Gatecrash

And then they followed the example of everyone else, and looked to the sky.

***

At first it seemed that Niv-Mizzet himself had appeared out of the clouds, churning the air with great flaps of his wings, his scales scintillating in the sunlight.

The battle froze as the shape of the dragon descended. But as all eyes turned to behold him, it became clear that it was the not the dragon himself, but a projection, a great simulacrum made of light, impressive to behold but without weight or substance.

Jace spied an Izzet mage positioned on the roof of a nearby building, holding up a small lens of brass and crystal in the direction of the image of Niv-Mizzet. In his other hand, the man held a crackling ball of lightning.

The combatants were unsure whether this was a sign to press on or to halt. The illusionary dragon drifted down as if making an actual landing, but set down his hind claws in the middle of the air, and folded his wings, nestling onto his nonexistent perch. The image hung there, floating over the battle.

“My guildmaster has a message for all the guilds of Ravnica,” called the mage from the nearby rooftop, holding steady the magical lens. “I and others of my guild carry his message to you all across the city. I bid you listen well.”

The projection of Niv-Mizzet swept his great head across the battlefield as most of the Selesnya faithful, Rakdos rioters, and other guilds paused their fighting, but a few of the fighters persisted. The great dragon breathed a sheet of fire that swept through the air above the battle. Though it was only a projection of fire, unable to ignite the buildings it touched, it crackled and roared like real fire. It had the desired effect. The battle stopped.

“Citizens of Ravnica,” the dragon boomed, as loud as if it had been in person. “I have an invitation for you. One I implore you to consider.”

Jace tilted his head. He heard an echo of the dragon’s words as he spoke them. He wondered how many Izzet mages were projecting this message around the city, and how many audiences were being terrified by Niv-Mizzets.

Silence draped the scene for a few more heartbeats, until a Rakdos warrior, twitching with bloodlust, screamed and ran her trident through a nearby Selesnya elf. The elf grunted in surprise, coughed blood, and slumped to the ground.

Other Rakdos warriors began to agitate again, raising their weapons to fight. From his rooftop, the Izzet mage pointed at the offending Rakdos warrior, and a bolt of blue lightning sizzled from the high ledge down across the battlefield. The warrior took the bolt full in the chest. She fell over dead next to her victim. The other Rakdos rioters stopped again.

“This great city of ours hides a deep secret,” the image of Niv-Mizzet went on. “My Izzet mages have discovered an ancient maze that runs throughout the district, whose purpose and power we have only now come to understand. It is an Implicit Maze, winding through and constructed of the very streets and tunnels of the district, and its path is unknown.”

Jace could hardly believe what he was hearing. The secret he had studied, that the Izzet had taken on as their covert project, that he had purged from his memory and laboriously recovered again—it was being broadcast to everyone, in public, by the Izzet guildmaster. But Jace noticed that Niv-Mizzet was carefully leaving out important details, such as the specific route to follow to solve the maze. Jace couldn’t fathom why the dragon would invite all the other guilds to undertake the same project that he and the Izzet had studied for so long.

“But we know that at its end lies great power,” said the dragon, “and that in order for it to be solved, all the guilds must participate at once.”

Murmuring swept through the crowd. The Niv-Mizzet-image spread his wings from his hovering perch, which directed their attention back to him.

“Each guild will send one champion as its delegate in the running of the maze. At the appointed time, our champions will meet at the Transguild Promenade, and embark on a race through the twists and turns of the maze. We shall see who triumphs, who gains the power behind it for their guild, and who falls to its dangers. Until then, I bid you prepare.”

The image of the dragon swept his great head around the battlefield, and Jace wondered whether the real Niv-Mizzet, back in his own aerie, was actually seeing everything that this and other images saw, or whether the dragon was practicing a kind of fearsome, illusionary pantomime. The illusion-dragon spread his wings and took off again, creating the noise of a savage whirlwind, but without actually disturbing the air, and then the illusion shimmered into nothing.

Jace noticed that the Izzet mage who had cast the lightning spell looked directly at him for a moment before moving back from the ledge and disappearing.

***

With the dragon’s speech concluded, Exava turned back to Jace with a warped smile. “Well, that was quite interesting,” she began.