Bloodlines

by Loren L. Coleman

  * * *

  The vault sat at the heart of Urza’s labs, a domed room of titanic proportions devoted to the creation and full gestation of Metathran warriors. The grand arches that buttressed the lower walls allowed better than thirty feet of head clearance. Enchanted globes set into the walls filled the cavernous room with soft light. Conspicuously missing were the gestate cradles. Barrin had ordered Gatha and others to remove the devices before Rayne’s students were brought in to fit a new lens into one of the mechanisms. The mage doubted that such a precaution was really necessary. Most students knew the labs were already functioning to some degree, but Urza’s orders stood.

  The students worked high above the floor on scaffolding set next to one large pillar, junior students steadying the platforms or passing up tools as they were called for by their seniors. Voices and the sounds of work echoed around the vault. Rayne stood out in the open floor, her hands tucked into the opposing sleeves of her robes, supervising her students with a critical eye that missed nothing. Barrin did not approach her yet. An earlier nod and brief smile told him that she knew of his presence. Now he awaited some signal that her attention was no longer required on the work in progress. As he would with any scholar of the academy, Barrin allowed her full authority over the area in which she worked. Besides, the master mage needed a few extra minutes to muster his courage.

  Soon the students had finished their task, and they sealed the pillar where the lens had been placed. Rayne waited while the students disassembled the scaffolding and were beginning to remove tools and equipment from the vault, then turned toward Barrin and awarded him with a full, warm smile for his patience. Barrin’s legs felt weak, but they managed to carry him forward. As always, he was struck by her delicate beauty, porcelain skin and slender frame—not the usual image of an artificer.

  “Hello, my dear,” she said, reaching out with one hand to accept his embrace.

  He folded her into a quick hug, for a second oblivious to the nearby students. “Greetings,” he paused, now a touch self-conscious about the nearby onlookers.

  Rayne sensed more in the undercurrents of his voice, no matter that he had tried to hide both his distress and nervousness. She frowned lightly, curious.

  “There is news?” she asked, deliberately trailing off the question to allow him an easy time of response.

  Nodding, the mage met her searching, dark brown eyes. “Gatha completed the latest tests, and Urza is less than happy with the results.” He took a deep breath, tasting the chill air of the large chamber. “All indications point toward forty generations, he says, in order to develop the heir to the Legacy. We are unsure, so far, how many subjects we can hope to raise in fast-time environments, but the island’s shattered time streams might work for us. How Urza is calculating this is anyone’s guess.”

  Rayne gave the lightest of shrugs. “Numbers do not lie,” she said simply.

  Barrin caught the implication: Numbers do not lie, but Urza might. The master mage pushed that disturbing thought from his mind. There was a time and a place to have that discussion, but the planeswalker who founded the Tolarian Academy was not the subject Barrin had come to talk about.

  “My new quarters in the slow-time area are complete,” he said without further preamble. “Close enough to complete anyway, for me to take up residence.”

  The possibility had been considered years ago, and preparations were made in case a large facility in extreme slow time was necessary. The Legacy, especially the Bloodlines project, required an overseer other than Urza—one whose presence was considered more dependable. Drinking of the island’s slow-time waters, the proverbial fountain of youth, arrested aging, but forty generations demanded more extreme measures. The island’s temporal anomalies offered the solution. Some of the best and brightest would move into slow-time areas, those who would coordinate the various projects and keep the Legacy focused over the centuries. Barrin would be first among them. They would be in slow time for twelve hundred years relative to the rest of Dominaria but only thirty or so subjective to the person.

  “I’ve already ordered my assistants to begin moving my offices and labs,” he finished weakly.

  Rayne stepped back, arms folding protectively across her body. “So soon,” she said, hugging herself tightly. She looked up, apparently ready to say something but then shook her head. “This is goodbye then?” she asked calmly.

