her mouth. Her blade was drawn in the shining blackness. Elspeth started forward.
“Wait,” Venser hissed. For one dire moment he thought the white knight would charge, and they would all be lost. But she stopped.
Irrenphor was known even on Dominaria as one of the most powerful naturally occurring explosives. Venser tugged a thread of mana into him, and flicked a spark at the feet of the Phyrexians. The effect was instantaneous. Colors popped and flashed and everything jumped together and burned. A moment later Venser appeared with a
A concussive blast shook and the side of the plateau where he had stood a moment earlier.. There were no more gargled calls. There was nothing except the aftermath sound of falling bits of metal. The hole opened by the detonation was as dark as a maw and about the same shape. Koth and Elspeth were alive and struggling to stand at the other end of the high plane.
Venser teleported back onto the plateau to help Elspeth and Koth stand. “They are coming for us even now,” Venser said.
Elspeth was still holding her sword, which didn’t surprise Venser who had seen how hard she was gripping it before the explosion. Silhouetted against the dark sky was a dark, twisted mountain. Venser turned toward it. “This way,” Venser said.
Koth was brushing himself off. “We travel that way anyway, little artificer. The Vault of Whispers lies at the bottom of that mountain.”
“That is good. Perhaps Karn is there. Our hope is with the Silver Golem.”
“But where does one find this silver golem?” Elspeth said.
“Don’t know and don’t care,” the vulshok said, the red slits at his sides flaring briefly as he followed Venser.
“I knew I had to come long ago,” Venser said. “When Karn sent that cryptic message, ‘Don’t follow me’.”
They walked for a time before anyone spoke.
“So you spared no moment to get here,” Koth said.
“No, I thought it would be a bad idea to come here,” Venser said. “I still do.”
“But you feel duty-bound to find your comrade, Karn?” Elspeth said.
Venser was silent a moment. “Yes.”
“Even though we kidnapped you?” Koth said.
When he reached the hole created by the explosion, Venser fell into a crouch. He stared at the hole for a very long time, running his hand along the edge and gauging the thickness of the metal exposed. There was a strange, acrid smell-and right next to Venser lay a dark arm composed of stained metal with claws and hanging flaps of greasy flesh. Koth walked carefully around the Phyrexian arm as he approached the edge. Blackness lay in the hole, unbroken blackness and no sound.
“Mirrodin is composed this way. A shell over whatever is underneath.” Koth said, carefully sitting on the edge. He could feel a slight draft of warm air rising from the hole. It smelled like a machine.
“What is underneath?” Elspeth said, standing next to Venser.
“I do not truthfully know. As a youngling we would break rules and sneak below, but never too far. Our ore came up to the surface for us and we rarely had to go below to find it.”
Venser nodded. “What about other parts of the plane? Do other Mirrans venture below?”
“Who can tell with those types? In the Tangle, the elves huddle in their steely trees, damn their eyes. And the leonins of the plains stay in the air and sleep in burrows just beneath the gleaming flatlands-there are no males of note in this race … the ones they have are really just a group of female lovers. They may break one of their fingernails if they ventured under the crust. I have heard that the vedalken of the quicksilver sea
Venser smiled as he listened, but Koth did not seem to notice, and continued his tirade.
“And that brings me to the Mephidross, this stinking swamp. Who knows what happens in these fell lands. The rot has long ago taken away the brains of its denizens. They may live underground all the time … I have heard word that those squirrelly bastards do this.”
“Your golem is down there?” Elspeth said.
Venser nodded. “Perhaps.”
Koth noticed it, as well. “Each of the lacunae is only a great hole where the mana from the deep once punched through and spouted upward.”
“You mean that lacunae must have a path down?” Elspeth said.
“I mean that you will not like it when you see the Vault of Whispers.”
“Really?” Elspeth said seriously.
“Really.”
“How far is the Vault?” Venser said.
“A day, maybe less if certain people would move faster.”
Elspeth looked back at where the smoke smell she’d detected before came from. Back to where Koth had gestured that the shaman lived. Then she looked in the direction of the Vault. The memory of the shackle on her ankle made her leg seem heavy, and seeing the Phyrexians made her hands tremble so badly that she could not grasp her sword’s pommel. She stopped walking.
“I am not going with you to the Vault of Whispers.” Elspeth said suddenly.
“What?” Koth said. “Why?”
“I am going to find the shaman you spoke of earlier.”
Koth and Venser stared at her.
“Why?” Venser said.
Elspeth looked at him for a moment. “Do you realize that you shake?” Elspeth said.
Venser raised himself up a jot. “That is not true,” he said. But from the vehemence of his tone, Elspeth could tell that he knew exactly what she was talking about. He even shoved his shaking right hand into the tight space between his under robes and his tunic as she watched.
“I have seen you when you think nobody is watching,” she said. “You shake, don’t you? How long has it been thus that you have had this palsy?”
Venser turned away. “This is absurd,” he said.
“I can perhaps heal you,” she said. “But the truth is not that I will go to this shaman’s place to find herbs to heal. I will leave you because I have been enough of a burden to you.”
“A what?” Koth said. “What is this rot you speak?”
Venser’s face had drained of its color as he stared at Elspeth. Both of his hands were shoved into his tunic, and his lips were drawn tight in obvious embarrassment. “Go then,” he said.
“I will,” Elspeth said. She turned and walked in the direction of the wood smoke blotting the horizon.
Koth grunted. “I will go now to the Vault to save my people.” He turned and began walking. He kicked at the wet ground as he walked. “And there is no decent ore. So we cannot ride boulders.”
Venser followed. “What she said,” Venser said. “About my shaking …”
But Koth said nothing, and Venser found he had nothing to say. He walked after the vulshok clutching one hand to the other.
In the darkness the tablelands stretched out to the edge of the known world, it seemed, but Koth led them back down into the dim valleys. The dark sky closed in as the walls narrowed around them to almost total blackness. With the blue lights of Venser’s wisps he could see they were walking next to a slough of fetid water, along a mushy bank. Bits of tubes and cracked, buckled walkways littered the side as they moved through.
They had to be careful not to catch bits of themselves on exposed jags. Everything was sharp. Everything poked. Even the inhabitants of Mirran’s insides must be metal, Venser thought. He was thirsty, but the filthy water of the Mephidross was dark and foul smelling. He would not touch it.
They walked until all five suns took the sky as a single line rose above the horizon. The world went from darkest dark to nearly blinding sun in a matter of minutes. The sunlight revealed a profoundly changed Oxidda
