“What does this air do to us?” he said.
Koth was squatting out of the hot winds, sitting back on his haunches and poking absently at the ground with a long sliver of iron. “It turns us into nim.” He said. “If we stay long enough.”
Suddenly Venser cocked his head. “Do you hear that?”
A roaring echoed off the mountain.
Aware that the vulshok was watching him, Venser hardened his face into an expression he hoped conveyed a sense of command. Truth be told, he had not felt in command at all lately. With the vulshok constantly undermining him, and the uncertainty of the mission they had kidnapped him to accomplish, Venser was not altogether sure any of them would make it off of this fascinating plane. He had already resigned himself to die before he could planeswalk away, spreading the spawn of phyresis to other places. As he looked out over the vista, he wondered if the others had the same commitment.
The green necrogen gas suddenly swirled around in a dense shroud. Through the mist, coming over the rise, the outline of a monstrosity materialized. A huge, vicious-looking Phyrexian lumbered into view. Roughly snake shaped but with bare ribs and articulated metal cabling, the smell of rotting flesh preceded it, and long appendages ending in sharp spikes swung as it loped forward. Its eyeless head turned toward them.
“We are close now,” Koth said. “Let us destroy this beast and be done with it.”
As the creature had not detected them yet, Venser and Koth lay sheltered in a raw divot next to a slough and awaited its arrival. When the beast had moved between them the Planeswalkers attacked. But it was stunningly fast, and snapped around in an instant, extending an appendage Venser had not seen from its belly. The segmented limb shot at Venser’s head, knocking him out of the aura of blue he had wound around his head.
Koth wasted no time in extending his arm and shooting a column of rock from his forearm in a loose stream. The Phyrexian knocked the javelin of rock aside and in the same motion swiped Koth off his feet and into an outcropping.
It was Koth who woke first. Blinking in the low light, he struggled to remember the events that had brought him there. He appeared to be lying on a table. The unconscious form of Venser was on a similar table next to his. The vulshok turned to move, only to realize that he was bound at the wrists and ankles.
The room around him was lit only in faint patches and from unseen sources, but what he could see did not fill him with joy. The walls were made entirely of many coils of fleshy tubes and dull metal pipes held flat by webs of pale sinew.
Koth began pulling at his restraints. He turned his face so he could see the thick metal shackles. Well constructed, they did not budge. Out of the corner of his eye he suddenly made out a strange shape, small and human in form, but perfectly smooth and silver, as if made entirely from the most perfect chrome. The figure was squatting in the corner, regarding him with the utmost calm. When the creature had Koth’s attention, it stood and beckoned him with one hand before squeezing between some pipes and disappearing.
Koth had no time to think about the strange creature. Around him, the horrible walls dripped with black oil and the ceiling appeared to be held up with curved columns constructed of the twisted bodies of vaguely familiar, yet unknown creatures. Dark fangs and exposed ribs intermeshed with die-cast iron plates and shards of whitest bone.
Koth closed his eyes. He pulled the power from the earth into him. Smoke rose from his head, his fists balled, and his craggy forearms began to animate. Sharp spurs stabbed outward, shearing the shackles. He sat up and yanked on the shackles binding his ankles until they gave way with a tremendous snap.
He was free.
“Venser!” Koth said. He was off his table and shaking the artificer in a moment. “Venser!” The artificer could teleport out of his restraints, Koth knew, if he could just wake him.
But he would not wake.
A clank cut the air behind him: the sound of something banging metal against metal, and he knew something was there, that something was coming. Koth cast his eyes around for a place to hide. The walls seemed to be almost alive-the intestinelike pipe work glistened green-black in the low light. He did not relish the idea of hiding in the wetness of the pipes, but he was able to spread open a void in them and in the next instant he slid within.
From between the pipes, Koth watched as a section of the wall on the far side of the room split. Two Phyrexians stepped into the room. One of them had huge, gruesome meat hooks for hands, which it held up before it as it stumbled toward Venser. The other smaller Phyrexian had dozens of small arms, each ending in a filthy, bent syringe. Both of the experimenters’ bodies were nothing more than metal skeletons wound around and through with fleshy swaths. Their too-small or too-large limbs gave them an unsettling, off balance appearance that made Koth want to gag. Or maybe it was the wall, which was dripping on his neck as he watched the Phyrexians approach Venser who lay strapped to a table.
They walked around Koth’s empty table, seeming to make no note of its vacancy, and stopped to look down at Venser. Suddenly a space in the ceiling opened above Venser. A metal arm girded with pink muscles extended downward. A mouth apparatus with spines surrounding it hung at the end of the appendage. Ichor dripped over Venser’s chest as the device centered itself on his neck. As Koth watched, the device opened like a nightmarish flower.
Koth felt the anger rush up like a geyser from his feet. And by the time the energy reached his shoulders he knew he would be absolutely unable to control it. The power reached his forehead and he exploded out of the wall, sending flechettes of the pipes and metal substructure shooting out at the Phyrexians.
The experimenters fled backward, howling.
Koth ran to Venser. The device on the arm seemed to sense Koth’s movement. It turned toward him and as he came near enough, clamped onto his neck with a metallic
Venser’s eyes fluttered open. Above him the sinewy arm of the device was extended into Koth’s neck. The vulshok struggled, pulling against the device that gripped him.
In one fluid motion, Venser teleported to Koth’s side, took hold, and began to pull at the clamper near its mouth pincers. Then he started snapping parts off the device in a mad attempt to disable it.
“I’m taking us out of here,” Venser said. Koth’s face was blue as he nodded.
Venser closed his eyes and took hold of Koth’s upper arm. A blue mist began to filter out of his pores.
The device attached to Koth’s neck clicked and a panel displaced in its side. A curved, armored syringe slid smoothly out of the panel and pointed its dripping tip at Koth’s right eye.
At that moment the walls of the chamber began to tremble, and then shake thunderously. The right wall began to vibrate. Venser turned to the wall, a look of resignation pulling at his face.
A cut appeared, shearing off the conduit-work walls. Bright white light flooded in the dark room through the cut. Then another cut appeared and more light glinted in. With a deafening smash a hole appeared and the room became blindingly bright. In the light the forms of the two Phyrexian experimenters disintegrated to nothing. Silhouetted in the new entrance stood the shining form of Elspeth of Bant.
Dull gray hills showed behind her and Venser could smell the necrogen gas of the Mephidross around her as, with her sword shining like a rising star, she charged forward. Koth was motionless on the floor. With a sweep of her sword, Elspeth sheared the device in half. The two parts that fell away shrieked and writhed on the pocked metal floor, leaving Koth gasping and holding his neck.
Elspeth stepped back into a ready pose and surveyed the room. Seeing no other danger, she stood up and sheathed her sword.
“Elspeth,” Koth choked. “… of Bant.”
Elspeth pursed her lips and nodded. “There are more of these beasts near a cave on the outside. Let us end this now and see if we may hammer them once and for all.”
“Where were they?” Venser said.
“There,” Elspeth said. She pointed to one of many holes in the very center of the mountains, at base level.
“I have been here once before on reconnaissance,” Koth said. “And that doorway seemed to be used more than most, but vermin creep out of any hole. You know how vermin are. Let us move closer,” Koth said.
“They are here,” Elspeth said. “Be ready.”
They crept along a dell until it trenched, and then they crawled on hands and knees to a place close to the base of the mountain. They lay in the warm, scum-covered water until Venser finally spoke.
