Throne of Eldraine Read online

  THRONE OF ELDRAINE: THE WILDERED QUEST

  ©2019 Wizards of the Coast LLC. Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering, Magic, their respective logos, and characters’ names and distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the USA and other countries. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  www.MagicTheGathering.com

  Written by Kate Elliott

  Cover art by Magali Villeneuve

  The stories, characters, and incidents mentioned in this publication are entirely fictional.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780786967087

  First Printing: September 2019

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  v5.4

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One: Harvest

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two: Winter

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART ONE: HARVEST

  1

  In a way, Oko pitied the big hunter struggling to break free from the net of thorn-laced vines. The fey limped around a mass of seething vegetation, admiring his handiwork: its flexibility, strength, and ability to regrow with such speed and vicious energy. A good thing, too, given the size of the stranger who had come within a hair’s breadth of murdering him. The man’s rusty helm covered his hair and the top half of his face, making him look all grimace and teeth.

  What a brute! The hunter seemed larger now than when Oko had first realized someone was stalking him through an otherwise pleasant forest on a plane whose name he did not yet know. The size difference wasn’t because night had fallen and a full moon changed how objects looked within its glossy light. Magic was afoot.

  The veins visible beneath the man’s pallid skin were streaked with darkness. Blood trickling from a hundred scratches on his body where thorns tore his skin flowed a noxious black, corrupted with a foul rot. Certainly he smelled rank with dried blood, mud, and substances Oko did not care to reflect on. The matted cloak and filthy clothes held enough stink to slaughter a more sensitive nose than his own.

  “I am surprised I have to point this out to you,” said Oko in his most reasonable tone, “but you cannot rip the vines as fast as I can grow them. You’d be better off not wasting your strength in fighting them.”

  “I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands,” growled the beast.

  “A vile and predictable threat I am sorry to hear you utter. But I understand your frustration. It’s no wonder you launched yourself at me, an innocent visitor just passing through, and tried to kill me.”

  Of course the creature had no appreciation of irony. He growled with a hostility that felt…odd and exaggerated, almost artificial, as if his seething anger was part of the darkness that corrupted his blood.

  Oko paused at the hunter’s right side. A lump bulged beneath the skin between spine and shoulder. It throbbed not audibly but in a way attuned to his magical sense. He recognized the signature of its dense power with a jolt of uneasy surprise.

  The hunter had a shard of hedron embedded in his flesh. Few knew of the existence of hedrons. Fewer still possessed the magic to perform such an operation. Oko certainly did not.

  Who was this hunter? Why was the hedron implanted under his skin, and who had placed it there? So many questions that needed answers.

  Oko finished his perambulation of the magical cage of thorns and vines, judging it able to hold for now. Using both hands—the weapon was astoundingly heavy—he dragged the huge axe the man had been carrying until it lay out of range of an easy duck-and-grab, just in case the beast did break free.

  Only then did he examine his own injured leg. The cut that had torn his flesh down to the bone was already starting to knit together. He’d had the presence of mind to shift into the shape of a stag and thus confuse his pursuer for long enough to bolt out of reach. Then he’d been able to shift back and entangle the man in vines. But as he well knew, corruption can always insinuate its tendrils into the purest ground. His vines might already be becoming blighted and would give way as the man’s tainted blood weakened them. Unbound, the man could easily kill him. He didn’t dare attempt his usual means for ridding himself of a dangerous foe. To do so, he’d have to touch the beast and risk coming into contact with the tainted darkness writhing within the hunter’s flesh.

  The best action in this case was a swift departure.

  Yet survival usually depended on knowing more than your enemies did.

  “So what is it you want, my unexpected friend?”

  “To kill you.”

  “Why? Is it my exceptional good looks? My wit and intelligence? My pleasingly mild disposition?”

  The brute made a sound that might have been a grunt of annoyance or possibly a bitten-off laugh. “Do you think I can’t kill you?”

  “If you could reach me, you certainly could. But forewarned is forearmed. Or four armed, if I decided to take the form of an Elagian swamp swallower. But that wouldn’t be a good choice for a highland forest, would it? So I fear we must say goodbye to each other before any such disagreeable episode comes to pass. Not the swamp swallower, I mean, though they are disagreeable, dangerous to magic users, and fetid to boot, rather like you. Killing me is what I mean. You’ll understand why I’d prefer that not happen.”

  “You talk too much.”

  “A fair assessment. Well, I am no more eager to see your ugly face again than you are to hear my mellifluous voice. So, to spare your ears and your volatile disposition, I will bid you fare well rather than good riddance.”

  The brute said, “I can follow you anywhere.”

  “Anywhere?” Oko paused before he planeswalked away from the quiet forest.

  “You cannot hide from me. Another world, another trophy.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Now you begin to interest me. Are you saying you are also a Planeswalker?”

  “I hunt Planeswalkers.”

  “Have you some reason?”

  “They keep coming after me. If I kill all Planeswalkers then I can hunt in peace.”

