A Tower(?), Somewhere, Somewhen (Probably Saturday Fandom Time???)

[deathsmajesty]

The purple shadowed tower through rainy glass. Streaks fire heavy with top dark falling. Emrakul cackles thought with cold loop metal...

A voice cut through the chaotic ramble, a familiar voice he was hearing for the first time. This is not going well. I will not succumb to this. I am better than this. Jace breathed evenly and slowly. Thought cohered. He tried to recall the gibberish dominating his mind just seconds ago, but it had already vanished, evanescent dew melting with the dawn. He was at the top of a long, grand spiraling staircase, white marble steps lined with ornate blue trim. The staircase was brightly lit though there was no obvious light source, and it extended down far beyond his sight.

Above was a tall and airy stone tower. Closer to ground, it looked like his sanctum back on Ravnica. Large stone table with piles of books, maps, and several...contraptions that whirred and buzzed. Bookcases stuffed with books everywhere the eye could see, and he gazed at them longingly. It didn't just look like his Ravnica apartments...it was them, except back on Ravnica there was no palatial staircase spiraling down in the middle.

And back on Ravnica there was certainly no monstrous force destroying his sanctum from above.

Hundreds of feet in the air above, Jace saw large stone blocks of the tower crumbling away, or grabbed and flung. The entire roof of the tower was already gone, revealing a darkened sky flooded with an ominous purple overcast. As Jace watched the destruction, he realized the purple overcast was not a cloud. It was a thing. A creature. The creature resolved into a gigantic purple cloud extending hundreds of wiggling tendrils. The tendrils lashed and writhed toward the tower, accompanied by flashes of lightning and deafening booms outside. The creature had a name...

Emrakul. The name sounded strange even as he said it, a word he should not know, a word he could not know. Or perhaps that was the word underneath the word... Jace paused, chagrined at how effortless losing his train of thought was. Focus. Emrakul. A...thing. An Eldrazi. The Eldrazi. Jace's mind struggled to encompass the nature of the entity. His head hurt, a dull, pounding ache that grew with each contemplation of the Eldrazi titan outside. So don't think about it. Where am I? What is this place?

More memories returned. He hadn't been in a tower. He had been in Thraben, besieged by countless hordes of Emrakul's minions. They all were. Ignis. Gideon. Tamiyo. Nissa. Chandra. Liliana. She had made a surprise appearance, leading a host of zombies to save them from the Eldrazi spawn and creatures driven mad by Emrakul. Liliana came back. She...

A low, pain-filled groan interrupted his thoughts; a noise he'd become almost distressingly familiar with over these past few days. "Ignis??"

	Pushing through the pain was nothing. Ignis had pushed through unbearable more times than he could even recall Pushing through the despair, the utter hopelessness, however...now that. That was a different matter altogether. He had accepted a world plunged into darkness a long time ago. He embraced it, he found comfort in it at times, he wore it now like a cloak and wielded it as well as any of his weapons. But this was worse than darkness. This was deeper than that, this was a vast nothingness, hollowed out, scraped out, leaving him carved of everything inside. He'd been here once before, and he'd gone there willingly. He had not gone willingly now. Quite the opposite, making it all the more ironic that there would be no Lucii to drag him out this time. No Noct. No Gentiana. There had been, briefly, sitting and watching him with unbearable passive calm and glowing, ghostly whisps, the figure of a carbuncle, but now even that was gone. Only himself, or what was left of him, which wasn't much, but it had to be enough. It had to be. As as he tried to squeeze blood from that stone, there was, finally, a voice. It wasn't a pleasant voice. It certainly wasn't the voice he wanted to hear. But could beggars really be choosers? (Yes, said a part of him that solidified once again in that deep, deep darkness. Yes, they certainly can). "Jace," he sighed out. Not in relief, just resigned acceptance. The shadows around him lightened, in both weight and opacity, and he clung to that small bright spot of something that mattered, and slowly, it began to matter more than anything else. Until he realized that shadows had disappeared completely. When he opened his eyes, he could actually see. He blinked a few times, confused and disoriented, and the roaring pain before his eyes seemed to surge from the brightness, the colors, shapes his brain needed a moment to make sense of, occasionally marred with a whisp of purple-black smoke he didn't yet realize was drifting up from behind his glasses. "What...what happened?" He managed, and every time he blinked, he expected everything to descend back into darkness again, but the vision held. Something of Jace's doing then? With a sudden snap of clarity, as he staggered to his feet, his search found a new laser-sharp focus. "Where's Liliana?" If anything, he still had his priorities.
	"I--I don't know," Jace said, looking around. "I don't know where any of them are. Or where we are." A loud peal of thunder rattled outside and the ground quaked briefly beneath their feet. As the ground shook, Jace's head began to pound. Lightning flashed, illuminating Emrakul's tentacles as they tore off more huge chunks of the stone structure. The tower was large and massive, but Emrakul was dismantling it stone by stone. "But we can't stay here." A soft white light began pulsing deeper below in the stairway. The light beckoned. Normally Jace knew enough to distrust beckoning soft white lights in a place he did not know leading to even more places he did not know. But most normal situations did not have attacking omnipotent Eldrazi titans. The white glow looked like an increasingly intriguing option. There was a bright explosion outside, a long, deep purpleness followed by a deafening roar of thunder. The entire tower reverberated as lightning struck it. Jace crumpled to the ground in pain, his head throbbing with agony.
	"Well, that much," Ignis murmured, squinting a little as he finished his cursory glance around the tower before his attention drifted toward the window; when the ground rumbled beneath them, he ventured carefully closer for a better look at what was going on beyond their unexpected location, "is clearly evide--" At first, the words were cut off by distraction; arriving at the window, the new vantage point afforded him a view of the battlefield down below, which he would have considered immediately advantageous from a tactical perspective if it wasn't for the sight of Liliana down below with her horde. And just as he was about to scold himself for being momentarily, fascinatingly captivated, the lightning struck the tower like a reprimand to not allow this sudden restoration of vision sway him from the task at hand. He stumbled, fighting to keep his balance, especially with the swirl of color and light that he was unaccustomed to, but he saw his reluctant companion fall and rushed to his side. Torturous though it was, to pull himself from that window, and not just because of whatever residual pain wafted over from whatever link they current shared. "Jace!" he said, kneeling beside the other man to help him back to his feet again. "Are you alright? Let's get out of here now." The tower shuddered once again, and Ignis almost began making calculations in his head for repelling down the outside, if they must. "While we still can."
	What is happening to me? And then another voice, his voice, but coming from somewhere outside, spoke with the force of command. Move. Move now. Go downstairs. That voice was echoed by Ignis, speaking aloud, as he helped Jace stand, steadied him as he wavered. Jace looked up through the ruins of the tower into the ravening purple maw of Emrakul, its endless tentacles wrapping themselves around more and more of the stone bulwarks. That was enough to get him moving, sending him staggering to the stairway. He decided the voice, both voices, the one belonging to Ignis and the one that he was pretty sure was his own, were right. It was time to leave. Past time. "Down," he agreed shakily, and began to descend into the depths of the tower.

	Liliana pushed herself up to her feet while around her, her zombies continued to chant Emrakul's name. Her blood was on fire, her mind in shreds. One force kept her coherent: rage. Those are my zombies. Mine! You will not have them! Without conscious thought she drew deep on the power of the Chain Veil, and pushed back against the might of Emrakul. She could feel the Eldrazi's blighted touch, a touch now so powerful it affected even the dead. But even that baleful touch was no match for Liliana's necromantic prowess backed by the force of the Chain Veil. She felt her zombies return to her. The power coursing through her veins was exhilarating. Each previous time she used the Veil there was agony and rupture, but somehow this time her rage inoculated her from the worst of the Chain Veil's injuries. Perhaps that is the answer to unlocking the Chain Veil. I never wanted it enough.
	Voices still whispered to her from the Veil directly in her mind. *Vessel of destruction. Root of evil.* Nor were those the only voices she heard. The Raven Man added his stultifying tones. *We must leave here. This is madness. I thought you wanted to conquer death. The entity you face here is older than time, and more powerful than you, even if you wielded a hundred Chain Veils! We must leave!* The Raven Man tried to issue it as a command. Never had he sounded so naked, so vulnerable.
	Liliana spared a glance at the others on the ground. Ignis, Chandra, Tamiyo, and Gideon were sprawled on the ground, unconscious. She briefly reached out with her power, but their forms did not respond to necromantic touch; they all still lived. Nissa was rooted in place, screaming, the words emanating from her mouth gibberish. Green and purple energy pooled around her, clashing, ebbing and flowing. Jace was the only one who stood and seemed to be conscious, though he took no notice of her. She noticed a blue shimmer around him, a penumbra that extended to the other five. Is that what's keeping you alive? The penumbra did not extend to her. But she didn't need his help. Liliana had known considerable power, power partnered with the wisdom and ruthlessness born from two hundred long years of life. But she knew none of that would have protected her from the mental onslaught from Emrakul. She would have been obliterated, except for the power of the Chain Veil. Power she now wielded, and wielded gladly. She laughed with the thrill of it. It was the closest she had yet come to the nigh-omnipotence of her former self, back when being a Planeswalker had meant something. When they had been something akin to gods. I can do anything.
	Still the voices of the Veil whispered in her head. *Vessel. Vessel of destruction. We must flee the World-Ender. The World-Creator. Vessel!* The Raven Man's voice choked with panic. *Listen to the Veil, you idiot! Flee!* Even her zombies began chanting. "Root of evil. Vessel of destruction. Vessel!"
	Liliana stopped laughing, her voice echoing with rage and power. "I. AM. NOT. A. VESSEL!" She shut down the voices of the Veil and the Raven Man both, silencing them abruptly. She could feel their fury and impotence as they railed against her. All that matters is my will. My desire. Nothing can stand before me. She tapped into the Veil, harnessing more power than she had ever dared before. I don't belong to you. You belong to me. She gathered the energies of the Veil, harnessed them to her own considerable power and experience. In the throes of such power she no longer felt Emrakul's mental assault, allowing her to turn her full attention to the gigantic Eldrazi titan. As if it recognized her growing power, the titan was moving slowly in her direction. Everyone seems to be afraid of you, Emrakul. She laughed again, a cackle as she reveled in her power. No one thinks I can beat you. Let's find out.

