Invasion

Chapter 20

Tumbling head over heels, Barrin was hurled into the red skies over Shiv. He'd been in the middle of a losing battle in Keld when he was yanked away by alerters- artifacts that sniffed for glistening-oil. They went off massively. A full-scale invasion was beginning over Shiv. The volcanic land was the world's only source of manufactured powerstones. If the Phyrexians captured or destroyed the Shivan mana rig, Urza could not build new machines of war.

Still, it was rude to be literally hauled out of one battle and flung into another.

Barrin righted himself. Brimstone breezes fled into his robes, plucking away the last stink of battle in Keld and replacing it with the stink of Shiv. He gazed at the land.

Here, the flesh of the world was but a fragile crust, suppurating with lava. In every direction lay calderas and smoking crowns, seas of magma, hissing vents, ropy coils of rock, basalt cliffs, gnarls of obsidian, pumice, ash, sulfur…

In the midst of the fiery desolation towered the mana rig. It was a massive, ancient factory, set crownlike on a basalt headstone. A huge dish of metal girded either end of the rig. One wing was anchored into the ground. The other perched on enormous articulated legs over a sea of lava. Atop these dishes, great domes rested. Between them ran a long hall, built up like the porticoed temple of some forgotten god. From the structure, veiny pipes ran down the cliffs and into boiling lava. The tubes conveyed red-hot magma up into the structure, there to turn the heat of the world into powerstones and living metal-weapons to slay Phyrexians.

A massive portal-larger than those at Benalia, Zhalfir, Yavimaya, or Keld-gaped wide in the sky. The first three Phyrexian cruisers advanced from the darkness. Shiv painted their bows red. Each ship was the size of the mana rig. Hundreds more crowded behind.

"Where is Urza?" Barrin hissed, yanking the alerter brooch from his sleeve and hurling the blazing thing away.

As if in answer, the air beside Barrin shimmered. A creature formed itself from spectral winds. Urza's gemstone eyes glared out of his materializing skull. The figure grew an armored war-stole, done up in gleaming sigils. A shaft of radiance formed in his hand. It became a great war-staff. Urza lifted his other hand, grasped the blazing brooch on his own sleeve, and vaporized the thing.

"Glad you could make it," Barrin said with quiet irony.

Urza lifted an eloquent eyebrow. "Exigencies of war and all that."

Barrin gestured outward. "Here's an exigency for you."

Nodding solemnly, Urza said, "The Metathran ships are en route. Until they arrive, it's you and me, friend. We cannot hope for goblins and Viashino to stand against-"

"Look!" Barrin said, pointing toward the emerging ships.

The three cruisers blazed with sudden flame. Giant fire dragons swarmed the ships, breathing destruction across them. Huge though they were, the wyrms seemed small against the black vessels. Still, there were hundreds of serpents. Their wing beats flung back bolts of black mana. Their fangs crunched Phyrexian crews. Their incendiary breath was only augmented by glistening-oil. Flames belched from their mouths and spattered across the hulls of the great ships. Rails melted. Conduits ruptured. Engine cells cracked.

"Rhammidarigaaz," Barrin said wonderingly as he watched the leader of the fire drakes. A millennium ago, the young male had fought beside Urza and Barrin in a war with angels. Indeed, Barrin had ridden him into battle. Today, ancient and huge, Darigaaz would fight beside them in a war with devils. "He has mustered his people."

"A boon, yes," said Urza, "but they will not be enough." He pointed beneath the ships.

Dragons, mantled in black goo, plunged from the skies. Some struggled all the way down before crashing on lakes of fire. Others were dead even before they fell, ripped in half by ray-cannon blasts or eaten away by corruptionmachines. Alone, these dragons could not destroy the ships. They would be slain, every last one.

Rhammidarigaaz saw the futility. He trumpeted a call and led his folk in a peeling dive away from the ships. Scores of dragons followed in a coiling ribbon. Leathery wings bore them away from killing fire.

Burning and trailing smoke, the cruisers slid unimpeded through the portal.

"Now it is up to us, my friend," Urza said grimly.

Side by side, the master mage and the planeswalker soared toward the emerging ships. They readied sorceries and summonations, energy flickering across their war robes. Barrin lifted his sleeves, evoking blue sparks in swarms around his hands. Urza's war staff beamed with crackling lightning.

