Jace felt like a stringless marionette, heavy-limbed and uncoordinated, splayed out on damp stone deep under street level. The chamber around him, a high-ceilinged and cavelike space hidden down in the forgotten levels under Ravnica�s Tenth District, echoed his quick, wheezing breaths. Jace had never thought of his life measured as a certain number of breaths before, but it struck him that that number was finite.

Emmara stood nearby, and though her healer�s magic was practiced, every part of his body told him he still shouldn�t move. He felt nothing but a unanimous ache, the kind of pain only the club of a Golgari troll could confer. The tissues were still knitting, fiber by fiber. His muscles felt like mashed pulp.

And then there was the problem of the Dimir vampire who had come to kill them. Mirko Vosk had chosen the perfect moment to appear out of the shadows; the marauding troll had fled, leaving Jace weakened; and Emmara had dismissed the massive elemental she had summoned. Vosk�s muscles were taut, like carvings in cold, dense marble, and yet his movements seemed incredibly light. His feet barely glanced against the ground as he strode forward�as if gravity was optional for him.

�My master only values what you have in your minds, mortals,� said Mirko Vosk. �So your bodies need not be intact for what�s about to happen to you.�

Jace lurched to his feet, wobbly as a calf. He felt something tear in his ribcage, and he winced. He knew he looked far from intimidating, and he knew the interloper would not take him for a threat. Still, Jace mustered all the menace he could. He drew himself up and assumed a battle stance.

�Touch her, and I�ll kill you,� he said.

Vosk grinned, flashing his fangs. He moved with unnatural speed, slamming into Emmara before Jace could react, sending her skidding across the chamber. She slid to a halt against the wall, crumpled and not moving. He turned to Jace.

Jace put up a hand and tried to muster a spell to incapacitate Vosk, but the effort was weak, and Vosk evaporated Jace�s halfhearted magic with a dismissive gesture.

Vosk did not spend words gloating. He grabbed Jace by the shoulders, swiveled him around with vampiric strength, and bit into the nape of Jace�s neck. Twin needles drove right through the base of his skull. Jace could feel more than pain, more than the awful sensation of his blood forcefully exiting his body. He felt an invasive stab into his thoughts, a probing hunger that groped around the inside of his skull.

Jace struggled and flailed, trying to land an elbow or kick an ankle, but Mirko Vosk held him fast as he made his psychic attack. Jace could feel the mental intrusion, like an insidious, predatory version of one of his own mind-reading spells. He had the sense that the vampire was sampling his memories, tasting them one by one as he fed.

Jace craned his neck, his arms pinned. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Emmara, but she wasn�t moving�unconscious, or worse. Jace would have to fend off the vampire himself, but he was outmatched in both speed and strength.

Jace needed mana in order to forge any kind of offense. He reached for his deepest bonds, those connections to distant planes whose lands flowed with mana, but the magical energy only trickled into him, replenishing drop by drop. His blood was being drained out of him far faster than the mana was filling him.

These are my last breaths, he thought.

But without warning, the vampire snarled and released him, sliding his fangs out of Jace�s neck. As the two parted, their mental contact broke. Vosk staggered back, wiping Jace�s blood from his mouth with disgust.

�Impossible,� Vosk said. �You know nothing.�

�You�re too late,� said Jace. �What you�ve come here to take is already gone.�

�You shouldn�t have done that,� said Vosk. �Now it�s going to be much worse for you. I could have taken the information, returned it to the Secretist, and left you both alone.�

Jace needed something simple, something that wouldn�t demand more than a whiff of mana. He didn�t bother putting up his normal safeguards, his shield of psychic spells. He would simply enter the vampire�s mind and tear with abandon, biting into Vosk�s thoughts as the vampire had bitten into his. Jace would use his consciousness as a blade, slashing at anything and everything he found, trying to ruin the vampire�s entire psyche if he could. But he wasn�t ready.

Vosk backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on Jace, daring him to attack as he let the shadows envelop him. He was gone.

Jace sat cradling Emmara�s head in his lap. She was breathing, but barely, and her body was limp. Blood seeped down her temple, next to her eye. Jace kept his senses alert, ready to lash out if anything happened upon them.

He tried to reach out with his telepathy, to contact someone for help, but they were still deep below ground. Who would he reach out to? He feared any presence he might discover in the undercity. It struck him how few people he really knew on this world, how few people he had relationships with even across the entire Multiverse.

He brushed a lock of hair out of Emmara�s eyes. If there was a way to planeswalk away from here and carry Emmara with him, he would do that. They could flee Ravnica and live in peace somewhere beyond the boundaries of this plane, somewhere without guilds or monsters to stalk them. But she was not a planeswalker. Her nature did not permit her to leave.

