Planeshift

by J. Robert King

  This strange circumstance smelled of Urza. Who else would ally the living with the dead?

  Lifting his battle-axe, Agnate shouted, “Charge!” On leaden legs, he drove himself forward, to the defense of his undead saviors.

  Metathran warriors were nothing if not obedient. They joined the charge.

  Straight before Agnate, a zombie clambered atop a Phyrexian trooper, lashing it with powerful but sloppy blows of putrid flesh. The Phyrexian’s horns pierced rotting muscle. Chunks of meat hung on the spikes. Keeping its head down, the Phyrexian ripped the gut out of its attacker.

  Agnate’s axe sang in the air. Steel chopped through the Phyrexian’s subcutaneous armor, through its chest, through its heart. Sliced nearly in two, the monster went down. It dragged the zombie with it. Side by side, they struck the sand.

  A zombie can fight without its viscera. It pulled itself from the impaling horns and greedily dragged the severed corpse back toward the quicksand. It hurled the body into the deeps. The current dragged it down. In days, perhaps hours, the dead Phyrexian would rise from the sand too, a new member of the shambling army.

  Agnate laughed. It was not the victorious laugh that he had voiced so often in battle. It was a more human sound—a recognition of absurdity.

  An angry grin spread across his face. He whirled to slay another Phyrexian. His axe hewed as if through firewood. It was fascinating to watch the way they came to pieces. Each chop sent power up the haft of his axe and into his arms. It was as though he harvested the souls of his victims.

  Suddenly, there were no more Phyrexians to kill. In a fever fight, Agnate, his troops, and their undead allies had slain them all. Even now, ghouls dutifully dragged dead Phyrexians into the sandy slough.

  Setting the head of his axe on the oily ground, Agnate leaned on it and laughed. He could feel the eyes of his warriors on him, but he didn’t care. Their shock made it only funnier. Agnate wiped gritty tears from his eyes.

  Shaking his head, he muttered, “What has happened to me?”

  “You have gained a new ally,” answered an ancient and craggy voice.

  Agnate raised his eyes to see a tall, strong figure in ornate robes. Within sleeves of embroidered silk, the man’s powerful arms spread in a regal, welcoming gesture. Above an upturned collar rose a stout neck and a rugged face. The smile on the man’s lips seemed almost boyish, and a fragile light shone in his deep-set eyes. Gray hair stood in an unkempt halo around his temples. So friendly, so familiar was that visage that Agnate at first did not realize the man’s flesh was mummified.

  “I am Lord Dralnu,” he said, bowing deeply. “I command these folk who have saved you. I invite you and your men to celebrate our new alliance in the halls of my palace.”

  In stunned respect, Agnate bowing his head. A lich lord? He was allied now to a lich lord?

  Worst of all, Lord Dralnu looked like Thaddeus, back from the dead.

  CHAPTER 10

  Elves of Skyshroud, Elves of Keld

  Eladamri and Liin Sivi rode great mountain yaks up a long, rocky ascent. Colos, these beasts were called—huge, shaggy rams. They were powerful mounts and utterly surefooted. Eladamri was glad. He and his Skyshroud commanders climbed a cliff face beside a gigantic glacier.

  They did not ride alone. The leaders of Keld rode with them. As strange as the colos were, the Keldons were even stranger. Massive and gray skinned, the average warlord towered an easy foot above Eladamri. Savage helms and breastplates in rust red covered tattooed flesh that was tougher still. Scars crisscrossed their flesh. Among the Keldons, a missing ear and a split lip were beauty marks.

  Indeed, when these warriors had first encountered Eladamri, they couldn’t believed so short, slight, and unscarred a man—so unKeldon a man—could be a warrior. They were wrong. Eladamri had fought through the Stronghold and the Caves of Koilos. The Keldon scouts issued a two-word challenge, clear even in their barbaric tongue: “Prove it!” With Freyalise’s help, Eladamri did. He killed the first rival, so ferocious was the attack. The second limped away sorely wounded, only to fetch more.

