Mercadian Masques

Chapter 23

Volrath. Twin mantles of gray skin and bulbous bone arched back from white-gleaming eyes. Black barbs jutted from a thin sagittal crest, and gray armor clung like a second skin to muscles of twisted wire.

The evincar's form was all too familiar to Gerrard-and not just because of the battles and dungeons of Rath. Even after leaving that place, Gerrard had seen Volrath's wicked grin, had felt his predatory gaze parse his soul.

"Takara," Gerrard hissed in amazed realization. He held his sword out before him, keeping the ring of Mercadian soldiers and Phyrexian dock workers at bay.

At his back, Sisay whispered. "Takara? She's here, with Volrath?"

"She is Volrath," Gerrard replied grimly. His mind fled back over all his conversations with the red-haired Rathi- the confidences shared, the guilt unearthed, the talk of hatred giving spine to a hero. It had been Volrath all along.

Gerrard growled at the evincar, "So that's where you've been hiding-in someone else's skin-afraid to face me. You truly are a coward, Vuel."

An edge of anger entered the man's supercilious eyes, but lingered only a moment before dissipating. "I was not hiding, Brother. I was ripping your spine out from the inside and taking your Legacy from the outside. I did not take the form of Takara because I feared you but because I hated you, and I wanted you to hate yourself. On Rath, I've made a career of ripping out heroes' spines and replacing them with mimetic hatred. That's what I was doing to you. I am no coward-more a counselor, more a friend pointing out your great and chronic failings, and empowering you to overcome them. It would seem you are incorrigible. It would seem you are determined to fail."

"You are the one who has failed. Your fleet is destroyed. Your Phyrexian monsters are burning among the ships. Your rule beneath this mountain has ended."

Volrath laughed. Pacing back and forth within his circle of soldiers, he actually laughed. "You and Sisay are surrounded and outnumbered twenty to one, your lover Hanna is executed, your guardian Karn is shackled and held captive, your perfected ship is mine." The evincar spun on his heels, looking directly at Gerrard. "You dare pretend I have failed. What is this measly fleet in flames? It was a cheap price to pay for so diverting a masquerade, for this pleasant dance in which I have systematically stripped away everything you loved until you stood naked and helpless-until I killed you." Volrath drew his own sword. "This moment was inevitable from the time you stole my birthright, Brother. Your death was inevitable."

"All death is inevitable," Gerrard said, lunging forward and swinging his sword.

Volrath easily batted the blade back. Smiling, he dipped his head. His troops surged up behind Gerrard, swarming Sisay. Three Mercadians and one Phyrexian lost their lives before her sword was wrenched away and she was wrestled to the floor.

Gerrard turned, seeing Sisay lying prone, arms and legs held down and a trident jabbing her neck. He growled, stalking toward the Mercadians. Something sharp and heavy struck his shoulder, spinning him around.

"You deal with me, first," Volrath said, raking a bloodied blade from the wound he had just inflicted. "They'll not kill her until I kill you. I want her to see this." He attacked in a humming overhead stroke that crashed down janglingly on Gerrard's sword. Steel skittered on steel, throwing sparks.

With a roar, Gerrard caught the evincar's blade on his hilt and flung it back. "Mercadia is no longer yours. It never will be again. I've denied you this world."

Volrath chuckled. The sound resembled the soft mirth of the boy Vuel when he had roamed the Jamuraan landscape in search of adventure. There was nothing left of Vuel now- nothing boyish except remorseless cruelty. "Mercadians! They can play their little games, or they can perish. It doesn't matter to me what they do." He circled slowly to the left.

Gerrard matched his maneuver. "I've denied you this world, and I'll deny you Dominaria."

Volrath halted, threw back his head, and yelled aloud. Not a yell of anger, but a shout of scathing laughter. "You idiot! You cannot deny me anything. And even if you could, you cannot deny my master."

"Who is your master?" Gerrard felt his heart hammering against his chest.

