INVASION


INVASION CYCLE • BOOK I




   J. Robert King




               ®
                      J. Robert King




                    Chapter 1
                To Fight Phyrexians

    White clouds fled through blue skies. The sea chanted
fearfully below. Waves crowded shoulder to shoulder and
shoved each other. Gray land crouched at the edge of
Dominaria, hiding itself in veils of yellow steam.
    Evil hung in the heavens. Something was coming,
something horrible, and it would emerge without warning
from clear air.
    It came. The thing carved a sudden line in the sky. The
trough it cut deepened. It tore water from the air and
hurled it outward in white flames. This was no meteor, no
dumb stone from heedless heavens. This thing clove the
sky with intent.
    Air streamed away from a lancing prow and saw-
toothed keel. It drummed gunwales of living wood on its
way into roaring intakes and across wide-swept wings. This
was a ship, a skyship — the sort that had ruled Thrannish
skies. Loose tongues told of new fleets built by Urza and
secreted away to fight Phyrexians, but who believed in
Urza? Who believed in Urza's bogey men? Who had ever
seen even a single skyship?
    Until now.
    It was a sleek and glorious, horrible thing, this
Weatherlight. Nature cringed away from it. Still, it was not
the dreamed-of evil. Something else was coming,
something far more horrible than Weatherlight.


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    Tiny figures stood on her wind-ravaged deck—human
figures.
    Behind a gleaming ray cannon on the forecastle was
strapped a man with black hair and angry eyes.
    He shouted into a speaking tube, "Coordinates,
Hanna!"
    A powerstone embedded in the mouth of the tube
snatched up his voice and hurled it a hundred feet aft to
the glass-enclosed bridge.
    The words raked out over a slim, hunched woman.
Rules and styluses were clutched in one of her hands. The
other jotted slide-rule calculations in a hasty column.
    Blowing an errant strand of blonde back from her face,
Hanna did her own shouting into the tube, "Working on it,
Commander Gerrard!" Across her navigation console,
compasses and gyros reeled. Hanna's eyes spun as she
watched them settle. "Good luck finding another navigator
who can pinpoint longitude without stars."
    "I don't want another navigator," Gerrard answered
from the forecastle. He threw a grin back toward the
bridge. "I just want my favorite navigator to get us to
Benalia."
    Hanna summed three columns of figures and assigned
functions to them. "We're still twelve hundred miles out,
this time north by northwest."
    "Damn! That's the farthest of the three," Gerrard said.
"Where's the problem?"
    "Not here," Hanna replied, confirming the calibration
of her altimeter.
    "Not here, either," reported another woman, standing
at the helm. Her corded shoulders and ebony skin seemed
part of the ship's wheel she clutched. "Rudder, keel,
airfoils—everything's performing perfectly, including me."



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    "I know, Sisay —" Gerrard answered, quickly adding—
"Captain. But something's throwing us off course. Karn, is it
an engine problem?"
    The call echoed down tubes into steamy darkness—the
engine room. A vast drive-core dominated the space. Mana
conduits added their green light to the tepid glow of bolted
lanterns. Two crewmembers worked a giant torque wrench,
closing a valve. They did not pause to answer the
commander. A third crewmember, who seemed simply
another engine subreactor, spoke. Karn was a massive man
made of silver, and his voice was like a waterfall.
    "No engine problem yet, but soon."
    His silver back was bent toward the machine, his hands
embedded in twin operations ports. Micro-fibers extended
from the controls into his fingers, linking him to every
corner of the ship. All the rest of Weatherlight had endured
the planeshifting stresses well, but the engine was
beginning to overheat.
    "We're having to douse the manifolds to keep them
from melting down. Push it too far, Gerrard, and you'll
have a puddle where your engine used to be."
    Gerrard's laughter answered through the tube. "You
know me, Karn. I push everything too far. Sick bay, how
are the wounded holding up?"
    "We're all fine down here," replied the ship's healer as
she tightened a strap over one of her patients. Sweat
beaded her forehead, and she raked her turban off. Out
spilled dark hair braided with coins. "The second planeshift
knocked my patients unconscious. There's been less
complaining since then."
    "How're you holding up, Orim?" Gerrard asked.
    "All this flashing into and out of existence makes
meditation sort of redundant," Orim said wryly.



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    Another laugh came from Gerrard. "That's my crew.
Stouthearted comrades and complainers, all. Sisay, let's
have another go."
    "Aye, Commander," said the woman at the helm.
    "Hanna, pinpoint Benalia City, the Capashen Manor."
Gerrard reflexively glanced down at the Capashen symbol
tattooed on his left forearm. He would not likely be
welcomed in his old home.
    "You got a street address? A house description?" Hanna
teased as she slid longitude and latitude indexes until they
aligned. "Locked in, Commander. Heading three,
seventeen, twenty."
    "Aye," Sisay acknowledged. She turned the wheel,
bringing the prow up toward a roiling mass of cloud. "Karn,
initiate jump sequence."
    The silver man's voice was drowned out by the engine's
eager surge.
    "Hold on, everybody," Sisay called out.
    Behind his ray cannon, Gerrard hunkered down. He
tightly clutched the handles of the fuselage. The cannon
harness was sufficient to hold him in place on a rolling
deck in the middle of a dogfight, but even those straps were
stressed by a planeshift. Gerrard shot a glance over his
shoulder to the starboard-side cannon. There, a minotaur
gunner clung with equal fury. Tahngarth's teeth were
gritted in determination, the closest he came to smiling.
    Gerrard did smile. This was his ship. This was his crew.
They were the best damned fliers and fighters in Dominaria
and Mercadia, in Rath and Phyrexia. For years he'd heard
how he and his friends and this ship were supposed to save
the world. For the first time, he felt like they could.
    That wasn't the only reason he smiled. There was no
better place to watch a planeshift than strapped to a
forecastle ray cannon.


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                      J. Robert King

    Beyond the rail, Dominaria vaulted suddenly forward.
The sky stretched out. Clouds frayed away to ropy lines of
mist. The heavens began to fold in on themselves. Where
before there was only beaming blue and white, now black
verges appeared in the separating seams of reality. The sky
held together only a moment more. It came to pieces.
Scraps of blue and white tumbled in a black wind.
    Were Gerrard beyond the rail, that wind would have
torn him to pieces. It was chaos, pure and simple, the
ocean of potentiality in which all actual worlds floated.
Anything material that touched the chaos wind was
dissolved away into sparking energies and nothing.
    Weatherlight and her crew were wrapped in an envelope
of saving air. It died to stillness around them. The roar fell
silent. Beyond the energy envelope, storms of power raged.
Within it, only Weatherlight's engines sounded.
    "Command crew to the bridge," Gerrard barked. He
undid the straps of his gunner's harness and strode across
the forecastle toward the stairs leading amidships.
    Tahngarth followed. The minotaur leaped the stairs and
landed amidships with a thump. Gerrard joined him at the
bottom, and they marched across the trembling deck. From
the central hatch ahead, Orim emerged. Her feet trod softly
between hoof and boot. The three approached the bridge.
A fourth crewmember scuttled up to join them.
    Gerrard arched an eyebrow. "Since when are you part of
the command crew, Squee?"
    The goblin winced downward, as though accustomed to
being cuffed. He smiled all the same. "Karn can't make it.
He say Squee go talk for him."
    "That'll be the day," Tahngarth rumbled.
    The four comrades climbed the stairs from amidships to
the bridge. They opened the hatch and one by one
clambered through. Mana conduits glowed around them.


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    "Here it is!" Hanna declared from the navigator's
console. "Look, here—three loci of topographic
disturbance."
    Gerrard stalked toward her and stared down at a map of
Benalia. Hanna was marking Xs in an equilateral triangle
above the nation.
    "Three loci of —?"
    "I've calculated it all out," Hanna said. Her blue eyes
flicked impatiently as she rapped the back of her hand on a
pile of figures. "There are disturbances here, here, and here.
Geometric disturbances."
    "Geometric—"
    "Distortions in the fabric of space. Stretched-out
geometry. They shunt us off our target like a drop of rain
off an umbrella. That's why we can't get to Benalia."
    Gerrard's eyes were grim beneath stormy brows. "Good
work, Hanna. Any idea what might be causing these
distortions?"
    She breathed deeply, pausing for the first time in hours.
"We ourselves make a geometrical disturbance every time
we planeshift. It's a simple fold of space with a localized
effect—two hundred yards or so. These things are warping
space for a thousand miles each."
    "That's a heck of a big ship," Squee offered.
    Hanna shook her head, hands in sudden motion again
as she dragged a folio of Phyrexian ship designs from
beneath her desk. They were plans she had gleaned from
the wrecked armada base in Mercadia. She spread them
out. The ships depicted there were massive and grotesque.
They bristled with hornlike protrusions. Their hulls seemed
bone or carapace.
    "No, even the largest ships we saw in Mercadia could
not make that kind of disturbance."
    "Brace for reentry," Sisay warned.


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                      J. Robert King

    The crew each grasped handholds and watched as
reality swam up around the ship. Scraps of sky and sea
schooled densely beyond the dissipating energy envelope.
The blackness of chaos was shut out behind bright, sinuous
order. Fleeing cloud, clashing wave, cowering land—it
might have been the exact same spot they left.
    "Coordinates," Gerrard asked gently.
    "Working on it, Commander," Hanna answered, ship
plans cascading from her desktop as she noted new
magnetic readings.
    Squee scrambled to gather the plans.
    "They aren't ships," Sisay broke in from the helm. She
guided Weatherlight smoothly through racks of cloud.
"Ships would make only a momentary disturbance. Unless
they were continuously planeshifting in and out of the
same spot, it wouldn't be ships."
    "Unless they were portal ships," Gerrard said in sudden
realization. He took the ship schematics from Squee,
unrolled one, and spread it on the console. It showed a
massive ship that seemed a crab claw opened wide. "When
these pincer portions here and here pivot downward, they
create a portal between them." He dragged the schematic
away and pointed at the three spots on the map. "Those are
huge aerial portals opening above Benalia. We're not
talking about three Phyrexian ships. We're talking about
hundreds pouring out of three separate portals."
    Despite the flurry of paper on her work space, Hanna
finished her calculations. "We're twelve hundred miles
southwest of Benalia City."
    Sisay hissed, "Even at top speed, it would take us nearly
two hours to get there."
    Tahngarth pounded his palm with his fist. "The
Phyrexian ships are already coming across."



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     "Pinpoint the center of one of the disturbances," Sisay
ordered. "If we strike the umbrella in the exact center,
maybe we won't be shunted aside. Maybe we can break
through."
     Eyebrows furrowing, Gerrard said, "You think
Weatherlight's got it in her?"
     "I know she does," Sisay replied.
     Gerrard shrugged. "She's your ship."
     Leaning to the speaking tube, Sisay said, "Karn, what
do you think? One more planeshift, down the center of one
of those things?"
     The response seemed to come from the ship herself.
"One more. We can do one more."
     "Coordinates locked, Captain," Hanna reported as she
tightened the bolts on the longitude and latitude levers.
     The engines barked once and then droned with fierce
life.
     "Brace for planeshift!" Sisay called.
     The planks bucked. Beyond the bridge, air wavered as if
from heat stress. An envelope of calm rose around
Weatherlight. It pushed back the shimmering sky and sea.
Once again, reality stretched beyond its breaking point.
Black seams snaked across the sky. The heavens unraveled.
Scraps of the world fled away. Then there was only the vast
blackness.
     This planeshift was different, though. Instead of gliding
through emptiness, the ship seemed to be plunging forward
through muck. The power envelope rattled. The engines
whined. Everything felt sluggish and hot. A wall of energy
appeared ahead. Supercharged chaos slowed to take on
momentary form. In seconds, Weatherlight struck that
endless barrier.
     Despite their handholds, the crew pitched forward.
Sisay and Tahngarth kept their feet. Gerrard staggered to


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                      J. Robert King

one knee. Squee scampered up beneath the navigational
consoles and clutched Hanna's legs.
     Then they were through. Reality coalesced again out of
chaos.
     Below, the plains and woodlands of Benalia spread to
the horizons. Above, the sky was cluttered with clouds. In
their steamy midst hung a vast black hole, a hole in the
heavens.
     "There's your Phyrexian portal," Sisay noted quietly.
"But where's the portal ship?"
     Through gritted teeth, Gerrard growled, "On the other
side— in Rath, or Phyrexia, or wherever. Makes it
impossible to destroy from here."
     "That hole is big enough to admit three ships abreast,"
Tahngarth whispered.
     Gerrard nodded. "And there they are, coming through."
     Light failed beyond the lip of the portal; though within
it, in murky crimson, huge and horrible figures appeared.
They were ships—dragon ships the size of Weatherlight,
cruisers thrice her displacement, and some larger still,
massive things covered with holes.
     Here was the long-dreamed evil.
     "Plague ships," Orim growled.
     "They've seen us," Sisay said, pointing. "Look."
     Two of the cruisers nosed through the gap. The sunlight
of Dominaria broke upon them. Spiky rams led their prows,
and behind them were rank on rank of scabrous ribs. Black
shadows became black realities. The central hulls of the
ships seemed cancerous carbuncles piled atop each other.
Next came flaring spines, razor wings, and clouds of oil
soot. They were huge ships, the size of floating cities.
     Swarming antlike across them were Phyrexians.
     "Evasive action?" Sisay asked.



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    "Take us to them, Sisay. Battle stations," Gerrard
responded. He repeated the order into the tube. "Battle
stations!"
    Tahngarth yanked back the forward hatch and
descended amidships on his way to the forecastle guns.
Sisay meanwhile hauled hard on the wheel. Weatherlight
banked and climbed. Behind her, Hanna nearly bit a stylus
in two as she worked out new calibrations. She spared a
moment to swat Squee out from under her desk. The goblin
retreated toward the poop deck door and huddled there.
    "Get to the aft gun. You're not as craven as all that,"
Gerrard said.
    "Who? Squee?" whimpered the little green man.
    "Yes, Squee. You're the one who shot Volrath out of
the sky, right?"
    A glad light came to the goblin's eyes, and he hurried
out the aft door.
    "What, if I might ask, is your plan, Commander
Gerrard?" Sisay shot over one shoulder.
    He smiled winningly, "To fight Phyrexians."
    Then he too swung down through the hatch. It was his
last chance for bravado. The ships were closing fast.
Gerrard sprinted across the amidships planks, vaulted up
the forecastle stairs, and rushed to his gunner's rig. Even as
he fastened straps about him, he pumped the foot pedal
that charged the gun. A moan began in the metal. It
shivered and grew warm. The powerstone arrays in the
center of the gun's housing glowed to life.
    Across the forecastle, Tahngarth swung the massive
barrel of his ray cannon about. He spat on the shaft,
watching the white glob hiss away on impact.
    "Fore starboard gun ready!" he shouted.
    Gerrard likewise spun his weapon to fore and spat on it.
"Fore port gun ready!"


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                       J. Robert King

    From amidships, Dabis and Fewsteem reported in from
their gun encasements.
    "Squee, too," came a squeal through the speaking tube.
"Squee, too."
    The belly gunner and top gunners reported in.
    Gerrard shouted to them all. "They look awful, sure, but
they've never been in battle. They've never tested their
ships in combat. Shoot for the power conduits. Shoot for
intakes and stabilizers, anything that'll make one shot
count for two."
    Weatherlight mounted up the sky. Her engines
screamed in the ascent. The cruisers didn't seem to get any
nearer, only bigger.
    "They've got to have fifty guns per ship," Dabis gasped.
"How do we stand against fifty guns?"
    "We'll stand, and they'll fall," Gerrard said. "Sisay, take
us between the ships."
    Her voice was shrill in the tube. "Between them?"
    "You heard me. Thread the needle."
    "You mean run the gauntlet," Sisay growled.
"Threading the needle, Commander."
    After the stress of shifting, this kind of tooth-and-nail
ascent was like poetry. Never before had Weatherlight been
so powerful. Skyshaper, Juju Bubble, Bones of Ramos,
Power Matrix—the engine had almost doubled in size since
leaving Dominaria for Rath. It showed. Weatherlight rose
with a vengeance.
    Ahead the two Phyrexian cruisers formed the cliff walls
of an aerial canyon.
    Weatherlight was still accelerating as she drove between
them.
    "Fire at will!" Gerrard roared.
    He squeezed the cannon handles. A great bolt of
radiance roared out of the flaming end. It struck clear air,


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melting it to red plasma. A hissing comet, the flare arced
across the racing sky. It smashed fistlike into the starboard
intakes of one cruiser. Sparks and great shreds of metal
danced in the engine. A black plume belched out the rear
of the ship. Tahngarth scored a similar strike on the cruiser
on his side. Dabis and Fewsteem squeezed off a few shots.
    Then black bolts answered. They shot out like sooty
spider webs from ports along the ships' baselines. These
were no webs. They were mana beams, their touch bringing
death. They reached out toward Weatherlight.
    "Cut those lines!" Gerrard shouted. His cannon
unloaded three rounds in quick succession. The bolts
grabbed Phyrexian flack from the air and obliterated it.
    Tahngarth's cannon shouted. It ate away a pair of webs
just before they lashed Weatherlight's hull. He shot a third
time. This beam sliced through the air to punch into a set
of mana conduits on the starboard cruiser's flank.
    Already, the air was black with fire from the cruisers.
    "What have you done?" Tahngarth roared even as he
loosed a new volley. "We'll never survive the crossfire!"
    "They'll never survive the crossfire," Gerrard shouted
back.
    Black bolts filled the air between the cruisers. Most of
the shots went wide of Weatherlight. They continued on,
slamming into the opposite vessel. The Phyrexian cruisers
were slaying each other.
    A black blast struck Weatherlight's hull just below
Fewsteem's gun.
    "Forget the ships!" Gerrard shouted. "They're already
done for. Defensive fire!"
    Over the tube came Sisay's voice. "Shall I take us out of
here, Commander?"
    "Sure, Sisay. Straight forward. Take us up, through the
portal!"


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                      J. Robert King




                    Chapter 2
                  Day Trip to Rath

    "Take us where?" Sisay's voice echoed in the speaking
tube.
    Gerrard had expected her to resist. He squeezed off two
more blasts, watching gaseous plasma smack against the
lateral thrusters of one of the cruisers. The mechanism
melted, and the Phyrexian warship listed farther.
    Through a grim smile, he called back to Sisay, "We've
got to destroy the portal ship. We can't shoot it from this
side."
    "On the other side, there's an armada," Sisay protested,
"and Phyrexians."
    Gerrard spat dismissively. "Their ships are crap." As if
in proof, he fired twice more. The shots soared out like
twin stars and smashed through the main bridge of the
cruiser. It lit lantern bright. "And their crews are no match
for ours." "I agree with you there," Sisay replied.
    Weatherlight surged with new speed toward the portal.
The engines roared their resolve. Karn, below, was
reworking the intake-exhaust ratios to maximize thrust.
Weatherlight shot from the gulf between the cruisers. A
whoop went up from the crew, followed by a second one,
even louder.
    The port-side ship foundered and plunged from the sky.
It rolled massively over, its guns still firing. Webby mana
trails tangled about the shuddering vessel. Explosions
rocked it. The stern cracked away, propelled on red flame.

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The cruiser's main body shown in cross section. It tipped
on end, smashed to ground, and shattered like a rotten egg.
    A third cheer erupted, cut short by a sudden explosion.
    Weatherlight was still a thousand yards from the portal
when a black-mana bolt struck the starboard amidships. It
ate the rail and part of the gunwale and swept toward the
starboard ray cannon. Fewsteem, strapped there, shouted as
his gun blazed. Red energy punched through the center of
the black mass. It was not enough. Inky death spattered the
cannon and fell on Fewsteem. Metal hissed. Flesh turned to
rot and white ash. The gun belched green smoke and went
dark. Fewsteem was gone—nothing more than a pair of legs
beneath a puff of soot.
    Without its counterpart, the remaining Phyrexian
cruiser was unloading its arsenal.
    "Tahngarth, blast that cruiser!" Gerrard shouted. He
struggled to wrench his gun about, but its angle of fire
couldn't reach starboard aft.
    "It's behind the wing!" Tahngarth shouted back.
    Sisay initiated a series of swooping lunges. Ropy charges
of black-mana spent themselves in empty air beside and
behind the ship.
    Crimson charges rushed out from the stern ray cannon.
Squee stood in its traces, blasting away. The pulses danced
erratically through the air. Many shots missed their mark.
Others batted down the cruiser's fire. Two rounds won
through the barrage and sank into the exhaust port of the
main engine.
    The enormous craft hiccuped. It shuddered once. Its
attacks faltered.
    In a sun-bright blaze, it exploded. Hunks of ship hurtled
outward, trailing fire. They raced toward Weatherlight at
twice her speed. Had she been in clear air, the shrapnel
would have hailed across Weatherlight and dismantled her.


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                      J. Robert King

Fortunately, it was just then she punched through the
portal.
    Fortunately? The blue skies of Dominaria gave way to
twisted clouds in red and black. The wide plains and deep
forests gave way to volcanic rills and tortured lava tubes.
Worst of all, though, in place of two Phyrexian ships, there
were thousands.
    Airships were stacked to the sky. As devilish as they
had seemed in the sunlight, in shadow these vessels were
demons in hell. Wings of skin. Dripping claws. Jetting fires.
A dozen of the ships were as big as mountains. A hundred
were the size of the cruisers already destroyed. A thousand
were the size of Weatherlight.
    "Forget the armada!" Gerrard roared. "Target the portal
ship!"
    Fire answered from the six remaining guns. A sunburst
of scarlet energy raced out from Weatherlight. The charges
soared up toward the vast metallic claw that hung in the
skies of Rath. The ship seemed to glare down at them,
robotic arms twitching impotently in the portal. One by
one, the shots impacted the claw. Flowstone panels
slumped. Fires hissed forth. The flames seemed impossibly
small on that massive machine. Already Weatherlight was
out of range for more attacks.
    "They're getting through!" Squee shouted through the
aft speaking tube.
    Two more cruisers nosed beneath the portal ship,
toward undefended Benalia.
    Gerrard shouted. "Turn the ship! We've got to stop
them!"
    "Turn the ship—?" Sisay shouted. Her objection was
cut short.
    The portal ship spewed black smoke. Its gleaming
vision of Dominaria flickered. Explosions bloomed in the


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joints of one pincer. It cracked free, toppled, and dropped
toward the twisted ground of Rath. Like a soap bubble, the
portal popped. Sunlight died. Benalish skies were gone.
    Gone too were the front halves of the two cruisers. The
closing portal had guillotined the ships. The shriek and
groan of failing metal was punctuated by explosions from
severed engines. In tandem, the cruisers' afts sputtered
sparks and soot. They tipped, crashing down atop waiting
craft below. In a storm of fire and smoke, five ships
impacted the flowstone ground. The first power core went
critical. It sent a column of black force a thousand feet into
the sky and fifty feet into the ground. Hunks of flowstone
pelted a second craft. Its power core cracked, and then a
third. More ships went down there before the closed portal.
    "Nice work for the first ten minutes of the invasion!"
Gerrard shouted to his crew. "A ruined portal and a dozen
ships down!"
    "And ten thousand ships trapped on this side with us,"
Sisay warned. "We've got company."
    Though cruisers and plague ships were too slow to
pursue Weatherlight, the dragon engines were not. To the
untrained eye, they seemed merely dragons. The sinuous
constructs were as agile, as sleek, as intelligent as their
natural kin. Beneath scales of enameled titanium were
meshes so fine as to form skin and muscles. The beasts
wheeled about and swarmed after Weatherlight. They
opened jaws lined with true scimitars and breathed breath
as powerful as any ray cannon blast.
    "Punch it, Karn! Full speed!" Gerrard called.
    "This is full speed," came the rumbled response.
    "Evasive action," Gerrard shouted.
    "This is evasive action," Sisay responded.
    "Laying in planeshift!" Hanna called.



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                      J. Robert King

     "Belay that," Gerrard responded. "Stay here on Rath.
Lay in a course to the closest active portal ship."
     "Aye, Commander."
     "One armada isn't enough for you to take on?" Sisay
asked through the tube.
     "We'll shut down that one just like we've shut down
this one."
     Weatherlight jagged, her keel smashing a dragon engine
that had flown up beneath it. The metallic wyrm plunged
from the air to tumble brokenly across the tortured ground.
     "Nice flying, Captain!" Gerrard said.
     "How about you shoot some of them?" she replied.
     "Yeah, how about it?"
     Gerrard's cannon blazed. Blood-red energy dragged
plasma from the air. It roared down the open gullet of a
dragon that swooped up to port. The eyes of the beast
glowed for a brilliant moment before going black. The
dragon engine's wings folded, and it plummeted away.
     Two more engines soared up to take the place of the
first. They spat their own fire. It mantled the fore hull and
made wood instantly blaze.
     Had Weatherlight been a ship of dead timbers, she would
have gone up like a jack straw. But Weatherlight lived. Her
hull was living wood, her Thran metal fittings grew, even
her engine was a vital organ, capable of agony and joy. The
silver golem attached to that engine served as a kind of
brain for the machine. Together the components of
Weatherlight made a powerful being, more than capable of
her own defense. Sap oozed from the living hull,
extinguishing the fire and salving the charred grains. The
port-side landing spine jutted suddenly, and the ship rolled.
The sharp metal spine lanced through the dragon engines,
slicing their chests. They veered off, falling through the
swarm of their comrades.


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    "Course locked in," reported Hanna. "A hundred miles
to the next portal ship."
    "They're targeting the wings!" Sisay shouted in
warning.
    The ship swooped to avoid a killing blast of breath.
Shots from Squee's cannon destroyed the offender.
Another dragon engine followed, unshakable.
    Gerrard growled, "Karn, can we fly without wings?"
    "Like a rocket, fast and fatal. It'll be almost impossible
to steer."
    "Not for Sisay. Fold the wings. Rocket us to the next
portal." Gerrard expected a chorus of dissent. The others
were either inured to his requests or dumbstruck.
    The wings folded, ratcheting inward on chains. For a
moment, Weatherlight lost lift. Then her intakes opened
wide, and her exhausts narrowed to blazing jets.
    "Hold on!" Gerrard shouted.
    It was futile. He could not be heard above the sudden
roar. Besides, anyone who was not strapped down or inside
the ship would have been blown from the deck.
    Weatherlight rocketed away from the pursuing cloud of
dragon engines. Her exhaust vents painted the folded masts
vermilion. The afterburn lit the eyes of the metallic
serpents. They fell back, their jaws snapping on nothing.
    As the yawing hull settled into its roaring course,
Gerrard let out a whoop. "Would you believe it? All the
time I spent running from my Legacy—if I'd known it was
so damned much fun—"
    "There has been a casualty," Tahngarth reminded
through the speaking tube.
    "Yeah," Gerrard acknowledged. He drew a long breath
and pivoted to stare at the starboard amidships gun. The
black rot that had once mantled its barrel had spent itself,
hissing away to nothing. The goo had taken Gunner


                             18
                       J. Robert King

Fewsteem's body with it, had burned away even the harness
that had held him. Gerrard muttered, "Fewsteem. He was a
brave man. There have been so many lost.... Yes, that's
why I ran for so long—"
    "I'm picking up an even larger armada at the next
portal ship," Hanna reported, her voice tense in the
speaking tube. "We're going to need every gun."
    "Any chance of repairing Fewsteem's cannon?" Gerrard
asked.
    Karn answered from the engine room. His connection
to the ship allowed him to sense its every fiber as part of his
body. "There is a single ruptured conduit in the plasma
supply field. Replace it, and the gun will work again."
    "I'm on it," Hanna said, moving away from the speaking
tube before Gerrard could countermand her. Moments
later, she descended from the helm to amidships, the
needed part in one hand and a big wrench in the other.
    He had to grin. It was classic Hanna. Her blonde hair
whipped in the wind. She leaned steeply to make her way
forward. She seemed so slender there, against the racing
landscape of Rath, the coiling red clouds. Gerrard was glad
she had a wrench to weigh her down. She reached the gun,
removed a split panel, and worked at loosening the
ruptured conduit.
    "That's my girl," Gerrard said, shaking his head in
admiration.
    "Gerrard, you see what we are flying over?" Sisay asked
at the helm.
    He had not. Eyes that had seen only Hanna against the
red turmoil of Rath now shifted their focus. His face
darkened.
    On the unruly hills below waited a huge army of
Phyrexians. Their forces stretched to the horizons. There
were no tents or bedrolls, for these creatures needed


                              19
                         Invasion

neither shelter nor rest. There were only patient ranks of
troops and penned beasts to feed them. No campfires,
either—Phyrexians did not need heat and preferred their
meals raw, indeed live. There was not a stick of furniture
and no provision for comfort—unless gladiatorial circles
could be called comfort. There was only order and slavish
obedience and savagery.
     "Waiting to board troop ships, you think, Sisay?"
Gerrard conjectured.
     "Waiting for something but not troop ships. There're
too many soldiers."
     "Gun's fixed," Hanna announced triumphantly. She
repositioned the split panel and staggered to her feet.
     Sisay let out a hiss. "Incoming!"
     A plague bomb dropped from a sentry craft overhead. It
fell straight toward Weatherlight. The ship jagged out from
beneath it, but the bomb burst in midair. Shrapnel hailed
across Weatherlight's amidships. Shards bounded briefly
against the planks before being ripped away on the winds.
     "Everybody all right?" Gerrard shouted.
     "Just a little scratch," Hanna answered. She gripped her
stomach and smiled bravely. "Makes me want to fire this
gun."
     "The job's yours. See Orim about that scratch as soon as
we're out of here."
     "Look sharp," Sisay shouted. "There's the next armada."
     Beyond the dipping prow of Weatherlight, a vast black
cloud appeared. It swelled quickly outward until it filled
the whole horizon. Instead of mist, though, this cloud was
made of ships— Phyrexian warships.
     There were dragon engines, cruisers, and plague ships
but also hundreds of others. Many had been specified on
the plans Hanna had stolen from the Mercadian hangar.
Solid-hulled ram ships hovered like barracudas. Fat barges


                             20
                       J. Robert King

provided floating laboratories for Phyrexian vat priests.
Bombers bore payloads of plague on bat-like wings.
Helioslicers held themselves aloft with whirling blades that
could mince whole armies. Icthus ships seemed winged
spiders, with eight articulated lances for spearing merfolk.
There were ship types for slaying every creature in land and
water and air. They lined up to soar through the pincers of
the portal ship.
    "Let's not give them time to fire," Gerrard commanded.
"Karn, keep the wings folded and the engines roaring."
    "Aye."
    "Sisay, we need perfect flying. No collisions and straight
through the portal."
    "I'll fling us through. You clear the way and shut the
door behind us."
    "Right. Tahngarth, Dabis, Hanna—we'll have just one
chance at this."
    "Don't worry. I'm pissed," Hanna said. She clung to the
starboard amidships cannon, pivoting it fore.
    "Just hold on. You're not strapped."
    "Can't get rid of me that easily," she said, flashing him a
grin.
    He returned the look. "Here we go!"
    Weatherlight blazed across Rath like a shooting star.
Her engines lit the sagittal crests of the troops that
crowded the land behind. Her ray cannons flung blazing
light at the stacks of hovering ships ahead. Red plasma
spattered arsenals, punched its way through engine walls,
ripped open carapace hulls, slew the slayers on the
threshold of the world.
    Gerrard's cannon barked. Scarlet energy shot in a long
column outward. It struck the rear stabilizers of a ram-ship
dead ahead. The heavy craft pitched forward, driven over
by the cannon fire. The ram head cracked into a troop ship


                              21
                          Invasion

below. The two halves of the troop ship split. Phyrexians
spilled out like pepper from a mill. Weatherlight rocketed
through the vacated space.
     Tahngarth meanwhile lined up a shot, his bullish
nostrils snorting. He fired. Red-hot energy pounded the aft
of a command cruiser. The blast ripped free the flying
bridge of the craft. It toppled aside, taking its controls and
staff with it. The rest of the ship began to yaw slowly like a
falling maple seed.
     "Bull's-eye!" Gerrard shouted to him.
     The minotaur squinted and rumbled, "Don't get cute."
     Weatherlight cleared the spinning wreck. The portal ship
appeared beyond, just visible through the waiting armada.
The first two cruisers were making their leisurely way
through.
     "Save your shots!" Gerrard called. "Time this right."
     In moments, they were in range.
     "Aim.... Fire!"
     Six of the seven ray cannons could bear on the portal
ship, and they all discharged. The racing blasts seemed red
spokes on a vast wagon wheel. Each one soared unerringly
to strike the pincers of the ship. They sparked and flared.
Fires erupted from the ship. There was no time to see more.
     Weatherlight shot through the portal. Blue skies replaced
red. Benalia replaced Rath.
     "Did it close? Did it close?" Gerrard shouted.
     "Negative," called Sisay. "The cruisers are coming
through—"
     Four quick blasts came from the aft gun. Squee pumped
the hissing weapon. Tracers stretched back to sock the bow
of the half-emerged cruiser. Explosions popped along its
hull.
     "Great shot, Squee!"



                             22
                      J. Robert King

    The cruiser foundered, halfway through that hole in the
sky. It listed to port. Its masts raked along the side of the
portal, ripping at the superstructure. With a sudden boom
like thunder, the gateway slammed closed. The prows of
the two Phyrexian cruisers were severed from the rest of
the ships. They fell away. The wrecks tumbled, sparking.
    Benalia received its invaders with the wide-open arms
of a brick wall. Each hulk shattered on impact.
    "Hanna, find that third portal."
    "We've got to land," Karn interrupted ominously from
below. Weatherlight's wings raked out, and her engine
slowed. "We're overheating."
    "Fine—land—but get us to Benalia City. Get us to the
Capashen Manor."




                             23
                         Invasion




                    Chapter 3
               When Gods Do Battle

    On a lofty ridge in eastern Benalia stood two men.
They might as easily have been two armies. Power armor
encased their bodies. Metallic, hypertrophic, veiny—the
suits were set with power-stone arrays. Thick capes draped
their shoulders. Bladed battle staves leaned in their grips.
Flight dynamos jutted from arms and legs. Black crystals
gave gauntlets the touch of death. Whole armies had been
defeated by these two men.
    They were not men, not truly. One was a millennium-
old mage, with short gray hair, mutton chops, and a pair of
wide-spaced mustaches bracketing his mouth. He wielded
the power of skies and seas, of volcanoes and verdant fields.
The armor he wore was a concession to his friend. Even
without it, the mage could bring the heavens down to kiss
the dust. The other man was a near-god. His body was
nothing but a convenience of his concentration. Nothing
but will held him in one place. He stepped among and
between worlds as easily as other men stepped stone to
stone. For him, the power armor was a vanity. He could
have simply imagined the suit into being, but he loved to
build machines.
    Urza Planeswalker drew a deep breath of the cool air.
Wind dragged at his long, ash-blond hair and goatee. It
snapped his cape behind him.
    "Do you sense it, Barrin? Do you sense what
Weatherlight has just done?"

                             24
                       J. Robert King

     Mage Master Barrin nodded. Time had wrinkled his
flesh and clouded his eyes. Still, he seemed a young protege
to Urza. Indeed, he was. Though Barrin had lived a
millennium, Urza had lived four.
     "Yes, my friend. I sense what they have done—your
savior and my daughter and their ship." The words sounded
sharper than he had intended. It mattered little. Urza was
oblivious to social slights. "They've closed two of the
portals."
     "Splendid." Urza rarely smiled, but he did now.
"Gerrard at last is testing well." He glanced at his friend.
Caprice shone in the planeswalker's gemstone eyes. "You
said it was a mistake to create him. You said no man could
live up to the destiny I assigned to Gerrard."
     "I said no man could endure Gerrard's destiny."
Shrugging his eyebrows, Barrin added, "We have yet to see.
I only wish my daughter had chosen another man to love.
It is dangerous business to love a savior."
     "Hanna chose as her mother chose," Urza said
offhandedly.
     Barrin scowled, regret boiling in his eyes. "There is still
this third portal." As if to banish memories, Barrin stared
out over the wide plain. Wild wheat filled the fields,
nodding white heads in the wind. "We should summon the
aerial contingents. At top speed, they could arrive even as
the portal opens."
     "No," Urza said flatly. "I will summon them, but they
will come slowly. They would be weakened after a more
speedy flight." He activated gems imbedded in his staff.
     "Better to field many troops early than to perish before
stronger troops arrive," quipped Barrin.
     "Haste makes waste. Better to bide our time," replied
the planeswalker.
     "If it were up to you, Urza, we would bide forever."


                              25
                           Invasion

     "If it were up to you, Barrin, we would do the same."
     "But it is not up to us. It is up to the Phyrexians," Barrin
said.
     Urza's temples reddened. He had no need to blush. The
capillaries that suffused his flesh were mere figments of his
mind but, as figments, were all the more receptive to Urza's
mood.
     "If we succeed in this war, nothing ever again will be up
to the Phyrexians," replied Urza.
     Barrin grasped Urza's armored shoulder and pointed
toward the wide heavens. "Here they come."
     The sky opened. Blackness ripped a hole in blue. A
portal yawned wide. From its lightless depths stared a
malign presence.
     Urza's hand tightened on his battle staff. "My old foe.
He is gazing at me."
     "And you are gazing at him."
     "Were it not for him, I could simply walk to that portal
and shut it down, but he knows me. He shoves at me, even
here."
     Ships—small, fleet ships—shot from the yawning
portal. They buzzed outward and swarmed there, watching
for attack. Some were dragon ships, their necks and tails
coiling. Others were smaller still, single-pilot jump-ships
configured like fleas. A few were puppet craft, unmanned
and controlled distally. All flew in intercept patterns as the
first big cruisers made their way through the portal.
     "They've learned from Weatherlight's tactics," Urza
observed grimly. "We'll not be shutting this one down in
Gerrard-fashion."
     "He's shoving at you, Urza," Barrin said. "Shove back."
     Nodding in satisfaction, Urza raised his battle staff.
"First— some old friends. Do you think they will remember
my falcon engines?" He pressed a certain stone.


                               26
                       J. Robert King

    From among waving heads of wheat, metal things
surged suddenly skyward. There were ten thousand of the
birds—little more than wings of steel, gemstone eyes, and
nostrils that craved glistening-oil. In their brave breasts the
falcons bore Thran-metal shredders. When they struck
Phyrexian flesh, the shredders emerged to dig through.
    Falcons rocketed skyward. Their pinions shrieked in the
ascent. In moments, they had reached the foe. Falcons
converged on the vanguard of Phyrexian vessels. Many
cracked through jump-ship windscreens and punched into
the chests of Phyrexian pilots. Most hurled themselves
onward to the cruisers that lumbered above. Plasma
batteries answered from the huge ships. The falcons easily
evaded. They reached the cruisers, delved into whatever
hollows presented themselves, and coursed down corridors
into chambers where Phyrexians stood their posts. There,
they shredded.
    Once again, there came that impossible grin on Urza's
face.
    "You're enjoying this," Barrin observed grimly.
    "It's a sort of chess match," Urza replied. "Two foes,
ancient and powerful, battling over little squares of turf."
    Barrin's face was bleak. "Two not dissimilar foes—"
    "He has led with his knights and bishops. I have led
with my pawns. They are swarming and destroying his
pieces."
    "Weatherlight is not a pawn. That ship, and Gerrard,
and my daughter—it's your king. You're leading with your
king."
    Urza gestured as jump-ships fell in a regular rain from
the skies. "It is beautiful. How can you not smile?"
    "In this chess match, Master Urza, you have sixteen
pieces and he sixteen thousand."



                              27
                         Invasion

    "I have sixteen billion," Urza said. "I have every
fluttering heart on this planet." He brought his staff down.
    From the rocky peaks all around came the whine of
cables snapping suddenly taut. Enormous trebuchet arms
arced up from machines hidden in cut branches. Their
uplifted baskets flung Metathran troop transports high into
the air. The small ships spun skyward. They were simple in
design—mere wheels hurled on the air. Within those
wheels sat Metathran shock troops—blue-skinned warriors
bioengineered for this very war. They were held against the
walls by simple centripetal force. The transports had no
engines of their own. On the perimeter of each disk, five
powerstones in the five colors of magic were imbedded
equidistant. In dynamic opposition, they made the wheel
into a mana magnet. It was drawn inexorably to the most
powerful mana source nearby, where it would clamp tight.
Reaching the height of their arc, the transports sensed the
cruisers emerging above. One after another, they whirled
upward. Dragon engines flew down to intercept them. A
few disks struck the dragons, knocking them aside and
continuing on their steady flight upward. The pull of
gravity was nothing next to the pull of magic. Like sucker
fish around a shark, the disks schooled up around the
nearest Phyrexian cruiser and latched on. Immediately,
Metathran warriors climbed from their wheels, boarding
the enemy vessel.
    "They will not survive the battle," Barrin noted. "They
are bred not to care whether they do," Urza said. "So are
Phyrexians," Barrin replied.
    "Then they should be a fair match," Urza mused. His
eyes glinted. Whenever he stared intently, the faceted
gemstones in his skull showed through the masking
glamour they wore. "I only wish I had batteries of ray
cannons. That was my one great oversight." "One ... great


                            28
                      J. Robert King

... oversight," Barrin echoed sardonically. Urza raised an
eyebrow. "Phyrexians inherited Thran power-stone
technology undiluted. They had six thousand years and a
world laboratory to improve on it. I've had to dig Thran
hulks from deserts and volcanoes and guess at glyphs and
work in impoverished isolation." He gave another rap of his
war staff. A hundred more troop transports launched
overhead. "Of course they have ray cannons."
    "Weatherlight has Phyrexian ray cannons. You could
study them there. Your titan engines could use such
weapons."
    "I would not interfere with the development of the
crew." "They wouldn't even know you were there," Barrin
interrupted testily. "You are Urza Planeswalker, after all."
    The new batch of troop transports swarmed a third
cruiser, just then emerging from the portal. The first two
ships, sharks drifting side by side, no sooner cleared the gap
than black-mana bombards hurled destruction from one to
the other. Ropy lines of energy spattered the sides of one
cruiser, eating it away.
    Urza nodded. "I see the teams have reached the fire
controls,"
    The attacking ship banked inward. Its huge hulk ran up
alongside the neighbor ship. Lateral spikes sank like fangs
into the wounded vessel's flank. Sparks ringed the gouges,
and oil bled forth.
    "They've reached the ship's bridge too," Barrin added.
    The cruiser ground a deep cleft in the side of its cohort,
severing vital conduits. The second cruiser began to list.
    "You don't need ray cannons when you have strategy,"
Urza thought aloud.
    The sky leviathans seemed to fuse. They scissored
together, shearing away metal as they went. One lost lift.



                             29
                         Invasion

Spewing flames, the two massive machines pitched toward
the plains.
    "And now, they've shut down the batteries," Urza said
as commentary. "They should be returning to their
transports. Once the mana batteries are dead, the
transports will rise." His gemstone eyes followed the
battleships as they plunged. Not a single transport had
disengaged from the hull. "Any moment now, and they will
whirl away to attach to the next ship."
    The ships formed a huge V as they struck ground. Their
prows dug deep. Soil mounded ahead of them and splashed
outward like water. The ships compacted. What air once
resided in those oily chambers shot forth in angry hisses.
Panels blasted loose. Explosions followed. They began in
shattered power cores and spread on plumes of oil and
ignited even the white heads of wheat. Then the raving
flames were extinguished by a black implosion that sucked
air into its empty belly.
    Grass was pulled from its roots. Trees were leveled in
converging rings. Barrin himself would have been sucked
into the vortex had it not been for Urza's stony hand
grasping his shoulder. The whole world seemed to gasp in
that moment. It was a deafening drone. Slowly the roar
died to a sound like horses screaming, then sudden silence.
    Releasing his comrade, Urza said hoarsely, "Not as I had
planned it."
    "Nothing will be as you had planned it," rasped Barrin.
To soften the comment, he said, "Thank you for anchoring
me."
    "I was only returning the favor." Urza hitched his
goatee skyward. "Enough observation. We had best wade in
ourselves."
    "Yes," Barrin replied.



                            30
                      J. Robert King

    The two rose into battle. Azure crystals embedded in
their power armor lifted them with the silent alacrity of
bubbles through water. This was not so much flight as
levitation, keyed directly to the minds of the suits' wearers.
Soon the wind set up complaint at their passage. It tore at
shoulders and wrung cloaks. No one was supposed to rise
this quickly, not even a mage master and a planeswalker.
    They had planned greater affronts to nature.
    Barrin swept his battle staff through three arcs. Blue
energy formed a sphere of protection around him. It was
barely complete when a great tarry fist of black mana struck
the shield. Dark energy spattered the sphere and crawled
around it.
    Pressing his lips together in irritation, Barrin whirled
his staff again. It peeled back the shield as though it were
an orange rind. He gathered the black-dripping shards of
blue energy, mixing the colors. Swinging the staff in a final
wide arc, he flung the glittering ball up to impact the belly
of the third cruiser.
    The ball tore through plates of metal to rip open a
barrack. Out tumbled Phyrexians, cockroaches from a
rotten log.
    Urza meanwhile dodged red blasts from a ray cannon as
he approached the cruiser.
    The shots grew more precise. The gunners worked with
frantic fury. One gunner had once been a human. Now it
was a tortured thing of crisscrossed cables and gearwork
implants. It caught Urza in its sights and fired. Red fury
belched from the smoldering barrel of the cannon.
    Urza lifted leathery gauntlets and deflected the hot
plasma as if flinging away globs of wax. Heedless, he
neared. Another volley spewed from the machine. This
time, Urza caught the killing stuff and hurled it back at the
gunner.


                             31
                         Invasion

    Gaseous plasma struck its tortured face. Its head
collapsed like a balloon. It slumped in the straps of the
machine.
    Urza was glad to see that the ray cannon itself was
unharmed.
    The other gunner had never been human. A vat-grown
monster, its body configuration was arthropodal. Beneath a
red skull piece lurked a round mouth set with in-curved
fangs. Its four forward appendages were poison barbed, and
they lashed out to strike Urza. The reach of those things
told of their unnatural origins.
    The first jab caught Urza in the side. He had been too
distracted, admiring the weapon. Now he was focused.
Stingers the size of bull horns cut through power armor,
sank into his side, pierced viscera, and met in the middle of
him. Their fangy tips pumped venom.
    Any man would have been killed. Perhaps that was why
the O-shaped mouth wore a leering grin. Urza, however,
was no mere man.
    He ripped the stinger from his flesh. It was agony but an
agony he could survive. He yanked the creature's arm out
by its roots. Poison jetted from one end and bug-gore from
the other. Urza jabbed the stingers into the Phyrexian's
astonished mouth. Poison pumped. The gunner thrashed
briefly before slumping beside its partner. Urza flung the
dead arm away.
    Almost as an afterthought, Urza reshaped his flesh,
squeezing the venom out of him. His viscera and muscle
regrew. Even the power armor repaired itself, now a mere
projection of his mind. As long as the planeswalker could
think, he could heal.
    With a single almighty yank, Urza broke the ray
cannon from its mounting. The huge weapon cracked loose
from the walkway. It weighed an easy ton. Clutching the


                             32
                      J. Robert King

gun, Urza floated away from the cruiser. He slowly turned
the cannon about, so he could engage its fire controls.
    With a mere touch, Urza understood this machine. His
eye glinted in the crosshairs. His hand compressed the
trigger.
    Red plasma blazed from the barrel, first taking out
others guns like it. Next, Urza aimed at engine banks, at
power stations, at stabilizers. It was short work with the
single cannon to cripple the third cruiser. The massive ship
began to sink.
    Urza set his feet on it and paused to breathe. He did not
need to breathe, but it helped him think. This ray cannon
would prove very helpful. He would ride the cruiser to the
ground and see what else he could salvage.
    A cry came from overhead. Urza looked up. A huge
dragon engine hovered there, its scales limned with blue
motes of magic. From the back of the engine, a familiar
figure called down.
    "I requisitioned a ride. Where are you going?" Barrin
asked.
    "I'm riding this one down to see what else I can
salvage," Urza said, happily hoisting the ray cannon. "Then
I have pressing business elsewhere."
    "Pressing business?" Barrin echoed incredulously. He
gestured over his shoulder, where two more ships emerged,
spraying flack. "This is pressing business."
    "Yes," Urza replied. He pointed beyond the cruisers.
Small white figures descended out of the sky—Metathran
warships and flights of Serran angels. "But you have some
new help. This battle is well in hand."
    Barrin could only stare incredulously as Urza slid away
atop the plunging cruiser. With anger meant for his old
friend, Barrin savagely dug his heels into the sides of the
dragon engine.


                             33
                        Invasion

   "Get up there, now. We've got a battle to win."
   The dragon could not resist the blue thrall of Barrin's
magic. Its wings surged, and it climbed into the sky.
   Barrin patted the metallic neck. "You and I are the
same, dragon. Enthralled. Driven into someone else's
battles. One of these days, if we last long enough, we will
awaken."




                            34
                      J. Robert King




                    Chapter 4
                     Blind Visions

    Weatherlight was a fine ship—and more than a ship.
Part machine, part organism, part miracle, she fought with
all the nerve and innovation of a great warrior. When the
battle was done, also like a great warrior, she staggered to
the nearest haven to make a controlled crash.
    "There!" Gerrard shouted where he stood in the prow.
He jabbed a finger beyond broad grasslands to a walled
metropolis. "Benalia City!"
    He would always remember the gleaming limestone of
that place— thin white towers with conic hats, tall
windows with elegant tracery, larger-than-life statues
gazing over endless grasslands. Gerrard had trained there,
had become a master-at-arms in the Benalish military.
Benalia City had taught him the deadliness of blades and
politics. He would still be among those sword masters
except for Sisay's abduction. He had left his division to
help save the ship's captain.
    "Karn," Gerrard called into the bow speaking tube, "can
you get us there?"
    There came no response from below decks except a
shudder of exertion that jiggled the whole ship. Sisay's
voice came through.
    "He's already drawing on his inner reserves to keep us
aloft. He'll get us there."
    "How bad is the damage?" Gerrard asked.


                            35
                         Invasion

    Hanna replied, "She'll heal herself. There's lots of heat
stress— worn contacts, overworked parts. Give her an hour
or two, and she'll be ready for another fight."
    An alarm rose from the grand walls of the city.
    "Speaking of a fight," Gerrard hissed under his breath.
    In marketplace stalls, citizens looked up and pointed
skyward. Soldiers clambered up the walls to reinforce the
guards. Crossbow archers cranked bolts into place. Swords
glinted in the sun. These were among the best-trained
warriors in Dominaria. Ballista crews wheeled their siege
engines about, loading them with thirty-foot spears of
spruce. The iron-tipped bolts could rip their way through
Weatherlight's hull. Just now, ten such machines targeted
the ship's bow.
    Gerrard raised his arms in the Benalish signal for
alliance and parley. The ballistae and crossbows remained
trained on the smoldering ship.
    "Peace!" Gerrard shouted in a voice that sounded like
war.
    With massive grace, the ship edged out over the elegant
turrets of Benalia City. Pennants snapped above hipped
gables. Among colonnades of limestone stood gaping
dignitaries, their robes hanging in mute amazement from
their arms. The whole city blinked in wonder and a little
fear.
    Gerrard drew a deep breath and listened for the sound
of hull-staving bolts. No such traumas came from beyond,
but from within ... a great blast from the engine room sent
a jet of fire out of the manifolds.
    Folk in the marketplace below shouted. A single
anxious quarrel leaped up. It cracked off the rail beside
Gerrard and tumbled away. It was the only shot fired. The
other archers held their attacks, and the white-garbed
civilians in the marketplace held their breaths.


                             36
                      J. Robert King

    Weatherlight had found her haven, uneasy though it was.
Landing spines jutted from her hull and reached for the
cobbled courtyard. She cast a deep shadow over the stones.
An apple seller scrambled to wheel her cart out of the way.
Apples hopped off the shuddering conveyance like children
leaping from a hay wagon.
    The courtyard, once thronging with buyers and sellers,
was now empty of everyone except a single, wizened
madman. Shabby in gray robes, he had been proclaiming
death from the skies. The great, smoky airship nicely
fulfilled his prophecies. That was not why he remained.
Eyes wrapped in a kerchief, the blind man simply did not
realize Weatherlight was about to settle atop him.
    From beneath a broad-brimmed hat, the man continued
his lament, "... monsters more hideous than creatures in a
child's nightmare. Ancient, evil, twisted, bent on
destroying all that is fair and beautiful. They think this
world is theirs. They think we are the usurpers. They want
to kill us, every last one. They think they save us, but they
will kill the weakest and enslave the strongest and change
us into monsters. They will change you! And you! And
you!" The blind man pointed accusingly. His gnarled
fingers failed to indicate anyone in the empty courtyard.
"Arm yourselves, Benalia! Arm yourselves! Each of us shall
have to fight, even the aged, the blind, the mad—and I am
all three!" He laughed dryly, the sound ending in a hacking
cough.
    Only then did the blind man notice the huge ship,
hissing as it settled on its landing spines. He didn't seem to
hear it but rather to feel the sudden shade it cast on his
shoulders. A look of puzzlement puckered his old lips. The
hull gently shoved his back. He staggered forward as the
ship stopped just short of crushing him.



                             37
                        Invasion

    Turning angrily, the old man pushed at the side of the
ship. "Watch your wagon, good sir! Give me room!"
    Grim-faced soldiers marched up in a line behind the
man. Boots cracked smartly against the stones. Cocked
crossbows set an uneasy whine in the air.
    The blind seer turned, lips white with anger. "What is
this? You come to haul me away? My warnings are
disbelieved? The truth teller goes to prison?" He held out
his arms in melodramatic surrender.
    The captain of the guard glared past the madman to the
rail of the airship. "Ho, there! Give account! Who are you,
and what is this ... thing? What is your purpose?"
    A wry laugh came from above. Gerrard set one booted
foot on the rail, leaned on his knee, and smiled. "I am
Gerrard Capashen, scion of the first house." He rolled up
his left sleeve, displaying the Capashen tattoo—a tower
with seven windows. "I learned to fight there, in the lower
yard, and I learned to tryst there, in the grotto. This is
Weatherlight, ancient airship and Benalia's greatest
defender. My purpose is to defend you in the coming war."
    "Defend us? Against whom?" asked the guard captain.
    "The monsters from the skies!" the blind man cried. "I
have told you over and over, but you will not believe."
    "Shut up, old man," the guard advised.
    Gerrard snorted. "He's right, in fact. This blind man
does see something. Yes, there is an invasion underway—
beasts falling on us from the skies. Return to your homes.
Arm yourselves. Every house must become a fortification,
every person a warrior."
    The guard captain spat into the dirt. He glanced at the
blind seer. "Is this sky-flying lunatic your son?"
    Patting Weatherlight's hull, the wizened man said,
"Well, why not?"



                            38
                      J. Robert King

    "I demand an audience with the chief of the Capashen
Clan. I demand to address the chiefs of the seven clans."
    "All right, come down here, Gerrard Capashen," the
guard captain said, motioning. "And bring your command
crew."
    Gerrard called into the speaking tube, summoning his
crew. Sisay, Hanna, and the others left their posts, heading
fore.
    "Make it fast," the guard captain barked.
    A line snaked down from the rail. Gerrard slid easily
down it. Tahngarth, Sisay, Orim, and Hanna followed
quickly afterward.
    "Don't forget Squee!" came a call from above. The
green fellow followed his comrades down.
    "We won't forget you," the guard captain promised as
his men seized Gerrard.
    Commander Capashen reached for his sword, but
already it was raked from its scabbard. He tried to drag
loose his thigh daggers, but three men held each of his
arms. Next moment, irons clapped in place, and he was
driven to his knees.
    Sisay, Hanna, and Orim were similarly overwhelmed.
    Tahngarth hurled back the men that swarmed him. He
drew a curve-bladed striva from his shoulder harness and
swung it around him, clearing space.
    Beneath the leaping blade darted Squee, who ran
headlong into the minotaur's leg and clung there piteously.
Tahngarth roared, shaking off the clinging creature.
Gathering his courage, Squee turned and held up his hands
in a pale imitation of a martial master. He even managed a
small roar of his own.
    The minotaur kept the ship to his back as he eyed the
soldiers. "What is the meaning of this?"



                            39
                         Invasion

     The guard captain rubbed a clean-shaven chin. He
seemed to take Tahngarth's measure. "This man here is a
deserter from the army of Benalia. I am taking him
prisoner. Perhaps deserters are not dishonored among
minotaurs."
     A hissing growl was Tahngarth's only response.
     "Then surely you will not oppose the rightful arrest of
this man."
     "What of the others?" Tahngarth rumbled.
     "Would your ... people allow a fully manned warship to
remain in the center of one of your cities?"
     Tahngarth changed the subject. "My commander speaks
the truth of the coming invasion. We have fought these
beasts. You must listen to him."
     "We will determine that. Gerrard Capashen will have
his audience with his clan chief, but until then, he and his
crew will wait in safety."
     The white cast of Tahngarth's knuckles on the striva
handles told of his mood.
     Gerrard nodded to him. "Tahngarth, please. These are
my people. You can't fight them. We'll sort this out, and
I'll owe you." "You bet you will," said the minotaur as he
surrendered his striva and submitted his wrists to be
shackled.
     "Squee surrenders too," announced the goblin, lifting
his hands and falling to his knees. Benalish soldiers
chained him and then ascended to round up the rest of the
crew.
     The blind seer growled as his own shackles clicked into
place.
     "At least I'll have some company, for a change."

                           *****



                            40
                      J. Robert King

    The Benalish military brig had the same grand reserve
as the city above—slim but strong bars, efficiently arranged
cells, guards as decorous as statues. It was a familiar place
for Gerrard. The city had taught him to fight and tryst and
defy authority. It also taught him the consequences.
    "It's urgent you deliver my message to Chief Raddeus!"
Gerrard demanded.
    The guard captain smiled humorlessly. "Oh, he'll be
notified." He clanged the doors closed on Gerrard and his
crew.
    "It's urgent! Thousands of plague ships are descending
even now!" Gerrard insisted as he clung to the bars.
    "Tell them about the monsters," urged the blind seer.
"Tell them about the monsters!"
    "Quiet!" Gerrard shouted. It didn't matter. The guard
captain was already gone.
    Flinging up his hands in resignation, Gerrard turned
and set his back against the bars. "Why did I think I
needed to warn them?" He sank down to sit on the ground.
    "A familiar complaint," the blind seer replied. He felt
his way forward. "How did you find out about the
monsters?"
    Gerrard waved a dismissal. "It's a long story."
    The old man sat down. His face was fully shadowed by
the broad-brimmed hat he wore. "We have time."
    Drawing an angry breath, Gerrard said, "I've known
about them forever, even before I knew what to call them.
I used to blame the 'Lord of the Wastes' for everything the
Phyrexians did to me. Now I know better."
    "Everything they did to you?"
    "Yes," Gerrard replied. "I know this sounds crazy, but
everything I've lost in my life, the Phyrexians have taken
from me: my true parents, my foster parents, my brother
Vuel, my Legacy, my friends.... Now they want to take the


                             41
                          Invasion

rest." He grasped Hanna's hand and drew her toward him,
wrapping her in an embrace. "They would take Hanna,
here, and my crew—Weatherlight, Benalia, Dominaria. I
won't let them. I'll fight for every last one. I would rather
lose myself to the Phyrexians than lose anything else to
them."
    "Don't be too eager to lose yourself," the blind seer
warned.
    Gerrard turned his gaze on the old man. "So, you really
see visions?"
    The old man's mouth was grim beneath the bandage
that wrapped his eyes. "There are two kinds of blindness—
not seeing anything and seeing everything. I am blind
because I see everything."
    "You see everything?" Gerrard snorted. "How come you
don't know anything about me?"
    "If I focus, I could probably tell you all about yourself."
    "Right," Gerrard replied. "How about you focus on
whether we're going to win this war?"
    The man took a deep breath. "There are some things
even I cannot see."




                              42
                      J. Robert King




                    Chapter 5
                    Losing Battles

    Like gnats swarming dragon-flies, Metathran hoppers
buzzed Phyrexian cruisers.
    Fast, maneuverable, light—hoppers were spheres of
glass and polished metal that shrugged off ray cannon fire
and plasma bolts. Small metallic wings jutted from all sides,
hinged to fold against the craft except when needed.
Hoppers could turn in midair, could fly sideways or top-
onward and could fire exploding quarrels from any of
twelve ports. A well-placed shot from a hopper could gouge
a ten-foot hole in the outer armor of a cruiser. Hopper
pilots were strapped to the central node of their craft,
allowing them to pivot through two hundred ninety
degrees. They used their fingers and toes to access the
controls that filled the cockpit. Pilots divided their
attention between strafing runs, vector targeting, and
chamber reloads. Short, wiry, fearless, and focused, they
were bred for this task. Unlike Metathran ground troops,
fliers were not towers of muscle. If Urza had time, he would
have given them hollow bones like birds.
    "Form up!" Barrin shouted, signaling from the back of
his dragon engine.
    A swarm of hoppers responded eagerly to his signal.
    Trailing these frenetic ships were angel platoons. Their
long white pinions carved the air with a slow grace that the
hoppers lacked. Still, these creatures were anything but
slow. With one surge of their wings, the Serran angels

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                         Invasion

overtook the hoppers. Magna swords—halfway between
sabers and cleavers—glinted in their hands, and featureless
metal masks covered angelic faces. These otherworldly
creatures were refugees of a collapsed plane. They owed
their very lives to Urza and Barrin and would likely repay
that debt today.
    Barrin signaled for a strafing run. Clutching the wire
mane of the dragon engine, he crouched above the
creature's neck and sent it into an arrow-straight dive.
    The hoppers and angels flocked afterward.
    Below, a dozen Phyrexian ships cruised above the
Benalish plain. A dozen more lay in wreckage amid
burning grasses. If even one craft landed safely, more than
grass would burn. Each vessel carried an army of
Phyrexians. The huge ship in the midst of the armada
carried something even worse—plague. In gray, putrid
clouds, contagion cascaded slowly from the craft. Disease
ate every living thing in the wake of the ship.
    Barrin's dragon engine tucked its wings. It dived. Air
shrieked about the plunging beast. Angels and hoppers
bobbed in its slipstream. Wings of feather and metal clung
tight to their sides. Angels readied their magna swords, and
Metathran pilots whirled in a frenzy of preparation.
    The Phyrexian fleet seemed to swell outward, eclipsing
the plains. Webs of black energy leaped up from the
machines.
    Barrin signaled for the hoppers and angels to execute a
topside strafing run on the plague ship. He himself would
fly below.
    As the attack squadron approached, hoppers spread
their wings. Angels began a piercing song. Their voices
woke white magic from the very air. It enveloped them as
they shot outward in a long attack.
    A wall of black energy and red plasma rose dead ahead.


