The Darksteel Eye (10 page)

The surface of each step was rough, not magically honed like the scythe blades of the levelers or the wings of the hover guard. These had been made by hand. It made Glissa’s back hurt just thinking of the amount of work it would take to scratch out such a feature in a solid metal tree. Judging by the obvious wear and tear and large patches of heavy tarnishing, this had been done a long, long time ago.

The group moved on in silence, finally reaching the top where the stairs opened into a large room. A set of rising bleachers edged the chamber, and sitting on them, three rows deep, were perhaps a hundred or more trolls. All of them resembled other trolls Glissa had seen. Their skin was green and loose, their hands and shoulders covered in warts and scars, and each was dressed in tattered woven-metal fabrics. Even to the elf, who had grown up in the Tangle living near such creatures, she
couldn’t tell them apart. Now, seated here, they looked like the fungus or verdigris that grew on the base of fallen trees.

Opposite the stairs, in the center of the curved bleacher seats, a single troll perched on a stool. All the others had their bodies turned toward him and their eyes focused on his large frame. This one, unlike the others, wore newer clothing. He held himself more erect and seemed to have more energy than the others. His eyes darted around the room. This was not a contemplative examination or the sluggish struggle by a slow mind to understand. This was the intelligent look of a decisive creature.

The troll at the head of the room held a bone staff in one hand. With the other he waved the trio forward.

“Come in. Come in.”

Glissa and Slobad did as they were told, stopping amid the throng of trolls just before the bone-wielding chief. Bosh, though, had a difficult time getting inside the room. At his full height, his head was much taller than the ceiling. The golem tried to bend at the waist, but ducking didn’t provide enough room for him to bring his massive frame into the carved-out chamber.

After several attempts to fold himself in various different ways, each of which proved more ridiculous and less useful than the last, Bosh finally collapsed his legs and head half-way, telescoping them inside his body. The truncated golem waddled as he walked, but he managed to fit, if tightly, inside the room.

The troll looked them over. “We have been awaiting your arrival.”

“So we’ve been told,” said Glissa. “That disturbs me.”

“Why would that disturb you, young Glissa?”

“Well, to begin with, the last time I was here, Elder Chunth died in my arms.”

Drooge nodded, his eyes to the ground. “A tragic blow for
us.” He took a deep breath. “You should know that we do not blame you.”

“You don’t?”

The troll chief shook his head. “No. The elder council has found you innocent, and the traitors among us have been purged.”

Glissa looked around at the trolls on the bleachers. They all hung their heads. “Traitors? You mean there was more than one?”

Drooge nodded. “I am afraid so.”

Glissa stood in silence. She was relieved that the trolls didn’t think she had killed their chief, but she was saddened as well. All of this treachery and infighting was due to her. If she had been at home that night, if she had been killed along with the rest of her family, none of this would have happened to the trolls.

The troll chief tapped his staff on the floor. “You have other reasons for being disturbed by our welcoming you back?”

Glissa swallowed then nodded. “Well, yes. Everyone seems to know where I’m going and what I’ll do before I even do it.”

“Yes,” replied the troll. “I see your point.”

“And since they know where I am at all times, I seem to be everyone’s favorite target for ambush.”

“A role none wish to play,” said the troll, “but one that falls upon the shoulders of a hero.”

“A hero?” Glissa stopped to think about that word. “Why would you call me that?”

The troll cocked his head, looking at the young elf. “Because your efforts are not just focused on yourself.”

“Wait a minute.” Glissa shook her head. “How do you know what it is I want or even that I was coming here?”

“A simple deduction,” replied the troll. “The last time you were here, you wanted to know about the Guardian. You did not
believe us then. You have returned. Thus, I suspect that you have seen proof, that now you are beginning to believe that which Chunth believed, and you wish for answers.”

“What did Chunth believe?”

“That you have a destiny beyond the borders of the Tangle. That your path is far longer than you know.” The troll smiled, his stained, ground-flat teeth poking from his wart-covered lips, looking menacing yet warm at the same time.

Slobad pulled on Glissa’s arm. “Who this guy, huh?”

“That’s a good question,” said Glissa. She looked up from the goblin. “Who are you?”