	The long staircase continued to spiral down with no sign of the next floor. There was no turning back, however; everything more than a few feet behind them was swallowed by a deep shadow that no light could pierce. "I guess these stairs only go down," he murmured to Ignis. "...Not that there's much to go back to, anymore, I guess." He thought he should find being shepherded along an unknown stairway down into the depths of a strange tower alarming, but he was calm. "Down here is definitely safer than up there." Especially since they could still hear Emrakul's raging assault and thunder as she tore apart whatever her tentacles could reach. "I wonder how much further--" The featureless stone wall to their left began to shimmer. As they watched, the entire wall, from steps to ceiling, transformed into a clear pane of glass, like a giant picture window. And through the window was a scene, like a diorama children would make for school. Except, even as they watched, this diorama began to move.
	The central figure in the scene was Gideon. He was squaring off against some kind of celestial being who towered over him. Literally celestial—the figure was made of a starry night sky. The celestial figure had two large black horns framing a blue, non-human face. He wielded an impossibly large whip with a human skull in the handle. Gideon looked suitably Gideon-esque, square jaw, golden sural, and gleaming armor intact. But the look on his face was not the Gideon Jace knew at all. This Gideon looked worried, almost scared. There was anger on that face...but also fear. Interesting. Around Gideon stood the other members of the Gatewatch. Chandra, her hands and head blazing. Nissa. Even a Jace. "Surely I'm taller than that," Jace mumbled to himself.
	Despite himself, Ignis let out a soft, tired huff of a laugh at that little aside, pleased to learn that regaining his sight had not dulled his keen sense for picking up on murmured commentary. But it did nothing to relieve the restless itch crawling over every inch of his skin, the slow work down the staircase making him feel like a coeurl in a cage. It didn't help that Jace was, unsurprisingly, incorrect. There were other ways down the tower, though he would admit, they were not nearly as ideal of a way to descend, especially since he suspected he was not as good at judging distances by sight these days. But there had been, at least for Ignis, several windows along the way down, glimpses onto that battlefield, with Liliana and her magnificent army at the very center of it. Or perhaps that was merely all he cared to see, this temporary boon honing in with characteristic laser focus on the one thing that mattered most in all of this. And instead of being out there, fighting beside her, he was, instead, stuck in a seemingly endless tower with Jace Beleren. Ignis was certain it was some sort of karmic retribution for insisting upon helping him in the first place. You'd think, by now, he'd have learned that departing Liliana's side was almost always a mistake. But when the wall faded and showed him something much different than he expected, it threw Ignis a little, but he also took the opportunity to soak in everything he saw, not just for tactical purposes, but for memory, too, and his huff was just as much for Jace's comment as it was for confirming or denying his perceptions of the Gateswatch thus far. "Oh, I'm sure," he drawled with dry assurance, "it's all just a matter of perspective, Jace." He reached out a hand to touch the window, and was disappointed but not surprised to find it quite solid and unyielding. "Do you know who that is?" His chin lifted toward Gideon and his opponent. "The looming figure with the whip?" Normally, Ignis wouldn't feel the need to specify, but he had to consider his audience.
	The celestial figure spread his arms out wide, whip to the side. He spoke with a deep, resonating voice that seemed to bubble up from the ground. "And what is it you, Kytheon Iora, most desire? What do you truly want?" "No!" Gideon shouted, his face contorted in defiance and pain. "There is nothing you can offer me, Erebos, nothing! From you, all is poison." The being raised his whip. "It is not an offer, mortal. Tell me true what you most desire or I will kill your friends, one by one."
	"So his name seems to be Erebos and I think he's a dick," Jace replied. You know, like a helper.
	"Be careful with those astute observations, Jace," Ignis noted dryly, "lest I find myself blinded yet again by their astounding brilliance."
	Gideon's shoulders slumped, his sural retreated back into its sheath. He looked up at Erebos, his face a mixture of anger and despair. "I most desire..." he paused, drawing a deep breath, "I most desire to protect others, to save them..." "You lie." Erebos's whip lashed out, and as it struck the Jace next to Gideon he disintegrated, his flesh dissolving upon its touch. Gideon screamed and lunged, his sural flashing, but Erebos stood unmoved. He raised his hand and Gideon was flung backwards. "You cannot defeat me, mortal. You never have. You never will. Tell me truth and I will let the rest of your friends live."
	"Really don't like watching myself die," Jace muttered, his hands on the glass separating them from the scene. There was a loud peal of thunder outside, Emrakul, that's Emrakul, and Jace could not hear Gideon's reply over the din. Whatever Gideon's answer, Erebos was not satisfied. Once more the whip lashed, and now Nissa disintegrated with its touch. Gideon flinched as Nissa was struck down, but did not attack this time. Chandra stood there looking blank, her flaming hands at her side doing nothing. "This scene is definitely not reality. Is it inside Gideon's head?"
	Ignis' perception of the scene before them shifted as soon as Erebos had struck the visage of Jace down; sucking in a breath, he tensed, but when there was no distinct change to the Jace beside him, he....well, relaxed was certainly not the right word, but he did start to wonder about what they had just witnessed. Thoughts that were echoed with Jace's question, but he shook his head. "Perhaps," he said. "You'd certainly know better than I would. But that does seem...highly likely. Let's just keep going. Perhaps Emrakul," there was an echo inside of him that made him regret speaking the name out loud, "is just attempting go distract us."
	"You think this is her doing?" Jace asked. "I don't kn--" Gideon's voice cracked like the whip Erebos carried, laced with anger. "I want to defeat you, to tear you down so you can no longer..." "No. You continue to speak lies." Erebos's voice, in contrast, was placid as a graveyard. Another lash of the whip, and Chandra vanished. "Must you lose everyone before you acknowledge truth, mortal? All your stubbornness to what end? You are determined to feel the most pain." Erebos's whip danced with its master's touch. "What do you want?" Gideon raised his head to the skies and screamed, "I want..." but before he finished his sentence the window went dark.
	Jace stayed still a moment, silent, stunned at all he had witnessed. Who is Erebos? What pain is Gideon going through? Jace had had no idea his friend was suffering this way. And my ignorance about Gideon is matched by my lack of knowledge of what is going on here. "Are these dreams?" he asked aloud. "Are we inside Gideon's head? The Emrakul above certainly seems real."
	Ignis just gave a soft, disgruntled hum of uncertainty. "I'm not sure," he admitted, "but what I do know is that we'd best keep going. Perhaps more will become clearer as we reach the bottom." Even as he said it, he was distracted, again, by another of those small windows, looking out over the battlefield. One of the ones that Jace didn't seem to notice, for whatever reason, and his heart surged in his chest as it looked over Liliana. "But let's do it quickly."
	The shadows pressed closer to them, stealing a little more of their light. "You're right, we need to keep moving. The answers are farther down." And that resolve lasted a whole maybe five, six steps when another wall went transparent. This time the scene featured Tamiyo. She sat hunched on a small workbench, poring over a large unfurled scroll on a dusty table. The sole illumination in the scene was a candle, but it gave off far too much light for its size. Behind Tamiyo were shelves full of books, and more piles of books beside them. Jace felt a nostalgic pang. "To be surrounded by nothing but books and all the time to read them." That hadn't been his life for some time now, and wouldn't be again any time soon. "At least Tamiyo seems okay. Maybe the Gideon thing was an aberration?"
	Blood began leaking from one of Tamiyo's eyes. It started with a slow drip, each drop hitting the table with a small plip. As she continued to read the scroll, the other eye began dripping blood as well, each drop alternating with each other. Plip-plip. Plip-plip. Plip-plip. They watched in horror as flesh-like lattices began to grow over Tamiyo's eyes, covering them entirely. The mark of Emrakul. They had seen too much of Emrakul's signature over the last few days to mistake it for anything else. The blood continued to drip through the lattices. Plip-plip. Plip-plip. Plip-plip. The lattices blossomed elsewhere. Fleshy growths burst from Tamiyo's fingers, covering both hands in the weblike structures. The growths attached to the table beneath, sticking, binding her hands to the table. Now she could no longer see nor move her hands. The blood kept dropping from her eyes. Plip-plip. Plip-plip. Plip-plip. As she lost the use of her eyes and hands, Tamiyo whispered throughout, though no audible sound emerged. The fleshy tendrils began webbing her mouth closed, lip tied to lip with each strand of Emrakul's web. Even once her mouth was sewn shut, the lattice continued to grow, to wiggle and writhe. The tendrils extended far out from her closed mouth, and now as the blood continued to drip from her eyes the tendrils would seize a drop, curling around it, wiggling as the blood seeped into its oily skin. Plip-wiggle. Plip-wiggle. Plip-wiggle. Tamiyo was motionless, her eyes, mouth, and hands frozen.
	Jace had touched Tamiyo mind to mind, knew the essence of her better than most. "No!" he screamed and pounded on the window, but neither Tamiyo nor anything else in the room stirred. "Her ability to see, to speak, to write--these are the essential tools of her magic, her communication! These are what define her! She is being erased!" The window faded to opaque stone.
	Each one of those drops from Tamiyo's eyes, each gentle little plip sent Ignis wincing; his own hand drifted to his eyes, where he could swear he felt a similar leaking. Not blood, no, but some other viscera, a swirling, shimmering goop of Starscourge. He was certain that an inky purple-black smoke had to be drifting up from the sockets. The back of his eyes felt like they were ablaze, anyway, but his hand came away clean. It was all just in his head, vestiges of memories and remembrances of pain. It was distracting enough that he jumped, startled, by Jace's shout, by his move toward pounding on the window. He blinked a few times, to clear his perception of that lingering feeling, with one more uncertain brush of the back of his hand across his eyes. It was still clean, thank the gods, when he reached out for Jace's shoulder, to settle him and gently pull him away. "Perhaps," he said, "not such an aberration after all. Come on. Let's keep going. I'm getting the feeling we still have quite the arduous journey ahead of us, unfortunately." Here's to hoping it still wasn't so bad as Costlemark. Or, even worse, Pitioss...
	Jace slumped. "What is this place? This cannot be the minds of my friends. Can it?" The shadows loomed over them both. He was tired, so very tired, but Ignis was right. They had to keep going. He slowly picked himself up and continued the descent.

