Invasion

Chapter 13

Urza and Barrin strode up a Tolarian hillside, toward a rocky prominence called the Giant's Pate. While battles raged the world over, this island was a place of calm. Tolaria was a tiny isle, distant from all trade routes. It lay within a tangle of winds that made it almost impossible to find. Swathed in magics and patrolled by helionauts, Tolaria was among the securest sites in Dominaria. It was also Urza and Barrin's home.

For a millennium, they had worked here, training new generations of artificers and preparing for the present invasion. Here, they had taught the precocious Teferi, who now was a planeswalker himself. Jhoira of the Ghitu also learned here. Multani had come to Tolaria to grow the hull of the great ship Weatherlight. Even Xantcha had dwelt here-in the heartstone that now rested in the head of Karn. This island had given birth to every great Dominarian artifact and artificer. It had also given birth to legions of bioengineered warriors-the Metathran.

That was why they had come today, to awaken the two Metathran commanders who would lead the Dominarian armies at the Battle of Koilos.

The planeswalker and the mage reached the Giant's Pate. Barrin panted. He was in superb shape for a severalthousand-year-old man, seeming only in his mid-fifties. Still, an ascent up the Giant's Pate could make a thirtyyear-old pant. Barrin's breath-lessness came in part from his memories of the place-of the deep black gorge below, once rife with Phyrexians. He had fought his first Phyrexian invasion from this hilltop, had once flown an ornithopter low over that fast-time rift to save the life of Urza Planeswalker.

Urza did not pant. He did not even breathe. He was too deep in thought. His gemstone eyes gleamed sharply as they swept the horizon. Behind him lay the vast sprawl of the artificers' college of Tolaria-blue-tiled roofs above curving white walls. Before him stretched the time-gutted wilderness.

Tolaria had suffered a cataclysmic explosion that left it a place of temporal scars. Time gashes, they were called- deep temporal chasms where time ran at a snail's pace and tall temporal plateaus where time fled away to eternity. Urza had caused the cataclysm, of course, and he had subsequently found ways to benefit from it. He set up laboratories in fast-time hills, where weeks of research could be done in days, where bioengineered generations could reproduce every year. As to slow-time sloughs, they were most useful for storing food, artifacts, and even creatures.

"There," said Urza pointing toward a series of tightly packed time shells. Some were nearly black, fast-time zones where sunlight was rapidly swallowed. Others were lightning-white slow time where radiation doubled and redoubled. "The Curtains of Time. That's where we stored the Metathran commanders."

"Thaddeus and Agnate," Barrin supplied. "You must remember that though it's been a century for us, for them, it will have been only a few hot minutes. They'll expect us to know their names."

Urza turned his gleaming gaze on the master mage. "And you must remember that these two are perfectly engineered for their roles. They have no expectations other than the ones I have given them."

Barrin shrugged, hiding the motion in a gesture down the far side of the Giant's Pate, toward the Curtains of Time. "Let's go get them."

Marching down the Giant's Pate was always easier than marching up. The path was smooth, worn by a thousand years of foot traffic. It led down to a bower of wild grapes and up toward the Angelwood, a mild slow-time paradise. Urza and Barrin turned off the path, cutting through blackberry thickets. Beyond, they approached a gleaming white wall. It shimmered brilliantly, a barrier of energy. In the brightest fold of that curtain, the Metathran commanders waited. There, time was almost nonexistent.

Urza's gemstone eyes grew dark. He could shape and color his body however he wished. For Barrin, protections were a bit more elaborate. He waved one hand around himself, evoking a shroud of blackness that sank into eyes and skin. He seemed a man of midnight, his clothes hanging on personified emptiness.

The two strode, side by side, to stand before that brightest of spots. Through blackened sight, they could just make out two white capsules within the gleam. Each was ten feet tall and six feet wide-a living sarcophagus that shielded the commander within from a century of sunlight. Explosive charges would blast the capsule doors-and the men strapped to them-back into the main time stream.

Urza stood to one side, and Barrin to the other. It would be death to stand directly before those capsules when the charges blew.

"Are you ready?" Barrin asked.

"Bring out the commanders."

It was a simple spell, one with no gestures, no words, no components that partook in time. Such things would have halted the effect once it entered the time curtain. Instead, the spell was quick as a thought, as immediate as recognition.

