Invasion

Chapter 19

"There it is, see?" said the blind seer somewhat absurdly. He jabbed a withered old finger beyond the prow rail. Wind tore at his white hair and old robes. "Llanowar." "Yes," Gerrard responded grimly. The vast forest spread in all directions beneath Weatherlight's bow. Llanowar's once-green crown was black with Phyrexian corruption. Spidery figures moved en masse through the great canopy. Above, in blue air and white cloud, huge black shapes clustered. From them dropped thousands of bombs. There were no aerial defenders here. With impunity, the monsters rained plague down on the forest.

Gerrard leaned to the prow speaking tube. "Battle stations, everyone. Signal the fleet. Prepare to engage those… whatever those ships are."

Turning to the blind seer, Gerrard said, "Thanks for the tip. With Benalia fallen, Llanowar especially will need our help."

"Help them, and help yourself," the old man said cryptically from the shadows of his broad hat.

Gerrard's brow furrowed. "We could have been here hours sooner if we'd been able to find you. Where were you?"

"I live half in truth, half in dream," the man replied evenly. "When I cannot be found in the one, I can be found in the other."

Gerrard sighed, shaking his head as he strode toward the port-side ray cannon. "You've wasted time."

The seer took a deep breath and murmured, "I never waste time."

Gerrard strapped himself into his gunner's harness. He powered up the machine and turned it through all three axes. Across the forecastle, Tahngarth did likewise. The two amidships gunners climbed into position. Crew scrambled across the decks and up into the bridge.

Turning in his traces, Gerrard glanced toward the bridge. He saw a familiar figure clamber into the navigator's seat.

"What the…!" he hissed, flipping open the speaking tube. "Hanna! What are you doing in there?"

"My job." Her response came curtly through the tube. "You've called battle stations, Commander."

"You can't navigate in your condition."

"Take us up, Sisay!" Hanna called suddenly. "Those aren't ships!"

Gerrard turned about, seeing the black, hovering mass in the clouds. No, they weren't ships. They were nothing at all, holes opening and closing in the sky.

Weatherlight pitched backward and rose. The clustered shapes shrank to a long, thin horizontal line. They seemed the surfaces of lakes, seen on edge for a moment as the ship emerged from below. Weatherlight soared higher. Beneath her, the line spread out into a cluster of shifting shapes.

"What are they?" Gerrard asked.

"Portals," Hanna shot back. "Small portals. Thousands of them. They are weak, not like the ones we've seen before. Each creates a mild spacio-temporal distortion. Together, the effect is massive."

Weatherlight vaulted up over the portals. From above, they did not seem so much holes in the fabric of reality as blurred areas, like the wavering of heat energy off gray coals. Beneath those shimmering spots, mechanical spheres hurtled down. They gave out long screams on their descent to the canopy. There, they crashed and spewed disease payloads.

Hanna's voice came again. "They each can transport perhaps a few hundred pounds of material before shutting down. Together, they'll destroy the forest with plague."

That word on her lips made Gerrard angry. He drew a breath and gritted his teeth. "Signal the fleet. Open fire!"

His own gun was the first to bark. Crimson energy burst from the steaming muzzle, as bright as heart-blood and as hot as lava. Gaseous plasma surged out to smash against the field of scintillating spheres. It engulfed a dozen of the small portals and ripped through the spaces between them.

Fire spoke also from Tahngarth's gun, the two cannons amidships, the belly gun, and Squee's artillery at the tail. Lines of power streamed down from Weatherlight, The surges were joined by the multifarious attacks of her armada. Hoppers sent orange fire, helionauts blue. Plasma bolts, lightning blasts, disruption fields-energy poured down on the portals.

Gerrard gave a whoop, unloading shot after shot. It felt good to be fighting again, blazing through the invaders.

"It's no good, Commander," shouted Hanna over the speaking tube. "The portals don't exist on this side. We can't destroy them from above. We'd have to fly below and risk plague contamination. Up here, we're just destroying the forest."

Standing in his traces, Gerrard peered down over the rail. The flack of their shot ate through the canopy, vaporizing wood and setting the forest ablaze.

"Cease fire!" Gerrard shouted. "Signal the fleet! Cease fire!"

