Of Axemen and Heads.

In utter victory, Gerrard strode among the roaring, screaming hordes that packed the arena. In one bloodied hand, he lifted high the severed head of Urza Planeswalker. It blinked in death spasms, its gemstone eyes seeming almost to glow with preternatural light. In the other hand, he lifted the halberd blade that had done the slaying-a broad and brutal, soul-reaping weapon.

In truth, though, the real weapon was Gerrard. Drawn from iron and purified to steel, forged by the hand of Urza and hammered out by a lifetime of loss, sharpened to a keen edge and given the will to kill, Gerrard was the true instrument of Urza's demise.

"Urza is dead! Urza is dead! Urza is dead!"

Even Gerrard said it. On smiling lips, he chanted it. "Urza is dead.... Urza is dead.... Urza is dead...." It meant something different to him. It meant that his past-the long damnation he called his life-was finally done. It meant he could begin again. He had risen up at last and slain the tyrant who had sired him, had schooled him, had sacrificed him. Gerrard had killed the killer, and now the killer was dead.

"Urza is dead! Urza is dead! Urza is dead!"

It was even more than that. Urza's death meant the life of another.

She stood there on the imperial balcony at the far end of the arena. All through the fight, Gerrard had looked to her. While Urza gazed with rapt devotion at the enormous dragon by her side, Gerrard could see only Hanna. She was nearly nothing- one tenth the dragon's height, one hundredth the dragon's weight, one thousandth his mind, his malicious mind-and yet she was everything. Gerrard had descended to this hell only to win her back from the grave. Urza's death meant he had done just that. He had died that Hanna might live again.

Gerrard marched through their midst, the shrieking incarnations of Yawgmoth. How mad all this was. He should have shrunk from these horrid beasts-even if they were only natural creatures and not splinters of a god-but he did not. They flinched from him. He batted back their claws as they reached for a strip of flesh from the head. He spat into the gibbering maws that sucked at the red life dribbling beneath. He swept his god-killing halberd before him to clear the way through the crowd. What monsters did not retract their arms got them lopped off. What creatures did not withdraw their heads got them split. The god who was in all and none of them seemed not in the slightest enraged by these attacks, but almost aroused. The thrilled shrieks grew only louder.

None of these things mattered, only the one on the balcony.

Gerrard strode toward her. The demonic crowd became a field of wheat, parting between the immortal lovers. The grisly trophy in Gerrard's hand became a bouquet of wild roses, gathered so vehemently and heedlessly that blood streamed from their jealous thorns. The halberd in Gerrard's other hand became a gleaming lantern to light his way. Gerrard approached his lady. She stood at the edge of the balcony, a maiden cloistered by a jealous father, watching the arrival of her deliverer.

Gerrard reached the stony rail. There, shoulder to shoulder with an infinite throng of keening devils, he dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and lifted high his offering of love.

The response from the Yawgmoth throng was deafening. Clenched in that sound, Gerrard hunkered down and waited. At last, the ovation died away.

Through a hundred thousand throats, Yawgmoth spoke. "You have prevailed, Gerrard Capashen. In prowess and ferocity and sanguine will, you have proved yourself worthy of bowing here before us."

A cheer broke this pretty speech, a cheer from the mouths of the speechmaker. All the while, Gerrard kept his own head bowed and Urza's lifted high.

"We bestow upon you the office of first servant. You shall serve us and only us, and Crovax shall serve you. Your powers shall be greater than his. We grant you strength tenfold .. .."

Gerrard felt the sweeping motion of the dragon's claws above him. Hot cerements of magic descending to enwrap him. His muscles hardened like steel cables. Sudden, awesome power came to them.

"We grant you endurance tenfold."

His bones transmuted into a substance that could stand beneath crushing force and deal deadly blows.

"We grant you knowledge tenfold."

Suddenly, his thoughts shot in kaleidoscopic array and intensity, and ran to depths he had never before imagined.

"We grant you will tenfold."

This last boon, most surprising of all, took Gerrard's already formidable determination and made it indomitable.

