INVASION mtg-1

by J. Robert King

Though fears assail the door.

  O foliage, cloak thy ravaged one

  In vestments cut for war.

  By the time he had reached the gnarl of stone, the whole of the cavern sang-some stridently, some quietly, some merely in gentle hums. The refugees watched this elf whom they had seen first in the treetops, whom they remembered from ages upon ages.

  Eladamri lifted his face. Lantern light shone across it. He was not old for an elf, in the midst of his second century, but his profound eyes and prominent nose and jutting chin gave him the look of a sage. In the lantern glow, he seemed the only solid thing in a world of shadows. Eladamri spoke.

  "Llanowar will rise again," he said simply, without preamble. The words struck the air and made swimming visions of the forest. "Green leaves grow out of black ground. Green shoots rise from charred wood. Moments of defeat are swallowed in millennia of triumph."

  These words were not enough. He needed to speak not words but visions.

  "I see bright birds darting among the overspreading boughs of a quo-sumic. Children swing on the vines that hang there. Red camro fruits burst from flowery folds. Morning breezes pluck dew from the leaves and carry it in cool bands of mist through the crown. From every hollow comes the sound of singing, of laughter."

  A gentle murmur of merriment moved among the folk. They were gladdened by this dream tree.

  "Yes," Eladamri continued, "we are there. All of us. We dwell among the clouds, friends of the sun. This day is but a sad memory. It is swallowed in lifetimes of joy. We are there, resting in the heights. Lie down, my friends. Lean your heads on the warm bark of the tree. Breathe her sweet pollen and sleep awhile."

  With the rustle of ragged clothes and the murmur of weary souls, the refugees settled to ground. One by one, they sighed into sleep and dreamed of a perfect tree.

  Eladamri smiled to see it. At least they could rest. At least they would cease trampling each other and rushing off into doom. "That was well done," said Liin Sivi behind him. "Someone had to do something," Eladamri breathed. "Yes," came a new voice, tremulous and panting, "someone has to do something."

  Eladamri turned to see a bloodied elf emerge from a nearby tunnel. The man was a peasant, his shift charred and his shoulder blistered from burns. He had not descended with the refugees from the High Court.

  Raking a breath, he said, "You must come to us. You must do the same for us! We came from the forest floor. Our village was struck. There are five hundred. You must come to help us as you helped these here."

  Eladamri's eyes glinted darkly in the cavern light. This desperate man would interpret the look as mystery and power. In fact, Eladamri felt a doubt that bordered on panic. He had done what he could for these desperate folk-the work not of a savior but of a compassionate warrior. He had done no more than anyone else would have done.

  Why, then, had no one else done it? "I will go see what I can do."

  A light pierced the terror of the elf's face. He seemed to breathe for the first time since he had spoken. He bowed deeply. Eladamri could hear the burned skin on his shoulder crackle with the motion. The man's grateful breath quickened.

  In utter darkness, even the faintest ember seems a beaming sun.

  Eladamri was that faint ember. His glow had drawn nations, and as they bowed, their hopeful breath stoked the fire in him. They needed a savior. They were making a savior. He could only receive their adoration and use it to save as many as he could.

  Perhaps that was all a savior ever was.

  "Lead me to them," Eladamri said, catching the elf's hand and lifting him from his bow. "I will go where you lead. Take my lantern. Let it guide you."

  The elf shook his head. "Keep your lantern. I want them to see you. I want them to see who I have brought." He squeezed his thanks and turned to lead Eladamri away.

  Lifting his lantern, the Seed of Freyalise strode along a ledge of stone at one side of the cavern. Most of his folk slept in contented clusters. A few remained awake. They watched in quiet admiration, their eyes reflecting his light.

  "They will not suffer your absence long, Eladamri," Liin Sivi said behind him. "They will come looking for you."

  As he followed his guide down into a narrow shaft of slanting stone, Eladamri answered, "Let us hope we are not gone long."

  "I cannot keep them back, you know," Liin Sivi said. "My toten-vec can keep back foes but not friends. That was Takara's job."

  Eladamri's breath caught. The bombing of the palace had been chaos-the flight downward, the terror of collective nightmare… He had forgotten about his companion. "She didn't-"

  "No," Liin Sivi replied simply.

