Bloodlines

by Loren L. Coleman

  A poor substitute, he decided. If only there wasn’t so much to do and now so much more, after Urza’s revelation.

  The house was silent except for a crackling fire, which warmed the main room, occasionally tossing out a small spark, which glowed dull red on the hearth before fading to a cinder. Rayne waited on the couch, legs tucked beneath her and lost under the folds of her silken robes as she stared into the dancing flames. His wife did not greet him.

  “You are still not working?” he asked, lacing concern heavy into his voice.

  Barrin couldn’t remember the last time Rayne had gone into her workshop. He was concerned, of course, but he also did not want Rayne to hear the doubts crowding his thoughts—doubts for her, for them. Every day he hoped she would solve her problems, uncertain how he might help.

  “I didn’t want to get involved in a new project just now.” Rayne put little feeling behind the excuse. She studied her husband with haunted eyes. “I had hoped you would be home early, that we could talk…” She trailed off, waiting.

  Barrin paced over to the couch and sat wearily on the opposite end. Usually Rayne would have asked after Urza’s reasons for an emergency meeting, especially since the ‘walker had simply shown up this morning and pulled the mage away. She was obviously beyond caring about academy business this night. The short stretch of fabric and cushion that separated Rayne from him seemed at once a great chasm with sharp rocks waiting below. He ventured a foot toward the edge, dreading where it might lead.

  “We can always talk, Rayne.” His spirits lifted slightly as he discovered he actually meant it. The shock of Urza’s news, about the artificial plane of Rath, left the mage with a new perspective. Suddenly he saw the avoidance of their problems over the last few years, and he felt the worse for it. “We should’ve talked some time ago.” He heard the regret in his own voice, hoped Rayne read into it as well. “If ever I wished that Urza’s time travel machine was still functional to be able to relive a period of my life, this is it.”

  The time machine. How many problems could be traced so far back? The shattered temporal zones, the constant threat of Phyrexians discovering Tolaria, then Urza’s second academy, and the projects developed—when was the last time Barrin had truly considered any of those projects?

  Rayne shifted uneasily. “The world has passed us by, Barrin. And we’re,” she paused and then put it in terms more familiar, more comfortable, “we’re winding down. This is a problem we’ve avoided for too long. Yes or no. Stay or go.”

  “Easily asked,” Barrin said with a heavy sigh, feeling every day of his eight relative centuries of life. Rayne had started with the one problem on which he knew he would have to fight her. “I walked around Tolaria,” he said by way of edging into the discussion. “All around it, which is why I’m so late. The island is not in good health.” It was a euphemism for the ruined lands now blowing dusty tendrils out over the ocean, the failing crops, and now worries over the water table. “The island is suffering but still the academy goes on, teaching and learning and building. How much more might we have accomplished, Rayne, without the Legacy, the bloodlines and Metathran wasting so many valuable resources?”

  “Were they wasted?

  “I don’t know. And maybe that’s the trouble.” Barrin smoothed his cloak flat, ran fingers back through his graying hair. “It cost us Gatha, Timein, and dozens of others over the years. The Phyrexians claim their price, even when they aren’t attacking, and the Legacy…” He paused. “It finally seems we’ve put all our hopes into one plan, into Urza. If he’s wrong, again, or if he simply makes too many mistakes along the way, then it’s all over.”

  Rayne wiped at her eyes with the heel of one hand. “I have to leave,” she said simply.

  “I know, and I have to stay.”

  There, it was said. Her admitting her decision freed him to admit his. Living in slow time for so long with only brief vacations back into the real world had left them both drained, but where everything else paled, still Barrin could hang onto his duties. Those duties would be impossible to run from anywhere but here—for now—for as long as it took to complete the Legacy and discover its heir. Urza’s revelation had convinced him that he must see this through to the end. He was always the outsider, never at peace with the world, his family or himself. He breathed a heavy sigh and proceeded to slowly tell Rayne about the meeting with Urza—about Rath and why he was needed in slow time now more than ever before.

