The panther warrior spun, claws extended. Streamers of sorcery dragged over the minotaurs on that hillside. Magic took hold of them all, and just before the presence of Yawgmoth could dissolve them to nothing, they disintegrated and were gone.

The black cloud swept down the hill, killing even the mudmen who struggled to rise. It poured across the battlefield and down toward the open sea.

A hundred miles beyond the Urborg chain was a deep cleft in shallow seas. This shadowy place had always been a haven for life-whether conch or urchin, crab or merfolk. As artists had once fled the oppression of old Vodalia, so too they fled the oppression of the Etlan-Shiis and settled here, founding the Elit-erates. These folk sought only beauty in an ugly world, and they created it in this cleft. Now it was all about to be swept away.

Bo Levar grieved. In his full captain's regalia, he hovered above the rolling billows. The noonday sun cast his shadow down through crystalline waters and onto one side of the artists' colony. His dark semblance, enlarged by the water, had become a matter of speculation among the merfolk below. Even now, they gathered in furtive groups and pointed through the rolling tides at the visitor, wondering what evil his presence foretold.

Bo Levar wondered as well. Perhaps Yawgmoth would have slid smoothly above this paradise, never noticing it in his quest for greater lands-except that a planeswalker hovered protectively above it. On the other hand, perhaps Yawgmoth would have sunk himself in the waves and slain every tender creature below. It was too late now to second guess. Every person-even planeswalkers-must choose at some point to stand against evil or let it roll over him. Bo Levar had chosen both.

Here was the problem. The Eliterates had fled to this spot from all the oceans. If Bo Levar removed them to some "safe" place half a world away, he would be stealing from them their haven. Yawgmoth was coming to all the world. Would it be better to die in one's heaven or to live in one's hell?

Even that was not the whole of the problem. Bo Levar had become a planeswalker in the same all-consuming explosion that had made a planeswalker of Urza. As a mortal, his name had been Captain Crucias, and he had led sight-seeing expeditions to Argoth. The sylex ended that enterprise. The explosion had blinded Crucias and destroyed his ship, but it had done one other thing-it had ignited the planeswalker spark in him. He had been old then, ready to give up, and had suddenly received the blessing-or curse-of an eternity.

That eternity was up. Bo Levar was done. He had buried his daughter Nuneive four thousand years ago. He had spent the time since in amassing an empty fortune. Oh, and there was one other thing-he'd destroyed Phyrexia, with the help of three friends. But Bo Levar was done. The question was, how to spend his soul? A life was not something to be sacrificed lightly, especially not an immortal life. The best answer Bo Levar could devise, even after four centuries, was to sacrifice himself in defense of beauty.

That black cloud, rolling from the decimated island, looked all too familiar. Such a shock wave had made him. It might as well unmake him too. He watched it come. Here was the glory of deciding his own time-determining how he would go and what of his power would remain. The spell-work that would make it all a reality had already taken effect.

A globe of magical energy spread from him, out in a shallow dome above the sea and in a great, sweeping, all-encompassing sphere beneath. Every soul among the Eliterates would forever be guarded from Yawgmoth and his minions. Any Dominarian creature who ventured therein claiming sanctuary would find it. Here was the sweetest provision of all: Though the volume of the globe was constant, the space within was not. A room could hold a whole palace. A palace could hold a whole city. A city could hold a whole nation, a whole world. As many as flocked to the Eliterates, seeking beauty and safety, they would find it. The place would make room for them.

It was no small miracle, one worthy of an immortal sacrifice-one worthy of Nuneive.

Bo Levar opened his arms, welcoming the blackness. His shadow below made the same gesture. Some would think he summoned a spell. Others would guess he heralded them. Still others would remember his posture and make it the eternal emblem of salvation. In truth, Bo Levar only spoke to his whelming slayer.

"You think you've won, Yawgmoth, but you have not. You cannot. The rest of us have done what we have done-glories and atrocities-within the game. You have stepped beyond it.

