The Quest for Karn

Chapter 7

The middle hole dropped them, as though in free fall. They had found the holes lined up one after the other and as each smelled as dank and foul as another, they chose the middle one. Much of the time Venser felt like he was traveling upside down. Some of the turns were so abrupt that his elbows slammed into the side of the strangely flexible tube. Other times the tube traveled straight. At one point the tube traveled straight for so long they actually stopped moving and had to crawl until they began to slide.

The speed picked up quickly and continued that way for so long that Venser seriously considered teleporting away. Yet still the speed increased, the turns coming one after the other without warning. Venser could hear Koth muttering as they skidded through the tunnel. Before long, even the usually quiet Elspeth began to bellow and bang her heels on the tube. Finally the chute dumped them in an unceremonious heap on the smooth floor of another vast room, gasping and blinking and stunned in the light.

Unlike any other room Venser had seen under Mirrodin, the room was bright. Very bright. It was as if its own sun had risen and sat directly overhead. They struggled to their feet and wandered, blinded, holding each other’s sleeves like children, until Venser bumped into a wall and they all put their backs to its coolness and slid down onto the floor.

“Can you see?” Koth said.

“No,” Venser said at last. When he opened his eyes the light hurt deep in his head. Still, he had hoped Elspeth would respond so he could gauge just how disturbed the tube had made her. From the sound of her cries as they slid, Venser wanted to know if she had come unhinged.

“Hold up your hand,” Koth said. “Peer through the cracks between your fingers.”

Venser brought up his filthy hand and rested it on his brow. Through the space between his middle and first fingers he was able to see without the sharp pain.

The ball of light was still blazing in the ceiling. The floor continued to vibrate. Sometimes the vibrations were more and sometimes less. But the light that burned down on them was as constant as any machine.

“My job in their prison,” Elspeth said in a voice made rough by her prolonged bawl in the tube, “was to cut down the bodies the Phyrexians left behind. They liked to play and experiment and do other things. They would drive spikes through the space between the heel and tendon and hang their victims upside down. It was a prison.”

“Yes,” Venser said. “You told us that.”

“No, I mean for Phyrexians,” Elspeth said. “They took our parts for themselves. They are nothing more than perverse machines that want to masquerade as flesh and blood creatures, so they dress in our muscles, skin, and viscera.”

“They imprison their own?” Koth said after a time.

“Yes. The imprisoned ones experimented on us to keep quiet. At night they were mostly locked in their own cages by other Phyrexians.”

“That is fascinating,” Venser said. “And how did they treat prisoners of their own kind, the Phyrexians?”

“With deference, almost kindness, if that is possible,” Elspeth said. “If one of the prisoners was especially wild, some of the guards would collect around the door and sing to him.”

“Sing?”

“Well,” Elspeth said, “it did not sound like our singing. It was terrifying to hear.”

“So you were a distraction?” Koth said.

“Yes. A distraction.”

“And how are you here standing before us?” Koth said.

“Have some respect,” Venser said.

But Elspeth put a gloved hand on Koth’s shoulder. “Perhaps they did not prefer children? I do not know why. I ask myself that question quite often.”

Koth nodded before turning and gazing between his fingers at the scene. Venser waited to hear if Elspeth said anything more about her time in the Phyrexian prison. When she didn’t continue, Venser had a look at their surroundings-a truly vast space with flat floor and the light beating down. Venser could make out neither form nor the far-off shapes of doors. “I can’t see anything out there,” he said.

“Me neither,” Koth said. “But I will tell you one thing. Without water we’ll be hard pressed to last long in this room.”

“Do you feel that vibration?” Elspeth said.

“Yes.”

“That sound concerns me. It stops and starts.”

“Let us see,” Venser said.

With their hands resting on their brows, they walked forward in no particular direction. There were no landmarks so one direction was as good as any other. As they walked, their footfalls echoed away in the absolute stillness, punctuated by the sudden vibrations.

