Venser turned to run, and the Phyrexian raised its hand. The artificer stopped in his tracks. He closed his eyes and felt the grip of the creature’s mana on his heart, which raced and skipped along in his chest. He had one chance. He reached out with the mana he had left, and formed a link with the beast. For one horrid moment he saw into the thing’s mind-a murky place of blood and constant screaming and hunger and no light. Venser turned that part of his brain down. Then he began to drop the mental walls he kept constantly around his mind to protect from telepathic attack. If he did it correctly, the link he had with the creature’s mind would allow the mana directed against him to move through and back to the sender, as if in a circuit. Sometimes it even worked. Once, when attacked by a mind-mage trying to steal one of his creations, Venser had tried to form the link and pass the thief’s attack back to him, only to suffer a minor stroke when the attacker blocked his own mind.
So, if the sender threw up its own wall fast enough, then the full charge turned around and came thundering back.
Venser dropped his last mind barricade, and a moment later the Phyrexian stood upright and began jerking wildly. Venser made his hold tighter and tighter, until the thing sunk to its knobby knees in the stench and began to shriek.
The sound was so loud Venser almost lost his concentration. It echoed off the walls and down the cavernous room. Venser tightened his mind, and then tightened it again. A moment later the Phyrexian had black fluid running from its eyes and the holes of its ears pitched forward and did not rise again.
But the scream had not gone unanswered. From the far side of the room Venser heard a cry and the tromping of many feet running. He was almost too fatigued to move, but move he did. Koth and Elspeth were already at the door by the time he arrived. Koth punched the lidded doorway, to no effect.
“Stand away,” Elspeth said. She drew her sword and thrust it deep into the rubbery flesh and drew downward, pulling a neat cut from top to bottom. Fluid spurted out and the cut yawned wide.
“You first,” Elspeth said, stepping back for Koth.
The vulshok gazed uncertainly into the gash. Then he stepped through and his leg disappeared suddenly. The choking call was echoed behind them and Venser jumped through the gash. He felt himself carried along a tube in the dark, winding and turning and then tumbling downward, and suddenly stopping.
“Do these foes travel in this manner all the time,” Elspeth said, picking herself off the ground. Cut hearts were strewn everywhere at the base of the eye, which irised closed behind them. Venser’s foot slipped on one of the organs as he tried to stand.
Koth was already away from the hole. The room was as large as the last, and just as dark, but Koth was glowing all over his body. He turned. “Look at this,” he said.
Venser walked over to where the vulshok was squatting. The glow emanating from the front of his body cut a rosy swath through the darkness. In the light, large chunks of rock cast severe shadows.
“Are those rocks?” Venser said.
Koth nodded. “These are rocks. I was a Planeswalker before I saw my first rock. “They are not known on Mirrodin.”
“How are they here, in this deep place?” Elspeth said.
Koth shook his head.
Venser approached one of the rocks. It was really more of a boulder. It stood taller than Venser, and if he was to trust the jagged edges, then it was blasted or torn out of a mountain in some way.
“This is stanite,” Venser said.
“What does that mean?” Koth said.
“It is a common rock, found on many planes.”
“Very strong,” Elspeth said.
“I can’t think what the enemy needs this for.”
Venser looked closely at the rock. “How long have you been away from Mirrodin?”
“About a season,” Koth said.
“And the Phyrexians were here when you left?”
“Well, they weren’t on the surface, I’ll tell you that,” Koth said, pushing his knuckles into the palm of his hand.
Venser looked back to the rock. “That is interesting.”
“Why?” Elspeth said.
“Only that these rocks have been here for years,” Venser said.
“How do you know?”
Venser put out his finger and pulled it across the top of one of the boulders. His finger left a deep trail on it. “Dust,” Venser said.
“I do not think the Phyrexians pulled these here,” Elspeth said.
But Koth was not paying attention to the boulders anymore. His eyes were back on the portal, which remained open. “Why have they not come after us?” he said.
Venser turned. “It could be that there are many splits in the tubing, and they don’t know which one we took.”
“Why did we take this one?”
“I have no idea,” Venser admitted. “I had hoped you would be able to tell us.”
“These openings and tubes are not Mirrodin technology.”
Chapter 11
They moved between the boulders until they found a set of badly corroded stairs. The stairs went up and up, swaying and creaking as the four climbed them. Venser walked up them first as a test. If he fell or encountered anything unforeseen, he could teleport back down, or he could have counted on being able to do that before his trip with the fleshling. He abruptly wondered if he would ever teleport dependably again. But he did not encounter anything except stairs that did not stop.
Eventually he walked back down and they all started to walk up the open stairs. They climbed so high that they left the light below. Soon they could see the entire larger cavern, and then more caverns beneath them, all glowing in the pulsing light from the rivers of molten metal.
The stairs were wide, but not quite wide enough for Elspeth and the fleshling to walk abreast. Koth walked two steps below and made sure that the fleshling did not teeter backward.
Venser stayed ahead, with his blue wisps lighting the way before them. Twice they heard a tremendous roar vibrate the wall that the stairs were affixed to. The second time the walls and the steps vibrated and Venser thought for one tight second that they would all tumble. But the tremor passed quickly, and they encountered no true opposition, save the stairs themselves.
The air was so hot that Venser’s throat tightened every time he took a breath. The air had taken on a particular smoky taste. Koth on the steps below breathed deeply and exhaled loudly.
“Ore,” he said. “Lots of ore.”
The stairs ended abruptly at a landing. A platform of hot metal. Venser could feel the heat through his boots. A doorway with a metal door, not an eye, not a mouth, no metal-and-flesh conduit, stood at the top of the landing. It was clad and shining. Venser tugged one of his mana tethers and felt the cool tingle as the power emptied into his cranium. He sniffed and whispered his spell of wrought, but the door remained solid and unmoving. Cursing under his breath Venser spoke other words, and even traced a sigil that sat glowing on the door. Then he seized the air in front of the door and twisted. The sweat popped out on his forehead as he turned the air. He clenched his teeth and kept turning. Eventually he was able to reach into the metal of the door and scooped the lock out. The door swung open.
The cavern on the other side of the door was filled with a red glow. It was a large room, Venser could tell-he could see no walls. He stepped into the room, followed by the others.
A movement drew his eye too late, and a huge Phyrexian moved into his field of view from the right. It was large and skeletal in appearance, and glowing. What looked like bone, however, proved to be glowing metal, and its thin arms trailed behind it as it stumbled along. The heat emanating from it made Venser’s cheek tingle. The Phyrexian stopped and turned to them, examining them with its small head. Venser fell back and readied himself. But the Phyrexian turned away and continued walking. Soon it was gone, lost to the glow and fire.