Yawgmoth must think me an absolute slave, Gerrard thought. I am, yes, but not to him.

Gerrard rose from his knee and stood before the imperial balcony. Lowering the head of Urza, he raised his own. Though he spoke to Yawgmoth, Gerrard's eyes fixed upon the slender, beautiful face of Hanna. Beneath tossing blonde hair, she returned his loving gaze. Her eyes followed every contour of his face as he spoke.

"Great Lord Yawgmoth, your boons are most generous. But there is only one boon I truly seek-that I demand. The new, free, true, unfettered life of my beloved, Hanna." He gazed unblinkingly at her. "She is why I fought. She is why I slew. Her return to life is the promised reward that makes me your servant."

The silence in the arena was worse than the din. Into that dread hush spoke Yawgmoth in his myriad voices. "You speak dangerous umbrage, Servant Gerrard. We are worthy of your servitude-of anyone's and everyone's servitude. Our ascendancy is not predicated on favors for a slip of a girl."

Gerrard tensed, fearing not for his own fate but for Hanna's. "I have misspoken. My servitude does not depend upon the liberation of this singular soul. My servitude depends upon your utter worthiness, Lord Yawgmoth-a worthiness that means that a promise from Yawgmoth- whether promised glory or promised pain-is surer than a certainty. Therefore, let your wonders be witness to all the worlds, and grant me the promised boon."

A grudging silence answered. Perhaps Yawgmoth had never intended to let Hanna free. Perhaps he did, but only once Gerrard had shown full obeisance. What more could he do? He had slain Urza, had presented the planeswalker's severed head, had bowed deeply before the Lord of Phyrexia and pledged his eternal servitude. The only possible offense he made was that he looked not to the great black dragon on the balcony, but to the slender woman beside it, but he couldn't tear his eyes from her-he loved her so.

As if sensing Gerrard's focus, Yawgmoth spoke next through Hanna's lips. "Give us the head of Urza Planeswalker," she said, extending her hands to receive the trophy, "and we will grant you this final boon."

Gerrard froze, the head held high in one hand and the halberd blade held high in the other. How did Yawgmoth speak through Hanna? True, she was his slave, but so was Gerrard, and Yawgmoth did not speak through Gerrard. He could not. Only these simulacra, these nothing-creatures, were the mouths of Yawgmoth. Was Hanna, too, nothing more than a fleshy puppet, animated by the presence of Yawgmoth within her skin? Was she but a semblance, created to fool him?

Gerrard could not look away from her. Was it love for Hanna that drove him or love for Yawgmoth?

Gerrard reeled. His eyes broke contact with the piercing blue gaze of his beloved. Was it truly love he felt, or love's twin- hate? Did it matter? He had been fooled. He had slain Urza and pledged himself to Yawgmoth all to free a woman who was Yawgmoth himself.

"Give us the head of Urza Planeswalker," Hanna repeated quietly, "and we will grant you your truest desire."

Gerrard once again fixed his eyes on her. He stood with the head of Urza Planeswalker in one hand and the soul-stealing halberd in the other.

"As you command, my lord," Gerrard said, hoisting the bloodstained head of Urza.

Smiling sweetly, Hanna leaned over the rail and extended her hands to receive the gory prize. Her fingers twined in jealous ecstasy in the ash-blond hair of the planeswalker. She pulled upward to raise the head, but Gerrard did not release his hold. Instead, he swung the halberd. As fast and unstoppable as lightning, the blade arced around to chop through Hanna's shoulder. The blade cut through skin and muscle and clavicle, down through three ribs. Hanna glared at him, anguish and dread filling her eyes.

"Gerrard! No! You save me only to slay me!" Releasing an inarticulate roar, Gerrard yanked the blade from the cleft and brought it down again. Steel clove lung and ribs. The light went out of Hanna's eyes-oh, horrid sight, to watch her die a second time! Even in that awful moment, though, Gerrard knew he had struck the heart of Yawgmoth. The Lord of Phyrexia had hidden his essence within Hanna, certain he would be safe. He was not.

