Belbe set the coordinates for Rath's parallel world. The patient blue door began to flash and flicker again as the barrier between the planes was subverted.
Ertai jumped up from the infuser. He'd dialed in a double dose of dark energy, and got off the crystal platform bursting with newfound vigor. He'd had no time to warn the four servants who'd brought him to the laboratory. A silent wave of energy washed over them, transmuting them in minutes. They were now flapping around the room on fleshy wings or clinging to the walls with multiple pairs of legs. As he lay on the infuser and the dark glow flooded his anguished mind, the truth had burst upon him like a bolt from Belbe's plasma discharger.
She'd hidden her portal device in the Dream Halls. It was the perfect place to hide it. The ordinary inhabitants of the Citadel never went there, as they feared Volrath even in his absence. Crovax thought the halls were a vain, empty monument, so he never deigned to go there either. By luck, or fate, the rebels had chosen this room for their last stand-and Belbe was going in to "talk" to Eladamri…
He had the good fortune to encounter Greven first. Crovax might have slain him on sight.
"Dread Lord!" he said, actually grasping the fearsome warrior by his broad shoulders. "Has Belbe gone into the Dream Halls yet?"
"Some time ago. It's been very quiet since."
Ertai was frantic. He could feel the weight of death or permanent exile on Rath settling over his shoulders. Fear, and perhaps too much decadent energy, warped his morals and loosened his tongue.
"We must do something, Dread Lord!" he said. "She has a portal device in there!" Which I need to use! was the part he dared not say out loud.
Greven shoved him away. "You'd better not be lying, Boy!"
"Why would I lie? We have to stop her!"
Greven roused his idle troops and had them stand to arms. "Come," he said, taking Ertai roughly by the collar. "We must report this to the evincar."
The stir among the soldiers spread ahead of Greven, and by the time he found Crovax sitting in an elaborate chair drawn from the flowstone, the new Evincar of Rath knew something was amiss. His expression hardened when he saw Ertai.
"What's this corpse doing here?" he said.
"Your Highness, the emissary brought a portal device with her from Phyrexia. According to the boy, she hid it in the Dream Halls," explained Greven.
Crovax bolted from the chair, which subsided into the floor. "A portal? Are you sure?"
"She told me so when we… I believe her," Ertai replied, his face burning.
"Would she use it to help Eladamri?" Crovax stopped himself. "It doesn't matter. Everyone in that room is hereby condemned to death," he announced. "Let's put an end to this game."
The chosen storming squad fell in step behind Crovax, Greven, and Ertai. The evincar strode to within a dozen paces of the locked doors.
"Will you summon them to surrender?" said Ertai.
"Why should I? They're dead as of this moment."
Crovax handed the plasma discharger to a guardsman, then pressed his palms together in an awful parody of prayer. He slowly raised his hands, spreading them wider as they rose.
A large hump appeared in the floor. Soldiers fell back as the cubic shape mounted higher. So much of the floor was drawn into the rising shape that the floor joists appeared as if shoals around the edges of the room. The summoned form took on the shape of a truncated pyramid fifteen feet high and twelve feet wide at the base.
"What's he-?" Ertai's question was cut off when the pyramid heaved itself forward and slammed against the doors. The entire Citadel quaked from the shock.
The sudden impact startled the rebels. "Crovax is tired of waiting," Eladamri said. "Is the portal ready?"
Belbe made some hasty calculations. "No, it's not fixed on the destination yet."
The massive ram hit the doors again. Loose dream catching machinery rained down, and for the first time the huge doors showed damage. The center was dented inward eight inches, and the gap at the top and bottom was admitting more of the bright light from outside.
"How much longer?" Takara asked anxiously.
"I don't know exactly-the unit's never been used before. It has no settings to compare to."
Eladamri grabbed Belbe by the hair and jerked her head back. "Hurry," he said. "If I find out you're delaying-"
"You're delaying me now," she said. He released her.
The remaining rebel fighters placed themselves between the doors and the portal with drawn swords. Sivi tried to take her place beside Medd, but he gently pushed her away.
"I'm still good enough to fight with you!" she said. Her words were slurred and her movements shaky.
"You've had a hard knock on the head, Sivi," Medd replied. "You can hardly stand. Go with Eladamri. He needs someone to protect him."
"I won't leave you here to die!"
A third powerful impact caused more debris to shower down from the heights of the Dream Halls. The heavy shocks caused the portal unit to topple over. Belbe let out a yelp of horror.
She and Takara returned the device upright.
Takara was concerned. "Is it damaged?"
Belbe ran the test commands on two sides of her control unit. All the responses were normal. "No! But we'd better brace it- another fall could ruin everything."
Outside, Crovax was reeling. The battle with Volrath had depleted his strength, and the effort required to raise and move several tons of flowstone strained him to his limits. He gathered his power for a fourth attack, but he couldn't finish it. The giant battering ram froze inches from the doors when Crovax passed out. He pitched face down on the floor. No one attempted to catch him.
Greven closed the visor on his helmet. "Tenth Company, to the right! Sixth Company, on the left. At the double, charge!"
Hurrahing, the soldiers swarmed against the doors.
The feral shouting from the storming troops chilled Belbe's artificial blood. She tapped in the final coordinates, and the transplanar unit whined loudly. The portal locked onto a destination, and an image formed, filling the square top to bottom, side to side.
Weeping silently, Takara walked toward the portal. "Is that it? Is that Dominaria?"
The scene through the portal was of a verdant plain, green in the lush growth of summer. A few trees dotted the rolling savanna. The sky was blue-not so blue as the open portal, but a warm, living shade never seen in Rath's gray skies.
Eladamri was transfixed by the beauty of the view. "Is that it, Avila?"
Belbe didn't notice what he called her. "It should be."
Four hundred men pushed and pounded on the sagging doors. Medd, Kireno, and Shamus clasped hands. The interlaced hinges of the right-hand door began to squeal as the metal was torn apart.
Takara could stand it no longer. She pushed Eladamri aside and ran at the portal. Where she touched it, the image distorted in concentric ripples, like a pool of water after a pebble falls in. Then she was gone. Half a second later Belbe saw Takara's back as she ran through the chest high grass, away from the open portal. Away from Rath.
"Go, Eladamri," Belbe said.
"Not yet. I have something for you."
"What?"
The upper hinge gave way and crashed to the floor. The right hand door slowly fell, twisting the lower hinge as it went. Soldiers and guards, fired by their success, didn't wait for the door to fall, but clambered over it. Kireno shouted a Vec war cry and ran at them. Shamus followed, leaving Medd alone to ward off attackers trying to reach the portal.