Invasion

Chapter 37

Gerrard swung his sword. Four of the beasts flew back from the blow, hurled to the ceiling. Two were impaled on stalactites. Two more were broken by the impact. Before Gerrard could even swing again, another beast slumped forward across the pedestal, its torso shattered as though by some incredible force.

Gabbling, Gerrard raised his eyes to see the incredible force. "Karn!"

Gerrard's oldest friend and longtime guardian answered with a nod. The silver golem swept out his massive arms and clutched five more Phyrexians. He wrapped them in an embrace that broke them like shells in a nutcracker.

As he let their bodies slump sloppily to the floor, he rumbled, "For you, Gerrard, I will kill."

The man on the book nodded back, hacking his blade through beasts. Side by side, Gerrard and Karn fought the minions of Phyrexia.

The prison brigade lifted their swords in a cheer and brought them down in a killing hail. Phyrexians fell in scraps. An elven war cry ululated through the cavern. The Steel Leaf warriors fought with a new vengeance. Metathran blades carved monstrous flesh.

Cut off from their mother and their homeland, Phyrexians died. There were no more reserves. There was no escape. Dominarians marched down from chambers above, and they gave no quarter.

Blood-mantled horns splashed into glistening-oil. Segmented arms twitched in the gore. Stingers pumped venom from severed ducts. Natural spines were hacked in two. Unnatural spines squirmed from dying bodies.

Sisay repaid her hard knocks by lopping the head off a Phyrexian foot soldier. Orim sliced into monsters as though she were hacking cane. Tahngarth whipped his horns in a killing arc. Gerrard spitted a beast through the crown. Karn was a silver tornado, crushing and hurling Phyrexians. In the battle frenzy, Squee wisely clambered onto the golem's shoulders, lest he be mistaken for a monster.

In brutal moments, every scaly back and hackled head fell. One by one, the last Phyrexians died. One by one, swords ceased in the air. There was no flesh left to cleave.

Could it be the battle of Koilos was done? Could it be the battle was won? Dominarian troops flooded down, seeking a foe to slay.

"We did it," Gerrard whispered breathlessly. "Karn, we did it!"

Karn studied bloody hands. "Yes," he said heavily. "It is done."

Sitting astride the golem's shoulders, Squee let out a celebratory cry.

Sisay embraced Orim. "Sometimes the good guys do win."

Tahngarth only stood, gazing grimly at the wreckage all around.

The Steel Leaf elves lifted Eladamri on their shoulders and marched him across the battlefield.

A cavern that, moments before, had echoed with battle suddenly rang with celebration.

It was short-lived. Someone arrived from the caves above, someone whose aura had the same strange power as Tsabo Tavoc's.

Songs and shouts quieted. Everyone in the cavern looked up to see who had come.

It was the blind seer-but somehow, he was changed. His back was straight. The bandage was gone from his eyes, which beamed like twin jewels. His white linty hair had been replaced by spun gold. All the aged decrepitude was gone. In its place, there was a mantle of ancient power. He descended into the cavern along the same route Tsabo Tavoc had passed.

Corpses lay prostrate before him. Living warriors watched in wonder. Reverently, they went to their knees. As the blind seer made his way toward the mirror pedestal, every last creature dropped in obeisance.

Only Gerrard and Karn remained standing. Goldenhaired and white-robed, the great man approached the mirror pedestal.

Even Karn dropped to his knees.

Gerrard, his blood dripping down the glass and metal book, glanced incredulously at the silver golem.

Sword still out, he whispered, "You know him?"

"I know of him. I know-somehow-I know that he created me."

Gerrard stared open mouthed between Karn and the blind seer. "He created you?"

"Yes, I did," the man said. "I created Karn and the rest of your Legacy. I created even you."

Gerrard's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"I am Urza Planeswalker."

"You're what?"

"I am Urza Planeswalker."

"You're Urza Planeswalker?" Gerrard echoed incredulously. He glanced down at Karn, whose head remained bowed.

"Yes. I am the one who started all this. I am the beginning. You are the end. I have made you and your Legacy for this very hour."

Gerrard shook his head. "What are you talking about?"

A strange smile lit the man's face. "I have watched you fight, Gerrard. I have seen you command your ship, your crew. You have been everything I imagined and more. The result is this-victory at Koilos."

"You are the beginning, and I am the end…?"

The shimmering man gestured to the bloody book. "I first opened this portal by removing the powerstone that closed it. Even now, the two halves of that stone reside here, in my skull. They have made me what I am-Urza Planeswalker.

"I have made you what you are-my opposite, my complement, my counterpart. Just as the stones that once opened this portal are part of my being, so, your very being has the power to close it."

"You are the planeswalker," Gerrard said in an amazed hush. He sighed wearily. "So, am I to stay here, on this book, for all eternity?"

"No," Urza Planeswalker replied. "I have the power to open this portal, and you to close it. Together, we have the power to destroy it."

Urza reached to the belt of his white robes and drew forth a mighty sword. It shone like lightning in his grasp. He lifted it above his head.

"Shall we?"

Gerrard raised his notched and bloody blade. The two swords hovered in midair. Then both fell in a singing rush. Together, the blades smashed into the book.

It shattered, flinging glass all about Gerrard. He stood, whole and healthy, in the midst of the lacerating storm. Smoke rolled up from the lines of metal that jagged across the book. Then, they too were destroyed. Metal ran like mercury, sliding to the edges of the pedestal and bleeding down the sides. Even the mirror pedestal lost its gleam. The life went out of that ancient and powerful construct. With a final rolling puff of smoke, the book and pedestal grew still.

