Paul Thompson - Nemesis

She didn't move and didn't answer. He touched the back of her neck and immediately knew why. Her skin was cold as ice. "Belbe…" He knelt beside her. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks still wet. Ertai picked up her hand. Her fingertips were already turning black.

"Dead, is she?" asked Crovax. Ertai nodded dumbly. "How was it done? I don't see a wound. I didn't think a Phyrexian construct could be killed so easily."

Ertai blinked through his own tears and spotted a tiny glass vial on the floor. Seamed with cracks and empty, it smelled like newly mown hay.

Crovax took the vial from his hand. "I see. I'll have this analyzed. Potent poisons are useful things to have."

The evincar ordered Belbe's body removed, along with what remained of the portal machinery. Greven stood by awaiting his new master's pleasure.

"Eladamri is gone," Greven said.

"Where?" asked Crovax.

"No one survived to tell us, Your Highness. This device of the emissary's may provide information." He placed Belbe's portal control in Crovax's hand.

As soon as Crovax had the vital device, Greven was stricken with pounding waves of unimaginable pain. He bellowed and fell at Crovax's feet.

"This is just the beginning," he said. "I have years of pain in store for you. You impeded me, thwarted me, aided my enemy, and on top of all that, allowed the arch-rebel to escape."

Greven flailed helplessly, retching and beating his tormented face on the floor.

"The only reason I don't kill you is because you'll be needed in the coming war." He kicked Greven's head. "Besides, having Eladamri exiled to another plane is almost as helpful as having him dead-maybe more so. There will be no martyr's grave, no brave example for another generation of troublemakers."

He sent two guards to bring Ertai to him. They dragged the young sorcerer before Crovax and forced him to lie on his belly at the evincar's feet.

"Now, what shall I do with you?"

"I don't care."

Crovax drove a toe into Ertai's ribs. He moaned and doubled over.

"Don't play hero with me, Boy. I can make you care about anything." His tone relaxed. "But I do owe you, don't I?"

"Owe?" gasped Ertai.

"Don't you think I know you intervened in my duel with Volrath? 1 could see your childish spell weighing down his blade as easily as he could. No one else on Rath practices your brand of archaic magic. Why did you help me? I would've thought Volrath would have been more your sort of patron."

"I knew you'd win eventually. I thought if I helped, you'd spare Belbe and me."

"It's too late for the emissary. I suppose her rebel friends did her in." He frowned. "A waste of good Phyrexian technology, that girl. What were they thinking?"

He relented on Greven's punishment. The suffering warrior couldn't even stand after his treatment.

"As a reward for your unsolicited help, Ertai, I'll spare your life. In return, you will serve me. Do you agree?"

A faint spark of hope illuminated the profound darkness in Ertai's heart. "I have many talents, Your Highness. Perhaps I can demonstrate them to you."

"We'll see. In the meantime, I have use for your influence with the flowstone."

"My influence is nothing compared to yours, Sire."

Crovax smiled, and everyone in the vicinity flushed with fear. "For my purpose, your skills will be enough."

In a remote part of the Stronghold, the flowstone factory began a new day's production. The output accelerator and the flowstone gauge conferred, as was their designed custom, on the efficiency of the previous day's production.

"Yesterday's output was 648,922,765 tons," the accelerator said. "This is approximately fifty percent of our total capacity."

"It is one hundred percent," countered the gauge.

"Forty days ago we produced 1.2 billion tons of flowstone," said the accelerator. "That represented an effort of 108 percent of our capacity. How can 648,922,765 tons in the previous daily cycle be 100 percent?"

"It cannot," said the gauge. "Increase production to 1.1 billion tons in this cycle."

Lava input tubes at the very bottom of the Citadel were switched on. Prodded to full capacity, the factory rumbled into high gear. The pitch of production increased.

There were a lot of bodies to dispose of. The moggs dragged a heavy cart to the death pits and eased the bodies in one at a time to avoid splashing the deadly black tar on themselves. In went Dorian il-Dal, former chamberlain of the palace. In went Tharvello, promising young sergeant. In went nine young men of the Dal and Vec, still clad in their borrowed Rathi uniforms.

The moggs hooted happily as the last of the bodies sank into the sable ooze. Though there were many bodies yet to dispose of, their shift was done. They had a half-day off. A holiday had been declared by the new evincar.

Tant Jova was dying. She was past one hundred-twenty years old, and all the skills of her clan's healers could no longer stave off the assault of old age. It was whispered in camp the real cause of her final illness was the fact that Eladamri and Liin Sivi never returned from their last raid.

Lying in her tent on a hummock in the Skyshroud Forest, Tant Jova called two people to her bedside, Darsett en-Dal and Gallan. The wealthy Dal merchant and the young elf warrior stood on either side of Jova's simple pallet.

"Long life to you, Tant Jova," said Darsett, pressing a hand to his chest.

"Rubbish," the old woman rasped. "My time left is measured in heartbeats. If I had a long life ahead of me, I wouldn't be lying here, would I?"

"What can we do, Tant Jova?" asked Gallan.

"I want you to pledge to continue the fight against the Stronghold. I know the night seems dark and long, but like all nights, it will end. Lead the free people of Rath into the morning."

"We'll keep the fight going," Darsett said. "Though I don't know what the point is now. We have a new evincar, worse than the last. The airship flies again, raining death on our people from above. The Stronghold seems mightier than ever, and we've lost Eladamri and many of our finest young warriors."

"The point is to fight, O Darsett," Tant Jova said, taking his broad hand. "Eladamri started his rebellion twenty years ago. You and I have been fighting just five months. If we can resist even when the enemy is strongest, we will prevail in time."

"Our agents report good progress recruiting in the Stronghold," Gallan said. "They haven't forgotten what Crovax did to their families."

The old Vec woman closed her eyes. "He dug his own grave that day," she whispered. "The time will come when all the righteous souls of the murdered will rise up and bring the tyrant Crovax to just retribution…"

"Sleep now," Gallan urged. "Be at peace. Darsett and I will continue the battle."

Her sunken eyes closed. Gallan and Darsett slipped out, leaving the Vec matriarch to dream a last dream of freedom.

It was dusk. The two rebel leaders walked out from under the trees and looked up at the darkening sky.

"Have you noticed the odd colors in the sky at daybreak and dusk?" asked Darsett. "Sometimes the sky looks quite blue."

"It's strange," Gallan agreed. "But no stranger than some other tales I've heard. I'm in contact with elves in other parts of the forest, and with Vec nomads who range as far away as the Sawtooth Hills and the Weblands. They speak of phantom cities appearing on the plain at dusk, and ghostly forests and mountains visible just before daybreak."

"What does it mean?"

The young elf shook his head. "I'm no seer, but these signs must be portents of coming changes-changes that may alter Rath forever."

Darsett shoved his hands in his pockets. Loose coins jingled there. "I went to Eladamri's first meeting because I hated the high taxes Volrath made me pay," he mused. "Five months later, I find myself running a damned revolution and puzzling over mysterious omens. Does that make sense?"