Gerrard lifted the halberd a third time to finish the job. Mantled in blood, the great weapon arced down.

It never struck. An inexorable force burst from the sundered figure of Hanna-a blast like a cyclone. It grasped Gerrard bodily and hurled him away. He was poison in this place, the best, most trusted servant turning to murderous treachery. Yawgmoth vomited him out.

As limp as a rag doll, Gerrard hurtled across the arena. Only his hands remained tight, one clenched around the haft of his halberd and the other clutching the battered head of Urza Planeswalker. Beneath his kicking feet passed the black dais where this duel had first begun. Gerrard sailed on.

Yawgmoth flung him not just across the arena but out of Phyrexia. Projectile vomiting. The crowded space warped. Beasts fused into one great sack of muscle. Stone walls curved into a huge organ whose sole purpose was to hurl Gerrard from the world. Through the portal he flew. It was like plunging into a well-the narrow space, the bracing energies, the breathless darkness ...

Gerrard shot through the portal and tumbled across the throne room of Evincar Crovax. His rough arrival would have been enough to kill him before, but thanks to the boon of Yawgmoth, his muscles would not bruise, his bones would not break. Still gripping the head and the halberd, Gerrard crashed against the console of Crovax's murderous organ. It smashed, releasing an unholy bellow. Gerrard careened away into a pack of skittering vampire hounds and at last rolled to a rapid and painful stop beside the huge black throne. In that reeling moment, he saw the portal to Phyrexia slam shut.

Gerrard didn't give himself the luxury of feeling pain. He leaped to his feet and climbed onto the throne. Eyes still jiggling, he took quick inventory of his surroundings.

The room remained as he had remembered it-a black chamber of melting stone guarded by il-Vec and il-Dal warriors in perimeter and vampire hounds on the floors. Moggs stood in mute amazement in their green clusters. Even Ertai remained, his face stunned beneath shocks of tormented hair. His four hands moved like the pincers of a giant crab. There was only one difference. Crovax was gone.

"While the cat's away ..." quipped Gerrard to himself. To the guards, he said, "Behold the champion of Yawgmoth. I have slain Urza Planeswalker. Yawgmoth has sent me here."

Ertai stepped forward, his mad eyes trembling. "We were watching, Gerrard. We saw what befell. We know of your boons and your treachery." He made a quick and complex sign with the fingers of one hand.

"So much for increased intelligence," Gerrard groused. He proved himself wrong a moment later. Slinging the halberd blade at his belt, Gerrard traced the exact inverse of the sign Ertai had made. While the young adept peeled open the seams of matter, releasing gouts of incinerating flame, Gerrard caught and stuffed the power, sealing it away again. He had countered the spell simply by unraveling it in the air.

Ertai gaped baldly. He growled out an arcane phrase, and the words coalesced into a spinning cloud of black poison. It swept rapidly across the throne room toward Gerrard. A vampire hound crouched away, but too slowly. It dropped in a shaggy heap. There was no time to get away.

Gerrard didn't try. Instead, he leaned idly back, his heel depressing the deepest pedal key of the agonophone. The Phyrexian behemoth that supplied that tone opened its five-foot mouth and bellowed. The rush of air around Gerrard blew the poison cloud back toward its creator.

Ertai gnashed his teeth as he dragged the spell from the air. Blackness dissipated to reveal a smiling Gerrard.

"Yawgmoth has made me your intellectual superior."

Ertai made another gesture, though this was no magic sign.

He turned to glare at the moggs standing idly by. The look went unnoticed-the goblins watched the fire and smoke. They smiled in delight. Ertai drew mana from the dead flesh all about and sent it in a look that could literally kill. The lead mogg crumpled to the ground. Its warriors noticed its demise. One of them glanced toward Ertai, whose killing glare remained. The mogg yelped and averted its gaze but not before its face was paralyzed. Blathering orders anyway, the new leader formed up its party into a charge.

Moggs rushed the throne.

Gerrard leaped lightly across the tight-clustered shoulders of the moggs. As he went, he clove heads with the halberd blade. Moggs collapsed in his running wake.

