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The Brothers' War
by Jeff Grubb
from the series
Magic the Gathering
The Argivian archaeologist removed her lenses and rubbed her tired eyes. The desert grit was everywhere, all the more so when the stiff breeze blew eastward from the inland wastes. The desert air was warm as forge coals, but Tocasia was glad for the gentle wind. Without the breeze it would be merely unbearably and stiflingly hot at the dig site.
The aged researcher sat at an ornate table, a huge monstrosity with thick, fluted legs and a heavy top inlaid with polished shell. It was a gift from one of the noble families of Argive, a reward for "straightening out" an errant scion of their line. The heirloom looked almost comical perched on the outcropping that Tocasia had claimed as her headquarters, beneath a tarpaulin of pale-gray Tomakul muslin.
The gift had been well intentioned, and she could only imagine the expense incurred in sending the table out to her. The desert had already taken its toll: the hand-rubbed finish had been almost entirely blasted away by the sand-laden wind, and the wood beneath had cracked as the heat boiled away the liquids still locked within. Furniture suitable for an Argivian dressing room was much less acceptable in the desert. Still, it was a flat space, and Tocasia appreciated it.
The tabletop was littered with scrolls half-shoved into their cases and survey maps weighted down by bits of rusted metal, the torn edges of the papers fluttering in the breeze. A particularly large chunk of bluish metal sat directly before Tocasia, damning her with its enigma.
It looked like a parody of a human skull, with a batlike face, and cold, impassive eyes of colored crystal set in the unfamiliar blue-tinted metal. The metal itself seemed as ductile and soft as copper, but bending it only caused it to reform slowly into its original shape. A set of Thran glyphs ran along the underside of the skull, which Tocasia had translated roughly as su-chi. Whether this was the name of the creature, its owner, or its manufacturer was a mystery to her.
The skull's lupine lower jaw jutted forward, ending in a handful of fangs. The top of the skull had been peeled away to reveal a tangle of blue metal cables. Set among them was a single large gemstone, the shade of old glass, worn beyond age, and marred by a longitudinal crack along its top.
Tocasia sighed. Even if her diggers could find the rest of this Thran artifact's body, it was unlikely that they would ever get it working again. The damage was too extensive, and even if they could re-create its form, the gemstone that provided its power was shattered. They had found only a double handful of such stones that were whole and functioning. Glowing in rainbow hues, they could power the old Thran devices. The largest of those stones were shipped back to Argive for additional study and in exchange for support and supplies.
A shadow touched the corner of her table, and Tocasia jumped slightly. She had been so involved with the skull that she had not seen anyone approach. She looked up into Loran's dark face and wondered how long the girl had been there.
Loran was a noble's daughter and one of Tocasia's best pupils, though that was not saying much, given the current crop of students. Early in Tocasia's career she had accepted the financial support of many of the noble houses of Penregon. In exchange, the houses would often ship their recalcitrant or rebellious junior members out to the desert for a summer to join the mad archaeologist in her excavation of Thran artifacts.
To be honest, Tocasia thought, most of the youths she received were guilty of nothing more than being typical young people, and their parents were only seeking to get them out of the manor house. Once on the site, their interest in the past varied from minimal to nonexistent. They were glad to be away from the perfumed and protected courts of Penregon, its petty intrigues, and-most important-their parents. Tocasia entrusted them with as much responsibility as they accepted. Some supervised the Fallaji diggers, while others helped glean and catalog the devices they brought to light. Still others were content to man the grapeshot catapults that flanked the camp and served as a deterrent to desert raiders and the scavenging rocs. The young men and women came, served their time, and fled back to the cities with enough tales to impress their friends and enough maturity to mollify their parents.
And a few, such as Loran, had the intelligence, the wisdom, and the presence of mind to come back after their first experience. Loran was on her third season and coming into the full flower of womanhood. Tocasia knew it was only a matter of time before the girl started to care more for ball gowns and dinner parties than for artifacts and dig sites, but for this summer, at least, she was pleased to have her there to help catalog, organize, and coordinate.
Tocasia blinked, pushed her spectacles back up on her nose, and arched an eyebrow at the student. Loran would never speak until spoken to, though Tocasia was trying to break her of that habit.
There was a pause, and then Loran said softly, "The caravan from Argive has arrived."
Tocasia nodded. They had been watching the rising dust cloud from the east all morning, but she'd thought it would be late afternoon before Bly's wagons would reach them. The old wagon master must have finally sprung for new beasts, or else the old aurochs had finally failed him. What Loran meant was that Bly's wagons had finally passed through the stockade gates, and Tocasia had best be there to save her students from the bad-tempered merchant's pique should the mistress of the camp not be there to greet him.
(Copyright by Jeff Grubb)
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