Ravnica E-Book

Greg Weisman

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Brand-new Magic: The Gathering official novel which ties in to the brand-new card game set.Experience the first official adventure in Magic: The Gathering's multiverse in nearly a decade as an epic conflict engulfs the world-spanning city of Ravnica.Teyo Verada wants nothing more than to be a shieldmage, wielding arcane energies to protect his people from his world's vicious diamondstorms. When he's buried alive in the aftermath of his first real tempest, the young mage's life is about to end before it can truly begin—until it doesn't. In a flash, a power he didn't know he had whisks him away from his home, to a world of stone, glass, and wonder: Ravnica. Teyo is a Planeswalker, one of many to be called to the world-spanning city—all lured by Nicol Bolas, the Elder Dragon. Bolas lays siege to the city of Ravnica, hungry for the ultimate prize: godhood itself. His unparalleled magic and unstoppable army appear poised to bring the city to utter ruin.Among those who stand in the way of Bolas's terrifying machinations are the Gatewatch, Planeswalkers sworn to defeat evil, no matter where it's found. But as they work to unite the other mages and mount a defense of the city and its people, the terrifying truth of Bolas's plan becomes clear. The Elder Dragon has prepared a trap to ensnare the most powerful mages from across the Multiverse—and it's too late to escape.As forces great and small converge on the city and the battle rages, the stakes could not be higher. If the Gatewatch falters and the Planeswalkers fail, the curtain will fall on the age of heroes—and rise on the infinite reign of Nicol Bolas.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Dramatis Personae

Guilds of Ravnica

Prelude

One: Two Dragons

Act One

Two: Teyo Verada

Three: Chandra Nalaar

Four: Ral Zarek

Five: Liliana Vess

Six: Teyo Verada

Seven: Jace Beleren

Eight: Gideon Jura

Nine: Dack Fayden

Ten: Chandra Nalaar

Eleven: Nicol Bolas

Twelve: Jace Beleren

Thirteen: Gideon Jura

Fourteen: Liliana Vess

Fifteen: Kaya

Sixteen: Ral Zarek

Seventeen: Vraska

Eighteen: Liliana Vess

Nineteen: Teyo Verada

Twenty: Dack Fayden

Twenty-One: Gideon Jura

Twenty-Two: Chandra Nalaar

Twenty-Three: Ral Zarek

Twenty-Four: Kaya

Twenty-Five: Jace Beleren

Twenty-Six: Teyo Verada

Twenty-Seven: Dack Fayden

Act Two

Twenty-Eight: Nicol Bolas

Twenty-Nine: Kaya

Thirty: Jace Beleren

Thirty-One: Ral Zarek

Thirty-Two: Gideon Jura

Thirty-Three: Kaya

Thirty-Four: Gideon Jura

Thirty-Five: Liliana Vess

Thirty-Six: Teyo Verada

Thirty-Seven: Ral Zarek

Thirty-Eight: Teyo Verada

Thirty-Nine: Dack Fayden

Forty: Ral Zarek

Forty-One: Dack Fayden

Forty-Two: Vraska

Forty-Three: Gideon Jura

Forty-Four: Chandra Nalaar

Forty-Five: Dack Fayden

Forty-Six: Kaya

Forty-Seven: Jace Beleren

Forty-Eight: Liliana Vess

Forty-Nine: Teyo Verada

Act Three

Fifty: Ral Zarek

Fifty-One: Chandra Nalaar

Fifty-Two: Vraska

Fifty-Three: Chandra Nalaar

Fifty-Four: Dack Fayden

Fifty-Five: Liliana Vess

Fifty-Six: Kaya

Fifty-Seven: Jace Beleren

Fifty-Eight: Gideon Jura

Fifty-Nine: Nicol Bolas

Sixty: Liliana Vess

Sixty-One: Kytheon Iora

Sixty-Two: Liliana Vess

Sixty-Three: Chandra Nalaar

Sixty-Four: Nicol Bolas

Sixty-Five: Liliana Vess

Sixty-Six: Chandra Nalaar

Sixty-Seven: Teyo Verada

Sixty-Eight: Jace Beleren

Coda

Sixty-Nine: Two Dragons

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Bibliography

War of the Spark: Ravnica

Print edition ISBN: 9781789092714

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092721

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition: August 2019

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2019 by Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.

WIZARDS OF THE COAST, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, MAGIC, their respective logos, War of the Spark, the planeswalker symbol, all guild names and symbols, and characters’ names are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the USA and other countries.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

To my high school English professors, Joy Diskin, Beverly Wardlaw, John West, Philip Holmes, Elliot McGrew and Beverly Wardlaw (again). You were confident and encouraging guides into worlds of wonder and intellect that made learning and reading and writing into the epic journey of my lifetime. If I’m a Planeswalker today, the five of you helped me find my Spark . . .