  Ten warriors returned, accompanying their field commander. This young man was different—leanly muscular. His eyes shone with bright intellect within his scarred face. He studied the dead scout. With a long sweep of his eyes, he took in the strange, green forest laid down in the icy fastness of his lands. The sights sparked something in him, something he’d heard or read. These elves were no mere invaders. They were emissaries from another world and from the black future.

  The young commander jabbed a thumb toward his chest and barked a single word, “Astor.”

  Astor proved an uncommon Keldon, equally versed in war and lore. He knew many Dominarian languages and took pains to teach Eladamri the rudiments of Common Keld. His rulers, Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin, arrived within the week. The former immediately ambushed Eladamri with his crescent-bladed scythe. The weapon opened a long wound from the elf’s right temple to his jaw. Without pause, Eladamri responded with a slash of his sword. He struck an identical wound on the doyen’s face. Their bloodied blades met between them and locked. Neither man could throw back the other. In moments, the duel was done. Without words, they had achieved détente.

  Even now, as the colos climbed the ragged mountainside, Eladamri was still proving himself to Doyenne Tajamin. She rode to his right and poured out a long narrative in Common Keld. She spoke of the end of the world, of Twilight. Most Keldons believed Eladamri and his forest home to be harbingers of this end time. As Keeper of the Book of Keld, Doyenne Tajamin was harder to convince.

  Her colos leaped, surging to a narrow shelf of basalt. Snow fell in easy cascades beside the beast’s hooves. Aback it, Doyenne Tajamin looked down with fiery eyes.

  “True, the books of Twilight speak of allies from another world, but also they speak of invaders. You claim you are allies—perhaps—but you are undoubtedly invaders.”

  Eladamri smiled winningly, the expression rumpling the stitched scar across his face.

  In Common Keld, he replied, “The Twilight legends are yours, Doyenne, not mine. You are more eager than I to make me fit.” Eladamri’s steed leaped up beside hers.

  Tajamin smiled as well, a predatory leer. She lifted an ancient war cudgel. The age-blackened wood was carved deep with runes.

  “This weapon will decide. Some folk believe the sword cuts to the truth. We believe a cudgel divines more surely. Only those who can stand beneath its blow are true.” Tajamin flipped her arm.

  Eladamri braced for another attack. Instead, Tajamin rode her mount up to a higher ledge.

  “So, once we are out on the battlefield, I should expect you to club me?” Eladamri asked.

  “A true warrior is ready for anything,” she responded.

  Two more bounds of her mount brought her to the top of the cliff. Glacial light broke over her face, showing up each scar that crossed it. Her wry and dangerous look melted away, replaced by a solemn joy.

  Digging his heels into the shaggy sides of his colos, Eladamri surged up over the ridge. He too saw.

  A vast glacier extended from the hooves of his mount out to distant black mountains. The ice shone white beneath silvery rafts of cloud. It was a veritable sea of snow, held aloft by an ancient range of volcanic peaks. Numerous lateral glaciers descended from higher valleys to join together in this one enormous ice sheet.

  From two of the lateral glaciers marched divisions of the Keldon army. They had taken a slower but less treacherous approach. In their midst rolled massive war engines—trebuchets, catapults, and greater ballistae. Larger than even these machines of war were Keldon long ships on huge runners. At full sail, their bladed bows could rip through enemy lines and their vast rams could smash a twenty-foot-thick wall. Hoardings lined the rails of the warships. Through their loopholes, archers could pour quarrels on troops and battlements alike. Among these enormous ma
chines rode twenty-five thousand heavy colos cavalry. Seventy-five thousand Keldons filled out the warhost.

  Eladamri was glad to see his ten thousand elven troops marching among the arrayed might of Keld.

  These were grand sights, true, but they were not what lit the face of the doyenne. The grandest vision of all stood to one side of the glacier.

  On a conic peak among craggy mountains perched a tall, black city. The base of the structure was crowded with countless dwellings. Their steep roofs dumped incessant snows. Lights shown minutely in their windows. Farther up, the buildings grew dark. In the midst of the dwellings rose a tall pyramid of stone, open on two ends. It seemed almost a hangar for an airship, but the space could have held a vessel five times the size of Weatherlight. At the pyramid’s pinnacle resided a lofty citadel. It lurked among the raveling clouds.