                            44
                      J. Robert King

    Hoppers punched through, the stuff spattering from
polished metal. A few caught the plasma in weak seams or
intakes. They disintegrated in midair or gummed up and
tumbled from the skies.
    The angels were untouched. They sang the music of the
spheres, which burned away all that was impure. Joining
their gleaming comrades beyond, they swarmed down on
the plague ship.
    Hoppers sent exploding quarrels into the side of the
ship. Crimson fire scooped out sections of hull and engine.
Phyrexian limbs and skulls hailed from the blast sites.
Angels severed power conduits, bringing geysers of energy
spewing from the ship. White smoke belched out all
around.
    For all their success, though, the hoppers and Serrans
were merely bees stinging a mammoth. They could nettle it
but not kill it.
    Barrin lost sight of the squadron. His dragon engine
swooped beneath the plague ship. He prepared a spell.
White energies crawled down his arms. Drawing them
through the air, he garbed himself in a suit of scintillating
lightning—and only just in time. Clouds of plague rolled
up around him. The air crawled with contagion. It pressed
upon the envelope of energy around Barrin and hissed on
the metal skin of the dragon engine.
    Barrin stared up through the death cloud. It grew more
dense ahead. He was approaching the main plague port
beneath the ship. Its shaft would lead directly to the disease
banks. It was Barrin's target. If he could send a blast up
through the main plague port, he could purge the disease.
What blast, though? A fireball or lightning strike would
only spread the contagion. Barrin gathered white power
from the vast plains below. He had intended these spells for
the wounded after the battle, enough for a thousand


                             45
                          Invasion

Metathran warriors. Better to use them to save millions of
civilians.
     A ball of white power filled his hands. It grew
incandescent there in the midst of the plague cloud.
Sensing the spewing port above, Barrin hurled the sphere
upward. It disappeared. A bright flash pierced the cloud,
showing up the lip of the port. Moments later, the healing
spell smashed within the plague channels. Another burst of
light showed mana energy scouring the knobby
mechanisms within.
     "I've still got it," Barrin croaked wearily as the dragon
engine carried him out from beneath the plague ship. They
broke from the cloud.
     Healing magic gushed from the plague ship. White
energy overtook black disease. The spell that had sterilized
the ship now cleansed the air beneath it.
     Barrin clung to the dragon engine. That vast
conglomerate spell had exhausted him, but it had worked.
It had saved millions.
     As the metal dragon soared out into clear sky, the
plague ship dipped. Smoke poured out of it. The hoppers
and Serrans had done their work. Wounds gaped across the
horn-studded flanks of the ship. Listing slowly, the vessel
slumped. It spiraled, a log in a whirlpool. Phyrexians were
flung from its deck. They fell, writhing in air. The ship also
fell. It keeled over, the empty plague port yawning one last
time. A pair of bony masts struck ground first and dug deep
furrows before snapping off. The fuselage followed. Decks
cracked away. Engines exploded in long lines. Twin pillars
of smoke shot up into mushroom clouds.
     Barrin allowed himself a tired laugh. It had been an
unconventional salvation but a salvation still.
     His silent satisfaction ended too soon. Above the
laboring wings of the dragon, he glimpsed another plague


                             46
                       J. Robert King

ship emerging from the portal. The Phyrexians were
evidently shifting their forces from the portals Gerrard had
shut down.
    "Where's Urza?" Barrin hissed under his breath. "What
business could be so pressing elsewhere?"
    He knew he should not have been surprised. Urza had
often left him to fight overwhelming odds. There was a
time on Tolaria when Barrin had led an army of young
students and old scholars against hordes of Phyrexians—all
without Urza's aid. He had nearly lost that war. It was as
though Urza would not fight a losing battle. He left those
to the capable hands of the mage master.
    Barrin thought of his wife, Rayne—another losing
battle. Her death had ripped his heart out. It was almost a
relief to fight Phyrexians. It was easier to close a hole in the
sky than a hole in the soul.
    Barrin stood in the saddle, signaling for the Metathran
hoppers and Serran angels to form up behind him. They
came with their customary alacrity. He drove his dragon
engine up toward the plague ship. Perhaps he could muster
another set of healing spells. Perhaps he could clog the
contagion channels.
    Perhaps it didn't matter. The Battle of Benalia might
well be a losing one.
    While Barrin fought to close the hole in the heavens,
Phyrexian cruisers soared out across the ground, heading
for distant Benalia City.

                             *****

  Beyond waving heads of grain rose columns of smoke.
They vented from new mountains, hulking on the horizon.
Those steaming peaks were not volcanic but Phyrexian—
mountains that had fallen from the sky.


                              47
                        Invasion

    More mountains still soared there. Twelve Phyrexian
cruisers glided above the grasslands. Stalks of grain
trembled in their vast shadows. The underbellies of the
ships were flat and plated, almost crocodilian. As quiet as
predators, they coursed over the plains, seeking a spot to
deploy.
    Twenty miles beyond the portal, the cruisers fanned out
across a wide field. They hovered until each of the twelve
craft had reached its place in the giant arc. Sending forth
sudden jets of steam, they eased themselves to ground.
Grasses bent and crackled. The final impact of each ship
shook Benalia. It was as though twelve gods had set foot on
the world. Gigantic doors dropped outward, forming ramps.
At the top of them were poised Phyrexian legions, ready to
deploy.
    They were figures out of nightmares—scaly and grimly
powerful. Poison fangs, goring horns, blood-sucking shunts,
acid ejectors, exoskeletal proliferation, pincers, barbs,
paralyzing stings—every adaptation that nature had given
the foes of humankind the Phyrexians had given
themselves.
    Out marched the first ranks of shield folk, the scuta.
They were stooped creatures. Their skulls had been
flattened and elongated into wide shields that guarded
their scuttling legs. There was little room for brain
anymore in that bony bonnet and little need. These fleet-
footed beasts were bred on instinct to rush into unknown
territories and flush out ambushers. They seemed giant
horseshoe crabs, inhuman except for the vestigial faces,
stretched and vacant, on their lower skulls. Shoulder to
shoulder, they bounded down the ramp and swept outward,
sniffing with enhanced olfactory cavities. Scuta were kept
hungry, that they would seek their victims not only for
sport but also for sustenance.


                            48
                      J. Robert King

    The next ranks were utterly different. Grown for brute
strength, stamina, and savagery, bloodstocks had a second
pelvis and a second pair of legs grafted across their
stomachs. They leaned forward perpetually as if in a vicious
charge. Steel beams pierced their shoulders, widening them
by three feet and providing artifact arms above their
natural pair. The bloodstocks pounded down the ramp and
tore out across the field. They were as fast as wolves and
charged like rhinos. If the scuta flushed out more forces
than they could slay, the bloodstocks would paint the
plains in blood.
    After the scuta and the bloodstocks came phalanx after
phalanx of Phyrexian troopers. These vat-grown troops
were less specialized, with generally human configuration
and intelligence. They were tall and lean, their shoulders
bristling with horns, their faces taut like leather sacks. The
ribs of Phyrexian troopers had thickened into a full-torso
breastplate, and implants had developed into subcutaneous
armor across their bodies. Mechanical talons replaced
hands and feet. It was impossible to tell where flesh stopped
and mechanism began. Phyrexian troopers were meant to
march and haul and dig as well as fight. They were also
meant to follow orders instead of instincts.
    Order and instinct had their mutual apotheosis in the
final figure to emerge. She did not come down the ramp
among the shouldering hordes of Phyrexians. She was not
one of the rabble. She was their leader, their god. It had
been part of the indoctrination of these troops that when
they looked up at Tsabo Tavoc, they saw mother and ruler
and slayer, all.
    Tsabo Tavoc's eight legs helped the image. They were
mechanisms, silvery and knife shaped. Even in a crouch,
they lifted her torso ten feet off the ground. Fully extended,
they made her stand taller than a house. Between those


                             49
                          Invasion

massive legs rose a great, bulbous abdomen. It was a
mechanism, as well. A four-foot-long stinger jutted
beneath it, dripping venom. Powerstones within that
abdomen linked Tsabo Tavoc to her every minion. She
could sense everything they sensed.
    Above it all rose a powerful thorax, half human and
half machine. Brown robes draped from four massive
shoulders and mantled a bald, young, strangely beautiful
head. Tsabo Tavoc had once been a fair maiden with ivory
skin and supple arms. Her beauty had somehow been only
heightened by the torturous modifications she had
undergone. Even her eyes, the way they sparkled, might
have been alluring were they not so plainly compound.
    Tsabo Tavoc stepped down from the prow of her
command cruiser. Her legs picked gracefully forward among
the waving heads of grain. She watched with all-seeing
eyes as her troops lined up on the plains of Benalia.
    Tsabo Tavoc loved them. These were her children.
What seemed almost a smile formed on her segmented lips.
She sent her children the sum of her will.
    Welcome, my sweet ones. Welcome to Dominaria. This is
our home. Do you feel it in your blood as I do? Do you feel how
the hills call to us? They remember when we walked this place.
They have longed for our return. We come to them, compleated
and glorious, their worthy rulers.
    There is another race here, though. They have ruled this
world for these six thousand years, ruled wrongly. They are the
remnant of us, those who would not ascend. They remained in
squalor and have thrived here only because they had no natural
predators.
    We are their natural predators. We have come to take this
world back from the soft-skinned, cowering vermin that have
overrun it. We will feed upon them, as is our right, and claim
dominion over Dominaria, as is our destiny.


                              50
                       J. Robert King

    Array yourselves, my children. This is the first great battle
of many. Before the sun sets this day, we march upon the center
of Benalish power. We march upon Benalia City.




                               51
                         Invasion




                    Chapter 6
                 To Sting A Spider

    From Benalia City above came muffled booms and
sudden shouts. The cell floor shuddered. Iron clanged on
iron. Sand sifted from the stony ceiling.
    "Do you hear that?" Gerrard called to the brig
guardsman. "That's the invasion we spoke of. Those are the
monsters out of the sky."
    The blind seer stood beside him, clutching the bars.
    "They'll be calling you in a moment," Gerrard
continued. "They'll need everybody to fight. They'll need
us too. Let us loose!"
    The guard was young and pallid. He took a step toward
the cell, his hands on the keys at his side. A shout came
from above. He craned his neck up the passageway and
listened to barked orders. Each word jolted him bodily, as if
he were a scrap in the mouth of a dog. Suddenly, he
charged up the stairs.
    "Wait!" Gerrard shouted.
    It was too late. A deafening concussion sounded at the
head of the stairs. The guard—a mere rag doll now—
tumbled down to sprawl at their base.
    "Damn it," Gerrard growled, staring at the crumpled
young man. He rattled the cell door in frustration. "We've
got to get out of here. It won't be long before Phyrexians
start flooding down."
    Tahngarth rose from the corner where he had sat.
Snorting angrily, he stalked across the cell, gripped the

                             52
                      J. Robert King

bars, and hauled hard on them. Muscles snapped like steel
cables. The sinews of his massive shoulders rolled beneath
mottled white fur. Beads of sweat broke out over his bovine
brow. Still, the bars did not budge. With a roar of anger, he
released his grip and dropped to his knees, panting.
    Shaking his head, Gerrard said, "How about you,
Hanna? Could you jimmy this lock?"
    The slim, blonde navigator shrugged as she came
forward. "Just because I studied artifice doesn't mean I
know anything about locks." She crouched beside the door
and peered into the keyhole. "If this were powerstone
driven, I'd have a shot. As it is, I don't even have anything
I could use as a lockpick."
    "How 'bout dis?" interposed Squee, suddenly at her side.
He clutched a white, pointed object.
    "That might be just the thing," Hanna replied, taking
hold of it before she realized it was the tip of Tahngarth's
horn. The kneeling minotaur cocked an eyebrow at her,
and she let go, smiling in apology.
    "Those horns have bashed down plenty of doors, but
never lock-picked them," Tahngarth snorted.
    Another explosion shook the brig. More rocks fell from
the ceiling.
    Gerrard patted the minotaur's back. "I hate to ask it of
you, but they took anything else we could have used to
pick the lock. They even took my belt, as if I'd use it to
throttle a guard. They left it with our weapons—with your
striva."
    "All right! All right!" the minotaur growled. "Use my
horn! It'll just make me more deadly when I get out."
    Hanna gingerly took the tip of it and directed it toward
the keyhole. "Forgive me, Tahngarth. I'm not exactly an
expert at this."



                             53
                         Invasion

    "Squee's good! Squee know how to do dat!" the goblin
said emphatically. He clambered up Tahngarth's stooped
back and leaped to the bars, where he clung like a monkey.
He brushed Hanna aside, peered into the keyhole, and said,
"Aw, yeah. Easy tumbler. One strike. I do dis easy." He
grabbed Tahngarth's horn and shoved it into the keyhole.
The minotaur overbalanced, his head ramming against the
bars.
    Hanna and Gerrard wisely retreated.
    Tahngarth steadied himself and was about to protest
when a cascade of fist-sized stones fell from the ceiling,
pummeling his shoulder blades. He was going to be very
deadly when he got out of this.
    Squee twisted the minotaur's horn. It shrieked pitiably
in the metal encasement. The goblin switched his
handhold. His wrist twisted.
    "No good. Angle all wrong. Maybe we break off dis
horn!"
    "Maybe we break off dis goblin!" Tahngarth roared.
    Squee was too busy clinging to the bars and rattling the
horn in the keyhole to notice he was in mortal peril.
Exasperated, he squeezed his way through the bars.
    "Squee try this from outside."
    He braced his feet on the outside of the cell door and
yanked on Tahngarth's horns, ramming the bull-man's
head again into the bars.
    "Squee! Squee! Stop!" Tahngarth bellowed.
    "Squee almost got it!" shouted back the goblin.
    "You've got it already, you imbecile! You're outside the
cell! Grab the keys!"
    "Wuh—?"
    "From the dead guard! Grab the keys!"




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                      J. Robert King

    Releasing the minotaur's horn, Squee dropped his
webby feet to the cold stone floor. He brushed off his
hands, frowned, and shrugged.
    "Well, if you think it'll be quicker—"
    "Get the keys!" the Weatherlight crew shouted in unison.
    Squee cringed beneath the auditory assault and
retreated to the body sprawled beyond. Deft hands won the
key ring free of tangled clothes. Squee brought them back
to the door. Griping under his breath, he fitted key after
key into the slot.
    "Dis just cuts it. Squee save your butts in Mercadia ten
hundred times, and now he save your butts here, and all
you say is 'Get dose keys, Squee! Get dose keys!' "
    A loud boom sounded above, and a small landslide
swept down the stairway, burying the guard.
    Gerrard watched feverishly from the other side of the
cell door. Quietly, he advised, "You'd better hurry, Squee."
    " 'Hurry up, Squee! Hurry up, Squee!' " the goblin
groused.
    Down that landslide ambled inhuman creatures. They
had claws the size of butcher knives and serpent-slitted
eyes. They climbed over the body of the dead guardsman
and charged the cell door.
    "Hurry up, Squee!" the goblin told himself. "Hurry up,
Squee!"
    The lock clicked. Squee hauled on the door, yanking it
open. He rode the swinging bars back, keeping the door
between him and the charging Phyrexians.
    Tahngarth followed the door out. He burst from the cell
with a full-fledged roar. It echoed through the trembling
chamber as though the brig itself screamed.
    At that sound, even the Phyrexians faltered. They
paused in their charge, glimpsing a great mass of muscle
headed their way.


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                        Invasion

    Tahngarth barreled into the front two Phyrexians.
Horns that had been twisted in a Rathi torture chamber
caught and gored their first monstrous victims. Golden oil-
blood rained from the beasts as Tahngarth lifted them to
the ceiling. He shook his head. The horns eviscerated the
monsters. Guts tumbled out on either side of the minotaur.
Like impaled bugs, the Phyrexians writhed on his horns. A
brace of their comrades charged Tahngarth. He hurled the
dying beasts from his horns, toppling the others.
    Gerrard and Sisay rushed from the cell to the
minotaur's side. Sisay clenched her teeth in fury.
    "What do we use for weapons?"
    Gerrard demonstrated with a roundhouse. Knuckles
impacted a Phyrexian jaw, just between a pair of venomous
horns. The bone beneath cracked. The beast reeled and
dropped like a plank. Grinning, Gerrard blew across his
knuckles.
    "These, I guess."
    Nodding philosophically, Sisay ducked the swiping
claws of another beast. She kicked out, breaking its leg at
the knee. Four Phyrexians were down, but dozens more
flooded down the stairwell.
    "We're done for, you know?" she said blandly as she
stomped the head of the creature she had just felled.
    Before he could respond, Gerrard drove the nose of one
beast into its brain. He peeled the thing's claws from his
own bleeding throat.
    "I know."

                          *****

   Tsabo Tavoc trembled in delight as she strode through
the shattered outer wall of Benalia City. Dead citizens lay
everywhere. Only a few had been fed on yet. Most lay with


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                      J. Robert King

wide-open eyes and mouths frozen in final screams. Tsabo
Tavoc had heard those screams through the ears of her
children. She had tasted the blood of this one, and that. It
was as though she herself had killed them all. Even now,
more murderous moments flowed over her, as bracing as
the waters of a cool stream. Tsabo Tavoc trembled. There
was such an ecstasy in the harvest.
    A herd of bloodstocks bounded eagerly through the
breach in the wall. They passed among her legs. Tsabo
Tavoc was delighted at the touch of her children. She
watched the bloodstocks converge on Benalish soldiers.
The humans set their pikes for the charge, but these were
not horses with hollow chests. The blood-stocks ran full
speed onto the pikes. Metal heads struck wedge-shaped
stemums, cut along broad ribs, and slid ineffectually out the
severed pectoral muscles. Such injuries maimed one arm,
but bloodstocks had three others. With them they ripped
apart the pike men. It was a glorious sight—a red fountain
bursting into being in the cobbled square.
    Ah, what ecstasy there was in the harvest! Tsabo Tavoc
drew a deep breath.
    Perhaps the sweetest triumph of the day had been
capturing the flying ship Weatherlight. Any Phyrexian
would have recognized that queer little war machine. It
had caused havoc on Rath. It had destroyed the Phyrexian
fleet on Mercadia. All Phyrexians recognized the ship if
only as the laughably puny creation of Urza Planeswalker.
It was merely a wasp—small and ludicrously vicious but
capable of delivering a painful sting.
    Not today. The ship's crew was gone. It had been
guarded only by Benalish soldiers. They were dead now,
replaced by Phyrexians. Every chamber of the ship had
been searched. Where was the crew?



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                          Invasion

     Something sad touched her: the piquancy of loss. It
came from there, from the ruined infirmary. It seemed a
place of victory. A ray cannon had ripped the roof off. One
brick wall was blown out. Bunks lay overturned. Between
them were red fragments of bone where the inhabitants
had fed scuta. Even Capashen Chief Rad-deus and his wife
Leda had been surprised there, visiting the ill. They were
gibbeted high enough that the bloodstocks could bite off
only a toe or two. Above ground was victory.
     Below ground was defeat. A deep brig lurked there.
Twenty of her children lay dead, and not a single prisoner
was slain. What sort of prisoners were these—?
     With a sudden shudder of realization, Tsabo Tavoc
knew. She sent out her will. Hold them, my children. Do not
slay them. Neither allow them escape. These are the master's
former friends. They are Urza's saviors.
     The reply came back, as always it did, with grateful
obedience. The thoughts were borne on a current of
death—the deaths of her servants.
     I must go see this Gerrard Capashen myself, Tsabo
Tavoc thought.
     Her legs galloped. In moments, she reached the blasted
infirmary and stood at the top of the stairs. Agony broke in
exquisite waves over them. Tsabo Tavoc's hearts pounded
in her thorax. She tucked her venomous abdomen up
beneath her and folded her legs in a cage over her head.
Metal scraped on stone as she rolled down the steps. She
landed on a rubble pile at the foot of the stairs. There was a
still-warm body beneath her feet, but she paid it no heed.
Unfolding her legs, she surveyed the scene.
     Her children lay, twenty-some, dead before the crew of
Weatherlight. How had fists and horns bested claws and
fangs?



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                      J. Robert King

    Tsabo Tavoc spoke. It was a grave moment when she
spoke aloud. Her voice had the sound of cicadas rasping in
chorus.
    "Surrender, Gerrard of Weatherlight. You will not be
harmed by me. My master has want to see you. Surrender,
and live."
    The black-bearded man she addressed wore a most
unusual grin as his bloody knuckles felled another foot
soldier.
    "You overestimate ... how fond I am ... of life."
    Rarely did Tsabo Tavoc speak aloud. When she did, she
was always obeyed.
    There in that tight space, her legs scraped the ceiling as
she lunged for Gerrard. A minotaur—foolish bovine—
stepped before the man and rammed his horns into Tsabo
Tavoc's belly. Her own pain was not as lovely as others'.
With one slim hand, she wrenched the twisted thing from
her flesh. The horn was slick with her oil-blood. Tsabo
Tavoc shoved the minotaur away as though he were a
newborn calf.
    A dark-skinned woman kicked the belly wound. Her
foot sank into the oozy hole.
    Tsabo Tavoc constricted her thorax and trapped the
foot. Her assailant writhed in agony. Heedless, Tsabo
Tavoc dragged the woman toward Gerrard.
    He took a swing even as he stumbled away. Tsabo
Tavoc caught his fist and hauled him up by it. He tried to
break free but was too weak. It was like crushing kittens.
    Tsabo Tavoc gazed into the angry face of this young
man, this creature bred out of millennia for his task. Her
voice buzzed through the brig.
    "You cannot defy me, Gerrard, nor my master. I have
taken your country. I will take you as well. My master will
take your world."


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                          Invasion

    What was this? He spit on her face? Could he possibly
defy her still?
    "What is your name, that I can brag of killing you," the
bearded man asked.
    "I am Tsabo Tavoc," she replied placidly, "but it is quite
the other way around." Her abdomen curled up beneath
Gerrard. A huge stinger dripped venom. Poison sacs pulsed.
Tsabo Tavoc clamped onto Gerrard's side.
    Oh, this was the greatest pleasure of all!
    Sudden light and noise filled the place. The weighty
ceiling came to pieces. It dropped all about them. Every
chunk of stone was limned in red light. Phyrexians were
crushed. A hunk of rock knocked the dark-skinned woman
unconscious. Another tore a deep gash in Gerrard's side.
Only those in the cell were protected.
    Just one rock mattered, though—one deadly boulder. It
smashed Tsabo Tavoc to the ground. A twenty-foot slab of
stone pinned the legs of her left side. She struggling to claw
free.
    Worse, Gerrard got away. His hand was in bloody
ribbons. He dragged his dark-skinned companion with him.
Her foot was badly burned from Tsabo Tavoc's blood, but
they got away.
    A grotesque goblin clung to the bars and pointed
skyward. "Squee love Karn! Squee love Karn!"
    Tsabo Tavoc looked up. Drifting above the smoking
crater was that damned ship. Someone had remained
aboard—someone who could fly the ship and fire the ray
cannons by himself.
    "Squee love Karn! Squee love Karn!"
    Gerrard and his crew clambered out of the cell, over
rocks and bodies.
    Tsabo Tavoc lashed out with her right legs.



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                       J. Robert King

     The little monsters were just out of reach. They
climbed out of the prison and into the ruined shell of the
infirmary. Weatherlight edged out above the wreckage. Its
anchor clattered down, smashing through the remnant of a
wall. The crew crowded onto that swaying piece of metal.
It slowly rose.
     He would die, this Gerrard. It mattered little what the
master wanted. Here was a man who had grinned his
defiance, had spat in her face, and had lived to tell the tale.
     Already, Weatherlight slid away.
     Tsabo Tavoc gathered the strength in her trapped legs.
There was only one that was inextricable. The rest could
pull loose, given the chance. Tsabo Tavoc gave them the
chance. She yanked free. The metallic interface of the
single doomed leg raked out of the meat and bone of her
pelvic girdle. Her own blood painted the stone as she drew
her good legs forth. It made her angry. Her own pain was
not as sweet as others.
     For this and other indignities, Gerrard would die.




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                         Invasion




                    Chapter 7
                 How Forests Fight

     Multani awoke in dread.
     He knew he was dying. He could feel it in his flesh.
There was sudden cancer—a numbness that ate away
feeling and replaced it with living death.
     Last night, he had been well. He had sent his
consciousness into every bud in the treetops and every hair
root below. The great forest Yavimaya was his body.
Magnigoth trees were his endless limbs, elves and pixies his
darting thoughts, surging sap his pumping blood. Last
night, the forest had been well.
     This morning, all was different. Yavimaya was suddenly
filled with pockets of darkness—cancer.
     It had fallen from the skies. The contagion sifted down
through clear air. Minute spores tricked their way into
every stoma on every leaf. A tingling numbness followed. It
flowed down stems into twigs and branches and trunks. It
converted all to living rot. Whole boughs were corrupted.
     It was worse than that. An intelligence controlled this
cancer. Something called to the rotten limbs—something
black and hungry. This was not just a killing plague. It was
a resurrecting plague too. It killed in order to revivify the
dead wood and control it. Gangrene worked a slow
possession on Yavimaya. The forest's life was becoming an
alien unlife.
     The malign power hovered above. Sensing it, Multani
rose through a millennial magnigoth. In moments, he had

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                      J. Robert King

ascended the three-thousand-foot tree. His presence
flooded into healthy leaves. They were retinal structures,
attuned to light. Through them Multani could see stars no
mortal eye ever guessed at.
    Now he did not see stars. He saw an achingly blue sky
with three immense rents in it. Out of those holes drifted
enormous black carbuncles. They were gnarled like
diseased wood. One eclipsed the sun. It cast down a shadow
that covered a thousand acres. The sun shone in corona
around that great scab. Figures moved there, carapaced
figures—Phyrexians.
    A millennium ago, Multani had joined Urza's fight
against Phyrexia. He granted Urza the Weatherseed—
drawn from the center of the forest's most ancient tree, the
Heart of Yavimaya. From that seed grew the living hull of
Weatherlight. Multani had aided in breeding perfect
defenders for Dominaria. He had even trained Gerrard
Capashen in maro-sorcery.
    All these preparations seemed punily insufficient now.
In the face of this onslaught, what good was an army of
Metathran and a living airship and a reluctant hero?
    Multani's mind darkened. He seeped down through
ancient wood and spread his soul in vines and tangled
boughs. He wanted to reside in every tree, every pulsing
heart. Only when he encompassed the whole of the forest
could he glimpse the divine world. It was painful to be
stretched so thin, to feel the trembling terror of the forest.
Once he touched on every tendril, though, he sensed his
mother watching.
    Gaea, you have known of this dread hour since before I
even was. You knew of it from Argoth and before, from
Halcyon of the Ancients. I am a fool. You see how little I am
prepared. Save me, Mother. Save your son. I beg of you. Save
me.


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                           Invasion

    There came no response from the world-goddess. Never
did she speak.
    Her silence was terrible. Multani winced back from it.
He withdrew, no longer in every strand of cellulose. In
withdrawing, he lost sight of the divine principle and saw
instead only the circling vortex of ships above the forest.
    Dragon engines, cruisers, troop transports, rams, plague
ships— they formed a horrible black whirlpool in the sky.
The cyclone widened. Ships descended to attack the
shores. Others would overtop the forest in a great killing
dome. There would be no escape. There would be no
miracle from Gaea. There would be only a long, vicious
fight that Multani must lead.
    He sent his mind into the elven cities in the canopy. In
natural hollows, children played. Across bridges of vine,
women worked air nets. In thatched villages, men gossiped.
Multani spoke to them all. Fey oracles suddenly saw all he
had seen. Fey warriors learned what he knew. Chiefs and
kings prepared for all-out war. Multani reached even into
the minds of common elves and awoke nightmares.
    He gave them a new definition of hate. The angry
distrust they felt toward humanity was love compared to
this. To kill a Phyrexian was to serve good. To die killing a
Phyrexian was to join the eternal forest. Each pixie, each
sprite would hate and fight and kill for Yavimaya.
    Multani sent his mind into the deep root clusters of the
magnigoths. There, in lightless seas, dwelt great serpents
and fishes as large as villages. Druids lifted their eyes to the
ceilings of their root cells. Multani twisted among their
chants and prayers. He whispered terrors into their ears and
charged the druids to marshal their might. A fanatic heat
entered them. Druids were furious by nature but solitary
and sedate in their anger. When one of their gods united
their rage, though, woodfolk became warriors.


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                      J. Robert King

    How could fey and druid stand against Phyrexia? What
good were songs and poetry against plague and poison?
    Heart despairing, Multani stretched his will once again
through the great wood, to every dumb beast. These were
not warriors. The fiercest were mere predators. The
gentlest were leaf-licking molds. But cornered, wounded,
with death inevitable, every creature will attack. Multani
infused them with the surety of their doom. They would
fight, every last one. Giant ground sloths would rip
Phyrexian heads from their shoulders. Green boas would
wrap themselves around whole phalanxes and squeeze until
glistening-oil jetted from every pore. Apes would emerge
from their warrens and pummel the monsters to mush. Sky
leeches, great forest hogs, gobbet raptors, fire ants—they all
would fight and die in the fighting.
    Was this the salvation Gaea offered her mortal folk: to
die fighting?
    Multani watched in aching dread as the storm of ships
deepened over Yavimaya. Plague engines spewed tree-
toxins. Phyrexian fliers stretched leathery wings. When the
canopy was ripe with rot, they would soar down upon the
elven kingdoms. Other troop ships neared the shores. They
would off-load Phyrexian armies, who would race
unopposed among the ancient boles.
    Multani took a shuddering breath through manifold
stomas.
    Perhaps Multani should have made himself Urza's
servant. Perhaps he would have gained ships and monster
machines of his own.
    Troop ships hovered above the wide-flung shores of
Yavimaya. They edged up over root tangles that reached
into the sea. One by one, great doors opened, swinging
down into ramps. Hundreds of thousands of troops
appeared. They stared toward Yavimaya with eyes like


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                         Invasion

sockets scooped in meat. The invaders started down the
ramps, their claws scraping.
    Soon, every creature in Yavimaya would have lightless
eyes.
    Except that Gaea had heard his prayer. She was silent,
yes, but she had heard.
    The tangled roots, reaching far out into the salty sea,
moved. They slid across each other with the ease of snakes.
Inextricable knots untied themselves. Roots reached out
like grasping fingers. All around the island, fibrous hands
grasped Phyrexian troop ships. Some roots simply crushed
them. Others shot straight through metal, piercing the
beasts within. More still struck the craft down like hands
slapping flies. Not a single monster reached the safety of
the shore. Those who survived the crushing, spindling,
shattering attack tumbled into the water. Phyrexians hated
water, especially salt water. It destroyed their metal parts.
But more than water waited down there for them.
    Other Dominarian defenders rose. Fins slapped and
froth churned. Sharks fed in plenty, yes, but other creatures
too—dolphins and giant squids, stingrays and barracudas.
In their midst were merfolk, their tridents spearing
Phyrexians. Side by side, the folk of the sea feasted on the
flesh thrown to them.
    The forces of the sea had never before aided their old
foes, the forces of the forest. Why now?
    Multani understood. Gaea was not merely a forest
goddess. She was the world-goddess. Seas were hers and the
creatures therein. As Multani had marshaled the dumb
beasts of the forest, she had directed some other mind to
gather the beasts of the sea.
    This is why he had not allied with Urza. This was the
way the forest fought. Exultation replaced dread.



                             66
                      J. Robert King

    Overhead, aerial troops leaped from their skyships.
Wings of skin barked on the wind. Down soared
Phyrexians in thick swarms. They swirled down toward the
elven kingdoms in the treetops.
    Multani gathered himself from the island's perimeter
like lightning gathering itself from the sky. He vaulted up
the hollow core of an ancient magnigoth tree. In the crown
above, the largest of the elven kingdoms spread.
    Multani emerged. He took his shape from a shaggy
vine, bringing with it blankets of moss, a number of
parasitic plants, and a section of loose bark. All these,
Multani assembled into a vast, shambling form. He had no
body aside from this forest, but in its flesh he had flesh.
Multani climbed to the elven kingdom. En route, he
dragged a venom-vine into his being. It spread through
him, its poisonous thorns positioning themselves as fangs,
horns, and claws.
    Already, the elf warriors gathered in thorn brakes and
atop lookout spires. They trooped like ants across the foot-
worn branches. Some crucial bough-bridges had already
succumbed to rot. They had taken on a wicked life of their
own, lashing out at nearby troops. Crews busily doused
rotten sections with pine spirits and set them ablaze. It was
a horrible sight—elves torching trees.
    Multani dug one foot into a sap channel and sent a
signal to the heights of the magnigoth. There, vast seed
pods opened prematurely. Soap-down, as white as snow and
as slippery as ice, spewed upward. The stuff rose to
envelope Phyrexian wing-troops. Oily fibers dragged across
batwings and talons. The soap-down filled air holes and
blinded eyes. Everything it touched grew slick.
    Hissing and spitting, Phyrexians dived out of the
choking cloud. They soared down to the leafy crowns and
converged on the lookout aeries.


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                          Invasion

    Elf sentries loosed slim shafts.
    The arrows ripped wings and thudded into Phyrexian
chests and skulls. A few fell from the sky. They cracked
against branches in their long descent. Others reached the
aeries, shrieking their attack. Wings folded. Talons gripped
branches. They slipped, overbalancing. Elven swords were
there to catch them. Impaled, Phyrexians writhed like bugs
on pins. The wiser elves hurled their fouled swords from
the aeries. Those who kept their blades lost their lives.
Phyrexian fangs bit through skulls. Phyrexian claws ripped
through chests and heads. It was impossible to tell the
slayer from the slain.
    Below, the main mass of the aerial troops landed in the
kingdom's center. Those that came down atop elves got
spears and arrows in their bellies. Those that landed on
footpaths slipped to spill from the boughs. Elves crowded in
tight companies and flung beasts off birch shields.
    A massive Phyrexian, a seeming gargoyle, lunged into a
group of elves. It bit an elf in half and lifted its head back
to swallow the torso. Swords jabbed the Phyrexian's neck,
unintentionally pinning the corpse within. The gargoyle
gasped, choking.
    Elsewhere, another winged monster found itself
swarmed with vines. The living wood drew stinging thorns
across its hide, cutting to muscle. Moss crowded into the
thing's mouth and air holes. Thistles raked wings to bloody
rags. Vines constricted, strangling the beast. It fell on the
bough and hissed to stillness.
    Multani withdrew from the corpse. He pulled his
bloodied vines off the shapeless figure and reassembled
himself. The twin thistle blossoms that made up his eyes
glimpsed a new atrocity.
    Elf children fled backward over a sheer drop. They
clung to rough bark and vines to escape a Phyrexian mob.


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                      J. Robert King

     Multani ran for the mass of the creatures. He could kill
one at a time, perhaps two at once. Still the monsters
would slay the children.
     A thought came to him. He dived into the wood. His
vine-body sloughed from him into a pile on the surface.
Multani sped inward along sap lines. Up through a fat bole
and a twisted girdle he went. Spreading through a meaty
branch, he possessed it. The thing swung downward, the
arm of a colossus.
     It struck the Phyrexian mob and hurled them from the
tree.
     Multani took no time to admire his work. Phyrexians
filled the treetops. He lifted the bough again and brought it
down to mash them. Leaves became blades. Tendrils
became scourges. Branches became staves. Boughs became
rams. All dripped with glistening-oil-blood.
     This was how the forest fought.




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                          Invasion




                     Chapter 8
               Battles Above Benalia

    Engineer Karn had made good use of his time alone
aboard the wounded ship. Outwardly, he crouched down,
impersonating an inert engine module. The trick fooled
Phyrexian crews. Inwardly, Karn activated the ship's
healing routines. Once Weatherlight was skyworthy again, a
jolting takeoff ripped her mooring lines from the ground.
Karn rolled the ship to fling Phyrexians from her deck. He
ignited her ray cannons and blasted his way into the brig.
Together, he and Weatherlight had rescued the crew.
    Now, aloft, Karn proved more powerful still. In flight,
the ship was his body. In it, he charged across the heavens
like a thoroughbred. A pack of Phyrexian ships howled in
his wake, but none could even approach him.
    Weatherlight ruled the skies beyond Benalia City. In a
series of lightning attacks, she strafed troop transport ships
and cruisers, pinning them in their deployment arc. None
could get off the ground. The cruisers' heavy batteries
hurled flack into the sky, too slow to strike the shrieking
vessel. Phyrexians scrambled from damaged engines and
melted cannonades. They were no match for
Weatherlight's crew.
    Sisay worked her own magic at the helm. She soared
down the throat of Phyrexian cannonades, hopping
Weatherlight away before plasma split the air. The
incandescent stuff narrowly missed the ship, instead
blanketing pursuers. Flinging off hunks of magma,

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                      J. Robert King

Phyrexian fighters collapsed and plunged from the sky.
They impacted cruisers docked below or troops off-loading
from them.
     Hanna, meanwhile, pinpointed the Phyrexian vessels'
critical sectors—fire controls, fuel tanks, power conduits,
flying bridges.... She plotted strafing runs that cut straight
across numerous engine cores. In a steady stream, she
barked out heading directions and blast coordinates.
     "Target thirty degrees to port, the red 'midships
manifolds. You're warm! You're hot! Bull's-eye!"
     As flames engulfed the vast structure, Tahngarth
shouted from the starboard prow cannon, "Stop calling
them bull's-eyes!"
     "Yeah," rejoined Gerrard at port. "That was my shot!"
     "Get ready for another," Sisay warned. "A cruiser's
lifting off."
     Hanna growled out hasty instructions. "Three degrees
left, vault over this next ship, and bring us in low."
     "Low?" Gerrard called back. "It's lifting off."
     "She's plotting a course beneath it," Sisay guessed.
     Hanna worked out the vectors.
     "Beneath it?" Gerrard echoed.
     "The engines are exposed on the underside. The hull
guns won't be operational yet," Hanna explained. "It's the
safest route and the surest kill."
     "What if we shoot it so well it falls on us?"
     "Have a little faith in Karn," Hanna replied, smiling
wryly at Sisay. "Three degrees to port, and dive, Captain."
     The ship plunged above the smoldering heap of a
grounded cruiser. Weatherlight raced over black mountains
of mechanism, past splayed Phyrexian corpses, past
shattered cannonades and batteries spewing corruption
into the air. Weatherlight's plunging keel sliced through a
cloud of plague spores, which rose in white canyon walls


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around the ship. The ship rocketed out of the killing
tunnel.
    Dead ahead, a cruiser labored into the air. It was a
mountainous ship. Tangled grass and clods of dirt rained
beneath it.
    "Take us below," Hanna called.
    With a gut-wrenching drop, Weatherlight plummeted.
Her own keel sliced grasses. She left a wide-boiling wake of
stalks behind her. A surge from her engines sent the ship
screaming beneath the enormous cruiser.
    Dust pelted down from convoluted pipework. It stung
the gunners and anyone else on deck. Weatherlight arrowed
beneath the huge black shelf and above the trammeled
ground. Her spars cracked occasionally against the cruiser's
belly. Her keel gouged lines in the dirt.
    "Where's this exposed engine you promised?" Gerrard
shouted through the tube.
    "You'll feel it," Hanna said.
    They did. Sudden, incredible heat tore across the deck.
It radiated from a network of huge black cylinders, each
bristling with thermal fins.
    "Fire!" Gerrard ordered even as he squeezed off a few
blasts.
    The rays looked vermilion against the ship's dark
underbelly. They tore outward, striking column after
column. The huge cylinders cracked open, their hulls
seeming as brittle as eggshells. Pure energy oozed from the
engine cores. Tahngarth's own blasts mixed red power with
black, blood and rot commingled.
    "Cease fire," Gerrard called. "All power to the engines!"
    Weatherlight leaped. Even her running lanterns dimmed.
    The Phyrexian cruiser jolted, descending in a great
rush. It fell like a mountain from the sky. The air trapped



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                      J. Robert King

beneath it fled in roaring waves out of the way. Weatherlight
was caught up on the currents.
    Gerrard and Tahngarth clung for dear life to the hot
chassis of their guns. The leather straps strained to hold
them in place.
    Weatherlight's masts scraped the cruiser's underside.
The keel plowed through the ground. With a last shriek,
Weatherlight vaulted from the collapsing space. She shot
into clear air. The ruined cruiser smashed to ground.
    The air was clear no longer. Pulverized ground rushed
out. After it came shards of shattered metal. The cruiser
exploded. Wild energy cratered the plains down a hundred
feet. The fireball lashed out, toppling two adjacent ships. It
flung them onto another. The blaze was so bright, it cast
Weatherlight's streaking shadow before the cruiser.
    "That'll keep them out of the sky for a bit!" Gerrard
crowed. "Let's give the ground troops some help."
    "I think we're a little late," Sisay reported grimly.
    Gerrard's breath caught in his throat as he looked out
beyond the rail. "Take us in slow, Sisay!"
    The city was destroyed. While Weatherlight had slain
ten thousand Phyrexians in their warships, a hundred
thousand had overrun the city. Every house poured black
smoke into the air. Every threshold was strewn with bodies.
Some had been eaten half-away—the sweetmeats first.
Others had been too badly burned to be consumed. They
were little more than tarry skin stretched over black bones.
    It wasn't just the homes that were destroyed. Ram-ships
had felled every tower and turret along the outer wall.
Some guards had been chewed to pulp by falling stones.
Their comrades decorated the remains of the walls. Soldiers
were piked on their own weapons.




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    Phyrexians loped like wild dogs through the city. The
garrisons were decimated, the manor houses, the infirmary
...
    "Slow down. Come in lower," Gerrard said, glimpsing a
pair of gibbets beside the infirmary's ruins. Gerrard stood
behind his ray cannon, straining against the straps to see.
    There, nailed to a pair of tall posts, were Capashen
Clan Chief Raddeus and his wife Leda. The spikes driven
through them were twelve inches long. Something had
climbed the poles, making a feast of the bodies—empty eye
sockets, teeth showing past missing lips, a purple cavity
beneath the ribs....
    Gerrard turned away, closing his eyes. I'd rather die
than lose anything more to them.
    Sisay's voice was gentle in the speaking tube. "There is
nothing more we can do here. There is no one left to
defend."
    "There are Phyrexians left to kill," Gerrard hissed
bitterly. "Turn us about. Take us back over the cruisers."
    "There will be other battles, more important battles,
elsewhere. Benalia is overrun. A single ship cannot stop it.
The Capashens are gone."
    "I am a Capashen!" Gerrard growled. "Bring us about!"
    "Aye, Commander," Sisay replied.
    Weatherlight banked, pulling swiftly away from the
devastation. She cut through a column of black smoke. It
dragged covetously across the ship. The ravaged city shrank
below. The Phyrexian fleet—a range of mountains on the
horizon—swelled outward.
    Gerrard felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
    "We did all we could," Tahngarth rumbled.
    The commander's eyes were bitter as he watched the
demonic skyline. "You're the one who always talks of those
I have lost. Now I have lost a whole nation."


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                     J. Robert King

    "You can't save everyone, Gerrard."
    "What are you doing away from your gun? We're
coming up on a strafing run. With the starboard gun
amidships unmanned—"
    Tahngarth let out a sudden roar and vaulted down the
forecastle ladder. He rushed toward the port gun amidships.
There, Gunner Dabis thrashed beneath a gigantic spider.
    Tsabo Tavoc! She must have clambered onto one of
the airfoils when the ship hovered above the infirmary.
Despite a missing leg and the oozy flesh where it had torn
loose, the Phyrexian commander was still fast and
powerful.
    Clutching Gunner Dabis, she jabbed a long metallic
stinger into his belly. Her abdomen pumped venom. The
gunner convulsed, falling to the deck. Tsabo Tavoc pivoted
toward Tahngarth. Her stinger reluctantly withdrew from
the black wound in the man's side. He was a dead man
now, and Tahngarth could be next.
    In midstride, the minotaur reached up over his shoulder
for his striva. His hand fastened on empty air. His weapon
lay in the rubble of the infirmary.
    It was too late to stop the charge. Tahngarth bulled
forward, ramming his horns deep into the seven-legged
thorax of the spider woman. Ivory sank into spider muscle.
Golden oil-blood poured down. Tahngarth thrashed his
head, ripping the monster's flesh.
    She shouted in fury and drew herself upward.
    Tahngarth hung from his horns. He growled, kicking.
Hooves struck to either side of the spider's darting
abdomen. Her venomous stinger jutted between his knees.
The barb was crazed in Dabis's blood. An inch-wide hole in
the end gushed poison.
    Tahngarth twisted his head. Horns broke free of the
monster's thorax. He hurled himself in a back flip, away


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from that stinger. The world tumbled once magnificently.
His hooves struck the deck, slick with poison. He slipped
and fell backward.
     Tsabo Tavoc was quick. She lunged. Three of her seven
legs slid about Tahngarth, clutching him tightly. They
constricted. His arms were trapped at his sides. Metallic
limbs closed implacably. Tahngarth couldn't move, could
little breathe. Tsabo Tavoc squeezed him beneath her
thorax. Her wounds seeped over him. Above a massive
torso and mantled shoulders, Tsabo Tavoc's queerly
beautiful face stared down in cruel satisfaction.
     Her look suddenly darkened. In compound eyes, a
rushing figure reflected.
     Gerrard.
     His sword, too, was missing. He had snatched up what
he could—a short-handled gaff hook—and leaped to the
charge. The hook arced overhead and sank into Tsabo
Tavoc's belly.
     She reared back, clutching Tahngarth all the harder.
Her four remaining legs scratched back to the rail.
     Gerrard would not let her go. Hanging onto the hook,
he climbed. He braced a foot on Tahngarth's bloody horn
and swung his free hand toward her face. The roundhouse
cracked her jaw. Knuckles left a gray print beside her
segmented mouth.
     Hissing, Tsabo Tavoc slid one of the three legs free of
Tahngarth and reached up around Gerrard.
     He wriggled the hook loose and drove it into soft flesh
above the spider woman's collar bone.
     Spitting black bile, Tsabo Tavoc yanked Gerrard and
the gaff away. The hook snapped through her collar bone.
She flung Gerrard brutally to the deck.
     He landed in a roll and smashed into the far rail.



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                      J. Robert King

    The spider woman, with Tahngarth in tow, crept over
the rail, preparing to leap.
    "Oh, no you don't," Gerrard growled.
    He hurled himself across the ship just as Tsabo Tavoc
slipped below the side. Gerrard swung the gaff. It pierced
flesh. He clutched the rail and braced himself. Only then,
through the rail posts, did he see that the gaff had impaled
Tahngarth's shoulder. The minotaur's whole weight—as
well as that of the spider—hung from that single hook.
    "Do you kill him," Tsabo Tavoc purred in a voice like
summer cicadas, "or do I?"
    Winds tore sweat from Gerrard's brow. He stared down
into Tahngarth's eyes. Despite the obvious agony, there
was no fear, no resentment in the minotaur.
    Segmented mouth parts worked. "Either way, I win. I
have killed your land. I will kill your world."
    Gerrard felt his own shoulder pulling out of the socket.
He clenched his arm. Bone ground against ligaments.
    "Even if you win," he panted out, "we won't stop
fighting."
    Tsabo Tavoc's compound eyes became inky black.
"Fool." She lifted her stinging abdomen, curling it up
toward Gerrard's clenched fist. The trembling stinger oozed
white poison. It drew itself up to strike.
    A gash of red light tore through the air. It curled the
hairs on Gerrard's arm. The blast struck two of the great
spider's legs. They vanished in the crimson gush. More
energy raked across her belly. The hook wound was
immediately cauterized. She shied back from that blast,
letting go of Tahngarth and dropping. Her remaining five
legs balled about her. Landing, Tsabo Tavoc rolled amid
her troops. Warriors were unmade by her lashing metallic
legs. At last, she came to a stop and stood.



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                         Invasion

    Meanwhile, Gerrard hauled Tahngarth up over the rail.
Despite the minotaur's mass and the tearing winds,
Tahngarth felt suddenly very light. Gerrard caught him in
his free arm and laid him on the deck.
    "Now, I'm a ... bull-fish," Tahngarth growled out.
    Gerrard smiled grimly. "I thought I'd got that leggy
thing, not you."
    "But ... who shot the ... ray cannon?"
    They both looked up to see the blind seer, white
knuckles clinging to the fire controls of Gerrard's gun.
Gaseous plasma dripped from the muzzle.
    Gerrard gabbled at the man, "H-how did y-you know t-
to shoot?"
    Beneath his dark hat, the man spoke simply, "I know
things."
    Orim emerged from the hatch and rushed to kneel
beside Tahngarth. She set her hands on the gaff hook,
sending an enchantment down into it. With a slow,
smooth motion, she pulled the hook forth and stanched
the flow of blood.
    "Another thing I know," said the blind seer, descending
the forecastle steps, "is that you're wasting your energies
here. There is only vengeance here—and death."
    Gerrard stared grimly down at Tahngarth's clenched
teeth. "Yes, old man. I think you are right."
    "There is a better Battle of Benalia. There is another
army— heroes after your own stripe. An easy thousand of
them. You must go lead them."
    Arching his brow, Gerrard said, "Another army? Who?
Where?"
    "The Atrivak Mounds—Benalish Penal Colony."
    "Military prisoners?"
    "An easy thousand. Powerful warriors, but incorrigible."



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                    J. Robert King

    Gerrard gave a dry laugh and shook his head. "Heroes
after my own stripe."




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                         Invasion




                    Chapter 9
                    Teferi's Realm

    Barrin soared through the skies over coastal Zhalfir.
The day was sultry. Clouds stood in steamy stacks all
around. Lurking among them were three more portals,
newly opened. Soon drifting black racks of Phyrexian
armor would appear. Then there would be death in Zhalfir
as there was in Benalia.
    Barrin's Metathran fleet had been crushed in Benalia.
Only a small squad of hoppers had survived. The rest had
sacrificed themselves downing cruisers and debilitating
plague ships. The Serrans had fared better, though one in
two angels had been killed. At last, Barrin and his troops
had fought near enough to the portal that he could send his
healing magic into the wound in the sky. He sealed it and
ended the air battle but was utterly spent in the effort.
    He and his last fighters had withdrawn to the next
aerial rendezvous. The Serrans soared to their aeries to
regroup.
    For Barrin, there was an all-too-brief night of study and
sleep before the next battle opened above distant Zhalfir—
another powerful source of white mana. He teleported to a
western point that he knew well. The battle of Zhalfir
would unfold just as the battle of Benalia had—too few
defenders flinging themselves in suicidal fury against too
many attackers. Such had always been the model for Urza's
battles. For Urza, survivability was not as important as
victory.

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                      J. Robert King

    One of these days, Urza will orchestrate a battle that
even I cannot survive, Barrin thought grimly.
    Topping a long slope of saw grass, Barrin glimpsed the
battle on the fields beyond. A portal gaped wide in the sky.
It was black and ragged among the clouds, as though some
jealous god had gripped the heavens and ripped a hole in
them. From that black tear emerged cruisers, plague ships,
dragon engines, and a new class of sleek-bowed vessels—
dagger-boats. Fighters filled the air like wasps, buzzing
beside the droning hulls of larger ships.
    "Urza and I against an armada," Barrin said, clucking.
    He had spoken too soon. Someone had brought
defenders to the field—amazing, powerful, glorious
defenders. Figures played on the wide plains amid shrubs
and fruit trees. In their draping white robes, they seemed
children, hands and heads upraised as though guiding kites
through the skies. In fact, they were archmages. Above
them moved gossamer, streaming sorceries. Mistmoon
griffins and giant eagles, angel warriors and armored
pegasi—these were summoned creatures, ideals made
material. Alabaster dragons and duskrider falcons, winged
paladins and flying unicorns—they were guided in their
battles from below.
    White talons tore dagger-boats to shreds. Angelic
swords clove ray cannons from their embrasures. Griffin
beaks plucked ballista bolts from the sky and rammed them
back into the swarming ships. Even unicorn horns were put
to their original use, the merciless goring of the despoiled.
Phyrexians died in their thousands. So, too, did these
summoned creatures, but they were not true beings.
    They were ideas given flesh and blood for a time,
granted the will to fight, and ideas never died.
    Barrin smiled. This was the battle of a fairer mind than
Urza's. White ideals clashed against black realities and


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                          Invasion

steadily won. On a ridge overlooking the savanna stood
Urza and that fairer mind—Teferi.
    It was a strange tableau. Teferi stood to the fore, gazing
out at his sorcerous army. In his manifold blue robes, the
black-skinned man seemed taller than Urza— bolder, more
powerful. One of Teferi's feet was poised on a stone. He
leaned avidly toward the battle and spoke in rapid, exited
tones. Urza meanwhile stood behind. He never stood
behind. His feet were planted like fence posts. His hands
hung empty and idle at his sides.
    Barrin allowed himself a laugh at his old friend's
expense. Urza was never so miserable as when someone else
was in control.
    Spreading his war cloak like the wings of a settling
hawk, Barrin swooped down to light on the arid hilltop.
The rustling robes drew the eyes of the two men upward.
Urza's gaze was both nettled and pleading. Teferi's was
triumphant.
    The tall, ebony-skinned man smiled broadly and
extended his hand to shake Barrin's. "Ah—a pleasure to
see you again, and so soon—"
    "A pleasure!" hissed Urza in exasperation.
    "Welcome, Master Barrin, to Zhalfir."
    Barrin studied the extended hand with feigned caution
before grasping it. "No shocking grasp? It's almost a
letdown, Teferi. Still, it's nice to know you haven't
reverted to your old tricks."
    Teferi shook his head vigorously. "Only new tricks,
Master Barrin. Plenty of new ones."
    "He won't let us help," Urza blurted in place of a
greeting.
    "Won't let..." Barrin echoed incredulously. He searched
Urza's queer eyes, looking for signs of humor. It was a futile
search.


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                      J. Robert King

    Teferi's eyes brimmed with joy. "It's not that I won't let
you both help—just not Master Urza alone. No offense. If
Tolaria taught me anything, it taught me that Urza is a
danger to himself and everyone else unless he's working
with his lab partner."
    "Which would be me," Barrin said through tight lips.
The two masters of Tolaria traded rueful looks. Teferi had
always been a bright, good-hearted troublemaker—just
what Barrin and Urza needed. "Well, I'm here, now. How
can we help?"
    Teferi took a glad breath, stroking his chin and looking
out at his proud forces. "That's a good question. The Mage
Corps of Zhalfir seem to have things well in hand."
    "Impressive," Barrin said. "I have never seen spells used
this way before."
    "Phoenix flocks," Teferi said. "An innovation of mine.
It keeps the battle in the air, keeps the casualties to
Phyrexians. Our warriors are all creatures of fancy—ideas
battling monsters. That is very appealing to me."
    Barrin watched tracers of white-mana magic rise, slim
and graceful, from a mage on the dusty field. The power
spread outward, blossoming into a great spectral eagle the
size of a mammoth. Its wings swept out. They could cover
whole companies. With a shrieking cry that raked the
heavens, the enormous raptor crashed into a Phyrexian
cruiser. Pinions of pure energy enveloped the ship. The
bird's figure disintegrated. Lines of magic limned every
hackled spine and barbed strut of the ship. The lines
solidified into unbreakable cords of power. They
constricted inward. The shimmering white force cut
beneath armor plates. It sliced bulwarks and causeways.
Sparks showered from the cut marks.
    "Why don't they simply land, crushing your forces?"
Barrin asked.


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                           Invasion

    "Watch," Teferi replied quietly.
    The cruiser that had been overwhelmed by the spectral
eagle began to disintegrate. Sections of the ship cut loose
and tumbled away. Strangely, though, the pieces did not
plummet toward the savanna. Instead, they rose, tumbling
into the air. Some of the hunks impacted Phyrexian ships
above. Sharp wedges lodged in the bellies of the craft. No,
not the bellies. Only then did Barrin realize that all the
Phyrexian ships floated upside down in the sky.
    "It's a simple but powerful enchantment, reversing the
pull of Dominaria," Teferi said. "It's a time-field effect, like
those I learned on Tolaria. In backward time, the world
repels rather than attracts objects. Meteors leap into the
sky, feet are propelled away from the ground, and instead of
stumbling, drunkards vault upright. I've extracted that
single vector of movement and enacted it in a broad space
above the plain. My sorcerers can stand on the ground, but
a hundred yards above their heads, gravity reverses itself.
Those ships are laboring toward the ground just as they
would labor into the air. If any of them actually neared the
envelope of the reversion field, they would plunge to their
destruction."
    Above the massed fleet of Phyrexian ships ascended the
wrecks of hundreds of other vessels. They rose into
empyrean spaces. Many had been dismantled by Teferi's
phoenix flocks. Others had met more mundane ends.
    A cruiser halfway out of the portal flipped violently
over. It veered, crashing into a nearby plague ship. Beyond
them, another cruiser unleashed its battery of black-mana
guns on a flock of angels. In the topsy-turvy field, though,
the muck spattered a nearby squadron of dagger-ships.
They cascaded into the sky. Even plague spores, even the
dead, did not fall toward the ground.



                              84
                      J. Robert King

    "It's interesting what difference a single inversion can
make," Teferi noted blandly. He cocked an eye at Urza.
"It's a benefit of having a sense of humor—I'm used to
thinking of what things look like when they're flipped
over. Funny, mostly. In this case, flipping stuff over makes
it look really lovely." He gazed at the cyclone of wrecked
ships heading skyward.
    Barrin sighed. "I think he's right—"
    "I have a sense of humor," Urza interrupted testily.
    "No, not about that," Barrin soothed. "I think he's right
that he doesn't need us—"
    "That's not what I said," Teferi broke in. "It's a simple
spell, but a draining one. Eventually one of those ships will
crash on Zhalfir and contaminate it. I need your help to
shut down the portal."
    "At last—reason!" fumed Urza Planeswalker.
    "What do you suggest?" Barrin asked.
    "It's a simple enough principle. We planeswalk into the
portal—"
    "Won't work," Urza growled. "Rath is warded against
us."
    "We don't planeswalk to Rath. We planeswalk into the
portal and then back out again. We repeat the process until
the spatial-temporal fluxes melt the thing down."
    "The backlash will kill us," Urza said. "It'll kill us and
everything in a hundred-mile radius."
    "I've worked out a spell to draw off the energies. A most
impressive spell. I can personally vouch for the safety of my
people. Oh, and you'll survive too, Urza."
    "I thought you said you needed me for this operation?"
Barrin reminded him.
    Teferi's smile was the brightest so far. "I need you to
shame him into it."



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                          Invasion

     Eyes blazing and face as red as a campfire, Urza barked,
"Let's 'walk, pupil."
     The two planeswalkers traded looks. Something of
Urza's solemnity entered Teferi's features, and something of
Teferi's cockiness infused Urza. Abruptly, they were both
gone. Only the dry weeds remained. The pair flashed again
into being, and simultaneously out. It was as though they
were mere boys, racing for the water hole. A capricious
light shone in their eyes when next they appeared.
     Above, Barrin could see why. The portal seemed to be
boiling. The energies in that black space crisscrossed and
reversed, warring against each other. Surges of black energy
tore into coils of red power. White sparks and blue-green
shafts of force battled for predominance. Grinding teeth of
magic chewed an emerging cruiser to shreds. It belched
smoke downward and rained ruin up.
     Faster they flashed, and faster. Their grins only
deepened.
     Barrin shook his head, smiling also.
     A light awoke—a blinding thing. A new sun was born
above Dominaria. It flashed, casting the fleet's shadows on
the plains below. Whatever ship still labored in air ceased
its struggles, plunging upward like ash on the heat of a fire.
     Barrin winced back. The whole hillside and all Zhalfir
could be consumed by that sudden blaze.
     Then, it was done. Neither blinding fire nor black
portal shone in the sky. Neither Phyrexian fleet nor
phoenix flocks circled there. The sorcerers of the Zhalfir
Mage Corps stood on the plain, eyes lifted heavenward and
hands applauding. It was as though they had just watched a
fireworks show.
     "What happened?" Barrin wondered aloud.




                             86
                      J. Robert King

    "Come," said Teferi simply, appearing out of nowhere
to grasp Barrin's arm and drag him away in a spontaneous
planeswalk.
    The world folded around Barrin, spinning into chaos.
As quickly as Zhalfir had flashed away, it returned, though
now a mile below. Barrin floated in blue skies beside Urza
Planeswalker and Teferi of Zhalfir.
    "Very impressive," Barrin rasped. "Very, very
impressive."
    "Where did you put the energy?" Urza asked
suspiciously.
    Teferi shrugged. "I put it away for another spell."
    Urza cleared his throat—exactly the sound he had
made as Teferi's headmaster. "Well, now that we have
helped you save Zhalfir, you must help us save the world."
    "Save Zhalfir?" the dark-skinned man echoed. "You
think closing a single portal makes Zhalfir safe in this
worldwide conflagration?"
    "Safer than most places," Urza replied evenly, "but
safety isn't the issue. Defeat of the Phyrexians is."
    Teferi nodded. All the joking had gone from his face.
"This is where you and I differ, Master. Safety is the issue.
You've never wanted to save your people. You've only
wanted to defeat your foes—Mishra, Gix, K'rrik, and now
Yawgmoth himself. You would sacrifice us all if you knew it
would doom him."
    "I am willing to sacrifice myself to defeat Yawgmoth,"
Urza replied solemnly. "I have neither sympathy nor
patience for others who are not."
    The old, cocky Teferi had returned. "As I said, Master,
this is where we differ."
    "You can't save your people, not single-handed," Urza
said.



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                          Invasion

     "Oh, I do not do it single-handed. I've had the aid of
thousands and the consent of millions. You yourself helped
me harness the final measure of power to complete the
spell. It is triggering even now below us."
     Below, Zhalfir shuddered. Something passed over it—
not over it, but through it. The same energies that had
boiled through the doomed portal now shot through the
land. Every rill was lined in scarlet ribbons of energy. Every
field was sketched in shimmering white. The shorelines
flashed waves of blue fire, and the veins of every woodland
leaf glowed green. Then all was subsumed in a great
colorless grid, as though the land and the plants, the
animals and the people, were being caught in a vast
blueprint.
     "If spells can make ideas into reality, they can make
reality into ideas," Teferi said quietly.
     The transformation picked out every mote of Zhalfir.
Lines fused. Grids merged. For one dazzling moment, all
the colors combined into a blinding radiance. With a flash,
Zhalfir was gone. Where it had been, only a red afterimage
remained in Barrin's eyes. Then came a boom like a
hundred thousand thunderbolts in synchrony.
     Barrin blinked, struggling to see. Winds tore past him,
but Teferi's magic held him in place. The red glow where
Zhalfir had been faded to black—a black wound the size of
the great land mass. It was bedrock. Teferi had taken the
whole peninsula, a mile of air above it, and a mile of rock
beneath.
     The ocean stood for a moment in astonished walls all
around. Then its green rim turned white. Water cascaded
into the deep gash. The belly of the ocean slumped. The
first gush smashed to bedrock and churned eagerly out
across dry stone. The head of the flood was overtopped by



                             88
                      J. Robert King

new waves, which crowded the shoulders of the slumping
water and poured into the cauldron.
    Urza gazed in silent consternation at the churning sea.
    Barrin gaped. "What did you do?"
    "I saved my people. They dwell now in immutable
ideas," explained Teferi.
    "Y-you killed them!" Barrin stammered.
    "No. They will return when the world is safe again. For
them, not a moment will have passed."
    "There will be tidal waves," Urza said darkly.
"Thousands will die."
    "Millions have been saved," Teferi replied. "This is how
I save my people. This is how you and I differ."
    "Yes," Urza replied. "This is how we differ."