“Do you suppose those are the echoes from our feet returning to us?” Elspeth said. Once again, the quavering edge to her voice alarmed Venser.

“I thought of that,” Venser said, “but no. Those vibrations are something else. They are not regular enough to be our footfalls.”

They continued their march. The blinding light above their heads never moved, so it was difficult to tell how long they had been walking, but it would have been half of the day’s movement of a normal sun. Finally the heat became so much that they stopped on the flat plain. Elspeth, who had the only water flask, shared what drops she had, but it was not enough. They walked again.

When Koth stopped grumbling, Venser started to worry. The ground was still flat and hot and the edges of the room were not within view.

It was Koth, still mute in the heat, who first tripped and fell slowly to his knees. He kneeled like that in the blazing heat with his hand over his eyes until Elspeth offered her hand and pulled the large vulshok to his feet. He stood wobbling for some seconds before taking a step and then another and they were on their slow way again.

“Nothing is changing,” Koth said.

“Indeed,” Elspeth said.

“I wouldn’t say that exactly, geomancer,” Venser said. He had stopped and was staring intently between his fingers in a certain direction.

“Do you detect something?” Elspeth asked.

“I am unsure. There is a dot.”

“A moving dot?” Koth said.

Venser said nothing as he watched. Soon the dot became larger between Venser’s fingers.

“It is moving,” he said. “Toward us.”

Koth leaned forward and sat down hard. “I will not move until it nears.”

“What if it is Phyrexian?” Elspeth said.

“That is almost certainly what it is,” Venser said. “And we are at our weakest.”

Venser squinted at the moving dot. There was a snapping sound and in an instant the artificer was gone. Elspeth and Koth watched. The dot stopped. There was a tremendous screeching sound and then a bang and a clank. Then nothing. The dot did not move and Venser did not appear. They waited in the brightness until their heads were pounding, and then they started to walk to the dot. It took a long time to reach it. As they walked, the dot slowly got larger, until it was something larger than a galley.

It was a huge Phyrexian and its body was covered in dull pocked iron. It walked on six stubby legs with its belly raking the ground. The metal back was covered with spikes and holes. A tiny head of mostly chipped teeth popping out of a small mouth thrust out the front. Pipes connected the side and back of the head to its massive body. Venser was not there.

The Phyrexian appeared to be asleep. Its eyes were closed and it lay on its stomach with all six of its stubby legs stretched out straight to the side.

There was another bang and a crash and a panel on the side of the Phyrexian popped open. Venser’s head appeared.

“I believe this was a crusher,” he said, struggling to get his body out of the round hole he’d opened.

“Yes,” Koth said.

“It will function no more,” Venser said. He threw down a wet wad of material, which splattered and clanged on the ground. It was covered in oil.

Venser tried to climb down the side of the large creature, but his oily hands lost their purchase and he began to slide. Elspeth caught him with a smile on her face.

“See,” he said. “That’s all it takes to loosen the mood around here.”

They put their hands back over their eyes and looked at the beast.

“What is it doing in this room?” Koth said.

Venser shrugged. “Existing,” Venser said. “Perhaps it could not leave the room before the Phyrexians took it over and it still cannot.”

But Elspeth was not looking at the creature. She was looking back in the direction they had come from.

“I think yon creature is a friend to this one,” she said. “It is advancing on us.”

Koth turned. “Is there room inside this one?”

“No,” Venser said. “Not for all of us and not for one of your size I would wager.”

The far-off dot advanced. It moved slower than the other dot had. As it slowly neared they could make out strings. As it came still closer, they saw that the strings were actually chains.

If the first Phyrexian crusher had been large, the one approaching was very, very large. Venser took a step back and almost turned and ran. The creature lumbered forward on huge, crooked legs. It was easily as large as a small city and it dragged its inhabitants on chains behind it.