  Eladamri stared so intently at the vision that he was startled to realize the proud doyens and doyennes beside him had dropped from their colos to kneel on the ice. Even Liin Sivi bowed low. Swinging his leg from the saddle, Eladamri knelt among them.

  A chant came from the leaders. “Kradak and Jezal, doyen and doyenne, fire and hearth, till Twilight we await your return.”

  Eladamri kept his head bowed until the chant was done. The clang of armor told that his allies rose. He climbed to his feet with the others and remounted. Only then did he dare speak.

  “What is this glorious vision?”

  Doyenne Tajamin drove her mount forward across the ice. She spoke reverently. “This is the Necropolis, the resting place for our honored dead. All warriors who die in righteous warfare are entombed there. From the Necropolis, they will rise in the day of Twilight to defend Keld from the armies of evil.”

  “There are lights lit there,” Eladamri said, pacing her.

  “The caretakers dwell forever among the honored dead. It is the highest honor granted a warlord to guard the Necropolis. To die while serving in the Necropolis is to be assured a place there.”

  Nodding in understanding, Eladamri shielded his eyes from the glare. As the war party moved out across the ice, he glimpsed a flash of gold within the open pyramid.

  “What rests there, at the center of the citadel?”

  “The Golden Argosy, ship of titans. It was stolen from the lords of Parma by Kradak, first doyen of our people. In it, he sailed all the world and claimed it for Keld. This was before the other races spilled out across the land, stealing it. Since that time, we have journeyed afar to regain the lands that are ours.”

  Eladamri smiled in appreciation. “Those other races are certainly larcenous, but how can you conquer the world while the Golden Argosy resides in the Necropolis?”

  “When Kradak died, the Argosy became his tomb. Only when Kradak arises again in Twilight will the Argosy sail once more. Then the world will once again be ours.”

  “Then the world truly would end,” Eladamri replied ambiguously.

  Tajamin responded with a smile. “Now you have begun to believe.”

  Shrugging, Eladamri said, “If the Necropolis has its own guardians, why do you bring this army of a hundred thousand?”

  She gazed levelly at him. “So, you didn’t notice the army of invaders beyond?” She jabbed her finger toward a high and distant hollow. There, a wide river tumbled over a bed of shattered obsidian.

  “What army?”

  Tajamin wore a sly look. “We often see only what we want to see—allies or invaders.”

  Shielding his eyes, Eladamri stared.

  It was not a river that flowed down that high valley. It was a legion. What had seemed shattered hunks of obsidian were in truth the battle armor of a huge Phyrexian contingent. Mere days ago they had been arrayed on the hillsides of Rath. Now they marched toward the most sacred site to the people of Keld.

  His voice was a hoarse whisper. “How many are there?”

  “Scouts have reported two hundred thousand in the main army,” Tajamin said flatly.

  Eladamri tightly clutched the reins of his colos. “And what is your strategy?”

  “Reach the Necropolis before the Phyrexians do.”

  Nearby, Doyen Olvresk stood in the saddle and lifted high his curve-bladed scythe.

  “Full gallop to the troops!” he shouted. He brought his arm forward. His colos bounded out across the ice. Hooves cracked solid footholds and sent crystals cracking away.

  Doyenne Tajamin drove heels into her mount’s flanks. The colos leaped anxiously. It shouldered past Eladamri’s beast, which reared back. The beast charged across the glacier. In moments, doyen and doyenne rode neck and neck. Each of their steeds struggled to gain the lead. The other doyen swarmed in their wake.

  “Hearth and fire, they are incomplete without each other,” came a familiar voice at Eladamri’s shoulder. The elf turned to see the young warlord Astor, astride his colos. The warrior’s face was utterly grave, but laughter played in his eyes. “Olvresk and Tajamin each can see only his or her own perspective. Since they both trained me, I can see both.”

  Eladamri smiled wanly. “Your perspective has saved many lives. What do you suggest we do?”

  Lifting heavy eyebrows, Astor simply said, “Follow.”

