd just pulled away most—maybe all—of the devotees of Cosi in his little troop. Perhaps there'd be less trouble with them gone. Perhaps. But perhaps there'd be trouble only tricksters could solve, and he—and Turi—would have to get by without them.

"My sister," said Kiora, quietly. "She's going with Yenai. I need someone to look after her. Please."

A tall woman nodded and hung back. She deserved blessings for that, though Cosi gave none.

Kiora turned back toward the beach, where Turi, Yenai, Turi's nameless protector, and the others stood watching, with expressions ranging from sorrowful to angry to simply exhausted.

"Good fortune," said Kiora. Fortune, Cosi's domain. Even though she really did wish them well, she couldn't resist needling.

Then a serpent rolled up onto the beach, and she and her little band of tricksters climbed onto its back. As the beach and the surf and the upturned faces of Turi and Yenai and the others fell away, Kiora waved a quick salute before the serpent's strokes carried them away.

She learned her companions' names, heard their grim tales of how life on Zendikar had changed for the worse. She learned that Bala Ged and Sejiri were gone, and felt just the slightest bit sorry for reminding Yenai of his lost homeland.

Then she told them the tale of how she stole the bident, and swore it was true, every word of it.

Sea Gate beckoned. Ulamog awaited. The serpent swam.

And the sea resounded with the laughter of tricksters.

8

Nissa’s Resolve

By Kimberly J. Kreines

Nissa has come a long way since leaving her home continent of Bala Ged in her youth. Though she made many mistakes in the past, ever since she bonded with Zendikar's soul, Nissa has learned to suppress her more reckless instincts. She did not need to access the wild essence inside herself when she had the strong and dependable force of an entire world on her side. But when her connection with Zendikar was ripped away, Nissa was left without the power of the land, and without her friend Ashaya, the elemental manifestation of the world's soul. Unable to make sense of her loss, and fearing for the future of the world, Nissa scoured the continent of Tazeem in search of any sign of Zendikar, until finally she understood—she had been looking in the wrong place the whole time. A soul threatened by the Eldrazi would have retreated, and there was only one place powerful enough to offer protection to something so precious: the mighty flower Khalni Heart. Without hesitation, Nissa planeswalked to the place where the new bloom was said to grow, Bala Ged. It was time to go home.

For Zendikar.

Not in the way Gideon meant it, not like the battle cry, but for the deepest part of the land, for the soul of the world. That was why Nissa was doing this. She reminded herself one more time, and she told herself again to open her eyes.

In her rush to planeswalk here to Bala Ged, Nissa hadn't thought about what she would find when she arrived—aside from Khalni Heart, where she was convinced the soul of Zendikar would be waiting for her.

Art by Jason Felix

But the sight that greeted her, endlessly white, endlessly corrupted, had driven her to snap her eyes shut on her home continent.

Of course, she had known it would be this way. Bala Ged had fallen to the Eldrazi; the whole world knew that. But in all the time since she had heard, she hadn't thought of it like this. She had pictured a ruined land, great swaths of chalky white corruption, dead trees. But those visualizations were based on what she had seen on Tazeem—a falling continent, not a fallen one.

She opened her eyes.

On Bala Ged, there was nothing. How could everything, everything, just be—white, empty, gone?

It was impossible.

Yet somehow it was real.

The land wasn't ruined—it had been entirely consumed.

Art by James Paick

There were no dead trees. There were not even vestiges of dead trees; the white landscape was completely flat, the trees had all disintegrated. Everything had disintegrated. And there weren't swaths of corruption; swaths of one thing by definition meant that there also had to be swaths, or at least rivulets, of another thing. And here there wasn't anything but corruption. Aside from Khalni Heart, Nissa reminded herself; there wasn't anything here but Khalni Heart.

If the rumors were true—and they were, they must be—then the heart of Zendikar's power had come here to revive the land, growing a new bud somewhere on this continent. Wherever that was, that's where she would find the soul of the land. That's where Zendikar must have retreated. She told herself to take one step forward, and then another, and another. The chalky corruption cracked and crunched underfoot as she walked, her footprints becoming the first variance the dusty continent had seen since its fall.

Welcome home, she thought to herself as she set off across Bala Ged.

It didn't seem reasonable that she would be able to recognize any particular part of this uniform wasteland—a whole day of walking and she might as well have been marching in place, for all the landscape changed. But Nissa knew exactly where she was standing as she slowed to a stop deep within the continent.

Her feet had trodden here countless times. In fact, there was a time in her life when she thought this would be the only land her feet would ever know. She had imagined that she would be walking on the same paths, gathering around the same fires, picking fruit from the same trees until she was one of the Joraga elders. This had been her village. This right here had been the towering jurworrel tree. And over there the storage tent where the Joraga dried all their meats, and fruits, and tender forest mushrooms. And here, the largest of the firepits, the one where they burned the nettled bloodbriar vines in the fall while Chief Numa led the chants.

Nissa could see it all, she could hear it, she could even smell her mother's stew. The scent of it triggered her memories. It should have been a welcome thing to remember, she wished it was, but of all the times her mother had made stew, her mind took her back to that one night, the last night, the only night she didn't want to think of ever again. She had woken up from a vision to the smell of the stew . . . and to voices. It was the voices that had convinced her to leave. And she had stolen away in the night.

Nissa could see herself slipping off into the shadows. She turned away from the sight, from the elf she had been. She hadn't thought of that elf in a long while. In fact, she had done all she could to forget that elf. That elf had made so many mistakes—horrible mistakes—after leaving this village. Mistakes that still haunted Nissa, mistakes that would haunt her forever.

Art by Izzy

But she wasn't that elf anymore. And the only reason she wasn't was because of Zendikar's soul. It was her connection with the land that had changed her, saved her. It was Zendikar that kept her focused, balanced, and sure. It was Zendikar that guided her. She needed Zendikar.

In that moment, Nissa realized that she had come here to Bala Ged to save the world's soul not just for the land, for the plane, for the people, and not just for its power: She had come here to save the world's soul so she could save herself. Without it she would once again become the elf she had been the last time she was here—wild, reckless, and sure to misstep.

She wouldn't be that elf again, she couldn't be. No. Nissa vowed that she would not leave Bala Ged without Zendikar.  

All the distance Nissa put between herself and her village didn't seem to matter. Though she tried to push the memories out of her mind, she couldn't stop the flashes and recollections. She felt as though she was being stalked by that unseasoned, tender-footed elf. Worse, she felt as though she was melding with the memories of it.

Everything was suddenly familiar. Even though the land was a solid mass of monotonous white corruption, she knew exactly what path she was cutting through the Tangled Vales; she had hunted here countless times. She knew where to step to avoid the traps the packs of humans set for the gnarlids—and she skirted them even though they weren't there, even though she tried to stop her feet from responding to the unwelcome reminiscence. Her knees instinctively braced themselves to climb a hill that didn't exist. And when she had taken enough steps to have reached the hilltop, her mouth watered and her stomach growled, anticipating she would make a snack of the thick-growing mushrooms at the summit as she always did. Then, when she heard the shrill chatter of a gomazoa, she ducked to avoid it—the ghost of a memory of a deadly hunter.

Art by Rob Alexander

She pushed it from her mind, but the call followed her, mocking her inability to separate reality from unwanted memory. Her hand moved to her sword on instinct. Foolish elf. There was nothing there—Nissa came up short.

The thing she had seen out of the corner of her eye wasn't a memory. And it wasn't a gomazoa either. But it was close enough: The midsize Eldrazi had tentacles and a soft, fleshy body, just like the predator from her past.

Nissa was lunging at it, blade out, before her conscious mind told her to move. She had done this before. Right here on this ground. More times than she could count. One slice up through its center, and a second across its front side. She quartered the monstrosity so quickly that the echo of its sharp cry persisted for a beat after its life had ended.

Something inside Nissa stirred. She stood, breathing heavily, above the body of the Eldrazi. She hadn't fought like that in what felt like a lifetime. She had forgotten the rush of wielding her blade with such precision and force.

There was more force inside her. More power that she could—no. Nissa swallowed hard, forcing down the thread that threatened to unravel her.

She was not that elf. This was not that Bala Ged. And the thing in front of her wasn't a gomazoa. It was an Eldrazi.

Art by Deruchenko Alexander

It was an Eldrazi!

Nissa had never been so thrilled to see one of these monstrosities in her life, nor would she ever be again, but now, here on this wasted continent, there was only one thing that the presence of this Eldrazi could mean: life.

There must be something here for it to feed on. There had to be, or it wouldn't be here.

Nissa didn't know much about the otherworldly monstrosities that had descended upon Zendikar; for the most part, they proved inscrutable. But she did know one thing: They were ceaselessly hungry, on a never-ending path of devouring destruction. They only traveled where there was something to consume, and to them that meant life.

Somewhere on Bala Ged, there was life.

Khalni Heart.

It had to be Khalni Heart.

Her heart pounding against her ribs and her eyes set on the dimpled trail the scrabbling Eldrazi had left in its wake, Nissa raced across the land. Wherever the monstrosity had come from, whatever it had left behind to pursue and feed on her, that's where she hoped she would find the life she was looking for.

This kind of tracking was effortless for Nissa—the ranger elf she used to be had trailed hundreds of creatures across this very ground. Though the Eldrazi's prints might not stand out against the pockmarked corruption to the untrained eye, Nissa saw the trail like a glowing beacon. She followed it down the path that the Umung River used to take through the Vales—now just more chalky corruption. She ran through the Guum Wilds—she never would have dared to run with such haphazard abandon through what had once been the thickest and most poisonous part of the jungle. And she made a beeline toward the caves where the surrakar used to nest.

When she realized that's where she was headed, Nissa slowed just slightly. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought of the territorial, reptilian beasts.

Art by Kev Walker

Her mind was on their deep tunnel system that ran under Bala Ged. Had that been corrupted, too? Had the Eldrazi gone beneath the surface? Or had they neglected the tunnels, leaving those things that were hidden below to survive?

Nissa wasn't sure what she hoped for. What would she rather face, a pack of hungry surrakars or more desecrated land?

She didn't have the answer, at least not one she was willing to admit, and she didn't have long to consider it—it was at the partially collapsed and corrupted mouth of a surrakar tunnel, where the Eldrazi tracks circled around, that she saw the first sign of life.

A delicate blanket of pale green moss, one that looked like it was barely holding on, lined the crumbling opening.

Nissa dropped to her knees and ran her fingers across the stubble of green. It was soft, fragile, and a little bit warm.

Zendikar.

Her spirit brimmed, and impulsively she reached down into the land, searching for any sign of the world's soul—but retracted just as quickly, withdrawing from the vast, echoing emptiness. This had to be the place, but then where was Zendikar? Shouldn't she be able to feel Khalni Heart by now? She pushed the doubt and worry from her mind; it would be here.

The fine film of green extended down into the tunnel below. Nissa wasn't sure if it was a combination of the darkness and her hope, or if it was real, but it appeared that the moss got thicker and more robust deeper into the tunnel. Either way, it was there, like a trail that would lead her home.

Her limbs couldn't move fast enough for her longing. She crawled into the tunnel, clambering along as rapidly as possible in the tight quarters. Her eyes had not deceived her above: The farther into the tunnel she went, the thicker the moss became under her fingers and palms—thicker, but more brittle? Another trace of doubt tickled the back of her mind. Something wasn't right here. She felt unsettled.

As she pushed forward, her senses heightened, alert for what she did not know.

The narrow tunnel opened to reveal a cavern washed in a bluish glow. That was odd. She narrowed her eyes, straining to see farther ahead, and her ears pricked up, tilting first one way and then another. But she could ascertain no further clues as to what the blue light was, so she crawled into the high-ceilinged cavity and pushed herself to her feet.

Her breath caught and her mind reeled, trying to assemble the pieces of what she was seeing. The blue light was coming from a tight circle of hedrons linked together with a network of crisscrossing, glowing leylines of power. The leylines were arranged in a pattern she had never seen before—it was unnatural.

Art by Bastien L. Deharme

Why was this here? What—who—had done this?

Not a surrakar. She was fairly sure they had no interest whatsoever in arranging hedrons.

An Eldrazi?

Her skin crawled; she could no longer dismiss her worry.

She stalked slowly around the circle, eyes tracking, hairs on her arms standing on end. Nothing was right here, nothing had been right since she'd entered the cave.

The force that had stirred within her when she slew the Eldrazi above bubbled up once more. It was ready for whatever lay ahead—which meant it was up to Nissa to hold it back. This was not the time; too much was at stake. She quieted it and turned her attention to the hedrons.

Each hedron was propped up at its base with a mound of dirt that looked to have been raked together, intentionally, with someone's (or something's) fingers—or claws.

At first, it seemed like the ring of hedrons was complete, but then Nissa came upon a gap, one that looked to be exactly the size of a single hedron.

And it was through that gap that Nissa saw it: Khalni Heart.

Zendikar.

Her heart leapt—and with the next beat plummeted. The young flower was lying on a slab of stone, its half-wilted petals draped over one side and its roots, thick with chunks of dried, clinging dirt, dangling over the other.

At the sight of the exposed roots, an agonizing memory flashed through Nissa's mind. The pain, the ripping sensation. Suddenly she was back on the ridge at the edge of the Vastwood Forest of Tazeem. It was as though her bond with Zendikar was being broken all over again.

Zendikar's soul had not retreated to Khalni Heart freely; someone had done this to it. Even as the Eldrazi plagued the land, someone had uprooted the land's soul and trapped it here to die. Who could be so cruel?

Stronger than the shock that threatened to paralyze her, Nissa's instincts drove her actions. Her legs moved, carrying her forward toward the flower. Her arms reached out in a bid for protection. But before she could breach the hedron prison, a gust of wind blew across her skin, and something hard and hot slammed into her side. She flew across the cave and skidded along the ground.

Gasping to reclaim the breath that had been knocked out of her, Nissa pushed herself up to her hands and knees only to be swatted down again.

She tumbled and rolled across the cave floor, landing on her back—looking straight up at a demon.

Art by Jason Chan

"Why are you here?" The demon's deep voice was somehow both resonant and empty. He loomed over her; his wings, only half spread, filled the width of the cave, blocking her view of the hedron prison and the flower. Long, sharp barbs lined his arms and legs, and five thick horns framed his head. "Who sent you?"

This demon was the one who had done it. Looking into his glowing red eyes, Nissa knew it without a doubt. He was the one who had uprooted Zendikar. He had stolen her friend from her, had caused her immeasurable pain, had harmed the world's soul. And for that, Nissa hated him.

"Answer me!" the demon raged. Veins of hot, lava-like magic shot across his chest and down his arms. "How did you find me?"

He darted at her. In one fluid motion, Nissa drew her sword, but the demon was fast, too. He clamped his hand around her wrist, bending it back and wrenching her fingers from her weapon.

As her blade clattered onto the rock, the demon threw the weight of his body at her, forcing her back and down as though he meant to bury her right there in the ground. "Was it Nahiri?"

Nissa struggled against his weight. He was nearly three times her size, so he would have the advantage—or at least he would believe he had the advantage. Elves were among the lightest of the races on Zendikar, but a well-practiced elf could take down any of the heavier races—or creatures—of the world. And Nissa was a well-practiced elf, or at least she had been. The elf she was before, the one who had lived here on Bala Ged, had once grappled with a spiked baloth and come out victorious.

Art by Daarken

This demon was no different from the baloth. He was one creature, one animal, and she could take him down. Nissa gauged his movements as they wrestled, and it didn't take her long to identify his center of gravity. Once she found it, she played against it, gaining more of an advantage with each move she made. When she had enough leverage, she tucked her feet up and kicked his chest in just the right place to knock him off balance, launching him away from her.

The demon staggered back, catching himself in midair with a powerful flap of his leathery wings.

He made to come at her again, but Nissa was quicker this time; the movements and instincts of combat were coming back to her. Having retrieved her sword, she thrust the blade at him, catching the side of his leg even as he dodged, drawing blood.

His eyes contracted and he bellowed. But Nissa didn't flinch.

He hovered above her with a look on his face that she couldn't quite read. There was hatred there, that much was clear, but there was also something else, something disconcerted. He hissed. "If Nahiri thinks she can stop me now, she is sorely mistaken."

Nissa didn't know what he was talking about and she didn't care. She lunged with her sword again, but she was unprepared for his counterstroke. The demon spun on her, the burning force inside him welling up until it burst out of his palm, blasting straight at her chest. It was a life-draining power that tapped straight into Nissa's essence—and fed the demon's darkness as it did.

Though she had grown adept at ignoring the power inside her, even suppressing it, it had not declined. And now, as it was threatened, as it was pulled away from her, a deep-seated, racking wave of pain crashed over her.

Nissa gasped and lurched, staggering under the sickening feeling of weakness. If she did not act, this would be the end. The demon would drain her, and next Zendikar.

She knew what she had to do. He left her with no choice. She would just use a fraction of it, just for a moment.

It wasn't easy to wield at first. Though the power was anxious to be unleashed, Nissa felt out of place using it, like she was navigating the dark room of a stranger's house. She stumbled and floundered as she channeled it up through her chest and out into her arm.

Lifting her sword felt like lifting an entire jaddi tree, but she held the blade up and forced her essence down through it. The more the power flowed, the more she recognized it. Something inside her was waking up, and it was thrilled that morning had finally come.

She angled the charged blade between her chest and the demon's blast of draining energy and pushed on it with all the strength within her. Suddenly, the full force of Nissa's essence came rushing back to her—and with it all of the memories, all of the horrors, the missteps, the mistakes. How many times had she wielded this power only to ruin everything? How often had she caused more harm than good? She couldn't trust herself.

But it was too late for that. The demon's attack was reflected off the power infused in her blade, and it shot straight back at him. The force of the blow sent both Nissa and the demon rocketing backward, crashing into opposite walls of the cave.

Nissa's head spun and her fingers tingled with power, impatient power. She jumped to her feet as the demon stalked toward her.

"Impressive," he said. "Your looks deceive. You're dressed like a simple Joraga." He sniffed the air around her. "But you smell like the Blind Eternities. Planeswalker."

Nissa tensed. Was he a Planeswalker, too? He must be. She focused her senses on him, feeling for his energy. There was something there at the edges of his being, but it wasn't quite right, and she couldn't identify why.

"I shouldn't have expected any less from Nahiri's emissary," he said. "But I have to ask, why did she send you? Why didn't she come herself?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Nissa held back the urge to rush at the demon—but just barely. The well of power inside her was exhilarated, and it would not be restrained for long.

"Perhaps it was because Nahiri was afraid to face me, worried that once this is done, I will wield more power than any single Planeswalker has controlled in a very long time." The demon glanced back at the flower, and Nissa followed his gaze, her heart beating for Zendikar. "The power of an entire world will all be mine."

Art by Karl Kopinski

"That power isn't for you." Nissa's words came out strong and sure, buoyed by the surging force in her veins. "Khalni Heart belongs to the land."

"Don't be naive," the demon snapped. "Power belongs to those who take it. I took it. So it's mine."

"Then I'll take it back." Nissa could no longer stop herself; her wild essence spurred her on, and she dove toward the opening between the hedrons. She had come for Zendikar, and she would not leave without it—but the demon shot another blast, and Nissa was forced to dodge.

"You don't want to die here, elf," he said. "It's not worth it. Not for whatever Nahiri has promised you."

"I don't know who Nahiri is," Nissa shot back. But the demon was right, she didn't want to die here. What was she doing? She was showing blatant disregard for her life, for the life of Khalni Heart, which was right there in front of her, vulnerable and fading. It was the volatile energy inside that was directing her actions. That shouldn't have happened. She was only supposed to have accessed it for a moment; she had promised herself that. She wasn't that elf anymore. She was the elf who was in control, the elf who silenced the erratic and unstable impulses that rose up from within. The elf who depended on her bond with the land to draw the power that she needed, power that she could trust, power that didn't make mistakes.

That sure-footed elf was the elf who had come here to save Zendikar, and that was the only elf who would succeed. With effort, she drove her prodding, eager essence downward, biting back its will for her to dive straight at the demon again. It wouldn't work. There were other ways past him than by sheer force. She had to think. She had to focus.

The problem was, there was only one way into the ring of hedrons, so the demon would always know which way she was going to go. But if there were another hole in the circle . . . yes! That was the kind of elf she was.

"If Nahiri didn't send you, then why are you here?" The demon leered at her.

Nissa nodded past him to Khalni Heart, an excuse to survey the ring of hedrons. "I'm here to save that flower. I'm here for Zendikar."

"For Zendikar?" The demon barked a laugh. "Either you are lying or you're delusional. Have you seen Zendikar lately? There's nothing left to save. Soon the Eldrazi will consume everything."

"They won't." Nissa set her sights on a hedron to the demon's left.

"You say that with such confidence."

"Yes." Nissa tensed, ready to run.

"And who's going to stop the Eldrazi?" the demon asked. "You?"

"Yes," Nissa said. "Me." She charged.

Art by Jaime Jones

The demon moved to block the entrance to the prison, but that was not where she was headed.

She launched herself into the air, somersaulting toward the hedron to his left, a clear path in front of her. She readied her blade for the strike.

But as the hedron came into range, she knew she would not succeed. Echoes of a distant memory played in her mind. She had broken a hedron once before. A hedron in a cave, much like this one. However, it had required the power of her essence. If she struck the rock now with only her bare blade, she would be lucky to leave a mark.

She needed more power, more of her.

It was unclear if it was by choice—it was unclear if she had a choice at all—but as her blade crashed into the hedron, the essence within Nissa burst out. And then the demon crashed into her.

They rolled across the ground, struggling against each other, evenly matched. Nissa kept her eyes on the hedron, waiting for it to crack, waiting for the cascade of chaos she knew would follow. Waiting to see if she had acted in time.