"The Ineffable, the Lord of Phyrexia and God of the

Multiverse. He has spent millennia plotting the invasion of Dominaria. It is his homeland. It is his holy land. He came from Dominaria, you know, with his people, the Thran. With his people, the Phyrexians, he will return. Do you think for a minute you're going to stop him? Do you think this fleet that you're so proud of having wrecked was the whole of his force? What you saw beneath this mountain is the tiniest part, the merest forefinger of the hand of Phyrexia. That hand is stretching out for your world, and there's not a thing you can do to stop it." Volrath's sword vaulted through the air.

Gerrard barely parried the blow. The Benalian returned it with one of his own, and the clash of steel rang through the hangar as the two blades battered each other. The brothers circled. Volrath lunged wildly. Gerrard stepped back and dashed the sword aside.

As steel skirled again, some long dormant part of Gerrard's mind remembered an identical duel. He and Vuel, mere boys, fought in the bright Jamuraan sun. Beside them stood Vuel's father, the Sidar Kondo. "Remember, boys, no swordsman is invulnerable. Every strength casts a shadow of weakness. Strike there. Gerrard, you're an aggressive fighter with an instinct to attack. Your defenses are weak, cast in shadow. Vuel, you favor your left side. Your blows are powerful and deadly when they fall on the left. Your right is cast in shadow-less guarded and more open to attack."

As Volrath stabbed toward his left, Gerrard consciously gave way. Again, Volrath bore in. Gerrard fell back. Twice, Volrath's attacks sank home. Gerrard felt blood stream down his left arm. His brother smiled hungrily to see the blood, and lunged more recklessly to the left, leaving his right side open.

Careful, Gerrard told himself. He beat back a blow and measured the distance between them. You'll get only one chance. If you strike and fail, he'll realize what you are doing, and you'll perhaps be dead.

Gerrard lowered his guard and feinted.

Volrath's blade swung back, aiming squarely for his exposed left side.

Quick as thought, Gerrard struck at the right. His steel lanced through the breastplate, punched past metal and muscle and bone, and plunged into pink lung.

Volrath fell back, winning free. He howled in pain, the hole in his chest gushing blood even as it sucked air. Golden foam boiled up from his lips as he gasped, "You… wounded

… me!"

Mercilessly, Gerrard advanced, his sword raised high. "No, my brother. I killed you!" Like an axe, his sword plunged down.

Volrath winced back, lifting his blade to guard. Too late. It clanged from his hand, useless.

Gerrard's weapon landed with the weight of a cudgel- but it cut like a razor.

The sword struck Volrath's right collar bone, severing it. It clove a trench eight inches deep. The evincar was laid open. Rib marrow, severed halves of meat, and flayed tendons showed clearly on either side of the sword before blood poured out in a killing tempest. So deep the blade went that it met the previous stab wound in gurgling lungs.

Volrath stood a moment more, only because the attack had been so swift he hadn't had time to crumple. Then he went down sloppily, sprawling to his face, legs twisted beneath him and haunch jutting up.

Gerrard's brother Vuel-Gerrard's nemesis Volrath-at last was dead.

Gerrard raked his sword free and spun, knowing the same fate awaited him. Phyrexian dock workers and Mercadian guards flocked inward. He cared about none of them, but only about Sisay.

With a shriek, Gerrard hurled his blade as though it were a scythe. It harvested the heads of Sisay's captors. They fell as their master had, in streaming gore. Red blood and glistening oil mingled on the floor. The few that survived this first stroke bolted or did not survive the second. Hand slick with the life of his foes, Gerrard reached down and hauled Sisay to her feet.

She had the presence of mind to snatch up a trident from one of the fallen guards. Shaking, she turned back-to-back with Gerrard. The old friends warily watched the circle of soldiers tighten.

"Just like… old times," Gerrard spat out between labored breaths.

"Outnumbered twenty to one?" asked Sisay.

"Well, there's that."

"Surrounded by idiots?"

"There's that, too."

"About to die?"

"Yeah," Gerrard said with feigned ease. "That's the part I meant."

