“We are not traveling into the Heart of Yavimaya?” Rofellos asked.
Multani tensed at Rofellos’s choice of words. He obviously knew nothing of what he asked, merely reflecting some of Multani’s earlier statement. The true Heart of Yavimaya would never be known to the Llanowar. Likely, it would never be known by Multani, so protected it was by the sentient forest. Though it was forbidden even to him, Multani knew a slightly jealous protection of his homelands.
“For our purposes,” he said simply, “the borderlands will be close enough.”
* * *
The vessel settled down in a clearing of dark grasses dotted with small, lavender-cupped flowers. The field rippled under the same unfelt breeze that had earlier shaken treetops in the distance. Trees which reached hundreds of feet into the air surrounded them, visibly impressing many of the students. Multani recognized it as new growth raised in the last few years. Several of the larger hills around would be partially decomposed trees from the ancient growth, brought down by Yavimaya for the raw material.
The Tolarians went about their routine of making the vessel fast. Sails were reefed, and the telescoping circular gangplank hauled out and dropped down over the side.
Multani winced at the harsh clanging sounds as the staircase unfolded. He move toward it once secured, but Rofellos ignored it completely. With a wild shout for his own bravery, the elf vaulted over the lower gunwale and slid down the outer curve of the hull. At the last moment he kicked outward, breaking his fall with an easy tumble across the grass. He rose only to one knee, though, suddenly transfixed by the rippling motion of the sward. Multani could only guess at the other’s sense of wonder as he descended to the ground.
The air was vibrant with life, singing Gaea’s song as wind shook the tops of trees and whistled past sharp grasses. Pollen, which Multani had never scented before, distracted him, every taste calling an instant explanation from Yavimaya. The earth felt spongy beneath his bare, rootlike feet, and he found it hard to control the urge to dig his toes down into the rich soil and taste his homeland again. Yavimaya withheld him, waiting on the others.
The elves appeared as if by magic. One instant they were absent and only the forest sounds surrounded the clearing. In the next, all forest sound but the distant fall of a tree disappeared, and a dozen lithe bodies appeared at the clearing’s edge. They moved into the clearing with cautious grace, as if unwilling to leave the protection of the forest. All were of fair hair and skin, with features so delicate they appeared fragile. Rayne moved up to Multani’s side, and the nature spirit stepped away to distance himself from her.
“Yavimaya welcomes you,” a female elf said in traditional greeting to Rayne and the other humans. Her voice was light and musically cast.
Rayne smiled warmly. “We are here on behalf of the Tolarian Academy—”
“To request some rare hardwoods for the crafting of your artifacts,” the elf completed for her. “For Urza Planeswalker.” She smiled with shy amusement at Rayne’s apparent confusion. “Yavimaya was present for all your discussions with Multani, of course.”
Multani nodded his own greeting. “Long life, Shahira,” he answered: A typical elven salutation. Yavimaya stirring at the edge of his mind, Multani turned back to Rayne. “The forest will provide you with your request for materials. Some of the hardwoods will take a few days’ effort to grow.”
As if to underscore his statement, the rolling creak of twisted wood resounded about them followed by the staccato snapping of limbs being stripped away. Within the forest, only much closer this time, one of the trees toppled, then another, this one at the edge of the clearing. Multani did not bother looking, having expected the pruning. Three more trees fell in quick succession, the canopy rippling with movement.
Frowning in thought, Rayne studied the surrounding forest. “Decay?” she asked.
Multani looked sharply to Rayne, insulted but tempering any outward show. Surprisingly enough, though, it was Rofellos who answered first.
“The cycle of life,” the young warrior elf said, brushing the back of his hand across the rippling grasses. “Accelerated, but natural.”
Rayne’s dark eyes widened with amazement. Bending low, she examined the strange movement of the field. “The grass and flowers, they are dying off and regrowing so fast they sprout from the withering shell of their former incarnation. It creates the illusion of wind.”
