Lethal wound

He felt a hard pressure against the side of his neck first. It was followed by a tearing sensation and a scream of agony beneath his chin. Despite himself, he reached up to his throat.

His hand came away covered with blood. More blood pumped down his chest, turning the dark red-brown robes even darker.

His eyes went wide, and he half turned, half stumbled to the right.

Jaya smiled at him over a bloody, bone-handled knife. Around her neck, on a leather thong, was a ring.

It was the huge red ring that had belonged to both Mairsil and Lim-Dûl.

“Got your back,” she said.

She said it with Lim-Dûl’s voice.

Jodah tried to shout, to curse, but all he could do was bubble blood between his lips. He fell to his knees on the floor, pressing his hand against his throat, realizing he could no longer breath. He tried to rise but slipped in his own blood.

Jaya, using Lim-Dûl’s voice, was shouting orders now to the Adnates. One came forward with a golden bowl, which Jaya placed beneath Jodah’s gaping wound. She pulled Jodah’s hand away, and his blood now gushed forth, keeping time with the rhythms of his heart, spattering the sides of the golden bowl. Then Jaya left him and took the bowl to the brazier as Jodah slapped his blood-drenched hand once more against his wound in a futile attempt to staunch the flow.

More chanting. Jodah tried to think of the spell he had ready, the mana that coursed in the back of his mind, but all he could feel was the pain, the oozing wetness that clung to him like a second skin, and the pressure as he could not breathe. The lights seemed to be dimming around him as Jaya/Lim-Dûl led her chorus of Adnates in an ancient chant.

All he could hear was, “We give you the blood of Urza and call you to our needs!” The blood in the bowl began to steam, and a huge reddish mist that rose from it clouded the lights above, turning the entire vault blood red.

Jodah’s pain-drenched face felt wet, and he was aware that it was raining— not water, but blood. His blood now multiplied and showered through the entire vault. It spattered on the assembled Adnates, their hoods back, their twisted faces raised in praise. It showered on the tiling of the balcony. It fell on the gold and black hulls of the great mechanical beasts in the main vault, and when it struck them, the behemoths started to move. They shifted on their huge splayed feet and slowly rumbled forward.

Jodah’s entire world was red now, and he could feel his heart lumbering to keep pace with the blood he was fountaining. He tried to unleash the spell but found he could not. The pain was too great. Then he was aware that Jaya was filling his vision, smiling at him.

“You can be so right about some things,” said Lim-Dûl, wearing Jaya’s skin, “and so wrong at the same time.”

Jaya laughed, and Jodah felt his heart seize and stutter. He reached with his free hand for his chest, but all his fingers closed around was the hard, unyielding surface of his mirror.

Then all the lights went out for the archmage.

***

The Shattered Alliance, Chapter 14