"If you see anything that looks like a heart, or an aorta, or spine, or brain, shoot it," Gerrard advised.

Tahngarth replied, "I'm shooting anything and everything."

"Squee'll shoot de butt. Dat's what Squee always shoot."

Gerrard laughed. "All right, now. Urza says we can't do it. Let's prove him wrong. Let's kill two gods with one stone."

Weatherlight plunged into the black cloud. The world disappeared. Beyond the envelope was only Yawgmoth. This was no simple blackness. Staring into that cloud, the crew saw not emptiness, but the serried sum of all horror. Slavery, rape, vivisection, cannibalism, plague, famine, murder, hate, suicide, infanticide, genocide ... extinction. Within that cloud, the vilest, most horrid impulses in the multiverse clawed.

"Let's show this bastard the light," said Gerrard.

His hand clenched on the fire controls of his cannon. It belched white-hot energy. The bolt leaped through Weatherlight's envelope and roared out into the heart of evil. It tore into coiling flesh and dripping agonies. It ripped through stacked repression and monstrous iniquities. The charge boiled the being of Yawgmoth.

Behind Gerrard, an identical blast from Tahngarth stabbed out. Shafts of energy drilled through fetid evils, cutting them away. The bolt punched deeply into the cloud and opened a clear path.

While Karn shot high, Squee shot low. The goblin stood in the traces, his gun rammed down as far as it would go, and poured out a river of light. He seemed a man clutching a lighthouse beacon and gazing with it through a demonic storm.

Physical light cannot penetrate metaphysical darkness.

Worse, Weatherlight's envelope shrank. It could stand against the vacuum, against the whirling chaos between worlds, but was no match for the concentrated evil of Yawgmoth.

"Pull up, Sisay!" called Gerrard. "Pull up!"

"I am," she replied, "if there is ever an end to this darkness."

The envelope slumped, dangerously near the deck. Weatherlight shuddered in the clenching fist of cloud. With a panicked spasm, she broke free and rose. The sooty darkness tumbled away beneath her. The sun shone again on her armor. Weatherlight leaped anxiously into the sky.

Gerrard let his cannon slump. He leaned back in the traces and crossed arms over his chest. "So, that's it, then. We can't stop Yawgmoth."

"You can, but not that way," answered Urza.

As Weatherlight soared above a midnight world, Gerrard stared at the queer eyes of the planeswalker. "All right, then. What is your plan, Planeswalker? How do we stop Yawgmoth?"

Still jammed into one corner of the cannon stand, Urza's head gained a stern smile. "Do you know what Weatherlight is, Gerrard?"

Gerrard snorted. "Of course."

"She is more than a skyship, more than a part of your Legacy. She is a trove of worlds. Her central powerstone holds within it Serra's Realm, absorbed to empower it. It holds also the souls of countless angels, of countless saints. Each of these is a universe unto itself. But more than drat, Weatherlight is powered by the Bones of Ramos- heart, skull, hand, and so forth. These powerstones hold die essence of an ancient dragon engine, a minion reengineered for the war at Argoth. The ship holds the Juju Bubble, and the Skyshaper, each repositories of gods. Even her hull is carved from die heart of Yavimaya's most ancient tree and holds part of Gaea's essence."

"What does any of this matter?" Gerrard asked. Urza's smile only deepened. "Don't you see? This ship comprises worlds upon worlds. All are condensed in her, to fight Yawgmoth. You are the same, lad. You are like Weatherlight. Just as I charged her with divinities from throughout the Nexus, so I charged you with the best souls, the best minds, the best bodies of our time. You are as much a conglomerate being as Weatherlight. As she is made up of a hundred worlds, you are made up of a thousand souls. I needed such a ship, such a hero, to destroy Yawgmoth forever."

Gerrard waved his hands impatiently. "Fine. Save your theology for someone who cares. How do we destroy Yawgmoth?"

Sadness came to Urza's face. "If Weatherlight bears a hundred worlds in her, then merely by breaking her, those realms will rush out into being. If Gerrard bears a thousand heroes in him, then merely by breaking him, those heroes will join the battle." Gerrard gaped at the severed head, unable to comprehend. "Sacrifice the ship," Urza said, "sacrifice yourself, and Yawgmoth will be destroyed."

Brow knotting, Gerrard said, "This is your plan? You want to bring Serra's Realm into being here at Urborg? You want to awaken a hundred worlds on this side of the globe to see what happens?"

"Yes," conceded Urza. "The devastation will be incredible. All creatures, all flora in this hemisphere will be destroyed, but the other hemisphere will survive to repopulate-"

"You want to slay me and bring from my corpse a thousand heroes to defend the world? You want to create an army of legends to cleanse the land?"

