APOCALYPSE 


INVASION CYCLE • BOOK III 

J. Robert King 
®

J. Robert King 
Chapter 1 

The Gladiators 

It all came down to this: two men kneeling side by side 
before Yawgmoth. 

These were no mere men, of course. One was a virtual 
god. His long, ash-blond hair spread across the stone, and 
his powerstone eyes were cast in deep shadow. Urza 
Planeswalker had first opened the gate to Phyrexia, had 
fought the first Dominarian war against demon hordes, had 
planned and executed the current world war down to its 
minutest detail. He had lived for millennia and had spent 
all the while preparing to face Yawgmoth—though he had 
never expected to do so in a full, abject, and willful bow. 
Beside him knelt a man who wasn't even a hundredth his 
age. No gray showed in his jet-black hair, and no worry 
lines in his high forehead, though he had inherited worry 
enough for a whole world. As Urza had unwittingly begun 
this great horror, 

Gerrard had unwillingly received the onus of ending it. 
Centuries of eugenics had distilled courage, resourcefulness, 
wit, tenacity, and ferocity in a single vessel—Gerrard 
Capashen. With these qualities, he should have defeated 
the invaders. Instead, he bowed to them. 

Side by side, the two best hopes for Dominaria pledged 
themselves to Yawgmoth. 

The Ineffable was there and not there. Yawgmoth's 
mind formed the black dais where Gerrard and Urza 
bowed. Colder, sharper, more merciless than granite, the 

1 



Apocalypse 

dais stole each breath as it panted from the two men. It felt 
their homage in splayed and sweating hands. Beyond their 
fingertips lay more pieces of Yawgmoth's mind—cudgels, 
axes, swords, maces, whips, flails, branding irons, and every 
other death conceivable by the Lord of Death. These 
fantastical weapons, ored and smithed and sharpened by 
the One Mind, glowed avidly. Yawgmoth was in the dais 
and the weapons, in the black sands that filled the wide 
arena and in the black stands that circled them and the 
black sky that overarced it all. The arena and its weapons 
were no more or less than the dream of a god. 

In all this irreality, only one thing was real. 

Gerrard lifted his head and gazed toward the stands. 

A solitary figure stood there. Hanna. Hair of gold, eyes 
of blue, skin of silk, lips of rose—only she was solid and 
true. Hanna had become all the world to Gerrard. He no 
longer cared to save Dominaria or even himself. He cared 
only to save her. To do so he had damned his own soul. 
That was why Gerrard bowed here. 

But what bent the knee of the Planeswalker? Surely he 
did not bow for true love. Who, out of all eternity, had ever 
deserved Urza's love? Who but Yawgmoth himself? 

Suddenly, Hanna was not alone in the stands. From 
dark corridors, creatures emerged. 

The first were tall and gaunt, with skeletal faces and 
bodies draped in black robes. They moved like puppets on 
strings, weightless and jittery. Behind them loped hulking 
creatures. 

Enormous eyes rolled fitfully in their rumpled faces. 
Clawed hands knuckle-walked down stairs. Then came 
spidery monsters that ambled on clicking legs. Beasts 
arrived in multitude—goat-headed warriors and cicada 
men, clockwork horrors and gibbering imps, creatures with 
mucous-skin and brains on arthropodal legs, monsters 

2 



J. Robert King 
covered in jag-edged knives, bald albinos with serpent 
tongues, onyx-eyed angels, blood-lipped devils, vampire 
hounds, skeletal vipers. Phyrexians all. 

Doubtless, this was Yawgmoth's Inner Circle. Who else 
would he admit to this unholy place? These were the most 
vicious, murderous, and hateful of his minions. They 
slithered and floated, clomped and skittered to seats all 
around the amphitheater. The ground shook. Quite soon, 
the arena was filled. Hisses, shrieks, bellows, and moans 
rioted in the air. The stench of rot and filth, blood and oil, 
rolled downward. 

For all their savagery, though, not a beast touched 
Hanna. Among them she walked, inviolate and 
determined, toward a balcony on one end of the arena. 

It held a great black dragon, larger than the 
planeswalker Szat, larger than the Primeval Crosis. The 
beast's mantle bristled with horns. Its manifold wattle 
expanded with vile breath. Claws as wide around as a man 
clutched the rail of the balcony and seemed to sink into 
the stone. Voluminous wings draped robelike down its 
hackled back. 

Urza lifted his head and stared. On wondering lips, he 
spoke the name, "Yawgmoth." 

Hanna ascended to the balcony and seated herself 
within the ebon shadow of the enthroned dragon. She set 
her hand on his foretalon. 

In amazed dread, Gerrard said, "She's taken his hand. 
She's taken Yawgmoth's hand." 

"That dragon alone is not Yawgmoth," Urza replied, 
gesturing toward the wicked throng. "They all are 
Yawgmoth." 

Gerrard understood. These gathered spectators were not 
servants of the god. These were avatars. He had filled the 
whole arena with fleshly simulacra of himself. He saw 

3 



Apocalypse 

through their eyes and heard through their ears and felt 
through their bodies. Though thousands upon thousands of 
creatures assembled, this was, in truth, a private audience. 

The crowd quieted. Mouth plates and mandibles 
shuddered to silence. Every eye trained upon the two 
figures in their midst. The weight of that stare pressed 
Gerrard's and Urza's heads down to the stone. Where once 
they had bowed their faces, now their entire bodies went 
prostrate. That stare could have crushed them, but it did 
not. Yawgmoth did not want their corpses. He wanted their 
worship. 

Through thousands of teeth and from thousands of 
tongues, a single voice formed itself: the voice of 
Yawgmoth. "At last, it has come to this." 

"Yes, Lord Yawgmoth," breathed Urza reverently, "at 
last." 

"It was inevitable," continued the voice of the 
multitude, the voice of the One. "All living things will bow 
before us. All things that do not bow will die. Even you, 
our greatest foes, lie now upon your faces in worship—and 
you live." 

"Praise be to thee, Lord Yawgmoth," responded Urza. 

Gerrard lay silent before the awful god. 

"But you will not both live. Only one is needed to hand 
us Dominaria. Only one will ascend. The other will die." 

The men lifted their heads and stared toward the high 
balcony. 

Gerrard's eyes reflected the slim blue glow of Hanna. 

Urza's eyes—queerly faceted things—reflected only the 
utter blackness of the dragon. 

The men did not speak to their new master, but their 
faces asked a unison question: Is it I, Lord? Is it I who will 
sit in the hollow of your breast? Is it I who will die? 

4 



J. Robert King 
"We do not choose who will live and who will die. 
Through conflict, we rise. Through killing, we live. 
Through phyresis, we are transformed. We have 
slaughtered nations and worlds, have piled bodies to the 
heavens that we might ascend them. And we have 
ascended. 

"If you will ascend, you must do so in battle. Already, 
you have risen this far. You have buried friends—nations of 
friends—and climbed up their backs. How else would you 
win your way here, to bow before us? But to rise beside us, 
you must fight one battle more, must bury one friend more. 

"You, Urza Planeswalker, and you, Gerrard Capashen, 
shall battle one another to the death. We are the Lord of 
Death. We shall make the victor our servant. We shall 
make the slain soul our plaything." 

Urza stared solemnly toward the balcony, his eyes 
glinting in thought. "Great Lord, forgive my presumption, 
but it would be a waste to destroy this masterpiece beside 
me. Gerrard Capashen took eight hundred years to 
engineer. Rather than destroy him, allow me to grant him 
to you, a gift, as was my titan engine—" 

Gerrard interrupted, "I was about to say what a shame it 
would be to smash this old fossil. So many would pay to see 
his bones." 

Urza snorted. "You are a mere man. You cannot hope to 
defeat me. I am a planeswalker." 

Before Gerrard could respond, the crowd spoke the 
words of Yawgmoth. "Not here, Urza. You are not a 
planeswalker here. We have stripped you of every weapon, 
every spell, every immunity. Here, you and Gerrard both 
are mortal. One of you will prove it all too soon. Gerrard, 
let youth empower you. Urza, let age empower you. They 
and your wits are your natural weapons. The only other 
weapons you may wield are those before you." 

5 



Apocalypse 

The gladiators—for that was what they had become— 
turned their gazes to the swords, axes, and clubs ranked 
before them. Motes of energy raced around razor-sharp 
blades and brutal spikes. 

"Each is deadly in its own right. Each is also magically 
enhanced to strike not simply flesh but also spirit. Perfectly 
conceived, perfectly designed, perfectly balanced, these 
weapons are the finest you will ever wield. Learn from 
them. Experiment. Practice on each other, and when you 
can strike a clean and killing blow, do so. We judge the 
living and the dead. Only a pure and worthy victory will be 
rewarded." 

Gerrard raised himself to one knee. Clear eyed, he 
peered toward Yawgmoth and Hanna. "I'll gladly fight 
Urza. He created me in misery and doomed me to kneel 
here. I would fight him and slay him for no reward, and 
ascending beside you, Lord Yawgmoth, is great reward. 
Still, the contest would be more interesting if you'd give 
one extra boon to the winner and one extra curse to the 
loser." 

The horrid menagerie heard. Through fangs and 
proboscises, they spoke. "We will do it. The victor shall 
receive that which he most desires. The soul of the 
vanquished, gathered unto us, will receive that which he 
most dreads. But your foe shall declare first. Name your 
desire, Urza called Planeswalker." 

Though Gerrard had lifted himself to one knee, Urza 
yet lay facedown. His mouth sent ghosts of steam across the 
stone. He spoke in a whisper, but the dais was Yawgmoth. 
It gathered the sound and sent it out through the arena. 

"I wish but one boon, Great Lord—to learn from you, 
to understand all you have done and how you have done it, 
to explore the brilliance I behold in this place, in this 
world. I want to know how you have brought metal to life 

6 



J. Robert King 
and how you have made life into metal. I want to 
understand not only artifice but phyresis. I want to 
worship, and in worshiping, to know." 

Silence answered that request, and then the voices: "So 
it shall be granted to you, Urza called Planeswalker, should 
you prevail." The eyes of the crowd turned upon Gerrard. 
"And what of you, Capashen? What boon would you beg?" 

He rose to stand. The movement seemed so strange, 
there beside the prostrate planeswalker. But something in 
Gerrard's eyes prevented Yawgmoth from lashing out. 

"I want only Hanna. Return her to life. I don't want her 
on a string, as you keep Selenia. I want her free, alive, and 
able to walk through that portal back to Dominaria. I want 
you to place a mark of protection on her, that no 
Phyrexian dare harm her. For Hanna I fight." 

A thrill moved through the assembled host. In the 
black balcony, Hanna sat beside the huge lizard. Her hand 
did not lift from its great talon. 

"For one woman, you give up a whole world?" Gerrard 
took a deep breath. "She is my whole world." Heads shook 
and tongues clucked. "A great weakness, Gerrard, to have 
so big and soft a heart—a great weakness in a world filled 
with blades. We will grant this boon to you, as you ask, 
should you prevail." The air whined with an eager tension. 
A sudden gleam traced the weapons at the edge of the dais. 
"Now, Urza Planeswalker and Gerrard Capashen—rise and 
take up blades and do battle." 

The Benalish master-of-arms cared nothing for halberds 
or poniards, tridents or mattocks. Gerrard wanted a 
sword—no unwieldy bastard sword or fainting rapier but a 
solid cutlass, the blade of a skyfarer. He strode toward the 
nearest one. Stooping, he clutched its hilt. It tingled, alive 
in his grip. Barbs of energy prickled across his knuckles and 
moved through his veins. The sword and its arcane powers 

7 



Apocalypse 

reached through the sinews of his body and tied knots in 
his heart. This blade had much to teach. Gerrard spun, 
leveling the sword. It hummed, thirsty for the blood of the 
planeswalker. 

Urza stood there, unarmed. His strange gaze moved 
patiently from one weapon to the next. Here was the 
artificer, analyzing each hammer and rod against Gerrard as 
though he were an engine to be disabled. Through his 
mind tumbled weight ratios, tensile strengths, moments of 
arc, and calculated torque. He would not slay Gerrard but 
dismantle him, an artificer destroying a rogue machine. 

The thought enraged Gerrard. The knots in his heart 
tightened, wringing hatred from twisted muscle. Let Urza 
ponder his weapon choice, spending time he did not have. 
Gerrard would teach him his error. He strode across the 
dais. 

Eyes gleaming, Urza stooped and drew up a simple pike 
of polished steel. It was a defensive weapon, meant to keep 
attackers at bay, but useless once they had closed. Still, the 
black energies that crawled down the shaft told that this 
weapon had its own secrets. Power jagged into the hands of 
the planeswalker and crawled beneath his flesh, teaching 
him its ways. 

Gerrard roared through gritted teeth and charged. He 
whirled the sword overhead and brought it down in a 
powerful stroke. 

Urza countered, thrusting the pike up before him. Blunt 
steel deflected razor steel. The cutlass ground its way down 
the haft but could not force it aside. With two hands on 
the weapon, Urza had leverage. He drove the pike's head 
toward Gerrard's face. 

The younger man checked his attack, planted his foot, 
and dropped back. The point of the pike slashed just 
beneath his jaw, opening a red gash within his beard. His 

8 



J. Robert King 
blood traced a line through the air. Red spots spattered the 
black stone, which drank it hungrily. 

In the stands, hackled heads lifted toward the sky, and 
slimy throats poured out exclamations of joy. The dragon 
gripped the rail gladly. Only Hanna looked on in uncertain 
silence. 

Gerrard retreated to gather focus. He wiped a warm 
smear across his off hand. First blood belonged to Urza. 
The old gaffer had strength after all, but Gerrard would 
draw last blood. 

He lifted his blade again overhead and lunged. As 
before, the planeswalker's pike rammed up toward his face. 
This time Gerrard twisted to one side. He seized the haft of 
the weapon in his bloodied hand and hauled on it, 
extending his cutlass. Urza would either have to stagger 
onto the waiting blade or release his pike. He did the latter, 
though not quickly enough. Gerrard jabbed the butt of the 
pike at his foe, catching Urza in the throat and flinging 
him back atop the weapons. 

Spinning the pike, Gerrard pointed it at Urza. "You've 
killed so many. How does it feel to stare at your own 
death?" 

Urza leaped to his feet in a motion that belied his 
ancient frame. He held before him a mace whose head 
sported wicked spikes. A beaming look filled Urza's eyes. 

"Always I have stared at my own death, Gerrard. I built 
engines to drive it away, but I saw it in every polished 
plate. I built academies to break time's tyranny, but I 
buried my students there. I built even you, Gerrard, and 
here you are, the face of death." 

The mace whirled wickedly between them, bashing 
back Gerrard's sword. 

"But you are not my death, Gerrard. Yawgmoth is. He is 
my death, and your death, and the death of every creature. 

9 



Apocalypse 

I accept that. You must too. Yawgmoth will never give 
Hanna to you. He is the death of all." 

A cheer rose from the crowd. Yawgmoth loved Urza's 
speech. 

Gerrard did not. "You're wrong, Urza, about this and 
everything else. I'll win back Hanna and free her from this 
place. I'll slay you." He hurled himself forward, wanting 
only to draw the man's blood. The cutlass sliced toward the 
planeswalker's neck. 

Urza ducked, swinging his mace to strike Gerrard's 
head. 

Both weapons hit at once—spikes through the young 
man's cheek and a sword through the old man's ear. Locked 
for a moment, teeth gritted in nonsmiles, the foes stared at 
each other. They stared at the bleeding face of death .. .. 

10 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 2 

Revelations from the Thran Tome 

"I know what to do," said the silver golem, Karn. 

He stood on the slanted and scorched deck of 
Weatherlight. Torn apart by dragons, the ship had crash-
landed on a volcanic slope. Wounded crew lay all about. 

"I know how to save the world." 

Captain Sisay stared incredulously at him. Her jaw 
hung open. Sweat wept down her ebony skin. She glanced 
up the slope, where monstrous figures descended toward 
the ship. 

"You know how to save the world ... ? That's ironic, 
since we can't even save ourselves." 

Sisay strode to the nearest ray cannon. She pumped the 
treadle. It was sluggish. No power mounted. She spit on the 
manifold. The moisture only hung there, not sizzling away. 

"We got any guns?" 

From the other cannons came shouts. "Negative." 

"Not here, Captain." 

"We've got nothing." 

"Damn," hissed Sisay. She clutched the fire controls in 
hope that some energy might remain. Only a twist of 
smoke issued from the barrel. "We've got nothing." 

"We've got something," Karn said. He had followed her 
to the gun, and he held out before him the Thran Tome. 
"We have the salvation of the world." 

"A lot of good that'll do—" Sisay said, gesturing toward 
the approaching armies. She drew her cutlass. Jagged 

11 



Apocalypse 

silhouettes filled the mountain. "I'm glad you're not a 
pacifist anymore." 

Karn shook his head. A strange light glowed in his 
metallic face. He seemed almost to smile. "We won't have 
to fight them. That is work for others." He gestured to the 
broad volume in his hand. "This is our work." 

"That is our work," Sisay insisted, sweeping her sword 
out toward the armies. Her mouth dropped open. 

No longer did the beasts descend the slope. Horn-
headed Phyrexians turned instead to engage a new foe— 
horn-headed minotaurs. The warriors of Hurloon attacked 
with a fury born of vengeance. They dismantled Phyrexians 
and flung away the scales and bones. Other Dominarians 
fought too. Tolarian Metathran, blue muscled and silver 
haired, seemed like warriors made of sky. Though they were 
colder killers than their hot-blooded allies, the Metathran 
were no less deadly. Battle axes clove spiked heads. Strivas 
sliced claws from monstrous hands. War cries bellowed 
from minotaurs, and battle songs from Metathran. It was a 
pitched battle, but a matched one. 

"They have things well enough in hand," Karn said. 
Sisay shook her head. "Not for long." 

Across the slope galloped Phyrexian gargantuas. Huge 
fists of muscle, the creatures bellowed. Their talons shook 
the ground. Their claws clutched and killed minotaurs. 
Their fangs clamped down on Metathran. 

"They are more than sufficient," Karn said as more 
defenders arrived. 

Yavimayan Kavu swarmed into the battle. Enormous 
lizards born of fire and foliage, Kavu had a taste for 
Phyrexian flesh. The smallest Kavu were four-legged beasts 
that could gobble down a bloodstock. The largest were six-
legged monsters that could swallow a whole platoon. In 

12 



J. Robert King 
moments, they did just that. The battle turned into a Kavu 
feeding frenzy. 

"And should you need greater assurances," Karn said 
placidly, "behold." 

Beyond his outflung arm marched an army that eclipsed 
the sun. From marshy forests below strode magnigoth 
treefolk. As tall as mountains and as wide around as towns, 
the animate trees were indomitable defenders of the world. 
Their roots clutched the ground, driving them toward the 
battle. Their boughs reached out upon the wind. In scant 
minutes, Weatherlight would be safely surrounded by the 
treefolk. 

Sisay stared wonderingly. "How did you know, Karn?" 

"The ship," he replied simply. "Her hull calls to the 
magnigoths. She summoned them." 

Sisay shook her head. "No. I mean all of this. How did 
you know we would be safe?" 

He seemed to shrug, an odd movement in his massive 
shoulders. "I suddenly know a great many things. Come, I 
will explain." With that, he turned and strode aft, toward 
the captain's study. 

Sisay followed. She absently waved for Tahngarth to 
join her. "You'd better come hear this." 

The minotaur warrior looked up where he crouched 
beside the capstan. It had ripped itself loose during the 
crash, and Tahngarth had been working to reattach it. He 
wasn't in great shape either. His white-and-brown fur was 
mottled with burns, some serious. Sweat rolled from his 
twisted horns. Tahngarth nodded, glancing after Sisay. 

"Come on, Multani," he rumbled, seeming to speak to a 
hole in the deck. "Karn's found something." 

From shattered planks and charred wood, another figure 
formed. He constructed his body from Weatherlight's living 
hull and lines. A tall, splintery frame with joints of hemp 

13 



Apocalypse 

and knothole eyes, Multani made even Tahngarth seem 
small. 

"I hope it's something miraculous," Multani said. "I am 
fresh out of miracles." 

Ever reticent, Tahngarth only nodded. The two 
followed their captain. 

Sisay strode across the amidships deck. En route to her 
study, she crouched down beside Orim. The healer knelt 
next to a man who had broken his arm in the crash 
landing. She had splinted the limb and was finishing the 
final knot on the sling. Sisay set a hand on her shoulder. 

Orim looked up, smiling ironically. Her eyes twinkled 
like the coins that hung in her dark hair. "He's the last of 
the serious ones. Lots of other bumps and bruises, though." 
Sisay studied the man. "How's your arm, Ensign?" "Fine, 
Captain," he replied, mustering up his courage. He lifted 
the splinted arm. "I'm thinking even of sharpening the end 
of the splint and using it like a claw." 

Sisay laughed. "Good man." She turned toward Orim. 
"We need you in the study." 

Orim nodded, looking above Sisay's shoulders. Multani 
and Tahngarth towered there. "You're burned!" 

"Later," Tahngarth said, waving away the suggestion. 
"Important business." 

A pensive look entered Orim's eyes, a look shared by 
her comrades. This was all that remained of Weatherlight's 
command core. Gerrard was gone—heaven knew where— 
and Squee with him. Hanna was dead, and Mirri, and 
Rofellos. Crovax and Selenia had turned to evil, and who 
knew the fate of Takara or Ertai? Only these five 
remained—two women, a minotaur, a forest spirit ... and 
Karn. He waited for them beyond the captain's study door. 

"Let's go," Sisay said quietly. She led her comrades into 
the study. 

14 



J. Robert King 
It was a decorous space. On either side, the stern 
gunwales formed converging walls. Wood gleamed with 
life. Lanterns shone on the ship's ribs. Low benches with 
deep cushions sat beside ornate rugs, and bookshelves 
bolted their precious cargoes firmly in place lest a rapid 
course change should scatter them everywhere. On the 
desk on one wall, the Thran Tome lay, bathed in lantern 
light. 

Karn stood beside it. He held his massive hands 
outward. "Please, friends, make yourselves comfortable." 

Sisay and Orim sat on the bench. Tahngarth merely 
planted his hooves and crossed his arms. Multani made 
himself at home by melting into the hull. His body of 
splinters fell into a tidy pile beside the boards, and his spirit 
scintillated through the living wood. 

In a low, intense voice, Karn said, "In desperation, I 
found what I found." He lifted the Thran Tome in one hand 
and held it up. "This book, this ancient part of Gerrard's 
Legacy, has been our sole source of information about 
Weatherlight, but damned laconic—" Karn almost seemed 
to color. "Forgive my language." 

Sisay gave him a crooked grin. "We're all sailors here. 
Continue." 

"Always before I was patient, teasing out information 
for small repairs, small changes. This time, though, the 
engine— well, it is no less than destroyed." 

Sisay stared stoically forward. The only emotion that 
showed on her face was the slight hitch of her mouth as her 
teeth caught her lip. 

"I opened the book to see the same meaningless 
illustrations, the same partial explanations. I hurled it—" 

"You what?" Sisay interrupted. 

"—and when it landed, it had opened ... differently." 
That enigmatic announcement was enough to stun the 

15 



Apocalypse 

others into silence. Karn met their wondering gazes and 
strode toward them, holding the book open. "Do you see? 
Do you remember these diagrams? These words?" 

Sisay, who had spent the most time poring over the 
tome, stared levelly. "Yes, of course. The same 
indecipherables." 

Nodding, Karn turned page after page. Then, like a 
showman doing sleight of hand, he opened the book to its 
central spread, flattened it so the two halves of the spine 
met and fused, turned the book on its end, and opened it 
again. The Thran Tome was suddenly twice its previous 
dimensions, with a much longer spine and wider, deeper 
pages. Across those pages appeared, in part, the words and 
images they had all seen before, incorporated now into 
larger patterns, larger pictures. 

"These are not separate pages," Karn explained as he 
turned them slowly, allowing his friends to gape at them. 
"They are all joined in a single fabric, layered atop itself, 
folded and seamed. It is a fabric that tells of what has come 
before. In reading it, I have discerned what is coming 
next." 

It was too much for Sisay. She leaned forward and laid 
hands upon the new pages. Her fingers gently caressed 
them. Her eyes roved the images—she saw a man, no, a 
god, enwrapped in thought as in cloud. The god's brow was 
rumpled, his long hair wild about his head, and his face cast 
in deep shadow. An eerie, mad light shone in his buglike 
eyes. The whole image would have been very disturbing, 
rendered in turbid strokes of black, except for one 
bounding column of light whirling into being from the 
man's brow. It was another man, formed out of thought 
alone. He was a hope, a savior. 

"This isn't a technical manual," Sisay said wonderingly. 
"This is a portrait." 

16 



J. Robert King 
"This part, yes," agreed Karn, "but it is just one corner 
of an endless and ever-changing mural that depicts this 
whole conflict. And for every image here, there are a 
thousand words. The Thran Tome is as much a symphony as 
a book, a great mosaic of vision, oracle, and beauty." 

Sisay said, "How can you have deciphered all this so 
quickly, from the time of the accident till now?" 

The silver golem seemed almost to sigh. "I have had 
more time. I already knew every page here. Now I am 
assembling them. They all fit with what I've been 
remembering—or maybe, I fit for the first time. I've 
regained a millennium of life, and I'm wriggling free of my 
silver shell. When I killed at the Battle of Koilos, I 
remembered having killed before. It was a narrow crack in 
a great dam, but through it trickled and then sprayed and 
then flooded a thousand years. I see it all, and much more. 

"What I see here," he splayed his hand across the pages, 
"I've already seen here." He ran his fingers across his head. 

Still staring at the image of the god's brainchild, Sisay 
said, "What does all of it mean?" 

"This is Gerrard," said Karn, "bom from the mind of 
Urza Planeswalker. For centuries, Urza strove to create the 
perfect creature to inherit his perfect machine the Legacy. 
He made the Metathran, though they were too dependent 
upon orders. He turned next to humans and made creatures 
the likes of Crovax, and even yourself, Sisay." Karn slid a 
gentle finger beneath the woman's chin, a touch so soft and 
familiar as to make her look away. "He was very near 
perfection with you and Crovax—perhaps too near. You 
each have a pure heart—which can be as easily made pure 
evil. No, for his warrior, Urza sought a rugged, pragmatic, 
and slightly angry human. For all his faults, Gerrard is the 
incarnate thought of Urza Planeswalker, and the last hope 
for the world." 

17 



Apocalypse 

"But where is Gerrard?" asked Tahngarth. "And where 
is Urza?" 

Karn's eyes grew dull. He seemed lost. "I do not know. 
But in their absence, we must be them both. We must 
wield the Legacy." 

"Yes, Karn," Sisay pressed, "tell us about the Legacy. 
Tell us about the Null Rod and the Juju Bubble and the 
Skyshaper—" 

"And the Bones of Ramos," added Orim. 

"And Weatherlight," Tahngarth offered. 

"And even me," Karn finished. He flattened the Thran 
Tome again at its centermost page, pressed the edges of the 
spine together, turned the book, and opened it again. 

Larger pictures beamed from the inner pages, these 
florid, painted by a skillful hand. Islands floated on blue 
seas. Lava pools quenched thirsty mechanisms. Forests grew 
living cogs for enormous wheels. Grain rippled beneath 
feathery skies. Bogs opened to tannic depths. Hidden in all 
the scenes were parts of the Legacy. 

"The Legacy. How long we have sought its pieces. How 
much hope we have hung on them," Karn said as he 
opened the book again. 

The next page showed Urza garbed in a raiment of 
light, stepping world to world. His robe was magely, dark 
blue with silver piping. His pockets dripped strange 
artifacts. They occasionally tumbled to remain in one 
world or another. 

"Urza wanted to keep these powerful artifacts out of the 
wrong hands. Some he scattered. Others he left hidden 
where he had discovered them. Some even—your Bones of 
Ramos, Orim—were hunks of machinery left from the war 
on Argoth. All were devices that could enhance his flying 
machine. That's why he set us on the scavenger hunt." 

18 



J. Robert King 
Multani spoke from the hull behind them. "Urza could 
always see the details but not the whole. He made great 
machines like you, Karn, and Weatherlight, but had no idea 
what to do with them." 

Karn's eyes were haunted by memories. "When I was 
first made, I was meant to travel back in time and destroy 
Yawgmoth before the Thran-Phyrexian war. The time 
machine, though, could reach back only a day or two, and 
it eventually overloaded, destroying Tolaria. Then Urza 
had no use for me. I had to find uses for myself. Working 
the mana rig at Shiv, manning the engines of 
Weatherlight—a thousand years, later even guarding 
Gerrard. I was simply a scrapped design, a piece of junk, 
except that I always sought some way to be useful. 

"The rest of the Legacy is the same. We have hoped in 
it wrongly. It's a collection of junk unless we know what to 
do with the pieces. These artifacts are powerful, true, but 
they are not perfect. Urza never had a single purpose in 
mind for them. He was an inveterate tinkerer, who knew a 
good bit of machine or magic when he saw it, and who 
stored it away until later. He knew all the pieces would be 
powerful in the right hands. Those hands were Gerrard's. 
Now they must be ours. We must decide what to do with 
the Legacy." 

Again from the wood spoke Multani. "Urza could never 
see the whole, but you do now, Karn. Tell us. What do we 
do with the Legacy?" 

Karn folded the Thran Tome once, halving its size, and 
once more, until it appeared as the book they had known 
before. 

"Come with me. The steam will have cleared from the 
engine room now." With the Thran Tome tucked under his 
arm, Karn strode from the chamber. 

19 



Apocalypse 

Tahngarth, Orim, and Sisay traded wary glances. Sisay 
spoke for them all. "What do you make of the new Karn?" 

Orim shook her head. "He speaks like an oracle. He 
suddenly knows so much." 

With a huff, Tahngarth said, "He suddenly thinks we 
need to be Gerrard." 

Standing, Sisay said, "We do. Gerrard and Urza and 
Hanna ... We need to be everyone and everything if we 
want to win." She was the first to follow the silver golem. 
Orim shrugged and went as well. Tahngarth gave another 
snort before following. For his part, Multani coursed 
through the planks at their feet, through the amidships 
hatch, down the companionway, and through the engine 
room bulwark. 

Karn had been right. The place was in shambles. The 
joists overhead ran with condensed steam. Droplets 
plunged down onto a shattered engine. Fissures snaked 
across the fuselage. Seven of the twelve mana batteries 
seeped green superfluids onto the planks. Power conduits 
smoked. Manifolds crackled with heat stress. The 
Skyshaper was half crushed by the impact, and the Juju 
Bubble was as opaque as a cataracted eye. 

Beside it all stood Karn, both engineer and engine 
component. He seemed somehow deflated, standing there 
in the presence of the ruined engine. He clutched the 
Thran Tome as though it were a shield. 

Captain Sisay led her crew into the engine room. She 
stopped and stared at the wreck. 

Sisay let out a groan. She laid her hands on the ragged 
mechanism. It seemed Weatherlight's pain traveled up her 
body. Her head drooped, and her knees buckled. 

"What good is the Legacy when Weatherlight is in 
pieces?" 

20 



J. Robert King 
Karn's voice was solemn and low. "In pieces, yes— 
Weatherlight, and all of us. It had to be broken down to be 
rebuilt into something new. My memories have been 
transforming me." He lifted the Thran Tome. "Here are the 
memories of Weatherlight. Let them transform her." He 
reverently laid the Thran Tome atop its manifold. "If 
Weatherlight's engine yet lives, she will remember and be 
transformed." 

Light awoke along the edges of the book. Every page 
beamed. A fiery glow licked up across the leather cover. 
From orange to blue, the radiance intensified. Soon, the 
Thran Tome was fully engulfed. Seeking arms of energy ran 
from the book onto the engine manifold. Where the fire 
went, cracks fused. Dents smoothed. Metal thickened. 
Glass sealed. In mere moments, the dancing power had 
spread to envelop the whole engine. 

The fire twisted metal into new configurations. It 
forged new connections. It widened the firebox and 
deepened the mana batteries and reshaped the whole 
mechanism. The crew could only stand back and gape. 
Sisay muttered, "What is it doing?" 

"Transforming," Karn said. "It is becoming what it must 
become." 

A voice came from the wooden walls all around—the 
voice of Multani. "I will do the same with the hull—infuse 
it with the memories of the ages. I will transform it into 
what it must become." 

"Soon, Weatherlight will attain her final configuration," 
Karn said. 

Sisay nodded, eyes wide. "But still, she is only a tool. 
Still, we must decide what to do with her." 

"Yes," Karn said. "We must transform as well." 

21 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 3 

Defenders of Dominaria 

"They must not reach Weatherlight!" shouted Eladamri 
from the back of his greater Kavu. 

Just ahead of the elf commander, a flood of Phyrexians 
crested a gnarl of stone and descended toward the wrecked 
ship. Eladamri dug his heels into the giant lizard's sides. It 
galloped on six gargantuan limbs across curled 
embankments of lava. Its three-toed hooves cracked rock as 
if it were dried mud. It hurled up a glittering mineral cloud, 
a cloud redoubled by the steeds of Liin Sivi and minotaur 
Commander Grizzlegom. 

Eladamri lifted his sword. "Charge!" The command was 
needless. The coalition forces— minotaur and Metathran, 
elf and Keldon, Benalish and Kavu— already thundered 
across the mountain. Still, the shout felt good in Eladamri's 
teeth. 

"Charge!" Liin Sivi cried, whirling her deadly toten-vec 
overhead. The chain hummed in the furious wind. The 
axelike head sang its own battle song. The Vec woman had 
grown up ever in the shadow of Rathi and Phyrexian 
overlords, and now to ride against them in battle felt 
magnificent. She grinned, a look that matched the snaggletoothed 
mien of her Kavu. 

"Charge!" bellowed Grizzlegom. The minotaur 
commander leaned beside the lizard's head and clutched 
his axe near its ear. 

22 



J. Robert King 
These Kavu had joined the coalition armies only a 
scant hour before. At first, they had seemed monstrous 
horrors—until they had demonstrated their appetite for 
Phyrexian flesh. With darting tongues and teeth like 
palisades, they had made a quick meal of the forces they 
encountered. In the midst of battle, Liin Sivi had 
accidentally befriended one beast by throwing a toten-vec 
strike that sent a severed Phyrexian head into a Kavu 
mouth. The lizard beast had rubbed up against her, and she 
had climbed on its back. Eladamri, Grizzlegom, and a 
hundred-some others had done likewise. On foot, this 
coalition army had been formidable. Aback Kavu, they 
were unstoppable. 

In the vanguard, Eladamri, Liin Sivi, and Grizzlegom 
drove their steeds into a sea of Phyrexians. 

The slope was filled with scuta, beasts that seemed giant 
horseshoe crabs with legs that dragged prey beneath their 
shields. There were also bloodstocks, humanoids made into 
centaurs by mechanical forelegs and a second set of arms. 
The Phyrexian shock troops were the most human of all— 
their legs metallic talons, their ribs subcutaneous 
breastplates, their shoulders jagged blades, and their faces 
little more than skulls covered in sacks of skin. 

To Kavu, all were merely crunchy snacks. 

Tongues lashed from the lizards, smacked upon shields 
and skulls, and drew creatures into scissoring jaws. Kavu 
teeth punctured the thickest Phyrexian armor. Huge 
chunks of bugflesh tumbled down the beasts' gullets. Their 
hooves slew even more. At full gallop, Kavu crushed 
cringing Phyrexians. Glistening oil drooled from their 
mouths and painted their legs. 

Grizzlegom's own appetite had been whetted. He leaped 
from his steed and landed in the midst of a Phyrexian 
throng. His hooves made the first kills—a pair of shock 

23 



Apocalypse 

troopers whose spiny shoulders were vacated of heads. The 
dashed-out skulls pitched forward, and Grizzlegom rode 
them down, hurling the spiked bodies into two more 
Phyrexians. Those four beasts collapsed, forming a platform 
of flesh upon which Grizzlegom could launch his attack. 
His axe flew. It severed three heads from bloodstock necks 
and rose golden to cleave the skull shield of a scuta. 

Already, his sovereign territory had doubled in size— 
eight Phyrexians beneath his feet, and more with each 
second. Grizzlegom's white-furred shoulders worked like 
steel bands. He was proud of those shoulders and of his 
twisted horns, signs that marked him as a hero in the 
tradition of Tahngarth. Who but Tahngarth or Grizzlegom 
could have felt so at home in the bloody midst of this 
horde? Already, he stood on twelve Phyrexian corpses. 

From the back of her mount, Liin Sivi did just as well. 
Her toten-vec was as long, fast, and deadly as a Kavu 
tongue. She chucked it free from her latest victim, a goat-
headed Phyrexian who now had a deep part between his 
horns. As he fell, Liin Sivi let out a ululating cry and 
grasped her weapon. She let fly again. Chain paid out 
perfectly through the sulfuric air. The oily blade flung 
golden beads as it hurled across the emptiness and buried 
itself in a shock trooper's breast. Just between the ribs the 
blade passed, slicing the creature to the heart. Always Liin 
Sivi had been a deadly creature, reared in a crucible of war. 
Only in these last weeks, in these last days, had she become 
a creature whose own heart had been pierced. 

Eladamri watched her. The two of them had fought side 
by side in the Stronghold on Rath. Together, they had 
battled at Llanowar and Koilos, and on and beneath the 
Necropolis Glacier. Somewhere in the cold black heart of 
that ice sheet, the final barrier had fallen between them. 

24 



J. Robert King 
They were one now. They completed each other as no 
Phyrexian was ever compleated. 

While Liin Sivi's toten-vec opened a corridor to one 
side, 

Eladamri's sword battered beasts to the other. Despite 
the slaughter of Kavu hooves, the Phyrexians climbed. 
They clambered up the lizards' legs like roaches up a table. 
Had Eladamri's blade been less quick, they would have 
overwhelmed him too. 

He slashed. His sword sliced through a shock trooper. 
From collarbone to sternum, the thing was laid open. 
Where there should have been a heart was only a scabrous 
cluster of nephritic tubes. They filtered the oil blood, and 
without them the trooper would surely die. Still, it would 
live and kill for hours. Drawing forth his blade from the 
weeping wound, Eladamri rammed its tip through the 
thing's skull. 

As it fell away, Eladamri kicked loose another 
Phyrexian— this a spider-configured critter that seemed it 
could have been a child of Tsabo Tavoc herself. Just 
behind it rose another shock trooper, whose mechanical 
fingers dug into the flesh of the Kavu. Eladamri chopped 
the shoulder of the monster as a man might chop a wooden 
stump. He severed one arm and then the other. A simple 
kick to the forehead was enough to send the creature to the 
ground. Before it had even struck the side of the volcano, 
Eladamri's greater Kavu snatched it up and ate it. 

Eladamri spared a moment to glance toward Liin Sivi. 
Mantled in battle and blood, she was at her most beautiful. 
Indomitable. Fearless. Relentless. Beyond her, down the 
tumbled slope, lay Weatherlight. No Phyrexian had come 
anywhere near the inert hulk. The coalition forces had 
stemmed the tide of the attack. 

25 



Apocalypse 

Eladamri peered up the hill. Phyrexians poured in a 
black deluge down the mountainside. They emerged from a 
deep tunnel in the volcano. Their base was within. Here in 
the open, the defenders had to fight tens of thousands of 
monsters. If they could seal that gateway in the 
mountainside, they would fight only a handful. 

"Drive upward!" Eladamri shouted over the din. "Drive 
toward the gates!" 

Liin Sivi heard. She drove her steed up the talus slope. 
Phyrexians tumbled like scree beneath her Kavu's hooves. 
Her toten-vec flew and sang with the fury of each strike. 

"Do you recognize it, Eladamri?" 

Dragging his sword tip from the vitreous humor of a 
bloodstock, Eladamri replied, "Recognize what?" 

"The gateway." She needed say no more. He 
understood. 

It was unmistakable, with its tall walls of poured lime, 
its wide-paved staging grounds, its guard towers and 
trenches— even the garrisons that stood to either side of 
the entryway. 

Eladamri's stomach soured. "The main entrance to the 
Stronghold. I already gained that spot once in battle. Must 
I do it again?" 

"We must to win this war," replied Liin Sivi. "We must 
to capture the Stronghold." For these two Rathi, there was 
no more enticing possibility than capturing the 
Stronghold. Such a victory would banish every terror of the 
Skyshroud elves, the Dal, Vec, and Kor. It would fulfill the 
prophecies of the Korvecdal, the Uniter who was to come 
and destroy the heart of evil. "Life will be worth living if 
we win this war." 

Eladamri gritted his teeth and shot a glance over his 
shoulder. Below lay Weatherlight—untouched. She was in 
ruins, but her crew survived, and they were the scrappiest 

26 



J. Robert King 
fighters Eladamri had ever encountered. Above him 
yawned that black gash in the mountainside, streaming 
Phyrexians onto the world. Yes, he had gained that gate 
once. Had he shut it down before, he would not be staring 
at it again now. It was the gate then. Victory or death. 

"Get up there," Eladamri barked at his steed. The 
greater Kavu leaped eagerly, charging with Liin Sivi's 
mount. A third beast joined them. Commander Grizzlegom 
clambered up its side. 

"What's the game?" asked the minotaur as he dragged 
his bloodied legs up to straddle the lizard's neck. 

"We'll close the gate," replied Eladamri. He rode on. 
His Kavu crunched beasts beneath its feet. A creature with 
the mouth of a leech scaled the lizard's flank. Eladamri 
lanced his sword through the mouth. He lifted an oily 
blade upward to point at the gateway above. "We'll stem 
the flood of monsters then kill those that have already 
emerged." 

Grizzlegom's lips drew back from bloody teeth. "It's a 
fight. That's all I need—a fight." He skewered a shock 
trooper through the heart. His Kavu crashed upward aback 
a platoon of scuta. Only broken shells and white muck 
remained. Whistling shrilly, he waved the troops forward. 

They came. Minotaur and Metathran, Benalish and elf, 
Keldon and Kavu, the army followed. It clove through the 
swarming Phyrexians. 

Liin Sivi was the edge of that cleaver. She drove the 
beast over a way paved with monstrous heads. Dozens of 
the creatures died with each footfall. Dozens more were 
unmade by the vicious whirl of her toten-vec. She would 
reach the objective, yes—the gate in the side of the 
volcano—but she would also enjoy the journey. 

Eladamri rode up beside her. A sweeping stroke of his 
sword hewed heads from a Phyrexian phalanx. On her side, 

27 



Apocalypse 

Liin Sivi drove her Kavu against Eladamri's. The two beasts 
smashed together and killed whatever was between. Their 
feet rubbed up against each other. 

They made their way—Eladamri who was dreamed into 
being by Gaea, and Liin Sivi who was dreamed into being 
by Eladamri. The truth of those dreams would be proved 
ahead. If Eladamri were the true Uniter, he would prevail 
at the main gate. If Liin Sivi were his true soul-mate, she 
would prevail as well. Neither could succeed unless they 
both did. They were no longer two separate creatures, but 
the beginning and the end of a single dream. 

They topped a wide-spreading plateau, a great shelf of 
obsidian, black and smooth. Razor striations radiated from 
the main entryway. 

The first ranks of Phyrexians fell swiftly and helplessly 
to the thundering Kavu. Behind the three steeds of the 
commanders came a hundred more beasts. Many bore 
riders. 

Others bore only fury. They stomped scuta and 
bloodstocks and shock troops to puddings. 

Less helpless beasts approached ahead—monsters so 
eager to reach battle that they galloped over their own 
people. They were as large as Kavu, though they strode on 
two talonlike legs. Their arms ended in grasping claws that 
could segment a rhino in a single squeeze. With a bone-
dense head, scimitar teeth, a barrel chest, and a leather 
hide, each Phyrexian gargantua fought like a whole army. 

One beast vaulted across the obsidian ground just 
before Eladamri. With a scream, it hurled itself into 
Eladamri's Kavu. It grappled the lizard in a headlock. The 
arms of the monster wrapped the spine of the steed. 
Gargantua nostrils sucked a deep breath as its fangs sank 
into the Kavu's throat. Claws dug through scales. Reptilian 
blood welled from the wounds. 

28 



J. Robert King 
The Kavu released its own scream. It reared up on four 
hind legs, lifting the gargantua into the air. 

Tenacious, the monster sank its teeth only deeper. It 
seemed a bulldog on a bull's throat. 

The Kavu flailed, struggling to break the beast's hold. 
All its fighting only deepened the wounds on the Kavu's 
neck. 

Eladamri climbed from the beast's back. Reaching one 
of the gargantua's claws, he dug footholds for his boots. 
With two hands on his sword, he swung the blade in a 
great overhand chop. The strike severed two fingers from 
the gargantua's claw. The digits tumbled away. Twin 
wounds poured oil-blood across the Kavu's shoulder. With 
another hack, Eladamri removed the two other claws, 
leaving the gargantua only a stump. 

It shrieked, its teeth releasing the Kavu's shoulder. 
Rearing back, the gargantua opened its mouth to swallow 
Eladamri whole. It lunged. Its jaws snapped. 

Eladamri was too fast. He leaped away and landed on 
the snout of the monster. He'd been watching that horrid, 
wet spot, sucking air and flopping. It was the only part of 
the monster's skull that was devoid of bone. Eladamri 
tested his theory by ramming his sword up the thing's 
nostril and into its brain. There came a pop as the tip 
pierced some sack of fluids, and then a horrible gray gush. 

The gargantua sagged. Its eyes spun crazily in its bony 
head as the beast shuddered toward the ground. A whoosh 
of vile gasses escaped the settling corpse. 

Giving an elven victory cry, Eladamri raised his sword 
skyward. Only then did he see that his own mount lay, 
dead already, beneath the dying bulk of the gargantua. 
Eladamri blinked, unbelieving. It had been a greater Kavu, 
an ancient creature, dead in a matter of moments. 

29 



Apocalypse 

"Climb up!" came a shout from above. Liin Sivi, 
mounted on a Kavu, extended her hand toward him. 

Nodding, the elf commander strode up the scaly leg of 
her steed and swung into place behind her. "I hope I don't 
cramp your fighting style." 

Her only response was a lightning-fast strike against a 
bloodstock. Her toten-vec darted out, slew the monster, 
and returned to her hand before it had ceased ringing. It 
had been too fast even to gather glistening oil. 

"You're in fine form." 

"The fight's up there," she replied, pointing ahead. The 
rest of the coalition army had flooded up past them while 
Eladamri had paused to engage the gargantua. Now, 
Keldons and Metathran and minotaurs fought a pitched 
battle, hand to hand, on the obsidian fields. 

Despite its tremendous size, the Kavu stepped gingerly 
among its own troops, careful not to crush them. Its clawed 
feet came to ground kitten soft, though it drove like a bull 
toward the front lines. 

The mountain suddenly leaped. 

"What was that?" asked Liin Sivi. 

Eladamri lifted a hand to his ear. The mountain leaped 
again. "It's almost like a heartbeat. It's almost as if the 
volcano were alive." 

"Perhaps it's nearing eruption," Liin Sivi responded. 
The mountain joked a third time. "Volcanism? Or some 
Phyrexian plot?" "We won't know until we take the gate," 
Eladamri said. "Forward." Already the Kavu had reached 
the front. Already sword and toten-vec were whirling in a 
steely cloud. 

30 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 4 

A Steely Cloud 

Blood painted the arena, the blood of immortal Urza 
and all-too-mortal Gerrard. Too much blood. Had this 
been Tolaria or Benalia, each man would have been dead 
ten times over. This was Phyrexia. Here, Mishra had lain 
for four thousand years beneath a flesh shredder. Here, 
Yawgmoth had lain for nine thousand years, transforming 
from a man into a monstrous god. Here too, Gerrard and 
Urza could bleed buckets and yet fight on. They had 
painted the arena like saturated brushes. In slick fingers, 
Gerrard clutched a war hammer and swung it overhead in a 
braining blow. The hammer crashed through a late parry. It 
bashed aside Urza's sword. He winced to one side. The 
maul slammed into his shoulder. Bones cracked. Muscle 
slumped above a ruined joint. The sword jangled free. Urza 
recoiled, staggered against the wall, and added figures to 
the red mural. 

The crowd shrieked. Delight raked the heavens. It 
reverberated through the arena, channeled by concentric 
circles of stone. This was what the gladiators needed—not 
rest, not health, not hope, not blood, but bloodlust. Shouts, 
hoots, bellows carried a mad, almost worshiping desire. It 
infused the two fighters. It became their blood. It 
amalgamated organs, knitted muscles, and patched skin. 
More than that—it made the two men want to fight. It was 
a contagious and irresistible thirst to kill. 

31 



Apocalypse 

Smiling, Gerrard hefted the hammer and stalked 
forward. A sanguine line wormed down his brow, 
dangerously near one eye. He shook his head, flinging 
spray. It formed circles in the sand. A roar answered from 
the crowd. He drank in the bitter sound. It roiled in his 
belly and burned in his muscles. The hammer rose of its 
own will. Gerrard barged toward Urza, along the wall. 

The planeswalker's shoulder had healed considerably 
under the ovations of the crowd, but bone fragments still 
jutted from it. The arm was unusable. Stitches of pain 
puckered the old man's neck. He had no weapons. They lay 
behind Gerrard, on the dais at the center of the arena. Urza 
had no means to block that hammer, nor had he any 
escape. If he leaped, the blow would smash his ribs. If he 
ducked, it would stave his skull. 

Gerrard's hammer muscled a silver arc through the sky. 
It fell on the trapped planeswalker. 

Urza charged beneath the descending hammer. His 
ruined shoulder crashed into Gerrard's gut. Bone fragments 
cut through fabric and spiked skin. The hammer traced out 
its inevitable path, down to smash on the ground and send 
sand spraying. Urza bulled across the sand, carrying his foe. 
This sudden blow yanked the hammer from Gerrard's hand. 
Urza's feet pounded the ground. He shoved his protege 
over to land flat on his back. Urza stood over him and 
roared. The bestial sound echoed through the stands and 
grew in monstrous throats. 

A ferocious, ingenious attack. Now neither combatant 
had a weapon. 

Urza turned and strode to the dais. 

Gerrard struggled up. He gasped for breath but could 
draw none. There was a moment of suffocating panic as 
stunned muscles remembered how to breathe. In asphyxia, 
bloodlust faded. Gerrard's head was suddenly clear. The 

32 



J. Robert King 
very air of the arena, the spirit of the place, was violent. To 
breathe was to take Yawgmoth into one's breast. 

Still, Gerrard had to breathe. Clutching his knees, he 
managed an inhalation. The panic slowly faded. Fury rose 
in its place. Anger—vital and mad—tingled in his lungs 
and spread through his body. It ignited a fire in him. 
Muscles tightened. Legs and arms ached to fight. To toes 
and fingertips, he was possessed by violence. Only his mind 
remained clear, and that through sheer will. He would let 
Yawgmoth imbue his body with war, but not his mind. No 
longer his mind. 

Urza had reached the dais and selected a great sword, 
the weighty sort meant to sever horses' legs. He swung the 
blade. It moved as easily as an epee. The weapon crackled 
like black lightning. Energy flowed down the blood groove, 
across the crosspiece, and into his hands. It scintillated up 
his arms. Dark power sewed the last hunks of flesh closed 
over the bones of his shoulder. Lightless sparks danced 
across a clenched smile. 

Only moments before, Gerrard had worn a similar 
expression. Violence suffused more than just the air. It 
filled the weapons, too. They taught their wielders to kill. 

Great sword clutched in a double grip, Urza advanced. 

Gerrard strode toward his fallen war hammer. Could he 
wield it, or would it wield him? Did it matter? He could no 
more reject a weapon than he could reject breath. Gerrard 
clutched the pommel. 

Power ambled spiderlike across his flesh. It nettled him. 
It filled him with strength even as it poisoned him. Both 
hands tightened on the handle while prickly magic rose up 
his neck. He clamped his eyes tight, struggling to stem the 
tide. It wrung virulent humors from his mind. 

The rapid thud of boots in sand announced Urza's 
approach. 

33 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard whirled, lifting the war hammer. The tide of 
blood-lust rose. Swallowing, he released the hammer. It 
dropped to the sand and thudded dully. The blood-tide 
ebbed away. 

Urza rose. He lifted the great sword high for one 
cleaving strike. Gerrard stood weaponless, his back to the 
wall, with no escape. The great sword fell. It cleft the air. 

Gerrard lunged beneath the blow. He stepped to the 
side of the pommel. In the same fluid motion, his fist 
cracked the planeswalker's jaw. Teeth clacked together. 
Urza staggered back. The great sword buried its tip in the 
sand. Gerrard stepped on the side of the blade, forcing it to 
ground. 

Urza clung to the pommel, dragged down. He released 
it, too late. 

Gerrard kicked the man's down-turned face. Twin trails 
of blood streamed from his broken nose as he fell backward. 
Urza landed on his back. Dust rolled up around him. 

The stands erupted. Mouth plates ground together in a 
cicada din. Tongues lashed, and hooves pounded. In the 
royal balcony, puffs of soot billowed gladly from the nostrils 
of the black dragon. Even Hanna seemed to take especial 
interest in that bold reversal. 

Gerrard cared nothing for any of their opinions. 
Instead, he stood tall above his foe, staring down at Urza 
with eyes no less strange. Gerrard's fists circled before him. 

"Let's do this right, Planeswalker," he said. "Bare hands. 
Nothing but knuckle. If I'm going to have to kill you, I'd 
rather do it with my bare hands than with some hunk of 
cursed steel." 

Warily eyeing his foe, Urza rose to one elbow and 
gathered his legs beneath him. "I have always fought with 
steel. From the first wars against the Fallaji to my invasion 
of this nested world, I have always fought with machines." 

34 



J. Robert King 
He leaped to his feet, ready to fend off another blow, but 
backing all the while toward the dais. "Why should I stop 
now?" 

With his fists lifted, Gerrard pursued. "These aren't 
your machines, Urza. They are Yawgmoth's. This whole 
place exists only in his mind, his imagination. We fight 
each other according to his whims. We are not warriors, 
but puppets. Oh, I will fight you, Urza Planeswalker, I will 
beat you, and gain my boon, but I will be the puppet of no 
one." 

A hiss came from the crowd. The moments of heroic 
reversal were forgotten in the face of this bold blasphemy— 
to fight, but not on Yawgmoth's terms. 

Gerrard advanced on Urza, swinging another punch, 
which darkened one eye. He grasped his foe's cloak, hauled 
him close, and whispered through clenched teeth, "It's 
more than that. Much more. If this place exists only in the 
mind of Yawgmoth, it is made of flowstone. Nanites." That 
word got Urza's attention. His struggles slackened as 
Gerrard elaborated. "Minute machines that cling to one 
another and answer the will of Yawgmoth ... and Crovax 
... and others .. .." 

Angry shouts grew strident from the audience. 

"What does it matter?" Urza retorted, punctuating the 
comment with a blow to Gerrard's cheek. 

The man staggered back, releasing the cloak. "Don't 
you see? If Yawgmoth can shape this stuff, so can we. We 
must only believe it to create it." Gerrard reached into 
empty air beside him. His fingers wrapped around 
something. They tightened and brought a weapon into 
existence. A quarterstaff. Gerrard whirled it expertly 
around one shoulder. "My weapon. My rules. I am no 
puppet, but a warrior!" He swung the staff in a wide and 
brutal sweep, smashing Urza's head. 

35 



Apocalypse 

The planeswalker toppled, his boots dragging sand in 
his wake. He crumpled to the ground, seeming as much 
slain by Gerrard's ingenuity as by the staff blow. 

The anger in the stadium dissipated, replaced by a rising 
shout of admiration. Scabrous hands that had been empty a 
moment before bloomed with black roses and flung them 
down upon Gerrard. Thorns and desiccated petals cleaved 
to his bloody skin as if to regain their lost hue. Other hands 
in the crowd flung missiles—rotten food and vomit, organ 
meats and offal—down upon Urza, where he brokenly lay. 

From the high balcony, a booming voice emerged. 
"Well done, Master of Arms. You have learned. You have 
risen from the simple deadliness we have given you to new, 
greater deadliness. You have transformed yourself from a 
worthless puppet to a self-moving creature. An automaton. 
But you must rise farther still before you might approach 
this platform and kneel." The dragon extended its twisted 
claw and made a gesture toward Urza. 

Gerrard turned to see his old foe rise. Cloaked in filth 
and blood, he seemed no more than a pair of anguished 
eyes, rising from the detritus. His body took form as if 
constituting itself from garbage. 

As Gerrard gazed at that pathetic figure, he had the 
sensation he stared into a mirror—no, not a mirror, but a 
portrait. A mirror shows the viewer in the present time. A 
portrait shows the viewer in a distant past. Urza was 
Gerrard's distant past, was the man primeval. 

Those eyes, the focus and locus of Urza's life, stared at 
the young man with a baleful fury. He held out his hand to 
one side. As Gerrard had formed a staff from the clear air, 
so now something grew in the planeswalker's grip. It was no 
simple staff. The haft of the weapon glistened with serpent 
scales. The head of the thing bristled with blades—glaive 
and axe, adz and pike, all in one. The butt of the device 

36 



J. Robert King 
was perhaps most fiendish of all: a scourge. This cat-o-nine, 
though, consisted not of leather thongs but of snakes. The 
reptilian scales that covered the shaft spread into true 
snakeskin at the base of the device. The nine thongs 
slithered through the sand toward Gerrard. Their eighteen 
eyes fixed upon him. 

Smiling a fangy smile, Urza raised his new weapon and 
snapped its end. The motion riled along the snakes' long 
bodies, stretching them. Cobra hoods spread. They opened 
their jaws. White fangs jutted outward. 

Gerrard staggered back. 

Creamy venom shot from the snakes' fangs and 
crisscrossed the sand. They lunged toward him. He swung 
his quarterstaff, cracking their heads. The jaws of the 
cobras fastened about the staff. Teeth splintered wood and 
jetted poison into it. Gerrard released it. The quarterstaff 
sailed from numb fingers. It retracted with the serpents 
toward Urza. Enwrapped in serpents, the staff struck upon 
the blades of Urza's weapon and was unmade. Cleft, 
chopped, sliced, and pierced, the quarterstaff became 
splinters in the sand. 

"My weapon," Urza hissed, his voice matching the 
company of snakes. "My rules. Perhaps I am not the 
planeswalker here, but I am still the master artificer. There 
are more things in my philosophies than in heaven and 
hell." 

The crowd howled with delight. 

The planeswalker advanced. He swung the serpent staff 
before him. Nine vipers uncoiled, reaching for Gerrard. 
Eighteen fangs slid out to bite into the young hero's flesh. 

Gerrard drove away from their snapping jaws and ran 
alongside the blood-painted walls of the arena. He left a 
sanguine image of himself, stretched out and desperate 
before his foe. Urza had learned from his innovation and 

37 



Apocalypse 

bested him. This was how the battle would go. Gerrard 
would innovate some new strategy, and Urza would master 
it. If ever Gerrard would win, he must do so by striking his 
opponent dead with some innovation before it became 
Urza's own. 

For now though, he must only survive. The snakes 
snapped, catching his clothing. He reeled back. Their teeth 
ripped through raveling fabric. He kicked sand into their 
jaws. 

Gerrard ran. Some would have called it cowardice. 
Indeed, the pelting storm of feces from the stands told 
Gerrard what Yawgmoth thought of this quick retreat. 
Courage and cowardice were less important just now than 
life and death, and time to think. With each footfall, 
Gerrard gave himself another second. 

Urza followed him like a hound on a hare. 

Think! Gerrard commanded himself. He wanted to 
create some greater weapon—a flaming staff or a flame-
throwing sling—but none could match the efficient 
deadliness that Urza bore. And surely anything Gerrard 
devised would be quickly topped by Urza. No, it was better 
to discover the new paradigm than to be outwitted in the 
old. 

If the world all around could by shaped into weapons, 
why not also into defenses? Deadly defenses. 

Gerrard's feet struck divots in the sand, and his mind 
changed those circular splashes into circular traps—bear 
traps. Every track became one, a wide set of iron jaws 
spread about a broad trigger. It would take but a single 
incautious step to slice Urza off at the knees. He would fall 
face first into more devices and be chewed to pieces. 

Except that Urza was Urza. He avoided the traps across 
the sand, running to one side. 

Gerrard needed something more powerful. 

38 



J. Robert King 
He found it. Why shape sand into the form of iron? Let 
sand be sand, with its natural strengths, and it would 
overwhelm whatever came against it. 

Gerrard sent out a thought. The arena hungered for 
ideas, and it swallowed this thought—quickening. The 
sand became alive, quicksand, not in the sense of a watery 
slough, but in the sense of an ever-shifting, ever-living 
stuff. 

Urza took one step upon the quicksand and sank to his 
knees. He took a second to catch himself and foundered to 
his waist. Struggling to whirl the serpent staff above the 
boiling ground, he buried himself deeper. 

In midstride, Gerrard whirled to see the demise of his 
progenitor. Already, the planeswalker was buried to his 
waist. Sand grasped him. Its fingers dragged his shoulders 
below. Gritty claws clenched his hair and beard. Particles 
invaded nostrils and ears. His last scream became a cloud of 
dust. Grains even etched those beaming eyes. Sand closed 
over Urza's head, and he sank away. 

With empty hands and empty eyes, Gerrard turned 
toward the royal balcony. He swept one arm in toward his 
belly and the other out toward the mound of sand that had 
once been Urza Planeswalker. 

"I claim my boon, Yawgmoth. I have ascended. I have 
slain my rival. Now, give me Hanna." 

The black dragon upon that exalted balcony riled like 
one of Urza's snakes. "No." 

Astonished, Gerrard shouted, "No?" 

