by Jeff Grubb
“No,” he repeated. “It ends here, for me and for him.” For a moment, his eyes focused on Tawnos, and Urza said, “You must go and find a safe refuge. Find some place to take cover.”
“Urza, I’m not…”
“Do Not Argue!” thundered Urza, and his eyes flashed with rage. “Find the deepest cave, the farthest tree, the strongest fortification. Find anything to protect yourself and Do It Now!”
Tawnos was gone, and Urza was alone on the hillside. Only for a moment, for there was a clanking and clattering to his right, down toward the valley. The noise grew louder by the moment.
Mishra was returning, and he had brought a dragon engine with him.
The mists parted as the great machine rumbled up the hill toward the wounded scholar, and Urza mentally corrected himself. Mishra had brought the dragon engine as a part of himself..
Most of the flesh had burned away from his brother’s form, leaving only a maze of coiled wire and black cables beneath, oozing fluid. The cables had reached out from within his body and merged with those of the dragon engine. This one had been the one at Korlinda, and similar cables had extruded from it to join with Mishra. Machine and man had become one entity.
Mishra’s face was largely intact, save for a long, burned scar along one side. The tatters of flesh flapped against the metal beneath as his mechanical jaw opened and closed, bellowing threats. There was a dripping redness along that side that might have been blood.
Urza saw the abomination that was his brother and knew what must be done. He spoke a word and pulled the energies of the land to him.
In an instant, the hillside at his feet slid away, crashing toward the Mishra engine. The man machine was caught by the cascading earth and dragged backward, down toward the valley floor.
It would not stop his hate-filled brother, Urza realized, but it would slow him down. And that was enough.
Urza sat cross-legged with the bowl in his lap. The runes within the bowl spiraled toward the center, but he did not need to read them. Whatever force now coursed through his veins allowed him comprehension, allowed him to commune with the artifact as he now heard the cries of the land. Blood from the gushing wound on his forehead dribbled into the bowl and filled the carved runes with crimson.
Urza summoned his memories, the memories of his life and his studies, and willed them into the bowl. He thought of Argive and of Korlis. He thought of his towers and workshops and of the orniary in Kroog. He thought of lands he had flown over and fought over. He thought of the Kher Ridges and the Caverns of Koilos.
And he thought of a small encampment, now forgotten by most living men and buried by sand, where students of an old woman dug for artifacts of an ancient and forgotten people. Where two brothers learned about the Thran.
The Mishra machine had recovered from the avalanche and was now charging up the hill, its dragon head screaming. Urza looked up and saw his brother’s face, half-torn from the metallic skull beneath, and wept for him. The artificer’s tears joined the blood and memories in the bowl, and he felt the power well up around him.
The power filled him now, flowing to him from all the lands and all the memories of the things that he had done. His regrets and pride and anger and solitude all poured into the bowl, filling it to the brim, filling it to the bursting point. And beyond.
The Mishra machine had attained the hilltop now, and its serpent head loomed high above him. Mishra was grinning, the smile half-flesh and half-steel. It was the grin of a man triumphant.
Mishra was screaming something, but Urza no longer heard his voice. All he heard was the land, crying for release.
And Urza released the power.
A flash at the base of the bowl spread outward and upward, a new sun brought to the earth and igniting everything it touched. Urza felt the flash for a moment and smiled as it washed over him. His last sight was of his brother, melded to the machine, as both were caught in the blast. The smile on his brother’s face turned into a twisted parody as the systems of his body failed. Then the Mishra dragon reduced to its smallest particles, and those particles were caught by the force of the explosion Urza had called into being. They were blown far, far away.
And Urza was gone as well.
* * *
—
Argoth died at last. Those survivors in the land only had a moment to react to the great flash of light on the horizon, when suddenly it was on top of them.
The surviving trees ignited where they stood, blown down by the wind, their stumps uprooted by the undulating earth as ground slid beneath the sea, and new earth shot up from the force of the explosion.
Gaea screamed as the circle of destruction widened.
* * *
—
The men on Harbin’s ship who had been looking south were blinded by the light, their eyes reduced to pools of blood from the intensity. The masts and sails of the ship were set afire by the heat.
The ship was suddenly rising, as the sea itself became a mountain and carried the boat with it. The ship rose upward, and Harbin clung to the tattered remains of the rigging, screaming his father’s name.