  “That depends on you.” It bothered him, the idea of living out such an extended and isolated life in slow time. It bothered him more when he considered that this move could take him away from Rayne forever. It was that thought, more than anything, that had driven him forward on this course. “You could come with me.”

  Was that a flash of joy in her eyes? Barrin couldn’t be sure.

  “I could?” she said, part question, part statement.

  “Yes,” he said, verbally stumbling forward. “I would like you—I am asking you to join me. I am asking you to marry me.”

  Now Barrin felt the cold sweat standing out on his forehead. Rayne stared back as if not comprehending what he had just asked of her. He felt several long heartbeats marking the seconds.

  “There is nothing else for it then,” Rayne said, smiling beautifully. “Of course I will.”

  “Yes?” Barrin asked, marveling at Rayne’s acceptance.

  He flushed suddenly warm in pleasant shock then smiled and gathered Rayne in for another hug. They embraced each other heavily, and Barrin counted himself fortunate to have found such a person to share his life. It was a good omen, perhaps—certainly good fortune—which Barrin was not about to dismiss for all his other concerns.

  He felt immortal in a way that a slow-time life could never provide.

  Croag began to awaken from a long slumber of rest and preservation, the member of Phyrexia’s Inner Circle beginning to stir within his bath of soothing, glistening oil. The insinuating fluid seeped through microscopic ducts into his semblance of skin—gray-sheened and stretched tight over ropy wire-braided muscles and a cleft skull. Small on an otherwise large frame, the skull looked out with eye sockets currently capped by protective shields. Teeth bared in frozen maniacal grin, Croag consumed more of the life-sustaining oil through gaps in his sharpened teeth. One skeletal hand of razor-sharp fingers and corded with muscles of metallic fiber rose from the glistening oil. It screeched against the bath’s metal rim and finally locked around a scarred lip. Oil ran down along the Phyrexian’s arm, dripping back into the pool from the sharp spiked point protruding from what must have been the monster’s elbow.

  In his state of semi-consciousness, Croag heard several thunderous whispers which reverberated through his skull and brought with them pleasant memories: the scents of smelted iron and fresh oil. A dark shape loomed out of his dreams, black against a night that lacked both moon and stars. The landscape was lit by sparks from the venting of countless forges, and far above, burning cinders rained down from a metallic sky. The shape grew in size, striding across the plane until all grew insignificant by comparison. The dark leviathan stopped, recognizing Croag among the infinite reaches of his mind.

  This night Yawgmoth had come to speak with him.

  It was the dark god of Phyrexia, creator of their plane and architect of their improved bodies. In all the multiverse, there was none so perfect in form as he. From his slumber over the millennia, the Ineffable spoke to the Inner Circle and made his will known. Croag easily recalled the one time the dark one actually woke, and the grand terror that physically shook the nine spheres of Phyrexia until all recognized his power and were bent to the task of remolding the Dominarian Nexus with Phyrexia at its center.

  A querulous rumble shook Croag, still locked in a dream. The council member trembled before the display of power. Urza Planeswalker lives, the dark god confirmed.

  Eyes of molten red flashed out of the darkness in anger and disapproval. Their searing heat threatened to cripple Croag’s body. Compleat though they might be, even a member of the Inner Co
uncil could not stand before their enraged god. Report, thundered the Phyrexian lord.

  Croag understood his master’s anger. Urza Planeswalker had been born in the shadow of Phyrexia, mastering the powers of a very unique powerstone left behind in the mountain portal of Koilos. He had also managed to somehow lock away the Dominarian Nexus, preventing any Phyrexian reprisal and thwarting the full inception of the Dark One’s plans for over three millennia.

  Insult to this injury came when Urza launched his own attack on Phyrexia. Many members of the Inner Circle were lost in that attack, and many more were later returned to the vats—rendered, decanted, and compleated again according to a better plan. Four Spheres Urza fought his way through, showing the Phyrexians where they were weak and nearly waking the Ineffable himself. Urza was eventually driven back and pursued by negators. They were to destroy the planeswalker and be rid of him forever.

