Even though I'm from all time and no time at once, that makes my story no less important. My name is Jace Beleran, although many call me Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I'm what is called a Planeswalker, and that power allows me to shift from plane of existence through the æther. There are many other planeswalkers, but this is the tale of one specific one, one named Aramet.
Before we get started, allow me to explain planeswalkers to you. You see, every life-form, both organic and inorganic, can be born with an inborn power we refer to as "The Planeswalker Spark." Many go their whole lives without ever realizing the nearly limitless power they possess, but some have their sparks awakened during near death experiences. Each of us has a special set of powers that come from within, and once awakened most Planeswalkers roam from plane to plane looking for a home that can accept them, but Aramet was different.
On my home plane of Esper, while resting in my chambers alone, a man in brown desert robes appeared seemingly from nowhere, and collapsed upon my bed. He did not move for several hours, and then suddenly was up like a shot, staring strait into my eyes. "You're one of them... us... You're a planeswalker," the man rasped. I nodded quietly, probing his mind. Suddenly a wall erected itself inside his mind.
"Open your mind planeswalker, allow me into your mind." Again I probed his mind, and found the wall now reinforced. In his mind, my spark's avatar stood before the wall, calling up at him atop the wall. His face seemed strange, even at this distance. It looked as though it were chiseled from sand stone.
Who stands at the gates of my castle? What is your name Planeswalker? The voice so strong, yet still quiet, rang true in my head. Ah, Jace Beleran, the man I was seeking. You will of course forgive my mortal body, I am still new to this. Add to that the number of times I've been attack while searching for you.
I did the only thing I could do, I responded as puzzled as I truly was. "How do you know my name if I have not told you? How do you know you seek me when we have not before met?" I have not, to this very day, ever felt so surprised and trapped except in the presence of Nicol Bolas. Again his voice rang in my head although I could not see his mouth move.
I am a very powerful telepath, which I would have expected you to ascertain before venturing into my mind. My true voice is much to hard to understand. The section of the wall he stood upon seemed to melt into a small pile of black sand and rust. This was my first look at what his spark's avatar looked like, that which he truly appeared to be. He was chiseled from sandstone so to speak. Borne of the Sandstone Cliffs of Aduin. I'd heard tales of them, the stone giants of Aduin, great telepaths, skin made of a Silicon-Iron alloy. It gave the coloration of a kind of glistening red sandstone.
My name is Aramet, I am the first planeswalker from my people in well over a millennium. We are a race of people with amazing power and strength but most of whom lack imagination. Since the arrival of the other Planeswalker on my plane they have changed. I was exiled. A great sigh left his lungs and we entered the castle of his mind. The other planeswalker? It couldn't be Bolas this soon could it. We had hurt him and he'd run to lick his wounds.
"This other planeswalker, what was his name?" I asked, expecting it to be one of the other planeswalkers I'd met when the Shards of Alara slammed themselves back together. I knew it could not be Elspeth, The Knight Errant, she has moved on to another plane far from Aduin.
His name? It was a woman, she exiled me to find you and ask for your help. Her name was Chandra Nalar. She tried to teach me of my powers, but her mind was to weak and her flames to hot. Thence I came to seek you out, now out of my head and heal my wounds. Suddenly I was back in my true body, slumped against the wall, looking at the man across my bed. I summoned the powers of my spark and walked over to the hurt man.
Using the powers of my mind and my planeswalkers spark it took only mere minutes to heal the man. The amount of power required to heal him was to much however, and I blacked out. I awoke to find my suite gone and the walls around me now made of a beautiful black sandstone with veins of metallic glass running throughout.
Good, you're awake. I was wondering how long it would be before you woke up and we could continue on. The man looked much closer to how he had in his mind now, his ragged robes now longer and more lavish, made of the finest silver and gold filigree threads. On the chest and back of his robes in the black metal were a logo similar to one I'd seen several times before. But the eyes were wrong...
"The emblem on your robes... do you serve Nicol Bolas?" As soon as the words were out of my mind I could feel the eyes of the giant planeswalker boring into me.
Nicol Bolas has not been heard of on this plane in many thousand years. It was from here that he was exiled to Dominaria, even then I could sense his latent spark. I serve his Nemesis, the one who exiled him, the great dragon lord, Arcades Sabboth. Back then I didn't know what I was, but I could feel something within him. The giant then spun on his heels and stalked off toward an exterior ante-room. I followed after him, discovering a window in the wall that looked out over the ocean as far as the eye could see. Upon approaching I realized we were several hundred feet up a cliff.