	This power. It is a revelation. All it had taken was Liliana's will. Her desire. For so long she had thought herself utterly pragmatic and driven to her cause. To not die. To kill her demon tormentors. She'd let Ignis' doubts and misgivings influence her, let him nearly persuade her that she could not control the Veil. But now she knew she had been unwilling to take that final step, to cross over the last barrier. I had restraint. How foolish. In front of her loomed Emrakul. An Eldrazi titan. A creature older than time, if the voices in her head told truth. I think you are a thing. A powerful thing, but something that lives. And if you live, you can die. And if you die.... A smile. Then you belong to me. The energies of the Veil writhed and bucked under her control. They wanted to be used to wither, to kill. Power is meant to be used. She gathered it, shaped it, and sent one coruscating blast of necromantic energy after another at the towering figure of Emrakul, hurling the titan back with their force. There was a song in Liliana's head, a song blotting out all else. It was the song of power and it sang such a sweet melody. This is what I was born for. This is my destiny. Each blast that hit Emrakul left gaping trenches of scarred dead material, large tentacles the size of towers left shriveled and withered. Some of the material regenerated, but not enough before being hit by Liliana's next blast. For the first time since blossoming, Emrakul was shrinking. It was being thrust back. Liliana was winning.
	The Raven Man's voice cut through her delight, a cold splash of sewer water. *You know not what you do, what you dare. You cannot hope to contain this power for much longer.*
	Liliana's scorn draped each word she thought back in reply. *Do not seek to contain me with your small expectations, little man. Today is the day I destroy an Eldrazi titan. Why? Because I dare.* She wished the Gatewatch were conscious to watch her victory. This is what power looks like, you pathetic excuses for Planeswalkers. She wished Ignis were as well. She flung more blasts at Emrakul, pressing her attack. This, Ignis. This is what you meant when you said I was glorious.

	Jace was not surprised when the third window appeared during their descent. This time it was Chandra. Or at least he assumed it was Chandra. She was a little girl, but the red hair and shape of her face still suggested the woman she would one day become. Chandra was surrounded by a menacing group of guards, their gear ornate and colorful, from a place Jace did not recognize. Her home. The guards raised their pikes, and Chandra was sobbing, tears fighting with gasps of breath for control of her face. "She's so little," Jace said, watching her cry. If asked before this, he wouldn't have been sure the pyromancer knew how to cry.
	"Yes," Ignis said, but there was no dry sarcasm in his voice this time, just a gentle softness at the scene before them. "Children usually are." When he reached out to touch the glass this time, it was not to try and see if they could pass through it. Why were they being shown this? Or rather, why was Jace bring shown these things, and Ignis by proxy? It was too personal, too intimate, he felt like an intruder. He closed his eyes, and as he did, he remembered, the feeling that had rippled through him earlier, that moment that brought him back to that cold emptiness before the Lucii pulled him back. "Oh," he breathed out softly. "I see."
	"That's another mystery about this place, yeah," Jace said. "But I thought you'd already figured that out."
	"No, that isn't--" Ignis began to protest and explain, but then he sighed with resignation. His hand fell from the glass and he shook his head, nudging his glasses back up his nose as he turned away. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. We should keep going. Let us not get distracted and stay the course." And he was clearly intent on doing just that, moving away and continuing down the stairs, whether Jace joined him or not.
	There was a chance Jace might have gone with him (a very small chance, but a chance nevertheless), but then one of the guards in the diorama, tall and spindly, stepped forward. His face had a wide smile on it, in cruel contrast to his awful words. "We killed your daddy, renegade. We killed your mommy. And now we're going to kill you." The guards moved forward with their pikes as their leader sneered, "And the best part, the absolute best part, is there is nothing you can do about it." Jace's fists balled at his sides, frustrated at his own impotence. No one should have to endure this kind of pain.
	Chandra stopped crying and stared at her persecutors. A tiny wisp of flame flared from one eye. "You're wrong," she said, her voice not sounding like a child's at all. "There is something I can do." Her body was changing, growing, evolving before his eyes into the recognizable Chandra he knew. "Something I can always do. I can burn." Fire jetted from her head and hands. She smiled. The guards backed away, uncertain. She took a step forward. "I can make you burn." The leader burst into flame. He screamed in agony. "I can make all of you burn." Now the other guards were on fire, their skin crackling and bubbling, their high-pitched cries piercing the sky. "I can make the whole world burn." Heat and light and fire burst forth, an incandescent whiteness of energy, enveloping and burning everything, including Chandra. Chandra screamed, though whether in agony or delight, Jace could not say.
	The window faded to stone, but Jace still felt the heat pouring off the walls. It was one of the first principles of illusions. Just because it's only in your head doesn't mean it can't kill you. He turned and took off at a jog to catch up to Ignis. Gideon, Tamiyo, Chandra...but no Liliana yet. Perhaps the next window would be hers.
	Jace at least didn't have to jog too far to catch up with Ignis, as another brief glimpse of the world outside the tower had distracted him once more, momentarily, with his own small windows into what he had assumed was Liliana's current activity, but now, after these glimpses into the presumed minds of the others, he wasn't so sure. If anything, it just confirmed to him that he mustn't allow himself to trust anything he saw too completely nor get mired in wondering just what it all meant. The answer they needed now was simply how to get out, and then they could pick apart the rest later. Unless it was meant to be that the key to their exit was somehow embroiled in-- No. No, that was precisely the sort of thinking he was trying to not let himself get sucked into. He heard Jace's footsteps approaching, turning his head toward the sound out of instinct more than anything else, and then nodded. The view from the window was obscured now, and so he kept continuing down.
	Urgency propelled them further down and Jace couldn't hide how eager he looked as the next window appeared. His face fell when he saw the figure behind the wall. Oh, Nissa. He tried not to be disappointed, though he found it hard to understand the elf Planeswalker. "Where is Liliana?" he muttered, peering through the glass.
	The background behind Nissa looked exactly like the outside world—the dark, purple sky, the odd flashes of light, the looming shadow of Emrakul, Liliana and her zombies, except they were all utterly still. Nissa alone was animate, standing in agony in the center. She screamed. She writhed. Twisting, contorting, shaking, but those were not the only injuries done to her. There was something...wriggling...on her hands. Looking closely, Nissa's fingers had tiny fingers growing on them, tens of tiny fingers extending out of each finger. And hair-thin fingers growing out of each of the tiny fingers. From each of Nissa's eye sockets protruded several tiny eye shoots, and out of each eye shoot grew several tinier ones. Green energy flashed out of her eyes and hands, but interlaced in the green was a dark, violent purple.
	Emrakul is Emrakul is Emrakul forever. Jace didn't know where the thought came from, but even in its nonsense it felt true. Forever and ever and ev... "Negglish pthoniki ab'ahor!" gibberish words spouted from Nissa, or if not gibberish then no language Jace had ever heard. As she spoke, her head spasmed, and in between words her tongue would loll out of her mouth. "What's that on her tongue? Oh, no. No no no no. I am hitting the limit of details I want to notice. No, I am well past the limit," he babbled.
	"Imagine how I feel," murmured Ignis. "Blessed with sight once more, and this is what I am blessed to witness..." He had told himself that he wouldn't stop, that he would keep going until they were out of this infernal staircase, but then Jace had the audacity to speak the magic name that would halt him in even his most determined steps and have him at his full attention. But no, it was just another illusion, like the others before this one....or at least he certainly hoped so, the heart in his chest tugging so hard he thought it would render itself loose before he was pulled, reluctantly, toward the clear focus of the tableau. And his heart tugged again, the same way it did for Gideon, and for Tamiyo, and Chandra, with that dread of knowing he could do nothing for any of them in that moment, and for what might still lie ahead. His sudden sight was hardly a boon to him now, and he was quite certain that that was the point.
	As nonsense and spittle spewed from her mouth, rational words began to infiltrate the gibberish. "Shigg epsi-everything chut'ghb ends! Gilma-everything chts-dies!" The spasms subsided, her voice gaining strength and poise. Now the energy emanating from her was all purple, a deep purple with no green to be found. She raised her head and arms to the sky and shouted. "Growth! Growth is the answer! The only answer! Entropy cannot lose. But must it win? Of course sacrifice must be made. Why do they fight it? Eternity without sacrifice offers only the screaming torpor. Blood must be churned, churned thick. Why do they fear life? Why do they fear truth?"
	Nissa uttering recognizable words made no appreciable impact on Jace's ability to understand her. Even though he knew it was useless, he reached to her mind to mind. Nissa, help me. Help me understand. What are you saying? He clearly hadn't learned his lesson with the fisherwoman. Nissa shifted and brought her gaze to meet Jace's directly through the window. She sees me. Jace shivered, frozen to the spot. He could not move, could not look away.
	Her eyes glowed darkly purple. She spoke directly to him. "I can do anything I want. Anything at all. Remember that. The only thing saving you is..." the purple glow faded, the nimbus around her dissipating, "...I don't want anything." She stared at him for long seconds, her face distorted and grotesque as her extra eye shoots continued to squirm, some looking at Ignis while the rest kept Jace pinned. A long moment of just staring before the window mercifully faded to stone.
	Jace remained frozen in front of the wall. He shook, sweat beading down his hair onto his face and the back of his neck. The shadows continued to press from above. "How long have we been on these stairs?" he asked, hoarsely. "What's happening to my friends?" Down still beckoned, brightly lit and pulling at him. But he didn't want to move. He didn't want to do anything. "Sleep. I could sleep. I might not wake up, but would that be so bad?" His eyes drooped, and a pleasant fuzziness crept over his mind. He sat on the stairs. "I am so tired...."
	Well, unfortunately for Jace, Ignis had nearly two decades worth of experience in dragging the most sleepy from their blissful slumber. His hand fell on Jace's shoulder, giving it a gentle but firm nudge that threatened to become a tug if need be. "It would be," he said, "supremely bad, Jace. Take it from me, no good comes from a slumber in a place like this. But the end is near, I believe that wholeheartedly. After all, we're very quickly running out of friends, aren't we?"
	"There's still Lili," Jace mumbled, slowly getting to his feet. "I don't know where she is, or what she's facing. Maybe she's not even here?" He took a few stumbling steps down. "But, let's be honest. She never needed me anyway. You heard what she said. 'Sad. For a while. And then I'll get over it.' Compared my death to that of a dog's. A dog. Would she really not care any more about my death than a dog's? That can't be true. A dog." The thought kept gnawing at him. He wasn't sure why it was bothering him now, or why he was talking about it to Ignis of all people...weren't they romantic rivals? No. Wait. If he was being honest, he'd already lost. "I lost her. When I left her, trapped in that room. Waiting for me for however long she did. Days, do you think? Or just hours?" He yawned again. "Let's just rest here a few more minutes...I don't know why I'm so tired..."
	The emotions that rippled through Ignis as Jace went on his little sleepy ramble were...complicated, and difficult, and nothing, he reminded himself, to deal with now when there were much, much bigger things to deal with right now than all that irritation and resentment and even sympathy. There was a part of him that considered just letting Jace take that slumber and continue on without him. He might even be convinced that he'd be far better off without him. But the larger, better part of him knew that that was just not how he did things. He'd even fought beside Ravus Nox Fleuret, once upon a time, because it would be far worse not to. He tightened a hand on Jace's shoulder again, in support, and to be ready to help keep the other man on his feet, if need be. "If you don't wish to be compared so much to a dog, Jace," he said firmly, "then might I suggest not just lying down like one when given half the chance? We're both tired, but we can allow ourselves to give in now when we've come so far already." There was a small hesitation before he added, "And she is here. I've been seeing her, here and there, as we've descended. And even if not for those glimpses afforded to me by whatever this tower has been revealing to us, I know she is." His hand lifted, and he began marching down the steps with a newfound determination. "It's the one thing keeping me going."
	The thought that Liliana was indeed here made Jace perk up a little bit. Sleep, how could I possibly be thinking of sleeping right now? What is happening to me? He was feeling the kind of bone-deep weariness that came with overextending his powers, but he wasn't doing much of anything right now. True exhaustion, or a more malevolent effect? Does it really matter? The solution is the same. He yawned a bit, rubbed his eyes, and took another few steps. "Okay, so we have our to-do list. Keep going downstairs. Find Liliana. Figure this out. Don't die. Beat Emrakul. We've got this." He ignored how his legs felt like they'd been replaced by hot lead and continued their descent.

