The Thran

by J. Robert King

  A groan of terror rose from the moiling multitude. Fingernails clawed at any crack that might be a doorway.

  The voice of Yawgmoth came again.

  The throng quieted beneath its mesmeric balm.

  “It should be a time for utter despair. The dream is over. All is lost, but not all. I have prepared a perfect place for you—a world beyond illness and death, beyond wars and plagues and famines. Oh, my people, how I have longed to bring you to paradise.”

  The aching compassion in his voice swept like a black wind through the chamber. The people breathed it in. Their lungs tingled and their hearts forgot panic.

  “Let me tell you of this land, of Phyrexia. Its entryway lies in deep bedrock, and the world itself exists in a place not of this plane. It will never be destroyed. It is a bounteous world with wide and fertile plains, golden with wild grain and rich in primeval game and deep in black earth. There is endless farmland for any who would work the soil and bring forth its fruits. Above are the plain tower mountains, snow-capped and robed in ancient woodlands. Below stretch deep jungles as impenetrable and fecund as the forests of Jamuraa. And lakes, yes, and oceans, yes, and growing cities of design more glorious than all the cities of the empire.”

  Each word set a bright image floating in the darkness.

  “I have prepared this place for you, my people—even for you, my onetime foes. I have made it for you, for I am a god. I ask only that you enter it. I ask only that I may be your god.”

  Suddenly, there was movement in the deepest, darkest corner of the mana rig. There came a grating rumble. Massive blocks slid back. A cold blackness opened in the wall. Already the stalled throng shifted and flooded down into it.

  “There, the invitation is given. The way is open. I am the way. Receive me, and enter into paradise.”

  They did. Every last creature opened his or her solitary heart to Yawgmoth, and he entered them. They were no longer solitary, for Yawgmoth dwelt within. Ones became twos, and twos became fours and eights until they all were made a mad nation.

  * * *

  —

  “Wait,” Rebbec told the goblins, whose claws fidgeted at the edges of the healing capsule. They were anxious to join the procession out of the mana rig and down into Phyrexia. Rebbec grasped the healing capsule and forcibly pushed it down. “Wait. We can’t carry this through that press. Wait until the way clears a bit.”

  The truth was, she was in no hurry to reach Phyrexia. She half hoped the cloud would catch her here.

  “Open it,” she found herself saying.

  The goblins looked at her in consternation and surprise. One piped. “No time. We flee now!”

  “Open it,” Rebbec repeated. “I want to see my husband’s face.”

  Scowling, the goblins complied. Their scaly hands expertly worked in the dark. They were good creatures—more steadfast than any human she had ever met and more clever than half of them. They understood her husband like no one else, even better than she. “My goblins,” Glacian had called them, with the same tone of voice a man would use to say, “my friends.” Claws slid beneath the lid of the capsule, and the goblins pushed it open.

  Rebbec leaned over the capsule, knowing even before she saw. Glacian lay absolutely still. His chest did not rise and fall. The breathing mechanism was quiet. Its powerstone driver had been knocked loose. It lay beside Glacian’s still face.

  Rebbec touched him. His body was cold, as cold as the stone beneath her. His skin was as pale as bone. Her hand ran across eyelids that for years had clenched in pain. They were smooth. His lips—for she kissed him now and realized she had not kissed her own husband since Yawgmoth had arrived—were cold and beginning to stiffen.

  “Master Glacian?” a goblin said, jiggling the man’s leg. “Master Glacian?”

  “It’s too late,” Rebbec said. The sound was empty in her mouth.

  “Aww. Master Glacian….Aww….He was good man,” the goblin cooed.

  Rebbec nodded. “He’s been trapped in a flaming building for years, and now at last it has collapsed on top of him and burned him up.”

  “Too late for master.”

  The youngest goblin piped up. “Not for us. Not too late for us. We leave him here. We can go.”

  “Yes,” Rebbec responded. “Leave him here. You can go.”

