Phyrexia at last was safe.
The pneumagogs fluttered all around the kneeling titan. Their wings made a scissoring song of praise. Their voices spoke into Urza’s aching mind.
Welcome home, Urza. Welcome home.
Another titan shimmered into being alongside Urza. Taysir’s multicolored engine took form. He lunged, grasping Urza’s suit and hauling him to his feet.
Taysir’s voice was urgent and full of accusation. What have you done, Urza! What are you doing?
Before Urza could answer, the pneumagogs swarmed Taysir’s engine. As vicious as hornets, they tore the suit’s armor. It would not last long under their assault.
Instead of battling the beasts, Taysir focused utterly on Urza. You’ve been seduced. Yawgmoth has done this. You must get away, Urza. Flee, before your soul belongs to him. We will complete the sequence. We will rig a new master and ignite the bombs and destroy Phyrexia—
Destroy Phyrexia! It was more than Urza could bear.
He triggered the kill rubric.
Ten thousand metal filaments jutted into Taysir’s body. Lightnings leaped. The first impulses paralyzed him. He could not move, could not think, could not planeswalk. Stronger currents cooked his flesh on his bones. Other energies extracted his soul. There were no bombs for the planeswalker to charge—Urza had not counted on Taysir’s betrayal—and what a fortunate thing! The other traitors might have found the bombs and used them against Phyrexia. No, Taysir’s life force was shunted into the suit’s oil, which gushed out its arms and legs.
The titan suit toppled backward. Sparks from the grass ignited the oil. It flashed fantastically. Mantled in fire, the titan burned.
Oh, what a terrible scene—so many pneumagogs unmade by that burning oil! They fled up and away, but some were too slow. Pneumagogs flocked around him like burning birds. Even in death, Taysir was a killer. Such a horrible waste.
At least Taysir was dead. The oil had stopped spraying life force. Taysir’s suit went dark. It was a waste of good design material. The dome had cracked. The hydraulics systems had shattered. Weapons across the machine were ruined. Perhaps the genius of it was lost.
Yawgmoth would know how to salvage the best parts, the best designs. Taysir’s suit was a gift to Yawgmoth.
“What of the others?” Urza wondered to the wind. “Freyalise, Lord Windgrace, Bo Levar, and Commodore Guff? Surely they will try to detonate the bombs. If they are successful—”
A voice in his mind replaced his thoughts. They are no longer your concern. Leave them to my minions. You must descend toward me. Leave your titan engine here and come to the seventh sphere.
Urza’s breath caught short. “The seventh sphere? It is a place of torments. Why do you call me to the seventh sphere? Have I failed you?”
There is a final test you must pass, Urza Planeswalker. I must know your true heart.
“You will know it,” replied Urza. “You will surely know it.”
He planeswalked from the piloting harness of his titan suit. It would stand without him, another gift to Yawgmoth. The sixth sphere of Phyrexia disappeared.
Urza rematerialized in another place, a deeper place. Just over his ashen hair rolled enormous grinders studded in diamond teeth. They gnashed against each other. Were Urza to reach up, his hand would be caught and his whole body ripped away. The ceiling extended in every direction, supported by nothing and tumbling ravenously by. Spatial distortions sometimes lifted the grinders away from the ground and other times brought them into direct contact.
Urza looked at the ground. It was covered with bodies. This was no random carnage, but a calculated thing. Creatures were laid out on their backs. Their legs and arms were bolted to pipes. Some were human, some elf, some minotaur or dwarf—but most were Phyrexian. Their feet and kneecaps had been ground away. Their bellies had been ripped open by the diamond points. Their faces were gone. It was a horrid death to have suffered but fitting for those who had failed the lord of Phyrexia.
As Urza watched, the ceiling nearby warped and descended. Grinders spun, coming into contact with a whole field of bodies. Where they rolled, blood and oil and bits of meat came away. That was not the most ghastly sight though. Worst of all was the jiggling of the bodies, the agonized shuddering that told that these forms were still alive.
Blinking powerstone eyes, Urza said, “Is this the test then? To watch unflinching as you work eternal punishment on your foes?
