The end of the wrist, from which his hand had now disappeared, did not display bone and vein and muscle; instead, it presented a mirrorlike surface of polished metal, which appeared to have roughly the luster of burnished pewter.
The man said, “So far so good,” then closed his eyes to focus every scrap of his attention on what his hand was doing on the far side of reality. He could still feel it as though it were on the beach with him, because it wasn’t actually in another universe, but between universes, in the?ther soup of unrealized possibility that he, and those like him, named the Blind Eternities.
What his hand did there took considerable time, as such things were measured on the world that was ocean. When at last he decided his experiment was complete, he focused his mind again as he had on insertion, then pulled his hand back into the universe he shared with the Metal Island.
His hand was grievously burned, flesh blackened and peeling, and the skin on the back of his hand, where he had inserted the crystal needle, was gone altogether, exposing a charred mass of bone and tendon. He nodded to himself; this was one of the possible outcomes he had anticipated. For this outcome, he had planned a further experiment.
He took another needle from his hair and drove it into his burned flesh where the first had been. He focused his attention very much as he had when his hand had been outside the universe… and charred muscle began to heal, and fresh pink skin crept back over it. The last place to close was the back of his hand, where the skin had been altogether missing. Here, just before pink skin covered it altogether, there could be seen-just along one metacarpal and a fractional length of vein-a tiny glint of metal, like burnished pewter… or, of course, etherium, for that was what it was.
He lifted his gaze once more to meet the blank etherium stare of the Metal Sphinx. “Thank you.”
The Metal Sphinx did not reply.
He took a deep breath and settled back into a comfortable position. “And for the rest,” he said to himself, “patience. When using unfamiliar bait, one can only cast it into the ocean and wait to see what bites.”
No great amount of patience was needed; presently, his anticipation was rewarded with the sound of the universe screaming in pain.
This is a sound that ordinary ears cannot hear-it’s more akin to a ragged, rending silence deeper than that of airless space-but the man knew this sound well, and he did not even lift his head as vast talons sliced into the world-ocean from the outside, ripping a hole in reality, pulling the shreds apart, slicing the universe in a gruesome parody of birth. Shortly, the rip in reality was torn wide enough that a scaled shoulder appeared, bringing with it a vast leathery wing, and finally a dragon the size of a house forced itself into the world.
The dragon held a human in its jaws, wedged in the corner of its mouth as a rich man might hold a fine cigar. All that could be seen of this unfortunate individual was the lower half of his naked body, which was how the man who kneeled on the shore could tell-with the help of excellent vision-that this man was in fact a man.
The dragon’s eyes shone with a yellow flame that cast a pale dandelion glow on the white sand. Actual flames licked out from its eyeballs, sending greasy pale smoke twisting upward between its horns. Smoke of a different sort leaked from the dragon’s nostrils. Someone familiar with dragons would have noted that this one seemed angry-to say it burned with fury would be literally accurate.
This dragon pounced like an enormous cat. One taloned forelimb slammed the man on the shore onto his back, pinning him to the ground, then began, ever so slowly, to crush the life from him.
“Bolas.” The man did not show the slightest discomfort. “Took your time, didn’t you?”
“Oh, very funny. Took my time.” The dragon’s voice was compounded of thunder and landslide. Even spoken out of the side of its mouth, each word might have been crushed from a granite mountain. “You have a refined sense of humor, for a dead man.”
“I’m surprised you even realized it was a joke.”
“This is what I think of comedy.” In its free hand, the dragon took the man’s legs, which kicked weakly at the corner of its jaw, and bit the man in half. His scream of agony was brief, and mostly muffled, being inside the dragon’s mouth. The dragon broke off the corpse’s lower half as though it were a celery stick as he chewed on the rest. A black tongue flicked up, around, and across the dragon’s mouth, gathering the sprays of blood that had splattered its scales.
The dragon, whose name was Nicol Bolas, was not known for his sense of humor.
The man pinned under the dragon’s other hand did not look impressed. “That wouldn’t happen to have been Jace Beleren, would it?”
“B’l’rn?” The dragon made a face and spit the mangled remnant of torso into the sea. “Ychh. Raw free-range human. Tastes like goat balls.” The dragon made another face and spit again. “No, sorry to disappoint, Tezzeret-that wasn’t Jace. He would taste like, oh, spring lamb, I imagine. That… inedible crap… was that clockworker of yours.”
“Renn?” The man, who was called Tezzeret, broadened his smile. “The last time I saw him, he was nothing more than a head and etherium. Even his heart. No lungs at all, nor any of the other bits. Getting himself a whole new body must have been a substantial undertaking, even for him.”
“He didn’t,” the dragon said. “I did. The rebuild was his fee for telling me where you went.”
“Ah.” Tezzeret nodded. “The contract didn’t specify how you’d rebuild him.”
“Why would I waste all that etherium on someone who isn’t me?”
“A question he should have considered before making the deal.”
“He was a little agitated at the time. Emotional. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say he was foaming at the mouth with uncontrollable rage.” The dragon cocked his head an inch or two. “You have that effect on people.”
“Do I? Well, well. At any rate, thank you.”
“What?”
Tezzeret gave as much of a shrug as would fit between the dragon’s talons. “I said thank you. It’s an expression civil people sometimes use. It means I’m grateful for your help.”
“I know what it-” The dragon’s jaw clamped shut, and the weight on Tezzeret’s chest suddenly doubled. “Is this really the time to be mocking me?”
“I hadn’t decided whether or not I should kill him; you have thoughtfully removed one horn of my potential moral dilemma. Not to mention that finding him at all might have been a challenge. I appreciate the favor. I’d say I owe you one, but under the circumwaurggh”-his voice thinned as the weight on his chest suddenly doubled-“it might be… guhh… redundant…” His voice faded to a gurgle as the dragon leaned on his chest hard enough to spring a couple of his ribs.
“Banter,” said Nicol Bolas, “gets on my nerves.”
The drool that spooled down from his jaws toward Tezzeret’s head was tinged strawberry with blood, smelled like offal, and had the consistency of half-melted gelatin. “Have you been here all along? Is this your hiding place?”
Tezzeret shook his head. “Wasn’t… hiding,” he wheezed. “Was waiting… for you.”
“Flatterer.” The dragon increased the weight on the man’s chest. “You were given a task.”
Tezzeret only rolled his head, nodding toward the Metal Sphinx.
“Please,” Bolas rumbled. “You think you can buy me off with mere treasure?”
Tezzeret only blinked mutely up at the dragon, who presently realized the man’s face was turning black. “Oh, fine.” He eased up on the pressure until Tezzeret could breathe.
“It’s not… treasure…” Tezzeret coughed. “It’s just how this place is. And how it will always be. More or less. Ever hear the expression ‘You can’t take it with you’?”
“Really?” Bolas lifted his head, frowning at the etherium gigafortune all around. If Tezzeret could have taken even an armload or two of etherium back across the Blind Eternities to Esper, Bolas would hardly have found him naked on this beach.