Gatecrash

He was a planeswalker who was once involved in a planar plot—but now that he assessed his circumstances, he had successfully cut himself off from everything about this place. Knowledge of Ravnica’s woes had been excised from his mind. His mage sanctum was ruined. His compatriot Kavin had run off, presumably never wanting to see him again. And Emmara was back with her guild, back in the arms of someone important to her. The exit was open to him, hanging wide like the gates of an abandoned estate. This plane didn’t need him. He was not required here. He could simply step through the veil of reality separating this world from the next, and leave Ravnica behind.

But of course, he couldn’t be sure of that. Certainty was one of the many things that had fallen into the dark hole in his mind. Whatever the guilds were plotting—whatever the Izzet had discovered—whatever the Dimir wanted with Emmara and the knowledge inside his head—it was all gone. And his sense that Emmara was in danger remained. He had thrown open the gate out of Ravnica himself, and had practically put down a fine carpet to ensure total comfort for his departure, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to take the final step and go.

Something was missing. Something wasn’t quite as tidy as it seemed, and it nagged at his mind like an itch inside his skull. It didn’t sit right with him that everything had played out this way.

I need those memories back, he thought.

A patrol of Boros legionnaires turned the corner toward him, even-shouldered and marching in smart precision. By reflex he hid around the other side of a cart of market goods, eyeing the soldiers through the gaps in the rigging, letting them pass by. If he was their target, they didn’t seem to notice him. He wasn’t even sure who was looking for him now, but his impulse was to hide from guild authority figures, and he trusted his impulses.

Jace paused at the edge of a huge thoroughfare, the so-called Transguild Promenade, a pedestrian walkway that passed between many of the guild-held territories. As beings of all races and shapes and guilds passed by him—a Simic biomancer holding the leash of a ten-legged crablike monstrosity, a Golgari trader with a handcart of treasures found in the undercity, an Orzhov aristocrat with an entourage of dutiful thrull servants—he strained to devise some way to recover what he had lost. The hole in his memory was real, to the degree that any absence could be real, and thanks to the fissure he had no way of remembering what he had actually done with his memories during the excision spell.

The promenade branched into multiple directions, some of the roads winding their way toward various guild territories, and others leading out of the Tenth District entirely. He found himself stopping in the middle of the street, letting the pedestrian traffic flow around him.

Jace had created a knotted riddle for himself. The question consisted of the excruciating sense that he had given away the answer. He wracked his brain, trying to think of who might have a shred of a clue about that night at the Cobblestand Inn, and trying to stifle the feeling that if he failed, Emmara would die.

***

Exava swung her swords in figure eights, slicing through the air with unbridled glee as the towers of the district streamed past her. The Rakdos witch stood atop a war platform, held aloft by four muscular, masked minions, who in turn were surrounded by a massive horde of Rakdos cultists that filled the street from shop front to shop front. A wave of Rakdos flowed through the thoroughfare from Rakdos territory, sending up a chaotic clamor that could be heard for miles. Screams and impish laughter mingled with the clatter of the bone drummers and the hissing of riot demons.

Exava was smiling so hard that blood trickled from between her clenched teeth and down the sides of her mouth. She liked the feeling, so she smiled harder. Exava had a wisp of a plan to find the insolent mind mage; he was the type who would concern himself with the lives of innocents. A soft touch, like the Selesnya elf. She would only have to kick up some chaos, and he would, in time, reveal himself.

She looked down below her at the glorious bedlam she had created. She rode the frenzy and let the riot take her where it wanted. Every once in a while she would give the horde a nudge, guiding the riot toward population centers and guild landmarks. She only needed to lean on her platform, applying her weight in the direction she desired. The man-minions below her would feel the shift in the weight of the platform, and they would compensate, drifting in the direction she leaned. She wondered if her muscle could even see. The spiked leather masks they wore, like all Rakdos gear in general, were designed more for the impact on the viewer than for the comfort of the wearer. No matter. She would see for them.