“This will not shake my belief. I see this and am unmoved. Mortality is no better than this—to lie helpless as time grinds flesh to bone. I have watched mortals—even best friends, even brothers—get ground away like this. It is your right to do this. You are a god.”
As if waiting for Urza to finish his lecture, the voice said simply, Proceed.
Urza did. He stepped among arms and legs, passing over the flayed figures. They breathed even though their noses were only holes in their faces. They lived even though their hearts were laid bare. The air shivered with agony.
None of this poisoned Urza’s heart. Those who pleased Yawgmoth received his bounteous mercies. Those who displeased him received his bounteous wrath. It was the right of gods.
Stop.
Urza did so without hesitation, setting his foot down beside a Phyrexian.
Look at him.
Urza did. Unlike so many others, this creature’s head had not been held down. He could turn it to the side when the rollers came down. Both of his ears were gone. The skin and muscle on either side of his head were mere tatters over bone, but his face remained. Black hair, a rumpled brow, sharp eyes, a prominent nose, a mustache, a goatee….It was a familiar face. Even after eons, it took Urza only a moment to recall it.
“Mishra,” he murmured, staring at his brother.
When last Urza and Mishra had been face to face, they had sought to slay each other. A fireball had shown Urza what his brother had become—Phyrexian. Metal sinews had strung along beneath the man’s flesh. That single spell had also shown Urza what he must do to annihilate the plague he had brought to Dominaria. The sylex blast had made Urza a planeswalker and, he thought, had slain Mishra. He had been wrong.
Your brother failed me. He sought me out in hopes of gaining power. He wanted to use me to defeat you, but I am never used. Mishra failed to slay you. He even closed Dominaria to me for an age. For this, he suffers eternally.
Urza stared down. His gemstone eyes gleamed. One of those stones had been Mishra’s—the Weakstone. In the sylex blast, Urza had received both the stones and the power they bore. Mishra had meanwhile received damnation.
He came to me, but I did not want him. I wanted you, and you did not come.
“Until now,” Urza said.
Until now.
“Brother,” rasped Mishra, “save me.” Urza only stared down at him. “Grasp my hand. ’Walk me from this place! We can both escape this hell. Take me to some grassy place where the wind blows, that I may die in peace. Take me away. He will allow it. He has told me. Take me, Brother.”
I will allow it, confirmed the voice. This is your test. I would know your heart on this matter.
“Brother! Please! If there is any humanity left in you, take me away!” pleaded Mishra. His eyes reflected the violent rolling of the grinders above.
Urza stared once last. “Good-bye, Mishra.” He turned and strode slowly away.
“Come back! Help me, Brother!” Mishra’s shouts were interrupted by the roar of the grinders descending on him.
Excellent. I know your heart now. You are mine.
“Yes, Lord Yawgmoth. I am yours.”
CHAPTER 35
The Mortal Flaw
The damned thing was fast, lightning fast. She skipped across clouds like a stone across water. Her silver hull hid her in plain view. Unnatural, otherworldly, impossible—Weatherlight was the monstrous creation of a monstrous
planeswalker. She had the arrogance to claim the skies over Urborg.
The Primevals would not rest until Weatherlight was a shattered hulk. She was not easy prey. Whenever Rhammidarigaaz and his fellow gods drew near, Weatherlight dived among magnigoths. Treefolk shielded her behind thickets of green. They slashed the Primevals with thorns and battered them with boughs.
Darigaaz’s fire burned hundreds of magnigoth branches, but hundreds of thousands more fought on. Rith poured rampant spores onto the treefolk, but the resultant growths only strengthened them. Treva’s purifying light energized leafy crowns. Dromar’s distortion waves only bent the boughs. Even Crosis’s death-word was impotent. The treefolk had no ears with which to hear.
These magnigoths held divinity. A god lurked in the wood and shoved back at them.
Dauntless, the Primevals soared among the magnigoths, intent on flushing Weatherlight into clear air. She jittered around a bole just ahead.
Stay on her, commanded Darigaaz.
The Primevals’ wings hurled back the skies. They only just kept pace with the dodging machine. A ray cannon blast reached from the ship’s stern. It broke over Darigaaz’s ruby hide and refracted in harmless beams.