As his cannon darkened, Gerrard's mood did likewise. How could he fight an enemy he could not shoot? These portals were too small to fly through, too numerous to shut down, too intermittent to predict, too deadly to fly beneath. The Phyrexians had learned how to defeat Gerrard. They had paid in glistening-oil for Benalia, but they had bought it. Now, they would buy Llanowar without shedding a drop.

His voice was heavy as he leaned toward the speaking tube.

"Suggestions?"

"Say again, Commander?" Sisay asked for them all.

"Suggestions. I want suggestions. How can we fight these portals?"

Only silence answered from the speaking tubes. Beneath Weatherlight, the glimmering sea of portals slid away. Only the mournful wind and the whine of the fleet's engines spoke in the hush.

"Shall we bring the fleet about for another pass?" Sisay asked quietly. "Or shall we ship for another battle, elsewhere?"

"I don't know," Gerrard replied. "I don't know."

Orim stood on the poop deck, gazing aft. She had clambered topside in hopes of dragging Hanna from her post. The impossibility of that quest was soon clear. The impossibility of this battle was clear as well.

"Bring us about," Gerrard's voice came sullenly through the tubes. "There must be something we're missing."

Orim shook her head in empathy. She had repeated those same words countless times as she stared at the rot that was killing Hanna. There must be something I'm missing.

It was Orim's own impossible battle. Without Hanna, how would the ship find her way? How would Orim and Sisay find their way? And Gerrard- he would be utterly lost.

Already, they were lost. The ship roared out above Llanowar, trailing its faithful fleet close behind. They cruised above the field of portals. Not a gun woke fire on those devices. They seemed to form a placid and illimitable sea.

Water. It triggered memories of a far-off place-of Cho-Manno, the Cho-Arrim, and their water magic. When she had left her beloved, she had sworn to take the power of the waters with her. Orim gazed at the shimmering portals. How could she find power in such black waters? If only she could meditate, could draw from the reservoirs within her, perhaps she could find a cure to this plague.

Orim gazed down in desolation on the portals.

Weatherlight stirred a strong, long wake in the portals.

Suddenly, Orim knew. It was a simple thing, the sort of thing Hanna and Sisay would understand implicitly.

Spinning on her heels, Orim rushed to the bridge door. She flung it back and descended.

The cramped room buzzed with activity. Gerrard had arrived on the bridge to consult with Sisay at the helm. Reports poured out the speaking tubes that blossomed here and there: The metallic voice of Karn asked for attack status; the signal officer relayed other ships' queries. Ensigns scrambled up through the lower hatch and back.

Hanna was busiest of all. She worked feverishly at her navigation console. The compass and stylus that walked across a chart of Llanowar dragged telltale lines of red in their wake. Her fingers were knotted in crimson where she clutched her belly wound.

Orim's breath caught at the sight. Blood did not bother her. Its implications did-especially these implications.

Rushing to Hanna's station, Orim knelt, grabbing her friend's arm.

"Hanna, you have to get below-"

"I can't," she snapped, her voice more exhausted than annoyed.

"You can, once we get rid of those portals."

"Get rid of-"

"We couldn't planeshift to Benalia because of the three portals over it. You said they caused spacio-temporal distortions that shunted us to the side."

"Yes, but what does all this-"

"Our own shift envelope is much stronger than any of these. Even at normal speeds, we leave a wake in the portals below. If we were to-"

"Yes," Hanna said. Despite the horrible pallor of her face, a brief and beautiful flush came to her cheeks. "Sisay! Captain! Take us up!"

Without question, Sisay drew back on the helm. Weatherlight responded as though the ship were her own body. Even Karn ceased his questions below, seeming to understand.

Only Gerrard was caught off-guard. He went to one knee and spilled against the bridge stanchions. His face smashed against the bulwark.

Jiggling his head, Gerrard growled out, "What is it? Danger?"

Hanna laughed dryly, "Only for the Phyrexians."

Standing placidly at the helm, Sisay shouted over her shoulder. "What's your plan, Hanna?"

"A nosedive," the navigator returned, "right through the portal sea. We'll see how many we can drag away in our slipstream."

A grin lit Sisay's face. "I like it! Gerrard, you'd better call off the fleet. Tell them to circle and wait for our return."

Clawing his way forward, Gerrard rubbed a lump under his beard. "Wait a minute. What are you three planning?"

