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The Thran

Page 26

by J. Robert King


  Yawgmoth stared up past her. The cliff face was silhouetted black against the bright sky. Dark figures moved rapidly across it, descending.

  “Looks like all of us do.”

  The elf woman turned to look. She gasped.

  Yawgmoth grabbed her cloak and yanked hard. The silken cord sliced through. She fell. Yawgmoth managed to foul another elf with the cloak. Both were dragged away.

  Three more elves grabbed at Yawgmoth’s burnoose. He flung it off, revealing his powerstone armor.

  The Phyrexian steeplejacks arrived.

  They bounded down the cliff face as though they were running on level stone. Headfirst, they came. Their shoulders worked furiously beneath black mail. Their crescent claws caught easily in any crevice that presented itself. From the nose upward, their faces were still vaguely human, though broad and grotesque grins filled the lower halves of their heads.

  One steeplejack opened its mouth. Filed teeth spread in a round bite, and a double-jointed jaw ratcheted wide. It seemed a living bear trap grafted into a human head. Within that enormous mouth, the creature’s vestigial human tongue lay slack and puny, a mere flap of skin.

  The steeplejack’s first victim gazed dumbfounded at that limp muscle even as it slapped his cheek. The jaws snapped shut around his throat. Then all went black.

  Black for one elf and red for all the others. Even in a slim elf body, there are gallons of blood. The steeplejack reveled in the crimson spray. Gore hissed out between the thing’s teeth and blanketed the other elves. They shied back, one falling even before the headless corpse tugged free of its severed sinews and tumbled downward. They fell side by side, the body trailing a red spiral in the air.

  Yawgmoth gazed happily at the steeplejack. The thing opened its mouth again, letting the skull fall between its teeth. The steel-trap jaws clamped again, crunching through cheekbone and auditory canal and into the brain case. It seemed only a gray pudding between those teeth.

  Three more steeplejacks were even then eating their way through the other elves. Lower down, invaders dropped off the wall, limp with terror. A few flung themselves away, choosing a better death. Some even mustered a line of poetry as they did.

  It was lost on Yawgmoth. He heard only the contented work of the steeplejack’s jaws, saw only the mottled ball of meat and bone that had once been an elf’s head.

  “You are one of Gix’s boys, aren’t you?”

  Recognition dawned in the creature’s eyes, and it nodded.

  “Good, you understand,” Yawgmoth said. “I figured you must be intelligent, or you would have bit my head off too. But how smart are you? Do you know who I am?”

  The look in the steeplejack’s eyes deepened to fear and reverence. It opened its dripping gob, and out tumbled the masticated head.

  “Lord Yawgmoth!” It bowed its own head, pressing one wet cheek to the stone.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Do you think you could carry me to the city?”

  The creature nodded avidly, leapt forward, swung an arm around him, and began a lurching ascent.

  As they went, Yawgmoth contented himself watching the bodies rain down from the sides of the cliff. In time, his attention returned to the laboring figure that carried him. A slow smile spread across his face.

  “I know you. You were one of the first health corps workers. Xod. Yes, your name was Xod.”

  A look of pride shown in the steeplejack’s eyes. “Yes, Lord Yawgmoth. Yes.”

  “You look different,” Yawgmoth said in unabashed amazement. “You look…beautiful.”

  “Yes, Lord Yawgmoth.”

  * * *

  —

  “What is that? What is that?” hissed one of Rebbec’s goblins.

  The creature was supposed to be helping to install the temple’s control stone. Instead, he stood at the western edge of the temple and stared down at the battle below.

  “What is that?” Every repetition of that question drew more goblins away from Rebbec and the weighty icosahedron. “What is that?”

  “Get back over here,” growled Rebbec as she hauled futilely at the pallet that held the stone. The icosahedron they finally had found was huge, the size of a man and four times the weight.

  “What is that?”

  “What is what?” she yelled.

  “Mistress Rebbec,” said one of the older goblins. “I think you oughta come see this.”

  With a final groan of aggravation, she released the pallet. She brushed off her hands and stood.

