Robert J. King - Magic The Gathering - Artifact Cycle

J J. ROBERT KING

"Time Streams"

(Magic: the Gathering. Artifact cycle. Book III.)

Prologue

Urza says he's sane. Perhaps he is. Measures of sanity

among planeswalkers are hard to come by. He has lived for

over three thousand years. He heals by merely willing it.

With a thought, he steps from world to world to world. His

very appearance is a matter of convenience, clothes and even

features projected by his mind. How can conventional notions

of sanity apply to a planeswalker?

Perhaps they cannot, but his madness began before he was

a planeswalker. Three thousand years ago, a mortal Urza

battled his mortal brother. Their sibling rivalry turned

fratricidal. So began the Brothers' War. In his rage to kill

Mishra, Urza enlisted the armies of the world, sank the isle

of Argoth, gutted the continent of Terisiare, and wiped

whole nations from the globe. He ushered in an ice age. In

repayment for all this madness, he became a planeswalker.

Urza says he regrets the destruction. True regret would

be a good sign.

It wasn't regret that later sent Urza on his own private

invasion of Phyrexia. It was revenge for his brother.

Somehow, Urza convinced himself he hadn't killed Mishra,

that the Phyrexian Gix had done it. True, Gix seduced Mishra

with promises of awesome power and in the end transformed

him into a monstrous amalgam of flesh and artifice. But Urza

was Mishra's slayer. Not in his mind, though.

In the mind of madness, Urza blamed Gix and plotted to

get even. His motive was mad, and his invasion madder still.

Urza attacked Phyrexia-one planeswalker against armies of

demonic monstrosities. He lost, of course. He couldn't

defeat a whole world and was nearly torn to pieces trying.

Tail between his legs, Urza retreated to Serra's Realm,

a place of angels and floating clouds. There he convalesced,

but he never truly recovered. Madness still haunted him, and

so did Phyrexia. Gix followed on his tail. No sooner had

Urza left Serra's Realm, thinking himself whole and hale,

than Gix and his demons arrived. A war began in heaven. That

place, like any other where Urza had chosen to dwell, was

decimated. Centuries later, it is still shrinking in its

long collapse.

When I point out these mad indiscretions, Urza shrugs.

He claims he regained his sanity after all that. He credits

his newfound perspective to Xantcha and Ratepe-"two dear

friends who sacrificed themselves to slay the demon Gix,

close the portal to Phyrexia, and save my life. To them, I

am forever grateful."

True gratitude would be a good sign, too.

Urza has never, in his three millennia of life, shown

true gratitude nor had a "dear friend." I have known him for

three decades. For two of those, I have worked side by side

with him at the academy we established here on Tolaria. I am

not his dear friend. No one is. Most of the tutors and

students at the academy don't even know his real name,

calling him Master Malzra. The last person who was close

enough to Urza to be a dear friend was his brother, and

everyone knows what happened to him.

No, Urza is incapable of regret and gratitude, of having

dear friends, not that there haven't been folk like Xantcha,

Ratepe, Serra, and I, who genuinely love the man and would

give our lives for him. But he seems incapable of returning

our affection.

That's not enough to declare him insane, of course. As I

said, measures of sanity among planeswalkers are hard to

come by, but there is something mad about Urza's blithe

belief that Xantcha and Ratepe sacrificed themselves, that

Serra's Realm and Argoth sacrificed themselves, that Mishra

sacrificed himself.... It seems everyone and everything Urza

claims to care about gets destroyed. And what does that mean

for me, his newest dear friend?

- Barrin, Mage Master of Tolaria

Part I

SCHOOL OF TIME

Chapter 1

Jhoira stood at the edge of her world. Behind her lay

the isle of Tolaria, its palm forests and lecture halls

overrun with magical prodigies and clockwork creatures. It

was a realm of ceaseless tests and pointless trials and

worries and work, lots of work.