"The battle is to the death," came the voice, and not 
only from the balcony, but from all the beasts there. "You 
have not slain Urza, only buried him alive. Yes, you have 
proved yourself, risen from the ranks of puppet to warrior, 
and warrior to strategist. You have devised offenses and 

39 



Apocalypse 

defenses, but still, you have not killed your old foe. Behold, 

Gerrard—Urza Planeswalker." 

Gerrard turned toward the sand mound. 

It rose again. As Urza had lifted himself once from offal, 
now he rose from the ground. Those eyes led him again, 
bringing the rest of him into being. Sand sloughed from 
shoulders and arms and robes. Grit shot from nostrils and 
lips. Urza had left his serpent-staff beneath the ground, but 
he no longer needed it. His eyes brought new and sudden 
life to the sand. Where Gerrard had fashioned quicksand, 
Urza fashion golems—creatures of soil. On their foreheads 
was written Emeth, the ancient Thran word for truth, and 
they rose to pummel Gerrard. 

The crowd—Yawgmoth himself—shrieked in approval. 

Gerrard retreated. Once again, Urza had learned from 
his innovation and had made it exponentially more deadly. 

40 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 5 

A Lonely and Glorious Thing 

Karn crouched beside Weatherlight's massive engine. His 
hands jutted through twin ports in the shell of the power 
core. His fingers gripped the control rods within. When 
first Weatherlight had lifted from her Tolarian dry dock, 
Karn had crouched here. When she had fought in Serra's 
Realm and in Rath, in Mercadia, Benalia, Llanowar, and 
Koilos, he had tended her from this very spot. Always, he 
had knelt before the great engine like a man before a great 
altar. He shucked his crude silver body and coursed 
through her every Thran-metal tissue. Weatherlight 
inspired, empowered, and transformed him. 

Now was different. Now he knelt like a midwife before 
a birthing mother, anxious to bring new life into the world. 
This time, it was not Karn who was inspired, empowered, 
and transformed. It was Weatherlight. 

The engine seemed a glowing slab of wax. Thran metal 
sweated and ran across it and reformed. Power channels 
swelled and split. Couplings merged into manifolds. 
Chambers within the machine widened and multiplied. 
Weatherlight conformed to the final ideal laid out for her in 
the Thran Tome—a book that was now at her heart. 
Already, she had doubled her intake and exhaust 
capacities, which would quadruple her acceleration and 
velocity. Weatherlight was giving birth to a wholly new ship. 

Such transformations came at grave cost. Metal failed. 
Folds peeled up from each other. Bolts gnawed out the 

41 



Apocalypse 

wood that once held them. Braces dragged from chine 
boards. Doorways swelled shut. The ship would either 
achieve her new configuration or be ripped apart trying. 

Karn could do nothing to help. Though he knelt here, 
feeling every shudder of the engine in his hands, the microfilaments 
in his knuckles were dead. He was shut out. 
Always before, he moved through the ship. Always before, 
he had been the living spirit in the machine. Now 
Weatherlight had her own spirit. She no longer needed him. 
With the Thran Tome in her makeup, she was a thinking, 
feeling, living creature. Karn wished he could bear her 
pain, or at least share it, but he could not. He could only 
kneel there and mutter useless comforts and wait to 
discover what new creature came into being before him. 

* * * * * 

Moving from patient to patient in the overcrowded 
sickbay, Orim sought the source of the agony that filled the 
room. It suffused her mind. She had always been 
empathically sensitive to others' pain, and her natural 
abilities had been only heightened by Cho-Arrim water 
magic. Now, she wished for a little anesthesia, both for the 
patient and for herself. 

Orim laid dripping hands on the elbow of an ensign. 
The joint had been shattered during the crash landing. 
Though it still ached, it did so with the warm ache of 
healing. Water conducted the sensation into her hands and 
sent relief the other direction. With a silvery shimmer, 
Cho-Arrim magic seeped from Orim's fingers into the 
man's elbow. It was not he. The pain came from another. 
The next bunk held a very familiar form—Tahngarth. At 
last, Orim had convinced him to get aid for his burns, some 
of which were serious. If anyone in the sickbay had a right 

42 



J. Robert King 
to be anguished, it was he, but his clear-eyed gaze told 
otherwise. "What is it, Orim?" 

She shook her head, her glance passing over the bunks 
along the wall. "Someone—someone's in unbearable pain." 

The minotaur scanned the sleeping and well-tended 
patients. "You're sure?" 

"Positive," she responded, leaning over his bunk to rest 
one hand on his forehead. The contact sent an 
overwhelming wave of agony through her. She crumpled to 
her knees and tightened her grip on the wooden edge of 
the bunk. Her vision narrowed to a sparking tunnel. "How 
can you ... stand it?" 

Tahngarth reached up and peeled her hand from his 
forehead. 

The agony continued unabated. "It's not me," he said 
simply. 

Then, reaching down, he pulled her other hand away 
from the bunk. Immediately, the torment diminished. "It's 
Weatherlight." 

Orim's brow furrowed. "Weatherlight!" 

"She is transforming," Tahngarth replied, leaning his 
head back onto the pillow and releasing a long, raking sigh. 
"Transformation is painful." The proof of his words was 
written across his figure—the mottled fur in white and 
brown, the twisted horns, the bulky muscles. His Rathi 
transformation had been torturous enough. Now, he had 
been transformed again—by fire. "Imagine all the growing 
pangs from childhood to adulthood endured in a single 
day." 

Nodding, Orim trailed away across the sickbay to the 
shelves where she stored healing philters. Her hands passed 
across the vials there—aloe, camphor, emetine, garlic, 
iodine, laudanum, mustard, periwinkle, quinine, rye spirits, 
water .. .. These were her arsenal, as powerful in her 

43 



Apocalypse 

healing hands as swords and gar-rotes in the hands of 
killers. Still, these compounds had failed her when Hanna 
lay dying. They failed her again now. "There must be 
something I can give to ease this pain." "You cannot," 
replied Tahngarth, "no more than you can transform for 
the ship." 

Clutching a vial of opiates, Orim approached 
Tahngarth. "I provided serum for the plague—gave it to 
Multani, and he suffused the ship with it." 

Tahngarth shrugged. "Transformation is supposed to be 
painful." "I'm going to find him," Orim said decisively, 
whirling about. The coins in her hair sent silvery lights 
racing across the walls. "I'm going to give him this." 

"Karn said we all must transform," Tahngarth said as 
she turned and strode away. "It will be painful for us as 
well." 

* * * * * 

This was what it must have felt like for Urza, Multani 
realized as he fought his way through the hull of 
Weatherlight. This is what it must have felt like when I 
trapped him in the magnigoth tree. 

Multani truly was trapped. Always before, he had 
coursed through the grains of the hull as easily as a thought 
through a brain. Now, the brain no longer belonged to 
him. It had created another mind. Weatherlight was rising 
to consciousness, and Multani was trapped in her emerging 
thoughts. No mind wished to be invaded. 

Multani burrowed along the starboard bow, hoping to 
reach the shattered wood where the ship had run aground. 
He needed a body to escape the hull. To build a body he 
needed splinters. With each inch he advanced, though, the 
heat in the wood intensified and the vascular systems 

44 



J. Robert King 
swelled. The ship shifted her life energy toward healing her 
hull. Cellulose thickened. Green growth flared. Ruined 
wood regenerated—and more. It amplified what had come 
before. 

Once, Multani had healed the ship, had reworked her 
according to his own vision of her destiny. Now she 
reworked herself. The maro-sorcerer turned against the 
healing tide. He would have to discover another escape. 
Perhaps he could find some yet-living wood within the 
carpenter's walk. Most seagoing vessels of any draft had a 
carpenter's walk—a narrow passageway along the 
waterline, meant to allow carpenters to repair damage 
caused in ship-to-ship fighting. Urza had not needed one in 
Weatherlight, since the ship could heal its own wounds, 
and it rarely sailed on water. The walk had not even 
appeared on the main ship schematics, but Multani had 
found it anyway in his journeys through the hull. Never 
before had he entered it, never before had he needed it, but 
now Multani headed toward the secret space, hoping it 
would be his salvation. 

Multani coursed down into the hidden walkway. Life 
pulsed strongly here too but in a meditative way. Finding a 
stack of living planks, Multani entered them. Wood 
warped. Knotholes grew. Edges dovetailed. Grains braided. 
Multani assembled a body for himself. Angular and huge, 
the maro-sorcerer rose in the dark space. At last, he was 
free of the ship. At last he could breathe. 

Multani let out a long sigh. It had been a year since he 
had felt so trapped—back in Yavimaya, when fiends were 
falling from the skies. Breath eased from him and plumed 
out across the inner hull of the ship. 

From that living wood came a voice in Multani's mind, 
a feminine voice. It is you, Master. You have returned. 

45 



Apocalypse 

Multani cocked his head. Splintery locks jutted above 
knothole eyes. 

Is Phyrexia destroyed, then? 

"What?" Multani blurted. 

You are not the Master. You are not the Creator. 

Suddenly understanding, Multani replied, "No. I am 
not the Creator. I am not Urza Planeswalker." 

A fearful quality entered the chamber. No one but the 
Creator may enter here. It is an extradimensional pocket. There 
is no passageway from my main decks. No one but the Creator 
knows it exists. 

"Not only he. I know." 

Who are you? 

"I am Multani ... a friend. Perhaps a mentor. I have 
been healing you and shaping you toward—" he broke off, 
wondering just what he had been shaping her toward— 
"toward this moment. Toward your coming of age." 

How did you learn of the carpenter's walk? 

"I know everything about you. Or once I did. It is the 
way with all living things. There is always someone—a 
parent, a mentor, a friend—who knows you better than you 
know yourself. Then comes a time when you surpass that 
knowledge and know yourself best of all. That's the day 
when you have come of age. That is today." 

They both were silent for a time. Multani felt a sudden 
tenderness toward this vessel, which he had nurtured from 
a single seed. In a sense, Weatherlight had been his ship that 
whole time. Today she would never be his again. 

What is to become of me, then, Mentor Multani? What am 
I becoming? 

He shrugged splintery shoulders. Knothole eyes glinted 
with resin. "I don't know. This is the day when I stop 
knowing you best. What becomes of you is what you make 
of yourself." 

46 



J. Robert King 
This young ship—old in her chronology but utterly new 
in her every design, in her awakening mind—thought 
much. It is good to have not only a creator but also a mentor. 

"You have had much more than that, great 
Weatherlight," answered Multani. "You belong to Gerrard 
Capashen, who has plotted your future, and have been 
steered by Captain Sisay, who has helmed you, and have 
been empowered by Karn, who has lived through you, and 
have been defended by Tahngarth, who has fought for you. 
You have had many mentors, many friends. You are 
surrounded by a crowd of them." 

Is it this way for all living things? 

"It is meant to be this way for all of us." 

How may I thank them? What may I offer them in return? 

"To become what you were meant to be." 

A considering silence followed. It seems to me that the 
Creator is more powerful than you, Multani, but that you are 
wiser. 

The nature spirit could not help laughing. "As regards 
my lack of power, I would ask a single boon of you, 
Weatherlight." 

I will grant it, if I can. 

"Conduct me out of this extradimensional walk, and 
out of your transforming hull, and grant me some living 
wood from which I might have a separate body. Then I will 
wish you well and take my leave." 

There were only a final few words. It is a lonely thing to 
come of age. 

The ship's life-force took hold of him. His spirit was 
drawn swiftly but gently out of the living planks where he 
had resided. The body fell to pieces and scraps on the 
carpenter's walk. Multani entered the hull of Weatherlight. 

He moved through welcoming rings of wood. The sap 
that once had shoved against him bore him along on its 

47 



Apocalypse 

friendly tide. The grains where once he had roamed as 
mentor and friend now conducted him outward. He knew 
this was the last time he would move so through the great 
ship Weatherlight. Every cell of her being seemed to sing 
his passage, the glad, sad parade of a departing hero. 

Then, it was done. He suddenly stood beyond her prow. 
A new body of fresh, strong fiber embraced his spirit. He 
was tall, his head spiked with foliage like the purple petals 
of a thistle. His broad shoulders had a beamy power to 
them, and his torso was mantled in a robe as white as 
loomed cotton. On pithy legs, he stepped back to steady 
himself, and feet like ancient roots clutched the volcanic 
hillside. His hand came away from Weatherlight, and the 
last link between them was broken. 

Not the last. There before him, gloriously restored, 
hung the Gaea figurehead that he had formed at the prow 
of the ship. From a broad cascade of twining hair shone the 
face of Hanna— strong, proud, clear eyed, and gently 
smiling. Weatherlight would know her way. Even without 
him, without Karn and all the others, she would know her 
way. She had come of age. 

"It is a lonely but glorious thing," he whispered fondly. 

Only then did he notice the rest of the command 
crew— Sisay, Tahngarth, Karn, and Orim—standing on a 
nearby fist of basalt. They stared in awe at the transfigured 
ship. Multani's feet crunched across the stony mountain as 
he made his way toward them. Then, he too saw. 

Weatherlight was larger than ever before but also sleeker. 
Her prow, which recently had bristled with spines, was now 
a single broad, keen edge. No longer was she meant to 
battle dragon engines and jump ships. Now she would 
battle gods. Clad in silver and gleaming mirror bright, her 
hull swept back to long, broad wings of metal. Her air 

48 



J. Robert King 
intakes had streamlined to a series of trim channels leading 
to the ship's pulsing heart. 

And what a heart. Even from without, the power of the 
new engine was manifest in the hum she set in the air and 
the fine cloud of dust that danced behind her. The former 
Weatherlight had screamed defiantly into the sky. The new 
Weatherlight would struggle to stay on the ground. 

She was vast, powerful, beautiful. She belonged to no 
one, not now—no one but the ages. 

49 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 6 

Four Gods in Nine Spheres 

In a wide field of twisted wire crouched the titan engine 
of Lord Windgrace. His titanium gauntlets clutched a soul 
bomb. The device was meant to destroy this corner of 
Phyrexia, but he paused before installing it. Something was 
wrong. 

The panther warrior lifted the muzzle of his titan 
engine as if sniffing the wind. The windscreens of his pilot 
bulb grew silvery beneath the glaring sky. Dread thickened 
around him. He'd felt this sensation twice before—first 
when Tevash Szat had slain Daria, and then when Urza 
had slain Tevash Szat. This time the sensation came from 
the opposite side of the sixth sphere. 

Windgrace caught his breath. Another planeswalker 
slain.... 

Ever efficient, the panther warrior slid the bomb into 
the well of rock he had hollowed out. He jabbed the 
activation console, expecting it to attune to the master 
bomb. Powerstone arrays flickered fitfully, failing to 
synchronize. Windgrace checked the device. It was fully 
functional. 

Another planeswalker dead, and the master bomb 
destroyed. 

Clenching the claws of his titan suit, Windgrace 
gathered himself to leap. Exoskeletal plates shifted. 
Hydraulic extensors whined. The massive feline engine 
vaulted skyward. No sooner had its pads cleared the 

50 



J. Robert King 
tangled wires than the planeswalker was gone. He slid 
through the folds of reality, leaving one stretch of the sixth 
sphere and arriving in another. 

Wires lay like matted hair across the ground. Sparks 
bled from their tips, sometimes making cables thrash. 
Above them towered Urza—or rather the vacant cicada-
shell of his engine. The empty pilot bulb stared blankly at 
another engine. It lay destroyed amid the wires. The 
powerstones in its breastplate were dark. Greenish fluid 
draped its lower limbs. Within the pilot bulb hung the 
desiccated husk of a murdered planeswalker. 

"Taysir," breathed Windgrace. 

To one side of the ruined engine lay the master bomb. 
Its workings had been torn out, another handful of wires. 
Urza had destroyed the bomb and the planeswalker the 
same way—by tearing out their innards. 

Windgrace backed away and seated his titan engine in 
vigil beside his dead friend. 

The others would come. They would sense the death, 
and they would come. 

First to arrive was Freyalise. Her titan engine was lithe 
and leafy, composed of at least as much botany as 
machinery. Bipedal and powerful, the figure appeared 
between Windgrace and the fallen planeswalker. In person, 
Freyalise preferred to hover just off the ground, and her 
light-footed titan suit gave the same impression. She glared 
at Taysir's engine, and then at the bomb, and finally turned 
around to stare at Windgrace. Even through the glass of her 
cockpit, the woman's anger was apparent. Her mind sent a 
single word that was both accusation and condemnation: 
Urza-

Yes, replied the panther warrior. 

He slew Szat, and now Taysir! With Krishna and Daria, 
that's four of us lost. 

51 



Apocalypse 

Five, said Windgrace. Urza himself is lost. 
He was always lost. It's just taken him four millennia to go 


missing. She stooped. The gauntlets of her titan engine 
grasped twin handfuls of wire and ripped them out. Sparks 
hissed along the ground. She hurled the fibers away. 

Two new arrivals appeared in the path of those hurled 
objects. Bo Levar's titan engine ducked easily, letting the 
twisted metal scrape by over the falcon coops on his back. 
Commodore Guff was not as agile or attentive. The bundle 
lodged, sparking, in the collar piece of his engine. It 
seemed an unkempt mustache beneath the planeswalker's 
great eye. 

Bo Levar glanced at the scene and quickly deduced its 
import. I knew this was going to happen. Damn it.' 

Yes, damn it! echoed Commodore Guff vigorously. 
Damn it all down to hell! He paused, only then noticing his 
wire mustache. Huge gauntlets pawed at it, struggling to 
break it loose, but seeming only to groom the strands. What 
... precisely ... happened? 

Bo Levar pointed an emphatic finger at Taysir. This is 
the way it always ends up with Urza. People say, "Hey, he's 
just trying to help the world." What a pik of crap! 

A pik of baboon crap! A pik of runny baboon crap topped 
with a thin layer of goat vomit! elaborated Commodore Guff. 
Then, with less bluster, he asked, What exactly are we 
discussing? 

Freyalise replied, We're talking about the murder of 
another planeswalker, the destruction of the master bomb that 
was meant to set off all the others, and the defection of our 
leader to the side of Yawgmoth. 

Commodore Guff's pilot module pivoted toward Bo 
Levar. Gone over to Yawgmoth, have you? 

Not him, interrupted Freyalise. Urza! 

52 



J. Robert King 
Oh, yes, Urza. Of course. Yes, he's finally gone over. 
Commodore Guff seemed pleased. To the blank stares 
leveled at him, he replied, I read the history of that six months 
ago. I wondered when he would get around to it. It's only to be 
expected. 

Even Bo Levar seemed exasperated with his longtime 
friend. If you knew what he was going to do, why didn't you 
stop him? 

The commodore waggled a Thran-metal finger at the 
man. I'd already approved it. No point in stopping something 
that was already approved. 

Freyalise strode up before the man. So, if you've read all 
this before, what are we supposed to do now? 

Guff shook his head. Sorry. I signed a strict nondisclosure 
agreement. 

Bo Levar paced before his comrades. Only Urza knows 
how the master bomb was constructed. Only he could rebuild it. 

Urza is gone. There is no hope of finding him, Freyalise 
said. 

Bo Levar nodded. Then it is up to us to detonate the 
bombs. One by one. Otherwise, our journey here has been 
pointless. Otherwise Kristina, Daria, Szat, and Taysir ... and 
yes, even Urza, have died in vain. We go in reverse order, back 
to the bombs we each planted. We go in twos. One will be a 
pathfinder, locating each bomb and signaling the other to 
approach. The other will be the detonator, who will finalize the 
blast sequence before planeswalking away. Both jobs are 
perilous, the latter from the bombs and the former from 
whatever welcoming parties Yawgmoth has sent out for us. 

The commodore gaped with the sudden realization. 
Yawgmoth knows what we are planning! 

We have to assume he knows everything about us. Even the 
kill rubrics in our suits. 

Kill rubrics, in our suits? Freyalise blurted, only then 
putting the pieces together. 

53 



Apocalypse 

It's why we'll have to go without the suits, Bo Levar said. 

Freyalise took a deep breath. In these toxic environments? 

Look, you're the. one who hates machines, and one of 
the ones who hates Urza. Better to trust your own magic, 
your own innate abilities, than these knife collections. Do 
as we all did on the third sphere. 

Conjure war-robes and protections for yourself. It'll take 
more energy, more concentration, yes, but it'll be safer. Let 
foliage and green mana wreathe you. 

"Let a smile be your umbrella," advised Commodore 
Guff, suddenly standing outside his titan engine. His feet 
set on the ground amid live wires. A spastic dance 
followed. The old planeswalker leaped with sparking 
energy. As he danced, a thick white coating oozed out to 
encase his skin. In moments, he was protected. His 
monocle had grown large enough to front his whole face, 
like a diver's mask. "But better wear your rubbers." 

It took only a glance at the desiccated figure of Taysir 
to inspire all the others to vacate their titan engines. The 
machines slumped visibly as their masters left. Joints settled 
and locked. Points of light slowed and ceased. Pilot bulbs 
became dull globes. 

Bo Levar appeared first. His rakish pirate's waistcoat 
and breeches extended outward to enfold any bare flesh. 
The thick canvas hurled back spitting snakes of wire. His 
sandy-brown hair sported a sudden, broad-brimmed hat 
with earflaps. The feathery thing at its crown crackled with 
tiny lightnings. 

Beside him stood—or, rather, hovered—Freyalise. 
Shocks of orange-and red-dyed hair topped her wan, 
almond-shaped face. Tattoos in floral motif twined across 
her cheeks and brow. Her body was as lithe as a flower 
stem, and her feet drifted above the serpentine ground. All 
this was visible in a flash just before a riot of vines swept 

54 



J. Robert King 
across her body and enveloped her. Steel tendrils were 
nothing against those vines. Spraying sparks were 
extinguished by spraying sap. 

Last of all to emerge was Lord Windgrace. He stood for 
a moment in his upright, half-panther form as his body 
finished its shift. His chest narrowed and grew deeper. His 
arms thinned and rotated forward. His fur thickened into 
an impenetrable shag. He dropped to the ground in a 
crouch, gathered his legs, and leaped. The bound took him 
up away from the deadly wires. Windgrace landed on the 
fallen engine of Taysir. 

"It is not right to leave him here." 

Bo Levar spoke for the others. "What do you propose?" 

The panther warrior responded by tearing his way into 
the titan engine. He seemed a great predator ripping into a 
huge carcass. Heat-stressed armor cracked easily under his 
claws. Wind screens separated from their casements. A 
crevice opened into the heart of the great machine, and 
Lord Windgrace dragged himself through it. An earnest 
clamor came from within. 

Stunned, the other three planeswalkers watched. 

"He might have simply 'walked into the suit," Freyalise 
said. 

"Quite a ruckus too," remarked Commodore Guff. 
"Undignified." 

Bo Levar shook his head. "It is dalfir—the warrior's rite. 
If a panther warrior dies in battle and cannot be borne 
away whole, his or her heart must be removed and carried 
back home." 

"Brutal, barbaric stuff," Guff commented. 

"No," Bo Levar replied, "not when your land is filled 
with lich lords looking for dead warriors to raise." 

Commodore Guff looked around the blasted landscape. 
His face was made huge behind the giant monocle, and his 

55 



Apocalypse 

breath formed twin white cones beneath his mustache. 
"Excellent precaution, I must say." He turned to his 
comrades. "If the situation calls for it, I'll gladly rip out 
your hearts." 

Freyalise gave him a dangerous look. "Best be certain 
I'm dead before you try, or you'll limp away missing a 
dearer organ." 

The commodore averted his eyes. "Well, bust my 
bullocks." 

Lord Windgrace emerged, mercifully ending the need 
for more conversation. He bounded over the wires and 
landed in the companions' midst. Coal caked his claws, but 
there was no sign of Taysir's heart. 

"You have performed dalfir?" asked Bo Levar reverently. 

"I have," replied the panther warrior with a bow. "His 
heart is safe. I wrapped it in clean clothes and absorbed it 
into my own flesh. It is caged in my ribs, beside my own 
heart." 

Blinking in thought, Bo Levar said, "You have done 
him a great honor." 

Again, the panther warrior bowed. "I am honored to 
bear him away." He turned toward Freyalise. "Would you 
rather be pathfinder or detonator?" 

"I will find our way. Follow me." With that, Freyalise 
vanished. Where once she hovered, only the horrid, 
twisted wires remained—they, and something more: a 
scent. It smelled of meadows where true grass grew, and of 
forests where trees reached for the sky. 

Lord Windgrace lifted his nose, drawing in the sweet 
scent. He could follow Freyalise as surely and as silently as 
he would track a doe down a deer path. "Until we meet 
again upon a free Dominaria." 

"Quite right there, Old Tom!" enthused Commodore 
Guff. "Until then," Bo Levar said quietly. 

56 



J. Robert King 
Windgrace leaped into the air, following that vital, 
ineluctable scent. He planeswalked. The scent trail drew 
him from the field of wires to the base of a pneumagog city. 
He hovered a moment in the sky, taking in the scene. 

The pneumagogs were little more than blurs of steel 
wings over red-shelled bodies. Part physical, part 
metaphysical, the pneumagogs flew angrily about a hole 
kicked into their metropolis. Even more angrily, they 
swarmed the woman who had kicked it there. 

Now outside her titan suit, Freyalise hurled green 
magic. It impacted the ground all around her, bringing 
forth a sudden thicket. Bamboo stalks impaled many of the 
beasts. Rampant vines dragged others to the ground. Still 
more pneumagogs sliced down to attack her. Freyalise's 
own fingers sprouted and split open, showering the air with 
white blooms. The downy stuff gummed up wings and stuck 
in spiracles. Pneumagogs plunged from the sky. 

"Better make this quick," Freyalise said over the din. 
Lord Windgrace did make it quick. He plunged groundward 
past the swarming beasts. His shoulders bashed them away. 
They grew thicker as he approached the bombsite. He sank 
claws into the back of one pneumagog and flung it from the 
bomb. Releasing a roar, he signaled Freyalise to 'walk. 
Then, there was only the rapid jab of a single claw. 

The world ignited. The bomb bounced in its hole. It 
turned to white-hot energy. A nimbus of fire melted the 
ground. A column of force shot skyward. The great, 
towering city of pneumagogs jolted and came to pieces. 
Across the structure raced black cracks that turned white a 
moment later as radiance poured into them. It tumbled, 
and the ground itself gave way. 

Lord Windgrace saw no more. He had already 'walked. 
Somewhere, a section of Phyrexia disappeared. Windgrace 
paid no heed. He followed the sweet scent of life. His own 

57 



Apocalypse 

heart quickened even as his friend's heart lay silent and 
dead beside it. 

58 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 7 

Rock Druids 

"It's no good!" shouted Eladamri, standing aback a new 
Kavu. The greater beast had proved its warrior's heart in a 
charge to the fore. Eladamri had leaped to it and fought on. 
Even now he squeezed his words between sword strokes. 
"They are endless here! There must be a better way inside." 

The main gateway into the volcano had ceased to be an 
opening, piled in thick chitin and shattered mechanism 
and fair flesh. Liin Sivi's toten-vec flew with fury. Her 
Kavu's claws and fangs cleared the way, but whatever 
avenue opened was flooded closed by Phyrexians. They 
poured from the gateway in the side of the volcano. 

"If we don't stop them here, they'll sweep down the 
mountainside." 

Eladamri nudged his greater Kavu, lifting it into a rear. 
The massive beast rose on its hind legs. Down came the 
incredible bulk. Claw-hooves burst Phyrexians. 

"Our armies could entrench below." 

Grizzlegom, wielding his axe in slaying circles, released 
a gusty grunt. "I did not come here to fight a defensive 
battle." 

Eladamri ran his sword through the crown of an albino 
Phyrexian. "That's why our armies could entrench, while 
we penetrate to the Stronghold." 

A savage smile spread on the minotaur's lips. "I like the 
way you think, elf, but we three can't penetrate this gate." 

59 



Apocalypse 

"We three with a score of picked minotaurs, elves, and 
Keldons," Eladamri shot back. "And not this gate. The 
mountain's as cracked as Crovax's skull. There are a 
million ways inside." 

Grizzlegom whistled shrilly, signaling his troops. He 
gave the sign for "fall back and entrench." Instantaneously, 
the battle shifted down the slope. Minotaurs ceased their 
hoof and steel advance and withdrew. 

Eladamri likewise barked commands to his troops, first 
in Elvish and then in Common Keldon. It was like pulling 
a plug beneath the battlefield. Troops drained away from 
the conflict. 

The three commanders and their mounts were suddenly 
surrounded by flooding monsters. A few gestures from 
Grizzlegom brought ten more mounted minotaurs up to 
join them. Kavu bounded forth, bearing either single 
Keldons or whole hosts of elves. The latter bunched 
together in archer swarms, loosing arrow after arrow into 
the teeming beasts. 

"Where to?" shouted Grizzlegom as he chucked his axe 
from the split shell of a scuta. 

"If we're looking for a crack—" As if on cue, the 
mountain leaped again. A hundred thousand claws lost 
footing. A great boom resounded on the nearby 
mountainside. Eladamri pointed and shouted, "—we go 
where the booms are." He dug heels into his Kavu. 

The magnificent creature lurched forward across the 
basalt face. It bore down dozens of Phyrexians with each 
impact of its massive claws. 

Liin Sivi's mount bounded up at the right shoulder of 
his beast, and Grizzlegom's steed at the left. In their wake, 
across a highway of broken monsters, the rest of their team 
charged. This was no battle now, but a mere trampling. 
Blades lashed out only to protect the flanks and tails of the 

60 



J. Robert King 
great lizards. They themselves were the ultimate weapon. 
Nothing could stand before them. 

Soon, with oily legs, the Kavu cleared the beasts. Claws 
came to ground on pumice and obsidian. They galloped on, 
away from the battle. 

Boom! Another blast shook the mountain. Ahead, 
perhaps ten miles distant, a wisp of white smoke jutted 
from the hillside and folded itself in the winds. It seemed a 
flag, a flag of surrender, and it emerged from a long, narrow 
crevice. 

"There!" Eladamri shouted, leaning his head toward the 
plume. Liin Sivi sent her mount in a full-out run. 
Grizzlegom kicked his steed, his eyes fixed on the spot and 
his nostrils drawing in the first brimstone scent of smoke. 
Keldons and elves surged behind them. Their Kavu made a 
ground-shattering rumble as they charged across the slope. 
Gray dust coiled into the air. The beasts leaped deep clefts 
between hardened floes of rock and dug claws into ashen 
ground. Ten miles was nothing to them. Their massive legs 
hungrily ate up the distance. 

The ground shook again, and more white smoke poured 
from the cleft. The cloud spread thinly upon the wind. 

"What's happening up there?" shouted Grizzlegom to 
his comrades. "We can't crawl down an active volcanic 
shaft." "Why aren't any of the other ones smoking?" Liin 
Sivi asked. Eladamri's mouth drew into a grim line. He 
signaled his troops to hold back. The Keldons and elves 
behind pulled their mounts to a stop. Seeing the actions of 
their allies, the minotaurs did likewise. Only the three 
commanders rode on. Even they slowed, though, their 
Kavu treading more lightly across the ground. 

To his comrades, Eladamri said, "We don't know what 
is in there. No need to sacrifice our troops." 

61 



Apocalypse 

The three approached very near the crevice. It was a 
deep, black, vertical fissure, naturally occurring between 
two extrusions of basalt. Lateral cracks branched from the 
main vein, but they reached only shallowly into the 
mountain. The central slit delved deep. 

Voices came from within—hushed, gruff, efficient 
voices. A creature seemed to count down in measured 
syllables. The sound was ended by another boom. 

Ten miles away, the ground had shuddered. Here, just 
beside the crack, solid rock bulged outward. It shoved back 
the Kavu and hurled the commanders from the beasts' 
backs. They fell with what grace they could muster, not 
crying out in surprise or pain, but certainly grunting on 
impact. Eladamri, Liin Sivi, and Grizzlegom one by one 
struck the ground, spun onto their bellies, and stared 
toward the crevice. Their mountainous steeds scrambled 
away from the hissing vent. 

Once again, the white shock of smoke emerged. Once 
again, it curdled the air. In ringing ears, the three 
commanders made out the sound of more voices. None of 
the words were intelligible, but the dialect was 
unmistakably Dwarvish. 

Eladamri lifted his eyebrows and turned toward his 
comrades, only to see the same expression on their faces. 
Dwarves? Here? 

In Rath and Keld, in Talruum and Urborg, the three 
commanders had fought many beasts, but they had never 
fought a Phyrexian dwarf. Perhaps the stature of dwarfs had 
placed them beneath the eye of Yawgmoth. Perhaps being 
a runt race had saved them from the transgenic torments 
heaped on every other intelligent Dominarian species. 
Whatever the reason, Yawgmoth had not noticed them 
before and seemed not to have noticed them now. They 
had arrived on Urborg unheralded, had ambled unmolested 

62 



J. Robert King 
through an all-out war, had reached this rocky fissure in 
the Stronghold volcano, and had begun blasting away. 

As if responding to Eladamri's thoughts, the crevice 
shook anew. This time, it sprayed not merely smoke, but 
jags of rock. 

The stones hurled outward, landing in a long line across 
the hardened lava. 

Kavu skittered back away from the stones and crouched 
against the mountainside. They edged forward like cats on 
the prowl. 

Eladamri's lips drew into a tight line. These dwarfs 
likely were no allies of evil, but that did not make them 
allies of good— especially not of good elves. Eladamri 
glanced sidelong at Liin Sivi and Grizzlegom. They seemed 
just as apprehensive. 

First and last, dwarfs fought for dwarfs. 

Eladamri signaled to his comrades that he planned to 
advance. They nodded in response. Cautiously, the three 
rose from their crouches. Liin Sivi fanned out to the right 
and Grizzlegom to the left while Eladamri crept straight 
toward the crevice. The voices within grew louder, the 
words more direct. Eladamri could even make out, in the 
black depths of the crevice, squat figures wreathed in 
smoke. 

One of those figures absently waved away the stuff 
while she hummed out what sounded like a hymn. She 
began swinging her arms rhythmically, bringing them 
together in front of her shoulders, swinging them straight 
down to her sides, and repeating the motion. It seemed at 
first that she directed a choir. The crackles of red lightning 
that moved along her arms belied that interpretation. 
Energy gathered. Fingers of power jabbed her, knuckles 
sprouting curls of heat. She swung her arms all the more 
quickly, the tune rising in her throat. In fitful flashes, her 

63 



Apocalypse 

spell showed up the deep, smoldering cleft she had been 
cutting into the mountain. Light also glinted across other 
dwarf faces—leathery, stern, intent, and singing. In unison, 
they sang out a final note, and the woman hurled her 
hands out before her. Crackling force emerged from the 
mouths of the singers, coalesced about the dwarf woman's 
upraised hands, and leaped in crimson lightning. Energy 
arced through the dark chamber. It lit ancient folds of 
stone, laid down when Urza and Mishra had torn apart the 
world. Magical might delved into fissures, cracked through 
them, clawed huge hunks of stone from the spots, and 
hurled the flack out the crevice. 

Though the dwarfs stood, stalwart and still, in the 
onslaught of stone, Eladamri dived to one side. Slivers 
rattled down the mountainside, once again spooking the 
gigantic lizards. 

Eladamri shook his head ruefully and muttered, "I 
thought the damned Kavu lived in volcanoes." 

He hadn't thought anyone overheard him, but nearby, 
Grizzlegom replied, "Yes, but they've never been anywhere 
near dwarfs." 

That was Eladamri's job in the next few moments—to 
get near dwarfs and survive. His best chance of succeeding 
on both those counts would be to approach them between 
blasts. Spurred on by that urgency, Eladamri climbed to his 
feet and strode to the crooked mouth of the opening. 

"Hail, there, dwarf folk," he called, only belatedly 
realizing that Elvish might be the wrong language. Indeed, 
it seemed so, for not one of the rock folk turned to look his 
direction. Switching to the common tongue of Rath, he 
tried again. "I am a defender of Dominaria, as I assume you 
must be as well." Still, the little beasts did not respond. 
Quickly running out of languages, Eladamri spoke next in 
Common Keldon. "I wish to parley, in hopes of alliance." 

64 



J. Robert King 
Not so much as a whisker twitched in the cave. Not so 
much as a nostril flared. 

Letting out an ironic snort, Eladamri advanced 
cautiously into the space. Here was a man who had united 
the Kor, Vec, and Dal of Rath, who had brought together 
the sundered folk of Llanowar and had melded the 
xenophobic Steel Leaf elves with the xenopredatious 
Keldons. He wasn't about to get defeated by a bunch of 
dwarfs. 

In a patois of the languages he knew, speaking slowly 
and firmly as though to children, Eladamri said, "I am 
friend. I not hurt. I help. We help each other." 

Stony silence. The warrior in Eladamri had to wonder if 
he were walking into an ambush. Every other instinct told 
him that though something odd was occurring, he was 
utterly safe. Eladamri approached the first of the dwarfs, a 
gray-bearded gaffer with a nose as large and bulbous as a 
cucumber. The creature was turned away from him and 
made no motion as the elf lord neared. 

Reduced to monosyllables, Eladamri said, "Friend. 
Peace. Help. Good ...." He set a hand gently on the dwarf's 
shoulder, and his words immediately ceased. 

His fingers touched only stone. 

Blinking, Eladamri stared at the creature. It was no 
more than a stack of stones. Its nose was a bulb of hardened 
lava. Its gray beard was a hunk of porous pumice. Its 
shoulders were basalt blocks, its body a stumpy extrusion. 
Eladamri turned, looking at the other creatures in the 
crevice. They were equally stony. While his imagination 
could make creatures out of them, in true light, they were 
nothing more than conglomerates of stone. 

Perhaps the uniter of worlds had at last met his match. 
What good were prophetic words when one was speaking 
to a literal stone wall? 

65 



Apocalypse 

Eladamri stepped among the statues for a moment 
before pausing before the dwarf woman. Moments before, 
she had drawn red lightning from the mouths of her 
comrades. Now, she was—nothing. 

Sighing deeply, Eladamri waved Liin Sivi and 
Grizzlegom forward. 

The Vec and the minotaur stalked inward. Both were 
consummate warriors, ready for anything. They were 
caught entirely off guard by the sight of Eladamri among 
stalagmites. Grizzlegom stared baldly at them, as if by will 
he could turn them to flesh. 

"They were alive, weren't they?" Eladamri wondered 
aloud as his comrades made the rounds. "Blasting things 
and singing." 

Grizzlegom tipped his head. "That's what I saw." His 
four-fingered hand ran across the face of one of the dwarfs, 
feeling only cold solidity. As if doubting his own senses, 
Grizzlegom added, "That's what my Kavu saw." 

Liin Sivi was equally nonplussed. "They've carved this 
crevice. Look at that carbon scoring. They definitely lived, 
just moments ago." 

Shaking his head, Eladamri said, "What am I, a gorgon, 
freezing these poor creatures?" 

"It ain't me," Grizzlegom quipped, examining his white-
bleached fur and twisted horns. "I'm beautiful." 

Eladamri flung his hands out in frustration. "I'd hoped 
to ally with these creatures. I'd hoped they could provide us 
a way in to attack the Stronghold." 

"We can't ally with rocks," Liin Sivi pointed out. 

The Uniter shook his head. "No, we cannot." He 
nodded toward the mouth of the crevice and daylight 
beyond. "Let's go." Though Eladamri stepped toward the 
light, neither of his companions made a move. Both stared 
in dumbfounded amazement at him. 

66 



J. Robert King 
Liin Sivi's eyes spoke volumes: disappointment, 
amazement, confusion, and even irritation. 

Grizzlegom said, "That's it? That's all you're going to 
do?" 

"Look, you said it yourself. We can't ally with rocks. I 
need hearts. Real, needing hearts. That's how I united the 
people of Rath, and of Llanowar, and of Keld. I learned 
what they longed for, and I gave it to them. Rocks don't 
long for anything." 

The Vec and the minotaur had no answer to that. They 
shuffled toward Eladamri, joining him as he strode from the 
crevice. 

"Wait," came a single, strident, female voice behind 
them. It was the sort of voice that was accustomed to being 
obeyed. To his dismay, Eladamri snapped to cringing 
stillness, like a schoolboy caught sneaking from lessons. 
The voice said, "We have hearts. Beating, longing hearts." 

Eladamri and his comrades pivoted slowly about to see 
the female dwarf who had been channeling the lightning. 

She hadn't seemed to move, though now she faced 
them. What once had been shapeless basalt and lava had 
become definite flesh and blood. She had long hair across 
her able shoulders, a pragmatic mouth, a prominent nose, 
and wrinkles where the years had been unkind. None of 
that mattered, though, for her eyes were bright and blue 
and piercing. 

"Why else would we delve deep into the mountain?" 
All around the woman, her companions remained figures 
in stone. Eladamri clasped his hands before him and said, 
"Why do you delve, great lady, into this mountain?" 

"There is evil here," she responded. "Evil deeper than 
any heretofore on Dominaria. Water cannot wash it away. 
Air cannot clear off its stench. Fire only feeds it. Only the 
world itself can purge this stain. Only lava." 

67 



Apocalypse 

Eagerly, Eladamri replied, "You speak of great evil. We 
call it the Stronghold. You are digging toward it even 
now." 

The dwarf woman seemed only to have heard part of 
what Eladamri said. "When we reach the volcano's core, 
we will invoke an eruption. The world will purify this evil." 

"We wish to as well, great lady," Eladamri said. "And 
what shall I call you?" 

"I am Sister Nadeen Dormet, rock druidess," she replied 
levelly. 

Eladamri went to his knees, so that he might stare her 
straight in the eye. "Ally with us, Nadeen. We will guard 
you as you dig inward. Once you have reached the center 
of the volcano, allow us passage. We will destroy the 
Stronghold." 

She shrugged. "Only the world can destroy this evil— 
though you may try. From the time we finish our tunnel 
inward, only a single day will remain before the purgation 
of the Stronghold. You will have one day to enact your 
plan." 

Shuffling forward on his knees, Eladamri said, "Then, 
we are allies?" 

Nadeen took the proffered hand and shook it. "On one 
condition. "Name it." 

"Move yourself and your troops back, so you won't be 
slaughtered by flying debris." 

Eladamri nodded, kissed the back of her diminutive 
hand, and bowed. "A perfectly sensible suggestion, my ally 
Nadeen." 

Despite herself, the dwarf seemed to blush. She 
dismissed the expression with a wave of her hand, which 
also awoke the other stone druids in her midst. As Eladamri 
and his comrades backed away, the chants of the dwarfs 
rose again. 

68 



J. Robert King 
Wearing a cocked grin, Eladamri walked with Liin Sivi 
and Grizzlegom back toward their mounts. "They're going 
to be the salvation of this world. You realize that." 

Grizzlegom seemed to rile at the suggestion, though he 
only replied, "Let's give them every chance to be." 

69 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 8 

Into the Labyrinth 

Urza wished he could be proud of his creation, of this 
angry young man called Gerrard. 

True, he was a glory of design, a machine that grew 
stronger for every abuse heaped upon it. He was hellishly 
strong—the truth of it undeniable as Gerrard bashed back 
the first golems with his fist—and that hellish strength had 
come from a hellish life. Battle after impossible battle 
during the planeshift, and before that the death of Hanna, 
and before that the crucible of Rath, and before that Vuel 
and patricide and matricide .. .. Gerrard had been nursed 
on abuse, and it had made him uncannily strong. 

He was cunning, too. His knuckles smashed the word 
"Emeth" upon the forehead of the golem, obliterating the 
first letter and thereby turning truth to death. The sand 
beast shuddered to a halt. Life visibly drained from it. 
Limbs cracked and shifted. Another strike of his fist, and 
the creature caved like a sandcastle. Spinning, Gerrard 
delivered the same one-two punch to the other beast. 

Gerrard cast a sandy smile at Urza Planeswalker. 

Impressive, yes, this young man—strong and cunning— 
but Urza could not be proud of him. Gerrard was a keen-
edged blade with a deep blood groove, a fine thing, but in 
the end, a thing of hate. 

Gerrard approached. Urza withdrew. He needed time to 
think. Thinking would win this day. If Urza could build 

70 



J. Robert King 
golems out of mind and sand, what greater things could he 
create? 

He took another step backward. A labyrinth rose 
around him. Its walls consisted of whim and sand. Passages 
rankled through an endless iteration. Whim became 
resolve. Sand became sandstone and then marble. The 
stone was resolute, forty feet tall and one foot thick. There 
was no way in for Gerrard. 

"He will try to ram it," Urza mused to himself, still 
stepping lightly backward. 

His thought was rewarded by a thud and grunt from the 
young man. The crowd—the Ineffable shouting through a 
hundred thousand mouths—shrieked its delight. 

Urza added his chuckle. It was pure poetry to lock 
Gerrard outside the labyrinth. Gerrard had been conceived 
in desperate error, the living manifestation of Urza's 
ancient and misplaced fear of—indeed, hatred of— 
Yawgmoth. How wrong Urza had been. To kill Gerrard 
would set things right. It would be the symbolic destruction 
of all Urza's mislaid plans. 

The bastard boy renewed his assault. The ring of steel 
told that he had fashioned a rock pick. With a rhythmic 
chink and crackle, he carved a hole in the marble wall. 
Clapping began in the crowd, timed with each strike. Some 
of Yawgmoth's manifestations began a fervid count to see 
how many strokes it would take to breach the wall. 

Urza turned his back on the commotion and strode 
deeper into his labyrinth. It was just like Gerrard—all 
sweat and fury. 

Urza was cold calculation. He touched the walls here 
and there, planting deadly thoughts. The maze grew darker 
ahead, turning through tight circles. Urza followed. 

I must remember, Gerrard is no true rival, but only the 
straw villain set up to teach me my errors. He does not 

71 



Apocalypse 

truly duel me, but merely punishes me by Yawgmoth's 
whim. By living and fighting, he reminds me of millennia 
of failure. By dying—and he will most certainly die—he 
demonstrates my victory over my wretched past. 

A great rumble of falling stone brought an approving 
roar from the crowd. Gerrard had battered his way into the 
labyrinth. He would now transform the pickax into a short 
sword, dagger, throwing darts—the sort of small weapons 
that could slay in tight confines. 

How transparent is the young man's mind. 

As if in reply, Yawgmoth suddenly turned the labyrinth 
clear. Foot-thick granite was replaced by foot-thick glass— 
equally resilient, but allowing the crowd to see everything. 

Urza paused a moment, considering his mental maze. It 
need not merely be window glass. Let it indeed be lens after 
lens, magnifying the figures within. The wall sections of 
the maze warped and bulged. Each pane became a prism 
and aligned itself with all the others about. The arrays had 
two foci—the brilliant old man who had created them, and 
the angry young man who charged stupidly among them. 
The labyrinth picked up both images and sent them to 
stride among the crowd. 

The chorus of delighted oohs that followed told Urza 
his master was pleased. What use was brute strength in the 
face of such mental subtlety? 

Urza, too, saw the image of his attacker. Gerrard loped 
like a wolf among the panels of glass. His eyes darted 
between Urza and the path ahead. He made his rapid way 
inward, following footprints. 

And why only prisms in this light-box? Una wondered. 
Why not mirrors? 

One such silvered pane grew at a forty-five degree angle 
across a ninety degree turn. The mirror showed Gerrard a 
straight passageway, with footprints receding into the near 

72 



J. Robert King 
distance. Gerrard bolted forward and slammed into the 
looking glass. He lurched to the ground and spilled his 
swords out in the sand. 

The audience hailed his fall with the thunderous stomp 
of feet. Urza smiled. Ah, yes. Let Gerrard follow his creator 
deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of mind. Let him try 
to survive against a millennial genius. 

The ovation continued as Gerrard picked himself up 
from the sand, snatched up his fallen weapons, and turned 
down the side corridor. He took only four steps forward 
before slowing to a halt. He was cunning. A lesser man 
would have allowed fury and humiliation to cast his whole 
world in a red haze, would have walked into the trap Urza 
had prepared in the wall. It was a simple enough trigger—a 
hair-thin filament stretched from one side to the other. 
Lightest of cords, the hair was connected to the heaviest of 
objects—a two-hundred-ton stone block hidden in the 
murk of the sky. Still, Gerrard saw the thing. 

Smiling, he stepped back and swung his sword through 
the trigger line. It severed the hair easily, releasing the 
springs beyond and turning cogs. With a near-silent snick, 
the stone plunged from the sky. It slid in perfect precision 
down the walls and struck sand. The blow sent dust fleeing 
to either side and shook the ground profoundly. 

Gerrard stood just beside the spot. A cloud of sand 
swirled around him. 

The crowd loved it. Again, style over substance. 
Somehow, Gerrard's cocky smile counted more than Urza's 
two-hundred-ton trap. 

With a bow and a flourish, the young man sheathed his 
sword and bounced on the sand. He had made it a sort of 
trampoline. It hurled him up into the air, letting him land 
light-footed on the heavy stone. Once again he bowed to 

73 



Apocalypse 

the roar of Yawgmoth and strolled nonchalantly between 
the maze's walls toward the edge of the stone. 

Urza smiled humorlessly. Perhaps Gerrard had not 
allowed humiliation to send him headlong into a deadly 
trap, but he would allow pride to do so. 

Reaching the end of the deadfall, Gerrard leaped 
downward. His mind stretched out to make the sand 
elastic, but a stronger mind had already laid hold of those 
particles. 

Gerrard came to ground and fell straight through, into a 
black pit. It swallowed him swiftly and surely. 

Urza had him. Clenching his fist, he brought the sands 
of the pit into tight constriction around the mortal hero. 
Gerrard was trapped. Inescapably. Though he lay encased 
in sand a hundred feet away through multiple panes of 
glass, it was as if he were clutched in Urza's own hand. One 
squeeze of that hand, and Gerrard would be dead. 

Urza had expected mad adoration from the crowd. 
Instead, there was only a judging silence. Into it intruded 
words in Urza's own head, spoken from myriad mouths: Is 
this the victory you wish against your own creation, Urza? 

The planeswalker paused, his hand half-closed in a 
sweaty grip. "Victory is victory, is it not? Survival is 
survival. Dominance is dominance." 

It is not, came the unequivocal reply. You could have had 
as certain a victory by simply outliving this man. He is mortal, 
and you are immortal. Survival and dominance mean nothing if 
they come about through such trifling things. You do not fight 
him, but send golems and pits to do it. 

Pure puzzlement filled Urza. "You cannot fault me for 
this. I have outsmarted him. I have used my native 
weapons." 

And no risk to yourself, Yawgmoth replied. I could have 
simply destroyed Dominaria. Plague is a powerful thing. I could 

74 



J. Robert King 
simply have sent my endless legions into her to ravage her and 
bring me the spoils. It is not enough. These battles fought so far 
are but prelude. I will not conquer Dominaria through proxy. 
The plague engines, the shock troops, the Stronghold are but 
harbingers of true victory. I will take Dominaria myself. I will 
risk all and enter her and suffuse her—every living thing. You 
must beat Gerrard the same way. You must risk all and slay his 
very heart. 

Urza's hand opened. Grains of grit fell away from the 
folds in his flesh. It felt dirty, pointless, what he had done. 
To kill from afar, to spin a web like a spider and wait until 
prey has exhausted itself—yes, it was fine for survival, but 
it was scurvy and petty. 

With a single grandiose wave, Urza released Gerrard. 
The motion hurled the angry young man up out of the pit 
and dissolved the walls between them. The labyrinth was 
gone. In its place was only trammeled sand. 

Now Urza would fight. He would risk all and conquer. 

Hands that a moment before had held only cascading 
sand now held a great battle axe, a weapon without peer. 
Its broad, double-sided head had the weight of a maul and 
the edge of a razor. The metal haft bristled with killing 
spikes. An identical, double-sided blade jutted from its 
butt. Grasping the center of the metal haft, Urza spun the 
blade easily. In moments, it had reached the velocity of a 
rotor on a Tolarian helionaut. 

Urza advanced. Hand over hand, he whirled the blade 
above his head. To its spinning song, he added his voice, a 
staccato recitative, "Gerrard. I created you. I preserved you. 
I will destroy you. You are the offspring of a thought—an 
errant and hopeless thought. Thought cannot best the 
thinker." 

Gerrard smiled only the more strongly. "Thought can 
best a mad thinker." His swords grew to other 

75 



Apocalypse 

implements—a great shield in his left hand and a great 
sword in his right. He planted his feet, unwilling to give 
the old man an inch. "I've been waiting for this all my life." 
"So have I," replied Urza. "All four thousand years." 

Two strides brought the heads of his axe into lethal 
range. The spinning weapon clove the air. It reached for 
Gerrard. Despite himself, Gerrard withdrew another step. 
He lifted the shield. It was a massive thing. It would have 
stopped a bull at full charge, bending the horns back. 

Urza Planeswalker was no bull. His mind strengthened 
the axe blades to adamantine and gave them the weight of 
an avalanche. He made Gerrard's shield as soft as wax. 

The axe sliced deeply through the shield. Metal 
bloomed from either side of the blade. The axe cleft 
Gerrard's left hand. Nerveless, he dropped his shield. It 
tumbled, riven, to the ground. 

Gerrard fell back a second step. He certainly had not 
planned on that. He brought his sword up in sudden 
hopelessness. 

The second axe blade struck. It caught Gerrard's great 
sword just above the crosspiece and clove through. A six-
foot blade was shorn to six inches. In its follow-through, 
the axe came about again. The head that had cleft 
Gerrard's shield struck the pommel and hurled it away from 
his grasp. He took a third step back, bleeding hands flung 
out to his sides. 

The fourth and final stroke came violently. The axe hit 
Gerrard's chest. Razor steel chopped through the leather 
tunic he wore, through the cloth beneath it and the skin 
beneath that. It cleft the sternum as if it were the wishbone 
of a game hen. The blade continued on, bisecting the left 
lung and the heart ensconced there. At last, the edge 
lodged itself in the young man's spine. 

76 



J. Robert King 
Gerrard hung for an incredulous moment on the blade. 
Then, tipping off his heels, he fell to his back. Urza's 
weapon went with him, stuck in vertebrae. 

Urza towered above his offspring. 

It all had come to this: the death of Gerrard. In him, 
Urza had slain every false impulse, every chronic mistake 
that had pitted him against Yawgmoth. The axe remained 
in Gerrard's chest even as blood poured in twin rivers down 
his sides. 

Releasing the metallic haft, Urza knelt beside the fallen 
man. He lifted Gerrard's head from the sand. He cradled 
him, uncertain whether this was the posture of a hunter 
with a prized kill or a father with a long-lost son. 

"You have won," Gerrard said weakly through blood-
limned lips. "You were right all along, and in the end you 
won." 

Urza shook his head bitterly. "No. I was wrong all 
along. I was most wrong when I made you. You are the 
antithesis of all I now know as true." 

Eyes rolling in agony, Gerrard replied, "It was my job to 
convince you otherwise. I have failed." 

"You did not fail, Gerrard. Yours was an impossible task. 
You were to save me, and Yawgmoth to damn me. But I 
have never wanted to be saved." 

"And now ... in killing me ... you are damned," Gerrard 
gasped out even as his flesh grew deathly white. The last 
breath hissed from his lungs. He shuddered once and was 
gone. 

Releasing his hold on the fallen man, Urza stood. He 
lifted his eyes imploringly toward the stands, toward the 
raised balcony where sat the great, black dragon. 

"This is true victory, Lord Yawgmoth. I have slain my 
past. I have slain the hero of Dominaria. Grant my boon. 

77 



Apocalypse 

Let me ascend beside you, learn from you, worship you for 
all eternity." 

You have shown too much compassion for this young 
destroyer. We had not wanted you to slay him from afar. 
Neither did we expect you to cradle him in your arms and cry, 
"Yawgmoth have mercy!" This is no more a victory than all 
that you did before. This is reluctant ascension, not victory. 

For that, I shall give you each one last chance. The fight is 
to the death—no quarter, no mercy. 

Nodding abjectly, Urza turned toward the body of 
Gerrard. He was not surprised to discover that his axe had 
been removed, and Gerrard's breath had returned. 

The young man sat up, knitted together by the hand of 
Yawgmoth. An appetite for death glinted in his eyes .. .. 

78 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 9 

Out of the Frying Pan 

Multani felt like the first nature spirit in the first green 
stalk of a new world. Small and fragile, he felt unutterably 
glad to bask in the light of a new sun: Weatherlight. 

She was transfigured. Without his aid, without Karn's, 
without Orim's or Sisay's or the crew's—all of whom stood 
on this basalt knob and stared—Weatherlight had 
transformed herself. Every previous plank had joined with 
its neighbors into one smooth and seamless whole. No 
longer did rope and tar fill the gaps. There were no gaps. 
No longer did peg join beam to joist. All was apiece. 
Weatherlight's hull had ceased to be a synchronous 
connection of millions of finely grown and crafted parts 
and had become a single, simple, perfect thing. The metal 
components too had melded with each other and even 
with the wood, conforming completely and sharing their 
strengths. Wood became as strong as metal, and metal as 
vital as wood. Weather' light was a miracle. Never had such 
a thing been under the heavens, and once her role was 
done, never would such a thing be in the world again. 

Once her role was done ... The thought echoed 
through Multani's mind, bringing both comfort and 
sadness. His eyes, magnigoth knotholes within a face of 
shaggy bark, gazed out at Urborg. Bodies littered the 
tormented ground. Soot reached its tentacles to the sky. 
Air keened with ceaseless demon shrieks. It was an 
inauspicious moment for the great warship to come into 

79 



Apocalypse 

being, and yet Weatherlight had been shaped toward this 
final hour, this darkest hour. Only the greatest calamity 
could call into being so great a miracle. Weatherlight would 
be used up in saving this world. There would no longer be 
ships like her, perhaps, but neither would there be need of 
them. 

That was the other sadness. Multani—who had shaped 
her from the Weatherseed, had healed her and rebuilt 
her—no longer was needed. Weatherlight was complete 
without him. 

She did not need him, but Yavimaya did. It was time he 
quit the great ship and returned home. 

In the midst of that dumbstruck host, Multani shifted to 
face Sisay. 

She looked up at the towering figure in wood, his bark-
rough hands extended toward her. Without pause, she slid 
her own hands into his grip. Despite their strength, despite 
years of work with bristling lines, her hands were still 
smooth. 

Multani closed his fingers over hers. "Congratulations, 
Captain. She is a magnificent vessel." 

Sisay's eyes grew just slightly wider. Her dark irises 
glimmered. "I sense departure in your tone, Multani." 

He nodded in affirmation and apology. "I am needed 
here no longer. I am needed again in my homeland." 

There was no futile argument, no muttered regret—not 
with Sisay. "If your homeland misses you half as much as 
we will, yes, you must return. You have been more than a 
ship's carpenter. Much more." The words "mentor" and 
"friend" hovered in what she said. "I wish only that you 
could remain long enough to greet your former pupil, 
Gerrard, when we rescue him." 

Again, the all-expressive nod. "You will rescue him. I 
can sense it. And when you do, give him my farewell." 

80 



J. Robert King 
She squeezed his fibrous hands. "I will." 

A hand clapped him on the shoulder, a solid hand of 
living metal. Multani half-turned to see Karn standing 
before him. Eyes like fat washers met eyes like knotholes. 

"You are leaving." It was a statement, not a question. "I 
will be missing the better part of myself." 

A smile of genuine friendship filled the grains of 
Multani's face. "You are missing less and less these days, 
Karn. You are transforming in tandem with Weatherlight. 
Already you have the bulk of ten men, and now you are 
gaining the soul of them too. The better part of yourself is 
still to come." Multani rapped his fingers lightly on that 
massive metal frame, sending a chime tone through the 
silver golem. 

Behind Karn hovered Tahngarth and Orim, comrades 
in war. Multani's gaze rested in silent farewell on each of 
them, and then beyond them, on the ghostly memories of 
Gerrard and Squee. Perhaps they were dead already. 
Perhaps all of them would die in the desperate days ahead. 
This good-bye would be a final thing. 

Multani gave a last nod to his friends and strode 
through their midst. They watched him go, their eyes 
darkened by his passing shadow. 

How strange that this man who lived in and for 
woodlands had grown so attached to this motley band of 
skyfarers. Multani quickened his steps on the 
mountainside. He ran down the slope. He pelted faster 
than any man could and faster still as a tumbleweed. 
Spreading his arms above him and tucking his legs below, 
he let himself roll. Multani bounded down shelves of 
obsidian and off twisted muscles of lava. 

In moments, he reached the forest at the base of the 
mountain and crashed among trees. The blows of trunks 
against his shoulders and back, the scratches of thorns 

81 



Apocalypse 

along his arms and legs, the groping of vines across his 
every part would have destroyed a lesser creature. To 
Multani, this was the rough embrace of home. His spirit 
fled the magnigoth frame and plunged into prickly cypress 
and twining tendrils. He coursed through channels of sap, 
down into root tangles, across synapses charged with mud, 
and up adjacent boles. He shot skyward through the 
columns and blossomed out through the spreading 
branches. In moments, leaping needle to needle and leaf to 
leaf, he permeated the forest. Oh, to stretch, to breathe 
through endless stomata, to lift a hundred million seeking 
hands sunward .. .. How he had missed this vital place! 

Like a dog amid clover, he rolled among the trees and 
remembered why he lived and what he loved. He peered 
out the wide-flung canopy of leaves at a sky crisscrossed 
with dragon engines and warships, with true dragons and 
angel warriors. A troubled place. A terrible, troubled place. 

Something massive blotted out the sun. It seemed a 
giant mountain had slid between Multani's forest and the 
life-giving orb. Its shadow was cool and aching, and 
Multani saw its unmistakable outline. 

