Planeshift

Chapter 21

Agnate strode no longer at the head of his troops. He could not. His legs were uncertain things these days. It didn't matter. His armies were not uncertain in the least. A tide of commingled flesh-blue muscle and black rot- surged up the volcanic hillside. Living and dead had become comrades in arms. Agnate and his combined armies had scoured the lower reaches of Urborg-every filthy swamp, every festering pit, every sand spit and bone beach. It all was in his grasp. Hundreds of thousands of Phyrexians had ended in fires on the beach. Metathran held the dry land, and undead held the watery reaches.

Only the volcanoes remained. They would fall easily in the next weeks. The Phyrexian garrisons had already been blasted from above. Agnate needed merely to clear out bunkers-just the job for a half-rotten man and his halfrotten army.

Agnate's heart tumbled in him. It had to work especially hard these days, pumping blood through collapsing vessels, driving legs that turned to mush. His heart could do it. It was strong. His secret infirmity didn't matter, for his heart would win the land war of Urborg.

Agnate strode like an old general behind the vanguard. His troops streamed up around him, boys eager to race up a hill. Agnate allowed it. For months, each of these soldiers had fought like ten men. Now they played like boys. After all, there was nothing to fear here in the foothills.

Something huge suddenly eclipsed the sun. Its shadow slid like a leviathan over them. The playfulness left their legs. Soldiers turned, half-crouched away from the shape, and peered up at it with fear.

It was no Phyrexian ship, that was sure, but neither was it a vessel any of them had ever seen before. The craft was headed up with a massive ram, its end carved in the shape of a powerful woman. Spikes proliferated along either side of this figure, leading back to a sleek hull covered in thick armor. The metal shone mirror-bright. At the stern, the armor swept outward in a pair of gleaming metal wings. Long, steely pinions could slide closed across each other like folding fans. Between them jutted a pair of thermal exhausts for what must have been a massive drive mechanism. Fire burned in twin cones of red behind the ship.

Most ominous of all, though, were the Phyrexian ray cannons that gleamed at forecastle, amidships, stern, and belly.

Agnate cursed himself for a fool, but it was too late to recall his men. They were caught in the open, beneath… whatever it was, yet Agnate's heart told him not to run.

The ship cruised toward a flat spot on the volcano's side. Steam hissed from numerous ports along its base. Troops below scattered back. Beneath the ship, landing spines extended from metal panels. The vessel eased down toward its perch.

Only then did Agnate see the ship's profile-her needle-sharp bowsprit, enclosed bridge, and slim stern. Joy swept through him.

"Weatherlight"

When last he had seen her, she was battered. To see her transfigured by her wounds gave Agnate the hope that perhaps he himself could be healed.

He strode forward faster than his legs wished to go. This was a meeting of champions. Agnate was winning the ground battle, and Weatherlight was winning the sky. It was a moment of triumph. Agnate needed a moment of triumph.

He hailed the ship: "Commander Gerrard. It is good to see you among the living!"

From the rail came an answer, "I would say the same of you, Commander Agnate, though you seem among the dead!"

Gritting his jaw grimly, Agnate approached the vessel. It seemed even larger on the ground than it had in the air.

Agnate cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, "This alliance-strange as it may be-has won the wetlands of Urborg. Soon we will win the mountains too."

Gerrard jutted his head over the rail. His face was handsome and dark against the beaming sky, though his eyes were worried. A humorless smile spread across his lips.

"Yes, soon you will win the land, but at what cost?”

The joy that had flooded Agnate drained away. He suddenly seemed all rot. "Permission to come aboard, Commander."

"Permission granted."

A rumble came above as crew members lifted free a section of rail and slid the gangplank in place. It extended down to crunch on a patch of pumice.

Agnate strode slowly toward it. He did not want to seem overeager. Nor did he want his legs to fail. As he ascended the gangplank, he saw the crew members who had lowered it- minotaurs. They were everywhere, crowding the refitted ship.

In their midst stood Gerrard. The young man's eyes were grave, though he wore a welcoming smile. Agnate remembered that smile-the look of a commander who wins all the battles but loses the war. Agnate wore such a smile himself.

The commanders met. They clasped forearms in a hearty greeting.

Gerrard said, "Welcome aboard Weatherlight."

Nodding graciously, Agnate replied, "Welcome to Urborg."

Gerrard returned the nod. He swept his hand out to one side of him. "I have brought you reinforcements. A thousand minotaurs. The elite troops of Hurloon and Talruum. The Phyrexians liked them so well they were planning on recruiting them. I beat them to it."

Agnate took a deep breath and gazed at the minotaur troops. They were the fiercest natural warriors Dominaria had to offer. Urza had used much of minotaur physiology and flesh to design the Metathran. They were cousin races, one conceived by Gaea and the other by Urza.

"Excellent. Minotaurs fight like ten men. You have given me a levy of ten thousand soldiers."

"More like twenty thousand. These troops have lost their homelands. They've sworn a death oath against Phyrexians."

"Yes," Agnate agreed. "Then perhaps even thirty thousand."

Gerrard clapped a nearby bull-man on the neck and drew him over. The warrior wore a solemn expression, despite Gerrard's casual demeanor.

"This is Commander Grizzlegom, leader of the minotaur army."

Agnate dipped his head in greeting, but his eyes remained on the bull-man's face. There was strength in this minotaur but also subtlety, intelligence, perhaps even wisdom. Minotaurs judged each other this way, by the lines of the face and the soul in the eyes. Agnate made a snap decision. It was uncommon for him, but he hadn't much time.

