Ari Marmell - Agents of Artifice

A cloud of dust filled the chamber beyond, tinged red by the fires below, billowing and rolling to shame the storm. His tattered cloak undulating behind, his eyes tunnels of endless crackling blue, Jace Beleren strode through the cloud, bearing down on the startled artificer. Above him resounded the thunder of mighty wings as the enormous drake that had hurled Tezzeret through the door circled menacingly, dropping ever lower at its master's call. Its scales gleamed even in the diffuse, abysmal light.

Propping himself up on his etherium hand, Tezzeret scrambled to his feet, initiating a spell of his own. The younger mage never slowed, never broke stride. He merely bowed his head, allowing the plummeting drake just enough room to tuck its wings to its sides and burst through the doorway. Shrieking its primal rage, it slammed into Tezzeret once more, bowling him farther down the hall, claws and teeth raking furiously against a protective barrier the artificer only barely erected in time.

Again Tezzeret found himself flat on his back, struggling to ward off the drake that crouched above him, digging at his shields. Around him, guards came running, swords held aloft, only to be forced back by bone-chilling waves of piercing cold that wafted against them as they approached, freezing solid flesh and blood and bone.

Abandoned and betrayed, face to face with the architect of everything his life had become, Jace Beleren's rage overpowered any sympathy he may have felt for the guards as they fell before his murderous spells. They wanted to serve the artificer? They could die with him.

Tezzeret, caught utterly off guard by the mind-reader's fury, allowed himself the duration of a single indrawn breath to marvel at the power he faced, to grow wroth that the power he had fostered in Jace was now being levied against him.

Looking up, he stared into the maw of the chrome-scaled drake, and thrust both hands outward.

A swarm of tiny projectiles pierced the air, and each was a single tip of a triple-forked bolt of lightning. Scales and flesh blackening beneath the assault, the drake slammed upward to collide with a bone-breaking crunch against the metallic ceiling. Booming thunder rolled down the hall, dispersing the dust and knocking Jace off his feet.

In unison Jace and Tezzeret scrambled upright, each glaring at the other across the twitching drake and frost-coated steel. Even as the beast struggled to rise, the artificer clenched his fist. From both walls an array of cables and pipes burst from their sockets, slamming into the wounded creature's flesh, releasing bursts of steam to boil the scales from its body. The drake shuddered one last time and was gone. But the protrusions from the wall remained, writhing blindly like the tendrils of some obscene jellyfish.

Jace shouted, his words incomprehensible, and gestured. From the floor behind him, the shards of the shattered door rose and spun down the hall, scything blades aimed at Tezzeret's flesh. But telekinesis still was not Jace's strongest suit, and the few projectiles that wove their way through the barrier of metal tentacles were easily repelled by the artificer's personal shield.

He had only just begun to laugh, to mock the feebleness of the assault, when Jace's true attack struck. Pain blossomed through Tezzeret's head, sunk its tendrils deep into his thoughts. His vision blurred, his stomach heaved, and worst of all, his concentration wavered.

For a moment, one ephemeral moment, Jace might have won.

But he was Tezzeret, master of the Infinite Consortium! He had constructed artifacts beyond the grasp of archmages, stood against foes as potent as the great Nicol Bolas and survived! He would not-he would not-let an upstart like Jace Beleren lay him low!

Grasping fingers of midnight black and blinding blue seemed to emerge from the air around the artificer, wisps of smoke wafting from them, as he gathered the mana running like blood through his veins. Power, pure and uncontrolled force of will, burst from Tezzeret's soul, snapping the conduit Jace had established with his mind, sending the younger mage staggering with the backlash of his broken spell. The artificer glared across the hall, panting, nearly spent-and then he allowed his glower to warp itself into an ugly grin. Deliberately, allowing Jace to see exactly what he was doing, he thrust forth his artificial hand, holding it near the conduits that ran through the metal walls of his home.

Those conduits began to glow. A vapor that was not steam burst from the junctions, swirling about etherium fingers, absorbed into the metal and into Tezzeret's lungs. And just like that, he found himself restored, his soul burning with raw mana, ready and eager to be shaped.

For the first time since the assault began, Tezzeret saw fear peeking from behind the curtain of rage that was Jace Beleren's face, and he rejoiced.

Yet while Jace was indeed distraught, he was not daunted. Straightening his shoulders, he raised both hands, palms upright. "If your home is your power, Tezzeret," he called out, "I'll just have to take it from you!"

As though he could see it, touch it-and perhaps he could, at that-Jace reached out with his mind into the walls themselves and took hold of the fluids running through the conduits within. Those that were already steam heated and expanded further until the pipes around them burst, the metal that contained them peeling outward like the blossoming of iron flowers. The liquids flowing through other tubes froze solid, backing up into the heart of Tezzeret's machines until filthy water burst from a dozen seams. Throughout the complex, glowing spheres grew suddenly dim, moving platforms ground to a halt, as the pressures that drove them and the mana that fueled them ceased to flow. Mana-infused vapors evaporated uselessly into the aether, and cables all around the hall began to shudder and snap.

Tezzeret felt his own fury rising. He had hoped simply to keep Beleren busy until Baltrice and more of his guards arrived. Clearly, that was no longer an option. Already the damage inflicted by his spells would take days to repair; he couldn't afford to let his enemy tear apart any more of his home.

But that was fine, too. The thought of finishing the fight in person, planeswalker to planeswalker, brought a wolfish grin to the artificer's face.

Tezzeret took three running steps and leaped. The hall's surviving cables reached out, propelling him along or yanking sheets of steel from the wall to shield him from the bursting metal and hissing steam. Tucking into a forward roll as he cleared the length of the hall, he began to cast. The artificer landed in a crouch mere feet before his enemy, his etherium hand already darting out to parry the shrapnel Jace had telekinetically hurled at him as he came. In that metal grip Tezzeret clutched a fistful of sand, glowing visibly with prior enchantments and the power of the spell he pumped into it now.

His fist tightened further, and the particles sifted from between his fingers, pouring into the air and swirling around both combatants, an embryonic dust devil that swiftly grew into a raging whirlwind. Long after the initial fistful was expended, the sand continued to flow, to whip about them, until cloak and hair thrashed wildly and all sight of the surrounding hall was obscured.

Jace felt the temperature rise into a baking heat that lay heavily upon him and brought an instant sweat to his skin. Even as he readied a counterspell intended to shield him from the worst of the pounding heat, he felt the rigidity of the metal beneath him give way to the unstable shifting of the desert floor. The sandstorm faded to reveal an endless expanse of wastes, only the very tip of Tezzeret's tower visible over the distant horizon. Despite the warmth Jace tugged the hood of his cloak over his face, shielding his watering eyes from the brightness of the midday sun.