Invasion Cycle - Planeshift Part 28

"Not likely," Gerrard barked, fists held up before him. "How about it, Crovax? How about an honest fight for once? No angels, no devils. Just you and me."

Claws curling into fists, Crovax waved off Selenia and his guards. "All right, Gerrard. You were willing enough to mop the deck with me aboard Weatherlight. This is my ship. Now you're the mop."

"I'm looking forward to this," Gerrard said with a grin.

He faked with his left and swung a right hook.

Crovax caught the punch. Claws spiked Gerrard's fist.

Yanking him down to his knees, Crovax snarled, "All you have is bravado. Bravado is nothing in the face of death." With his free hand, Crovax grasped Gerrard's neck and hurled him toward the ceiling.

Gerrard soared upward. He wriggled like an airborne cat and slid just to one side of a brutal spike. Arms wrapped around the stalact.i.te, and he held on. Legs lashed out to an adjacent corpse. With a wet sound, the body sloughed free and plunged. It spattered atop Crovax and made a sunburst on the floor.

"Bravado is everything in the face of death," Gerrard said.

Squee meanwhile proved it.

Still swarming over Ertai, Squee shouted to the moggs, "Get dis here stinkin' goblin offa me!"

The moggs converged on Ertai. Groping and pinching, their green arms were indistinguishable from Squee's. The canny cabin boy crawled from the fight as Ertai unleashed his first spells.

Fire burned a mogg's arm to ash. Lightning fried the nerves of another. A third withered into a black lump. A fourth liquefied into a puddle.

"He's killin' us. He's turned on us!" Squee shouted as he scrambled behind the moggs' legs. "Stop 'im! He's gone loony!"

As Ertai hurled spells out at his attackers, moggs hurled fists in at him.

Taking advantage of Squee's diversion, Gerrard dropped from the ceiling to stand, fists raised, before Crovax.

"You are a liar. Yawgmoth may have dominion over the souls of his own creatures, but he has no power over others. He has no power over Hanna."

The evincar of the Stronghold circled, just out of fist range. He still dripped the putrid fluids of the corpse that had landed on him.

"You are wrong, Gerrard." He gestured toward Squee. "I returned the soul to your friend here-brought him back to life."

It was true, but there had to be another explanation. "Squee died in your Stronghold, in your grip. Of course Yawgmoth could s.n.a.t.c.h his soul," Gerrard said. He punctuated the comment with a sweeping head kick. His heel caught Crovax's jaw, cracking loose two more teeth. "Yawgmoth had no hold on Hanna when she died."

Crovax smiled. The bleeding sockets that had held the two teeth folded closed, and the gums rolled outward. Two new teeth ratcheted into position.

"Didn't he? Hanna died of the plague, Yawgmoth's plague. She died in his grip."

Blood swelling his face, Gerrard swung a left hook.

Crovax caught his fist again and grabbed the right cross that followed. Hoisting Gerrard, Crovax hurled him across the throne room.

Gerrard crashed headfirst into the wall. His vision narrowed to a wavering tunnel. He slumped. The wall draped down on top of him. Black flowstone formed into bars that wrapped around Gerrard and solidified. He was trapped.

In that same instant, Squee's fight came to a horrible end.

Ertai slew the final mogg. Squee could no longer hide in plain sight. He dived away. Ertai s.n.a.t.c.hed his ankle, hoisted him up, and swung him over his shoulder like a maul. Squee's head struck the floor. There came a bursting sound and a red spray. Squee's body lay utterly still. His life spread across the floor.

Ertai stared with haunted eyes at the slain figure. Was it hatred that twisted his face, or fury ... or regret? Whatever it was, when a vampire hound loped up to lick the floor clean, Ertai kicked the beast in the chest, driving it off.

Crovax walked with slow relish toward Gerrard. Over his shoulder, he said, "Nice work, Ertai. Why don't you go recharge yourself? I know you can't resist the mana infuser."

"I'll stay," said Ertai. His voice was feverish. "I want to see this through."

"Suit yourself," Crovax said offhandedly. He reached Gerrard and crouched beside his flowstone cage. "Do you see what has happened to Ertai? Do you see what has happened to me? We have gone the way of all heroes. We have joined the winners."

"You aren't heroes. You never were. Flawed, weak, seduced by darkness-monsters. In your hearts you were monsters all along," snarled Gerrard.

"What do you think of Commander Agnate? Hero or monster?"

"Why do you care?"

A simple hand gesture from Crovax indicated the center of the throne room.

There, as solid as Selenia, stood Commander Agnate. Beneath his battered armor, his flesh was riddled with rot. Two axe clefts split the man's head, but still he gazed at Gerrard with seeing eyes.

