"If you could only meet him, only speak to him, you would see his sincerity," Agnate said.
"A man can be sincere and still be wrong, Commander. What Dralnu has done is wrong. Life and death cannot be allies. They must forever be at war. You must break this alliance, before you are destroyed."
Agnate's eyes traced out the seams in the canvas above. "I am already destroyed."
The minotaur commander swung his legs from the pallet. He had been badly burned by the gargantua's stomach acid, but minotaur healers knew much about treating burns. Grizzlegom leveled his gaze.
"Only one question remains, Commander Agnate-to whom will you grant your army?"
"Yes," Agnate mused. "To whom?"
"If you grant Dralnu your troops, you have given him everything. He will corrupt them as he has corrupted you. He will scour the land of Phyrexians only to claim it all as his own."
"And if I grant my army to you," Agnate supplied, "you will turn my men against Dralnu. You will make our men fight an army of undead."
"Yes, but at least they will be fighting for their lives, not their deaths."
Agnate's face was firm. "I cannot allow you to betray this alliance."
"How can you speak of betrayal? This whole alliance was a betrayal. You lie there, rotting from a plague given to you by your ally, and you wonder about betraying him?"
Grizzlegom asked. He stood, hooves firm on the floor. "It is too late to save yourself, Agnate, but save your army."
"Draw it up, quickly now," Agnate said in sudden decision. "I will sign it. I will seal it. Only draw up the order, and my troops are yours."
Grizzlegom nodded a command to the healer, who drew out quill and parchment to write up the order. Meanwhile, the minotaur commander knelt beside the bed of his comrade. He took Agnate's hand.
"Why not convey the instructions yourself?"
"I cannot. You said it was too late to save me, but you were wrong. I do not want to rise again as a minion of Dralnu. The one condition of my order is that you make sure that does not happen." Agnate stared piercingly at his comrade. "It will take two strokes, the first to end my life and the second to end my unlife. The twice dead cannot be raised. Only then will I be free."
Grizzlegom's eyes were full of dread. "Do not ask me to do this. Instead, I shall slay Dralnu myself, and you will be free."
"It is not certain enough. I am done bargaining with death. This must be certain. Two strokes," Agnate said.
The healer approached, bearing the order and a quill. He brought also Commander Grizzlegom's striva.
Agnate reached out, taking the order. He read it, signed it, and used his ring to seal it. Then he handed it back to the healer.
"There, I have made the strokes that will save you. You must make the strokes that will save me."
Grizzlegom took the striva in hand. He lifted the blade. It was golden in the lantern light. "Until we meet in the true warrior's paradise…"
Agnate watched the blade descend. He thought only of a long ago time when another blade-his own battle axe- carved the air of a cave room and descended into the face of another great warrior.
Chapter 26
Among Immortals
To see them fly that way above a flashing sea-Treva in white and Rith in emerald- was glorious. No dragon could look upon that sight without sensing the raw power in it. To the heart of any dragon, power was beauty.
See how the sun makes Treva an avenging angel? See how the waves make Rith a mosaic of gems? Who can doubt their glory? It sings from their wings and reaches back to snare us and drag us along. How wondrous to be dragged so!
Rhammidarigaaz could not hush the whispers of his wild heart. He desperately wished to, but these dragon gods had taken up residence in his mind. No dragon who flew in the wake of the Primevals could resist their presence.
What of Rokun? Darigaaz asked himself. There had once been a dragon named Rokun who resisted. He dwelt now in a dark corner of Darigaaz's mind, along with the other sacrifices. It was hard to see them. A mind naturally looks toward light.
The dragon nations flew above crystalline waters. Gleaming billows covered forests of kelp. A deep rift cut across the seabed, its base as cold and sere as a mountaintop. Verdant gardens of coral overhung it and spread across the shallows. Fish schooled there, and otters darted after them. On the watery plateau beyond lay the dragons' destination-the ancient ruins of Vodalia.
Once this great merfolk city had ruled a whole ocean. Now, its sunken palaces and pearly halls were ruled by barnacles. First had come caste wars, then cold waters, and last Homarids. The Vodalians had escaped the crab folk by retreating to a kingdom across the sea. They had abandoned their capital city to hammerheads and octopi.