There, titan tall at three thousand feet, the magnigoth 
treefolk lord Nemata dwarfed these shagbark hickories. He 
had not risen here to threaten the stunted forest, but rather 
to rescue it. Like a man struggling to drive off a swarm of 
bats, the treefolk lord swatted boughs through a swarm of 
dragon engines. 

In seeing that grand figure, Multani remembered his 
true home, the body of his soul. Oh, to leave this doomed 
land for that safe one! Yavimaya had won her war. She was 
pure and powerful. Urborg would never be so. Even if the 
Phyrexians were driven out, the place would still belong to 
the dead and the undead. To fight such hopeless battles 
sapped the soul, and Yavimaya called to him. 

82 



J. Robert King 
He tumbled toward shore, gathering the strength of the 
woods as he went. It would be a long leap to Yavimaya, on 
the other side of the world. The magnigoth treefolk had 
trudged for months across the ocean floor, churning the 
waters in their massive haste. Spirit was faster still. 

From the last shoots overhanging the last saltwater 
swamp of Urborg, Multani leaped. He traveled a gossamer 
highway of pollen. It stretched in a winding ribbon across 
the chanting ocean. Multani tripped across the spores, 
faster than wind. With each running step, his spirit crossed 
thousands of miles. The poisoned air of Urborg dragged 
away, replaced by the bracing air of the sea. And 
Yavimaya's air was the freshest on the planet, so pure, so 
wet, so full of life. 

Another bound, and his spirit reached land—a land full 
of death. The Phyrexians had done their work here. Forests 
were chewed to pulp. Animals were slaughtered. 
Phyrexians loped, as gaunt and humorless as coyotes. Not a 
house stood whole. Not a person lived. And in the midst of 
the desolation—felled trees and felled bodies and feasting 
foes—Phyrexian troops bowed in adoring prayer. They did 
not go prostrate to the sun or an idol or a priest. They 
bowed toward Urborg, toward the man achieving the 
domination of the planet: Crovax. 

Suspended on pollen trails—there was not an 
unblemished blade of grass here—Multani sped across the 
blighted place and wondered: What is this hellish land, 
where good is gone and evil rules? At last he saw, and 
knew. There lay the fallen spires, the shattered walls, the 
gutted great houses, the slaughtered millions of Benalia 
City. 

Benalia City. This was once fair Benalia, ruled by the 
seven houses, the homeland of Gerrard Capashen. It had 
died fighting Phyrexians. 

83 



Apocalypse 

Stunned, Multani drifted from the blasted place. At 
last, he reached the ancient forest of Llanowar. Ah, here 
would be relief. Multani had fought in the Battle of 
Llanowar, had closed the plague portals that destroyed her 
and infused the very forest with immunity. He and his 
allies had healed hundreds of thousands of elves and had 
begun to rebuild the ruined elfhames. Here, Multani would 
find succor. 

Except that beneath the treetops scuttled lines of black 
beasts. Like army ants they marched. Phyrexians. The 
forest might have been immune to the plague, but it was 
not immune to monstrous armies. They deployed from 
Benalia and invaded. While the ground roiled with the 
vicious invaders, the trees bristled with elf warriors. Shafts 
pelted down in a green hail on the monsters. One in five 
arrows cracked past carapace to find flesh. One in twenty 
actually scored a kill. For every one Phyrexian downed, 
nineteen more marched deeper into the wood. 

Multani almost dropped down then and there, 
cascading through the wood to rally it against its foes. He 
was sick to death of war, though, and what if such monsters 
trooped through Yavimaya? He could not fight every battle, 
and the Battle of Yavimaya was one he must fight. 

Racing through the treetops, Multani reached the 
farthest arm of troubled Llanowar. He plunged from trees 
to grasses. Simple grasses. They held none of the ancient 
complexity of a primeval forest, but they were vitally alive. 
To flow through them as he did was invigorating. They 
would give him the strength to leap across the ocean to 
Yavimaya. 

He did. Grass gave way to sand, and it in turn to blue 
deeps. Over it all, he flew in tumbling streams of pollen. 

At least the seas were safe. Phyrexians feared water, 
especially saltwater, because of its power to rust and 

84 



J. Robert King 
corrode. Their plagues could not reach beneath the waves. 
Their soldiers could not conquer ocean canyons. Life 
beneath the great seas had been saved from the Phyrexian 
advance. Though spirits of forest and sea had long been 
foes of one another, Multani would not begrudge them 
their salvation. 

There, beneath the waves, a school of dolphins rose. 
Sunlight glinted across their gray flesh. They reached the 
surface and leaped. Only then did Multani see that they 
were not dolphins but merfolk, and that they were not 
living, but undead. Their backs bristled with infected metal 
spines—much like the spinal centipedes the Phyrexians 
had used on terrestrial species. Even beneath the waves, 
the monsters ruled. 

There, a black rill on the ocean—Yavimaya beckoned. 
If the Phyrexians had conquered Benalia and swarmed 
through Llanowar and even teemed beneath the sea, what 
hope remained for Yavimaya? 

Multani's heart ached as he vaulted across the miles. He 
arrived headlong, ready for the worst. His soul slammed 
into the root clusters that reached into the churning sea. 
He plunged through them to the first of the great 
magnigoths on the edge of the island forest. Up to the 
treetops three thousand feet high, and there from leaf to 
leaf went Multani. He spread himself out through the 
forest, fearful of what he would find. His soul did not grow 
thinner as he went, but thicker, more powerfully infused 
with the land that was his home. 

In a hundred trees, in a thousand trees, in a hundred 
thousand ... There were no plague spores here, no 
voracious troops, no gnawing machines. Only verdant life 
shimmered in everything. Ancient trees sank roots into 
watery caves and reached branches into gleaming skies. 
Among those boughs lounged great apes in gardens of fruit, 

85 



Apocalypse 

and elves in aerial vineyards. Woodmen—onetime 
Phyrexians converted into defenders of the forest— 
crouched, watchful, in every crotch. Kavu meanwhile 
patrolled the endless trunks. Magnigoth treefolk stood at 
the ready, and in their root bulbs, druids chanted dark 
incantations. 

Multani fell into those placid trees like a man into a 
hammock. He felt the tensions of the last days of Urborg 
drip away from him. Dread and despair were gone. Ease and 
joy had returned. This was why he lived. This was what he 
lived for. Let the world go to the Nine Spheres; paradise 
remained in Yavimaya. 

Even as he hung there, engulfed in bliss, he knew the 
falseness of it. How could the denizens of this great forest 
rest while, half a world away, every creature fought for life? 
Worse, if those lives were not enough in the balance, 
paradise would remain nowhere on Dominaria. How long 
before the ships would return, before the merfolk zombies 
would arise? How long before the Phyrexians would sweep 
away apes and elves, Kavu and druids, and turn the 
woodmen back into monsters? It was the peculiar vice of 
forests to turn inward and give not a damn about what 
happened outside. Even as he lay there, ensconced in his 
homeland, Multani knew that to indulge such an impulse 
now would mean utter annihilation. 

He also knew what he must do. It would be his last 
great act in the war against Phyrexia. To expend such 
energy would leave his spirit dissipated for years, or 
decades, or centuries. He would use himself up in defense 
of his world. If he did this right, the world would no longer 
need miracles such as Multani. 

Until that moment, it all had been complicated. The 
bargaining between life and death is messy, but once a deal 
is struck, everything is simple. Yavimaya did not need him. 

86 



J. Robert King 
Dominaria did. Gaea needed him. It was a small sacrifice to 
make to assure victory. 

Multani descended through the trunks of the trees. 
Heat and light receded. He reached to the root bulbs and 
beyond to the tangle of tendrils deep below. There, amid 
druidic inscriptions, Multani made his simple pact. 

Gaea, I call you. Heed my voice. I come not to petition 
your favor, but to grant my service. There came no response. 
There never did. Yet this time Multani knew beyond doubt 
that he was heard. You have countless defenders here in 
Yavimaya. They have won the peace the land now enjoys. But 
other lands languish. They need the giant spiders and elf 
warriors, the woodmen and Kavu, the saprolings and treefolk. 
They need them now. 

I will be their conduit. I know both lands and will connect 
them. I will bear through my being these defenders, that they 
might fight in Urborg. It is a task well beyond my power alone, 
but not if you will grant your aid. 

A final pause, for Multani at last sensed the magnitude 
of what was about to occur. I do not know what price I will 
pay, only that it will be a full and sufficient price. And so, 
before you grant my prayer, let me say simply, good-bye. 

The spell began. Gaea was impatient. Multani did not 
have to move from where he resided, there in the deeps of 
Yavimaya. He no longer needed to go to the forest, but it 
needed to come to him. And it did. Within a five-mile 
radius, every tree, every fey, every dryad and druid and 
denizen drew downward into the waiting soul of the nature 
spirit. As the forest had infused him before, it infused him 
again. One by one, like pages folded into a book, countless 
trees slid into Multani. 

While that comer of Yavimaya found its place in his 
mind, Multani found his place in a different forest. Cypress 
and palm, shot through with fetid water—he gathered to 

87 



Apocalypse 

himself memories of that forest. The reality of the one 
overlaid the recollection of the other. Multani was the 
conduit. He spent himself to bridge half a world. 

* * * * * 

Sisay clung to the helm of Weatherlight as the ship 
slowly lifted from the rugged ground. The volcano fell 
away. Chunks of broken rock pattered from the hull. 
Engines hummed with quiet fury. 

"I only hope we won't need Multani," Sisay said to 
herself, though the tubes carried her thought to the rest of 
the crew. 

"Of course we will need him," Tahngarth replied 
sullenly. 

Karn responded, "No. We need neither Multani nor 
Karn now. Weatherlight is all." 

"If she's all, Karn, how about if we see what she can 
do?" Sisay asked through the speaking tube. "Full speed 
aloft!" 

In the instant before the engines kicked in, Sisay saw 
something strange—a whole forest of stunted growth had 
suddenly been replaced by a perfect circle of magnificent 
trees. Elves and apes, saprolings and giant spiders—all of 
them descended to battle. From among the lofty boughs 
strode treefolk, eager to fight. 

"That's where Multani has gone," Sisay said with a glad 
whoop. "He still fights beside us." The sound was torn away 
as Weatherlight outran it, vaulting skyward. 

88 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 10 

The Music of the Spheres 

Nothing was better than music, nothing. True, the 
world was full of wonderful things—torture and 
domination, revenge and persecution, cruelty and 
absolution —but music was the best. In his agonophone, 
Crovax had music and all the rest rolled into one. 

The great composer sat, ramrod straight, atop a 
cushioned bench. His head was bent in stern consternation 
toward a three-register console. His fingers caressed keys 
that themselves had once been fingers. 

It had taken a master craftsman months to harvest 
enough bones. Minotaur phalanges were the best, but the 
carpals of other species could suffice. Carefully dried, 
shaped, and polished, the bones were set into three 
keyboards. Next, the craftsman fashioned the mechanisms 
beneath each key, using humeruses and tibias for the larger 
pieces, and the fragile hammer, anvil, and stirrup for the 
workings. He perfectly adjusted the whole set, creating a 
masterpiece. 

Crovax had been so pleased, he immortalized the 
craftsman by upholstering the bench with his skin. Yes, he 
had been murdered, as had all who drew the eye of Crovax. 
It did not matter whether the evincar gazed upon his target 
with too much love or too much hate. The result was the 
same. In fact, the craftsman had gotten off easily. He 
hadn't been executed by the agonophone. 

89 



Apocalypse 

Crovax lifted his hands, spread talons, and brought 
them down in a chord of agony. He leaned back, drinking 
in the shrieking sound. Spittle-charged air blasted out at 
him. 

For each of the two hundred seventy-four keys on the 
agonophone, a victim lay in the ranks. These were the 
organ's pipes. All the way up the wall, the victims lay, rank 
on rank. They were fastened in place at an angle that 
allowed the instrument's flowstone needles to work. 
Whenever Crovax depressed a key—as he did now in 
tangled arpeggios that swept from the lowest tones to the 
highest—a mechanism activated a flowstone needle. It 
pierced the body of a given victim and spread within, doing 
things that assured the proper pitch, duration, and 
intensity. Often, for endless hours, Crovax tuned the 
machine. Often he had to audition new talent for the 
ranks. He had really wanted Squee to be his high C, but 
the goblin was tone-deaf, and too busy being chronically 
killed by Ertai to do the job. Crovax allowed Ertai his 
pleasures. The evincar had his own. 

Again, Crovax's hands descended. Again, the jarring 
harmonies ripped outward. He had always loved music, 
from field melodies of plantation slaves to the excruciating 
rebbec his father played. Music was pure emotion. For the 
slaves, it had been misery. For Crovax's father, it had been 
much the same. Crovax had reversed the equation. Now, 
pure emotion was music. 

He was feeling playful today, and the roving bass line 
told it. A succession of bellows and groans vamped across 
the lower keyboard while he positioned his right hand 
above. Claws clicked on bone. A shrieking melody began. 
His fingers ambled like a spider's legs across the keyboard. 
The ranks replied with wails in augmented fourths and 
diminished seconds. The counterpoint of pain solidified 

90 



J. Robert King 
into homophonic chords. Four voices, six voices, eight and 
ten—he outlined a thirteenth chord that shook the very 
rafters of the Stronghold. Ah, sweet discord! 

And yet, lurking behind that sound of ultimate 
dissonance, there was a profound harmony. Puzzled, 
Crovax stared up at the faces above him, mouths 
screaming. He stood up, his claws depressing the keys. He 
peered down the throats of the victims. One by one, he 
listened to them, and drew his finger away, eliminating the 
sound. Tones ceased in anguish up the chord. Finally, he 
withdrew the final note, and it echoed away. 

Still, the new harmony droned on, like a pedal tone. 
Crovax looked down. His feet were clear of the fibulas. He 
lifted his eyes to the black vault and stared at it. He sniffed. 
This sickening concord of sound did not come from within 
the Stronghold or the volcano. It came from beyond. And 
it was no true sound. It was a different sort of harmony—a 
natural music. 

Stepping away from his agonophone, Crovax strode out 
into the room. Behind him, the instrument settled in 
panting pain, like bagpipes deflating. Crovax paid it no 
heed. Instead he turned, seeking the pull of the music. 
There, north-by-northeast and some forty miles distant. 
The noise came from there. 

Crovax was no planeswalker—even Yawgmoth could 
not truthfully make that claim—but he knew magics that 
could even the odds. Lifting wicked claws, he drew his 
hand down his body. Tendrils of power bled from his 
fingers and enwrapped him. The energies coalesced into a 
beaming sac. It shrank to a shining star and rose, hissing 
through a crack in the ceiling. In moments, it emerged 
atop the Stronghold and coiled up through the volcano's 
stack. The comet streaked from the caldera and stretched 

91 



Apocalypse 

down the mountain in a long ribbon. It covered miles in 
seconds and suddenly was there. 

Though he had arrived with eager speed, Crovax 
lowered slowly, in shock. The bright ball widened and 
settled on the ground. Threads of power unwound. The 
spell frayed, and Crovax stood in an unreal place. 

Here, where there should have been deadwood swamps, 
was an overgrown jungle. 

Crovax stood on a root bulb that bristled with spikes. It 
butted against the roots of all the other trees around, 
completely blocking out the swamp. From those bulbs rose 
fat trees in dense brakes. Each tree was a world unto itself. 
On their trunks clung giant oozy things, seeming slugs 
made of sap. Higher still, in lofty crotches, lurked 
enormous lizards—the Kavu his folk had reported. They 
turned over in the sun and stared down at the single figure 
below them. Highest of all, three thousand feet above 
where he now stood, elves and apes bounded through the 
foliage like lice through matted hair. 

Who had done this? Who had the power to transform 
black swamps into green forests, and here—on Crovax's 
own island! Urza was just now fighting for his life in 
Phyrexia, and Gerrard too. Freyalise and Windgrace and 
their pitiful band were pinned down in Phyrexia as well. 
Who could have marshaled such strength? 

Crovax's eyes narrowed. He listened to the green 
harmony of flora and fauna, of prey and predator, and he 
knew: Gaea. 

Her minions—woodmen and Kavu, elves and apes and 
every other defender of the forest—descended to attack 
Crovax. The trees ran with lines of termites, except that 
these termites were huge and fleet. Elephantine Kavu bared 
horrid teeth and rushed down toward Crovax. 

92 



J. Robert King 
He could have fled. The spell that had brought him was 
ready and waiting. But he was Crovax, and Crovax did not 
flee. This was Crovax's land. He would defend it with the 
aid of his endless minions. 

Stomping upon the ground, Crovax called forth power. 
He flung his arms out to either side, claws opening like 
ghastly umbrellas. From fingertips, ebon power jutted and 
cackled. It lashed roots and reached beyond them, to the 
very soil—the remains of dead things. Where his black 
lightning struck, rotten flesh and buried bones rose. In 
moments, before the invaders could swarm him, they were 
swarmed by humus warriors. 

It was not enough for Crovax. He flung his claws out 
farther. Scintillating energies dashed up the mountainsides 
and into the woodlands. They struck Phyrexian 
bloodstocks, shock troops, scuta, and a menagerie of other 
horrors. Where the energies struck, they yanked beasts to 
Crovax's side. It was summoning magic in its most direct 
and brutal form, and it provided Crovax a sudden army. 

Kavu launched themselves down the trees. They came 
to ground with teeth foremost. One crashed atop a shock 
trooper and chewed through. Another smashed its sagittal 
crest against the back of a scuta, cracking the shell and 
making its guts splatter. Where teeth did not come to bear, 
claws did. Massive fists tore apart bloodstocks. Lashing tails 
took out whole platoons of the dead. 

More clever Phyrexians—Crovax among them—simply 
sidestepped the Kavu. As a beast struck the ground near 
him, Crovax's axe chopped its throat. Through the 
resultant gush he charged another Kavu. The evincar 
rammed his broad blade up the monster's nostril, cutting 
through to brain. For good measure, he bit the creature's 
eye. 

93 



Apocalypse 

All around him, Phyrexians took heart from their 
commander's example. They ripped open throats and 
plunged swords down ear canals and tore tongues from 
mouths. That was just among the Kavu—the first and the 
worst of the green attackers. 

Elves rappelled down long vines and dropped in the 
midst of the black host. They came with needlelike swords 
and shrieked their mothers' names. One young warrior 
jabbed. The blade penetrated Crovax's breastplate, pierced 
his innards, and jutted out his back. 

The evincar was singularly unimpressed. He grabbed 
the elf's sword hand and wrenched the blade out of him. 
The follow-through snapped the man's hand at the wrist. 
With a powerful yank, Crovax tore off the limb at the 
shoulder. The young fellow went down in a sloppy heap. 

These elves hadn't swords but thorns, and they were 
not fighters but flowers. Crovax plucked them with glee. 
Soon, he had a head to join the arm in a bouquet, and then 
a leg, and another head. He danced through the battle. 
Woodmen clawed at him but could not bring him down. 
Nothing could. He was indomitable. 

That was when the first saproling fell. It was a gelid and 
slimy thing, as large as a rhino but with the consistency of 
pus. From a fungal pocket on the side of a magnigoth tree, 
the thing had been bom. It dropped like a mucousy spitwad 
on the evincar. 

Crovax stood resolute as the ooze crashed atop him. His 
head cracked through the fibrous core of the monster, 
ripping apart its central nexus. Without that tissue, the 
saproling was little more than lutefisk. Crovax hurled his 
arms out angrily, ripping the innards from the monster. He 
roared, and his breath made a big air bubble in the 
cytoplasm. The bubble popped. The beast did too. 

94 



J. Robert King 
The evincar emerged like a newborn, slick and bawling. 
Translucent hunks of the monster clung to his armor and 
melted slowly. He shook the stuff off, just in time for 
another saproling to crash down beside him and spatter 
him anew. Seeing a bloodstock trapped within the wet 
monster, Crovax sliced through the membrane with his 
axe. He reached in and yanked the bloodstock out. 

Two more saprolings wetly pounded the ground. 
Phyrexians and undead languished beneath them. 

"Fight, damn you! Fight! They're just fungi!" 

"Yes, milord," answered a shock trooper, "but fungi eat 
the dead." 

Crovax assessed the situation. Hundreds of undead 
troops were not emerging from beneath the gushing 
creatures. They were dissolving. In moments, these vile 
bags of nothing would defeat his entire army. 

"How about dried phlegm?" Crovax hissed. He tilted his 
head back and drew into himself the power of the 
swamplands. It poured like black smoke from his nostrils 
and eyes and ears. It whirled in twin cyclones across his 
shoulders and down his arms. The power roared from his 
fingertips and slammed, hot and putrid, into the saprolings. 

Their jellylike flesh shuddered. It dried and cracked. In 
each crack formed rot spores. They ate through the flesh 
and widened the wounds. Hunks of saprolings split away 
from each other. They crumbled and became only powder 
on the battlefield. 

Crovax roared his triumph, only then seeing sure 
defeat. Though his rot spell had destroyed the fungal forces, 
it had also obliterated his own army. Fungus and Phyrexian 
were not far apart on the food chain, each vulnerable to 
rot. 

Kavu had survived, and elves and woodmen. They 
converged around the evincar of Rath. 

95 



Apocalypse 

"Get back, or be slain, all of you," shouted Crovax, but 
it was a bluff. He hadn't the power to destroy all these 
beasts. "You are doomed!" 

The words suddenly seemed meant for himself, for he 
looked up to see a dozen more saprolings oozing from trees 
and plunging toward him. 

Before the slime sacs arrived, Crovax created his own 
sac. He lifted claws above his head and brought them 
down, slashing the very air. It bled power. Tendrils whirled 
around Crovax's body, joined, and widened into a bright 
sac around him. The beaming thing stretched and thinned, 
needlelike. Saprolings crashed down. Unaffected, the 
filament slid skyward, seeking more Phyrexians, more 
undead, more troops. 

Crovax left, yes, but he did not flee. He was Crovax. 
This was his land. He went only to gather the tools of his 
revenge. 

96 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 11 

How Lazy the Ages 

How lazy the ages look, scrolled out like that across our 
knees, time's parchment rolled and folded in ancient 
dishevel, uncared for and unaccounted while we sought 
with anxious fingers this very moment among all moments. 
We can see them all, each scene on that scroll. They lie 
there visible before us, every word and face on the ratty roll 
of history. We see them all but focus our eyes on this 
moment and these two men: Urza and Gerrard. 

Gerrard's halberd—long and wicked headed and 
murderous, an interpolation in steel of that singular 
weapon that makes all men and makes all sons patricides— 
rams into the belly of his father. The blade bites deep. The 
mortal sweetbreads of Urza Planeswalker gush forth. 

We scream out our approval. Through a hundred 
thousand throats, we scream gladly, and on feet and hooves 
and claws we stand and crane a look. Urza has had this 
coming. For four thousand years, he has had this coming, 
and Gerrard is giving it to him. Gerrard is killing his father. 

Of course, Urza is not really the man's father. Not 
biologically. Still, into some project somewhere in time 
Urza had poured an ounce of passion, the vital white fury 
of himself that contributed to form a new life that he would 
thereafter ignore and abuse and simultaneously hang all his 
hopes on. In that way, he is the quintessential father. He 
deserves the cut in the gut. 

97 



Apocalypse 

Only it isn't Urza who stands there with halberd 
rammed halfway through him, but a simulacrum of 
himself—a sandman fashioned of grains and thoughts. Not 
sweetbreads but grit sloughs down around the blade. The 
sandman falls, revealing its maker retreating toward 
another line of weapons. 

We shout another ovation, this one less bold but still 
glad. It is a clever turn for Urza, one of many, but still he 
retreats, and he robs us of blood sport. We want them each 
to kill the other multiply, but if Urza insists on skulking 
and playing with sandmen, even we shall lose interest. 

The black dragon upon our royal stand shifts and brings 
gleaming teeth to bear on the sandy arena. It fills our lungs 
with hot breath and hurls it out across the grounds. The 
incendiary cloud rolls mightily, striking and obliterating 
another set of sandmen, scouring the conjured redoubts, 
and purging the place of all ruined weapons. Only Gerrard 
and Urza and our own weapons remain. Even the sands are 
fused to obsidian. In the wake of our breath come our 
spoken words: 

"No more foolishness, Urza. No more fleeing this lad. 
The next kill will decide it. The next man slain will be 
dead forever, and his slayer will rise to our side." 

He bows to us. There, in the desolation of the arena, 
with his own son circling him like a wolf, Urza bows to us. 

We gather up the scroll of time about us, fingers 
crimping and bunching centuries into inches. We hold this 
moment in our grasp—ash-blond Urza on a glassy field 
with his black-bearded son edging to destroy him. They are 
larger than life, but also are bugs scuttling across a glass 
dish. We seek a previous moment, a black and burned 
battlefield where Tawnos and Ashnod met, proxies for 
Urza and Mishra. Ah, here it is, and here, above and 

98 



J. Robert King 
below, the faces of those two assailants, of ash-blond Urza 
and black-bearded Mishra. 

How lazy the ages, where every story repeats itself. Urza 
is Urza and Gerrard is Mishra. Yawgmoth is Yawgmoth and 
Dominaria is Rebbec. How lazy the ages! 

That is one moment we always hold in our hands, 
always stare at with copious eyes. 

We stand within the bright and beaming door, lord of a 
beautiful and bounteous world, our arms open wide to bring 
her in with us, our people all around us, welcoming. Where 
she stands is only tomb-darkness, the mirror pedestal, the 
clockwork guardians. Above her head, Halcyon evaporates. 
Solid rock turns to ash. White death descends, certain and 
inescapable. We stand at the door, calling, but she closes 
the door, shuts us away for five thousand years and ascends 
to doom. 

Oh, how we have hated you, Rebbec, darling. For an 
age of ages we have hated you. Though Urza has been our 
nemesis, you have been our truest foe. Urza opened the 
door that you closed. He admitted the world that you had 
shut away. You are the world witch. You are our shadow, 
drawing the life out of us, pretending hate is love, clinging 
to us only so that you could betray us. We slew the whole 
multiverse to purge it of corruption and raise it 
incorruptible, but you, Rebbec—you chose a different 
death. Death in white fire. How we have hated you! 

But who is this that presses me? When last we left 
Dominaria, it was a dead stone hurtling around a vicious 
sun. What is the world now? A throbbing, living thing. 
Who is this Gaea who throws off our Yavimayan assault 
and cures our Llanowar plagues, who plants new forests in 
Keld and raises a scion to fight for her? Who, but you, 
Rebbec? We know your works, your furious designs and 

99 



Apocalypse 

redesigns, your relentless reaching toward light, your 
organic architecture. We know you. 

How did that white fire not purge you? When it 
wrapped around you, its chewing particles were themselves 
consumed. Instead of eating your flesh, your flesh ate the 
cloud and spread outward across Halcyon, the empire, the 
world. You did to Dominaria what you did to us—clung 
close in shadow, made hate seem love, and drew enough 
power to rule. While Phyrexia transformed us from a man 
to a god, Dominaria transformed you. A change of essence, 
a change of name, and the mortal Rebbec becomes the 
immortal Gaea. 

You remain the same. You have kept us out for nine 
thousand years, and now you marshal your every creature 
to keep us out another nine thousand. We know you. If 
Urza is father to Gerrard, Rebbec is mother to them both. 

Once we are finished toying with these two, we will 
climb all over you and destroy you. We will wrap our 
fingers around that heart of hate and squeeze until it turns 
to love and squeeze again until you are dead tatters. 

Pain, sudden and strange and exquisite, tears through 
us, bringing us up from reverie. We are on our feet, 
shouting in joy. They are slaying each other, and in the 
stands, no less. Gerrard whirls a gleaming halberd. Blood 
streams from the curled gnarls on it and sprinkles the 
crowd. Urza roars and catches the weapon on a massive 
trident. The tines twist to capture the blade of the reaching 
weapon. He yanks his trident to one side and, drawing a 
knife from his belt, lunges in an eviscerating stab. Gerrard 
follows his weapon and bounds aside, behind one of our 
heads. 

We feel Urza's steel slice leathery flesh and crack 
through the temple bone and drive into our frontal lobe 
and split the bone on the far side to jut just above our eyes. 

100 



J. Robert King 
We see our own blood cascading down before us, and feel 
our limbs shudder and slump from the assault. We even 
hear our breath laboring raggedly, driven by a lower brain 
that lies tucked away beneath the assault. The pain is 
piquant and powerful as we die. 

It is only one of us, though, one out of a hundred 
thousand. No matter how many they slay, they will not slay 
us. Only one of these bodies contains our true locus, and 
they will never find it, and even if they could, they could 
never slay it. We will let them continue. These deaths, 
these incidental stabs or clumsy blows, they feel good, like 
the pain of picking a long and deep scab. We will let them 
fight among us. We will feel a hundred deaths. Each will 
only whet our appetite for the final death. 

Urza retreats among us. He flails. He is failing. His 
trident rises clumsily to deflect a rain of blows. The butt of 
it bashes the teeth from one of our mouths. They fall in a 
chunky hail onto our legs. We only bellow in excitement. 
Gerrard advances. His halberd slices down through our 
neck. Our head remains upright amid a hissing shower of 
gold. Then it sags and falls to one side. 

We have lived the ages for this moment—not only to 
witness the death of Urza or his progeny, but to die with 
them, over and again. 

Still, it would be sweeter if Urza fought. See how he 
retreats amid bristling shoulders, dodges behind scaly bulk? 
It is as if he does not hope to join us, to serve us, but rather 
to shelter beneath our wings. Unworthy. There is no 
shelter beneath the wings of Yawgmoth. 

We shall rouse him. One pointed utterance will put fire 
in him. Barrin, perhaps? Or Xantcha? Or Mishra? No. He 
did not love them. Urza has only ever loved Urza. He feels 
no pangs about failing others, only about failing himself. 

101 



Apocalypse 

In our manifold voices, we cry out, "Fight, Urza! There 
is no sylex to save you this time." 

He hears us. He listens as Gerrard's halberd chatters 
across the tines of his trident. Gritting his teeth, Urza 
twists the fork. With one revolution, he traps the head of 
the halberd. With the second, he cracks the weapon's haft. 
He yanks hard. The axe comes away from the rest. 
Discarding the shattered blade, Urza swings the trident 
toward Gerrard. 

The young master of arms backs cautiously away, 
among us. 

He is armed only with a sharp section of haft. The 
nearest new weapon lies hundreds of feet away, on the floor 
of the arena. 

Urza advances. The old man's eyes glint madly. The 
facets of the Might- and Weakstone glimmer. 

They came from a single powerstone, split to create a 
portal between Dominaria and Phyrexia. Those stones had 
drawn away the life of the genius Glacian and had absorbed 
his split personality. Recharged, they had closed the portal 
for five millennia. Only Urza and Mishra reopened it. In 
reward, the stones shaped the boys into warring monsters. 
Mishra became Phyrexian, and so did Urza, though more 
subtly. He proves it now. With both stones in his head, 
Urza is at heart a true Phyrexian. 

He holds the trident overhead like a javelin, his arm 
cocked for the throw. It will have to be perfect. Once the 
weapon leaves Urza's hand, he is defenseless. 

Gerrard lifts the haft to deflect the attack. He staggers 
back among us. We are on our feet, chanting, "Sy-lex! Sy-
lex!" and throwing our fists in the air. Gerrard ducks 
behind a muscular digger. Its barrel body is a tight-wound 
skein of sinews. Its apelike arms rise to ward back a trident 
blow. It isn't the trident that strikes first. 

102 



J. Robert King 
Gerrard rams the splintery tip of his haft into our back. 
The improvised weapon cuts open flesh and shoves bone 
aside. We rise, a shriek keening from our tiny mouth. Our 
simian arms reach back to yank out the haft, but Gerrard 
only rams it deeper. We struggle to whirl, but he has 
somehow anchored the halberd's butt. 

Only then does the trident soar from Urza's hand. It 
hangs in air. The tines strike our flesh and pierce inward. 
Breath hisses from four sucking wounds. Metal points 
intersect the wooden pole. Caught between a sharpened 
stick and an impaling fork, we jolt downward. 

Gerrard has used us as a shield. 

We cannot breathe; we cannot stand. Only our 
enormous arms move, thrashing, impotent to slay our 
tormentors. We flap spasmodically. We feel our death and 
are thrilled. 

Better still, the gladiators are both weaponless. 

Gerrard is a master of arms and can make weapons 
where there are none. He kicks the bleeding back of the 
digger and sends the beast sprawling on Urza. Its massive 
hands grasp the old man. Its fingers clench. Wells of blood 
rise through skin and robes. Shrieking, the digger grapples 
Urza. 

We bellow. Gerrard is robbing us of the kill. He is 
slaying by proxy. He drives a mad beast upon his foe 
instead of fighting for himself. 

Our groans turn to joy. 

Urza has caught hold of the trident handle and twists it 
savagely. Tines spin, tearing through muscle, bone, lung, 
and heart. The digger slumps. Its hands release Urza. The 
trident slides in a chunky hail from its belly. 

We hiss. All around are more eyes and ears. We watch 
and hear and exult within the vast and murderous throng. 

103 



Apocalypse 

Urza steps away, triumphant. His robes show blooming 
roses where the digger had crushed him, but he lofts the 
trident above his head. The points swing about toward 
Gerrard. 

The young man withdraws. He sees he cannot trick 
Urza, cannot outlast Urza, cannot even use the crowd 
against him. Gerrard withdraws. He retreats through the 
stands, his eyes ever upon his foe but his feet bringing him 
closer and closer to the balcony where we reside. Mere 
moments ago he was the predator, but now, the prey. He 
seeks shelter where there is none. 

We are sitting again, all hundred thousand of us. The 
tables have turned dramatically, but this tedious retreat is 
no thrilling thing. 

Then we see—Gerrard's path leads to where a dead 
pneumagog lies. Its six wings splay metallically around it, 
fixed by the chance landing of a halberd head. Gerrard's 
weapon even now juts from the cleft face. We had been so 
intent upon the fight, we had barely sensed the death of 
this creature. 

Gerrard kicks the riven axe to free it. The blade rolls 
through the cleft, but does not come loose. Gerrard hauls 
on the haft, and the blade grates against bone. 

Urza understands and closes the distance. He thrusts his 
trident in an impaling blow. 

Gerrard twists aside and grabs the trident shaft. Two 
tines pierce his flesh. The heads burrow through the upper 
bicep of Gerrard's off-hand. His grip only tightens on the 
haft, struggling to stop its momentum. 

Urza rams the weapon deeper. One tine emerges 
through Gerrard's arm. Another slides to jab shallowly into 
his chest, just above his heart. 

"At last," Urza growls, "I do away with my greatest 
mistake." 

104 



J. Robert King 
"No, Urza," shouts Gerrard in return. "I do away with 
it." 

Urza lunges. The trident sinks deeper. 

Gerrard clutches it tightly and torques. Force travels 
shoulder to shoulder and down into his dominant arm. It 
chucks the halberd blade free of the pneumagog. 

Clutching the halberd head, Gerrard swings. The blade 
cleaves the screaming air. It arcs, perfect and silver to 
Urza's throat. Metal slices flesh. The jugular looses its red 
gush down the planeswalker's body. The spine gives little 
more resistance. A disk ruptures neatly. Nerves within are 
severed. Urza's body sags, lifeless, beneath his staring eyes. 
The axe blade cuts out the far side of the neck and into 
clear air. 

Urza's head comes free. It tumbles, goggling 
incredulously. 

Among us it tumbles. We shriek with delight and reach 
out to grasp it. There is a storm of claws around that 
spinning, gory prize. Nails drag flesh away from its staring 
cheeks. 

One hand catches the long, ash-blond hair and grabs 
hold. Gerrard's hand. He yanks the head away from all the 
others. He pulls the trident from his wounded arm and 
catches the severed head. He lifts it high and is baptized in 
the blood of his creator. 

We shriek in delight. Every last one of us stands and 
roars down the sky. "Urza is dead! Urza is dead! Urza is 
dead!" 

Wearing an expression of grim triumph, the bloodied 
young man, Gerrard Capashen, strides through the crowd. 
He brandishes his prize and the weapon that won it, and he 
walks toward the balcony. 

His lips quietly repeat the chant: "Urza is dead." 

105 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 12 

Elsewhere, in Phyrexia 

For any planeswalker, the journey from Taysir's grave to 
the first bomb site would have been a simple sideways 
step— for any planeswalker but Commodore Guff. 

Bedecked in his translucent suit of rubber, Guff was 
distracted by the way the damned thing ballooned and 
deflated with his every breath. He spat vitriolically, 
remembering too late the large round monocle that fronted 
his face. Spittle hung ignominiously before him. 

"This suit's got worse ventilation than the last!" 

"Then don't breathe," Bo Levar replied. His eyes 
twinkled beneath the broad-brimmed pirate hat. Little 
lightnings on the plume shoved back snapping wires. Bo 
Levar extended an arm toward the commodore. "Here." 

The commodore's mustaches bristled, wiping the glass. 
"What?" 

"Not what, but where," Bo Levar insisted. He did not 
wait for the commodore to reach out, instead gripping the 
man's rubbery hand and launching them into a 
spontaneous planeswalk. 

He was none too soon. Even as they stepped from 
reality, the pneumagog city on the horizon bounced once 
and came to pieces. Freyalise and Windgrace had 
detonated their first charge. White air turned into red 
liquid—a flood of ash and steam and lava and heat. 

That reality ceased to be. Bo Levar and Commodore 
Guff appeared in another, equally daunting reality. 

106 



J. Robert King 
Here, fields of sparking wires rose into a pair of huge 
drumlins, lateral braces for a gigantic dynamo. The 
machine loomed a mile into the sky and cast a deep 
shadow across the two planeswalkers. It was a wind turbine 
that could spawn cyclones. 

"I'll be damned!" Guff said, both interjection and 
prediction. If the engine started up while they stood there, 
the commodore and the captain would be sucked in, 
chewed up, and spewed out. "Damned!" 

The tube-shaped engine was fronted by a series of 
nested fans around a central cone. The fan blades, each 
thousands of feet long and brutally sharp, could drag in 
oceans of air, superheat it, and send it jetting out the rear 
of the machine. Such devices, positioned throughout the 
mountains of the sixth sphere, provided its gale-force 
winds. 

"This is a hell of a place," muttered the commodore. 

"This is Phyrexia," Bo Levar agreed. He swept his hat 
off and pointed toward the base of the machine. In the 
wire-strewn hillside lay a dark hollow. Within stood 
support struts and sabotaged power conduits. "It was even 
worse before I shut down the turbine." 

Guff goggled in surprise. The expression was grotesquely 
exaggerated by the monocle. "You?" 

Bo Levar nodded. "I couldn't set the bomb at its base 
while I battled the wind. I had enough work to do, fighting 
off the machine's defenders." 

"Which would be—" began Commodore Guff. 

Figures rose into the air around the machine. They 
seemed huge, shabby jellyfish. 

"Witch engines," Bo Levar supplied. 

The horrid machines floated high and enormous like 
storm clouds. Titanic spines bristled across their backs. 
Beneath them dangled hundreds of articulated limbs, each 

107 



Apocalypse 

tipped with a barbed claw that could snatch up a whole 
platoon. 

Commodore Guff coughed discreetly into his monocle 
and said, "I believe you said, old chum, that you were 
spoiling for a fight, and I could do the bomb work?" 

"I believe you said that," replied Bo Levar, "but I agree." 
He donned his hat again. With a thought, fabric hardened 
into armor. "Make it quick." Then, with another thought, 
he 'walked to the witch engines. 

Bo Levar set right to work. He cast a net of blue magic 
out across a witch engine. As all blue magic, this took 
control of a foe's strengths and turned them to weakness. 
Where tendrils of power touched, the sharp spines of the 
witch engine shrank. They reached the pores that had 
spawned them, and then grew inward. The machine 
quivered and smoked as spines extended themselves 
through the vitals of the beast. Quills transfixed the 
engine, ripping it open. Innards tumbled out in a grisly 
hail. 

Bo Levar spent no time admiring his handiwork, 
turning toward the next machine. His second spell 
summoned a storm of ball lightning. Globes of energy 
swarmed up to crash upon the witch engine. They slid 
down the spines to splash against the skin of the beast. As 
more jags raced across it, the engine began to cook. Fingers 
of lightning jabbed all across it, searing the skin and then 
ripping it wide. 

"He sure made quick work of them," Commodore Guff 
said, impressed. The thought reminded him of his own 
task. He tried to snap his fingers, but succeeded only in 
fusing the rubber together. "Quick work. Damn it. What 
am I thinking?" He took a step and was there. 

As daunting as the great dynamo had seemed from half 
a mile distant, it was horrifying here at its base. The 

108 



J. Robert King 
machine seemed a titan squatting on the world. Its fuselage 
cast the structural work below in deep darkness. Massive 
footings, with steel struts as wide around as magnigoth 
trees, anchored the dynamo. Beneath the wire-covered 
surface, the support structures delved deeper. Power 
conduits ran in thick packs across the beams. Many of 
these wires had been hacked apart, clearing the way 
inward. 

The commodore huffed. "Said he'd disabled the engine. 
Hacked through it like a man through cane, more like. 
Sloppy work." The commodore lowered himself into the 
hewn space. Stepping on a framework of beams over empty 
blackness, Guff strode inward. All around him, severed 
wires formed a spitting corridor. 

"Don't even need to use my hands—" 

The observation was cut short by the impact of a witch 
engine on the ground outside. The framework beneath 
Guff bounced. Gargantuan beams moaned. Maggot 
engines, loosed from the ruptured skin of the witch, 
scattered outward like spilled beads. 

To steady himself, Guff grabbed a double handhold of 
ruptured wire. Energy snapped at his fingertips but couldn't 
penetrate the rubber bodysuit. He cast an irritable glance 
upward. 

"All right. I'm hurrying." 

Four more unsteady steps, and Commodore Guff 
reached the bomb. Like the others of its ilk, this incendiary 
device packed an amazing wallop in a small package. The 
bomb resided on the nexus plates of five separate load 
channels. Once this connection was blown, the machine 
would fall into the darkness beneath it, and a huge rent 
would open to the seventh sphere. 

To set off the bomb would be a simple thing, a mere 
crossing of wires. There, beneath the brushed-steel shell, 

109 



Apocalypse 

the backup ignition wire reached out around the 
powerstone. Merely touching the wire to the opposite 
bushing would set off the explosion. The difficulty would 
be communicating to Bo Levar just when the pirate should 
step away from his blazing battle. Too soon, and the 
defenders would swarm the commodore. Too late would be 
quite literally too late. 

"Just have to go tell him," Guff said to himself. 

The commodore turned away from the bomb and 
headed back up the corridor of hissing wires. All around 
him, narrow filaments emitted points of light, large tubes 
oozed hydraulic fluids, corrugated vents issued purplish 
mist, severed cables sparked— 

Another impact jarred the ground. Guff's foot slipped 
into darkness. He plunged. His hands reached out to grab 
something solid—those two thick cables— 

He did not lay hold of the cables. They laid hold of 
him, or rather the current in them did. Sensing a willing 
conduit, energy surged up out of the wires and into the 
commodore's fingers. It roared through the sinews of his 
being, sending lightning up his biceps, down his ribs, 
through his heart, and out along every nerve in his body. 
His hair stood on end. His mustache bled light. Power 
crackled across his irises, making them spin like miniature 
gambling wheels. These were only tangential detours. Most 
of the power poured through him and into the opposite 
cable. 

Commodore Guff shuddered. His teeth rattled. He 
flailed, but could not break his hold. The surge was both 
excruciating and energizing. Despite the havoc it played 
with his senses, the charge at last cleared the fog from the 
monocle. His face glowed lantern-bright, and the monocle 
projected its image up the corridor and out onto the sky. 

110 



J. Robert King 
A sound took hold of the world. It was the 
unmistakable noise of an engine starting up. 

Guff's sun-bright lips mouthed the word, "Oops." 

* * * * * 

Bo Levar clawed his way through a witch engine. He'd 
killed this one from the inside out. Now, he had to escape 
it before it killed him. His fingers tore open the outer skin. 
His hands grasped the wet membranes and hauled him 
upward. He flung off a pair of maggot machines that clung 
to him. With a surge of his feet— augmented by jets of 
flame from his toes—Bo Levar escaped the beast. It caught 
fire explosively as he fled into the sky. 

There, in the white heavens, he saw a strange omen—a 
beaming sun with the face of Commodore Guff. If that 
weren't strange enough, the glowing orb seemed to be 
saying, "Oops." 

Shaking his head, Bo Levar said, "Oh, no." 

A quick glance toward the bomb bunker confirmed that 
the image came from it. The once-black space glared 
blindingly. Bo Levar tried to planeswalk there, but the 
turbine's power distorted the spatial geometry. He grasped 
the edges of his broad-brimmed hat, turned over in midair, 
and plunged toward the spot. His intent was to save his 
comrade, but in fact he saved himself. 

The wind turbine suddenly began to spin. Gigantic fan 
blades gripped the air and yanked it into the deep cylinder. 
Faster, they turned. Wind sluiced into the engine like 
water down a drain. 

Bo Levar tucked his head and redoubled the thrust of 
his flight spell. Even so, the cyclone tore at his robes, 
dragging him toward the turbine. 

111 



Apocalypse 

The final three witch engines were in worse shape— 
nearer to the turbine and more voluminous. One engine 
hadn't a chance. It slid back toward the dynamo, struck the 
cone at its center, sloughed from it onto the whirling 
blades, and was chewed to pieces. Hunks of shredded leg 
tumbled through the vanes. They pelted the main body 
and scoured its bristles from it. The body tumbled across 
the blades until it split open and spilled its maggot 
machines. 

The next witch engine angled against the wind. It made 
slow progress from the cyclone, and would have escaped 
but for its long, trailing legs. They swept around in its 
wake, tilting its body crazily and destabilizing it. It slipped 
suddenly into the turbine. Impacting with great force, the 
witch engine disintegrated. 

The influx of shattered material clogged the dynamo for 
a moment. The wind slackened. 

Bo Levar soared down to the bomb bunker. 
Unfortunately, so did the final witch engine. With every 
bristle intact, the monster pursued Bo Levar. Its claws 
thrashed the air just above him. 

Bo Levar sneaked a glance beneath his streamlined hat, 
noticed his imminent peril, and, for lack of a better 
alternative, made frantic breaststroke motions. 

A claw lashed down and caught him. Its tendrils 
pierced his captain's cloak and yanked him upward. 
Through a forest of other tentacles he passed, on his way 
toward the ravening gullet. He hadn't the power to slay 
this beast outright—he'd already single-handedly defeated 
four—but had the wit to defeat its claws. He reached up 
into the now pierced and rumpled captain's cloak and, 
from a special compartment lined with steel tubes, pulled 
out a cigar. A snap of his fingers awoke sufficient flame to 
light it. He puffed thrice. Blue smoke curled away from him 

112 



J. Robert King 
and wreathed the tentacle. One last long draw, and he 
jammed the hot end into the creature's leg. No creature 
enjoys a cigar burn, not even a vasty Phyrexian nightmare, 
but the pain was only a gnat bite—at first. Bo Levar had 
selected a special cigar, one rolled with less tobacco and 
more gunpowder. 

The explosion was a small one compared to all the roar 
and thunder of the turbine, but it was powerful enough to 
blast the leg in two. 

Bo Levar tumbled through the air, his suit still pinned 
on the severed leg. He'd intended to hand the smoke to 
Urza after successfully destroying Phyrexia, a kind of 
planeswalker practical joke. This alternative was almost as 
pleasant. 

If I see that bastard again, I'll give him more than an 
exploding cigar. 

Bo Levar plunged toward the brilliantly glowing crevice 
where the bomb lay, undetonated. With characteristic 
finesse, he rolled over in midair and let the severed claw 
impact the ground. Bo Levar grunted and rolled. He 
gathered his feet and levered the claw off his clothes. It 
landed amid nearby wires. Its onetime victim caught a 
foothold and bounded free. He was lashed a half dozen 
times by the energies arcing wire to wire but counted these 
jolts as nothing to what Commodore Guff endured within. 

Through the jagged slash in the panel, Bo Levar 
glimpsed the old fellow, transfixed on a bolt of lightning. 
He glowed. His hands were spread, and his body seemed a 
lantern wick. 

Bo Levar hurled himself through the open passage. 
There was no ground beneath his feet, only a network of 
girders over darkness. As agile as a cat, Bo Levar leaped 
brace to brace, heading straight for Commodore Guff. He 

113 



Apocalypse 

struck him without halting, and felt for a moment the 
agonizing ecstasy of the current as it sped through him. 

The two planeswalkers hurtled on, smoldering like a 
meteor. They crashed onto a wide support and clung there, 
as much because of latent energy as from actual design. 

Panting, Bo Levar turned his comrade over, grasped 
that ludicrous monocle, and ripped it open. Out gushed a 
cloud of steam, revealing a thoroughly manic face. Hair 
stood in stiff bristles, and the man's eyes rolled in bliss. 

"Commodore. Are you all right?" 

The fellow shuddered, coughed once, and said, "Let me 
have another go." 

Grimly, Bo Levar nodded his head. "I thought as 
much." He stood up, hoisted Commodore Guff over one 
shoulder, and marched toward the bomb. 

"Just one more go," the man fairly sobbed. 

"Yes," answered Bo Levar. "Just one more, and we go." 
He reached the bomb, grasped the critical wire, jammed it 
into the opposite bushing, and spontaneously planeswalked 
with his passenger. 

All around, the air went to pieces. 

114 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 13 

Weatherlight Reborn 

Weatherlight flew above Urborg. She was a thing from 
another world. Yes, her hull was still magnigoth wood from 
Yavimaya. Yes, her fittings were still Thran metal from 
Shiv. But Weatherlight's new configuration was undreamed 
of on Dominaria, not even by Urza Planeswalker. 

Only, perhaps, the silver golem Karn had foreseen this 
fresh glory. He was seeing a great many things these days, 
in Dominaria and beyond. His flesh shone mirror bright, 
counterpart to the gleaming armor of the ship. No longer 
did he crouch in grimy darkness in the engine room. 
Weatherlight did not need his mind, for she had her own 
mind. Now, Karn stood on Weatherlight's amidships deck. 

She hadn't forgotten him. In her transformation, 
Weatherlight had moved the single remaining amidships gun 
toward the centerline, so that Karn could man it. Once 
there, the weapon had undergone mitosis, splitting into 
two identical guns, side-by-side. Both were meant for the 
silver golem to man. He stood now with one hand clutched 
in either fire control. The triggers, even, had mutated to fit 
his large fingers. Sighting arrays crooked inward to allow 
him a chameleon's split-eyed view of the skies around. The 
whole embrasure towered above amidships, giving him 
clear fire in two hundred seventy degrees of arc. 

Weatherlight did not need Karn anymore, nor did he 
need her, but in a way they were more powerfully 
connected than before. Once they had been parts of a 

115 



Apocalypse 

single organism. Now, they were twins born in the same 
oracular moment. 

He was seeing a great many things, as was 
Weatherlight. The ship's lanterns had transformed into 
optic devices. They could beam light in chunks of the 
spectrum, even beyond ultraviolet and infrared. Soon, 
those lights would scan the chain of islands seeking a man 
and a goblin. If Gerrard and Squee remained in Urborg, the 
all-seeing eyes of Weatherlight would find them. 

Weatherlight rose higher into the skies. Her engines 
hummed eagerly, not straining. The heights were her 
rightful home. She rose into them with silent ease, an air 
bubble escaping deep seas. The world plunged away. A 
white cloud descended on the ship. It broke around 
Weatherlight and whirled through her intakes. She seemed 
a veiled bride. 

Karn nodded gravely. Everything felt right. Never 
before had the ship been so powerful, never so quiet. The 
guns in his hands were no longer overdesigned Phyrexian 
monstrosities, but sleek weapons that would shed air as 
easily as they hurled fire. Ahead, on the forecastle, two 
other such guns pivoted, one manned by Tahngarth and 
the other by Orim. She had put away her healing 
implements for the tools of war. What transformations! 
Even Sisay was a new creature. She stood at the helm with 
a new ferocity in her eyes—determination to see this ship 
to her destiny. 

That destiny barreled toward them with inescapable 
velocity. 

As the cloud fell away, a circle of black shapes took 
form— Phyrexian cruisers, plague engines, ram ships, 
dagger boats. They filled the horizon through the four 
compass points. Not since the opening days of the war had 
such an armada gathered. The Rathi overlay had made 

116 



J. Robert King 
landing craft redundant—until now. Weatherlight drew 
them. Her power signature radiated across the globe and 
through the world. Every Phyrexian ship that remained on 
Dominaria converged on Urborg to rip her down. 

Sisay's voice came over the speaking tubes. "Well, 
Karn, what do you think?" 

"We have a destiny," rumbled the silver golem 
cryptically. 

"Do we flee to save the ship for that destiny," Sisay 
replied, "or do we fight to find that destiny?" 

There came a long silence. "Weatherlight has not found 
Gerrard or Squee. Until she does, she wants to fight. So do 
I." 

Tahngarth's bellowing laugh came through the tubes. "I 
never thought I would hear you say that, but I am glad of 
it." 

Orim spoke up from her side of the forecastle. "1 never 
thought I'd hear myself saying this either, but I want to 
fight too." 

"Good," replied Sisay. "Then we're agreed." She gazed 
out at the new lines of her ship—the cleaving ram at her 
front, the sinuous balustrades, the lethal guns. "Any 
suggestions about tactics?" 

"Take us to them," Karn said simply. "We'll take care of 
the rest." 

Nothing more needed to be said. 

There was no violent lurch, no tremendous thrum of 
engines overeager to hurl the ship across the skies. 
Weatherlight was too powerful for that, too intelligent. 
With quiet grace, she gathered speed. The last remnants of 
cloud ripped to tumbling rags around her. She darted 
forward. 

Tahngarth in the starboard traces and Orim at port 
swung about behind their guns. Momentum guided them 

117 



Apocalypse 

naturally into position and drew their cannons to a bead on 
the ship dead ahead. Meanwhile, Karn at amidships stared 
through diverging optics, eyeing the cruisers to either side 
of the ship. At the tail, manning the weapon that had 
become unarguably Squee's, stood a young ensign, white 
knuckled and intent. He struggled to keep the crosshairs on 
the vessels aft. Weatherlight so outpaced them that they 
repeatedly vanished. 

Tahngarth spoke for all the gunners. "When do we 
open fire? What's the range of these new cannonades?" 

Sisay's response was wry. "I suggest a test. Select a target 
and see how close you get." 

"Aye," replied Tahngarth eagerly. He lined up one ram 
ship through the sites. His fingers tightened on the fire 
controls. 

The cannon spoke. It did not roar. It did not blast. It 
spoke, and the violent certainty of that utterance was 
death. A column of white-hot energy rolled from the end 
of the cannon. It cleft the sky like a flashing razor. So 
straight was the line it cut that it seemed the heavens 
would split in two. 

Watching through the magnifying sight, Tahngarth saw 
the impact. 

The beam crashed into the ram ship and blasted a hole 
into the thick metal at its front. Steel blossomed outward 
in broad petals. The energy not expended in that blast 
spattered out over the rest of the ship. It tore through the 
fuselage, segmented the superstructure, and struck a power 
core. An orange ball of fire awoke within. The ship blasted 
apart, sending out a corona of heat energy. The effect 
swept wide arms out to embrace two other ships nearby and 
ignite them as well. Spewing fire and streaming smoke, 
they edged lower and began a quickening plunge toward 
the volcanoes below. 

118 



J. Robert King 
"I guess range at thirty miles," Tahngarth said gladly. 

Orim shrugged. "Might as well shoot." She might not 
have been as sanguine about the process as the minotaur, 
though with a will, she muscled the gun into line with her 
target and let loose a quick volley. Four short blasts came 
from the gun. The gleaming energy soared straight toward 
its target—a lumbering plague engine. 

It seemed a black carbuncle in the sky. Through the 
sight, Orim could see the corrupting spores roll from the 
monstrous machine. Those were the same sort of spores 
that had slain hundreds of thousands in Benalia, and tens 
of thousands in Llanowar, and had killed the singular 
Hanna. Orim paid back the contagion in kind. 

The four blasts slammed into the plague ship. The first 
struck the nose of the vessel and rolled like a crashing wave 
up its horny brow, dissolving the thing as it went. The 
second shot sped straight into one of the plague ports, 
meant to spew virulence upon the land. Now, the port 
acted like a scoop, shunting the blast inward to rip out the 
plague banks. White explosions peeked through the 
disintegrating shell. The third and fourth rounds impacted 
simultaneously, one to either side of the ship. They hit the 
lateral engine banks and gutted them. Cleansed of plague 
and cored like an apple, the black machine plunged. Even 
the winds tore it apart as it fell. Phyrexians tumbled out 
like fleas. 

Karn was third to fire—though in truth his twin blasts 
vaulted away but a split second after the first two. In that 
split second, Weatherlight had crossed an easy mile, and the 
ring of foe ships had tightened. Port and starboard, Karn's 
cannons whooshed. Energy like bundled lightning coursed 
out toward two Phyrexian cruisers. The blasts spun as they 
shot through the air, eager to unload their deadly charges. 

119 



Apocalypse 

The first struck its target like a kegel ball, ripping 
through the cruiser's banks of mana bombards. Shorn 
conduits sprayed corruption. The ship digested itself. On 
the opposite side, the other attack vaporized a ship's lateral 
stabilizer. It listed hard to port and began spinning around 
its axis. A giant corkscrew, the ship spun and plunged. It 
augured into the ground and cut a deep, narrow hole. 

Staring at both scenes of destruction, Karn nodded. 

Four guns fired, six ships obliterated. Weatherlight's arms 
were awesome indeed. Directly before her, a wide avenue 
had been cut, with clear air beyond it. 

Weatherlight banked, swinging away from the vacant 
space and thundering toward a new line of menace. 

"What are you doing?" Tahngarth barked before he 
could stop himself. 

"I'm being captain," came the response over the tubes, 
"First Mate." 

"My apologies, Captain," Tahngarth replied. 

"I'm being captain, and I'm getting in on the fun," Sisay 
shot back. "Defensive fire. We're going to ram." 

Flack rose suddenly before them. Enemy vessels 
disappeared behind a wall of black-mana webs and plasma 
bombs. 

Weatherlight's forward cannons came to life. They 
hurled white fire across the heavens. It boiled plasma 
beams into oblivion. It churned black mana until the 
mixed charges exploded. The once-impenetrable wall of 
destruction was suddenly breached, and Weatherlight 
vaulted through. 

An even more imposing wall loomed beyond: a plague 
engine. The most massive ships in the Phyrexian fleet, 
plague engines were called by the common folk 
"harbingers." When their scabrous outlines appeared in the 

120 



J. Robert King 
distance, they foretold death—manifold and inescapable 
death. Now, the machine of death itself could not escape. 

Weatherlight sliced like a scalpel through the heavens. 
The Gaea figurehead bore toward that mass of twisted 
metal. With Hanna's all-seeing eyes and defiant chin, she 
drove on. Like the world-soul herself taking revenge for all 
the injuries inflicted on her, the Gaea figurehead plowed 
into the plague engine. 

She cleft through thick metal armament and plunged 
deeper. She hurled back flowstone as if it were an ocean 
wave. Weatherlight cut through the plague engine. Fetid 
cells showed in cross-section. In some, creatures stood at 
guard, too surprised even to flinch as the great ship tore 
past them. In others, Phyrexian crews worked great 
machines, also bisected by the tearing ship. Deeper, in the 
command core, shouted orders were drowned by the 
imperatives of failing metal and dying monsters. 
Unslowing, unrepentant, Weatherlight plunged deeper, a 
knife seeking the heart. 

She found it. The engine was a huge thing. It straddled 
the central drive conduits and proliferated in endless 
matrices of cog and piston. Weatherlight tore through them 
all. Her keel punctured the engine's casing and cut a long 
trench along its top. Raw energy welled up behind her and 
spilled out through the room, dissolving everything. 
Weatherlight was too fast to be touched, though. As the 
core went critical, hurling fire in every direction, 
Weatherlight already rammed her way along the exhaust 
lines and out the stern of the craft. 

She emerged in a shower of fragmented metal, which 
devolved quickly into a storm of energy. Metal melted. Air 
itself was spent. The harbinger bled smoke from its every 
manifold. It turned magnificently and began a shuddering 
plunge. 

121 



Apocalypse 

Sisay whooped at the helm and stood Weatherlight on 
end. The ship rose with eager speed, pulling away from the 
ring of destruction. She had destroyed seven ships now, but 
hundreds remained. They formed a sluggish iris below, 
tightening as though in response to some blinding light. 

"This is fun, but there's got to be a faster way," Sisay 
said. 

"Take us along the ring," Tahngarth replied through 
the tube. "Strafe them. They're too close to each other to 
draw an effective bead, and we'll have full use of our guns." 

"They'll break formation," Sisay replied. 

"They're too slow. We'll get most of them with cannon 
blasts. You can slice through any others." 

Sisay's smile was audible through the tubes. "I'm game." 

The ship leveled off and dived toward the Phyrexian 
line. Already, they had begun to break formation. They 
had thought to surround Weatherlight in a circle of death. 
Now, the circle had become their own death. Even though 
some ships sped inward and some rose to engage their 
mercurial foe, most remained in that long black arc that 
Weatherlight would erase from the world. She dropped like 
a hammer. Before her went fire from six of her seven 
cannons. Only her tops gunner couldn't acquire a target. 
The belly gunner laid down a white highway beneath the 
ship. Even the tail gunner stood in his traces, blasting away 
at ships to stern. But the greatest damage came from 
Tahngarth, Orim, and Karn. Their weapons blazed so hotly 
that the barrels were little distinguishable from the brilliant 
stuff they hurled. 

