They were bloody saviors. Karn led the way, not pausing to fight but only running and crushing whatever lacked the sense to move aside. Il-Vec, il-Dal, il-Kor, vampire hound, Phyrexian-all made a spiny mush beneath his pounding feet. His massive silver frame had once again become a killing cudgel, though this time he chose to slay. His mind's eye saw this passageway, yes, but saw also the Jamuraan boardwalk where Vuel made him slay an innocent, and the Tolarian hallway where negators ran amok. He killed because, after centuries piled on centuries, he knew when to kill.

Tahngarth slew for an altogether simpler reason- revenge. He was, after all, one of their own, a proto-Phyrexian, physically morphed in preparation for transplants and utter transformation. He fought his former captors, eager to show them what they had made.

Sisay, in their midst, had the clearest head of the three. She fought for one reason: Gerrard.

Karn and Tahngarth smashed aside a pair of il-Vec warriors, hurling them down so brutally that the creatures skidded across the floor of metal mesh and were grated down like chunks of cheese. Sisay meanwhile came up between them, seeing a long stair down into a black and odorous place. The walls were venous, as though to pump upward the foul humors of the deviltry below. And there was deviltry, for this was the dungeon where the three comrades had suffered.

A din of moans and screams rose up the stairs.

"He must be down there," Sisay said.

Tahngarth only grunted his agreement. He was otherwise too busy dragging his striva through a guard that tried to stop them.

Karn did not answer except by striding down those stairs. Sisay followed next, and Tahngarth brought up the rear.

A slavering mogg hurled itself down the stairway atop Tahngarth.

He merely lifted his head and took the beast on his horns. The mogg was impaled, neck and groin, and thrashed so that Tahngarth removed it with a striva through the gut. He flung the beast to the ground, making its body a redoubt against further assaults. Turning, Tahngarth descended the rest of the stairs and reached his comrades among the torture pits.

The place had a visceral impact. The stench of offal and desperation, the stains of blood and bile, the walls like necrotic tissue-these horrors were not soon-not ever- forgotten by one who had spent any time behind those flowstone doors.

Karn put his shoulder to one such door and bashed it in. Instead of falling to the ground, the door merely shattered into chunks that pelted inward. The great silver golem stood in their midst, a primordial god. His steely eyes made out a craven wretch in the corner. It once had been a man before its limbs had been replaced by an ape's and its face had been replaced by a metal plate. The thing stirred, and in its polished faceplate, Karn saw his own features reflected.

Sisay strode through the ruined door beside him and approached the prisoner. "Where is Gerrard?" she asked, direct but compassionate. "Where is the prisoner Gerrard?"

The thing tried to respond, though the mask had no provision for a mouth. The wet gasping sounds it made suggested it no longer had one.

Sisay nodded grimly, waving her hand. "Come, then. You are free. Come with us. We are leaving this place."

The ape thing leaned back for a moment in mute disbelief before ambling toward its three liberators. Sisay watched the thing come, her eyes filled with pity and a little terror. Had Gerrard not come for her, what would she look like now?

Karn kicked in the next door. The creature within was a half-spider, with arms lopped off and extra sets of legs grafted on. It, too, could not speak. It, too, longed for freedom.

On down the hall they went, one horror to another. The ranks of creatures swelled behind them. No longer did the three need to battle Rathi guards. The prisoners did it for them. An il-Vec overlord rushed down the stairs only to find himself awash in twisted, clawing, biting forms. The works of the Phyrexians turned upon them.

At last, Karn pulverized a door that led to a remarkable prisoner, a young elf child, only just abducted. Surely, she was destined to become another of Yawgmoth's ocular spies, whose very eyes and senses became those of the lord of Dominaria, but the companions had arrived in time to save her.

Sisay swept in and took the child in her arms. She held her tight, as though embracing a simulacrum of her own captured self. "You're all right. Everything will be all right." She did not know if the child understood her, but the sounds of soothing are everywhere the same. "They can't hurt you now. We'll take you away."

Wide-eyed and staring, the child only clung to Sisay.

