* * *
Urza Planeswalker guarded Rath’s second path into power. The Phyrexians despised Urza as no single other entity in the known multiverse, and an unimaginable reward awaited the one clever enough to rid the dark race of him. Despite Davvol’s best efforts through the six decades so far—planning traps and instructing negators on new tactics—the planeswalker kept right on existing.
Something had to be done—not just planned, but physically accomplished—not exactly one of Davvol’s strengths.
He paced the floor where a seeker had brought the latest negator corpses after their discovery on another plane. Two this time, smaller than most but very deadly and extremely fast. Rath’s steward had hoped that their augmented reflexes would offset Urza’s defenses. Not so, obviously. Their armored carapaces had been melted open in a dozen places. The blackened flesh of the first corpse appeared thoroughly disrupted, and Davvol found it desiccated of glistening oil. The second negator arrived in three pieces, having been caught in a maelstrom of energies that Davvol could only begin to guess at. This one leaked oil in a spreading pool, the room’s light flashing over it in a filmy rainbow. The area stunk of charred meat, scorched oil, and hot steel. He stood, watching the oil spread over the polished metal floor, and thought.
He heard the rasping of metal fibers sliding over each other—Croag.
“Urza Planeswalker lives,” Croag said, not a question. The Phyrexian stopped beside Davvol, his cleft skull staring down at the ruined negators.
Davvol nodded. “Obviously.”
The council member’s voice still sounded to him like a series of chattering squeals and hisses, but the Phyrexian had found it convenient to compleat Davvol’s inner ear, so those sounds actually made sense to him now. Removing the language barrier had also mellowed Davvol’s fear of the Phyrexian, who was no longer quite so alien. Besides which, living in the shadow of death for better than a century would harden anyone to its presence.
Croag turned in Davvol’s direction. “What do you do now?” it asked.
“I am thinking.”
Davvol prodded at a severed arm with the toe of one armored boot. The arm was actually a cannon of sorts, capable of delivering a stream of hellish energy that could disrupt a planeswalker’s energy patterns. It rolled over, leaving behind a trail of soot and oily sludge. They were fortunate to have the corpses to examine. Quite often they were never recovered.
“They did not perform as I’d hoped,” Davvol admitted, not that predictions could be made easily.
Negators did not conform to any particular design. These Phyrexians ranged from short, bulky creations to large dragon engine war machines. Bigger did not always mean better, except at times a better target. For Davvol, who relied upon an ability to organize and categorize, such maverick functions made for difficult evaluations.
“Urza Planeswalker must be killed,” Croag hissed. “He must not interfere again.” A skeletal arm reached out toward Davvol, razor-sharp fingers raking slowly through the air before the steward’s face. “You are failing.”
Davvol’s wide-set eyes stared at the talons hovering inches from his face. Swallowing against the knot in his throat, he kept any waver from his voice. “I am doing the best possible. Urza has lived for over three millennia. He will not go quietly into the void.” That gave Croag a moment of pause, possibly reminded of the failure of so many others. The arm lowered a fraction.
Davvol sidestepped away, crouching down to closer inspect the desiccated negator. Croag expected some kind of action. The steward would find something. The easiest excuse would be to blame the negator’s design. Obviously they were flawed, though perhaps Croag would not care to hear him maligning more perfect Phyrexians. Against any regular form of life the negators were fearsome assassins, but a planeswalker called for a new outlook—and innovation. There Davvol met an impasse. True innovation, the ability to make radical leaps forward, would be beyond him. He had a feeling that Croag understood that—that his immersion in the details and inability for radical thinking was an important reason he’d been selected for this position in Rath. It made him the perfect steward, able to be trusted so much as the Phyrexians trusted anyone not of their own race.
He did see areas in the Phyrexian negators that might be improved upon. The difficulty lay in his lack of understanding for the planeswalker’s strengths and weaknesses.
“It will take time,” he said after some thought. He reached out and traced a scar melted into the negator’s armor. His pale fingers came away with just a smudge of black. “More time than I first thought,” he said, stalling with careful words, “but I believe it is possible.” He stood. “Urza Planeswalker can be killed.”
