The shriek of the stooping falcon engine sliced through smoke and fire and oil. Urza raised his gaze just in time to see the creature’s fierce eyes glinting above its knife-edged beak.
Impact.
Urza fell, struck from the sky like a sparrow. He crashed among oil-dripping glass shards. They were the least of his worries. His belly was filled with a mass of rending steel, macerated liver, and bone chips. The cometary creature had sliced into him and flung itself open. The whining whir of its shredding mechanism was unmistakable. The thing tore through muscle and viscera. It snapped ribs and rattled against backbone.
With a supreme effort of will, Urza stanched the flow of blood, reassembled tissues and organs, reconstructed himself out of the remembrance of being whole, but the machine was too quick. It destroyed any tissues that reformed.
Urza was being slain by his own invention, reprogrammed no longer to seek glistening oil but the smell of Urza’s own blood.
It was his turn to writhe. He jittered across the shards of glass. Every moment, his mind threatened to blank out. There was not enough left of his physical form to sustain belief, to power the thought that would allow him to planeswalk and escape this horror. Perhaps if he had not spent such power on destroying the Phyrexian army, he could have mustered the strength. Now, though, he was pinned like a fly to a card. His gemstone eyes speckled with his own tossed blood. He struggled to reassemble himself, to draw each of those spots of blood back into the streams and vessels whence they came. The task was nearly impossible. He could not escape the machine, nor could he let himself merely die. He could only feel forever the ravening teeth of the device.
At least he had destroyed the army, if he hadn’t destroyed K’rrik.
As though summoned by the thought, the man appeared. The term man could little apply to him now, though. K’rrik was little more than an animate skeleton. His time-vulnerable flesh had been mortified from his body over the centuries of his imprisonment. It had been replaced in patient succession by grafts of flesh from each new generation of negators. He had been slowly rebuilding himself, hoping some day to escape the gorge where he was imprisoned. His body now had a sinewy look to it, as though he were not a single man but a series of eels sewn together in the shape of a man. At the extremities of his figure—fingers, toes, knees, elbows, and brow—spikes had sprouted, most of them hollow-tipped and venom-dripping. Only the man’s face remained roughly human in shape, and his eyes…they were bright and blue and human.
“After your last visit, Urza, I knew your weakness. Keep you near to death, and you cannot escape. Ballistae bolts and sword strokes are too clumsy, though. They leave moments of lucidity, and one moment is all it takes,” K’rrik purred as he approached. His clawed and iron-heeled tread cracked chunks of glass as he walked. “This solution is much safer—and a nice piece of poetry. Thank you for the falcon engines. I have forty more, stationed around the gorge, should you succeed in planeswalking.”
Urza, unable even to draw breath to respond, could only stare in stunned agony at his nemesis. As he focused his thoughts inward, on perpetual healing, one curl of his mind marveled that this monster spoke so well the tongues of men.
“That was your great mistake, Urza, coming here the first time. It taught us everything we needed to know. That has always been your great mistake, Urza, stumbling into our realm, letting us look you over, and then retreating while we prepared what we needed to kill you. You did it first in Koilos, and we followed you out. You did it again in Phyrexia, and we followed you out. You led us to Serra’s Realm, you know. We attacked and invaded. They think they eventually defeated us, but we’re still there. We’ve never left. We never leave a place, once you lead us to it. We’ve been engineering the transformation of Serra’s Realm. The angels think they rule it still, but it is ours. It is one of our staging grounds for the full-scale invasion of your world.
“We’ve never left this place, either, and now, today, we have taken this island from you.”
Urza wished his could spit his defiance. He wished he could remind K’rrik that his mutant army was dead, both inside the gorge and outside. He was left with only a handful of guards, and no matter how many modifications he underwent, K’rrik would never be able to squeeze his brain out of the time-cage where he was trapped. Urza wanted to say all this, but he could do nothing more than hold onto consciousness as he shivered across the rubble-strewn floor.
He didn’t need to say any of it. K’rrik seemed to know. “By the way, you haven’t destroyed all the vats. This is only the smallest chamber. I have three others. I have eight thousand warriors there. I have two thousand that are ready to emerge.”
