Will McDermott - The Moons of Mirrodin

“I must make a short detour on our trip that won’t take long. Wait here, won’t you?” Pontifex passed his hand over the door, and it dissolved in front of him. He stepped through, and the door appeared again behind him.

“What are you doing?” asked Glissa again.

“Playing along,” said Bruenna. “How could I refuse? It would have looked suspicious. Besides, he could lead us right to the Pool.”

“I don’t know,” said Glissa. “You two have history going on that I don’t like. Who is this Pontifex, anyway?”

“Pontifex is the vedalken’s most respected researcher,” said Bruenna. “He was my father’s master. He … was also responsible for Father’s death.”

“Then why are we following him?” asked Glissa. “Let’s go now, while we can.”

“I think …” The door opened again in front of them.

Both women looked up to see a trio of guards emerge from the door and surround them. Glissa whipped back her robe and pulled out her sword. But as soon as she got it free of the sheath, the sword was ripped from her hands by some unseen force. The silver blade flew past the guards into the waiting hands of Pontifex.

“Please be more civil, my dear Glissa,” said Pontifex, lowering a staff, “for you are my guest now.”

Pontifex marched them down the corridor. Glissa and Bruenna were held firmly in the grasp of two guards behind the vedalken. Their feet swayed above the floor as the guards flew through the endless corridors of Lumengrid. The third silver guard hovered next to Pontifex, carrying Glissa’s sword.

The elf looked at Bruenna. The guard had its arms wrapped around her, holding her arms against her sides. From what she had seen, Glissa didn’t think Bruenna could cast spells without her hands free. Instead, Glissa concentrated on her own hands. She tried to summon the power she’d used to destroy the aerophins in the Tangle. But control over that power still eluded her. She stared at her sword just out of reach. She couldn’t wait for Slobad and Bosh. They seemed overdue. She needed to distract Pontifex and get her hands on the sword.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked.

“Why, to the Synod, of course,” replied Pontifex. “For you, my dear-and I must thank you, Bruenna, for delivering her to me-will finally buy me a seat on the council.”

Glissa glared at Bruenna. The human mage shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I never meant-”

“Of course you didn’t mean to,” said Pontifex, “but I knew it was only a matter of time. Bruenna has longed to enter the Pool of Knowledge ever since her father died for his indiscretions.”

“If you’ve known about her treachery for so long, why not just kill her?”

“Because it’s so much easier to keep an eye on her in that big house of hers,” said Pontifex. “Think of it as an experiment-an experiment in human nature. My hypothesis-and it appears that the data has proved it correct-was that given enough time, Bruenna would provide me with what her father couldn’t.”

“A seat on the Synod,” stated Glissa.

Pontifex turned to Glissa and smiled. “You’re intelligent, especially for a warrior. It might prove interesting, once all of this is over, to study your race for possible use.”

Glissa ignored the threat. Instead, she probed for more information. The vedalken seemed all too easy to draw out.

“You exposed her father,” said Glissa. “You had him killed to gain favor with the Synod.”

“Actually, it was the Synod’s decision to have Donal killed,” said Pontifex, “which was a shame, and I was sorry to see it happen, as he was an able assistant and brilliant-for a human. You see, I was more interested to find out what a taste of the Pool would have done to his abilities.”

“You sent him in there,” accused Bruenna. “He respected you, said you were different from the other vedalken, but you sent him into the Pool just to get a seat on the Synod.”

Pontifex stared at Bruenna for a moment, then smirked. “You humans never cease to amaze me. Your vision is so limited that you can’t see the larger ramifications of your own actions. Your father’s death was not the path to the Synod-as you can see, since I am still searching for that position. No, I had much larger plans for your father after his trip into the Pool. But I’ve always been patient-that’s why I am such a respected researcher-and that patience has paid off. By delivering Glissa, my seat on the Synod is assured.”

“Why am I so important?” asked Glissa.

They were ascending a curving stairway, and Pontifex fell silent again. Glissa wondered if the vedalken didn’t know or just didn’t want to tell her. Then she saw another vedalken coming toward them down the stairs. They had passed many human mages on their way, but none had even glanced up at Glissa and Bruenna as they went by, and Pontifex hadn’t even noticed the humans when they passed.

Evidently Pontifex did care if another vedalken knew what he was doing. Glissa half-hoped a dispute might erupt over who got to deliver her to the Synod. It might giver her a chance to get to her sword. However, the other vedalken didn’t give Pontifex or the guards a second look. Apparently, disciplining humans was an ordinary occurrence.

“Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t figured out why you are important, my dear?” he asked. “Perhaps I was wrong about your species, after all.”

“I know it has something to do with the serum,” said Glissa. “Are you afraid I’ll expose your extermination of the blinkmoths?”

The vedalken’s laugh grated against Glissa’s back teeth. It sounded like someone scraping a vorrac tusk against a Tangle tree. “Who could you tell who would believe you and have enough power to stop us?”

“Memnarch?” asked Glissa.

Pontifex stopped at the top of the stairs and turned, towering over Glissa. “What do you know of Memnarch?” he asked.

“I now know that you fear him,” said Glissa, undaunted by the vedalken’s presence.

“Fear him?” snorted Pontifex. “Memnarch is our god. We revere his name and serve at his command. If Memnarch commanded your death, it would be my pleasure to carry out the deed.”

Had Memnarch not commanded her death? Glissa didn’t understand. She remembered something Strang mentioned right before he died. He said Glissa was in the vedalken’s way.

She could use that.

“Memnarch didn’t order my death, did he? Someone has. It was the Synod, wasn’t it? Why have the vedalken forsaken their god, Pontifex?”

Pontifex took a step down the stairway toward Glissa and pointed his staff at her face. “I will kill you myself for even suggesting such a thing.”

Before the vedalken could unleash his spell, Glissa heard a rumbling from far below. It was time. Bosh and Slobad had started the diversion. The rumbling grew louder, and Pontifex stumbled a step as the floor beneath him began to shake. Explosions rocked the base of Lumengrid. The tower swayed back and forth around them. The guards bumped into each other as their thrusters tried to compensate for the moving floor and walls.

Another, larger explosion shook the tower. Pontifex lost his footing on the unstable steps and pitched forward down the stairs. The falling vedalken barreled into Glissa and the guard. Pontifex grabbed for the guard, but Glissa kicked him away. He dropped his staff and tumbled down the steps. The force of her kick slammed the guard into the wall. He lost his grip on Glissa, and she fell to the steps. The elf kicked out at the guard holding Bruenna, sending it into the opposite wall, where it dropped the female mage.

“Bruenna,” shouted Glissa. “My sword. Quick.”