Before her lay the blue ocean, the blue sky, and the

illimitable world. Clouds piled into empyrean mountain

ranges above the shimmering sea. White waves broke on the

ragged rocks below. Beyond the thin, brilliant line of the

horizon, the whole world waited. Her soul mate was out there

somewhere, she dreamed. Everything was out there-her

homeland, her parents, her Shivan tribe, her future.

Jhoira sighed and slouched down to sit on a sun-warmed

shoulder of sandstone. Sea winds sent her long black hair

dancing about her thin shoulders. Breezes coursed, warm and

familiar, through her white student robes. She'd spent many

hours in this sunny niche, her refuge from the academy, but

lately the hideaway brought her as much sadness as joy.

She'd been at the academy for eight years now, learning

all she could of machines. A prodigy when she arrived,

Jhoira was now a formidable artificer. She was also a woman,

or at eighteen nearly so, and was weary of the school and

the kids, of brimstone and machine oil. She was sick to

death of artifice and illusion and wanted something real-

someone real.

Jhoira closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath of salty

air into her lungs. Her soul mate would be tall and bronze-

skinned, like the young Ghitu tribesmen back home-keen-eyed

and strong. He would be smart, yes, but not like Teferi and

the other boys who tried to get Jhoira's attention through

juvenile antics and unsubtle innuendoes. He would be a man,

and he would be mysterious. That was most important of all.

She could not be in love with a man unless, at the core of

his being, there was mystery.

She opened her eyes and shifted her weight, one sandal

sending up a puff of dust. "I'm a fool. There's not a man

like that in the world." Even if there were, she'd never get

to meet him, not while she was stuck on this blasted island.

* * * * *

Standing, the silver man awoke. He had moved before, had

walked and spoken before. He had occupied this enormous body

of metal, peered out of its silvery eyes, and lifted things

in its massive hands. Before it had been always as if in a

dream. Now he was awake. Now he was alive.

The laboratory around him was bright and clean. Master

Malzra liked it clean-clean but cluttered. One wall held

hundreds of sketches and refinements of sketches, some in

ink, some in lead, some in chalk. Another bristled with

specialized implements- metal lathes, beam saws, injection

molds, presses, rollers, bellows, drills. A third wall bore

racks of cogs and struts and other mechanical castings. A

fourth held ranks of assembled mechanisms. A fifth-very few

of the school's rooms were square-allowed egress into the

room. In the center of the space, a great black forge rose.

Its smokestack climbed up and away through the dome above. A

second-floor gallery ringed the fringes of the room. Up in

those balconies even now, young eyes peered down on the

result of Master Malzra's latest experiment. They peered

down on the silver man.

The silver man peered back. He felt frightened, awkward,

shy. He wondered what they thought about him-wondered and

cared in a way he never had before. Everything was like

that. He had seen this laboratory many times before, but he

never would have used terms like clean and cluttered and

bright to describe it or the man who had created it. Now the

silver man perceived more than just things. He perceived the

organization of things, their disposition, and what they

implied about their creator. The laboratory was a study in

the mind of Master Malzra-ancient, obsessed, brilliant,

tireless, preoccupied, short-sighted, grandiose....

Master Malzra, meanwhile, studied him. The man's gaze

was penetrating. Folds of aged skin drew up skeptically

beneath one eye. His nostrils flared, but he didn't seem to

breathe at all. One soot-blackened hand trembled slightly as

he raised it to scratch his ash-blond beard. He swallowed,

blinking-but with eyes like that, as hard and sharp as

diamonds, it seemed he didn't need to blink at all.

"Any noticeable change in the probe's energy profile,

Barrin?" Malzra asked over his shoulder.

It was a strange greeting. The silver man felt somewhat

offended.

"A reasonable enough question," came the response-from

Malzra's second, a master mage. Barrin stepped from beside

an injection mold. He wiped grit from his hands with a white

cloth. "Why don't you ask him?"

Malzra blinked again. "Ask whom?"

"Ask him," the mage repeated, quirking one corner of his

mouth. "The probe."

