INVASION mtg-1

by J. Robert King

  "Will we have the velocity for a shift?" Sisay asked.

  "Velocity won't be the problem. It's whether we've got time between the portals and the treetops before we crash," Hanna replied easily.

  Sisay laughed. "That's the kind of problem I like. Here we go." She shoved the helm hard to fore.

  Weatherlight's engines ceased for a moment. She lolled upward in a weightless arc, rolling her stern skyward. Dominaria swept smoothly from aft to fore.

  Squee, still strapped to the stern gun, squealed as his feet swept out toward the sun.

  Then, greedy and inexorable, Dominaria grasped Weatherlight and yanked her down. Creaks ran stem to stern. The prow seemed to stretch away from amidships, and it from bridge and spankers. The airfoils folded tight along the centerline, spilling air instead of grabbing it. Weatherlight plunged.

  Squee was still squealing. Even so, his view of the skies was not as terrifying as everyone else's view of the land. Llanowar seemed a leopard, crouched to spring.

  Weatherlight's engines engaged. Intakes dragged a deep breath. A white-hot column of energy formed within the engine. Fire burst from exhausts. To the ship's terminal velocity came impatient force, ramming it down.

  Llanowar sprung. The forest roared up to swallow the ship. Its rot-black treetops groped into the sky. The sea of portals seemed only a slim membrane above that reaching place. In moments, Weatherlight would punch through the portals and into the tree-tops.

  "Shift to where?" Sisay shouted over the roar of the engines.

  "The course is laid in," Hanna called back. "A place in need of Phyrexian bombs."

  There was no more time. Weatherlight impacted the plane of portals. They swept from prow to poop in a heartbeat. Spacio-temporal stresses clawed across the deck. Bombs, half-emerged, hung in countless portals, too slow to catch up with Weatherlight. Squee and the folded wings cleared the portals.

  "Shift!" Sisay shouted, staring at the ground as it soared up to meet them.

  The ship hurtled all the faster. Wind tore at her rails. The black treetops resolved into individual boughs, and the ruined houses on those boughs, and the running figures among them. A jump-envelope welled out from the forespar. It swept a wide wake, encompassing thousands of portals.

  "Shift!" Sisay shouted once last.

  An enormous bough rushed up to smash through Weatherlight's windscreen-except that no bough remained. Black and green had given way to jittering gray.

  Beyond the ship's rail, the envelope rattled. It held back the hissing, glaring emptiness between the worlds. Chaos churned and spun. Nightmare forms reared their heads out of darkness and dissolved again before they were fully created. Lines jagged away in recursive ribbons. There seemed no more horrible place in all the multiverse…

  Until chaos transformed at last, solidifying into tortuous Rath.

  Overhead, red clouds roiled like boiling blood. Below, red rills coiled like flayed muscle. Arrayed all across those hellish hills were army after army of Phyrexians, waiting to invade.

  Weatherlight's planeshifting envelope dissolved around her. Heat and smoke washed over her prow. Airfoils swept out to grab the bitter air. She slowed, leaving in her boiling wake a field of portals.

  From those toppling, spinning devices, plague bombs hailed. They fell among the troops arrayed there. Devices meant to slay elves fell instead among the monsters that made them. Many were crushed under the pounding things. Others were mowed down as the spheres bounded across the ground. Bombs rolled to a stop and spewed white spores out across the shrieking hordes.

  "Nice work, ladies!" Gerrard shouted, whooping.

  Orim was cradling Hanna's bleeding, unconscious figure in her arms. "Get us out of here! Get us back to Llanowar!"

  Gerrard staggered across the pitching deck toward the two women. "You heard her!" he rasped out, kneeling before Hanna and wrapping her in his arms. "Planeshift!"

  Chapter 20

  The Fires of Shiv

  Tumbling head over heels, Barrin was hurled into the red skies over Shiv. He'd been in the middle of a losing battle in Keld when he was yanked away by alerters- artifacts that sniffed for glistening-oil. They went off massively. A full-scale invasion was beginning over Shiv. The volcanic land was the world's only source of manufactured powerstones. If the Phyrexians captured or destroyed the Shivan mana rig, Urza could not build new machines of war.

  Still, it was rude to be literally hauled out of one battle and flung into another.

