A living wisp of smoke, the elf Ireena twirled and flowed through the crowd. She spun around flying elbows, ducked beneath arms that reached for various goods, and none of it touched her. Her eyes stung mercilessly, thanks to the powders she'd sprinkled into them, but she refused to blink them clear. Through the alchemical haze, she studied the crowds, watching, waiting for…
There. The powder allowed her to see the faint aura of magic emanating from Jace Beleren as he strove pitifully to hide from them, to follow his movements no matter what pathetic guise he chose. Dancing and spinning like a delighted child, she drew ever nearer to him, and in her hand she cupped another batch of powders, wrapped in a protective leather pouch.
Jace had just worked his way past yet another fishmonger when she appeared, spinning out from behind the stall. With a brilliant white grin that looked somehow hideous in her darkly tanned face, she slapped a handful of bitter particles across his mouth and nose.
But Jace, while stunned by the sudden unexpected attack, was not entirely unprepared. Though he instantly began to cough as the drug worked its way into his lungs, fell choking to the cobblestones and felt the world grow hazy around him, he was able to deflect a portion of the powder with a fierce telekinetic thrust. His eyes watered as his body screamed for air, but he did not fall nearly as helpless as Ireena had intended.
Even as she stepped in to admire her handiwork, Jace rose to his knees and lashed out. His fist, wrapped in the same telekinetic force that had dispersed some of her powder, slammed into her solar plexus with a terrible strength. Ireena fell to lie beside him with an ear-splitting scream, clutching her gut and writhing like a landed fish. She'd live-probably, if it didn't take too long for her to get help-but she was certainly no further danger to him.
Jace tried to rise to his feet and failed, falling back against the fishmonger's stall and then once more to the street as his choking fit continued. His face reddened and he felt himself on the verge of passing out as he struggled desperately to breathe.
The people around him, a few of whom had finally turned his way to see what was wrong, suddenly scattered before the thunder of approaching hoof beats. Jace looked up to see the silhouette of a centaur looming above him. Xalmarias; it had to be Xalmarias, though between the drugs and the angle of the sun he couldn't see enough to be certain.
Paldor really had sent everyone, hadn't he?
The centaur reared, a short spear clutched in his right hand, his iron-shod hooves sharpened almost into blades in their own right, and Jace could only choke, trying to clear his lungs of the powder in time to do something, anything to save his life.
Another figure lunged from the crowd, leaping atop the centaur's back as though he were a wild horse in need of breaking. Xalmarias cried out in indignation as a powerful hand reached out and snagged his spear, trying to yank it from his grip, even as the other buried itself in his hair, wrenching his head back sharply enough to bring tears to his eyes.
'Jace!' Kallist cried out, struggling to keep his seat as the centaur bucked and thrashed, 'Go! Run!'
Staggering to his feet, the coughing fit finally beginning to subside, Jace did just that. He hurled himself once more into the crowd, which was now backing fearfully away from the struggle in their midst, trying to lose himself within.
As he pushed and elbowed his way through, Jace carefully cast out with his mind. Remembering every detail of Tezzeret's lessons, he touched first one, then another, spreading himself as wide and as thin as he ever had. He couldn't read a single true thought this way, but then, he didn't need to. Most of the crowd felt little save boredom, maybe casual excitement or-near where Kallist and Xalmarias fought-a growing fear. Jace hoped, prayed, that even his casual touch would alert him to another killer in the crowd, that the sudden bloodlust of a coming attack would warn him before a Consortium blade took him in the back.
And then the emotions around him turned to panic as a dozen people screamed, their eyes turning skyward. Jace immediately dived to the ground in a roll made awkward by his lingering shortness of breath, coming to a stop beneath a cheap vegetable stand. Only then did he look up, and he wondered if it wouldn't have been better to keep rolling.
It flapped through the air above him, awkward but frighteningly swift. It had somehow sprouted wings that it had lacked the last time Jace saw it, that horrible night in his room, but he recognized the old man's cackling face, the scorpion-like stinger that quivered, eager to strike, above its back.