You would destroy not only us, but the game itself. In doing so, you lose forever. You cannot know every card, and you certainly cannot guess at the ones in my hand."

Modest final words for a modest man. The black cloud struck him, swept over him, dismantled him. It burned away his mustache and goatee and captain's cloak. It curled skin and flash-burned muscle and pulverized bone. But somewhere hidden in the depths of that flesh was the spell-soul that had created them. It spread now, creating something new. As clear and solid as diamond, the sphere took shape. It formed itself from the backward-arching remains of that winnowed figure. By the time his physical form was gone-and that was mere moments after Yawgmoth struck him-his metaphysical protections were complete.

Yawgmoth swirled across the dome of air, but could not penetrate it. He coiled along the sphere of waters, but could not break through.

Within, like fish in a bowl, the merfolk quailed and wonder at the salvation wrought for them.

Bo Levar had chosen rightly. Yawgmoth swarmed all the world. He reached from Urborg to the cleft of the Eliterates in mere minutes. It took him hours to grasp the rest, but grasp he did.

In far Keld, he reached the steamy Skyshroud Forest. Freyalise had arrived there, hoping to protect her folk. There was no hope beneath the clawing cloud of Yawgmoth.

In Hurloon, Lord Windgrace had brought Grizzlegom and his forces to what little remained of their homeland. At least they had escaped Yawgmoth, he thought-and thought wrongly. They stood in the ashen ruins of Kaldroom as the sky turned to utter black.

Above Jamuraa, the Presence of Yawgmoth passed.

Across Tolaria he soared.

Over the ruins of Benalia he went. Through the sands of Koilos .. ..

Yawgmoth reached across the whole of Dominaria and clutched it to himself with the cold and insistent hands of a rapist.

Urborg-ever the darkest of islands and now swathed wholly in the presence of the Ineffable-could not glimpse its coming hope. It shone high in the sky-too small, too distant, too uncaring to pierce this death-shroud.

Such is the way of hope. It begins at furtive distance, too high to be seen. As it pours itself down, though, the white cascade traces a line across the black sky. Patiently, inevitably, it bridges heaven and earth. And when at last it arrives, hope comes with a vengeance.

Chapter 30.

Chiaroscuro.

Like a blazing comet, Weatherlight dived. Mantled in a white-mana cascade, she plunged toward everlasting blackness. That's all that lay below-the eternal shadow of Yawgmoth. The dark god had spread across the whole world. Not a scrap of Dominaria showed its true blue beneath the killing grip of that thing. Yawgmoth had taken it all.

Gerrard gripped the gunnery traces-all that held him to the shrieking vessel-and gazed grimly at the world. Perhaps Urza had been right. Perhaps saving half of Dominaria would have been better than this, than saving none of it. His hands sweated on the fire controls. Already, he'd fired a couple shots, though they had shrunk to minuscule insignificance against that black globe. It was as though they did not drive toward a world, but toward a hole where once a world had been.

Still, Gerrard had only to look behind him to glimpse the hope of that world. White energy fumed and boiled, as wide as the Null Moon itself, as wide as the central isle of Urborg. Poured down Yawgmoth's throat, how could this power fail to slay him?

"How close are we, Sisay?" Gerrard asked. His voice rang hollowly through the tube, small within the roar of mana.

"Five minutes closer than the last time you asked," she replied.

Gerrard took no offense. They were all on edge. He watched the shift envelope rattle and redden with the first touch of rarefied air. In another few minutes, the shield would grow blazingly hot. "And we're still on course for Urborg?" he pressed.

Sisay replied simply, "Yes."

"I want to make sure we blanket the island, especially the Stronghold volcano. I want to kill that bastard with one blow."

There came a pause. "I'm doing my best, Commander. It's no easy thing to pilot a comet. We're pushed more by the cloud than by our own engines. All I can do is keep us trim and centered in. If you want pinpoint accuracy, I'll need Hanna back."

That stung. Gerrard turned his gaze toward the bridge.