  Barrin righted himself. Brimstone breezes fled into his robes, plucking away the last stink of battle in Keld and replacing it with the stink of Shiv. He gazed at the land.

  Here, the flesh of the world was but a fragile crust, suppurating with lava. In every direction lay calderas and smoking crowns, seas of magma, hissing vents, ropy coils of rock, basalt cliffs, gnarls of obsidian, pumice, ash, sulfur…

  In the midst of the fiery desolation towered the mana rig. It was a massive, ancient factory, set crownlike on a basalt headstone. A huge dish of metal girded either end of the rig. One wing was anchored into the ground. The other perched on enormous articulated legs over a sea of lava. Atop these dishes, great domes rested. Between them ran a long hall, built up like the porticoed temple of some forgotten god. From the structure, veiny pipes ran down the cliffs and into boiling lava. The tubes conveyed red-hot magma up into the structure, there to turn the heat of the world into powerstones and living metal-weapons to slay Phyrexians.

  A massive portal-larger than those at Benalia, Zhalfir, Yavimaya, or Keld-gaped wide in the sky. The first three Phyrexian cruisers advanced from the darkness. Shiv painted their bows red. Each ship was the size of the mana rig. Hundreds more crowded behind.

  "Where is Urza?" Barrin hissed, yanking the alerter brooch from his sleeve and hurling the blazing thing away.

  As if in answer, the air beside Barrin shimmered. A creature formed itself from spectral winds. Urza's gemstone eyes glared out of his materializing skull. The figure grew an armored war-stole, done up in gleaming sigils. A shaft of radiance formed in his hand. It became a great war-staff. Urza lifted his other hand, grasped the blazing brooch on his own sleeve, and vaporized the thing.

  "Glad you could make it," Barrin said with quiet irony.

  Urza lifted an eloquent eyebrow. "Exigencies of war and all that."

  Barrin gestured outward. "Here's an exigency for you."

  Nodding solemnly, Urza said, "The Metathran ships are en route. Until they arrive, it's you and me, friend. We cannot hope for goblins and Viashino to stand against-"

  "Look!" Barrin said, pointing toward the emerging ships.

  The three cruisers blazed with sudden flame. Giant fire dragons swarmed the ships, breathing destruction across them. Huge though they were, the wyrms seemed small against the black vessels. Still, there were hundreds of serpents. Their wing beats flung back bolts of black mana. Their fangs crunched Phyrexian crews. Their incendiary breath was only augmented by glistening-oil. Flames belched from their mouths and spattered across the hulls of the great ships. Rails melted. Conduits ruptured. Engine cells cracked.

  "Rhammidarigaaz," Barrin said wonderingly as he watched the leader of the fire drakes. A millennium ago, the young male had fought beside Urza and Barrin in a war with angels. Indeed, Barrin had ridden him into battle. Today, ancient and huge, Darigaaz would fight beside them in a war with devils. "He has mustered his people."

  "A boon, yes," said Urza, "but they will not be enough." He pointed beneath the ships.

  Dragons, mantled in black goo, plunged from the skies. Some struggled all the way down before crashing on lakes of fire. Others were dead even before they fell, ripped in half by ray-cannon blasts or eaten away by corruptionmachines. Alone, these dragons could not destroy the ships. They would be slain, every last one.

  Rhammidarigaaz saw the futility. He trumpeted a call and led his folk in a peeling dive away from the ships. Scores of dragons followed in a coiling ribbon. Leathery wings bore them away fr
om killing fire.

  Burning and trailing smoke, the cruisers slid unimpeded through the portal.

  "Now it is up to us, my friend," Urza said grimly.

  Side by side, the master mage and the planeswalker soared toward the emerging ships. They readied sorceries and summonations, energy flickering across their war robes. Barrin lifted his sleeves, evoking blue sparks in swarms around his hands. Urza's war staff beamed with crackling lightning.

  One thing bothered Barrin, though. Darigaaz would not have committed his folk to so deadly an attack only to break off moments later… unless he were buying time or creating a diversion to mask some greater effect…

  Movement below caught Barrin's eyes. Panels atop one of the mana rig's domes shifted aside and slid down into pockets. Barrin knew the facility intimately. There had never been such roof sections when he'd worked it.

