Planeshift

Chapter 35

The damned thing was fast, lightning fast. She skipped across clouds like a stone across water. Her silver hull hid her in plain view. Unnatural, otherworldly, impossible – Weatherlight was the monstrous creation of a monstrous planeswalker. She had the arrogance to claim the skies over Urborg. The Primevals would not rest until Weatherlight was a shattered hulk. She was not easy prey. Whenever Rhammidarigaaz and his fellow gods drew near, Weatherlight dived among magnigoths. Treefolk shielded her behind thickets of green. They slashed the Primevals with thorns and battered them with boughs.

Darigaaz's fire burned hundreds of magnigoth branches, but hundreds of thousands more fought on. Rith poured rampant spores onto the treefolk, but the resultant growths only strengthened them. Treva's purifying light energized leafy crowns.

Dromar's distortion waves only bent the boughs. Even Crosis's death-word was impotent. The treefolk had no ears with which to hear.

These magnigoths held divinity. A god lurked in the wood and shoved back at them.

Dauntless, the Primevals soared among the magnigoths, intent on flushing Weatherlight into clear air. She jittered around a bole just ahead.

Stay on her, commanded Darigaaz.

The Primevals' wings hurled back the skies. They only just kept pace with the dodging machine. A ray cannon blast reached from the ship's stern. It broke over Darigaaz's ruby hide and refracted in harmless beams.

Crosis and I will break away, he sent. We will linger in the clouds above the main volcano. Drive the ship there. We will stoop upon her from the skies and rip her apart.

Spreading his wings, Rhammidarigaaz hurled himself high into the sky. As black as onyx, Crosis rose beside him. Never had dragons ascended so quickly. The beginner of life and the ender of it pierced the blue. Stroke for stroke, their wing beats matched. They tore through the clouds and leveled out. The dragons nosed toward the volcano.

Crosis's thoughts brimmed with sarcasm. These were once your comrades, your friends. You fought beside them in Serra's Realm. Now you fight to destroy them?

Darigaaz resented the intrusion into his mind. Serra's Realm was long ago…

The death dragon coiled through Darigaaz's consciousness. He smelled death and followed it toward its source.

Your mother, Gherridarigaaz, died in Serra's Realm.

Before Rhammidarigaaz could stop it, the image of her death flashed in his memory: Gherridarigaaz rose before a killing spell. She spread wide her wings. She made herself a living shield, guarding Urza Planeswalker. The spell dissolved her, melting flesh from bone.

Rhammidarigaaz shut away the sight of it. Serra's Realm was long ago…

Crosis gloated. Do not feel ashamed. Yes, she made the wrong choice, sacrificing herself. Altruism is a mortal flaw. You are no longer mortal. Your mother chose wrongly, but she could not see all you see. She was not a god.

Through flashes of cloud, Rhammidarigaaz glimpsed the volcano's caldera below. Enough of pointless memories. Weatherlight approaches. He tucked his wings and plunged.

Crosis followed.

Darigaaz banked into a perfect intercept course. He watched his shadow jag across the rocky slopes. Weatherlight's shadow leaped up an adjacent hill. The dark shapes converged.

Darigaaz landed athwart Weatherlight's forecastle. He struck the planks with a profound boom. Claws clasped metal and shrieked. Wood groaned beneath his gemstone bulk. His tail lashed down to amidships and swept the portside gunner overboard. Clinging to Weatherlight, Darigaaz hurtled through the skies.

Crosis swept down to starboard, just missing the ship. It did not matter. Darigaaz was more than capable of doing the job himself.

In one foreclaw, he grabbed the port-side ray cannon. He ripped the machine up from its deck mountings. Metal bolts tore the living wood. Energy conduits ruptured. Green goo oozed across the deck. Hoisting the gun high, Darigaaz hurled it over the rail. The cannon tumbled, sparking and spitting as it went. It impacted the caldera and rolled into shattered wreckage.

It was a satisfying sight. Soon the whole ship would be down there.

Darigaaz turned about. There was no real reason to yank out more guns. The cannons were worthless against the Primevals. Instead, Darigaaz clawed to the amidships deck. Ahead lay the hatch. It led to the engine core. It would be a quick thing, an easy thing, to smash it to pieces.

Grizzlegom's army was not as it had been. A thousand minotaurs and twenty thousand Metathran had begun the war against the undead. Afterward, only six hundred minotaurs and twelve thousand Metathran remained-just over two legions. They were purified, leaner and more ferocious, but the question remained: Could the living warriors take the mountainside?