Multani had never doubted Rayne’s intelligence. “Decay implies failure,” he said formally. “Nothing happens here that Yavimaya does not approve and control.” He nodded in the direction of the latest felling. “The forest is in a state of accelerated growth cycles,” he explained. “Building up the forest’s store of raw matter from which we may draw new strengths. Phyrexia is not the enemy of Urza Planeswalker alone.”
The Tolarian artificer nodded her agreement. “It is good to know we have allies,” Rayne said, “and tell Yavimaya we appreciate the offerings.”
Smiling tightly, Multani reminded himself that Rayne could not be expected to learn of the forest’s ways as fast as she might learn about artifice. He allowed himself a light laugh at her expense.
“You should have listened more closely to Shahira, Mistress Rayne,” he said. “You just told the forest yourself.”
* * *
Rofellos glanced about quickly, still feeling eyes upon him. The thrill had worn off hours ago—the persistent gaze that followed his every move, crawling over his skin with a gossamer touch. His hand stayed near his sword hilt, fingers twitching as he scanned trees and ground and sniffed the air. Danger surrounded him, stretching his nerves taught.
The young elf had taken to the treeline with Multani’s permission, eager to explore the land that would be his home for years, maybe decades, to come. He’d rolled in leaves far different from those he’d ever seen, raced miles of near invisible trails never before run by a Llanowar, and used some crushed berries to paint a simple hunting mask across his eyes. It was the way Llanowars claimed land, making it theirs through intimate knowledge. A warrior race, Llanowars often lived or died on the honing of their instincts. Rofellos was not about to allow his stay in Yavimaya blunt those senses. Ambassador he might be, but first and foremost he was a warrior. Yavimaya, he felt certain, recognized that in him and approved.
Right now his instincts warned him of a threat—a watcher—someone dogging his tracks and a better tracker than he. Multani? Possibly. If so the humor of the situation was now lost on the wild elf. His grin was feral as his eyes darted among possible hiding places. Always the feeling that he merely had to turn a bit faster, look slightly harder, and the presence would resolve into the figure of his tormentor.
Now came a brush at the back of his neck. Rofellos spun about, sword drawn and flashing in a high-lined attack. He checked himself a split second before slicing into the tree that stood behind him.
“Who’s there?” he called loudly, instantly regretting it. You never gave yourself away so easily, except this was supposed to be friendly land. Silence greeted him.
Rofellos backed up a step and then another. He glanced frantically into the canopy above him and deeper into the undergrowth—nothing. Spinning about again, he set off at the strong pace he could keep up for a day and night and half a day again if need be. He would run this presence into the ground.
With every step the disembodied gaze followed, nagging at the back of his mind.
Davvol stepped through the doorway of dark energy, followed closely by the speaker sent to summon him from his work. He quickly fell to his knees as the heat rolled over him, and scorched air burned down into his lungs a caustic and oily brand. Flaring eruptions from the mile-high furnaces lit up the eternal night sky of Phyrexia’s Fourth Sphere a hellish red-orange, spewing tons of ash into the air. High above, a tangle of pipes and mechanisms which formed the underside of the third plane rained down a light mist of oil. The metal rooftop on which Davvol rested radiated a near-blistering heat of its own, working its way t
hrough Davvol’s armor and forcing him to stand or roast against the oven-temperature plating.
Another Phyrexian moved nearby in the shadows cast by a large gout of flame and oily smoke. It looked the part of a monster of Coracin fable—skeletal arms and skull, and that terrible grin of sharpened metallic teeth. Its clothes fell over it as a funeral shroud, seemingly tattered and ruined. When it moved closer, Davvol noticed the cloth’s writhing movement as the tattered ribbons constantly shifted to cover a new portion of the Phyrexian’s body. Instantly he knew that cloth to be alive and integral to the Phyrexian. No doubt this was the most powerful creature he had ever stood witness to. What a magnificent creation! Davvol trembled, his strength giving out, and he fell to his hands and knees before its power.