All at once the boat and the man were atop the great swell of the ocean, and Harbin could see, far to the south, the reddish glow of the sky as Argoth burned. He could see other swells, each larger than the one that had just overtaken them, advancing like relentless armies.
His ship was cast down again into the ocean.
* * *
—
Gwenna felt the ground tremble beneath her and heard the cry of Gaea as her land died. They were fighting Korlisians along the coast, and many of the warriors on both sides now cast down their weapons and began to weep. The war was over, and there were to be no victors.
Gwenna noticed the sea was gone, leaving only broad patches of mud and rock. She realized what that meant. She shouted for her warriors to flee to the hills inland and broke into a loping run; she did not see which ones obeyed her.
She was halfway up the nearest hill when the first great waves, each the size of a small mountain, broke against the coastline, smashing everything in their path.
* * *
—
In Penregon, Kayla set down her pen at the sound of distant thunder. But the thunder did not diminish but instead became louder and was soon accompanied by the rushing of winds. The ground shook beneath her, and in another room there was the sound of dishes clattering to the floor.
The room was rocked, and the furniture slid against the far wall and was smashed. To the south there was a great reddish glow, as if all of southern Argive had caught fire.
The door flew open, and Jarsyl, Harbin’s eldest, came in, crying and clutching one of his father’s old toys, a mechanical bird that Tawnos had made for him. Kayla hugged the child and whispered soft words to him, as outside the house men screamed and buildings toppled.
And a single tear ran down the side of her face as she comforted her grandchild.
* * *
—
In the caverns of Koilos the air wrinkled and pursed, and there was the smell of burning oil as Gix returned to his lair.
He had been damaged, and his movements left greasy footprints and spatters of oil. There was human blood on him as well, on his chest, his talons, and his face, but he had no time to consider his appearance.
He worked quickly, one part of his mind calculating how long it would take for the blast wave to reach him, another wondering if the mountain itself would be sufficient protection, while a third part readied the Thran machine. A loose pile of power crystals was placed on the holder that he had hoped would once again carry the united Weakstone and Mightstone, and his bloodstained hands moved over the glyphs with hurried grace.
The air began to swirl and form its gateway, but it was not yet fully formed when the earth shook beneath his feet. The front of the blast wave was surging up the canyon outside. Gix leapt up the steps to the dais, and looked around. Already parts of the ceiling were beginning to cave in, and the machines were s
parking and going dead.
Gix cursed and dived through the small portal, feetfirst. And as he dived, the portal winked shut around him.
There was a scream within the vaults, and then nothing, save for a demon’s arm, severed at the elbow, clenching and unclenching at something it could not attain, lying on the floor of the shattered room.
* * *
—
Near the foot of the Ronom Glacier, Feldon and Loran watched as a great dust storm swallowed the foothills far below them. The sand had been drawn from the desert hundreds of miles away and now flayed everything in the lowlands. Even at their height, a hot, dust-ladened wind swept over them, and Loran pulled her cloak tight with her left arm. Beneath the cloak, her right arm was a twisted and mangled remnant.
Feldon surveyed the terrain below them as one valley after another disappeared beneath the blast, leaving only a churned fog of dust and despair that was already trying to climb their mountain. The lower peaks were already vanishing beneath the assault.
“Well,” he said at last, “it’s over.”
Loran said said, “Good.”
* * *
—
And there was silence in Terisiare.
The dreams had called them. From the now-ruined monastery and from the glass-paved lands of Yotia. From the abandoned wreckage of Tomakul and from hidden places within the old coastal kingdoms. They brought with them their inventions, their devices, and their notes on the nature of magic. The dreams beckoned them to the Secret Heart of the Thran, to the caverns of Koilos, and they obeyed.
They dug out the passage where it had caved in. They buried the bodies they found there and made a reliquary for the great demon’s arm they found, eternally twitching, at the foot of the dais. They repaired the machines as best as they were able, guided by the old knowledge and by their dreams.
At last they were finished, and they placed the broken and fading power crystals in their holders, touching the glyphs as they had been instructed. The machines hummed and sputtered and came to a slow, flickering life.