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Jace Beleren—Planeswalker, Human, Gatewatch Mind-mage.

Nicol Bolas—Planeswalker, Elder Dragon, Would-Be God-Emperor.

Dack Fayden—Planeswalker, Human, Self-Proclaimed Greatest Thief in the Multiverse.

Gideon Jura—Planeswalker, Human, Gatewatch Founder, Hieromancer.

Kaya—Planeswalker, Human, Orzhov Guildmaster and Ghost-assassin.

Chandra Nalaar—Planeswalker, Human, Gatewatch Pyromancer.

Teyo Verada—Planeswalker, Human, Shieldmage Acolyte.

Liliana Vess—Planeswalker, Human, former Gatewatch Necromancer.

Vraska—Planeswalker, Gorgon, Golgari Guildmaster and Assassin.

Ral Zarek—Planeswalker, Human, Izzet Guildmaster and Storm Mage.

GUILDS OF RAVNICA

Azorius Senate

Dedicated to bringing order to the chaos of Ravnica’s streets, the Azorius Senate strives to educate the compliant—and restrain the rebellious.

Boros Legion

The zealous Boros Legion is united in pursuit of a peaceful and harmonious Ravnica, no matter how many bodies its forces must step over to achieve it.

House Dimir

The agents of House Dimir dwell in the darkest corners of the city, selling their secrets to those who hunger for power, and their steel to those who need enemies silenced.

Golgari Swarm

Death brings new life. All life must die. The guildmembers of the Golgari Swarm are guardians of this cycle, feeding the citizens of Ravnica, and preparing them to feed the earth in turn.

Gruul Clans

Once, the Gruul Clans ruled over the untamed wilds of Ravnica, but as the city has grown they’ve been forced further and further into exile to escape its crushing weight. They’re ready to crush back.

Izzet League

With their endless public works, the genius Izzet League maintains the sprawling splendor of Ravnica . . . when their experiments aren’t accidentally blowing it up.

Orzhov Syndicate

The Orzhov Syndicate is ruthlessly ambitious and endlessly acquisitive. If you owe the Orzhov, they will collect, even after death.

Cult of Rakdos

Entertainers and hedonists, the Cultists of the demonic lord Rakdos know that life is short and full of pain. The only thing that matters? Having as much fun as you possibly can, no matter the consequence.

Selesnya Conclave

The Selesnya guild is the voice of Mat’Selesnya, the mysterious manifestation of nature itself. They search constantly for more believers to add to their Conclave—and a larger army to defend it.

Simic Combine

Nowhere is the balance of nature and civilization more important—or more threatened—than in a city that spans the world. And the Simic Combine stands ready to maintain it . . . or revise it to their own unique specifications.

PRELUDE

ONE

TWO DRAGONS

The Spirit Dragon and the dragon spirit were having a little chat.

“How long can your device there preserve you?” asked the Spirit Dragon.

“A century or so,” replied the dragon spirit. “I stripped the mind of an Orzhov pontiff to confirm it was compatible. They’re experts on that sort of thing. On ghosts, that is. The tech’s all mine. And it’s brilliant.”

“Of course.” The Spirit Dragon glanced down at the little silver box, with all its delicate filigree, sparking clockwork gears, and shimmering crystals, as it projected the dragon spirit’s essence right above it into the crisp gray dawn. “Nice of Sarkhan Vol to deliver it here.”

“Nice isn’t the word.”

“Necessary.”

“Yes. Necessary.”

There was a long pause.

Eventually, the dragon spirit swallowed hard—or in any case, unconsciously mimicked that biological tic—and stated, “Our plan will work. It must work.”

The Spirit Dragon looked around, at the serene waters, at the carefully manicured ruins his brother had created and curated, at the giant horns rising out of the Pools of Becoming, curving inward on themselves and marking this plane as his twin’s personal retreat. “It can work,” he said at last. “But our strategy is like your mechanism here. All the gears must act in concert. All the players must play their assigned roles. We can count on Sarkhan to play his. But the other Planeswalkers, and all those souls on Ravnica . . . ? If my brother remains invulnerable, all other precautions are useless.”

“Zarek will do his part. I was tough on him to toughen him up, but I think my lessons will hold.”

“Like they held with you, little cousin? It seems to me that if you’d learned your lessons, you wouldn’t be half as dead as you currently are. My brother led you around like you had a ring in your snout.”

The dragon spirit took some umbrage at this, his semi-transparent shoulders rising, his pale-red wings flaring slightly. “No one speaks to me that way.”

The Spirit Dragon took a little umbrage of his own. “Because you’re accustomed to spending your time around mortals. I am not that.” Then he settled back down, taking on a more conciliatory tone: “But take no offense. I’ve fared no better. And my point was that defeating Nicol Bolas will take more than a good plan. It will take near-perfect timing and damn good luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck. I believe in preparation.”