  Somehow Urza managed to escape, time and again, always leaving behind the ruined corpses and burned out shells of the negators for the Phyrexians to reclaim and study for faults. He led the Phyrexians into Serra’s Realm, an artificial plane constructed by another planeswalker and devoted to pure white mana which threatened the existence of any Phyrexian. Distracted by so tempting a target, here the negators lost Urza’s trail. Serra’s Realm fell prey instead. Assaults against the abominable plane finally drove Serra away, and then the Phyrexians’ corrupting influence worked to turn the realm into a dark mockery of what it once had been, until Urza reappeared, challenging the corruption that had finally made the artificial plane habitable by Phyrexians sensitive to white mana.

  Not a single detail was forgotten or omitted in Croag’s report to his dark lord. Indeed, the Phyrexian was powerless to withhold anything from his master. His mind was simply drained of all information—relevant or not. When finally finished, the member of Phyrexia’s Inner Circle waited for judgment, knowing it could come either swift and terrible or prolonged and cruel—all at the whim of their god.

  The raging thunder that was the Ineffable’s ire for Urza Planeswalker spent itself inside Croag’s dreams. Tendrils of furious, molten energy slashed at his frame, and darkness squeezed upon his mind. The death scent of scorched oil permeated his body, but this was not punishment or condemnation, and Yawgmoth spared his subject his full fury. Then, under control once more, the Phyrexians’ self-made god left Croag with other images from his own mind.

  The Inner Council member was shown plans for Rath. The ceaseless spread of manufactured tan flowstone as it swept over the limitless horizon and would one day sweep over Dominaria itself. It was to be the staging ground for the coming invasion. He was told of the evincar, the one who must one day rule Rath and work the will of Phyrexia. This one would come of its own time, and until then Croag would be responsible for administrating the duties of evincar or finding someone who could.

  Lastly, the half-conscious completed Phyrexian was shown the penalty he would suffer if plans did not proceed according to schedule. Interference from Urza Planeswalker would not be tolerated. If he failed, his flesh and metal components would be disassembled by the hunched-over, skittering creatures known as birth priests. The raw material of his artificially perfected body would be stripped down and reused. Nothing would remain of Croag, his name burnt from the minds of all Phyrexians.

  Croag chattered his understanding.

  The dark god retreated from Croag’s mind. Smoke left in his wake dispersed on the hot winds of forge bellows, but the stench of burning metal never completely vanishing.

  Beneath the surface of the bath, Croag came fully awake. His eyeshields dilated open, revealing large sockets that immediately filled with oil. His vision glowed amber from the cold-burning lights above the surface of the pool. It swallowed large amounts of the fluid. Tightening his grip on the bath’s outside edge, Croag hauled himself upright, breaking through the surface and immediately calling to his servants.

  The dark god had given him a task.

  * * *

  The pain distracted Davvol. As best he could, the Coracin native compartmentalized the agony of the mechanically-taloned hand locked with vice-like strength around the back of his neck. He ignored the tremors of his own traitorous muscles, and with a focus of will, he cast his mind forward from his body. For a brief second he stood there, looking back into his own eyes—black orbs with just a touch of steel-gray in the center. He cringed away from their lack of compassion and the obvious signs of illness in his pasty, corpse-like flesh.

  The creature standing next to him, holding him in its grip, was hardly better to look at. Its body was a meld of machine and flesh, with one real arm and one of metal framework and corded muscle grafted back into place. Grillwork replaced its mouth and covered the bony ridges of what must have once been ears. Davvol extended his consciousness to touch the thoughts of the creature before him. Interspersed between the hate and contempt which ruled most of the Phyrexian’s thoughts, it only knew of its own purpose. It was a speaker, one of the few who could speak Coracin’s language.

