“House Dimir.”
Zarek nodded. “Is there a Selesnya delegate?” He looked around. “Selesnya?”
“Start without the tree-lovers,” snorted Tajic, the Boros runner, to a chorus of agreement.
“As much as I would love to,” said Zarek, “we can’t begin without them.”
“I’m here,” came a voice, and the crowd parted to reveal Emmara.
Jace let go of a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.
All eyes turned to look at her. She looked strange somehow, though nothing was different about her appearance. Jace realized that she had no delegation: no elvish wolf-riders at her sides, no Conclave priests or woodshapers, no Calomir on his white rhino. She was alone, an aberration for the guild founded on the value of community. Hairs stood up on Jace’s neck, but he didn’t know why.
She walked to the stage by herself.
“Emmara Tandris, for the Selesnya Conclave.”
“Very well,” said Zarek, his lips cocked sideways in a half grin as he recorded her name.
From his hiding place among the crowd, Jace reached out to Emmara and touched minds with her. He encountered Emmara’s familiar flow of surface thoughts and emotions, and felt a flood of relief. He realized that for a moment, he wasn’t entirely sure the shapeshifter Lazav hadn’t taken her place.
“Good to see you,” Jace thought into Emmara’s mind.
To her credit, her face did not let on that she had heard him. She stared straight up at Zarek, thinking back, “Jace! Where are you?”
“I’m here, at the promenade, with you. Don’t look for me. But I’m with you.”
“I made it here, thanks to you. And I know the route. Jace—you were right about Calomir.”
“Oh. You faced him. I’m sorry.”
“That thing that killed Calomir is still at large. But I made it here.”
“Looks like the Conclave didn’t offer you much support.”
“Even knowing the truth about Calomir, it took a lot to convince them to send me. I think I’ve caused a crisis for Trostani, and for the guild. I think they believe I’ll be less trouble running around the city than stuck there in the Conclave.”
“Then she doesn’t know you very well.”
Jace could see her smile a tiny smile.
Next to Ral Zarek, the elemental creature stepped forward, clashing energies swirling within its body. “And I am Melek,” it said, bowing slightly, its voice buzzing and artificial. “I shall be the maze-runner chosen to represent the—” It stopped, interrupted by Zarek, who raised his gauntlet to ask for silence.
“And I am Ral Zarek,” said Zarek, smirking and imitating the elemental’s voice. With sudden violence, Zarek rammed his gauntlet through the back of the elemental creature, causing a jolt of electricity to crackle. The gauntlet absorbed the electric essence from the Izzet elemental, causing it to hunch and shudder. Sparks flowed out of the elemental runner, depleting it of one of its two elements, leaving behind only a skeleton of ice. Zarek gritted his teeth as the Izzet elemental’s power flowed into him, sending jolts of electricity throughout his body.
After a moment, the former Izzet maze-runner fell onto the stage, a heap of lifeless, steaming ice. “I am Ral Zarek, and I will represent the Izzet,” he announced.
Jace scanned the crowd. All the guilds’ delegations were agitated; they knew nothing would be certain in this race. “Get ready,” he thought to Emmara.
“We now have all ten represented,” said Zarek. “All the eyes of Ravnica are on us, the chosen champions of the guilds. And all of history hence will look back to this day. And now, please listen carefully for the rules.”
The rowdier guilds growled in complaint at the mention of rules. Zarek raised his gauntlet high above his head.
Zarek blasted an omnidirectional pulse of lightning out from his gauntlet. A wave of electricity cascaded from his hand, striking the competitors nearest the stage, knocking them flat and leaving them stunned. The stage broke into pieces, erupting with a flurry of small, foxlike lightning elementals. The elementals leaped on anyone and everyone, biting flesh with teeth made of raw static charge.
“There are no rules,” said Zarek.
Chaos. The crowd of guild teams, caught flatfooted, broke into a screaming mob, running in all directions. Competitors dispersed the spark elementals with sword or spell, but the fighting cost them precious moments.
Emmara had been close to Zarek’s lightning spell, and was just looking down at her hands, shuddering. Jace dashed out of hiding, grabbed her shoulders, and led her out of the center of the chaos, throwing dismissal spells to evaporate lightning elementals in their path. Emmara moved stiffly, and wisps of smoke wafted from her collar. The lightning had left a black, charred spot on the front of her robe.
“Let’s go, my maze-runner,” he said as soothingly as he could. “Move those legs. One foot after the other.”
Jace glanced around. Zarek and his entourage had already disappeared. This was the beginning of the race, he thought. This was the beginning of Azor’s test.
Mirko Vosk caught his eye, and disappeared into a bank of shadows.
The teams dispersed. The Gruul war party headed in the direction of Gnat Alley, a twisting route through ramshackle dive taverns and thieves’ dens. The Simic mages directed their hybridized beasts into an undercity entrance and disappeared. Several of the guilds headed back in the direction Emmara had come. Jace guessed they were all operating on as much of the route as they knew, and that some guilds might even be navigating blind, choosing gates at random.
Emmara blinked, recovering from Ral Zarek’s electro-shock spell, and Jace let her stand under her own power. She seemed to notice he was supporting her, and she nodded in thanks. She put her arms around his neck.
“So it’s begun,” she said.
Jace tried to look as reassuring and as confident as he could. “It has. And you’re going to win it.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she said. “After you sent me the route, I planned it all out. I had big plans. I was going to come backed by a full force of elementals—towering protectors to help us smash our way through the city.”
Jace raised his eyebrows. “That’s a good plan. I like that plan.”
“But I can’t. Trostani took that power from me.”
“She what? How?”
“She revoked my possession of it. That spell was hers. It belonged to the Conclave. It was just on loan to me.”
Jace kept his hand at her back, preventing her from falling. “No matter. We’ll manage.”
“How, Jace? They’re out for blood. Look at them—they all have teams. They have armies.”
“We’re smarter. More knowledgeable. And a lot better looking.”
“Don’t joke. You heard the Izzet runner—there are no rules. Do you know what the best strategy is in a competition without rules? To kill all the other competitors. They’re going to eat me alive.”
“Not going to happen. We can do this. I sent you the route. You know the first part.”
Emmara took a breath and centered herself with a little shrug. “Back to the Selesnya gate.”
“Yes. That’ll be an easy one.”
Emmara shot him a look. “You really think there are going to be any easy ones?”
“No, I suppose not. Listen. Zarek and the Izzet will already be there. Let’s move.”
“I have to face those people again—Trostani and the rest. I’m not sure I can.”
“What choice do we have?”
Emmara squared her shoulders. “You’re right. So, hire a griffin?”
Jace glanced at the teams that were still lingering around the promenade. The Golgari team was preparing its pack insect. The creature was much taller than it was long, its carapace-covered body rising higher than some of the buildings, like a spider on stilts. It squatted hideously, and the Golgari elves climbed onto a pair of leather saddles on its back. The troll Varolz ran off ahead of the creature, toward the Selesnya part of town.