The Darksteel Eye (4 page)

The metal beasts were close enough now that Glissa could clearly see the humanlike figure at their head. He was tall and thin, not clearly elf or human, and he wore a long blue robe that billowed out behind him as he rode his leveler forward. His shiny silver skin made the expression on his face hard to read, but Glissa thought he might be handsome were it not for the fact that he was charging toward her atop a killing device—the same sort of device that had taken her parents, her sister, and her best friend from her.

The tingling sensation faded, giving way to a palpable anger that heated her blood and steeled her spine. She could feel her
lip curl up and her eyes narrow. She didn’t even know who this silvery man was, but already she hated him. He had much to answer for, and if this were the fabled Memnarch, he had an enormous debt to repay.

“Time to settle,” she said, lifting her hands high over her head and drawing green mana from the far-away Tangle. She was surprised how easily it flowed to her. The arcane energies flooded her body, and she felt strong.

Bosh stepped in front of Glissa and Slobad, his hammering footfalls shaking both elf and goblin to the bone. Their big friend came to a stop, and the rumbling of the levelers replaced the pounding of the metal golem’s feet.

For a moment, all four companions were silent, watching the approaching throng. Glissa took a deep breath, channeling the mana she held. Looking out at the charging artifacts, she singled out the closest. As she released her spell, the mana gushed down her arms, ripping across the open air in a green zigzag.

The magic smashed headfirst into the oncoming leveler. The creature exploded. Interlocking metal plates shot out at all angles. The animated device’s wheels spun off wildly, smashing into other levelers who simply ran over the dismembered parts of their one-time comrade without slowing down. The creature’s scythe blades flopped uselessly to the metal ground, tumbling end over end, then coming to rest.

The levelers continued on, the silvery man unflinching.

Over her head, Glissa watched a glowing blue orb race toward the horde. Bruenna, she thought. The spell struck a charging artifact, and its spiked wheels suddenly stopped spinning. The metallic beast shuttered, skidding sideways before coming to a halt. Another leveler plowed into the back of the stalled beast, knocking it over and getting tangled in its bladed arms and steering sail. The two creatures lay on the mossy
ground in a heap, forcing the constructs behind to smash into them or drive around.

Bruenna’s spell had caused a break in the advancing enemy line, and the once orderly artifact creatures now looked like a rioting mob.

The first leveler closed in on Bosh, and the golem smashed it to smithereens. With one swing of his heavy fist, he bashed it flat. He swung his other fist. The shriek of metal bending and glass shattering followed a loud crash, and another of the artifacts went down.

As the front line of levelers reached the companions, Slobad jumped atop the first one he encountered. Raising its scythelike blades, the leveler turned toward Glissa. Its spiked wheels tore up the ground, greedily eating up the space between itself and the elf.

Holding onto its steering sail, the goblin pulled a narrow crowbar from his pouch. Jamming it between interlocking plates, he pried the device’s outer shell free, opening a hole large enough for him to stick his fist inside. Reaching in, the goblin tinkered with the leveler’s innards.

Glissa watched it come, the goblin on its back. Seeing him dig into that artifact creature brought a smile to Glissa’s face. When it counted, Slobad was the bravest goblin on Mirrodin.

A whistling sound brought Glissa from her reverie. Diving forward, she managed to duck and tumble away from a second leveler’s blades as they came down where her head used to be. Coming to her feet, Glissa pulled her sword. It seemed silly to try to dismantle a device with a sword. She wished she could turn that pointy blade into a pounding hammer.

But this was no ordinary sword. She didn’t know where it had come from, only that she had found it inside the Tree of Tales in Chunth’s chamber. It was more powerful than any
weapon she’d ever wielded, and for that, at this moment, she was grateful.

The blade rang as she bashed back the new leveler’s attacks. Sparing a glance to her left, she saw the leveler with Slobad on its back was almost on her. Looking back and leaning in, she lunged for the artifact’s glowing yellow eye. Her blade struck the seam, lodging between the housing and the lens. Twisting her sword, Glissa popped the creature’s eye from its socket, and the device swung side to side, grasping with its arm blades like a blind man trying to catch a thief.