	The first sign of trouble was an interruption to her tempo. Liliana had never wielded so much energy before, and she had been able to fling blast after blast at Emrakul with each breath. Breathe, blast, breathe, blast. But though her power didn't fail her, her body did. She hesitated for a second, took a long breath, and in that gap Emrakul surged, its body and tendrils regrowing at a faster pace than Liliana thought possible. Several thick tendrils lashed at Liliana only to wither and desiccate at the touch of her magic, but several more quickly followed. Where once each blast from Liliana drove Emrakul back, now it was all she could do to stand her ground.
	*You are mortal. You have limits. It does not.* The Raven Man's voice stabbed her brain with cold whispers. *Look upon this grass and dirt, you fool. You have made it your graveyard.*
	She screamed in rage as she let loose more blasts of power. The titan's advance halted in the face of such an onslaught. But seconds later the energy ebbed. Liliana took large gasping breaths and Emrakul's advance continued once more. "I am not going to die today!" she snarled to the Raven Man, to the Veil, to anything that would listen. To herself. Emrakul and its tendrils continued their unceasing assault. I am not going to die today. Not today or ever.
	*If you're lucky, Liliana, your death is now the best possible outcome of today. You have doomed us both.* The Raven Man spoke without contempt, without hatred or fear. He sounded...resigned. For the first time since she'd acted as the calvary and ridden to the rescue, Liliana was afraid.