The troll bowed. “Forgive my lack of hospitality. I am Drooge, chief teller of tales. These—” he waved his arm to indicated the collected trolls—“these are all that’s left of my kind.”

Glissa scanned the room. There were a lot of trolls here, more than she’d ever seen in one place at one time. Still, the thought saddened her. This was
all
of them. Every last one.

The group no longer seemed so large.

She laid her gaze again upon Drooge. “So you figured out that I would come back, but that still doesn’t answer my question about why you called me a ‘hero.’ What makes you think I’m not just looking out for myself?”

The troll placed his hand on his jaw, rubbing his bumpy chin. “Sometimes, a hero is not a hero by choice. Sometimes, a hero is just a hero because her actions make her one. Whether you know it or not, your quest is one that will benefit many people. Perhaps everyone on Mirrodin.” Drooge lowered his head. “Although the trolls have known about Memnarch, have known not only that he existed but also that he controlled the levelers and devices that plague the land, we …” His voice trailed off. The rumpled troll stared at the floor for a long while.

Glissa looked at him, bending her knees and trying to get
down close enough to the floor to get his attention. “Yes?” she said, trying to coax it from him.

“We … We have been … afraid,” he said finally.

“But when last I was here, Chunth was very reluctant to talk with me. He told me very little and seemed quite … guarded, almost as if he would be punished for telling me what I wanted to know.” Glissa paused, watching Drooge stare at the floor. “Now you rush me inside and greet me as if I were one of you. Why such a drastic change?”

Drooge raised his eyes. “Chunth was the oldest among us and the wisest. Now he is gone, and a new fear has entered the troll tribe: the fear that we will all be gone, taken from this place as Chunth was. As you can see, there are only a very few of us left. We cannot face Memnarch and his armies of devices alone. We are too few.” Drooge paused, taking a deep breath. “We are too afraid.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Your destiny has been set in motion. There is no longer time to debate ‘if’ or ‘when.’ It has come. The time is now, and events will continue forward whether you are ready or not.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Drooge raised his bone staff. “We all have kin who have fallen to the Guardian’s armies. We want to see you succeed.”

“Are you saying you’re going to help me confront the Guardian?”

Drooge once again scratched his chin. “When the time is right. Yes.”

Slobad pulled on Glissa’s arm. “When that be, huh? We come back then.”

The troll laughed in the back of his throat. “I’m afraid I cannot tell you the future, only that the trolls will participate when all has been prepared.”

“Prepared?” Glissa shook her head. “What are you talking about. You make it sound as if there is some sort of predetermined course that we’re all destined to follow—that I’m the one leading. Am I missing something here?”

Drooge rose from his chair and ambled forward. The quickness of his words and the sharp intelligence in his eyes had distracted Glissa from noticing one important detail about the troll chieftain.

He had only one leg.

The bone staff he had been holding was a crutch, and he leaned on it as he moved forward. His steps were awkward and metered, very much as Glissa expected from a troll.

When he came close enough to touch the trio, he stopped and smiled. “I am sorry, I do not mean to confuse you. I forget that all this information is new to you. For the trolls, it has been a way of life, a belief.” He leaned down, lowering his face so that he looked into Glissa’s eyes. “We do not belong on Mirrodin. The trolls—” he waved his hand around, indicating all the creatures seated in the bleacher seats—“we are not from this world. We do not wish to stay here any longer than we must.”

“Wait.” Glissa sank down on the metal floor. “You’re from some other world?”

“Yes.”

“How is it that I can help you? It’s not as if I can lift you to some other plane.”

“You can help us escape from the tyranny of the Guardian,” explained the troll. “That is the path you will travel. That is the destiny that has been chosen for you.”

“You speak as if I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

“You do not.”

The elf snorted.

“If all of you—” Glissa ran her gaze around the room, taking in the entire troll tribe—“with your big muscles and strong fists, can’t stand up to Memnarch and his devices, what makes you think I can?”

“Because you are not afraid.”

“Of
course I’m afraid!
” Glissa shouted. “In fact, I can’t remember more than a brief instant of my entire life when I
wasn’t
afraid of something.”

