magic the gathering - [legend 01] - johan (clayton, emery)

"Johan" by Clayton Emery (Magic: the Gathering. Magic Legends Cycle. Book I) ____ Chapter 1 ____ The harsh sound of snarling and growling carried on the thin, cool desert air and disturbed Hazezon Tamar's meditation. The wizard opened one hazel eye and peered about. He sat alone on a prayer rug amidst folded ridges of sand and shale as yellow as amber. His horse, caparisoned with an embossed saddle of dark red leather and many small silver bells, tossed its head and snorted. The mage had faced south for his trance, for he believed all good things came from the south, including blessings. But the wind blew from the north, as always, and brought the sounds of a dogfight or lion brawl. Hazezon saw fierce Osai vultures kiting down behind a ridge. Clambering to his creaky knees, shedding sand, Hazezon caught the reins before his horse bolted. "Where vultures land, misery dies, eh, Belladonna?" Hazezon spoke to his horse for company, for he was normally a gregarious man, and like all mages, both curious and superstitious. Swinging astride his ornate saddle, he continued, "Let us leave the desert spirits to their own devices and see what creature so pitifully lies down. One should never ignore a nudge from the unknown." Belladonna was a gray gelding that, like its master, was no longer fast, but even tempered and capable, and able to haul extra weight. Hazezon was a man of middling girth and advancing years. His last wife had cursed him as a "fat-bottomed potion peddler." His stomach rumbled in agreement. Fasting was a component of meditation, and he'd skipped his breakfast of figs, eggs, and brown rice. His skin was as dark as tanned leather and was covered with a white mustache and beard. Hazezon wore the traditional garb of Jamuraa's desert seacoast: a loose robe of pale brown deftly embroidered, a keffiyeh or head scarf of white as befit a ruler, and a multicaped cloak of amber stitched with gold thread. A brass-hiked scimitar was shoved through his sash, a trapping of office. Hazezon Tamar hadn't struck anything with a s word word文档格式规范word作业纸小票打印word模板word简历模板免费word简历 for almost two decades. His weapon was his mind. Tracking vultures atop a rise, Hazezon found a crowd of desert dwellers attending a single death. At the outermost ring hopped scruffy Osai vultures with naked heads as red as dried blood. Inward circled hyenas, thick-shouldered and strong-jawed and brutish, that barked and snarled. Closest to the disturbance padded a pride of tawny lions. Two males watched as a quartet of lionesses snapped at a figure not yet dead. Hazezon found the figure strange. Refusing to die, it hunched on all fours with hands and feet drawn in so they couldn't be bitten. Yet the man-if a man-had odd contours, the back very long but the legs and arms short, a stunted giant. Too, the curve of the limbs was queer. Hazezon could see little, for the mystery man was wrapped in rags of burlap faded by sun and shredded by long travel. Yet rents in the rags showed Hazezon a burning gold and black tiger pelt. Since tigers were uncommon along the Bay of Pearls, Hazezon knew the stranger had come far. Yet why cross the desert? And how alone, with neither horse nor camel, and no retainers or baggage save a few crude gourds to hold water? "Truly, Belladonna," said Hazezon to his horse, "the fates wished we witness this spectacle, for an odder man have I seldom seen on the sands of Sukurvia. He shows spirit, if he isn't an apparition, for beyond endurance he seeks to preserve his life even as the lions strive to take it. Can we turn away from a vision sent by spirits? Hardly. Steel yourself, my pet." Taking a firm grip on the reins, Hazezon booted his horse. Instantly the obedient Belladonna bolted into a charge down the ridge, silver bells jingling. Hazezon warbled a war cry that rang in the desert air and brought every scavenger's head swinging around. "Ho! Get on! Begone, sons of nine thousand devils! Take flight before Hazezon Tamar! Your ruler commands it! Git!" Tall horse and cloaked rider thundered down the slope, hooves clattering on stones and shouts filling the air. Vultures flapped and croaked and beat the air so black feathers pin-wheeled. Hunched hyenas gurgled and slunk away, but only to sheltering boulders. The lion pride snarled and curled their muzzles, and padded aside, ready to trot off, until their chief, a scarred lion with a bushy black mane, coughed and roared. Hazezon had hoped his surprise rush would banish the beasts, but Belladonna planted four hooves and halted so hard the rider almost pitched from the saddle. As Hazezon fumbled to keep his seat, the king lion snarled, bunched its haunches, and vaulted from a standing start a full dozen feet. As the tawny meteor rocketed close, Belladonna shied, sidestepped, and almost stumbled. Rocked by his horse, only Hazezon's wild scrambling and cursing kept him astride. The four lionesses had left