The elf pressed Sorin and Nissa s weapons into the commander s hand. Was that really everything we have? No wonder we captured by the elves, she thought.
The elf commander turned Nissa s staff in her hands. Her fingers detected the seam and pulled, then twisted.
Be careful with that, Nissa warned.
A drum started beating at Tal Tarig, and once it started, others pulsed behind it. The elf commander twisted the staff back together and turned. We go, she said.
They were crowded together into a tight group by the elves. The human was there too. The commander broke into a run and launched herself into the air at the end of the pillar, landing on the other pillar top. One by one, each of them jumped the pillar gap. Nissa looked down when she jumped and saw the deep undergrowth of the trees and shrubs that grew between the pillars, and below them a long, long fall into darkness.
When it was Anowon s turn to jump, the elves jabbed his ribs with the tips of their bows. Run, blood slurper, they hissed. Run, run. Anowon took a running start and easily jumped the gap, but an elf shoved him as he landed. Trying to regain his balance, Anowon spun, tripped, and went sprawling in the grass of the pillar. The elves broke into peals of laughter at this humiliation.
Nissa closed her eyes so as not to watch Anowon, hands bound, struggle to his feet. Did he not deserve the ridicule? she thought. He was a vampire after all a merciless vampire. He could not be trusted. On the other hand, he had conducted himself fairly, and who could blame him for feeding on the goblins, who were, after all, barely lifeforms. They were not children of the forest, but rather opportunists of the stone and dell.
In fact, Nissa reflected, most times Anowon was a scolar. He had not chosen this affliction of vampirism.
The elves lined them up, and they all jumped the next gap between the pillars. They jumped again and again, until everyone was at the other side of the canyon. With Tal Terig grinding itself into different positions behind them, they made their way through the rocky outcroppings that puckered at the edge of the canyon. Without the elves, the maze of rocky hills and crystals would have been impassable. But throughout the remaining daylight, the elves walked ahead and behind.
The sun was halfway below the skyline when the commander elf raised her hand and all the elves stopped. The commander looked behind and in all directions. Using her foot she brushed a patch of ground bare. Then she bent over and with her hands cleared away the branches and brush that had been pushed into the dusty soil. She revealed a hole, and without a word lowered herself into it, disappearing.
One by one the others followed. When it was Nissa s turn, she lowered herself down and felt ladder rungs. She descended the ladder in the dark, with the blotch of daylight above her head filled with the dark shadows of elves climbing down after her.
They climbed through the ground for so long that the hole that they had climbed through became a tiny dot and then disappeared completely. The elf above Nissa kept stepping on her fingers or putting his foot on the top of her head. The wooden ladder creaked in the small tunnel, swaying slightly.
A patch of light appeared below. It grew larger, and the elves below her were exiting though it. Nissa put her foot through the hole and crawled out onto sand. The light was too bright at first, and Nissa closed her eyes. When she was able to open them, she saw that they were in the bottom of a dry basin. Crystals poked out of the ground with their tips touching.
The elf commander started walking, and the others followed. They walked along the dusty basin until it was deep dark and the various night birds had arrived and were swooping around above their heads, snatching the singing gnats and piercer midges out of the air.
Anowon tripped, and one of the elves delivered a kick to the vampire s forehead that knocked him sprawling. The vampire rose and began walking again. The elf next to Nissa chuckled.
Then Nissa noticed something strange. The elf that had kicked Anowon was glowing. She looked closer. His veins were glowing. She looked at the other elves. Not all of them had veins that glowed, but many of them did. Some of their eyeballs also glowed.
Nissa turned to the elf that had kicked Anowon. His face was a spider web of glowing veins. Why do you glow? Nissa asked.
The elf put his hand over his mouth. A moment later the ground began to shake.
The shaking became violent. The vial of water around Nissa s neck began to boil telling her that the Roil was occurring. She threw herself on the ground, wishing more than ever for her staff.
A moment later the ground split open like ripe fruit. Amid the dramatic shaking, Nissa could see the orange glow of magma in the crack. She attempted to roll away from the fissure but only succeeded in bouncing back and hitting her head hard on the ground. For a moment Nissa lost consciousness, and when she woke a column of writhing magma was streaming upward out of the crack in the ground. It cooled to black rock almost immediately. In the next moment Nissa saw shoots peeking out of the basalt. Soon the spar was covered with the dense green fuzz of growing plants as the ground continued to shake. The plants grew until they covered the column.
