J. King - PLANESHIFT

Heedless, the treefolk strode on. They pursued another foe. Above the volcano flew a great ship, pursued by five roaring Primevals. One of those serpents was Rith.

Striding up the hardened lava, treefolk clawed amid the clouds. Boughs raked the teeming sky. Ships and dragons were but gnats to magnigoth treefolk. They hauled down branches draped with dead serpents. None was Rith. It was easy to kill countless gnats, but difficult to catch a specific one.

The treefolk lord that had held Rith captive all these millennia bellowed with fury. Wind ripped through its core. The exhalation hurled dragons from the sky. The inhalation afterward dragged more serpents in, wedging them in hollows and impaling them on slivers. None was Rith. The Primeval flitted away, along with her pantheon of dragon gods. The treefolk lord pursued its elusive quarry across the sky.

"What in the Nine Hells!" shouted Tahngarth. His barrage of cannon fire ceased as he gabbled at the huge trees that circled the volcano. They lashed out at Weatherlight. "Even the flora has turned against us!"

From the speaking tube came Multani's voice. "Sisay, fly closer to them."

"Closer?" she echoed in a near shriek.

"Yes," Multani replied. "They've come not for us but for the green dragon."

Tahngarth shook his head in dubiety. A massive bough swept violently past Weatherlight.

"We thought Rhammidarigaaz was on our side too. What's to say these trees don't want their wood back?"

"I'm to say," replied Multani. "I am, after all, their spirit. Take us close. Close enough to make contact. I'll coordinate the attack."

"You're not leaving us," Sisay insisted.

"Only long enough to marshal the treefolk. Then I'll be back. This is a fight I wouldn't miss."

Tahngarth felt his stomachs churn as Weatherlight plunged away beneath him. He held on tight to Squee's ray cannon. To port came lofty leaves, thrashing violently along the wing. To starboard was empty sky plunging down to a boiling sea. Directly before him, gaining on the ship's stern, were four angry dragon gods.

Ever since Gerrard disappeared, things had gotten crazy.

Urza Planeswalker wandered through waving fields of grass. The stuff made a shushing noise under his titanic feet. A wind bore past him, eager to cross the hill. On the horizon ranged gray mountains. The sky was a shell in solid white.

It was a serene place, the sixth sphere of Phyrexia. To Urza, it felt like home.

True, it was not grass but twisted wire. Its barbs would rip a person apart before he moved ten paces. Its electrical impulses would cook his flesh instantly. The winds were equally unnatural, spawned in mile-high turbines among the mountains. They would pluck up a person like dandelion down and chop her to pieces and hurl her parts endlessly around the sphere. This was no place for humans, but for an artificer in a titan engine, it was a heaven.

Urza stopped walking. He wished he could crouch here and harvest wires and weave them into a wreath and charge it with the land's own currents. Power was everywhere, but more than power drew him. Beauty did. This place was beautiful.

Urza gazed down at his hand. It held the single ugly thing in the windblown place-an armored device with a riot of its own wires, bound around a powerstone incendiary device. A bomb, but not just any bomb. This was the master. Its blast would trigger all the others. It would set off the destruction of all Phyrexia.

The destruction of all Phyrexia. Urza could little bear the thought.

The place he would plant the bomb lay just ahead. It seemed a termite mound but was the size of a mountain. Irregular towers reached into the beaming sky. Windows glowed with red radiance. The light came from no torch or lantern but from the very inhabitants of the otherworldly city. Yawgmoth's Inner Circle.

While most Phyrexians were creatures of flesh and machine, Yawgmoth's Inner Circle belonged to another phylum entirely. The pneumagogs dwelt between the physical and metaphysical worlds. They had bodies, yes- red-shelled bodies of living metal. Their insectoid legs could gallop across ground, and their rasping wings could slice through air. But these mechanisms were only the loci of their beings, rooting them in time and space. Pneumagog bodies were wrapped in layer upon layer of scintillating spirit. This was the true essence of pneumagogs- brilliant, glowing, empathic souls.

Nowhere else in all the Nine Spheres did pneumagogs exist fully. When they ascended to higher spheres, only their living-metal bodies went. When they descended to lower spheres, only their spirits went. It was here, on the sixth sphere, that they were a glorious amalgam of physic and metaphysic.

Urza strode toward the city of the pneumagogs. They would attack him, of course. He would slay them, as before. Rockets would blast apart their metal bodies. Spells would liberate their fettered souls. Urza and his comrades would extinct them. Even now, the five other titans slew the inhabitants of similar cities and planted charges to exterminate them.

As Urza's feet chuffed through wire, the first pneumagog sentries emerged from the hive. They swarmed toward him.

In reflex, Urza energized his ray cannons. He lifted one arm toward the approaching pneumagogs. They seemed angels in red. Their wings strummed the air. With a single volley, Urza could have cut the figures from the sky, but he hesitated.

In moments, they surrounded him. They did not attack. Instead, the swarm enclosed the titan in a scarlet sphere. Their wings made an assonant drone. Compound eyes stared with sad confusion at Urza.

He marched onward, toward their city.

A few of the creatures darted down to the bomb. With antennae and proboscises, they sensed the device and its function.

Urza lifted it in their midst. He felt their fear. Surely they felt his regret.

Any moment, they would attack. They would rip apart his bomb, his titan engine, and himself. Urza had no will to stop them.

Neither did the pneumagogs will to stop him. They knew what he bore-not only the bomb but also the tremendous reluctance to use it. Instead of impeding his way, the pneumagogs buzzed up alongside him, escorting him. He took another deliberate step. They paced him.

Gentle creatures, why don't you fight this doom? sent Urza to the flock of beasts.

Their answer came in a thousand voices speaking as one in his head. You are one of us, Urza Planeswalker. You are a creature of flesh and metal and spirit.

Indeed, they were right. The only difference was that Urza wore his metal body on the outside and carried his metaphysical body within.

But I am going to destroy you. I have devised this bomb for the very purpose.

You would not destroy us, Urza. We know that you see the beauty of this place. We know that your soul is aligned with ours.

Urza sighed in resignation. It was a glorious freedom to be understood. Barrin had understood Urza, but he had not approved of the planeswalker's true self. Always, he had nagged. These creatures, though, they knew Urza and understood him and approved.