the crouched mystery man and padded in a file, as regular as soldiers on parade, to surround Hazezon. He'd misjudged the lions' hunger, or arrogance. The leader squatted to spring on the horse with long cruel claws. "Impudent cat!" spat the man at the lion. "You rule a pride, but I command to the horizons! Take this! Eneta ... hala ... hashana!" Conjuring with just one hand, Hazezon blew across his palm, and a rime of frost engulfed his flesh to the elbow. An easy spell in the desert's winter. A fog of swirling ice crystals puffed from his hand and splashed like sea foam into the lion's face. Curled muzzle, yellow teeth, and black claws were frosted white as fresh paint. Even the lion's eyes fogged so it was blinded. Its attack stalled. Clawing at its face and sensitive nose, the king whined like a tormented kitten. Coughing frigid air, the lion backed away, crumpled on one haunch, coughed, and fled. Instantly the lionesses broke off their attack and bounded after their master, tufted tails flapping like snapped ropes. Hazezon tugged his tunic and capes aright and snorted, "So does magic triumph over might." Yet the mage didn't revel in victory, for with the lions gone, the hyenas began to circle. Their low-slung jaws that could crush bones made them as dangerous as the lions. Best the rescuer finish his rescue and move on. Wrapping the reins around his fist, Hazezon hopped from die saddle beside the hunched and mysterious figure. In the excitement, he'd forgotten the victim's queer contours. His horse hadn't. No sooner did Hazezon hop down than Belladonna reared, whinnied, and tried to bolt, almost yanking the master's arm from its socket. "What bewitches you, besotted son of a mule? Desist and stand fast, lest we feed the hyenas their supper!" Hazezon caught a rag- wrapped shoulder to get the man's attention. "Friend! Best depart! Come, quickly-Tower of the Tabernacle!" Exhausted, the stranger collapsed, so Hazezon held a shred of rags. More of the orange-gold tiger hide was exposed, and a great swath of snow-white chest. The furred face was a riot of black and gold stripes with two amber eyes, like sun on a summer sea. The stranger did not wear a tiger pelt, Hazezon learned, but rather owned one. Had been born in one. "Great Defender!" Stunned, Hazezon dropped the rags as if afire. "A tiger in man's garb? How can such a thing be?" "Not-tiger." The alien voice croaked a barbarous accent. Amber eyes, gleaming with intelligence, appealed for help. "Tiger man." Belladonna whinnied and shied so hard Hazezon was jerked onto his rump and dragged half a dozen feet. Only by iron will did he retain his grip on the reins, for to lose them would cost his life. Staggering up, shedding dust, Hazezon tried desperately to think as his horse jittered and hyenas closed. Their evil black eyes glimmered beneath their spotted tufted heads, and their tongues lolled over curved fangs as if grinning. They stank too, as rank as a burning garbage pit. Best, the wizard thought wildly, to saddle and ride, yet the urgings of the unknown were not to be discarded. Who knew what greater disaster might befall Hazezon if he left this fabulous and unknown creature to die? In the end the tiger man's actions decided, for the ragged figure crawled toward Hazezon as the only refuge. Custom alone dictated that a stranger in need be aided, and Hazezon adhered to custom as diligently as to superstition. Dragging his horse close, Hazezon grappled the ragged figure-long as a sea serpent and as heavy as a chest of gold, he seemed-and boosted him up across the saddle cantle. Belladonna whistled fit to panic as hyenas rushed. "Ona ... orashan ... mourtan!" barked Hazezon, quickly scooping air in a broad circle. Where his hand pointed, sand and rocks leaped as if spanked by a giant broom. Dust and pebbles boiled in a cloud that peppered the hyenas' muzzles. Blinded and sneezing, the animals rocked back and turned away. Some ran in panic, and two crashed together. Before they could clear their eyes, Hazezon vaulted to the saddle, swinging one leg wide over the tiger man, and roared, "Ride, Belladonna! For the stables! Go!" Terrified, the horse launched headlong and straight. The magic dust cloud had churned higher than a man's head, and the horse's plunge split it like a curtain. Hazezon glimpsed a large brown shape hurtling for his horse's throat, a hyena jumping blind. Whipping his scimitar from its scabbard, with more instinct than practice, Hazezon swept the curved blade amid the curtain of dust. Keen steel cut flesh. A hyena yelped and rolled away, and Belladonna burst free of the dust cloud into the clear desert air. Hazezon rammed home his heels. The horse couldn't gallop for long with this much weight, but a half-mile should see them free of the hyenas' threat. He inhaled a deep breath of the desert air, dry and clean, austere but scented with sage and spice and a hint of exotic mystery. "We'll get to safety, then talk, you and