The elf that had refused to speak to her before leaned close to her ear. A life bloom, he said. Truly we are blessed.
Nissa looked again at the strange living pillar. The ground stopped trembling, and the plants started moving in the wind. Well, maybe not blessed, she thought, but it was an interesting occurrence.
How long will it last? Nissa asked.
Not more than a day, the commander elf said.
But you shall soon see one that has lasted over a hundred years. And with that, he turned and began walking.
Soon a different tower than Tal Terig appeared on the dark horizon. When they were nearer, Nissa saw that this one did not have the same smooth sides of the Puzzle Tower. Its irregular form stood out like a natural monument in the dry basin.
Ora Ondar, the elf commander said. The Impossible Garden.
Nissa knew the stories, as did every elf and most humans. Examples of every plant that grew on Akoum grew on a basalt tower that shot up out of the wastes. The tower was shaped similarly to the pillar that had formed after the lava Roil she d seen, except Ora Ondar was larger.
As they neared, Nissa could see the fabled plants growing off the pillar in a lush cascade.
Formed by the Roil more than a hundred years ago, the commander said. And tended continuously by the Nourishers. Come.
She led them to a hole at the base of the tower. Stairs chiseled out of the black rock spiraled upward. Again, the commander led the way. Nissa noticed with a pang of alarm that the elves waited to go last, and that they did so with arrows nocked on their bowstrings. As the group walked up the staircase they passed doorways that led out into the rooms where the plants grew. Each level of the tower seemed to grow another kind of plant. One level had only a plant that smelled like water and produced flowers as large as an elf. Another was all tall ferns. Yet another had plants with flowered mouth parts that lunged at the elf keepers who protected themselves with huge shields of skins stretched across frames.
Where are we going? Nissa asked.
The elf commander said nothing.
They climbed the spiral staircase until Nissa s thighs burned and she was huffing with exertion. On the top level, the sky was dark and huge. A group of elves with crystal lanterns was busy picking something off the small trees that grew there a white fruit that glowed slightly as it hung off the boughs.
The elves that had come behind up the spiral staircase pushed the group forward with their short bows. Soon a figure stepped out from behind a tree. He was an older elf with fruits in each of his hands. As they watched he took a large bite out of one of the fruits. Juice ran down the corners of his mouth as he gave a wide grin. His teeth glowed. His eyeballs glowed. His unkempt hair looked like a snipe falcon s nest on his head. He smiled again.
I had a dream last night, the figure said.
In this dream a voice said, Ser Amaran? and I said yes? Ser Amaran took another bite out of the fruit in his right hand. He chuckled as though he had just remembered a good joke, and more juice ran from the corners of his mouth. The he frowned, and his whole face seemed to fall. This voice told me that Ora Ondar would fall. The voice told me that our sacred kolya fruit would be scattered across the barren waste that the Eldrazi will make of our world those parasites in the deep. His glowing eyes flashed from Nissa, to Sorin, to Smara, to Smara s goblin, and finally rested on Anowon.
You have all been captured for being too close to the forbidden tower, the elf chief said. What were you doing there?
Nobody said anything.
Speak. Or are you minions of the tentacled creatures with the beautiful hearts?
Nissa looked out the corner of her eye at Anowon, but the vampire s face had the same perplexed look she imagined she had. Beautiful hearts?
Very well, do not tell me, he said, taking another bite of the fruit in his hand. But I will know this vital piece of information. An odd party such as yours clearly does not travel for pleasure. You are spies, of course. Vampire spies for the tentacled invasion.
The elf commander hurried forward and whispered in the chief s ear. Ser Amaran turned his head as the commander spoke, but he did not take his eyes off Anowon.
Lock them away, all of them. At dawn throw the bloodied one from the grove, and feed his crushed body to the slaughter shrubs. Throw the guide to the salt flats.
Robert B. Wintermute
Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum
Nissa, Sorin, Smara, and her goblin were thrown into cells carved out of the basalt. They tried to sleep, but the spiny floor would not allow them.
Anowon was in another cell, and all that night the stone door of the cell opened and closed, opened and closed. Once Nissa heard Anowon moan. But aside from that, there was no sound from inside the cell.
We have to free him, Nissa said.