The Quest for Karn

Chapter 17

They pursued Koth and the fleshling through the vast room. Venser put his blue wisps before them so they could see. Far in the distance the guide said he could see a slight red glow, which they understood to be Koth’s own light. Venser remarked at how someone as large as Koth could move so quickly.

“They are captured,” Elspeth said.

“Has any Phyrexian tried to capture us yet?” Venser said.

“They captured you.”

“Well, Koth is not captured. He has the fleshling.”

“Where are they going?” Elspeth said, turning to the guide, her voice raised.

Even though his chest and head were administering a fair amount of pain to him, Venser still noticed how the disappearance of the fleshling had affected Elspeth’s mood for the worse.

“I do not know,” the guide said. “I know no door that way.”

“That cannot be good,” Venser said. “How could Koth know his way down here?”

“Because he’s a spy,” Elspeth said. “I don’t know.”

To Venser the room seemed to never end. They walked for a time and then they ran. Hours passed and perhaps days, but Elspeth would not let them stop. Even when the cuts on Venser’s chest began to throb and his thinking was muddled by the blow to his head, even then Elspeth would not let them stop.

“Drink some of your magic potion,” she snapped.

He did not. But he did pat the small bottle in his torn shirt. He would be having a sip soon enough.

Elspeth’s temper shortened as the trail cooled. At one point, the guide stopped and looked back the way they had come, then forward again with a confused look on his face.

“What is it?” Elspeth said.

“It seems we are being followed,” he said.

“But where are the fleshling and the other one?”

The guide looked ahead. “I do not see the light anymore.”

“You have lost the trail?”

The guide stared ahead. He bent to a crouch and carefully removed the glove from his left hand, which was metal. He placed his fingertips on the metal floor.

“Yes, I feel the tramp of many feet from behind,” the guide said. “And none from ahead.”

“How many behind?” Venser said.

The guide was silent with his fingers to the metal. “Many,” he said at last. “Very many are running, metal on metal.”

“Like Phyrexians?” Venser said.

The guide said nothing.

Elspeth shook her head. All they needed right now. More Phyrexians.

“What is ahead of us?” Venser said to the guide.

“As I said earlier, I know of no doors ahead.”

“And the wall?” Venser said. “Is just ahead, I suppose?”

The guide nodded.

“So we are flanked,” Elspeth said.

“It seems so,” the guide said.

“Then let’s run and see if there is a new doorway in the wall,” Venser said.

But Elspeth barely ran. She jogged along behind Venser and the guide, and when they reached the wall she stood staring behind. Venser and the guide began feeling for inconsistencies on the smooth wall, but found none. Elspeth continued staring back.

“I won’t go back into their care,” Elspeth said.

Venser and the guide had moved on to the floor, and found nothing. When Elspeth spoke, Venser stood and walked over to her. By then he could feel the tramp of metal feet and heavy machinery through his boots. Elspeth turned as Venser approached.

“I will not go back into their prisons again,” Elspeth repeated.

“So you say,” Venser said.

Elspeth looked down at his belt, where his dented helmet was strapped. “What will you do with it?”

“Mend it when I have more energy,” he said.

The floor was starting to vibrate hard. The guide appeared out of the darkness. “They are a very large force,” he said, breathless from running. “And they are looking for something.”

“They are looking for the fleshling,” Venser said. “At least she is away with Koth and not here.” Venser looked over his shoulder, half expecting the fleshling and Koth to step out of the shadows at his pronouncement.

Elspeth drew her sword out of its scabbard. She felt better than she had in years, and her sword gleamed brighter than ever.

“This is a force we cannot hope to prevail against,” the guide said.

“What other options do we have?” Venser said.

“You can jump away,” Elspeth said.

“But I won’t.”

“But you should. Go. Attack them from the rear if that gives you the justification you need. As I remember, you were able to give me justifications for retreat earlier in this quest. I am giving you the same for teleporting.”

Venser cocked his head at Elspeth. “Are those tears on your cheeks?”

“Heroes shed no tears,” Elspeth said.

From beyond Venser’s blue wisps came the calls of the enemy. As Elspeth watched, a horde broke into view. They were all shapes and sizes, legs and elbows jabbing out and eyes iridescent. Long-legged shanks and howling mouths filled with chipped and jagged teeth-all charged the small circle of blue light.