A heartbeat later, a fissure of power erupted on the hedron's surface, spidering out down its sides, and the next instant, the massive rock shattered. As it did, the pattern of leylines that had been connected to it began to tremble and quiver, breaking down. The reverberations sent the other hedrons rocking. The prison was losing its integrity. Soon it would collapse entirely, and most likely bring the rest of the cave down with it.

Now was Nissa's only chance. She saw what she had to do, and she tapped into her power again. This time she used it to fling the demon off of her. She sprang to her feet and darted for Khalni Heart.

"No!" the demon roared. "I won't let you do this!"

He lunged after her, but he hesitated between Nissa and the precariously teetering hedrons. She saw the doubt in his eyes and then the flash of decision as he launched himself at the nearest angular stone, wrapping his thick arms around it, straining to hold it up.

Art by Jason Chan

Nissa leapt past him and reached for Khalni Heart.

The moment her fingers touched the flower—it was everything.

Zendikar.

The word, the presence, the soul echoed within her.

And then the demon's hand closed around hers, squeezing so hard she thought she would strangle the flower. "That was foolish." The fire within him raged. "More than foolish."

But he was no longer supporting the quaking hedrons. The leylines splayed as the stones crashed around them, falling in a cascade.

The demon looked to Nissa, hot hatred radiating outward from his glare. "And now you'll pay for it." His fury poured from him into Nissa, locking her in place like a harness. She struggled to free herself, but with every breath, he drained more of her strength to fight back.

His singular focus was to kill her right there, destroy her. She could feel it. She could see it in his eyes.

"No matter how much you might want this," the demon lifted their joined hands and Khalni Heart, "I want it more. And I will have it."

His rage burned stronger with every weakening beat of Nissa's heart. "If you want to live, now is the time to planeswalk away."

Nissa panicked. The edges of her vision were going dark. Her eyes darted to Khalni Heart. Her ebbing essence reached for the power of Zendikar, the power that was right there in her hands. With it she could crush the demon, she could win—all she had to do was take it.

No. Nissa stopped herself, reining in her desperation. Zendikar didn't have power to give her, not now, when it was uprooted and unconnected to the land. If she pulled on it, she would drain it, she would destroy the flower, and she would bring an end to Zendikar.

She wasn't that elf anymore, the one who acted without knowing the consequences. She wasn't going to make that kind of mistake.

Then what? Fall to the demon?

No. She wasn't that elf either.

She was something in between who she had been long ago and who she thought she had become. Neither was completely true. It had been a mistake to dam down the force inside her for so long—she was powerful, more powerful even than this demon, and that wasn't something she should hide. But she had not been wrong to learn control, to learn caution. It was never the power that had been wrong, never the passion. She had always done things for the right reasons, always with the right intentions. But she had made mistakes because she didn't have the awareness of the world around her, the deeper understanding required to act with care.

But now she did.

She had learned from Zendikar. She could see the patterns and connections, she could feel the bigger picture. This cave, these hedrons, the power of Khalni Heart, the draining essence of the demon. She could also see the whole of Zendikar, the Eldrazi, the other Planeswalkers, the camp of survivors. And she could see the Multiverse, all of the myriad worlds.

Art by Sam Burley

She had a place in it all. She had a power that belonged. One that she was meant to use—today, right now, to save Zendikar.

What she was about to do was dangerous. Possibly the most dangerous thing she had ever done. But it was not a risk. She knew exactly what would happen. And she was prepared.

Nissa collected all the power left within her, everything the demon had yet to drain, and she pulled it away from him. She could feel his grip on the other side of it, feel him straining against her, but she forced it down through her arms, through her fingertips, and into Khalni Heart.

As her essence rushed into the flower, it came alive. Its petals lifted, its leaves unfurled, it brightened. And finally its roots began to grow. They reached downward toward the ground.

"What are you doing?" The demon yanked back on her essence. She could see the confusion in his eyes.

Nissa felt like a willow's branch, tugged down by the demon and pulled up through the strength of her center. The roots of Khalni Heart had almost reached the ground. She sent one final wave out into Zendikar's soul, and then her vision darkened and her body slackened.

The demon ripped the flower out of her limp fingers, and Nissa fell to her knees.

"This world is mine!" he snarled. "This power belongs to me."

But it didn't.

The roots had reached the ground. The world's soul had returned to the land. Zendikar belonged to no one. The land surged upward, sending chunks of rock flying as it reached for Khalni Heart. It pulled the flower down, out of the demon's hands, and into the world's embrace.

"No!" The demon dropped to his knees, scrabbling at the ground with grotesque nails. But it was too late. The land had already sealed over the heart of power. The flower was gone. It was safe.

The whole cave began to shudder as the strength of Zendikar surged up through Nissa's palms, filling the emptiness inside her, blending with the single drop of her own essence that remained.

The demon was sent lurching. He reached for the wall to steady himself, but the wall burst open. He shot up into the air, dodging the rock. "What have you done?"

Nissa got to her feet and turned to face him. "If you want to live, now is the time to planeswalk away." She reached for her bond with Zendikar, drawing on both the power inside her and the power of the world, calling up an extension of her being, a perfection of her form. As she swung at the demon, the dirt and detritus moved with her, driving a fist of land straight into his chest. He was sent careening back into the collapsing rock wall.

Nissa leapt from one shattering piece of land to the next, each fragment of Zendikar alternatingly cradling her landing and lending her its power to spring off. As the world crashed down on the demon, Nissa rose up, and so too did the world's soul, her friend.

Ashaya.

When she reached the surface, Nissa's feet touched down on a soft, lush carpet of moss. She breathed in the smell of vibrant life. Next to her, the towering elemental, made of the remnants of the tunnel and the collapsing land, did the same.

Nissa looked up at her friend. Ashaya sent a surge of fervor down to Nissa, and Nissa sent her own essence back. They were one, and also they were each their own, stronger for the power they shared. Now it was time to use that power to save Zendikar.

Art by Raymond Swanland

Nissa and Ashaya would return to Sea Gate, they would meet Gideon's army, and they would join in his battle cry, for the words had meaning once more.

"For Zendikar!"

Together, they set off across the continent, matching each other stride for stride.

9

Revelation at the Eye

By Kelly Digges

Jace Beleren is not a fighter. His immediate goal in coming to Zendikar was to solve a puzzle: the question of how the plane's floating stone hedrons had contained the Eldrazi, and how they might be used to capture—or kill—the titan Ulamog, who remains on Zendikar.

With all the scholarship on the subject destroyed in the fall of Sea Gate, Jace was forced to undertake a dangerous journey to the Eye of Ugin, the center of the hedron network. Jace had been there once before, when he inadvertently helped release the Eldrazi. Now, he must return to the Eye and unravel the puzzle of Zendikar's hedrons.

If he can live that long.

Jace Beleren wedged his boot against a jagged rock, pushed, and stretched, barely wrapping his aching fingers around the next handhold.

He was not exactly in his element. The wind whipped his cloak around him. He didn't look down.

He wasn't afraid of heights, not more than the average person. But he knew how high up the cliff face he was, and looking added no useful information. And anyway, a certain amount of wariness seemed rational, given that a fall from this height would certainly kill him, splattering him against the . . .

He didn't look down.

Art by Florian de Gesincourt

At the top of this cliff, if the mental map he'd pulled out of Jori En's mind was accurate, was what passed for even ground in Akoum, a vast expanse of jagged volcanic rocks and treacherous canyons. The Tuktuk tribe of goblins lived somewhere in this area, or had before the Eldrazi rose. The landscape had been rearranged when the three Eldrazi progenitors physically emerged from the mountain range known as the Teeth of Akoum, and neither Jace's prior experience nor Jori's knowledge could guide him. He needed help. He needed Tuktuk and his tribe.

Inch by inch, handhold by handhold, Jace pulled himself up the rock face. At last, hands aching, he hauled himself over the lip of the cliff—

—and straight into an Eldrazi.

It was small, as Eldrazi went—perhaps as big as he was—and its blank, bone-white face was just a few feet from his. He stumbled backwards but caught himself, one boot dangling out over the abyss. He rolled sideways and got to his hands and knees out of easy reach of the thing.

Art by Slawomir Maniak

The Eldrazi was looking at him, its eyeless face swiveling to follow his movement. It lunged.

Jace pushed himself to his feet, summoning an illusionary guardian. The Eldrazi's mind was as blank as its face, and none of his usual tricks seemed to work on them. Sleep magic did nothing against things that didn't sleep. Invisibility was useless against monsters without eyes. Even his illusions seemed to falter against these otherworldly adversaries.

The Eldrazi tore through his illusion like it was paper and kept coming.

With more time, Jace could have conjured up a more solid illusion. With more time, he might have been able to confuse the creature long enough to get away—to try out tactile or auditory illusions that might misdirect it. He was out of time, and exhausted from the climb, and all he could do was try to wedge himself between two of the sharp rocks and hope he could get a few good kicks in.

There was a thwack, and a flash of bright blue light. The Eldrazi reeled. Jace blinked. What . . . ?

"Down, foul thing!" came a voice from his left.

The Eldrazi swiveled its bony face to look—or the eyeless equivalent—just as a heavy club came down on its blank white head. There was a sound like shattering porcelain and a splatter of meaty goo, and the Eldrazi dropped.

Jace peeked around the rock next to him to see a squat goblin grinning from ear to ear. Like most of the goblins he'd seen since his return, she had a heavy metallic growth on the top of her skull. She had a heavy basket on her back and a stone club—no, not a club, he realized, and not a basket. A pestle and a mortar. The goblin stood only as tall as his waist, but she had to be monstrously strong to lug those around.

Art by Chris Rallis

"Hello!" said the goblin with, it seemed to him, undue cheer. "Not safe, traveling alone."

She wiped her pestle on a rock, scraping off bits of bone and whatever passed for an Eldrazi's brain. Jace didn't want to go rooting around in her head just yet. That had a way of hindering potential good relations.

"Thanks for the save," he said. "How did you do that? To the Eldrazi?"

"Oh, their skulls bust just as easily as yours," said the goblin. She rapped the top of her head, which clanged. "Bit easier than mine."

"Before that," said Jace. "The spell, or whatever it was."

By way of response, she looked around as though she'd lost something, then shouted "Aha!" and scrambled to pick up what looked to Jace like a small rock. No—not a rock. A shard of one of Zendikar's magical stone hedrons.

"A hedron holds magic for a thousand years," she said. "Or less, if need be. This one's mostly spent, but I'll grind out what I can."

She cackled, tossed the hedron into her mortar, and started absentmindedly pounding away at it. There were sparks and pops.

"The size of 'em doesn't tell you much," said Zada. "Every hedron's like a deep, dark hole. Could be filled with good stuff. Could be empty. Only way to know for sure is to dive in."

"I see," he said. "Uh . . . I'm Jace, by the way."

"Zada of Slab Haven," said the goblin, as though that explained everything.

"I'm looking for Tuktuk," said Jace. "Do you know him?"

For some reason this made Zada roar with laughter.

"He's dead," she said. "Stone dead, you might say."

She started laughing again, but at Jace's blank expression, she managed to wheeze out, "He was made of rocks, you know."

"What happened?" asked Jace.

"I ate him," said Zada.

Jace spent a moment imagining horrific cannibal rites until he remembered what she'd just said about Tuktuk, which pushed her claim from horrifying to merely improbable.

"You what?"

Zada grinned again, showing off rows of enormous pitted teeth.

"I. Ate. Him."

"I thought you said he was made of rocks," said Jace.

"Yep," said Zada. "You don't know much about goblins, do you?"

"I really don't," said Jace. "Why did you . . . eat him?"

"When we find hedrons and other magic rocks, we grind 'em up and eat 'em," said Zada. "Makes us stronger. Tuktuk had us doing it. But then I figured, Tuktuk was the most magic rock of all . . ."

She shrugged and patted her belly.

"That . . . makes a weird kind of sense."

"Thank you!" said Zada.

"Uh . . . anyway," said Jace, "what I'm really looking for is the Eye of Ugin. I've been there before, but everything seems to have changed."

"Why?" said Zada.

"To stop the Eldrazi," said Jace. "I need to learn more about the hedron network, and the Eye of Ugin is its center."

"Was," said Zada. "A scrambled mess doesn't have a center."

She sighed.

"But I suppose I'll show you the way, if you think it's important," she said, gesturing for him to follow. "Not sure what all the fuss is about, though. We're getting along fine up here . . ."

It was a few hours' hard walking to the Eye, as Zada picked a winding path through the precarious spires of Akoum. Twice they had to double back to avoid Eldrazi, and even Zada seemed a bit lost in the tumultuous landscape. All the while she nattered on about the nature of hedrons. Jace hadn't realized they actually stored energy, or that their energy could still be directed against the Eldrazi, so at least he was learning.

Eventually Zada pointed him at a cave entrance and bade him farewell.

"You're not coming in?" said Jace.

"Nope," replied Zada. "Nobody goes in there. Bad magic. Certain death. Good luck!"

She bounded away over the rocks, and Jace turned to the ominous, angular mouth of a cave that certainly was not natural stone.

He descended carefully, picking his way among enormous fallen hedrons. The place was silent, lifeless, devoid of the thrumming power that had suffused it on his last visit. His illusionary light threw strange shadows through the vast and ruined space. If the Eye was dead, if whatever power had animated it was now gone, he might not learn anything after all.

Art by James Paick

A cold, blue-white glow shone up ahead—were his eyes playing tricks? He snuffed his light. Yes. A glow. That meant—what? Some life remained in the Eye after all? Or someone else was already here?

He stepped carefully now, with so little light, down the path of jagged hedron shards. As he walked, the stones around him became more orderly—their faces and runes repaired, their alignments corrected.

"Welcome back," said a voice. It was smooth and powerful, seeming to thunder from the stone around him. "I hope you didn't come alone. My preparations are nearly complete."

A shape unfolded itself from the shadows of the enormous cavern. Horns glinted and wings unfurled, and an enormous dragon made a short glide toward him. Jace took a step back, heart racing. Bolas?

No. Not Bolas. This dragon was glowing from within with the soft light Jace had seen earlier.

The enormous shape settled before him, wings outstretched.

"Hmm," said the dragon, frowning. "You're not who I was expecting."

"I could say the same," said Jace. "Who are you?"

The dragon regarded him.

"Do you know the name of this place?"

"I do," said Jace. "But I'm not going to let you claim to be what I'm expecting. What's your name?"

The dragon smiled, keeping his teeth hidden.

"Fair enough," said the dragon. "My name is Ugin. I helped build this place, long ago."

Jace had assumed Ugin was long dead, if indeed Ugin had ever been a person at all. Yet here he was, in the luminous flesh. Jace tried to read the great being's mind, to verify his story, but found it as smooth and dazzling as a wall of crystal.

Art by Chris Rahn

"My name is Jace Beleren. I'm here to learn about the hedron network. I didn't imagine I'd find one of its builders."

"You've been here before," said Ugin. It was, unfortunately, not a question.

"Ah," said Jace. "Yes. Once. It . . . didn't go well."

"You released the Eldrazi," said Ugin.

"I—" said Jace. "Yes. There were three of us. We fought. The chamber—"

"I know," said Ugin. "You, a pyromancer, and a dragonspeaker. Planeswalkers all. You opened the Eye."

How did he know that?

"It wasn't our fault," said Jace. "We were—"

"Manipulated, yes," said Ugin. "By another dragon Planeswalker, a rival of mine—"

"Oh, no."

"—Nicol Bolas. You know him?"

"We're acquainted," said Jace. "This wouldn't be the first time he's manipulated me."

"It is his nature," said Ugin.

"Why?" said Jace. "Why would he want the Eldrazi released?"

"That," said Ugin, "is an excellent question, one I will devote considerable resources to answering. At the moment, however, we must do, in all likelihood, exactly what Bolas wants us to do, and that is focus on the Eldrazi."

"We'd better hurry," said Jace. "One of the Eldrazi titans is headed for Sea Gate right now."

"Sea Gate?" said Ugin.

Jace froze.

Mighty Ugin, creator of the Eye . . . didn't know Zendikar's greatest city?

"How long have you been away?" said Jace.

"Ages," said Ugin, with a tone that suggested the literal meaning of the word. "I was detained. Sea Gate?"

"A center of civilization and learning on the coast of Tazeem. They had scholarship on the hedrons, but it was lost to the Eldrazi. Now Ulamog is headed toward it to devour the survivors gathered there."

"Do not assume," said Ugin, "that you know anything of the minds of the Eldrazi. Ulamog goes where he does and does what he must."

"But they're drawn to concentrations of life, aren't they? There is a logic to their movements."

"They are and there is," said Ugin. "If survivors have congregated at this Sea Gate, then Ulamog could be seeking them out."

"We've got to stop him," said Jace. "Incapacitate him, kill him—whatever it takes."

"You cannot kill Ulamog," said Ugin.

"Stop him, then. Whatever we do, we need to do it now. People are dying. We have to do something, and thanks to your hedrons, we've got all the plane's leylines at our disposal. What do you suggest?"

Jace began to gather mana, a sensation like the rush of knowledge and a deep, cool current.

"I have allies, ancient and powerful ones," said Ugin. "The two who helped me imprison the Eldrazi on this world thousands of years ago . . . they can help. You've begun to understand the hedrons' true purpose. The Eldrazi can be imprisoned."

"And how did that work out last time?"

Art by Craig J Spearing

The dragon shifted. Rose. He felt it too, then, that nagging sensation that they might not be on the same side after all.

"Perfectly," said Ugin. "Until you and your cohorts let them out."

"You'll forgive me," said Jace, "if I take cold comfort in knowing that three people who knew next to nothing about any of this were able to overwhelm your security measures by accident."

"It was not an accident," said Ugin. "It was carefully orchestrated. Don't make the mistake of thinking your plans are the only ones that matter."

"Didn't you make the same mistake? You thought no one would want the Eldrazi released from their prison. But Bolas does. And if he wants them out, he can orchestrate them right back out again."

"You're still making assumptions," said Ugin. "Whatever Bolas wants, it's entirely possible he's already achieved it. And as you say, people are dying. We would be fools to pursue the impossible simply because you believe the achievable is flawed."

"Impossible is a hell of a word, coming from you," snapped Jace. "You know a lot more about the hedrons than I do, but all you can talk about is what we can't get done. You must have a better idea. Well? I'm listening!"

A rush of mana, a spell from the great dragon—but not an attack. An illusion. A network of scattered nodes and gently curving lines drawn in bright white light. Jace let it come.

"The hedron network," said Ugin, "as it was."

The dragon's voice was amplified, booming, echoing from within every one of the angular stones that made up the chamber's walls. The diagram grew larger and larger, a bright ring in the center looming balefully—the Eye of Ugin. Jace tried to take it in, but it was too much—too vast, too complicated, a knot he couldn't hope to untangle in a hundred lifetimes. A knot that Ugin had made.

Then it changed. Nodes drifted; some vanished. The curves of the leylines—certainly, they were leylines—began to change. Within a few seconds, the network was disordered, chaotic.

"The Lithomancer who made these hedrons has been gone a long time," said Ugin. More illusions flared around the dragon, multiplied images of a kor woman with a broad smile and fierce eyes. Then she vanished. "Gone, or careless. Without her, the hedrons drifted. Then . . . you arrived. The Eldrazi were awakened, their brood lineages unleashed upon Zendikar. But my fail-safes remained in place. The Eldrazi were not yet free."

More change. Order. The network reasserted itself. Nodes arranged themselves back into curves, then into lines. What had been gentle, looping, a sort of cosmic finger-trap, became rigid, binding, strong. Jace stood rooted in one spot, unable to turn away from the abstract vision of a nightmare.

Art by Vincent Proce

"The network tried to contain the Eldrazi, just as it was designed to," said Ugin. "Without further interference, it might have succeeded. Then someone—or was that you too?—opened the last lock, dismantled the final fail-safe."

The diagram fractured. The nodes scattered. The lines went haywire. The Eye at the center went dark, so that Jace could see Ugin himself through it.

"The hedron network as it stands," said Ugin. "This is what we have to work with, Beleren. If three Planeswalkers at the height of our power could not kill the Eldrazi titans with the hedrons in full working order, what makes you think you and I can do it with this sad remnant?"

Jace gritted his teeth. Enough of this. Enough.

"You're speaking in abstractions," he said.

He fired off a counterspell to tear through Ugin's illusion, and sent up a few of his own. Sea Gate at its height, when Jace had visited it shortly after the Eldrazi rose. The survivors' camp when he'd been there weeks ago, where the same scholars, now diminished in number and in hope, huddled around campfires. Gideon, standing tall, inspiring people. Nissa communing with the land.

Art by Chase Stone

"Zendikar isn't a puzzle to be solved," said Jace. "It's a place. It's somebody's home. And those people are out there, right now, fighting for their world and wondering if anybody's going to help them kill what's killing them."

He showed scenes of suffering, then—of families mourning the lost, of landscapes ravaged by Ulamog, of even the skies and seas teeming with the Eldrazi menace.

Ugin cocked his head. The hedron architecture of the chamber seemed to melt and flow, became a pattern of tessellating dragons mocking him from the walls.

"So certain," said Ugin, "and so young."

The diagram sprang back, crowding out Jace's images. Then it changed again—restored, as much as its current state allowed. It had fewer nodes, more sharply curving lines. A pattern. A glyph—circular, with three points at equal intervals around the circumference. He'd never seen the glyph before, but immediately he understood it. Leylines. If the leylines of Zendikar could be coaxed into this shape . . .

"The Eldrazi can be imprisoned," Ugin said again. "You speak of killing them as though they were houseflies. You shouldn't—and you can't."

