Behind Marek, a dozen of his guardsmen held their weapons against the giant wolf, pressing the points into his hide. Another two dozen held the big golem who still stood atop the throne. The goblin and the sole remaining wizard had been disarmed and were under guard as well.
Pontifex strode up to the dais, Geth in tow, and looked down on the defiant elf girl. “We meet again.”
“Pontifex. What a surprise. You’re not still angry about that little incident in your pool?” said Glissa. She squirmed against her captor, but it was clear that Marek had a good grip.
The vedalken lord brushed aside the comment. “No, of course not.” He stepped up much closer, putting his nose right in her face. “I have a much better reason to come find you.”
Geth licked his lips and rubbed his hands together. Though he didn’t say a word, he was clearly enjoying this.
“Oh really,” replied the elf. “What would that be?”
“There are creatures on this plane-forces that you still don’t understand. You, my young elf friend, have attracted their attention.”
“And you’ve come to do their bidding?” asked Glissa. “The ruler of the vedalken has become a petty thug?”
Pontifex smiled. “No, Glissa. On the contrary, I’m here to make sure those forces never succeed.” He lifted his sword, testing the edge with the tip of his thumb. “I’m here to kill you.”
Geth giggled.
Marek turned his attention from the elf girl and the human wizard to stare at his lord. He meant to kill the elf. He’d been trying to do just that for some time. The real question was what would happen after?
A huge crash and hum interrupted Marek’s reverie.
“Let her go, Pontifex,” boomed a voice.
From the fog rolled a squad of levelers.
Lord Pontifex turned away from the elf girl. “Go away, Malil. This doesn’t concern you.”
Malil rode up astride his leveler, his greatsword already out of its scabbard.
Something looked different about the metal man. Marek had only seen him a couple of times before, but this time he seemed more … human, tired even, as if he suffered from the same ailments that inflicted the organic creatures of Mirrodin.
Malil rode up to the foot of the dais, only a few feet from Pontifex. The other levelers formed up behind him-two rows deep.
“Yes,” said the metal man. “Yes, it does. Now let the elf go, and turn her over to me.”
Pontifex shook his head. “After all I’ve done to track her down, do you think I’m going to let you take her back and get all the credit?”
“Memnarch wants her alive, Pontifex.”
From the corner of his eye, Marek spotted a four-legged creature dart through the shadows. He didn’t so much see the creature clearly, only its movement and its outline as it crept from one spot of darkness to another.
Pontifex zigzagged the head of his halberd through the air, making a whipping sound. “You’ll have to come take her from me.”
Malil didn’t even blink. “If that’s what it takes.”
The levelers lurched forward, cutting into the vedalken guards standing on the first step of the dais.
* * * * *
Her hands held tight behind her back by Marek, Glissa fished around on the floor with her foot. She’d dropped her sword when she’d cast her last spell, and since she’d been taken captive, she’d been searching for it.
She shifted her feet and stepped on something hard. It skidded a bit, making a grinding metallic sound, dampened by the dense fog.
I found it, she thought. The notion filled her with a brief glimmer of hope. Then the levelers attacked, and Marek’s grip on her hands loosened.
Glissa lurched away from her captor, diving to the ground. Her hand closed around the hilt of her sword, and she climbed back to her feet.
More than half of the vedalken had turned to take on the levelers. Marek was nowhere to be seen, and already Al-Hayat had a four-armed warrior pinned to the ground with each paw and another nearly eviscerated between his teeth.
Bosh reached down to grab a couple of vedalken, but when he shifted his weight, the throne he stood upon tipped backward, and he lost his balance. The iron golem disappeared as the chair toppled. Fog and dust shot into the air, and Glissa bounded over the top of the dais trying to get to her fallen friend.
A few of the remaining vedalken guards tried to bar her way, but they were overwhelmed by an icy magical blast from Bruenna, and the elf managed to skirt past. With her next step the floor seemed to disappear, and she fell.
She shouted as she dropped, caught off guard. Her rump landed on something hard, and she rolled sideways, throwing her hands out to catch herself and stop her fall. The floor she landed on seemed lumpy and uneven. It moved under her and gave off a jingling sound.
Glissa tumbled once then came to rest on her feet. The room around her was dark, illuminated only by a beam of light coming through the hole she had just fallen through. She could see that the ceiling was only three or four times her height, not far in comparison to the fall she had taken into the underground lake. The hole she had fallen through was perfectly round, as if it had been put there intentionally or made by magic. Above it, Glissa could make out the toppled legs of the throne Bosh had been standing on.
“The hole was under the throne,” she said. That thought made her feel a little bit better. It seemed as if in the past day she had managed to fall into nearly everything that an elf could fall into on Mirrodin.
At least there was a reason I didn’t see it when I walked in, she thought.
Climbing to the point closest to the hole, Glissa tried jumping. She thought if she could catch the edge of the hole, she could pull herself out, but her leap wasn’t nearly high enough to reach, and each time she tried, the ground shifted below her, making the same jingling sound it had when she had landed.
Above she could hear the sounds of battle.
Giving up on the idea of getting out by herself, Glissa spun in a circle, squinting to help her eyes adjust. She could just make out the shadows marking the corners and walls of the room. It was small, nothing fancy, and it appeared as if she was the only one there.
She chuckled. “That’s what I thought about the lake.”
Bending down, she grabbed hold of a handful of the shifting, jingling ground and lifted it into the light. It sparkled.
In her hand she held several dozen gold disks. Looking down she could see that the floor was covered with stacks them. She was standing on the largest pile, right under the hole in the ceiling.
Walking down to the floor, she examined the other piles. It looked as if larger objects had been buried under the smaller ones. Letting the metal disks in her hand fall back to the floor, she bent down again to examine some of the other objects.
Pushing aside large handfuls of the jingling metal, Glissa uncovered a large, intricately designed metal plate. Made from a dark gray metal, the protective piece just seemed to go on and on. It wasn’t just big, it was huge. She could just make out the edge of a symbol that appeared to cover most of the front half of the shield. Clearing away the metal disks as fast as she could, Glissa uncovered the rest of the marking.
It was the same circular sigil as on the ring the trolls gave her.
“The Kaldra Shield.”
Suddenly, something fell from the ceiling, landing on the big pile of disks with a shriek. Glissa took a step back, picking up her sword and getting ready to fight.
The falling creature rolled and came to a stop right at her feet.
“Slobad.” Glissa lowered her blade.
The goblin rubbed the side of his head with his hands. “Slobad tired of falling, huh?”
Glissa helped the goblin to his feet. “How did you find me?”
“Crazy elf run toward Bosh then disappear, huh? When you not stand up, Slobad look. Goblin fall through hole.” He looked up, pointing at the ceiling, and stuck his tongue out. “No goblin make this room, huh? No goblin cut hole in floor where people fall through. Who make such a place, huh?”