"Volrath was a fool and a weakling," Crovax replied.
"He was for many years a highly effective governor."
"For suppressing some ragtag elves and whipping moggs, he was fine. The first time a real challenge appeared- Weatherlight-he bungled everything. Worse, he became so out of control he abandoned his post to pursue his private quarrel with Gerrard. Not good form for a man with his responsibilities."
"You would not make such mistakes?"
"Never," replied Crovax.
"How would you deal with an incursion by Weatherlight?"
"Weatherlight is not important. It's a vessel, a means to deliver an end."
Delicate microtomes scraped at Crovax's flesh. Through all the detachment and anesthesia, the sensation-or his thoughts about the sensation-seeped in. Through Kirril's eyes he saw his own naked body laid open on the Phyrexian operating table, his ebon skin pinned back like supple leather, his organs still alive, quivering, his heart pumping…
A high-pitched whine distracted Crovax. He saw again his own transformation. This time a small whirring saw blade was being used to open his skull. The hulking priest wielding the saw had three arms, each tipped with slender metallic digits of excruciating delicacy. The Phyrexian touched the bright blade to Crovax's head, and the former member of the Weatherlight crew screamed inwardly.
He felt he was hurtling through an abyss of total darkness. The plunge was all the more terrible because he knew it would last forever. He would never reach the bottom, never feel the absolving impact of death.
Below him a dim light gleamed. It grew steadily larger and brighter, resolving into the form of a glowing angel.
Selenia!
He tore past her, twisting and grasping at her diaphanous, trailing robe. Her sorrowful face seemed blurred, indistinct. Yet when they recognized each other, the angel folded her beating wings and dropped after him. Crovax strained to reach her outstretched hands. Their fingertips brushed many times and failed to meet. Despair gave way to frustration, then to anger. Crovax knotted both hands into fists and hurled himself at Selenia. A dull red halo surrounded him as he shot upward to meet her. She opened her arms wide to embrace him, and he did likewise, flushed with triumph.
They met in midair, and he clasped the bright angel to him. She was not dead, not dead, not dead…
Selenia writhed in his grasp. "Let me go! Let me go, Crovax, you're hurting me!"
"1 would never hurt you!"
"Let me go, I cannot bear it!"
Crovax drew back far enough to see her agonized face. He knew instinctively the power he exuded was hurting her. The same force that allowed him to stop falling and reach Selenia was now killing her.
"Let me go, Crovax! I'm burning!"
"I won't let you go! You're all I care about!"
Feathers from her wings fell away, scorched brown. She became dead weight in his arms, and they slowly turned in the air until she was hanging limply beneath him. Her robe smoldered, her gossamer hair was singed.
"Crovax, you've killed me."
He kissed her lifeless face. Where he touched her, her lips and cheek blistered. Rather than see her beauty entirely consumed by his raging heat, Crovax released her. She spiraled down into the darkness, wings rigid in death.
He covered his face with his hands. If he could tear out his memory, expunge Selenia from his mind, he might be saved from the torment of her death.
"Kirril? Kirril! Can you hear me? Grant me this boon!"
"No," said the Phyrexian. "You must preserve memories of all your deeds."
"Why? I don't want to remember the awful things I've done!"
"They only seem awful because you cling to inferior concepts of right and wrong. You must learn to savor your experiences. In that way, you will be strong. You'll be superior to those mortals who live in fear and react to pain."
"Can you give me this strength, Kirril?"
"You have it already. All that needs to be done is to delete what remains of your useless moral sense."
"Then do it."
"Are you certain? What is taken away cannot be restored."
"Do it!"
An electrode, tipped with a miniature cauterizing iron, slipped into Crovax's brain. With a hiss, what remained of his painful conscience burned away.
CHAPTER 3
At low speed, and with considerable cursing on the part of Greven il-Vec, Predator approached the airship tunnel high on the slope of the Stronghold. It had taken two days to return from Portal Canyon instead of the usual five hours. Negotiating the usually roomy tunnel through the slopes of Rath Peak appeared impossible. Predator's steering was a jury-rigged shambles, and none of the bone-headed crew could do anything to correct it. They made three approaches to the tunnel mouth, only to abort each one at the last instant to avoid piling up on the side of the crater.
Furious and desperate, Greven stormed below to where Ertai was still chained to the mast. "Are we there yet?" Ertai asked cheerfully. Greven dearly wanted to wrench the boy's smirking head off, but he settled for stomping a cider keg to kindling. It was a full keg, and the sweet smell of cider filled the cramped hold.
Predator lurched heavily to port. Shouts of alarm penetrated from the deck above. Greven's scarred lips curled in disgust.
"Well?" said Ertai. "I can't do much chained up down here." "Who says I want you to do anything?" Greven snarled.
"You didn't come down here to offer me cider, did you?"
Greven's normally sallow face darkened. He reached out with his massive, sinewy hands, and Ertai feared his time had come. Greven grasped the chain between Ertai's hands, and with little more than a shrug, snapped them in two.
Ertai just stared in amazement. Greven did the same with his leg shackles, and the young wizard stood up for the first time in more than a day.
"Many thanks, Captain. I was beginning to cramp-"
"Shut up," Greven said. "Get on deck!"
Ertai shuffled up the gangway, chains jingling as he went. He emerged on the main bridge. The sailors were trying to steer Predator with her tattered mainsails. Even if they had been in top condition, such methods were too coarse for steering the airship into its home base.
Ertai craned his head and gazed at the Stronghold. A vast rounded cone rose steeply from the surrounding plain to a height of over three miles. The barren slopes were yellow stone, streaked with red and brown mineral deposits. The western side was covered by a silver-gray cascade of newly fabricated flow-stone. At the peak, the great Hub floated on a continuous stream of sizzling blue energy. This vast cylindrical object received the energy lancing down from indefinite space above. Though not bright in the sense that the Dominarian sun was bright, Ertai's eyes began to water from the light.
"This is no time for tears," Greven said.
"I'm the sensitive type," Ertai said, dabbing his eyes.
Greven dragged Ertai to the forward rail. "We have a steering problem." He really loathed what he was about to say, and it showed clearly on his brutal face. "You will use magic to get us through the tunnel."
"I'm a prisoner of war."
"You're on my ship," Greven replied, his teeth beginning to grind. "If we crash, you go down with us."
Ertai couldn't help but smile. "That's persuasive." He strolled to the port side of the bridge, then to starboard. Predator was making a large, slow turn that would eventually bring it back on course for the tunnel opening.
"The rudder is wrecked?" Ertai asked. Greven nodded. "Can you steer with differential thrust from your engines?"
"Normally, yes, but the starboard engine is off its mountings. Only the port engine is supplying thrust."
Ertai shaded his eyes from the blue glow of the peak and studied the sailors trying to manhandle the port mainsail to counteract the off-center push of the engine. Even as he watched, the flapping sail whipped loose and swept three men off the boom. They plunged to their deaths, and no one paused to mark the fact, least of all Predator's captain.