  “I know it’s hard to concentrate with battles below, but the whole reason we’re trying to get this stone into place is to save us all from the battle. And unless I have some help from you—”

  Her admonition broke off midsentence as she stared down past scabby heads, past the gleaming edge of the temple, past even the western wall of the city, to the cliff face.

  There, dark figures bounded, attacking the Thran soldiers who climbed. They seemed black fleas and white lice. The black fleas were incredibly nimble. They swarmed in, and wherever they went, Thran fell to their deaths.

  “More artifact creatures? More machines?” Rebbec mused. Surely not. All of Halcyon’s mechanical defenders, aside from the sand-crabs, were Glacian’s designs. Rebbec knew all of her husband’s work. Nothing like this had ever appeared. Still, what else could it be? “They must be machines.”

  “Naw. Them’s people,” the old goblin said.

  “People?” Rebbec asked.

  “Yep. People. That’s what Yawgmoth does to ’em. Changes ’em. Makes ’em into Phyrexians.”

  “Phyrexians—” Rebbec echoed. She had seen minor mutation—hypertrophy, giantism—but nothing like this. Tens of thousands of Halcytes had thronged to Phyrexia, and this is what Yawgmoth was doing with them?

  Rebbec wandered away from the spot, shock making her arms and legs numb. “I knew he was…improving them, but…this?”

  There were no sounds of battle here in the temple, but all that went on in the city was shown in prismatic sections through the structure. Rebbec saw more moving forms. Loping, scuttling, capering, vaulting—inhuman figures making their way down the streets.

  Her feet felt as if they belonged to someone else as she plodded to the eastern overlook. There, troops marched down Council Boulevard. One side of the street was filled with Halcyte guards, and the other with Phyrexian guards. As severe and frightening as the Halcyte guards were in their silver armor, the Phyrexian troops were not even recognizably human. Fangs, claws, antennae, stingers, hackles, manes…it was a surreal procession. At the head of the two columns were their commanders.

  “This is what he is doing to them,” Rebbec said, disbelieving.

  The columns halted on the steps of the Council Hall. Commander Gix and the Halcyte guard commander strode up to the first landing. One of Gix’s Phyrexians came with them. It was a hulking figure, two heads taller than the commanders. Its head was a huge ball of muscle. Dagger-sized teeth resided behind a grotesquely swollen jaw. Its arms hung to its knees, and it hunched up stairs too small for its clawed feet.

  Gix was addressing the troops. Rebbec could hear nothing. His speech was angry, his gestures clipped. In the end, he gestured the Halcyte guard commander to his knees. The man reluctantly dropped. The Phyrexian beast loomed forward.

  Rebbec cringed away. She closed her eyes and hid them in her hands. That man’s death, that man’s blood, would gleam in a million facets all around her.

  A voice broke the silence—the voice of the old goblin. “Mistress Rebbec…come see. One of them ape peoples’s got Lord Yawgmoth. It’s carrying him on up to the city. Lord Yawgmoth’s alive!”

  Climbing to her feet, Rebbec lifted her eyes toward the bright heavens so she would see none of the atrocities taking place below. She staggered toward the control stone. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and through a tight throa
t she shouted.

  “Get over here, all of you. Get over here. We’ve got to get this stone in place!”

  “Off with you then, Xod,” said Yawgmoth. He made a shooing gesture with his hands, as though he were sending a dog out to play. “Eat some more heads. Thanks for the ride.”

  The steeplejack sketched a very solemn bow. His simian frame bent low. “Yes, Lord Yawgmoth.” The creature leapt easily over the ring wall. He plunged down the side of the extrusion. With casual ease, Xod reached out an arm and snagged a claw-hold. He caught a second and third and was bounding happily and easily down the rock face. In moments, he had reached another climber. He feasted again. The headless corpse spun away in its own free fall.

  Yawgmoth smiled. The defenders of Halcyon had acquitted themselves well. In a week’s time, the arsenal of stone-chargers would be complete. A day later, the Thran Alliance would be scrubbed from the face of Dominaria.