  The young creature gave an anxious leap and dashed away into the shouldering horde. Two of the others followed, bowing in respect to Rebbec before they disappeared. The final goblin lingered a moment longer.

  “You coming?”

  Rebbec shook her head.

  Nodding sadly, the goblin turned to go. In three steps, he merged with the black river of refugees.

  Rebbec took a deep breath of the stale air—the smell of herded humanity. All too soon she would be alone forever. Already, she was alone forever.

  * * *

  —

  It was a tortuous route down to the Caves of the Damned. There was little light and much death. Folk stepped from blind cliffs or struck their heads on stalactites. Always, the next in line forged ahead. They trod first on the bodies of the fallen. The leaders led and died. Those behind pressed forward with desperate weight.

  At long last, they reached the bottom. Halcyte guards guided them. What a glad sight were those silver-armored warriors! Now the way would be clear. Now no one else had to die.

  At the heels of the quick-marching guard, the refugees swept down through the caves. They reached the great cavern that had once held Untouchable noble houses. Now the cavern bore no memory of them. It had been cleansed by Yawgmoth’s touch. Only insectile machines filled the spot, guardians on either side of the glimmering, inviting portal.

  Laughter mixed with hoots of joy. Songs rose among the refugees. They were old songs that spoke of the founding of the empire, of the beautiful and plentiful land that awaited those bold enough to enter. These folk were bold. They marched behind bobbing helmets—Yawgmoth’s nation.

  They neared the portal. Sunlight streamed through. Between helmets, there were glimpses of verdant forests, vast plains, gray mountains, even a city of elegantly sloping roof-lines. The songs quickened.

  In a sudden rush, they were through, into the sunlight of a new world. It was vast and beautiful. The way was lined with expectant Halcyte guards. Troops stood, rank on rank, to the verges of the forest below and into the middle of the plain above. Behind the wall of silver armor was armor of a different sort—imbedded in skin and muscle. Perhaps it was metal plate or perhaps modified bone. Whatever, it forced the skin out in ridges and lines. The soldiers there had other alterations—horns poking up from shoulders, claws grafted on where once human hands had been, metal implements sewn into suppurating wounds.

  The song died on the refugees’ lips. Some tried to turn back. Those behind, craning for a view of the new world, forced them onward.

  Just ahead waited the savior Yawgmoth, the god Yawgmoth, surrounded by his hideous creatures. He opened his hands expansively.

  “Welcome, my children. Welcome to Phyrexia!”

  Rebbec was alone now. Glacian was dead. The refugees had fled. Only the dead and dying remained in the mana rig. Only Glacian and his ilk, and Rebbec and hers.

  As the rumble below receded, the rumble above approached.

  It was a deep, immemorial sound. Hundreds of millions of tons of rock ground to grains of sand, and those grains in turn burst to leave only the dry husk of matter. It was the sound of life dissolving into death, and it approached.

  “It is going to grind our bones, Glacian,” Rebbec said with dry compassion. “It is going to grind us away to nothing.” She patted his side gently. “Then we won’t be alone anymore.”

  There was warmth beneath her hand. Glacian’s side was warm.

  A breath of hope hitched in her throat. “Could it be—?”

  She touched his chest. I
t was cold and still. She touched his neck. The flesh was as algid as a meat in a cellar. There was no pulse. Her hand retreated again to his side. It was feverishly warm.

  “What is this?”

  She drew white cloth from the black wound in his side. Beneath its savage stitching, the outline of the Phyrexian heart stone was obvious. Heart stones were uncharged crystals, though; this stone glowed with heat and light.

  Eyes cold in the dim chamber, Rebbec felt along the inside of the healing capsule. Her hand settled on a slim case of implements. She opened them, finding three scalpels. The smallest flashed in her fingers. It sliced open the mound of flesh.