For a fleeting moment, Jace considered leaving on his own, and he stifled that thought with shame. He had the power to travel to every dimension he could find, but she was the anchor. She tied him to this life on Ravnica.

He barely knew anything about her. For being able to peer inside others� minds at will, he knew very little about people.

�Jace,� mumbled Emmara.

�Emmara.� He held her gently, supporting her head.

She craned her neck to look around the chamber, and winced. She lay back again and looked up at Jace through slits. �Tell me you killed him.�

�He almost killed me, but he fled. Are you all right?�

�I�m fine.�

�Your head is bleeding.�

�I�m fine, I said. You look worse than I do.�

�Well, I�m awfully good at giving you something to heal.�

Jace looked for a smile on Emmara�s face, but none came. She didn�t seem to have it in her. They went through the motions of recovery in silence: healing magic, the patching up of torn cloaks, and an assessment of their surroundings.

�Let�s get these bodies buried,� Emmara said. �They�ll draw attention.�

Jace and Emmara dragged the bodies of the Rakdos warriors into the sludgy puddles of the chamber. Emmara used nature magic to encourage moss and fungus to grow over the corpses. The slain cultists became a decomposing garden.

�Let�s get you back to the Conclave,� said Jace.

She nodded. There wasn�t much hope in her.

Jace looked into a passage that led away into darkness. �We�ll take the low tunnels for a while. It might actually be safer down here. I think a lot of people up there are looking for us.�

In print, the words looked formal, inescapable, and undeniably official.

�Notice of Change of Assignment.�

Officer Lavinia�s spirits sagged. The letter seemed to be taunting her in its gleaming blue print. It listed her greatest honor�ultimate responsibility for the enforcement of law for the whole of the Tenth District�under �Previous Position.� Under �New Position� it said merely, �Supervisory Official, New Prahv.�

She knew it was more than a change of assignment. It was a demotion, a punishment for her failure to capture Beleren. For that, she was effectively jailed in her own guildhall, chained to her post by her own strict compliance with guild law. She knew that meanwhile, Beleren walked free.

Before her guildmaster, the sphinx Isperia, assigned her to the towers of New Prahv, Lavinia had never spent much time in her office. The chair and desk were utilitarian but beautiful pieces of furniture, and her pen set gleamed under the luminous sphere that hovered near the vaulted ceiling. Everything around her had been designed to rigid specifications. But to her, nothing was perfect but walking the streets of the Tenth. Nothing could approach the sound of her boots clacking against pavement, the scent of a crisp morning dawning after a night�s patrol, the feeling of a suspect�s cheek mashing against the cobblestones.

The hardest part to take was that she had no way to track down Beleren from inside the towers. Kavin�s visit had given her fresh motivation to capture the mind mage. Kavin had been with the Azorius years ago, and had been as fine a lawmage as any she had encountered�so when he came to her, his mind invaded and altered by this man Beleren, her imprisonment had become too much.

She stood up from the finely-crafted desk and traveled down the flights of equally finely-crafted stairs. She approached the main entrance of the Lyev tower: her would-be doorway out into the bright streets of Ravnica.

�Greetings, Officer Lavinia,� said the head gatekeeper.

�Hello, Samil.� She moved as if by somnambulism, telling herself she only wanted to ask the guards something. Anything. �How goes the shift?�

�Well, the rioters have all passed through. No Azorius casualties. Some property damage.�

He was talking about the Rakdos, of course. She hadn�t done more than scan the reports. She knew it was important, that such a large-scale uprising by the chaotic cult merited more of her attention. But her mind was fixated on finding Beleren. �Any arrests?�

�Many writs filed with the Minister of Territories and Holdings. No arrests.�

�That�s good. I mean, it�s good there weren�t casualties.�

�Right.�

Lavinia looked past the gatekeeper, who was backlit by the bright afternoon out on the street. The marketplace in the plaza nearby would be in full swing by now, pickpockets cutting their way through the crowds, swindlers luring their marks into illegal dice games, agents of the more corrupt guilds eavesdropping and casing the wares. And somewhere out there Beleren, a mage capable of even more devious crimes, walked free, unknown to the populace. While she was in here.

The gatekeeper wasn�t standing in the way of the exit, and didn�t even have his polearm angled to block her path. The way was open. She could simply walk through the doorway and leave New Prahv. She knew the gatekeeper would rely not on force, but on her loyalty to the law, on her devotion to the judgment of her guildmaster, the Supreme Judge Isperia, to prevent her departure. It was a gate made of principle rather than iron. All she had to do was to forget that Azorius loyalty for one moment, to sleepwalk her way through a hole in the wall, and she would be free to pursue Beleren.

�Can I help you with something, ma�am?�

She glanced at the gatekeeper. She could see that the man could read her dilemma, and that it was creating a profoundly embarrassing moment for him. The shame was excruciating�not only to consider violating the direct order of her guildmaster, but to have an underling witness her entertaining the idea.

