Apocalypse

by J. Robert King

  Last of all to emerge was Lord Windgrace. He stood for a moment in his upright, half-panther form as his body finished its shift. His chest narrowed and grew deeper. His arms thinned and rotated forward. His fur thickened into an impenetrable shag. He dropped to the ground in a crouch, gathered his legs, and leaped. The bound took him up away from the deadly wires. Windgrace landed on the fallen engine of Taysir.

  “It is not right to leave him here.”

  Bo Levar spoke for the others. “What do you propose?”

  The panther warrior responded by tearing his way into the titan engine. He seemed a great predator ripping into a huge carcass. Heat-stressed armor cracked easily under his claws. Wind screens separated from their casements. A crevice opened into the heart of the great machine, and Lord Windgrace dragged himself through it. An earnest clamor came from within.

  Stunned, the other three planeswalkers watched.

  “He might have simply ‘walked into the suit,” Freyalise said.

  “Quite a ruckus too,” remarked Commodore Guff. “Undignified.”

  Bo Levar shook his head. “It is dalfir—the warrior’s rite. If a panther warrior dies in battle and cannot be borne away whole, his or her heart must be removed and carried back home.”

  “Brutal, barbaric stuff,” Guff commented.

  “No,” Bo Levar replied, “not when your land is filled with lich lords looking for dead warriors to raise.”

  Commodore Guff looked around the blasted landscape. His face was made huge behind the giant monocle, and his breath formed twin white cones beneath his mustache. “Excellent precaution, I must say.” He turned to his comrades. “If the situation calls for it, I’ll gladly rip out your hearts.”

  Freyalise gave him a dangerous look. “Best be certain I’m dead before you try, or you’ll limp away missing a dearer organ.”

  The commodore averted his eyes. “Well, bust my bullocks.”

  Lord Windgrace emerged, mercifully ending the need for more conversation. He bounded over the wires and landed in the companions’ midst. Coal caked his claws, but there was no sign of Taysir’s heart.

  “You have performed dalfir?” asked Bo Levar reverently.

  “I have,” replied the panther warrior with a bow. “His heart is safe. I wrapped it in clean clothes and absorbed it into my own flesh. It is caged in my ribs, beside my own heart.”

  Blinking in thought, Bo Levar said, “You have done him a great honor.”

  Again, the panther warrior bowed. “I am honored to bear him away.” He turned toward Freyalise. “Would you rather be pathfinder or detonator?”

  “I will find our way. Follow me.” With that, Freyalise vanished. Where once she hovered, only the horrid, twisted wires remained—they, and something more: a scent. It smelled of meadows where true grass grew, and of forests where trees reached for the sky.

  Lord Windgrace lifted his nose, drawing in the sweet scent. He could follow Freyalise as surely and as silently as he would track a doe down a deer path. “Until we meet again upon a free Dominaria.”

  “Quite right there, Old Tom!” enthused Commodore Guff.

  “Until then,” Bo Levar said quietly.

  Windgrace leaped into the air, following that vital, ineluctable scent. He planeswalked. The scent trail drew him from the field of wires to the base of a pneumagog city. He hovered a moment in the sky, taking in the scene.

  The pneumagogs were little more than blurs of steel wings over red-shelled bodies. Part physical, part metaphysical, the pneumagogs flew angrily about a hole kicked into their metropolis. Even more angrily, they swarmed the woman who had kicked it there.

  Now outside her titan suit, Freyalise hurled green magic. It impacted the ground all around her, bringing forth a sudden thicket. Bamboo stalks impaled many of the beasts. Rampant vines dragged others to the ground. Still more pneumagogs sliced down to attack her. Freyalise’s own fingers sprouted and split open, showering the air with white blooms. The downy stuff gummed up wings and stuck in spiracles. Pneumagogs plunged from the sky.

  “Better make this quick,” Freyalise said over the din.

  Lord Windgrace did make it quick. He plunged groundward past the swarming beasts. His shoulders bashed them away. They grew thicker as he approached the bombsite. He sank claws into the back of one pneumagog and flung it from the bomb. Releasing a roar, he signaled Freyalise to ‘walk. Then, there was only the rapid jab of a single claw.

