Ari Marmell - Agents of Artifice

"The Consortium, in brief, is one of those 'We'll find anything and sell it to anybody for the right price' operations. I'm sure they deal in contraband at least as often as legal goods, but nobody could prove it before, and there's nobody left to prove it now."

"I see," Jace muttered, leaning back and wondering what they wanted with him.

"The thing is," Emmara cautioned, "they really do seem able to get anything, or at least so I've heard in some of the more esoteric circles I frequent. Including objects and creatures of pretty potent mystical power, and things that don't seem to come from anywhere I've ever heard of."

Jace straightened, his brow furrowed. He'd never quite figured out if Emmara knew of the existence of other worlds, of planeswalkers and the Blind Eternities. Most folk, even most wizards, did not.

Regardless, reading between the lines, Jace had a whole new understanding why they called themselves the "Infinite Consortium."

"And Tezzeret?" he pressed. "He's their leader?"

She nodded. "Not their first, as I understand it. But certainly he's in charge now.

"He's a mage, Berrim, a potent one. And word is he's not the only one in the group, either. I've never heard of them hurting people without cause, but they'd definitely make unpleasant enemies. What's your interest in them, exactly?"

Jace offered a smile that was meant to be reassuring, but instead implied that something wasn't sitting still in his stomach. "They want to meet with me. And their invitation was, um, fairly insistent. Not to mention impolite."

Emmara frowned, and she leaned forward intently, placing one slender hand atop Jace's own. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Jace had to swallow a lump in his throat, truly moved by the elfs offer. Smiling a genuine smile now, he took her hand in his. "Thank you," he said, and meant those words more than he had in a very long time. "But no, I won't ask you to put yourself in that sort of danger. Besides, if they wanted me dead, they had plenty of opportunity when they delivered their 'invitation."'

It was all very chivalric, quite noble, and utterly full of crap. If Jace thought for one moment that Emmara's presence would mean the difference between life and death, he'd have accepted without thinking twice. But Tezzeret's emissary had said nothing about inviting a third party, and Jace felt-given the sort of violence they were capable of just as a test-that offending them by bringing backup was probably the more dangerous option.

He spent another hour in the elven wizard's company, learning a bit more about the Infinite Consortium, and then, as the conversation meandered in that way that even the most serious conversations do, about the nature of those elven pastries, the difficulty in getting certain fruits, and just how badly the unseasonably hot summer had damaged the crop.

The sun slowly dropped below the district's tallest buildings, sending fingers of shadow reaching out to take the entire neighborhood in their grasp, and Jace knew he'd better be moving on. Thanking Emmara once more, he took a moment to steady his nerves, and stepped out onto the street.

His instincts still screamed at him to run, to avoid this meeting like a plague-rat, but Jace wasn't quite prepared to give up life in Dravhoc. And if he was going to stay, he couldn't afford to make Tezzeret an enemy. Besides, he really wanted to know how they knew who he was, what he could do, when nobody else on Ravnica did.

But that didn't mean he had to play the game they'd dealt him, not when he could take a peek at their hand. Jace concentrated briefly as he wandered down the streets of Ovitzia and waited for his summoned faerie spy to respond.

The First Vineyard was so called because it had stood in the same spot since before Ravnica grew up around it. (Or at least, so the tavern-keeper claimed. None of the nature-oriented guilds had ever confirmed his claim, but then, they'd never denied it either.) It was a crowded establishment, quite popular with wine connoisseurs and simple drunkards alike. It appeared, from the outside, to be little more than a long hall, its walls made up of logs and tree trunks of species no longer to be found within a thousand leagues. Most of the crowd bustling in and out of the shop was interested simply in buying bottles, jugs, barrels, or other containers of refreshment to take home with them. In the back of the building, however, near the stairs to the cellar, a smattering of tables stood to allow a few customers to sit and enjoy their drinks without delay.

At the table farthest to the back, two figures waited for a third who, it seemed, wasn't going to show. Goblets sat before them, largely untouched despite the fine bouquet of the wine within. On the left was a woman larger than most laborers. Even seated, she was clearly over six feet in height and broad-shouldered as a small ogre. Her features were flat, her eyes some dull hue that appeared gray in the dim lighting of the shop, but her ashen hair marked her as the woman who had ruined Jace's afternoon at the cafe.

Her companion was almost as tall as she, but far more slender, with the chiseled musculature of a smith. His hair was a dull blond, hanging just below his shoulders. Something that straddled the line between stubble and a thin beard, depending on the lighting and how generous an observer chose to be, covered his cheeks and jaw. Of greatest note, however, was the hand in which he held his goblet, for it was not flesh and bone at all, but constructed of some murky, non-reflective metal. It was the only overt sign that Tezzeret, master of the Infinite Consortium, was far, far more than he appeared.

Both were clad in dark leathers-hers smooth and supple, his covered with a vast array of buckles and pockets-and neither looked particularly pleased, despite the fine vintage that sat before them. The man grumbled something unpleasant into his goblet.

"I told you, boss," she said to him simply.

"Bah. It makes no sense, Baltrice." Tezzeret's voice was low, gravelly; it carried despite the din of the surrounding patrons. "He passed Gemreth's test. He knew when and where."

Baltrice shrugged, an impressive gesture given her prodigious shoulders. "So he's a coward. He's too afraid to take the opportunity you've offered. He's weak."

"So it seems," he replied, shaking his head. "He could have done so much for us."

"Maybe." She didn't sound convinced. "We going to let him live?"

"Hmm. Probably-he doesn't know enough to hurt us-but let me think it over." He sighed. "Be a dear and deal with the tab, would you? I believe I'd like to get out of here, give Paldor the bad news, discuss who else he might want in his cell."

The odd pair departed the First Vineyard and, despite the late hour, began the long journey home through the endless winding streets.

A sprawling complex of half a dozen buildings, linked by aboveground bridges and belowground tunnels, the headquarters of the Consortium's Ravnica cell stood at the eastern edge of the Rubblefield. The neighborhood's name dated back to the day, many years gone, when it had been utterly laid waste by a summoned siege wurm; but the district, so long ignored, had finally begun to recover in recent years. Valuable property, good location, and cheap prices attracted a veritable flood of investors once the restrictions on new construction had fallen along with the guilds. Rubblefield, despite its name, was on the verge of a renaissance and the Consortium was one of its greatest investors.

The travelers were perhaps half a block from the first of the Consortium buildings when a cloaked and hooded figure stepped from a tiny alley to block their path. At first, it could simply have been coincidence; Rubblefield, though not yet thriving, was certainly not as depopulated as once it had been, and this man could be just another passerby. But when he stepped to one side, blocking them as they tried to move around him, he became far more.