Apocalypse

by J. Robert King

  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 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, 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 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.

  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 Rushwood, 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 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 ins
ide 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 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.

  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.

  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.”

  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.

  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.”

  * * *

  —

  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.