That was it then. K’rrik would taunt Urza awhile more, then draw his sword and lop off his head. Even if Urza could somehow muster the strength to planeswalk—which as that moment, he could not—he could not escape the time pit, could not even step beyond this death chamber. Three other falcons circled within the rolling black smoke overhead. That was it. Urza would die; K’rrik would live. Two thousand more Phyrexians would emerge to sweep away the final resistance. Six thousand more would emerge to make Tolaria a Phyrexian stronghold on Dominaria. The invasion Urza was only beginning to prepare for would be fully under way. That was it. All was lost.
“I see by the look in your…remarkable eyes that you have at last grasped your defeat, Urza Planeswalker. The seed of it was contained in those first moments at Koilos. From the beginning, you had lost everything.” K’rrik advanced, drawing a scimitar with slow relish. “I had been hoping to watch your torment a bit longer, but it was only fun before you broke.”
Urza shuddered with the unholy motion of the thing shredding his innards. He almost let go in that moment, if only to steal K’rrik’s final victory, but an impulse arose in him to remain a moment more.
K’rrik towered over him now and lifted his scimitar high. “Good night, Planeswalker.” The blade descended.
In the moment before it struck, a sudden surge of power filled Urza—strength from within him, but strength that was not his. Multani. It was strength enough for a single planeswalk. With the power came a whispered word, the one place to which Urza could planeswalk that would mask him from the falcons and give him the final victory.
K’rrik.
With a thought, Urza stepped out of space. He disappeared from the floor and the rattling creature. For a breath, he was in a nowhere place, but he did not linger there, lest the Phyrexian would understand. With a second thought, Urza stepped back into reality. He emerged at the exact core of K’rrik’s body. Urza’s form of scintillating energy swelled into being from the spot, bursting the Phyrexian’s flesh in a rain of meat and glistening oil. K’rrik exploded, and in his place stood an oil-drenched planeswalker. Bits of eel-skin spattered out across the ruined vats.
Urza held still, not daring to blink or breathe.
The falcon that had moments before been rending him rattled to a stop on the glass-strewn floor. It withdrew its gear-work wings and shredders, folded them against its sides, and turned its head quizzically. The machine seemed to sniff the air. It trotted forward a few paces and pecked experimentally at the glass shards. Then, in a rush of metal wings, the thing leaped into the air and climbed into the smoke clouds above, to join its counterparts.
Move quietly, came the voice of Multani within Urza. We have three more chambers to cleanse.
Urza complied. He rose quietly into the air, sought out a doorway leading from the cavern, and slid through the air toward it. As he drifted smoothly along, Urza sent a thought inward, toward the forest spirit that inhabited him. Then we are allies?
Multani’s response came without pause. You have known the agony of Argoth. We have known the agony of Phyrexia. If these are the creatures you fight, we are allies.
A sigh escaped Urza. He watched nervously to see if any of the falcons would pick up the scent of his breath. When none did,
Urza sent, I am glad of it. I’ll need your strength to finish cleansing the gorge.
Multani replied, When we are out of this pit, and back into the forested isle, I can conclude this battle for you.
* * *
Jhoira had linked up with her old comrades as they purged the academy of Phyrexians. They had pursued the beasts out of every chamber and corridor in the place, at last cornering a knot of twelve monsters in the far courtyard. Here, though, the tide had turned. The defenders of Tolaria found themselves fighting for their lives.
The situation was the same elsewhere. The Phyrexians had been forced from the battlefields by the drakes, runners, scorpions, and human fighters, but once in the woods, they held their ground, destroying whatever pumas dropped from the trees onto them. They would have slain thousands of Phyrexians, but whatever hundred survived would only return to the fast-time rent to rise again.
The defenders despaired.
The forests themselves rose. Tree branches swiped down to lash Phyrexian faces and tangle them in boughs and strangle them. Vines fastened around limbs and ripped them from their sockets. Mosquitoes and gnats and flies swarmed the monsters and flayed they alive. Leaves, hardened by some strange will, cut like daggers across fleeing legs.