  … creating a diversion to mask some greater effect…

  Barrin swept his arm out against Urza's chest, intending to halt him. The mage's hand swam with blue sparks, which rattled out across Urza's figure, delivering myriad shocks. The mistake would have killed a mere man. Urza was not even close.

  Eyebrows smoldering, the planeswalker said, "What is it?"

  "Something's happening below," Barrin said, indicating four huge tubes that jutted slowly up from gaps in the mana rig dome. "An attack of some sort. It might prove deadly to fly into the path of such-"

  Barrin's explanation was made moot. Lava erupted in four boiling columns from the tubes. This was no flare of simple vulcanism but focused geysers of the stuff. As straight and hot as new-forged steel, the liquid rock stabbed skyward.

  One fountain of spray rose just before Barrin. He and Urza fled reflexively back but not before the column had evaporated their beards. Barrin's robes actually burned. Urza's war-stole only smoldered.

  As if in repayment for the shocking touch, Urza grasped his burning friend. Water suddenly drenched Barrin's clothes and hair. He flipped soggy locks backward and scowled his thanks.

  The lava jet that had briefly ignited them rose to its peak. It arced over and rained molten rock down atop the lead cruiser. Fires flared on the ship, and subsequent explosions threw away some of the lava. More lava piled on. Sections of hull melted and caved. Phyrexian crewmembers rushed to shovel the stuff. They burst into spontaneous flames and exploded. Their carapace and bone became shrapnel, killing those who came after. Phyrexians popped like corn.

  The sheer weight of molten rock overloaded the ship's engines. It listed, its port side slumping in a succession of jolts. The ship fell into a banking spiral. Turning and slipping, spewing smoke and dripping lava, the cruiser corkscrewed down. A roar mounted up. Steam hissed from ruined engines. Countless seams failed. The cruiser augured into a rubble field.

  The other two ships had suffered similarly under the lava bombardment. One shuddered as its power core went critical. It exploded in a fireball, flinging scrap and bone, magma and muscle in a star burst. The concussion made the world leap. Visible waves of force rolled in spheres out from the blaze.

  The third craft had already been cruising downward when the blast cracked the sky. Waves of force flung it faster to ground. It came down across a volcanic ridge and cracked like an egg. The prow fell down one side of the ridge and the stem down the other. Both sides flared in cross-section. Scabrous figures leaped out of them.

  Other creatures, hidden in the rocky crevices, emerged. They seemed crocodiles attacking prey. They lifted war clubs and axes, bringing them down on Phyrexian backs. Savagely, they slew the invaders. Savagely, they hurled the dead into hissing cauldrons. Their bodies flared a moment and were gone. What few monsters escaped the slaying lizard men were swarmed and mauled by other defenders- scrubby and small.

  Barrin nodded, impressed. "It looks as though the Viashino and goblin tribes are well prepared for this battle." He rubbed a nonexistent mutton chop. Curls of scorched hair came off on his fingers. "As long as the rig can shoot columns of magma, cruisers and plague engines haven't a chance. Perhaps our meddling is not needed."

  "The Phyrexians have more tricks up their sleeves," Urza said, seeming almost affronted by the rig's successes. He blinked in concentration and regrew his burned goatee.

  He was right. Next moment, the gaping black portal poured out squadrons of smaller, faster ships-rams and dagger-boats and dragon engines. They seemed a waterfall, cascading with hungry speed from the hole in the sky. In mere moments, they would crash down on the rig below.

  "Intercept!" Urza shouted. He winked out of existence.

  "You could have taken me," Barrin groused to the empty air. From the dark corners of his mind, he dragged out his last teleport spell. It was a blue sorcery, but there wasn't a thimbleful of water in a hundred square miles. Drawing on his memories of distant Tolaria, Barrin charged the spell. Space folded around him and opened again.

  Barrin was suddenly beside Urza. They both floated just above the mana rig's aerial dome. Phyrexian ships plunged toward them.

  Urza was already unloading his arsenal. Rockets leaped from his gauntlets. They shrieked upward and smashed head-on into the plunging craft. Each rocket drilled deep into its target before detonating. Dragon engines and dagger-boats turned to fire and shrapnel. Ship after ship exploded. Through smoke and fire, more vessels fell.

  The ram engines were harder kills, almost solid metal. Urza's rockets could only dig small divots in them.

