Sisay smiled tightly to them. Her eyes flitted across the crowd, seeking familiar faces but finding none. Instead she turned her gaze toward the great black obelisk before her.
It was a gargantuan monument, five sided and carved from enormous sections of basalt. Its edges had been polished to a mirror sheen, and in them were etched the names of the brave fallen. One side bore the folk of Keld and Hurloon. The next recorded the dead of Yavimaya and Llanowar. The third side told of losses in Benalia and Argivia, the fourth of Tolaria and Vodalia, and the last, all who had fallen at Urborg. At the peak of the great obelisk, two busts had been carved back to back—the faces of Urza and Gerrard. In back, their heads fused with the monument, making the two men seem parts of a whole.
Sisay and her crew approached the monument, around which a rope of red velvet stretched. She spotted the seats reserved for her and her company, among the other great leaders of the war. As they settled in, hands tapped shoulders and lips whispered familiar greetings.
The gathering had waited for these final few. The officiator of the ceremony—a familiar woman in green, whose feet never quite rested on the polished ground—began her oration.
“Here, my friends, in this weighty monument—here are the souls lost to save our world. It is a crushing weight, too great to be borne by any one of us. Yet, it was borne by two.” She lifted a regal hand skyward, toward the faces engraved above. “Is it any wonder, under such a burden, that they seemed sometimes petulant, sometimes mad? Is it any wonder that we all found ourselves railing against them and later consoling them. Theirs was a burden we each bore but in fraction. They shouldered it, and in the end, it crushed them.
“Their sacrifice sums the sacrifice of everyone listed here, and everyone who died nameless in this conflagration. Because of them, we remain.
“Here is a secret—The weight they bore is nothing next to the weight we bear. They have handed us a new world. Now we must carry it on our backs. It is our job to live, to make certain their sacrifice was not an empty one. They willingly shouldered the burden of death. Let us gladly shoulder the burden of life….”
As Freyalise spoke, for it was indeed she, Sisay could think only of her friends, gone forever. Wars were won by the dead for the living, but those who survived, those as wounded as she and her crew were, could not truly live afterward. Wars were fought for grandchildren and great grandchildren, not for sons and daughters.
Sisay wondered how her companions and she would survive in a world without Weatherlight.
“…I wish I could read every name on this obelisk. I wish that each could be inscribed in the highest position, that whatever gods might roam by would know them for who they were. I wish each could be inscribed in the lowest position, that all of us who dwell in the dirt might read and remember. That is our burden—to live and read and remember. To keep pure the world given into our hands.”
It was too great a burden. Sisay dropped her gaze from the planeswalker and stared into her lap, hands clenched on the black suit of mourning she wore.
* * *
—
Standing on the docks of Urborg, built especially for the hundreds of ships that converged for this ceremony, Sisay felt much better, and much worse.
She felt better because she was by the sea again, surrounded by great ships, and awash in the contented chatter of seafolk preparing to set sail. She felt worse because here she would say good-bye to her companions of years.
The planks of the pier were rough and sticky with pitch. The smell of creosote filled her nose, along with the tang of salt and fish. Sisay took a deep breath. All these odors were sweet to her. All were the smell of life.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” said Orim. The words broke into Sisay’s reverie. She turned to see the healer, her hair a year longer and done up with a treasure trove of Cho-Arrim coins. Orim had forgone the turban today, and sunlight glimmered in her black locks. “Gerrard would have been honored.”
“I know,” Sisay responded flatly, regretting her tone even as her lips closed on the words. She glanced an apology at her comrades. Tahngarth and Squee averted their gazes. Orim did not.
Her eyes were deep and searching. “You aren’t happy.”
“No,” said Sisay.
The healer’s smile was immediate. “But we won. We saved a whole world.”
Sisay turned, her eyes welling. “I know. That’s why we came together, to save the world. That’s what we’ve done. That should be enough. But somewhere along the line, we became friends. And what is a whole world saved when it costs so many friends?”
