Perhaps, in destroying it all-even himself-he had saved his only true friends.
Then, like a memory solidifying, Karn felt something in his hands. He held on and was drawn away from the incendiary cloud. Black metal retreated beneath his dangling feet. Urborg appeared below.
Karn clung to the forecastle rail of Weatherlight. Fires snapped and burned around his hands and feet, but he held on.
Above the rail, eyes worried within a shock of black hair. Gerrard smiled.
"Karn, you did it. You made it back. I don't know what I would've done without you."
Chapter 12
Throughout their flight across the ocean, Rhammidarigaaz had wondered how he would find the second Primeval. Now, as his dragon nations circled above tumbled Yavimaya, he knew.
The Primeval drew him. She lay imprisoned below. Elves had entombed her in the heart of a great tree. For ages of ages, the ancient forest serpent had been a captive to the wood. Magnigoth sap had pasted down her scales. It had permeated her flesh and coursed into her blood and leeched every rebellious impulse from her mind. This dragon, who had breathed forests into being and had flown in a world where mortals were caged birds, this beast was a prisoner of the trees. But not forever.
Bending his fangy mouth down toward the forest canopy, Darigaaz began a long, spiraling dive. His people followed.
The wet heat of Yavimaya streamed across his leathery wings. Beneath the sun and above the treetops, Darigaaz soared. In this time of war and dark revelations, there was too little quiet and beauty. He watched his own lithe shadow as it surged over the canopy. Tree to tree, the image leaped. In its wake came the shadows of the dragon nations. They seemed fish schooling above a reef. Down to Yavimaya they plunged.
She was here, just here, in the massive magnigoth around which they circled. It was a mountain of a tree, three thousand feet tall. Its crown could hold aloft an elven city. Large white blooms spread across the peak and showered gleaming pollen through the air. Gigantic Kavu basked among its branches, letting the sun warm their reptilian blood. Below, foliage spread in four more levels down the huge trunk. Each had its own climate, its own fauna and flora. The base of the tree was a swollen knob of wood that bristled with spikes.
Even glimmering pollen and acrid sap could not cover the sweet, sharp scent of dragon flesh. The magnigoth was powerful and ancient, yes, but less so than its captive.
Darigaaz tucked his wings and plunged through the upper canopy. It was like diving through the algae of a deep pool. Sunlight failed. Wind gave way to stillness. Airy creatures were replaced by giant spiders, staring Kavu, and every skulking thing.
His people descended in a ribbon behind him.
Darigaaz circled the magnigoth trunk. Heat seeped from his skin. Talons dragged through moist murk. Wings brushed the spikes that jutted from the root bulb. There was no true soil here except the humus that ran in a black network among the trees. On that spongy ground, Darigaaz landed. His claws dug in the dirt, and he tucked his wings. With a final flap of leather and a series of soft thuds, the dragon nations of Dominaria landed. They formed a thick ring of flesh around the prison of their ancient lord.
Darigaaz took a deep breath and eyed the tree. It was indeed a mountain. How could he bring this creature out? How could he hope to free a Primeval?
You know how, spoke a voice in Darigaaz's mind. It was a purring voice, feminine and powerful.
Abstracted, the elder dragon reached up to the talismans at his wattle.
No, the answer does not tie there. That is new magic, a distillation of colors. We lived before all that. We lived when power was raw and elemental. You must tap the primeval power, Rhammidarigaaz.
Tap the primeval power? How?
You have been a servant to mortals too long. You have forgotten what it means to be a dragon. To be a king.
Darigaaz bristled. He was the elder dragon of Shiv. He was the lord of the dragon nations. He had not forgotten what it was to be a dragon king.
You're no king. You're a diplomat, a negotiator. You must rule yourself before you can rule these folk. What of volcanic desire? What of volcanic power?
"Have you brought us here merely to stand and stare?" asked the lord of the black dragons.
Darigaaz shook off his reverie. Only then did he notice that Lord Rokun coiled before him.
Rokun was a coal-black beast cast in the very likeness of Tevash Szat, the dragon god who had begun this whole escapade. Rokun's tongue was also the equal of Szat's.
"Did we fly across the ocean only to land here without plan or purpose?"
Yes? Did you?
The fire kindled in Darigaaz's belly grew only hotter. "Our purpose is to raise the second Primeval before the Phyrexians can destroy her. Our plan is to join the strength of the dragon nations to tap ancient power."
Feigning credulity, Rokun said, "Oh, yes. Let's all join in a circle and hold hands-"
Don't coddle him. He is not your child. He is your subject.
"Would you be silent?" Darigaaz snapped, uncertain whether he addressed Rokun or the voice in his head.
"No, I will not," snarled Rokun. His tail lashed. His claws gripped the black soil as he circled the dragon elder.
"I kept my silence while many of us were slaughtered at Koilos-and for what, a hunk of sand that is now in Phyrexian hands?"
You fight for men, not for dragons.
"The permanent portal was destroyed. That was the purpose of the Battle of Koilos-"
"I kept my silence as you led us to what little remained of your homeland, to fight for nose-picking goblins and runty Viashino. I kept my silence even as you led us across the world to find this oversized scratching post, but I will keep silent no longer."
Lash out. If you let him speak that way to you, he will rebel.
Darigaaz lifted claws to his ears. "I'm through listening to you."
"No, you aren't. I'm taking control of the dragon nations. We will follow you no longer!"
Lash out! Are you too docile to save your own people?
Darigaaz's claws raked down from his ears and seized the black, hackled throat of the upstart. "You will not take command of this army. Not while I live." He hurled Rokun away from him, into a crowd of black dragons that eagerly watched the confrontation. They reeled back, clearing the way.
Rokun rose menacingly. In the dark forest, his plate armor seemed more insectoid than reptilian.
Through gleaming fangs, he hissed, "Oh, Rhammidarigaaz the Elder, I have longed for this moment." He launched himself at his foe.
Black power scintillated across his horns and coalesced down his arms. Rokun's claws grew preternaturally outward like lines of ink drawn on the air. Those lines intersected Darigaaz's stomach and cut deep parallel furrows through the scales.
The elder dragon reeled back.
At least one of you remembers how to fight.
Darigaaz did not heed the voice, busy remembering something else-the volcanoes of Shiv. He drew the power to him and formed it into a red-hot column of force that poured from his clawtips. He roared and lunged. His talons clenched the black dragon's throat. Incendiary heat ripped through the monster's neck. From the holes torn by his claws gushed a tarry liquid. The acid burned Darigaaz's flesh. More sprayed between the black dragon's clenched teeth. Where it spattered Darigaaz, his own scales dissolved. It burned wounds across his neck and shoulders. Darigaaz reeled back.