“A mistake,” she said. That was truthful enough. “I will have to fix the frame later and order a new lens.”
“I’ll take care of the lens,” he promised quickly.
Too quickly. He was definitely avoiding some problem. “Is something the matter?” she asked, knowing full well there was and wanting to draw him out—wanting also to avoid her own personal nightmares.
She noticed a glistening bead on her husband’s forehead and reached out slowly to dab at it with delicate fingertips. Moisture. She almost expected the scent of glistening oil but shoved such thoughts back into the darker recesses of her mind.
“Something is the matter.”
His eyes met her gaze, softened under the warm concern. Almost, she thought, he was ready to blurt it out. Slowly, almost sadly, he reached over and took her hand in his. “Rayne,” he began, voice trembling only slightly. “Rayne, are you happy on Tolaria?”
An odd question, deserving perhaps an inconclusive answer. “I think I have been getting too close to my work,” she said openly, her voice tight with the tension but feeling some of the strain draining away by speaking of it. “It does not hold the allure it once did. Not since…” she trailed off, uncertain.
“The negator?” Barrin asked, finishing the sentence. He asked it as a question, but something more rode his voice.
She nodded, feeling better for the admission. “Silly, I know, but we have been at this for so long.” Her words caught as Barrin winced. “What is it, Barrin?”
Her question was insistent this time—worried. She couldn’t remember seeing her husband so concerned. So vulnerable, that was the word. His fire was missing. Was the rock-solid strength that had guided the academy for over six centuries of relative time finally eroding under natural stress and the very unnatural pressures of dealing with Urza Planeswalker?
Barrin raised her hand to his lips. Kissed it hard, once. “It’s not important.” He called up a smile, tight and humorless but there nonetheless. “You’re right, we’ve been at this for too long. But I don’t think it will go on much longer, Rayne. Tolaria can’t hold up forever. Urza’s plans are near fruition, and the enemy grows bolder. Something is going to give and soon, then we can take a hard look at where the academy is and what we want to do.” He nodded. “Then.” The smile sparked briefly in the corners of his bright green eyes. “It’s not important,” he said again.
Wanting to trust her husband and believe in a brighter future that could arrive of its own accord, Rayne almost believed the lie.
The seemingly endless plains of Rath were, in fact, not. There was a limit to the amount of flowstone the Stronghold had been able to produce in its millennium of operation. Here, at the edge of Rath, the sky boiled as if alive with fire—a riot of red and orange distorted ever so slightly like flames reflected from polished metal. It was a sight to twist the most sane mind into a terrifying shadow of its former self. The physical boundary of a plane was not meant for contemplation by mortal man.
Davvol, however, could hardly count as such anymore. He had been compleated to the point where he lived indefinitely, if at the sufferance of his Phyrexian masters. Six centuries of life, one in waiting and five more here on Rath as steward—evincar really, for in the last hundred and twenty years of his stewardship it could be said that he had truly ruled this plane. Since Croag had fallen beneath the sword of Kreig the witch king, the Phyrexian had been forced to slowly heal over the past twelve decades. He was in no shape to challenge Davvol, whose mastery of flowstone and the machinery of the Stronghold made him powerful. Davvol was finally powerful, out from under the shadow of the Phyrexian Inner Circle member. Croag rested in a place of darkness few knew of and where none could wonder at how the Phyrexian had almost been destroyed at the hands of a mortal Dominarian. Such was their new relationship. Croag was able to delay and heal rather than return to Phyrexia and face possible rending, and Davvol ruled Rath as evincar, with an unspoken but present guarantee that Croag’s reports back to Phyrexia would never endanger either of them.
Davvol had come to this point today, the farthest reaches of his realm. Here would be the most difficult spot to attempt a transference, the forces controlled by Rath’s great machinery at their weakest and so relying more on his own ability. Armored troops waited in formal ranks behind him, silently menacing.
