Rhammidarigaaz's legs pulled away from the planks where he clung.
"Full power, Karn!" Sisay ordered.
The engines blazed. They drove Weatherlight downward, as though to spike her through the peak of the volcano. Momentum pulled the dragon farther from the deck. Below his dangling talons, a hillside of basalt and obsidian swarmed up.
"Here we go!" Shoving the helm forward, Sisay inverted
Weatherlight.
Sky replaced ground and ground replaced sky. Upside down, the ship leveled out of her plunge. Her deck thundered above ridges of stone.
Rhammidarigaaz was levered up to dangle beneath the overturned ship. One more yank, and he'd be thrown free.
Sisay gave that yank. She pushed the helm hard forward. The Gaea figurehead climbed skyward. Inverted, Weatherlight rocketed after her. Dominaria shrank vertiginously away.
The dragon clung on with damnable tenacity. His back struck the windscreen of the bridge, shattering it.
Glass shards hailed Sisay. She shut her eyes but clung to the wheel. Flying on motion sense, she steered the ship high into the sky.
In moments, the glass had ceased its deadly hail. Sisay opened her eyes. What she saw horrified her. No longer did Rhammidarigaaz obstruct her view. Already he had shattered the hatch and clawed his way down toward the engine core.
With a violent fist, Rhammidarigaaz ripped wide the companion way that led to the engine room. He drew himself down. Talons sank into the inverted ceiling and dragged him deeper into the ship. He reached for the engine room bulkhead. Ruby claws tore the wood asunder.
The room beyond was flooded with power. It limned every metal plate and shone in each mana module. It reverberated through the chamber and sluiced down around Darigaaz. The engine whined as the ship righted itself and struggled skyward. Soon, all this power would be destroyed.
Darigaaz reached toward the thrumming machine.
Suddenly, something appeared in the way. It seemed an animate door-too heavy, too huge to be a living thing. Still, it tickled the corners of his memory. It was not until the thing spoke, its voice like distant thunder, that the dragon remembered:
"What have you become, Rhammidarigaaz?"
Karn. There was but one voice in all time like it. He and Rhammidarigaaz had worked side by side in the mana rig at Shiv.
"You once fought for Dominaria. Now you fight only for yourself."
The answer seemed plain: "I once was mortal, but now I am a god."
The metallic eyes of the silver golem fixed his. "You once were good, but now you are evil." The metal man clomped forward, grasping the dragon's horns. It seemed he wanted to wrestle-a ludicrous thought-but his metallic touch created a mental conduit.
Darigaaz reeled at that touch. What was this? Divinity was awakening in Karn. Power undeniable. The silver man had lived a forgetful millennium, but now that his memories were returning, they were transforming him.
Memory was creating this fledgling god, and with a touch, Karn awoke Darigaaz's own memories.
Into the Primeval's mind came an image of a long-ago time. He was a young serpent. He flew, wings spread, above Weatherlight. They struggled to escape Serra's Realm as it collapsed around them. Once a home for angels, the place had become a perfect hell. Its mad ruler saw foes everywhere and slew all those she could. Refugees crowded Weatherlight, the final few who would escape.
Once, you would have sacrificed yourself to save another. Now you sacrifice everyone to save yourself.
The Primeval's response sounded hollow. Altruism is a mortal flaw.
Karn replied only by dragging forth more memories:
Darigaaz saw Rokun, sacrificed upon the magnigoth. He saw the four dragon lords sacrificed within the catacombs. He saw the hundreds of serpents sacrificed in the watery cave. And now… now every last dragon in the world was a living sacrifice to the Primevals.
"What has become of me?" uttered Rhammidarigaaz.
Those words seemed to break the bond that held him in place. The dragon's horns pulled free of Karn's grip. He drifted backward, up the companionway, as if in a dream. Weatherlight flipped over again, struggling to be rid of him.
Darigaaz did not fight. He slid effortlessly up the companion-way and out the shattered hatch. In battering winds, he hung for a moment beneath the inverted deck of Weatherlight. Then he tumbled free.
He could have spread his wings and caught the air but did not. What have I become? He could have saved himself from the volcanic caldera below, but he was no longer interested in saving himself.
One final sacrifice would break the circle of Primevals, would free the dragons from their bondage and make the dragon gods mortal once more.
In his last act, Rhammidarigaaz gathered the power of his ancient homeland. He sent it in a blazing column down into the caldera. He could not awaken a whole volcano, but he could awaken a single molten shaft. It would be enough.
Lava erupted. It rose around him and coated him. It encasing him in a broiling fist and dragged him down. He would be dead before he struck ground.
For all the red-hot rock, for all the agony, he saw not his own sacrifice, but that of Gherridarigaaz.
His mother had chosen rightly. She had indulged the mortal flaw.
Chapter 36
"What did you say?" hissed Gerrard ferociously. Flexing his shoulders, he almost succeeded in breaking free from Ertai's four-armed grip. "What did you say!"
Crovax leaned toward his captive. A shark-toothed smile broke across his face. "I said, 'Yawgmoth has Hanna.' "
"No!" Gerrard roared. His elbows swung backward and rammed Ertai's metal ribs. His fists punched forward and broke the man's grip. Gerrard lunged out of his grasp. He swung a brutal uppercut. Good-old Dominarian knuckles cracked Crovax's jaw.
The evincar of the Stronghold reeled back. A triangular tooth flipped from his mouth. Oily pulp dribbled down his lip. Ertai reached for Gerrard, but his arms were suddenly full of goblin.
Squee wore an impish grin as he head-butted Ertai.
For all the Phyrexian enhancements done to the young sorcerer, none made his skull the equal of the goblin's. His arms shuddered, and he staggered back.
Squee gave him no quarter. He scampered up Ertai's front and slid down his back. Fists pounded the mimetic spine as though it were a xylophone. Each blow sent jabs of rogue energy through Ertai's body.
He convulsed, flailing at the goblin.
"Run for it, Gerrard!" Squee shouted. "Squee save you again!"
"Not likely," Gerrard barked, fists held up before him. "How about it, Crovax? How about an honest fight for once? No angels, no devils. Just you and me."
Claws curling into fists, Crovax waved off Selenia and his guards. "All right, Gerrard. You were willing enough to mop the deck with me aboard Weatherlight. This is my ship. Now you're the mop."