to someone more suited to it. Still flexing her aching fingers, she wandered around the corner, gone in search of one of Tezzeret's golems.
Behind her, hidden not only within the crate but within the metal itself, the phantom flexed and rolled, a wisp of errant mist. It could never have survived such a slow trek through the Blind Eternities on its own; the entropy and the errant magics would have shredded its essence into so much ghostly confetti. But hidden away within the solid weight of the bars, the journey had merely been one of maddening torment, rather than utter destruction. Now it need only wait for its mistress's summons to draw it back across that realm of roiling chaos; far more swiftly than its journey here, it would flit back, drawn by a call it could not deny, tracing a route between that world and this.
It could not simply describe the journey to them, for what good were mere words or even concepts such as direction and distance in the Blind Eternities? But it had possessed the one called Jace Beleren once before, and with his cooperation it would do so again. With a melding of their minds, a sharing of the senses, the joined man- and-ghost could find their way. Ensconced within his flesh and protected by his Spark, their thoughts linked by magics only Beleren could perform, it would use its own sensory impressions and the planeswalker's powers to retrace its ghostly steps once more.
Liliana Vess and Jace Beleren would have their guide.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
For even the most powerful and most attentive planes-walker, arriving at a single, specific spot-such as, for instance, Baltrice's ability to appear in the foundry's sealed room, or the dead-end hall in the Consortium's heart- was a matter, not merely of intent, but of regular practice and intimate familiarity.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, possession by a spirit that had made the journey to the world in question precisely once failed to qualify as either. And thus Jace and Liliana had found themselves in the midst of a seemingly endless desert, the sun beating down on them with hammer-heavy blows, and no trace of Tezzeret's sanctum-or any other signpost of civilization-in sight. Even the various summoned scouts they sent soaring high above them found no sign of the artificer; they had, however, spotted a slow-moving dromad-drawn caravan, trudging through the sands some few miles away.
Now, their skin already turning red beneath the blazing heat, the planeswalkers sat on simple wooden stools before an older, leather-skinned fellow named Zarifim. Clad in voluminous, sand-hued robes, he appeared almost a part of the desert itself. The rest of his brethren, similarly dressed, waited politely some yards away while their leader conducted his negotiations.
'… easily spare the clothes you require, my new friends,' he was saying to Jace. 'But such things are not easy to make.'
'I understand,' Jace told him. 'How about four jugs of water, then?' He begrudged the mana it would take to summon so much water to this parched environment, but they needed the desert garb-and, more important, the directions Zarifim could offer.
To his credit, the old nomad didn't jump on the deal immediately. 'Forgive me for doubting your judgment, but you appear so ill-prepared for desert travel. Can you spare such a quantity of water? I would hate for our deal to leave you dying of thirst before you reach your goal.'
'I appreciate your concern, friend,' Jace told him, ignoring the impatient tapping of Liliana's foot beside him. 'But we'll make do, I assure you.'
'Very well. Then we have a bargain.' The nomad gestured and several of his brethren came forward, carrying robes akin to the one he wore. 'Not to keep questioning you, my new friends,' he said hesitantly, 'but are you certain you wish to approach the Iron Tower? Even we go there only when we have many valuables to trade, and then only reluctantly. It is a bad place.'
'I don't doubt that at all,' Jace admitted. 'But from your description, yes, it is exactly where we must go.'
'So be it. I wish you the luck of the heavens. You must start from here, traveling due west for two days. Then…'
It was, in fact, four days later when Jace Beleren and Liliana Vess strode from the seemingly endless deserts, their skin chapped and wind-burned despite their protective magics and native garb, to finally arrive at the metallic monstrosity that was Tezzeret's home. Despite the heat, Jace had insisted on wearing his blue cloak, though he did so beneath the nomad's robe. He knew damn well that he was being superstitious, even silly, but he'd owned it so long, survived with it for so long, he felt naked facing Tezzeret without it. Both were tired from the journey, both were worried that the sands had offered them little in the way of mana suited to their magics. They could only hope to discover some viable source within the sanctum itself, or risk finding themselves truly overmatched.
It rose from beneath the sands, a shallow hill that gleamed blindingly in the pounding sun. Perfectly smooth, at least from this distance, it might as well have been shaped from a single slab of alloy; only one solitary tower in the structure's center, stabbing daggerlike at the heavens and boasting numerous spires and protrusions of its own, marred the otherwise pristine surface of the gentle slope. Uneven heaps of sand surrounded it, rising and falling waves constantly reshaped by the desert winds.
The mages studied it, hands held high to shade their eyes from the brilliance. From their current vantage, it was impossible to say precisely how large the structure might be, for the desert here was flat and featureless, their view obscured by sand-speckled breeze and the haze of rising heat.
Finally, Jace turned to Liliana and said simply, 'How much magic do you suppose it takes to keep the place cool?'
She snorted, and they trudged their way closer still. As they walked, each summoned a small flock of minions-tiny fey, in Jace's case, with the power to make themselves invisible, while Liliana called up a handful of translucent spirits-and ordered them on ahead.
They learned much as they neared the looming structure. It was not, as they had supposed, perfectly circular; rather, they had appeared toward the back of what turned out to be a crescent, shallower on the inner curve than the outer, and at the tips than the rear. The tower emerged from the highest point, at the apex of the crescent's bend. And it was not, in fact, constructed of a single sheet of metal, though the individual pieces were so perfectly fitted together that it might as well have been.
But most important and most discouraging, neither the mages nor their unearthly minions could find anything resembling a door. It seemed very much as though the structure had simply been sealed up during its construction and left that way.
Again and again the fey and the phantoms circled the complex; again and again they came up empty. Crouched behind a sand dune, Jace and Liliana grew ever more frustrated.
'Is it possible,' Jace finally asked, 'that there really isn't a door? Could Tezzeret be relying solely on teleportation magics?'
Liliana shook her head. 'Obviously, there's more to this world than desert. Carrying enough material to build this thing from other worlds would have taken centuries.'
'Right. So?'
'So the same is true of supplies, Jace. Tezzeret's got to have people delivering food, building materials, and whatnot. Carrying supplies across a desert means caravans. Dromads or camels, wagons, you name it. You think he's teleporting entire wagon trains through those walls?'
'Ah. Fair point. So where's the damned door?'
'What, I have to answer everything?'
Again they lapsed into silence.
Ultimately, it proved to be a far simpler matter than they were making it out to be. Inspired by their successful efforts to track Baltrice, Liliana finally called up the smallest, weakest, and least offensive phantom she could muster-the better to avoid setting off any alarms or safeguards-and sent it through the walls to wander the structure's passageways. It took the ghostly entity only a short while to find a hall, occupied by several guards, that appeared to dead-end against the outer wall, and to report back with its location.