The captain returned the desperate hug. "I don't know if you know what I am saying, but if you do, I have to ask you-have you heard of another prisoner, a man named Gerrard? Have you heard where they are keeping him."

"Commander Gerrard?" she asked with perfect elocution.

Sisay puffed. "Yes! Where is he?"

The elf child's expression changed not a whit. "He belongs to the evincar. The guard said so."

"Yes, but where is he?"

The girl pointed obliquely up through the ceiling of her cell. "In the throne room."

Sisay hugged the child only the more tightly to hide her glad tears. "To the throne room," she echoed.

What a bloody lane they paved, Eladamri and Liin Sivi and Grizzlegom. Sword, toten-vec, battle axe, they turned bones to gravel and muscles to tar. Down that red-gold highway came sure-footed Metathran and surer-footed minotaurs, Keldons, and elves. Once a band of forty, they were now a band of twenty, but each of the fallen warriors had slain ten monsters before he or she had died. Each of the warriors who lived slew more. With this simple score, Eladamri had pierced as deeply into the Stronghold as he had with thousands.

They charged. The corridor down which they ran had once been a great vein in the heart of the Stronghold, punctuated with shield doors meant to secure it against such invasions. Grizzlegom had kicked through the first and weakest. A Metathran had rewired the triggering mechanism of the second. Eladamri had slain and retrieved the magic key from the guards of the third. Whatever lay at the end of this corridor, behind three doors and two standing guards, would have to be vital to the invasion. A storehouse of weaponry. An incubation fangy horrors. A room of royal hostages. Whatever lay beyond would shortly be liberated by the coalition forces.

The final set of doors slid soundlessly inward on huge hinges. Eladamri charged through and bolted to a halt.

"Ah, yes, the map room."

It was a large spherical chamber with walls of irregular green slate. A floor circled the perimeter of the chamber and dropped away to a secondary tier that centered on a deep well. In that well floated a machine, with hawklike beaks above and below. All this was glimpsed in periphery, though. Eladamri's eye was drawn straight to the center of the chamber, to the bright phantasm generated by the machine.

It was a huge, gossamer globe beaming with an interior radiance. The sphere was composed of looping light and coruscating magic. Even a native of Rath could look upon that slowly spinning orb and know it was a world.

Liin Sivi came next, and stared with mute wonder at the spectacle.

It took Grizzlegom, arriving a moment later, to utter the name of that world. "Dominaria?"

He shook his head. Though some of the landforms were correct-Yavimaya there in its green island fastness, and Keld just where it should be-other nations were missing- Talruum and Zhalfir and Shiv-and other nations were blotted out beneath black and spreading smudges. Benalia was one, and Koilos was another, and Hurloon .. .. Grizzlegom's eyes swam with visions of the burning capital, of the rows upon rows of minotaurs, including him, laid out before the mutation laboratory. The black smudges made sudden sense. "Dominaria."

As the globe slowly rotated, it showed more blackness, more obliteration. The creeping tide of darkness stretched across the surface of the world. There was more shadow than light. It seemed a gigantic beast wrapped Dominaria in a thousand tentacles.

The others had arrived now, the whole bloody contingent. They spread out along the circular platform and stared at their world. Some wore expressions of awe. Others gritted their teeth and glared. All watched those black cancers growing across the face of Dominaria.

Grizzlegom was first to act. He stepped back through the doorway, hauled up a mogg corpse in either hand, and dragged them back into the map room. He hurled the bodies out over the rail. They soared, streaming gore, and crashed limply into the machine that generated the globe. Instead of extinguishing the image, the bodies only darkened it. They seemed to extend the reach of the shadows.

Nostrils flaring, Grizzlegom gaped accusingly at the corpses. With an almighty roar, he leaped from the platform and landed beside the mechanism. In the same motion, he brought his axe down. It struck a metal console and bit deep, bringing a shower of sparks. Grizzlegom hauled the blade forth, and it shrieked angrily against the casing.

That shriek seemed to unite the group. One by one, beginning with Eladamri, they leaped to the lower level to destroy that hateful image. They tore apart the machine. Even as it came to pieces, the world spun heedless above, blackening with every turn.

"Everything's red! The whole damned floor of the cavern!"

