In the next moments, the battle grew worse. The Phyrexians fought with a sudden, unanimous purpose. They pushed back the Benalish brigade and their Metathran and elf allies. A clear path opened in their midst. On one end of that avenue, the scintillating portal stood, disgorging its armies. On the other end, at the lofted entrance to the cave, appeared Tsabo Tavoc.
The spider woman surveyed the scene. Gladness gleamed in her weird eyes. Her mouth plates formed a serene smile. A wound wept blackly on her belly. She clutched something to her thorax, something that dangled like boneless meat.
"Gerrard!" Sisay gasped in realization. She fought toward him.
Orim followed in her wake. Her sword darted with equal thirst.
Tahngarth brought up the rear. Perhaps they could not battle their way to the mirror pedestal that powered the portal, but they could fight their way to Gerrard.
Tsabo Tavoc seemed to see the three comrades. Her spiracles deeply inhaled the scent of battle. On four legs, she darted swiftly down the channel of her warriors.
Roaring, Sisay clove the head of a Phyrexian foot soldier. She climbed his falling body, a ramp up the wall of fiends. Claws lashed her legs. Orim slashed the limbs away. A scuta reared up to block her path. She merely vaulted onto its face shield, sinking her wooden sword in the thing's eye. It slumped. Orim scrambled up the bleeding face. Tahngarth climbed afterward. Tsabo Tavoc scurried past.
Sisay leaped from the wall of Phyrexians into the spider woman's wake. The floor was slick with blood and oil, but Sisay had seafarer's legs. She pelted after the fleeing spider. Tsabo Tavoc was too fast. Sisay dived, extending her sword arm. The blade swept down, slicing into the obscene abdomen. Even as she fell to her face, Sisay twisted the sword. It lodged behind the spider's stinger and ripped the thing out by its roots.
Tsabo Tavoc emitted no scream of pain, but her followers did. Countless claws grasped Sisay and flung her away as if she were poison. She sailed through air and crashed against one wall of the cave.
Orim, cut off by the sudden tide of beasts, leaped away, racing to Sisay's aid.
Tahngarth was not so easily deterred. The mob of monsters crushed up in Tsabo Tavoc's wake, guarding their wounded mother. They were tightly packed like sheep in a slaughter channel. Tahngarth ran across their heads. His hooves pounded skulls, stunning some, crushing others. If they died, they died. His true focus was the spider woman. He might not have caught up to her except that he ran across a throng that also ran.
Hurling himself from their shoulders, Tahngarth vaulted onto Tsabo Tavoc's back.
She crouched, shoved down by the sudden weight.
Tahngarth swung his sword in a decapitating blow.
Before metal could strike flesh, one of the spider woman's legs rose. She blocked the blade and ripped it away.
Tahngarth did not release his sword-no true minotaur would-but he was no match for Tsabo Tavoc's mechanical might. He was flung away as though he were a mere calf. Tahngarth crashed into the opposite wall of the cave. Groaning, the minotaur slid down to lie still.
There was no one to stop her now, hemmed in by her children. Not even Eladamri could fight past that mass of monsters.
Tsabo Tavoc jerked to a sudden stop. One leg seemed caught.
Karn rose, magnificent, from beneath a mound of clawing Phyrexians. They seemed only voracious cockroaches sloughing from his shoulders. In one massive hand, the silver golem clutched Tsabo Tavoc's leg. His other hand won free of the monsters that swarmed him, and he grabbed another of the spider woman's legs. With an almighty heave, he yanked one of the mechanisms from her body.
Sparks popped from the rent socket. Glistening-oil ran. The severed leg convulsed in Karn's grip. He dropped it amid the shrieking horde. They clutched the limb in mournful agony.
Karn grasped another leg and, roaring, yanked it free. The flesh where it had been embedded made a sucking, rending sound as it came loose.
On only two legs, Tsabo Tavoc tottered. She drew one leg away from Gerrard, setting it down before her and struggling to break from the golem's grasp.
Karn was implacable. Above the shrieks of the Phyrexians, his thunderous voice rang out.
"No more. If I must kill the guilty to save the innocent, I will kill!"
He ripped away another of the spider woman's legs. Before he could get another handhold, Tsabo Tavoc leaped away.
She dropped one more leg from Gerrard and ambled away from the silver golem. Her captive hung limp in the grip of a single limb.
Karn struggled to pursue, but the mass of creatures bore him down. He fell Like a steel door, impacting the floor with a resounding boom.
Tsabo Tavoc skittered up to the shimmering portal. Her forces sluiced through around her-faithful children everywhere. Spiracles panting, the spider woman turned to gaze out at the battlefield. She smiled. Segments bristled on her face. Her eyes shone with the glossy glow of exquisite pain.
Climbing onto the mirror pedestal and the glass book, Tsabo Tavoc shouted, "You are finished, Dominaria. You have fought me bravely and lost. No mortal can ever defeat Death. I am Death. Embrace me, and I will lead you down to death and up again into deathless life.
"You think we are destroyers. You are wrong. We are saviors. You are but larvae, but pupae-white and unformed maggots. Until you die, you cannot become more. We bring you your death. We bring you to greater life.
"Now, fight if you must, Dominaria. Flee if you can. Either way, it will be the same. We will drag you down to death and save you…"
Glorious words. Glorious, my mother, Gerrard thought, hanging in her grip. At last, I have lost all to you. Parents, foster parents, family, mentors, friends, and now myself. Only now do I understand. I love you, Mother. I love you with every fiber in me. Thank you for this. Thank you for killing me to make me greater.
He had never known such love. It made him weak. It made him mad. It made him want to stab her, to tear out her eyes, to rake her brains. If only his body would respond, he would cut his way into her.
Never had he known such love!
Once, he thought he had. Hanna had been her name. He remembered so much of her-golden hair, bright eyes, quiet smile-but nothing of wanting to kill her. He must not have loved her-not like he loved Mother.
She had killed Hanna, Mother had. Mother had killed so many, some with claws, some with minions, some with disease. That's how Hanna had died. Mother had loved her enough to send tiny machines crawling through her. Hanna had been furious. She had not wanted to transcend. She had not wanted…
Gerrard's mind struggled to assemble the thought.
Hanna had not wanted… She had not wanted… to die.
That forbidden thought spread through his mind.
Hanna had not wanted to die.
That single truth killed the manifold lies that swarmed in his head. Love is what he had felt for Hanna. Hate was what he felt for Moth-, for Tsabo Tavoc. The rest had all been lies, had been glistening-oil.
Truth spread through his once-poisoned spine and out along a million neural branches and into the tissues they touched. It gave him back his mind and his body.
He hung there still, his strength returning. He could feel Tsabo Tavoc's leg around him, could hear the cicada drone of her oration. No longer was she in his head. How to escape? It would take monumental strength to break the hold of even one of her legs.
"Pssst," came a sound near Gerrard's ear.
He slowly turned his head and saw a beautiful face- green and wart nosed, with feverish little eyes and barbed bits of bug leg between yellow teeth. Squee. It was no wonder he had passed unnoticed among the monsters in the chamber-hideously beautiful as he was.