Kireno stabbed two soldiers before they could leap clear of the door, but more poured over the sides, and he was soon enveloped in hostile blades. He traded cuts with foes on two fronts for several breathtaking seconds, then he was cut down from behind. A swarm of Rathi soldiers trampled the fallen rebel and overran Shamus. The nimble young Dal drew off at least forty guards as he retreated to the wall. He fought on, killing two and wounding four before the press became too great. He was impaled on no less than six swords at once and pinned to the wall. The soldiers drew back, leaving Shamus dead at the base of one of Volrath's pilasters.
"Eladamri, hurry!" Belbe cried. She wasn't armed, but she was prepared to use her considerable skills to safeguard his departure.
She watched the elf remove the wooden fetish from around his neck. It was a knobby little carving of a sprite, an ancestral spirit revered by elderly elves. Eladamri wasn't religious. The fetish had another purpose.
He snapped the figure's waist. The fetish was hollow. Inside the cavity was a small glass vial, closed with a cut glass plug and sealed with wax. It was the vial left in Avila's bed the night she died.
Medd shouted several words to Sivt, who was also unarmed but ready to defend the portal. She watched as Medd was engulfed in a storm of swords and shields. He died as she looked on, but he bought his leader a few more precious seconds.
Belbe backed away from the melee until she bumped into Eladamri. "What are you waiting for?" she cried. "Go! Will you go?"
"After you, Avila."
This time she heard him. She looked at him with genuine pity. "I can't go," she said.
He looked quite calm as he pulled the plug from the vial and flung the contents at her. There were only a few drops of death elixir in it. Most of it hit her armor harmlessly, but a single droplet landed on her cheek.
Belbe's hearing instantly failed. Her vision blurred, and when she wiped her eyes with her hands, she smeared the tiny droplet across her face. Her muscles locked, and searing pain shot through her entrails. An ordinary person would have died the moment the elixir touched her, but Belbe's powerful systems had more resistance. She was doomed, and she knew it. One by one her bodily functions folded up, ceasing to work. She was already deaf. Her vision was contracting to a narrow point.
Sivi lurched into her line of sight, and Belbe saw Eladamri push her backward into the portal. The bucolic scene of another world rippled, then settled to show Sivi on her back in the tall grass. She stared back through the portal at the two elves.
Belbe's knees failed. She slumped to the floor facing the portal. She shivered violently as her borrowed life fought with the toxin. Her lips parted to speak, but no sound came out.
"For the peace of my soul and yours, this had to be," Eladamri said. With a final knowing nod, he stepped through the waiting portal.
Greven and his soldiers had reached the transplanar device. One zealous guard tried to follow Eladamri by jumping into the portal, but there was not enough energy left to effect his transfer. Sixty pounds of the man landed in the grass beside Sivi- head, shoulders, one arm, helmet, part of a breastplate. The rest of him, a singed stump, fell back on the floor of the Dream Halls.
Its power exhausted, the portal shut down. The pristine image of the plain where Takara, Eladamri, and Sivi had escaped faded into murky gray mist. Belbe, pale as death and with tears streaming down her face, could just make out the words on Eladamri's lips.
"Farewell, Avila."
CODA
When order was restored to the Dream Halls, Greven had his victorious soldiers line up by companies, facing each other. There they stood at attention until Crovax, recovered from his faint, entered the hall. The dead rebels were laid out for his inspection. Crovax gave them a cursory glance. Their souls were long departed, and so were not available to him.
Ertai skulked on Crovax's heels, anxiously searching for Belbe and the portal device. Looking past the evincar, he saw Belbe kneeling on the floor a few yards away, her head slumped to her chest. Disdaining the evincar's displeasure, he ran ahead of him. "Belbe! Belbe!"
She didn't move and didn't answer. He touched the back of her neck and immediately knew why. Her skin was cold as ice. "Belbe…" He knelt beside her. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks still wet. Ertai picked up her hand. Her fingertips were already turning black.
"Dead, is she?" asked Crovax. Ertai nodded dumbly. "How was it done? I don't see a wound. I didn't think a Phyrexian construct could be killed so easily."
Ertai blinked through his own tears and spotted a tiny glass vial on the floor. Seamed with cracks and empty, it smelled like newly mown hay.
Crovax took the vial from his hand. "I see. I'll have this analyzed. Potent poisons are useful things to have."
The evincar ordered Belbe's body removed, along with what remained of the portal machinery. Greven stood by awaiting his new master's pleasure.
"Eladamri is gone," Greven said.
"Where?" asked Crovax.
"No one survived to tell us, Your Highness. This device of the emissary's may provide information." He placed Belbe's portal control in Crovax's hand.
As soon as Crovax had the vital device, Greven was stricken with pounding waves of unimaginable pain. He bellowed and fell at Crovax's feet.
"This is just the beginning," he said. "I have years of pain in store for you. You impeded me, thwarted me, aided my enemy, and on top of all that, allowed the arch-rebel to escape."
Greven flailed helplessly, retching and beating his tormented face on the floor.
"The only reason I don't kill you is because you'll be needed in the coming war." He kicked Greven's head. "Besides, having Eladamri exiled to another plane is almost as helpful as having him dead-maybe more so. There will be no martyr's grave, no brave example for another generation of troublemakers."
He sent two guards to bring Ertai to him. They dragged the young sorcerer before Crovax and forced him to lie on his belly at the evincar's feet.
"Now, what shall I do with you?"
"I don't care."
Crovax drove a toe into Ertai's ribs. He moaned and doubled over.
"Don't play hero with me, Boy. I can make you care about anything." His tone relaxed. "But I do owe you, don't I?"
"Owe?" gasped Ertai.
"Don't you think I know you intervened in my duel with Volrath? 1 could see your childish spell weighing down his blade as easily as he could. No one else on Rath practices your brand of archaic magic. Why did you help me? I would've thought Volrath would have been more your sort of patron."
"I knew you'd win eventually. I thought if I helped, you'd spare Belbe and me."
"It's too late for the emissary. I suppose her rebel friends did her in." He frowned. "A waste of good Phyrexian technology, that girl. What were they thinking?"
He relented on Greven's punishment. The suffering warrior couldn't even stand after his treatment.
"As a reward for your unsolicited help, Ertai, I'll spare your life. In return, you will serve me. Do you agree?"
A faint spark of hope illuminated the profound darkness in Ertai's heart. "I have many talents, Your Highness. Perhaps I can demonstrate them to you."
"We'll see. In the meantime, I have use for your influence with the flowstone."
"My influence is nothing compared to yours, Sire."
Crovax smiled, and everyone in the vicinity flushed with fear. "For my purpose, your skills will be enough."
In a remote part of the Stronghold, the flowstone factory began a new day's production. The output accelerator and the flowstone gauge conferred, as was their designed custom, on the efficiency of the previous day's production.