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                         Invasion




                   Chapter 10
            Heroes of the Same Stripe

    Gerrard had deep misgivings about this plot. His
Benalish commander's uniform fit poorly. He'd not donned
the garb since leaving his division half a year ago. The
quilted sleeves constricted his biceps. The maroon
waistcoat and bandoleers bulged across his pectorals. The
linchpin in this contraption of doom was the official orders
being forged even then by a blind man.
    The blind seer sat at Hanna's navigation desk. He
pinned a hunk of parchment beneath one hand. His other
clutched a quill.
    With strong, jagged strokes, he wrote: By this writ,
command of the Benalish Military Penal Colony shall be
surrendered to Commander Gerrard Capashen.
    "This isn't going to work," Gerrard groused, flinging his
hands out. He turned to Sisay. "We'd better abort,
Captain."
    "Too late, Commander," Sisay replied placidly from the
helm. "They've already seen us." She gestured beyond the
bridge.
    Silhouetted against the sunset, the Benalish Penal
Colony seemed a dark diadem topping the Atrivak Hills.
Tall walls of stone hemmed in the inner wards. Guard
towers stood at the many corners. Crossbow nests bristled
beneath the descending night. In the center of the yard, a
gaunt wooden tower presided over it all, and from there an
alarm bell sounded.

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    "We won't get a second chance at this," Gerrard
muttered. He reached down, snatching up the parchment.
His eyes widened in amazement. The document looked
convincing, well ordered and with an impressively
embossed seal. Gerrard read aloud:
    To: Captain Benbow, Warden of the Brig at Atrivak
    From: Capashen Chief Raddeus
    Greetings,
    In the sudden peril that has swept across our nation, I
require the fighting might of every warrior under my
command. I have sent my ward, Commander Gerrard
Capashen, recently returned from epic battles against our
foes, to gather the prisoners in your charge and lead them
into combat. Please provide him every assistance to
liberate, arm, and provision the troops previously
imprisoned in your facilities.
    Blessings, Chief Raddeus
    Gerrard nodded, mollified. "Perhaps we do have a
chance." He peered down at the mysterious old man.
"There's more to you than meets the eye."
    "Yes," the blind seer said smoothly, "since nothing
meets my eye." "Hand me that map tube," Gerrard said,
reaching toward the desk.
    From the map rack, Hanna snatched the tube. Gerrard
pulled its cap and upended it. Out slid a detailed map of
Benalia City. Not a single structure, so carefully rendered
on the map, remained in reality.
    Gritting his teeth grimly, Gerrard rolled the forged
document, set a daub of candle wax on it, and printed the
wax with his own Capashen ring. He slid the roll into the
map tube and lifted his eyes toward the fore window of the
bridge.
    The sun seemed to blaze within the prison. Guard
towers and needlelike palisades reached their clawing


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shadows up the deck of Weatherlight. Soon, the ship was
swallowed in darkness. The silhouetted brig hovered
spectrally above. Just beneath it lay a natural shelf of stone,
covered by the western overlook of the mounds.
    "We land there, where Weatherlight will be shielded
from Phyrexian eyes and bombs. We don't want to be
pinned down."
    "Aye, Commander," replied Sisay. She eased the ship
up toward the shelf.
    "So far so good. Let's just hope Benbow falls for the
forgery."

                            *****

    "Guards!" Captain Benbow shouted. The warden's
voice echoed through the block-walled station house. He
glowered at Gerrard and his command crew. Benbow's
meaty hands clutched the forged letter, and his red brows
bristled. "Guards!"
    They flooded in. Guards were common enough in the
Benalish Military Brig. In field plate with yellow tabards,
the warriors surrounded Gerrard and his crew.
    "Wait!" Gerrard objected. "You must believe us.
Benalia needs every fighting arm! An invasion is
underway!"
    "Clap them in irons!" Benbow bellowed. The guards
converged.
    Gerrard had surrendered to Benalish forces once—and
Benalia City was destroyed while he sat in the brig.
    "Attack!" he shouted.
    Tahngarth snorted his approval. He flung a wooden
chair beneath the chin of the nearest guard. The man
barked once and fell forward, landing atop the chair that
had knocked him out.


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                      J. Robert King

    Hanna was not as fortunate. A guard grabbed her from
behind in a headlock. He breathed angrily in her ear. More
a lover than a fighter, Hanna turned her head and
intercepted his lips with hers. The warm contact produced
a sudden weakness in the man's grip. Hanna pulled forward
and lifted her heel in the angle often induced by a kiss. The
guard went down, clutching himself.
    Sisay hurled her opponent's tabard up about his face
and spun him to attack one of his comrades. While he
fought, she casually tripped a warrior who was about to grab
Squee.
    For his part, the goblin detained guard after guard by
surrendering to them, allowing them to fit shackles to his
too-slim arms, and then sliding out of them.
    Gerrard was most pressed of all. He had drawn a sword
and dagger from his belt. With the smaller blade, he caught
and flung back shackles heading for his wrists. The chain
bloodied the guard's nose.
    The man reeled, sitting down beneath a canopy of
clattering blades.
    Gerrard's sword lashed out in a strike meant to
intimidate. The blade sliced through the false writ and
threatened the shaggy pate of Warden Benbow.
    Benbow was a seasoned fighter, and his sword hung on
the wall behind him. Dodging Gerrard's lunge, Benbow
rolled rapidly out of his seat. He got his feet beneath him
and, with a grace that belied his girth, snatched his sword
from the wall.
    Gerrard leaped up to the desktop. He brought the flat
down in a braining blow.
    Benbow blocked the strike. Metal clanged. He flung his
foe's sword aside and spun. The warden's blade swept the
desktop in a stroke that could have cut Gerrard's feet from
beneath him. Gerrard jumped amid a flurry of prison


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records. He hurled his sword in a second flat attack. This
one won through but weakly. It whapped Benbow's
sunburned head. The warden reeled back, giving Gerrard a
second chance to plead.
    "You must believe me. They'll be here in hours—in
moments."
    "Who? Your next of kin?" Benbow growled, swinging
his sword higher.
    Gerrard hopped again, evading the knee-capping blow.
"No, the Phyrexians!"
    "Phyrexians?" Benbow shouted back incredulously,
"Bogey men? Fairy-tale monsters?" His third swipe was
aimed at cutting short a dearer appendage.
    Gerrard blocked the attack, meanwhile kicking open
the desk drawer.
    It soared out on hidden bearings, as fast as a ramrod.
The heavy drawer struck the warden. Benbow yelped in
pain and doubled over.
    Just before the man's bulk obscured the desk drawer,
Gerrard spotted a large key ring lying within. His hand
darted down.
    Benbow guessed his foe's intention. Despite his agony,
Benbow lunged forward to slam the drawer with his hips.
Hidden bearings bore it inward. Just before wood closed on
wood, Gerrard snatched the keys out.
    Benbow was not as quick. He bellowed in agony.
    Gerrard turned, spotting Tahngarth in the melee, and
shouted, "Tahngarth, take these keys. Release the
prisoners!" He flung the ring out over darting blades.
    Swords jabbed up to intercept the keys. One blade flung
them sideways. A second caught them, spinning, for a
moment. The third was no blade at all, but a crook-ended
cane. The ring of keys jangled down around the gnarled
wood to clack in place in the blind seer's hand.


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                      J. Robert King

    "I'll let them out," the old man vowed.
    "Tahngarth, go with him!" Gerrard shouted.
    The minotaur nodded. Decisively, he kicked aside a
pair of blades and brought his fists down on the heads of
the adjacent warriors.
    "Me, too," Squee volunteered. He'd managed to get
three guards chained together and bolted to the bars on
one window. They cursed as he trooped happily to the
minotaur and the blind man.
    "I'm free," Sisay offered, glancing down at a warrior who
lay prone at her feet. His legs were pinned beneath a
chopped corner of the desk.
    Hanna still battled. She was a fair enough fighter when
roused to anger but typically had no stomach for it. Just
now she wielded a tall brass coatrack against a single
swordsman.
    "Looks like I'll stay ... unless—"
    She charged the man suddenly, catching his armored
collar in one hook of the rack. With an almighty heave,
she set the stand upright. The soldier riled impotently,
unable to bring his sword to bear.
    Brushing her hands, Hanna retrieved her fallen blade
and said, "I'm in."
    "Excellent," Gerrard replied. The twenty-some guards
had all been felled one way or another, none having
suffered a worse setback than a concussion. Warden
Benbow still lay on the desk top, struggling to free himself.
    "I do hope you recover quickly, Warden. We could use
you out there," Gerrard said, leaping down from the desk.
He smiled, gesturing to his crew. "Let's go. We have an
army to liberate."
    Through the door they filed. Tahngarth led, a naked
blade before him. He'd not used it in the battle so far and
had no intention of killing with it, but a minotaur with a


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sword does wonders for inspiring the human sense of self-
preservation. Next in line was Squee, whose own sense of
self-preservation attracted him to such a defender. Hanna
was third, guiding the blind seer. Hanna's other hand
twitched as though she wished she still had the coatrack.
Gerrard brought up the rear. He dragged a chair after him,
closed the door to the stationhouse, and propped the chair
beneath the doorknob.
    "That ought to keep them."
    "Gerrard," came Hanna's tremulous voice ahead.
"Gerrard!"
    He glanced up, seeing her pull a bloody hand away from
her side. Gerrard rushed to her.
    "One of those bastards get you?"
    Turning toward him, she said, "No." She dragged the
crimson tunic up from her side. "This is that wound. That
one from the shrapnel in Rath."
    Gerrard knelt beside her. "You said it was only a
scratch!" Hanna blushed. "It was a little more. Orim
cleaned it and dressed it on the way here. Healing magic
didn't work...." She glanced beneath the blood-soaked
bandage. The wound beneath was necrotic. Blood flowed
from its center, but the skin and muscle around it were
turning black. Fingers of corruption reached out from the
spot.
    "It is the Phyrexian plague," said the blind seer bleakly.
"There is no cure."
    Hanna's eyes darkened. She looked from the old man to
Gerrard.
    Giving a smile he did not feel, Gerrard said, "You may
know a lot, old man, but you don't know Orim. She'll find
a cure. In the meantime, let's stanch that blood flow." He
knelt, ripping the sleeve from his commander's jacket.
"Damned thing was too small anyway."


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                      J. Robert King

   While he tended Hanna's wound, Tahngarth continued
down the corridor to the first cell.
   The inmate there had heard his approach and was
cursing at what he expected to be another guard. When he
caught sight of the massive bull-man and his keen sword,
the inmate scrambled back from the bars.
   He gabbled, "What in the Nine Spheres are you—?"
   "Shut up," Tahngarth advised. The man complied. "If
you vow to fight for us, we will release you from your cell."
   "Wh-what if I want to stay here?" the man asked.
   "You'll probably be killed when the prison is overrun."
   "Overrun? By whom?"
   "By Phyrexia."

                           *****

    The thing about vows is this: Honest men don't need to
swear them, and dishonest men don't hesitate to swear
them. Of course, Tahngarth would not have realized this.
A dishonest minotaur was an oxymoron—or at least a
moronic ox. It understandably surprised Tahngarth when
the first five hundred prisoners liberated by Gerrard
rebelled against him.
    The crew were crossing the main yard when the
liberated prisoners mobbed them. Though Gerrard and his
command crew had been a match for twenty guards, they
were not a match for five hundred warriors. These
particular warriors gave a new definition to the term
"irregulars." Many were inhuman—hulking things that
looked like animate rocks, half-lizard men armored in the
bones of victims, minotaurs with shorn horns and peg legs.
Human, elf, dwarf ... prison had molded them all into a
single species—killers. In moments, the crew was
overwhelmed, their weapons stripped. No one was injured


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in the brief struggle— Tahngarth was too stunned to fight,
and Gerrard was too accustomed to ironic reversal.
    With rough chants, the liberated prisoners escorted
their liberators to the central guard tower in the yard. They
drove them up the stairs that ascended the tall framework
of beams. The nearest prisoners used the crewmembers'
own weapons against them. Those farther out wielded
whatever came to hand—chains, pipes, broken bottles,
splintered boards.... Disarmed and shackled, Gerrard and
his crew climbed the switchback stairway. Defeat replaced
victory on their faces.
    They staggered, one by one, through the hatchway at
the top of the stairs and onto a ten-by-ten-foot covered
platform above. No sooner was Gerrard through the hatch
than it slammed shut, and a bar slid into place.
    Though Gerrard had gotten a bloody lip for his
attempts to explain, he staggered to the guard tower
window for another try.
    "Listen to me! Listen!" he shouted to the chanting
prisoners. "We have freed you! Why do you fight us? We
are the same. It doesn't matter what you once did. Even
treason! Even murder! Whatever wrong landed you here, it
is nothing compared to the wrongs of our true foes. I
revoke your sentences! You must revoke ours! I return your
freedom! Return ours! Together we will fight the true
enemy. Together we will fight Phyrexia!"
    As Gerrard spoke, the chanting ceased, and the crowd
grew slowly quiet. By the time his last words rolled out, a
fearful hush filled the courtyard.
    It was so quiet, the crew could hear a single man among
the prisoners when he said, "Let them out of there."
    Wide-eyed nods came from the prisoners, gaping
upward. One man hurried up the switchback stairs to unbar
the hatch.


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                     J. Robert King

   Gerrard smiled incredulously and turned to his
comrades. "I'd never really thought of myself as an orator,
but this time I ... I guess I got their attention."
   Sisay shook her head gravely. "You didn't," she said,
pointing skyward. "Someone else did."
   There, in the black belly of night, the lights of
hundreds of Phyrexian ships made ghastly new
constellations.




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                    Chapter 11
                 Allies from Old Foes

    The Battle of the Mori Tumulus would decide the fate
of Yavimaya. Multani fought beside his people— displaced
elf kings, pods of angry sprites, clans of great apes, clutches
of giant spiders, and a handful of fire-eyed druids. These
last ascended from the volcanic caverns that riddled the
rocks beneath the vast tumulus.
    Of course the Phyrexians chose to land their invasion
fleet along the Mori Tumulus. It was the highest point of
Yavimaya.
    Its trees rose five hundred feet above their neighbors.
The extensive boughs provided landing platforms for
Phyrexian cruisers. From those crowns, the Phyrexians
could command the canopy and seep downward to
dominate the land. It was more than that, though. The
Phyrexians were drawn to the Mori Tumulus because it was
a scar they themselves had left on the world.
    The Mori Tumulus was a break in Yavimaya's
millennial bones—a wound struck by the Argoth event.
The world-shattering blast Urza had unleashed to destroy
the Phyrexians four millennia ago had cracked the
continental shelf beneath Yavimaya. It thrust the broken
halves against each other. They ground together and rose.
The Mori Tumulus mounded up. It formed a three-
hundred' mile ridge, five hundred feet high. Magnigoths
struggled to clutch the rift closed. They straddled it like
massive stitches. Still, the rent widened. Once in a while

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                      J. Robert King

the world poured forth its blood and lymph in lava and
steam. Even the green might of Yavimaya could not heal it.
Something seethed below.
    Of course it drew Phyrexians, as an open sore draws
maggots. That's why Multani feared this battle. Here Gaea
was weakest of all.
    Already Phyrexians had corrupted the crowns. The
wound in the world below was mirrored in the treetops
three thousand feet above. Here Phyrexian ships clustered,
pouring spores down out of the stormy night. Leaf molds
and cellulose macrophages turned once-proud heads of
green into black rot. Minute mechanical caterpillars
ravaged leaves. Metal bugs sank shiny feet into stalks and
extracted magnesium, iron, and zinc to use in growing their
razor wings. Flocks of battleflies rose to flay armor and skin
and muscle from bone. Other machines—spiked treadmills
fronted with bear-trap mouths—devoured whatever flesh
they found, storing it away for testing inside the cruisers.
Phyrexians had a damnable interest in the physiology of
their foes.
    Pestilence and machines and monsters drove elves from
their kingdoms. They fled downward into murky, wet
hollows and shelves. One part refugee camp, one part
military staging grounds, the camps bustled day and night.
Other sentient defenders came here too—sprites, druids,
great apes, and of course giant spiders. These nimble beasts,
onetime foes of their elf neighbors, allied with them now.
They even offered themselves as mounts to carry elf mages
into combat.
    It was in a war council of such mages, held in a wide
and lofty crotch of a magnigoth, that Multani took form.
He assembled his body from a termite colony and the
desiccated wood that made it up. His flesh literally crawled



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with large white bugs. He rose, twelve feet tall and
ominous, in the midst of the murky circle.
    The folk in the crotch of the tree startled momentarily,
but they had been waiting for the forest spirit. They
welcomed him, bowing. Foxfire lanterns dangled from the
sleeves of the elf sorcerers, sending a green glow inward.
The light shone across the swords and arrows of elf warriors
and oval wings of swarming sprites. The great apes
crouched beyond, blinking intelligently in the darkness.
Behind it all lurked giant spiders—their multiple eyes like
grapes dangling in an arbor.
    "Our forces are gathered, Master Multani. We are
ready," said the eldest mage, eyes glinting beneath a mantle
of white hair. "What is our objective?"
    Multani's voice came in the barbed whisper of
thousands of termites. "The Phyrexian off-load sites. We'll
slay the guards and take back the boughs."
    Brow furrowing, the mage said, "It is a thing of black
corruption, now. How can it be taken back?"
    "Leave that to me," Multani said ominously. He melted
down into the tree bough.
    It was a brief council—there was no time for words.
    Mages mounted their spider steeds and set off through
the foliage. Their sleeve-lights slid away in the leaves. The
elf archers—young folk with eyes sharp in the night—did
not need them. They split up, some trooping up the
boughs, others swinging from vines to adjacent trunks. The
druids left with the same arcane silence as Multani
himself—there one moment and gone the next. The apes
outdid them all for silent grace, though. They swung
through the boughs, their arms kin to the branches that
carried them.
    The defenders of Yavimaya rose toward its corrupt
canopy. The tangle of roots below and the tangle of boughs


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                     J. Robert King

above joined each tree to its neighbors, making Yavimaya
one great organism. The forest was a thinking thing, and
Multani was its conscious' ness. Rising through branches,
splitting and reassembling himself, he knew the will of
Yavimaya: Drive the Phyrexians back onto undead boughs,
and destroy them and their ships.
    Multani ascended. He felt the tickling feet of giant
spiders across his back. Down their barbed legs dribbled
armor spells, sent from the hands of elf mages. They
gathered massive magics from the green darkness all
around. Elf archers seated themselves in nearby crotches,
nocking arrows and testing their aim. Great apes clambered
into lofts where they could hurl themselves down on
Phyrexian heads. Clouds of shimmering sprites darted
through the air. They bore spears, swords, and daggers and
had adopted the tactics of battleflies. They could strip a
Phyrexian in moments.
    The forces converged on a huge bough that teemed
with Phyrexians. It was a staging ground beneath a landed
cruiser. The ship was as huge and black as a thunderhead.
It hung in branches that had been corrupted by Phyrexian
contagions and resurrected as undead wood. A huge ramp
lay open. Monsters in their hundreds coursed down. There
would be no attacking them at the ship. The wood had
become monstrous itself. This staging ground, though—it
was living wood. The Phyrexians had not had time to
corrupt it, but already they prepared contagions to pour
into crevices and crotches.
    Multani seeped into the vast bough. He slipped up just
beneath the bark. There, in the quick of the tree,
knotholes were plentiful. They were his first weapons—
mines beneath monstrous feet.
    The rest of his forces were ready. The battle would
begin with Multani.


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    Spreading himself through the vast bough, he triggered
the dilation of thousands of knotholes. They yawned wide.
Claws and talons dropped into those knotholes. Wood
closed to trap the legs.
    Suddenly caught, thousands of Phyrexians thrashed.
    A heavy rain began. It was not water that fell but
arrows. Their stony heads smashed through carapace and
rammed into chests and throats and guts. The juices there
sank into the arrowheads and the magnigoth down packed
within. It swelled massively. In popping succession,
Phyrexians exploded. They burst like bugs. Plates gave way.
Gray organelles spewed outward. Heads vacated shoulders.
Legs separated from torsos. Scales ripped back, and skin
sloughed off.
    Where monsters slumped, Multani released them. The
shattered bodies tumbled away. More beasts staggered into
the open holes and were caught. Multani sent sucker stalks
up through the bark. They wrapped legs in tenacious
tendrils, which widened into inescapable branches. Up
torsos they went and then squeezed. Like pinched sausages,
Phyrexians burst.
    The last of the exploding bolts found their marks.
Phyrexians slumped and slid from the killing bough.
    Out of the black night, shadows took substance. On
giant legs they came. Globular eyes gleamed. Mandibles
dripped venom. These were giant spiders. Aback them rode
sorcerers—thin, elven, their fingers dancing with power.
Spells roared out. Incantations lit rodlike legs before
vaulting through the emptiness. Green light painted
boughs and broke over Phyrexians. Green spores clung to
every tissue.
    Plants rooted themselves. Lichens ate away armor.
Weeds sank their taproots into blood streams. Saplings split
muscle and bone. Blossoms packed air holes. The invaders


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                      J. Robert King

of the forest were in turn invaded by the forest. In mounds
of leaf and vine, more monsters died.
    A new rain began—muscle instead of shafts. From their
lofted perches, great apes dropped in their hundreds. They
hurled living Phyrexians after dead ones. They ripped limbs
from Phyrexian troopers and bit chunks from Phyrexian
heads.
    This was all in the first moments, before there was a foe
to fight. These were holes underfoot, arrows and spells out
of darkness. With the arrival of the apes and the spider-
mounted mages, though, the battle had changed.
Phyrexians knew how to fight such creatures. With howls
of fury and hunger, monsters attacked.
    Yavimaya's horrors were nothing compared to the
terrors of Phyrexia—elongated skulls, fang-choked gobs,
horn-tipped joints, clawed arms, leg pods, tentacles, talons,
stingers. The black tide crashed against the spider mages. It
was all bug flesh in those first moments. Then the spiders
were shredded, and it was elf flesh and ape flesh flung on
dark winds. Spells misfired. Wild magic jagged through
treetops. It hurled up the hackled shadows of Phyrexians.
    Multani entered vines, lashing them across the
monsters. He plucked them up in ones and twos and threes
and threw them from the bough. It was not enough. He
could not open knotholes—not with elves and apes among
the monsters. He could not grow suckers to grab whatever
fought above. Behind the slain mages were ragtag armies of
elf infantry. They died as quickly and surely as the mages
had. There was simply no stopping these beasts.
    Even as he fought onward, Multani sent his mind out to
Gaea. Massacre. They cannot be stopped. We must withdraw.
    Gaea did not speak to him. He knew what she would
say. If you withdraw now, they will never be stopped.



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    Help us. Help your children. Bring the others. Bring every
child beneath your canopy. Else, we are lost.
    Why do mortals ever pray? Multani wondered to
himself. Why do gods never answer?
    The elves were dying like elves. Unflinching, they
sacrificed centuries of life.
    Phyrexian corpse crews followed in the wake of the
advancing lines. They dragged fat chains tipped with long
hooks. Wherever the monsters found a body, dead or alive,
they would thrust the barb through the soft flesh of the
ankle. Four or five elves would fit on a single hook before
the corpse crew would swing it away to dangle beneath the
cruiser. The chains cranked upward. The specimens were
loaded on the ship for study.
    Gods might never answer, but Multani would.
    He emerged from the tree. He took his form from the
quick of the bough. A huge hillside of living wood, Multani
flung his fingers out in wooden spikes. They pierced
Phyrexians in their scores.
    The monsters writhed like spitted roaches. Multani
gripped them, splitting them open. This was vengeance
pure and simple. While he slew scores in his fists, hundreds
flooded past him.
    He was losing the Battle of Mori Tumulus. He was
losing the Yavimaya war.
    Then new allies came. From the volcanic caves beneath
Yavimaya, they galloped upward. Never before had
Multani's mind laid hold of such creatures. They lurked
forever in the twilight world beneath the forest—half green
and half red. Their skin was part scale, part rock, their
bodies part saurian, part ground sloth. They had tigers'
teeth and bulldog faces and feet that were claw and hoof
both. The smallest were the size of a man, and the largest
the size of two elephants. Most amazing of all were their


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tongues—longer, more powerful, more dexterous than
elephants' trunks. They galloped up the tree boles as if
charging across flat ground.
    The druids had summoned them. Their enchantments
had awakened the slumbering lizards. Kavu. These things
were called Kavu—an ancient druid word meaning "ever
watchful" and "carved from stone."
    Up every bole, Kavu swarmed. In a heartbeat, they
fountained out of the darkness and crashed into the
Phyrexian lines. Lizard tongues lashed out, snatched up
carapaced monsters, and drew them into fangy mouths.
They crunched them. No sooner was one Phyrexian
swallowed than a second was caught and a third....
    Phyrexians withdrew up the bough. The hundreds that
had flooded past Multani now fled the other way. He
snatched up handfuls of them and crushed them. Kavu got
the rest. Soon it was a full-scale retreat.
    Forgive my mortal terrors, Gaea, Multani thought. I
should have known you had defenders other than me. You are
the world mother, not the forest mother.
    Gaea did not respond. She never spoke to Multani, but
he sensed what she would say. You have other defenders as
well— allies from old foes.
    Yes, Multani said in realization, allies from old foes.
    Most of the Phyrexians had flooded back onto the black
bough where their cruiser waited. It was their beachhead,
their haven from which they could launch new attacks—or
so they believed.
    Multani reached wooden hands into the heavens. A
throat opened in him. Out rolled incantations as ancient
and dark as those that had summoned the lizards. Words
vaulted into the black heavens and called down an even
more powerful, even more venerable foe.



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    Lightning leaped from the black sky. It cracked through
a hovering plague ship, transfixing it. Energy poured
through its top and out its keel. It leaped onward, through
two more ships before its killing hand reached down to the
pitching treetops. The bolt scintillated through a cloud of
battleflies. They dropped, red-hot, from the air. With clear
intentionality, the lightning strike slammed into the
beached cruiser. Smoke rose from every seam. Flame burst
from rotten wood.
    Trapped in flames, Phyrexians oozed glistening-oil from
countless cuts. Their blood caught fire. They thrashed.
    The lightning gripped the black bough like a hand. It
did not let go, did not descend through the tree as natural
lightning would. Instead, it held on and shook the bough.
Burning Phyrexians fell. Desiccated wood flamed. The
cruiser caved and cracked.
    Welcome to Yavimaya, my old foes, Multani thought.
Welcome fire and lightning!
    The rot-riddled bough exploded. Hunks of wood and
metal and Phyrexian flesh shot into the night.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 12
               In Tsabo Tavoc's Web

    Phyrexian cruisers filled the night sky above the prison
yard. Ships hovered scarcely a hundred feet above the
walls. They hung so low that Gerrard could see the flush
ports where Phyrexian waste spattered down.
    He reached a shackled hand out of the guard tower
window, grabbed the lantern that burned there, and
cracked it from its casing. He hurled the flaming thing at
the belly of a ship. It struck the lip of a sewage port and
smashed against the dripping edge. Lamp oil splashed
across the black base of the ship. A crimson jet of fire
roared up through the waste dump, ignited methane, and
set off an explosion that bulged the undercarriage of the
ship. Fiery hunks of bug-flesh dribbled from the spot.
    The brigands in the yard cheered, united by Gerrard's
defiance. Their hope was short-lived.
    Hundreds of black cords uncoiled from the rails of the
cruisers. They seemed the deadly tentacles of enormous
black jellyfish. The cables unrolled to dangle just above the
upturned faces of the prison throng. Down those threads
slid Phyrexians. Hackled and homed, avatars of death, they
plunged toward their prey.
    "Free the others!" Gerrard shouted even as the beasts
dropped among the prisoners. "Fight for your lives! Fight
toward the ship!"
    Ship! That single word ignited the yard. There was
hope for escape.

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    Phyrexians claimed their first victims even before
setting claw to ground. Talons clamped on heads and
crushed them like eggs. Spiked tails gored and lifted gap-
mouthed prisoners. Stingers sank into eyes and pumped
blackness. Hundreds of prisoners died in that first moment.
    Hundreds more fought back. From the guard armory
rose crossbow bolts, piercing the black hordes that dropped
from the skies. Those prisoners who had swords used them,
chopping legs out from under monsters. Others used the
shackles or iron bars that had formerly held them captive.
Even the bricks of the prison turned deadly. Torches
rammed in Phyrexian mouths. Hunks of glass slit throats.
Whatever came to hand became a weapon—even the dead
claws of the killers, even the sand of the yard.
    Some prisoners fought bare-handed. Knuckles cracked
chitinous temples. Fingers jabbed segmented eyes. Teeth
bit through strangling claws. Feet smashed thoraxes.
Phyrexians were flipped and thrown, knee-capped and
bludgeoned, throttled and eviscerated. In the horrid spray
of oil and blood, prisoners and Phyrexians were almost
indistinguishable.
    Gerrard and his comrades had their own troubles. The
man ascending to release them had been slain on his way
up. Monsters landed atop the tower roof. It buckled
beneath their weight. Two had crashed through the
windows to fight the shackled crew.
    Gerrard ducked the scything claws of the first. He
somersaulted across the floor of the tower and rose behind
the second beast. It was a lumbering monster—a once-
human head atop a lupine body fitted out with steel
attachments. Luckily, the thing's neck was no canine
thing. Gerrard wrapped his shackles around its throat. The
chains bit in. The beast thrashed. Gerrard rammed it up
against its comrade. The strangling Phyrexian tore the back


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out of its compatriot. Gerrard tightened his hold. His
shackles ground against vertebrae, and the lupine beast fell
dead.
     Tahngarth quickly finished off the other monster.
Hands cuffed behind him, Tahngarth kicked once to spin
his foe around, and a second time to bury his hoof in its
shredded back.
     The Phyrexian convulsed and bucked, falling to the
floor.
     Tahngarth drew forth his hoof. Acid hissed on his leg
and poured out across the planks.
     The minotaur spat angrily. "That one burned."
     "You must have punctured the spleen," Gerrard said,
pointing at the corpse. White smoke rose around the body.
"At least spleen is what I would call it."
     Sisay knelt beside the fallen Phyrexian, draping her
chains in the sizzling stuff. "You don't suppose—" She
pulled her hands away, and the links shattered like glass.
"I'll be damned."
     "Let's hope you won't," Gerrard replied. He used his
own shackles to scrape acid from Tahngarth's now-raw leg.
His chains also grew brittle. He shattered them. "I've got a
gruesome hunch ..." Scooping up some Phyrexian oil-
blood, he laved Tahngarth's legs with it. The sizzling smoke
ceased.
     Hanna watched intently. "Their blood—it neutralizes
the acid?"
     Gerrard shrugged. "If I had this stuff in me, I'd want
something that could neutralize it."
     The minotaur broke his own chains. "Now, as long as
the floor doesn't give way—"
     Phyrexians suddenly crashed through the rafters. They
fell in a frenzied black storm, striking the floor where the
corpses lay. The weakened wood held for only a moment. It


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broke open and hurled the beasts down through the core of
the tower.
    Clinging to the windowsills, the crew watched as a
score of Phyrexians fell to a twisted death on the collapsing
stairs below.
    "That was miraculous," Gerrard panted.
    Sisay stared down grimly. "We'll need a couple dozen
more miracles if we're going to get to the ship."
    Holding herself up with one hand and clutching her
bleeding side with the other, Hanna said, "And a couple
more when we're back on board."
    Gerrard's eyes were intent. "Orim's got miracles." He
edged toward Hanna.
    That movement was ill-advised. The stairway within
the tower had provided not only access but stability. With
the steps gutted, the tower twisted on its four posts. It
seemed there was only one way down—one very fast, very
horrible way.
    "Hold still!" Sisay shouted.
    Gerrard lurched to a stop. The platform lurched as well.
Nails whined in warning. Joints slowly pulled open.
    "We're going to fall, aren't we?"
    All around, heads nodded ominously.
    Sisay said, "The question is whether we can survive."
    "The question is whether we can land on Phyrexians,"
Tahngarth interrupted.
    Glancing toward the ruined roof, Gerrard smiled. "The
question is whether we can do both."
    He gingerly climbed the inner wall of the listing tower
until he could stick his head through the ragged hole in the
roof. Lunging, he yanked something down—a tangle of
black cords left by the Phyrexians that had landed on the
roof. Gerrard hung from the mass of them, his feet swinging
free in the center of the wreckage.


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                      J. Robert King

    Through gritted teeth, he said, "Thought we could ...
take advantage of... a few loose ends." He managed to free
one of the ropes. Bumping into the far wall, he flung a rope
to Tahngarth. "This is your old trick ... hanging below
Weatherlight in Rath."
    Wrapping the cord around his arm, the minotaur swung
free. "Let's hope the Phyrexians are safer pilots."
    "Hey!" Gerrard protested. He flung a rope to Sisay. "I
saved you, didn't I? Saved us all, and flew out—"
    "To crash on Mercadia," Sisay reminded as she let go of
the collapsing frame.
    "1 got us out of there too," Gerrard defended as he
bounced against the wall beside Squee.
    The goblin clambered onto Gerrard's shoulders. "Squee
killed Volrath."
    A shrieking moan came as the tower failed. Gerrard
hurled himself across the folding space. He snatched up
Hanna in his arms and took two running steps up the
slanting wall. Squee clung miserably to his shoulders and
let out a shriek of his own. Gerrard flung himself and his
passengers out the shattered rooftop, now pointing
sideways, and into the fiend-charged air. Sisay came just
behind him, and Tahngarth brought up the rear.
    They swung out beneath one of the great black cruisers
that eclipsed the heavens. Below them, thick mobs of
Phyrexians swarmed the yard. It was onto their heads that
the guard tower fell.
    It rushed down like a gigantic club. Monsters looked up
and cringed. The tower smashed them to the ground.
Wood splintered. The framework cracked. Beams bounded
out in a killing storm.
    "I was always good at crashing things," Gerrard said as
they swooped above the yard. He lifted his gaze from the
wreckage below. "Speaking of crashes—"


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    With a violent crunch, Gerrard, Hanna, and Squee
smashed into a descending Phyrexian. The superior mass of
the three heroes knocked the monster loose. It fell, legs
kicking crablike until it struck ground. Its shell split wide.
    Tahngarth executed a similar attack, though on
purpose. His four knuckles had never packed such a punch.
The minotaur's first roundhouse staved a monster's skull. It
died on the vine. Tahngarth set his hooves on the beast
and flung himself onward, knocking another beast free. By
releasing the first strand and transferring his weight to
others, he made a quick circuit of the lines, moving toward
the prison walls. Each blow counted for two, fist followed
up by shackle. Each kill slew another as the massive
creatures crashed to ground atop their comrades.
    Sisay attained the same effect with a bit more finesse.
She used an acid-dripping shard of her shackles to burn
through adjacent cords. Monster after monster plunged
beneath her. The next few
    Phyrexians down the line slid into sudden emptiness.
She swung past Gerrard, Hanna, and Squee.
    Gripping a new cord, she shouted "To the ship, then?"
    "To the ship. Hang on," Gerrard told his riders.
    He too switched his handhold. To drop down into that
yard would be certain death. The only hope was to swing
line to line until they reached the brig wall and could
climb down to where
    Weatherlight was docked below.

                            *****

   First, I fought you in a hole in the ground, Tsabo Tavoc
thought gladly, and there you escaped me. I am not a
creature for holes in the ground. Then I fought you aboard
your own ship, and you drove me off. I should have known


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                      J. Robert King

not to attack the heir of the Legacy ensconced in his
Legacy. But now, she clicked her new legs on the rocky cliff
where she stood—stronger legs, fitted with blades in their
joints—Now you hang in my web, Gerrard.
     Tsabo Tavoc waded through fleeing brigands. They
seemed to think there was salvation for them beyond the
cliff—or at least there was damnation in the brig. It did not
matter to Tsabo Tavoc. On another battlefield, in another
time, she would have allowed herself to float in the tide of
agony that her troops created. Such was her right. This
battle was different though. Benalia had been granted her,
but one Benalish warrior thought to stop her. She cared
nothing for the shouldering sheep. She cared only for that
single strange man built out of all time to serve Urza in his
war. Tsabo Tavoc had been similarly built—fearfully and
wonderfully made.
     She picked her way toward the prison. Some of the
prisoners were so blind with panic, they fled into her legs,
cracking their brains. Tsabo Tavoc dismembered a few, not
intending to but not avoiding it. She must be careful. The
blood would make her grip less sure, and in any web—even
one's own—grip was life.
     Reaching the base of the prison wall, she ambled up the
sheer face of cut stones and hurled herself into the air. She
caught one of the lines hanging above the bloody yard and
climbed toward those pathetic little creatures. She climbed
toward Gerrard.

                           *****

   Orim stood at the ship's gangplank. She had been the
one who lowered it—after the first fifty prisoners had
bloodied their fingers clawing to get aboard. They fought
each other. One climber's back was sliced through with a


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broken bottle. Another had suffered a spontaneous
amputation of his left leg beneath the knee. Countless legs
had been torn bloody by hands below. Orim had tried to
stanch all that blood. When she could not, she let the deck
run red, lowering the gangplank lest there be more.
    Now there would be more blood. Already Weatherlight
had taken on six hundred prisoners. They would fill every
hold and crouch in the bilge as she raced away. Gerrard
had come to gather an army. Instead, he gathered refugees.
Weatherlight could not safely hold many more. The others
would fight. There would be blood.
    Worst of all, Gerrard was nowhere to be seen.
    "Cast off the plank," came a voice at Orim's shoulder. It
was an ancient, wise voice. It brooked no disagreement.
    Orim spun, looking at the blind seer. "I cannot
sentence them to death."
    "You do not sentence them," he said. "You grant
reprieve to these others. But if you do not cast off that
plank now, even those you have spared will die."
    She was pale. "What about Gerrard, Sisay, Hanna,
Tahngarth—?"
    "That is why you must cast off," the seer said. "If you do
not, they will die. Gerrard has saved all those he can. He
has his army. Elsewhere, battles scream for that army. Let's
save your friends and the world."
    Orim drew a deep breath. She closed her eyes, sending
her inner self down into that place of peace she had
discovered in the forest of the Cho-Arrim. With bliss
suffusing her, she reached down and flung away the plank.
    Amid the angry shouts and screams, she calmly walked
to a speaking tube, flipped it open, and said, "Karn, take us
up."

                            *****


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                      J. Robert King

     Gerrard hung above the yard. He had nearly reached
the wall— it lay fifty feet below and fifty feet ahead.
     Suddenly, a huge, agile thing rose up before him. He
knew her immediately.
     "Tsabo Tavoc," he hissed.
     The spider woman was a gigantic bundle of legs and
poison. Her beautiful face made a wan smudge on the
nighttime.
     "I am glad you remember."
     Gerrard shifted, pulling Hanna tighter against him. She
was growing weak from blood loss and was slipping. "You
cannot win."
     "I already have. Benalia is mine."
     "You cannot defeat all of Dominaria."
     "I cannot, but my master can, and he will."
     "You cannot defeat me," Gerrard responded, anger in
his eyes.
     "I already have."
     Tsabo Tavoc lunged. Her barbed legs struck Hanna,
hurling her away. Without a sound, Hanna fell. Gerrard
struggled to grasp her. The spider woman intervened. She
gripped the cord with four legs and flung Squee off with
three more. With the last, she wrapped Gerrard as she had
wrapped Tahngarth. This time, the joints of her legs
bristled with blades.
     "I don't know which to do, to take you back to my
master, or to ... enjoy you myself."
     Gerrard canted his head. "I'll decide for you." He
jammed his shackled wrist into her leg joint. The band
forced the leg open. Gerrard yanked his arm free and
dropped from her.
     Tsabo Tavoc's limbs raked out to grab him from the air,
but she was too slow. It little mattered. He would die in the
fall....


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     Except that Weatherlight hovered below, catching them
all. Soundless, the refugee vessel had nosed up under them.
Now, with its crew safely aboard, Weatherlight streaked
away.
     Tsabo Tavoc glared after the ship. There would be no
catching them.
     Still, Gerrard was defeated, fleeing with his tail between
his legs. Benalia was hers. Her objective was accomplished.
Her master would reward her with the greatest command of
the war— Koilos.
     If Gerrard dared show himself there, he would be hers.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 13
              The Metathran Awake

    Urza and Barrin strode up a Tolarian hillside, toward a
rocky prominence called the Giant's Pate. While battles
raged the world over, this island was a place of calm.
Tolaria was a tiny isle, distant from all trade routes. It lay
within a tangle of winds that made it almost impossible to
find. Swathed in magics and patrolled by helionauts,
Tolaria was among the securest sites in Dominaria. It was
also Urza and Barrin's home.
    For a millennium, they had worked here, training new
generations of artificers and preparing for the present
invasion. Here, they had taught the precocious Teferi, who
now was a planeswalker himself. Jhoira of the Ghitu also
learned here. Multani had come to Tolaria to grow the hull
of the great ship Weatherlight. Even Xantcha had dwelt
here—in the heartstone that now rested in the head of
Karn. This island had given birth to every great
Dominarian artifact and artificer. It had also given birth to
legions of bioengineered warriors—the Metathran.
    That was why they had come today, to awaken the two
Metathran commanders who would lead the Dominarian
armies at the Battle of Koilos.
    The planeswalker and the mage reached the Giant's
Pate. Barrin panted. He was in superb shape for a several-
thousand-year-old man, seeming only in his mid-fifties.
Still, an ascent up the Giant's Pate could make a thirty-
year-old pant. Barrin's breath-lessness came in part from his

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memories of the place—of the deep black gorge below,
once rife with Phyrexians. He had fought his first
Phyrexian invasion from this hilltop, had once flown an
ornithopter low over that fast-time rift to save the life of
Urza Planeswalker.
    Urza did not pant. He did not even breathe. He was too
deep in thought. His gemstone eyes gleamed sharply as
they swept the horizon. Behind him lay the vast sprawl of
the artificers' college of Tolaria—blue-tiled roofs above
curving white walls. Before him stretched the time-gutted
wilderness.
    Tolaria had suffered a cataclysmic explosion that left it
a place of temporal scars. Time gashes, they were called—
deep temporal chasms where time ran at a snail's pace and
tall temporal plateaus where time fled away to eternity.
Urza had caused the cataclysm, of course, and he had
subsequently found ways to benefit from it. He set up
laboratories in fast-time hills, where weeks of research
could be done in days, where bioengineered generations
could reproduce every year. As to slow-time sloughs, they
were most useful for storing food, artifacts, and even
creatures.
    "There," said Urza pointing toward a series of tightly
packed time shells. Some were nearly black, fast-time zones
where sunlight was rapidly swallowed. Others were
lightning-white slow time where radiation doubled and
redoubled. "The Curtains of Time. That's where we stored
the Metathran commanders."
    "Thaddeus and Agnate," Barrin supplied. "You must
remember that though it's been a century for us, for them,
it will have been only a few hot minutes. They'll expect us
to know their names."
    Urza turned his gleaming gaze on the master mage.
"And you must remember that these two are perfectly


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                      J. Robert King

engineered for their roles. They have no expectations other
than the ones I have given them."
    Barrin shrugged, hiding the motion in a gesture down
the far side of the Giant's Pate, toward the Curtains of
Time. "Let's go get them."
    Marching down the Giant's Pate was always easier than
marching up. The path was smooth, worn by a thousand
years of foot traffic. It led down to a bower of wild grapes
and up toward the Angelwood, a mild slow-time paradise.
Urza and Barrin turned off the path, cutting through
blackberry thickets. Beyond, they approached a gleaming
white wall. It shimmered brilliantly, a barrier of energy. In
the brightest fold of that curtain, the Metathran
commanders waited. There, time was almost nonexistent.
    Urza's gemstone eyes grew dark. He could shape and
color his body however he wished. For Barrin, protections
were a bit more elaborate. He waved one hand around
himself, evoking a shroud of blackness that sank into eyes
and skin. He seemed a man of midnight, his clothes
hanging on personified emptiness.
    The two strode, side by side, to stand before that
brightest of spots. Through blackened sight, they could just
make out two white capsules within the gleam. Each was
ten feet tall and six feet wide—a living sarcophagus that
shielded the commander within from a century of sunlight.
Explosive charges would blast the capsule doors—and the
men strapped to them—back into the main time stream.
    Urza stood to one side, and Barrin to the other. It
would be death to stand directly before those capsules
when the charges blew.
    "Are you ready?" Barrin asked.
    "Bring out the commanders."
    It was a simple spell, one with no gestures, no words, no
components that partook in time. Such things would have


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halted the effect once it entered the time curtain. Instead,
the spell was quick as a thought, as immediate as
recognition.
     Bolts exploded. They outlined the doors in a radiance
brighter that the sun. Within the time rift, the blast was
instantaneous, but in the normal temporal flow, the blast
spread out through the air like bleach wicking through
fabric. It formed a brilliant halo about the caskets. The
doors left their frames. The gaps widened by inches. Thick
plates of steel cleared the case. The figures strapped to the
doors showed through. Enormous and mantled in fire,
Thaddeus and Agnate rode, faces pressed against the
padded inner doors. The Metathran were eight feet tall,
blue skinned, and powerfully muscled. They seemed fiery
demons as they soared out of the time curtain.
     The first of the doors broke through the temporal field.
Its metallic face burst the zone and dragged normal time in
vortices behind it. The door brought with it the deafening
roar of the explosion. Then came the clap of the temporal
field closing, water after a diver. With the same fierce
bellow, the second door crashed through the temporal wall.
Vast energies spent themselves on that re-entry. This was
by design, lest the doors fly for miles, killing their riders.
Just beyond the time curtain, the doors toppled, side by
side. They struck ground in a pair of terrible thuds. Steam
and smoke hissed in circles around them, momentarily
hiding their occupants.
     Barrin cast a second spell. Wind leaped from his fingers,
rushed beneath the steaming hunks of metal, and slowly
lifted them into the air. The spell bore the doors away from
the ravening curtain of time. Slicing through the
blackberry thicket, the air-sleds and their occupants came
to rest on the path to Angelwood.



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                       J. Robert King

    Barrin and Urza followed. As they went, they shed the
ebony protections they had donned. By the time they stood
on the path, they had regained their common aspects. The
wreaths of smoke dissipated, revealing the two commanders
who would lead the armies of Dominaria.
    They were gigantic. Each commander was three
hundred pounds of muscle and bone. They were human,
yes, but only barely so. Their rib cages were as strong as
rhinos', their arms as powerful as gorillas', their legs as long
as horses'. They were not body only. These two were great
minds, trained in every strategy of war, honed from
inception for their task.
    Thaddeus rose first. Straps that held against the rocket
blast of the door were no match for his flexing arms. They
snapped, whipping back to flog the rocky path. Heaving
himself up from the padding, the great gladiator rose. Two
heads taller than most men, he seemed taller still because
of the silver-white hair that stood like flame from his head.
Thran emblems tattooed his cheeks and forehead,
announcing his name and generation. Blue, armored
shoulders towered over Barrin. Bright eyes gazed from
beneath a jutting brow.
    "The invasion has begun?" Thaddeus asked, his voice as
deep as a bear's growl.
    "Yes," Urza replied simply.
    Thaddeus nodded in understanding. His jaw rippled.
"My army stands ready?"
    "Yes," Urza repeated.
    The commander's eyes shifted down to where Barrin
knelt beside the other door. "What of Agnate?"
    The Master Mage raised his head, drawing a hand back
from the man's neck. "He's not breathing. There is no
heartbeat. Perhaps the blast was too much—"



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     Thaddeus strode to the spot. He was there in two steps.
His feet pinned the door down, and his hands ripped the
straps loose. In the same swift motion, he hauled his
counterpart free and laid him supine on the stone.
Thaddeus balled a fist and pounded massively on the man's
breast.
     Agnate's body lurched under the assault, but he did not
stir.
     Thaddeus drew a deep breath and forced the air into
Agnate's open mouth.
     "He must live," the massive man growled as he pounded
Agnate's breast again. Aside from the blow, there was no
life in him.
     "How strange," Urza mused, staring down at the sight.
It was strange indeed. Agnate's musculature was perfect, his
figure the pinnacle of eight hundred years of genetic
research. He seemed a sculpture, flawlessly rendered, but
cold. "It has been only minutes since he was placed in that
capsule. What could have slain him?"
     "The shock of the blast might have done it," Barrin
said, kneeling beside the lifeless figure as Thaddeus worked
him over. "Or perhaps the capsule failed, and the solar
rays—"
     "We could assign both armies to one commander," Urza
thought aloud.
     Thaddeus reared up from the most recent breath. "I
cannot fight without him. All our training ... no, more
than that... all our lives—" he pounded the still breast once
again— "we share the same flesh, the same mind. We are
genetically identical. We think each other's thoughts. I
cannot fight without him." He breathed another gale into
the man's lungs.
     "I am seeing a flaw in your design," Barrin said to Urza.



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                     J. Robert King

    Agnate suddenly spasmed, as though his spirit had
leaped back into his body. He gasped and clutched his
hand over Thaddeus's fist. Agnate's eyes opened, that same
sky-blue. Awareness filled them and realization a moment
later.
    He sat up. Thaddeus pulled him to his feet.
    "The invasion has begun," Agnate guessed.
    Staring intently in his counterpart's eyes, Thaddeus
nodded and smiled. "Yes."
    "Our armies await us?"
    "Yes."
    Urza shot a knowing glance at Barrin. "What were you
saying about a flaw?"
    Barrin shrugged. "They do not have to fight alone now
but what about a week from now? A month? A year?
Perhaps they will."
    "Perhaps you will have to fight without me," Urza
replied, "or I without you."
    Agnate turned, bowing curtly to Urza. "Master Malzra,
where does our battle unfold?"
    "A desert, perfect for deploying troops. I fought once
there myself. Everyone has fought once there. We will
engage Phyrexian ground armies to take back the Caves of
Koilos."

                          *****

    Tsabo Tavoc arrived at Koilos.
    She pivoted within the piloting bulb of her private
fighter. The craft was her own design—a one-person vessel
fitted with a flying harness that allowed her to access the
powerstone controls with all eight of her mechanical legs
and both of her human arms. It flew faster than any other
Phyrexian vessel, bore more armor, and had a ray cannon


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for each of her legs. Its main body was the spider woman's
piloting bulb. The rest was drive core and metal deadliness.
When she led an aerial armada, the fighter straddled the
command cruiser, replacing its traditional bridge. Tsabo
Tavoc replaced its traditional crew.
     Just now, though, she arrived without her armada. They
were busy hunting down the last vermin in Benalia. They
needed her no longer, so complete was her victory. Her
master had been pleased. The other commanders were still
mired in combat in Yavimaya and Shiv, in Jamuraa and
Keld. They hadn't even found Tolaria yet. Benalia was the
first great victory of the early war, and Tsabo Tavoc was
made second-in-command for the entire invasion. Her
master had been wise to promote her—and wiser still to
send her far away from him. Black widows have a way of
eating their mates.
     Soon Koilos also would belong to Tsabo Tavoc. She
would stand before her master and ascend his throne. Then
she would conquer even Lord Crovax.
     The fighter skipped lightly above a desert rill and
plunged into the slanting darkness on the other side. Tsabo
Tavoc's legs moved in precise jabs within the piloting bulb.
The ship leaped to her touch. It slid down into the belly of
the dark terrain, following an ancient hollow.
     This was an historic place, she knew. Megheddon
Defile, it had once been called, the clearest overland route
to the Thran city of Halcyon. Down this hollow, when it
had been a narrow valley, had marched the Thran in their
war against the Phyrexians. They had been utterly
destroyed in that war, through the grand wisdom of the
Ineffable. Somehow, though, they had managed to shut
him away from his world, from Dominaria.




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    Tsabo Tavoc's fighter soared from the encroaching cliffs
and out onto the wide, flat plains of Koilos. A distant
outcrop appeared on the horizon.
    It was all that remained of the once-towering extrusion
on which Halcyon had stood. The caves beneath that
outcrop—what had been called the Caves of the
Damned—held a permanent portal to Phyrexia. That was
the gate closed to the Ineffable when he was banished from
Dominaria six thousand years before. That was the gate
opened again by Urza and his brother Mishra at the
beginning of the Brothers' War four thousand years ago. It
had been closed again by the traitor Xantcha and remained
that way— the Ineffable willed it so—until the invasion
had begun. Now, the gate was wide open, the only land
portal in the early war. It belonged to Tsabo Tavoc.
    She was to keep it open, to bring through the vast land
armies arrayed across the first sphere of Phyrexia. More
importantly, she was to battle Urza Planeswalker, who
would inevitably bring his forces to close the portal.
    With a final few flicks of her barbed legs, Tsabo Tavoc
sent her fighter screaming over the caves of Koilos. A
beautiful sight opened before her. Rank upon rank, they
awaited her arrival— Phyrexian troopers, witch engines,
dragon engines, negators, gargantuas, shock troops, vat
priests, sand crabs, raptors.... One hundred thousand of
them, they filled the desert like thorny crops and spread to
the horizons.
    As Tsabo Tavoc's fighter soared overhead, they
welcomed her with an awful shriek of joy. Their leader had
arrived, their great mother. "Tsabo Tavoc!"




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                    Chapter 14
                    Strange Saviors

     In Yavimaya's darkest hour, Multani toured a lightless
place. The Heart of Yavimaya was the eldest and largest
magnigoth in the forest, a five-thousand-foot-tall tree. Its
root bulb bulged above the nearby canopy. Foliage spread
in four vast rafts up its manifold trunk. The tree's crown
was a huge, lofty forest in its own right. Normally this was a
place of eternal and holy light but not now. The Heart of
Yavimaya was now a ravaged battlefield.
     For two days, Phyrexian troop transports had hovered
above the canopy. Down webby lines, monsters slid. They
dropped from their cords atop the Heart of Yavimaya.
     It was a sacred site, as large as a great city. In ancient
times, Multani had excised a piece of the tree's core, gifting
it to Urza Planeswalker. From that wedge of wood grew the
hull of Urza's great skyship Weatherlight. No thinking
creature dared live on the Heart of Yavimaya—not elf nor
sprite nor druid.
     That bark, too holy for the feet of fey, was desecrated by
the claws of Phyrexians. Every branch became a roadway
for the demonic army. Phyrexians swarmed it, bending
every fiber of the crown with their black weight. They
ripped the leaves off. They peeled back the green tendrils.
They drove killing spikes down into the living wood. As
they had done throughout the forest, the Phyrexians turned
life to unlife.


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    To lose this tree—this most sacred tree—would be to
lose everything.
    No thinking defenders dwelt on the Heart of Yavimaya,
so the tree defended itself. It transformed the spikes driven
into it, infusing them with the ancient power of green. The
killing shafts gained life. Black and green mixed and
blended. The spikes that had cracked down into the tree's
vast boughs shot suddenly upward. Each was as sharp as a
spear, as stout as a lance. They drove themselves through
the Phyrexians standing above. Ebony wood impaled
monsters. First to die were those who sat upon or straddled
spikes. Next to die were all the rest. Spikes grew rampantly.
They jutted even from the healthy flesh of the tree. Once
the secrets of death had been learned by the Heart of
Yavimaya, they were whispered through every grain.
    The Phyrexian city had become a sudden necropolis.
    Victory.
    Multani walked the battlefield among the writhing
beasts. Not a Phyrexian remained free. Every last one had
been skewered. They hung overhead. Their oil-blood rolled
quiet and golden down the shafts. Barbed legs shivered in
agony. Claws clutched air.
    Multani walked onward. He approached a human-
looking leg, the pierced foot of a one-time man. Above the
creature's hips was the shaggy body of a ram. Instead of fur,
though, the thing was covered in spines that oozed poison
like sweat. The bestial torso of the monster seemed strange
above these strong, human legs.
    Multani reached out, setting his fibrous hand on the
riven foot. Through feverish flesh, his mind touched its
mind.
    He saw a vision of another place. The beast gazed in
horror across a different killing field. He saw not treetops
but a convoluted tumble of red-black ground, like muscle


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laid open. The sky seemed a reflection of the ground—a
crimson mass of coiling energy. Between ground and sky
hung impaled tens of thousands. They were not
Phyrexians. They were men, and women, and children.
The Phyrexians there walked quietly among the dying folk.
In their midst sat a madman. He smiled and sipped from a
delicate cup and sang songs to himself.
    From the Phyrexian's mind, Multani gleaned a name for
this horrible world—Rath—and a name for the madman—
Crovax.
    This was their foe. This was the man—the monster—
who had assembled the armies of invasion. Crovax had
slain tens of thousands of humans and elves on his own
world. For them, the Heart of Yavimaya had exacted
revenge.
    Multani released the foot of the dying beast. His mind
broke contact. The scene of horror in Rath was replaced by
the scene of horror in Yavimaya. There was little
difference. The Heart of Yavimaya had become as hellish
as a hillside in Rath. Life had learned the tricks of death.
    "Perhaps this is what must happen," Multani mused
grimly to himself. "Perhaps to defeat these foes, we must
become like them." What victory was that? Once they had
become their foes, the Phyrexians would truly have won.
    A great sadness swept through Multani. The Heart of
Yavimaya was horribly disfigured. All that was green had
been shredded. All that was smooth had turned to spikes.
The crown of Yavimaya's most sacred tree had become a
cemetery.
    Feeling weak, Multani dropped to one knee. His
vinelike hand settled onto the tortured bark. His mind fled
inward, through the fibers. He sensed the tree's agony.
Every spike that had grown rampantly upward had also
grown rampantly down. When green life had allied with


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black death, it had formed a cancer that ate away living
flesh. The Heart of Yavimaya was dying, impaled on the
same spikes that slew its foes.
    Multani reeled.
    Defeat.
    The Heart of Yavimaya was dying. It was becoming
Phyrexian. The forest could not be saved.
    Gaea, hear me. In defeating these monsters, we become
monsters ourselves. The forest is lost, slain as Argoth of old—
turned from living wood into took of death.
    Gaea did not speak to him, but he sensed that she also
was dying.
    That filled Multani with a new passion: anger.
Yavimaya and Gaea would be saved by him if they would
be saved at all.
    Multani marshaled red fury. He had allied with red
before;— with lightning and fire, with Kavu lizards and
lava. They had not destroyed the forest. They had been
conformed to the power of life.
    Ah, there—there was the great difference. The Heart of
Yavimaya had conformed itself to the power of death.
Instead, it should have transformed its foes with the power
of life.
    Multani smiled. The aerial roots that formed his teeth
were a ghastly jumble. He knew what he must do to save
the forest.
    Closing thistle-blossom eyes, Multani sank down on the
bark. His fingers twined themselves deep into the crevasses
there. His mind followed into the agonized wood. He
melted. His body of vines sloughed on the outside of the
huge bough.
    Pain suffused Multani. It might have slain him except
that he tapped its power. He used agony to reach down past
the cancerous crown and into the tree's immemorial bole.


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Multani cascaded down the trunk. He took anger with him.
Five thousand feet down, he reached the root bulbs and
spread farther. Through the hundreds of trees that
surrounded this forest giant, he went— through the
thousands that touched upon them, and the millions
beyond. To each, he conveyed his fury at the death of the
Heart of Yavimaya.
     He summoned them, the vast and endless forest. He
summoned them.
     Let's teach these black monsters the ways of life, he told
them. Let death be swallowed in victory!
     The forest rose to his call. The spirits within each tree
took his fury into themselves. Ancient souls stirred for the
first time since Urza Planeswalker had been trapped among
them. A huge welling force—the forest itself—roused.
Yavimaya had always been sentient, but now it was
awakening. Tiny leaves of desire united. Individual surges
of power gathered into a single column of green force.
     The locus of that mana cyclone was the Heart of
Yavimaya itself. Its wood flared phosphorescent. Its bark
glowed as energy seeped out the creases. Green power
whirled up through the aching tree. Rotten wood woke to
new life. Rings lost to time renewed themselves. The surge
of power fountained through the tree, blasting into the
spike-filled crown.
     Green strength rushed through deep-driven spikes. It
flooded the stalks and washed away all darkness. Magic
pressed into every space, every tissue. No room remained
for corruption. The spikes turned healthy and whole.
     Multani soared up the Heart of Yavimaya, glad for its
salvation. What he sensed in the next moments, though,
was beyond his dreams.
     The power did not cease in the tips of those spikes. It
flowed into the creatures impaled there. Through


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glistening-oil and acid lymph, it passed. Just as the forest's
soul reinvigorated dead wood, it enlivened the monsters
pinioned there. They writhed. They growled ghastly
growls. The forest was not done with them. It formed cell
walls. It thickened glistening-oil to sap. Veins hardened
into vines. Bones became heartwood. Muscles became
quick. Skin turned to bark. The warriors of Phyrexia slowly
transformed to beasts of wood.
    The forest was converting its foes.
    One by one, the new army of wooden warriors drew
themselves up off the spikes that had previously impaled
them. They climbed down. Every last one was now made of
wood. It was as though Multani had brought into being an
army of his own offspring.
    The Phyrexian necropolis had become a true city.
    The Heart of Yavimaya had been saved.
    Out of corruption, a sacred race had been born.
    Multani arose. He assembled himself from peeled leaves
and stripped boughs. A bundle of ivy filled out his torso.
The power he had gathered glowed out of every leaf tip.
His aura drew to him great masses of foliage. Multani
became gargantuan. He towered above the wooden
warriors, who stood there, watchful beside the spikes that
had once slain them.
    The giant man knelt, laying his hand on one of the
warriors. His consciousness leaped into the wooden man.
There was Phyrexian fanaticism here still and the will to
fight, but that was all that remained. This creature had
become a child of the wood, a locus of Yavimaya's spirit
and will.
    Multani drew back. He surveyed the others—a sacred
army. "You were once the damned. You were once
Phyrexian. No more. Now you are born of Yavimaya. The
forest brought you out of death into life. He who gave you


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first birth is no longer your father. She who gave you
second birth, she is your true mother. For you, Yawgmoth is
no more, and Gaea is all."
     Thousands of clenched fists—gnarled in tough bark—
rose to the sky with the shout. "Gaea!"
     "Fight for her now. Fight the evils you once were to
save the good you have become. Fight for Gaea!"
     "Gaea!"

                           *****

    Phyrexians were thick in the elf kingdom of Civimore.
They were thick everywhere. The great Kavu lizards grew
fat on fiend flesh. No bloodlust or cunning was necessary
for the Kavu. The Phyrexians were so thick a beast couldn't
yawn without one falling in.
    The king, of course, was dead. Half his elf subjects were
dead too. The other half did what they could to hide.
Occasionally they charged out to die, shouting oaths to
their lovers and mothers— better than dying with craven
pleas. That was one thing the forest would not do. It would
die, but it would not plead for its life.
    There was no end in sight. Either these gray-skulled
devils would inherit Yavimaya, or these red-scaled lizards
would. As for the forest folk—as for elves and apes, druids
and green-men—they were merely shifted to the base of
the food chain. Death descended on each one, extinction
on them all.
    What were these new beasts? They swarmed up the
boles and bounded through the crown. More Phyrexians?
They seemed it, with their brow ridges and horn-studded
shoulders. Why, then, did they fall on their own kind?
Why ram those claws beneath carapace and rip it out by its
roots?