Crosis and I will break away, he sent. We will linger in the clouds above the main volcano. Drive the ship there. We will stoop upon her from the skies and rip her apart.
Spreading his wings, Rhammidarigaaz hurled himself high into the sky. As black as onyx, Crosis rose beside him. Never had dragons ascended so quickly. The beginner of life and the ender of it pierced the blue. Stroke for stroke, their wing beats matched. They tore through the clouds and leveled out. The dragons nosed toward the volcano.
Crosis’s thoughts brimmed with sarcasm. These were once your comrades, your friends. You fought beside them in Serra’s Realm. Now you fight to destroy them?
Darigaaz resented the intrusion into his mind. Serra’s Realm was long ago….
The death dragon coiled through Darigaaz’s consciousness. He smelled death and followed it toward its source.
Your mother, Gherridarigaaz, died in Serra’s Realm.
Before Rhammidarigaaz could stop it, the image of her death flashed in his memory: Gherridarigaaz rose before a killing spell. She spread wide her wings. She made herself a living shield, guarding Urza Planeswalker. The spell dissolved her, melting flesh from bone.
Rhammidarigaaz shut away the sight of it. Serra’s Realm was long ago….
Crosis gloated. Do not feel ashamed. Yes, she made the wrong choice, sacrificing herself. Altruism is a mortal flaw. You are no longer mortal. Your mother chose wrongly, but she could not see all you see. She was not a god.
Through flashes of cloud, Rhammidarigaaz glimpsed the volcano’s caldera below. Enough of pointless memories. Weatherlight approaches. He tucked his wings and plunged.
Crosis followed.
Darigaaz banked into a perfect intercept course. He watched his shadow jag across the rocky slopes. Weatherlight’s shadow leaped up an adjacent hill. The dark shapes converged.
Darigaaz landed athwart Weatherlight’s forecastle. He struck the planks with a profound boom. Claws clasped metal and shrieked. Wood groaned beneath his gemstone bulk. His tail lashed down to amidships and swept the port-side gunner overboard. Clinging to Weatherlight, Darigaaz hurtled through the skies.
Crosis swept down to starboard, just missing the ship. It did not matter. Darigaaz was more than capable of doing the job himself.
In one foreclaw, he grabbed the port-side ray cannon. He ripped the machine up from its deck mountings. Metal bolts tore the living wood. Energy conduits ruptured. Green goo oozed across the deck. Hoisting the gun high, Darigaaz hurled it over the rail. The cannon tumbled, sparking and spitting as it went. It impacted the caldera and rolled into shattered wreckage.
It was a satisfying sight. Soon the whole ship would be down there.
Darigaaz turned about. There was no real reason to yank out more guns. The cannons were worthless against the Primevals. Instead, Darigaaz clawed to the amidships deck. Ahead lay the hatch. It led to the engine core. It would be a quick thing, an easy thing, to smash it to pieces.
* * *
—
Grizzlegom’s army was not as it had been. A thousand minotaurs and twenty thousand Metathran had begun the war against the undead. Afterward, only six hundred minotaurs and twelve thousand Metathran remained—just over two legions. They were purified, leaner and more ferocious, but the question remained: Could the living warriors take the mountainside?
They faced an endless army of Phyrexians. Monsters flooded over the lip of the volcano. Il-Dal warriors, massive in red armor, il-Vec fighters fitted with gray cogs, mogg goblins, scuta, bloodstocks, troopers…The usual menagerie of monstrous horrors flooded toward them.
Grizzlegom’s axe clove through the brain of a goat-headed Phyrexian. It fell. In its place lunged a thing with the mouth of a spider. It tried to snap the minotaur’s head off. He interposed his battle axe. The blade cut through the beast’s face. Grizzlegom rammed it deeper and twisted. The Phyrexian shuddered in death spasms. Grizzlegom hauled his axe free, only just in time to lop the head from an il-Dal berserker.