"Look at that-lava everywhere!"

"The captain and the others-they won't get out in time."

"We won't get out in time!"

Fearful, almost tearful cries clogged the speaking tubes. Every novice at every post clung to his or her call port and poured out frantic laments.

"What good's this gun against something that's already red hot?"

"What good's any of this? I never signed on for this."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Orim shouted. Weatherlight had done all she could to calm these children. Now it was up to their ad hoc captain. "Shut up, or I'll come out there and throw you all into the lava!"

From the guns, four nervous sets of eyes peered back at the bridge. There was silence for a cursedly brief time, and then one meek voice said, "You gotta come out here, Orim. You gotta see this. You'll die."

Orim pursed her lips. The speaker was one of her young sickbay assistants. The boy was barely trustworthy with a tongue depressor. Now he wielded a radiance cannon.

Orim sent a question through her fingers: Can you keep us circling?

The answer was commonsense: If you crash, I crash. If you burn, I burn.

Right, thought Orim. She stepped away from the ship's wheel. Striding to the amidships hatch, she hurled it open and descended. Sisay had done the same countless times, appearing on deck and answering questions simply by staring them away.

Orim tried. It was hard to stare in that volcanic heat. Beyond the glass-encased bridge, the ship was awash in warmth. It bent the air in avid waves. It tugged at her braided and coin-coifed hair. Orim let out a snort to ward off a sneeze, and she tried to look masterful as she passed among the gunners.

Her own assistant stood at Tahngarth's gun on the forecastle and waved her over. "Look! Look! You'll die. I'm telling you, you'll die."

Orim ascended the steps three at a stride, crossed the forecastle, and reached the rail. She peered over it.

She almost did die. The heat beyond the rail curled her eyelashes and burned her face. Lava filled the world below. In a bright bubbling disk, a seeming sun lay within the rocky ground. The Stronghold was only a black scar against that all-encompassing, all-destroying stuff. Soon, molten rock would consume the great structure and everything within the mountain. Soon, it would destroy Weatherlight and her crew.

Orim drew her head back from the rail, and she felt the eyes of her assistant on her. She sensed the watchful attention of all her hopeless crew. Her words in the next moment would have to quell their fears, or risk outright mutiny. But what could she say? They were right. It was hopeless.

She cleared her throat to speak. There was more phlegm in it than she had expected, due to the raging heat. She hawked loudly and, with no other choice, spit the glob over the rail. It flew out, a viscous wad, and plunged toward the sea of lava. Wide-eyed and still speechless, Orim turned toward her assistant.

He didn't see her, instead watching the spit plummet. A grin filled his face. When the thing was boiled away in midair, the young man hawked up his own mouthful of mucous and spewed it over the rail.

"Take that, Yawgmoth, you rutting bastard!"

A nearly hysterical laugh came from across the forecastle. The other gunner spat her own loogie at the rising red below. "Suck it down, Yawgie! Suck it down!"

A Benalish midshipman was next, pouring an even more ignominious stream from his trousers onto the all-consuming stuff. He had no taunt but a wild cackle. He must have been into the grog earlier, for his duration was impressive. Other young dopes flooded up the companionways to add their own personal insults to the implacable death that rose toward them.

Orim approved, at least in as much as she made no comment. Mortals were aloud to flout death. It was among their inalienable rights. It was the spark of courage, and Orim was glad to blow that spark into a flame.

She ascended through the bridge hatchway and took her place again before the helm. Even as her fingers settled around the cool wood, she heard the voice of her ship.

That was well done.

Orim never knew if Weatherlight was being sarcastic.

Chapter 21.

The Duelists.

The skulking lizard!

The slimy toad!

As Ertai strode down the twisting corridor, he gnashed his teeth. Filed enamel made little shrieking noises. His hands flashed. Lightning charges crackled from his shoulders, down to bifurcated elbows, and along to four sets of hands. It leaped from claws to the stanchions all around, probing the shadows. Here, bolts popped a series of rivets. There, energy plunged into a conduit and made lanterns dim and flicker. Just beyond that strut, lightning jabbed, grabbed, and shook his prey like a dog shaking a ground squirrel.