Nevertheless, she took a step toward the door. It was just one step, no further.

�Ma�am?�

�Just let me do this,� she said quietly, hovering on that one foot.

The poor gatekeeper looked terrified. He didn�t move to bar her way, but he didn�t move aside, either.

But she had pivoted on the ball of her foot and had returned to the heart of the tower, leaving the gatekeeper behind her. The word of the sphinx was law. If she did not live in accordance with that law, she would be no better than the criminals she pursued.

In the spiral staircase, she paused. She produced the sheet of paper again, the official words in tall blue type, the runes of the writ that shackled her to the building. As long as she was part of the Azorius Senate, this was what she must obey. But she thought of the Tenth all around her, just beyond the walls of the tower, the people of the district constantly under siege by the schemes of the other guilds. And she thought of Jace Beleren.

She pulled another piece of paper from her cloak�the hurriedly scrawled notes given to her by Kavin. What a horrifying ordeal, she thought: to lose your memories to some mind-withering spell, and to try to capture them on paper as you lose them.

Kavin and Beleren had been researching a code, according to the notes, and Beleren was convinced that it had to do with the actions of the Izzet guild. This was what drove Beleren. This was the key to understanding who he was, she thought. This was the key to bringing him to justice.

Rather than walk up the stairs to her office, she turned and headed down. She spiraled past the senate offices, past the ministers� floors, past the entrance gate. She continued spiraling down below where the street would have been, through the tower�s sub-levels, until she reached a new checkpoint. The guards down here wore robes rather than armor, and had owls perched on their shoulders.

�What brings you to the Grand Archives of New Prahv?� asked a guard. The owl on her shoulder swiveled its head around to look at her, and blinked its blue eyes.

�Just a bit of research,� said Lavinia.

The sacred grove of the Selesnya Conclave was new to Jace. It was a manicured temple garden, natural yet sculpted. Trees and creeping ivy were allowed to grow and thrive, but were manicured in pleasing patterns against columns of white marble. Around the edges of the garden, soldiers of Selesnya stood at attention, bowing their heads to Emmara as they passed.

Jace had never seen Emmara take on her guild persona like this. Even with days of travel on her, and the muck and injury of the undercity, her bearing was noble�not the cheap nobility of title or holdings, but originating from somewhere within her. She was a true hero of the Conclave, and all the sentries admired her as she passed through the Selesnya gates.

A group of Selesnya elders greeted them as guests of honor. They adorned Emmara with leaf garlands and bowed to her. Jace�s presence was met with politeness, but tinged with looks of suspicion. When their eyes shot to him, their faces became stern, and their tranquil smiles were strained. Perhaps they knew that Jace had once refused an offer of membership in their guild, or perhaps they blamed him for the Rakdos attack on her.

Still, one of the Selesnya elders, a wizened woman in a white robe inset with wooden elements, put a small gift into Jace�s hand. It was a carved wooden leaf, like the one Emmara had given him before. This one was different in shape, long and tapered, with a slight twist in its edge, but equally delicate and masterfully made�a precious gift of welcoming. Jace bowed to the creator.

A tall elf man, geared in Selesnya soldier dress, stepped out from the ranks and strode toward him and Emmara. He smiled broadly at Emmara, and when she saw him, the two elves seemed to fall toward each other, their movements as symmetrical as partners in a dance. When they met, they took each other�s hands and locked eyes for a significant moment. Then, in a formal gesture but with great tenderness, they touched foreheads together, and it was more intimate than a kiss.

It struck Jace that Emmara had never looked happier. And he had never felt more na�ve for thinking that she actually might have had feelings for him.

Of course she had never said anything that specified that her relationship with Jace was in any way romantic. She had come to him as a friend, looking for someone who could help her and her guild. And, as a matter of personal policy, he had never plumbed her mind beyond a wisp of a surface thought. He knew she had said she was not interested in humans. He knew they were only friends. He certainly didn�t know that Emmara was with someone, but that was certainly nothing she was required to volunteer.

Finally the elf man extended his hand. �Jace, is it?�

Jace shook it dazedly, then more firmly, trying to remember the etiquette of the situation. He swallowed his mortification like a stone.

Emmara saw his face. �Oh, I�m sorry,� she said sheepishly. �Captain Calomir, this is my friend Jace Beleren.� Her eyes were trying to apologize to him, but her cheeks were flush with joy. �We�ve been on a bit of an adventure together.�

Jace tried hard not to begin the process of finding flaw with the man. Involuntarily he imagined the man�s skin being cold, cold as a lizard�s scales, as cold as the vampire�s had been�but that was nonsense. Jace felt a dark twinge of intuition about Calomir, a morbid desire to find what lay behind this rival, but that was, after all, what jealousy felt like.

