“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!”
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.
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 crewmember and comrade was galling. Ertai’s eyes narrowed. That such a worm had gained immortality was unbearable.
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. 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 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 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 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 sayin’ “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 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.
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 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, 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 hal
berd 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.
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 arms 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.
Apocalypse Page 18
