“Well, I can tell you our status,” said Ral. “The Implicit Maze project is coming along well. We’ve succeeded in tracking down all but a few guildgates, and have even established some reliable connections between them. We only need to delve into the Orzhov territory, and then plumb the grottoes of the Simic. Then we should have performed enough experiments to discern the exact maze route. But we lost many soldiers, and I may have got a cyclops killed. So if I could have another regimen of mages and strongarms …”
The dragon looked up, lifted his mighty neck and spread his wings, but his eyes kept flicking back to the model.
“Guildmage Zarek,” said Niv-Mizzet, a flicker of flame escaping his teeth at the start of Zarek’s name. “You’ve been hard at work on our maze project, yes?”
“Yes, Guildmaster.” Ral stifled a sigh. “By your request, I’ve had teams of Izzet mages canvass the entire district and beyond. We’ve found braids of mana that flow in unusual patterns throughout the Tenth, which has helped us to establish the path between the ancient guildgates. And we’ve recovered a series of artifacts that will help us discern the exact ordering of gates. It won’t be long before we’ll have the answer. We will solve this maze for you.”
I will solve this maze for you, Ral thought.
But Niv-Mizzet had already become distracted. He coiled his tail around the glowing model of the district. “Time grows short,” said the dragon. “I have a new experiment for you to perform. A new venture of personal interest to me.”
“You’re taking me off the maze project?”
“In a sense.”
“But Guildmaster … we’re so close. I’m about to uncover the answer. And it’s so crucial to Izzet power.”
“Until it is solved, the maze remains my top priority. But a mind has opened itself up to me. I believe he can be of use.”
Someone else would intrude on his research, and on Niv-Mizzet’s attention. Ral shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I’m spending all day every day researching them. I will know the maze route in a matter of days, or weeks at the outside.”
“No, you will not know. For you cannot see the patterns. You are blind to the maze’s true nature, and that is why you have not already succeeded in this project. That is understandable, I suppose, as your mind is tiny. But it does make me want to devour you.”
Ral fiddled with one of the cables on his gauntlet. He breathed hard through his nose.
“I do not know his whereabouts, nor his name. But our minds touched briefly, and I know the look of his face. I want you to find him for me.” The dragon twitched his claw, and an illusion of a man appeared, crafted from light in the same manner as the glowing model, looming over Ral with exaggerated size. The illusionary young man wore a blue hooded cloak and had a keen stare, and his eyes seemed almost to move. Though the image was a shimmering trick of the light, Ral had the impression that somehow it was the living one, and that he was the one who was insubstantial and transparent. He stormed out, leaving behind an unintentional flourish of electricity.
The blood-witch Exava dragged a carcass down a banner-draped hallway, humming a helter-skelter tune. Rabid masked cultists, spike-collared imps, and other Rakdos freaks lined the hallway on either side of her, snapping at her and straining at the clinking chains that bound them to the walls. The large dead body, Exava’s burden, squeaked as it slid along the floor, leaking fluids like a sack of rotten vegetables, and Exava matched the haphazard squeaking with her humming. The line of gibbering marauders licked their chops, smelling the body. She could have ordered any one of them to carry the load for her, but she preferred to transport the offering herself. She felt that her master, the demon lord Rakdos after whom her guild was named, preferred his tributes that way. The trail of blood gave the halls of the palace of Rix Maadi that personal touch.
The corpse offering was necessary. The mage in the blue cloak, an insolent illusionist who had called himself Berrim, had escaped her, and that could not stand. The young mind mage would have been such a joy to eviscerate on stage, mewling in such pretty anguish before the cheering degenerates at the Rough Crowd ripped him to scraps—but instead, he had bested her. He had read her mind, tricked her minions, and fled into the Tenth. And worst of all, he had cut short the show without so much as a gory wound or a showy scream of agony. Exava was a blood-witch, the equivalent of a ranking priest among the thrill-killers of the Rakdos guild, and she knew leaving an audience hanging without a satisfyingly lethal finale was the ultimate sin. She needed to put things right. She needed this Berrim to die.
But there was an unfortunate wrinkle. Exava was shrewd enough to know that the mind mage had been able to pierce into her mind, and had stolen information from her. The mind mage had learned of Exava’s connection to the abduction of the Selesnya elf woman, the irritatingly-named Emmara. The lord Rakdos would not be pleased about that.
The body was that of the spike-wearing ogre who had served as the bouncer at the Rough Crowd. The squeaks of his corpse announced her as she entered the sulfurous haze of Rakdos’s throne room.
The demon lord’s face hung in the cavernous room, his eyes and sweeping horns lit by the hellfire of his burning scythe. Nothing else was visible in the smoke.
“The Cult of Rakdos is restless, Exava, and so am I.” The voice was like gravel under a blade, hoarse from long centuries, but with a seductive music all its own.
“I bring an offering, my lord,” said Exava. “We took glee in his anguish.”
“Yes. I can smell it. Bring it here.”
Exava dragged the body and let it come to rest between two lava-filled pits.
“Closer,” came the voice.
Exava hesitated, but she moved it closer, toward the voice and the blazing scythe.
Without warning, an enormous clawed hand seized the body and snatched it away into the smoky gloom. In the red glow of the chamber, Exava saw the demon lord lift the body high above his head, crush it in his claw, and consume the essence that trickled out.
Rakdos tossed the remains into a lava vat, and they sizzled into nothing. “I smell something else on you,” he said. “A scream in your soul. A longing for action.”
“Yes, Lord Rakdos. Things have become … complicated.”
“How do we uncomplicated them?”
“A man must die.”
“Finally some good news.”
“He is formidable.”
“You wield the power of the cult. You wield a shred of my own power. And yet you ask for more than that?”
“For this man to suffer as he must, I need more.”
Rakdos’s face faded back into shadow, so only the tips of his horns and his chin glowed in the light as he spoke. “I like what this man brings out in you, Exava. Your fire burns brightly, more than my other servants.”
“I will honor you with blood and chaos, my lord,” said Exava.
Rakdos’s great claw emerged from the gloom again, and Exava flinched. But the claw handed to her two shining, serrated swords. His face appeared above her, grinning by lava-light.
Exava took them in wonder, trying to appreciate the purpose of this gift. “They must slice through flesh like no other blades ever forged,” said Exava.
“Not at all,” boomed Rakdos.
Exava stuck out her lip and regarded the blades. “Then … they must be enchanted to cause searing pain at the slightest touch.”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“Then … what?”
“Have you no use for swords that cut chains?” asked Rakdos. He waited for an answer.