dangerous-features, as a result of insufficient foresight, skill, and preparation.”
Bolas chuckled. “So whatever’s wrong with you is all my fault, eh? Because you’re just a machine.”
“Hardly,” Tezzeret said. “No competent artificer would design humans as we are: so limited an array of operating environments; so many useless parts; vital systems so inefficient and prone to breakdown that the vast bulk of the energy we expend is wasted in mere maintenance-maintenance which, even if performed perfectly, is still insufficient to materially lengthen productive life span. Not to mention that we are difficult to repair, and prohibitively expensive to replace.”
Bolas exposed jagged teeth within a curl of a grin. “It was my understanding that, mm, human replacements, to use your term, are not only free, but that, ah, their construction is considered an enjoyable recreation.”
“Think of it in machine terms,” Tezzeret said. “Preliminary assembly puts the constructing unit-the mother-on reduced service for, on average, one third of the gestational period, while consuming even more resources than she had before. Once born, a human is not functional; primary assembly requires, on average, seven years, during which the child is literally nothing but an energy sink, consuming time, attention, and food without any return except dung. To achieve full physical function requires, on average, about sixteen years. And this leaves aside questions of training and education, emotional stability, and the disciplined intellect necessary for self-direction, all of which require even more time and energy to inculcate. If people had any idea just how expensive a human being actually is, they’d take better care of themselves.”
“You’re awfully chatty, all of a sudden.”
“With less than one thousandth the energy expenditure that creating a fully functional human being requires,” Tezzeret went on, “I could design and build a device capable of everything a human can do, including creative problem solving, singing, writing poetry, whatever you like-not to mention creating its own replacements-and do it for a thousand years.”
“How is it,” Nicol Bolas said distantly, once more frowning down the beach beyond the captive Planeswalkers, “that every time I talk to you, I end up getting a speech about how smart you are?”
“Our whole relationship is about how smart I am,” Tezzeret said. “It goes back to your predictability.”
“Good liar, too.”
Tezzeret smiled. “When I have to be.”
“If you’re so smart and I’m so predictable, what have I been waiting for?”
“You’re waiting for an interplanar gate to open down the beach.”
The dragon jerked as though he’d been stung. His long sinuous neck practically put a kink in itself to bring his huge yellow eyes back around to stare down at the human. He made no effort to conceal his surprise; on the contrary, he fixed his gaze on Tezzeret with predatory focus. “And why do I expect it?”
“For the same reason you knew Baltrice and Jace were planeswalking in. You’ve learned some clockworking.”
“I dabble, I dabble. As a hobby,” the dragon admitted. “How did you know?”
“You’re seeing the future-what, a few minutes out? Something like that. Silas Renn could to that trick-see the quantum smear of possible futures and watch events develop as they become more and more likely.”
“And so it’s possible,” the dragon purred, “that I am what I eat, after all.”
“It was probably the last thing he taught you.”
“Oh, please. In twenty-five thousand years, you think I never learned clockworking?”
“I’m sure you did,” Tezzeret said. “Funny that you needed to learn it again, isn’t it?”
Nicol Bolas went very, very still.
“You’re not the dragon you used to be, old worm,” Tezzeret said with an odd note in his voice, one almost of sympathy. “You’re not even the dragon you were twelve years ago, when I stole the Infinite Consortium out from under your tail. You put a good face on it, but the cracks in your mask have begun to show. Someone who knows how to look can see right into you.”
“Oh?” The dragon’s voice sounded like the early notes of a distant volcanic eruption. “Then what am I thinking right now?”
Tezzeret smiled again. “You’re remembering how you had thought my declared intention to kill you had been merely a vain boast. Now you’re reflecting that suddenly you’re not so sure, and you’re wondering if perhaps you should kill me before you find out.”
The dragon’s response was to turn fully to face Tezzeret, to spread his wings and draw mana from throughout the Multiverse until the air around him blazed with power.
Tezzeret said, “You’re not going to like how this ends.”
Nicol Bolas lifted one enormous fist. “I’ll regret it in the morning, right?”
“In the morning you’ll be decomposing on this beach.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You can see futures. In how many of them am I dead?”
The dragon’s fleshy brow ridges drew together, and his fist lowered, just a bit.
“Look into the futures that arise from you assaulting me now,” Tezzeret said. “In how many of them are you alive?”
Bolas’s eyes widened, and his fist fell forgotten to his side. “It’s not…” His voice was no more than a strangled whisper. “How can you… it… just isn’t possible…”
“You need to understand that our relationship has turned a corner,” Tezzeret said, and walked out of the Web of Restraint as if it wasn’t even there.
Bolas stared. “You can’t do that!”
“Sorry,” he said. “You might want to take a seat. We should talk.”
“It’s a trick,” the dragon snarled. “It’s some kind of illusion-once you’re dead, it’ll be-”
Tezzeret sighed and lifted his right hand above his head, then clenched his fist with a yank as if plucking unripe fruit from a tree. As though animated by the gesture, the leading edge of the right wing of the Metal Sphinx-a single vast girder of etherium, by itself larger and heavier than Nicol Bolas’s whole body-shrieked through the air and slammed into the dragon just below his wing joint with crushing force.
Bolas folded around the impact, and went skidding helplessly back to sprawl in the sand. His roar of sudden rage sounded a bit thin and wheezy, but thoroughly sincere as he scrambled to rise and gathered power to strike back.
Tezzeret said, “Think about the future.”
Bolas hesitated.
“Look around you,” he went on. “Think about where you are, and what this place is made of. Think about who I am and what you have made of me.”
The dragon cast his gaze toward the etherium trees, at the etherium sphinx and the etherium plinth, the etherium rocks and the etherium sand on which he rested. Then very slowly, very cautiously, he adjusted his posture to a feline seated position, wings folded and tail curled around himself, and he looked upon Tezzeret with a decidedly more guarded expression. “So.”
“I know it’s a shock,” Tezzeret said. “But at your age, you should have learned that many truths we regard as immutable are, in fact, surprisingly context dependent. For example, when I acknowledged earlier that you are the most powerful being in the Multiverse, it would have been more precise to say: in the rest of the Multiverse.”
“I see I have underestimated you.”
“You always did.”
“You could have killed me at any time. From the very first instant I arrived.”
Tezzeret spread his hands. “Surprise.”
“You can kill me right now. Why don’t you?”
“You may as well ask why we haven’t played Intimidate the Naked Prisoner. Or why I haven’t insisted on calling you Nicky, or perpetrated any of the various indignities with which you have amused yourself at my expense,” Tezzeret said. “The answer to all three is an aspect of character that I value; one which you, I might add, conspicuously lack.”
“And that is?”
“Manners.”
The dragon’s response was a contemptuous snort.
Tezzeret shrugged. “Manners are commonly derided by those who have none, just as education is derided by