  Eladamri steadied himself, setting a feverish hand on cold stone. The rock drank his heat. Before him, the passage descended to deep darkness. Chill air crowded past from spaces below. It seemed Dominaria was breathing. It seemed her breath was cold.

  "Just a little farther," the elf assured. He was small and surefooted, like a cave cricket.

  Eladamri and Liin Sivi picked their way across a rubble field where hunks of stone had calved from the encroaching ceiling. Beyond, the passage squared up, seeming almost a mine hewn from rock. Eladamri's footsteps echoed in whispers all around him. At the end of the corridor, the elf stood before a vast cavern. Eladamri's lantern barely shone in the blackness.

  He stared at the lantern. Its wick was little more than a nub. Reaching to the neck of his robe, Eladamri grabbed the collar and hauled hard. The fabric ripped easily free. He opened the lantern, lit the strip of material, and fed it down into the wick slot. The collar filled with oil. Fire flared. Eladamri closed the panel and lifted a blazing lantern.

  Its light shone out over a cavern filled with crouching figures. Their eyes gleamed. They looked not to the light but to the light-bringer.

  "Let's go down to them," Eladamri said. "Yes," the elf said, scrambling down the slope. As Eladamri descended, Liin Sivi spoke, "We should go back." "I cannot go back," Eladamri said. "They have glimpsed hope. It would kill them for me to leave."

  "You cannot just sing to these people and make pretty speeches. Look at them, Eladamri. Look at them."

  He did. His heart went cold in his chest. It was not merely darkness that swathed them. It was death. They were rotting. Their flesh boiled off their bones. Teeth showed through rags of lip. Eyes wept in lidless sockets. Breath raked into and out of riddled windpipes. Shoulder bones showed white through sloughing flesh. "They are still alive," Eladamri said.

  "But for how long?" Liin Sivi replied, clasping his shoulder. "You cannot save them."

  Eyes hardening, Eladamri pulled away from her. "These are the Dreaming Caves. I cannot save these folk, but their dreams can."

  He descended the final pitch of the hillside and was among them.

  Eladamri lifted his lantern, peering in gladness across the hordes.

  "Behold, children of Staprion-dread has fallen from the skies, but hope rises from the world. Gaea has not forgotten you. Freyalise has sent me to you. She wants you to rise, whole, into the light. Come to me, brothers and sisters. Come. Believe. Be healed. We will rise. We will save our homeland. Come!"

  Liin Sivi stood on the slope, her hands sweating on the hilt of her toten-vec. She would not cut down allies, certainly not plague victims. She could only watch as they surrounded Eladamri, pressing on him, swallowing him in their rot. In moments, he was gone. Even the light of his lantern was eclipsed in that clamor of heads and hands.

  There was only darkness now, darkness and death and the wails of the dying.

  Suddenly, the lantern beamed forth again. It rose, clutched in a healthy hand. Its rays spilled out over more healthy flesh. Where there had been scaly heads and skeletal arms now there were flowing locks and young muscle. Where there had been rot there was now vitality. It was as though light itself healed them-rebuilding bodies, renewing spirits.

  At the center of that glow was Eladamri. His robes seemed lit from within.

  Hands reached for him, touched him, and
came away whole.

  Liin Sivi released her weapon. She rubbed fists in her eyes. Was this another delusion of the Dreaming Caves?

  Waves of power, of belief, swept in visible rings from Eladamri.

  This was no dream. This was truth.

  Mouth agape, Liin Sivi dropped to her knees.

  Eladamri sang gladly to his people:

  Though death has guile and killing power,

  Though bloodlust rules the steaming tides,

  It's life that wrestles hour by hour

  And finally abides.

  O forest, hold thy wand'ring son

  Though fears assail the door.

  O foliage, cloak thy ravaged one

  In vestments cut for war.

  Chapter 24

  Heroes' Meeting

  Orim's sick bay seemed a menagerie. Rats and flying squirrels paced in makeshift cages. Mounds of what seemed fish eggs occupied airtight vials across her desk. Four dead Phyrexians lay nearby. They seemed giant, overturned cockroaches. Only one true patient remained- Hanna. She languished in feverish sleep on the far side of the room. It was for her that the menagerie existed. It was to save that one human that Orim had worked so tirelessly over Phyrexian corpses.