The new Phyrexian hissed and screeched something in its own tongue to the speaker. “I am Croag of the Inner Circle,” the speaker translated into Davvol’s language, though with a tortured squelch behind every word. “You do not approve of our world, Davvol?”
Davvol forced himself to his knees alone, hands already blistered with burns imparted by the searing metal floor. Pain can be controlled, he thought, cursing his weaker flesh. Fear can be controlled.
“I look upon your world as perfection,” he answered, “but my body is weak.” He remembered the Phyrexian term that would describe flawed meat, not yet augmented by artifice. “Incompleat.”
At least his body was no longer dying. The Phyrexians had done that for him, though little more in his forty years of service. They gave him only enough to keep him alive, allowing him to live out a Coracin native’s full years while he helped seeker teams find and uncover treasure troves of lost artifice.
More hissing and screeches. “I have chosen you to serve the Ineffable’s plans. You will come with me.”
Croag lifted his thin arm, braced with metal straps and cords, and summoned another Phyrexian from the shadows behind him. The new beast carried another portal, its fingers already setting stones into place to direct the channel that could step between worlds. It placed a rod upon the ground, and a doorway rose from it.
Davvol swallowed against the dryness cutting into his throat. The Ineffable had summoned him? The Phyrexian dark god himself? Never before had Davvol been allowed past the Second Sphere of Phyrexia, and here the Fourth almost killed him. Was Croag leading him to the next sphere? If his death was sought, why not rend him down into the vats? How had he earned such torture? Davvol rose on shaky footing to stumble after Croag, the last vestiges of his courage prompting him onward. There was nowhere to run, not here and never from the Phyrexians. They owned him and had made that clear from the start, though they had yet to honor any part of their promises to compleat him. They kept him alive but only that. Croag disappeared into the new doorway, and Davvol followed, nearly passing out with the final step he took in between portals…and planes.
By comparison, Davvol stepped from the Fourth Sphere of Phyrexia into paradise. He, Croag, and the speaker stood on what appeared to be the rim of an extinct volcano. A sharp wind billowed out Davvol’s smoldering cape and rustled Croag’s living garments with a rasping sound. Its chill touch brought back to mind the blistering pain in his hands, but Davvol set his teeth against the agony while surveying the alien landscape. No sun stood in these overcast skies and likely never did. Blanketed from one horizon to the other, the gray cloud cover glowed evenly with a muted light. Red and orange lightning crackled and leapt in the skies, cavorting to the accompaniment of booming thunder.
The ground around them was a dull, tan sandstone, fused and smooth as if from intense heat. It flowed out for as far as he could see, interrupted only by the mountain chain that trailed back from the volcano. In a few places nearby, Davvol saw the facsimile of boulders, noticing they were little more than sculpted bubbles in the seamless flow of ground. Down inside the caldera, as if raised up from an old eruption, stood a magnificent tower fortress.
“What is this place?” he finally asked.
“This is Rath.” The speaker waited for more of Croag’s grinding screeches. “It is the instrument of the Dark Lord, a new plane, set in the Dominarian Nexus, from which we will complete his task.”
Davvol stood on a new artificial plane, still in its infancy by the look of it. He brought his hands together in contemplation, fingertips almost touching but mindful of his burns. Turning about, Davvol contemplated the entirety of Rath. His eyes, steel within black, searched the horizon for further signs of life but found none.
“I am required here?” he asked.
“You will oversee and accelerate the schedule of Rath’s expansion,” the speaker said for Croag. “You will hold it in stewardship until the Ineffable names an evincar to rule.” Croag must have seen something in Davvol’s face, for another series of noises spat from the speaker. “This does not please you?”
Davvol studiously blanked his face. No matter his personal feelings, he knew better than to try the Phyrexian’s humor. “It pleases me greatly,” he said, lying only slightly, wounded that they had not simply named him evincar. With greater authority might have come stronger steps toward his own compleation. Still, what they offered impressed him, and hadn’t his memory for details proven its worth long ago in an administrative position? “By expansion, you mean—”
Croag’s chattering interrupted him, and the speaker quickly translated. “Rath is still growing.” It pointed down to the caldera fortress. “The Stronghold taps into Rath’s lava furnaces. Flowstone is created which continues to expand the borders of this plane, pushing back the energy envelope. Flowstone production must increase, and you must control any dissident troubles.”