Of course, one resident remained-a beast so ancient that even the Vodalians had thought him dead. From his deep caves beneath the ruined city, the blue Primeval called to Darigaaz and the other dragons. Through rock and water, air and centuries, Dromar called them.
Treva trimmed her wings along white-scaled flanks and dived. Beside her, Rith also plunged. They angled toward the black ocean rift alongside Vodalia. Darigaaz furled his own wings and followed. The dragon nations flocked behind.
As Darigaaz descended, the air around him grew pregnant with light. His medallions rang together in a chorus of bells. The sea rose toward his bent brow. Already, it received Treva and Rith with white-splashing coronas.
Darigaaz closed his eyes and let his crest cleave the waves. He struck with tremendous force. The water parted around him. He dragged air down in its midst. The sea closed, enveloping him.
The water was as warm and salty as blood. It seeped into Darigaaz's scales. His momentum carried him deep into the cleft of the sea floor. Treva and Rith swam below. Darigaaz spread his wings and drove downward.
The water grew tepid. It lost its steamy vitality and squeezed him in an unwelcoming fist. Each surge of his wings propelled him to colder, darker, deeper reaches.
Vodalia disappeared above. Canyon walls rose. Partway down the rift, even the voracious seaweed gave up its hold.
Only black rock remained. Darigaaz's wings flung twirling spirals of bio-luminescence up behind him.
Deeper still he swam. The sea wanted his air. It gripped his lungs in a brutal fist. He had never dived so deep. He would have turned back now except for the gleaming outlines of the Primevals below.
Then he saw dim light spilling from a cave. It was no mere cave. This was a grand entranceway carved from the very rock- an enormous and elaborate facade. What armies of mortal beings had slaved to fashion the great gates of ivory? What patient creatures had carved the colonnade beyond? How many score years had the Vodalians worked in these killing depths to create this underwater palace? And why?
A blue flash came at the center of the gates. It illumined the two Primevals, their claws clutched about the locking mechanism. Lightning cracked through the metal. It tumbled apart in shards. A compression wave carried the noise. Ivory gates swung slowly outward, giving a clear view of the passage beyond. It was lined with columns. Light intensified toward the end of the passage. Through the gap swam Treva and Rith and Darigaaz. From chill depths behind came the rest of the dragon nations.
This was no palace but a tomb. Between the columns, wide niches were carved, stacked from ceiling to floor. Those spaces held dead merfolk. Their bodies had been preserved by the cold and depth, and even their clothes remained intact. They wore simple tunics, and their foreheads were marked with the sign of servitude. No doubt, they had carved these walls not knowing they fashioned their own graves. It was the wicked privilege of gods that they bury thousands of their people with them.
The god would lie ahead.
Another surge brought Darigaaz up beside Treva and Rith. Three sets of wings hurled the water back. Trailing vortices stirred the bodies from their niches. Corpses tumbled in a frenzy behind them. Darigaaz was grieved at the desecration.
But they weren't corpses. They were living-or u
nliving- guardians.
Merfolk zombies swarmed the dragon nations. They clawed eyes from their sockets. They pierced eardrums with reaching bones. They swam down dragon throats and gnawed them away from the inside. Suddenly, the water was full of blood, dragon blood.
Though breath was failing him, Darigaaz turned and plunged into the swarm of zombies. His claws sent fiery magic out through the waters. Boiling liquid shot from his fingers, impaling undead.
The monsters converged. They tore at his wings. Darigaaz shot lightning through them. They gouged his eyes. Darigaaz poured flame into them. More zombies attacked.
They were too many. If he remained, they would kill him. Already, scores of dragon bodies lay dead upon the ceiling.
Darigaaz felt something powerful clutch his arm. He whirled with another spell ready.
It was Treva, gleaming white in that bloody channel. Come, she sent, mind to mind, they cannot reach beyond the waters. Come.
What of these who die? Darigaaz asked.
They are the sacrifice, that Dromar and the rest of us might live. Come, now. There was no arguing with her. She was a dragon god.