Glissa turned to the leveler with Slobad on its back. The construct brought its arms together, scissoring down on the elf with its razor-sharp grasp. The artifact was close, closer than Glissa had thought. She rolled backward, falling onto her behind and ducking away from the blades. The creature missed her but just barely, and it opened its arms, ready for a second deadly embrace.

Glissa scooted back with little room to move. The leveler behind her still flailed blindly. The one before her leaned down, ready to take her head from her body. The killing device brought its blades together, right down on her. Pushed back against a flailing, blinded leveler, she had no room to move. Glissa cringed, bracing for the impact—but it never came.

The artifact creature veered to its right, turning away from Glissa and lunging at the flailing leveler behind her.

“Kill it,” shouted Slobad from the creature’s back. “Cut it up.” The device followed his orders.

Glissa rolled away and got to her feet. The two levelers cut into each other. Sparks flew as Slobad’s fighter slashed through the blinded monster’s torso. The goblin leaped onto the back of another device, his crowbar gripped in his three-fingered hand.

Bosh smashed devices with both fists. Bruenna froze the
oncoming monsters in their tracks or blasted them away with gusts of wind. Slobad turned them against each other or dismantled them as fast as his little fingers could pry them apart. Glissa battled them back with her sword and her magic.

Still, the mass of sharpened creatures came on, endless and unrelenting. The flood of levelers swarmed over Bosh. Their spiked wheels pushed them up his body. Their scythe blades struck him, and his body rang out like a tolling bell. In a matter of seconds, the giant metal man disappeared under a pile of killing devices.

A high-pitched squeal filled Glissa’s ears. Slobad had jumped from one device, and he now rode on the back of another. His arm was buried to his elbow inside the creature’s metal frame, and his face was held tight in a pinched, pained expression. With the fist of his other hand he beat on the leveler’s hide, pushing, pulling, and squirming to get his hand free. Something had gone wrong. Slobad was caught.

The leveler he rode reached its arms back and swiped at the goblin. Slobad ducked, but the tip of the creature’s scythe blade caught the side of the goblin’s head. A chunk of Slobad’s scalp sliced away, and blood spurted down his neck.

Glissa’s heart sank. Her stomach felt as if she’d swallowed a bottomless pit, and the hairs along her back and neck stood at attention. She watched as the beast took another swipe at Slobad. The goblin disappeared from sight.

The creatures swarmed in, climbing on each other’s back to reach into the sky and pluck Bruenna from where she flew. Glissa heard the human wizard scream as she was brought back down to earth. The horde of metallic monsters closed in on the elf, blocking out the reflected blue-white light from the mana core.

Thrashing about with her blade held high, the elf fought
off one leveler after another. Scythe blades fell to the ground. Eye sockets went flying. Spiked wheels were cut in two. Still, the circle closed down, and there were too many to fight on her own.

Slipping her blade into the crease between two metal plates, Glissa lunged to kill another leveler. As she stretched out, a sharpened claw tore into her side, then a spiked wheel collided with her leg, and the elf fell backward onto the ground.

In seconds she could feel her arms pinned and her legs immobilized. Someone pulled the sword from her grip, and the tip of another blade touched her exposed belly. Spreadeagled, limbs held firm, a deadly weapon pressed against her gut, Glissa thought about her family—and Kane. She was going to die, and with any luck, she’d see them again in whatever place elves went to after they left the horrors of this world.

Even the thought of seeing her parents again couldn’t quell the fear inside her. Life on Mirrodin had been no picnic, but she didn’t want to die—especially not at the hands of a leveler. Over the past few rotations she had come to believe, really
believe
, that she had a destiny, a greater purpose, but her quest had become a monumental failure. She had traveled to bring her parents’ killer to justice, only to be slaughtered in the same fashion. It seemed tragic.

She wasn’t the only one here. She had friends now, friends who had followed her to this place. Though she couldn’t see them, their faces flashed in her mind: Slobad, Bosh, even Bruenna whom she’d only recently met. They were all going to die.