"Don't tell me about can't," said Jace. "Tell me about will or won't. Kill them, trap them . . . it's irrelevant. All of it. I came here to stop them. So did you. Right?"

Jace's illusions flowed and changed without his willing it, became enveloped by the vast abstraction of the hedron network.

"Your knowledge of the hedrons," said Jace. "My knowledge of Zendikar on the ground. Of a place called Sea Gate. Of the people here and why they're worth saving."

"Do not lecture me about what is worth saving," said Ugin, his voice booming. "There is more than this world at stake—certainly more than the people who happen to be alive here at the moment. You come to me speaking of the threat of Ulamog. But do not forget: They came as three. With the Eldrazi at large, the entire Multiverse is at risk. That is what I am here to save, Beleren. The Multiverse, in all its vastness of time and space. Not the people you shared a cookfire with."

Dragon and diagram became one, luminous and looming. Lines and nodes, wings and horns, the shapes of hedrons, and at the center one glowing, glowering Eye. Jace faltered under its gaze.

"Tell me what to do, Ugin. Tell me how to help."

The Eye pulsed. Jace's consciousness began to fade.

Then it was gone. Ugin's illusions, Jace's, all of it. Only the chamber and the dragon remained.

"You truly want to help?"

"That's why I came here," said Jace. "I did have a hand in releasing the Eldrazi. If I can take part in stopping them, I will."

"I said earlier that you weren't who I was expecting," said Ugin. "My allies, the two who helped me imprison the Eldrazi thousands of years ago . . . are not here. One is missing. I sent the other after her. I've heard from neither since. They are needed here, urgently. Have you heard of a Planeswalker named Sorin Markov?"

Art by Igor Kieryluk

"No," said Jace. "Should I have?"

"Only because of his connection to this place," said Ugin. "He is my erstwhile ally, self-proclaimed lord of his home plane of Innistrad."

One of Liliana's favorite haunts, though Jace had never been there.

"That I've heard of," said Jace. "You could say I have an ally there myself."

You'd be kidding yourself, he thought, but you could say that.

"Good," said Ugin. "Sorin is crucial to our efforts. If you want to help, then seek him out, bring him here, but . . . do not trust him."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," said Ugin, "that although he speaks of the greater good, he is a selfish creature. He fought the Eldrazi not out of compassion for Zendikar, but out of a very long-minded sense of self-preservation. If more urgent matters have consumed his attention, his priorities may not align with our own."

Jace wasn't sure if it was the longevity or the power, but he'd noticed that ancient Planeswalkers had something in common: They were all completely insane.

"What about your other ally?" said Jace.

"Nahiri, called the Lithomancer," said Ugin. "A kor of Zendikar, and its guardian. I do not know why she would leave this world, and I cannot imagine that she would stay away if she could possibly return. Something has happened to her. If you cannot find Sorin, find her."

"I'm not abandoning Zendikar," said Jace. "I've got friends here." Friends. Yes. Close enough, at any rate. "They're relying on me to return with information about the hedron network. Unless you want to go to Sea Gate and tell them yourself?"

"No," said Ugin. "I am needed here, at the Eye. I must rebuild the central chamber so that my associates can restore the network to its full function and trap the Eldrazi once more."

"Then I'm afraid your allies will have to sort themselves out," said Jace. "What can I do here?"

"The hedron network is damaged," said Ugin. "I will need Ulamog corralled. Contained, within a circle of hedrons. Will these friends of yours help imprison an Eldrazi titan, rather than try to kill it?"

"I think so," said Jace, though in fact he was far from certain. "But only if I can convince them it's the only option. They've seen plenty of Eldrazi die. And you still haven't told me why we can't kill Ulamog."

"The Eldrazi titans do not dwell in physical space," said Ugin. "They are creatures of the Blind Eternities, and it is in the Eternities that they remain."

"Until they manifest physically, you mean?"

"No," said Ugin. "I meant what I said. Ulamog remains in the Eternities."

"Then what did I see heading toward Sea Gate?"

"You saw a portion of him," said Ugin. "A projection. Imagine that you reach your hand into a pond. The fish below the surface sees a five-headed monster, and cannot perceive the man attached to it. It mistakes a hangnail for an eye because the truth is beyond its imagining. You see?"

"And when you trapped them . . ."

"Like driving a spike through the hand," said Ugin. "The man will not die, but neither will he trouble other ponds. 'Killing' Ulamog's physical form would be like cutting off the hand. The man might be diminished, but he would survive—and he would be freed."

"But the hedrons don't just direct leylines," said Jace, thinking fast. "They store energy. Vast amounts of it. That's how they pulled the Eldrazi in to begin with, isn't it?"

It was a guess, but it seemed a reasonable one.

"Correct," said Ugin. "Your point?"

Jace's mind raced.

If the hedrons could pull, then couldn't they pull harder? With enough power, couldn't they be used to draw the Eldrazi fully into the physical realm? If you had a spike through a man's hand, you could do a lot more than hold him there. You could pull him into the pond. And then . . .

"I . . . no, never mind," said Jace. "Sorry. Still wrapping my head around all this."

The dragon had made his position on killing Ulamog quite clear, and Jace himself wasn't at all sure it was a good idea. He understood the hedrons now. He'd seen the glyph. If Ugin would help them imprison the Eldrazi, then that was, at the very least, a good first step. And if the opportunity arose to do more . . . he'd be ready. And Ugin might not be.

"Of course," said Ugin. "Considering your inexperience, you're keeping up better than I'd expect."

It was intended as a compliment. Jace decided to take it as such.

"This . . . hand metaphor," said Jace. "It's describing the three titans. What about all the others? Does killing them free them too? Are there thousands of Eldrazi loose in the Eternities now?"

"Suppose the man reaches his other hand into the pond," said Ugin. "Does the fish face one monster, or two?"

Jace's patience for this method of imparting information was minimal, but he tried to give the dragon's question-answers due consideration.

"The fish sees two beings," he said, after a moment. "But they're part of one whole."

"Suppose the man has a hundred hands," said Ugin. "Or a million."

Understanding dawned. A wave of nausea overtook him.

"You're saying they're connected. Ulamog's brood aren't really spawn. They're . . . appendages."

"More like cells," said Ugin. "Organs, in the case of some of the larger ones. But all of them are replaceable—sub-lives that come into being, fulfill their function, and die or a reabsorbed, without diminishing the whole."

"So killing them does nothing, other than keeping them from killing you."

"Ultimately, no," said Ugin.

Jace ran a hand through his hair.

"All right," he said. "That's enough information. I'll present your plan to my friends at Sea Gate. I'll try to convince them that imprisoning Ulamog is the right course of action."

Art by Michael Komarck

"You must do more than try," said Ugin. "With the hedron network damaged and the fail-safe removed, the titans are free to leave the plane. If Ulamog is wounded, you could drive him away from Zendikar entirely. Away from the hedron network, and our best chance of stopping him. You understand why that would be a disaster. But it may not seem that way to the people of Zendikar. You must dissuade your friends from attacking Ulamog directly—and, if necessary, you must stop them."

"Understood," said Jace. "I'll tell them."

"Do not let them drive Ulamog away from Zendikar," said Ugin. "The consequences would be grave, and that justifies whatever means are necessary to stop it."

"You've made yourself clear," said Jace. "I won't let Ulamog escape."

One way or another, he thought.

"Good fortune, Jace Beleren. I will make sure my preparations are complete."

"I'll be ready," said Jace.

Jace turned, walked out of the Eye of Ugin, and stepped into the sunlight. He had a plan. He had a destination. He was ready.

One way or another.

10

Shaping an Army

By Ken Troop

Noyan Dar was once a lullmage, one of a specialized tradition of wizards who learned, through painstaking practice, to calm the fury of Zendikar. The problem was the Roil, the unpredictable magical "weather" that could bring anything from squalls and windshears to uprooted earth and sudden vegetation. Explorers of the wilds who knew what they were doing always brought at least one lullmage on their expeditions, lest they find themselves at the mercy of the elements.

But times have changed. The Eldrazi have risen. Gideon Jura is seeking allies to fight the Eldrazi at Sea Gate. And the Roil, once Zendikar's most deadly danger, might now become a crucial weapon in its salvation.

"Balance is death!" The voices of the initiates rang clearly, though not beautifully, in the damp air. They had been taught to yell the litany, even shriek it, regardless of what the resulting sound did to Noyan Dar's ears. Dissonance was not to be ignored, but embraced.

"Calm is death!" The chanter performed a strange dance as she led the group through the litany. Ripples of earth moved under her feet in a desultory fashion, but still with enough momentum to generate an occasional stumble. As she tripped, she emitted a high-pitched intonation on whatever word escaping her lips, regardless of meter, pace, or good sense. Hearing a whinnying, croaking cry of "deeaaath!" was not a pleasant way to spend the morning.

Which was, sadly, entirely the point.

The whole arrangement was unpleasant. Noyan imagined what type of environment a typical brilliant merfolk scholar-mage—who loved the ocean and the suitable moment in which to indulge some witty repartee—would create for himself. It would clearly be the exact opposite of this retreat at Coralhelm, which was miles away from wit, surrounded by either lunatics or the incompetent and often both.

Art by Kieran Yanner

The fact that he was the one responsible for creating the retreat only gave him the briefest ironic pleasure. Mostly it made him very irritated.

Which was again, sadly, entirely the point.

"Peace is death!" Noyan Dar resented many things about the awakening of the Eldrazi. He had lost his home, his quiet, and the ability to fight opponents he could visibly irritate. But what he resented most were the near infinite times he had heard this damned chant. That he had written the litany gave him no pleasure, not even ironically. It was a deliberately poor and arrhythmic chant, and apparently he was doomed to hear it repeated for the rest of his life.

Or only until the Eldrazi came and ripped apart his innards or emulsified his brains or transmuted him into dust. It was important to have things to look forward to.

At least Noyan no longer had to lead the initiates in their rituals. Other initiates distinguished by being slightly less incompetent than the rest had taken to the rituals as their personal salvation. Actually mastering how to use the Roil without killing yourself or those around you was very hard, but butchering rhyme and meter and Noyan Dar's ears was trivial.

The chanter stumbled through the next sentence, treating everyone to a pained rendition of "The world heaves!" The other initiates dutifully strived to match her strained tone, many of them adding their own unique atonality to the mix, creating what Noyan thought was the literal definition of cacophony.

It was all to the greater good, and like most sacrifices to the greater good, enjoyed by no one.

The next words in the litany shook around in his head, "It shakes. It strives," but he realized there were no sounds coming from reality to match. He looked up to see the chanter and initiates all staring toward the sky behind him to the south. Noyan turned and saw a kor kitesailer carrying a passenger in a harness. They were only minutes away from landing, but they were coming in from the wrong direction.

Art by Igor Kieryluk

The retreat on Coralhelm was difficult to access. Protected by a large gorge on all sides, their floating landmass was roped to the edges of the cliffs. It was possible for a skilled Kor cliffwalker to shimmy down the ropes, but most people coming to the retreat flew there. But only from the north. Even without the Roil, the winds in the canyons were unpredictable and dangerous. With the Roil, and especially with tens of roilmages—most of them not particularly skilled—the winds could be very predictably dangerous. Especially coming from the south, which is why all of their comings and goings to their floating retreat came in from the other side. The fool kitesailer was going to become one with the earth very intimately and very mortally.

Noyan ran forward, his arms flapping, his lungs rasping. The kitesailer could not hear him and was making his preparation to swoop in and land when a ferocious updraft took him and his passenger fifty feet up and sideways with such force the harness attachment sheared off and his passenger plummeted to the ground hundreds of feet below.

Noyan could only watch in horror and then puzzlement as the man fell. Unlike Noyan Dar, the man was not flailing or yelling or for that matter looking perturbed at all. He fell with grace, if such a thing were possible, though he was clearly falling to his certain death. Noyan continued to run forward and began casting a spell to buffer the man's fall—though at his speed, the buffer would just leave the corpse in slightly nicer shape.

There were several flashes of sparking golden light and the man's body glowed. Just before he hit the ground, Noyan saw some kind of shimmering wave erupt beneath him, and he hit with an impact that Noyan felt travel up through his own legs and pitch him forward tumbling to the earth.

As Noyan lay there splayed to the ground, groaning while checking he hadn't broken anything, he tilted his head up, expecting to see some form of gruesome blood pancake. Instead he saw a tall, armored man, standing with the sun glinting off his armor behind him, with nary a scream, blood, broken bone, or even a bruise in sight.

Noyan slowly got to his feet, still wondering how the man survived. Behind them the kor kitesailer had managed to land safely and was running towards the two of them, presumably to check on the health of his passenger. The man looked at him closely and said, "I'm Gideon Jura. I'm looking for the roilmage, Noyan Dar. You have some blood on your nose. Are you well?" The look of concern was so genuine Noyan wanted to scream.

He did, just a little. It was the best he felt all morning.

Art by Eric Deschamps

"It destroys or it dies!" The initiates had resumed their cheerful litany, and Gideon Jura raised an eyebrow.

"I was told you were the head of an elite elementalist force." Gideon's head swiveled, glancing briefly at the twenty or so of Noyan's initiates shrieking into the air and waving their arms in random patterns in the courtyard. "Are they practicing in the building . . .  ?" Gideon peered through the courtyard into the empty living quarters behind.

"They're invisible. It's hard to remain an elite fighting force when just anyone can see them." Gideon stared at Noyan flatly. Noyan continued to feel better.

"Find your inner peace! Kill it! Crush it!" Many of the initiates made chopping or jumping motions as they went through this part of the ritual. Some really enjoyed demonstrating just how thoroughly they were demolishing their inner peace. So much grass had suffered for the sake of conquering inner peace.

Gideon raised an eyebrow. "Those are some . . . unusual rallying cries. Is there somewhere quieter we can go?" A small group of uncoordinated and tone-deaf initiates were able to do what falling from two hundred feet had not—make Gideon Jura uncomfortable.

Noyan Dar raised a hand and brought it down hard. The earth rumbled for a second and then quieted. The initiates and chanter quieted as well. "Initiates, practice your forms. Please use . . . discretion." The initiates had learned through very painful error and error what discretion meant.

As they walked towards the center of the clearing, Noyan noticed the balance of the man beside him. He walked in a perfectly measured stride, each step balanced and poised, able to turn into a crouch or leap or attack depending on his whim. Noyan had never seen someone so fully in control of their movement and their body.

Gideon Jura would make an atrocious roilmage.

"How did you survive the fall?" Noyan thought it quite a remarkable feat. If roilmages could learn that type of protection, there would be more live roilmages. Though that would mean the life expectancy of non-roilmages would suffer.

"I am . . . resistant to harm." Gideon paused and looked at him, saying nothing. Noyan also said nothing, hoping the absence of words would encourage Gideon to fill the void. After several moments of silence, Noyan tried to help.

"You seem . . . resistant to explanation." More staring from Gideon. He seemed adept at it.

"I was told you and your troops could control the earth, the air, the water. We need your help at Sea Gate." Gideon then decided to again stop speaking. Gideon seemed far more comfortable using poignant pauses and searching looks to communicate than, say, actual words. Noyan thought perhaps this was a language worth learning.

Art by Raymond Swanland

"First, we are in the middle of training and can't just gallivant off to Sea Gate. Second, we are not . . . elementalists." He paused to let his full scorn dwell on the word, and looked expectantly at Gideon's face. Apparently Gideon did not understand the language as well as he spoke it. After a few more seconds of silence, Noyan was disgruntled. It was boring to be deliberately silent.

"Do people sneeze where you come from?" Far better to be insulting.

Gideon gave him a blank stare. "You know, like ah-choo!" Noyan mimed a human sneeze, with a copious amount of snot at the end. Gideon's stare flattened.

"Yes, I know what sneezing is," Gideon responded. At least there was no poignant pause or searching glance at the end.

"My people have many stories and myths about the three gods. One of the favorites for children is 'Ula and the Ocean's Sneeze.' Cosi convinces Ula that there is a powerful magical pearl, hidden deep in the heart of the ocean. So Ula searches for the heart of the ocean, so he can steal the pearl. Eventually he finds the heart and reaches inside, but as he's pulling the pearl out, Ula's sleeve scrapes the inside of the heart, and the heart sneezes. Ula is trapped in a giant cocoon of solid white snot, until Cosi comes along to free him." Noyan smiled.

"White snot." The flat stare on Gideon's face threatened to become a permanent fixture.

"The point is not the white snot, as interesting as it is; the point is the sneeze." No enlightenment sought to wrestle with the flat stare. The flat stare remained the clear winner. Noyan sighed. What point to be cleverer than your enemy when they could not perceive it? He could not tell whether Gideon or the Eldrazi were worse in this regard.

"The Roil," Noyan continued, "the Roil is the sneeze. The Eldrazi are an irritant to the world. The Roil built up over time as a natural defense against the presence of the Eldrazi. Prior to the Eldrazi's arrival, those of us who called ourselves lullmages spent years trying to perfect the craft of quieting the Roil. As if we were a healer soothing a fever."

"But then the Eldrazi returned." Noyan was grateful for the presence of Gideon Jura, master of the obvious, to perpetuate the illusion of a conversation.

"But then the Eldrazi returned. And the Roil returned in full bloom with them."

"So being a roilmage should be easy, then."

"Easy, except for two problems. First, intensifying the Roil is easy, but intensifying it without killing yourself or any near bystanders is very, very hard. Unless you're . . . resistant to harm." Gideon's eyes narrowed but Noyan continued.

Art by Johann Bodin

"Second, the mages most experienced in dealing with the Roil are . . ."

"All the lullmages who spent years learning to do the exact opposite," Gideon finished for him. Noyan smiled. A genuine intelligent response! The world was full of surprises.

"Exactly. Combatting the instincts of pacifying the Roil instead of heightening it proved to be a mental switch requiring much training. In fact . . ." Noyan raised his arms in a dramatic fashion and there was a loud thunderclap in the air. The roilmage initiates ran over and formed a large circle around Noyan.

"Llura, lead the litany please, from the beginning."

Llura had a large smile on her face as she wailed and flailed. The initiates dutifully followed, every awkward word creating a hole in the fabric of good taste that could never be repaired.

"Balance is death!

Calm is death!

Peace is death!

The world heaves!

It shakes!

It strives!

It destroys or it dies!

Find your inner peace!

Kill it! Crush it!

Do not become one with anything!

Feel your loneliness! Your fear! You are out of place!

Every step you take creates dissonance and chaos!

You will strive! You will shake! You will heave!

You must destroy or die!"

Despite every awful word, Noyan could not help but be pleased. The litany was remarkably effective at creating the right frame of mind in the initiates. He looked over at Gideon, and saw both eyebrows raised, the normal flat stare finally conquered by a stunned wide-eyed silence.

"Maybe . . . maybe this was not a good idea," croaked Gideon.

Not a good idea? Noyan had been irritated for the much of the day, much of every day since becoming a roilmage, but this was the first time he had been angry. This armored bumpkin had come to his school and presumed he could just order him and his students around and then decided they weren't good enough? Not a good idea!

"A practical demonstration is in order," Noyan said. "I insist."

It took the better part of the morning to transport Gideon, Noyan, and the initiates over to the main continent of Tazeem. They were many miles outside of Sea Gate, but the Eldrazi density had increased significantly in the last few months. Finding roaming herds of them was not difficult.

Noyan wondered for an idle second whether Gideon was perhaps some secret, brilliant tactical mastermind, devising a facade of the idiot warrior, and using Noyan's own pride to manipulate him into devoting the roilmages to his cause. The second passed and Noyan discarded the thought. First, Noyan was perhaps the only mind brilliant enough to conceive of such a plan. Second, Gideon Jura was an idiot. No idiot could be that good at duplicity of such a level.

Noyan's plan was simple and elegant. Gideon balked, asking many annoying questions regarding contingencies Noyan assured him would not come into play. Eventually Gideon was reduced to communicating through raising eyebrows. He displayed a remarkable facility at raising both his left and right eyebrows. He was a man of many talents, this Gideon Jura.

Gideon had been most concerned about the consequences of attracting Eldrazi, considering their own small numbers. He had suggested several tiny groups but Noyan dismissed each one. They needed a group large enough to provide a suitable stage for performance. On an already-desiccated plain, they found an isolated group with several hundred of the creatures, scions and drones, and a few larger creatures that Noyan labeled as "direct lineage" to Ulamog itself.

Art by Vincent Proce

The initiates were nervous and excited as they spread in a wide circle on the plain. Though, to be fair, they were nearly always nervous and excited. It wasn't even their first time dealing with Eldrazi . . . that was just a function of life on Zendikar now. But it was going to be the first time they were using their magic in conjunction with each other to fight the Eldrazi. This was to be their first live test.

While the initiates yelled at each other and themselves in bizarre rituals of preparation, Gideon Jura was motionless. Smooth, poised, and unsurprisingly, silent. As the first Eldrazi began to gather, glowing, supple metal blades appeared out of some mechanism in Gideon's hand. Noyan rolled his eyes in disbelief. He wanted to slap Gideon, but would probably end up cutting off his own hand. What sane, intelligent person has blades coming out of one's hand?

Noyan had thought he would have to generate some form of magical beacon to draw the Eldrazi, but there proved no need. The Eldrazi slowly began swarming in the direction of Gideon and Noyan, ignoring the initiates spread wide. Having never encountered this reaction before on his own, Noyan thought the most reasonable explanation was the Eldrazi found Gideon as obnoxious as he did.

Perhaps the Eldrazi were intelligent after all.