Coming to his feet, he allowed himself to be carried along by the press of the panicking throng. That he could summon something to tear the little horror from the sky, Jace had no doubt, but it did him no good if he couldn't find its summoner-Gemreth, almost certainly, unless Paldor had called in one of the Consortium planeswalkers.
Straining to maintain his mental 'net' over the crowd, ever alert for a secondary attack, Jace cast his sight up and out, trusting the press of the throng to keep him moving while his senses hovered elsewhere. From above, he peered about him in all directions, seeking the dark robes and grey-speckled beard…
There! Roughly a hundred feet across the market, Jace spotted his foe, crouched atop a merchant's wagon. Allowing his eyesight to return to his head, still moving with a portion of the crowd, he worked his way forward. As he advanced, he glanced over his shoulder, desperate to keep track of the minuscule fiend as well.
He couldn't see it!
A cold rain of fear dripped down Jace's spine. Without eyes on the creature, he was as helpless as anyone else, for he could never detect the little demon's mind as he could a mortal being's. He knew he could wait no longer to call on assistance of his own. It was a tricky thing to do while maintaining his psychic web over the crowd, keeping track not only of the enemy mage but searching for other foes who might lurk nearby, but again-thanks, ironically, to Tezzeret's exercises-he pulled it off.
And the screams of the crowd rose further still as another shape, a larger shape, appeared with a thunderclap in the afternoon sky. Its wingspan wider than many of the vendors' stalls, a steam-tongued drake cast a shadow over the heart of the market. At Jace's silent command it circled, hunting for its smaller but no less deadly prey. Jace himself continued onward, thankful that the flying creatures had distracted the people nearest him so that none had seen him cast his spells.
It was the gleam of triumph in Gemreth's expression as Jace drew near him, more so even than the shriek of the drake, that warned him. Jace spun to see the diminutive demon diving from atop a nearby shop. Even as he dropped once more to the earth, Jace sent a mental shriek for help to his summoned ally.
And the drake replied in the only way it knew how.
A wave of billowing steam washed over the market, a burning spear through the heart of Lurias. In a matter of seconds, Gemreth and his conjured beast were reduced to lumps of seared flesh and sodden bone.
So, too, were a score of the district's panicked citizens. They died in terror; they died in agony.
And Jace felt each and every one of them die.
Through his network of psychic tendrils that scanned the crowd, their dying thoughts flowed into him. They flayed his mind and soul, stripping away humanity and conscious thought, until there was nothing left but pain. So much pain, so much fear, so many Final cries and he'd never again see his husbands or wives or brothers or sisters, would never open the blacksmith shop he'd dreamed of, never watch the seyer-blossoms bloom in the garden. What would the children do without him? Tanarra I loved you, oh gods it hurts it burns please gods make it stop…
Jace curled into a ball, body and soul, screaming in voices that were not his, and all he knew was pain.
'Jace!' Kallist had no difficulty finding his fallen friend; the burst of steam and the scent of charred flesh were signal enough. He knelt on the cobblestones, dropping the sword now stained with the blood of the centaur Xalmarias, and cradled Jace's head in his hands. 'Jace, are you all right? What happened?'
The mage's eyes refused to focus, and still he screamed.
For an instant, Kallist felt only panic. What had happened? What could he do? Maybe he should wait for Liliana, but where was she? Could he afford to wait that long? Could Jace?
No. No, Kallist didn't think he could.
'Jace!' He held his friend's face close. 'Jace, listen to me! It's Kallist; I'm here!'
He took a deep breath; he didn't know what Jace was suffering, but he'd both seen and inflicted enough anguish to recognize it now. A second deep breath, steeling himself against he knew not what.
'Jace, I don't know what to do! Tell me what I can do…'
Jace never heard the words, but he felt the thoughts and the emotions behind them. Kallist's mind, which he knew so well, was a beacon in the dark and the pain, a light showing him the way out.
