Eventually, Bosh slowed down. “We are near the entrance to the cult lair,” he said.
Glissa glanced about. The only light came from the distant blinkmoth stars. While her eyes were poor in pitch dark, they worked well enough in the dim twilight. She spotted a faintly illuminated rectangle outlined in a tubular outcropping.
“There,” she said, pointing to the disguised door.
Bosh pressed on a tube next to the door to open it, and they slipped inside. Glissa dropped off the golem’s shoulders and led the way through the halls. She didn’t know the layout of the lair, but she was sure she could find the inner wall that housed Slobad’s secret scrying room. She watched for duct covers. After twisting and turning through the lair she found a long hallway that had duct openings placed at regular intervals, each across from an intersecting corridor.
“This is the spot,” she said. “I don’t know how to get in there, though.”
“I can get us through the wall,” said Bosh.
“I don’t think Slobad would like that much,” said Glissa. “We’ll just wait for him.”
A portion of the wall opened up behind them, and Slobad peeked out. “You right, elf,” he said. “Secret room not very secret with hole in wall, huh?”
“Slobad!” shouted Glissa. She ran over and dropped to her knees to give the little goblin a hug. “You made it out.”
“Of course.” He pushed the elf away and brushed himself off. “Slobad always survive. It what he do best, huh? You okay?”
“I could use some new boots and a good night’s sleep,” replied Glissa. “How are Dwugget and the others?”
“Alive,” said Dwugget, coming up behind Slobad, “thanks to you, my girl.”
“Thank Slobad. He got me there. He put me back together just as he did Bosh.”
Slobad looked at Bosh. “I need to finish job. Do better work on elf, huh?”
The goblin led the golem and Glissa into the secret room and began to work on the golem’s arm. Bosh held his limb in place while Slobad climbed onto the metal man’s shoulders to work. Glissa sat across from them and pulled off the tattered remains of her boots. She set the boot sheath aside and laid out the scorched leather to see what she could salvage.
Dwugget took the leather from Glissa. “Let us help,” he said. “We repair before we leave.”
“Thank you, Dwugget,” she said. “I’m going to need them. I have a long trip ahead of me this time.”
“Where will you go?” asked Dwugget. “What great mission take you and Slobad all across Mirrodin, huh?”
Glissa almost laughed. “I plan to go to the Quicksilver Sea,” she said. “I’m going to find the person responsible for the attack last night.”
“We thought it was the goblin shamans,” said Dwugget, “come to purify the Krark cult once and for all.”
“They probably helped,” said Glissa. “But those silver beasts belonged to someone who’s been trying to kill me. I’ve seen similar creatures before.”
While Slobad fixed Bosh’s arm, Glissa told Dwugget her tale. She explained how Slobad saved her from the leveler and how they had found Bosh in the Dross. She told him of the deaths of her friends and family.
“Those deaths not etched in your metal, huh?” said Dwugget. “They not your fault. Do not blame yourself for the corrosion of others.”
Glissa nodded. “We plan to cut away the corrosion so it cannot taint our metal any longer,” she said. “That’s why we go to the Quicksilver Sea, to find the person responsible.”
“Slobad tell me your destiny has something to do with Great Shaman Krark and our Mother’s Heart,” said Dwugget.
“I don’t know,” said Glissa. “It may all be connected somehow. My shaman, a troll priest named Chunth, told me of a world within our world. He believed it was very important to my destiny. What can you tell me about the inner world that Krark found?”
“Krark keep journal during trip,” said Dwugget. “Goblin shamans destroy, but not before I copy most, huh? We call it Book of Krark. I let you read.”
“Thank you.”
Dwugget took her boots over toward the cultists, who were resting on the other side of the chamber. Glissa turned to Slobad, whose hand had disappeared into the joint between Bosh’s arm and his shoulder.
“Where can we take Dwugget’s people where they can be safe?” she asked.
“We take to leveler lair as soon as Bosh fixed,” he replied. “Should be safe there again, huh?”
“You and Bosh take them there,” said Glissa. “I’m going to the Quicksilver Sea.”
“Leveler lair not far,” said the goblin. “We all go. Slobad know way. Bosh get us there fast, huh?”
Dwugget returned with a dark leather book. The cover was curved, leather wrapped around a piece of mountain iron. Inside, leather pages were bound together by straps laced through the iron half-tube. Glissa took the book as she had seen trolls handle religious objects during ceremonies. Touching it filled her with a sense of wonder and purpose she had never before experienced.
She bowed her head to Dwugget, then turned back to Slobad. “You two are staying,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
“That why we go,” grunted Slobad, pushing against some tool inside Bosh’s shoulder. “Keep crazy elf safe.”
“You will require our assistance,” said the golem.
Bosh’s commanding voice seemed almost comical as he sat holding his own arm in his lap while Slobad perched on his back, grunting and poking inside the golem’s shoulder. Glissa wanted to argue the point. She knew it would do no good. In the end, they were as stubborn as she was. For now she began to read the Book of Krark.
The Great Mother called to me again last night. She sent me a vision of her Heart. I floated down through her Womb into an inner world. Her Heart hung low in the sky, glowing with the might of the four suns. I reached for it, but the Heart was just out of my reach. It hung there, filling the inner world with power and light. I felt warm, as if I were standing before the furnace. I felt content, like I had found my true home.
* * * * *
Glissa looked up from the book to see an alien landscape. She stood on bare metal. The ground around her was featureless: flat, smooth, and gray as far as she could see. The Book of Krark had disappeared from her hands, but she remained in her own metal-clad body. Huge plantlike formations of crystalline material dotted the metal plains around her. The crystal plant towers reached hundreds of feet into the air toward a huge ball of energy that dominated the sky. They glittered and reflected the light of the Heart in every direction, creating rainbows of color that swept across the sky and collided with one another.
Glissa knew this was a flare, though she had never before recognized one while she was in it. How could this scene come from her life or from some racial memory? The elves had never been to the inner world. Or was she reliving Krak’s journey? Yet she was in her body, not some ancient elf or goblin body.
The vision began to dissolve around her as she pondered its reality.
“No!” she cried. The sound echoed strangely across the plains. It bounced back and forth among the crystal towers, multiplying into hundreds of noes winging their way across the inner world. The vision came back into focus as Glissa concentrated on the echoes.
She walked among the crystal towers. They seemed to reach into the sky toward the central moon … or was it a sun? High above her, Glissa could see white specks floating in the air. Blinkmoths? She couldn’t be sure. They seemed to glow, but perhaps it was the light of the orb passing through them. The orb pulsed like a beating heart inside the breast of the world. Each pulse sent a different color cascading around the orb-blue, red, white, black, green.