�I�m sorry, Calomir, she didn�t mention you,� he heard himself say. That was childish, he thought. But he took a momentary, mean pleasure in saying it.

Calomir didn�t bite. �Thank you for bringing her back to me,� he said. �But aren�t you the mind mage? Seems like something that�d be hard to miss for someone who can read minds.�

�My magic doesn�t work like that,� Jace mumbled. But that was probably how others thought of him: as an invader of minds, someone who probed into the secrets of everyone he met. It was a wonder Emmara even considered him a friend, if she believed that of him. She had wanted him to join the Selesnya guild�she likely saw him more as a weapon than a friend, a dangerous asset to secure within her own organization rather than letting it fall into the hands of the enemy.

Jace was trying not to descend into petulance, but he was failing, and he didn�t much care. He felt detached, as if he had unbuckled himself from this conversation and was now floating free.

�Are you hurt?� Calomir asked.

�I�m fine,� said Emmara brightly. �I wish everyone would stop asking me that.�

�The Rakdos didn�t count on her, did they, my friend?� Calomir elbowed Jace�s arm. The gesture felt unusually familiar for an elvish captain.

�It wasn�t the Rakdos,� Jace said. �They were set up by the Dimir. Isn�t that right, Emmara?�

Emmara nodded carefully. �We were intercepted by a Dimir agent. A vampire, sent to abduct us. He seemed particularly interested in Jace.�

�What possible value could he serve to the Dimir?� asked Calomir. �No offense meant, of course.�

�Jace was researching something of deep importance, something connected to the history of the guilds,� said Emmara.

�Oh? What is so important?�

�I don�t remember,� Jace said miserably.

Calomir didn�t even have the decency to laugh and get the humiliation over with.

�Jace has purged the research from his mind,� said Emmara.

�Ah, an empty vault,� Calomir said, and clucked with polite disappointment.

Jace felt another twinge of mistrust. He had heard �empty vault� somewhere before.

�A pity you don�t recall,� Calomir went on. �Is that common, for a mind mage to forget something so easily? No matter. In a world without a Guildpact, speculation is worth nothing. This is a time of war, and we must focus on defending ourselves from the other guilds.�

Emmara�s eyebrows rose. �It�s a time to prevent war. Our cause is to avert a guild conflict.�

�You underestimate the esteem this guild has for you, Emmara,� said Calomir. �Your abduction has been felt deeply in the Conclave. Many feel that this incident cannot go unpunished. And if the Dimir may be involved as well, on top of the actions of the Izzet, we would be fools not to be vigilant. But we can talk about that with Trostani. The guildmaster will be anxious to see you.�

Jace left the Selesnya grove feeling like a puzzle with its pieces scattered. He pulled his hood up over his head and his cloak around his arms, and stalked off into the metropolis, letting the endless buildings and crowds of pedestrian traffic swallow him.

He was a planeswalker who was once involved in a planar plot�but now that he assessed his circumstances, he had successfully cut himself off from everything about this place. Knowledge of Ravnica�s woes had been excised from his mind. His mage sanctum was ruined. His compatriot Kavin had run off, presumably never wanting to see him again. And Emmara was back with her guild, back in the arms of someone important to her. The exit was open to him, hanging wide like the gates of an abandoned estate. This plane didn�t need him. He was not required here. He could simply step through the veil of reality separating this world from the next, and leave Ravnica behind.

But of course, he couldn�t be sure of that. Certainty was one of the many things that had fallen into the dark hole in his mind. Whatever the guilds were plotting�whatever the Izzet had discovered�whatever the Dimir wanted with Emmara and the knowledge inside his head�it was all gone. And his sense that Emmara was in danger remained. He had thrown open the gate out of Ravnica himself, and had practically put down a fine carpet to ensure total comfort for his departure, but he couldn�t quite bring himself to take the final step and go.

Something was missing. Something wasn�t quite as tidy as it seemed, and it nagged at his mind like an itch inside his skull. It didn�t sit right with him that everything had played out this way.

I need those memories back, he thought.

A patrol of Boros legionnaires turned the corner toward him, even-shouldered and marching in smart precision. By reflex he hid around the other side of a cart of market goods, eyeing the soldiers through the gaps in the rigging, letting them pass by. If he was their target, they didn�t seem to notice him. He wasn�t even sure who was looking for him now, but his impulse was to hide from guild authority figures, and he trusted his impulses.

Jace paused at the edge of a huge thoroughfare, the so-called Transguild Promenade, a pedestrian walkway that passed between many of the guild-held territories. As beings of all races and shapes and guilds passed by him�a Simic biomancer holding the leash of a ten-legged crablike monstrosity, a Golgari trader with a handcart of treasures found in the undercity, an Orzhov aristocrat with an entourage of dutiful thrull servants�he strained to devise some way to recover what he had lost. The hole in his memory was real, to the degree that any absence could be real, and thanks to the fissure he had no way of remembering what he had actually done with his memories during the excision spell.

