“Why didn’t you do that before?” asked Bruenna.
Glissa shrugged. “Magic is a delicate art form,” she said, a smile blossoming on her face. “It takes a lot of concentration-”
“You mock me now, but-” Bruenna was interrupted by a clawing nim. She cut the shambling beast in half then continued. “We should have this conversation later-” she glanced around, indicating the battle raging around them-“perhaps when we’re not in such immediate danger.”
Straight ahead, Glissa spotted Bosh, his head rising high above the rest of the battle. Al-Hayat stood beside him, Slobad on his shoulders. They were surrounded by a ring of attackers, metal and putrid flesh alike.
Meanwhile, all around, nim battled with levelers.
“So they haven’t stopped attacking us,” said Glissa, “but they have started attacking the levelers as well.”
“To their eyes, we all look like invaders,” replied Bruenna. “The nim don’t care much for who is chasing whom. As long as we’re in their swamp, they’ll fight to keep us all out.”
Glissa bashed aside another shambling undead. “Then let’s let the nim deal with the levelers.”
* * * * *
Malil stood knee deep in rotten flesh. He had no conflict with these creatures. Why were they getting in his way? Didn’t they know who he was? Didn’t they know how badly he needed to get the elf girl?
The metal man raised a heavy sword in one hand and brought it down on an advancing group of zombies. Gummy flesh parted, and the oncoming ghouls fell to the ground in a bloody mess.
“Flesh is weak,” snarled Malil, cutting down another score of slogging creatures with a single flick of his wrist. “You will not stand in my way.”
The rest of his levelers were having an equally easy time with thenim, but the sheer numbers were staggering. Where a scythe blade cut one down, two more stepped up to take its place. There was an unending supply for these undead creatures, and they swarmed in. To make matters worse, in order to stop them from coming, a leveler had to cut the beast to shreds. Simple wounds didn’t stop their advance as they did with elves or humans-or sometimes other levelers.
“Damn,” shouted Malil.
He didn’t mind cutting down the beasts. He didn’t care who he had to slay to get what he wanted, but all this fighting was inefficient. He didn’t care if these creatures lived or died. He’d be glad to oblige them if what they wanted was a second death. Right now all he wanted was the elf girl.
But he couldn’t reach her.
He’d waited in this miserable swamp, separated from his master and the serum he desired, now only to be stopped by piles and piles of weak, rotting flesh.
Across the battlefield, Malil could see the elf and her companions. They too fought the nim.
“They like no one,” he said, taking the head from a desiccated figure that looked as if it once might have been an elf.
It appeared as if the elf was making her way toward the swamp. Caught between Malil and the nim, Glissa had chosen the undead, and now they were trying to once again get away from him. Driven by his desire, Malil pressed forward, urging his troops to cut their way to his prize. But the harder he fought the more his devices were mired in putrid flesh, and his levelers came to a lurching halt.
As Glissa disappeared over the edge of the slope, down toward the swamp, Malil felt his burning desire well up again in his belly.
“I must have her,” he said to an undead humanlike creature. Malil stabbed his greatsword through the creature’s belly and pulled it straight up, cutting the beast in half. “I must. I must.”
* * * * *
Slipping over the lip of the slope, the only living flesh creatures in all of Mephidross fought their way toward the water. It was a hard fight, and Glissa’s sword arm was nearly numb from smashing nim to bits.
Bruenna had lost many of her wizards in the battle, but she had managed to consolidate the remaining few, and the group followed the elf down toward the swamp. Al-Hayat and Slobad were next, and Bosh came last.
The big, mostly metal golem moved from the plain onto the downward slope. The ground was slick with vile things-rotten organs, broken shards of bone, melted flaps of rubbery flesh, black fluids, red gobs of meat, and yellow bits of putrescence. Bosh stepped on a pile of this slippery stuff, and his foot slid out from under him. His arms flailing, he tried to bring his other foot around, but it too sank into the filth. With a tremendous clank, the iron golem hit the ground on his back.
“Look out,” shouted Slobad. The goblin pointed to the falling golem.
His arms waving and his legs kicked up in the air, Bosh slid down the steep slope, hydroplaning on a layer of filth. Ruined zombies worked better than grease at lubricating metal, and the big guy picked up speed as he skidded toward the swamp.
Ten paces down Bosh crashed into a line of advancing undead. Even with eight legs, the creatures weren’t nimble enough to get from the way of the sliding golem. With a crunch and a splat, Bosh ran over them, squashing the nim flat against the hill and adding more lubrication to his decent.
Glissa watched this out of control slide. Where he slid, he cut a swath, and in his wake, Bosh left a wide corridor in the middle of the marching, gas-belching nim.
“Come on,” shouted the elf. Waving her hand over her shoulder to indicate the way, Glissa jumped into the air. Kicking her legs out in front of her, she landed on her rear and slid after the golem.
The filthy swamp smell was nothing compared to the odor coming off of the flattened nim. Glissa tried to hold her breath, but it was hard enough to stay upright. Using her sword as a rudder, she sat up, moving around the larger chunks as she slid toward the swamp. Down and down she went, picking up speed.
Ahead, Bosh tumbled over once, crushing more undead into paste. The slow moving swamp creatures couldn’t get out of his way fast enough, and a mound of ruined bodies piled up before him as he approached the bottom. With a splash the giant golem slipped into the briny liquid at the edge of the swamp. A wave of black swill shot into the air. Tendrils of the stuff separated, reaching up over Bosh like a skeletal hand.
The splashed swamp water peaked. The top curled over, making the hand look like a gaping, hungry mouth. Then it fell back down to the earth with a tremendous clap. The black, viscous slime completely devoured Bosh, and he disappeared from view.
Glissa didn’t have time to even blink after that. Scratching, clawing, and digging into the ground with her sword, she still couldn’t slow her descent.
Here I go, she thought. Then her feet hit the slime, and all went black as her head slipped under.
CHAPTER 15
Memnarch stood at the window of his laboratory. A light breeze rattled the jagged bits of glass, reaching in through where the window had been to brush against his flesh. The cool air felt good against his hot skin, and he breathed it in, calming himself.
Out in the interior of Mirrodin, the mana core crackled and sparked. It was pregnant with energy, and soon it would release it. Already the blue-white sphere had begun to take on a greenish tinge. Time was getting short.
When the mana core did finally erupt, it would shake the foundations of the world, unleashing terrible force and temporarily unbalancing the perfection of Mirrodin.
The perfection of Mirrodin. Memnarch shook his head. The perfection of Mirrodin indeed. It was a myth. This world had never been perfect. Mirrodin had always had one fatal flaw-it wasn’t a natural world. This plane, like so many others around the multiverse, was a creation of a planeswalker. But for all their magic and wisdom, the most powerful beings in all of Dominia had never been able to create stable worlds.