Dragon's Maze

TO CHOOSE A CHAMPION

Trostani’s grove felt like it was made of eyes. The soldiers of Selesnya posted in the grove stared at Emmara as she approached, and the three interwoven dryads regarded her with quizzical looks. The red-bearded guard walked at her side, looking abashed before the guildmaster.

“What is the meaning of this?” Trostani asked. “Where is Captain Calomir?”

“He fled,” said Emmara. “I’m here to persuade you to choose me as the Selesnya maze-runner in his stead.”

“Of course not. Captain Calomir and I have discussed this at length. We had hope for you once, Emmara, but Calomir has proved himself the true manifestation of the will of us all, the avatar of the Conclave.”

“The one you believe to be Calomir is a Dimir spy.”

Trostani’s three faces all recoiled. “Now you sound like your friend Beleren. What gives you the right to make accusations like this? Guards, take this traitor back into custody.”

The young guard at Emmara’s side cut in. “It’s true, Guildmaster Trostani,” he said. “That—thing—wasn’t the captain. I saw it change. It was a doppelganger. A shapeshifter.”

“That’s impossible. Calomir is one of the Conclave’s oldest allies.”

Emmara’s face was steel. “Calomir is dead.”

“Even if that were true, you think that we’re going to send you to represent the Conclave? You, who refused to support us in the battle with the Rakdos? You, who’ve consorted with that mind mage?”

“Yes.”

“Why should we?”

“Because only I know the route.”

Trostani’s faces scowled. The three dryads turned and conferred among each other. Emmara couldn’t hear what they whispered to each other, but she could hear the distress in their voices. There was a new, upsetting sound to their voices, something Emmara couldn’t identify at first. She realized the sound was dissent. Two of the dryads seemed to be disagreeing with the third, breaking their usual harmony. Emmara had never heard anything but unanimity from them—they were a living symbol of many made one. She saw the three faces look back at her frequently, one of them with pained empathy, the other two with withering derision.

She felt the eyes of the Conclave on her again. The glares of the soldiers around the grove bored into her. They, too, were put on edge by Trostani’s dispute, and they knew she was the one who had brought it to the Conclave. They had not seen the shapeshifter melt away, taking Calomir’s visage with him. To them, she was still an enemy of the guild.

The dryads of Trostani finally came to some kind of resolution. They turned and took a long look at Emmara, and their faces were not at peace.

***

Ral Zarek stung with the humiliation of announcing Niv-Mizzet’s race through the maze, an invitation he sorely lamented having to extend. The other guilds didn’t deserve the barest whiff of information about his project. But at least now he could finally, officially run the maze for his guild, and complete it once and for all. He had a plan to run the routes in unpredictable ways, traversing the ten gates with a series of explosive maneuvers shrouded by a covering fire of storm magic and cyclops brutes. There would be teams of rival runners trying to beat him, and to thwart them he planned for a series of lightning barriers. The lightning barriers would not only protect him, but also hinder others as they tried to progress through the gates. He walked swiftly down into the main boiler lab, where the other experimenter-mages had said he could find his guildmaster.

He elbowed his way past a team of Izzet researchers and found the dragon. All eyes were turned to the device in the center of the room. The drive wheel of a great steam-driven dynamo rotated into a pit set in the floor, and suspended at its center was a weird: a living elemental composed of the fusion of clashing elements. The weird was shaped like a tall and athletic human, and made of electrified ice, a combination Ral had never seen before. Steam rose from its glistening-cold body as the spokes of the dynamo wheel rotated around it, and blue lightning sizzled from its arms and legs. Its head rested on its chest, its eyes blank, and it was naked of any Izzet gauntlets or armor.

Ral rushed over to the dragon’s side. “Guildmaster!” said Ral. “I wanted to go over with you my plans for running the maze. It involves a series of—”

“Ah, good,” puffed Niv-Mizzet, barely glancing at Ral. “Yes. Kindly tell Melek and his handlers all about it.”

“Melek? Who is Melek?”

“Oh, had you not met him?” asked Niv-Mizzet. The dragon waved with his claw at the elemental being suspended in the dynamo. “May I present Melek, the official Izzet maze-runner. My team of elementalists, chemisters, mindcrafters, and energy-binding specialists have manufactured him specifically to run the maze. They’ve taken into account everything you’ve learned, and they’ve built that understanding directly into Melek here.”

Ral laughed nervously. “What? I don’t understand.”

“He’s made via an experimental synthesis of mana-dynamical principles.”