“That won’t be enough. Nicol is prepared to overcome any conceivable opposition. If this struggle was only about preparation, we wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Then the Multiverse is doomed,” said the dragon spirit rather bloodlessly.

“I hope not. We have one advantage. My brother puts too much faith in himself and too little in absolutely anyone else. His well-earned arrogance and unfailing contempt for anybody who isn’t Nicol Bolas presents us with this opportunity.”

“Which in failure will result in the deaths of thousands.”

“Millions, more likely. But even in success, the stakes are high. Hundreds will most certainly die today. It’s unfortunate but unavoidable.”

“As always,” said the dragon spirit. “I’ve been alive for sixteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight years, and you’ve lived, what, twice that long, three times?”

The Spirit Dragon scoffed.

The dragon spirit rolled his eyes. “My point is we’ve seen it all before. Mortals rise. Mortals fall. The show begins. The show ends. And another performance follows. If I weren’t already dead, I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over one more cataclysm, no matter how devastating the carnage.”

“It’s worse than that, and I believe you know it. If my brother wins the day, it won’t be just another cataclysm. The show will end, all right, but the next performance will be entitled The Infinite Reign of Nicol Bolas. And no other performer will ever take the stage. And after ‘a century or so’ when that fancy toy of yours ceases to function, will you really be calling for an encore?”

This silenced the dragon spirit for a few minutes. When he spoke again, his voice was flat, clinical. “So what do we do now?”

“Now? We wait for the curtain to rise, Niv-Mizzet. We wait for the curtain to rise . . .”

ACT ONE

TWO

TEYO VERADA

His pack heavy on his shoulders, Teyo Verada trudged through the sands beneath his world’s twin suns, along the edge of the dune, trying to ignore the farting carry-beast in front of him as he daydreamed of the miracle . . . of the lavatory.

Born in a tiny village nineteen years ago, Teyo was now returning from what had been his first visit to a big town like Oasis. Much to Abbot Barrez’s chagrin, the keeper of Oasis’ only inn had refused to house the acolytes in her stables. Honored to have actual shieldmages in her establishment, she had insisted on lodging them in guest rooms for the same cost as a straw-filled stall. The abbot attempted to explain that acolytes were not yet shieldmages and deserved no such luxury. But for once, the voice of his absolute authority fell on deaf ears.

So it had been two acolytes to a room twice the size of Teyo’s cell back at the monastery, which he normally shared with Arturo, Peran and Theo. But that wasn’t the real wonder of the place. There were no chamber pots. No latrines. No washbasins that required refilling from a jug, which required refilling from a pump a hundred yards away. Water was piped right into a small lavatory down the hall for drinking, washing, bathing and, well, waste. And said waste was then piped away somehow to somewhere that wasn’t just outside your window, causing a stink worse than the carry-beast’s gases. It was a kind of miracle to Teyo, and his mind just wouldn’t, couldn’t let it go.

But Oasis was two leagues back, and now, laden with a year’s worth of supplies, the party was headed for home in single file, crossing the sand dunes of Gobakhan, the abbot in the lead, followed by a carry-beast, followed by acolytes, followed by another carry-beast, followed by more acolytes, followed by a last carry-beast, followed by Teyo Verada, lowliest of the low, least talented of all Abbot Barrez’s students (as the abbot was so fond of telling him).

He daydreamed of becoming an accomplished monk of the Shieldmage Order, assigned to a big town like Oasis, where one’s own worse stink was carried far away as if by magic.

Maybe that’s a magic I could master, he thought ruefully. What’d the innkeeper call it? “Plumming”?

He wasn’t sure what the running water had to do with plums, but he had always liked plums. They were sweet and juicy and the acolytes were each given two on Solstice morning. Teyo sighed audibly and trudged on, knowing that his meager skills with a shield wouldn’t earn him a place in Oasis or anywhere like it. He’d be lucky to land a village the size of the unnamed place he’d been born, and later orphaned, during his first—

Suddenly someone grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him into the moment. “By the Storm,” the abbot shouted over the rising wind, “are you deaf as well as blind? Take off your pack and prepare! We’re in for it! Now!”

Teyo scrambled to comply, shedding his pack, as sand from the Eastern Cloud sliced past his bare cheeks. Squinting, he raised his hands, tried to focus, and began chanting the geometric lore of the shieldmage.

Barrez moved forward. “Shields up!” he shouted, his voice enhanced by magic to be heard over the now roaring wind.