Within the courtyard, the very grass beneath the feet of the twelve Phyrexians shot up in sudden life, piercing feet and slicing through legs and dragging the monsters down to their graves.
The shout that went up in that moment was weary and scattered, but it was the shout of victory.
Monologue
It is finished. The invasion of Tolaria is finished. I have never in my life felt so weary, incapable of even the simplest spell, incapable of even releasing this dagger I clutch so tightly.
But I did not save the island. Urza and his six-part alliance saved it, and if he can rally the folk of Dominaria like this, perhaps he can save the world after all.
—Barrin, Mage Master of Tolaria
“They are in Serra’s Realm, Barrin,” Urza said nervously. Barrin was straightening the master’s white and gold ceremonial robes, and all the fidgeting attention nettled Urza. “They’ve been engineering the whole decline of the plane, preparing it as a beachhead for their invasion of Dominaria. You aren’t even listening.”
Barrin released a long hot breath that only seemed to make the small pavilion tent more uncomfortable. “There will be time for war counsels later. Today is a day of alliances.” He punctuated this speech with a snap of Urza’s stole.
The master let out his own snort. Sweat seeped at his temples in the warm tent. He was so distracted with thoughts of devils among the Serra angels that he did not think to adjust his personal core temperature to be comfortable.
“They’ve followed me wherever I have gone. When Xantcha and I traveled the planes, wiping out Phyrexians, we were sowing them like seeds through the worlds. I tell you, the battle we have just fought is only the mildest prelude of the war to come.”
“Yes,” Barrin agreed placidly, dragging an errant strand of the man’s hair back from his burnished brow, “and we just won the prelude. It is time to celebrate our victory with our allies.” He backed up, looked the man over from head to foot, and nodded. “You look every inch the conquering hero.”
“I feel defeated. There is no time to waste on ceremonies—”
Barrin grew suddenly stern. “To win the Battle of Tolaria, you had to enlist the aid of students and scholars, Viashino, goblins, fire drakes, and even the spirit of an ancient and distant forest. To win the Dominarian War, you’ll have to enlist the aid of the whole world. The speech you give in the next few moments will cement the current alliance and lay the foundation stone for your planetary defenses. For once, Urza, don’t run off to your clockwork contraptions. For once, Urza, be the statesman, speak to these delegates you have gathered. Reward them for the battle won and prepare them for the war ahead. Afterward, we can go sort things out in Serra’s Realm.”
The planeswalker’s eyes flashed with something halfway between resentment and hurt. In that moment, Barrin remembered why it was that this great man, this near-god, so routinely retreated to his machines: among other humans, he was in fact a shy and fragile man.
“How do I look, Barrin?” Urza asked.
Barrin hitched his head. “You look ready.”
Taking a deep and conscious breath, Urza clenched fists within his robe sleeves and strode toward the narrow, bright flap at the front of the pavilion tent. He emerged from the dark, stuffy enclosure onto a field awash in light and air.
The gathered delegates cheered.
Urza smiled. He could not help himself. There, arrayed before him in the bright glade, were the select representatives of his alliance: Jhoira, Teferi, and a contingent of Shivan students; Karn, Bey Fire Eye, Diago Deerv, and the bey’s personal bodyguard; Glosstongue Crackcrest, Machinist Terd, and the Destrou chieftain; Gherridarigaaz and Rhammidarigaaz; Multani and a contingent of Tolarian wood faeries; and of course Barrin with two other Tolarian scholars and a group of elite students. Sworn to secrecy about the location of this glade and what they would see here, the assemblage were nonetheless brought to witness for all their people the salvation Urza initiated for Dominaria. They represented the army of survivors. But they were more than survivors, they were victors.
Only a week ago, fires and Phyrexians, the dying and dead had filled the island. Tolaria’s defenders had won the battle. They then had turned with equal vigor to scouring stones and rebuilding walls. The honored fallen of Tolaria now lay in decorous shrines about the old Teferi monument. The dead of Phyrexia had made a pyre that burned for three days, high and blue, beside the gorge whence they had come. Not even bones or carapace had survived that oil-fed flame. Thousands of spider artifacts, created by Urza and his associates in fast-time plateaus throughout the island, had been deployed to ensure that Phyrexians would never again plague the island, never again survive the rising of the Glimmer Moon. All that had remained of K’rrik and his negators was the vacant gorge and a reek that cleared away once the last ember of the funeral pyre was out.
