Mathew Stover - Test of Metal

“Smell me?” One scaly brow ridge took on a deeper arch. “Really?”

“At first, I thought it was my armpits. I have two words for you, old worm.” I held up a finger. “Dental.” I folded that finger and lifted the next. “Floss.”

I fully expected him to crush me until I passed out; or, alternatively, that he would start bouncing me off the walls again. Instead, he did what I was least expecting: he chuckled and set me down. He then lowered himself into what might have been, for a dragon, a comfortable position, looking for all the Multiverse as though he’d just stopped by for a friendly chat.

Bouncing off walls seemed to be a more attractive option.

I waited for him to speak. He seemed content to simply recline on the crystal floor, wrap his tail around his neck, and chuckle. A dragon’s chuckle is very like rubbing two bricks together. Against your teeth. I didn’t wait very long; if I wished to play patience games, I would have chosen an opponent younger than, for example, human civilization. “You need me for something.”

“Need you? Don’t insult me. It amuses me to employ you in a particular task. If you fail?” Bolas rather absently began to clean out his nose with the tip of his tail. “That will amuse me, too. If you succeed, you may be rewarded… with other tasks.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“The opportunity,” Bolas said, “to obey me by choice.”

“I’ve had better offers.”

“It’s not an offer,” the dragon said. “It’s a description of reality. Do you understand the difference?”

“Let’s not start on what we do and do not understand,” I said. “What specifically do you want of me?”

“Not yet. There is one feature of our new working relationship that I’ve really been looking forward to showing you.”

“Are we back to Intimidate the Naked Prisoner already?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, we are, but with a new rule. As much as I enjoy bashing you into the rocks, the scent of your blood is making me peckish. And I can’t be wasting my life showing up to slap you around every time you need it. I’d hardly have time for anything else. So I’ve brought a friend for you.”

“I don’t have friends.”

“You do now,” he assured me, in a cheerfully evil tone, like a demonic used-carriage salesman. “But don’t worry, he won’t hurt your reputation. And he doesn’t have a reputation to worry about. I call him Mr. Chuckles.”

“I’m bored already.”

“I can fix that,” the dragon said. “Though I suppose you’re right-Mr. Chuckles is an undignified name. Let’s call him Jest, shall we? And make him a doctor. Doctor Jest. Do you like it? Doesn’t matter.” This seemed to tickle the dragon in some private way, as though it referenced a joke only he knew. “Doctor Jest, be polite. Introduce yourself to Tezzeret.”

This introduction took the form of a shattering blast of agony so overwhelming that I instantly collapsed. It felt like being hit by lightning while I was roasted alive in wasp venom. Over and over and over. I spasmed into convulsions, which did me the favor of banging my head into the floor hard enough to knock me unconscious.

Briefly.

“I know you’re awake, Tezzie. Sit up.”

My hand found yet another scalp wound. “Do I have to?”

“Unless you’d rather get the invitation from Doctor Jest.”

“All right. All right, don’t,” I said, my voice husky. I had probably been screaming. I didn’t remember. “Doctor Jest?”

“You don’t think he’s funny? I just about laughed my tail off.”

“What is it?”

“He.”

“He. Whatever. What is he?”

“You don’t need to know,” Bolas said. “All you need to know about your new best friend is that he has only two purposes in life. The first, as you’ve discovered, is to cause you pain. Unsupportable agony, in fact.”

“Anytime I do something you don’t like.”

“Almost. I don’t ask Doctor Jest to read my mind. So he has some leeway; he’ll hurt you anytime he thinks you might be doing something I won’t like-or that you might be about to. Get it?”

“So that ‘obey me by choice’ business was a joke.”

“You never did appreciate my sense of humor.”

“I get it,” I said. “You don’t have to show me again.”

“The other thing Doctor Jest lives for is to make sure you don’t do anything foolish, like try to run away from me. At your first inkling of attempting to planeswalk without my express permission, he will put you right back here. And I think you understand that here is a place you can’t get out of on your own. Still with me?”

“I told you: I get it.” I held up my right arm of meat. “Whatever it is you want me to do, I’ll do it better if I’m not crippled. If this task is something you prefer I succeed at, give me back my arm.”

“Well…” The dragon shrugged. “Can’t really help you. Sorry. Best I can do is cut off the new one.”

“Give me my real arm and I’ll do it myself. I have before. Is watching me suffer your petty revenge more important than this task you raised me from the dead for?”

“Raised you from the dead? Don’t flatter yourself. I undid some of Beleren’s damage to your brain, that’s all.”

“Ah.” At the time, that was all I could think to say.

“It’s kind of complicated. You were dead enough for me; I’m not a philosopher. He just didn’t bother to finish the job on your body. Probably thought you’re not worth the trouble.”

Not worth the trouble. “I’ll have to thank him. Personally.”

“If you find him, I wouldn’t mind thanking him a bit myself. He’d make a better agent than you ever will.”

“And my arm?”

“It was gone when I found you,” he said. “Probably a lovely parting gift from Jace. Lying in some swamp on Kamigawa, I’d guess-if he’d tried to take it with him, I’d have known. I did arrange for the new one. Don’t you like it?”

“I’m not that attached to it.”

The dragon gave me a cough’s worth of courtesy laugh. “So… wait, Tezzie. Really? You thought I raised you from the dead? You thought I took off your arm? Really?”

“I was reasoning from available evidence.” And, I realized, my conclusion was accurate even though both of my premises were flawed; a curious phenomenon, and one that might bear further investigation.

Bolas shook his head pityingly. “I know you have an irrationally high opinion of yourself, but seriously, Tezzeret, get a clue. You’re not remotely that important.”

“Important enough for you to arrange all this.”

“Tezzie, it’s not about you. Really. You’re here because I have spent a very long time setting up an exceedingly elaborate prank, and you’re the only person I know who’ll really appreciate it. You’re audience. Nothing more. Well-let’s say, you’re an educated audience.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“You’ll be impressed.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“Satisfaction guaranteed or double your money back. Do you remember,” Bolas said, mock coy, “when we first met?”

“Sure I remember. You wore red. The demons wore black.” Even the threat of agony wasn’t enough to make Bolas interesting. “Ah, the romance of Grixis when the corpse fungus blooms…”

Bolas started scraping those bricks together again. “The question’s relevant, Tezzie. We met not long after you murdered the Hieresiarch of the Seekers of Carmot.”

My jaw locked; playtime was over. “I murdered no one.”

“You ripped a sick old man’s head off his shoulders and left it on the desk in his study,” Bolas said. “What should I call it? Self-defense?”

“Call it a better death than he deserved,” I said through my teeth. “Amalex Pannet was just another bandit.”