Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

“Wait, I’m not-”

“Ready?” the head retorted. “Too bad. Come on, they’re getting closer!”

Glissa glanced over her shoulder, and saw the pair of Malils approaching on twin hovercraft. She pulled the bronze door shut to buy a little extra time and then pressed against the right side of the circular disk-shaped door, which swiveled on its center and slid ninety degrees inward. She slipped inside and swung the door shut behind her.

She stepped into a much larger round room that was eerily silent and less brightly lit. It appeared to be a storage area, and she had to step over even more of the small arachnoid constructs that littered the floor. More than once she got the strange feeling that their eyes were following her even as they went about whatever they were doing.

A flat round disk sat floating a few inches off the floor in the center of the room. The room had no doors that she could see. Glissa cautiously stepped onto the flate round plate and walked to the center.

The ceiling hissed and slid apart directly overhead. Glissa held her sword out for balance as the disk lurched and floated upward. She placed a hand on the Miracore to make sure it was still secure as rose through the floor of the room above.

This had to be an important control center of some kind. The cavernous room with a domed ceiling that also appeared to be devoid of people. The walls were lined with silver panels inlaid with crystals and gemstones that pulsed with arhythmic light. In the exact center of the room, a huge silver ovoid structure lined with inscriptions, more pulsing gemstones, silver and copper pipes, and giving off just a little steam sat expectantly. The panels displayed moving images of several different locations on Mirrodin, including what looked like the battlefield of Krark-Home. Glissa choked back a cry at the sight of the devastation.

Glissa had not yet seen Memnarch, but she had a good guess where he might be. That giant, ovoid egg was just big enough to hold him and still afford a little breathing room. The half-empty translucent tank of serum that was fused to the side of the machine looked murky, like stagnant oil. But the tank was a dead giveaway. If the Guardian wasn’t in there now, he spent a lot of time in the structure.

“Glissa?” Geth hissed over her shoulder. “Turn around, but whatever you do, don’t scream.”

Glissa turned around, and screamed.

The elf girl could not believe her eyes. Glissa had walked right past him, focused on the images of Krark-Home and the ovoid. But there he was, plain as day, and alive-barely. She could only tell because the limbless, sallow form hanging in the barbaric-looking rack was drawing shallow, erratic breaths.

Slobad.

The elf girl had no idea how to get her friend out of this, or if he could even survive if she did. Pink crystals, focal points for serum energy, were embedded in his skin and all over the top of his withered, bald head. His skin had gone the same dingy gray as the clouded serum in the tanks before her.

“Slobad,” she whispered and tentatively reached out to touch the goblin’s sunken cheek. His eyes were open, and appeared milky and unfocused. Perhaps even blind. But his ears, and his nose, appeared intact.

Sombody tapped Glissa on the shoulder, and she whirled.

No one was there.

Another tap, this time on the other shoulder.

“Glissa?” Geth’s head said, “There’s something on your shoulder.”

“Gyah!” Glissa yelped, and flailed blindly. She connected with a hard metal object and knocked it away.

One of the numerous little arachnoid constructs clattered to the ground on its back, legs kicking. Glissa picked up the small construct with both hands, careful to keep out of reach of its diminutive legs. It resembled, she realized, a tiny version of Memnarch She turned it over a few times in her hands, but didn’t see anything on it that looked like a weapon, so she set it back down on the floor.

Glissa had expected the tiny construct to flee, but it simply stared at her with a single gemstone eye.

“Shoo,” Glissa said, glancing nervously at the ovoid as it vented a hiss of blue steam. The construct followed her to the ovoid and tapped her on the boot, then began tapping its tiny feet against the floor in an odd rhythm.

“What?” Glissa asked. “What do you want? Geth, what does it want?”

“I don’t know. Do you hear hovercraft?”

The miniature Memnarch lifted one thin leg and pointed at Slobad. Then it slowly pointed to itself.

Twice.

“Um,” Glissa stalled, not sure she wanted to believe what her eyes told her. She got down on all fours and whispered, “Slobad? Is that you?”

“Are you dense?” Geth’s head said. “Of course it is. Even I can see that. Look at your friend, there. He’s getting a constant stream of serum. He’s hooked into this whole … machine … hmmm.”

“What?” Glissa asked.

“This big diamond building is connected to the disk, right?” Geth replied. “And the disk is connected to those struts, which are connected to…everything else.”

“You’re not making sense,” Glissa hissed over her shoulder.

“No, the-those buttresses and supports … those big needles, and the Panoppi-whatzit, everything,” Geth said, sounding oddly excited. “They’re all part of one machine. And we’re standing-okay, you’re standing-right in the middle of it.”

“You’re saying Memnarch made some kind of … giant artifact … out of the world?”

“Couldn’t be him,” Geth said. “He’s de-fleshing himself. Had to be the goblin.”

The four-legged bug began to hop and click.

“Slobad did this? I don’t-that’s crazy,” Glissa managed.

“He’s telling you the truth, elf,” an arrogant, tinny voice that Glissa knew well called from above. Glissa looked up into a smaller round door now open above her.

She was looking into the face of Raksha Golden Cub, his face twisted in pain. She heard a thud, and the leonin dropped like a sack of gelfruit at Glissa’s feet.

“Raksha!” Glissa cried.

“He’s alive, for another few minutes,” Malil’s voice said again, drawing Glissa’s attention away from the unconscious leonin. Looking down imperiously through the small opening was Malil. Or rather, the Malil who had left his flyer parked outside. The metal man’s eyes flashed red with hate, and maybe something else.

Something familiar. Something that reminded her of a Vulshok priest she’d fought long ago in the Krark foothills.

“Your sister sends her regards,” Vektro said with Malil’s voice. “I had to leave her, I’m afraid. She just wasn’t holding up under the pressure. Or that rocket she took in the chest.”

Without warning, the metal man took one step forward and dropped through the hole. He landed with a resounding clang on the floor directly in front of Glissa. He threw a gleaming silver boot into Raksha’s side, lifting the unconscious leonin bodily in the air and slamming him against the wall. The Kha sank to the floor in a heap and didn’t move.

Vektro lashed out and seized Glissa by the upper arms, then squeezed with superhuman pressure. Glissa let out a strangled cry as she felt bones snap, and her sword clattered to the floor.

Glissa looked around her feet for the Slobad-bug, but it had disappeared. Vektro shook her violently, snapping her head back. The body the thing had taken was definitely one of the oldest Malils, assuming one could judge their individual ages by the size and number of flesh spots mottling each body. Not quite as old as the one she had beheaded in the lacuna, but getting there. Glissa wondered dizzily as her head collided with a wall whether Vektro could possess a being of pure metal. As the chamber spun madly about her head, she felt herself lifted as easily as a rag doll. Vektro carried her to another vicious-looking piece of torture equipment on the wall opposite Slobad, shoved Glissa roughly into the rack, and strapped her in with blurred, magically augmented movements. When he was finished the elf was unable to do much more than wiggle her fingers and toes, which were already starting to feel numb.