Sisay winced. "Sorry," she said through the tube. "That's not what I meant."

Gerrard replied, "We all want her back-"

"I'll give you the next best thing," she said, her face brightening. "Weatherlight says we're dead on. She says she's looking through Hanna's eyes, and we're dead on."

Gerrard smiled, though he felt no gladness. In a bleak voice, he muttered, "What else does our good ship tell you?"

"Not much, Commander. She's pretty busy right now with Karn. It's one thing to have to steer an asteroid. Its another to have to channel its power. But if anyone can do it, Weatherlight can. Weatherlight and Karn."

In the first chaotic moments after Weatherlight emerged from the riven moon, the ship summoned Karn to come below. He felt the plea in his feet and answered the call.

He was little use on the amidships deck anyway. No gunnery harness could have held him in place.

Clinging to the ship, Karn crawled to the main hatch. He flung open the door to see four human faces within, staring in shock from what had once seemed a safe haven. Karn pulled himself through the opening and closed it behind him. Hand over hand, the silver golem climbed down the companionway stairs, now standing on end. At their base, he reached the engine room. Prying open its door, he eased himself inside.

The familiar air-hot and steamy, with a hint of brimstone and steel-enveloped him. Below lay the engine-the fearsome engine. Once he had known every rivet of that machine, but now it had grown beyond him. Still, these were desperate times, and Weatherlight needed him. Lowering himself gently onto the aft manifold of the device, Karn released his hold on the door-jamb. Under his feet, he felt Weatherlight's heat. Karn climbed carefully down one side of the engine until he reached the pair of hand ports where once he had flown the ship. Kneeling there, Karn inserted his massive hands. He took hold of the control rods within. Microfibers tickled along his fingers. The filaments slid into his joints and made contact.

Karn! Thank you for coming.

He nodded, steam glinting darkly on his forehead. "I thought perhaps you could use some help."

Yes, the ship replied simply.

"May I cross over, then?"

Yes.

Karn closed his eyes and let his consciousness drift down his arms, into his hands. He felt the new solidity of the engine, the power that pulsed ceaselessly within her fuselage. As impressive as that power was, it was nothing beside the mana energy all around the ship. The tips of the spars and the cannon barrels and every extremity of the ship glowed with ball lightning. The white mana sought a conduit inward, and if it found one, the whole of the engine could be destroyed. There was the great dilemma. The very force that Weatherlight was supposed to guide and channel could also tear her to pieces.

Death is a fearsome force, spoke the ship into his mind.

It was Karn's turn to be laconic. "Yes."

You were bom mere decades before Urza charged the power core.

"Yes."

We are twin creatures, millennia old, except that you have been aware all that while. I have been waking for mere days. The ship was pressing toward a thought, an idea wrapped in regret.

Karn's mind slid through Weatherlight's conduits and peered from her optics. "In a sense, I lived before that even. My affective cortex came from Xantcha. In a sense, I lived for a thousand years before my body was made."

The question is not whether all this power will destroy my core- for it will. The question is, can I kill Yawgmoth before I am slain?

"Yes," Karn affirmed.

It is the right thing, to be unmade in such a battle, to slay Yawgmoth even while being slain oneself. Who can argue such choices?

A sharp pang moved through Karn, and he tried to divert the conversation. "When we reach the proper altitude, our first job will be to arrest this descent and take up position directly above the volcano. To do that, we'll have to engage all engines against the mana tide."

Perhaps having had only days to live will make it easier to give it all up-easier than being a creature such as you, millennia old .. ..

"The trick will be to slow down gradually enough that the crew will not be harmed and yet abruptly enough that we won't be dashed against the mountain."

Xantcha did the same thing, you know, Karn. She stood within the pouring radiance and let it consume her and let it close the portal to Phyrexia.

"Once in place, you will stand on end at full thrust, your air intakes filling with mana, which will be focused in your powerstone core and emerge as a single slaying column from your exhausts. Surplus energy will pour from your cannons and lanterns and even your wings and spikes. You will stab Yawgmoth in a hundred places, pinning him down, and the central column will impale his black heart and kill him."