Gideon stared at Noyan. "At what point does being a roilmage involve using the Roil? There are a lot of Eldrazi out there." Even obnoxious idiots sometimes had a point. Noyan spread his hands out wide, and gave the signal for his initiates to begin their exercise. In class they called it "working the circle." The initiates began their conversations with the Roil, each in their own way. Some spoke to the earth and some to the air. While there was no large body of water, some roilmages spoke to the ever-present water inside the earth.

It was time for Noyan to begin his own magic.

Feel the irritation. It is the mosquito in the night, the itch between your shoulder-blades, the raw pain that never heals. It is the sneeze that will not come, the morsel of food stuck in your teeth, the crying of the child not yours. Feel it.

Noyan was barely aware of the outside world, only having glimpses at the edge of consciousness as Gideon whirled and twirled snapping glowing blades in a kaleidoscopic display of mastery that even if Noyan was able to pay full attention, he was sure he'd find pretentious and boring. The Eldrazi were pressing, and Gideon kept them at bay.

Good boy, he tried to say, but the demands of the Roil pressed upon him.

Every wrong interaction of the day, every missed note and awkward move, every single word emitted from the dark hole of Gideon's mouth, every mote of alienation and bitterness, Noyan Dar swept up and gathered within himself. This is what the earth felt, this is what Zendikar felt, when the awful alien touch of the Eldrazi fell upon it.

In the wider circle, the initiates had achieved connections with parts of the Roil. The earth between the initiates and Noyan rumbled and shook, the air gusted and moaned, and the initiates moved earth, air, and water in a semi-circular pattern, back and forth. Swoosh, swoosh, the ground shifted and heaved as it tried to rotate along the wide circle. The initiates began aligning their movements and timing, and the large circle of earth surrounding Gideon and Noyan began to rotate in one direction and then the other.

Art by Willian Murai

The Eldrazi were driven into a frenzy by the earth shifting and rumbling beneath them. No longer lethargic, they buzzed in intensity as they hurled themselves at Gideon and Noyan. Gideon's skin glowed and golden sparks from an invisible shield of energy shimmered constantly as he became a never-ending blur of savage cuts and thrusts. An Eldrazi tentacle lashed out at Noyan's face, and somehow Gideon was there first, knocking it away and decapitating the Eldrazi in one near-impossible motion. The larger Eldrazi were almost on top of them, and Gideon's breath labored. "If you're going to do anything to actually kill Eldrazi, I suggest you do it soon. I can't keep you alive forever."

The Roil was close. So close. It wanted to lash out, but Noyan wouldn't let it, not yet. The irritation within Noyan, within the earth, grew. The initiates had melded their magics into one autonomous beat, finally finding the rhythm that had eluded them all morning. Swoosh, swoosh as rock unmoored and wind loosened. The earth wanted to destroy them all, eliminate every blighted touch from the hand of decay; the Roil surged and bucked, desperate to find relief.

Art by Jason Felix

An Eldrazi twice as tall as Gideon brought a limb down thicker than a tree trunk on top of them. Gideon raised his arm and the massive limb crashed into his energy shield, igniting a flurry of golden sparks. But Gideon sunk down to the ground on one knee, and the Eldrazi giant brought his arm around for another blow.

"Now mage!" Gideon snarled.

Strive, shake, heave, destroy.

"You are invulnerable, right?" Noyan shouted. Gideon nodded.

Strive, shake, heave, destroy.

Art by Karl Kopinski

Noyan cast his spell. All the earth between Noyan and the circle of initiates disintegrated underneath in a circling vortex of wind, magma, and rock. Where once were hundreds of feet of solid ground, there now was . . . nothing. The Eldrazi and Gideon plummeted through a storm of falling debris, and Noyan could see the sparking golden light of Gideon's shield shimmer constantly as Gideon fell.

Art by Titus Lunter

What had been the din of chaotic battle was now replaced by stunning silence. Noyan stood, alone, on a patch of earth barely two feet square. Hundreds of feet in every direction was now chasm, a great void separating himself from his initiates, who looked on in disbelief at what they had wrought. The initiates looked at the chasm, and at each other, and began cheering. As the debris settled far below, they could make out the corpses of the Eldrazi plus a lone figure surrounded by golden glowing sparks as rocks and fire made their final falls.

Noyan smiled. It was a fantastic moment. The only thing he regretted was Gideon had not screamed once his entire way down. What did it take to perturb that man?

"You have a powerful team, Noyan Dar. We would love to have all of you at Sea Gate with us. We need you."

The initiates . . . no, that was not quite fair. The roilmages gathered around them cheered. After Noyan and Gideon had both been rescued, they had all regrouped on a cliff settlement near Coralhelm. Noyan beamed. Finally the man recognized the true worth of the roilmages! It was hard not to feel smug. "I suppose it was a good idea for you to come see us after all."

"Yes, it was." Gideon looked at Noyan intently, but there was something in his eyes that made it awkward for Noyan to try and make fun of it. "I am sorry, Noyan, for any doubt. That display was amazing." Gideon smiled, and Noyan stood there, silent and stunned at how proud he felt, just because an idiot warrior had praised him.

The roilmages began bringing out food and drink. There was going to be a big party tonight for all of them to celebrate their victory. The Eldrazi would still be there tomorrow.

Gideon motioned at the kitesailer who brought him to begin preparations for leaving. "I have to get back to Sea Gate. All of you will come tomorrow?"

"Yes, Gideon Jura. We will be there." Noyan wanted to say more, ideally something quippy and sharp, but he didn't have the words. All his quips were strangely gone.

Gideon turned back. "One question, though, before I leave. In the story you were telling me, the one about Cosi and Ula, who ended up with the pearl?"

Noyan smirked. "Cosi did, of course. That's how most Cosi stories end up, with Cosi convincing Ula to do something that Ula hadn't initially wanted to do, and then Cosi ends up benefiting from it." Noyan loved the Cosi stories.

Gideon smiled. "Smart one, that Cosi. Too smart for me, anyway. I'll see you at Sea Gate, Noyan." Gideon turned and strapped himself into the kitesail harness, and the kitesailer and Gideon began their ascent back to Sea Gate. Noyan watched them go, bemused at Gideon's open admission of his limited mental faculties, and pondering the strange easy smile on Gideon's face.

It was only later in the evening, after much alcohol and further deliberation on Gideon's last words, that Noyan Dar's elation turned into a very flat stare.

Art by Adam Paquette

11

The Liberation of Sea Gate

By James Wyatt

Encamped among the hedrons of Emeria high in the air above Tazeem, Gideon Jura has sent envoys across the world to gather allies for a desperate last stand against the Eldrazi. The city of Sea Gate, once a beacon of learning and culture, swarms with Eldrazi, but Gideon has chosen it as the site of this battle. Here, he will rally the people of Zendikar and show them that victory over the Eldrazi is within their grasp.

Allies have come. Dana of House Kalastria brought vampires from Guul Draz. The roguish merfolk Noyan Dar brought a contingent of "roilmages" whose magic controlled the violence of Zendikar's roil. Warriors and refugees from around the world have united under Gideon's banner. He has assembled the greatest host Zendikar has ever seen.

But will it be enough?

People began scrambling down from the hedrons as soon as the first sliver of sun rose over the distant horizon. It was slow going—the ropes and ladders connecting the hedrons were not meant for the passage of so many people at once. When Gideon reached the ground, he found half an army waiting for him already, gathered from camps that had formed in the hedrons' shadows when space on the hedrons themselves grew too crowded. He shouted, "For Zendikar!" and a deafening roar came in answer.

When Gideon had led the survivors from Vorik's camp up into the floating hedrons of Emeria, they had numbered in the dozens—very few dozens, he had thought at the time. And many of them had been injured—some, like Vorik himself, had died of their wounds within days. But in the weeks since, groups of straggling refugees had come, one after another, so gradually that he had barely noticed how large the camp had grown. Healers had been working, with very little rest, to bring as many soldiers as possible back to health so they could fight again.

Now Gideon led an army—a ragtag, motley assortment, to be sure, but an army of hundreds, and not just a few hundred. It was truly Zendikar's army, drawn from every part of the world, even frozen Sejiri, which had been nearly deserted before the Eldrazi arose. Kor, merfolk, and elves marched alongside humans, and even goblins and vampires had joined the ranks.

Gideon smiled as he looked them over. "Gideon's Irregulars," he said to himself, conjuring bittersweet memories of his youth on Theros. He and his friends had been a ragtag, motley assortment as well—a far cry from the rigid soldiery of the Boros on Ravnica.

Now, with Gideon at their head, this ragtag army—Zendikar's army—began its march to retake Sea Gate from the Eldrazi.

The first Eldrazi they encountered were tiny spawn, scattered across the rocky hillside like grazing sheep. Each one stood at the end of a trail of bone-white dust, the devastation left behind from its feeding. Gideon gave a yell and charged down the hill, and a dozen eager soldiers followed him. His sural swept around, slicing and grabbing at the Eldrazi, while his allies' spears and swords slashed and stabbed at the squirming, tentacled things.

Somewhere to his right, far beyond his reach, a soldier screamed. Gideon paused, looking around for the source of the cry, but then more spawn rushed at him.

The spawn fell quickly under the initial charge, and the host behind him built up a terrible and exhilarating momentum toward the city, like a wind at Gideon's back. Soon he was running, shouting, waving his weapon in the air like a banner, plunging headlong into another mass of Eldrazi closer to the city. These were larger, and their deaths were not so quick. Weapons cut through bony plates and hacked through writhing tentacles, but Gideon heard more cries of pain rising above the shouts of battle, as sharp bony claws slashed and stabbed, and flesh blistered at the Eldrazi's touch or crumbled into dust.

The army kept surging forward, as inexorable as the Eldrazi swarms, cutting through the enemies of Zendikar. Gideon knew only the battle: the irregular rhythms of his sural sweeping and cracking, of Eldrazi attacks clattering against his shield or rebounding from a burst of golden energy that warded his skin. The rhythm of his feet moving, forward and back, but always more forward than back. Closer and closer to the white stone of Sea Gate, to the lighthouse that soon came into view, touching the sky. Forward, ever forward, with Zendikar's army at his back.

A jagged tentacle erupted out the back of a merfolk soldier just to Gideon's left. I could have stopped that, Gideon thought with a wrench of his gut, but there was no time to dwell on his error.

Ever forward.

A mass of writhing tentacles topped by a bony head engulfed a trio of soldiers to his right. He sprang to attack it and severed its head with one quick stroke, but all that remained of the three soldiers was dust seeping out through the tentacles. He'd been too slow.

No time. Ever forward.

A huge, bony hand swept a nearby kor up from the ground and raised him high into the air. Gideon vaulted after him, slashing at the arm and bashing his shield into the Eldrazi's face. The hand contracted, blood spurted out between the fingers, and the monster and the kor fell to the ground together.

Forward . . .

Art by Jaime Jones

So many of the Zendikari were dying. So many men and women, following his lead, were running headlong to their deaths. Suddenly he was back on Theros, a brash young man hurling Heliod's spear at the god of death. And the Zendikari around him, the ragtag army he had fondly compared to his Irregulars, were now dying just as his original Irregulars had, paying for his foolish mistake, his arrogance.

The burden of those four deaths would never be lifted from his shoulders. Four. How many hundreds more would he carry after this day?

He shook his head to clear it, and realized that his forward press had cut him off from the rest of the army. Slashing a wide arc through the Eldrazi around him, he turned back to his troops. The advancing forces had been brought to a standstill, and now a sea of Eldrazi churned between him and the rest of his army.

So many of them were dying.

No longer a tight wedge driving toward Sea Gate, the army had spread out, and Eldrazi had wormed their way in among the soldiers. Defensive formations were broken, their offensive charge had ground to a halt, and the soldiers were tired, he realized. How many hours had they been fighting?

Most of the day was gone. The Sea Gate lighthouse was still a distant beacon across a teeming field of deadly enemies. And Zendikar's army was faltering—dying.

And it was his fault.

Munda, the kor leader they called "The Spider," was a few yards off to his right, swinging the complex tangle of ropes that had earned him his nickname. Like Gideon, he had pushed too far ahead of the bulk of the Zendikari forces, and his strength was flagging.

Gideon cut a path to stand beside him. "Come on," he said.

Munda grunted.

"Back to the army," Gideon said. "We need to rally them."

Munda cast a glance over his shoulder at the army, at what had once been a coherent front line. "They need more than that," he said.

Despite his misgivings, Munda moved in step with Gideon, back to back. The two of them had often ventured out from the camp to hunt Eldrazi, and they fought well together. But more and more Eldrazi pressed themselves into the gaps left by the constant motion of their whirling weapons.

Art by Johannes Voss

"For Zendikar!" Gideon shouted as the ragged line of soldiers parted and enfolded him. The answering cry was heartfelt, no doubt, but it was weak. "To me!" he shouted, and the soldiers began the laborious work of coming back into some semblance of a formation.

"We're not going to win this," Munda said. "Not today."

Gideon's stomach lurched. Defeat was not an option he was ready to consider.

"Another day," Munda said. "If we live to see another day."

"Retreat," Gideon said, half to himself.

"Retreat!" a soldier near him shouted. It was a kor he'd seen before, a sentry from the camp. Blood ran from her forehead down past her eye, streaking her cheek like tears.

"Retreat!" Munda echoed, and the cry passed through the ranks.

Gideon felt it almost immediately: What had been a sense of forward momentum, almost a palpable pressure behind him, released, and in its place was a gentle pull as the rear of the army began to fall back.

"Retreat!" Gideon shouted, bracing himself to guard the rear of the retreating army.

Disciplined troops could maintain formation while moving away from the enemy, protecting themselves as they withdrew. For a few moments it seemed like Zendikar's army might be able to manage such a retreat. Munda stayed close beside him, helping him shield the troops at their backs.

But these were not disciplined troops, for the most part. They were tough, fierce, and determined, inured to the hardships of Zendikar and grown accustomed to the horrors of the Eldrazi. But they were tired, and the Eldrazi pursued them relentlessly.

And so many of them had died.

The ordered retreat turned into a rout. The sense of a tug at his back became a sucking vortex as the ranks behind him dissolved and scattered like dust.

"Hold the line!" Gideon shouted, and the pull diminished ever so slightly. The soldiers nearest to him slowed their retreat and closed formation, but it was too late for the rest. Zendikar's army—his army—was gone.

And that left Gideon, Munda, and a small handful of soldiers to hold back the Eldrazi, like the dam of Sea Gate itself holding back the waters of the Halimar Sea.

Somewhere far behind him, a horn was sounding a rallying call. It made no difference to him and the waves of Eldrazi crashing against him. But it gave him a direction, in the absence of an ordered host making their retreat. He kept the horn at his back and torturously made his way back into the hills above the city.

Eventually no more Eldrazi pursued them, and Gideon put his back to Sea Gate and rejoined what was left of his army. At the top of a rise, Tazri stood beneath a ragged banner amid a scattering of soldiers—she had sounded the horn. As Gideon crested the rise and looked around, he saw clusters of soldiers kindling campfires across the hillside below. As the sun touched the horizon, the army of Zendikar was coming back together.

Munda clapped him on the shoulder. "We made it in one piece, friend," the kor said.

"Well fought," Gideon said. "And I'm glad to see you, Tazri."

"That was a disaster, Commander-General," she said, her tone turning the title into an indictment of his failure.

Gideon frowned at her for a long moment while Munda held his breath.

"All right, then," he said at last. "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. "That's just it. You did nothing."

Gideon felt his face flush. "Nothing? I must have killed dozens. I saved—" His words caught in his throat. Dozens? Maybe. But not enough.

"You are a hero beyond compare, my friend," Munda said. "My own hooks took down—"

"But these people need a commander," Tazri said. "I did what I could. I tried. But they look to you."

"I led the charge," he protested, but his heart felt the weight of every death he had been unable to prevent.

"That's not the same thing. You led—led from the front, a sterling example for your troops." She scoffed. "And you expected your army to follow you in a headlong charge into the thick of the battle."

Gideon frowned at her. "Yes, I expect every soldier in this army to face battle with the rest of us. Nobody's just along for the ride."

"You expect every soldier in this army to be another one of you," she said, jabbing her finger at his chest. "Look at them! It's not a thousand Gideons down there."

"Fortunately," Munda interjected with a snort.

"Yes," Tazri said. "Yes. A thousand Gideons would be a force to be reckoned with, certainly. But what would they do against the flying Eldrazi? The ones in the sea?"

Gideon looked down at the army, at the contingents of merfolk and elves, with their harnessed sky eels and flying rays, at the vampires and goblins, at the kor kitesailers and hook-wielders, at the humans from every region of the world.

Art by Kieran Yanner

"A thousand Gideons, waving their whips in the air and shouting 'For Zendikar!' as they charge headlong into the foe. Maybe it could work, if they all shared your invulnerability. Maybe they could overcome the Eldrazi, even Ulamog himself, through sheer stubborn force. But that's not the army you have, Commander-General."

"You think I don't know that?" Gideon said, looming over her. "I watched them die. So many of them."

Tazri put both her hands on his chest and shoved him away, the gleaming halo around her neck flaring brighter. "And I watched them fight! We are Zendikari, Planeswalker. Every person here grew up in a world that seemed determined to kill us all, even before the Eldrazi came. Every race and culture of our world has come up with ways to fight, ways to deal with whatever threats the world throws at us. And few of them involve headlong charges into annihilation!"

Her words felt like a knife in his chest.

"You inspire these people," she said. "Vorik saw that. You inspired him, too. Even I've felt it. You trust people to be their best, and you make them want to live up to that. But you're not giving them a chance to do it."

Gideon threw up his hands. "I don't understand," he said. "What more do they need?"

Tazri wheeled back to face him. "A plan!" she said. "A strategy! They need to know how they fit into the army and the overall plan of attack. They need to know that if they do what they do best, they're going to help another part of the army do better. They know what they can do, but you have to figure out how it all fits together and explain it to them."

Gideon saw the anguish in her face, heard the confusion in her voice, and suddenly saw her in the midst of the disastrous battle, watching soldiers die and being powerless to help. And he realized that he hadn't just failed his army—he'd also failed his commanders.

"Walk with me, Tazri," he said. "Munda, you, too."

With two commanders at his side, Commander-General Gideon Jura strode down the hill into the camps of his army.

Over the next few days, a plan came together. Gideon met with every commander in the army, individually and as a group. He sparred with soldiers, learned what they could do, and rode on the back of a sky eel. Flying scouts—kor with their kitesails, elves and merfolk on their bizarre mounts, and vampires floating by means he didn't understand—brought him constant updates on the movements of the Eldrazi and the status of Sea Gate.

Now it was really time.

Before, he had been certain of victory, secure in his invulnerability and the raw enthusiasm of his army. Now he was confident. He had a plan—the army had a plan, and every soldier could see how each specific set of skills could help secure a victory. They were a single body, and every part knew its role. He knew the lay of the land and where the Eldrazi were most concentrated. Victory wasn't certain, of course, but he knew it was achievable. Every soldier knew it. They no longer fought in the desperate hope of survival, but with a plan for victory.

Another dawn broke golden over the sea to the east, and the first rays of sunlight gleamed on spears and helmets across the hillside. The troops were already arrayed in careful formation, ready to march at his command. When he saw the first reddish sliver rise over the horizon, he slashed his sural through the air and shouted, "For Zendikar!"

And somehow, even after the slaughter of the previous assault, even with so many soldiers fallen, the army of Zendikar managed an answering shout that rang in his ears.

They marched. The front lines were regimented, organized, marching in perfect rhythm to the beat of a merfolk's musical conch-shell drum. Behind them, Gideon knew, goblins scurried and shuffled, elves ranged back and forth with their bows, sky eels and flying rays swept the skies, and a very different group of merfolk, under Noyan Dar's command, lurched and contorted themselves in anticipation of working their bizarre roil magic. Order and rhythm mattered in the front, to these soldiers near him, but not to those others. Different drums for different marchers, he reminded himself.

As the host descended upon the first scattered groups of Eldrazi, Gideon shouted unneeded reminders and the army marched forward in ordered lines. Blades sang and sliced. Eldrazi fell. Injured soldiers drew back, and soldiers from the next rank took their places in the line. Most of the army held back, waiting until they were needed. It was too early for Gideon to commit his more mobile troops.

Gideon fought. He killed Eldrazi. He protected the soldiers near him when he could. He held the line so the Eldrazi could not break through. He had insisted, over Tazri's objections, on continuing to lead his army from the very front ranks. The compromise he had agreed to, though, was that he retreated, just a few ranks and only occasionally, to hear a report from a flying scout—to make sure he understood how the entire battle was unfolding.

One of those scouts, in the afternoon on the first day, brought an alarming report. She had spotted something in the ocean outside Sea Gate: what looked like an army—a fleet?—of monsters swimming toward the city. No Eldrazi, but serpents, sharks, giant octopi, and even a kraken or two all surged toward Sea Gate like a tidal wave. Gideon would have been concerned, but the scout added that they were leaving bits of aquatic Eldrazi floating in the water behind them like chum.

"Allies, then," Gideon said. "At least for now."

Art by Craig J Spearing

The army continued its steady advance, and the lighthouse of Sea Gate came back into view. The sight sparked an excited surge in the troops—Gideon felt the energy build like physical pressure at his back. He felt the excitement as well, but he fought the urge to break ranks and charge forward. Many hours of hard fighting still lay between the army and the walls of Sea Gate.

When a scout reported heavy losses on the right flank, Gideon directed more troops there, his orders carried through the host by horn signals. When he heard that a large swarm of flying Eldrazi was approaching from the direction of Halimar, the inland sea, he sent a contingent of eel-riders and archers there to fight them off. He sent goblin forces to fend off a skittering mob of smaller Eldrazi that would have distracted his stronger soldiers from greater threats.