There was no scent of death in this glade. Morning air shifted brightly. The forest was verdant, untouched by battle. Centennial trees hung green banners of leaf over the quiet space. Nature wore its finery.
The people did, too. Clothes of labor and mourning were gone, replaced by resplendent finery. The students’ and scholars’ robes of silk and linen shone in a panoply of ranks and colors. As they cheered, the fabrics flapped like flags in salute. The corps of Shivan humans were garbed in clean jumpsuits of red and wore expressions that were both grave and joyous. Bey Fire Eye’s lizard warriors were clad in brightly dyed skins and carried the totems of their houses. Even Terd had submitted to a bath and a session with Tolarian tailors. At the back of the company, the fire drakes wore ornate red barding, surreal against the green jungle. Smoke drifted like dolorous incense up from their muzzles.
As the cheering died away, Urza found himself smiling again. He noticed the sweat was gone from his temples, and he took a deep breath.
“Children of Dominaria, welcome to this new dawn. We dwelt for a time in deep darkness, but now we have light; and I am thankful for the darkness if only in that it made us allies.
“I have hidden this island of mine from the world. I hide it still, that the forces of evil we have battled not find it again. But to you, my friends, it is open. The learning of this land—the clockwork and spell work—is open to you now, open to Viashino and Ghitu, to Grabbit and Destrou and Tristou and to you, Gherridarigaaz and Rhammidarigaaz. The machines we have built will defend you as well as us. The knowledge we have gained will be shared among us all.”
Applause answered this pronouncement, accompanied by eager hoots from Terd.
“By coming together—by ceasing our wars and burying our pasts—we arm ourselves for the future. Gherridarigaaz has regained
her son not by slaying Viashino but by allying with them.”
The ancient fire drake bowed her head in acknowledgment, and something akin to a grin spread across her toothy and fearsome face.
“The silver golem Karn—once owned by me and then by the lizard men—has won his freedom, proving himself in battle and service to us all.”
Karn nodded his thanks to the Viashino bey stationed nearby.
Urza flung wide his hands in a grand gesture. “The Viashino, through our decade of alliance and with the guidance of Jhoira and Teferi, have produced this magnificent gift for the defense of our world.”
He winked from existence for a moment. A murmur of uncertainty moved among the Viashino and goblins, but Teferi and Jhoira wore knowing smiles.
In the space of a long breath, Urza reappeared, hands still upraised. Before him, hanging in midair, was an ethereal ship. Glowing motes of blue magic outlined its long, sleek gunwales, its deep keel, its sideway-jutting masts and winglike spars and twining lines. Here and there, though, the ship was solid—metal pieces that gleamed like graphite but looked harder than steel. A sleek ram fronted the forecastle, trailing in its wake a series of floating portholes, joist plates, mast mountings, spar collars, cowlings, hinges, strike plates, doorknobs, and rivets. A large anchor and chain rested in the fore, just behind the ram. A pair of lateral sail mounts extended from the starboard and pen walls. At the heart of the ship hovered a massive metal core that could only have been an engine.
There was no applause now, only sighs of wonder and open-mouthed stares.
“The workmanship of these fittings is superb. They will last an eternity. They will forever grow, drawn on by final causes from these fine beginnings into perfection. They will reshape themselves and become what is needed to save us all, to save our world.
“But this great ship, of course, is incomplete. It is not by artifice alone that, our world will be saved. It is by life, too, by green mana. Our newest ally, Multani, spirit of the great and distant forest of Yavimaya, has brought with him a gift for Dominaria.” Urza lifted a piece of wood, a large seed. “This is the Weatherseed, from the heart of the oldest magnigoth tree in Yavimaya, a tree that remembers the world before the Brothers’ War, before the Phyrexians. It bears in it the essence of the ancient forest. It is the forest’s heart.”
Time Streams Page 27