Malzra pursed his lips. He nodded. "Probe, I am Master

Malzra, your creator. I wish to know if you notice any

change in your energy profile."

"I remember who you are," responded the silver man. His

voice was deep and resonant in his metal form. "And I notice

a very definite change in my energy profile. I am awake."

A sibilance of voices came from the balcony.

Malzra seemed almost to smile. "Ah, you are awake. Good.

As you are doubtless aware, we've made some modifications to

you, hoping to enhance your performance, your intellect, and

your capacity for social integration." He ground his teeth

and could not seem to come out with anything else. Malzra

glanced back to Barrin for help.

The mage-lean, middle-aged in a white work smock-

approached. He patted the silver man's shoulder. "Hello.

We're glad you've woken up. How do you feel?"

"Confused," the silver man heard himself say, then in a

voice of wonder, he went on. "Everything seems to have a new

dimension. I am filled with conflicting information."

Barrin asked, "Conflicting information?"

"Yes," replied the silver man. "I sense, for example,

that though Master Malzra is your superior in rank and age,

he often defers to you due to his social disinclinations."

"Social disinclinations?" Barrin prompted.

"He prefers the company of machines to that of people,"

clarified the silver man.

Titters of humor came from the gallery. Malzra's

expression darkened as he glanced up.

The probe continued, "Even now, I perceive that my

observation, though accurate, displeases Master Malzra,

amuses the students, and embarrasses you."

Barrin flushed slightly. "True enough." He turned to

Malzra. "I could run some magical tests, but even without

them, it's clear the intellectual and emotional components

of the implant are functioning."

"Only too well," responded Malzra ruefully, to the

delight of the watchers in the gallery. "Still, I would be

just as glad for further tests of these components to occur

outside of my company."

"In other words-?"

"Send out the probe. Let it interact with the students.

We can monitor its progress," Malzra instructed.

Barrin looked levelly at the probe. Wisdom and magic

danced in the man's brown eyes. "You heard what he said. Go

out. Explore. Meet some people. Make some friends. We will

recall you when we are ready for more experimentation."

The silver man acknowledged these instructions by moving

toward the door. As he shuffled past lathes and drill

presses, the probe marveled at the resentment he felt toward

his creator. Malzra had referred to him as an "it." Barrin

had referred to him as "you."

As if reading his mind, Barrin approached the silver man

and patted his shoulder once again. "You were right about

Master Malzra's 'social disinclinations,' that he likes

machines better than people. What you didn't seem to

recognize is that he got flustered in dealing with you."

The silver man's response was sullen. "I recognized that

all too clearly."

"Yes," Barrin said, "but that means he doesn't think of

you as a machine, not any longer. To him, you are becoming a

person."

As the probe and the students filed out of the

laboratory, Barrin drew Urza to a wall of sketches. There,

in diagrams of lead and ink, the silver man was detailed,

inside and out.

"Well, you were right," Barrin said quietly. "Xantcha's

heart was the key. Her affective and intellectual cortexes

must be intact, as you had thought. We can be thankful that

none of her memories remain, or her personality-apparently.

Still, I have to wonder about the wisdom of placing what

amounts to a Phyrexian matrix into the head of your most

powerful and advanced creation. I could have achieved the

same effect with an animation spell-"

The master waved off the comment. "I wanted to achieve

sentience through purely mechanical means. Besides, there is

nothing Phyrexian about the heart crystal anymore. There is

not even anything of Xantcha left in it-just enough of a

matrix to allow logical, emotional, and social learning."

Barrin winced slightly at the man's choice of words.

"Yes, well, that's the other matter. What we've got here is

no longer just a machine. You know it, and I know it. So

does the probe. You gave him emotions. You need to

acknowledge those emotions. You need to respect those

emotions." Only a blank stare answered him. "Don't you see?

This is not just a probe anymore. He is a man-no, more than

that-he is a child. He'll need to be guided, nurtured-"

The master looked stern. "I wish you had brought this up

before. We could have devised a rubric for handling this

aspect of the probe's development."