There was no more time for jokes. A wall of tridents and swords converged around the two. Gerrard's sword trailed red, painting the faces of soldiers even as it flung back their killing steel. An edge flashed past his defense and caught Gerrard in the side, but its wielder paid with a sudden debilitating gush of guts.

At his back, Sisay was equally pressed. Her trident was an inferior weapon-rusted and dull-but she made devastating use of it. Prongs blinded one warrior while simultaneously skewering the skull of another. Wrenching the tines free, she brought the butt end up to crack a soldier in the jaw.

In the first press, Gerrard and Sisay each downed five foes, but twenty-five fresh ones remained. The sheer weight of descending metal dragged Gerrard and Sisay down. Prong by prong, Mercadian guards and Phyrexian dock workers slew them.

"It's been good!" Gerrard shouted above clanging metal.

"The fight?" Sisay yelled back.

"Knowing you."

"Same here."

The conversation was cut short by converging blades. From both sides, the unstoppable foes surged in. Gerrard made one final swipe with his sword, knowing it could not fend off even one of the killers.

His blade met no resistance. It swung through empty air. Not empty-full of energy.

A wide, red beam, bright as the sun, surged into being before Gerrard. It flash-burned Mercadian flesh, melted Phyrexian armor and weapons, turned skeletons of both races to puffs of ash. Awash in that destroying beam, Gerrard's sword wilted and fell to the ground in a silvery puddle. There, it mingled with the watery weapons and armor of his foes.

He pivoted back from the killing blast and saw that a second beam vaporized the warriors in front of Sisay. Mercadian and Phyrexian, they were dead. Only Gerrard, Sisay, and a handful of soldiers survived in the trough between the twin rays. A few of them staggered into the incinerating light and burned away to nothing.

Gerrard and Sisay embraced, steadying each other lest either of them tumble into death.

As suddenly as they had appeared, the blinding rays of destruction were gone. They had flashed away more than a score of warriors, their armor and weapons, and even melted the stone floor into magma. In the gloom, two hovering points of light remained-a pair of cooling lenses in the ray cannons aboard a certain ship.

"Weatherlight!" Gerrard sighed gratefully.

The ship was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

She floated above, swathed in the gloomy deeps of the hangar cavern. Her hull shone as if it had been polished, her sails were furled along the great masts that stretched like wings on either side of her. Her intakes set a healthy roar in the air. Fires from burning hulks cast a lurid light across the hull of the ship, but Weatherlight was whole. She was once again flying… and fighting.

The remaining few Mercadians and Phyrexians beat a quick retreat from the warship.

More bolts of death could have leaped from the ship's rail, transfixing them. Instead, a coil of line dropped down. It snaked from the bow and waved within reach of Gerrard. A head peered down beside the rope, and Gerrard realized the ship was only the second most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Hanna!" Gerrard cried happily. "Volrath said you'd been executed!"

"He's a liar," the blonde navigator shouted back. She nodded toward the evincar's lifeless corpse. "Or, he was a liar. Grab the rope and climb up!"

Shaking his head, Gerrard gave a rueful laugh. "I'll not be climbing for a while. Not with this shoulder in ribbons."

"Then tie it around you, and I'll pull you up."

Gerrard dropped the hilt of his melted sword, fed the rope beneath his arms, and struggled to tie it over his breastbone. His hands were shaking too much, and his left arm was weak.

Sisay stepped up, completing the knot. "There you go."

"Oh, Sisay-what am 1 thinking? I should have let you go first. You're the captain, after all."

She smiled. "I'll catch the next lift." Even as she said it, the rope went taut, and Gerrard started lurching upward.

"After she brings me up," he quipped, "you might have to wait awhile for the next lift."

Sisay laughed happily. Another line dropped down within her reach. She glanced up to see a pair of horns above. "Permission to come aboard, First Mate Tahngarth?" she asked as she secured the rope.

The minotaur replied, "Permission granted." He hauled her aloft.

Despite Tahngarth's bulk and Sisay's light heft, Hanna was quicker at hauling Gerrard to the deck. She set one foot on the rail and dragged the rope rapidly upward. Hands accustomed to bolts and wrenches greedily hauled hemp.