Tahngarth's first shot doused the center of a Phyrexian 
cruiser, eating the ship away. It fell in separate sections, 
each trailing a severed part as gruesome as a crushed limb. 
Orim's blast clutched fistlike around a ram ship's bridge 
and wrenched the thing wholly from the superstructure. 

122 



J. Robert King 
Thus geeked, the ship listed and tumbled. With his 
starboard gun, Karn incinerated a squadron of fleet dagger 
boats that had been rising to attack Weatherlight. They 
dropped in spinning hunks toward the ground. Karn's port 
gun hurled luminous fire into the tail flukes of a cruiser 
that was turning to attack. The added power propelled the 
vessel into a neighboring craft. They crunched together, 
the cruiser digging a deep well in the side of its 
counterpart. 

The next plague engine was Sisay's. She steered low, 
bringing the figurehead and keel in for a lethal slash. 
Undulled by the first assault, the keen edge of 
Weatherlight cleft the upper deck of the plague engine. 
She cut a deep, long laceration among spiny protrusions. 
She crushed Phyrexians on her way and shattered spore 
banks. As she passed, Weatherlight sterilized the virulence 
with her roaring engines. The mortal wound struck, Sisay 
pulled the ship up away from the bristling carcass. It was 
little more than that now, deeply gutted and failing in the 
skies. 

"It's like shooting fish in a barrel!" she shouted through 
the tubes. "They aren't even firing back!" 

"They can't," came the rumbled reply from Karn 
amidships. 

"What do you mean?" Sisay asked. 

Even as he unleashed a pair of blasts from the cannons 
he held, Karn said, "Look at them. Look at the Phyrexians 
on deck as we pass." 

Within the glass-enclosed bridge, Sisay leaned toward 
the optics arrays that gave her a view from numerous angles 
around the ship. As Weatherlight hurtled low over a 
Phyrexian cruiser and laved white fire on her, the beasts 
that stood on her outer decks and rails made no move to 
fight. Instead, they stared up in awe. 

123 



Apocalypse 

"What are they doing?" she wondered aloud. 

"It's one of Weatherlight's greatest defenses. Fear. 
Wonder. Awe. She is a god to anyone who sees her fly, 
who sees her fight. And what mortal is ready to fight a 
god?" 

Sisay looked again. It was true. They worshiped the 

ship. Even as she slew them, they worshiped her. 
"How do you know all this?" Sisay asked reasonably. 
"Weatherlight has told me," Karn responded. He paused 

to blast another Phyrexian ship from the skies. "Her scans 

discovered it. They have discovered one more thing too." 
"What?" Sisay asked. 
Karn's voice rumbled with hope. "She's found Squee. 

And where Squee is, perhaps we'll find Gerrard." 

124 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 14 

Rock Folk 

The coalition forces had dug in. There was no hope of 
sealing the main entrance to the Stronghold volcano. They 
had tried everything from frontal assaults to pincer 
movements to rockslides above the gate to suicide squads 
with incendiaries. Nothing worked. Though boulders 
would cascade down atop the passage, the Phyrexians 
would dig their way out and emerge fighting, as ubiquitous 
and tireless as ants. 

The coalition forces had dug in. 

Minotaurs and Metathran stood in pike arrays before 
the lines—a living bulwark allowing more permanent 
defenses to come into being behind them. Keldons and 
Kavu meanwhile cut parallel lines of trenches into the 
angry rock, hollowing out the porous stone between rills of 
basalt. Steel Leaf and Skyshroud elves established archery 
nests and defensive bunkers every fifty yards. Behind all 
this impressive work lay supply lines that stretched down 
over twenty miles of mountain and swamp to the sparkling 
sea. Only with this wall of warriors and warrens could the 
defenders of Dominaria keep the Phyrexians at bay. 

As extensive as this digging was, it was shallow—six to 
ten feet deep. On the far side of the mountain, other 
diggers had been equally industrious, except that their shaft 
was now two miles deep. 

Eladamri crouched in a lightless space beside Liin Sivi, 
Grizzlegom, and their elf, Keldon, minotaur, and 

125 



Apocalypse 

Metathran troops. The tunnel was pitch-black to Liin 
Sivi's eyes, though her comrades could see heat signatures. 
Soldiers packed tightly into that alcove, in the lee of a 
ragged shoulder of stone. Sweat ran down their faces, and 
they fairly gulped for air. It was nerve wracking to wait this 
way, like shot in the belly of a bombard. 

Just beyond the stony corner, Sister Dormet and her 
rock druids performed an ancient rite. The sibilant sound 
of their chants seemed the hiss of a shortening fuse. In 
moments, there would come a tremendous, mountain-
shaking explosion. The cave would fill with flying rock 
shards. How the dwarfs survived the blast was an utter 
mystery. No one else dared watch to see. 

"This will be the last one," Eladamri said quietly to Liin 
Sivi. "They say there's just sixty more feet of rock, and this 
blast will do it. Then you'll have light again." 

"Yeah," she replied flatly. "The light of lava. And it 
won't be just lava in that central chamber. It'll be 
Phyrexians. They'll pour down this shaft just as they do 
down the main gate." 

"It's our job to make sure they don't." Eladamri smiled 
in the darkness. "It's another assault on the Stronghold. 
Just like old times." 

Liin Sivi shook her head grimly. "Too much like old 
times—" 

"Plug your ears," warned Eladamri. "Here it comes." 

They hunkered down farther, their ears covered and 
their eyes clamped shut. Even so, they heard the chant 
reach its fevered pitch. 

The ground leaped. A sound shoved painfully against 
their breastbones, as if each warrior were being squeezed in 
a giant's fist. Light beamed through clenched eyelids. The 
shadows of the dwarfs were cast in stark outline against 
that blinding glare. Then the light vanished, blocked out 

126 



J. Robert King 
by a swarm of rock chips filling the hall. Most of the shards 
pelted straight up the corridor. Many others ricocheted 
multiply against opposite walls. A smell like lightning 
charged the air, and dust crowded past. That brutal hail 
continued for some time. At last when it let up— blinding, 
deafening, gagging, crushing, suffocating—there had come 
a definite change to the passageway beyond. Liin Sivi 
opened her clenched eyes to see—light. 

A red luminescence danced along the cave wall. It 
streamed through dust-charged air. The shadows of the 
dwarfs loomed large, making them seem the size of men 
and minotaurs. 

While Eladamri, Liin Sivi, Grizzlegom, and their troops 
breathed once more and eased themselves away from the 
jagged stone wall, the dwarfs who had enacted the spell 
stood stock still. It was as if they had expended all their 
energy in quickening stone and had turned to stone 
themselves. 

"Now's ... our time," gasped out Eladamri. The air no 
longer smelled stale, but sharp with brimstone. "The 
Phyrexians will come soon. We must defend our 
diminutive brethren." 

He stepped away from the wall and drew his sword. Liin 
Sivi came up beside him, her toten-vec considerably more 
compact than the blades around her. As warriors gained 
room, they armed themselves and strode toward battle. 

Eladamri rounded the shoulder of stone and peered 
toward the origin of the blast. A long, ragged passageway 
extended from that spot to a place that glowed in red—the 
Stronghold cavern. Already, the dwarfs who had instigated 
the blast trundled up the corridor. They strode, heedless of 
the molten rock that clung to the ceiling, walls, and floor 
all around them. They seemed equally oblivious to the 

127 



Apocalypse 

Phyrexian monsters that scrabbled into the far end of the 
passageway and bolted straight toward them. 

"Vampire hounds!" Eladamri growled. He remembered 
the beasts from his first assault on the Stronghold—ponysized 
canines with shaggy fur and teeth like poniards. "The 
dwarfs haven't a chance." 

Blinking, Liin Sivi said, "Better look again." 

The first vampire hound, its jowls painting the ground 
in drool, leaped at the lead dwarf. Instead of lifting a 
weapon or turning to flee, the stalwart fellow only stiffened 
and stood his ground. The vampire hound came down, its 
gleeful teeth spread wide. 

A clang resounded. Teeth shattered. The hound's maw 
jammed on the dwarf's head. Momentum hurled the 
creature forward, ripping off its jaw. 

The second hound did little better. With its head 
bowed, it crashed into the stolid dwarf. What little brain 
occupied the head of that dog was utterly scrambled by the 
impact. The beast went down, its clawed feet kicking 
spasmodically. 

Advancing, Eladamri said, "How do they do it? How do 
they stand up to these monsters?" 

"Rock is their element," reminded Liin Sivi. "When 
threats come, they merely turn to stone." 

Eladamri nodded, hands tightening on his sword hilt. 
"An excellent defense, but we are running an offensive 
here." 

"So are they," Liin Sivi replied. 

A third vampire hound bounded around the corner and 
hurled itself down the passageway. It leaped the bodies of 
its comrades and the stony dwarf that had laid them low. 
Instead, it focused its ire on the second dwarf, who surely 
would not bear the same wards. 

128 



J. Robert King 
Not the same wards, but even more powerful ones. The 
second dwarf happened to be Sister Nadeen Dormet. 
Instead of ducking away from the assault, she merely lifted 
red-glowing hands. There was only one substance that 
shade—hot lava. Sister Dormet grasped the vampire hound 
by the throat. Black fur sizzled away. The monster 
screamed. Sister Dormet's lava hands sunk in until her 
fingers met around the monster's spine. 

It slumped to one side, its tongue lolling from its 
mouth. 

Sister Dormet flung away the hound and strode onward 
with quiet confidence. Soon, she and her comrades reached 
the end of the corridor and descended into the broiling 
space beyond. 

"Stony statues and hands of hot lava," Eladamri said, 
marveling. "Who's protecting whom here?" 

"Let's just get to the Stronghold," advised Liin Sivi. 
Close behind her, ducking to fit through the dwarfish 
passage, Commander Grizzlegom strode with axe foremost. 
"Oh, I've been waiting for this moment. A real fight at 
last!" 

"There'll be a thousand real fights in the next few 
hours," Eladamri replied, though he strode forward with 
equal glee. He took a deep breath. The air smelled of 
explosions and power. He smiled savagely. "I'm ready for 
this too." 

Liin Sivi quirked a grin, "I'm glad to be in such ready 
company. Here we go." 

The mouth of the tunnel ahead was suddenly darkened 
by black shapes—triangular and terrifying. Piggish eyes, 
uncouth fangs, a thicket of claws, all set in motion by 
masses of green muscle. 

"Moggs!" hissed Eladamri. His folk had eked out a noble 
existence in the shadow of these hunchbacked brutes, and 

129 



Apocalypse 

Eladamri had developed a knack for killing them. "For the 
Skyshroud!" he shouted and charged the foremost beast. 

"For the Vec!" Liin Sivi added, rushing up behind him. 
"For Hurloon!" Grizzlegom bellowed as he ran. Their troops 
added their own cries as they surged like lava up that tube. 

The lead mogg—no doubt a sergeant, whose rank was 
based on weight and viciousness—launched itself with a 
roar. The thing's dubious honor required of it the first kill 
in its company, and a mogg believed a kill was best gotten 
by berserker attack. With claws thrust below and teeth 
spread above, the thing fell on Eladamri— 

Or on the place Eladamri should have been. He merely 
melted away from the onslaught, leaving the mogg to bite 
and maul the air. Sliding to one side, he slashed. The sword 
passed through ropy muscle, through entrails, through a 
cartilaginous disk and the spine within. 

The mogg came to pieces. Claws and fangs ceased their 
work in the air. The fiendish light in those squinting eyes 
went out. By the time Liin Sivi reached it, nothing 
remained of the sergeant except two lumps of flesh. 
Eladamri's sword was not greedy, though. He left the next 
beast for her toten-vec. 

The Vec weapon—a curved blade joined to a hand 
grip—was infamous for ranged attacks in a twenty foot 
radius. Only its wielders knew it was even more deadly 
while held in hand. 

Liin Sivi met the mogg's teeth with a wickeder blade. 
Steel shattered enamel. The mogg roared through stumps 
of tooth. Liin Sivi rammed the blade in the palate and 
wrapped the chain around the creature's neck. She climbed 
its thrashing arms, stood atop the hunched shoulders, and 
yanked. The beast that a moment before thought to bite 
through her head now only bit the rock floor. Liin Sivi 

130 



J. Robert King 
rode it to the ground and hunched over so that 
Commander Grizzlegom could leap over her. 

The minotaur did, too eager to wait his turn. Unlike his 
two Rathi comrades, Grizzlegom was not well versed in the 
demeanor of moggs. Also unlike them, he could defeat his 
prey at their own game. 

Grizzlegom lowered his head and charged a mogg. He 
struck the beast, goring it deeply, and then lifted his head. 
The impaled mogg smashed against the ceiling of the 
corridor. Grizzlegom strode on, letting the jagged rock grate 
the beast down to the bone. By the time he reached the 
central chamber of the volcano, the creature across his 
horns was a dead rag. 

"Chamber" was too small, too casual a word for the vast 
expanse where the Stronghold resided. A conic cavern 
easily ten miles across and ten miles high, the interior of 
the volcano was lit by a volcanic glow at the center of its 
floor. Across that rumpled floor, the dwarf druids trundled, 
heading for the open lava. They had defeated all the beasts 
that had assaulted them and now passed beneath their 
notice en route to the column of magma. 

Eladamri, Liin Sivi, Grizzlegom, and their troops had a 
different objective—the Stronghold. It hovered above 
them like the pelvic bones of a titan. The lowest level of 
the Stronghold was an arching mass of ivory that stretched 
into bristling clumps of horn. Atop it rested metallic decks 
affixed to more organic architecture. The whole of the 
structure, brutal and barbaric, occupied eighty cubic miles 
there in the heart of the mountain. The center of all that 
horrific power was the throne room of the evincar, the 
throne room of Crovax. 

The smile on Eladamri's face grew only more vicious. 
He turned to Liin Sivi, who emerged with toten-vec 

131 



Apocalypse 

coiling about one arm. "Do you remember doing this once 
before?" 

Her teeth showed as well. "This day will not end as that 
day did." 

"It will start much the same way," Eladamri remarked, 
pointing to the wide causeway that led to the gate called 
Portcullis. The flowstone bridge bristled with moggs and 
vampire hounds and il-Vec and il-Dal warriors eager to 
engage the invaders. 

Grizzlegom charged out into the cavern and, panting 
happily, joined his comrades. "What's the prospect?" 

"Excellent," Eladamri quipped, "if you like fighting." 
"Excellent," echoed Grizzlegom. 

Nothing more needed saying. There was too much 
battle ahead. Already, the sloping wall of the volcano, from 
the flow-stone bridge to the outcrop where the three 
commanders stood, swarmed with unwholesome beasts. 
Eladamri, Liin Sivi, Grizzlegom, and their troops dug into 
the monsters like starving folk into a feast. 

Eladamri's blade sang in the air. It chunked into mogg 
flesh. Metal rang on bone as it passed through the 
creature's rib cage. The monster fell. Eladamri, half a stride 
later, brought his sword up to split an il-Dal warrior from 
navel to neck. 

Near him, Liin Sivi lashed out with her omnipotent 
edge. The toten-vec sliced air and muscle with the same 
ease. It cleft a mogg head from its brawny shoulders and 
continued on to bisect the traitorous brain of an il-Vec. 
She hauled on the chain, and it yanked its latest kill into 
the path of a vampire hound, which ran into it and 
sprawled. Winning her blade free, Liin Sivi stomped on the 
canine's head while simultaneously whipping her toten-vec 
out to the other side. The chain wrapped the neck of one 
mogg even as the blade severed the neck of another. 

132 



J. Robert King 
But even the fury of a woman scorned could not match 
the battle frenzy of Commander Grizzlegom. He whose 
homeland had become an inferno during the Rathi overlay 
fought toward the heart of the overlay. Some beasts he 
merely trampled, his hooves catching them in the chest 
and bearing them down and punching through like mallets 
into rotten wood. Those creatures beyond were caught and 
strangled in hands with two opposable thumbs. Past them 
were beasts that got gored on massive horns. With bodies 
draping his ivory, Grizzlegom started again with hooves. 

The coalition forces fought just the same way, inspired 
by their leaders. Minotaurs and Metathran, elves and 
Keldons, they mowed down moggs like wheat and threshed 
il-Vec like chaff. In mere moments, hundreds of Rathi lay 
dead. The Dominarians, with but a handful of dead, had 
reached the head of the bridge. 

"Slay them!" Eladamri demonstrated on one unlucky 
mogg. "Cast them over! On to the throne room of Crovax! 
On to victory!" 

The shouts were taken up behind him, and the 
coalition forces surged across the flowstone bridge. There 
was naught but victory ahead. 

133 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 15 

Of Axemen and Heads 

In utter victory, Gerrard strode among the roaring, 
screaming hordes that packed the arena. In one bloodied 
hand, he lifted high the severed head of Urza Planeswalker. 
It blinked in death spasms, its gemstone eyes seeming 
almost to glow with preternatural light. In the other hand, 
he lifted the halberd blade that had done the slaying—a 
broad and brutal, soul-reaping weapon. 

In truth, though, the real weapon was Gerrard. Drawn 
from iron and purified to steel, forged by the hand of Urza 
and hammered out by a lifetime of loss, sharpened to a 
keen edge and given the will to kill, Gerrard was the true 
instrument of Urza's demise. 

"Urza is dead! Urza is dead! Urza is dead!" 

Even Gerrard said it. On smiling lips, he chanted it. 
"Urza is dead.... Urza is dead.... Urza is dead...." It meant 
something different to him. It meant that his past—the 
long damnation he called his life—was finally done. It 
meant he could begin again. He had risen up at last and 
slain the tyrant who had sired him, had schooled him, had 
sacrificed him. Gerrard had killed the killer, and now the 
killer was dead. 

"Urza is dead! Urza is dead! Urza is dead!" 

It was even more than that. Urza's death meant the life 
of another. 

She stood there on the imperial balcony at the far end 
of the arena. All through the fight, Gerrard had looked to 

134 



J. Robert King 
her. While Urza gazed with rapt devotion at the enormous 
dragon by her side, Gerrard could see only Hanna. She was 
nearly nothing— one tenth the dragon's height, one 
hundredth the dragon's weight, one thousandth his mind, 
his malicious mind—and yet she was everything. Gerrard 
had descended to this hell only to win her back from the 
grave. Urza's death meant he had done just that. He had 
died that Hanna might live again. 

Gerrard marched through their midst, the shrieking 
incarnations of Yawgmoth. How mad all this was. He 
should have shrunk from these horrid beasts—even if they 
were only natural creatures and not splinters of a god—but 
he did not. They flinched from him. He batted back their 
claws as they reached for a strip of flesh from the head. He 
spat into the gibbering maws that sucked at the red life 
dribbling beneath. He swept his god-killing halberd before 
him to clear the way through the crowd. What monsters 
did not retract their arms got them lopped off. What 
creatures did not withdraw their heads got them split. The 
god who was in all and none of them seemed not in the 
slightest enraged by these attacks, but almost aroused. The 
thrilled shrieks grew only louder. 

None of these things mattered, only the one on the 
balcony. 

Gerrard strode toward her. The demonic crowd became 
a field of wheat, parting between the immortal lovers. The 
grisly trophy in Gerrard's hand became a bouquet of wild 
roses, gathered so vehemently and heedlessly that blood 
streamed from their jealous thorns. The halberd in 
Gerrard's other hand became a gleaming lantern to light 
his way. Gerrard approached his lady. She stood at the edge 
of the balcony, a maiden cloistered by a jealous father, 
watching the arrival of her deliverer. 

135 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard reached the stony rail. There, shoulder to 
shoulder with an infinite throng of keening devils, he 
dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and lifted high his 
offering of love. 

The response from the Yawgmoth throng was 
deafening. Clenched in that sound, Gerrard hunkered 
down and waited. At last, the ovation died away. 

Through a hundred thousand throats, Yawgmoth spoke. 
"You have prevailed, Gerrard Capashen. In prowess and 
ferocity and sanguine will, you have proved yourself worthy 
of bowing here before us." 

A cheer broke this pretty speech, a cheer from the 
mouths of the speechmaker. All the while, Gerrard kept his 
own head bowed and Urza's lifted high. 

"We bestow upon you the office of first servant. You 
shall serve us and only us, and Crovax shall serve you. Your 
powers shall be greater than his. We grant you strength 
tenfold .. .." 

Gerrard felt the sweeping motion of the dragon's claws 
above him. Hot cerements of magic descending to enwrap 
him. His muscles hardened like steel cables. Sudden, 
awesome power came to them. 

"We grant you endurance tenfold." 

His bones transmuted into a substance that could stand 
beneath crushing force and deal deadly blows. 

"We grant you knowledge tenfold." 

Suddenly, his thoughts shot in kaleidoscopic array and 
intensity, and ran to depths he had never before imagined. 

"We grant you will tenfold." 

This last boon, most surprising of all, took Gerrard's 
already formidable determination and made it indomitable. 

Yawgmoth must think me an absolute slave, Gerrard 
thought. I am, yes, but not to him. 

136 



J. Robert King 
Gerrard rose from his knee and stood before the 
imperial balcony. Lowering the head of Urza, he raised his 
own. Though he spoke to Yawgmoth, Gerrard's eyes fixed 
upon the slender, beautiful face of Hanna. Beneath tossing 
blonde hair, she returned his loving gaze. Her eyes followed 
every contour of his face as he spoke. 

"Great Lord Yawgmoth, your boons are most generous. 
But there is only one boon I truly seek—that I demand. 
The new, free, true, unfettered life of my beloved, Hanna." 
He gazed unblinkingly at her. "She is why I fought. She is 
why I slew. Her return to life is the promised reward that 
makes me your servant." 

The silence in the arena was worse than the din. Into 
that dread hush spoke Yawgmoth in his myriad voices. 
"You speak dangerous umbrage, Servant Gerrard. We are 
worthy of your servitude—of anyone's and everyone's 
servitude. Our ascendancy is not predicated on favors for a 
slip of a girl." 

Gerrard tensed, fearing not for his own fate but for 
Hanna's. "I have misspoken. My servitude does not depend 
upon the liberation of this singular soul. My servitude 
depends upon your utter worthiness, Lord Yawgmoth—a 
worthiness that means that a promise from Yawgmoth— 
whether promised glory or promised pain—is surer than a 
certainty. Therefore, let your wonders be witness to all the 
worlds, and grant me the promised boon." 

A grudging silence answered. Perhaps Yawgmoth had 
never intended to let Hanna free. Perhaps he did, but only 
once Gerrard had shown full obeisance. What more could 
he do? He had slain Urza, had presented the planeswalker's 
severed head, had bowed deeply before the Lord of 
Phyrexia and pledged his eternal servitude. The only 
possible offense he made was that he looked not to the 
great black dragon on the balcony, but to the slender 

137 



Apocalypse 

woman beside it, but he couldn't tear his eyes from her—he 
loved her so. 

As if sensing Gerrard's focus, Yawgmoth spoke next 
through Hanna's lips. "Give us the head of Urza 
Planeswalker," she said, extending her hands to receive the 
trophy, "and we will grant you this final boon." 

Gerrard froze, the head held high in one hand and the 
halberd blade held high in the other. How did Yawgmoth 
speak through Hanna? True, she was his slave, but so was 
Gerrard, and Yawgmoth did not speak through Gerrard. He 
could not. Only these simulacra, these nothing-creatures, 
were the mouths of Yawgmoth. Was Hanna, too, nothing 
more than a fleshy puppet, animated by the presence of 
Yawgmoth within her skin? Was she but a semblance, 
created to fool him? 

Gerrard could not look away from her. Was it love for 
Hanna that drove him or love for Yawgmoth? 

Gerrard reeled. His eyes broke contact with the 
piercing blue gaze of his beloved. Was it truly love he felt, 
or love's twin— hate? Did it matter? He had been fooled. 
He had slain Urza and pledged himself to Yawgmoth all to 
free a woman who was Yawgmoth himself. 

"Give us the head of Urza Planeswalker," Hanna 
repeated quietly, "and we will grant you your truest desire." 

Gerrard once again fixed his eyes on her. He stood with 
the head of Urza Planeswalker in one hand and the soul-
stealing halberd in the other. 

"As you command, my lord," Gerrard said, hoisting the 
bloodstained head of Urza. 

Smiling sweetly, Hanna leaned over the rail and 
extended her hands to receive the gory prize. Her fingers 
twined in jealous ecstasy in the ash-blond hair of the 
planeswalker. She pulled upward to raise the head, but 
Gerrard did not release his hold. Instead, he swung the 

138 



J. Robert King 
halberd. As fast and unstoppable as lightning, the blade 
arced around to chop through Hanna's shoulder. The blade 
cut through skin and muscle and clavicle, down through 
three ribs. Hanna glared at him, anguish and dread filling 
her eyes. 

"Gerrard! No! You save me only to slay me!" Releasing 
an inarticulate roar, Gerrard yanked the blade from the 
cleft and brought it down again. Steel clove lung and ribs. 
The light went out of Hanna's eyes—oh, horrid sight, to 
watch her die a second time! Even in that awful moment, 
though, Gerrard knew he had struck the heart of 
Yawgmoth. The Lord of Phyrexia had hidden his essence 
within Hanna, certain he would be safe. He was not. 

Gerrard lifted the halberd a third time to finish the job. 
Mantled in blood, the great weapon arced down. 

It never struck. An inexorable force burst from the 
sundered figure of Hanna—a blast like a cyclone. It grasped 
Gerrard bodily and hurled him away. He was poison in this 
place, the best, most trusted servant turning to murderous 
treachery. Yawgmoth vomited him out. 

As limp as a rag doll, Gerrard hurtled across the arena. 
Only his hands remained tight, one clenched around the 
haft of his halberd and the other clutching the battered 
head of Urza Planeswalker. Beneath his kicking feet passed 
the black dais where this duel had first begun. Gerrard 
sailed on. 

Yawgmoth flung him not just across the arena but out 
of Phyrexia. Projectile vomiting. The crowded space 
warped. Beasts fused into one great sack of muscle. Stone 
walls curved into a huge organ whose sole purpose was to 
hurl Gerrard from the world. Through the portal he flew. It 
was like plunging into a well—the narrow space, the 
bracing energies, the breathless darkness ... 

139 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard shot through the portal and tumbled across the 
throne room of Evincar Crovax. His rough arrival would 
have been enough to kill him before, but thanks to the 
boon of Yawgmoth, his muscles would not bruise, his bones 
would not break. Still gripping the head and the halberd, 
Gerrard crashed against the console of Crovax's murderous 
organ. It smashed, releasing an unholy bellow. Gerrard 
careened away into a pack of skittering vampire hounds 
and at last rolled to a rapid and painful stop beside the 
huge black throne. In that reeling moment, he saw the 
portal to Phyrexia slam shut. 

Gerrard didn't give himself the luxury of feeling pain. 
He leaped to his feet and climbed onto the throne. Eyes 
still jiggling, he took quick inventory of his surroundings. 

The room remained as he had remembered it—a black 
chamber of melting stone guarded by il-Vec and il-Dal 
warriors in perimeter and vampire hounds on the floors. 
Moggs stood in mute amazement in their green clusters. 
Even Ertai remained, his face stunned beneath shocks of 
tormented hair. His four hands moved like the pincers of a 
giant crab. There was only one difference. Crovax was 
gone. 

"While the cat's away ..." quipped Gerrard to himself. 
To the guards, he said, "Behold the champion of 
Yawgmoth. I have slain Urza Planeswalker. Yawgmoth has 
sent me here." 

Ertai stepped forward, his mad eyes trembling. "We 
were watching, Gerrard. We saw what befell. We know of 
your boons and your treachery." He made a quick and 
complex sign with the fingers of one hand. 

"So much for increased intelligence," Gerrard groused. 
He proved himself wrong a moment later. Slinging the 
halberd blade at his belt, Gerrard traced the exact inverse 
of the sign Ertai had made. While the young adept peeled 

140 



J. Robert King 
open the seams of matter, releasing gouts of incinerating 
flame, Gerrard caught and stuffed the power, sealing it 
away again. He had countered the spell simply by 
unraveling it in the air. 

Ertai gaped baldly. He growled out an arcane phrase, 
and the words coalesced into a spinning cloud of black 
poison. It swept rapidly across the throne room toward 
Gerrard. A vampire hound crouched away, but too slowly. 
It dropped in a shaggy heap. There was no time to get 
away. 

Gerrard didn't try. Instead, he leaned idly back, his heel 
depressing the deepest pedal key of the agonophone. The 
Phyrexian behemoth that supplied that tone opened its 
five-foot mouth and bellowed. The rush of air around 
Gerrard blew the poison cloud back toward its creator. 

Ertai gnashed his teeth as he dragged the spell from the 
air. Blackness dissipated to reveal a smiling Gerrard. 

"Yawgmoth has made me your intellectual superior." 

Ertai made another gesture, though this was no magic 
sign. 

He turned to glare at the moggs standing idly by. The 
look went unnoticed—the goblins watched the fire and 
smoke. They smiled in delight. Ertai drew mana from the 
dead flesh all about and sent it in a look that could literally 
kill. The lead mogg crumpled to the ground. Its warriors 
noticed its demise. One of them glanced toward Ertai, 
whose killing glare remained. The mogg yelped and averted 
its gaze but not before its face was paralyzed. Blathering 
orders anyway, the new leader formed up its party into a 
charge. 

Moggs rushed the throne. 

Gerrard leaped lightly across the tight-clustered 
shoulders of the moggs. As he went, he clove heads with 
the halberd blade. Moggs collapsed in his running wake. 

141 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard jumped from the last goblin even as it went down. 
He reached the ground and charged a more formidable 
foe—an il-Dal warrior with a great axe, forged in the pits of 
Rath. Red skinned and bearded, the warrior had the will to 
match his weapon. 

Luckily for Gerrard, his own will had become 
indomitable. Gerrard swung the halberd blade. It clanged 
against the il-Dal's weapon and hurled it back. 
Yawginothian muscles thrust away weapon and man both. 

Yellowed teeth showed through the il-Dal's plaited 
beard as he caught his balance. He stepped back to draw 
Gerrard in. His axe swung in a knee-capping arc. 

A typical warrior would have struggled to deflect the 
axe, but Gerrard was never typical. He blocked the blow 
with his boot and kicked the axe down to the floor. He 
strode up the weapon onto its wielder and finished him en 
route to the next Rathi. 

Gerrard never arrived. Something black and putrid 
struck him—heavy and vile, like an elephant corpse. It was 
another corrupting spell from Ertai. The blast bowled 
Gerrard over, simultaneously knocking flat the two il-Vec 
guards who had barred his way. All three hit the floor in a 
disheveled mass. Spell energies fouled them like tar and ate 
deeply and quickly into muscle. It steamed the guards to 
nothing. 

In the midst of the rot spell, Gerrard endured, 
unaffected. Stranger still, the head of Urza seemed equally 
resistant to the blackness. Gerrard climbed to his feet, 
belted his halberd blade, and struggled to make his gooey 
fingers reverse the gestures of Ertai. 

It was futile. Another wave of energy crested over 
Gerrard and encased him. He staggered to the ground, 
borne down by corruption. It didn't matter whether the 
stuff ate him or not. As long as it covered him, he could 

142 



J. Robert King 
not fight. If he could not fight, the vampire hounds would 
finish him off. 

Ertai knew it. He smiled crookedly, all four hands 
lifting to hurl the final, rending gout. "This is for leaving 
me behind on Rath." His fingertips splayed out violently. 
Channels of rot poured from them to tear across the 
room— 

Ertai suddenly swooned. His spell discharged itself into 
the vault. A greenish hand had yanked his hair, drawing 
his head back. 

Only then did Gerrard glimpse his warty savior. 

"Squee!" he shouted. 

"I save you dis time like all time. Too bad I din't get to 
kill Yawgmoth for you." 

Flinging the corruption from him, Gerrard landed a 
meaty punch on an il-Vec's face. "Squee's here. Now you're 
all doomed!" 

143 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 16 

The World Killers 

In that place of rolling grasslands and teasing winds, the 
two planeswalkers seemed otherworldly monsters. 

The woman, overgrown in vines, might have been a 
dryad, her flesh as hard as wood and her blood as thick as 
sap. 

The man was no man at all, but some sort of cat 
creature, covered in an impenetrable nap of fur. 

Only their eyes shone through the elaborate defenses 
they wore. Even those were not vulnerable. Sharp, intent, 
focused, and deadly—the eyes of creatures who had come 
to kill a world. 

Lord Windgrace bounded on two feet through the 
dense tangle of killing wires. He moved with the lithe poise 
of a cat but also the upright posture of a man. Long legs 
leaped from patch to patch, bearing him above thickets of 
death. 

Behind him, the vine-strewn woman floated. Freyalise 
preferred not to touch the ground. Her folk—the myriad 
flora and fauna of the forest—were welcome to sink their 
roots into thick mud and run their feet through dust. 
Freyalise would meanwhile drift above them. 

In moments, the two creatures reached their target. 
Lord Windgrace leaped a thick brake of wire grass and 
landed in a trampled spot. It seemed a sedge where deer 
had slept away the day, except that these wires had been 
trodden down by Windgrace and Freyalise themselves 

144 



J. Robert King 
when they had first come to this spot in their titan engines. 
Giant footprints had flattened the fibers, and in the midst 
of them, a mana bomb was imbedded deeply. Windgrace 
dropped to the ground with animal ease, sniffed the site, 
and bounded to one side. 

"Here's the last one, Freyalise," he growled out. "Set the 
charge. I'll guard." 

Freyalise descended swiftly among the trammeled wires 
and let her viney feet touch down. She knelt above the 
device. Tendrils emerged from her fingertips to manipulate 
the levers. 

While Freyalise descended, Windgrace ascended. He 
rose on sudden wings, sprouted from his sleek black back. 
These were not usual affectations, but he knew his foes 
would be creatures of air and spirit. For them his tail 
became a striking viper and his eyes a pair of blinding 
lanterns. Claws jutted from the pads of his feet, and teeth 
bristled in his mouth. His jaw distended, ready to remove 
heads. Wings as black as a crow's held him in the sky, 
waiting for the inevitable assault. 

Yawgmoth knew what they did. Yawgmoth knew, and 
he mounted every defense. 

Eastward, blasts had ripped the heart out of the sixth 
sphere, and soot clouds stood blackly on the horizon. 
Westward, the sky teemed with red figures. In another 
world, they might have been angels—with six wings, one 
set covering their heads, another their feet, and a third 
keeping them aloft—but Phyrexia had no angels. Red-
bodied pneumagogs flocked toward Lord Windgrace. 

The panther warrior knew he could not hold them off 
for long. His raven wings dug into the air and hurled him 
out across spinning fields of wire. His viper tail rose—its 
hood spread and its fangs lifted to strike. He opened his 
jaws, ratcheting them outward. 

145 



Apocalypse 

Pneumagogs rushed up like a swarm of locusts, except 
that each was the size of a man. Windgrace's right wing cut 
through the thorax of one beast, tearing it into two halves 
that spun away from each other. His teeth sank into the 
belly of another. It was insubstantial, a rubious cloud. Even 
so, he almost choked on the thickness of the spirit-flesh 
that he bit away. Another was gone, torn to pieces by his 
claws, and a fourth stung by his toothy tail. They would not 
fight back, he knew from previous battles. They would only 
converge around the bomb to dismantle it. Windgrace 
dismantled them instead. It was hellish work. These 
creatures were an amalgam of flesh and spirit, and to 
destroy them grieved the panther warrior. Even so, he did 
what he must. Lord Windgrace ripped out thoraxes, 
shredded wings, severed heads, and watched red souls fade 
as mechanisms fell from the sky. 

Pneumagogs flooded past him to attack Freyalise. 

Windgrace turned sharply and dived after them. The 
nearest, he overtook with a powerful surge of his black 
wings. He fell upon it, sank claws into its back, and hurled 
it away. Bounding from its corpse, Windgrace launched 
himself toward the next foe. His teeth caught its belly and 
tore it in half. 

More pneumagogs swarmed him. His wings battered 
them but could find no air to beat against. Abruptly, 
Windgrace plunged. His captors followed him in a buzzing 
flock. 

In that thick bank of red bodies, a green woman 
appeared. Her hand lashed out. Ivy suckers along her 
fingers and palm emerged to take hold of Lord Windgrace. 
The inexorable tug spun him around and yanked him up 
through the crowd of pneumagogs. 

Even as they bounced and careened through the pack, 
the panther warrior asked, "Did you set the blast?" 

146 



J. Robert King 
Freyalise smiled. "What do you think—?" 

The words were cut short by a blinding flash that cast 
all the pneumagogs in sharp silhouette. Their shadows 
painted the planeswalkers. Next moment, the explosion 
swelled to such size that the lowest of the pneumagogs were 
overtaken by the killing cloud. They vanished. White tides 
boiled up around every creature in that throng. 

Every creature except Lord Windgrace and Freyalise. 
They simultaneously and spontaneously planeswalked. It 
was a blessing. The air where they had been turned to 
incinerating liquid. Energy mounded until it reached 
halfway up the sky. Deep explosions flashed within the 
white cloud. Shattered hunks of wire grass and girder 
tumbled in the cloud. 

The blast had cracked the sixth sphere of Phyrexia, 
opening it to the seventh. 

The destruction was not done. The cloud rose. With 
tumbling velocity, it shot heavenward. Here, heaven was 
only a vast vault of metal. The explosion struck the belly of 
that vault and billowed out in a long, flat-topped 
thunderhead. The vault failed suddenly, unleashing a black 
cascade. The oil sea of the fifth sphere poured through a 
giant rent in the ceiling. Inflammable liquid gushed down 
into the heart of a firestorm. The oil plunged only so far 
before wind shear burst it into trillions of droplets. Those 
droplets ignited. 

The second blast was greater than the first. It began in 
the center of the sphere, spreading downward in a slow 
column of flame and upward in a hungry instant. The gap 
widened. Shards of metal crashed down throughout the 
sixth sphere and trailed oil fires as they went. The white 
cloud retreated before a blue flame that stretched from 
ground to sky. Fire proliferated in every direction. Oil 
poured into the rift, feeding the flames. 

147 



Apocalypse 

All across the sixth sphere, it was the same. Freyalise 
and Lord Windgrace had detonated four other devices, and 
Guff and Bo Levar had set off who-knew-how-many. 
Wherever the incendiaries went up, Phyrexia came down. 
Bombs destroyed three spheres simultaneously. 

Freyalise and Windgrace did not remain to admire their 
handiwork. They had 'walked from the final conflagration 
to the next bomb, positioned on the fourth sphere. 

Here was the true hell of Phyrexia. It stretched before 
them in endless vat fields. Myriad glass receptacles held 
myriad newts—new Phyrexians wallowing in glistening oil. 
When compleated, these creatures would be armies for 
Yawgmoth. Some less fortunate ones would never be 
compleated, for in a swath a hundred feet wide, Urza had 
stomped the vats. His titan engine had tramped the 
vineyard, slaying hundreds of thousands of newts. 

Freyalise and Windgrace planned to kill hundreds of 
millions. 

The panther lord, retaining his strange black wings, 
flew in tandem with the lady of the wood. Side by side, 
wing and vine, they soared above endless tanks and 
rankling causeways. They made patient progress over the 
nascent armies. 

Ahead lay the power nexus. It seemed a gigantic, 
floating beehive, its convoluted edges suffused with holes. 
Into them and out of them streamed bright points of light, 
the buzzing potencies that energized the vats. Motes 
whirled up from a deep, wide pit beneath the hovering 
nexus, a cyclone of light that held the central orb aloft. On 
the inner edge of the huge well, Urza had planted a soul 
bomb, one charged with the spirit of Szat. 

It had taken one planeswalker to set the bomb, another 
to charge it, and two more to detonate it. 

148 



J. Robert King 
Placidly, the winged panther and the woodland queen 
drifted above the vats. So reverent they were, so watchful, 
they could not help seeing the sudden violent agitation in 
the vats underfoot. In wide rings, the disturbance spread 
out across the entire field. It was as if a massive fist had 
pounded the underside of the sphere—which was indeed 
what had happened. The charge that Windgrace and 
Freyalise had detonated two spheres below had reached its 
fiery hand up to smash into the foundations of this world. 

The vat priests sensed it too. They paused on their 
causeways to stare at the cells below their feet. 

The newts knew it even better. Anything that could 
shake the pillars of the world could destroy their glass-andoil 
vials, and their very lives. 

They were right to fear. Their death day had come. 

A vat priest pointed to the two intruders. Its desiccated 
fingers clutched an amulet of teeth, and it spoke a violent 
word. Up from the red-robed creature rose a spell that 
turned the air to ropy lines of black. Mana squirted like 
cobwebs toward the two planeswalkers. 

Freyalise reached out almost casually and released a 
green cloud of spores. Macrophages flooded into the black 
webs and soaked them up, eating death. 

Farther on, gigantic insect arms reached skyward. From 
bays set among the vats, chitinous limbs rose. 

Lord Windgrace was ready. Ages of war across the face 
of Urborg had taught him the best counterspells to black 
magic— not the white or green sorceries against which 
these creatures were entrenched, but rather the blue or red 
spells that lay nearer the heart of blackness. From the 
panther warrior's eyes emerged twin cones of azure that 
swept the field ahead. Segmented legs that once had 
groped skyward lashed out laterally. Instead of tearing the 
two planeswalkers from the skies, the limbs tore each other 

149 



Apocalypse 

out by the joints. The radiance from his eyes was joined by 
a crimson glow from his claws. Red beams, as curved and 
cutting as those claws, sliced through more of the reaching 
legs. Where the fiery rays reached, carapace and white 
meat severed and fell away. 

Newts thrashed in their vats. They sensed their doom. 
In fury or pity, Lord Windgrace ran giant paws of flame 
across those vats. Fires ignited glistening oil. They burst 
with explosive force, flash frying the creatures within. 
Columns of blue flame erupted from the open vats. Each 
burned brilliantly while its oil lasted, while its occupant 
expired. 

"Don't waste your spells," advised Freyalise. They 
neared the buzzing nexus, and her eyes brightly reflected 
that place. She nodded toward the bombsite. Teams of vat 
priests had gathered to disarm the device. "We've bigger 
fish to fry." 

Something faraway and fragile entered the panther 
warrior's eyes. "I have spent centuries trying to restore 
Urborg. All that warfare to save an island. Today, I fight 
one more war, but this to damn a world." 

Freyalise shook her head vigorously. "This is no 
ecosystem. This is a tyranny. Killers are bred here. In 
nature, even base acts are innocent. In Yawgmoth, even 
noble acts are guilty—" 

"A whole world," interrupted Windgrace. "We are 
world killers. We are gutting a whole world." 

"We are gutting one mind, one horrid mind that has 
spawned all these others. It is an evil tree, Windgrace. We 
pull it out at the root." 

"You would as easily destroy all Urborg, wouldn't you?" 
he asked. 

150 



J. Robert King 
"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "I would drain 
every swamp, level every volcano, and fill the isle with a 
forest." 

In his feline face, the planeswalker's eyes glowed 
sharply. "Then what is the difference between you and 
Yawgmoth?" 

"The difference," Freyalise replied as she swept down 
upon the crowd of vat priests, "is that Yawgmoth will lose, 
and I will win." 

There was no more time for debate. They had reached 
the wide well at the center of the vat fields. Sparkling 
motes of energy whirled up from below and, in curving 
glory, rose to penetrate the great hive above. It was a 
brilliant spectacle, hypnotic and otherworldly. 

Freyalise cared nothing for it. Instead, she focused on 
the scab of red vestments below. Vat priests crowded 
around the incendiary like scar tissue over a deep infection. 
A wave of Freyalise's viney hand covered those rotten 
figures with fungi. White roots dug into and through 
Phyrexian skin. Tendrils sucked dry muscle and dead bone. 
Mushrooms dismantled their prey. 

Yes, she would win. Oh, yes. 

Freyalise descended, with winged Windgrace beside her. 
Both reached ground on the sloping edge. Freyalise floated 
toward the bomb and set to with iron-hard fingers. Lord 
Windgrace meanwhile hovered above. His black pinions 
raked and slashed whatever creatures came near. 

"It's set," said Freyalise, suddenly beside him again. 

She clasped his paw in her hand and hauled him 
upward. The feuding planeswalkers slid through a tear in 
the world's fabric. The slit closed behind them, and not a 
moment too soon. 

The bomb ignited. Its radiance eclipsed the energy 
motes. Globes of force reached in all directions. Below, the 

151 



Apocalypse 

blast divoted the pit to five hundred feet. It shattered every 
vat and spilled half-formed inhabitants on the ground to 
flop and die like fish. The shock wave swept out around 
half of Phyrexia. Beneath it, the future armies of Yawgmoth 
lay crushed and shattered. 

Somewhere on the third sphere, Freyalise and 
Windgrace materialized. Beneath their feet, gigantic pipes 
shuddered with the power of the blast. 

Freyalise wore a bitter smile. "I got him. I got 
Yawgmoth. He thought he had won, but it was me. Oh, 
yes, I won." 

152 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 17 

In the Monsters' Lair 

In the middle of a pitched aerial battle—these days, 
everything happened in the middle of a pitched aerial 
battle— Weatherlight at last found Gerrard. 

After sensing Squee's presence below, she had flown a 
dozen strafing runs over the central volcano of Urborg, had 
hurled radiance out across the spectrum, had gathered in 
the energy and teased it into its separate fibers and 
discerned every runnel below, every room in the 
Stronghold, every creature in every room .... There, in the 
monsters' lair, she had discovered Gerrard. 

Weatherlight exulted. She climbed heavenward. Her 
planished bow ripped through a cloud and through the 
Phyrexian war machine hidden in the cloud. She shredded 
metal as easily as air. What her prow did not crash through, 
her seven guns blasted. They discharged with a sudden and 
simultaneous barrage that dismantled the cruiser. It came 
to pieces before the triumphant skyship. Weatherlight hurled 
away shattered plates and ruined creatures. 

Sisay, at the helm, was first to understand. Before the 
rest of the crew had felt their stomachs drop into their 
shoes, she had felt Weatherlight take her own wheel and 
choose her own course. Never before had the ship 
overridden her captain's will, and never would she unless 
... 

"She's found Gerrard!" Sisay shouted through the 
speaking tube. 

153 



Apocalypse 

Unfortunately, the revelation was lost in the shriek of 
metal on metal in that emphatic climb. The crew could 
only cringe and hold on, watching in amazement as 
Phyrexian armaments cascaded around like autumn leaves. 

Karn did not hear, but he understood. He and the ship 
were soul-mates, come of age together, and he felt her joy 
tremble through the cannon fire controls. The very deck 
beneath his feet ached eagerly as Weatherlight topped her 
arc. The keel pivoted like a peaking arrow. The ship dived. 
Karn's feet wanted to slip free of her deck, but his gunnery 
traces held him in place. 

Hands gladly triggering the cannons, Karn shouted, 
"She's going to Gerrard!" Twin blasts of white energy 
ripped from the guns and fanned out across the sky. They 
drilled through Phyrexian ships and opened a wide descent 
toward the caldera. 

Even above the noise of the guns, Karn's bellow rang 
clear. Orim, manning the weapon that once had been 
Gerrard's own, stood in the traces and unleashed a fierce 
column of fire. It shot through enemy ships and drew a 
straight line down to the pit where the Stronghold lay. 

She raised her free hand and whooped, "Round up the 
herd— we're headed home!" 

The bovine reference brought a baleful glare from her 
gunnery mate—Tahngarth. 

Orim explained, "Gerrard's down there!" 

The minotaur's lips drew back in an expression that was 
too violent to be a smile. He hurled white flame across the 
sky to mantle a plague engine. The lumbering craft 
answered with ropy lines of black mana, but too late. 
Tahngarth's shots peppered the armor of the ship before 
they struck a lateral intake and plunged to the engine 
within. The ship bounced once. Its every curved plate 

154 



J. Robert King 
expanded. Its every seam shone light. Then the machine 
came apart in a roaring fireball. 

As the ship plunged toward the caldera, heedless of the 
massed Phyrexian fleet around her, every last crewmember 
knew that the ship had found Gerrard, Skyfarers and 
ensigns, deck officers and cabin boys—all clenched teeth 
behind clenched lips beneath clenched eyes above 
clenched hands. They held tight, plunging from the blue 
heavens to the black hells. 

"Stay sharp!" Sisay shouted. "We've got a few dissenters 
out there." 

Black mana webs stretched out across the sky, barring 
the way to the central volcano. They formed layers of 
death, turning clear air to coal. 

"On it!" Orim replied, bringing her cannon to bear. 

Energy poured from her gun, blanching the air. It 
burned through the first layer of filth, and the second, and 
the third. Bolts could do only so much, though. 
Weatherlight outpaced them. 

Tahngarth's volley poured reluctantly from the weapon, 
little able to escape the ship's velocity. 

Weatherlight cut right toward the web of corruption. 

Orim growled out, "Here's where Gerrard would shout 
'Evasive!'" 

Sisay answered, "Here's where Hanna would thread the 
needle." 

Though she didn't move a muscle, the helm surged 
forward and spun. Weatherlight corkscrewed violently. She 
tucked her masts and plunged through the interstices of the 
black-mana net. While killing corruption whooshed past 
her, Weatherlight soared through untouched. The Gaea 
figurehead seemed almost to smile, staring with Hanna's 
eyes. 

Sisay shouted, "Did you get that, Orim?" 

155 



Apocalypse 

"Aye," she replied. "Just like old times." 

Tahngarth cocked a querulous brow at her. "Get what?" 

"It's a sisters thing," Orim replied over her shoulder as 
she melted a Phyrexian ram ship out of Weatherlight's 
path. 

Tahngarth raised a fist—two fingers and two thumbs— 
and said, "Hail the sisterhood." With his other hand, he 
sent a lightning charge up into the belly of a Phyrexian 
cruiser. The volley eviscerated the ship. 

It was the last shot any of them would send skyward. In 
seconds, Weatherlight had pulled out of reach of her aerial 
foes and plunged into reach of the volcano. An igneous 
crater spread wide below, and at its center plunged a black 
shaft. That was where Weatherlight headed. 

"We already destroyed the guns at the edge of the 
caldera," Sisay shouted as Weatherlight dived, "but who 
knows what they've got below?" 

Everyone on deck stared at that deep black, blackguard 
looking place. When last they had gazed on it, Tahngarth 
had slain Greven il-Vec and sent his ship, Predator, 
spiraling down the abyss. The minotaur had dubbed it a 
calling card for Crovax. Now, Weatherlight would pay her 
long-overdue visit. 

"In we go!" Tahngarth called. 

Karn's voice resounded through tubes and over the 
polished deck. "There are guns in the shaft! Watch for the 
guns!" "How do you know?" Tahngarth replied. In answer, 
the great silver golem only stomped on the deck and fired 
his cannons. The portside gun reached out its white hand, 
gripped a massive Phyrexian bombard along the inner lip of 
the shaft, and tore it free. The bombard fell, spewing shot 
across the space it was designed to protect. Karn's starboard 
cannon sent a sizzling blast into a gun bunker. Energy 

156 



J. Robert King 
poured whitely across the figures that manned the guns. 
They burned to bones and ash. 

Karn knew because Weatherlight knew. The pit down 
which they plummeted was lined with a tight spiral of 
weapons, imbedded in the conic walls. Next moment, there 
was no doubting their presence. Every last one of the 
weapons blazed. The ship flew toward a sudden panoply of 
color, all of it burning, tearing, shredding, obliterating— 

The seven guns of Weatherlight woke to sudden life, but 
what were seven guns against an unholy arsenal? Even 
though the cannons destroyed twice their number of 
enemy ordnance and negated thrice the enemy fire, still a 
hundred weapons loosed killing force on her. 

Weatherlight was her own best defense. With mirror-
bright hull and polished wings, she deflected rays and 
shrugged away plasma charges. Black mana bombs could 
only slough from her gleaming skin, unworthy to cling to 
her. And where there was no silvered hull, Weatherlight had 
breathed a protective aura about herself—the shift 
envelope. Always the gossamer pouch had risen 
involuntarily in the Blind Eternities, guarding the crew 
from raw chaos. Now that Weatherlight was a live and 
thinking thing, she could invoke the shift envelope 
whenever she willed it, and she willed it now. Black mana 
and red fire spilled across the membrane like paint spilled 
on glass—lurid and messy, but hardly deadly. As 
Weatherlight forged onward, the wicked goo slid harmlessly 
away. 

The membrane gave as good as it got. While 
Weatherlight's envelope shrugged off the horrors of mana 
bombards and plasma bolts, it emitted white-hot rays that 
stitched their deadly way along the wall. 

Twenty Phyrexian guns ruined, then thirty. They 
melted like candles in the sunlight. Where Weatherlight 

157 



Apocalypse 

reached out her arms, the best weaponry of Phyrexia fell to 
puddles. Already, the cannonades above rained metal and 
superfluids down on their counterparts below. 

"This is the worst of it!" Sisay called encouragingly. 
"These are the gate guards. Once we're beyond them, the 
Stronghold will be wide open." 

Weatherlight knew this hope to be false, and the ship's 
soul-twin, Karn, knew it too. "Where the guns stop, worse 
defenses will begin," he called out. 

No sooner had he and his cannons spoken than the 
truth they told became apparent. Something new caught 
hold of Weatherlight—repulser fields. They began where the 
light failed, giving way to a deep, cold, sulfuric murk. Just 
there, an invisible hand lay hold of Weatherlight. The Gaea 
figurehead was shoved rudely upward. Her keel glanced off 
the unseen barrier and flattened to a level pitch. No longer 
did she stab down toward the unseeable heart of the 
mountain, but cut an oblique circle around the interior. 

Worse, the guns that remained above poured down 
their fury on the stalled craft. Black mana splattered the 
ship's envelope, casting its shadow over the crew. Ooze ran 
reluctantly toward the gunwales and dripped below. Red 
beams meanwhile struck glancing blows, refracted by the 
envelope. Every third shot won through, burning a hole 
where it hit. 

A fangy beam impacted the membrane, bent toward the 
forecastle deck, and smashed home. It vaporized an 
irregular section of planks and tore through the braces 
beneath. 

Sisay felt Weatherlight's helm reel in agony. No longer 
was this merely a warship in tight straits. Now Weatherlight 
was a warrior caught at the bottom of a pit, her tormentors 
hurling rocks down on her. 

158 



J. Robert King 
Gripping the helm tightly and struggling to drive the 
ship deeper, Sisay soothed, "We'll get you out of this." 
Then, loudly into the tubes, she yelled, "Tahngarth! Orim! 
How about some counterfire!" 

"We're on it!" came the barked reply from Orim. 

She punctuated the wotds with a full-bore blast from 
her cannon. The white shot blazed upward. It ate a 
descending column of ray fire, following the energy like a 
spark up a fuse. Even as the Phyrexian cannon disgorged its 
last crimson beam, Orim's white blast dissolved the barrel 
and the chamber and the charges of the machine. 

Tahngarth's response was no less deadly. He targeted a 
mana bombard, ripped the belly out of it, and laved its crew 
in black corruption. 

"What about you, Karn?" called Sisay. 

The silver man wasn't firing. He'd dragged himself out 
of the gunnery traces and was heading toward the hatch. 
Though he was nowhere near a speaking tube, his voice 
came loud and clear to Sisay. "The others will stop the 
assaults from above. I'll get this ship down below." 

Sisay's incredulity spoke equally loud through the 
windscreen of the bridge. "What?" 

"Weatherlight needs me." 

Sisay could only nod to that. 

* * * * * 

Karn hurled back the amidships hatch. He descended 
into the companionway. He had strode this path countless 
times before, though now it looked utterly changed. 
Thicker, wider stair treads gleamed with new polish, devoid 
of all the dents made by the silver man over the years. 
Streamlined lanterns clung to stronger walls, less likely to 
be cracked by an ambling golem. Everything was 

159 



Apocalypse 

different—but Weatherlight called him. Karn had last 
climbed these stairs with the distinct impression that the 
ship would never need him again. Now, each step revoked 
that impression. She needed him, but how could he help? 

In a blur of uneasy speculation, Karn reached the 
engine room and entered. The space was dark—more so 
than before. The silver golem shuffled inward past new 
twists of pipe and revamped power exchanges. The engine 
labored but not with the boisterous shout of the old days. 
The straining groan of the dynamos had more dignity now, 
more grim solemnity. Even Weatherlight's voice had 
changed. 

Unsure what to do, Karn followed the old trail he used 
to walk. He reached the place where once he would kneel 
to interface with the engine and control the ship. Even the 
twin divots that his knees had pressed into the wood were 
gone. 

A shudder of misery trembled through the massive bulk 
of the machine. It rang in metal plates and made the 
Thran-Tome powerstone gleam weirdly. Another blast had 
struck home. 

Karn gazed up toward the dark ceiling and imagined 
more crimson death showering down. "What good can I do 
down here?" Again, the ship shook. Karn reached out to 
steady himself on the engine. 

Through his fingers came a small but unmistakable 
sensation—a desperate and lonely cry. 

Karn dropped his gaze and saw with utter astonishment 
that the twin ports remained on the side of the transformed 
engine. Despite all her other alterations, Weatherlight had 
kept these two ports. She had left the door open to speak 
again to Karn. 

He knelt. The action was entirely natural. His knees 
made new crimp marks on the floor. He extended his hands 

160 



J. Robert King 
into the ports. With trembling fingers, he took hold of the 
bars in front of him and turned his hands to engage. A 
familiar tingle came to his knuckles as thought conduits 
insinuated themselves. The narrow filaments contacted his 
own neural networks, and suddenly the voice that had 
been quiet became loud. Karn! What took you so long? 

The silver golem blinked. I didn't think ... I thought I 
couldn't help, ... You have your own mind now— 

All the more reason not to abandon me. What do you think 
of this? 

Everything else ceased to exist in that moment. There 
was only Weatherlight and he—and the hundred thousand 
secrets the two of them shared. Have you tried planeshifting 
to the Stronghold? 

That was the first thing. It's warded against intrusion, like 
Phyrexia. Besides, the repulser field produces a spaciotemporal 
distortion much like the ones caused by a planeshift—much 
like the ones over Benalia on that first day. 

You remember that? Karn asked wonderingly. 

I remember more than you realize. 

He nodded absently. His mind moved across the 
Skyshaper, the Bones of Ramos, the Thran Crystal, the 
Juju Bubble. If these fields are really just planeshift phenomena, 
they themselves can be shaped like any other shift. Instead of 
manipulating your own shift envelope, you'll simply recalibrate 
your target vectors to the repulser fields. 

Somehow, through the mass of metal before him, Karn 
sensed a smile forming on the Gaea figurehead. The voice 
of the ship came, delighted, What took you so long, Karn? 

* * * * * 

For every Phyrexian gun they blasted away, two more 
hurled killing flack down from above. The deck was 

161 



Apocalypse 

spotted with holes, and one of Karn's abandoned cannons 
steamed from a direct hit. The shift envelope that once had 
guarded them all sank and failed beneath the torrid assault. 

"We can't take much more of this," Tahngarth howled 
above the blistering shrieks of his weapon. "Either we go 
down, or we go up." 

"Karn's working on it!" Sisay shouted back. "He and the 
ship, both." 

Orim cried out, "Too late!" Her cannon jutted skyward 
like an accusing finger. Out of the mountain's throat 
descended an all-out assault. Black webs and red beams 
dropped on the ship. 

Weatherlight delved suddenly downward. She had 
divined the magic of the repulser fields and now sliced 
through them with eager speed. Those on deck could only 
stand and gawk like seamen on a sinking ship as 
Weatherlight plunged beneath waves of distortion. The 
cannons and bombards could no longer reach her. Their 
flack splashed across the surface of the repulser fields, red 
blood and black oil on a tossing sea. 

Weatherlight meanwhile sailed smoothly down into 
darkness. All around her, the repulser fields robbed the air 
of heat and light. Suffocating cold and terrifying murk— 
most ships that coursed such depths never rose again. 
Perhaps Weatherlight wouldn't either—a wreck in sunless 
depths. The descent would have been horrible except that 
Gerrard waited below. 

"There it is!" cried Orim, standing and pointing over 
the portside rail. 

From absolute blackness below, a shape took form. It 
seemed a pile of bones, bleached and threatening, joined by 
jerkied sinews long since dead. As the ship dropped nearer 
to the apparition, an organic logic suggested itself—horns 
jutting along vulnerable walkways, hunks of carapace 

162 



J. Robert King 
sheltering the more spacious and sumptuous apartments, 
iron balconies beneath folds of bone. The whole massive 
thing seemed the skeleton of the Leviathan. 

The Stronghold. 

These were uncharted depths, yes, but Weatherlight had 
approached that awful place once before. Sisay, Tahngarth, 
and Karn had been captives aboard that fortress. Gerrard, 
Crovax, Ertai, Squee, and their comrades had come to save 
them. Now, every role was reversed. The saviors had 
become the captives and the captives the saviors. 

Sisay stepped back from the helm, feeling Weatherlight 
plot her own course down to that deep and horrid place. 

Into the speaking tube, the captain said, "Tahngarth, 
Karn— whatever you're doing, enlist someone else to do it. 
You're my boarding party. We'll find Gerrard and Squee." 

"What about me, Captain?" asked Orim. 

Sisay gave a fierce smile. "Why, when the captain, the 
first mate, and the engineer are on the Stronghold 
chopping up moggs, you'll be in charge, won't you?" 

Even through the speaking tubes, Orim's whispered 
prayer was audible. "Cho-Manno, help me." 

163 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 18 

Battles Without and Within 

Nothing so thrilled Crovax as battle. Even here, in an 
invading forest and beneath the blazing sun, Crovax was 
happy as long as he got to kill. By jingo did he get to kill. 
His axe cleft an elf from neck to navel and emerged before 
the thing had time to scream. Its two halves peeled away 
like the skin of a banana. Crovax rammed his blade into 
the voice box of another elf. It failed to shriek its death, 
though air bubbled red around Crovax's blade. His foot 
shoved the thing off. His hand broke the neck of another. 
His axe bisected two more with a single stroke. 