Flowstone rippled as he made mental contact with the control machinery under the Stronghold, focusing it against the nearby ground. Tan-colored waves rose in the landscape, shallow troughs running between them, as the machinery first worked the larger features into the surrounding plains. It was a slow process and the pressure within his mind built to a steady ache. Simple vegetation followed in the transference, and then the homes and utility buildings so common to every Benalish village.
This was a Capashen settlement, the clan that had long occupied Croag’s attentions until his accident. Davvol had decided to usurp those duties as well, the constant testing and probing, now that Keld was a forgotten experiment.
The village formed as he recalled it, the control machinery pulling it from his memories. The two worlds overlapped as the chaos that existed between planes was feathered aside and the final barriers weakened. He felt that final moment of transference. His mind lay open to the people of the Benalish village who now beheld the chaos storming about them as Rath intruded into their lives. Hundreds of humans—each a tiny flare within his mind as the great machinery seized his consciousness—heard the terrible wailing that encroached upon Rath from the chaos between worlds. He felt that moment, and held it.
On his gesture, the armor-clad troops raised their weapons high and moved into the village, fighting—slaughtering—at once on Rath and also Dominaria. Davvol felt each one’s life added to the pattern the machinery forced upon his mind, a tangible weight pressing down on him. The tiny flare extinguished as another Dominarian fell before his troops. The warriors traveled dim streets, now only half-lit by sunlight. Davvol directed his soldiers toward specific people, wanting to bring over those who would represent a good cross-section of the village. Dominaria was his hunting ground. No one could hide from him.
Only, he was not about to get all that he wanted. The attack faltered in places. He found himself distracted by the rising wail of disembodied voices. He was distracted by the press of new wills acting against his own. The intruders interfered with his control over the Stronghold’s machinery. This presence took on a luminescent, humanoid form within his mind as it wrestled into the pattern of transference in his mind. Davvol’s mind swam, his train of thought barely able to hold control over the great machinery.
He tried to bring warriors against these apparitions plaguing his mind, but they possessed no physical form to attack. As he searched for ways to win the battle in his mind, he found the assault in front of his eyes going not as well as he’d hoped. Some Benalish held their own against the Phyrexian troops. Usually it was a single, leather-clad soldier, caught in the village during the attack or perhaps on permanent assignment, but others joined in as well. Here a blacksmith wielded his hammer and crushed through Phyrexian armor and skull alike. Over there a farmer employed his scythe to great effect, knocking legs out from under Davvol’s troops and leaving them helpless upon the ground.
There was no meeting such challenges to his troops, not while the haunting cries continued to threaten his control. As his warriors began to drag back victims, stepping from Dominaria to Rath and leaving those Benalish no hope of return, Davvol slowly released the barriers and allowed them to drift back into place. He had his subjects, though not as many as he would have liked. They would be sent to live among the Vec, the Dal, or the Kor. His final live warrior returned. Straining, an acute pain shot through his mind with each strange haunting voice. Davvol reached out to the places where he had felt Phyrexian lives harmed or destroyed and latched onto their physical forms. He pulled them back to Rath even as the last barrier came crashing into place.
The intrusive forms slip
ped away as well, melting back into the chaos that existed between planes. The strongest of them faded away last, and Davvol reached out after that final alien presence trying to wrestle his mental touch over its mind. There was an intelligence there. He could feel it—a whisper just outside of his range of hearing. He pushed harder, rage over his partial failure today lending him strength.
Soltari.
Then it was gone.
A name? A place? Davvol had no way of knowing and no more strength left to pursue it. He stumbled to one knee, his weakness betraying him. Darkness swam over him, almost laying claim to his consciousness. He fought it off, refusing such a pitiful display in front of his warriors. Then he rose on shaky legs, dark eyes glowering at any Phyrexian watching him. Without a command given, he turned and walked with determined stride to the portal waiting several paces behind him. The gateway back to the Stronghold. He’d been given a lot to think about, and now he simply needed some time to put it all together.
If Davvol had any two resources on his side, they were his ability to think and the time to do so.
