The crumbled hedron that they had been riding slowly came to a stop. They stood and stared at the huge tower.
Tal Terig, Sorin said. Where the Eldrazi buried their dead. We will skirt well around that place, I think.
The head man stopped coiling his rope. The path into the mountains lies behind the puzzle tower. We have to pass near it to enter.
The mountains extended away to the right and left. Nissa had a moment to look at the tower. Something about it seemed impossibly wrong: its angles appeared off somehow, as though it was suddenly top heavy and might fall at any moment. As she watched, the tower started to grind and squeak and rearrange itself.
That sound has brought woe to many an archeaomancer s ears, Anowon said. The tower is full of unimaginable treasures ancient weapons too deadly for the Eldrazi beasts, it is said. But the halls are riddled with magical traps of every clever devising, and every time the sun changes its angle, the tower rearranges itself, guaranteeing that the halls you have just memorized and the traps you have just uncovered are forever changed so you do not know them anymore. Beings that know their way through those towers are uncommon in the extreme.
Something is there, Nissa said. She squinted, and noticed many tiny figures milling around the base of the tower.
Brood, yes? Sorin said, looking back at the ocean, not at the tower. He slowly turned around.
Yes, brood, Nissa said. A very great host of them.
Everybody stared at the tower and the huge dark splotch, clearly visible, of brood milling at its base.
What are they doing? Nissa said.
Seeking egress, I should think, Sorin said.
They know it is the burial place of their masters, and they want to enter.
Nissa made note of how Anowon s pale eyes trained on Sorin as he spoke. His face clearly betrayed his disbelief.
Can they enter? Nissa said.
Doubtful, Anowon said, pulling his eyes away form Sorin. Very doubtful. The entrance shifts. The door is obscured and locked with powerful magic. There are some that have found the door and ventured within. From them we know that the tower you see extending above the ground is but a fraction of the its true length. Most of it is underground.
Nissa could hardly imagine. It must be a league deep! she said.
Yes, the head man interjected. And the mountains lie on the other side of it. I have only traveled as far as the tower. Past that I do not know the way. Perhaps you do not need me anymore?
You do not have leave, Sorin said.
Suddenly Nissa heard a whoosh. She turned and had a brief look at the floating creatures that swept down on them: large brood with masses of tentacles extending from funguslike bodies composed of pocketed lattices. One brood s long, split arms reached out.
Nissa had only a moment. She sucked mana from the ther and concentrated on making her self appear as a patch of dirt to the flying brood. Her camouflage spell had been effective before, but this time the brood made a guess as to where she was squatting, and snatched her off the hedron despite her spell.
Nissa was flying through the air with thick tentacles wrapped around her. She had to struggle to move her head enough to get a good breath, and even after she did, she could not see or speak. She felt the air rushing on the backs of her calves.
The tentacle wrapped around her face smelled like dirt and rock dust, and she could feel the blood pulsing through it. Nissa thrashed against the tentacle, but it seemed only to tighten, so that by the end she was barely able to pull in a breath at all.
She flew like that for a time, and then the brood holding her suddenly jerked. It spasmed three more times, and as the tentacle around her face went limp, Nissa began to freefall through the air.
It should have been a common enough feeling for Nissa, but she could only think of childhood nightmares as she spiraled toward the sharp surface of Akoum.
Her impact was sudden and punctuated with the sickening crack of bone. She found herself rolling with the sun filling her eyes and the colors blurring.
Nissa rolled over and cast a wary eye around. She stood. The bodies of five other floating brood were strewn over the top surface of one of the columns in the canyon. Arrows with fletches made from the stiff leaves of some unfamiliar green plant stuck out of them. Nissa fell into a crouch and ducked behind the body of the brood that had been carrying her. She looked around.
She had crashed quite near the tower. She could see the different sizes of the brood milling around the base of Tal Terig, and see the holes they had dug. Some brood were bent over the holes or moving their tentacles in the air above the holes. Doing what, exactly? Nissa wondered. She looked around hoping to catch a glimpse of the bows that had struck down the brood.
But instead she saw Sorin and Smara tossed in the grass near the brood that had been carrying them. As she watched, Sorin rolled over. She waved to him, and he began crawling toward her. She heard a groan and saw Anowon stumbling in her direction. When he was near, she grabbed his cloak and yanked him down. She brought her finger up to her lips and listened.
The breeze stirred the clump of grass next to her. The dead brood s tentacle twitched once. Anowon leaned against the flank of the creature, and when Sorin finally crawled the distance to them, he also leaned back.
Nissa could neither see nor hear anything moving. But whatever had shot the brood was waiting somewhere nearby. The gap between pillars was the height of a man. Nothing moved except the grass caught in the wind.
One of Smara s goblins stumbled over to Smara s insensate form, the other perhaps lost to the gaps. The goblin took her gently under the armpits and swore under its breath as it pulled the mad kor to where Nissa and the others were squatting behind the dead brood.
Where is the human guide? Anowon asked the goblin.
Sorin rolled over and looked at Anowon, who was watching Smara.
You only want to know where the human is because you want to feed on him, Sorin said.
The goblin did not reply. Instead it propped Smara against the cooling beast and began fanning her face. The kor stirred, and her eyes popped wide.
The titans stir, she said quite clearly.
Anowon said nothing. Sorin stood.
A movement caught Nissa s eye. Look there, she said. Nissa saw the tip of what looked like a bow disappear behind the edge of a pillar. They all turned to look. When the bow did not reappear they waited. But there was no bow, no movement of any sort.
Do not move rapidly, said a voice from behind. Nissa turned. A small force of elves was arrayed behind them, with bows drawn and nocked arrows trained. Nissa immediately recognized the arrow fletches of their shafts as the same ones sticking out of the dead brood.
Throw down your weapons, said a female elf with a strange accent. Nissa could not place it. She could not tell what kind of elves they were their skin was darker then hers, and they were shorter and stockier. Their bows glittered in the sun, and Nissa realized with a start that they were constructed of some wood she had never seen before.
Who are you? Nissa said.
Close your mouth, foreigner, said the female elf.
Throw down your staff.
Nissa let her staff fall with a thump. Sorin slowly took his great sword out and laid it carefully on the grass. Anowon kept staring down.
The elf commander turned her head. Collect the weapons and bind the vampire s hands, she said. Drag the human out from under the tentacled menace.
An elf collected Nissa s staff. Nissa watched him move. He was muscled like a human and harnessed as heavily as a kor. There were scars all over the exposed skin of his hands and face, and the tip of his right ear was missing, replaced by a thick edge of scar tissue.
The elves all crouched as they worked. The commander kept her eyes on the sky, holding a nocked arrow in her bow. She was as scarred as the other elves, and her eyes glowed.
Nissa s eyes lingered on the mass of brood moving around the base of the tower. They looked as though they were building something. A square wooden form was clearly visible in their midst.
What are they doing there? Nissa asked.