I have heard of these streams near the Binding Circle, he said. All the streams around are filled thusly.
Suddenly Nissa had the feeling she was being attacked something was running toward her. But when she spun, the mesa behind her was covered only with dense grass that spread away into foothills. There was no enemy. Even in the slanted morning light she could see the gaps in the mountains where the ancient ones had sheared off the tops and put their magic in between so they rose and crashed down at irregular intervals. The foothills extended into blunt mountains capped with snow, and dark, purple rain clouds sat on the horizon. On either side of the stream, twin statues of grotesque, tentacled statues stood in massive repose. One was missing a head, and the other s body was floating slightly above its pedestal.
She turned back to Anowon, bewildered.
I feel it too, he said. We must be on guard.
She nodded.
Did you see it? asked Anowon.
No, Nissa said.
Anowon pointed. It was no more than a dot at the base of the mountains: a palace. It was in a sunless lee of the mountains and clearly crumbled, but it had obviously once been huge.
Is this the Binding Circle? Nissa said to Anowon.
I don t know, he replied.
The morning sun was bright and warm on her neck. Anowon went off to lie in the grass with the pebbles in his open palms. Sorin was already asleep, snoring loudly. As she watched, Smara clambered over the edge of the Mesa, pushed forward by her goblins. She was muttering again, with her crystal firmly clamped in her right hand. But as soon as the goblins had situated her in the grass, she clutched her crystal to her chest and quieted a bit.
Nissa stretched out in the grass and felt her muscles loosen. She believed that vampires liked to cut their prey before feeding. Their teeth were not overly sharp. Anowon had no bladed tool.
A low rumbling sound drifted somewhere far off in the mountains. The floating parts of the statues next to the river cast long shadows. And Nissa fell asleep, without setting a watch.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
Nissa awoke suddenly, shivering in the darkness, listening for whatever had woken her. But she was unable to hear anything except the gusting wind shaking the grass fronds around her. There were no stars or moon overhead, and Nissa could not hear Smara s incessant babbling. Her staff was by her side, and she very slowly reached out and put her hand around its smooth shaft. She waited and listened, but nothing came and she drifted off again.
She next opened her eyes to bright daylight. Her staff was still clutched in her hand. She sat up. Smara was speaking somewhere, and the wind had disappeared, but not the feeling of foreboding. Anowon was sitting in the grass watching her, with his bound hands wrapped around his legs. Sorin was standing with his back to her, looking at the mountains. The goblins and Smara were grouped together near the river.
Are you ready? Sorin asked, turning. He looked surprisingly fit. His face was full as he smiled. Anowon wanted to feed on you but I kept him from it
Nissa stood.
But you have something in your blood, he tells me, Sorin finished.
Nissa turned and adjusted the climbing harness she always wore.
I take the Joraga tincture, Nissa said. Once a month. She took Khalled s map from the tube strapped to her belt.
Where do you get that? Sorin said. Are you not a Tajuru, after all?
Nissa stopped. What did he say? she thought. She bristled at the taunt. Watch your tongue, human.
Sorin laughed.
Still, Anowon watched her.
I have fought many vampires in my time, Nissa said. And our tincture makes our blood poison to one. Now, if you are done? She unrolled the map and considered its ink lines. What had gotten into Sorin and Anowon? she wondered.
Did you sleep well? Sorin asked.
She looked up from the map.
One of Smara s goblins is gone. Sorin said.
She looked over at the group of goblins surrounding Smara. One, two, three yes, there were only nine.
Yes, and? she said.
We are wondering what happened to it, Sorin said, a smug smile on his face as he turned to Anowon. Aren t we?
She looked up in surprise. Why would I have knowledge of this?
Anowon didn t move.
Nissa looked from one to the other of them. A smile tickled the corners of her lips as the joke dawned on her.
I ate it, Nissa said. You have discovered me, human. She looked back at the map. More like the vampire did. He seems in a stupor.
The lines of the map were clear enough showing the jagged run of the trench. The problem came in finding just what part of the trench they had been in when the giants had found them and, thus, where they had climbed out of the canyon. She could see the shaded area marked
Piston Mountains. There was no sign of a palace on the map. A palace of that size should surely be there. Nissa looked up at the structure that had been sitting at the base of the mountains when they first topped the mesa.
But it was gone. From her distance, all that was evident was a huge crater where the palace had been. She located it far to the right floating in the air with the divot of earth it had been sitting on still underneath it. Even from far away she could see lines extending from the ground to the palace. This was Zendikar, and Nissa had seen plenty of floating objects in her life, including a whole lake suspended above the ground leaving a dry bed full of flopping fish. She d seen fields of hedrons numbering in the hundreds floating and banging together. But the palace was different. And judging from the lines of ropes, there were living things in that castle.
Something is wrong, she said.
You are coming to that realization just now? Sorin said.
She s right, said Anowon. He had come up behind her so silently that she jumped when he spoke. The flood, the refugee kor, and now the Palace of Zemgora floating loose in the air. Anowon s voice was soft, as always, and Nissa found herself leaning in to hear more. Did you notice how fresh the scars on those giants in the trench were? They were recently in a fight I fear they got the worst of.
That is true, Nissa found herself saying.
The Roils lately have become more severe. That last one near Graypelt was so sudden that my spirit-water vial barely boiled.
It is the brood lineage, Sorin said. They are wroth and throwing Zendikar out of balance. They must be put back into the earth.
Smara looked up from where she had been sitting. She rushed over to Sorin.
The gift is in the loam, she said. The gift is in the loam. Then she began talking in another language and soon was repeating the same words.
Anowon watched Smara closely, as did Sorin. At one point Anowon quickly drew a slip of parchment and a thin piece of charcoal out of an inner pocket and wrote something down on the slip.
Sorin smiled uncertainly as the kor s words degraded into raving. Then he glanced at Nissa to see what she thought of Smara s words. Nissa pretended not to notice Sorin s look. What is that one hiding? she wondered, turning her attention back to the floating palace. What is the gift is in the loam?
What did she say? she asked finally.
Some of it was classical Vampire, Anowon said.
The rest He looked at Sorin.
It was Eldrazi, but spattered with vampire, Sorin said. Look.
Nissa looked where Sorin pointed. The piece of earth the palace was perched atop moved slowly, pulling its tethers tight. Many tiny things were flying around the palace. As she watched, one of the ropes fell.
Suddenly there was a small tremor in the earth and a sharp creaking, and the fluid in the vial hanging from the leather thong around Nissa s neck began to boil so that she felt its heat all the way through her jerkin.
Roil! she yelled.
Nissa twisted her staff in two and drew the flexible stem blade from its sheath. With a snap of her wrist the blade stiffened enough for Nissa to jab it into the ground. She felt the green blade shoot roots out and anchor in the black dirt. And in the next moment the Roil was on them.