"That's just it," replied Barrin. "You can't devise

rubrics for this kind of thing. You can't chart it out in

blueprints. You have to stop thinking like an artificer and

start thinking like a-well, like a father."

"I was an orphan at twelve. Mishra and I both. We turned

out all right."

The mage snorted just slightly at that. "If you wish, I

will act as the probe's mentor in your place, but in time

you are going to need to create that bond yourself. And that

will mean telling him who you really are-telling him he was

created by Urza Planeswalker."

* * * * *

Master Malzra's laboratory had been daunting enough for

the silver man and his new intellectual cortex. The

corridors and spaces beyond the lab-tutorial rooms, lecture

halls, surgical theaters, wind tunnels, test chambers, and

countless more laboratories-were overwhelming. In gazing at

these elaborate structures, the probe understood at last

what a school was: a building designed to aid in gaining new

knowledge, communicating it to others, and applying it in

invention. This was a revelation. His creators needed to

learn. They were not all-knowing angels, driven by logical

necessity and an apprehension of the ascendant good. They

were ignorant animals, ennobled only by their insatiable

curiosity, and some were less ennobled than others.

"I'm Teferi," offered a boy who capered into the silver

man's path and stopped stock still, as if daring the half-

ton creature to walk over him. "I'm the magical prodigy." He

followed the introduction with a snap of his fingers,

sending blue sparks bursting through the air.

The probe stopped in his tracks and crouched slightly to

get a better look at the young scholar. Teferi's face was

small, dark, and impish. Tousled black hair jutted wildly

about his gleaming eyes. He wore the manifold white robes of

a Tolarian student. At his waist, a leather sash held his

personal array of crystals, wands, and fetishes. His feet

were bare, in defiance of school policy, though his toenails

bore strange legends in bright, glossy paint. He held one of

his hands out formally toward the probe.

The silver man extended his own massive hand and lightly

shook the boy's whole arm. "I am Master Malzra's Probe." No

sooner had he taken the boy's hand than the probe noticed a

strange, stinging jolt in his silver hide. "Your handshake

is shocking."

The lad pulled his hand away and shrugged, seeming

somehow disappointed. "Just a spell I've been working on.

Knocks people on their butts. Not golems, I guess. Say, what

kind of a name is Master Malzra's Probe, anyway?"

"It is the only name I have," replied the probe

truthfully. Teferi's face rumpled, and he shook his head.

"Not good enough. You've got a personality now. You need a

real name."

Other young students were gathering in the corridor

behind Teferi, and they leaned inward, anticipating

something. "I am unfamiliar with naming procedures." Teferi

gave a confident smile. "Oh, I'm quite familiar. Let's see.

You're big and shiny. What else is big and shiny? The Null

Moon. Why don't we call you the Null Man?" The students

laughed at this suggestion.

The probe felt a sense of irritation. "That sounds

unsatisfactory, null means nothing. Your suggestion would

imply I am a nothing man."

Teferi nodded seriously, though a smirk played about his

mouth. "We can't have that. Anyway, you aren't really a man.

You're an artifact. Arty would be a nice name for you. Arty

the Artifact."

The probe could not determine any reason to reject this

suggestion-aside from the chuckles of the students. "Arty is

a name used among humans?"

"Oh, yes," replied Teferi enthusiastically, "as a first

name, but most humans also have a last name. Let's see, you

are silver. What else is made of silver? Spoons are, and

since you are large, we ought to name you after the largest

spoon-a ladle, or perhaps a shovel. Thus, your full name

should be Arty Ladlepate or Arty Shovelhead."

These young folk seemed to giggle at any and every

suggestion made to them. The silver man became less

concerned about their amusement. "Whichever name sounds more

pleasant to human ears-"

"Oh, either name will bring a smile to anyone who hears

it. Still, Ladlepate sounds a little too uppity, as if you

were putting on airs. Shovelhead is much more accessible. I

vote for Arty Shovelhead. What say the rest of you?"