One thing bothered Barrin, though. Darigaaz would not have committed his folk to so deadly an attack only to break off moments later… unless he were buying time or creating a diversion to mask some greater effect…

Movement below caught Barrin's eyes. Panels atop one of the mana rig's domes shifted aside and slid down into pockets. Barrin knew the facility intimately. There had never been such roof sections when he'd worked it.

… creating a diversion to mask some greater effect…

Barrin swept his arm out against Urza's chest, intending to halt him. The mage's hand swam with blue sparks, which rattled out across Urza's figure, delivering myriad shocks. The mistake would have killed a mere man. Urza was not even close.

Eyebrows smoldering, the planeswalker said, "What is it?"

"Something's happening below," Barrin said, indicating four huge tubes that jutted slowly up from gaps in the mana rig dome. "An attack of some sort. It might prove deadly to fly into the path of such-"

Barrin's explanation was made moot. Lava erupted in four boiling columns from the tubes. This was no flare of simple vulcanism but focused geysers of the stuff. As straight and hot as new-forged steel, the liquid rock stabbed skyward.

One fountain of spray rose just before Barrin. He and Urza fled reflexively back but not before the column had evaporated their beards. Barrin's robes actually burned. Urza's war-stole only smoldered.

As if in repayment for the shocking touch, Urza grasped his burning friend. Water suddenly drenched Barrin's clothes and hair. He flipped soggy locks backward and scowled his thanks.

The lava jet that had briefly ignited them rose to its peak. It arced over and rained molten rock down atop the lead cruiser. Fires flared on the ship, and subsequent explosions threw away some of the lava. More lava piled on. Sections of hull melted and caved. Phyrexian crewmembers rushed to shovel the stuff. They burst into spontaneous flames and exploded. Their carapace and bone became shrapnel, killing those who came after. Phyrexians popped like corn.

The sheer weight of molten rock overloaded the ship's engines. It listed, its port side slumping in a succession of jolts. The ship fell into a banking spiral. Turning and slipping, spewing smoke and dripping lava, the cruiser corkscrewed down. A roar mounted up. Steam hissed from ruined engines. Countless seams failed. The cruiser augured into a rubble field.

The other two ships had suffered similarly under the lava bombardment. One shuddered as its power core went critical. It exploded in a fireball, flinging scrap and bone, magma and muscle in a star burst. The concussion made the world leap. Visible waves of force rolled in spheres out from the blaze.

The third craft had already been cruising downward when the blast cracked the sky. Waves of force flung it faster to ground. It came down across a volcanic ridge and cracked like an egg. The prow fell down one side of the ridge and the stem down the other. Both sides flared in cross-section. Scabrous figures leaped out of them.

Other creatures, hidden in the rocky crevices, emerged. They seemed crocodiles attacking prey. They lifted war clubs and axes, bringing them down on Phyrexian backs. Savagely, they slew the invaders. Savagely, they hurled the dead into hissing cauldrons. Their bodies flared a moment and were gone. What few monsters escaped the slaying lizard men were swarmed and mauled by other defenders- scrubby and small.

Barrin nodded, impressed. "It looks as though the Viashino and goblin tribes are well prepared for this battle." He rubbed a nonexistent mutton chop. Curls of scorched hair came off on his fingers. "As long as the rig can shoot columns of magma, cruisers and plague engines haven't a chance. Perhaps our meddling is not needed."

"The Phyrexians have more tricks up their sleeves," Urza said, seeming almost affronted by the rig's successes. He blinked in concentration and regrew his burned goatee.

He was right. Next moment, the gaping black portal poured out squadrons of smaller, faster ships-rams and dagger-boats and dragon engines. They seemed a waterfall, cascading with hungry speed from the hole in the sky. In mere moments, they would crash down on the rig below.

"Intercept!" Urza shouted. He winked out of existence.

"You could have taken me," Barrin groused to the empty air. From the dark corners of his mind, he dragged out his last teleport spell. It was a blue sorcery, but there wasn't a thimbleful of water in a hundred square miles. Drawing on his memories of distant Tolaria, Barrin charged the spell. Space folded around him and opened again.

Barrin was suddenly beside Urza. They both floated just above the mana rig's aerial dome. Phyrexian ships plunged toward them.