Some were alive, Venser saw, and walking slowly with the chains clipped around their necks. They were mostly humans, and in various states of phyresis. All were armed with swords.

“Moriok,” Koth said. “Shadow-aligned humans.”

Many were motionless bodies being dragged behind. Some were no more than rotted corpses. Venser noticed with not a little bit of unease that many of them were missing their legs. The moving city was made of dull, jagged metal, pocked and wound with sinew and with a single head the size of a dragon propped on top of its amazing bulk. The head, though small, looked all around from deep set eyes. Beside the small eyes, the rest of the space on the head was dominated by a huge mouth of sharp teeth, dripping with bright red blood. Many clawed hands on thin arms hung over its side.

It lumbered to a stop before the companions, and a huge rooster tail of steam shot up into the air. What flesh the being once had was long ago turned to black and metallic Phyrexian armor.

One of the giant’s thin arms reached down and gave a chain a tug. The moriok attached to it struggled to stand, and when he could not, the Phyrexian lifted him by the chain as though a marionette. It dangled the struggling human into its open mouth. When the moriok’s legs were kicking the creature’s sharp teeth, the mouth closed with a snap. The moriok was without legs the next moment, screaming and flailing its arms as the blood and organs fell. The Phyrexian dropped the chain and chewed slowly as it regarded the companions.

“What’s the plan?” Koth whispered.

Venser shrugged. “The head?” he said.

“Can we gain entrance to his body?” Elspeth said.

Nobody replied. Steam shot out its back as the crusher slowly began its charge. It put its arms out and choked a cry. Creaking and whining as it started to move, the moriok stood straighter and pulled swords. Venser closed his eyes and took quick stock of his reserves of mana. Not good. He reached out with his mind to catch a fluttering tether. Once he caught one he yanked it straight and felt the cool flow of energy emptying into his skull. Elspeth drew her sword, and Koth closed his eyes and mouth and held his breath. A moment later his body and face were as red as the melted rock Venser had seen in the Oxidda Chain. The geomancer stepped into the path of the lumbering Phyrexian, whose legs were moving it, crablike, at a fairly brisk clip toward them with the moriok advancing before it.

The first moriok swung its sword at Koth. The blade of the sword caught on the vulshok’s suddenly red skin and melted before the moriok’s eyes. Koth reached out and burned his hand into the man’s chest and the moriok fell away screaming. Koth walked closer to the Phyrexian. The great beast did not stop, but merely swatted Koth to the side with one of his pitted arms. Koth flew far to the right.

Elspeth advanced and her sword flashed and blurred as she attacked at every angle imaginable. In no time a large area of the Phyrexian was covered with deep hacks. But the juggernaut let out a horrible chuckle that sounded like someone was being drowned, before attempting to bring one large claw down on Elspeth. The white knight stepped to the side to avoid the attack. She brought her sword across and caught the Phyrexian in the wrist, hacking its claw almost off. Three other arms swept down on Elspeth, knocking her away.

The Phyrexian raised one of its clawed hands and held it above Elspeth. But Koth was there when the hand fell. He pushed, and slowly his hot skin began melting through the hand. How will that help Elspeth? Venser found himself wondering. The hand will simply fall around Koth and crush her.

Venser breathed deeply through his nose and felt his will collecting in his throbbing brain and extending out and away.

He found the Phyrexian’s brain, such as it was, and followed it back until he was fairly certain he was in the motor function area, though it was hard to be sure as the being had once been a crusher. To be sure, Venser sent a reverse-impulse request through the brain. The Phyrexian crusher lurched backward, a bewildered look on its tiny face. The hand pulled away with the rest of the body.

“Well,” Koth said between breaths. “That could have gone better.”

The Phyrexian stopped moving backward and began advancing again. Some of the moriok dropped their swords and simply plodded next to the crusher. A couple just sat down and let the huge machine drag them. The crusher creaked as it approached.