"Just the salvation of Llanowar," Sisay said lightly. "More power, Karn." She steered the ship into a nearvertical climb. The air grew thin all around. Clouds dragged away from Weatherlight's raked airfoils. "You asked for suggestions."

With a rueful nod, Gerrard clutched the speaking tubes and barked, "Signal the fleet! Tell them to circle until further orders!"

"That's a dear," Sisay said. "Hanna, how's our position?"

Peering through the sight arrays that jutted above her navigation desk, Hanna replied, "Yaw four degrees port, and let the keel cut for another thousand feet, and we'll be ready for the dive."

"Will we have the velocity for a shift?" Sisay asked.

"Velocity won't be the problem. It's whether we've got time between the portals and the treetops before we crash," Hanna replied easily.

Sisay laughed. "That's the kind of problem I like. Here we go." She shoved the helm hard to fore.

Weatherlight's engines ceased for a moment. She lolled upward in a weightless arc, rolling her stern skyward. Dominaria swept smoothly from aft to fore.

Squee, still strapped to the stern gun, squealed as his feet swept out toward the sun.

Then, greedy and inexorable, Dominaria grasped Weatherlight and yanked her down. Creaks ran stem to stern. The prow seemed to stretch away from amidships, and it from bridge and spankers. The airfoils folded tight along the centerline, spilling air instead of grabbing it. Weatherlight plunged.

Squee was still squealing. Even so, his view of the skies was not as terrifying as everyone else's view of the land. Llanowar seemed a leopard, crouched to spring.

Weatherlight's engines engaged. Intakes dragged a deep breath. A white-hot column of energy formed within the engine. Fire burst from exhausts. To the ship's terminal velocity came impatient force, ramming it down.

Llanowar sprung. The forest roared up to swallow the ship. Its rot-black treetops groped into the sky. The sea of portals seemed only a slim membrane above that reaching place. In moments, Weatherlight would punch through the portals and into the tree-tops.

"Shift to where?" Sisay shouted over the roar of the engines.

"The course is laid in," Hanna called back. "A place in need of Phyrexian bombs."

There was no more time. Weatherlight impacted the plane of portals. They swept from prow to poop in a heartbeat. Spacio-temporal stresses clawed across the deck. Bombs, half-emerged, hung in countless portals, too slow to catch up with Weatherlight. Squee and the folded wings cleared the portals.

"Shift!" Sisay shouted, staring at the ground as it soared up to meet them.

The ship hurtled all the faster. Wind tore at her rails. The black treetops resolved into individual boughs, and the ruined houses on those boughs, and the running figures among them. A jump-envelope welled out from the forespar. It swept a wide wake, encompassing thousands of portals.

"Shift!" Sisay shouted once last.

An enormous bough rushed up to smash through Weatherlight's windscreen-except that no bough remained. Black and green had given way to jittering gray.

Beyond the ship's rail, the envelope rattled. It held back the hissing, glaring emptiness between the worlds. Chaos churned and spun. Nightmare forms reared their heads out of darkness and dissolved again before they were fully created. Lines jagged away in recursive ribbons. There seemed no more horrible place in all the multiverse…

Until chaos transformed at last, solidifying into tortuous Rath.

Overhead, red clouds roiled like boiling blood. Below, red rills coiled like flayed muscle. Arrayed all across those hellish hills were army after army of Phyrexians, waiting to invade.

Weatherlight's planeshifting envelope dissolved around her. Heat and smoke washed over her prow. Airfoils swept out to grab the bitter air. She slowed, leaving in her boiling wake a field of portals.

From those toppling, spinning devices, plague bombs hailed. They fell among the troops arrayed there. Devices meant to slay elves fell instead among the monsters that made them. Many were crushed under the pounding things. Others were mowed down as the spheres bounded across the ground. Bombs rolled to a stop and spewed white spores out across the shrieking hordes.

"Nice work, ladies!" Gerrard shouted, whooping.

Orim was cradling Hanna's bleeding, unconscious figure in her arms. "Get us out of here! Get us back to Llanowar!"

Gerrard staggered across the pitching deck toward the two women. "You heard her!" he rasped out, kneeling before Hanna and wrapping her in his arms. "Planeshift!"