The promenade branched into multiple directions, some of the roads winding their way toward various guild territories, and others leading out of the Tenth District entirely. He found himself stopping in the middle of the street, letting the pedestrian traffic flow around him.

Jace had created a knotted riddle for himself. The question consisted of the excruciating sense that he had given away the answer. He wracked his brain, trying to think of who might have a shred of a clue about that night at the Cobblestand Inn, and trying to stifle the feeling that if he failed, Emmara would die.

Emmara approached the sacred grove where Calomir had an audience with their guildmaster, Trostani. She told herself she wasn�t sneaking up on them�she simply hadn�t announced herself, and her gait was naturally quiet. She couldn�t bend minds or wrap herself in illusions as Jace could, but she had an elf�s subtle step and a good read of body language, and she knew she was not detected. And it wasn�t her intention to eavesdrop, exactly. She would stride into the grove without hiding, as any other audience with Trostani. But she put the slightest delay in her step, because she had the sense that Calomir did not share her desire for peace and unity between the guilds, and wanted to hear how their discussion was going, and how he was advising their guild leader.

It was worse than she feared.

�I recommend we send all available ranks of soldiers, at least thirty cavalry, and a contingent of woodshapers and guildmages,� Calomir was saying. �And if we can call some greater elementals, we should do that too.�

�You believe that that is the proper reaction?� asked the three dryads of Trostani. �Ever since the end of the Guildpact, we have tried to achieve a peace with the Rakdos, and our response to this incident may well determine our relationship for years to come.�

�Exactly. We have tried to achieve a peace. And how well has it worked? Our response to this incident is exactly what is at issue. We must strike back, to prove our mettle to the other guilds. We must demonstrate that we are not willing to sit by while our dignitaries suffer brazen abductions in the middle of the historic Tenth District.�

Emmara stepped into the grove. �Or we can send a dignitary out to meet them,� she said. Calomir and Trostani turned to her. �We send the very same abductee, to show them how deep our commitment to peace goes, and to impress upon this district that the Conclave represents allegiance to unity. We send a symbol of our goodwill. We send me.�

�That�s foolish and you know it,� said Calomir.

�Foolish is the Conclave marching through the streets wielding steel and spell,� she said, �surrendering our argument for peace while the other guilds are already rattling sabers over the Izzet.�

Trostani reared up to her full height, the three dryads addressing Emmara. �We have great hopes for you as an emissary of our guild�s message, Emmara. But Calomir has convinced us that no peace can be brokered with those who would destroy for destruction�s sake.�

Calomir puffed out his chest and crossed his arms.

�That�s not true,� said Emmara. �We haven�t given it a chance, not really, not since the Guildpact. We haven�t let Jace try to reach them���

�You�ve tried to persuade the mind mage to help in this effort, but as Captain Calomir has said, his loyalties are anything but clear. He will not be part of our response. Do you understand?�

�Yes, guildmaster,� said Emmara.

�On the other hand, we will require you.� The dryads reached their arms out to Emmara. �Your skill with the nature elementals is now required. You will call to them. You will awaken them, to help Captain Calomir assemble the force he needs.�

�No. I won�t. I won�t be party to this. I won�t call a being of nature to an errand of war.�

�The guild is agreed,� said Trostani. �The Conclave has declared it so.�

Emmara started to object, but the words caught in her throat. Her shoulders fell.

�It is the will of all. Are you suggesting that your lone, individual voice should trump those of all the masses?�

�No, Guildmaster. But��

�Good, then. Proceed. Captain Calomir shall direct your efforts as he sees fit.�

Emmara bowed to her guildmaster. When she turned to Calomir, her teeth were clamped together, as if she were biting words.

�Come with me, Miss Tandris,� said Calomir, offering his hand.

Jace heard what he thought at first was a rumble of distant thunder, but it was too rhythmic and too deep to be thunder. It was the sound of a distant chant, two syllables repeated like drums.

�Berrr-rumm. Berrr-rumm.� The chant sounded like the voices of a vast lynch mob, their shouts merging into a cadenced thump, repeated over and over, layered over the sounds of marching feet. There was something oddly familiar in the chant that made a cold twinge in Jace�s subconscious, but he couldn�t place it.

Jace tried to focus on searching the ogre�s minds. But the sound was getting closer. �Berrr-rumm, Berrr-rumm,� they chanted.

The Gruul war party heard it too. �Someone�s coming,� said Thar.

�A lot of someones,� said Jace.