Teyo concentrated. A triangle of shimmering white light formed across the palm of each hand. Then second triangles formed at offset angles from the first two. Third triangles. And on his strong left hand, a fourth. But three-point shapes wouldn’t do, and he knew it. He needed diamonds to thwart diamonds. And Acolyte Verada was not particularly good at four-pointers. Not particularly good, particularly when under pressure. Like when the abbot harangued him during morning exercises. Like when a diamondstorm was imminent.

His shields were off balance. His left hand, his eastern vertex, had always been much stronger than his right. He turned in profile toward the coming storm to compensate while summoning up a perfect glowing white circle beneath his right ear in an attempt to even the mana scales. It worked, more or less.

Teyo knew the drill and willed himself to follow it.

Four points. Four points. Four points. Four points.

Concentric circles formed above, below, and to the left and right of his two sets of triangular shields.

Form the lines.

He joined each set of four circles to the others with bright white lines of sharpened thought.

Fill the shapes.

He expanded his western and eastern vertices to create two overlapping diamond-shaped shields. He’d be protected now. He could take a breath. But the job was only half done.

As the abbot taught, if all a shieldmage could protect was himself, he was a pretty poor shieldmage.

Teyo was at the end of the line, but at minimum he needed to enlarge his shields to safeguard the hunkering, lowing carry-beast and the supplies on its leathery back.

He took a half step forward, leaning into the sand and wind, which was already sparkling. Had he been a second slower, micrograins of diamond would already be shredding his clothes and skin. They were already lodging themselves into the thick hide of the beast, which groaned mournfully at the pinpricks of pain. Teyo used the wind as a vertical platform upon which to expand his shields. It wasn’t orthodoxy.

The abbot wouldn’t approve.

But it worked for him. The shields—the seven triangles and the two four-pointers—merged into one larger rhombus. His geometry was holding, and the now protected carry-beast rewarded him with a relieved sigh and a rather stinky emission.

And just in time. Larger diamonds, the size of small hailstones, began striking his shield and the shields of his fellow acolytes. Teyo glanced to his left and saw Arturo sporting a mighty trapezoid.

Show-off, Teyo groused silently. Who’s he trying to impress?

Teyo knew the answer to that question, of course. For there was the abbot, moving up and down the lines with only a small personal oval, shouting in his enhanced voice to hold the line, to be the geometry. The windblown diamonds got larger, now the size of Solstice plums, thud, thud, thudding against Teyo’s rhombus. Seven or eight hit at once, and for a moment Teyo thought the impacts would shatter his concentration and his lore. But he sucked it up, leaned in, renewed his chants and maintained.

And then the lights started.

Lights? How can there be lights? It makes no sense!

The sand and diamonds kicked up by the powerful desert wind should have completely obscured all sky and all light. Yet there they were, above and before him, lights sparkling in the sky like enormous rubies and emeralds and sapphires and obsidians and, yes, more diamonds. It drew his eye, his mind, his concentration, and ultimately his lore away from the task at hand. A diamond the size of an apple glanced off his shoulder before he realized his shield was faltering. He tried to recover, but the geometry was lost to him. The beast crooned in pain as Teyo struggled to recover his lore. And even then, the lights-that-could-not-be in the sky-he-should-not-see called to him.

Again, Abbot Barrez appeared from nowhere, forming a wide four-pointer that protected both Teyo Verada and the carry-beast. “Seriously, boy, what is wrong with you?”

“The lights . . .” Teyo murmured, pointing weakly upward.

“What light? You’re lucky I could see you failing and flailing in this murk. Child, of all my students, you teach me despair.”

“Yes, Master,” Teyo said automatically, his true focus still on high. Briefly he wondered why the abbot couldn’t see the lights. But even that mystery couldn’t hold his attention. The lights spoke to him now, reaching somewhere deep in his soul, creating a foreboding sense of doom and—despite that— a kind of summons that pulled him forward.

Finally, the diamondstorm began to fade. The diamonds themselves had passed on, but sand still blew in fiercely. Teyo hardly noticed. The abbot moved on, saying, “Find your lore, acolyte, or find yourself sand-scoured.” Teyo ignored him. Raising no shield, chanting no chants, he stumbled forward toward the lights, deeper into the dying storm.

Arturo called out, “Teyo!”

Abbot Barrez looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Verada, maintain the line!”

But the abbot’s student couldn’t seem to help himself. Sand—and one last stray diamond—indeed scoured his skin. He could feel blood dripping down his cheek. He closed his eyes against the storm—and could still see the sparkling, summoning lights behind his eyelids. He stumbled off the dune, tumbled down its side. He vaguely heard his master and his fellows calling out his name. He tried to rise but was already buried up to his shins in rising sand. He thought he would probably die. He thought he should try to raise a shield. He thought only a sphere could save him now, but he’d never managed one bigger than his fist. The sand was up to his waist and seemed to be actively trying to drag him down. He tried to yank himself free, but the sand drift grabbed his arm and did drag him down. A bit of the dune gave way behind him, and he was covered . . .