Glissa’s fear once again gave way to anger, and she screamed. Not a shriek of terror or the startled scream of a little girl, but a feral, predatory screech that dripped of power. She took in a deep breath. The pounding of her heart filled her head, and the
grinding wheels of the levelers filled her ears. She looked up at the metal beasts holding her down, and she hated them. She wanted to smash each and every one into greasy bits of scrap metal.

Then something inside snapped. Glissa felt as if a door had been opened deep within. Power flowed out over her body, and all her muscles tensed. A wave of green energy exploded over the battlefield, filling the interior of Mirrodin with a bright flash of light—followed by silence. Nothing could be heard, not the grinding of levelers, not the buzzing hum of the mana core.

All was quiet.

The light subsided. Levelers were flung back. As if a switch had been flipped reversing gravity for a brief moment, the killing devices were launched into the air. Their blades flailed. Their steering sails flapped side to side without result. Just as suddenly, the switch was re-engaged, and the constructs fell back to earth, smashing into other levelers and crashing into a tangled heap.

Glissa was free.

Beside her, Bruenna hovered. The artifact monsters that had pulled her from the sky were thrown away, and the wizard launched herself back into the air—no longer a captive.

The pile of killing devices completely covering Bosh were torn off, tossed to the metal ground like discarded children’s toys. Their heavy carapaces had cracked on impact, sending metallic sinews and glass lenses flying in all directions. Metal torsos collapsed in on themselves, smashing the mechanisms inside. The glowing yellow lights in their eyes went out.

All the climbing devices were flung away, and the great metal golem was revealed. Bosh wasted no time. Stepping over a wall of bent and ruined metal, he reached down and picked up the leveler with Slobad on its back. Squeezing his fingers
together, he pinched the beast’s lower back. Its head popped off, and the mechanism’s insides squirted out.

Slobad’s arm slipped free of the creature’s carapace, escaping from whatever had held it, and he climbed up Bosh’s chest, crouching on the golem’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” cried the goblin, holding Bosh’s neck. “Now, run, huh?”

Bosh turned, and his feet resumed their heavy drumming on the metal ground.

From the distance more levelers advanced. Before Glissa, a crescent-shaped portion of the ground was clear of levelers and rubble alike. It was as if the elf’s anger had created a giant gust of wind that had blown everything back, but it had been more than that. Where her spell had touched a leveler, it had been destroyed.

Bosh reached down and scooped up the young elf where she stood. He continued on, Bruenna flying beside him.

Slobad looked at the elf with wide eyes. “How you do that, crazy elf?”

Glissa looked down at her hands. “I don’t know. I just … did.”

“Think you can teach Slobad that trick? Make taking apart levelers easier, huh?”

“Yes, it would,” replied the elf, “but I still haven’t figured out how to do it myself. It just sort of happens.”

Bruenna swooped down closer to Bosh. “Where to?”

Bosh lifted his face, pointing with his chin. “Just over that rise. There’s another entrance to the blue lacuna.”

Glissa wrinkled her forehead. “The blue lacuna?”

“The tunnel we came down,” explained the golem. “It is called a lacuna.”

“I know that, but you said the ‘blue lacuna.’ Are there different colors?”

“There is a red one and a blue one but no green.”

“How you remember all this stuff, huh?” asked the goblin. “Dross finally leak from your rusty head?”

“The Pool of Knowledge,” interjected Bruenna, nursing her injured leg as she flew. “The pond we jumped into that led us down here.” She grimaced. “I told you, my father was right. The vedalken have a way of putting all of what they know—everything every single one of them knows—into the serum inside. Our swim through must have revived Bosh’s memories.”

“Yes,” replied the golem.

“Wait.” Over Bosh’s shoulder, Glissa watched the surviving majority of the leveler battalion start to regain their composure and line up behind the strange metallic man. “We can’t go back into the tunnel … the blue lacuna. The vedalken are inside.”

“This entrance should bring us back to where the tube spilt into two paths. If we are lucky, we will avoid them.”

Bosh headed up a slight incline, and Glissa turned. Just ahead, barely visible in the near distance was the opening to the tunnel the golem spoke of. She looked back to the levelers.

“Better hurry,” she said. “They’re gaining again.”