Elspeth, her teeth gritted and tears streaming down her face, charged. Her cry was so fierce and her form so terrible, that the first line of Phyrexians shied and fell back at her advance. Her sword was held above her head and it shined like the very essence of metal in the darkened room. When she struck, the sword’s blade became a blur. Phyrexians fell around her, first three then more. Soon there was a pile of twisted, skeletal bodies around her. But still she did not stop.

Venser breathed four breaths, and with these he pulled every ounce of mana he could tether or muster from the world around. His ears became full with the ringing of its arrival, and soon his brainpan felt as though it would overflow. Phyrexians ran to him and Venser reached out and seized the first one’s arm, bending its body so it fell, baying, to the floor. In the next moment he blinked away and appeared in the very middle of the horde, where he began tapping. Each tap sent a pulse through the metal exoskeleton. The pulse traveled the raceway of metal, picking up speed and amplifying itself. By the time it reached the brains of the creatures, it was powerful enough to cause a massive attack. The creatures fell seconds after he touched them.

There were piles of dead Phyrexians laid out over the shadowy circle of blue light. Few Phyrexians remained, and those left were being dealt with by Elspeth, who had begun slashing through them one at a time. For one mad second, Venser thought they might actually prevail.

Then more Phyrexians howled into sight. Many more of them, huge levelers, nattering micronaughts, and stinking long-legged beasts with hammered-together armor and black holes for eyes. A force three times again as large as the one they had decimated.

Venser blinked back to Elspeth’s side. The white warrior glanced at him. Her face was sheathed in sweat as she went back to hoisting her sword and slashing it down. Venser’s arms burned and his legs felt flimsy and useless.

The new force of Phyrexians fell on them. Venser was forced back. He looked over just in time to see a pack of large Phyrexians encircle Elspeth so that he could only see the tip of her sword doing its grim work. Then, the sword’s tip, too, disappeared from sight.

This was when he could disappear, Venser knew. This was when he could blink into the darkness and away. He was sure that the guide was out in the darkness waiting. In all likelihood he could find him. But then what? He could not leave, as infected as he was with the Phyrexian oil. He turned back to the Phyrexians.

What had Elspeth said?

‘Heroes shed no tears.’

The Phyrexians hurled themselves onto him, knocking him over. They were on him, smelling like the sewer and popping their joints as they raked their frenzied claws over him. He could not move under the weight of them.

“Hold.”

The voice came loud and clear, and the Phyrexians froze. Venser felt a cold drip on his forehead. A huge Phyrexian was dripping black oil on him from its left eye socket.

“Pull them up,” the voice said again.

Venser was yanked to his feet.

“Good to see you again and all that,” Tezzeret said.

Venser opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Elspeth, still struggling, was pulled into the circle.

“You?” she said.

Tezzeret yawned. “I know, it’s me again. I’m looking for the flesh being.”

“Is that why you attacked the rebels?” Venser said.

Tezzeret ignored him and looked at Elspeth, raising his eyebrows.

“She is not here,” Elspeth said.

“I see that,” Tezzeret said. “Where, oh, where did she run off to? A party somewhere?”

“She left us before you arrived,” Elspeth said.

Tezzeret looked at Elspeth for a long time. Then he turned to Venser and stared at him. Venser could feel a tickle in the center of his brain, and he knew that Tezzeret was searching for truth. Venser blocked the intrusion, but Tezzeret clearly got enough.

“That is unfortunate,” Tezzeret said. “We will have to keep looking. You both will be going back to Glissa for skinning.” Tezzeret turned and began walking away. He gestured back at them as he walked. “I don’t know why. You will have to ask her.” The Phyrexians parted and he walked between them.

Venser and Elspeth were hoisted. With the screech of rusted metal on metal the Phyrexians began to run. They ran their prisoners across the room. When they reached the wall, hours later, the Phyrexians in the front stopped and began looking at the wall, feeling at it with their claws. The lead Phyrexians scraped at the metal, but no opening occurred, neither was there an eyeway in evidence. They waited for Tezzeret to come forward, but he did not.

When it was clear that Tezzeret was not with them anymore, Venser leaned over to Elspeth.

“Tezzeret must have guided them,” Venser whispered to Elspeth. “They cannot find the portal without him.”

And it seemed to be true. The Phyrexians stood at the wall for many hours. First it was one and then all of them poked, scraped, and struck the metal wall. No portal opened.

