A Tajick raid is nothing strange. The brutality involved in their raids, even less so. No one thinks it's unusual when a Tajick cavalryman beheads anyone, or when a Tajick raider breaks into homes and takes what they wish. That is, after all, what a raid is.
This is standard operating procedure for Tajick clans. They are brutal, no doubt. In fact, the result of their brutality, and what it caused, is the reason Kuesh had come to this place; the edge of Arind.
It was a desolate land, for the most part. Mountains dotted the landscape, and rivers dug, slowly, into its surface. Muddy forests and swamps, though, were its distinguishing feature. In these cesspools rose small villages full of hardy inhabitants who were used to the stench and refuse the bogs coughed up.
And Fardun was no exception. Founded decades earlier by settlers who were forced into exile from fairer homesteads, they paced the land until they could no more, and the place they stopped was named The Fardun Bogs, after the leader of the group, a debilitated old man who had somehow carved his way into the leadership of the pariahs.
Sickly fortifications made of the crudest of materials that could be scavenged from the Bogs guarded the town, in the same way of a piece of bark might defend one from a crossbow bolt at point-blank range. Buildings made of mud were constructed on a partially dry patch of the swamp, and slowly expanded- both the town, and the swamp's influence on it.
Murder was not common. Neither were hatred or grudges. But misery hung over it, and so it was not uncommon for a citizen to commit suicide, and, for the most part, the town was kept under a bit of peace, if only because its denizens were too downcast to do anything about whatever grudges that were carrying. Still, it was always a sad affair when someone was killed, even though the bodies were hardly ever buried, and just used as kindling for the village fire, or, in more desperate times, the roast above such a fire.
It wasn't because the people were naturally weak, or self-deprecating, but because the swamp was a dead end. No one came to settle there. Anyone who did drift by and stayed often did it only to escape some past, certainly troubling event in their life. Everyone who lived there knew that living there meant one thing- you have automatically failed.
And for these reasons, no one cared to raise a hand against the Tajick. But the parents of Denitt did, as best they could, if only to defend him.
Denitt looked on in horror as his parents were held against the wall of a nearby house, and slaughtered. He didn't even have time to react before he was surrounded in an aura of blue and white, and then, suddenly, he was in another world.
The village had calmed down since then. Kuesh walked through it. Obviously the child's spark had caught- there was no question. Now he only had to find out where, and Hopestream was not going to help him, which, frankly, Kuesh hated. Kuesh looked around at the corpses being hauled to the center of the village by people who had tears streaking down their ash-laden cheeks. Sorrow was temporary. But the feast they were going to have was cause for celebration. No one was sad for what had been taken, of course, because nothing of value was taken. There was nothing of value to take.
No one looked to Kuesh. He looked at their faces, blank. But still melancholy. A village of nothing had become even less of nothing.
Kuesh sighed. Feelings weren't his job.
He wanted to get out of this swamp as soon as possible. It's energy made him drowsy and conflicted. He kept walking.
Fog settled around the village. Still inhabitants hauled corpses away. Shadows got longer and Kuesh became more uneasy and uncertain. This was a simple job, right? He had never felt this way before, and a slow horror was dawning on him.
A group of guards walked past Kuesh, expressionless. One held a longsword. He clasped it with both hands, as if preparing for battle. Another loaded a bolt into her crossbow. Yet another carried his pike; malice in his shape. All three passed without incident.
Kuesh lifted his arm and summoned a spark detecting spell, which had been perfected long ago at Tolarian Academy by Urza, before his untimely death. It was one of many spells he had kept hidden and which had never been found for centuries, hiding in the dark recesses of the Academy until it was found by intrepid explorers. Kuesh was one of those explorers. He bragged about it often.
The spell lit up in a brilliant blue and white flare, the colors Kuesh was most associated with. It showed a great map. Denitt was not on this plane. Kuesh sighed. He had wasted a lot of time to get a very obvious answer.
He stood still, thought deeply, and went away.