In moments, Gerrard slid up the gunwale and over the rail, spilling atop Hanna. They tumbled to the deck, ropes coiling all around them. Their glad laughter gave way to kisses, which again gave way to laughter.

"It's nice to see you," Gerrard said in understatement. His fingers stroked her grease-decorated face and hair. "But you shouldn't have spent so much time primping."

Hanna smiled as she rolled him over. This time she landed on top, straddling him. Her hands gingerly probed the lacerations in his shoulder. "Don't you know it's bad manners to go on a date with an open wound?" Insistently, she dragged his shirt from his shoulder, and the lightness in her voice ceased. "I wish Orim were here…"

"I'm just glad you are," Gerrard said, pulling her fingers away. "It's not bleeding much now. I'll grab some rags and wrap it. Orim can look at it once we get above." He looked about at the ship. "You've been doing some healing of your own. Weatherlight looks terrific."

"Let's go get you and Sisay some bandages, and then let me show you what I've done."

Sisay had gained the deck by then-with a bit more decorum. Together, Sisay, Tahngarth, Gerrard, and Hanna made their way into the bowels of the ship. Down a ladder and along a passage, they reached the sickbay. There, Hanna dressed Gerrard and Sisay's wounds. On a nearby pallet lay Squee, sleeping fitfully after his long ordeal. Fewsteem and

Dabis happened in, lending two more sets of hands. With light but weary voices, the crew members each told of what had happened to them since their parting. They were, Gerrard reflected, like school kids returning after a long holiday, happy to see familiar things once more.

Once the bandages were in place, the crew moved to the engine room, jammed with humming machinery. There, they found Karn, looking immaculate as usual. His hands were sunk into a pair of twin ports in the engine. Within lay handles, which he gripped. Metal filaments jutted from the console into the joints in his metal fingers, hardwiring him to the power core. With a thought, he could control all the engine's levels, harness and shunt its power, even sense the outside world through the ship's lanterns and weapons and hull. It was his concentration that kept Weatherlight floating in midair in the smoky cavern. Karn gave no acknowledgment of his friends' entry, for his silver shell had gone inert. While engaged this way, Weatherlight became his body.

Passing him, Hanna reached the forward casement of the engine, where the Power Matrix rested. She gestured the rest of the crew up beside her and pointed within. Her face beamed for the first time in weeks. "I used the Juju Bubble!"

"What are you talking about?" Gerrard asked.

"The bubble. Karn's been carrying it about in his guts for-how long has it been?"

"A long time," Sisay said. Unbidden, there rose to her mind an image of First Mate Meida, killed when they retrieved the Juju Bubble from the Adarkar Wastes. "What did you do?"

Hanna grabbed her arm, leaving a thick, greasy palm mark on Sisay's skin. "Look. I took the Bones of Ramos and fastened them into the framework of the Power Matrix, but it wasn't enough. I'd hoped they would provide the final link that would channel their power into the Thran Crystal. They didn't until the Juju Bubble was added."

Sisay shook her head. "I don't understand."

"It was Karn's idea. He brought it out from his chest and realize what it was for. When we placed the bubble over the framework of stones, it acted as a kind of lens. It focused the power. The Power Matrix spontaneously grew to incorporate it. It was beautiful!"

Sisay laughed. "All right. I'll take your word for it. But can we planeshift?"

Hanna nodded. "I don't see any reason why not. The ship actually seems stronger than it ever has been. It might be the result of having this new power system combined with the Skyshaper that Karn installed just before we left Rath. But all indications are that we can travel probably twice as fast as we could before."

"We can't reach enough speed to planeshift out of here-" Sisay began.

"We'll have to blast our way into the main cavern and then out the doors at the base," interrupted Gerrard. "We can wipe out the rest of the fleet en route."

"Blast our way out?" Hanna echoed incredulously.

Gerrard smiled, turning toward her. "You've said the ship's more powerful than ever. Let's see how much more. Battle stations, everyone." He spoke the command quietly, but the sound of it carried even above thrumming engines.