  “Speaking of scrubbing faces…”

  Yawgmoth’s attention turned toward the third ray cannon on the western wall. Its gunner sat strapped into the firing seat, blasting away. She needed her eyes adjusted. Yawgmoth set out along the top of the wall.

  Halcyte guards were thick on the ramparts. They clustered about red-hot ray cannons or poured bins of stone into bombards or fired ballista bombs. They worked with grim enthusiasm and gleamed in pristine armor.

  Among them, Yawgmoth was a dusty wreck. The insignias of his rank had been ripped away in the initial fall. Gauntlets and helmet were missing entirely. Even so, the wind in his ragged hair, the glint in his brutal eyes, the set of his scarred jaw—all of it told that this was Lord Yawgmoth, and he was furious.

  Heavy-booted, Yawgmoth reached the gun mount. It was a massive bulwark of stone, made to support the weight and recoil of the ferocious weapon. Behind a metal rig that was twenty times her size and hot enough to melt glass, a gunner clung to the fire controls. They were powerstone activated, a box-schematic without the box. Her fingers danced deftly over the glowing stones. The massive gun ground slowly to the left and down to acquire a new target. The grating sound of the engines was joined by a low hum as the charge built within.

  “Battle report, gunner!” Yawgmoth demanded above the roar of the gun.

  The woman looked up at him, surprised. Her face, red from the heat, grew white. Fingers fumbled across the powerstone controls. The gun ground to a halt and powered down. A moment more of struggling, and the woman had loosed the straps that held her to the firing seat. She stumbled to attention.

  “Lord Yawgmoth, I am honored—”

  “You aren’t wearing your helmet, gunner.”

  “It interferes with targeting, Lord, and is hot and unnecessary behind the gun.”

  “Battle report, gunner.”

  “All goes well. This gun has scored seventeen ship kills, confirmed, and twenty-three assisted kills, unconfirmed, as well as hundreds of troop kills, also unconfirmed.”

  “How many of ours?”

  The woman blinked. Sweat from her forehead pooled like tears under her eyes. “Ours, Lord Yawgmoth?”

  “How many of our soldiers have you killed?”

  “Have I killed…”

  “Have you manned this gun since dawn?”

  “Yes, Lord—”

  “Do you remember shooting a Phyrexian war caravel? A ship named Yataghan? Or was that an unconfirmed kill?”

  She was quite white now, sweat forming red lines on her cheeks. “The name of the ship was unconfirmed, yes. It rammed the ship I was targeting and flew into the path of the ray—”

  “Did you know it had a crew complement of nearly a hundred? That would be nearly a hundred of our troops killed, confirmed, yes?”

  The gunner was silent.

  “You might have even better luck if you turned the gun around and fired on the civilians. You might wrack up thousands of kills that way. Did you know I was on that ship? Did you know that attempted regicide is a capital crime?”

  The woman fell to her knees before him. She looked up, eyes streaming more than sweat now.

  “Forgive me, Lord Yawgmoth. Please. I didn’t know. It was an accident. I couldn’t see. The Yataghan flew out of a smoke cloud—”

  “You couldn’t see—?”

  “I couldn’t see.”

  “Even without your helmet, you couldn’t see?”

  “I couldn’t see.”

  “No,” Yawgmoth said tenderly, cupping her chin in his hand and running his other hand through her hair. “Now you can’t see.”

  It was harder work than he had expected—and messier. She thrashed and screamed, which was unseemly there on the wall, with everyone looking. In the end, he had not actually torn them out, as he had promised himself he would, but really, there was nothing left to tear out except ruptured membranes. She had been so intolerant the whole while, he finally just threw her over the wall. Her screams sounded sweeter the farther away they were.

  Yawgmoth patiently wiped his hands on a rag. “Get a new gunner,” he barked at the captain, who scrambled to comply. “Preferably someone with eyes in her head.”

  As if drawn by violence, Gix arrived. The idealistic champion of the underclass had become Yawgmoth’s most trusted, ruthless, and clever officer. Commander Gix strode regally along the wall, his retinue behind him. Among the Phyrexian guard with him was a tall monster with a clenched ball of muscle for a head. Shreds of red clung raggedly to its dagger teeth. Gix went to his knees before Yawgmoth and bowed his head deeply. The monster at his side did likewise, as did the other Phyrexians.

