Paul Thompson - Nemesis

"A weapon?" asked Kireno.

Takara's eyes shone. "No," she said, smiling. "It's a portal device."

"You've seen one before?" Belbe said.

"My father has used them in times past. This is quite a small one."

Belbe admitted it was. "It was provided to me for special purposes only. If any of Weatherlight's crew or their equipment came into my hands, I was supposed to send them to Phyrexia for closer examination."

The other box contained a single powerstone. Belbe inserted it into the base of the unit, explaining it had just enough power to transmit four hundred pounds of material to another plane.

"Four hundred pounds!" Medd protested. "All of us together weigh a lot more than that!"

"I'm not going," Belbe explained. "As for the rest of you, you'll have to work out your own arrangements."

She took out the portal control unit from her belt and clicked the activator. The dome atop the portal device flickered to life.

"Stand back," she said. "It will throw the doorway across this axis."

The rebels watched in awe as the machine began to drone. The air between them and the far end of the Dream Halls shimmered and thickened, gradually losing its normal transparency. A square seven feet high slowly formed out of gray mist and flashes of light, like lightning in a fogbank. Medd went around the edge of the square. It was as thin as paper and opaque from both sides.

"Do we go now?" asked Kireno.

"It hasn't reached travel potential yet," Belbe said. "It may take another quarter hour before the door is open. Then I have to calibrate the transmitter."

"What?"

She smiled. "Choose your destination."

"Skyshroud!" Medd said. "Send us to the Eye of Korai!"

Belbe fiddled with the tiny dials on her control unit. Ripples of color sprayed across the gray square.

"You must understand," she said emphatically. "A portal is a transplanar connection only. I cannot send you elsewhere on Rath. You'll be going to another plane-another world."

She let this astonishing revelation sink in.

Sivi roused herself. "Will we ever be able to come back to Rath?"

"I don't know. What I do know is if you remain here you'll die, and the cause you've fought for will suffer a terrible loss."

"Whatever happens, Eladamri must go," Medd said. "Are we agreed on that?" Sivi, Kireno, and Shamus solemnly concurred. Takara chewed her lip and said nothing.

"I'll never be able to live with myself if I leave anyone behind," said the elf gravely. "Is there no other choice?"

"The unit will transmit four hundred pounds, no more," Belbe said. "Anything exceeding the power limit will not go through. The consequences for a living being would be disastrous."

"You mean, a person might arrive without their legs or head?" asked Shamus.

"Exactly so."

Belbe finished her power adjustments. The portal square was now brilliant blue, free of ripples or fog. She announced the portal was stable, and all she needed was a destination to align it with.

A long pause ensued. Finally Eladamri said, "Dominaria."

Takara's eyes widened in surprise. "Why there?"

"You told us our ancestors came from there. That means there are people there like us, including, I presume, elves. Dominaria is the target of Phyrexian aggression, and people there should be warned. I'll see to it they know what's coming."

He faced the azure square. "A strange woman told me things not long ago, things I didn't understand. Prophecies

… I would be the savior of a world I'd never been to. A door would be offered to me, and I must enter it. I believe the Oracle en-Vec saw me going to Dominaria. So I will go."

Belbe set the coordinates for Rath's parallel world. The patient blue door began to flash and flicker again as the barrier between the planes was subverted.

Ertai jumped up from the infuser. He'd dialed in a double dose of dark energy, and got off the crystal platform bursting with newfound vigor. He'd had no time to warn the four servants who'd brought him to the laboratory. A silent wave of energy washed over them, transmuting them in minutes. They were now flapping around the room on fleshy wings or clinging to the walls with multiple pairs of legs. As he lay on the infuser and the dark glow flooded his anguished mind, the truth had burst upon him like a bolt from Belbe's plasma discharger.

She'd hidden her portal device in the Dream Halls. It was the perfect place to hide it. The ordinary inhabitants of the Citadel never went there, as they feared Volrath even in his absence. Crovax thought the halls were a vain, empty monument, so he never deigned to go there either. By luck, or fate, the rebels had chosen this room for their last stand-and Belbe was going in to "talk" to Eladamri…

He had the good fortune to encounter Greven first. Crovax might have slain him on sight.

"Dread Lord!" he said, actually grasping the fearsome warrior by his broad shoulders. "Has Belbe gone into the Dream Halls yet?"

"Some time ago. It's been very quiet since."

Ertai was frantic. He could feel the weight of death or permanent exile on Rath settling over his shoulders. Fear, and perhaps too much decadent energy, warped his morals and loosened his tongue.

"We must do something, Dread Lord!" he said. "She has a portal device in there!" Which I need to use! was the part he dared not say out loud.

Greven shoved him away. "You'd better not be lying, Boy!"

"Why would I lie? We have to stop her!"

Greven roused his idle troops and had them stand to arms. "Come," he said, taking Ertai roughly by the collar. "We must report this to the evincar."

The stir among the soldiers spread ahead of Greven, and by the time he found Crovax sitting in an elaborate chair drawn from the flowstone, the new Evincar of Rath knew something was amiss. His expression hardened when he saw Ertai.

"What's this corpse doing here?" he said.

"Your Highness, the emissary brought a portal device with her from Phyrexia. According to the boy, she hid it in the Dream Halls," explained Greven.

Crovax bolted from the chair, which subsided into the floor. "A portal? Are you sure?"

"She told me so when we… I believe her," Ertai replied, his face burning.

"Would she use it to help Eladamri?" Crovax stopped himself. "It doesn't matter. Everyone in that room is hereby condemned to death," he announced. "Let's put an end to this game."

The chosen storming squad fell in step behind Crovax, Greven, and Ertai. The evincar strode to within a dozen paces of the locked doors.

"Will you summon them to surrender?" said Ertai.

"Why should I? They're dead as of this moment."

Crovax handed the plasma discharger to a guardsman, then pressed his palms together in an awful parody of prayer. He slowly raised his hands, spreading them wider as they rose.

A large hump appeared in the floor. Soldiers fell back as the cubic shape mounted higher. So much of the floor was drawn into the rising shape that the floor joists appeared as if shoals around the edges of the room. The summoned form took on the shape of a truncated pyramid fifteen feet high and twelve feet wide at the base.

"What's he-?" Ertai's question was cut off when the pyramid heaved itself forward and slammed against the doors. The entire Citadel quaked from the shock.

The sudden impact startled the rebels. "Crovax is tired of waiting," Eladamri said. "Is the portal ready?"

Belbe made some hasty calculations. "No, it's not fixed on the destination yet."

The massive ram hit the doors again. Loose dream catching machinery rained down, and for the first time the huge doors showed damage. The center was dented inward eight inches, and the gap at the top and bottom was admitting more of the bright light from outside.