"He made a bargain with death and then thought to cheat death of its due. Agnate was clever but not clever enough. He could cheat a lich lord, but he could not cheat Yawgmoth," Crovax said evenly. He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "What do you think of Rhammidarigaaz? Hero or monster?"

"Don't tell me he-"

Suddenly, the red dragon was there beside Agnate. His figure was deformed as if clutched in a brutal fist. Burns covered his skin, but he too seemed solid and alive.

"He sacrificed hundreds of his own folk to become a G.o.d. He attacked Weatherlight and almost succeeded in ripping the power core from the ship. Your friend Karn paralyzed him with visions, and Rhammidarigaaz plunged down into this selfsame volcano-into the grips of Yawgmoth."

"They were heroes, both of them," Gerrard replied. "Yes, they had made bargains with death, but as soon as they realized the price of those bargains, they ended their own lives. They did everything they could to escape you. The fact that you hold them means nothing."

"What about Urza Planeswalker? Hero or monster?"

Blood fled Gerrard's face. "No, you are lying...."

"Am I?" asked Crovax. A final sweep of his hand indicated a nearby arch. A pair of thick doors slid aside. The scene beyond told that this was no mere doorway. It was a portal-a portal that led to a deep level of Phyrexia.

In floating blackness hung a coliseum. It was not hewn of stone but built up out of pure mind. Glowing lines were etched into the emptiness. They formed rings of seats up from the circular staging ground where the portal opened.

At the center of the staging ground rose a round dais. Its perimeter was ranked with countless weapons-polearms, scimitars, staves, axes, maces, daggers-all in fiendish design. Like the rest of the place, these weapons too were formed of thought, not of matter.

"What is this?" Gerrard whispered incredulously.

"This is the mind of Yawgmoth," Crovax replied. "All of Phyrexia conforms to his will, but on the ninth sphere, the thoughts and desires of the Ineffable are all that shape reality. To walk here is to dwell in the mind of a G.o.d. Your friend dwells there even now."

Urza Planeswalker lay, prostrate in obeisance, at the center of the coliseum. He was the only real thing there.

"How did you capture him? How did you bring him there?" Gerrard asked, disbelieving.

"He brought himself He slew a fellow planeswalker and defused the bombs they had planted to destroy Phyrexia. He even left his brother, Mishra, in eternal torment-all to arrive at this deep and sacred place. We did nothing to him, only let him see the glory of Phyrexia, the glory of Yawgmoth. He did what any creature would have done. He bowed down in worship."

Gerrard closed his eyes and dropped his head. "What do you want from me, Crovax?"

"Gerrard, Gerrard, Gerrard ... Everyone eventually must bargain with death, even you. In the end, death gets us all. The question is what you will get from death." With the air of a schoolmaster whose lecture was completed, Crovax stepped away from the portal.

A figure stood there. Even with his eyes closed, Gerrard could sense her presence. He lifted his gaze, and his heart broke. "Hanna."

She was just as he remembered her-whole and hale, slim and strong. There was not a trace of plague in her flesh, no rotting corruption, no agonized emaciation. Her golden hair was drawn back in a ponytail, the quickest way of getting it beyond the reach of grease and gears. Still, a few strands refused to be contained. They draped down about her slender face. It had been so long since he had peered into her eyes, and longer still since they had looked back with anything but pain. Now, they were full of love- and sadness. Though her lips remained closed, as red and round as rose petals, her eyes spoke to him.

They said, Come, Gerrard. Take me out of here. Take us out of here.

Gerrard wanted to look away, but his gaze was locked with hers. "Hanna," was all he could say. "Hanna."

"You can return to her. You can have her back. You can hold her in your arms again," Crovax said. He withdrew across the throne room to take the hand of his angel love. He bowed to her in grotesque courtliness, and his fangy mouth kissed her hand.

Running a claw along the angel's jaw, he said, "Or is your love not strong enough to conquer death?"

Gerrard rose from the floor. He had not even noticed when the flowstone restraints had pulled away. It didn't matter. For Gerrard, there was nothing but the woman beyond the portal, nothing but her eyes.

"All you must do is step through. Take her hand. Know that she is real. Walk with her to the dais, and there, beside Urza, bow to our Lord Yawgmoth. Then she will be yours."

The words echoed within him. No longer did they come from Crovax. They were the words of his own heart: Step through. Take her hand. Bow to Yawgmoth....

Gerrard reached the portal. He breathed his last Dominarian air. Without pause, he stepped through.

Hanna greeted him with a sad smile. Her arms were real and warm. She breathed in his scent. They stood for an age that way, embracing.