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    Phyrexians took exception. They turned on their
apparent brethren. Fangs clamped down on heads but
couldn't bite through anymore than they could have bitten
into the side of a tree. Stingers struck against bellies and
spattered their poison impo-tently on the surface. Claws
did little more that scratch the beasts' hardened hides.
Heedless, the wooden warriors killed their brethren.
    So, what were these strange things? They seemed
outward Phyrexians but inward children of the forest. They
fought like the minions of death, but they fought for the
minions of life. Garlands twined their knobby skulls.
Sucker branches poked out between their claws. There
were even little berries here and there—sweet-tasting
berries that burst within Phyrexian mouths when they
thought to taste brains instead. Deadly and sweet, tender
and tough—these were strange saviors indeed.
    And what was that gigantic mound of sticks shambling
in their midst? Had it been smaller, it might have seemed
Multani—but this thing was colossal! It stomped
Phyrexians in their tens. It batted them aside in their
hundreds. It destroyed them in their thousands.
    Victory?
    Could it be that the forest would not die, that it would
kill the killers? Who could be thanked for such a victory?
    There was no name for any of these mad beasts. Such
things had not been seen in the world since the Phyrexians
left it six millennia ago. The only word that came close to
describing these strange monsters was the name chanted
low on all their vined lips.
    "Gaea."




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                   Chapter 15
                    Dark Destinies

    Gerrard stood on the deck of Weatherlight. The ship
soared along Benalish shores through coiling rills of cloud.
Lifting his captain's spyglass, he glanced abeam.
    Other ships bobbed there, strange small ships—the
remnants of whatever arcane air defenses Benalia had.
They were drawn to Weatherlight as ducklings to their
mother. Gerrard had not known there were other flying
ships on Dominaria. He had almost blasted the first one
from the sky before he had made out the symbol of the
Seven Clans on its side. Then more came. While
Weatherlight crossed Benalia, flying its refugee army away
from the Phyrexian armada, it gathered this ragged fleet.
Most of the other ships were small, one-person fighters. A
few had crews. A rare few even had enough room to take
on some of the prison brigade. A humorless smile lit
Gerrard's face. Who would have thought he'd become the
commander of a flying armada, leader of a small army,
defender of Benalia, bane of spider women? Without
trying, he'd become what everyone wanted him to be. They
didn't want a saint. They wanted an honest fighter—
someone who saw evil and tried his damnedest to knock it
flat.
    Even so, his damnedest hadn't been enough for Benalia.
Tsabo Tavoc had overwhelmed it. Sometimes, a fighter's
damnedest wasn't enough.


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                      J. Robert King

     "Perhaps it would be better to be an infallible savior,"
Gerrard mused darkly, "to cast out demons and heal the
sick—" A pang of guilt stabbed through him. Healing the
sick ...
     Turning away from the ragtag armada, Gerrard hung his
spyglass from his belt, strode to the hatch, and descended a
stair to the companionway below. Weatherlight's engines
sent a hum through the wood all around. The lanterns in
the hall glowed wanly over sleeping warriors. Gerrard
stepped past them to a door that spilled light into the
corridor. Ducking his head, he strode into the sick bay.
     It was overloaded. On bunks and floor mats lay folk
injured in the brig battle. These were the worst cases—
amputations, skull injuries, sucking wounds, lacerations,
multiple contusions. Other, less infirm soldiers slept atop
crates in the hold. Orim swooped back and forth among
the twenty-some patients, giving what aid she could. Most
were unconscious, whether from agony or soporifics.
Gerrard headed straight across the sick bay to a single
bunk.
     "Hanna," he breathed, taking hold of her hand and
brushing blonde locks back from her sweaty face. "Has the
bleeding stopped?"
     She looked up at him through a cloud of pain. "I'm not
sure. Yes. Orim packed it tight." She tried to sit up. "I
shouldn't be taking up one of these bunks—"
     "Lie down," Gerrard soothed, easing her back. "Orim
can't tend you unless you are here. You're here for her, not
for you."
     "I should be navigating."
     "No," Gerrard insisted. "Sisay can do it. Besides, we'll
not be planeshifting. We'd lose our armada." He gave a
little laugh. "For that matter, we're not exactly sure where
we're bound. I was counting on the old man's advice, but


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nobody can find him. He's probably squirreled away
somewhere. We can use the time to rest, all of us—a little
sailing before the next fight."
    Hanna curled in a spasm of pain. She clutched her
stomach.
    Gerrard held her hand, staring at clenched eyelids.
"Orim! Over here. Something's happening."
    Orim looked up from the man she tended, a double
amputee at the knees. Her eyes were grimly determined
beneath the turban she wore. In her bound hair, Cho-
Arrim coins gleamed. Drawing a white sheet over the twin
tourniquets, Orim made her way across the crowded sick
bay.
    She gave Gerrard an apologetic smile. "We're doing our
best. There's not enough space, not enough supplies—"
    "Something's wrong," Gerrard broke in. He gestured to
Hanna, curled on the pallet. His eyes were pleading.
    Orim nodded and knelt beside the pallet. "She's been
doing this for the last hour. I've cleansed the wound and
applied opiates. I fear to give her more, lest they poison
her. I've tried every spell and meditation. Even Cho-Arrim
magic is no match for this plague."
    "I'm fine, really," Hanna said through gritted teeth.
With an effort of will, she straightened. "I need to get back
to the bridge."
    "Let me see the wound," Gerrard said.
    "It's nothing," Hanna interrupted, "just a little blood,
just a little infection."
    Orim's jaw muscle leaped. "I'm going to pull back the
gauze. It's time to check the wound anyway."
    Tears standing in her eyes, Hanna nodded.
    With quick and expert motions, Orim drew back the
bedclothes, exposing Hanna's midsection from her hipbone



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to the first rib. The bandage showed a small smile of blood.
Beyond the fabric, Hanna's skin was smooth and pink.
    "That doesn't look so bad," Gerrard said hopefully.
    Orim pulled loose the gauze. It came away only
reluctantly. Its warp and weft clung to the seeping flesh. A
great weighty gob came loose. Crimson blood and black rot
were mixed on the packing. Orim drew it aside, setting it in
a silver tray.
    The wound was a canyon in Hanna's stomach. Perhaps
three inches deep, the infection had carved ragged walls
down through skin and muscle. A glossy gray membrane
stretched across the base of the wound. The corruption
that ate away at her flesh dribbled down atop that
membrane.
    "That's the peritoneum," Orim said. "It protects her
organs. If the disease spreads beyond that—"
    "We have to stop it," Gerrard murmured intensely.
"Can't you cut away the infected flesh?"
    Orim shook her head. "That's how it got this big—I cut
away the rot, but it returned. The roots of the infection are
too long. Look." She pulled back more of the dressing
gown. Beneath the pink of Hanna's skin, gray tendrils of
corruption spread outward, up to her neck, around to her
spine, and down to her knee.
    "We have to stop it. You have to find a cure."
    "Yes," Orim replied quietly, repacking the wound. "Yes,
I know."
    "All right," Hanna said. "The show is over. I'll be fine.
Orim's the best healer in Dominaria. She'll—" She
stopped, gripping her side.
    Gerrard pulled her hand away and clutched it tightly.
"You're right. You'll be fine. Orim will heal you. I've
ordered her to. We're destined to stay together—"



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    Hanna laughed. "You've never known what you were
destined for."
    Smiling, Gerrard nodded. "You're right. But I always
knew what I wanted, and I always wanted you."
    As she finished bandaging the wound, Orim said,
"Gerrard always gets what he wants."
    "Damn straight."
    A familiar voice echoed through the speaking tube.
"Orim, is Gerrard down there?"
    He answered with levity he didn't feel, "Ah, the third
goddess summons! What is it, Sisay?"
    "You'd better get up here. We're coming up on
something."
    "On my way," Gerrard answered. He bent, kissing
Hanna. "Get some sleep. Orim will give you something. I
need you rested. By the time you wake, we'll be halfway to
a cure." Turning, he threaded his way through the crowded
sick bay and out into the hall.
    Beyond the murmur of the wounded, the hum of the
ship's engines was omnipresent. It was a comforting
sound—straightforward power. In the face of that roar, no
obstacle seemed insurmountable. How could a little disease
resist such power?
    Gerrard gained the deck and climbed to the forecastle.
Beyond the prow was a strange sight.
    Low above the sparkling waves, a lone Phyrexian
cruiser flew. It seemed almost an island instead of a ship,
except for its speed. The cruiser's black mass left a churning
sea in its wake, waves driven up by the force of enormous
turbines.
    "What are they doing down so low?" Tahngarth asked.
He leaned on the rail.
    Gerrard lifted his spyglass, extended it, and peered
down. "They seem to be fishing."


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                       J. Robert King

    Along the lower rail of the Phyrexian cruiser were
batteries of harpoons. Scaly crews manned them. They
worked diligently, loading and firing. Long white jags burst
out from the guns, seeming to wriggle in the air as they
descended toward the sea. They sliced the water with a
diving motion. Beneath the glassy surface, they surged
along. Four white shots converged on a school of fleeing
dolphins.
    "Just like Phyrexians to kill dolphins," Tahngarth
hissed.
    Gerrard shook his head grimly. "Just like them to kill
merfolk."
    Through the spyglass, he saw. The bolts below ripped
into the undulating tail-fins of fleeing merfolk. Those shots
seemed somehow to be self-guided. Each one burrowed
straight up the spine of a creature. All life fled the bodies.
Lanced corpses floated to the surface and lolled on the
waves. The cruiser drove on, just above them, with no
apparent attempt to retrieve the kills.
    "What are they doing?" Tahngarth snorted. "They'd not
waste a whole cruiser on harpooning, would they?"
    "Those aren't normal harpoons."
    Gerrard trained the spyglass on the crews at the guns.
Whatever they loaded into those launchers wriggled like
snakes—not snakes, centipedes. Long thin legs extended
from the main body. They hungrily lashed the arms of the
crews that loaded them. One gunner dragged his fist down
the length of a centipede, flattening its legs against its bony
body and straightening the whole beast. The gunner then
jabbed the thing into the launcher. A shuddering second
later, the centipede flew from the ship into the water and
struck a merman, carving its way up his spine.




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    "Spinal implants," Gerrard said in realization, "just like
the one Volrath used to control Greven. They're killing
merfolk and then—"
    Before he could say it, the spyglass caught movement
among the slain merfolk. They lifted lolling heads. Their
limbs jerked horribly. The dead things turned and stared in
awe at the vast ship. Their backs were long, raw wounds
where the former spine had been ejected. The flesh was as
torn and corrupted as the gash in Hanna's stomach.
    "Oh, that's it," spat Gerrard, folding the spyglass. He
whacked Tahngarth's chest. "Let's get to the guns. We'll
sink that mermaid-killing, zombie-popping, black-boil-on-
the-butt-of-the-world slave ship."
    Lifting an eloquent eyebrow, Tahngarth said, "If you say
so."
    "Battle stations!" Gerrard called out between cupped
hands. Flipping open the speaking tube beside the port-side
ray cannon, he repeated the command, "Battle stations!
Signal the fleet. We go down in a strafing run. Any ship
with a gun, follow Weatherlight!"
    Sisay's voice replied, "Aye, Commander. I thought
you'd have something to say about this. How close do you
want us to pass?"
    "Close enough to clip their horns," Gerrard called back
as he strapped himself in behind the cannon.
    Tahngarth rubbed one of his own horns. "That's close."
    "Drive them into the sea. Let 'em rust beneath the
waves. Let 'em feed the sharks."
    "Aye," was all Sisay said.
    The ship pitched sharply forward. Her prow dipped past
ragged white clouds. The black cruiser came into view
directly beyond the figurehead. Air spilled up past the
gunwales. Weatherlight plunged into a dive. Her engines
mounted up, trailing coils of vapor. The manifolds roared.


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The airfoils trimmed backward. Wind screamed off their
streamlined tips. All that noise might have alerted the
monsters below, but the ship punched through her own
sound envelope, outrunning it.
    Weatherlight was an axe head rushing down to split the
vast ship below. Beside her and behind her swarmed the
ragtag fleet. Every last gun buzzed, its charge building.
    The blue-green sea welled up below. The black cruiser
above it grew as well. It swelled to fill the whole world.
Only when every gun turret and conduit showed clear
across the horrid thing did Gerrard give the order.
    "Fire!"
    Red bursts leaped from his cannon. Plasma smacked
against a canister engine, cracking through the armor shell
and releasing geysers of sulfur. Tahngarth's gun spoke
twice. The first charge ripped away a whole section of wall.
The second painted the harpoon deck in killing fire.
Phyrexians and their damned spinal centipedes writhed in
agony as the blast burned them to nothing.
    The amidships cannons added their fury to the battle.
Red flack spread from all sides of Weatherlight. As she
snapped out above the rankled mid-ridge of the cruiser,
even her rear gun came to life. Squee clung there with
savage glee. He unleashed a fiery barrage that stripped the
Phyrexian's answering fire from the sky. The rest of the
armada blasted away as well.
    Explosions rocked the outer shell of the ship. Fires
belched out from within.
    "Pull up!" Gerrard ordered as Weatherlight shot fore of
the craft. "Take her high in a rollover reverse. Prepare for a
second attack run!"
    The ship launched herself skyward. She climbed with
the same eager speed with which she had plunged. The rest
of the armada struggled into her slipstream.


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    Gerrard glanced over the rail. The cruiser was striped
with destruction. Inky smoke rolled up from its rent hull.
All across it, Phyrexians lay dead.
    "That'll teach them—attacking defenseless merfolk!"
Gerrard hooted.
    Sisay stood the ship on end and rolled her over,
climbing all the while.
    "Not as defenseless as you think," Tahngarth barked.
    Gerrard peered down again.
    Huge columns of water blasted up out of the deep. They
surrounded the crippled ship, overtopping it. The arcs of
water broke and fell away from vast hooks and thick cables.
A sheet of spray flung up, carrying in it an enormous net.
With unimaginable force, every line that had snagged on
the cruiser went taut. The ship struggled in vain to stay
aloft. The force below was too great. The bow of the craft
crashed into the waves. It sank with preternatural speed.
Lightnings awoke across the cruiser as power cells
contacted the water. Energy surges opened more cracks in
the ruined hull. The pressure of the seas lengthened these
fissures. Underwater explosions mounded water high.
    In deep and boiling oceans, the cruiser sank with all
hands aboard.
    Gerrard stared in amazement. He gabbled, "Uh, c-call
off the next attack,"
    A heavy hand settled on his shoulder. Tahngarth's
voice rumbled. "The seas can take care of themselves."
    Nodding numbly, Gerrard said into the speaking tube.
"Captain, let's maintain a high altitude. We wouldn't want
to get too close to those nets."
    "Aye."




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                    Chapter 16
                   A Dreamed Man

    Victory.
    From the Heart of Yavimaya to the seas all around,
there was victory in the forest. Elves filled the crowns, their
songs twining in freshening wind. Sprites drifted in swarms
so thick they seemed chandeliers lighting the wood. Druids
strode ancient paths amid deep root bulbs. Their songs of
joy were basso drones that reverberated through watery
grottos. Beneath even them, in the volcanic caves of the
Mori Tumulus, Kavu lizards lay slumbering. They had
gorged on Phyrexians and would be sated for years.
    Many Phyrexians had met their ends in the bellies of
Kavus or of the leviathans that swam the deep water tubes.
Others had been blasted apart by druid spells or torn to
ribbons by sprite pike swarms, or blown open by elven
arrows. Their remains even now were being scoured from
the forest. Elves tended pyres that turned the last of the
monsters to ash. Burning brands set fire to the rot that
riddled magnigoths. Black coils of smoke bore the stink of
Phyrexian oil-blood away from the canopy.
    Yavimaya would not lose all its taste of those creatures.
Elves and sprites naturally purged what darkness they
could, but the forest had knowingly taken some of the evil
into itself. Yavimaya had gained a sort of immunity. She
bore the memory of Phyrexia and knew its weaknesses.
    The final battle for the forest had been waged by
woodmen, the folk who had once been Phyrexian. They

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combined the fanatic power of their heritage with the
patient strength of the forest. Eternal defenders. Once the
battles were done, woodmen clutched themselves against
the vast boles of the forest. They lingered there, immobile
for days or weeks. They breathed through leafy stomas and
were nourished on sun and rain alone. Herds of arboreal
goats passed them unknowing. Wood spiders attached webs
to their knobby heads. Should another Phyrexian descend
into the forest, though, the woodmen would awaken to
slay.
    Victory. Multani breathed it in. He had often
petitioned Gaea during this war, always receiving a silent
but undeniable answer. Now was time for praises, not
petitions. Multani spread his mind down into the great tree
where he knelt. His consciousness expanded. Individual
identity gave way to collective soul, to archetype, to
divinity. He took on the body of the forest. Each tree was a
single muscle fiber, each vine a neuron in a vast, thankful
thought. Before that thought was full-formed, though, an
idea intruded.
    A perfect creature walked the land. He did not walk
Yavimaya but another ancient forest across the sea—
Llanowar. A perfect creature, his spirit had been forged in a
great red furnace and was tempered in war.
    Never had Multani sensed such a creature, not in all
the billion creeping things of his forest. Here was a man—
an elf—with the relentless perfection of a dream, but he
was real.
    Gaea, what is this walking vision?
    Multani knew he was to be silent and still, to sense this
creature in Llanowar across the sea.
    Among the watchful blackthorns of Verdura, this
perfect one had first appeared. A month ago, he came into
being out of midair, trailing the stink of Phyrexian spaces.


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Out of corruption, he was born incorruptible. Tall, with
long silvery hair in numerous braids, steely eyes, and steely
armor, the elf was mantled in glistening-oil and blood. Dust
clove to him. He fell to his knees. The escape from his
former prison had been desperate.
    Eladamri was his name, called the Korvecdal in Rath—
a uniter among his own people.
    Behind him came a woman. She seemed to step around
an invisible corner. She was born of the same dark womb as
he, but was human. With hair of red flame and muscles
corded over a lean frame, she was a child of Phyrexian
furnaces. The elf had saved her from the hell where she
had dwelt. Her name was Takara, prisoner of Volrath,
daughter of Starke.
    To Eladamri's other side stood another woman. As
weary as her comrades, she did not drop down. A war
woman, she kept her weapon—a chain and blade construct
called a toten-vec—ready in the pulsing air. Her eyes and
hair were dark, her face intense, her frame a taut coalition
of muscle and bone. She, too, was an orphan raised in
Rath. Wicked parents make monsters of some and heroes
of others. This one was a hero, Liin Sivi by name. She
would guard her companions to the death.
    Gaea, these are not perfect folk. These are heroes, true, but
not divinities. This Eladamri is no more pure than a Kavu,
parented by leaf and flame in equal measure. This Takara is
embittered by long imprisonment. This Liin Sivi—chains
and blades are myriad already in Dominaria. What makes
these three divine?
    He knew he was to keep silent and still and sense them.
    Up from Verdura they marched. They sought forest—
Llanowar. Travelers' tales told of them. In every village
they entered, folk asked them where they had been, how
they had come to Verdura. Eladamri told their story, simple


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and certain. He warned of the hellish kingdom to come, of
demons pouring down out of storm clouds, and of
cataclysm tearing Dominaria apart. At first, he seemed but
a brain-baked fool, wandering in dust with two other
lunatics.
    Then reports came of demons raining from the clouds
over Benalia and Yavimaya, over Zhalfir and Shiv and
Keld.
    Villagers flocked to Eladamri. If this man had known of
the coming monsters, surely he would know how to fight
them. Eladamri did know. He told them what to do, how to
make arrows that would pierce carapace skulls, how to mix
glistening-oil poisons, how to stab all the hearts of a
vampire hound. The people listened to every word. When
he said he could not linger on the road to Llanowar, they
heard that he had a messianic mission there. They followed
him. They preceded him. Runners went ahead to the forest
kingdoms, telling the glories of the elf who was coming,
who had raised an army on the road and who would fight
the monsters that came to destroy Llanowar.
    Fhedusil, King of Staprion, sent Steel Leaf warriors to
intercept this man and his army. Savage-shorn and
tattooed, elves crouched at the forest eaves. Past
Freyalisean eye-patches, archers watched the man
approach.
    Eladamri strode sternly. Sweat glinted on his brow. Eyes
sparked beneath. Takara lingered at his right hand,
allowing petitioners one by one to approach the man. Liin
Sivi lingered at his left, keeping back the rest of the crowd.
    The Steel Leaf elves emerged from the forest to bar the
way. They were immediately surrounded by the believing
throng. That is enough to sway most men, but these were
elves. In the name of King Fhedusil, they demanded that



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                      J. Robert King

Eladamri halt his human army and turn them back to
Verdura. His followers took great exception.
    Eladamri himself did not. He said only this: "May you
survive the coming plague." He turned to go.
    The Steel Leaf did not allow it. They demanded in the
name of the Staprion Elfhame that Eladamri accompany
them to see King Fhedusil but that he turn back his human
army. Again, Eladamri's followers took exception.
    Again, Eladamri did not. He told his followers, "Go to
defend your homes. I have an army of my own awaiting
here." He gestured into the trees, where Steel Leaf warriors
crowded in their multitude, peering through their stylized
goggles.
    Just now, Multani's senses traveled in the midst of the
elf throng. They strode among colonnades of stately trees.
They ascended spiral stairways that wound around trunks.
Overhead, just beneath proud crowns of green, spread
villages and cities of wood, with conic towers and wide-
curving plazas, lookout posts and cozy huts. At their center
stood the exalted palace of the Staprion Chief.
    I must go too, Gaea. I must see this savior of the elves.
    Moving across the world was more difficult than
moving through Yavimaya. At every edge of the forest, an
ocean covered the land.
    Multani leaped above the sparkling waves, riding on
currents of pollen. The rarefied life of those tiny spores
could barely hold him. It was a long leap to the nearest
landfall.
    Below appeared a great jungle of kelp. Multani swept
down out of the pollen, skipping across the plants. Their
leaves crowded atop the waves, ten miles of salty respite
before he surged again into pollens on the trade winds.
    Land appeared ahead, a black line too still to be water.
Where there was land, there was green. In a mere thought,


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Multani reached it. He plunging into cliff-top woodlands as
a child into a pile of leaves.
    This was not Llanowar. These woods were but scrub on
the edge of fanned fields, windbreaks and no more. Still,
Llanowar was not far. A patchwork of hickory and sumac
led across the undulating fields. Multani leaped through
them. He moved with the quick surging motion of water.
Beyond were redbud and alder, which led in turn to juniper
and fir. Llanowar loomed on the horizon. Multani was
there in a moment.
    He breathed again. To be among these great trees—this
root tangle and colonnade and crown—it was almost like
his own Yavimaya. Magnigoth was replaced by quosumic,
Gaea by Freyalise, the volcanic Mori Tumulus by the
Dreaming Caves, but otherwise, this might have been
Yavimaya.
    Except that Llanowar had a spirit of its own. Reserved,
refined, reticent, the soul of Llanowar stared at Multani
through the leaves.
    Forgive me this intrusion, honored Molimo— Why come
you here, Multani of Yavimaya? — came a thought that was
as much accusation as question.
    Circling through the bark of one great forest giant,
Multani could sense the angry heat in the heartwood. I
come to see this man, this Eladamri.
    As with all outsiders, he is nothing, came the reply.
    He is nothing, but Gaea makes something of him, said
Multani. I come at her bidding. It was only a slight
exaggeration.
    At the name of Gaea, a troubled rumble came to the
great mind of Molimo. Freyalise rules Llanowar, not Gaea
    — Gaea rules all Dominaria, even if your elves do not
know it, Multani replied. Freyalise is no goddess. She is but a
planes


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                      J. Robert King

     — Be quick, then, Multani! See what you must. Do what
you must, and leave.
     Yes, Molimo. As you bid.
     Smiling inwardly, Multani continued on his way.
Molimo would suffer his presence now because he had no
other choice. He would suffer it later when fiends started
falling from the sky.
     In the time it had taken Multani to skip across the
ocean, Eladamri and his entourage had nearly reached the
treetops. There was no missing the path he had taken.
Every fox shied from the trail of the throng; every coney
poked its wondering head out at them. Eladamri marched
forward in the company of Steel Leaf warriors and their
sleek, shouldering hounds.
     Even now, they ascended to the palace of King
Fhedusil.
     Multani coiled up through vast vines, some as fat as
trees elsewhere. He surged to the high court of the Staprion
Elfhame.
     It was a glorious palace of white wood, grown through
complex magics out of the crown of a quosumic tree. The
tree's boughs spread wide, an enormous hand holding aloft
the palace. Foliage rioted across woodland murals and up
tall towers with roofs of living thatch. Green pennants
snapped among the leaves. Wide courtyards, hanging
gardens, blooming bowers—it was a beautiful court in the
treetops. Yavimaya had no such magically constructed
halls. An elf from Multani's homeland might have thought
it all pretentious, though today it seemed only wonderful.
     Multani seeped out into the quosumic's leaves and saw
it all.
     Eladamri stepped beneath a gate of twining vines and
out into the main courtyard. To his right hand walked
Takara. Her eyes were hard beneath her shock of red hair.


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To his left hand strode Liin Sivi, gripping the toten-vec at
her waist. All around them marched tattooed warriors.
They walked with him as though they were his bodyguards.
Their bright-dyed hair made savage gardens around
Eladamri. He progressed up the winding way toward the
high court.
    The doors of the high hall swung wide. More guards,
King Fhedusil's elite, stood aside to let the visitors through.
    Multani withdrew from the leaves, slid into the living
thatch on the roof of the grand palace, and peered down.
    The high court within was opulent in shaped wood,
inset with gold and silver. At its far end, atop a red rug and
backed by a wall of glass, stood a huge black throne. There
sat King Fhedusil. Ancient but powerful, the chief had
white hair that spiked within his crown. His limbs were
thin and long, with the same sinewy strength of tree roots.
Across one gnarled knuckle he wore a ring of Staprion
nobility.
    King Fhedusil gazed, patiently amused, at the man who
had been called the Seed of Freyalise.
    Eladamri entered the throne room. Takara and Liin
Sivi accompanied him, as did a score of Steel Leaf warriors.
The rest kept the throng back behind a wall of pikes.
    Eladamri approached the king's dais. He motioned for
Takara and Liin Sivi to remain behind. They complied, in
their own turn holding back their elf escorts. Alone,
Eladamri strode to a dense rug of red and blue before the
throne. He knelt there in front of Fhedusil.
    "I have come to serve you, Majesty."
    A querulous look filled the face of the Staprion king.
"From all I have heard, I thought you would expect me to
bow to you."




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                      J. Robert King

    Eladamri raised his eyes and stared levelly at the ruler.
"I expect nothing of any of you except that you fight when
the fiends fall from the sky."
    Smiling ironically, the ancient elf sighed. "Ah, yes, the
prophecies—"
    "They are not prophecies. They are only reports. I am
not a prophet, only a man who has seen the armies that are
coming. In my former world, I united three tribes and led
them in revolt against these Phyrexian killers. Here, I do
not wish to lead anyone, only to provide what help I may
against a common foe."
    "Really?" the king responded. "And what sort of help
could you be?"
    "I can tell you how they will fight. I can tell you that
only warriors must remain above. The rest must abandon
this palace. It and all other great structures in the canopy
will be attacked first."
    Multani was impressed. Perhaps Eladamri was not as
pure as the elves dreamed him to be, but he was honest and
bold.
    "Abandon the palace?" echoed the king incredulously.
"All go below?"
    "Yes. I will stay here with your warriors, but you and the
others must go below to survive," Eladamri responded.
    King Fhedusil nodded once last. Then he stood. With a
simple gesture, he sent his own guard from beside his chair
to lay hold of Eladamri. Simultaneously, guards seized Liin
Sivi and Takara. The throng beyond the high court fell to
a shocked silence.
    Into that hush, the king spoke. "It is a black hour for
our world, yes, Eladamri. But blacker still when a man who
has a sliver of foreknowledge uses it to rise to the top of a
nation. To use a piece of gossip to become a false
prophet—"


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    "I have never claimed to be a prophet," objected
Eladamri as he struggled against his captors.
    "Perhaps not a prophet, but a war-profiteer," snapped
the chief. "You are not the Seed of Freyalise, as has been
said of you."
    "I dispute none of this," Eladamri pleaded. "I am a
warrior, pure and simple. I have been dreamed by these
people into something I am not."
    Suddenly, Multani understood. The people of Llanowar
needed a leader, and King Fhedusil, for all his age and
wisdom, would not be sufficient to the task. Gaea had
found a man, a sufficient man, and was dreaming him into
divinity.
    "We are done dreaming," the king insisted. "We are
done listening to idle foolery. We will not abandon our
palaces in the sky. ‘The kingdom of Hell is at hand!’ you
say. We will not follow you!"
    Multani saw it before anyone else. He saw it in the
multitudinous vision of the living thatch. Portals opened
above Llanowar. Thousands of small portals. Through them
dropped tens of thousands of plague bombs.
    Sliding down from the thatch into a great branch in
one corner of the high court, Multani took form. Leafy
brows and bristly lips, twiggy hair and spore-filled eyes—
Multani charged into the midst of the assemblage.
    "I am Multani of Yavimaya. Listen to this man! Even
now, portals open overhead. Fiends are falling from the
skies!"
    "Guards! Arrest this apparition!" the chief shouted,
finger jutting out toward Multani. "Take them to the
stockade!"
    "We must go below," Eladamri and Multani chorused.
Guards dragged at them.



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                      J. Robert King

    Something tore through the thatch above. Glimpsed in
a flurry of straw, it seemed a small meteor, though it was a
constructed thing—a spherical machine. The plague bomb
smashed down. It cracked the hardwood floor as though it
were an eggshell. The bomb struck King Fhedusil, slaying
him instantly. It hit the far wall and bashed its way into the
king's chambers. A moment of silent terror followed. Then
from the hole in the wall, white clouds of plague spores
spewed outward.
    "Down to the roots! Down from the crown! We must go
below!"




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                    Chapter 17
               The Metathran Pincer

     Thaddeus stood at the head of his Metathran army and
gazed across the desert of Koilos.
     Koilos. This was holy ground. Here the Phyrexians had
first been driven out of Dominaria. Here, Urza and his
brother allowed them back in. These two events were
father and mother to the Metathran—the only parents
they would ever have. When Phyrexian bloodlust mixed
with Dominarian terror, the Metathran were gestated.
Over the last thousand years, they had one by one been
born—as strong as rhinos, as tireless as fire ants, as loyal as
hunting hounds, as sterile as mules. The Metathran were
raised to maturity, trained in weapons natural and
otherwise, and stored away like stockpiled arms. In slow-
time caverns, temporal loops, and cryo-chambers, they
were kept. Chill cradles, these had been, made less so by
dreams of this hot desert and the battle over this holy
place, Koilos.
     Here, the Phyrexians would be driven from Dominaria.
     Thaddeus breathed deeply. The dust of Koilos entered
his lungs and, from there, his blood. The scent of
Phyrexian glistening-oil filled that breath.
     In well-ordered companies, the Phyrexian army filled
the vast desert below. Scuta, bloodstocks, and troopers
stood arrayed on the outskirts, ready for an all-out charge.
Behind them lay the main encampments, fortified with
miles of trench work. The ditches had been dug by giant

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Phyrexian worms. Beyond it all was Koilos—a broad, dark
plateau of stone above a wide cave. That throat descended
into the belly of the world. From it issued a constant tide of
monsters. Beautiful monsters.
    Thaddeus ached to slay them. He understood and
appreciated these foes. Their bodies were as huge and
superbly twisted as his own. Thaddeus's own sagittal crest
and brow-ridge were designs Urza had modeled after
Phyrexian craniums. These modifications made the head a
ramming weapon and allowed for powerful jaw muscles
that could deliver a severing bite. Thaddeus's face was
augmented with stronger bones, leaping muscles, and fangy
teeth. His chest and arms bore the powerful benefits of
bruin architecture. Equine implants bulged his legs.
Thaddeus and his army were as unnatural beasts as the
Phyrexians they had been designed to kill. There was but
one difference. The Metathran fought for good. The
Phyrexians fought for evil. Otherwise, they might have
been brothers.
    Lifting his hand in a visor over glimmering blue eyes,
Thaddeus gazed out beyond even the Caves of Koilos.
There, Agnate and his Metathran troops arrayed
themselves. Agnate was his true brother. He and Thaddeus
were biologically identical, trained together, meant to fight
as an opposing pair.
    Though a hundred miles of desert and a hundred
thousand Phyrexians separated them, Thaddeus could hear
his brother's thoughts as if they were his own. Advance?
    Nodding in agreement, Thaddeus lifted his hand in a
long arc. "Advance!"
    He strode down the desert embankment. His boots
pounded the ground. Dusty ghosts rose. In the next
moment, forty thousand other boots stepped into the
march. The ground trembled under their tread. The tremor


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rolled down the slope and beneath the feet of the waiting
Phyrexians. In their midst, the wave of noise crashed
against another wave sent from the army of Agnate. The
Phyrexians would be caught in a war on two fronts, in the
Metathran Pincer. They would writhe in that claw but
never escape. They would die.
    Thaddeus marched in the midst of his personal guard—
eight warriors, four to either side. Each bore a powerstone
pike, which could pierce even thick metal, shred whatever
flesh lay beneath, and drag itself clean through. Powerstone
swords rode their hips for closer combat. Daggers at their
ankles awaited intimate engagements. Similarly arrayed
Metathran troops spread all along the front line. They
could receive a full-out charge if the Phyrexians made any
move.
    So far, the monsters remained in their ranks across the
center of the desert. They were smart. They did not want
to charge up a hill nor to spread the already long front
farther. Still, it meant Thaddeus and Agnate ate up easy
ground on either side. The noose tightened.
    "Halt!" Thaddeus called as they reached the base of the
hill, just within stout bow range. "Archers to the fore!"
    The shout echoed down the line. The march snapped
to sudden stillness. Archers flooded ahead. They formed
two lines, front ranks kneeling. From powerful shoulders,
they unpacked stout bows that could shoot over a mile.
The shafts they nocked were six feet long and tipped with
powerstone-chips, devised to seek Phyrexian oil-blood.
    "Ready?" Thaddeus called. "Loose!"
    Ten thousand bowstrings shuddered. Ten thousand
arrows vaulted into the sky. They moaned as they went.
Their thick shafts arced hungrily upward. In moments,
those huge black arrows were so high they seemed starlings.
The shafts reached the heights and descended in a deadly


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hail. They roared down toward the lifted heads of the
tightly arrayed monsters. Soon ten thousand of them would
be impaled.
     The shafts entered a silvery cloud. In an eye-blink, they
dissolved.
     "What is it?" Thaddeus wondered aloud.
     The silvery cloud rose, following the path the arrows
had taken. It arched above the desert and coiled down
toward the Metathran army. The swarm shimmered as it
came. It descended with the same speed as the arrows.
     "Battleflies!" Thaddeus warned. "Lift shields!"
     The order shot out among the troops. Thaddeus and his
personal guard yanked the shields from their backs and
crouched beneath them. The battleflies fell. They cracked
against the metal like hail from a tin roof. Where flesh was
exposed, the metal wings of the beasts clove. Ears and
noses and fingers were severed. Razor wings sliced through
brows and imbedded in the skulls beneath. Shoulders were
masticated. Metathran who had awakened after five
hundred years died in instants. The moments after were
filled with jittering and deadly swarms.
     Thaddeus reached gauntleted hands out from beneath
his shield and crushed battleflies as if they were deerflies.
The living Metathran all around did the same. Razor wings
fell to the ground. Soon, the swarm had thinned enough
that the warriors of Dominaria stood and smashed the
killing creatures beneath their boots.
     "Forward!" Thaddeus ordered, pointing his sword across
the desert.
     Leaving their brave fallen where they lay, the
Metathran army surged toward their waiting foes. If
anything, the lacerations across their tattooed faces only
whetted their appetite for Phyrexian blood. Swatting the
last few battleflies that followed them, the warriors


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marched double-time. Pikes and swords ran red. Soon, they
would run golden.
     "Why haven't they moved?" Thaddeus wondered
through gritted teeth.
     He suddenly had an answer.
     The ground erupted before him. It seemed a volcano
had burst from the cracked desert. Dirt hurled out in a
pelting spray. In the midst of that fountain of soil emerged
something enormous. It had a black hide that jutted hairs
as stout and sharp as daggers. A huge mouth, formed of
three triangular lips, fronted the gigantic worm.
     Chunks of rock turned to sand on those lips and slid
inexorably inward. Worse, five more of the giant beasts
appeared to either side, extending in a wall before the
charging Metathran.
     These were the beasts that had dug out the Phyrexian
trenches. Now, they would dig out the Metathran
themselves.
     One of Thaddeus's personal guard, running with sword
lifted high, attacked the beast before them. His blade sank
into the mucousy upper lip of the thing. The weapon
disappeared to the haft. A sucking sound followed. The
warrior disappeared with it. That mouth, which could
pulverize rock and dust, ground the man inward until he
was but a red smear on dark lips.
     The worm lurched forward, its daggerlike hairs driving
into the ground. A second guard, hewing at the lower lip of
the thing, fell beneath the advancing monster. Hairs
pierced him in a hundred places. His life gushed out. When
the beast landed atop him, he burst open.
     Thaddeus roared. He hurled his powerstone pike into
the bloody lip of the thing. The weapon bit true. Its head
ground muscle to pulp and dragged its way deeper. It dug



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through lip and oral cartilage. The shaft slipped away after
the pike's gnawing head.
    "Use your pikes!" Thaddeus commanded.
    Three more of the weapons sank in the worm before
him. Each pierced and dug and drew itself inward. The
beast lunged, bellowing through ruined lips. Hot, bloody
breath shot out before it.
    Thaddeus stepped back. If this worm were like every
other, its brain would straddle its alimentary tube. It was
only a matter of time before the pikes reached it.
    The worm entered a sudden convulsion. Its head spiked
the warriors crowded up beside it. Metathran fell back. The
monster sprayed gore as it flopped. All along the line,
worms were dying. One by one, they issued last gasps and
dropped to stillness.
    "Form up!" shouted Thaddeus, dragging a hand across
his crimson face. He pointed to avenues between the dead
hulks. "Form up! Advance!"
    Thaddeus led his troops between dagger-walls. Beyond,
the Phyrexian forces still waited. They were cowards,
hiding behind battleflies and worms. What would it take to
goad them into charging? Perhaps they would simply wait
for the Metathran to overrun them. Thaddeus was glad to
oblige.
    The first flood of Metathran had only just cleared the
field of dead worms when movement began along the
Phyrexian lines. Their advance line charged.
    Oh, but the cowards! They did not send true
Phyrexians even now. That line of rushing things—it
glinted metallic. Artifact creatures, machines—and what
strange machines! They were perhaps four feet long, with a
snakelike central body made up of metal nodes in a line.
The things scuttled rapidly forward on metallic legs, their
tails jutting up like scorpion stingers above them. They


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seemed mechanical centipedes—simple-looking beasts,
with no apparent weaponry except for that barbed stinger.
A thousand of them broke from the Phyrexian ranks and
undulated forward.
    Thaddeus strode to meet them. His powerstone pike
was gone, even now chewing its way through the dead hulk
of a trench worm. His powerstone sword was out. It
gleamed in his hand as he charged. All along the
Metathran line, blades flashed.
    These creatures did not so much seem centipedes but
metallic spinal columns....
    The lines converged. With a glad shout, the Metathran
met beasts they could at last fight.
    Thaddeus did not shout. He was too busy dodging aside.
A war centipede launched its stinger at his face. He swung
his sword. Steel flashed, striking the giant bug behind the
stinger. The blow sparked on hard metal, slid, and caught
the soft copper cables that strung them together. With a
flash of arcane power, the blade severed the creature's tail
from its scaly body. The momentum carried it on. Metal
knobs crashed into Thaddeus's chest, knocking him back a
pace. Spikes along the centipede's back scourged his
shoulder and neck. The artifact creature tumbled in two
writhing halves on the ground.
    All around Thaddeus, the desert was alive with
twitching hunks of centipede. Among them lay many,
many slain Metathran. Their mouths had been sliced open,
and pulpy blood disgorged from them. The corpses
shuddered as if something were crawling through them.
    There was no time to see more. Another centipede
hurled its stinger at Thaddeus. He was slower this time.
Gritting his teeth in determined fury, he dragged his
reluctant blade before him. It sliced only air. The beast
vaulted over the sword tip and struck Thaddeus's face.


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    The blow made his vision go white. There was a sharp,
strange looseness in his lower lip. Next instant, his sight
returned. With it came blood—his own blood—in a
crimson cloud.
    Wrenching his blade up in desperate defense, Thaddeus
hewed the centipede in half. It spun, crippled, in the air
and dropped by his feet. Thaddeus chopped at the
wriggling thing and managed to slice it into three more
pieces.
    Dripping, Thaddeus reared upward. His face bled
profusely. The centipede had sliced through his lower lip.
His gums were cut open, exposing the roots of his teeth. He
would heal quickly enough—with hyperclotting,
regenerative flesh, and blood storage sacs—but the wound
angered him.
    Thaddeus lashed out at another centipede but was too
late. The thing launched itself at a nearby Metathran. The
warrior met the attack with a cry. Darting past his sword,
the centipede drove its barbed tail into the warrior's
mouth. With whiplike legs, it thrust deeper. The warrior
goggled in astonishment as the creature wormed quickly
down his throat. In moments, the head of the thing
clutched the man's severed lips. Eyes going dark, the
Metathran dropped to his knees and fell on his face. His
body twitched and his mouth gushed pulpy blood.
    Why would anyone, even Phyrexians, create such a
monstrous machine? There were easier ways to kill a man
than to drive a creature down his throat.
    A sudden, wet snapping sound came from the fallen
man. Grisly spikes popped out of the skin all down his
back. The Phyrexian centipede had replaced the warrior's
spine. Dead as a slab of meat, the Metathran moved and
rose. Horribly, it rose.



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    "Zombies," Thaddeus managed to splutter through his
torn lip.
    They were all around him. Thaddeus wheeled. His
sword hacked into one of the zombies—a former member of
his personal guard. Thaddeus's blade cut a chunk out of the
undead warrior's belly, but it was not enough. He stepped
back and swung again. The zombie's head bounded free. No
blood came, drained already. In the clean cut, Thaddeus
could make out the severed esophagus and windpipe and
the sliced centipede that had become the warrior's spine.
    "Zombies!" Thaddeus shouted in warning to the other
Metathran that pressed up behind him. "Slay them!"
    The order spread quickly down the line. Living
Metathran hewed into unliving ones. These warriors were
bred to follow orders, and they did, destroying their former
comrades mercilessly. Even so, emotion had not been
winnowed out of them, and these warriors, every one, felt
the acute dread of the slaughter.
    I once believed we were like the Phyrexians, Thaddeus
thought, sending the idea across the battlefield to his
distant brother. He paused to cleave the corrupted brain of
one of his own men. Now I know how truly different we are.
    There came no direct answer, but Thaddeus sensed that
his counterpart agreed. Agnate and his forces even now
fought the same horrible, desperate battle.

                           *****

     With a glad heart, Tsabo Tavoc watched the carnage. It
was exquisite to feel the plunging rupture of the spine's
descent through flesh. It was delicious to wander the dead
minds of the spine-grafted Metathran.
     There were two of those blue-skinned creatures—two
living ones—whose thoughts called to each other. It was a


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simple enough thing for Tsabo Tavoc to reach up and
pluck the thoughts from the very air.
    Yes, Thaddeus, she purred to herself. You are nothing
like us, as you will learn all too soon, all too painfully. In
my turn, I will learn it as well. I will parse every tissue of
you, Thaddeus of the Metathran.




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                   Chapter 18
        One Hero Dies, Another is Born

     That first moment after the plague machine rocketed
into Staprion Palace, the court of Llanowar was paralyzed.
Their chief was dead. Their savior was accused of fakery. A
strange green man had formed, screaming of fiends from
the sky. Then came the plague spores, spilling out on the
air.
     Only Liin Sivi kept her head. She was used to the
solitude of decision. It was a simple thing, really. Rushing
the chief's throne, she dragged her toten-vec from her belt.
One foot landed on the chair arm and the next on the
chair back. She vaulted up the wall. A final toehold on a
knothole sent her high enough to hurl out the toten-vec.
Chain paid out smoothly, and the blade cut the top corner
of an ancient tapestry. The corner plunged beneath her.
Liin Sivi rode it like some thief in the Mirage Wars. She
kicked the fringe out ahead of her. The carpet spread with
beautiful precision over the hole in the wall. It covered the
spot, temporarily trapping the plague-spore cloud.
     Of course, no plan is utterly perfect. The contagion that
had already seeped into the palace was flung outward. It
swept across elves. It rolled over Liin Sivi too, though this
was an elf plague. While it stung her skin, it melted theirs.
Virulence sank into their pores. Flesh reddened and turned
gelatinous. Elves melted like wax creatures. They oozed
together across the marble floor. Those behind scrambled
back and away, trampling others in their haste to escape.

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    Outside, plague bombs tore through the treetops.
    "Flee downward!" Liin Sivi shouted. She saw that her
own skin prickled with rash. Striding toward them, she
bellowed, "Follow Eladamri downward!"
    The green-man shucked quosumic leaves to slip free of
the guards that held him. He turned, barging a wooden
shoulder against a tall set of double doors. They flung back,
barking against the walls of a dark chamber beyond.
    "Here, the royal stair! It winds down within the
quosumic. It is the safest way."
    A guard roared, ramming his spear through the green-
man's belly—as useless as stabbing a bush. "Only the king
and his guard may descend there."
    Eladamri yanked the spear from Multani's gut and
bowled the guard over. "The king is dead. We will be as
well lest you follow me downward. Come! Swiftly." Spear
raised high, he strode through the doorway and down into
the lantern-lit gloom beyond.
    Still, the folk hesitated.
    Liin Sivi snarled, "You heard him!" She whirled her
toten-vec.
    The crowd surged toward the door. They followed
Eladamri.
    Liin Sivi spotted a shimmering shield hung upon the
wall—the enchanted coat of arms of the Staprion royal
house. She strode to a chandelier tie-down cord, grabbed
the line, and sliced it. A massive chandelier in the center
of the chamber plunged. The rope yanked her up along the
wall. With one hand Liin Sivi held to the cord as her feet
ran up the smooth face. She snatched the shield from its
mount. Brandishing the thing overhead, she continued to
run up the wall. The rope hurled her to the rafters. Liin
Sivi leaped onto a hammer beam and released the cord. A
terrible crash came below. The chandelier shattered before


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the throne. Giving no heed, Liin Sivi climbed the black
beams, reaching the thatch. Three chops of her toten-vec
opened a hole large enough to crawl through. A fourth
allowed the shield to come after her.
    Liin Sivi climbed onto the green roof. It was sharply
pitched, on all sides merging with the canopy of leaves.
Above the shaggy peak, the blue sky was crowded with
small portals opening and closing.
    As each gate would swell into being, a plague machine
would plunge through. No sooner had the bulk cleared the
device than it would slam shut again. All across Llanowar,
plague machines fell from the skies. They whined in air and
crashed through treetops and hammered the boles of the
ancient forest. After they struck, plague clouds hissed out
on the wind.
    Liin Sivi sniffed in annoyance. The gods-damned
Phyrexians did not even want to take this forest, only
destroy it. Typical. She'd lived her whole life in the shadow
of those heartless, mindless, soulless roaches. She knew
how they swarmed, and she knew how to stomp them.
    One plague machine dropped free of its portal and
plunged straight for the rooftop.
    With another snort, Liin Sivi rushed up the green
slope, shield in hand. If that machine entered the throne
room, thousands would die. A direct hit could tear through
thick wood, but what of a glancing blow? Staring upward,
she vaulted to the peak of the roof. For a moment, she lost
the plunging machine in the sun. Lifting her hand to block
the light, she still could not make out the death sphere. Its
whine grew to a deafening shriek. Only the device's
growing shadow told her she stood in the right place. She
swung the shield to one side and braced on the king beam
of the palace.



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    A clang like a giant bell sounded. Liin Sivi was crushed
flat against the rooftop. The sphere cracked away, whirling
to impact a nearby tree.
    Rising tremulously, Liin Sivi dragged numb fingers from
the shield's handles and shook them out.
    Another scream mounted—another sphere plunged.
Squinting up into the sky to find her target, Liin Sivi
ambled toward the site. "Damned Phyrexians."

                           *****

    "Damned Phyrexians!" Takara hissed.
    She dragged an elf away from the bloody slough where
his friends lay—red gelatin and bone. The elf's own legs
dribbled away to nothing. Arteries emptied behind him.
His eyes rolled one last time—eyes that had seen hundreds
of years of peace in Llanowar. They died seeing this.
    Releasing him, Takara breathed raggedly. Her fiery hair
was pasted to her forehead, and her back ached
excruciatingly.
    This plague was the worst she had seen, faster, more
virulent than other strains. No doubt this contagion had
been developed in experimentation on countless
Skyshroud elves. Takara herself had been a test subject for
the human plague. These tiny motes of elf-virus prickled
the large, gray infection across her back.
    Yes, Takara was dying of the plague. She had been
dying when Eladamri and Liin Sivi had rescued her from
Rath. Her companions knew but no one else. They had
treated the sore every night, sterilizing it with rye spirits
and soothing its ache with aloe. Still, it had spread.
    When the bomb hit, Takara's first impulse had been to
flee downward with the others. But why? She was doomed
one way or another. Up here, she could help a few people


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before she was eaten away to nothing. Takara wasn't being
noble. She wasn't so much saving elves as choosing her
own time to go.
    Scrambling across the body-strewn floor, she caught up
an elf child. The little girl, perhaps no more than two,
stood just beyond the shouldering multitude. She screamed.
Tears streaked her white cheeks. Takara lifted the girl in
her arms and held her tight, whispering comforts into her
ears. She did not know this dialect of Elvish but
consolation sounded the same in any language.
    How like this child she had been. Her father had been a
grotesque little servant of evil. Her home had been red-
skied Rath. She had not been alive for even two decades
before she was dying of plague—a child screaming in chaos
all her life.
    "Take her!" Takara demanded, grabbing an elf man
who pushed among the throng. "Take her!"
    He began to plead, his old eyes filled with mortal fear.
This was an elder elf, perhaps a millennial elf, long beyond
his century of child-rearing. Still, he reached out for the
girl. He cooed, patting her sobbing back. With new
purpose, the old elf shoved his way into the crowd.
    Through her pain, Takara smiled. If this child was her
miniature likeness—screaming in chaos all her life—then
saving her was as close as Takara would ever come to
saving herself.
    She moved back out among the wounded. Any moment
another bomb would hit. Then she and everybody left in
the chamber would die.
    Takara realized with surprise that she would miss
Eladamri and Liin Sivi. The three had made a fair team.
More surprising, still, she hoped they would miss her too.

                           *****


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    Liin Sivi was too slow to deflect the fifth plague bomb.
It plunged from the heart of the sun. She knew of it only by
the whistle that became a whine and a shriek. The sun was
blinding. The shadow of the bomb jittered across the
sloped roof. Liin Sivi flung herself beneath that shadow
and braced the shield over her head.
    The plague bomb struck to one side. It tore through the
thatch as if it were air. It smashed the king beam. The roof
slumped massively beneath Liin Sivi's feet. A thunderous
boom came below, with a brittle, crackling sound. The hiss
of the plague spores was unmistakable. So were the shouts
of the elves.
    The plague hadn't time to kill them, though. One wall
of the high court caved and fell inward. A hundred tons of
wood toppled in giant killing sheets. Dagger-splinters
stabbed down afterward.
    The roof buckled and failed. It crashed like a bellying
wave.
    Liin Sivi rode the green tide. She could do nothing else.
Timbers crashed to the floor. Giant knots fell in blood
puddings that once had been elves. White, killing spores
seeped smoky through every crack. Liin Sivi fell to her
knees on the shuddering thatch and braced herself.
    The far wall crumpled under the roof's plunging weight.
Beams roared as they tumbled over each other. In four
sections, the thatch crashed to the floor of the ruined high
court.
    A sudden quiet filled the air. No more crashing. No
more screams. Before Liin Sivi stood the tall doorway
where even now the last of the refugees fled. Behind her
lay the silent wreck of the high court. Not a single moan
came from the tumbled ruin. All the elves had been eaten
by plague. There were no humans except—



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    There she lay, red hair tangled amid thatch. A cracked
rafter had run her through, spearing the gray rot that filled
her back.
    Liin Sivi bowed her head. Takara had been a worthy
companion. To die this way, twice killed, in the midst of
strangers ... She'd chosen her time.
    "Good-bye, Takara," Liin Sivi said. "You will be
missed."
    Another whistling shriek mounted above.
    Drawing a ragged breath, Liin Sivi strode to the giant
doors and entered the resinous darkness within. They made
not a sound as they closed over the bright world. Liin Sivi
set the bolt and descended after the refugee crews. She
descended after Eladamri.

                           *****

   Eladamri led the refugees down the royal passage. No
king had been this deep in centuries. No lamps lit the way
except those torn from walls higher up. The ragged stairs,
carved from dead heart-wood, spiraled down around a vast
emptiness. A fall would bring death by lance-long slivers
on the way down. It was a certainty ... proven many times
over already.
   Screaming began above. The refugees knew what that
meant. They pressed up miserably against the walls and
waited for the body to plunge past. It did, narrowly missing
an elf woman and her son. Into the dark pit the man fell.
His screams grew hollow. They were interrupted by
glancing impacts and ended at last by death.
   "Downward," Eladamri commanded softly, leading the
way.
   In time he reached a region where giant webs had
caught a number of the bodies. Eladamri advanced, cutting


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the gruesome figures free, lest their presence bring hungry
spiders.
    "What am I doing here?" he wondered under his breath,
holding a flickering lantern high to stare at one of the
bloodied victims. "Why am I leading these people?"
    More screams above interrupted his thoughts. He glared
up, clutching the wall. Lanterns showed the spiraling
ascent. They lifted to see what came down the shaft.
Voices joined themselves to the rolling scream. Something
pounded one wall, ricocheted off, descended across the
emptiness, and impacted the opposite wall. It struck the
folk there, seemed to stick a moment on pulverized bodies,
and tumbled downward again.
    "A plague bomb!" Eladamri hissed in dread realization.
    Once it came to a stop, its panels would open and spew
contagion. It would contaminate them all and even the
caves below, where they had hoped to shelter. All was lost,
unless the contagion could be contained....
    Dropping his lantern to the stair, Eladamri swung his
sword along the stairway. The blade cut through fat
cobwebs. He gathered them in a net in his free hand. Once
there were enough strands, he sheathed his sword and
experimentally spread the web. His timing would have to
be perfect.
    If only he were the perfect man he was believed to be.
    The plague pod bounded down, followed by a flurry of
tumbling bodies.
    Eladamri gritted his teeth and flung the net outward. It
enveloped the globe. Its sticky bands wrapped around the
spore panels in the side of it. The sphere tore past.
Eladamri released it, though the clinging strands yanked
jealously at his hand. He hunkered down to keep from
getting hurled into the void. The racing ball almost ripped
his hand off before the strands tore free. Beyond the edge of


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the stair, Eladamri glimpsed the ball as it plunged away
through webs and darkness.
    Perhaps the strands would hold. Perhaps the spores
would not emerge. Eladamri had done all he could, and it
would have to be enough.
    Bodies fell past in a wet, conglomerate paste.
    Eladamri snatched up his lantern and picked his way
farther down the spiraling stair. "What am I doing here?"

                           *****

    Multani moved through Llanowar, awakening great tree
spiders. Their webs would save the wood. Their webs and
the ingenuity of this Eladamri. There was more to this elf
than the man himself realized.
    As Multani rushed from tree to tree, mustering the
defenders of Llanowar, he felt new power surge into him. It
was Molimo. In his reticent and reluctant way, the spirit of
Llanowar lent his strength to this foreign spirit. Multani
smiled with mushroom teeth. The forest needed
champions, mortal and immortal, and it was making
them—Eladamri and Multani both.




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                    Chapter 19
                 Bombs for Phyrexia

     "There it is, see?" said the blind seer somewhat absurdly.
He jabbed a withered old finger beyond the prow rail.
Wind tore at his white hair and old robes. "Llanowar."
"Yes," Gerrard responded grimly. The vast forest spread in
all directions beneath Weatherlight's bow. Llanowar's
once-green crown was black with Phyrexian corruption.
Spidery figures moved en masse through the great canopy.
Above, in blue air and white cloud, huge black shapes
clustered. From them dropped thousands of bombs. There
were no aerial defenders here. With impunity, the monsters
rained plague down on the forest.
     Gerrard leaned to the prow speaking tube. "Battle
stations, everyone. Signal the fleet. Prepare to engage those
... whatever those ships are."
     Turning to the blind seer, Gerrard said, "Thanks for the
tip. With Benalia fallen, Llanowar especially will need our
help."
     "Help them, and help yourself," the old man said
cryptically from the shadows of his broad hat.
     Gerrard's brow furrowed. "We could have been here
hours sooner if we'd been able to find you. Where were
you?"
     "I live half in truth, half in dream," the man replied
evenly. "When I cannot be found in the one, I can be
found in the other."


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     Gerrard sighed, shaking his head as he strode toward
the port-side ray cannon. "You've wasted time."
     The seer took a deep breath and murmured, "I never
waste time."
     Gerrard strapped himself into his gunner's harness. He
powered up the machine and turned it through all three
axes. Across the forecastle, Tahngarth did likewise. The
two amidships gunners climbed into position. Crew
scrambled across the decks and up into the bridge.
     Turning in his traces, Gerrard glanced toward the
bridge. He saw a familiar figure clamber into the
navigator's seat.
     "What the ... !" he hissed, flipping open the speaking
tube. "Hanna! What are you doing in there?"
     "My job." Her response came curtly through the tube.
"You've called battle stations, Commander."
     "You can't navigate in your condition."
     "Take us up, Sisay!" Hanna called suddenly. "Those
aren't ships!"
     Gerrard turned about, seeing the black, hovering mass
in the clouds. No, they weren't ships. They were nothing at
all, holes opening and closing in the sky.
     Weatherlight pitched backward and rose. The clustered
shapes shrank to a long, thin horizontal line. They seemed
the surfaces of lakes, seen on edge for a moment as the ship
emerged from below. Weatherlight soared higher. Beneath
her, the line spread out into a cluster of shifting shapes.
     "What are they?" Gerrard asked.
     "Portals," Hanna shot back. "Small portals. Thousands
of them. They are weak, not like the ones we've seen
before. Each creates a mild spacio-temporal distortion.
Together, the effect is massive."
     Weatherlight vaulted up over the portals. From above,
they did not seem so much holes in the fabric of reality as


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blurred areas, like the wavering of heat energy off gray
coals. Beneath those shimmering spots, mechanical spheres
hurtled down. They gave out long screams on their descent
to the canopy. There, they crashed and spewed disease
payloads.
    Hanna's voice came again. "They each can transport
perhaps a few hundred pounds of material before shutting
down. Together, they'll destroy the forest with plague."
    That word on her lips made Gerrard angry. He drew a
breath and gritted his teeth. "Signal the fleet. Open fire!"
    His own gun was the first to bark. Crimson energy burst
from the steaming muzzle, as bright as heart-blood and as
hot as lava. Gaseous plasma surged out to smash against the
field of scintillating spheres. It engulfed a dozen of the
small portals and ripped through the spaces between them.
    Fire spoke also from Tahngarth's gun, the two cannons
amidships, the belly gun, and Squee's artillery at the tail.
Lines of power streamed down from Weatherlight, The
surges were joined by the multifarious attacks of her
armada. Hoppers sent orange fire, helionauts blue. Plasma
bolts, lightning blasts, disruption fields—energy poured
down on the portals.
    Gerrard gave a whoop, unloading shot after shot. It felt
good to be fighting again, blazing through the invaders.
    "It's no good, Commander," shouted Hanna over the
speaking tube. "The portals don't exist on this side. We
can't destroy them from above. We'd have to fly below and
risk plague contamination. Up here, we're just destroying
the forest."
    Standing in his traces, Gerrard peered down over the
rail. The flack of their shot ate through the canopy,
vaporizing wood and setting the forest ablaze.
    "Cease fire!" Gerrard shouted. "Signal the fleet! Cease
fire!"


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    As his cannon darkened, Gerrard's mood did likewise.
How could he fight an enemy he could not shoot? These
portals were too small to fly through, too numerous to shut
down, too intermittent to predict, too deadly to fly
beneath. The Phyrexians had learned how to defeat
Gerrard. They had paid in glistening-oil for Benalia, but
they had bought it. Now, they would buy Llanowar without
shedding a drop.
    His voice was heavy as he leaned toward the speaking
tube.
    "Suggestions?"
    "Say again, Commander?" Sisay asked for them all.
    "Suggestions. I want suggestions. How can we fight
these portals?"
    Only silence answered from the speaking tubes.
Beneath Weatherlight, the glimmering sea of portals slid
away. Only the mournful wind and the whine of the fleet's
engines spoke in the hush.
    "Shall we bring the fleet about for another pass?" Sisay
asked quietly. "Or shall we ship for another battle,
elsewhere?"
    "I don't know," Gerrard replied. "I don't know."

                           *****

   Orim stood on the poop deck, gazing aft. She had
clambered topside in hopes of dragging Hanna from her
post. The impossibility of that quest was soon clear. The
impossibility of this battle was clear as well.
   "Bring us about," Gerrard's voice came sullenly through
the tubes. "There must be something we're missing."
   Orim shook her head in empathy. She had repeated
those same words countless times as she stared at the rot
that was killing Hanna. There must be something I'm missing.


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It was Orim's own impossible battle. Without Hanna, how
would the ship find her way? How would Orim and Sisay
find their way? And Gerrard— he would be utterly lost.
    Already, they were lost. The ship roared out above
Llanowar, trailing its faithful fleet close behind. They
cruised above the field of portals. Not a gun woke fire on
those devices. They seemed to form a placid and illimitable
sea.
    Water. It triggered memories of a far-off place—of Cho-
Manno, the Cho-Arrim, and their water magic. When she
had left her beloved, she had sworn to take the power of
the waters with her. Orim gazed at the shimmering portals.
How could she find power in such black waters? If only she
could meditate, could draw from the reservoirs within her,
perhaps she could find a cure to this plague.
    Orim gazed down in desolation on the portals.
    Weatherlight stirred a strong, long wake in the portals.
    Suddenly, Orim knew. It was a simple thing, the sort of
thing Hanna and Sisay would understand implicitly.
    Spinning on her heels, Orim rushed to the bridge door.
She flung it back and descended.
    The cramped room buzzed with activity. Gerrard had
arrived on the bridge to consult with Sisay at the helm.
Reports poured out the speaking tubes that blossomed here
and there: The metallic voice of Karn asked for attack
status; the signal officer relayed other ships' queries.
Ensigns scrambled up through the lower hatch and back.
    Hanna was busiest of all. She worked feverishly at her
navigation console. The compass and stylus that walked
across a chart of Llanowar dragged telltale lines of red in
their wake. Her fingers were knotted in crimson where she
clutched her belly wound.
    Orim's breath caught at the sight. Blood did not bother
her. Its implications did—especially these implications.


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Rushing to Hanna's station, Orim knelt, grabbing her
friend's arm.
    "Hanna, you have to get below—"
    "I can't," she snapped, her voice more exhausted than
annoyed.
    "You can, once we get rid of those portals."
    "Get rid of—"
    "We couldn't planeshift to Benalia because of the three
portals over it. You said they caused spacio-temporal
distortions that shunted us to the side."
    "Yes, but what does all this—"
    "Our own shift envelope is much stronger than any of
these. Even at normal speeds, we leave a wake in the
portals below. If we were to—"
    "Yes," Hanna said. Despite the horrible pallor of her
face, a brief and beautiful flush came to her cheeks. "Sisay!
Captain! Take us up!"
    Without question, Sisay drew back on the helm.
Weatherlight responded as though the ship were her own
body. Even Karn ceased his questions below, seeming to
understand.
    Only Gerrard was caught off-guard. He went to one
knee and spilled against the bridge stanchions. His face
smashed against the bulwark.
    Jiggling his head, Gerrard growled out, "What is it?
Danger?"
    Hanna laughed dryly, "Only for the Phyrexians."
    Standing placidly at the helm, Sisay shouted over her
shoulder. "What's your plan, Hanna?"
    "A nosedive," the navigator returned, "right through
the portal sea. We'll see how many we can drag away in our
slipstream."




