What does this have to do with Daria? Taysir demanded. Where is she?
The hand of Urza's engine rose. Let me finish. It has been said I have underestimated our foe. This is not possible. I've spent four thousand years preparing for this battle. It has been said I have underestimated Tevash Szat, that he is untrustworthy and evil. This is also impossible. I constructed these engines with Szat in mind. In fact, the one person in this group who is chronically underestimated is me.
Szat hissed, What has any of this to do with Daria?
Simply that you killed her, and I knew you would, and I now exact your punishment.
Instead of responding, Szat only hung there within his engine.
Taysir shouted, What going on!
He's dying, Urza replied simply. I've initiated the kill rubric.
Kill rubric?
At my command, ten thousand metal fibers emerged from his piloting harness to pierce his flesh. Minute lightnings pass through each of these, creating a local and general paralysis. He cannot move or feel, act or think. He is in a kind of suspension.
Taysir stared in amazement into the piloting bulb of Szat's engine. The dragon hung limply within the harness. So, you have incapacitated him. You'll punish him. But what about Daria! You said you knew this was going to happen. Why did you let it happen? Why did you let him kill Kristina and Daria?
Oh, I didn't know he would kill any of us, only that he would betray us. And I had to allow him to betray us so that I could exact punishment. And I had to exact punishment because it was the only way to charge my most powerful weapons.
Have you gone mad? Freyalise demanded.
An uncomfortable laugh came from Urza. Barrin always use to say that. No, I'm not mad. Come here, all of you, up beside Szat. Come look at what is happening inside the engine.
They crowded around Tevash Szat and peered into the piloting bulb. Tiny motes of light scintillated across the dragon's form. They emerged from the core of his being and glinted along the filaments that pierced his scales.
Barrin always said that I did not consider the moral implications of my actions. He said it particularly loudly when I developed these soul bombs. You see them there, beneath the piloting seat? They are extraordinarily powerful explosives, able to destroy whole cities. Unfortunately, they can be charged only by capturing a soul. Barrin had said I could never ethically charge them. I pointed out that plenty of traitors and murderers are executed every year, and their souls could charge these bombs. Again, he said I was mad, that no mortal crime deserved an immortal punishment.
So, look what I have done. I have found an immortal to commit an immortal crime-a traitor and a murderer whose soul can charge not one bomb but twenty. Even now, Szat is giving us the means of destroying the fourth sphere.
Can any of you imagine any more moral solution than that? Can any of you imagine any more sane plan? Now you know why I insisted Szat come. He has become my greatest weapon.
The others could only stare in horrified amazement as the last of Tevash Szat's life force seeped out of him and into the soul bombs.
Chapter 23
In the early morning light, Weatherlight rose from the encampment. The engine rattled command tents. Ash from spent logs fled up the volcanic hillside. Metathran stirred in their bedrolls. Minotaurs looked up from sharpening strivas. The perimeter of ghoul sentries turned to see the great ship surge out across the mountains of Urborg.
In his gunnery traces, Gerrard stared down at the conglomerate army. "Life surrounded by death." Agnate was winning the land battle but losing his life in the bargain. His pure heart was surrounded by rot. Even now, he and Commander Grizzlegom mustered their forces for an assault on the first volcano. At the summit, they would meet up with Lich Lord Dralnu and a new contingent of undead.
Gerrard and Weatherlight headed to a different mountaintop for a different confrontation.
"How far out are we?" asked Gerrard into the speaking tube.
"Thirty miles," Sisay responded. "We'll be there in a few minutes."
"Aye," Gerrard said with a nod. "Karn, you're sure about the power signature?"
"It is unmistakable," came the resonant voice of the silver golem. The ship's new configuration allowed her not only to sense the presence of a Phyrexian ship but also to identify it. A huge power signature rose from the central volcano in the range. "Without a doubt, that's where we'll find the Stronghold."
The Stronghold. Gerrard and Hanna had fought epic battles in its corridors. Sisay and Takara had languished in its cells. Tahngarth and Karn had survived its tortures. Selenia and Mirri had not… Now the crew returned to face Volrath's successor-Crovax.
Once a member of Weatherlight's crew, Crovax now was Evincar of Rath, lord of the overlay. He had brought the planeshift to Dominaria. The murder of millions was upon his head. There could be no truer avatar of death.
Gerrard was determined to face him down and kill him.
"There it is," Sisay said.
Gerrard peered out past the bowsprit to a huge mountain. It eclipsed the morning sun and cast Weatherlight in its shadow. The near face was swathed in blackness. Its rocky rim glowed hellishly.
"It's fifteen thousand feet high, with a five-thousandfoot caldera," Sisay said. The rattle of charts came through the speaking tube. "It'll surely have defenses. If I were Crovax, I'd set up cannonades in bunkers along the crater's rim."
A shaft of sun-colored light cracked past Weatherlight's rail. It soared on, striking a nearby hill and melting rock to lava.
Gritting his teeth, Gerrard pointed his cannon toward the peak. Energy rolled from the gun. It sliced through the mountain's shadow and flew to the bunker. The bolt slid through a low window. It lit the space within. Burning silhouettes went to puddles and ash.
"Those bunkers are set up to fire outward, not upward," Gerrard said. "Sisay, bring us in along the crater's rim.
Gunners, watch for more bunkers. Send the roofs down on them."
Tahngarth's cannon barked, ripping down a curtain of fire from another gun.
Gerrard pinpointed the nest. He squeezed off a shot. Plasmatic air splashed into the bunker. Hunks of scale tumbled out. The gun wilted.
Sisay brought Weatherlight up. Sunlight flashed across her mirror hull. She rose above the caldera. The crater centered on a black pit. The Stronghold would be below. Once the caldera was secured, Weatherlight would plunge down that shaft. For now, she traced the rim.
"Let's make one circle do the job," Gerrard said.
The sky suddenly went red. Cannon fire crisscrossed. From embrasures along the inner edge of the caldera, blasts ripped the air.
"Plenty of targets!" Gerrard shouted, standing in the traces.
He let fly a barrage. Bolts plunged toward the bowl. They stitched along beneath the rim. Rock melted. Bunkers collapsed. Power cores blew. The inner edge of the crater crumbled. Basalt boulders rolled down on Phyrexian crews.
All the guns were firing. Tahngarth and Squee, the amidships men, the belly gunner, the tops gunner-all unleashed their fury. Weatherlight seemed suspended on lines of power above the volcano.
Still, they could not catch and fling back all the flack. Weatherlight shuddered. Bolts spattered across her new hull. Where before such blasts would have ripped through wood, now mirrored metal reflected the rays. They stabbed downward. Even her new wings were reflectors.