  The world ignited. The bomb bounced in its hole. It turned to white-hot energy. A nimbus of fire melted the ground. A column of force shot skyward. The great, towering city of pneumagogs jolted and came to pieces. Across the structure raced black cracks that turned white a moment later as radiance poured into them. It tumbled, and the ground itself gave way.

  Lord Windgrace saw no more. He had already ‘walked. Somewhere, a section of Phyrexia disappeared. Windgrace paid no heed. He followed the sweet scent of life. His own heart quickened even as his friend’s heart lay silent and dead beside it.

  CHAPTER 7

  Rock Druids

  “It’s no good!” shouted Eladamri, standing aback a new Kavu. The greater beast had proved its warrior’s heart in a charge to the fore. Eladamri had leaped to it and fought on. Even now he squeezed his words between sword strokes. “They are endless here! There must be a better way inside.”

  The main gateway into the volcano had ceased to be an opening, piled in thick chitin and shattered mechanism and fair flesh.

  Liin Sivi’s toten-vec flew with fury. Her Kavu’s claws and fangs cleared the way, but whatever avenue opened was flooded closed by Phyrexians. They poured from the gateway in the side of the volcano.

  “If we don’t stop them here, they’ll sweep down the mountainside.”

  Eladamri nudged his greater Kavu, lifting it into a rear. The massive beast rose on its hind legs. Down came the incredible bulk. Claw-hooves burst Phyrexians.

  “Our armies could entrench below.”

  Grizzlegom, wielding his axe in slaying circles, released a gusty grunt. “I did not come here to fight a defensive battle.”

  Eladamri ran his sword through the crown of an albino Phyrexian. “That’s why our armies could entrench, while we penetrate to the Stronghold.”

  A savage smile spread on the minotaur’s lips. “I like the way you think, elf, but we three can’t penetrate this gate.”

  “We three with a score of picked minotaurs, elves, and Keldons,” Eladamri shot back. “And not this gate. The mountain’s as cracked as Crovax’s skull. There are a million ways inside.”

  Grizzlegom whistled shrilly, signaling his troops. He gave the sign for “fall back and entrench.” Instantaneously, the battle shifted down the slope. Minotaurs ceased their hoof and steel advance and withdrew.

  Eladamri likewise barked commands to his troops, first in Elvish and then in Common Keldon. It was like pulling a plug beneath the battlefield. Troops drained away from the conflict.

  The three commanders and their mounts were suddenly surrounded by flooding monsters. A few gestures from Grizzlegom brought ten more mounted minotaurs up to join them. Kavu bounded forth, bearing either single Keldons or whole hosts of elves. The latter bunched together in archer swarms, loosing arrow after arrow into the teeming beasts.

  “Where to?” shouted Grizzlegom as he chucked his axe from the split shell of a scuta.

  “If we’re looking for a crack—” As if on cue, the mountain leaped again. A hundred thousand claws lost footing. A great boom resounded on the nearby mountainside. Eladamri pointed and shouted, “—we go where the booms are.” He dug heels into his Kavu.

  The magnificent creature lurched forward across the basalt face. It bore down dozens of Phyrexians with each impact of its massive claws.

  Liin Sivi’s mount bounded up at the right shoulder of his beast, and Grizzlegom’s steed at the left. In their wake, across a highway of broken monsters, the rest of their team charged. This was no battle now, but a mere trampling. Blades lashe
d out only to protect the flanks and tails of the great lizards. They themselves were the ultimate weapon. Nothing could stand before them.

  Soon, with oily legs, the Kavu cleared the beasts. Claws came to ground on pumice and obsidian. They galloped on, away from the battle.

  Boom! Another blast shook the mountain. Ahead, perhaps ten miles distant, a wisp of white smoke jutted from the hillside and folded itself in the winds. It seemed a flag, a flag of surrender, and it emerged from a long, narrow crevice.

  “There!” Eladamri shouted, leaning his head toward the plume.

  Liin Sivi sent her mount in a full-out run. Grizzlegom kicked his steed, his eyes fixed on the spot and his nostrils drawing in the first brimstone scent of smoke. Keldons and elves surged behind them. Their Kavu made a ground-shattering rumble as they charged across the slope. Gray dust coiled into the air. The beasts leaped deep clefts between hardened floes of rock and dug claws into ashen ground. Ten miles was nothing to them. Their massive legs hungrily ate up the distance.