"Squee!" shrieked Ertai.

Mantled in white energy, the goblin bounced from his hiding place. He staggered into the open and tried to run. Bolts had already fried his feet to the floor. Rampant charges coursed through his every fiber. He danced miserably. Warty green skin peeled and turned brown. Muscles fricasseed. Bones decalcified. The goblin's squalid figure held itself together a moment longer before drifting down into a pile of soot and minerals.

Ertai snorted gladly. He'd wanted to do that from the first day he'd met the little turd. That such a worm would be a crew-member and comrade was galling. Ertai's eyes narrowed. That such a worm had gained immortality was unbearable.

The adept strode urgently down the hallway toward that pile of ashes. Already, it whirled on unseen winds, rebuilding itself. If only Ertai could reach it before- The figure solidified and darted around a corner.

The stinking roach.

Ertai ran. He would be weak after his regeneration- disoriented. If Ertai killed him often enough, quickly enough, perhaps Squee would stay dead. Gathering a deathbolt, a black mana spell that would eat the flesh from his bones, Ertai charged around the corner. Webby energy wrapped his arms ready for discharge- An outthrust foot caught his leg.

Ertai sprawled. He took a short, headfirst flight and struck ground. The gathered spell splashed all around him, eating his flesh. Better that than to let mana burn eat his soul. Still, it was agony. Ertai's cheek melted away. One eye went with it, bursting like a grape. Lips and gums dissolved away, leaving fangs in an eerie smile. He lost one of his vestigial claws to the goop, and the hand on that side was stunned and stiff. Ertai used it anyway, pushing himself up from the stuff.

Something shoved him back down-claws on his back.

Squee squealed as he vaulted from his foe's shoulder blades.

Half-eaten face splashing again in the muck, Ertai let out a scream of pure fury. He rolled onto his bad side and worked a quick spell with his free hands. Green-black smoke poured from his fingertips-poison smoke. It shot through the air, wrapped fistlike around Squee, and suffused his every orifice, his every pore. There wasn't even time to gag. Squee was poisoned in a moment.

Though he couldn't see through the killing cloud that filled the hallway-and could hardly see anything anyway-Ertai did hear the goblin slump to the ground.

The two sides of his mouth, ruined and healthy, mirrored each other in a vicious grin. The poison cloud would linger long enough to kill Squee a couple more times. That would give Ertai enough time to get to the mana infuser and get healed.

Rising, wrecked by his own magic, Ertai staggered back toward the room that would heal him. His flesh cried out for power. Soon, he would be whole.

What fine mirrors these eyes of Gerrard made! Crovax's smile deepened, and his twin reflections shone in the dying eyes of the Dominarian savior.

"You thought you would replace me," purred Crovax, clutching Gerrard's throat, "but our ineffable master does not grant ascension. He pits us against each other, makes us earn what we gain. He might give you great strength and knowledge, even power over flowstone, but he cannot grant ruthlessness." Even as he strangled Gerrard with one hand, Crovax leaned his other upon the agonophone. A banshee keen split the air between them, and Crovax closed his eyes in bliss. "Until you learn to love such music, you will never replace me."

It was true enough, but it had been a grave miscalculation. Gerrard had been slipping into oblivion. Even his enhanced endurance failed him under the crushing claws of Crovax. The din of the agonophone, though, reached Gerrard. He did not awaken, but even in that dreaming verge above oblivion, his mind had power.

The floor grasped Crovax's feet in ironlike claws. It yanked him downward, swallowing him to the knees. Crovax reeled, grabbing onto the console of the agonophone. The pull of the floor was inexorable. It dragged him down to midthigh. With a final violent squeeze, Crovax released his captive and grabbed on with both hands.

Gerrard fell backward, lifeless.

How could he be lifeless if such power lashed from his mind? Crovax clung to the wailing organ and turned his own thoughts to the traitorous floor. An hour ago, the flowstone obeyed his every whim. Now it had a new master and was infused with his will. Crovax's consciousness clawed the stuff, pierced it, fought to take hold. The pull of the floor slackened. Crovax struggled up out of it like a man out of waist-deep mud.