"Yes," repeated Urza. "The hemisphere that will remain will need cleansing. Phyrexian armies have swarmed everywhere. The heroes latent in your blood will, with your sacrifice, become blatant. Only give yourself over, Gerrard, and give over your ship ... and in the final conflagration, Yawgmoth will be destroyed."

The young, black-bearded commander paused to consider. Weatherlight and her crew were everything to him. They meant more than his own life, which would be forfeit too if he listened to Urza. Still, what were they worth in the balance? One ship against one world. How could Gerrard argue? If he was the result of a thousand years of genetic testing, if he was the sum of a millennium of heroes, how could he refuse?"

"This is nonsense, Gerrard, and you know it," interjected Sisay from the speaking tube. "It's just another sylex blast. After four millennia, all he could think up was another sylex blast. Don't listen to him."

Gerrard opened his hands in surrender. "He created me. Who else should I listen to?"

"Yourself," Sisay said. "If you are the sum of a thousand heroes, you've got better judgment than Urza Planeswalker has ever had. Don't listen to him. You decide how to save this world."

Gerrard looked at his hands, strong and callused from years of battle. Of late, those hands bore a grime in their creases, as though he had been digging in dirt. "I wish I could wash this away."

From the speaking tube came the calm voice of Orim. "You can't wash this cloud away, Gerrard. Nobody could. If Cho-Arrim water magic could work on it, I'd be doing a rain dance, but-"

"White mana," Gerrard murmured without willing it. "White mana could wash Yawgmoth away, could slay him."

Tahngarth growled. "The Phyrexians have already harvested Benalia. Zhalfir is gone. They targeted white mana sites first. We could never marshal enough to make a difference."

"But there is another ally here," Karn interjected. When Gerrard turned toward him, the silver golem jabbed a finger skyward. "The Null Moon. It is full of white mana."

"What?" Gerrard asked.

"In ancient days, the Thran took over the spherical transmission base meant to control artifact engines. They slew the crew of the orb, planted levitation charges, and sent the Null Moon into the heavens. There it has remained to this day, gathering white mana from Dominaria, weakening the world against this coming invasion. But we can strengthen the world again. We can harvest the mana of the moon."

Urza growled, "How do you know this? Even I don't know this."

"Weatherlight told me. It was revealed in the Thran Tome."

A smile spread across Gerrard's face, and his teeth gleamed pearlescent. "There's enough pure white mana in that thing to poison Yawgmoth?"

"There's nine thousand years worth," Karn said.

Urza broke in. "You could never knock the Null Moon from orbit. It's too massive."

"We don't have to knock it from orbit," Gerrard replied. "We just have to crack it like an egg and guide the yolk on down."

The flesh around Urza's eyes grew red. "How can one ship guide a hundred-mile cascade of power?"

"Easily," came Karn's reply. ''Weatherlight is an energy funnel. What pours into her intakes, what flashes through her powerstone arrays, what rolls from her cannonades, all of it is channeled energy."

"You'll kill yourselves doing this," Urza said in his final protest.

"That's the one thing our plans have in common," Gerrard said. "Captain Sisay, lay in a planeshift to the Null Moon. Bring us out at maximum velocity one mile above the dark side."

"Aye, Commander," Sisay said. She spun the wheel and drew it toward her.

Weatherlight curved into a steep climb. She accelerated in the ascent.

The crew clung to their posts. On every rail, knuckles grew white. Lips drew back from teeth, and eyes opened wide.

They left behind the black stain of Yawgmoth, spreading across the world. They entered cerulean spaces.

"Hang on!" Gerrard called through the speaking tube.

Time and distance stretched absurdly. If Gerrard had said more, the words would never have crossed the gap, would only have snapped back into his teeth and tangled there. Gerrard tightened an already brutal grip on the target handles of his cannon. He braced his feet on the treadles and pumped madly.

The prow, with its Gaean figurehead, clove through the fabric of the sky. Weatherlight planeshifted. Empyrean spaces unraveled, leaving her in the Blind Eternities. Beyond her shift envelope, the violent energies of the multiverse coiled and spun and snapped. Within that envelope, the crew braced themselves.

As quickly as the chaos world emerged, it disappeared, leaving only eternal blackness, beaming stars, and a huge gray moon. The enormous orb swelled.

"Collision course," Sisay announced.

"Gunners, carve a corridor!" Gerrard commanded.