I!" Hazezon called over his shoulder. "We have much to tell, eh, tiger man?" No reply. Hazezon risked a backward glance as his horse drummed over ridges of rock and sand. The tiger man's head hung as slack as a fish in a net, thumping on saddle leather. Yet one clawed hand, or paw, clutched the cinch so tightly that, even unconscious, the strange being would not slip off. "You'll survive," said Hazezon, "if thirst and lions and hyenas can't kill you, and me too, for all my fat bottom and soft ways." Chuckling at his luck and skill and glad to be alive, Hazezon Tamar steered his horse down into a twisted gully that led to the coast. * * * * * "Friend, what burden do you fetch from the desert?" "Oh, sister. Uh, nothing that need concern you, if I may be so bold." Hazezon halted. He'd led his nervous mount down a low wadi toward the Bay of Pearls. He always climbed this wadi as a path to the desert because it kept him off the skyline and disguised his desert visits. Hazezon Tamar ruled the city-state of Bryce, and although he ruled a peaceable community, he had enemies to be avoided, especially unaccompanied on desert trips. Regularly, Hazezon visited the desert to meditate, to think and study, and to improve his magic lest he forget it. Such studies fared poorly with retainers lolling nearby, fidgeting and shuffling and gossiping. Hazezon had talked to his horse to calm it from its strange and feral burden. Distracted, Hazezon was startled to meet another striding toward the desert. The stranger was a druid. A short woman clad in dun robes and patched sandals, she sometimes came to Bryce to trade jade and malachite and garnets for provisions, then always returned to the desert with her meager satchels and water gourds. How this lone small woman survived afoot in a torrid desert rife with wild beasts no one could guess, though they suspected her magic must be powerful. No one knew her name. The merchants called her Stone- Bringer. Naturally a courteous man, Hazezon stopped to talk, despite wanting to avoid the spooky druid. Thorn bushes and cedars with their strong resinous smell and jagged rocks hemmed in the trail, so he had no choice. Druids were a special breed, more than mere servants to the cryptic spirits of the desert. Now Hazezon stammered like a child caught stealing berries. "This is a... vagabond I found collapsed in the desert, Your Worship. I must get him to water...." "I see." In the direct way of druids, much curiosity and no manners, the small woman drew back the stranger's rags. If surprised to see a tiger man, she gave no sign. Her face was burned black by sun, her hooded eyes as pale as milk glass. Hazezon wondered if she were mad. She announced, "Not dead, just sleeping. Exhausted and dehydrated. Strong." Stone-Bringer examined the unconscious beast man from head to foot, just as Hazezon had done lashing him down lest he fall. More tiger than man and as heavy as a horse, he was nearly seven feet tall. His elongated fingers and toes were half the length of a man's and ended in claws as thick and black as shards of flint. He wore a simple harness decorated with a curious bronze buckle and a breechcloth of goatskin painted with a rude pattern of green and black triangles. He carried only empty gourds for water and a long knife of bronze. The rags were not burlap, but rather, the druid identified, the inner bark of a tree pounded soft. "A clue to his origins," said Hazezon, trying to be helpful. This starry-eyed druid unnerved him. The druid asked where the tiger man was found, but Hazezon could give only distances, for the desert held few landmarks. "He may as well have dropped from the sky. I've read many an antique tome and heard stories of wolf men and horse men and even bird men, but never a tiger man, have you?" To Hazezon's irritation, the druid answered obliquely. "There are other planes and other worlds we can't touch, though they touch us." "Well, yes ..." Hazezon watched as the druid stroked the tiger man's muzzle and pried open an eyelid. "Planeswalkers were common before the glaciers and great floods, they say, but magic was young and strong then. What's that to a half tiger or me?" "You would tap the mana of the spheres," said Stone-Bringer. "You seek to glimpse the ancients' time-lost secrets, to attain new heights of self-empowerment through magic." "Uh, y-yes." Hazezon was startled. "But every magic handler craves new parlor tricks. Magic and mana are like gold. You can never have too much." "How much we want. How much we ignore what we have." The druid might have chuckled as she studied the creature's ears. "But to get back to this-man thing." Tired and irritated, Hazezon was curt. "Whence comes he, do you suppose? Is he a unique creation, a sorcerer's toy? Or from a community of cat folk? And where could they be? Jungle? Or the mountains? No one inhabits the eastern deserts-no, wait. Rumors speak of oases in the far east. Do you know-" "He comes from a threefold