They faced an endless army of Phyrexians. Monsters flooded over the lip of the volcano. Il-Dal warriors, massive in red armor, il-Vec fighters fitted with gray cogs, mogg goblins, scuta, blood-stocks, troopers… The usual menagerie of monstrous horrors flooded toward them.

Grizzlegom's axe clove through the brain of a goatheaded Phyrexian. It fell. In its place lunged a thing with the mouth of a spider. It tried to snap the minotaur's head off. He interposed his battle axe. The blade cut through the beast's face. Grizzlegom rammed it deeper and twisted. The Phyrexian shuddered in death spasms. Grizzlegom hauled his axe free, only just in time to lop the head from an il-Dal berserker.

On either side of Grizzlegom, the minotaurs and Metathran were equally pressed. One blue warrior seemed a figure in a fountain. Oil sprayed up all around him. Nearby, a minotaur advanced with a Phyrexian on either horn. He slew a third foe with his fists. These victories were surrounded by defeats. A bull-man roared his fury as he died beneath a scuta. A Metathran clawed toward the front though his legs were gone. For every foot of ground they gained, the army of Grizzlegom lost ten warriors.

The simple math of it meant they would never reach the crest. Still, they fought. Metathran and minotaurs did not need a winning battle to fight on. They needed only a foe.

Grizzlegom gored an il-Vec monster in the gut. Its viscera cascaded from a mechanistic cavity.

Dead though it was, the beast clutched the minotaur's throat in four sets of claws. They constricted.

Gasping, Grizzlegom whirled his axe. It took off the thing's head. Its claws only tightened. Dizzy from lack of blood, Grizzlegom chopped loose one arm after another. Still the pincers clung to his neck. Grizzlegom holstered his axe and pried the dead claws from his flesh. He used one straight away, ramming its points into the eyes of the next Phyrexian. The minotaur commander drew his axe and finished it off.

We will never reach the top, he thought as he slew another monster.

With a sudden roar, his lines advanced. A tidal wave of warriors crashed against the Phyrexians. Gray-skinned Keldons were suddenly there in the front lines. They hewed hungrily into the monsters. Just behind them stood elf archers, who filled the air with deadly shafts. The combined forces advanced up the volcano at a run.

Grizzlegom could only stand, stunned into stillness.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. Grizzlegom turned to see the silver-haired face of an elf warrior."

"From your colors, I assume you command these minotaurs and Metathran?"

Grizzlegom nodded. "And from yours, I assume you command these elves and Keldons?"

The man returned the nod. "I am Eladamri of the Skyshroud elves."

"I am Grizzlegom of the Hurloon minotaurs."

Their hands clasped-glistening-oil sealing their unspoken alliance.

Eladamri nodded to the peak of the mountain. "Let's gain it."

Smiling-an uncommon expression for any minotaur- Grizzlegom said simply, "Yes."

They had taken only a single step up the hillside when more warriors arrived.

Gigantic lizards galloped upward. Claws scrambled over pumice. Scales shimmered atop rippling muscles. In moments, the huge lizards overtook their allies. They launched themselves over the front and landed among the Phyrexians. Lizard mouths gobbled down the nearest beasts. Tongues lashed out to grab those farther away. Fangs punched through armor and carapace and bone. The lizards literally ate through their foes.

"What are they?" asked Grizzlegom, gaping.

"They are Kavu," Eladamri replied in awe. "Guardians of a faraway place." He glanced up the hillside, where magnigoth treefolk battled dragons in the skies. "A friend of mine must have brought them."

"Whatever they are, they are allies," Grizzlegom said. He strode eagerly toward the battle. Eladamri paced him.

Ahead, Kavu feasted. They rolled, swallowing their prey. In their ecstasy, they emitted a metallic purr and seemed almost to laugh.

With axe and sword, Grizzlegom and Eladamri joined the Kavu. They laughed as well.

"Hold on, everybody!" Sisay shouted into the speaking tube. She kept her voice admirably even, given that she was staring a red dragon in the face. "I'm going to shake this snake."

Weatherlight suddenly nose-dived. The horizon line swept from the bow to the tops. The world stood on end.

Rhammidarigaaz's legs pulled away from the planks where he clung.

"Full power, Karn!" Sisay ordered.

The engines blazed. They drove Weatherlight downward, as though to spike her through the peak of the volcano. Momentum pulled the dragon farther from the deck. Below his dangling talons, a hillside of basalt and obsidian swarmed up.

