IV

ERADICATOR

June 1, 795 - Talismanian Reckoning

All of the Eradicator was in a state of abrupt confusion. Even in the short amount of tme the battle had lasted, severe damage had been done to the complex machinery fundamental to its construction. While Nitsud and his drones set about feverishly effecting more repairs, Thrakkiss was forced to sit and wait. His familiarity with the technology notwithstanding, he had much more pressing things on his mind.

Days stretched into weeks, and Thrakkiss grew impatient. He used that time to contact Sanctum more than once, using its more advanced (and still operable) scanners to provide sensory relays of Kaat'n so he could assess the situation there. He was disgruntled to learn that a woman named Sara had managed to make her way into the Sanctum unaided, but there was no help for it.

"I've had a few setbacks here," he explained to Jaron, "But Nitsud will have the Eradicator running shortly. Shadow isn't the only threat to face now. The Dark Heart of the Wood has returned."

{How is that possible? Gandalf told me that she destroyed the Dark Heart. Even my father said this was true.}

"Neither of them were at that even, Jaron. Gandalf was elsewhere, and your father had already been destroyed by Tara for keeping her from her goal." Silently, he was amused that Jaron's mental communication could reach him from miles away. "On the other hand, I was there."

Thrakkiss squinted his eyes, searching deep into his memory for some better recollection of that moment. Tara HAD destroyed the Dark Heart...hadn't she?

"Jaron and I had an idea, Lord Thrakkiss," Sara spoke up now, appearing on the viewscreen for the first time. "I don't know much about the Dark Heart, but I think its return is propitious. Evil will turn upon itself. We will be given the chance we need to destroy these twinned evils, but we need to know how to capitalize on that."

"My dear, what can we do? Think of what we're facing, Sara, and I don't think you'll understand the scope of our peril. The Dark Heart is no less than the soul of the world. Even the goddess who created the world apparently managed to fail destroying it. Worse, I am one of the targets of its malice. I cannot just simply face down it and Shadow. I must be destroyed by one or the other. I hate my chances against Shadow, for he can unravel me, but against the Dark Heart, I will fare little better."

{Thrakkiss, my father gave his life fighting the First Evil, to put it away forever. I know the cost of sacrifice, though it happened before my birth. Some of us may need to die to stop the end of the world.}

"Elrohir was a romantic fool who was blindly in love with your mother, and he allowed the weakness of his emotions to rule his life. Because of this, he was destroyed!"

{But the world was saved, Thrakkiss! My father, for all his faults, was a good man.}

"You never knew your father," Thrakkiss sneered.

"Men, please, just stop your bickering," Sara spoke. "That is a past that is over now. Only Elrohir knows what he fought for and why he gave his life. He is dead and we live. Now, we face the end of the world. Again. Thrakkiss, you are the only one we know of with the power to stop or at least equal either of our threats..."

"But not both, Sara. Not both."

"Not both then," she continued. "But at least one of them. The rest can be dealt with, I think. As I was starting to tell you, Jaron and I have a plan."

"Out with it then. Already too much time has been wasted fixing the Eradicator."

{I am the blue bastion, Thrakkiss.}

"I already knew that. How did you find out?"

"Shadow attempted to use Fatestop to destroy the red bastion, and Jaron felt it. I think that if we can use the power of the bastions to counter the power of the Xidani and Fatestop, Shadow can be stopped."

"What are the Xidani?"

"They're similar, I think, to the power of the bastions, but I'm not sure. I just know they were used in conjunction with Fatestop to return Shadow to life, and they possess immense power."

"I see. But Fatestop reverses mana. We need a way that won't be reversed."

{That's the beauty of our plan, Thrakkiss. You have the Eradicator, which is founded on technology, not magic. It is something that Fatestop cannot effect, because it is not magical. It is of immense power...}

"And easily broken, Jair. But I see what you're getting at. Perhaps I was thinking rightly when I chose to come here. The problem is that the Dark Heart throws a kink in my plans. If it strikes a bargain with Shadow, I'll never get through it to him."

Jaron was pacing in the view screen while Sara lounged in the chair just before it.

{The bastions... Thrakkiss. Tara did not destroy or intend to destroy the Dark Heart.}

"What?" Memories of several years past returned slowly, and he recalled what The Lady had told him, on of the few living mortals to have conversed with Tara, Genesis of Worlds.

"In the beginning, the Dark Heart of Deep Shadow was just the Heart, neither good nor evil. It housed all the energies of the world in one place. To destroy it would be to destroy the world. To corrupt it would be to corrupt the world. It was, in essence, the world itself." To destroy it would be to destroy the world...
{She split its five forms of mana and gave each a bastion to amplify its power. The Dark Heart was banished to the Nethervoid, because if she destroyed it, she would destroy Phaema. This world meant too much to her to destroy it out of hand. In her sorrow, she rebuilt what chaos had been rendered by the Dark Heart.}
{Tara is no more a goddess than you are a god, Thrakkiss. She created Phyrexia, and she created this world. She knew...that eventually her creation would fail and the world would end.}

"The world is fated to end...?" Thrakkiss fell silent.

"Fate is something we make come true by believing it will be true, Thrakkiss. Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid. We will believe a lie because we want to think it's true, or might be afraid that it is. A collective memory that the Dark Heart had been destroyed worked for Tara, because we wanted to think she had destroyed it. Because we did, she got away with leaving it alive."

{It was equally simple for her to make us think that the world was more stable than it is. We don't want to think our home is unstable. We will fight to prevent it from dying. Can we have any hope?}

"It has only been ten years since Armageddon, Thrakkiss, and already the world is in peril once again."

{That in itself is enough proof to me that we are truly at the end. Fated. We may have a tough road to follow, because of the darkness ahead. Two evils, and unavoidable fate besides. We can deal with the first two, but the last? I'm out of my league, Thrakkiss. What do I do?}

"Sanctum, end transmission." Thrakkiss tired of the discussion. The screen went black.

"We're ready, Thrakkiss," came Nitsud's voice over the intercom. "Shall we head to Kaat'n?"

"Yes.," came his worried reply.

The discourse with Jaron had awoken something he had not felt within himself since his imprisonment in Phyrexia.

Fear.