Battle thrilled. 

Crovax's zombie army literally ate through the elf 
infantry. Finger bones made remarkable forks in elf bodies. 
Zombie teeth bit elf heads like crunchy apples. Hungrily, 
the undead fought and with a fury that was Crovax's own. 

Atrocious! A forest where swamps should be! He would 
burn every tree and slay every green critter. Already, 
Crovax had ignited fires all along the perimeter of the 
forest. Black columns of smoke spiraled into the sky. 
Crovax and his undead troops meanwhile slaughtered 
saprolings and Kavu, woodmen and druids and elves in 
their hundreds. He would fight until every last one had 
fallen. 

There was a singing greatness in his axe as it slew, a 
keen joy. Crovax worked as a sculptor, carving air and skin 
and blood and bone. He fashioned a self-portrait in severed 

164 



J. Robert King 
flesh. There were his fiery eyes, those two woodmen whose 
heads flamed with his spell. There was his rumpled nose, 
the kneeling druid in brown robes and severed neck. There 
were his jagged teeth, that Kavu corpse with the flayed and 
sharp-shorn ribs. In the thousands dead, Crovax saw only a 
wide feasting table. In the manifold shrieks and moans, 
Crovax heard only the glad cacophony of his own heart. 

Until an odd sound came—a shout of fear not from 
outside the evincar but from within. He half-turned, 
listening to the dread in that voice. The words came from a 
weak creature—one mentally powerful but otherwise weak. 

"Ertai," Crovax muttered. 

The moment's reverie nearly cost him his neck. A 
woodman—one of his own Phyrexian shock troopers 
transformed into flora—swung a cudgel his way. Crovax 
stepped out from under it, braced the thing's leg with one 
foot, and idly broke its knee with the other. 

"What could Ertai need?" Crovax mused as he cleft a 
saproling that landed in his path. "He's in my throne room, 
for the love of—" A sudden, terrible realization came to 
Crovax. "My throne room!" 

He loved nothing more than battle and loved nothing 
less than being torn from battle. That's what was 
happening to him. Yes, he summoned the magical sac. It 
enfolded him and teased his solid body into spirit. The 
beaming thing lifted him off the bloody volcano and 
whirled him into the sky. Down the caldera he went and to 
the Stronghold. 

The throne room was in danger. Ertai—impotent to 
handle the problem—had summoned his master. 

Once I get my claws on you, little Ertai, Crovax thought 
as his spirit fled down the corridors of the Stronghold and 
sought the throne room below, you'll think twice before you 
drag me out of battle again. 

165 



Apocalypse 

When Crovax took form in his throne room, though, 
he was the one who thought twice. 

Moggs hung from the stalactites in drippy bundles, 
seeming victims of Crovax's own hand. Who but he had 
the power to hurl them there? Vampire hounds carpeted 
the floor with boneless pelts. Who could have crushed 
them so? Black walls oozed blacker goo that Ertai had 
sprayed everywhere. Who had he been trying to slay with 
all that ink? 

Just now, the four-armed sorcerer hovered near the door 
and cast glances down the hall. He seemed almost 
impatient for Crovax's arrival. 

Even before the evincar was fully formed, Ertai spoke to 
him, "Master, I will destroy the immortal goblin," he 
hitched a pair of thumbs down the corridor, "unless you 
wish help with the other one." He gestured toward the 
center of the room. 

There, greatest atrocity of all, sat the severed head of 
Urza Planeswalker on the evincar's throne. Even in death, 
Urza stared out with his damned, all-seeing eyes. Blood 
pooled on the seat and ran down its front face. Urza's 
blood, though there was more. Two il-Vec warriors hung 
from the horns on the throne's back. 

"He did all this?" Crovax asked, finally solid enough to 
speak. The evincar jabbed his axe toward the throne. "A 
head did this?" 

Ertai shuddered with the desire to stalk his own quarry. 
"Not the head. Him!" He pointed emphatically beyond the 
throne and then retreated down the hall. 

Crovax let the whelp slink away. He was too busy 
staring into the obsidian shadows of his throne and making 
out the nightmare figure that loomed beyond. 

Gerrard Capashen! He looked as he always had—lean 
in his leather waistcoat and pants—but a new, vicious light 

166 



J. Robert King 
shone in his eyes. Gerrard bore not a sword, as had been his 
habit, but the head of a halberd. It was large and razor 
sharp, and it scintillated the deadly magic of Yawgmoth. 

Gerrard advanced. 

"You are Phyrexian now," Crovax said, realizing. 

Gerrard smiled ferociously. "Yawgmoth has seen fit to 
enhance me, yes." He spun the weighty blade easily in his 
hand. 

Crovax raised his own weapon in an attack posture. He 
sent impulses to the floor under Gerrard's feet, turning it as 
soft as mud, and then as hard as iron, trapping him. "What 
have you done to my throne room?" 

"I've rearranged," Gerrard replied cockily. He tried to 
advance another step, but his feet were stuck tight in the 
flow-stone. He seemed unfazed. "After all, this is no longer 
your throne room. It is mine." He punctuated this assertion 
with a wave of his hand, making the floor liquid again. He 
stepped from the trap and strode toward Crovax. 

Despite himself, the evincar retreated. Not since 
Volrath could another man manipulate the flowstone of 
the Stronghold. "How did you do that?" 

"It is mine," Gerrard replied coolly. He reached out, as 
if intending to seize Crovax's breastplate. Before his fingers 
came anywhere near the evincar, though, another hand 
pressed itself out of the walls of the chamber. It was a huge 
hand, and powerful, and it reached for Crovax. 

He whirled away and sent his own will into the stone. 
The reaching hand shrank and smoothed itself into the 
wall. 

"Your powers are not compleat," taunted the evincar. 

"Even so, Yawgmoth has said I will rule over you, that I 
will command the rest of the invasion." 

Crovax sneered. "You will never rule over me until I lie 
dead." 

167 



Apocalypse 

Nodding deeply, Gerrard said, "That's precisely what I 
had in mind." 

In a silent accord, the two men charged. Gerrard's 
halberd head cut a white loop through the air, seeming 
unstoppable. Crovax's axe whirled out to deflect the blade. 
Metal clanged against metal. A cold shiver moved through 
Crovax's hand, his axe jangling. He thrust again, trying to 
skewer the Benalian's heart. 

Gerrard was too quick. He turned to one side, allowing 
the evincar's blade to jab past him. Then he lashed out 
with his hand, grasped the blade, and hauled on it. 

Crovax tried to twist his axe, to sever the man's fingers, 
but Gerrard's hand was a vise. If the evincar held on, he 
would be pulled down beneath the halberd. If he let go, he 
would be disarmed .. .. No, not disarmed. While Crovax 
was in his throne room, while the throne room was yet his, 
he was never disarmed. 

Crovax did not merely release his blade. He shoved it at 
his attacker. 

Gerrard staggered back. He gaped at the axe in one 
hand and the halberd blade in the other. 

Crovax also stepped back. A simple flourish of his claws 
sent tendrils of power to the boneless meat bags that had 
been his vampire hounds. They suddenly lurched. Their 
bones were still shattered, their organs were still wet pulp, 
but they moved. Pain meant nothing anymore. Contusions 
crackled as the shaggy beasts lurched toward Gerrard. 
Broken fangs grinned at him. 

The young savior of Dominaria spun, hacking into the 
monsters. His halberd bit deep, cleaving fur and all 
beneath. The blows would have stopped any living thing, 
but not these dead hounds. They bit his legs. They clawed 
his sides. They climbed him with a back-broken, humping 
motion. 

168 



J. Robert King 
Crovax smiled proudly. "You say that Yawgmoth has 
given you dominion over me? It hardly seems so. What 
undead creatures fight for you, Gerrard? You control 
flowstone, yes, but what of dead flesh? Who but a 
necromancer could truly rule the Stronghold?" 

Gerrard fought like a badger. He sliced and chopped 
with axe and halberd. 

The vampire hounds came to pieces. Hunks of flesh no 
larger than stew meat pattered to the ground. Still, dark 
magic animated them. Like bloody mice, these chunks 
wriggled over to climb the battling man. Bone shards bit 
into him. Muscle fragments bled their poisons into his 
wounds. 

Gerrard roared. He turned the flowstone floor to 
churning liquid. Every hunk of hound flesh sank into the 
floor, sucked away. 

Seeing his pets so euthanized, Crovax swept his hands 
out to either side. His fingers sent necromantic tracers into 
the dead-where-they-stood il-Vec guards. Corpses twitched 
and shuddered. Eyes that had gone gray became glinting 
black. Gelid fingers grasped swords and axes. Il-Vec 
zombies shambled eagerly toward Gerrard. 

"Kill them again, Gerrard," Crovax crowed. "You did it 
once. It is not enough to be a ruler of the living. To hold 
the Stronghold, you must also rule the dead." 

The young savior did not stand and wait. He charged 
the nearest il-Vec zombie. It acquitted itself poorly. Its 
dead nerves were no match for Gerrard's enhanced reflexes. 
He feinted to one side and drove Crovax's axe through the 
thing's head. The zombie fell back against the wall, its legs 
folding up. 

Its comrades closed in. 

Gerrard climbed the zombie's body. He launched 
himself up the wall and just out of reach of the next sword 

169 



Apocalypse 

that pursued him. It struck the flowstone, sank in, and 
stuck. Gerrard caught a foothold on it and turned a back 
flip. His boots came down on the head of his second 
attacker and crushed it like a melon. 

Even while he was suspended there in midair, Gerrard 
whirled his halberd around to decapitate a third guard. Its 
head bounded free and arced up into the air. Gerrard 
landed astride the messy body, got his footing, and swung 
his blade broadside. Steel and skull connected. The 
zombie's head sailed across the room to smash one of its 
compatriots to the ground. 

In a matter of moments, Gerrard had killed four of the 
undead—had granted them the second death. In the next 
few moments, he dismantled the others. They fell with no 
back flips or glory, only the inarguable reason of a keen and 
weighty blade. When the killing was done, Gerrard glanced 
about the throne room. He had bloodied it once with red 
humors. Now, black fluids oozed from his victims. 

In a nearby archway, Crovax stood, grinning 
ferociously. His claws came together in feigned applause. 
"So, you can destroy the undead—that's better than being 
destroyed by them, but it's not as good as controlling 
them." His gaze swept the stalactites overhead. "I control 
them." He lifted hands as though to rip the belly from a 
great beast. Instead, he pulled down mogg after impaled 
mogg. 

The monsters plunged to ground in a green ring around 
Gerrard. Whole legs caught them. Whole arms raked out 
before them. Claws and teeth were as sharp in unlife as in 
life. Only their shoulders and necks had been modified, 
gored by thick spikes. As one, the goblins lunged at 
Gerrard. 

He swung his halberd. It cut temple to temple through 
one skull and continued on to lodge in the eye of the next. 

170 



J. Robert King 
There were ten such beasts, though. While his blade was 
hung up, the other eight ripped at his arms and legs and 
back. They were sharks tearing apart a piece of meat. 

The Evincar of Rath could only watch with disbelief. 
What had Yawgmoth seen in this man? Courage? Skill? 
Anger? And what good were any of these when a man lay 
torn to shreds? 

Gerrard fought. Where other men would have lain 
down and died, this man fought. Even as goblins plowed 
his back with their claws, he slew. Mogg heads fountained. 
Their necks slumped. Their arms ended in shivering ruin 
on the floor. While moggs bit into his legs, he chopped 
their backs in two. It seemed no one could survive those 
combined attacks, yet Gerrard not only survived but 
brought his attackers down to death. 

How had he done it? A mogg's teeth could bite through 
a stone. A mogg's claws could eviscerate a gargantua. Flow 
could a single man with a single, broken halberd have slain 
them all and risen in their midst? 

Yawgmoth. He had granted Gerrard inhuman strength 
and speed and intelligence. He must have even tuned the 
man's natural healing abilities. Though deep furrows sliced 
down Gerrard's back, none yet bled. The muscles and flesh 
stitched themselves together even as he yanked his halberd 
from the skull of the final goblin. 

Crovax shook his head, nostrils flaring. He had chosen 
wrongly. He could not overcome Gerrard by main strength. 
The power of a god was in him. Crovax would have to 
defeat Gerrard by preying upon some part untouched by 
Yawgmoth. Something such as the man's goodness, his 
compassion. 

"I have been a fool," Crovax admitted, standing well 
beyond the reach of that sanguine blade, "hurling my best 
warriors at you. They may be worth nothing to you dead, 

171 



Apocalypse 

but to me, their careers had only begun. I have lost a 
platoon here." 

"That's not all you will lose," Gerrard replied, panting 
as he hefted his axe. "You're out of warriors. Now you will 
lose your life." 

"If you are truly to replace me, you had best know what 
you are in for. Let me show you what you lack." Crovax 
motioned toward Gerrard with a crooked claw. "This is 
what you must be capable of to rule in my stead." He 
turned his back on the stalking man, lifted his claws, and 
brought them down on the finger-bone keys of his 
agonophone. 

The wall came alive—not the wall, but the creatures 
racked on the wall, the living pipes of Crovax's murderous 
organ. With each key his fingers depressed, a living 
creature shrieked out. Despair became music. 

Gerrard growled, hurling himself at the evincar. He 
fought against the current of screams. He would save those 
poor souls by putting his halberd in the man who 
tormented them. With all his might, he swung the blade 
toward Crovax. It sliced air before slicing spine. 

Except that Crovax stepped to one side. He had 
understood Gerrard's compassion. He had known what the 
young man would do. The halberd did not strike the 
evincar of Rath. Instead, it crashed into the white-boned 
keys of the agonophone and pinned them down. Above, 
victims jittered in absolute agony, screaming their lungs 
raw. When one exhalation ran its course, they only sucked 
air to scream again. They were dying, slain by the savior of 
Dominaria. 

And now the savior needed a savior. 

Crovax knocked Gerrard's jangled hands from the axe 
and the halberd. He caught Gerrard's throat in his claws 

172 



J. Robert King 
and squeezed. Flesh bulged in red bands beneath his 
constricting fingers. Crovax stared into his captive's face. 

The evincar spoke. Rot-smelling breath billowed out. 
"It takes more than strength and speed and wit to rule here, 
Gerrard. It takes bloodlust. It takes the genuine 
fascination—no, genuine obsession with causing pain. Yes, 
you are strong. Yes, you are powerful. But until you are 
cruel, you will never rule in my stead." 

With that, Crovax tightened his grip. Gerrard's eyes 
spun for a crazy and delicious moment. Then, they went 
dark. In those lightless orbs, Crovax saw his own bright, 
distorted smile. 

173 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 19 

Lava Rising 

Sister Dormet and her fellow rock druids strode with 
stolid patience down the basalt throat of the volcano. They 
hummed an ancient dwarven hymn. The treacherous slope 
led them to the floor of the cavern—what had once been a 
flood of lava. There, they would end this battle. They 
marched out beneath the massive shadow of the 
Stronghold. 

The impossible fortification was under impossible siege. 
At the main gate, Eladamri, Grizzlegom, and Liin Sivi 
battled their way inward. At the opposite end, more 
invaders fought—folk who had arrived in an otherworldly 
ship. All across the Stronghold, explosions mixed with 
shouts. Moggs, il-Vec, and worse things fell from 
balustrades. They shrieked all the way down and made 
sunbursts on the rock floor. 

Sister Dormet stepped around one such spot and pressed 
on, heedless. She and her folk had not come to fight these 
creatures. They had come to purge the mountain of its 
stain. 

Even when beasts pursued them, the rock druids did not 
fight. They merely paused midstride. Feet fused with the 
floor. Heads crouched down in hunched shoulders. The 
once-animate creatures transformed themselves into stout 
stalagmites. By the time the monsters arrived, whether 
slavering hounds or gibbering goblins or skittering 
machines, none could harm the dwarfs. 

174 



J. Robert King 
This was their element. They made themselves harder 
than diamond, weightier lead. Not claws nor hammers nor 
drills could disrupt their rocky repose. The dwarfs merely 
waited. 

Most attackers abandoned them for livelier prey. Some 
few continued their assaults. For them, the dwarfs flashed 
red hot. Any creature touching them would be affixed and 
fry to death. Any within a few feet would spontaneously 
combust. Four or five times, the brave band of dwarf priests 
had left smoldering piles of bone as they moved onward. 

They reached the base of the cavern. Sister Dormet 
pivoted her massive hammer down to kiss the smooth 
stone. When steel touched basalt, there was a kind of 
kindred call between them. It heartened Sister Dormet. 
Fire had forged both hammer and lava, and it remained in 
both. Cleansing heat called, steel to stone. Soon, Sister 
Dormet and her company would marshal that heat. 

They marched, twenty-some dwarfs intent on 
destroying millions of Phyrexians. The soft ping of Sister 
Dormet's hammer told her they would. 

* * * * * 

Portcullis was its name—an enormous gateway into the 
Stronghold. The gargantuan bars of that gate bore plates of 
flow-stone fashioned to resemble the face of onetime 
Evincar Volrath. The new ruler of the Stronghold, Crovax, 
had modified the image only by adding rows of crudely 
rendered shark's teeth. 

Eladamri had known both oppressors—the wicked 
Volrath and the wickeder Crovax. His people, the 
Skyshroud Elves, had lived an eternity beneath the baleful 
glare of the Evincars of Rath. Now it was Eladamri himself 
who faced down that visage. 

175 



Apocalypse 

"Portcullis must fall," he hissed to his comrades, and 
pointed with the sword he held. 

Liin Sivi strode up beside him, her lithe figure painted 
in the green blood of moggs. "You mean, we must get past 
it." 

"I mean it must fall," reiterated Eladamri as he stared at 
that hated composite face. 

Grizzlegom arrived next. The blood-rimmed smile on 
his face told how much he enjoyed this battle. "What do 
you suggest?" He flung his hand toward the rail and the 
black cavern beyond. "Our demolitions experts are out of 
reach." 

Nodding grimly, Eladamri said, "It's just a matter of 
knowing what will explode and how to set it off." 

"Glistening oil ignites with a simple flame," Liin Sivi 
offered as the triumvirate advanced, at the head of a small 
but ferocious band of troops. "And it burns quite hot. 
Enough to set fire to, say, hydraulics fluids." 

The elf commander's eyes traced across the massive 
hydraulics cylinders that opened and closed the gates of 
Portcullis—mechanisms guarded by contingents of 
Phyrexian elite. Eladamri nodded wonderingly. 

"So," Grizzlegom said, "we need to kill, stack, and burn 
the defenders of the gate, thereby detonating the 
hydraulics?" 

Liin Sivi and Eladamri nodded in unison. 

"As long as we're talking dead Phyrexians, I'm in," 
Grizzlegom said. 

He waved behind him, drawing forward an eager 
platoon of minotaurs. A quick hand signal told them to 
prepare weapons for battle and bunch tightly around their 
commander. The troops did so with remarkable efficiency. 
Halberds, hammers, and swords joined the axe of 

176 



J. Robert King 
Grizzlegom, ready to slay. The weapons seemed almost 
gleaming teeth in a huge creature that charged forward. 

Eladamri released his own battle cry. Skyshroud and 
Steel Leaf elves crowded up to one side. All bore swords 
like his own, though the ones farther back kept their blades 
sheathed and their bows nocked. On Eladamri's other side 
charged a handful of Keldons, each one worth ten men and 
armed with a great sword. With Eladamri, they would make 
the passageway run with glistening oil. 

Now, they needed someone to ignite the spark. Liin 
Sivi was the one. She had become ad hoc commander of 
the Metathran troops. The tall blue warriors had found 
something to appreciate in the scrappy and powerful Vec at 
their head. She was as fearless and fierce as a Metathran. 
She snatched up a torch ensconced along the flowstone 
bridge, lifted the fire high, and shouted, "Charge!" The 
Metathran did. 

In the vanguard, long-legged Grizzlegom and his 
minotaurs roared toward the gate. Metal flashed above 
their heads, and hooves cracked stone beneath. il-Vec and 
il-Dal warriors braced for the charge. Though 
hypertrophied and machine-enhanced, the Rathi could not 
match the minotaurs' fury. 

Grizzlegom's axe rang upon an il-Dal's war hammer and 
split the head of the thing. With a yank of his arm, he 
hauled axe and hammer both away and smashed the 
warrior's bearded jaw with his fist. The il-Dal folded up, 
only to reveal another warrior behind. Grizzlegom did not 
even pause to clear his fouled weapon, instead swinging axe 
and hammer both. The haft of the war hammer slammed 
into the guardian's eye. Even as he was going down, the 
minotaur commander stole his war hammer. Axe in one 
hand and hammer in the other, Grizzlegom advanced over 
his foes. 

177 



Apocalypse 

Eladamri meanwhile battled moggs. It was the ultimate 
war of high-brow against low. Eladamri and his elves 
seemed sculpted angels, and the moggs seemed melted 
devils. Razor swords battled bone-crushing cudgels; razor 
wits fought thumb-sucking meatheads. Eladamri 
dismantled his first opponent like a butcher dressing a hog. 
His sword cleft muscle from sinew and sinew from bone. 
The Keldons fought with equal ferocity, unmaking these 
corrupted images of the fey. 

Liin Sivi and her Metathran unit battled with the 
greatest power. They went toe-to-toe against not half-breed 
Rathi but real Phyrexians. While elves fought the ultimate 
perversion of elf flesh, Metathran fought creatures so like 
them in genetic manipulation that they might have been 
brothers. Blue hands grasped gray skulls and ripped them 
apart. Metathran heads bashed Phyrexian hearts. Liin Sivi's 
own weapon flashed on its ringing chain and brought 
Phyrexian oil-blood gushing like ale from spigots. It took 
only a touch of her torch to engulf the rest of the beasts in 
flame. 

Fire rose, orange and red and blue, from the fallen 
Phyrexians. It ignited the standing ones. The blaze swept 
from them to beasts piled beneath massive hydraulics 
cylinders and mantled them in flames. While minotaurs 
fought il-Dal and elves fought moggs, true Phyrexians 
burned. Liin Sivi slew more and hurled their bodies onto 
the pyre. Soon, flames licked across every stippled edge of 
the opening mechanism. 

The first crack came, loud and glad, like the shout of a 
victor. Hydraulic fluids sprayed from the seam. They 
fanned out and caught fire. The blaze swept inward, fought 
past airless jags of steel, and reached the mechanisms 
within. Gears ground, cogs broke free, pistons popped, and 
the whole horrid dynamo disintegrated. 

178 



J. Robert King 
One mechanism exploded, sending shrapnel across the 
battlefield. Jagged hunks of metal slew elves, minotaurs, 
and Metathran—but many more of the Stronghold's 
defenders. The explosions unhinged the grinning gates of 
Portcullis. With a terrific shriek and moan, the bars slipped 
from their mountings. Coalition forces broke free from 
their battles to retreat at a run. When those gates came 
down, they crashed atop the few beasts left to defend the 
way within. 

"Onward!" shouted Eladamri. His command was echoed 
in the vengeful shout of his troops. "Onward, to Crovax's 
lair!" 

"Onward!" they all replied, and the coalition forces 
charged over the wreckage of Portcullis. 

* * * * * 

Sister Dormet and her comrades walked through a 
hellish space. The ground beneath their boots had 
hardened in tortuous forms. Cracks vented white clouds of 
sulfur steam, which rose and coiled like tentacles. All else 
was blackness and baking heat. Lesser races would have 
buckled and died, but dwarfs were made of rock and 
brimstone and blackness. 

No longer did they pause in their march. No longer did 
Rathi warriors and Phyrexian horrors sluice among them. 
The dwarfs plodded toward a great radiance—not of light, 
but heat. Across their whole bodies, they felt the 
volcanism. Heat was their god—all-creating, all-shattering 
heat. 

Sister Dormet tightened her grip on her hammer. She 
had not used the weapon against Phyrexian and Rathi foes, 
for it was a sacred device. This hammer was a physical 
manifestation of the one great tool that forged all the 

179 



Apocalypse 

world, that pounded heat into matter and made the shape 
of things. It created; it did not destroy. The hammer would 
awaken heat in these very stones. 

The dwarfs marched from the forest of stalagmites and 
emerged on a long, shallow basin of stone. The cracks that 
crazed out before them hissed with sulfur. Like the 
converging lines of a web, those fissures reached toward a 
center—a deep, wide pit from which that incandescence 
came. 

Hammers held at the ready, the others wordlessly 
advanced down the treacherous slope. None slipped. None 
pitched into the dark crevices. They made their way with 
the surefooted ease of mountain goats. When another step 
would have pitched them down a shaft, they merely 
bounded over it. 

Wreathed in steam they went, and wreathed in song. 
With voices like grating stone, they sang a lay in the 
tongue of their kind: 

In ancient Dalrodrooma grew 

The rockbound blossom called milay, 

A flower sweeter grown in stone 

Than those in peat and blackest loam, 

 And speckled with the morning dew. 

They sang of a flower nurtured in rock and darkness. 
They sang of themselves. With each line of the song, they 
struck the rock upon which they traveled. Their hammers 
awoke sudden heat. Instead of rock shards flying, the blows 
flung spatters of red-hot stone. Impervious to the stuff, the 
rock druids marched on. 

The essence of the glad milay 
Distilled itself from rock-broke roots. 


180 



J. Robert King 
In battle it was born forlorn 

And battling turned the chill murk warm, 

And wrested rainbows from the gray. 

They had reached the end of their journey—a deep, 
wide pit that gushed a fat column of steam. At the cliff's 
edge, the dwarfs ceased their march and stood. Swinging 
their hammers against the cliff, they concluded their song. 

A flower by the steamy flue 

Cannot avoid the burning touch of lava. 

Boiling stone is thrown 

Upon milay and sears its bloom— 

Until it cools and grows anew. 

With each blow of the hammers, more molten rock 
splashed from the edges of the pit. Long red channels of 
lava ran down the cliff, fingers reaching. Rhythmic impacts 
melted more stone, until each dwarf stood above a regular 
cascade of red. They sang on, and the probing lava at last 
reached low enough that it touched kindred stuff—magma. 
The quickening pulse of dwarf hammers sent life into the 
melting stone and into the molten lake below. In the midst 
of the deep well, a red eye blinked awake. It widened and 
grew nearer. The chant worked. The hammers worked. The 
rock druids awakened the stony depths. 

Yet they sang. Yet they pounded as the deadly flood 
welled up beneath them. A quarter mile below, five 
hundred feet, one hundred feet, ten feet ... The 
incinerating red tide swept up. 

Still singing, Sister Dormet lifted her boot and set it 
onto the deluge of stone. She brought the other boot up 
beside the first. There she stood, hammer gripped at her 
side and voice singing. All the others did likewise. They 

181 



Apocalypse 

rose on the cleansing tide, on the flood that would soon 
scour the Stronghold from Dominaria. 

* * * * * 

How like old times, thought Eladamri. His sword made 
quick work of an il-Vec warrior. The thing had once been a 
man but was so contorted by grafts and gears as to have 
become a monster. With a slash across the middle, 
Eladamri made it into nothing at all. He did not pity the 
thing. Its own cowardice had made it what it was. The 
petty cowardice of individuals had enslaved whole nations 
to the Phyrexian overlords. If the only way to revoke that 
tyranny lay in slaying each coward who empowered them, 
Eladamri would do it. How like old times. 

He bashed past the fallen halves of the monster and 
took two more running steps down the corridor. Liin Sivi 
and Grizzlegom fought beside him. They descended a 
gnarled passageway like the throat of a great beast. Their 
footfalls and shouts reverberated from the glistening walls. 
Behind them crowded the warriors of the strike force. They 
had taken the flowstone bridge, destroyed Portcullis, and 
eradicated every beast along the main corridor of the 
Stronghold. More such beasts rose ahead of them. 

Eladamri's sword decapitated a mogg as it lunged in the 
charge. Headless, the beast's shoulders still rammed his 
stomach and shoved him back. 

Liin Sivi bounded on, wielding her toten-vec without 
letting fly. She buried the curved blade in an il-Dal's belly 
and, cutting a quick circle, emptied the creature on the 
floor. 

Grizzlegom gored a pair of Rathi warriors. He carried 
the two monsters for two steps more as he swung his axe 
into another's torso. Then, like a dog flinging water from 

182 



J. Robert King 
its pelt, he shook violently and flung the remnants of his 
three foes free upon the corridor floor. 

They flooded on, Liin Sivi now leading, Grizzlegom 
behind her, and a slightly winded Eladamri at the last. The 
way opened onto a wide balcony that overhung the inky 
blackness around the Stronghold. The balcony was 
crowded with monsters. 

Grizzlegom and Liin Sivi paved the way, each slaying 
two creatures and charging after more. 

Eager for the kill, the elf lord hurled himself at the first 
Rathi he could reach. His sword sang as it struck the 
thing's slender shoulder and carved down through what 
should have been its heart. He drove the blade downward 
toward the viscera, a definite kill. There, the sword 
stopped. It caught on something hard, something glasslike 
embedded in the center of the thing. Growling his 
impatience, Eladamri rammed his blade through the beast 
and shoved it to ground. 

Only then did he see its face—her face. She was a 
young elf woman—once a Skyshroud Elf, though her flesh 
had the gray pallor of a Phyrexian construct, and her eyes 
were glass balls. She writhed on his sword, pinned like a 
bug. He could have killed her with a simple twist, but he 
stopped short. It was not what she was now—an ocular 
servitor, the likes of which he had seen before—but what 
she had been. She was no coward, but an elfchild abducted 
and turned into an instrument of evil. She was a creature 
much like his own daughter, Avila. 

As he looked down at the poor creature pinned on his 
sword, sweat and blood poured into Eladamri's eyes, and 
brought tears too. They were not all cowards slain this day. 
Some were victims. 

183 



Apocalypse 

A quick twist ended the struggles of his victim. Yet 
blinded, Eladamri stood above the fallen creature. He 
reeled, struggling to calm his thundering heart. 

A hand grasped his shoulder. He whirled around, sword 
at the ready. His blade clanged aside, blocked by the totenvec. 


"Eladamri," said Liin Sivi, "you must see this." 

Laughing and trembling, he replied, "I can't see 
anything." 

She grasped his arm and brought him to the balcony 
rail. Even through his tears, Eladamri made out the wan red 
glow below the Stronghold, an angry eye gazing upward 
and growing. 

"What do you make of it?" asked Liin Sivi. 

Dashing sweat from his eyes, Eladamri said, "I think 
we'd better reach the throne room before whatever that is 
reaches us." 

All she said was, "Yes," and her blade was slaying again. 

184 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 20 

To Set the Captive Free 

"It always looked easy enough when she did it," Orim 
growled, hauling a reluctant helm to port. Sisay had told 
her simply to fly in circles and watch for the crew to return. 
Apparently, flying in circles was not as easy as it seemed. 
"C'mon, damned ship," Orim said as she leaned her weight 
on the stubborn wheel. "Just turn!" 

Weatherlight's rudder responded sluggishly, but her 
engines were all too eager. Orim had sent an ensign to 
crank the throttle near to closed, but the great ship 
bounded like a skipping stone across the black cavern. Her 
lanterns stretched fingers of light to probe the underbelly of 
stone. Everywhere, there was basalt—too black, too hard, 
too insistent on curving inward and grasping Weatherlight 
like a gnat and crushing her. In a place like this, an eager 
engine and an obstinate helm spelled doom. 

"Of course, she never did it inside a mountain," Orim 
told herself. Then she remembered the mountain of 
Mercadia, with its Phyrexian hangar. Sisay had flown the 
ship out of that fiery mess as if she cruised through open 
skies. Wincing, Orim snorted, "Well, she never had to do it 
with a novice crew." 

That very crew let out a whoop of corporate dread as 
the ship barely missed a toothy stalactite ten times her size. 
Orim muscled the wheel while hissing expletives. The ship 
veered obliquely away, and the crew breathed its relief. 
These were cabin boys, stockers, and mates who had begun 

185 



Apocalypse 

this trek believing Weatherlight a sailing ship—and had 
never been near a safe enough port to risk escape. Young or 
dumb or terrified or all three, the remaining crew of 
Weatherlight was prone to panic. 

Even as the huge stalactite slid to stern, the ensign at 
the tail gun decided to unload a cannon barrage on it. 
White fire— blinding in that tenebrous place—jagged out 
like lightning, cracked against the stalactite, wrapped it in 
sparkling fingers, and broke it loose. A thousand tons of 
stone split from the sloped ceiling and plummeted silently 
away beneath Weatherlight, It was a full count to twenty 
before the huge and horrible crash of the block came from 
below. 

"No more of that!" Orim called through the speaking 
tube. "We don't want to bring the mountain down on us. 
Besides, we don't know what's down there, and we don't 
want to wake—" 

"There's something down there!" shouted the cabin boy 
that manned Gerrard's gun. He stood in traces two sizes too 
large for him and pointed over the port side rail. "Look 
down there! Something red!" 

The others looked, and next moment, voices crowded 
through the speaking tubes. 

"It looks like an evil eye!" 

"It's hell! It's the fires of hell!" 

"The mountain's erupting!" 

"We're all going to die!" 

"Shut up, all of you," snapped Orim. "That's an order! If 
we're going to die, at least do it with dignity, and do your 
job beforehand. We circle until we see the signal!" Angrily, 
she flipped the speaking tube closed and hissed, "How 
about a single goddamned ally? Do I have to fight every last 
one of you?" 

186 



J. Robert King 
At least I shouldn't fight myself, she thought. While 
struggling with the helm, she closed her eyes for a moment 
and awakened the silver fire of Cho-Arrim magic. It began 
in her fingers, a healing spell, and sank in toward her 
bones. It calmed her as it went. The tension ran from her, 
and the helm turned easily beneath her touch. 

Opening her eyes, she stared in wonder at the wheel. It 
spun with a gentle ease. Her hands no longer fought it but 
felt a part of it. Her healing hands had formed a conduit 
between her mind and that of— 

I'm not a damned ship, said Weatherlight into her mind. 
But I am your goddamned ally. 

Orim nodded and smiled. Of course. Lead the way. She 
kept her hands on the wheel, so as not to break the mind 
contact. And see what you can do to soothe the crew. They're 
good folk, really. 

I'll see what I can do. 

* * * * * 

Tahngarth, Sisay, and Karn stormed the corridors of the 
Stronghold. There was no other way to say it. Their feet 
thundered across metal grates. Their swords flashed like 
lightning. Their blows sent glistening oil raining through 
the air. Nothing and no one could stand against them. 

There was cause for their fury. They each had been 
captive in these halls, in these dungeons. Here, the 
minotaur Tahngarth had endured the cutting, morphing 
assaults of a ray that made him monstrous. Here, the 
pacifist Karn had suffered his body to become a killing 
cudgel. Here, the skycaptain Sisay had languished in an 
iron cell while someone else flew her ship. Gerrard had 
brought Weatherlight to save these three from their 

187 



Apocalypse 

torments. Now, Gerrard was the captive, and Tahngarth, 
Sisay, and Karn were the saviors. 

They were bloody saviors. Karn led the way, not 
pausing to fight but only running and crushing whatever 
lacked the sense to move aside. Il-Vec, il-Dal, il-Kor, 
vampire hound, Phyrexian—all made a spiny mush 
beneath his pounding feet. His massive silver frame had 
once again become a killing cudgel, though this time he 
chose to slay. His mind's eye saw this passageway, yes, but 
saw also the Jamuraan boardwalk where Vuel made him 
slay an innocent, and the Tolarian hallway where negators 
ran amok. He killed because, after centuries piled on 
centuries, he knew when to kill. 

Tahngarth slew for an altogether simpler reason— 
revenge. He was, after all, one of their own, a proto-
Phyrexian, physically morphed in preparation for 
transplants and utter transformation. He fought his former 
captors, eager to show them what they had made. 

Sisay, in their midst, had the clearest head of the three. 
She fought for one reason: Gerrard. 

Karn and Tahngarth smashed aside a pair of il-Vec 
warriors, hurling them down so brutally that the creatures 
skidded across the floor of metal mesh and were grated 
down like chunks of cheese. Sisay meanwhile came up 
between them, seeing a long stair down into a black and 
odorous place. The walls were venous, as though to pump 
upward the foul humors of the deviltry below. And there 
was deviltry, for this was the dungeon where the three 
comrades had suffered. 

A din of moans and screams rose up the stairs. 

"He must be down there," Sisay said. 

Tahngarth only grunted his agreement. He was 
otherwise too busy dragging his striva through a guard that 
tried to stop them. 

188 



J. Robert King 
Karn did not answer except by striding down those 
stairs. Sisay followed next, and Tahngarth brought up the 
rear. 

A slavering mogg hurled itself down the stairway atop 
Tahngarth. 

He merely lifted his head and took the beast on his 
horns. The mogg was impaled, neck and groin, and 
thrashed so that Tahngarth removed it with a striva 
through the gut. He flung the beast to the ground, making 
its body a redoubt against further assaults. Turning, 
Tahngarth descended the rest of the stairs and reached his 
comrades among the torture pits. 

The place had a visceral impact. The stench of offal 
and desperation, the stains of blood and bile, the walls like 
necrotic tissue—these horrors were not soon—not ever— 
forgotten by one who had spent any time behind those 
flowstone doors. 

Karn put his shoulder to one such door and bashed it in. 
Instead of falling to the ground, the door merely shattered 
into chunks that pelted inward. The great silver golem 
stood in their midst, a primordial god. His steely eyes made 
out a craven wretch in the corner. It once had been a man 
before its limbs had been replaced by an ape's and its face 
had been replaced by a metal plate. The thing stirred, and 
in its polished faceplate, Karn saw his own features 
reflected. 

Sisay strode through the ruined door beside him and 
approached the prisoner. "Where is Gerrard?" she asked, 
direct but compassionate. "Where is the prisoner Gerrard?" 

The thing tried to respond, though the mask had no 
provision for a mouth. The wet gasping sounds it made 
suggested it no longer had one. 

Sisay nodded grimly, waving her hand. "Come, then. 
You are free. Come with us. We are leaving this place." 

189 



Apocalypse 

The ape thing leaned back for a moment in mute 
disbelief before ambling toward its three liberators. Sisay 
watched the thing come, her eyes filled with pity and a 
little terror. Had Gerrard not come for her, what would she 
look like now? 

Karn kicked in the next door. The creature within was 
a half-spider, with arms lopped off and extra sets of legs 
grafted on. It, too, could not speak. It, too, longed for 
freedom. 

On down the hall they went, one horror to another. 
The ranks of creatures swelled behind them. No longer did 
the three need to battle Rathi guards. The prisoners did it 
for them. An il-Vec overlord rushed down the stairs only to 
find himself awash in twisted, clawing, biting forms. The 
works of the Phyrexians turned upon them. 

At last, Karn pulverized a door that led to a remarkable 
prisoner, a young elf child, only just abducted. Surely, she 
was destined to become another of Yawgmoth's ocular 
spies, whose very eyes and senses became those of the lord 
of Dominaria, but the companions had arrived in time to 
save her. 

Sisay swept in and took the child in her arms. She held 
her tight, as though embracing a simulacrum of her own 
captured self. "You're all right. Everything will be all right." 
She did not know if the child understood her, but the 
sounds of soothing are everywhere the same. "They can't 
hurt you now. We'll take you away." 

Wide-eyed and staring, the child only clung to Sisay. 

The captain returned the desperate hug. "I don't know 
if you know what I am saying, but if you do, I have to ask 
you—have you heard of another prisoner, a man named 
Gerrard? Have you heard where they are keeping him." 

"Commander Gerrard?" she asked with perfect 
elocution. 

190 



J. Robert King 
Sisay puffed. "Yes! Where is he?" 

The elf child's expression changed not a whit. "He 
belongs to the evincar. The guard said so." 

"Yes, but where is he?" 

The girl pointed obliquely up through the ceiling of her 
cell. "In the throne room." 

Sisay hugged the child only the more tightly to hide her 
glad tears. "To the throne room," she echoed. 

* * * * * 

What a bloody lane they paved, Eladamri and Liin Sivi 
and Grizzlegom. Sword, toten-vec, battle axe, they turned 
bones to gravel and muscles to tar. Down that red-gold 
highway came sure-footed Metathran and surer-footed 
minotaurs, Keldons, and elves. Once a band of forty, they 
were now a band of twenty, but each of the fallen warriors 
had slain ten monsters before he or she had died. Each of 
the warriors who lived slew more. With this simple score, 
Eladamri had pierced as deeply into the Stronghold as he 
had with thousands. 

They charged. The corridor down which they ran had 
once been a great vein in the heart of the Stronghold, 
punctuated with shield doors meant to secure it against 
such invasions. Grizzlegom had kicked through the first 
and weakest. A Metathran had rewired the triggering 
mechanism of the second. Eladamri had slain and retrieved 
the magic key from the guards of the third. Whatever lay at 
the end of this corridor, behind three doors and two 
standing guards, would have to be vital to the invasion. A 
storehouse of weaponry. An incubation fangy horrors. A 
room of royal hostages. Whatever lay beyond would shortly 
be liberated by the coalition forces. 

191 



Apocalypse 

The final set of doors slid soundlessly inward on huge 
hinges. Eladamri charged through and bolted to a halt. 

"Ah, yes, the map room." 

It was a large spherical chamber with walls of irregular 
green slate. A floor circled the perimeter of the chamber 
and dropped away to a secondary tier that centered on a 
deep well. In that well floated a machine, with hawklike 
beaks above and below. All this was glimpsed in periphery, 
though. Eladamri's eye was drawn straight to the center of 
the chamber, to the bright phantasm generated by the 
machine. 

It was a huge, gossamer globe beaming with an interior 
radiance. The sphere was composed of looping light and 
coruscating magic. Even a native of Rath could look upon 
that slowly spinning orb and know it was a world. 

Liin Sivi came next, and stared with mute wonder at 
the spectacle. 

It took Grizzlegom, arriving a moment later, to utter 
the name of that world. "Dominaria?" 

He shook his head. Though some of the landforms were 
correct—Yavimaya there in its green island fastness, and 
Keld just where it should be—other nations were missing— 
Talruum and Zhalfir and Shiv—and other nations were 
blotted out beneath black and spreading smudges. Benalia 
was one, and Koilos was another, and Hurloon .. .. 
Grizzlegom's eyes swam with visions of the burning capital, 
of the rows upon rows of minotaurs, including him, laid out 
before the mutation laboratory. The black smudges made 
sudden sense. "Dominaria." 

As the globe slowly rotated, it showed more blackness, 
more obliteration. The creeping tide of darkness stretched 
across the surface of the world. There was more shadow 
than light. It seemed a gigantic beast wrapped Dominaria 
in a thousand tentacles. 

192 



J. Robert King 
The others had arrived now, the whole bloody 
contingent. They spread out along the circular platform 
and stared at their world. Some wore expressions of awe. 
Others gritted their teeth and glared. All watched those 
black cancers growing across the face of Dominaria. 

Grizzlegom was first to act. He stepped back through 
the doorway, hauled up a mogg corpse in either hand, and 
dragged them back into the map room. He hurled the 
bodies out over the rail. They soared, streaming gore, and 
crashed limply into the machine that generated the globe. 
Instead of extinguishing the image, the bodies only 
darkened it. They seemed to extend the reach of the 
shadows. 

Nostrils flaring, Grizzlegom gaped accusingly at the 
corpses. With an almighty roar, he leaped from the 
platform and landed beside the mechanism. In the same 
motion, he brought his axe down. It struck a metal console 
and bit deep, bringing a shower of sparks. Grizzlegom 
hauled the blade forth, and it shrieked angrily against the 
casing. 

That shriek seemed to unite the group. One by one, 
beginning with Eladamri, they leaped to the lower level to 
destroy that hateful image. They tore apart the machine. 
Even as it came to pieces, the world spun heedless above, 
blackening with every turn. 

* * * * * 

"Everything's red! The whole damned floor of the 
cavern!" 

"Look at that—lava everywhere!" 

"The captain and the others—they won't get out in 
time." 

"We won't get out in time!" 

193 



Apocalypse 

Fearful, almost tearful cries clogged the speaking tubes. 
Every novice at every post clung to his or her call port and 
poured out frantic laments. 

"What good's this gun against something that's already 
red hot?" 

"What good's any of this? I never signed on for this." 

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Orim shouted. 
Weatherlight had done all she could to calm these children. 
Now it was up to their ad hoc captain. "Shut up, or I'll 
come out there and throw you all into the lava!" 

From the guns, four nervous sets of eyes peered back at 
the bridge. There was silence for a cursedly brief time, and 
then one meek voice said, "You gotta come out here, Orim. 
You gotta see this. You'll die." 

Orim pursed her lips. The speaker was one of her young 
sickbay assistants. The boy was barely trustworthy with a 
tongue depressor. Now he wielded a radiance cannon. 

Orim sent a question through her fingers: Can you keep 
us circling? 

The answer was commonsense: If you crash, I crash. If 
you burn, I burn. 

Right, thought Orim. She stepped away from the ship's 
wheel. Striding to the amidships hatch, she hurled it open 
and descended. Sisay had done the same countless times, 
appearing on deck and answering questions simply by 
staring them away. 

Orim tried. It was hard to stare in that volcanic heat. 
Beyond the glass-encased bridge, the ship was awash in 
warmth. It bent the air in avid waves. It tugged at her 
braided and coin-coifed hair. Orim let out a snort to ward 
off a sneeze, and she tried to look masterful as she passed 
among the gunners. 

194 



J. Robert King 
Her own assistant stood at Tahngarth's gun on the 
forecastle and waved her over. "Look! Look! You'll die. I'm 
telling you, you'll die." 

Orim ascended the steps three at a stride, crossed the 
forecastle, and reached the rail. She peered over it. 

She almost did die. The heat beyond the rail curled her 
eyelashes and burned her face. Lava filled the world below. 
In a bright bubbling disk, a seeming sun lay within the 
rocky ground. The Stronghold was only a black scar against 
that all-encompassing, all-destroying stuff. Soon, molten 
rock would consume the great structure and everything 
within the mountain. Soon, it would destroy Weatherlight 
and her crew. 

Orim drew her head back from the rail, and she felt the 
eyes of her assistant on her. She sensed the watchful 
attention of all her hopeless crew. Her words in the next 
moment would have to quell their fears, or risk outright 
mutiny. But what could she say? They were right. It was 
hopeless. 

She cleared her throat to speak. There was more 
phlegm in it than she had expected, due to the raging heat. 
She hawked loudly and, with no other choice, spit the glob 
over the rail. It flew out, a viscous wad, and plunged toward 
the sea of lava. Wide-eyed and still speechless, Orim turned 
toward her assistant. 

He didn't see her, instead watching the spit plummet. 
A grin filled his face. When the thing was boiled away in 
midair, the young man hawked up his own mouthful of 
mucous and spewed it over the rail. 

"Take that, Yawgmoth, you rutting bastard!" 

A nearly hysterical laugh came from across the 
forecastle. The other gunner spat her own loogie at the 
rising red below. "Suck it down, Yawgie! Suck it down!" 

195 



Apocalypse 

A Benalish midshipman was next, pouring an even 
more ignominious stream from his trousers onto the all-
consuming stuff. He had no taunt but a wild cackle. He 
must have been into the grog earlier, for his duration was 
impressive. Other young dopes flooded up the 
companionways to add their own personal insults to the 
implacable death that rose toward them. 

Orim approved, at least in as much as she made no 
comment. Mortals were aloud to flout death. It was among 
their inalienable rights. It was the spark of courage, and 
Orim was glad to blow that spark into a flame. 

She ascended through the bridge hatchway and took 
her place again before the helm. Even as her fingers settled 
around the cool wood, she heard the voice of her ship. 

That was well done. 

Orim never knew if Weatherlight was being sarcastic. 

196 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 21 

The Duelists 

The skulking lizard! 

The slimy toad! 

As Ertai strode down the twisting corridor, he gnashed 
his teeth. Filed enamel made little shrieking noises. His 
hands flashed. Lightning charges crackled from his 
shoulders, down to bifurcated elbows, and along to four sets 
of hands. It leaped from claws to the stanchions all around, 
probing the shadows. Here, bolts popped a series of rivets. 
There, energy plunged into a conduit and made lanterns 
dim and flicker. Just beyond that strut, lightning jabbed, 
grabbed, and shook his prey like a dog shaking a ground 
squirrel. 

"Squee!" shrieked Ertai. 

Mantled in white energy, the goblin bounced from his 
hiding place. He staggered into the open and tried to run. 
Bolts had already fried his feet to the floor. Rampant 
charges coursed through his every fiber. He danced 
miserably. Warty green skin peeled and turned brown. 
Muscles fricasseed. Bones decalcified. The goblin's squalid 
figure held itself together a moment longer before drifting 
down into a pile of soot and minerals. 

Ertai snorted gladly. He'd wanted to do that from the 
first day he'd met the little turd. That such a worm would 
be a crew-member and comrade was galling. Ertai's eyes 
narrowed. That such a worm had gained immortality was 
unbearable. 

197 



Apocalypse 

The adept strode urgently down the hallway toward 
that pile of ashes. Already, it whirled on unseen winds, 
rebuilding itself. If only Ertai could reach it before— 

The figure solidified and darted around a corner. 

The stinking roach. 

Ertai ran. He would be weak after his regeneration— 
disoriented. If Ertai killed him often enough, quickly 
enough, perhaps Squee would stay dead. Gathering a 
deathbolt, a black mana spell that would eat the flesh from 
his bones, Ertai charged around the corner. Webby energy 
wrapped his arms ready for discharge— 

An outthrust foot caught his leg. 

Ertai sprawled. He took a short, headfirst flight and 
struck ground. The gathered spell splashed all around him, 
eating his flesh. Better that than to let mana burn eat his 
soul. Still, it was agony. Ertai's cheek melted away. One eye 
went with it, bursting like a grape. Lips and gums dissolved 
away, leaving fangs in an eerie smile. He lost one of his 
vestigial claws to the goop, and the hand on that side was 
stunned and stiff. Ertai used it anyway, pushing himself up 
from the stuff. 

Something shoved him back down—claws on his back. 

Squee squealed as he vaulted from his foe's shoulder 
blades. 

Half-eaten face splashing again in the muck, Ertai let 
out a scream of pure fury. He rolled onto his bad side and 
worked a quick spell with his free hands. Green-black 
smoke poured from his fingertips—poison smoke. It shot 
through the air, wrapped fistlike around Squee, and 
suffused his every orifice, his every pore. There wasn't even 
time to gag. Squee was poisoned in a moment. 

Though he couldn't see through the killing cloud that 
filled the hallway—and could hardly see anything 
anyway—Ertai did hear the goblin slump to the ground. 

198 



J. Robert King 
The two sides of his mouth, ruined and healthy, mirrored 
each other in a vicious grin. The poison cloud would linger 
long enough to kill Squee a couple more times. That would 
give Ertai enough time to get to the mana infuser and get 
healed. 

Rising, wrecked by his own magic, Ertai staggered back 
toward the room that would heal him. His flesh cried out 
for power. Soon, he would be whole. 

* * * * * 

What fine mirrors these eyes of Gerrard made! Crovax's 
smile deepened, and his twin reflections shone in the dying 
eyes of the Dominarian savior. 

"You thought you would replace me," purred Crovax, 
clutching Gerrard's throat, "but our ineffable master does 
not grant ascension. He pits us against each other, makes 
us earn what we gain. He might give you great strength and 
knowledge, even power over flowstone, but he cannot 
grant ruthlessness." Even as he strangled Gerrard with one 
hand, Crovax leaned his other upon the agonophone. A 
banshee keen split the air between them, and Crovax 
closed his eyes in bliss. "Until you learn to love such music, 
you will never replace me." 

It was true enough, but it had been a grave 
miscalculation. Gerrard had been slipping into oblivion. 
Even his enhanced endurance failed him under the 
crushing claws of Crovax. The din of the agonophone, 
though, reached Gerrard. He did not awaken, but even in 
that dreaming verge above oblivion, his mind had power. 

The floor grasped Crovax's feet in ironlike claws. It 
yanked him downward, swallowing him to the knees. 
Crovax reeled, grabbing onto the console of the 
agonophone. The pull of the floor was inexorable. It 

199 



Apocalypse 

dragged him down to midthigh. With a final violent 
squeeze, Crovax released his captive and grabbed on with 
both hands. 

Gerrard fell backward, lifeless. 

How could he be lifeless if such power lashed from his 
mind? Crovax clung to the wailing organ and turned his 
own thoughts to the traitorous floor. An hour ago, the 
flowstone obeyed his every whim. Now it had a new master 
and was infused with his will. Crovax's consciousness 
clawed the stuff, pierced it, fought to take hold. The pull of 
the floor slackened. Crovax struggled up out of it like a 
man out of waist-deep mud. 

As Crovax rose, so did Gerrard. Light returned to his 
eyes. He gasped, arched his back, clutched his throat, and 
sat up slowly. Gerrard fixed his foe with a bleary look that 
turned to sharp focus. 

Crovax meanwhile dragged his feet free of the stony 
morass. He groped his way along the console of his organ, 
wanting to get fully clear of the spot. He snatched up a 
poleaxe from a fallen il-Vec warrior and spun, panting, to 
face his foe. 

Gerrard was no longer where he had been. He seemed 
nowhere at all. The throne room was empty. The floor had 
swallowed the vampire hounds and moggs and il-Dal. But 
where was Gerrard? He might have melted into the wall 
with his power over flowstone. He might just now be 
swimming through the floor under Crovax's feet. 

Like a man stepping lightly through a swarm of rats, 
Crovax made his way to the massive throne in the center 
of the room. He leaped onto the slick seat, simultaneously 
kicking the head of Urza to the floor. At least if Gerrard 
came up through the throne, Crovax would have a 
moment's warning. From this lofty height, too, he could see 
every approach. And the back of the throne was true 

200 



J. Robert King 
obsidian, impervious to the workings of the usurper's mind. 
As long as he remained here, Gerrard could not surprise 
him unless he dropped from the ceiling— 

Crovax looked up too late. He glimpsed only Gerrard's 
halberd blade and his plunging smile. 

* * * * * 

Whatta bastard, thought Squee as he stood up in the 
black cloud. Whatta stink! 

Squee had long ago learned about gas on a ship. You 
didn't let a stink bomb just anywhere, like not in the 
captain's study while everybody's standing around talking 
about strategy, and not in the forecastle with everybody 
trying to get to sleep, and definitely not when your ray 
cannon's sparking just before discharge. Squee'd blown out 
a new pair of pants that way. Mostly, though, the problem 
with gas on a ship was in sealed compartments, where 
everybody had to smell it. And this cloud, what a bad case 
of gas! 

Squee took a step, took a breath, and fell down dead. 

* * * * * 

Not gonna breathe like dat again, dat's sure, thought 
Squee as he stood up again in the cloud. Jus' hafta walk 
outta here. Stink can't be everywhere. 

He walked, feeling his way forward in the dark hallway. 

Of course, he was fooling himself, and he knew it. 
Quite often when he'd made a stink on Weatherlight, it 
filled the place for days—like the time they wanted him to 
cook human food instead of grubs. Grubs fry up nice and 
clean. They don't send black smoke into the air and cause 
grease fires, the way cheese does. And when they told him 

201 



Apocalypse 

to cut the fat off the steaks, they never said to cook the 
meat instead of the fat. Why, they never told him anything 
until it was too late— 

A wicked metal corner rammed Squee's toe, which hurt 
mightily, and he gasped a breath, which killed him. 

* * * * * 

Bein' dead ain't so bad, Squee thought. There's a bright 
red light and a friendly voice say in' "eat up!" and a 
banquet of wigglies. What sucks is the hand dat grabs 
Squee and yanks Squee back to life. It always yanks Squee 
back to life. 

No breathin', no stubbed toes, none of dat, Squee told 
himself as he stood for the third time. Squee'll hold his 
breath till he dies, if dat's what he's gotta do to live. 

He walked. He felt his way past numerous corners and 
switchbacks. The air in his lungs grew stale. He desperately 
wanted to breathe. Hurrying through the cloud only made 
his chest ache more. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to take a 
breath and die again. He'd have another look at the bug 
banquet, and then another go at getting through this cloud. 

No, he told himself. Squee gotta get back to the throne 
room and save Gerrard's butt. He pressed on. 

Luckily, the cloud died out before Squee did. Unluckily, 
Squee didn't realize he still lived. He rounded a corner to 
stand in a long, straight hallway with a bright red light at 
the end. 

"Dammit!" Squee growled. "Squee not breathe! Squee 
hold breath perfect. Now Gerrard loses butt because Squee 
die again. Double dammit! Dammit to hell!" The goblin's 
eyes grew wide, fearing he had just sentenced himself to a 
less-than-pleasant afterlife. Still, the bright red light shone 
ahead. There would be a banquet table within, and bugs 

202 



J. Robert King 
aplenty. Squee nodded his rumpled head, flung out his 
hands in resignation, and said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go 
toward de light. Squee know." 

It really was a nice light, bright and powerful, and in its 
glow was always such a banquet of bugs. Maybe Squee 
would actually get to bite one of them before the hand 
came. Maybe if he hurried, he could get two bites. Squee 
trotted forward. The light intensified. It cast all into 
shadow. There was nothing now but Squee and that 
welcoming light. His claws carried him up the metal 
grating and through a glorious doorway. The room beyond 
was flooded with light. The very air swam. As always, 
directly beneath the luminescence lay a great table and 
upon that table a buggy feast. 

Squee blinked. Usually, the feast consisted of thousands 
of insects, some fried, some baked, some raw, and some 
alive. This time, though, the banquet was a single, huge 
bug. It lay on its back, long hind legs extended down like a 
grasshopper's and two sets of forelegs curled up above its 
knobby thorax. It was an ugly bug—and that was saying 
something—with a shaggy crest on its head, glassy eyes, 
and a twisted little mouth. What a bug looked like, though, 
mattered little. Walking sticks were cute but bitter. Slugs 
were ugly but luscious. Perhaps this ghastly thing would be 
the tastiest bug in the world. What would it hurt to find 
out? The thing was obviously dead. 

Squee approached the table, expecting any moment to 
be yanked back into life. No hand came. He reached the 
side of the table. The light was blinding. It prickled from 
every surface and made the bug seem fuzzy all over. Squee 
rubbed his hands avidly. Where to begin? There was a 
tender looking curl on the side of the bug's head. Squee 
could nibble it. 

203 



Apocalypse 

He bent over the table. The beaming glow engulfed 
him. It felt wonderful and a little painful. He reached out 
to the little curl of flesh. Razor-sharp teeth parted and then 
snapped together. 

Squee stood back up, chewing. It was chewy. Really 
chewy. And bland. Not the sort of bug one would expect to 
banquet on. 

The creature moved. It had not been dead after all, 
though it was sluggish with the light. One of its legs rose 
idly to prod at its head, where Squee had nipped off his first 
bite. 

This made things more interesting. Live bugs always 
tasted better than dead ones. Squee spit out that first 
disappointing mouthful and leaned in to take a big bite of 
bug face. With his mouth open wide and his teeth dripping 
spittle, Squee loomed over the bug's face. 

When his shadow fell across the face, he recognized the 
bug. Ertai! He must have died in the gas attack, too, and 
gone to the same light as Squee, and eaten all the bugs, and 
lain down for a nap. 

Squee closed his mouth and stared in irritation at the 
man. How rude, he thought. Damn bastard didn't leave 
Squee nothin' to eat but a little bit of ear. Ear! Squee eated 
Ertai's ear! He spat again. Serves him right. Eat all dem 
bugs, like he was the only hungry dead guy. 

Then one of Ertai's eyes opened. His pupil narrowed to 
a pinpoint, and his claws, sluggish no longer, reached out 
to grab Squee. 

The goblin lunged backward. Gerrard had taught him 
that move. There'd been plenty of times he'd had to lunge 
backward from Gerrard. This time he did it so well and so 
fast that he rammed up against the back wall of the 
chamber and his head hit on a bar—not a solid bar, but a 

204 



J. Robert King 
lever-type thing that slid up its groove and brought a big 
groan from the machine it was part of. 

Ertai began to scramble up on the table, but then the 
light changed. It flared brighter than bright, so bright that 
when Squee clamped his eyelids closed he could see 
straight through them and see Ertai riling like a real bug 
this time as his flesh burned down to the bone. 

Panicked, Squee turned around and fumbled to find the 
lever, and he yanked it down. 

The light went out. Totally out. Everything was black 
and still except Squee, who shivered and whimpered 
beneath the lever. 

When at last his eyes had adjusted enough to see again, 
Squee stood up. He was in that strange room with that 
strange table, but instead of Ertai there was only a pile of 
ash in the shape of Ertai. 

Squee shrugged. "Serves you right. Next time you die, 
leave some bugs for Squee." 

* * * * * 

Halberd clutched in his fists, Gerrard plunged from 
amid the stalactites. It had been easy enough to leap up 
there and cling above the throne, waiting for his chance. 
Now, it would be easy enough to split Crovax's skull— 

Except that he looked up. He couldn't raise the blade of 
his axe in time, but he could raise the haft. 

Gerrard's halberd clove through the shaft, but the 
impact flung Crovax out of the way. He crashed to the 
floor on one side of the throne. 

Gerrard smashed down on the other. He would have 
been killed had the axe haft not absorbed much of his 
momentum— and had he remained a mere man. Instead, 

205 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard rolled and came up swinging. He bounded at his 
foe. 

Crovax unleashed a quick spell. Fire jabbed from his 
claws. It roared toward Gerrard's face. 