Gerrard jumped from the last goblin even as it went down. He reached the ground and charged a more formidable foe-an il-Dal warrior with a great axe, forged in the pits of Rath. Red skinned and bearded, the warrior had the will to match his weapon.

Luckily for Gerrard, his own will had become indomitable. Gerrard swung the halberd blade. It clanged against the il-Dal's weapon and hurled it back. Yawginothian muscles thrust away weapon and man both.

Yellowed teeth showed through the il-Dal's plaited beard as he caught his balance. He stepped back to draw Gerrard in. His axe swung in a knee-capping arc.

A typical warrior would have struggled to deflect the axe, but Gerrard was never typical. He blocked the blow with his boot and kicked the axe down to the floor. He strode up the weapon onto its wielder and finished him en route to the next Rathi.

Gerrard never arrived. Something black and putrid struck him-heavy and vile, like an elephant corpse. It was another corrupting spell from Ertai. The blast bowled Gerrard over, simultaneously knocking flat the two il-Vec guards who had barred his way. All three hit the floor in a disheveled mass. Spell energies fouled them like tar and ate deeply and quickly into muscle. It steamed the guards to nothing.

In the midst of the rot spell, Gerrard endured, unaffected. Stranger still, the head of Urza seemed equally resistant to the blackness. Gerrard climbed to his feet, belted his halberd blade, and struggled to make his gooey fingers reverse the gestures of Ertai.

It was futile. Another wave of energy crested over Gerrard and encased him. He staggered to the ground, borne down by corruption. It didn't matter whether the stuff ate him or not. As long as it covered him, he could not fight. If he could not fight, the vampire hounds would finish him off.

Ertai knew it. He smiled crookedly, all four hands lifting to hurl the final, rending gout. "This is for leaving me behind on Rath." His fingertips splayed out violently. Channels of rot poured from them to tear across the room- Ertai suddenly swooned. His spell discharged itself into the vault. A greenish hand had yanked his hair, drawing his head back.

Only then did Gerrard glimpse his warty savior.

"Squee!" he shouted.

"I save you dis time like all time. Too bad I din't get to kill Yawgmoth for you."

Flinging the corruption from him, Gerrard landed a meaty punch on an il-Vec's face. "Squee's here. Now you're all doomed!"

Chapter 16.

The World Killers.

In that place of rolling grasslands and teasing winds, the two planeswalkers seemed otherworldly monsters.

The woman, overgrown in vines, might have been a dryad, her flesh as hard as wood and her blood as thick as sap.

The man was no man at all, but some sort of cat creature, covered in an impenetrable nap of fur.

Only their eyes shone through the elaborate defenses they wore. Even those were not vulnerable. Sharp, intent, focused, and deadly-the eyes of creatures who had come to kill a world.

Lord Windgrace bounded on two feet through the dense tangle of killing wires. He moved with the lithe poise of a cat but also the upright posture of a man. Long legs leaped from patch to patch, bearing him above thickets of death.

Behind him, the vine-strewn woman floated. Freyalise preferred not to touch the ground. Her folk-the myriad flora and fauna of the forest-were welcome to sink their roots into thick mud and run their feet through dust. Freyalise would meanwhile drift above them.

In moments, the two creatures reached their target. Lord Windgrace leaped a thick brake of wire grass and landed in a trampled spot. It seemed a sedge where deer had slept away the day, except that these wires had been trodden down by Windgrace and Freyalise themselves when they had first come to this spot in their titan engines. Giant footprints had flattened the fibers, and in the midst of them, a mana bomb was imbedded deeply. Windgrace dropped to the ground with animal ease, sniffed the site, and bounded to one side.

"Here's the last one, Freyalise," he growled out. "Set the charge. I'll guard."

Freyalise descended swiftly among the trammeled wires and let her viney feet touch down. She knelt above the device. Tendrils emerged from her fingertips to manipulate the levers.