place," interrupted Stone-Bringer. The horse stirred as she cradled the tiger man's great striped head to her bosom and closed her eyes to concentrate. "From sand and fern and water. Threefold, three things made one, yet each separate. I wonder if..." Hazezon waited, but the druid fell silent. Time dragged. Hazezon wondered why she cradled the tiger man's head. Surely this unknown creature, like a figure stepped from a legend, had been sent by the fates. Anyone could see that. The question was why? What should a man, or mage, do- Hazezon froze as the druid began to sway, as if blown by unfelt winds. She keened, a low moaning noise that gave the watcher gooseflesh, then huffed as if she'd run ten miles. Words spilled from her mouth. "Hunnnn ... Threefold. Hunnn ... Makes one, two, and none. None, one, and two. 'When none meets one, only two shall remain.' " Abruptly the druid let go of the tiger man's head, so it thumped on the saddle. She shook herself, milk-glass eyes staring, and asked Hazezon, "What did I see?" "S-see?" Hazezon wanted to run, leaving horse and stranger if need be. He'd been too rattled to grasp much meaning. "Uh, you said, "none, one, and two.' When they meet, uh, only two remain." "Oh, yes. The prophecy of None, One, and Two." The druid might have discussed marketplace gossip. "This tiger man is an instrument of prophecy. Guard him well, and luck will be yours. Fail, and he'll bring you destruction." Hitching her satchels and water gourds, the druid turned and strode up the gully. "Luck? Destruction? Wait!" Hazezon's curiosity overcame his unease. Dropping the reins, he trotted after. "Wait! Can't you tell me more? Is he good luck or bad? What should I do?" "Luck evens out over a lifetime." The druid marched as she lectured, so Hazezon wanted to grab her arm but didn't dare. "Yet a man might steal luck by winning favor from the fates. Your man creature is of three parts, thus holy. The prophecy too is three parts, so linked. When the three are made one, some will prosper, and some will die. As always." "But that's-" Hazezon gasped, wanting to say "useless." "Very vague and, frankly, not very helpful." "It is not our mission to help." Stone-Bringer mounted rocks in a narrow cleft that left Hazezon stranded. "We interpret. Mortals fulfill. See to it." "Yes, sister, of course. Gladly. But to what purpose? I fail to grasp-Are we-Bryce is attacked intermittently by Tirras. Will the tiger man aid us-" "Ah." Stuck by a thought, the druid nonetheless kept walking. "Tirras attacks Bryce even now." "What?" Hazezon gaped like a fish out of water. "Now?" Pausing, Stone-Bringer pointed south by west. "Yes, now." Then she slipped away, up the path toward the desert. Dashing back to his horse, Hazezon jerked the reins and jogged down the defile, puffing and wheezing. A few hundred feet of rocks dropped away to show foothills and orchards and fields. Beyond, the Bay of Pearls glistened like a restless sapphire. Bryce was brown kernels of stone clinging to the shoreline, much hidden behind a tall stone wall split by the many fingers of the glittering River Toloron. At several points behind the wall, evil black-gray smoke rolled upward. Heedless of Belladonna's plight, Hazezon Tamar mounted and kicked savagely to gallop to the defense of his city. Hazezon screamed at the sprawling vista, "Johan! May your twisted body be blistered by a thousand boils! Damn you, evil erstwhile emperor!" Then he ran out of breath as horse, rider, and mysterious stranger pounded the trail. * * * * * Far to the north ... "They're here, Emperor." Johan lifted his horned head and fixed baleful eyes on his chamberlain. The man was short and round but dignified in gray hose and a belted red tunic painted with Johan's four-pointed star. Johan had never learned the chamberlain's real name, but called him Hands, for so he used him, as another set of hands. Rising, Johan left a table littered with colorful gimcracks. All were different and all magical, though the mage had yet to learn their functions. A horn covered with veins or glyphs was chipped around the mouth. A ring bore a broad face like a miniature painting, except the image could not be discerned, for it squirmed before one's eyes. A ball was faceted like stained glass, emerald green. A red shield was carved with a face in torment, as if a lost soul were trapped within its iron rim. A helmet had curled ram's horns. A hammer forged of steel had been indented with giant fingerprints. More lay waiting: a spoon, a silver disk, a bone dipped in bronze, a dried toad, some rods and wands, and more. The mage kept them nearby as toys to distract in idle moments. Certainly he didn't need their power, for he had power enough to level a mountain range. The room Johan paced was unending, more than a quarter-mile long, as irregular as a snake's track, carved into the face of a mountain. Walls and floor were smoothed stone while the ceiling contained cracks and crevices and the