The troll nodded, apparently unperturbed by her outburst. “Yes, it is something that transcends the racial boundaries. Fear binds us together and makes us all the same.” Drooge placed his huge hand on the petite elf’s shoulder. “What makes us different, you and I, is that despite that fear you go on.”

Slowly Glissa nodded. Now she understood.

Drooge turned and limped past his seat. “As I said, when the time is right, the trolls will come to your aid.” When he reached the far wall of the chamber, he placed his crutch aside. Flattening his palms against the metal, he spoke a single word, and a cabinet appeared.

It was a square box, about the size of a small goblin, the same color and texture as the surrounding wall. If Glissa hadn’t been watching, she might have thought it had been there the whole time. It blended with the rest of the chamber as if it had been carved from the tree, just like the steps. Drooge reached into this cabinet and pulled out a small casket.

“Do not think that I would send you away empty handed.”

The troll waved the trio forward.

They approached, and Glissa put her finger out to touch the casket. It was of exquisite workmanship, carved in patterns she did not recognize. She didn’t want to stop touching it.

“You like that?” asked the troll.

“Yes,” said Glissa. “What is it?”

“It is from the wood of a tree not of this world. Many thousands of years ago, it is said that my people, the trolls, lived in these trees.”

Glissa’s eye’s nearly bulged from her head. She couldn’t even imagine another world. Just running her fingers over the wood calmed her nerves and made her feel … feel … happy.

“You’re giving this to me?”

The troll laughed. “No,” he said. “I am giving you what is inside.”

Glissa was disappointed. “Oh.”

“It is nice,” said Drooge, his eyes lit up with amusement, “but I doubt this casket will help you along your path. No, I am giving you this.” The troll lifted the lid and drew forth a helm. Inset along its rim in a brilliant circle were five gemstones, each one a different color. At the top, carved deep into the metal surface, was a sigil or rune. It was a circle, broken into five wedge-shaped pieces by five different lines—like a wheel with five spokes.

Drooge handed the helm to Glissa.

“It’s beautiful.” The elf ran her finger over the stones—a diamond, an emerald, a ruby, an onyx, and a sapphire. Each of them sparkled.

Bosh waddled over, and Slobad lifted himself up on his tip toes to get a better look.

“What does it do?”

*  *  *  *  *

Pontifex paced outside the door leading to the Grand Assembly Chamber. Inside, the other members of the Synod waited. The lord of the vedalken knew what to expect when he entered. He knew what they had planned. The whole scheme had unfolded in less than a cycle.

Despite the very real power he now wielded over the vedalken people, and for that matter the Synod itself, he had been powerless to stop this. Sometimes the game of politics is simply more powerful than the politicians who play.

Pontifex steeled himself and stepped forward. The doors before him slipped silently aside, and he entered the chamber. No one spoke, but the room was filled with the shuffling sound of bodies trying to get comfortable. The assembled vedalken went still upon seeing him, and the room fell completely silent.

The Grand Hall, as it was often referred to, was nothing more than a giant spiraling pit dug deep into the ground. Wider at the top than it was at the bottom, the room itself had been designed by a vedalken architect who had taken his inspiration from the swirling storms and whirlpools of the Quicksilver Sea. A narrow platform, just wide enough to fit two vedalken guardsmen in full uniform side by side, wound down the edge of the pit, running in a spiral from the very ceiling to an open floor far below. To Pontifex, it looked like a corkscrew, winding its way down into the bowls of Mirrodin. That image amused him, and he smirked.

A railing skirted the edge of the spiraling platform. The original designer had wanted the room to feel—and be—dangerous. One false step and a vedalken could find himself on the floor in a big hurry. Down lower, that wasn’t much of a problem, but from this height, a body falling that far would be smashed into jelly.

This room is dangerous, thought Pontifex as he looked down at the collected vedalken, even with the safety precautions.

Gathered on the spiral, the assembled citizens of the vedalken empire stood against the outer wall or leaned up on the railing. Where Pontifex stood at the top of the winding platform he could see down on everyone, including the other two members
of the synod who awaited him at the bottom. Beside them stood a third figure. Pontifex did not know this man, but he knew what his presence here represented.