The sun began to settle, blood red, into the western horizon, casting the battle against a stunning backdrop of color. Of course, the Eldrazi showed no signs of tiring, and the lengthening shadows didn't seem to impair them at all. Gideon gave an order, echoed on horns, and the front ranks of troops began a careful retreat.

Gideon realized that he was holding his breath, and he forced himself to let it out, to trust his troops. This was all part of the plan, and everyone knew it was coming. The ranks of human, kor, merfolk, and elf infantry fell back, and fresh troops advanced into their place—vampire troops.

Gideon could feel the tension in the retreating soldiers. Eldrazi in front, vampires behind, and their terrifying bloodchief, Drana, hovering overhead—it felt all too much like being trapped between two enemies. He knew, they all knew, that the vampires fought for Zendikar just as they did. But they also knew that the vampires fed on blood. And the whole army was hungry.

But the maneuver went off without incident. The vampires, well rested and unhindered by the darkness, surged forward and tore into the Eldrazi with terrible zeal. Evidently they were able to channel their hunger, their bloodlust, into ferocity in battle. Gideon, and the ranks of soldiers behind him, felt a surge of relief even as the exhaustion of the day's battle washed over them.

This was part of the plan where Tazri had overcome Gideon's objections: He rested, ate with the other commanders, and spent the evening discussing plans and strategies. It had been a successful day, and Gideon had to trust that the night would go equally well, even without him fighting on the front line. He even managed to sleep. But as soon as enough sunlight leaked into the eastern sky, he rejoined his troops in the front lines, inspiring the vampires to a fresh surge forward.

The wall of Sea Gate, built to protect the city from beasts and bandits, and largely ruined when the Eldrazi overran it, came into view on the second day. The land that divided the Halimar Sea from the ocean outside narrowed quickly until it met the huge white dam of Sea Gate and its crumbling wall. The Halimar side was a gentle slope down to a quiet beach; while cliffs on the other side stretched down to the churning ocean below. The narrowing land presented a unique challenge, exposing both of the army's flanks to attack from Eldrazi that swam or flew. It also descended sharply to the city entrance, making an ordered march difficult.

But the problem that commanded Gideon's attention had nothing to do with the terrain or even the Eldrazi. It was the enormous octopus that had half-climbed the cliff alongside the forces, lifting a gigantic tentacle up to them. More specifically, it was the merfolk who perched on top of the tentacle.

His soldiers were looking to him for orders, so he shoved his own bewilderment aside and strode to the cliff edge to meet this merfolk. She was striking: Her cerulean skin glistened with water, large fins striped with indigo rose up from her head like elaborately sculpted hair, and she wore an enormous blue sapphire mounted on her forehead in some sort of headdress or crown. And in one hand she gripped a weapon: a strange forked spear made from what looked like red coral, gracefully curved at the end into twin points. It seemed . . . oddly familiar, somehow.

"Well, look at this," she said with a smirk. "Have you brought an army to help me take the city?"

"To help—" Gideon stammered.

"I am Kiora," the merfolk said.

Art by Jason Chan

Gideon's gaze met Kiora's dark eyes. "Gideon Jura," he said. "Commander-general of this army. We have come to retake Sea Gate"—he quirked his mouth in a half-smile—"and are happy to accept your help."

She gave a harsh laugh and raised her spear. A wave swelled in the sea behind her, revealing the dark shapes of enormous sea creatures—the "fleet" Gideon's scout had told him about.

"And I am commander-general of this army," she said. "I am the Crashing Wave, the Master of the Depths. I have faced a true god—the false Eldrazi gods will not defeat me where Thassa failed."

"Thassa?" Gideon said, eyes wide. Of course, the bident. "You have been to Theros?"

Kiora winked at him—an unsettling gesture involving the closing of two separate lids on the same eye. "So I am happy to accept your help, Planeswalker."

The wave she had summoned crashed against the great white dam of Sea Gate. The ocean churned as sharks and whales, serpents and krakens, tore into the Eldrazi.

"The battle of Sea Gate has begun, Gideon Jura. Best hurry if you want to keep up."

The monstrous tentacle lowered Kiora back down to the ocean, and another enormous wave swelled in the sea beyond. A new surge of Eldrazi, perhaps trying to escape Kiora's waves, was coming at the army, and Gideon shouted orders. The merfolk Planeswalker's "army" was a force of chaos he couldn't direct, but he could adjust his own army's assault to make the best use of it. Horns sounded to spread his orders throughout the host, and he could feel a renewed energy rush through the soldiers around him.

Kiora's forces effectively covered his army's flank on one side, making the task of reaching the outer wall of Sea Gate easier—at least in theory. The greatest difficulty, though, was that Eldrazi were constantly streaming out of Sea Gate, wandering away in search of whatever passed for greener pastures in their minds, and the terrain channeled them directly into the path of Gideon's army. There could be no more skirting around the greatest concentrations of Eldrazi. They had to face the enemy head-on.

He felt the eagerness of his troops. With the walls of Sea Gate in view, they wanted to surge forward, to charge the enemy and sweep them from the land. He recognized the impulse, but held the front line to a slow and steady march. There would be no repeat of their first reckless charge.

Forward, ever forward—but so much more slowly. The Eldrazi were a rushing deluge streaming out from the city, and every forward step was hard-won.

When another night fell, Drana's vampires filled the front ranks again and tried to maintain their position, but their numbers were too small to hold back the flood. The force of Kiora's aquatic assault seemed to ebb with the night tide as well. The vampires were forced back and back until they reached the camps behind them, and weary soldiers were awakened in the middle of the night to hold the Eldrazi off in the darkness.

Art by Jama Jurabaey

The difficult night made for even slower progress the next day. But by the time the sun finished its descent, the army had reached the outer wall of Sea Gate. Cheers went up along the front lines as soldiers touched the stone, laying their hands upon the wall in acts of familiar reverence. For many of them, Sea Gate was home, and even for the rest, the wall represented a milestone on the road to victory.

A third of the wall was rubble, and another third was chalky dust, but at least it channeled the Eldrazi's movements somewhat. Taking up defensive positions—even if they were on the wrong side of the wall—helped the vampires hold the Eldrazi back through the night so the other soldiers could rest.

And on the next day, the fourth dawn since they began their march, the army of Zendikar surged through the wall and entered Sea Gate.

Suddenly, Gideon was fighting a different battle. Instead of the open terrain outside the walls, the two forces met in the streets of the city and fought in twisting alleys and small plazas. Like the outer wall, many of the buildings were at least partially destroyed, but even a shattered husk of a building broke line of sight and formed an obstacle in the army's path. A disciplined march was no longer possible.

That meant it was time to let other forces do what they did best. Elf rangers moved quickly and quietly from building to building, scouting ahead so individual squads of soldiers could advance through the city. Skulking goblins squeezed into narrow crevices to root out lurking Eldrazi—and even managed to rescue a few survivors who had been trapped in rubble or hiding in cellars since the fall of the city. Kitesailers and eel-riders dropped volatile alchemical concoctions into larger groups of Eldrazi, creating explosive bursts of consuming flame.

Gideon couldn't even measure whether they were advancing or retreating anymore. While squads of soldiers cleared and claimed one block of buildings, the Eldrazi circled around and attacked a different one behind them. Some soldiers had nearly reached the lighthouse, but others were still fighting Eldrazi back at the wall. He wasn't even sure what a retreat would look like, but the Eldrazi were everywhere and his soldiers simply couldn't be. He had to figure something out.

He paused for a moment, looking down at a gigantic Eldrazi squirming in its death throes, and felt the stone trembling under his feet.

"I need eyes!" he shouted. "What's coming?"

A merfolk on a huge eel dipped down near him. "Zendikar!" she cried. "Zendikar has come to fight with us!"

"What?"

"Trees and stones! The land rises up to destroy the Eldrazi!"

Gideon couldn't understand—until he saw the first elemental lumbering past. Its shape was like a giant beast, but its head looked like an ancient oak, with a gaping maw amid the roots, and its legs were massive tangles of wood and vines. Each step shook the stone, and it swept its head back and forth as it moved, throwing Eldrazi to the side.

Art by Vincent Proce

More elementals came into view, looming over buildings and lumbering down wide streets. They were wood and leaf, vine and branch, boulder and bedrock. And a few streets over, standing between two arched wooden horns atop a towering elemental, he saw an exultant elf, hands and eyes glowing green. Nissa had returned. And she had indeed brought Zendikar with her.

Noyan Dar's roilmages had chanted about the world's destructive power: "The world heaves! It shakes! It strives! It destroys or it dies!" And here the world was doing just that, not in the unpredictable and indiscriminate roil, but in the forces of nature embodied in animate forms, marching at Nissa's command.

Gideon could feel the tide turn. His soldiers were more inspired and excited than he had ever seen them. Zendikar was a harsh world, and most of these people had grown up with a sense that the world was trying to kill them. But now, in a very concrete sense, the world was fighting alongside them, killing their enemies. Crowds of soldiers were falling in behind the elementals, cheering them on and killing any Eldrazi that escaped the grip of roots and the bludgeoning of stone.

"Take me up!" he shouted to the merfolk, still hovering on her eel just overhead.

She lowered her eel closer, and Gideon clambered up, first to the roof of a nearby building and then onto the eel's saddle, perched behind the rider. Together they rose above the city, so Gideon could see all the parts of his army working together.

While he was working with the commanders to formulate the plan for the attack, he had often returned to the metaphor of a body, with all its parts working in concert. Now he could see the truth of it. The two forces—Zendikar's army, with its soldiers and sea monsters and elementals, and the swarms of Eldrazi—were locked together like two wrestlers. Each of them occupied about half the surface of Sea Gate's dam, with the lighthouse between them. The elementals had helped clear away the Eldrazi that had worked their way past the front lines, so the Zendikari had a solid grip on their half of the city.

And the Zendikari had the upper hand. They were going to win!

Art by Tyler Jacobson

At Gideon's command, the eel-rider let him down near the lighthouse. He shouted orders, and horns carried them throughout the host. Soldiers marched, kitesailers lifted into the air, scouts slipped among the buildings, and victory drew closer.

Beyond the lighthouse, the battle became gradually less intense. Instead of fighting upstream against a flood of Eldrazi leaving the city, the Zendikari were driving the Eldrazi before them out of the city at its other end. The creatures still fought; they seemed as intent as ever on turning the Zendikari into food or dust. But the Zendikari had momentum on their side now. When they paused for the night, Drana's vampire soldiers had little difficulty holding the Eldrazi back.

And it was barely noon on the next day when a quiet fell across the city. A moment later, a cheer went up near the wall and spread throughout the troops. His heart pounding, Gideon signaled for an aerial scout's report.

"Fighting has stopped, Commander-General Jura," the elf reported. "I can't see any more Eldrazi within the city walls."

Gideon needed to see for himself. "The top of the lighthouse," he said. "Can you get me there?"

The elf nodded, and Gideon climbed onto the back of the undulating flying ray. A moment later, he climbed through a window at the top of the lighthouse spire and looked out over Sea Gate.

The city was in ruins. Many buildings were dust and rubble, and the streets were littered with the bodies of the dead. The mighty dam itself had held, but he could see patches of dusty corruption here and there on the surface.

But Sea Gate was theirs. The army of Zendikar had reclaimed it from the Eldrazi. They had won.

A signaler joined him at the top of the tower and blew out his orders on her horn—two strong groups of soldiers gathered at either end of the dam, smaller patrols along the Halimar side to watch against Eldrazi coming from the waters, archers along the oceanside wall. They had claimed Sea Gate, but they still had to defend it.

Slowly, other commanders joined him, and eventually Nissa arrived as well—and then Kiora.

"I have some questions for you," he told the merfolk Planeswalker, grinning.

"I bet you do," she said.

Before he could ask them, he heard shouting in the city below. Afraid that the Eldrazi had made another incursion, he rushed to the window.

A merfolk in white coral armor that contrasted with her reddish skin was running at full tilt, heading for the lighthouse.

"Jori En?" he said.

She was shouting, but he couldn't make out her words. As she entered the lighthouse, he started down the stairs to meet her.

Then he finally heard her clearly: "Ulamog!"

They met in the middle of the stairway. Panting with exertion, she repeated her warning.

"Ulamog is coming!"

12

Hedron Alignment

By Kimberly J. Kreines

It was a trying battle, but with help and advice from trusted Zendikari advisors, Gideon led his army to a victory at Sea Gate. It took the talents of all of Zendikar's disparate forces: Drana and her legion of vampires, Noyan Dar and his roilmages, Tazri and her ground troops, the skyriders, the goblins, the kor, Nissa and her force of elementals, and Kiora, who showed up with a contingent of sea creatures just in time to turn the tide. Gideon learned a lot about both the Zendikari and himself as they battled for days side by side—things he hopes to use now as he leads the army toward what is to come next.

Kiora took the lighthouse stairs two at a time, climbing toward the chamber where she had learned that Gideon would be "leading a meeting of important Zendikari minds." Her lack of invitation was clearly an oversight. She marched in.

Art by Tyler Jacobson

Her entrance elicited a hush from the group inside. They were an odd bunch, even by Zendikari standards: an elf, a human, a kor, and a vampire. They stared at her, or rather glared, annoyed at the interruption.

Gideon was the only one grinning. "I have some questions for you."

"I bet you do." And she had some directives for him. She had come here with a purpose. When she had arrived at Sea Gate, she had challenged Gideon to keep up with her in battle, and he had—for the most part. Perhaps he wasn't as appalling an ally as she had first thought. She had come here to see if he could be useful in what was about to come.

"First, I'd like you to meet my trusted advisors." Gideon pointed to each Zendikari in turn. "Drana, Tazri, Nissa, and Mun—" But he never finished introducing the kor. The door banged open. Kiora spun, instinctively raising her bident.

"Ulamog!" An armored merfolk stood in the doorway, panting. "Ulamog is coming!"

For a breath, the room was silent. Kiora's mind reeled. Could it really be that easy? She'd thought they were going to have to track down the titan. But if he was coming this way, right to her, then this was it. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. She thrust her bident in the air. "Yes!"

"No!" Gideon pushed past her, his thick arm jostling her weapon.

"It's true," the merfolk gasped, out of breath, her gills sucking uselessly.

"How far? How long?" Kiora shouldered Gideon aside. If he was going to push, then she'd push back. "Where did you see him?"

"We were this close." The merfolk gestured to indicate the distance between herself and Kiora as though to say she was face to face with Ulamog. An exaggeration. Kiora looked her up and down. If this merfolk had really been that close to the titan, she wouldn't be standing here now to tell the tale.

"Jori, where?" Gideon asked.

"Back in..." The merfolk, Jori's, voice trailed off. "It was...he was headed this way, and then Jace..."

"Jace! Where is he?" Gideon glanced around as though expecting to see this Jace materialize.

"He's..." Jori dropped her gaze. "He..."

Gideon slumped. "I'm sorry he left you. Just because we can doesn't mean—"

"He didn't leave," Jori said. "He didn't do that thing, that plane-walk thing you all do. We escaped together."

Ah, now that made more sense. The merfolk had a Planeswalker to help her out. Still, Kiora thought, the proximity to Ulamog had to be an exaggeration. No one could get that close to the titan and survive. Not unless they were prepared. She gripped the god's bident. Come on, Ula.

"The hedrons, then?" Gideon asked. "Did Jace solve the puzzle?"

"I don't know," Jori said. "We were still a ways from the Eye when it happened. He went ahead, but used his mind mystique to force me to turn around. I thought we should stay together, but someone had to warn you. He was right about that."

"A titan on the way." The kor shook his head. "What do we do?" He nodded to the seawall out the window, thick with celebrating Zendikari. "What do we do with them?"

"Evacuate." Tazri, the human with a glowing halo around her neck, spoke firmly, like she was in charge.

No, Kiora thought. We—

"Plan an assault," Drana, the vampire, said.

Exactly.

"Absolutely not," Tazri said. "An assault would be suicide."

"An assault is the only reason I'm here," Drana said. "I didn't bring my legion all this way just to retreat."

Kiora could come to appreciate this vampire.

"I agree," Nissa, the elf with the glowing green eyes, spoke up. "We cannot run away. We fought too hard for this. Zendikar fought too hard for this."

"We fought for a stronghold, a place to fortify, not a place to die," Tazri countered. She turned to Jori. "If the threat is real, we can't stay."

"The threat is real," Jori confirmed.

"Then we have no choice." Tazri turned to Gideon. "Commander-General, do we have the order to evacuate?"

Gideon hesitated just for a moment, but a moment was all Kiora needed. "Evacuation isn't an option." She stepped in. "There's nowhere left to evacuate to. It's time to fight back!" She raised her bident. "I'll lead the offensive."

"Impressive." The vampire clapped. "I think I just might join you."

"This is mutiny!" Tazri stepped between Drana and Kiora. "Now is not the time to divide our forces. We stick to the plan and we stay together. When we know if we can use the hedrons—"

"We don't need the hedrons." Kiora said. "We have this." She twirled her bident, smiling.

"What is it?" Jori asked.

"Only the most powerful artifact on all of Zendikar—you're welcome. More powerful than the hedrons." She eyed Tazri. "Those rocks have been here forever, and I haven't seen them do anything to stop the Eldrazi. This, on the other hand, this is new. Watch." She swept the bident outward, calling the tide, and as she swept it in again, a perfectly aimed wave from the sea rose up and shot straight through the window without so much as brushing the frame. It rained down on those in the room.

Art by Ryan Yee

"Wow." Jori stared reverently at Kiora and the bident.

Kiora winked. "Told you."

"We don't have time for this." Tazri sputtered, wiping salty seawater from her face. "Commander-General, we have to—"

"Slay the titan!" Kiora lifted her bident and her voice. She looked to the others. "This is our chance. This is our moment. Look what we did out there." She thrust the bident at the window. "If we can overcome a massive Eldrazi swarm, we can slay the titan."

"I like the plan," Drana said. "Or rather the inkling of an idea that we can construct a proper plan around."

Kiora's stomach fluttered. Yes. She didn't care about the technicalities, the vampire was on her side.

"We'll have the power of the whole sea behind us," Jori said, nodding at the bident. "I think we have a chance."

Kiora stood up straighter. Yes.

"The power of the sea is mighty, but it will take more than that," Nissa said. "I will bring the land to aid. If we work together, I believe we can do this."

This was it! Finally Kiora had found people who wouldn't back down. "So who's with me?" She cried. "Who's ready to put an end to Ulamog once and for all?"

Cheers rose up in the little lighthouse room.

"I will not allow you to do this," Tazri barked.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not your decision to make," Drana said. She looked to Gideon "I believe it is yours, Commander-General."

Kiora followed her gaze. This was the moment of truth. Was Gideon the ally she hoped he would be?

They were all looking at him. Every one of them. As they should be. Gideon was the Commander-General. And as Commander-General, it was to him to give the order. And that's what he would do.

In a moment.

Maybe two.

He had to think. He had to work out the best course of action. There had to be a best course of action.

Art by David Rapoza

"Do we have the order to evacuate?" Tazri prompted.

"I heard you the first time, Tazri." Gideon didn't mean to snap. He cleared his throat. "I just need a moment." Both Tazri and Kiora opened their mouths, but Gideon cut them off. "A silent moment."

There was grumbling behind him as Gideon turned away from them, but he ignored it. He strode to the window and looked out, shielding his eyes from the glaring sun. The horizon was a flat line. There was no sign of the horror that Jori had promised was coming. But he believed her; he had heard the rumors, the titan moved slowly. Slowly enough that Jace could get here first with the secret to using the hedrons? There was no way to know.

Without the hedrons, they needed something else, another advantage that would tilt the scales in their favor. He thought of Kiora and the god's bident. A powerful weapon, to be sure. But one weapon and one mage—a flash behind his eyes and he was staring at the fallen Irregulars.

Art by Winona Nelson

He blinked, forcing the image away. He had learned that lesson long ago.

Gideon sighed, looking down at the Zendikari gathered on the seawall. Their presence here, all together like this, was most likely the reason that the titan was headed this way. The Eldrazi could not resist the siren-like call of so much life. They were sitting bait.

No! He pounded his fists on the window ledge. He had learned that lesson too. These people were not helpless. Far from it. They were strong. They were brave. They were capable. They were his army.

They had come together from all across Zendikar. They who had put aside their differences—more, they had learned to use their differences as assets. And they had overcome a horde of Eldrazi so thick that it would take weeks, if not months, to burn all the alien corpses.

They were a fighting force the likes of which Zendikar had never seen before and most likely would never see again. That was a lot. That was more than a lot. That was...Gideon smiled to himself; it might just be the advantage that they needed.

He turned to face the others, and he gave his orders. "We do not evacuate. We stay and we fight. And we kill the titan."

Tazri gasped.

"Ha!" Kiora lifted her bident. "Yes!"

"Bravo." Drana clapped.

"Nissa," Gideon said, launching into the details of his plan even as he worked it out. "You will lead two land contingents. And by land, I mean, you know, the actual land. The dirt and rock and all that." Gideon mimicked the striding movement of one of Nissa's elementals. "Bring one force in from each side of the seawall."

Nissa nodded.

"Kiora," Gideon continued, "you will coordinate a sea attack."

"Of course I will. I don't need you to—" A knock at the door interrupted Kiora's insubordination—lucky for her.

It was Ebi, one of the sentries Gideon had stationed around Sea Gate. At the sight of the kor's face peering in the door, Gideon's chest constricted. He feared that Ebi was coming to tell him the sentries had seen Ulamog. Not yet; they needed more time.

"I think I found something you've been looking for, Commander-General." Ebi waved behind him, and Gideon caught a glimpse of something blue moving on the other side of the door—something blue he recognized...

"Jace!" Gideon could breathe again.