"Commanders, I must speak with you privately," he said in a hushed voice.

Gerrard seemed surprised. He looked around the crowded deck before gesturing toward the stem castle. "We could ask to use Captain Sisay's chambers-"

"No," preempted Agnate. "The sickbay. Your healer should be there too."

Gerrard nodded seriously. "Yes. Yes, of course. This way, Commanders."

The ship had transformed. That was the miracle of Thran metal. It grew.

Karn entered the metal. This was more than peering out the rail lanterns or feeling areas of heat stress on the manifold. This was merging with the ship. Karn's body still crouched beside the engine block. His fists still clutched the twin control rods deep in their ports, but Karn's mind lived in Weatherlight.

The feeling was exquisite. Thran metal was more alive than his own silver frame. Oh, to be made of the stuff, to be a Thran-metal man.

That sparked a memory:

He stood in a hot red place, a laboratory where another metal man was being made-a Thran-metal man. Lizard folk took measurements from Karn and added pieces to the mechanism. Jhoira was there. She seemed not to have aged a day since that horrible time of slaughter in Tolaria. Still, her young eyes were sad. Her jaw clenched in consternation as she studied diagrams. Beside her stood a handsome young man with a dark complexion. Teferi?

How had he aged decades when Jhoira had not aged at all? Why would they make a new Karn?

The memory was gone. How strange. Another Karn, made of Thran metal? A replacement? His friends would replace him with a better design?

Karn had often wondered about his creation. He knew he was ancient. Many of his components were Thran in origin, even the symbol on his chest. Those facts had allowed him to believe in a lofty creation. This memory told of humbler beginnings. He was almost replaced by a Thran-metal man. He was almost traded to lizards.

Desolated, Karn wandered through the fittings of the ship, a man pacing the decks. He absently adjusted a lantern outside the captain's study, enlarging its parabolic mirror. There was also a misaligned latch on the study door-a fitting that hadn't changed to accommodate the enlarged frame. Karn fixed it as well. Every major change to the ship brought a thousand minor ones. Once Karn was done, Weatherlight would be perfect.

Another few months, said a voice deep in his mind, and Weatherlight will be perfect.

Karn paused a moment within the doorknob to Sisay's chambers. The remembered voice brought another scene to mind-a deep woodland. A tree grew there with unnatural speed. It rose from the Weatherseed. Tendrils reached up around hunks of Thran metal, floating in air. Each new shoot brought the tree into closer configuration with its metal parts.

Well, she won't be perfect, said the voice in Karn's memory. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. Beside him stood a man with intense eyes and ash-blond hair. Nothing's ever perfect. Conditions change and designs must too. A bemused look came into those glinting eyes. Suddenly Karn remembered who this was-Urza Planeswalker. Come

to think of it, Karn, you're the only machine I ever made that I stopped fiddling with. That's because you're the only machine that keeps redesigning itself.

Karn was glad he rested in a doorknob. Had he been on his own feet, he would have fallen over.

Urza was his creator. No, that wasn't entirely true. Urza was Karn's originator. Karn was his own creator. That's why he was still around. Karn redesigned himself. Though his metal body did not grow, his soul did.

He suddenly remembered the fate of the Thran-metal man. It had grown until its joints locked up and its plates popped free and it literally burst. It grew outwardly, not inwardly.

The doorknob to the captain's study grew a faint smile.

There were no smiles in sickbay as Orim bent over Commander Agnate. Her coin-coifed hair sent little circles of light dancing across the bulkhead.

To her side stood Gerrard, his eyes intent.

The minotaur commander watched as well. His nostrils flared as Orim untied the Metathran's leg armor.

"I know you do not understand this alliance I have made. It seems cowardly to you, but it is a matter of courage. It seems dishonorable, but at its depth, it is honor," said Commander Agnate. His voice was strained, as if each movement of Orim's fingers brought agony to him. He shook his head and clung to his cot. "You don't understand. You can't understand."

With a sucking sound, the solleret and jambeau came away from Agnate's foot and shin. A foul whiff of air rose from the infection beneath. It was all infection. Rot ran solidly from Agnate's knee to the ball of his foot. His toes were gone. The few muscles that lived under that dark pudding slid along riddled bones.

Gerrard's face hardened. "The Phyrexian plague!" He reached out, grasping Agnate's hand. "No one blames you for this, Agnate. We know about the plague. One of our own died from it."

Agnate gritted his teeth as Orim peeled back the knee piece and cuisse. "There were three plague spreaders… in a swamp. I blasted them-burned them away. That's what happened to my hair. That's when this began." His thighs too were mottled with black spots.

"We can stop it. We can make sure it claims no more of you," said Orim. She withdrew from the prone man, retrieving what seemed to be a vial of fish eggs. "This is the immunity serum for the plague, derived from glisteningoil." She opened the stopper on the vial and tipped it toward Agnate's mouth. "Swallow these, and the plague will spread no farther."

Agnate swallowed. "I will not give in until the land war is won."

Orim stared compassionately at him. "You must. Your legs must be removed."

"No. I can still march. I can still fight-"

"In utter agony," Orim broke in.

"Agony means nothing. Victory means everything," Agnate responded. "Don't you see? I have won the swamps with an army of Metathran and undead-a commingling of flesh. I am as my army. Together, we will win the mountains."

A sharp look came to Orim's eyes. "If I do not remove your legs, you will die."

Agnate's eyes rolled in pain. "The walls between life and death are down. I will not die. I will merely cross over."