	Jace expected another wall to turn transparent, to show them a scene from the mind of Liliana. He was almost looking forward to it, in fact. Sure, whatever they saw would be horrible, but even just a glimpse inside of her head would be fascinating, to be sure. Just one. He expected that whatever they saw would be even worse than Nissa, with her two centuries of accumulated memories, but at least it would be something. What he did not expect was the stairway to end in a door. It was a thick oak door, banded with iron, with no port or keyhole. Just wood and iron, framed in the same thick stone as the rest of the stairway. He put his hand on the door. A voice screamed, no no no no no no, and pure terror seized his brain. But the voice trailed off, the terror receding. Jace looked beyond Ignis, back up the stairs. The shadows did not press closer but nor did they part to reveal the way they had come. If they wanted to progress, it was through this door. "It's not just me, this is really foreboding, right?" Was Liliana somehow through the door?
	The deadpan blankness of Ignis' scorched-out eyes, nor the glasses covering them, did not lessen the scathing withering look by even an ounce. He thought about making some accompanying quip about how nice it was for him to finally notice, but he decided he didn't even care to dignity that comment with a direct response. "Will it open?" he asked, instead, while constructing a list of ways to try if the answer was no. "Or is it locked?"
	"Guess we'll find out," Jace said. "If Liliana is through this door, she's lost none of her penchant for drama and mood-setting." He pushed the door forward and stepped through. The room was formless and colorless. Vertigo overcame him as his mind struggled to perceive the space. Jace felt the long pull of forever, an endless recursion looping into terror to never know the peace of oblivion to just to just to just...until reality snapped into place. The nothingness surrounding him materialized into a field of white. And in that field stood an angel.
	She approached, and Jace noticed the space slowly taking shape around her, around the three of them. They were in a real place, a room, a copy of the sanctum he had first begun this bizarre journey in. His sanctum. The angel was tall, taller than any angel he had seen before, even Avacyn. And her wings were gigantic, thick and dense. They furled behind her almost like a mushroom cloud... Jace broke out into a cold sweat pumped by a racing heart. No oh no oh no... Her face was hidden by a large hood, but in very plain sight were the two swords she carried, one in each hand. Her tunic frayed at the hemline into ribbons, tens of ribbons, no, hundreds, and they seemed to multiply as Jace watched. They wriggled and writhed. As if they'd noticed the arrival of the two men, the ribbons of her tunic probed the air around them, alive.
	"If I scream, I don't know if I'll ever stop. So I better not scream. Would crying help? I'm open to crying if it will help," Jace whispered, unaware he was speaking aloud. He laughed in a combination of amusement and fear. I'm so glad I find myself funny. The laughter broke through the paralysis, sparking his mind. "I know this angel. I have seen her before." Or at least he had seen statues of her before, back on Zendikar. "Emeria?" he croaked, the word sounding foreign on his lips.
	"Emeria?" Ignis asked, and the strength of his own voice didn't fare much better. He tried focusing on the angel before them, but found it maddeningly impossible, and he didn't think it had much to do with him still adjusting to having sight again. The pain behind his eyes was driving him to distraction, too, and a lump of dread took over his entire stomach, thinking almost of the looming figure of Ifrit in a battle not too long ago. But he knew there would be no icy kiss from Shiva to help spare them this time. Beside Jace, he tensed in preparation, but for what, exactly, he did not know. And that was almost the most maddening part of it all.
	She looked at them, but her face was cloaked by the depth of her hood. Jace took careful note of the ribbons and the swords, but nothing moved to attack him. His confidence grew. "Are you...are you...Emeria? The goddess of the merfolk on Zendikar. I saw your statues. There were three of you..." He gasped, thinking of the statues he remembered, those writhing ribbons caught in stone, comparing it to the angel before then and again to the mantle and tentacles of the Eldrazi hovering over Thraben. "Are you...Emrakul?"
	"May I sit down?" she asked, ignoring the question. The voice was a female voice. Light, almost airy. Jace might have even said it trilled, in different circumstances. But these were not different circumstances though. They couldn't see any lips move through her hood to produce the voice, but it sounded like a normal voice. Normal-ish.
	Jace was so busy analyzing the voice it took him a moment to parse what was actually asked. "You're asking me?" Of all the surprises of this day, getting asked a polite question should not have ranked high on the list. But it might be at the top. "This is your home," a pause, "Jace. Jace Beleren." As she said "Beleren" it came out syllable by syllable. I'm very afraid right now. I'm also so very curious. What an odd juxtaposition. He glanced at Ignis to see what he was thinking about all of this.
	Very briefly, Ignis himself needed a moment to figure out for himself what he thought of all this, his own eyes remaining on the angel even as he felt Jace's fall toward him. And then: "Well, now, Jace," he said, "let's not be rude. Offer your guest a seat. And if I knew where the kettle was, I'd offer to make us all some tea." On the one hand, he was being facetious. But on the other hand, his gaze was definitely drifting around in case he did spot one.
	The angel agreed. "I am just a visitor here. So, may I?" She stood waiting. Her patience seemed endless. "Sure, I mean, how much more surreal can this day get?" Jace was confident he didn't want an actual answer to the question. Remember what's important: don't die. Find Liliana. Figure this out. Beat Emrakul. His mantra. He added another sentence. Invite Emrakul for a cup of tea. He smiled at the absurdity, and the smile reached his eyes. "Please, by all means. Please sit down." Jace waved airily at the large stone table, and Emeria--no, I don't know what this is, stop assuming I do--the angel sat down at the table. "Sorry, there's not a kettle in here. I prefer coffee and my ser--the people who--the Guildhall staff bring me some when I need them."
	She sheathed both of her swords behind her back. When her hands came back to the table they were holding a large scroll, a scroll with iron bands. Jace stared at it, attention fixed; he'd seen a scroll like that before. Where? "You do not mind if I work while we talk, do you?" Her lilting voice sounded like it could come straight from an Azorius guildmage wanting guidance on a point of protocol.
	Embrace this surreality. Stop fighting it. See where it goes. "Of course, please. I would not want to keep you from your work." She nodded and unrolled the scroll. A creeping sensation nagged at the back of Jace's head; where had he seen that scroll? But he could not place it, he glanced up at Ignis to see if he remembered. It was from somewhere on Innistrad, but where? Something of Liliana's, perhaps? From somewhere a long stylus appeared, and, oblivious (or just not caring) she began writing in the scroll. Jace cleared his throat. "Well, since we're, umm...you know, having a talk. Who are you exactly? What is this place? What is going on?" He could not afford to be picky about where to get answers from. He also could not quell his normal instinct to mind-read, not knowing is so much worse than insanity, but there was...nothing. Nothing he could latch on to. Her mind was a blank wall of stone to him. He tried not to visibly sulk. Secrets were no fun when they stayed secret. He was going to have to do this in the mundane style everyone else had to. Through words. Words with an Eldrazi titan. Again, he glanced at Ignis. He was fully aware that his conversational skills were somewhat...less than stellar when he couldn't just read someone's mind.
	Each time Jace glance at Ignis, he would find him frowning as though deep in his thoughts and watching. It had always been easy for him...it had always been his job, really...to fall into the role of the silent, careful observer. And now that he actually could observe with all his senses, he was taking full advantage of it. Watching. Waiting with his arms folded over his chest, though the fingers on one hand brushed together in ready anticipation. And if he could read minds, he would certainly have a comment or two about Jace's conversational skills even when he did intrude upon another's thoughts, but, well...one of those things he prepared himself for was to intervene if need be.
	Ignis, that wasn't useful for him right now. Once again, the angel seemed disinclined to notice the awkward, as steady as the stone her Zendikari statues were carved from. "Everything ends. Everything dies. Wholeness is always behind us. Time points only one way." There were echoes of Nissa's earlier insane comments, but Jace didn't understand it any more coming from the angel. She didn't look up as she wrote, her hood obscuring whatever light voice uttered those strange words.
	"Are you Emrakul?" Jace didn't know what he was risking, and increasingly didn't care. Caution was for those with a winning hand. "What do you want?"
	She paused her writing, considering the scroll. "This is all wrong. I am incomplete, unfulfilled, inchoate. There should be blossoms, not barren resentment. The soil was not receptive. It is not my time. Not yet." The way she said 'yet' sent a shiver through Jace's neck. She resumed her writing, blotting out a large section of dried ink.
	"Enough!" Jace shouted. "You are here for a reason! You could kill us any number of ways, with your swords or your tentacles, but you're not. You're sitting here, uttering nonsense...why?! I don't understand what you're saying and I don't understand what you want. Help us! Please." As Jace ranted, his anger cooled, but he continued to glare at her, helpless and lost.
	"Do you play chess?" The voice continued as if Jace had been spouting as much nonsense as she was. "Yes, I play chess." "Would you play a game with me?" She stopped writing and rolled up the scroll.
	Jace was tempted to shout again, but didn't think it would do much good. Besides, he did play chess. He was quite good at it. "I'm not sure I have time to play..." he said, thoughts whirling. "If you win, this all stops. I will give you all the answers you want." She tucked the scroll behind her. Jace suspected a trap, but he was really good at chess. "And if you win?"
	"I am already winning, Jace Beleren. Let us play a game."
	"Uh, there is one problem." Jace glanced around. In his real apartments back on Ravnica there was a chessboard, a quite fancy one he had been gifted by the Boros, but in this strange simulacrum, no such board was visible. "I, uh, don't seem to have..." The angel waved her hand, and a chessboard appeared on the table taking up the space where the scroll used to be. The board and pieces were thick stone, solid with fine detail. Jace raised an eyebrow, but if the angel noticed, she made no sign. I suppose if she just limits herself to creating chessboards, we'll be okay. "Shall we play?" She gestured toward the board. Jace's side was white, and he took the first move. Magnanimous of her. And then discovered a slight flaw in his plan. He was an excellent chess player...but he also had a tendency to read his opponents' minds while they played. Which he could not do here. He darted a sudden, nervous look to Ignis.
	And Ignis met that look with a cool glance, which he realized might have been less effective thanks to the glasses, so he emphasized it with a lift of his brow. Jace's reluctance to accept even this as if the last few days hadn't been filled to the brim with various absurdity was...frustrating, but hardly surprising, and if he continued to be incredulous at the offer, he was prepared to take it up himself. And now was honestly disappointed when Jace finally agreed. He then considered his opponent for a moment before looking at Jace and the slight wrinkle of distress on his brow. Then let out a soft huff. Of course. Of course Jace Beleren would be one to spoil all the subtly and fun of the game by simply reading the other person's mind. Which he suspected he couldn't do quite nearly so well at the moment. He cleared his throat slightly. "You know," he said, mildly as he could manage, "it's a rare joy for me to get to actually watch a game, as quite the chess aficionado myself. I'm rather looking forward to this, but I promise..." He took a moment to pray that Jace was even a fraction as intelligent as he seemed to think he was. "I shall strive to keep the commentary to myself." He then proceeded to make a mental suggestion with a strong first move to see if Jace had, in fact, picked up what he was putting down, as it were, eyes carefully watching the angel for any hint of a reaction.
	Jace frowned at the board a bit, reaching out for a pawn. His hand hovered over one of them, before moving to another, following Ignis' mental instructions. The game continued apace. Emeria did not seem to be a particularly skilled player and Jace likely could have beaten her on his own, but he still appreciated the occasional suggestion from Ignis, especially after, just a few moves in, she said, "You will need to move faster, Jace. Time is running out." *Faster?* he complained to Ignis. *We're making moves near instantaneously. But...I think I'm seeing the outline of a checkmate in maybe...seven moves.*
	Ignis fingers stroked his chin as he considered the board, which was just as much as thinking gesture as it was to try and work out the itch to abolish this middle man and move the pieces himself. The set looked as though it would feel very satisfying. But as he considered, his head tilted. *Maybe less. All dependent on how she might respond if you brought forth your knight over your bishop.* He didn't need to read minds to tell that was Jace's likely next move. *Do you see it?* Both were strong choices, obviously, but one was, in his opinion, much better.
	Jace frowned, glaring at the board for a moment, before - somewhat grudgingly, it must be said - he shifted his knight. Emeria barely glanced at the board as she made her move in response. "Communication between us is difficult. I cannot talk to you. I do not even really know you exist. But you, your brain, it is very...adaptable." *A blunder. Four moves now.* "So, then, what is all this?" He took his own move, then waved his hands around. "What are you? How does my adaptable brain make this happen?" "You know those answers better than I." She put her hand on a piece, hesitated, and then moved another piece. "Or, at least, a part of you does." "So you are not Emeria? Are you even real?" "I was personified a long time ago. Forces cannot be reasoned with. Agency does not exist in propagating waves. If you take shortcuts to try and grapple with what you cannot perceive, cannot even comprehend, who am I to gainsay? No one. You. Perhaps." She glanced at Ignis. "Or you. His mind tries to figure you out, but gets tangled."
	Ignis had been frowning at the move their opponent had made, not quite what he'd predicted, but it may have put them back a few more moves. And with the direction that the conversation was going, a few more moves could possibly mean just more of this inane philosophical babble that was beginning to make his headache worse (or was that just the constant internal burning pressure from behind his eyes?) and test his patience. He made a quick, new suggestion to Jace, before shifting his attention with a lift of his brow toward the likely-not-quite-an-angel. "There is more than enough up there for one to get tangled in," he assured her. "Quite frankly, at this point, I care far less about who you are, and much more about whether this..." His hand gestured toward the board, "game will actually lead to assisting us in finally escape from.." His hand and his eyes moved around the room, "whatever this is."
	"Perhaps," the angel said, maddeningly. "Perhaps not. I simply am." Jace and the...whatever it was exchanged several more moves. With Ignis' occasional advice, checkmate was soon only a move away, and Jace's own mind wandered from the game. The more he considered, the more this all possibly made bizarre sense. *This is not Emeria. This isn't Emrakul. This is my mind's attempt to make sense of whatever pressures or emanations we're feeling from Emrakul. I had to personify it to even have a chance of making sense of it.* But to truly believe in that personification was to invite death. Or worse. The vertigo lurched. Forever and ever and ever and emer and emra... Enough. He put his hand on his queen, moved it into position. "Checkmate." He smiled. He was not sure what winning this game meant, but it felt good to win, to win something. He grinned up at Ignis. *Good team, huh?*
	Despite himself and despite the very long, arduous, and frustrating past few days and his impatience to get on to the culmination of it all, Ignis found himself genuinely smiling back. It did feel good, to finally get a hold of a victory, and even more so, to do so by working together, Jace putting aside his ego enough to listen to his advice and even come around to an important introspection. *Not so bad at all*, he agreed.
	She stopped, looked at the board. "So it is." She put her hands to her hood and lowered it. Jace flinched instinctively, suddenly certain he did not want to know what she looked like...but she looked normal. Like an angel. Like the statue he had seen back on Zendikar. He took a long, slow breath, exhaled. One of the pawns beside his queen started to writhe and flow. Hands and a small stone sword appeared on the pawn, and it turned to stab the queen. The queen piece shrieked, blood pouring out of its side. It toppled to the ground, bleeding and shaking. Dying. The rest of the board was pandemonium as more of Jace's pieces transformed. Mutated. They attacked one another mercilessly, killing each other, until the few remaining pieces pirouetted to face the other side of the board. They now all held weapons, weapons dripping with blood, and began a slow march towards Jace's king, who now resembled nothing other than Jace himself.
	Jace gaped at the chaos. "Wha...buh...tha...that's...that's not fair! You cheated! You can't do that! Those are my pieces!"
	The angel's face began to melt, chunks of flesh sloughing off as the rest of her—wings, swords, ribbons, and all—began to dissipate into a purplish smoke. But the voice remained. "They are all my pieces, Jace Beleren. They always were. I just no longer want to play." There was a huge crackling explosion outside accompanied by a large grinding sound. The top of the room was torn away, revealing the now-familiar sight of Emrakul, the gigantic mushroom cloud with its hundreds of tendrils and flashing lightning, eating away at the room. The voice continued, light and airy as a breeze. "It is coming. I am coming. Keep moving. Find your answers. But quickly. Time points one way, and it does so with hunger."
	A door appeared at the end of the room, ornate with a bright blue glow behind it. Jace took another look at Emrakul above, grabbed for Ignis' hand, and fled through the door.

