The Quest for Karn

Chapter 18

They walked in the near darkness until Venser felt the long fingers of exhaustion pushing into his joints. When the guide was sure they were far enough away from the portal, they stopped.

Koth took a deep breath and held it. Soon he began to glow, giving off both light and heat. The room they found themselves in was different than many they had seen in recent days. It had a more organic feel. The walls showed growth lines, as if the large metal walls and ceiling had grown like trees. The ceiling was sloped and no line was straight anywhere.

The organicity made Venser relax somehow. “Why is this room different?” Venser asked, his head still spinning with tiredness.

“This is one of the many passages and rooms that have been growing,” the guide said, “creating themselves since the Phyrexians. None of the guides know why.”

Venser stopped to look at the walls. “What is the green material?” he said, pinching the dark green strands hanging from the walls. “It’s not metal.”

The guide shrugged, but the fleshling approached the wall for a closer look.

“This is lamina,” she said. “A growing material we revere in the Tangle. It is an effect of the True Sun,” she said to the bewildered faces around her.

“Why is it down here?” Koth said.

“It is commonly found in these depths,” the guide said.

A tremendous crash thundered through the room, followed by the creaking sound of bending metal.

“They have broken through,” Koth said.

They began running. Venser was the last to stand. His legs had felt like boiled eggs before the Phyrexians had broken into that cavern, and he would have to run more. To top it off, his mind had started to drift to the empty bottle in his shirt. The empty bottle. He could already feel his arms and legs quake at the thought of the empty bottle. He’d tried living without sips once before, and that hadn’t worked out too well, had it?

The clatter behind became the booming of many scrambling feet as the Phyrexians charged along the passage and then into the large room, which they found empty.

The guide led them along branchways, where the passages were growing sideways in long tubes. As they ran, they passed places where new passages shot through one another and they crumbled, leaving large rooms. Lamina, as the fleshling called it, hung randomly.

There were so many small passageways and crumbled walls with holes in them that the Phyrexians had trouble following their trail, though not for lack of trying. As they ran, Venser could hear the enemy crashing through walls and retching out their screams.

Venser stopped.

“Keep running,” Elspeth said.

“I can’t,” he said. “Let me rest for a moment.” His legs were so wobbly that he felt he would trip with each step. Tripping would not be advised just then. The growing metal of the passage they were running in was jagged and strangely colored.

“Why is it different colors?” Venser panted.

But the guide was watching behind them. He did not hear Venser.

“Now we go,” the guide said.

They kept running. Sometimes the Phyrexians sounded far away. Sometimes they sounded as if they were in the same passage. They kept running. Eventually the walls took on different lines of color. Some of the rings were yellow and others were green. They looked like minerals and base metals. At one point Venser stopped running and touched a wetted finger to one of the rough lines. He put the finger in his mouth, then spat.

“Valatitium,” Venser said. “This is found on other planes.”

Koth stopped and looked at the line of yellow. “These are deposits,” he said. “If the vulshok could delve this deep we could haul quite a lot of good minerals and metal.”

“Keep running,” the guide yelled.

But soon Venser could not run anymore. He stopped again. The Phyrexians had dropped back, farther than they had been. Still, their banging movements were clearly audible.

“We cannot stop,” The guide said. “There are branches ahead that may afford us a way to lose our pursuers.”

“I cannot run anymore,” Venser said. His legs were so tired that he sat hard on the floor. He had run so hard that his lungs burned and a metallic taste was at the back of his throat. “I cannot.”

“You must,” the guide said.

But Venser’s eyes were on the color bands in the wall. There was a new color he had not seen before. He inched closer to the wall and put a finger to it. A bit of the color crumbled easily at his touch. Venser turned to Koth.

“Do you know this mineral?” Venser said.

“We call it ker,” Koth said.

“I know it as kaachmine,” Venser said, his mind racing. He suddenly snapped his fingers. “We need to collect as much of it as we can.” He took out the knife that lay in his boot and began chipping chunks of ker from the wall. It came off easily.

“We must go,” the guide said.

“Stand away,” Venser said.

As he worked, Koth glowed slightly. Venser noticed it and frowned. “Don’t get hot around this material,” Venser said.

“Let us run,” Elspeth said.

“I have no more energy or mana,” Venser said, as he crumbled some of the ker chunks into powder. “If this works, it will require neither of those.”