“I do not know how to strike such a thing,” Elspeth said, inspecting the edge of her sword before carefully sheathing it.

Venser could see his compatriots were tired. How long had it been since they slept more than an hour? Their water input amounted to what pools they could find collected in rust-metal divots, dripped down from the surface. Their dry tack was virtually inedible. Venser himself could lie down right there on the hot floor and sleep for three days. What he did not think he could fight right then was a massive crushing machine that traveled with its meals shackled to it.

A cry caught Venser’s ear. He turned. Behind them stood an array of Phyrexians of various shapes and sizes, but all with bodies of twisted metal and stiffened veins. There were at least one hundred of them with their claws up and their frothing mouths opening and closing soundlessly. They collected around the crusher as the huge beast navigated itself forward.

“I don’t suppose,” Koth said, looking from the crusher to the new arrivals, “that you can teleport us all away? Even I would not mind a good teleport right now.”

“No,” Venser said. Even though he did not like to admit it, there was a certain feeling rising in his throat that was telling him to flee. He could. He could teleport out of the way and keep going, keep searching for Karn. He had not asked to come to the metal place. He would have come eventually, to be sure, but in his own time, and when he was properly provisioned and ready. His situation was madness. He cast his eyes around the vast cavern. Not one obstacle to hide behind for as far as he could see, which was not far when he had to peer between his fingers to see anything.

The crusher creaked and whined its dry joints as it began to move forward faster.

Venser took a quick breath and disappeared, only to snap into existence the next instant in front of the crusher. The Phyrexian was so surprised it stopped. The chained moriok took one look at the swirls and waves of blue whirling around Venser’s hands, and refused to move.

Venser swept a section of the Phyrexian’s riveted plate out of the way. The metal, pliable to the artificer’s mind, flowed in a graceful wave out of the path of his hand. Venser reached to his upper arms into the interior of the Phyrexian. He began rearranging. A moment later the crusher’s arm impacted his side and Venser slid out over the smooth floor. He skittered to a stop at the foot of a huge Phyrexian with thick legs and a shelflike chest, skeletal arms and a head as large as its fist. Before Venser could stand, the Phyrexian seized his skull in the palm of one claw and lifted him off the ground. The creature’s other hand was poised for a strike with two of its claw fingers extended to gouge into Venser’s eye sockets.

Venser brushed the hand aside, but as the fingers and palm dripped back into the wrist, the tips of other claws poked out of the wrist, and another hand grew before his eyes, literally. Soon there was another claw.

Then something exceedingly odd happened. All the metal on the Phyrexian began to arc upward, as though it were dripping upside down. The dark metal of it began to dance and wind, much to the creature’s amazement. Its exposed sinews and muscles looked strangely naked as its whole body began to tumble down without the metal’s support. The metal of the creature’s structure danced higher and higher in the air. The meat parts of the Phyrexian fell with a wet thump to the metal floor. But nobody was watching that. All eyes were on the metal, arcing up and down and side to side in graceful loops and peaks.

The metal turned colors as well-first red, then jet black, and then a bright, shimmering gold. Venser heard Koth’s sharp intake of breath when the metal went a glassy blue. It pulled together into a square shape and fell with a hard thump on the ground next to the crumpled Phyrexian the metal had come from, who looked at it with eyeballs bare and wobbly.

Then somebody was clapping. Venser turned to see a line of Phyrexians different than any he’d seen up to that point. They were twisted and small of head, with teeth coming out everywhere, and their metal parts were shiny. Their hands had small devices and long, sharp tools of chrome attached to them. And standing at the center of them was a human, or most of a human. A bright light shone at his right shoulder. Venser felt his breath catch in his throat as he recognized the metal floating in strips around that radiant shoulder. The strips extended in a fluid motion down an arm that ended in a long-fingered hand. An arm that glowed as much as the shoulder. A metal arm unlike any Venser had ever seen. And as Venser stared, his jaw slack, the being continued to clap.