  “My friend, your logic is flawed, if you are also a Planeswalker.”

  “Don’t mock me, pretty boy.”

  Oko raised both hands in a hands-off gesture. “I’m not mocking you. Far from it. You have lit the fire of my curiosity. A corrupting magic courses through your flesh. A hedron lies buried in your skin. You’ve admitted to being a Planeswalker, determined to hunt me from one world to the next when you don’t even know me, just because I am also a Planeswalker. A vendetta, if I am not mistaking the matter, but surely not one directed against me specifically since we’ve never before met. Is there anything else you’d like to share with me? Your reasons? Your secrets?”

  The hunter grunted, trying to get his hands free. The thorns tore his skin but the pain mattered not at all t
o him.

  “I’ll kill you,” he muttered. “I will follow your trail until you’re dead.”

  A shadowy tendril of the corruption had slithered its way into one of the vines, which was starting to turn brown. Oko frowned. The rot would spread, and the man would break free no matter how many vines he wrapped around him. This was a powerful curse, indeed.

  Power could be fought. It could be fled. Sometimes it could be bent to another’s will. He sighed but saw no way around attempting the most draining of his magics. If the hunter really was a Planeswalker, it wasn’t worth taking the chance that he couldn’t track him across the multiverse.

  He took a step closer. The hunter strained, trying to reach him. Oko pinioned the thorn-wrapped brute’s gaze with the full force of a magic that long ago had allowed him to escape his persecutors: a meager spoonful of telepathy he’d taught himself to turn another to a better purpose with the aid of a sympathetic smile, a glimmer of comradely hope, a promise of unshakeable loyalty.

  “Vendettas are a grievous burden to bear, are they not? I pity you, my friend. There’s so much pain in your heart.”

  The man growled hoarsely. “I don’t need your pity.”

  He held the hunter’s eyes, didn’t let them shift away. With all the force he had to bear he dug deep past the hostility, the rage, the agonized sense of betrayal. It was so hard to get there, sweat breaking out on his forehead, pulse thundering in his ears. Deep in the man’s mind he discovered a deeply-hoarded grief for a father lost along ago. What an innocent dupe! Fathers always betrayed their sons.

  “What do you need?” he said, pressing deeper into the ancient wound.

  “I need more,” the man whispered, panting as if he were running. But Oko’s glamer was a foe he could not out-race.

  “You are suffering alone, my friend. Share your troubles with me.”

  The man was strong, it was true, but his strength lay in his muscles, his endurance, his axe, and his impressive tracking ability. His will was a polished spear aimed at its target, but his disordered mind had a fragile texture.

  “Liliana Vess,” he whispered, the words torn from an unwilling tongue.

  For an instant Oko’s control wavered out of sheer astonishment. “Liliana Vess.”

  “She cursed me…the darkness…the rot….” Corruption pulsed into the vines with a surge of anger. The vegetation began to weaken as the man struggled again.

  Oko drilled down, choking off the man’s emotions, wrapping them in a numbing cage. As magic dulled the clawing edge of animosity, the brute’s shoulders dropped in resignation. His hands opened to hang loose at his side. His lips parted slackly, and not a sound came out.

  “I’ll help you. You can trust me. I am your only friend.”

  As the hunter’s struggles ceased, his mind gave way beneath Oko’s mesmerizing stare, surrendering to the beautiful, dreaming lie of comradeship and compassion.

  The spell was complete.

  Oko wiped his damp brow. He was shaking with exhaustion, shaken by being thrown back into hideous memory. The same technique had been used on him long ago before he’d turned the tables on his captors. The frightened boy in him hated inflicting this on others. Yet in a cruel Multiverse a person had to use the weapons they possessed to save themselves. People were capable of any awful thing, always filled with their own sanctimonious rationalizations for why they were good and their enemies were bad. Planeswalkers were the worst of an already bad lot. Power did that to people. Especially to people he meant for the time being to avoid, until more of his plans could be put in place.

  Meanwhile, what was he to do with a creature who could pursue him across planes and would kill him if he ever got close enough? Should he hack the man into small pieces, now that the hunter languished under his spell? Or use the man to protect him as he went on his way? A shield would prove useful. A first line of defense when, for example, the unexpected ambushed him in an isolated forest where he’d been minding his own business.

  “What is your name, my friend?” Oko asked with a kind smile, but before the hunter could answer he shook his head. “No, you don’t want to remember your name and every terrible detail you associate with your past, do you?”

  The hunter bowed his head. “No. I don’t want to remember.”

  “Let go of the past. You will walk a new path. Explore a new destiny. I need a bodyguard. You need a better sense of purpose, one that my quest will provide. I’ll call you…Dog, and you’ll call me Master. Yes, Dog?”

  The man stiffened, then gave way all at once as if he was too weary to fight on and just wanted to rest. He bent his head. “Yes, Master.”