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                      J. Robert King

    A grin lit Sisay's face. "I like it! Gerrard, you'd better
call off the fleet. Tell them to circle and wait for our
return."
    Clawing his way forward, Gerrard rubbed a lump under
his beard. "Wait a minute. What are you three planning?"
    "Just the salvation of Llanowar," Sisay said lightly.
"More power, Karn." She steered the ship into a near-
vertical climb. The air grew thin all around. Clouds
dragged away from Weatherlight's raked airfoils. "You
asked for suggestions."
    With a rueful nod, Gerrard clutched the speaking tubes
and barked, "Signal the fleet! Tell them to circle until
further orders!"
    "That's a dear," Sisay said. "Hanna, how's our position?"
    Peering through the sight arrays that jutted above her
navigation desk, Hanna replied, "Yaw four degrees port,
and let the keel cut for another thousand feet, and we'll be
ready for the dive."
    "Will we have the velocity for a shift?" Sisay asked.
    "Velocity won't be the problem. It's whether we've got
time between the portals and the treetops before we crash,"
Hanna replied easily.
    Sisay laughed. "That's the kind of problem I like. Here
we go." She shoved the helm hard to fore.
    Weatherlight's engines ceased for a moment. She lolled
upward in a weightless arc, rolling her stern skyward.
Dominaria swept smoothly from aft to fore.
    Squee, still strapped to the stern gun, squealed as his
feet swept out toward the sun.
    Then, greedy and inexorable, Dominaria grasped
Weatherlight and yanked her down. Creaks ran stem to
stern. The prow seemed to stretch away from amidships,
and it from bridge and spankers. The airfoils folded tight



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along the centerline, spilling air instead of grabbing it.
Weatherlight plunged.
    Squee was still squealing. Even so, his view of the skies
was not as terrifying as everyone else's view of the land.
Llanowar seemed a leopard, crouched to spring.
    Weatherlight's engines engaged. Intakes dragged a deep
breath. A white-hot column of energy formed within the
engine. Fire burst from exhausts. To the ship's terminal
velocity came impatient force, ramming it down.
    Llanowar sprung. The forest roared up to swallow the
ship. Its rot-black treetops groped into the sky. The sea of
portals seemed only a slim membrane above that reaching
place. In moments, Weatherlight would punch through the
portals and into the tree-tops.
    "Shift to where?" Sisay shouted over the roar of the
engines.
    "The course is laid in," Hanna called back. "A place in
need of Phyrexian bombs."
    There was no more time. Weatherlight impacted the
plane of portals. They swept from prow to poop in a
heartbeat. Spacio-temporal stresses clawed across the deck.
Bombs, half-emerged, hung in countless portals, too slow to
catch up with Weatherlight. Squee and the folded wings
cleared the portals.
    "Shift!" Sisay shouted, staring at the ground as it soared
up to meet them.
    The ship hurtled all the faster. Wind tore at her rails.
The black treetops resolved into individual boughs, and the
ruined houses on those boughs, and the running figures
among them. A jump-envelope welled out from the
forespar. It swept a wide wake, encompassing thousands of
portals.
    "Shift!" Sisay shouted once last.



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                      J. Robert King

    An enormous bough rushed up to smash through
Weatherlight's windscreen—except that no bough
remained. Black and green had given way to jittering gray.
    Beyond the ship's rail, the envelope rattled. It held
back the hissing, glaring emptiness between the worlds.
Chaos churned and spun. Nightmare forms reared their
heads out of darkness and dissolved again before they were
fully created. Lines jagged away in recursive ribbons. There
seemed no more horrible place in all the multiverse....
    Until chaos transformed at last, solidifying into tortuous
Rath.
    Overhead, red clouds roiled like boiling blood. Below,
red rills coiled like flayed muscle. Arrayed all across those
hellish hills were army after army of Phyrexians, waiting to
invade.
    Weatherlight's planeshifting envelope dissolved around
her. Heat and smoke washed over her prow. Airfoils swept
out to grab the bitter air. She slowed, leaving in her boiling
wake a field of portals.
    From those toppling, spinning devices, plague bombs
hailed. They fell among the troops arrayed there. Devices
meant to slay elves fell instead among the monsters that
made them. Many were crushed under the pounding
things. Others were mowed down as the spheres bounded
across the ground. Bombs rolled to a stop and spewed white
spores out across the shrieking hordes.
    "Nice work, ladies!" Gerrard shouted, whooping.
    Orim was cradling Hanna's bleeding, unconscious figure
in her arms. "Get us out of here! Get us back to Llanowar!"
    Gerrard staggered across the pitching deck toward the
two women. "You heard her!" he rasped out, kneeling
before Hanna and wrapping her in his arms. "Planeshift!"




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                    Chapter 20
                   The Fires of Shiv

    Tumbling head over heels, Barrin was hurled into the
red skies over Shiv. He'd been in the middle of a losing
battle in Keld when he was yanked away by alerters—
artifacts that sniffed for glistening-oil. They went off
massively. A full-scale invasion was beginning over Shiv.
The volcanic land was the world's only source of
manufactured powerstones. If the Phyrexians captured or
destroyed the Shivan mana rig, Urza could not build new
machines of war.
    Still, it was rude to be literally hauled out of one battle
and flung into another.
    Barrin righted himself. Brimstone breezes fled into his
robes, plucking away the last stink of battle in Keld and
replacing it with the stink of Shiv. He gazed at the land.
    Here, the flesh of the world was but a fragile crust,
suppurating with lava. In every direction lay calderas and
smoking crowns, seas of magma, hissing vents, ropy coils of
rock, basalt cliffs, gnarls of obsidian, pumice, ash, sulfur....
    In the midst of the fiery desolation towered the mana
rig. It was a massive, ancient factory, set crownlike on a
basalt headstone. A huge dish of metal girded either end of
the rig. One wing was anchored into the ground. The other
perched on enormous articulated legs over a sea of lava.
Atop these dishes, great domes rested. Between them ran a
long hall, built up like the porticoed temple of some
forgotten god. From the structure, veiny pipes ran down the

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                      J. Robert King

cliffs and into boiling lava. The tubes conveyed red-hot
magma up into the structure, there to turn the heat of the
world into powerstones and living metal—weapons to slay
Phyrexians.
     A massive portal—larger than those at Benalia, Zhalfir,
Yavimaya, or Keld—gaped wide in the sky. The first three
Phyrexian cruisers advanced from the darkness. Shiv
painted their bows red. Each ship was the size of the mana
rig. Hundreds more crowded behind.
     "Where is Urza?" Barrin hissed, yanking the alerter
brooch from his sleeve and hurling the blazing thing away.
     As if in answer, the air beside Barrin shimmered. A
creature formed itself from spectral winds. Urza's gemstone
eyes glared out of his materializing skull. The figure grew an
armored war-stole, done up in gleaming sigils. A shaft of
radiance formed in his hand. It became a great war-staff.
Urza lifted his other hand, grasped the blazing brooch on
his own sleeve, and vaporized the thing.
     "Glad you could make it," Barrin said with quiet irony.
     Urza lifted an eloquent eyebrow. "Exigencies of war and
all that."
     Barrin gestured outward. "Here's an exigency for you."
     Nodding solemnly, Urza said, "The Metathran ships are
en route. Until they arrive, it's you and me, friend. We
cannot hope for goblins and Viashino to stand against—"
     "Look!" Barrin said, pointing toward the emerging
ships.
     The three cruisers blazed with sudden flame. Giant fire
dragons swarmed the ships, breathing destruction across
them. Huge though they were, the wyrms seemed small
against the black vessels. Still, there were hundreds of
serpents. Their wing beats flung back bolts of black mana.
Their fangs crunched Phyrexian crews. Their incendiary
breath was only augmented by glistening-oil. Flames


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belched from their mouths and spattered across the hulls of
the great ships. Rails melted. Conduits ruptured. Engine
cells cracked.
    "Rhammidarigaaz," Barrin said wonderingly as he
watched the leader of the fire drakes. A millennium ago,
the young male had fought beside Urza and Barrin in a war
with angels. Indeed, Barrin had ridden him into battle.
Today, ancient and huge, Darigaaz would fight beside them
in a war with devils. "He has mustered his people."
    "A boon, yes," said Urza, "but they will not be enough."
He pointed beneath the ships.
    Dragons, mantled in black goo, plunged from the skies.
Some struggled all the way down before crashing on lakes
of fire. Others were dead even before they fell, ripped in
half by ray-cannon blasts or eaten away by corruption-
machines. Alone, these dragons could not destroy the
ships. They would be slain, every last one.
    Rhammidarigaaz saw the futility. He trumpeted a call
and led his folk in a peeling dive away from the ships.
Scores of dragons followed in a coiling ribbon. Leathery
wings bore them away from killing fire.
    Burning and trailing smoke, the cruisers slid unimpeded
through the portal.
    "Now it is up to us, my friend," Urza said grimly.
    Side by side, the master mage and the planeswalker
soared toward the emerging ships. They readied sorceries
and summonations, energy flickering across their war robes.
Barrin lifted his sleeves, evoking blue sparks in swarms
around his hands. Urza's war staff beamed with crackling
lightning.
    One thing bothered Barrin, though. Darigaaz would not
have committed his folk to so deadly an attack only to
break off moments later ... unless he were buying time or
creating a diversion to mask some greater effect....


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                      J. Robert King

     Movement below caught Barrin's eyes. Panels atop one
of the mana rig's domes shifted aside and slid down into
pockets. Barrin knew the facility intimately. There had
never been such roof sections when he'd worked it.
     ... creating a diversion to mask some greater effect ...
     Barrin swept his arm out against Urza's chest, intending
to halt him. The mage's hand swam with blue sparks,
which rattled out across Urza's figure, delivering myriad
shocks. The mistake would have killed a mere man. Urza
was not even close.
     Eyebrows smoldering, the planeswalker said, "What is
it?"
     "Something's happening below," Barrin said, indicating
four huge tubes that jutted slowly up from gaps in the mana
rig dome. "An attack of some sort. It might prove deadly to
fly into the path of such—"
     Barrin's explanation was made moot. Lava erupted in
four boiling columns from the tubes. This was no flare of
simple vulcanism but focused geysers of the stuff. As
straight and hot as new-forged steel, the liquid rock stabbed
skyward.
     One fountain of spray rose just before Barrin. He and
Urza fled reflexively back but not before the column had
evaporated their beards. Barrin's robes actually burned.
Urza's war-stole only smoldered.
     As if in repayment for the shocking touch, Urza grasped
his burning friend. Water suddenly drenched Barrin's
clothes and hair. He flipped soggy locks backward and
scowled his thanks.
     The lava jet that had briefly ignited them rose to its
peak. It arced over and rained molten rock down atop the
lead cruiser. Fires flared on the ship, and subsequent
explosions threw away some of the lava. More lava piled
on. Sections of hull melted and caved. Phyrexian


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crewmembers rushed to shovel the stuff. They burst into
spontaneous flames and exploded. Their carapace and bone
became shrapnel, killing those who came after. Phyrexians
popped like corn.
    The sheer weight of molten rock overloaded the ship's
engines. It listed, its port side slumping in a succession of
jolts. The ship fell into a banking spiral. Turning and
slipping, spewing smoke and dripping lava, the cruiser
corkscrewed down. A roar mounted up. Steam hissed from
ruined engines. Countless seams failed. The cruiser augured
into a rubble field.
    The other two ships had suffered similarly under the
lava bombardment. One shuddered as its power core went
critical. It exploded in a fireball, flinging scrap and bone,
magma and muscle in a star burst. The concussion made
the world leap. Visible waves of force rolled in spheres out
from the blaze.
    The third craft had already been cruising downward
when the blast cracked the sky. Waves of force flung it
faster to ground. It came down across a volcanic ridge and
cracked like an egg. The prow fell down one side of the
ridge and the stem down the other. Both sides flared in
cross-section. Scabrous figures leaped out of them.
    Other creatures, hidden in the rocky crevices, emerged.
They seemed crocodiles attacking prey. They lifted war
clubs and axes, bringing them down on Phyrexian backs.
Savagely, they slew the invaders. Savagely, they hurled the
dead into hissing cauldrons. Their bodies flared a moment
and were gone. What few monsters escaped the slaying
lizard men were swarmed and mauled by other defenders—
scrubby and small.
    Barrin nodded, impressed. "It looks as though the
Viashino and goblin tribes are well prepared for this
battle." He rubbed a nonexistent mutton chop. Curls of


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                      J. Robert King

scorched hair came off on his fingers. "As long as the rig
can shoot columns of magma, cruisers and plague engines
haven't a chance. Perhaps our meddling is not needed."
    "The Phyrexians have more tricks up their sleeves,"
Urza said, seeming almost affronted by the rig's successes.
He blinked in concentration and regrew his burned goatee.
    He was right. Next moment, the gaping black portal
poured out squadrons of smaller, faster ships—rams and
dagger-boats and dragon engines. They seemed a waterfall,
cascading with hungry speed from the hole in the sky. In
mere moments, they would crash down on the rig below.
    "Intercept!" Urza shouted. He winked out of existence.
    "You could have taken me," Barrin groused to the
empty air. From the dark corners of his mind, he dragged
out his last teleport spell. It was a blue sorcery, but there
wasn't a thimbleful of water in a hundred square miles.
Drawing on his memories of distant Tolaria, Barrin charged
the spell. Space folded around him and opened again.
    Barrin was suddenly beside Urza. They both floated just
above the mana rig's aerial dome. Phyrexian ships plunged
toward them.
    Urza was already unloading his arsenal. Rockets leaped
from his gauntlets. They shrieked upward and smashed
head-on into the plunging craft. Each rocket drilled deep
into its target before detonating. Dragon engines and
dagger-boats turned to fire and shrapnel. Ship after ship
exploded. Through smoke and fire, more vessels fell.
    The ram engines were harder kills, almost solid metal.
Urza's rockets could only dig small divots in them.
    Barrin turned their strength into weakness. He
produced a Serran tuning fork from the folds of his robes,
summoned the mana of far-flung fields, and struck the fork
on his battle staff. It rang, its tone absolutely pure. The
sound doubled and trebled, rising incorruptible to the ram


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ships above. It spread through solid metal and shook every
fiber. The ships rang like giant bells. Cracks raced through
them. Shuddering, they disintegrated into iron filings.
    Still, more ships plunged from the sky.
    Flinging fireballs and firestorm phoenixes, shatter spells
and immolations, Barrin and Urza dissolved the engines
before they could reach the rig. The sky was full of flame
and smoke. Molten metal rained down all around. The
fight was intoxicating—all too intoxicating.
    While Barrin and Urza fought a falling sky, a new
threat arrived. As silent and smooth as a black shark, a
Phyrexian cruiser nosed up beside the mana rig. Its plasma
cannons lit.
    Fire stabbed into the rig. Walls split, walkways peeled
away, stanchions collapsed.
    The cruiser's black-mana bombards hurled corruption.
    Thran metal sloughed and buttresses failed.
    "There!" Barrin shouted through the firestorm.
    Spells lashed down from the planeswalker and the
Tolarian mage. Lightning scrambled across the cruiser,
cracking armor. Fiery stones hailed over the hull. It wasn't
enough.
    Phyrexian cannons and bombards kept up their killing
fire.
    A whistle overhead announced that a pair of flaming
dagger-boats had slipped past the spell work. Side by side,
they plunged to impact the dome of the rig.
    Twin explosions ripped the roof. The dome shuddered
and sank. Half of the facility slumped toward the cliff's
edge.
    "It's no good!" Urza shouted as he pulverized a dragon
engine. "They're breaking through!"
    The dome and the central colonnade cracked away
from the rest of the rig.


                             190
                       J. Robert King

    "They're destroying it!" Barrin roared. Spells stormed up
from his fingers.
    The loose sections of the rig did not fall from the cliff,
though. Instead, they rose on vast, articulated legs. The
dome wasn't failing. It was separating to fight on its own. It
seemed a huge praying mantis. Massive legs lashed out from
beneath it. They caught hold of the cruiser's prow and
yanked it brutally downward.
    The Phyrexian ship plunged. Its bow cracked against
the basalt cliff. Metal buckled and shrieked. Boulders
calved from the outcrop and poured down atop the cruiser.
One massive stone fell like a fist on its bridge, collapsing it.
Sparks and smoke spewed from tortured metal. The ship
slid downward. Its hull ground against the cliff as it fell.
With each impact, chunks of armor broke away. They
tumbled separately into the lava and caught fire. Then the
whole wreck splashed in crimson oblivion.
    "Impressive!" Barrin shouted.
    "Yes," Urza replied through the spell storm. "But until
the portal is closed—"
    Boiling rock suddenly mounted up from the lava tubes
behind them. Barrin flung Urza and himself away from the
eruption. Air turned to steam in anticipation. The sweat in
Barrin's pores hissed out. His clothes reignited. Pillars of
fire hurled past.
    Lava rolled heavenward, crashing through the
remaining ships and splashing higher still. It gushed into
the throat of the portal. It filled the gigantic device like
water in a shallow hole. Purring smoke, the portal slammed
shut.
    Ruined ships plunged, tearing away from each other
and driving themselves like spikes in the volcanic hillsides.
Where they struck, they punched holes to the hot core of
the mountains. Out oozed lava.


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    Suddenly, there was stillness. The portal was gone. The
Phyrexians were gone. Only hellish Shiv remained.
    His goatee having burned away for the second time in
one hour, Urza snorted. "I seem to have underestimated the
rig's preparedness."
    Barrin beamed as he patted out the flames on his robes.
"Congratulations are in order."
    "Congratulations," Urza said flatly.
    "Not for me," Barrin replied with a laugh. "For the head
of the rig, your former student—Jhoira."
    Urza nodded, drifting down toward what was left of the
mana rig. The section that had broken loose now ambled
over the rocky ridges of Shiv. It seemed almost a guard dog,
spoiling for a fight.
    "I thought I knew everything about this rig."
    "Me too," Barrin said with a wry shrug. "Jhoira seems to
have taught it a few new tricks. By the way, you might like
to fix your goatee before you see her again."
    An irritable whoosh rushed over Urza, restoring beard,
brows, hair, and robes to their impeccable best. He looked
scornfully at the burned-out mage.
    "What about you? Have you any laundering spells? Any
darning sorceries?"
    Spreading charred robes, Barrin replied, "Not on me.
What you see is what you get."
    Urza nodded silently, grinding his teeth. The two
drifted down, watching the lava tubes retreat into the
dome of the rig. Plates slid from their pockets and slowly
crept back over the openings. With a rattle and clank, they
settled in place.
    Barrin and Urza dropped down among the towers of the
facility. The flying sorceries released them. Boots came to
rest on an arched balcony of smooth metal. Stately robes
and tattered rags settled.


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                      J. Robert King

     Barrin sighed as he felt the warm solidity of the metal
beneath his feet. "Where do you suppose we will find
Jhoira?" he wondered aloud.
     "Right here." The voice came from a tall archway of
interlaced metal. Within it stood Jhoira herself. Forever
young, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Ghitu woman wore work
coveralls and an overloaded tool belt. She also wore a
sardonic expression. "I thought you'd show up for the
fireworks."
     "Very impressive, my dear," Barrin said genuinely,
approaching her. He held his arms out. "Do you mind a
little dirt?"
     Jhoira embraced him. "Never have," she said into his
ear. "It is good to see you, Master Barrin."
     "And you, Jhoira," he replied. "It is also good to see
what provisions you have made for the defense of the rig."
     "I had some help," Jhoira said, gesturing behind her.
     Through the metal archway came a huge, robust figure.
The dragon walked upright on powerful talons, balanced by
a lashing tail. A talismanic belt and neckpiece were the
only clothes he wore on his scaly belly, though his wings
hung behind him like royal robes. Horns rose in a manifold
crown from his ancient face.
     "Darigaaz!" Barrin said happily.
     Jhoira coughed into her hand. "Lord Rhammidarigaaz of
the Shivan Fire Dragons."
     "Of course," Barrin replied, bowing low. "Thank you,
Lord Dragon for the valiant aid of you and your folk."
     In a voice like rumbling rocks, Darigaaz replied simply,
"This is my home."
     Urza bowed to the dragon as well. "Shiv is your home,
and Dominaria is home to all of us. We hope we can count
on your aid in defense of the world at large."



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    The dragon seemed almost to smile. "I have already
begun such efforts. I am gathering the dragon nations. We
will fight for Dominaria."
    "Excellent," Urza said. He turned to Jhoira. "You have
done well, my dear. Remarkably well. But this isn't the last
Phyrexian attempt on Shiv. I trust you have made
arrangements should the Phyrexians appear beyond the
reach of your lava tubes."
    "She has indeed," came a new voice. Teferi stepped
from the shadows of the arch. The lithe, spark-eyed man
walked easily to
    Jhoira's side. He bowed to each of his former masters.
"Shiv will not fall into Phyrexian claws. I will save it, as I
saved Zhalfir."
    Urza strode suddenly forward. He breathed—a sign of
concentration—and his visage reddened. "You cannot take
away this rig. It is mine."
    "It belonged to the Viashino before you, and to the
Thran before them," Jhoira said. "Besides, we are not
taking your rig. We are taking Shiv. We are saving my
home."
    "You would deprive us of powerstones? Thran metal?"
    "No," Jhoira responded, stepping between the two
planeswalkers. "We will leave you the mobile portion of
the rig. Even now, it crawls away to a safe distance. It will
remain for you to use. This portion, here, and all of our
homes, though—these will go with us."
    "You are dooming Dominaria," raged Urza.
    Teferi shook his head placidly. "No. You are the one
doing that, my friend."
    Urza's eyes blazed. The Might and Weakstones showed
clearly. "I will save our world."




                             194
                      J. Robert King

    "You do not promise that," Teferi said. "You have
promised only to destroy the Phyrexians, whatever the
cost. Our homes will not be part of the cost."
    "You will not take this land! I forbid it!" Urza roared.
    Teferi shrugged. "Forbid if you wish. Even now, we are
phasing out. A planeswalker cannot step through time,
Urza. Unless you leave now, and take Barrin and Darigaaz
with you, you'll be stuck here with us for dozens or
hundreds of years. It is your choice."
    Urza quivered, speechless.
    "Now, masters," Jhoira said. "Leave now or be trapped
for centuries. Good-bye."
    "Good-bye, Jhoira, Teferi," Barrin said. "Fare you well."
    Without a word, Urza angrily clutched Barrin's hand
and Rhammidarigaaz's claw. The three stepped away from
the rig. They plunged into the Blind Eternities.




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                  Chapter 21
           Big Game Fishing on Rath

    "Prepare to planeshift!" Gerrard called, kneeling with
his arms around Hanna.
    The navigator lay unconscious just beside her console.
Her stomach wound wept blood.
    Orim worked diligently over her, laying hands on the
site. Silvery sorcery enveloped her fingers.
    "My magic hasn't worked before on this plague, but..."
    Sisay stood nearby at the helm. She steered the ship
through Rath, up and away from the Phyrexian troops they
had just bombed.
    "We need a navigator to planeshift."
    "Damn," Gerrard growled. He flipped open the speaking
tube above Hanna's desk. "Karn, lay in a planeshift back to
Llanowar." "It'll take him time," Sisay warned.
    "Stay high, then, and let's hope these bastards haven't
got any airships close by."
    "Ships spotted!" Tahngarth shouted from the starboard
bow gun. "A squadron of fighters—perhaps two score!"
    With back-swept wings and blazing ray cannons, the
Phyrexians came on. Deadly shafts of energy ripped out
from the converging fighters and flashed all around
Weatherlight. One beam tore through the starboard rail
just beside Tahngarth. It gouged a groove across the
forecastle, vaulted through the air amidships, and clipped
the helm.
    "Evasive!" Gerrard called.

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                      J. Robert King

     "Yes, yes! Of course, evasive!" Sisay snapped. She rolled
the wheel hard to starboard.
     Weatherlight listed. Rath's sultry winds crashed against
the turned keel and spilled up both gunwales. Her
manifolds sucked hot air. Engines struggled to grip the
wind. Another volley of ray fire flashed past. A bolt caught
the hull just beneath the main engine, burned through the
bilges, and boiled a barrel of wine in the hold. Had it not
been for that merlot, the beam would have cracked the
power core. As if sensing its near demise, the engines
surged, hurling Weatherlight back the way she had come.
     The ship vaulted angrily up from the turn, finding
herself in sudden and lethal company. Phyrexian fighters
swarmed her. They jagged, their wings as sharp as claws.
Squee at the aft gun flung ray fire at them. Most of the
glowing flack slid past, tumbling in air. One fighter was too
slow. Squee blasted it. The ship skipped and flared. It
plunged to cut a long furrow in the flow-stone below.
     The Phyrexians returned fire. Their guns blazed, Rays
leaped after Weatherlight, eating through the skin of her
airfoils.
     "Tuck those things, Karn," Sisay shouted, "while we've
still got them to tuck!"
     The wings folded with an angry snap like ladies' fans.
The engine roared to keep the ship aloft. It rocketed above
Rath's rolling rills. For a moment it left behind the swarm
of ships.
     The sudden jolt of speed made Tahngarth growl in his
traces and cling to his gun. Wind ripped at his eyes. The
bull-man gave a whuff of breath. He gazed blearily beyond
the rail. The plague portals flashed past. They still rained
bombs down on the Phyrexian troops. Tahngarth's lip
curled into a sneer, which disappeared a moment later.



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    "They're not dying!" Tahngarth shouted in the
speaking tube. "They're not even being eaten away. The
plague has no effect on Phyrexians!"
    Sisay's voice rang irritably through the tube. "No more
bad news, Tahngarth!"
    The minotaur's eyes grew wide. "Bad news, Sisay! More
ships. A whole armada. Dead ahead."
    Sisay stared beyond Weatherlight's thundering bow.
There, ships spread in a thick blanket above the ground.
They rose gradually into a great black shaft. The flying
machines seemed a horrid tree joining the red ground to
the coiling heavens. There were tens of thousands of ships.
    "Gerrard! I need you at your gun!" Sisay shouted.
    Still crouching beside the navigation console, Gerrard
replied, "Hanna needs me here. Turn the ship!"
    "Yes, yes, evasive!" Sisay retorted through gritted teeth.
She muttered, "You try evasive action with folded airfoils
and no navigator." A dark smile spread across her teeth.
"Here's your evasive action!" She shoved the helm forward.
    Weatherlight dived above the ragged hills. Her pursuers
closed in at her flanks. Red shots ripped her hull. Heedless,
the ship clove into a narrow trench in the hillside.
    The fighters swarmed down after. The lowest ship
miscalculated. A gnarl of stone rose fistlike to smash
against its belly. The craft bounced. It spun, spitting sparks,
and cut through a neighboring fighter. The other
ricocheted off rock, impacted the far side of the ravine, and
rattled back and forth for a mile more. The remaining
ships, thirty-some, crowded into the turbid slipstream of
Weatherlight. Bolts of cannon fire charged the air. They
tore struts and wing panels and glass from Weatherlight.
    "Dat no good. Squee show you turds!" Squee shouted.
    He fired. The beam sank directly into a fighter's forward
intake and was sucked into the engine. It produced a


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                      J. Robert King

sudden burst of speed, ramming the craft into the fighter
before it. Both fighters blew up from the inside out.
    At the helm, Sisay smiled. She lofted Weatherlight
over the sudden terminus of the rift. Phyrexian fighters
impacted the rock wall—one, two, three, four. Admiring
her handiwork, Sisay steered the ship across the plateau
beyond.
    Weatherlight soared beneath the Phyrexian fleet.
There was little room between the cruisers and the rumpled
ground. Had Weatherlight's airfoils been extended, they
would have scraped ships and soil both.
    Some score of Phyrexian fighters pursued her into the
gap. The tight confines forced them to fan out in
Weatherlight's trail, bringing them into range of the
amidships guns. Bolts jabbed back. Twice, plasma stole
Phyrexian ray fire from the air. A third time, the energy
smashed into a fighter, limning every console of the ship
and igniting the bones of its pilot. They glowed through
muscle and shell until the cooked monster slumped in its
seat. The ship plunged. The fighter's wing man, distracted
by the fireball blossoming below, steered too near a
cruiser's landing spine. The massive metal rammed through
the cockpit and scooped its pilot out in mush. The fighter
spun around that pivot thrice before falling and exploding.
    Most of the small ships clung tight to Weatherlight's
stern. Their fire stabbed viciously outward. It punched
holes in the stern castle, vaporized sections of hull, and
tore away lengths of rail. A particularly well-placed shot
destroyed the starboard gun amidships.
    Sisay hauled hard on the helm. The prow angled toward
the ceiling of Phyrexian cruisers. They were stacked to the
skies. It was precisely the sort of obstacle course Sisay
needed. She stood the ship on end. Weatherlight spiraled
in her ascent. She roared past the starboard hull of the first


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cruiser. Weatherlight's port gun amidships flared, cutting a
line up the superstructure.
    Engines shrieking, the fighters followed the rocketing
craft. Half of them did not survive that first swerve,
impacting the black belly of the cruiser. Eight explosions in
a line gutted the hull there. Even as the cruiser dipped,
spewing soot, the other fighters vaulted past, higher into
the stack of war vessels.
    Among massive hulls, Sisay steered. The ship climbed
with furious speed. Fire and black mana awoke from
Phyrexian cruisers. The shots were late, missing
Weatherlight but blanketing the fighters in her wake.
    Screaming, Weatherlight shot to the top of the column.
En route, she scraped away another five fighters. As Sisay
rolled the ship into a level orientation, she smiled.
    "Not bad flying, if I do say so myself." She sent
Weatherlight in a stooping dive, falcon-swift, pulling clean
away from her pursuers.
    "Dem big ones comin' behind us!" shouted Squee
through the tubes.
    Cruisers drew away from their aerial stack, edging into
Weatherlight's trail.
    "How's that planeshift coming, Karn?" Sisay called.
    The silver man's voice rumbled like distant thunder.
"Planeshift whenever you are ready."
    "Wait!" Orim shouted suddenly where she tended
Hanna. "First take us low. Strafe those Phyrexian troops!"
    Gerrard stared incredulously at her. "What?"
    "I've got an idea for a cure. I've got an idea to save
Hanna."
    "Take us low!" Gerrard commanded.

                           *****



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                      J. Robert King

    Her healing magic could not combat this damned
plague. Spell-work had only fizzled hopelessly from her
fingers, unable to sink into the wound and purge its
blackness. Still, she had tried, clinging to stanchions and
seats as the ship rolled through her courses. How like the
Phyrexians to devise a contagion that destroyed all flesh
but their own.
    "All flesh but their own," Orim had whispered in
realization as she hunched above Hanna and Gerrard. "All
flesh but their own!"
    If she could only harvest some of that Phyrexian flesh,
immune to the effects of the plague, she could extract from
the monsters' blood the immunity factor. She could distill
it, make of it a serum that would grant immunity to
anyone.
    "Planeshift whenever you are ready."
    "Wait!" Orim shouted suddenly where she tended
Hanna. "First take us low. Strafe those Phyrexian troops!"
    It had taken little convincing to win Gerrard over, only
two words—"cure" and "Hanna."
    "Stay with her here," Orim said, giving Gerrard's hand a
squeeze. Her fingers left a bloody print on his knuckles.
"She needs you. I can't help her here, but up there," she
nodded toward the prow, "I can."
    Weatherlight dipped into a steeper dive, bringing Orim
easily to her feet. It felt as though some divine hand lifted
her, urging her to the fore. Clutching the bridge rail, Orim
found her way out onto the deck. Beyond the glassy
confines of the bridge, Weatherlight's plunge was a dizzy
thing. The crimson sky sucked its muscular belly up away
from the roaring craft. The scarlet ground swelled up to
engulf it. All across the heaving world, Phyrexian troops
waited, rank on rank, prepared to march.



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    Behind Weatherlight, massive war cruisers broke into
pursuit.
    Leaning into the terrific motion of the craft, Orim
strode from amidships to the forecastle. With each step,
Weatherlight dropped away beneath her. She felt she was
lunging forward across a cloud. She reached the starboard
bow gun and the irate minotaur strapped to it.
    "I need you, Tahngarth. Hanna needs you."
    He tossed his hands up in submission. "Yes. I can't draw
a bead on ships behind us." Yanking at the buckles and
straps, he disentangled himself from the harness. "We
ought to be shifting any moment now."
    Orim shook her head, wind jingling the coins braided
in her hair. "Not until we perform one task." She motioned
him to follow. They came to the capstan. "We've got to
release the anchor."
    "Release the anchor?"
    "Just a big fish hook, and we're trolling for big fish,"
Orim said. "1 need to get some Phyrexians. They've got a
cure for this plague in their blood."
    Without another word, Tahngarth shoved the locking
lever.
    The capstan whirled. Chain paid out. Weatherlight's
weighty anchor plunged from her prow.
    Orim watched as it dropped. Fifty feet, a hundred feet, a
hundred fifty. "Good!"
    Tahngarth threw the lever. Cams squeezed the capstan
wheel. Ratchets clicked, slowing and stopping the chain.
The anchor jolted to a halt, swinging above the ranks of
Phyrexian troops.
    "Excellent," Orim amended as Tahngarth came up
beside her. She turned, signaling Sisay to ease the ship
lower. Weatherlight dipped gently, bringing the anchor
down into the enemy army. Orim signaled to hold altitude.


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                     J. Robert King

    The anchor skimmed just above the heads of armored
scuta. Beyond them stood Phyrexian troopers. The anchor
struck one of their heads and spattered it. Bell tones
followed as the rest of the contingent were struck. The
arms of the anchor dragged parallel lines of destruction
through the ranks, but no beasts caught on its flukes. The
impacts drove it back on its chain.
    "We've got to go lower," Orim said.
    "If we grip land, the ship will rip in half," Tahngarth
noted.
    Orim scanned the fields ahead and then signaled Sisay
lower.
    Weatherlight swooped down. The anchor trailed under
her keel. It twirled about its shank. The flukes spun like
drill bits. Into the troops they descended. It ripped into
them, stabbing, cutting, grinding, macerating. Hundreds of
Phyrexians were torn to tatters by the spinning thing.
    "Quite a weapon," Tahngarth approved.
    "I need whole bodies," Orim said flatly.
    The stock cracked against a boulder, flinging the
anchor up to clang against the belly of Weatherlight.
    "This isn't working," Orim growled.
    "Wait," Tahngarth said, "look."
    Striking the ship had stilled the anchor. With slow,
easy motion, it swung down into the Phyrexian troops. Its
bills impaled a pair of Phyrexians, driving the flukes
through them and out the other side. The two beasts
squirmed on the throats of the anchor while a third and a
fourth were impaled.
    "Pull up!" Orim shouted, motioning to Sisay. "Pull up!"
    Weatherlight soared up from the tumbled plains. The
anchor followed it skyward, bringing four impaled
Phyrexians. Tahngarth shoved a pin into the capstan and



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leaned against it. Orim set her own pin and lent her back
as well. Two other crewmembers saw the need and helped.
    A massive bolt of black mana soared overhead,
narrowly missing the ship and crashing into a hillside
below. The charge ripped a deep chasm in the land.
    Five cruisers pursued Weatherlight. The foremost ship
sent another mana blast.
    A barely perceptible wave spread from Weatherlight's
bowsprit through the air. The jump envelope enwrapped
her and the four Phyrexian captives jolting up her side. It
spread from stern to stern and closed just before the black
mana blast arrived. Rath folded up and slid away, leaving
only the hissing space between worlds.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 22
             The Web of Tsabo Tavoc

    Agnate was stalled out. He and his forces battered an
immovable wall of Phyrexians. The front was a
slaughterhouse.
    Metathran blood—vermilion from the air that suffused
it—crazed across the ground in ankle-deep puddles. Higher
than ankles it rose, up armored calves, past massive thighs
and powerful stomachs. The Metathran were baptized in
their own blood. They gave as good as they got. Power-
stone battle-axes flocked in the sky, darted like eagles, and
cleft Phyrexian heads. With Metathran blood mixed the
humors of Phyrexia. Glistening-oil, gray matter, orange
acid, black venom, pink lymph, yellow bile—the
Metathran had cloven every tissue and organ in the vile
monsters. They had cut their way straight through but
could gain no ground for all of it.
    "Forward!" Agnate growled as he hauled his battle-axe
down from overhead.
    The blade chunked through a scuta's cranial shield. It
found paste within—only a shallow layer of vestigial nerve.
The axe bit deeper, sliding between bony plates. It
macerated white-matter but did not stop the scuttling
beast. There were no pain receptors in the organ, and the
motor cortexes lay deep beneath the knobby crest. The
scuta drove on, a gigantic horseshoe crab, and rammed
Agnate.


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    He fell atop the scuta's skull shield. Blood-slick, he
would have slid down to be picked apart but for his axe.
Yanking on the haft, Agnate climbed the beast. He kicked
a foothold in the vestigial face. Agnate rose and chucked
his axe free.
    The scuta bucked, struggling to throw him off. Agnate
crouched and caught a handhold in the bony wound. He
swung his power-stone axe again. It clove into the thing's
head. Metal stuck in bone. It was just what he wanted.
Gripping the axe haft with both hands, Agnate hurled
himself off the beast's back. He hauled hard on the
weapon. The axe quivered in the bony cleft but did not
pull free. Agnate's weight flipped the creature. Its thin legs
lashed the air, struggling to roll over.
    This was how you killed a pill bug.
    Since his axe was mired beneath the beast, Agnate
drew his sword. He hacked between the rows of legs.
Viscera within fountained black. Legs spasmed in agony.
Agnate struck again, slicing through flesh and straight back
to grind along the skull shield. A final attack divided the
wriggling beast in half. Agnate strode through the severed
middle. He reached through streaming muck and yanked
his axe out.
    It was a victory, hard-won, but Agnate had not gained
an inch of ground for it. Scuta lay all around. In their midst
lay dead Metathran. What good was such slaughter?
    Hewing a Phyrexian trooper, Agnate sensed sudden
jubilation. He lifted his head above the horrible tumult and
saw a glorious sight.
    Thaddeus and his command core had broken through.
They ran in a thick pack through the inner ranks of the
Phyrexian soldiery, killing as they went.
    Agnate's growls turned to cheers. He could kill forever
in this awful battle if only Thaddeus could advance.


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                     J. Robert King

                          *****

    The charge was glorious. Thaddeus ran at the head of a
hundred of his best fighters.
    Most of the warriors were members of his personal
guard. They had survived the trench worms, spinal
centipedes, and Metathran zombies to charge beside their
commander. Others were fleet-footed grenadiers who
pulled hand-bombs from their shoulder sashes and hurled
them in their line of charge. They paved the way with
shattered hunks of Phyrexians. The rest were heavy
infantry—massive Metathran bred with extended shins,
knee caps, pelvises, and ribs, so that their own bones
formed subcutaneous armor.
    In addition to the Metathran fighters were Urza's war
machines. Tolarian runners loped like metal emus and shot
exploding quarrels from ports along their sides. Dog-headed
su-chi warriors pounded in their midst, with hands
powerful enough to tear the mechanical forelegs from a
Phyrexian bloodstock. Falcon engines shrieked down in
waves overhead, impacting monsters, grinding in their guts,
blasting through the far side, and rising to swoop down on
other beasts.
    It was a glorious charge. These hundred warriors and
two score machines were cut off from the main army, yes,
but they tore the belly out of the Phyrexian lines. They
each killed hundreds. Every slain Phyrexian brought them
ten running paces nearer to the Caves of Koilos.
    There, the Phyrexian command center lay. In those
tight confines, a hundred Metathran would be equal to ten
thousand Phyrexians. Thaddeus and his troops would
plunge through to the command core, slay the land-army's
leaders, and press on to shut down the portal. This bloody
business could be concluded in the next few days.


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    "To the caves!" Thaddeus shouted, lifting high one of
the swords he held. "Break through to the caves!" His
forces took up the call.
    A wave of Phyrexians swept toward them, perhaps five
hundred strong. Falcon engines screamed into their midst,
impaling one in five. They flopped to ground as their
innards were ground away. Four hundred more rushed
onward. Grenadiers hurled their bombs in great overhead
arcs. The crude devices fell in the midst of the running
wave. Gray smoke belched out, shrapnel tearing through
the Phyrexian lines. Many fell in pieces. Others struggled
on with stumps of leg or arm streaming golden. Two
hundred more came, unaffected.
    So, it would be two to one. Thaddeus smiled. His teeth
were limned in vermilion. It was for fights like this that he
bore two swords.
    The first blade struck a charging bloodstock. Thaddeus
sidestepped the attack. His sword lanced with the precision
of a marksman's arrow. It clove between flattened ribs and
speared through the bloodstock's heart. The beast opened
its mouth to scream. Only blood emerged. It pitched
forward, dead as it ran. Its mechanical forelegs did not need
a heart to live, and they struggled on. The bloodstock's
head dragged on the ground, battered bloody by its own
thudding hooves.
    The other sword tangled with that of a Phyrexian
trooper. Slower, more humanlike, this vat-grown fighter
was cunning, trained in the arts of sword work. Blades
clanged. Horned shoulders crashed. Both warriors halted in
their charge, unable to win past. Steel raked steel. With
depthless snake eyes, the infantryman studied its foe.
Through a segmented mouth, it hissed. Something that
smelled like creosote oozed from chitinous lips.



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                       J. Robert King

    Thaddeus flung the thing back with one sword and
brought the other to bear. The Phyrexian blocked the
attack with a quick backhand parry. Thaddeus followed the
block with a stab that should have eviscerated the beast. It
spun easily aside. Thaddeus plunged forward, catching
himself. The Phyrexian turned, sword high, and brought it
down to cleave Thaddeus. Twin swords caught the blade in
air and hurled it away. The two blades fell in a scissoring
motion, catching either side of the creature's neck and
slicing through. The monster's head bounded free.
    Thaddeus drove onward. He had fallen back in his
column.
    They carved through the wave of death, near to
breaking through. Thaddeus ached to be in the vanguard.
    Vaulting the dead, he shouted again, "To the caves! To
the caves!"

                             *****

    Atop the Caves of Koilos, Tsabo Tavoc had arranged a
kind of tea party. There was no such thing as tea among
Phyrexians, of course, and no notion of a party—which was
why the spider woman had to borrow a human term for this
experience. To sit on this high spot—breathing the fetor of
battle, seeing compound deaths in compound eyes,
witnessing the killings by her children and the murders of
them—it was a banquet of sensations that could only have
been akin to fine tea and pleasant banter.
    That one, there—Tsabo Tavoc had thought, gazing
down on the speckled blades as they rose and fell in the
opening attack—that man-monster Thaddeus, he gives me
greater diversion than any of you, my children. I would like him
to come to me. I would like him to win his way to the caves.



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                         Invasion

    A simple wish, it was. For Tsabo Tavoc, wishes became
realities. Her will went out to her children, her killers.
They held Commander Agnate and his contingent to a
single plot of land, hurling themselves suicidally into that
meat grinder just to keep the meat grinder in place. Before
Thaddeus, though, Phyrexians melted, their will bowing to
the will of Tsabo Tavoc. They fought as they fought
because they wanted what she wanted.
    He came. Mustering five score of his warriors, he broke
through and charged, just as she wished.
    Tsabo Tavoc felt every blow of his swords. Her
consciousness lurked within each of those bashed-out
brains. She fled away in the dying moments, only to surge
up again in another warrior. He killed her countless times,
each death freshly excruciating. Normally, Tsabo Tavoc
enjoyed the anguish of others, the killing, but with this one
she enjoyed the dying. Her mind swept out through her
folk like a wave, crashing whitely against Thaddeus and his
warriors and then retreating before him. She channeled
him inward. Each loud assault was followed by an
inexorable undertow that dragged him deeper.
    There was such pleasure in the battle. Tsabo Tavoc was
awash in regret as she pulled her mind away from the
carnage.
    Why draw the fly in unless the web is ready?
    My children. I call to you.
    Their response came in a quickening of pulses, in deep
breaths in deep caverns. Her minions at the portal lifted
their heads. Tsabo Tavoc saw what they saw—the wide,
dark portal chamber. It centered on a pediment stone that
shone like a mirror. The gleaming pediment radiated wires
to the ceiling. Mechanisms it had powered six thousand
years ago still huddled in the dark reaches.



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                      J. Robert King

    This site was devised by the Ineffable himself in ancient
days, when he was not yet a god but only a Thran. On one
side of the shiny pediment, the darkness was filled with
Phyrexian troops in rank and file. They marched toward
the ascents and the battle. On the other side yawned a
wide portal. Phyrexia lay there, beautiful and verdant
beneath a blazing sky. Fields of metallic grass held great
armies.
    Tsabo Tavoc sought no warriors just now. She wanted
more powerful denizens. Her will crowded through the
streaming portal and sank down through the ground. She
wanted creatures that lived deep in the Fourth Sphere of
Phyrexia, amid mile-high furnaces and belching fire. She
spotted them.
    They were unnaturally tall, unnaturally thin, their flesh
clinging like old paper to their bones. In red robes, the
creatures walked metal causeways. They dipped long poles
into pits and poured jerkied flesh into vats, feeding
overlarge fish. These were vat priests. They compleated
every newt, making it a perfect war machine.
    Spheres and worlds away, Tsabo Tavoc smiled.
    Her vat priests lifted their heads.
    It was simply enough done. She needed only place the
image of Thaddeus in their minds. She felt the saliva run
along their withered jaws. They would obey her summons.
The vat priests would send their most sanguine minds to
Koilos to have a look at Thaddeus.
    Satisfied, Tsabo Tavoc's consciousness sifted back
upward. Her mind withdrew into the Caves of Koilos.
When the Ineffable had walked the world as a Thran, these
had been called the Caves of the Damned. As she returned
to the delicious battle, Tsabo Tavoc thought how right
that name had been.



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   Certainly for Thaddeus, they would once again be the
Caves of the Damned.

                             *****

    My sword unmakes another. I see the tip chop through
the thing's belly. It splits wide like a shirt ripping. Out spill
strange, dark, wet shapes. The monster comes to pieces. It
seems not even to have the will to live.
    They cannot kill me. It is almost brutal to slay this way.
They are no match for me and mine. It is like cutting grain
to kill these Phyrexians. It is like chopping wildflowers,
except that these flowers shriek and gush.
    Another goes down. It seems to be almost bowing to
me. I split its back. My sword cuts through, separating meat
from bone as if filleting a fish. I charge through the muck of
it. My foot crushes a panting lung.
    I am too well made. Urza has done too much to make
me. He has winnowed away humanity, knowing his foes
will destroy all that is human. Urza perfected my
inhumanity so that I could fight Phyrexians and not be
destroyed. I am a greater monster than these things I slay. I
am a vat-grown monster whose leash is held by Urza
instead of Yawgmoth.
    The sword hacks through a scuta's shield and the knob
of bone beneath. It splashes brain on my feet and chops
through to the monster's spine. The creature slumps atop
scuttling legs. Dust rolls up around the settling beast. I
vault over it and cut through a Phyrexian trooper. It is so
surprised by my assault that it stands, gaping, though its
shoulder is cut through down to the sternum.
    I am too well made.

                             *****


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                      J. Robert King

    Thaddeus and his hundred had broken through. They
drove like demons through the Phyrexian hordes.
    Agnate was still mired in the slaughterhouse of the
western front. He fought amid encroaching corpses. Dead
Metathran lay in lurid intimacy with dead Phyrexians. Legs
and arthropods jutted in heaps, part redoubt, part hazard.
Killing another beast, Agnate peered beyond the thing's
bulk.
    Thaddeus fought in the sere distance. Oh, to battle at a
run, so fast and free! It must have been glorious.
    Agnate reached out his mind to his counterpart. Above
the mad din, he sought. In all that killing lunacy, Thaddeus
was lost. Agnate could not touch his comrade. A greater
presence filled the battlefield—a greater mind in jealous
possession.
    It mattered little. Thaddeus would prevail. They knew
each other's minds even when they could not touch.
Thaddeus was too busy in the running battle.
    It must have been glorious.




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                  Chapter 23
               The Dreaming Caves

    This place was not fit for the elves of Llanowar. They
were accustomed to colonnades of quo-sumic trees, to
hanging vines in vast highways, to leaves among the clouds
and days beneath the sun. This place had no trees but
columns of tortured stone. It had no vines but giant blind
serpents that crawled the cave floors. In place of heavens,
there were groins of rock. Instead of sunlight, there was
blackness. It was worse than that. Crowded here in these
haunted caves, the elves knew that even now trees and
vines and skies were decimated. This place might not be fit
for elves, but neither was their home, anymore.
    Eladamri walked among the refugee rabble. They sat
shoulder to shoulder in a large, dark cavern. Liin Sivi
strode in silent watchfulness behind Eladamri. She kept at
bay the refugees, who teemed about him in their terror.
They had feared to come here. It was a place that lived in
their common mind—the Dreaming Caves, the underworld
home of the dead.
    True enough, since they had arrived, strange, moaning
spirits seemed to flit all around them.
    Eladamri was no prophet. He was a warrior. For him
this was not an underworld but a bunker, not a place of the
dead but of the living.
    Were these the only survivors in Llanowar? Could they
even be considered survivors? Perhaps a hundred had died
in the palace. Perhaps a hundred more had died in the

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flight downward. How would these thousand die?
Starvation? No, they would not last so long. They would
die in a trampling stampede.
     One old elf, clutching a squalling child, had summed up
all their fears—"The Dreaming Caves ... bring nightmares
... to life!"
     The refugees had brought a wealth of nightmares with
them. Visions of hurtling plague bombs shone in their wide
eyes. Shrieks of dying countrymen echoed through their
ears. Shame at leaving their dead nobles ... royal rings
unclaimed on stilled fingers ...
     Perhaps the Dreaming Caves did have that power.
Here, beneath miles of root, the air was charged with green
mana. Merely breathing it induced a waking sleep. The
very rock hummed in sympathy with the hearts of the
people. Perhaps these caves did pluck thoughts from their
mind and send them spinning through air.
     One man's private terrors paraded before whole
families. The very real deaths of hundreds above were
recombined into the surreal deaths of hundreds of
thousands below.
     Refugees staggered about the caverns, wringing their
hands and wailing. Others fought their comrades, thinking
them ghosts. Still more fled shrieking into deeper places.
They fell into nests of white serpents, which awoke to find
warm meat. They dropped into wells that plunged to the
boiling core of the world. They fled into the manifold
stomachs of Dominaria, where she devoured her own
children.
     Terrors came true.
     Eladamri had to stop all this. He had not saved these
people yet. He had brought them out of one death and into
another.



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    Not for long. If they could dream of horrors, they could
dream of beauties.
    Lifting high the lantern he had brought from above,
Eladamri strode with sure and measured step among his
folk. He headed for a prominence of rock on the far side of
the cavern. To reach it, he would pass through the main
mass of refugees. The staging was perfect, as if he had
dreamed it into being. As Eladamri went, he sang an
ancient ballad of the Skyshroud elves, his people on Rath:
    I walk the groves of Damherung.
    Below a dappled sun go I
    And sing of Volrath's coming doom
     Beneath a brilliant sky.

   O forest, hold thy wand’ring son
   Though fears assail the door.
   O foliage, cloak thy ravaged one
   In vestments cut for war.

    The refugees did not know this hymn, but they would
think they knew it. The caves carried his voice among
them like a breeze that promised rain. Music swallowed
remembered shrieks. Echoes became memories. They knew
this hymn, and as he walked among them, they put aside
jangling terrors to sing.

   For what are leaves but countless blades
   To fight a countless foe on high,
   And what are twigs but spears arrayed
   To slay the monstrous sky?

   O forest, hold thy wand’ring son
   Though fears assail the door.
   O foliage, cloak thy ravaged one


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                      J. Robert King

   In vestments cut for war.

   The murmur of the song rose, drowning the last of the
moans and shrieks. Even Liin Sivi, walking behind him,
sang. Voices joined, strengthened, grew, until it seemed the
throat of the world sang with them.

   Though death has guile and kilting power,
   Though bloodlust rules the steaming tides,
   It's life that wrestles hour by hour
   And finally abides.

   O forest, hold thy wand’ring son
   Though fears assail the door.
   O foliage, cloak thy ravaged one
   In vestments cut for war.

    By the time he had reached the gnarl of stone, the
whole of the cavern sang—some stridently, some quietly,
some merely in gentle hums. The refugees watched this elf
whom they had seen first in the treetops, whom they
remembered from ages upon ages.
    Eladamri lifted his face. Lantern light shone across it.
He was not old for an elf, in the midst of his second
century, but his profound eyes and prominent nose and
jutting chin gave him the look of a sage. In the lantern
glow, he seemed the only solid thing in a world of shadows.
Eladamri spoke.
    "Llanowar will rise again," he said simply, without
preamble. The words struck the air and made swimming
visions of the forest. "Green leaves grow out of black
ground. Green shoots rise from charred wood. Moments of
defeat are swallowed in millennia of triumph."



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    These words were not enough. He needed to speak not
words but visions.
    "I see bright birds darting among the overspreading
boughs of a quo-sumic. Children swing on the vines that
hang there. Red camro fruits burst from flowery folds.
Morning breezes pluck dew from the leaves and carry it in
cool bands of mist through the crown. From every hollow
comes the sound of singing, of laughter."
    A gentle murmur of merriment moved among the folk.
They were gladdened by this dream tree.
    "Yes," Eladamri continued, "we are there. All of us. We
dwell among the clouds, friends of the sun. This day is but
a sad memory. It is swallowed in lifetimes of joy. We are
there, resting in the heights. Lie down, my friends. Lean
your heads on the warm bark of the tree. Breathe her sweet
pollen and sleep awhile."
    With the rustle of ragged clothes and the murmur of
weary souls, the refugees settled to ground. One by one,
they sighed into sleep and dreamed of a perfect tree.
    Eladamri smiled to see it. At least they could rest. At
least they would cease trampling each other and rushing off
into doom. "That was well done," said Liin Sivi behind
him. "Someone had to do something," Eladamri breathed.
"Yes," came a new voice, tremulous and panting, "someone
has to do something."
    Eladamri turned to see a bloodied elf emerge from a
nearby tunnel. The man was a peasant, his shift charred
and his shoulder blistered from burns. He had not
descended with the refugees from the High Court.
    Raking a breath, he said, "You must come to us. You
must do the same for us! We came from the forest floor.
Our village was struck. There are five hundred. You must
come to help us as you helped these here."



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                      J. Robert King

    Eladamri's eyes glinted darkly in the cavern light. This
desperate man would interpret the look as mystery and
power. In fact, Eladamri felt a doubt that bordered on
panic. He had done what he could for these desperate
folk—the work not of a savior but of a compassionate
warrior. He had done no more than anyone else would
have done.
    Why, then, had no one else done it? "I will go see what
I can do."
    A light pierced the terror of the elf's face. He seemed to
breathe for the first time since he had spoken. He bowed
deeply. Eladamri could hear the burned skin on his
shoulder crackle with the motion. The man's grateful
breath quickened.
    In utter darkness, even the faintest ember seems a
beaming sun.
    Eladamri was that faint ember. His glow had drawn
nations, and as they bowed, their hopeful breath stoked the
fire in him. They needed a savior. They were making a
savior. He could only receive their adoration and use it to
save as many as he could.
    Perhaps that was all a savior ever was.
    "Lead me to them," Eladamri said, catching the elf's
hand and lifting him from his bow. "I will go where you
lead. Take my lantern. Let it guide you."
    The elf shook his head. "Keep your lantern. I want
them to see you. I want them to see who I have brought."
He squeezed his thanks and turned to lead Eladamri away.
    Lifting his lantern, the Seed of Freyalise strode along a
ledge of stone at one side of the cavern. Most of his folk
slept in contented clusters. A few remained awake. They
watched in quiet admiration, their eyes reflecting his light.
    "They will not suffer your absence long, Eladamri," Liin
Sivi said behind him. "They will come looking for you."


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    As he followed his guide down into a narrow shaft of
slanting stone, Eladamri answered, "Let us hope we are not
gone long."
    "I cannot keep them back, you know," Liin Sivi said.
"My toten-vec can keep back foes but not friends. That was
Takara's job."
    Eladamri's breath caught. The bombing of the palace
had been chaos—the flight downward, the terror of
collective nightmare.... He had forgotten about his
companion. "She didn't—"
    "No," Liin Sivi replied simply.
    Eladamri steadied himself, setting a feverish hand on
cold stone. The rock drank his heat. Before him, the
passage descended to deep darkness. Chill air crowded past
from spaces below. It seemed Dominaria was breathing. It
seemed her breath was cold.
    "Just a little farther," the elf assured. He was small and
surefooted, like a cave cricket.
    Eladamri and Liin Sivi picked their way across a rubble
field where hunks of stone had calved from the
encroaching ceiling. Beyond, the passage squared up,
seeming almost a mine hewn from rock. Eladamri's
footsteps echoed in whispers all around him. At the end of
the corridor, the elf stood before a vast cavern. Eladamri's
lantern barely shone in the blackness.
    He stared at the lantern. Its wick was little more than a
nub. Reaching to the neck of his robe, Eladamri grabbed
the collar and hauled hard. The fabric ripped easily free.
He opened the lantern, lit the strip of material, and fed it
down into the wick slot. The collar filled with oil. Fire
flared. Eladamri closed the panel and lifted a blazing
lantern.




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                     J. Robert King

    Its light shone out over a cavern filled with crouching
figures. Their eyes gleamed. They looked not to the light
but to the light-bringer.
    "Let's go down to them," Eladamri said. "Yes," the elf
said, scrambling down the slope. As Eladamri descended,
Liin Sivi spoke, "We should go back." "I cannot go back,"
Eladamri said. "They have glimpsed hope. It would kill
them for me to leave."
    "You cannot just sing to these people and make pretty
speeches. Look at them, Eladamri. Look at them."
    He did. His heart went cold in his chest. It was not
merely darkness that swathed them. It was death. They
were rotting. Their flesh boiled off their bones. Teeth
showed through rags of lip. Eyes wept in lidless sockets.
Breath raked into and out of riddled windpipes. Shoulder
bones showed white through sloughing flesh. "They are still
alive," Eladamri said.
    "But for how long?" Liin Sivi replied, clasping his
shoulder. "You cannot save them."
    Eyes hardening, Eladamri pulled away from her. "These
are the Dreaming Caves. I cannot save these folk, but their
dreams can."
    He descended the final pitch of the hillside and was
among them.
    Eladamri lifted his lantern, peering in gladness across
the hordes.
    "Behold, children of Staprion—dread has fallen from
the skies, but hope rises from the world. Gaea has not
forgotten you. Freyalise has sent me to you. She wants you
to rise, whole, into the light. Come to me, brothers and
sisters. Come. Believe. Be healed. We will rise. We will
save our homeland. Come!"
    Liin Sivi stood on the slope, her hands sweating on the
hilt of her toten-vec. She would not cut down allies,


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certainly not plague victims. She could only watch as they
surrounded Eladamri, pressing on him, swallowing him in
their rot. In moments, he was gone. Even the light of his
lantern was eclipsed in that clamor of heads and hands.
    There was only darkness now, darkness and death and
the wails of the dying.
    Suddenly, the lantern beamed forth again. It rose,
clutched in a healthy hand. Its rays spilled out over more
healthy flesh. Where there had been scaly heads and
skeletal arms now there were flowing locks and young
muscle. Where there had been rot there was now vitality.
It was as though light itself healed them—rebuilding
bodies, renewing spirits.
    At the center of that glow was Eladamri. His robes
seemed lit from within.
    Hands reached for him, touched him, and came away
whole.
    Liin Sivi released her weapon. She rubbed fists in her
eyes. Was this another delusion of the Dreaming Caves?
    Waves of power, of belief, swept in visible rings from
Eladamri.
    This was no dream. This was truth.
    Mouth agape, Liin Sivi dropped to her knees.
    Eladamri sang gladly to his people:

   Though death has guile and killing power,
   Though bloodlust rules the steaming tides,
   It's life that wrestles hour by hour
   And finally abides.

   O forest, hold thy wand'ring son
   Though fears assail the door.
   O foliage, cloak thy ravaged one
   In vestments cut for war.


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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 24
                   Heroes' Meeting

    Orim's sick bay seemed a menagerie. Rats and flying
squirrels paced in makeshift cages. Mounds of what seemed
fish eggs occupied airtight vials across her desk. Four dead
Phyrexians lay nearby. They seemed giant, overturned
cockroaches. Only one true patient remained— Hanna.
She languished in feverish sleep on the far side of the
room. It was for her that the menagerie existed. It was to
save that one human that Orim had worked so tirelessly
over Phyrexian corpses.
    From those corpses, Orim had tapped every fluid she
could find—glistening-oil, green bile, saliva, gastric juice,
venom, lymph, cerebral-spinal fluid, even cardiac liquids.
Gladly these vat-grown creatures had no reproductive
fluids. Using a centrifuge and Cho-Arrim water magic,
Orim separated each fluid into its component parts. The
lymph and blood contained many of the disease-fighting
compounds, and comparing the materials common to them
allowed Orim to narrow the immunity substances. Then, it
was a matter of applying distillations of each part on
plague-infected flora and fauna from Llanowar.
    The Benalish aerial armada had proven itself quite
intrepid in gathering test subjects.
    The immunity substance, as it turned out, was a black
platelet suspended in glistening-oil. It could not reverse the
disease, but it prevented its spread. Uninfected leaves
treated with the substance were made immune to the

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plague. Infected leaves did not worsen but neither did they
improve. No cure, this, it would at least prevent the disease
from spreading, flesh to flesh and person to person.
    Squee had gathered rats from the bilges—healthy beasts
that had feasted on hardtack and ale. The black material
was gobbled greedily by the beasts. In mere moments, they
proved immune. Infected flying squirrels from the forest
also liked the taste of Phyrexian immunity, and their
disease ceased its advance.
    Now, it was up to Orim. She would not test this
substance on any person until she had tested it on herself.
After dissecting Phyrexian corpses, Orim had little
stomach for the curative caviar, but she would do anything
for Hanna. Drawing a deep breath, she lifted the jiggling
black mass to her mouth. The spoon slid reluctantly over
her teeth.
    Tiny, cold spheres settled on her tongue. They felt like
minute beads of glass, sliding down behind her teeth. They
tasted of oil. She dared not chew but only swallowed. The
platelets crowded down her throat. They slid into her belly.
It felt chill and dark. The sensation spread from her
stomach into her blood. Was it only her mind, or did this
feel like a tiny invasion? A shudder moved through her, the
coolness spreading under her clothes and out to her
fingertips.
    "That should be enough time," Orim sighed.
    She lifted a knife from her worktable, set its tip on her
biceps, and drew the blade down in a brief, deep cut. It was
almost painless, the knife was so sharp. The blade came
away. A drop of crimson welled up from the slit. Putting
down the knife, Orim lifted a plague infected leaf, opened
the cut, and crumbled the black corruption into the
wound. Every instinct she had—not only as a healer but as



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a living being—shivered at the sight of those black flakes
adhering to the cut flesh.
     Clamping a cloth over the spot, Orim closed her eyes
and hissed. This strain of the plague was virulent enough
that it would turn the skin necrotic in moments. She
needed wait only those moments to see if she had devised a
serum or if she were joining Hanna on the road to death.
     Pulling the cloth away, Orim drew the sides of the
wound apart. She peered down into perfect, red flesh. A
deep, thankful breath filled her. She said a silent thanks to
the powers of healing and water.
     "Oh, Hanna," Orim said, though she knew her patient
still slept. "The first hope. It cannot save you, hut it can
save others. I'll keep working until I have a cure." Dashing
tears from her eyes, Orim snatched up a vial of the platelets
and approached Hanna.
     She lay on her side, knees drawn up over the belly
wound that was killing her.
     Sitting on her bunk, Orim reached out gently to stroke
her friend's hair. Hanna was so thin. Her face seemed skin
stretched over a skull. Her eyes were visible beneath
translucent lids. Her neck was a bundle of straining cords.
Only her hair was as it had been—streaming gold. Fondly,
Orim drew her fingers through the strands.
     "Hanna, wake up. I have something for you."
     A shuddering breath went through Hanna. She rolled
to her back. She eased her legs downward. They seemed as
thin as sticks beneath the blankets. Blue lids pulled back
from bloodshot eyes. Orim bit her lip to see the chronic
pain there.
     Hanna muttered weakly, "Something ... for me?"
     "It's not a cure—but it will stop the disease from
advancing." Orim held up the vial. "It'll keep a healthy
person from catching it."