By the time he had a good-sized pile, the Phyrexians were quite near, their thrashing made them sound like they were in the next passage.

Venser led Elspeth, the fleshling, and the guide down the passage. Koth stayed near the pile. When the rest of them were a good distance down the passage, Venser pushed each one of them into a depression in the wall, and then waved to Koth.

The vulshok tore a strip off his cloth shirt. He wound the strand of cloth up tight and placed one piece in the pile of ker, which reached to the height of his knee. He trailed the other end of the cloth away from the pile.

Then the Phyrexians appeared at the end of the passage. When Koth saw them he casually leaned over the end of the cloth. He made a motion, and sparks flew off the flint and steel in his hand. Soon he’d lit the end of the cloth, which flamed strangely well. As it burned, Koth backed up carefully, watching to see if it would go out. When it was obvious that the flame had caught and caught well on the fabric, Koth turned and sprinted faster than anyone had ever seen him run. The Phyrexians, seeing him running, bounded ahead.

“Down,” Venser yelled.

There was a huge pop and a whoosh of air, and in the next moment Venser found himself facedown on the metal floor, far from where he had been standing. He shook his head as he sat up. A high ringing filled his skull. Nearby Elspeth was already on her feet and looking down at him. Her mouth was moving, but Venser could not hear any of her words.

Where the mound of ker had been, there was only the tangled mass of many parts of many more Phyrexians. Venser doubted if he could climb over the pile, it was so high. Some of the enemy had been torn asunder while others had their metal parts melted to the floor. All was still.

Elspeth put out her hand and helped Venser to his feet. The guide was mysteriously on his feet and unscathed. Elspeth had black powder burns on her arm and face. Venser could only imagine how he looked. If how he felt was any indication, then it was bad indeed. His head still hurt from the attack that had dented his helmet, as the ringing in his ears began to subside, he felt like lying down and sleeping for sixty rotations of a Dominaria sun.

But it wasn’t to be. From beyond the heap of destroyed Phyrexians came a series of grunting gags that sounded very much alive.

Venser turned to Elspeth. He was the very essence of depleted. He had nothing left. Well, he had the knife he kept in his boot with which to fight off all attackers. So, really, he had nothing. Even Elspeth, who was always willing to slay Phyrexians, looked around helplessly.

“Did you hear that?” Venser could once again hear himself speak, though the echoing in his skull sounded strange. He could more feel his words’ echo than properly hear them.

Elspeth was looking around. “Where is Koth?” she said.

They found him farther down the passage, lying on his side, groaning. A piece of twisted metal, which could have fit on a Phyrexian, had pierced the side of his abdomen.

Elspeth carefully took hold of the piece of metal and yanked it out. Koth grunted through gritted teeth. The piece was slathered with blood and Elspeth threw it clattering away. Koth relaxed and rolled over on his back. From behind them another Phyrexian call echoed.

“What will happen now?” Venser asked. “Perhaps the guide can fight off the Phyrexians and heal Koth?”

Elspeth did not laugh. She looked far too tired to laugh, Venser thought.

Instead she took a lanyard from around her neck. At the end of the lanyard was a small bottle. “You aren’t the only one with a bottle,” she said.

A Phyrexian call cut the air very close by. When Venser looked back, one of the enemy was standing atop the pile of its brethren. Venser held his breath as he waited for more of them to come streaming around that one. He kept waiting. He stood, and the Phyrexian on the pile-one of the ones swathed in layers of black, pitted metal and with a tiny, almost skeletal head bobbing on a thin neck-thought better of things and retreated, dragging its claws as it did.

“I saw only one,” Venser reported. Nobody responded. Elspeth had just poured some of her elixir into Koth’s mouth. The vulshok lay back and closed his eyes.

“Did you deliver him from misery?” Venser said, after a moment.

Elspeth’s face took on a look of horror. “No, you imbecile. I am sworn never to do what you speak of. He is healing from the inside.”

Koth opened his eyes. “I took her before,” he said, looking at the fleshling, who regarded him with a blank expression. “I took her to go with me to the surface. I’m sorry.”

“That is not something to worry about now,” Elspeth said.

We’ll worry about it later, Venser thought. Rest assured about that.

“I only wanted to help my people, who hate me,” Koth said.

“Yes,” Elspeth said. “We knew you were trying to help.”

The single Phyrexian called again from behind. That time a second Phyrexian responded from somewhere farther away. Then they heard the faint screech of another.