Urza sheathed his sword. His voice resonated through the room. "Now and forevermore, the portal of Koilos is closed." He reached up for Gerrard's hand. "Come down."

A little unsteadily, Gerrard took the proffered hand and leaped down beside the planeswalker. The cave wall remained dark. The portal to Phyrexia was destroyed.

Gerrard stared amazedly into the gemstone eyes of the planeswalker. "You made me for this? You created my Legacy, plotted my destiny?"

"I did, Gerrard Capashen," Urza replied quietly.

"I hate you," Gerrard blurted.

"Forgive him, Master Urza," Karn rumbled, still bowing. "He was poisoned by the spider woman-"

"No," Gerrard interrupted. "I mean it. I really do hate you. It wasn't the Phyrexians who took everything from me. It was you. From the beginning of my life, you have destined me to lose everything."

"If you fulfill your destiny, in losing all, you will gain all."

"No. You are wrong," Gerrard said. "I will be your champion, your hero, yes. I will fight the fight I am destined to. But all the while, I will hate you."

Urza's eyes seemed to dim a little with that. "I know. I will count it as one of my own great losses." In that moment, he did not seem the great, ancient, mad planeswalker, but rather an old and lonely man.

Drawing a shuddering breath, Urza went on to say, "Thank you for victory over Llanowar, and victory here." Urza lifted Gerrard's arm high into the air.

"Rise, faithful of Dominaria," Urza shouted. "Arise in victory!"

The cheer that answered shook Koilos like the tread of a titan's boot.

A week later, the Caves of Koilos had been truly cleansed. Every last drop of glistening-oil had been scrubbed away, every last Phyrexian corpse burned. Gargantuas and witch engines, trench worms and scuta had formed a pyre that burned to the heavens for six days. Meanwhile, with due and solemn ceremony, the Dominarian dead had been buried in the desert. Steel Leaf warriors had been laid beside Metathran beside Benalish fighters. The Dominarian coalition had gathered to mourn.

Now fighting and mourning were both done. The time of festival had come.

Armor was polished until its gleamed beneath the Glimmer Moon. Swords were sharpened. Blood and oil were bleached from livery.

Even the titan engines were scoured. No Phyrexian scales remained in mammoth feet that had crushed them. No scorch marks dimmed armor plates. Ray cannons shone as though they had never been fired. Empty of their planeswalker pilots, the titans now stood in a broad circle that stretched from the caves to encompass a large patch of desert. These colossi marked the edges of the festival grounds. Within their circle thronged coalition forces in their tens of thousands. Elf, Metathran, Benalish, dragon- those who had won at Koilos ate and drank, cheered and danced before the caves.

In the midst of the titan circle and above the happy throng hovered a ship that was hope to them all.

Weatherlight was resplendent in the night sky. Her every lantern beamed, casting a glad glow on the revelers. Festival lights traced out her healed hull and her backswept airfoils. Her deck held a glorious feast-pheasant and boar, eel and salmon, oat-bread trenchers and onion stew, cakes and puddings and pasties. All of it had been brought by Urza Planeswalker to feast the commanders of his victory.

In their ceremonial best, the dignitaries mingled about the board.

Tevash Szat animatedly narrated his exploits to Commodore Guff, who struggled to write down every word for his official history. Nearby, Daria, Taysir, and Liin Sivi sipped merlot from round-bellied glasses. Bo Levar had brought boxes of assorted cigars, one purportedly dating from before the Ice Age and another rolled from tobacco grown by Teferi on Tolaria. Freyalise and Kristina discussed matters in Llanowar with the head of the Steel Leaf warriors. The panther-warrior Lord Windgrace traded stories with Tahngarth about "human folly."

The rest of Weatherlight's command crew enjoyed the repast as well. Sisay split her time between the helm and the banquet table.

Karn between engines and conversations, and Multani between the ship's hull and her guests. Orim, in a Cho-Arrim robe and coin-coifed hair, listened politely as Squee described how he had saved "everybody's butts from de beginning till now." Laughter only encouraged the goblin-laughter and food and wine. They flowed in plenty on the amidships deck of Weatherlight.

A quieter group stood at her stern. Over cigars and rye spirits gathered the four men who had fought hardest and lost most in this war. Eladamri, Agnate, Gerrard, and Urza lingered in each other's company. They said very little. They laughed not at all. The merriment below was like music to them. They listened and appreciated but did not join in. A grim gladness gripped them, the sort that needed few words.

Urza spoke those few words. Lifting his glass, he said, "Here's to all we've lost, and here's to us."

Four glasses rose. They clinked quietly together. The four heroes of Dominaria drank.

The three-day festival was over. The revelers slept in their tents. Only a handful of guards remained awake that morning- they and the green-man from Yavimaya.

Multani heard a sound, a strange rumble. There was movement in the desert-vast movement.

Multani rose through the timbers of the great ship Weatherlight. He assembled a body for himself out of the living splinters and shards of wood he found along the way. On deck, the pieces piled themselves into legs, a torso, arms, and a head. Two knotholes made themselves into eyes. With them, Multani looked out.

Beyond the tents, on the morning desert of Koilos, strange, twisted shapes were imposing themselves. Hills like flayed muscle. Fields of tortured red. Across those lands were arrayed enormous armies-Phyrexians.

It seemed a vision-this coruscating red world-a premonition of evil. Yet, the tangled land seemed so solid, so real.

Multani had seen such a world once before. He had glimpsed it in the mind of a dead Phyrexian in Yavimaya. That monster had a name for the world that even now slowly overlaid itself on Dominaria.

Rath.