  The brute looked so much more at peace that Oko was pleased. Inflicting suffering on others was the tool of weak-hearted bullies. It worked so much better when people wanted to be helped. He smiled as he curled the vines away to release the man. He even allowed Dog to pick up the big axe.

  “Let us leave this dull wilderness behind. You and I, my friend, will together seek rule-bound tyrants to overthrow, pious frauds and smug deceivers to unmask, and hypocritical liars to expose. If a few Planeswalkers must meet their end, should they attempt to interfere with me as I better the lives of all, so be it. They will have brought it on themselves.”

  The hunter’s eyes sparked with a glimmer of his earlier savagery. “Yes, Master.”

  2

  Rowan impatiently surveyed the forecourt of Castle Ardenvale, searching for a glimpse of her brother Will. He should have been waiting for her beside their ponies, which were tied to the back of a wagon filled with sacks of oats. The High King was about to leave on the Grand Procession, his first-harvests tour of all five courts of the Realm.

  Their parents had made a deal with the twins: Act as humble attendants in the baggage train serving the community, and you may accompany the procession. But of course moonstruck, lamb-witted Will had gotten bored of waiting and wandered off. She and her twin were going to be left behind, the gates would be closed, their mother would lecture them that rules were meant to be followed, and they’d lose their chance to go.

  Her anger flared. Lightning crackled at her fingertips, but she damped it down, letting the magic chase away like a flurry of nettle stings along her skin. The pain sharpened her thoughts. Think, she told herself. Stop and think.

  Maybe Will hadn’t wandered far. The procession hadn’t left yet because they were waiting for the High King to join them. Even once the column started moving it would take a while for everyone to file out. She could still find her brother in time.

  The forecourt was packed with people and animals. Knights, nobles, mages, grooms, attendants, and wagon drivers waited on the inner causeway behind closed gates that would open onto the long outer causeway that linked the promontory to the surrounding countryside. The silver and white tabards of the assembled travelers shone in the sun in disciplined ranks. Even the horses waited more patiently than Will could.

  The many patient horses reminded her that her best friend wasn’t mounted on a youth’s training pony today. Cerise had turned eighteen two months ago.

  Rowan checked to make sure the reins of her tediously placid pony were secured to the back of the wagon. Her unobtrusive tunic and leggings covered by a forest-green traveling cloak allowed her to move unnoticed alongside the waiting column until she spotted the four healers who were accompanying the Grand Procession.

  She slipped closer. As the youngest among the healers, Cerise stood modestly behind her elders and beside her mount. Seen in profile, her grace and beauty matched that of her bearded unicorn, her own black complexion set off by the unicorn’s silvery-gray coat. Rowan didn’t want to call attention to herself so she glared at Cerise’s profile until the other girl blinked and looked around right at her. The healer whispered something into the ear of the unicorn, then glided over to Rowan without a word to her elders, who were talking among themselves.

  Coming up, she set hands on hips and cocked her head to one side. “Why aren’t you
back with—?”

  “Is Will with you? Did he come by?”

  Cerise gave a quick look around. “Did he get bored and wander off? How like Will.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re finally leaving on your first quest.”

  “It’s just four more months for you, Rowan. I’ll be back by then. We’ll ride out together.”

  “I thought I was going to be able to scout out the different courts, get the lay of the land before I go on my first quest.”

  “Weren’t you with Will this whole time in the baggage train?”

  Rowan exhaled, then bit her lip.

  “Ah,” said Cerise with a triumphant smile. “What were you doing?”

  “I didn’t leave the forecourt! I was talking to Titus. He just got back from—”

  Cerise interrupted with a laugh. “Of course you wouldn’t have been able to resist a chance to hear about the tournaments at Embereth.”

  “I know, I know. I should have stuck next to Will the whole time instead of—” Anger boiled freshly up in her belly.

  “Instead of wandering off to flirt with the only person from our cohort who can regularly defeat you at swordwork?” Cerise smirked.

  “Ugh, I hate it when you’re right,” Rowan said without heat. “I didn’t realize it would be so hard to see my friends go off on their first quests while I’m still mired here.”

  “Will can’t have gone far, maybe up to the battlements.” Cerise punched her on the shoulder. “Good fortune finding him. As soon as the High King arrives we’re leaving. You know what happens when the gates close.”

  “The gates always feel closed.” She gave a frustrated wave to Cerise and hurried over to Archer’s Tower, nimbly avoiding collisions with onlookers who were starting to mill around restlessly. Of course the assembly must be gathered before the High King joined them, but he tended to run late.

  Rowan took the tower stairs two at a time. Up on the battlements, banners snapped in the cheerful wind. It was a clear day with a few high clouds brushing like feathers along the sky. The neat checkerboard fields of Ardenvale’s farms and villages surrounded the castle’s promontory at the edge of the Arden, the highlands which gave the court its name. Silvery woodlands lent a magical aura of peace and calm to the landscape. The outer causeway spanned a wide moat before joining up with a road paved in white stone. A road that led somewhere else, anywhere else.