Below ground was defeat. A deep brig lurked there. Twenty of her children lay dead, and not a single prisoner was slain. What sort of prisoners were these-?
With a sudden shudder of realization, Tsabo Tavoc knew. She sent out her will. Hold them, my children. Do not slay them. Neither allow them escape. These are the master's former friends. They are Urza's saviors.
The reply came back, as always it did, with grateful obedience. The thoughts were borne on a current of death-the deaths of her servants.
I must go see this Gerrard Capashen myself, Tsabo Tavoc thought.
Her legs galloped. In moments, she reached the blasted infirmary and stood at the top of the stairs. Agony broke in exquisite waves over them. Tsabo Tavoc's hearts pounded in her thorax. She tucked her venomous abdomen up beneath her and folded her legs in a cage over her head. Metal scraped on stone as she rolled down the steps. She landed on a rubble pile at the foot of the stairs. There was a still-warm body beneath her feet, but she paid it no heed. Unfolding her legs, she surveyed the scene.
Her children lay, twenty-some, dead before the crew of Weatherlight. How had fists and horns bested claws and fangs?
Tsabo Tavoc spoke. It was a grave moment when she spoke aloud. Her voice had the sound of cicadas rasping in chorus.
"Surrender, Gerrard of Weatherlight. You will not be harmed by me. My master has want to see you. Surrender, and live."
The black-bearded man she addressed wore a most unusual grin as his bloody knuckles felled another foot soldier.
"You overestimate… how fond I am… of life."
Rarely did Tsabo Tavoc speak aloud. When she did, she was always obeyed.
There in that tight space, her legs scraped the ceiling as she lunged for Gerrard. A minotaur-foolish bovine- stepped before the man and rammed his horns into Tsabo Tavoc's belly. Her own pain was not as lovely as others'. With one slim hand, she wrenched the twisted thing from her flesh. The horn was slick with her oil-blood. Tsabo Tavoc shoved the minotaur away as though he were a newborn calf.
A dark-skinned woman kicked the belly wound. Her foot sank into the oozy hole.
Tsabo Tavoc constricted her thorax and trapped the foot. Her assailant writhed in agony. Heedless, Tsabo Tavoc dragged the woman toward Gerrard.
He took a swing even as he stumbled away. Tsabo Tavoc caught his fist and hauled him up by it. He tried to break free but was too weak. It was like crushing kittens.
Tsabo Tavoc gazed into the angry face of this young man, this creature bred out of millennia for his task. Her voice buzzed through the brig.
"You cannot defy me, Gerrard, nor my master. I have taken your country. I will take you as well. My master will take your world."
What was this? He spit on her face? Could he possibly defy her still?
"What is your name, that I can brag of killing you," the bearded man asked.
"I am Tsabo Tavoc," she replied placidly, "but it is quite the other way around." Her abdomen curled up beneath Gerrard. A huge stinger dripped venom. Poison sacs pulsed. Tsabo Tavoc clamped onto Gerrard's side.
Oh, this was the greatest pleasure of all!
Sudden light and noise filled the place. The weighty ceiling came to pieces. It dropped all about them. Every chunk of stone was limned in red light. Phyrexians were crushed. A hunk of rock knocked the dark-skinned woman unconscious. Another tore a deep gash in Gerrard's side. Only those in the cell were protected.
Just one rock mattered, though-one deadly boulder. It smashed Tsabo Tavoc to the ground. A twenty-foot slab of stone pinned the legs of her left side. She struggling to claw free.
Worse, Gerrard got away. His hand was in bloody ribbons. He dragged his dark-skinned companion with him. Her foot was badly burned from Tsabo Tavoc's blood, but they got away.
A grotesque goblin clung to the bars and pointed skyward. "Squee love Karn! Squee love Karn!"
Tsabo Tavoc looked up. Drifting above the smoking crater was that damned ship. Someone had remained aboard-someone who could fly the ship and fire the ray cannons by himself.
"Squee love Karn! Squee love Karn!"
Gerrard and his crew clambered out of the cell, over rocks and bodies.
Tsabo Tavoc lashed out with her right legs.
The little monsters were just out of reach. They climbed out of the prison and into the ruined shell of the infirmary. Weatherlight edged out above the wreckage. Its anchor clattered down, smashing through the remnant of a wall. The crew crowded onto that swaying piece of metal. It slowly rose.
He would die, this Gerrard. It mattered little what the master wanted. Here was a man who had grinned his defiance, had spat in her face, and had lived to tell the tale.
Already, Weatherlight slid away.
Tsabo Tavoc gathered the strength in her trapped legs. There was only one that was inextricable. The rest could pull loose, given the chance. Tsabo Tavoc gave them the chance. She yanked free. The metallic interface of the single doomed leg raked out of the meat and bone of her pelvic girdle. Her own blood painted the stone as she drew her good legs forth. It made her angry. Her own pain was not as sweet as others.
For this and other indignities, Gerrard would die.
Chapter 7
Multani awoke in dread.
He knew he was dying. He could feel it in his flesh. There was sudden cancer-a numbness that ate away feeling and replaced it with living death.
Last night, he had been well. He had sent his consciousness into every bud in the treetops and every hair root below. The great forest Yavimaya was his body. Magnigoth trees were his endless limbs, elves and pixies his darting thoughts, surging sap his pumping blood. Last night, the forest had been well.
This morning, all was different. Yavimaya was suddenly filled with pockets of darkness-cancer.
It had fallen from the skies. The contagion sifted down through clear air. Minute spores tricked their way into every stoma on every leaf. A tingling numbness followed. It flowed down stems into twigs and branches and trunks. It converted all to living rot. Whole boughs were corrupted.
It was worse than that. An intelligence controlled this cancer. Something called to the rotten limbs-something black and hungry. This was not just a killing plague. It was a resurrecting plague too. It killed in order to revivify the dead wood and control it. Gangrene worked a slow possession on Yavimaya. The forest's life was becoming an alien unlife.
The malign power hovered above. Sensing it, Multani rose through a millennial magnigoth. In moments, he had ascended the three-thousand-foot tree. His presence flooded into healthy leaves. They were retinal structures, attuned to light. Through them Multani could see stars no mortal eye ever guessed at.
Now he did not see stars. He saw an achingly blue sky with three immense rents in it. Out of those holes drifted enormous black carbuncles. They were gnarled like diseased wood. One eclipsed the sun. It cast down a shadow that covered a thousand acres. The sun shone in corona around that great scab. Figures moved there, carapaced figures-Phyrexians.
A millennium ago, Multani had joined Urza's fight against Phyrexia. He granted Urza the Weatherseed- drawn from the center of the forest's most ancient tree, the Heart of Yavimaya. From that seed grew the living hull of Weatherlight. Multani had aided in breeding perfect defenders for Dominaria. He had even trained Gerrard Capashen in maro-sorcery.
All these preparations seemed punily insufficient now. In the face of this onslaught, what good was an army of Metathran and a living airship and a reluctant hero?
Multani's mind darkened. He seeped down through ancient wood and spread his soul in vines and tangled boughs. He wanted to reside in every tree, every pulsing heart. Only when he encompassed the whole of the forest could he glimpse the divine world. It was painful to be stretched so thin, to feel the trembling terror of the forest. Once he touched on every tendril, though, he sensed his mother watching.