  Free from his body’s entrapment, Davvol’s mind now drifted through the antechamber of his world’s most sacred temple. Usually lit by torch alone, it now stood illuminated by strange smokeless lights brought by the Phyrexians. The temple was an ancient ruin of rough stonework with one set of metal doors that took up the entire northern wall of the antechamber. To Davvol’s knowledge, and that was saying something, no one had been past those doors to view the Gift of the Gods in over three thousand years. Even the antechamber was forbidden to all except the most powerful of Coracin’s leaders. Twelve years as his nation’s historian had once allowed Davvol the right to visit this supposedly hallowed place. Here he had taken his mental powers to new strengths. Then his forced retirement stole that privilege from him, until today.

  Now he visited the temple again. Two score Coracin leaders were held in attendance by half as many black-armored soldiers. The speaker, the soldiers and another larger Phyrexian who appeared to be in charge stood across from the captive Coracin heads of state. This large Phyrexian was the one who could save Davvol’s life—the one who could protect him from his own diseased body. The Phyrexians traveled across worlds. They could exchange the weaker flesh for metal and machine. They would do so because they needed him, could use him elsewhere, just like they relied on him today. Among the Coracin, even those rare ones with mental abilities similar to his own, Davvol was unique. Because his body had begun failing him so early on, he had spent the entirety of his thirty-four years of mature life developing his mind until none could match his strength. His mind was all he’d ever had.

  Flares of black and red energy sparked at the edge of his consciousness. He saw the wards that guarded the doors react to his disembodied presence. His mental intrusion however was not quite enough to trip any alarms or traps. He entered another chamber, and there it was, the so-called Gift of the Gods that had sat at the heart of the temple for millennia: a machine, spiderlike in that its slab body would move forward on six articulated legs was obviously made of metal.

  It gleamed as if age could not touch it in this vault. Davvol marveled at its physical timelessness. He studied the head, thrust forward from the slab body, savage in its likeness of natural physiology. The speaker had shown him a picture of it, calling it an engine of some kind—a Thran war machine brought here long ago. Yes, that is what it was, a war machine sitting at the center of Coracin’s lip-service religion. This was what his leaders fought now to protect for themselves.

  “It’s there,” he said, returning to his body with the speed of a single thought. He winced from the painful pressure applied by the speaker’s mechanical hand. “Two sets of doors. The engine sits in the second chamber approximately thirty paces inward from this point.”

  The larger Phyrexian, the one showing less flesh and so obviously in charge of the situation, screeched something to the speaker—the sound of tortured metal and popping rivets. The hand released Davvol, and he slumped to hi
s knees in weakness.

  “Which one can defeat the wards?” the speaker asked. Its Coracin language translation came out harsh and rudimentary but understandable.

  Davvol coughed wetly then rose shakily to his feet. The answer was already within his mind. Many people knew who among them was the keeper of that secret, and he felt no shame in giving that up. He had been a welcome member of the ruling elite once, before his physical appearance and health began to deteriorate. His perfect memory had been an asset, giving him a handle over administrative tasks few could match. He had given his mind over to his countrymen in hopes that they, in turn, could find a cure for his diseased body, but these people had been unable to heal him. They had stopped trying once he was expelled. Now they shunned him on the street as if his body’s state was a fault he could control.

  The fault was theirs.

  “That one,” he said, pointing out the correct man. The man shivered in fright, and the eyes of thirty nine other Coracin leaders cast venomous daggers at Davvol.

  The speaker chattered and hissed back to the other. After a moment, “That one we have interviewed before. He was most resistant. Remove the knowledge from his mind.”

  A chill shook Davvol as the Phyrexian asked for the first thing he would be unable to deliver. “That may prove difficult,” he began, and hastened when the speaker reached out for him. “What I mean is that my talent cannot root around in another’s mind. I can read only surface thoughts, generalities.” He swallowed hard, tasting a metallic sting at the back of his throat. “He would try to sabotage my efforts. He should open the wards himself.”

  “He refused earlier even when tortured,” the speaker said.