By Doug Beyer A tale of Innistrad Part of Eldritch Moon
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Thanks to Nahiri's machinations, the Eldrazi titan Emrakul has been unleashed on Innistrad. Meanwhile, Liliana has been in a tower of Vess Manor, probing the powers—and painful repercussions—of the Chain Veil artifact. Ever since she quarreled with Jace, Liliana has decided she can only rely on herself to face her demons.
Thin metal wires hung from the points of the Chain Veil. Liliana Vess could almost see her reflection in the spectral-glass vessels where the wires led, and in the latticework of the witchbane orb on the windowsill, and in the conductive tubes that led out the window and up onto the roof. The etchings in her face were just visible through the Veil. The lines in her skin matched the menacing light of the storm clouds outside. Lightning flickered appropriately.
Two demons still needed to die. But she had to make sure she wouldn't die herself when she managed to face them. The Chain Veil was a potent weapon, but potentially deadly to its wielder. If this worked, she could use the Veil safely. She wouldn't need the help of some mind mage who persisted in chasing some wild mystery across the provinces. And she could rid the Multiverse of her creditors once and for all.
"Are we ready?" Liliana asked.
The others in the tower with her had not displayed a fraction of the smarts of Cloak Boy, but they would have to suffice. The geistmage, Dierk, listed items to himself in a micro-whisper as he adjusted a series of nozzles and tightened clamps on the orb. Dierk's assistant, Gared, stood at the window, his one big eye switching back and forth between the equipment and the lightning storm outside the tower. Gared held his hand on an appropriately sizable lever.
"The collectors are raised, madam," the geistmage said. "And the storm is reaching its peak. But I feel obligated to point out that we'll be coursing an enormous dose of spectral energy directly into the artifact..."
"You don't have to warn me," Liliana said.
"...powered by the force of a lightning storm."
"Yes."
"While you are wearing it."
"I know."
"On your face."
Liliana rolled her eyes. "The flow of geist energy through the orb will thus act as a kind of spectral antenna, shunting the object's counterassault away from the subject, sublimating the backlash as harmless atmospheric static, circumventing all repercussions and thereby allowing free utilization of the artifact."
Dierk glanced at Gared and tapped his mouth with gloved fingertips. "That is the theory."
"Look, Dierk," Liliana said. "My friend recommended you because she thought you knew something about spirit inhabitation. Do you or don't you?"
"Of course I do, madam," Dierk said, taken aback.
"Then...?"
"Then let us proceed." Dierk adjusted the goggles over his eyes. "I should add... this will hurt."
"Pain is temporary," said Liliana, sitting back in the chair. The wires dangled from the hanging points of the Chain Veil. "Besides, we learn nothing by testing this on Gared."
Gared grinned. His larger eye shuttered for a moment like a reptile's. Dierk nodded to him, and he slammed down the big lever.
The witchbane orb hummed and dials flexed. Liliana could feel the links of the Veil touching the curves of her face.
"It's activated," Dierk said. "Now all we have to do is wait for a proximal bolt of..."
Lightning.
Liliana's teeth clenched involuntarily as the surge came. Writhing lassos of energy bloomed on the wires leading from the roof collectors, and the spirits of the dead followed immediately. Geists shrieked through the tubes, filling the orb and the reinforced glass with electro-spectral screams. A spray of sparks puffed from the equipment, but the circuit held.
A blast of howling energy looped through the Veil. Liliana could feel the weight of it lift from her cheeks slightly, its links floating against the force of gravity.
She glanced at the others. Dierk had given up trying to adjust clamps and switches and pressed his back to the wall, shielding his face with his arms. Gared reached a finger out toward a thrashing curl of energy and recoiled when he touched it. Between them she could see her markings shining in the equipment, the etched diagram of her demonic contract forming a reflection-halo around her.
This was when Liliana felt most beautiful - when she was about to wield a power that made others afraid.
She grasped the arms of the chair and called on the power of the Veil.
The backlash was immediate and total. The thousands of souls that resided in the Veil filled her with power, but the power was coupled with pain, and the pain was blinding venom. Inextricable from the magic it afforded. The geist circuit had not drawn off any of the backlash.
Beakers popped and the collectors blew out. "I'm ending it!" Dierk said, reaching for the lever.
"No," Liliana said, her voice a dagger. Dierk retracted his hand.
The room shook. Liliana grasped the chair, trying to hold the room still, trying to hold in the scream that wanted desperately to get out, trying to see anything but the pain. Pain is temporary.
