J. King - INVASION

The Metathran shouted their praise from the sand-dune coliseum.

Except that Eladamri vaulted over his trapped blade. He used Agnate's own strength to carry him in an easy arc above both swords. Eladamri flipped, landing on his feet behind the Metathran warrior and yanking his sword free.

On ship and sand dune both, the watchers cheered.

Eladamri swung his sword in a gutting stroke.

The Metathran commander was no longer there. One step carried him beyond the elf's blade. A second step brought him back during the follow-through, when Eladamri would be defenseless. Agnate's sword stabbed for his side.

Eladamri slid sideways. The stroke nicked armor but missed flesh. Eladamri kicked the weapon away. His foot trailing a swath of sand that temporarily blinded the towering warrior. Agnate staggered back. This would be Eladamri's winning stroke.

Cheers from Weatherlight's deck mixed with growls from the Metathran troops.

Both fell suddenly silent.

Eladamri stepped back, waiting for his opponent to clear his eyes.

In the hush, Agnate's words were heard by all. "You would be a fool to let a Phyrexian clear his eyes."

Eladamri's responded wryly. "You, friend, are no Phyrexian."

The roar of the crowd united ship and sand dunes.

Gerrard was glad. Eladamri was doing it again. He was bringing disparate people together.

A voice broke through the ovation, the voice of a very old, very tired man. "She is asking for you, Gerrard."

Applauding Agnate's escape from a back stab, Gerrard said distractedly, "Who is?"

"Hanna."

Wheeling, Gerrard stared incredulously at the blind seer. "Sh-she's awake?"

The old man nodded, his face shadowed in the wide brim of his hat. "But not for long."

Gerrard shoved his way across the deck. He reached the amidships hatch and descended. It took only moments to clamber down the stairs to the sick bay. It seemed hours.

Gerrard fairly vaulted across the room, falling to his knees at Hanna's side.

"You're awake! Hanna! You're awake!"

She smiled a wan smile through rictus lips. "The old man. He did something."

"He's healing you!" Gerrard gasped, though even he knew this hope was false.

"No. He is letting us say good-bye."

"Don't say that!"

Despite the plague's ravages, she was somehow beautiful in that moment. "I have to, and so do you."

Gerrard grasped her shoulders, felt only cold bones in his hands, and let go. "How can I live without you?"

"You lived without me for twenty-six years," Hanna said sadly.

Gerrard's smile was rueful. "We all remember how worthless I was then."

A loud cheer shook the sands beyond the ship.

"What's happening?"

"A duel," Gerrard said. "It's nothing. Someone lost his partner-"

"It's a new world being born, Gerrard," Hanna replied wistfully. "It's a new world, and the partners of the old must say good-bye."

"No." His eyes glimmered intently. "No. I won't say it."

"Then I will die without hearing it-"

"You won't die. You can't-"

"I can, and I will," Hanna said. Her lids slid slowly down her blue eyes. "The old sage's magic cannot last much longer. Goodbye, Gerrard."

"I'll say I love you. I'll say you're everything to me. But I won't say-"

She trembled once last. Her final breath left in a long, sweet sigh.

An ovation roared through the heavens, shaking the ship's vast beams.

"No, Hanna," Gerrard groaned. He leaned over, sliding his arms beneath her. A tear fell on the white sheets. He lifted her. There was nothing in his arms, nothing at all. She was gone. "No, Hanna. No. I won't say it. I can't say it."

A voice came at the door-loud and excited, with a clear Benalish accent. "He's done it! Eladamri has bested the Metathran!"

Clutching that lifeless shell to his breast, Gerrard whispered simply, "Good-bye, Hanna. Good-bye."

Urza stood on a sand dune overlooking the duel grounds. His cloak billowed with the breezes of night. One hand clutched his war staff. The other fidgeted at the edge of his cloak. It was a momentous hour.

Below, warriors thronged the sandy arena and the deck of the mired ship. They shouted their excitement to the heavens. In their midst stood Eladamri, victorious above a fallen Agnate. The elf's broadsword dripped Metathran blood. He had cut a shallow slice along the warrior's biceps-the sort a human could heal in a week and a Metathran in a day. It meant nothing and yet everything. Eladamri would command half the Metathran army, leading warriors who believed in him. Perhaps more importantly, he would complete Agnate. Eladamri could never replace Thaddeus, of course, but he could bring fight back to these beaten soldiers. That would be enough.

Victory in the arena and defeat in the ship. Even from where he stood, Urza could sense Hanna's death. Planeswalkers could heal most diseases with a thought but not Phyrexian plague. A futile regret fled through Urza, a wish that he had studied disease processes instead of artifice. It was foolishness. His machines would save millions of lives-they could not be reasonably exchanged for this one life. Even so, this was a loss. Hanna had anchored Gerrard. Without her, he would be a different man, a lesser man. Urza hoped only that Gerrard would still be sufficient to his role.

"I shall have to tell Barrin of his daughter's death," Urza reasoned, "once he has won the battle of Urborg."

Victory in the arena and defeat in the ship. It was a momentous hour. Urza's own labors in the coming minutes were critical. Taking one last breath of the dust of Koilos- a smell that took him back to the days with his brother- Urza planeswalked away from the dune.

He did not step into the chaos between worlds. That was a place for mortals. Urza did not have to travel that way, though sometimes he visited the Blind Eternities when he needed time to think.

Not now.

Urza appeared in the gloaming of a forested hillside. He stood in the minotaur homelands. An-Havva lay below, but he had no interest in minotaur cities. A single cabin stood on the hill. It was picturesque-what seemed a mere hunting cabin. A fieldstone pathway led among wildflowers. Chink logs held aloft a pile of thatch. A queer little chimney contentedly puffed smoke into the air. Quaint and tiny, it was meant to seem so. Its owner had built a cabin that was larger inside than out.

Urza walked up the fieldstone path. Through the soles of his boots he felt the cool stones. They were reporting his approach to the man within. Some intruders dropped dead on the path. Those who stole through the wildflowers fell into a sleep that proved eternal. Urza was not susceptible to such protections. Neither did he wish to circumvent propriety and incur the resentment of another planeswalker.

The door was round topped and rugged. Urza knocked on it with the shimmering head of his war staff.

"Good evening, Taysir. The time has come."

Without a sound, the door swung suddenly inward. A short, thin man stood there, his bushy brows peaked dubiously. Though bald on top, the man had a regular mane of white hair, and his beard was cinched at his sternum. He blinked deep, querulous eyes, and his voice whuffed with bookish intensity.

"Time? Time?"

"Yes," Urza replied. "The hour has come. Dominaria hangs in the balance."

"Doesn't it always?" Taysir replied dryly.

"Who is it, Father?" asked a young woman who appeared at Taysir's side. She seemed a great-greatgranddaughter to him. Her shoulder-length hair was black beside his linty locks, her face smooth and bright next to his pruny visage. She saw Urza and scowled. "Oh, it's you."

Apologizing with a smile, Urza made a shallow bow to the woman. "Hello, Daria. It is time for your father to come to the defense of the world."