Illusions 6

A tendril wrapped around Jace's neck. Jace grabbed at it and tried to peel it back, but Vraska was strong, and her hair engulfed his face. He felt his throat clamp shut as the tendrils slithered tighter and tighter.

Jace struck into her mind, and immediately wished he hadn't. Her thoughts swirled with hundreds of ways of killing him or making him suffer. He saw himself choked to death. Tossed from a bridge in a sack. Pulled down into the muck of the undercity tunnels by grimy, clawed hands. Paralyzed and forced to watch snakes crawl into his clothes, while feeling their needle-like fangs sink into him. Her creativity was boundless.

He needed to push deeper, but he also needed to breathe. He conjured a spell.

Vraska was not impressed by the first illusion of another Jace lunging at her. She batted it away and it dissipated instantly. But the next Jace rushed toward her quickly enough to slash at her cheek with hands that were sharp as daggers. She hissed and clawed the image away. But the next one came even faster, and the next bolted toward her from the opposite direction.

Jace felt the gorgon's grip loosen as he sent image after image of himself at her. As the Jaces attacked, they changed. Their hands became claws. Their hair became snakes. Their eyes glowed with sinister light. They hissed as they emerged from the shadows from all directions, surrounding Vraska in a nightmarish horde.

Vraska couldn't fight them all. She began blasting them with her gaze. They came at her, turning to stone one by one as she lashed them with petrification.

As the stone statues multiplied, they became a cage. She was penned in by a dozen effigies of Jace. He hoped they were real enough to her to make her feel trapped, at least for the moment.

Vraska held the real Jace by her claws. She squeezed his neck again. "Send them away," Vraska whispered, and his breath was cut off.

And then the statues' lips began to move.

"You win," they said in unison, in Jace's voice.

"Back them off." She said it like a snarl, but there was a flicker of hesitation in her voice.

The statues retreated slightly, but she was still caged by their stone forms. "Jace will help you," they said. "But he has to know the plan first."

"You'll do what I tell you, when I tell you, Beleren."

"Kill him, and he can't influence the guilds for you," the statues intoned. "He has to know whether you'll be a worthy partner. Whether you're smart enough. Tell us. How do you intend to take over this city?"

Vraska squeezed for a moment, pressing all the blood out of Jace's head. But her grip relaxed again. "With your help, I will neuter all the guildmages. Disempower them by having you redraw territory borders, rupturing their mana bonds. Defang the guilds by taking their spellcasters. Then, one by one, I will assassinate the guild leaders."

"You, Vraska, will assassinate every guildmaster?"

"I was born to kill," she said. "And many in the shadows answer to me."

"Thank you," said the statues. Then they all tilted their heads. "Did you get all that?" they chanted.

Vraska looked around at all of them. "What?"

For a moment, the statues' eyes flashed, bathing Vraska in a blinding strobe. She put a hand up to her face to shield herself from the glare.

"There is a summit of many guild leaders going on at Sunhome tonight," droned the Jace statues. "Your statements have been broadcast to all those who've attended."

Vraska snarled. "Deal's over, Beleren," she said. "Now you die." She grasped the neck that she held in her claws, and crushed it.

It broke into rocky pieces.

She looked down, and instead of seeing a dead Jace, she saw that she had been holding the petrified form of her own assassin—the woman she had killed earlier. He had switched places with her at some point.

Vraska howled in fury. She spun and slashed at the cage of Jaces. Instead of breaking into pieces or dissipating into the air, they closed in on her. They sprouted ever more snakes from their heads, their eyes, their fingers, and constricted in around her. They grabbed her wrists. They intertwined with her tendrils.

With a shriek, she blasted them all back. Then she took a breath, closed her eyes, and planeswalked away.

THE GORGON AND THE GUILDPACT