Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [108]
As Malfegor saw the blade, and as the light from the blade approached his skin, he howled. As Rafiq flew toward him, the demon raked his claws across Rafiq’s body. Rafiq felt his armor tear away from him as if it were paper, but he didn’t feel the hellish claws cut his skin, nor did his trajectory waver. He fell into the beast, his destiny unalterable.
Rafiq swung once, twice, and the sword cut through the abomination, slicing deep channels of light all the way through his body. Two fissures in the shape of an “X” tore Malfegor open from his shoulders to his hips, and his body parted at the seams. The demon’s arms fell to the sides, his head rolled backward, and his body crumpled to the ground. The abomination collapsed, a mountain of death, destroyed.
THE MAELSTROM
Ajani’s tormented thoughts of vengeance were shattered by a blast of fire from above.
“Well met, Ajani Goldmane!” shouted Sarkhan, from the back of the dragon Karrthus. Behind them were more dragons, each tearing through the air in their own loops and patterns. As Ajani ran for cover, the dragons wheeled about, and swooped in to breathe fire over the armies of elves and nacatl. Dragon fire scorched great swathes of the humanoids, sending the armies into chaos.
“Destroy them!” shouted the elf Mayael.
The gorge around the mana maelstrom erupted with magic. Elves blasted the dragons with thorn-spiked winds, with particles of Naya jungles shredding their scales and wings. Zaliki threw strength magic across the humanoid armies, trying to boost their resilience to the flames. Even Kresh’s warriors cast symbolic war-curses into the fray as they leveled all their spears at the draconic enemies.
Torrents of magic whipped all around Ajani; he felt it thrashing at his mind. The dragons’ rage, the armies’ spellcasting—it all served to churn up the maelstrom of mana before him. As streams of mana flowed into it from four directions, flares of jagged energy also surged outward from it, lashing the dragons and humanoid warriors alike. As magic swirled around the gorge, the maelstrom only got more and more violent.
They were contributing to it, he thought, and they needed to stop feeding it. If any entity was able to tap into that much primal power, it could overload, sending the maelstrom and the lines of mana that fed it into a chain reaction that could destroy all five worlds.
So when a new, fifth stream of mana flickered to life, from the obelisk in Bant, Ajani knew he had to do something drastic.
You’ve put it together, brother, said Jazal’s voice.
“I have to stop it,” said Ajani. “We’re causing the maelstrom. We’re feeding it.”
So, stop feeding it, said Jazal. “But I have to stop them all from feeding it.”
So, stop them all.
Ajani’s vision clouded. Around him he saw only the streaks of mana—nature magic, magic of fire and rage, magic of healing and protection, and others—thrashing back and forth between the humanoids and Sarkhan’s flight of rage-blooded dragons. All of them were fueled by bonds of mana, bonds that anchored their magic to the power inherent in the realms of Alara. To his surprise, Ajani could perceive the bonds directly, as if they had been beams of light revealed by smoke. He saw traceries of connection and correspondence all around him, joining every mage and monster with their sources of power all over the world. The volume of mana flowing from all corners of Alara was enormous, all cascading to the maelstrom at the intersection of all the shards.
It had to stop. He had to staunch the flow somehow.
Ajani saw his own mana bonds, bonds not only with Naya, but with the volcanic shard of Jund where he had first planeswalked. He saw the cauldron of lava into which Sarkhan had vaulted, and into which he threw himself in a moment of glory and rage. He summoned mana from all sources he knew, and cast it all out in one savage roar.
Energy blasted outward from Ajani, throwing a metaphysical gust around the maelstrom gorge.