Croag was not one for easy conversation. “How?” he screeched, and Davvol caught the hint of intensity behind that one word.
For the first time, Davvol wondered if Croag somehow had a personal interest in the death of Urza Planeswalker. Did the Inner Council member, too, live under the shadow of death? Punishment by the Ineffable—the Phyrexian Dark Lord? A chill trembled his pasty skin. It made sense, looking back on the last six decades of Croag’s presence and constant interference. The data had been incomplete until now. Davvol had been unable to place a mental touch upon this Phyrexian, his mind too alien, and relying on speakers for so many of those years.
He answered Croag with his own question. “Can negators be compleated to my own specifications?”
Metal cloth writhed, wrapping itself up and about Croag’s face for a second, leaving a glistening sheen over the Phyrexian’s taught gray skin. “This can be done,” he promised.
With such infrequent contact between negators and the planeswalker, it might take decades merely to enhance the negator’s sensory abilities so that recovered corpses could provide better data on their observations of Urza as well as a negator’s own ability to fight him. It could be centuries more before Davvol could hope to improve on their design. It was how he worked best, though, able to organize and manipulate an infinite array of details to find the most efficient path. His plan would show constant progress, purchasing an existence for him that would stretch out several times over the natural lifetime of a Coracin native. Also, this evolutionary process would allow him to create an army of negators the lethal ability of which Phyrexia had never known. With this presentation alone, Davvol might be brought to compleation himself and named evincar of Rath. Wasn’t that the Phyrexian way, after all, to improve in the current generation that which failed in the previous?
Davvol felt the planeswalker’s death was assured. The power of numbers was on his side. Eventually, Urza would be overwhelmed, but under a slow program of constant refinement to the creatures that hunted him that could stretch out perhaps another five centuries. Davvol would have his monsters and eventually the life of the ‘walker as well.
With any luck, Urza would take a long time to die.
Multani dug his toes down into Yavimaya’s soil, enjoying its warm, moist touch. He felt young and energetic, revitalized. From halfway around the world he had felt Yavimaya’s strength build, his body reflecting the sentient forest’s state. As older trees fell to make room for newer growth, his own limbs grew more supple and strong. His size increased, and the mosslike growth from his head and shoulders that served for hair grew in thicker and more luxurious. Here, actually standing in the shadow of Yavimaya’s coastal trees, his feet buried beneath the soil, Multani could almost forget Rofellos’s greeting.
“Yavimaya welcomes you,” he’d said as the Weatherlight had come aground.
To hear the words spoken even as Yavmaya’s greeting was made known to his own mind felt strange to the nature spirit. It was unsurprising that Yavimaya had initiated contact with Rofellos. In the absence of Multani, what other way could the forest and the Llanowar elf directly communicate? Through the dual greeting the nature spirit felt the forest’s casual use of the elf—its hold over him—and the elf’s uncertain knowledge of his own place. Multani also sensed th
at Yavimaya had relied on Rofellos for some time now to also act as its voice, an ability the sentient forest had apparently grown to miss in the seventy-three years since Multani had last been called home.
In that time Yavimaya had also stepped up its accelerated mulch cycles. Even within the less dense coastal forests the creaking sway and final, limb-tearing crash of falling trees never quite ended these days. It would fade, as a distant tree toppled, and then rebound as a nearer growth bent to Yavimaya’s will. One could actually see the trees growing, their limbs stretching upward and out as boles thickened and root systems swelled the ground around them. The grass continued to mulch itself too, new shoots growing up within the decaying green blades. Farther back in the forest’s shadows the underbrush writhed, thinning itself and then growing back with slight changes to flowers and leaves in a never-ending process of forced evolution.
One student had exclaimed sharply, noticing that even the insects along the ground were growing and dying at an accelerated rate.
