Agnate did not allow himself the luxury of joy. Neither, he noted, did Eladamri. The two commanders converged at a stride, approaching the head of the prison contingent. The defenders of Dominaria were ragged and bloody, but grim smiles filled their faces.
"Welcome to Koilos, commanders," the shaggy Benalish leader said. "Gerrard and the rest of our brigade are locking down the caves within. We have prevented Phyrexian incursion from above. I gratefully relinquish command to you."
"Thank you," Agnate said with a level nod. Turning to Eladamri, he said, "And I relinquish my command to you. Lead this army in after Gerrard. He will need every sword arm he can muster."
The elf commander stared amazedly at Agnate. "I was about to offer you my command."
Agnate shook his head. "I have more pressing business. Lead these troops."
With no further word, Agnate marched past the soldiers, into the yawning cave. He tossed aside the battered battle axe. It clanged against a wall of stone. It would be useless in the tight spaces in the caves. Agnate drew his sword and dagger.
Gerrard had done well. Phyrexian bodies littered the floor, with only occasional human corpses among them. The bunkers were burned out, the guard stations smashed, the nooks scoured. He had been thorough-furiously so. Agnate approved.
… Agnate… stay away … a weak voice said in his mind… They are luring you… It is a trap…
I will always seek you, Agnate responded. He strode down burned out corridors toward that voice. The trap is sprung. Gerrard is killing the killers. There are none left to trap me.
… I know. He has been here. He has… slain them… The press of Thaddeus's mind told that he was near, quite near.
Then he has freed you!
… Gerrard could not… free me. No one could. Do not seek me…
Agnate shook his head angrily. I am almost there. Wait for me.
… No, Agnate. Do not… It is a trap…
He was just behind that comer. Agnate bolted around the dark turn. Beyond stood a shattered doorway and the chamber where Thaddeus lay.
What was left of him… He was spiked to a slanted table. His limbs were gone, flayed away tissue by tissue. All of it was stored in solution jars on shelves behind him. They had cut away his pelvis too, and his spine, bone by bone, up the lumbar curve. Abdominal organs occupied various silver trays. Pins jutted from them. Vat priests lay in bloody ruin beneath the samples.
Only Thaddeus's ribcage and head remained. The aorta had been expertly sutured, allowing his heart to maintain pressure through the man's upper body. A large, round rock had even been leaned against the diaphragm to press the muscle up toward the lungs. He breathed through a scabby stoma in his throat. His eyes, in utter despair, watched Agnate approach.
"What have they done?" Agnate gasped, staggering toward the ruined man.
… I told you… seeing me this way… is a trap you will never escape…
Agnate shook his head. "No. Urza will build you a body. You won't die this way. New legs, new arms, new organs."
… I am done fighting for Urza Planeswalker…… I am done fighting…
"I am not," Agnate declared, staring into Thaddeus's tearing eyes. "I will slay a hundred thousand Phyrexians to avenge you."
… Don't you understand? We are Phyrexians… Fight all you wish, Agnate… you are fighting only yourself…
The Metathran's eyes were hard in his blue skull. "Why did Gerrard leave you in agony?"
… He told me… you were coming. He said you would… want to see me…
"He was right."
… They've trapped you… forever…
Agnate stared down at his trembling, bloody hands and the weapons he held in them. "Yes. You are right. You were right about everything-except one thing. I can free you."
… Yes… Free me…
Agnate dropped his knife. It clattered beside the corpse of a vat priest. With both hands, he lifted high his sword.
"Good-bye, my friend."
… Good-bye…
The sword fell. Thaddeus was free.
Agnate turned away and folded to his knees. His sword dropped to the stone floor. He buried his face in sanguine hands.
Agnate was twice trapped. He would never forget Thaddeus's pleading eyes, suffering in their ruined flesh. Nor would he ever forget the stroke that closed those eyes forever.
Chapter 35
Tsabo Tavoc drew a long breath through swollen spiracles.
Thaddeus's death was intoxicating. He had died slowly, consciously. It was the best death, a perfect bouquet- intense, quiet, virtuous, patient, doomed. Agnate's sword had given a final piquant burst of emotion-regret, love, terror, release. The only scent that lacked in that death had been hatred-pure, hard-edged hatred.
Agnate exuded it now. His sword had drawn all the welling despair up through its hilt and into a new man. There, it became hate. Thaddeus's death had been intoxicating, but Agnate's hatred was thrilling.
Tsabo Tavoc breathed the glad reek of it.
Agnate was not the greatest hater in the caves, though. Gerrard was. His fury had been strong at the mouth of the cave. It had grown only more powerful with each head he had lopped, each gallon of glistening-oil he had spilled. Gerrard fought as though he battled Death itself. He was a fool. No one could beat Death except Yawgmoth. Gerrard's hatred would lead him to the Ineffable.
All things had come to fruition just as Tsabo Tavoc had planned.
Let them think they are winning. Let Urza and his titans stomp the ragged remnants of the Koilos land army. Let Eladamri post his guards in the blood-painted caves he has won with tooth and nail. Let Gerrard advance toward the portal, believing he can shut death away from himself and all Dominarians.
In fact he will be drawn through, Tsabo Tavoc thought gladly, the first in a harvest of souls. He will be drawn through, and they all will be drawn through.
At great cost, the Dominarians had won themselves a bottomless pit. Gerrard could not close the portal. Nor Taysir. Nor Urza. As long as it remained, Phyrexia would always hold Koilos. Dominarians would fling their sons and daughters into the pit, calling them warriors and freedom fighters though in truth they were human sacrifices to implacable Death. They would battle a ceaseless tide of Phyrexians, not realizing the womb cannot keep pace with the vat. Koilos was not lost. It was transformed into an eating machine that would swallow millions.
Tsabo Tavoc smiled. Plates slid in her segmented mouth, drawing back from filed teeth.
She had won Benalia. Now, she was winning Koilos. Her crowning glory, though, would be the moment she presented the savior of Dominaria, the champion of Urza, to Yawgmoth. He would reward her. He would unseat Master Crovax and give Tsabo Tavoc command of the Rathi overlay.
Shackled and brimming with hate, Gerrard will be yours by day's end, Great Lord Yawgmoth.
This felt good-killing them like this. Leaving them in pieces behind. Somehow, when the monsters were chopped up and sloppy on the cave floor, they seemed cleaner than when they breathed and scuttled and walked. That's how he thought of it-cleansing the caves.
Torches held high, Gerrard and his contingent rounded a corner.
Two monsters launched themselves from the darkness beyond. No longer did they fight in phalanxes. Now they fought like trapped dogs.
Gerrard's torch fell away. His sword rammed into the rushing chest of one. Steel lanced between obscene ribs. It sank deep, rupturing the heart. Oil sprayed around the edges of the blade.
Even dying, the thing fought on. Its knobby arms clamped down on him. Its claws pierced his sides.