The gathered students cheered excitedly, and the silver

man could not help being swept up in the mood. At the

moment, any name seemed better than no name.

"I shall then be Arty Shovelhead," the probe said

solemnly.

"Come along, then, Shovelhead," said Teferi grandly,

gesturing down the corridor with his boyish arm. Streamers

of conjured illumination fanned out from his fingers. "I

have much to show you."

The crowd of students surged up around the probe and

dragged at his cold metal hands with their warm fingers. He

plodded along among them, careful not to step on their feet.

The entourage of children led the probe along as though

he were a visiting dignitary. They arrived first at a large

dining hall with ivory rafters and soaring walls of

alabaster. Beneath this white vault were long, dark tables

crowded with more students who bent above bowls of gruel and

platters of hard crackers and cheese.

"This is the great hall," narrated Teferi. "This is

where we students eat. The food is specially prepared so

that nothing about it could distract us from our studies.

Notice the bland colors and mean consistency of it all? The

flavors are even more indistinguishable. No one could gnaw

on one of those crackers and spend even a moment to

contemplate its nonexistent virtues."

The probe could tell that this boy had an acute grasp of

the truth behind appearances. "Master Malzra must care

greatly about your studies."

Teferi laughed, though the sound was rueful. "Oh, yes.

He nurtures our minds like a farmer nurtures grain. He heaps

manure on our heads, knowing we will rise up through it,

despite it, to bear richly, and then he comes along with a

scythe and cuts our heads off to nourish his own appetites.

It is a fine arrangement, depending on who you are." He had

said this last bit while leading the probe and his

companions down the passageway to another chamber, similar

to the first, except that the vault overhead was dark, and

the students at the long tables were crouched over sheets of

paper, quill pens scraping fitfully across them. "Here is

part of that diet of manure I spoke of. These students are

copying plans and treatises of Master Malzra, Mage Barrin,

and other scholars. It is in sedulously copying the

scribbles of our betters that we become consummate

scribblers ourselves."

The probe was appreciative. "What do these plans and

treatises describe?"

"Machines, such as yourself. Gadgets, mainly. He's got a

whole mausoleum-um, that is, museum-filled with artifact

creatures. You'll be there too, soon enough. Master Malzra

has a very active imagination and puts it to great use

devising elaborate means to save himself a little bit of

labor. He has created numerous devices to more quickly and

efficiently cook the gruel and crackers, to more effectively

limit the freedom of those under his command, to more

completely defend all of us against external foes so that he

alone can torment us."

The silver man felt uncomfortable with this new line of

thought. "External foes? What foes does Malzra have?"

"Oh, everyone is against him, or didn't you know?" said

Teferi lightly as they moved farther down the hallway. He

idly conjured a small knife, whirled it deftly between his

fingers, and then dispelled it. "At least that's what Malzra

thinks. He's got clockwork creatures and actual warriors

roaming the walls around the academy at all hours, and clay

men tramping through the woods by the sea, and gear-work

birds that spy on the island. I myself have never heard of a

single real enemy, but Malzra spends so much time creating

these machines and recreating them and perfecting them,

there must be something more than psychotic paranoia at the

root of it, wouldn't you think?"

"I suppose so," the silver man answered.

They came to another room, this one filled with

dissected hulks of metal, leaning clockwork warriors,

dismantled machines, piles of rusted scrap iron, and at the

far wall, a great open furnace. Workers on one side of the

blazing forge shoveled coal into the flames and pumped

massive bellows. Workers on the other side dumped bins of

spare parts into great vats of molten metal. Throughout the

rest of the grimy chamber, students moved among the ruined

machines like vultures picking at a battlefield of dead. A

shiver of dread move through the probe.

Teferi noticed the impulse and smiled grimly. "See,

Arty, even if Malzra has no other enemies, his old creations

could easily turn on him. They should. They certainly have

reason to hate him. Malzra quickly tires of his playthings.

I can imagine a legion of metal men such as yourself

learning that Malzra planned to melt them down. They could

escape across the sea. I can imagine whole nations of

clockwork creatures who have fled their creator only to

muster themselves in hopes of returning and killing him."