  “Gods—”

  The skin split back like the desiccated rind of a old orange. Out tumbled two fist-sized stones, deeply red and sparking faintly in the murk. Ropy lines of blood clung to them. Rebbec poked one stone away from the wound. She edged it up onto the white robe. It glimmered within its mantel of gore. She nudged the other stone up beside it.

  “A charged heart stone? Yawgmoth implanted a charged stone in him?” she murmured incredulously.

  Even she, who had felt Yawgmoth crawling through her every tissue, even she was surprised by this treachery. He had removed a charged sliver and replaced it with a charged stone—with two stones! No wonder Glacian had died.

  The roar above grew suddenly louder. It would not be long now.

  Flinging away the scalpel, Rebbec savagely snatched up the two crystals. Congealed blood draped her wrists. She didn’t care. The stones were warm. A gentle light danced within them—the same gentle light in each. They were not two stones, but two halves of a whole. Wiping the jagged edges against her husband’s robes, she lifted them, lined them up, and slowly brought them together.

  As the halves neared each other, the light in them intensified. What had seemed only a failing spark became a flicking flame and then whirling fire. The crystals glowed. They beamed. Jags of energy arced between them. With each jolt, the heat increased. Blood dried, burst into quick flames, and blazed away. The heat was excruciating.

  Rebbec thrust the halves together.

  They met. Shorn edges joined and fused. The separate blazes in each half fled together and ignited a white-blue radiance. It was blinding. It was searing. It illuminated the whole mana rig.

  Those who lay dying moaned, thinking the white cloud had set upon them.

  Rebbec tried to shy from the radiance. She collapsed, but the thing was still clutched in her hands. It would not release her.

  A mind spoke to her out of that crystal, a mind that had been split in two: Darling, I am here.

  She could not respond. She was terrified.

  It is I, Glacian.

  “How? How can you be here?”

  Empty powerstones absorb great energies. They take on the properties of the energies they absorb. This stone has absorbed my power, my personality, my mind. It is charged with my mind.

  “A planeswalker,” Rebbec said in remembrance.

  I had that destiny within me, yes, though it was never realized. But it lives on in this stone.

  The light was so beaming, so warm, she did not want to think of the coming cloud. “Yes. You live on.”

  You must descend, Rebbec. We must descend.

  She had never thought she would hear this, not from Glacian. “No. Yawgmoth is a monster. We cannot join him.”

  A laugh came from the stone, Glacian’s derisive laugh. Of course not. We descend only to trap him forever.

  “What?”

  He will try to return. He wants to rule Dominaria—he wants to rule the whole Multiverse, but Dominaria first. It is his holy land. Once the Null Moon has drawn off the mana clouds, he will try to return.

  “Yes, of course he will.”

  But we can stop him, you and I.

  “How?”

  This stone he implanted in me, this heart stone—it was Yawgmoth’s idea of poetic justice. This was the crystal Dyfed used to open the portal to Phyrexia. Recharged and rejoined, the crystal can seal that portal forever.

  “Oh, Glacian.”

  I will be the gatekeeper. You need merely set the crystal on the mirror-podium, and the portal will close. I will remain, keeping Yawgmoth and his monstrous nation locked away. He is no planeswalker. He will not escape his Phyrexia. His world will become his prison.

  “Oh, Glacian, I can’t sentence you to that, to an eternity alive and alone in stone.”

  It will be a long eternity, yes, my dear, but a glad one, knowing Yawgmoth’s torment. Again came that raking laugh. And knowing the world—the Multiverse—is safe from him. I was right about him. I was right all along.

  “Yes, and we were wrong about you,” Rebbec said. “You were always a curmudgeon, but a good man, a very good man, and I loved you.”

  Then you weren’t wrong about me. His presence, for one brief moment, seemed to wrap around her. There was a fleeting, ephemeral kiss. And I loved you. Now you must descend. We must banish Yawgmoth once and for all.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  —

  The refugees had all passed through the portal. The few who had fled had already been hunted down and slain by artifact creatures. Their bodies were still warm when they reached the flesh vats. More shiny machines waited at their posts, ordered to chase down any creature that emerged from the portal.