* * *
Shuffling out from the shadows with an odd hunching motion, Croag made himself known to Davvol with a screeching whisper. “You have news of Urza Planeswalker?”
Croag preferred to announce himself in such a way. It was better than allowing the steward to guess Croag’s presence by the dragging foot he kept hidden beneath his banded metal robes or the rasping wheeze of his artificial lung breathing. Davvol appeared to take pleasure in the Phyrexian’s damaged state, but like it or hate it—and Croag certainly hated it—the Inner Circle member was in need of Rath’s first evincar. Croag required time for self-repair. Certainly he could not return to Phyrexia in such a state.
No, that would not do. Rath certainly was ahead of schedule now, but Urza Planeswalker still lived, and more, he was preparing Dominaria against the day of invasion. He was doubtful that the planeswalker could affect any meaningful widespread change before that glorious event, but admission of the attempt would be enough cause for an end to Croag’s existence. Gix’s failure had been nowhere near so severe, and he had still been cast into the furnaces of Phyrexia. Croag was of the Inner Circle. He was superior. At such a high pinnacle, second only to the Dark One, the fall would be all the more long and merciless.
He suffered the time spent away from his plans and power. Croag’s body contained meat at such a minute level that every cell could repair itself or rebuild its neighbor, given time. However, without the use of Phyrexian devices and assistant operations the cells first returned to their simpler meat form. As interesting and at times as sublime as the return of pure meat might have been, Croag did not appreciate the feelings of helplessness and danger which had accompanied every moment. Davvol might have killed Croag, easily so, and claimed a right to further compleation through such an impressive act as to slay a member of the Inner Circle, except Davvol was apparently not so ambitious or was too infatuated with his self-proclaimed title of evincar.
Croag still could not be sure if Davvol was too simple, too stupid, or just more patient and crafty than the Phyrexian had ever credited. He had spent decades in consideration of such ideas while his body mended, unable to carry out previous designs with the strange subjects in Benalia or even attend to routine on Rath. Even Croag’s temporary return to the state of being meat did not bring with it an understanding of Davvol’s mind. Later, though, he would have such an answer. He would know Davvol’s mind, all in its place.
He asked again. “You have news of Urza Planes—”
“No, Croag,” Davvol interrupted, looking up from the newest batch of ruined corpses that lay at his feet. “No news of the negators currently hunting Urza. The ‘walker has been very cautious these last several years.” He glanced back, his lips pulled into a tight, wide-mouthed grimace. “I can’t decide if Urza is worried for his own life for a change or if he has gone to ground in protection of his plans.” He paused. “These,” pointing at the mess in front of him, “were not sent after the planeswalker.”
“If this is not Urza’s work, who else has destroyed negators? Not the Vec.” Rebellious they might be, but the Vec even in large numbers should not be able to kill a negator.
“Trees and flowers were mostly responsible for this,” Davvol said, a frown pulling down the edges of his wide mouth. He brought his hands together, fingertips touching. “Animals. A few elves. The place is called Yavimaya, and it’s dangerous, Croag, perhaps more so than Urza Planeswalker.”
Nothing could be worse than Urza Planeswalker. Croag looked carefully at Davvol, searching his pale-skin face for signs of duplicity. The black skullcap Davvol wore still offered its inviting eye, the depression Croag had seen fit to design into that protective cap. That would be the only way to be sure, but Croag was not ready to dismiss Davvol yet. He shuffled closer, the few metal bands left on his covering robe rasping dryly for lack of glistening oil. Closer, Croag saw that the corpses had mostly been crushed or blown apart by explosion. Very little suggested magic, though perhaps artifice.
“Trees and plants do not stand in the way of Phyrexia,” he screeched and hissed.
Davvol folded arms over his chest. “They do now. Yavimaya is completely hostile. The land itself attacks.”
“Urza.” The name escaped Croag before he bothered to consider. “This must be the ’walker’s doing.”
A shudder trembled through Croag’s under-developed joints. How many ways could the planeswalker find to interfere with Phyrexia’s return? Too many. Even once was too many.
