All about the room, il-Vec guards stood like hypertrophied statues. Among them was the court mage, Ertai. Spine-implanted and metal-trussed, the man had become a whipping boy. Constant desperation rimmed his red eyes. He stood there, statue still, even though his master was nowhere to be seen.

Tsabo Tavoc paused, expecting to be announced. The guards paid her no heed. Even Ertai averted his eyes. This was the most galling of all. Tsabo Tavoc strode toward the nearest guard, intent on slaying him. She was stopped short by a sound from behind the throne-words and laughter.

"-nice to know you have finally noticed, Father," came a mellifluous voice.

Another speaker replied, "No, indeed, Son. It is nice of you to forgive our long ignorance of your greatness."

"Don't even start to apologize, Father. I would not expect imperfect creatures such as you and Mother to understand perfection."

A shrill, false laugh answered, the mocking sound of a man pretending to be a woman. "Well said, Son! We should have made your room a shrine much sooner."

"Yes, you should have." More laughing shrieks. "You've seen how popular it is. Tens of thousands of troops line up to do homage."

Tsabo Tavoc edged out around the throne. Beyond, on a small dais, sat a dainty table spread with a white-lace tablecloth. A silver kettle sent tea-scented steam into the air. Three cups and saucers sat decorously before three chairs of carved ebony. Two of those chairs held human skeletons, crudely wired together. The bones were smoke blackened, some half-burned away, some missing altogether. The skulls were the most obvious absentees.

They rested on the hands of the man who sat in the third chair-Crovax.

The Evincar of Rath had once been a small man. That was before Yawgmoth had transformed him. Now Crovax had a powerful chest and a torso like a bull's. Under black scale armor, huge arms flexed, easily able to hurl a man fifty feet upward to die on a stalactite. His legs were equally broad, like coiled springs. Crovax's head jutted, round and close cropped, from a metallic collar. The worst change of all to him, though, were his teeth-row on row of triangular, jag-edged teeth. Crovax's jaws could distend, allowing him to remove heads with those teeth. He had eyes to match, the soulless eyes of a shark.

Evincar Crovax did not seem to notice Tsabo Tavoc's arrival. Instead, he continued his conversation with the skull puppets he held on his hands. Gravely serious, he stared at his tea guests.

"When I was growing up, I thought you'd never understand me. If I'd known all it took was your murder and immolation, I would have done it much sooner."

His father's skull boomed a belly laugh. His mother shrieked her merriment.

Tsabo Tavoc interrupted. "Evincar Crovax, the Ineffable has sent me to give report."

Blinking, Crovax looked up at Tsabo Tavoc. He did not seem to see her. "And you are?"

Red anger showed on her face. "I am Tsabo Tavoc."

With a nod, Crovax seemed to recall. "Oh, yes. One of the field commanders-"

"I am your second-in-command," Tsabo Tavoc corrected.

Crovax shook his head, a little jiggling motion. "That cannot be. I do not have a second-in-command." Setting down the skulls, he stood. "My second-in-command was destroyed at Koilos."

"Those rumors are false," Tsabo Tavoc hissed. She was not accustomed to dealing with superiors and hadn't even now convinced herself she dealt with one. "I am Tsabo Tavoc. I survived Koilos."

"That cannot be," he repeated. "Ten thousand scuta, twenty thousand bloodstocks, thirty thousand troopers did not survive-"

"But I did."

"One hundred ten dragon engines, six witch engines, forty gargantua, twenty trench worms-"

Tsabo Tavoc loomed up before him. "But I did."

"One hundred heavy ordnance, two hundred field ordnance, five hundred slashers-"

"But I did!" she raged, lunging for him.

Her legs would not move. The floor was not black slate but flowstone. Crovax controlled it. It had latched onto her legs. She could not rip them free.

Crovax continued as though she hadn't interrupted. "All those troops lost, all those machines… gone. Worse still, the permanent portal, which had joined Phyrexia and Dominaria for nine thousand years-it was lost too. And Gerrard Capashen, whom you were charged to gain for Yawgmoth? All this lost, and yet you survive?"

A shudder of fear moved through Tsabo Tavoc. She was used to fear, to feeling it in others, but it had been decades since she had felt it for herself.

Crovax walked up to stand before her. His head did not even rise to meet her thorax. Despite all the doubt that rumpled his brow, Crovax grinned.

"Still, I can't deny what my eyes tell me. Here you are. Second-in-command Tsabo Tavoc."

"Yes," she replied tersely.

"You are not as grand as tales have said. I heard silken skin." He gestured at the leather thongs that held together her belly wound. "This looks more like burlap. It's crude work. We'll have to fix that."

He reached up, grasped the wound in a powerful grip, and ripped it out-thongs, laceration, skin, and muscle. His fingers clutched the hunk of flesh. Glistening-oil dribbled onto the floor. Vampire hounds loped up to lick it away.

Shrieking in pain and rage, Tsabo Tavoc struggled to pull her legs free. She would kill this bastard… In a rage, she lunged down to grab Crovax with her human arms.

Crovax casually lifted his bloodied fist and backhanded her face.

The force of the blow was incredible. Tsabo Tavoc would have tumbled across the floor if her legs hadn't been rooted. She reeled. Glistening-oil coursed down her head.

Crovax meanwhile delicately balanced the meaty gobbet on the nose of one of his vampire hounds. The huge canine dutifully waited, oil sliding into its nostrils, until Crovax nodded. Fangy jaws snapped, and the flesh was gone down the beast's throat.

Petting the creature, Crovax turned his attention back to the dizzy spider woman. He gazed gravely at her thorax.

"And shoddy workmanship, these legs. We'll have to fix that as well."

He gripped the first of her new legs and hauled against the joint. Metal cracked. Wires snapped. Sparks flew. A ball sucked free from a fleshy socket. The leg fell to ground.

Tsabo Tavoc tried to grab him again.

Crovax merely caught her arms and ripped them off.

The pain was exquisite. She had forgotten what her own agony felt like.

One by one, he broke her other legs free, all eight of them. With a crash, she fell to the floor. She writhed amid her own limbs. Oil covered her.

Vampire hounds converged. Their eager tongues lapped at her.

"So that's it then?” she screamed. "You'll feed me to your dogs?"

Crovax called off the hounds, speaking a single command in a violent language. They ducked their heads and licked their jowls before loping away.

Stepping across the mess of legs, Crovax towered above her. "No. I will not feed you to them. Despite all your failures, you were a great warrior. It would be foolish of me to let a hound gain the courage of your heart, or the knowledge of your brain, or the wisdom of your liver. Those are delicacies suited for conquerors. And, whatever you once were, my dear, I am now your conqueror."

He set his boot on her throat and stepped down, crushing windpipe and spine.

Crovax retired late that evening, after a perfectly prepared meal. The organ meats were, of course, the main treat, but there were also some fine steaks-sirloin, flank, shank, and chuck. The ribs would make a good lunch tomorrow, and he would have roast brisket for dinner. The rest was being stewed for later.

Crovax felt full and satisfied but not yet good. There was only one thing that made him feel good these days.