A troubled expression swept across Orim’s face. “Gerrard was made for that moment. Out of centuries, he was made for that. And we were made to live on.” She tried to smile again. “Freyalise was right, Sisay. Our burden is greater. It is a difficult thing to die doing what’s right. It is even harder to live doing it.”
Sisay nodded bleakly, throwing her hands out toward the ships chafing at dock. “So which of these will take you away?”
A conspiratorial look came to Orim’s eyes. “None of these. I have made arrangements with another voyager.”
“Whom?” Sisay asked. Her question was answered as if it had been a summoning.
The air beside the two women distorted. Images of water and sky twisted as if reflected in a silvery pool. A mercurial form took shape—tall, lean, quicksilver….
Sisay gaped in astonishment. “Karn! I thought you were dead.”
“I am,” came the easy response. No longer did his voice sound like shifting gravel, but now like the delicate music of water. “The Karn you knew is dead, at any rate. I bear the name, but I am more. I am the sum of a legion of artifacts and souls.”
Clutching the sides of her head, Sisay said, “Where have you been?”
A smile came to that strange face, which had been unable to smile before. “I have been wandering the planes. They are beautiful and horrible. I have been learning. I have much to learn.”
“You’re late,” Sisay said, still stunned. She gestured over her shoulder to the obelisk, only just visible above the pitching treetops. “You missed the ceremony.”
Karn waved dismissively. “I knew Gerrard. I still know him, and Urza too. Time is not for me what it is for you. I’m talking with them just now. What use is a ceremony to me?”
“Pretty arrogant,” said Sisay, smiling. “A typical planeswalker.”
Karn looked grieved. “Really? Arrogant? I want to be different, Sisay. I don’t want to be a typical planeswalker.”
Biting her lip, Sisay said, “Then, next time, attend the ceremony. After all, weren’t you designed to be a probe?”
“Humor!” Karn said, pointing. “Yes, I get it. Ha. Ha ha. Humor is one of the many things I am learning.”
Sisay nodded grimly, “So, you came to say good-bye.”
“Yes, and to take Orim away. Cho-Manno is eager to see her.”
When Sisay turned a surprised gaze toward her, Orim could only blush and shrug. “Life is for the living.”
“You’re telling me,” Sisay said as if scandalized. “You have my blessing. Just don’t honeymoon in Mercadia.”
Orim smiled. She reached out her hand. Tan flesh settled into quicksilver. “I’m ready.”
“Good-bye, all of you,” Karn said eagerly. He fixed each with his intelligent gaze—no longer eyes like fat washers. “It has been good saving the world with you. I hope to do it again soon.”
Sisay wore a look of shock. “With any hope, you won’t need to.”
“Humor!” Karn said, pointing. “Ha ha! Ha ha!” With that, he and Orim disappeared. Where they had stood, only sunlight and sailing ships remained.
Sisay turned toward her other friends. “Squee, how come you didn’t go along? You were a king in Mercadia.”
The goblin blinked in thought. “They say, Squee happier to serve in heaven than rule in hell.”
“They say the exact opposite,” Tahngarth snorted.
“Oh,�
�� said Squee.
“And you,” asked Sisay of the bull man. “I thought you’d be needed to rebuild Hurloon.”
The minotaur shook his head. “Commander Grizzlegom has that well in hand.”
Sisay lifted her eyebrows. “So—what are you two hoping to do?”
“Since you asked,” Squee replied, “we gots our eyes on show business—‘Squee and Tangy’s Jugglin’ Jackanapes’—”
“We really want a commission on your ship,” interrupted Tahngarth. He glanced toward the great galley moored nearby. “If, that is, you need a first mate and a cabin boy.”
Sisay smiled. “So, I won’t be alone after all.” She began to stroll down the wharf toward her new ship, granted to her by the thankful folk of Argivia. A wave of her hand invited the goblin and the minotaur along. “Her name was The Billows, but I think she deserves something better.”
“How about De Squee?” piped the goblin.
“How about Sproutin’ Horns?” asked Tahngarth facetiously.
Sisay shook her head. “I’m thinking we’ll call her just Victory.”
THE SAGA
CONTINUES
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