“Of course,” Multani had answered. Rofellos took the opportunity of the distraction to slip away, back into the forest. “They are as much part of life’s cycle as any plant. In so many cases, one can not exist without the other. Many of Gaea’s creatures will follow the same pattern, though in some the changes will be brought about without actual rebirth.” This had excited several of the student mages for some reason.
As natural as the process might be, however, Multani couldn’t help now but wonder about his absence during the accelerated growth cycles, whether or not it could be another reason for Yavimaya’s greater empathy with Rofellos. In the last seven decades how many generations had he missed in the forest? Sharing his thoughts with Yavimaya, Multani still had no good answer. The forest, for all its intelligence, had never undergone such a treatment either. It knew mistakes, trying to direct the evolution of its plants and creatures. It feared mistakes, worried at losing any life forever. That was the nature of the forest, to live in a ceaseless cycle where the living died but new life could always hope to be born from such loss. Multani wanted to stay this time, to remain with his parent forest, but he knew that Yavimaya had decided his work to be elsewhere. He was an ambassador and teacher, the forest’s voice among other nations and peoples.
“Enjoying the day?” a voice behind him asked. Rofellos stepped from behind a large bush. His arrival had been silent. The Llanowar had truly made this his home.
There was no denying the undertone of challenge to his question. Multani opened his mind with that of Yavimaya, sharing the sentient forest’s consciousness with Rofellos. As on the beach, he could feel the turmoil roiling within the elf—the relationship between he and Multani, between he and Yavimaya. Rofellos now saw the nature spirit as something of a rival. It cast Multani into an uncertain position with Rofellos, and the adversarial nature of the Llanowar was winning over memories of the awe he had once felt for the nature spirit. Multani recalled those times, and with the memory he realized something else about the elf—Rofellos was not aging!
Not as he should be—Yavimaya had obviously taken hold of the elf’s lifeforce, binding Rofellos to itself. While the sentient forest built its strength, Rofellos tapped into it in a way similar to Multani. The Llanowar looked to be only in the early stages of an elf’s middle years, the long period that accounted for so much of their extended lifespan.
“You’re happy to be back,” the elf said.
It was not quite a question, that last. Multani could sense the elf merely reflecting many of the feelings Yavimaya already shared with him. The Llanowar simply put them into words, at times apparently unable to fully distinguish his own thoughts from the ambient feelings of the forest.
“I enjoy returning to Yavimaya,” Multani answered in voice, sparing the elf any trouble in understanding “Yes.”
The nature spirit moved closer toward Rofellos, stopping on his way to feel at the bud on the new grenade flower. He sensed the violent energies stored up within, energies that would eventually burst the pod open, raining seeds farther out so that the plant could spread. In later evolutions those seeds would grow larger and might be thrown so far as to cross rivers or rocky surfaces. The burst of strength now might also hope to discourage any of the larger herbivores from making a meal of the plant. That defense, too, would grow.
“A fascinating new growth,” Multani said, testing the Llanowar.
“I have not had the chance to inspect it,” Rofellos admitted.
An echo of his words, truer perhaps to his original thought, filtered through Yavimaya’s consciousness to the nature spirit. Multani knew that Rofellos had plenty of opportunities these many years but failed to take full advantage of them. If the plant did not provide food, clothing, or any other practical use, the Llanowar could not be made to pay attention. How sad, Multani thought, to keep so limited a view of nature.
“You should try,” he said to the elf, encouraging on his own behalf as well as Yavimaya’s.
Rofellos stepped forward hesitatingly, his features so obviously clouded with doubts. Multani tried to feel for the Llanowar’s spirit, but it eluded him. Rofellos was not a true part of Yavimaya, not yet, at least. The elf reached out, gripped the stem roughly. The pod burst with a light snapping sound, as if sensing an attack, and dozens of tiny, sharp-tipped seeds exploded outward. A few stuck into Rofellos’s arm, enough to catch but not enough to even draw blood. Still the Llanowar jumped back as if attacked, hand darting to the sword at his side. More of Multani’s gentle words of encouragement died unspoken as the nature spirit noticed Rofellos’s wild-eyed expression of shock and confusion. The Llanowar was under more pressure here than the nature spirit had ever thought.