He interposed the halberd blade, a shield against the 
blaze. Flames splashed against it and spread above and 
below. They singed Gerrard's hands and lit his waistcoat 
but did not stop him. Gerrard took two more running steps 
and swung the halberd in a moaning arc overhead. The 
blade fell. It chopped deeply into Crovax's shoulder, 
cleaving his metal armor and cutting through to bone. 

The evincar reeled back. 

Gerrard stalked him, ruthless. As he raised his bloodied 
blade for another strike, he said, "You promised me Hanna 
if I joined you." The halberd dropped again. It bit into the 
evincar's other shoulder, making his arm go limp. 

Crovax gabbled stupidly as twin cascades of glistening 
oil bubbled from his wounds. He took another numb step 
back. 

The halberd rose a final time and anointed Gerrard's 
head with the life of his enemy. "You revoked your 
bargain—I revoke mine." 

The last blow struck the evincar's brow and cleft 
straight down the spine. It emerged at last from a severed 
pelvis. 

Gerrard turned away as the two halves of Crovax slid 
separately to the floor. He panted heavily. 

Crovax was dead. The slayer of millions had paid with 
his own life. Still, it felt empty. Crovax had once been a 
comrade, a friend. He was as much a victim of Yawgmoth 
as any other. 

White motion caught Gerrard's eye, and he spun about, 
his halberd at the ready. He didn't need it. 

206 



J. Robert King 
From the black vault above, a gossamer spirit 
descended. White pinions, slender limbs, flowing hair of 
gold, and inestimably sad eyes—it was Selenia, Crovax's 
erstwhile angel. As she sank to the ground, she grew more 
substantial. When at last she knelt beside the riven form of 
her love, she was corporeal enough that his blood stained 
her knees. 

Weeping, she bent over him and slid her amis beneath 
his body. When she rose, though, his body did not lift off 
the floor. Instead, a ghostly image was in her arms, what 
seemed a young man. 

Gerrard's eyes narrowed in realization. It was Crovax 
before all this. It was Crovax as he had been when first he 
lived on Urborg. 

Rising, Selenia stroked her wings once. She lifted her 
young love into the air with her. They had not risen 
halfway to the vault before they both were insubstantial. 
Their spirit forms twined about each other and were gone. 

Gerrard sighed wearily. Perhaps there was redemption 
for even the blackest of hearts. 

More movement came, this time a scrabbling of claws 
accompanied by a familiar gibbering, "Dere you are, 
loungin' while Squee kill Ertai all by hisself." The goblin 
rushed through the throne room's doorway and headed for 
the commander. 

As he arrived, Gerrard smiled grimly and nodded 
toward Crovax's sundered form. 

Squee said only, "Oh." 

There was no time for more. The entrance suddenly 
disgorged warrior after hypertrophied warrior. Il-Vec and il-
Dal monstrosities. 

Snorting gustily, Gerrard scooped up the head of Urza 
Planeswalker. "Here we go again." 

207 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 22 

The Gutting of Phyrexia 

Four planeswalkers stood on the first sphere of 
Phyrexia. They had stripped away their thick suits and all-
encompassing vines. The air blew sweet here. Grass waved 
in rolling hills to the distant low mountains. Dense forests 
bristled down to a wide plain. None of the planeswalkers 
needed environmental defenses here in the first sphere of 
Yawgmoth's metallic paradise. Bo Levar's wide-brimmed 
pirate hat had vanished, releasing tawny hair to his 
shoulders. His greatcoat had become a waistcoat once 
again. He had taken the opportunity to light a cigar and 
stood with it clenched in his teeth. Smoke billowed from 
his mouth, through mustache and goatee, and out into the 
rolling air. 

Just above him in the air hovered Freyalise. Slender and 
blonde and wrapped in her own downy nimbus, the forest 
lady floated just off the ground. The impenetrable riot of 
vines that had guarded her from Phyrexia's worst environs 
had retreated into slender garments of green. She, like all 
of them, was eager to set off the final bombs and quit this 
place. 

In her shadow stood Lord Windgrace, again in man-
panther form. His silken coat had returned, replacing the 
thick mat of fur, but beneath his coat, the heart of Taysir 
remained encased beside his own. Throughout all the 
bombing missions below, he had carried it dutifully. Even 

208 



J. Robert King 
now beneath his pads, he felt the deep concussions of those 
explosions rip through the world. 

Commodore Guff had doffed his thick rubbers and 
donned his red waistcoat and breaches. With one hand, he 
idly twirled his mustaches. With the other, he held open a 
broad history written by King Famebraught the Ninth. The 
ancient dwarf king was one of the few outsiders who had 
ever returned from a journey into Phyrexia. As the 
commodore read with his monocled eye, his other eye 
stared beyond the gutter of the book to gaze at the city on 
the plains below. 

It seemed a mushroom garden, overspread with gigantic 
fungi of every shape and size. Pale domes with irregular 
contours joined one upon the other in infinite 
combination. 

Commodore Guff read: " 'And when Emperor 
Yawgmoth had opened the gateway to Phyrexia, he 
founded a city there, and he named the city Gamalgoth, 
which in the tongue of the Thran means "Creature 
Garden," for here he proposed to bring whole new races 
into being. And he enlisted the great architect Rebbec and 
her husband, the great artificer Glacian, to design and 
build him Gamalgoth. It was a city of wonders, tucked 
beyond our world, a high heaven created within a deep and 
hellish hole. This was before the great war, and the 
eradication of the Thran. And should any of their kind 
survive, they survive in Gamalgoth.' " 

Guff closed the book. His chameleon eyes aligned and 
shone with uncommon clarity. "This city is among the 
most ancient in the multiverse—nine thousand years of 
continuous occupation. And we are about to destroy the 
damned thing." 

Lord Windgrace nodded grimly. "It is a terrible war." 

209 



Apocalypse 

"Nine thousand years, destroyed in a moment," Bo 
Levar agreed. 

Freyalise spoke with no compassion, no compunction. 
"Nine thousand years of vile monstrosity ended in a 
moment—I will be glad of it." 

That was the end of that. Yes, Gamalgoth would go 
down to oblivion with all the rest of Phyrexia. 

"This will be our greatest fight," Bo Levar said. "They 
have had a month to work over the bomb clusters, to 
realize they cannot diffuse or remove them without setting 
them off, and then to fortify against our return." 

"Yes," confirmed Lord Windgrace. "I have scouted. 
They've buried the bombs beneath a half-mile dome of 
concrete, hoping to dull the impact and keep us at bay." 

Freyalise wore a wry look. "We need only chisel down 
through that dome, and when our labors grow near enough, 
they will set off the cluster." 

Again, Lord Windgrace confirmed. "Yes." 

"Then let's go. I'm ready to be shut of this place," said 
Freyalise, and she planeswalked, disappearing from their 
midst. 

Lord Windgrace gathered his leg muscles, sprang into 
the air, and was gone as well. 

Commodore Guff shoved the big book into an 
impossibly small waistcoat pocket, where the tome 
vanished utterly. "It's been a rum go. Let's close this 
chapter." He pushed his hand deeper into the pocket, up to 
the elbow, and then to the shoulder. His head followed 
next, and his other shoulder. He even kicked up his legs, 
rammed them into the pocket and, before his rump could 
tumble to the ground, popped out of existence. 

"A rum go," Bo Levar echoed, thinking instead of a tall 
ship filled with casks of liquor. He smiled and followed. His 

210 



J. Robert King 
smartly cut clothes seemed to fold in upon themselves, and 
he slid into the cracks of reality. 

Though they had left one at a time, the four 
planeswalkers reappeared simultaneously in a floating ring 
above the concrete dome. It stretched across the heart of 
the city, engulfing many ancient buildings but protecting 
others from the inevitable blast. Even now through the 
streets below, Phyrexians trooped like black ants and 
climbed the rooflines to their ray-cannon nests. 

Take those out, Bo Levar mind-sent to his comrades, 
flashing them a mental image of the guns that wheeled 
upon them. I'll begin with the dome. 

The thought was not even complete when Freyalise 
hurled her hands down toward two of the cannon bunkers. 
From her fingertips stretched coils of green force that 
struck the stony embrasures and erupted in tangled vines. 
The thorny thicket crawled vengefully over every inch of 
the gun and its crew and pierced the beasts in a thousand 
places. 

Lord Windgrace meanwhile had swept his clawed hand 
down before him, creating a veil of magic across his form. 
Scintillating energy sank into every crease and follicle and 
pore. He gripped this shimmering mantle, ripped it free 
from his body, and hurled it down into a second gun 
bunker. There, it became a simulacrum of himself, built on 
mana energy alone. The simulacrum landed, snarling, on 
the gun crew and began to rip them apart. Lord Windgrace 
meanwhile cast the spell again, preparing another spectral 
warrior. 

Commodore Guff's technique was stranger still but no 
less effective. He skipped across the sky like a maiden 
across a field. Where she would reach into a basket of 
flowers and fling them gladly in her wake, the commodore 
instead reached into another book—a dull and overwritten 

211 



Apocalypse 

and worthless book—and yanked out pages by the handful. 
He hurled the crumpled sheets down in rattling flurries 
within the gun embrasures, the streets, the windows .. .. 
His propaganda leaflets were, in a word, haphazard. They 
were also lethal. Creatures angrily snatched those pages 
from the air and peered down at the writing there. Those 
who glimpsed a single word fell asleep. Those who glimpsed 
more died on the spot. It truly was a horrid book, and like 
all such books, its pages were endless. 

While the other three planeswalkers incapacitated the 
guns, Bo Levar turned his attention on the dome itself. He 
had no intention of chiseling down through a half-mile of 
cement. His blue mana magic suggested better options. 
Cement, especially new cement, contained lots of water. 
His mind tapped its potential, quickening it. Water 
shimmered and shook, breaking the bonds of lime that it 
had set. 

The dome's peak began to run. Crisp cement became 
liquid again. Bo Levar deepened his focus. More water 
awoke. Gray rivulets turned to cascades. Days of labor 
poured away in moments. A moat of sludge formed around 
the dome and spread outward. It engulfed Phyrexians 
running to defend their city. It churned down adjacent 
streets. The mound flattened and sank. 

A few minutes, and the bomb cluster will be exposed, Bo 
Levar mind-sent to his comrades. Hold them off until then. 

An answering yelp came from Commodore Guff. A ray-
cannon bolt had leaped up from a hidden embrasure, struck 
the upraised book in his hand, and vaporized every last, 
wretched word. It also had taken off the commodore's hand 
at the wrist. His face flashed as red as his waistcoat, and in 
sheer fury he regrew the missing hand. With that new 
appendage, he reached up, snatched the monocle from his 
eye, and whirled it down at the offending gun. The little 

212 



J. Robert King 
lens spun through the air, widening as it went and gaining 
a silver sheen. As if on invisible lines, the monocle slid 
down to clamp onto the muzzle of the ray cannon. 

It barked, hurling another beam. The light struck the 
mirrored disk and bounced back down the throat of the 
gun. The mechanism exploded, and the barrel curled like 
the peel of a banana. 

In an adjacent gun nest, where four cannons roosted in 
a long row, a mana projection of Lord Windgrace sent its 
claws through the neck of a Phyrexian gunner. Flesh 
sloughed from energy. The panther simulacrum leaped to 
the gun controls. It grasped a metal crank and spun it with 
preternatural speed. The cannon rotated laterally. The 
panther creature spun another wheel, bringing the barrel 
down to aim straight at the other cannons. It took only the 
quick squeeze of a trigger, and red rays bounded down the 
line. 

The first gun split. Its molten ends dropped away from 
each other. Rays shot through the gap to strike the next 
gun. It got off two more rounds before its bore melted shut. 
Its next bolt exploded within and threw molten metal in a 
wide sphere. 

The last gun spun about and drew a bead on the rebel 
cannon. Phyrexian crews unleashed a blistering salvo that 
pulverized the simulacrum's cannon. Roaring their victory, 
the Phyrexians never noticed the ghostly outline of the 
simulacrum as it bounded from the destroyed gun to land 
among them. 

The mana creature slew the main gunner first. It 
rammed his body against the charge mechanism. A rising 
whine told of the energy building within, and of the 
inevitable explosion when no one remained to trigger its 
release. In moments, the panther's claws made sure no one 

213 



Apocalypse 

remained. It bounded away even as the device went 
critical. 

Watching the explosion, Bo Levar smiled. His 
expression only deepened as the tide of cement flooded the 
final two gun nests. It would be considerably easier to 
complete this task without having to worry about ray 
cannon bolts— 

Dragon engines! mind-sent Freyalise. With the words 
came an image—four black shapes jagging down from the 
mountains at the edge of the world. The mechanical 
creatures flew with amazing speed, outrunning even the 
war-shrieks from their gaping mouths. One for each of us. 
She whirled in the air like dandelion down and wafted out 
toward the dragon onslaught. 

While her hands began an intricate dance, her mind 
reached into the mana beneath her floating feet. Yes, 
Phyrexia was rich in the blackest of mana, but there was 
green here too. The metallic plants that proliferated across 
the first sphere partook in both colors, a fusion of 
antagonists that occurred nowhere else. If Yawgmoth could 
make metal grow, so could Freyalise. 

It was a simple spell, known by every novice green 
wizard. Gathering potent magics into her hand, she blew a 
cloud of mana spores upon the wind. They tumbled out 
before her, twining like a ribbon in air, and wrapped 
around the first metal serpent. 

Motes of power sank into supple scales and fine-mesh 
skin, into the cable-taut muscles beneath and the metallic 
bones that they moved. The dragon grew, parts expanding 
with disruptive force. Joints ground together. Wings seized 
up. Limbs grew too heavy to hold aloft. The dragon 
plunged from the skies as surely as if it had been slain 
outright. All twisted metal and tortured welds, the beast 
tumbled twice before it struck a building below. It cracked 

214 



J. Robert King 
through the roof as if it were an eggshell and sent up an 
explosion. 

Lord Windgrace took on the second dragon. The 
panther warrior powered his spell with the black side of the 
spectrum. His mind summoned a thought, a simple but 
powerful thought discovered by the liches of Urborg. Their 
necromancies had captured the final idea that arose in 
every mortal mind as it winked from being, a thought that 
stilled flesh and awakened rot. Vultures, it was said, could 
hear that thought, and knew the moment to begin to feed. 
Had Lord Windgrace allowed the idea to come fully formed 
into his own mind, even he would have been slain. Instead, 
he brought it into being in the mind of the dragon engine. 
Its eyes went dark. Its limbs curled in death. It fell from the 
sky. 

Commodore Guff squared off against the third dragon 
engine—and nearly died. The thing swooped down on him 
and breathed a red gush of flame. In the moment before 
Guff was engulfed, he racked his brain for a form that 
would be impervious to fire. He thought of nothing, only 
the fire itself. It broke over him, consuming his flesh—no, 
not consuming it, for his flesh had in the last moment 
become fire. It was a hot but otherwise comfortable body. 
He felt like a man swimming in a large tub. Better still, he 
realized he could gather the flames into his body and thus 
increase it. In a moment, the holocaust that spewed from 
the dragon's mouth took on the shape of a gigantic 
Commodore Guff. Eager to become even larger, the 
planeswalker shoved his burning hands into the dragon's 
mouth and dragged himself down the serpent's throat. He 
sought the white-hot source of all that flame and, reaching 
it, expanded hugely. There came a terrific popping sound, 
and the fiery Guff jetted out the back of a burned-out 
dragon husk. 

215 



Apocalypse 

The last dragon engine belonged to Bo Levar, who had 
just finished washing away all the cement. He'd nearly 
depleted his mana reserves by moving that mountain, but a 
clever trick needed little mana. Glancing from the now-
exposed bomb cluster beneath him to the hurtling figure of 
the dragon engine, Bo Levar made a series of mental 
calculations. He cast a simple summoning, the simplest 
summoning of all—to bring nothing into being. Directly in 
the dragon's path, he summoned an inviolate singularity, a 
point in space that could not be occupied by any matter. 

The dragon crashed into the point, smaller than a 
pinprick. It clove through the creature's metallic brain, 
folded up its neck like a limp chain, and ripped out its 
mechanistic heart. The dragon fell, the singularity 
remaining intact behind it. Bo Levar floated off to one side, 
giving room for the corpse to plummet atop the bomb 
cluster. 

The bombs went off. White energy blossomed below Bo 
Levar's feet. It formed a set of new domes. Each expanded 
exponentially. Each pulverized everything it swept over. 
They spread with such blinding fury that in the first 
moment they swallowed a square mile. In the second they 
swallowed nine square miles. In the third, thirty-six. Then 
a hundred. Then two hundred twenty-five. 

Bo Levar and the others rose away from the explosions. 
They soared up from Gamalgoth, which disappeared 
forever. 

Blasts leveled the forests and reamed away the bedrock. 
The white, killing cloud boiled outward even as it sank 
through the devastation. A landmass the size of a small 
continent—the size of Argive of old—simply turned to 
nothing. All around the cracked edge of the blast, where 
the shell of the first sphere struggled to hold together, 

216 



J. Robert King 
chunks of ground broke free and plunged into the second 
sphere. 

We've done it, came Freyalise's thought in all their 
minds. We've destroyed Phyrexia. 

Even as she said it, the explosive cloud shifted enough 
that they could see down through the first sphere and the 
second to riven pipes in the third, and boiling blackness in 
the forth. Phyrexia was cut in cross-section like a half-
demolished building. 

It's not destroyed, Bo Levar replied. But it surely is gutted. 
It will take Yawgmoth aeons to rebuild it. 

Commodore Guff chuckled internally and thought, Ha! 
Little do these poor bastards know he has no plans to rebuild. 

What? chorused the other three planeswalkers. 

The commodore stared, shocked, at them. Did I think 
that out loud? 

Bo Levar fixed him with a level stare, quite a feat as the 
thinning atmosphere of Phyrexia whirled around him. 
What do you know, Commodore? 

Huffing into his mustache, the commodore said, 
Nondisclosure, my boy. I make it a habit not to discuss future 
events with those destined to live them out— 

Break the habit, interrupted Bo Levar. Why wouldn't 
Yawgmoth want to rebuild Phyrexia? 

Why, it's simple, the commodore said, blinking. 
Dominaria will be his new home. 

The four destroyers of Phyrexia traded heartsick looks. 
Bo Levar spoke for them all. Then all we've done is drive him 
irrevocably into our world. When the commodore nodded 
grimly, Bo Levar said, Great. Let's get out of here and get 
back to Dominaria— or shall we call it New Phyrexia? 

217 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 23 

The Eyes of Urza 

Gerrard watched with seething hatred as Stronghold 
troops poured into the ruined throne room of Crovax. 

Ten, twenty, thirty: il-Vec, il-Dal, Phyrexian.... The 
warriors seemed to note the absence of the room's usual 
defenders and did not charge Gerrard. Instead, they fanned 
out along the rumpled walls. Or perhaps they grew wary 
after glimpsing what Gerrard held, the severed head of 
Urza Planeswalker. They all knew and hated that visage. 
Most likely, though, they hesitated when they saw the two 
halves of Crovax's corpse. Anyone who could singlehandedly 
slay Crovax and his retinue was a formidable 
warrior, was perhaps the new evincar. 

Gerrard sensed their thoughts—any true commander 
could read warriors' eyes—and he knew the next moments 
would decide if he lived or died. Even with tenfold 
strength, he could not defeat a company such as this. There 
were easily sixty warriors now and more in the corridor. He 
could not defeat them, but he could cow them. 

Gerrard lifted his bloodied halberd blade toward the 
doorway and made a sweeping gesture. 

"Come in, all of you! Come pay fealty to your new 
lord!" He hung the blade at his waist, strode heavily toward 
the black throne and leaped up onto it. Grasping the high 
back with his free hand, he raised the head of Urza 
Planeswalker like a lantern. "Behold, my prey. First, I slew 
the greatest, most ancient foe of the Ineffable—Urza 

218 



J. Robert King 
Planeswalker. In payment, the Ineffable granted me the 
power to destroy Evincar Crovax, and to take his place. 
Kneel before your new lord. Kneel before Evincar 
Capashen!" 

They did not. Glaives and cudgels gleamed in their 
hands, and defiance in their eyes. The il-Vec lieutenant 
who had gathered the other warriors spoke for them all 
through a mouth formed by facial wires. 

"Until we see proof of Yawgmoth's favor, we will not 
kneel." 

Eyes blazing, Gerrard stared at the lieutenant—or just 
past his shoulder, to the flowstone wall. A hand formed 
from the malleable stuff, mimicking the motion of 
Gerrard's free hand. He shoved, and it shoved, striking the 
cocky lieutenant in the solar plexus and sending him to his 
knees. 

"Kneel! All of you! Or must I wrap your necks in 
flowstone fists!" 

They complied—reluctantly. Each dropped one knee to 
the floor. 

Gerrard had hoped for more, but this was a start. He 
hadn't the power to subdue them all with flowstone. Nor, 
yet, did it seem he had the power to subdue them with 
words. This was only token obedience, quickly spent. Still, 
it was better than open rebellion. 

He gestured toward the riven shell of Crovax. "This 
man, who had been a terror to you, had been merely a 
nuisance to me. This man, who had reigned in awful glory 
aboard the Stronghold skulked below decks on 
Weatherlight. You've learned to obey the madness of 
Crovax, but his madness was only lunacy. The madness of 
Gerrard is fury!" He thrust the head of Urza high, and his 
roar echoed through the black vault. The stalactites 
resonated, like bells drawing an overtone from the air. 

219 



Apocalypse 

Then came a deadly pause, a silence where there should 
have been the sound of faces kissing the ground. The 
kneeling guards did not lower themselves. They seemed 
ready to rise and bear forward. 

Words failed Gerrard. He was ready to go down 
fighting, to kill as many as he could before he himself died. 

Words did not fail Squee. "Ahem!" he began in a high-
pitched stage cough that drew all eyes, including Gerrard's. 
Squee posed before the throne in an imperious posture he 
had learned from the goblins of Mercadia. 

"Behold likewise Lord Squee, magic man of dat dere 
black throne." He thrust his claws forward in emulation of 
spell-casting, though he looked more like a cat batting a 
ball. "Ha-cha-cha!" 

Gerrard's eyes flared. The soldiers got a glimpse of his 
real fury. 

Undaunted, Squee strutted in front of the throne and 
crowed, "Just like Gerrard kilt hisself a Crovax, Squee 
likewise kilt hisself a Ertai." He nodded deeply. "Yep. An' 
just like Gerrard's screamin' at you for bein' dolts, so youse 
got Squee mighty pissed too." 

The lieutenant laughed through stainless steel teeth. "If 
you're a mage, show us your best spell." 

Squee pawed the air again and tried to look fierce. 

Gerrard surreptitiously kicked him in the backside and 
said, "He doesn't need to show you a spell. He killed Ertai. 
He is mightier than Ertai. Disbelieve to your own peril!" 

"I disbelieve," said the lieutenant as he rose, his battle 
axe rotating eagerly in his hands, "but to your peril." 

The others stood as well. 

Before they could advance, Squee shouted, "Squee's 
gonna do his best spell. His lovely assist—er—evincar's 
gonna swing his blade, and Squee's head's gonna shoot off 

220 



J. Robert King 
his body an' plop right down. Then, he's gonna put his 

head back on an' stand up." 

Whispers of awe leaked from the soldiers. 

"A resurrection spell!" 

"He's gonna kill the toad." 

"Wait, let's see this!" 

Gerrard's glare had a beseeching edge to it, and he 
muttered, "It may not work ... with Crovax dead." 

Squee's eyes grew wide for a moment. His brow rumpled 
in concentration. He turned toward the warriors. 

"Maybe Squee try a card trick—" 

"Rise from the dead," demanded the lieutenant, his axe 
shining, "or descend .. .. It's your choice." 

Squee gazed at the soldiers, considering. He turned 
toward Gerrard and pursed his lips. He threw his arms out 
to his sides, drew a deep breath, and said, "Watch close. 
Squee's got nothing up sleeve." 

"Soon he'll have nothing up his collar," one warrior 
joked. 

Squee swallowed once visibly. "Draw blade!" 

Gerrard complied, lifting the halberd high. He 
muttered, "Not again." 

"Swing blade!" cried Squee shrilly, closing his eyes and 
plugging his ears with long, bony fingers. 

Drawing a ragged breath, Gerrard clenched his teeth 
and swung. The blade moaned in air, cutting straight and 
true. It entered the back of Squee's bony neck, severed 
bone and muscle, and exited the front, rolling the loose 
head as it went. There could be no doubting the stroke for 
the red fountain and the tumbling skull and the crunch as 
it smacked the floor. The body went over next in a limp, 
almost disappointed slump. Gerrard finished the follow-
through, the halberd only drawing his eye to the head he 
held in his other hand. At last, he stopped the momentum 

221 



Apocalypse 

of the wicked blade. It dripped. He didn't want to hang it 
again at his waist. Every thought went to the two hunks of 
flesh and the pool of red on the floor. 

There was silence. This time, every eye was on the dead 
Squee. 

"Nothing's happening," said the lieutenant unhelpfully. 

"Shut up," advised Gerrard, staring. "Give it time." 

The lieutenant was right, though. The blood did not 
boil and vault back into emptied vessels. The flesh did not 
reweave itself, as it had so many times before. 

Blinking, the lieutenant growled, "We've given you 
imposters enough time." He took a step forward. "You're 
going to wish you'd died as quickly as your court mage." 

Gerrard stared an incredulous moment longer at the 
green wreck of flesh that had once been his comrade, his 
friend. Perhaps the halberd had truly slain him—a soul-
killing weapon. 

The circle of warriors tightened. 

"Get back!" Gerrard shouted, waving his halberd and 
brandishing the head of Urza. "Get back, or die." 

"Who's going to kill us?" asked the lieutenant. He was 
almost in range to strike with his axe. "Your wizard?" 

In deadly seriousness, Gerrard growled, "No, I'll kill 
you." 

"Yeah, Evincar," the lieutenant said, taking a swing that 
Gerrard had to jump over. "You can't kill us all." 

"But I can," interrupted a new voice—in fact, a very old 
voice. 

It had not come from Squee or Gerrard, but from the 
head that Gerrard held aloft—the head of Urza 
Planeswalker. Red beams rolled from Urza's gemstone eyes. 
They splashed over the lieutenant and his nearest troops, 
bathing them in killing fire. 

222 



J. Robert King 
The lieutenant's wired smile melted. His skin cracked. 
Jerkied flesh curled away from bone. His neck burned 
through, and his skull fell toward ground but never struck, 
disintegrated. All around him, soldiers died the same way. 

As Urza's eyes disgorged their killing gaze, his mouth 
moved in hoarse instruction. "Sweep the room," he told 
Gerrard, who complied. More soldiers turned to skeletons 
and then to drifting ash. "Kill them all." 

It was an easy command to obey. Soon, the throne 
room battle had claimed another three-score victims. Like 
those who had died before, these left no trace of their 
existence—nothing but ash. 

For the third time, silence gripped the throne room. In 
that hush, Gerrard turned the now-darkened eyes of Urza 
Planeswalker toward himself and stared into their strange 
black facets. "You're alive," he breathed, incredulous. The 
ancient face stared back with infinite sadness. "Yes, but 
only just." 

Gerrard searched those dead eyes. "If you live, you can 
build yourself a new body." 

"I cannot. No common axe could have slain me, for my 
body was only a convenience to house my soul ... but that 
halberd you wield ... it was forged by Yawgmoth himself. It 
has severed forever the greater part of my soul." 

"How do you live at all?" Gerrard asked breathlessly. 
The head winced with some inner anguish and said, "There 
is but one planeswalking organ—the brain. While it, and 
these two power stones remain in my head, I will live." 

Gerrard—who had downed dozens of Phyrexian 
cruisers, had fought in five separate battles on three 
separate planes, had even stabbed Yawgmoth disguised as 
his beloved—Gerrard blushed and looked away from the 
head. 

223 



Apocalypse 

"Well, uh—sorry for cutting off your—" "If you hadn't 
slain me, I would have slain you," Urza replied. "It is better 
this way. If I had won, I would have bowed in service to 
Yawgmoth. You not only escaped him, but you cut away 
enough of me that I could escape him as well. You cut away 
the Phyrexian part of me. I had become like Mishra, more 
machine than man. Now I am neither." 

"Squee not machine, not man!" interrupted a squeaky 
voice. "Why you cut his head off?" 

"You're alive!" Gerrard repeated, shifting his focus from 
the bodiless Urza to a whole, hale goblin. The severed 
cranium had regrown. Where there had moments before 
been only a lifeless body, there was now a squirming, 
talking goblin. It was as if Squee had never been slain. 
Gerrard glanced again at Urza. The two of them traded 
amazed looks. "How is it that you aren't killed by a soul-
killing blade?" 

"Perhaps he has no soul," whispered Urza. 

"Squee the greatest magic man ever!" 

Furrowing his brow, Gerrard lifted the head of Urza. 
"Here's the greatest magic man ever, Squee, and look what 
happened to him." 

Crossing arms over his chest, Squee nodded, 
considering. "Well, dat magic man don't got his body back, 
and Squee do. Squee guess Yawgmoth don't want him 
dead." 

"Maybe he doesn't want your company. You're alive 
because you're too irritating to die," teased Gerrard. 

"Maybe that'll work for me, too," Urza interjected. 

"Squee alive because Squee immortal!" 

Gerrard laughed. "If irritation is immortality, yes, you 
will live forever. And if you can't die, you're leading us out 
of here." 

224 



J. Robert King 
The goblin looked suddenly fearful. "Oh, but Squee do 
die. It just don't stick." 

A pensive look crossed the face of Urza, and his 
gemstone eyes seemed to darken bleakly. "What is it like to 
die, Squee? I have known every other thing in all the 
spheres, even the love of a woman." Gerrard and Squee 
both lifted eyebrows at this. Urza looked miffed. "Surely 
you have heard of Kayla bin-Kroog? Author of The History 
of the Brothers' War? She was my wife." 

Gerrard and Squee shrugged. 

"I have known all that a man can know, but I do not 
know what it is like to die, and I will be doing so soon 
enough. Tell me. What lies ahead?" 

"A head?" It was more than Squee could bear. He 
doubled over laughing. "What lies a head?" 

"Yes, ahead," reiterated Urza, nostrils flaring. "Is there 
an afterlife, and if so, what is it like?" 

Squee grew wistful. "Yes, dere's a afterlife. It's a big bug 
fest." 

Urza grunted. "I shall strive to remain alive." 

An all-too-familiar sound came in the corridor— 
hundreds of booted feet approaching. 

"Good luck," Gerrard hissed, wishing suddenly he had 
made good on their chance to escape. "Urza, do you still 
have that killing glare?" 

"I've had that since I was a lecturer at Tolaria," the 
head replied. 

"Good. Squee, you still have that ... immortal 
irritation?" 

"All set," was the goblin's response. 

"Let's let these bastards know who runs the 
Stronghold." Gerrard stepped down from the throne and 
lifted the head of Urza into the air. With his other hand, 
he waved his halberd, summoning Squee. 

225 



Apocalypse 

It was two and a quarter against who-knew-how-many? 
It sounded like a whole regiment. Some of those 
concussions came not from feet but from hooves—and 
worse things. The only hope for Gerrard and his hapless 
band was to get the jump on whoever was coming. 

The moment the first three figures appeared in the 
doorway, Gerrard shouted, "Slay them!" 

Running forward, he rammed Urza's head upward to 
give it the best possible angle of attack, but no killing 
beams spewed forth. With the flat of his halberd, Gerrard 
shoved Squee toward the horn-headed beasts. The goblin 
only fell to his knees and tittered nervously. Growling, 
Gerrard swung his halberd at this new threat. The soul-
blade keened through the air and crashed against upraised 
steel, repelled by a resolute and skilled hand. Off balance, 
Gerrard fell back, crashing to his butt. 

"Quite a welcome for your rescuers," quipped a familiar, 
feminine voice. 

Gerrard blinked, and suddenly saw not a horned 
monster but a minotaur, not a mechanistic killer but a 
silver golem, and not a Rathi warrior, but Sisay. She 
panted, and her figure ran with sweat, but it was she. 

"Wh-what are you doing here?" he asked, almost 
pleading. "Warding off deathblows," Sisay responded 
lightly. She reached out, taking his hand and hauling him 
up. "And saving a trio in dire need of saving." 

Gerrard breathed, allowing himself to be pulled into her 
strong arms. "You can save me anytime." 

Urza, whose head bounced ignominiously against 
Sisay's shoulder blades as the old friends embraced, said, 
"Yes, save us." 

"Tahngarth!" Gerrard said happily, clasping the 
minotaur's four-fingered hand. "Thanks." 

226 



J. Robert King 
The minotaur nodded. "I remember a similar rescue, 
from this selfsame place." 

Last, Gerrard went to the hulking silver man, Karn, 
whose much-scarred frame bore the telltale marks of Rathi 
blood and Phyrexian oil. Heedless, Gerrard wrapped the 
creature in a grateful hug. 

Beyond the three leaders, a strange contingent arrived, 
tortured folk from every species—elf, human, minotaur, 
goblin, and other indefinite things. All were emaciate, 
sculpted by pain. 

"A damned fine army you've brought," Gerrard 
remarked. 

Sisay smiled proudly. "The damnedest. They've got 
nothing left to lose, and've got a few scores to settle." 

Gerrard's smile was dazzling. "My kind of people. 
What's the quickest way out of here?" 

Sisay shrugged. "Weatherlight awaits. Whatever way is 
free of guards is quickest." 

As if the phrase had been a summons, the roar of 
soldiers came at another door. 

Gerrard glanced apologetically toward the archway. 
"This is a busy place." 

Sisay smiled, responding not to his words, but to the 
host that appeared in the doorway beyond—a certain 
minotaur, elf, and Vec. 

Gerrard threw his arms wide in welcome—jiggling Urza 
brutally. "Grizzlegom, Eladamri, Liin Sivi! What a 
homecoming!" 

The minotaur rolled his eyes toward the stalactites. 
"What a home!" 

Behind the three commanders came another army, 
Metathran, minotaur, Keldon, and elf. They were as 
multifarious as Sisay's dungeon brigade, and no less thirsty 
for glistening oil. The two groups, trained warriors and 

227 



Apocalypse 

tortured prisoners, melded into a single unit. All were folk 
who would face down hell to get out of this place. 

Urza muttered, "This has suddenly turned from tragedy 
to comedy." 

Ignoring him, Gerrard vigorously shook the hands of 
the arriving commanders. "The situation is grim. What am 
I saying? The situation is glad. We—" he estimated the 
gathering— "two hundred face off against two thousand 
Stronghold warriors. Our object—the ship Weatherlight. 
Let's go!" 

228 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 24 

Yawgmoth 

I stand upon the heights of bright Halcyon. My 
warships float crown-like above my head and cast down 
giant shadows upon the desert. I breathe the crisp air. My 
eyes are gemstone—not like the eyes of the stripling child 
Urza, shaped with the rough strokes of a chisel. My eyes 
reflect the ubiquitous facets of a city. No shadow shows 
itself to those eyes, for I am the city's sun and moon and 
morning star. I am her every lamp. Even my own shadow 
hides from me, turned traitor by the ache of darkness for 
light. 

I am Yawgmoth. That was nine thousand years ago that 
I stood thus, in human figure, upon the heights of Halcyon. 
Nine thousand years, but time means nothing to me. I live 
in all times and no time. I have done all things and 
nothing. Every action I begin is one already done. Every 
hunger that arises in me has already been sated. No mere 
mortal can oppose me. Before they act, I know what they 
have done. Before the battle, I know I have triumphed. 

Mishra stands upon the leafy verge of that hot forest, 
amid metallic foliage. He stares out upon the dragon 
engine, and he lusts for such power. I know he comes, and I 
know in coming he desires, and I know in desiring he is 
mine. As he crouches in a different world—my world, my 
Phyrexia—I see his life roll out like a long carpet, the warp 
and weft bristling with metal filaments. I see it all, and I 
know Mishra is mine forevermore. Even, four thousand 

229 



Apocalypse 

years hence, I see Mishra beneath the grinders, struggling 
to keep his face out of them and pleading with his brother 
for release. I see Urza walk away. 

This is not a game of chance. I know every rule, every 
exception. I know how you think you will win, and I know 
how you will lose. I know the inexorable mathematics of 
our duel, and I see your death. 

So it is with Mishra. Even as he and his brother stumble 
unawares into the Caves of the Damned, my cables already 
crawl beneath his skin. So it is with Urza, damned to be as 
Phyrexian as his brother. Yes, he takes four thousand years 
to do it, cannot apprentice himself to a higher power as did 
Mishra. In the end, though, Urza is my machine. I see his 
creation, his elaboration, his destruction. 

Yes, as he and his brother stalk into the Cave of the 
Damned, two hearty boys seeking adventure, I see Mishra 
enmeshed in mechanism and Urza with his head sliced 
from his shoulders. 

I see the slicer too—Gerrard. He comes into being 
because of Urza. He is fostered to another family and loses 
them to Vuel's hate. He denies the death sentence his 
creator lays upon him, fights it angrily, bargains to reverse 
it, and finally accepts it—and cuts off the head of the 
creator. I see him hold that head high in exultation. I see 
him approach the balcony where I stand. 

But who could have foreseen him stabbing the one he 
loves? There is something wrong with this Gerrard. He 
doesn't see the pretty pictures and hear the lovely lines. He 
sees the mathematics of the game and fights as his whims 
drive him. He is like me. 

It doesn't matter what Gerrard will do. I have already 
seen his end. He will die in the final conflagration, as I 
spread across the world. He and Urza too. 

230 



J. Robert King 
It is enough. I know what they have done to Phyrexia. I 
know what I must do to Dominaria. 

Watch my claw. I twist it thus. It is an easy, simple 
gesture, the beckoning of a father to his children. Come to 
me. 

They do. Every last particle does. It is my victory over 
Dominaria. They rise, so multitudinous, so multifarious, my 
children. I do not mean the Phyrexians, for they live 
already. I mean every dead thing across the planet. They 
are all mine, and they rise. 

Life is so arrogant. It believes it rules the world, any 
world. But for every blade of grass, there are a million dead 
blades that have turned to dirt. Life is only a weak parasite 
on all-encompassing death. Now, death will throw off its 
passive mantle and rise to take back what belongs to it. 

Dominaria, you are mine. 

* * * * * 

In Urborg it began. 

Swamps, bottomless in muck, boiled. The dead things 
beneath the waters rose. Things took form. They did not 
reconstitute into the trees that once stood on and beasts 
that once roamed across the islands. Instead, they formed 
into creatures of humus, hulking and monstrous things with 
hunched backs and twisted limbs and eyes like snake holes. 
They were monsters of black peat and bits of bone. They 
churned up through entombing waters and clawed their 
way onto land. 

A hundred thousand, a hundred million, they were. 
Swamps sank. Killing things plodded out of the muck. 

There, they met terrestrial comrades. The thick humus 
of forests packed itself into stone-toothed warriors. Cypress 
needles bristled across the things' backs. Slugs formed 

231 



Apocalypse 

themselves into drooling lips. Eyes like blind mushrooms 
peered from faces of rot. They were huge, these shambling 
beasts, and they thundered toward the so-called armies of 
Dominaria. 

They didn't have to fight, but only trample. Elven 
arrows peppered the beasts to no avail. Mudmen swarmed 
the elves and buried them alive. Watery silt ran into the 
lungs of the thrashing fey, and red tides gushed from their 
dying lips. 

The Metathran fared no better. It did not matter that 
the blue warriors drove home their powerstone pikes or 
that they clung with ferocity to the mudmen who fell upon 
them. They could not breathe ground. Buried in living 
muck, they suffocated. 

So, what of the minotaurs? They swung their futile 
axes. The steel could not find true flesh, but only sank and 
stuck. The horned warriors fell as easily as their fainter 
allies, covered in rampant decay. 

Even the magnigoth treefolk—even those massive 
guardians of the forest, three thousand feet tall and 
ferocious—how could they do battle? They drew 
sustenance from the black ground. Now it rose up against 
them. No longer could they suck water and nutrients from 
the dead. For them, the loss of rich soil was like a loss of 
air. They languished. 

Up sluggish roots and shuddering trunks, mudmen 
climbed. Their feet dragged life out of the sap. Their hands 
blackened leaves, blinding them to the sun. The children 
of Yawgmoth rose to slay the creatures they had once 
nourished. 

No longer would the dead lie in easy graves, to be 
pillaged by the living. Death would be subject no longer. 
Death would reign forever. 

232 



J. Robert King 
* * * * * 

Benalia City had long been a Phyrexian bastion, the 
staging ground of a million scaly monsters. Now its 
population grew tenfold. The dead of the city, slain by 
their invaders, rose from piles of dry meat and white bone. 
The long dead, slain by the march of time, pushed their 
way up from the tombing ground. Even the rich soil itself 
rose to join the monstrous legions. 

Above the gutted shell of the military brig, the 
skeletons of Lord and Lady Capashen returned to life. They 
riled on their gibbets like worms on the hook. Their teeth 
gnawed the ropes that dangled them. They plunged to the 
cobbled courtyard. There, the two potentates of Gerrard's 
clan strode out in search of living flesh. 

All around them was dead flesh. The whole city had 
died that horrible day when Tsabo Tavoc's forces swept 
through. Now they rose to join the army of their slayers. 
Skeletons came first, their bones picked clean. From deeper 
spots shambled revenants in tattered bodies. From deeper 
still came zombies, pasty and corporeal. 

The ground itself, soil that had hosted millennia of 
grasses, lifted in sod monsters. Hairy with stalks, bleak eyed 
and massive, they marched across the land. 

They all marched. Benalia had fallen. There remained 
no prey here. To the south and east lay the lands of 
Llanowar. There, undead could eat elves and the ground 
itself could eat trees. 

Yawgmoth had surely won. Dominaria was his. 

* * * * * 

From the forest crown to the Dreaming Caves, 
Llanowar seethed with monsters. Every pocket of soil 

233 



Apocalypse 

animated into a scuttling creature. Every mushroom cluster 
combined into pallid monsters. Aerial roots snared Steel 
Leaf warriors. Slain giant spiders returned to life and 
prowled hungrily across the lands. Even the elven dead, 
buried with plague spores across their breasts, stirred and 
rose from the embracing ground. 

This was where the miracle of Eladamri had begun. 
This was where the miracle of Orim's Phyrexian 
inoculation had saved a whole forest. Now, what was it for? 

Steel Leaf elves drowned in a wash of mud. Oriaptoric 
trees wilted beneath a black slurry. The memorial hall of 
Staprion caved and buckled. 

Llanowar, once proud in its victory, languished in utter 
defeat. Death had come to the world of green. 

* * * * * 

These savage shores of Shiv, carved in perfect arc as by 
a celestial compass, were not immune either. Even clever 
Teferi could not save all this land from its ravishers. 

Middens of bone and jerkied meat took new form. Dead 
goblins, Viashino, and dragons clattered up from mounds of 
their remains. They reconstituted themselves in wicked 
reflections of their former selves. Some were grotesque 
amalgams of all the beasts buried there. Slain dragons 
joined with the skeletons of their slayers. Even the first 
Rhammidarigaaz, entombed in lava, emerged. Riddled with 
holes, the monstrous Primeval shook out its ancient wings 
and lunged down the lava tube that led to the outer world. 

* * * * * 

234 



J. Robert King 
Tolaria—that melted skull of an island—stirred with 
evil life. What Urza had given over for lost, Yawgmoth 
reclaimed as found. 

In the molten hollows lay bones, Phyrexian and human 
and elf. They rose. Scholars and students cracked from the 
glassy ground that covered them. They lifted themselves, 
gaunt and alien, upon the hillsides. They stared out with 
empty-socket eyes at a world they could no longer 
comprehend. It didn't matter. Within their very bones, 
they sensed the truth. They fought for Yawgmoth now. 

Wickedest of all were the three that rose from adjacent 
graves near the sea. Rayne was the first to emerge, lovely in 
middle age, the ageless wife to the ageless Barrin. He lifted 
himself next, only a specter. His physical form had been 
blasted away. Worst of all, though, was the blonde-haired 
corpse that stood beside him. Her belly was eaten away by 
black plague, but her face, even with sunken cheeks, still 
showed the beauty she had carried in life. Hanna. 

Yawgmoth had denied her true life, had dangled her 
like a prize before Gerrard only to haul her away afterward. 
Now she lived again, if only as a dry corpse. She, her 
father, and her mother set out across the blasted landscape, 
looking for someone to kill. 

* * * * * 

All across the globe, they rose. Urborg, Benalia, 
Llanowar, Shiv, Tolaria, Jamuraa, Keld, Vodalia, 
Yavimaya—every land everywhere bubbled with the rising 
dead. None could escape the tide of Yawgmoth. His initial 
invasion, with plague ships and cruisers, had been only a 
preparation for the Rathi overlay. The Rathi overlay had 
been only a preparation for this worldwide acquisition of all 

235 



Apocalypse 

black mana. And this worldwide emergence was but a 
prelude to the true, horrid, beautiful power to come. 

* * * * * 

It is time. I have waited an eternity for you, Rebbec. 
You closed me out of Dominaria ninety centuries ago. As I 
grew to become a god in Phyrexia, you grew to become a 
goddess in Dominaria. Don't think I don't recognize you, 
Gaea. Don't think I don't smell your scent and know who 
you once were and know who you once opposed. 

I held you to my heart, Rebbec, thinking you loved me, 
but you made hate seem like love. It was a trick you'd 
learned from me. Now I reciprocate. 

I open again the portal through which I flung Gerrard 
and the head of Urza. I follow them like a dog returning on 
its vomit. I fling open the portal and emerge. 

Do you see me, gentle mind? Do you sense what I am? 
Your eyes no doubt will think me only a black cloud of 
soot. There is so much more to me, though. My very touch 
is death. My very scent is decay. My very sight is 
reanimation. I ooze out across the throne room, my soot 
fingers toying with the dead ash that lies there. 

My soul drifts room to room. A mogg guard crumples 
onto its face and slowly settles like a melting dessert; an il-
Kor cook slumps over his steaming griddle and allows his 
flesh to fry into place; an il-Dal warrior finds his armor 
turned to graphite and then finds nothing. 

That's what I do. I roll out like the angel of death and 
decimate whole armies. They fall to bones on the ground 
and rise again a moment later. 

Oh, it is good to rule Dominaria. And through the 
world, I will take possession of you, my sweet lady, my 
Gaea, my Rebbec! 

236 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 25 

Weatherlight Gains a New Crew 

To any other race, this boiling sea of lava would have 
been hell. To Sister Dormet and her fellow rock druids, it 
was more like heaven. 

They stood on the welling tide of molten rock. Their 
hands clutched the hilts of their hammers, which in turn 
rested on the bubbling stuff. From their mouths rang songs 
that summoned the power of the world and made the 
dwarfs indestructible. 

All around, magma mounded. Columns of superheated 
stone shot upward. Some licked the flowstone core of the 
Stronghold. The lower mechanisms were half-melted, half-
caked with basalt. New stalactites clung all across the base 
of the fortress. 

For every glob of rock that struck the Stronghold, a 
hundred assaults came from above. Rathi beasts thronged 
the rails and hurled whatever came to hand—shattered 
hunks of wall, dungeon slops, even the occasional mogg. 
All cascaded toward the ring of dwarfs. Few of the attacks 
reached their targets. Most materials flash-burned to 
nothing as they fell. Only hunks of flowstone plunged 
onward to crack against the stony dwarfs and bound away. 
Other, more determined attacks came from artillery nests 
along the Stronghold's perimeter. They had been designed 
to put down riots in the mogg warrens and so consisted of 
heavy crossbow entrenchments. Bolts darted down toward 

237 



Apocalypse 

the dwarfs, struck them, and pinged away like so many 
bothersome flies. 

Sister Dormet raised her gaze, just in time to catch a 
quarrel in the eye. Its angry metal rang off her sclera and 
ricocheted down to plunge through the flood of magma. 
She glanced toward the teeming decks of the Stronghold. 

A new group had arrived. From this distance, they 
seemed no less savage than the Rathi monsters, but there 
was something different about them: blue skin, elven 
angularity, horns too white and proud .. .. 

Sister Dormet smiled through her song. 

Eladamri and his coalition forces had emerged from the 
depths of the Stronghold. They fought on two sides, 
hemmed in by beasts. The warriors nearest the rail 
beckoned outward, as if summoning someone—or 
something. 

The rock druid lifted her gaze higher still. There, in the 
yawning darkness, hovered a great red eye. No, it was not 
an eye, but the hull of a ship. It circled slowly, banking 
toward the coalition army. 

Eladamri had heeded Sister Dormet's warning. He and 
his troops would escape the conflagration after all. The 
rock druids were prepared to die and slay any in the 
Stronghold. It made Sister Dormet glad her friends would 
live. 

* * * * * 

"We all gonna die!" shouted Squee, in the midst of the 
coalition forces. 

It didn't take a military genius to see that he was right. 

Gerrard's army was trapped. Minotaurs and elves fought 
off a blackguard of il-Vec warriors on the left. Keldons and 
Metathran battled a division of il-Dal warriors on the right. 

238 



J. Robert King 
The prisoners in the middle darted into combat wherever 
they could. Gerrard and Sisay meanwhile leaned 
precariously over a rail that glowed with blistering heat. 
They frantically signaled Weatherlight, which fought storms 
of volcanic air. The ship seemed hardly able to stay aloft, 
let alone fly to their rescue. 

The most ominous sight, though, was reserved for 
Squee, in the rearguard. The coalition army had just 
ascended a long passageway, at the base of which rolled and 
coiled and coalesced a sooty cloud. 

"What de hell is dat!" Squee squealed, pointing at the 
inky murk. No one listened. 

In frustration, he kicked the dead body of a mogg. It 
tumbled patiently down the long flight of metal steps. 
Squee watched it go, seeing its blood paint patterns on the 
mesh. At the foot of the stairs, the body lulled into the 
black flood. Its flesh melted away from gray bones. Then 
the corpse sank to nothingness. 

"What de hell is dat stuff?" Squee repeated to himself. 
He crouched, waggling his fingers before his face. "Melt 
skin to nothin' ... melt goblin skin to nothin'—!" His 
ruminations stopped as something rose from the brackish 
cloud. It was the mogg—or something worse, made out of 
the mogg's flesh. As ugly as the creature had been before, it 
now was downright hideous. Rotten muscle hung from 
chalky bone. Empty eye sockets glowed with unholy green 
light. Fangs seemed all the longer for the gums eaten away 
from them. Claws raked the steps as the creature ascended. 

"Gerrard! Sisay! Anybody!" Squee called as he backed 
involuntarily into the crowd. "We gots trouble!" 

* * * * * 

239 



Apocalypse 

They haven't gotten far. Look at them: saviors of 
Dominaria? Skittering rats! 

Gerrard Capashen stands at the rail like a maiden 
beginning a voyage, waving tearfully to her beloved, hand 
clutching no phlegmy kerchief but rather the phlegmy 
head of a planeswalker. 

There is Sisay, improved by deprivation in my 
dungeons. My, do her muscles cord as she gestures for help. 
How they will cord when my presence touches them. They 
will turn to jute strings. 

What of Karn, the glorious silver man? I had made him 
into a ball-peen hammer to smash goblins. What a 
bloodless, feinting thing he was then. He seems to have 
learned my lessons— pulling arms from their sockets and 
heads from their necks. I taught him to damn the comfort 
of peace and wallow in the ecstasy of war. 

Is that the mighty Tahngarth, so incompleat, so brawny 
and twisted and half-done? He should have let me finish 
with him. 

Now I will finish them all. 

I rise. My black heart is yet pouring from the portal 
behind me. The core of my being still emerges from 
Phyrexia. Enough of me is here, though—one talon is 
enough of me to slay these tiny things. Hatred boils up in 
me. Hatred and something born of hatred .. .. 

Figures take form. They are no longer moggs or il-Vec 
or il-Dal. They have the pelts of vampire hounds, the black 
blood of spider women, the fangs of pit fiends, the claws of 
vat priests. Where their eyes should be are only holes lined 
with teeth. Born of my boiling hatred, they are my brain 
children, and they will tear apart these pallid heroes. I will 
feel every slash, every blow. I will taste every victory, as I 
taught Tsabo Tavoc to do long ago. And when they are 

240 



J. Robert King 
felled, every last one, I will lick across their corpses. Their 
defeat will assure me the world. 

I rise, and before me rise the howling hordes of my 
hatred. 

* * * * * 

Another jolt shook Weatherlight. Orim clutched tightly 
to the helm, in part to keep from being thrown down, but 
more because she wanted answers. 

What is it? Plasma bolts? Bombards? I don't see anything 
hitting us. What's hitting us? 

The ship replied, Thermals, off the magma below. Every 
second, another cubic mile of lava wetts up into this chamber, 
and a cubic mile of air roars out the top. As that air goes from 
cold to broiling, it grabs us and shakes us like a rag. 

"Great," Orim hissed under her breath, not wanting the 
ship to hear. 

Weatherlight was too busy anyway, bucking under a 
new assault. Her brave young crew dangled and jerked in 
their gunnery harnesses. Below decks, the other skyfarers 
were beans in a maraca. 

Can't we do something? Orim asked, turning the wheel 
in a vain hope to bring the prow toward the Stronghold. 
Gerrard and Sisay and everybody are down there. They're 
dying. 

The ship's response came with great effort. Could you 
fight a battle during an earthquake? 

The analogy struck Orim. Air was Weatherlight's 
medium, as ground was the medium of human warriors, and 
water the medium of the Cho-Arrim. Air and water were 
both fluid, though, both dynamic, capable of great 
turbulence, and of great calm. If only Orim could use her 
water magic to aid the ship. 

241 



Apocalypse 

She spit on her hands, taking a tighter grip on the 
helm. Don't worry, she told the ship, the spittle is more 
conduit than anything. 

Before a reply came, Orim, was deep in meditation. Her 
mind flowed out into Weatherlight. She was a gossamer 
presence, drifting through the core of the ship and bringing 
it the ancient wisdom of the Cho-Arrim. Orim evoked a 
memory of calm—the Navel of the World—where 
wellsprings sent pure water down over ancient stone. Here 
it was that Cho-Manno had hidden with his people from 
the onslaught of the Mercadians. In a place such as this, 
Weatherlight would hide from the buffeting heat that 
sought to destroy her. 

The ship understood. Kindred souls need only a few 
words to share a great thought. Weatherlight remembered 
the lagoon and the Navel of the World. She made her own 
memory of that place into a reality. 

A shift envelope seeped from the grains of 
Weatherlight's hull. In this envelope, Weatherlight created 
a calm, cool, placid sky all around herself. While the rest of 
the volcano boiled, Weatherlight floated in tranquil air. 

Orim opened her eyes, somewhat surprised by the peace 
that filled the ship. The air even smelled like the forests of 
the Cho-Arrim—verdant and warm, laced with silver fire. 
The young crew hung in awe in their gunnery harnesses. 
They breathed again. 

Weatherlight's voice was wry in Orim's mind: Well, 
Captain, now that we have such favorable seas, where do we 
fare? 

There, responded Orim, pointing past the glass of the 
bridge toward the crowded rails of the Stronghold. Take us 
to the true captain. 

Aye. 

242 



J. Robert King 
* * * * * 

"What the—!" Gerrard growled as he glimpsed the new 
monsters. He thrust through the crowd of prisoners. In one 
hand, the great commander held his halberd blade. In the 
other hand, Gerrard held the head of Urza. Prisoners parted 
before him, fearful of the things below. "What the hell are 
they?" 

"Dat's what Squee said!" the goblin snapped as he 
backpedaled. 

"Moggs," grunted Tahngarth dismissively. The striva in 
his hands glinted like a smile. "Easily dismantled." 

Grizzlegom beside him seemed a mirror image. One had 
been bleached in the belly of a gargantua, and the other in 
the belly of Yawgmoth. "Especially when two bovine sons 
stand hoof and hoof." 

"Don't be so sure," Eladamri replied. Advancing, he 
eyed the unnatural creatures. "These are undead." 

"It's more than that, even," interrupted Urza. "These 
are the body of the Ineffable. These monsters are the claws 
of Yawgmoth." 

There was time for no more. The beasts were upon 
them. 

Fangs glinted hungrily. Claws sparked upon the mesh 
floor. Arms reached in scrofulous desire toward the 
Dominarians. Like rabid rats, the creatures hurled 
themselves on waiting flesh. 

Gerrard swung his soul-reaping weapon. The halberd 
sliced air and then scab and then skull. It split the brain of 
one of the horrid defenders, cutting the left hemisphere 
cleanly away. Pustulant and pathetic, the monster slumped. 

Nearby, Sisay slew one of the beasts with a thrust of her 
cutlass. The curved blade drove through desiccated skin 
and into nested organs and turned them all into ground 

243 



Apocalypse 

sausage. The fiend crumpled. It fell like a bag of bones, but 
out of that wreck issued a black and sullen steam, like the 
venom of a viper. 

Beside the captain, Eladamri fought furiously. Here was 
a man who had battled on and beneath the ice of a Keldon 
glacier. Now he fought in the heart of an Urborg volcano. 
His anger seemed only stoked by the heat. His blade darted 
like a stooping falcon. It decapitated one foe, and the elf's 
stomping boot removed the life within the severed head. 
His sword then switched back to drive through the empty 
eye of another undead thing. Unnatural teeth shrieked 
along the steel as he drove the tip through bone and brain 
and all. It fell to the ground. Eladamri leaped atop it. The 
Seed of Freyalise bashed her foes down to humus. 

Liin Sivi fought with equal rage. Her toten-vec lodged 
in the breast of a Phyrexian trooper. Even as the monster 
toppled forward, Liin Sivi yanked the blade free. Its lethal 
chains rang bell-like as they tugged the edge from riven 
pates. She grasped the weapon out of the air and brought it 
chopping through the neck of another attacker. 

In stark contrast to her elegant swordplay, Tahngarth 
spitted beast after beast on his twisted horns. He seemed to 
know that these monsters were the grasping limbs of 
Yawgmoth himself, and took great glee in goring them and 
whipping his head until their dead insides were mush. 

Karn was perhaps the most amazing. His massive fists 
became tandem cudgels. Claws and fangs did nothing 
against Karn, only added hash marks recording his kills. 
One died as his fingers closed on its spine. Another ceased 
to be when huge palms converged on either side of its 
head. A third and a fourth expired under stomping feet. 
Whatever else he had become, Karn had learned the power 
of war. 

244 



J. Robert King 
It would not be enough, though. The black cloud 
disgorged warrior after warrior, an endless troop of them. 
Worse, still, the cloud itself rose. With each lapping 
second, it enveloped another stair tread, one step closer to 
dissolving Gerrard and his heroes whole. 

"Done for!" shouted Squee. 

Tahngarth hissed, "Not yet!" and his striva drew an 
exclamation point down through a monster. 

Gerrard shouted, "What can we do? His supply of dead 
is endless." "We can fight and fall as heroes," Liin Sivi 
responded sharply. A quick glance at her hawk eyes showed 
that she was not kidding. Her hand-held toten-vec flashed 
like a machete. "We can kill them before they kill us." 

A massive boom behind them preempted further 
discussion. Gerrard turned and smiled. Weatherlight had 
pulled up along the rail and dropped her gangplank. 
Prisoners raced up the striated wood to the relative safety 
of the ship. The coalition army dwindled between their 
pressing enemies. 

"Get aboard," Commander Gerrard shouted, waving his 
troops up the gangplank. Yes, it meant he was particularly 
vulnerable here upon the deck, but to one side stood 
Eladamri and Liin Sivi, and to the other Grizzlegom and 
Sisay. How could he wish for greater allies against evil? 
"Get aboard, all of you. We're getting out of this place." 

* * * * * 

The song resounded in Sister Dormet's throat, and her 
eyes filled with the glory of Weatherlight's departure. 

Heavy laden as of old in Serra's Realm—even the rock 
druids knew that story—Weatherlight drew away from the 
Stronghold. So hasty was her retreat that the massive 
gangplank that had ushered all these refugees aboard 

245 



Apocalypse 

toppled toward the lava below. Its wood caught fire only 
halfway to the magma and burned away completely before 
it struck. 

Sister Dormet could only smile. The rest of Weatherlight 
and her new crew lifted away from the doomed Stronghold. 

Already, lava inundated the lower levels. Flowstone 
nanites melted into the slurry of magma. The rising tide of 
red had engulfed the dungeons and laboratories, recently 
vacated of victims. Vat priests burned like wicks among 
churning tides of stone. With every second, another cubic 
mile of the stuff boiled upward, summoned by the chants of 
the dwarves. Soon, all the Stronghold would be lost. 

Even in this moment of joy, as the horrid fortress sank 
beneath incinerating waves and Weatherlight fought 
skyward above, something terrible began. From every 
porthole, from every colonnade, a black cloud issued. It was 
darker than ink and coagulated the very air. Something 
emerged from the doomed station, something or someone 
who had planned this moment for millennia. It was 
unmistakable, the black cloud that rolled out and up and 
obscured all. 

It could only be Yawgmoth, come to possess the world. 

Sister Dormet lowered her eyes. The chant on her lips 
grew desperate. 

246 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 26 

Straggle for the Very World 

Weatherlight rose through a black, incinerating space. 
Though her lanterns sent out shafts of light, they extended 
only a few thousand feet before being swallowed in shadow. 
A cone of sooty rock surrounded them. An impenetrable 
cloud welled below. A disruption field lurked above. 

Gerrard stood at the prow rail, the head of Urza lifted 
before him. "What do you see, Urza?" he asked urgently. 

"1 see blackness," he replied raspily, "as do you." 