Denitt looked left at the lush greenery. Denitt looked right at the spiralling mountains. He looked down at the soil, the barely covered gray patterns that looked like bone. He looked up at the cloudless sky, in which hung a brilliant light. Denitt had never seen a sun so bright and it terrified him. To anyone with experience of the Multiverse looking in, this place would be called Zendikar. To Denitt, it was a strange and frightening place, an alien world that he had come to for reasons beyond his understanding or comprehension.
Denitt was in a medium sized clearing surrounded by plants, but barren of more sophisticated life.
He walked forward. The gray, bony substance cracked a little beneath his feet, but otherwise the ground was stable. He walked up to a bush, and held his hand out. It didn't snap at him, or growl, or do any of the other things Denitt had come to associate bushes with. It was just a simple, benign bush. It sat there in the ground like a lot of bushes do.
Denitt looked around again and walked up to a tree that looked somewhat malnourished but otherwise was completely average-looking. He touched it. It also didn't do anything.
What is this place, he thought.
"What is this place?" he thought outloud. No one answered except a slight breeze that echoed through the forest. His voice echoed with it, then disappeared.
Denitt walked into the treeline. He kept walking. The weight of his situation struck him.
He stopped.
Then he picked up a sprint. What if he got to the summit of a mountain? When if he climbed a tree? Could he find a way back home then? Was he still anywhere near home? He thought of stories from his village. Long ago, beings were exiled, or simply destroyed, becoming nothing but a soulless husk. Isn't that how his people originally wound up in the treacherous swamps? He thought more. Some though, were sent far away by the most expert of mages. Did that happen to him? If so, how far away was he? Why him?
He sprinted more. He looked up at a large mountain spewing liquid rock down its sides. Unbeknownst to him it had been a lot more active only centuries earlier, but the sapping of mana had drained the pinnacle to nothing more than short bursts of rock, and then silence for a few years, and the cycle would repeat. This was happening now. The cycle was beginning again. Denitt didn't know. Unbeknownst to him as well was its name, one as ancient as the plane of Zendikar itself.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
He ran toward it, as trees receded and gave way to rock. Obsidian and granite passed in equal. The fires of the summit burned eternal.
Far away, Kuesh came to Zendikar. He arrived with a blade this time, that he had picked up from Hopestream. They were very disappointed he hadn't returned with the boy, but Kuesh was in a very sour mood, so he told them half in jest that they should throw themselves off Hopestream's cliffs if they were so inclined. They gave him a blade and told him the boy was on Zendikar, near the Molten Pinnacle. Kuesh sighed. he very much disliked Zendikar. He seemed to always get into trifles with its inhabitants. He even more disliked Valakut.
. The elves near Valakut tended to be very… violent, so the blade was appreciated. Kuesh was uncomfortable close to the Molten Pinnacle, and he didn't like it.
Denitt looked across the valleys, and forests. Rivers sliced the landscape. Great grey swathes crossed it, like the ones Denitt had stood on when he first arrived here. Smoke from the fiery mountain choked the air and lowered visibility. Somewhere, a flock of birds took off. Somewhere else, the noises of an animal could be heard, loud and low. It was far away. Denitt feared for what a creature that could make that sound might look like. What it could do to him. He shuddered. Then he remembered his predicament. He shuddered again, but deeper.
He collapsed onto his knees. He looked down in shock. His knees hurt. His pants had been torn by obsidian that had cut into his knees. He didn't care. He enjoyed the pain, if only because it numbed that which he had experienced already in the last few hours.
He lied down. He wanted to sleep. Maybe it was all… he closed his eyes… maybe it was all a bad… he took a deep breath… dream? A tear rolled down his cheek.
The mountain exploded in fiery protest.
Kuesh was uncertain where to go. The child was… blue? Perhaps he was aligned with black. He had, after all, spent his entire life in a swamp. But he was assured the child was blue. That's why he had been sent, but Kuesh didn't detect their presence near the rivers. But, for some reason, he felt a strong pull to Valakut. It's read mana infused his head with static.
It dawned on him that that reason wasn't as strange as he wanted to admit. The boy was up there. And the mountain was erupting, of course. It was, after all, just his luck.
He channeled a teleportation spell, the kind he was told never to use except in emergencies. This counted.