  From those corpses, Orim had tapped every fluid she could find-glistening-oil, green bile, saliva, gastric juice, venom, lymph, cerebral-spinal fluid, even cardiac liquids. Gladly these vat-grown creatures had no reproductive fluids. Using a centrifuge and Cho-Arrim water magic, Orim separated each fluid into its component parts. The lymph and blood contained many of the disease-fighting compounds, and comparing the materials common to them allowed Orim to narrow the immunity substances. Then, it was a matter of applying distillations of each part on plague-infected flora and fauna from Llanowar.

  The Benalish aerial armada had proven itself quite intrepid in gathering test subjects.

  The immunity substance, as it turned out, was a black platelet suspended in glistening-oil. It could not reverse the disease, but it prevented its spread. Uninfected leaves treated with the substance were made immune to the plague. Infected leaves did not worsen but neither did they improve. No cure, this, it would at least prevent the disease from spreading, flesh to flesh and person to person.

  Squee had gathered rats from the bilges-healthy beasts that had feasted on hardtack and ale. The black material was gobbled greedily by the beasts. In mere moments, they proved immune. Infected flying squirrels from the forest also liked the taste of Phyrexian immunity, and their disease ceased its advance.

  Now, it was up to Orim. She would not test this substance on any person until she had tested it on herself. After dissecting Phyrexian corpses, Orim had little stomach for the curative caviar, but she would do anything for Hanna. Drawing a deep breath, she lifted the jiggling black mass to her mouth. The spoon slid reluctantly over her teeth.

  Tiny, cold spheres settled on her tongue. They felt like minute beads of glass, sliding down behind her teeth. They tasted of oil. She dared not chew but only swallowed. The platelets crowded down her throat. They slid into her belly. It felt chill and dark. The sensation spread from her stomach into her blood. Was it only her mind, or did this feel like a tiny invasion? A shudder moved through her, the coolness spreading under her clothes and out to her fingertips.

  "That should be enough time," Orim sighed.

  She lifted a knife from her worktable, set its tip on her biceps, and drew the blade down in a brief, deep cut. It was almost painless, the knife was so sharp. The blade came away. A drop of crimson welled up from the slit. Putting down the knife, Orim lifted a plague infected leaf, opened the cut, and crumbled the black corruption into the wound. Every instinct she had-not only as a healer but as a living being-shivered at the sight of those black flakes adhering to the cut flesh.

  Clamping a cloth over the spot, Orim closed her eyes and hissed. This strain of the plague was virulent enough that it would turn the skin necrotic in moments. She needed wait only those moments to see if she had devised a serum or if she were joining Hanna on the road to death.

  Pulling the cloth away, Orim drew the sides of the wound apart. She peered down into perfect, red flesh. A deep, thankful breath filled her. She said a silent thanks to the powers of healing and water.

  "Oh, Hanna," Orim said, though she knew her patient still slept. "The first hope. It cannot save you, hut it can save others. I'll keep working until I have a cure." Dashing tears from her eyes, Orim snatched up a vial of the platelets and approached Hanna.

  She lay on her side, knees drawn up over the belly wound that was killing her.

  Sitting on her bunk, Orim reached out gently to stroke her friend's hair. Hanna was so thin. Her face seemed skin stretched over a skull. Her eyes were visible beneath translucent lids. Her neck was a bundle of straining cords. Only her hair was as it had been-streaming gold. Fondly, Orim drew her fingers through the strands.

  "Hanna, wake up. I have something for you."

  A shuddering breath went through Hanna. She rolled to her back. She eased her legs downward. They seemed as thin as sticks beneath the blankets. Blue lids pulled back from bloodshot eyes. Orim bit her lip to see the chronic pain there.

  Hanna muttered weakly, "Something… for me?"

  "It's not a cure-but it will stop the disease from advancing." Orim held up the vial. "It'll keep a healthy person from catching it."

  "Thank you," Hanna said, reaching up. She did not clutch the vial but Orim's arm. "Use it on someone it can save."

  Orim's eyes clouded. "There is enough. I want you to take this. It will buy time."

