Return to Ravnica

Judging by their horned masks and spiked, harlequin-painted armor, they were Rakdos warriors. One was crumpled against the wall of the chamber. Another was face-down in a mound of decomposing rubble. Another had been torn in two at the waist and tossed in different directions. They couldn’t have died more than an hour ago; blood still oozed from their wounds, and their flesh had not begun to decompose.

The bodies held his attention so completely that he didn’t notice the huge sewer troll that almost walked over him.

***

Ral Zarek stood in the middle of the busy plaza, scowling at the scroll he held between two mizzium metal rods. Around him, other Izzet researchers conducted experiments, chattering among one another, drawing some strange looks from passersby. Ral looked over the scrawled figures on the scroll. They were a series of demands from his guildmaster, but the dragon’s words often seemed like riddles. Communicating with the draconic genius was never easy. Niv-Mizzet wasn’t a mentor or a role model for Ral—he was a nuisance. It forced Ral to expand his thinking, but he knew more than Niv-Mizzet ever could: he knew of the existence of other planes.

“Excuse me, Guildmage Zarek?”

One of the researchers, a woman with a multi-lensed contraption on her head, was indicating her gauntlet. The gauntlet was made of the alchemical metal mizzium, and crackled with energy, making her white-streaked hair stand on end.

“Yes? What did you find?”

“The mana braid is interrupted near here,” she said.

“Where does it go?” Ral asked. “Into the sewer?”

“No, we already checked. Skreeg explored three levels down. This one just seems to disappear.”

Ral scowled. “Can’t just disappear,” he said.

They had tracked the twisting thread of mana through half the district. This was a new development. This invisible cord of mana seemed to be a way to discern the route of the Implicit Maze. The phenomenon had traced its way down main thoroughfares, then zigzagged away in apparently random fashion, cutting through buildings, up over the foliage of an urban park, through smog-choked industrial districts, and down into the tunnels of the undercity. But now the trail had run cold.

Ral looked at the riddles on the directive again. The obsessed dragon clearly thought this was an important area to search. The way the scrawls swooped and turned across the scroll, vertically and horizontally and every direction at once, looked to Ral like a knowing smirk. He wadded up the scroll and shoved it into his sleeve.

Ral paced across the brick pavers, peering into the patterns, half-hoping that some message would be spelled out in the street. It was not. The other mages watched.

Ral blinked. He squinted up into the sun, which ringed a tall spire like a halo. Birdlike shapes soared in loops against the sky. “Check the tower,” he said.

The other mages all looked up, covering their eyes with their hands. They murmured.

“The mana braid may indeed go vertical here,” said the researcher whom he had been questioning, looking into her gauntlet. “But Guildmage Zarek, we’re unable to proceed.”

“It’s just—” He took a breath. “It’s just ‘Zarek.’ Not ‘Guildmage.’ Are we clear? And I’m sorry, but did I just hear an Izzet mage say tell me he was unable to attempt something?”

“It’s just that … that’s an Azorius aerie. They rear griffins for the sky hussars up there.”

Ral shrugged. “Conjure a detonation device. Hurl it into the upper tower. Does that sound like an experiment worth running to you, Guildmage?”

The researcher looked at the other mages, then up at the tower, then back to Ral.

“I’ve talked to the Firemind directly. This project is his top priority. Do you know that that means? It means it’s yours, as well. We solve this maze, and the Izzet will control one of the greatest—” He stopped and lowered his voice. “We’ll control everything.”

“But sir,” another mage spoke up. “It’s not just the Azorius. It’s the griffins.”

Clouds swarmed the sky, blotting out the sun. Ral’s face fell into shadow.

“Nevermind. Leave this to me.”

Ral held out his hands and gritted his teeth. Within moments, azure lightning sizzled through the clouds. A bolt broke apart and branched down from the thunderheads, striking the steeples of four buildings across four different neighborhoods at once. The lightning rebounded off the steeples, converging at a point in the air above the skyline, producing a deafening crack of thunder. At the point where the lightning bolts came together, a being emerged—a being made of storm. Its body was dense gray cloud and its eyes and mouth were lightning.