	Liliana was doing everything she could to stay alive. She had been using some of her power to hold back the effects of using the Chain Veil. She kept her skin from cracking, her veins from spilling blood. In taking over the Chain Veil completely, she thought she had discovered the secrets to its true use. She was wrong. But as agonizing as her skin splitting and her veins rupturing was, it was better than oblivion against the onslaught of Emrakul. She still drew on immense amounts of power, but now all that power was put to one use. Staying alive for another moment. Her moments were running out.
	As Emrakul lashed and flayed against her magic, she directed her zombies to attack. They bit, grabbed, struck against Emrakul, like fleas versus a storm, with similar effect. Zombies were destroyed by the hundreds under Emrakul's assault, and hundreds more disintegrated without touch as Liliana instinctively drew upon their animating magic to fuel another moment of survival.
	If there was any consolation in her impending defeat, it was the blessed silence inside her head. There were no voices from the Raven Man, no chanting or whispers from the Veil. Even as her reality was blood and pain and a desperate fight to stay alive, her mind was hers and hers alone. There was consolation there, if she chose to take it. A large tendril, thick as her torso, broke through and grabbed her around the waist. She screamed in rage and blasted through the tendril, its desiccated flesh sloughing off. She coughed up blood, swaying, even as more tendrils came. She was going to die here. Damn you, Ignis. Why wouldn't you run with me? I'm no hero... She looked at the others, their bodies still protected by the large clearing her dwindling zombies provided. Nissa was no longer screaming, but lay unconscious like the rest of them. Only Jace stood, the blue shimmer still in place protecting them from...something, but he didn't move, didn't speak. "Jace!" Her scream produced no response. No sign of recognition. "Jace, you bastard! You better be doing something useful!" That was all she had time as Emrakul pressed. Each moment mattered. That became her mantra. One more moment. One more moment. One more...

	Jace flung them through the open portal, seeking refuge from Emrakul's assault. They landed in a small, dark room, a copy of one of his innermost sanctums back on Ravnica. There, standing in front of them, was himself. With all the other insanity Jace had experienced since first waking up in the tower, facing himself was one of the more benign confusions. "Oh, this should be good."
	The copy didn't smile, didn't move. "You got here. About time. But I don't know you're me." He pondered for a moment. "Answer this riddle." "What? I'm done with riddles. We need answers. I need answers. What—" "First, a riddle," the copy said, voice uncompromising.
	Ignis groaned, half-wondering if it would be possible to go back and stick with dealing with Emrakul instead. "For gods' sake, Jace," he growled, wincing as the pain behind his eyes flared even worse than ever, "just answer the damned riddle already!"
	"You must be joking! I'm not going to stand here and get quizzed by either a runaway tyrant version of myself or, worse, some malignant impostor who just wants to waste my time!" Jace ended his rant with an angry shout. The copy stood there with a smug smile and a raised eyebrow. Am I really this infuriating? I am this infuriating. I need to work on that.
	"It's only infuriating when you know I'm right. I need to know you're me." Jace wondered if there would be permanent consequences to punching himself in the face. Probably. "How do I know you're me?" It wasn't the snappiest retort, but it was all he had at the moment. His brain was processing a lot right now. "Because I'm the one with answers. You're wasting time, time we don't have." The copy tapped his foot in a way Jace recognized all too well.
	"I don't know that I can ever interact with another human again. I'm too annoying to be with," Jace mumbled, shoulders slumping. Finally, he waved a hand. "Fine, ask away." "No bigger than a pebble but my closing covers the entire world, what am I?" "That? That's your riddle? Your security system to make sure I'm you? You must be an impostor, because I refuse to believe I'm that dumb."
	Ignis couldn't help feel his own twinge of irony for the riddle at hand, and he might have almost made some dry and sardonic comment applauding the efficiency in killing two birds with one stone in combining both his and Jace's tortures by putting him here to have to listen to him arguing with himself about the riddle, but... He didn't. He couldn't, really, not with the way Jace's shoulders slumped like that, the way he just became so despondent. Poking at that insecurity even more wasn't going to help things. "Go on, Jace," he said, with soft encouragement, before looking to the other one curiously. "Answer it."
	"Yes, Jace, cease your grandstanding and answer the riddle. This conversation is going to end quickly if you don't." The copy's eyes glowed blue in a way Jace was perversely glad to find menacing. It's good to be reminded I can menace now and then.
	"Pah. I thought I would have come up with something difficult. Eyes. The answer is eyes." Jace stared at his copy, and then blinked ostentatiously several times to illustrate the point. "I see the whole world. Now I don't. See. Not see. How could this riddle possibly have been useful?" The copy relaxed, letting go of whatever spell he had prepared. And then Jace understood. "Oh. The point of the riddle wasn't to see if I solved it. The point was to see how dismissive and incredulous I got at such an easy riddle." He nodded. "Okay, yes, this is me." He knew the copy was thinking the same thing. "Fine, I'm me. I mean, I'm...yes, we're each other. Probably. You promised answers." Jace reached out to read his copy's mind, but nothing happened.
	"That's not how it works here. Here, we have to talk." Another coy smile. "All right," Jace struggled not to clench his jaw. "Talk. Now." The copy pondered briefly. "I still don't know all the things you don't know. Ask me questions."
	Ignis took a moment, looking between his frustrating companion and his slightly less irksome doppelganger and sighed. He slipped off his glasses for the sole purpose of properly pinching the bridge of his nose before slipping them back on again. "Does that offer," he asked, "stand only for fellow Jaces? Because I may actually have a few questions myself, and unlike my present company," and yes, he did mean the both of you, "I am far less interested in wasting time on rhetorical semantics and literal self-doubt."
	Both Jaces turned to him, one looking a little confused, the other, fairly smug. It was possible that the duplicate had no other facial expressions. "You're the boyfriend, aren't you? She mentioned you, obliquely, when we met up in Ravnica. An intriguing choice for a travel companion. But certainly. Ask away."
	There was a faint grunt of annoyance over how even Jace's duplicate seemed similarly preoccupied as his source entity, but that was of very little concern right now. "What is this place? How do we get out? And, this might be a long shot if your knowledge is matched, but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask: do you know how to defeat Emrakul?"
	"What is this place? Really? That's the part you haven't figured out yet?" "You condescending..." Jace's anger was not abated by the fact that the condescension was coming from himself. And in that flash of anger he understood. Jace remembered. Emrakul rising, flowering, blooming. Liliana had given them all a momentary respite from Emrakul's minions with her zombies, but none of them were prepared for the rise of Emrakul itself. The physical signs were apparent, but the mental assault was the real danger. A pressure, a pain, unlike any other he had felt before. Tamiyo's chime trick instantly dissolved. There had been no time for a plan, no time for thought. The spell he had cast was reflexive. One he had prepared a very long time ago, to shield his mind from imminent dissolution. "We're not in a tower. I am the tower," he said as every puzzle piece snapped into place. The scenes of his friends, the conversation with Emeria, Ignis' ability to see, even this conversation right now, all were taking place inside his mind, given sustenance and structure by the power of his spell. "Welcome to residence Jace, everyone. Hope you enjoyed your stay." Based on the scenes he had seen in his friends' minds, he was confident no one had enjoyed it. But the alternative was oblivion, or worse. Forever. Forever and ever and ever and emer and emeria and-- He shook his head rapidly trying to clear the fugue, noticing his copy did the same motion at the same time. The pressure from Emrakul was increasing. Jace looked up and noticed the top of the room shaking. "It's attacking. It's coming, what else can you tell us?"
	"Innistrad is a weird place. A dangerous place. As soon as I arrived I knew something was wrong. I set up some...fail-safes in the event of something disastrous occurring. Puzzles within puzzles, shadows within shadows. Emrakul is the scariest thing I, we, have ever faced, even moreso than the two Eldrazi we fought on Zendikar. So I made a contingency plan to keep me separate from me. To work out what was really going on, and be able to stop it. Fix it. You know." And now Jace did know. He was so good at self-alteration. He shivered, wondering which him was the real Jace. The better Jace. Nonsense. It's me, of course. "Hey there," the copy smiled. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You're only the second smartest person in this room."
	"Enough." Jace's mind was starting to whir at a speed both familiar and comforting. "The plan. I better not have created you just for you to tell me a dumb riddle. We still don't know how to beat Emrakul." "Talk with Tamiyo. She was in the middle of telling us interesting things when Emrakul attacked." "That's your useful input? Talk with Tamiyo?" See, I am the better Jace.
	"No, my useful input is actually figuring out how to have all of us walk and talk and think normally even with the psychic equivalent of a Rakdos-Golgari kill-party times infinity hammering away at us. It's a fairly difficult trick, in fact." "Oh. Well, thanks, me. Good job." "Everyone is in pretty bad shape. But at least we will be able to think coherently. It's...not good out there." He turned and gave Ignis a very significant look. "And there's another problem."
	When the other Jace's attention shifted toward him, Ignis met his gaze from behind his glasses and blinked. That's when he knew. That's when the horrible feeling twisted at the bottom of his gut and bubbled up through his chest with the burning bile of dread. "Liliana," he realized, and there, another window on the wall, and he felt as though he didn't need to look it to see, he didn't want to look, but now cursed once again with this blasted sight, he found he couldn't tear his eyes away from it. She was fighting. She was struggling. And with one bold burst of energy, she was falling. "LILIANA!!" It tore out of Ignis like someone had reached into his chest and ripped it out, rough and raw and visceral. He charged forward, leaving behind him a trail of the blue light of his summoned katana and the roar of fire dancing along his dagger . Not to the window, no. He knew he wouldn't be able to get through the window. If he wanted out of this accursed tower, he'd have to go straight the source. Jace Beleren himself.
	Jace still couldn't see those windows to Liliana that Ignis was, but even as he asked "What's..." the answer flowed in his brain. The two parts of Jace were merging, becoming one. There were words, but the words were spoken by each of them at the same time. "Liliana is about to die." And so might he, considering the look on Ignis' face. "No, no, wait, Ignis, we can--" With a thought, Jace dissolved the spell and the tower faded into reality.