Yes, Karn. All of that is obvious. That's not why you were summoned. You came here to grant just one assurance- "I'll do whatever I can."

Grant me the fate of Xantcha, that when I am immolated in the coming flame, something of me will remain in you.

Karn's voice rumbled like thunder. "I promise."

Above the black world plunged a white star. She outshone the sun. She outraced the moon. Her train was majestic, glorious. Her power was inexorable. It seemed she would spend herself in her headlong plunge, impacting the darkness below. Instead, she slowed and stopped.

Here, in midair, she would do battle.

The train of her gown, dragging for thousands of miles through the heavens, billowed down around her. She pivoted. Her god face rose away from the netherworld, as if she spurned the creature she was about to fight. While gleaming veils enfolded her, the star lifted her face toward the sky.

She spread quicksilver wings. White mana struck them and bounded out in a wide dome. It seemed gossamer, this energy, but where it struck the black presence, it cut like steel. The reflection off her wings cut a circle two hundred miles in diameter. It boiled away the darkness and sliced through to the churning oceans below.

She was not finished. Her arms reached out-the seven arms of a goddess-and hurled white surges into the cloud. Where those slender pulses struck, darkness recoiled, giving views to the ravaged ground. One arm swept along a shoreline and showed the breakers crashing there. Another caressed a volcanic hillside, scouring the rocks until they shone like gemstones.

Still she was not finished. The star took a breath, a deep breath of the white-mana cascade. Power surged through her pure soul. It channeled out beneath her in a shaft of light so bright it cast shadows on the shattered moon.

This power did more than tear holes in the blackness. It obliterated it entirely. Wherever it struck, four square miles of darkness evaporated. The killing beam strolled its way through a salt marsh, up a rankling hillside, and toward the volcano at its peak. Soon it would strike the center of the cloud, the core of Yawgmoth, and would save the whole world.

Gerrard clung on for dear life. He could do little else.

Radiance suffused everything. It shone through his closed eyelids. It baked the base of every pore. It tricked past clenched teeth and down a closed throat to glow in his lungs. White blindness. He saw everything.

In the swimming flood of light, the whole of his life gleamed-the battles on Dominaria and Mercadia and Rath, the years of reluctance, the betrayal of Vuel, the centuries when the pieces that were to become him wormed their way through a thousand forebears. The light showed him everything.

All his senses brimmed full. His flesh tingled numbly, so shot through with pressure and heat that he could not tell if he were in agony or ecstasy, burning or freezing, crushed or stretched. Though he knew he was strapped to his cannon, he simultaneously walked distant glades and fought distant wars.

In his ears rang every voice, every song, every sob he had ever heard. The air smelled and tasted of honey and offal. Sensation crowded through him. He feared it would tear him to pieces and at the same time hoped it would make him whole.

Such is the delirium of clinging to a manifesting goddess.

He had grasped the whole world. He had sunk his talons in and was tightening his grip-and then, out of the sky, this agony!

It was she. Only a goddess could appear that way, in blazing glory above the world. How had Gaea transcended herself? How had Rebbec risen from the ground that she infested?

Then he remembered. The Thran Temple-the pinnacle of Rebbec's architectural achievements-a building built on clear air. Of course. She was forever transcending herself. And what else could that be but the radiant temple that she had sent from Halcyon? Where had it spent its eternities, packed with refugees? Had they learned to build cities within the powerstones, as Glacian had threatened? Had they waited all this while just above Dominaria for Yawgmoth's return, so that they could descend and slay him?

Of course. Rebbec was his shadow. She never fled far. She always waited for him. She lingered near to stab him when his back was turned. Of course.

And it nearly worked. He had fallen for it again. How had he discounted that bitch? Some had even told him that she was dead. Dead? Then who was this that rained killing fire down on him. Rebbec! Damn her.