The silver man was aghast. "How could an artifact

creature ever seek to destroy the artifact creator?"

"Give it a year, Arty," Teferi said lightly, though none

of the students laughed this time. The boy patted the

golem's arm. "Give it a year-two at the outside, and you'll

be facing that fiery furnace. It's the way of artifice. When

you're in pieces in that room, then ask yourself what you

think about Master Malzra."

Jhoira was again in her rocky haven from the world. She

spent less and less time in the academy and more and more

time here, dreaming of far-off places and futures-

A white flapping motion caught her eye. There along the

shore, between two fingers of stone, something was moving.

It looked like a seagull's wing, only too large. A pelican?

A white sea lion? Jhoira blinked, rubbing her eyes. The sea

and sky were dazzling here. Maybe it was only a glaring bit

of foam.

No, it was more than that. It looked like fabric-perhaps

another student? Jhoira slid from the sandstone ledge and

eased herself down the tumbled hillside. One edge of the

white fabric was tied to something rigid-a spar. It was a

sail. Jhoira descended more quickly. Her sandal soles slid

on pea-gravel and sand. She thrashed past a brake of grass

and clambered down the cleft between two wind-carved stones.

The space gave out onto a wide beach of beige sand,

broken by rills of craggy black stone. Above one such rill,

a lateen-rigged sail jutted flaglike from a shattered wooden

hull. The impact had staved the boat's prow and splintered

the timbers amidships. Since then, the rocks had chewed away

at the frame, each new wave grinding the hull again on the

ragged stones.

Jhoira approached cautiously. So few ships arrived at

Tolaria. Most were the academy's own supply vessels,

captained by seamen hand-picked by Master Malzra. The island

was too remote, too removed from trade routes to attract

other ships. This boat must have drifted for some distance

off course before crashing. Perhaps it was abandoned.

Perhaps its crew had been washed overboard. Jhoira craned

her neck as she neared, looking for signs of life in the

ruined hulk. Her sandal prints filled with salty water

behind her. She reached the stony outcrop and climbed up

above the pitching wreck.

It was a small craft, the sort that might have been

manned by a crew of five or a crew of one. The deck was in

disarray-lines lashing loosely, small barrels rolling with

each sea surge. The hatch was open, and in the dark hold

Jhoira glimpsed gulls fighting over bits of hard-tack that

had spilled from broken crates. The mainmast was cracked,

though it still held aloft the raked sail, and the

mainsail's sheet was cleated off, as if the boat had been at

full sail when it struck the stone. It must have run aground

last night, when the Glimmer Moon had been obscured by a

midnight storm. The bow was gone entirely, but the stern

remained. A narrow set of stairs led downward to a small

doorway. The captain's quarters would lie beyond.

"What are you doing?" Jhoira asked herself worriedly as

she clambered down the boulder where the ship was impaled,

lifted one leg over the starboard rail, and hauled herself

onto the pitching deck. "This thing could come loose any

moment and roll over and drag me out to sea."

Even so, she crawled forward, reached the set of stairs

that led down to the captain's quarters, and descended. She

pulled open the red door and cringed back from the hot,

stale air within. The space was dark and cramped. With each

wave surge, the floor clattered with junk-a map tube, a

lodestone, a stylus, a wrecked lantern, spanners, a slide

rule, and other indistinguishable items. To one side of the

cabin, a small table hugged the wall. To the other were a

pair of bunks. The bottom bed held a still figure.

Dead, Jhoira thought. The man lay motionless, despite

the tossing sea. His face was tanned beneath curls of golden

hair. His jaw was shaggy with a week's growth of beard. His

hands, large and strong, were laid across his chest in the

attitude of death.

Jhoira backed away. Perhaps this was a plague ship, this

man the last to succumb, with no one to throw him overboard.

She'd been a fool to climb aboard.

