But the vampire smiled faintly, something Nissa had almost never seen him do. He looked down at the hooks that extended from his elbow.
For labor. They could strap us into their harnesses all day, let us feed, and then tap us all night, Anowon said.
The arrangement was wonderful for them.
You said was, Nissa said. But the brood do the same thing. That is how we found you in the Turntimber.
But they were copying their masters. They did not know how to strap us in. I virtually had to show them.
How did you know?
The vampire looked out over the hedrons. Some memories are kept alive, by the Bloodchiefs.
Bloodchiefs were the very old vampires. You were created by a Bloodchief? Nissa said. Anowon was of that lineage, of course not your normal shadow creeper.
Yes, Anowon said. My Bloodchief was an original slave. She told me about the hooks. She told me about The Mortifier, the first vampire who sold his own kind to the Eldrazi as slaves. Anowon looked out at the hedrons. Nissa looked down.
The sun crossed the sky, and by late afternoon the hedrons had started to become less frequent as the land split into deep canyons. The trenches radiated away on all sides and echoed with strange calls.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
Each canyon was almost a league wide and many more deep, and composed of dark gray rocks covered with crags. The canyons were not empty, however. The tops of vast pillars formed a patchwork level with the top of the canyon. Branches from vines and trees climbing up and around the pillars filled the spaces between them with dense growth. The top of each pillar was covered with grass or rock, and raw crystals protruded through some.
Standing some leagues away was a pillar larger than the rest. It did not originate in a canyon, but stood on flat ground atop a raised hill. Even from a distance, the strange, geometric designs that covered the tower drew their eyes. As they watched, a loud grinding sound filled the air and the tower began to move. Like an immense puzzle, shapes poked out of the tower as its sides shifted. When its angles had rearranged themselves into an altogether different configuration, the protruding shapes snapped back into place, and the tower was still.
The crumbled hedron that they had been riding slowly came to a stop. They stood and stared at the huge tower.
Tal Terig, Sorin said. Where the Eldrazi buried their dead. We will skirt well around that place, I think.
The head man stopped coiling his rope. The path into the mountains lies behind the puzzle tower. We have to pass near it to enter.
The mountains extended away to the right and left. Nissa had a moment to look at the tower. Something about it seemed impossibly wrong: its angles appeared off somehow, as though it was suddenly top heavy and might fall at any moment. As she watched, the tower started to grind and squeak and rearrange itself.
That sound has brought woe to many an archeaomancer s ears, Anowon said. The tower is full of unimaginable treasures ancient weapons too deadly for the Eldrazi beasts, it is said. But the halls are riddled with magical traps of every clever devising, and every time the sun changes its angle, the tower rearranges itself, guaranteeing that the halls you have just memorized and the traps you have just uncovered are forever changed so you do not know them anymore. Beings that know their way through those towers are uncommon in the extreme.
Something is there, Nissa said. She squinted, and noticed many tiny figures milling around the base of the tower.
Brood, yes? Sorin said, looking back at the ocean, not at the tower. He slowly turned around.
Yes, brood, Nissa said. A very great host of them.
Everybody stared at the tower and the huge dark splotch, clearly visible, of brood milling at its base.
What are they doing? Nissa said.
Seeking egress, I should think, Sorin said.
They know it is the burial place of their masters, and they want to enter.
Nissa made note of how Anowon s pale eyes trained on Sorin as he spoke. His face clearly betrayed his disbelief.
Can they enter? Nissa said.
Doubtful, Anowon said, pulling his eyes away form Sorin. Very doubtful. The entrance shifts. The door is obscured and locked with powerful magic. There are some that have found the door and ventured within. From them we know that the tower you see extending above the ground is but a fraction of the its true length. Most of it is underground.
Nissa could hardly imagine. It must be a league deep! she said.
Yes, the head man interjected. And the mountains lie on the other side of it. I have only traveled as far as the tower. Past that I do not know the way. Perhaps you do not need me anymore?
You do not have leave, Sorin said.
Suddenly Nissa heard a whoosh. She turned and had a brief look at the floating creatures that swept down on them: large brood with masses of tentacles extending from funguslike bodies composed of pocketed lattices. One brood s long, split arms reached out.
Nissa had only a moment. She sucked mana from the ther and concentrated on making her self appear as a patch of dirt to the flying brood. Her camouflage spell had been effective before, but this time the brood made a guess as to where she was squatting, and snatched her off the hedron despite her spell.
Nissa was flying through the air with thick tentacles wrapped around her. She had to struggle to move her head enough to get a good breath, and even after she did, she could not see or speak. She felt the air rushing on the backs of her calves.
The tentacle wrapped around her face smelled like dirt and rock dust, and she could feel the blood pulsing through it. Nissa thrashed against the tentacle, but it seemed only to tighten, so that by the end she was barely able to pull in a breath at all.
She flew like that for a time, and then the brood holding her suddenly jerked. It spasmed three more times, and as the tentacle around her face went limp, Nissa began to freefall through the air.
It should have been a common enough feeling for Nissa, but she could only think of childhood nightmares as she spiraled toward the sharp surface of Akoum.
Her impact was sudden and punctuated with the sickening crack of bone. She found herself rolling with the sun filling her eyes and the colors blurring.
Nissa rolled over and cast a wary eye around. She stood. The bodies of five other floating brood were strewn over the top surface of one of the columns in the canyon. Arrows with fletches made from the stiff leaves of some unfamiliar green plant stuck out of them. Nissa fell into a crouch and ducked behind the body of the brood that had been carrying her. She looked around.
She had crashed quite near the tower. She could see the different sizes of the brood milling around the base of Tal Terig, and see the holes they had dug. Some brood were bent over the holes or moving their tentacles in the air above the holes. Doing what, exactly? Nissa wondered. She looked around hoping to catch a glimpse of the bows that had struck down the brood.
But instead she saw Sorin and Smara tossed in the grass near the brood that had been carrying them. As she watched, Sorin rolled over. She waved to him, and he began crawling toward her. She heard a groan and saw Anowon stumbling in her direction. When he was near, she grabbed his cloak and yanked him down. She brought her finger up to her lips and listened.
The breeze stirred the clump of grass next to her. The dead brood s tentacle twitched once. Anowon leaned against the flank of the creature, and when Sorin finally crawled the distance to them, he also leaned back.
Nissa could neither see nor hear anything moving. But whatever had shot the brood was waiting somewhere nearby. The gap between pillars was the height of a man. Nothing moved except the grass caught in the wind.
One of Smara s goblins stumbled over to Smara s insensate form, the other perhaps lost to the gaps. The goblin took her gently under the armpits and swore under its breath as it pulled the mad kor to where Nissa and the others were squatting behind the dead brood.