"Yes, Commander," Captain Sisay said, saluting. With a grin, she turned and climbed the stairs toward the bridge.

Hanna followed this tongue-in-cheek salute with a similar kiss. Blushing a little, she said, "Sisay'll need her navigator to get through these caves."

"Just so," Gerrard said through a gentle smile.

As Hanna passed between them, Fewsteem and Dabis grinned. "Must we kiss you as well, Commander?"

"Not if you'd like to live long enough to reach your battle stations," Gerrard replied.

Dabis rolled a seaman's cap nervously in his hands. "Sorry to say, Commander, but our battle station was the galley, locking down pots and pans. We never were highly ranked."

"Come with me, then," Gerrard said, motioning over his bandaged shoulder. "You too, Tahngarth. We'll need the four of us to operate the forward guns. Acquit yourselves there, and you'll get a promotion." He strode up the stairs from the engine room, through the hatch, and out onto the deck.

"Forward guns! Possible promotion!" Dabis enthused to Fewsteem. "Better than pots and pans!" Across the deck, they scrambled to the guns.

In her centuries of existence, Weatherlight had been fitted out with numerous defensive measures-dimension disrupters, glasspitters, bombards, lantern-guns, acid atomizers… All of these weapons, though, had been genteel compared to the massive Phyrexian ray cannons now mounted along the rail. Each consisted of a man-sized barrel above a muscular engine manifold. Conduits ran between the two as if they were networks of pumping veins. A pair of foot wells and a torso harness allowed the gunner to brace against the manifold while gripping the dual fire controls. The pivot that joined barrel to manifold was a ball-and-socket operation, permitting movement about two axes. Speaking tubes built right into the pivot formed an open channel of communication to the bridge. Pneumatic arms aided in smooth tracking. A targeting chamber mounted atop the gun allowed pinpoint acquisition.

Two such guns were poised on the upper deck, and Gerrard and Tahngarth climbed the stairs to these. They strapped themselves in. Man and minotaur gripped their separate fire controls, moving the barrels experimentally through their full arcs. Both of the guns could shoot forty-five degrees past the prow on the opposite side, allowing dual coverage of the whole forward quadrant. They each could also sweep back one hundred twenty degrees on their own sides. Their field of fire overlapped with the guns stationed to port and starboard amidships. There, Fewsteem and Dabis readied themselves. A fifth such gun perched on the tail of the ship, and even now, a certain green fellow climbed stiffly to the controls. Squee had overheard the call to battle stations, and he longed to fire the weapon he stared down at for agonizing hours. A sixth gun was mounted to swivel vertically down from the ship's belly, and a seventh to fire vertically upward from the center of the main deck.

"Whatever their other faults," Gerrard called over his shoulder to Tahngarth on the upper deck, "Phyrexians certainly know their weaponry."

Checking his range finder, Tahngarth replied in impressive deadpan. "I've never before seen a machine so worthy of my… adoration."

Fewsteem and Dabis, amidships, were similarly delighted.

"Strap in, boys," came the voice of Sisay from the speaking tubes. Gerrard glanced toward the bridge's windows to see her standing at the ship's helm. She waved. Through the tube came her voice. "Hanna's plotting our course. As soon as she's got it-"

The ship rumbled eagerly, surging higher up from the smoldering floor of the hangar. Intakes on either side dragged in long draughts of air. Steady and humming, the ship released a blast of fire.

Laughter filled the tubes. Then came Hanna's voice. "Sorry about that. We've got lots more power-" She too was interrupted as the prow of the ship swung suddenly about, pivoting on its central axis. Weatherlight swung in line with the caved-in passage.

"And she's more maneuverable," Sisay explained. "Everybody, hang on until we've got the feel of the ship."

"Hang on, strap in, and draw a bead on that rockslide," Gerrard ordered.

"Right, Commander," came Fewsteem's and Dabis's unison reply in the tubes.

"Take us in steady, Captain, a hundred yards from the cave-in," Gerrard said. "Karn, shunt all auxiliary power to the forward guns."