A long, peeling blast burst from his weapon. It roared past the shift envelope, across yawning space, and impacted the moon's superstructure. Girders melted. Plates buckled and dissolved. Grates vanished. The salvo cut a long swath across the side of the great sphere. More fire, from Tahngarth to starboard and Karn at the centerline, poured down upon the sphere. It carved more holes. The blast marks fused. Large hunks of metal sank away into the white interior. Still, it was not enough. A long, thick section of metal jutted directly before Gerrard. He swung his cannon toward it, but the ship closed too quickly. In moments, they impacted.

Thran metal was nothing to the god-hardened head of Gaea. She butted the section, cracked through, and plunged into the beaming whiteness within.

And it did beam-millennia of white mana. It was not opaque like milk or paint, but luminous like fire. Radiance rolled beyond the shift envelope, gleamed from the ship's armor, coveted the fire of the afterburners. On her unstoppable quest, the ship ripped through an old power conduit. The severed halves of the cable split and fell away. In ghostly lines appeared ancient causeways, networks of repair nodes, and a command core at the center of it all.

"Hold your course," Gerrard ordered as he squinted toward the command core.

The hulking orb grew until it filled all of Weatherlight's fore. Without slowing, the skyship struck the node. It cracked through. Out tumbled command chairs and mana-preserved mummies-the bodies of the ancient Thran controllers. They had ridden this great orb beyond the reach of air, but even in dying, their forms had been preserved. Now, they fluttered behind Weatherlight as Serra's angels once had done.

"Take us out of here, Captain," Gerrard said. "Take us back to our world."

Through ravening light, Weatherlight plunged. Power poured through her, annealing her metals, aligning her crystals, purifying her humors. The great ship channeled that power.

Light erupted from the forward cannons. Rays soared together in a shattering constellation. They punched through the outer shell of the Null Moon. More charges leaped in long lines. The great sphere cracked from within. It opened, disgorging its fiery contents.

Weatherlight followed the cannon blasts. She shot through the ragged rift and plunged. All around her, white mana cascaded in a wide curtain. She drew it down.

She was no ship now, not even a living ship, but rather a god descending in glory. Her raiment lit the heavens brighter than the sun. Beautiful and gossamer and voluminous, those robes trailed her downward. In their very purity, they would slay the Lord of Death. They would slay Yawgmoth.

Chapter 29.

The Doom of Dominaria.

Mudmen tumbled in a ragged rain all around Eladamri and Liin Sivi. Sword and toten-vec, the two advanced up the swarming bole. Their troops-savage-shorn and sharp-eyed- clambered up to every side. They had cleansed the lower reaches of the magnigoth treefolk. With Keldon fires below and moss spells above, the defenders at last were finishing off the monstrosities.

Battered treefolk began to move again. Massive boughs flexed. Tendrils brushed along mud-choked bark. Branches raked through the mudmen. The beasts broke apart and fell. Mad roars began deep within the treefolk, resonating in black hollows and rising to vault from open mouths. With the shouts came the shattered bodies of more mud golems, those with the temerity to have climbed down the throats of the beasts.

Eladamri gave his own howl. He lifted his sword arm high into the air and waved it. "The treefolk awake! The defenders of Gaea fight again!"

All around, others took up the shout. It was a glorious sound in the midst of mud and blood. Glorious and all too short-lived.

A new storm loomed. A black cloud rolled out beneath the sun. It cast deep darkness down across the magnigoth treefolk and their defenders.

Eladamri looked up. He sheathed his sword-this was no foe that could be killed with a blade-and reached to pull Liin Sivi beside him. She, too, stared in dread at the inky sky. It seemed a pit opened above them. Steel Leaf elves gaped through foggy goggles. Skyshroud elves remembered the muscular skies of Rath. The truest realization came among the treefolk. With the chlorophyll retinas of their myriad leaves, they saw.

A death wail rose from the mouths of the magnigoth treefolk as Yawgmoth struck them. His soul, a black pyroclasm, dipped down and smashed into the trees. They lurched under the blow. Massive boughs bent like grasses before a gale. Eladamri and Liin Sivi clung to the reeling bole. Here and there, an elf lost hold and plummeted toward the fires below.

The magnigoth guardian shuddered erect again. Its top was eaten clear away. Yawgmoth had dissolved all. The wail turned to screaming as treefolk died. Yawgmoth coursed down their bark, stripping it with his very presence. He sluiced into the open mouths of the creatures, swirled in their hollows, and brought death.

Eladamri felt the transformation under his fingers- vitality draining from wood. The tree that he and his troops had saved was dead now forever. Eladamri's own death approached from above. The black cloud boiled eagerly toward them. Eladamri gazed at the ground-too far to drop, and mantled with Keldon fire. He and Liin Sivi together had survived two separate assaults on the Stronghold, plague bombs in Llanowar and sand worms in Koilos, a battle on the ice and the very coming of Keldon Twilight, but they would not survive this dark hour.

