Magic: The Gathering Edge of Eternities Episode 11 picks up with Sami, Tan, and Mantis fleeing from the Eldrazi aboard the Infinite Guideline.
With his engineering background, Tan notices a reactor and plans to use it to make a weapon, but need parts and time. Recognizing the situation, Mantis stays back to divert the Eldrazi’s attention while Sami begins digging around for the parts Tan requires.
Running from cask to cask, Sami rips them open looking for the cable that Tan needs for the reactor, but instead finds one marked “CONTRABAND, SEALED, TYPE UNKNOWN—MARKED FOR CAREFUL DISPOSAL.” Sami carefully opens it and shines their light inside and finds their cat, Mirri, staring back.
“It is. It’s her. She’s glossy, healthy, real—oh ways and ends—she hasn’t aged a day. She was in a stasis cask. She weftwalked away from the Seriema when she was startled and went to a ship that looked almost like the Seriema and landed in a stasis cask. That’s why she never came back. She was frozen in time. And the ship ended up where nearly any private ship in Sothera will end up: getting an overhaul or a teardown on Guideline. But no one opened the cask, because no one remembered what was inside—”
Overcome with emotion, Sami reaches to open their helmet to comfort the cat, but the Eldrazi have caught up to them, and the sound of it approaching panics Mirri who, once again, Weftwalks away. Sami begins sobbing, having once again lost her cat, but Tan manages to ground his captain, and they open the next cask to find the cables needed.
With one end plugged into the reactor, Sami hacks off the other end and connects it to an antenna to form a make-shift rapier, pulsing with electric current. Readying the weapon just in time, Sami thrusts it forward into the charging Eldrazi.
A spectacular buzz. A flash of fire. Power arcs through the thing’s matter. It convulses in more dimensions—limbs rotate into existence and out again, grasping at things which aren’t there—huge, throbbing sacs of purple webbing spasm and rupture blue and red—fire spreads in pale limbs along a shape that does not fit in Sami’s head.”
The pair cheers, having dispatched the alien, but their merriment is short lived, as a second Eldrazi appears and slams into Tan. Using his armor’s work claws, Tan fights to keep the beast at bay. Sami rushes across the room to help, but before they can strike, the Eldrazi “…rotates apart. Like the trunk of a tree, obliterated, leaving all the branches to scatter.” Sami asks Tan what happened, but he too is equally confused until a voice calls out and the pair turn to see the Drix agent Mantis had mentioned earlier.
“On the end of this staff,” the creature says, “is a thirty-meter-wide blackbody divergence in the ultraviolet range. It has been rotated into lamellar spaces where the stem of the eld dwells. Thus, I strike at my prey. I am called Tumulus, or Barrow. I am a sentinel at the cofferdam.”
Tumulus tells Sami and Tan that they rescued Mantis and returned her to her post, but they need to wash off the “potential matter” they are dusted in or risk attracting more Eldrazi. Sami attempts to ask the Drix how to do that, but they’ve already left to continue their hunt.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Sami and Tan rush back to the docking bay and make for their ship. Thankfully, the pair encounter no more Eldrazi on the way back, but as they approach the Seriema, they see that the Monoists have taken control of the ship. Still carrying their makeshift weapon, Sami moves to strike the gravkill paladin, but he surprises them by saying “The Endstone is aboard…” and “You will aid Alpharael of Secundi. You allow the stone to guide you to its purpose. It is the will of INEVITA. It does not matter if you understand.”
Sami asks the paladin if they brought the Eldrazi with them to attack Pinnacle, but the paladin tells them they hadn’t noticed the aliens, and it becomes clear that the Eldrazi weren’t attacking the Monoists. The paladin motions for Sami and Tan to enter their ship, and tells the captain that he will be accompanying them, but as they move to climb aboard, the paladin suddenly “…collapses into a crumpled ball, like crushed foil” and they turn to see Tezzeret waiting.
“You have such fascinating machines here,” Tezzeret murmurs. “But they do still answer me.”
Shifting perspective, Alpharael and Haliya find themselves facing Syr Vondam. The Knight tells the pair that he had turned himself in to Pinnacle to face judgement for his crime of not killing Haliya, and in doing so, told the authorities all about the Endstone and its dangers. Vondam tries desperately to convince Haliya to come back with him and make things right, but she refuses, citing the mass killing of the innocent Kav.
“The computation of the Sum must include and anticipate our own choices. If I see that you choose to slaughter Kav in the name of greatening the Sum, and I reward that with obedience and honor, and I return the Endstone to the Order so it can be vouchsafed to a coronal and taken away … I am altering the computation of the Sum. I am creating a path that leads to victory through thousands of dead Kav.”
Having made her choice, Vondam prepares for combat, and engages his squire. With Alpharael watching on, the pair fight just like they did when sparring, but Haliya knows that she cannot possibly win against her mentor if she uses conventional means. After a few minutes of combat, it becomes clear that Vondam does not want to kill her, but intends to disarm her and take her back to the Free Company. Realizing this, she retreats toward Alpharael and Vondam gives chase. Despite his speed, Haliya is able to communicate her plan to Alpharael, and she puts herself between him and Vondam.