Koth heard it too. His eyes popped open and he tried to sit up. Elspeth pushed him back down. “What I gave you is speeding your body’s healing process, but it will still take a bit of time.”

Venser waited for her to elaborate, or for someone to ask how long it would take, but the guide and the fleshling stared down at Koth as though he were some new and exotic creature they had never seen before. Nobody appeared to be about to ask any sort of question. One thing was for sure, Venser was not carrying the vulshok who had tried to steal what they were lucky enough to have. Venser looked over at the fleshling, who was still staring down at Koth. What was going on in that one’s head, he wondered. He had yet to catch her with any expression showing itself on her smooth face. She almost never spoke. What was wrong with her? He had considered performing an exploration of her brain, but such an exploration took time and energy and he did not have much of either.

“How long until he can walk?” Venser said. On that note, he wondered how long he himself would be able to walk. One thing was for certain, if he sat down again he would fall asleep.

“A bit longer,” Elspeth said.

“We do not seem to have that,” Venser said. He waited for a Phyrexian call but there was, of course, none when he needed it to prove a point.

“We have to make that time for Koth,” Elspeth said, standing with a groan. “Vital parts of him are knitting themselves together as I say this. We cannot move him.”

A Phyrexian bawled somewhere far off. Sure, Venser thought. Now you make some noise.

Elspeth drew her sword. Venser had seen her sword look better. Its blade was chipped, and unless Venser was mistaken, it was slightly bent. It’s no wonder with all the Phyrexians that had met its keen edge.

Elspeth lowered the blade and faced the pile of Phyrexians. “We’ll know when Koth is ready to travel. He will awake and stand, if he survives.”

“If he survives?”

“The potion I gave him can sometimes affect individuals adversely.”

“Yet you …”

“His kidney was pierced,” Elspeth said in a lower tone. “He would have perished without the elixir.”

The guide slipped away into the passage ahead, to scout, Venser assumed.

“How did the Phyrexian force know where we were in the first place?” Venser asked.

“An interesting question,” Elspeth said. “And one I have been pondering.”

“What has your pondering led you to?”

“Nothing,” Elspeth admitted.

More Phyrexians called from various parts of the passage, drawing toward them. Soon Venser could hear them clicking and gagging just on the other side of the slag pile of the dead. He could tell by the creaking that there was at least one very large Phyrexian. But there was something else too. Something with a voice. He could hear its smooth-toned orders.

“What do they wait for?” Venser said.

“There numbers are not great,” the guide said, suddenly behind them again.

Venser waited. He slipped down into a cross-legged position and sat back against the wall. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again Koth was sitting up. He did not look perfect, the potion’s effect was not complete, clearly, but he was able to blink and look around.

And there was plenty to look and listen to. Whatever the Phyrexians’ numbers when Koth was wounded, they had grown to much more. They were creaking on the other side of the pile in numbers sufficient to vibrate the walls and floor.

“They are just on the other side of the pile,” Venser said.

“Yes,” Elspeth said. “Nothing has changed.”

“Except it seems there are about five hundred of them now.”

“Their numbers have increased,” Elspeth said.

A figure climbed the pile. A female Phyrexian who had clearly once been an elf. Her hair had twisted into thick cables, some of which were long and moved independently like snakes around her head. Her eyes were black with oil, and some of the oil dripped out of her sockets and down her cheeks. Her left hand was an immense scythe and the other was a claw most terrible in size and aspect. She held up the scythe and all noise from the Phyrexians ceased at once. “Give us the creature who is all flesh.”

“Deal,” Venser said.

Elspeth turned to glare at him.

“Only jesting,” Venser said. “How could we give her to you? Maybe ask her opinion. Perhaps she’ll be agreeable to your proposal. You can never tell.”

“What do you want with her?” Elspeth said.

“Only that she is our property and you stole our property.”

“Springheads have property?” Koth said.

Venser had not heard the phrase springheads used to refer to Phyrexians before. He liked it. But the female Phyrexian bristled at the words. She frowned and disappeared down the side of the pile. When she appeared again, it was with many Phyrexians in tow.

“Now,” she said. “Say that again so they know who to slay first.”

But Koth had closed his eyes.

“Who are you,” Venser said suddenly.

“I am Glissa, the bringer of your death.”

She lowered her scythe hand and the Phyrexians began moving forward.