Slowly the air pursed and a swirling pool appeared, a gateway into the promised lands beyond. Through that gate came a long mechanical arm, tipped with talons, mate to the one that they had venerated as the arm of Gix.
The arm beckoned to them and withdrew back into its own lands, and a voice rang out from the gate. “Enter, my children,” it said, “enter and taste paradise.”
Smiling, the priests of the Brotherhood of Gix stepped up to the gateway and entered Phyrexia.
* * *
—
What had once been a verdant coastline was now awash with debris. The flotsam of great trees and the jetsam of huge boulders had been driven miles into shore, creating a blasted region along the shore, devoid of life.
Among the wreckage was a large metal box, seven feet in length, three feet in width and height. It had weathered the destruction and came to rest among the other far-flung remains of what had been Argoth.
Urza stood alongside the box and pressed his hand against the lid.
The box’s top slid along its casters, revealing the slumbering form of his former apprentice. Tawnos took a breath, then sat bolt-upright, gasping for air. His face was pale, and he was covered with dead skin that had flaked off but had nowhere to go within his confinement.
Urza waited for Tawnos to regain his composure, standing as patient as a statue. Tawnos took a deep breath, held it, then took a second one. Then he looked around at the devastation that surrounded them.
“It is over,” said Urza, sitting on the edge of the box.
Tawnos gulped and looked around. “This was the safest hiding place I could think of,” he said. Urza did not reply. Tawnos said, “Your brother?”
“Dead,” said Urza. “I…” He shook his head. “The demon, the Phyrexian, killed my brother long ago. I never realized it.”
“Where are we?” asked Tawnos.
Urza looked around and sighed, deeply. “The southern coast of Yotia.”
Tawnos blinked. “It has changed.”
“The world has changed,” said Urza, “because of what we did. Because of what I did.”
Tawnos climbed out of the box, and Urza helped him. Tawnos felt weak from his incarceration and rubbed his arms and legs, both to shake off the dead skin and to restore circulation. It was cold on this shore, colder than Tawnos remembered it as a youth.
“I need one last task from you, my former student,” said Urza.
“Name it,” said Tawnos.
“I want you to go west. Find the remains of the Union, the scholars of the ivory towers. Tell them what happened here. Tell them what we did, and what we failed to do. See to it that they do not do the same. I trust you to do this.”
Tawnos looked at the older man, but it seemed to him that Urza was no longer old. His hair was blond again and his shoulders straight. But his eyes were old beyond years and pained beyond mortal hurt.
“You can always trust me,” said Tawnos. “Where are you going?”
Urza turned from his former pupil. “Away,” he said after a short while. “I am going…away.”
“It looks as if we could use your help here,” said Tawnos.
Urza made a noise that Tawnos thought was a nervous laugh. “I don’t think the land could survive any more of my help. I need to…I need to go away. And think by myself. Where I will not harm others.”
Tawnos nodded, and said, “I don’t know if there is any place that far away.”
Urza shook his head and said, “There are places far beyond the land of Terisiare, far beyond world of Dominaria. When I poured my memories into the sylex, I saw them. I see many things that I had never seen before.”
He turned back to Tawnos, and the Master Scholar saw Urza’s eyes. They were no longer human eyes, but rather two gemstones, radiating with a cascade of multicolored hues: green, white, red, black, and blue.
Mightstone and Weakstone, reunited at last, within the surviving brother.
The image was only for an instant; then Urza’s eyes were normal again. Urza smiled. “I must go away,” he repeated.
Tawnos nodded slowly, and the man with human crystalline eyes stood. “You have long been a student,” said Urza. “Now go be a teacher.”
As he spoke, Urza began to fade from view. Slowly the color drained from him, leaving only outlines; then they too faded. “Teach them of our triumphs and our mistakes,” said a distant voice. “And tell Kayla to remember me not…”
“…As you were, but as you tried to be,” finished Tawnos, but he was speaking to empty space. Urza had passed from the world into greater worlds that only his crystalline eyes could see.
Tawnos looked around, but there was no sign of life. He struck inland, hoping to get past the worst of the devastation before he had to travel west. He recognized no familiar landmarks, and he had the feeling that he would not for a long time. Tawnos wondered how bad the devastation truly was.
And as Tawnos walked inland, he was greeted by the first flakes of snow drifting down a chill wind.
THE SAGA CONTINUES
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