Buried alive.

He struggled to move, struggled to breathe. Desperate and panicked, he forgot all his training and opened his mouth to suck in air, only to suck in sand instead. He was suffocating. It was completely dark. And yet it wasn’t. The lights. The lights. The lights would be the last things Teyo Verada ever saw . . .

Then somewhere in his core, in the center of his heart vertex, an ember became a spark. There was a final burst of white geometry, which felt like death, as Teyo disintegrated into grains of sand . . .

THREE

CHANDRA NALAAR

Chandra Nalaar, Planeswalker and pyromancer, sank deeper into the over-soft armchair in her mother’s new apartment in the city of Ghirapur on the plane of Kaladesh. She was anxious, frustrated, angry, frightened and more than a little bored.

Pia Nalaar had prepared a tray of dark, rich hot chocolate for her daughter and her daughter’s friends and had then departed for a council meeting, saying her goodbyes to Chandra—as she always did—as if she might never see her again.

Only this time, she might be right.

Now Chandra, cup of chocolate untouched on a side table, slouched with her chin practically touching her chest as she glanced around at her companions. Over on the sofa, the mind-mage Jace Beleren, looking weary and haggard, stared into his own cup of brown liquid, as if somehow it might reveal the true secret of defeating the Elder Dragon, Nicol Bolas. Beside him, the time-master, Teferi, leaned back, resting his eyes and breathing deeply. Perched on stools at the kitchen counter, the lion-headed healer, Ajani Goldmane, chatted pleasantly with Chandra’s sometimes pyromantic mentor, Jaya Ballard, about bird-watching, of all things. The silver golem Karn stood motionless in the corner, seemingly engrossed in perfecting his already phenomenal resemblance to a statue. Planeswalkers all, they were the Gatewatch, the supposed saviors of the Multiverse. Well, technically, Jaya and Karn hadn’t actually joined the ’watch, which is to say they had declined to take the Oath. But they were here to fight beside the rest against the dragon Bolas. To fight and probably to die.

In a hurried motion, Jace put his cup down on the coffee table, as if the hot chocolate suddenly frightened him. “He’s taking too long,” Jace said.

“He” was Gideon Jura, the soul of the Gatewatch—or so Chandra had come to believe. Gids had planeswalked back to Dominaria to find yet another member of the ’watch, the necromancer Liliana Vess, who should have met them here on Kaladesh but had failed to show. Jace had already made it abundantly clear he thought Gideon was on a fool’s errand, that Liliana had never had any intention of joining them in their fight against Bolas, that she had exploited the Gatewatch as a tool to slay her own personal demons, literally, and that now that those demons were dead and gone, her use for her so-called friends had likewise come to an end.

But Gids had refused to believe that, and Chandra had agreed with him, as had Jaya, Karn and Teferi. All five of them felt strongly that Liliana—despite her own well-manicured façade of selfishness—was indeed their true friend and ally. That she cared about them, even Jace. Maybe especially Jace.

They had slept together, right?

But Liliana definitely cared about Gideon, whom she mocked unceasingly but with affection. And Chandra didn’t think she was flattering herself believing that Liliana cared about her, too. Chandra thought of Liliana as an older sister.

A way older sister. A centuries-older sister.

But a sister nonetheless. Chandra was confident Gideon would return at any moment with Liliana in tow, ready to join the conflict—the final conflict—against the evil dragon mastermind.

But Chandra had to agree Gideon was taking too long. She wasn’t exactly worried about him. Gideon’s powers made him nigh-on invulnerable. The rest might fall—Chandra might fall—yet Gids would fight on. And on, and on, and on . . .

It’s just who he is, she thought.

The indomitable warrior, the unrelenting juggernaut with that unerring sense of justice and those washboard abs. Once upon a time, Chandra had sported a major crush on Gids. She was over that now, but he pretty much remained her best friend in the world. On any world. In the Multiverse.

Whatever.

She sighed. She had been a Planeswalker since she was a preteen, but it was still occasionally difficult to adjust her vocabulary to what that meant. Chandra Nalaar was one of a select group of individuals who could travel—planeswalk—between dimensions, passing from one plane to the next, from one world to another. Every world she had ever ’walked to had its own set of troubles and turmoil. So none of them needed new dangers arriving from planes unknown. That’s why the Gatewatch had been formed. So that Planeswalkers who gave a damn would be there to fight, to safeguard worlds from interplanar threats like Nicol Bolas.

Well, not like Bolas. From Bolas.

It had become clear over the last few weeks that every single threat they had faced had been generated, initiated, concocted by the dragon himself. And that’s not even counting their encounter on the Plane of Amonkhet, where Bolas had flat-out kicked their collective asses. Of course, the Gatewatch hadn’t had Jaya or Teferi or Karn with them then. Just Chandra, Jace, Gids, Liliana and . . .