With a final flick of his tail, Darigaaz drove himself from the swarming zombies. Side by side, he and Treva shot through the waters. They reached the end of the colonnade. Light streamed down through a dappled surface. The two creatures launched themselves up.
Their mantles sprayed water as they bounded onto a wide, flat space. They stood, gushing. Darigaaz's red scales were only deepened by the blood of his people. Somehow Treva had emerged untainted. Before them, farther in, stood Rith, glimmering.
"Focus is everything, Darigaaz," Rith whispered. Her mouth steamed in the cave air. "Why do you defend dragon mortals, beset for a moment, and ignore dragon immortals, beset for millennia?" Darigaaz shook out his scales. "They are dying." "Not the ones who swim through," Rith replied, nodding toward the pool.
Up from it rose dragon after dragon. Most had tattered wings. Some were missing eyes. A few were maimed beyond healing, with only enough will to reach air before they died.
"Come, let us make room," Treva said, gesturing Darigaaz deeper into the wide cavern. He followed her.
This upper chamber had been carved as well, in palatial majesty. Dragons and draconic figures appeared everywhere. Friezes filled the walls, depicting primordial battles. Statuary flanked the main way-two huge sentinel dragons, and lesser serpents beyond. The floor between them was literally paved in gold, a dragon hoard as of old. It cast the shadows of their claws against the breasts of the beasts as they strode inward. "An opulent tomb," Darigaaz whispered in awe. Rith shook her head. "This is no tomb, Rhammidarigaaz. This is a trap, a gilded cage. The merfolk created it for Dromar. They lured him here with slaves, with grandeur, with gold. They enthroned him on the seat where he has sat trapped ever since. It was the next science mortals stole from us, the science of desire. They learned our hearts and turned our hearts against us." She looked sharply at him. "Behold." She gestured before them.
A glorious dais in gold and marble presided over the throne room. It was perfectly conceived, a hexagonal platform upon which, in gemstones, was rendered the form of a blue dragon. On that glittering mosaic lay the dragon himself. He was curled as if in sleep. His blue scales were the precise color of the sapphires beneath him. His wings were folded across his body like robes of state.
"What sort of deep magic holds him there?" asked Darigaaz.
"The deepest magic of all," replied Treva. "Desire. The merfolk gave him everything he could wish for. They sated his desire, removing it. Desire is life. Without it, a creature is dead."
Darigaaz strode quietly toward the dais and gazed at the dragon there. He seemed asleep. His claws spread jealously across the mosaic.
"Desire?" Darigaaz asked. "Mere desire?"
Treva spoke in a gentle voice. "There is nothing mere about desire. It drives all action. It brings Yawgmoth to Dominaria. It sends Urza to Phyrexia. It brings us here today to free a dragon god. Desire is the only force."
Darigaaz continued to circle the glorious dais. It was indeed a trove. The ancient merfolk had mined jewels no dwarf could reach, and so had brought together larger, more perfect stones than any Darigaaz had ever seen. Each one would have cost a life's wages, and here they all were- so many lives piled up. They must have hated Dromar even more than they loved riches.
One by one, the survivors of the dragon nations entered the chamber. The stones reflected in hundreds of eyes. Their radiance multiplied upon itself.
"What elaborate spell will return this Primeval to life?" Darigaaz asked.
"No spell at all but the simplest of actions," Rith replied. She approached the dais. Her green scales blended with the emeralds before her. "This action has been performed numerous times since Dromar was first imprisoned, and performed imperfectly, which is why he remains. It was no fault of the countless grave robbers who plumbed the depths, passed the gates, escaped the zombies, and reached this glorious spot. They failed not because of what they did next, but because of who they were."
With that, Rith reached down to the base of the dais and daintily plucked a large jade. She lifted it before her, admiring its beauty.
Dromar shifted. It seemed almost as though the stones themselves had whispered their violation. A blue-mantled neck rose. Dromar's head lifted. The flanges along his jaws trembled. Horns gleamed with predatory light. The serpent's tongue flicked, smelling the air. Lids slid back from angry eyes. He spoke with a voice that resonated like the sea itself.
