Apocalypse

by J. Robert King

  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 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.

  * * *

  —

  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 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 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?

  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!”

  “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 beyon
d 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-may-care, 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 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 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 that, Weatherlight is powered by the Bones of Ramos—heart, skull, hand, and so forth. These powerstones hold the essence of an ancient dragon engine, a minion I 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 the 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—”

  “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 Cho-Arrim water magic could work on it, I’d be doing a rain dance, but—”

&
nbsp; “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.”

  The flesh around Urza’s eyes grew red. “How can one ship guide a hundred-mile cascade of power?”