She sank still deeper into her chair. Gideon was taking too long. If the seven (or hopefully eight) of them were going to arrive at their destination ahead of Bolas and prepare for the coming battle, they needed to get planeswalking already. Frankly, the suspense was killing her.

Chandra stuck out her lower lip and blew upward, a lazy attempt to move one of her wild red tresses out of the way of her left eye. It had literally no effect. She tried again. And a third time.

And then she shot to her feet, galvanized by a call from across the planes. The others reacted with less motion but no less concern.

“You feel that?” Chandra asked, knowing they had.

All of them nodded silently. She looked upward, toward the sky, and of course saw only the roof of her mother’s apartment. But between her and the roof were lights that sparkled like gemstones and called out to her to follow them to . . . to . . . to Ravnica!

“Ravnica,” Jaya stated.

There was a murmur of agreement from each of the others.

“What does this mean? Are we too late?” Karn asked.

No one answered right away. They all knew that Bolas wanted them on Ravnica. That he had set a trap of some kind for them there. They had hoped to arrive before him and thwart his trap, his invasion and any other nefarious plan. But prior experience with Bolas indicated that he was a helluva lot more likely to be the one doing the thwarting.

Jace spoke carefully, slowly, as if trying to convince himself. “It could be a call for help from those who know Bolas is coming to Ravnica.”

Teferi shrugged. “It could mean he’s already there.”

Chandra was still staring at the sparkling lights. Blue, green, red, white and glowing black, they called to her, promising nothing but doom and yet fostering a powerful urge to planeswalk with them to another dimension, another Plane, to the world-city of Ravnica.

“You feel that pull?” she asked, knowing they did.

Again there were nods all around.

Just then a burst of golden light heralded the arrival of Gideon Jura as he planeswalked into the room, looking every inch the hero, his hand upon the hilt of Blackblade, the soul-drinking sword that they hoped would kill Bolas since nothing else had.

Okay, yeah, thwarting is all fine and good, but really we just want the damn dragon dead. Gods know he deserves it.

“Finally!” Chandra and Jace said in near-perfect unison.

“Sorry,” Gids said. “It took all my strength to come to Kaladesh. I felt a powerful call to go straight to Ravnica. Still feel it. You?”

Jace nodded, raising his hood. Chandra thought maybe the action was meant as a slight distraction, because Jace suddenly looked fairly heroic in his own right—which meant he had probably generated an illusion of his better days to compensate for his general exhaustion . . . or to unconsciously compete with the no-need-for-an-illusion Gids.

Gideon said, “Well, that’s doubly disturbing. Do we think Bolas’ trap is already set?”

Teferi shrugged again: “Better to assume so.”

Chandra blurted out, “Where’s Liliana?”

Gideon looked away. “There was no sign of her on Dominaria. She had planeswalked away—but she obviously didn’t come here.”

“Maybe she felt the call to Ravnica and couldn’t help herself,” Chandra said, ever hopeful.

Gideon shook his head. “She may have gone to Ravnica, but if she did, she went before this summons, or whatever it is. And she knew we were all supposed to come here first.”

Jace said, “I don’t want to say I told you so.”

Gideon scowled. “I think that’s exactly what you want to say.”

Jace actually looked hurt. “I don’t take any pleasure in this, Gideon. No one wanted to believe in Liliana more than I did. No one had more riding on it than I did.”

“Except Liliana,” Gideon countered.

Jace inhaled and nodded. “Yes. Except her.”

Jaya scooped up her long gray hair and tucked it into her own hood as she raised it over her head. “It’s a damn shame. We could have used her experience, her skills, her power.”

Ajani stated, “There’s nothing we can do about that now.”

Gideon said, “There’s nothing we can do for her now. I know that. We have to get to Ravnica and face whatever Bolas has in store. We know it’s a trap, which may help us avoid it. And even if we can’t avoid it, we go anyway. We can’t let the dragon do to Ravnica what he did to Amonkhet. In a city the size of a planet, there are just too many lives at stake.”

No one moved. Chandra felt herself heating up.

Jaya must have sensed it, too, as she shot a glare at her protégée that clearly instructed: Breathe, child.

As Chandra had no desire to torch her mother’s new apartment, she took the unspoken advice and silently counted to ten. She was angry with Liliana. And she feared for her, as well. But truly, her thoughts weren’t with Liliana Vess at all. As much as she missed her “sister,” she missed Nissa Revane even more, secretly wishing that the elf woman were there beside them.

Beside me.

Nissa was the last original member of the Gatewatch. But she had abandoned their cause months ago, leaving Chandra and the rest behind. Nissa had been a source of strength for Chandra, for all of them. In some ways, even more so than Gideon.