  The ground shook again, and more white smoke poured from the cleft. The cloud spread thinly upon the wind.

  “What’s happening up there?” shouted Grizzlegom to his comrades. “We can’t crawl down an active volcanic shaft.”

  “Why aren’t any of the other ones smoking?” Liin Sivi asked.

  Eladamri’s mouth drew into a grim line. He signaled his troops to hold back. The Keldons and elves behind pulled their mounts to a stop. Seeing the actions of their allies, the minotaurs did likewise. Only the three commanders rode on. Even they slowed, though, their Kavu treading more lightly across the ground.

  To his comrades, Eladamri said, “We don’t know what is in there. No need to sacrifice our troops.”

  The three approached very near the crevice. It was a deep, black, vertical fissure, naturally occurring between two extrusions of basalt. Lateral cracks branched from the main vein, but they reached only shallowly into the mountain. The central slit delved deep.

  Voices came from within—hushed, gruff, efficient voices. A creature seemed to count down in measured syllables. The sound was ended by another boom.

  Ten miles away, the ground had shuddered. Here, just beside the crack, solid rock bulged outward. It shoved back the Kavu and hurled the commanders from the beasts’ backs. They fell with what grace they could muster, not crying out in surprise or pain, but certainly grunting on impact. Eladamri, Liin Sivi, and Grizzlegom one by one struck the ground, spun onto their bellies, and stared toward the crevice. Their mountainous steeds scrambled away from the hissing vent.

  Once again, the white shock of smoke emerged. Once again, it curdled the air. In ringing ears, the three commanders made out the sound of more voices. None of the words were intelligible, but the dialect was unmistakably Dwarvish.

  Eladamri lifted his eyebrows and turned toward his comrades, only to see the same expression on their faces. Dwarves? Here?

  In Rath and Keld, in Talruum and Urborg, the three commanders had fought many beasts, but they had never fought a Phyrexian dwarf. Perhaps the stature of dwarfs had placed them beneath the eye of Yawgmoth. Perhaps being a runt race had saved them from the transgenic torments heaped on every other intelligent Dominarian species. Whatever the reason, Yawgmoth had not noticed them before and seemed not to have noticed them now. They had arrived on Urborg unheralded, had ambled unmolested through an all-out war, had reached this rocky fissure in the Stronghold volcano, and had begun blasting away.

  As if responding to Eladamri’s thoughts, the crevice shook anew. This time, it sprayed not merely smoke, but jags of rock. The stones hurled outward, landing in a long line across the hardened lava.

  Kavu skittered back away from the stones and crouched against the mountainside. They edged forward like cats on the prowl.

  Eladamri’s lips drew into a tight line. These dwarfs likely were no allies of evil, but that did not make them allies of good—especially not of good elves. Eladamri glanced sidelong at Liin Sivi and Grizzlegom. They seemed just as apprehensive.

  First and last, dwarfs fought for dwarfs.

  Eladamri signaled to his comrades that he planned to advance. They nodded in response. Cautiously, the three rose from their crouches. Liin Sivi fanned out to the right and Grizzlegom to the left while Eladamri crept straight toward the crevice. The voices within grew louder, the words more direct. Eladamri could even make out, in the black depths of the crevice, squat figures wreathed in smoke.

  One of those figures absently waved away the stuff while she hummed out what sounded like a hymn. She began swinging her arms rhythmically, bringing them together in front of her shoulders, swinging them straight down to her sides, and repeating the motion. It seemed at first that she directed a choir. The crackles of red lightning that moved along her arms belied that interpretation. Energy gathered. Fingers of power jabbed her, knuckles sprouting curls of heat. She swung her arms all the more quickly, the tune rising in her throat. In fitful flashes, her spell showed up the deep, smoldering cleft she had been cutting into the mountain. Light also glinted across other dwarf faces—leathery, stern, intent, and singing. In unison, they sang out a final note, and the woman hurled her hands out before her. Crackling force emerged from the mouths of the singers, coalesced about the dwarf woman’s upraised hands, and leaped in crimson lightning. Energy arced through the dark chamber. It lit ancient folds of stone, laid down when Urza and Mishra had torn apart the world. Magical might delved into fissures, cracked through them, clawed huge hunks of stone from the spots, and hurled the flack out the crevice.