Urza was already unloading his arsenal. Rockets leaped from his gauntlets. They shrieked upward and smashed head-on into the plunging craft. Each rocket drilled deep into its target before detonating. Dragon engines and dagger-boats turned to fire and shrapnel. Ship after ship exploded. Through smoke and fire, more vessels fell.

The ram engines were harder kills, almost solid metal. Urza's rockets could only dig small divots in them.

Barrin turned their strength into weakness. He produced a Serran tuning fork from the folds of his robes, summoned the mana of far-flung fields, and struck the fork on his battle staff. It rang, its tone absolutely pure. The sound doubled and trebled, rising incorruptible to the ram ships above. It spread through solid metal and shook every fiber. The ships rang like giant bells. Cracks raced through them. Shuddering, they disintegrated into iron filings.

Still, more ships plunged from the sky.

Flinging fireballs and firestorm phoenixes, shatter spells and immolations, Barrin and Urza dissolved the engines before they could reach the rig. The sky was full of flame and smoke. Molten metal rained down all around. The fight was intoxicating-all too intoxicating.

While Barrin and Urza fought a falling sky, a new threat arrived. As silent and smooth as a black shark, a Phyrexian cruiser nosed up beside the mana rig. Its plasma cannons lit.

Fire stabbed into the rig. Walls split, walkways peeled away, stanchions collapsed.

The cruiser's black-mana bombards hurled corruption.

Thran metal sloughed and buttresses failed.

"There!" Barrin shouted through the firestorm.

Spells lashed down from the planeswalker and the Tolarian mage. Lightning scrambled across the cruiser, cracking armor. Fiery stones hailed over the hull. It wasn't enough.

Phyrexian cannons and bombards kept up their killing fire.

A whistle overhead announced that a pair of flaming dagger-boats had slipped past the spell work. Side by side, they plunged to impact the dome of the rig.

Twin explosions ripped the roof. The dome shuddered and sank. Half of the facility slumped toward the cliff's edge.

"It's no good!" Urza shouted as he pulverized a dragon engine. "They're breaking through!"

The dome and the central colonnade cracked away from the rest of the rig.

"They're destroying it!" Barrin roared. Spells stormed up from his fingers.

The loose sections of the rig did not fall from the cliff, though. Instead, they rose on vast, articulated legs. The dome wasn't failing. It was separating to fight on its own. It seemed a huge praying mantis. Massive legs lashed out from beneath it. They caught hold of the cruiser's prow and yanked it brutally downward.

The Phyrexian ship plunged. Its bow cracked against the basalt cliff. Metal buckled and shrieked. Boulders calved from the outcrop and poured down atop the cruiser. One massive stone fell like a fist on its bridge, collapsing it. Sparks and smoke spewed from tortured metal. The ship slid downward. Its hull ground against the cliff as it fell. With each impact, chunks of armor broke away. They tumbled separately into the lava and caught fire. Then the whole wreck splashed in crimson oblivion.

"Impressive!" Barrin shouted.

"Yes," Urza replied through the spell storm. "But until the portal is closed-"

Boiling rock suddenly mounted up from the lava tubes behind them. Barrin flung Urza and himself away from the eruption. Air turned to steam in anticipation. The sweat in Barrin's pores hissed out. His clothes reignited. Pillars of fire hurled past.

Lava rolled heavenward, crashing through the remaining ships and splashing higher still. It gushed into the throat of the portal. It filled the gigantic device like water in a shallow hole. Purring smoke, the portal slammed shut.

Ruined ships plunged, tearing away from each other and driving themselves like spikes in the volcanic hillsides. Where they struck, they punched holes to the hot core of the mountains. Out oozed lava.

Suddenly, there was stillness. The portal was gone. The Phyrexians were gone. Only hellish Shiv remained.

His goatee having burned away for the second time in one hour, Urza snorted. "I seem to have underestimated the rig's preparedness."

Barrin beamed as he patted out the flames on his robes. "Congratulations are in order."

"Congratulations," Urza said flatly.

"Not for me," Barrin replied with a laugh. "For the head of the rig, your former student-Jhoira."

Urza nodded, drifting down toward what was left of the mana rig. The section that had broken loose now ambled over the rocky ridges of Shiv. It seemed almost a guard dog, spoiling for a fight.

"I thought I knew everything about this rig."

"Me too," Barrin said with a wry shrug. "Jhoira seems to have taught it a few new tricks. By the way, you might like to fix your goatee before you see her again."

