Dragon's Maze

Emmara had no weapons, no spell at the ready. She only had the need to get through that gate. She wondered whether she would die for that guild that had abandoned her, that had left her to run this race alone. “If I must.”

“No!” said Exava, her eyes and her smile opening too wide. “You will die for nothing.”

Exava did not charge with her swords. Instead she sauntered backward, and all around the chamber, horrors erupted. These were not the usual Rakdos cultists, who were just people wearing grotesque masks and blood-streaked armor. These were demon- spawn, hideous creatures of sinew and fangs and stretched-skin wings, clawing their way out of columns of dark flame that rose from the braziers.

Emmara waved a spell to life, encircling herself with floating rings of thorny bramble. As the demonic creatures lunged and clawed at her, the thorn shield took the brunt of the blows, and the thorns tore at their flesh. Still, it wasn’t enough. The demons’ unearthly strength buffeted her back and forth, and in no time her thorn shield was beginning to buckle. One claw raked open a wound from her shoulder blade to her lower back, and a demon’s bite crushed the bones in her elbow.

“Leave no scraps of her!” she heard Exava shouting over the roars of the demons. “Devour her! Let her feel the gift of agony that we shall bring to all the guilds! For you, Lord Rakdos!”

Smoke poured from the dark place beyond the Rakdos gate, and a series of echoing booms grew louder, closer.

Emmara ached to take a moment to heal herself. But the demons’ onslaught was constant. As her orbiting rings splintered, she cast a related spell, focusing on the individual thorns that had become lodged in the demons’ claws, arms, and gums. Each of the thorns became a seed for a burst of new growth. Bright green sprouts lanced out of the demons’ flesh, sending runners and roots wrapping around their limbs. The demons screeched, writhing and scraping away the insistent growths, trying to claw the magical growth out of them before it burst them apart.

It gave Emmara the time she needed. She took a deep breath, and wove a chord of healing magic to soothe and bind her wounds. She glanced up at the blood-witch. She stood in front of the gate, smoke billowing around her. “You’re a resourceful one,” said Exava with a frown of approval. “But you should have let the underspawn destroy you, my dear. Because now you face my master instead.”

“Oh, no,” she said involuntarily. Emmara had the instinct to reach out with her mind to Jace, but she retracted her thoughts again. No, she couldn’t trust him. She could never trust him again.

The demon lord Rakdos emerged from the guildgate, and Emmara stumbled back, overwhelmed by the enormity of the ancient guildmaster. His four horns folded around his face like a twisted crown, framing his thousand-toothed grin. He spread his wings, filling the chamber. He spoke, and to Emmara it sounded like a wind of death, withering her heart.

“You have found me a delicious soul on which to feed, Exava,” said Rakdos.

Emmara’s mouth tried to form the word no but no sound escaped. The demon lord reached for her with a clawed hand as big as a throne, and Emmara felt his hot touch closing around her body. She yelled out, and there was a crash.

“Jace?” she thought in spite of herself.

She imagined that the crash was the sound of her body breaking under Rakdos’s grip, or perhaps her soul tearing to pieces. But a shaft of blinding light had broken through the ceiling, crumbling the stone. Through the gaping hole thrust a huge fist, lancing down like the light.

More chunks of the ceiling fell, widening the breach, and more light poured in. A huge entity dropped down out of the light and landed with a boom. It was a nature elemental, like the ones Emmara had been able to call. It crouched below the rent in the ceiling, its lush vines coiling around a solid skeleton of marble.

“No!” roared Rakdos, his voice hoarse with hatred.

Emmara was released. Rakdos retracted his grasp and turned to face the elemental. The other demon creatures retreated slightly from the light, shielding their eyes, and the seedlings that Emmara had planted in their bodies accelerated their growth.

Exava only sneered and spat on the floor.

From behind the elemental poured a cavalcade of Selesnya troops. Guildmages, woodshapers, wolf-riders, and centaurs in gleaming armor leaped down onto the elemental and rushed down its back into the chamber of Rix Maadi. There were so many of them, flowing out of the light like a stampede, swords drawn and spells ready. Finally, another great elemental made its way down from the breach, and on its back it carried the three dryads of Trostani.

“My guildmaster,” Emmara said. “Thank you.”

“Go, Emmara,” said Trostani. “Your Conclave shall protect you.”

“You came back for me,” Emmara said.

“You showed the path for us all. Now go.”