"Barrin."

Suddenly another titan engine stood before him. It was a green and riotous thing, designed in part by Multani and further modified by its occupant. She had made it a veritable garden, planting countless living components within its metallic structure. The asymmetric machine held an asymmetric soul.

"Hello, Urza," said Freyalise, materializing beside him.

She wore her usual getup, savage-shorn blonde hair, a half-goggle over one eye, a floral tattoo over the other, and a shift of twining vines. Her slender legs hovered just above the ground, which was how she preferred it. Freyalise and Urza were utter opposites. The Ice Age begun by Urza's sylex blast was ended by Freyalise's World-Spell-just as catastrophically. These two planeswalkers were so opposite, they were nearly the same.

Eschewing both her floating stance and her longtime antagonism toward Urza, Freyalise seated herself beside her brooding comrade.

"Nice place you've got here, Planeswalker."

"Has Eladamri rejoined his Skyshroud elves?"

She nodded, a lock of blonde hair raking across her eyes. "I even saved the forest from icy Keld." She examined her nails and rubbed them on her shift. "He's one lucky elfchild."

Urza nodded absently. "What of the Keldons?"

She shrugged. "They made a couple assaults on the forest and figured out it was warded. They called for parley with 'the King of Elves.' Parley for Keldons means a fight. You know their motto-'prove it.' "

"Yes. Barrin had have quite a time winning their trust- especially after kicking them out of Jamuraa." He shook his head, smiling bleakly at the memory.

Freyalise stared levelly at Urza. "So that's what this mood is all about?"

"How did Eladamri fare?" Urza said, changing the subject.

Lifting her eyebrows, Freyalise said, "Eladamri acquitted himself well. Of course it helped when I showed up in my titan engine. The Keldons have a big thing for titans. It's part of their Twilight mythology."

Before Urza could form a response, another titan engine appeared.

This one seemed a dignified statue in white. Tall, stately, and decorous, the Thran-metal frame of the engine was covered in smooth shields. They could deflect gouts of mana, plague winds, and plasma blasts. Within those shields lurked subtle deadliness-ray cannon slots and rocket launchers. The control dome had a white sheen as well, like a cataractous eye, and the figure within the shell shuddered in irritation as he released his straps. Steam shushed from air brakes, and the engine settled angrily.

The planeswalker pilot emerged-Commodore Guff. He wore a crimson waistcoat and slim knickers above creamy stockings. His hair and beard were a red that perfectly matched the clothes he wore, and a foggy monocle was clutched in one eye. He stared at a book- Urza's instruction manual for his titan engine.

"Where's the blasted exhaust system for the pilot capsule?" He paged through the book. "I'm fogged in! Give me a touch of the wind, and I'd damn well be doomed!"

"Page sixteen-B," Urza replied.

"Is that the entry for wind or for exhaust?" Freyalise asked.

"What's the difference?" Urza muttered.

"And what's this sixteen-B, sixteen-C business?" huffed Commodore Guff. His monocle dropped from his eye and swayed on its chain. The condensation on the lens wiped on his waistcoat. "You know, I have ten hundred trillion histories in my personal collection, and not a one of them has a sixteen-B?"

"I'm an artificer, not a writer," Urza said wearily. "Ten hundred trillion? Haven't you ever had to number them with As and Bs?"

Commodore Guff spluttered. "No need to number them." He jabbed a finger to his rumpled temple. "Encyclopedic, my lad. Encyclopedic." He blinked, seeming to realize that his monocle was gone. He patted the pockets of his waistcoat and began swearing violently. "Must've fallen out in damned Urborg. Filthy rutting lich lord bastards."

"Rutting lich lord bastards?" echoed Freyalise.

Commodore Guff found the monocle dangling before his knickers and lifted it to his eye. "Has Bo Levar arrived yet?"

"My Lady," Bo Levar said, appearing out of nowhere to bow before Freyalise. He was a sandy-haired young pirate with a mustache and goatee and a dangerous twinkle in his eyes. Clenched in white teeth was a fine cigar, emitting a thin blue coil of smoke. He managed to smile around it. "Gents?" Instead of bowing to Urza and Commodore Guff, he tapped the breast pocket of his tunic where a few more smokes waited.

Urza waved away the invitation.

Commodore Guff quickly skimmed the instructions for exhausting the pilot capsule and nodded. "Thank you very much, indeed."

Flipping a cigar to the commodore, Bo Levar said, "It's the only thing that cut the stink of Urborg." He waved over his shoulder to his titan engine. Swamp muck coated the mechanism's legs. The blue torso of the machine was spattered in mud, and its articulated joints were jammed with strange weeds.

Urza gaped. "What did you do with it?"

Bo Levar smiled. "There was a field of wild tobacco-"

"Oh, you didn't-"

"Look who's here!" Bo Levar said. "It's Kristina and Taysir. I didn't think they were still an item."

"They aren't," Freyalise replied. "Daria is with them."

The three new arrivals seemed a family-Taysir the patriarch in white beard and multicolored robes, Kristina the wise and mysterious mother, and Daria the wide-eyed and sassy young woman. Their titan engines were similarly tailored to their personalities. Taysir's seemed an ancient and solemn statue, Kristina's a powerful machine built to bear oppressive burdens, and Daria's an engine so lithe it could dance untouched among lightning bolts.

Dark haired and grinning, Daria bounded toward Freyalise. "Heard you had to go to Keld. Ugh. Still, it's better than Urborg. Leeches and liches."

"Rutting lien lord bastards," Freyalise said, hugging her young protege.

"I wish I could've gone with you," Daria said.

Freyalise nodded. "Soon enough we'll all be heading to a place worse than Urborg or Keld."

Daria rolled her eyes. "I know. Phyrexia. Ought to be a blast."

"Exactly," Urza said. "With the mana bombs you have and the implosion devices we will take from the fourth level, it'll be a blast."

The final two planeswalkers arrived.

The first had long been a resident of much-maligned Urborg, though he was no swamp-water snake. The panther warrior Lord Windgrace had lived on that isle when it had been a jungle mountaintop-before Argoth had sunk it. Though his land had died, Windgrace had remained. Though undead arose, Windgrace fought for the living. He remembered what Urborg had been and hoped to return it to its former state. On feline pads, he stalked into the midst of the company. At times, Windgrace took a humanlike form, or an amalgam between panther and man, but this day he went on all fours. His tawny titan engine was similarly equipped to stalk or stand, according to the will of its master.

Last of all was the black dragon Szat. His horn-headed engine appeared among the others, and his sinewy bulk paced impatiently.

"When do we start, Planeswalker?"

Without standing, Urza sighed. "Momentarily. You all know the objectives. You all know your engines. Stay within them. The caustic environs of Phyrexia can dissolve even us. Now, suit up, and we fight."

Next moment, he alone sat at the foot of his titan engine. Then even Urza was gone.

He materialized within the piloting harness of his titan suit. It was formfitted-with motor gauntlets for hands, battle boots for feet, and a sensor helm for his head. Every fiber of the suit responded to each impulse of his body. Urza felt the machine awakening around him. His senses extended into what had once been numb metal. All around, the other titans powered up.