  Rayne had her own private demons to dispel—he knew—from listening in on her nightmares some nights. He knew from the truth Urza all but admitted at their meeting the subjective year before. Trapped inside a slow-time cage with the darkness, her every moment suffused with Phyrexia or the preparations against them, she could never come to terms with that black side of her nature. She could never come to terms with being a child of Phyrexia—whether she recognized it as such or not it was true. She was one of the bloodlines—Urza’s child—one of the thousands touched unknowingly by the ‘walker.

  To his surprise, Rayne shook her head. “Then I stay as well.” Not the same emphatic statement she might have made at the project’s beginning, but a weary acceptance of the circumstances.

  Barrin hadn’t expected that, though inwardly his hopes sparked that the two of them could see this through to the end together. “Are you sure?”

  “No.” She stretched a tentative smile over her face, apparently found that it didn’t cause her any new pain. “I can’t leave you behind. I refuse to let Tolaria, Phyrexia or even Urza separate us.” She stood, one hand catching Barrin’s and pulling him up after her. Standing there, both his hands around both of hers, they stared into each other’s eyes. “I do not want you lost to me, Barrin, my husband. Do what you must, what needs doing.” She released his grip, stepping away in a whisper of silk and the light whisk of leather sandals against the wooden flooring. “I’ll be waiting. Always.” She backed her way from the room, eyes tearing only slightly but her confidence in her husband never wavering. In that, Rayne obviously possessed no doubts. She turned at the entryway and walked toward their private chambers.

  How long he stood there, lost in his own thoughts, Barrin wasn’t sure. The fire hissed and popped, the flames offering a small measure of company and solace though never so warm as the touch of Rayne’s hands against his. His conscience and sense of duty both nagged at him, finally prodding him from the room and moving him along as far as the long hall. There he paused, staring in the direction of his private offices, knowing there was work to be done, but putting off Rayne who had sacrificed again for their common good. He turned away from the offices, heading instead toward their chambers. Perhaps he couldn’t solve Rayne’s problems, but he could be there for her as she so often had been for him.

  His work could wait one more evening.

  Croag had waited for this day.

  A tremor rumbled through the floors of the Stronghold, and in places metal bracing squealed under new stress. Such quakes were commonplace these last several years, the result of running the machinery so hard for so long. With each day the purpose of Rath came so much closer to being fulfilled, then only the task of the Dark Lord would remain, and Dominaria would belong to the Ineffable. Pushing for that day, Davvol had decided on another inspection. He would try to find a way to silence the tremors, but at the same time he pushed the Vec and the machinery all the harder. Guards in tow, he started his routine. He left his negator behind.

  For better than two centuries now, Croag had worked to heal himself, a slow and even painful process, though at times the pain had been rather exquisite to feel: the culture and growth of new meat, the slow infusing with artifice, mixing his blood with fresh glistening oil. His strength had taken decades to rebuild, bringing back his powers even as he learned to alter and improve on his old design. Now came the time of testing himself—of reversing the shift in Rath’s power that occurred the day he had been struck down by the witch king Kreig. Today he would destroy the first of Davv
ol’s supports.

  The negator waited in its alcove near the throne, a saw-toothed shield in one hand and its other tipped in both claws and corrosive-fluid plungers. It shifted when the Inner Circle member entered the room, setting itself into a state of preparedness. Croag would not allow it to turn more on guard. The Phyrexian’s eyes blazed a hard red, and searing beams of energy lashed out to split the hardened, wrinkled flesh that covered the negator’s face. This would be Croag’s second battle for Rath’s throne room, and he had every intention of victory.

  The negator’s movement was a dark blur. Springing from its resting place, shield blocking Croag’s attack as it swept in with its claws. Croag could never be so fast, though he came close. The Phyrexian master relied on his armored bands to make up the difference, the metal strips fully repaired as well and equal to the task. They turned the claws of the beast, though a few were spattered by the corrosive sludge. Croag struck back, but already the negator was past and pulling up short on the other side of the room. It stalked back carefully, watching for its opening.