An irritable whoosh rushed over Urza, restoring beard, brows, hair, and robes to their impeccable best. He looked scornfully at the burned-out mage.

"What about you? Have you any laundering spells? Any darning sorceries?"

Spreading charred robes, Barrin replied, "Not on me. What you see is what you get."

Urza nodded silently, grinding his teeth. The two drifted down, watching the lava tubes retreat into the dome of the rig. Plates slid from their pockets and slowly crept back over the openings. With a rattle and clank, they settled in place.

Barrin and Urza dropped down among the towers of the facility. The flying sorceries released them. Boots came to rest on an arched balcony of smooth metal. Stately robes and tattered rags settled.

Barrin sighed as he felt the warm solidity of the metal beneath his feet. "Where do you suppose we will find Jhoira?" he wondered aloud.

"Right here." The voice came from a tall archway of interlaced metal. Within it stood Jhoira herself. Forever young, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Ghitu woman wore work coveralls and an overloaded tool belt. She also wore a sardonic expression. "I thought you'd show up for the fireworks."

"Very impressive, my dear," Barrin said genuinely, approaching her. He held his arms out. "Do you mind a little dirt?"

Jhoira embraced him. "Never have," she said into his ear. "It is good to see you, Master Barrin."

"And you, Jhoira," he replied. "It is also good to see what provisions you have made for the defense of the rig."

"I had some help," Jhoira said, gesturing behind her.

Through the metal archway came a huge, robust figure. The dragon walked upright on powerful talons, balanced by a lashing tail. A talismanic belt and neckpiece were the only clothes he wore on his scaly belly, though his wings hung behind him like royal robes. Horns rose in a manifold crown from his ancient face.

"Darigaaz!" Barrin said happily.

Jhoira coughed into her hand. "Lord Rhammidarigaaz of the Shivan Fire Dragons."

"Of course," Barrin replied, bowing low. "Thank you, Lord Dragon for the valiant aid of you and your folk."

In a voice like rumbling rocks, Darigaaz replied simply, "This is my home."

Urza bowed to the dragon as well. "Shiv is your home, and Dominaria is home to all of us. We hope we can count on your aid in defense of the world at large."

The dragon seemed almost to smile. "I have already begun such efforts. I am gathering the dragon nations. We will fight for Dominaria."

"Excellent," Urza said. He turned to Jhoira. "You have done well, my dear. Remarkably well. But this isn't the last Phyrexian attempt on Shiv. I trust you have made arrangements should the Phyrexians appear beyond the reach of your lava tubes."

"She has indeed," came a new voice. Teferi stepped from the shadows of the arch. The lithe, spark-eyed man walked easily to

Jhoira's side. He bowed to each of his former masters. "Shiv will not fall into Phyrexian claws. I will save it, as I saved Zhalfir."

Urza strode suddenly forward. He breathed-a sign of concentration-and his visage reddened. "You cannot take away this rig. It is mine."

"It belonged to the Viashino before you, and to the Thran before them," Jhoira said. "Besides, we are not taking your rig. We are taking Shiv. We are saving my home."

"You would deprive us of powerstones? Thran metal?"

"No," Jhoira responded, stepping between the two planeswalkers. "We will leave you the mobile portion of the rig. Even now, it crawls away to a safe distance. It will remain for you to use. This portion, here, and all of our homes, though-these will go with us."

"You are dooming Dominaria," raged Urza.

Teferi shook his head placidly. "No. You are the one doing that, my friend."

Urza's eyes blazed. The Might and Weakstones showed clearly. "I will save our world."

"You do not promise that," Teferi said. "You have promised only to destroy the Phyrexians, whatever the cost. Our homes will not be part of the cost."

"You will not take this land! I forbid it!" Urza roared.

Teferi shrugged. "Forbid if you wish. Even now, we are phasing out. A planeswalker cannot step through time, Urza. Unless you leave now, and take Barrin and Darigaaz with you, you'll be stuck here with us for dozens or hundreds of years. It is your choice."

Urza quivered, speechless.

"Now, masters," Jhoira said. "Leave now or be trapped for centuries. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Jhoira, Teferi," Barrin said. "Fare you well."

Without a word, Urza angrily clutched Barrin's hand and Rhammidarigaaz's claw. The three stepped away from the rig. They plunged into the Blind Eternities.