He went away, several kilometers. The trees around his previous point vaporized from the explosion. That could be heard for miles.
Kuesh came to the foot of the pinnacle with a splitting headache. He remembered why he was told never to do that. It his first combat situation, he had used it, thinking it would be a neat trick. He was almost killed in that exchange afterwards. It hurt.
Kuesh felt as deep as he could, any kind of amalgamation that could even resemble where the newly sparked planeswalker might be located. In a rush, it came to him. He was on the north side of the mountain. Kuesh was on the east. He sighed, then broke into a sprint.
Denitt felt a deep fear, for the first time in- actually in only a couple hours. But it felt like forever since he had this kind of apprehension.
The mountain burst again, and Denitt took off down it. The previous hours had been a constant fight for survival, and a soul-crushing elapse, and still life did not abate its hardships.
He thought he heard a voice yelling after him, but he just winced and kept running.
It called out more. It was just the wind.
Then, in a flash, there was a man, right in front of Denitt, hardly even a couple meters away.
"Stop!" he exclaimed.
It was not the wind.
Denitt stopped. But he had stopped too fast- he tripped and fell, but the man caught him. Denitt was bruised. He hurt all over. Now someone was here. Probably a Tajick raider. But he didn't think the raiders could move across the land like that…? Denitt was probably about to die. Would it be painful? Would he be reunited with his parents? That sounded good; even if it was the slimmest possibility, Denitt didn't care anymore.
"Just kill me, get it over with, would you?" Denitt got up, head hung. He was desperate not to look at Kuesh.
"What!?"
The boy looked up tentatively.
"Just do it." The boy looked to Kuesh's hand- the blade was out.
"Gods!" Kuesh holstered the blade and looked at the child. "I'm sorry." He held out his hand, friendly, and relieved. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm actually-"
The boy looked at Kuesh, almost remorseful, as if he wanted Kuesh to kill him.
Valakut exploded.
"Uh," Kuesh said, staring up. "I think we're going to have to cut the introduction short." He paused. "I'm sorry- I didn't get your name."
The boy stared at Kuesh, dumbfounded. "Who are you?" he asked, almost disgusted, but horrifically confused, more than anything else.
"Tell me your name," Kuesh persisted.
"Denitt."
"Just… Denitt?" Kuesh asked.
The mountain began to pour its lava down the side, coming straight for the pair.
"It'll have to do!" Kuesh took hold of Denitt. "Listen to me. What I say next is going to save your life, okay? So listen good."
Denitt didn't respond. His face was blank, like the villagers of the Fardun Bogs. He briefly thought how unsettling it was, that they'd all do that...
There was no time for thoughts like that though.
"Okay, think deeply. Actually, close your eyes. Close your eyes first." Kuesh stopped. Denitt obeyed. "Okay, next… think really deeply. Just trust me on this, okay?" Denitt nodded. "Imagine a flat island, in the sky-"
"An island in the sky…?" Denitt questioned.
"Just think of one!" Kuesh yelled. He calmed himself in the next moment. "Sorry. Er… yes. An island in the sky. Now imagine it swoop up into a large mountain; a hill."
"Still in the sky?"
"Yes. Now, think of a fortress built into that hill. Think of it, surrounded by floating stone chunks, and a horizon that's simultaneously misty, but so clear that you-"
The mountain burst a final time. There were but a few seconds remaining.
Kuesh continued. "A misty and yet clear horizon. Imagine grass in a clearing on that island in the sky. Imagine touching down on it, lightly. Think all these things, then imagine disappearing." Kuesh too, now closed his eyes. "Imagine that ground, and it's softness, and the harsh yet kind atmosphere that surrounds it, cold but not quite wintry, soft, but not quite so inviting. All these things…" He stopped, shutting his eyes tighter, a tear rolling down his cheek. He remembered back to when his spark had been ignited, and the description of Hopestream he had received from a comrade long past…"now."
Kuesh opened his eyes, getting rid of his emotion. Denitt was gone.
Kuesh looked to the right at the red liquid coursing towards him, only seconds away. He dismissed it and followed suit behind Denitt. Off they both were, to a place so far away.