Bolts exploded. They outlined the doors in a radiance brighter that the sun. Within the time rift, the blast was instantaneous, but in the normal temporal flow, the blast spread out through the air like bleach wicking through fabric. It formed a brilliant halo about the caskets. The doors left their frames. The gaps widened by inches. Thick plates of steel cleared the case. The figures strapped to the doors showed through. Enormous and mantled in fire, Thaddeus and Agnate rode, faces pressed against the padded inner doors. The Metathran were eight feet tall, blue skinned, and powerfully muscled. They seemed fiery demons as they soared out of the time curtain.

The first of the doors broke through the temporal field. Its metallic face burst the zone and dragged normal time in vortices behind it. The door brought with it the deafening roar of the explosion. Then came the clap of the temporal field closing, water after a diver. With the same fierce bellow, the second door crashed through the temporal wall. Vast energies spent themselves on that re-entry. This was by design, lest the doors fly for miles, killing their riders. Just beyond the time curtain, the doors toppled, side by side. They struck ground in a pair of terrible thuds. Steam and smoke hissed in circles around them, momentarily hiding their occupants.

Barrin cast a second spell. Wind leaped from his fingers, rushed beneath the steaming hunks of metal, and slowly lifted them into the air. The spell bore the doors away from the ravening curtain of time. Slicing through the blackberry thicket, the air-sleds and their occupants came to rest on the path to Angelwood.

Barrin and Urza followed. As they went, they shed the ebony protections they had donned. By the time they stood on the path, they had regained their common aspects. The wreaths of smoke dissipated, revealing the two commanders who would lead the armies of Dominaria.

They were gigantic. Each commander was three hundred pounds of muscle and bone. They were human, yes, but only barely so. Their rib cages were as strong as rhinos', their arms as powerful as gorillas', their legs as long as horses'. They were not body only. These two were great minds, trained in every strategy of war, honed from inception for their task.

Thaddeus rose first. Straps that held against the rocket blast of the door were no match for his flexing arms. They snapped, whipping back to flog the rocky path. Heaving himself up from the padding, the great gladiator rose. Two heads taller than most men, he seemed taller still because of the silver-white hair that stood like flame from his head. Thran emblems tattooed his cheeks and forehead, announcing his name and generation. Blue, armored shoulders towered over Barrin. Bright eyes gazed from beneath a jutting brow.

"The invasion has begun?" Thaddeus asked, his voice as deep as a bear's growl.

"Yes," Urza replied simply.

Thaddeus nodded in understanding. His jaw rippled. "My army stands ready?"

"Yes," Urza repeated.

The commander's eyes shifted down to where Barrin knelt beside the other door. "What of Agnate?"

The Master Mage raised his head, drawing a hand back from the man's neck. "He's not breathing. There is no heartbeat. Perhaps the blast was too much-"

Thaddeus strode to the spot. He was there in two steps. His feet pinned the door down, and his hands ripped the straps loose. In the same swift motion, he hauled his counterpart free and laid him supine on the stone. Thaddeus balled a fist and pounded massively on the man's breast.

Agnate's body lurched under the assault, but he did not stir.

Thaddeus drew a deep breath and forced the air into Agnate's open mouth.

"He must live," the massive man growled as he pounded Agnate's breast again. Aside from the blow, there was no life in him.

"How strange," Urza mused, staring down at the sight. It was strange indeed. Agnate's musculature was perfect, his figure the pinnacle of eight hundred years of genetic research. He seemed a sculpture, flawlessly rendered, but cold. "It has been only minutes since he was placed in that capsule. What could have slain him?"

"The shock of the blast might have done it," Barrin said, kneeling beside the lifeless figure as Thaddeus worked him over. "Or perhaps the capsule failed, and the solar rays-"

"We could assign both armies to one commander," Urza thought aloud.

Thaddeus reared up from the most recent breath. "I cannot fight without him. All our training… no, more than that… all our lives-" he pounded the still breast once again- "we share the same flesh, the same mind. We are genetically identical. We think each other's thoughts. I cannot fight without him." He breathed another gale into the man's lungs.

"I am seeing a flaw in your design," Barrin said to Urza.