  Sampling the corrosive material the negator used had been part of Croag’s plans. Knowing his body capable of withstanding any of the older chemical attacks, he had doubted Davvol’s latest was too different. Radical leaps were not part of the Coracin’s way. He preferred slow, methodical improvement. Such was the case here. The sludge burned into Croag’s bands but failed to cause much more than a mild distraction. A rasping slide of metal and new coat of glistening oil, and the annoyance was gone.

  Now it was Croag’s turn. He leapt for the negator, offering it a deadly embrace. The saw blade shield slammed into his side, cutting past several metal bands and damaging the compleated flesh beneath. More of the claws scored deep wounds, but now Croag had the measure of the corrosive and his body was already working to negate its effect. One of the Inner Circle member’s skeletal hands shot out to dig razored fingers into the negator’s chest. They cut deeply then began to vibrate with a new life.

  Where Croag’s artifice-blended flesh pierced the negator a new process began. The negator’s flesh reacted with Croag’s, merging. The Phyrexian master’s entire hand slid into the negator, then his arm up to the elbow. The negator began to twist violently now, feeling the invasion but unable to react as its own flesh and artifice turned against it. Croag reveled in his triumph, knowing instantly that he could consume the negator’s entire being in this way. Such an expenditure of power for so simple a creature was not necessary. The negator was fast, deadly in its own right, but could never stand against a fully operational member of the Inner Circle. It would add so little to him, and Croag could wait for a better opportunity.

  With a wrenching pull, Croag ripped his arm free and so brought with it the negator’s flesh and machinery already consumed. He left behind a hole that bled oil and thick black blood.

  The negator was well built, keeping to its feet though all the fight had gone out of it. Croag lashed out with both taloned hands, raking off large swaths of flesh and gouging into bone and metal support. The shield came up, and Croag ripped it from the other’s grasp, hurling it with all of the Phyrexian’s force so that it actually stuck into the armored walls of the throne room. The clawed hand rose sluggishly, and the member of the Inner Circle caught it and used searing whips of energy from his eyes to severe it at the wrist. Still the negator remained standing.

  Just how long could it stand up under such damage, Croag wondered. With something very much akin to physical pleasure, the Phyrexian set to work.

  * * *

  A violent quake shook the Stronghold, as if the plane’s flowstone foundation had shifted under the weight of the towering fortress and its processing equipment.

  Davvol slowly paced the short aisle that ran between both lines of negators. Four of the Phyrexians to a side, each was a deadly instrument. They were the result of his centuries of effort, tailoring the best of the negator abilities into ever more-efficient creations. If not for the unknown strengths of planeswalkers, Davvol might have thought any one perfectly suited for the task of killing Urza. As is, they were his best—and last—gamble.

  A particularly sobering thought, Davvol was now forced to gamble his hard-won power in this bid against the ‘walker’s life. Still fresh in his perfect memory was the day of several months prior when he came into the Stronghold’s throne room. The oil mixed with blood was pooled in the middle of the room and splattered in streaks and splotches against the walls. He remembered the scent of flesh—meat—spoiling in the fortress’s warmth. He found his own guardian negator shredded, fouling the throne room. It was not defeated, not dead, but shredded—rent down into pieces so small that it could only be done with a deliberate and determined effort. It could only be credited to Croag. It was a message, no subtlety at all, that Davvol’s immunity from the Phyrexian Inner Circle member had expired.

  For the first time in many centuries Davvol remembered a trace of the fear he had once felt for the Phyrexian—the cold touch along his back and the metallic taste of a mouth suddenly dry in nervousness.