Davvol glanced around. “Dissidents?”
“A city of slave labor beneath the Stronghold.” The speaker pointed to the smudge of forestland Davvol had noticed before. “They were brought over from Dominaria long ago.”
The Coracin native thought to ask more about this but then realized that it no longer mattered. The situation would be as he observed it, time enough for questions later. What truly mattered would be the resources at his disposal. Already his mind worked at several plans for optimizing production.
With a strong gust of wind snapping his cape out behind him, he folded his hands carefully together and asked, “What may I draw upon to complete this job?”
“The flowstone,” was Croag’s first, not entirely helpful, answer. “Also Phyrexian troops, for keeping order, and the negators.”
He would have negators at his command? Davvol had seen the terrible powers wielded by Phyrexia’s elite hunters only once, and that had been enough. Terrible, sinister designs, compleated for the hunt and destruction of Phyrexia’s enemies. Negators, troops, and slave labor, the power swam in his head. He glanced down into the caldera. The Stronghold was his to occupy. The Phyrexians withheld the merger of flesh and artifice he craved, but here they had given him a world to rule. Certainly that could only bring opportunities later. He nodded to himself, eager to get to work. The Phyrexians would know his worth; nothing would be left to chance.
“Negators,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought the locals strong enough to warrant them, but they are most welcome.”
There was a pause for translation, and then Croag shook his cleft skull in a human gesture of the negative. He chattered a new flurry of squeals and hisses. A clammy hand clutched at Davvol’s heart, forewarning him that whatever the negators were for, the problem would not be so simple as he’d wished.
“The negators are not for you to control the Vec,” the speaker said. “They are for the protection of Rath itself, for the destruction of the only one who might upset the Dark One’s plans.
“You, Davvol, are to assist me. You will hunt down and destroy Urza Planeswalker.”
* * *
In the Stronghold, Croag walked unattended through the wide hall that led to the throne room. The lower steel bands of his robes brushed the flowstone floor on occasion, smearing a glistening band of light oil where
ver they touched. A set of pipes followed the corridor at shoulder level, radiating heat. His hidden footfalls, eerily silent, left behind only scratches and pits in the floor. The doors to the throne room were of thick metal, set on tracks that led back into the tan walls. They rolled away to the accompaniment of a dry metal grinding. A sound which angered Croag, telling of the neglect by Rath’s current steward.
Davvol, he had left behind, the member of Phyrexia’s Inner Council preferring to come alone. The Coracin native would be singularly useful in the administration of Rath, but he was weak—meat—and would only be a liability in this encounter. Nothing could be allowed to threaten Croag’s newest plans, not even Koralld.
“I have been expecting you, Croag, yesss,” Koralld hissed when Croag stepped into the dimly lit throne room.
A Phyrexian overseer, Koralld had been brought to Rath to steward the expansion of the artificial plane—he had failed. The overseer sat on the room’s large metal throne, hunching back into the seat of authority as if physical contact would improve his ability to hold the position. His legs remained tensed, the fibrous muscle that showed between the gaps of his armored skin coiled and bunched. His articulated hands grasped the arms of the throne, each finger ending in a razor-sharp talon. He had mandibles instead of teeth, and each one dripped a viscous substance that would burn meat and pollute blood. A single eye stared out from the middle of a large, armored skull.
Croag worked his way farther into the room but kept an appreciable distance from Koralld. The overseer was not about to go easily.
“Rath is still behind schedule. You failed.”
Failure carried only one sentence with Phyrexians. Failure implied imperfection. Imperfection had to be corrected.
Koralld tilted his head to one side. A serpentine tongue flicked out to clean the metal tipped mandibles.
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