  “Hello, Gix,” Yawgmoth said. “You brought the Phyrexian guard into the city.”

  “Yes. The Halcyte guard commander was a coward and a traitor. He presumed you dead and was considering surrender. The whole war could have been lost. The Phyrexian guard enforced his resignation.”

  Yawgmoth eyed the toothy monster behind Gix. “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have secured my rule and at the same time advanced your own position. You have saved my city and granted yourself a second army.” Yawgmoth smiled genuinely. “Well, Commander of the Guards, the siege is well in hand, as you can see. We need last only another week, and then victory will be certain. Until then, the citizens of Halcyon are in grave danger. Use your Phyrexian guard to round up any Halcytes not engaged in defense of the city, and take them to Phyrexia. Enlist them.”

  “Yes, Lord Yawgmoth. It will take months to round up all the citizens.”

  “Make months into weeks,” Yawgmoth said. “The siege will be broken in one week, and I want at least half the citizens enlisted by then.”

  “Yes, Lord Yawgmoth.”

  Yawgmoth looked out across the glimmering city. Rebbec’s temple gleamed beautifully above it all.

  “We are creating a new world, Gix, you know that. A new world and a new race. Strong, fearless, obedient, ruthless. Yes, just now they might seem monstrous, but war is monstrous business. When this is all done, Phyrexia will create not monsters but gods.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  * * *

  —

  “He will return to Phyrexia soon,” Rebbec whispered into the dark.

  She could see only the first ten or so faces huddled there in the silo. At least fifty citizens hid here. Their breath made the place hot and dank. It was the smell of terror. Still, it was better than the septic smell that clung to Rebbec and her goblins.

  “Yawgmoth will return to Phyrexia, and when he does, we can all escape. You must survive until then. Do not let the guards find you. They will take you to Phyrexia. They will make you into monsters. Stay here. Stay quiet, and don’t give any sign of your presence.”

  “What are we to eat? What are we to drink?” asked one of the refugees.

  Rebbec blinked, thinking. “Isn’t there any grain left here?”

  “It’s all rancid
. And there are rats.”

  Sighing sadly, she said, “I don’t suppose you could rig some traps?”

  “Eat rats and drink sewage?”

  “I know it is terrible. I know,” Rebbec replied. “But when it is all done, we will be safe. I will take you to a safe place, a beautiful, clean, safe, bounteous place. You will see.”

  A different voice spoke out of the darkness. “How will we know it is time?”

  “I will place a lantern at the top of the temple. Even in daylight, you will see it. When you see the lantern, head for the temple.”

  “But the guards—”

  “Use the sewers. The goblins will guide you. They know the way. They brought me here tonight. They are taking me all through the city tonight. They will guide you.”

  One of those goblins hissed from the cracked doorway. “Patrol!”

  Every voice in the silo grew silent. There was only their breathing. It echoed in the throat of the building. The tromp of booted feet and click of claws filled the street. Most of the patrols numbered only five to ten guards. This one sounded like an army. In time, the footfalls receded to silence.

  The goblin hissed, “All clear.”

  “So, eat what you can. Drink whatever clean water you can find. And wait. When Yawgmoth descends to his hell, we will ascend to our heaven.”

  * * *

  —

  He was gone. It was as simple as that. Coma. He had awakened from comas before, but not this time. Not with his skin in rags, his temples as sunken as caves, his eyes dilated and unresponsive beneath papery lids. Only the puffing machines, the scuttling goblins, the living casket kept him alive anymore. In all other ways, he was gone.

  Perhaps if she had come sooner, if she had come here first, and gone to the refugees after…perhaps she could have spoken to him one last time. That was the wrong way to think. Nothing happened by chance. It wasn’t even a draughts match anymore. One player controlled both halves of the board—Yawgmoth.

  “That’s why I didn’t make it down here in time,” Rebbec said wearily. “He didn’t want me to. You were right all along, husband. You were right about him, about everything. He deceived everyone but you. Deceived and seduced us all, except you.”

 

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