Dragon's Maze

Jace prepared a spell to seep into the mind of the axe-wielding Orzhov knight. If he could slip in quickly enough, he could encourage the knight to bring the axe to bear on the next-largest knight before any of the thrulls had the chance to sink their tiny teeth into Emmara.

“Was this how you planned to navigate the maze?” Emmara asked. “By shaking down the better-informed competitors? It’s a wonder your guild still exists after all these years. You fool no one into thinking you’re a religion. You’re nothing more than petty criminals.”

Teysa Karlov laughed mirthlessly, squeezing the knob on her cane.

Jace found the part of the axe-wielder’s mind that governed the man’s thoughts and opinions of his fellow Orzhov compatriots. Jace created an urge, laid the urge over the Orzhov knight’s mind, and pushed the thought in as far as it would go, deep down into the subconscious. He could sense the knight’s views changing, like a dark stain spreading through silk cloth.

But he could tell immediately that attacking the mind of just one of the Orzhov wouldn’t be enough. He would have to disarm or distract them all.

The spell to warp the Orzhov knight’s mind was taking effect. Jace expanded the reach of his mind, letting the spell spread to the minds of the others in the area—to a sweaty priest with a dark sun pattern on his robe, to a spindly, elderly guildmage whose face was covered with a hood, and to a shifty-eyed Orzhov enforcer with a cluster of knives sheathed at her belt. All of them had been devoted to the Orzhov for years, but Jace put a twist in their minds to make them question their allegiance.

Jace felt a twinge of pain as he connected to the Orzhov’s minds, just as he had with the family on Zendikar. But he didn’t need to become the bridge, to let them all see into each other’s thoughts—he only needed to plant a thought in them.

Teysa Karlov nodded sharply to her entourage. “Get her wrists. You, with the axe, get ready to take her hand off.”

“Enough orders from you!” shouted the knight. He lifted his axe high over his head, his body squared directly in front of Teysa Karlov.

The words of the bailiff flashed in Jace’s mind. “If, in the course of the Assessment, one or more of the guilds’ chosen do not appear for the final sentencing, then the Guildpact cannot be actualized.”

Teysa Karlov was the Orzhov maze-runner. If she died—if Jace induced this man to kill her—then the verdict would be inevitable.

“No!” Jace dashed from his hiding place and shoved Teysa Karlov out of the way. The knight swung the axe down and the blade smashed into the cobblestones. Jace and Teysa fell sprawled in a heap.

The other Orzhov attendants encircled Teysa and Jace. Their ire was focused on Teysa Karlov. Without their drilled-in sense of obedience, these devotees to the guild were turning on the symbol of authority, the one who occupied a position much higher than their own in the hierarchy of the Orzhov Syndicate.

“What in blazes is going on,” demanded Teysa. She was oblivious to the change of heart of her attendants, and hurled all her indignation at Jace. “Who are you?”

“You’re in danger,” said Jace, looking around at the oncoming Orzhov gang. “We have to get to the next gate.”

“Jace,” said Emmara, backing toward the guildgate. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What is this?” demanded Teysa, standing and brushing off her aristocrat’s raiment. “Seize them. I command it.”

“They’re not going to obey you,” said Jace. “I’ve made a mistake. We have to go. Miss Karlov, come with us, now.”

“We can’t just leave her, can we?” Emmara thought to him with a note of resignation.

“Unfortunately not,” he responded. “She has to make it to the end

.”

The Orzhov attendants brandished their weapons and closed in on Teysa Karlov. Her facade of indignation became a sneer of dark fury. “You dare betray me?” She held up her hand to the sky, and a sphere of blackness appeared in the air above her, swelling and swirling with spectral howls. Spears of dark magic exploded out from her spell, lancing through the bodies of her associates. They fell, each of them with an ugly, black hole punched through their chests. Unnaturally dark smoke floated out of their wounds.

“Now,” said Teysa Karlov, eyeing Jace and Emmara, still maintaining the dark sphere of spectral energy over her head. “Tell me why I shouldn’t do the same to you.”

“Let me tell you what you’re going to do,” said Jace. “You are going to watch us walk through that gate, and you are going to wait here for exactly one hour. Then you are going to proceed through the last gates in this order: Simic, then Izzet, then Rakdos. Then you will join us at the Forum of Azor.”

“That’s the rest of the maze route?” asked Teysa.

“Yes,” said Jace.

“Then you are no longer required.”