The Quest for Karn

Chapter 13

They walked in darkness for a time. A choked call echoed through the vast cavern they were walking in. The guide was sometimes by their side and sometimes nowhere to be found.

“How do we hear the Phyrexian’s calls but they do not find us?” Elspeth said.

No one answered.

“It is strange,” Venser agreed.

“They do find us, or haven’t you noticed?” Koth said.

“I have not seen any other passages or doors,” Venser said, changing the subject. “But they must be here. Where is the guide?”

“I have not seen him in …,” Elspeth said.

It was hard to judge time and Elspeth let her words hang unfinished.

They walked back to the door they had just come through.

“Do you remember how many hearts were in the room with the small Phyrexian?” Elspeth asked.

“There were thirty-three,” Venser said.

“What were they used for?” Koth pressed. He had perked up remarkably, Venser thought, after being cast out by his people again. What a strange being, Venser thought.

“Who is to say?” Venser grunted.

“What if something took them?” Koth proposed.

“Something might have. Maybe that small silver creature that led us for a time,” Venser said.

“And now we have another guide,” Elspeth said. “Who is also leading us unbidden.”

“I too am suspicious,” Venser said.

They searched the walls for another door. Covered with metal and flesh, the veinlike tubes that glistened and squished when they parted them to look for a door made Venser feel as if he were searching through the intestines of a huge creature. And he found nothing.

“Why would the silver creature lead us and then disappear?” asked Elspeth. She turned to Venser-dark, sticky oil covered her hands and arms. The more time he spent around the white warrior, the less he felt he knew about her, and the more nervous she made him. The way she shook when she fought Phyrexians put his hairs up. They were the enemy, there was no doubt of that, but that someone could harbor such a complete hatred of anything made him uneasy. What did you have to do to get on Elspeth’s list of hated things, and what would you do if you did?

“Have you found something?” Koth said.

Venser turned back to his search. He looked and looked but it was Koth who finally found a small hole behind a bank of articulated columns of shiny metal, which swayed slightly to an unheard rhythm. The columns moved to the side when he pushed on them. The door that lay behind was perhaps the perfect size for a seven-year-old human child. Except its handle was smeared with blood and clots had formed in the drip line that stretched to the floor.

“It stretches,” Koth said, reaching down and pulling the edge of the fleshy hole wider. “Even I can fit.” The small door was merely a plug. They pulled it off and propped it against the ductwork.

“Do we go down this?” Elspeth said.

“Why not?” Koth demanded.

The guide stepped out of the shadows. Venser had the strong feeling that he had been watching them the whole time. But why would that be?

“We may travel that way,” the guide said.

Koth nodded at him and then turned to Elspeth.

“We go this way,” Venser said, with more force than he meant.

Elspeth nodded.

Koth looked away.

“Are we ready?” Venser repeated.

“Yes, I am ready,” Koth said. “But I do not follow your orders.”

“You don’t follow my orders,” Venser repeated. “Then will you take a suggestion and tell fair Elspeth and myself if you are ready to walk through this door and confront what may be there?”

“As I said, I am ready.”

“All right, I will go first.” Venser went through the door feetfirst. It was not a pleasant sensation pushing through the space, which seemed to close in on you from all sides, as if there was water on the other side. He could hear the echoed reverberations of movement all around him, and he could hear strange modulations of sound. For one moment he thought he heard the deep boom of Karn’s voice crying out in rage. But he had never known his old mentor and friend to make sounds like those. They had to have been made by something else.