This was the seventh time the damn thing had gone off in the past three hours.
Paldor practically ripped the speaking tube from the wall and held it to his mouth. 'Captain Sevrien! This needs to stop!'
A few moments of silence, and then a breathless voice replied. 'Captain's not in the office, sir. We're stretched thin, so he's gone to check on the latest incursion himself.'
Paldor muttered something under his breath that threatened to melt the mouthpiece. Then, 'Wake the day shift, if you're that shorthanded!'
'Uh, we already have, sir.'
More flowery muttering.
It made sense, though. Looking back over the schematic on the desk, it seemed that each false alarm-if indeed they were false-was as far from the previous ones as possible. The guards were running themselves ragged, not merely investigating each new alert, but leaving a pair of men behind to watch the portal in question; of course they'd already called in every available blade.
Paldor shook his head as the flashing ceased. Could magic simply malfunction? As long as he'd worked for Tezzeret, he still didn't really understand more than the basics of sorcery. But if it was an attack, or a prelude to attack, where was the enemy? So far, the guards hadn't found a threat, or even an explanation as to how the alarms were triggered.
Not for the first time, Paldor glanced at the glass contraption on the wall. And not for the first time, he rejected the notion before it had fully formed. Tezzeret would not take kindly to an interruption without a tangible threat. Until Paldor knew for certain what was happening, he was better off not troubling him.
'Aarrggh!' In a tempter tantrum worthy of a colicky child, he pounded his fists on the desk when it lit up once more, indicating a window clear on the other side of the building. Grumbling, he rechecked the array of weapons concealed both under the desk and on his person-as he'd done each of the last seven or eight times-and seethed.
But this time, finally, the results were a bit different.
'Got it, Paldor.' The voice, the vedalken captain's own this time, emerged clearly from the speaking tube.
'You know what's going on?' Paldor asked hopefully.
'I positioned some men at the windows that hadn't been triggered yet. We got lucky, finally caught 'em in the act.'
'And?'
'Faeries,' Captain Sevrien reported, disgust in his voice. 'We're being pranked by a swarm of bloody, damned faeries. Would've pulled the bug's wings off myself, but it vanished when it saw we were waiting for it.'
Paldor nodded, even though Sevrien couldn't see him, but his brow furrowed in consternation. It was certainly possible; some of the smaller and less malevolent of fey-kind were known for such annoyances, and even the great city of Ravnica, lacking the groves and woods of which the creatures were most fond, wasn't completely free of the pests.
But why here? Why in such force? Something knocked faintly on the doors of Paldor's memory but refused, for the moment, to step over the threshold.
'What sort of faerie, Captain?' He hadn't even known he was going to ask the question until it had moved beyond his beard, but suddenly he had to know.
'Come again, sir?'
'What sort of faerie?'
Paldor could all but hear Sevrien shrug. 'Beats me, sir. I don't know the first thing about the little bastards. I-'
'Then go to the library or the workroom,' Paldor ordered through a vicious snarl, 'and find someone who does!' He slammed the speaking tube back into its slot in the wall.
The desk had flashed two more alarms, leaving
Paldor gritting his teeth hard enough to have milled a sack of grain, before the captain's voice emerged from the tube once more.
'What have you got, Captain?' Paldor interrupted.
'Well, sir, according to Phanol down in the stacks, based on the description I gave him…'
'Yes?'
'He says it was a cloud sprite, sir. Pretty much harmless. Weird thing is, sir, he said they're not known for this sort of mischief, that they…'
Paldor wasn't listening any longer, for the memory lurking just outside his conscious mind had finally burst its way in. No, cloud sprites weren't known for this sort of thing. Nor were they particularly common anywhere on Ravnica, and certainly not in the midst of the larger districts.
But most important, he'd finally remembered exactly when he'd last heard tell of the tiny sprites.
'Call your men back, Captain! Set them up guarding the main passageways, and for the heavens' sake, group them into units larger than pairs!'
'Sir, I'm not sure I-'
'We're under attack, Captain!'
Paldor heard Sevrien move the speaking tube from his mouth long enough to bark at his runners to order the guards to regroup. Then, 'By whom, sir?'
'Jace damned Beleren!'
Alas, it never occurred to Paldor that, when dealing with a potentially invisible foe, any precautions he might order were already far too late. The faeries weren't a distraction against an incursion to come, but an incursion already committed; and the cell's security had been breeched as early as the third 'false' alarm.
'Sir!'
It wasn't the captain speaking, then, but one of his runners, breathless and panting, addressing the captain. But Paldor, growing ever paler, heard it all through the speaking tube. 'Sir, I–I…'
'Calm down, soldier!' Sevrien barked. 'Take a breath!'
'But-but sir, Ireena's team… the entire team is down!'
'What do you mean 'down'?' Paldor and the captain spoke at once, Paldor having forgotten that the runner couldn't hear him.
'Oh, gods, sir!' Paldor could have sworn he heard the younger soldier's voice about to break. 'Three of the men, sir, I… It's as though they were rotting for years, sir! I–I slipped in one of them, they're all over me, they're-'
Paldor heard the sharp retort of a slap, and Sevrien shouting for calm even as a murmur passed through the other men and women in the chamber. Tezzeret's lieutenant found himself sweating.
'— the others?' the captain was demanding. 'Or Ireena herself?'
'Just-just sitting there in the midst of it all, sir!' the soldier sobbed. 'Staring up at me, like they didn't even know who I was! Didn't even recognize their own names when I called!'
'Good gods,' Sevrien whispered. 'All right,' he said, and Paldor knew from the shift in volume that he'd turned to face another of his seconds. 'Where's Lieutenant Calran? I need him to-'
'He's in the hallway, sir,' a third voice intoned, so softly Paldor could barely hear through the speaking tube. 'He's just… sitting there, sir, playing with his sword and giggling like… like a schoolboy.'
Silence fell, save for the frightened, labored breathing on both ends of the tube.
'Captain?' Paldor couldn't tell, from the tone, which soldier was speaking. 'Captain, what do we-?'
Shouts and screams erupted from the tube as something-a door, perhaps? — shattered into a million splinters. Steel sang against leather as swords whirled from their sheathes, and the clatter of iron links of chain echoed through the narrow conduit. A dozen voices rose into a chaotic clamor, Sevrien's own barely audible as he shouted orders that nobody heeded.
Wood cracked, so hard that the floor beneath Paldor's feet trembled. Human voices disappeared beneath a monstrous roar, loud enough that he heard it clearly from the level below without need of the tube at all. The shouts of soldiers were transformed into shrieks of terror, wails of agony that ended in a series of horrible, wet thumps.
And then, once more, all was silent.