Then, swiftly, silently, Rofellos faded back into forest shadows and disappeared as easily as Multani himself could have done.
* * *
His feet hardly seemed to touch the forest floor, its soft bed of earth unblanketed by grass this far under the canopy. Thin branches whipped at his face as Rofellos allowed instinct to lead him, the roll of a hill pushing him toward easier paths, the warning creak of a nearby trunk as Yavimaya took hold and wrestled it toward the ground detoured him back toward the clearing but did not slow him. He clenched at the empty air.
Landing in a natural ditch formed between two gentle hills, Rofellos pulled up sharply and tested the air. He scented only the perfume of nearby flowers, grenades and poison mothers, their fragrance belying what would eventually be a dangerous effect. He heard no sound of pursuit, nothing but the distant echo of a felled tree and some birdsong overhead. He crouched to place one hand against the earth, feeling for vibrations of silent movement, and searched the nearby shadows for Yavimayan elves. Nothing. Even Yavimaya had retreated from his mind, for now, the forest’s language forgotten in his mad dash. It would be back, slow and insidious, taking root again within his mind.
Rofellos had hoped that somehow Multani would help him—explain how the nature spirit coped with such a pervasive presence. The Llanowar should have known better than to place trust in anyone not of his home. If the forest spirit had tried, if there had been some hidden meaning in their discussion of the grenade, the elf did not understand it, so he had fled. It was the second rule of a potentially hostile situation, the first being immediate violence. Yavimaya had not allowed him that, so he ran and escaped Yavimaya. For a moment he was simply Rofellos, though already he felt the insinuating return of Yavimaya, felt it reaching into his mind, calling him. Soon it would simply be there, but for now the choice remained.
The Llanowar ran.
A large fire blazed over the hearth in Gatha’s main laboratory, holding at bay the freezing air outside. Snow drifted against the northern window, protected by stone and shadow far longer than the drifts that had begun to melt last week with the thaw. The labs smelled of smoke but were otherwise kept spotless by the slaves assigned to Gatha. The slaves were courtesy of the more influential warlords who were in the mage’s debt. Keldons always paid a deb
t, whether for good or ill.
So far, in better than forty years of experimentation, Gatha had balanced out the good over the ill. It was not that he hadn’t made mistakes, just none lethal to date. It was a simple matter of counterbalances. If he made an enemy of a warlord, he simply had to befriend a more powerful one. As he’d noticed early on, the pecking order was well established in Keld. Body language could tell you at a glance who was dominant between any two warlords or any two doyenne, except that those positions could change at any time through design or simple misfortune. Gatha knew that one of these days he might choose wrong, but that was something to worry about later, when it happened, not now. Now was for his work.
The voices of his slaves rose in the hall, interrupting him as he placed a tray of colos muscle on the table and reached for his sampling tweezers. There was a heavy thud, no doubt the body of one of them hitting the wall, and then the door was thrust open. Trohg stomped into Gatha’s lab kicking snow and mud from his thick leather boots. Seven feet plus, the Keldon dwarfed the mage by a good sixteen inches and over one hundred pounds. Immune to such size differences anymore, Gatha did not flinch from the hard stare. He scowled at the interruption to his work but nodded for a slave to remove the tray he had been about to sample from. There would be no work while Trohg remained inside.
The Keldon grabbed one of the chairs near the fire and pulled it farther back into the room, away from the warmth. He sat then nodded toward the hearth.
“You put it in a good place,” he said, speaking in the low Keld tongue for Gatha’s benefit.
It was a language relying more heavily on words, fit for ordering around slaves and non-warrior Keldons. He pointed to the ripped standard that hung down from the large iron spike driven in between the mortared stones. The other half hung in Trohg’s manor near the Necropolis, and a second banner of the same kind also decorated the council hall. Trohg had shared the standard he’d brought back for himself from a victorious campaign. Such was a sign of rare admission that a warlord or witch king owed someone a debt for that victory.
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