To starboard there came a snarl. Tahngarth stood in his 
gunnery traces, shoving the fire controls upward. The 
barrel jabbed down toward the moiling cloud. His fingers 
squeezed. The cannon spoke. Its now-familiar radiance 
stabbed out. Blinding and blistering, the column of energy 
plunged to the cloud. It struck. Light splashed into the 
blackness, which seemed to bubble around it a moment. 
The charge spent itself. It disappeared beneath the 
tenebrous vapor. 

"That will do no good," Urza said quietly. 

Tahngarth glared at the head. "It felt damned good." 
Another charge plunged from his weapon. 

Urza's voice was weary. "Natural light—no matter how 
intense—is no match for preternatural darkness. You can't 
kill him that way." 

"Him?" Gerrard echoed. 

"That is Yawgmoth." 

247 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard stared into the pit. His eyes narrowed angrily. 
"We escaped his world, so now he is entering ours." A smile 
spread grimly across Gerrard's lips. "I'm not out of tricks 
yet." 

He strode to his radiance cannon, wedging Urza's head 
into its tripod base and strapping on the traces. 

Into the speaking tube, he called, "Sisay, take us up 
through the disruption fields. Weatherlight, do whatever 
magic you did to get us through before. Everybody else— 
hold on." 

"You heard that, folks," Sisay called back. She clutched 
the helm all the tighter. "Grab hold of something." She 
spun the helm and pulled back on it. 

Weatherlight banked and ascended. From the Gaea 
figurehead, a scintillating aura emerged. It danced out 
along the rails and gleamed as it went. The energy traced 
every line of the ship, every fold of armor. Reaching the 
stern, power expanded outward into a shift envelope. 
Energy picked at the disruption field. It teased away the 
warp and weft of magic, tearing and tattering. Weatherlight 
clove upward into the field. Its riven strands dragged like 
fringe across the shift envelope. 

On deck, Gerrard, Tahngarth, Karn, and Squee 
watched in slack-jawed awe as the ship moved through the 
barrier. 

Their fingers lingered in the fire controls of their 
cannons, though their eyes roamed the hissing magic. 

"Wonder if this'll stop Yawgmoth," Gerrard muttered. 

Urza's head replied, "Don't count on it." 

As if she breasted a wave, Weatherlight drove her prow 
through the disruption field. Light broke over them ahead, 
a thin, gray light, but light all the same. Weatherlight 
emerged into the fire-scored throat of the volcano. The few 
remaining Rathi cannons began unloading on them. 

248 



J. Robert King 
"Don't worry, old man," Gerrard said, not unkindly, to 
Urza. "Yawgmoth's just a genie in a bottle. All I need is a 
big enough cork." He nodded toward the top of the shaft, 
where a plague engine drifted massively within a Phyrexian 
armada. "And there it is." Leaning toward the speaking 
tube, he called, "Brace yourselves. Sisay, full aloft." 

"Aye, Commander!" 

Even as she hauled on the helm, the ship's engines 
purred. It was a throaty and confident sound. The vessel 
seemed almost to stretch on her keel as she jagged toward 
the sky. Ray cannons were too slow. She slipped through 
their red fingers. 

Gerrard pumped the foot treadle of his cannon and 
swung it fore. "Tahngarth, Karn, take a bead on that 
thing." 

"Aye," Tahngarth replied. The charge mounted in his 
weapon. 

Karn at amidships followed the ship above. "We can 
shoot it down, but how can we make sure it plugs the 
hole?" 

"That's where Sisay comes in," Gerrard replied, spitting 
on the gun's manifold and seeing the stuff boil instantly 
away. "She's gonna drive the thing down there." Gerrard 
paused, listening for the wail of incredulity. 

Sisay surprised him. "Fine. I'm spoiling for a good fight." 

Weatherlight vaulted from the mouth of the volcano. 
She leaped up the sky. Above her, the plague engine 
blotted out the sun. Huge and black and scabrous, that 
vessel seemed a looming storm cloud. Weatherlight darted 
beneath like silver lightning. Then came the thunder. 

Four cannons boomed. They turned the air white. 
Blasts converged with a will. They jabbed beneath bristling 
horns and rammed into the superfluid cisterns beneath. 
Metal dissolved. It rained down amid a gush of green fluid. 

249 



Apocalypse 

Engines all along the port side sputtered and failed. Smoke 
puffed from dead innards. The ship began to list. "Take out 
the starboard side!" Gerrard commanded. He hurled 
another wall of white beneath the craft. 

His shot was joined by a swarm of bolts from the other 
cannons. Hot fire raked beneath the craft, a more oblique 
angle as Weatherlight neared it. En route, the beams 
incinerated a tangle of enormous pipes, ripped through 
blast armor, and at last reached the starboard cisterns. 
Energy poured in, and green fluid poured out. The 
mountainous ship turned and began to plummet. 

"It's all yours," Gerrard shouted to Sisay as Weatherlight 
drove up abreast of the plague engine. 

"Not all!" Sisay replied in warning. 

Black-mana bombards hurled webby death out across 
the air. Tahngarth's gun ripped a hole in the destructive 
curtain, but not enough of a hole. The other gunners were 
too slow and the ship too fast. Weatherlight plowed into the 
killing web. 

Gerrard and Tahngarth ducked, bracing against the lash 
of energy. It never came. Gerrard glanced up to see ropy 
strands of black mana dragging across the ship's shift 
envelope. "Great job, Weatherlight!" he whooped. In 
answer, the ship slipped out of the killing goo, topped a 
tight arc, and clove down on the plague engine. Gaea led 
the charge, wearing the fearless face of Hanna. Down 
through a forest of spikes she drove. Her ram smashed into 
the solid spine of the ship. Magnigoth wood pounded metal 
armor. Her engines engaged. For the first time since her 
transformation, Weatherlight truly roared. Incredible force 
hurled the ship down against the plague engine and hurled 
the plague engine down as well. 

250 



J. Robert King 
Gerrard floated up weightless in his harness as the 
vessels plunged toward the volcano. His face grew peaked. 
"Can you see the hole, Sisay?" 

"I can't," answered the captain, clinging to the helm, 
"but Weatherlight can. She's running things now." 

Gerrard nodded, looking out past huge, curving horns 
to armor plates that swarmed with Phyrexians. He pivoted 
his gun around and vaporized a whole platoon. They 
became smoke that fled upward with awful speed. "You 
think she'll know when to pull up?" 

More cannons brought death to more monsters as Sisay 
said, "She'll know." 

A bank of cloud swept up around them, and suddenly 
the horizon appeared in a full circle. 

"Any moment now, Weatherlight," Gerrard murmured 
to himself. "Let's not be overdramatic." The rest of the fleet 
spun so high above, they seemed mere specks. "Any 
moment—" 

Weatherlight broke free. The forest of horns dropped 
beneath her. She leveled and rose. The plague engine 
plummeted. Dust glittered between them in rushing air. 
The Phyrexian ship struck the volcano's peak. The edges of 
the superstructure peeled up in a circle, shoved by the rim 
of the pit. The rest of the engine slumped in the hole, a 
perfect plug. 

"Ha!" shouted Gerrard. "So much for Yawgmoth!" 

Though Urza's head was turned toward Gerrard, he 
seemed to see with other eyes. "He needn't emerge to have 
won." 

Gerrard stood up, gaping over the rail. He had been so 
intent on the plague engine, he had not noticed the world 
all around. 

It was utterly devastated, stripped to bedrock as if a 
sylex blast had scoured the land. The topsoil was gone. 

251 



Apocalypse 

Swamps had sunk away into the sea. The oceans had 
advanced. Coalition armies entrenched across the land 
were inundated. The surf churned their bodies. 

"What happened?" Gerrard wondered aloud. 

New armies of Phyrexians occupied the land. Massive 
creatures in dun and black, monsters scrambled over rocky 
embankments and marched down volcanic ravines. In their 
wake, they left elf troops slaughtered en masse, or Keldons 
buried in tall cairns of mud, or minotaurs mired in sudden 
bogs. 

Even as Weatherlight soared by overhead, a division of 
Metathran battled the lumbering warriors. Though 
Metathran axes carved ferociously into the front, though 
limbs fell from the creatures, their numbers never seemed 
depleted. The monstrous armies only advanced, grasping 
Metathran in bare hands and ripping them apart. 

"Where did they come from? How did they take so 
much land?" Gerrard growled. 

Urza stared baldly at him. "Don't you understand? They 
are the land, the humus—all things dead. Yawgmoth has 
raised them here. He has raised them here and throughout 
Dominaria. He animates the very soil against us." 

"Our place is down there," said a deep voice at 
Gerrard's shoulder. He turned to see Commander 
Grizzlegom. The minotaur had climbed on deck and strode, 
as sure-footed as a mountain goat, to Gerrard. Beside him 
stood Eladamri and Liin Sivi. Decision shone in their eyes. 
Grizzlegom spoke for all of them. "We're not skyfarers. 
We're infantry. We can't do any good on this ship, but 
there's plenty of good that needs doing below. This is our 
world, Gerrard. You have to let us defend it." 

Gerrard stared at each commander in turn. His face was 
grim, and the courage in their eyes made him clench his 
jaw. "It'll be suicide. How many troops do you have?" 

252 



J. Robert King 
Grizzlegom shrugged, as if numbers were meaningless. 
"A handful of minotaurs, the same of Metathran, elves, and 
Keldons—" 

"A handful," Gerrard interrupted. 

"Plus two hundred prisoners released from Phyrexian 
dungeons." 

Gerrard shook his head, "Why would they fight?" 

Grizzlegom wore a blank expression and repeated the 
words slowly. "Prisoners ... from ... Phyrexian ... 
dungeons." 

Urza said, "Let them go, Gerrard. This ship and her 
crew have a no-less dangerous destiny ahead." 

Gerrard nodded. "It has been an honor to fight beside 
you, my friends." 

"An honor," Grizzlegom responded, bowing his head. 

Eladamri and Liin Sivi nodded their assent. 

"Take us down, Sisay," Gerrard called into the speaking 
tube. "A flat, rocky spot away from these mudmen." 

"Thank you, Commander," said Grizzlegom. 

Gerrard's voice still rang with command. "Tahngarth, 
Karn, Squee—let's pave a landing strip." 

His gun lit. A white beam stabbed down. It reached 
across the rumpled rocks and splashed over a regiment of 
the mud creatures. In kiln heat, their flesh steamed and 
dried. Hardened shards peeled away and tumbled to the 
ground. More fell. The beasts on the periphery of the beam 
merely crumbled. Those in the core exploded, showering 
the ground with hot mud. Four more guns fired. All around 
Weatherlight, monsters became ceramic statues, or 
crumbling piles, or nothing at all. 

A basalt extrusion provided a wide and lofty platform. 
The plateau formed a black silhouette in Gaea's eyes as the 
ship eased down to it and slowed. With a gentle settling 
motion, the craft landed upon the stone. 

253 



Apocalypse 

No sooner did Weatherlight sigh on her landing spines 
than the spare gangplank slid across her gunwales and 
boomed in place. A moment later, the brave coalition 
forces of Dominaria marched down to certain battle and 
certain doom. 

* * * * * 

It was good to have rock beneath one's hooves again. It 
was even better to charge across that rock, axe in hand and 
foes aplenty stretching to the sea. 

Grizzlegom had begun this charge on the slanting 
gangplank of Weatherlight. The extrusion leant its slope as 
well, but the true speed came from Grizzlegom's angry 
heart. He sensed it. They all did: They fought the battle of 
the Apocalypse. 

And what strange harbingers were these mudmen, these 
golems. They seemed like Mishra's mud warriors, raised out 
of antiquity to terrify posterity. Grizzlegom knew how to 
fight Phyrexians. He understood their voracity. But who 
knew how to fight mudmen? 

Whirling his battle axe overhead, Grizzlegom bowed his 
head and bulled into the things. Their flesh was soft but 
dense, like clay. Grizzlegom's horns rammed a pair of them. 
Pivoting his weight, he rose and shook his head. This was a 
lethal tactic that normally slew both foes at once. 

This time, as the bodies folded and tore, loose chunks of 
humus clambered all over Grizzlegom's shoulders and neck 
and snout. They squeezed themselves into the minotaur's 
nose and mouth to suffocate him. They combined to form 
strangling fingers at his throat. They rolled into eyes and 
wormed down ears. Stomping his fury, Grizzlegom hurled 
away what remained of the clay corpses. He spat out the 
chunks in his mouth, shook away the bits in eyes and ears, 

254 



J. Robert King 
and snorted magnificently to get rid of the plugs in his 
nostrils. 

All around him, the other minotaurs were similarly 
plagued. One whose entire head had become encased in 
the torso of a mudman collapsed under the weight of two 
more that piled on him. He struggled out of the cluster and 
gasped a single breath before more beasts fell on him. They 
buried him alive. 

Even as Grizzlegom escaped the suffocating stuff, his 
axe bit deeply into the pile. The blade struck on horn, and 
Grizzlegom reached in with his free hand. Two more cuts 
opened the ground enough that he could haul the bull's 
head forward—far enough to see that he already was dead. 

The living ground wrapped itself around Grizzlegom's 
hooves. Hacking and stomping, he struggled for a hard 
crust of soil just ahead. If he and his troops could reach that 
patch, they could survive. 

Across that way, Keldons advanced. Indeed, they 
sprayed oil and fire before them. The intense heat baked 
the ground and any mudmen on it. The arts of fire were 
well known to the Keldons, for in their cold climate, fire 
was life. In this infernal climate, the same held true. 

Mudmen dragged Grizzlegom down to his hocks. He 
used his axe like a climber's pick and pulled himself free. 
Another mudman landed on his back. He hurled it away 
and scrabbled onto the baked ground. As he rose, he pulled 
two other minotaurs to the solid ground. There, the three 
fought and slew, waiting for the rest of their platoon to join 
them. 

If these monsters rise everywhere, thought Grizzlegom 
as he cut the head from another golem, our world is indeed 
doomed. 

* * * * * 

255 



Apocalypse 

While minotaurs and Metathran died in living graves, 
mudmen swarmed up the stomping magnigoth treefolk. 
Lashing roots only stirred the golems more deeply. They 
rose, depleting the soil. Magnigoths sank until their roots 
languished on bedrock. Worst of all, though, the creatures 
that climbed those massive boles ripped away foliage as 
they went. With no soil beneath and no leaves above, the 
titanic treefolk would soon be dead. 

Except that Eladamri and his elven warriors fought just 
as fiercely. 

The Seed of Freyalise stabbed into a golem's back and 
hauled himself up by the sword. Catching a handhold on 
the thing's shoulder, he chunked a foothold out of its 
wounded back. He vaulted up the tree's bole and split the 
head of the mudman. It fell backward. The riven clay 
tumbled down a cliff of rugged bark, broke into pieces on 
the spiky root bulb, and spattered to the ground. Fragments 
sprayed across the pyres there. Keldons had built the fires 
to bake monsters into ceramic. They would not rise again. 

Chain rattled past Eladamri, paying out as the totenvec 
sank its blade into the bark above. Up that chain 
climbed Liin Sivi. The mud beneath her fingernails and 
the murder in her eyes told of the golems she had already 
slain. The dun-coated bark above told of those she would 
destroy next. 

"Who raises these beasts?" she wondered breathlessly. 
She took a handhold, yanked the toten-vec free, and 
hurled it up to transect a golem. 

Eladamri shrugged. "Some planeswalker or some god." 

"Mortals against gods," Liin Sivi snorted. "It would be 
nice, just once, if the gods were on our side." 

Something drew Eladamri's attention upward, past the 
golem. Crowded tree bole, past the shredding crown of the 
tree, and to the blue sky beyond. 

256 



J. Robert King 
"They are," he said with sudden certainty. "They are." 


257 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 27 

When Gods Do Battle 

The devastated spheres of Phyrexia disappeared. Reality 
folded around the planeswalkers. For a blinking moment, 
all that existed was Freyalise in her downy nimbus, Bo 
Levar in his captain's cloak, the panther warrior Lord 
Windgrace, and Commodore Guff, stripped of his rubbers. 

Then, in place of a destroyed Phyrexia appeared a 
destroyed Dominaria. 

Each tortured rill bore a thousand claw marks. Each 
twisted valley held a million bones. Every last speck of soil 
had been scraped away, every swamp flooded, every tree 
felled. In their place, endless armies fought. In flesh gray 
and blue, in fur brown and white, they battled Phyrexian 
soldiers and things made of mud. Middens of bodies piled 
up. Between the rows of the dead, the living fought. 

Even magnigoth treefolk languished under the tide of 
monsters. A shattering boom resounded below, and the 
land jumped as one of the treefolk lords fell beneath its 
assailants. 

"Urborg, but it is all too much like Argoth," Freyalise 
said quietly. An angry light shone in her gaze. 

Commodore Guff lifted a bristling red eyebrow and 
said, "You were at Argoth?" 

"No, but I knew Argoth. It was a profound loss. This 
too—" She gestured toward the dying magnigoths. "This 
too ..." 

258 



J. Robert King 
"This will not be a loss," growled Lord Windgrace. 
"This is my home. I have fought this battle for centuries. I 
will not lose it in a day." 

So saying, he dropped from the sky. He fell not as a 
stone would, but with preternatural speed. Pivoting to lead 
with his forelegs, Lord Windgrace reached toward a knot of 
Metathran and minotaurs, sorely pressed below. 

Commodore Guff watched him go and clucked quietly. 
"Too bad." 

Bo Levar turned a questioning gaze on him. 

The commodore blinked behind his monocle, coughed 
into his hand, and said, "What?" 

"What's too bad?" asked Bo Levar. 

The commodore pointed his finger emphatically, as if 
realization floated on the air, and he was trying to pop it. 
"Oh. Yes. Too bad. Too bad that he'll be killed." 

Bo Levar's eyes grew wide. "He'll be killed?" 

Guff nodded, smiling absently. "Us too. Everybody. 
Everything." 

"What?" chorused Bo Levar and Freyalise. 

The commodore seemed taken aback by their 
vehemence. 

He patted the pockets of his tunic. "Well, I'm sure 
that's the way I approved it." A smile of discovery came to 
his face. He dipped fingers into a small watch-fob pocket 
and pulled out an impossibly large book. It had once been a 
three-volume work, though the commodore had inexpertly 
joined their spines with shiny gray tape. He flipped open 
the grand tome and paged through. 

Among scrawled pages, Bo Levar and Freyalise glimpsed 
sketches. Some were almost unrecognizable. Some were 
terrifyingly clear. A few showed the Nine Titans. One even 
showed Taysir dead. Bo Levar and Freyalise stared 

259 



Apocalypse 

openmouthed as the commodore flipped to the page he 
sought, very near the end of the volume. 

"Ah! Here!" he poked the open page. "The death of 
Windgrace. He gets blown up from within by a lich lord. 
Too bad, that. And you die." He pointed to Bo Levar. 
"And you." He pointed to Freyalise. "But only when 
Yawgmoth emerges and takes over the world." 

"Takes over the world!" Bo Levar said. "You approved 
this?" 

The commodore's confusion turned defensive. "What 
else? Yawgmoth's a right bastard. Who could believe that 
Gerrard could stop him? Ever hear of suspension of 
disbelief, old man?" 

Bo Levar scowled at his longtime friend. "You can't do 
this. You can't destroy Dominaria—" 

"I'm not doing it!" protested the commodore. "The 
author and his characters are doing it." 

"A history that compels reality!" Bo Levar said. "We're 
the characters. You have to let us decide this. For once, just 
once, trust the characters to find their own way." 

The commodore said, "I knew you would say that. It's 
written right here—" 

Bo Levar jabbed the commodore's chest. Through 
clenched teeth, he hissed. "You start erasing from that 
passage forward. There's no time. You free us up to win this 
thing, or lose it—but lose it on our own terms—or I'll 
never speak to you again." 

"Of course you won't. You'll be dead." 

The pirate grabbed Guff's tunic. "Do it!" 

"I don't have an eraser." 

"You're a planeswalker! Conjure one!" 

"No," snarled the commodore. "It's artistic integrity." 

Lost for words, Bo Levar seemed about to pop a blood 
vessel. He jiggled, his face swollen with anger. 

260 



J. Robert King 
From behind him came a quietly sardonic voice. "I 
assume, then, you remembered to move your library safely 
beyond the Nexus. It'd be a shame for the Dominarian 
Apocalypse to destroy all your books." 

Guff silently mouthed, "All ... my ... books ..." An 
enormous eraser suddenly appeared in his hand. "Bother!" 

"Good," Bo Levar said. "Start with this conversation 
and erase all the way to the end. Make sure you don't miss 
anything, and don't stop until you're through. Otherwise— 
all your books ..." 

"Every goddamned book," he echoed, nodding 
feverishly. "Every buggered befuggered one." With that, the 
commodore 'walked away from the midair conference. 

Though he had utterly disappeared, the final two 
planeswalkers sensed that he was nearby, madly erasing. 
There came a sudden blurring of recent memory and the 
vertigo of doubt. The past became a sinking slough. The 
future became a soaring sky. 

Bo Levar smiled as he felt his fate unwritten, moment 
by moment. He turned toward Freyalise, whose inscrutable 
visage had not changed a whit, and said, "Well, milady, let 
us be at it." He bowed deeply. 

She who was accustomed to floating above the ground 
answered, "I go to aid my people. Where do you head?" 

Bo Levar shrugged. "I'm a mariner. I fight best at sea." 

"But the battle is on land," Freyalise pointed out. 

"I'll see what I can do about that," replied Bo Levar 
enigmatically. Then he winked away. 

Freyalise sniffed within her thistledown aura and said, 
"Sailors." Next moment, she was gone. 

* * * * * 

Freyalise reappeared in the midst of a vertical battle. 

261 



Apocalypse 

To every side towered the sluggish trunks of magnigoth 
treefolk. With roots plunged into rich, wet humus and 
leaves raking the bright sky, the forest guardians were 
nearly unstoppable. But their leaves had been shredded, 
and the shredders were warriors formed from the very 
ground that once nourished them. Even now, mud golems 
coated the boles thickly, clambering over one another to 
shred bark and snap branch. 

The treefolk had defenders too—Eladamri, a platoon of 
elves, a small army of woodmen, saprolings, and the ever-
voracious Kavu—but these mortal defenders died in their 
scores and could do little more than burst apart immortal 
golems. Some baked to clay. More—many more—reformed 
and rose again. 

Freyalise was unglad. She had spent an ice age being 
unglad, and had become unwilling to spend even a few 
moments in the same state. This was soil, humus, ground— 
the dead stuff meant to give life to flora and fauna. Instead, 
it gave death. There was no greater crime, stepping outside 
the wheel, reviling the natural order. Mud that would not 
nourish. Freyalise knew a few tricks to bring this stuff back 
in line. 

Her hands and arms, curled beside her heart, slowly 
opened outward like the petals of a flower. She extended 
her reach in silent splendor, and something that seemed 
yellow pollen drifted out from her. Where those glowing 
points of magic lighted, they burned through mud golems 
and penetrated until they reached the molds and lichens 
that dressed these magnificent trunks. Growth came 
abruptly to those tendrils. Mudmen lost hold of the boles. 
They plunged away in great clumps of twenty or thirty, still 
clinging to the flourishing lichens that had grown beneath 
them. The beasts struck the ground and spattered, but the 
moss was not finished. It doubled and trebled and rolled 

262 



J. Robert King 
out until it had sucked every last water drop, every last 
nutrient from the mudmen. They turned to dust. 

Freyalise did not yet smile. This was only the 
beginning. Her magic fertilized a hundred million aerial 
plants. Their long white roots snaked downward. It seemed 
the great magnigoths were letting their hair down. Each 
tendril descended hundreds or thousands of feet until it 
struck the crawling masses of mud. There, they burrowed 
like maggots, plunging through dead flesh to seek the living 
core and take over the whole. The slim fibers thickened 
upon their rich diet, dragging the vitality out of the 
ground. As thick as ropes, as thick as men, the vines 
dragged free, and golems sloughed away in flakes of 
emptied ground. 

Freyalise still did not smile. Her spell had yet to work its 
greatest effect. 

Golden motes of power struck the very roots of the 
magnigoth treefolk. Each tiny particle of light was like a 
season of sun. Each mote of magic was like a billion grains 
of peat. Each droplet of the lady's will was like a water table 
thousands of feet deep. The spell awakened the slumbering 
giants. Roots once stilled on bedrock moved. Fists of tree 
fibers opened into angry, seeking hands. 

While below, the striding organs of these treefolk 
gained new life, the same miracle began above. Glowing 
particles of magic sank into the stomas of the last leaves 
and permeated their flesh. Irresistible magic coursed down 
the network of veins. From leaf to twig and twig to branch 
and branch to bough and bough to bole, vitality spread. 
The heads of the great trees shook. Broken boughs fused. 
Stripped branches budded and bloomed. Where once ruin 
had ruled, tender green shoots emerged to grab the sun and 
pull its power into the treefolk. 

263 



Apocalypse 

The wave of rejuvenation swept down from the treetops 
and up from the roots. Mud golems fell in ashen rain all 
around. The great defenders of Yavimaya rose from the 
sloughs that had claimed them and advanced across 
demonic lands. 

Freyalise smiled. Then she was gone, 'walking to 
another dying wood. 

* * * * * 

It was a strange scene, but ever since Bo Levar had 
thrown in his lot with Urza Planeswalker, he'd gotten used 
to strange scenes. 

Metathran fought below, blue shoulders rippling 
beneath clinging muck. They seemed creatures caught in 
quicksand, except that this swallowing earth was alive and 
had risen up a volcanic mountainside to slay a whole 
division. While a thousand Metathran thrashed amid 
mudmen, one Metathran stood in rigid attention atop a 
rocky outcrop. 

Bo Levar stood beside him, caster of the spell that so 
thoroughly controlled the warrior. The sea captain smiled 
grimly, shaking his head at the Metathran's latest attempt 
to jiggle free. 

"Relax. I'm on your side." 

"Then why prevent my return to battle?" the Metathran 
gasped out. 

Bo Levar blinked, and his expression showed that he 
had suddenly realized the simplicity of his captive. 
"Because if I let you join them, you would die with them. I 
want to save all of you—" 

"Yawgmoth!" blurted the Metathran. "That's what 
Yawgmoth would say." 

264 



J. Robert King 
"Yawgmoth?" Bo Levar thumped his captain's uniform. 
"You think Yawgmoth dresses this well? You think 
Yawgmoth dresses at all? Listen, I just need to know one 
thing—can you guys survive water? Lots of water? A flood?" 

"Never reveal a weakness," the Metathran recited. 

Bo Levar could not help laughing. He gazed up into the 
empty heavens and sighed, "Can I get some help here?" 
Turning back to his captive, Bo Levar said, "Look, since 
you've got blue skin, I assume you can function in water— 
but I've got to know because I want to save you guys and 
kill these mud things. Oh, why am I wasting time—?" Bo 
Levar made a sign in the air, and magic energy drifted from 
his fingers into the gaze of his captive. 

A light of belief twinkled in the Metathran's eye. "Part 
of our makeup comes from the blood of blue dragons." He 
flipped his eyes up toward the sigil tattooed across his 
forehead. "This is the name of the blue dragon sacrificed to 
bring us into being. We are told that we can always go 
aquatic to escape a futile battle and emerge again to fight 
elsewhere." 

Bo Levar nodded and slapped the Metathran on the 
shoulder. "See? That wasn't so hard. All you needed was a 
little coercion." No sooner had his hand left the warrior's 
shoulder than Bo Levar stepped out of existence. 

He reappeared in a nearby place—a depth of ocean a 
hundred miles away. Near Urborg, atolls kept the sea at a 
few trifling meters, but here, the water was a mile deep. 
Here, Bo Levar appeared a half mile down. 

It was dark and cold, and the pressure would have 
instantly killed a mortal. These were Bo Levar's seas. He 
had learned to trust them. Ever since Argoth—ever since 
the mortal Captain Crucias had ridden out that horrible, 
blinding storm and become the planeswalker Bo Levar—he 
had never again mistrusted the sea. Now Bo Levar reached 

265 



Apocalypse 

out with his hands, his power, to take hold of a cubic mile 
of ocean. It was twenty thousand tons of water—more than 
could be hauled by the combined armadas of the world, and 
yet a manageable payload for a single planeswalker. He 
took hold of that water. It welcomed him as all banal 
things welcome the enlivening touch of the divine. Bo 
Levar planeswalked back to the embattled hillside. 

A legion of Metathran had battled twelve legions of 
mudmen there. Suddenly, though, the battle was 
underwater. Metathran thrived in water—so he had just 
learned—whereas mud golems turned to silt and then 
nothing. The vast cube of water stood there a moment on 
the volcanic hillside, solid and transparent like a hunk of 
gelatin. Then gravity took its toll. The corners and edges of 
the cube turned to whitewater. The heights of it slumped 
and curled down in great waves. The sides bulged and 
broke upon the hillside. The vast belly of the wave 
remained intact and, pregnant with darting blue shapes, 
rolled gently toward the sea. 

Bo Levar was within that lower half. He allowed his 
physical body to remain, to roll with the tidal wave as it 
sought its level. All around him, mud golems curled in silty 
ribbons, and the glad forms of Metathran swam. Even as Bo 
Levar and his benefactors rolled out to sea, he knew that 
he would bring such sanctuary to more blue folk. 

* * * * * 

While Freyalise awoke growth among her green 
minions, and Bo Levar awoke seas among the blue, Lord 
Windgrace fought with fire and death. 

Any other planeswalker who had spent an eternity 
battling the black infestations of Urborg would have 
appeared among the Keldons with great speeches. Not 

266 



J. Robert King 
Windgrace. He made but one utterance there in the midst 
of the battling army. He roared. 

Lord Windgrace did not appear in his human 
incarnation. All the while that he plunged from the sky, he 
sloughed the characteristics of humanity—the upright 
posture, the broad chest, the long hind legs. By the time he 
had reached ground, Lord Windgrace was fully feline. He 
was more than that. He was huge. The average panther was 
a creature twelve stone and four feet high. This beast was 
twelve hundred stone and a hundred feet high. The roar 
that came from its jaws was incendiary. The sound began in 
a heart that had fought forever for the freedom of Urborg. 
The tone was deepened and broadened by the other heart 
beside it, the dead heart of Taysir. It rose up a mammoth 
throat and emerged from fangs gleaming to slay. 

The roar itself did slay. The Phyrexians before 
Windgrace fell back and ignited and exploded in a narrow 
fan. Had these been mudmen, they would have instantly 
become terra cotta warriors. As creatures of scale and 
glistening oil, they became fireworks. Huge and hateful, 
Lord Windgrace pounced in their decimated midst. His 
fangs closed on and destroyed ten more Phyrexians. His 
forepaws crushed another score of the beasts. Even his 
lashing tail shattered the monsters all around. 

But the roar was deadliest of all. With that roar, the 
Keldon army around Windgrace surged forward. They had 
always taken their strength from fire, and this was divine 
fire. They charged the Phyrexian host and hewed with axes 
and impaled with halberds and consumed them like a fire 
consumes dry paper. 

* * * * * 

267 



Apocalypse 

Madly, he erased. Madly, yes, for what editor erases so 
fervently the words an author has written? What editor 
allows his author to write a hundred thousand words only 
to erase ten thousand of them? Only an editor desperate to 
get history right. 

"Bother." 

Commodore Guff crouched upon a gnarl of basalt and 
feverishly applied the massive eraser to the history of the 
Dominarian Apocalypse. There went a sentence about the 
death of Eladamri. Just after, Liin Sivi no longer died, for 
all the way through she had been paired to him as though 
she were his gimp leg. And what about this paragraph 
where Bo Levar lights a cigar in a swamp and is blown to 
smithereens? Guff didn't even erase that bit, but crumpled 
up the whole page and threw it into the lava that seeped 
from a nearby crack. What else had to go to make this 
goddamned trilogy work out? How about the legal material, 
and the dedication and acknowledgments? After all, who 
gives a goat's droppings for the editor of an epic? 
Commodore Guff hurled those pages aside and saw them 
catch fire. He threw out the teaser too. It had given away 
the destruction of Dominaria anyway, something that was 
completely undecided at this point. 

Commodore Guff turned his face from the ravaged book 
in his hand and looked skyward. "This would never have 
happened when I was in charge of continuity." 

Of course, he'd never been addicted to happy endings. 
You bring the Nine Spheres of Phyrexia to attack the 
single sphere of Dominaria and you want a happy ending? 
What idiot thought this up? Still, how could the 
commodore argue with Bo Levar? Bad ending, and he lost 
not only every book written about Dominaria, but every 
book that might be written about her—including a few 

268 



J. Robert King 
bestsellers of his own. So, out with the eraser, and out with 
the doom. 

"I can't kill Sisay after all," the commodore groused to 
himself. In mild consolation, he muttered, "She was always 
cooler than Gerrard anyway." He shook his head. "Why 
can't I kill Squee, though? Does the world really rely on 
that little poop?" Despite his sad words, he rubbed the 
eraser across pages of material. 

With each swipe, Guff removed thousands of words of 
the future, leaving it open to the characters to decide for 
themselves. It was a horrifying experience, but he would 
endure it to save his library. 

His hand paused only when he reached the fate of 
Yawgmoth. In the original draft, Yawgmoth had conquered 
all. Now, who knew? With two broad stokes, Commodore 
Guff removed the passages. 

Tears rolled from the commodore's eyes as he wished 
for an editor who could save the world. 

It was his last thought. The cloud of black death 
swallowed and obliterated him. 

* * * * * 

There was nothing left to stop him. No portals, no lava, 
no mountains, no heroes. No plug could hold him in. The 
plague engine jammed in the mouth of the caldera caved in 
on itself and fell. Yawgmoth rose. 

He rolled across the skies. Yawgmoth spread into the 
world with the boiling alacrity of a volcanic eruption. 
Black and huge, his soul rolled outward from the crown of 
the Stronghold mountain. His simple touch liquefied the 
western face of the volcano, turning rock to ash. He 
obliterated a thousand Metathran in that first moment, and 
five hundred minotaurs. In the second moment, everything 

269 



Apocalypse 

from the cone to the sea had been scoured of life. No 
warrior, no animal, no plant, no microbe survived. He 
rolled out over the sea, and the shadow he cast slew 
merfolk in their hundreds and fish in their thousands and 
plankton in their millions. 

These feuding armies meant nothing. Yawgmoth would 
wipe them away like figures drawn in chalk. All that would 
remain was the blackness upon which they had been 
written, the blackness of Lord Yawgmoth. 

In a mere moment, he had spread across a square mile. 
In two, he had engulfed four square miles, and then 
sixteen, and then four hundred fifty-six, and then two 
hundred seven thousand nine hundred thirty-six square 
miles. In mere minutes, Yawgmoth would encompass the 
world. 

As he took the skies, so his dead took the lands. Soon 
none would stand against him. 

What else can be expected when gods do battle? 

270 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 28 

Disparate Salvations 

Weatherlight cut apart the sky. She seemed an 
avenging angel. From her streamed a deadly glory that 
smote away blackness. She was a second sun. Where she 
shone, shadow creatures melted. Armies of mortal monsters 
could not withstand her awful presence. None could 
survive her. 

Until Yawgmoth. The squelching cloud rushed out with 
uncanny speed, faster than Weatherlight. It spread in every 
direction, ink through water, turning all to black. It 
reached heavenward to tear down the sun, and landward to 
scoop the heart out of the very world. 

The radiance of Weatherlight was nothing next to the 
darkness of Yawgmoth. Shadows slain by the great ship 
were resurrected by the Lord of Shadows. Armies saved by 
Weatherlight were destroyed by Death Incarnate. All that 
lay in Yawgmoth's path died. The crooked geometry of the 
volcanic cone had sheltered some few of the troops, but 
Yawgmoth soon would have them too, soon would have 
the whole world. 

"That old bastard," Gerrard growled. "That old 
goddamned bastard!" Into the speaking tube, he shouted, 
"Sisay, you up for one last showdown?" 

"I've already got the coordinates laid in," she answered. 
"To the heart of that thing, right?" 

Gerrard's teeth glinted in the failing light of the world. 
"There's my captain!" 

271 



Apocalypse 

"It won't work," Urza interrupted. "You can't kill him 
by flying into the cloud and shooting." 

"So says the decapitated head," Gerrard said. 
"Command crew, let's see a show of hands. Who wants to 
blast the heart out of this monster?" Gerrard glanced over 
his shoulder. 

Tahngarth's arm jutted high in the air. Karn lifted both 
silver arms from the cannon he manned. Sisay brandished a 
fist above the helm, and Orim stood in the hatch of the 
main deck, giving the high sign. Even Squee, out of sight 
beyond the helm, made his wishes plain. 

"Squee kill Yawgie for ya!" 

Gerrard's brow canted. "Urza, you didn't vote." 

"Always with you, it is jokes. Always cocky, devil-maycare, 
seat-of-the-pants flying." 

"And who made me? Who bred the cockiness into me? 
And, let me tell you something, Urza Planeswalker—the 
devil does care, and the seat of my pants and a few jokes 
are all I've got to fight him. For that matter, they are all 
you've got to fight him. So if I were you, I'd shut up and 
enjoy the ride. We've got a god to kill." 

Weatherlight swooped beneath their feet, pitching down 
toward the spreading blackness. The epicenter of cloud 
remained at the volcano's peak. Sisay had trained the helm 
on that spot, and the ship responded eagerly. The engines 
roared, adding their thrust to the inexorable pull of 
Dominaria. From the Gaea figurehead spread a gossamer 
envelope that would keep them all safe from Yawgmoth's 
corruption. 

Gerrard pumped the treadle beneath his cannon and 
listened as it hummed with white-hot energy. Across the 
forecastle, Tahngarth's hooves woke the same fire in his 
weapon. Karn at amidships, seeming only another module 
of the massive weapon he wielded, charged up his gun as 

272 



J. Robert King 
well. At the stern, Squee's cannon was so well primed it 
wept tracers of white energy in their wake. These would be 
the most important shots any of them ever fired. These 
would perhaps be the last shots, too. 

"If you see anything that looks like a heart, or an aorta, 
or spine, or brain, shoot it," Gerrard advised. 

Tahngarth replied, "I'm shooting anything and 
everything." 

"Squee'll shoot de butt. Dat's what Squee always shoot." 

Gerrard laughed. "All right, now. Urza says we can't do 
it. Let's prove him wrong. Let's kill two gods with one 
stone." 

Weatherlight plunged into the black cloud. The world 
disappeared. Beyond the envelope was only Yawgmoth. 
This was no simple blackness. Staring into that cloud, the 
crew saw not emptiness, but the serried sum of all horror. 
Slavery, rape, vivisection, cannibalism, plague, famine, 
murder, hate, suicide, infanticide, genocide ... extinction. 
Within that cloud, the vilest, most horrid impulses in the 
multiverse clawed. 

"Let's show this bastard the light," said Gerrard. 

His hand clenched on the fire controls of his cannon. It 
belched white-hot energy. The bolt leaped through 
Weatherlight's envelope and roared out into the heart of 
evil. It tore into coiling flesh and dripping agonies. It 
ripped through stacked repression and monstrous iniquities. 
The charge boiled the being of Yawgmoth. 

Behind Gerrard, an identical blast from Tahngarth 
stabbed out. Shafts of energy drilled through fetid evils, 
cutting them away. The bolt punched deeply into the 
cloud and opened a clear path. 

While Karn shot high, Squee shot low. The goblin 
stood in the traces, his gun rammed down as far as it would 
go, and poured out a river of light. He seemed a man 

273 



Apocalypse 

clutching a lighthouse beacon and gazing with it through a 

demonic storm. 

Physical light cannot penetrate metaphysical darkness. 

Worse, Weatherlight's envelope shrank. It could stand 
against the vacuum, against the whirling chaos between 
worlds, but was no match for the concentrated evil of 
Yawgmoth. 

"Pull up, Sisay!" called Gerrard. "Pull up!" 

"I am," she replied, "if there is ever an end to this 
darkness." 

The envelope slumped, dangerously near the deck. 
Weatherlight shuddered in the clenching fist of cloud. With 
a panicked spasm, she broke free and rose. The sooty 
darkness tumbled away beneath her. The sun shone again 
on her armor. Weatherlight leaped anxiously into the sky. 

Gerrard let his cannon slump. He leaned back in the 
traces and crossed arms over his chest. "So, that's it, then. 
We can't stop Yawgmoth." 

"You can, but not that way," answered Urza. 

As Weatherlight soared above a midnight world, 
Gerrard stared at the queer eyes of the planeswalker. "All 
right, then. What is your plan, Planeswalker? How do we 
stop Yawgmoth?" 

Still jammed into one corner of the cannon stand, 
Urza's head gained a stern smile. "Do you know what 
Weatherlight is, Gerrard?" 

Gerrard snorted. "Of course." 

"She is more than a skyship, more than a part of your 
Legacy. She is a trove of worlds. Her central powerstone 
holds within it Serra's Realm, absorbed to empower it. It 
holds also the souls of countless angels, of countless saints. 
Each of these is a universe unto itself. But more than drat, 
Weatherlight is powered by the Bones of Ramos— heart, 
skull, hand, and so forth. These powerstones hold die 

274 



J. Robert King 
essence of an ancient dragon engine, a minion 
reengineered for the war at Argoth. The ship holds the Juju 
Bubble, and the Skyshaper, each repositories of gods. Even 
her hull is carved from die heart of Yavimaya's most 
ancient tree and holds part of Gaea's essence." 

"What does any of this matter?" Gerrard asked. Urza's 
smile only deepened. "Don't you see? This ship comprises 
worlds upon worlds. All are condensed in her, to fight 
Yawgmoth. You are the same, lad. You are like 
Weatherlight. Just as I charged her with divinities from 
throughout the Nexus, so I charged you with the best souls, 
the best minds, the best bodies of our time. You are as 
much a conglomerate being as Weatherlight. As she is made 
up of a hundred worlds, you are made up of a thousand 
souls. I needed such a ship, such a hero, to destroy 
Yawgmoth forever." 

Gerrard waved his hands impatiently. "Fine. Save your 
theology for someone who cares. How do we destroy 
Yawgmoth?" 

Sadness came to Urza's face. "If Weatherlight bears a 
hundred worlds in her, then merely by breaking her, those 
realms will rush out into being. If Gerrard bears a thousand 
heroes in him, then merely by breaking him, those heroes 
will join the battle." Gerrard gaped at the severed head, 
unable to comprehend. "Sacrifice the ship," Urza said, 
"sacrifice yourself, and Yawgmoth will be destroyed." 

Brow knotting, Gerrard said, "This is your plan? You 
want to bring Serra's Realm into being here at Urborg? You 
want to awaken a hundred worlds on this side of the globe 
to see what happens?" 

"Yes," conceded Urza. "The devastation will be 
incredible. All creatures, all flora in this hemisphere will be 
destroyed, but the other hemisphere will survive to 
repopulate—" 

275 



Apocalypse 

"You want to slay me and bring from my corpse a 
thousand heroes to defend the world? You want to create 
an army of legends to cleanse the land?" 

"Yes," repeated Urza. "The hemisphere that will remain 
will need cleansing. Phyrexian armies have swarmed 
everywhere. The heroes latent in your blood will, with your 
sacrifice, become blatant. Only give yourself over, Gerrard, 
and give over your ship ... and in the final conflagration, 
Yawgmoth will be destroyed." 

The young, black-bearded commander paused to 
consider. Weatherlight and her crew were everything to him. 
They meant more than his own life, which would be forfeit 
too if he listened to Urza. Still, what were they worth in 
the balance? One ship against one world. How could 
Gerrard argue? If he was the result of a thousand years of 
genetic testing, if he was the sum of a millennium of 
heroes, how could he refuse?" 

"This is nonsense, Gerrard, and you know it," 
interjected Sisay from the speaking tube. "It's just another 
sylex blast. After four millennia, all he could think up was 
another sylex blast. Don't listen to him." 

Gerrard opened his hands in surrender. "He created me. 
Who else should I listen to?" 

"Yourself," Sisay said. "If you are the sum of a thousand 
heroes, you've got better judgment than Urza Planeswalker 
has ever had. Don't listen to him. You decide how to save 
this world." 

Gerrard looked at his hands, strong and callused from 
years of battle. Of late, those hands bore a grime in their 
creases, as though he had been digging in dirt. "I wish I 
could wash this away." 

From the speaking tube came the calm voice of Orim. 
"You can't wash this cloud away, Gerrard. Nobody could. If 

276 



J. Robert King 
Cho-Arrim water magic could work on it, I'd be doing a 
rain dance, but—" 

"White mana," Gerrard murmured without willing it. 
"White mana could wash Yawgmoth away, could slay him." 

Tahngarth growled. "The Phyrexians have already 
harvested Benalia. Zhalfir is gone. They targeted white 
mana sites first. We could never marshal enough to make a 
difference." 

"But there is another ally here," Karn interjected. 
When Gerrard turned toward him, the silver golem jabbed 
a finger skyward. "The Null Moon. It is full of white mana." 

"What?" Gerrard asked. 

"In ancient days, the Thran took over the spherical 
transmission base meant to control artifact engines. They 
slew the crew of the orb, planted levitation charges, and 
sent the Null Moon into the heavens. There it has 
remained to this day, gathering white mana from 
Dominaria, weakening the world against this coming 
invasion. But we can strengthen the world again. We can 
harvest the mana of the moon." 

Urza growled, "How do you know this? Even I don't 
know this." 

"Weatherlight told me. It was revealed in the Thran 
Tome." 

A smile spread across Gerrard's face, and his teeth 
gleamed pearlescent. "There's enough pure white mana in 
that thing to poison Yawgmoth?" 

"There's nine thousand years worth," Karn said. 

Urza broke in. "You could never knock the Null Moon 
from orbit. It's too massive." 

"We don't have to knock it from orbit," Gerrard 
replied. "We just have to crack it like an egg and guide the 
yolk on down." 

277 



Apocalypse 

The flesh around Urza's eyes grew red. "How can one 
ship guide a hundred-mile cascade of power?" 

"Easily," came Karn's reply. ''Weatherlight is an energy 
funnel. What pours into her intakes, what flashes through 
her powerstone arrays, what rolls from her cannonades, all 
of it is channeled energy." 

"You'll kill yourselves doing this," Urza said in his final 
protest. 

"That's the one thing our plans have in common," 
Gerrard said. "Captain Sisay, lay in a planeshift to the Null 
Moon. Bring us out at maximum velocity one mile above 
the dark side." 

"Aye, Commander," Sisay said. She spun the wheel and 
drew it toward her. 

Weatherlight curved into a steep climb. She accelerated 
in the ascent. 

The crew clung to their posts. On every rail, knuckles 
grew white. Lips drew back from teeth, and eyes opened 
wide. 

They left behind the black stain of Yawgmoth, 
spreading across the world. They entered cerulean spaces. 

"Hang on!" Gerrard called through the speaking tube. 

Time and distance stretched absurdly. If Gerrard had 
said more, the words would never have crossed the gap, 
would only have snapped back into his teeth and tangled 
there. Gerrard tightened an already brutal grip on the 
target handles of his cannon. He braced his feet on the 
treadles and pumped madly. 

The prow, with its Gaean figurehead, clove through the 
fabric of the sky. Weatherlight planeshifted. Empyrean 
spaces unraveled, leaving her in the Blind Eternities. 
Beyond her shift envelope, the violent energies of the 
multiverse coiled and spun and snapped. Within that 
envelope, the crew braced themselves. 

278 



J. Robert King 
As quickly as the chaos world emerged, it disappeared, 
leaving only eternal blackness, beaming stars, and a huge 
gray moon. The enormous orb swelled. 

"Collision course," Sisay announced. 

"Gunners, carve a corridor!" Gerrard commanded. 

A long, peeling blast burst from his weapon. It roared 
past the shift envelope, across yawning space, and impacted 
the moon's superstructure. Girders melted. Plates buckled 
and dissolved. Grates vanished. The salvo cut a long swath 
across the side of the great sphere. More fire, from 
Tahngarth to starboard and Karn at the centerline, poured 
down upon the sphere. It carved more holes. The blast 
marks fused. Large hunks of metal sank away into the white 
interior. Still, it was not enough. A long, thick section of 
metal jutted directly before Gerrard. He swung his cannon 
toward it, but the ship closed too quickly. In moments, 
they impacted. 

Thran metal was nothing to the god-hardened head of 
Gaea. She butted the section, cracked through, and 
plunged into the beaming whiteness within. 

And it did beam—millennia of white mana. It was not 
opaque like milk or paint, but luminous like fire. Radiance 
rolled beyond the shift envelope, gleamed from the ship's 
armor, coveted the fire of the afterburners. On her 
unstoppable quest, the ship ripped through an old power 
conduit. The severed halves of the cable split and fell away. 
In ghostly lines appeared ancient causeways, networks of 
repair nodes, and a command core at the center of it all. 

"Hold your course," Gerrard ordered as he squinted 
toward the command core. 

The hulking orb grew until it filled all of Weatherlight's 
fore. Without slowing, the skyship struck the node. It 
cracked through. Out tumbled command chairs and manapreserved 
mummies—the bodies of the ancient Thran 

279 



Apocalypse 

controllers. They had ridden this great orb beyond the 
reach of air, but even in dying, their forms had been 
preserved. Now, they fluttered behind Weatherlight as 
Serra's angels once had done. 

"Take us out of here, Captain," Gerrard said. "Take us 
back to our world." 

Through ravening light, Weatherlight plunged. Power 
poured through her, annealing her metals, aligning her 
crystals, purifying her humors. The great ship channeled 
that power. 

Light erupted from the forward cannons. Rays soared 
together in a shattering constellation. They punched 
through the outer shell of the Null Moon. More charges 
leaped in long lines. The great sphere cracked from within. 
It opened, disgorging its fiery contents. 

Weatherlight followed the cannon blasts. She shot 
through the ragged rift and plunged. All around her, white 
mana cascaded in a wide curtain. She drew it down. 

She was no ship now, not even a living ship, but rather 
a god descending in glory. Her raiment lit the heavens 
brighter than the sun. Beautiful and gossamer and 
voluminous, those robes trailed her downward. In their 
very purity, they would slay the Lord of Death. They would 
slay Yawgmoth. 

280 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 29 

The Doom of Dominaria 

Mudmen tumbled in a ragged rain all around Eladamri 
and Liin Sivi. Sword and toten-vec, the two advanced up 
the swarming bole. Their troops—savage-shorn and sharp-
eyed— clambered up to every side. They had cleansed the 
lower reaches of the magnigoth treefolk. With Keldon fires 
below and moss spells above, the defenders at last were 
finishing off the monstrosities. 

Battered treefolk began to move again. Massive boughs 
flexed. Tendrils brushed along mud-choked bark. Branches 
raked through the mudmen. The beasts broke apart and 
fell. Mad roars began deep within the treefolk, resonating 
in black hollows and rising to vault from open mouths. 
With the shouts came the shattered bodies of more mud 
golems, those with the temerity to have climbed down the 
throats of the beasts. 

Eladamri gave his own howl. He lifted his sword arm 
high into the air and waved it. "The treefolk awake! The 
defenders of Gaea fight again!" 

All around, others took up the shout. It was a glorious 
sound in the midst of mud and blood. Glorious and all too 
short-lived. 

A new storm loomed. A black cloud rolled out beneath 
the sun. It cast deep darkness down across the magnigoth 
treefolk and their defenders. 

Eladamri looked up. He sheathed his sword—this was 
no foe that could be killed with a blade—and reached to 

281 



Apocalypse 

pull Liin Sivi beside him. She, too, stared in dread at the 
inky sky. It seemed a pit opened above them. Steel Leaf 
elves gaped through foggy goggles. Skyshroud elves 
remembered the muscular skies of Rath. The truest 
realization came among the treefolk. With the chlorophyll 
retinas of their myriad leaves, they saw. 

A death wail rose from the mouths of the magnigoth 
treefolk as Yawgmoth struck them. His soul, a black 
pyroclasm, dipped down and smashed into the trees. They 
lurched under the blow. Massive boughs bent like grasses 
before a gale. Eladamri and Liin Sivi clung to the reeling 
bole. Here and there, an elf lost hold and plummeted 
toward the fires below. 

The magnigoth guardian shuddered erect again. Its top 
was eaten clear away. Yawgmoth had dissolved all. The 
wail turned to screaming as treefolk died. Yawgmoth 
coursed down their bark, stripping it with his very 
presence. He sluiced into the open mouths of the creatures, 
swirled in their hollows, and brought death. 

Eladamri felt the transformation under his fingers— 
vitality draining from wood. The tree that he and his 
troops had saved was dead now forever. Eladamri's own 
death approached from above. The black cloud boiled 
eagerly toward them. Eladamri gazed at the ground—too far 
to drop, and mantled with Keldon fire. He and Liin Sivi 
together had survived two separate assaults on the 
Stronghold, plague bombs in Llanowar and sand worms in 
Koilos, a battle on the ice and the very coming of Keldon 

Twilight, but they would not survive this dark hour. 

"There is a place for dead warriors," he said heavily to 
Liin Sivi. "I will see you there. We will find each other." 

She leaned to him, kissing him one final time. "This is 
the place for dead warriors—the battlefield." 

282 



J. Robert King 
Eladamri wore a grim expression. "Yes. Now, we need 
only choose—death by Yawgmoth, or death by fire." 

Liin Sivi smiled, an all-too-rare expression. "If I can 
defy that monster one final time—" and she let go of the 
tree bole. 

Eladamri too let go. He was surprised how easy it was. 
Together, they fell, dropping as quickly as Yawgmoth did. 

Staring in surprise, the elves watched them fall, and 
then they let go as well. In opening their hands, some of 
those warriors released a millennium of life. Strange how 
happy they were, falling with their commanders between 
rising fires and plunging blackness. 

They struck, and it was done. Nothing remained for 
Yawgmoth except those raging fires below and the gray-
faced tenders of the flames. He struck them brutally and 
snuffed them, flame and Keldon, elf and Vec, as one. 

* * * * * 

How this panther warrior fought! His eyes stared death 
into the mudmen. They dropped in smoldering piles. He 
leaped over their dead forms, twenty at a bound, and 
roared. From his jowls rolled clusters of spells, devised to 
battle undead. One coiling sorcery struck a mudman and 
shredded it down to sand. Another flash-evaporated the 
water in a golem. The creature exploded, ripping apart a 
score more of the monsters. A third spell awoke fungi 
across a platoon of mudmen, turning them to piles of 
truffle. What creatures he could not slay with glances and 
roars, the panther man slew with claws and fangs. Even 
now, he impaled two beasts while biting through the head 
of a third. 

Commander Grizzlegom was proud to follow this 
otherworldly fighter. Never before had Grizzlegom been 

283 



Apocalypse 

modest of his axe's power, and truth be told, it cleft these 
creatures with a deadly vengeance. But while he killed 
them singly only to watch them rise again, this panther 
man killed them in droves and forever. Beyond the tawny 
shoulders of the cat warrior, perhaps a hundred mudmen 
remained to the hilltop. If the coalition forces gained that 
high, rocky ground, they could defend it against all comers. 

"Break through! To the heights!" roared Grizzlegom, 
lifting his axe overhead. His free arm signaled his 
Metathran troops to break away and flank the main army 
of mudmen. With utter precision, the blue warriors veered 
from their course and climbed toward the summit. 
Meanwhile the panther man, Grizzlegom, and the 
minotaurs carved through the main contingent of golems. 
"For Hurloon!" 

"For Hurloon!" echoed his troops in a deafening yell. 
The sound mounted among them, strengthening each 
individual with the power of the whole. Mortal foes would 
have been shaken by the tumult, but these mudmen were 
earless, soulless things. 

Grizzlegom punctuated the cry with a bisecting chop of 
his axe. The halves of the golem fell. The commander's 
recovery stroke was too slow to catch the next beast. 
Instead, he rammed the axe haft into its forehead. He 
trampled it down. Now his weapon was truly fouled. As he 
wrestled it from the gripping mud, he slashed a clear path 
with his horns. More mudmen fell on his broad shoulders. 
They clawed fingers of rot through his hide, opening foul 
wounds. Grizzlegom shook them off like a dog shaking 
away water. He felt his blood—hot and red—washing the 
infection from the wounds. That was their true deadliness, 
the creeping plague. 

Even if the defenders destroyed this army of humus 
warriors, there would be more and more eternally. They 

284 



J. Robert King 
could no longer trust even the ground beneath their feet. 
The very world they had fought to save now had turned 
against them. What good was high ground when all ground 
belonged to Yawgmoth? 

Another roar from the panther warrior brought 
Grizzlegom from his reverie. He looked up past the 
sloughing remains of his last kills and saw mudmen fall to 
ash. They could not stand before the cat man's magic. The 
water steamed from them, and they flaked into gray 
nothing. A broad avenue opened in their midst, leading to 
the rocky summit. Better still, the Metathran scrambled up 
the slope and planted their powerstone glaives as though 
they were flags of dominion. 

Grizzlegom gave a roar. Hooves pounded through dead 
golems and ash. In moments, all the minotaurs advanced. 
Only those on the edges of the battle still dismantled their 
foes. The rest charged up the rocky slope toward the 
Metathran and victory. The blue warriors stood there like 
angels, bright in a world of dun. 

The sky turned caliginous behind them. Something 
came with the inescapable velocity of death— 

A black cloud struck those proud warriors and engulfed 
them. They shrieked—Metathran never shrieked, fearless 
and selfless. Now they did, emitting the inevitable sound of 
a living thing at the moment of death. The shriek lasted 
only a moment before it disintegrated along with the vocal 
apparatuses that produced it. 

Grizzlegom halted. His troops faltered. Even the 
panther warrior stopped in his tracks. All took a wavering 
step back as that blackness flooded down the hill toward 
them. 

The panther warrior spun, claws extended. Streamers of 
sorcery dragged over the minotaurs on that hillside. Magic 
took hold of them all, and just before the presence of 

285 



Apocalypse 

Yawgmoth could dissolve them to nothing, they 
disintegrated and were gone. 

The black cloud swept down the hill, killing even the 
mudmen who struggled to rise. It poured across the 
battlefield and down toward the open sea. 

* * * * * 

A hundred miles beyond the Urborg chain was a deep 
cleft in shallow seas. This shadowy place had always been a 
haven for life—whether conch or urchin, crab or merfolk. 
As artists had once fled the oppression of old Vodalia, so 
too they fled the oppression of the Etlan-Shiis and settled 
here, founding the Elit-erates. These folk sought only 
beauty in an ugly world, and they created it in this cleft. 
Now it was all about to be swept away. 

Bo Levar grieved. In his full captain's regalia, he 
hovered above the rolling billows. The noonday sun cast 
his shadow down through crystalline waters and onto one 
side of the artists' colony. His dark semblance, enlarged by 
the water, had become a matter of speculation among the 
merfolk below. Even now, they gathered in furtive groups 
and pointed through the rolling tides at the visitor, 
wondering what evil his presence foretold. 

Bo Levar wondered as well. Perhaps Yawgmoth would 
have slid smoothly above this paradise, never noticing it in 
his quest for greater lands—except that a planeswalker 
hovered protectively above it. On the other hand, perhaps 
Yawgmoth would have sunk himself in the waves and slain 
every tender creature below. It was too late now to second 
guess. Every person—even planeswalkers—must choose at 
some point to stand against evil or let it roll over him. Bo 
Levar had chosen both. 

286 



J. Robert King 
Here was the problem. The Eliterates had fled to this 
spot from all the oceans. If Bo Levar removed them to 
some "safe" place half a world away, he would be stealing 
from them their haven. Yawgmoth was coming to all the 
world. Would it be better to die in one's heaven or to live 
in one's hell? 

Even that was not the whole of the problem. Bo Levar 
had become a planeswalker in the same all-consuming 
explosion that had made a planeswalker of Urza. As a 
mortal, his name had been Captain Crucias, and he had led 
sight-seeing expeditions to Argoth. The sylex ended that 
enterprise. The explosion had blinded Crucias and 
destroyed his ship, but it had done one other thing—it had 
ignited the planeswalker spark in him. He had been old 
then, ready to give up, and had suddenly received the 
blessing—or curse—of an eternity. 

That eternity was up. Bo Levar was done. He had 
buried his daughter Nuneive four thousand years ago. He 
had spent the time since in amassing an empty fortune. 
Oh, and there was one other thing—he'd destroyed 
Phyrexia, with the help of three friends. But Bo Levar was 
done. The question was, how to spend his soul? A life was 
not something to be sacrificed lightly, especially not an 
immortal life. The best answer Bo Levar could devise, even 
after four centuries, was to sacrifice himself in defense of 
beauty. 

That black cloud, rolling from the decimated island, 
looked all too familiar. Such a shock wave had made him. 
It might as well unmake him too. He watched it come. 
Here was the glory of deciding his own time—determining 
how he would go and what of his power would remain. The 
spell-work that would make it all a reality had already 
taken effect. 

287 



Apocalypse 

A globe of magical energy spread from him, out in a 
shallow dome above the sea and in a great, sweeping, all-
encompassing sphere beneath. Every soul among the 
Eliterates would forever be guarded from Yawgmoth and his 
minions. Any Dominarian creature who ventured therein 
claiming sanctuary would find it. Here was the sweetest 
provision of all: Though the volume of the globe was 
constant, the space within was not. A room could hold a 
whole palace. A palace could hold a whole city. A city 
could hold a whole nation, a whole world. As many as 
flocked to the Eliterates, seeking beauty and safety, they 
would find it. The place would make room for them. 

It was no small miracle, one worthy of an immortal 
sacrifice—one worthy of Nuneive. 

Bo Levar opened his arms, welcoming the blackness. 
His shadow below made the same gesture. Some would 
think he summoned a spell. Others would guess he 
heralded them. Still others would remember his posture 
and make it the eternal emblem of salvation. In truth, Bo 
Levar only spoke to his whelming slayer. 

