Speed + Mind Entering

Jace hesitated, remembering the chaos and power of the elf's mind. He hadn't been in control, and that frightened him. But what choice did he have? He closed his eyes, and opened Nissa's.

Again, the world was lit with green fire, a pulsing light cast by blazing lines that crisscrossed the sky. Their friends were glaciers, creeping along, as Nissa and Jace communed at the speed of thought. And the titans...the titans...

In Nissa's vision, Ulamog was a pit of blackness, and Kozilek a writhing enigma. The leylines arced toward them—twisted, frayed, screaming in protest.

I can't... he said, in her mind. I don't understand this.

The last time he'd been in Nissa's mind, she'd helped him ignore the leylines, to focus on the clean outline of his illusionary model rather than the vibrant, overpowering reality. He tried to withdraw from them again, but Nissa's thoughts seemed to hold his own firmly in place.

***

Nissa's memories flooded through him, some of them eerily familiar. The Eye of Ugin. The vampire sage Anowon, swearing that the Eldrazi would leave Zendikar if they were freed. A tall, white-haired man with a sword, his dry, elegant voice speaking a name—

You've met Sorin Markov?

—but the flood of images continued. A stone dragon, its eyes glowing blue. A hedron crackling with white fire, the linchpin of the whole network, binding the half-opened prison in place, humming with the effort. Nissa's staff striking the hedron. A widening crack, and a flash of pure white light—

The image faded, replaced by more abstract imaginings.

Inside a glyph made without hedrons, the titans would be trapped for only a short time, but they'd be in direct contact with the leylines—the same leylines that could disperse the titans' energy into the plane itself.

***

No, said Nissa. All that matters is setting it right.

He withdrew from her mind and opened his eyes, blinking at the dim and steady light of an unlined sky.

"Well?" said Chandra. Seconds had passed.

BRINK OF EXTINCTION