Dragon's Maze

Jace’s hair follicles contracted all over his body. He blinked several times. He took a long time to muster enough breath to form his next word.

“What?”

“You, Jace Beleren, are the living manifestation of the pact between the guilds. You are the Guildpact.”

“What does that mean?”

“You are the one who has proven himself the mediator, the one who can understand the perspectives of the ten guilds. So, like before, when the guilds clash, a code of law will arbitrate between them. The difference is that now, you are that law.”

“I can’t be.”

“Nevertheless, you are.”

“But I am not … I am not from this world.”

“Neither, as it happens, was Azor. But that criterion was not important to his Assessment.”

“It’s important to me! How can I leave again? How can I uphold—how can I be the Guildpact, here on Ravnica?”

“You have proven that you are the one capable of embodying the Guildpact. Your methods are up to you.”

Jace thought of all the maze-runners around him, back at the Forum of Azor, wherever that was from here. Of Emmara. “What happens if I die?”

“Then the Guildpact will be broken once again.”

“But if the Guildpact is a person, then it will be more fragile than before. All ten guilds will curry that person’s favor—my favor—or worse, they’ll try to kill me. They’ll send the plane back into brinksmanship and chaos.”

“Azor furnished me with a recommendation for the one who became the Living Guildpact.”

“What’s that?”

“The ability that earned you this prize is the one you must employ to maintain it.”

With that, the bailiff faded away into the diffuse light. Jace felt his presence fade.

And before he had time to take a deep, revelation-assessing breath, the light, too, began to fade, and the forum appeared around him once again. Jace lay on the central dais, physically unchanged but bestowed with a new status.

He was staring up into the eyes of a dragon.

Jace scrambled to his feet. Niv-Mizzet was perched just outside the forum, his enormous bulk settled on a nearby building. The maze-runners all looked up to see the encounter between Jace and the dragon. Lazav was nowhere to be seen.

The dragon craned his neck and angled his head to aim a squinting, uncertain eye directly at Jace, its vertical pupil taking in his every movement. A moist, transparent membrane closed over the eye and retracted again. “The Guildpact has been … restored,” said the dragon, slowly.

“Yes,” said Jace.

Niv-Mizzet breathed a trail of smoke out of his sinuses. He angled his head a fractional angle to the side. “The Izzet wish to declare war on the Selesnya,” he said, his great yellow eye twitching.

The dragon was gauging Jace’s reaction. “You may not,” said Jace quietly.

The spines on the dragon’s cheeks flexed slightly. He leaned in with his great neck, bringing his monstrous head right down by Jace’s face, dwarfing his entire body. Niv-Mizzet blew twin nostrilfuls of hot smoke at Jace, looking him up and down through the smoke. The smoke dissipated, and Jace resisted the urge to cough. The dragon then parted his lips, revealing great ivory teeth. “Very well,” said the dragon.

Niv-Mizzet backed away, straightened up, and spread his wings wide, roofing the entire forum. With one powerful beat of his wings, he lifted off the ground, blasting the area with wind. As Jace and the maze-runners watched, Niv-Mizzet climbed into the air. The dragon kept his head turned back, eyes fixed on Jace, until the moment that he pivoted and flew away over the Ravnican skyline.

“What just happened?” asked Ral Zarek.

Emmara was looking at Jace. “It’s as the dragon said. The Guildpact has been restored.”

Ral Zarek snorted. “What does he

know about the Guildpact?”

“He is the Guildpact,” whispered Lavinia, her eyes wide.

FROM THE ASHES

Jace stood in the building’s new skeleton, among the bare joists and timber rafters, looking out at the Tenth District. The traffic patterns in this formerly sleepy neighborhood would have to be redrawn, the streets widened. The unfinished embassy stood like the beginnings of a grand sculpture, not yet shaped into its final form but showing its majesty already. In order to build its foundation, the crews had had to clear out mountains of ash and charred wood. The sign outside read in official-looking, newly-painted letters: EMBASSY OF THE GUILDPACT.

Someone was climbing the makeshift stairs from below. Officer Lavinia made her way up to the floor where Jace stood.

Jace tipped his head to her. “Now’s your chance to arrest me, Officer.”

“You’re safe from me for now, Living Guildpact,” said Lavinia. She took in the panorama of the city around them. “Quite a view you have from up here, the site of your old sanctum.”

Jace shrugged. “They asked me where I wanted this place to be. Seemed fitting.”

“Makes sense. I suppose you’ll be making a lot of decisions now.”

“I intend to have a lot of help. That’s why I asked you here.” Lavinia inspected him. “To make a show of sharing the power?”