  Fear, as would forever be the case, was a wonderful motivator. Davvol brought the production of flowstone up yet again, pushing his workers and the machinery well past their limits. The secondary attractors shook with constant tremors, at times twisting against the Stronghold itself, but the counterbalancing torque built into their design allowed for such abuse. Today’s earlier visit, in fact, set a new threshold for the equipment. He also stepped up other projects, readying a private army capable of killing the land of Yavimaya once and for all.

  Of course, he bent himself strongly to the task of killing Urza. Destroying the ‘walker was the one act Davvol knew could assure his continued position as evincar of Rath. It could bring him closer to the compleation he desired. His body was already strengthened to the point where aging and routine damage could not hurt him, yet Davvol still knew many of the physical limitations of flesh: Heat and cold, pain and discomfort. The evincar looked only toward protecting his mind, allowing it an immortal existence free of such encumbrances. For now, however, he could only imagine the benefits of such a form while the threat of Croag hung over his present life. That threat colored everything darker in an already black land. It interfered with Davvol’s ability to think straight and to plan.

  One final nod completed the inspection. Nothing seemed amiss, and the evincar could think of no other refinements that might make the difference—none he had time for at any rate.

  “Find Urza Planeswalker,” he ordered. The floor shook again, causing him to stumble to a wall rather than be cast to the ground. Cracks showed in one flowstone wall, then reformed to a smooth surface under his mental direction. “Find and kill him. Go.”

  Each negator turned away, stepping for their own portals, which already stood open at the back wall, then they were gone, tracking. Davvol stood alone in the throne room, trying to sort through so many mental notes and decide on his next action. Another quake worked its way up through the floor and along the walls, a grinding tremor that seeped up past the armored soles of his boots to churn inside his stomach. This time it did not fade immediately, setting off a sympathetic shaking that reflected back from other directions.

  Something was wrong. Davvol sensed it. The Stronghold was by no means a sentient entity, but he had known it for so long that he sometimes felt a connection to it that had nothing to do with the flowstone properties or the great machinery at his command. That connection spoke of danger.

  Now the walls shook but not the floor—decidedly unsettling. Davvol called for guards, led them toward one of the bridges he had ordered built in his first century as steward, a construction which held one of the secondary attractors. Even through half a kilometer of flowstone and metal, Davvol felt the grinding of metal tearing into metal, of gears stripped or screeching as the joints threatened to bind. Before he had crossed the bridge’s expanse Davvol was running. Why this day of all others, he wondered briefly, allowing his emotions to co
lor his thoughts. Why not tomorrow or the following year? More precise logic returned. Why not last week or the last decade? Whatever the problem, it happened now. To solve the problem was paramount, not to make matters the more difficult by dwelling on his own frustrations.

  The upper chambers were frantic with workers running about trying to bring machinery back under control. The sealed shaft that housed the large driving screws twisted against its mountings. Machinery rattled, and a pipe ruptured to pour cold lake waters over the floor. The water flashed to steam where it washed up against hot steel, raising an instant steam bath. Davvol ordered the local supervisors captured by his guards, stopping them to put questions forward. Frantic work degraded into chaos with the workers suddenly bereft of leadership. Davvol grabbed one by the shoulders, lifting it off the floor and shaking it like he might a rag doll.

  “What is happening?” he yelled at it, not thinking to place the touch upon its mind. In this hectic environment, he likely would have failed regardless. The entire bridge shook, throwing half the workers and even a few Phyrexians to the ground. “What is it?”

  One worker leapt for Davvol’s face, its gaze wild and panicked, swinging a sharply-tapered tool. A Phyrexian soldier skewered him on its sword, held the Vec dangling in the air while blood seeped out around the edges of the blade, and then cast it down to the floor. The Vec supervisor waved down other workers who looked about to snap under the stress and sudden violence. The superviser then pointed down, jabbering at Davvol in its own speech. Whatever the problem, it came from below, in the complex mechanisms of the bladed dials that pulled lava up from the furnaces far underground.

  Davvol wasted no more time with questions. He kicked at the lifeless worker, venting rage and frustration. “Kill them,” he ordered two guards. “All but that one.”