  Barrin turned their strength into weakness. He produced a Serran tuning fork from the folds of his robes, summoned the mana of far-flung fields, and struck the fork on his battle staff. It rang, its tone absolutely pure. The sound doubled and trebled, rising incorruptible to the ram ships above. It spread through solid metal and shook every fiber. The ships rang like giant bells. Cracks raced through them. Shuddering, they disintegrated into iron filings.

  Still, more ships plunged from the sky.

  Flinging fireballs and firestorm phoenixes, shatter spells and immolations, Barrin and Urza dissolved the engines before they could reach the rig. The sky was full of flame and smoke. Molten metal rained down all around. The fight was intoxicating-all too intoxicating.

  While Barrin and Urza fought a falling sky, a new threat arrived. As silent and smooth as a black shark, a Phyrexian cruiser nosed up beside the mana rig. Its plasma cannons lit.

  Fire stabbed into the rig. Walls split, walkways peeled away, stanchions collapsed.

  The cruiser's black-mana bombards hurled corruption.

  Thran metal sloughed and buttresses failed.

  "There!" Barrin shouted through the firestorm.

  Spells lashed down from the planeswalker and the Tolarian mage. Lightning scrambled across the cruiser, cracking armor. Fiery stones hailed over the hull. It wasn't enough.

  Phyrexian cannons and bombards kept up their killing fire.

  A whistle overhead announced that a pair of flaming dagger-boats had slipped past the spell work. Side by side, they plunged to impact the dome of the rig.

  Twin explosions ripped the roof. The dome shuddered and sank. Half of the facility slumped toward the cliff's edge.

  "It's no good!" Urza shouted as he pulverized a dragon engine. "They're breaking through!"

  The dome and the central colonnade cracked away from the rest of the rig.

  "They're destroying it!" Barrin roared. Spells stormed up from his fingers.

  The loose sections of the rig did not fall from the cliff, though. Instead, they rose on vast, articulated legs. The dome wasn't failing. It was separating to fight on its own. It seemed a huge praying mantis. Massive legs lashed out from beneath it. They caught hold of the cruiser's prow and yanked it brutally downward.

  The Phyrexian ship plunged. Its bow cracked against the basalt cliff. Metal buckled and shrieked. Boulders calved from the outcrop and poured down atop the cruiser. One massive stone fell like a fist on its bridge, collapsing it. Sparks and smoke spewed from tortured metal. The ship slid downward. Its hull gro
und against the cliff as it fell. With each impact, chunks of armor broke away. They tumbled separately into the lava and caught fire. Then the whole wreck splashed in crimson oblivion.

  "Impressive!" Barrin shouted.

  "Yes," Urza replied through the spell storm. "But until the portal is closed-"

  Boiling rock suddenly mounted up from the lava tubes behind them. Barrin flung Urza and himself away from the eruption. Air turned to steam in anticipation. The sweat in Barrin's pores hissed out. His clothes reignited. Pillars of fire hurled past.

  Lava rolled heavenward, crashing through the remaining ships and splashing higher still. It gushed into the throat of the portal. It filled the gigantic device like water in a shallow hole. Purring smoke, the portal slammed shut.

  Ruined ships plunged, tearing away from each other and driving themselves like spikes in the volcanic hillsides. Where they struck, they punched holes to the hot core of the mountains. Out oozed lava.

  Suddenly, there was stillness. The portal was gone. The Phyrexians were gone. Only hellish Shiv remained.

  His goatee having burned away for the second time in one hour, Urza snorted. "I seem to have underestimated the rig's preparedness."

  Barrin beamed as he patted out the flames on his robes. "Congratulations are in order."

  "Congratulations," Urza said flatly.

  "Not for me," Barrin replied with a laugh. "For the head of the rig, your former student-Jhoira."

  Urza nodded, drifting down toward what was left of the mana rig. The section that had broken loose now ambled over the rocky ridges of Shiv. It seemed almost a guard dog, spoiling for a fight.

  "I thought I knew everything about this rig."

  "Me too," Barrin said with a wry shrug. "Jhoira seems to have taught it a few new tricks. By the way, you might like to fix your goatee before you see her again."

  An irritable whoosh rushed over Urza, restoring beard, brows, hair, and robes to their impeccable best. He looked scornfully at the burned-out mage.