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