"Here we go!" Shoving the helm forward, Sisay inverted

Weatherlight.

Sky replaced ground and ground replaced sky. Upside down, the ship leveled out of her plunge. Her deck thundered above ridges of stone.

Rhammidarigaaz was levered up to dangle beneath the overturned ship. One more yank, and he'd be thrown free.

Sisay gave that yank. She pushed the helm hard forward. The Gaea figurehead climbed skyward. Inverted, Weatherlight rocketed after her. Dominaria shrank vertiginously away.

The dragon clung on with damnable tenacity. His back struck the windscreen of the bridge, shattering it.

Glass shards hailed Sisay. She shut her eyes but clung to the wheel. Flying on motion sense, she steered the ship high into the sky.

In moments, the glass had ceased its deadly hail. Sisay opened her eyes. What she saw horrified her. No longer did Rhammidarigaaz obstruct her view. Already he had shattered the hatch and clawed his way down toward the engine core.

With a violent fist, Rhammidarigaaz ripped wide the companion way that led to the engine room. He drew himself down. Talons sank into the inverted ceiling and dragged him deeper into the ship. He reached for the engine room bulkhead. Ruby claws tore the wood asunder.

The room beyond was flooded with power. It limned every metal plate and shone in each mana module. It reverberated through the chamber and sluiced down around Darigaaz. The engine whined as the ship righted itself and struggled skyward. Soon, all this power would be destroyed.

Darigaaz reached toward the thrumming machine.

Suddenly, something appeared in the way. It seemed an animate door-too heavy, too huge to be a living thing. Still, it tickled the corners of his memory. It was not until the thing spoke, its voice like distant thunder, that the dragon remembered:

"What have you become, Rhammidarigaaz?"

Karn. There was but one voice in all time like it. He and Rhammidarigaaz had worked side by side in the mana rig at Shiv.

"You once fought for Dominaria. Now you fight only for yourself."

The answer seemed plain: "I once was mortal, but now I am a god."

The metallic eyes of the silver golem fixed his. "You once were good, but now you are evil." The metal man clomped forward, grasping the dragon's horns. It seemed he wanted to wrestle-a ludicrous thought-but his metallic touch created a mental conduit.

Darigaaz reeled at that touch. What was this? Divinity was awakening in Karn. Power undeniable. The silver man had lived a forgetful millennium, but now that his memories were returning, they were transforming him.

Memory was creating this fledgling god, and with a touch, Karn awoke Darigaaz's own memories.

Into the Primeval's mind came an image of a long-ago time. He was a young serpent. He flew, wings spread, above Weatherlight. They struggled to escape Serra's Realm as it collapsed around them. Once a home for angels, the place had become a perfect hell. Its mad ruler saw foes everywhere and slew all those she could. Refugees crowded Weatherlight, the final few who would escape.

Once, you would have sacrificed yourself to save another. Now you sacrifice everyone to save yourself.

The Primeval's response sounded hollow. Altruism is a mortal flaw.

Karn replied only by dragging forth more memories:

Darigaaz saw Rokun, sacrificed upon the magnigoth. He saw the four dragon lords sacrificed within the catacombs. He saw the hundreds of serpents sacrificed in the watery cave. And now… now every last dragon in the world was a living sacrifice to the Primevals.

"What has become of me?" uttered Rhammidarigaaz.

Those words seemed to break the bond that held him in place. The dragon's horns pulled free of Karn's grip. He drifted backward, up the companionway, as if in a dream. Weatherlight flipped over again, struggling to be rid of him.

Darigaaz did not fight. He slid effortlessly up the companion-way and out the shattered hatch. In battering winds, he hung for a moment beneath the inverted deck of Weatherlight. Then he tumbled free.

He could have spread his wings and caught the air but did not. What have I become? He could have saved himself from the volcanic caldera below, but he was no longer interested in saving himself.

One final sacrifice would break the circle of Primevals, would free the dragons from their bondage and make the dragon gods mortal once more.

In his last act, Rhammidarigaaz gathered the power of his ancient homeland. He sent it in a blazing column down into the caldera. He could not awaken a whole volcano, but he could awaken a single molten shaft. It would be enough.

Lava erupted. It rose around him and coated him. It encasing him in a broiling fist and dragged him down. He would be dead before he struck ground.

For all the red-hot rock, for all the agony, he saw not his own sacrifice, but that of Gherridarigaaz.

His mother had chosen rightly. She had indulged the mortal flaw.