�War chant,� remarked Ruric, still holding a hand over his head. �Not Gruul.�

At that moment Jace felt a promising echo from Ruric�s mind, a hollow proto-thought that didn�t quite take shape, but that had the contours of what Jace was seeking. It was a wisp of a memory that Jace had passed over at first, because the ogre himself had assimilated it into his own thoughts. But Jace sensed that the cellar of the ogre�s mind echoed with a purpose that was not his own, a subconscious mission that originated with one memory.

The memory was of tearing down the sanctum where Jace had done his research. The ogre had wrecked the entire building, and Jace�s research with it, at the same time that Jace was busy destroying his own memories of it.

It was not enough to go on. Ruric Thar was an ogre of the Gruul Clans�he was not known for his attention to detail, or for his proclivity to stop and study that which he was about to pulverize. Only thin strands of details remained�a glance at a scribbled diagram, or a flash of a sheet of notes, before the memory of setting them aflame and collapsing the building on them. Not enough to get a coherent picture of the research.

�Berrr-rumm. Berrr-rumm.� The voices were getting louder. Whoever it was would round the corner in minutes.

�Time to go,� said one of the Gruul warriors, and they readied their gear to leave.

Ruric Thar got to his feet. �You done?� asked Thar, looking down the street toward the sound.

�Wait a moment,� said Jace. �Almost.�

The detail of the sanctum was lacelike, riddled with holes, but he was only considering one of the ogre�s minds. Jace quickly hastened his inner eye over to Thar�s memories, now looking for similar traces of the sanctum.

He found more. A snippet of a code that Jace and Kavin had deciphered�an old Azorius script. A path through a series of gates�guildgates, the ancient territory markers set up in the guilds� distant past. He even detected a memory of when Jace first hired the ogre, and when he used mind magic to communicate with him�clues from Jace�s own speech pointed to the need for secrecy, the importance of the information stored in the sanctum, and the urgency of the need for thorough destruction. Jace�s mind assembled the scraps of memory from the ogre�s two brains and lashed them together with leaps of deduction. He saw it now. It was enough. It wasn�t much, but it was enough.

�Rakdos!� cried the Gruul war party.

Jace turned. He saw a vast mob of Rakdos-guild rioters, jabbing at the sky with their spiked spears and jagged swords, led by the blood-witch Exava. And at that moment he realized what the crowd was chanting.

It wasn�t �Berrr-rumm.� They were chanting �Berrim,� the alias Jace had given in the Rough Crowd. They were here for him.

�Run,� said Thar. �We�ll slow them down.�

�By breaking some legs,� added Ruric.

�You�ll be overrun in seconds,� said Jace.

�Just go,� said Ruric �We owe the Rakdos a lesson.�

�I�m not just going to leave you�� Jace began, until he was interrupted by Thar grabbing him around the throat with his one meaty hand, and drawing him up to look him in the eyes.

�You learned nothing about the ogre mind?� asked Thar. �We say it? It�s done.�

Ruric only grinned, his tusks gleaming.

The ogre dropped Jace back onto his feet, and the ogre�s axe-arm rose to a battle-ready position, still edged with his own blood. The Gruul warriors gathered around Ruric Thar�s flanks, weapons raised. They roared in defiance, outnumbered dozens to one, as the Rakdos crashed into them.

Jace wiped his bloodied mouth and gathered a tidal wave of mana.

Jace guided his illusionary demon, and the demon guided the Rakdos horde, back through the quarter of the Rakdos guild. Meanwhile Jace fended off Exava in a personal side combat, her furious bolts of sadistic magic anticipated and deflected. His illusion flickered as the horde marched back toward the Rough Crowd, its credibility wavering.

As they rounded the corner, Jace gasped.

A Selesnya-guild army was assaulting a smattering of Rakdos irregulars. The Rough Crowd was gone, a splintered ruin, its oak beams unraveled by the magic of woodshapers and ripped asunder by huge nature elementals. Swarms of imps flooded out of the carcass of the nightclub, bombarding the streets below them with burning pitch, hitting their own Rakdos warriors as much as the Selesnya.

A contingent of Boros soldiers attacked from the Selesnya flank. A warrior angel screamed commands from the sky, hurling blasts of scorching light. Magic crackled back and forth between guildmages of opposing creeds, searing scars of battle into the cobblestones.

Jace and Emmara made eye contact, she from atop one of the vine-and-marble elementals, and he from down at street level with the Rakdos. They were both among armies they didn�t command but couldn�t ignore.

Jace�s illusion dissipated, but it seemed irrelevant now. Exava�s horde of Rakdos warriors merged with and reinforced the cultists from the Rough Crowd, and chaos reigned. Reinvigorated, the Rakdos surged against the Selesnya.

A pack of hellhounds, skinless and crackling with flames from inside their blackened ribcages, broke free of their Rakdos handlers and sprinted into a squad of Selesnya guildmages. Jace saw Emmara struggling to ply her magic, but the nature elementals didn�t respond to her, and the hellhounds crashed into the Selesnya mages. Jace could hear their screams over the din of battle.