"Who dares violate the palace of Dromar?"
Rith replied evenly, "It is not a palace but a tomb, and not a tomb but a trap, Dromar. I am the one who violates your trap. I, Rith, your sister god."
The serpent's eyes narrowed as he studied the creatures before him. Quickly, his gaze went to the jade.
"The gem is mine. You cannot have it. I have slain mortals in the thousands for doing what you have done. Always I have regained what is mine and always returned it to its spot. I am the master of this trove. Return what is mine."
"No, Dromar. While you have mastered this horde, the humans have mastered the world. What stone is greater, this jade in my hands or Dominaria herself?"
Heat entered his voice. "I care nothing for Dominaria. I care only for what is mine!"
"That is the crux of your trap, Brother," Rith said, "a trap from which I free you now." With that, her claws closed over the jade. She squeezed. A crackling sound came. Shards of green rained down from her hand.
Dromar rose to his haunches, hate blazing in his eyes. "You think that will bring me out to fight beside you? It will not. You have angered me, awakened me, but you cannot pry me from this place. What would happen to the rest of my trove?"
Treva drew herself up in stately majesty. "We feared you would say as much. Your trap lies not in the whole horde but in every single stone of it. So, there is but one way." Lifting her eyes to the vault above, she spoke a single word of power.
"No," murmured Dromar, but it was too late.
A crack spread like black lightning across the ornate ceiling. Dust sifted down from it, and then spraying water.
"No!"
Hunks of stone plunged from the ceiling. They crashed atop the dais and the bricks of gold. They shattered the gemstone mosaic of Dromar. Jewels cracked and ground to dust.
Dromar clutched futilely at the shattered treasure. "What are you doing? What are you doing!"
"We are returning life to you, in all its agony of desire," Rith said, turning away from the doomed cavern and heading back down the passage. "Your trove is destroyed. You are master of nothing. Come with us, and you shall once again be master of the world."
Still Dromar did not leave his ruined dais. Still he clutched at the shattered stones. All the while, rocks smashed down around him.
Treva and Rith and the dragon nations retreated to the zombie pool. Rhammidarigaaz brought up the rear. Jewel shards washed past his feet. He turned, exte
nding his hand.
"Come, Brother. Live."
Chapter 27
A Calling Card for Crovax
"All hands on deck!" Gerrard yelled into the speaking tube. "We're being boarded!"
"Greven is mine," reminded Tahngarth from the other side of die forecastle. The minotaur had drawn a striva, one presented to him by Commander Grizzlegom. He had not wielded a striva in battle since Mercadia. How fitting that this new blade be inaugurated with the blood of Greven il-Vec. Eyeing the wicked weapon, Gerrard said, "You'll get no argument from me."
Side by side, the minotaur and the commander descended the forecastle steps. Up from the central hatch streamed crew members. Most were seafarers turned skyfarers. They bore with them cutlasses and daggers. Others were ensigns and engineers to whom combat was an unwelcome possibility. Among these came Orim and her assistants-healers who now bore swords. All hands meant all hands.
Striding toward the stern, Gerrard greeted Orim. "You could stay below, wait for casualties."
She hitched her brow. "You'd be surprised what Cho-Arrim water magic can do to Phyrexian metal."
Gerrard and Tahngarth mounted the stern castle steps. They ascended beneath the port-side sweep of the wing stanchions. Suddenly another comrade was beside them. The stairs bowed toward his bulk.
"Karn, what are you doing? How are we going to break free with our engineer above deck?"
The silver golem reached casually to his side, seized one of the grapples, and snapped its line. The cord whipped loose.
"How can we break free with these grapples attached?"
"True enough," Gerrard affirmed, thumping the metal man on the back.
They hadn't time for more conversation. Greven and his il-Vec and il-Dal warriors had headed first for the bridge. The sounds of swords confirmed Gerrard's fears. He rushed around the corner.
The rear door to the bridge had been smashed in. Multani worked feverishly to regrow the wood, but he could not prevail against the axes of the il-Dal. Now only a single figure blocked their path.
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