But there’s no helping that now, either.

They had lost Nissa as surely as they had lost Liliana. The seven of them were on their own.

The seven of us will have to be enough.

Chandra glanced around the room at the grim faces.

“Look, it’s not all bad,” she said, feeling the need to buck them—and herself—up.

“She’s right,” Ajani said. “I recruited Kiora and Tamiyo to our cause. They haven’t sworn any oaths, but they both promised to meet us on Ravnica.”

“And Jace is still the Living Guildpact of Ravnica,” Chandra added, giving Beleren a friendly punch on the shoulder. “His word there is magical law. Literally. Even Bolas can’t change that, right?”

“Right,” Jace said, rubbing his shoulder while affecting a confidence that perhaps he didn’t feel. “So let’s get on with it.” He disintegrated into a complex crisscross pattern of blue light as he planeswalked to Ravnica.

Gideon and Ajani followed in storms of gold; Jaya, in a conflagration of red flame. Teferi seemed to transform into a blue whirlwind that swept him and itself away, and Karn simply vanished with a sharp metallic PING.

Chandra paused, looking around the now empty room. “Bye, Mom,” she whispered. “Wish us luck.”

Then, with her own burst of fire, she planeswalked away from her home plane of Kaladesh toward whatever awaited them on Ravnica . . .

FOUR

RAL ZAREK

On Ravnica, Ral Zarek, Planeswalker and de facto guildmaster of the Izzet League, crossed to his ally, Kaya, Planeswalker and reluctant guildmaster of the Orzhov Syndicate. The ghost-assassin was lying unconscious on the floor of an Azorius Senate bell tower, a few feet from the humming Beacon, which Ral had just activated. The lightning storm he had summoned was dying now, but high winds still howled through the shattered seven-foot-tall arched window.

Ral knelt beside Kaya and shot a glance at Lavinia, also unconscious, a few feet away. Then he allowed himself a quick look at Hekara, lying in a pool of her own blood. In the end, it had come down to the four of them. Well, the four of them plus Vraska.

Kaya stirred, moaning softly. Ral touched the metal side of the (patented) Accumulator on his back, discharging the last of the static electricity coursing through his body, before gently stroking his pale fingers against Kaya’s dark-skinned cheek. He whispered her name like an invocation, summoning her back to consciousness.

Squinching one eye, she looked up at him blurrily. “Ral?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did we win?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t know quite how to answer, but he helped her to her feet. Instantly, her eyes fell upon Hekara, and her grip tightened on him for support, moral or otherwise.

“Oh, no . . . Hekara . . . Ral, I’m so sorry.”

“It couldn’t be helped.”

Although Hekara and Ral were of different guilds, of different temperaments and had next to nothing in common, the exceedingly quirky and chipper razorwitch had sacrificed her life to save his, simply because she considered Ral Zarek to be her friend. In hindsight, this emissary from the Cult of Rakdos may have been one of the best friends Ral had ever had, which only served to increase his grief and guilt, not only over her sacrifice, but also over the way he had treated her when she was alive: more often than not, as a nuisance he wished to be well rid of.

Tomik should be here, he said to himself, though honestly he was glad Tomik Vrona had missed the fight.

The last thing Ral needed was to see another person he cared deeply about lying dead on the floor.

It had been a costly battle. Just another in what had become a costly war.

And really, it hasn’t even begun.

Nicol Bolas was determined to conquer Ravnica, and Ral had been running around like a headless chicken, trying to do everything in his not inconsiderable power to mount a defense. Nearly every effort had been met with dismal failure and death.

Following the orders of his former guildmaster—Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind—Ral had attempted to unite all ten of Ravnica’s guilds to grant the dragon Niv the power to go head-to-head against the Elder Dragon Bolas. Ral had gathered— or believed he had gathered—a core group of like-minded individuals to help him, including Kaya, Tomik, Lavinia, Hekara . . . and the gorgon Planeswalker Vraska. Ral had been slow to trust Vraska, who had admitted up front that she had once been an agent of Bolas and had risen to power as guildmaster of the Golgari Swarm thanks to his aid. But Ral had his own dark history with Bolas and had eventually come to think of Vraska as a true friend and ally—right up to the point where she betrayed them all.

The fragile alliances Ral had been building among the ten guilds had shattered like the bell tower’s glass window. Niv-Mizzet was forced to face Bolas without the boost in power he had been expecting. Now Niv was dead, Hekara was dead, and Bolas was loose on Ravnica.

“And Vraska?” Kaya asked as she disengaged from Ral.

“I blasted her with enough lightning to fry her to a crisp— but not enough to completely incinerate her. Since her corpse is nowhere to be found, we’ll have to assume she planeswalked away.”