Finally, whether under Emmara�s control or not, the elemental she rode reached down and smothered two of the mongrels with its fist, and grasped two more hellhounds with a mass of ropy green tendrils. It crushed their bodies into a nearby building fa�ade, to a chorus of hellish howls.

Barbed grappling hooks seized onto the elemental, and Rakdos ogres and goblins pulled on the lines. The elemental�s center of gravity tipped, and more lines snagged onto its chest and arms. It angled into an agonizingly slow stumble. Emmara scrambled to maintain balance as it fell.

�Emmara!� Jace yelled, rushing to her through the crowd.

The elemental toppled, dashing against the street. The Rakdos mob swarmed on top of it with swords and axes, hacking it apart like mad lumberjacks. Jace lost sight of her, and couldn�t see whether she had landed safely, or was under attack by the Rakdos on the ground. But he stopped short before he got to her.

In his way stood the blood-witch, wielding two serrated swords and surrounded by a team of Rakdos toughs.

�It�s time to play, Berrim,� said Exava.

They walked Jace for what must have been several city blocks, down sloping tunnels and over creaking wooden footbridges. He could see nothing through the blackness of the blindfold, but he tried to keep his wits about him. For a while he tried to memorize the route they took, so if he escaped he could retrace his steps. But his Dimir captors led him in spirals, pushing him through shifting walls and over echoing watercourses, over unidentifiable surfaces designed to confuse the senses.

Finally they sat him on a wooden stool. When the blindfold was removed, Calomir stood before him in a misty undercity chamber, incongruous in the bright green and white of his Selesnya soldier�s dress.

Jace checked that the mage-assassins were still behind him. They were, no doubt with a bevy of spells ready to destroy Jace if he made a move. He looked back at Calomir. �What are you?�

�It is time we met formally,� said the elf. �I am Lazav.�

What had been the figure of Calomir melted, dripping away like a sped-up wax candle, and then reformed again into a new shape. This new man wore a hooded cloak, like Jace�s, except it was worn and threadbare with age. Jace could only see the bottom half of the man�s face. His skin was as worn as his cloak, wrinkled and thin.

Jace didn�t know if he should know the name Lazav. He had the feeling few did.

�The dragon�s little announcement is unfortunate,� said the man Lazav. �We�ll have a bit more competition now. But we�ll have to adapt, won�t we?� The man�s voice was hollow, and yet full of menace. It was too close, too knowing, too possessed of a stillness that signified confidence in his own power. �But the fact that they�ve opened up the maze to all the guilds also means that the Izzet haven�t been able to solve it by themselves yet.�

Jace�s brain flew, putting together the pieces. �You�re Dimir,� he said. �A shapeshifter of some kind, with enough mind magic to keep me from spying.�

�Correct.�

�You sent the vampire.�

�And I had to put him away for a long time, because he failed to take from you what I wanted. But you�ve done well, haven�t you? You�ve recovered that which you lost.�

Lazav took a half-step toward Jace. His presence was stifling. Though the man was no larger than Jace, Jace felt a wall of pressure emanating from him, pushing into him, tipping him back on the stool.

Jace wasted no more time. He threw his psychic senses at Lazav�s mind. But Jace found no ingress. Lazav�s mind remained unreachable as when he had been Calomir, locked away from him, impenetrable.

�You�re Calomir,� said Jace.

�Oh, you�re just putting that together?� A grin spread across Lazav�s cracked lips. �To be entirely precise, poor Calomir�s been dead for some months now. He was a good soldier to the Conclave, and a wise advisor. I am merely his replacement.� He bowed theatrically. �Not a worthy one, I�m afraid. But the Selesnya, especially the lovely Emmara, seem to have accepted the performance.�

�You�ve been advising Trostani. Goading the Conclave into attacking the Rakdos. You had them declare war on another guild as retribution�for a kidnapping you engineered.�

Lazav shrugged. �I appreciate the recognition of my work, but of course that�s only part of it. To the Orzhov I�m a wealthy pontiff with the ear of the Grand Envoy of the Syndicate. To the Golgari, an advisor in Jarad�s inner circle. The Boros know me as a scout on a griffin, who always happens to deliver alarming news of the other guilds. And her irascible commanding officers always listen.�

�So you spread misinformation to the guilds.�

�The districts run on information. Secrets are the lifeblood of the world. I provide a valuable service to those in need.�

�You traffic in lies.�

�It gives you comfort to believe that, I know. But I am hardly to blame. I may spread information selectively, but people hear what they wish to hear. If my message finds a place in one�s heart, then it�s the heart that�s false, not the message.� Lazav spread out his hands, encompassing the chamber, the sleeves of his cloak hanging heavy from his arms. The mortar of the ancient bricks in the wall behind him traced a network of lines, twisting and spreading up into the ceiling, up toward the surface of Ravnica.