  As one, Eladamri, Liin Sivi, and Astor drove their mounts forward across the ice. The hooves of the colos made a brittle rumble as they bore along. Behind them galloped the rest of the Skyshroud commanders. They were eager to be reunited with their troops and to return the colos to their Keldon handlers.

  Just ahead, a series of deep crevasses opened in the glacier. The ice sheet had stretched over a rocky ridge, and the surface had cracked. Ice dropped away through blue shadows and into blackness. It was an easy thirty feet across the first crevasse, and only a ten-foot wedge of ice stood between it and the next. It seemed an impassable barrier, but the Keldons did not slow the charge of their steeds.

  Side by side in the lead, Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin drove their mounts to the crevasse. Fore-hooves cracked on the ice cliff. The colos gathered their bulk. Hind-hooves smashed on the edge of the crevasse. As one, the great mountain yaks bounded. Though ponderous on the ground, they leaped weightlessly through the air. Doyen and doyenne stood high in the saddle and fixed their gazes on the far wedge. Their mounts soared down. Fore-hooves, hind-hooves, they surged off the ice over the next crevasse.

  Unflinching, the other Keldon commanders leaped their mounts over.

  Eyes wide, Eladamri stared at approaching doom. He shouted to Warlord Astor, “What do we do?”

  Astor repeated simply. “Follow!” Then he too hurtled across the crack.

  Liin Sivi and Eladamri traded looks. There was no time to stop.

  Leaning against the neck of his mount, Eladamri held his breath. The final four hoofbeats sounded like explosions in his ears. Then came a deathly silence.

  Ice chips floated in tangled winds above the crevasse. Colos hooves pawed the emptiness. Eladamri stared down into unseeable depths. The glacier’s heart was as black as death. His own heart hung in the gap. There came not a sound except wind in colos hair.

  Hooves struck the ice on the far side. The colos gathered its muscles and bounded again.

  Something had changed. Perhaps he knew his mount could make it. Perhaps he had already stared once into death and cheated it. This time, Eladamri sat up in the saddle. He peered with interest rather than fear into this new crevasse. His heart pounded excitedly. The dark rip in the white world was beautiful.

  By the time he crossed the third crevasse, Eladamri was laughing aloud. It hurt the stitches in his face, but in every other way, it felt good. He was becoming Keldon, he realized. His people would not merely dwell in this land. They would be reshaped by it until they were Keldon people too.

  Eladamri followed his allies as they closed the distance to their troops. With a whoop, Eladamri rode up before the lines of his Skyshroud e
lves. In their thick thistledown cloaks, they hardly looked like elves. Even their eyes showed the beginnings of transformation.

  Eladamri reined in his colos, and the beast reared up. Its hooves spun in the air as he shouted, “Follow me, Elves of the Skyshroud, Elves of Keld! Follow me to defend our land!”

  CHAPTER 11

  Metal With Memory

  Angels and spirits, helionauts and hoppers were no match for Phyrexian cruisers. Five of the enormous black ships now filled the sky. Their mana bombards heaped death on defenders. Their horn-studded rams chased Weatherlight across the heavens.

  “I thought we’d gotten rid of these bastards!” Gerrard shouted to no one in particular. He couldn’t bring his cannon to bear on the pursuing cruiser, but he found a target anyway. His gun hurled a corridor of flack abeam. The red blaze dissolved a dragon engine into claws and teeth. Energy bounded on and melted the stern of a Phyrexian dagger-boat. Deprived of its engine, the ship bobbed drunkenly and plummeted.

  On the other side of the forecastle, Tahngarth’s cannon shouted. It tore away a gout of black mana that surged toward Weatherlight.

  “Perhaps these are the cruisers from Benalia.”

  Gerrard gritted his teeth. “Oh, you had to say that.” His cannon barked. Crimson bolts shrieked from the muzzle. The first shot struck a Phyrexian ram and pocked the metal. The second and third shots cored the ship as if it were an apple.

  The pursuing cruiser sent fire in a deadly tunnel up around Weatherlight.

  “How ’bout some rear defenses, Squee?” Gerrard shouted into the speaking tube.

  Before his words were even finished, an angry protest answered. “You think dis easy, yeah? You think just ’cause Squee save your butt hundred thousand million times before, he save you now?”