Gatecrash

“Listen, Ruric, Thar. I’m not a warrior. I’m not a battlemage. I can’t do any of those things.”

This set the warriors to murmuring.

“What’s your magic do?” asked Ruric, finally.

“You already know that. I’m a mind mage. I alter the mind.”

Ruric and Thar laughed heartily. “A wizard of daydreams. Yes. So you are. So, no hitting. No hitting, no duel. No duel, no prize.”

Jace had no recourse. He had to have what was in the ogre’s mind. If Ruric Thar wanted a blast of Jace’s magic, he would have it. “All right. I will try.”

The ogre nodded doubly, and once again positioned himself to absorb an impact, the faintest smile on both the ogre’s faces. Jace summoned up all his mental strength, and formed his mind into a projectile, firing a blast of mental force at Ruric and Thar simultaneously, hoping to knock the Gruul warrior down in one psychic blow.

The backlash was immediate and blindingly painful. The force he sent at both of the ogre’s minds reflected back on him, and he was hit with the full brunt of his own spell. It knocked him down with a nauseating wave of crushing agony, and he lay there, trying to hold the sides of his head in. The Gruul warriors apparently thought that was the funniest thing they had seen all day.

Savage echoes of pain reverberated through Jace’s skull. It didn’t feel like a protective enchantment or some other kind of reflective spell that had sent back his psychic blast—the ogre hadn’t had to react at all. Ruric Thar’s very nature had rejected the magic somehow.

“Was that your hit?” asked Thar.

“We’ll give you another try if you want,” said Ruric.

“Just a minute,” muttered Jace. “Let me finish throbbing.”

The ogre had something in his nature that absorbed magic and sent it back at its caster, or focused it. It explained why the ogre had been able to smash his way through a series of guild-controlled gates almost singlehandedly. Jace tried to imagine legions of guildmages trying to slow down the rampaging ogre. They probably ended up with more than bad headaches.

When he felt like he wasn’t seeing four heads instead of two, Jace stood and brushed off his cloak. “I can’t beat you with mind magic,” he said slowly, his cranium still pounding. “But I still need what’s in your mind.”

“Have to beat us somehow,” said Ruric.

“Or we can just kill you,” offered Thar.

“Neither of you is ‘the nice head,’ I take it,” said Jace. “There’s nothing I can offer you? Some way to convince you to let me poke around in there?”

“Fight or die, mage. Decide.”

CHANGES OF HEART

Emmara approached the sacred grove where Calomir had an audience with their guildmaster, Trostani. She told herself she wasn’t sneaking up on them—she simply hadn’t announced herself, and her gait was naturally quiet. She couldn’t bend minds or wrap herself in illusions as Jace could, but she had an elf’s subtle step and a good read of body language, and she knew she was not detected. And it wasn’t her intention to eavesdrop, exactly. She would stride into the grove without hiding, as any other audience with Trostani. But she put the slightest delay in her step, because she had the sense that Calomir did not share her desire for peace and unity between the guilds, and wanted to hear how their discussion was going, and how he was advising their guild leader.

It was worse than she feared.

“I recommend we send all available ranks of soldiers, at least thirty cavalry, and a contingent of woodshapers and guildmages,” Calomir was saying. “And if we can call some greater elementals, we should do that too.”

“You believe that that is the proper reaction?” asked the three dryads of Trostani. “Ever since the end of the Guildpact, we have tried to achieve a peace with the Rakdos, and our response to this incident may well determine our relationship for years to come.”

“Exactly. We have tried to achieve a peace. And how well has it worked? Our response to this incident is exactly what is at issue. We must strike back, to prove our mettle to the other guilds. We must demonstrate that we are not willing to sit by while our dignitaries suffer brazen abductions in the middle of the historic Tenth District.”

Emmara stepped into the grove. “Or we can send a dignitary out to meet them,” she said. Calomir and Trostani turned to her. “We send the very same abductee, to show them how deep our commitment to peace goes, and to impress upon this district that the Conclave represents allegiance to unity. We send a symbol of our goodwill. We send me.”

“That’s foolish and you know it,” said Calomir.

“Foolish is the Conclave marching through the streets wielding steel and spell,” she said, “surrendering our argument for peace while the other guilds are already rattling sabers over the Izzet.”

Trostani reared up to her full height, the three dryads addressing Emmara. “We have great hopes for you as an emissary of our guild’s message, Emmara. But Calomir has convinced us that no peace can be brokered with those who would destroy for destruction’s sake.”