The mind mage stepped across the threshold. "Look who has been practicing his powers of prediction."

Gideon closed the distance and embraced the smaller man, slapping him on the shoulder. Jace was always so tense. He smiled at Ebi. "Thank you."

"Sir." Ebi nodded.

"And the perimeter?" Gideon hedged, pressing his luck.

"Secure," Ebi said.

"Good." Gideon let out a breath. Good. They would have a little more time.

Ebi shifted, seeming to sense the tension in the room. "I'll be going back to my post then."

"Thank you, Ebi."

As the kor sentry closed the door behind him, Gideon turned back to Jace. He had been looking for one advantage, and now he had two. The odds were shifting in their favor; this battle was now theirs to lose. "The hedrons," he said. "The Eye. Tell me everything."

Everything was so much better than Jace had imagined it would be. He had predicted he was going to have to help Gideon assemble the army, find the most advantageous location, and amass the hedrons to build the prison—the prison that he still believed could be transformed into a deadly weapon regardless of what Ugin had said. But here it was, all laid out before him: a formidable army, a workable location, and more than half the hedrons he would need, floating out there above the sea. Now he merely had to move the pieces into place...carefully.

Art by Craig J Spearing

He didn't have to read any of the minds in the small room to know that there was an excessive amount of tension. Jori was here, looking ragged and a little worse for wear, which presumably meant she had only recently arrived and thus almost certainly just delivered the news about Ulamog. So it followed that the glares and aggressive stances indicated that those in the room were not in agreement about what to do concerning the titan's approach.

Nissa looked ready to fight, as did the merfolk who Jace didn't know, and the vampire. But Tazri and the kor seemed less convinced, and Jace couldn't tell yet where Jori stood. It was to him, then, to get them all on the same page; he needed everyone behind him if he hoped to execute successfully. A meeting of minds, if not coerced or nudged magically, which he would have to seriously consider if it came to that, could be achieved by weaving the correct and most alluring narrative. It was all about information deployment. "You reclaimed Sea Gate," he said, smiling. "Impressive." And a little about stoking egos.

"I had a whole army—" Gideon started.

But the second merfolk, the one Jace did not know, cut Gideon off. "It was nothing."

The kor and Tazri cast sidelong scowls at the merfolk. So she was the wild card then. Good to know.

"It was a lot more than nothing for a lot of people," Gideon said. He was looking at Jace, but addressing the room at large. "Every soldier who battled for Sea Gate gave it their all. And many were lost in the pursuit." He paused for a moment and both the human and kor bowed their heads reverently; the merfolk wild card did not. "But we came out victorious. We secured this city." He shook his head. "And then we heard the news. So now we're readjusting the plan. An all-out assault on the titan. An assault that has a much higher likelihood of success now that you're here. The hedrons," Gideon pressed. "How can we harness their power?"

"The hedrons." Jace exhaled. This was where it got slightly tricky.

"We don't need the hedrons. I have a bident and an army of sea creatures," the wild-card merfolk said.

Jace ignored her and focused on information deployment. "The scholars here at Sea Gate were on the right track when working toward harnessing the hedrons' power to wield against the Eldrazi. But it's not individual hedrons we need, we—"

"What we need is to get moving," the merfolk interrupted, waving her annoyingly long seafood fork. "I'll lead the charge. If you'd all just follow me, we could be halfway through killing Ulamog by now."

"That would be extremely ill-advised," Jace said. "If you run out haphazardly, you'll be the ones who end up being killed."

The merfolk leaned in. "No offense, Jace is it? But your mystique and mental tricks aren't going to work on me. My mind is my own, and I know what I'm doing."

"If I wanted to use mental—" Jace stopped himself. Letting his temper get the best of him would not serve him well right now. "I have no intention of using my mystique on you or anyone here..."

"Kiora," the merfolk supplied. "Remember that name. Soon, all of Zendikar will know it."

"Kiora," Jace said. Delusional. She was completely delusional. Careful. Fine, he would be careful, but he still had to get his point across. "Am I to assume you've had previous occasion to use that weapon to destroy something of this scale?"

"You can't imagine the things this weapon has been used to do." Kiora twirled the bident.

"And you've been the one to use it to do those things?" Jace pressed. He knew evasion when he heard it.

"I wield it now, that's all that matters." Kiora shifted. Not uncomfortably, but restlessly. "And I'm ready for the attack. Come on." She waved to the others.

"Listen," Jace said to the room at large. "The titan that we're dealing with is an incomprehensible being, wielding forces the rest of us can only tangentially perceive. It's threatening the very existence of this world. In order to stop it, we're going to have to use a lot more than just one physical weapon—no matter how powerful. I'll need everyone in here and everyone out there," he waved toward the Zendikari out the window, "to help build and execute the trap I intend to—"

"Trap?" Nissa, who had been hanging back, stood up straight. Her ears tilted and her glowing green eyes pierced Jace. "You said trap."

"I did." Jace nodded. "One hedron alone isn't enough, but a complex network of hedrons can be aligned to bind the titan so it can't cause any more destruction. Once we trap it—"

"No." Nissa pounded her staff into the ground.

Art by Cynthia Sheppard

Oh, good. More antagonism. Jace was on a roll.

"We do not trap it," Nissa's voice resonated with power. "The titans have been trapped here for too long. The world has been in pain for too long."

"The trap wouldn't be permanent," Jace said. Why hadn't he started with that? "Once we trap it, we'll figure out how to destroy it. I have some ideas—"

"As I said, I already know how to kill the titan." Kiora brandished her bident and strode to the window. "Coming?" She looked to Nissa. What did she plan to do, jump out?

Nissa nodded. "Zendikar and I will battle alongside you."

"Uh, sure, Zendikar. Great. Anyone else?" Kiora blinked at the room with four eyelids.

"I go where the battle is," the vampire said.

"Enough!" Gideon stepped up. "I gave my orders, and—"

"And we're following them," Kiora said. "For the most part." She winked, taking hold of the window ledge; she really was going to jump out.

"I order you to stand down," Gideon said. "All of you."

"You can't just go out there and launch your own attack," the kor chimed in.

"Why not?" Kiora asked.

"Because," Jace blurted, "any assault on the titan that does not destroy it runs the risk of driving it off of Zendikar entirely and onto another world."

"Sounds good to me. I say, 'Good riddance.'" Kiora extended her arm out the window and the thick tentacle of an octopus rose up to meet her. "Coming?" She signaled Nissa.

But Nissa hesitated, looking to Jace. "Onto another world?"

"Yes." Jace nodded solemnly. "And we won't know which one." He glanced to Kiora. "But wherever it goes, it will ravage that world, too. The people and the land will be destroyed. And once it has finished, it will find yet another plane. It will do this again and again for eternity. Unless it ends here."

"And it will." Kiora slid onto the tentacle.

Please. Jace reached out to Kiora's mind. You don't want to do this.

Both Kiora and Gideon moved so fast that Jace didn't realize what was happening until he was on the floor, pushed by Gideon's thick arm, and Gideon was deflecting the strike of Kiora's bident meant for Jace.

"And you don't want to do that," Kiora spat. "Ever again." The tentacle lowered out the window, taking the wild-card merfolk with it.

Art by Jason Chan

"We have to stop her," Jace scrambled to his feet. "We have to—"

"No." Gideon stepped in front of the window. "We are wasting time that we can't afford to waste. The titan is approaching, and we must prepare. We will build the trap, and once we have secured our target, we will launch our offensive as planned. We both trap it and destroy it. Any questions?" Standing in the middle of the room, Gideon seemed to fill it, leaving no room for debate.

"Good. We must act quickly. Jace, my army is at your disposal, use them as you need to build the trap. Nissa, accompany Jace, assist him in any way you can. Munda, Jori, see to the patrols. We will need more sentries. The titan will not be traveling alone, and we must ensure that our perimeter is secure. And that means from a certain merfolk as well. Don't allow Kiora to interfere with what we're about to do. General Tazri, Drana, you will come with me to speak to the army. We need to ready our troops."

"Yes, sir." The sentiment was echoed around the room, and Jace didn't realize he had said it until he heard his own voice in the mix. It surprised him. Gideon surprised him. The Planeswalker had grown quite a bit as a leader since Jace had left him at Sky Rock. That was good. They would need a strong leader for what they were about to do.

As the others filed out, Jace turned to Nissa. "I'm glad you stayed."

She made no attempt to respond.

All right, so it was all business then. Jace could do that. "So I hear you can move the land."

Hours later, Nissa reached into the land, feeling out yet another buried hedron. She gently coaxed the earth down to push the rock upward. Even though she couldn't see the hedron, she knew where it was, she knew precisely what space within Zendikar it occupied. And even though she couldn't see the titan, she knew he was there. During the course of the night, while they had worked to assemble Jace's trap, Nissa had sensed Ulamog move into the bay at Sea Gate. He was coming toward them through the water. And when the sun rose, they would all be able to see him, towering over them. Just waiting to be destroyed.

Art by Lius Lasahido

She looked to Ashaya, her elemental, her closest friend, and Zendikar's soul. "It's almost time."

Ashaya's resolve flooded through Nissa, as together they pried the hedron out of the ground and rested it on one of its long, angular sides.

Nissa paced around the immense rock, running her hand over its surface. She was looking for cracks, blemishes, or chips. But just like all the others they had excavated that night, it had been perfectly preserved. These hedrons were not only powerful, they were powerfully built. Robust enough to withstand the channeling of the full might of this world, Jace had assured her of that.

And if somehow he was wrong, or if the hedrons failed, then Nissa would be ready.

Zendikar would be ready as well. Ashaya rested her enormous hand on Nissa's shoulder.

Nissa looked up into her elemental's familiar wooden facade. "You know I would not allow the titan to be trapped here again if there was any other way." She paused. "Or if I had any doubt."

Ashaya knew. Zendikar understood.

Unspoken between them was a second part of that understanding: Both Nissa and Zendikar wanted this to end here and now, and they wanted to be the ones to end it. They did not want to chase the titan away; they wanted to face it.

The land swelled with a hunger that would not be sated unless it was given the chance to confront its enemy, to fight, and to destroy it. Zendikar was more powerful than the monster that plagued it, and today the world would prove its strength.

Art by Raymond Swanland

Nissa exhaled. "Let's finish what we started."

Together they moved the hedron to the edge of the bluff where Gideon and Jace stood with a team of kor and an inordinate amount of rope.

"Good, good. Bring it in here." Gideon directed Nissa and Ashaya between two lines of rope. "Get it tied up and secure," he instructed the kor.

"This one is going to slide in right between these two." Jace was talking to Munda, pointing at a glowing blue illusion that hung in the air before them. The illusion was a scale model of the hedron ring that was being constructed out over the water. Nissa didn't understand why the mind-mage Planeswalker insisted on trusting this synthetic entity of his own creation, one with so many possibilities for inaccuracies, when the genuine ring was right there in front of him. With his head bent over the illusion, Jace was missing the magnificent sight.

"It really is beautiful," Nissa whispered up to Ashaya. The elemental agreed.

The hedrons had begun to glow when the first two had been linked. Now the runes carved into the surfaces of the rocks shimmered with power in a connected pattern that elicited memories of the first time Nissa had received visions from Zendikar.

This was not the only way in which this night had come to feel like a culmination for Nissa. It was as though everything she had been doing her whole life, all that she had worked for, had led to this. She had made a vow long ago, a promise to Zendikar, and this was her chance to make good on her words.

"Steady...steady!" Munda's sharp call drew Nissa's attention. "Release the counterweight."

Nissa and Ashaya watched as a team of four kor and humans, who were stationed on a nearby floating rock, lowered a thick slab that was attached via a pulley system to the hedron. As the counterweight descended, the hedron rose toward the ring.

"Careful now—that's good," Gideon paced on the bluff. Nissa could sense his disquiet; he wanted to be out there pulling, lifting, pushing—he wanted to be out there doing everything, always. She smiled; she was grateful that Gideon had come to Zendikar.

Art by Dan Scott

"All right." Gideon signaled to a third team of kor who lined the seawall. "Gate team, pull!"

The team heaved and the hedron drifted horizontally through the air. It looked like a dark cloud, though Nissa could hear the creaking of the ropes and pulleys that supported it. Here and there were flashes of light, spells to help prod the massive rock into place.

Jace glanced between his illusion and reality, constantly checking to see if the hedron was in place. Nissa didn't need to see the illusion; she knew when it was right. "There it is," she whispered to Ashaya.

"There it is!" Jace's cry echoed her words.

"And—halt it there!" Gideon shouted.

This part of the process worked seamlessly now; the first time they had done it, it had taken some coaxing and a lot of back and forth. But now the three teams knew exactly what to do. They pulled and tightened their ropes in opposite directions, slowing the hedron to a gentle stop. When it reached the perfect alignment, it let them know, all but snapping into place.

Gideon eyed Jace. "How does it look?"

"Perfect," Nissa said under her breath.

Jace studied his illusion for a bit longer. "Placement's good. Altitude's good. I'd say it's good."

"Told you," Nissa smiled up at Ashaya.

"Good," Gideon said. "First team, prepare your lines for the final move." He turned to Nissa. "We only need one more."

"And you'll have it." She reached out into the land, feeling around the pockmarked bluff for another hedron. It was possible that they would have to go out to the next cliffside—

"Eyes on! Eyes on!" The sudden outburst came from the trees ahead. Nissa started, reaching for her blade as one of the airborne sentries, an elf rider mounted on a manta, flew in.

Art by Dan Scott

"Seble!" Gideon called up, his sural already drawn. "What is it?"

"Movement in the trees that way!" Seble called down. "My guess is some spawn."

"Take another pass," Gideon said. "I need to know how many and how big." He looked to Nissa.

She nodded, gripping the hilt of her sword. She was ready to move in. With the approach of the titan, they all knew there would be more spawn; it was only a matter of time before one breached their borders. Nissa kept her eyes on the circling elf, watching her reaction.

Seble came back around, shaking her head. "I think it was a false alarm," she called down.

"If you heard it, it was out there," Gideon said. "I trust you. One more pass." He gestured with his finger in a circle.

Seble took one more lap, but Nissa knew what the elf would say as she came back around.

"Negative," she called down. "There's nothing out there but a bunch of charred ground. Looks like it might have been an old camp or something. No sign of spawn or corruption."

"All right. Circle up with the other sentries. I want a full perimeter check," Gideon called up. "And call in another skyrider."

"Will do." Seble turned to fly out, but suddenly she cried out and reined her manta back.

Nissa instinctively fell into a defensive battle stance.

"What do you see?" Gideon called up. "Where is it?"

Wordlessly, Seble pointed ahead.

Nissa followed the elf's finger. And that's when she saw the titan.

Ulamog, the bringer of destruction.

Art by Michael Komarck

The first hint of light had dawned over the horizon, illuminating the Eldrazi's towering form.

In that moment, Nissa almost jumped out onto the nearest floating rock, swung from the vine that dangled not too far beyond that, and launched herself straight at the titan. She had her sword, she had the might of her hatred, and now she had an opening.

But she stopped herself. Zendikar had paid the price for her recklessness once before. This titan was out here ravaging the land because she had released it from its bonds. This world and these people had been slaughtered because she had acted rashly. She would not let that happen again. This time she would do things the right way. Trap him first and then destroy him.

She steadied her breathing and forced herself to sheath her sword. The time would come. She looked to Ashaya. "We need another hedron."

It was as difficult for the elemental to turn away from the titan as it was for Nissa, but Ashaya did turn, and she strode down the craggy rock. Nissa kept pace at the elemental's side, reaching out into the land as she went, searching for the final piece of Jace's puzzle.

Jace liked to think that every puzzle had more than one solution. It was limiting to believe otherwise, and naive to assume that a puzzle's creator could have accounted for every possible solution and then eliminated every path to each of those solutions except one. Yet, he had not found so much as the hint of even one more solution to the puzzle before him; so far as he could tell, there was only one way to trap Ulamog. Jace was unaccustomed to working without contingency plans. It made him antsy.

Every shout from a sentry had Jace on edge, scanning the water for Kiora and her army of sea creatures—yet another variable he had not had time to adequately account for. But fortunately each shout proved to be nothing more than an alert to Tazri and her defense squad of another wave of approaching spawn. Jace half laughed to himself; he had just considered a wave of spawn a fortunate occurrence.

He fiddled with the three-dimensional illusion diagram that floated in front of him, keeping his head down, averting his gaze from reality. He knew what was there. He had seen it once. And the stale air, the crashing waves, and the sounds of gnashing tentacles were enough to confirm that the titan was no more than a stone's throw away from where Jace stood on a floating rock. There was no reason to look up.

Besides, there was a miniature version of Ulamog right there in his hands. He had made an illusion of the titan to go with the illusion of the hedron ring. He advanced his Ulamog forward, illusory bifurcated arms flailing, through the opening in the hedron ring. Once the titan was inside, Jace moved the little kor, humans, and elves to pull on the ropes and swing the hedron door into place. The door was made of three linked hedrons that were effectively hinged to one side of the opening in the ring. All the tiny people had to do was guide the door into place so that it would close the ring. When they did that—as he made them do now—the ring of hedrons flared to life with a bright blue light and the titan was trapped inside.

Good.

Again.

Jace wiped the illusion away and made a new one. This time he brought Ulamog in at an angle, creating a modest challenge. The miniature people had to spin the ring so the door was aligned with the titan's path.

Good.

Again.

This time he increased the speed of the titan, something that wasn't a probable occurrence in reality, but he had to account for what variables he could.

Good.

Again.

He half-heartedly doubled the size of the titan. They'd have to widen the door.

Jace sighed. This was absurd. It would never happen in reality. His exercise was becoming pointless. He had run it a dozen times, more. The alternative? Looking up. But looking up meant looking at the very real and very life-size version of his illusion. Looking up meant seeing the real faces of the little glowing figures. One of the elves was Nissa. One of the merfolk was Jori En. And standing on a floating rock in front of the hedron ring would be another figure, one that Jace hadn't incorporated into his simulation because that figure had no bearing on whether or not the ring would be completed successfully. That figure was merely there to, in his own words, "stand between Sea Gate and the titan in case something goes wrong." That figure was Gideon.

Art by Eric Deschamps

Jace looked up.

There he was, standing alone in front of Zendikar's last civilization, the brazen combat mage who had come to Ravnica near death to beseech Jace for help. Another time, another place. Jace couldn't have predicted this outcome when he had dropped Liliana's rose on the street and followed the sweating, bleeding man. Now here they were, about to attempt a stunt that had previously taken three extremely powerful Planeswalkers decades to accomplish.

And yet, Jace thought they could do it.

The titan was there, the ring was assembled, and...Jace looked from Gideon back to the hedrons just in time to see the Zendikari make some last-second adjustments to the positioning of the door as Ulamog lurched through.

A cheer rose up from the rope teams stationed around the hedrons.

It was almost too easy—almost.

"Hold it steady!" Gideon's deep voice boomed above the cheers. He lashed his sural at one of Ulamog's tentacles, sending it back inside the ring. The entirety of the titan's front half and most of its tentacles had moved inside the trap, but the bony plates on its back had not yet crossed the threshold. Just a little farther.

All around the titan were masses of scions and spawn of its brood. They moved faster than their sire and had descended on Sea Gate first. But Gideon's army had been there to head them off, and the Zendikari forces were still staunchly battling now. The fortified seawall remained untouched. Jace had to admit that he was impressed by the force Gideon had assembled. And he was impressed by the Zendikari themselves. None of them had chosen to evacuate even after seeing Ulamog on the horizon, not one.

Art by Karl Kopinski

They were a capable army, and Gideon was an adept leader. Which didn't mean that he wasn't also a fool. Nothing but a foolhardy notion could have precipitated his decision to stand there on that rock mere feet from the titan's bony faceplate.

"In! He's in!" The cry was audible even above the cacophony of crashing waves, snapping bones, and slicing weapons.

Jace confirmed the assertion; yes, the titan had moved into place.

"Let's close it up!" Munda, the kor who often fought at Gideon's side, was the one who had shouted the order. "Hatch team, heave!"

The team, which included Nissa and Jori, pulled on their ropes and cast their spells, easing the hedron door into place. But it moved so slowly!

Jace's hands fluttered around his illusion, flicking the illusory door closed and open, closed and open. Each time the ring lit up and the miniature Ulamog was trapped. "Come on. Come on."

He looked to Gideon, who was now face to face with the titan. What did the other man expect to accomplish up there? He had to know that he wouldn't be able to stop Ulamog alone. If the plan failed, if the trap didn't work, then Gideon would just be the first of the army to be reduced to dust.

Ulamog lurched closer, bifurcated arms thrashing, reaching toward Gideon. Gideon wielded his sural, slashing one knobby blue arm back and then another. He did not once step back; rather he moved forward on the rock, closer to the titan. What must he be thinking right now, staring straight at Ulamog's blank faceplate, seeing the monster that didn't see him? What must that feel like? Jace was not at all tempted to actually find out.

Unable to watch any longer, he traced the line of hedrons back around to the door. The team had almost completed the ring. Finally! He compared it to his illusion. Just a few more inches...

"Yes! There!" Nissa cried from her position dangling from a hanging vine.

Her declaration surprised Jace. Was she right? He glanced between the illusion and the actual ring, studying the two, comparing the placement. It appeared the elf was correct. But without the diagram, how...

"Jace!" Gideon called. "Are we good?" His voice wasn't at all strained, an auditory contradiction to the strain on his face as he pushed against Ulamog's bony chin extension. "Can they lock it in?"

Right. They were supposed to wait for Jace to tell them the assembly matched the diagram. "Yes! That's it. Lock it in!"

"Lock it in!" Munda echoed Jace's call.

