Slobad ran beside her. His wrinkled little goblin body moved surprisingly fast, considering how short his legs were. His tool pouch bounced against his body as he ran. It always did whenever they were running away from something. It seemed as if they had been doing that since the day they met.
Glissa spared a glance over her shoulder. Bosh, the artifact golem, tromped along right behind her. His rusting iron frame seemed to lumber along, but what he lacked in agility, he made up for in size and strength. Each one of his footsteps measured more than three of Glissa’s. It was a good thing too. On more than one occasion it had been Bosh’s long legs that had saved their necks.
The clanking sound of his heavy metal feet colliding with the ground was dampened by the glowing mossy substance covering every inch of the tunnel and lighting their way. The funny thing about Bosh was that no matter what he did, his face always held the same stoically serious expression. Right now, that look of utter concentration and contemplation seemed appropriate.
In the giant construct’s outstretched arms, the newest member of the group rode, her face curled up tight in a grimace of pain, her hands gripping her leg. She had been hit by a harpoon while standing beside the Knowledge Pool. They had already removed the metal shaft, but the leg was still broken. Bruenna was a human wizard of considerable power, though none of those powers could heal her broken leg.
Glissa turned her attention back to the mossy ground before her. It gripped her feet, making each step more tiring.
The lacuna tunnel through which they ran was round and regular and traveled downward in a curved line. The slight bend in the passage blocked Glissa’s view of the warriors pursuing her. That, at least, was comforting.
Though she couldn’t see the vedalken, she knew they were there. She could hear their marching feet squish the mossy ground as they gave chase. Of course they were going to chase her. She and her friends had broken into their most sacred place. Even though it was for a good reason, Glissa didn’t think the blue-skinned, four-armed creatures saw it that way. In fact, she felt certain they wanted her dead.
Rounding a bend, the lacuna split in two.
Glissa coasted to a stop, breathing hard. Were this the Tangle, she would know which path to take, but she was a long way from her home now-in a place that until a few minutes ago, she never knew existed.
“Bruenna.… Which way?”
The wizard looked down through pained and teary eyes. “I … I don’t-”
“Left.” Bosh’s voice boomed over Bruenna’s.
Glissa looked up at her metal companion. “Left?”
“Left,” he repeated.
“How you know?” Slobad asked, now gasping beside the elf. “Your memory back now, huh?”
The golem’s voice rumbled through the tunnel again. “Yes. I remember this place.”
The sound of the marching vedalken army grew louder in the curved tunnel. Glissa looked to Bruenna. The human shrugged.
“We go left,” announced the elf. She continued her sprint down the tube. The goblin loped along beside her, as the clank of Bosh’s massive feet resumed.
The tunnel continued on, and the mossy covering grew thicker, more dense. After another long turn the passage straightened, and a bright blue-white light beamed in. Glissa shielded her face, her eyes painfully adjusting from the dull glow of the moss that lit the tunnel to the blinding light now cascading down on her.
Slowing down, she asked, “Where is that light coming from?”
“I don’t know,” replied the mage.
“The mana core,” answered Bosh. He nudged Glissa forward with his great bulk. “It is a long way off. We can travel on safely.”
The elf shook her head. “I hope you’re right.”
“Hope it not levelers,” added Slobad. “Slobad not dismantle whole army.”
“No,” said Bruenna, “but the vedalken army will dismantle us if we don’t keep going.”
Not the most ideal set of options.
Glissa took off without another word. Bruenna was right. It didn’t matter what the light ahead of them was. They couldn’t stop. Better to head for the possibility of escape than cower from it and be killed by the vedalken.
The light grew as the comrades ran. Glissa could make out the end of the great tunnel. Back-lit shapes began to form between the light and the thick carpet of moss.
At last elf, goblin, golem, and human burst from the lacuna.
Glissa fell to her knees at the sight before her. Her stomach churned, and her eyes seemed unable to focus. The world she had known, that had been changing daily for days now, was once again turned upside down.
“It’s true,” she whispered. “Mirrodin is hollow.”
The interior of Mirrodin was more beautiful and terrifying than anything Glissa had ever seen in her life. It was as if all the world had been turned inside out and stuffed down the lacuna. Since Chunth’s final words to her, she had tried to imagine it, but imagination fell short of the reality.
A whole world rolled out before them. Spires of crystalline chrome rose from the ground, reaching toward the sky like the trees and brambles of the Tangle, but unlike the great metal forest, these structures were not so close together. At their tops, where branches and leaves should have been, these spires came to a jagged point. The towering growths rose from the ground toward a blinding blue-white ball in the sky.
A low, electrical buzz issued from the hissing core-made up of mana, Glissa guessed-filling the interior of the plane, settling over all creatures and structures as if it were a blanket. It didn’t drown out all other sounds, but it created a barrier that other sounds couldn’t escape. If Slobad or Bruenna were too far away, Glissa felt certain they wouldn’t hear her call their names. The sensation from this all-encompassing noise was odd but somehow comforting to the elf, as if in this wide-open space a little piece of it had been reserved just for her use.
Above the interior “sun,” hanging from the ceiling, more of the pointed chrome monoliths jabbed downward. From where Glissa stood, the interior of Mirrodin looked like a rotting, toothy mouth, poised to bite down on the mana core at its center.
The mossy carpeting continued from the lacuna, covering the ground and everything in its path. Here and there, straight patches had been seemingly stripped away, making lines on the ground like the veins of a leaf. In these openings, polished metal shone through, reflecting the light of the mana core overhead.
In the far distance, a tall blue tower distinguished itself from the rest of its surroundings. It stood above the other pointed towers and ended in a rounded bulb at the top. Though all the other spires were covered at the base by the mossy ground covering, this one was not, and it shone brightly, reflecting the blue-white glow that touched everything.
Looking out over this mythical world, Glissa became dizzy. She felt as if her brain were growing, as if it might burst from her puny skull. There was so much to take in, and none of it seemed to make any sense. The monsters her parents had spoken of in bedtime stories were now all suddenly real. A whole world existed inside her world-but that was impossible.
“What is all of this?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
“These tall chrome structures are called mycosynth,” replied Bosh. The metal golem lifted Bruenna, pointing with an outstretched finger at the shining structure in the distance. “That is called Panopticon.”
“How do you know all this?” asked the human wizard suspended in his arms.
“I used to live here-”
Bosh’s explanation was cut short by a high-pitched wail. Slobad jumped up and down, pointing toward Panopticon, squealing.
“Levelers! Levelers! Levelers!”