Though there came no response from the engine room, sudden heat filled the footwells. Fire crawled within the manifold conduits.

Weatherlight lifted smoothly above a ruined goblin skiff and then coursed down a corridor among smoldering hulks. She slid easily into place before the landslide and shivered to a gentle halt.

"Train guns. Prepare fire."

The guns locked in on two axes. Lenses shifted within targeting sights, bringing the rubble wall into precise focus. Within the barrels, mirror arrays aligned for optimal-range targeting. Weatherlight held so steady, the crosshairs did not shift a single stone. One by one, indicators flashed, showing synchronous alignment among two… three… four guns. Manifolds blazed underfoot.

"Fire!"

Four crimson beams awoke within four barrels. They stabbed out and struck rubble. Stone melted to magma, sand to boiling glass. Liquid rock gushed downward. A hole opened in the side of the rockslide. Its edges were fused together by stellar heat.

"Cut deeper!" Gerrard ordered.

Beams shifted, stabbing farther into the mound. More rock melted and poured away. Stone seemed wax before the beaming eyes of Weatherlight. A red river flowed down from the base of the glowing corridor. Steam and smoke rolled up along the ceiling of the cavern. The red walls of the cave dripped killing drops of lava.

"Wait till the walls cool before edging in there," Gerrard shouted above the keen of the guns.

Again, range finders shifted the guns. The final stones melted away. A wave of blue smoke from the main cavern rolled inward, hissing as it passed through the glowing cave.

"Cease fire!" Gerrard ordered.

The four guns sputtered a moment and went dark, streaming their own acrid smoke. The crew gave a cheer.

The passage was wide enough to allow Weatherlight through, and the ceiling was cool enough not to drip molten rock on the deck. Through the thick haze of the passage, ship fires were visible in the cavern beyond. Fissures in the ceiling of the main hangar streamed rainwater.

"Take us through, Sisay," Gerrard called. The ship's captain could steer through the tightest spaces. Gerrard smiled ruefully, remembering how at the start of this ordeal, he had steered into the only tree on the horizon. "Once we enter the main cavern, lay in a spiral strafing run around the chamber. Let's finish off this fleet and get a little gunnery practice."

As Weatherlight edged into the hot corridor, another cheer went up, echoing from glassy walls.

Volrath heard that sound. Where he lay, his torso cloven from collarbone to right nipple, he heard. It was a taunting, exultant sound. It meant Gerrard had broken out of the hangar. It also meant that Volrath could safely move.

His rent flesh slowly knitted itself back together.

In truth, Gerrard had not wounded Volrath as horribly as he had seemed to. It was a maiming strike, yes, but not a killing one. Desperate for time to heal that wound, Volrath had used his shape-changing ability to accentuate its appearance. That same ability allowed Volrath rapidly to heal wounds that would kill other men. This laceration would take him an agonizing hour to heal, but at least it wouldn't prove fatal. Volrath had been incapacitated by this cut, and the next stroke would have killed him certainly… except that Gerrard had not delivered a next stroke.

Even now, as Volrath realigned ribs and muscles, Gerrard's scorn echoed in his mind. Hiding in someone else's skin… afraid to face me… coward…

Volrath struggled to sit up. He couldn't yet. It was just as well. His blood was still crawling back into his veins. Soon he would be able to sit, to walk, to reach his own ship. Gerrard might destroy most of the fleet, but he wouldn't find Volrath's battleship Recreant. Volrath would scrape together a crew and reach his ship and fight again.

It was not cowardly to shrink from a battle that could not be won in order to wait for one that could. That was the better part of valor… valor!

Cowardice? No-valor!

Even in his own mind, the words rang false.

Gerrard had killed him. Gerrard had stolen everything from Volrath. It was only because of cowardice that Volrath had survived. Gerrard had killed him once again.

Gerrard!

Hatred gave Volrath a spine. He formed himself up around it. He needn't worry about cowardice and valor, only about hatred. Hatred would raise him again, and hatred would make Gerrard fall.