"I guess you should take me to Chandra, she..."
"Why bring you to me Mind Sculptor? I am here to see you." The sharp voice cut deep into my very soul. I turned to face the voice and there stood all 4 of the allies I had served with against Nicol Bolas on Alara. Although only the strange Barbarian Planeswalker known as Wildspeaker looked the same. Elspeth, the tall warrior woman of Bant looked much more humble, Chandra looked as though her spark had set her ablaze with power. Sarkhan Vol, the one I had most feared, had lost most of his mind in the battle against Nicol Bolas. His eyes looked mad and almost Feral.
The one who looked the closest to the same was Ajani, the great white Leonin. A great Lion Man, 7 feet tall and carrying a massive weapon. He seemed almost at peace, as if the demons that had hunted him had finally been laid to rest. If only all of us could be so lucky. Ajani spoke, his voice quiet and soothing compared to the last time I'd heard it. "Tezzeret is back, on this plane. He serves Bolas now, and bows to him. He has been even more corrupted, and he has challenged this man, Aramet, Servent of Sabboth, to one-on-one combat. We are here so that, should he fail, we shall be prepared to fight off Bolas and his new puppet."
Aramet looked at me, his eyes seeing through my elaborate disguises. The time is near, we must go to the planes of Asphodel and prepare to battle the forces of Bolas. Suddenly the room around us was gone and we were on what must have been the Planes of Asphodel. The castle of Aramet's mind stood behind us. Yes, Mister Beleran, that is what you saw inside my mind. It is the citadel of Sabboth, just as I am the warrior of Sabboth. The giant threw off his robes and stood at his full height of nine feet. His skin was that same metallic glass, but inside his skin you could see electric currents flowing throughout. Suddenly, on the other side of the sand planes appeared Tezzeret, but he too had changed much since we were friends. His right arm, which used to be made of beautiful filigree, was now a skeletal claw made of purified elemental energy or Mana.
The voice that called out across the barren planes was much closer to that of Bolas himself than that of Tezzeret. For the first time since I had first seen him, Aramet began to speak, his voice like that of the ground itself. "Tezzeret, this is your last chance to serve a true leader before I must destroy your spark and your very essence. Do you Yield?" Tezzeret just laughed and suddenly the sound of thousands of machines coming alive filled the planes. Hundreds of small Machines crawled across the sandscape, and thousands of Ornithopters filled the skys.
Suddenly Aramet was running so fast he was barely a blur in the dusk of the setting of the Black Sun and the rise of the Red Sun. Suddenly the sand seemed to start glowing under the Red Sun's first rays and then seemed to start lashing out at the automatons walking across it's surface. Suddenly Aramet's voice seemed to be all around them as the Red Sun pushed the Black Sun from the sky, "Surrender Tezzeret, and you can still live."
The smaller walking machines were already disabled on the ground, sliced into small pieces by the assault of the sand itself. The ground started forming spires of the metallic glass that started splintering and shredding the wings on the ornithopters, which plummeted into the vicious sandstorm raging at ground level. No matter how many the very substance of Asphodel shredded, two more took their place.
"Aramet, you cannot stop my hoard forever, and unlike mortals, machines never tire, never relent, and never disobey." Suddenly behind the Servant of Bolas appeared a Dark Steel Colossus. The small machines all backed away and allowed the great mammoth machine to come toward us. The sand storm settled, and before my very eyes I saw Aramet form from thin air.
"But you forget, Slave of Evil, that I am of the very ground itself. This whole plane responds to my will. You may believe your beast indestructible, but he is easily dealt with." With the finishing of his sentence, the ground seemed to turn liquid under the mammoth steel being, and swallowed it up to it's head, and with a horrible steel rending sound, expelled the head mounted on a Darksteel Ingot.
"We shall meet again Aramet. Also, Jace, count your days, for they are numbered and few. Bolas will have your head." As the ground flew up and engulfed Tezzeret he laughed and before he was fully enclosed he was gone, shifted to another plane of existence. Already the planes had begun mending themselves, absorbing the metal into the sands themselves. Hardening and absorbing that which can make it stronger still.
I must go, Nicol Bolas must be destroyed for good, before he can return here and usurp Sabboth. Will anyone accompany me on the next leg of my Journey?
To be continued.