In response, three kor rappelled down the side of the hedron that had temporarily acted as a doorframe and secured the final connection. As the kor cinched their ropes into place, Nissa provided a spell to nudge the hedron into perfect alignment, and...Jace held his breath. The light. Where was the light?

The ring didn't flare to life like it was supposed to.

And the titan wasn't contained within its bounds.

Gideon ducked under another of Ulamog's swinging tentacles. "Are we there yet?"

"Why isn't it glowing?" Munda called.

Jace blinked down to the simulation still floating above his palm. He opened and closed the illusory door. His ring glowed. He looked between the illusion and the real ring. Why wasn't it glowing? He bounced on the balls of his feet. What was he missing?

"Something is out of place!" Nissa called down to him. She was running her hands along the hedron closest to her. She pressed her cheek to the side of the massive rock. "There's a misalignment."

Was she right? Based on her demonstrated capabilities, which Jace admittedly did not fully understand, should he just assume she was right? At the very least, he should eliminate her possibility before moving on. He had nothing better to go on. His eyes tracked from his diagram to the ring, marking off one hedron at a time. Yes...yes...yes...Each one was where it was supposed to be—and yet.

"I think it's coming from over there!" Nissa pointed toward the hedrons nearest Sea Gate.

How did—Jace twisted the illusion around 90 degrees. What did she see that he didn't? He had done all the calculations. He had measured the alignment.

"Jace!" Gideon cried. "What can you tell me?" The massive man bobbed under Ulamog's arm and slashed at the titan's bony chest plate.

Jace ran his hand through his hair. This was on him. Gideon's life. The fate of Zendikar. This was the puzzle he had come here to solve, but he didn't have the solution. He had no idea which hedron it was, or if it even was a hedron that was out of place. He sent the illusion spinning. And Nissa caught it as she landed on the floating rock next to him.

"What—" Jace staggered back.

"I can tell it is coming from that side," she said. She had to yell above the sounds of water and war even though they were standing right next to each other. "I cannot tell which one it is, though, not from this distance. I would have to see the whole assembly at once, all of the connections. I would have to go up there onto the bluff, but—"

"There's no time for that," Jace finished for her.

"Correct." Nissa's glowing green eyes bored into him. "But I think there is another way. A more expedient way." She pointed to the illusion. "This synthetic energy diagram will allow us to see."

"What do you mean?"

"How confident are you that there are no inaccuracies?"

"In my illusion?"

"May I see it?" She touched her head. "From in here."

Was she inviting him into her mind?

A cry from over her shoulder, and Jace glanced up in time to see a kor struck by one of Ulamog's rear tentacles and sent plummeting.

Nissa didn't turn around. She rested her hand on Jace's shoulder, drawing his gaze back to her magnetic eyes. "If there is a way to identify the misalignment, we must act quickly. If you do not allow me to do this, then I will have no choice but to confront the titan and attempt to destroy him without the trap. I don't want to have do that."

Jace shook his head. "And I don't want you to have to do that either."

"Then we agree," Nissa said.

All right then. Into the elf's mind. Jace exhaled and looked into Nissa's wild, green eyes...and then out of them.

It was as though the whole world was afire—if fire was green. At first Jace thought the hedron ring had finally lit up, but then he realized that it wasn't the circle itself that was glowing. It was the web of leylines that ran between each pair of hedrons. The lines crisscrossed in an intricate pattern too complex to reduce to a simple equation—or to an equation at all...

The pattern lit up the space above the sea, but the hedrons were not the only things that were glowing, far from it. Everything. Everything was connected to something else by a line of power. The Zendikari holding the ropes, Gideon widening his stance before the titan, the skyrider's manta beating its wings overhead, the tree to his right, the rock at his feet. There was too much to process, too much to parse.

Jace's mind spun. He lost his grip and began to fall out of Nissa's mind. He tried to hold on, but how was he supposed to know what to hold on to?

Hold on here. It was Nissa's voice, and with it came what felt like a cradle of support. How was she doing this? Jace gripped the invisible hand and he did not fall out.

Focus, she said. Focus on one thing at a time. She directed his attention down to his illusory diagram.

Jace breathed deeply, concentrating on that one thing, just the illusion. He could still see the chaos of the leylines in his periphery, but he ignored it.

Good, Nissa said. She reached out to touch the illusion. May I?

Why not? They had come this far. Yes.

Nissa pinched two sides of the hedron circle and picked up the illusion. Jace allowed her mind to guide it while his maintained the form. She pulled outward, opening her arms and stretching the illusion, widening the ring and growing the hedrons.

You've made all the calculations? she said. You are relatively confident it is correct?

Yes, Jace said. I'm very confident that everything is where it should be, but—

Then this will work. Nissa launched the illusion out over the sea, expanding it as she did, sending it toward the real ring of hedrons.

Her control of it was shaky and awkward, but Jace understood immediately what she was trying to do. His heart leapt. Brilliant. He took control, deftly directing the illusion into place, expertly growing it until it was life-size, making each of the illusory hedrons as large as its stone counterpart. Nissa didn't know how to line them up, but he did. Each of them found its match—except one.

There. Nissa said, noting it at the same time that Jace did. The hedron was tilted; it must have shifted sometime after being carefully locked into place.

We have to—Jace began, but Nissa was already gone, leaping toward the out-of-place hedron. She released his mind as she sprang off the rock—she released his mind, not the other way around. She didn't exactly kick him out, but he didn't think he could have stayed if he had wanted to. That was a powerful thing. This elf was powerful.

Jace staggered on his own two feet, looking out of his own two eyes at a dull world. The web was gone, the connections had vanished. The chaos had faded away. It was as much a relief as a disappointment. It was an odd feeling to know that there was so little—of the leylines, of the world—that he could actually see.

The only thing Gideon could see was jagged, white bone: Ulamog's thick faceplate. The titan was too close; the trap should have stopped him by now, he should have been contained. But something had gone wrong.

Gideon had been preparing himself for this moment since the first time he had heard Jace explain the plan. He had believed it would work, he had trusted the mind mage—and he still did—but he had always known that there was a possibility that something would go wrong. Jace had known it too. That's why Gideon had stationed himself here on this rock. He was the last line of defense. He stood between Sea Gate and Ulamog, and he would hold his position for as long as it took them to set the trap.

And if they couldn't set it, if it came to it, then Gideon would call for an evacuation. And he would hold the titan back until his army could get to safety. But it wasn't time for that yet. He could hold out a little longer. They just needed a little longer...

One of Ulamog's tentacles soared through the air, aimed right at Gideon. Whorls of invulnerability erupted over his skin in anticipation of the collision.

Gideon absorbed the blow, gritting his teeth under the weight of it. A second tentacle hurtled his way from the other side. He shifted the focus of his protection.

How much longer should he wait? He slashed back Ulamog's reaching fingers. Just a little longer...

The titan leaned forward, bearing down toward Gideon. Gideon dug his feet into the rock and stared straight into where he imagined the titan's eyes would be. "You're not getting past me." He turned his shoulder to meet Ulamog's chest, focusing all of his power into that single point, the point of impact. He grounded himself, clenching every muscle in his body, pushing back.

It was as though the weight of an entire world was being driven against him.

He felt his feet begin to slip. Was it time? He opened his mouth to give the order, but then closed it. He could hold out just a little longer. They needed just a little longer...

Gideon squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling a roaring cry with the effort.

He was losing ground.

Then suddenly a blue flash lit up the inside of his eyelids, and the pressure on his shoulder vanished.

Gideon stumbled forward with the momentum stored up from the force he had been exerting on the titan. He caught himself just before he tumbled off the front of the floating rock...which meant there was nothing else in front of him to stop his fall. He was no longer standing face-to-face with the titan.

Ulamog had been pulled within the bounds of the hedron prison—and the prison was glowing, glowing a brilliant blue. The gleam flooded Sea Gate, drowning out the shadow of the great Eldrazi.

Art by Richard Wright

"Ha!" Gideon thrust his sural in the air. They had done it. Ulamog was trapped.

A cheer rose up from behind him as Nissa landed gracefully on the rock next to him, letting a dangling vine recoil behind her. "We did it," she said.

"We did it," Gideon agreed, his eyes connecting with Jace's across the sea. "We did it."

From his station atop a cliffside, Ebi whooped a cheer. They had done it. The titan. Ulamog. Trapped. Ebi staggered back, tears in his eyes. There was still hope. There was still a chance to save this world.

A cry echoed up from the Zendikari below, and Ebi lent his voice to theirs. "For Zendikar!" As he raised his fist in the air, a shadow fell over him. Before he could look up, a demon landed on the rock in front of him.

Ebi swung his weapon, but the demon caught his arm in midair. "It's unfortunate, but it seems that you're in the wrong place at the wrong time." The demon pushed Ebi up against the rock face behind him, its thick black hand around Ebi's neck.

Ebi tried to call out. He had to warn the others. He was a sentry. Gideon was counting on him.

Art by David Gaillet

"Shhh." The demon squeezed. Ebi could feel his life draining away. "Take what solace you can in the knowledge that you will not be here to witness Zendikar's demise."

The world went black.

13

At Any Cost

By Nik Davidson

Ob Nixilis is having a bad day.

Things had been going so well. He'd seized the power of the relocated Khalni Heart, and with it forged a connection to the raw mana of Zendikar. He was finally ready to tap into Zendikar's hedron network and restore his Planeswalker spark—and then disaster struck, in the form of the elf Planeswalker Nissa Revane.

Nissa took Khalni Heart from the demon would-be Planeswalker, repaired her own connection with Zendikar, and collapsed tons of rock and soil on him.

It was a setback. But Ob Nixilis had not gotten this far by giving up.

Pain.

A modest upgrade to the oblivion I had been expecting. It could only mean one thing.

She left me alive.

I laughed. Nothing else to do, really. My body was broken in a dozen places by the collapse of the cavern, and I was thoroughly pinned in place. The act of laughing sent waves of radiant agony throughout my body, and I used the pain to diagnose my injuries. They were severe, but I would heal.

I was breathing. That was nice. Shallow, pained breaths, with stone and sand pressing down on me from above, but I was clearly getting enough fresh air to keep me conscious. That implied that I wasn't that far from the surface. Or perhaps I was just near enough to an air pocket that would run out soon. None of the options were terribly good. But I was alive.

Defeat, if you survive it, should mean time for reflection. Unearned arrogance has been the death of countless would-be warlords. After all, how many did I cut down for their hubris over the millennia? Here, buried alive, on the heels of a crushing loss, I decided I would take the opportunity I had been given.

It had been a very good plan. Synchronize a hedron network with Khalni Heart, and use it to channel enough planar energy through my body to reignite my spark. There had been a decent chance it would have killed me, yes, but I was well past that being a concern by now. And yes, I knew that as of some decades ago, being a Planeswalker didn't mean what it used to. So much the better, really. The idea that there were countless planes out there that had lost their godlike protectors and champions! Imagine the chaos that the Mending had wrought on the Multiverse! Chaos like that needs to be quelled. Chaos like that needs to be brought to heel, and I am the perfect person for the task.

The plan was good, but the plan had failed. The idea that some Planeswalker other than Nahiri would actually want to save this horrible plane had really not factored highly into my thought process. I had contingencies in place for her, but I admit I wasn't prepared for an insane Joraga who could draw upon the heart of a dying world showing up hours before my ritual would have been complete, upending a century's worth of work, and burying me alive.

Art by Lius Lasahido

I was annoyed.

There was a bigger problem, and it was that all of my troops were in one valley, so to speak. I didn't know how long Zendikar had before the Eldrazi would finish destroying the plane, and even accounting for what I had learned, I didn't have another half-century to recreate my work. At the rate things were progressing, the plane would be irreparably broken within the year. Not to mention that there wasn't another power source like Khalni Heart left on the plane. Well, there was one. But even I wasn't that desperate. Not yet.

I ran down my options. Option one: I try to replicate my work. Complication: The Eldrazi will almost certainly destroy the plane, with me on it, long before I succeed. Maybe I'd get extraordinarily lucky, and stumble upon another power source, but only fools plan on luck, and I didn't intend to start now.

Option two: I go after the elf, and take the Heart back. Complication: Taking on a Planeswalker in my current state seems like pretty poor odds, especially one who has Khalni Heart at her disposal. Especially one who already handed me a defeat when I was at full strength. There's no honor or dignity in a futile charge against a superior foe, despite what I may have told a general or two whom I needed to do the tactically expedient thing.

Option three: Team up with a greater power. Oh, it's never my first choice, but sometimes it's the only way. I had studied the Eldrazi almost as thoroughly as I had studied the hedrons. While they couldn't be bargained with, they had shown themselves willing to work through allies—old Kalitas learned that the hard way—and I would certainly relish helping them bring this world to ashes and end. But then what? They have no sense of gratitude, no sense of fairness. The idea that they would reward me in any way would be impossibly alien to them. A pyrrhic victory is merely the most palatable kind of defeat.

Art by Tyler Jacobson

Time. I needed more time!

The solution hit me, and I laughed again. Uproarious, oblivious to the pain. I laughed until I wept molten tears. After all these centuries, nothing amuses me like irony. There was exactly one way that I could buy myself enough time to recreate my work.

I was going to have to save Zendikar.

First things first. Buried alive. I wasn't sure precisely how much time had passed. I was far from healed, but when you're counting down to the end of the world, you can cut corners sometimes. I reached out to the area around me and attempted to extinguish the nearby life, drawing the energy for myself. A simple feat of magic, and somewhat of a specialty. But when I reached out... nothing. I was buried in Bala Ged, a place stripped of all life by Ulamog. There wasn't even an insect, a worm, a blade of grass to drain for strength. This time, I found the irony less amusing. I struggled for what must have been hours before I finally managed to shift the stones above me. While doing so, I imagined a thousand pleasing ways to end the elf's miserable existence. The entire process of escape took days. A handful of the ideas held promise.

From there, the next step was to excavate what I could of my hedron network. Even with a bare handful of hedrons, I could effectively construct a leyline "compass"—something that would give me a sense of the distribution of energy on what was left of the plane. If there was going to be a defense of Zendikar, the Joraga would be at the center of it, drawing on the power of Khalni Heart, and that was something I could track.

The work was slow, and it gave me plenty of time to think. Ulamog's spawn were an unrelenting, unthinking force, and the various monstrosities that commanded them wielded sheer power of the sort that I had rarely seen. Still, it was the unthinking aspect of their nature that provided the opportunity. All it would take would be a properly coordinated force of sufficient might and an insufficient sense of self-preservation to give me an opportunity to strike at the head. I was sure the Zendikari were busy scrounging up such a force, even if I had no intention of leading it. The titans had been trapped for a very long time, and they could be contained again; I didn't need them destroyed, or even permanently incapacitated. Quite the contrary—I was more than pleased to give the monsters the feast they deserved. I just didn't intend to be a course.

I had spent quite some time deciphering exactly what Nahiri had done to me. And now I was going to do the same thing to Ulamog: use a hedron to bind an extraplanar threat, and save Zendikar. I wondered if Nahiri would be pleased or disgusted that I was the one doing her work for her now. I found both options hilarious.

I clawed through the dust for more than a day before I found what I was looking for: a hedron no larger than my head, intricately carved, and alive with power. It was the keystone in the hedron network I had created—just the thing to use to bind Ulamog and diminish its power. I looked upon it again with some amount of awe. There was room in my loathing of Nahiri to admire her genius. To create something of such power, and contain that power in an object that could survive for millennia or more! If Nahiri had not returned to help forestall Zendikar's destruction, it almost certainly meant she was dead. It made me a little sad, truly, that I would never get the chance to face her again.

Well. That had been enough sentiment to last me another decade. Or, more likely, for the rest of my life.

I ran a pulse of magic through two of the larger hedrons in my network, and they floated up above the sand, turning themselves slowly until they found alignment. From there, I activated the keystone and moved it slowly around the pair, feeling the push and pull of energy from the stones. Lithomancy was a subtle art, and though I knew I had only scratched the surface of it, it still offered me a versatility of magic that I had not known before. The basic function of a hedron is to redirect energy—but that simple function can be used to empower, summon, imprison, or destroy.

Art by Cynthia Sheppard

An image of weight, of gravity and distance, played out in my mind and body, and I strained to make sense of it. The location of the elf was easy enough to divine; empowered by the Heart, she stood out like the sun. But there was something else, a channeling of mana that seemed both abhorrent and familiar. They were close together; whatever it was, it was likely where the Zendikari would make their last stand. Tazeem. Sea Gate, if memory served. A lovely place for a slaughter.

I unfurled my wings.

Marvelous things, really, and I hadn't made much use of them. They made travel slightly more bearable, and made moving between Zendikar's continents much less of a chore. The skies offered a taste of freedom, but also served as a bitter reminder of what I had lost. The freedom of the skies is a vanishing mote of dust in the face of the freedom that the Multiverse once offered me. On the other hand, you don't see a lot of demons on boats, and it turns out there are some very good reasons for that.

I flew along the coasts, preferring to avoid flying over open water, except as needed to reach Tazeem. The skies were largely devoid of life. With a keen eye, you could pick out some of Ulamog's floating spawn, but they were uninterested in me, and I in them. Birds were rare. Angels, thankfully, were all but gone.

When the Eldrazi rose, the angels fought. Adorable, really. Not awful tacticians, if I'm being fair, but they labored under the misconception that it was a battle that they could win. The angels fought, and mostly, they died. Very rarely, you'd see one of Emrakul's lone spawn floating about, doing whatever her spawn do. But for the most part, the skies were mine. An open sky, a bright sun shining down on me, peaceful clouds drifting in the wind. And I felt them all as an oppressive weight, a confinement—that distant horizon was a claustrophobic nightmare. But soon that horizon would be gone. And one way or another, so would I.

As I covered the miles on my approach to Sea Gate, it was clear that I was heading to the right place. On one side, there were endless wastes—Ulamog himself had carved a path to this place, leaving silence and dust in his wake. On the other, a ragged supply caravan wound its way through Tazeem. Refugees and fighters (though you couldn't really tell the difference between them) were swarming to the wall; the last stand of Zendikar was already underway.

I could hear the roar of battle from miles away. Such a beautiful thing. But it was nothing compared to what I saw when I crested the wall.

Art by Richard Wright

Armies clashing, spawn and Zendikari slaughtered by the thousands, and rising above it all, Ulamog. Trapped.

In an enormous hedron network.

I needed a moment to take it all in. I couldn't keep the grin off my face. The network was huge. The Zendikari had accomplished with brute force what had taken me decades to complete through care and subtlety. By using the gigantic, structural hedrons, they were able to tap into the energy of the entire plane—my work with Khalni Heart was essentially a scale model of what they had done. The alignment was rough and amateurish, even by my dabbler's standards, but it was stable.

Only a fool plans on luck, but it is a greater fool who fails to take advantage of it. Option one was back on the table.

I found a good vantage point to study the network, gently displacing the kor sentries who had been using it as a lookout station. The network was straining to contain Ulamog, but the titan was starting to weaken as well. I was impressed. The Zendikari might have actually been able to kill it. Full marks for effort and inventiveness. But it was time to add a minor wrinkle to that plan.

Art by David Gaillet

I flew up, high up above the fray. Kor on their kitesails spotted me at this point, but didn't engage—their attention was focused on holding back the spawn and relaying information to the battle below. The keystone hedron trailed behind me, and it began to react to the network's incredible energy. Its runes glowed with a violent light, overwhelmed by the leyline flow. I willed it into place, locked it into a harmonic point above the ring's precise center. It began to spin, a vortex of energy forming that sent a numbing electrical charge throughout my body. I faltered in the sky for a moment—my heart was pounding, and I could scarcely breathe.

I had waited so long for this. So very long.

I spoke three words.

In that moment, everything began anew.

The energy overwhelmed my senses: My vision flared to white, and I couldn't sense my body. The power burned through me, a rushing torrent of agony and perfection, and deep within my core, first as a glimmer, and then as a blazing flame, my spark. My spark returned.

The Multiverse stretched out before me once more! I could feel the worlds, countless worlds, familiar and new, splayed out on an infinite canvas of realities. I felt them as pinpricks of light, beacons of power in the distance. The dream I'd had for millennia was finally at hand, I could leave this terrible place! I started to fade away, away to anywhere but here...

No. I wasn't done here. Not yet.

I tore myself out of the mana stream, power coursing through me. A snap of my fingers, and one of the structural hedrons fell out of alignment. The sheer force of the leylines held it in place for a moment longer, but then, achingly slowly, it tumbled to the world below. There were screams of terror and disbelief; Ulamog thrashed, and the rest of the network crumbled. And down, so far down below me, I caught sight of her. The little elf. She had to know what was happening, she had to have felt it in her bones. Yes. There. She looked up at me, a look composed of shock and utter, utter despair. That was a nice start. But I was far from done.

One by one, I felt my connections to my old conquered worlds reappear. Not all of them, but enough. It had been so long. I let loose an enormous bolt of withering annihilation into the armies below, cutting off their retreat and forcing them back into Ulamog's path. The Zendikari were dying, hundreds each second, and I could taste each life as it was snuffed out—crisp, juicy, and sweet.

A pocket of order was forming in the ranks below. A few Planeswalkers were desperately trying to organize a retreat, not that there was anywhere meaningful for them to go. Head swimming with power, I wanted nothing more than to swoop down there and end them all—and I would—but I caught myself. Not yet. Not yet.

There was one last thing I needed to do first.

Deep beneath the surface, it was already beginning to stir. I whispered to it, heedless of distance. I dared not focus my mind too directly on it—reality recoiled and splintered merely from my thoughts approaching. But the power was there, and power spoke to power. It did not have a consciousness, not in any sense I could describe, but it had a will, and that will wanted nothing more than to be given purpose.