“Alpharael reaches around Haliya and grips Syr Vondam by the back of the neck. Vondam’s suit irradiates Alpharael’s hand with a burst of microwaves. Alpharael screams and flinches. His hand blisters and burns from within— But he presses his sizzling flesh to the back of Vondam’s neck. As Syr Vondam’s blades punch into her failing armor, Haliya embraces him and jabs her right thumb into the hole in Alpharael’s hand. Through the hole. Into the back of Vondam’s neck. She digs her thumb into his vertebrae and pops them apart.”
The now paralyzed Vondam tells his squire to kill him, but Haliya cannot bring herself to do so. Acting out of character, Alpharael speaks up and tells Vondam to stop being hypocritical and either live on with his failure or go and “…throw yourself before the Kav and let them execute you. Or go sun yourself into a raisin. I don’t care.”
Wasting no more time, Haliya and Alpharael turn and race back to the Seriema to consult the Endstone. Exiting into the docking bay, the pair look out and realize the fighting has stopped, not because of a ceasefire, but because the Monoists have deployed a cherazad to slow time around Infinite Guideline.
Climbing aboard the Seriema, they find Sami, Tan, and Tezzeret waiting around the stasis cask containing the Endstone. Once open, Alpharael reaches in to grab the stone, but unexpectedly, Mirri hops out first. As Sami revels in delight, Tezzeret and Alpharael produce a map and guidance crystal and consult the stone to find their next destination.
“The crystal projects light when Alpharael touches it: pinpoints that might be stars, or sun on the tips of ocean waves. Afraid that it might be some kind of radiation urchin, Alpharael tumbles it onto the map of Sothera. It bounces twice and settles on the very edge of the reading rag, and the solar system, too. “We fly that way?”
With their next destination established and warp ferry acquired thanks to Tezzeret’s code, Sami and Tan prepare for take off, only to receive a “time stamp error” from the ferry due to the ongoing cherazad, meaning unless they can get outside the bubble, the warp ferry won’t operate. At that moment, Free Company Solar Knights rush toward the ship, giving Sami no option other than to pull the riskiest possible maneuver.
“With a drumbeat of thruster fire, they jerk the Seriema free of the mooring. Apply thrust: forward. Straight for the center of Infinite Guideline. Faster. Faster. Until there is no possibility they can brake in time. Collision is guaranteed. Time to play chicken with a stationary object.”
Thankfully, Sami’s gamble pays off and the column opens its gates to avoid the imminent collision, and the Seriema jumps into warp, headed for the edge of Sothera—the Wurmwall. During the downtime of travel, the crew takes the opportunity to clean up, tend to wounds, and discuss what they know about the space outside Sothera. It’s then, looking at their coordinates, that Tan realizes where the stone is taking them, and relays the story of how he met Sami.
“Tan leans out over the map. His torn horn-hair’s wrapped in cloth. “After I left Kavaron, I wanted to die. So I worked search and rescue in the outer system. We flew out of a station in the Garden. Our worst calls were for ships lost in the Wurmwall. One day, we responded to the loss of a scientific expedition, trying to communicate with the creatures that live out there. That’s where I met Captain Sami. On the wreck of the Wurm Speaker.”
Suddenly, the ship goes quiet, followed by the blare of a proximity alarm. Tan remarks that the engines have gone out, but before anyone can move to investigate, a portal opens inside the ship, and a remarkable being described as having a face like a “…green mask, scaled with the oxides of eons. It has lips, eyes, a nose, a brow—but its ears are whorled knives above empty cheeks. Behind its face is nothing but pale light…” steps through for all to see.
The Endstone begins to move across the table, and Alpharael moves to secure it, but pain shoots through his body upon touching it and he passes out. Haliya is next to act, swinging her energy blade at the being. She successfully cuts off two of its fingers (which Tezzeret swiftly scoops up), but the entity shows no sign of pain and instead catches Haliya’s throat with the same hand and easily crushes it.
Looking at Tan, then Tezzeret and seeing no indication that either plan to act, Sami draws their antenna rapier. While thinking of how and where to strike, the being speaks to them, stating “Not here,” followed by “Not now. But the serpent needs a hero. Find me if you can. Put your lance through my heart. You’ll come to nothing in the end.” Sami moves to strike, but as quickly as it came, the alien leaves back through the portal with the Endstone in hand.
With the threat gone, Tan moves to aid Alpharael and Haliya. Despite losing the stone Tezzeret is pleased, having accomplished his goal of seeing the higher being that it belongs to.
He looks up at Sami and smiles carnivorously. “So. You do have something like a Planeswalker.” He touches the tip of one of the severed fingers with a curled claw. Pale purple light leaks from it like ichor. Tezzeret stares into it. Inhales deeply. “That was very aspirational,” he says. “Don’t you think?” Sami doesn’t know what to say to that. Mirri is staring, wide-eyed, at the place where the cosmos split open. Sami picks her up, holds her close. Just for a moment—they need to go help Tan with Haliya. But Mirri is here. Mirri is still here. One thing is all right.
Read the conclusion of Edge of Eternities in full from Wizards of the Coast.