"You think you've won, Yawgmoth, but you have not. 
You cannot. The rest of us have done what we have 
done—glories and atrocities—within the game. You have 
stepped beyond it. 

You would destroy not only us, but the game itself. In 
doing so, you lose forever. You cannot know every card, 
and you certainly cannot guess at the ones in my hand." 

Modest final words for a modest man. The black cloud 
struck him, swept over him, dismantled him. It burned 
away his mustache and goatee and captain's cloak. It curled 
skin and flash-burned muscle and pulverized bone. But 
somewhere hidden in the depths of that flesh was the spell-
soul that had created them. It spread now, creating 
something new. As clear and solid as diamond, the sphere 

288 



J. Robert King 
took shape. It formed itself from the backward-arching 
remains of that winnowed figure. By the time his physical 
form was gone—and that was mere moments after 
Yawgmoth struck him—his metaphysical protections were 
complete. 

Yawgmoth swirled across the dome of air, but could not 
penetrate it. He coiled along the sphere of waters, but 
could not break through. 

Within, like fish in a bowl, the merfolk quailed and 
wonder at the salvation wrought for them. 

* * * * * 

Bo Levar had chosen rightly. Yawgmoth swarmed all 
the world. He reached from Urborg to the cleft of the 
Eliterates in mere minutes. It took him hours to grasp the 
rest, but grasp he did. 

In far Keld, he reached the steamy Skyshroud Forest. 
Freyalise had arrived there, hoping to protect her folk. 
There was no hope beneath the clawing cloud of 
Yawgmoth. 

In Hurloon, Lord Windgrace had brought Grizzlegom 
and his forces to what little remained of their homeland. 
At least they had escaped Yawgmoth, he thought—and 
thought wrongly. They stood in the ashen ruins of 
Kaldroom as the sky turned to utter black. 

Above Jamuraa, the Presence of Yawgmoth passed. 

Across Tolaria he soared. 

Over the ruins of Benalia he went. Through the sands 
of Koilos .. .. 

Yawgmoth reached across the whole of Dominaria and 
clutched it to himself with the cold and insistent hands of a 
rapist. 

289 



Apocalypse 

* * * * * 

Urborg—ever the darkest of islands and now swathed 
wholly in the presence of the Ineffable—could not glimpse 
its coming hope. It shone high in the sky—too small, too 
distant, too uncaring to pierce this death-shroud. 

Such is the way of hope. It begins at furtive distance, 
too high to be seen. As it pours itself down, though, the 
white cascade traces a line across the black sky. Patiently, 
inevitably, it bridges heaven and earth. And when at last it 
arrives, hope comes with a vengeance. 

290 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 30 

Chiaroscuro 

Like a blazing comet, Weatherlight dived. Mantled in a 
white-mana cascade, she plunged toward everlasting 
blackness. That's all that lay below—the eternal shadow of 
Yawgmoth. The dark god had spread across the whole 
world. Not a scrap of Dominaria showed its true blue 
beneath the killing grip of that thing. Yawgmoth had taken 
it all. 

Gerrard gripped the gunnery traces—all that held him 
to the shrieking vessel—and gazed grimly at the world. 
Perhaps Urza had been right. Perhaps saving half of 
Dominaria would have been better than this, than saving 
none of it. His hands sweated on the fire controls. Already, 
he'd fired a couple shots, though they had shrunk to 
minuscule insignificance against that black globe. It was as 
though they did not drive toward a world, but toward a 
hole where once a world had been. 

Still, Gerrard had only to look behind him to glimpse 
the hope of that world. White energy fumed and boiled, as 
wide as the Null Moon itself, as wide as the central isle of 
Urborg. Poured down Yawgmoth's throat, how could this 
power fail to slay him? 

"How close are we, Sisay?" Gerrard asked. His voice 
rang hollowly through the tube, small within the roar of 
mana. 

"Five minutes closer than the last time you asked," she 
replied. 

291 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard took no offense. They were all on edge. He 
watched the shift envelope rattle and redden with the first 
touch of rarefied air. In another few minutes, the shield 
would grow blazingly hot. "And we're still on course for 
Urborg?" he pressed. 

Sisay replied simply, "Yes." 

"I want to make sure we blanket the island, especially 
the Stronghold volcano. I want to kill that bastard with 
one blow." 

There came a pause. "I'm doing my best, Commander. 
It's no easy thing to pilot a comet. We're pushed more by 
the cloud than by our own engines. All I can do is keep us 
trim and centered in. If you want pinpoint accuracy, I'll 
need Hanna back." 

That stung. Gerrard turned his gaze toward the bridge. 

Sisay winced. "Sorry," she said through the tube. 
"That's not what I meant." 

Gerrard replied, "We all want her back—" 

"I'll give you the next best thing," she said, her face 
brightening. "Weatherlight says we're dead on. She says she's 
looking through Hanna's eyes, and we're dead on." 

Gerrard smiled, though he felt no gladness. In a bleak 
voice, he muttered, "What else does our good ship tell 
you?" 

"Not much, Commander. She's pretty busy right now 
with Karn. It's one thing to have to steer an asteroid. Its 
another to have to channel its power. But if anyone can do 
it, Weatherlight can. Weatherlight and Karn." 

* * * * * 

In the first chaotic moments after Weatherlight emerged 
from the riven moon, the ship summoned Karn to come 
below. He felt the plea in his feet and answered the call. 

292 



J. Robert King 
He was little use on the amidships deck anyway. No 
gunnery harness could have held him in place. 

Clinging to the ship, Karn crawled to the main hatch. 
He flung open the door to see four human faces within, 
staring in shock from what had once seemed a safe haven. 
Karn pulled himself through the opening and closed it 
behind him. Hand over hand, the silver golem climbed 
down the companionway stairs, now standing on end. At 
their base, he reached the engine room. Prying open its 
door, he eased himself inside. 

The familiar air—hot and steamy, with a hint of 
brimstone and steel—enveloped him. Below lay the 
engine—the fearsome engine. Once he had known every 
rivet of that machine, but now it had grown beyond him. 
Still, these were desperate times, and Weatherlight needed 
him. Lowering himself gently onto the aft manifold of the 
device, Karn released his hold on the door-jamb. Under his 
feet, he felt Weatherlight's heat. Karn climbed carefully 
down one side of the engine until he reached the pair of 
hand ports where once he had flown the ship. Kneeling 
there, Karn inserted his massive hands. He took hold of the 
control rods within. Microfibers tickled along his fingers. 
The filaments slid into his joints and made contact. 

Karn! Thank you for coming. 

He nodded, steam glinting darkly on his forehead. "I 
thought perhaps you could use some help." 

Yes, the ship replied simply. 

"May I cross over, then?" 

Yes. 

Karn closed his eyes and let his consciousness drift 
down his arms, into his hands. He felt the new solidity of 
the engine, the power that pulsed ceaselessly within her 
fuselage. As impressive as that power was, it was nothing 
beside the mana energy all around the ship. The tips of the 

293 



Apocalypse 

spars and the cannon barrels and every extremity of the 
ship glowed with ball lightning. The white mana sought a 
conduit inward, and if it found one, the whole of the 
engine could be destroyed. There was the great dilemma. 
The very force that Weatherlight was supposed to guide and 
channel could also tear her to pieces. 

Death is a fearsome force, spoke the ship into his mind. 

It was Karn's turn to be laconic. "Yes." 

You were bom mere decades before Urza charged the power 
core. 

"Yes." 

We are twin creatures, millennia old, except that you have 
been aware all that while. I have been waking for mere days. 
The ship was pressing toward a thought, an idea wrapped in 
regret. 

Karn's mind slid through Weatherlight's conduits and 
peered from her optics. "In a sense, I lived before that even. 
My affective cortex came from Xantcha. In a sense, I lived 
for a thousand years before my body was made." 

The question is not whether all this power will destroy my 
core— for it will. The question is, can I kill Yawgmoth before I 
am slain? 

"Yes," Karn affirmed. 

It is the right thing, to be unmade in such a battle, to slay 
Yawgmoth even while being slain oneself. Who can argue such 
choices? 

A sharp pang moved through Karn, and he tried to 
divert the conversation. "When we reach the proper 
altitude, our first job will be to arrest this descent and take 
up position directly above the volcano. To do that, we'll 
have to engage all engines against the mana tide." 

Perhaps having had only days to live will make it easier to 
give it all up—easier than being a creature such as you, 
millennia old .. .. 

294 



J. Robert King 
"The trick will be to slow down gradually enough that 
the crew will not be harmed and yet abruptly enough that 
we won't be dashed against the mountain." 

Xantcha did the same thing, you know, Karn. She stood 
within the pouring radiance and let it consume her and let 
it close the portal to Phyrexia. 

"Once in place, you will stand on end at full thrust, 
your air intakes filling with mana, which will be focused in 
your powerstone core and emerge as a single slaying 
column from your exhausts. Surplus energy will pour from 
your cannons and lanterns and even your wings and spikes. 
You will stab Yawgmoth in a hundred places, pinning him 
down, and the central column will impale his black heart 
and kill him." 

Yes, Karn. All of that is obvious. That's not why you were 
summoned. You came here to grant just one assurance— 

"I'll do whatever I can." 

Grant me the fate of Xantcha, that when I am immolated in 
the coming flame, something of me will remain in you. 

Karn's voice rumbled like thunder. "I promise." 

* * * * * 

Above the black world plunged a white star. She 
outshone the sun. She outraced the moon. Her train was 
majestic, glorious. Her power was inexorable. It seemed she 
would spend herself in her headlong plunge, impacting the 
darkness below. Instead, she slowed and stopped. 

Here, in midair, she would do battle. 

The train of her gown, dragging for thousands of miles 
through the heavens, billowed down around her. She 
pivoted. Her god face rose away from the netherworld, as if 
she spurned the creature she was about to fight. While 

295 



Apocalypse 

gleaming veils enfolded her, the star lifted her face toward 
the sky. 

She spread quicksilver wings. White mana struck them 
and bounded out in a wide dome. It seemed gossamer, this 
energy, but where it struck the black presence, it cut like 
steel. The reflection off her wings cut a circle two hundred 
miles in diameter. It boiled away the darkness and sliced 
through to the churning oceans below. 

She was not finished. Her arms reached out—the seven 
arms of a goddess—and hurled white surges into the cloud. 
Where those slender pulses struck, darkness recoiled, giving 
views to the ravaged ground. One arm swept along a 
shoreline and showed the breakers crashing there. Another 
caressed a volcanic hillside, scouring the rocks until they 
shone like gemstones. 

Still she was not finished. The star took a breath, a 
deep breath of the white-mana cascade. Power surged 
through her pure soul. It channeled out beneath her in a 
shaft of light so bright it cast shadows on the shattered 
moon. 

This power did more than tear holes in the blackness. It 
obliterated it entirely. Wherever it struck, four square miles 
of darkness evaporated. The killing beam strolled its way 
through a salt marsh, up a rankling hillside, and toward the 
volcano at its peak. Soon it would strike the center of the 
cloud, the core of Yawgmoth, and would save the whole 
world. 

* * * * * 

Gerrard clung on for dear life. He could do little else. 

Radiance suffused everything. It shone through his 
closed eyelids. It baked the base of every pore. It tricked 

296 



J. Robert King 
past clenched teeth and down a closed throat to glow in his 
lungs. White blindness. He saw everything. 

In the swimming flood of light, the whole of his life 
gleamed—the battles on Dominaria and Mercadia and 
Rath, the years of reluctance, the betrayal of Vuel, the 
centuries when the pieces that were to become him 
wormed their way through a thousand forebears. The light 
showed him everything. 

All his senses brimmed full. His flesh tingled numbly, so 
shot through with pressure and heat that he could not tell 
if he were in agony or ecstasy, burning or freezing, crushed 
or stretched. Though he knew he was strapped to his 
cannon, he simultaneously walked distant glades and 
fought distant wars. 

In his ears rang every voice, every song, every sob he 
had ever heard. The air smelled and tasted of honey and 
offal. Sensation crowded through him. He feared it would 
tear him to pieces and at the same time hoped it would 
make him whole. 

Such is the delirium of clinging to a manifesting 
goddess. 

* * * * * 

He had grasped the whole world. He had sunk his 
talons in and was tightening his grip—and then, out of the 
sky, this agony! 

It was she. Only a goddess could appear that way, in 
blazing glory above the world. How had Gaea transcended 
herself? How had Rebbec risen from the ground that she 
infested? 

Then he remembered. The Thran Temple—the 
pinnacle of Rebbec's architectural achievements—a 
building built on clear air. Of course. She was forever 

297 



Apocalypse 

transcending herself. And what else could that be but the 
radiant temple that she had sent from Halcyon? Where had 
it spent its eternities, packed with refugees? Had they 
learned to build cities within the powerstones, as Glacian 
had threatened? Had they waited all this while just above 
Dominaria for Yawgmoth's return, so that they could 
descend and slay him? 

Of course. Rebbec was his shadow. She never fled far. 
She always waited for him. She lingered near to stab him 
when his back was turned. Of course. 

And it nearly worked. He had fallen for it again. How 
had he discounted that bitch? Some had even told him 
that she was dead. Dead? Then who was this that rained 
killing fire down on him. Rebbec! Damn her. 

It had nearly worked, but she had left him a back door. 
Yawgmoth would not relinquish the world, no, but he 
would send the core of his being back to Phyrexia. Gutted 
though it was, the spheres at least were safe from this 
radiant witch. While his soul dwelt there, his fists could 
still hold and strangle and kill Dominaria. 

This was the best of all plans. He would escape through 
the Stronghold and destroy the portal from within. Then, 
in safety, he would finish off this world. 

Bolts struck him, tore through him, destroyed his 
darksome flesh—painful, yes, like the bite of a scourge, but 
not deadly. 

Rebbec was a hive of hornets. She sent white mana 
wasps down to sting him. Oh, she would pay. She would 
pay! 

Yawgmoth gathered the core of his being. It coursed 
through the black cloud, well out of harm's reach. With 
the speed that had borne him around the world, Yawgmoth 
gushed up the mountainside. Rebbec still hadn't found the 
caldera—stupid girl! He poured himself into it like blood 

298 



J. Robert King 
down a drain. His being sloshed over the edge of the 
central pit, and he rolled toward the Stronghold. Too 
easy— 

Except that there was no Stronghold. Where once it 
had been now stood a lake of lava, bubbling and red and 
rising quickly. Yawgmoth could not swim through this 
burning stuff. Worse, if it had flooded the Stronghold, it 
poured even now through the open portal in the throne 
room and into Phyrexia. Attacks from above and below! 
How had the bitch arranged for—? 

He saw them, in a ring atop the lava flood. Rock druids! 
Dwarfs! It was absurd for the Lord of Phyrexia to be 
defeated by stone kickers. He might not be able to swim 
through lava, but he could easily enough obliterate a circle 
of dwarfs. 

Yawgmoth gathered the core of his being into a dense 
black fist and lunged for that pathetic circle. 

At the last, he shied back. One of the creatures was lit 
by a sudden, oracular light. A white beam broke over the 
dwarf. It widened into an arc that splashed across three of 
the beasts. 

Peering toward the top of the volcanic shaft, Yawgmoth 
saw the source of the light. 

Rebbec! She had lured him here to trap him! Her light 
struck and transformed these dwarf minions. No longer 
seeming crude piles of stone, the little folk became radiant 
creatures. Taller, more slender, with clothes and skin that 
shone. White dwarfs! What witchery! 

Ah, but this changed nothing. There were a thousand 
vents out of these volcanoes. She could not trap him. The 
sealing of his portal meant only that he could not retreat 
from Dominaria, that he would remain here and fight with 
every fiber of his being. It only assured that Dominaria was 
his now and forevermore. 

299 



Apocalypse 

Gliding away from the light, Yawgmoth coursed along 
the wall. In easy moments, he found a network of cracks 
that breathed fresh air. He sieved through them and out 
upon the mountainside. 

He fairly giggled as he withdrew the core of his being 
from Urborg. This was all the better. He would lurk just 
beyond her reach while his endless black arms lashed up to 
drag Rebbec from the skies. 

Yawgmoth slipped away, just out of the carved 
perimeter. There, in safe darkness, he stared at the 
gleaming spectacle. With an almost casual gesture, he 
summoned a legion of tentacles in the cloud beneath 
Rebbec. She could sever many of the reaching arms, but 
not all. In time, one would lay hold, and then another, and 
a third, and she would be dragged down to utter oblivion. 
The last hope of Dominaria would die in a black fist. 

Yawgmoth laughed lightly. 

Gargantuan arms erupted from his black soul and lashed 
the beaming goddess. 

300 



J. Robert King 
Chapter 31 

The Choice of Heroes 

Gerrard was lost. Suffused in brilliant light, clutched in 
an implacable grip, immersed in the music of the spheres, 
he had grown insensate. The powers that battled above and 
beneath him were gods, and he a mere plaything. There 
was nothing left for a hero to do but wait until good won 
and evil died. 

Hanna was here. She filled his memories. That's where 
he lingered, in memories. Karn was here too, the silver 
guardian who protected him. He protected Gerrard from 
the Lord of the Wastes, a bogeyman in countless stories. 
Those were glorious days, safe and happy and easy. Gerrard 
walked back through them with Hanna at his side. 

Into his dreaming, something intruded. A great black 
tentacle lashed out of the sullen pit. It hadn't the slick 
substance of an aquatic limb. This was muscular darkness. 
It slapped up through the glad glow and lashed his leg and 
dragged at him. Something else pulled him the other way, 
something that held him around his shoulders and chest. 
They fought, this tentacle and the straps. They tore at him. 

In that violent sensation, he surfaced from the oracular 
dream. 

Gerrard did not open his eyes. Even with them shut, his 
head ached from the glare. Through his eyelids, he saw 
shapes and forms—the upended deck of Weatherlight, the 
dark bulk of his cannon, the tangle of gunnery traces 

301 



Apocalypse 

holding him—and there, what was that? A long, black limb 
dragged at him. 

Cold and biting, it slithered tighter around his leg and 
yanked. 

"Something's got me!" Gerrard called. His voice echoed 
meekly in his head. It could not batter past the storm of 
sound. Even his enhanced muscles could not match the 
power of that limb. 

Another tentacle lashed across the deck and wrapped 
around a baluster. It pulled so hard, the support came loose 
along with half the rail. 

"Something's got us!" Gerrard shouted toward the 
speaking tube. 

A voice answered, not from the tube, but from a corner 
nearby. "Yawgmoth. He drags us downward." 

"Urza?" Gerrard called out. "You can see? Of course you 
can see, with those damned eyes." 

"I can hear too." 

Kicking his leg to try to break the tentacle's hold, 
Gerrard said, "Use your eyes to blast this!" 

"Killing moggs and killing Yawgmoth are two different 
things." 

Gerrard nodded, "Yeah. I'm figuring that one out. How 
can he get past the white mana beams?" 

"Wherever there's a hole, he reaches up. Whenever one 
tentacle gets severed, he grows a new one." 

Gerrard bellowed toward the speaking tube. "Sisay! 
Sisay! Roll the ship!" 

Sisay responded, groggy with a fever dream. "What?" 

"Roll the ship!" Gerrard shouted, shaking his leg. 

"What ship?" 

A shout from across the forecastle told that Tahngarth 
had just gotten lashed too. Weatherlight slipped 
downward. 

302 



J. Robert King 
"Karn! More power!" 

"There is no more power. We can't hold out!" came the 
silver golem's rumbling voice. "Not against the mana 
cascade and the tentacles." The ship foundered as three 
more tentacles took hold of the main deck. "Weatherlight is 
dead, Gerrard. The cascade has destroyed her. I can barely 
keep the engines running." 

It was like waking into a nightmare. Dead. The ship was 
dead. Gerrard's throat grew raw. "Damn it, Squee! You're 
the only one who can draw a bead! Shoot these things!" 

The goblin's answer was so vitriolic that Gerrard could 
make out only a string of profanities followed by the word 
"butts." 

Squee's gun spoke. It shouted. The ship jiggled with the 
discharge. It shook more strongly as the volley cut through 
two of the tentacles. Squee shouted more epithets. 
Another tentacle popped, and another. 

"Sisay, you with us yet?" Gerrard yelled. 

"I had the strangest dream—" 

"Just roll the ship!" Gerrard interrupted. 

Weatherlight spun about her axis. The mana that 
poured across her wings whirled and sliced through the last 
of the tentacles. The ship lurched upward. 

Gerrard would have whooped, though he hadn't the 
throat for it. 

Karn's voice came from below, "We're losing the shift 
envelope!" 

"Take us out of here, Captain," Gerrard shouted. "High 
and fast!" 

"Aye!" she called back. 

Weatherlight corkscrewed up out of the column of 
white mana, keeping her silvery hull toward the killing 
stuff. It splashed in radiant waves from her gunwales, as if 
the ship rode atop a geyser. Only when she had cleared the 

303 



Apocalypse 

cascade did Sisay roll her upright. Everyone was glad to feel 
the deck rise up beneath their feet. Gunnery traces creaked 
as their occupants stood. 

Gerrard opened his eyes. Here, beyond the storm of 
mana, blackness ruled. The sun had set. Even the stars 
seemed reluctant to shine. Yawgmoth filled the world with 
ink. Only the column of fire shone, and it cast 
Weatherlight's shadow, huge and spectral, across the 
darkness. 

Panting, Gerrard went to his knees beside the speaking 
tube. "Status reports, everyone, from the top down." 

Sisay was the first. "We're played out, Commander. The 
ship's sluggish. We've got a damaged rudder and a bent 
airfoil." 

Tahngarth reported from the starboard gun, "Our 
cannons are down too." He gestured toward the barrel tip. 
The last of the energy drooled out. "Mana overloaded the 
systems." 

"It's worse than that," Karn added. "Mana overloaded 
Weatherlight herself. There's nothing left. The ghost is 
gone from the machine. I can do my best as engineer, but 
I'm just moving the parts of a corpse." 

From sickbay, Orim reported, "I don't need to tell you 
what standing the ship on end does to the crew. A little 
steadier flying for a while would help me get some of these 
bones set." "We've got no choice except to fly steadily," 
Karn said. Gerrard rubbed his forehead and muttered, "Of 
course, we have another choice—crash." Out loud he said, 
"Planeshift is out too?" "Yes." 

After that one word, the speaking tube went 
dramatically silent. The only sound that came was the 
sputter of damaged engines and the restless whuffle of the 
wind. 

304 



J. Robert King 
Gerrard couldn't seem to get a breath. Everything was 
dark, the sky and the world both. Everything was quiet. 
He'd awakened from a dream of Hanna to find himself 
alone in the darkness. Yawgmoth had taken over 
Dominaria, and Gerrard's ship could no longer even escape 
the doomed world. She'd have to land sometime, and then 
Yawgmoth would have them all. 

Biting his lip, Gerrard looked out at the black heavens. 
A few stars, tiny and distant, winked into being. Once, 
Gerrard would have given anything to stand on a tall ship 
and feel her heave beneath him and watch the stars. He 
had never wanted to save the world. Now it looked as 
though he wouldn't. 

Gerrard's gaze fell from the stars to those starlike eyes of 
Urza Planeswalker. "I suppose it's too late to try your plan." 

Urza's head stared back. "It is too late to turn 
Weatherlight into a bomb, yes. It is too late to save half the 
world at the expense of the other half. Too late." 

Gerrard shook his head. "Karn, how long can you keep 
us up here?" 

"Perhaps an hour. Perhaps less." 

Gerrard nodded. He took a deep breath. The air was 
cold and clean this high up. He spread his hands, feeling 
the sweat steam away. "I guess I am out of tricks." 

Urza stared levelly at him. "Close the speaking tube." 

Irritated, Gerrard said, "What? Why?" 

"Close it." 

The commander snapped the lid closed over the tube. 
"What?" 

"There is one more chance. I don't know if it will even 
work. Whether it does or not, it will cost us everything." 

All hesitation was gone from Gerrard. He leaned 
forward and said, "Tell me." 

305 



Apocalypse 

* * * * * 

After Gerrard had ordered the command crew to 
assemble, Sisay was, of course, the first on the bridge. She 
stood at the helm of the foundering ship and stared beyond 
the windscreen. The sky was filled with blazing stars. The 
pillar of fire stood to port, joining the sky and the ground. 
All else was black. 

The aft door to the bridge flew open and slammed 
against the inner wall. A rangy goblin entered. Squee 
rubbed his hands together to try to return warmth to them. 
His feet slapped the tiles as he headed to the helm. 

"Why'd Gerrard call a meeting, do you think? Squee 
hopes it's for dinner. This ship ain't got enough bugs." 

"I don't know, Squee," said Sisay levelly. "I hope it's got 
more to do with a safe landing." 

The fore hatch opened. Up through it ascended Orim. 
Unlike the chilled goblin, she had been sweating in the 
crowded sickbay. She mopped her forehead with one 
dangling edge of her turban before tucking the end in place 
again. 

"So, what's Gerrard got up his sleeve this time?" 

"You mean up his craw?" asked Tahngarth behind her. 
"He and Urza were talking. I asked what they were 
discussing. They told me I could hear with everyone else." 

"You can hear with everyone else, First Mate 
Tahngarth," Sisay interjected with mock disapproval. "If 
Gerrard is going to keep me in the dark, he'd damned well 
better keep you in the dark as well." 

Gerrard arrived next, seeming suddenly old. Over his 
customary leather vest, he wore a long woolen greatcoat to 
keep out the stellar chill. One hand rested on his sword 
hilt, and the other clutched the head of Urza Planeswalker. 
All in all, Gerrard seemed more a spectral shaman or 

306 



J. Robert King 
necromancer than a ship's commander. Still, he smiled to 
see his friends. 

"Hello, all of you. Thanks for coming. I told Karn to 
stay with the engine so we don't plummet." He flashed a 
brief smile that was returned by no one on the bridge. 
Taking a deep breath, Gerrard said, "Anyway, Urza and I 
have worked things out. I can't promise you our plan will 
work. All I can say is that if it does, you all should be just 
fine, and Dominaria too. If it doesn't work, at least we will 
have died trying." 

Tahngarth grunted. "What is this plan?" Gerrard waved 
off the question. "It's a lot of mumbo jumbo, if you want to 
know the truth. Suffice it to say that we'll keep the ship 
circling up here as long as we can, and when we can't any 
longer—which I fear will perhaps be before we're done 
meeting here—Urza and I have a little surprise for 
Yawgmoth." Sisay lifted an eyebrow. "If you're not going to 
tell us, what's the point of calling a meeting?" 

Gerrard reached out his free hand and took hers. "I just 
wanted to tell you what a fine crew you've been. The best. 

It took me a long time to take my place among you, and 
a longer time to deserve that place. Once this is all over, 
let's lift a glass to this damned fine crew." 

Sisay took her hand off the helm and embraced 
Gerrard. She knew what this was. "I forgot to pass on a 
message. One from Multani." 

Gerrard pulled back from the embrace and looked into 
her eyes. "Multani?" 

"Yes," Sisay said. "When he left for his homeland, he 
asked me to tell you good-bye." 

Gerrard smiled tightly, and wrapped her in another 
embrace. 

Orim was next, her coin-coifed hair jingling beside his 
ear. 

307 



Apocalypse 

Afterward, Gerrard clasped Tahngarth's hand. The two 
traded a grave, respectful look and a nod. 

Last of all was Squee. He crouched by the back door, 
his hand on the knob in preparation for flight. "Squee 
know what you up to! Squee not let you do it!" 

Gerrard spread his hand innocently. "What are you 
talking about?" 

"You throw Squee at Yawgmoth. Squee can't die. Squee 
fight and fight and die and die and last of all kill 
Yawgmoth." 

Tahngarth rumbled, "The idea has merit." 

Desperation welled up in Squee's green eyes. "You not 
gonna!" 

"Of course we're 'not gonna,' Squee," said Gerrard 
dismissively. "That's not our plan. It'd take a genius to 
come up with that plan. Do we look like a couple of 
geniuses?" 

Embarrassed relief came to Squee's face. "Of course not. 
Give Squee hug!" He darted across the bridge and grabbed 
onto Gerrard's leg in much the attitude of an overeager 
dog. 

"All right, Squee," said Gerrard, patting the fellow's 
warty head. "That'll do." 

"Squee just so happy he don't fight Yawgmoth." 

"Yes. That's fine now. Okay. You can stop." 

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you—" 

"Squee!" 

"Right," the goblin said, slinking back. His hobbling 
gait was made all the more unsteady by the sudden sinking 
of the ship. It slipped perceptibly downward, slowing in its 
turn. With a shudder, the engine started up again. 

"That's my cue," said Gerrard with a sad smile. 
"Thanks, all of you. It's been great." With that, he turned 
and descended through the fore hatch. 

308 



J. Robert King 
Sisay and the others simply stood dumbfounded as 
Gerrard left, taking the Urza head with him. 

The engine stalled a second time. Weatherlight jiggled, 
as if gently shaking them from their reverie. 

"You heard the commander," Sisay said, her voice both 
quiet and authoritative. "Prepare for an emergency landing. 
Battle stations, everyone." 

The others nodded and headed to their respective posts. 

Tahngarth lingered a moment. He and Sisay had been 
the core of this crew long before Gerrard, yet both had 
grown to rely on the man. 

Tahngarth rumbled quietly, "What do you think he has 
planned ?" 

Sisay shook her head. "I don't know, but it'll be good." 

* * * * * 

Karn knelt beside the massive engine. He felt as though 
he were kneeling in prayer. He should have been. 

It had been one thing to imbue a machine with his 
intelligence, his soul. It was quite another to keep a brain-
dead body going as long as possible. Karn grieved for 
Weatherlight. He shuddered to move through her corpse, 
but unless he did, the ship would fall from the sky. 

Gerrard and Urza at last arrived. They entered the 
steamy murk of the engine room and approached Karn. 
Gerrard knelt, setting the head of the planeswalker beside 
his knee. From Urza's strange eyes streamed a weird light. 

"Hi, Karn," Gerrard said in just the way he used to as a 
boy. 

"How's the engine?" 

Karn lowered his gaze, seeing readouts scroll across his 
eyes. "Failing," he murmured softly. 

309 



Apocalypse 

Gerrard gave a tight smile. "Well, do your best. We 
have an idea—something that might save us all." 

"I'm game," the silver golem responded. 

Gerrard lifted Urza's head. "Tell him." 

Urza's eyes twinkled. His mouth opened. Through 
blood-rimed lips, he spoke. "In my first battle against 
Yawgmoth, I became a planeswalker. In truth, I had been 
at war with my brother, Mishra, but when I discovered that 
he had become a minion of Yawgmoth's—a Phyrexian—I 
slew him with a fireball, and slew half the world with the 
sylex blast." 

"Every child knows these stories," Karn said, his jaw 
gritting as the engine shut down yet again. The ship sagged 
in its orbit. It pitched to port, cutting a sharper line toward 
the mana column and Urborg. As he struggled to restart 
the machine, Karn said, "Forgive my tone. I did not mean 
to offend." 

"You have not," Urza assured. "And though every child 
knows of the Brothers' War, few know that the Weak- and 
Mightstones that drove my brother and I in fact joined in 
the sylex blast in my head, making me a planeswalker. 
Fewer still know that these stones were once a single 
crystal, cleft to open a permanent portal between Phyrexia 
and Dominaria. And fewest of all know that these stones 
bear the personality of Glacian of Halcyon, the genius who 
had opposed Yawgmoth's rise to power. Glacian is 
imprinted in the crystals, the two halves of his bifurcated 
mind instructing me and Mishra in artifice. He knew from 
the start who Yawgmoth truly was. He shut Yawgmoth 
away for five thousand years. He empowered me to shut 
him away for four thousand more. If I sacrifice these two 
stones, make them part of Weatherlight's power matrix, it 
will produce such a blaze of power that Yawgmoth himself 
will be unmade." 

310 



J. Robert King 
"You know this?" asked Karn flatly. 

"I believe this," replied Urza. 

Karn nodded grimly. "Whether or not Yawgmoth is 
unmade by it, you will be, Urza Planeswalker." 

"Yes, that is a certainty. As will you and Gerrard. He 
must remove the stones from my skull and place them 
within your chest, to complete, at last, the Legacy." 

Karn looked up at the man he was sworn to protect. 
"Why must Gerrard do it? I could pull the stones from your 
head." 

Urza blinked placidly. "Because he is not just the heir to 
the Legacy. He is a part of it, just like you. Engineered of 
flesh instead of metal, but an undeniable part. He is the 
spark that will catalyze the whole reaction. When he places 
the stones within you, the Legacy will be complete, and it 
will generate a field that will annihilate Yawgmoth ... and 
all of us." 

Karn turned his eyes on Gerrard. "What choice have 
we?" 

He smiled. "Only this choice. The choice of heroes." 

311 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 32 

Death Meets Death 

It was midnight over Urborg, a moonless midnight, 
thanks to Weatherlight. Even the cascade of white mana 
had ceased, absorbed in rocks and seas. It had been an easy 
thing for Yawgmoth to withdraw his presence while white 
mana encased all of central Urborg in a sarcophagus. Now, 
he closed over it all, he closed over the world. 

Yawgmoth's hold on Dominaria was complete. His 
armies had taken Benalia, New Argive, Hurloon, Koilos, 
Tolaria, and Urborg. Yawgmoth had taken all the rest. 
Under his dark presence, it was midnight everywhere across 
the globe. Now to tighten his grip. 

He descended slowly on them—every elf and minotaur 
and dwarf, every goblin and dragon and human—to slay 
them all, to save them all. None but his own children, his 
Phyrexians, would survive the night. All would be 
Phyrexians by morning. 

There was but a single dissident—the burned-out 
goddess who had tried to slay him. Rebbec drifted above 
Urborg, a wandering planet, a dying star. She had killed 
herself in trying to kill him. Now she hovered, fearing the 
inevitable embrace. She could not remain aloft forever, 
and once he had slain all her world, he would turn his 
attentions to vaulting up the heavens and ripping her 
down. 

Ah, but she came to him. With furtive side-slipping 
motions, Rebbec descended. She came with the coy 

312 



J. Robert King 
movements of a faithless lover, seeking forgiveness. 
Yawgmoth would grant it to her, forgiveness and mercy. In 
grace, he would kill her, rend away her faithlessness, and 
raise her anew in him. 

Ah, here she came. He would wait. When she was near 
enough, his tentacles would snatch her from the sky and 
crush her against his core. 

* * * * * 

"We're losing lots of altitude," came Sisay's voice from 
the speaking tube. Her words wrestled with the sounds of 
the engine. "I don't know how much longer we'll be able to 
stay above the cloud. Whatever you're going to do, you'd 
better do it now." 

Sweat prickled across Gerrard's forehead. "Yes, Captain. 
We're doing it now." 

He lifted the head of Urza Planeswalker and stared into 
that ancient face, those strange eyes. The lines of this 
visage had been etched into the minds of Dominarians for 
forty centuries. Fabled Urza Planeswalker had always been 
the world's mad protector, the strange guardian of 
Dominaria. Soon, he would be nothing at all. 

"You must hurry," said Urza solemnly. A jolt from 
outside and a sudden whine from the engine underscored 
his words. 

Through the speaking tube crowded Sisay's words. "It's 
a tentacle! Another tentacle! Tahngarth's chopping at it 
with your soul-halberd—but hurry. There will be more." 

Gerrard nodded. Clutching the back of Urza's head in 
his left hand, he lifted his right hand for the horrible 
operation. 

313 



Apocalypse 

Positioning two fingers on either brow, nails digging in 
just above the eyelids, Gerrard said heavily, "Good-bye, 
Urza." 

"Good-bye, Dominaria," responded the planeswalker. 

Gritting his teeth, Gerrard rammed his fingers into the 
man's eye orbits. The lids folded back under that insistent 
pressure, and fingertips curled along the interior of the 
sockets. The smooth facets of the stones gave way to sharp 
jaggedness behind. Strength-enhanced fingers closed on 
the crystals. Gerrard pulled. Urza's lips drew in tight agony 
over clenched teeth. With one more grisly yank, the stones 
came forth. 

The head suddenly stilled. The muscles slackened. A 
strange look came to that ancient face, a look that could 
only have been called peace. Never before had the lines of 
Urza's face shown peace. 

Gerrard gripped the gory halves of the stone, one in 
either hand to keep them apart. He knew the stories of 
Koilos and the explosive power of the stones when set 
together. He even knew of Radiant, the angel who had 
plucked these stones free once before and set them together 
to her annihilation. Gerrard clutched the Might- and 
Weakstones to his chest, his heart thundering as he looked 
at the dead head of Urza. It was as though all the care-lines 
in that old face had been etched anew on Gerrard's. 

The ship jolted to port—another tentacle—and the 
engine sputtered under the new assault. 

"Karn," Gerrard said breathlessly, "open the hollow of 
your chest. Open the trove of the Legacy." 

Still kneeling beside the engine, Karn activated the 
internal subroutine that slid open the panels of his heart. 
Once, he had stored many of the Legacy items within these 
hollows. Now all were incorporated into the engine of 
Weatherlight, all except the eyes of Urza, and Gerrard 

314 



J. Robert King 
himself. Once all were joined within him, Urza's greatest 
weapon would be complete. 

Gerrard leaned forward. His hands clenched in bloody 
fists to his chest. He extended them. They trembled. The 
eyes of Urza. The soul of Glacian. The heart of Karn. The 
will of Gerrard. The salvation of the world ... 

Reaching into Karn's chest, Gerrard gingerly placed the 
Might- and Weakstones where his heart would have been. 
He positioned them side by side, with their ragged edges 
adjacent. 

Steadying his gory fingers, Gerrard gasped, "Here goes 
nothing—" 

"Too late!" came Sisay's shout from above. The ship 
sank so suddenly that Gerrard floated from the floorboards 
into midair. "Yawgmoth has us! He has us!" 

* * * * * 

Tentacle after black tentacle arced over the rails and 
took hold. It was as though the clouds below were made up 
of a million kraken with eight million arms, and every last 
one gripped Weatherlight. Tahngarth had used Gerrard's 
soul-halberd very well against the first dozen or so, but now 
the minotaur could only reel into the tiny patch of empty 
deck. He swung the halberd, but it was no good. 

With a terrible sucking sound, Weatherlight was yanked 
down into the dark cloud. Black walls rose on all sides, 
curled into a ceiling above the crippled ship, and began to 
descend. Weatherlight was in the heart of Yawgmoth. 

* * * * * 

Though Gerrard floated into the steamy air of the 
engine room, his hands remained upon the eyes of Urza, 

315 



Apocalypse 

within the heart of Karn. Gritting his teeth, he forced the 
two stones together. 

Immediate light erupted. It poured from every fissure 
along Karn's frame, and more—from every crack in the 
huge engine block of Weatherlight. The two were one, but it 
wasn't just two. It was Weatherlight and Karn, the 
Skyshaper, the Juju Bubble, the Thran Tome, the Bones of 
Ramos, the Null Rod, the Mana Rig core, and the Eyes of 
Urza all empowered by Serra's Realm, dozens of souls, the 
mind of Glacian, and the will of Gerrard. Together, these 
pieces made the ultimate weapon, not something Urza had 
designed whole cloth but something he had pieced 
together out of every arcane artifact and otherworldly 
power he could gather. As disparate and multifarious as 
these single pieces were, as mad as the mind that had 
assembled the puzzle, together, they formed a new thing. A 
new being. 

Weatherlight had seemed godlike before, bathed in the 
radiance of the Null Moon, but then her power had been 
only borrowed. This new incarnation was truly divine. It 
was no longer Weatherlight or Karn or Urza or Glacian or 
Gerrard, but all of them. 

All this, Gerrard perceived in but a moment as he hung 
between the plunging floor and the dripping ceiling. Then 
power struck him and hurled him against the wall. It was 
not painful, not really, for he was blind and deaf in the first 
keen stroke of it—power so sharp it cut painlessly. 
Something heavy struck his chest. In reflex he clutched it. 
Fingers found the orbits they had emptied moments before. 
He held the skull of Urza even as it dissolved in the 
onslaught of power. Then Gerrard's own fingers dissolved. 

This was the end. The sense of touch died. A sharp 
breath obliterated smell too, and no doubt his nose was 
gone with the rest of his face, and his tongue, for there was 

316 



J. Robert King 
nothing to taste. How strangely painless it was to die. Not 
just painless, but beautiful. 

Though he had no eyes, Gerrard saw the beaming light 
that engulfed him. Though he had no ears, he heard the 
sweet soft voice that called his name. Though he had no 
hands, he reached out and grasped her hand, and walked 
away. 

* * * * * 

Gerrard was gone. Urza too. Soon Karn would join 
them. 

Karn knew it. He was not as he had been. Nothing 
would ever be as it had been. 

It was like kneeling in the center of a star. There was 
no matter, only ubiquitous energy. There was no space, 
only absolute pressure. Even if he still had his eyes, they 
were only holes through which the raving light could pour. 
Karn struggled to hold onto the engine, but his hands had 
melted away. His body turned to liquid. 

He knelt at the center of a star, but why kneel? 

Karn straightened. His body flowed all around him. 
Pure energy pitted and melted and alloyed with silver. He 
had lost half his bulk already. He felt light, like a leaf in a 
fire. Somehow at the same time, he felt full—burgeoning. 
There were essences within him, not solid things but the 
eternal soul of things. He sensed the Heart of Xantcha in 
his head, and the Eyes of Urza in his chest. He felt the 
Bones of Ramos, and the hundred thousand words of the 
Thran Tome. 

Minds. They all were minds. They spoke to him—Urza, 
Xantcha, Ramos, the Thran Tome. Oracles, perhaps, or 
maybe just a village of well-meaning loudmouths. But all 
lived in him, a happy crowd. 

317 



Apocalypse 

In their midst spoke one voice clearer, cleaner than all 
the rest. A woman's voice, glad to have survived: 
Weatherlight. 

The center of this star was crowded. Anywhere was 
crowded now, Karn knew, with this glad clamor in his 
head. Still, he could use a breath of fresh air. It was a 
strange concept. In a millennium of life, he had never 
taken a breath. Now he wanted one. 

Stranger still, Karn simply stepped away from the star 
into another world, to a peaceful place he had heard of— 
the Navel of the World. There, on Mercadia, within the 
dense forest of the Rush wood, Karn stood beside the 
fountain of Cho-Manno, and he breathed. 

* * * * * 

In all her years at the helm, Sisay had never faced so 
bleak a proposition. 

Yawgmoth surrounded the ship. His tentacles clutched 
every baluster. His black soul settled now toward 
Tahngarth. While every other crew member sheltered 
below deck—and, of course, Squee clutched Sisay's legs— 
Tahngarth yet fought the Lord of Phyrexia. He was the 
bravest creature Sisay had ever met, but what good would it 
do? Even now, as he took slices from the constricting legs 
of the god, Yawgmoth whirled down low to tear his own 
legs away. 

Then came Gerrard's salvation. Light. From every 
grain, from every fold and panel on the vast ship, light 
poured. She seemed a giant sponge that had absorbed all 
she could of the radiance that lit her belly and now oozed it 
in thick concentration outward. Luminescence enveloped 
Tahngarth, as gentle as a rising balm. When it reached the 

318 



J. Robert King 
soul-killing halberd he wielded, the weapon burned away 
with blinding incandescence. 

Yawgmoth shied back. The cloud that had descended 
blackly upon ship and crew recoiled from this presence but 
not quickly enough. 

The light recognized the true soul-killer—Yawgmoth. 
Unlike the white mana that had dumbly poured down 
upon this god before, this radiance moved with a will. It 
leaped out from Weatherlight and could no longer be 
contained. 

Radiance stabbed into the heart of midnight, driving 
home its sacred spikes. It not only burned Yawgmoth but 
sluiced through him, seeking his black core. This was a 
voracious light. 

It crawled through the Lord of Death, throwing wide 
every ventricle and sepulcher and bathing them with a new 
dawn. Purity killed Yawgmoth from the inside out. 

Sisay saw it all. Bathed in radiance herself, she clutched 
the helm and guided Weatherlight through the cloud. 
Blackness burned before them. It opened channels to the 
sky, which lightened with the sun's rays. 

At one moment, at one glorious moment, the luciferous 
glow at last reached the core of Yawgmoth. He recoiled but 
could not escape. He thrashed horribly, but the ship was 
merciless. In shimmering seconds, the final particle of his 
ensconced self was eaten away. 

The Lord of Death was dead. Yawgmoth was dead. 

The rest of the cloud began to retreat. It unraveled. It 
shrank like oil from soap. Darkness dissolved in concentric 
circles from the death of Yawgmoth. Clouds disintegrated. 
Dawn broke across a tumbling sea. 

Sunlight and godlight chased the fleeing shadows to the 
nearby coasts, and over the seas, and over the mountains. It 

319 



Apocalypse 

would chase the last vestiges of Yawgmoth to the ends of 
the globe. 

Sisay laughed through glad tears. It was done. That was 
the reason for the tears. The reason for the laughter was on 
the forecastle. She had never seen so ardent and ridiculous 
a victory dance as the one performed just then by 
Tahngarth. 

* * * * * 

It should have been morning, but Dominaria might 
never see morning again. 

Elves lingered in the treetops of the Skyshroud Forest. 
They sat upon their beds, waiting for doom. All around, on 
the spreading branches of the trees, waited faithful troops. 

Above their heads descended the thick cloud of 
Yawgmoth's presence. Yes, he would arrive here first, in the 
treetops. Had the elves been moles, they would have 
hidden in the ground below. 

But they were elves. If they would die, they would die 
in the trees. 

Even Freyalise waited there, powerless against this 
onslaught. She hovered in the doorway of Eladamri's home, 
light gleaming around her. She had offered to take these 
folk to some other forest, some world that was not doomed. 
They had declined. So she waited with them. Another 
semblance of herself stood vigil in Llanowar, on 
deathwatch there too. 

"Forgive me, elfchildren," she murmured. 

Her words seemed to change the air, to change the 
world. 

Warmth replaced cold. Light replaced shadow. Life 
replaced death. 

320 



J. Robert King 
Freyalise took a quick breath and smelled fresh air. She 
stared up past sun-dappled leaves into a sky of aching blue. 

* * * * * 

In Hurloon, Lord Windgrace and Commander 
Grizzlegom had found a battle at the end of the world. 
Beneath a descending cloak of blackness, they fought 
Phyrexians. 

Grizzlegom's axe plunged through a trooper's skull 
plate. It clove the beast in neat halves, showing every part 
in cross-section. Beside Grizzlegom, Lord Windgrace 
punched claws into the shell of a scuta. He ripped it wide 
open. All around, minotaurs gored and severed and 
trampled, each bent on clearing one plot of land of these 
insect invaders. 

In the midst of battle, their work was abruptly done. 
Light broke over them. The impenetrable clouds of 
blackness seethed away. With them went the will of these 
monsters. They slackened in the sun, grew lethargic 
without the clarion call of their lord. 

Minotaur hammers didn't slacken. Their axes, their 
cudgels, their swords made quick work of the last beasts. 

Suddenly deprived of foes, Grizzlegom and his people 
straightened their oily backs under a rising sun. They 
howled a victory howl. 

* * * * * 

In Benalia and Argivia and Koilos, it was the same. The 
death of Yawgmoth brought the stupor of his creatures. 
Even alewives, even boys with slings and girls with sticks 
dismantled the horrors of Phyrexia. 

321 



Apocalypse 

Chapter 33 

In the Garden of Heroes 

Sisay was glad Dominaria was safe. She only wished she 
and her crew were as well. 

Weatherlight plummeted. She, the vessel of divine 
dispensation, was a gutted wreck. Even Karn no longer 
answered from the engine room. The helm was dead in 
Sisay's grip. No power, no thrust, no rudder— the best she 
could hope for was a crash landing in water. Had they been 
higher, no one would have survived. As it was, the heart of 
Yawgmoth had left them a mere hundred fathoms above 
the sea. Sisay rode the ship down, steering what amounted 
to a winged rock toward its final impact. 

"All hands, on deck!" she shouted through the tubes. 
"All hands! You are advised to jump if you have the 
courage to! Otherwise, we will strike together." 

Crew flooded from the main hatch. Many were folk 
who had flown through Rath and Mercadia and Phyrexia 
with this ship. Now, eagerly, they leaped from its plunging 
sides. Some even had the thought of opening capes and 
shirts to slow their descent. All the while, Weatherlight 
dived toward the sea. 

First Mate Tahngarth stayed at his gun. 

"You heard me, Tahngarth," Sisay shouted. "I know you 
have the courage to jump!" 

His response was a rumble in the tube. "Yes. And I also 
have the courage to sink with the ship." 

322 



J. Robert King 
A final few crew hurled themselves clear in the 
moments before impact. Then Weatherlight struck the sea. 

Sisay saw no more, flung to the deck like a rag doll. 

Squee, between her legs, helped to break her fall, but 
her weight snapped his knobby neck. 

Tahngarth was hurled too, but his gunnery harness 
protected him from impact. 

Others crashed to the planks, not to rise again except as 
shark bait. 

Walls of water surged up on either side of the ship. 
They closed overhead and crashed down. Then everyone 
tumbled in the all-powerful flood. The ship was engulfed in 
water, but the air trapped in her hull shoved the whole of it 
up to the surface. Waves surged whitely through balusters, 
taking crew with them. On the forecastle, Tahngarth 
struggled free of his gunnery harness. 

On the bridge, Sisay numbly rolled over. She found 
Squee, his head bent at an impossible angle. There was no 
time for sorrow. The impact had split the keel. Even now, 
the ocean poured into the wide-open hull. Sisay kissed the 
corpse of her cabin-boy—he had been more than that, 
slayer of Volrath, of Ertai, savior of a thousand butts. 

Snuffing back a tear, Sisay crawled to the main hatch of 
the bridge and flung it open. Water welled up. Already, the 
amidships was flooded, and the forecastle sunk too. 
Explosions below told that saltwater had penetrated the 
drive core. 

Taking a deep breath, Sisay plunged into the flood. It 
was warm, inviting. It seemed to tell her she would live 
after all. She swam out of the wreckage and surfaced above 
amidships. She drew a deep breath. The water bubbled. Air 
boiled up in violent columns all around. With it came 
more crew, paddling to stay afloat. 

323 



Apocalypse 

The broken hull of Weatherlight sank furiously. One 
moment, it was a mere fathom down. The next, it was 
twenty. Then its outline, the shadow of Sisay's former life, 
disappeared forever. 

There would never be another ship like Weatherlight. 

Sisay stroked weakly, breath catching in her throat. 

Up from the waters emerged a familiar, horned head— 
that of First Mate Tahngarth. He seemed almost to grin. 

"We've done it, Sisay. We've survived the Apocalypse." 

"Not yet," she replied, nodding toward the nearest 
island, some twenty miles away. 

Tahngarth's smile disappeared, but his voice was still 
lively. "Still, we live." 

Sisay blinked in thought. "So many do not. What of 
Gerrard, Karn, Orim—?" 

"You can't get rid of me that easily," said Orim, stroking 
up beside them. "What good is water magic if it can't save 
you from drowning?" 

Sisay laughed. "I'm glad to see you, my friend. We are 
the survivors of the command crew." 

"What about Squee?" asked Orim. 

"He's not command crew," Tahngarth objected. 

Sisay shook her head. "He didn't make it." 

"What?" came an outraged voice. "Squee always make 
it!" The goblin shook water from his hairy ears. "Yawgmoth 
say so." 

"Yawgmoth is dead," Tahngarth pointed out. 

Squee shrugged, an interesting gesture amid the foam. 
"So what? Yawgmoth should've fixed Yawgmoth as good as 
he fixed Squee!" The goblin smiled with yellow teeth. 

Sisay returned a white smile. "Well, it's good to have 
you back. Grab whatever floats, all of you, and stick 
together. We've got a long swim ahead of us." 

324 



J. Robert King 
* * * * * 

One year later and one hundred fifty miles away, the 
command crew of Weatherlight assembled again one final 
time. 

They gathered among the heroes of Dominaria— 
Grizzlegom, Lord Windgrace, Sister Dormet, and hosts of 
Keldons, Metathran, elves, and humans. Even three 
magnigoth treefolk, who had survived the onslaught of 
Yawgmoth, towered above that august company. They 
assembled to honor the world's fallen defenders, whose 
ghosts lurked at shoulders and on tongues. All who had 
won the war gathered, living and dead. 

Sisay certainly felt it as she strode among the stumps of 
palm trees. This outer isle of Urborg had seemed the 
perfect spot for the memorial—farthest from the 
devastations of black and white mana, and the onetime 
home of Crovax himself. 

He had made his burnt-out plantation home a shrine to 
his glory. Now, all of it had been leveled into a series of 
clean, contemplative steppes, each leading toward the 
Heroes' Obelisk. 

Sisay ascended toward it now. First Mate Tahngarth 
held her right arm, and Cabin Boy Squee held her left. 
Healer Orim followed in close company. All were gravely 
silent as, among the war's other heroes, they ascended level 
after level. The platforms nearer the obelisk were crowded 
with noble folk. As the heroes advanced among them, 
heads turned. The names of these heroes—Sisay, 
Tahngarth, Orim, Squee—came to strangers' lips. One by 
one, the assembled host nodded or bowed before 
Weatherlight's command crew. 

325 



Apocalypse 

Sisay smiled tightly to them. Her eyes flitted across the 
crowd, seeking familiar faces but finding none. Instead she 
turned her gaze toward the great black obelisk before her. 

It was a gargantuan monument, five sided and carved 
from enormous sections of basalt. Its edges had been 
polished to a mirror sheen, and in them were etched the 
names of the brave fallen. One side bore the folk of Keld 
and Hurloon. The next recorded the dead of Yavimaya and 
Llanowar. The third side told of losses in Benalia and 
Argivia, the fourth of Tolaria and Vodalia, and the last, all 
who had fallen at Urborg. At the peak of the great obelisk, 
two busts had been carved back to back— the faces of 
Urza, and Gerrard. In back, their heads fused with the 
monument, making the two men seem parts of a whole. 

Sisay and her crew approached the monument, around 
which a rope of red velvet stretched. She spotted the seats 
reserved for her and her company, among the other great 
leaders of the war. As they settled in, hands tapped 
shoulders and lips whispered familiar greetings. 

The gathering had waited for these final few. The 
officiator of the ceremony—a familiar woman in green, 
whose feet never quite rested on the polished ground— 
began her oration. 

"Here, my friends, in this weighty monument—here are 
the souls lost to save our world. It is a crushing weight, too 
great to be borne by any one of us. Yet, it was borne by 
two." She lifted a regal hand skyward, toward the faces 
engraved above. "Is it any wonder, under such a burden, 
that they seemed sometimes petulant, sometimes mad? Is it 
any wonder that we all found ourselves railing against them 
and later consoling them. Theirs was a burden we each 
bore but in fraction. They shouldered it, and in the end, it 
crushed them. 

326 



J. Robert King 
"Their sacrifice sums the sacrifice of everyone listed 
here, and everyone who died nameless in this 
conflagration. Because of them, we remain. 

"Here is a secret—The weight they bore is nothing next 
to the weight we bear. They have handed us a new world. 
Now we must carry it on our backs. It is our job to live, to 
make certain their sacrifice was not an empty one. They 
willingly shouldered the burden of death. Let us gladly 
shoulder the burden of life .. .." 

As Freyalise spoke, for it was indeed she, Sisay could 
think only of her friends, gone forever. Wars were won by 
the dead for the living, but those who survived, those as 
wounded as she and her crew were, could not truly live 
afterward. Wars were fought for grandchildren and great 
grandchildren, not for sons and daughters. 

Sisay wondered how her companions and she would 
survive in a world without Weatherlight. 

"... I wish I could read every name on this obelisk. I 
wish that each could be inscribed in the highest position, 
that whatever gods might roam by would know them for 
who they were. I wish each could be inscribed in the lowest 
position, that all of us who dwell in the dirt might read and 
remember. That is our burden—to live and read and 
remember. To keep pure the world given into our hands." 

It was too great a burden. Sisay dropped her gaze from 
the planeswalker and stared into her lap, hands clenched 
on the black suit of mourning she wore. 

* * * * * 

Standing on the docks of Urborg, built especially for 
the hundreds of ships that converged for this ceremony, 
Sisay felt much better, and much worse. 

327 



Apocalypse 

She felt better because she was by the sea again, 
surrounded by great ships, and awash in the contented 
chatter of seafolk preparing to set sail. She felt worse 
because here she would say good-bye to her companions of 
years. 

The planks of the pier were rough and sticky with 
pitch. The smell of creosote filled her nose, along with the 
tang of salt and fish. Sisay took a deep breath. All these 
odors were sweet to her. All were the smell of life. 

"It was a beautiful ceremony," said Orim. The words 
broke into Sisay's reverie. She turned to see the healer, her 
hair a year longer and done up with a treasure trove of 
Cho-Arrim coins. Orim had forgone the turban today, and 
sunlight glimmered in her black locks. "Gerrard would 
have been honored." 

"I know," Sisay responded flatly, regretting her tone 
even as her lips closed on the words. She glanced an 
apology at her comrades. Tahngarth and Squee averted 
their gazes. Orim did not. 

Her eyes were deep and searching. "You aren't happy." 

"No," said Sisay. 

The healer's smile was immediate. "But we won. We 
saved a whole world." 

Sisay turned, her eyes welling. "I know. That's why we 
came together, to save the world. That's what we've done. 
That should be enough. But somewhere along the line, we 
became friends. And what is a whole world saved when it 
costs so many friends?" 

A troubled expression swept across Orim's face. 
"Gerrard was made for that moment. Out of centuries, he 
was made for that. And we were made to live on." She tried 
to smile again. "Freyalise was right, Sisay. Our burden is 
greater. It is a difficult thing to die doing what's right. It is 
even harder to live doing it." 

328 



J. Robert King 
Sisay nodded bleakly, throwing her hands out toward 
the ships chafing at dock. "So which of these will take you 
away?" 

A conspiratorial look came to Orim's eyes. "None of 
these. I have made arrangements with another voyager." 

"Whom?" Sisay asked. Her question was answered as if 
it had been a summoning. 

The air beside the two women distorted. Images of 
water and sky twisted as if reflected in a silvery pool. A 
mercurial form took shape—tall, lean, quicksilver .. .. 

Sisay gaped in astonishment. "Karn! I thought you were 
dead." 

"I am," came the easy response. No longer did his voice 
sound like shifting gravel, but now like the delicate music 
of water. "The Karn you knew is dead, at any rate. I bear 
the name, but I am more. I am the sum of a legion of 
artifacts and souls." 

Clutching the sides of her head, Sisay said, "Where 
have you been?" 

A smile came to that strange face, which had been 
unable to smile before. "I have been wandering the planes. 
They are beautiful and horrible. I have been learning. I 
have much to learn." 

"You're late," Sisay said, still stunned. She gestured over 
her shoulder to the obelisk, only just visible above the 
pitching tree-tops. "You missed the ceremony." 

Karn waved dismissively. "I knew Gerrard. I still know 
him, and Urza too. Time is not for me what it is for you. 
I'm talking with them just now. What use is a ceremony to 
me?" 

"Pretty arrogant," said Sisay, smiling. "A typical 
planeswalker." 

Karn looked grieved. "Really? Arrogant? I want to be 
different, Sisay. I don't want to be a typical planeswalker." 

329 



Apocalypse 

Biting her lip, Sisay said, "Then, next time, attend the 
ceremony. After all, weren't you designed to be a probe?" 

"Humor!" Karn said, pointing. "Yes, I get it. Ha. Ha ha. 
Humor is one of the many things I am learning." 

Sisay nodded grimly, "So, you came to say good-bye." 

"Yes, and to take Orim away. Cho-Manno is eager to 
see her." 

When Sisay turned a surprised gaze toward her, Orim 
could only blush and shrug. "Life is for the living." 

"You're telling me," Sisay said as if scandalized. "You 
have my blessing. Just don't honeymoon in Mercadia." 

Orim smiled. She reached out her hand. Tan flesh 
settled into quicksilver. "I'm ready." 

"Good-bye, all of you," Karn said eagerly. He fixed each 
with his intelligent gaze—no longer eyes like fat washers. 
"It has been good saving the world with you. I hope to do it 
again soon." 

Sisay wore a look of shock. "With any hope, you won't 
need to." 

"Humor!" Karn said, pointing. "Ha ha! Ha ha!" With 
that, he and Orim disappeared. Where they had stood, only 
sunlight and sailing ships remained. 

Sisay turned toward her other friends. "Squee, how 
come you didn't go along? You were a king in Mercadia." 

The goblin blinked in thought. "They say, Squee 
happier to serve in heaven than rule in hell." 

"They say the exact opposite," Tahngarth snorted. 

"Oh," said Squee. 

"And you," asked Sisay of the bull man. "I thought 
you'd be needed to rebuild Hurloon." 

The minotaur shook his head. "Commander Grizzlegom 
has that well in hand." 

Sisay lifted her eyebrows. "So—what are you two 
hoping to do?" 

330 



J. Robert King 
"Since you asked," Squee replied, "we gots our eyes on 
show business—'Squee and Tangy's Jugglin' Jackanapes'—" 

"We really want a commission on your ship," 
interrupted Tahngarth. He glanced toward the great galley 
moored nearby. "If, that is, you need a first mate and a 
cabin boy." 

Sisay smiled. "So, I won't be alone after all." She began 
to stroll down the wharf toward her new ship, granted to 
her by the thankful folk of Argivia. A wave of her hand 
invited the goblin and the minotaur along. "Her name was 
The Billows, but I think she deserves something better." 

"How about De Squee?" piped the goblin. 

"How about Sproutin' Horns?" asked Tahngarth 
facetiously. 

Sisay shook her head. "I'm thinking we'll call her just 
Victory." 

331