Into his ear, she whispered, "What are you doing, Gerrard? You do not belong among the dead."

He replied with utter confidence, "Once nothing kept us apart except my foolishness. Now everything, even death, stands between us, but we are together." Again, the voice came in Gerrard's head: Bow to Yawgmoth.... "Soon we will be together forever."

Clasping her hand, Gerrard strode with Hanna out across the central staging area. His feet walked on nothingness. Only Hanna was real. Reaching the dais, he released Hanna's hand and climbed.

Urza still lay prostrate upon the platform.

Approaching him, Gerrard stared at the black dais. He would kneel on it. He would press his face to it. He would do whatever it took to be with Hanna forever.

One knee kissed the black dais. The other settled into place beside it. Gerrard spread his fingers on the cold surface. Easing himself down to his face, Gerrard lay prostrate.

"Release Hanna-release her whole to me-and I pledge myself to you. I am your servant, Yawgmoth."

In the throne room of the Stronghold, Evincar Crovax swept up his angel in a three-quarter dance. Victory. Yawgmoth had snared the planeswalker, and Crovax had snared the hero. In mere days, all of Dominaria would be theirs.

As the dancers stepped lightly across the floor, Crovax dispelled the illusions of Agnate and Rhammidarigaaz.

They had served their purpose. He only wished Yawgmoth owned their souls, but he should not be greedy. Now even Gerrard belonged to Yawgmoth.

"Great lord," intruded a quiet voice into the dance. It was Ertai, standing above the body of Squee. "You had best see this."

On any other day, Crovax would have punished such umbrage with a shock to the mimetic spine. Triumph made him indulgent. Crovax patiently danced Selenia to the spot. He looked down.

No longer was Squee's head spattered across the floor. It was solid again. No longer was his body still. Breath slid into and out of his lungs.

"He lives again. He rises from the dead - again."

Crovax stared down in amazement. "I must have fixed him better than I had thought. Or perhaps this is the work of our lord." Crovax blinked in thought. "That must be it. Squee is a gift for my labors, a plaything I can kill a hundred times each day."

Even as he spoke, the goblin began to cough. He sat up, looking about in confusion.

Resuming the dance, Crovax strode right across Squee. He crushed the goblin to the ground. His claws sank into Squee's belly and ripped it open. Crovax and Selenia continued onward, leaving red footprints.

Once again, Squee lay dead.

Chapter 37.

A Highway in the Sky.

"Tahngarth, get yourself fore!" ordered Sisay. She hauled hard on the helm, bringing Weatherlight into the slipstream of the black dragon G.o.d. "We've got only one forecastle gun, and it's yours!"

"Aye, Captain," Tahngarth replied from the aft speaking tube. He released the fire controls of Squee's gun and dragged the traces from his shoulders. "But a dozen more dragons are diving on us from the rear."

Through gritted teeth, Sisay shot back, "First, we'll worry about dragon G.o.ds, then about run-of-the-mill dragons." She blew a sweaty lock of hair away from her forehead and hissed to herself - " 'run-of-the-mill dragons.' "

The creature that fled before Weatherlight was anything but a run-of-the-mill dragon. Hugely muscled, sinuous as a snake, the black dragon was sleek and dangerous. Still, it seemed diminished by the death of Rhammidarigaaz. No longer did its scales gleam like fine-cut onyx. Sisay hoped the beast also was no longer impervious to ray-cannon fire.

Tahngarth reached the forecastle. He strapped himself into the gunnery traces. Swinging the great cannon around, he drew a bead on the retreating dragon. Spittle on the gun's cas.e.m.e.nt sizzled immediately away. With a grim smile, Tahngarth unleashed a barrage. Bolts barked upon the air. They swarmed toward the retreating dragon. The first blast mantled the lashing tail. The second splashed across one wing. The third dug a furrow up the monster's hackled back.

"It can be hurt!" Sisay called. "I'll stay tight. Tahngarth, keep up the attack!"

Karn's voice reverberated through the tube, "It can be hurt, yes, but not killed-never killed."

An incredulous look spread across Sisay's face. "Since when have you been an expert on dragon G.o.ds?"

"Since I sifted through the mind of Rhammidarigaaz."

Sisay sent the ship into a dive after the black dragon. "Since when have you been able to sift through minds?"

"I've been changing, Sisay. My memories change me, and so does Weatherlight. The Thran Tome is my history. I can read it simply by holding it. I know things by touch. I touched Darigaaz's mind and saw his past and mine. I know where these G.o.ds came from."

Flack burst from Tahngarth's ray cannon and blossomed into roses beside the dragon.