Agnate suddenly spasmed, as though his spirit had leaped back into his body. He gasped and clutched his hand over Thaddeus's fist. Agnate's eyes opened, that same sky-blue. Awareness filled them and realization a moment later.

He sat up. Thaddeus pulled him to his feet.

"The invasion has begun," Agnate guessed.

Staring intently in his counterpart's eyes, Thaddeus nodded and smiled. "Yes."

"Our armies await us?"

"Yes."

Urza shot a knowing glance at Barrin. "What were you saying about a flaw?"

Barrin shrugged. "They do not have to fight alone now but what about a week from now? A month? A year? Perhaps they will."

"Perhaps you will have to fight without me," Urza replied, "or I without you."

Agnate turned, bowing curtly to Urza. "Master Malzra, where does our battle unfold?"

"A desert, perfect for deploying troops. I fought once there myself. Everyone has fought once there. We will engage Phyrexian ground armies to take back the Caves of Koilos."

Tsabo Tavoc arrived at Koilos.

She pivoted within the piloting bulb of her private fighter. The craft was her own design-a one-person vessel fitted with a flying harness that allowed her to access the powerstone controls with all eight of her mechanical legs and both of her human arms. It flew faster than any other Phyrexian vessel, bore more armor, and had a ray cannon for each of her legs. Its main body was the spider woman's piloting bulb. The rest was drive core and metal deadliness. When she led an aerial armada, the fighter straddled the command cruiser, replacing its traditional bridge. Tsabo Tavoc replaced its traditional crew.

Just now, though, she arrived without her armada. They were busy hunting down the last vermin in Benalia. They needed her no longer, so complete was her victory. Her master had been pleased. The other commanders were still mired in combat in Yavimaya and Shiv, in Jamuraa and Keld. They hadn't even found Tolaria yet. Benalia was the first great victory of the early war, and Tsabo Tavoc was made second-in-command for the entire invasion. Her master had been wise to promote her-and wiser still to send her far away from him. Black widows have a way of eating their mates.

Soon Koilos also would belong to Tsabo Tavoc. She would stand before her master and ascend his throne. Then she would conquer even Lord Crovax.

The fighter skipped lightly above a desert rill and plunged into the slanting darkness on the other side. Tsabo Tavoc's legs moved in precise jabs within the piloting bulb. The ship leaped to her touch. It slid down into the belly of the dark terrain, following an ancient hollow.

This was an historic place, she knew. Megheddon Defile, it had once been called, the clearest overland route to the Thran city of Halcyon. Down this hollow, when it had been a narrow valley, had marched the Thran in their war against the Phyrexians. They had been utterly destroyed in that war, through the grand wisdom of the Ineffable. Somehow, though, they had managed to shut him away from his world, from Dominaria.

Tsabo Tavoc's fighter soared from the encroaching cliffs and out onto the wide, flat plains of Koilos. A distant outcrop appeared on the horizon.

It was all that remained of the once-towering extrusion on which Halcyon had stood. The caves beneath that outcrop-what had been called the Caves of the Damned-held a permanent portal to Phyrexia. That was the gate closed to the Ineffable when he was banished from Dominaria six thousand years before. That was the gate opened again by Urza and his brother Mishra at the beginning of the Brothers' War four thousand years ago. It had been closed again by the traitor Xantcha and remained that way- the Ineffable willed it so-until the invasion had begun. Now, the gate was wide open, the only land portal in the early war. It belonged to Tsabo Tavoc.

She was to keep it open, to bring through the vast land armies arrayed across the first sphere of Phyrexia. More importantly, she was to battle Urza Planeswalker, who would inevitably bring his forces to close the portal.

With a final few flicks of her barbed legs, Tsabo Tavoc sent her fighter screaming over the caves of Koilos. A beautiful sight opened before her. Rank upon rank, they awaited her arrival- Phyrexian troopers, witch engines, dragon engines, negators, gargantuas, shock troops, vat priests, sand crabs, raptors… One hundred thousand of them, they filled the desert like thorny crops and spread to the horizons.

As Tsabo Tavoc's fighter soared overhead, they welcomed her with an awful shriek of joy. Their leader had arrived, their great mother. "Tsabo Tavoc!"