	They came back to chaos. Liliana was on the ground, unconscious, bleeding profusely from multiple wounds, one hand reaching out towards where Ignis was laying. Above them Emrakul hovered in her full unfolding, a bright lavender light glowing in the center of her body, the eye of her storm. Her tentacles, broad and thick, decimating what was left of Thraben. Liliana's zombies were a mere fraction of what they had been before Jace's spell. The humans and beasts infected by Emrakul's madness had started to mass again, threatening to break through. Fending off Emrakul's mental assault was not going to be of much help if her minions tore them to shreds instead.
	And Ignis himself came back into darkness. One minute, he was pulling back his arm to send his sword down on that stricken face, and the next, as the protests bubbled out of Jace, it all disappeared. He staggered, briefly. The momentum of the swing necessitated still bringing it down, but he diverted slightly to the side to miss his intended target. Confusion, and then realization. His temporary sight had been granted to him as a construct of the tower that was Jace's spell. With it now gone, so was his vision. And so was the only thing keeping him from Liliana. His mind whirled to get a better sense of where they were, in relation to everything else. He pushed himself off the ground and staggered forward, piercing through the noise for Emrakul. If that last vision was true, then that was where he'd find her. He felt the pull if energy, or perhaps just hope, and launched himself toward it, with a desperate, strangled, determined shout of her name. "Liliana!" And gods have mercy on anything that happened to be in his way, because Ignis certainly would not.
	It was pure cacophony; the sounds of Liliana's zombies battling Emrakul's mutated creatures, some far-off screams from people still human enough to do so, the groaning noise of destruction as buildings rotted and collapsed from the effects of Emrakul's aura. Scent was just as muddled: the scent of decay from the undead mingled with the unnatural corruption from the creatures that surged against them; smoke from the multitude of fires that had broken out in the city; dirt, metal, blood... It was the scent of her blood that led him like a trail, the scent he'd gotten so horribly familiar with over the last eighteen months. It called to him now, more than he'd ever smelled at once, save for that first time, when she'd been brought back to his apartment a blood-soaked horrorshow. She was covered in it and the ground beneath her drank it in. Several creatures broke through a weak spot in the zombies' line, lunging towards the downed necromancer. Whether they wished to devour her, finish her off for her audacity against Emrakul, or simply begin to twist her to the cause was unclear, but did the finer points really matter? Either way, it would be the end of Liliana Vess as he knew her.
	Gods, he hated that smell, but Ignis would have to admit, it was useful, not only as a guide to finding Liliana on this accursed battlefield, but as a focal point to make everything else fall into place in his perception as it settled back into the more familiar restraints, where sight was a distraction of color and shapes from the movement and energies that usually guided him. Movement and energies gathering around the source of his sanguine leyline. One dagger flew out ahead of him, a rippling firebolt of steel and flame. His second followed like an icy blast. A launch into the air would clear the distance remaining; he waited to pierce out with the thunderbolt of his lance until he landed, lest his estimation be even the slightest bit off and it should strike Liliana instead. But pierced upon his spear, Ignis discarded at least one of those creatures with a toss of his shoulder, and finished the job with the swift katana that would always be with him, even as his other weapons were dispersed. His heart surged as the enemies cleared and dropped to his feet, and he dropped to his knees, hands scrambling until he found her familiar, blood-drenched form. "Liliana," he said, and as he carefully took her into his arms, for better or for worse, the chaotic turmoil around him seemed to disappear, and he may as well have been back there in his apartment, with the same desperation and helplessness to save her clinging to him, making it difficult to breathe. His hand trembled as it found her dreadfully cold and blood-sticky cheek. "Please. It's alright. You're going to be alright." The next part fell out of him, rough and unbidden, holding her close. "You have to be."
	In stories, this was when she'd move, open her eyes, pulled back from the brink by the power of his love. Except this wasn't a story, and she no romantic heroine. Liliana remained still, unconscious, bleeding not only from her scars but myriad ugly wounds, colder than she usually was, a limp weight in his arms. Breathing, yes, but shallow and irregular, the duration between one inhale and the next getting longer each time. Behind Ignis, the Planeswalkers regained consciousness, staggered and disoriented. Jace funneled focus at his friends, clearing away the cobwebs of Emrakul's attack. *Chandra, Gideon, Liliana's zombies need your help,* he sent through a mindlink that encompassed the group. *We cannot let Emrakul's minions through.*
	Gideon moved first, with a soldier's decisive speed. An image of Erebos's whip flashed through Jace's mind, but he shook it away. Chandra paused. *I can...I can still try to burn her. Yeah. I can burn her. I got this.* Her hesitation vanished, as her natural confidence reasserted itself.
	Jace found that confidence both appealing and mystifying. She doesn't play at confidence. It just comes to her. Weird, he thought to himself, as he hesitated. Trying to burn Emrakul didn't feel right, didn't feel possible. But how could he be sure this wasn't just head games Emrakul was playing with him, with all of them? Emrakul had been in his mind. He had felt her power. He cast his thoughts to the whole group again. *No, Chandra. Emrakul is too big. Too powerful. We can't beat her that way. I'm not sure she can be destroyed.*
	*All right, let's light this trash mob up, Gids!* Light footsteps approached Ignis, accompanied by the scent of fresh earth and green growing things, briefly cutting through the coppery tang of Liliana's blood. *Jace is right. Trying to burn Emrakul is throwing a torch into the ocean. It will not work. Even if all the leylines were available. She is too...vast.* Nissa settled down by Ignis and began pulling various items out of packs and pockets. *May I?* she asked him. Her distaste for the necromancer was still evident in her mind voice, the way she moved so that even Liliana's clothing would not brush against her skin. *I have some healing skills. If we work together, we may yet save her.* Already, her nimble hands were weaving vines, shoots, and leaves into poultices for him to wrap around his paramour's terrible injuries.
	"Just so long as you actually are healing her," Ignis murmured roughly, "and not simply attempting to finish the job." No offense, Nissa. But it had been a bit of a problem in the past. "But, yes, of course," he added, this time with all the conviction and gratefulness that would come with such aid, and out loud, not only because this pain was too personal to be shared on the link with the others, but also just if there was a slim chance of it, he wanted to ensure that Liliana could hear his voice, "whatever needs to be done."
	"If I wished to kill her, I simply need to do nothing," Nissa said, voice dispassionate. "She is very nearly there already." She handed over the first poultice, instructing him where to put it and how, while she began work on the second. "She is a deathwitch, her very presence a corrupting force in the world, to say nothing of that thing she carries, but I will do my best by her." She frowned, peering more closely at the Veil. "That thing is what is keeping her alive at all right now. I hate to say it, but I do not think we should remove it. I do not know how many seconds she would last if we did, but I do know they would not be many."
	Ignis was quiet, at first, seemingly just focused on tending to Liliana's wounds with careful, practiced precision, but, as always, a great deal percolated underneath his once again stern and steady demeanor. "I should think," he then said, "now more than ever is a time to set aside our differences." But, no, he was not talking to Nissa and her disdain for Liliana's necromancy. "Is there anything--" he started, but, with a sudden swelling of some indescribable feelings he stopped, swayed by it, somewhat distracted, but he shook his head to clear it. Some lingering effect of being in Jace's mind tower? No, it was more than that, a sensation that set his every nerve throughout his whole body tingling. Emrakul? Some side-effect of Nissa's poultice? It didn't matter. He tried again. "Is there anything we can do to help Chandra?"
	"I am not certain there is anything we can do to help anyone at all," Nissa said calmly. Then, in all of their heads, *Emrakul was there, at my awakening. At the moment of my spark. Perhaps it is fitting she be there at the end.* Oh, wow, you do not get invited to many parties, huh?* Chandra's playful voice belied her words. She was currently in her element, on the outer ring of the zombie hordes, her flames beating back crazed spawn. *Enough doom talk. More how-we-win-this talk, please.*
	*Jace. Remember what Avacyn said.* Tamiyo's voice, a light breeze on a sunlit shore. Ignis tried. It seemed so long ago, that encounter with Avacyn, but it wasn't really, was it? It didn't help, this distraction, this odd sensation that seemed to be spreading from his chest. It was a burning, but a strangely pleasant one, not like the searing, all-consuming Starscourge but rather that same sensation that rippled up his arm when he called upon the katana. The feeling surged. Noct? No, he needed to focus on Avacyn instead. Avacyn, and Sorin. Inside the Cathedral... An echo chimed in his head, that mad angel saying her last words to her creator. "What cannot be destroyed..." He started to murmur, and then remembered to reach out to the others, the thrill of realization seemingly to make that sensation thrum through every inch of him. *What cannot be destroyed must be bound!*
	*Yes!* Tamiyo cried, voice insistent, clear. *Jace, that is the answer. That is what we must do. We cannot destroy Emrakul. We must bind her.*
	*But how?* Ignis asked. The eagerness for a new strategy combined with the feeling of spreading light made him feel as though he was practically dissolving into particles. That wasn't quite the case, but the shimmering blue light was beginning to stream off of him, unbeknownst to him. *Binding her--* But there, Ignis thoughts cut off abruptly, and perhaps those particles finally *did* dissipate, only to reform again, because where Ignis was previously knelt down beside Liliana, a small, furry creature now stood on four legs, with big ears and quiet, steady eyes peering out on either side of a small, garnet horn. The carbuncle gave a soft yip and shook itself out as if to dissipate the blue light that still clung to him, before giving Nissa a look. It seemed to nod in thanks, before gently stepping up to settle as best he could, curling around Liliana's prone, unresponsive form. Gently. Comfortingly. Protectively.
	For a moment, even Emrakul was forgotten, the Planeswalkers staring at the creature now within their midst. *Okay, anyone wanna clear up what just happened here? Cause it seems like Iggy just transformed into a...puppy-bunny-unicorn-thing.* *No, no, that's basically what just happened,* Jace sent, his expression doing gymnastics as he reached out to the...creature's...mind with his own. *Could this perhaps be Emrakul's doing?* Tamiyo asked. *No, she makes monstrosities. This creature is unexpected, but not a corruption.* Nissa reached towards Ignis but did not actually touch him. *I have never felt an energy like this before, but it is not twisted or wrong. It is not even bad. If anything, I would say that it is a positive spiritual force.* *Whatever it is, it's cuuuuuuute!* *Very helpful commentary, Chandra. It - he - has thoughts? But I can't understand them. Not like animal thoughts, they're alien. Or, maybe higher order is more accurate? I can't explain it better than that.* *Is he a shapeshifter?* Gideon, as always, with the practicality. Jace thought back to all the times it would have been useful for Ignis to shapeshift and shook his head. *I don't think so. At least, not a conscious one.* *I do not think he would have chosen to change forms before Liliana is safe,* Tamiyo agreed. Certainly not mid-thought.* *So what does that--ackkk!* A gout of flame rose up as Chandra charbroiled a group of Eldrazi spawn that had tried to take advantage of her distraction. *A discussion for later then,* Gideon said firmly. *We have an Eldrazi Titan to bind.*
	*How? Binding her may not be any more possible than destroying her. What prison could possibly hold her?* The Gatewatch had faced this same crux back on Zendikar, and there they had chosen destruction. But that was not a choice on Innistrad. Emrakul was beyond their powers. The only destruction in question was their own--along with everyone else on Innistrad. And with Liliana unconscious and Ignis a...whatever he was...that would mean leaving them behind. *The same prisoni that held all of Innistrad's horrors for hundreds of years,* Tamiyo replied. *The Helvault?* Jace was confused. *Wasn't that destroyed? In fact, I think Liliana destroyed it. Or at least had a hand in its destruction. Typical Lili, really.
	*Not the Helvault,* Tamiyo responded. *Where the Helvault came from. The moon. A silver moon. I have a binding spell. A powerful one. I can attune it to the moon. But it needs to be linked to Emrakul...*
	Jace's mind raced. They could do it. Jace was confident he could attach Tamiyo's spell to Emrakul. But they would need power, fuel for the spell. *Nissa...* Nissa had been silent as she continued infusing her mana into the poultices wrapping Liliana. Liliana's breathing was more even now, less shallow, though she remained unconscious. Jace felt a warm surge of gratitude toward Nissa, but now he needed more from her. Far more. *Can you power the spell?*
	Nissa's voice was cool, serene. *No. There are so few leylines here I can touch. So few I want to touch.* Jace paused, uncertain of what to say next or how to help her. *But I owe you, Jace Beleren. I will try.* *Owe me?* *My mind was not my own. I was trapped in a darkness brought by her rising. I was subsumed by her, far too easily. It was not...pleasant. You rescued me from that horror. You have a gift for making difficult things so very easy. I will do what I can.*
	Jace sputtered. *Um, thank you...it wasn't really me, I mean, I cast the spell, but I wasn't really thinking at the time, and I actually probably made it a bit worse because I didn't...* *'Thank you' suffices, Jace. You also have a gift for making easy things so very hard. I am ready.* Jace didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't. *Tamiyo, are you ready?*
	*I am ready,* Tamiyo confirmed, pulling out a scroll. Another memory flashed through Jace's mind: the angel took out a long scroll, a scroll with iron bands. That was where he had seen the familiar scroll, in his mental conversation with Emeria. But the scroll Tamiyo had chosen now did not have iron bands on it. No more time to ponder that mystery, though, the space around them was shrinking. Gideon and Chandra were each holding off Emrakul's minions by themselves, but they couldn't be everywhere at once, and the zombies were close to being overrun. It was time. Tamiyo began reading her scroll, intoning it with that rich, storyteller voice of hers. Sadly, Jace couldn't focus on the words, he was lost in the details of attaching the spell to Emrakul, using the knowledge gleaned from Ugin and his own hedron manipulations back on Zendikar. A glyph flashed onto the moon, incised lines glowing bright against the silvery reflection. He had to fasten that glyph onto Emrakul, the presence of Emrakul.
	But the spell demanded power. Streams, torrents of power. Nissa strained against the earth, her eyes a bright glowing green as she wove the polluted fragments of mana left on Innistrad into something Jace could use. They could feel her draining the leylines, looking for every last bit of energy. It was not enough. It was not going to be enough. Nissa stumbled to the ground, her arms flailing. They were going to lose the spell.
	As Jace struggled to keep the spell going, he lost mental contact with Tamiyo. Where she had been in his mind, there was now just a cloud, a dark gray fog he could not penetrate. Tamiyo pulled out another scroll, a long scroll, a scroll with iron bands, and began reading a second spell. Energy flowed into Jace. He was in a wide river of mana, more magic, more energy than he had ever felt before. It felt wonderful. He took the magic, shaped it, each point on the glyph attaching itself to a node on Emrakul that he created on the fly. And then Jace unleashed the full power of the spell.
	Light erupted from the moon. A cold, silver beam struck Emrakul from on high. It bathed the creature, enveloped it...and the creature stretched. Toward the light, toward the moon. The distortion was physically impossible. Before their very eyes, the shape of Emrakul arced through the light to the moon, stretching, stretching, and then... ...snapping. Emrakul folded, collapsed. She crumbled like a thin parchment sprinkled with glass, compacting to nothingness in a way no creature Emrakul's size should. Or could. The light winked out. Emrakul was gone. They had won. The silver face of the moon glowered with the triangular patterns of the glyph. Branded. Scarred. Sealed. It was over. They had won.