  Not releasing her friend's arm, Hanna drew aside the gown. The bandages that looped her midsection seemed loose, as though she had shrunk. Even beyond the edge of those bandages, her skin was gray from shoulder to thigh. Tendrils of corruption reached farther, to elbow and knee.

  "Time for what?" She covered herself again. "Please, give it to someone it will save."

  Orim sadly patted her friend's cheek. "Gerrard has ordered it. Now, open up."

  Her eyes hard and angry, Hanna took the spoonful.

  "I won't give up, Hanna. I'm going to find a cure."

  "Thank you, Orim," Hanna said quietly. "Thank you… I need to sleep."

  "Yes," responded the healer. She drew Hanna's blankets up to her shoulders. A chill went down her spine. One day, and sooner than later, she would be drawing these blankets up over Hanna's face. "Sleep, dear girl. Sleep."

  Turning, Orim retreated to her worktable. Hanna breathed in quiet rest as Orim gathered the rack of vials. She pushed back the sick bay door and climbed the stairs. The tiny bottles rattled as she rose.

  Here, beyond the Phyrexian corpses and the caged testcreatures, Weatherlight ceased to be a laboratory and became a warship. An ensign hurried down the companionway above, reading from a page in his hand the names of the refugees who were to eat next. Orim continued on until she reached the amidships hatch. She climbed through to stand on the deck.

  Gerrard crouched on the deck, working with a crew who were easing the repaired port-side ray cannon back into its moorings. He was bare to the waist and sweating, though a steady breeze came over the prow to him.

  Orim approached, lifting the rack of vials. "I have it, enough serum for the ship's whole complement and some left over."

  From the grease-track where he knelt, Gerrard looked up. "You have it? A cure?"

  "Not a cure. I have an immunity serum."

  He was on his feet. "Will it help Hanna?" Orim shook her head slowly.

  An angry line knitted Gerrard's brow, but he managed to say, "Good work. You've saved us."

  "Most of us."

  "Administer the serum. Once everyone is treated, I want you to set aside the rest-as much as you can spare- for a gift."

  "A gift?" she asked.

  "We're landing in the treetops. Not the whole armada, just Weatherlight and her immune crew. The ship herself should somehow ingest some of the serum, to make her hull impervious. I'll as
k Hanna how-"

  "Ask Karn," Orim suggested.

  Nodding stiffly, Gerrard said, "I want to take the rest of the serum to whomever might survive there, as a sign of our alliance. We'll land in the center of the devastation- there's a ruined palace down there-and we'll search until we find the native people."

  Orim's eyes shone. "Good. Perhaps we'll also find more Phyrexians. Give me more Phyrexians, and I'll give you more serum."

  Gerrard nodded, his eyes like poniards. "I'll give you more Phyrexians."

  * * * * *

  It was no easy task for Multani to find the refugees, down so deep. The Dreaming Caves lay below Llanowar's water table. Most roots sank no lower than this subterranean sea. Its bed was a shelf of granite a hundred yards thick. The Dreaming Caves hid beneath. The Phyrexians could not have found them there, and even Multani would not have except for the guidance of Molimo. He showed the way. Though most roots did not plumb the water table and crack the granite shelf, quosumic tap roots did.

  A tree that stands thousands of feet tall plunges equally deep.

  Still, the way was not easy. Multani spiraled down a quosumic tree that pulsed with agony. The tree's crown had been eaten by plague. Not a single leaf remained. Half the branches were destroyed. Rot-plague girdled the bole in five separate rings. To move through dying wood was terrifying. Every impulse cried out that Multani should escape. Instead, he coursed lower, beneath the fecund humus, through the frigid underworld sea, through even granite, to the caves.

  Multani emerged from the taproot precisely where the refugees had. He assembled a body for himself out of albino tendrils and glowing lichens. Cave crickets became his eyes and blond roaches his fingers and toes. It was a spectral form, venous and shimmering, but it was the only life he could gather in these deeps. Surely, he would be no more ghastly than the refugees themselves. He followed their footprints.

  Something strange-a fresh warm breeze rolled up the passage toward him. It felt like the soft tides of air that bring spring rain. It smelled of lightning. Here, three thousand feet below the over-world, blew breezes redolent with life. It was impossible or at least miraculous.