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

“When the smoke from Bolas’ fire clears, maybe. I hope so. And I hope I’m still alive when she does. I very much want to kill her for all this.”

“Ral.”

“She made her choice.”

“Or Bolas made it for her. You and I both know what he’s like. How easy it is to fall under his sway. How hard he is to break from.”

“And yet somehow we both managed.”

She didn’t respond.

But another voice said, “Apologies.” It was Lavinia. She had regained consciousness and was standing over Hekara’s corpse.

Ral swallowed with difficulty and forced himself to speak: “It wasn’t your fault. It may have been your hand that slew Hekara, but only because Bolas had possessed you.”

“I know that,” Lavinia said coldly, like the hard-ass officer of the law she had once been. “I wasn’t apologizing for killing Hekara. I was apologizing for giving Bolas’ henchman the opportunity to get the drop on me in the first place. For allowing Tezzeret to slap the device on my neck that gave the dragon control of my mind.”

Kaya said, “It’s just another reason to bring the dragon down.”

“We didn’t need any more reasons.” Lavinia turned away from Hekara and seemed to instantly forget about her. She approached the Beacon. “You managed to get this thing working?”

Ral joined her in front of the large humming device and looked down at its locked and coded keyboard. “Yeah,” he said. “The Beacon should summon Planeswalkers to Ravnica from throughout the Multiverse to help us fight Bolas. And neither the dragon nor his minions will be able to shut it off. Hell, I can’t even shut it off.”

“I hope you’re right. The ten guilds have never been so divided, and the Living Guildpact is still missing.”

Ral found himself shrugging: “Maybe the Beacon’ll draw Mr. Guildpact back to save us.” He heard the bitter sarcasm in his voice and frowned. Ral had decidedly mixed feelings about Jace Beleren but reluctantly admitted to himself that there was no one he’d rather see at this moment. Beleren’s my-word-is-magical-law Guildpact powers might be their last best chance against Bolas.

From behind them, Kaya said, “He can’t get here soon enough . . .”

They turned to see a wide-eyed Kaya staring out the broken window in fascinated horror.

“Why?” Ral asked. “What now?”

FIVE

LILIANA VESS

Liliana Vess stared daggers at Nicol Bolas, Elder Dragon, former God-Pharaoh of Amonkhet, former God-Emperor of and current God-Damned psychopath. multiple multiversal planes

He took no notice, and she eventually gave up, silently lowering her eyes in bitter frustration.

Bolas and Flunky Supreme Tezzeret were manipulating some rather impressive magics to raise the ground beneath their feet, with Liliana along for the ride. Utilizing no subtlety whatsoever, they sculpted something akin to a stone step pyramid on the far end of Ravnica’s Tenth District Plaza— directly across from the Embassy of the Guildpact, where Jace Beleren kept his office, library, living quarters and quaint notions about right and wrong. The new structure was big, bulky and brutalist, an aesthetic nightmare completely out of place amid the elegance of Ravnica’s multifaceted architecture.

And the noise. The cacophony filled the air with the cracking of pavement, the toppling of neighboring buildings and the scraping of massive stone block against massive stone block.

Plus the shouting. There’d be plenty of that today, no doubt.

Nor was the dissonance limited to the observable world; Liliana was a necromancer not an elementalist, yet she could practically hear the land screaming in protest over the forced creation of this monstrosity.

As he did his master’s bidding, sunlight glinted off Tezzeret’s armor and his fully mechanical—and fully monstrous—right arm. The artificer had done his best and cruelest work upon himself. Below his dreadlocked head, he was more machine than man. Liliana thought him appalling. Bolas merely thought him useful.

When the pyramid had reached a sufficient height to be seen from all four horizons, Bolas and Tezzeret ceased their efforts. Liliana glanced up and spotted an armored angel, her crown helmet gleaming in the morning sun, pull up short in midair and then quickly fly off to inform her Boros Legion superiors of what by now they couldn’t have helped noticing even from their Sunhome Fortress half a district away.

Towering over his two minions ( because, she thought, what am I at this point except another minion of Bolas), the dragon regarded his work with a devious smile that contorted his features and flattish head into a death’s-head grin.

Something’s missing, he thought to them, not bothering to speak out loud.

Then from the air itself he conjured up a stone throne, which floated thirty feet above the pyramid’s flattop apex. With a single flap of his wings, he rose and sat upon it. Now if Liliana and Tezzeret wanted to look at his ugly face, they would have to crane their necks back as far as they could stretch. It made Liliana feel small and insignificant, which she was quite sure was the point.

We’ll call it the Citadel of Bolas, thought the self-satisfied dragon.

“You’re giving them a target,” said a frowning Tezzeret.

Exactly. In fact, I believe I’ll give them two . . .