  Though the dwarfs stood, stalwart and still, in the onslaught of stone, Eladamri dived to one side. Slivers rattled down the mountainside, once again spooking the gigantic lizards.

  Eladamri shook his head ruefully and muttered, “I thought the damned Kavu lived in volcanoes.”

  He hadn’t thought anyone overheard him, but nearby, Grizzlegom replied, “Yes, but they’ve never been anywhere near dwarfs.”

  That was Eladamri’s job in the next few moments—to get near dwarfs and survive. His best chance of succeeding on both those counts would be to approach them between blasts. Spurred on by that urgency, Eladamri climbed to his feet and strode to the crooked mouth of the opening.

  “Hail, there, dwarf folk,” he called, only belatedly realizing that Elvish might be the wrong language. Indeed, it seemed so, for not one of the rock folk turned to look his direction. Switching to the common tongue of Rath, he tried again. “I am a defender of Dominaria, as I assume you must be as well.” Still, the little beasts did not respond. Quickly running out of languages, Eladamri spoke next in Common Keldon. “I wish to parley, in hopes of alliance.” Not so much as a whisker twitched in the cave. Not so much as a nostril flared.

  Letting out an ironic snort, Eladamri advanced cautiously into the space. Here was a man who had united the Kor, Vec, and Dal of Rath, who had brought together the sundered folk of Llanowar and had melded the xenophobic Steel Leaf elves with the xenopredatious Keldons. He wasn’t about to get defeated by a bunch of dwarfs.

  In a patois of the languages he knew, speaking slowly and firmly as though to children, Eladamri said, “I am friend. I not hurt. I help. We help each other.”

  Stony silence. The warrior in Eladamri had to wonder if he were walking into an ambush. Every other instinct told him that though something odd was occurring, he was utterly safe. Eladamri approached the first of the dwarfs, a gray-bearded gaffer with a nose as large and bulbous as a cucumber. The creature was turned away from him and made no motion as the elf lord neared.

  Reduced to monosyllables, Eladamri said, “Friend. Peace. Help. Good….” He set a hand gently on the dwarf’s shoulder, and his words immediately ceased.

  His fingers touched only stone.

  Blinking, Eladamri stared at the creature. It was no more than a stack of stones. Its nose was a bulb of hardened lava. Its gray beard was a hunk of porous pumice. Its shoulders were basalt blocks, its body a stumpy extrusion.
Eladamri turned, looking at the other creatures in the crevice. They were equally stony. While his imagination could make creatures out of them, in true light, they were nothing more than conglomerates of stone.

  Perhaps the uniter of worlds had at last met his match. What good were prophetic words when one was speaking to a literal stone wall?

  Eladamri stepped among the statues for a moment before pausing before the dwarf woman. Moments before, she had drawn red lightning from the mouths of her comrades. Now, she was—nothing.

  Sighing deeply, Eladamri waved Liin Sivi and Grizzlegom forward.

  The Vec and the minotaur stalked inward. Both were consummate warriors, ready for anything. They were caught entirely off guard by the sight of Eladamri among stalagmites. Grizzlegom stared baldly at them, as if by will he could turn them to flesh.

  “They were alive, weren’t they?” Eladamri wondered aloud as his comrades made the rounds. “Blasting things and singing.”

  Grizzlegom tipped his head. “That’s what I saw.” His four-fingered hand ran across the face of one of the dwarfs, feeling only cold solidity. As if doubting his own senses, Grizzlegom added, “That’s what my Kavu saw.”

  Liin Sivi was equally nonplussed. “They’ve carved this crevice. Look at that carbon scoring. They definitely lived, just moments ago.”

  Shaking his head, Eladamri said, “What am I, a gorgon, freezing these poor creatures?”

  “It ain’t me,” Grizzlegom quipped, examining his white-bleached fur and twisted horns. “I’m beautiful.”

  Eladamri flung his hands out in frustration. “I’d hoped to ally with these creatures. I’d hoped they could provide us a way in to attack the Stronghold.”

  “We can’t ally with rocks,” Liin Sivi pointed out.

  The Uniter shook his head. “No, we cannot.” He nodded toward the mouth of the crevice and daylight beyond. “Let’s go.” Though Eladamri stepped toward the light, neither of his companions made a move. Both stared in dumbfounded amazement at him.