Elspeth and Venser were still held, but by only one Phyrexian each: a large, white bastion. The bastions were encrusted with what looked like porcelain, chipped to expose the dark metal underneath. Venser’s was large, and held him with two of its four arms. It smelled like dead beetles. The bastions did not move to try their hands at opening the portal.

Then Venser saw something strange indeed-a form standing back in the darkness. It took him a moment of staring to figure out that it was Koth. Behind Koth he could just make out another humanoid outline. The fleshling. Venser leaned over to Elspeth. “Look slowly behind,” he whispered.

Elspeth nodded when she’d seen the vulshok.

The bastions that were holding them were three lengths away from the others, who had moved toward the wall to see if they could find the portal. Venser reached out with his mind into the dark recesses of the bastion that was holding him. As with every time he did that with a Phyrexian, he was shocked by the images he saw, the terror and violence, endless lines of headless, armless, legless torsos hung on hooks like so many hocks, a red-eyed face staring from a mud-daubed hut, stairs in a limitless room running up to an alter, where bodies were burning on a pyre. Strange visions leftover, no doubt, from the original being whose body the Phyrexian had grown from. Once he was connected with the vile mass in the bastion’s skull, he channeled cooling mana. Soon what he had left of his mana filled the beast’s skull with calmness. The calmness became lethargy and moved into stupefaction just before the creature’s knees buckled. Koth was behind to seize the Phyrexian around the waist and ease it soundlessly to the ground. Elspeth had found her Phyrexian’s chest and mouth, and was busy choking it, as it banged on her back.

Once Venser’s Phyrexian was on the floor, Koth rushed to Elspeth and held two of the creature’s arms so it could not strike. Venser held the other two.

Soon it too fell.

They walked away into the darkness with the sound of the Phyrexians banging on the wall echoing behind them. The fleshling was there, and after a time the guide appeared out of the darkness. Koth walked ahead.

“We will not talk about what I did,” Koth said. “Ever.”

Venser glanced back over his shoulder. He could not see the Phyrexians, but he could hear them tapping on the wall.

“We leave it where it lies.” Koth said.

The guide pointed them to the right and they followed. Before long a choking cry of alarm went up, and they began running. They ran as hard as they could. When they reached the wall Venser let out a sigh of relief, knowing he could not have run for much longer.

The guide tapped once on the wall and nothing happened. The wall remained smooth and unlined. The scream increased in volume behind them.

“Try again,” Elspeth said.

The guide tried again, nothing opened. “The portals might have been deactivated somehow.”

Venser glanced back. That would explain the Phyrexian’s inability to open the portal. He would have liked to have cast his wisps, but he had exactly no mana left after putting the Phyrexian to sleep. Nothing.

“Can I tear it open?” Koth said.

“It does not work that way with these portals,” the guide said.

“And the Phyrexians would know which way we went,” Elspeth said.

“I think they already know which way we went,” Venser said.

He turned back to the wall.

“How do these work?” Venser said.

“Don’t think now is the time to tinker, artificer,” Koth growled.

“How do they?” Venser repeated.

The cries of the Phyrexians were close.

“Are they mechanical?” Venser said.

“Yes,” the guide said.

Venser knew what he had to do. He knew what it would mean later, but if there was no later all their effort would have been wasted. He put his hand in his torn shirt and brought out the small bottle, which he uncorked, and emptied the remaining fluid into his mouth.

Venser felt the mana rush into his pores and surge up his brain stem. He shook some of the mana into his fingertips.

“Where should it be?” he asked.

The guide pointed.

Carefully he inserted his hands into the metal of the wall, which gave way like dough. He felt around for a couple of seconds.

“There is a mechanism here,” he said. “I cannot tell how it works yet, but it does not want to open.”

Koth flinched at the closeness of the Phyrexian’s cries behind. “We knew that already,” Koth said.

“They are mechanisms at this level,” the guide said, “very old ones from before the Phyrexians. They open outward.”

“Karn made this then,” Venser said, and as he spoke, the portal’s door swung out to reveal deeper darkness than they were currently standing in.

They each stepped carefully inside. Venser closed the door and put his hands back into the wall to lock it. Seemingly moments later they heard the first Phyrexians arrive and begin hammering on the wall.

“These walls are thick,” the guide said.

“Who locked the portals?” Koth said.

Nobody said anything.

“Tezzeret, maybe,” Venser said. “But I do not know why, exactly.”

“Let us be off, lest they find a way through,” Elspeth said.