"The invasion has begun?" Thaddeus asked, his voice as deep as a bear's growl.

"Yes," Urza replied simply.

Thaddeus nodded in understanding. His jaw rippled. "My army stands ready?"

"Yes," Urza repeated.

The commander's eyes shifted down to where Barrin knelt beside the other door. "What of Agnate?"

The Master Mage raised his head, drawing a hand back from the man's neck. "He's not breathing. There is no heartbeat. Perhaps the blast was too much-"

Thaddeus strode to the spot. He was there in two steps. His feet pinned the door down, and his hands ripped the straps loose. In the same swift motion, he hauled his counterpart free and laid him supine on the stone. Thaddeus balled a fist and pounded massively on the man's breast.

Agnate's body lurched under the assault, but he did not stir.

Thaddeus drew a deep breath and forced the air into Agnate's open mouth.

"He must live," the massive man growled as he pounded Agnate's breast again. Aside from the blow, there was no life in him.

"How strange," Urza mused, staring down at the sight. It was strange indeed. Agnate's musculature was perfect, his figure the pinnacle of eight hundred years of genetic research. He seemed a sculpture, flawlessly rendered, but cold. "It has been only minutes since he was placed in that capsule. What could have slain him?"

"The shock of the blast might have done it," Barrin said, kneeling beside the lifeless figure as Thaddeus worked him over. "Or perhaps the capsule failed, and the solar rays-"

"We could assign both armies to one commander," Urza thought aloud.

Thaddeus reared up from the most recent breath. "I cannot fight without him. All our training… no, more than that… all our lives-" he pounded the still breast once again- "we share the same flesh, the same mind. We are genetically identical. We think each other's thoughts. I cannot fight without him." He breathed another gale into the man's lungs.

"I am seeing a flaw in your design," Barrin said to Urza.

Agnate suddenly spasmed, as though his spirit had leaped back into his body. He gasped and clutched his hand over Thaddeus's fist. Agnate's eyes opened, that same sky-blue. Awareness filled them and realization a moment later.

He sat up. Thaddeus pulled him to his feet.

"The invasion has begun," Agnate guessed.

Staring intently in his counterpart's eyes, Thaddeus nodded and smiled. "Yes."

"Our armies await us?"

"Yes."

Urza shot a knowing glance at Barrin. "What were you saying about a flaw?"

Barrin shrugged. "They do not have to fight alone now but what about a week from now? A month? A year? Perhaps they will."

"Perhaps you will have to fight without me," Urza replied, "or I without you."

Agnate turned, bowing curtly to Urza. "Master Malzra, where does our battle unfold?"

"A desert, perfect for deploying troops. I fought once there myself. Everyone has fought once there. We will engage Phyrexian ground armies to take back the Caves of Koilos."

Tsabo Tavoc arrived at Koilos.

She pivoted within the piloting bulb of her private fighter. The craft was her own design-a one-person vessel fitted with a flying harness that allowed her to access the powerstone controls with all eight of her mechanical legs and both of her human arms. It flew faster than any other Phyrexian vessel, bore more armor, and had a ray cannon for each of her legs. Its main body was the spider woman's piloting bulb. The rest was drive core and metal deadliness. When she led an aerial armada, the fighter straddled the command cruiser, replacing its traditional bridge. Tsabo Tavoc replaced its traditional crew.

Just now, though, she arrived without her armada. They were busy hunting down the last vermin in Benalia. They needed her no longer, so complete was her victory. Her master had been pleased. The other commanders were still mired in combat in Yavimaya and Shiv, in Jamuraa and Keld. They hadn't even found Tolaria yet. Benalia was the first great victory of the early war, and Tsabo Tavoc was made second-in-command for the entire invasion. Her master had been wise to promote her-and wiser still to send her far away from him. Black widows have a way of eating their mates.

Soon Koilos also would belong to Tsabo Tavoc. She would stand before her master and ascend his throne. Then she would conquer even Lord Crovax.

The fighter skipped lightly above a desert rill and plunged into the slanting darkness on the other side. Tsabo Tavoc's legs moved in precise jabs within the piloting bulb. The ship leaped to her touch. It slid down into the belly of the dark terrain, following an ancient hollow.

This was an historic place, she knew. Megheddon Defile, it had once been called, the clearest overland route to the Thran city of Halcyon. Down this hollow, when it had been a narrow valley, had marched the Thran in their war against the Phyrexians. They had been utterly destroyed in that war, through the grand wisdom of the Ineffable. Somehow, though, they had managed to shut him away from his world, from Dominaria.

Tsabo Tavoc's fighter soared from the encroaching cliffs and out onto the wide, flat plains of Koilos. A distant outcrop appeared on the horizon.

It was all that remained of the once-towering extrusion on which Halcyon had stood. The caves beneath that outcrop-what had been called the Caves of the Damned-held a permanent portal to Phyrexia. That was the gate closed to the Ineffable when he was banished from Dominaria six thousand years before. That was the gate opened again by Urza and his brother Mishra at the beginning of the Brothers' War four thousand years ago. It had been closed again by the traitor Xantcha and remained that way- the Ineffable willed it so-until the invasion had begun. Now, the gate was wide open, the only land portal in the early war. It belonged to Tsabo Tavoc.

She was to keep it open, to bring through the vast land armies arrayed across the first sphere of Phyrexia. More importantly, she was to battle Urza Planeswalker, who would inevitably bring his forces to close the portal.

With a final few flicks of her barbed legs, Tsabo Tavoc sent her fighter screaming over the caves of Koilos. A beautiful sight opened before her. Rank upon rank, they awaited her arrival- Phyrexian troopers, witch engines, dragon engines, negators, gargantuas, shock troops, vat priests, sand crabs, raptors… One hundred thousand of them, they filled the desert like thorny crops and spread to the horizons.

As Tsabo Tavoc's fighter soared overhead, they welcomed her with an awful shriek of joy. Their leader had arrived, their great mother. "Tsabo Tavoc!"

Chapter 14

In Yavimaya's darkest hour, Multani toured a lightless place. The Heart of Yavimaya was the eldest and largest magnigoth in the forest, a five-thousand-foot-tall tree. Its root bulb bulged above the nearby canopy. Foliage spread in four vast rafts up its manifold trunk. The tree's crown was a huge, lofty forest in its own right. Normally this was a place of eternal and holy light but not now. The Heart of Yavimaya was now a ravaged battlefield.

For two days, Phyrexian troop transports had hovered above the canopy. Down webby lines, monsters slid. They dropped from their cords atop the Heart of Yavimaya.

It was a sacred site, as large as a great city. In ancient times, Multani had excised a piece of the tree's core, gifting it to Urza Planeswalker. From that wedge of wood grew the hull of Urza's great skyship Weatherlight. No thinking creature dared live on the Heart of Yavimaya-not elf nor sprite nor druid.