Then he moved. He breathed, and she knew, even if he was

plagued, she could not abandon him. Without another moment's

hesitation, Jhoira crossed the crowded cabin, stooped beside

the bunk, and lifted the man. She had always been strong.

The Ghitu of Shiv had to be strong. Shifting the man to her

shoulder, she struggled out of the cabin and up the stairs.

Navigating the rubble-strewn deck with a man on her shoulder

was difficult, and Jhoira stumbled twice. Gritting her teeth

in determination, she made the rail. With a heart-rending

leap, she reached the rock and clung there.

As if shifted by her jump, the broken craft heeled away

from the crag. A wave crashed into it, lifting it up, and

with a briny surge, the boat scraped up toward Jhoira and

her charge. She clambered to a higher spot on the rock. The

wave tumbled back from shore, taking the hulk with it. The

mast rolled under and snapped like a twig. Shroudlike, the

sail wrapped the splintered boat as it heaved outward on the

retreating wave. Broken barrels and other debris boiled in

the wake of the boat.

Panting, Jhoira watched the broken mass of wreckage bob

out into deeper water. The next wave rolled it once more,

and then the ship disappeared. For some time she could see

it, moving in the undertow like some white leviathan.

Jhoira waited for a break in the waves and climbed down

from the stone. She crossed the sandy berm, tempted to set

the man down there. A darting glance up at the hilltop told

her that no other students or scholars had seen the

shipwreck or knew of the man, but others might come soon.

The man would be as good as dead. Malzra did not suffer the

arrival of strangers on his island paradise, and the

students were sworn to report any such castaways they

discovered. Jhoira planned to report this one, of course,

but she didn't want anyone else to know about him-not yet.

Strong though she was, the climb from the shore to her

hideaway was a hot labor. When she arrived, she laid the man

down on the sunny stretch of sandstone where she had spent

so many afternoons. She checked for breath and pulse, found

both, and set a hand on his brow to check for fever. He felt

warm, though that might have been only from the sunlight.

There was a better test for fever. Her heart pounding, she

leaned over and kissed his forehead.

"Hot. Yes. Very hot," Jhoira said breathlessly.

She removed her outer cloak, snagged a bit of scrub, and

propped the fabric up over his face, shielding him from the

sun. She retrieved a small canteen from her belt, parted the

man's lips, and poured a cool trickle of water into his

mouth.

He was beautiful-tan, strong, tall, and mysterious. That

was the most important thing of all. The last drops fell

from the canteen.

"You stay here," she whispered, patting his shoulder.

"Don't let anybody see you. I'll go get more water and

blankets-supplies. I'll take care of you. Stay here."

Heart fluttering in her breast like a caged bird, Jhoira

hurried away from her secret spot and her secret stranger.

Her footsteps had hardly faded beyond the rocky rise

when the stranger's blue eyes opened. There was a gleam in

them, something vaguely metallic. It might have been only

the silver shimmer of clouds reflecting there, but there

might have been something else to that gleam, something

mechanical, something menacing.

Monologue

At last, Urza has done it, making a machine that really

lives. He's been working for three thousand years to devise

such a thing. Now that he has one, he doesn't know what to

do with him.

The silver man is engineered to let Urza return in time,

even farther back than those three thousand years, to the

time of the ancient Thran. Urza hopes the probe can reach

the time of that ancient race, some six millennia in the

past. If Urza himself could reach such a time, he could

prevent the Thran from transforming into the race of half-

flesh, half-machine abominations that seek to destroy life

on Dominaria, thereby rectifying the error he and his

brother Mishra made in opening the doors to Phyrexia.

I've pointed out that unmaking the Phyrexians is

tantamount to slaying all of us who have lived in this world

since their creation. Still, Urza would rather wipe the

slate clean than deal with his past-just as he did at

Argoth.

The disturbing thing is, he is making all the same

mistakes over again. If he could only have embraced his

brother instead of attacking him-if he could only have

apologized for his arrogance and obsession and been

Robert J. King - Magic The Gathering - Artifact Cycle - Time Streams

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