Art by Chris Rahn

I laughed. I had not felt joy like this before, not ever. No triumph, no glory was greater than this. Beings of power... beings of power want to be called! With my spark reignited, it was the easiest thing in the world.

One more word. One little word was all it took. The world shook as I said it. The doom of Zendikar was here at last.

I reached out to the south and grasped it. Awakened it fully with the sheer force of my will. Mine would be the last word for this wretched plane, and I shouted it from the center of my soul.

"Rise!"

14

Promises to Keep

By Doug Beyer

Weeks ago, Chandra Nalaar decided against getting involved with Zendikar's woes. She remains on the plane of Regatha, where she has accepted the position of abbot for a monastery of pyromancer-monks. Her thoughts often stray to the battle currently raging on Zendikar, the pain her friends might be suffering there—and the help she could be providing. But she has made a promise to fulfill her duties on Regatha, and a promise is a promise.

Sleep wasn't forthcoming, and wasn't an option anyway.

A pile of parchment pages lay on the floor of Chandra's bedchamber. Even with her back shoved as far as it could go into the corner of the room, Chandra could still read the lines she had written on the topmost page:

MY INSPIRING ORATION

BY ABBOT NALAAR

That was all.

The quill was in the same place she had left it—jammed headfirst into the masonry. Chandra felt her brain trying to writhe out of her skull.

Tomorrow she would give the traditional Mount Keralia Address. Tomorrow she would impress Mother Luti and all her students with a well-planned litany of self-assured pyromantic demonstrations, some rousing words that probably evoked their beloved Jaya, and maybe some fire-based metaphors. She would prove herself worthy of being the abbot of Keral Keep, as every abbot had since the beginning of time, probably.

She flopped back on her bed in her abbot's robe, staring up at the ceiling of her bedchamber.

This is the life you've chosen, she reminded herself.

She had made a promise. No matter what was happening on Zendikar, no matter how much they might need her, no matter how freeing it might be to be part of that battle. This was her role now.

Art by Sam Burley

She regarded the quill stuck in the wall, and slowly her eyes shifted to the door. She stood and walked to the doorway. She leaned out, glancing back and forth down the corridors of the Keep. Shadows danced from flickering braziers: the night lanterns. The Keep would be silent for hours.

This is what keeping a promise feels like, she told herself. You're not a child anymore. This is taking—she balanced herself against the doorframe with one hand and forced herself to think the next word—responsibility.

She bit her lip, standing in the doorway, checking back and forth along the hallway once more. Then she closed the door of her chamber firmly.

She glanced down at the unwritten speech, and at the almost-untouched pot of ink.

She planted her feet and cinched her abbot's robe around her waist, and glared straight ahead at the opposite wall.

Just one peek, she thought.

She pressed her will against the whereness around her, forcing it to change. Zendikar.

Her bedchamber dissolved. The walls became humid night air. The stone floor became a pebbled slope. The ceiling became a dark sky strewn with floating land masses and tilted diamond shapes.

She crouched instinctively. It had been hundreds of days, maybe a thousand, since the dirt of Zendikar had smudged her face. She could still smell the rich earth, the untrammeled purity of the place, the crisp edge of warning on the air. But there was something new—a smell of dry dust. A drained smell.

Her heart pounded. She wiped her palms on her ceremonial robe. She felt suddenly unprepared, ill-equipped for Zendikar's vast danger. It stole her breath away.

Art by Philip Straub

She was surrounded by twirling-trunked trees and spiky crags. She hurried to high ground to get a glimpse of where she was. The land fell away before her, leading down to a shimmering sea. Beyond the sea rose a city of white stone towers—Sea Gate! She had managed to planeswalk close to her goal, close to where Gideon had said to find him. The white towers were anchored by a mighty seawall, and over the sea floated a semicircular collection of hedrons, their runes glimmering in the night, reflecting in the tips of the waves.

In the distance, Chandra saw a strange, vast silhouette on the horizon that she didn't recognize. It was probably one of Zendikar's gravity-defying mountain ranges or monumental landforms, distorted into enormity by the dim light.

And just below her, at the base of a cliff, were people. Some of whom she knew. Gideon was shouting directives, looking as natural in a leadership role as in his armor.

"Careful now—that's good," Gideon was saying. "All right. Gate team, pull!"

Chandra followed Gideon's eye line. One of the larger hedrons, hovering over the water, was moving. In fact, she could see teams of figures guiding it along the surface of the water, hauling it through the air with heavy ropes and nudging spells. Kor ropeworkers along the seawall pulled on their guidelines, shepherding the hedron gradually into place.

"And—halt it there!" Gideon shouted.

A second team pulled in an opposite direction. The moving hedron slowed to a halt in its place in the circle.

"Placement's good," Gideon said. "Altitude's good. Next team, prepare your lines!"

They're doing it, she thought. My friends are doing it. They've come here, and they're helping. They're saving this world.

Chandra made an involuntary fist-swipe of pride—causing her to stumble with vertigo at the cliff's edge. She caught herself, but a cluster of pebbles tumbled down the trail behind her.

"Eyes on! Eyes on!" came a woman's shout from above her.

Chandra ducked down between two curving trees, glancing her head against a bough, and looked up. Overhead flew a scout: a sky-manta's broad body gliding through the air, with an elf woman at the reins. The manta pivoted sharply, and the scout peered down across the area where Chandra hid.

Art by Dan Scott

"Movement in the trees, that way!" the elf called down.

She heard Gideon reply from below. "Take another pass," he shouted. "I need to know how many, and how big."

The manta rider began a wide turn to double back to Chandra's position. Chandra only had moments before the scout's sharp eyes would discover her. Chandra wasn't here to stay. Just one peek.

Chandra dashed down the trail she had climbed up, half-skidding down the slope. She began to slide on the loose rocks, and managed to catch herself on an arc-shaped crag—only to run into another species of trouble entirely.

When she stopped herself, she was face-to-faceplate with a trio of angular, meaty-ribbed, bony-headed creatures. They had the unsettling impression of wearing their insides as their outsides.

Art by Yohann Schepacz

Eldrazi. These were Eldrazi. The creatures that afflicted this world, that Gideon and Jace had asked for her help in fighting.

The largest one let out a rattling, whistling hiss, and the others answered in kind, moving toward Chandra.

"No, no, no," she whispered. Chandra glanced up. The elf scout was swinging back in her direction, but had not yet completed her turn. She looked back at her opponents just in time to see one of them slicing at her face with a bladelike leg.

She dodged, but another of the Eldrazi was upon her, pinning her arm against a boulder. She ripped her arm free, but the third leaped on top of her, grasping at her jaw and hair with slimy pincers.

"Manners!" she murmured, grabbing a handful of sternum and hurling the creature off of her.

The largest one collapsed onto her, forcing its weight down onto her shoulders, adding to the weight of her robe. She felt the Eldrazi's serrated front limbs trying to immobilize her—or crush her flat.

She grunted under its weight, trying to maintain her footing. Her spine bent painfully, and she fell onto her knees. She pushed up at the creature's legs, and its spines sank into her hands. Still it pressed down, and Chandra's grimace of effort became a snarl. She summoned all her strength, set her feet, and shoved back at it.

"Rah-AGHH!"

The thing tumbled off of her, and she was free for the moment.

The sky manta passed over her. Had the scout seen her? The elf scout whistled, and the flyer wheeled again, sinking lower as it turned back toward Chandra.

There was no time. Chandra eyed the Eldrazi creatures, and felt her skin prickle with heat. She tucked and spun her body, and the spin became rage, and the rage became fire.

Art by Steve Argyle

She emitted a dome of flame, pushing out from her body in all directions. For a moment all she saw was the flash of her own fire, but then she saw the night around her again, and the creatures were on their backs, but still alive. Their scorched bodies and legs scrambled for purchase.

No time no time no time.

They clambered upright and rattle-shrieked at her. She crossed her forearms in front of her, built up mana from the mountain under her feet—and slashed her arms out to her sides, creating a tripartite blade of fire that sliced through each one of them.

The creatures went still, each one silently wafting smoke from its own personal grave-crater.

She squeezed her fists in triumph. She half-shouted out, but caught herself and slapped a hand over her mouth. She glanced up again, sidestepping back under the tree line. The elf scout passed over her, eyes glued to the smoking Eldrazi corpses.

Her body trembled, a drumbeat of dread and exhilaration hammering inside her. She pressed her back against a tree trunk, covering the reflective glass of her goggles with the sleeve of her robe, hoping to stay hidden.

That's it. That's all I came for. Just to know they're safe. Just to know—that they don't need me.

She began her planeswalk back to Regatha. The landscape of Zendikar began to melt around her. She allowed herself one more glance back at Gideon and the others. That's when she saw that shape on the horizon—the thing she had dismissed as a floating landmass or irregular mountain.

In the first rays of predawn, she could see that the giant shape on the horizon moved. It slowly undulated its limbs, which meant it had limbs. Its twin jawbones shone pale and jagged in the night.

It wasn't just looming. It was approaching. It was heading toward Sea Gate, toward Gideon and the others, carving its death-path across the world. It threatened to destroy all life in its way.

The creatures she had fought—those were insignificant compared to this monstrosity. This—Ulamog—this was what the true battle was about. This was what caused that death-dust smell that was new to the world, and what her compatriots were risking their lives to confront.

Art by Michael Komarck

This was what she had helped unleash.

—But the image of Ulamog dissolved, an undulating shadow on her retinas. She was already planeswalking away from there. Regatha faded into existence around her, replacing the stretch of land that led to the hedrons, that led to her friends, that led to the Eldrazi titan. Her bedchamber brightened as it formed around her, morning light streaking in the windows.

"No," she said aloud.

The sound of urgent knocking at the door came to Chandra's ears as the world resolved. The door jerked open, and Mother Luti's irritated face emerged. To Chandra, it looked like she was shimmering through a still-lingering afterimage of Ulamog.

"Chandra?" Mother Luti scolded. "Are you ready? The Address! The chants have already started!"

Chandra's mouth hung open.

"You will not shirk your responsibilities here, Abbot Nalaar," said Mother Luti. "You will not break your promise." With that, Mother Luti stormed off down the corridor.

Chandra slowly closed her mouth. She was still wearing the robe—Serenok's robe. The embroidered mantle had a tiny tear in the sleeve now, from where an Eldrazi's serrated pincer had lanced into her bicep.

Swimming in a surreal fog, she walked two steps, bent down, and picked up the sheaf of parchment pages: her speech.

MY INSPIRING ORATION, the top page read, scrawled in her own hand. BY ABBOT NALAAR.

She looked at the door. It led to the rest of the Keep, to her students, to Mother Luti, to Regatha. Her feet just didn't know how to move toward it.

Suddenly she crunched the pages into a clumped ball in her hands. The pages burst into flames, burning up in a flash. She let them drop as flakes of ash out of her fingers.

This is what it feels like to keep a promise, she thought.

She stepped out of her room, the form of Ulamog still imprinted on her mind.

The abbot greeted her students with a nod of her head. So many faces looking back at her across the great hall of Keral Keep. Mother Luti looked on from the back.

"Good, um, morning," she said. She clung to the stone obelisk that acted as her podium, trying to remember how words worked. She coughed into her robe's sleeve.

She furrowed her brow, trying to recall some Abbot Serenok sayings. "Fire is a symbol," she said stiffly. "For the—well, fire. In all our hearts."

Somehow that had come out better when Serenok said it.

Monks looked at one another. Somebody cleared their throat.

"We must be sure to..." she trailed off, looking at the podium in front of her. "Stoke! That fire. So that it. Uh."

She glanced up and saw Mother Luti's face. That was a mistake. Chandra rubbed her temples with her forefingers.

She coughed. She took a breath.

"Look," she said. "When I came here as a child, I was a mess. I had no idea what to do with this thing, at all." She raised her hand, and it blossomed with fire. She shook her hand and the fire went out again. "The people of this place—Abbot Serenok, Mother Luti, all of you—you showed me. You didn't try to control me. You didn't try to change me. You taught me how to express who I was in my own way."

She looked out at the dozens of individual faces before her. "If there's anything I can do to repay that favor, it's to encourage you to do the same thing. Each of you is a separate, individual you. You are not the fire-monks of Keral Keep, not really. You are not the devotees of the teachings of Jaya. You are not here to listen to me or any other abbot. You are a unique person, with wild ideas about what's truly important. You're only here because it's a place where you're allowed to find out who you are."

Am I really saying this, she thought. Am I saying what I think I'm saying? Chandra looked for Mother Luti's face, but couldn't find her in the crowd anymore.

"I'm sorry to those I'm disappointing right now," Chandra continued. "But the best way I know to honor the tradition of the Mount Keralia Address is to tell you to stop listening to this Mount Keralia Address."

The monks looked at one another again. Chandra undid the belt of the abbot's robe, pulled her arms out of the sleeves, and shouldered out of it—she wore her usual armor underneath. She let the robe hang from her hands, gently, the way one holds an important treasure that was meant for someone else.

"Each of you has a gift that only you can bring to the world. A way you can help that others couldn't. And the way you express that gift is to hear this: trust yourself. Trust your gift. Don't put all your reliance in speeches, from me or anyone else."

Some of the monks slowly stood. Heads nodded. She saw the sparkle of a few smiles.

"There are purposes for you out there, more important than a tradition or an address," she went on. "Crises that you should be part of right now, problems that won't be solved without you. I urge you to go. Go and find out what they are." She bowed her head, raising Serenok's robe as a kind of salute. "Thank you."

Many monks shook their heads, mouths curved in disappointment. But a few others cheered and threw up their fists. She felt them come alive, saw their eyes awaken, in ways she hadn't seen in weeks of routines and metaphors.

Art by Eric Deschamps

"Thank you," she said, blinking through tears, cradling the robe in her arms. "Thank you so much for all you've done for me. Thank you."

Chandra smiled and turned away from the podium. She ran into a wall of Mother Luti.

Chandra's smile faltered. "I'm sorry, Mother Luti," she said. "But you know I have to go."

"This is how you feel?" Mother Luti asked evenly. "This is what you want?"

"I'm going to Zendikar," Chandra said. "I'm needed there."

Chandra looked in Luti's eyes, and immediately she saw the pain her departure would cause. She saw how she would be abandoning this place, the place that had welcomed her in, the place that had believed in her and helped her become herself.

Mother Luti's face was unreadable. "You're not sure," she said. "Is this the truth of your heart?"

Chandra saw the phantom of Ulamog flickering at the corners of her vision. "Yes, I believe so."

"Not acceptable," Mother Luti snapped. "You are needed here!"

"I have to go," Chandra said. "Listen, I'm sorry I have to leave you—I know this leaves you without an abbot, and I've appreciated everything—"

Mother Luti cut her off. "I'm sorry I have to do this. But I must remind you of your promise. You will be staying on as abbot of this Keep."

"What?"

"You committed to this place. You considered leaving, but you decided to stay. Get the students back. You will deliver your oration and you will teach pyromancy."

Chandra's brow lowered. "What are you saying?"

Mother Luti was deadly serious. "I forbid you to leave."

Chandra's hands squeezed into fists, but she forced them back open again. She shook her head, chuckling. "Now, look, I—"

"Chandra, need I remind you? Even though you are abbot, I rank higher than you. And I say that you will stay."

Fists. "I am not staying."

"You are and you will."

"Don't do this."

"You have a responsibility!"

"I do have a responsibility!" Chandra shouted. She jabbed a finger into the air, pointing anywhere. "There are people suffering out there right now, and I can help them. I can help. I can't stay here and repeat exercises endlessly, knowing that I could go out and use what you've taught me to prevent a disaster."

Mother Luti's face suddenly glowed with quiet pride. "Now you're certain," she said softly. "Congratulations, Chandra."

Chandra breathed. "I..."

"Now you know the truth in that head of yours."

"That's—that's what you needed to hear?"

"That's what you needed to know."

Chandra's shoulders dropped. She wiped at a droplet that was forming unbidden in the corner of her eye. "Thank you," she said.

Mother Luti reached out to accept the abbot's robe, but Chandra slammed into her for a hug. Chandra felt Luti hesitate, then squeeze her arms around her.

"Go, Chandra Nalaar," Luti whispered into her hair. "Go and save worlds."

"I promise," Chandra said inaudibly.

Chandra released her. She gathered up Serenok's robe and folded it carefully. Then she folded it again a different way, and then refolded it again and furrowed her brow at the third asymmetrical crinkled mess she had created. She began folding it once more, and then smiled as Mother Luti gently took the mantle from her.

"It's fine," Mother Luti chided. "It's fine."

Chandra turned, and many of the students applauded.

"Goodbye," she said. "Goodbye. I hope to see you all again one day."

The air smelled of dust on Zendikar. But she had hope—it smelled of salt water as well, so she wasn't far. She had emerged somewhere in the forested area by the coast, but she could see the towers of Sea Gate rising over the trees.

She also saw Ulamog. He had reached the city already. His monstrous head rose higher than the towers, its bony jaws and bifurcated arms threatening the city. She hoped she wasn't too late.

The seawall was close, just down a tree-covered slope. A small squad of Eldrazi creatures dropped out of the branches in front of her, rattle-hissing and brandishing spiked limbs. But she threw a spell with a spin and a lash of her arm, and the creatures turned to ash in a blur of fire magic, and she shoulder-rammed through their charred forms.

She made it to Sea Gate. Chandra ran up the thoroughfare of wide white stone, the crest of the mighty seawall. Dozens or hundreds of Zendikari people looked over the seawall at Ulamog—

And they were cheering.

Chandra ran to the edge of the seawall. She struggled to take in what she was seeing.

Ulamog was trapped.

Chandra could see the titan thrashing inside a ring of hedrons, unable to move beyond them. All around her, elves and kor and goblins shouted, jeering at the incapacitated titan. Alarmingly, an eight-armed sea creature was emerging from the waters, but Chandra saw that it was using its limbs to slap at various Eldrazi stragglers. It was helping, too! She could barely see a merfolk mage directing the octopoid monster with her two-pronged spear.

Chandra's heart leaped. She ran back down the seawall, dodging past smiling and hugging Zendikari people, continuing to try to look over the seawall. She was eager to find faces she recognized, but she couldn't place Jace or Gideon.

The moment she spied the winged shadow skimming over the water, time seemed to slow down. When she raised her gaze to see the hell-veined demon, a pang of dread started in her gut and flooded through her entire body. She saw the demon rear back in the air with a flap of his powerful wings, pausing over Ulamog's prison. She saw the demon reach down with clawed fingers, as if drawing power toward him from far below. He spoke unintelligible words, and she felt the earth shudder.

Around her, cheers quieted to murmurs of concern.

The tips of the hedrons were aimed at the demon now. The hedron prison had become some new form of hedron device, a vortex of power with the demon at its apex. Veins of dark energy slashed forth from the hedrons, converging on the demon. His body arched, taking in the power, and his head was flung back. He laughed a deep, satisfied laugh, floating there in the air above Ulamog's skull.

Art by Chris Rahn

Demons laughing, she thought. Never good news.

Chandra spit in her hands, rubbed them together, and conjured an unreasonable amount of flame from nowhere. Three separate fire spells at once should do it. She twisted her body and spun with a grunt, hurling a barrage of pyromancy all at once at the demon. But as her spells sped toward the dark leylines, they became entangled and engulfed in the lines of force, and the flames dispersed without reaching their target.

The ground shifted, and around her murmurs became screams. She looks down to see the hedrons of Ulamog's imprisoning ring tilt and tremble. The ground rumbled with more violence, rocking the seawall and churning up enormous waves. Zendikari people stampeded along the seawall in raucous panic.

Waves surged and splashed over the seawall from the Halimar side. One particularly huge surge loomed high, cresting forty feet above some running refugees. Chandra blasted the wave with a cone of heat, sizzling it to steam before it could crush them and inundate the seawall. She ran with them, beating back the gushing seawater with waves of pyromantic air.

As Chandra ran with the crowd for lower ground, she looked up to see the tops of Sea Gate's towers swinging to and fro. A crack formed in one of the spires, showering white dust and debris down on them.

As the demon's empowerment spell ended, gravity began to take hold of the hedrons down at the water's surface. The hedrons fell, splashing down into the churning sea one by one, snapping the rope lines that connected them to each other and to the wall of Sea Gate. The circle was breaking. The structure of Ulamog's prison was rupturing.

No longer restrained, Ulamog unfurled like an apocalyptic flower. The titan grasped at nearby fleeing humanoids, who turned instantly to dust.

Chandra screamed in rage. She whipped missiles of fire at Ulamog, but they seemed to do nothing. She still couldn't see Gideon or Jace in the crowd. She wasn't able to stop the demon or damage the newly-freed titan.

What else could go wrong today?

The rocky peninsula at the far end of Sea Gate shuddered, then the land broke with a snap. Rock and earth fell in on itself, a self-swallowing sinkhole. The sinkhole spread in an unnatural way, the edges of the hole bending and retracting inward, the terrain forming bizarre right-angled patterns with an iridescent sheen.

There was movement of something massive deep underground, surging toward the surface.

OF COURSE, she thought. WHY NOT? WHY NOT THIS NOW?

Gigantic, angular shards of a shimmering, obsidian-like material stabbed up from the ground. As the being rose, Chandra saw that the shards floated in formation above a great swiveling globe of a head, which was embedded in an armored, split-limbed torso, which was supported by a forest of chthonic tentacles. As it rose, it shed earth like a doffed robe, terrain tumbling from it and raining down into the sea.

This was not merely an additional Eldrazi creature to fight. This was the advent of another god-thing, like Ulamog—a horrific divinity of the Blind Eternities.

A second Eldrazi titan had entered the battle.

Art by Lius Lasahido