The warning bells began to ring. Belatedly.
The abbot asked Arturo, “Where are the villagers? How close?”
“They’re coming up the hill, Master. But the storm is coming up too fast.”
“All right, acolytes, get out there. All of you. Get to work. Alternate with the vested monks and make sure there’s a shielded path for the villagers to ascend. I don’t want an inch of exposure for those poor souls, is that clear?” commanded the abbot in his clipped, sharp crisis-speech.
The acolytes nodded and murmured their assent.
“Then move!”
They sped out the chapel door.
The abbot turned to Teyo, saying, “You, too, Verada. You can prove what a hero you’ve become.”
“Yes, Master.”
Next, Abbot Barrez turned to Kaya and Jaya to order them around, as well: “Stay inside, both of you. You’ll be safe from the diamondstorm.”
“What in the Nine Hells is a diamondstorm?” a still-winded Jaya demanded, sitting back down on her bench.
The abbot shook his head and muttered, “Where did he find these two?”
Teyo quickly turned to Rat and said, “You stay inside, too. This chapel is fortified with diamond-encrusted walls, inside and out. They can withstand most anything.”
From the doorway, the abbot barked, “By the Storm, Verada, now!”
Teyo hopped to.
Outside, it was instantly clear that the Western Cloud had sent the diamondstorm in too fast. Humans, dwarves and minotaurs—males and females, adults and children, the entire population of the nameless village at the foot of the nameless mountain upon which the Monastery of the Order of the Shieldmage sat—were moving at a deliberate pace up the trail to achieve the safety of the Order’s five reinforced buildings. For years, Abbot Barrez had been trying to convince the villagers to reinforce their own homes with diamonds, but eking out their meager livings in this water-starved climate took up all the peasants’ time and energy, and evacuating to the monastery at the first sign of a storm was a deeply ingrained custom. A custom that worked just fine with enough warning and with sufficient lead time that such warning offered.
But a storm this fast provided neither.
The wind was high and loud. The sand was already in, and visibility was already close to nonexistent.
Enhancing his voice magically in order to be heard above the roar of the wind, the abbot called out: “Form the line! We have hapless fools to save!”
Teyo took a position between Brother Armando and Brother Abedo, downhill from Theo, uphill from Peran and Arturo—his three cellmates and the best friends he’d ever had.
Well, until I met Rat.
It was almost funny how close he felt to her already. They had known each other only…
Had it really only been two days?
That seemed incredible. And yet…
“Shields up!” called out the abbot. “Find your lore!”
Teyo knew the drill. He began chanting, forming a triangle each from his eastern and western vertices.
“Four-pointers, Verada! You need diamonds to stop diamonds!”
Teyo nodded silently. He could no longer see the abbot for the sand. He chanted, expanding his left-hand triangle into a diamond. But his right hand lagged behind, as usual. He was out of balance, as usual. Even now, at the beginning.
C’mon, Teyo, you did much harder stuff on Ravnica. Much harder! By the Eastern Cloud, you formed a giant hemisphere strong enough to hold off a God-Eternal. You must be able to make two decent four-pointers!
He created a small circle of light beneath his right ear to provide the balance he naturally lacked. It worked a measure, and he was able to create the second diamond. And just in time. The diamonds were incoming. A few micro-stones sliced across the top of his scalp, reminding him to keep his shields high.
But, as the abbot taught, if all a shieldmage could protect was himself, he was a pretty poor shieldmage.
“By the Storm, Verada, if all a shieldmage can protect is himself, he is a pretty poor shieldmage!”
“Yes, Master.”
He expanded his diamonds, working to join his lore with the geometries of Brothers Armando and Abedo. Once again, his eastern vertex was up to the task. He was flush with Armando. But his western vertex was a mess. There was a great gap between his diamond and Brother Abedo’s trapezoid. And he hadn’t yet been able to combine his two diamonds into anything at all, leaving more gaps between them.
“Find your lore, acolyte!” Brother Abedo shouted. “Be the geometry!”
“Yes, brother,” he breathed between chants, certainly too low for Abedo to hear over the storm. The diamonds were bigger now, the size of marbles, slamming into Teyo’s light and shapes. He felt every single one and knew this was only the beginning. He was faltering. Already.
He heard Peran shout, “Villagers abreast!”
Two minutes later, Brother Berluz repeated the call.
Then Arturo: “Villagers abreast!”
Then Armando: “Villagers abreast!”
They’d be up to Teyo in a matter of seconds and he flat-out wasn’t ready for them.
Suddenly Abbot Barrez was shouting, “Hold position! The line is broken above!”
Brother Armando repeated the call, “Wait! Wait! Hold position! Stay put! The line is broken above!”
The abbot was now right behind Teyo, grinding his failures in deep, sand-scouring his meager efforts. “This is appalling, Verada. You’ve only been gone two days! Have you really forgotten all the lore I wasted my time teaching you in such a short time? What’s this at your ear, a balance circle? Is that orthodoxy? Are you a child?”
“No, Master. Yes, Master. No, Master. No, Master.” He dissolved the circle at his ear, which instantaneously weakened his concentration, his lore and his geometry. His shields cracked.
“Verada, you’re as useful as a fire-djinn doing laundry.”
“Yes, Master.”
Barrez called out, “Abedo, compensate for this worthless student! Expand your lore!”
“Yes, Abbot.”