“I don’t believe so, Croag. A seeker found this place, and there is no evidence that Urza is involved. Plants that explode? Trees which turn suddenly supple and smash warriors between them?” Davvol kicked at the mangled leg of a negator, its hardened flesh shredded to the metal by some kind of shrapnel. A few wood splinters still protruded from the negator’s areas of pure meat. “Too alien for the ’walker,” he shook his head. “No, this is something different.”
“Different is bad,” Croag hissed, Davvol’s soft speech beginning to wear on his patience. Croag should order Davvol’s voice compleated, able to speak in proper Phyrexian. “Different must be Urza. Destroy this place, Yavimaya.”
Even the name caught in Croag’s throat. A moment of silence stretched out, marked only by the irregular timing of Davvol’s blinking eyes and Croag’s rasping breaths.
“No,” Davvol finally said, without preamble or qualification, a straight denial of Croag’s order.
The Phyrexian drew himself up to his full height, cleft skull at a higher level than Davvol’s head. His eyes glowed with the passion of molten steel as he leaned close to Rath’s evincar.
“You will do as ordered.” There was no room for denial here, or so Croag thought.
Croag didn’t account for the negator that suddenly appeared at Davvol’s side as if summoned by magic. Small and compact, it moved with fluid grace. It was one of the faster creations Davvol had developed over the centuries. Faster, perhaps, than Croag, even at the Phyrexian’s strongest, which this time was not. It carried a saw-toothed shield. The other arm ended in a hand of oversized fingers all metal-tipped and backed by corrosive-fluid plungers. It had no armor to bind joints or slow its incredible response time. Croag noticed suddenly with a tremble of something akin to fear—it had no compleated ears. Would this creation even understand the Phyrexian language? Croag was certain it would not. This negator took orders in Davvol’s meat-tongue language. This negator was present to kill Croag, and at this point it could do so. The Phyrexian never doubted that.
Davvol, to his credit, never bothered to threaten or even imply that the Phyrexian should feel threatened. Secure in his power, he simply repeated, “No.” Then, only after a slow step away from Croag, he continued. “If you want to attribute every threat to Urza Planeswalker, Croag, you may, if you are that afraid of him. But we do not know enough of this Yavimaya to risk incredible resources. Yet. I refuse to underestimate
an opponent. I will continue to press at this Yavimaya and find its weaknesses much as we did in Keld. And when I have its measure, then I will destroy it. As a present for the Dark Lord.”
Croag shook, every fiber and component screaming for Davvol’s death, but buried in the steward’s refusal was a truth the Inner Council member recognized. Davvol was correct in that the Phyrexians had a habit of blaming Urza for any and all failures, because in three millennia of time, only Urza had orchestrated the defeat of Phyrexian plans. It could be possible that Croag now overlooked a new threat, and the Phyrexian could ill afford another mistake. That did not make his defeat here any easier to accept. He would know satisfaction, but not yet, not until he had healed.
Eyes blazing fiercely, casting red flickers before them, Croag turned away and moved from the room with his odd shuffling motion. His teeth clicked in exasperation. He still needed Davvol, and Davvol obviously believed that he still needed Croag, or the Phyrexian would have been killed. Croag would rely upon that for just a bit longer, then they would discover who was the true master of Rath.
* * *
Perhaps a visit to the newer attractors had not been the best of Davvol’s ideas, not after the meeting with Croag, but his schedule called for monthly visits to inspire greater production of flowstone and that meant today. Rath’s steward toured the complexes with brutal efficiency, executing workers if standards appeared lacking at all. By the time he reached the lower levels where the massive spinning blades drew glowing red lava up from Rath’s molten underworld, the Vec had been alerted to their master’s fury and were found climbing over machinery and coaxing every last ounce of effort from the devices—as it should be. Davvol took limited pleasure noting the steady rumble shaking the floor, his equipment holding up to stresses which would have caused the supports of the main attractors to buckle and give way.
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