�I see it now,� Jace said. �It�s all for the maze. Infiltrating the Selesnya. Setting up the Rakdos. Warmongering to spark a guild war. It�s all cover for your plan to take what�s behind the Implicit Maze.�

Lazav�s grin flashed a remnant of yellowish teeth, a sight that Jace wished he hadn�t seen. �The maze is merely a means to my ends. It�s a delightful diversion for the guilds, while I grind away at the foundations of society under them. When I hold all the pieces, nothing will remain�no Guildpact, no peace, no law. No guilds! And therefore no competition for my ultimate command of all life and thought. It is simple, you see? I am a being of quite simple tastes. I only desire the annihilation of everything that is not under my power.� Lazav tapped a finger on Jace�s forehead. �Can you grasp that, mind mage?�

�I�ll kill you,� said Jace.

�Ah, then you do grasp it. Good. That means it�s time for you, finally, to divulge all you know about the maze.�

�I�ll tell you nothing.�

�Oh, I think you�ll find you have little choice in the matter. There�s someone waiting just below us who�ll be very anxious to redeem himself.�

Jace looked at his feet. There was nothing but solid stone floor beneath them.

Lazav�s form trembled, liquefied, and rearranged itself. He took on the persona of the Selesnya elf Calomir again. But Lazav�s grin remained on the elf�s face.

�And if you still don�t cooperate, well,� he said, now with Calomir�s elvish voice, �I�ll just have to apply more pressure. Perhaps I�ll have a conversation with a mutual acquaintance.�

�You�ll leave Emmara out of this.�

Lazav, in the guise of Calomir, nodded to the Dimir mages who stood behind Jace. They dragged him to his feet, then flipped him over and shoved him face-first onto the floor, pressing his chest down onto the stone. Their hands pressed on his back, and somehow they pushed him through the stone, his body falling through solidity, merging and slipping down through layers of earth like a ghost. Then he fell into air again, and collapsed onto a cold, hard floor. All was dark and quiet.

�Jace,� said Emmara�s voice in his mind.

Jace struggled to turn over. His body complained, but he maintained the mental connection with Emmara.

�I�m here.�

�I need you to come to me now. I�m at the Conclave. They�ve imprisoned me. Please come.�

�I�m sorry,� he thought to her. �I can�t be there just now. Just keep listening to my voice. Do you trust me?�

�Yes.�

�I�m afraid I must tell you that Calomir�the actual Calomir�is gone.�

�What?�

�The man we�ve seen is an impostor. A shapeshifter set on infiltrating the Selesnya. Calomir is dead. I�m very sorry.�

Silence. Emmara�s thoughts did not form words that Jace could hear.

�So if you see someone posing as Calomir,� Jace went on, �stay away from him, if you can. If you can�t, do whatever you have to do to stay safe. Stall him. Don�t let on that you know his secret. I�ll be there soon.�

Another silence. When he again heard her thoughts, there was a certain strained vibration to them, like an earthquake held to a slight tremor by sheer will. �This is true, isn�t it.�

�I�m afraid so. Emmara, I�m so sorry.�

�All right. I understand.�

There was another pause. Jace sat there in the darkness, waiting.

�Jace?�

�Yes?�

�Don�t lose contact with me.�

�I�ll be right here.�

�Don�t leave.�

�I won�t.�

The blackness around him was so complete that it felt useless having eyes at all. He smelled chilly, dank stone, and dust. He reached up and put his hand to the ceiling he had melded through, and touched the wall next to him. Both were solid, cold, and slightly rough, like cut granite. His breathing quickened. He may have been blindfolded during his journey down here, but he knew he was deep, far from sunlight�perhaps even far from a source of air.

He heard something move in the darkness, a shuffling against stone�something nearby.

�Is someone there?� he muttered.

�We�re glad he�s brought you to our little prison,� said a male voice. �Mirko and I are very glad you�re here indeed.�

Jace blinked in the darkness. He used a whiff of mana to conjure a globe of bluish light, and his surroundings emerged.

He was in a small stone room with a low ceiling and no apertures. Two figures appeared in the light before him: the vampire Mirko Vosk, his fangs bared, and the vedalken man who had been Jace�s research compatriot, Kavin.

�Kavin!� gasped Jace.

Kavin also bared a set of fangs. That was new.

�I owe this one a debt of pain,� said Kavin. �Let us share him.�

�What�s in his skull is mine,� said Vosk, his voice hoarse with malice. �The rest you may do with as you wish.�

Jace watched the two vampires approach him, glints in their eyes reflecting his sphere of light. His back was pressed against the wall.

�Emmara,� he thought.

�Yes?�

�Stay safe.�

�What�s happening?�

�I have to leave you.