On either side of Grizzlegom, the minotaurs and Metathran were equally pressed. One blue warrior seemed a figure in a fountain. Oil sprayed up all around him. Nearby, a minotaur advanced with a Phyrexian on either horn. He slew a third foe with his fists. These victories were surrounded by defeats. A bull-man roared his fury as he died beneath a scuta. A Metathran clawed toward the front though his legs were gone. For every foot of ground they gained, the army of Grizzlegom lost ten warriors.
The simple math of it meant they would never reach the crest. Still, they fought. Metathran and minotaurs did not need a winning battle to fight on. They needed only a foe.
Grizzlegom gored an il-Vec monster in the gut. Its viscera cascaded from a mechanistic cavity.
Dead though it was, the beast clutched the minotaur’s throat in four sets of claws. They constricted.
Gasping, Grizzlegom whirled his axe. It took off the thing’s head. Its claws only tightened. Dizzy from lack of blood, Grizzlegom chopped loose one arm after another. Still the pincers clung to his neck. Grizzlegom holstered his axe and pried the dead claws from his flesh. He used one straight away, ramming its points into the eyes of the next Phyrexian. The minotaur commander drew his axe and finished it off.
We will never reach the top, he thought as he slew another monster.
With a sudden roar, his lines advanced. A tidal wave of warriors crashed against the Phyrexians. Gray-skinned Keldons were suddenly there in the front lines. They hewed hungrily into the monsters. Just behind them stood elf archers, who filled the air with deadly shafts. The combined forces advanced up the volcano at a run.
Grizzlegom could only stand, stunned into stillness.
A hand clapped him on the shoulder. Grizzlegom turned to see the silver-haired face of an elf warrior.”
“From your colors, I assume you command these minotaurs and Metathran?”
Grizzlegom nodded. “And from yours, I assume you command these elves and Keldons?”
The man returned the nod. “I am Eladamri of the Skyshroud elves.”
“I am Grizzlegom of the Hurloon minotaurs.”
Their hands clasped—glistening-oil sealing their unspoken alliance.
Eladamri nodded to the peak of the mountain. “Let’s gain it.”
Smiling—an uncommon expression for any minotaur—Grizzlegom said simply, “Yes.”
They had taken only a single step up the hillside when more warriors arrived.
Gigantic lizards galloped upward. Claws scrambled over pumice. Scales shimmered atop rippling muscles. In moments, the huge lizards overtook their allies. They launched themselves over the front and landed among the Phyrexians. Lizard mouths gobbled down the nearest bea
sts. Tongues lashed out to grab those farther away. Fangs punched through armor and carapace and bone. The lizards literally ate through their foes.
“What are they?” asked Grizzlegom, gaping.
“They are Kavu,” Eladamri replied in awe. “Guardians of a faraway place.” He glanced up the hillside, where magnigoth treefolk battled dragons in the skies. “A friend of mine must have brought them.”
“Whatever they are, they are allies,” Grizzlegom said. He strode eagerly toward the battle. Eladamri paced him.
Ahead, Kavu feasted. They rolled, swallowing their prey. In their ecstasy, they emitted a metallic purr and seemed almost to laugh.
With axe and sword, Grizzlegom and Eladamri joined the Kavu. They laughed as well.
* * *
—
“Hold on, everybody!” Sisay shouted into the speaking tube. She kept her voice admirably even, given that she was staring a red dragon in the face. “I’m going to shake this snake.”
Weatherlight suddenly nose-dived. The horizon line swept from the bow to the tops. The world stood on end. Rhammidarigaaz’s legs pulled away from the planks where he clung.
“Full power, Karn!” Sisay ordered.
The engines blazed. They drove Weatherlight downward, as though to spike her through the peak of the volcano. Momentum pulled the dragon farther from the deck. Below his dangling talons, a hillside of basalt and obsidian swarmed up.
“Here we go!” Shoving the helm forward, Sisay inverted Weatherlight.
Sky replaced ground and ground replaced sky. Upside down, the ship leveled out of her plunge. Her deck thundered above ridges of stone.
Rhammidarigaaz was levered up to dangle beneath the overturned ship. One more yank, and he’d be thrown free.
Sisay gave that yank. She pushed the helm hard forward. The Gaea figurehead climbed skyward. Inverted, Weatherlight rocketed after her. Dominaria shrank vertiginously away.
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