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    "Thank you," Hanna said, reaching up. She did not
clutch the vial but Orim's arm. "Use it on someone it can
save."
    Orim's eyes clouded. "There is enough. I want you to
take this. It will buy time."
    Not releasing her friend's arm, Hanna drew aside the
gown. The bandages that looped her midsection seemed
loose, as though she had shrunk. Even beyond the edge of
those bandages, her skin was gray from shoulder to thigh.
Tendrils of corruption reached farther, to elbow and knee.
    "Time for what?" She covered herself again. "Please,
give it to someone it will save."
    Orim sadly patted her friend's cheek. "Gerrard has
ordered it. Now, open up."
    Her eyes hard and angry, Hanna took the spoonful.
    "I won't give up, Hanna. I'm going to find a cure."
    "Thank you, Orim," Hanna said quietly. "Thank you....
I need to sleep."
    "Yes," responded the healer. She drew Hanna's blankets
up to her shoulders. A chill went down her spine. One day,
and sooner than later, she would be drawing these blankets
up over Hanna's face. "Sleep, dear girl. Sleep."
    Turning, Orim retreated to her worktable. Hanna
breathed in quiet rest as Orim gathered the rack of vials.
She pushed back the sick bay door and climbed the stairs.
The tiny bottles rattled as she rose.
    Here, beyond the Phyrexian corpses and the caged test-
creatures, Weatherlight ceased to be a laboratory and
became a warship. An ensign hurried down the
companionway above, reading from a page in his hand the
names of the refugees who were to eat next. Orim
continued on until she reached the amidships hatch. She
climbed through to stand on the deck.



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                      J. Robert King

    Gerrard crouched on the deck, working with a crew
who were easing the repaired port-side ray cannon back
into its moorings. He was bare to the waist and sweating,
though a steady breeze came over the prow to him.
    Orim approached, lifting the rack of vials. "I have it,
enough serum for the ship's whole complement and some
left over."
    From the grease-track where he knelt, Gerrard looked
up. "You have it? A cure?"
    "Not a cure. I have an immunity serum."
    He was on his feet. "Will it help Hanna?" Orim shook
her head slowly.
    An angry line knitted Gerrard's brow, but he managed
to say, "Good work. You've saved us."
    "Most of us."
    "Administer the serum. Once everyone is treated, I
want you to set aside the rest—as much as you can spare—
for a gift."
    "A gift?" she asked.
    "We're landing in the treetops. Not the whole armada,
just Weatherlight and her immune crew. The ship herself
should somehow ingest some of the serum, to make her hull
impervious. I'll ask Hanna how—"
    "Ask Karn," Orim suggested.
    Nodding stiffly, Gerrard said, "I want to take the rest of
the serum to whomever might survive there, as a sign of
our alliance. We'll land in the center of the devastation—
there's a ruined palace down there—and we'll search until
we find the native people."
    Orim's eyes shone. "Good. Perhaps we'll also find more
Phyrexians. Give me more Phyrexians, and I'll give you
more serum."
    Gerrard nodded, his eyes like poniards. "I'll give you
more Phyrexians."


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                           *****

    It was no easy task for Multani to find the refugees,
down so deep. The Dreaming Caves lay below Llanowar's
water table. Most roots sank no lower than this
subterranean sea. Its bed was a shelf of granite a hundred
yards thick. The Dreaming Caves hid beneath. The
Phyrexians could not have found them there, and even
Multani would not have except for the guidance of
Molimo. He showed the way. Though most roots did not
plumb the water table and crack the granite shelf,
quosumic tap roots did.
    A tree that stands thousands of feet tall plunges equally
deep.
    Still, the way was not easy. Multani spiraled down a
quosumic tree that pulsed with agony. The tree's crown
had been eaten by plague. Not a single leaf remained. Half
the branches were destroyed. Rot-plague girdled the bole in
five separate rings. To move through dying wood was
terrifying. Every impulse cried out that Multani should
escape. Instead, he coursed lower, beneath the fecund
humus, through the frigid underworld sea, through even
granite, to the caves.
    Multani emerged from the taproot precisely where the
refugees had. He assembled a body for himself out of albino
tendrils and glowing lichens. Cave crickets became his eyes
and blond roaches his fingers and toes. It was a spectral
form, venous and shimmering, but it was the only life he
could gather in these deeps. Surely, he would be no more
ghastly than the refugees themselves. He followed their
footprints.
    Something strange—a fresh warm breeze rolled up the
passage toward him. It felt like the soft tides of air that
bring spring rain. It smelled of lightning. Here, three


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                      J. Robert King

thousand feet below the over-world, blew breezes redolent
with life. It was impossible or at least miraculous.
    Surely that breeze would circle the Seed of Freyalise.
    Multani followed it. Through winding ways, it went.
No longer did he track a trail of blood and tears but now a
breath of hope.
    He reached a wide cavern. The folk there not only
breathed hope. They sang it. In fire circles they gathered,
singing and speaking, eating and healing. The fires were
impossible. There was no fuel, no ventilation. They burned
even so. The food, also, was ludicrous—groppa wine, dried
apples, braid bread, honey butter, arbor grapes, onion
chives, and game hens. Some circles ate lesser fare, mere
trail rations, and others feasted on eel and cheese and the
board of kings. It was dream food. Still, it nourished them
as surely as the fires gave them warmth and light. Those
who believed health were healed. Those who made
themselves glad were glad.
    One man had taught them to dream beauties, and they
had dreamed him into glory. He was just ahead, walking
among the multitude. Eladamri's hands gently lingering in
theirs and awoke health.
    Multani approached. Even in the enthralled throng, a
man made of roots and tendrils was a strange sight. The
people parted before him.
    Eladamri lifted his face to behold a man with cave-
cricket eyes.
    Multani bowed, a wry smile on lips of white moss.
"Greetings, Seed of Freyalise. I bring news from the forest."
    The man's eyes were changed. He was no simple elf
now. He was something more. Divine forces had conspired
to make him a tool, and he had at last allowed himself to
become one.



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     "Do not tell me here, amid the throng. I would not let
your news resound needlessly through these Dream Caves."
     He was wise. Word of atrocities above could awake
atrocities below.
     Multani said simply, "You will not escape this throng,
and so—" he took Eladamri's hand. Through touch, he sent
his thoughts.
     The palace tree is destroyed, with all who remained above.
This is despite the ceaseless labors of giant spiders to contain the
contagion. So too, plague ravages the trade house of Kelfae and
the port of Wellspree of the ]ubilar. Throughout the forest, death
is rampant.
     Eladamri gazed bleakly at the tendril man. This is not
news. We knew all above was destroyed by the bombs.
     It is worse. The first ship has landed in the ruins of Staprion
Palace. The smell of oil-blood pervades the ship and its crew.
They descend within the palace tree, following the route that led
you here. You must take a war party up to battle them.
     Yes, answered Eladamri simply.
     You are their savior now. You must save them.
     And I was a warrior before. I will gladly fight these
monsters.

                              *****

    Gerrard led Tahngarth, Sisay, and a party of warriors
down the winding heart of the tree. In one hand, he
clutched a lantern and the jar that held the last of Orim's
serum. In the other, he clutched a sword. Death in one
hand and life in the other.
    Gerrard snorted, slashing a cobweb that draped the
treacherous path. He paused, peering into the gloom below.




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                      J. Robert King

    "Someone's down there." He lifted the lantern. Its light
beamed against the splintery hollow of the tree, tracing out
the spiral stairs.
    It showed more webs, and dead elves hanging in them.
"Someone's alive down there. I can sense it."
    Tahngarth stared over his shoulder and lifted an
eloquent eyebrow. "You can ... sense it?"
    "There's a presence. A power I can't quite describe."
    The minotaur rumbled quietly. "Since when have you
been a mystic?"
    "I sense it too," Sisay said behind him. "A fey power."
    Sheathing his sword, Gerrard cupped a hand to his
mouth. "We come in peace. We come with serum to stop
the plague."
    A voice came from below, resonant like the voice of
the wood itself. "Since when do Phyrexians come in
peace?"
    "We are not Phyrexians."
    "You smell like Phyrexians."
    "It is the plague treatment," Gerrard replied. "Its
immunity is derived from Phyrexian blood. We have been
treated. We have brought more for you."
    The voice was dubious. "We have found our own cure,
one that does not make us reek of Phyrexia."
    "Your forest is cured? It does not seem so to me. Do you
prefer the reek of rot and death to the reek of oil-blood?"
    The voice was angry. "Who are you?"
    "I am Commander Gerrard Capashen of Weatherlight,
here with Captain Sisay and First-Mate Tahngarth."
    A laugh answered. "Oh, yes, Gerrard—the Korvecdal."
    "The Korvecdal?" Gerrard laughed as well. "No, I'm no
Uniter, just an honest fighting man." He took a long
breath. "How did you know?"



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     "I know because I am the true Korvecdal, the true
Uniter."
     Even as the stately figure ascended into the lantern's
glow, Gerrard realized. "Eladamri of the Skyshroud! What
are you doing here?"
     "It's too long a tale," said the elf. A retinue of elf
warriors came behind him. "Let it simply be put that you
and I have traded places. Once you were thought the
Uniter and I the common hero. Now, it is as it is. Let us
trust that higher powers understand this chess match."
     "I don't trust any powers but my sword arm and these
friends."
     "Which, again, is as it should be."
     "And one of those friends devised this serum," he said,
holding up the jar. "It has saved the crew of my ship. It can
halt the plague among your people."
     Eladamri's eyes seemed brighter than the lantern. "My
people, just now, are safe from the plague. It is the forest
that languishes."
     "Then, give this serum to whatever druid or nature
spirit might make use of it to heal the forest."
     Suddenly, a figure took form between the two men. He
was a green-man, made of splinters and vines. His eyes
were a pair of seed pods, his teeth a row of mushrooms.
     Other men might have shied back from the strange
creature, but Gerrard himself had learned maro-sorcery
from such a man.
     "Master!" Gerrard said in sudden recognition. His knees
buckled. His fingers went nerveless around the jar of serum.
It slipped free, plunging toward the hollow of the tree.
     Multani's viny arm shot out, snatching the jar from the
air. "Thank you, Gerrard."
     "I-I feared you ... I feared you were dead," stammered
Gerrard.


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                       J. Robert King

    "I feared the same for you, many times over," Multani
replied, lifting Gerrard to his feet. "It is good to know fears
do not always prevail." He spread fibrous arms through the
darkness. "Welcome, Gerrard and Weatherlight....
Welcome to Llanowar."




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                  Chapter 25
               The Battle of Urborg

    "Come away from Keld," Urza said, appearing suddenly
out of nowhere.
    Barrin did not even startle. He didn't care enough
anymore to startle. He'd been crouching here beside the
fjord, watching frigid water mound up with the rising tide.
Foam stole tentatively across the sand bars and kissed the
keels of Keldon longships. In less than an hour, the
warships would stand in twenty feet of water. Then Barrin
and his erstwhile foes, the Keldons—gray and massive and
impatient on the docks— would ship together for more
wars in Western Keld. "Come away from Keld," Urza
repeated.
    Barrin squinted up at him. "How dare you? You told me
this battle was everything. You told me I'd just have to
forget what these ... what these beasts did to Rayne. So I
did. I did just like you said. And now you so blithely call
me away?"
    Urza stared back, his eyes like twin candles. He stood
on a black fist of basalt beside the fjord and seemed just
another stony extrusion. Beneath woolen skies, his war-
robes were dark except where snowflakes pasted
themselves.
    "This battle is no longer everything."
    "Damn you, Urza," Barrin said bitterly.
    Sea spray vaulted up behind the planeswalker. "It's the
army, not the battle. That's why you had to forget about

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your wife. I needed this army. I need them for a better
fight."
     "What better fight?" Barrin asked wearily.
     "Urborg."
     Barrin barked a laugh. He couldn't have imagined a
more ludicrous response. "Urborg? A cesspool of liches and
ghosts and zombies, brimstone and malaria? Yes, oh, yes,
that's a better fight."
     "Urborg is key to the next phase of the Phyrexians'
plan. They cannot be allowed to gain it."
     Shaking his head dispiritedly, Barrin said, "Why not?
Urborg deserves them. They'd probably be at home there."
     "That's the reason, exactly. They would be at home,"
Urza replied evenly. "Koilos and Urborg. If Yawgmoth
gains footholds there, he can straddle the world."
     "All the better to punch him in the groin," Barrin
growled. He flung a shard of basalt out to skip across the
foaming flood.
     "You sound angry, my friend," Urza said. He stepped
down from the rock and approached. "These northern
climes are wearing on you."
     Barrin stood. He gazed at a gray wave that struck the
pebble bank and sent rocks tumbling toward the shore.
     "Benalia is lost. Zhalfir and Shiv are gone. Now Keld is
falling too. I thought I could forget Rayne in war but not
when war screams—'Loss! Loss! Loss!' "
     The planeswalker shook his head. Icy wind tore at his
ash-blond hair. "It is not all loss. Yavimaya has won.
Llanowar has won—"
     "Llanowar!"
     "Yes. I understand that your daughter was instrumental
in the victory."




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    "Hanna," Barrin breathed. He closed his eyes,
imagining her bright smile. The face he saw, though, was
that of Rayne. "I should go congratulate her."
    A strange shadow passed across Urza's gemstone eyes.
"Soon, my friend, but not yet. Urborg awaits us. I want you
to convince the Keldons to sail to Urborg at best time and
rendezvous with you there. Meanwhile, you'll be mustering
the Serrans who survived the fall of Benalia. We will need
their angel armies."
    "Serrans and Keldons?" Barrin looked sick. "Strange
alliances."
    "Stranger and stranger," Urza agreed. "Dominaria will
not be saved unless all Dominarians fight. I am arranging a
great coalition among the many nations of the globe.
Those who stand alone will fall. Those who unite will
conquer."
    Barrin stared appreciatively at his friend. "I never
thought I'd hear Urza Planeswalker admit needing help
from anyone."
    Urza shrugged away the comment. "Of course, Lord
Windgrace and his panther warriors will join us. I'll be
bringing elf warriors from Yavimaya and helionauts from
Tolaria—"
    "Helionauts," Barrin interrupted. "Tolaria will be
vulnerable without them."
    "We all must make sacrifices," Urza said.
    Barrin shrugged, staring across the rising tide. Already,
two of the Keldon longships bobbed levelly on the flood.
Up stout gangplanks marched Keldon warriors, crates
loaded on their backs.
    "All right. I'll do what you ask. The Keldons and
Serrans will be there at best time. We'll fight your battle
for you. We'll drive out the Phyrexians and leave the place
to the liches."


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                      J. Robert King

   "Good," Urza said simply as he began to disappear. "I'll
look for you there."

                           *****

    Barrin flew in the midst of an angelic host. Their wings
gleamed white above a pitching sea. Wind whistled from
perfect pinions and set songs in the air.
    This was how Serrans flew—enmeshed in music. It was
why their attack squadrons were called choirs. Each
creature knew her part. Each flew in precise pitch with the
others. Like fish in a school, who sense the movement of
the whole in pressure points along their sides, angels knew
by harmonies and dissonances where they flew, how they
fought, and whom they slew.
    Barrin was at home among these inhuman glories. He
rode ahead of them, aback a winged horse conjured from
thin air. The creature seemed a thing of cloud—white and
gleaming, halfway between solidity and mist. Still, it was
powerful. Wings spread wide on the wind. With each
surging stroke, the beast's neck bent. Its hooves churned
the air as though it leaped steeples.
    Of course, Barrin did not need a winged steed. He could
fly with a mere thought, but he had been inspired by
Teferi's phoenix flocks. There was something appealing
about riding into battle on a creature of pure imagination.
This horse would not tire. It would not bleed. It would not
foam or spit or die—all the filthy things that true flesh had
done over and over the last long weeks.
    As glorious as the angel choir behind him, as
magnificent as the ideal creature beneath him, Barrin could
not keep his spirits from slumping. He was sick of war, sick
to death of it. He didn't mind killing Phyrexians. He
minded watching Phyrexians kill angels and Keldons, elves


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and Metathran and humans. He minded knowing that lives
were mere chess pieces in a match between Urza and
Yawgmoth.
    Barrin was tired of being a pawn.
    "There," he murmured, looking dead ahead. Though he
was still a hundred miles out, a gazing enchantment
brought every detail in crystalline clarity to his eyes.
    Beyond the alabaster wings of his mount, Urborg
loomed up out of the sea. It was a black and awful chain of
islands. Dormant volcanoes hissed sulfuric steam into the
air. Pestilential swamps stretched beneath forests of dead
trees. The air waved with nauseous heat and rattled with a
billion billion bugs. The only solid ground was muck. The
only water was poisoned. The only living inhabitants were
allies of, or slaves to, or prey for the unliving. Ghouls,
liches, zombies, wraiths—necromantic horrors all.
    That was the normal aspect of Urborg. Since
Phyrexians had moved into the neighborhood, things had
gone significantly downhill. Now, the skies teemed with
dragon engines and undead serpents. Like devil rays, they
drifted in lazy circles around the isles—guardians and
watchdogs for the forces below. There were plenty of forces
below. Three Phyrexian cruisers had landed. They sat atop
long pylons sunk in the marshes. These were the command
centers. Troop transports in their hundreds had also
landed, off loading Phyrexians especially bred for swamp
combat. The officers of these units rode small airship
through the swamps, wedge-shaped chariots with batwing
airfoils.
    Despite Urza's best intentions, the Phyrexians already
ruled Urborg. Now Barrin and his angels would fight
demons for possession of hell.
    More than Barrin and his angels....



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                      J. Robert King

    He glimpsed eight huge rags of sail stretched on the
wind. Keldon longships. They tore parallel lines through an
angry sea. Reaching full out, they seemed to plan a
ramming attack on the main isle itself. Knowing Keldons,
it was a surety. They would drive their ships up as far as
they would go, perhaps a thousand yards into the salt
marshes, ram whatever Phyrexian landing craft they could
find, clamber up on the decks, and kill, kill, kill.
    Oh, yes, the Keldons would have a grand time today.
    Above them, seeming almost their reflection in the sky,
soared a squadron of airships—Tolarian helionauts. Each
looked like a galleon, its fore and mid decks encased in a
dome of glass and steel. From the center of the aft deck rose
a mechanical arm topped in whirling blades. Defensive
spines bristled at prow, gunwales, and stern. Three pulser
guns pivoted fore and aft, but the true weapon of the ship
was the whirling blades.
    Those blades proved themselves now. Darting down
with the speed of eagles, Tolarian helionauts swarmed the
island.
    Dragon engines rose to do battle. Skulls craned
backward to belch flame. Mechanical claws raked out.
Tails scourged the air. On leather wings, Phyrexian dragon
engines leaped into the sky and bathed their foes in a river
of fire.
    The helionauts plunged into the blazing flood. Flames
licked across polished metal. Fire left a blush of steam in
windscreens. Tolarian pilots rubbed away the condensation
and shot through the flame. Pulsers spat streams of
disruption fire. The charges jagged across the sky to impact
dragon engines. Blue energy sparked and danced across
their metal frames. It held them in a paralyzing grip, just
long enough for the blades to come to bear.



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    With spinning scythes, helionauts sliced through
dragon engines. Wings were sheered from the beasts. Heads
chopped free. Even ribs ground to shards and dust. Hunks
of dragon engine fell from the air.
    It was not as easy as that, though. From a volcanic vent
below, more dragon engines arrived like shooting steam.
These were larger beasts. The others had been only keen-
eyed sentries. These dragon engines were decked for war.
They jetted into the sky straight beneath the helionauts.
Wings surged once last and folded beneath wicked
shoulders. Dragons rammed helionaut hulls.
    Planished metal buckled. Joints failed. Great holes
gouged in the sides of the ships. Out spilled crews and
ruined mechanisms. One craft was struck so hard it
bounced upward and chewed the belly out of another.
They both plunged from the sky. A third helionaut began
spinning drunkenly beneath its whirling scythes. It veered
like a gyro and dropped, destroying a dragon engine on its
way to ground.
    The remaining helionauts filled the air with pulser
blasts. Charges chased dragon engines through the sky.
Power lay hold of them, paralyzed for a moment. Before the
ships could tear them apart, though, other dragon engines
attacked. Helionauts hailed down.
    Barrin suddenly regretted the gazing enchantment.
What was the good of seeing a battle that was still miles
away?
    Then everything changed. Dragon engines tore each
other apart.
    Barrin blinked, wondering what he saw. Suddenly, he
knew.
    Down upon the Phyrexian dragon engines soared real
dragons— Rhammidarigaaz and his dragon nations. The
ancient Shivan wyrm led four other dragon lords, one for


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                      J. Robert King

each of the colors of magic. They flew wing and wing,
onetime foes turned stolid allies. In the wake of these five
great dragons flew whole serpentine nations. They poured
from the sky as the Phyrexians had geysered from the
ground.
    Darigaaz flew in the vanguard. Fireballs rolled from his
claws and baked dragon engines. Lava spouted from his
throat and melted them in midair. To his one side flew the
green dragon lord, trailing spores. They clumped onto
Phyrexian engines and grew rampantly, cracking their
joints. The white lord of dragons followed. It only flew, its
pure wings cleaving through Phyrexians like light through
nightmares. The blue dragon lord meanwhile sent spells
out to rip the air from under scabrous wings. The black
dragon and his folk, though, were fiercest of all. They
smashed atop their evil brethren and ripped them apart
with bare claws. Hunks of dragon engine fell to crash
spectacularly in the swamps.
    More things crashed in the swamps. Keldon longships—
dagger-like with their mainsails reefed and outriggers cut
loose—glided with surreal speed through the salt marshes.
Rams split dead trees in their path. Keldon great swords
clove Phyrexian troopers clawing to board. Arrows poured
out from the decks, from this distance seeming ripples
spreading from the prow.
    "Arrows?" Barrin wondered to himself.
    The first longships at last ran aground, a thousand yards
inland. From the rails leaped massive Keldons in their
hundreds, but also others—lithe, quick, slender. Elves.
Urza must somehow have arranged their passage with
Barrin's Keldon warriors. Strange coalitions. Brawny and
scrawny, arrogant and elegant, Keldons and elves rushed
side by side into battle.



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    Beyond their lines, Phyrexian shock troops rose from
rock grottos to slay. They were as thick as maggots on a
corpse and outnumbered the Keldons and elves a hundred
to one. At their head, gliding aboard wedge-shaped air-
chariots, rode black-armored commanders.
    "They'll need help down there," Barrin decided.
Helionauts and dragons ruled the skies, but Phyrexians
ruled the ground. Barrin lifted his hand in an attack signal
and sent his winged steed into a steep dive.
    Angels swept down behind him. Their song rose an
octave into a shrill whistle. The music lost none of its
glory, only becoming more inhuman.
    In moments, they had dropped from the blue heavens
to the black swamps. Dead trees flashed past in gray stripes.
Angels darted like silver blades in their midst. Depthless
water churned below the hurtling hooves of Barrin's steed.
    Ahead, a Phyrexian commander roared forward atop his
air-chariot.
    Barrin gathered the power of islands and seas and sent a
blue enchantment ripping out from his fingers. It twined in
air and grasped the chariot. The vessel flipped over and
drove downward, ramming its driver headfirst into a mud
embankment. The chariot bounded up to crack against a
tree and rattle to ground. Only the driver's legs jutted from
the mound, and they were broken and still.
    The shock troops beyond continued their charge.
    Angels jagged out before Barrin. Their magna swords
sliced Phyrexians. Blades bit into spiky shoulders and cut
clean through to hunched legs. They cleft heads and gutted
chests. Magna swords ran black and golden with guts and
oil. The angel song had become a bloody thing, part battle
hymn, part requiem.
    Barrin lashed out with a rainbow of sorceries. His first
spell turned Phyrexians on each other. His next sorcery


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                      J. Robert King

infected hundreds more with carbuncles of rust. Catching
his breath, Barrin unleashed a simple but effective fireball,
melting metal and bone and flesh. As he gathered another
enchantment, Barrin's steed smashed hooves atop
Phyrexian heads.
    Still, there were so many shock troops—too many.
Phyrexians rose from every hollow and every deadfall.
Plague-infected claws sank into angel throats. Pincers
ripped wings from their sockets. Stingers pumped venom
into pure hearts. Serrans dropped like moths.
    The Keldons fared even worse. They held a nearby
ridge but were surrounded by Phyrexian slashers. Elven
arrows did nothing against the metal beasts, all legs and
blades. Keldon swords only clanged helplessly against them.
Shoulder to shoulder, the strange allies were being ground
to pieces.
    "Break through!" Barrin called to the Serrans. "Break
through to the Keldons!"
    The battle shifted. Angels gathered up behind the
winged steed. Barrin and his beleaguered troops rose from
the swamp. Black-mana spells followed them up, claiming
two more Serrans. The rest escaped. It was a tattered group,
angry and wounded, that broke from one overwhelming
battle only to enter another. They had lost many comrades
already and would lose more in moments.
    Barrin's winged horse punched through curtains of
moss. Angel wings tore the rest to ribbons. Sloughs beyond
teemed with mosquitoes. Leather-backed shapes moved
darkly through the water. Perhaps they would keep the
Phyrexians from pursuing.
    The dead forest gave way to a stinking lake, beyond
which rose the ridge where the Keldons and elves stood
surrounded.



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    Barrin led his aerial units out across the inky waters.
They would be too late. Shock troops and slashers closed
in. Even now, the shores boiled with black figures rising to
join the Phyrexian ranks. They surged up eagerly behind
the pressing armies and lent their putrid claws to the
killing.
    Except they were killing Phyrexians.
    Ghouls climbed in their thousands from the rank water.
The remains of their former clothes and skin and muscle
draped in tatters from their skeletons. They shambled with
a hungry will up among the Phyrexian troops and piled
atop them. Horns pierced their rotting flesh. It didn't
matter. Blades chopped limbs from their bodies. It made no
difference. Ghoul flesh clambered onto Phyrexians,
gumming up every joint, choking every throat, burying
every beast.
    Mouth hanging open in amazed horror, Barrin diverted
his troops up and away from the carnage. Angels jagged
skyward behind the winged steed. As Barrin gazed down at
the strange tableaux, he glimpsed, in the crest of a rotten
stump, the black-garbed necromancer that had raised the
ghouls. Its face was a patchwork of desiccated flesh over
white bone. It was a lich, an undead creature itself—but it
was Dominarian. It mustered its minions to fight
Phyrexians.
    Just before the winged steed carried Barrin beyond a
stand of trees, he glimpsed a small, acknowledging nod
from the lich, the sort given by comrades in the thick of
battle.
    Strange coalitions.
    Barrin leaned down against the glimmering neck of his
mount and clutched it, panting sickly.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 26
          A Plaything for Tsabo Tavoc

    They did not expect us to penetrate this far, Thaddeus
told himself.
    He climbed a dust embankment and crashed against a
new wave of Phyrexians. His sword rammed deep into the
jowls of one beast. The blade sliced upward alongside a
four-foot fang and to the root. With a violent, wet lurch,
the tooth was pulled from its socket and fell into
Thaddeus's grasp. Flipping the thing over, he clutched the
root like the hilt of a sword.
    The Phyrexian bowled into Thaddeus. Rolling onto his
back, Thaddeus set sword and tooth side by side on the
creature's thorax. It impaled itself on the twin spikes. Amid
a gush of glistening-oil, Thaddeus kicked out and flipped
the monster over. The corpse tumbled down the hillside.
Thaddeus rose, sword in one hand and tooth in the other.
    They had not expected us to penetrate this far. No
trench works, no palisades, no defensive batteries. All they
have are these suicide squads, hurling their bones on top of
us. It will not be enough.
    "Forward!" Thaddeus commanded, tooth lifted high.
His sword lanced into the olfactory cavity of another
monster, hewing into brain. The stuff sluiced like gray
pudding down the nasal shaft and poured over Thaddeus.
The beast slumped. Beyond hackled shoulders, the cave
appeared. "Into the caves!"


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    Striding up the fallen hulk, Thaddeus hacked the head
from a snakelike Phyrexian and ran down its twitching
body. His corps followed, perhaps fifty fighters. He had lost
half his troops in the mad, mile-long charge to the caves.
The Phyrexians had lost hundreds. The Metathran that
remained were the best fighters Thaddeus had. They would
carve their way to the command core and down to the
portal and set off enough bombs to seal it. Victory at Koilos
was almost in hand.

                           *****

    Thaddeus and his strike force were but glinting helms
in the distant fighting. They couldn't have penetrated so
far. Something was amiss.
    Agnate peered at the scene from atop a mound of dead.
More died each moment, adding to the cairn of flesh.
Phyrexians and Metathran fought ferociously, spilled each
others' blood, and lay down side by side like brothers—
huge and twisted brothers. The adversaries this day seemed
descendants of the first feuding brothers who had battled
over this same dirt clod six thousand years before.
    A Phyrexian foot soldier scrambled up the mound of
dead. It was humanlike, its torso shot through with metal
struts that reinforced its biological spine. Gray muscles
torqued among gears. It smiled as it came, teeth like a line
of bones.
    With a yell, Agnate brought his axe down on the
soldier's head. It had expected the attack. It turned an
armored shoulder to the blade. Steel met steel instead of
flesh. Agnate's blade clung to the magnetized shoulder-
piece. The soldier lunged back, ripping the axe from
Agnate's grasp.



                            246
                     J. Robert King

    It clutched the hilt and brandished the blade with a
yell.
    The Metathran commander drew a dagger and hurled
it. The knife clanged against magnetic struts and clung
there, shuddering.
    "More weapons?" the beast taunted, clutching the
dagger.
    Agnate stepped backward down the hill of death and
stared incredulously. "It speaks."
    "It thinks too. It plans. It uses your weapons against
you." The four-armed thing hurled itself at him, swinging
axe and dagger in a dual attack.
    Agnate ducked under the axe—the worse of the two
blades— but took the dagger in the shoulder. Clasping his
hand atop the weapon's hilt and the beast's claw, Agnate
ran beneath the Phyrexian's arm and rushed up the hill.
The dagger anchored the monster's arm, forcing its joints
into unnatural alignments. The wrist popped first, then the
twin bones of the forearm broke, the elbow yanked out of
joint, and the shoulder separated from the metal
framework. One final surge, and the arm came off
altogether.
    Agnate wheeled, pulling the dagger from his shoulder
and flinging the severed arm away.
    The Phyrexian crouched atop the dead pile, its life
streaming from the amputation. Still, bonelike teeth
gleamed with a smile.
    "Commander Thaddeus is doomed. Tsabo Tavoc wants
him. Tsabo Tavoc gets him."
    Agnate coldly approached the creature and drove his
dagger into the thing's skull. Fingers eased from Agnate's
axe, and he retrieved it.
    It thinks ... it plans ... it uses your weapons against
you....


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   Agnate hissed, standing. The whole thing was a trap.
Thaddeus was being drawn in, his strike force decimated
and he ...
   Tsabo Tavoc wants him.... Tsabo Tavoc gets him....
   Taking a moment to chop his axe into the flank of
another Phyrexian, Agnate flung his mind out across the
battlefield. He reached for Thaddeus, an instinct since the
moment of their creation. Twins, identical in body and
mind, they had forever fought in tandem. Always, they had
known each other's mind—
   Not in this battle. A greater mind interposed itself
between them. Agnate could only batter his thoughts
against that solid and seamless presence.
   Tsabo Tavoc wants him.... Tsabo Tavoc gets him....

                            *****

    He fights beautifully, magnificently. He fights like a
lion.
    Tsabo Tavoc took a deep, satisfied breath. Lids closed
over compound eyes. She had no desire to see the cave that
ensconced her. It was the battle beyond that she watched
with inner eyes. Distally, she experienced the slaughter of
thousands of Metathran and felt the murder of thousands of
her own children. Proximally, she sensed armies of warriors
arriving even then through the portal, red-robed vat priests
among them. In the middle distance, she felt Thaddeus.
    He kills with such grim pleasure.
    Tsabo Tavoc shifted her legs. A tremor of ecstasy
moved through the mechanisms as Thaddeus clove the
head of a gargantua. She had not intended to sacrifice that
one. Gargantuas were hunched things of gray muscle, their
feet as wide and rooted as trees. Flesh like rhino hide plated
their torsos. Scythe claws could divide a man into five


                             248
                      J. Robert King

sections. Grotesque swells of bone covered their bulbous
heads. Within lurked brains built for bloodlust and
obedience. It took a century to grow a gargantua—a
century and implants from ten separate species. Thaddeus
had killed it in a moment. That was a costly loss—and yet
all the more piquant because of it.
     Thaddeus and his forty stormed the cave mouth. The
gate guard lined up before them, claws and teeth at the
ready. She would not thin their blood. If Thaddeus were to
gain his way within, he would need to gain it honestly.
     Tsabo Tavoc propelled another gargantua up before
Thaddeus.
     It raked its claws outward and caught Thaddeus as
though he were a grasshopper. One simple squeeze and—
     Tsabo Tavoc took a shuddering breath as she felt
Thaddeus's sword slice the tendons of the beasts wrist.
Flexors balled up beneath the elbow and extensors,
splaying the claws uselessly back. It was a glorious strike.
The pain was exquisite.
     Thaddeus dropped to the ground.
     The gargantua had another arm. It grabbed Thaddeus.
It clenched its fist. There would be a brief spray and the
gurgle of meat between claws—
     Except that two of those claws were lopped off by the
Metathran. He vaulted through the bloody space and ran
up the gargantua's scaly arm.
     Tsabo Tavoc smiled. He was good. What would it be
next? Heart? Spine? Throat? Brain?
     The gargantua's dead claws flailed at Thaddeus. They
cut shallowly into him.
     He reached the beast's shoulder. There was something
in his hand—long, white, and curved. It shone point-on for
a moment before the tooth plunged into the gargantua's
eye. It sank through cornea and humors, up the optic


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nerve. The tooth bit into brain, cracking out the top of the
skull.
    Tsabo Tavoc did not withdraw from the gargantua as it
slumped down in death. She wanted to feel that tooth
through her mind, that black welling tide of death in every
tissue. She wanted to suffer Thaddeus's victory. It would
make her own triumph all the more sweet.
    Thaddeus was inside the cave. He and twenty of his
warriors had fought their way in. They would strike for the
command core. They would all die but one. Thaddeus
would be hers.
    Ah, war is a glorious enterprise.
    Tsabo Tavoc opened her compound eyes. She stood on
eager legs and ambled out into the cavern beyond.

                            *****

    The gargantuas were fearsome beasts, but they died as
had the sand worms, spinal centipedes, Metathran zombies,
scuta, blood-stocks, and shock troops. Thaddeus's hundred
had been winnowed to a simple score, but they had carved
their way into the Phyrexian fortress. Now it was only a
matter of discovering the fortress's heart, and tearing it out,
and feasting on it.
    "Gather up!" he shouted. The Caves of Koilos picked
up his voice and hollered it back at him. Thaddeus smiled.
The sound was good.
    As they advanced, the twenty warriors converged on
Thaddeus. "We drive for the portal. Once it is closed, we'll
clear out the command center. How many pikes remain?"
Four of the warriors lifted high their pikes. "Good. Take
the vanguard. Axes take the rear. Swords take the flanks.
Slay only those beasts who give battle. This is their
beachhead. They will defend it furiously. Don't be drawn


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away from the main group and the main objective—the
portal. How many grenades?"
    Eighteen of the twenty had bandoleers.
    "Excellent. That will bury the mirror podium in a half-
mile of rock. Downward."
    The final word was not spoken before pikes bristled
across the vanguard and axes gleamed at the rear.
Thaddeus himself took to the right flank, knowing the first
turn would cast him in a blind corner. Muscular and
vicious, the strike force rushed to the gap. Pikes rounded
the corner, intent on whatever lay beyond.
    Flesh lay beyond—flesh and horns and fangs. Pikes sank
into the shrieking wall of monsters. Impaled, they came on.
    Jaws as large as a bear trap clamped the head of one
pikeman. Triangular teeth converged, closing in an
inescapable bite. With a crunch, they severed the man's
spine. His body dropped away, hands yet holding the haft.
    A man in the vanguard released his pike, drew his
sword, and stabbed. The blade buried itself in a beast's
belly. It sliced through scales and muscles and plunged into
some black organ beneath. The Phyrexian shrieked. Acids
sprayed from its stomach. They ate away the man's hand
and arm to the elbow. He died beneath his falling foe.
    The tumbling monster dropped sideways, crushing the
third pikeman.
    The fourth vaulted up the beast and drove his sword
into the head of another. Steel cracked bone and brain.
The monster— what seemed a giant ground sloth but could
have been almost anything in that murk—was
unimpressed. Its fist pounded its own head, crushing the
pikeman and driving the sword deeper.
    The vanguard was gone, and only ten feet gained into
the cave.
    "Forward!" Thaddeus commanded, taking the van.


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    His sword cut between two huge eyes. They peeled back
on opposite sides of a split visage. Thaddeus kicked a
foothold in the bisected sinus cavities and vaulted atop the
hissing beast. He climbed the thing.
    "Forward!"
    Thaddeus's sword hewed a path through beasts. Slick
with glistening-oil, his boots reached ground. He advanced
into the dark.
    Battle sounds suddenly hushed. Thaddeus whirled. Even
the light of the entrance was lost. It was as though a door
had slid silently closed behind him.
    Thaddeus kept his sword at the ready. He reached to his
belt, grabbed a flare, and broke the thing in half. A red
flame shot from each edge. The light gleamed dimly off
walls of smooth stone.
    How did I get separated?
    He spun, glimpsing movement out of the corner of his
eye. Turning fully around, he watched for shadows against
the dark wall. No one was there.
    He should have looked up.
    A metallic spider leg knocked his sword away. Crushing
weight flung him to his back. His flare skipped angrily
across the floor. Thaddeus struggled to grab a grenade. It
was no good. His hands were pinned. He was trapped.
    In the sulfuric half-light, a voice spoke. It was as
omnipresent and alien as a cicada chorus: "Tsabo Tavoc
wants you. Tsabo Tavoc will have you."




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 27
                   She is So Light

    Where once rot and death had filled the treetops, now
music and life reigned.
    Of course, the ravages of war remained—whole crowns
had been eaten away, whole villages destroyed, whole
families wiped from the face of Dominaria. The heights of
Llanowar were gashed open to the skies. It would never be
the same. Even after suckers grew to twigs and branches to
boughs, the forest would forever bear the taste of
glistening-oil. It was the curse of the cure.
    The celebrants were not blind to all they had lost. That
knowledge only deepened their joy. The disease had been
stopped. One cure had come from below with the Seed of
Freyalise, the other from above with the Scion of Benalia.
Gerrard had granted immunity to those who were healthy,
and Eladamri health to those who were sick. Between the
two, they had saved Llanowar.
    The feast spread through the eight treetops where once
the
    Staprion Elfhame had extended. Every last bit of
corruption had been scoured away. Many boughs were
bared to their quick. Tender new bark struggled to close
exposed sections. With the aid of Multani, branches
budded, leaves fanned into air. Vine networks sent tendrils
to the ruined reaches. Sunlight streamed into the ancient
heart of the wood.


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    What remained of the former palace was pulled down
and fashioned into an altar and shrine for those who had
fallen. Elves whose hollows were destroyed wove hanging
nests of aerial roots. Giant spiders lent their spinnerets to
string gossamer highways through the canopy.
    Perhaps Llanowar would never be the same. Perhaps it
would be better. All of it was because of three foreigners—
one from a different forest, another from a different nation,
and a third from a different world.
    Multani, Gerrard, and Eladamri stood side-by-side on a
lofted curve of high bough. The noontime sun warmed
their shoulders. Below, in the broad lap of the tree,
thronged the survivors of Staprion. On thread-ways to
either side lingered the faithful of Jubilar. Other elves,
farther out on the adjacent trees, had arrived from as far
away as Kelfae and Hedressel. All had come to glimpse the
elf rumored to be the Seed of Freyalise and to observe his
strange and powerful comrades from afar. All had come to
cheer and revel.
    The adulation had given the men little chance to trade
words. Since reaching this overlook, they had been busy
with hand-waving, smiling, and nodding.
    Gerrard was unwilling to delay longer. He reached out
to Multani, a hand of flesh grasping a hand of vine. The
crowd loved the gesture, their roars vaulting gladly up.
    Over the uproar, Gerrard said, "I am glad, after all these
years, to know that you live, Master Multani."
    The green-man smiled, snail-shell teeth showing
between rose-petal lips. "It is no easy thing to kill a maro-
sorcerer. We don and doff our bodies as you do your
clothes. I will not die, not truly, while Yavimaya yet lives."
    Nodding in realization, Gerrard said, "Very truly, then,
the last months brought you near to death."



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                     J. Robert King

    "Yes," Multani replied. His eyes—twin fish swimming
in socket-pools—flickered in remembered pain. "The
Battle of Yavimaya is won, as is the Battle of Llanowar,
thanks to you and Eladamri."
    Eladamri turned to his comrades, clasping their hands.
Again, the revelers cried out gladly.
    "I am only a tool of higher powers," said Eladamri
humbly.
    "As are we all," Gerrard said with a laugh.
    "As are we all," Multani agreed. "Still, Llanowar owes
you both a great debt."
    Drawing a deep breath, Gerrard said, "I would like to
collect on that debt." His two companions looked
surprised, but Gerrard waved away their concern. "It is the
smallest of prices for you and the forest but the dearest
treasure I could beg."
    Eladamri stared seriously at his friend. "Whatever you
ask."
    "Whatever is in our power."
    "It is in your power," Gerrard said. "Take us to
Weatherlight. I will explain there."
    Without a moment's pause, Multani's viny arms
reached out around his companions, encircling them. More
stalks and stems insinuated themselves through the
framework of the nature spirit. His body grew. Long arms
branched from his shoulders. Tendrils reached up to
encircle boughs overhead. Multani pulled free of the
overlook where they stood. Brachiating beneath the
overhanging branches, Multani carried the two saviors of
Llanowar over the head of the crowd.
    Below, the people cried out in thrilled amazement.
    Multani seemed a spider dangling from his thousand
legs and picking his patient way across the canopy.



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    Ahead, Weatherlight rested in the broad crook of a
quosumic tree. Even at midday, the ship gleamed like a
jewel box. In addition to running-lanterns, she had been
decked with festive lights for the celebration. The prison
brigade thronged the deck, quaffing elven wine and
cheering. A contingent of once-xenophobic Steal Leaf
warriors had joined them, trading war stories. Above it all,
in the noontime skies, the Benalian aerial armada
swarmed. They seemed almost living fireworks, circling
joyously.
    With strange solemnity, Multani bore Gerrard and
Eladamri toward the festive folk.
    As they approached, the cheers and oaths quieted.
Wine jacks ceased rising to lips, which in turn grew
respectfully still. Everyone aboard Weatherlight knew the
weight on Gerrard's heart. They knew the boon he would
ask of Multani and Eladamri. The crowd separated as the
green-man arrived.
    Multani lowered himself into the midst of the people
and released his passengers.
    Gerrard set his boots to the familiar planks. "Below," he
said simply. He gestured toward the hatch and led the way
downward.
    Grim jawed, Eladamri followed. On legs of twining
wood, Multani shuffled after. They descended into the
ship's deserted companionways, down to a single room that
glowed with lantern light. Though it held numerous bunks,
all were empty save one. In a chair beside the bunk, Orim
the healer lingered. Her eyes were tired beneath black,
coin-coifed hair. Tawny hands moved fretfully along the
sheets.
    Another woman lay beneath those sheets—this one a
seeming skeleton. Her face was drawn and bone white. Her



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                      J. Robert King

closed eyelids were gray. Even her thin lips were taut with
pain, making a death's-head grimace.
     Gerrard went to his knees as if his legs had been cut
from beneath him. He clutched her hand—as light and
curled as a dead twig.
     "Hanna. Can you hear me? I've brought some friends, a
savior and ... and a god."
     Eladamri's eyes were dark beneath his lifted eyebrows.
Multani lingered in silence just behind him.
     "They are going to take you to a place where you can be
healed. Caves beneath the forest. Thousands were healed
there, healed with a touch. They're going to take us down
where you'll be made whole again."
     Swallowing grimly, Eladamri said, "You must
understand, Gerrard, it is a matter of belief. The caves
make belief real."
     Gerrard's gaze was bright with anger. "I'll believe you.
I'll believe anything. Just make her well."
     "Yes," Eladamri replied heavily. "If there are greater
powers at work in us, she will be healed."
     There were no more words to say after that. Multani
stooped. Every fibrous stalk grew a sudden silky down
across it. His fingers opened in milkweed pods. His arms
became a cottonwood blanket. Tenderly, he reached
beneath Hanna's still form and lifted her in her draping
sheets.
     "She is so light," Multani murmured before he could
stop himself.
     Gerrard's eyes clouded. "Take her ahead of us. Eladamri
will lead us—Orim and I—down to the caves. Take her
and let the caves work on her. Let them begin their work."
A tragic hope lit his face. "If there is justice in the
multiverse, she'll greet me herself when I get there."



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    Wordlessly, Multani bore Hanna from Weatherlight's
sick bay. He climbed to the deck, followed by Gerrard,
Eladamri, and Orim.
    Silence surrounded them. If the three men were the
saviors of Llanowar, the woman they bore in their midst—
skeletal within her pure white sheets—was the martyr. The
ravages of plague were painted plain across her, and yet her
former beauty shone through. That she was Gerrard's love
was whispered among the prison brigade and the Steel Leaf
elves. One by one, the revelers went to their knees—one
by one and then ten by ten. They saw on Hanna's face the
daughters and sisters and mothers they themselves had lost.
    Tendrils sprouted from Multani, catching hold of a
nearby network of vines. Without pause, he drew himself
and Hanna smoothly over the rail and began his descent.
    Gerrard watched, his gaze dipping lower and lower until
she disappeared from sight. A shuddering breath moved
through him.
    A hand settled on his shoulder, startling him. He
turned, seeing Eladamri's solemn face—prominent nose
and chin, eyes profound and piercing. It was no wonder the
elves saw a leader in this man.
    "Choose the ten who believe most in you. I will take
Liin Sivi and the nine who believe most in me. Their faith
will help."
    Nodding numbly, Gerrard leaned on the rail, staring.
    "I would be ... honored to be included in the company,"
came a solemn rumble at his side. Gerrard looked up to see
Tahngarth, no more than a looming shadow in that bright
company.
    Once, the minotaur had considered Gerrard a spoiled,
selfish, and angry young man. Somewhere along the line,
the bull-man's opinion had changed—perhaps because
Gerrard had changed.


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                      J. Robert King

    He clutched the minotaur's four-fingered hand. "I
would be honored."
    "You'd have to drive me off with a stick," Sisay
volunteered, coming up behind the minotaur.
    "Squee too," the goblin said on his other side. He
crouched back from Gerrard's desolated stare, lifting his
hand as though he expected a stick to fall any moment.
    "Sisay, Squee, Orim, Tahngarth—yes, thank you all,"
Gerrard said gratefully.
    Something massive moved among the kneeling soldiers.
They scurried up and back. A gasp went through the group.
In their midst rose a steaming specter. Hissing heat peeled
away from muscles of silver.
    "Would anyone like a shoulder ride?" Karn asked.

                           *****

    Gerrard, Eladamri, and their comrades descended
within the Palace Tree. They gradually left behind the
sounds of festival. First came the creak of growing wood,
then the slosh of subterranean seas beyond the root walls.
At last, only stone silence remained.
    All the while, the party's lanterns bathed the tortuous
descent in flickering light. Ragged splinters jutted from
every wall. Giant cobwebs laced the spiraling way. The
corpses had been removed, but still it was a haunted place.
    Eladamri abjured the company to banish doubt and
embrace hope. He sang a cycle of elven songs. His folk
joined him, all but the ever-watchful Liin Sivi.
    Gerrard and Weatherlight's command crew meanwhile
traded stories of their travels—of Hanna steering the ship
past the Rathi slivers, of her heroism inside the Stronghold,
of her encyclopedic understanding of Weatherlight, of her



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pinpoint navigation, her shy wit, her laughter. They spoke
of courage, strength, and wisdom, not illness or death.
    At last, the way opened. Eladamri's songs grew only
louder as he progressed beneath a series of ribbed archways
and down into the Dreaming Caves. Beautiful visions
flowed from the singers' mouths and coiled in air around
them.
    Eladamri lifted his lantern. The light reached out across
the cavern and splashed tepidly over a figure below.
    Multani had formed himself into a great, woody altar,
cradling the sick woman. Hanna seemed a figure laid on a
pyre. It was clear she had not healed a whit.
    Gerrard stopped in his tracks, panting. He closed his
eyes and stooped, setting hands on his knees as if he had
been struck in the belly.
    Eladamri approached. "You must bring her back,
Gerrard. Bring her into our minds—whole and healthy and
happy."
    Breath hitching in him, Gerrard stood. A manic light
came to his face. He smiled a cheerless smile. He raised the
wick of his lantern so that his face glared brilliantly.
    "Have I told you, Eladamri, of the woman I love?"
    An approving look came into the elf's eyes. "No. Not
nearly enough. Tell me about her."
    "She has the most beautiful hair," Gerrard said,
blinking. "The color of wheat—spun gold. She doesn't ever
do anything with it. She just pins it back out of her way.
She doesn't have to do anything with it—"
    "She puts grease in it," Squee blurted.
    Gerrard laughed, a little too harshly. "Yes, bearing
grease and engine oil and soot from a coal box—this is her
makeup kit. She always looks great." Images of Hanna
formed in the air—her smile, her glad eyes, her lithe figure
kneeling beside some hunk of hardware.


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                      J. Robert King

    "Yes," Eladamri said. "I see her. Tell me more."
    Gerrard grasped Eladamri's shoulders and said fervently.
"Did I tell you she saved my life on Mercadia? She
pretended to be an elevator mechanic. Dressed up in
Mercadian laborer's clothes. She tried to make herself look
fat and grubby, but she's too tall, too statuesque, and even
with grease and soot she's about the cleanest looking
creature in the multiverse."
    Before Tahngarth's eyes swam visions of that bright
day, Hanna and Squee and the boy Atalla plotting to free
the captives.
    "More. Tell us more," Eladamri insisted.
    "She sabotaged that cage pretty well. She shut it down
for a week. Fact was, next time we left the city, we flew out
on wings of cloth, like angels ..." Gerrard gagged on his
words. He reached out to his comrades. "She's the smartest
one on board, don't you think?—trained on Tolaria.
Hanna's dad is the Mage Master Barrin, but she outstrips
him in artifact knowledge. Remember her rebuilding the
engine in Mercadia? Remember her threading the needle
over Benalia? Remember?"
    Visions swam brightly before the eyes of the comrades.
    "Come!" Gerrard said. "See for yourselves. Look on her
perfect skin, her blushing cheeks—the sweetest smile you
ever saw. Come over here, let me show you. So thin and
strong, perfect health! Let me introduce you."
    Dragging at Eladamri, Gerrard led the group rapidly,
excitedly to the place where Hanna lay. The swarming
visions followed them. Airy spirits encircled the woman,
caressing her. They seemed at first to be holy raiments and
then to be healthy flesh. The mists wrapped her atrophied
muscles and filled them out. Belief cloaked her gaunt frame
in strength. The grim set of her teeth became a smile, the



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sunken sockets became bright blue eyes. It was the old
Hanna—strong and glad and whole.
    "Do you see?" Gerrard shouted. "Do you see?"
    "Yes!" Eladamri replied. "I see!"
    Gerrard slid his hands under Hanna and lifted her. "Do
you see!"
    The glamour did not come with her. The delusion of
health peeled away from her skin. Misty muscle dissipated
to gaunt infirmity. The eyes that had seemed open were
closed now, had never opened. Her loveliness was a skull.
    "Oh!" Gerrard said in sudden shock. "Oh!"
    Eladamri clasped his arm. "It's all right. It's all right."
    "No, it's not all right! Nothing is all right!"
    "You did all you could," Eladamri soothed. "Our belief
can't heal her—I realize that now. It is only her belief that
could heal her. If she could awaken from this coma, she
could save herself. Otherwise ... You did all you could."
    "Oh!" Gerrard repeated, falling to his knees. He looked
up piteously at his comrades. "She is so light!"




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 28
    Why Heroes Fight
    Thaddeus awoke, pinioned beneath the spider woman
Tsabo Tavoc. Her compound eyes gleamed like twin
gemstones in her pallid face. Her mouth segments twitched
in concentration as she stared down at him. The massive
weight of her body pressed on him in eight spike-tipped
feet. Above her head, a smooth rock ceiling gleamed with
myriad lanterns. They sent tendrils of smoke up across the
wall to gather and coil in the vault. The swirling soot made
a black halo above the spider woman's head.
    "He awakens," she said in Phyrexian.
    From birth, Thaddeus had learned languages both
human and inhuman. He was fluent in Thrannish and so
could parse out Phyrexian.
    A seeming smile formed across the segments of Tsabo
Tavoc's mouth. She withdrew slightly from him. Her
fingertips were gory. A scalpel in her hand ran with blood.
The red stuff steamed in the cold, wet air of the cave.
    Again came her buggy voice. "How admirable."
    The Phyrexian commander gathered her legs beneath
her and shifted away. Her horrible weight remained on
him. Only then did he realize it was not she who held him
down. Spikes did. Driven through wrists and ankles,
shoulders and hips, they pinned him to an examination
table.
    Thaddeus bucked on the steely block. Joints pried
hopelessly against the heads of the spikes. None budged.
    Thaddeus hissed. He should have been able to rip the
spikes out. His arms were somehow unresponsive. An

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aching weakness filled his chest. Lifting his head, Thaddeus
glimpsed the reason.
    His blue flesh lay open to red innards. From the notch
in his throat to the ring processes of his pelvis, he had been
sliced open. Each layer of living flesh—skin and muscle
and tendon—had been meticulously flayed back one by
one. Pins identified important structures. Similar tags
rested on his organs. Numbered slips of paper clung to his
liver, his spleen, pancreas, stomach, viscera. Tsabo Tavoc
had even sawn away one after another of his ribs, revealing
gray lungs and flailing heart.
    "Do you see how quickly he discerns his condition?"
Tsabo Tavoc asked, her voice buzzing. She approached.
The gory scalpel twirled deftly in her grasp. "Awake but
moments, and he understands what we are doing here,
understands he will never again be whole. He will die, and
he knows it. See how quickly he calms? Truly, he is the
pinnacle of humanity."
    Thaddeus tried to respond. All that emerged was a red
spray across his throat. He could produce no sound, could
feel no breath between his lips.
    Tsabo Tavoc loomed up above him. "Are you missing
something?" she asked, holding up a larynx. "Quite a costly
contrivance, this. A descended voice-box allows you to
speak, but at risk of choking. It is too bad your master felt
so tied to human physiology, retaining such weaknesses as
this. Of course, you needn't worry about choking anymore."
    Approving hisses rose from figures packed around the
edges of the cavern.
    Turning his head, Thaddeus peered past dissection carts
and experimental apparatuses to glimpse the watchers.
Red-robed vat priests stood five rows thick around the
cavern. They leaned avidly toward Thaddeus. Their eyes
gleamed beneath the folds of their hoods. Desiccated flesh


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                      J. Robert King

clung to skull-like heads. Scabrous hands hung loose
beneath priestly sleeves.
    Tsabo Tavoc made a long slice in Thaddeus's thigh.
    He twitched as each successive neuron was severed. His
eyes rolled in his head. He would not have cried out even if
he had the vocal cords to do so, but a raking sigh emerged
from the stoma in his throat.
    "Here, though, is significant improvement," Tsabo
Tavoc said, neatly drawing back folds of skin to reveal
muscles and their neural networks. "Do you see the myelin
sheaths on these nerve bundles? They speed impulse. This
nerve cluster travels to the base of the spine, where lies the
cortex that processes sensory and motor information for the
legs. At the base of the spine rests the innovation— a
second cerebellum encased in the coccyx. It speeds
response time, allowing Metathran extraordinary agility. It
also prevents paraplegia. A Metathran can fight on, despite
a broken back. A similar though smaller node controls the
arms."
    There seemed genuine appreciation among the vat
priests. They produced an inhuman sound, halfway
between the purr of a cat and the hiss of a roach.
    "Compare to the original design," Tsabo Tavoc said,
withdrawing from the table where Thaddeus lay. Her legs
clicked across the stony floor.
    Thaddeus turned his head to watch her. She reached
another table where lay another form—a human woman.
She had been tied in place instead of spiked, but she was
similarly cut open. The woman shivered in dread at the
Phyrexian's approach.
    Tsabo Tavoc picked up one of the scalpels and sliced a
long, deep line down the woman's leg. "Here, we have
larger deposits of adipose tissue. These are not intended to
power the skeletal muscles but rather to provision the


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whole body with food should famine occur. It is another
concession to breeding ability. If this woman is bearing
young, she will need extra fat deposits. The adipose tissue
makes her a slower fighter. Her pelvis is inefficiently wide,
as we have seen, and this bundle of leg neurons reaches not
to the base of her spine but to her brain. The uterus—
prone to numerous diseases and chronic breakdown—takes
up an inordinate portion of the abdomen. All in all, this is
a crude design, intended for child-bearing instead of war.
    "The males are no better. They bear external genitalia
that are extremely vulnerable to injury. Both genders are
subject to intermittent madness caused by these systems.
Humans and all the indigenous creatures of Dominaria still
rely upon sexual reproduction. Such is the way for creatures
that live beyond the salvation of Yawgmoth.
    "Only these Metathran have ascended. They are nearer
to Phyrexians than any other creature. They are in some
senses lost cousins of ours. Urza has made them so." Tsabo
Tavoc lifted her gaze from the gory thigh muscle. She
raised the scalpel thoughtfully and set the red tip on her
own cheek. "One wonders, had we not launched this
invasion, how long it would have taken Urza to make all
Dominarians into Phyrexians."
    Absently setting the knife on the table, Tsabo Tavoc
strolled to the middle of the floor. Her eyes gleamed
philosophically in the lantern light. "Here is the great
irony." She flung one bloody hand out toward Thaddeus.
"This pinnacle of glory was created not for its own sake.
The Metathran were created to defend humanity—
squalid, imperfect, imperfectible larva." She gestured
toward the woman lying beside her. "Urza has engineered a
warrior that can be spiked at wrists and shoulders, ankles
and hips, can be cut open without anesthesia, can
withstand a multiply broken back and still fight. The whole


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                      J. Robert King

reason this creature exists, though, is to defend beings too
weak to escape simple rope bonds, creatures that must be
heavily drugged to bear the rigors of vivisection. The cream
of humanity came into being to defend its dregs."
    Tsabo Tavoc could not have anticipated what
happened next. Even in her compound eyes, she did not
see it.
    The flayed woman had found the scalpel Tsabo Tavoc
had left. She had used it to cut the bonds on her arms. She
lurched up from the examination table. With a swift
motion, she cut those around her legs. Roaring, she lunged
off the table, scalpel raised to stab.
    It was a futile gesture. She could not have wounded let
alone slain Tsabo Tavoc. She could hardly have stood with
one leg sliced open. It didn't matter. The woman held a
fury that could not be denied.
    A vat priest caught her before she could reach Tsabo
Tavoc.
    Shrieking, she rammed her scalpel into the vat-priest's
skull. It was her final act. Her abdomen disgorged itself on
the priest's clawed feet. He collapsed. Together, the
compleated Phyrexian and the incompleated woman fell,
dead, to the floor.
    Silence settled. Tsabo Tavoc stared down with mild
interest at the bodies. The spiracles along her sides
breathed slowly as she drew in the aroma of death. "As
primitive and inefficient as these humans are, they fight all
out of reason. It matters little. They die either way."
    Thaddeus thrashed against his spikes, unable to escape.
    Tsabo Tavoc once again turned her attentions on him.

                           *****




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     Gerrard gently lay Hanna in her sick bay berth. She was
no better for her sojourn in the darkness. Gerrard was
much worse. Hope had fled from him. If Orim could not
save Hanna, if Eladamri and Multani could not, she would
not be saved.
     "How will I fight unless you are with me?" he
whispered, kissing her lightly. Her lips were as dry as paper.
"What will I fight for?"
     Hanna was more than his beloved. She was his heart,
his courage. He fought for her. Before she entered his life,
Gerrard had been a bitter young man. If he lost her now,
what was he? There would be nothing left but fury. There
would be no difference between Gerrard and the
Phyrexians.
     "Oh how I will slay them," Gerrard said bitterly as he
clutched Hanna's skeletal hand. "I will be my own plague. I
will rot them away. I've had enough of portal wars and
serums. I want a fight, a real fight. I want teeth against
knuckles and broken noses and knives in the eyes."
     "I have a fight for you," came an elderly voice at the
sick bay door. The blind seer hobbled slowly into the
chamber. "Not I, but Dominaria. You have lost Benalia,
and saved Llanowar. Now there is Koilos."
     "Koilos? A hole in the desert," Gerrard hissed.
     The old man shrugged. "More than that. At Koilos the
Phyrexians were first driven from the world. At Koilos they
first returned in the time of Urza. Now, it is their only land
portal. If that hole in the desert is lost, all is lost."
     Gerrard shook his head bleakly, gazing at Hanna. "All is
lost."
     "Grief can wait," the old man replied. "Koilos cannot.
The Metathran have been beaten back. One of their
commanders is captured and near death. They need you



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                      J. Robert King

and your ship. They need the Benalish air fleet, the prison
brigade, elf shock troops, and their leader Eladamri."
     "Eladamri?" Gerrard blurted. "He has a nation to
rebuild. He won't go."
     The blind seer sighed. He eased himself to sit on a
bunk. "He will go. Saviors are not builders. The heir to
Staprion wishes that he go. No, Eladamri's work is done
here but not so at Koilos. He and his elite warriors will go.
Multani, too, will go.
     "Multani!"
     "He was present for the birth of this living ship. He
provided her hull from the Heart of Yavimaya. He goes
with us, in the very wood of Weatherlight. He will heal her
every wound. In some senses, this is his ship." The old sage
lifted an eyebrow. "In some senses, you are his as well.
Multani trained you. He wants to see how his old student
does. You cannot blame your masters for taking an interest
in your doings."
     "My doings?" Gerrard echoed.
     "Yes. Your doings. Koilos is your fight, Gerrard."
     Gerrard stared down at the dying form of his beloved.
"Of course. It's a fight Hanna would approve." His mouth
flattened into a bitter line. "And, besides, at Koilos there
are plenty of Phyrexians to kill."