"There is a place for dead warriors," he said heavily to Liin Sivi. "I will see you there. We will find each other."

She leaned to him, kissing him one final time. "This is the place for dead warriors-the battlefield."

Eladamri wore a grim expression. "Yes. Now, we need only choose-death by Yawgmoth, or death by fire."

Liin Sivi smiled, an all-too-rare expression. "If I can defy that monster one final time-" and she let go of the tree bole.

Eladamri too let go. He was surprised how easy it was. Together, they fell, dropping as quickly as Yawgmoth did.

Staring in surprise, the elves watched them fall, and then they let go as well. In opening their hands, some of those warriors released a millennium of life. Strange how happy they were, falling with their commanders between rising fires and plunging blackness.

They struck, and it was done. Nothing remained for Yawgmoth except those raging fires below and the gray-faced tenders of the flames. He struck them brutally and snuffed them, flame and Keldon, elf and Vec, as one.

How this panther warrior fought! His eyes stared death into the mudmen. They dropped in smoldering piles. He leaped over their dead forms, twenty at a bound, and roared. From his jowls rolled clusters of spells, devised to battle undead. One coiling sorcery struck a mudman and shredded it down to sand. Another flash-evaporated the water in a golem. The creature exploded, ripping apart a score more of the monsters. A third spell awoke fungi across a platoon of mudmen, turning them to piles of truffle. What creatures he could not slay with glances and roars, the panther man slew with claws and fangs. Even now, he impaled two beasts while biting through the head of a third.

Commander Grizzlegom was proud to follow this otherworldly fighter. Never before had Grizzlegom been modest of his axe's power, and truth be told, it cleft these creatures with a deadly vengeance. But while he killed them singly only to watch them rise again, this panther man killed them in droves and forever. Beyond the tawny shoulders of the cat warrior, perhaps a hundred mudmen remained to the hilltop. If the coalition forces gained that high, rocky ground, they could defend it against all comers.

"Break through! To the heights!" roared Grizzlegom, lifting his axe overhead. His free arm signaled his Metathran troops to break away and flank the main army of mudmen. With utter precision, the blue warriors veered from their course and climbed toward the summit. Meanwhile the panther man, Grizzlegom, and the minotaurs carved through the main contingent of golems. "For Hurloon!"

"For Hurloon!" echoed his troops in a deafening yell. The sound mounted among them, strengthening each individual with the power of the whole. Mortal foes would have been shaken by the tumult, but these mudmen were earless, soulless things.

Grizzlegom punctuated the cry with a bisecting chop of his axe. The halves of the golem fell. The commander's recovery stroke was too slow to catch the next beast. Instead, he rammed the axe haft into its forehead. He trampled it down. Now his weapon was truly fouled. As he wrestled it from the gripping mud, he slashed a clear path with his horns. More mudmen fell on his broad shoulders. They clawed fingers of rot through his hide, opening foul wounds. Grizzlegom shook them off like a dog shaking away water. He felt his blood-hot and red-washing the infection from the wounds. That was their true deadliness, the creeping plague.

Even if the defenders destroyed this army of humus warriors, there would be more and more eternally. They could no longer trust even the ground beneath their feet. The very world they had fought to save now had turned against them. What good was high ground when all ground belonged to Yawgmoth?

Another roar from the panther warrior brought Grizzlegom from his reverie. He looked up past the sloughing remains of his last kills and saw mudmen fall to ash. They could not stand before the cat man's magic. The water steamed from them, and they flaked into gray nothing. A broad avenue opened in their midst, leading to the rocky summit. Better still, the Metathran scrambled up the slope and planted their powerstone glaives as though they were flags of dominion.

Grizzlegom gave a roar. Hooves pounded through dead golems and ash. In moments, all the minotaurs advanced. Only those on the edges of the battle still dismantled their foes. The rest charged up the rocky slope toward the Metathran and victory. The blue warriors stood there like angels, bright in a world of dun.

The sky turned caliginous behind them. Something came with the inescapable velocity of death- A black cloud struck those proud warriors and engulfed them. They shrieked-Metathran never shrieked, fearless and selfless. Now they did, emitting the inevitable sound of a living thing at the moment of death. The shriek lasted only a moment before it disintegrated along with the vocal apparatuses that produced it.

Grizzlegom halted. His troops faltered. Even the panther warrior stopped in his tracks. All took a wavering step back as that blackness flooded down the hill toward them.