“Keen! So is this really what you did all day before you came to Ravnica? It’s very exciting. I can see why you were so eager to return. You know I think I already have sand in places that I didn’t know sand could get into, right?”
Rat!
He couldn’t see her but she must have been just behind him. “What are you doing here?” he hissed into the storm. “I told you to wait in the chapel!”
“I know, I know. But I wanted to see whatever what a diamondstorm looked like. It sounded so sparkly. And you know I like sparkly things. But it turns out you can’t really see much of anything, except maybe a little burst, a little peeoo, every time a diamond hits your shield. It’s funny. There are diamonds scattered all across the ground. They’re kinda not worth anything here, I imagine. But I’ve already pocketed a bunch. A whole bunch, really. There’s this Orzhov fence named J’dashe. She’s dead now, but I bet I can sell her ghost a nice handful of these stones for a pontiff’s ransom—if I can get her to acknowledge my existence, somehow. But if I can do that, I better let her think I stole ’em all. Otherwise, she won’t believe they’re worth a rotten plum—”
“Rat, Rat! You’re putting yourself in terrible danger!”
“Ah, no, I’ll be just fine. I’ll stay behind your shields.”
My shields? My shields aren’t worth a rotten plum! She needs to stay behind Brother Armando’s or even Arturo’s. Except they can’t see or hear her. They won’t know she’s there. They won’t be able to keep her covered, and they won’t even know they’re failing.
So it had to be Teyo. He’d have to make sure she was protected, even as diamonds the size of rotten plums began slamming against his pitiful constructs.
Well, then, fix them. Fix them for her!
He didn’t chant. He leaned in. Leaned into the wind. Leaned into the pounding of diamonds and the rush of sand. He forgot all his orthodoxy, whatever orthodoxy he might have had. But he remembered Araithia Shokta and his need to safeguard her. He might be a poor excuse for a shieldmage, but he would not be a poor excuse for her friend.
He fortified his shields with his heart vertex and his gut vertex. He pushed against the wind with his mind vertex, and simultaneously returned the circle of light to his right ear. His shields expanded. In length. In breadth. And for good measure, in depth. He pushed the diamond forward, giving his geometry volume.
On either side of him, Brothers Armando and Abedo could be heard to gasp. To gasp over the roar of the diamondstorm.
Brother Armando called out to the villagers, “All right, move. Now. The line’s repaired. Villagers abreast!”
Teyo reached out behind him with his lore and felt the flow of the villagers moving up the path. “Villagers abreast!” he called out. “Go with them,” he said to Rat.
“Nah. I’ll stick with you, Teyo. Gotta make sure you stay safe. You’re still my responsibility. I adopted you, remember?”
He chuckled inwardly and said, “I remember, Araithia.”
She was silent for a beat, then she said, “Stop that,” and punched him in the back. He barely felt it. But it felt good.
Brother Abedo soon yelled, “Villagers abreast!”
And a bit after that, Theo repeated the call.
Brother Armando said, “Abbot. Abbot! You have to see this!”
The abbot shouted, “See? See what? In this storm? Armando, you’re too close to Verada! He’s rubbing off on you!”
“By the Cloud, Barrez, come look!”
Rat said, “Whoa, is Brother Armando supposed to talk to the abbot that way? I thought only Miss Ballard could get away with that.”
Teyo didn’t respond, but he was pretty shocked. He knew that Brother Armando and the abbot went way back, but he’d never heard any of the brothers curse at Abbot Barrez. Ever.
Not in front of the acolytes, anyway…
The abbot approached, calling out, “All right, what is it?”
Armando didn’t answer. For a long minute, all Teyo could hear was the wind.
“Where’s your shield, Armando?” And then, “Where’s your shield, Abedo?”
“Apparently, I don’t need one,” Armando said.
“Same,” Abedo called out.
There was more silence. Teyo was confused. Why would the brothers drop their geometry? How could they drop their geometry?
“Is he doing this alone?” said the abbot in a whisper. If his voice weren’t still magically enhanced, Teyo never would have heard it.
“Yep,” said Rat. “It’s all my boy Teyo.”
What?
Teyo reached out with his senses along his geometry. His construct was longer than he could have imagined. It stretched to either side past both the vested monks. It had depth and solidity like nothing he’d ever created before. Like nothing he’d ever seen demonstrated before.
How am I doing this?
“I’m thinking it’s your Spark,” Rat said, reading him a bit, as she usually did. “You’ve got that thing all the ’walkers all have. Whatever what that fuels your soul and your magic. It’s what Bolas was stealing from the Planeswalkers and why it made him so powerful. You have it. You always have, I guess. When you’re not getting in your own way, that is. I mean, sometimes, Teyo, you just think too much, you know? Not me, though. No one’s ever accused the Rat of thinking too much. Of course to accuse me of something, you’d have to know I’m here. That’s why I’m such a great thief, right? Never once been caught. And never once will—”
The abbot spoke then, running over the end of Rat’s explanation. “Teyo,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten…”
It was all he said for a long time.
By this time, the villagers had all passed.
One by one, he heard Peran, Berluz, Arturo and Armando call out, “Villagers clear!”
A few minutes after that, Teyo made the same call. Still, he waited for Abedo and Theo’s confirmations before he felt he could reduce his shields, tighten his geometry.
Eventually, the storm began to fade. Only then did the abbot speak again, his voice no longer enhanced: “You did well, my boy. Very well. Now you must leave this monastery and never come back.”