	The cleanup was always the hardest part. Jace was exhausted. It had been the longest day of his life, and all he wanted was to sleep; a sleep free of dreams or any thinking whatsoever. Liliana was still unconscious and the creature-that-was-or-maybe-just-used-to-be-Ignis (which, after a little more thought, Chandra had dubbed a 'foxicorn') were loaded into a carriage that they had taken from a stable; a misshapen, ugly little man named Gared who said 'he worked for the lady now, he was pretty sure' would bring them back to her estate, where Liliana could further rest and be tended to by her zombie staff. Jace was almost done. In a few more minutes, he could 'Walk back to Ravnica and sleep for a week. But there was someone he had to talk to first. He found her in the far outskirts of Thraben, sitting in the ruins of a small church. There were few buildings in Thraben left standing, and this church had not been spared. She just sat there, her legs crossed over one another, her eyes closed. Jace felt weird interrupting such a private moment. But he had to know. "Tamiyo...? Are you...can I...?" Jace didn't know how to ask his question delicately, so in the end just blurted it out. "What happened out there, Tamiyo? You were there, mind-linked with me, and then you...weren't. You vanished. What happened to you?"
	Tamiyo opened her eyes, her face still full of the sickness and dread she had displayed ever since they finished casting the spell. At his question, she began crying. Tears dropped from her eyes, one after another. Plip-plip, as they hit on the stone rubble beneath. Her words came out staggered, halting. "Nissa had fallen. The spell was in danger of collapsing. I didn't know what to do, how to help." Jace was surprised. "So Nissa generated that power by herself? Impressive. I had thought it was you, with the second scroll." Tamiyo looked at him, sadness and scorn both in her eyes. "No. You don't understand. It was me. With the second scroll. That's where the energy came from."
	"But that's wonderful! You saved us! You saved all of Innistrad, all of...everything!" Jace had no idea why Tamiyo was crying, why she had hit the ground after Emrakul had vanished, and had been quietly, but thoroughly sick. He'd attributed it to the aftermath of nerves and adrenaline at the time, but... "Is it because it was one of the iron scrolls? One of the scrolls you didn't want to open?"
	"Just shut up, Jace! Listen, just listen. It wasn't me. It...she...took me over. Do you understand? It was not me! I was there, in my own body, helpless as she came in and took over. My eyes, my hands, my voice...she took them all over. They were not mine." Her cries became full sobs.
	Jace shut up, more out of shock at hearing Tamiyo tell him to do so than anything else. In that moment of surprised silence a voice came back to him, her voice as he had watched his chess pieces stab and kill each other. They are all my pieces, Jace Beleren. They always were. I just no longer want to play. "I...I am sorry, Tamiyo. I don't know..."
	"But that wasn't the worst part. The scroll I opened. The second one. You were right. I shouldn't have opened it. A promise made long ago, which one day I'll have to answer for. But the spell she read...it wasn't the original spell. The scroll she used, it cast...a different spell." Emeria. From somewhere a long stylus appeared, and she began writing in the scroll. Jace began shaking. "It was changed. How did she do that? How could she do that?" Tamiyo's voice was near panic. "As this monster took over my body and read a scroll, a scroll that should have brought devastation to everything on this plane...instead it fueled a spell that trapped herself here. How did that happen, Jace? Why did it happen? What did we just do?"
	"I...I don't know." Jace had no more words for her. None for himself.
	Tamiyo took a deep breath. "I told you before, Jace. Sometimes our stories have to end. Yet here we are, each seeking to prolong our story, no matter the cost. But what if all stories are just her story, all in service of some awful destiny waiting to unfold?" Tamiyo looked up at the moon. "Did we really win?" The soratami's voice was no longer fearful, but plaintive. Jace had no answer. Eventually she rose and flew into the dark sky. There were no parting words.
	Jace sat for a longer time still. He looked again at the moon in its silver luminescence, the glyph still brightly inscribed on its surface, a testament to what the Gatewatch had achieved. In that moon's depths was the most powerful and destructive force any of them had ever encountered. The angel's words stabbed in his head, daggers from a destiny unrealized. This is all wrong. I am incomplete, unfulfilled, inchoate. There should be blossoms, not barren resentment. The soil was not receptive. It is not my time. Not yet. His spine was cold. It is not my time. Not yet. He dropped his gaze from the moon, and went in search of a safe bed to find temporary oblivion.

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're done! *flops* At least with all the scripted and preplayed stuff. Speaking of, this was adapted, turned upside down and inside out, and taped back together from "The Promised End," by Ken Troop, and preplayed by the truly magnificent (and so wonderfully patient), chef_chocobro Warning for body horror, warning for length, NFI, NFB, OOC is a lovely gift. Follows this.]

Comments

Breakdown of the Emrakul Arc

[deathsmajesty]

Innistrad At Large

Necrotrash Twins
Part One
Part Two

Maeli and Kalsa
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Sigarda
Part One
Part Two

Chronicles of Hanweir
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Random Happenings
Macher - Questions
Liont - Realizations
Adila - Understandings
Thalia - Nightmares

The Rise of Emrakul
Unwelcome
Unwelcome Interlude 1: Dinner
Unwelcome Interlude 2: Breakfast
Mystery at Markov Manor
Paper Companion
Drownyard Temple
Liliana's Indignation
Innistrad's Last Hope Part One
Stories and Endings
I Am Avacyn
Innistrad's Last Hope Part Two
Battle of Thraben
The Promised End