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                  Chapter 29
              Battles Won and Lost

    Weatherlight topped a ridge of sand above the plains of
Koilos and soared down the far slope. Gerrard's gunnery
harness held him in place as the deck dropped out beneath
him. "There are the buggers," he growled. Ahead and for
miles to the horizon camped Phyrexian troops.
    "Attack formation!" Gerrard shouted into the speaking
tube. "Signal the fleet. Strafe the troops. Ray cannons,
plasma jets, goblin bombs. Kill 'em with whatever you've
got. Let's let them know Benalia's revenge has arrived."
    A cheer rose from the prison brigade. They crowded the
decks, elven bows clutched in their eager hands. Among
them were Steal Leaf troops. Their leader, Eladamri, stood
at the prow. He lifted high his longbow, nocked a flaming
arrow, and sent the shaft streaking away. It raced ahead of
Weatherlight and sank among the Phyrexian troops. The
shaft cracked through black scale. It punched into oil-
blood. The creature ignited, blazing blue. Elves and
prisoners whooped excitedly.
    "Fire!" Gerrard shouted. "Fire!"
    All along the decks, elves and men drew arrows from
pots of burning pitch. They set notch to string and loosed.
From Weather-light, rings of fire spread. Where those
flaming waves touched ground, Phyrexians blazed and
flared and exploded.
    Gerrard unleashed his own fire. Red-hot bursts of
energy leaped from the barrel of his ray cannon. They

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                      J. Robert King

stabbed faster than arrows. The bolts ripped through
monsters and their sleeping sties, tore apart trench worms,
blasted through pens of live food. From Tahngarth's gun,
another bolt roared. It cut a parallel trough to Gerrard's
attack. Each line of energy felled hundreds of Phyrexians,
but there were hundreds of thousands.
    Benalish assault ships dropped down to Weatherlight's
beam. They loosed their own arsenals, not as flashy, but in
their own way deadly enough. From the stem hatches of
round-bellied bombers, gray goblin bombs rolled. They
dropped in twisted lines. Smoke barked up where they
struck. Chunks of scale and bone tumbled through the
mounded smoke. Hoppers jagged like serpents' teeth above
the armies. Their quarrels pelted down in a deadly hail.
    Gerrard loosed another volley of ray cannon fire. He
gazed appreciatively at the broad line of destruction that
his armada cut through the Phyrexian hordes.
    "They've got no airships. It's like shooting fish in a
barrel!"
    He spoke too soon. The beasts might not have airships,
but they had brought cannons. Fire spat from entrenched
batteries. Crimson and black, rays roared skyward.
    One bolt struck a falling stream of goblin bombs. It
ignited them. In midair, they detonated. Each new
explosion triggered a second and third. Like a fuse, the line
of bombs carried their explosions up toward the stem of the
bomber. Shrapnel tore into the fuselage. The detonations
went to completion. A white blaze erupted around the
ship. A thousand explosions roared out. Hunks of ship
cascaded down.
    Another beam rippled through a line of fighters. One
after another, they flew into the radiance and were cloven
in two. Halves spiraled down in fiery wreckage.



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    A third bolt—this placed best of all—smashed into
Weatherlight's port airfoil. The spars lit with fire. The
canvas flashed away to nothing. Weatherlight listed hard
to port and began to roll over.
    "Take her up!" Gerrard cried even as his latest shot
raked the enemy lines.
    "I know! I know!" Sisay shouted back through the
speaking tube.
    The starboard airfoil slapped closed, and the ship's
engines roared. Weatherlight lolled upright and rocketed
heavenward.
    "Signal the fleet! Break off the assault!" Gerrard
ordered. He braced himself against the hot casing of the
gun. Weatherlight jigged up through a rack of clouds.
"Rendezvous at the Metathran camp. Land and repair!"
    He had breath for little more. The ship ascended like a
comet. Gerrard and his crew and their fugitive armies held
tight to the meteoric craft. It vaulted just ahead of the
cannon fire, outpacing killing heads of flame. The Benalish
armada straggled upward in the great ship's wake.
    In canyons of concealing cloud, Weatherlight leveled
out. Gerrard gave a gusty sigh.
    "Let's hope for a better reception from the Metathran."

                          *****

    Within his tent, Commander Agnate stared bleakly at
the tactical maps of Koilos. They lay in a sloppy stack
across his field table. Once, they had been neatly stored,
each in its own tube. Once, Thaddeus and Agnate had
strolled their compasses easily across lines of topography.
Now, the maps bore the fretful, fruitless scribbles of a
commander in a hopeless engagement.



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                     J. Robert King

    Agnate was trapped. His forces had been winnowed
horribly by the last, disastrous assault. Fifty thousand
Metathran had marched into battle behind him, and
twenty thousand had fled. They had made camp here,
twenty miles beyond the caves—out of reach of the
monsters. Members of Thaddeus's army slowly joined them.
The field was lost. The Metathran were in full rout.
Thaddeus's force was equally reduced. Thirty thousand of
them remained, but they had lost their commander.
    Thaddeus was easily worth ten thousand troops.
    He is worth more than that, Agnate mused bitterly.
Thaddeus was the other half of his mind. Even distance
could not block their shared thoughts—until Tsabo Tavoc.
She knew of their bond and targeted it. She tore the point
from the compass, leaving only a lead nib to turn,
hopelessly alone.
    Agnate could not think without Thaddeus. Together,
they had planned an assault of a hundred thousand
Metathran on a hundred thousand Phyrexians. The
Metathran ranks had been halved, and the Phyrexian ranks
had doubled. Agnate had positioned paper troops in
various arrangements throughout the broad plain. Even
with a four-to-one kill ratio, no Metathran would remain
to possess the field. It would be suicide to attack now and
swifter and surer suicide with every passing hour.
    A sound intruded on Agnate's bleak reverie. He had
blocked out camp sounds—crackling fires, conversation,
strummed lyres— and so the slow-mounting roar startled
him alert. Lurching up from his camp stool, Agnate caught
his head in the peak of the man-sized tent. With a growl,
he ducked and emerged. The flaps slapped angrily together
behind him.




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    Mounting thunder filled the dusty sky. It was
unmistakable— the approach of airships. The Phyrexians
were bringing sky machines to destroy them.
    Agnate shook his head grimly. I couldn't make a
damned decision myself, and now they have decided for
me.
    All around, Agnate's troops stood stunned, staring
upward. His indecision had infected even them.
    "To arms! To arms!" Agnate bellowed. "Train the guns!
Wake! It's time to die."
    Soldiers snatched up their swords and pikes. They
cranked crossbows. They scrambled to rip covers from
cannons and wheel them about. Blocks of powder slid
down the barrels of bombards. Powerstone charges
mounted within ray cannons. Shouts filled the air. It was a
sound that heartened Agnate after days of silent fear and
indecision.
    "You might not want to fire on these," came a voice
abruptly at his side. "These are your reinforcements."
    Agnate whirled, sword raking out, and found himself
staring at the grim visage of Urza Planeswalker. The man's
face was battle weary. His ash-blond hair was disheveled
and singed—though only a moment's attention would
make it perfect. Urza had not had a moment to spare.
    "Master," Agnate said breathlessly, dropping to one
knee.
    "Call off your gunners!" Urza replied with quiet
urgency.
    "Gunners, stand down!" Agnate commanded without
standing. His call went down the lines. To Urza, he said,
"Reinforcements?"
    "Coalition forces. Airships, a Benalish army, an elf
strike force, and a replacement for Thaddeus," Urza said
simply.


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                      J. Robert King

    "There will never be a replacement for Thaddeus."
    "We will see."
    Suddenly, the sky was split by a hurtling ship. The
vessel clove the air into canyons of white exhaust. The ship
was sleek and large, unmistakable to any Metathran's eye.
This was Weatherlight—Urza's angel. Her lines were etched
into the dream minds of all Urza's children. Her lines
meant salvation.
    It was a ragged salvation. One airfoil had burned away,
and the other was folded like a praying hand. Burns scored
her hull. Frightened faces crowded her rail. In the ship's
rocketing wake came an even less impressive swarm of
vessels. All were small. Some gave out puffs of smoke.
Others whined gnatlike.
    Weatherlight cut her starboard thrust and spread her
remaining airfoil. She slowed and banked, beginning a long
circle around the Metathran camp. If she could land
without crashing, it would be a miracle. Metathran were
raised to believe in miracles from Weatherlight,
    Rising to his feet, Agnate watched the wounded war
bird and her fledglings circle. "Who is this replacement for
Thaddeus?"
    "His name is Eladamri. He is a Skyshroud elf from Rath.
He is the Seed of Freyalise."
    "What is a Freyalise?"
    "He is my choice to replace Thaddeus."
    "He is not my choice, nor the choice of Thaddeus's
troops," Agnate replied quietly. "He is no good until we
have chosen him."
    "I know."
    "And if he fails the test?"
    "Then Koilos is lost."

                           *****


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                          Invasion

    Weatherlight's landing would have been better
described as a controlled crash. It was controlled in the
sense that Sisay was at the helm, and she was among the
best fliers in the multiverse. Also, its engines took orders
from a silver golem—undoubtedly the best engineer
anywhere. The rest of the crew did all they could— which
meant tying themselves to something that would not move
and informing their gods they might soon need afterlife
accommodations. Aside from these efforts, the landing was
simply a crash.
    Weatherlight's landing spines sliced into a sand dune.
They flung up grit as if it were water. The hull smashed to
ground. It groaned under its own weight and bounced
briefly aloft again. Sand streamed from a mangled spine.
The ship smacked the top of the next dune and knocked
the peak off. The keel sawed through packed dust before
hanging up on a layer of gravel. Weatherlight pitched
forward. She slid down the far side of the dune. Sand
shoved her sideways. Flinging a blanket of the stuff,
Weatherlight came to rest on the side of a natural bowl in
the desert.
    Panting in his gunner's rig, Gerrard spat grit from his
teeth and said, "That wasn't so bad."
    Suddenly, the bare dunes all around teemed with
Metathran soldiers. Pikes, swords, and axes gleamed in
their hands as they topped the hills. They kept coming—
hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Their blue faces
were grim, and their boots sent ominous dust clouds up to
shadow the great airship.
    "All right," Gerrard allowed as he pulled himself out of
the tangled traces. "Maybe the bad part is still to come."
    In all the surrounding ring of soldiers, there was a single
clear avenue. The commander of the Metathran marched
there, accompanied by his personal retinue. Garbed in


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                      J. Robert King

silver battle armor and bearing a naked sword, the
commander had a solemnity that bordered on belligerence.
    Donning his most winning smile—though just now it
was full of sand—Gerrard came to the rail and called out to
the commander, "Hail, Friends of Dominaria. I am Gerrard
Capashen. I have come to ally my forces with yours."
    "I know who you are," shouted the commander curtly.
"And I know why you have come. Where is Eladamri?"
    "Eladamri?" echoed Gerrard blankly.
    "Yes. Eladamri. The Seed of Freyalise. He is to take
command of half my army."
    Gerrard shook his head in astonishment but managed
not to echo the words. "How do you know all this?"
    "A god told me."
    "I get a lot of that," interrupted the Skyshroud elf from
amidships. "I am Eladamri."
    "Come," beckoned the Metathran commander. "You
must prove yourself to me and to my troops."
    "I get a lot of that too," replied Eladamri. "What must I
do?”
    The commander replied with even steel. "Draw my
blood before I draw yours."

                           *****

    It was a duel, like so many others. This had been an age
of duels—Urza and Mishra, Xantcha and Gix, Gerrard and
Volrath, and now Eladamri and Agnate. It seemed the
whole world had come into being between pairs of
adversaries squaring off on either side of some table,
bringing every weapon, every spell, every ally they had
gathered over the years and fighting a duel to the death.
Agnate and Eladamri did not fight to the death, of
course—but to first blood. There was little difference when


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both men were weapon masters and both fought with
broadswords.
    As the gladiators fought, Gerrard watched from a
crowded port rail. Beside him stood Liin Sivi, Eladamri's
closest companion. Her nostrils flared with every sword
blow. In white-knuckled hands, she gripped the hilt of her
toten-vec. It was clear she wished she could be down in
that battle. She wasn't the only one. Steel Leaf elves
watched avidly, shoulder to shoulder with Benalish
warriors and Weatherlight's own crew.
    Beyond the ship, Metathran filled the sand dunes. It
was a natural arena, and Metathran were a naturally
bloodthirsty crowd.
    Eladamri rushed in. He was the quicker of the two. He
knew the cuts and feints taught by wild men and scrappers.
His blade lanced toward Agnate's gut. It would be a killing
blow if it landed. It was well placed. If Agnate dodged or
knocked the sword up, down, or to either side, the tip
would catch his flesh and score first blood.
    A cheer rose from the deck of Weatherlight.
    Agnate did not try to knock the blade away or attempt
to dodge. He merely caught the sword in a gauntleted
hand. He was the stronger. His classical training made him
keen eyed and efficient. With a powerful yank, he hauled
the blade forward, just above his own sword. Eladamri must
either let go or overbalance and sprawl onto his foe's sword.
    The Metathran shouted their praise from the sand-dune
coliseum.
    Except that Eladamri vaulted over his trapped blade.
He used Agnate's own strength to carry him in an easy arc
above both swords. Eladamri flipped, landing on his feet
behind the Metathran warrior and yanking his sword free.
    On ship and sand dune both, the watchers cheered.
    Eladamri swung his sword in a gutting stroke.


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                     J. Robert King

    The Metathran commander was no longer there. One
step carried him beyond the elf's blade. A second step
brought him back during the follow-through, when
Eladamri would be defenseless. Agnate's sword stabbed for
his side.
    Eladamri slid sideways. The stroke nicked armor but
missed flesh. Eladamri kicked the weapon away. His foot
trailing a swath of sand that temporarily blinded the
towering warrior. Agnate staggered back. This would be
Eladamri's winning stroke.
    Cheers from Weatherlight's deck mixed with growls
from the Metathran troops.
    Both fell suddenly silent.
    Eladamri stepped back, waiting for his opponent to
clear his eyes.
    In the hush, Agnate's words were heard by all. "You
would be a fool to let a Phyrexian clear his eyes."
    Eladamri's responded wryly. "You, friend, are no
Phyrexian."
    The roar of the crowd united ship and sand dunes.
    Gerrard was glad. Eladamri was doing it again. He was
bringing disparate people together.
    A voice broke through the ovation, the voice of a very
old, very tired man. "She is asking for you, Gerrard."
    Applauding Agnate's escape from a back stab, Gerrard
said distractedly, "Who is?"
    "Hanna."
    Wheeling, Gerrard stared incredulously at the blind
seer. "Sh-she's awake?"
    The old man nodded, his face shadowed in the wide
brim of his hat. "But not for long."
    Gerrard shoved his way across the deck. He reached the
amidships hatch and descended. It took only moments to
clamber down the stairs to the sick bay. It seemed hours.


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Gerrard fairly vaulted across the room, falling to his knees
at Hanna's side.
    "You're awake! Hanna! You're awake!"
    She smiled a wan smile through rictus lips. "The old
man. He did something."
    "He's healing you!" Gerrard gasped, though even he
knew this hope was false.
    "No. He is letting us say good-bye."
    "Don't say that!"
    Despite the plague's ravages, she was somehow beautiful
in that moment. "I have to, and so do you."
    Gerrard grasped her shoulders, felt only cold bones in
his hands, and let go. "How can I live without you?"
    "You lived without me for twenty-six years," Hanna said
sadly.
    Gerrard's smile was rueful. "We all remember how
worthless I was then."
    A loud cheer shook the sands beyond the ship.
    "What's happening?"
    "A duel," Gerrard said. "It's nothing. Someone lost his
partner—"
    "It's a new world being born, Gerrard," Hanna replied
wistfully. "It's a new world, and the partners of the old must
say good-bye."
    "No." His eyes glimmered intently. "No. I won't say it."
    "Then I will die without hearing it—"
    "You won't die. You can't—"
    "I can, and I will," Hanna said. Her lids slid slowly
down her blue eyes. "The old sage's magic cannot last
much longer. Goodbye, Gerrard."
    "I'll say I love you. I'll say you're everything to me. But I
won't say—"
    She trembled once last. Her final breath left in a long,
sweet sigh.


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                     J. Robert King

     An ovation roared through the heavens, shaking the
ship's vast beams.
     "No, Hanna," Gerrard groaned. He leaned over, sliding
his arms beneath her. A tear fell on the white sheets. He
lifted her. There was nothing in his arms, nothing at all.
She was gone. "No, Hanna. No. I won't say it. I can't say
it."
     A voice came at the door—loud and excited, with a
clear Benalish accent. "He's done it! Eladamri has bested
the Metathran!"
     Clutching that lifeless shell to his breast, Gerrard
whispered simply, "Good-bye, Hanna. Good-bye."




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                  Chapter 30
                  The Nine Titans

    Urza stood on a sand dune overlooking the duel
grounds. His cloak billowed with the breezes of night. One
hand clutched his war staff. The other fidgeted at the edge
of his cloak. It was a momentous hour.
    Below, warriors thronged the sandy arena and the deck
of the mired ship. They shouted their excitement to the
heavens. In their midst stood Eladamri, victorious above a
fallen Agnate. The elf's broadsword dripped Metathran
blood. He had cut a shallow slice along the warrior's
biceps—the sort a human could heal in a week and a
Metathran in a day. It meant nothing and yet everything.
Eladamri would command half the Metathran army,
leading warriors who believed in him. Perhaps more
importantly, he would complete Agnate. Eladamri could
never replace Thaddeus, of course, but he could bring fight
back to these beaten soldiers. That would be enough.
    Victory in the arena and defeat in the ship. Even from
where he stood, Urza could sense Hanna's death.
Planeswalkers could heal most diseases with a thought but
not Phyrexian plague. A futile regret fled through Urza, a
wish that he had studied disease processes instead of
artifice. It was foolishness. His machines would save
millions of lives—they could not be reasonably exchanged
for this one life. Even so, this was a loss. Hanna had
anchored Gerrard. Without her, he would be a different


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                       J. Robert King

man, a lesser man. Urza hoped only that Gerrard would
still be sufficient to his role.
     "I shall have to tell Barrin of his daughter's death," Urza
reasoned, "once he has won the battle of Urborg."
     Victory in the arena and defeat in the ship. It was a
momentous hour. Urza's own labors in the coming minutes
were critical. Taking one last breath of the dust of Koilos—
a smell that took him back to the days with his brother—
Urza planeswalked away from the dune.
     He did not step into the chaos between worlds. That
was a place for mortals. Urza did not have to travel that
way, though sometimes he visited the Blind Eternities
when he needed time to think.
     Not now.
     Urza appeared in the gloaming of a forested hillside. He
stood in the minotaur homelands. An-Havva lay below,
but he had no interest in minotaur cities. A single cabin
stood on the hill. It was picturesque—what seemed a mere
hunting cabin. A fieldstone pathway led among
wildflowers. Chink logs held aloft a pile of thatch. A queer
little chimney contentedly puffed smoke into the air.
Quaint and tiny, it was meant to seem so. Its owner had
built a cabin that was larger inside than out.
     Urza walked up the fieldstone path. Through the soles
of his boots he felt the cool stones. They were reporting his
approach to the man within. Some intruders dropped dead
on the path. Those who stole through the wildflowers fell
into a sleep that proved eternal. Urza was not susceptible to
such protections. Neither did he wish to circumvent
propriety and incur the resentment of another
planeswalker.
     The door was round topped and rugged. Urza knocked
on it with the shimmering head of his war staff.
     "Good evening, Taysir. The time has come."


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                         Invasion

    Without a sound, the door swung suddenly inward. A
short, thin man stood there, his bushy brows peaked
dubiously. Though bald on top, the man had a regular
mane of white hair, and his beard was cinched at his
sternum. He blinked deep, querulous eyes, and his voice
whuffed with bookish intensity.
    "Time? Time?"
    "Yes," Urza replied. "The hour has come. Dominaria
hangs in the balance."
    "Doesn't it always?" Taysir replied dryly.
    "Who is it, Father?" asked a young woman who
appeared at Taysir's side. She seemed a great-great-
granddaughter to him. Her shoulder-length hair was black
beside his linty locks, her face smooth and bright next to
his pruny visage. She saw Urza and scowled. "Oh, it's you."
    Apologizing with a smile, Urza made a shallow bow to
the woman. "Hello, Daria. It is time for your father to come
to the defense of the world."
    "If you are taking him, I'm coming with you."
    Urza's face turned dark. "This was never part of the
agreement."
    "It is now," Taysir said quietly. He rubbed his throat,
loose folds of skin beneath his beard. Louder, he went on.
"We've agreed. We go together or not at all."
    "You didn't discuss it with me," Urza quietly protested.
    "You need planeswalkers," Taysir said. "She is of our ilk
and powerful even in her youth."
    Urza considered. "I do need someone to replace Teferi."
    Taysir smiled. "Teferi's pulled a Teferi?"
    Huffing irritably, Urza said, "Lock your doors. Snuff
your candles. Douse your fires. You're both coming."
    Daria gave a begrudging grin and hugged her father. "I'll
get our stuff," she said, ducking back within the door.



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                      J. Robert King

     The glow in the cabin windows went dark. The sudden
rush of steam up the chimney smelled of cool ash. A
moment later, Daria emerged. A pair of packs rode on her
shoulders. They seemed small, but as with Taysir in all
things, they were larger within than without. Daria shooed
her father from the doorway and emerged into the blue
gloaming of the hillside.
     Panting slightly, she said, "We're ready, Urza
Planeswalker."
     "Are you ready, Daria Planeswalker?" mocked Urza, his
eyebrow hitched ironically. "Take us, then, to the realm of
Freyalise."
     Canting her head sideways, Daria reached out her
hands. "Take hold."
     The two ancient planeswalkers rested their hands in
hers. The twilight mountainside melted away like
watercolors running from a page. Reality puddled and rose
again.
     It spread itself in a new design, what seemed a vast star
burst. It was in fact a huge thistle bloom. Green and gold
down extended from a gleaming core. Breezes whispered
among the feathery seed pods. Occasionally a stalk tricked
free to glide away. No sooner had one tuft floated off than
another grew outward.
     Beside that enormous bloom, the three planeswalkers
floated, as tiny as gnats.
     "The Inner Sanctum," Urza said, blinking at the great
thistle. "I am not welcome here."
     "We are," replied Daria with a quirked smile. Cupping a
hand to her mouth, the young woman called: "Freyalise, it
is time."
     There came no change to the mammoth thistle. No
door opened, though a presence emerged from the core of
the blossom. Not a single downy tuft shifted. Still, out of a


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clump of them formed a statuesque woman with delicate,
almost fey features. Her blonde hair was shorn short and
dyed in the fashion emulated by the Steel Leaf elves.
Across her face coiled intricate tattoos in woodland
motifs—leaves and flowers whose stems extended down her
throat and beneath the white shift she wore. A ring glinted
in one nostril, and light mantled her.
    Freyalise smiled. Her lips held much the same caprice as
Daria's. It was clear these two had become allies in what
Urza would call mischief. Still, Freyalise was ancient. She
was protector of Fyndhorn and goddess of the Juniper
Order, savior of the Llanowar Elves and Patron Lady of the
Order of the Steel Leaf. She also was no particular friend of
Urza's.
    "Time, is it?" asked Freyalise, blinking as if awakening
from a dream.
    "That's what Daria said," Taysir put in.
    "Yes, it is time," Urza answered. "A critical battle is at
hand, a dry run for our final target—"
    Ignoring Urza, Freyalise extended her hands toward her
friends and took them in her arms.
    "How are your studies getting on, girl? Your father's a
tough master—the minotaurs made him so. No, that's not
true. He was tough before the minotaurs. If anything, they
rounded his rough edges." Turning to Taysir, she said,
"And speaking of rough edges, guess who is visiting me?"
    The old man's eyes rolled. He said with infinite
resignation, "Kristina."
    "Yes!" Freyalise said happily. "Oh, don't tell me you still
moon over her."
    "No. The Anoba Ancestors took care of that, as well.
They said I couldn't have my body back until I 'got shut of
the rut.' I did. Get shut. Of the rut."
    Freyalise laughed.


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    "Ahem," Urza interrupted, coughing into his hand.
    Freyalise turned. Her eyebrow lifted. "Oh, it's you."
    "That's what I said too!" Daria replied happily.
    "Planning another Ice Age, Urza?" Freyalise jabbed.
    Urza winced. "I might remind you that your spell to end
the Ice Age was as devastating as mine—and cast with the
same disregard."
    "You two ..." Taysir said.
    Urza continued, "I understand you have no love for me.
I expect none. But you have love for the world and its
creatures, and that's why we've come. We are sworn—even
that bastard Szat—to fight for Dominaria. That's why we
come together."
    Freyalise strolled easily across the air until she stood
before him. "I don't remember your swearing to fight for
Dominaria, only against Phyrexia."
    "There is no difference," Urza said.
    Again came the laugh. "If you had any inkling why that
was funny, you might understand why we have so little love
for you." She shrugged. "Oh, well. It is time." Her eyes
closed for a moment. The air around her shimmered with a
silent conversation. "Kristina will be right out."
    "Kristina?"
    "You need eight planeswalkers to power these
contraptions of yours, right?" Freyalise asked. "Kristina is a
planeswalker. Get rid of Szat."
    Urza shook his head. "No, I need Szat. I'll get rid of
Parcher. He's a bit of a lunatic."
    "A bit?" said Freyalise and Daria in unison. They traded
glances, and Freyalise said, "This is going to be more fun
than I thought."
    Another presence shimmered into being. Kristina had
deeply tanned skin and long brown hair done up with
beads. She had the angular intensity of a mage and the


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presence of an oracle. Taking shape beside Taysir, she took
his hand in hers. Her voice was mellifluous and low.
     "So good to see you again, Taysir. We'll be seeing much
of each other in the next months."
     He bowed in midair. "Nothing would make me more
glad."
     Feeling vaguely sick, Urza swept his arm in a broad
gesture over the floating assemblage of planeswalkers. The
thistledown Inner Sanctum of Freyalise melted away.
     A stiff salt breeze burst over them, flung up from
fifteen-foot billows. Beyond the rails, the sea was black
beneath the Glimmer Moon. Clouds dragged rags across
the sky. A deck of rugged wood solidified beneath the feet
of the company. The ship ran lightless through midnight
seas. The pirate ship was immediately familiar to them all.
     "Bo Levar?" Freyalise asked dubiously. "The cigar
smuggler?"
     Urza blinked, his gemstone eyes glimmering in the dark.
"He prefers 'interplanar merchant.' After all, the laws of
continental embargo should not extend between worlds."
     "Whatever his title, he's a patriot," Taysir said, licking
his lips. "I hope he has a crate of Urborgan maduros."
     "You bet," said Bo Levar, leaping down from the dark
stern castle to light among the planeswalkers. He wore the
aspect of a young man, with sandy hair and a trim
mustache and goatee. "You can have two. The rest are
bound for Mercadia. The Ramosians have gotten really
fond of them."
     "It's time," Urza said.
     "You're telling me," Bo replied, shaking his head. "It
was easy enough to run a Benalish blockade, but these
Phyrexian plague ships aren't as friendly." He sighed. "Still,
business can't wait. I'll take these to the Outer Sea of



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Mercadia, give instructions to my crew, and meet you all—
where ?"
    "At Tolaria, in the Phyrexian rift."
    Bo made a gagging face. "You're still working in that
stink hole?"
    "It's fast time," Urza replied defensively. "I get ten days
inside for each one outside."
    "Yeah, but it stinks," Bo said. "I'll bring a crate of
candellas to cut the air."
    Urza clapped his shoulder genuinely. "It is good to have
you with us." Spreading his arm toward the others, he said,
"We'll see you there momentarily."
    Even as Bo Levar replied, midnight sky and ocean swell
and the ship between them faded from being.
    In their place, a great library formed. Shelves ran away
into infinity. Their edges curved in the blue distance. It
was said one who walked a straight line through the Library
of Commodore Guff would end up walking in his own
footsteps. More frightening still, every volume in that
infinite place was the history of some place in the
multiverse, and the old commodore had read them all.
    As the planeswalkers materialized among the books,
Commodore Guff himself appeared. He had a raft of
reddish-blond hair, an aggressive beard and eyebrows, and
an intent eye behind his monocle. The glass fell from his
eye and dropped into the book he held. In the same motion
Commodore Guff's mouth fell open.
    "Are you here to borrow or to return?"
    "It's time," Urza said simply.
    Commodore Guff scowled. "No ..." From the red vest he
wore, the man fished out a pocket watch—a device the
young Urza had fashioned as an apprentice in Yotia. "Well,
bother. It is time."



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    Daria gave him a dubious look. "You don't even know
what we're talking about."
    "There, you are wrong, young lady," the commodore
huffed. "We are talking about time, and I know all about
time. I know what is supposed to happen in it and what
actually does happen in it. I know the difference between
history and reality. I have dedicated my life to making
reality conform more closely to history." Daria's expression
grew only more unimpressed. "How can there be histories
for things that haven't even happened yet?"
    Waggling a finger beside his shaggy ear, Commodore
Guff said, "And I would ask you how things can happen
unless there is history?"
    "Damn it," Urza said, growing irate. "We're wasting
time." "Yes! Damn it," Commodore Guff said, tapping his
pocket watch. "Damn it! Damn it!" He slipped the device
into a vest pocket, seemed to lose it, and patted furiously.
Nettled, he looked up. "Do you know what Teferi did?
Phased out Zhalfir and Shiv! That'll take about a century
to sort out—the little sneak." "One thing at a time," Urza
said, trying to calm the man. "Yes." Commodore Guff
nodded, quietly adding, "Damn it..." "All right, one final
stop," Urza said, sweeping his companions away with him
in a sudden planeswalk. The infinite library of Commodore
Guff ceased to be, though the waistcoated gentleman still
clutched a book from it. He slammed the volume closed,
noticed his monocle was missing, and patted his vest again.
    The crew arrived in utter blackness. Brimstone scented
the air. Normally, planeswalkers could see into the darkest
corners. Where sight was denied them, it was denied by
one of their ilk.
    That one circled them even now. His presence was
titanic. His flesh was gelid and rubbery. A hint of a long
tentacle slipped away into inky darkness. A scaly shoulder


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showed itself and was gone. A baleful eye watched them
all. There came the distinct impression of teeth set in a
razor smile.
    "Bother!" Commodore Guff said, gaping into the
darkness.
    "Tevash Szat? Since when does he want to make
Dominaria anything but an ice cube?"
    The voice that answered seethed gladly. "You know me.
Yes. I once tried to freeze the world—no thanks to you,
Freyalise—only wishing to preserve it in perfect memory. I
fight for Dominaria. How could it be preserved if it is
overrun by ... roaches?"
    The commodore sniffed. "You yourself have had
dealings with those roaches."
    "Yes," the voice allowed quietly. "When the dealings
suited me. Losing the world to Yawgmoth does not suit
me."
    "We are all agreed on that," Urza said. "Szat will be our
inside agent. He knows Phyrexia better than even I."
    "You spoke of eight guardians of Dominaria, aside from
yourself, Urza," Taysir pointed out. "Who is the last?"
    "Lord Windgrace. Just now, he aids Barrin in the battle
of Urborg. I will send for him when the isles are secure. As
for the rest of us—" the gesture was unseen, though it
encompassed even dark-swathed Tevash Szat.
    Suddenly they stood within a deep, dark canyon. Its
floor and walls were black basalt. A dome of scintillating
energy shimmered above. A volcanic plateau dominated
the center of the cleft. On that prominence rested a weird
city fashioned of obsidian. Once, this valley had been filled
with Phyrexians, trapped within a fast time rift. They had
built—and been purged from—the City of K'rrick. Since
then, the gorge had become Urza's private laboratory. In it,
nine new wonders had taken shape.


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     "Titans, I call them," Urza said, breathing happily.
     Against the walls of the canyon sat nine monumental
figures. They seemed huge warriors, slumped in rest. Each
colossus was a suit of power armor. Massive armaments
bristled from the hands and shoulders and feet of the
machines—ray cannons, plasma blasters, powerstone
ballistae, energy bombards, sonic shock generators, falcon
engines, and countless other innovations.
     "Bother," Commodore Guff said, paging through the
book he held. "There's not a single word written on these
yet."
     "In these suits, we will launch our attack on Phyrexia.
First, though, we will assist the coalition armies of
Metathran, elves, and Benalians in the Battle of Koilos."
     Daria sneered, "It would take months to learn to use
these suits."
     "Luckily, we have months—two to be exact. The
coalition forces plan an attack on the Caves of Koilos in
two weeks of normal time. We will be ready by then."
     "It is time," Commodore Guff said decisively. "Damn it,
it's time!"




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                  Chapter 31
             Sarcophagus in the Sky

    Barrin fought a futile, one-man fight over Urborg.
    At first, Urza's coalition had held strong, but the
Phyrexians were too many, too vicious. They slew the
Keldons and Metathran to a man. They drove Serrans and
elves and panther warriors from the isles. When the costs
of battle mounted, Urza himself had summoned Darigaaz
and the dragon nations away to Koilos, and enlisted Lord
Windgrace for his titan corps. In the battle of Urborg, he
left a single warrior—"My one-man army." Mage Master
Barrin floated high above the rankling central volcano. He
surveyed the wreckage of the past month. Helionauts
burned on the ground. Longships sank in the brine. Angels
lay dead in rainwater swamps and elves in saltwater
marshes. Metathran were crucified to cypress trees. Keldons
rotted in kelp beds. Muck made them all seem slain pigs.
Bugs the size of fish fed on them— worse things too.
Phyrexians clambered like roaches over the dead.
    There were victories, of course. Two of the Phyrexian
cruisers lay in broken heaps. The minions of the lich lord
crawled into the fallen hulks like maggots into corpses.
Ghouls and scavenger folk tricked away whatever they
could and matched claws and teeth with the Phyrexians
there. Barrin let them annihilate each other.
    A worse battle loomed. This morning, a storm front had
formed above the western sea. The clouds approached with
slow confidence. All the while, they gathered steam and

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wrath above the churning ocean. The storm had rolled
within a score of miles before Barrin saw what it hid. Along
its advancing edge appeared the black prows of seven, eight
... twelve Phyrexian cruisers.
     "If I fight this fight alone, I will lose the island and
myself," Barrin reasoned. "If Urza wants this stink-swamp
saved—for whatever unfathomable reason—he will have to
grant me more aid."
     Closing his eyes, Barrin drew a long, deep breath of the
brimstone air. He tapped memories of another island, of
blue and beautiful Tolaria. Power surged through him, the
azure energies of magical manipulation. Space folded.
Barrin leaped from one wrinkle to another. Urborg
vanished away beneath him, taking its envelope of steamy
heat. Koilos formed, equally hot, but as dry as a furnace.
     Barrin hovered above sand dunes and rills of rock. In
the sheer distance, Phyrexians filled the world. They
drilled and rested, fought for the best food and gobbled it
down live, rode trench worms and burned their murdered
own. In the near distance, coalition armies camped—
Metathran, Benalish, and elf, with dragons sleeping in their
midst.
     Urza would be just beyond them, under that long line of
canvas. The fabric hid a deep trench hewn from bedrock by
artifact engines. It was Urza's secret bunker, a thousand feet
deep, two thousand feet long, and a hundred feet wide.
Within the bunker, he kept his secret weapons—the titan
engines.
     Drifting slowly down to the canvas, Barrin swept his
hand over himself. He turned momentarily insubstantial
and slid through the fabric.
     Cool darkness filled the bunker. Titan engines stood
against one wall, seeming watchers in an ancient tomb. In



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a few of the cannon-toting machines, planeswalkers
fiddled, finalizing the settings of their command pods.
    At the base of the trench, Urza worked. He had set up
his folding travel table, a massive workspace that
compacted into a slim panel of wood. Maps of Koilos lay
neatly arrayed before the master artificer. He scribed
confident lines across them, projecting angles of attack.
    Barrin descended beside his old friend. Charred war
cloaks settled about the mage's ankles. As Dominaria
resumed its hold on him, Barrin let out an involuntary sigh.
    "Hello, Urza."
    The planeswalker glanced up, his eyes bright in the
gloom. "Is the battle of Urborg concluded?"
    Barrin bristled at this greeting. He replied just as curtly.
"No. I need reinforcements."
    Looking back down at the maps of Koilos, Urza said,
"There are none."
    Shrugging, Barrin pursed his lips. "Then Urborg is lost."
    Urza snorted, "Then it is lost."
    "So that's it?" Barrin asked heatedly. "A month ago,
Urborg had to be saved at all cost, and now you lose it with
a shrug?"
    Raising his gaze, Urza said, "It is a strategically
important site, second only to Koilos. But it is second to
Koilos. If Urborg cannot be held without reinforcements—
and we have no reinforcements to spare—then Urborg is
lost."
    Flinging his hands out in surrender, Barrin said, "Yes,
lost." He leaned against the wall of the trench and folded
his arms. "I see you have your final chess match worked out
here—your armies, your war engines, your airships and
dragons and titans. Was that Weatherlight I saw?"
    "Yes," Urza replied simply.



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    "Good," Barrin snapped. "I'm going to go see my
daughter—"
    "No," Urza interrupted. Something like sadness—or
guilt— entered his eyes.
    "What do you mean, no?"
    "Hanna died two weeks ago."
    "What?" Barrin barked, laughing incredulously. "What
did you say?"
    "The plague overwhelmed her. There was nothing
anyone could do."
    Shaking his head in disbelief, Barrin said, "Hanna? My
Hanna?"
    "There was nothing anyone could do."
    The mage master's face became a sickly white. He
steadied himself on Urza's table, crumpling the maps there.
He gazed blankly at those ruined plans. Color suddenly
flooded back into his features—blood.
    He spoke in a quiet, trembling voice. "There was
something I could have done, Urza. I could have held her
hand. I could have stroked her hair...." His voice failed, but
his welling eyes stared imploringly at Urza. "Why didn't
you summon me?"
    "Urborg had to be saved."
    "Don't say that! Don't for one moment say that!" Barrin
replied, dashing the tears from his eyes. He lashed out,
flinging the maps from Urza's table. They rattled in an
angry flock of paper and landed in the dust. "Of course you
didn't call me. Your work was always the most important
thing. Of course I wasn't there when my daughter died. I
wasn't there when she lived. You stole her from me, and
that's not the worst of it—I let you steal her from me!
Yawgmoth of the Nine Hells!"
    "Don't say that name—" Urza said urgently, lifting his
hands toward the titans—"not here,"


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    "Where is she?" Barrin demanded. "Where is she?"
    "Gerrard buried her. She lies in the sands of Koilos."
    "She wouldn't have wanted that. This desert was
nothing to her. Tolaria was always her home. I'm taking
her to Tolaria, to be buried beside her mother."
    "No," Urza said, plucking the maps from the dust.
"Tolaria, too, is lost. The gathering of planeswalkers drew
Phyrexians. They attacked ferociously. We escaped with
the titan engines and every useful device, and detonated
the others. Even now, the Phyrexians solidify their hold on
the island."
    "Solidify their hold?" Barrin asked in angry amazement.
"So some of the students and scholars remain?"
    "Every battle has casualties—"
    "And I have become one, Urza," Barrin said. All the
anger had gone from his voice. Only dread clarity
remained. "I have spent my life fighting battles I did not
believe in because I believed in you. No more. The cost is
too high. Belief is too rare. I've been a fool. I fought for
things I did not love and let what I loved slip away— first
my wife, and then my daughter, and now myself. I'm done.
I'm taking Hanna back to Tolaria. I'm fighting for my
home and her home and my wife's grave. I'm finally going
to fight a battle I believe in—I'm going to fight a final
battle I believe in."
    Brow furrowing, Urza said simply, "You cannot."
    "Good-bye, my friend," Barrin replied, and he was gone.
    He had never teleported himself into solid matter
before. It was ill-advised, of course. Barrin was through
with advice—he was through with nearly everything. The
Mage Master of Tolaria materialized beneath the sand of a
nearby hill. He took form, his arms wrapped around the
buried body of his daughter. When she was first born,
Barrin had held her thus, had placed on her a beacon


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enchantment. It let him find her wherever she was. It had
led him to her here, in her grave.
    Why didn't I use the enchantment a month ago? Why
not a year ago? Why not all those days of childhood when
she was building box kites and damming the creeks of
Tolaria?
    "Hanna," Barrin whispered with his last breath, brought
cold within him from Urza's bunker.
    The single, quiet word emerged with the force of a blue
gale. It blasted away sand, shooting it up through the press
of soil. Grains spat from the grave. The wind redoubled. A
vortex stripped away particle after particle. Sunlight
stabbed down through the thick ground. The spinning
shaft widened, carving out the grave. It scoured Barrin's
face and mutton chops. It filled his bloodied cloak and
cleansed the white cerements that wrapped his daughter.
Barrin gasped in sadness. Hurloon myrrh had been used on
the cloths, and it exuded the scent of sorrow.
    "Hanna," the old mage cried.
    The whirlwind tore away the last of the entombing
sand. Without its weight pressing on him, Barrin marveled
at how light she was. This had been no sudden death but
the long agony that comes from chronic neglect.
    How could I have been worlds away while she slowly
died? "Hanna!"
    Through the angry storm, Barrin rose. He bore his child
in his arms. Beyond the circling curtain of dust, he saw the
crew of Weatherlight. They had rushed to the grave site
when they saw the sandstorm begin. Tahngarth stood
nearest, his axe lifted to slay any beast that might emerge.
Sisay and Orim stared in disbelief at the violated grave of
their friend. Dust pasted tears to their faces. Only Gerrard,
beyond them all, understood. He saw not the storm but the
man in the storm. He saw Barrin's eyes and the guilt there.


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Gerrard understood. He shared that guilt. Hanna had died
while the two men she most loved were busy fighting
Phyrexians.
    It was more than Barrin could bear. With a nod to
Gerrard, he took Hanna away from that sandy place.
    The roar of the cyclone was replaced by the roar of the
oceans. The sands of Koilos reshaped into the stony cliffs of
Tolaria. It was the simplest teleport Barrin had ever cast.
He knew the spot intimately—the unmarked grave of his
wife, near the sea. Here, a young Jhoira once escaped the
rigors of the academy. The teleport was as simple as
returning home.
    Barrin stood above the slab of rock where his wife lay.
He ached to lay his daughter to rest beside her. He ached
to die with them. Tears streaming down his face, Barrin
dropped his head back. The sky above was dark, not with
storm clouds but with Phyrexian ships. There were a score
of cruisers and as many more plague ships. Smaller vessels
peeled away from the main fleet to pursue Tolarian refugees
in tiny boats. Beneath the crowded fleet, columns of black
smoke rose from the ruined academy. Perhaps the
Phyrexians had bombed the buildings to oblivion. Perhaps
it had been Urza. Their works were often indistinguishable.
"I have been a fool," Barrin told himself.
    Without laying his daughter down, Barrin cast a simple
water spell.
    Beside his wife's grave lay another natural crypt in the
stone. Barrin had always believed he would lie there when
his time had come. He had never imagined his daughter's
death. Beneath the stone lid of the crypt, the spell took
shape. Tiny jets of water bubbled up, lifting the lid and
sliding it slowly aside. Water wept down the stony walls of
the tomb. By the time the lid had glided to one side, a
small clear pool lay beside the stones.


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    Drawing a deep breath, Barrin hugged his daughter's
body. "The last time I saw you, you were heading into
Rath. We fought, I remember. I'm sorry. We also said good-
bye. I didn't think that good-bye would be our last. I was
wrong about everything. Everything." Gently lowering her
into the grave, he sighed deeply. "Good-bye, my angel."
    He stood, watching solemnly as the lid slid back over
the crypt. Darkness slowly swallowed up his daughter. The
last of the water dripped from the edges of the lid. It grated
quietly into place.
    "Sarcophagus." Barrin whispered the old Thran word as
he stared at the spot. "Flesh eater."
    He would find his own sarcophagus in the sky.
    Barrin rose into the air for the last time in his life.
    In ancient days, Urza lost his brother to Phyrexia. In his
rage, he had unleashed a blast from an artifact called the
sylex. That blast had sunk continents and reshaped
Dominaria. It had also made Urza a veritable god.
    Barrin was no god. He did not have a sylex. He did not
wish to sink continents, but he knew the spell Urza had
cast. It would be enough.
    Above him, massive ships floated like leviathans.
Barrin made no move to hide. A single man rising through
a smoky sky was hard enough to see, and those
mountainous machines were oblivious to so small a threat.
Barrin ascended in their midst. Black killing things. They
would not know what hit them.
    Closing his eyes, Barrin drew upon the power of his
fury. Lava. Brimstone. Fire. He thought of Shiv and
Rhammidarigaaz. He thought of the mana rig pumping red-
hot stone like a giant heart. Rage welled in him. He was its
vessel. Hatred shaped the spell, but he needed more power.
    Barrin drew mana from Tolaria beneath him. He
remembered Karn's birth in the first Tolaria. He


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remembered the war with K'rrik in the second Tolaria. He
remembered Jhoira and Teferi, Weatherlight and the
Metathran, Rayne and Hanna. As blue mana coursed into
him, Barrin tapped other lands as well—verdant Yavimaya,
militant Benalia, undead Urborg. He drew all the power
into himself and became a living sylex.
    His insides boiled. Beams shot from his eyes and his
fingertips. Power sought escape in every extremity. It crept
its way up legs and arms, across face and chest. Hair stood
on end and hurled energy from its tips. Pores opened and
beamed. Every wound ever struck on his body burst open
and shone. His flesh could not contain the radiance. Soon,
Barrin glared like a second sun.
    Those were not light rays, though, but power rays. They
roared out red from him. The air sizzled with them. Beams
struck the ships. They cut metal as though it were water.
They turned Phyrexian armor to pudding and Phyrexian
flesh to ash. They pierced to engine cores and cracked
powerstones.
    Cruisers and plague ships spewed smoke through a
thousand sudden holes. Engines went critical. One
machine blazed apart. Its own shrapnel melted in the
energy it unleashed. Four adjacent cruisers lurched and
exploded. They tilted on end. Daylight sieved through
their riddled hulls. Ship to ship, destruction spread.
    Not a cannon was fired, not a plasma burst unleashed,
but there was holocaustal fire in the heavens. Below, it was
the same. Oceans boiled. Trees flash-burned. Rocks melted.
    Whatever creatures had stood on Tolaria were blinded
by the flash, and deafened by the concussion, and
dismantled by the raw power. Phyrexians, scholars,
students, hinds, fleas—all died in that moment. Their
struggles were done. Their bodies were gone. Even the
ground on which they stood turned to wax and ran.


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    Only Rayne and Hanna were safe, sealed into their
sarcophagi.
    How like Urza had Barrin become.
    At last the blast spent itself. It left a hole in the sky. No
ships remained. No clouds either. The beaming sun seemed
dim and gray.
    Cold waves crashed into boiling seas. Whirlpools laid
the ocean depths bare. Water churned silt as red as blood.
    Where once had been a verdant island was now a
molten slab of rock, hissing into the sea. Tolaria was gone
forevermore.
    So too was her onetime lord, Mage Master Barrin.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 32
                The Battle is Joined

    Eladamri strode at the head of his army, Liin Sivi at his
side. He wore the elven armor and livery of his Steel Leaf
warriors. He carried a powerstone pike, just like the tens of
thousands of Metathran that marched behind him. Their
belief armed and armored him. Belief made Eladamri the
savior of elves and the commander of Metathran.
    Lifting high his powerstone pike, Eladamri shouted,
"Charge!" His folk took up the shout. It became a fierce
war cry, mortals storming the gates of hell. Those gates
were well guarded. The desert before Eladamri swarmed
with Phyrexians. For a mile in every direction, monsters
ranked. In deep trenches lurked Phyrexian throats—living
stomachs that would swallow anyone who happened across
them. In cannonades and bombard embrasures, Phyrexian
gunners tested aim and range. In spell towers, sorcerers
prepared black-mana magics. In sanctums, priests tended
flesh eaters. They waited eagerly.
    Not all waited. Other beasts marched forward. In side-
by-side phalanxes, they advanced. Their claws and hooves
flung up shimmering clouds of salt-dust in their wake. The
vanguard bristled with scuta. Their cranial shields gleamed
black under a merciless sun. Next came bloodstocks. Their
metallic fore-hooves churned the ground. Phyrexian shock
troops filled up the main body of the army, the most
vicious fighters of all. They all advanced—not marching
but charging.

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    Eladamri leveled his powerstone pike. His jaw
clenched. His eyes gleamed like twin poniards.
    Liin Sivi prepared her toten-vec.
    The two lines approached—one blue and silver and the
other black and iron.
    A whine rose behind Eladamri's division. The noise
intensified to a shriek. The air directly overhead suddenly
thronged with gleaming birds—falcon engines. They cut
the sky to ribbons. Bending razor beaks toward the
Phyrexian lines, the birds dived. A manifold crackle
followed as falcons smashed through scuta shields. From
the holes they punched came a whirring sound and geysers
of macerated meat.
    The Phyrexian front lines crashed down. Over their
scaly backs, bloodstocks galloped eagerly. They bore no
shields except the bone armor beneath their skin. They
bore no weapons except the scimitar claws that sprouted
from their fingers. Their fangy throats were filled with roars
as they smashed against Eladamri and his army.
    Powerstone pikes rammed into bloodstock bellies. The
weapons tore through bony plates and ate deeper.
Bloodstocks clawed their way up the shafts that impaled
them. Pikes chewed through Phyrexian spines. Their hind
legs went limp. Mechanical forelegs bore the creatures
forward. They sank scimitar claws into elf faces and
Metathran necks.
    Eladamri himself was almost torn to pieces. He released
his pike—mired in a bloodstock's midsection—and ducked
under a pair of swiping claws. With a roundhouse kick, he
flung the claws back to stab their owner. The bloodstock
impaled its own eye and tore its neck wide. Glistening-oil
sprayed in a golden cloud.
    Blanketed in the monster's gore, Eladamri raked his
sword from its sheath. With one chop to the neck, the


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bloodstock fell before him. His powerstone pike clawed its
way out the monster's back. Eladamri clambered past the
beast and retrieved his pike.
     A terrible creature reared up before him. It seemed a
giant crab. A huge pincher clamped onto Eladamri, lifting
him from the ground. Carapace cut into his sides. Biting
back the agony, he hurled his powerstone pike at the
thing's back. The weapon cracked off of chitin and rattled
uselessly down among clicking legs.
     The claw tightened. Eladamri felt his hip pop. He
hacked at the claw's joint. The sword's tip imbedded
between scissoring plates. Yanking sideways on it, Eladamri
levered the pinchers slightly open. He could not escape,
but neither could the monster cut him in half.
     A Phyrexian foot soldier climbed the crab's back to hew
Eladamri's head from his shoulders.
     Sudden fire blazed from the sky. The foot soldier was
gone, dismantled by a ray cannon beam. The carapace of
the creature was eaten away also. Its guts showed in white
cross-section beneath the shattered shell. The beam sliced
onward. It carved a smoldering line deep through the
Phyrexian troops.
     Behind that beam came a welcome sight, the roaring
hull of Weatherlight. Another ray cannon blast ripped down
from the other side of the vessel. Weatherlight blazed past
overhead. Her guns plowed furrows through the monsters.
Directly abeam of the great warship flew a ragged fleet of
smaller fighters. Some shot cannons of their own. Most
hailed quarrel bolts down atop monstrous heads.
     Dropping from the dead claw of his captor, Eladamri
lifted his sword high and let out a Skyshroud battle cry.
     In elf and Metathran throats, the shout echoed across
the bloody field.



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                           *****

    Gerrard heard the battle cry go up, and it hardened his
angry heart.
    The gun before him was already blisteringly hot. He
loosed another round. A ray roared from the smoking
muzzle. It soared, a great fist, and slammed into a Phyrexian
cannonade. The guns below liquefied atop their gunners.
    Gerrard watched them writhe. He spat through gritted
teeth. His spittle sizzled off the cannon. Spotting another
gun bunker, he squeezed off a line of fire. The shot hurled
down into the long, low embrasure. It brilliantly lit the
space within. Figures shone for a moment, silhouetted in
fire. The roof blew wide. A great gray gout of smoke
belched up from the scar.
    The scar. A huge black crater, with gray tendrils
radiating out across once-healthy flesh....
    He poured fire down on the roaches. He ripped their
black shells and watched the white meat ooze from
beneath. He tore out their nests and stomped on the vile
maggots. They were vermin. Worse, they were living rot,
they were hunks of walking plague.
    Gerrard's cannon spoke again. Four pulses leaped out.
The first came to ground with such force that it rolled
across Phyrexians, mowing them down in a line a thousand
feet long. The second struck the rising shot from an
ensconce bombard. Energy ripped the bombs from the sky,
turning them to whistling fireworks. The third spattered
flame across a whole regiment of monsters. The final bolt
sailed low above the ground and impacted the entrance to
the Caves of Koilos.
    Weatherlight pulled up sharply. It had been their
plan—Gerrard's plan—to cut Eladamri an avenue of
destruction through the Phyrexian forces. Eladamri would


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drive across the smoldering ground and straight for the
caves, cutting one edge off the Phyrexian defense. Then
the ship would fly to Agnate's contingent and cut a similar
swath for them.
    Weatherlight rose at the end of her run. She thundered
into the heavens.
    Gerrard distractedly clutched the gunners' straps. He
should have ordered the maneuver. He did not. Sisay knew
what she was doing. The ship vaulted high above
Phyrexian cannonades. Fire followed them up. Its tepid
tongues licked the screaming machine. One shot spacked
against the new spar, grown by Multani. It hissed sap but
did not burst into flame. The engine surged. Weatherlight
leaped skyward, shucking the fire with an airless boom.
    "Prepare for second strafing run!" Sisay shouted through
the tube.
    Weatherlight topped out her ascent, slipping sideways to
bring herself about. Ahead lay Koilos. Air spilled past the
hull. The world soared suddenly up beneath her. The line
of battle was there, just ahead. Agnate and his troops
fought.
    Weatherlight nosed down toward the bloody front.
Gerrard swung his gun down. The machine shuddered as a
charge built within. He spotted a line of trench worms.
The cannon belched energy. The shot looped as it
descended and corkscrewed into one of the huge worms,
frying it.
    ... When he had been a child, Gerrard and Vuel had
skewered caterpillars with twigs and watched them struggle
to walk....
    Another flare spilled from his gun, rolling over the
Phyrexian hordes and baking them in their shells.
    ... He and Vuel used to pour lamp oil down an anthill
and light it on fire....


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    The third shot struck ground just in front of a cannon
embrasure. It pulverized the ground. The cannon drooped
forward, unleashing its venom into the backs of its own
creatures.
    ... Wasps emitted an acrid wisp of smoke just before the
magnifying glass made their abdomens crack....
    Agnate would be able to drive forward over this swath.
Weatherlight and the rest of the armada had paved a road in
bodies. Sure, plenty of Phyrexian cannons and bombards
remained, but Sisay and her other gunners could take them
out on subsequent passes. Gerrard unstrapped himself. He
had another task ahead.
    ... It had taken all day and two gallons of lamp oil to dig
up the anthill, but when they found the queen, all the bites
were worth it. They cut open her abdomen and pulled out
the white eggs and crushed them and watched all the
workers try to carry them away. They laughed with that last
fire, the queen dragging herself through it all, picking at
the dead eggs while her torn-open abdomen curled up and
crisped....
    Tsabo Tavoc. She had done this. She had brought these
bugs, these maggots here. She had brought rot and plague.
Gerrard would find her and cut her open as she had cut
open Hanna. He would drag out her eggs and crush them
and kill her slowly, just the way Vuel had shown him.
    A hulking presence loomed up behind him. Tahngarth.
The sky raced past. The minotaur's eyes were grave.
Gerrard saw his reflection, small and hunched, in those
eyes.
    Tahngarth said, "The strike team is ready."
    Gerrard nodded, pulling himself from the gunner traces.
Another gunner, waiting nervously beside the minotaur,
slid himself into the spot and resumed fire. Gerrard stared
blankly at him.


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                      J. Robert King

    "We're coming up on the drop site," Tahngarth urged.
"You need to pull on your hauberk and arm yourself."
Tahngarth pounded the hilt of his sword against the
Hurloon battle armor he wore.
    Nodding numbly, Gerrard lifted a breast-and-backplate
and slid them on.
    "Are you sure you're up to this? Hanna's death—"
    Gerrard's eyes flared. "Yes. That's it, isn't it? Hanna's
death. Yes. That's it."
    Turning, he stalked to the prow. He shoved his way
through the Benalish strike team. Gerrard peered over the
ship's rail, seeing that Sisay edged Weatherlight up just
above the caves. Phyrexian cannons struggled to turn about
and fire on the hovering ship. Just as rapidly,
Weatherlight's own guns took out their entrenchments.
    From the prow speaking tube, Sisay's voice shrilled,
"Can't hold her here for long."
    Without answering, Gerrard flipped the capstan lock.
As chain rattled out, Gerrard vaulted over the rail. He
landed with his feet on the arms of the anchor and rode its
plunging weight downward. The prison brigade gave a
cheer to see their leader's bold advance. They too flung
themselves overboard, gripping the chain. It dropped
before the yawning mouth of the Caves of Koilos.
    Out of that debouchment lumbered a huge figure—a
Phyrexian digger.
    The anchor crashed down atop it. The vast head of the
monster staved beneath the anchor's crown. The beast
collapsed, and Gerrard rode it to ground. He leaped free of
anchor and digger both, cleaving the head of the beast's
handler. Turning, he hacked through a Phyrexian foot
soldier that rushed him. Tahngarth landed beside him,
bringing his sword to bear. The two friends pushed back
the monsters, widening the circle.


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    One by one, Gerrard's small army landed. Two hundred
Benalish fighters dropped down atop the dead hulk.
Gerrard led them. He and his comrades moved out, killing
as they went. They were like a plague, spreading from a
single point out to infect an entire organism.
    Gerrard liked the image. He liked killing these
monsters. Vuel would have liked this too. Poor Vuel. Poor
Hanna. Gerrard had lost too much. He'd lost everything.
    Somehow Tahngarth did not seem to be enjoying
himself. He fought sure, and slew, but there seemed no
gladness in it.
    Gerrard shrugged off the thought. He caught a
monster's claws on his sword, chopped them off, and
pierced the beast's skull. He advanced into the caves.
    Tahngarth will have fun when we find Tsabo Tavoc
and slice her open and crush her babies.

                            *****

    He was exquisite. Such an angry killer.
    Deaths cascaded like pure water through Tsabo Tavoc's
mind. They refreshed her, invigorated her. They made her
teeth itch.
    This one will be easy to capture, Tsabo Tavoc told
herself. Reckless, angry, blind. He will be easy to catch and
fun to dissect. He is, after all, Urza's bioengineered savior.
If Thaddeus is a work of art, this Gerrard is a masterpiece.
    Tsabo Tavoc scuttled from her deep cave, up to capture
her prey.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 33
                 The Fight Inward

    Weatherlight soared past overhead. She bled fire down
onto the Phyrexians. Her cannons glowed. Prow,
amidships, stern, and keel, destruction bloomed from her.
    Fire raked over a Phyrexian contingent. The flesh
beneath chitin flashed away in gray smoke. Scales and
bones stood upright a moment longer as bodies fled in
sooty ghosts on the wind. Hundreds of monsters fell. Their
superheated shells crumbled to white powder. Weatherlight
unleashed another firestorm, cratering the battlefield. Glass
splashed out to wrap Phyrexians in searing blankets. Half-
melted stones pelted the menagerie. Flesh was scoured from
bodies. Other cannon blasts laved acres of sand in flame.
Phyrexians marched as far through the holocaust as they
could. At last, their cores reached the combustion
threshold. They exploded. One blaze ignited a second and
third. Where once had marched a whole regiment now lay
a highway inward, paved with soot.
    Agnate charged onto that highway. He clutched a
battle axe in both hands. The vast blade fell with angry
vengeance. It clove into the segmented mouth of a
Phyrexian footman. The blade bit to the throat, splitting
jaw and pallet.
    The beast fought on. Its claws rammed beneath
Agnate's breastplate, punching holes in his side. Fingers
clenched. Organs severed and bled.


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    Letting go his battle axe, Agnate gripped the impaling
claws with one hand and the beast's elbow with the other.
Twisting quickly, he rammed the elbow, breaking the joint.
It popped loudly, and bone and gristle separated. One more
yank, and the arm came off, streaming oil-blood.
    Undeterred, the Phyrexian lunged with its good arm.
    Agnate drew the dead arm from his side and thrust its
gory claws up before him. The Phyrexian grabbed its
severed arm, giving Agnate the chance to yank his battle
axe free. He swung it in a broad circle and lopped the
thing's head off.
    The body jigged a moment more, uncertain it was dead,
before flopping to ground.
    Agnate trod over it. His axe haft felt strange in his
hand. It was not just glistening-oil and Phyrexian white
matter. Something else was wrong. His fingers felt numb,
jangled. His arms were sluggish.
    He had been only fighting—not fighting toward
something. This Eladamri was his match, was worthy to
lead the Metathran, but he was not Thaddeus. Agnate
could fight beside this savior of elves but not toward him.
    O Thaddeus, in dying, you killed me, thought Agnate
bleakly as his axe split the breast of a bloodstock. If you
only lived, I could fight.
    I do live ... Agnate.... I live....
    The thought was weak on the wind, but it was there. It
entered Agnate like a freshening breeze, breathing life into
him.
    He lives. I can yet fight. He lives.
    Agnate lifted high his axe. It streamed the life of
Phyrexians, anointing Agnate and his troops with oil.
    "To the caves!" he shouted, as Thaddeus had in the first
assault on Koilos. "To the caves!"
    That axe fell, harvesting more glistening-oil.


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    Agnate fought with fury. There was nothing to lose
now. Either he would fight to Thaddeus's side, or he would
die trying.
    Either way, the fight would end in joy.

                          *****

    Tsabo Tavoc paced patiently around the table where
Thaddeus was pinioned. The man lay wide open. Any
human would have died long ago. Not a Metathran. Their
organs visibly regenerated. They had an infinite capacity
for pain and no capacity for despair. They had no instinct
but to fight Phyrexians. Even in a coma, Thaddeus was
fighting Tsabo Tavoc. He was sending his dreams to his
comrade.
    Cruelly idle, Tsabo Tavoc reached one of her slender
hands into the man's open abdomen. She clutched his
spleen. She squeezed, cutting the organ into four wedges.
    "That will take some time to heal," the spider woman
whispered in her cicada voice. She smiled. Plates shifted
back from filed teeth. "In the meantime, keep fighting me,
Thaddeus. Keep calling your friend. Bring him here. Fill
him with mad hope. I will lay him beside you. You will die
together. Isn't that what you hope for? There is no better
hope for the folk of Dominaria, but that they die with
those they love."
    Tsabo Tavoc straightened. She breathed, well satisfied
with her work. Flicking a look at the vat priests on duty,
she thought, Do not let him heal. Then she set out for the
portal. That was the spot Gerrard hoped to reach. That was
the place her surprise would be waiting.
    The spider woman's feet made glad clicking sounds as
she left the chamber.