While Freyalise descended, Windgrace ascended. He rose on sudden wings, sprouted from his sleek black back. These were not usual affectations, but he knew his foes would be creatures of air and spirit. For them his tail became a striking viper and his eyes a pair of blinding lanterns. Claws jutted from the pads of his feet, and teeth bristled in his mouth. His jaw distended, ready to remove heads. Wings as black as a crow's held him in the sky, waiting for the inevitable assault.

Yawgmoth knew what they did. Yawgmoth knew, and he mounted every defense.

Eastward, blasts had ripped the heart out of the sixth sphere, and soot clouds stood blackly on the horizon. Westward, the sky teemed with red figures. In another world, they might have been angels-with six wings, one set covering their heads, another their feet, and a third keeping them aloft-but Phyrexia had no angels. Red-bodied pneumagogs flocked toward Lord Windgrace.

The panther warrior knew he could not hold them off for long. His raven wings dug into the air and hurled him out across spinning fields of wire. His viper tail rose-its hood spread and its fangs lifted to strike. He opened his jaws, ratcheting them outward.

Pneumagogs rushed up like a swarm of locusts, except that each was the size of a man. Windgrace's right wing cut through the thorax of one beast, tearing it into two halves that spun away from each other. His teeth sank into the belly of another. It was insubstantial, a rubious cloud. Even so, he almost choked on the thickness of the spirit-flesh that he bit away. Another was gone, torn to pieces by his claws, and a fourth stung by his toothy tail. They would not fight back, he knew from previous battles. They would only converge around the bomb to dismantle it. Windgrace dismantled them instead. It was hellish work. These creatures were an amalgam of flesh and spirit, and to destroy them grieved the panther warrior. Even so, he did what he must. Lord Windgrace ripped out thoraxes, shredded wings, severed heads, and watched red souls fade as mechanisms fell from the sky.

Pneumagogs flooded past him to attack Freyalise.

Windgrace turned sharply and dived after them. The nearest, he overtook with a powerful surge of his black wings. He fell upon it, sank claws into its back, and hurled it away. Bounding from its corpse, Windgrace launched himself toward the next foe. His teeth caught its belly and tore it in half.

More pneumagogs swarmed him. His wings battered them but could find no air to beat against. Abruptly, Windgrace plunged. His captors followed him in a buzzing flock.

In that thick bank of red bodies, a green woman appeared. Her hand lashed out. Ivy suckers along her fingers and palm emerged to take hold of Lord Windgrace. The inexorable tug spun him around and yanked him up through the crowd of pneumagogs.

Even as they bounced and careened through the pack, the panther warrior asked, "Did you set the blast?"

Freyalise smiled. "What do you think-?"

The words were cut short by a blinding flash that cast all the pneumagogs in sharp silhouette. Their shadows painted the planeswalkers. Next moment, the explosion swelled to such size that the lowest of the pneumagogs were overtaken by the killing cloud. They vanished. White tides boiled up around every creature in that throng.

Every creature except Lord Windgrace and Freyalise. They simultaneously and spontaneously planeswalked. It was a blessing. The air where they had been turned to incinerating liquid. Energy mounded until it reached halfway up the sky. Deep explosions flashed within the white cloud. Shattered hunks of wire grass and girder tumbled in the cloud.

The blast had cracked the sixth sphere of Phyrexia, opening it to the seventh.

The destruction was not done. The cloud rose. With tumbling velocity, it shot heavenward. Here, heaven was only a vast vault of metal. The explosion struck the belly of that vault and billowed out in a long, flat-topped thunderhead. The vault failed suddenly, unleashing a black cascade. The oil sea of the fifth sphere poured through a giant rent in the ceiling. Inflammable liquid gushed down into the heart of a firestorm. The oil plunged only so far before wind shear burst it into trillions of droplets. Those droplets ignited.

The second blast was greater than the first. It began in the center of the sphere, spreading downward in a slow column of flame and upward in a hungry instant. The gap widened. Shards of metal crashed down throughout the sixth sphere and trailed oil fires as they went. The white cloud retreated before a blue flame that stretched from ground to sky. Fire proliferated in every direction. Oil poured into the rift, feeding the flames.