When she couldn't contain it anymore, she cried out. Fuses blew and the tower went dark. The spectral howling ebbed away, until Liliana only heard her own exhausted breaths.
Gared struck a match and lit a lantern. The lab was a disaster zone. The equipment was ruined. Raindrops plashed on the windowsill.
Liliana unclasped the Chain Veil and slid it off her head. Blood seeped from her etchings. "I mentioned the risks, madam," Dierk said.
She glared at him, imagining the geistmage's skin withering away and his skeleton jawing the words "I'm sorry." Instead she nodded her head toward the door. "You may see yourself out. Deliver the orb back to its owner." A boom of residual thunder was her punctuation.
Dierk quickly collected the spent witchbane orb and a few other items into his bag and left. The echoes of his footsteps receded down the spiral stairs. Gared gently pushed aside a pile of broken glass with his foot, but did not leave.
Liliana stowed the Chain Veil in a skirt pocket. Innistrad's best and brightest hadn't been of any help. Tomes and grimoires of spectral remedies sat askew. Not even Olivia's premier geist expert had been able to tame the Veil.
Liliana looked out the window at the storm that boomed over the countryside of Stensia, daubing at her skin-words with a handkerchief. In the gloom, Thraben glowed like a distant candle.
She loathed relying on someone else. But it wasn't that she needed Cloak Boy, she told herself. It was merely that she needed people to need her, so she had some warm bodies to stand between her and a couple of self-important demon lords.
If only he could owe her somehow.
From downstairs came a man's scream. A snarling scuffle and a crash followed. Liliana tossed her crimson-dotted handkerchief aside and spiraled down the stairs.
She heard and smelled them before she saw them - their guttural snarls and their slobbering, hungry whines. The reek of damp fur over the reek of blood.
Werewolves. Liliana's entire throne room was overrun.
And they looked - not sick, exactly, but warped, as if their flesh and bones had been putty in the hands of some unnatural mutating force. Their extremities bent in odd ways, folding and crinkling like mats of kelp.
But they were still werewolves, and they still had claws. Dierk lay on the floor, his chest raked open. The contents of his bag and his ribcage were both spilled out over the floor. His face was pale, locked in a stare of surprise, and he was exhaling his last breath like a flattening balloon.
The werewolves turned to Liliana, sniffing. One of them roared, and it had eyes where its tongue should be.
A suite of spells, deadly ones, each tailored to one of the werewolves in front of her - that's what this called for. Just enough power to dispense with each one, for just enough of them to clear a path to the door of the manor.
"Gared!" Liliana shouted over her shoulder. "Get your coat."
The Chain Veil did not budge from her pocket.
Hours later, the storm had subsided, but the countryside of Stensia had become a twisted zoo. Liliana noted that every passerby had something reshaped about them. The bodies of roving vampires had the wrong silhouettes, always with too few of something, or too many. Anatomically improbable travelers raved prophecies of stone and sea at them as they staggered in diagonals.
Finally, Liliana, Gared, and - haltingly - Dierk, arrived at the monumental door.
Lurenbraum Fortress soared above them, a stark cliff with a citadel that protruded directly from the rock face. Higher up, the utilitarian architecture softened and elongated into tiers of ornate leaded windows, each one with its own floating chandelier of twinkling candles. In many of the windows, vampires peered down at them, wearing gleaming ancestral armor.
Liliana gestured for Gared to knock.
Gared gawked at the door's height. "You really know the lady of the house?" he asked.
Dierk, for his part, made a gurgling noise. The man's neck was broken, so his head rested at a weird angle and his throat looked lumpy. But at least his legs had gotten him here, and at least his arms had been capable of carrying the spent witchbane orb. Gared's long coat was strapped tight around Dierk's midsection, doing its best to hold the remainder of the dead man's insides in. Liliana raised her hand slightly, and Dierk squared his shoulders, but his head still dangled to one side. The desiccated tongue wouldn't stay completely inside his mouth, contributing to the gurgle. Liliana shrugged.
"I make it my business to know those who wield power," Liliana said. "As does she."
Gared banged on the door and stood back.
The door opened, and an imposing woman in an ornate gown - or possibly an ornate woman in an imposing gown - appeared. She held forth a priest's staff that radiated like hot embers in Liliana's face.
"She is not receiving human visitors," said the woman, flashing her fangs as she spoke. Her irises were black pits that seemed to smolder.
Bloodhall Priest
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