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                           *****

    Urza hung within his titan suit. This should have been
his heaven. Ensconced in the heart of his greatest
invention, surrounded by ten thousand tons of machine
and armor and weaponry—Urza should have been thrilled.
    His full-body harness was keyed to every fiber of the war
suit. His feet moved the feet of the engine; his fingers made
the machine grasp and crush. With a thought, he could
launch falcon engines from aeries on the suit's back. On a
whim, he could fire the ray cannons that ringed the titan's
wrists or ignite the plasma bolts imbedded in the titan's
eyes. His every running step would slay hundreds. His every
fiery breath would ignite thousands. In this suit, he could
stomp with impunity up to the Caves of Koilos and tear it
apart like a boy ripping up an anthill.
    Urza should have been thrilled, but his hands felt
numb. He couldn't stop swallowing. It was absurd. His
physical body was merely a convenient projection of his
mind. He need suffer no physical ailment in the world—
unless, of course, it had its root in his mind.
    What is wrong with me? Urza wondered as he fitted the
last conduits to his brow. Perhaps it is the whole Barrin
business.
    Could that be? Surely not.
    Barrin had been a good man—a good friend.
Planeswalkers habitually avoided friendships with mortals
due to the inevitability of loss. Through the use of slow-
time water, Barrin had become functionally immortal. He
had been a fine choice of friend, if a planeswalker allowed
himself such things. Barrin's death was a great loss, true,
but Urza had expected great losses. War had its casualties.
He was willing to lose even himself if it meant defeating
Phyrexia.


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    So, why this melancholia? It could have no
physiological basis. Urza had no true physiology. It could
only be that he was sad because some rogue part of his
mind wished to be sad—a strange and not wholly
satisfactory mechanism, the mind.
    The battle is raging, Urza, spoke a snide mind into his. It
was Tevash Szat. The cockpit of his own titan suit had
been specially designed to fit the god-demon form he
preferred. When do we get to go a slaying?
    Heaving a needless sigh, Urza returned the thought. Is
everyone ready?
    From the others—Taysir, Daria, Freyalise, Kristina,
Lord Windgrace, Bo Levar, and Commodore Guff, each in
his or her own specially designed titan suit—came
affirmative replies.
    Szat thought irritably, It's about time. Your Metathran are
already wading waist-deep in their own blood.
    Then we should best wade in ourselves. Urza's heart
caught in his throat. He had spoken those very words to
Barrin at the opening of the war. Let us go.
    The canyon that held the nine titans was suddenly loud
with the groan of hydraulics and the thrum of engines.
Szat's titan suit reached overhead. Its enormous fingers,
each tipped in swords as large as plows, clasped the canvas
that hung there. He ripped it down, the thick cloth tearing
like tissue. Bright sunlight stabbed down into the trench. It
splashed across shoulders of Thran metal and bristling
armament. The colossi clasped the edge of the trench,
digging their fingers deep. They kicked footholds out of
solid rock. Massive but agile, they climbed from the crypt
that had held them.
    Three miles distant, Phyrexians glimpsed this awesome
arrival. Where once there had been but silken folds of
desert, now appeared gargantuan figures—veritable gods.


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They cast shadows as large as villages. They were spangled
with the light of the sun. Time stood still as they rose.
Every mortal breath hushed. Every heart skipped a beat.
    Szat vaulted first from the trench. His titan suit was as
black as his soul, so dark that it seemed a living shadow. He
landed, shaking the ground, and stared at his glorious
figure.
    With a deep, demonic laugh, Szat reared his head back
and bellowed fire to the skies. From the suit's mouth,
flames shot high enough to burn a hole in the clouds. Szat
stomped his feet—towers pounding the desert. Wide rings
of dust rolled up around him. Szat drummed vast knuckles
against his Thran-metal breast. From him came a deep
tolling like a dirge bell.
    It was enough exultation. Since he had first begun
training in the Phyrexian gorge, Szat had wanted to battle
in the suit. He wanted blood. Szat charged across the
empty desert. His every footfall sent tremors through the
ground.
    Phyrexians and Metathran, who had paused in their
battle, fell now to their knees. The concussions yanked the
ground from under them. Phyrexian ray cannons wheeled
madly about to bring this new menace into the crosshairs.
Red rays leaped out at the thundering titan. Most cut wide
and leaped onward to slash through clouds a hundred miles
away. A few beams cracked against the giant's armor and
were deflected away. They slid off as if he were made of
mirrors.
    Szat returned fire. His wrist guns blazed to life. Beams
blossomed into the air before him. They tore into trenches,
pulverizing those within. Rays ripped through readouts and
carved out cannonades. Dead husks of Phyrexians bounded
through the air.



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                      J. Robert King

    Szat ran up behind the Metathran lines. It seemed he
would crush his allies. At the last, he leaped. His enormous
figure hurtled overhead with all the silent weight of a
meteor. Clearing the front, he crashed to ground in the
midst of Phyrexian troops. His boots struck first, slaying
hundreds. His knees struck next, crushing hundreds more.
Szat's hands rammed into a cannon embrasure. Claws
plowed through dirt. They sank deep, cracking rock
foundations, and flexed around the hot guns. Yanking, he
hauled the guns loose. He flung them away to crash,
burning and blasting, among enemy troops.
    Laughing, Szat spat another gout of flame heavenward.
    This is not as I had planned, Urza sent to the other seven
titans. He rushed toward the other side of the battlefield.
They, too, were running but not directly into the fray. Each
planeswalker had been assigned a wedge of the battlefield
in forty degrees of arc. Each was to reach his or her position
before the whole titan squadron advanced. The point was
to create an inescapable noose, and to unnerve the beasts
before attacking. This is not as I had planned.
    Freyalise, whose suit was green tinged from the living
components implanted in the metal, answered for all the
rest—You should have planned for Szat to be Szat.
    From his own snow-white titan suit, Urza responded,
This changes nothing. The rest of you, attack as planned.
Eladamri and his troops can cut through whatever creatures
Szat allows to flood past.
    Taysir reached his designated spot. Mechanical feet
pounded to a halt. Dust rolled up around the enormous,
hunched figure. Powerstones of every color winked through
the clouds. I am ready.
    As am I, answered Kristina.
    Looks like all of us, Bo Levar replied.



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     I've lost a cannon! Commodore Guff broke in. Blast! As
if in answer, a bolt leaped suddenly across his frame,
cutting fifty feet into the rock where he stood. Nope, there
it is.
     Charge! Urza shouted.
     As one, the eight titans leaned into their strides and
broke into a tectonic run.
     Koilos rumbled like a drum struck by countless mallets.
     Urza unleashed a volley of ray cannon fire and vaulted
the Metathran troops. As he flew, he shot, and as he shot,
he shouted—Charge!

                           *****

    These titans are a pleasant surprise, Tsabo Tavoc
thought. The massacre of her folk moved through her.
Deaths mounted up in great crashing waves that battered
her heart. It was a thrilling sensation, the sort that, if
indulged too long, would leave her without an army. The
Ineffable had millions more, of course, but Crovax frowned
on excessive massacre of his troops—unless, of course, he
was the one doing it. No, as delicious as these titans were,
they had to be stopped.
    Awake, my children. The time has come to feed.
    Urza was not the only one to have a few tricks hidden
in reserve.
    Tsabo Tavoc felt the vast, ancient creatures rise from
the dusty barrows where they had slept.
    Witch engines. They were engines, yes, but as alive, as
fleshly, as any biologic beings. Headless, featureless, the
enormous creatures consisted merely of a gigantic central
body that bristled with quills. From their hunched and
shaggy backs fell storms of sand.



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                      J. Robert King

    They rose on impossibly thin limbs, white and
thousands like the tentacles of a jellyfish. They did not use
those legs to stand on— the hoary monsters could float or
fly—but instead to tear ships from the skies and lift whole
platoons to their fangy mouths. Best of all, the beasts could
regenerate as quickly as a wound was struck.
    Yes, my children. Welcome to the feast.
    Through the compound eyes of her collective mind, she
saw the arcane guardians loom high and soar toward Urza's
titans.




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                   Chapter 34
             The Death of a Warrior

    "What the hell is that thing?" Sisay shouted to no one.
Hanna was gone, Orim tended injuries on deck, and
Gerrard and Tahngarth fought in the caves. There was no
one to shout to, but some things must be shouted. "What
the hell is it?"
    Weatherlight banked, soaring swiftly to one side of a
rising hummock of bristly spines. It was a creature, a
Phyrexian monster as massive as a cloud. Beneath its
shaggy white body dangled thousands of long legs. With its
legs, the beast plucked the battlefield. Writhing forms—
Metathran, elf, and human—struggled in the grips of
barbed claws. The limbs hauled them up into mouths
beneath the creature.
    Sisay cringed away. "Whatever it is, it's about to be
dead." She wheeled Weatherlight hard about. The ship's
keel skidded on buffeting air, caught hold, and cut a tight,
clean semicircle.
    The bristly creature swept up before the bow.
    Mounting on her new course, Weatherlight blazed to life.
Her engines roared.
    Squee had moved to the starboard prow ray cannon. It
barked. Energy roared in superheated shafts out from the
gun. Rays plunged from the bow, struggling to escape the
hurtling ship. They crashed into the spiny mass.
    White puffs of smoke went up. Quills curled acridly.
Pink skin split open to a muscle mass that seemed writhing

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maggots. Awash in yellow blood, the maggot-muscles
ebbed down ragged hunks of bone.
    "Die, monster!" Sisay growled through clenched teeth.
    It was no good. The yellow tide of blood welled up over
bone. White hunks of muscle fused.
    "Those maggots are machines," rumbled Karn through
the speaking tube. "I see them through the running lights.
They fragment to absorb damage and then join together to
regenerate flesh."
    Weatherlight had not even passed the beast when its
pink skin had closed. New spines jutted obscenely from the
scar. Tentacles slapped at the stern of the ship,
    "Damn it!" Sisay roared. "How're we supposed to kill
that thing?"
    From the speaking tube came a shout—Orim, on deck
with a wounded ensign. "The anchor. We harvested
Phyrexians with it before. Hook that beast, and we can
drag it."
    "Or it can drag us," Sisay replied.
    "Do it," Karn said. "The engines will hold. The chain
will hold."
    Sisay shook her head. "It'll rip the hull in half."
    Another presence spoke to Sisay out of a wooden boss
in the bridge ceiling. "Do it," Multani echoed. "The hull
will hold. It will heal."
    There was someone to speak to. Sisay grinned eagerly.
"Yeah. Let's do this. Orim, if you've got that gunner
stabilized and strapped down, I could use you at the
capstan."
    "On my way." Beyond the wind screen, Orim picked
her way to the prow.
    Weatherlight cut a long smooth arc out over the
battlefield. In her wake, Phyrexian cannons bled fire into
the sky. A few bolts struck, ripping holes in the hull.


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    Multani worked quickly to regrow the sections. Where
energy lashed the engines, Karn healed the spots with
Thran metal. All the while, Orim hunkered by the rail.
    The ship roared into her new flight path. Ahead, the
witch engine rose. Its legs reached out toward
Weatherlight.
    "We'll have one shot at this," Sisay warned. "We've
made it mad enough. This'll make it furious."
    "This'll make it dead," Orim called back through the
capstan tube. "I learned a little about fly fishing among the
Cho-Arrim."
    Sisay snorted. "Cast your line."
    Orim pulled the pin from the capstan. It spun. Chain
paid out loudly. The ship's massive anchor plunged
downward through the boiling air. Ten fathoms, fifteen
fathoms, twenty fathoms.
    "Ratchet that off, Orim!" Sisay called. The healer
hauled hard on the capstan's lever, and the rattling chain
grumbled to silence. "Karn, I'm going to need your eyes on
this one. I want to sink the flukes in that monster's maggot
heart. And help me keep the ship trim. That thing could
flip us end over end."
    Instead of words, Karn answered in a surge of the
engines. Weatherlight vaulted higher into the reeling skies.
    A cannon blast clipped the starboard gunwale, cutting a
trough through it. Another ripped through the port-side
airfoil. The ship dipped, heeling to starboard.
    "Fold them!" Sisay ordered Karn. She pointed the prow
at the midsection of the beast and held her course. "Fold
the airfoils. We're going in full speed."
    With a loud clap, the wings folded. The ship's engines
thundered. Weatherlight leaped out ahead of a volley of
plasma bursts. She clove the air like an axe head,



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outrunning even ray fire. The anchor swung up beneath
the keel.
    "Bring us in low!" Sisay ordered. The ship plunged.
    Below, the witch engine swelled out grotesquely. It had
reared up. Its countless mouths gnashed the bodies of its
latest victims. White arms groped toward Weatherlight.
    Squee fired a series of bursts. They cut a swath through
the forest of lashing legs. The ship soared down that
avenue. More fire blazed from Squee's gun. Hunks of
severed white leg pelted across the deck. Toothy mouths
hissed fetid fumes at the fleeing craft. The anchor swung
down, cracking across the hard jaws.
    "Got a nibble!" Orim shouted.
    Sisay hauled back on the helm. Weatherlight jagged
upward. The anchor swung down, digging itself deep in one
of the monster's mouths. It sank away.
    "Make that a bite!"
    Links slashed through the thing's wet white flesh. In
the maggot storm of the beast's innards, the anchor at last
lodged on something solid.
    The prow deck bulged upward beneath the straining
bolthead. Green mana flowed through the wood,
strengthening it to steel hardness.
    "Let's flip it!" Sisay growled.
    Weatherlight vaulted just above the hairy, horrible
beast. Chains whipped tight against the monster's bulk.
Metal burst flesh and sawed deeper. The witch engine
roared from its myriad mouths. Weatherlight nosed toward
ground. Her anchor chain cut brutally deep, spreading the
walls of the laceration widely apart. The ship's keel shot
forward, just above the maggoty canyon it carved. She
roared down.
    Legs flapping into the heavens, the witch engine slowly
toppled. Its spiny back flipped down to the battlefield.


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Cannon fire meant for Weatherlight smashed instead into
the riven monster.
     Spotting Phyrexian armies beyond, Sisay shoved the
helm all the way forward. The ship dived sharply, dragging
its captive down behind it.
     "Let's see how you regenerate this," Sisay growled.
Weatherlight avalanched down the skies. She seemed
about to impact the battlefield when she drew sharply
level. Her keel smashed the heads of Phyrexians. Landing
spines jutted, slicing more of the beasts. Those hewn in
half by the rushing skyship were lucky. The rest stood in
the path of a great bristly ball.
     In its first revolution, the witch engine's legs were
shredded. Sections of muscle smashed down atop
Phyrexians, crushing them. In its second revolution, the
engine pounded its folk into paste. In its third, the anchor
chain sawed through it.
     Equal halves of the monster split from each other and
rolled away across the battlefield, spewing destruction.
Maggot-machines flung free. They pelted the monsters into
the ground. The torn halves of its skin emptied themselves.
The last of the witch engine's essence pattered away
uselessly.
     Sisay hauled back on the helm. Weatherlight climbed
into the heavens. "That's the way to cut 'em! Good work,
Orim!"
     The healer smiled grimly. "I could use a hand reeling in
the anchor."
     "Leave it be," Sisay said. "I'm not done fishing."

                           *****

   Did you see that? Bo Levar sent to the other
planeswalkers. He was busily ripping legs from another


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witch engine. The giant monster grew replacements faster
than he could pull them loose. It climbed his multicolored
titan suit. Did you see what Weatherlight did?
    Indeed! Commodore Guff replied. A witch engine
straddled the shoulders of his titan suit. Hundreds of
mouths gnawed at the power conduits. Bother these buggers!
    We cannot expect Weatherlight to save us, Urza
replied. Three of the vast beasts swarmed him. Cannon
blasts from his wrist rockets tore into them. The wounds
closed as quickly.
    Impatient, Bo Levar growled, Rip 'em open. They can
regenerate as long as the maggot machines are together. Rip
'em open and dig away the machines. These beasts are like
cigars—without their wrappers, they come to pieces.
    He rammed his clawed fingers deep into the witch
engine before him. With an almighty roar, he tore back the
thing's skin, splitting it open and spilling billions of
writhing machines. The tear deepened. Wriggling white
maggots showered across the titan suit. Ignoring them, Bo
kept ripping until the two hairy halves peeled away from
each other. He flung the empty halves down onto the
Phyrexian hordes.
    Well done. Urza said, ripping one of his own tormentors
into chunks. It seems we can learn from Weatherlight and
her crew.
    Where once scores of witch engines had menaced the
titans from the sky, now hailstorms of maggots fell to
ground.
    Szat burned the beasts as they fell. He draped the dead
husks over his shoulders like trophies. Nothing can stop us,
now! See? Even the puny mortals are driving for the cave
mouth. Victory is in reach. He crowed, pouring maggots into
his mouth and spewing them forth in flames. Nothing can
stop us!


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                           *****

    Maggot-engines plunged in a thick cascade ahead.
    Rhammidarigaaz banked sharply into clear air. The
dragon nations—red and black, blue and white and
green—followed.
    Plasma cannonades hurled blanketing fire toward them.
It seemed crimson silk unfolding on the wind. In moments,
it would slay them all.
    Darigaaz led his folk in a steep dive toward a Phyrexian
division below. The cannonades ceased their fire. Even
Phyrexians would not vaporize their own troops.
    Rhammidarigaaz did it for them. He spat flames on the
Phyrexian vanguard. It ate them away.
    The dragon nations shot out over the main body of the
Phyrexian army. Breath baked bugs in their shells. Talons
cracked Phyrexian skulls. Wings hurled monsters like
leaves.
    There were spells too. Darigaaz drew volcanic might
into the crystal of his scepter. Lava churned within the
pure glass. It gathered into a whirling vortex. Light blazed
forth and brimstone hailed out. The fiery hunks of stone
whistled as they fell. They stuck to gray flesh and burned
their way through.
    Scuta shuddered, struggling to throw off the burning
things. Shock troops thrashed as magma sank between ribs.
Bloodstocks slumped dead and smoldering on still-charging
legs. Wherever lava and air and oil met, beasts exploded.
    This was no Urborg. The coalition was winning this
time. Darigaaz could feel it. Weatherlight and the Circle of
Dragons ruled the heavens. Metathran and the Steel Leaf
elves ruled the world. Gerrard and his prison brigade ruled
the underworld. All the while, Urza and his titans closed
the circle around Tsabo Tavoc.


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   With a hiss of volcanic steam, Darigaaz vaulted
skyward. His dragons coiled like a deadly veil behind him.
As plasma mounted up from cannons, Darigaaz and his folk
plunged in another strafing run.
   Fire belched down. Phyrexians rose in ash.
   This was no Urborg.

                           *****

    Agnate and his forces fought forward down a path of
soot. Weatherlight had paved the way. Burning beasts and
fields of glass led to the caves. Agnate's army marched with
grim fury. They owned this highway. They cleared
Phyrexians like weeds. Agnate's battle axe grew dull—it
had split so many skulls, so much chitin. Still, it was a
deadly club, and Agnate's rage made it a lightning bolt.
    The axe smashed a Phyrexian skull. Horns atop that
pate bent inward. The monster staggered. Agnate kicked
its belly. He strode over the fallen thing.
    Another hailstorm of maggots began. The wriggling
mechanisms cracked against helms and shoulder pieces.
They fell in treacherous fields before the Metathran, who
kicked them aside. Anyone who fell was swarmed and
suffocated by the maggots.
    "Forward!" Agnate shouted above the hail of creatures.
    They had almost reached the cave mouth. The place
was already a charnel house. Gerrard and his prison strike
force had been brutal. They had slaughtered hundreds.
Phyrexian oil-blood formed a shallow marsh. Bodies lay
like flagstones in a vast floor. Even now, a platoon of the
prison brigade guarded the gates. They cheered Agnate and
his troops as they broke through.
    Eladamri, Liin Sivi, the Steel Leaf warriors, and the
other division of Metathran approached from the opposite


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highway of death. The pincers drew inexorably together.
The Phyrexians caught between those two claws would be
sliced to pieces. Those outside were even now being
stomped to death under the feet of titans.
    After so much killing, after such impossible legions of
fiends, it seemed strange so suddenly to rush up beside his
own allies. Arms that had spent hours wielding swords and
axes now opened in glad greeting. The long parted halves
of the Metathran army were reunited before the gates of
hell.
    Agnate did not allow himself the luxury of joy. Neither,
he noted, did Eladamri. The two commanders converged at
a stride, approaching the head of the prison contingent.
The defenders of Dominaria were ragged and bloody, but
grim smiles filled their faces.
    "Welcome to Koilos, commanders," the shaggy Benalish
leader said. "Gerrard and the rest of our brigade are locking
down the caves within. We have prevented Phyrexian
incursion from above. I gratefully relinquish command to
you."
    "Thank you," Agnate said with a level nod. Turning to
Eladamri, he said, "And I relinquish my command to you.
Lead this army in after Gerrard. He will need every sword
arm he can muster."
    The elf commander stared amazedly at Agnate. "1 was
about to offer you my command."
    Agnate shook his head. "1 have more pressing business.
Lead these troops."
    With no further word, Agnate marched past the
soldiers, into the yawning cave. He tossed aside the
battered battle axe. It clanged against a wall of stone. It
would be useless in the tight spaces in the caves. Agnate
drew his sword and dagger.



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    Gerrard had done well. Phyrexian bodies littered the
floor, with only occasional human corpses among them.
The bunkers were burned out, the guard stations smashed,
the nooks scoured. He had been thorough—furiously so.
Agnate approved.
    ... Agnate ... stay away ... a weak voice said in his
mind.... They are luring you.... It is a trap....
    I will always seek you, Agnate responded. He strode
down burned out corridors toward that voice. The trap is
sprung. Gerrard is killing the killers. There are none left to trap
me.
    ... I know. He has been here. He has ... slain them ... The
press of Thaddeus's mind told that he was near, quite near.
    Then he has freed you!
    ... Gerrard could not ... free me. No one could. Do not
seek me....
    Agnate shook his head angrily. I am almost there. Wait
for me.
    ... No, Agnate. Do not... It is a trap....
    He was just behind that comer. Agnate bolted around
the dark turn. Beyond stood a shattered doorway and the
chamber where Thaddeus lay.
    What was left of him ... He was spiked to a slanted
table. His limbs were gone, flayed away tissue by tissue. All
of it was stored in solution jars on shelves behind him.
They had cut away his pelvis too, and his spine, bone by
bone, up the lumbar curve. Abdominal organs occupied
various silver trays. Pins jutted from them. Vat priests lay
in bloody ruin beneath the samples.
    Only Thaddeus's ribcage and head remained. The aorta
had been expertly sutured, allowing his heart to maintain
pressure through the man's upper body. A large, round rock
had even been leaned against the diaphragm to press the
muscle up toward the lungs. He breathed through a scabby


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stoma in his throat. His eyes, in utter despair, watched
Agnate approach.
    "What have they done?" Agnate gasped, staggering
toward the ruined man.
    ... I told you ... seeing me this way ... is a trap you will
never escape....
    Agnate shook his head. "No. Urza will build you a body.
You won't die this way. New legs, new arms, new organs."
    ... I am done fighting for Urza Planeswalker.... I am done
fighting....
    "I am not," Agnate declared, staring into Thaddeus's
tearing eyes. "I will slay a hundred thousand Phyrexians to
avenge you."
    ... Don't you understand? We are Phyrexians.... Fight all
you wish, Agnate ... you are fighting only yourself....
    The Metathran's eyes were hard in his blue skull. "Why
did Gerrard leave you in agony?"
    ... He told me ... you were coming. He said you would ...
want to see me....
    "He was right."
    ... They've trapped you ... forever....
    Agnate stared down at his trembling, bloody hands and
the weapons he held in them. "Yes. You are right. You were
right about everything—except one thing. I can free you."
    ... Yes.... Free me....
    Agnate dropped his knife. It clattered beside the corpse
of a vat priest. With both hands, he lifted high his sword.
    "Good-bye, my friend."
    ... Good-bye....
    The sword fell. Thaddeus was free.
    Agnate turned away and folded to his knees. His sword
dropped to the stone floor. He buried his face in sanguine
hands.



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                     J. Robert King

    Agnate was twice trapped. He would never forget
Thaddeus's pleading eyes, suffering in their ruined flesh.
Nor would he ever forget the stroke that closed those eyes
forever.




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                  Chapter 35
          The Seven-Legged Mother

    Tsabo Tavoc drew a long breath through swollen
spiracles.
    Thaddeus's death was intoxicating. He had died slowly,
consciously. It was the best death, a perfect bouquet—
intense, quiet, virtuous, patient, doomed. Agnate's sword
had given a final piquant burst of emotion—regret, love,
terror, release. The only scent that lacked in that death
had been hatred—pure, hard-edged hatred.
    Agnate exuded it now. His sword had drawn all the
welling despair up through its hilt and into a new man.
There, it became hate. Thaddeus's death had been
intoxicating, but Agnate's hatred was thrilling.
    Tsabo Tavoc breathed the glad reek of it.
    Agnate was not the greatest hater in the caves, though.
Gerrard was. His fury had been strong at the mouth of the
cave. It had grown only more powerful with each head he
had lopped, each gallon of glistening-oil he had spilled.
Gerrard fought as though he battled Death itself. He was a
fool. No one could beat Death except Yawgmoth. Gerrard's
hatred would lead him to the Ineffable.
    All things had come to fruition just as Tsabo Tavoc had
planned.
    Let them think they are winning. Let Urza and his
titans stomp the ragged remnants of the Koilos land army.
Let Eladamri post his guards in the blood-painted caves he
has won with tooth and nail. Let Gerrard advance toward

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the portal, believing he can shut death away from himself
and all Dominarians.
    In fact he will be drawn through, Tsabo Tavoc thought
gladly, the first in a harvest of souls. He will be drawn
through, and they all will be drawn through.
    At great cost, the Dominarians had won themselves a
bottomless pit. Gerrard could not close the portal. Nor
Taysir. Nor Urza. As long as it remained, Phyrexia would
always hold Koilos. Dominarians would fling their sons and
daughters into the pit, calling them warriors and freedom
fighters though in truth they were human sacrifices to
implacable Death. They would battle a ceaseless tide of
Phyrexians, not realizing the womb cannot keep pace with
the vat. Koilos was not lost. It was transformed into an
eating machine that would swallow millions.
    Tsabo Tavoc smiled. Plates slid in her segmented
mouth, drawing back from filed teeth.
    She had won Benalia. Now, she was winning Koilos.
Her crowning glory, though, would be the moment she
presented the savior of Dominaria, the champion of Urza,
to Yawgmoth. He would reward her. He would unseat
Master Crovax and give Tsabo Tavoc command of the
Rathi overlay.
    Shackled and brimming with hate, Gerrard will be yours by
day's end, Great Lord Yawgmoth.

                           *****

    This felt good—killing them like this. Leaving them in
pieces behind. Somehow, when the monsters were chopped
up and sloppy on the cave floor, they seemed cleaner than
when they breathed and scuttled and walked. That's how
he thought of it—cleansing the caves.



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    Torches held high, Gerrard and his contingent rounded
a corner.
    Two monsters launched themselves from the darkness
beyond. No longer did they fight in phalanxes. Now they
fought like trapped dogs.
    Gerrard's torch fell away. His sword rammed into the
rushing chest of one. Steel lanced between obscene ribs. It
sank deep, rupturing the heart. Oil sprayed around the
edges of the blade.
    Even dying, the thing fought on. Its knobby arms
clamped down on him. Its claws pierced his sides.
    Gerrard roared, prying his sword sideways. The blade
snapped ribs and tore clear.
    The beast slumped, leaning drunkenly on him before it
tumbled sideways. Gerrard batted its arms away.
    The fight was finished. Three Benalians had slain the
other beast—at the cost of their own lives. Their corpses
sprawled on one side of the cave.
    Gerrard stared at the two Phyrexians. Their flesh was
rotten, gray and shabby. Gritting his teeth, he hacked
down with his sword. It clove the face of one dead monster.
The blade rose. It fell again. He cut the thing's skull in
half. The sword slashed down again. It opened the beast's
face along the jaw. Gerrard lifted his sword for another
strike.
    A hand clamped on his shoulder—Tahngarth's hand.
"Save your hate. We've plenty more ahead."
    Gerrard severed the beast's neck and kicked the head
across the chamber. "I have enough hate for all of them."
He began working over the other body.
    Tahngarth released his shoulder. As Gerrard chopped,
he was vaguely aware of the soldiers around him, working
to lay out their comrades as was fitting. Only when they



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                     J. Robert King

had finished did Gerrard kick his way through the
Phyrexian remains and lift his gaze.
   "Let's go. The portal cannot be far now."

                          *****

    Multani managed to regrow enough of the damaged
spar to allow Weatherlight a more graceful landing than her
last. Still, the ship came to ground like a box of rocks.
    It was little more than that just now. Two ray cannons
had overheated and melted down. A third had been blasted
away. The hull was riddled with ruptures that even Multani
could not close completely. The engines ran red hot and
barked gray smoke when Karn shut them down. He pulled
his hands from the control sockets where they had been
embedded and plunged the glowing things into a bucket of
water. She would not fly again, not for hours, and would
perhaps not fight for days.
    Thankfully, she didn't need to. The ship had landed
just beside the cave mouth—now in Dominarian hands.
The Phyrexians above ground were routed, pursued in their
thousands by tramping titans. The caves were filled with
Dominarian defenders. All reports indicated decisive
victories. Eladamri and his army descended to the portal.
    Mantled in steam, Karn ascended from the engine
room. He emerged, massive and brooding, onto the deck.
Sisay arrived on deck at the same time, descending from
the bridge.
    The old friends spoke in accidental unison. "I'm going
to help Gerrard."
    Sisay smiled, fondly running her hand along Karn's
massive jaw. "I'm glad to have you at my side."
    Another figure rose from below. In the heat of the sick
bay,


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     Orim had doffed her turban. Her coin-spangled hair
dripped with perspiration. She mopped her brow with a rag
and tucked it into her healer's cloak. A ready supply of
powders, salves, and bandages waited in the pockets of that
cloak. Her intent was clear.
     Seeing her comrades, Orim strode to them. "Everyone's
stable below. There'll be lots more injuries in the caves."
     In emulation of Sisay's gesture, Karn ran a yet-warm
finger beneath the healer's chin. "We'll all go get him."
     The healer's eyes clouded in regret. "Not all of us. Not
the one Gerrard wants to see most."
     Sisay put one arm around her friend's shoulder. "You
did all you could. We all miss her."
     The silence that followed was broken by a scampering
sound and a shrill squeal.
     "Squee go to see him, too!" The green little man
vaulted down from the bow gun and clasped hands with his
friends.
     Karn reached out, wrapping the group in an almighty
embrace that lifted them from their feet. He strode
purposefully across the deck and leaped over the rail. He
fell weightlessly but landed like a hammer on an anvil. The
folk in his grip smiled with chattering teeth as he walked
into the cave.
     Sisay managed to speak for them all. "Thanks, Karn,
but I need the exercise."
     Considering, Karn tromped to a halt, set his friends
down, and gestured ahead of him.
     "At least let me lead. I may not be a fighter, but I'm a
fair shield."
     "A shield?" Sisay said, eloquently staring him up and
down. "You're more of a wall."
     Squee leaped onto the silver golem's back. "G'won,
Karn. You lead, long as Squee rides here."


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                      J. Robert King

  Satisfied, the massive man tromped down into the
Caves of Koilos.

                           *****

    This had been a particularly harsh cul-de-sac. Gerrard
had lost ten soldiers to only four Phyrexians. As before, he
took out his anger on the bugs' corpses.
    Tahngarth and the others meanwhile laid out the
bodies of the brave fallen. A torch lighted their heads.
There were no longer cloths enough to cover faces. The
ten lay staring at the ceiling. Stalactites dripped on them.
    Gerrard's sword chopped again into scale and meat.
Tahngarth no longer tried to halt the mutilations. Perhaps
he understood. Gerrard was only doing to these bodies
what their plague had done to Hanna.
    Wordless and grim, Tahngarth led the rest of the
contingent out of that slaughterhouse. They crowded
through the narrow exit and into the passage beyond.
Their voices made watery echoes as they headed deeper
into the cave. With them went the angry light of the
torches.
    Gerrard was left with his own torch and the one that
tended the fallen.
    Cold darkness closed around him. It felt deadly. Gerrard
was at home among deadly things. The smell of glistening-
oil wreathed him. Positioning a torch at the heads of the
four Phyrexians, Gerrard raised his sword. It hung there
like a scorpion's tail. The blade fell. A monster's head
rolled free with a sound like stone grating on stone....
    Gerrard whirled.
    A huge, round stone rolled down a track beside the
door. With a boom, it sealed off the chamber's only exit.



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    Gerrard rushed to the stone. He grasped its cold edges
and heaved. It did not budge in its track. The corridor
beyond was silent and empty.
    A rushing sound came behind Gerrard. He spun.
Something vast dropped from among the stalactites.
Numerous legs riled, outlined in the light of his torch. It
was a giant spider—Tsabo Tavoc.
    She landed on the torch, extinguishing it with her
abdomen. In the sudden murk, legs clicked.
    Gerrard lunged, sliding across the bloody cave floor to
his fallen comrades. He snatched up the second torch and
rose into a crouch. He waved the torch before him. Its
fingers of flame were too tepid to reach the chamber's
farther spaces.
    Gerrard hurled the torch, end over end. It fell atop the
Phyrexian dead. Fire leaped to puddles of glistening-oil.
With a sudden whoosh, the tiny flame became a great
blaze.
    Shielding his eyes from the intense illumination,
Gerrard scanned the darkness. Lurking beyond the glare,
enshrouded in blackness, stood Tsabo Tavoc. She watched
the burning corpses with glad fascination. Her compound
eyes threw back the raving light.
    Gerrard strode steadily toward that horrible apparition,
calling out to her. "I see you, destroyer. I see you, Tsabo
Tavoc. You took my country. You killed my love. Now, I
will kill you."
    Her voice buzzed like insect wings. "Such delicious
hatred. You will make a fine Phyrexian." She withdrew
deeper into the shadows. Only the thinnest sheen traced
her legs. She seemed a mere phantasm.
    Gerrard stalked dauntlessly forward. He himself had
become a creature of shadows. "You killed her."



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                      J. Robert King

    His sword lashed out. It caught one of the spider
woman's legs in the conduits behind the knee. Wrenching
his arm, Gerrard severed the leg. It rattled against the stone
floor.
    Tsabo Tavoc backed deeper into the shadows. The light
from the burning corpses was faltering. The rear reaches of
the cave were utterly dark. "You are powerful. Fearless."
    "You killed her!" Gerrard bolted into the blackness.
    He glimpsed a fish-white belly before him and rammed
his sword up into Tsabo Tavoc's gut. Blood, black in that
murk, sagged beneath the impaling blade. He lunged,
intent on plunging the sword deeper.
    Tsabo Tavoc's legs hurled him away.
    Gerrard clutched his sword tightly. It ripped free of the
spider woman's body. He tumbled head over heels. Stones
bashed him as he rolled. The spider woman's gore looped
him. Sprawling against the wall of the chamber, Gerrard
panted.
    He laughed. His thumb wiped some of the hot stain
from his sword, and he tasted it. Salty, acidic—it tasted
good.
    Gerrard dragged himself to his feet and heaved a glad
sigh. "Do you know, that wound I gave you—it's exactly
where your plague bomb struck Hanna. That's where the
rot began—the rot that ate her away." He strode into the
darkness, sword lifted before him. "I'm going to tear you
apart the way you tore her apart."
    Tsabo Tavoc dropped on him with such speed and
force, he was flung supine to the floor. His sword clanged
and slid away. Three of the spider woman's legs wrapped
about him, constricting tightly. She pressed his chest to her
thorax. Blades in her joints cut into him.
    Gerrard struggled. It was an inescapable grip. The gore
from her belly wound ran down onto his face.


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    Tsabo Tavoc stared coldly at him. Her compound eyes
gleamed in the last light of the burning bodies.
    "You have the soul of a Phyrexian, Gerrard, a soul of
hate. It makes you powerful, but infinitely malleable."
    He felt a sudden, sharp pain in his back. Something
gored him. It punched into his spine and poured out a hot,
hissing substance. The stuff flooded Gerrard. His limbs
shook. His skin blazed with fire. His vision grew acute—
angry black lines slashed down around everything.
    It was glistening-oil, liquid hatred infused into his
spine. He had never known so powerful a passion. He
wanted to rip Tsabo Tavoc apart, to kill everyone, to kill
himself, but his body was not his own. Hatred burned away
his nerves until he hung in hopeless, seething paralysis.
    Good, my child, Tsabo Tavoc purred directly into his
mind. Now you understand what it is to be one of us. Had you
been my trophy, I would have fitted you with a mimetic spine,
here and now. You belong not to me, though, but to
Yawgmoth. This infusion makes you mine until we stand
together before him.
    Gerrard hung there beneath her, incapable of moving.
He belonged here, clutched in his mother's legs.
    She stalked forward a few paces. Her steps slowed, as if
she were thinking. Think of your beloved, Gerrard. Think of
Hanna, of how I killed her.
    The pangs of hate cut deep, slaying Gerrard.
    Mother was pleased. She purposefully crossed the
cavern, scuttling past the burning Phyrexians and the
Benalish dead. Reaching the door, she rolled back the
stone as though it were a pebble and carried Gerrard away
into the bowels of Koilos.

                           *****



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                      J. Robert King

    Karn, Sisay, Orim, and Squee followed the path of
destruction carved out by the Benalish brigade. It led them
ever downward, at last to a vast, deep chamber.
    There, Eladamri and his Metathran troops had joined
Tahngarth and the Benalish brigade. Together, they
battled a horde of Phyrexians. Every moment, more beasts
arrived. They filed through a huge, shimmering portal on
the far side of the cave. The Dominarians were
outnumbered two to one, and soon three to one. As long as
the portal remained open to Phyrexia, there would be no
hope of holding Koilos.
    Beside the portal, surrounded by hundreds of
Phyrexians, was a mirror pedestal. On it rested a giant book
of glass and metal. Lines of power radiated from the spot,
coursing into the portal.
    "Where's Gerrard?" Sisay wondered as she hefted her
sword.
    "Lost, or dead," guessed Orim, drawing her wooden
blade.
    "We must destroy the pedestal," Karn said. "We must
close the portal." He charged into battle along with Orim
and Sisay.
    On his back, Squee shouted, "What you doing, Karn?
You don't fight."
    With a voice like a distant waterfall, Karn growled,
"They don't know that."




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                  Chapter 36
                At the Gates of Hell

   Tsabo Tavoc scuttled down the dark reaches of Koilos.
   It was simple from here. Gerrard was hers. He couldn't
move, clutched in three of her legs and gripped in the
implacable arms of hate. He was as helpless now as a
newborn babe. He would cause no trouble.
   Think of your beloved, my child. Think of Hanna.
   Tsabo Tavoc's other children were far from helpless.
They filled the cavern below, driving the Dominarians
back from the portal. Her children would be glad to sense
her approach. They would open an avenue through the
Dominarian host. Her children would press both ways, and
Tsabo Tavoc would walk, untouched, through the center of
the battle. Anyone else would have called it a gauntlet,
with foes and death on either side. For Tsabo Tavoc, it was
a parade of coronation. At its end lay Phyrexia and her
great reward.
   Think of Hanna. You lost her to me, and she lost you to
Yawgmoth.

                          *****

    It was a hopeless fight. Phyrexians poured out of their
world and into the cavern. Through the portal they came,
distorted like visions through rising heat. Beyond that
shimmering gate, thousands more filed forward. Rank on
rank, they filed into a meat grinder.

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                       J. Robert King

    Eladamri was one blade of that grinder. He and Liin
Sivi led the Steel Leaf elves in a furious drive for the mirror
pedestal. Eladamri's sword rang like a bell as he hewed his
way. Liin Sivi's toten-vec whirled in deadly circles. The
elves did their vicious best, fighting for the Seed of
Freyalise as if Eladamri were Freyalise herself. For all their
fury, though, Eladamri and his troops could do little more
than slay. Phyrexian bodies made walls before them.
    Across the chamber was another blade in the meat
grinder. Tahngarth's sword opened the belly of a monster.
Entrails cascaded out. The beast trod on them and slipped.
Tahngarth turned and chopped down into the head of
another brute. The horned brow was no match for Hurloon
steel. The minotaur wrenched his sword free,
simultaneously driving his elbow into the eye of a third
beast. It fell to the floor and skidded before Sisay.
    She fought beside him with equal valor, though less
battle lust. An efficient sword swinger, Sisay had time to
defend herself and assist Orim. Though at heart a healer,
Orim could kill Phyrexians, even with her wooden Cho-
Arrim sword. She had only to think of Hanna. All around
Orim fought Benalish irregulars, many armed only with
their fists and sheer will.
    The defenders of Dominaria brought death to hundreds
of Phyrexians, but there were thousands. For half an hour,
they had fought in this breathless, hopeless battle, and
gained not an inch toward the mirror pedestal.
    Karn had done the most in that regard. Without
bashing in a head or crushing a spine—both of which he
was physically able to do—Karn had simply waded into the
Phyrexian troops. It had taken them mere moments to
discover they could not kill him. It took considerably
longer to discover he would not kill them. They mobbed
him. He was halfway across the cavern floor before the


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weight of bodies mired Karn in place. Beneath a living pile
of fiends, Karn and his goblin passenger were buried.
Hopeless.
    In the next moments, the battle grew worse. The
Phyrexians fought with a sudden, unanimous purpose. They
pushed back the Benalish brigade and their Metathran and
elf allies. A clear path opened in their midst. On one end
of that avenue, the scintillating portal stood, disgorging its
armies. On the other end, at the lofted entrance to the
cave, appeared Tsabo Tavoc.
    The spider woman surveyed the scene. Gladness
gleamed in her weird eyes. Her mouth plates formed a
serene smile. A wound wept blackly on her belly. She
clutched something to her thorax, something that dangled
like boneless meat.
    "Gerrard!" Sisay gasped in realization. She fought
toward him.
    Orim followed in her wake. Her sword darted with
equal thirst.
    Tahngarth brought up the rear. Perhaps they could not
battle their way to the mirror pedestal that powered the
portal, but they could fight their way to Gerrard.
    Tsabo Tavoc seemed to see the three comrades. Her
spiracles deeply inhaled the scent of battle. On four legs,
she darted swiftly down the channel of her warriors.
    Roaring, Sisay clove the head of a Phyrexian foot
soldier. She climbed his falling body, a ramp up the wall of
fiends. Claws lashed her legs. Orim slashed the limbs away.
A scuta reared up to block her path. She merely vaulted
onto its face shield, sinking her wooden sword in the
thing's eye. It slumped. Orim scrambled up the bleeding
face. Tahngarth climbed afterward. Tsabo Tavoc scurried
past.



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                       J. Robert King

    Sisay leaped from the wall of Phyrexians into the spider
woman's wake. The floor was slick with blood and oil, but
Sisay had seafarer's legs. She pelted after the fleeing spider.
Tsabo Tavoc was too fast. Sisay dived, extending her sword
arm. The blade swept down, slicing into the obscene
abdomen. Even as she fell to her face, Sisay twisted the
sword. It lodged behind the spider's stinger and ripped the
thing out by its roots.
    Tsabo Tavoc emitted no scream of pain, but her
followers did. Countless claws grasped Sisay and flung her
away as if she were poison. She sailed through air and
crashed against one wall of the cave.
    Orim, cut off by the sudden tide of beasts, leaped away,
racing to Sisay's aid.
    Tahngarth was not so easily deterred. The mob of
monsters crushed up in Tsabo Tavoc's wake, guarding their
wounded mother. They were tightly packed like sheep in a
slaughter channel. Tahngarth ran across their heads. His
hooves pounded skulls, stunning some, crushing others. If
they died, they died. His true focus was the spider woman.
He might not have caught up to her except that he ran
across a throng that also ran.
    Hurling himself from their shoulders, Tahngarth
vaulted onto Tsabo Tavoc's back.
    She crouched, shoved down by the sudden weight.
    Tahngarth swung his sword in a decapitating blow.
    Before metal could strike flesh, one of the spider
woman's legs rose. She blocked the blade and ripped it
away.
    Tahngarth did not release his sword—no true minotaur
would—but he was no match for Tsabo Tavoc's
mechanical might. He was flung away as though he were a
mere calf. Tahngarth crashed into the opposite wall of the
cave. Groaning, the minotaur slid down to lie still.


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    There was no one to stop her now, hemmed in by her
children. Not even Eladamri could fight past that mass of
monsters.
    Tsabo Tavoc jerked to a sudden stop. One leg seemed
caught.
    Karn rose, magnificent, from beneath a mound of
clawing Phyrexians. They seemed only voracious
cockroaches sloughing from his shoulders. In one massive
hand, the silver golem clutched Tsabo Tavoc's leg. His
other hand won free of the monsters that swarmed him,
and he grabbed another of the spider woman's legs. With
an almighty heave, he yanked one of the mechanisms from
her body.
    Sparks popped from the rent socket. Glistening-oil ran.
The severed leg convulsed in Karn's grip. He dropped it
amid the shrieking horde. They clutched the limb in
mournful agony.
    Karn grasped another leg and, roaring, yanked it free.
The flesh where it had been embedded made a sucking,
rending sound as it came loose.
    On only two legs, Tsabo Tavoc tottered. She drew one
leg away from Gerrard, setting it down before her and
struggling to break from the golem's grasp.
    Karn was implacable. Above the shrieks of the
Phyrexians, his thunderous voice rang out.
    "No more. If I must kill the guilty to save the innocent,
I will kill!"
    He ripped away another of the spider woman's legs.
Before he could get another handhold, Tsabo Tavoc leaped
away.
    She dropped one more leg from Gerrard and ambled
away from the silver golem. Her captive hung limp in the
grip of a single limb.



                            346
                      J. Robert King

     Karn struggled to pursue, but the mass of creatures bore
him down. He fell Like a steel door, impacting the floor
with a resounding boom.
     Tsabo Tavoc skittered up to the shimmering portal. Her
forces sluiced through around her—faithful children
everywhere. Spiracles panting, the spider woman turned to
gaze out at the battlefield. She smiled. Segments bristled on
her face. Her eyes shone with the glossy glow of exquisite
pain.
     Climbing onto the mirror pedestal and the glass book,
Tsabo Tavoc shouted, "You are finished, Dominaria. You
have fought me bravely and lost. No mortal can ever defeat
Death. I am Death. Embrace me, and I will lead you down
to death and up again into deathless life.
     "You think we are destroyers. You are wrong. We are
saviors. You are but larvae, but pupae—white and
unformed maggots. Until you die, you cannot become
more. We bring you your death. We bring you to greater
life.
     "Now, fight if you must, Dominaria. Flee if you can.
Either way, it will be the same. We will drag you down to
death and save you...."

                            *****

    Glorious words. Glorious, my mother, Gerrard thought,
hanging in her grip. At last, I have lost all to you. Parents,
foster parents, family, mentors, friends, and now myself. Only
now do I understand. I love you, Mother. I love you with every
fiber in me. Thank you for this. Thank you for killing me to
make me greater.
    He had never known such love. It made him weak. It
made him mad. It made him want to stab her, to tear out



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her eyes, to rake her brains. If only his body would respond,
he would cut his way into her.
    Never had he known such love!
    Once, he thought he had. Hanna had been her name.
He remembered so much of her—golden hair, bright eyes,
quiet smile—but nothing of wanting to kill her. He must
not have loved her—not like he loved Mother.
    She had killed Hanna, Mother had. Mother had killed
so many, some with claws, some with minions, some with
disease. That's how Hanna had died. Mother had loved her
enough to send tiny machines crawling through her.
Hanna had been furious. She had not wanted to transcend.
She had not wanted ...
    Gerrard's mind struggled to assemble the thought.
    Hanna had not wanted ... She had not wanted ... to die.
    That forbidden thought spread through his mind.
    Hanna had not wanted to die.
    That single truth killed the manifold lies that swarmed
in his head. Love is what he had felt for Hanna. Hate was
what he felt for Moth—, for Tsabo Tavoc. The rest had all
been lies, had been glistening-oil.
    Truth spread through his once-poisoned spine and out
along a million neural branches and into the tissues they
touched. It gave him back his mind and his body.
    He hung there still, his strength returning. He could
feel Tsabo Tavoc's leg around him, could hear the cicada
drone of her oration. No longer was she in his head. How
to escape? It would take monumental strength to break the
hold of even one of her legs.
    "Pssst," came a sound near Gerrard's ear.
    He slowly turned his head and saw a beautiful face—
green and wart nosed, with feverish little eyes and barbed
bits of bug leg between yellow teeth. Squee. It was no



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                      J. Robert King

wonder he had passed unnoticed among the monsters in
the chamber—hideously beautiful as he was.
    "Here," the goblin said, shoving forward the hilt of a
sword. Gerrard's mind was his own—his arm, his fingers.
They clutched the pommel. There was no hesitation. He
hurled the blade upward, past legs, past gripping thorax,
past even the first cut he had made in Tsabo Tavoc's white
belly. His blade bit through skin and muscle. It jabbed into
gut, slicing it open.
    Tsabo Tavoc's words ceased in the air. Her children
watched in shocked horror. She jolted and stared down,
stupefied.
    "For Hanna!" Gerrard shouted. He heaved the sword
again into Tsabo Tavoc's belly, ripping it wide.
    The spider woman convulsed. Blood gushed hot from
her. She gasped, clutching the filthy laceration.
    Her minions winced back in shared agony. The leg that
held Gerrard shuddered, loosening. "Let death improve
you," Gerrard growled. He lanced the tip of the blade into
the leg socket that held him.
    Wires severed. Sparks flew. The leg went limp,
dropping Gerrard. It felt glorious to fall that way, away
from the feverish metal, away from the horrid mother of
monsters.
    He landed atop the book of glass and metal, atop the
mirror pedestal.
    Tsabo Tavoc hissed. Her three good legs gathered
themselves to lunge.
    Suddenly, the portal flickered and disappeared. A rock
wall stood where once there had been a door to Phyrexia.
The monsters that had been marching through that door
were cut in half. Hunks of scale and flesh pattered down in
a ghastly hail.



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    Tsabo Tavoc whirled. Her route to Yawgmoth was
gone—her legions of demons, her escape. She didn't even
have enough limbs left to hold Gerrard and walk.
    Gerrard scrambled off the giant book, swinging his
sword before him to clear a path.
    The portal reappeared. Without even looking back at
her quarry, at her armies, Tsabo Tavoc launched herself for
the spot.
    "Get back on de book!" Squee squealed. "Shut de
door!"
    Gerrard dived.
    Tsabo Tavoc ambled over the corpses of her own
troops. She flung herself through the portal.
    Gerrard landed on the book.
    The gate slammed shut. Only the blank cave wall
remained— and the severed right cheek and arm of Tsabo
Tavoc. The two hunks of meat flopped to the floor beside a
bulbous cross section of her abdomen. The rest of her was
on the other side, in Phyrexia.
    "She escaped," Gerrard hissed angrily.
    The Phyrexians, so long enspelled by their mother's
words, now seemed to wake from a standing sleep. She was
gone—they knew that first—and wounded and beyond
their reach....
    But only as long as the portal remained closed....
    A wall of hackles, fangs, and claws rose up to tear
Gerrard from the book. En masse, the Phyrexians lunged
on him.




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                      J. Robert King




                   Chapter 37
             The Heroes of Dominaria

    Gerrard swung his sword. Four of the beasts flew back
from the blow, hurled to the ceiling. Two were impaled on
stalactites. Two more were broken by the impact. Before
Gerrard could even swing again, another beast slumped
forward across the pedestal, its torso shattered as though by
some incredible force.
    Gabbling, Gerrard raised his eyes to see the incredible
force. "Karn!"
    Gerrard's oldest friend and longtime guardian answered
with a nod. The silver golem swept out his massive arms
and clutched five more Phyrexians. He wrapped them in an
embrace that broke them like shells in a nutcracker.
    As he let their bodies slump sloppily to the floor, he
rumbled, "For you, Gerrard, I will kill."
    The man on the book nodded back, hacking his blade
through beasts. Side by side, Gerrard and Karn fought the
minions of Phyrexia.
    The prison brigade lifted their swords in a cheer and
brought them down in a killing hail. Phyrexians fell in
scraps. An elven war cry ululated through the cavern. The
Steel Leaf warriors fought with a new vengeance.
Metathran blades carved monstrous flesh.
    Cut off from their mother and their homeland,
Phyrexians died. There were no more reserves. There was
no escape. Dominarians marched down from chambers
above, and they gave no quarter.

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     Blood-mantled horns splashed into glistening-oil.
Segmented arms twitched in the gore. Stingers pumped
venom from severed ducts. Natural spines were hacked in
two. Unnatural spines squirmed from dying bodies.
     Sisay repaid her hard knocks by lopping the head off a
Phyrexian foot soldier. Orim sliced into monsters as though
she were hacking cane. Tahngarth whipped his horns in a
killing arc. Gerrard spitted a beast through the crown. Karn
was a silver tornado, crushing and hurling Phyrexians. In
the battle frenzy, Squee wisely clambered onto the golem's
shoulders, lest he be mistaken for a monster.
     In brutal moments, every scaly back and hackled head
fell. One by one, the last Phyrexians died. One by one,
swords ceased in the air. There was no flesh left to cleave.
     Could it be the battle of Koilos was done? Could it be
the battle was won? Dominarian troops flooded down,
seeking a foe to slay.
     "We did it," Gerrard whispered breathlessly. "Karn, we
did it!"
     Karn studied bloody hands. "Yes," he said heavily. "It is
done."
     Sitting astride the golem's shoulders, Squee let out a
celebratory cry.
     Sisay embraced Orim. "Sometimes the good guys do
win."
     Tahngarth only stood, gazing grimly at the wreckage all
around.
     The Steel Leaf elves lifted Eladamri on their shoulders
and marched him across the battlefield.
     A cavern that, moments before, had echoed with battle
suddenly rang with celebration.
     It was short-lived. Someone arrived from the caves
above, someone whose aura had the same strange power as
Tsabo Tavoc's.


                             352
                      J. Robert King

    Songs and shouts quieted. Everyone in the cavern
looked up to see who had come.
    It was the blind seer—but somehow, he was changed.
His back was straight. The bandage was gone from his eyes,
which beamed like twin jewels. His white linty hair had
been replaced by spun gold. All the aged decrepitude was
gone. In its place, there was a mantle of ancient power. He
descended into the cavern along the same route Tsabo
Tavoc had passed.
    Corpses lay prostrate before him. Living warriors
watched in wonder. Reverently, they went to their knees.
As the blind seer made his way toward the mirror pedestal,
every last creature dropped in obeisance.
    Only Gerrard and Karn remained standing. Golden-
haired and white-robed, the great man approached the
mirror pedestal.
    Even Karn dropped to his knees.
    Gerrard, his blood dripping down the glass and metal
book, glanced incredulously at the silver golem.
    Sword still out, he whispered, "You know him?"
    "I know of him. I know—somehow—I know that he
created me."
    Gerrard stared open mouthed between Karn and the
blind seer. "He created you?"
    "Yes, I did," the man said. "I created Karn and the rest
of your Legacy. I created even you."
    Gerrard's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
    "I am Urza Planeswalker."
    "You're what?"
    "I am Urza Planeswalker."
    "You're Urza Planeswalker?" Gerrard echoed
incredulously. He glanced down at Karn, whose head
remained bowed.



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     "Yes. I am the one who started all this. I am the
beginning. You are the end. I have made you and your
Legacy for this very hour."
     Gerrard shook his head. "What are you talking about?"
     A strange smile lit the man's face. "I have watched you
fight, Gerrard. I have seen you command your ship, your
crew. You have been everything I imagined and more. The
result is this—victory at Koilos."
     "You are the beginning, and I am the end... ?"
     The shimmering man gestured to the bloody book. "I
first opened this portal by removing the powerstone that
closed it. Even now, the two halves of that stone reside
here, in my skull. They have made me what I am—Urza
Planeswalker.
     "I have made you what you are—my opposite, my
complement, my counterpart. Just as the stones that once
opened this portal are part of my being, so, your very being
has the power to close it."
     "You are the planeswalker," Gerrard said in an amazed
hush. He sighed wearily. "So, am I to stay here, on this
book, for all eternity?"
     "No," Urza Planeswalker replied. "I have the power to
open this portal, and you to close it. Together, we have the
power to destroy it."
     Urza reached to the belt of his white robes and drew
forth a mighty sword. It shone like lightning in his grasp.
He lifted it above his head.
     "Shall we?"
     Gerrard raised his notched and bloody blade. The two
swords hovered in midair. Then both fell in a singing rush.
Together, the blades smashed into the book.
     It shattered, flinging glass all about Gerrard. He stood,
whole and healthy, in the midst of the lacerating storm.
Smoke rolled up from the lines of metal that jagged across


                             354
                      J. Robert King

the book. Then, they too were destroyed. Metal ran like
mercury, sliding to the edges of the pedestal and bleeding
down the sides. Even the mirror pedestal lost its gleam.
The life went out of that ancient and powerful construct.
With a final rolling puff of smoke, the book and pedestal
grew still.
    Urza sheathed his sword. His voice resonated through
the room. "Now and forevermore, the portal of Koilos is
closed." He reached up for Gerrard's hand. "Come down."
    A little unsteadily, Gerrard took the proffered hand and
leaped down beside the planeswalker. The cave wall
remained dark. The portal to Phyrexia was destroyed.
    Gerrard stared amazedly into the gemstone eyes of the
planeswalker. "You made me for this? You created my
Legacy, plotted my destiny?"
    "I did, Gerrard Capashen," Urza replied quietly.
    "I hate you," Gerrard blurted.
    "Forgive him, Master Urza," Karn rumbled, still bowing.
"He was poisoned by the spider woman—"
    "No," Gerrard interrupted. "I mean it. I really do hate
you. It wasn't the Phyrexians who took everything from
me. It was you. From the beginning of my life, you have
destined me to lose everything."
    "If you fulfill your destiny, in losing all, you will gain
all."
    "No. You are wrong," Gerrard said. "I will be your
champion, your hero, yes. I will fight the fight I am
destined to. But all the while, I will hate you."
    Urza's eyes seemed to dim a little with that. "I know. I
will count it as one of my own great losses." In that
moment, he did not seem the great, ancient, mad
planeswalker, but rather an old and lonely man.




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    Drawing a shuddering breath, Urza went on to say,
"Thank you for victory over Llanowar, and victory here."
Urza lifted Gerrard's arm high into the air.
    "Rise, faithful of Dominaria," Urza shouted. "Arise in
victory!"
    The cheer that answered shook Koilos like the tread of
a titan's boot.

                          *****

    A week later, the Caves of Koilos had been truly
cleansed. Every last drop of glistening-oil had been
scrubbed away, every last Phyrexian corpse burned.
Gargantuas and witch engines, trench worms and scuta had
formed a pyre that burned to the heavens for six days.
Meanwhile, with due and solemn ceremony, the
Dominarian dead had been buried in the desert. Steel Leaf
warriors had been laid beside Metathran beside Benalish
fighters. The Dominarian coalition had gathered to mourn.
    Now fighting and mourning were both done. The time
of festival had come.
    Armor was polished until its gleamed beneath the
Glimmer Moon. Swords were sharpened. Blood and oil
were bleached from livery.
    Even the titan engines were scoured. No Phyrexian
scales remained in mammoth feet that had crushed them.
No scorch marks dimmed armor plates. Ray cannons shone
as though they had never been fired. Empty of their
planeswalker pilots, the titans now stood in a broad circle
that stretched from the caves to encompass a large patch of
desert. These colossi marked the edges of the festival
grounds. Within their circle thronged coalition forces in
their tens of thousands. Elf, Metathran, Benalish, dragon—



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                      J. Robert King

those who had won at Koilos ate and drank, cheered and
danced before the caves.
    In the midst of the titan circle and above the happy
throng hovered a ship that was hope to them all.
    Weatherlight was resplendent in the night sky. Her
every lantern beamed, casting a glad glow on the revelers.
Festival lights traced out her healed hull and her back-
swept airfoils. Her deck held a glorious feast—pheasant and
boar, eel and salmon, oat-bread trenchers and onion stew,
cakes and puddings and pasties. All of it had been brought
by Urza Planeswalker to feast the commanders of his
victory.
    In their ceremonial best, the dignitaries mingled about
the board.
    Tevash Szat animatedly narrated his exploits to
Commodore Guff, who struggled to write down every word
for his official history. Nearby, Daria, Taysir, and Liin Sivi
sipped merlot from round-bellied glasses. Bo Levar had
brought boxes of assorted cigars, one purportedly dating
from before the Ice Age and another rolled from tobacco
grown by Teferi on Tolaria. Freyalise and Kristina discussed
matters in Llanowar with the head of the Steel Leaf
warriors. The panther-warrior Lord Windgrace traded
stories with Tahngarth about "human folly."
    The rest of Weatherlight's command crew enjoyed the
repast as well. Sisay split her time between the helm and
the banquet table.
    Karn between engines and conversations, and Multani
between the ship's hull and her guests. Orim, in a Cho-
Arrim robe and coin-coifed hair, listened politely as Squee
described how he had saved "everybody's butts from de
beginning till now." Laughter only encouraged the
goblin—laughter and food and wine. They flowed in plenty
on the amidships deck of Weatherlight.


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                         Invasion

    A quieter group stood at her stern. Over cigars and rye
spirits gathered the four men who had fought hardest and
lost most in this war. Eladamri, Agnate, Gerrard, and Urza
lingered in each other's company. They said very little.
They laughed not at all. The merriment below was like
music to them. They listened and appreciated but did not
join in. A grim gladness gripped them, the sort that needed
few words.
    Urza spoke those few words. Lifting his glass, he said,
"Here's to all we've lost, and here's to us."
    Four glasses rose. They clinked quietly together. The
four heroes of Dominaria drank.

                           *****

    The three-day festival was over. The revelers slept in
their tents. Only a handful of guards remained awake that
morning— they and the green-man from Yavimaya.
    Multani heard a sound, a strange rumble. There was
movement in the desert—vast movement.
    Multani rose through the timbers of the great ship
Weatherlight. He assembled a body for himself out of the
living splinters and shards of wood he found along the way.
On deck, the pieces piled themselves into legs, a torso,
arms, and a head. Two knotholes made themselves into
eyes. With them, Multani looked out.
    Beyond the tents, on the morning desert of Koilos,
strange, twisted shapes were imposing themselves. Hills like
flayed muscle. Fields of tortured red. Across those lands
were arrayed enormous armies—Phyrexians.
    It seemed a vision—this coruscating red world—a
premonition of evil. Yet, the tangled land seemed so solid,
so real.



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                    J. Robert King

    Multani had seen such a world once before. He had
glimpsed it in the mind of a dead Phyrexian in Yavimaya.
That monster had a name for the world that even now
slowly overlaid itself on Dominaria.
    Rath.




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