  Yawgmoth sighed with pleasure. Minotaur muscle, dwarven pragmatism, elven longevity, feline grace, reptilian armor—the Phyrexians would benefit greatly from their fallen foes. Even now, the priests sliced and categorized and pickled their flesh. Hamstrings and femurs, brains and hearts, livers and spleens emptied into the grinders. All was right with the world. Yawgmoth was in his heaven.

  He sifted down through the spheres of Phyrexia, heading for the heart of the world. It ached for him. Phyrexia had received tens of thousands of new souls, and it was glad, but it ached for Yawgmoth. Yawgmoth could not bear the separation either.

  He arrived in the inner sanctum. Phyrexia received him. It swelled gladly around him and took him into its heart and drew him up and out. Yawgmoth exulted in the transformation from man to god. He loved Phyrexia best just then, as he ascended through her into glory. Limits fell away. The walls of numbness thinned and at last became but slender membranes. Through them passed every desire, every fear, every hope and dread in the world. It was a populous place now. He delighted in the souls before him. He examined them, held them in his hands, bit into them as if sampling pears in a marketplace. Every sensation, every passion infused Yawgmoth. For a time, he was glad and sated and vast in his world.

  Then he remembered Rebbec. She was not in the inner sanctum. In his delight, he had forgotten her. He was so accustomed to entering his world this way, alone, and was so ecstatic with his transformation, he had forgotten she should have been here. He longed for her hatred, her all-consuming hatred. He longed to climb through her being and possess her and feel her hatred. It was as delicious as love. Where had she gone?

  Rebbec was not in the inner sanctum. She was not in Phyrexia.

  He asked his world. Phyrexia showed him what Rebbec had done, how she had slain the rebellious vat priests, had taken Glacian to Halcyon….

  So, she was dead. Rebbec and Glacian both. The thought made a small, flat regret in Yawgmoth’s soul. He would miss their hate. It was disappointing. A hatred that powerful could stab out even from the grave….

  Suddenly, Yawgmoth knew. He knew what they would—what they must do.

  It was not regret but panic that flooded through him as he pulled away from his world. He descended from divinity to humanity and flung his being out to the portal.

  * * *

  —

  Rebbec approached the portal, terror filling her heart.

  All around, Yawgmoth’s metal defenders crouched, ready to spring. She staggered toward the mi
rror podium. Beyond, Phyrexia beamed, sun-bright—blue skies and gray mountains, emerald forests and golden plains.

  For a moment, she wondered how she would choose death over such a life. Then her eyes settled on the vast mushroom city. Figures moved there. They thronged the streets—herds of cattle stripped, branded, sliced open, fitted with heart stones, made into loyal Phyrexians.

  Death would be far sweeter.

  She strode forward. Every Halcyte guard was busy with the harvest. None remained beside the portal. She reached the mirror podium.

  It is time, Rebbec. Seal it away forever.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “It is time.”

  Why do you wait? urged Glacian within the stone.

  “I want to see the sky just a moment more,” she said sadly, “and touch you a little while longer. The moment I seal the portal, I am alone in darkness.”

  “You need never be alone again, never be in darkness.” Suddenly silhouetted against the bright sky stood Yawgmoth. He was tall and beautiful in his world. His eyes were as bright as stars. His cloak swirled about him. “Come join us. Come, receive me.”

  Now, Rebbec. Seal it, before he steps through to drag you in.

  “He won’t step through,” she said confidently, loud enough for Yawgmoth to hear. “He won’t risk being trapped on this side, where he is only a mortal man. He wants me to live with him. He doesn’t want to die with me.”

  “Put down the stone and come with me, Rebbec. I offer life. Abundant life. Eternal life. Leave the dead man and his dead world, and come with me.”

  Close the portal! Why do you wait? Do you want him to tempt you?

  “I want to see the sky,” Rebbec said. “I want to touch you, to hear your voices—”