Mercadian Masques

"1 do not even speak their languages. You speak to them."

Orim shook her head. "They will not listen to me. I am not even from this world." She blinked blearily, thoughts retreating inward. "But were you to truth-speak with me, you would know all their languages. You could speak your thoughts in my words."

Cho-Ma

"This is worse," she said, flinging her hands out toward the rioting city. "This is worse."

The leader of the Cho-Arrim caught her hand in his strong grip and lifted Orim to her feet. He brought her to stand before him and released her fingers.

"Are you sure of this?" he asked gravely.

Orim's eyes were rimmed with tears as she said, "If there is no Uniter, perhaps you and 1 must become the Uniter. We must be united to bring the people together."

Cho-Ma

The song entered Orim's ears and washed away all else.

She had been braced for agony, but it did not come. There was no stark violation, no bursting open of hidden memories. The true-speaking chant flowed into Orim like a healing stream. When last Cho-Ma

Cho-Ma

Orim felt more, though. Into Cho-Ma

"My people, let the killing be done. The lambs have slain the wolves. Let us not become the wolves ourselves. Let the killing be done…"

His words echoed prophetically through the city. Riots and executions and atrocities paused, if only in amazement.

He repeated the words in the tongue of the Saprazzans and the Cho-Arrim, and then went on.

"We came here to fight for justice, and we have won it. Let us fight no longer, or we will win back injustice."

Those thoughts echoed not only in streets, but in minds. Blades ceased cutting the air, lest they sever the words that lingered there.

"We came here seeking more than justice. We came seeking a Uniter. Old myths mixed with new hopes to make us believe that Ramos soared in fire across the sky, that he brought new children among the old. These new children gathered his soul and mind and body together, his spirit and heart and bones to resurrect him, to raise the Uniter. We flocked here to rally behind Ramos, to throw out evil, and be borne into a new world. We came here seeking a Uniter, but we found none."

A new strain of doubt had entered Cho-Ma

"Perhaps we can blame our ancient foes-nobles, Kyren, Phyrexians. Perhaps they have prevented the Uniter from rising. Rumors tell they captured Ramos-soul, mind, and bodyto enslave or destroy him. Perhaps they have, and we fight each other in despair, believing we can never be one."

Trident hafts grew sweaty in the hands that held them. Rebels and fa

"Or perhaps we should blame the old myths and the new hopes. They had the power to raise us and bring us here, but they did not have the power to raise the Uniter. There is a word for stories that tickle the heart of truth without ever grasping it. Lies. Perhaps we should blame the old myths and new hopes and brand them lies. After all, we must lay the blame somewhere-in foes, in lies… or in ourselves-"

Darkness came over every face. Sword tips grounded themselves in the soil-not in hope for peace but in the hopelessness of war.

"-Unless there is no blame to lay. We say the Uniter has not risen, but here we are, united. We say Ramos has not driven evil from Mercadia, but evil is driven out. We say the old stories have not come true, but they have come true. Ramos the Uniter has risen, and brought us together, and driven out evil, and set us on the threshold of a brighter world. We need only recognize that all this has happened. We need only gratefully, reverently step across that threshold."

Tears stood in many eyes. Tears of hope and despair. ChoMa

Truth is never as quick and sure as tyra

A cool hand touched Orim's forehead. She opened her eyes.

Cho-Ma

Tears streamed down Orim's cheeks. She embraced him. "Then we all are doomed-"

A sudden, shrieking thunder interrupted her words. She looked up. The sky split in two. A god shot through the air-a fiery body with angel wings and a throat that sang as loudly and gloriously as a heavenly choir.

All Mercadia fell to its knees. Even Cho-Ma

Orim would have too, except that she had ridden in the belly of that god and knew it to be merely a ship. "Weatherlight!"

She seemed the only one to recognize the ship.

"Ramos… Ramos… Ramos…!" Every last creature Mercadian, Cho-Arrim, Saprazzan, Rishadan; giant, boarman, griffin, goblin-knelt where they were and chanted the name of their god. "… Ramos… Ramos… Ramos…!"

Orim only stood, shaking her head in wonder. Weatherlight was beautiful and powerful in flight, grander than she had ever been, but she was only a ship. She was no god. Still, what did it matter? People needed gods. Better that they find them in old legends and flying machines than in tyrants and Phyrexians.

The chants suddenly ceased. An audible cry of dread came from the city streets. It formed itself into a new word- the name of a very old god. "Orhop!"

"Orhop?" Orim muttered in wonder. It was the name of Ramos's evil brother god-Ramos and Orhop, Urza and Mishra, Gerrard and…

Orim hissed as she saw the second ship^a Phyrexian ship, and she realized the one man who could be at its helm. "Volrath!"

At last, Orim went to her knees.

The Phyrexian ship, hoary in its huge magnificence, vaulted in the wake of Weatherlight. Atop the scream of its engines came the crackling sound of ray ca

"Volrath…"

"We can't shake it!" Sisay's voice echoed urgently through the speaking tube. "The ship's just as fast as Weatherlight, twice as big, and has three times the firepower!"

"Outmaneuver!" Gerrard shouted back, clinging to the barrel of his ray ca

"Hang on!"

Weatherlight sloughed suddenly sideways, air spilling across the deck. The Phyrexian ship came into view, just fore of Weatherlight's port wing.

Beneath a breaking wrack of cloud, the ship seemed a soaring dragon skull. Its bridge was a sloping brainpan, its pilot a sinus bone between gaping eye sockets. From jutting tusks along what would have been the jaw of the thing, twin bolts of power emerged. They raked across the main deck of Weatherlight, vaporizing a section of rail.